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

"A friend of Professor Charteris, of the professor with the interesting views on chemical affinities? Gruss Gott !" The doctor shook hands warmly.

What could he do for the professor's friend? "Nothing, judging by your looks," he added, "though you've been worrying over something lately."

Pointer, who took all his cases very hard, was surprised at the big stout man's acumen.

Yes, he had been worrying—about the professor.

They had had no news of him since he had arrived in Bolzano. Was the doctor sure that the dead Bulgarian had been a stranger to the professor?

The doctor was quite sure.

"Where are my notes of the case—ah, I remember, they're at Bolzano."

"The sister said not."

"Which sister? Bright eyes, nose rather beaky?" Pointer-could not cope with this description in a foreign tongue, but he described her laboriously.

" Freilich! Freilich ! That's the one. Well, she ought to know. Wonderfully accurate woman." The doctor thought hard, his hands deep in his long white overall. "I know! Of course! As the man was dead, my notes on his injuries were never asked for. I stuck them into my laboratory locker, and there they are still. I forgot to clear that out when I came on here." He suddenly flushed. " Alle welt noch 'mal ! I do believe the man's letter-case is there, too. Oh, no money! But a couple of Bulgarian letters. I asked your friend to go over them for me in the afternoon, as he knew Bulgarian, but, as a matter of fact, we didn't need them. The man's passport and papers were at his hotel and all in perfect order.

"The professor could not come that afternoon, but he promised to look at them next morning. He was going out to the Grödner Tal. But he, too, forgot! Sister Fini did remind me of that locker, but I was in a bit of a rush at the last. I've the key still here." He dived into a pocket like a kit-bag. "No, not here. Here," he pulled open the table drawer, "here it is. I must send it back, and get them to send on the letter-case to its owner."

Pointer said that he was on his way back at once, and would hand the key over.

" Famos ! That saves me a letter. Care to look over the wards?"

Pointer declined that treat, and caught the train. Sister Fini sniffed as she took the key.

"Just like him! He's a very clever doctor, but forgetful! I remember his putting down some one's name twice for the same operation. Here is the locker. The letter-case is your friend's, you say. If he left it behind him, and spoke of coming back in the afternoon, it would be just like Doctor Sanftl to drop it into his cupboard and never think of it again. It's not one he often goes to." She opened the locker. Pointer picked up at once a letter-case folded in three. Inside were a couple of business-looking letters. Otherwise it seemed empty. The letters had pictures and doubtless the name of some Bulgarian firm on both envelope and sheet. Sister Fini was pouncing on other treasure trove.

"My scissors! I knew he had them! I knew it! I only hope there was nothing of that poor dead gentleman's that got tossed in here, too." She peered around anxiously. "His friends were so sure that something had been lost or overlooked. We really had quite a scene with them. Doctor Sanftl isn't one to listen to that sort of suggestion calmly." She was peering into the cupboard. "No, there's nothing else except the doctor's own papers. They looked over the room upstairs—the room into which the body was taken, so I think we may be sure that nothing was left. They actually thought their friend might have been robbed while in the hospital! I told them that he had not been alone for a moment. First your friend, then the doctor, and then the orderlies who carried him off."

"They asked for my friend's name and address, didn't they?" Pointer spoke as though the doctor might have told him as much.

"Yes, they were so sorry to think that they had actually passed him by on the steps. They were hurrying in, thinking of the terrible accident, and your friend was reading some directions the doctor had written down for him about the new hours when the autocar leaves for the Grödner Tal. They would so have liked to thank him for his kindness. Well, I'm relieved that all is all right now." She beamed cheerily, and showed Pointer out.

The Scotland Yard man speculated on how much time would elapse before she would have spread the news of his friend's pocket-book. If he had been able to bribe an orderly in London, so could others here.

Sister Josephine had a carrying voice. And the pocketbook might be the key, might be the reason, the long-sought motive, behind this puzzling case.

Pointer leant back against his locked door at the hotel, and took out the letters, which were in Cyrillic characters. Feeling carefully, he found an inner, secret pocket, over whose mouth a band for stamps slipped. Inside this was a very thin sheet of paper covered with what looked like a poem in faint, fine writing. It, too, was in Russian characters.

Pointer's eyes glowed. The paper was the kind used for secret messages in all countries. Very fine and very tough, capable at need of being tied to a pigeon's wing or folded into a cigarette. If he was right, he had the treasure in his steady hands—the cause of two murders.

He returned it to its inner place, for, being in Russian characters, he dared not copy it, and the ink was too faint and blue for it to photograph well. At Scotland Yard are good interpreters. He must get this home to them at once.

The registered post was too uncertain; flying machines might arouse attention. He decided to carry it home by rail and boat, home to the best brains in England to decipher, and then, and then only, he would know the motive behind the double crime.

He would have liked to divine it before he learnt it. Vaguely something of the truth was filtering in even now, but he must wait. How long would he be allowed to keep his find? As long, he thought, as some one at the hospital would take to telephone, or he had misjudged the whole affair.

He turned, and walked slowly up and down in the Piazza Walther, pretending an interest in the minstrel's statue.

Supposing, he thought, that what was wanted was merely to put out of the way, to kill the owner, or supposed owner of that paper, he would not have a chance of reaching England alive. Not one. But, as he saw it, it was the paper, not his death in itself or by itself, which they wanted.

His death might be decreed, if he had read it, like the professor's death, like Rose Charteris's death, but the possession of the paper in each case had been and would be the primary objective.

Here lay his one chance of reaching home. For the murderer was obviously not working alone. Another hand had killed the father from that which had murdered the daughter. A third person might be put on duty in his case.

Pointer went to the post-office and wired to O'Connor.

IF WANTING A CHANGE, JOIN ME IN BOLZANO. BRING TOZER.

Tozer was O'Connor's name for his automatic. Pointer turned away feeling that he had taken out a very good insurance for the paper.

His room at the Laurin was between two others. He took another for his friend, and into that upper room he himself slipped late that evening, after arranging a bolster shape in his bed. Even so, he spent the night with his doors and windows securely wedged. Nor did he go downstairs until the house was well astir. Then he glanced into his own room. The threads of finest spider-silk that lie had stretched across door and windows were broken. The dummy was not as he had left it. The clothes on the chair were not precisely as he had laid them. So the hunt was up! His blood ran swifter for the thought. There is something in the human being that enjoys a chase, even in the form of the quarry.

Pointer loafed the morning in front of the café until his answer came, "O'Connor and I arriving Friday one thirty.—Tozer."