Mr. Sharrow looked at her with concern.
“Forgive me,” he said impulsively, “for asking you all these questions; but Ponting has a mother out there, and you know she’ll want to hear everything.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” said Lily. “I was going down to church yesterday morning, and I rather foolishly tried to find a short cut, and—and—quite suddenly I saw an arm stretched across my path”—she stopped, overwhelmed with the recollection. “I saw something gleaming—it was Mr. Ponting’s bangle!”
“Yes,” interjected M. Popeau. “If your theory is correct, sir, why did the thieves leave this bracelet?”
“They took everything else,” said Mr. Sharrow shortly. “Luckily, he hadn’t much on him—perhaps thirty or forty pounds. But he had certain identification papers—a passport, and so on. They also disappeared. All that was left was the bangle, and his watch and chain. I don’t suppose altogether they were worth five pounds. The watch was only a plain silver watch, but he had worn it through all his fighting, and he was fond of it. He told me once he wouldn’t exchange it for the finest gold chronometer that was ever made.”
Mr. Sharrow’s voice became charged with emotion. “I dare say you gathered that he was a rough diamond, Miss Fairfield? But he was a thoroughly good chap, a splendid man, straight as a die, and generous—one of the most generous chaps I ever met!”
“Yes,” said Lily slowly, “I know that. He tried to make me accept a beautiful little gold snuff-box he had bought, out of kindness, from a poor old lady who had lost her money at the tables.”
“You never told me that,” said M. Popeau, surprised. “Have you got the box?”
Lily shook her head. “Oh, no. I couldn’t take such a valuable present from a stranger.”
“Then that was also included in the haul the thieves made?” exclaimed Mr. Sharrow. “But I’m very glad I’ve heard about that box, for it might help to catch Ponting’s murderers. It’s just a chance, to tell you the truth, that they didn’t make a much bigger haul. Ponting was an eccentric chap in some ways—the sort of man who doesn’t trust banks. As a rule he carried about with him a very big sum. But on that very day—the day, I mean, that he was killed—I got him to deposit the kind of satchel thing in which he kept his money in the safe of the hotel where he and I were staying at Nice. The manager there has hit on the rather clever idea of having a number of little safes, which he lets out at five francs a day. I persuaded Ponting that it would be very much safer to leave his securities—for part of the money was in what they call ‘bonds to bearer’—there. It was insane to come every day, as he used to do, to a place like Monte Carlo with all that money on him.”