“Now as to Miss Leslie, the occupant of number twelve. She left here on September seventeenth, and all inquiries at the theatre only show that no one has her address. Apparently she has gone away in the midst of an engagement without leaving a trace of her plans.”
Here, too, the manager was not able to offer any help.
Pointer swung himself on his homeward bus, not over-pleased with his men. He had given orders that the occupants of the balcony rooms were to be kept under constant surveillance, and the two most important ones had slipped away into the unknown. Miss Leslie he had tried to trace through the Thompsons, father and son, and even through the Blacks, but all to no purpose.
“Mrs. Able has very tactfully chosen roast veal,” O'Connor jibed as he took his seat at the table. “Now, wanderer, what of thy goings to and fro?”
Pointer merely raised his eyebrows and asked what was under the other cover, and not until the meal was well out of the way and he had lit a pipe did he give a rapid review of his “holiday tramp.”
O'Connor thought that the green and white scrap of paper backed up the manager's rather than Beale's version of the selling of the papers, and Pointer agreed that it might, but he did not say how much of the rest of the tale of either man seemed to him likely.
Next morning he had a long interview with Carter, and found that, as he thought, the Canadian had arrived on July twentieth in London. He had expected to go straight to a hotel as near Erskine's as possible, but on arrival at Liverpool Street Station he had been handed a telegram from “Meunier,” instructing him to come on to Brussels at once. Erskine had come to meet the train, after engaging a room for him at the Marvel and one at the Enterprise for himself. The connecting balcony was too good to lose, so at their hurried meeting in a corner of the refreshment room, where they posed as strangers, one of whom handed a newspaper to the other and discussed the weather for a moment, it was arranged that Erskine was to write to the Marvel in Carter's name, enclosing enough money to retain number two, while Carter rushed off to Dover and Ostend. Ten days later Carter had to come back to London to buy some special tools he could not get in Brussels, and had spent a couple of hours with Erskine. It was on his way to the night boat-train that he had bought him the cough medicine. When he had returned again on the fatal Saturday night of August 3rd it had been for the express purpose of telling his “pard” that success was certain. The sight of the policeman when the window opened warned him that something was wrong. After an interval he had crept out on to the balcony again and peered into the room. He could see only an empty bed and Miller on guard. Full of anxiety, he had to start back for Brussels at once, followed, though he did not know it, by Beale. Then came hours of torturing uncertainty, and finally the few lines in an English paper telling of “Eames' suicide.” Carter could hardly bear to speak of it. But they had each bound themselves before starting from Canada that in case of danger they would separate at once, and in case of any accident to the one, the other would “carry on”; also he was under the most solemn pledges of absolute secrecy to M. Bonnot. So in bitterness of soul he worked on, only determined to avenge his friend's death some day.
“And that day's now, Inspector. I won't rest till I find out who it was that killed Rob, though, mind you, I don't have any doubt as to the man's identity. But I'll work night and day to get the proof.”
“You think it's——”
“Beale. Of course. So do you, I guess. He didn't know how few papers Rob had on him. Just because I thought it was dangerous, I didn't give Rob anything of real importance, and those few I did let him have were only because he insisted on our sharing the risks together. Of course, Beale murdered him after he found Rob wouldn't do a deal, which I don't doubt he tried first. Then he did his best to get me out of the way, because he knows well enough that I won't find life worth living till the man who did it is hung. When I came home that night in Brussels earlier than usual from my work and found Beale at my desk I wish to heaven I had killed him instead of merely trussing him up and beating it to Lille. But my pledge to Bonnot tied my hands. They're free now.” Carter stretched them out along the table. Long, lean, nervous hands. “At Lille, the little ferret fastened on me again and pretty nearly did for me.”