From eaddcafecc8a4568c828c37c2b10c7779bc5b43b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: nfenwick Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2025 04:03:03 -0800 Subject: As captured January 22, 2025 --- 67514-0.txt | 24330 ++++++++++++----------- 67514-0.zip | Bin 207832 -> 0 bytes 67514-h.zip | Bin 325749 -> 0 bytes 67514-h/67514-h.htm | 38933 ++++++++++++++++++------------------- old/67514-0.txt | 12355 ++++++++++++ old/67514-0.zip | Bin 0 -> 207832 bytes old/67514-h.zip | Bin 0 -> 325749 bytes old/67514-h/67514-h.htm | 19696 +++++++++++++++++++ old/67514-h/images/img-cover.jpg | Bin 0 -> 132386 bytes 9 files changed, 63263 insertions(+), 32051 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 67514-0.zip delete mode 100644 67514-h.zip create mode 100644 old/67514-0.txt create mode 100644 old/67514-0.zip create mode 100644 old/67514-h.zip create mode 100644 old/67514-h/67514-h.htm create mode 100644 old/67514-h/images/img-cover.jpg diff --git a/67514-0.txt b/67514-0.txt index 8125984..207250b 100644 --- a/67514-0.txt +++ b/67514-0.txt @@ -1,12355 +1,11975 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Arrow, by A. E. W. -Mason - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The House of the Arrow - -Author: A. E. W. Mason - -Release Date: February 26, 2022 [eBook #67514] -[Last Updated: October 19, 2022] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Al Haines - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW *** - - - - - - - - _The - House of the Arrow_ - - _By_ - - A. E. W. MASON - - - _New York - George H. Doran Company_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1924, - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - Books by A. E. W. MASON - - THE WINDING STAIR - THE FOUR FEATHERS - THE SUMMONS - THE BROKEN ROAD - MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY - CLEMENTINA - THE TURNSTILE - THE TRUANTS - AT THE VILLA ROSE - RUNNING WATER - THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER - THE PHILANDERERS - LAWRENCE CLAVERING - THE WATCHERS - A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE - ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES - FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD - - - - - CONTENTS - - CHAPTER - - ONE: _Letters of Mark_ - TWO: _A Cry for Help_ - THREE: _Servants of Chance_ - FOUR: _Betty Harlowe_ - FIVE: _Betty Harlowe Answers_ - SIX: _Jim Changes His Lodging_ - SEVEN: _Exit Waberski_ - EIGHT: _The Book_ - NINE: _The Secret_ - TEN: _The Clock upon the Cabinet_ - ELEVEN: _A New Suspect_ - TWELVE: _The Breaking of the Seals_ - THIRTEEN: _Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room_ - FOURTEEN: _An Experiment and a Discovery_ - FIFTEEN: _The Finding of the Arrow_ - SIXTEEN: _Hanaud Laughs_ - SEVENTEEN: _At Jean Cladel's_ - EIGHTEEN: _The White Tablet_ - NINETEEN: _A Plan Frustrated_ - TWENTY: _A Map and the Necklace_ - TWENTY-ONE: _The Secret House_ - TWENTY-TWO: _The Corona Machine_ - TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet_ - TWENTY-FOUR: _Ann Upcott's Story_ - TWENTY-FIVE: _What Happened on the Night of the 27th_ - TWENTY-SIX: _The Façade of Notre Dame_ - - - - -THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW - - - - -CHAPTER ONE: _Letters of Mark_ - -Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt, the solicitors on the east side of -Russell Square, counted amongst their clients a great many who had -undertakings established in France; and the firm was very proud of -this branch of its business. - -"It gives us a place in history," Mr. Jeremy Haslitt used to say. -"For it dates from the year 1806, when Mr. James Frobisher, then our -very energetic senior partner, organised the escape of hundreds of -British subjects who were detained in France by the edict of the -first Napoleon. The firm received the thanks of His Majesty's -Government and has been fortunate enough to retain the connection -thus made. I look after that side of our affairs myself." - -Mr. Haslitt's daily batch of letters, therefore, contained as a rule -a fair number bearing the dark-blue stamp of France upon their -envelopes. On this morning of early April, however, there was only -one. It was addressed in a spidery, uncontrolled hand with which Mr. -Haslitt was unfamiliar. But it bore the postmark of Dijon, and Mr. -Haslitt tore it open rather quickly. He had a client in Dijon, a -widow, Mrs. Harlowe, of whose health he had had bad reports. The -letter was certainly written from her house, La Maison Crenelle, but -not by her. He turned to the signature. - -"Waberski?" he said, with a frown. "Boris Waberski?" And then, as -he identified his correspondent, "Oh, yes, yes." - -He sat down in his chair and read. The first part of the letter was -merely flowers and compliments, but half-way down the second page its -object was made clear as glass. It was five hundred pounds. Old Mr. -Haslitt smiled and read on, keeping up, whilst he read, a one-sided -conversation with the writer. - -"I have a great necessity of that money," wrote Boris, "and----" - -"I am quite sure of that," said Mr. Haslitt. - -"My beloved sister, Jeanne-Marie----" the letter continued. - -"Sister-in-law," Mr. Haslitt corrected. - -"--cannot live for long, in spite of all the care and attention I -give to her," Boris Waberski went on. "She has left me, as no doubt -you know, a large share of her fortune. Already, then, it is -mine--yes? One may say so and be favourably understood. We must -look at the facts with the eyes. Expedite me, then, by the -recommended post a little of what is mine and agree my distinguished -salutations." - -Haslitt's smile became a broad grin. He had in one of his tin boxes -a copy of the will of Jeanne-Marie Harlowe drawn up in due form by -her French notary at Dijon, by which every farthing she possessed was -bequeathed without condition to her husband's niece and adopted -daughter, Betty Harlowe. Jeremy Haslitt almost destroyed that -letter. He folded it; his fingers twitched at it; there was already -actually a tear at the edges of the sheets when he changed his mind. - -"No," he said to himself. "No! With the Boris Waberskis one never -knows," and he locked the letter away on a ledge of his private safe. - -He was very glad that he had when three weeks later he read, in the -obituary column of _The Times_, the announcement of Mrs. Harlowe's -death, and received a big card with a very deep black border in the -French style from Betty Harlowe inviting him to the funeral at Dijon. -The invitation was merely formal. He could hardly have reached Dijon -in time for the ceremony had he started off that instant. He -contented himself with writing a few lines of sincere condolence to -the girl, and a letter to the French notary in which he placed the -services of the firm at Betty's disposal. Then he waited. - -"I shall hear again from little Boris," he said, and he heard within -the week. The handwriting was more spidery and uncontrolled than -ever; hysteria and indignation had played havoc with Waberski's -English; also he had doubled his demand. - -"It is outside belief," he wrote. "Nothing has she left to her so -attentive brother. There is something here I do not much like. It -must be one thousand pounds now, by the recommended post. 'You have -always had the world against you, my poor Boris,' she say with the -tears all big in her dear eyes. 'But I make all right for you in my -will.' And now nothing! I speak, of course, to my niece--ah, that -hard one! She snap her the fingers at me! Is that a behaviour? One -thousand pounds, mister! Otherwise there will be awkwardnesses! -Yes! People do not snap them the fingers at Boris Waberski without -the payment. So one thousand pounds by the recommended post or -awkwardnesses"; and this time Boris Waberski did not invite Mr. -Haslitt to agree any salutations, distinguished or otherwise, but -simply signed his name with a straggling pen which shot all over the -sheet. - -Mr. Haslitt did not smile over this letter. He rubbed the palms of -his hands softly together. - -"Then we shall have to make some awkwardnesses too," he said hastily, -and he locked this second letter away with the first. But Mr. -Haslitt found it a little difficult to settle to his work. There was -that girl out there in the big house at Dijon and no one of her race -near her! He got up from his chair abruptly and crossed the corridor -to the offices of his junior partner. - -"Jim, you were at Monte Carlo this winter," he said. - -"For a week," answered Jim Frobisher. - -"I think I asked you to call on a client of ours who has a villa -there--Mrs. Harlowe." - -Jim Frobisher nodded. "I did. But Mrs. Harlowe was ill. There was -a niece, but she was out." - -"You saw no one, then?" Jeremy Haslitt asked. - -"No, that's wrong," Jim corrected. "I saw a strange creature who -came to the door to make Mrs. Harlowe's excuses--a Russian." - -"Boris Waberski," said Mr. Haslitt. - -"That's the name." - -Mr. Haslitt sat down in a chair. - -"Tell me about him, Jim." - -Jim Frobisher stared at nothing for a few moments. He was a young -man of twenty-six who had only during this last year succeeded to his -partnership. Though quick enough when action was imperative, he was -naturally deliberate in his estimates of other people's characters; -and a certain awe he had of old Jeremy Haslitt doubled that natural -deliberation in any matters of the firm's business. He answered at -length. - -"He is a tall, shambling fellow with a shock of grey hair standing up -like wires above a narrow forehead and a pair of wild eyes. He made -me think of a marionette whose limbs have not been properly strung. -I should imagine that he was rather extravagant and emotional. He -kept twitching at his moustache with very long, tobacco-stained -fingers. The sort of man who might go off at the deep end at any -moment." - -Mr. Haslitt smiled. - -"That's just what I thought." - -"Is he giving you any trouble?" asked Jim. - -"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt. "But Mrs. Harlowe is dead, and I think -it very likely that he will. Did he play at the tables?" - -"Yes, rather high," said Jim. "I suppose that he lived on Mrs. -Harlowe." - -"I suppose so," said Mr. Haslitt, and he sat for a little while in -silence. Then: "It's a pity you didn't see Betty Harlowe. I stopped -at Dijon once on my way to the South of France five years ago when -Simon Harlowe, the husband, was alive. Betty was then a long-legged -slip of a girl in black silk stockings with a pale, clear face and -dark hair and big eyes--rather beautiful." Mr. Haslitt moved in his -chair uncomfortably. That old house with its great garden of -chestnuts and sycamores and that girl alone in it with an aggrieved -and half-crazed man thinking out awkwardnesses for her--Mr. Haslitt -did not like the picture! - -"Jim," he said suddenly, "could you arrange your work so that you -could get away at short notice, if it becomes advisable?" - -Jim looked up in surprise. Excursions and alarms, as the old stage -directions have it, were not recognised as a rule by the firm of -Frobisher & Haslitt. If its furniture was dingy, its methods were -stately; clients might be urgent, but haste and hurry were words for -which the firm had no use No doubt, somewhere round the corner, there -would be an attorney who understood them. Yet here was Mr. Haslitt -himself, with his white hair and his curious round face, -half-babyish, half-supremely intelligent, actually advocating that -his junior partner should be prepared to skip to the Continent at a -word. - -"No doubt I could," said Jim, and Mr. Haslitt looked him over with -approbation. - -Jim Frobisher had an unusual quality of which his acquaintances, even -his friends, knew only the outward signs. He was a solitary person. -Very few people up till now had mattered to him at all, and even -those he could do without. It was his passion to feel that his life -and the means of his life did not depend upon the purchased skill of -other people; and he had spent the spare months of his life in the -fulfilment of his passion. A half-decked sailing-boat which one man -could handle, an ice-axe, a rifle, an inexhaustible volume or two -like _The Ring and the Book_--these with the stars and his own -thoughts had been his companions on many lonely expeditions; and in -consequence he had acquired a queer little look of aloofness which -made him at once noticeable amongst his fellows. A misleading look, -since it encouraged a confidence for which there might not be -sufficient justification. It was just this look which persuaded Mr. -Haslitt now. "This is the very man to deal with creatures like Boris -Waberski," he thought, but he did not say so aloud. - -What he did say was: - -"It may not be necessary after all. Betty Harlowe has a French -lawyer. No doubt he is adequate. Besides"--and he smiled as he -recollected a phrase in Waberski's second letter--"Betty seems very -capable of looking after herself. We shall see." - -He went back to his own office, and for a week he heard no more from -Dijon. His anxiety, indeed, was almost forgotten when suddenly -startling news arrived and by the most unexpected channel. - -Jim Frobisher brought it. He broke into Mr. Haslitt's office at the -sacred moment when the senior partner was dictating to a clerk the -answers to his morning letters. - -"Sir!" cried Jim, and stopped short at the sight of the clerk. Mr. -Haslitt took a quick look at his young partner's face and said: - -"We will resume these answers, Godfrey, later on." - -The clerk took his shorthand notebook out of the room, and Mr. -Haslitt turned to Jim Frobisher. - -"Now, what's your bad news, Jim?" - -Jim blurted it out. - -"Waberski accuses Betty Harlowe of murder." - -"What!" - -Mr. Haslitt sprang to his feet. Jim Frobisher could not have said -whether incredulity or anger had the upper hand with the old man, the -one so creased his forehead, the other so blazed in his eyes. - -"Little Betty Harlowe!" he said in a wondering voice. - -"Yes. Waberski has laid a formal charge with the Prefect of Police -at Dijon. He accuses Betty of poisoning Mrs. Harlowe on the night of -April the twenty-seventh." - -"But Betty's not arrested?" Mr. Haslitt exclaimed. - -"No, but she's under surveillance." - -Mr. Haslitt sat heavily down in his arm-chair at his table. -Extravagant! Uncontrolled! These were very mild epithets for Boris -Waberski. Here was a devilish malignity at work in the rogue, a -passion for revenge just as mean as could be imagined. - -"How do you know all this, Jim?" he asked suddenly. - -"I have had a letter this morning from Dijon." - -"You?" exclaimed Mr. Haslitt, and the question caught hold of Jim -Frobisher and plunged him too among perplexities. In the first shock -of the news, the monstrous fact of the accusation had driven -everything else out of his head. Now he asked himself why, after -all, had the news come to him and not to the partner who had the -Harlowe estate in his charge. - -"Yes, it is strange," he replied. "And here's another queer thing. -The letter doesn't come from Betty Harlowe, but from a friend, a -companion of hers, Ann Upcott." - -Mr. Haslitt was a little relieved. - -"Betty had a friend with her, then? That's a good thing." He -reached out his hand across the table. "Let me read the letter, Jim." - -Frobisher had been carrying it in his hand, and he gave it now to -Jeremy Haslitt. It was a letter of many sheets, and Jeremy let the -edges slip and flicker under the ball of his thumb. - -"Have I got to read all this?" he said ruefully, and he set himself -to his task. Boris Waberski had first of all accused Betty to her -face. Betty had contemptuously refused to answer the charge, and -Waberski had gone straight off to the Prefect of Police. He had -returned in an hour's time, wildly gesticulating and talking aloud to -himself. He had actually asked Ann Upcott to back him up. Then he -had packed his bags and retired to an hotel in the town. The story -was set out in detail, with quotations from Waberski's violent, crazy -talk; and as the old man read, Jim Frobisher became more and more -uneasy, more and more troubled. - -He was sitting by the tall, broad window which looked out upon the -square, expecting some explosion of wrath and contempt. But he saw -anxiety peep out of Mr. Haslitt's face and stay there as he read. -More than once he stopped altogether in his reading, like a man -seeking to remember or perhaps to discover. - -"But the whole thing's as clear as daylight," Jim said to himself -impatiently. And yet--and yet--Mr. Haslitt had sat in that arm-chair -during the better part of the day, during the better part of thirty -years. How many men and women during those years had crossed the -roadway below this window and crept into this quiet oblong room with -their grievances, their calamities, their confessions? And had -passed out again, each one contributing his little to complete the -old man's knowledge and sharpen the edge of his wit? Then, if Mr. -Haslitt was troubled, there was something in that letter, or some -mission from it, which he himself in his novitiate had overlooked. -He began to read it over again in his mind to the best of his -recollection, but he had not got far before Mr. Haslitt put the -letter down. - -"Surely, sir," cried Jim, "it's an obvious case of blackmail." - -Mr. Haslitt awoke with a little shake of his shoulders. - -"Blackmail? Oh! that of course, Jim." - -Mr. Haslitt got up and unlocked his safe. He took from it the two -Waberski letters and brought them across the room to Jim. - -"Here's the evidence, as damning as any one could wish." - -Jim read the letters through and uttered a little cry of delight. - -"The rogue has delivered himself over to us." - -"Yes," said Mr. Haslitt. - -But to him, at all events, that was not enough; he was still looking -through the lines of the letter for something beyond, which he could -not find. - -"Then what's troubling you?" asked Frobisher. - -Mr. Haslitt took his stand upon the worn hearthrug with his back -towards the fire. - -"This, Jim," and he began to expound. "In ninety-five of these cases -out of a hundred, there is something else, something behind the -actual charge, which isn't mentioned, but on which the blackmailer is -really banking. As a rule it's some shameful little secret, some -blot on the family honour, which any sort of public trial would bring -to light. And there must be something of that kind here. The more -preposterous Waberski's accusation is, the more certain it is that he -knows something to the discredit of the Harlowe name, which any -Harlowe would wish to keep dark. Only, I haven't an idea what the -wretched thing can be!" - -"It might be some trifle," Jim suggested, "which a crazy person like -Waberski would exaggerate." - -"Yes," Mr. Haslitt agreed. "That happens. A man brooding over -imagined wrongs, and flighty and extravagant besides--yes, that might -well be, Jim." - -Jeremy Haslitt spoke in a more cheerful voice. - -"Let us see exactly what we do know of the family," he said, and he -pulled up a chair to face Jim Frobisher and the window. But he had -not yet sat down in it, when there came a discreet knock upon the -door, and a clerk entered to announce a visitor. - -"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt before the name of the visitor had been -mentioned. - -"Very good, sir," said the clerk, and he retired. The firm of -Frobisher & Haslitt conducted its business in that way. It was the -real thing as a firm of solicitors, and clients who didn't like its -methods were very welcome to take their affairs to the attorney round -the corner. Just as people who go to the real thing in the line of -tailors must put up with the particular style in which he cuts their -clothes. - -Mr. Haslitt turned back to Jim. - -"Let us see what we know," he said, and he sat down in the chair. - - - - -CHAPTER TWO: _A Cry for Help_ - -"Simon Harlow," he began, "was the owner of the famous Clos du Prince -vineyards on the Côte-d'Or to the east of Dijon. He had an estate in -Norfolk, this big house, the Maison Crenelle in Dijon, and a villa at -Monte Carlo. But he spent most of his time in Dijon, where at the -age of forty-five he married a French lady, Jeanne-Marie Raviart. -There was, I believe, quite a little romance about the affair. -Jeanne-Marie was married and separated from her husband, and Simon -Harlowe waited, I think, for ten years until the husband Raviart -died." - -Jim Frobisher moved quickly and Mr. Haslitt, who seemed to be reading -off this history in the pattern of the carpet, looked up. - -"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, replying to Jim's movement. -"Yes, there might have been some sort of affair between those two -before they were free to marry. But nowadays, my dear Jim! Opinion -takes a more human view than it did in my youth. Besides, don't you -see, this little secret, to be of any value to Boris Waberski, must -be near enough to Betty Harlowe--I don't say to affect her if -published, but to make Waberski think that she would hate to have it -published. Now Betty Harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all -until two years after Simon and Jeanne-Marie were married, when it -became clear that they were not likely to have any children. No, the -love-affairs of Simon Harlowe are sufficiently remote for us to leave -them aside." - -Jim Frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with a flush of -shame. - -"I was a fool to think of it," he said. - -"Not a bit," replied Mr. Haslitt cheerfully. "Let us look at every -possibility. That's the only way which will help us to get a glimpse -of the truth. I resume, then. Simon Harlowe was a collector. Yes, -he had a passion for collecting and a very catholic one. His one -sitting-room at the Maison Crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, not -only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things too. He liked -to live amongst them and do his work amongst them. His married life -did not last long. For he died five years ago at the age of -fifty-one." - -Mr. Haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections amongst the -convolutions of the carpet. - -"That's really about all I know of him. He was a pleasant fellow -enough, but not very sociable. No, there's nothing to light a candle -for us there, I am afraid." - -Mr. Haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow. - -"Jeanne-Marie Harlowe," he said. "It's extraordinary how little I -know about her, now I come to count it up. Natural too, though. For -she sold the Norfolk estate and has since passed her whole time -between Monte Carlo and Dijon and--oh, yes--a little summer-house on -the Côte-d'Or amongst her vineyards." - -"She was left rich, I suppose?" Frobisher asked. - -"Very well off, at all events," Mr. Haslitt replied. "The Clos du -Prince Burgundy has a fine reputation, but there's not a great deal -of it." - -"Did she come to England ever?" - -"Never," said Mr. Haslitt. "She was content, it seems, with Dijon, -though to my mind the smaller provincial towns of France are dull -enough to make one scream. However, she was used to it, and then her -heart began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has been -an invalid. There's nothing to help us there." And Mr. Haslitt -looked across to Jim for confirmation. - -"Nothing," said Jim. - -"Then we are only left the child Betty Harlowe and--oh, yes, your -correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, Ann Upcott. Who is -she, Jim? Where did she spring from? How does she find herself in -the Maison Crenelle? Come, confess, young man," and Mr. Haslitt -archly looked at his junior partner. "Why should Boris Waberski -expect her support?" - -Jim Frobisher threw his arms wide. - -"I haven't an idea," he said. "I have never seen her. I have never -heard of her. I never knew of her existence until that letter came -this morning with her name signed at the end of it." - -Mr. Haslitt started up. He crossed the room to his table and, fixing -his folding glasses on the bridge of his nose, he bent over the -letter. - -"But she writes to you, Jim," he objected. "'Dear Mr. Frobisher,' -she writes. She doesn't address the firm at all"; and he waited, -looking at Jim, expecting him to withdraw this denial. - -Jim, however, only shook his head. - -"It's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "I can't make head or -tail of it"; and Mr. Haslitt could not doubt now that he spoke the -truth, so utterly and frankly baffled the young man was. "Why should -Ann Upcott write to me? I have been asking myself that question for -the last half-hour. And why didn't Betty Harlowe write to you, who -have had her affairs in your care?" - -"Ah!" - -That last question helped Mr. Haslitt to an explanation. His face -took a livelier expression. - -"The answer to that is in Waberski's, the second letter. Betty--she -snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. She doesn't take the charge -seriously. She will have left it to the French notary to dispose of -it. Yes--I think that makes Ann Upcott's letter to you intelligible, -too. The ceremonies of the Law in a foreign country would frighten a -stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than they would Betty -Harlowe, who has lived for four years in the midst of them. So she -writes to the first name in the title of the firm, and writes to him -as a man. That's it, Jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together -in his satisfaction. - -"A girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing to an -abstraction. She wants to know that she's in touch with a real -person. So she writes, 'Dear Mr. Frobisher.' That's it! You can -take my word for it." - -Mr. Haslitt walked back to his chair. But he did not sit down in it; -he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window -over Frobisher's head. - -"But that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out what is Boris -Waberski's strong suit, does it? We haven't a clue to it," he said -ruefully. - -To both of the men, indeed, Mr. Haslitt's flat, unillumined narrative -of facts, without a glimpse into the characters of any of the -participants in the little drama, seemed the most unhelpful thing. -Yet the whole truth was written there--the truth not only of -Waberski's move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into -which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. Jim -Frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the soul, he resumed -his work in the office. For it was interrupted now. - -Mr. Haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's head, saw a -telegraph-boy come swinging across the square and hesitate in the -roadway below. - -"I expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the hopeful -anticipation people in trouble have that something from outside will -happen and set them right. - -Jim turned round quickly. The boy was still upon the pavement -examining the numbers of the houses. - -"We ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said Jim with a touch -of impatience; and Mr. Haslitt's eyebrows rose half the height of his -forehead towards his thick white hair. He was really distressed by -the Waberski incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in the -firm, shocked him like a sacrilege. - -"My dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. "I hope I -am not one of those obstinate old fogies who refuse to march with the -times. We have had, as you know, a telephone instrument recently -installed in the junior clerks' office. I believe that I myself -proposed it. But a brass plate upon the door! My dear Jim! Let us -leave that to Harley Street and Southampton Row! But I see that -telegram is for us." - -The tiny Mercury with the shako and red cord to his uniform made up -his mind and disappeared into the hall below. The telegram was -brought upstairs and Mr. Haslitt tore it open. He stared at it -blankly for a few seconds, then without a word, but with a very -anxious look in his eyes, he handed it to Jim Frobisher. - -Jim Frobisher read: - - - _Please, please, send some one to help me at once. The Prefect - of Police has called in Hanaud, a great detective of the Sûrété - in Paris. They must think me guilty.--Betty Harlowe._ - - -The telegram fluttered from Jim's fingers to the floor. It was like -a cry for help at night coming from a great distance. - -"I must go, sir, by the night boat," he said. - -"To be sure!" said Mr. Haslitt a little absently. - -Jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. His chivalry was -fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the picture his imagination -drew. The little girl, Betty Harlowe! What age was she? -Twenty-one! Not a day more. She had been wandering with all the -proud indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found her -feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked about her; and -terror came and with it a wild cry for help. - -"Girls never notice danger signals," he said. "No, they walk blindly -into the very heart of catastrophe." Who could tell what links of -false and cunning evidence Boris Waberski had been hammering away at -in the dark, to slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and -ankle? And with that question he was seized with a great -discouragement. - -"We know very little of Criminal Procedure, even in our own country, -in this office," he said regretfully. - -"Happily," said Mr. Haslitt with some tartness. With him it was the -Firm first and last. Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt never went in to -the Criminal Courts. Litigation, indeed, even of the purest kind was -frowned upon. It is true there was a small special staff, under the -leadership of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper floor, -like an unpresentable relation in a great house, which did a little -of that kind of work. But it only did it for hereditary clients, and -then as a favour. - -"However," said Mr. Haslitt as he noticed Jim's discomfort, "I -haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be equal to whatever is -wanted. But remember, there's something at the back of this which we -here don't know." - -Jim shifted his position rather abruptly. This cry of the old man -was becoming parrot-like--a phrase, a formula. Jim was thinking of -the girl in Dijon and hearing her piteous cry for help. She was not -"snapping her the fingers" now. - -"It's a matter of common sense," Mr. Haslitt insisted. "Take a -comparison. Bath, for instance, would never call in Scotland Yard -over a case of this kind. There would have to be the certainty of a -crime first, and then grave doubt as to who was the criminal. This -is a case for an autopsy and the doctors. If they call in this man -Hanaud"--and he stopped. - -He picked the telegram up from the floor and read it through again. - -"Yes--Hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and growing bright and -clouding again like a man catching at and just missing a very elusive -recollection. He gave up the pursuit in the end. "Well, Jim, you -had better take the two letters of Waberski, and Ann Upcott's -three-volume novel, and Betty's telegram"--he gathered the papers -together and enclosed them in a long envelope--"and I shall expect -you back again with a smiling face in a very few days. I should like -to see our little Boris when he is asked to explain those letters." - -Mr. Haslitt gave the envelope to Jim and rang his bell. - -"There is some one waiting to see me, I think," he said to the clerk -who answered it. - -The clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking his heels -during the last half-hour in an undusted waiting-room with a few -mouldy old Law books in a battered glass case to keep him company. - -"You can show him in now," said Mr. Haslitt as Jim retired to his own -office; and when the great landowner entered, he merely welcomed him -with a reproach. - -"You didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said. - -But all through that interview, though his advice was just the -precise, clear advice for which the firm was quietly famous, Mr. -Haslitt's mind was still playing hide-and-seek with a memory, -catching glimpses of the fringes of its skirt as it gleamed and -vanished. - -"Memory is a woman," he said to himself. "If I don't run after her -she will come of her own accord." - -But he was in the common case of men with women: he could not but run -after her. Towards the end of the interview, however, his shoulders -and head moved with a little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip -of paper. As soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent -it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an answer. The -messenger returned within the hour and Mr. Haslitt hurried to Jim -Frobisher's office. - -Jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various clerks and -was locking up the drawers of his desk. - -"Jim, I have remembered where I have heard the name of this man -Hanaud before. You have met Julius Ricardo? He's one of our -clients." - -"Yes," said Frobisher. "I remember him--a rather finnicking person -in Grosvenor Square." - -"That's the man. He's a friend of Hanaud and absurdly proud of the -friendship. He and Hanaud were somehow mixed up in a rather -scandalous crime some time ago--at Aix-les-Bains, I think. Well, -Ricardo will give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you -something about him, if you will go round to Grosvenor Square at five -this afternoon." - -"Capital!" said Jim Frobisher. - -He kept the appointment, and was told how he must expect to be awed -at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly at the next, ridiculed at a -third, and treated with great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. -Jim discounted Mr. Ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter and -crossed the Channel that night. On the journey it occurred to him -that if Hanaud was a man of such high mark, he would not be free, -even at an urgent call, to pack his bags and leave for the provinces -in an instant. Jim broke his journey, therefore, at Paris, and in -the course of the morning found his way to the Direction of the -Sûrété on the Quai d'Horloge just behind the Palais de Justice. - -"Monsieur Hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter took his card and -his letter of introduction. The great man was still in Paris, then, -he thought with relief. He was taken to a long dark corridor, lit -with electric globes even on that bright morning of early summer. -There he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for half an -hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. Then a bell rang -and a policeman in plain clothes went up to him. One side of the -corridor was lined with a row of doors. - -"It is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led Frobisher to one -of the doors and opened it, and stood aside. Frobisher straightened -his shoulders and marched in. - - - - -CHAPTER THREE: _Servants of Chance_ - -Frobisher found himself at one end of an oblong room. Opposite to -him a couple of windows looked across the shining river to the big -Théâtre du Chatelet On his left hand was a great table with a few -neatly arranged piles of papers, at which a big, rather heavily-built -man was sitting. Frobisher looked at that man as a novice in a -duelling field might look at the master swordsman whom he was -committed to fight; with a little shock of surprise that after all he -appeared to be just like other men. Hanaud, on his side, could not -have been said to have looked at Frobisher at all; yet when he spoke -it was obvious that somehow he had looked and to very good purpose. -He rose with a little bow and apologised. - -"I have kept you waiting, Mr. Frobisher. My dear friend Mr. Ricardo -did not mention your object in his letter. I had the idea that you -came with the usual wish to see something of the underworld. Now -that I see you, I recognise your wish is more serious." - -Hanaud was a man of middle age with a head of thick dark hair, and -the round face and shaven chin of a comedian. A pair of remarkably -light eyes under rather heavy lids alone gave a significance to him, -at all events when seen for the first time in a mood of good-will. -He pointed to a chair. - -"Will you take a seat? I will tell you, Mr. Frobisher, I have a very -soft place in my heart for Mr. Ricardo, and a friend of his---- -These are words, however. What can I do?" - -Jim Frobisher laid down his hat and stick upon a side table and took -the chair in front of Hanaud's table. - -"I am partner in a firm of lawyers which looks after the English -interests of a family in Dijon," he said, and he saw all life and -expression smoothed out of Hanaud's face. A moment ago he had been -in the company of a genial and friendly companion; now he was looking -at a Chinaman. - -"Yes?" said Hanaud. - -"The family has the name of Harlowe," Jim continued. - -"Oho!" said Hanaud. - -The ejaculation had no surprise in it, and hardly any interest. Jim, -however, persisted. - -"And the surviving member of it, a girl of twenty, Betty Harlowe, has -been charged with murder by a Russian who is connected with the -family by marriage--Boris Waberski." - -"Aha!" said Hanaud. "And why do you come to me, Mr. Frobisher?" - -Jim stared at the detective. The reason of his coming was obvious. - -And yet--he was no longer sure of his ground. Hanaud had pulled open -a drawer in his table and was beginning to put away in it one of his -files. - -"Yes?" he said, as who should say, "I am listening." - -"Well, perhaps I am under a mistake," said Jim. "But my firm has -been informed that you, Monsieur Hanaud, are in charge of the case," -he said, and Hanaud's movements were at once arrested. He sat with -the file poised on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, -extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that he was -more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the file into the drawer and -closed the drawer softly. As softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice -which to Frobisher's ears had a note in it which was actually -alarming. - -"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! And in London! -And--yes--this is only Wednesday! News travels very quickly -nowadays, to be sure! Well, your firm has been correctly informed. -I congratulate you. The first point is scored by you." - -Jim Frobisher was quick to seize upon that word. He had thought out -upon his journey in what spirit he might most usefully approach the -detective. Hanaud's bitter little remark gave him the very opening -which he needed. - -"But, Monsieur Hanaud, I don't take that point of view at all," he -argued earnestly. "I am happy to believe that there is going to be -no antagonism between us. For, if there were, I should assuredly get -the worst of it. No! I am certain that the one wish you have in -this matter is to get at the truth. Whilst my wish is that you -should just look upon me as a very second-rate colleague who by good -fortune can give you a little help." - -A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it to some of its -geniality. - -"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a trowel," he -observed. "Now, what kind of help, Mr. Frobisher?" - -"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters from Boris Waberski -demanding money, the second one with threats. Both were received by -my firm before he brought this charge, and both of course remain -unanswered." - -He took the letters from the long envelope and handed them across the -table to Hanaud, who read them through slowly, mentally translating -the phrases into French as he read. Frobisher watched his face for -some expression of relief or satisfaction. But to his utter -disappointment no such change came; and it was with a deprecating and -almost regretful air that Hanaud turned to him in the end. - -"Yes--no doubt these two letters have a certain importance. But we -mustn't exaggerate it. The case is very difficult." - -"Difficult!" cried Jim in exasperation. He seemed to be hammering -and hammering in vain against some thick wall of stupidity. Yet this -man in front of him wasn't stupid. - -"I can't understand it!" he exclaimed. "Here's the clearest instance -of blackmail that I can imagine----" - -"Blackmail's an ugly word, Mr. Frobisher," Hanaud warned him. - -"And blackmail's an ugly thing," said Jim. "Come, Monsieur Hanaud, -Boris Waberski lives in France. You will know something about him. -You will have a dossier." - -Hanaud pounced upon the word with a little whoop of delight, his face -broke into smiles, he shook a forefinger gleefully at his visitor. - -"Ah, ah, ah, ah! A dossier! Yes, I was waiting for that word! The -great legend of the dossiers! You have that charming belief too, Mr. -Frobisher. France and her dossiers! Yes. If her coal-mines fail -her, she can always keep warm by burning her dossiers! The moment -you land for the first time at Calais--bourn! your dossier begins, -eh? You travel to Paris--so! You dine at the Ritz Hotel--so! -Afterwards you go where you ought not to go--so-o-o! And you go back -late to the hotel very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that -somewhere in the still night six little officials with black beards -and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your dossier. -But--wait!" - -He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his lips, and his -eyes opened wide. Never was a man so mysterious, so important in his -mystery. He stole on tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so -bulky a man, to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an -alert, bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the -handle. Then he jerked the door swiftly inwards towards him. It was -the classic detection of the eavesdropper, seen in a hundred comedies -and farces; and carried out with so excellent a mimicry that Jim, -even in this office of the Sûrété, almost expected to see a flustered -chambermaid sprawl heavily forward on her knees. He saw nothing, -however, but a grimy corridor lit with artificial light in which men -were patiently waiting. Hanaud closed the door again, with an air of -intense relief. - -"The Prime Minister has not overheard us. We are safe," he hissed, -and he crept back to Frobisher's side. He stooped and whispered in -the ear of that bewildered man: - -"I can tell you about those dossiers. They are for nine-tenths the -gossip of the _concièrge_ translated into the language of a policeman -who thinks that everybody had better be in prison. Thus, the -_concièrge_ says: This Mr. Frobisher--on Tuesday he came home at one -in the morning and on Thursday at three in fancy dress; and in the -policeman's report it becomes, 'Mr. Frobisher is of a loose and -excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier--yes, my friend, -just so! But here in the Sûrété--never breathe a word of it, or you -ruin me!--here we are like your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the -fingers at those dossiers.'" - -Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To change from one -mood to another required a progression of ideas. He hardly knew for -the moment whether he was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago -Hanaud had been the grave agent of Justice; without a hint he had -leaped to buffoonery, and with a huge enjoyment. He had become half -urchin, half clown. Jim could almost hear the bells of his cap still -tinkling. He simply stared, and Hanaud with a rueful smile resumed -his seat. - -"If we work together at Dijon, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with -whimsical regret, "I shall not enjoy myself as I did with my dear -little friend Mr. Ricardo at Aix. No, indeed! Had I made this -little pantomime for him, he would have sat with the eyes popping out -of his head. He would have whispered, 'The Prime Minister comes in -the morning to spy outside your door--oh!' and he would have been -thrilled to the marrow of his bones. But you--you look at me all -cold and stony, and you say to yourself, 'This Hanaud, he is a -comic!'" - -"No," said Jim earnestly, and Hanaud interrupted the protest with a -laugh. - -"It does not matter." - -"I am glad," said Jim. "For you just now said something which I am -very anxious you should not withdraw. You held me out a hope that we -should work together." Hanaud leaned forward with his elbows on his -desk. - -"Listen," he said genially. "You have been frank and loyal with me. -So I relieve your mind. This Waberski affair--the Prefect at Dijon -does not take it very seriously; neither do I here. It is, of -course, a charge of murder, and that has to be examined with care." - -"Of course." - -"And equally, of course, there is some little thing behind it," -Hanaud continued, surprising Frobisher with the very words which Mr. -Haslitt had used the day before, though the one spoke in English and -the other in French. "As a lawyer you will know that. Some little -unpleasant fact which is best kept to ourselves. But it is a simple -affair, and with these two letters you have brought me, simpler than -ever. We shall ask Waberski to explain these letters and some other -things too, if he can. He is a type, that Boris Waberski! The body -of Madame Harlowe will be exhumed to-day and the evidence of the -doctors taken, and afterwards, no doubt, the case will be dismissed -and you can deal with Waberski as you please." - -"And that little secret?" asked Jim. - -Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. - -"No doubt it will come to light. But what does that matter if it -only comes to light in the office of the examining magistrate, and -does not pass beyond the door?" - -"Nothing at all," Jim agreed. - -"You will see. We are not so alarming after all, and your little -client can put her pretty head upon the pillow without any fear that -an injustice will be done to her." - -"Thank you, Monsieur Hanaud!" Jim Frobisher cried warmly. He was -conscious of so great a relief that he himself was surprised by it. -He had been quite captured by his pity for that unknown girl in the -big house, set upon by a crazy rascal and with no champion but -another girl of her own years. "Yes, this is good news to me." - -But he had hardly finished speaking before a doubt crept into his -mind as to the sincerity of the man sitting opposite to him. Jim did -not mean to be played and landed like a silly fish, however -inexperienced he might be. He looked at Hanaud and wondered. Was -this present geniality of his any less assumed than his other moods? -Jim was unsettled in his estimate of the detective. One moment a -judge, and rather implacable, now an urchin, now a friend! Which was -travesty and which truth? Luckily there was a test question which -Mr. Haslitt had put only yesterday as he looked out from the window -across Russell Square. Jim now repeated it. - -"The affair is simple, you say?" - -"Of the simplest." - -"Then how comes it, Monsieur Hanaud, that the examining judge at -Dijon still finds it necessary to call in to his assistance one of -the chiefs of the Sûrété of Paris?" - -The question was obviously expected, and no less obviously difficult -to answer. Hanaud nodded his head once or twice. - -"Yes," he said, and again "Yes," like a man in doubt. He looked at -Jim with appraising eyes. Then with a rush, "I shall tell you -everything, and when I have told you, you will give me your word that -you will not betray my confidence to any one in this world. For this -is serious." - -Jim could not doubt Hanaud's sincerity at this moment, nor his -friendliness. They shone in the man like a strong flame. - -"I give you my word now," he said, and he reached out his hand across -the table. Hanaud shook it. "I can talk to you freely, then," he -answered, and he produced a little blue bundle of very black -cigarettes. "You shall smoke." - -The two men lit their cigarettes and through the blue cloud Hanaud -explained: - -"I go really to Dijon on quite another matter. This Waberski affair, -it is a pretence! The examining judge who calls me in--see, now, you -have a phrase for him," and Hanaud proudly dropped into English more -or less. "He excuse his face! Yes, that is your expressive idiom. -He excuse his face, and you will see, my friend, that it needs a lot -of excusing, that face of his, yes. Now listen! I get hot when I -think of that examining judge." - -He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, setting his sentence -in order, resumed in French. - -"The little towns, my friend, where life is not very gay and people -have the time to be interested in the affairs of their neighbours, -have their own crimes, and perhaps the most pernicious of them all is -the crime of anonymous letters. Suddenly out of a clear sky they -will come like a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute -and--who knows?--sometimes perhaps true. For a while these -abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a word is said. If -money is demanded, money is paid. If it is only sheer wickedness -which drives that unknown pen, those who are lashed by it none the -less hold their tongues. But each one begins to suspect his -neighbour. The social life of the town is poisoned. A great canopy -of terror hangs over it, until the postman's knock, a thing so -welcome in the sane life of every day, becomes a thing to shiver at, -and in the end dreadful things happen." - -So grave and quiet was the tone which Hanaud used that Jim himself -shivered, even in this room whence he could see the sunlight -sparkling on the river and hear the pleasant murmur of the Paris -streets. Above that murmur he heard the sharp knock of the postman -upon the door. He saw a white face grow whiter and still eyes grow -haggard with despair. - -"Such a plague has descended upon Dijon," Hanaud continued. "For -more than a year it has raged. The police would not apply to Paris -for help. No, they did not need help, they would solve this pretty -problem for themselves. Yes, but the letters go on and the citizens -complain. The police say, 'Hush! The examining magistrate, he has a -clue. Give him time!' But the letters still go on. Then after a -year comes this godsend of the Waberski affair. At once the Prefect -of Police and the magistrate put their heads together. 'We will send -for Hanaud over this simple affair, and he will find for us the -author of the anonymous letters. We will send for him very -privately, and if any one recognises him in the street and cries -"There is Hanaud," we can say he is investigating the Waberski -affair. Thus the writer of the letters will not be alarmed and -we--we excuse our faces.' Yes," concluded Hanaud heatedly, "but they -should have sent for me a year ago. They have lost a year." - -"And during that year the dreadful things have happened?" asked Jim. - -Hanaud nodded angrily. - -"An old, lonely man who lunches at the hotel and takes his coffee at -the Grande Taverne and does no harm to any one, he flings himself in -front of the Mediterranean express and is cut to pieces. A pair of -lovers shoot themselves in the Forêt des Moissonières. A young girl -comes home from a ball; she says good night to her friends gaily on -the doorstep of her house, and in the morning she is found hanging in -her ball dress from a rivet in the wall of her bedroom, whilst in the -hearth there are the burnt fragments of one of these letters. How -many had she received, that poor girl, before this last one drove her -to this madness? Ah, the magistrate. Did I not tell you? He has -need to excuse his face." - -Hanaud opened a drawer in his desk and took from it a green cover. - -"See, here are two of those precious letters," and removing two -typewritten sheets from the cover he handed them to Frobisher. -"Yes," he added, as he saw the disgust on the reader's face, "those -do not make a nice sauce for your breakfast, do they?" - -"They are abominable," said Jim. "I wouldn't have believed----" he -broke off with a little cry. "One moment, Monsieur Hanaud!" He bent -his head again over the sheets of paper, comparing them, scrutinising -each sentence. No, there were only the two errors which he had -noticed at once. But what errors they were! To any one, at all -events, with eyes to see and some luck in the matter of experience. -Why, they limited the area of search at once! - -"Monsieur Hanaud, I can give you some more help," he cried -enthusiastically. He did not notice the broad grin of delight which -suddenly transfigured the detective's face. "Help which may lead you -very quickly to the writer of these letters." - -"You can?" Hanaud exclaimed. "Give it to me, my young friend. Do -not keep me shaking in excitement. And do not--oh! do not tell me -that you have discovered that the letters were typed upon a Corona -machine. For that we know already." - -Jim Frobisher flushed scarlet. That is just what he had noticed with -so much pride in his perspicuity. Where the text of a sentence -required a capital D, there were instead the two noughts with the -diagonal line separating them (thus, %), which are the symbol of "per -cent."; and where there should have been a capital S lower down the -page, there was the capital S with the transverse lines which stands -for dollars. Jim was familiar with the Corona machine himself, and -he had remembered that if one used by error the stop for figures, -instead of the stop for capital letters, those two mistakes would -result. He realised now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of -him--Hanaud was the urchin now--that the Sûrété was certain not to -have overlooked those two indications even if the magistrate at Dijon -had; and in a moment he began to laugh too. - -"Well, I fairly asked for it, didn't I?" he said as he handed the -letter back. "I said a wise thing to you, Monsieur, when I held it -fortunate that we were not to be on opposite sides." - -Hanaud's face lost its urchin look. - -"Don't make too much of me, my friend, lest you be disappointed," he -said in all seriousness. "We are the servants of Chance, the very -best of us. Our skill is to seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when -it flashes for the fraction of a second before our eyes." - -He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green cover and laid it -again in the drawer. Then he gathered together the two letters which -Boris Waberski had written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher. - -"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will go there to-day?" - -"This afternoon." - -"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express." - -"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook his head. - -"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay at the same -hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon that you are the -English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and those in your company will be -marked men too. By the way, how were you informed in London that I, -Hanaud, had been put in charge of this case?" - -"We had a telegram," replied Jim. - -"Yes? And from whom? I am curious!" - -"From Miss Harlowe." - -For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that interview quite -disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher could have no doubt. He sat for -so long a time, his cigarette half-way to his lips, a man turned into -stone. Then he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned -on Jim. - -"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "I am -putting to myself a riddle. Answer it if you can! What is the -strongest passion in the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of -these things. It is the passion of one public official to take a -great big club and hit his brother official on the back of the head. -It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon so that I may have -some little chance of success. Good! On Saturday it is so arranged, -and already on Monday my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss -Harlowe can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is -kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?" - -Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it to Hanaud, who -received it with a curious eagerness and opened it out on the table -in front of them. He read it very slowly, so slowly that Jim -wondered whether he too heard through the lines of the telegram, as -through the receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help -which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud raised his face all -the bitterness had gone from it. - -"The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The slender fingers, -they do not snap themselves any longer, eh? Well, in a few days we -make all right for her." - -"Yes," said Jim stoutly. - -"Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?" and Hanaud held up the telegraph -form. "It mentions my name. It will be safe with you, no doubt, but -it serves no purpose. Everything which is torn up here is burnt in -the evening. It is for you to say," and he dangled the telegram -before Jim Frobisher's eyes. - -"By all means," said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram across. Then -he placed the torn pieces together and tore them through once again -and dropped them into his waste-paper basket. "So! That is done!" -he said. "Now tell me! There is another young English girl in the -Maison Crenelle." - -"Ann Upcott," said Jim with a nod. - -"Yes, tell me about her." - -Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made to Mr. Haslitt. - -"I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her until -yesterday." - -But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with amazement, -Hanaud accepted it without comment. - -"Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that young lady at -Dijon," he said with a smile, and he rose from his chair. - -Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which had begun badly -and moved on to cordiality was turning back upon itself and ending -not too well. He was conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud's -manner, not a diminution in his friendliness, but--Jim could find -nothing but Hanaud's own phrase to define the change. He seemed to -have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as it flickered for a -second within his range of vision. But when it had flickered Jim -could not even conjecture. - -He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already at the door with -his hand upon the knob. - -"Good-bye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you sincerely for your -visit." - -"I shall see you in Dijon," said Jim. - -"Surely," Hanaud agreed with a smile. "On many occasions. In the -office, perhaps, of the examining magistrate. No doubt in the Maison -Crenelle." - -But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration which Hanaud -had appeared a few minutes ago not merely to accept, but even to look -forward to. Now, on the contrary, he was evading it. - -"But if we are to work together?" Jim suggested. - -"You might want to reach me quickly," Hanaud continued. "Yes. And I -might want to reach you, if not so quickly, still very secretly. -Yes." He turned the question over in his mind. "You will stay at -the Maison Crenelle, I suppose?" - -"No," said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from Hanaud's little -start of disappointment. "There will be no need for that," he -explained. "Boris Waberski can attempt nothing more. Those two -girls will be safe enough." - -"That's true," Hanaud agreed. "You will go, then, to the big hotel -in the Place Darcy. For me I shall stay in one that is more obscure, -and not under my own name. Whatever chance of secrecy is still left -for me, that I shall cling to." - -He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or the name under -which he proposed to masquerade, and Jim was careful not to inquire. -Hanaud stood with his hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes -thoughtfully resting upon Frobisher's face. - -"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, and a smile -warmed and lit his face to good humour. "Do you like the pictures? -No--yes? For me, I adore them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for -the cinema. I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the -dark--so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a friend, and -when the lights go up we are both gone, and only our empty bocks are -left to show where we were sitting. The cinemas--yes! With their -audiences which constantly change and new people coming in who sit -plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an inch beyond their -noses, the cinemas are useful, I tell you. But you will not betray -my little secret?" - -He ended with a laugh. Jim Frobisher's spirits were quite revived by -this renewal of Hanaud's confidence. He felt with a curious elation -that he had travelled a long way from the sedate dignities of Russell -Square. He could not project in his mind any picture of Messrs. -Frobisher & Haslitt meeting a client in a dark corner of a cinema -theatre off the Marylebone Road. Such manoeuvres were not amongst -the firm's methods, and Jim began to find the change exhilarating. -Perhaps, after all, Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt were a little musty, -he reflected. They missed--and he coined a phrase, he, Jim -Frobisher! ... they missed the ozone of police-work. - -"Of course I'll keep your secret," he said with a thrill in his -voice. "I should never have thought of so capital a meeting-place." - -"Good," said Hanaud. "Then at nine o'clock each night, unless there -is something serious to prevent me, I shall be sitting in the big -hall of the Grande Taverne. The Grande Taverne is at the corner -across the square from the railway station. You can't mistake it. I -shall be on the left-hand side of the hall and close up to the screen -and at the edge near the billiard-room. Don't look for me when the -lights are raised, and if I am talking to any one else, you will -avoid me like poison. Is that understood?" - -"Quite," Jim returned. - -"And you have now two secrets of mine to keep." Hanaud's face lost -its smile. In some strange way it seemed to sharpen, the -light-coloured eyes became very still and grave. "That also is -understood, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "For I begin to think that -we may both of us see strange things before we leave Dijon again for -Paris." - -The moment of gravity passed. With a bow he held open the door. But -Jim Frobisher, as he passed out into the corridor, was once again -convinced that at some definite point in the interview Hanaud had at -all events caught a glimpse of the flickering skirts of Chance, even -if he had not grasped them in his hands. - - - - -CHAPTER FOUR: _Betty Harlowe_ - -Jim Frobisher reached Dijon that night at an hour too late for any -visit, but at half-past nine on the next morning he turned with a -thrill of excitement into the little street of Charles-Robert. This -street was bordered upon one side, throughout its length, by a high -garden wall above which great sycamores and chestnut trees rustled -friendlily in a stir of wind. Towards the farther mouth of the -street the wall was broken, first by the end of a house with a florid -observation-window of the Renaissance period which overhung the -footway; and again a little farther on by a pair of elaborate tall -iron gates. Before these gates Jim came to a standstill. He gazed -into the courtyard of the Maison Crenelle, and as he gazed his -excitement died away and he felt a trifle ashamed of it. There -seemed so little cause for excitement. - -It was a hot, quiet, cloudless morning. On the left-hand side of the -court women-servants were busy in front of a row of offices; at the -end Jim caught glimpses of a chauffeur moving between a couple of -cars in a garage, and heard him whistling gaily as he moved; on the -right stretched the big house, its steep slate roof marked out gaily -with huge diamond patterns of bright yellow, taking in the sunlight -through all its open windows. The hall door under the horizontal -glass fan stood open. One of the iron gates, too, was ajar. Even -the _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers out in the small street -here seemed to be sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the high -wall rather than exercising any real vigilance. It was impossible to -believe, with all this pleasant evidence of normal life, that any -threat was on that house or upon any of its inhabitants. - -"And indeed there is no threat," Jim reflected. "I have Hanaud's -word for it." - -He pushed the gate open and crossed to the front door. An old -serving-man informed him that Mademoiselle Harlowe did not receive, -but he took Jim's card nevertheless, and knocked upon a door on the -right of the big square hall. As he knocked, he opened the door; and -from his position in the hall Jim looked right through a library to a -window at the end and saw two figures silhouetted against the window, -a man and a girl. The man was protesting, rather extravagantly both -in word and gesture, to Jim's Britannic mind, the girl laughing--a -clear, ringing laugh, with just a touch of cruelty, at the man's -protestations. Jim even caught a word or two of the protest spoken -in French, but with a curiously metallic accent. - -"I have been your slave too long," the man cried, and the girl became -aware that the door was open and that the old man stood inside of it -with a card upon a silver salver. She came quickly forward and took -the card. Jim heard the cry of pleasure, and the girl came running -out into the hall. - -"You!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. "I had no right to expect -you so soon. Oh, thank you!" and she gave him both her hands. - -Jim did not need her words to recognise in her the "little girl" of -Mr. Haslitt's description. Little in actual height Betty Harlowe -certainly was not, but she was such a slender trifle of a girl that -the epithet seemed in place. Her hair was dark brown in colour, with -a hint of copper where the light caught it, parted on one side and -very neatly dressed about her small head. The broad forehead and -oval face were of a clear pallor and made vivid the fresh scarlet of -her lips; and the large pupils of her grey eyes gave to her a look -which was at once haunting and wistful. As she held out her hands in -a warm gratitude and seized his, she seemed to him a creature of -delicate flame and fragile as fair china. She looked him over with -one swift comprehensive glance and breathed a little sigh of relief. - -"I shall give you all my troubles to carry from now on," she said, -with a smile. - -"To be sure. That's what I am here for," he answered. "But don't -take me for anything very choice and particular." - -Betty laughed again and, holding him by the sleeve, drew him into the -library. - -"Monsieur Espinosa," she said, presenting the stranger to Jim. "He -is from Cataluna, but he spends so much of his life in Dijon that we -claim him as a citizen." - -The Catalan bowed and showed a fine set of strong white teeth. - -"Yes, I have the honour to represent a great Spanish firm of -wine-growers. We buy the wines here to mix with our better brands, -and we sell wine here to mix with their cheaper ones." - -"You mustn't give your trade secrets away to me," Jim replied -shortly. He disliked Espinosa on sight, as they say, and he was at -no very great pains to conceal his dislike. Espinosa was altogether -too brilliant a personage. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with -black shining hair and black shining eyes, a florid complexion, a -curled moustache, and gleaming rings upon his fingers. - -"Mr. Frobisher has come from London to see me on quite different -business," Betty interposed. - -"Yes?" said the Catalan a little defiantly, as though he meant to -hold his ground. - -"Yes," replied Betty, and she held out her hand to him. Espinosa -raised it reluctantly to his lips and kissed it. - -"I shall see you when you return," said Betty, and she walked to the -door. - -"If I go away," Espinosa replied stubbornly. "It is not certain, -Mademoiselle Betty, that I shall go"; and with a ceremonious bow to -Jim he walked out of the room; but not so quickly but that Betty -glanced swiftly from one man to the other with keen comparing eyes, -and Jim detected the glance. She closed the door and turned back to -Jim with a friendly little grimace which somehow put him in a good -humour. He was being compared to another man to his advantage, and -however modest one may be, such a comparison promotes a pleasant -warmth. - -"More trouble, Miss Harlowe," he said with a smile, "but this time -the sort of trouble which you must expect for a good many years to -come." - -He moved towards her, and they met at one of the two side windows -which looked out upon the courtyard. Betty sat down in the -window-seat. - -"I really ought to be grateful to him," she said, "for he made me -laugh. And it seems to me ages since I laughed"; she looked out of -the window and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. - -"Oh! don't, please," cried Jim in a voice of trouble. - -The smile trembled once more on Betty's lips deliciously. - -"I won't," she replied. - -"I was so glad to hear you laugh," he continued, "after your unhappy -telegram to my partner and before I told you my good news." - -Betty looked up at him eagerly. - -"Good news?" - -Jim Frobisher took once more from his long envelope the two letters -which Waberski had sent to his firm and handed them to Betty. - -"Read them," he said, "and notice the dates." - -Betty glanced at the handwriting. - -"From Monsieur Boris," she cried, and she settled down in the -window-seat to study them. In her short black frock with her slim -legs in their black silk stockings extended and her feet crossed, and -her head and white neck bent over the sheets of Waberski's letters, -she looked to Jim like a girl fresh from school. She was quick -enough, however, to appreciate the value of the letters. - -"Of course I always knew that it was money that Monsieur Boris -wanted," she said. "And when my aunt's will was read and I found -that everything had been left to me, I made up my mind to consult you -and make some arrangement for him." - -"There was no obligation upon you," Jim protested. "He wasn't really -a relation at all. He married Mrs. Harlowe's sister, that's all." - -"I know," replied Betty, and she laughed. "He always objected to me -because I would call him 'Monsieur Boris' instead of 'uncle.' But I -meant to do something nevertheless. Only he gave me no time. He -bullied me first of all, and I do hate being bullied--don't you, Mr. -Frobisher?" - -"I do." - -Betty looked at the letters again. - -"That's when I snapped me the fingers at him, I suppose," she -continued, with a little gurgle of delight in the phrase. -"Afterwards he brought this horrible charge against me, and to have -suggested any arrangement would have been to plead guilty." - -"You were quite right. It would indeed," Jim agreed cordially. - -Up to this moment, a suspicion had been lurking at the back of Jim -Frobisher's mind that this girl had been a trifle hard in her -treatment of Boris Waberski. He was a sponger, a wastrel, with no -real claim upon her, it was true. On the other hand, he had no means -of livelihood, and Mrs. Harlowe, from whom Betty drew her fortune, -had been content to endure and support him. Now, however, the -suspicion was laid, the little blemish upon the girl removed and by -her own frankness. - -"Then it is all over," Betty said, handing back the letters to Jim -with a sigh of relief. Then she smiled ruefully--"But just for a -little while I was really frightened," she confessed. "You see, I -was sent for and questioned by the examining magistrate. Oh! I -wasn't frightened by the questions, but by him, the man. I've no -doubt it's his business to look severe, but I couldn't help thinking -that if any one looked as terrifically severe as he did, it must be -because he hadn't any brains and wanted you not to know. And people -without brains are always dangerous, aren't they?" - -"Yes, that wasn't encouraging," Jim agreed. - -"Then he forbade me to use a motor-car, as if he expected me to run -away. And to crown everything, when I came away from the Palais de -Justice, I met some friends outside who gave me a long list of people -who had been condemned and only found to be innocent when it was too -late." - -Jim stared at her. - -"The brutes!" he cried. - -"Well, we have all got friends like that," Betty returned -philosophically. "Mine, however, were particularly odious. For they -actually discussed, as a reason of course, why I should engage the -very best advocate, whether, since Mrs. Harlowe had adopted me, the -charge couldn't be made one of matricide. In which case there could -be no pardon, and I must go to the guillotine with a black veil over -my head and naked feet." She saw horror and indignation in Jim -Frobisher's face and she reached out a hand to him. - -"Yes. Malice in the provinces is apt to be a little blunt, -though"--and she lifted a slim foot in a shining slipper and -contemplated it whimsically--"I don't imagine that, given the -circumstances, I should be bothering my head much as to whether I was -wearing my best shoes and stockings or none at all." - -"I never heard of so abominable a suggestion," cried Jim. - -"You can imagine, at all events, that I came home a little rattled," -continued Betty, "and why I sent off that silly panicky telegram. I -would have recalled it when I rose to the surface again. But it was -then too late. The telegram had----" - -She broke off abruptly with a little rise of inflexion and a sharp -indraw of her breath. - -"Who is that?" she asked in a changed voice. She had been speaking -quietly and slowly, with an almost humorous appreciation of the -causes of her fear. Now her question was uttered quickly and anxiety -was predominant in her voice. "Yes, who is that?" she repeated. - -A big, heavily built man sauntering past the great iron gates had -suddenly whipped into the courtyard. A fraction of a second before -he was an idler strolling along the path, now he was already -disappearing under the big glass fan of the porch. - -"It's Hanaud," Jim replied, and Betty rose to her feet as though a -spring in her had been released, and stood swaying. - -"You have nothing to fear from Hanaud," Jim Frobisher reassured her. -"I have shown him those two letters of Waberski. From first to last -he is your friend. Listen. This is what he said to me only -yesterday in Paris." - -"Yesterday, in Paris?" Betty asked suddenly. - -"Yes, I called upon him at the Sûrété. These were his words. I -remembered them particularly so that I could repeat them to you just -as they were spoken. 