The woman in the compartment had her feet bare by now, swinging them to and fro over the liquid which was smoking where it bit its way into the floor. She was moaning like some tortured animal as she dabbed frantically at her feet and cheek, all three of which were enormously swollen, and pitted with horrible-looking, white-lipped holes.
O'Connor stood by the window and Pointer held the door. She had twice tried to claw her way out.
Now he had been especially recommended in his true character to the Frenchmen by the guards of the Swiss stretch, who had received their instructions from the Milan railway officials. They knew that he was carrying important papers. There was no difficulty, therefore, as far as they were concerned. The woman was carried into some remote, inaccessible part of the tram, medical aid was fetched, and order once more reigned. It was given out that she had cut herself in some way with her thermos flask lining, and that her screams were not to be taken too seriously. The other woman would have been arrested had they been able to find her, but she was apparently not on the train.
"Changed into a young man, who would have posed as a doctor in all likelihood, and kindly done his very best for me, and for you, too. There was plenty for both of us in that flask. Then she'd have turned into a dear old lady, and been helped off by the guard himself," was Pointer's forecast of what might have been had things gone according to plan.
A tanned, pleasant-looking, gray-haired Englishman standing before his compartment a little farther down eyed them with a humorous half-smile.
"You seem to make a most efficient storm-centre, you two," he said; sauntering up to them. "I was in the train to Milan yesterday."
"It appears that I have an unfortunate likeness to some one who seems to be rather unpopular." Pointer spoke with heat, in the tone of an outraged Briton who is already composing his letter to the Press. "Member of some secret society which he's betrayed, so I'm told."
He declined the offer of a cigar, and lit his pipe. O'Connor did the same. Pointer had noticed the man, a typical army officer of the old school, travelling over the Brenner yesterday with a gunnery instructor known to him by sight, from Chatham.
"I suggest that you take refuge in my compartment till we get to Paris, if you want seats. I spend most of my time in the corridor." The man cleared off some of his belongings hospitably.
Pointer and O'Connor spent some pleasant hours chatting with him. He was on his way home from India, and had some inside information of the real currents under the surface out there.
CHAPTER TEN
AT Paris, Pointer and O'Connor were met by the former's brother, Cook's chief interpreter in the French capital. He had a group of Cook's men, who ringed the Scotland Yard officer and his companion around as he carried them off to an inner room at the station.
Here Pointer received a long cable that seemed to interest him vastly from the Yard. It wound up by stating that Mr. Thornton had gone to Paris, and was being looked after by the French police. Otherwise the "case" had marked time since the departure of its leader.
From the French police, he learnt that Thornton was still at his hotel, and had been spending blameless days in old curiosity shops and unimpeachable nights tucked up in his bed.
Pointer thought a moment. He considered that the time had come to have a look at Thornton's cards. The trouble was, that gentleman had such an aversion to laying down his hand. Pointer determined to call it without more ado. A telephone message to the hotel told him that Thornton was still up, and in the hotel lounge. Pointer entered it a few minutes later and shook hands. O'Connor, with his friends, all of them seemingly strangers to the man who had just preceded them, seated themselves some distance off. Pointer had hardly begun an, it is to be feared, inaccurate account of his wanderings when a page-boy brought him a telegram. Crushing the envelope carelessly into his pocket, Pointer read the message in a low voice, after a careful glance around to show that they were alone.
"Mrs. Lane confessed. Harris."
Thornton turned a dull lead colour.
"Feeling ill, sir?" asked, the Chief Inspector.
"This—this message—" Thornton's voice started across lips none too firm. They stiffened as it went on. "How—I thought Mrs. Lane—what does it mean?" Thornton stared at the cablegram—which Pointer and his brother had just concocted at the railway station—as though far away, in some unpleasant, uncertain place.
"It doesn't say, I see," Pointer mused aloud, "that she's confessed to the actual murder."
Thornton spun around on him with something like snarl. One would not have believed him capable of such a sound.
"Mrs. Lane—my wife—what the devil do you mean?" He looked white-hot now.
Pointer sat down again
"I see. Mrs. Lane is really Mrs. Thornton. Humph! Divorced, I presume?"
Thornton looked as though he would like to strike the bland face before him. He clenched his fist.
"Come, come, sir." Pointer changed to a pleasanter tone. "This won't help her, and she's in a tight spot, you know. But between us we ought to be able to get her out. Look here, why not explain the whole affair?"
Pointer spoke as though that bright idea had just occurred to him.
"Your marriage, for instance."
"There's nothing to explain about that," Thornton spoke wearily. "Only too usual a story, I'm afraid. An unhappy marriage—a parting—and a chance meeting again when she took the place of Colonel Scarlett's lady housekeeper. In justice to myself, I thought she was amply provided for. Her father settled a large sum on her when she married, and he died soon after, presumably a wealthy man. It was Russia's debt-repudiation that made all the difference, it seems. I never dreamt of that."
"Chance meeting?" Pointer repeated questioningly. "No, it wasn't that, Mr. Thornton. Not on her part. She knew you were at Red Gates. She came down because she knew that."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that, sir. I've seen—to be frank, we hold a letter of hers to the colonel. In it she refers to you, and says that she'll gladly come, provided that he will keep his promise, and never let you know that she knew beforehand that you were living at Red Gates."
Thornton got up, and walked quickly to a window. He stood with his back to the room.
"How can I get her out of what I've got her into?" he asked, without turning round.
"You got her into?"
"I put the matter in the hands of Scotland Yard, didn't I? I knew that she was shielding some one. I know it now. She'd shield a mad dog if it ran to her. But if so, that blow that killed Rose Charteris was struck by some terrible accident, or in some mistake—I can't explain it, but Beatrice, I mean my wife, would never shield a guilty person. There never was a woman with a clearer, cooler judgment, and a greater sense of right. To think that she ever had a part or knowledge—the mere suggestion is monstrous."
Pointer could have smiled. Beatrice Thornton had been shielding some one.
Thornton still looked out of the darkened window, and Pointer thought he heard a whispered "Beatrice" before the newly-revealed husband turned.
"Perhaps you can help her better than I can. I only seem to've drawn her deeper into things. You see, I thought that if she found herself in a tight place, she would perforce turn to me. I was at hand. She must have known that I—that—" He faced the window again, his face working. "I was a fool once. I was a poor ambitious chap once. And I won't say that her fortune counted for nothing with me, as it should have done." Thornton fought against the flood of emotion within him, but it had got past the gates, and rushed him with it "After she left me—there was no divorce. Neither