"Mr. Heilbronner has been touring Europe for his health since July. I heard by chance on the steamer I crossed on that he was staying in Geneva, but I can't think of him as caring for anything but his moneybags—at least judging by his looks."
"Humph, not always a safe guide. Now about his daughter. Was Mr. Carter a friend of hers, too?"
"No he never met her. That I know."
"And you can think of nothing, absolutely nothing, which will give us any clue as to an enmity for one or both of these two men?"
"The Amalgamated Silk Society—but that sounds too silly to suggest," she said hesitatingly.
"I don't know about silly, but as they wanted both men for embezzlement I can't see the point in killing one. And Miss West, you can't separate one man in this case from the other, since Carter won't speak out. It is the charge of killing Erskine that's Carter's danger. Now suppose you tell me more about Carter. We have been told by the authorities in Toronto that even though he was Erskine's assistant he would absent himself from the town and the works for months at a time. Can you guess why?"
"Rob said he was prospecting."
"And what did he himself say?"
"He refused to talk of where he had been."
"Miss West, why don't you believe that he really had been prospecting?"
For an appreciable second she hesitated, then with a lift of her head she looked up at him.
"I'll be quite frank. I know the truth can only help Jack in the end. He never came back looking in the least as a prospector does after a trip. Face and hands burnt and cracked. Hair all rough, and a gait that doesn't lose its stiffness for weeks. There's an unmistakable look about a man who's been away in the wilds that you can't mistake out there. But Jack always came back paler than he went, and with his hands not sunburnt in the least. Nor has he ever been able to walk much since the war. It was his leg that was so mangled."
Pointer thought of "Green's" New York record.
"Now once more about the breaking off of the engagement between Robert Erskine and Miss Heilbronner. I wish you'd tell me all you know about it."
"I never got to the bottom of it because Rob was too cut up to talk of it. Perhaps it was only that old man Heilbronner didn't think the mills were turning out enough money for his daughter. He tried his best to get the place away from Rob, but Rob wouldn't let it go. There was some sort of a clause by which he could purchase it, so much down at once and the rest yearly. He had paid the sum down out of the ranch sale, and I guess the old man was always hoping he'd trip up on his payments, but Rob held on for seven years in spite of all, and then they—he—failed on the last installment. Oh, Mr. Pointer, it was cruel I He first, and then Jack with him, had worked so hard. They had done without everything, pleasures, or enough sleep, or even"—she choked—"enough food those last months, and they just slipped up on it. He needed five thousand pounds, and so, though it cut him to do it, he wrote to his mother for the loan of the money. She sent one thousand pounds and he couldn't scrape the rest of the money together, try as he could. No one in Toronto would give him any help. That was the doing of the Silk Amalgamated. So he lost the mills and they even tried to turn him and Jack out of their positions, but Rob and he refused to leave. And that"—she sprang to her feet again. "I'm sure that is the real reason for the charge of embezzlement—just to break Rob and Jack because they dared to stand out against the Amalgamated. Mr. Heilbronner swore that they had been cheating the company out of its percentages for three years. Said that the Amalgamated had proofs of big orders carried out at the Toronto Mills which weren't entered on the books and on which nothing had been paid."
Pointer tried here and there to come upon something approaching a clue, but finally he saw Miss West into a taxi, and promised to call upon her next morning. Then he sat up till far into the night trying to clear up the new tangles which she had introduced.
Why—among many other ways—had Erskine given no idea of the nature of his work to his mother? He had only written infrequently, but even so he never referred to it. He only asked for funds and wrote as an idle young man about town. Why had he told Miss West that he had asked for five thousand pounds, when Pointer had read his own letter asking for one thousand pounds exactly. Where had the rest of the money gone which the young man had asked for and received, at the rate of about two thousand a year? As yet Pointer had been able to find no proof that Erskine speculated, though had he done so under another name it would be difficult to trace it. However, the Chief Inspector went to bed with a clear plan as to how Miss West would work into his schemes.
When he saw her next morning the wily man began by regretting that there seemed no way in which she could make herself of actual service such as she wanted to be engaged on, and only when Miss West was in a sufficiently subdued frame of mind at the idea of not being able to help after all did he advance his suggestion.
"I hope you won't mind my asking," he began, "but is there any—eh—tie between you and Mr. Carter?"
"He won't let me consider myself engaged to him, but if ever he gets enough money to marry on, he and I are going to be married. I have a little income of my own, but he won't let that count." She gave a proud little smile.
"I see." Pointer looked reflectively at his gloves. "I see. I was wondering if there isn't some way we could use your offer of help, but there is only one and you might not care for that." He seemed to dismiss the idea. She leant forward eagerly.
"Oh, but I'll do anything. Anything. I would for Rob's sake, let alone in the terrible position Jack is in. What is it, Mr. Pointer?"
"Well, it's this. I wonder if you could go to France and look up Mrs. Erskine's circle? As a sort of relation, well then a friend of the family, her solicitor, Mr. Russell, would give you a letter of introduction, I know. If possible I should like you to stay in the house and try to find some clue which might clear up all this game of cross-purposes, for that's what's going on, Miss West. There's no one case so tangled as this. What's happened, I feel sure, is that half-a-dozen ends have all got knotted up together. Now the real one may lie in the far past—back of Robert Erskine, or even of his father.' I can see no other way of possibly stumbling on it than by trying to piece it out of his mother's recollections. Mrs. Erskine thinks there's nothing to tell, Mr. Russell says the same, but it's the only chance for a fresh cast as far as I can see. Will you go?"
As he had foreseen, the idea did not appeal to Miss West in the least.
"You mean," she hesitated, "you mean to go and stay with Mrs. Erskine, if she will let me, and be a sort of spy in the house?"
"Just so. No, I was afraid it wouldn't do. As a matter of fact, I wish I could have had someone in her villa weeks ago. Only the Yard won't run to needless expenses, you know, and—well, there it is." He smiled cheerily.
"You think it so important as all that?"
He was quite honest.
"I think it may lead to nothing, but I certainly think it worth trying. If you cared to go, you would be the very person. Mrs. Erskine used to have a companion long ago, I'm told. She might like to have a bright and, if you'll permit me to say so, Miss, a pretty face about her."
Christine made her decision.
"I'm not going to pretend that it's what I wanted. And I don't think you'd be in the least deceived if I tried to hoodwink you. But I'll go, and if Mrs. Erskine asks me to stop with her I'll do it. I suppose I can always write to you?"
"I should want you to write a report every day and post it to my home address. I may not answer, but I shall get your letters all right, and if there is anything special I want, or that you can do, I shall let you know. You must arrange with some shop in Nice to keep your letters for you. Remember, Miss West, you mustn't forget that there may be enemies in the very household of Mrs. Erskine herself. I have no reason whatever to think so, but you must act as though there were."
"Do you know anything about her household?"
Pointer