'Your little client can lay her pretty head -upon her pillow confident that no injustice will be done to her.'" - -The bell of the front door shrilled through the house as Jim finished. - -"Then why is he in Dijon? Why is he at the door now?" Betty asked -stubbornly. - -But that was the one question which Jim must not answer. He had -received a confidence from Hanaud. He had pledged his word not to -betray it. For a little while longer Betty must believe that -Waberski's accusation against her was the true reason of Hanaud's -presence in Dijon, and not merely an excuse for it. - -"Hanaud acts under orders," Jim returned. "He is here because he was -bidden to come"; and to his relief the answer sufficed. In truth, -Betty's thoughts were diverted to some problem to which he had not -the key. - -"So you called upon Monsieur Hanaud in Paris," she said, with a warm -smile. "You have forgotten nothing which could help me." She laid a -hand upon the sill of the open window. "I hope that he felt all the -flattery of my panic-stricken telegram to London." - -"He was simply regretful that you should have been so distressed." - -"So you showed him the telegram?" - -"And he destroyed it. It was my excuse for calling upon him with the -letters." - -Betty sat down again on the window-seat and lifted a finger for -silence. Outside the door voices were speaking. Then the door was -opened and the old man-servant entered. He carried this time no card -upon a salver, but he was obviously impressed and a trifle flustered. - -"Mademoiselle," he began, and Betty interrupted him. All trace of -anxiety had gone from her manner. She was once more mistress of -herself. - -"I know, Gaston. Show Monsieur Hanaud in at once." - -But Monsieur Hanaud was already in. He bowed with a pleasant -ceremony to Betty Harlowe and shook hands cordially with Jim -Frobisher. - -"I was delighted as I came through the court, Mademoiselle, to see -that my friend here was already with you. For he will have told you -that I am not, after all, the ogre of the fairy-books." - -"But you never looked up at the windows once," cried Betty in -perplexity. - -Hanaud smiled gaily. - -"Mademoiselle, it is in the technique of my trade never to look up at -windows and yet to know what is going on behind them. With your -permission?" And he laid his hat and cane upon a big writing-table -in the middle of the room. - - - - -CHAPTER FIVE: _Betty Harlowe Answers_ - -"But we cannot see even through the widest of windows," Hanaud -continued, "what happened behind them a fortnight ago. In those -cases, Mademoiselle, we have to make ourselves the nuisance and ask -the questions." - -"I am ready to answer you," returned Betty quietly. - -"Oh, of that--not a doubt," Hanaud cried genially. "Is it permitted -to me to seat myself? Yes?" - -Betty jumped up, the pallor of her face flushed to pink. - -"I beg your pardon. Of course, Monsieur Hanaud." - -That little omission in her manners alone showed Jim Frobisher that -she was nervous. But for it, he would have credited her with a -self-command almost unnatural in her years. - -"It is nothing," said Hanaud with a smile. "After all, we are--the -gentlest of us--disturbing guests." He took a chair from the side of -the table and drew it up close so that he faced Betty. But whatever -advantage was to be gained from the positions he yielded to her. For -the light from the window fell in all its morning strength upon his -face, whilst hers was turned to the interior of the room. - -"So!" he said as he sat down. "Mademoiselle, I will first give you a -plan of our simple procedure, as at present I see it. The body of -Madame Harlowe was exhumed the night before last in the presence of -your notary." - -Betty moved suddenly with a little shiver of revolt. - -"I know," he continued quickly. "These necessities are distressing. -But we do Madame Harlowe no hurt, and we have to think of the living -one, you, Miss Betty Harlowe, and make sure that no suspicion shall -rest upon you--no, not even amongst your most loyal friends. Isn't -that so? Well, next, I put my questions to you here. Then we wait -for the analyst's report. Then the Examining Magistrate will no -doubt make you his compliments, and I, Hanaud, will, if I am lucky, -carry back with me to that dull Paris, a signed portrait of the -beautiful Miss Harlowe against my heart." - -"And that will be all?" cried Betty, clasping her hands together in -her gratitude. - -"For you, Mademoiselle, yes. But for our little Boris--no!" Hanaud -grinned with a mischievous anticipation. "I look forward to half an -hour with that broken-kneed one. I shall talk to him and I shall not -be dignified--no, not at all. I shall take care, too, that my good -friend Monsieur Frobisher is not present. He would take from me all -my enjoyment. He would look at me all prim like my maiden aunt and -he would say to himself, 'Shocking! Oh, that comic! What a fellow! -He is not proper.' No, and I shall not be proper. But, on the other -hand, I will laugh all the way from Dijon to Paris." - -Monsieur Hanaud had indeed begun to laugh already and Betty suddenly -joined in with him. Hers was a clear, ringing laugh of enjoyment, -and Jim fancied himself once more in the hall hearing that laughter -come pealing through the open door. - -"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Hanaud. "You can laugh, Mademoiselle, -even at my foolishnesses. You must keep Monsieur Frobisher here in -Dijon and not let him return to London until he too has learnt that -divinest of the arts." - -Hanaud hitched his chair a little nearer, and a most uncomfortable -image sprang at once into Jim Frobisher's mind. Just so, with light -words and little jokes squeezed out to tenuity, did doctors hitch up -their chairs to the bedsides of patients in a dangerous case. It -took quite a few minutes of Hanaud's questions before that image -entirely vanished from his thoughts. - -"Good!" said Hanaud. "Now let us to business and get the facts all -clear and ordered!" - -"Yes," Jim agreed, and he too hitched his chair a little closer. It -was curious, he reflected, how little he did know of the actual facts -of the case. - -"Now tell me, Mademoiselle! Madame Harlowe died, so far as we know, -quite peacefully in her bed during the night." - -"Yes," replied Betty. - -"During the night of April the 27th?" - -"Yes." - -"She slept alone in her room that night?" - -"Yes, Monsieur." - -"That was her rule?" - -"Yes." - -"I understand Madame Harlowe's heart had given her trouble for some -time." - -"She had been an invalid for three years." - -"And there was a trained nurse always in the house?" - -"Yes." - -Hanaud nodded. - -"Now tell me, Mademoiselle, where did this nurse sleep? Next door to -Madame?" - -"No. A bedroom had been fitted up for her on the same floor but at -the end of the passage." - -"And how far away was this bedroom?" - -"There were two rooms separating it from my aunt's." - -"Large rooms?" - -"Yes," Betty explained. "These rooms are on the ground-floor, and -are what you would call reception-rooms. But, since Madame's heart -made the stairs dangerous for her, some of them were fitted up -especially for her use." - -"Yes, I see," said Hanaud. "Two big reception-rooms between, eh? -And the walls of the house are thick. It is not difficult to see -that it was not built in these days. I ask you this, Mademoiselle. -Would a cry from Madame Harlowe at night, when all the house was -silent, be heard in the nurse's room?" - -"I am very sure that it would not," Betty returned. "But there was a -bell by Madame's bed which rang in the nurse's room. She had hardly -to lift her arm to press the button." - -"Ah!" said Hanaud. "A bell specially fitted up?" - -"Yes." - -"And the button within reach of the fingers. Yes. That is all very -well, if one does not faint, Mademoiselle. But suppose one does! -Then the bell is not very useful. Was there no room nearer which -could have been set aside for the nurse?" - -"There was one next to my aunt's room, Monsieur Hanaud, with a -communicating door." - -Hanaud was puzzled and sat back in his chair. Jim Frobisher thought -the time had come for him to interpose. He had been growing more and -more restless as the catechism progressed. He could not see any -reason why Betty, however readily and easily she answered, should be -needlessly pestered. - -"Surely, Monsieur Hanaud," he said, "it would save a deal of time if -we paid a visit to these rooms and saw them for ourselves." - -Hanaud swung round like a thing on a swivel. Admiration beamed in -his eyes. He gazed at his junior colleague in wonder. - -"But what an idea!" he cried enthusiastically. "What a fine idea! -How ingenious! How difficult to conceive! And it is you, Monsieur -Frobisher, who have thought of it! I make you my distinguished -compliments!" Then all his enthusiasm declined into lassitude. "But -what a pity!" - -Hanaud waited intently for Jim to ask for an explanation of that -sigh, but Jim simply got red in the face and refused to oblige. He -had obviously made an asinine suggestion and was being rallied for it -in front of the beautiful Betty Harlowe, who looked to him for her -salvation; and on the whole he thought Hanaud to be a rather -insufferable person as he sat there brightly watching for some second -inanity. Hanaud in the end had to explain. - -"We should have visited those rooms before now, Monsieur Frobisher. -But the Commissaire of Police has sealed them up and without his -presence we must not break the seals." - -An almost imperceptible movement was made by Betty Harlowe in the -window; an almost imperceptible smile flickered for the space of a -lightning-flash upon her lips; and Jim saw Hanaud stiffen like a -watch-dog when he hears a sound at night. - -"You are amused, Mademoiselle?" he asked sharply. - -"On the contrary, Monsieur." - -And the smile reappeared upon her face and was seen to be what it -was, pure wistfulness. "I had a hope those great seals with their -linen bands across the doors were all now to be removed. It is -fanciful, no doubt, but I have a horror of them. They seem to me -like an interdict upon the house." - -Hanaud's manner changed in an instant. - -"That I can very well understand, Mademoiselle," he said, "and I will -make it my business to see that those seals are broken. Indeed, -there was no great use in affixing them, since they were only affixed -when the charge was brought and ten days after Madame Harlowe died." -He turned to Jim. "But we in France are all tied up in red tape, -too. However, the question at which I am driving does not depend -upon any aspect of the rooms. It is this, Mademoiselle," and he -turned back to Betty. - -"Madame Harlowe was an invalid with a nurse in constant attendance. -How is it that the nurse did not sleep in that suitable room with the -communicating-door? Why must she be where she could hear no cry, no -sudden call?" - -Betty nodded her head. Here was a question which demanded an answer. -She leaned forward, choosing her words with care. - -"Yes, but for that, Monsieur, you must understand something of Madame -my aunt and put yourself for a moment in her place. She would have -it so. She was, as you say, an invalid. For three years she had not -gone beyond the garden except in a private saloon once a year to -Monte Carlo. But she would not admit her malady. No, she was in her -mind strong and a fighter. She was going to get well, it was always -a question of a few weeks with her, and a nurse in her uniform always -near with the door open, as though she were in the last stages of -illness--that distressed her." Betty paused and went on again. "Of -course, when she had some critical attack, the nurse was moved. I -myself gave the order. But as soon as the attack subsided, the nurse -must go. Madame would not endure it." - -Jim understood that speech. Its very sincerity gave him a glimpse of -the dead woman, made him appreciate her tough vitality. She would -not give in. She did not want the paraphernalia of malady always -about her. No, she would sleep in her own room, and by herself, like -other women of her age. Yes, Jim understood that and believed every -word that Betty spoke. Only--only--she was keeping something back. -It was that which troubled him. What she said was true, but there -was more to be said. There had been hesitation in Betty's speech, -too nice a choice of words and then suddenly a little rush of phrases -to cover up the hesitations. He looked at Hanaud, who was sitting -without a movement and with his eyes fixed upon Betty's face, -demanding more from her by his very impassivity. They were both, Jim -felt sure, upon the edge of that little secret which, according to -Haslitt as to Hanaud was always at the back of such wild charges as -Waberski brought--the little shameful family secret which must be -buried deep from the world's eyes. And while Jim was pondering upon -this explanation of Betty's manner, he was suddenly startled out of -his wits by a passionate cry which broke from her lips. - -"Why do you look at me like that?" she cried to Hanaud, her eyes -suddenly ablaze in her white face and her lips shaking. Her voice -rose to a challenge. - -"Do you disbelieve me, Monsieur Hanaud?" - -Hanaud raised his hands in protest. He leaned back in his chair. -The vigilance of his eyes, of his whole attitude, was relaxed. - -"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he said with a good deal of -self-reproach. "I do not disbelieve you. I was listening with both -my ears to what you said, so that I might never again have to trouble -you with my questions. But I should have remembered, what I forgot, -that for a number of days you have been living under a heavy strain. -My manner was at fault." - -The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back in the corner -of the window-seat, her head resting against the side of the sash and -her face a little upturned. - -"You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud," she returned. -"It is I who should beg your pardon. For I was behaving like a -hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go on with your questions?" - -"Yes," Hanaud replied gently. "It is better that we finish with them -now. Let us come back to the night of the twenty-seventh!" - -"Yes, Monsieur." - -"Madame was in her usual health that night--neither better nor worse." - -"If anything a little better," returned Betty. - -"So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a dance given -by some friends of yours?" - -Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house on that fatal -night. Here was a new point in her favour. "A dance!" he cried, and -Hanaud lifted his hand. - -"If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!" he said. "Let Mademoiselle -speak!" - -"I did not hesitate," Betty explained. "The life of the household -had to go on normally. It would never have done for me to do unusual -things. Madame was quick to notice. I think that although she would -not admit that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind she -suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not to alarm her." - -"By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a dance to which -she knew that you had meant to go?" said Hanaud. "Yes, Mademoiselle. -I quite understand that." - -He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with a smile, "Ah, you -did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. No, nor our friend Boris -Waberski, I think. Or he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of -Police in such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her -friends on this night when she is supposed to be committing the most -monstrous of crimes. By the way, Mademoiselle, where was Boris -Waberski on the night of the 27th?" - -"He was away," returned Betty. "He went away on the 25th to fish for -trout at a village on the River Ouche, and he did not come back until -the morning of the 28th." - -"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What a type that fellow! Let us hope he -had a better landing-net for his trout than the one he prepared so -hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. Otherwise his three days' sport -cannot have amounted to much." - -His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon Betty's face and -then he swept back to his questions. - -"So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?" - -"At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers." - -"And at what hour did you go?" - -"I left this house at five minutes to nine." - -"You are sure of the hour?" - -"Quite," said Betty. - -"Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?" - -"Yes," Betty answered. "I went to her room just before I left. She -took her dinner in bed, as she often did. I was wearing for the -dance a new frock which I had bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and -I went to her room to show her how I looked in it." - -"Was Madame alone?" - -"No; the nurse was with her." - -And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance of cunning. - -"I knew that, Mademoiselle," he declared with a friendly grin. "See, -I set a little trap for you. For I have here the evidence of the -nurse herself, Jeanne Baudin." - -He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon which a paragraph -was typed. "Yes, the examining magistrate sent for her and took her -statement." - -"I didn't know that," said Betty. "Jeanne left us the day of the -funeral and went home. I have not seen her since." - -She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile of -appreciation. - -"I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide from you, -Monsieur Hanaud," she said admiringly. "I do not think that I should -be able to hide it for long." - -Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, to Jim -Frobisher's thinking, rather like a very vulgar novice. - -"You are wise, Mademoiselle," he exclaimed. "For, after all, I am -Hanaud. There is only one," and he thumped his chest and beamed -delightedly. "Heavens, these are politenesses! Let us get on. This -is what the nurse declared," and he read aloud from his sheet of -paper: - -"Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame might admire her in -her new frock of silver tissue and her silver slippers. Mademoiselle -arranged the pillows and saw that Madame had her favourite books and -her drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, and with -her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she tripped out of the room. -As soon as the door was closed, Madame said to me----" and Hanaud -broke off abruptly. "But that does not matter," he said in a hurry. - -Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward. - -"Does it not, Monsieur?" she asked, her eyes fixed upon his face, and -the blood mounting slowly into her pale cheeks. - -"No," said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet of paper. - -"What does the nurse report that Madame said to her about me, as soon -as the door was closed?" Betty asked, measuring out her words with a -slow insistence. "Come, Monsieur! I have a right to know," and she -held out her hand for the paper. - -"You shall judge for yourself that it was of no importance," said -Hanaud. "Listen!" and once more he read. - -"Madame said to me, looking at her clock, 'It is well that -Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not Paris, and unless you -go in time there are no partners for you to dance with.' It was then -ten minutes to nine." - -With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty's hand; and she bent -her head over it swiftly, as though she doubted whether what he had -recited was really written on that sheet, as if she rather trembled -to think what Mrs. Harlowe had said of her after she had gone from -the room. She took only a second or two to glance over the page, but -when she handed it back to him, her manner was quite changed. - -"Thank you," she said with a note of bitterness, and her deep eyes -gleamed with resentment. Jim understood the change and sympathised -with it. Hanaud had spoken of setting a trap when he had set none. -For there was no conceivable reason why she should hesitate to admit -that she had seen Mrs. Harlowe in the presence of the nurse, and -wished her good night before she went to the party. But he had set a -real trap a minute afterwards and into that Betty had straightway -stumbled. He had tricked her into admitting a dread that Mrs. -Harlowe might have spoken of her in disparagement or even in horror -after she had left the bedroom. - -"You must know, Monsieur Hanaud," she explained very coldly, "that -women are not always very generous to one another, and sometimes have -not the imagination--how shall I put it?--to visualise the possible -consequences of things they may say with merely the intention to hurt -and do a little harm. Jeanne Baudin and I were, so far as I ever -knew, good friends, but one is never sure, and when you folded up her -statement in a hurry I was naturally very anxious to hear the rest of -it." - -"Yes, I agree," Jim intervened. "It did look as if the nurse might -have added something malevolent, which could neither be proved nor -disproved." - -"It was a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle," Hanaud replied in a voice -of apology. "We will take care that there shall not be any other." -He looked over the nurse's statement again. - -"It is said here that you saw that Madame had her favourite books and -her drink beside the bed. That is true." - -"Yes, Monsieur." - -"What was that drink?" - -"A glass of lemonade." - -"It was placed on a table, I suppose, ready for her every night?" - -"Every night." - -"And there was no narcotic dissolved in it?" - -"None," Betty replied. "If Mrs. Harlowe was restless, the nurse -would give an opium pill and very occasionally a slight injection of -morphia." - -"But that was not done on this night?" - -"Not to my knowledge. If it was done, it was done after my -departure." - -"Very well," said Hanaud, and he folded the paper and put it away in -his pocket. "That is finished with. We have you now out of the -house at five minutes to nine in the evening, and Madame in her bed -with her health no worse than usual." - -"Yes." - -"Good!" Hanaud changed his attitude. "Now let us go over your -evening, Mademoiselle! I take it that you stayed at the house of M. -de Pouillac until you returned home." - -"Yes." - -"You remember with whom you danced? If it was necessary, could you -give me a list of your partners?" - -She rose and, crossing to the writing table, sat down in front of it. -She drew a sheet of paper towards her and took up a pencil. Pausing -now and again to jog her memory with the blunt end of the pencil at -her lips, she wrote down a list of names. - -"These are all, I think," she said, handing the list to Hanaud. He -put it in his pocket. - -"Thank you!" He was all contentment now. Although his questions -followed without hesitation, one upon the other, it seemed to Jim -that he was receiving just the answers which he expected. He had the -air of a man engaged upon an inevitable formality and anxious to get -it completely accomplished, rather than of one pressing keenly a -strict investigation. - -"Now, Mademoiselle, at what hour did you arrive home?" - -"At twenty minutes past one." - -"You are sure of that exact time? You looked at your watch? Or at -the clock in the hall? Or what? How are you sure that you reached -the Maison Crenelle exactly at twenty minutes past one?" - -Hanaud hitched his chair a little more forward, but he had not to -wait a second for the answer. - -"There is no clock in the hall and I had no watch with me," Betty -replied. "I don't like those wrist-watches which some girls wear. I -hate things round my wrists," and she shook her arm impatiently, as -though she imagined the constriction of a bracelet. "And I did not -put my watch in my hand-bag because I am so liable to leave that -behind. So I had nothing to tell me the time when I reached home. I -was not sure that I had not kept Georges--the chauffeur--out a little -later than he cared for. So I made him my excuse, explaining that I -didn't really know how late I was." - -"I see. It was Georges who told you the time at the actual moment of -your arrival?" - -"Yes." - -"And Georges is no doubt the chauffeur whom I saw at work as I -crossed the courtyard?" - -"Yes. He told me that he was glad to see me have a little gaiety, -and he took out his watch and showed it to me with a laugh." - -"This happened at the front door, or at those big iron gates, -Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked. - -"At the front door. There is no lodge-keeper and the gates are left -open when any one is out." - -"And how did you get into the house?" - -"I used my latch-key." - -"Good! All this is very clear." - -Betty, however, was not mollified by Hanaud's satisfaction with her -replies. Although she answered him without delay, her answers were -given mutinously. Jim began to be a little troubled. She should -have met Hanaud half-way; she was imprudently petulant. - -"She'll make an enemy of this man before she has done," he reflected -uneasily. But he glanced at the detective and was relieved. For -Hanaud was watching her with a smile which would have disarmed any -less offended young lady--a smile half friendliness and half -amusement. Jim took a turn upon himself. - -"After all," he argued, "this very imprudence pleads for her better -than any calculation. The guilty don't behave like that." And he -waited for the next stage in the examination with an easy mind. - -"Now we have got you back home and within the Maison Crenelle before -half past one in the morning," resumed Hanaud. "What did you do -then?" - -"I went straight upstairs to my bedroom," said Betty. - -"Was your maid waiting up for you, Mademoiselle?" - -"No; I had told her that I should be late and that I could undress -myself." - -"You are considerate, Mademoiselle. No wonder that your servants -were pleased that you should have a little gaiety." - -Even that advance did not appease the offended girl. - -"Yes?" she asked with a sort of silky sweetness which was more -hostile than any acid rejoinder. But it did not stir Hanaud to any -resentment. - -"When, then, did you first hear of Madame Harlowe's death?" was asked. - -"The next morning my maid Francine came running into my room at seven -o'clock. The nurse Jeanne had just discovered it. I slipped on my -dressing-gown and ran downstairs. As soon as I saw that it was true, -I rang up the two doctors who were in the habit of attending here." - -"Did you notice the glass of lemonade?" - -"Yes. It was empty." - -"Your maid is still with you?" - -"Yes--Francine Rollard. She is at your disposal." - -Hanaud shrugged his shoulders and smiled doubtfully. - -"That, if it is necessary at all, can come later. We have the story -of your movements now from you, Mademoiselle, and that is what is -important." - -He rose from his chair. - -"I have been, I am afraid, a very troublesome person, Mademoiselle -Harlowe," he said with a bow. "But it is very necessary for your own -sake that no obscurities should be left for the world's suspicions to -play with. And we are very close to the end of this ordeal." - -Jim had nursed a hope the moment Hanaud rose that this wearing -interview had already ended. Betty, for her part, was indifferent. - -"That is for you to say, Monsieur," she said implacably. - -"Just two points then, and I think, upon reflection, you will -understand that I have asked you no question which is unfair." - -Betty bowed. - -"Your two points, Monsieur." - -"First, then. You inherit, I believe, the whole fortune of Madame?" - -"Yes." - -"Did you expect to inherit it all? Did you know of her will?" - -"No. I expected that a good deal of the money would be left to -Monsieur Boris. But I don't remember that she ever told me so. I -expected it, because Monsieur Boris so continually repeated that it -was so." - -"No doubt," said Hanaud lightly. "As to yourself, was Madame -generous to you during her life." - -The hard look disappeared from Betty's face. It softened to sorrow -and regret. - -"Very," she answered in a low voice. "I had one thousand pounds a -year as a regular allowance, and a thousand pounds goes a long way in -Dijon. Besides, if I wanted more, I had only to ask for it." - -Betty's voice broke in a sob suddenly and Hanaud turned away with a -delicacy for which Jim was not prepared. He began to look at the -books upon the shelves, that she might have time to control her -sorrow, taking down one here, one there, and speaking of them in a -casual tone. - -"It is easy to see that this was the library of Monsieur Simon -Harlowe," he said, and was suddenly brought to a stop. For the door -was thrown open and a girl broke into the room. - -"Betty," she began, and stood staring from one to another of Betty's -visitors. - -"Ann, this is Monsieur Hanaud," said Betty with a careless wave of -her hand, and Ann went white as a sheet. - -Ann! Then this girl was Ann Upcott, thought Jim Frobisher, the girl -who had written to him, the girl, all acquaintanceship with whom he -had twice denied, and he had sat side by side with her, he had even -spoken to her. She swept across the room to him. - -"So you have come!" she cried. "But I knew that you would!" - -Jim was conscious of a mist of shining yellow hair, a pair of -sapphire eyes, and of a face impertinently lovely and most delicate -in its colour. - -"Of course I have come," he said feebly, and Hanaud looked on with a -smile. He had an eye on Betty Harlowe, and the smile said as clearly -as words could say, "That young man is going to have a deal of -trouble before he gets out of Dijon." - - - - -CHAPTER SIX: _Jim Changes His Lodging_ - -The library was a big oblong room with two tall windows looking into -the court, and the observation window thrown out at the end over the -footway of the street. A door in the inner wall close to this window -led to a room behind, and a big open fire-place faced the windows on -the court. For the rest, the walls were lined with high book-shelves -filled with books, except for a vacant space here and there where a -volume had been removed. Hanaud put back in its place the book which -he had been holding in his hand. - -"One can easily see that this is the library of Simon Harlowe, the -collector," he said. "I have always thought that if one only had the -time to study and compare the books which a man buys and reads, one -would more surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But -alas! one never has the time." He turned towards Jim Frobisher -regretfully. "Come and stand with me, Monsieur Frobisher. For even -a glance at the backs of them tells one something." - -Jim took his place by Hanaud's side. - -"Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and -another--pronounce that title for me, if you please." - -Jim read the title of the book on which Hanaud's finger was placed. - -"Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain." - -Hanaud repeated the inscription and moved along. From a shelf at the -level of his breast and just to the left of the window in which Betty -was sitting, he took a large, thinnish volume in a paper cover, and -turned over the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea Enamel. - -"There should be a second volume," said Jim Frobisher with a glance -at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of remarks. He was not paying -any attention to the paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For -he was really engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his -side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some swift look of -understanding as it was exchanged by the two girls, some sign that -they were in a collusion? If so, he was to be disappointed. For -though Betty and Ann were now free from Hanaud's vigilant eye, -neither of them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. -Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. He answered -Jim's suggestion. - -"Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. But this is -complete," he said, and he put back the book in its place. There was -room next to it for another quarto book, so long as it was no -thicker, and Hanaud rested his finger in the vacant place on the -shelf, with his thoughts clearly far away. - -Betty recalled him to his surroundings. - -"Monsieur Hanaud," she said in her quiet voice from her seat in the -window, "there was a second point, you said, on which you would like -to ask me a question." - -"Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it." - -He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood so that he had -both girls in front of him, Betty on his left in the window, Ann -Upcott standing a little apart upon his right, gazing at him with a -look of awe. - -"Have you, Mademoiselle," he asked, "been pestered, since Boris -Waberski brought his accusation, with any of these anonymous letters -which seem to be flying about Dijon?" - -"I have received one," answered Betty, and Ann Upcott raised her -eyebrows in surprise. "It came on Sunday morning. It was very -slanderous, of course, and I should have taken no notice of it but -for one thing. It told me that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming -from Paris to take up the case." - -"Oho!" said Hanaud softly. "And you received this letter on the -Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, Mademoiselle?" - -Betty shook her head. - -"No, Monsieur." - -Hanaud smiled. - -"Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should be -destroyed." - -"No, I didn't," Betty answered. "I kept it. I put it away in a -drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. But that room is -sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. The letter is in the drawer still." - -Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction. - -"It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle," he said contentedly. But -the contentment passed. "So the Commissaire of Police actually -sealed up your private sitting-room. That, to be sure, was going a -little far." - -Betty shrugged her shoulders. - -"It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. And after all -I was accused!" she said bitterly; but Ann Upcott was not satisfied -to leave the matter there. She drew a step nearer to Betty and then -looked at Hanaud. - -"But that is not all the truth," she said. "Betty's room belongs to -that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe's bedroom was arranged. -It is the last room of the suite opening on to the hall, and for that -reason, as the Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to -seal it up with the others." - -"I thank you, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud with a smile. "Yes, that of -course softens his action." He looked whimsically at Betty in the -window-seat. "It has been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend -Mademoiselle Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome -dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I understand, on the -Saturday morning twelve days ago!" - -"Yes, Monsieur," said Ann Upcott. - -"And after the funeral, on your return to this house, the notary -opened and read the will?" - -"Yes, Monsieur." - -"And in Boris Waberski's presence?" - -"Yes." - -"Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of May, he goes -off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?" - -"Yes." - -"And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous letter?" - -Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in answer. - -"And a little later on the same morning comes the Commissaire, who -seals the doors." - -"At eleven o'clock, to be exact," replied Ann Upcott. - -Hanaud bowed low. - -"You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the precise hour at -which things happen. It is a rare gift, and very useful to people -like myself." - -Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her manner with each -answer that she gave. Now she could laugh outright. - -"I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud," she said. "But alas! I was -born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, a book disarranged, a -clock not keeping time, or even a pin on the carpet--I cannot bear -these things. I notice them at once and I must put them straight. -Yes, it was precisely eleven o'clock when the Commissaire of Police -rang the bell." - -"Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?" Hanaud asked. - -"No. We both of us thought his negligence strange," Ann replied, -"until he informed us that the Examining Magistrate wanted everything -left just as it was." - -Hanaud laughed genially. - -"That was on my account," he explained. "Who could tell what -wonderful things Hanaud might not discover with his magnifying glass -when he arrived from Paris? What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! -What scraps of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, -Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, even -Hanaud would not expect to make any startling discoveries in rooms -which had been open to the whole household for a fortnight since the -crime. However," and he moved towards the door, "since I am here -now----" - -Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. Hanaud stopped -and swung round upon her, swiftly, with his eyes very challenging and -hard. - -"You are going to break those seals now?" she asked with a curious -breathlessness. "Then may I come with you--please, please! It is I -who am accused. I have a right to be present," and her voice rose -into an earnest cry. - -"Calm yourself, Mademoiselle," Hanaud returned gently. "No advantage -will be taken of you. I am going to break no seals. That, as I have -told you, is the right of the Commissaire, who is a magistrate, and -he will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, what I was -going to propose was that Mademoiselle here," and he pointed to Ann, -"should show me the outside of those reception-rooms and the rest of -the house." - -"Of course," said Betty, and she sat down again in the window-seat. - -"Thank you," said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann Upcott. "Shall we -go? And as we go, will you tell me what you think of Boris Waberski?" - -"He has some nerve. I can tell you that, Monsieur Hanaud," Ann -cried. "He actually came back to this house after he had lodged his -charge, and asked me to support him"; and she passed out of the room -in front of Hanaud. - -Jim Frobisher followed the couple to the door and closed it behind -them. The last few minutes had set his mind altogether at rest. The -author of the anonymous letters was the detective's real quarry. His -manner had quite changed when putting his questions about them. The -flamboyancies and the indifference, even his amusement at Betty's -ill-humour had quite disappeared. He had got to business watchfully, -quietly. Jim came back into the room. He took his cigarette-case -from his pocket and opened it. - -"May I smoke?" he asked. As he turned to Betty for permission, a -fresh shock brought his thoughts and words alike to a standstill. -She was staring at him with panic naked in her eyes and her face set -like a tragic mask. - -"He believes me guilty," she whispered. - -"No," said Jim, and he went to her side. But she would not listen. - -"He does. I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was bound to? He -was sent from Paris. He has his reputation to think of. He must -have his victim before he returns." - -Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had only to tell the -real cause which had fetched Hanaud out of Paris and Betty's distress -was gone. But he could not. Every tradition of his life strove to -keep him silent. He dared not even tell her that this charge against -her was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little while -longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. - -"Betty, don't believe that!" he said, with a consciousness of how -weak that phrase was compared with the statement he could have made. -"I was watching Hanaud, listening to him. I am sure that he already -knew the answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he even -knew that Simon Harlowe had a passion for collecting, though not a -word had been said of it. He was asking questions to see how you -would answer them, setting now and then a little trap, as he -admitted----" - -"Yes," said Betty in trembling voice, "all the time he was setting -traps." - -"And every answer that you gave, even your manner in giving them," -Jim continued stoutly, "more and more made clear your innocence." - -"To him?" asked Betty. - -"Yes, to him. I am sure of it." - -Betty Harlowe caught at his arm and held it in both her hands. She -leaned her head against it. Through the sleeve of his coat he felt -the velvet of her cheek. - -"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Jim," and as she pronounced -the name she smiled. She was thanking him not so much for the stout -confidence of his words, as for the comfort which the touch of him -gave to her. - -"Very likely I am making too much of little things," she went on. -"Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur Hanaud. But he lives -amidst crimes and criminals. He must be so used to seeing people -condemned and passing out of sight into blackness and horrors, that -one more or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, -wouldn't seem to matter very much." - -"Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust," Jim Frobisher remarked -gently. - -"Very well, I take it back," she said, and she let his arm go. "All -the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not to him," and she laughed with -an appealing tremor in the laugh which took his heart by storm. - -"Luckily," said he, "you don't have to look to any one," and he had -hardly finished the sentence before Ann Upcott came back alone into -the room. She was about Betty's height and Betty's age and had the -same sort of boyish slenderness and carriage which marks the girls of -this generation. But in other respects, even to the colour of her -clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be from another. She -was dressed in white from her coat to her shoes, and she wore a big -gold hat so that one was almost at a loss to know where her hat ended -and her hair began. - -"And Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. - -"He is prowling about by himself," she replied. "I showed him all -the rooms and who used them, and he said that he would have a look at -them and sent me back to you." - -"Did he break the seals on the reception-rooms?" Betty Harlowe asked. - -"Oh, no," said Ann. "Why, he told us that he couldn't do that -without the Commissaire." - -"Yes, he told us that," Betty remarked dryly. "But I was wondering -whether he meant what he told us." - -"Oh, I don't think Monsieur Hanaud's alarming," said Ann. She gave -Jim Frobisher the impression that at any moment she might call him a -dear old thing. She had quite got over the first little shock which -the announcement of his presence had caused her. "Besides," and she -sat down by the side of Betty in the window-seat and looked with the -frankest confidence at Jim--"besides, we can feel safe now, anyway." - -Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair. That queer look of -aloofness had played him false with Ann Upcott now, as it had already -done with Betty. If these two girls had called on him for help when -a sudden squall found them in an open sailing-boat with the sheet of -the sail made fast, or on the ice-slope of a mountain, or with a -rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest of the Nile, he -would not have shrunk from their trust. But this was quite a -different matter. They were calmly pitting him against Hanaud. - -"You were safe before," he exclaimed. "Hanaud is not your enemy, and -as for me, I have neither experience nor natural gifts for this sort -of work"--and he broke off with a groan. For both the girls were -watching him with a smile of complete disbelief. - -"Good heavens, they think that I am being astute," he reflected, "and -the more I confess my incapacity the astuter they'll take me to be." -He gave up all arguments. "Of course I am absolutely at your -service," he said. - -"Thank you," said Betty. "You will bring your luggage from your -hotel and stay here, won't you?" - -Jim was tempted to accept that invitation. But, on the one hand, he -might wish to see Hanaud at the Grande Taverne; or Hanaud might wish -to see him, and secrecy was to be the condition of such meetings. It -was better that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. - -"I won't put you to so much trouble, Betty," he replied. "There's no -reason in the world that I should. A call over the telephone and in -five minutes I am at your side." - -Betty Harlowe seemed in doubt to press her invitation or not. - -"It looks a little inhospitable in me," she began, and the door -opened, and Hanaud entered the room. - -"I left my hat and stick here," he said. He picked them up and bowed -to the girls. - -"You have seen everything, Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. - -"Everything, Mademoiselle. I shall not trouble you again until the -report of the analysis is in my hands. I wish you a good morning." - -Betty slipped off the window-seat and accompanied him out into the -hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she was seeking to make some -amends for her ill-humour; and when he heard her voice he thought to -detect in it some note of apology. - -"I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense of that -report as soon as possible," she pleaded. "You, better than any one, -will understand that this is a difficult hour for me." - -"I understand very well, Mademoiselle," Hanaud answered gravely. "I -will see to it that the hour is not prolonged." - -Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood together in the -sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon his arm. He wheeled -about quickly. Ann Upcott was at his side with all the liveliness -and even the delicate colour gone from her face, and a wild and -desperate appeal in her eyes. - -"You will come and stay here? Oh, please!" she whispered. - -"I have just refused," he answered. "You heard me." - -"I know," she went on, the words stumbling over one another from her -lips. "But take back your refusal. Do! Oh, I am frightened out of -my wits. I don't understand anything. I am terrified!" And she -clasped her hands together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear -so stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. It robbed -her exquisite face of all its beauty, and made it in a second, -haggard and old. But before he could answer, a stick clattered -loudly upon the pavement of the hall and startled them both like the -crack of a pistol. - -Jim looked through the doorway. Hanaud was stooping to pick up his -cane. Betty made a dive for it, but Hanaud already had it in his -hands. - -"I thank you, Mademoiselle, but I can still touch my toes. Every -morning I do it five times in my pyjamas," and with a laugh he ran -down the couple of steps into the courtyard and with that curiously -quick saunter of his was out into the street of Charles-Robert in a -moment. When Jim turned again to Ann Upcott, the fear had gone from -her face so completely that he could hardly believe his eyes. - -"Betty, he is going to stay," she cried gaily. - -"So I inferred," replied Betty with a curious smile as she came back -into the room. - - - - -CHAPTER SEVEN: _Exit Waberski_ - -Jim Frobisher neither saw nor heard any more of Hanaud that day. He -fetched his luggage away from the hotel and spent the evening with -Betty Harlowe and Ann Upcott at the Maison Crenelle. They took their -coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, descending to it -by a short flight of stone steps from a great door at the back of the -hall. And by some sort of unspoken compact they avoided all mention -of Waberski's charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the -analyst's report. But the long line of high, shuttered windows just -above their heads, the windows of the reception-rooms, forbade them -to forget the subject, and their conversation perpetually dwindled -down into long silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, -cool and very still; so that the bustle of a bird amongst the leaves -of the sycamores startled them and the rare footsteps of a passer-by -in the little street of Charles-Robert rang out as though they would -wake a dreaming city. Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcott -leaned swiftly forward and stared across the dark lawns and -glimmering paths to the great screen of tall trees, as if her eyes -had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on each occasion -she said nothing and with an almost inaudible sigh sank back in her -chair. - -"Is there a door into the garden from the street?" Frobisher asked, -and Betty answered him. - -"No. There is a passage at the end of the house under the -reception-rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners use. The only -other entrance is through the hall behind us. This old house was -built in days when your house really was your castle and the fewer -the entrances, the more safely you slept." - -The clocks of that city of Clocks clashed out the hour of eleven, -throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards and forwards above the -pinnacles and roof-tops in a sort of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. - -"There's a day gone, at all events," she said, and Ann Upcott agreed -with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed a pitiful thing that these -two girls, to whom each day should be a succession of sparkling hours -all too short, must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that -another of them had passed. - -"It should be the last of the bad days," he said, and Betty turned -swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining in the darkness. - -"Good night, Jim," she said, her voice ever so slightly lingering -like a caress upon his name and she held out her hand. "It's -terribly dull for you, but we are not unselfish enough to let you go. -You see, we are shunned just now--oh, it's natural! To have you with -us means a great deal. For one thing," and there came a little lilt -in her voice, "I shall sleep to-night." She ran up the steps and -stood for a moment against the light from the hall. "A long-legged -slip of a girl, in black silk stockings"--thus Mr. Haslitt had spoken -of her as she was five years ago, and the description fitted her -still. - -"Good night, Betty," said Jim, and Ann Upcott ran past him up the -steps and waved her hand. - -"Good night," said Jim, and with a little twist of her shoulders Ann -followed Betty. She came back, however. She was wearing a little -white frock of _crêpe de Chine_ with white stockings and satin shoes, -and she gleamed at the head of the steps like a slender thing of -silver. - -"You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you?" She pleaded with -a curious anxiety considering the height of the strong walls about -the garden. - -"I will," said Jim, and he wondered why in all this business Ann -Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was high time indeed, that -the long line of windows was thrown open and the interdict raised -from the house and its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden -in the darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would come -to-morrow. In Betty's room above the reception-rooms the light was -still burning behind the latticed shutters of the windows, in spite -of her confidence that she would sleep--yes, and in Ann Upcott's room -too, at the end of the house towards the street. A fury against -Boris Waberski flamed up in him. - -It was late before he himself went into the house and barred the -door, later still before he fell asleep. But once asleep, he slept -soundly, and when he waked, it was to find his shutters thrown wide -to the sunlight, his coffee cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old -servant, in the room. - -"Monsieur Hanaud asked me to tell you he was in the library," he said. - -Jim was out of bed in an instant. - -"Already? What is the time, Gaston?" - -"Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath." He removed the -tray from the table by the bed. "I will bring some fresh coffee." - -"Thank you! And will you please tell Monsieur Hanaud that I will not -be long." - -"Certainly, Monsieur." - -Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down to the library, -where he found Hanaud seated at the big writing-table in the middle -of the room, with a newspaper spread out over the blotting-pad and -placidly reading the news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the -moment Jim appeared. - -"So you left your hotel in the Place Darcy, after all, eh, my friend? -The exquisite Miss Upcott! She had but to sigh out a little prayer -and clasp her hands together, and it was done. Yes, I saw it all -from the hall. What it is to be young! You have those two letters -which Waberski wrote your firm?" - -"Yes," said Jim. He did not think it necessary to explain that -though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was the thought of Betty which -had brought him to the Maison Grenelle. - -"Good! I have sent for him," said Hanaud. - -"To come to this house?" - -"I am expecting him now." - -"That's capital," cried Jim. "I shall meet him, then! The damned -rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped him," and he clenched his -fist and shook it in a joyous anticipation. - -"I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, I beg of you -to place yourself in my hands this morning, Monsieur Frobisher," -Hanaud interposed soberly. "If you confront Waberski at once with -those two letters, at once his accusation breaks down. He will -withdraw it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent -of complaints and reproaches. And I shall get nothing out of him. -That I do not want." - -"But what is there to be got?" Jim asked impatiently. - -"Something perhaps. Perhaps nothing," the detective returned with a -shrug of the shoulders. "I have a second mission in Dijon, as I told -you in Paris." - -"The anonymous letters?" - -"Yes. You were present yesterday when Mademoiselle Harlowe told me -how she learned that I was summoned from Paris upon this case. It -was not, after all, any of my colleagues here who spread the news. -It is even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer of the -letters. And in so difficult a matter I can afford to neglect no -clue. Did Waberski know that I was going to be sent for? Did he -hear that at the Prefecture when he lodged his charge on the Saturday -or from the examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to -whom did he talk between the time when he saw the magistrate and the -time when letters must be posted if they are to be delivered on the -Sunday morning? These are questions I must have the answer to, and -if we at once administer the knock-out with your letters, I shall not -get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You see that." - -Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see Hanaud dealing with -Waberski in the most outrageous of his moods, pouncing and tearing -and trampling with the gibes of a schoolboy and the improprieties of -the gutter. Hanaud indeed had promised him as much. But he found -him now all for restraint and sobriety and more concerned apparently -with the authorship of the anonymous letters than with the righting -of Betty Harlowe. Jim felt that he had been defrauded. - -"But I am to meet this man," he said. "That must not be forgotten." - -"And it shall not be," Hanaud assured him. He led him over to the -door in the inner wall close to the observation window and opened it. - -"See! If you will please to wait in here," and as the disappointment -deepened on Jim's face, he added, "Oh, I do not ask you to shut the -door. No. Bring up a chair to it--so! And keep the door ajar so! -Then you will see and hear and yet not be seen. You are content? -Not very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole time like an -actor. Yes, we all do. But, at all events, you do not throw up your -part," and with a friendly grin he turned back to the table. - -A shuffling step which merged into the next step with a curiously -slovenly sound rose from the courtyard. - -"It was time we made our little arrangements," said Hanaud in an -undertone. "For here comes our hero from the Steppes." - -Jim popped his head through the doorway. - -"Monsieur Hanaud!" he whispered excitedly. "Monsieur Hanaud! It -cannot be wise to leave those windows open on the courtyard. For if -we can hear a footstep so loudly in this room, anything said in this -room will be easily overheard in the court." - -"But how true that is!" Hanaud replied in the same voice and struck -his forehead with his fist in anger at his folly. "But what are we -to do? The day is so hot. This room will be an oven. The ladies -and Waberski will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain -clothes already stationed in the court to see that it is kept empty. -Yes, we will risk it." - -Jim drew back. - -"That man doesn't welcome advice from any one," he said indignantly, -but he said it only to himself; and almost before he had finished, -the bell rang. A few seconds afterwards Gaston entered. - -"Monsieur Boris," he said. - -"Yes," said Hanaud with a nod. "And will you tell the ladies that we -are ready?" - -Boris Waberski, a long, round-shouldered man with bent knees and -clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding a soft black felt hat in -his hand, shambled quickly into the room and stopped dead at the -sight of Hanaud. Hanaud bowed and Waberski returned the bow; and -then the two men stood looking at one another--Hanaud all geniality -and smiles, Waberski a rather grotesque figure of uneasiness like one -of those many grim caricatures carved by the imagination of the -Middle Ages on the columns of the churches of Dijon. He blinked in -perplexity at the detective and with his long, tobacco-stained -fingers tortured his grey moustache. - -"Will you be seated?" said Hanaud politely. "I think that the ladies -will not keep us waiting." - -He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table but on his -left hand and opposite to the door. - -"I don't understand," said Waberski doubtfully. "I received a -message. I understood that the Examining Magistrate had sent for me." - -"I am his agent," said Hanaud. "I am----" and he stopped. "Yes?" - -Boris Waberski stared. - -"I said nothing." - -"I beg your pardon. I am--Hanaud." - -He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by no start, nor by -any sign of recognition. - -"Hanaud?" Waberski shook his head. "That no doubt should be -sufficient to enlighten me," he said with a smile, "but it is better -to be frank--it doesn't." - -"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris." - -And upon Waberski's face there came slowly a look of utter -consternation. - -"Oh!" he said, and again "Oh!" with a lamentable look towards the -door as if he was in two minds whether to make a bolt of it. Hanaud -pointed again to the chair, and Waberski murmured, "Yes--to be sure," -and made a little run to it and sank down. - -Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was certain of one -thing. Boris Waberski had not written the anonymous letter to Betty -nor had he contributed the information about Hanaud to the writer. -He might well have been thought to have been acting ignorance of -Hanaud's name, up to the moment when Hanaud explained who Hanaud was. -But no longer. His consternation then was too genuine. - -"You will understand, of course, that an accusation so serious as the -one you have brought against Mademoiselle Harlowe demands the closest -inquiry," Hanaud continued without any trace of irony, "and the -Examining Magistrate in charge of the case honoured us in Paris with -a request for help." - -"Yes, it is very difficult," replied Boris Waberski, twisting about -as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. - -But the difficulty was Waberski's, as Jim, with that distressed man -in full view, was now able to appreciate. Waberski had rushed to the -Prefecture when no answer came from Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt to -his letter of threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of -disappointment and rancour, with a hope no doubt that some offer of -cash would be made to him and that he could withdraw it. Now he -found the trained detective service of France upon his heels, asking -for his proofs and evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. - -"I thought," Hanaud continued easily, "that a little informal -conversation between you and me and the two young ladies, without -shorthand writers or secretaries, might be helpful." - -"Yes, indeed," said Waberski hopefully. - -"As a preliminary of course," Hanaud added dryly, "a preliminary to -the more serious and now inevitable procedure." - -Waberski's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. - -"To be sure," he murmured, plucking at his lean throat nervously. -"Cases must proceed." - -"That is what they are there for," said Hanaud sententiously; and the -door of the library was pushed open. Betty came into the room with -Ann Upcott immediately behind her. - -"You sent for me," she began to Hanaud, and then she saw Boris -Waberski. Her little head went up with a jerk, her eyes smouldered. -"Monsieur Boris," she said, and again she spoke to Hanaud. "Come to -take possession, I suppose?" Then she looked round the room for Jim -Frobisher, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay: - -"But I understood that----" and Hanaud was just in time to stop her -from mentioning any name. - -"All in good time, Mademoiselle," he said quickly. "Let us take -things in their order." - -Betty took her old place in the window-seat. Ann Upcott shut the -door and sat down in a chair a little apart from the others. Hanaud -folded up his newspaper and laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad -which was now revealed lay one of those green files which Jim -Frobisher had noticed in the office of the Sûrété. Hanaud opened it -and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to Waberski. - -"Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of April, this -girl here, Betty Harlowe, did wilfully give to her adoptive mother -and benefactress, Jeanne-Marie Harlowe, an overdose of a narcotic by -which her death was brought about." - -"Yes," said Waberski with an air of boldness, "I declare that." - -"You do not specify the narcotic?" - -"It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure." - -"And administered, according to you, if this summary which I hold -here is correct, in the glass of lemonade which Madame Harlowe had -always at her bedside." - -"Yes." - -Hanaud laid the sheet of foolscap down again. - -"You do not charge the nurse, Jeanne Baudin, with complicity in this -crime?" he asked. - -"Oh, no!" Waberski exclaimed with a sort of horror, with his eyes -open wide and his eyebrows running up his forehead towards his hedge -of wiry hair. "I have not a suspicion of Jeanne Baudin. I pray you, -Monsieur Hanaud, to be clear upon that point. There must be no -injustice! No! Oh, it is well that I came here to-day! Jeanne -Baudin! Listen! I would engage her to nurse me to-morrow, were my -health to fail." - -"One cannot say more than that," replied Hanaud with a grave -sympathy. "I only asked you the question because undoubtedly Jeanne -Baudin was in Madame's bedroom when Mademoiselle entered it to wish -Madame good night and show off her new dancing-frock." - -"Yes, I understand," said Waberski. He was growing more and more -confident, so suave and friendly was this Monsieur Hanaud of the -Sûrété. "But the fatal drug was slipped into that glass without a -doubt when Jeanne Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No! -It is that hard one," and his voice began to shake and his mouth to -work, "who slipped it in and then hurried off to dance till morning, -whilst her victim died. It is terrible that! Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, -it is terrible. My poor sister!" - -"Sister-in-law." - -The correction came with an acid calm from an armchair near the door -in which Ann Upcott was reclining. - -"Sister to me!" replied Waberski mournfully and he turned to Hanaud. -"Monsieur, I shall never cease to reproach myself. I was away -fishing in the forest. If I had stayed at home! Think of it! I ask -you to----" and his voice broke. - -"Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Waberski," Hanaud said, "and -this is where I am perplexed. You loved your sister. That is clear, -since you cannot even think of her without tears." - -"Yes, yes," Waberski shaded his eyes with his hand. - -"Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so long before you -took any action to avenge her death? There will be some good reason -not a doubt, but I have not got it." Hanaud continued, spreading out -his hands. "Listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night -of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th; and you do -nothing, you bring no charge, you sit all quiet. She is buried on -the 30th, and after that you still do nothing, you sit all quiet. It -is not until one week after that you launch your accusation against -Mademoiselle. Why? I beg you, Monsieur Waberski, not to look at me -between the fingers, for the answer is not written on my face, and to -explain this difficulty to me." - -The request was made in the same pleasant, friendly voice which -Hanaud had used so far and without any change of intonation. But -Waberski snatched his hand away from his forehead and sat up with a -flush on his face. - -"I answer you at once," he exclaimed. "From the first I knew it -here," and he thumped his heart with his fist, "that murder had been -committed. But as yet I did not know it here," and he patted his -forehead, "in my head. So I think and I think and I think. I see -reasons and motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of -beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, thirsting in -her heart for colour and laughter and enjoyment and the power which -her beauty offers her if she will but grasp it, and yet while -thirsting, very able to conceal all sign of thirst. That is the -picture I give you of that hard one, Betty Harlowe." - -For the first time since the interview had commenced, Betty herself -showed some interest in it. Up till now she had sat without a -movement, a figure of disdain in an ice-house of pride. Now she -flashed into life. She leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed -knee, her chin propped in her hand, her eyes on Waberski, and a smile -of amusement at this analysis of herself giving life to her face. -Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his door felt that he was -listening to blasphemies. Why did Hanaud endure it? There was -information, he had said, which he wanted to get from Boris Waberski. -The point on which he wanted information was settled long ago, at the -very beginning of this informal session. It was as clear as daylight -that Waberski had nothing to do with Betty's anonymous letter. Why, -then, should Hanaud give this mountebank of a fellow a free -opportunity to slander Betty Harlowe? Why should he question and -question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? Why, in a -word, didn't he fling open this door, allow Frobisher to produce the -blackmailing letters to Mr. Haslitt, and then stand aside while Boris -Waberski was put into that condition in which he would call upon the -services of Jeanne Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously annoyed with -Monsieur Hanaud. He explained to himself that he was disappointed. - -Meanwhile, Boris Waberski, after a little nervous check when Betty -had leaned forward, continued his description. - -"For such a one Dijon would be tiresome. It is true there was each -year a month or so at Monte Carlo, just enough to give one a hint of -what might be, like a cigarette to a man who wants to smoke. And -then back to Dijon! Ah, Monsieur, not the Dijon of the Dukes of -Burgundy, not even the Dijon of the Parliament of the States, but the -Dijon of to-day, an ordinary, dull, provincial town of France which -keeps nothing of its former gaieties and glory but some old rare -buildings and a little spirit of mockery. Imagine, then, Monsieur, -this hard one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp if only she -has the boldness on some night when Monsieur Boris is out of the way -to seize them! Nor is that all. For there is an invalid in the -house to whom attentions are owed--yes, and must be given." -Waberski, in a flight of excitement checked himself and half closed -his eyes, with a little cunning nod. "For the invalid was not so -easy. No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we will -not forget them when the moment comes for the extenuating pleas. No, -indeed," and he flung his arm out nobly. "I myself will be the first -to urge them to the judge of the Assizes when the verdict is given." - -Betty Harlowe leaned back once more indifferent. From an arm-chair -near the door, a little gurgle of laughter broke from the lips of Ann -Upcott. Even Hanaud smiled. - -"Yes, yes," he said; "but we have not got quite as far as the Court -of Assizes, Monsieur Waberski. We are still at the point where you -know it in your heart but not in your head." - -"That is so," Waberski returned briskly. "On the seventh of May, a -Saturday, I bring my accusation to the Prefecture. Why? For, on the -morning of that day I am certain. I know it at last here too," and -up went his hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward on -to the edge of his chair. - -"I am in the street of Gambetta, one of the small popular new -streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation not of the -best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly through that street when -from a little shop a few yards in front of me out pops that hard one, -my niece." - -Suddenly the whole character of that session had changed. Jim -Frobisher, though he sat apart from it, felt the new tension, and was -aware of the new expectancy. A moment ago Boris Waberski as he sat -talking and gesticulating had been a thing for ridicule, almost for -outright laughter. Now, though his voice still jumped hysterically -from high notes to low notes and his body jerked like a marionette's, -he held the eyes of every one--every one, that is, except Betty -Harlowe. He was no longer vague. He was speaking of a definite hour -and a place and of a definite incident which happened there. - -"Yes, in that bad little street I see her. I do not believe my -senses. I step into a little narrow alley and I peep round the -corner. I peep with my eyes," and Waberski pointed to them with two -of his fingers as though there was something peculiarly convincing in -the fact that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, "and I am -sure. Then I wait until she is out of sight, and I creep forward to -see what shop it is she visited in that little street of squalor. -Once more I do not believe my eyes. For over the door I read the -name, Jean Cladel, Herbalist." - -He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph and sat back in his -chair, nodding his head violently at intervals of a second. There -was not a sound in the room until Hanaud's voice broke the silence. - -"I don't understand," he said softly. "Who is this Jean Cladel, and -why should a young lady not visit his shop?" - -"I beg your pardon," Waberski replied. "You are not of Dijon. No! -or you would not have asked that question. Jean Cladel has no better -name than the street he very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonnais -about Jean Cladel, and you will see how he becomes silent and shrugs -his shoulders as if here was a topic on which it was becoming to be -silent. Better still, Monsieur Hanaud, ask at the Prefecture. Jean -Cladel! Twice he has been tried for selling prohibited drugs." - -Hanaud was stung at last out of his calm. - -"What is that?" he cried in a sharp voice. - -"Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped through, that is -true. He has powerful friends, and witnesses have been spirited -away. But he is known! Jean Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!" - -"Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta," Hanaud repeated -slowly. "But"--and he leaned back in an easier attitude--"you will -see my difficulty, Monsieur Waberski. Ten o'clock is a public hour. -It is not a likely hour for any one to choose for so imprudent a -visit, even if that one were stupid." - -"Yes, and so I reasoned too," Waberski interposed quickly. "As I -told you, I could not believe my eyes. But I made sure--oh, there -was no doubt, Monsieur Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes -are discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner or -later some foolish thing. Isn't it so? Sometimes they are too -careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an imperfect world. -Sometimes they are too careless or are driven by necessity to a rash -thing. But somehow a mistake is made and justice wins the game." - -Hanaud smiled. - -"Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!" He turned to Betty, and it -struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious discomfort that this was the -first time Hanaud had looked directly at Betty since the interview -had begun. - -"And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?" - -"It is a lie," she answered quietly. - -"You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta at ten -o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May?" - -"I did not, Monsieur." - -Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache. - -"Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle to admit -it. One fights for one's skin, eh?" - -"But, after all," Hanaud interrupted, with enough savagery in his -voice to check all Waberski's complacency, "let us not forget that on -the 7th of May, Madame Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why -should Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?" - -"To pay," said Waberski. "Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel's wares are -expensive and have to be paid for more than once, Monsieur." - -"By wares you mean poison," said Hanaud. "Let us be explicit." - -"Yes." - -"Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe." - -"I say so," Waberski declared, folding his arms across his breast. - -"Very well," said Hanaud. He took from his green file a second paper -written over in a fine hand and emphasised by an official stamp. -"Then what will you say, Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of -Madame Harlowe has been exhumed?" Hanaud continued, and Waberski's -face lost what little colour it had. He stared at Hanaud, his jaw -working up and down nervously, and he did not say a word. - -"And what will you say if I tell you," Hanaud continued, "that no -more morphia was discovered in it than one sleeping-dose would -explain and no trace at all of any other poison?" - -In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief from his pocket -and dabbed his forehead. The game was up. He had hoped to make his -terms, but his bluff was called. He had not one atom of faith in his -own accusation. There was but one course for him to take, and that -was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection for his -sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. But Boris Waberski -was never the man for that. He had that extra share of cunning which -shipwrecks always the minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine -that Hanaud might be bluffing too. - -He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He tittered and -nodded at Hanaud confidentially. - -"You say 'if I tell you,'" he said smoothly. "Yes, but you do not -tell me, Monsieur Hanaud--no, not at all. On the contrary, what you -say is this: 'My friend Waberski, here is a difficult matter which, -if exposed, means a great scandal, and of which the issue is -doubtful. There is no good in stirring the mud.'" - -"Oh, I say that?" Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly. - -Waberski felt sure of his ground now. - -"Yes, and more than that. You say, 'You have been badly treated, my -friend Waberski, and if you will now have a little talk with that -hard one your niece----'" - -And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat gaping -stupidly like a man who has been shot. - -Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering above the table, his -face suddenly dark with passion. - -"Oh, I say all that, do I?" he thundered. "I came all the way from -Paris to Dijon to preside over a little bargain in a murder case! -I--Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! I'll teach you a lesson for that! Read -this!" and bending forward he thrust out the paper with the official -seal. "It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and -read it!" - -Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to venture nearer. Even -when he had the paper in his hands, they shook so he could not read -it. But since he had never believed in his charge that did not -matter. - -"Yes," he muttered, "no doubt I have made a mistake." - -Hanaud caught the word up. - -"Mistake! Ah, there's a fine word! I'll show you what sort of a -mistake you have made. Draw up your chair to this table in front of -me! So! And take a pen--so! And a sheet of paper--so! and now you -write for me a letter." - -"Yes, yes," Waberski agreed. All the bravado had gone from his -bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He was in a quiver from head -to foot. "I will write that I am sorry." - -"That is not necessary," roared Hanaud. "I will see to it that you -are sorry. No! You write for me what I dictate to you and in -English. You are ready? Yes? Then you begin. 'Dear Sirs.' You -have that?" - -"Yes, yes," said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His head was in a -whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the towering bulk of the -detective. He had as yet no comprehension of the goal to which he -was being led. - -"Good! 'Dear Sirs,'" Hanaud repeated. "But we want a date for that -letter. April 30th, eh? That will do. The day Madame Harlowe's -will was read and you found you were left no money. April 30th--put -it in. So! Now we go on. 'Dear Sirs, Send me at once one thousand -pounds by the recommended post, or I make some awkwardnesses----'" - -Waberski dropped his pen and sprang back out of his chair. - -"I don't understand--I can't write that.... There is an error--I -never meant..." he stammered, his hands raised as if to ward off an -attack. - -"Ah, you never meant the blackmail!" Hanaud cried savagely. "Ah! -Ha! Ha! It is good for you that I now know that! For when, as you -put it so delicately to Mademoiselle, the moment comes for the -extenuating pleas, I can rise up in the Court and urge it. Yes! I -will say: 'Mr. the President, though he did the blackmail, poor -fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him five years more,'" -and with that Hanaud swept across the room like a tornado and flung -open the door behind which Frobisher was waiting. - -"Come!" he said, and he led Jim into the room. "You produce the two -letters he wrote to your firm, Monsieur Frobisher. Good!" - -But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris Waberski had dropped -into a chair and burst into tears. There was a little movement of -discomfort made by every one in that room except Hanaud; and even his -anger dropped. He looked at Waberski in silence. - -"You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your hotel," he said -shortly. "But you will not leave Dijon, Monsieur Waberski, until it -is decided what steps we shall take with you." - -Waberski rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the door. - -"I make my apologies," he stammered. "It is all a mistake. I am -very poor ... I meant no harm," and without looking at any one he got -himself out of the room. - -"That type! He at all events cannot any more think that Dijon is -dull," said Hanaud, and once more he adventured on the dangerous seas -of the English language. "Do you know what my friend Mister Ricardo -would have said? No? I tell you. He would have said, 'That fellow! -My God! What a sauce!'" - -Those left in the room, Betty, Ann Upcott, and Jim Frobisher, were in -a mood to welcome any excuse for laughter. The interdict upon the -house was raised, the charge against Betty proved of no account, the -whole bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanaud went -quickly to the door and closed it, and when he turned back there was -no laughter at all upon his face. - -"Now that that man has gone," he said gravely, "I have something to -tell you three which is very serious. I believe that, though -Waberski does not know it, Madame Harlowe was murdered by poison in -this house on the night of April the twenty-seventh." - -The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim Frobisher -stood like a man whom some calamity has stunned. Betty leaned -forward in her seat with a face of horror and incredulity; and then -from the arm-chair by the door where Ann Upcott was sitting there -burst a loud, wild cry. - -"There was some one in the house that night," she cried. - -Hanaud swung round to her, his eyes blazing. - -"And it is you who tell me that, Mademoiselle?" he asked in a -curious, steady voice. - -"Yes. It's the truth," she cried with a sort of relief in her voice, -that at last a secret was out which had grown past endurance. "I am -sure now. There was a stranger in the house." And though her face -was white as paper, her eyes met Hanaud's without fear. - - - - -CHAPTER EIGHT: _The Book_ - -The two startling declarations, one treading upon the heels of the -other, set Jim Frobisher's brain whirling. Consternation and -bewilderment were all jumbled together. He had no time to ask "how," -for he was already asking "What next?" His first clear thought was -for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger against both Hanaud -and Ann Upcott seized and shook him. Why hadn't they both spoken -before? Why must they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well alone? - -For Betty had fallen back in the window-seat, her hands idle at her -sides and her face utterly weary and distressed. Jim thought of some -stricken patient who wakes in the morning to believe for a few -moments that the malady was a bad dream; and then comes the stab and -the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A moment ago Betty's -ordeal seemed over. Now it was beginning a new phase. - -"I am sorry," he said to her. - -The report of the analysts was lying on the writing-table just -beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was a trick, of course, -with its seals and its signatures, a trick of Hanaud's to force -Waberski to a retraction. He glanced at it, and with an exclamation -began carefully to read it through from the beginning to the end. -When he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanaud. - -"But this report is genuine," he cried. "Here are the details of the -tests applied and the result. There was no trace discovered of any -poison." - -"No trace at all," Hanaud replied. He was not in the least disturbed -by the question. - -"Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation or whom you -accuse," Frobisher exclaimed. - -"I have accused no one," said Hanaud steadily. "Let us be clear -about that! As to your other question--look!" - -He took Frobisher by the elbow and led him to that bookshelf by the -window before which they had stood together yesterday. - -"There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself drew my -attention to it. You see that the space is filled to-day." - -"Yes," said Jim. - -Hanaud took down the volume which occupied the space. It was of -quarto size, fairly thick and bound in a paper cover. - -"Look at that," he said; and Jim Frobisher as he took it noticed with -a queer little start that although Hanaud's eyes were on his face -they were blank of all expression. They did not see him. Hanaud's -senses were concentrated on the two girls at neither of whom he so -much as glanced. He was alert to them, to any movement they might -make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his head in a sudden -revolt. He was being used for another trick, as some conjurer may -use a fool of a fellow whom he has persuaded out of his audience on -to his platform. Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with -enough violence to recall Hanaud's attention: - -"I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed by some -learned society in Edinburgh." - -"It is. And if you will look again, you will see that it was written -by a Professor of Medicine in that University. And if you will look -a third time you will see from a small inscription in ink that the -copy was presented with the Professor's compliments to Mr. Simon -Harlowe." - -Hanaud, whilst he was speaking, went to the second of the two windows -which looked upon the court and putting his head out, spoke for a -little while in a low voice. - -"We shall not need our sentry here any more," he said as he turned -back into the room. "I have sent him upon an errand." - -He went back to Jim Frobisher, who was turning over a page of the -treatise here and there and was never a scrap the wiser. - -"Well?" he asked. - -"Strophanthus Hispidus," Jim read aloud the title of the treatise. -"I can't make head or tail of it." - -"Let me try!" said Hanaud, and he took the book out of Frobisher's -hands. "I will show you all how I spent the half-hour whilst I was -waiting for you this morning." - -He sat down at the writing-table, placed the treatise on the -blotting-pad in front of him and laid it open at a coloured plate. - -"This is the fruit of the plant Strophanthus Hispidus, when it is -ripening," he said. - -The plate showed two long, tapering follicles joined together at -their stems and then separating like a pair of compasses set at an -acute angle. The backs of these follicles were rounded, dark in -colour and speckled; the inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the -curious feature of them was that, from longitudinal crevices, a -number of silky white feathers protruded. - -"Each of these feathers," Hanaud continued, and he looked up to find -that Ann Upcott had drawn close to the table and that Betty Harlowe -herself was leaning forward with a look of curiosity upon her -face--"each of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an -elliptical pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe -and these follicles have opened so that they make a straight line, -the feathers are released and the wind spreads the seed. It is -wonderful, eh? See!" - -Hanaud turned the pages until he came to another plate. Here a -feather was represented in complete detachment from the follicle. It -was outspread like a fan and was extraordinarily pretty and delicate -in its texture; and from it by a stem as fine as a hair the seed hung -like a jewel. - -"What would you say of it, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked, looking up -into the face of Ann Upcott with a smile. "An ornament wrought for a -fine lady, by a dainty artist, eh?" and he turned the book round so -that she on the opposite side of the table might the better admire -the engraving. - -Betty Harlowe, it seemed, was now mastered by her curiosity. Jim -Frobisher, gazing down over Hanaud's shoulder at the plate and -wondering uneasily whither he was being led, saw a shadow fall across -the book. And there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend -with the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table and her face -bent over the book. - -"One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the Strophanthus -Hispidus," Hanaud continued with a shake of the head. "But, alas! it -is not so harmless." - -He turned the book around again to himself and once more turned the -pages. The smile had disappeared altogether from his face. He -stopped at a third plate; and this third plate showed a row of -crudely fashioned arrows with barbed heads. - -Hanaud glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. - -"Do you understand now the importance of this book, Monsieur -Frobisher?" he asked. "No? The seeds of this plant make the famous -arrow-poison of Africa. The deadliest of all the poisons since there -is no antidote for it." His voice grew sombre. "The wickedest of -all the poisons, since it leaves no trace." - -Jim Frobisher was startled. "Is that true?" he cried. - -"Yes," said Hanaud; and Betty suddenly leaned forward and pointed to -the bottom of the plate. - -"There is a mark there below the hilt of that arrow," she said -curiously. "Yes, and a tiny note in ink." - -For a moment a little gift of vision was vouchsafed to Jim Frobisher, -born, no doubt, of his perplexities and trouble. A curtain was rung -up in his brain. He saw no more than what was before him--the pretty -group about the table in the gold of the May morning, but it was all -made grim and terrible and the gold had withered to a light that was -grey and deathly and cold as the grave. There were the two girls in -the grace of their beauty and their youth, daintily tended, -fastidiously dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of -the poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man delivering -the lecture, so close to them, with speech so gentle, was implacably -on the trail of murder, and maybe even now looked upon one of these -two girls as his quarry; was even now perhaps planning to set her in -the dock of an Assize Court and send her out afterwards, carried -screaming and sobbing with terror in the first grey of the morning to -the hideous red engine erected during the night before the prison -gates. Jim saw Hanaud the genial and friendly, as in some flawed -mirror, twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could he -sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point them out -this and that diagram in the plates, he being human and knowing what -he purposed. Jim broke in upon the lecture with a cry of -exasperation. - -"But this isn't a poison! This is a book about a poison. The book -can't kill!" - -At once Hanaud replied to him: - -"Can't it?" he cried sharply. "Listen to what Mademoiselle said a -minute ago. Below the hilt of this arrow marked 'Figure F,' the -Professor has written a tiny note." - -This particular arrow was a little different from the others in the -shape of its shaft. Just below the triangular iron head the shaft -expanded. It was as though the head had been fitted into a bulb; as -one sees sometimes wooden penholders fine enough and tapering at the -upper end, and quite thick just above the nib. - -"'See page 37,'" said Hanaud, reading the Professor's note, and he -turned back the pages. - -"Page 37. Here we are!" - -Hanaud ran a finger half-way down the page and stopped at a word in -capitals. - -"Figure F." - -Hanaud hitched his chair a little closer to the table; Ann Upcott -moved round the end of the table that she might see the better; even -Jim Frobisher found himself stooping above Hanaud's shoulder. They -were all conscious of a queer tension; they were expectant like -explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Hanaud read the -paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed; and this is what he -read: - -"'Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow which was lent to -me by Simon Harlowe, Esq., of Blackman's, Norfolk, and the Maison -Crenelle at Dijon. It was given to him by a Mr. John Carlisle, a -trader on the Shire River in the Kombe country, and is the most -perfect example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The -Strophanthus seed has been pounded up in water and mixed with the -reddish clay used by the Kombe natives, and the compound is thickly -smeared over the head of the arrow shaft and over the actual iron -dart except at the point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and -the compound fresh.'" - -Hanaud leaned back in his chair when he had come to the end of this -paragraph. - -"You see, Monsieur Frobisher, the question we have to answer. Where -is to-day Simon Harlowe's arrow?" - -Betty looked up into Hanaud's face. - -"If it is anywhere in this house, Monsieur, it should be in the -locked cabinet in my sitting-room." - -"Your sitting-room?" Hanaud exclaimed sharply. - -"Yes. It is what we call the Treasure Room--half museum, half -living-room. My uncle Simon used it, Madame too. It was their -favourite room, full of curios and beautiful things. But after Simon -Harlowe died Madame would never enter it. She locked the door which -communicated with her dressing-room, so that she might never even in -a moment of forgetfulness enter it. The room has a door into the -hall. She gave the room to me." - -Hanaud's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. - -"I understand," he said. "And that room is sealed." - -"Yes." - -"Have you ever seen the arrow, Mademoiselle?" - -"Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet once. There -are some horrible things hidden away there"; and Betty shivered and -shook the recollection of them from her shoulders. - -"The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that it never -came back to the house," Frobisher argued stubbornly. "The Professor -in all probability would have kept it." - -"If he could," Hanaud rejoined. "But it's out of all probability -that a collector of rare things would have allowed him to keep it. -No!" and he sat for a little time in a muse. "Do you know what I am -wondering?" he asked at length, and then answered his own question. -"I am wondering whether after all Boris Waberski was not in the -street of Gambetta on the seventh of May and close, very close, to -the shop of Jean Cladel the herbalist." - -"Boris! Boris Waberski," cried Jim. Was he in Hanaud's eyes the -criminal? After all, why not? After all, who more likely if -criminal there was, since Boris Waberski thought himself an inheritor -under Mrs. Harlowe's will? - -"I am wondering whether he was not doing that very thing which he -attributed to you, Mademoiselle Betty," Hanaud continued. - -"Paying?" Betty cried. - -"Paying--or making excuses for not paying, which is more probable, or -recovering the poison arrow now clean of its poison, which is most -probable of all." - -At last Hanaud had made an end of his secrecies and reticence. His -suspicion, winged like the arrow in the plate, was flying straight to -this evident mark. Jim drew a breath like a man waking from a -nightmare; in all of that small company a relaxation was visible; Ann -Upcott drew away from the table; Betty said softly as though speaking -to herself, "Monsieur Boris! Monsieur Boris! Oh, I never thought of -that!" and, to Jim's admiration there was actually a note of regret -in her voice. - -It was audible, too, to Hanaud, since he answered with a smile: - -"But you must bring yourself to think of it, Mademoiselle. After -all, he was not so gentle with you that you need show him so much -good will." - -A slight rush of colour tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim was not quite -sure that a tiny accent of irony had not pointed Hanaud's words. - -"I saw him sitting here," she replied quickly, "half an hour -ago--abject--in tears--a man!" She shrugged her shoulders with a -gesture of distaste. "I wish him nothing worse. I was satisfied." - -Hanaud smiled again with a curious amusement, an appreciation which -Frobisher was quite at a loss to understand. But he had from time to -time received an uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel -was all this while being fought by Betty Harlowe and Hanaud -underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers--a duel in -which now one, now the other of the combatants got some trifling -scratch. This time it seemed Betty was hurt. - -"You are satisfied, Mademoiselle, but the Law is not," Hanaud -returned. "Boris Waberski expected a legacy. Boris Waberski needed -money immediately, as the first of the two letters which he wrote to -Monsieur Frobisher's firm clearly shows. Boris Waberski had a -motive." He looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod -to drive the point home. "Motives, no doubt, are signposts rather -difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss, they lead one very -wide astray. Granted! But you must look for your signposts all the -same and try to read them aright. Listen again to the Professor of -Medicine in the University of Edinburgh! He is as precise as a man -can be." - -Hanaud's eyes fell again upon the description of Figure F in the -treatise still open upon the table in front of him. - -"The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow which he had ever -come across. The poison paste was thickly and smoothly spread over -the arrow head and some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused -and the poison fresh, and these poisons retain their energy for many, -many years. I tell you that if this book and this arrow were handed -over to Jean Cladel, Herbalist, Jean Cladel could with ease make a -solution in alcohol which injected from a hypodermic needle, would -cause death within fifteen minutes and leave not one trace." - -"Within fifteen minutes?" Betty asked incredulously, and from the -arm-chair against the wall, where Ann Upcott had once more seated -herself, there broke a startled exclamation. - -"Oh!" she cried, but no one took any notice of her at all. Both Jim -and Betty had their eyes fixed upon Hanaud, and he was altogether -occupied in driving his argument home. - -"Within fifteen minutes? How do you know?" cried Jim. - -"It is written here, in the book." - -"And where would Jean Cladel have learnt to handle the paste with -safety, how to prepare the solution?" Jim went on. - -"Here! Here! Here!" answered Hanaud, tapping with his knuckles upon -the treatise. "It is all written out here--experiment after -experiment made upon living animals and the action of the poison -measured and registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working -knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, and the -result is certain." - -Betty Harlowe leaned forward again over the book and Hanaud turned it -half round between them, so that both, by craning their heads, could -read. He turned the pages back to the beginning and passed them -quickly in review. - -"See, Mademoiselle, the time tables. Strophanthus constricts the -muscles of the heart like digitalis, only much more violently, much -more swiftly. See the contractions of the heart noted down minute -after minute, until the moment of death and all--here is the -irony!--so that by means of these experiments, the poison may be -transformed into a medicine and the weapon of death become an agent -of life--as in good hands, it has happened." Hanaud leaned back and -contemplated Betty Harlowe between his half-closed eyes. "That is -wonderful, Mademoiselle. What do you think?" - -Betty slowly closed the book. - -"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," she said, "it is no less wonderful that -you should have studied this book so thoroughly during the half-hour -you waited for us here this morning." - -It was Hanaud's turn to change colour. The blood mounted into his -face. He was for a second or two quite disconcerted. Jim once more -had a glimpse of the secret duel and rejoiced that this time it was -Hanaud, the great Hanaud, who was scratched. - -"The study of poisons is particularly my work," he answered shortly. -"Even at the Sûrété we have to specialise nowadays," and he turned -rather quickly towards Frobisher. "You are thoughtful, Monsieur?" - -Jim was following out his own train of thought. - -"Yes," he answered. Then he spoke to Betty. - -"Boris Waberski had a latch-key, I suppose?" - -"Yes," she replied. - -"He took it away with him?" - -"I think so." - -"When are the iron gates locked?" - -"It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed." - -Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. - -"You see, Monsieur Hanaud," he cried, "all this while we have been -leaving out a question of importance. Who put this book back upon -its shelf? And when? Yesterday at noon the space was empty. This -morning it is filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the -garden after dinner behind the house. What could have been easier -than for Waberski to slip in with his latch-key at some moment when -the court was empty, replace the book and slip out again unnoticed? -Why----" - -A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. - -"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The police have a -_sergent-de-ville_ at our gates, night and day." - -Hanaud shook his head. - -"He is there no longer. After you were good enough to answer me so -frankly yesterday morning the questions it was my duty to put to you, -I had him removed at once." - -"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He remembered now that -when he had driven up with his luggage from the hotel in the -afternoon, the street of Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty -Harlowe stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made her -face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she dipped to the -detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice was warm with -gratitude. - -"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday that the man had -been removed, or I should have thanked you before. Indeed I was not -looking for so much consideration at your hands. As I told my friend -Jim, I believed that you went away thinking me guilty." - -Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the flourish of the -sword with which the duellist saluted at the end of the bout. The -little secret combat between these two was over. Hanaud, by removing -the sergeant from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only -to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify any -surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or any limitations -upon her freedom. - -"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at his solution -of the case like a dog with a bone. "You see Waberski had the road -clear for him last night." - -Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head vigorously. - -"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so horrible a -murder. More," and she turned her great eyes pleadingly upon Hanaud, -"I don't believe that any murder was committed here at all. I don't -want to believe it," and for a moment her voice faltered. - -"After all, Monsieur Hanaud, what are you building this dreadful -theory upon? That a book of my Uncle Simon was not in his library -yesterday and is there to-day. We know nothing more. We don't know -even whether Jean Cladel exists at all." - -"We shall know that, Mademoiselle, very soon," said Hanaud, staring -down at the book upon the table. - -"We don't know whether the arrow is in the house, whether it ever -was." - -"We must make sure, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud stubbornly. - -"And even if you had it now, here with the poison clinging in shreds -to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure that the rest of it had been -used. Here is a report, Monsieur, from the doctors. Because it says -that no trace of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a -poison was administered which leaves no trace. You never can prove -it. You have nothing to go upon. It's all guesswork, and guesswork -which will keep us living in a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a -moment that murder had been committed, I'd say, 'Go on, go on'! But -it hasn't. Oh, it hasn't!" - -Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there was so strong a -passion of appeal, for peace, for an end of suspicion, for a right to -forget and be forgotten, that Jim fancied no man could resist it. -Indeed, Hanaud sat for a long while with his eyes bent upon the table -before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently though his -voice began, Jim knew at once that she had lost. - -"You argue and plead very well, Mademoiselle Betty," he said. "But -we have each of us our little creeds by which we live for better or -for worse. Here is mine, a very humble one. I can discover -extenuations in most crimes: even crimes of violence. Passion, -anger, even greed! What are they but good qualities developed beyond -the bounds? Things at the beginning good and since grown monstrous! -So, too, in the execution. This or that habit of life makes natural -this or that weapon which to us is hideous and abnormal and its mere -use a sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognise these -palliations. But there is one crime I never will forgive--murder by -poison. And one criminal in whose pursuit I will never tire nor -slacken, the Poisoner." Through the words there ran a real thrill of -hatred, and though Hanaud's voice was low, and he never once raised -his eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him in a -dreadful spell. - -"Cowardly and secret, the poisoner has his little world at his mercy, -and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be sure," he continued bitterly. -"His hideous work is so easy. It just becomes a vice like drink, no -more than that to the poisoner, but with a thousand times the -pleasure drink can give. Like the practice of some abominable art. -I tell you the truth now! Show me one victim to-day and the poisoner -scot-free, and I'll show you another victim before the year's out. -Make no mistake! Make no mistake!" - -His voice rang out and died away. But the words seemed still to -vibrate in the air of that room, to strike the walls and rebound from -them and still be audible. Jim Frobisher, for all his slow -imagination, felt that had a poisoner been present and heard them, -some cry of guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His -heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his reason -told him there was no mouth in that room from which the cry could -come. - -Hanaud looked up at Betty when he had finished. He begged her pardon -with a little flutter of his hands and a regretful smile. "You must -take me, therefore, as God made me, Mademoiselle, and not blame me -more than you can help for the distress I still must cause you. -There was never a case more difficult. Therefore never one about -which one way or the other I must be more sure." - -Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the door. - -"Come in," Hanaud cried out, and a small, dark, alert man in plain -clothes entered the room. - -"This is Nicolas Moreau, who was keeping watch in the courtyard. I -sent him some while ago upon an errand," he explained and turned -again to Moreau. - -"Well, Nicolas?" - -Nicolas stood at attention, with his hands at the seams of his -trousers, in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited rather than -spoke in a perfectly expressionless official voice. - -"In accordance with instructions I went to the shop of Jean Cladel. -It is number seven. From the Rue Gambetta I went to the Prefecture. -I verified your statement. Jean Cladel has twice appeared before the -Police Correctionelle for selling forbidden drugs and has twice been -acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses." - -"Thank you, Nicolas." - -Moreau saluted, turned on his heel, and went out of the room. There -followed a moment of silence, of discouragement. Hanaud looked -ruefully at Betty. - -"You see! I must go on. We must search in that locked cabinet of -Simon Harlowe's for the poison arrow, if by chance it should be -there." - -"The room is sealed," Frobisher reminded him. - -"We must have those seals removed," he replied, and he took his watch -from his pocket and screwed up his face in grimace. - -"We need Monsieur the Commissary, and Monsieur the Commissary will -not be in a good humour if we disturb him now. For it is twelve -o'clock, the sacred hour of luncheon. You will have observed upon -the stage that Commissaries of Police are never in a good humour. It -is because----" But Hanaud's audience was never to hear his -explanation of this well-known fact. For he stopped with a queer -jerk of his voice, his watch still dangling from his fingers upon its -chain. Both Jim and Betty looked at once where he was looking. They -saw Ann Upcott standing up against the wall with her hand upon the -top rail of a chair to prevent herself from falling. Her eyes were -closed, her whole face a mask of misery. Hanaud was at her side in a -moment. - -"Mademoiselle," he asked with a breathless sort of eagerness, "what -is it you have to tell me?" - -"It is true, then?" she whispered. "Jean Cladel exists?" - -"Yes." - -"And the poison arrow could have been used?" she faltered, and the -next words would not be spoken, but were spoken at the last. "And -death would have followed in fifteen minutes?" - -"Upon my oath it is true," Hanaud insisted. "What is it you have to -tell me?" - -"That I could have hindered it all. I shall never forgive myself. I -could have hindered the murder." - -Hanaud's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was he disappointed, -Frobisher wondered? Did he expect quite another reply? A swift -movement by Betty distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty -looking across the room at them with the strangest glittering eyes he -had ever seen. And then Ann Upcott drew herself away from Hanaud and -stood up against the wall at her full height with her arms -outstretched. She seemed to be setting herself apart as a pariah; -her whole attitude and posture cried, "Stone me! I am waiting." - -Hanaud put his watch into his pocket. - -"Mademoiselle, we will let the Commissary eat his luncheon in peace, -and we will hear your story first. But not here. In the garden -under the shade of the trees." He took his handkerchief and wiped -his forehead. "Indeed I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as -an oven." - -When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon the incidents of -that morning, nothing stood out so vividly in his memories, no, not -even the book of arrows and its plates, not Hanaud's statement of his -creed, as the picture of him twirling his watch at the end of his -chain, whilst it sparkled in the sunlight and he wondered whether he -should break in now upon the Commissaire of Police or let him eat his -luncheon in quiet. So much that was then unsuspected by them all, -hung upon the exact sequence of events. - - - - -CHAPTER NINE: _The Secret_ - -The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn towards the -farther end of the garden in the shadow of the great trees. Hanaud -led the way towards them. - -"We shall be in the cool here and with no one to overhear us but the -birds," he said, and he patted and arranged the cushions in a deep -arm-chair of basket work for Ann Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded -again of the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid and again the -parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer insight into -the character of this implacable being. The little courtesies and -attentions were not assumed. They were natural, but they would not -hinder him for a moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the -cushions with the swift deft hands of a nurse--yes, but he would slip -the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment afterwards, no -less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty prompted him. - -"There!" he said. "Now, Mademoiselle, you are comfortable. For me, -if I am permitted, I shall smoke." - -He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who with Jim had -followed into the garden behind him. - -"Of course," she answered; and coming forward, she sat down in -another of the chairs. - -Hanaud pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of thin black -cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair close to the two -girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind Hanaud. The lawn was dappled with -sunlight and cool shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling -from bough and bush, the garden was riotous with roses and the air -sweet with their perfume. It was a strange setting for the eerie -story which Ann Upcott had to tell of her adventures in the darkness -and silence of a night; but the very contrast seemed to make the -story still more vivid. - -"I did not go to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball on the night of April -the 27th," she began, and Jim started, so that Hanaud raised his hand -to prevent him interrupting. He had not given a thought to where Ann -Upcott had been upon that night. To Hanaud, however, the statement -brought no surprise. - -"You were not well?" he asked. - -"It wasn't that," Ann replied. "But Betty and I had--I won't say a -rule, but a sort of working arrangement which I think had been in -practice ever since I came to the Maison Crenelle. We didn't -encroach upon each other's independence." - -The two girls had recognised from their first coming together that -privacy was the very salt of companionship. Each had a sanctuary in -her own sitting-room. - -"I don't think Betty has ever been in mine, I only once or twice in -hers," said Ann. "We had each our own friends. We didn't pester -each other with questions as to where we had been and with whom. In -a word, we weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels." - -"A wise rule, Mademoiselle," Hanaud agreed cordially. "A good many -households are split from roof to cellar by the absence of just such -a rule. The de Pouillacs then were Mademoiselle Betty's friends." - -"Yes. As soon as Betty had gone," Ann resumed, "I told Gaston that -he might turn off the lights and go to bed whenever he liked; and I -went upstairs to my own sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. -You can see the windows from here. There!" - -They were in a group facing the back of the long house across the -garden. To the right of the hall stretched the line of shuttered -windows, with Betty's bedroom just above. Ann pointed to the wing on -the left of the hall and towards the road. - -"I see. You are above the library, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. - -"Yes. I had a letter to write," Ann continued, and suddenly -faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in the telling of her -story which she had forgotten when she had uttered her cry in the -library. She gasped. "Oh!" she murmured, and again "Oh!" in a low -voice. She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from her -at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows upon her knees and -her eyes on the grass at her feet and apparently miles away in -thought. - -"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud asked smoothly. - -"It was an important letter," Ann went on again, choosing her words -warily, much as yesterday at one moment in her interrogatory Betty -herself had done--concealing something, too, just as Betty had done. -"I had promised faithfully to write it. But the address was -downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a doctor," and -having said that, it seemed that she had cleared her obstacle, for -she went on in a more easy and natural tone. - -"You know what it is, Monsieur Hanaud. I had been playing tennis all -the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. There was a letter to be -written with a good deal of care and the address was all the way -downstairs. I said to myself that I would think out the terms of my -letter first." - -And here Jim Frobisher, who had been shifting impatiently from one -foot to the other, broke in upon the narrative. - -"But what was this letter about and to what doctor?" he asked. - -Hanaud swung round almost angrily. - -"Oh, please!" he cried. "These things will all come to light of -themselves in their due order, if we leave them alone and keep them -in our memories. Let Mademoiselle tell her story in her own way," -and he was back at Ann Upcott again in a flash. - -"Yes, Mademoiselle. You determined to think out the tenor of your -letter." - -A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a second. "But -it was an excuse really, an excuse to sit down in my big arm-chair, -stretch out my legs and do nothing at all. You can guess what -happened." - -Hanaud smiled and nodded. - -"You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young people, who -are healthy and tired, awake," he said. - -"No, but it wakes up with them," Ann returned, "and upbraids at once -bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as people do who have gone to -sleep in their chairs. I was wearing a little thin frock of pale -blue tulle--oh, a feather-weight of a frock! Yes, I was cold and my -conscience was saying, 'Oh, big lazy one! And your letter? Where is -it?' - -"In a moment I was standing up and the next I was out of the room on -the landing, and I was still half dazed with sleep. I closed my door -behind me. It was just chance that I did it. The lights were all -out on the staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn -across the windows. There was no moon that night. I was in a -darkness so complete that I could not see the glimmer of my hand when -I raised it close before my face." - -Hanaud let the end of his cigarette drop at his feet. Betty had -raised her face and was staring at Ann with her mouth parted. For -all of them the garden had disappeared with its sunlight and its -roses and its singing birds. They were upon that staircase with Ann -Upcott in the black night. The swift changes of colour in her cheeks -and of expression in her eyes--the nervous vividness of her compelled -them to follow with her. - -"Yes, Mademoiselle?" said Hanaud quietly. - -"The darkness didn't matter to me," she went on, with an amazement at -her own fearlessness, now that she knew the after-history of that -evening. "I am afraid now. I wasn't then," and Jim remembered how -the night before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark -spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was afraid now! -Her hands were clenched tight upon the arms of her chair, her lips -shook. - -"I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on the balustrade. -There was no sound. It never occurred to me that any one was awake -except myself. I did not even turn on the light in the hall by the -switch at the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch -just inside the door of Betty's room, and that was enough. I think, -too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the foot of the stairs -I turned right like a soldier. Exactly opposite to me across the -hall was the door of Betty's room. I crossed the hall with my hands -out in front of me," and Betty, as though she herself were crossing -the hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. - -"Yes, one would have to do that," she said slowly. "In the -dark--with nothing but space in front of one---- Yes!" and then she -smiled as she saw that Hanaud's eyes were watching her curiously. -"Don't you think so, Monsieur Hanaud?" - -"No doubt," said he. "But let us not interrupt Mademoiselle." - -"I touched the wall first," Ann resumed, "just at the angle of the -corridor and the hall." - -"The corridor with the windows on to the courtyard on the one side -and the doors of the receptions on the other?" Hanaud asked. - -"Yes." - -"Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, Mademoiselle?" - -"Yes. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I felt my way -along the wall to my right--that is, in the hall, of course, not the -corridor--until my hands slipped off the surface and touched nothing. -I had reached the embrasure of the doorway. I felt for the -door-knob, turned it and entered the room. The light switch was in -the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I snapped -it down. I think that I was still half asleep when I turned the -light on in the treasure-room, as we called it. But the next moment -I was wide awake--oh, I have never been more wide awake in my life. -My fingers indeed were hardly off the switch after turning the light -on, before they were back again turning the light off. But this time -I eased the switch up very carefully, so that there should be no -snap--no, not the tiniest sound to betray me. There was so short an -interval between the two movements of my hand that I had just time to -notice the clock on the top of the marquetry cabinet in the middle of -the wall opposite to me, and then once more I stood in darkness, but -stock still and holding my breath--a little frightened--yes, no doubt -a little frightened, but more astonished than frightened. For in the -inner wall of the room, at the other end, close by the window, -there,"--and Ann pointed to the second of those shuttered windows -which stared so blankly on the garden--"the door which was always -locked since Simon Harlowe's death stood open and a bright light -burned beyond." - -Betty Harlowe uttered a little cry. - -"That door?" she exclaimed, now at last really troubled. "It stood -open? How can that have been?" - -Hanaud shifted his position in his chair, and asked her a question. - -"On which side of the door was the key, Mademoiselle?" - -"On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all." - -"Oh! You don't remember whether it was?" - -"No," said Betty. "Of course both Ann and I were in and out of -Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but there was a dressing-room -between the bedroom and the communicating door of my room, so that we -should not have noticed." - -"To be sure," Hanaud agreed. "The dressing-room in which the nurse -might have slept and did when Madame had a seizure. Do you remember -whether the communicating door was still open or unlocked on the next -morning?" - -Betty frowned and reflected, and shook her head. - -"I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. There was so much -to do. I did not notice." - -"No. Indeed why should you?" said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann. -"Before you go on with this curious story, Mademoiselle, tell me -this! Was the light beyond the open door, a light in the -dressing-room or in the room beyond the dressing-room, Madame -Harlowe's bedroom, or didn't you notice?" - -"In the far room, I think," Ann answered confidently. "There would -have been more light in the treasure-room otherwise. The -treasure-room is long no doubt, but where I stood I was completely in -darkness. There was only this panel of yellow light in the open -doorway. It lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up -the sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened like -silver." - -"Oho, there is a sedan chair in that museum?" said Hanaud lightly. -"It will be interesting to see. So the light, Mademoiselle, came -from the far room?" - -"The light and--and the voices," said Ann with a quaver in her throat. - -"Voices!" cried Hanaud. He sat up straight in his chair, whilst -Betty Harlowe went as white as a ghost. "Voices! What is this? Did -you recognise those voices?" - -"One, Madame's. There was no mistaking it. It was loud and violent -for a moment. Then it went off into a mumble of groans. The other -voice only spoke once and very few words and very clearly. But it -spoke in a whisper. There was too a sound of--movements." - -"Movements!" said Hanaud sharply; and with his voice his face seemed -to sharpen too. "Here's a word which does not help us much. A -procession moves. So does the chair if I push it. So does my hand -if I cover a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you -mean, Mademoiselle?" - -Under the stern insistence of his questions Ann Upcott suddenly -weakened. - -"Oh, I am afraid so," she said with a loud cry, and she clapped her -hands to her face. "I never understood until this morning when you -spoke of how the arrow might be used. Oh, I shall never forgive -myself. I stood in the darkness, a few yards away--no more--I stood -quite still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway Madame -was being killed!" She drew her hands from her face and beat upon -her knees with her clenched fists in a frenzy. - -"'Yes, I believe that now!' Madame cried in the hoarse, harsh voice -we knew: 'Stripped, eh? Stripped to the skin!' and she laughed -wildly; and then came the sound, as though--yes, it might have been -that!--as though she were forced down and held, and Madame's voice -died to a mumble and then silence--and then the other voice in a low -clear whisper, 'That will do now.' And all the while I stood in the -darkness--oh!" - -"What did you do after that clear whisper reached your ears?" Hanaud -commanded. "Take your hands from your face, if you please, and let -me hear." - -Ann Upcott obeyed him. She flung her head back with the tears -streaming down her face. - -"I turned," she whispered. "I went out of the room. I closed the -door behind me--oh, ever so gently. I fled." - -"Fled? Fled? Where to?" - -"Up the stairs! To my room." - -"And you rang no bell? You roused no one? You fled to your room! -You hid your head under the bed-clothes like a child! Come, come, -Mademoiselle!" - -Hanaud broke off his savage irony to ask, - -"And whose voice did you think it was that whispered so clearly, -'That will do now?' The stranger's you spoke of in the library this -morning?" - -"No, Monsieur," Ann replied. "I could not tell. With a whisper one -voice is like another." - -"But you must have given that voice an owner. To run away and -hide--no one would do that." - -"I thought it was Jeanne Baudin's." - -And Hanaud sat back in his chair again, gazing at the girl with a -look in which there was as much horror as incredulity. Jim Frobisher -stood behind him ashamed of his very race. Could there be a more -transparent subterfuge? If she thought that the nurse Jeanne Baudin -was in the bedroom, why did she turn and fly? - -"Come, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. His voice had suddenly become -gentle, almost pleading. "You will not make me believe that." - -Ann Upcott turned with a helpless gesture towards Betty. - -"You see!" she said. - -"Yes," Betty answered. She sat in doubt for a second or two and then -sprang to her feet. - -"Wait!" she said, and before any one could have stopped her she was -skimming half-way across the garden to the house. Jim Frobisher -wondered whether Hanaud had meant to stop her and then had given up -the idea as quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some -small quick movement; and even now, he watched Betty's flight across -the broad lawn between the roses with an inscrutable queer look. - -"To run like that!" he said to Frobisher, "with a boy's nimbleness -and a girl's grace! It is pretty, eh? The long slim legs that -twinkle, the body that floats!" and Betty ran up the stone steps into -the house. - -There was a tension in Hanaud's attitude with which his light words -did not agree, and he watched the blank windows of the house with -expectancy. Betty, however, was hardly a minute upon her errand. -She reappeared upon the steps with a largish envelope in her hand and -quickly rejoined the group. - -"Monsieur, we have tried to keep this back from you," she said, -without bitterness but with a deep regret. "I yesterday, Ann to-day, -just as we have tried for many years to keep it from all Dijon. But -there is no help for it now." - -She opened the envelope and, taking out a cabinet photograph, handed -it to Hanaud. - -"This is the portrait of Madame, my aunt, at the time of her marriage -with my uncle." - -It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman, slender with the -straight carriage of youth, in whose face a look of character had -replaced youth's prettiness. It was a face made spiritual by -suffering, the eyes shadowed and wistful, the mouth tender, and -conveying even in the hard medium of a photograph some whimsical -sense of humour. It made Jim Frobisher, gazing over Hanaud's -shoulder, exclaim not "She was beautiful," but "I would like to have -known her." - -"Yes! A companion," Hanaud added. - -Betty took a second photograph from the envelope. - -"But this, Monsieur, is the same lady a year ago." - -The second photograph had been taken at Monte Carlo, and it was -difficult to believe that it was of the same woman, so tragic a -change had taken place within those ten years. Hanaud held the -portraits side by side. The grace, the suggestion of humour had all -gone; the figure had grown broad, the features coarse and heavy; the -cheeks had fattened, the lips were pendulous; and there was nothing -but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful picture of collapse. - -"It is best to be precise, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud gently, "though -these photographs tell their unhappy story clearly enough. Madame -Harlowe, during the last years of her life, drank?" - -"Since my uncle's death," Betty explained. "Her life, as very likely -you know already, had been rather miserable and lonely before she -married him. But she had a dream then on which to live. After Simon -Harlowe died, however----" and she ended her explanation with a -gesture. - -"Yes," Hanaud replied, "of course, Mademoiselle, we have known, -Monsieur Frobisher and I, ever since we came into this affair that -there was some secret. We knew it before your reticence of yesterday -or Mademoiselle Upcott's of to-day. Waberski must have known of -something which you would not care to have exposed before he -threatened your lawyers in London, or brought his charges against -you." - -"Yes, he knew and the doctors and the servants of course who were -very loyal. We did our best to keep our secret but we could never be -sure that we had succeeded." - -A friendly smile broadened Hanaud's face. - -"Well, we can make sure now and here," he said, and both the girls -and Jim stared at him. - -"How?" they exclaimed in an incredulous voice. - -Hanaud beamed. He held them in suspense. He spread out his hands. -The artist as he would have said, the mountebank as Jim Frobisher -would have expressed it, had got the upper hand in him, and prepared -his effect. - -"By answering me one simple question," he said. "Have either of you -two ladies received an anonymous letter upon the subject?" - -The test took them all by surprise; yet each one of them recognised -immediately that they could hardly have a better. All the secrets of -the town had been exploited at one time or another by this unknown -person or group of persons--all the secrets that is, except this one -of Mrs. Harlowe's degradation. For Betty answered, - -"No! I never received one." - -"Nor I," added Ann. - -"Then your secret is your secret still," said Hanaud. - -"For how long now?" Betty asked quickly, and Hanaud did not answer a -word. He could make no promise without being false to what he had -called his creed. - -"It is a pity," said Betty wistfully. "We have striven so hard, Ann -and I," and she gave to the two men a glimpse of the life the two -girls had led in the Maison Crenelle. "We could do very little. We -had neither of us any authority. We were both of us dependent upon -Madame's generosity, and though no one could have been kinder -when--when Madame was herself, she was not easy when she had--the -attacks. There was too much difference in age between us and her for -us really to do anything but keep guard. - -"She would not brook interference; she drank alone in her bedroom; -she grew violent and threatening if any one interfered. She would -turn them all into the street. If she needed any help she could ring -for the nurse, as indeed she sometimes, though rarely, did." It was -a dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlowe described it for the two -young sentinels. - -"We were utterly in despair," Betty continued. "For Madame, of -course, was really ill with her heart, and we always feared some -tragedy would happen. This letter which Ann was to write when I was -at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a -doctor in England--he called himself a doctor at all events--who -advertised that he had a certain remedy which could be given without -the patient's knowledge in her food and drink. Oh, I had no faith in -it, but we had got to try it." - -Hanaud looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. - -"What did I say to you, Monsieur Frobisher, when you wanted to ask a -question about this letter? You see! These things disclose -themselves in their due order if you leave them alone." - -The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his feet and, bowing -to Betty with an unaffected stateliness and respect, he handed her -back the photographs. - -"Mademoiselle, I am very sorry," he said. "It is clear that you and -your friend have lived amongst difficulties which we did not suspect. -And, for the secret, I shall do what I can." - -Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been administered to him for -the excellence of his manner towards Betty. He had a hope even that -now he would forswear his creed, so that the secret might still be -kept and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close -watch. But Hanaud sat down again in his chair, and once more turned -towards Ann Upcott. He meant to go on then. He would not leave well -alone. Jim was all the more disappointed, because he could not but -realise that the case was more and more clearly building itself from -something unsubstantial into something solid, from a conjecture to an -argument--this case against some one. - - - - -CHAPTER TEN: _The Clock upon the Cabinet_ - -Ann Upcott's story was in the light of this new disclosure -intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, she had heard, as she -thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one of her violent outbreaks. Then with a -sense of relief she had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was -with Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally -administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries diminish and -cease and a final whisper from the nurse to her patient or even -perhaps to herself, "That will do now." Then she had turned and -fled, taking care to attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice -had nothing to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her -intervention, which before would only have been a provocation to a -wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was now altogether -without excuse. It would once more have aroused the invalid, and -next day would have added to the discomfort and awkwardness of life -in the Maison Crenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known that -Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful exhibitions. The -best thing which Ann could do, she did, given that her interpretation -of the scene was the true one. She ran noiselessly back in the -darkness to her room. - -"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your interpretation -was not correct. You believe now that whilst you stood in the -darkness with the door open and the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was -being murdered, coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you." - -Ann Upcott shivered from head to foot. - -"I don't want to believe it," she cried. "It's too horrible." - -"You believe now that the one who whispered 'That will do now,' was -not Jeanne Baudin," Hanaud insisted, "but some unknown person, and -that the whisper was uttered after murder had been done to a third -person in that room." - -Ann twisted her body from this side to that; she wrung her hands. - -"I am afraid of it!" she moaned. - -"And what is torturing you now, Mademoiselle, is remorse that you did -not step silently forward and from the darkness of the treasure-room -look through that lighted doorway." He spoke with a great -consideration and his insight into her distress was in its way a -solace to her. - -"Yes," she exclaimed eagerly. "I told you this morning I could have -hindered it. I didn't understand until this morning. You see, that -night something else happened"; and now indeed stark fear drew the -colour from her cheeks and shone in her eyes. - -"Something else?" Betty asked with a quick indraw of her breath, and -she shifted her chair a little so that she might face Ann. She was -wearing a black coat over a white silk shirt open at the throat, and -she took her handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it -across her forehead. - -"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud explained. "It is clear that something -else happened that night to your friend, something which, taken -together with our talk this morning over the book of arrows, had made -her believe that murder was done." He looked at Ann. "You went then -to your room?" - -Ann resumed her story. - -"I went to bed. I was very--what shall I say?