XV. MARKS OF GILDING ARE FOUND ON A CLOTH

There was a fresh arrangement between the two that Pointer would join Sewell at Friars Halt about an hour later.

Sewell was shown into Colonel Walsh’s study, where he found the Colonel pacing the hearth. Usually the most courteous of men, he gave Sewell the briefest of welcomes before, coming to a stop in face of his visitor and looking at him fixedly, he said, “Arthur went to you as to a sort of diviner, seer, and so on, didn’t he? Well, what do you divine or see, eh?”

“Nothing of the former, sir, and thick fog as to the latter,” Sewell replied frankly.

The Colonel snorted, his head held high, his restless gaze roaming the gardens through the windows.”

“‘Fog,’ eh? I find it clear enough! That unfortunate son of mine, Sewell, married a thorough wrong ‘un; and in my humble opinion he’s well out of it, bad as was the way of his unexpected and madly resented release. That duping of Ann Lovelace’s kind heart—well, could anything be more dastardly?”

Sewell held his own head no less high, however, as he replied, “But, sir, there are two ways of regarding that.”

“The way of common sense and the way of its absence!” snorted the Colonel. “Of course, if you insist, as Arthur does, that if a black thing’s shiny, that proves it’s really white, I have nothing to say.”

“You mean, sir, that you take Miss Lovelace’s first view of that pearl transaction?” Sewell asked with an accent of incredulity.

“Ann Lovelace’s first view was the only intelligent view,” the Colonel barked with a grimace as though he smelled bad fish. “And I say that, whatever caused her death, Arthur’s a lucky man to be rid of a wife like that. Of course, this is confidential, Sewell! But it’s as plain as is the nose on my face.”

Sewell’s only response was to say, “About those pledged pearls, I should tell you that it may possibly be proved that Miss Finch, as Mrs. Walsh was then, had no idea they were expert imitations.”

The Colonel listened with an expression that said, “You poor dupe!” as clearly as words could have said it. But “Indeed?” was his verbal synonym.

“If some still unsuspected person had stolen the real string and deftly substituted a prepared copy, Miss Finch might not have dreamt of either possibility,” Sewell plowed on-sturdily.

“You haven’t seen Arthur just lately, I believe,” the Colonel said without arguing the other’s last postulate. “He’s dreadfully upset. But I think and hope that even he begins to see daylight. Dimly, perhaps, as yet. And, poor chap, he tries to shut his eyes to it. But he’s found out about the money.”

“What money?” Sewell asked blankly.

“The money his fiancée banked from the sale of the string she borrowed on,” the Colonel replied grimly. “She had five pounds-odd in her bank balance a fortnight before the wedding, and one thousand and five pounds-odd exactly a week before it. And the money was paid into her account in hundred-pound notes. That smaller string cost just that, Arthur admits. Just the thousand!”

“How does he himself explain it?” Sewell asked with intense curiosity and much real feeling.

“Oh, he babbles about ‘lucky at cards,’ ‘little scoops at gaming tables’...where she lost four hundred one night she might have won a thousand another night...that sort of stuff! But in his secret heart he must suspect the truth. No, it came from the sale of the smaller string of pearls all right, Sewell. And, even so, mind you, she didn’t offer to refund to Ann Lovelace her loaned four hundred pounds. She let Arthur pay that for her without a whisper of this new money of her own in the bank.”

It was a facer. “I suppose the manager let Arthur know about it?” Sewell asked slowly.

“Yes, Ann thoughtfully suggested that, as Violet, when she had borrowed the money, had spoken ruefully of having only a few pounds left in her bank balance, it would be a pretty idea to bestow it on some charity in Violet’s name. She advised Arthur, for that purpose, to ascertain the exact amount standing to the credit of Violet. He did so, poor fellow, and received this reply. I was in the room when it came; so was Ann. He looked as though something had hit him hard. No wonder! Something had.

