"Do you know anything about her household?"
Pointer read her a letter he had received weeks ago in answer to one he had dispatched to the Nice Préfecture. Mrs. Erskine lived a quiet but not secluded life in her charming villa, entertaining a little, and altogether enjoying the respectful esteem of the authorities. Her household was very simple. One man servant who was gardener and chauffeur, and one woman, his wife, who did the work, together with a first class cook. Mrs. Erskine only lived on one floor of her villa, the other two floors being let.
"I'm afraid I shan't be of any use," Christine said warningly; "it sounds quite out of my line."
The Chief Inspector would have preferred, as he had told her, to send a trained detective, but Christine was the only woman who would be able to enter under the aegis of a letter from Russell, and willing to work for the truth, so he encouraged her with the prospect of coming on some unconsidered piece of news which might set machinery in motion which would ultimately liberate Carter.
Finally she decided to go up to Perth personally and see the solicitor. Pointer looked up her train, and 'phoned about her to the Scotsman. Then, taking a hearty farewell of her, for the two liked each other, he went to the nearest 'phone and rang up for the second time that morning an American reporter friend of his on the London staff of the New York Herald.
"Pointer speaking. Have you looked her up? Good. Well, who did she marry? Beale, did you say? Mr. Beale? Oh, Mr. Edward Beale, only son of Mr. Augustus P. Beale, an editor of the Universe. I see. Eh? I only said I see. Thanks very much indeed;" and Pointer hung up the receiver and walked away, frowning deeply. So Miss Heilbronner, Robert Erskine's one time fiancée, had married Mr. Beale's only son. Did this stand for anything in the puzzle? If so, what?
Christine meanwhile was speeding towards the rooms of Mr. Mortimer Meukes, the young solicitor to whom she had brought a letter of introduction from Canada yesterday afternoon.
"Did you see him?" she asked almost before she had shut the door behind her.
"I did, Miss West. He has agreed to retain me as his counsel, but I am bound to say that he refused to give me any information whatever." The young man gave a vexed laugh.
"Frankly, if I hadn't promised you to take the case, I should hand you back your retaining fee."
"I don't think you would." Christine spoke entreatingly. "You would be much too conscious of the fact that Mr. Carter is in a terrible position. He doesn't speak, obviously because there is some good reason why he can't, not because he won't."
"He doesn't even give that much explanation;" but Mr. Meukes' tone was less indignant.
"If you think Mr. Carter is a man to tamely or lightly submit to being broadcasted as a murderer and a thief, you can't have had a square look at him. Does he look a rabbit?"
Mr. Meukes hastily agreed that he certainly did not, for Christine had spoken with warmth.
"Did he give you no message for me?"
"Yes, he told me to tell you, in strictest secrecy, that he was thankful you had come, and that if you could remain on this side of the Atlantic, as you told me to tell him you would, he might be very glad of your help later on. He was really most awfully touched by your coming and by your having sent me."
Christine told him that she was going abroad for some time possibly, unless Carter would prefer to have her stay closer at hand. She gave Mr. Russell's address to the solicitor and asked him to wire her Carter's reply.
Mr. Russell, like Pointer, took a liking to the Canadian girl. He sent off a letter at once to Mrs. Erskine recommending Miss West to her, and gave Christine a letter of introduction to hand her personally. "I'm sure she will welcome you. After all, the poor leddy has little enough that she knows about her only son." Christine looked down her nose.
"I shouldn't build on that. Mrs. Erskine must be an iceberg."
Mr. Russell opened his eyes.
"My dear young leddy, anything but! Let me assure you she spends far too much on charity. Far too much."
"She let her 'only son' have a fearful struggle for years and years when she could have helped him, and never missed the money. She let the Mills for which he had worked so hard slip through his fingers at the last moment."
Mr. Russell was amazed.
"She sent him large sums of money regularly. I've seen his letters thanking her for the sums sent and asking for more and always getting it. Aye, always getting it. As for the last thousand pounds, he only asked for one thousand. I know what I am speaking of. The Chief Inspector could have told you the same."
Christine was bewildered. So bewildered that she held her tongue.
"Did you ever see the letters Robert Erskine wrote. I mean see them yourself?"
No, Christine had to acknowledge that she never had. "Or any of Mrs. Erskine's letters to him?"
Christine had again to acknowledge that she never had seen one.
Mr. Russell nodded his head. "Just so. Just as I thought. Mrs. Erskine is a quiet, still woman. You might think her hard if you didn't know what lies behind her manner. My father could tell you of case after case of charity and goodness which he found out, after she had left Perth, of which she never spoke. She's not one to wear her heart on her sleeve, like all her family now dead and gone, but it's a heart of gold." Christine bade Mr. Russell good-bye, and picked up a telegram from London in which Carter sent her word that any distance within a week's journey of London would serve him perfectly. She travelled up to town and on to Dover resolved to meet Robert's mother with a more unprejudiced mind.
It happened to be a singularly cold September, so that Mrs. Erskine had already returned from her Eze summer cottage to Nice, which presented a more animated appearance than usual, considering the month.
Villa des Fleurs was a beautiful house standing in a handsome palm garden where roses bloomed all the year, and Christine rang the bell of the first floor wondering what sort of experience lay before her.
She was not often nervous, but she hardly noticed who was in the balcony to which the smiling French maid led her, until a white-haired woman, quietly but richly dressed, held out her hand.
Mrs. Erskine told her how pleased she was to see anyone who had known her husband and son in Canada, and asked Christine to stay at the villa for a fortnight. "Though Nice is still quite deserted," she added. Christine suggested that her wardrobe might not be quite up to Nice's standards, but Mrs. Erskine smiled faintly at the idea. She insisted on sending to the station where the luggage had been left, and Marie the maid showed the Canadian, after a delicious tea, into her room.
"We dine at eight o'clock," her hostess had told her. "The other people in the villa are friends of mine, and we have all our meals together. There is a Mr. and Mrs. Clark, who have the ground floor, and are splendid tennis players—you may like to practice with them of a morning—and then there is Major Vaughan, who has the floor above this. He is rather an original, but as an old bachelor, as well as an old friend of my husband's, I humor him."
The room assigned to Christine was very barely furnished. After a bath in a luxurious bathroom, she opened the door next to her own by mistake, and stepped into a really beautiful bedroom, all silver and petunia shades. Closing the door hastily, she raised her eyebrows a little as she stepped on into her own very comfortless nook. Mrs. Erskine might be delighted to see her, but, though she had had ample warning of her coming, she had certainly not been over concerned with her guest's comfort. At dinner, which was of a quality and served with a luxury Christine found a revelation, she met the other inmates of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Clark were a cheery, rather noisy couple, who seemed to consider all life a great joke. Christine decided that the lady had once been on the stage, from her partiality to paint and powder and richly tinted locks, but there was a breezy good nature about her which offset Mrs. Erskine's chilly manner. To Major Vaughan she took an instant aversion. His light eyes stared at her insolently,