--disturbed by Madame's -outburst, as I thought it. One never knew what was going to happen -in this house. It was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side -to side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was asleep, -sound asleep. But only for a time. I woke up and it was still pitch -dark in my room. There was not a thread of light from the shutters. -I turned over from my side on to my back and I stretched out my arms -above my head. As God is my Judge I touched a face----" and even -after all these days the terror of that moment was so vivid and fresh -to her that she shuddered and a little sob broke from her lips. "A -face quite close to me bending over me, in silence. I drew my hands -away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay just for a -second or two dumb, paralysed. Then my voice came back to me and I -screamed." - -It was the look of the girl as she told her story perhaps more than -the words she used; but something of her terror spread like a -contagion amongst her hearers. Jim Frobisher's shoulders worked -uneasily. Betty with her big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, -hung upon Ann's narrative. Hanaud himself said: - -"You screamed? I do not wonder." - -"I knew that no one could hear me and that lying down I was -helpless," Ann continued. "I sprang out of bed in a panic, and now I -touched no one. I was so scared out of my wits that I had lost all -sense of direction. I couldn't find the switch of the electric -light. I stumbled along a wall feeling with my hands. I heard -myself sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked against -a chest of drawers and came a little to myself. I found my way then -to the switch and turned on the light. The room was empty. I tried -to tell myself that I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale -wasn't true. Some one had been stealthily bending down close, oh, so -close over me in the darkness. My hand that had touched the face -seemed to tingle. I asked myself with a shiver, what would have -happened to me if just at that moment I had not waked up? I stood -and listened, but the beating of my heart filled the whole room with -noise. I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, I -could easily have believed that one after another an army was -creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I made up my mind. I flung -the door open wide. For a moment I stood back from it, but once the -door was open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the great -staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an empty church. I -think that I should have heard a spider stir. I suddenly realised -that the light was streaming from my room and that some of it must -reach me. I cried at once, 'Who's there?' And then I ran back to my -room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep no more that -night. I ran to the windows and threw open the shutters. The night -had cleared, the stars were bright in a clean black sky and there was -a freshness of morning in the air. I had been, I should think, about -five minutes at the window when--you know perhaps, Monsieur, how the -clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the hour from one another and -pass it on to the hills--all of them struck three. I stayed by the -window until the morning came." - -After she had finished no one spoke for a little while. Then Hanaud -slowly lit another cigarette, looking now upon the ground, now into -the air, anywhere except at the faces of his companions. - -"So this alarming thing happened just before three o'clock in the -morning?" he asked gravely. "You are very sure of that, I suppose? -For, you see, it may be of the utmost importance." - -"I am quite sure, Monsieur," she said. - -"And you have told this story to no one until this moment?" - -"To no one in the world," replied Ann. "The next morning Madame -Harlowe was found dead. There were the arrangements for the funeral. -Then came Monsieur Boris's accusation. There were troubles enough in -the house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would have -believed my story of the face in the darkness; and I didn't of course -associate it then with the death of Mrs. Harlowe." - -"No," Hanaud agreed. "For you believed that death to have been -natural." - -"Yes, and I am not sure that it wasn't natural now," Ann protested. -"But to-day I had to tell you this story, Monsieur Hanaud"; and she -leaned forward in her chair and claimed his attention with her eyes, -her face, every tense muscle of her body. "Because if you are right -and murder was done in this house on the twenty-seventh, I know the -exact hour when it was done." - -"Ah!" - -Hanaud nodded his head once or twice slowly. He gathered up his feet -beneath him. His eyes glittered very brightly as he looked at Ann. -He gave Frobisher the queer impression of an animal crouching to -spring. - -"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet," he said, "against the middle -of the wall in the treasure-room. The white face of it and the hour -which leapt at you during that fraction of a second when your fingers -were on the switch." - -"Yes," said Ann with a slow and quiet emphasis. "The hour was -half-past ten." - -With that statement the tension was relaxed. Betty's -tightly-clenched hand opened and her trifle of a handkerchief -fluttered down on the grass. Hanaud changed from that queer attitude -of a crouching animal. Jim Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. - -"Yes, that is very important," said Hanaud. - -"Important. I should think it was!" cried Jim. - -For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had been done on the -night of the 27th of April, there was just one person belonging to -the household of the Maison Crenelle who could have no share in it; -and that one person was his client, Betty Harlowe. - -Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when Hanaud spoke to -her; and she drew herself erect again with a little jerk. - -"Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good time, -Mademoiselle?" he asked. - -"Very good," she answered. "Monsieur Sabin the watch-maker in the -Rue de la Liberté has had it more than once to clean. It is an -eight-day clock. It will be going when the seals are broken this -afternoon. You will see for yourself." - -Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. He rose to -his feet and bowed to her with a certain formality but with a smile -which redeemed it. - -"At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing at the house of M. -de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers," he said. "Of that there is no -doubt. Inquiries have been made. Mademoiselle did not leave that -house until after one in the morning. There is evidence enough of -that to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her dancing -partners to M. de Pouillac's coachman, who stood at the bottom of the -steps with a lantern during that evening and remembers to have held -open for Mademoiselle the door of her car when she went away." - -"So that's that," said Jim to himself. Betty at all events was out -of the net for good. And with that certainty there came a revolution -in his thoughts. Why shouldn't Hanaud's search go on? It was -interesting to watch the building up of this case against an unknown -criminal--a case so difficult to bring to its proper conclusion in -the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there was no trace of -poison, a case where out of a mass of conjectures, here and there and -more and more definite facts were coming into view; just as more and -more masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer one -approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to go on, delving -astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things disclose themselves in -their due sequence. But there was one point which Hanaud had missed, -which should be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he -thought with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would come to the -help of the netted lion. He cleared his throat. - -"Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to ask you," he -began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his surprise, with a face of -thunder. - -"You wish to ask a question?" he said. "Well, Monsieur, ask it if -you wish. It is your right." - -His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, "and your -responsibility." Jim hesitated. He could see no harm in the -question he proposed to ask. It was of vital importance. Yet Hanaud -stood in front of him with a lowering face, daring him to put it. -Jim did not doubt any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point -and yet for some unknown reason objected to its disclosure. Jim -yielded, but not with a very good grace. - -"It is nothing," he said surlily, and Hanaud at once was all -cheerfulness again. - -"Then we will adjourn," he said, looking at his watch. "It is nearly -one o'clock. Shall we say three for the Commissary of Police? Yes? -Then I shall inform him and we will meet in the library at three -and"--with a little bow to Betty--"the interdict shall be raised." - -"At three, then," she said gaily. She sprang up from her chair, -stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a swift and supple movement, -twirled upon her heel and cried, "Come along, Ann!" - -The four people moved off towards the house. Betty looked back. - -"You have left your gloves behind you on your chair," she said -suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back. - -"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, "Oh, -Mademoiselle!" - -For Betty had already darted back and now returned dangling the -gloves in her hand. - -"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as he took them from -her. Then he cocked his head at Frobisher, who was looking a little -stiff. - -"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You do not like -that so much kindness should be shown me. No! You are looking very -proper. You have the poker in the back. But ask yourself this: -'What are youth and good looks compared with Hanaud?'" - -No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when the urchin got the -upper hand in him. And the worst of it was that he had no rejoinder. -He flushed very red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in -silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and stick, took -his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. Ann drifted into the -library. Jim felt a touch upon his arm. Betty was standing beside -him with a smile of amusement upon her face. - -"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, did you?" she -asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the amusement softened into -tenderness. "I wouldn't have done it for worlds if I had thought -you'd have minded." - -Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning. - -"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole if it -pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might do the same for -me'!" - -Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. - -"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next moment she was -out on the steps under the glass face of the porch. "Lunch at two, -Ann!" she cried. "I must walk all the grime of this morning out of -my brain." - -She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobisher. She had something -of Ariel in her conception--a delicate creature of fire and spirit -and air. She was across the courtyard and out of sight in the street -of Charles-Robert before he had quite realised that she was going. -He turned doubtfully towards the library, where Ann Upcott stood in -the doorway. - -"I had better follow her," he said, reaching for his hat - -Ann smiled and shook her head wisely. - -"I shouldn't. I know Betty. She wants to be alone." - -"Do you think so?" - -"I am sure." - -Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon the point as -she was. Ann watched him with a rather rueful smile for a little -while. Then she shrugged her shoulders in a sudden exasperation. - -"There is something you ought to do," she said. "You ought to let -Monsieur Bex, Betty's notary here, know that the seals are to be -broken this afternoon. He ought to be here. He was here when they -were affixed. Besides, he has all the keys of Mrs. Harlowe's drawers -and cupboards." - -"That's true," Jim exclaimed. "I'll go at once." - -Ann gave him Monsieur Bex's address in the Place Etienne Dolet, and -from the window of the library watched him go upon his errand. She -stood at the window for a long while after he had disappeared. - - - - -CHAPTER ELEVEN: _A New Suspect_ - -Monsieur Bex the notary came out into the hall of his house when -Frobisher sent his card in to him. He was a small, brisk man with a -neat pointed beard, his hair cut _en brosse_ and the corner of his -napkin tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. - -Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from the rooms of the -Maison Grenelle, but said nothing at all of the new developments -which had begun with the discovery of the book of the arrows. - -"I have had communications with Messrs. Frobisher and Haslitt," the -little man exclaimed. "Everything has been as correct as it could -possibly be. I am happy to meet a partner of so distinguished a -firm. Yes. I will certainly present myself at three with my keys -and see the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a disgrace. -That young lady so delicious and so correct! And that animal of a -Waberski! But we can deal with him. We have laws in France." - -He gave Jim the impression that there were in his opinion no laws -anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor into the street. - -Jim returned by the Rue des Godrans and the main thoroughfare of the -town, the street of Liberty. As he crossed the semicircle of the -Place d'Armes in front of the Hôtel de Ville, he almost ran into -Hanaud smoking a cigar. - -"You have lunched already?" he cried. - -"An affair of a quarter of an hour," said Hanaud with a wave of the -hand. "And you?" - -"Not until two. Miss Harlowe wanted a walk." - -Hanaud smiled. - -"How I understand that! The first walk after an ordeal! The first -walk of a convalescent after an operation! The first walk of a -defendant found innocent of a grave charge! It must be worth taking, -that walk. But console yourself, my friend, for the postponement of -your luncheon. You have met me!" and he struck something of an -attitude. - -Now Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, especially -when displayed in public places, and he answered stiffly, "That is a -pleasure, to be sure." - -Hanaud grinned. To make Jim look "proper" was becoming to him an -unfailing entertainment. - -"Now I reward you," he said, though for what Jim could not imagine. -"You shall come with me. At this hour, on the top of old Philippe le -Bon's Terrace Tower, we shall have the world to ourselves." - -He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville. -Behind the long wing which faced them, a square, solid tower rose a -hundred and fifty feet high above the ground. With Frobisher at his -heels, Hanaud climbed the three hundred and sixteen steps and emerged -upon the roof into the blue and gold of a cloudless May in France. -They looked eastwards, and the beauty of the scene took Frobisher's -breath away. Just in front, the slender apse of Notre Dame, fine as -a lady's ornament, set him wondering how in the world through all -these centuries it had endured; and beyond, rich and green and -wonderful, stretched the level plain with its shining streams and -nestling villages. - -Hanaud sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out his arm across -the parapet. "Look!" he cried eagerly, proudly. "There is what I -brought you here to see. Look!" - -Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up. Far away on the horizon's -edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the great mass of Mont Blanc; -white as silver, soft as velvet, and here and there sparkling with -gold as though the flame of a fire leaped and sank. - -"Oho!" said Hanaud as he watched Jim's face. "So we have that in -common. You perhaps have stood on the top of that mountain?" - -"Five times," Jim answered, with a smile made up of many memories. -"I hope to do so again." - -"You are fortunate," said Hanaud a little enviously. "For me I see -him only in the distance. But even so--if I am troubled--it is like -sitting silent in the company of a friend." - -Jim Frobisher's mind strayed back over memories of snow slope and -rock ridge. It was a true phrase which Hanaud had used. It -expressed one of the many elusive, almost incommunicable emotions -which mountains did mean to the people who had "that"--the passion -for mountains--in common. Jim glanced curiously at Hanaud. - -"You are troubled about this case, then?" he said sympathetically. -The distant and exquisite vision of that soaring arc of silver and -velvet set in the blue air had brought the two men into at all events -a momentary brotherhood. - -"Very," Hanaud returned slowly, without turning his eyes from the -horizon, "and for more reasons than one. What do you yourself think -of it?" - -"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," Jim said dryly, "that you do not like any -one to ask any questions except yourself." - -Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. - -"Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful Mademoiselle -Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright the question you meant to -ask! It was whether the face she touched in the darkness was the -smooth face of a woman or the face of a man." - -"Yes. That was it." - -It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly at Jim. There -could be no doubt of the thought which was passing through his mind: -"I must begin to give you a little special attention, my friend." -But he was careful not to put his thoughts into words. - -"I did not want that question asked," he said. - -"Why?" - -"Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions are confusing -things which had best be avoided altogether." - -Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He had too clear a -recollection of the swift movement and the look with which Hanaud had -checked him. Both had been unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud -would not have been alarmed at the prospect of a question being -asked, merely because the question was superfluous. There was -another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in Hanaud's mind. -Only he could not discover it. - -Besides, was the question superfluous? - -"Surely," Hanaud replied. "Suppose that that young lady's hand had -touched in the darkness the face of a man with its stubble, its tough -skin, and the short hair of his head around it, bending down so low -over hers, would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing -to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her hands -carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, unexpectedly, the -face of a man? She could not have told her story at all without -telling that. It would have been the unforgettable detail, the very -heart of her terror. She touched the face of a man!" - -Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he was no nearer to -the solution of his problem--why Hanaud so whole-heartedly objected -to the question being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark -which drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's speculations. - -"Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the darkness that -night--if that night, in the darkness she touched a face at all." - -Jim was utterly startled. - -"You believe that she was lying to us?" he cried. - -Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air. - -"I believe nothing," he said. "I am looking for a criminal." - -"Ann Upcott!" Jim spoke the name in amazement. "Ann Upcott!" Then -he remembered the look of her as she had told her story, her face -convulsed with terror, her shaking tones. "Oh, it's impossible that -she was lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?" - -Hanaud laughed. - -"You may take this from me, my friend. All women who are great -criminals are also very artful actresses. I never knew one who -wasn't." - -"Ann Upcott!" Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, but now with a -trifle less of amazement. He was growing slowly and gradually -accustomed to the idea. Still--that girl with the radiant look of -young Spring! Oh, no! - -"Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe's will," he argued. -"What could she have to gain by murder?" - -"Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! Analyse it. You -will see--what? That it falls into two parts." Hanaud ground the -stump of his cigar beneath his heel, offered one of his black -cigarettes to Jim Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it -with a sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop fizzling, -would never burst into flame. - -"One part when she was alone in her bedroom--a little story of terror -and acted very effectively, but after all any one could invent it. -The other part was not so easy to invent. The communicating door -open for no reason, the light beyond, the voice that whispered, 'That -will do,' the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don't believe -that was invented. There were too many little details which seemed -to have been lived through. The white face of the clock and the hour -leaping at her. No! I think all that must stand. But adapt it a -little. See! This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of -Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!" - -"Yes," said Jim. - -"And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might not be telling a -true story of himself and attributing it to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" - -"Yes." - -"Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott's story in the same way," continued -Hanaud. "Suppose that sometime that day she had unlocked the -communicating door! What more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during -the day-time. Her room was empty. And that communicating door -opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps it might have been -discovered whether it was locked or not, but into a dressing-room." - -"Yes," Jim agreed. - -"Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after Mademoiselle -Harlowe's departure to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball. She sends Gaston -to bed. The house is all dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is -joined by--some one--some one with the arrow poison all ready in the -hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room just as Ann -Upcott described. That she turns on the light for a second -whilst--some one--crosses the treasure-room and opens the door. -Suppose that the voice which whispered, 'That will do now,' was the -voice of Ann Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame -Harlowe's body to the third person in that room!" - -"The 'some one,'" exclaimed Jim. "But, who then? Who?" - -Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. "Why not Waberski?" - -"Waberski?" cried Jim with a new excitement in his voice. - -"You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this murder and you -answered your own question. Nothing you said, Monsieur Frobisher, -but did your quick answer cover the ground? Waberski--he at all -events expected a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for help -proposed to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite -Mademoiselle Ann. Has she no motive now? In the end what do we know -of her at all except that she is the paid companion and therefore -poor? Mademoiselle Ann!"; and he threw up his hands. "Where does -she spring from? How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps -Waberski's friend?"--and a cry from Jim brought Hanaud to a stop. - -Jim had thought of Waberski as the possible murderer if murder had -been done--a murderer who, disappointed of his legacy, the profits of -his murder, had carried on his villainy to blackmail and a false -accusation. But he had not associated Ann Upcott with him until -those moments on the Terrace Tower. Yet now memories began to crowd -upon him. The letter to him, for instance. She had said that -Waberski had claimed her support and ridiculed his claim. Might that -letter not have been a blind and a rather cunning blind? Above all -there was a scene passing vividly through his mind which was very -different from the scene spread out before his eyes, a scene of -lighted rooms and a crowd about a long green table, and a fair -slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until the whole -of her little pile of banknotes was swept in by the croupier's rake, -and then turned away with a high carriage but a quivering lip. - -"Aha!" said Hanaud keenly. "You know something after all of Ann -Upcott, my friend. What do you know?" - -Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to her that he -should relate his story. Explained, it might wear so different a -complexion. At another moment that it would be fairer to let her -explain it. And there was Betty to consider. Yes, above all there -was Betty to consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. - -"I will tell you," he said to Hanaud. "When I saw you in Paris, I -told you that I had never seen Ann Upcott in all my life. I believed -it. It wasn't until she danced into the library yesterday morning -that I realised I had misled you. I saw Ann Upcott at the _trente et -quarante_ table at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in January of -this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and losing her -money. Nothing would go right for her. She bore herself proudly and -well. The only sign I saw of distress was the tightening of her -fingers about her little handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at -the other players when she rose after her last coup, as though she -dared them to pity her. I was on the other hand winning, and I -slipped a thousand-franc note off the table on to the floor, keeping -my heel firmly upon it as you can understand. And as the girl turned -to move out from the crowd I stopped her. I said in English, for she -was obviously of my race, 'This is yours. You have dropped it on the -floor.' She gave me a smile and a little shake of the head. I think -that for the moment she dared not trust her lips to speak, and in a -second, of course, she was swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a -little while longer. Then I too rose and as I passed the entrance to -the bar on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from one of the -many little tables and spoke to me. She called me by my name. She -thanked me very prettily and said that although she had lost that -evening she was not really in any trouble. I doubted the truth of -what she said. For she had not one ring upon any finger, not the -tiniest necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress or -in her hair. She turned away from me at once and went back to the -little table where she sat down again in the company of a man. The -girl of course was Ann Upcott, the man Waberski. It was from him no -doubt that she had got my name." - -"Did this little episode happen before Ann Upcott became a member of -the household?" Hanaud asked. - -"Yes," replied Jim. "I think she joined Mrs. Harlowe and Betty at -Monte Carlo. I think that she came with them back to Dijon." - -"No doubt," said Hanaud. He sat for a little while in silence. Then -he said softly, "That does not look so very well for Mademoiselle -Ann." - -Jim had to admit that it did not. - -"But consider this, Monsieur Hanaud," he urged. "If Ann Upcott, -which I will not believe, is mixed up in this affair, why should she -of her own free will volunteer this story of what she heard upon the -night of the twenty-seventh and invent that face which bent down over -her in the darkness?" - -"I have an idea about that," Hanaud replied. "She told us this -story--when? After I had said that we must have the seals broken -this afternoon and the rooms thrown open. It is possible that we may -come upon something in those rooms which makes it wise for her to -divert suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jeanne Baudin, -or even Mademoiselle Harlowe's maid Francine Rollard." - -"But not Mademoiselle Betty," Jim interposed quickly. - -"No, no!" Hanaud returned with a wave of his hand. "The clock upon -the marquetry cabinet settled that. Mademoiselle Betty is out of the -affair. Well, this afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, -you will be late for your luncheon." - -Hanaud rose from the bench and with a last look at the magical -mountain, that outpost of France, they turned towards the city. - -Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares green with limes and the -steep gaily-patterned roofs of ancient houses. About him the fine -tapering spires leapt high like lances from the slates of its many -churches. A little to the south and a quarter of a mile away across -the roof tops he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke -rising from a chimney stack or two and behind it the tops of tall -trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from their leaves. - -"The Maison Crenelle!" he said. - -There was no answer, not even the slightest movement at his side. - -"Isn't it?" he asked and he turned. - -Hanaud had not even heard him. He was gazing also towards the Maison -Crenelle with the queerest look upon his face; a look with which Jim -was familiar in some sort of association, but which for a moment or -two he could not define. It was not an expression of amazement. On -the other hand interest was too weak a word. Suddenly Jim Frobisher -understood and comprehension brought with it a sense of discomfort. -Hanaud's look, very bright and watchful and more than a little -inhuman, was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master -brings out a gun. - -Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The slates were -broken at intervals by little gabled windows, but at none of them -could he see a figure. From none of them a signal was waved. - -"What is it that you are looking at?" asked Jim in perplexity and -then with a touch of impatience. "You see something, I'm sure." - -Hanaud heard his companion at last. His face changed in a moment, -lost its rather savage vigilance, and became the face of a buffoon. - -"Of course I see something. Always I see something. Am I not -Hanaud? Ah, my friend, the responsibility of being Hanaud! Aren't -you fortunate to be without it? Pity me! For the Hanauds must see -something everywhere--even when there is nothing to see. Come!" - -He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform into the dark -turret of the staircase. The two men descended the steps and came -out again into the semi-circle of the Place d'Armes. - -"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he had some little -thing to say and was not quite sure whether he would say it. Then he -compromised. "You shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to -your luncheon," he said. - -"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied. - -Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his outstretched -forefinger. - -"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take a Vermouth with -me, and you will still reach the Maison Crenelle before Mademoiselle -Harlowe. I say that, Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and -consented. - -"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her and Ann -Upcott half through their meal." - -A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and the Place -d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out on the pavement -beneath an awning. They sat down at one of them, and over the -Vermouth, Hanaud was once more upon the brink of some recommendation -or statement. - -"You see----" he began and then once more ran away. "So you have -been five times upon the top of the Mont Blanc!" he said. "From -Chamonix?" - -"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant by the Brenva -glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once from the Brouillard glacier. -And the last time by the Mont Mandit." - -Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: - -"You tell me things which are interesting and very new to me," he -said warmly. "I am grateful, Monsieur." - -"On the other hand," Jim answered dryly, "you, Monsieur, tell me very -little. Even what you brought me to this café to say, you are going -to keep to yourself. But for my part I shall not be so churlish. I -am going to tell you what I think." - -"Yes?" - -"I think we have missed the way." - -"Oh?" - -Hanaud selected a cigarette from his bundle in its bright blue -wrapping. - -"You will perhaps think me presumptuous in saying so." - -"Not the least little bit in the world," Hanaud replied seriously. -"We of the Police are liable in searching widely to overlook the -truth under our noses. That is our danger. Another angle of -view--there is nothing more precious. I am all attention." - -Jim Frobisher drew his chair closer to the round table of iron and -leaned his elbows upon it. - -"I think there is one question in particular which we must answer if -we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, and if so by -whom." - -Hanaud nodded. - -"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we have the same -question in our minds." - -"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this--Who put back -the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in its place upon the -bookshelf in the library, between mid-day yesterday and this morning." - -Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and held it in the -shelter of his palm until the flame shone. He lit his cigarette and -took a few puffs at it. - -"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, although in -rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. No. I think there is -another more important still. I think if we could know why the door -of the treasure-room, which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's -death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh of April, we -should be very near to the whole truth of this dark affair. But," -and he flung out his hands, "that baffles me." - -Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily upon the -pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer there. - - - - -CHAPTER TWELVE: _The Breaking of the Seals_ - -A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that Hanaud guessed -very luckily. He would not allow that it was more than a guess. -Monsieur Hanaud might be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no -insight, however brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a -circumstance. But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at the -Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty Harlowe. He -had loitered with Hanaud at the café just so that this might not take -place. He shrank from being alone with Ann Upcott now that he -suspected her. The most he could hope to do was to conceal the -reason of his trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could -not conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by a -rather wistful expression of sympathy. - -"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you need not be -any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half-past ten -when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away -amongst her friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that." - -"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, and Ann -looked at him with startled eyes. - -Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall before Ann could -ask a question; and throughout their luncheon he made conversation -upon indifferent subjects with rapidity, if without entertainment. - -Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were still indeed -smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when Gaston informed them -that the Commissary of Police with his secretary was waiting in the -library. - -"This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London," said Betty as she -presented Jim. - -The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, middle-aged man -with a pair of folding glasses sitting upon a prominent fat nose; his -secretary, Maurice Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the -police administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in his -own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror amongst the fair. - -"I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle's notary in Dijon, to be -present," said Jim. - -"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and Monsieur Bex -was at that moment announced. He came on the very moment of three. -The clock was striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was -just as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased. - -"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, smiling, "we can -now proceed with the final ceremonies of this affair." - -"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary. - -"Hanaud?" - -"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited by the Examining -Magistrate to take charge of this case," the Commissary explained. - -"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there is no case for -Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty Harlowe drew him a little aside. - -Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary of the incidents -of the morning, Jim went out of the room into the hall in search of -Hanaud. He saw him at once; but to his surprise Hanaud came forward -from the back of the hall as if he had entered the house from the -garden. - -"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to the door of -that room which certainly was at the back of the house behind the -library, with its entrance behind the staircase. "We will join the -others." - -Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex. - -"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly to Thevenet. - -"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, and in a loud -undertone, "a charming youth, of an intelligence which is surprising. -He will go far." - -Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. The young -recruit gazed at the great man with kindling eyes. - -"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, by which, if I -do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence at all," he said -with a formal modesty which quite went to the heart of Monsieur Bex. - -"That is very correct," said he. - -Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He cocked an eye -at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary warmly by the hand. - -"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young friend," he -answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But I was once young Maurice -Thevenet without, alas! his good looks." - -Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming diffidence. - -"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex. - -"This looks like growing into a friendly little family party," Jim -Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a "Hum" and a "Ha" from the -Commissary. - -He moved to the centre of the room. - -"We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now remove the seals," he -said pompously. - -He led the way from the Library across the hall and along the -corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. He broke the -seals and removed the bands. Then he took a key from the hand of his -secretary and opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little -company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out his arms and -barred the way. - -"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his shoulder Jim -Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which made him shiver. - -This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase had made him for -a moment eager that Hanaud should press on, that development should -follow upon development until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. -Since the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower of the -Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and he waited for -developments in fear. This bedroom mistily lit by a few stray -threads of daylight which pierced through the chinks of the shutters, -cold and silent and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, -whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in the shadows. -Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed to the windows opposite, -opened them and flung back the shutters. The clear bright light -flooded every corner in an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher -relief. The room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the -wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; everywhere -there was order; it was as empty of suggestion as a vacant bedroom in -an hotel. - -Hanaud looked about him. - -"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week after Madame's -funeral. It would have been a miracle if we discovered anything -which could help us." - -He went to the bed, which stood with its head against the wall midway -between the door and the windows. A small flat stand with a button -of enamel lay upon the round table by the bed-side, and from the -stand a cord ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the -carpet. - -"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I suppose," he -said, turning towards Betty. - -"Yes." - -Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But there was no sign -that it had ever been tampered with. He stood up again. - -"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into Jeanne Baudin's -bedroom and close the door. I shall press this button, and you will -know whether the bell rings whilst we here shall be able to assure -ourselves whether sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in -the other." - -"Certainly." - -Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few seconds later -those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door close in the corridor. - -"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud requested. - -Bex, the notary, closed it. - -"Now, silence, if you please!" - -Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered him. He pressed -it again and again with the same result. The Commissary returned to -the bedroom. - -"Well?" Hanaud asked. - -"It rang twice," said the Commissary. - -Hanaud shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. - -"And an electric bell has a shrill, penetrating sound," he cried. -"Name of a name, but they built good houses when the Maison Crenelle -was built! Are the cupboards and drawers open?" - -He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came forward. - -"All the drawers were locked on the morning when Madame Harlowe's -death was discovered. Mademoiselle Harlowe herself locked them in my -presence and handed to me the keys for the purpose of making an -inventory. Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For -until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will were not -disclosed." - -"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you must have unlocked -them." - -"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. There were the -arrangements for the funeral, a list of the properties to be made for -valuation, and the vineyards to be administered." - -"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes and cupboards and -drawers should hold exactly what they held on the night of the -twenty-seventh of April." He ran quickly about the room trying a -door here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a cupboard -fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The trouble is that a child -with a bent wire could unlock any one of them. Do you know what -Madame Harlowe kept in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with -his knuckles upon the cupboard door. - -"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex produced a bunch of -keys from his pocket. - -"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud. - -He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers, as though time -meant nothing to him at all. He now swung briskly back into the -centre of the room, making notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its -geography. The door opening from the corridor faced, across the -length of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If one -stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the bed was on the -left hand. On the corridor side of the bed, a second smaller door, -which was half open, led to a white-tiled bath-room. On the window -side of the bed was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a -woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the windows, a -great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, and in that same wall, -close to the right-hand window, there was yet another door. Hanaud -moved to it. - -"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of Ann Upcott, and -without waiting for an answer pushed it open. - -Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys rattling. -"Everything here has been locked up too," he said. - -Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened the shutters. - -It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, and with a door -exactly opposite to the door by which Hanaud had entered. He went at -once to this door. - -"And this must be the communicating door which leads into what is -called the treasure-room," he said, and he paused with his hand upon -the knob and his eyes ranging alertly over the faces of the company. - -"Yes," said Ann Upcott. - -Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of the opening of -some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh in a hill-side of the Valley -of Kings. Suspense passed from one to the other as they waited, but -Hanaud did not move. He stood there impassive and still like some -guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that he was never -going to move, and in a voice of exasperation he cried: - -"Is the door locked?" - -Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No doubt he, too, -felt that strange current of emotion and expectancy which bound all -in the room under a spell, and even gave to their diverse faces for a -moment a kind of family similitude. - -"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. "But since -this room is now the private sitting-room of Mademoiselle Harlowe, I -think that we ought to wait until she rejoins us." - -Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, "That is very -correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice rang out from the doorway -leading to Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom: - -"I am here." - -Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. It opened at a -touch--inwards towards the group of people and upwards towards the -corridor. The treasure-room was before them, shrouded in dim light, -but here and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held out a -promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way daintily to the windows -and fastened the shutters back against the outside wall. "I beg that -nothing shall be touched," he said as the others filed into the room. - - - - -CHAPTER THIRTEEN: _Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room_ - -Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the corridor, it was -longer than it was broad and more of a gallery than a room. But it -had been arranged for habitation rather than for occasional visits. -For it was furnished with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. -In the fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures by -Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of Chinese -Chippendale by the window every appointment, ink-stand, pen-tray, -candlestick, sand-caster and all were of the pink Battersea enamel -and without a flaw. But they were there for use, not for exhibition. -Moreover a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on the -side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it almost the -appearance of two rooms in communication, The one feature of the -room, indeed, which at a first glimpse betrayed the collector, was -the Sedan chair set in a recess of the wall by the fire-place and -opposite to the door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its -body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately carved -mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions representing -fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses daintily painted in the -middle of them. It had glass windows at the sides to show off the -occupant, and it was lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold -to match the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised -upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold filigree work, and -it had a door in front of which the upper part was glass. Altogether -it was as pretty a gleaming piece of work as the art of -carriage-building could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected -it. Even Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his -hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, until Jim -began to think that he had quite forgotten the business which had -brought him there. However, he brought himself out of his dream with -a start. - -"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "What -pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts and fine gentlemen in silk -stockings! And what splashings of mud for the unhappy devils who had -to walk!" - -He turned his back to the chair and looked across the room. "That is -the clock which marked half-past ten, Mademoiselle, during the moment -when you had the light turned up?" he asked of Ann. - -"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it again. "Yes, -that's it." - -Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change in her -intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an inflexion of -doubt--it was not marked enough for that--but of perplexity. It was -clearly, however, fancy upon his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at -all. Jim pulled himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take -care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to suspect people, -they can say and do nothing which will not provide you with material -for suspicion." - -Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was a beautiful small -gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, shaped with a waist like a -violin; it had a white face, and it stood upon a marquetry Boulle -cabinet, a little more than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian -mirror. Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with -his watch. - -"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, with a -smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. - -He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the clock. He -faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of the room. It had an -Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from the same fawn-coloured wood as the -panels, with slender pillars and some beautiful carving upon the -board beneath the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was -framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should mask it, -there were no high ornaments at all upon the shelf itself. One or -two small boxes of Battersea enamel and a flat glass case alone -decorated it. Hanaud crossed to the mantelshelf and, after a -moment's inspection, lifted, with a low whistle of admiration, the -flat glass case. - -"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. "But I shall -probably never in my life have the luck to see anything so -incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf is a little high for me to -see it properly." - -Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it towards the -window. - -"Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?" he called out, and Jim went -forward to his side. - -The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony and -translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim acknowledged that he -had never seen craftsmanship so exquisite and delicate, but he chafed -none the less at Hanaud's diversion from his business. - -"One could spend a long day in this room," the detective exclaimed, -"admiring these treasures." - -"No doubt," Jim replied dryly. "But I had a notion that we were -going to spend an afternoon looking for an arrow." - -Hanaud laughed. - -"My friend, you recall me to my duty." He looked at the jewel again -and sighed. "Yes, as you say, we are not visitors here to enjoy -ourselves." - -He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and replaced it. -Then all at once his manner changed. He was leaning forward with his -hands still about the glass case. But he was looking down. The -fire-grate was hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; -and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could see over the -screen into the grate itself. - -"What is all this?" he asked. - -He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully aside. All -now could see what had disturbed him--a heap of white ashes in the -grate. - -Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the shovel from the -fender he thrust it between the bars and drew it out again with a -little layer of the ashes upon it. They were white and had been -pulverised into atoms. There was not one flake which would cover a -finger-nail. Hanaud touched them gingerly, as though he had expected -to find them hot. - -"This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and to-day is Thursday -afternoon," said Jim Frobisher with heavy sarcasm. "Ashes do not as -a rule keep hot more than three days, Monsieur Hanaud." - -Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. He was daring -to make fun of Hanaud! He treated the Sûrété with no more respect -than one might treat--well, say Scotland Yard. - -Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a partner of the -firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman was certainly not very -correct. Hanaud on the contrary was milk and water. - -"I have observed it," he replied mildly, and he sat back upon his -heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. - -"Mademoiselle!" he called; and Betty moved forward and leaned against -the mantelshelf at his side. "Who burnt these papers so very -carefully?" he asked. - -"I did," Betty replied. - -"And when?" - -"On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday morning, before -Monsieur le Commissaire arrived." - -"And what were they, Mademoiselle?" - -"Letters, Monsieur." - -Hanaud looked up into her face quickly. - -"Oho!" he said softly. "Letters! Yes! And what kind of letters, if -you please?" - -Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in despair. What in the -world had happened to Hanaud? One moment he forgot altogether the -business upon which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon -Harlowe's collection. The next he was off on his wild-goose chase -after anonymous letters. Jim had not a doubt that he was thinking of -them now. One had only to say "letters," and he was side-tracked at -once, apparently ready to accuse any one of their authorship. - -"They were quite private letters," Betty replied, whilst the colour -slowly stained her cheeks. "They will not help you." - -"So I see," Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a snarl in his -voice as he shook the shovel and flung the ashes back into the grate. -"But I am asking you, Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were." - -Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at the floor, and -then from the floor to the windows; and Jim saw with a stab of pain -that her eyes were glistening with tears. - -"I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a point when -Mademoiselle and I should consult together," he interposed. - -"Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights," said Monsieur -Bex. - -But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little petulant movement of -her shoulders. - -"Very well." - -She showed her face now to them all, with the tears abrim in her big -eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks and recognition. - -"You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud," she said with a catch in -her voice. "It seems that nothing, however sacred, but must be -dragged out into the light. But I say again those letters will not -help you." - -She looked across the group to her notary. - -"Monsieur Bex," she said, and he moved forward to the other side of -Hanaud. - -"In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door of the bathroom -there stood a small chest in which she kept a good many unimportant -papers, such as old receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to -destroy. This chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of -course with Mademoiselle's consent, meaning to go through the papers -at my leisure and recommend that all which were not important should -be destroyed. My time, however, was occupied, as I have already -explained to you, and it was not until the Friday of the sixth of May -that I opened the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my -surprise, a bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, -tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to assure me that -they were very private and sacred things with which Mademoiselle's -notary had nothing whatever to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday -morning, I brought them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty." - -With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued the story. - -"I put the letters aside so that I might read them quietly after -dinner. As it happened I could not in any case have given them -attention before. For on that morning Monsieur Boris formulated his -charge against me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office -of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, I was--I don't -say frightened--but distressed by this accusation; and it was not -until quite late in the evening, and then rather to distract my -thoughts than for any other reason, that I looked at the letters. -But as soon as I did look at them I understood that they must be -destroyed. There were reasons, which"--and her voice faltered, and -with an effort again grew steady--"which I feel it rather a sacrilege -to explain. They were letters which passed between my uncle Simon -and Mrs. Harlowe during the time when she was very unhappily married -to Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him--sometimes long -letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled off--without -reserve--during a moment of freedom. They were the letters of," and -again her voice broke and died away into a whisper, so that none -could misunderstand her meaning--"of lovers--lovers speaking very -intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there was no doubt -that they ought to be destroyed! But I made up my mind that I ought -to read them, every one, first of all lest there should be something -in them which I ought to know. I read a good many that night and -burnt them. But it grew late--I left the rest until the Sunday -morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, and what I had left -over I burnt then. It was soon after I had finished burning them -that Monsieur le Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes -which you see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters -which I burnt upon the Sunday morning." - -Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity which touched her -audience to a warm sympathy. Hanaud gently tilted the ashes back -into the grate. - -"Mademoiselle, I am always in the wrong with you," he said with an -accent of remorse. "For I am always forcing you to statements which -make me ashamed and do you honour." - -Jim acknowledged that Hanaud, when he wished, could do the handsome -thing with a very good grace. Unfortunately grace seemed never to be -an enduring quality in him; as, for instance, now. He was still upon -his knees in front of the hearth. Whilst making his apology he had -been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel without giving, to all -appearance, any thought to what he was doing. But his attention was -now arrested. The shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of -bluish-white paper. Hanaud's body stiffened. He bent forward and -picked the scrap of paper out from the grate, whilst Betty, too, -stooped with a little movement of curiosity. - -Hanaud sat back again upon his heels. - -"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday morning," he said. - -Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the fragment of paper. - -"Bills too, Mademoiselle." - -Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her head over it. It -was obviously the right-hand top corner of a bill. For an intriguing -scrap of a printed address was visible and below a figure or two in a -column. - -"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with the letters," said -Betty. "I don't remember it." - -She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, who sat and looked -at it. Jim Frobisher standing just behind him read the printed ends -of names and words and the figures beneath and happened to remember -the very look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the top -bit of name in large capital letters, the words below echelonned in -smaller capitals, then the figures in the columns and all enclosed in -a rough sort of triangle with the diagonal line browned and made -ragged by the fire--thus-- - - ERON - STRUCTION - LLES - IS - ======== - 375.05 - - -"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud and he tossed the -scrap of paper back into the grate. "Did you notice these ashes, -Monsieur Girardot, on Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the -question might seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an -explanation. - -"It is always good when it is possible to get a corroboration, -Mademoiselle." - -Betty nodded, but Girardot was at a loss. He managed to look -extremely important, but importance was not required. - -"I don't remember," he said. - -However, corroboration of a kind at all events did come though from -another source. - -"If I might speak, Monsieur Hanaud?" said Maurice Thevenet eagerly. - -"But by all means," Hanaud replied. - -"I came into this room just behind Monsieur Girardot on the Sunday -morning. I did not see any ashes in the hearth, that is true. But -Mademoiselle Harlowe was in the act of arranging that screen of blue -lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it to-day. She -arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were she stood up with -a start of surprise." - -"Aha!" said Hanaud cordially. He smiled at Betty. "This evidence is -just as valuable as if he had told us that he had seen the ashes -themselves." - -He rose to his feet and went close to her. - -"But there is another letter which you were good enough to promise to -me," he said. - -"The an----" she began and Hanaud stopped her hurriedly. - -"It is better that we hold our tongues," he said with a nod and a -grin which recognised that in this matter they were accomplices. -"This is to be our exclusive little secret, which, if he is very -good, we will share with Monsieur le Commissaire." - -He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a drawer in the -Chippendale secretary. Girardot the Commissaire tittered, not quite -sure that he thought very highly of it. Monsieur Bex, on the other -hand, by a certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly -clear that in his opinion such a jape was very, very far from correct. - -Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and handed it to -Hanaud, who took it aside to the window and read it carefully. Then -with a look he beckoned Girardot to his side. - -"Monsieur Frobisher can come too. For he is in the secret," he -added; and the three men stood apart at the window looking at the -sheet of paper. It was dated the 7th of May, signed "The Scourge," -like the others of this hideous brood, and it began without any -preface. There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of them -were epithets not to be reproduced which made Jim's blood boil that a -girl like Betty should ever have had to read them. - - - "_Your time is coming now, you----_" and here followed the string - of abominable obscenities. "_You are for it, Betty Harlowe. - Hanaud the detective from Paris is coming to look after you with - his handcuffs in his pocket. You'll look pretty in handcuffs, - won't you, Betty? It's your white neck we want! Three cheers - for Waberski? The Scourge._" - - -Girardot stared at the brutal words and settled his glasses on his -nose and stared again. - -"But--but----" he stammered and he pointed to the date. A warning -gesture made by Hanaud brought him to a sudden stop, but Frobisher -had little doubt as to the purport of that unfinished exclamation. -Girardot was astonished, as Hanaud himself had been, that this item -of news had so quickly leaked abroad. - -Hanaud folded the letter and turned back into the room. - -"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, and Thevenet the -secretary took his notebook from his pocket. - -"Shall I make you a copy of the letter, Monsieur Hanaud?" he said, -sitting down and holding out his hand. - -"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, "and a copy at the -present stage isn't necessary. A little later on I may ask for your -assistance." - -He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case away -in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again he saw that Betty was -holding out to him a key. - -"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," she said. - -"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we shall have -Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," said Hanaud. - -The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the room opposite to -the windows, and close to the door which opened on to the hall. -Hanaud took the key, unlocked the door of the cabinet and started -back with a "Wow." He was really startled, for facing him upon a -shelf were two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in -eyes, but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the heads of -Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the Amazon, and preserved -and reduced by their conquerors by the process common amongst those -forests. - -"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that we should -find it," he said, but though he found many curious oddities in that -cabinet, of the perfect specimen of a poison arrow there was never a -trace. He turned away with an air of disappointment. - -"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," he said -regretfully; and for an hour he searched that room, turning back the -carpet, examining the upholstery of the chairs, and the curtains, -shaking out every vase, and finally giving his attention to Betty's -secretary. He probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple -mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every pigeon-hole; -working with extraordinary swiftness and replacing everything in its -proper place. At the end of the hour the room was as orderly as when -he had entered it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. - -"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in a chair and -drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as the two ladies and -Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was prepared not to find it here." - -"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did not stir. - -"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur Girardot, if -you will remove the seals in the hall from the door at the end of the -room." - -The Commissary went out by the way of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom, -accompanied by his secretary. After a minute had passed a key grated -in the lock and the door was opened. The Commissary and his -secretary returned into the room from the hall. - -"Good!" said Hanaud. - -He rose from this chair and looking around at the little group, now -grown puzzled and anxious, he said very gravely: - -"In the interest of justice I now ask that none of you shall -interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have an experiment to -make." - -In a complete silence he walked to the fireplace and rang the bell. - - - - -CHAPTER FOURTEEN: _An Experiment and a Discovery_ - -Gaston answered the bell. - -"Will you please send Francine Rollard here," said Hanaud. - -Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond Hanaud to Betty. - -"If Mademoiselle gives me the order," he said respectfully. - -"At once then, Gaston," Betty replied, and she sat down in a chair. - -Francine Rollard was apparently difficult to persuade. For the -minutes passed, and when at last she did come into the treasure room -she was scared and reluctant. She was a girl hardly over twenty, -very neat and trim and pretty, and rather like some wild shy creature -out of the woods. She looked round the group which awaited her with -restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it was the -suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. - -"Rollard," said Hanaud gently, "I sent for you, for I want another -woman to help me in acting a little scene." - -He turned towards Ann Upcott. - -"Now, Mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly your movements -here on the night when Madame Harlowe died? You came into the -room--so. You stood by the electric-light switch there. You turned -it on, you noticed the time, and you turned it off quickly. For this -communicating door stood wide open--so!