"Ah, I thought it was your voice, Monsieur Pointer! What a pity madame is out. But pray come in and rest yourselves, gentlemen." They followed her upstairs into the drawing-room.
"Major Vaughan in?" asked Pointer.
For answer she went to the little house 'phone on the wall. There was no reply to her ringing.
"He is out, and his man, too, monsieur."
"Do you know when madame will return? We must see mademoiselle as soon as possible. It is most important. She has not gone back to Cannes. We made sure that she would be spending the night here. Are you certain that she did not come back later and go out with Madame or the Clarks?"
"Ah-h, that was, of course, quite possible. As a matter of fact there had been a dreadful upset here. Madame Clark had lost the wonderful emerald pendant she values so highly.
"She had discovered her loss a little before six, and after that Marie hardly knew what had happened. Pierre had been sent post haste in a taxi way out to the Palais des Marguerites, where Madame Clark had been last night, in case...It was absurd to send him, but Madame Clark and her husband, usually so gay, were quite beside themselves; even the chef de cuisine and the kitchen man had been made to help in the hunt,—been sent all the distance to some lunch place at Monte Carlo. Madame Clark had got Madame Erskine to send her, Marie, in a taxi to Antibes, where the Clarks had been during the late afternoon. As for Madame Clark's own maid, it was her afternoon off. Marie did not know whether the pendant had been found or not during their absence. She herself had only just got back when M. Pointer telephoned, and as for Pierre, he also was but just returned—the others were still away. But as the car was out, the Clarks were out, and madame as well as the major were out, Marie thought that the emerald must have found itself, and the household be taking its evening amusements as usual. But what a day! Oh, la, la!"
Pointer walked swiftly through the rooms of the flat, followed by Carter, silent and anxious. Watts, at a whisper, was looking over the rest of the house, beginning—thanks to his pass-key, with the major's rooms. Pointer stopped in a small dining-room Mrs. Erskine used for herself, or a very small dinner party of intimate friends.
"When was the last meal served here?"
"Not for over a week, monsieur."
Pointer asked Marie to be kind enough to 'phone to a Mr. Deane at the Moderne to join him as soon as convenient at the villa. "He is a sort of guardian of mademoiselle. If he is not in, ask them in the hotel to look for him, and kindly wait by the 'phone. He will be in shortly in any case."
Having thus got rid of her for some little time, Pointer stopped and picked up a couple of fair-sized crumbs.
"They're quite fresh. Someone's had a meal here recently." He motioned Carter to stand with his back against the door, and opened a couple of cupboards. He glanced keenly at the bottom plates of a little pile.
"Still greasy. Been wiped with a newspaper." He felt inside all the cups. "Two are quite wet." He paused over some teaspoons before he hunted on, as though for something more definite still. Finally he pounced on a crumpled little newspaper thrust into an empty cardboard box on the back of the lowest shelf. He opened this out on the table. A few scraps of bread and ham were inside. "Two people have had a meal of sorts within the hour." He shut the cupboards, whisked off the lace center and emptied the waste-paper basket on the polished surface. More crumbs, bits of litter, and a faded flower tumbled out. Pointer pounced on this last.
"A clove carnation. Was Miss West wearing any? There are none about."
"Not when I saw her."
"Marie!" called Pointer, and the maid came running up. "Was mademoiselle wearing carnations when she came to tea?"
Marie shook her head with a smile.
"Ah, monsieur met her, then, later? I did give her a bunch when she was leaving. Mademoiselle loves them so."
Marie was quite certain that Christine had only been in the loggia and the boudoir during her afternoon call.
Watts, who had joined the little group, shook his head. No one was in the house. Pointer walked swiftly downstairs and out on to the drive.
"How much petrol has been taken, Pierre?" asked the Chief Inspector. "As I said, we must catch up with mademoiselle, in her own interests, tonight. It is a question of a paper she must sign. These gentlemen have come as witnesses."
Pierre rushed off to the garage. "No tin has been touched, and there was very little in the car."
Pointer stood motionless. Carter started to speak, but a glance from the police-officer's eyes stopped him. Every mental nerve of Pointer's was strung taut to the call he was making on it. Where had Christine gone or been taken? He wasted no time on speculating on the why. He looked at the tire-tracks from the garage to the house, which showed fairly clearly in the dust.
"Those wheels wouldn't do for any hill climbing. Who generally drove the car?" he asked in French.
"Generally M. Clark. Sometimes, though rarely, M. le Majeur. Neither would try to climb with those tires."
"And very little petrol...humph!" Pointer picked up the 'phone mouthpiece and called a number, adding a code word swiftly.
"'Elio! Monsieur Guillaume there, by any chance, still? Ah, Monsieur Garnier! You will do perfectly. No, it is nothing to do with my 'phone from Tarascon this morning. That matter is all arranged, thanks to your colleague, but I would like to know whether Madame Erskine owns a launch or a yacht? No? Then, will you kindly have inquiries made at once as to whether one has been hired today, late in the afternoon, by anyone at the villa. It is most urgent."
Pointer walked up and down, saying nothing. Carter, very pale, stared hard at him, but did not offer to speak. Watts was lost in speculation. The Chief Inspector leapt to the instrument at the bell's first premonitory tinkle.
"Yes? Ah, good! Madame Clark hired it, you say. One of the swiftest steam launches here. By 'phone about six, to await her at the harbor steps by seven? Five people in all? Three ladies—one young—and two men. That is the party. Oh, thank you, we should indeed be most grateful. There are three of us. We will be with you in a little minute, and if your surgeon could accompany us he might come in useful. I do not know what we shall find."
Carter blanched as he heard him.
Pointer turned to the other two.
"Your car, Carter! Miss West is on a launch which we shall be able to overhaul on a still faster police boat which the Prefecture puts at our disposal. We're in plenty of time." But Pointer ran down the steps and leapt up beside the driver's seat as though the margin of safety were not so wide as he had said.
A direction or two, a turn of Carter's wheel, and they whirled up to a quiet part of the old town's harbor where lay a wicked looking little craft. A gendarme took charge of the car, they stepped aboard, and off the launch flew like an arrow through the quiet blue evening.
"So Mrs. Clark arranged this party, did she?" Pointer said with a hard stare through the lovely lilac shades of the early evening. "I fancy it will be her last pleasure jaunt for some time."
"What is it you're afraid of, in Heaven's name?" Carter asked, as so often before; but Pointer only shook his head.
"Too complicated to explain just now. I think we shall be in plenty of time."
CHAPTER XI
"IS Mrs. Erskine in any danger, too?" Watts ventured in an aside as the boat cut through the smooth water.
"In very grave danger, indeed,