“His first doubt of his adored Violet’s innocence. Ann finally got out of him what the trouble was. Women are clever at such things. But here he comes! I’m off! I try not to see him, poor lad, until his senses have somewhat recovered from that stab.” Unlatching the window and stepping through it, the Colonel extended his long legs to a quick march. And Sewell had an, idea that the father cheered himself on with hope of a marriage much more to his liking for his son, and was therefore, on the whole, inclined to think that the murder of Violet Walsh had simplified things.

As for Arthur, when he hurried in, his hair was wild, his tie was askew, and he almost barged into Sewell before he seemed to see him at all.

“I wanted a word with my father,” he murmured in excuse. “The fact is, Sewell, there’s some foul conspiracy being worked up against my poor murdered Violet! Worked up by some devil, Sewell! And you seem just as powerless as the rest of us to discover him! Some one’s damnably clever—damnably!” He broke off in choking tones and started after his father, but Sewell stopped him with a persuasive hand on his arm.

“Look here, what’s happened? Tell me what’s happened, Walsh?” he urged.

For a moment Arthur stood silent. Then he faced his confidential and chosen investigator squarely, eye to eye, as he answered: “I asked the manager of my wife’s bank to let me know the exact amount of the small sum her death left standing sis her balance. I got a letter, this morning, informing me officially that a thousand pounds had been paid in to her credit some fourteen days ago. Of course, I took the car up and asked to see the manager himself. The information was correct. Bank notes to the total of a thousand pounds were paid in to her account in one-hundred pound notes—by a lady—shortly before closing time, before three o’clock on the date specified.

“The writing on the paying-in slip looks like Violet’s, of course. Shown her photograph, the receiving clerk recognized it as that of the lady who had handed him the money...” Arthur’s voice stopped for a full moment on this. “Now, either it was Violet—and that money wasn’t hers at all, but just banked by her for some other person for whom it was definitely intended—or else it was some one cleverly made-up to resemble her closely, some one wearing her clothes, or much more likely clothes that were a copy of hers.

“My father, of course, obstinately refuses to see this, but Ann quite agrees with me. So does Kitty. Personally, I incline to the idea that someone induced Violet to bank the thousand pounds in her own name, as a great favor, and gave some quite plausible reason for the request, and for the absolute secrecy she wanted, or he wanted, kept about the favor. And if Violet promised that, Sewell, nothing and no one could have got a word of its betrayal out of her. She was as straight as...”

“As your father declares Miss Lovelace is,” Sewell finished rather maliciously.

“As Ann is,” Arthur said heartily. “She’s a brick, too, Sewell! I never thought Ann Lovelace could be so true a friend as she’s shown herself to me, these days. And as she is now remorsefully showing herself to my wife’s memory. She was completely bowled over when I confided to her what was in the letter from Violet’s bank. For she had characteristically insisted on sharing the bad news in it—as she had seen that it must be to account for its effect on me.”

“Umph-umph,” murmured Sewell with more significance than sympathy. “Quite! ‘Quite!”

“But, like me,” Arthur exulted, “Ann saw what must be the true explanation at once. It takes a good woman to do justice to a good woman’s character.”

“Miss Kitty Walsh also has shown herself a staunch friend,” responded Sewell.

“She has, indeed,” was the instant rejoinder.

“But, then, Kitty——“ Arthur paused. “She’s an angel, is Kitty,” he resumed. “While, of course,

Ann Lovelace is a woman of the world to her fingertips. That means, she isn’t swayed by her heart only, but by her head even more. Ann’s convinced of Violet’s absolute innocence in that pearl pledge, because she realizes more and more how certainly Violet had the kind of nature that could easily be duped.” Arthur fixed Sewell’s questioning eyes with haggard eyes of defense. “Truthful, honorable, loyal...I don’t believe Violet could ever suspect evil in any one around her. She trusted others as she confidently expected to be trusted herself.”

 

Sewell felt urgent need of some refreshment. His head felt thick, almost dazed by conflicting thoughts. Passing through the hall, he and Arthur found Pointer being taken to the library, and the three men went in together.

