“Pretty nearly,” agreed Pointer.
“It was a facer,” Carter repeated sombrely. “You see, I didn't know whether I had an alibi for Rob's murder or not, for I didn't know what hours were the vital ones, and I had been back in London, I had been on the balcony, I remembered even the couple of boxes of vestas I'd left Rob, and wondered if they would help to trace me out. And suppose I got clear of the charge of having murdered my pard, I was done for by the American frame-up. Only your catching Beale, and the way M. Bonnot handled him, saved me. They wouldn't have let me off under twenty years over there. Beale has tremendous political influence through his paper. The police officer who put the warrant through was some sort of a hyphenated Yank out for a political job.”
“Just so. Yes, I see.” Pointer turned to his note-book. “Now, to go back to Erskine. Can you tell me what was the cause of the split between him and the Heilbronners?”
“Rob never told me in so many words. He was in love with Mattie Heilbronner, you know—Christine told me she'd given you the points of the case as far as she knew them—but it was some trouble at the factory at the beginning of the war that started it all. He believed that he had stumbled on some devilish German plot to poison the bandages. The mills were turning out hospital supplies, you know. He was certain that old Heilbronner was at the back of it, and after that all was over between them but the burial. Yet even so, when I had knocked my first idea into workable shape, he insisted that the fair thing to do was to offer it to the Amalgamated. They turned it down and began hounding Rob and me out of the business. I won't go into it all, but it only stiffened us. I worked my ideas into something better and tried Bonnot of Lyons. It was really while I was lying in the hospital there that I had come across a replica of an old loom which gave me my first glimmering of an idea. Bonnot told you himself how he took the thing up—cautiously at first and then enthusiastically. The difficulty, however, for Rob and me was to get to Europe. We decided to use Mrs. Erskine's money for that purpose, as it wouldn't save the mills, and started away by different boats under assumed names. And now, Inspector, will you let me help you? Or must I try on my own, or with a private detective, to solve the how and the why of Rob's death? Who did it I feel pretty sure of, as I said.”
Pointer decided quickly. He could easier keep Carter under observation in France than in England. To have had a hand in his partner's death, that death that removed from him the necessity to repay past loans, that left him in undisputed possession of a huge fortune,—he must have had an accomplice. Any effort to communicate with the actual poisoner would be far more difficult to carry out undetected in Nice than in London.
“Thank you, Mr. Carter, for your offer. I am starting as soon as I can get away for France—for Nice. I shall be very glad if you care to come——”
“Care to come! You bet I do!”
“But you understand that it may be some time before I can ask your help. There is a good deal of clearing up work—mere routine—to be done first.” His tone implied that when a stroke of real genius was felt to be needed, Carter's hour would come.
“I quite understand. As long as I can hope to be of any help—at any time—I'll come. Christine feels as I do. We can't marry until this thing is cleared up. She's as keen on seeing justice done Rob as I am, or nearly so. He wasn't her partner as he was mine. If you'll come downstairs we'll go around to her hotel and hear what she says for herself.”
Christine had treated herself to comfortable rooms in a quiet hotel near Baker Street. She was as emphatic as Carter that the one thing for them to do now was to find out and bring to justice the murderer of Robert Erskine. “Though I certainly wasn't much of a help to you?” Her voice made it a question.