FIFTEEN

Appleton had crossed by the noon boat from Victoria, and gone on down to Mentone by air. That meant that he would have arrived last night. Pointer rang up the town police, and learned that rooms had been engaged for Ingram’s brother-in-law at a comfortable but highly-expensive hotel there. He drove on out to it, along the beautiful Grand Corniche. The colors of sea and sky, the turns and twists of the road, are things of real loveliness. Mentone itself looked the usual arid desert of a Riviera town in the summer. And indeed, even in the winter its flowers and verdure are the result of money and art, not nature. Nature refuses to let even vegetables grow here, nor any fruit but the olive. In winter, when the mimosa and the heliotropes run from end to end of the main street, Mentone has its visitors who love its sunshine and its flowers, but in summer, like Beausoleil, it is merely a respectable name for Monte Carlo from which it is separated by but some ten minutes in the tram.

Pointer drew up at the handsome Palace Hotel. There is no fault to be found with the big hotels of the Riviera, provided you like that kind of thing. Not Arnold Bennett himself could have suggested better plumbing or bigger crowds. The chief inspector loathed them, but then his idea of comfort was an old, well-kept, quiet English inn, with cooking that can beat that of any other country in the world when at its simple best.

He arrived too early for even a French lunch, but the maître d’hôtel who used to be at Ciro’s remembered him, and gave him the inevitable omelette and poulet en casserole in the big restaurant. Pointer questioned him about Mr. Appleton. The maître d’hôtel smiled. He would not be up for another four hours or so. “Look at that!” He indicated a table at the other end still littered with champagne corks. “The result of last night. At Monte Carlo they draped a table in the roulette room with black. Oh, yes, he broke the bank twice. Not difficult to do these days, you think? Still, he did it. Twice. Mr. Tark? Oh, yes, I know Mr. Tark quite well. Apart from his father—quite apart. He used to play incessantly, and with fair luck. He had one of these systems which do quite well if you do not force them. Losses and gains about equal. They have not seen him at the rooms for some time, they tell me, until last night.” He went on to say that Mr. Tark had, in common with about twenty other people, had a sort of celebration supper with Mr. Appleton last night. They appeared to be but the merest of acquaintances. Mr. Tark, like the other guests at the supper, had followed Mr. Appleton’s lead with, as a rule, great success.

Pointer drank his coffee and then took the little tram with its sensible division of first and second class on up to Monte Carlo. There are many things claimed for Monte Carlo which it is not, but it has an outstanding virtue, it is one of the cleanest towns in existence. When it rains, which it does more often than the papers will reveal, torrents of clear water rush down its streets like mountain rivulets, and add a charm of their own to the steep slopes.

At the Casino, he had a word with the head croupier who happened to be up, owing to the necessity of a visit to his dentist. He was a tall thin man with a white puffy face, and the curiously dead eyes of his profession, eyes which yet miss nothing.

“Yes, Mr. Appleton had won a great deal last night. He had played a new system, and it had worked. For that one evening,” the head croupier added with a faint smile. “There are many such.”

“Mr. Tark?”

“He had mostly followed Mr. Appleton’s lead.”

“Did they talk together?”

Not as far as the man knew. Both were well known in Monte Carlo. Mr. Tark lived at Beausoleil, of course, but he was never far from the tables for long. Mr. Appleton only came to Monte Carlo for about a fortnight each year. He used to play quite high, but of late years his stakes, and therefore his losses, had been slight. Last night he, the head croupier, had noticed only one oddity. Whenever Mr. Appleton lost, he had staked much smaller sums than when he won. That might, of course, mean nothing.

On the whole, Mr. Appleton had won four times out of six. Any good system would show the same results, provided the player had a run of luck. Tonight or tomorrow the money won would be sure to return to the Casino, probably with interest. Yes, the bank had been broken twice, which, as Pointer knew, only meant that that particular table had run out of its reserves of money. The usual farce of draping it in black, and sending for more money, which was brought in by a guard was gone through. It was a good advertisement. The head croupier shrugged. And in these days, parbleu, one needed advertisement.

Pointer put on his war paint that evening, and presented himself at the glittering palace of pleasure on the rocks which at night seemed built all of moonbeams and dewdrops and ivory. Lit up inside as superbly as outside, thronged with gorgeous flunkeys, it is still a spectacle to be seen, though the days of incredible toilettes are gone and makeshift evening frocks on very dowdy looking bodies abounded. There are seven hundred rooms in the huge building, though quite a quarter of these are secret little cupboards where, through artfully concealed openings, members of the brigade de jeu—the Casino’s private detective force—can watch all that goes on.

