One day, when the Chief Inspector had been close on a fortnight away, Carter watched Christine get down from the tram and pass in through the doors of the Galeries Lafayette. They had already said good-bye for another week before boarding the tram at the top of the hill, but he watched her, thinking that there was no gait in the world to touch hers. Christine had decided that new gloves were a necessity even though the question of clothes did not interest her at all in these dark days. While she was trying on a pair, a voice, low and faintly monotonous, spoke to her. It was Mrs. Erskine. She asked Christine to come back to the villa for tea. The girl accepted at once, for she hoped to hear that Pointer after all had been making some fresh discovery, of which the mother had been kept informed. But Mrs. Erskine had nothing to tell her, as she complained during the drive back, and both women lamented the proverbial stupidity of Scotland Yard. The Scotswoman asked Christine to pass on at once into the loggia used for tea on warm days, while she took off her things. The loggia was a pretty spot, with well-placed mirrors duplicating the scenery, and gay with tubs of flowering plants. There were a couple of rows of books running around its three sides, and Christine idly picked up a Paris guide. It belonged, as she saw by the name in it, to Mrs. Clark. A loose sheet of letterpaper fell out as she turned it over. It was the first half-sheet of a letter. Christine's eyes grew larger. It was in Robert's handwriting,—a letter to his mother—a Christmas letter dated four years back. She stiffened. Over and over again she read the words, they were the ones which had disagreeably struck the Chief Inspector in Paris. Christine folded the half-sheet carefully away. Mrs. Erskine had tea alone with her. There was evidently a bridge party going on below. She tried to continue their conversation of the car about the impasse in her son's “case,” but Christine let each question drop until her hostess had had some tea. She was anxious that the shock of what she had to say should not be too much for one whose health was so delicate. When the tea-things had been cleared away, she spoke slowly.
“I have got something I should like to say about Rob's case, but could I talk it over with you in your boudoir? This is such an open place.”
Mrs. Erskine looked at her very keenly. In silence she led the way, and closed the door behind her visitor.
Christine held out the half-sheet of note-paper. “This dropped out of a book of Mrs. Clark's I happened to pick up while waiting for you just now.”
Mrs. Erskine put on her glasses. Her hand went out in a sudden nervous little jerk. “One of my Robert's letters! Oh, let me have it! I thought I had lost them all!”
Christine gauged the mother's affection by the eagerness of the voice and eyes. She had never seen Mrs. Erskine show her heart so clearly, and her own went out warmly to the widowed, childless woman before her. “Mrs. Erskine,” Christine moistened her lips, “there's been a strange mistake somewhere. That looks like a letter from Robert, but it isn't! He never wrote those lines. Never!”
“What?” Mrs. Erskine turned very pale—“what do you mean?” The half-sheet which she held in her hand shook till Christine wondered that it did not rattle.
“You see, I wrote Rob's Christmas letter for him four years ago. He had burnt his hand badly at the mills, and couldn't go anywhere, so that we had a quiet time together, like old times. He dictated a letter to you and I wrote it. Jack can tell you the same thing. Besides, you might have known that Rob couldn't—wouldn't have written like that.”
Mrs. Erskine seemed dazed. “But—but—they were all alike. All his letters were the same. . . . And who's Jack?”
“A friend of mine who used to know Rob well—in Canada. I'm so sorry to've sprung this on you, but you ought to know it, and at least you can comfort yourself with the thought that your son never wrote such horrible letters as you have been thinking all these years. Surely someone with you must have had a motive to intercept your son's letters, and forge others in their stead.”