The criss-cross markings of the clutch showed sand, and a few particles of what, fished out with a pin on to white paper, showed under his magnifying glass as crushed flower-pot dust.
Caught in the clutch was a wisp of thin, black silk material. Pointer laid that away in an envelope. So a woman had driven the car!
The inside of the saloon had been swept out, also very hastily. He found more sand, and more flower-pot crumbs in the corners under the seats. There, too, far back, he found a pencil, not much used, with a protective metal tip. It was a French make.
He found the oddest thing last of all.
Two marks like little horse shoes, side by side, showed on the gray cloth upholstery. One pair at the top of the window, but a little to one side. One pair was overhead.
Pointer studied them They were reddish brown in colour. He decided that they had been made by a pair of men's boot heels. The stains showed under his magnifying glass to be of the same horrible blood and fertilise mixture which he had found on the sacking, and which he believed he had found on the swab taken from the cut on Rose's head.
The two marks were close together each time, all but touching. That told its own tale. The man's feet had been bound—lashed together. His hands must also have been tied, or those convulsive efforts to free himself, to kick open a window, or the carriage top, of which the marks told, would have been accompanied by some torn cushions. But their very cording was intact. Down by the door he found a few bloodstains, very small, but still damp. Judging by the height of the heel marks, a man of about the same size as the man who had lain on that bed in the summer house had been carried in this car last night.
Pointer felt his pulses quicken. His intelligence rose to meet the puzzle like a good horse at a stiff fence. But for the moment he reined it back. He thought of that to-and-fro driving of the little car in the lane outside. Suppose that a large car, such a car as this, had passed out first along the lane, and then suppose that the little car, such a car as he had seen in the Colonel's garage a few, minutes ago, and of which he had the particulars in his notebook—suppose this little car had taken up the work of destroying the marks made by the large car in the soft earth?
Yes. Pointer decided to suppose just that.
When Thornton drove back to Red Gates, he found that obvious failure in life, his colour-printer, waiting on his doorstep with a wilting bunch of primroses in his hand.
Pointer followed him into the cottage, and at the suggestion in the other's rheumy eyes, Thornton closed the window.
"Now, sir, there are many things I haven't had time to ask you yet. How did Miss Charteris come to be living with her uncle?"
Thornton explained that the colonel being poor, and the professor wealthy, the latter had taken over a wing of his brother-in-law's house, and helped materially with the expenses. That had been going on for some years now, and seemed to work excellently. He himself was a friend of the professor's, and had taken Red Gates because of that.
Pointer went back to yesterday, the last day of Rose's short life, and had Thornton run the events over to him as far as he knew them. The evening's alarm interested the detective-officer especially.
"Then, as I understand it, sir, all you four gentlemen were playing cards from nine to close on twelve?" Thornton nodded.
"Whist or bridge, I suppose?"
"Mahjong parts of the time, and bridge the rest of the evening."
"Could you give me an idea of how long the mahjong lasted. You see, I like to get even the smallest details clear in my mind, especially as far as time goes, then, when new facts come in, I can place them where they belong."'
Again Thornton nodded.
"Mahjong was over by a little before ten. It struck the hour as we got out the cards."
"And there were absolutely no other visitors except one lady at Stillwater House yesterday?"
"I don't see how there could have been, unless they were fasting experts. I saw nobody at meal times.
"Has this Lady Maxwell been down here before?"
"To Stillwater House? Not as long as I've been here; that's nearly six months now."
"Do you know her at all?"
Thornton gave his rather sardonic smile.
"Oh lor', yes! She's a widow of some worthy baronet or other. Quite well known. Absolutely no good an object of suspicion, I should say, Chief Inspector."
Pointer looked hard at his boot-tips.
"Brown, if you please, sir. Even when the house is empty as now. I suppose you haven't noticed any change at Stillwater House lately—no one has seemed to act in any way differently from usual? Colonel Scarlett, for instance, to take him first?"
Thornton looked uneasy. He adjusted his glasses
"It's rather an unpleasant feeling, being asked anything so important as that I mean, a mistaken impression on my part might lead to such unforeseen consequences—"
"Not so bad as that," Pointer comforted him with some inward amusement. He never took any one's evidence quite so seriously as they did themselves. But that was a secret between himself and his Maker.
"And it's a most unpleasant thing to do. Report on a man who's a friend, in a way, and my host—in a way."
"There's only one thing to be done in an affair of this kind," Pointer said in his pleasant voice, "and that is to sink personal feelings altogether. Just act as a sort of gramophone disc. Just record the impressions made on you. In every walk in life one has to put one loyalty against another, hasn't one? Loyalty to justice seems to me to be high enough to serve, even at the cost of a great deal of discomfort."
"Then I should say that Colonel Scarlett has seemed to have something on his mind for about a month or more back—at least, that's my impression. The day before yesterday, Wednesday, he certainly got a letter that disturbed him greatly, though he tried not to show it."
"Exactly what happened?"
Again Thornton hesitated.
"You never know what trifle may not help," Pointer prompted, "and very often it throws a light on some other person or event, far away from the thing you're talking about."
"I suppose that's so. Well, a letter was brought in while we were in the lounge, just before lunch. The colonel gave a start as soon as he saw the envelope, went to the window, and tore it open. When he turned around again, he looked very odd. As a man might look who had learnt suddenly that something on which he confidently counted had gone all wrong."
"Did he speak about the letter at all?"
"Not when I was present. He excused himself, and didn't see him again till Thursday at lunch."
"He wasn't back to dinner, then? Were you alone with him in the lounge when the letter was brought him?"
Thornton said that he had been.
"He's a racing man, I believe. Heavy backer?"
"I believe so, but as I never backed a horse in my life he doesn't discuss those interests with me."
"Was it dark down here last Wednesday at noon? mean, was the lounge so gloomy that the colonel couldn't have read his letter where he sat?"
"It was a particularly bright day."
"Did you happen to notice the letter at all, or it's envelope?"
Thornton had not. It was only the results that had struck him.
"Now about Mr. Bond and Mr. Cockburn, they're friends of the colonel, I believe?"
Thornton nodded.