One of these was put at Pointer’s disposal. Inside he seemed to be separated from the roulette tables by a mere white grating. From the gaming room itself, nothing showed but rich paneled walls of stucco and plaster wreaths and flowers in very high relief. It was skilfully done. Pointer watched the garish scene. Appleton came in rather early. His step was jaunty, his head thrown back, his shoulders well squared. He had all the effect of a man with flowing evening-cloak and hat well on the side of his head. He sat down in a chair with almost a bang, and produced a notebook with something of a conjurer’s flourish. Then he began to play. Tark was not far behind him, wooden faced, quiet, but as he looked around him Pointer realized that he was looking at a man whose only avenue of life was gambling. Only here, in scenes like this, did Tark really exist. He seemed to belong to the tables as some men belong to the fields, some to the towns, and some, Pointer among them, to the open spaces. Watching the two men, Pointer felt sure that they were not acting together. On the contrary, he had an idea from something that flitted across Appleton’s face once or twice when he staked and lost, that he was amused. Tark was not. As a rule Appleton won, and Tark, following him, won too, but once when Appleton staked the maximum in the maximum ways, and Tark had followed suit, Appleton at the last fraction of a second altered his stake. Tark looked black murder down at the other’s well-groomed head. His eyes for once showed his feelings. That time Appleton smiled openly. A swift grin of intense amusement. Watching him make his entries and calculations, Pointer saw that Appleton knew beforehand when he was going to lose. He had a chart by which he was steering. Tark knew it too, and all but showed his teeth each time that he, following, was led astray—deliberately astray. But outwardly there was no communication between the two players.

Again the bank was broken. Again the usual ritual followed of draping the table in crape, of bringing in great boxes of bundles of notes. The head croupier hovered about, but no one was much interested except those who were following Appleton. Pointer kept a careful tally of the man’s winnings. In all he put them at around fifteen hundred pounds when he finally rose and let another have his seat. Tark stayed for a couple of chances, and lost, then he too went down to the station. Appleton was already in a compartment, Pointer bundled himself in, bearded and muffled and bespectacled. He drew out some Russian papers and seemed to lose himself in them as he took the farthest corner from Appleton. At the last second Tark jumped in, stumbled over a pair of elastic-sided boots thrust out, and apologized curtly. Pointer shrieked something in Russian, and nursed his toe, spluttering that he did not understand when Tark tossed him another negligent apology. Then he buried himself in his newspaper again.

“How much was it?” Tark asked, “we may as well divide up now. Tolstoi over there doesn’t matter.”

“Just over fifteen hundred of our money,” Appleton replied, looking as though the words hurt him.

Tark gave a grunt of acquiescence. Evidently he too had made it that.

“Why did you stop playing?” he asked in a tone as though he had a right to an answer.

“Better so,” was the reply. “Arouses less comment. Less risk of articles in the papers. Well, here’s your half.” And may it choke you was suggested by his voice as he handed over a thick wad of notes which Tark went through carefully, before stowing them away in an inner pocket with the briefest of acknowledgments.

“You led me up the garden now and again,” he grumbled as he did so.

“I told you I would!” was the retort, and Appleton took up a paper and seemed to forget his companion.

The next evening Appleton did not play quite so long. But he again won over a thousand pounds. The fourth evening he won over two thousand, and this time the head croupier had himself taken the table after Appleton began to play. The man’s eyes never left Appleton or Tark. Suddenly Pointer caught sight of Mrs. Appleton in the thick crowd around the table. He knew that she had left for Paris. That there she had taken a ticket to Mentone. Pointer, therefore, expected to see her here tonight. She stood, a pale tired-looking woman where she could watch her husband’s play, and not even the head croupier followed it more intently. Pointer had arranged with a member of the brigade de jeu to take his place if need be, and now he slipped out and drove back to Appleton’s hotel in Mentone. He himself was staying at Monte Carlo. He wanted a certain corner in Appleton’s little suite, one of the usual hotel arrangements, where a sofa was backed across the angle of two walls by a four-fold screen. For he had promptly inspected the rooms with the aid of a card from the Monte Carlo head detective, since showing which, he was allowed to do what he liked in Appleton’s rooms. Just now, this was to insinuate a chair into one of the two bays made by the screen, draw it around him again, and wait. He might have an all night’s vigil, but he thought not. There was that in Mrs. Appleton’s face which would need privacy, he thought, to be spoken. What happened at the Casino after he left, he learned later. Mrs. Appleton got near enough to her husband to touch him on the shoulder. He looked up, and smiled a pale sort of greeting—very forced, very surprised apparently at sight of her. She only stared down at him with unsmiling eyes.

