The Charteris Mystery. Dorothy Fielding

walked rapidly to the police station, but Superintendent Harris was up in town, the chief constable was down with influenza, and Briggs, the constable in charge, looked to Pointer a better judge of beer than crime.

      He returned to Red Gates, where he found Thornton doing a good five miles an hour in front of his fireplace.

      "I want to ask you a question or two about the doctor who was fetched when Miss Charteris was found dead. Is he the sensible, family doctor type?" Pointer asked.

      "More of the leaky-sieve type, though doubtless the soul of good nature. Why?" Thornton wheeled sharply about.

      "I'm thinking about that death certificate that he's going to fill out. You see, it's not so easy opening people's eyes when you're not supposed to exist—officially. You don't happen to know at what hospital he studied? Though we can easily find that out."

      "My dear Mr. Brown, I've met the man at least three times! I doubt very much if there's one fact of his past, or present life therefore with which I'm not on nodding terms. Give me a moment for reflection, and I can doubtless supply you with the name of the patent food on which he was reared. As for your question—he's a St. Thomas's man."

      Pointer laughed outright. He had the laugh of a boy.

      "Good. Yes, I think I can work that." But what it was that he proposed to manipulate he did not say. He turned away, but Thornton stopped him.

      "A moment. Of course it's natural that I should be interested in this case." He paused, as though really waiting for an answer.

      "Quite so, sir."

      "Do you think it's going to be a simple affair, or a—well—complicated case?"

      Pointer looked at him with an apparently absent-minded eye.

      "Simple cases," he said thoughtfully, '"there aren't many—presuppose a simple life, simple surroundings, simple conditions. Say it's murder. Well, life nowadays is often so complicated that when you take it—obviously, you take something exceedingly complex. At least, that's been my experience."

      There followed a long pause.

      "Then you think—here—that will prove to be the case? I mean, you think that it's murder, and that there's more than one person implicated, and so on?" Thornton spoke without turning round.

      "It's hard to say," Pointer answered. And so exceedingly difficult did he appear to find it that he was evidently disinclined to attempt the feat as he slouched off to the summerhouse again.