The adjourned inquest was duly held. Mr. Beale did not appear, but the evidence against Carter, alias Cox, was given by Pointer and Watts, as well as by the Enterprise manager and employés. Carter's photograph was identified by the Marvel Hotel as that of Cox. There was the motive as shown in Erskine's will, the purchase by him of the medicine—the vehicle in which the poison was given—there was Carter's flight and silence, and, lastly, his desperate effort in Brussels to throw any pursuer off his track. There were the mud marks on the balcony, and the wax vestas.
A verdict was brought in against the Canadian for the murder of his partner, and his portrait was published in the papers, so that all honest men could be on the watch for him. But Pointer was not satisfied.
“I wonder if the whole investigation is on the wrong line—whether the points have been missed somewhere, but where?” He asked O'Connor, who only shook his head in silence, and left his friend to sit up smoking and thinking long after he himself had gone to bed.
From the Brussels police came the news that they had not been able to discover any trace of Green, but that Beale had gone to Lille, and so was out of their jurisdiction. Watts was despatched post-haste to the French town to pick up the American's trail, but before he came on it a wire reached Pointer from the Editor himself.
“Located Green-Carter. Come immediately.”
Pointer crossed that night. He had a little talk with a Frenchman in plain clothes who seemed to be expecting him at the station before Lille, and, descending on the platform of that prosperous town, was met by the impatient Mr. Beale and by Watts.
“I thought you would never get here. Train's an hour late. He's staying in a room in the Rue Sentier near here under the name of Thompson. He's out just now, and we can wait for him there. The maid thinks I'm a friend of his.”
The Chief Inspector nodded briefly and followed Mr. Beale to a corner shop in a quiet street. A side entrance took them up a flight of stairs to the first floor. Here beside the door of a flat was another smaller one.
“That's his room.” Mr. Beale rang the bell of the larger door.
A French woman opened. Mr. Beale asked for his friend. Mr. Thompson was out again, he was informed, but he would be in shortly. If messieurs his friends cared to wait she would unlock the door for them. She smilingly inserted a key. Pointer thought that the American made as if to shut the door behind him a trifle quickly, but the maid came on into the room and altered a chair.