She bent forward as though to say something and Appleton rose at once. “Not here! Come with me to my hotel. I’ll take the tram since you’re always frightened of taxis abroad.” He got up and lead the way out, those around smiling at what they fancied was the meek husband detected by his puritanical wife. “She’ll be all right when she hears that he has won!” one man said cynically as he slipped into the vacated chair.

Tark, as Appleton afterwards learned, took a taxi to the Appleton’s hotel, asked for him, was told that he was at Monte Carlo, showed a card of Appleton’s on which was scribbled in what certainly looked like Appleton’s writing, “Permit the bearer to wait for me in my room,” showed it to the floor waiter, and had the suite unlocked for him at once.

Tark gave but a glance around the apartment. Pointer knew what was coming. Straight towards his screen refuge came Tark. Fortunately Pointer had taken the farther bay, just on some such off-chance as this. Tark drew out the sofa, slipped into hiding, and was just moving back the end of the screen against the wall on his side when the creak of the lift and steps sounded outside. He left the sofa’s end where it was.

But the two people who entered together had no eye for the position of the furniture. Had the men hidden in the corner stood out in the middle of the room, they might have escaped notice.

Appleton shut the door behind himself and his wife and then turned to her quickly.

“Sit down and let me explain things——”

“No, no!” She shrank away from him against a table. “I don’t want a confession. I only came on here with you to tell you that if you play again I shall go straight to the chief inspector. He knows, I feel sure, that I searched Charles’ writing-room at The Tall House. And I think he guesses that I was trying to make sure whether you had left any of your cigarette ends or ash about. Oh, Edward, that you, you should have done such a thing.” Anguish was in face and voice. “No, don’t try to lie to me. You were never a good liar. And I know that what I’m saying is the truth. God help us all. God help Jackie and Bill.”

“You’re wrong——“ he burst out imperiously, but she only shook a shuddering head and would not let him finish.

“Oh, don’t pretend to me! I’ve known it, feared it, from the first. I who knew how wild you were to get his system. Remember, I heard you, and that dreadful man Tark, talking about it once. Oh, yes, I know that you told him that Charles might let a stranger try it out, where he wouldn’t you, just because he knew what a dangerous gift it would be.”

“Tark may have shot Charles,” Appleton said, very white and set of face, “but I didn’t, Ada. I know he got himself asked to The Tall House on purpose to get to know Charles better.”

“He tipped Mr. Haliburton overboard probably for that reason,” she threw in scornfully, “but it’s you, not he, who is playing a system. You’ve got the paper, not he. Now listen, as I said, I don’t want a confession from you, but I swear that you shan’t profit by my brother’s murder. If you play again, I shall give you in charge. I’ll tell Chief Inspector Pointer the whole truth. How you badgered Charles for years since he let drop that unfortunate remark that he had devised a system that really was infallible. How he always refused to let you or anyone try it out, because he knew where it would lead. Or no, he didn’t. He never thought that it would lead to his own death. Oh, Edward, to what depths have you sunk! To what depths!”

Appleton had had perforce to let her rave on. Something in her face said that to silence her you would have had to gag her. These words were too dammed up to stay behind locked lips any longer. But for the moment she was spent. She leaned against the table behind her, her hands now over her face.

“I see I must go into something I’d rather not speak of. No, you shall listen!” He towered over her. “You shall hear me out. I went to Charles that last night because—“ his face twitched—“because we’re ruined, Ada. Ruined. I’ve let my brokers keep my securities for me, as you know. They’re bonds. Well, Graves pledged them with others to his bank to secure an advance to himself. He’s gone smash.”

Pointer knew of the big crash of Farral and Graves about a fortnight ago. Graves had shot himself, and many a man and woman wished that he had done it sooner.