“I haven’t told Walsh anything of our activities yet,” Sewell said promptly. “I’ve been hearing many things instead.” Here he turned meaningly to Arthur, who very gruffly and briefly passed on the new facts about Violet’s bank balance. Pointer did not, at the moment, add to the speaker’s evident distress by questioning him on the subject, only asking for a memorandum of the original balance, and the date when this had been increased by the said thousand pounds. But presently, as Arthur’s composure was somewhat regained—after motioning him to a seat where eavesdropping would have no opportunity—the chief inspector mentioned that there seemed a possibility that it might not, in reality, have been Mrs. Walsh whom the parlormaid had heard moving about and speaking like Mrs. Walsh, in the latter’s own bedroom, at the hour fairly proved to have been five o’clock, adding the corroborative opinion of the doctor, who was decidedly inclined to put the hour of the murdered wife’s death as “not later than four o’clock,” although he had of course deferred to what had seemed like indisputable evidence to the contrary.

As if unable to contain himself longer on hearing these startlingly poignant possibilities, Arthur jumped convulsively out of his chair, pacing agitatedly to and fro as he exclaimed with clenched hands and blazing eyes, “As I said to Sewell, there’s been some damnable crime against my unsuspecting, innocent Violet! Those cursed pearls I gave her were at the bottom of it, I’m afraid. But not the whole of it! Some well-concocted story was told to my poor girl to get her to keep silent about that thousand pounds she was holding for somebody...”

“I wonder if the smaller string of pearls were stolen to fit that amount,” Sewell broke in unexpectedly. “I mean by someone who knew that exactly that amount had just been paid in to her own credit by Mrs. Walsh at her bank.”

“Do you suspect who the criminal is?” Arthur savagely demanded of Pointer, facing him, hands thrust into his pockets fiercely, feet well apart, chin thrust forward aggressively.

“Certain things seem to implicate Mr. Mills,” Pointer began in his characteristically calm way, but was interrupted by the almost maniacal cry:

“Mills! By God! the devil came to me red-handed from her murder, after searching her things at Ennismore Gardens!” A slight’ froth showed on his writhing lips. “No wonder he didn’t want to go back to his flat! But I insisted on his coming with Kitty and me to see for himself that the phoned message was a hoax. It was well for him that I thought so then. I’ll never, never forgive myself for that! But...

 

But before his choking voice could continue, the door opened and Kitty Walsh entered. Pointer, if not Sewell, was very sorry to see her at that tense moment. But she came at his own request for a fresh going over of her memories, and he could not, therefore, ask her to postpone the interview.

He went through yesterday very carefully with her, and Kitty did her best to recollect each incident, however small, after she had met Mills at Grosvenor Square, until she remembered the room swinging round her as she saw Violet’s head. She was foggy after that. The next thing she remembered at all was putting down a glass of water which some one had first held to her lips and then put into her hand. She was sitting up by that time, on a chair by the door—with her back to the fireplace—she added with a shudder. She remembered putting down the glass of water and spilling most of it—it was very full—and then Mr. Cook helped her up on to her feet and down the stairs to the open front door. After that Kitty’s recollections, she said, could add nothing more, and certainly nothing to what the three men already knew. Pointer acquiesced, but nevertheless put one more incidental question, namely: “Can you remember the color of the tablecloth on the little table you recollect spilling the glass of water on?” But, although Kitty willingly searched her mind back to the incident of the water spilled weakly on the table, she could not remember about the cloth on it, except vaguely that she had felt one there.

But at this point in the reconstruction Arthur broke in with excited eagerness to assist in even so seemingly trivial a detail: “Sewell! I remember that little table-cover perfectly! It was a square thing, about the size of a large table-napkin, I should say, with bright red-and-blue checks on it. And, by Jove,” he ejaculated with mounting heat as if there might be some inexplicable clue in the point, “if you look at your police photographs of the room, chief inspector, you won’t find any cloth whatever on that little table by the window, but you’ll see the ash tray still on it that stood in the center of the red-and-blue checked square when Kitty and Mills and I entered the room. Its crude colors caught one’s eyes before any of us saw the body of my Violet.”

Pointer nodded. “No cloth. Just the tray,” he confirmed.

