Carter shook his head.
The police finished their work, and in silence, arm in arm, like the best of friends, the three walked to the station in plenty of time to catch the Calais express. Pointer left Mr. Beale and Watts to sit beside Carter in the reserved compartment Mr. Beale had ordered, and went off to have a cup of coffee. A man selling postcards approached him and saluted with an odd little jerk. The Englishman glanced over his wares and picked out two. “Can you put them in an envelope for me?”
“But yes, monsieur, but yes,” and the man slipped the cards into one and passed on. Outside the café the Chief Inspector drew out a sheet of thin paper. It was a record of Mr. Beale's movements from the time he left Carter's room. “X went from Rue Sentier to the post. Sent telegram to ‘M. Garnier, Notaire, Rue Bizet, Genève’: ‘Series accepted. Editor.’ After that, X lounged the time away till he joined you at the station.”
Pointer wired to Geneva for full particulars as to M. Garnier, and took his seat in the train. Carter would be tried first in London for the murder of Erskine, and, if acquitted, would be sent to Canada to stand his trial there for embezzlement and, doubtless, robbery. The young man seemed quite conscious of his position. For the most part he sat with his eyes closed, only the tense look of his jaw and the pulse hammering in his temples showing that he was not asleep. As for Mr. Beale, Pointer would have gladly dispensed with his company, for there was a gloating triumph in the American's whole attitude which seemed to the police-officer positively indecent.
Back at the Yard, where he reported at once to the Assistant-Commissioner, he found a cable identifying the photographs of both Robert Erskine and John Carter as that of the two men, respectively, who were wanted under a warrant taken out in New York by the President of the Amalgamated Silk Mills, a huge concern which practically held a monopoly of the silk spinning and weaving industry. Defalcations extending over many years were spoken of, and cooked balance-sheets, but up to the present the exact amount supposed to have been taken by the Toronto manager and his assistant was not known.
The Chief Inspector filed the information, and made his way to his rooms, where, as he hoped, he found another cable, a private one from a friend of his in the Canadian police. It was in answer to a long cable from himself asking him to find out all he could about the warrant for Erskine and Carter. Pointer raised his eyes at its length. Wright was absolutely reckless of expense when he wanted to be clear. The cable read:
“We must stand well with Yank police because of coming Burton affair. Warrant issued New York on Heilbronner's sworn deposition. Heilbronner millionaire chairman of Amalg. Spotty reputation. Warrant gives no facts. Can. police passive. If Carter arrested by Yanks or you, and sent here, proofs of defalcations, etc., will be demanded before Can. police hand him over.”
The Burton affair, as Pointer knew, concerned a murderer who had escaped into the United States and was very much “wanted” in his home. So, like the robberies in which Carter, as Green, was supposed to be implicated, there were no actual proofs of embezzlement made public. Pointer had very little to say that night even to O'Connor, and early next morning visited Carter in his cell. The Canadian had refused as yet to see a lawyer. The long vacation was on, and his case could not come up till the autumn. He seemed sunk in depression. And the case against him was certainly black enough. The screws found in his trunk were the mates of those which fixed the screwed-on panels to the wardrobe. He gave no explanation of them. He gave no explanation of anything, not even of the jewellery, which was to be identified by a couple of American detectives who were coming over on purpose. The Heads at the Yard were quite certain of his guilt on both counts, murder and theft, but the Chief Inspector said as little as possible. He had asked the Canadian to at least help him to trace what might have been wrapped up by Erskine in that strip of green and white paper, but after a second's flash of hope in the accused's sombre eyes he had shaken his head and refused to speak.
Pointer had no sympathy whatever with this kind of an attitude. He considered it not fair to the accused and not fair to the police. It was all very well for his superiors to be so certain of Carter's guilt. When the case came up for trial it was he and not they who would have to pay for any mistake, and apart from this personal consideration, the Chief Inspector had a high standard of fair play, and the idea that he might be a party to injustice was intolerable to him. Not that he by any means thought Carter innocent. As the Canadian would not give any alibi, he apparently had had the opportunity to commit the murder. The will was considered to be an additional motive, besides wanting to get rid of an inconvenient accomplice, but what had Erskine to leave? Mr. Russell had not been able to trace any “available” funds. Yet the dead man would hardly have alluded to a stolen hoard without giving any indications as to where such a hoard might be found.
“And where does Beale come in, and what of the manager, whose back garden you've been digging up so carefully?” O'Connor demanded rhetorically one night, after enduring his friend's silence as long as he could.