“He’s gone smash,” Appleton repeated, “and now the bank, his bank, won’t part with my bonds. My solicitors tell me that I can’t force them to do so. Yet they talk of our Justice and our Law! We haven’t a penny except the three hundred in the bank that I always keep for emergencies, and your two hundred which you have there for the same reason. Got that clear?”

“I don’t care for your reasons—I don’t want to hear them.” She almost moaned the words. “I don’t want to know the steps which led you down to Hell. But you did go down them. And you shall never touch the children or me again. Never. Nor shall you profit by your crime. Keep if you want to—“ her lip curled—“the blood money you’ve won up to now. But enter a gaming place again, and let me hear of it, and you’ll hang!”

“Will you listen!” roared Appleton, and by sheer volume of sound silenced her. “I was told, perhaps worry aggravated it, that I’ve got to have a major operation, yes, that old tumor again, within six months. The fees will run into a thousand pounds with Sir Rankin Rowbottom as surgeon, and he’s the only man who can do it and give me a chance of surviving. Well, I caught Charles just as he was on his way back to The Tall House. Earlier in the evening he had told me that he wouldn’t have a moment’s time until midnight. There was something he had to finish and get off by twelve, to catch the midnight post. Well, I walked about, wondering how best to put it to him, wondering what would happen to you and the kids if he wouldn’t let me have a try at that system. You see, no loan would help. It would have to be that system of his, or we were all beggars for the rest of our lives, though in my case the rest would only be a couple of years, but they would be years of increasing agony. I went home once, thinking I would try again next morning But I didn’t come in. I turned around with my key in the door and went back.”

“I heard you,” she said in a whisper. “I heard your step—your key—and your going away again.”

“I caught a bus and by chance spied Charles just turning a corner close to that furnished house. I joined him, and we went back into the library there and had a long talk. I told him everything. I didn’t want a loan. I wanted that system. In the end he handed it to me. I swear by God, I swear by Jacky and Bill, and my love for you, Ada, that I’m telling you the exact truth He saw what an awful place we were all in. He got up, unlocked a despatch box beside him, took out an envelope from the bottom, and handed it me. ‘There you are. You’ve won—and you’ll go on winning,’ were his exact words. Then he added, ‘I didn’t think I could reconcile it with my conscience to hand that to any man, let alone to Ada’s husband, but I give it you on one condition.’ He made me give him my word of honor that if a casino offered to buy me off—as he said they certainly would—I would accept their offer, provided it was a reasonable one. He thought that Monte Carlo would offer me an annuity of two thousand a year for it. And the other big places even more. I had to promise that, and I did so gladly. Well, I went home as happy as a boy. I know what you felt about gambling-money, so I decided—Charles and I had decided that together—to say nothing about it...Then came the news of his dreadful end. I saw that you didn’t think it an accident. I saw that you suspected me——”

“For the last month, Edward, you’ve talked in your sleep of getting that system. Over and over you would mutter that ‘I must have it. He must give it me. It’ll save us. I’ve a right to it...’” She panted the words rather than spoke them.

“I didn’t kill Charles, but I was—afraid—of you—of the police—of the whole position. Then Tark accused me of murdering him for that paper. He offered to keep silence for a half share in all profits. It’s my belief that if anyone murdered Charles, if it wasn’t an accident, then it was Tark, before he knew that Charles had already given the system away. He guessed to whom then, because we had talked it over together. Oh, I knew Tark by sight as well as he knew me. You can’t live at the Casino rooms as both of us did, without knowing one another perfectly by sight. But it was from Fred that he learned about the system. So he says.”

“But you were the two who plotted to get hold of it,” she said fiercely, accusingly.

“We talked of how to get it—of course we did. Once we knew of its existence. And as you know I thought he might give me a chance...Charles was so afraid I would turn into a desperate gambler....I didn’t think he’d care so much whether Tark did or not. The chap only lives for gambling anyway...When he saw his chance of pretending to me that he thought I had shot Charles, I gave in...there was nothing else for it...And now, I swear again, Ada, that I’ve told you the exact truth. Look at me, look into my face, my darling. Surely you can read the truth there.”

She fixed a haggard, intent stare on him, she half-stretched out one hand, the other now tight pressed against her heart.

“Oh Edward, if only I could! I might, if you’ll destroy—at once—that awful paper——”

Tark came out from behind his end of the screen. Mrs. Appleton gave a little cry. Appleton seemed toe amazed even to gasp.

