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

"You're hard to satisfy, Alf."

"I try to be."

"But who, in God's name, would shield the murderer of that lovely girl?" O'Connor asked. "You'd have thought the count would have had short shrift from every one down there. Do you think it's two sets of crimes? Jealousy that struck the blow, and then some other interest altogether? Something to do with the enclosed letter that moved the corpse and searched the bag?"

"I'd rather not say what I think just yet, but the professor has some very important affairs bubbling along, apart from the emeralds."

There was a short silence, then O'Connor paused in his work.

"That man you're trying to get hold of seems to be an extra down there? I mean, the man of the summer house. I suppose he couldn't be the professor returned unexpectedly? Perhaps saw his daughter murdered, and went for the murderer?" O'Connor asked, half-sceptical of his own fancy.

"I don't know," Pointer replied seriously, "but I do know that neither the professor nor any one else even remotely connected with what I call the Stillwater circle was the man inside the summer house bedroom. I've examined all their finger-prints most carefully."

Back at the police station Inspector Rodman met Pointer with a face officially wooden, but with a very human satisfaction betraying itself in his voice.

"Mrs. Lane's lost, too, sir. The detective from the Yard has just 'phoned to you to report as much."

"She went into one of those all-over-the-place shops, and they haven't seen her since," moaned Harris. "Lost in London!"

Pointer gave him a fleeting smile.

"Sounds like the title of a film, and you might be the bereaved parent. She's not out of reach. On the whole, its possibly as well. We were getting a bit stale. Now she thinks she's safe, and she may send some message that will let us get hold of things more important still. And who are these in bright array?"

It was Cockburn and Bond, driving up post haste. They had just learnt of the count's disappearance from his rooms in town, and were down to find out if there was still nothing that they could do.

Harris, according to the immemorial rule of the Force, assured them that all had gone according to plan. The two young men looked as unbelieving as though they were hearing that time-honoured phrase in a battle report.

"I'd got quite a step along," Cockburn put in disconsolately, "I mean finding out that his alibi was rocky. Not bad that for an amateur, was it?" He looked at Pointer for approval, and he got it very heartily. Cockburn had done quite well in finding out the shakiness of the much-vaunted alibi.

"The count isn't out of reach," Pointer assured the two friends. "Safely isolated is the way to look at it. But if either of you could find out anything about the plans of the Inner Fascist Council in Rome concerning meetings, places, and so on, we might be able to guess where next to locate him. I don't deny that in matters of this kind, the Foreign Office naturally has a great pull over the Secret Service."

They drove off quite full of how the news might possibly be obtained through a certain agent which the F. O. employed in the heart of Roman aristocracy, which is tantamount to saying in the heart of Fascist circles. That done, Pointer turned his attention to the two microphone-dictaphones which Rodman and one of Scotland Yard's flying squad brought in daily. Stillwater House telephone and the telephone of the Army and Navy Club, the only one which the colonel now used, were both connected with these useful inventions.

For at the club, one of the waiters, after a talk with Detective Inspector Watts of Scotland Yard, had decided that he was feeling run down, and that a week's breathing of the pure ozone of Brighton's picture-palaces would just suit his budding complaint.

So Watts, who, it seemed, was his brother, took his place, and was proving a most efficient locum tenens from every point of view.

All messages received by either house were repeated into the attentive ear of the Chief Inspector twice daily.

Suddenly Pointer gave an inward start. He was busy with the club records.

"Sir Henry Carew, please," asked a woman's voice, the voice of Mrs. Lane. "Will you ask him to come to the telephone for a minute?"

There was a pause. Then the voice came again.

"Sir Henry Carew? Good-morning, Sir Henry. You know who's speaking, don't you? Will you tell our friend that M. M. is quite satisfied. He thinks the horse is getting on excellently. Yes, that's all. Good-bye."

The remainder of the messages were of no importance.

"M. M.!" Pointer arranged with Harris and Rodman to "carry on," and sped up to his friend the divisional surgeon.

"Look here, Scott, I want you to get me into Sir Martin Martineau's home. You told me he was chiefly for head-trouble or accidents. Channel islander, I think you said. I've a splitting headache. Had it for days. My eyes pain me every time I turn them. When I suddenly stop walking, I see strange flashes—"

Doctor Scott hummed a tune with heartless accuracy as he walked over to his shelves. He pulled out a book.

"If I had this beggar examined by some of your unholy arts at the Yard, I should find your finger-prints on it, Pointer. You were left here for just ten minutes while I wrote out that girl's prescription, and you haven't wasted one of them."

"My name's Brown," Pointer went on, "and I had a motor smash a few days ago. It's since then my head hurts me so."

Pointer slumped back in his chair, and gave a groan. Scott turned around with a startled exclamation. "Where in the world did you pick that up? That groan, I mean?"

Pointer looked at him with a twinkle.

"I studied that for a matter of days and nights when I was in charge of a very prominent Greek gentleman who feared assassination. We had a stormy sea all the way from Portsmouth to the Pireus, and he spent every hour of it groaning. I stored them up for future need. I used to practise with him, up and down, to make sure the timbre was right. He thought the sea affected me too. But you've only heard the Channel one; you wait till I let off my Cape Matapan heartbreaker. He's a peach!"

"How long do you expect to be in that home before they turn you out as an impostor?"

"How can I be an impostor when I pay my way? I may be a neurasthenic, but only poor chaps are impostors."

"Well, how long do you expect to stay?"

"One night will do."

"Oh, of course, in that case—as a matter of fact, Sir Martin's away in Scotland, I saw in the papers, so now's your chance."

"I suppose he won't operate on me in my sleep?" Pointer was just a trifle in earnest. He had no love for surgeons.

"My dear chap, you won't get within a dozen rooms of his knife. They'll X-ray you first, find nothing the matter, and tell you so at once."

"Good. 'Phone up for me and ask for their best room. I'll take a taxi after a little preparation. May I use your bedroom?"

Pointer dressed himself in purple and fine linen, and packed an expensively-fitted bag with clothes to match. A skilful sprinkling of bleached hairs was all that he dared try, but that, and his drooping, quivering lids, and tremulous, saggy mouth, and slouching attitude made a marvellous difference.

"I hope I shall live to get there, doctor," he mumbled as Scott hailed a taxi and Pointer hobbled down the steps, "I hope so indeed!" And he gave a moan that made the driver's spine, crawl.

As for Doctor Scott, to the man's indignation, he merely, shut the door and said callously, "Oh, you'll be all right, if you pull yourself together and make an effort, Mr. Brown." He gave a signal and off Pointer started.

The doctor's telephone message had made the entering of the handsome old Georgian house quite easy. A sympathetic matron superintended his entry on the arm of a solicitous house-porter. His room was ready for him. In about an hour he would be X-rayed, and then the trouble would be easily found. Sir Martin would be back tomorrow afternoon, and possibly by the next day all would be right. Thus the matron, and Pointer nodded wearily as he sat in the lift huddled together. When it stopped, he gave one of his groans, Bay of Biscay this time, and had the satisfaction of seeing the matron nearly trip over the sill. Without a word, she had him helped to his room, and tiptoed out, saying that she would send Nurse Mason to him at once.