Dorothy Fielding - Chief Inspector Pointer's Cases - 12 Golden Age Murder Mysteries

At first sight it would seem likely that Rose Charteris's murder was some act of mad jealousy. But the reason might be much more obscure. The motive might not have spent itself with her violent death. On the contrary, it might still be existing, still operating.

He set to work on Colonel Scarlett's study. He had looked through Rose's papers earlier in the day. They had given, him no clue to her death. But they had brought out one strange fact. There was not, one scrap of her father's writing among them. Pointer found the same odd circumstance duplicated here. Yet Professor Charteris had been gone from the place some ten days now. From a Sphere , however, lying on an under-shelf of a wicket table in the hall, he shook out a registered envelope addressed to Miss Charteris in the same intricate hand which had marked some of the professor's books in the library with his name and comments.

The envelope, a long linen one, bore an Italian stamp, and the postmark Bolzano, Italy. The date was that of last Monday. On the back, in accordance with foreign regulations for registration, was the name of the sender A. Charteris, Hotel Laurin, Bolzano, Alto Adige. It had been sealed with red wax, and was empty, save for some dots, which proved to be black sealing-wax under his glass.

Apparently that envelope was the only communication from the professor that Stillwater contained.

That meant something.

Pointer was about to return to the study when he hear a slight clink on the gravel outside.

Some one was trying the windows. Now Pointer had left one ajar in case of need. He slipped behind a leather draught-curtain and watched.

Cautiously the window was opened, and a slim figure entered. Another followed.

"What do we do first?" whispered a voice nervously.

"Stub our toes," came in an aggrieved snap. "Flash the torch, Co., for a minute."

"Seems all right," the holder of the torch said again "I'll venture to turn on the light."

Pointer saw the first man move to the mantel-piece. "There's none here now," he said in a disappointed voice.

"Let me look, Bond." The other strode across. "There may be some in a drawer, but I'll reconnoitre before we start a hunt."

And Cockburn, with an acumen which Pointer grudged him, very sensibly decided to begin his investigations with the thick curtain on its leather rings.

Pointer immediately stepped out, an antiquated Colt in his wobbly hand.

"Not another step, either of you! I'm a peaceable man, I am, but not another step, if you please!"

Pointer's accents were those of a nervous man screwing himself up by sheer resolution.

"What in the name of—here! Dash it all! Leave that bell alone, whoever you are!" Bond called in a ringing whisper.

"I'm a peaceable man," quavered the voice, "but I intend to do my duty. Now, not a move from either of you, or I'll fire all six balls off at once."

"Good God!" Bond gave a half-amused, half angry snort, "are you the village constable making a night of it?"

"Never you mind who I am! I'm a respectable man, as I can prove."

A second time a reddened finger made for the bell, push, and just missed it.

"Take your hand away from that dashed bell!" Bond fairly hissed. "Look here! We're friends of the people in this house, but who are you?"

"I'm doing a bit of work for Mr. Thornton of Red Gates cottage," Brown jerked his head towards the library behind him, "but what I want to know, is—"

"Look here, Bond. Let's walk across to Thornton's cottage. If he vouches for us, will that content you?" Cockburn turned towards the blinking figure facing him. That worthy evidently considered the proposition from every point of view.

"Well, I'm sure I don't want to overstep my place. Seeing you two come in like that... but, of course, if Mr. Thornton O.K.'s you I've nothing more to say. But take hands, please, and walk straight in front of me. I'm a peaceable man, I am, but—"

"Oh, shut up!" Bond's patience snapped. "And for Heaven's sake don't let off those six bullets the first time you trip."

At Red Gates Mr. Brown made them precede him to the back of the house, where a light shone reflected on the hedge of holly. Mr. Thornton sat at his writing-table, but he seemed to be paying more attention to Scotch whisky than Persian art, for the moment.

"Look here, Thornton," Bond called in softly through the open window, "do you mind asking your blood-thirsty friend behind us not to shoot us at sight, as he's inclined to?"

"Just assure him that we're not professional burglars, there's a good chap," Cockburn added.

Thornton set his tumbler down hastily.

"Why, it's Mr. Bond and Mr. Cockburn, Chief Inspector. These gentlemen are from the Foreign Office they—"

"Chief Inspector? Where?" Bond turned swiftly and gazed past the awkward figure with the pistol in his hand. Seeing nothing, he stared hard at his captor.

"You mean—oh, good egg!"

"C.I.D.!" came from Cockburn in tones of rapture.

"Oh, Lord, that's torn it!" Thornton smote his breast as Pointer, gazing at him more in sorrow than in anger closed the window, and drew down the blinds.

"I apologise for the slip in forty different positions, but the surprise—"

"Amateurs will be amateurs, sir." Pointer dropped lightly into a chair. "But I must request that it be forgotten at once by everybody concerned."

"Then we were right! And she was murdered!" Cockburn came back to the meaning of the dingy man's presence in front of them. "I caught sight of her first, you know," he explained to Pointer. "I can't, seem to get the memory of it out of my mind." His voice was husky.

Pointer immediately asked for an account of the findings of the body and of last night's alarm. He asked a few fresh questions, and sat listening intently.

"And you chose the colonel's study to-night, just why?" he asked finally.

Cockburn took out an envelope, and from it two bloodied bits of cord. Evidently some of the same cord Pointer had found in the stove of the summer house.

"After the superintendent turned us down, we had one more go, at the place by the sand-pit," Bond cut in, "before we went back to town. And we came on these under the copse. Now, my father makes ropes. That cord is Indian. I happened to comment on the same stuff lying on the colonel's study mantelpiece yesterday. He said that it had come around a consignment of Bengal chutney. So when we found it near that sand-pit, and stained like that," he paused and looked up at the ceiling, "well, we thought it was well to come on down and have a look for the rest of it. The chief constable is a friend of ours. Besides, we couldn't get away all yesterday, so we decided not to lose another moment and come at night.

"But Scarlett gave the cord on his mantelpiece to di Monti," Thornton put in.

"Ah!" Cockburn sat up like a terrier that hears a rustle.

"Didn't you see him? The count wanted something to tie up the tennis net at the inn. Said he must remember to get some string. The colonel handed him a coil from the end of his mantelpiece, and di Monti drove away with it in his car."

Bond flushed to the roots of his curly hair.

"And to think that I broke into the colonel's—oh, Lord!" He buried his face in a whisky and soda.

"Di Monti! That's what we came to see about. I mean," Cockburn turned a very, grave face to Pointer, "I mean that our breaking into Stillwater House had nothing to do with any one there. Of course, we know they're all right. But this Italian—I never saw a crueller face. More pitiless. More hopeless to appeal to. If Miss Charteris had angered him in any way—God help her!"

Bond murmured his agreement. Thornton stared at the fire.

"What do you say, Mr. Thornton? You're the man on the spot. Do you feel certain that the inmates of Stillwater House are beyond suspicion? All of them?" Pointer asked in Brown's husky voice. He had not dropped one of the latter's characteristics throughout the interview.