“Didn’t know I was here, did you?” Tark said in his harsh, level voice. “Mrs. Appleton, I can’t stand silent and see such a lie pass. Your intuition or suspicion was right. He shot your brother. I happened to see him at The Tall House, but until afterwards I didn’t reflect just what it was he was at. No, Appleton, it’s no use. I won’t stand for it. You know that you shot Ingram, and unless you hand me his system—the right one, mind you—not the one we spoofed off Fred with, I shall go myself to the police. If you think it’s worthwhile swinging for, keep it!” And Tark seated himself on the arm of a chair.

“How dare you repeat your lying accusation to me in front of my wife!” Appleton looked the outraged husband to the life.

Tark gave one of his short hard cackles. “Mrs. Appleton will be called as a witness against you, unless you’re careful. I agree with her that it’s a foul thing to kill her brother and use that money. Hand it over to me. I wanted to buy it from Ingram, as you know, not to murder him for it. You said that you thought you could get it without paying for it, if I’d put up five hundred to try it out with. Well, I got the money, and you got the system.” His last words were full of meaning. “And now, hand me over that paper,” he went on, his words suddenly cold and steel hard.

“Don’t let him have it!” came from Mrs. Appleton. Her eyes were alight. She was quite undaunted now. “Never mind what happens. Burn it!”

“I haven’t got it with me, Ada.” He ignored Tark. Something in his face and eye suggested that there was no Tark, that it only lay between himself and his wife. His hand went to an inner pocket...

“You’ve got the copy,” came Tark’s hard voice. “I want that copy. Hand it over! Dare to go near those matches——“ His body seemed to thicken, he was ready for a spring when Pointer stepped out from the remaining pocket of the screen. It was purest vaudeville, but no one in the room smiled. Pointer counted roughly on the surprise of his sudden appearance giving him just time to snatch a paper from Appleton’s fingers. The man, with an ashen face, made a clutch at his hand.

“How dare you! You have no right whatever to be here...to take that. It’s mine. Return it at once, or...” He choked.

“Or what?” Pointer asked coldly.

“Keep it!” Mrs. Appleton said suddenly, and her face looked younger and, in some deep way happier, than Pointer had yet seen it. “Keep it, chief inspector. My husband told us the truth as to how he got it. It is honestly his. Keep it for the time being. I lend it you—he lends it you on condition that you clear up my brother’s murder, if it was one!”

“Bring it home to your husband!” sneered Tark. His eyes showed a curious red. Rather strange eyes had Tark. He looked a man most eminently capable of murder as he stood there, his thin small lips stretched away from his teeth in a sort of snarl.

Pointer turned to Mrs. Appleton. Her eyes, resolute and unwavering, met his. The two talked without words in a long look. He saw that she really did believe in her husband, that she was sure at last of his innocence, and that she was willing for him to run the terrible danger of being accused of her brother’s murder, if need be.

But Appleton looked shrunken and withered. She crossed to him, and stood shoulder to shoulder beside him.

“Just what did you mean, Mr. Tark, when you said that you didn’t know what he was at, when you saw him at The Tall House the night on which Mr. Ingram was shot?” Pointer asked. He dominated the room, as he usually did any room where he was. Tark shot him one glance from his calculating eyes that had now grown cold again, and answered promptly.

“I saw him in Gilmour’s room when I went to my own—around one o’clock at night—doing something to the drawer by the door, just putting something back into it to be precise. Putting back the case that held the automatic with which Ingram was shot a couple of hours later.”

“It’s a lie!” burst from Appleton in tones of indignant horror and outraged truth. But the trouble was that, being a good actor, Appleton could assume that look and tone at will. Mrs. Appleton turned her head, gave her husband one look, and then turned away, her own face serene and tranquil.

“Is it? I think not!” came Tark’s reply. If a liar, Tark was quite as good an actor as Appleton had ever been. “It’s true. And you know it. And your wife knows it. Well, you’ve failed to pull it off. And now, I think I’ll go home.”

“What about being arrested as an accessory, Mr. Tark?” was Pointer’s inquiry. “If you conceal information in a murder case——”

“In a murder case—yes. But this was not openly that,” was the retort. “The coroner’s jury brought it in as Death by Misadventure. How was I to guess the truth that Appleton was the real murderer?”

“Why else did I go halves with you but because you blackmailed me into doing it?” Appleton asked indignantly. “I agreed, because I needed the money and at once, and must at all costs avoid trouble. But make no mistake. Don’t think that if I go to prison I won’t take you with me, and if it comes to the rope—then to the drop with me.” He spoke resolutely. Tark only lit a cigarette.