--and a strong light poured -out of Madame Harlowe's bedroom through the doorway." - -Hanaud was very busy, placing himself first by the side of Ann to -make sure that she stood in the exact place which she had described, -and then running across the room to set wide open the communicating -door. - -"You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments and panels of -the Sedan chair, on the other side of the fireplace on your right. -So! And there, Mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and," his -words lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each one--"you -heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom and caught some words -spoken in a clear whisper." - -"Yes," Ann replied with a shiver. The solemn manner of authority -with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. She looked at him with -troubled eyes. - -"Then will you stand there once more," he continued, "and once more -listen as you listened on that night. I thank you!" He went away to -Betty. "Now, Mademoiselle, and you, Francine Rollard, will you both -please come with me." - -He walked towards the communicating door but Betty did not even -attempt to rise from her chair. - -"Monsieur Hanaud," she said with her cheeks very white and her voice -shaking, "I can guess what you propose to do. But it is horrible and -rather cruel to us. And I cannot see how it will help." - -Ann Upcott broke in before Hanaud could reply. She was more troubled -even than Betty, though without doubt hers was to be the easier part. - -"It cannot help at all," she said. "Why must we pretend now the -dreadful thing which was lived then?" - -Hanaud turned about in the doorway. - -"Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think that when I have -finished, you will yourselves understand that my experiment has not -been without its use. I understand of course that moments like these -bring their distress. But--you will pardon me--I am not thinking of -you"--and there was so much quietude and gravity in the detective's -voice that his words, harsh though they were, carried with them no -offence. "No, I am thinking of a woman more than double the age of -either of you, whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of -the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs which you, -Mademoiselle Harlowe, showed me this morning--I am moved by them. -Yes, that is the truth." - -He closed his eyes as if he saw those two portraits with their -dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. "I am her advocate," -he cried aloud in a stirring voice. "The tragic woman, I stand for -her! If she was done to death, I mean to know and I mean to punish!" - -Never had Frobisher believed that Hanaud could have been so -transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so much passion. He -stood before them an erect and menacing figure, all his grossness -melted out of him, a man with a flaming sword. - -"As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a little distress -matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? How long will they -last? I beg you not to hinder me!" - -Betty rose up from her chair without another word. But she did not -rise without an effort, and when she stood up at last she swayed upon -her feet and her face was as white as chalk. - -"Come, Francine!" she said, pronouncing her words like a person with -an impediment of speech. "We must show Monsieur Hanaud that we are -not the cowards he takes us for." - -But Francine still held back. - -"I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl and this frightens -me. The police! They set traps--the police." - -Hanaud laughed. - -"And how often do they catch the innocent in them? Tell me that, -Mademoiselle Francine!" - -He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. -Betty and Francine followed upon his heels, the others trooped in -behind, with Frobisher last of all. He indeed was as reluctant to -witness Hanaud's experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. -It savoured of the theatrical. There was to be some sort of imagined -reproduction of the scene which Ann Upcott had described, no doubt -with the object of testing her sincerity. It would really be a test -of nerves more than a test of honesty and to Jim was therefore -neither reliable nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a -word of encouragement to Ann, but she was gazing again with that -curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the marquetry cabinet. - -"There is nothing to fear, Ann," he said, and she withdrew her eyes -from the clock. They were dancing now as she turned them upon -Frobisher. - -"I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me by my name," she -said with a smile. "Thank you, Jim!" She hesitated and then the -blood suddenly mounted into her face. "I'll tell you, I was a little -jealous," she added in a low voice and with a little laugh at herself -as though she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. - -Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer by the appearance -of Hanaud in the doorway. - -"I hate to interrupt, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with a smile; "but -it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle should listen without -anything to distract her." - -Jim followed Hanaud into the bedroom, and was startled. The -Commissary and his secretary and Monsieur Bex were in a group apart -near to one of the windows. Betty Harlowe was stretched upon Mrs. -Harlowe's bed; Francine Rollard stood against the wall, near to the -door, clearly frightened out of her wits and glancing from side to -side with the furtive restless eyes of the half-tamed. But it was -not this curious spectacle which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but -something strange, something which almost shocked, in the aspect of -Betty herself. She was leaning up on an elbow with her eyes fixed -upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable fierce look in -them that he had ever seen. She was quite lost to her environment. -The experiment from which Francine shrank had no meaning for her. -She was possessed--the old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts--though -her face was as still as a mass, a mask of frozen passion. It was -only for a second, however, that the strange seizure lasted. Betty's -face relaxed; she dropped back upon the bed with her eyes upon Hanaud -like one waiting for instructions. - -Hanaud, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take his place amongst -the group at the window. He placed himself upon one side of the bed, -and beckoned to Francine. Very slowly she approached the end of the -bed. Hanaud directed her in the same silent way to come opposite to -him on the other side of the bed. For a little while Francine -refused. She stood stubbornly shaking her head at the very foot of -the bed. She was terrified of some trick, and when at last at a sign -from Betty she took up the position assigned to her, she minced to it -gingerly as though she feared the floor would open beneath her feet. -Hanaud made her another sign and she looked at a scrap of paper on -which Hanaud had written some words. The paper and her orders had -obviously been given to her whilst Jim was talking to Ann Upcott. -Francine knew what she was to do, but her suspicious peasant nature -utterly rebelled against it. Hanaud beckoned to her with his eyes -riveted upon her compelling her, and against her will she bent -forwards over the bed and across Betty Harlowe's body. - -A nod from Hanaud now, and she spoke in a low, clear whisper: - -"That--will--do--now." - -And hardly had she spoken those few words which Ann Upcott said she -had heard on the night of Mrs. Harlowe's death, but Hanaud himself -must repeat them and also in a whisper. - -Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway in his natural -voice: - -"Did you hear, Mademoiselle? Was that the whisper which reached your -ears on the night when Madame died?" - -All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in suspense. Francine -Rollard, indeed, with her eyes fixed upon Hanaud in a very agony of -doubt. And the answer came. - -"Yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this afternoon. On the -night when I came down in the dark to the treasure room, the words -were only whispered once." - -"It was the same voice which whispered them twice, Mademoiselle?" - -"Yes ... I think so ... I noticed no difference ... Yes." - -And Hanaud flung out his arms with a comic gesture of despair, and -addressed the room. - -"You understand now my little experiment. A voice that whispers! -How shall one tell it from another voice that whispers! There is no -intonation, no depth, no lightness. There is not even sex in a voice -which whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest to the -identity of the person who whispered, 'That will do now,' on the -night when Madame Harlowe died." He waved his hand towards Monsieur -Bex. "I will be glad if you will open now these cupboards, and -Mademoiselle Harlowe will tell us, to the best of her knowledge, -whether anything has been taken or anything disturbed." - -Hanaud returned to the treasure room, leaving Monsieur Bex and Betty -at their work, with the Commissary and his secretary to supervise -them. Jim Frobisher followed him. He was very far from believing -that Hanaud had truthfully explained the intention of his experiment. -The impossibility of identifying a voice which whispers! Here was -something with which Hanaud must have been familiar from a hundred -cases! No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There was -quite another true reason for this melodramatic little scene which he -had staged. He was following Hanaud in the hope of finding out that -reason, when he heard him speaking in a low voice, and he stopped -inside the dressing-room close to the communicating door where he -could hear every word and yet not be seen himself. - -"Mademoiselle," Hanaud was saying to Ann Upcott, "there is something -about this clock here which troubles you." - -"Yes--of course it's nonsense.... I must be wrong.... For here is -the cabinet and on it stands the clock." - -Jim could gather from the two voices that they were both standing -together close to the marquetry cabinet. - -"Yes, yes," Hanaud urged. "Still you are troubled." - -There was a moment's silence. Jim could imagine the girl looking -from the clock to the door by which she had stood, and back again -from the door to the clock. Surely that scene in the bedroom had -been staged to extort some admission from Ann Upcott of the falsity -of her story. Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting -to another trick, setting a fresh trap? - -"Well?" he asked insistently. "Why are you troubled?" - -"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, "that the clock is -lower now than it was. Of course it can't be ... and I had only one -swift glimpse of it.... Yet my recollection is so vivid--the room -standing out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then -vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock seemed to me to be -placed higher..." and suddenly she stopped as if a warning hand had -been laid upon her arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering -when silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway and -confronting him. - -"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note of relief in his -voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the Sûrété very soon. That I -can see. Come in!" - -He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. - -"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the light goes up and -goes out--it would have been a marvel if you had within that flash of -vision seen every detail precisely true. No, there is nothing -there!" He flung himself into a chair and sat for a little while -silent in an attitude of dejection. - -"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had nothing to go -upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing there, stirring up old -troubles which had better be left quietly in their graves, and at the -end discovering nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My -little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?" - -Hanaud sat up alertly. - -"What is the matter?" he asked. - -Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter disappointment upon -Hanaud's face and in his attitude had enlightened him. Yes, his -experiment had failed. For it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had -summoned her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant to -act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the hope that it -would work upon her and break her down to a confession of guilt. He -suspected Ann. Well, then, Ann must have had an accomplice. To -discover the accomplice--there was the object of the experiment. And -it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. Francine had -shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the reason of the shrinking was -manifest--fear of the police, suspicion of a trap, the furtive -helplessness of the ignorant. She had not delivered herself into -Hanaud's toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal to -Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he answered simply: - -"Nothing." - -Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms of his chair. - -"Nothing, eh? nothing! That's the only answer in this case. To -every question! To every search! Nothing, nothing, nothing;" and as -he ended in a sinking voice, a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. - -"Betty!" Ann exclaimed. - -Hanaud threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim fancied that he -was out of his chair and across the dressing-room before the sound of -the cry had ceased. Certainly Betty could not have moved. She was -standing in front of the dressing-table, looking down at a big -jewel-case of dark blue morocco leather, and she was lifting up and -down the open lid of it with an expression of utter incredulity. - -"Aha!" said Hanaud. "It is unlocked. We have something, after all, -Monsieur Frobisher. Here is a jewel-case unlocked, and jewel-cases -do not unlock themselves. It was here?" - -He looked towards the cupboard in the wall, of which the door stood -open. - -"Yes," said Betty. "I opened the door, and took the case out by the -side handles. The lid came open when I touched it." - -"Will you look through it, please, and see whether anything is -missing?" - -While Betty began to examine the contents of the jewel-case, Hanaud -went to Francine, who stood apart. He took her by the arm and led -her to the door. - -"I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine," he said. "But, after -all, we are not such alarming people, the Police, eh? No, so long as -good little maids hold their good little tongues, we can be very good -friends. Of course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and -gossip, little Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is -to-morrow spreading over Dijon the story of Hanaud's little -experiment, Hanaud will know where to look for the chatterers." - -"Monsieur, I shall not say one word," cried Francine. - -"And how wise that will be, little Francine!" Hanaud rejoined in a -horribly smooth and silky voice. "For Hanaud can be the wickedest of -wicked Uncles to naughty little chatterers. Ohhoho, yes! He seizes -them tight--so--and it will be ever so long before he says to them -'That--will--do--now!'" - -He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh and gently -pushed Francine Rollard from the room. Then he returned to Betty, -who had lifted the tray out of the box and was opening some smaller -cases which had been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon -pendant and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. - -"You miss something, Mademoiselle?" - -"Yes." - -"It was, after all, certain that you would," Hanaud continued. "If -murders are committed, there will be some reason. I will even -venture to guess that the jewel which you miss is of great value." - -"It is," Betty admitted. "But I expect it has only been mislaid. No -doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked away in a drawer." She -spoke with very great eagerness, and a note of supplication that the -matter should rest there. "In any case, what has disappeared is -mine, isn't it? And I am not going to imitate Monsieur Boris. I -make no complaint." - -Hanaud shook his head. - -"You are very kind, Mademoiselle. But we cannot, alas! say here -'That will do now.'" It was strange to Jim to notice how he kept -harping upon the words of that whisper. "We are not dealing with a -case of theft, but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it -that you miss?" - -"A pearl necklace," Betty answered reluctantly. - -"A big one?" - -It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased Hanaud became -more peremptory and abrupt. - -"Not so very." - -"Describe it to me, Mademoiselle!" - -Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face looking out upon the -garden. Then with a shrug of resignation she obeyed. - -"There were thirty-five pearls--not so very large, but they were -perfectly matched and of a beautiful pink. My uncle took a great -deal of trouble and some years to collect them. Madame told me -herself that they actually cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. -They would be worth even more now." - -"A fortune, then," cried Hanaud. - -Not a person in that room had any belief that the necklace would be -found, laid aside somewhere by chance. Here was Hanaud's case -building itself up steadily. Another storey was added to it this -afternoon. This or that experiment might fail. What did that -matter? A motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an -intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result; that the -truth, like a beam of light that travels for a million of years, -would in the end strike upon a dark spot, and that some one would -stand helpless and dazzled in a glare--the criminal. - -"Who knew of this necklace of yours, Mademoiselle, beside yourself?" -Hanaud asked. - -"Every one in the house, Monsieur. Madame wore it nearly always." - -"She wore it, then, on the day of her death?" - -"Yes, I----" Betty began, and she turned towards Ann for -confirmation, and then swiftly turned away again. "I think so." - -"I am sure of it," said Ann steadily, though her face had grown -rather white and her eyes anxious. - -"How long has Francine Rollard been with you?" Hanaud asked of Betty. - -"Three years. No--a little more. She is the only maid I have ever -had," Betty answered with a laugh. - -"I see," Hanaud said thoughtfully; and what he saw, it seemed to Jim -Frobisher that every one else in that room saw too. For no one -looked at Ann Upcott. Old servants do not steal valuable necklaces: -Ann Upcott and Jeanne Baudin, the nurse, were the only new-comers to -the Maison Crenelle these many years; and Jeanne Baudin had the best -of characters. Thus the argument seemed to run though no one -expressed it in words. - -Hanaud turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard, and shook -his head over it. Then he crossed to the dressing-table and the -morocco case. - -"Aha!" he said with a lively interest. "This is a different affair;" -and he bent down closely over it. - -The case was not locked with a key at all. There were three small -gilt knobs in the front of the case, and the lock was set by the -number of revolutions given to each knob. These, of course, could be -varied with each knob, and all must be known before the case could be -opened--Mrs. Harlowe's jewels had been guarded by a formula. - -"There has been no violence used here," said Hanaud, standing up -again. - -"Of course my aunt may have forgotten to lock the case," said Betty. - -"Of course that's possible," Hanaud agreed. - -"And of course this room was open to any one between the time of my -aunt's funeral and Sunday morning, when the doors were sealed." - -"A week, in fact--with Boris Waberski in the house," said Hanaud. - -"Yes ... yes," said Betty. "Only ... but I expect it is just mislaid -and we shall find it. You see Monsieur Boris expected to get some -money from my lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain -with me. It doesn't look as if he had stolen it. He wouldn't want a -thousand pounds if he had." - -Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had recollected him -with a thrill of hope that he would be discovered to be the thief -when Hanaud mentioned his name. But the hope died away again before -the reluctant and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlowe. On the other -hand, if Boris and Ann were really accomplices in the murder, because -he wanted his legacy, the necklace might well have been Ann's share. -More and more, whichever way one looked at it, the facts pointed -damningly towards Ann. - -"Well, we will see if it has been mislaid," said Hanaud. "But -meanwhile, Mademoiselle, it would be well for you to lock that case -up and to take it some time this afternoon to your bankers." - -Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after the other. -Three times a swift succession of sharp little clicks was heard in -the room. - -"You have not used, I hope, the combination which Madame Harlowe -used," said Hanaud. - -"I never knew the combination she used," said Betty. She lifted the -jewel-case back into its cupboard; and the search of the drawers and -the cupboards began. But it was as barren of result as had been the -search of the treasure-room for the arrow. - -"We can do no more," said Hanaud. - -"Yes. One thing more." - -The correction came quietly from Ann Upcott. She was standing by -herself, very pale and defiant. She knew now that she was suspected. -The very care with which every one had avoided even looking at her -had left her in no doubt. - -Hanaud looked about the room. - -"What more can we do?" he asked. - -"You can search my rooms." - -"No!" cried Betty violently. "I won't have it!" - -"If you please," said Ann. "It is only fair to me." - -Monsieur Bex nodded violently. - -"Mademoiselle could not be more correct," said he. - -Ann addressed herself to Hanaud. - -"I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in my room except -a small leather dispatch-case. You will find the key to that in the -left-hand drawer of my dressing-table. I will wait for you in the -library." - -Hanaud bowed, and before he could move from his position Betty did a -thing for which Jim could have hugged her there and then before them -all. She went straight to Ann and set her arm about her waist. - -"I'll wait with you, Ann," she said. "Of course it's ridiculous," -and she led Ann out of the room. - - - - -CHAPTER FIFTEEN: _The Finding of the Arrow_ - -Ann's rooms were upon the second floor with the windows upon the -garden, a bedroom and a sitting-room communicating directly with one -another. They were low in the roof, but spacious, and Hanaud, as he -looked around the bedroom, said in a tone of doubt: - -"Yes ... after all, if one were frightened suddenly out of one's -wits, one might stumble about this room in the dark and lose one's -way to the light switch. There isn't one over the bed." Then he -shrugged his shoulders. "But, to be sure, one would be careful that -one's details could be verified. So----" and the doubt passed out of -his voice. - -The words were all Greek to the Commissary of Police and his -secretary and Monsieur Bex. Maurice Thevenet, indeed, looked sharply -at Hanaud, as if he was on the point of asking one of those questions -which he had been invited to ask. But Girardot, the Commissary who -was panting heavily with his ascent of two flights of stairs, spoke -first. - -"We shall find nothing to interest us here," he said. "That pretty -girl would never have asked us to pry about amongst her dainty -belongings if there had been anything to discover." - -"One never knows," replied Hanaud. "Let us see!" - -Jim walked away into the sitting-room. He had no wish to follow step -by step Hanaud and the Commissary in their search; and he had noticed -on the table in the middle of the room a blotting-pad and some -notepaper and the materials for writing. He wanted to get all this -whirl of conjecture and fact and lies, in which during the last two -days he had lived, sorted and separated and set in order in his mind; -and he knew no better way of doing so than by putting it all down -shortly in the "for" and "against" style of Robinson Crusoe on his -desert island. He would have a quiet hour or so whilst Hanaud -indefatigably searched. He took a sheet of paper, selected a pen at -random from the tray and began. It cost Ann Upcott, however, a good -many sheets of notepaper, and more than once the nib dropped out of -his pen-holder and was forced back into it before he had finished. -But he had his problem reduced at last to these terms: - - For Against - - (1) Although suspicion that But in the absence of any - murder had been committed trace of poison in the dead - arose in the first instance only woman's body, it is difficult to - from the return to its shelf of see how the criminal can be - the "Treatise on Sporanthus brought to justice, except by - Hispidus," subsequent developments, - e.g., the disappearance of (a) A confession. - the Poison Arrow, the introduction - into the case of the ill-famed (b) The commission of another - Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story crime of a similar kind. - of her visit to the Treasure Hanaud's theory--once a - Room, and now the mystery of poisoner always a poisoner. - Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, - make out a prima facie case for - inquiry. - - (2) If murder was committed, Ann Upcott's story may be - it is probable that it was partly or wholly false. She - committed at half-past ten at night knew that Mrs. Harlowe's - when Ann Upcott in the Treasure bedroom was to be opened and - Room heard the sound of a examined. If she also knew that - struggle and the whisper, "That the pearl necklace had - will do now." disappeared, she must have realised - that it would be advisable for - her to tell some story before its - disappearance was discovered, - which would divert suspicion - from her. - - (3) It is clear that whoever It is possible that the - committed the murder, if murder disappearance of the necklace is in - was committed, Betty Harlowe no way connected with the - had nothing to do with it. She murder, if murder there was. - had an ample allowance. She - was at M. Pouillac's Ball on - the night. Moreover, once - Mrs. Harlowe was dead, the necklace - became Betty Harlowe's - property. Had she committed the - murder, the necklace would not - have disappeared. - - (4) Who then are possibly - guilty? - - (i) The servants. (i) All of them have many - years of service to their credit. - It is not possible that any of - them would have understood - enough of the "Treatise on - Sporanthus Hispidus" to make - use of it. If any of them were - concerned it can only be as an - accessory or assistant working - under the direction of another. - - (ii) Jeanne Baudin the nurse. No one suspects her. Her - record is good. - More attention might be given - to her. It is too easily accepted - that she has nothing to do - with it. - - (iii) Francine Rollard. She She was frightened of the police - was certainly frightened this as a class, rather than of being - afternoon. The necklace would accused of a crime. She acted - be a temptation. her part in the reconstruction - scene without breaking - Was it she who bent over Ann down. If she were concerned, it - Upcott in the darkness? could only be for the reason - given above, as an assistant. - - (iv) Ann Upcott. Her introductions may be - explicable on favourable grounds. - Her introduction into the Until we know more of her - Maison Crenelle took place history it is impossible to judge. - through Waberski and under - dubious circumstances. She is - poor, a paid companion, and the - necklace is worth a considerable - fortune. - - She was in the house on the Her account of the night of - night of Mrs. Harlowe's death. the 27th April may be true from - She told Gaston he could turn beginning to end. - out the lights and go to bed - early that evening. She could - easily have admitted Waberski - and received the necklace as the - price of her complicity. - - The story she told us in the In that case the theory of a - garden may have been the true murder is enormously strengthened. - story of what occurred adapted. But who whispered, "That - It may have been she who will do now"? And who was - whispered "That will do now." bending over Ann Upcott when - She may have whispered it to she waked up? - Waberski. - - Her connection with Waberski - was sufficiently close to make - him count upon Ann's support - in his charge against Betty. - - (v) Waberski. - - He is a scoundrel, a would-be - blackmailer. - - He was in straits for money - and he expected a thumping - legacy from Mrs. Harlowe. - - He may have brought Ann - Upcott into the house with the - thought of murder in his mind. - - Having failed to obtain any - profit from his crime, he accuses - Betty of the same crime as a - blackmailing proposition. - - As soon as he knew that But he would have collapsed - Mrs. Harlowe had been exhumed and equally if he had believed that - an autopsy made he collapsed. no murder had been committed - He knew, if he had used himself at all. - the poison arrow, that no trace - of poison would be found. - - He knew of Jean Cladel, and - according to his own story was - in the Rue Gambetta close to - Jean Cladel's shop. It is possible - that he himself had been visiting - Cladel to pay for the solution of - Strophanthus. - - -If murder was committed the two people most obviously suspect are Ann -Upcott and Waberski working in collusion. - -To this conclusion Jim Frobisher was reluctantly brought, but even -whilst writing it down there were certain questions racing through -his mind to which he could find no answer. He was well aware that he -was an utter novice in such matters as the investigation of crimes; -and he recognised that were the answers to these questions known to -him, some other direction might be given to his thoughts. - -Accordingly he wrote those troublesome questions beneath his -memorandum--thus: - -But - -(1) Why does Hanaud attach no importance to the return of the -"Treatise on Sporanthus Hispidus" to its place in the library? - -(2) What was it which so startled him upon the top of the Terrace -Tower? - -(3) What was it that he had in his mind to say to me at the Café in -the Place D'Armes and in the end did not say? - -(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the treasure room for the -missing poison arrow--except the interior of the Sedan chair? - -The noise of a door gently closing aroused him from his speculations. -He looked across the room. Hanaud had just entered it from the -bedroom, shutting the communicating door behind him. He stood with -his hand upon the door-knob gazing at Frobisher with a curious -startled stare. He moved swiftly to the end of the table at which -Jim was sitting. - -"How you help me!" he said in a low voice and smiling. "How you do -help me!" - -Alert though Jim's ears were to a note of ridicule, he could discover -not a hint of it. Hanaud was speaking with the utmost sincerity, his -eyes very bright and his heavy face quite changed by that uncannily -sharp expression which Jim had learned to associate with some new -find in the development of the case. - -"May I see what you have written?" Hanaud asked. - -"It could be of no value to you," Jim replied modestly, but Hanaud -would have none of it. - -"It is always of value to know what the other man thinks, and even -more what the other man sees. What did I say to you in Paris? The -last thing one sees one's self is the thing exactly under one's -nose"; and he began to laugh lightly but continuously and with a -great deal of enjoyment, which Jim did not understand. He gave in, -however, over his memorandum and pushed it along to Hanaud, ashamed -of it as something schoolboyish, but hopeful that some of these -written questions might be answered. - -Hanaud sat down at the end of the table close to Jim and read the -items and the questions very slowly with an occasional grunt, and a -still more occasional "Aha!" but with a quite unchanging face. Jim -was in two minds whether to snatch it from his hands and tear it up -or dwell upon its recollected phrases with a good deal of pride. One -thing was clear. Hanaud took it seriously. - -He sat musing over it for a moment or two. - -"Yes, here are questions, and dilemmas." He looked at Frobisher with -friendliness. "I shall make you an allegory. I have a friend who is -a matador in Spain. He told me about the bull and how foolish those -people are who think the bull not clever. Yes, but do not jump and -look the offence with your eyes and tell me how very vulgar I am and -how execrable my taste. All that I know very well. But listen to my -friend the matador! He says all that the bull wants, to kill without -fail all the bull-fighters in Spain, is a little experience. And -very little, he learns so quick. Look! Between the entrance of the -bull into the arena and his death there are reckoned twenty minutes. -And there should not be more, if the matador is wise. The bull--he -learns so quick the warfare of the ring. Well, I am an old bull who -has fought in the arena many times. This is your first corrida. But -only ten minutes of the twenty have passed. Already you have learned -much. Yes, here are some shrewd questions which I had not expected -you to ask. When the twenty are gone, you will answer them all for -yourself. Meanwhile"--he took up another pen and made a tiny -addition to item one--"I carry this on one step farther. See!" - -He replaced the memorandum under Jim's eyes. Jim read: - -"--subsequent developments, e.g., the disappearance of the Poison -Arrow, the introduction into the case of the ill-famed Jean Cladel, -Ann Upcott's story of her visit to the treasure-room, and now the -mystery of Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, _and the finding of the -arrow_, make out a prima facie case for inquiry." - - -Jim sprang to his feet in excitement. - -"You have found the arrow, then?" he cried, glancing towards the door -of Ann Upcott's bedroom. - -"Not I, my friend," replied Hanaud with a grin. - -"The Commissaire, then?" - -"No, not the Commissaire." - -"His secretary, then?" - -Jim sat down again in his chair. - -"I am sorry. He wears cheap rings. I don't like him." - -Hanaud broke into a laugh of delight. - -"Console yourself! I, too, don't like that young gentleman of whom -they are all so proud. Maurice Thevenet has found nothing." - -Jim looked at Hanaud in a perplexity. - -"Here is a riddle," he said. - -Hanaud rubbed his hands together. - -"Prove to me that you have been ten minutes in the bull-ring," he -said. - -"I think that I have only been five," Jim replied with a smile. "Let -me see! The arrow had not been discovered when we first entered -these rooms?" - -"No." - -"And it is discovered now?" - -"Yes." - -"And it was not discovered by you?" - -"No." - -"Nor the Commissaire?" - -"No." - -"Nor Maurice Thevenet?" - -"No." - -Jim stared and shook his head. - -"I have not been one minute in the bull-ring. I don't understand." - -Hanaud's face was all alight with enjoyment. - -"Then I take your memorandum and I write again." - -He hid the paper from Jim Frobisher's eyes with the palm of his left -hand, whilst he wrote with his right. Then with a triumphant gesture -he laid it again before Jim. The last question of all had been -answered in Hanaud's neat, small handwriting. - -Jim read: - - - (4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the treasure-room for - the missing Poison Arrow--except the interior of the Sedan chair? - - -Underneath the question Hanaud had written as if it was Jim Frobisher -himself who answered the question: - - - "It was wrong of Hanaud to forget to examine the Sedan chair, but - fortunately no harm has resulted from that lamentable omission. - For Life, the incorrigible Dramatist, had arranged that the head - of the arrow-shaft should be the pen-holder with which I have - written this memorandum." - - -Jim looked at the pen-holder and dropped it with a startled cry. - -There it was--the slender, pencil-like shaft expanding into a slight -bulb where the fingers held it, and the nib inserted into the tiny -cleft made for the stem of the iron dart! Jim remembered that the -nib had once or twice become loose and spluttered on the page, until -he had jammed it in violently. - -Then came a terrible thought. His jaw dropped; he stared at Hanaud -in awe. - -"I wonder if I sucked the end of it, whilst I was thinking out my -sentences," he stammered. - -"O Lord!" cried Hanaud, and he snatched up the pen-holder and rubbed -it hard with his pocket handkerchief. Then he spread out the -handkerchief upon the table, and fetching a small magnifying glass -from his pocket, examined it minutely. He looked up with relief. - -"There is not the least little trace of that reddish-brown clay which -made the poison paste. The arrow was scraped clean before it was put -on that tray of pens. I am enchanted. I cannot now afford to lose -my junior colleague." - -Frobisher drew a long breath and lit a cigarette, and gave another -proof that he was a very novice of a bull. - -"What a mad thing to put the head of that arrow-shaft, which a glance -at the plates in the Treatise would enable a child to identify, into -an open tray of pens without the slightest concealment!" he exclaimed. - -It looked as if Ann Upcott was wilfully pushing her neck into the -wooden ring of the guillotine. - -Hanaud shook his head. - -"Not so mad, my friend! The old rules are the best. Hide a thing in -some out-of-the-way corner, and it will surely be found. Put it to -lie carelessly under every one's nose and no one will see it at all. -No, no! This was cleverly done. Who could have foreseen that -instead of looking on at our search you were going to plump yourself -down in a chair and write your memorandum so valuable on Mademoiselle -Ann's notepaper? And even then you did not notice your pen. Why -should you?" - -Jim, however, was not satisfied. - -"It is a fortnight since Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, if she was -murdered," he cried. "What I don't understand is why the arrow -wasn't destroyed altogether!" - -"But until this morning there was never any question of the arrow," -Hanaud returned. "It was a curiosity, an item in a collection--why -should one trouble to destroy it? But this morning the arrow becomes -a dangerous thing to possess. So it must be hidden away in a hurry. -For there is not much time. An hour whilst you and I admired Mont -Blanc from the top of the Terrace Tower." - -"And while Betty was out of the house," Jim added quickly. - -"Yes--that is true," said Hanaud. "I had not thought of it. You can -add that point, Monsieur Frobisher, to the reasons which put -Mademoiselle Harlowe out of our considerations. Yes." - -He sat lost in thought for a little while and speaking now and then a -phrase rather to himself than to his companion: "To run up here--to -cut the arrow down--to round off the end as well as one can in a -hurry--to stain it with some varnish--to mix it with the other pens -in the tray. Not so bad!" He nodded his head in appreciation of the -trick. "But nevertheless things begin to look black for that -exquisite Mademoiselle Ann with her delicate colour and her pretty -ways." - -A noise of the shifting of furniture in the bedroom next door -attracted his attention. He removed the nib from the arrow-head. - -"We will keep this little matter to ourselves just for the moment," -he said quickly, and he wrapped the improvised pen-holder in a sheet -of the notepaper. "Just you and I shall know of it. No one else. -This is my case, not Girardot's. We will not inflict a great deal of -pain and trouble until we are sure." - -"I agree," said Jim eagerly. "That's right, I am sure." - -Hanaud tucked the arrow-head carefully away in his pocket. - -"This, too," he said, and he took up Jim Frobisher's memorandum. "It -is not a good thing to carry about, and perhaps lose. I will put it -away at the Prefecture with the other little things I have collected." - -He put the memorandum into his letter-case and got up from his chair. - -"The rest of the arrow-shaft will be somewhere in this room, no -doubt, and quite easy to see. But we shall not have time to look for -it, and, after all, we have the important part of it." - -He turned towards the mantelshelf, where some cards of invitation -were stuck in the frame of the mirror, just as the door was opened -and the Commissary with his secretary came out from the bedroom. - -"The necklace is not in that room," said Monsieur Girardot in a voice -of finality. - -"Nor is it here," Hanaud replied with an unblushing assurance. "Let -us go downstairs." - -Jim was utterly staggered. This room had not been searched for the -necklace at all. First the Sedan chair, then this sitting-room was -neglected. Hanaud actually led the way out to the stairs without so -much as a glance behind him. No wonder that in Paris he had styled -himself and his brethren the Servants of Chance. - - - - -CHAPTER SIXTEEN: _Hanaud Laughs_ - -At the bottom of the stairs Hanaud thanked the Commissary of Police -for his assistance. - -"As for the necklace, we shall of course search the baggage of every -one in the house," he said. "But we shall find nothing. Of that we -may be sure. For if the necklace has been stolen, too much time has -passed since it was stolen for us to hope to find it here." - -He bowed Girardot with much respect out of the house, whilst Monsieur -Bex took Jim Frobisher a little aside. - -"I have been thinking that Mademoiselle Ann should have some legal -help," he said. "Now both you and I are attached to the affairs of -Mademoiselle Harlowe. And--it is a little difficult to put it -delicately--it may be that the interests of those two young ladies -are not identical. It would not therefore be at all correct for me, -at all events, to offer her my services. But I can recommend a very -good lawyer in Dijon, a friend of mine. You see, it may be -important." - -Frobisher agreed. - -"It may be, indeed. Will you give me your friend's address?" he said. - -Whilst he was writing the address down Hanaud startled him by -breaking unexpectedly into a loud laugh. The curious thing was that -there was nothing whatever to account for it. Hanaud was standing by -himself between them and the front door. In the courtyard outside -there was no one within view. Within the hall Jim and Monsieur Bex -were talking very seriously in a low voice. Hanaud was laughing at -the empty air and his laughter betokened a very strong sense of -relief. - -"That I should have lived all these years and never noticed that -before," he cried aloud in a sort of amazement that there could be -anything capable of notice which he, Hanaud, had not noticed. - -"What is it?" asked Jim. - -But Hanaud did not answer at all. He dashed back through the hall -past Frobisher and his companion, vanished into the treasure-room, -closed the door behind him and actually locked it. - -Monsieur Bex jerked his chin high in the air. - -"He is an eccentric, that one. He would not do for Dijon." - -Jim was for defending Hanaud. - -"He must act. That is true," he replied. "Whatever he does and -however keenly he does it, he sees a row of footlights in front of -him." - -"There are men like that," Monsieur Bex agreed. Like all Frenchmen, -he was easy in his mind if he could place a man in a category. - -"But he is doing something which is quite important," Jim continued, -swelling a little with pride. He felt that he had been quite fifteen -minutes in the bull-ring. "He is searching for something somewhere. -I told him about it. He had overlooked it altogether. I reproached -him this morning with his reluctance to take suggestions from people -only too anxious to help him. But I did him obviously some -injustice. He is quite willing." - -Monsieur Bex was impressed and a little envious. - -"I must think of some suggestions to make to Hanaud," he said. "Yes, -yes! Was there not once a pearl necklace in England which was -dropped in a match-box into the gutter when the pursuit became too -hot? I have read of it, I am sure. I must tell Hanaud that he -should spend a day or two picking up the match-boxes in the gutters. -He may be very likely to come across that necklace of Madame -Harlowe's. Yes, certainly." - -Monsieur Bex was considerably elated by the bright idea which had -come to him. He felt that he was again upon a level with his English -colleague. He saw Hanaud pouncing his way along the streets of Dijon -and explaining to all who questioned him: "This is the idea of -Monsieur Bex, the notary. You know, Monsieur Bex, of the Place -Etienne Dolet." Until somewhere near--but Monsieur Bex had not -actually located the particular gutter in which Hanaud should -discover the match-box with the priceless beads, when the library -door opened and Betty came out into the hall. - -She looked at the two men in surprise. - -"And Monsieur Hanaud?" she asked. "I didn't see him go." - -"He is in your treasure-room," said Jim. - -"Oh!" Betty exclaimed in a voice which showed her interest. "He has -gone back there!" - -She walked quickly to the door and tried the handle. - -"Locked!" she cried with a little start of surprise. She spoke -without turning round. "He has locked himself in! Why?" - -"Because of the footlights," Monsieur Bex answered, and Betty turned -about and stared at him. "Yes, we came to that conclusion, Monsieur -Frobisher and I. Everything he does must ring a curtain down;" and -once more the key turned in the lock. - -Betty swung round again as the sound reached her ears and came face -to face with Hanaud. Hanaud looked over her shoulder at Frobisher -and shook his head ruefully. - -"You did not find it, then?" Jim asked. - -"No." - -Hanaud looked away from Jim to Betty Harlowe. - -"Monsieur Frobisher put an idea into my head, Mademoiselle. I had -not looked into that exquisite Sedan chair. It might well be that -the necklace had been hidden behind the cushions. But it is not -there." - -"And you locked the door, Monsieur," said Betty stiffly. "The door -of my room, I ask you to notice." - -Hanaud drew himself erect. - -"I did, Mademoiselle," he replied. "And then?" - -Betty hesitated with some sharp rejoinder on the tip of her tongue. -But she did not speak it. She shrugged her shoulders and said coldly -as she turned from him: - -"You are within your rights, no doubt, Monsieur." - -Hanaud smiled at her good-humouredly. He had offended her again. -She was showing him once more the petulant, mutinous child in her -which he had seen the morning before. But the smile did remain upon -his face. In the doorway of the library Ann Upcott was standing, her -face still very pale, and fires smouldering in her eyes. - -"You searched my rooms, I hope, Monsieur," she said in a challenging -voice. - -"Thoroughly, Mademoiselle." - -"And you did not find the necklace?" - -"No!" and he walked straight across the hall to her with a look -suddenly grown stern. - -"Mademoiselle, I should like you to answer me a question. But you -need not. I wish you to understand that. You have a right to -reserve your answers for the Office of the Examining Magistrate and -then give them only in the presence of and with the consent of your -legal adviser. Monsieur Bex will assure you that is so." - -The girl's defiance weakened. - -"What do you wish to ask me?" she asked. - -"Exactly how you came to the Maison Crenelle." - -The fire died out of her eyes; Ann's eyelids fluttered down. She -stretched out a hand against the jamb of the door to steady herself. -Jim wondered whether she guessed that the head of Simon Harlowe's -arrow was now hidden in Hanaud's pocket. - -"I was at Monte Carlo," she began and stopped. - -"And quite alone?" Hanaud continued relentlessly. - -"Yes." - -"And without money?" - -"With a little money," Ann corrected. - -"Which you lost," Hanaud rejoined. - -"Yes." - -"And at Monte Carlo you made the acquaintance of Boris Waberski?" - -"Yes." - -"And so you came to the Maison Crenelle?" - -"Yes." - -"It is all very curious, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud gravely, and "If -it were only curious!" Jim Frobisher wished with all his heart. For -Ann Upcott quailed before the detective's glance. It seemed to him -that with another question from him, an actual confession would -falter and stumble from her lips. A confession of complicity with -Boris Waberski! And then? Jim caught a dreadful glimpse of the -future which awaited her. The guillotine? Probably a fate much -worse. For that would be over soon and she at rest. A few poignant -weeks, an agony of waiting, now in an intoxication of hope, now in -the lowest hell of terror; some dreadful minutes at the breaking of a -dawn--and an end! That would be better after all than the endless -years of sordid heart-breaking labour, coarse food and clothes, -amongst the criminals of a convict prison in France. - -Jim turned his eyes away from her with a shiver of discomfort and saw -with a queer little shock that Betty was watching him with a singular -intentness; as if what interested her was not so much Ann's peril as -his feeling about it. - -Meanwhile Ann had made up her mind. - -"I shall tell you at once the little there is to tell," she declared. -The words were brave enough, but the bravery ended with the words. -She had provoked the short interrogatory with a clear challenge. She -ended it in a hardly audible whisper. However, she managed to tell -her story, leaning there against the post of the door. Indeed her -voice strengthened as she went on and once a smile of real amusement -flickered about her lips and in her eyes and set the dimples playing -in her cheeks. - -Up to eighteen months ago she had lived with her mother, a widow, in -Dorsetshire, a few miles behind Weymouth. The pair of them lived -with difficulty. For Mrs. Upcott found herself in as desperate a -position as England provides for gentlewomen. She was a small -landowner taxed up to her ears, and then rated over the top of her -head. Ann for her part was thought in the neighbourhood to have -promise as an artist. On the death of her mother the estate was sold -as a toy to a manufacturer, and Ann with a small purse and a -sack-load of ambitions set out for London. - -"It took me a year to understand that I was and should remain an -amateur. I counted over my money. I had three hundred pounds left. -What was I going to do with it? It wasn't enough to set me up in a -shop. On the other hand, I hated the idea of dependence. So I made -up my mind to have ten wild gorgeous days at Monte Carlo and make a -fortune, or lose the lot." - -It was then that the smile set her eyes dancing. - -"I should do the same again," she cried quite unrepentantly. "I had -never been out of England in my life, but I knew a good deal of -schoolgirl's French. I bought a few frocks and hats and off I went. -I had the most glorious time. I was nineteen. Everything from the -sleeping-cars to the croupiers enchanted me. I stayed at one of the -smaller hotels up the hill. I met one or two people whom I knew and -they introduced me into the Sporting Club. Oh, and lots and lots of -people wanted to be kind to me!" she cried. - -"That is thoroughly intelligible," said Hanaud dryly. - -"Oh, but quite nice people too," Ann rejoined. Her face was glowing -with the recollections of that short joyous time. She had forgotten, -for the moment, altogether the predicament in which she stood, or she -was acting with an artfulness which Hanaud could hardly have seen -surpassed in all his experience of criminals. - -"There was a croupier, for instance, at the trente-et-quarante table -in the big room of the Sporting Club. I always tried to sit next to -him. For he saw that no one stole my money and that when I was -winning I insured my stake and clawed a little off the heap from time -to time. I was there for five weeks and I had made four hundred -pounds--and then came three dreadful nights and I lost everything -except thirty pounds which I had stowed away in the hotel safe." She -nodded across the hall towards Jim. "Monsieur Frobisher can tell you -about the last night. For he sat beside me and very prettily tried -to make me a present of a thousand francs." - -Hanaud, however, was not to be diverted. - -"Afterwards he shall tell me," he said, and resumed his questions. -"You had met Waberski before that night?" - -"Yes, a fortnight before. But I can't remember who introduced me." - -"And Mademoiselle Harlowe?" - -"Monsieur Boris introduced me a day or two later to Betty at tea-time -in the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris." - -"Aha!" said Hanaud. He glanced at Jim with an almost imperceptible -shrug of the shoulders. It was, indeed, becoming more and more -obvious that Waberski had brought Ann Upcott into that household -deliberately, as part of a plan carefully conceived and in due time -to be fulfilled. - -"When did Waberski first suggest that you should join Mademoiselle -Harlowe?" he asked. - -"That last night," Ann replied. "He had been standing opposite to me -on the other side of the trente-et-quarante table. He saw that I had -been losing." - -"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his head. "He thought that the opportune -moment had come." - -He extended his arms and let his hands fall against his thighs. He -was like a doctor presented with a hopeless case. He turned half -aside from Ann with his shoulders bent and his troubled eyes fixed -upon the marble squares of the floor. Jim could not but believe that -he was at this moment debating whether he should take the girl into -custody. But Betty intervened. - -"You must not be misled, Monsieur Hanaud," she said quickly, "It is -true no doubt that Monsieur Boris mentioned the subject to Ann for -the first time that night. But I had already told both my aunt and -Monsieur Boris that I should like a friend of my own age to live with -me and I had mentioned Ann." - -Hanaud looked up at her doubtfully. - -"On so short an acquaintance, Mademoiselle?" - -Betty, however, stuck to her guns. - -"Yes. I liked her very much from the beginning. She was alone. It -was quite clear that she was of our own world. There was every good -reason why I should wish for her. And the four months she has been -with me have proved to me that I was right." - -She crossed over to Ann with a defiant little nod at Hanaud, who -responded with a cordial grin and dropped into English. - -"So I can push that into my pipe and puff it, as my dear Ricardo -would say. That is what you mean? Well, against loyalty, the whole -world is powerless." As he made Betty a friendly bow. He could -hardly have told Betty in plainer phrase that her intervention had -averted Ann's arrest; or Ann herself that he believed her guilty. - -Every one in the hall understood him in that sense. They stood -foolishly looking here and looking there and not knowing where to -look; and in the midst of their discomfort occurred an incongruous -little incident which added a touch of the bizarre. Up the two steps -to the open door came a girl carrying a big oblong cardboard -milliner's box. Her finger was on the bell, when Hanaud stepped -forward. - -"There is no need to ring," he said. "What have you there?" - -The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann. - -"It is Mademoiselle's dress for the Ball to-morrow night. -Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but did not come. But -Madame Grolin thinks that it will be all right." She laid the box -upon a chest at the side of the hall and went out again. - -"I had forgotten all about it," said Ann. "It was ordered just -before Madame died and tried on once." - -Hanaud nodded. - -"For Madame Le Vay's masked ball, no doubt," he said. "I noticed the -invitation card on the chimney-piece of Mademoiselle's sitting-room. -And in what character did Mademoiselle propose to go?" - -Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst the blood -rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone. - -"Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events," she cried. - -Even Hanaud was brought up with a start. - -"I did not suggest it," he replied coldly. "But let me see!" and in -a moment whilst his face was flushed with anger his hands were busily -untying the tapes of the box. - -Betty stepped forward. - -"We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, more than a -month ago. It is meant to represent a water-lily." - -"What could be more charming?" Hanaud asked, but his fingers did not -pause in their work. - -"Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?" Jim Frobisher -wondered. What could he expect to find in that box? Did he imagine -that this Madame Grolin, the milliner, was an accomplice of -Waberski's too? The episode was ludicrous with a touch of the -horrible. Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the -tissue-paper. Underneath was seen a short _crêpe de Chine_ frock of -a tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold rosette -at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out at the hips, and -it was bordered with a row of white satin rosettes with golden -hearts. To complete the dress there were a pair of white silk -stockings with fine gold clocks and white satin shoes with single -straps across the insteps and little tassels of brilliants where the -straps buttoned, and four gold stripes at the back round the heels. - -Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, replaced the lid, -and stood up again. He never looked at Ann Upcott. He went straight -across to Betty Harlowe. - -"I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you to so much -trouble and occupied so many hours of your day," he said with a good -deal of feeling. He made her a courteous bow, took up his hat and -stick from the table on which he had laid it, and made straight for -the hall door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all -appearances finished. - -But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been nursing his suggestion -for nearly half an hour. Like a poem it demanded utterance. - -"Monsieur Hanaud!" he called; "Monsieur Hanaud! I have to tell you -about a box of matches." - -"Aha!" Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. "A box of matches! I will -walk with you towards your office, and you shall tell me as you go." - -Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great hurry. But he -had time to throw a glance of pride towards his English colleague. -"Your suggestion about the treasure room was of no value, my friend. -Let us see what I can do!" The pride and the airy wave of the hand -spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at Hanaud's side in a -moment, and talked volubly as they passed out of the gates into the -street of Charles-Robert. - -Betty turned to Jim Frobisher. - -"To-morrow, now that I am once allowed to use my motor-car, I shall -take you for a drive and show you something of our neighbourhood. -This afternoon--you will understand, I know--I belong to Ann." - -She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls went out into the -garden. Jim was left alone in the hall--as at that moment he wanted -to be. It was very still here now and very silent. The piping of -birds, the drone of bees outside the open doors were rather an -accompaniment than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed -himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when he had laughed so -strangely--half-way between the foot of the stairs where Monsieur Bex -and he himself had been standing and the open porch. But Jim could -detect nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. -"That I should have lived all these years and never noticed it -before," he had exclaimed. Notice what? There was nothing to -notice. A table, a chair or two, a barometer hanging upon the wall -on one side and a mirror hanging upon the wall on the other--No, -there was nothing. Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of -the mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene might have -been invented by him maliciously, just to annoy and worry and cause -discomfort to Monsieur Bex and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a -trick like that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a great -deal of the mountebank. More than half of him was probably -mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds! - -"Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he notice?" cried Jim. -"What did he notice from the top of the Tower? What did he notice in -this hall? Why must he be always noticing something?" and he jammed -his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house. - - - - -CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: _At Jean Cladel's_ - -At nine o'clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past the cashier's -desk and into the hall of the Grande Taverne. High above his head -the cinematograph machine whirred and clicked and a blade of silver -light cut the darkness. At the opposite end of the hall the square -screen was flooded with radiance and the pictures melted upon it one -into the other. - -For a little while Jim could see nothing but that screen. Then the -hall swam gradually within his vision. He saw the heads of people -like great bullets and a wider central corridor where waitresses with -white aprons moved. Jim walked up the corridor and turned off to the -left between the tables. When he reached the wall he went forward -again towards the top of the hall. On his left the hall fell back, -and in the recess were two large cubicles in which billiard tables -were placed. Against the wall of the first of these a young man was -leaning with his eyes fixed upon the screen. Jim fancied that he -recognised Maurice Thevenet, and nodded to him as he passed. A -little further on a big man with a soft felt hat was seated alone, -with a Bock in front of him--Hanaud. Jim slipped into a seat at his -side. - -"You?" Hanaud exclaimed in surprise. - -"Why not? You told me this is where you would be at this hour," -replied Jim, and some note of discouragement in his voice attracted -Hanaud's attention. - -"I didn't think that those two young ladies would let you go," he -said. - -"On the contrary," Jim replied with a short laugh. "They didn't want -me at all." - -He began to say something more, but thought better of it, and called -to a waitress. - -"Two Bocks, if you please," he ordered, and he offered Hanaud a cigar. - -When the Bocks were brought, Hanaud said to him: - -"It will be well to pay at once, so that we can slip away when we -want." - -"We have something to do to-night?" Jim asked. - -"Yes." - -He said no more until Jim had paid and the waitress had turned the -two little saucers on which she had brought the Bocks upside down and -had gone away. Then he leaned towards Jim and lowered his voice. - -"I am glad that you came here. For I have a hope that we shall get -the truth to-night, and you ought to be present when we do get it." - -Jim lit his own cigar. - -"From whom do you hope to get it?" - -"Jean Cladel," Hanaud answered in a whisper. "A little later when -all the town is quiet we will pay a visit to the street of Gambetta." - -"You think he'll talk?" - -Hanaud nodded. - -"There is no charge against Cladel in this affair. To make a -solution of that poison paste is not an offence. And he has so much -against him that he will want to be on our side if he can. Yes, he -will talk I have no doubt." - -There would be an end of the affair then, to-night. Jim Frobisher -was glad with an unutterable gladness. Betty would be free to order -her life as she liked, and where she liked, to give to her youth its -due scope and range, to forget the terror and horror of these last -weeks, as one forgets old things behind locked doors. - -"I hope, however," he said earnestly to Hanaud, "and I believe, that -you will be found wrong, that if there was a murder Ann Upcott had -nothing to do with it. Yes, I believe that." He repeated his -assertion as much to convince himself as to persuade Hanaud. - -Hanaud touched his elbow. - -"Don't raise your voice too much, my friend," he said. "I think -there is some one against the wall who is honouring us with his -attention." - -Jim shook his head. - -"It is only Maurice Thevenet," he said. - -"Oho?" answered Hanaud in a voice of relief. "Is that all? For a -moment I was anxious. It seemed that there was a sentinel standing -guard over us." He added in a whisper, "I, too, hope from the bottom -of my heart that I may be proved wrong. But what of that arrow head -in the pen tray? Eh? Don't forget that!" Then he fell into a muse. - -"What happened on that night in the Maison Crenelle?" he said. "Why -was that communicating door thrown open? Who was to be stripped to -the skin by that violent woman? Who whispered 'That will do now'? -Is Ann Upcott speaking the truth, and was there some terrible scene -taking place before she entered so unexpectedly the treasure -room--some terrible scene which ended in that dreadful whisper? Or -is Ann Upcott lying from beginning to end? Ah, my friend, you wrote -some questions down upon your memorandum this afternoon. But these -are the questions I want answered, and where shall I find the -answers?" - -Jim had never seen Hanaud so moved. His hands were clenched, and the -veins prominent upon his forehead, and though he whispered his voice -shook. - -"Jean Cladel may help," said Jim. - -"Yes, yes, he may tell us something." - -They sat through an episode of the film, and saw the lights go up and -out again, and then Hanaud looked eagerly at his watch and put it -back again into his pocket with a gesture of annoyance. - -"It is still too early?" Jim asked. - -"Yes. Cladel has no servant and takes his meals abroad. He has not -yet returned home." - -A little before ten o'clock a man strolled in, and seating himself at -a table behind Hanaud twice scraped a match upon a match-box without -getting a light. Hanaud, without moving, said quietly to Frobisher: - -"He is at home now. In a minute I shall go. Give me five minutes -and follow." - -Jim nodded. - -"Where shall we meet?" - -"Walk straight along the Rue de la Liberté, and I will see to that," -said Hanaud. - -He pulled his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one between -his lips, and took his time in lighting it. Then he got up, but to -his annoyance Maurice Thevenet recognised him and came forward. - -"When Monsieur Frobisher wished me good-evening and joined you I -thought it was you, Monsieur Hanaud. But I had not the presumption -to recall myself to your notice." - -"Presumption! Monsieur, we are of the same service, only you have -the advantage of youth," said Hanaud politely, as he turned. - -"But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?" Thevenet asked in distress. "I -am desolated. I have broken into a conversation like a clumsy -fellow." - -"Not at all," Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his patience was as -remarkable as Maurice Thevenet's impudence. "We were idly watching a -film which I think is a little tedious." - -"Then, since you are not busy I beg for your indulgence. One little -moment that is all. I should so dearly love to be able to say to my -friends, 'I sat in the cinema with Monsieur Hanaud--yes, actually -I'--and asked for his advice." - -Hanaud sat down again upon his chair. - -"And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur Girardot speaks so -highly, want my advice?" Hanaud asked with a laugh. - -The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting the eager -youth. To get to Paris--all was in that! Fortune, reputation, a -life of colour. A word from Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. -He would work night and day to justify that word. - -"Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time comes I shall -remember you. But that promise I make now with my whole heart," said -Hanaud warmly, and with a bow he moved away. - -Maurice Thevenet watched him go. - -"What a man!" Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. "I would -not like to try to keep any secrets from him. No, indeed!" Jim had -heard that sentiment before on other lips and with a greater -sympathy. "I did not understand at all what he had in his mind when -he staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But something, -Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. And that search -through the treasure room! How quick and complete! No doubt while -we searched Mademoiselle Upcott's bedroom, he was just as quick and -complete in going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. -No, nothing." - -He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only said "Oho!" - -But Thevenet was not to be extinguished. - -"I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was following out no -suspicions; isn't that so? He was detached. He was gathering up -every trifle, on the chance that each one might sometime fit in with -another and at last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There -was a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe handed to him, -one of those deplorable letters which have disgraced us here--you -remember that letter, Monsieur?" - -"Aha!" said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. "But I see that -this film is coming to its wedding bells. So I shall wish you a good -evening." - -Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream of success in -Paris. He strolled between the groups of spectators to the entrance -and thence into the street. He walked to the arch of the Porte -Guillaume and turned into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial -towns go to bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was -like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred yards on, he -was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from nowhere, walking at his side. - -"So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when I had gone?" he -said. - -"Maurice Thevenet," said Jim, "may be as the Commissary says a young -man of a surprising intelligence, but to tell you the truth, I find -him a very intrusive fellow. First of all he wanted to know if you -had discovered anything in Ann Upcott's sitting-room, and then what -Miss Harlowe's anonymous letter was about." - -Hanaud looked at Jim with interest. - -"Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot is right. He -will go far. And how did you answer him?" - -"I said 'Oho'! first, and then I said 'Aha'! just like a troublesome -friend of mine when I ask him a simple question which he does not -mean to answer." - -Hanaud laughed heartily. - -"And you did very well," he said. "Come, let us turn into this -little street upon the right. It will take us to our destination." - -"Wait!" whispered Jim eagerly. "Don't cross the road for a moment. -Listen!" - -Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and listened in the empty -street. - -"Not a sound," said Hanaud. - -"No! That is what troubles me!" Jim whispered importantly. "A -minute ago there were footsteps behind us. Now that we have stopped -they have stopped too. Let us go on quite straight for a moment or -two." - -"But certainly my friend," said Hanaud. - -"And let us not talk either," Jim urged. - -"Not a single word," said Hanaud. - -They moved forward again and behind them once more footsteps rang -upon the pavement. - -"What did I tell you?" asked Jim, taking Hanaud by the arm. - -"That we would neither of us speak," Hanaud replied. "And lo! you -have spoken!" - -"But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur," Jim shook his -arm indignantly. "We are being followed." - -Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration at his junior -colleague. - -"Oh!" he whispered. "You have discovered that? Yes, it is true. We -are being followed by one of my men who sees to it that we are not -followed." - -Frobisher shook Hanaud's arm off indignantly. He drew himself up -stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud's mouth twitching and he understood that -he was looking "proper." - -"Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel," he said with a laugh and he -crossed the road. They passed into a network of small, mean streets. -There was not a soul abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. -The only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own footsteps on -the pavement and the fainter noise of the man who followed them. -Hanaud turned to the left into a short passage and stopped before a -little house with a shuttered shop front. - -"This is the place," he said in a low voice and he pressed the button -in the pillar of the door. The bell rang with a shrill sharp whirr -just the other side of the panels. - -"We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to bed," said Hanaud, -"since he has no servant in the house." - -A minute or two passed. The clocks struck the half hour. Hanaud -leaned his ear against the panels of the door. He could not hear one -sound within the house. He rang again; and after a few seconds -shutters were thrown back and a window opened on the floor above. -From behind the window some one whispered: - -"Who is there?" - -"The police," Hanaud answered, and at the window above there was -silence. - -"No one is going to do you any harm," Hanaud continued, raising his -voice impatiently. "We want some information from you. That's all." - -"Very well." The whisper came from the same spot. The man standing -within the darkness of the room had not moved. "Wait! I will slip -on some things and come down." - -The window and the shutter were closed again. Then through the -chinks a few beams of light strayed out Hanaud uttered a little grunt -of satisfaction. - -"That animal is getting up at last. He must have some strange -clients amongst the good people of Dijon if he is so careful to -answer them in a whisper." - -He turned about and took a step or two along the pavement and another -step or two back like a man upon a quarter deck. Jim Frobisher had -never known him so restless and impatient during these two days. - -"I can't help it," he said in a low voice to Jim. "I think that in -five minutes we shall touch the truth of this affair. We shall know -who brought the arrow to him from the Maison Crenelle." - -"If any one brought the arrow to him at all," Jim Frobisher added. - -But Hanaud was not in the mood to consider ifs and possibilities. - -"Oh, that!" he said with a shrug of the shoulders. Then he tapped -his forehead. "I am like Waberski. I have it here that some one did -bring the arrow to Jean Cladel." - -He started once more his quarter-deck pacing. Only it was now a trot -rather than a walk. Jim was a little nettled by the indifference to -his suggestion. He was still convinced that Hanaud had taken the -wrong starting point in all his inquiry. He said tartly: - -"Well, if some one did bring the arrow here, it will be the same -person who replaced the treatise on Sporanthus on its book shelf." - -Hanaud came to a stop in front of Jim Frobisher. Then he burst into -a low laugh. - -"I will bet you all the money in the world that that is not true, and -then Madame Harlowe's pearl necklace on the top of it. For after all -it was not I who brought the arrow to Jean Cladel, whereas it was -undoubtedly I who put back the treatise on the shelf." - -Jim took a step back. He stared at Hanaud with his mouth open in a -stupefaction. - -"You?" he exclaimed. - -"I," replied Hanaud, standing up on the tips of his toes. "Alone I -did it." - -Then his manner of burlesque dropped from him. He looked up at the -shuttered windows with a sudden anxiety. - -"That animal is taking longer than he need," he muttered. "After -all, it is not to a court ball of the Duke of Burgundy that we are -inviting him." - -He rang the bell again with a greater urgency. It returned its -shrill reply as though it mocked him. - -"I do not like this," said Hanaud. - -He seized the door-handle and leaned his shoulder against the panel -and drove his weight against it. But the door was strong and did not -give. Hanaud put his fingers to his mouth and whistled softly. From -the direction whence they had come they heard the sound of a man -running swiftly. They saw him pass within the light of the one -street lamp at the corner and out of it again; and then he stood at -their side. Jim recognised Nicolas Moreau, the little agent who had -been sent this very morning by Hanaud to make sure that Jean Cladel -existed. - -"Nicolas, I want you to wait here," said Hanaud. "If the door is -opened, whistle for us and keep it open." - -"Very well, sir." - -Hanaud said in a low and troubled voice to Frobisher: "There is -something here which alarms me." He dived into a narrow alley at the -side of the shop. - -"It was in this alley no doubt that Waberski meant us to believe that -he hid on the morning of the 7th of May," Jim whispered as he hurried -to keep with his companion. - -"No doubt." - -The alley led into a lane which ran parallel with the street of -Gambetta. Hanaud wheeled into it. A wall five feet high, broken at -intervals by rickety wooden doors, enclosed the yards at the backs of -the houses. Before the first of these breaks in the wall Hanaud -stopped. He raised himself upon the tips of his toes and peered over -the wall, first downwards into the yard, and then upwards towards the -back of the house. There was no lamp in the lane, no light showing -from any of the windows. Though the night was clear of mist it was -as dark as a cavern in this narrow lane behind the houses. Jim -Frobisher, though his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, knew that he -could not have seen a man, even if he had moved, ten yards away. Yet -Hanaud still stood peering at the back of the house with the tips of -his fingers on the top of the wall. Finally he touched Jim on the -sleeve. - -"I believe the back window on the first floor is open," he whispered, -and his voice was more troubled than ever. "We will go in and see." - -He touched the wooden door and it swung inwards with a whine of its -hinges. - -"Open," said Hanaud. "Make no noise." - -Silently they crossed the yard. The ground floor of the house was -low. Jim looking upwards could see now that the window above their -heads yawned wide open. - -"You are right," he breathed in Hanaud's ear, and with a touch Hanaud -asked for silence. - -The room beyond the window was black as pitch. The two men stood -below and listened. Not a word came from it. Hanaud drew Jim into -the wall of the house. At the end of the wall a door gave admission -into the house. Hanaud tried the door, turning the handle first and -then gently pressing with his shoulder upon the panel. - -"It's locked, but not bolted like the door in front," he whispered. -"I can manage this." - -Jim Frobisher heard the tiniest possible rattle of a bunch of keys as -Hanaud drew it from his pocket, and then not a noise of any kind -whilst Hanaud stooped above the lock. Yet within half a minute the -door slowly opened. It opened upon a passage as black as that room -above their heads. Hanaud stepped noiselessly into the passage. Jim -Frobisher followed him with a heart beating high in excitement. What -had happened in that lighted room upstairs and in the dark room -behind it? Why didn't Jean Cladel come down and open the door upon -the street of Gambetta? Why didn't they hear Nicolas Moreau's soft -whistle or the sound of his voice? Hanaud stepped back past Jim -Frobisher and shut the door behind them and locked it again. - -"You haven't an electric torch with you, of course?" Hanaud whispered. - -"No," replied Jim. - -"Nor I. And I don't want to strike a match. There's something -upstairs which frightens me." - -You could hardly hear the words. They were spoken as though the mere -vibration of the air they caused would carry a message to the rooms -above. - -"We'll move very carefully. Keep a hand upon my coat," and Hanaud -went forward. After he had gone a few paces he stopped. - -"There's a staircase here on my right. It turns at once. Mind not -to knock your foot on the first step," he whispered over his -shoulder; and a moment later, he reached down and, taking hold of -Jim's right arm, laid his hand upon a balustrade. Jim lifted his -foot, felt for and found the first tread of the stairs, and mounted -behind Hanaud. They halted on a little landing just above the door -by which they had entered the house. - -In front of them the darkness began to thin, to become opaque rather -than a black, impenetrable hood drawn over their heads. Jim -understood that in front of him was an open door and that the faint -glimmer came from that open window on their left hand beyond the door. - -Hanaud passed through the doorway into the room. Jim followed and -was already upon the threshold, when Hanaud stumbled and uttered a -cry. No doubt the cry was low, but coming so abruptly upon their -long silence it startled Frobisher like the explosion of a pistol. -It seemed that it must clash through Dijon like the striking of a -clock. - -But nothing followed. No one stirred, no one cried out a question. -Silence descended upon the house again, impenetrable, like the -darkness a hood upon the senses. Jim was tempted to call out aloud -himself, anything, however childish, so that he might hear a voice -speaking words, if only his own voice. The words came at last, from -Hanaud and from the inner end of the room, but in an accent which Jim -did not recognise. - -"Don't move! ... There is something.... I told you I was -frightened.... Oh!" and his voice died away in a sigh. - -Jim could hear him moving very cautiously. Then he almost screamed -aloud. For the shutters at the window slowly swung to and the room -was once more shrouded in black. - -"Who's that?" Jim whispered violently, and Hanaud answered: - -"It's only me--Hanaud. I don't want to show a light here yet with -that window open. God knows what dreadful thing has happened here. -Come just inside the room and shut the door behind you." - -Jim obeyed, and having moved his position, could see a line of yellow -light, straight and fine as if drawn by a pencil, at the other end of -the room on the floor. There was a door there, a door into the front -room where they had seen the light go up from the street of Gambetta. - -Jim Frobisher had hardly realised that before the door was burst open -with a crash. In the doorway, outlined against the light beyond, -appeared the bulky frame of Hanaud. - -"There is nothing here," he said, standing there blocking up the -doorway with his hands in his pockets. "The room is quite empty." - -That room, the front room--yes! But between Hanaud's legs the light -trickled out into the dark room behind, and here, on the floor -illuminated by a little lane of light, Jim, with a shiver, saw a -clenched hand and a forearm in a crumpled shirt-sleeve. - -"Turn round," he cried to Hanaud. "Look!" - -Hanaud turned. - -"Yes," he said quietly. "That is what I stumbled against." - -He found a switch in the wall close to the door and snapped it down. -The dark room was flooded with light, and on the floor, in the midst -of a scene of disorder, a table pushed back here, a chair overturned -there, lay the body of a man. He wore no coat. He was in his -waistcoat and his shirt sleeves, and he was crumpled up with a -horrible suggestion of agony like a ball, his knees towards his chin, -his head forward towards his knees. One arm clutched the body close, -the other, the one which Jim had seen, was flung out, his hand -clenched in a spasm of intolerable pain. And about the body there -was such a pool of blood as Jim Frobisher thought no body could -contain. - -Jim staggered back with his hands clasped over his eyes. He felt -physically sick. - -"Then he killed himself on our approach," he cried with a groan. - -"Who?" answered Hanaud steadily. - -"Jean Cladel. The man who whispered to us from behind the window." - -Hanaud stunned him with a question. - -"What with?" - -Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and forced his eyes to -their service. There was no gleam of a knife, or a pistol, anywhere -against the dark background of the carpet. - -"You might think that he was a Japanese who had committed -_hari-kari_," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the knife would be at his -side. And there is no knife." - -He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his hand back. - -"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He pointed. -The man was lying on his side in this dreadful pose of contracted -sinews and unendurable pain. And across the sleeve of his shirt -there was a broad red mark. - -"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud. - -Jim bent forward. - -"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, in a voice -of awe: "Then it's murder." - -Hanaud nodded. - -"Not a doubt." - -Jim Frobisher stood up. He pointed a shaking finger at the grotesque -image of pain crumpled upon the floor, death without dignity, an -argument that there was something horribly wrong with the making of -the human race--since such things could be. - -"Jean Cladel?" he asked. - -"We must make sure," answered Hanaud. He went down the stairs to the -front door and, unbolting it, called Moreau within the house. From -the top of the stairs Jim heard him ask: - -"Do you know Jean Cladel by sight?" - -"Yes," answered Moreau. - -"Then follow me." - -Hanaud led him up into the back room. For a moment Moreau stopped -upon the threshold with a blank look upon his face. - -"Is that the man?" Hanaud asked. - -Moreau stepped forward. - -"Yes." - -"He has been murdered," Hanaud explained. "Will you fetch the -Commissary of the district and a doctor? We will wait here." - -Moreau turned on his heel and went downstairs. Hanaud dropped into a -chair and stared moodily at the dead body. - -"Jean Cladel," he said in a voice of discouragement. "Just when he -could have been of a little use in the world! Just when he could -have helped us to the truth! It's my fault, too. I oughtn't to have -waited until to-night. I ought to have foreseen that this might -happen." - -"Who can have murdered him?" Jim Frobisher exclaimed. - -Hanaud roused himself out of his remorse. - -"The man who whispered to us from behind the window," answered Hanaud. - -Jim Frobisher felt his mind reeling. - -"That's impossible!" he cried. - -"Why?" Hanaud asked. "It must have been he. Think it out!" And -step by step he told the story as he read it, testing it by speaking -it aloud. - -"At five minutes past ten a man of mine, still a little out of breath -from his haste, comes to us in the Grande Taverne and tells us that -Jean Cladel has just reached home. He reached home then at five -minutes to ten." - -"Yes," Jim agreed. - -"We were detained for a few minutes by Maurice Thevenet. Yes." He -moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and said softly: "We -shall have to consider that very modest and promising young gentleman -rather carefully. He detained us. We heard the clock strike -half-past ten as we waited in the street." - -"Yes." - -"And all was over then. For the house was as silent as what, indeed, -it is--a grave. And only just over, for the body is still warm. If -this--lying here, is Jean Cladel, some one else must have been -waiting for him to come home to-night, waiting in the lane behind, -since my man didn't see him. And an acquaintance, a friend--for Jean -Cladel lets him in and locks the door behind him." - -Jim interrupted. - -"He might have been here already, waiting for him with his knife -bared in this dark room." - -Hanaud looked around the room. It was furnished cheaply and -stuffily, half office, half living-room. An open bureau stood -against the wall near the window. A closed cabinet occupied the -greater part of one side. - -"I wonder," he said. "It is possible, no doubt---- But if so, why -did the murderer stay so long? No search has been made--no drawers -are ransacked." He tried the door of the cabinet. "This is still -locked. No, I don't think that he was waiting. I think that he was -admitted as a friend or a client--I fancy Jean Cladel had not a few -clients who preferred to call upon him by the back way in the dark of -the night. I think that his visitor came meaning to kill, and waited -his time and killed, and that he had hardly killed before we rang the -bell at the door." Hanaud drew in his breath sharply. "Imagine -that, my friend! He is standing here over the man he has murdered, -and unexpectedly the shrill, clear sound of the bell goes through the -house--as though God said, 'I saw you!' Imagine it! He turned out -the light and stands holding his breath in the dark. The bell rings -again. He must answer it or worse may befall. He goes into the -front room and throws open the window, and hears it is the police who -are at the door." Hanaud nodded his head in a reluctant admiration. -"But that man had an iron nerve! He doesn't lose his head. He -closes the shutter, he turns on the light, that we may think he is -getting up, he runs back into this room. He will not waste time by -stumbling down the stairs and fumbling with the lock of the back -door. No, he opens these shutters and drops to the ground. It is -done in a second. Another second, and he is in the lane; another, -and he is safe, his dreadful mission ended. Cladel will not speak. -Cladel will not tell us the things we want to know." - -Hanaud went over to the cabinet and, using his skeleton keys, again -opened its doors. On the shelves were ranged a glass jar or two, a -retort, the simplest utensils of a laboratory and a few bottles, one -of which, larger than the rest, was half filled with a colourless -liquid. - -"Alcohol," said Hanaud, pointing to the label. - -Jim Frobisher moved carefully round on the outskirts of the room, -taking care not to alter the disarrangements of the furniture. He -looked the bottles over. Not one of them held a drop of that pale -lemon-coloured solution which the Professor, in his Treatise, had -described. Hanaud shut and locked the doors of the cabinet again and -stepped carefully over to the bureau. It stood open, and a few -papers were strewn upon the flap. He sat down at the bureau and -began carefully to search it. Jim sat down in a chair. Somehow it -had leaked out that, since this morning, Hanaud knew of Jean Cladel. -Jean Cladel therefore must be stopped from any revelations; and he -had been stopped. Frobisher could no longer doubt that murder had -been done on the night of April the 27th, in the Maison Crenelle. -Development followed too logically upon development. The case was -building itself up--another storey had been added to the edifice with -this new crime. Yes, certainly and solidly it was building itself -up--this case against some one. - - - - -CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: _The White Tablet_ - -Within the minute that case was to be immeasurably strengthened. An -exclamation broke from Hanaud. He sprang to his feet and turned on -the light of a green-shaded reading lamp, which stood upon the ledge -of the bureau. He was holding now under the light a small drawer, -which he had removed from the front of the bureau. Very gingerly he -lifted some little thing out of it, something that looked like a -badge that men wear in their buttonholes. He laid it down upon the -blotting paper; and in that room of death laughed harshly. - -He beckoned to Jim. - -"Come and look!" - -What Jim saw was a thin, small, barbed iron dart, with an iron stem. -He had no need to ask its nature, for he had seen its likeness that -morning in the Treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. This was the -actual head of Simon Harlowe's poison-arrow. - -"You have found it!" said Jim in a voice that shook. - -"Yes." - -Hanaud gave it a little push, and said thoughtfully: - -"A negro thousands of miles away sits outside his hut in the Kombe -country and pounds up his poison seed and mixes it with red clay, and -smears it thick and slab over the shaft of his fine new arrow, and -waits for his enemy. But his enemy does not come. So he barters it, -or gives it to his white friend the trader on the Shire river. And -the trader brings it home and gives it to Simon Harlowe of the Maison -Crenelle. And Simon Harlowe lends it to a professor in Edinburgh, -who writes about it in a printed book and sends it back again. And -in the end, after all its travels, it comes to the tenement of Jean -Cladel in a slum of Dijon, and is made ready in a new way to do its -deadly work." - -For how much longer Hanaud would have moralised over the arrow in -this deplorable way, no man can tell. Happily Jim Frobisher was -reprieved from listening to him by the shutting of a door below and -the noise of voices in the passage. - -"The Commissary!" said Hanaud, and he went quickly down the stairs. - -Jim heard him speaking in a low tone for quite a long while, and no -doubt was explaining the position of affairs. For when he brought -the Commissary and the doctor up into the room he introduced Jim as -one about whom they already knew. - -"This is that Monsieur Frobisher," he said. - -The Commissary, a younger and more vivacious man than Girardot, bowed -briskly to Jim and looked towards the contorted figure of Jean Cladel. - -Even he could not restrain a little gesture of repulsion. He clacked -his tongue against the roof of his mouth. - -"He is not pretty, that one!" he said. "Most certainly he is not -pretty." - -Hanaud crossed again to the bureau and carefully folded the dart -around with paper. - -"With your permission, Monsieur," he said ceremoniously to the -Commissary, "I shall take this with me. I will be responsible for -it." He put it away in his pocket and looked at the doctor, who was -stooping by the side of Jean Cladel. "I do not wish to interfere, -but I should be glad to have a copy of the medical report. I think -that it might help me. I think it will be found that this murder was -committed in a way peculiar to one man." - -"Certainly you shall have a copy of the report, Monsieur Hanaud," -replied the young Commissary in a polite and formal voice. - -Hanaud laid a hand on Jim's arm. - -"We are in the way, my friend. Oh, yes, in spite of Monsieur le -Commissaire's friendly protestations. This is not our affair. Let -us go!" He conducted Jim to the door and turned about. "I do not -wish to interfere," he repeated, "but it is possible that the -shutters and the window will bear the traces of the murderer's -fingers. I don't think it probable, for that animal had taken his -precautions. But it is possible, for he left in a great hurry." - -The Commissary was overwhelmed with gratitude. - -"Most certainly we will give our attention to the shutters and the -window-sill." - -"A copy of the finger-prints, if any are found?" Hanaud suggested. - -"Shall be at Monsieur Hanaud's disposal as early as possible," the -Commissary agreed. - -Jim experienced a pang of regret that Monsieur Bex was not present at -the little exchange of civilities. The Commissary and Hanaud were so -careful not to tread upon one another's toes and so politely -determined that their own should not be trodden upon. Monsieur Bex -could not but have revelled in the correctness of their deportment. - -Hanaud and Frobisher went downstairs into the street The -neighbourhood had not been aroused. A couple of _sergents-de-ville_ -stood in front of the door. The street of Gambetta was still asleep -and indifferent to the crime which had taken place in one of its -least respectable houses. - -"I shall go to the Prefecture," said Hanaud. "They have given me a -little office there with a sofa. I want to put away the arrow head -before I go to my hotel." - -"I shall come with you," said Jim. "It will be a relief to walk for -a little in the fresh air, after that room." - -The Prefecture lay the better part of a mile away across the city. -Hanaud set off at a great pace, and reaching the building conducted -Jim into an office with a safe set against the wall. - -"Will you sit down for a moment? And smoke, please," he said. - -He was in a mood of such deep dejection; he was so changed from his -mercurial self; that only now did Jim Frobisher understand the great -store he had set upon his interview with Jean Cladel. He unlocked -the safe and brought over to the table a few envelopes of different -sizes, the copy of the Treatise and his green file. He seated -himself in front of Jim and began to open his envelopes and range -their contents in a row, when the door was opened and a gendarme -saluted and advanced. He carried a paper in his hand. - -"A reply came over the telephone from Paris at nine o'clock to-night, -Monsieur Hanaud. They say that this may be the name of the firm you -want. It was established in the Rue de Batignolles, but it ceased to -exist seven years ago." - -"Yes, that would have happened," Hanaud answered glumly, as he took -the paper. He read what was written upon it. "Yes--yes. That's it. -Not a doubt." - -He took an envelope from a rack upon the table and put the paper -inside it and stuck down the flap. On the front of the envelope, Jim -saw him write an illuminating word. "Address." - -Then he looked at Jim with smouldering eyes. - -"There is a fatality in all this," he cried. "We become more and -more certain that murder was committed and how it was committed. We -get a glimpse of possible reasons why. But we are never an inch -nearer to evidence--real convincing evidence--who committed it. -Fatality? I am a fool to use such words. It's keen wits and -audacity and nerve that stop us at the end of each lane and make an -idiot of me!" - -He struck a match viciously and lit a cigarette. Frobisher made an -effort to console him. - -"Yes, but it's the keen wits and the audacity and the nerve of more -than one person." - -Hanaud glanced at Frobisher sharply. - -"Explain, my friend." - -"I have been thinking over it ever since we left the street of -Gambetta. I no longer doubt that Mrs. Harlowe was murdered in the -Maison Crenelle. It is impossible to doubt it. But her murder was -part of the activities of a gang. Else how comes it that Jean Cladel -was murdered too to-night?" - -A smile drove for a moment the gloom from Hanaud's face. - -"Yes. You have been quite fifteen minutes in the bull-ring," he said. - -"Then you agree with me?" - -"Yes!" But Hanaud's gloom had returned. "But we can't lay our hands -upon the gang. We are losing time, and I am afraid that we have no -time to lose." Hanaud shivered like a man suddenly chilled. "Yes, I -am very troubled now. I am very--frightened." - -His fear peered out of him and entered into Frobisher. Frobisher did -not understand it, he had no clue to what it was that Hanaud feared, -but sitting in that brightly-lit office in the silent building, he -was conscious of evil presences thronging about the pair of them, -presences grotesque and malevolent such as some old craftsman of -Dijon might have carved on the pillars of a cathedral. He, too, -shivered. - -"Let us see, now!" said Hanaud. - -He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, and the barb -from his pocket, and fitted them together. The iron barb was loose -now because the hole to receive it at the top of the arrow shaft had -been widened to take a nib. But the spoke was just about the right -length. He laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green -file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, attracted Jim's -notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, but as he shook it out, a -square tablet of some hard white substance rolled on to the table. -It was soiled with dust, and there was a smear of green upon it; and -as Jim turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as -though something sharp had struck it. - -"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" he asked. - -Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his hand swiftly to -take the tablet away from Jim, and drew his hand in again. - -"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said gravely. "But it is -interesting--that tablet. I shall know more about it to-morrow." - -Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion which had -brought this tablet into notice. It certainly had not been -discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for it was already there in the -safe in the office. Jim had noticed the little square envelope as -Hanaud fetched it out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had -been picked up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. -Or--yes, there was that smear of green--from the grass. Jim sat up -straight in his chair. They had all been together in the garden this -morning. Hanaud, himself, Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point -Frobisher's conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction -could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of them had -passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only thing of which he was -quite sure was the great importance which Hanaud attached to it. For -all the time that he handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left -him, never once. They followed each little movement of finger tip -and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when Jim at last -tilted it off his palm back into its little envelope, the detective -undoubtedly drew a breath of relief. - -Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was getting to know his -man. He did not invite any "Aha's" and "Oho's" by vain questionings. -He leaned across the table and took up his own memorandum which -Hanaud had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table -in front of him and added two new questions to those which he had -already written out. Thus: - - - (5) What was the exact message telephoned from Paris to the - Prefecture and hidden away in an envelope marked by Hanaud: - "Address"? - - - (6) When and where and why was the white tablet picked up, and - what, in the name of all the saints, does it mean? - - -With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum back to Hanaud. -Hanaud, however, read them slowly and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to -answer all your questions to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you -see! We break down at every corner, and the question must wait." - -He was fitting methodically the memorandum back into the file when a -look of extreme surprise came over Frobisher's face. He pointed a -finger at the file. - -"That telegram!" - -There was a telegram pinned to the three anonymous letters which -Hanaud had in the file--the two which Hanaud had shown to Frobisher -in Paris and the third which Betty Harlowe had given to him that very -afternoon. And the telegram was pieced together by two strips of -stamp-paper in a cross. - -"That's our telegram. The telegram sent to my firm by Miss Harlowe -on Monday--yes, by George, this last Monday." - -It quite took Jim's breath away, so crowded had his days been with -fears and reliefs, excitements and doubts, discoveries and -disappointments, to realise that this was only the Friday night; that -at so recent a date as Wednesday he had never seen or spoken with -Betty Harlowe. "The telegram announcing to us in London that you -were engaged upon the case." - -Hanaud nodded in assent. - -"Yes. You gave it to me." - -"And you tore it up." - -"I did. But I picked it out of the waste-paper basket afterwards and -stuck it together." Hanaud explained, in no wise disconcerted by Jim -Frobisher's attack of perspicacity. "I meant to make some trouble -here with the Police for letting out the secret. I am very glad now -that I did pick it out. You yourself must have realised its -importance the very next morning before I even arrived at the Maison -Crenelle, when you told Mademoiselle that you had shown it to me." - -Jim cast his memory back. He had a passion for precision and -exactness which was very proper in one of his profession. - -"It was not until you came that I learnt Miss Harlowe had the news by -an anonymous letter," he said. - -"Well, that doesn't matter," Hanaud interposed a trifle quickly. -"The point of importance to me is that when the case is done with, -and I have a little time to devote to these letters, the telegram may -be of value." - -"Yes, I see," said Jim. "I see that," he repeated, and he shifted -uncomfortably in his chair; and opened his mouth and closed it again; -and remained suspended between speech and silence, whilst Hanaud read -through his file and contemplated his exhibits and found no hope in -them. - -"They lead me nowhere!" he cried violently; and Jim Frobisher made up -his mind. - -"Monsieur Hanaud, you do not share your thoughts with me," he said -rather formally, "but I will deal with you in a better way; apart -from this crime in the Maison Crenelle, you have the mystery of these -anonymous letters to solve. I can help you to this extent. Another -of them has been received." - -"When?" - -"To-night, whilst we sat at dinner." - -"By whom?" - -"Ann Upcott." - -"What!" - -Hanaud was out of his chair with a cry, towering up, his face white -as the walls of the room, his eyes burning upon Frobisher. Never -could news have been so unexpected, so startling. - -"You are sure?" he asked. - -"Quite. It came by the evening post--with others. Gaston brought -them into the dining-room. There was one for me from my firm in -London, a couple for Betty, and this one for Ann Upcott. She opened -it with a frown, as though she did not know from whom it came. I saw -it as she unfolded it. It was on the same common paper--typewritten -in the same way--with no address at the head of it. She gasped as -she looked at it, and then she read it again. And then with a smile -she folded it and put it away." - -"With a smile?" Hanaud insisted. - -"Yes. She was pleased. The colour came into her face. The distress -went out of it." - -"She didn't show it to you, then?" - -"No." - -"Nor to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" - -"No." - -"But she was pleased, eh?" It seemed that to Hanaud this was the -most extraordinary feature of the whole business. "Did she say -anything?" - -"Yes," answered Jim. "She said 'He has been always right, hasn't -he?'" - -"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't he?'" Hanaud -slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a man turned into stone. He -looked up in a little while. - -"What happened then?" he asked. - -"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up her letter and -beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who said to me: 'We shall have -to leave you to take your coffee alone.' They went across the hall -to Betty's room. The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever -since I have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed me -into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not interfere. So I came -to find you at the Grande Taverne." - -At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity would have -provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable exhibitions, but now he did -not notice it at all. - -"They went away to talk that letter over together," said Hanaud. -"And that young lady was pleased, she who was so distressed this -afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud was discussing his problem with -himself, his eyes upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I -wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once or -twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a hundred corridas, -I, Hanaud, am baffled!" - -He was not posturing now. He was frankly and simply amazed that he -could be so utterly at a loss. Then, with a swift change of mood, he -came back to the table. - -"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange new incident -to myself, I beg of you your help," he pleaded very earnestly and -even very humbly. Fear had returned to his eyes and his voice. He -was disturbed beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more -important. I want you--how shall I put it so that I may persuade -you? I want you to stay as much as you can in the Maison -Crenelle--to--yes--to keep a little watch on this pretty Ann Upcott, -to----" - -He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher interrupted him -in a very passion of anger. - -"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, Monsieur. I -won't be your spy. I am not here for that. I am here for my client. -As for Ann Upcott, she is my countrywoman. I will not help you -against her. So help me God, I won't!" - -Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry face of his -"junior colleague," who now resigned his office and, without parley, -accepted his defeat. - -"I don't blame you," he answered quietly. "I could, indeed, hope for -no other reply. I must be quick, that's all. I must be very quick!" - -Frobisher's anger fell away from him like a cloak one drops. He saw -Hanaud sitting over against him with a white, desperately troubled -face and eyes in which there shone unmistakeably some gleam of terror. - -"Tell me!" he cried in an exasperation. "Be frank with me for once! -Is Ann Upcott guilty? She's not alone, of course, anyway. There's a -gang. We're agreed upon that. Waberski's one of them, of course? -Is Ann Upcott another? Do you believe it?" - -Hanaud slowly put his exhibits together. There was a struggle going -on within him. The strain of the night had told upon them both, and -he was tempted for once to make a confidant, tempted intolerably. On -the other hand, Jim Frobisher read in him all the traditions of his -service; to wait upon facts, not to utter suspicions; to be fair. It -was not until he had locked everything away again in the safe that -Hanaud yielded to the temptation. And even then he could not bring -himself to be direct. - -"You want to know what I believe of Ann Upcott?" he cried -reluctantly, as though the words were torn from him. "Go to-morrow -to the Church of Notre Dame and look at the façade. There, since you -are not blind, you will see." - -He would say no more; that was clear. Nay, he stood moodily before -Frobisher, already regretting that he had said so much. Frobisher -picked up his hat and stick. - -"Thank you," he said. "Good night." - -Hanaud let him go to the door. Then he said: - -"You are free to-morrow. I shall not go to the Maison Crenelle. -Have you any plans?" - -"Yes. I am to be taken for a motor-drive round the neighbourhood." - -"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. "But remember -to telephone to me before you go. I shall be here. I will tell you -if I have any news. Good night." - -Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the room. Before he -had closed the door Hanaud had forgotten his presence. For he was -saying to himself over and over again, almost with an accent of -despair: "I must be quick! I must be very quick!" - - -Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest Renan and the Rue -de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's injunction to examine the -façade of Notre Dame. He must keep that in mind and obey it in the -morning. But that night was not yet over for him. - -As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert he -heard a light, quick step a little way behind him--a step that seemed -familiar. So when he turned into the street he sauntered and looked -round. He saw a tall man cross the entrance of the street very -quickly and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. The -man paused for a second under the light of a street lamp at the angle -of the street, and Jim could have sworn that it was Hanaud. There -were no hotels, no lodgings in this quarter of the city. It was a -quarter of private houses. What was Hanaud seeking there? - -Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the façade of Notre -Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison Crenelle a little incident -occurred which made the probability that he would soon remember it -remote. He let himself into the house with a latchkey which had been -given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means of a -switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall to the foot of -the stairs, and was about to turn off the light, using the switch -there to which Ann Upcott had referred, when the door of the -treasure-room opened. Betty appeared in the doorway. - -"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased to find her -still afoot and half regretful that she was losing her hours of sleep. - -"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I waited up for my -lodger." - -She held the door open, and he followed her back into the room. - -"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she added: "Jim, -something has happened to-night." - -Jim nodded. - -"What?" she asked. - -"Let it wait till to-morrow, Betty!" - -Betty smiled no longer. The light died out of her dark, haunting -eyes. Lassitude and distress veiled them. - -"Something terrible, then?" she said in a whisper. - -"Yes," and she stretched out a hand to the back of a chair and -steadied herself. - -"Please tell me, now, Jim! I shall not sleep to-night unless you do; -and oh, I am so tired!" - -There was so deep a longing in her voice, so utter a weariness in the -pose of her young body that Jim could not but yield. - -"I'll tell you, Betty," he said gently. "Hanaud and I went to find -Jean Cladel to-night. We found him dead. He had been -murdered--cruelly." - -Betty moaned and swayed upon her feet. She would have fallen had not -Jim caught her in his arms. - -"Betty!" he cried. - -Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could feel the heave of -her bosom against his heart. - -"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No one ever had -heard of him till this morning ... and now he's swept into this -horror--like the rest of us! Oh, where will it end?" - -Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees beside her. - -She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up to his. - -"My dear!" he whispered. - -But she would not raise her head. - -"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed her face -deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung to him with desperate -hands. - -"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll all come right. -I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And whilst he spoke he cursed himself -for the banality of his words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that -were really fine with which to comfort her? Something better than -these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will all straighten -out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that there was no necessity -that he should. For her arms crept round his neck and held him close. - - - - -CHAPTER NINETEEN: _A Plan Frustrated_ - -The road curled like a paper ribbon round the shoulder of a hill and -dropped into a shallow valley. To the left a little below the level -of the road, a stream ran swiftly through a narrow meadow of lush -green grass. Beyond the meadow the wall of the valley rose rough -with outcroppings of rock, and with every tuft of its herbage already -brown from the sun. On the right the northern wall rose almost from -the road's edge. The valley was long and curved slowly, and half-way -along to the point where it disappeared a secondary road, the sort of -road which is indicated in the motorist's hand-books by a dotted -line, branched off to the left, crossed the stream by a stone bridge -and vanished in a cleft of the southern wall. Beyond this branching -road grew trees. The stream disappeared under them as though it ran -into a cavern; the slopes on either side were hidden behind -trees--trees so thick that here at this end the valley looked bare in -the strong sunlight, but low trees, as if they had determined to -harmonise with their environment. Indeed, the whole valley had a -sort of doll's-house effect--it was so shallow and narrow and -stunted. It tried to be a valley and succeeded in being a depression. - -When the little two-seater car swooped round the shoulder of the hill -and descended, the white ribbon of road was empty but for one tiny -speck at the far end, behind which a stream of dust spurted and -spread like smoke from the funnel of an engine. - -"That motor dust is going to smother us when we pass," said Jim. - -"We shall do as much for him," said Betty, looking over her shoulder -from the steering wheel. "No, worse!" Behind the car the dust was a -screen. "But I don't mind, do you, Jim?" she asked with a laugh, in -which for the first time, with a heart of thankfulness, Jim heard a -note of gaiety. "To be free of that town if only for an hour! Oh!" -and Betty opened her lungs to the sunlight and the air. "This is my -first hour of liberty for a week!" - -Frobisher was glad, too, to be out upon the slopes of the Côte-d'Or. -The city of Dijon was ringing that morning with the murder of Jean -Cladel; you could not pass down a street but you heard his name -mentioned and some sarcasms about the police. He wished to forget -that nightmare of a visit to the street of Gambetta and the dreadful -twisted figure on the floor of the back room. - -"You'll be leaving it for good very soon, Betty," he said -significantly. - -Betty made a little grimace at him, and laid her hand upon his sleeve. - -"Jim!" she said, and the colour rose into her face, and the car -swerved across the road. "You mustn't speak like that to the girl at -the wheel," she said with a laugh as she switched the car back into -its course, "or I shall run down the motor-cyclist and that young -lady in the side-car." - -"The young lady," said Jim, "happens to be a port-manteau!" - -The motor-cyclist, indeed, was slowing down as he came nearer to the -branching road, like a tourist unacquainted with the country, and -when he actually reached it he stopped altogether and dismounted. -Betty brought her car to a standstill beside him, and glanced at the -clock and the speedometer in front of her. - -"Can I help you?" she asked. - -The man standing beside the motor-cycle was a young man, slim, dark, -and of a pleasant countenance. He took off his helmet and bowed -politely. - -"Madame, I am looking for Dijon," he said in a harsh accent which -struck Frobisher as somehow familiar to his ears. - -"Monsieur, you can see the tip of it through that gap across the -valley," Betty returned. In the very centre of the cleft the point -of the soaring spire of the cathedral stood up like a delicate lance. -"But I warn you that that way, though short, is not good." - -Through the gradually thinning cloud of dust which hung behind the -car they heard the jug-jug of another motor-cycle. - -"The road by which we have come is the better one," she continued. - -"But how far is it?" the young man asked. - -Betty once more consulted her speedometer. - -"Forty kilometres, and we have covered them in forty minutes, so that -you can see the going is good. We started at eleven punctually, and -it is now twenty minutes to twelve." - -"Surely we started before eleven?" Jim interposed. - -"Yes, but we stopped for a minute or two to tighten the strap of the -tool-box on the edge of the town. And we started from there at -eleven." - -The motor-cyclist consulted his wrist-watch. - -"Yes, it's twenty minutes to twelve now," he said. "But forty -kilometres! I doubt if I have the essence. I think I must try the -nearer road." - -The second motor-cycle came out of the dust like a boat out of a sea -mist and slowed down in turn at the side of them. The rider jumped -out of his saddle, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead and -joined in the conversation. - -"That little road, Monsieur. It is not one of the national highways. -That shows itself at a glance. But it is not so bad. From the stone -bridge one can be at the Hôtel de Ville of Dijon in twenty-five -minutes." - -"I thank you," said the young man. "You will pardon me. I have been -here for seven minutes, and I am expected." - -He replaced his helmet, mounted his machine, and with a splutter and -half a dozen explosions ran down into the bed of the valley. - -The second cyclist readjusted his goggles. - -"Will you go first, Madame?" he suggested. "Otherwise I give you my -dust." - -"Thank you!" said Betty with a smile, and she slipped in the clutch -and started. - -Beyond the little forest and the curve the ground rose and the valley -flattened out. Across their road a broad highway set with kilometre -stones ran north and south. - -"The road to Paris," said Betty as she stopped the car in front of a -little inn with a tangled garden at the angle. She looked along the -road Pariswards. "Air!" she said, and drew a breath of longing, -whilst her eyes kindled and her white strong teeth clicked as though -she was biting a sweet fruit. - -"Soon, Betty," said Jim. "Very soon!" - -Betty drove the car into a little yard at the side of the river. - -"We will lunch here, in the garden," she said, "all amongst the -earwigs and the roses." - -An omelet, a cutlet perfectly cooked and piping hot, with a salad and -a bottle of Clos du Prince of the 1904 vintage brought the glowing -city of Paris immeasurably nearer to them. They sat in the open -under the shade of a tall hedge; they had the tangled garden to -themselves; they laughed and made merry in the golden May, and -visions of wonder trembled and opened before Jim Frobisher's eyes. - -Betty swept them away, however, when he had lit a cigar and she a -cigarette; and their coffee steamed from the little cups in front of -them. - -"Let us be practical, Jim," she said. "I want to talk to you." - -The sparkle of gaiety had left her face. - -"Yes!" he asked. - -"About Ann." Her eyes swept round and rested on Jim's face. "She -ought to go." - -"Run away!" cried Jim with a start. - -"Yes, at once and as secretly as possible." - -Jim turned the proposal over in his mind whilst Betty waited in -suspense. - -"It couldn't be managed," he objected. - -"It could." - -"Even if it could, would she consent?" - -"She does." - -"Of course it's pleading guilty," he said slowly. - -"Oh, it isn't, Jim. She wants time, that's all. Time for my -necklace to be traced, time for the murderer of Jean Cladel to be -discovered. You remember what I told you about Hanaud? He must have -his victim. You wouldn't believe me, but it's true. He has got to -go back to Paris and say, 'You see, they sent from Dijon for me, and -five minutes! That's all I needed! Five little minutes and there's -your murderess, all tied up and safe!' He tried to fix it on me -first." - -"No." - -"He did, Jim. And now that has failed he has turned on Ann. She'll -have to go. Since he can't get me he'll take my friend--yes, and -manufacture the evidence into the bargain." - -"Betty! Hanaud wouldn't do that!" Frobisher protested. - -"But, Jim, he has done it," she said. - -"When?" - -"When he put that Edinburgh man's book about the arrow poison back -upon the bookshelf in the library." - -Jim was utterly taken back. - -"Did you know that he had done that?" - -"I couldn't help knowing," she answered. "The moment he took the -book down it was clear to me. He knew it from end to end, as if it -was a primer. He could put his finger on the plates, on the history -of my uncle's arrow, on the effect of the poison, on the solution -that could be made of it in an instant. He pretended that he had -learnt all that in the half-hour he waited for us. It wasn't -possible. He had found that book the afternoon before somewhere and -had taken it away with him secretly and sat up half the night over -it. That's what he had done." - -Jim Frobisher was sunk in confusion. He had been guessing first this -person, then that, and in the end had had to be told the truth; -whereas Betty had reached it in a flash by using her wits. He felt -that he had been just one minute and a half in the bull-ring. - -Betty added in a hot scorn: - -"Then when he had learnt it all up by heart he puts it back secretly -in the bookshelf and accuses us." - -"But he admits he put it back," said Jim slowly. - -Betty was startled. - -"When did he admit it?" - -"Last night. To me," replied Jim, and Betty laughed bitterly. She -would hear no good of Hanaud. - -"Yes, now that he has something better to go upon." - -"Something better?" - -"The disappearance of my necklace. Oh, Jim, Ann has got to go. If -she could get to England they couldn't bring her back, could they? -They haven't evidence enough. It's only suspicion and suspicion and -suspicion. But here in France it's different, isn't it? They can -hold people on suspicion, keep them shut up by themselves and -question them again and again. Oh, yesterday afternoon in the -hall--don't you remember, Jim?--I thought Hanaud was going to arrest -her there and then." - -Jim Frobisher nodded. - -"I thought so, too." - -He had been a little shocked by Betty's proposal, but the more -familiar he became with it, the more it appealed to him. There was -an overpowering argument in its favour of which neither he nor Hanaud -had told Betty a word. The shaft of the arrow had been discovered in -Ann Upcott's room, and the dart in the house of Jean Cladel. These -were overpowering facts. On the whole, it was better that Ann should -go, now, whilst there was still time--if, that is, Hanaud did -undoubtedly believe her to be guilty. - -"But it is evident that he does," cried Betty. - -Jim answered slowly: - -"I suppose he does. We can make sure, anyway. I had a doubt last -night. So I asked him point-blank." - -"And he answered you?" Betty asked with a gasp. - -"Yes and no. He gave me the strangest answer." - -"What did he say?" - -"He told me to visit the Church of Notre Dame. If I did, I should -read upon the façade whether Ann was innocent or not." - -Slowly every tinge of colour ebbed out of Betty's face. Her eyes -stared at him horror-stricken. She sat, a figure of ice--except for -her eyes which blazed. - -"That's terrible," she said with a low voice, and again "That's -terrible!" Then with a cry she stood erect "You shall see! Come!" -and she ran towards the motorcar. - -The sunlit day was spoilt for both of them. Betty drove homewards, -bending over the wheel, her eyes fixed ahead. But Frobisher wondered -whether she saw anything at all of that white road which the car -devoured. Once as they dropped from the highland and the forests to -the plains, she said: - -"We shall abide by what we see?" - -"Yes." - -"If Hanaud thinks her innocent, she should stay. If he thinks her -guilty, she must go." - -"Yes," said Frobisher. - -Betty guided the car through the streets of the city, and into a wide -square. A great church of the Renaissance type, with octagonal -cupolas upon its two towers and another little cupola surmounted by a -loggia above its porch, confronted them. Betty stopped the car and -led Frobisher into the porch. Above the door was a great bas-relief -of the Last Judgment, God amongst the clouds, angels blowing -trumpets, and the damned rising from their graves to undergo their -torments. Both Betty and Frobisher gazed at the representation for a -while in silence. To Frobisher it was a cruel and brutal piece of -work which well matched Hanaud's revelation of his true belief. - -"Yes, the message is easy to read," he said: and they drove back in a -melancholy silence to the Maison Crenelle. - -The chauffeur, Georges, came forward from the garage to take charge -of the car. Betty ran inside the house and waited for Jim Frobisher -to join her. - -"I am so sorry," she said in a broken voice. "I kept a hope -somewhere that we were all mistaken ... I mean as to the danger Ann -was in.... I don't believe for a moment in her guilt, of course. -But she must go--that's clear." - -She went slowly up the stairs, and Jim saw no more of her until -dinner was served long after its usual hour. Ann Upcott he had not -seen at all that day, nor did he even see her then. Betty came to -him in the library a few minutes before nine. - -"We are very late, I am afraid. There are just the two of us, Jim," -she said with a smile, and she led the way into the dining-room. - -Through the meal she was anxious and preoccupied, nodding her assent -to anything that he said, with her thoughts far away and answering -him at random, or not answering him at all. She was listening, -Frobisher fancied, for some sound in the hall, an expected sound -which was overdue. For her eyes went continually to the clock, and a -flurry and agitation, very strange in one naturally so still, became -more and more evident in her manner. At length, just before ten -o'clock, they both heard the horn of a motor-car in the quiet street. -The car stopped, as it seemed to Frobisher, just outside the gates, -and upon that there followed the sound for which Betty had so -anxiously been listening--the closing of a heavy door by some one -careful to close it quietly. Betty shot a quick glance at Jim -Frobisher and coloured when he intercepted it. A few seconds -afterwards the car moved on, and Betty drew a long breath. Jim -Frobisher leaned forward to Betty. Though they were alone in the -room, he spoke in a low voice of surprise: - -"Ann Upcott has gone then?" - -"Yes." - -"So soon? You had everything already arranged then?" - -"It was all arranged yesterday evening. She should be in Paris -to-morrow morning, England to-morrow night. If only all goes well!" - -Even in the stress of her anxiety Betty had been sensitive to a tiny -note of discontent in Jim Frobisher's questions. He had been left -out of the counsels of the two girls, their arrangements had been -made without his participation, he had only been told of them at the -last minute, just as if he was a babbler not to be trusted and an -incompetent whose advice would only have been a waste of time. Betty -made her excuses. - -"It would have been better, of course, if we had got you to help us, -Jim. But Ann wouldn't have it. She insisted that you had come out -here on my account, and that you mustn't be dragged into such an -affair as her flight and escape at all. She made it a condition, so -I had to give way. But you can help me now tremendously." - -Jim was appeased. Betty at all events had wanted him, was still -alarmed lest their plan undertaken without his advice might miscarry. - -"How can I help?" - -"You can go to that cinema and keep Monsieur Hanaud engaged. It's -important that he should know nothing about Ann's flight until late -to-morrow." - -Jim laughed at the futility of Hanaud's devices to hide himself. It -was obviously all over the town that he spent his evenings in the -Grande Taverne. - -"Yes, I'll go," he returned. "I'll go now." - -But Hanaud was not that night in his accustomed place, and Jim sat -there alone until half-past ten. Then a man strolled out from one of -the billiard-rooms, and standing behind Jim with his eyes upon the -screen, said in a whisper: - -"Do not look at me, Monsieur! It is Moreau. I go outside. Will you -please to follow." - -He strolled away. Jim gave him a couple of minutes' grace. He had -remembered Hanaud's advice and had paid for his Bock when it had been -brought to him. The little saucer was turned upside down to show -that he owed nothing. When two minutes had elapsed he sauntered out -and, looking neither to the right nor to the left, strolled -indolently along the Rue de la Gare. When he reached the Place Darcy -Nicolas Moreau passed him without a sign of recognition and struck -off to the right along the Rue de la Liberté. Frobisher followed him -with a sinking heart. It was folly of course to imagine that Hanaud -could be so easily eluded. No doubt that motor-car had been stopped. -No doubt Ann Upcott was already under lock and key! Why, the last -words he had heard Hanaud speak were "I must be quick!" - -Moreau turned off into the Boulevard Sevigne and, doubling back to -the station square, slipped into one of the small hotels which -cluster in that quarter. The lobby was empty; a staircase narrow and -steep led from it to the upper stories. Moreau now ascended it with -Frobisher at his heels, and opened a door. Frobisher looked into a -small and dingy sitting-room at the back of the house. The windows -were open, but the shutters were closed. A single pendant in the -centre of the room gave it light, and at a table under the pendant -Hanaud sat poring over a map. - -The map was marked with red ink in a curious way. A sort of hoop, -very much the shape of a tennis racket without its handle, was -described upon it and from the butt to the top of the hoop an -irregular line was drawn, separating the hoop roughly into two -semi-circles. Moreau left Jim Frobisher standing there, and in a -moment or two Hanaud looked up. - -"Did you know, my friend," he asked very gravely, "that Ann Upcott -has gone to-night to Madame Le Vay's fancy dress ball?" - -Frobisher was taken completely by surprise. - -"No, I see that you didn't," Hanaud went on. He took up his pen and -placed a red spot at the edge of the hoop close by the butt. - -Jim recovered from his surprise. Madame Le Vay's ball was the spot -from which the start was to be made. The plan after all was not so -ill-devised, if only Ann could have got to the ball unnoticed. -Masked and in fancy dress, amongst a throng of people similarly -accoutred, in a house with a garden, no doubt thrown open upon this -hot night and lit only by lanterns discreetly dim--she had thus her -best chance of escape. But the chance was already lost. For Hanaud -laid down his pen again and said in ominous tones: - -"The water-lily, eh? That pretty water-lily, my friend, will not -dance very gaily to-night." - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY: _Map and the Necklace_ - -Hanaud turned his map round and pushed it across the table to Jim -Frobisher. - -"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew up a chair and sat -down to examine it. - -He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and its environments, -the town itself lying at the bottom of the red hoop and constituting -the top of the handle of the tennis racket. As to the red circle, it -seemed to represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, -round a good tract of outlying country and back again to the city. -But there was more to it than that. The wavy dividing line, for -instance, from the top of the circle to the handle, that is to Dijon; -and on the left-hand edge of the hoop, as he bent over the map, and -just outside Dijon, the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud -had just made. Against this square an hour was marked. - -"Eleven a.m.," he read. - -He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where this dividing -line touched the rim of the hoop, another period was inscribed. Here -Frobisher read: - -"Eleven forty." - -Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment. - -"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over the map. The point -where the dividing line branched off was in a valley, as he could see -by the contours--yes--he had found the name now--the Val Terzon. -Just before eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside -Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing back, and had asked -him to tighten the strap of the tool box. They had started again -exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note of the exact time--and they -had stopped where the secondary road branched off and doubled back to -Dijon, at the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and the -dividing line, exactly at eleven forty. - -"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he cried. "We -were followed then?" - -He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who had come up from -behind through the screen of their dust and had stopped by the side -of their car to join in their conversation with the tourist. - -"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no answer. - -But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way round. On -their homeward course they had stopped to lunch in the tangled -garden. There had been no sign of the man. Jim looked at the map -again. He followed the red line from the junction of the two roads, -round the curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National -road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. After luncheon -they had continued along the National road into Dijon, whereas the -red line crossed it and came back by a longer and obviously a less -frequented route. - -"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, Monsieur -Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. "But I can tell you this. The -chase was not very efficiently contrived. We didn't come home that -way at all." - -"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud answered imperturbably. -"The line on that side of the circle has nothing to do with you at -all, as you can see for yourself by looking at the time marked where -the line begins." - -The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there was a space where -the spliced handle of the racket would fit in, the space filled by -the town of Dijon, and at the point on the right hand side where the -line started Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures: - -"Ten twenty-five a.m." - -Jim was more bewildered than ever. - -"I don't understand one word of it," he cried. - -Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the tip of his pen. - -"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who met you at -the branch road at eleven-forty." - -"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed to him -impossible that the fog could thicken about his wits any more. And -yet it had. - -"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his trailer," Hanaud -corrected. "You see that he left his starting point in Dijon -thirty-five minutes before you left yours. The whole manoeuvre seems -to have been admirably planned. For you met precisely at the -arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the cycle had to -wait one moment." - -"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, looking about him -in a sort of despair. "Has every one gone crazy? Why in the world -should a man start out with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at -ten twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by a -roundabout road and then return by a bad straight track? There's no -sense in it!" - -"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded to Moreau who -went out of the room by a communicating door towards the front of the -house. "But I can help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where -you started after tightening the strap of the tool-box, on the edge -of the town, a big country house stands back in a park?" - -"Yes," said Jim. - -"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy dress ball takes -place to-night." - -"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. "Where----" he began -a question and caught it back. But Hanaud completed it for him. - -"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from it at precisely -eleven in the morning." He looked at his watch. "It is not yet -quite eleven at night. So she is still there." - -Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words were like the -blade of silver light cutting through the darkness of the cinema hall -and breaking into a sheet of radiance upon the screen. The meaning -of the red diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive of -Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him. - -"It was a rehearsal," he cried. - -Hanaud nodded. - -"A time-rehearsal." - -"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, without the -principal members of the company," thought Frobisher. But a moment -later he was dissatisfied with that explanation. - -"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy." - -The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his arguments to a -standstill. His times were marked upon the map; they were therefore -of importance. What had he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he -visualised the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with -the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave Frobisher the -clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving Madame Le Vay's house in her -ball-dress, just as if she was returning to the Maison Crenelle--and -without any luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the -morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion and -certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her in the Val -Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her car, and then return to -Dijon by the straight quick road whilst Ann turned off at the end of -the valley to Paris. He remembered now that seven minutes had -elapsed between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and their -separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for the transference of -the luggage. Another argument flashed into his thoughts. Betty had -told him nothing of this plan. It had been presented to him as a -mere excursion on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally -employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the determination of -Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether out of the conspiracy. -Every detail fitted like the blocks in a picture puzzle. Yes, there -had been a time-rehearsal. And Hanaud knew all about it! - -That was the disturbing certainty which first overwhelmed Frobisher -when he had got the better of his surprise at the scheme itself. -Hanaud knew! and Betty had so set her heart on Ann's escape. - -"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott get away to -Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned back in his chair with a -little gasp. The queerest smile broke over his face. - -"I see," he said. - -"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. "You are of the -Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of the High Court in my country -and I have no right to make such a petition. But I do without a -scruple. You can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't -a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion about her -that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin her--yes--but that's -all you can do." - -"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed. - -Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to save her friend -which inspired his plea. He fell back upon the scandal which such a -trial would cause. - -"There has been enough publicity already owing to Boris Waberski," he -continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe has had distress enough. Why must -she stand in the witness-box and give evidence against her friend in -a trial which can have no result? That's what I want you to realise, -Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience of criminal trials"--O -shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why was that punctilious man not there in the -flesh to wipe out with an indignant word the slur upon the firm of -Frobisher and Haslitt?--"And I assure you that no jury could convict -upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl necklace has not been -traced--and it never will be. You can take that from me, Monsieur -Hanaud! It never will be!" - -Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one of those little -cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred cigarettes, which the better -class of manufacturers use in England for their wares. He pushed -this across the table towards Jim. Something which was more -substantial than cigarettes rattled inside of it. Jim seized upon it -in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far sooner lose her -necklace altogether than that her friend Ann Upcott should be -destroyed by it. He opened the lid of the box. It was filled with -cotton-wool. From the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls -perfectly graded in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre -which, even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely. - -"It would have been more correct if I had found them in a matchbox," -said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to Monsieur Bex that after all -matches and cigarettes are akin." - -Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter disappointment when -Moreau knocked upon the other side of the communicating door. Hanaud -looked again at his watch. - -"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has started from -the house of Madame Le Vay." - -He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again within the layers -of cotton-wool, and locked it up once more in the drawer. The room -had faded away from Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, -brilliantly illuminated house, and a girl who slipped from a window -and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening dress, ran down the -dark avenue in her dancing slippers to where a car waited hidden -under trees. - -"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden hopefulness. -"There may have been an accident to it. The chauffeur may be late. -Oh, a hundred things may have happened!" - -"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously rehearsed? No, -my friend." - -Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against the wall and -placed it in his pocket. - -"You are going to leave that necklace just like that in a table -drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it first to the Prefecture." - -"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It will be safe." - -Jim hopefully tried another line of argument. - -"We shall be too late now to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch -road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you say--well past eleven. -And thirty-five minutes on a motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty -minutes in a car at night, especially with a bad road to travel." - -"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch road," Hanaud -returned. He folded up the map and put it aside upon the mantelshelf. - -"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I must take it! -And--no! I can't be wrong!" But he turned from the mantelshelf with -a very anxious and troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh -idea came into his mind. - -"By the way," he said. "The façade of Notre Dame?" - -Jim nodded. - -"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment. We went to see it. We thought -your way of saying what you believed a little brutal." - -Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor for a few -seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am sorry." He tacked on a -question. "You say 'we'?" - -"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained. - -"Oh, yes--to be sure. I should have thought of that," and once more -his troubled cry broke from him. "It must be that!