“Oh, no, he was merely watching a table when she asked him the way out. She was standing beside him you see, and as she really was a lady, and alone, and had got separated from her husband, why, of course, he showed her the way out himself. In the vestibule sure enough was the husband, and they went off together. John had had enough of the rooms—and isn't the air hot inside—so he roamed along the terasse—you know what a wonderful night it was, and then after supper at the Paris motored back to Nice. But say now, Mr. Deane, don't you want to come and have a nice long talk with me, or have me come and see you? I'm so dull here.”
There was nothing she could do yet, Pointer assured her, by which he meant that there was nothing he wanted her to do, and remained adamant in spite of all her appeals. His next 'phone was to Watts to come immediately to the hotel. Then he rang up Carter, who having a 'phone beside his bed answered at once, but apparently he could add nothing to Miss West's account. Until Christine had 'phoned him half an hour before he had had no idea as to who the lady was who had spoken to him last night at the Monte Carlo Rooms. Her husband was a smart, youngish-looking man with something military about his get-up. Where the couple went to Carter did not try to see.
Toule, the French detective “attached” to Carter, when questioned next on the 'phone, only knew that “Mr. Crane” had taken a car from the hotel and driven along the Corniche road to Monte Carlo, returning late at night—about twelve the hotel-porter said.
“Humph!” was the only comment of Mr. Deane as he returned to his room, where Watts was already waiting.
“Watts, get off to Monte Carlo at once. Miss West saw Miss Leslie and Carter talking together in the Rooms there last night. His explanation is”—the Chief Inspector repeated the conversations. “You have a snapshot of her—” The ladies occupying both No. 12 and No. 11 of the Enterprise had been snapshotted going down the hotel steps on the Monday following the discovery of “Eames' suicide.” “Rake the coast from Ventimiglia to Marseilles if you have to, but get on her track. What will you go as?”
“Colonel Hunter,” Watts said gloomily. He disliked that gentleman exceedingly, from his walrus moustache to his political opinions, and his miserable gold handicap, but it was his best impersonation, and the only one for which he had a passport.
“Right.”
The future Colonel bustled off after making a note or two. He did not report for a couple of days, and then he called up Pointer to say that Captain and Mrs. Anstruther were also stopping at the Negresco, where, oddly enough, they had gone from the Hermitage, the afternoon after the lady was seen talking to Carter. In the hotel a slight, casual-looking acquaintance seemed to have been struck up between them and Carter, ostensibly connected with his civility to Mrs. Anstruther at Monte Carlo. The closest watching had as yet shown nothing suspicious beyond the facts themselves.
Within the hour a tall, dark-haired, black-moustached man sent in his name to Mrs. Anstruther as one of the Daily Post's reporters.
It was Captain Anstruther who came down into the lounge instead.