“Empty words! You murdered your brother-in-law, not I. I believed your account of the handing over by him to you of the system, and only offered to find the money with which to try it out. Naturally that being the case, I asked for half shares. I hoped, as I say, that Ingram would have sold it to me, but he was evidently not in need of money. You took a simpler and swifter way of getting what you wanted.”

“Why were you hiding in this room?” came from Appleton.

“Because I rather thought your wife might want you to give up the system. That she knew the truth. I which case, I wanted it.”

Pointer interposed. “And now, Mrs. Appleton, and you two gentlemen, I would like you to return to England.”

Tark stiffened.

“You see,” the chief inspector went on, “I particularly want to avoid any scandal, any calling in of the French police, and that can only be, if you all three voluntarily return to England, and stay there till things are clearer.”

Tark looked for an instant as though he would demur but he thought better of it and when asked for his prospective address gave his former hotel. The Appletons would return to Markham Square, they said, and there place themselves unreservedly at the service of the chief inspector. One of Pointer’s men in plain clothes would accompany them. Inspector Watts was staying at a quiet hotel ready for just such a duty. That done, the oddly assembled little group broke up.

Pointer waited until Appleton came back after seeing his wife off to her hotel. He had a long wait, but he counted rightly on the fact that Mrs. Appleton was too worn out to be capable of any further long conversations without a rest. At length her husband, looking some ten years older, returned alone and entered his sitting-room heavily, a night waiter carrying a tray following him. Pointer expected a protest at his own presence but on the contrary Appleton looked relieved. He offered the other a whisky and soda, which was refused, and helped himself, drinking as a man does who needs the stimulant.

“There’s something been burning me all the time,” chief inspector,” Appleton began as he set the glass down. “About my brother-in-law. I tried to give you a hint that I thought his death wasn’t accidental, but I was reluctant to mention his system. I was afraid that at the best I should get no chance of playing it, if I did, and at the worst, well, that what my wife thought would be your first idea. And one hears so often that what a detective thinks first he thinks all the time, that——“ Appleton shrugged his shoulders and poured another drink. “There is something that I knew all along I ought to tell you—it’s this. Ingram had had a fearful shock. He wasn’t himself in the least. Which was one of the reasons why he let me have that system so easily. He was very pale and...I can’t give you particulars, but his whole appearance, as well as manner, suggested a man who was fairly reeling under some blow.

“Now that had not been the case when I looked in and wanted a word with him before midnight. Nor was it the case when I met him on his way back from the post. Both times he was exactly himself, in looks and in manner. When we entered he didn’t take me into the library, but into a little room by the door, a room which Tark and I used to signal to each other from, by the way—oh, just an arrangement of a signal each was to make to the other through the window should either of us have got the system—but to go back to Charles...He left me there for a moment, saying that he had a few papers he must see to before our talk, said he wouldn’t keep me more than a minute....It was quite ten minutes before he came in and when he did, as I say, he was a changed man. However he led me into the library, though I think he had to force himself to take any interest in what I wanted to say, didn’t ask me to have a drink, or a smoke, just stood by the fire staring at me from a white and rather ghastly face. But I couldn’t afford to put off what I had to say...well, the rest I’ve told you...but even when we parted he looked just the same—a man who had had an awful blow, I thought.”

“You don’t think so now?” Pointer asked, in answer to his tone, rather than his words.

“Oh, I do still. But I’m afraid now that his shock was connected with what happened so soon afterwards. Whether he had caught sight of his murderer...and knew he was in danger...whether he had received the traditional warning dear to old-fashioned novelists • ..something of that sort was the cause of his appearance and absolute inability to really care for what I was telling him...”

“Had anything been burned in the hearth?” Pointer asked.

“Yes, papers. They were still smoking, but Charles said that he had burned the draft of the papers he had just posted, and he was a man who never told a lie.”

“Do you mind telling me how he came to say that to you? Did you ask him what the papers were?”

“Certainly not.” Appleton looked surprised at the question.

“Then did he go out of his way to tell you what they were?” Pointer persisted, and Appleton now saw the reason for the question.

“Now you ask me, he did. And now you’ve made me think of it, that wasn’t at all his way. Excusing himself, explaining himself.”

