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

So by noon to-morrow he would have his friend and the paper its second guardian. O'Connor must have done some rapid packing. Until his arrival, Pointer decided to take an open-air cure. Bolzano was a dream of blue skies, with the beautiful, ever-changing green of the hills around it. Plum purple, the great ridge of the Mendel range, a snowy veil still hung over the Rosengarten, all around was the broad valley of the Isarco, the river that the Talfer joins under one of the bridges. All the way to Merano stretched a sea of fruit trees coming into blossom. The little town was gay as the South and busy as the North. Pointer could have stayed on gladly for the mere beauty of it. He took his lunch, not in the hotel, but in the little garden park, off rolls and cold meat that he himself purchased in the shops. The afternoon was spent outdoors in the one smart café of the place, and was followed by dinner on similar lines to the lunch. He used neither bedroom that night, but arranged for a very late bath, and made himself comfortable in the tub with a pillow and a feather duvet smuggled from his room. The bathroom looked out on to the same side as his own room. There were two men who spent the late evening hours watching the hotel from a house opposite. About midnight he saw some sort of a sign pass, by means of a white handkerchief, to others watching in the hotel itself, doubtless in his own room. Pointer would have liked nothing better than to step in suddenly, but at present he was not Pointer, but the warden of a thing at once a possible treasure and an expected revelation, and the rope which was to hang a murderer. The bathroom handle moved very softly. Besides being locked, there was a wedge under it, and Pointer only prodded the duvet into a more comfortable mattress as he listened intently. The bathroom had had a bell, but it was out of order, so the boots had told him.

Pointer had made it worth the night-porter's while to mend it. He had tried it just before "taking his tub," and had explained to the man, a conscientious but dull-witted Tiroler, that, being a poor sleeper, he had found that nothing helped him so much on a sleepless night as a cold dip. On a bad night he would sometimes have two, or three dips. By all the signs, this was going to be a bad night. So if he, Andreas, heard him, he was not to be surprised.

"But how about a cup of coffee?" suggested the man after "studying" things over for several minutes like a true Bozener, "I keep some standing hot all night."

"Good!" said Pointer. "A cup of coffee and a bath together would be splendid. If I ring from the bathroom, just set the cup down outside."

Andreas said he would, and departed.

Pointer thought this an excellent time for that cup as he listened to the faint stirs and breathings outside. If only Andreas's step were not first cousin to a carpet-beater's thud! But at night Andreas evidently put on list shoes, for there was a sudden exclamation and a scurry from the quiet over-timers outside the door, and a scandalised " Nanu !" from Andreas. A tray was put hastily down, and Pointer opened the door. His bedroom was close by. He dropped pillow and "divvy" into it, and stepped back to examine the bathroom door. Like all the rooms in the hotel, it had the dangerous Continental double door, one a foot or two within the other, so that a thief need only open and close the outer door to be in a small lobby, where he can work unnoticed.

Pointer flashed his torch over the hinges. One was already half-eaten through with acid. He waited for Andreas.

"What was wrong?" Pointer asked. "Bring the coffee to my room."

Andreas shook his head with a tolerant grin.

"A bit fuddled. Gentlemen will have their joke. Two friends of yours intended to help you with your dip. They couldn't find the handle, however, and must have been trying to unbolt the hinges when I arrived."

Pointer laughed and offered him a cigar.

"Which of the lot was that?"

"I don't know their names. It's the two Fascisti who have numbers seventeen and eighteen."

"Fascisti?"

"Well, they looked it."

"Get me their names from the book, will you."

Andreas brought him back a chit , on which he had scrawled, "Signor Gregorio Massa and Signor Antonio Massa."

"As I thought!" Pointer beamed. "Just the fellows, to try on a joke like that. Are they in their rooms now?"

The night-porter thought that they were. He had only caught sight of the door being closed. A final tip changed hands, and Pointer was alone.

After a little interval he crept out and along the passage to the numbers given. He heard two men's voices in seventeen. Not very pleased voices either. One was very low, but every now and then one would be raised hysterically, to be instantly quieted by a sharp low word from his companion. Pointer caught one such higher pitched word. It was a name. After it came a sudden pause, a pause of consternation. Pointer could almost visualise a hand clapped over a garrulous mouth. He was no longer near the door when it was noiselessly opened, but was well away on the upper landing. Lying down at full length, he saw a tall figure, its loose top-locks falling around it like a feather duster, search the lower corridor from end to end, noiseless in its movements as a horse-fly. Then it disappeared, and the door was shut without a sound.

Pointer felt like a dog hot on a scent and suddenly pulled up. One word he had heard, one name. Well he knew now, and he realised his danger.

Friday morning was spent like its predecessor, except for a telegram to di Monti appointing next Tuesday afternoon without fail for a meeting in New Scotland Yard and by noon Pointer was shaking hands with the tall lean figure of O'Connor on the Bozen platform.

"So our long-planned walking tour is coming of last?"

"It is," Pointer agreed "We begin it by taking train for Verona in an hour. Where's your bag; this man can carry it too."

Pointer had come accompanied by one of the town luggage-carriers, so as not to chance being alone on platform or in waiting-room So far, there had been no need of this precaution, but he had not cared to omit it.

"My bag? Tozer wouldn't let me wait to pack. And how's yourself?"

Pointer breathed in his ear.

"I've a pocket-book strapped to me, with a paper inside, which we must get home to the Yard. It'll clear the air."

"You're right, she's an uncommonly pretty girl," O'Connor agreed aloud, as lighting a cigarette and whirling on one heel to throw away the match, all in one swift motion, he almost burnt the tie of a man behind. The man, a typical Fascist by his hair and tightly-buttoned black shirt and thick, cudgel-like stick which he carried, hurried on.

Pointer, opened and shut his eyes as though saying, "Even so!"

"Brother Massa," he murmured. "He's off for the ticket office. Now, you get some food inside yourself, while I take our seats in the carriage that's put on here."

"Can you manage your luggage alone?" O'Connor asked cautiously.

"Can do," Pointer reassured him. O'Connor stepped into the buffet.

The usual change had come over the platform. A moment ago all was bustle; now it was almost deserted. Pointer had told his man what seats he wanted. The porter stepped in with the suitcase. In swinging it up, it caught in the curtain and almost overpowered him, for it was very heavy. Pointer made no move to assist. He stood well out on the platform.

Suddenly something knocked his feet from under him. A bag carried by another traveller had skidded from some three yards away. The man rushed up with apologies, in his hand the rubber-covered club of the Fascisti, the Italian sandbag. Pointer dodged the club and shot out his right with all the strength of his back behind it. The man who had had the accident with the bag sagged inertly forward. Pointer was on his feet now, and directing a kick at the shins of the porter, who had leapt out of the compartment. Pointer was not sure whether he were in the affair or not, but he could not afford to take a chance. The way the man acted cleared up his doubts. Instead of a volley of abuse, and calls to his mates, he picked up his Facchino cap and dived under the coach, just as an official from another platform hurried up.