Mr. Beale looked sallower than usual.
“I suppose it's got to be the truth. I took them out of Carter's bag.”
“We have been in telegraphic communication with Carter about them. He says that these papers belonged to Robert Erskine.”
“Quite possibly. But I got them out of Carter's bag just the same.”
“Carter denies that absolutely. Mr. Beale, your situation seriously calls for frankness, as I'm sure you see for yourself. Things are very awkward. You have no satisfactory alibi for the hours from four to six on August fourth. Those screws which were found in Carter's box must have been put there by you. M. Meunier and two of his engineers give Mr. Carter an absolutely satisfactory alibi. They were with him all that Saturday afternoon and went down to Ostend in the train with him and saw him off on the boat. Those screws, these papers of Erskine's, and his note-book, look very ugly, taking into consideration the reason your firm had for getting Carter and Erskine out of the way, and the fact that you and the manager, together or separately, were in No. 14 for a considerable time on that Saturday afternoon.”
Mr. Beale's sallowness became tinged with green.
“It's like a Sunday-school story,” he said after a pause, “illustrating the way of the transgressor. I guess I know when the ice won't bear me. Chief, those papers and that note-book are Erskine's. You're right there. But I didn't get them off his dead body, nor yet kill him, either before or after. I bought them from the manager. Yes, sir, from the manager, and for one thousand five hundred pounds in notes. I had the sum on me, for I hoped to meet Carter and do a deal with him. Now, as to the motive—you're talking nonsense and you must know it. Carter was our man. Erskine staked him, but Erskine's death wouldn't have helped us any. It did quite the other way. We didn't want all that limelight turned on us, I do assure you. As to the screws—well-l, possibly I did let them drop into Carter's box by mistake. We wanted him fixed up a bit, as he wouldn't deal. Mind you, he only had to speak out to've left his prison the next day. If he chose to stay there that wasn't my fault. I guess he was afraid to speak, for if you really think Carter had no hand in Erskine's death—well, your brains aren't what I assess them at. As to my alibi . . . I spent the time exactly as I told you. Trying to locate Carter, who was in one of the Southampton Street hotels. I gave up trying to find his name, guessed that he was using another, and, acting on a belief of my man's that he had seen him go into the Enterprise, tried there. I took room number fourteen without an idea as to whose it really was, and the rest happened exactly as I told you, except that I lifted the top off the wardrobe after what I had seen through that knot-hole, but I couldn't see Erskine's face because it was turned sideways and downwards, as you remember. Also my torch had given out. Had I guessed whose corpse was in—but there . . . The match I lit I took from those vestas on the mantelpiece, and I dropped one into the wardrobe. I saw you salvage it, Chief.”
“Did you wash your hands in the basin?”
“Sure, and threw the water on to the balcony. It looked as though I had washed my boots in it. The top of that wardrobe would have made a first rate flower-bed. Well, to continue my tale of sin, curiosity made me have a look among the dead man's effects. I carry a pass key because of that damned Carter. I saw nothing interesting, and went for the manager, whom I found prowling about outside in the corridor. He seemed fairly knocked off his perch, but I sometimes wonder—However, he certainly would have had to have a nerve to put me into a room with a murdered man, if he knew anything about it. Yet—well, I don't quite know what to think; he and Carter may have had an understanding of some sort.”
“Humph!” There was a long silence. “You hadn't been to the hotel earlier in the day, then?”