“I suppose you couldn’t see what the papers had been? I consider this may be an important point, Mr. Appleton. You might have watched them smoking quite idly and without noticing them consciously, and yet, on reflection, you might be able to tell me now if they were letters, or printed papers, or bills...

“The topmost paper looked like a letter. It was a sheet of the letter paper from the house that he himself used.”

“Did Mr. Tark use it?”

“Certainly.”

“And Mr. Frederick Ingram?”

Appleton nodded. “Yes, it was the house paper, with the headed address and telephone number and so on on it. Everyone stopping in the house would use it, I fancy.”

“You couldn’t see anything of the handwriting? Or whether it was in consecutive lines and so on?”

Appleton thought a moment and shook his head. “It was curled over, blank side up...underneath were other papers, quite a stack, I fancy, but of manuscript. All torn up small. The top sheet, evidently his covering letter draft, was a whole sheet.”

“Could you see whether there was any margin or not to the writing?” Pointer persisted. “Even when turned blank side up, if still burning, you might have noticed that, the very fire might cause the writing to show as writing—”

“There was no margin,” Appleton said slowly. “No, I recall that now.”

“Mr. Ingram left a wide margin on the letters I’ve seen of his.”

“Always. Yes, that’s odd. I’ve never known him to write from edge to edge as was done on that sheet. Yet it was a letter...I mean there was the usual short first line and the usual two very short last lines, one of conventional closing, and one a signature ..Appleton was trying to picture again what he had seen without interest so short a time ago.

“Two lines, not three?” Pointer asked. “For a very formal, or a business note, would be likely to have three, including the signature.”

“By jove, now you’ve made me think back so closely, I don’t believe it was Ingram’s writing at all,” Appleton said without replying to the question just put. “No, it was all over the page...and the signature was very short...Charles always had a long signature. His middle name was Augustus and he used it in signing, so that Charles Augustus Ingram made quite a little strip of letters on a page. Yet he told me he was burning the draft of what he had just sent off...”

More than this he had not seen, or could not recall. Again Pointer took him over each little item. Appleton changed nothing, and added nothing, except his growing conviction that the letter flung last of all on the torn-up scraps of white manuscript paper must have been a warning of his coming death.

Before returning to his own room Pointer went for a long walk. He wanted to think. First of all, there was the question as to whether Tark or Appleton could be the solution to The Tall House puzzle. Either or both might be, and yet...if so, it was a much simpler affair than he had fancied it...Putting aside all that had just been told him, for it was told him by a very suspect man, a man who might easily be the criminal himself, there was still the posting of that letter or package of manuscript...the last fitted in with the idea of ciphers...No one had so far acknowledged the receipt of a communication of any kind from the dead man, though the coroner had asked the public to do so. If Appleton’s account was to be trusted, the way his brother-in-law had spoken beforehand about wanting to catch the midnight post suggested a man doing an accustomed thing...knowing just what post would be in time...Here fitted possibly the quarterly payments of a thousand pounds, a very large sum for a man to have without any note as to the services paid so liberally.

Judging by his well-known mode of life those services must have been written ones. Again came the notion of cipher reading or compilation. But Pointer could not see why, if so, the police had not been confidentially informed of the fact...some foreign power? Some distant business house? But if Ingram was earning four thousand a year, his services must be important; his death, published in the papers, must have been wirelessed or cabled, whether in one of his own codes or not to his employer...yet nothing had been heard in reply...

Well, much would depend on that search for a missing man—or a missing woman—whose disappearance the chief inspector thought might still be the shorten cut to clear up Ingram’s murder, supposing it to have been a murder. As to the system being the motive, that was quite possible. In fact, but for the posting of some thing of which the registration slip was missing, Pointer would be quite willing to accept it as the motive. Appleton assured him that only four people besides its author knew of the existence of Ingram’s system: himself, his wife, Fred Ingram and Tark. Appleton was quite sure of this. He himself had imparted the information to the last-named, and Ingram had told them, when speaking of it, that only they to whom he was talking knew of such a paper. Yes, the system did provide an adequate motive...Appleton’s account of the change in Ingram on his return might be connected with that mysterious person of the post-office robbery...Appleton had joined Ingram some time after he had left the neighborhood of the attempt and of the escape, but Pointer thought there was a simpler explanation of Ingram’s state of mind as described by his brother-in-law. He was going to test this explanation as soon as possible and in doing so a part at least of Appleton’s account.