“Then how in the world did you know that there had been a tablecloth on it at all?” Kitty asked him in a tone of absolute awe at such second sight. But Pointer only looked mysteriously wise; and Arthur broke in again.

The absorbing interest for him lay in the fact, not in the detective certainty or lucky guess, of the chief inspector, and his voice was shrill as he exclaimed:

“Then in that brief moment of my going to telephone to the police”—the telephone was in the hall, they all knew—“Mills must have switched away the cloth, replacing the tray carefully on the table, and stuffed it heaven knows where! Inside his coat, possibly, though it was by no means a mere pocket-handkerchief.”

“There is such a table-square as you describe, sir, in a drawer of the kitchen dresser in the basement,” Pointer said slowly.

 

“But what on earth could be Mills’ reason?” Arthur asked, as though of the Heaven above him.

“One explanation might be that there was some mark or stain on it that Mr. Mills didn’t want noticed...” And the chief inspector fell silent, his eyes on his shoe-tips.

“When is he to be arrested?” Arthur asked thickly.

“He has been requested to come to my rooms at the Yard in two hours’ time from now. And if he cannot or does not give a satisfactory explanation of everything he will be detained while farther investigations are being made.”

“Detained! You mean arrested? Hung?” Arthur cried with leaping eyeballs.

“Arrested, quite possibly, Mr. Walsh. Hanging. I am thankful to say, lies with jury and judge. But, by the way, I asked you to think very carefully over that strange telephone summons you received. Has nothing explanatory occurred to you in connection with it, sir?”

“Nothing, chief inspector. Absolutely nothing that could shed the faintest ray of light on that weird message.” And of this whole terrible mystery that most tragically appropriate yet quite misunderstood summons seems the most expressive silence of common cogitations until Arthur drove away gloomily, after receiving a nod from each of the others in response to his parting request to be “kept posted.”

 

“How in the world, chief inspector, could even your wits know about that absent cover on the little occasional table?” Sewell exclaimed with keen curiosity when they were again en route in the car.

“Miss Kitty Walsh told us, you remember, that in her still faint condition she upset almost a tumblerful of water over the top of that table,” Pointer answered conclusively, and seemed to think that he had given a complete explanation of his knowledge. But not so Sewell, who asked, with friendly exasperation: “Well? What of it?”

Only to be countered with the question:

“What became of all that water?” With the quizzical rider: “It’s my particular business, you know, to see that nothing gets lost in a case.” Sewell laughed. “You mean that the top of the little table wasn’t noticeably wet, only a few minutes later?”

“I mean, on the contrary,” Pointer said significantly, “that—having put down some papers on it, when entering a note on one of them—I had especially seen to it that the table top was perfectly dry. And as the most impassioned tidiness would not have stopped to dry it at such a time, it is obvious that the water must have been absorbed by a tablecloth of some sort which was no longer there, had been evidently taken away so scrupulously as to replace the ash-tray without it.”

“Bloodstained, somehow, of course,” Sewell said sapiently, but without his usual shrewd judgment.

“And the Yard’s men wouldn’t have noted and listed that?” Pointer commented skeptically. Adding what aroused the other’s detective interest afresh: “Nor would bloodstains on it have mattered unless actual fingerprints.”

 

Sewell felt himself swimming in deep waters and a little out of his depth with this man’s wide-sweeping intelligence, until Pointer continued: “Since there was so much blood about in the room, spots on the little tablecloth wouldn’t have meant any added danger, unless they were actual fingerprints in blood. And that there could have been not the least vestige of, or they would have been listed when the cloth was seen in the kitchen drawer.

“But if not blood-prints,” Pointer, as a rare token of profound concentration debated aloud with himself, “what could there have been about that little tablecloth which Mills—if it was Mills, as I think—knew must point to him? Just as the original bits of paper undoubtedly did.”

“Eh???” came in almost a screech from the rapt Sewell.

