For some moments silence reigned in the luxuriously-furnished room. French, always suspicious, surreptitiously watched his new acquaintance, but he had to admit that he could discern none of the customary signs of guilt. But he reminded himself that you never knew, and determined that unless he was completely satisfied by the coming reply, he would make an investigation into Colonel FitzGeorge’s movements on the night of the murder.
“I believe,” said the Colonel suddenly, “I know where I got those notes. I am not by any means certain, but I think I can tell you. Unless I am very much mistaken, it was from the manager of the Hotel Beau-Sejour in Chamonix.”
“Chamonix?” French repeated in surprise. This was by no means what he had expected to hear.
“Yes. I have been for the last six weeks in Switzerland and Savoy, and two days ago, on last Tuesday afternoon, to be exact, I left Chamonix. I caught the night train from Geneva, was in Paris next morning, and reached Charing Cross yesterday, Wednesday, afternoon. To-day I went through my correspondence, and after lunch took in my dividends and some spare cash to lodge in the bank.”
“And the two ten-pound notes, sir?”
“The two ten-pound notes, as I say, I believe I received at the Chamonix hotel. I found I had to return home sooner than I had intended, and as I was leaving the country I wanted to change back all but a small amount of my foreign money. It was convenient to do it at the hotel, and besides, you can’t always be sure of getting enough change at Calais or on the boat. I asked the manager of the Beau-Sejour to give me English money for my francs, and he did so at once.”
“Why do you think these particular notes were handed over by him?”
“He paid me in ten-pound notes only. He gave me five of them—I changed fifty pounds’ worth of francs altogether. It is true that I had some other English notes, and there were some at home here, but so far as I can remember, there were no tens among them—only fives and Treasury notes.”
With this, French had to be content. Though he asked many other questions he could learn nothing further to help him. But on the pretext that the notes might have been received at some other place, he obtained a note of the Colonel’s itinerary while abroad. According to this, it appeared that on the night of Charles Gething’s murder, the traveller had slept in the Bellevue Hotel at Kandersteg, prior to walking over the Gemmi Pass on the following day. This French noted as a point capable of being checked, should checking become desirable.
He had kept his taxi, and after a little trouble he found the address of the teller of the City of London Bank, and paid him a late call. But from him he learnt nothing new, except that the man seemed much more certain that Colonel FitzGeorge had really handed in the notes than the letter of his manager had led French to believe. He admitted that he was relying on memory alone, but said he had checked over his money just before the Colonel’s visit, and he was positive the stolen notes were not then there.