“Or ‘probably’ did,” Pointer conscientiously amended. “From the first, that seemed their only explanation. Though why he strewed them where we found them does beat me as yet, I confess. But that carefully removed tablecloth? No fingerprints of any kind were on it, I know for certain. Inspector Watts examined that cloth himself. Of course, I shall look it over, too, if it is still in existence. By my instructions nothing has been sent to the laundry from the house. But—what——?” The chief inspector stared straight ahead of him as a red signal pulled his car up.

“Even you, surely, chief inspector, can’t possibly hope to guess what it could have been?” Sewell gasped, with the zest of a boy.

Pointer’s eyelids harrowed to the glittering slit of a chamois hunter searching the distance for his prey as he said resolutely, “We both believe that Mr. Mills was alone in that room where Mrs. Walsh—your client, as it were—was killed. Then follow him, Sewell, in your mind, as I am following him in mine. Nothing there, that we know of, to mark him, except blood; and I’m not looking for blood. The fire is electric. Nothing wet. Besides water wouldn’t give anything away. No! If there is a clue to him on that little tablecloth he put it there on returning to the room with Mr. Walsh and Miss Kitty Walsh! He may have grasped the little table on which it lay; perhaps as Mr. Walsh sprang to the body of his murdered wife. And by that clutch he left—I think—some smear or mark, which linked the cloth with—what? With himself? How could it? Mr. Mills follows no pursuit or trade that carries its stamp.

“Then did it link up in some way with where he had been? Now, take the trail afresh with me, Sewell, and follow him leaving the place. He slipped down the stairs; nothing there. And out through the front door; nothing there. Besides, even if there had been seas of fresh paint, he would have a perfect right to fresh paint on his hands from his own front door, seeing that he passed through it again with Miss Kitty Walsh and Mr. Walsh when he went back with them.

“No, it’s something linking the tablecloth, the room, with some place with which it must on no account be linked I His office? But anything linking them with himself, or his own place, would pass without question, just as his ordinary fingerprints would and did.

“I can only think of one spot with which Mr. Mills wouldn’t want his flat linked—and that spot was Mrs. Walsh’s bedroom, the bedroom that he searched, we think, on his way from his flat to Mr. Walsh’s own house. Now was there anything there that might leave such a stain or token on his left hand that, when he pulled off his gloves in his flat, might mark that little tablecloth—if he took hold of it—and leave traces of something only to be found in Mrs. Walsh’s bedroom? Powder? Scent? But she was killed in his flat! So anything of hers found there would not be remarkable, could be explained, one would think...”

Suddenly Pointer’s eyes gleamed. He had seen his chamois. “The radiator! Did you notice the radiator by the door of her bedroom, Sewell? No? Well, it was still quite tacky with fresh gilding yesterday. It had been a forgotten order, when this room was got ready for the Walshs; and the fresh gilding was hastily done the very day of their arrival, Mabel told me. There is a wall recess just there, and the tackiness, therefore, was not likely to be noticed. But let any of that gilding get on to the tablecloth in Mr. Mills’ flat, and—since there was no touch of it on the murdered bride herself—it would be exceedingly difficult to account for its presence there.

“Yes, it could be gilding, unconsciously adhering to Mr. Mills’ hand and betrayingly impressed on the little tablecloth in his flat if he had chanced to unluckily transfer it by taking hold of the cloth, for any reason, with a feverishly hot pressure. It could be just that!”

The chief inspector drove his now speechlessly admiring professional disciple hurriedly to the Mews, where both men had the delight of finding the decisive evidence almost uncannily testifying to Pointer’s genius for detective reasoning. For the little tablecloth which Arthur had accurately remembered was still guarded in the locked kitchen drawer at the Mews, and on it was a conspicuously incongruous but quite immovable splotch of the same fresh gilding as was on the radiator in what had been the bedroom of Violet Walsh.

“And now,” Pointer said quietly to Sewell, carefully enclosing his trophy in a sealed, labeled and duly witnessed large envelope, “we reach the vital core of this evidence: namely, how and why Mr. Mills got that identical gilding on his hand. To me it seems obvious that, in his frightful haste, he must have let something fall behind that regilt radiator, the tackiness of which his excitement did not let him notice while his hand frantically sought the dropped object behind or under it.”