--No, I can't be -wrong.... Anyway, it's too late to change now." - -A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating door. Hanaud -sprang to alertness. - -"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, Monsieur Frobisher! -Good! You are ready?" and the room was at once plunged into darkness. - -Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they passed into the front -room--a bedroom looking out upon the big station square. This room -was in darkness too. But the shutters were not closed, and there -were patches of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and -the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could see one -another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his companions appeared -of a ghastly pallor. - -"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said Moreau. -"Patinot has just joined him." - -He pointed across the square to the station buildings. Some cabs -were waiting for the Paris train, and in front of them two men -dressed like artisans were talking. One of them lit a cigarette from -the stump of a cigarette held out to him by his companion. The -watchers in the room saw the end of the cigarette glow red. - -"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can go." And he -turned and went out of the inn to the staircase. Jim started to -follow him. Whither they were going Jim had not a notion, not even a -conjecture. But he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's -hopes for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski affair -had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not reassured when -Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and detained him. - -"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud with a quiet -authority, his eyes shining very steadily in the darkness, his face -glimmering very white, "that now the Law of France takes charge. -There must not be a finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers -upon their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the promise -you desire. No one shall be arrested on suspicion. Your own eyes -shall bear me out." - -The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into the street. - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: _The Secret House_ - -It was a dark, clear night, the air very still and warm, and the sky -bright with innumerable stars. The small company penetrated into the -town by the backways and narrow alleys. Daunay going on ahead, -Patinot the last by some thirty yards, and Moreau keeping upon the -opposite side of the street. Once they had left behind them the -lights of the station square, they walked amongst closed doors and -the blind faces of unlit houses. Frobisher's heart raced within his -bosom. He strained his eyes and ears for some evidence of spies upon -their heels. But no one was concealed in any porch, and not the -stealthiest sound of a pursuit was borne to their hearing. - -"On a night like this," he said in tones which, strive as he might to -steady them, were still a little tremulous, "one could hear a -footstep on the stones a quarter of a mile away, and we hear nothing. -Yet, if there is a gang, it can hardly be that we are unwatched." - -Hanaud disagreed. "This is a night for alibis," he returned, -lowering his voice; "good, sound, incontestable alibis. All but -those engaged will be publicly with their friends, and those engaged -do not know how near we are to their secrets." - -They turned into a narrow street and kept on its left-hand side. - -"Do you know where we are?" Hanaud asked. "No? Yet we are near to -the Maison Crenelle. On the other side of these houses to our left -runs the street of Charles-Robert." - -Jim Frobisher stopped dead. - -"It was here, then, that you came last night after I left you at the -Prefecture," he exclaimed. - -"Ah, you recognised me, then!" Hanaud returned imperturbably. "I -wondered whether you did when you turned at the gates of your house." - -On the opposite side of the street the houses were broken by a high -wall, in which two great wooden doors were set. Behind the wall, at -the end of a courtyard, the upper storey and the roof of a -considerable house rose in a steep ridge against the stars. - -Hanaud pointed towards it. - -"Look at that house, Monsieur! There Madame Raviart came to live -whilst she waited to be set free. It belongs to the Maison Crenelle. -After she married Simon Harlowe, they would never let it, they kept -it just as it was, the shrine of their passion--that strange romantic -couple. But there was more romance in that, to be sure. It has been -unoccupied ever since." - -Jim Frobisher felt a chill close about his heart. Was that house the -goal to which Hanaud was leading him with so confident a step? He -looked at the gates and the house. Even in the night it had a look -of long neglect and decay, the paint peeling from the doors and not a -light in any window. - -Some one in the street, however, was awake, for just above their -heads, a window was raised with the utmost caution and a whisper -floated down to them. - -"No one has appeared." - -Hanaud took no open notice of the whisper. He did not pause in his -walk, but he said to Frobisher: - -"And, as you hear, it is still unoccupied." - -At the end of the street Daunay melted away altogether. Hanaud and -Frobisher crossed the road and, with Moreau just ahead, turned down a -passage between, the houses to the right. - -Beyond the passage they turned again to the right into a narrow lane -between high walls; and when they had covered thirty yards or so, -Frobisher saw the branches of leafy trees over the wall upon his -right. It was so dark here under the shade of the boughs that -Frobisher could not even see his companions; and he knocked against -Moreau before he understood that they had come to the end of their -journey. They were behind the garden of the house in which Madame -Raviart had lived and loved. - -Hanaud's hand tightened upon Jim Frobisher's arm, constraining him to -absolute immobility. Patinot had vanished as completely and -noiselessly as Daunay. The three men left stood in the darkness and -listened. A sentence which Ann Upcott had spoken in the garden of -the Maison Crenelle, when she had been describing the terror with -which she had felt the face bending over her in the darkness, came -back to him. He had thought it false then. He took back his -criticism now. For he too imagined that the beating of his heart -must wake all Dijon. - -They stood there motionless for the space of a minute, and then, at a -touch from Hanaud, Nicolas Moreau stooped. Frobisher heard the palm -of his hand sliding over wood and immediately after the tiniest -little click as a key was fitted into a lock and turned. A door in -the wall swung silently open and let a glimmer of light into the -lane. The three men passed into a garden of weeds and rank grass and -overgrown bushes. Moreau closed and locked the door behind them. As -he locked the door the clocks of the city struck the half hour. - -Hanaud whispered in Frobisher's ear: - -"They have not yet reached the Val Terzon. Come!" - -They crept over the mat of grass and weeds to the back of the house. -A short flight of stone steps, patched with mould, descended from a -terrace; at the back of the terrace were shuttered windows. But in -the corner of the house, on a level with the garden, there was a -door. Once more Moreau stooped, and once more a door swung inwards -without a sound. But whereas the garden door had let through some -gleam of twilight, this door opened upon the blackness of the pit. -Jim Frobisher shrank back from it, not in physical fear but in an -appalling dread that some other man than he, wearing his clothes and -his flesh, would come out of that door again. His heart came to a -standstill, and then Hanaud pushed him gently into the passage. The -door was closed behind them, an almost inaudible sound told him that -now the door was locked. - -"Listen!" Hanaud whispered sharply. His trained ear had caught a -sound in the house above them. And in a second Frobisher heard it -too, a sound regular and continuous and very slight, but in that -uninhabited house filled with uttermost blackness, very daunting. -Gradually the explanation dawned upon Jim. - -"It's a clock ticking," he said under his breath. - -"Yes! A clock ticking away in the empty house!" returned Hanaud. -And though his answer was rather breathed than whispered, there was a -queer thrill in it the sound of which Jim could not mistake. The -hunter had picked up his spoor. Just beyond the quarry would come in -view. - -Suddenly a thread of light gleamed along the passage, lit up a short -flight of stairs and a door on the right at the head of them, and -went out again. Hanaud slipped his electric torch back into his -pocket and, passing Moreau, took the lead. The door at the head of -the stairs opened with a startling whine of its hinges. Frobisher -stopped with his heart in his throat, though what he feared he could -not have told even himself. Again the thread of light shone, and -this time it explored. The three found themselves in a stone-flagged -hall. - -Hanaud crossed it, extinguished his torch and opened a door. A -broken shutter, swinging upon a hinge, enabled them dimly to see a -gallery which stretched away into the gloom. The faint light -penetrating from the window showed them a high double door leading to -some room at the back of the house. Hanaud stole over the boards and -laid his ear to the panel. In a little while he was satisfied; his -hand dropped to the knob and a leaf of the door opened noiselessly. -Once more the torch glowed. Its beam played upon the high ceiling, -the tall windows shrouded in heavy curtains of red silk brocade, and -revealed to Frobisher's amazement a room which had a look of daily -use. All was orderly and clean, the furniture polished and in good -repair; there were fresh flowers in the vases, whose perfume filled -the air; and it was upon the marble chimney-piece of this room that -the clock ticked. - -The room was furnished with lightness and elegance, except for one -fine and massive press, with double doors in marquetry, which -occupied a recess near to the fireplace. Girandoles with mirrors and -gilt frames, now fitted with electric lights, were fixed upon the -walls, with a few pictures in water-colour. A chandelier glittering -with lustres hung from the ceiling, an Empire writing-table stood -near the window, a deep-cushioned divan stretched along the wall -opposite the fire-place. So much had Frobisher noticed when the -light again went out. Hanaud closed the door upon the room again. - -"We shall be hidden in the embrasure of any of these windows," Hanaud -whispered, when they were once more in the long gallery. "No light -will be shown here with that shutter hanging loose, we may be sure. -Meanwhile let us watch and be very silent." - -They took their stations in the deep shadows by the side of the -window with the broken shutter. They could see dimly the courtyard -and the great carriage doors in the wall at the end of it, and they -waited; Jim Frobisher under such a strain of dread and expectancy -that each second seemed an hour, and he wondered at the immobility of -his companions. The only sound of breathing that he heard came from -his own lungs. - -In a while Hanaud laid a hand upon his sleeve, and the clasp of the -hand tightened and tightened. Motionless though he stood like a man -in a seizure, Hanaud too was in the grip of an intense excitement. -For one of the great leaves of the courtyard door was opening -silently. It opened just a little way and as silently closed again. -But some one had slipped in--so vague and swift and noiseless a -figure that Jim would have believed his imagination had misled him -but for a thicker blot of darkness at the centre of the great door. -There some one stood now who had not stood there a minute before, as -silent and still as any of the watchers in the gallery, and more -still than one. For Hanaud moved suddenly away on the tips of his -toes into the deepest of the gloom and, sinking down upon his heels, -drew his watch from his pocket. He drew his coat closely about it -and for a fraction of a second flashed his torchlight on the dial. -It was now five minutes past twelve. - -"It is the time," he breathed as he crept back to his place. "Listen -now!" - -A minute passed and another. Frobisher found himself shivering as a -man shivers at a photographer's when he is told by the operator to -keep still. He had a notion that he was going to fall. Then a -distant noise caught his ear, and at once his nerves grew steady. It -was the throb of a motor-cycle, and it grew louder and louder. He -felt Hanaud stiffen at his side. Hanaud had been right, then! The -conviction deepened in his mind. When all had been darkness and -confusion to him, Hanaud from the first had seen clearly. But what -had he seen? Frobisher was still unable to answer that question, and -whilst he fumbled amongst conjectures a vast relief swept over him. -For the noise of the cycle had ceased altogether. It had roared -through some contiguous street and gone upon its way into the open -country. Not the faintest pulsation of its engine was any longer -audible. That late-faring traveller had taken Dijon in his stride. - -In a revulsion of relief he pictured him devouring the road, the glow -of his lamp putting the stars to shame, the miles leaping away behind -him; and suddenly the pleasant picture was struck from before his -vision and his heart fluttered up into his throat. For the leaf of -the great coach-door was swung wider, and closed again, and the -motor-cycle with its side-car was within the courtyard. The rider -had slipped out his clutch and stopped his engine more than a hundred -yards away in the other street. His own impetus had been enough and -more than enough to swing him round the corner along the road and -into the courtyard. The man who had closed the door moved to his -side as he dismounted. Between them they lifted something from the -side-car and laid it on the ground. The watchman held open the door -again, the cyclist wheeled out his machine, the door was closed, a -key turned in the lock. Not a word had been spoken, not an -unnecessary movement made. It had all happened within the space of a -few seconds. The man waited by the gate, and in a little while from -some other street the cyclist's engine was heard once more to throb. -His work was done. - -Jim Frobisher wondered that Hanaud should let him go. But Hanaud had -eyes for no one but the man who was left behind and the big package -upon the ground under the blank side wall. The man moved to it, -stooped, raised it with an appearance of effort, then stood upright -holding it in his arms. It was something shapeless and long and -heavy. So much the watchers in the gallery could see, but no more. - -The man in the courtyard moved towards the door without a sound; and -Hanaud drew his companions back from the window of the broken -shutter. Quick as they were, they were only just in time to escape -from that revealing twilight. Already the intruder with his burden -stood within the gallery. The front door was unlatched, that was -clear. It had needed but a touch to open it. The intruder moved -without a sound to the double door, of which Hanaud had opened one -leaf. He stood in front of it, pushed it with his foot and both the -leaves swung inwards. He disappeared into the room. But the faint -misty light had fallen upon him for a second, and though none could -imagine who he was, they all three saw that what he carried was a -heavy sack. - -Now, at all events, Hanaud would move, thought Frobisher. But he did -not. They all heard the man now, but not his footsteps. It was just -the brushing of his clothes against furniture: then came a soft, -almost inaudible sound, as though he had laid his burden down upon -the deep-cushioned couch: then he himself reappeared in the doorway, -his arms empty, his hat pressed down upon his forehead, and a dim -whiteness where his face should be. But dark as it was, they saw the -glitter of his eyes. - -"It will be now," Frobisher said to himself, expecting that Hanaud -would leap from the gloom and bear the intruder to the ground. - -But this man, too, Hanaud let go. He closed the doors again, drawing -the two leaves together, and stole from the gallery. No one heard -the outer door close, but with a startling loudness some metal thing -rang upon stone, and within the house. Even Jim Frobisher understood -that the outer door had been locked and the key dropped through the -letter slot. The three men crept back to their window. They saw the -intruder cross the courtyard, open one leaf of the coach door, peer -this way and that and go. Again a key tinkled upon stones. The key -of the great door had been pushed or kicked underneath it back into -the courtyard. The clocks suddenly chimed the quarter. To -Frobisher's amazement it was a quarter-past twelve. Between the -moment when the cyclist rode his car in at the doors and now, just -five minutes had elapsed. And again, but for the three men, the -house was empty. - -Or was it empty? - -For Hanaud had slipped across to the door of the room and opened it; -and a slight sound broke out of that black room, as of some living -thing which moved uneasily. At Jim Frobisher's elbow Hanaud breathed -a sigh of relief. Something, it seemed, had happened for which he -had hardly dared to hope; some great dread he knew with certainty had -not been fulfilled. On the heels of that sigh a sharp loud click -rang out, the release of a spring, the withdrawal of a bolt. Hanaud -drew the door swiftly to and the three men fell back. Some one had -somehow entered that room, some one was moving quietly about it. -From the corner of the corridor in which they had taken refuge, the -three men saw the leaves of the door swing very slowly in upon their -hinges. Some one appeared upon the threshold, and stood motionless, -listening, and after a few seconds advanced across the gallery to the -window. It was a girl--so much they could determine from the contour -of her head and the slim neck. To the surprise of those three a -second shadow flitted to her side. Both of them peered from the -window into the courtyard. There was nothing to tell them there -whether the midnight visitors had come and gone or not yet come at -all. One of them whispered: - -"The key!" - -And the other, the shorter one, crept into the hall and returned with -the key which had been dropped through the letter slot in her hand. -The taller of the two laughed, and the sound of it, so clear, so -joyous like the trill of a bird, it was impossible for Jim Frobisher -even for a second to mistake. The second girl standing at the window -of this dark and secret house, with the key in her hand to tell her -that all that had been plotted had been done, was Betty Harlowe. Jim -Frobisher had never imagined a sound so sinister, so alarming, as -that clear, joyous laughter lilting through the silent gallery. It -startled him, it set his whole faith in the world shuddering. - -"There must be some good explanation," he argued, but his heart was -sinking amidst terrors. Of what dreadful event was that laughter to -be the prelude? - -The two figures at the window flitted back across the gallery. It -seemed that there was no further reason for precautions. - -"Shut the door, Francine," said Betty in her ordinary voice. And -when this was done, within the room the lights went on. But time and -disuse had warped the doors. They did not quite close, and between -them a golden strip of light showed like a wand. - -"Let us see now!" cried Betty. "Let us see," and again she laughed; -and under the cover of her laughter the three men crept forward and -looked in: Moreau upon his knees, Frobisher stooping above him, -Hanaud at his full height behind them all. - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: _The Corona Machine_ - -The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's shoulder warning -him to silence; and this warning was needed. The lustres of the big -glass chandelier were so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the -girandoles multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was -ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her white -shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black velvet; from her -carefully dressed copper hair to her black satin shoes she was as -trim as if she had just been unpacked from a bandbox; and she was -laughing whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which -jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. Some one was -imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher could not doubt who that -some one was, and it seemed to him that no sound more soulless and -cruel had ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She -threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white throat working, -her shoulders flashing and shaking. She clapped her hands with a -horrible glee. Something died within Frobisher's breast as he heard -it. Was it in his heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the -last time that Betty Harlowe laughed. - -"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst Francine with a -pair of scissors cut the end of the sack loose, she sat down with her -back to it at the writing-table and unlocked a drawer. The sack was -cut away and thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott -lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound behind her back, -and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her hair was dishevelled, her -face flushed, and she had the look of one quite dazed. She drew in -deep breaths of air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware -for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and her eyes -rested upon Francine and travelled from her to Betty's back without a -gleam of recognition. She wrenched a little at her wrists, but even -that movement was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay -still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at the door -would hardly have believed that she still lived. - -Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a small bottle -half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next a small case of -morocco leather. From the case she took a hypodermic syringe and its -needle, and screwed the two parts together. - -"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper from the -bottle. - -"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began with a giggle, -but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke and she ended with a -startled gasp. For Ann was looking straight at her with the -strangest, disconcerting stare. It was impossible to say whether she -knew Francine or knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her -gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, and in -a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried out: - -"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she added with a shiver: -"It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's like a dead person watching you -as you move about the room." - -Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's eyes wandered off -to her. It seemed as though it needed just that interchange of -glances to awaken her. For as Betty resumed her work of filling the -hypodermic syringe from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into -Ann Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she could -not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her feet kicked upon -the divan. A moan of pain broke from her lips, and with that -consciousness returned to her. - -"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the needle ready in her -hand. She did not speak, but her face spoke for her. Her upper lip -was drawn back a little from her teeth, and there was a look in her -great eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. Once -before he had seen just that look--when Betty was lying on Mrs. -Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment and he had lingered in the -treasure-room with Ann Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then, -but it was as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann -Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank back upon the -divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering lips and her eyes fixed -upon Betty with a dreadful fascination. - -"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You sent me to Madame Le -Vay's--on purpose. Oh! The letter, then! The anonymous -letter!"--and a new light broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror -shook her. "You wrote it! Betty, you! You--the Scourge!" - -She sank back and again struggled vainly with her bonds. Betty rose -from her chair and crossed the room towards her, the needle shining -bright in her hand. Her hapless prisoner saw it. - -"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. The extremity of -her horror lent to her an unnatural strength. Somehow she dragged -herself up and got her feet to the ground. Somehow she stood -upright, swaying as she stood. - -"You are going to----" she began, and broke off. "Oh, no! You -couldn't! You couldn't!" - -Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder and held her so -for a moment, savouring her vengeance. - -"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours in the darkness?" -she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. "Whose face, Ann? Guess!" -She shook her swaying prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her -quiet voice. "You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. You -are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the treasure-room -yesterday evening with your watch in your hand? Eh? Can't you -answer, you pretty fool?" Then Betty's voice changed. It remained -low and quiet, but hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred. - -"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, Ann? Oh, we -both understand very well!" And Hanaud's hand tightened upon -Frobisher's shoulder. Here was the real key and explanation of -Betty's hatred. Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more, -might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! Ann Upcott's -disappearance would look like a panic-stricken flight, would have the -effect of a confession--no doubt! But above all these -considerations, paramount in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at -once to punish and rid herself of a rival. - -"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my way!" she -said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. Yes. I had you bound -hand and foot and brought here. The water-lily!" She looked her -victim over as she stood in her delicate bright frock, her white silk -stockings and satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes, -Ann! That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! That's -all the time the arrow-poison takes!" - -Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her white face and -ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before. - -"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! Oh!" she -would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe pushed her shoulder -gently and she fell back upon the divan. That Betty had been guilty -of that last infamy--the murder of her benefactress--not until this -moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was clear to her, -too, that there was not the slightest hope for her. She burst -suddenly into a storm of tears. - -Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and watched her -closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. The sound of the -girl's sobbing was music in her ears. She would not let it flag. - -"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and alone," she said -in a low voice, bending over her, "To-morrow Espinosa will put you -under one of the stone flags in the kitchen. But to-night you shall -lie just as you are. Come!" - -She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her arm with one -hand and advancing the needle with the other; and a piercing scream -burst from Francine Rollard. - -"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It was open and -Hanaud stood upon the threshold. - -Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from her face. She -sat like an image of wax, staring at the open doorway, and a moment -afterwards with a gesture swift as lightning she drove the needle -into the flesh of her own arm and emptied it. - -Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to prevent her, but -Hanaud roughly thrust him back. - -"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said with a savage -note in his voice, which Jim had not heard before; and Betty Harlowe -dropped the needle on to the couch, whence it rolled to the floor. - -She sprang up now to her full height, her heels together, her arms -outstretched from her sides. - -"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with bravado. "I am -safe from you." - -Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously in her face. - -"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill." - -Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself. - -"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said. - -"We shall see." - -The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed across the -room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, Hanaud met her there. - -"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He seized her -wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod towards Francine. "And you, -Monsieur Frobisher, will you release that young lady, if you please!" - -Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and locked her safely -away. Jim seized upon the big scissors and cut the cords about Ann's -wrists and ankles, and unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had -flung the chair from the writing-table into an open space, that Betty -was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had forced her into -the chair and snatched up one of the cords which Frobisher had -dropped upon the floor. When he had finished his work, he saw that -Betty was sitting with her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to -one of the legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his -handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had bitten him -like a wild animal caught in a trap. - -"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning I met you," -Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you didn't wear a wrist-watch, -because you hated things on your wrists. My apologies! I had -forgotten!" - -He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand into the -drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box and removed the lid. - -"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!" - -He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who was standing -against the wall with a face like death. - -"Look!" - -There were five white tablets in the box. - -"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know where it was. For -I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide of potassium, my friend! Crunch -one of them between your teeth and--fifteen minutes? Not a bit of -it! A fraction of a second! That's all!" - -Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's ear. "Leave them -within her reach!" - -His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty from -destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, and with so -desperate a longing that a deep pity softened Hanaud's eyes. - -"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to Moreau. "There -is a cab waiting at the corner of the Maison Crenelle," and Moreau -went in search of it. Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was -sitting upon the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every now -and then she handled and eased one of her tortured wrists. - -"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I owe you an -explanation and an apology. I never from the beginning--no, not for -one moment--believed that you were guilty of the murder of Madame -Harlowe. I was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink -pearls--oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. I believed -every word of the story you told us in the garden. But none of this -dared I shew you. For only by pretending that I was convinced of -your guilt, could I protect you during this last week in the Maison -Crenelle." - -"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort at a smile. - -"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he continued. "I make it -with shame. That you were to be brought back here to the tender -mercies of Mademoiselle Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to -make sure you should be spared them. But I have never in my life had -a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction in my own -mind, so little proof to put before a court. I had to have the -evidence which I was certain to find in this room to-night. But I -ask you to believe me that if I had imagined for a moment the cruelty -with which you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this -evidence. I beg you to forgive me." - -Ann Upcott held out her hand. - -"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you I should not be -now alive. I should be lying here in the dark and alone, as it was -promised to me, waiting for Espinosa--and his spade." Her voice -broke and she shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which -she sat. - -"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. "You have youth, -as I told you once before. A little time and----" - -The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and with Moreau came a -couple of gendarmes and Girardot the Commissary. - -"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked. - -"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly. - -In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of feet and a -woman's voice screaming abuse. It died away. - -"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," said Hanaud. - -Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted and sullen, -her lips muttering inaudible words. She had not once looked at Jim -Frobisher since he had entered the room; nor did she now. - -Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme raised her -up. But her knees failed beneath her; she could not stand; her -strength and her spirit had left her. The gendarme picked her up as -if she had been a child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher -planted himself in front of him. - -"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and resonant. "Monsieur -Hanaud, you have said just now that you believed every word of -Mademoiselle Ann's story." - -"It is true." - -"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered at half-past ten -on the night of the 27th of April. And at half-past ten Mademoiselle -here was at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free." - -Hanaud did not argue the point. - -"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if you please!" - -Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then drew aside. He -stood with his eyes closed, and such a look of misery upon his face -as Betty was carried out that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of -condolence: - -"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur Frobisher," he -began. - -"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at the first!" Jim -cried volubly. - -"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked Hanaud, and Jim was -silent. "As it was, Monsieur Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I -know now I had not the right to take and I told you more than you -think." - -He turned away towards Moreau. - -"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house after they have -gone and bring the keys here to me." - -Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic syringe, -the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of cord. - -"There is something here of importance," Hanaud observed and, -stooping at the writing-table, he picked up a square, flat-topped -black case. "You will recognise this," he remarked to Jim as he -handed it to Girardot. It was the case of a Corona typewriting -machine; and from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within -the case. - -"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the Commissary. -"This pretty room is the factory where all those abominable letters -were prepared. Here the information was filed away for use; here the -letters were typed; from here they were issued." - -"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding money!" - -"Some of them," answered Hanaud. - -"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, and more if she -chose to ask for it." - -"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with a shake of the head. -"The blackmailer never has enough money. For no one is so -blackmailed." - -A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. They had agreed, -he and Hanaud, that there was a gang involved in all these crimes. -It might be that Betty was of them, yes, even led them, but were they -all to go scot-free? - -"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode this -motor-cycle----" - -"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice his accent when -you stopped at the fork of the roads in the Val Terzon? He did not -mount his cycle again. No!" - -"And the man who carried in the--the sack?" - -"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising young novice. He -is now at the Depot. He will never get that good word from me which -was to unlock Paris for him." - -"And Espinosa himself--who was to come here to-morrow----" he stopped -abruptly with his eyes on Ann. - -"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went on. "A fool that -fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud -looked at his watch. "It is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock -and key by now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you have -never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. Have no fear of -that!" - -Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to Hanaud. Hanaud put -them into a pocket and went over to Ann Upcott. - -"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any questions to-night. -To-morrow you will tell me why you went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It -was given out that you meant to run away. That, of course, was not -true. You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an account of -what happened to you there." - -Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she answered quietly. - -"Yes. I will tell you everything." - -"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully. - -"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you have had us all -locked in." - -Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on the girl, and -he loved surprises so long as they were of his own contriving. - -"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the truth. This -house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart is very close, as the -crow flies, to the Maison Crenelle. There is one row of houses, the -houses of the street of Charles-Robert, between. It was built by -Etienne Bouchart de Crenelle, President of the Parliament during the -reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and important figure; -and he built it, Mademoiselle--this is the point--at the same time -that he built the Maison Crenelle. Having built it, he installed in -it a joyous lady of the province from which it takes its name--Madame -de Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President never came -visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the best of reasons. Between -this house and the Maison Crenelle he had constructed a secret -passage in that age of secret passages." - -Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to him for an -astuteness which he did not possess. He had been occupied heart and -brain by the events of the evening, so rapidly had they followed one -upon the other, so little time had they allowed for speculations. - -"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked. - -"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us content ourselves -with the facts," Hanaud continued. "After the death of Etienne de -Crenelle, at some period or another the secret of this passage was -lost. It is clear, too, I think that it fell into disrepair and -became blocked. At all events at the end of the eighteenth century, -the Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of the -owner of the Maison Crenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, discovered the -secret. He bought back the Hôtel de Brebizart, restored the passage -and put it to the same use as old Etienne de Crenelle had done. For -here Madame Raviart came to live during the years before the death of -her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! My little lecture -is over. Let us go!" - -He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience and unlatched the -double doors of the big buhl cabinet in the recess of the wall. A -cry of surprise broke from Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet. -The cabinet was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and -all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one end and -that a flight of steps ran downwards in the thickness of the wall. - -"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. "Will you take -this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first with Mademoiselle. I will -turn out the lights and follow." - -But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew sharply back. She -put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and steadied herself by it. "I will -come with you," she said. "I am not very steady on my legs." - -She laughed her action off but both men understood it. Jim Frobisher -had thought her guilty--guilty of theft and murder. She shrank from -him to the man who had had no doubt that she was innocent. And even -that was not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply than -any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher inclined his head in -acknowledgment and, pressing the button of the torch, descended five -or six of the narrow steps. Moreau followed him. - -"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud. - -He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up a switch by the -open doors of the cabinet. The room was plunged in darkness. Guided -by the beam of light, they followed Frobisher on to the steps. -Hanaud closed the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together -with the bolts. - -"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be careful of your heels -on these stone steps." - -When his head was just below the level of the first step he called -upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. Then he slid the floor -board of the cabinet back into its place. Beneath this a trap-door -hung downwards. Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place. - -"We can go on." - -Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. From that a -passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. Frobisher led the way -along the passage until the foot of another flight of steps was -reached. - -"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked of Frobisher, -his voice sounding with a strange hollowness in that tunnel. "You -shall tell me." - -Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and Betty had sat in -the dark of the perfumed garden and Ann's eyes had searched this way -and that amidst the gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly: - -"Into the garden of the Maison Crenelle." - -Hanaud chuckled. - -"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?" - -Ann's face clouded over. - -"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered and drew her cloak -slowly about her shoulders. "Let us go up and see!" - -Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the top of the -steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel. - -"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a light. - -Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of Simon Harlowe's -Sedan chair into the treasure room. - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry -Cabinet_ - -To the amazement of them all Moreau began to laugh. Up till now he -had been alert, competent and without expression. Stolidity had been -the mark of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his -sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour of things was -altogether unbearable. Once or twice he tried to speak, but laughter -leapt upon the words and drowned them. - -"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" Hanaud asked. - -"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and again merriment seized -and mastered him. At last two intelligible words were heard. "We, -Girardot," he cried, settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the -bridge of his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason of -his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases. - -"We, Girardot!--We fix the seals upon the doors--And all the time -there is a way in and out under our nose! These rooms must not be -disturbed--No! The great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to -look at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but we, -Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous with our linen bands! -We, Girardot shall make the laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes, -yes! I think, we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the -trial is over?" - -Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional for his -audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that night had dulled -their appreciation; certainly Moreau had all the laughter to himself. -Jim Frobisher was driven to the little Louis Quinze clock upon the -marquetry cabinet. He never could for a moment forget it. So much -hung for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild words she -might have used to-night, there was the incontrovertible testimony of -the clock to prove that she had had no hand whatever in the murder of -Mrs. Harlowe. He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it -with the clock. - -"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little accent of -triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past one----" and suddenly -Hanaud was at his side with a curious air of alertness. - -"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a comparison with his -own watch that Frobisher's statement was correct. "Yes. -Twenty-three minutes past one. That is very fortunate." - -He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all now stood grouped -about the cabinet. - -"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, "is to be -found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann used, when the seals were -removed from the doors and she saw this clock again, in the light of -day. She was perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?" - -"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me--it seems to me still--that -the clock was somehow placed higher than it actually is----" - -"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!" - -He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now reached twenty-six -minutes past one. - -"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in the hall in -the dark. For it was in the dark, you will remember, that -Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I shall turn the lights out here -and call you in. When I do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on -and off swiftly, just as she did it on the night of the 27th of -April. Then I think all will be clear to you." - -He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found it locked -with the key upon the inside. - -"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to the Hôtel de -Brebizart, this door would be locked." - -He turned the key and drew the door towards him. The hall gaped -before them black and silent. Hanaud stood aside. - -"If you please!" - -Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated and cast a look -of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities were to be set at rest. -She did not doubt that. This man had saved her from death when it -seemed that nothing could save her. Her trust in him was absolute. -But her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to be -delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could be no recovery. -Ann Upcott was not a good hater of Betty's stamp. She shrank from -the thought that it was to be her hand which would deliver that -stroke. - -"Courage, Mademoiselle!" - -Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann joined the others -in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the door upon them and returned to -the clock. It was twenty-eight minutes past one. - -"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will just do if I am -quick." - -Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. One of the three -shivered suddenly so that her teeth rattled in her mouth. - -"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand within her arm. -Ann Upcott had come to the end of her strength. She clung to his -hand spasmodically. - -"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you were cruel to me!" - -Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room. - -"Come!" - -Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. She threw open -the door with a nervous violence. The treasure-room was pitch dark -like the hall. Ann stepped through the doorway and her fingers -reached for the switch. - -"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook. - -Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as suddenly it was -black again; and in the darkness rose a clamour of voices. - -"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim. - -"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann. - -"That is true," Moreau agreed. - -Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, joined in. - -"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the night of the -twenty-seventh?" - -"Exactly, Monsieur." - -"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!" - -The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it sounded like a -knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers refused their service. -Once more the conviction forced itself into her mind. Some -irretrievable calamity waited upon the movement of her hand. - -"Courage, Mademoiselle!" - -Again the lights shone, and this time they remained burning. The -three witnesses advanced into the room, and as they looked again, -from close at hand and with a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke -from all of them. - -There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all. - -But high above it in the long mirror before which it stood there was -the reflection of a clock, its white face so clear and bright that -even now it was difficult to disbelieve that this was the clock -itself. And the position of the hands gave the hour as precisely -half-past ten. - -"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud. - -The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam mantelpiece and -there staring at them, the true hour was marked. It was exactly -half-past one; the long minute hand pointing to six, the shorter hour -hand on the right-hand side of the figure twelve, half-way between -the one and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all turned -again to the mirror; and the mystery was explained. The shorter -hour-hand seen in the mirror was on the left-hand side of the figure -twelve, and just where it would have been if the hour had been -half-past ten and the clock actually where its reflection was. The -figures on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to -read. - -"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature to save itself -from effort even in the smallest things. We live with clocks and -watches. They are as customary as our daily bread. And with the -instinct to save ourselves from effort, we take our time from the -position of the hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for -granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the one swift flash -of light she sees the hands upon the clock's face. Half-past ten! -She herself, you will remember, Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised -that the hour was so early. She was cold, as though she had slept -long in her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept -long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was half-past one, -and Betty Harlowe had been twenty minutes home from Monsieur de -Pouillac's ball." - -Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice which exasperated -Frobisher. - -"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When the seals were -removed and we entered this room for the first time, the clock was -not upon the mantelshelf but upon the marquetry cabinet." - -Hanaud nodded. - -"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before luncheon. We entered -this room after luncheon. During the luncheon hours the position of -the clock was changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know -now with what ease that could be done." - -"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It doesn't follow -that it was done." - -"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer now one of the -questions in your memorandum. What was it that I saw from the top of -the Terrace Tower? I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the -air. Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its windows, -and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And there at midday, in all -the warmth of late May, the smoke was rising from the chimney of the -sealed room. There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing! -And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask yourself that! Who -went straight out from the Maison Crenelle the moment I had gone, and -went alone? That clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters -also had to be burnt." - -Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still occupied his -thoughts. His great argument had been riddled; his one dream of -establishing Betty's innocence in despite of every presumption and -fact which could be brought against her had been dispelled. He -dropped on to a chair. - -"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness. - -"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe to me no gifts out -of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am trained--that is all. I have -been my twenty minutes in the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!" -He looked at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager -young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by the lesson. -First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle Betty was here doing -something of great importance. It may be only burning those letters -in the hearth. It may be more. I must wait and see. Good! There, -standing before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little remark -that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand yet? No, no! But I -am interested. Then I notice a curious thing, a beautiful specimen -of Benvenuto Cellini's work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf -where no one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the -window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back to the -mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks upon the wood which -had been concealed by the flat case of the jewel; and those four -little marks are just the marks which the feet of that very pretty -Louis Quinze clock might have made, had it stood regularly there--in -its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry cabinet so -much lower than the mantelshelf is too the natural place for the -Cellini jewel. Every one can see it there. So I say to myself: 'My -good Hanaud, this young lady has been rearranging her ornaments.' -But do I guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell you -again very humbly, that we are the servants of Chance. Chance is a -good mistress if her servants do not go to sleep; and she treated me -well that afternoon. See! I am standing in the hall, in great -trouble about this case. For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a -big old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind me -and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I raise my eyes -from the floor and by chance I see in the mirror the barometer behind -me. By chance my attention is arrested. For I see that the -indicator in the barometer points to stormy weather--which is -ridiculous. I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the -indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the position of -the hand without looking at the letters. If I look the barometer in -the face the hand points to the fair weather. If I turn my back and -look into the mirror the hand points to the stormy weather. Now -indeed I have it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door, -for I do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, no, -for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But I take out my -watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch facing the mirror, I open -the glass and I move the hands until in the mirror they seem to mark -half-past ten. Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. -So now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get it. For as I -unlock the door and open it again, there is Mademoiselle Betty face -to face with me! That young girl! Even though already I suspect her -I get a shock, I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened -enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask had slipped from -her face. I felt a trickle of ice down my spine. For out of her -beautiful great eyes murder looked." - -He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce look. "Ugh," -he grunted; and he shook himself like a great dog coming up out of -the water. - -"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," he cried in a -different voice, "and you are keeping Mademoiselle from her bed, -where she should have been an hour ago. Come!" - -He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on the lights, -locked the door of the treasure-room and pocketed the key. - -"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," he said gently to -Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in the house. You have nothing to -fear. He will not be far from your door. Good night." - -Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile. - -"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she mounted the stairs -slowly, her feet dragging, her body swaying with her fatigue. - -Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher with a whimsical -smile. - -"What a pity!" he said. "You--she! No? After all, perhaps----" and -he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher was growing red and beginning to -look "proper"; and the last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to -offend him in this particular. - -"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent and a gossip. If -I err, it is because I wish you very well. You understand that? -Good! Then a further proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us -what happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house of -Madame Le Vay--everything. I wish you to be present. You shall know -everything. I shall tell you myself step by step, how my conclusions -were reached. All your questions shall be answered. I shall give -you every help, every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are -not even called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And -when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that whatever there -may be of pain and distress, the Law must take its course." - -It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating now. The -tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries had gone. He did not even -triumph. A dignity shone out of the man like a strong light, and -with it he was gentle and considerate. - -"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim on an impulse -thrust out his hand. - -"Good night!" he returned. - -Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went away. - -Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense of desolation -turned back to the hall. He heard the big iron gates swing to. They -had been left open, of course, he recognised, in the usual way when -one of the household was going to be late. Yes, everything had been -planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. Here in this -house, the servants were all tucked up in their beds. But for -Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at this very moment have been stealing up -these stairs noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work -accomplished. The servants would have waked to-morrow to the -knowledge that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial. -Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, would have been -received in the treasure-room, would have found the spade waiting for -him in the great stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart. -Oh, yes, all dangers had been foreseen--except Hanaud. Nay, even he -in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken telegram had -reached Frobisher and Haslitt before Hanaud had started upon his work. - -"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's door, if -you should want me," said Moreau. - -Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections. - -"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs to his room. A -lot of use to Betty that telegram had been, he reflected bitterly! -"Where was she to-night?" he asked, and shut up his mind against the -question. - -He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken telegram and -nothing else which had brought Betty Harlowe's plans crashing about -her ears. - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: _Ann Upcott's Story_ - -Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison Crenelle and made -his appointment for the afternoon. Jim accordingly spent the morning -with Monsieur Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which was -told to him. - -"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. "They can claim the -presence of their legal adviser when they are being examined by the -Judge. I will go round at once to the Prefecture"; with his head -erect and his little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried -to do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged, -however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was for the moment -_au secret_. She would not come before the Judge for a couple of -days. It was the turn of Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to -be given to the defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted -an interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before she was -brought up in the Judge's office. - -Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet to find Jim -Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim looked up eagerly, but -Monsieur Bex had no words of comfort. - -"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am not happy. -They are all very polite--yes. But they examine the maid first. -That's bad, I tell you," and he tapped upon the table. "That is -Hanaud. He knows his affair. The servants. They can be made to -talk, and this Francine Rollard----" He shook his head. "I shall -get the best advocate in France." - -Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison Crenelle. It was -obvious that nothing of these new and terrible developments of the -"Affaire Waberski" had yet leaked out. There was not a whisper of it -in the streets, not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison -Crenelle. The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become a -stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her room that he was -removing his luggage to the hotel in the Place Darcy, and leaving the -house to her where he prayed her to remain. Even at that moment -Ann's lips twitched a little with humour as she read the embarrassed -note. - -"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," she reflected, "and -proper enough to make every nerve of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with -delight." - -Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the shade of the -sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the lawn and the bees hummed -amongst the roses, Ann Upcott told a story of terror and darkness, -though to a smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the -story by Hanaud. - -"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame Le Vay's Ball," she -began, "except for the anonymous letter," and Hanaud leaned forward -alertly. - -The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty and Jim Frobisher -were sitting at dinner. It had been posted therefore in the middle -of the day and very soon after Ann had told her first story in the -garden. Ann opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed and -a little terrified to read the signature, "The Scourge." She was -more annoyed than ever when she read the contents, but her terror had -decreased. "The Scourge" bade her attend the Ball. He gave her -explicit instructions that she should leave the ball-room at -half-past ten, follow a particular corridor leading to a wing away -from the reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small -library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a little while -the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. She was warned to tell no -one of her plan. - -"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the letter just a -malicious joke quite in accord with 'The Scourge's' character. I put -it back into its envelope. But I couldn't forget it. Suppose that -by any chance there was something in it--and I didn't go! Why should -'The Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was of no -importance? And all the while the sort of hope which no amount of -reasoning can crush, kept growing and growing!" - -After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room and believed -it and scorned herself for believing it, and believed it again. That -afternoon she had almost felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was -no chance which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from -suspicion, however wild it seemed! - -Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down to the -treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It was half-past nine -o'clock. Ann determined to wait for Betty's return, and was once -more perplexed by the low position of the clock upon the marquetry -cabinet. She stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own -watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it might help her. -And indeed it was very likely to. Had she turned its dial to the -mirror behind the clock, the truth would have leapt at her. But she -had not the time. For a slight movement in the room behind her -arrested her attention. - -She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without doubt it was -from within the room that the faint noise had come. And there was -only one place from which it could have come. Some one was hiding -within the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, its -delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than frightened. Her -first thought was to ring the bell by the fire-place--she could do -that well out of view of the Sedan chair--and carry on until Gaston -answered it. There were treasures enough in the room to repay a -hundred thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the bolder -line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing from the back, -and then with a rush planted herself in front of the glass doors. - -She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in front of the -doors was down, the doors were open, and leaning back upon the -billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. She sat quite still, still as an -image even after Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but -she was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out of the -darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a curious shock. - -"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; and if ever there -had been a chance that she would relent, that chance was gone for -ever now. She had come up out of the secret passage to find Ann -playing with her watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an -explanation of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it--so -very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence pronounced in -those words, "I have been watching you." And though she did not -understand the menace they conveyed, there was something in the slow, -steady utterance of them which a little unnerved her. - -"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice." - -Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous letter from her -hand. - -"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked. - -"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I should. I -shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that there's any suspicion upon -you." - -Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house of mourning -might appear an outrage. - -"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go privately, just -before the time. I have no doubt we can arrange it all. But of -course it's your affair." - -"Why should the Scourge help me?" - -"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty reasoned. "I -imagine that he's attacking other people, and using you." She read -through the letter again. "He has always been right, hasn't he? -That's what would determine me in your place. But I don't want to -interfere." - -Ann spun round on her heel. - -"Very well. I shall go." - -"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as if to tear it. - -"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it "I don't know -Madame Le Vay's house very well. I might easily lose my way without -the instructions. I must take it with me." - -Betty agreed and handed the letter back. - -"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw herself heart -and soul into the necessary arrangements. - -She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself help Ann to -dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. She wrote a letter to -Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's second son and one of Betty's most -indefatigable courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept -that letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity in her -plot. For Betty used to him the same argument which had persuaded -Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly that suspicion had centred upon Ann -Upcott and that it was necessary that she should get away secretly. - -"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. "Ann will come -late. She is to meet the friends who will help her--it is best that -you should know as little as possible about them--in the little -library. If you will keep the corridor clear for a little while, -they can get out by the library doors into the park and be in Paris -the next morning." - -She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann and said, "I will -send this by a messenger to-morrow morning, with orders to deliver it -into Michel's own hands. Now how are you to go?" - -Over that point the two girls had some discussion. It would be -inviting Hanaud's interference if the big limousine were ordered out. -What more likely than that he should imagine Ann meant to run away -and that Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would not do. - -"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call for you. You will -be ready to slip out. She shall stop her car for a second outside -the gates. It will be quite dark. You'll be away in a flash." - -"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back. - -It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite and fastidious -in her own looks and bearing, should have found her friends amongst -the flamboyant and the cheap. But she would rather throne it amongst -her inferiors than take her place amongst her equals. Under her -reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. The desire to -be courted, admired, looked up to as a leader and a chief, burned -within her like a raging flame. Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of -satellites--a big, red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without -good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society of the -town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but distrusted her. She had a -feeling that there was something indefinably wrong in her very nature. - -"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. "That's why I named -her. I know that she is going to Madame Le Vay's dance." - -Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to Jeanne -Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call at the Maison -Crenelle at an early hour in the morning; and Jeanne Leclerc came and -was closeted with Betty for an hour between nine and ten. Thus all -the arrangements were made. - -It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's explanations. - -"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young brother to be -accounted for." - -"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight noise in the -treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe seated in the Sedan chair," -Hanaud replied. "Betty Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de -Brebizart, whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark -and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison Crenelle.... -From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa went to the Rue Gambetta and -waited for Jean Cladel. It was a busy night, that one, my friends. -That old wolf, the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They -could hear him. They had no time to waste!" - -The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim remembered. It was -because Betty was helping Ann to dress, Francine having been given -her holiday. Jim and Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann -Upcott stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her pretty -dress. She held the front door a little open, and the moment Jeanne -Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, she flashed across the -courtyard. Jeanne had the door of her car open. It had hardly -stopped before it went on again. Jim, as the story was told, -remembered vividly Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and -the immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed and -the car moved forward out of the street of Charles-Robert. Ann -Upcott had gone for good from the Maison Crenelle. She would not -interfere with Betty Harlowe any more. - -Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le Vay's house a few -minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay came forward to meet them. - -"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said to Ann, "but you -are late. Madame my mother has left her place at the door of the -ball-room, but we shall find her later." - -He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away they were joined by -Espinosa. - -"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. "No, not yet! -Then Señor Espinosa will take you to the buffet while I look after -others of our guests." - -He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter of high voices -competed with the music of the band. Espinosa conducted the two -ladies to the buffet. There was hardly anybody in the room. - -"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low voice. "We -shall take some coffee." - -But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her feet danced, her -hands could not keep still. Was the letter a trick? Would she, -indeed, within the next few minutes learn the truth? At one moment -her heart sank into her shoes, at another it soared. - -"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa urgently. -"And it is good." - -"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne Leclerc. "You will -send me home, won't you? I shall not wait--afterwards." - -"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is arranged. The -chauffeur has his orders. You will take your coffee, dear?" - -Again Ann would not - -"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I went." She -caught a swift and curious interchange of glances between Jeanne -Leclerc and Espinosa, but she was in no mood to seek an -interpretation. There could be no doubt that the coffee set before -her had had some drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it -from the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug which -would have half stupefied her and made her easy to manage. But she -was not to be persuaded, and she rose to her feet. - -"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, leaving her two -companions together. She did not return to the buffet. - -On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor stretched -out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding it, stood Michel Le Vay. -He made a sign to her, and when she joined him: - -"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a low voice. "The -small library is in front of you." - -Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the house which was -quite deserted and silent. At the end of it a shut door confronted -her. She opened it softly. It was all dark within. But enough -light entered from the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged -against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some dark, -heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, to come to the -tryst. She closed the door behind her and moved slowly and -cautiously forwards with her hands outstretched, until she felt the -curtains yield. She passed in between them into the recess of a -great bow window opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, -creaking sound, brought her heart into her mouth. - -Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody had been quietly -watching as she came in from the lighted corridor. The sound grew -louder. Ann peered between the curtains, holding them apart with -shaking hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague -twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near to the door, -high up on a tall bookcase, something was clinging--something was -climbing down. Whoever it was, had been hiding behind the ornamental -top of the heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves like -the rungs of a ladder. - -Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her throat. She ran -for the door. But she was too late. A black figure dropped from the -book-case to the ground and, as Ann reached out her hands to the -door, a scarf was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was -jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched the light -switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, the room was -lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, driving the breath out of -her lungs, and knotted the scarf tightly at the back of her head. -Ann tried to lift herself, and recognised with a gasp of amazement -that the assailant who pinned her down by the weight of her body and -the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic gave place -to anger and a burning humiliation. She fought with all the strength -of her supple body. But the scarf about her mouth stifled and -weakened her, and with a growing dismay she understood that she was -no match for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two, -but her height did not avail her; she was like a child matched with a -wildcat. Francine's hands were made of steel. She snatched Ann's -arms behind her back and bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards, -her bosom labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must -burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and tied her by -the ankles. - -Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran to the door, -opened it a little way and beckoned. Then she dragged her prisoner -up on to a couch, and Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the -room. - -"It's done?" said Espinosa. - -Francine laughed. - -"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should have given her the -coffee. Then she would have walked with us. Now she must be -carried. She's wicked, I can tell you." - -Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face to hide the -gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held her up, set her white -cloak about her shoulders and fastened it in front. Espinosa then -turned out the light and drew back the curtains. - -The room was at the back of the house. In the front of the window -the park stretched away. But it was the park of a French château, -where the cattle feed up to the windows, and only a strip about the -front terrace is devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns. -Espinosa looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, and -cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night like ghosts. He -opened the window, and the throb of the music from the ball-room came -faintly to their ears. - -"We must be quick," said Espinosa. - -He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out into the park. -They left the window open behind them, and between them they carried -their prisoner across the grass, keeping where it was possible in the -gloom of the trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a -motorcar waited half-way between the house and the gates. A blur of -light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in front of it became -visible away upon their left, but here all was dark. Once or twice -they stopped and set Ann upon her feet, and held her so, while they -rested. - -"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling an oath, he -stopped again. They were on the edge of the drive now, and just -ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a white dress and close to it the -glow of a cigarette. Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her -against a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the -truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk to Ann, -nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively story. Espinosa's -heart stood still as he heard the man say: - -"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. Shall we see?" - -But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the white dress -caught him by the arm. - -"That would not be very tactful," she said with a laugh. "Let us do -as we would be done by," and the couple sauntered past. - -Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! Let us go!" he -whispered in a shaking voice. - -A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed car hidden in a -little alley which led from the main drive. They placed Ann in the -car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside her, and Espinosa took the wheel. -As they took the road to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck -eleven. Within the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann -Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it underneath her -feet. At the branch road young Espinosa was waiting with his -motor-cycle and side-car. - -"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud when -she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay went later into the library, -and bolted the window again, believing you to be well upon your way -to Paris. Second, Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they -returned to Madame Le Vay's ball." - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: _What Happened on the Night of the 27th_ - -"We are not yet quite at the end," said Hanaud, as he sat with -Frobisher for awhile upon the lawn after Ann Upcott had gone in. -"But we are near to it. There is still my question to be answered. -'Why was the communicating door open between the bedroom of Madame -Harlowe and the treasure-room on the night when Ann Upcott came down -the stairs in the dark?' When we know that, we shall know why -Francine Rollard and Betty Harlowe between them murdered Madame -Harlowe." - -"Then you believe Francine Rollard had a hand in that crime too?" -asked Jim. - -"I am sure," returned Hanaud. "Do you remember the experiment I -made, the little scene of reconstruction? Betty Harlowe stretched -out upon the bed to represent Madame, and Francine whispering 'That -will do now'?" - -"Yes." - -Hanaud lit a cigarette and smiled. - -"Francine Rollard would not stand at the side of the bed. No! She -would stand at the foot and whisper those simple but appalling words. -But nowhere else. That was significant, my friend. She would not -stand exactly where she had stood when the murder was committed." He -added softly, "I have great hopes of Francine Rollard. A few days of -a prison cell and that untamed little tiger-cat will talk." - -"And what of Waberski in all this?" Jim exclaimed. - -Hanaud laughed and rose from his chair. - -"Waberski? He is for nothing in all this. He brought a charge in -which he didn't believe, and the charge happened to be true. That is -all." He took a step or two away and returned. "But I am wrong. -That is not all. Waberski is indeed for something in all this. For -when he was pressed to make good his charge and must rake up some -excuse for it somehow, by a piece of luck he thinks of a morning when -he saw Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta near to the shop of -Jean Cladel. And so he leads us to the truth. Yes, we owe something -to that animal Boris Waberski. Did I not tell you, Monsieur, that we -are all the servants of Chance?" - -Hanaud went from the garden and for three days Jim Frobisher saw him -no more. But the development which Monsieur Bex feared and for which -Hanaud hoped took place, and on the third day Hanaud invited Jim to -his office in the Prefecture. - -He had Jim's memorandum in his hand. - -"Do you remember what you wrote?" he asked. "See!" He pushed the -memorandum in front of Jim and pointed to a paragraph. - - -"But in the absence of any trace of poison in the dead woman's body, -it is difficult to see how the criminal can be brought to justice -except by: - -"(_a_) A confession. - -"(_b_) The commission of another crime of a similar kind. - -"Hanaud's theory--once a poisoner, always a poisoner." - - -Frobisher read it through. - -"Now that is very true," said Hanaud. "Never have I come across a -case more difficult. At every step we break down. I think I have my -fingers on Jean Cladel. I am five minutes too late. I think that I -shall get some useful evidence from a firm in Paris. The firm has -ceased to be for the last ten years. All the time I strike at air. -So I must take a risk--yes, and a serious one. Shall I tell you what -that risk was? I have to assume that Mademoiselle Ann will be -brought alive to the Hôtel de Brebizart on that night of Madame Le -Vay's ball. That she would be brought back I had no doubt. For one -thing, there could be no safer resting-place for her than under the -stone flags of the kitchen there. For another, there was the -portmanteau in the side-car. It was not light, the portmanteau. -Some friends of mine watched it being put into the side-car before -young Espinosa started for his rendezvous. I have no doubt it -weighed just as many kilos as Mademoiselle Ann." - -"I never understood the reason of that portmanteau," Frobisher -interrupted. - -"It was a matter of timing. There were twenty-five kilometres of a -bad track, with many sharp little twists between the Val Terzon and -the Hôtel de Brebizart. And a motor-cycle with an empty side-car -would take appreciably longer to cover the distance than a cycle with -a side-car weighted, which could take the corners at its top speed. -They were anxious to get the exact time the journey would take with -Ann Upcott in the side-car, so that there might be no needless -hanging about waiting for its arrival. But they were a little too -careful. Our friend Boris said a shrewd thing, didn't he? Some -crimes are discovered because the alibis are too unnaturally perfect. -Oh, there was no doubt they meant to bring back Mademoiselle Ann! -But suppose they brought her back dead! It wasn't likely--no! It -would be so much easier to finish her off with a dose of the -arrow-poison. No struggle, no blood, no trouble at all. I reckoned -that they would dope her at Madame Le Vay's ball and bring her back -half conscious, as indeed they meant to do. But I shivered all that -evening at the risk I had taken, and when that cycle shut off its -engine, as we stood in the darkness of the gallery, I was in despair." - -He shook his shoulders uncomfortably as though the danger was not yet -passed. - -"Anyway, I took the risk," he resumed, "and so we got fulfilled your -condition (_b_). The commission or, in this case, the attempted -commission of another crime of the same kind." - -Frobisher nodded. - -"But now," said Hanaud, leaning forward, "we have got your condition -(_a_) fulfilled--a confession; a clear and complete confession from -Francine Rollard, and so many admissions from the Espinosas, and -Jeanne Leclerc and Maurice Thevenet, that they amount to confessions. -We have put them all together, and here is the new part of the case -with which Monsieur Bex and you will have to deal--the charge not of -murder attempted but of murder committed--the murder of Madame -Harlowe." - -Jim Frobisher was upon the point of interrupting, but he thought -better of it. - -"Go on!" he contented himself with saying. - -"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous letters, Monsieur--who -shall say? The dulness of life for a girl young and beautiful and -passionate in a provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The -craving for excitement? Something bad and vicious and abnormal born -in her, part of her, and craving more and more expression as she grew -in years? The exacting attendance upon Madame? Probably all of -these elements combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly -it became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in Madame -Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years old from the firm of -Chapperon, builders, of the Rue de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the -way, saw an unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth -of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the existence of -the hidden passage between the treasure-room and the Hôtel de -Brebizart. For it was the bill of the builders who had repaired it -at the order of Simon Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging -to Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de Brebizart -made the game easy and safe. But as the opportunity grew, so did the -desire. Betty Harlowe tasted power. She took one or two people into -her confidence--her maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, -and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage--and once started the circle -grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of Betty Harlowe, you -understand! She, the little queen, became the big slave. She must -provide Thevenet with his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his -house, Jeanne Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters -become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet knows the -police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne Leclerc has a--friend, -shall we say?--in the Director of an Insurance Company, and, believe -me, for a blackmailer nothing is more important than to know -accurately the financial resources of one's--let us say, clients. -Thus the game went merrily on until money was wanted and it couldn't -be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. There was no one for -the moment to exploit. Yes, one person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the -justice to believe that the suggestion came from that promising young -novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, Monsieur Frobisher?" - -Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, led up to it -though he had been by Hanaud's exposition. - -"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, and, as Jim -Frobisher started back in a horror of disbelief, he continued: "Yes, -it is so! Madame Harlowe received a letter at dinner-time, just as -Ann Upcott did, on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She -took her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That letter -was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who remembers it very well. It -demanded a large sum of money, and something was said about a number -of passionate letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have -published--not too much, you understand, but enough to make it clear -that the liaison of Madame Raviart and Simon Harlowe was not a secret -from the Scourge. I'll tell you something else which will astonish -you, Monsieur Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne -Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to say good night -and show herself in her new dance frock of silver tissue and her -silver slippers. It was no wonder that Betty Harlowe lost her head a -little when I set my little trap for her in the library and pretended -that I did not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin -after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't one idea what -a very unpleasant little trap it was!" - -"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If Madame Harlowe -showed this letter first of all to Jeanne Baudin, and afterwards to -Betty Harlowe in Jeanne Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin -speak of it at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski brought -his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept silent!" - -"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne Baudin is a good and -decent girl. For her, Madame Harlowe had died a natural death in her -sleep, the very form in which death might be expected to come for -her. Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's accusation. -Why should she rake up old scandals? She herself proposed to Betty -Harlowe to say nothing about the anonymous letter." - -Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted it. "Yes, I see -her point of view," he admitted, and Hanaud continued his narrative. - -"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the Boulevard -Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. Jeanne Baudin has -finished her offices for the night. Madame Harlowe is alone. What -does she do? Drink? For that night--no! She sits and thinks. Were -there any of the letters which passed between her and Simon Harlowe, -before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still existing? She had thought -to have destroyed them all. But she was a woman, she might have -clutched some back. If there were any, where would they be? Why in -that house at the end of the secret passage. Some such thoughts must -have passed through her mind. For she rose from her bed, slipped on -her dressing-gown and shoes, unlocked the communicating door between -her and the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the empty -Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, Monsieur? A room -in daily use, a bundle of her letters ready in the top drawer of her -Empire writing-table, and on the writing-table Simon's Corona -machine, and the paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. -Monsieur, there is only one person who can have access to that room, -the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her exacting way she no -doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock that night Francine Rollard is -startled by the entrance of Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a -moment Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She was very -quickly better informed. She was told to get up, to watch for Betty -Harlowe's return and to bring her immediately to Madame Harlowe's -bedroom. At one o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark -hall. As Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives her -the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet how much of -their villainies has been discovered. But something at all events. -Betty Harlowe bade Francine wait and ran upstairs silently to her -room. Betty Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been -playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had the -arrow-poison ready--yes, ready for herself. She filled her -hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in the palm of her glove -she went to confront her benefactress. - -"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman whose romance and -tragedy were to be exploited blurting out her fury in front of -Francine Rollard. It wasn't Waberski who was to be stripped to the -skin--no, but the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver -slippers. You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under -the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison to destroy -herself when she can save everything--fortune, liberty, position--by -murder? Only she must be quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts -of violence. Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne -Baudin, some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a moment -the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is flung back upon her bed. -Her mouth is covered and held by Francine Rollard. The needle does -its work. 'That will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the -door of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, -unable to identify the voice which whispered, just as you and I were -unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice which whispered to us from the -window of Jean Cladel's house, but taking deep into her memory the -terrible words. And neither of the murderesses knew it. - -"They go calmly about their search for the letters. They cannot find -them, because Madame had pushed them into the coffer of old bills and -papers. They rearrange the bed, they compose their victim in it as -if she were asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget -to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the Hôtel de -Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the arrow-poison and the -needle to put in some safe place, and where else is safe? In the end -when every care has been taken that not a scrap of incriminating -evidence is left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps up -the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and Ann Upcott -waking, stretches up her hands and touches her face. - -"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is what you would -call the case for the Crown. It is the case which you and Monsieur -Bex have to meet." - -Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things which he had almost -said at the beginning of this interview. - -"I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told me. I shall -give him every assistance that I personally or my firm can give. But -I have no longer any formal connection with the defence." - -Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity. - -"I don't understand, Monsieur. This is not the moment to renounce a -client." - -"Nor do I," rejoined Frobisher. "It is the other way about. -Monsieur Bex put it to me very--how shall I say?" - -Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his lips. - -"Very correctly." - -"He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see me again." - -Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation evident in -Frobisher's voice and face moved him. He said very gently, "I can -understand that, can't you? She has fought for a great stake all -this last week, her liberty, her fortune, her good name--and you. -Oh, yes," he continued, as Jim stirred at the table. "Let us be -frank! And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from her -friends. From the earliest moment she set her passions upon you. Do -you remember the first morning I came to the Maison Crenelle? You -promised Ann Upcott to put up there though you had just refused the -same invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy blazed -in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a clatter in the hall -lest she should recognise that I could not but have discovered her -secret. Well, having fought for this stake and lost, she would not -wish to see you. You had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by -the legs like a sheep. I understand her very well." - -Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment Hanaud burst into the -room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, Betty had never once even looked at -him. He got up from his chair and took up his hat and stick. - -"I must go back to my partner in London with this story as soon as I -have told it to Monsieur Bex," he said. "I should like it complete. -When did you first suspect Betty Harlowe?" - -Hanaud nodded. - -"That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don't thank me! I am not so sure -that I should be so ready with all these confidences, if I was not -certain what the verdict in the Assize Court must be. I shall gather -up for you the threads which are still loose, but not here." - -He looked at his watch. - -"See, it is past noon! We shall once more have Philippe Le Bon's -Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may be, too, that we shall see Mont -Blanc across all the leagues of France. Come! Let us take your -memorandum and go there." - - - - -CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: _The Façade of Notre Dame_ - -For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day without mist or -clouds, and the towering silver ridge hung in the blue sky distinct -and magical. Hanaud lit one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly -turned away from it. - -"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One at the very -beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very end by me, and of the -two mine was the least excusable. Let us begin, therefore, at the -beginning. Madame Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; -Betty Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks her -for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should she not? Ah, -but she must have been very sorry a week later that she snapped her -the fingers! For suddenly he flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was -poisoned by her niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when -she heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! But it is -also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing can touch her. Now -suddenly her head is loose upon her neck. She is frightened. She is -questioned in the examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has -nothing against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip. -But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she has done the -murder. Her danger is not any evidence which Waberski can bring, but -just herself. In two days she is still more frightened, for she -hears that Hanaud is called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake. -She sends a telegram to you in London." - -"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly. - -"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does Betty Harlowe know -that Hanaud has been called in?' Oh, to be sure, I made a great -fluster in my office about the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon. -But I did not believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious -about Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, we -come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown me that telegram." - -"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he added slowly, -"that she put out her hand on the window sill--yes, as if to steady -herself." - -"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with a nod of -appreciation. "She must account for that telegram. She cannot tell -me that Maurice Thevenet sent a hurried word to her. No! So when I -ask her if she has ever received one of these anonymous -letters--which, remember, were my real business in Dijon--she says at -once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which told me that -Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris to make an end of me.' That -was quick, eh? Yes, but I know it is a lie. For it was not until -the Sunday evening that any question of my being sent for arose at -all. You see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked her -for the letter. She does not say that she has destroyed it, lest I -should at once believe that she never received any such letter at -all. On the contrary she says that it is in the treasure-room which -is sealed up, knowing quite well that she can write it and place it -there by way of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed. -But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must have received -it on the Sunday morning, since it was on the Sunday morning that the -seals were affixed. She did not know when it was first proposed to -call me in. She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is -lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe." - -He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him with a look of -horror in his eyes. - -"It was I then who put you on her track?--I who came out to defend -her!" he cried. "For it was I who showed you the telegram." - -"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered if Betty Harlowe -had been, as you believed her, innocent," Hanaud replied gravely; and -Frobisher was silent. - -"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, I went over -the house whilst you and Betty talked together in the library!" - -"Yes," said Jim. - -"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found something which -interested me at the first glance. Now tell me what it was!" and he -cocked his head at Jim with the hope that his riddle would divert him -from his self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded. - -"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost of a smile. -"It was the treatise on Sporanthus." - -"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves no trace! -Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. Who would be the first -poisoner to use it? How should I cope with him and prove that it -brought no more security than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are -questions which have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a -house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, I find a -dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away under a pile of -magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. I tell you I was -staggered. What was it doing there? How did it come there? I see a -note upon the cover, indicating a page. I turn to the page and -there, staring at me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect -specimen of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are at once -forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, without knowing it, were -right, and Madame Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I -must find that out. I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my -waistcoat and I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. -Is Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus -Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from Madame Harlowe's -death? Or did she perhaps not know at all that the treatise was -under that pile of magazines upon the table at the side? I do not -know, and my head is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked -look of Betty Harlowe at her friend--Monsieur, a revealing look! I -have not the demure and simple young lady of convention to deal with -at all. No. I go away from the Maison Crenelle, still more curious -about Betty Harlowe." - -Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side. - -"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously. - -"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder. - -"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately after you left the -Maison Crenelle that day you had the _sergent-de-ville_ removed from -its gates?" - -"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered imperturbably. -"The _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers was an absurdity--worse -than that, an actual hindrance. There is little use in watching -people who know that they are being watched. So I remove the -_sergent-de-ville_ and now I can begin really to watch those young -ladies of the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst Monsieur -Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, Betty Harlowe goes -out for a walk, is discreetly followed by Nicolas Moreau--and -vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. He must not press too close upon -her heels. She was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de -Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the wall -which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that she vanished. -There was the anonymous letter to be written, ready for me to receive -when the seals of the treasure-room were broken. But I don't know -that yet. No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for a -walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another street. -Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far as I can how these -young ladies pass their lives and who are their friends. An -examination not very productive, and not altogether futile. For I -find some curious friends in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe -this, Monsieur! Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, -literary, what you will--in their case curious friends mean nothing! -They are to be expected. But with a young girl who is to all -appearance leading the normal life of her class, the case is -different. In her case curious friends are--curious. The Espinosas, -Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc--flashy cheap people of that -type--how shall we account for them as friends of that delicate piece -of china, Betty Harlowe?" - -Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a trifle -disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa and Betty Harlowe. - -"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent so pleasantly in -the cool of the garden with the young ladies, I spent with the -Edinburgh Professor. And I prepared a little trap. Yes, and the -next morning I came early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little -trap. I replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its -obvious place." - -Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black cigarette from -his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to Jim. - -"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; and he tells me -that queer story about Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta close -to the shop of Jean Cladel. He may be lying. He may be speaking the -truth and what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits -in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which is now taking -hold of me. For if that poison was used, then some one who -understood the composition of drugs must have made the solution from -the paste upon the arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty -Harlowe! And the moment that animal has left me, I spring my trap; -and I have a success beyond all my expectations. I point to the -treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was not in its place -yesterday. It is to-day. Who then replaced it? I ask that question -and Mademoiselle Ann is utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that -book. That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On the -other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has replaced that book; -and in a most unwise moment of sarcasm, she allows me to see that she -knows. She knows that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it -since and replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she knows -where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I know it in my heart -that she put it under those magazines in Ann Upcott's room, although -I do not yet know it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to -divert suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should suspicion -arise. But innocent people do not do that, Monsieur. - -"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann tells us her story. -Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you immediately afterwards that all -great criminals who are women are great actresses. But never in my -life have I seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while -that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel murder has been -secretly committed and suddenly the murderess has to listen to a true -account of that murder in the presence of the detective who is there -to fix the guilt! There was some one at hand all the time--almost an -eye-witness--perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she cannot know that -she is safe until the last word of the story is told. Picture to -yourself Betty Harlowe's feelings during that hour in the pleasant -garden, if you can! The questions which must have been racing -through her mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and peer -through the lighted doorway? Does she know the truth--and has she -kept it hidden until this moment when Hanaud and Frobisher are -present and she can speak it safely? Will her next words be 'And -here at my side sits the murderess'? Those must have been terrible -moments for Betty Harlowe!" - -"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher added. - -"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She ran suddenly and -very swiftly into the house." - -"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her." - -"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go and she -returned----" - -"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher interrupted. - -"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud exclaimed. "She -turned her chair towards Mademoiselle Ann. She sat with her -handkerchief in her hand and her face against her handkerchief, -listening--the tender, sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann -told us that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness -overtook her--could not but overtake her. And in that moment of -weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, she picked it up again at -once. Yes, but where the handkerchief had fallen her foot now -rested, and when the story was all ended, and we got up from our -chairs, she spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that -there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was anxious to -discover what it was that she had brought out from the house in her -handkerchief, and had dropped with her handkerchief and had driven -with all the weight of her body into the turf so that no one might -see it. In fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come -back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She fetched my -gloves herself, much to my shame that I, Hanaud, should be waited on -by so exquisite a young lady. However, I found it afterwards when -you and Girardot and the others were all waiting for me in the -library. It was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed -to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much Ann Upcott was -going to reveal. The arrow-poison had been hidden away in the Hôtel -de Brebizart. But she had something else at hand--more rapid--death -like a thunderbolt. So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, -Monsieur, it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close to her -mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. What I do wonder is -that she did not topple straight off her chair in a dead faint before -us all. But no! She sat ready to swallow that tablet at once if -there were need, before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to -you, people who are innocent do not do that." - -Jim had no argument wherewith to answer. - -"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got the tablets no -doubt from Jean Cladel." - -"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated for luncheon -and in the afternoon the seals are to be removed. Before that takes -place, certain things must be done. The clock must be moved from the -mantelshelf in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some -letters too must be burnt." - -"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly. - -Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. - -"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For my part I -think those old letters between Simon Harlowe and Madame Raviart -alluded too often to the secret passage. But here I am guessing. -What I learnt for certain during that luncheon hour is that there is -a secret passage and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel -de Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no mistake. He -follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I from this tower see the -smoke rising from the chimney. Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no -smoke rises from it to-day." - -He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont Blanc. The trees -in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned roof, and the chimneys of -the Maison Crenelle stood out above the lesser buildings which -surrounded them. Only from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise -to-day, and that one at the extreme end of the building where the -kitchens were. - -"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are removed. We are -in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and something I cannot explain occurs." - -"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher exclaimed confidently; -and Hanaud grinned joyfully. - -"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" he cried. -"The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared for that. The guilt is -being transferred to Mademoiselle Ann. Good! But it is not enough -to hide the book about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide -her also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle inherits -nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds -vanishes, and you must draw from its vanishing what conclusion you -will. No, the little matter I cannot explain is different. Betty -Harlowe and our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom -to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not be heard there." - -"Yes." - -"Our good Girardot comes back." - -"Yes." - -"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot explain. -Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before I go into the -treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and quietly she has slipped in -amongst us again. I am very curious about that, my friend, and I -keep my eyes open for an explanation, I assure you." - -"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with your hand upon the -door and asked for Mademoiselle Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. -I attached no importance to her absence." - -Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was in the artist's -mood. The work was over, the long strain and pain of it. Now let -those outside admire! - -"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, Monsieur -Frobisher. But I answer a question in your memorandum. The instant -I am in the room, I look for the mouth of that secret passage from -the Hôtel de Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. -The elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the wall. -So I am very careful not to pry amongst its cushions for the poison -arrow; just as I am very careful not to ask for the envelope with the -post mark in which the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe -thinks that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud--good! Let her -think so. So we go upstairs and I find the explanation of that -little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence which has been so troubling -me." - -Jim Frobisher stared at him. - -"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into Ann Upcott's -sitting-room. I write my memorandum with the shaft of the poison -arrow and you notice it Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's -absence! No, I haven't got that." - -"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was not there in the -pen-tray on the day before, when I found the book. There was just -one pen--the foolish thing young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed -red--and nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there since. -When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where was that shaft of -the poison-arrow before? In one of two places. Either in the -treasure-room or in the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has -fetched it away during that hour of freedom; she carries it in her -dress; she seizes her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's -bedroom and--pau, pau!--there it is in the pen-tray of Mademoiselle -Ann, to make suspicion still more convincing! Monsieur, I walk away -with Monsieur Bex, who has some admirable scheme that I should search -the gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree--oh yes, that is -the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On the other hand I get -some useful information about the Maison Crenelle and the Hôtel de -Brebizart. I carry that information to a very erudite gentleman in -the Palace of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I know -all about the severe Etienne de Crenelle and the joyous Madame de -Brebizart. So when you and Betty Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val -Terzon, Nicolas Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de -Brebizart--with the results which now are clear to you, and one of -which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in the drawer -of the writing-table." - -Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the story was -clear to him now--a story of dark passions and vanity, and greed of -power with cruelties for its methods. Was there no spark of hope and -cheer in all this desolation? He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He -wished to know the last hidden detail. - -"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. What was it?" - -"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the façade of the -Church of Notre Dame." - -"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking towards the -Maison Crenelle, and his arm swept to the left of the house. His -fingers pointed at the Renaissance church with its cupolas and its -loggia, to which Betty Harlowe had driven him. - -"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief of the Last -Judgment." - -"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church of St. Michel, -Monsieur." - -He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont Blanc, close at his -feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic church, delicate in its -structure like a jewel. - -"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down and look at the -façade." - -Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and pointed to the -frieze. There Frobisher saw such images of devils half beast, half -human, such grinning hog-men, such tortured creatures with heads -twisted round so that they looked backwards, such old and drunken and -vicious horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and amongst -them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, her hands tightly -clasped, an image of terror and faith, a prisoner amongst all these -monsters imploring the passers-by for their pity and their help. - -"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to see," said -Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it." - -His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. He lifted his -hat. - -Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that frieze, heard -Ann Upcott's voice behind him. - -"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur Hanaud?" She -stopped beside the two men. - -"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher to explain to -you." - -Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly towards Hanaud. -But already he was gone. - - - - -THE END - - - - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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MASON + + + _New York + George H. Doran Company_ + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1924, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + Books by A. E. W. MASON + + THE WINDING STAIR + THE FOUR FEATHERS + THE SUMMONS + THE BROKEN ROAD + MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY + CLEMENTINA + THE TURNSTILE + THE TRUANTS + AT THE VILLA ROSE + RUNNING WATER + THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER + THE PHILANDERERS + LAWRENCE CLAVERING + THE WATCHERS + A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE + ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES + FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + ONE: _Letters of Mark_ + TWO: _A Cry for Help_ + THREE: _Servants of Chance_ + FOUR: _Betty Harlowe_ + FIVE: _Betty Harlowe Answers_ + SIX: _Jim Changes His Lodging_ + SEVEN: _Exit Waberski_ + EIGHT: _The Book_ + NINE: _The Secret_ + TEN: _The Clock upon the Cabinet_ + ELEVEN: _A New Suspect_ + TWELVE: _The Breaking of the Seals_ + THIRTEEN: _Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room_ + FOURTEEN: _An Experiment and a Discovery_ + FIFTEEN: _The Finding of the Arrow_ + SIXTEEN: _Hanaud Laughs_ + SEVENTEEN: _At Jean Cladel's_ + EIGHTEEN: _The White Tablet_ + NINETEEN: _A Plan Frustrated_ + TWENTY: _A Map and the Necklace_ + TWENTY-ONE: _The Secret House_ + TWENTY-TWO: _The Corona Machine_ + TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet_ + TWENTY-FOUR: _Ann Upcott's Story_ + TWENTY-FIVE: _What Happened on the Night of the 27th_ + TWENTY-SIX: _The Façade of Notre Dame_ + + + + +THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW + + + + +CHAPTER ONE: _Letters of Mark_ + +Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt, the solicitors on the east side of +Russell Square, counted amongst their clients a great many who had +undertakings established in France; and the firm was very proud of +this branch of its business. + +"It gives us a place in history," Mr. Jeremy Haslitt used to say. +"For it dates from the year 1806, when Mr. James Frobisher, then our +very energetic senior partner, organised the escape of hundreds of +British subjects who were detained in France by the edict of the +first Napoleon. The firm received the thanks of His Majesty's +Government and has been fortunate enough to retain the connection +thus made. I look after that side of our affairs myself." + +Mr. Haslitt's daily batch of letters, therefore, contained as a rule +a fair number bearing the dark-blue stamp of France upon their +envelopes. On this morning of early April, however, there was only +one. It was addressed in a spidery, uncontrolled hand with which Mr. +Haslitt was unfamiliar. But it bore the postmark of Dijon, and Mr. +Haslitt tore it open rather quickly. He had a client in Dijon, a +widow, Mrs. Harlowe, of whose health he had had bad reports. The +letter was certainly written from her house, La Maison Crenelle, but +not by her. He turned to the signature. + +"Waberski?" he said, with a frown. "Boris Waberski?" And then, as +he identified his correspondent, "Oh, yes, yes." + +He sat down in his chair and read. The first part of the letter was +merely flowers and compliments, but half-way down the second page its +object was made clear as glass. It was five hundred pounds. Old Mr. +Haslitt smiled and read on, keeping up, whilst he read, a one-sided +conversation with the writer. + +"I have a great necessity of that money," wrote Boris, "and----" + +"I am quite sure of that," said Mr. Haslitt. + +"My beloved sister, Jeanne-Marie----" the letter continued. + +"Sister-in-law," Mr. Haslitt corrected. + +"--cannot live for long, in spite of all the care and attention I +give to her," Boris Waberski went on. "She has left me, as no doubt +you know, a large share of her fortune. Already, then, it is +mine--yes? One may say so and be favourably understood. We must +look at the facts with the eyes. Expedite me, then, by the +recommended post a little of what is mine and agree my distinguished +salutations." + +Haslitt's smile became a broad grin. He had in one of his tin boxes +a copy of the will of Jeanne-Marie Harlowe drawn up in due form by +her French notary at Dijon, by which every farthing she possessed was +bequeathed without condition to her husband's niece and adopted +daughter, Betty Harlowe. Jeremy Haslitt almost destroyed that +letter. He folded it; his fingers twitched at it; there was already +actually a tear at the edges of the sheets when he changed his mind. + +"No," he said to himself. "No! With the Boris Waberskis one never +knows," and he locked the letter away on a ledge of his private safe. + +He was very glad that he had when three weeks later he read, in the +obituary column of _The Times_, the announcement of Mrs. Harlowe's +death, and received a big card with a very deep black border in the +French style from Betty Harlowe inviting him to the funeral at Dijon. +The invitation was merely formal. He could hardly have reached Dijon +in time for the ceremony had he started off that instant. He +contented himself with writing a few lines of sincere condolence to +the girl, and a letter to the French notary in which he placed the +services of the firm at Betty's disposal. Then he waited. + +"I shall hear again from little Boris," he said, and he heard within +the week. The handwriting was more spidery and uncontrolled than +ever; hysteria and indignation had played havoc with Waberski's +English; also he had doubled his demand. + +"It is outside belief," he wrote. "Nothing has she left to her so +attentive brother. There is something here I do not much like. It +must be one thousand pounds now, by the recommended post. 'You have +always had the world against you, my poor Boris,' she say with the +tears all big in her dear eyes. 'But I make all right for you in my +will.' And now nothing! I speak, of course, to my niece--ah, that +hard one! She snap her the fingers at me! Is that a behaviour? One +thousand pounds, mister! Otherwise there will be awkwardnesses! +Yes! People do not snap them the fingers at Boris Waberski without +the payment. So one thousand pounds by the recommended post or +awkwardnesses"; and this time Boris Waberski did not invite Mr. +Haslitt to agree any salutations, distinguished or otherwise, but +simply signed his name with a straggling pen which shot all over the +sheet. + +Mr. Haslitt did not smile over this letter. He rubbed the palms of +his hands softly together. + +"Then we shall have to make some awkwardnesses too," he said hastily, +and he locked this second letter away with the first. But Mr. +Haslitt found it a little difficult to settle to his work. There was +that girl out there in the big house at Dijon and no one of her race +near her! He got up from his chair abruptly and crossed the corridor +to the offices of his junior partner. + +"Jim, you were at Monte Carlo this winter," he said. + +"For a week," answered Jim Frobisher. + +"I think I asked you to call on a client of ours who has a villa +there--Mrs. Harlowe." + +Jim Frobisher nodded. "I did. But Mrs. Harlowe was ill. There was +a niece, but she was out." + +"You saw no one, then?" Jeremy Haslitt asked. + +"No, that's wrong," Jim corrected. "I saw a strange creature who +came to the door to make Mrs. Harlowe's excuses--a Russian." + +"Boris Waberski," said Mr. Haslitt. + +"That's the name." + +Mr. Haslitt sat down in a chair. + +"Tell me about him, Jim." + +Jim Frobisher stared at nothing for a few moments. He was a young +man of twenty-six who had only during this last year succeeded to his +partnership. Though quick enough when action was imperative, he was +naturally deliberate in his estimates of other people's characters; +and a certain awe he had of old Jeremy Haslitt doubled that natural +deliberation in any matters of the firm's business. He answered at +length. + +"He is a tall, shambling fellow with a shock of grey hair standing up +like wires above a narrow forehead and a pair of wild eyes. He made +me think of a marionette whose limbs have not been properly strung. +I should imagine that he was rather extravagant and emotional. He +kept twitching at his moustache with very long, tobacco-stained +fingers. The sort of man who might go off at the deep end at any +moment." + +Mr. Haslitt smiled. + +"That's just what I thought." + +"Is he giving you any trouble?" asked Jim. + +"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt. "But Mrs. Harlowe is dead, and I think +it very likely that he will. Did he play at the tables?" + +"Yes, rather high," said Jim. "I suppose that he lived on Mrs. +Harlowe." + +"I suppose so," said Mr. Haslitt, and he sat for a little while in +silence. Then: "It's a pity you didn't see Betty Harlowe. I stopped +at Dijon once on my way to the South of France five years ago when +Simon Harlowe, the husband, was alive. Betty was then a long-legged +slip of a girl in black silk stockings with a pale, clear face and +dark hair and big eyes--rather beautiful." Mr. Haslitt moved in his +chair uncomfortably. That old house with its great garden of +chestnuts and sycamores and that girl alone in it with an aggrieved +and half-crazed man thinking out awkwardnesses for her--Mr. Haslitt +did not like the picture! + +"Jim," he said suddenly, "could you arrange your work so that you +could get away at short notice, if it becomes advisable?" + +Jim looked up in surprise. Excursions and alarms, as the old stage +directions have it, were not recognised as a rule by the firm of +Frobisher & Haslitt. If its furniture was dingy, its methods were +stately; clients might be urgent, but haste and hurry were words for +which the firm had no use No doubt, somewhere round the corner, there +would be an attorney who understood them. Yet here was Mr. Haslitt +himself, with his white hair and his curious round face, +half-babyish, half-supremely intelligent, actually advocating that +his junior partner should be prepared to skip to the Continent at a +word. + +"No doubt I could," said Jim, and Mr. Haslitt looked him over with +approbation. + +Jim Frobisher had an unusual quality of which his acquaintances, even +his friends, knew only the outward signs. He was a solitary person. +Very few people up till now had mattered to him at all, and even +those he could do without. It was his passion to feel that his life +and the means of his life did not depend upon the purchased skill of +other people; and he had spent the spare months of his life in the +fulfilment of his passion. A half-decked sailing-boat which one man +could handle, an ice-axe, a rifle, an inexhaustible volume or two +like _The Ring and the Book_--these with the stars and his own +thoughts had been his companions on many lonely expeditions; and in +consequence he had acquired a queer little look of aloofness which +made him at once noticeable amongst his fellows. A misleading look, +since it encouraged a confidence for which there might not be +sufficient justification. It was just this look which persuaded Mr. +Haslitt now. "This is the very man to deal with creatures like Boris +Waberski," he thought, but he did not say so aloud. + +What he did say was: + +"It may not be necessary after all. Betty Harlowe has a French +lawyer. No doubt he is adequate. Besides"--and he smiled as he +recollected a phrase in Waberski's second letter--"Betty seems very +capable of looking after herself. We shall see." + +He went back to his own office, and for a week he heard no more from +Dijon. His anxiety, indeed, was almost forgotten when suddenly +startling news arrived and by the most unexpected channel. + +Jim Frobisher brought it. He broke into Mr. Haslitt's office at the +sacred moment when the senior partner was dictating to a clerk the +answers to his morning letters. + +"Sir!" cried Jim, and stopped short at the sight of the clerk. Mr. +Haslitt took a quick look at his young partner's face and said: + +"We will resume these answers, Godfrey, later on." + +The clerk took his shorthand notebook out of the room, and Mr. +Haslitt turned to Jim Frobisher. + +"Now, what's your bad news, Jim?" + +Jim blurted it out. + +"Waberski accuses Betty Harlowe of murder." + +"What!" + +Mr. Haslitt sprang to his feet. Jim Frobisher could not have said +whether incredulity or anger had the upper hand with the old man, the +one so creased his forehead, the other so blazed in his eyes. + +"Little Betty Harlowe!" he said in a wondering voice. + +"Yes. Waberski has laid a formal charge with the Prefect of Police +at Dijon. He accuses Betty of poisoning Mrs. Harlowe on the night of +April the twenty-seventh." + +"But Betty's not arrested?" Mr. Haslitt exclaimed. + +"No, but she's under surveillance." + +Mr. Haslitt sat heavily down in his arm-chair at his table. +Extravagant! Uncontrolled! These were very mild epithets for Boris +Waberski. Here was a devilish malignity at work in the rogue, a +passion for revenge just as mean as could be imagined. + +"How do you know all this, Jim?" he asked suddenly. + +"I have had a letter this morning from Dijon." + +"You?" exclaimed Mr. Haslitt, and the question caught hold of Jim +Frobisher and plunged him too among perplexities. In the first shock +of the news, the monstrous fact of the accusation had driven +everything else out of his head. Now he asked himself why, after +all, had the news come to him and not to the partner who had the +Harlowe estate in his charge. + +"Yes, it is strange," he replied. "And here's another queer thing. +The letter doesn't come from Betty Harlowe, but from a friend, a +companion of hers, Ann Upcott." + +Mr. Haslitt was a little relieved. + +"Betty had a friend with her, then? That's a good thing." He +reached out his hand across the table. "Let me read the letter, Jim." + +Frobisher had been carrying it in his hand, and he gave it now to +Jeremy Haslitt. It was a letter of many sheets, and Jeremy let the +edges slip and flicker under the ball of his thumb. + +"Have I got to read all this?" he said ruefully, and he set himself +to his task. Boris Waberski had first of all accused Betty to her +face. Betty had contemptuously refused to answer the charge, and +Waberski had gone straight off to the Prefect of Police. He had +returned in an hour's time, wildly gesticulating and talking aloud to +himself. He had actually asked Ann Upcott to back him up. Then he +had packed his bags and retired to an hotel in the town. The story +was set out in detail, with quotations from Waberski's violent, crazy +talk; and as the old man read, Jim Frobisher became more and more +uneasy, more and more troubled. + +He was sitting by the tall, broad window which looked out upon the +square, expecting some explosion of wrath and contempt. But he saw +anxiety peep out of Mr. Haslitt's face and stay there as he read. +More than once he stopped altogether in his reading, like a man +seeking to remember or perhaps to discover. + +"But the whole thing's as clear as daylight," Jim said to himself +impatiently. And yet--and yet--Mr. Haslitt had sat in that arm-chair +during the better part of the day, during the better part of thirty +years. How many men and women during those years had crossed the +roadway below this window and crept into this quiet oblong room with +their grievances, their calamities, their confessions? And had +passed out again, each one contributing his little to complete the +old man's knowledge and sharpen the edge of his wit? Then, if Mr. +Haslitt was troubled, there was something in that letter, or some +mission from it, which he himself in his novitiate had overlooked. +He began to read it over again in his mind to the best of his +recollection, but he had not got far before Mr. Haslitt put the +letter down. + +"Surely, sir," cried Jim, "it's an obvious case of blackmail." + +Mr. Haslitt awoke with a little shake of his shoulders. + +"Blackmail? Oh! that of course, Jim." + +Mr. Haslitt got up and unlocked his safe. He took from it the two +Waberski letters and brought them across the room to Jim. + +"Here's the evidence, as damning as any one could wish." + +Jim read the letters through and uttered a little cry of delight. + +"The rogue has delivered himself over to us." + +"Yes," said Mr. Haslitt. + +But to him, at all events, that was not enough; he was still looking +through the lines of the letter for something beyond, which he could +not find. + +"Then what's troubling you?" asked Frobisher. + +Mr. Haslitt took his stand upon the worn hearthrug with his back +towards the fire. + +"This, Jim," and he began to expound. "In ninety-five of these cases +out of a hundred, there is something else, something behind the +actual charge, which isn't mentioned, but on which the blackmailer is +really banking. As a rule it's some shameful little secret, some +blot on the family honour, which any sort of public trial would bring +to light. And there must be something of that kind here. The more +preposterous Waberski's accusation is, the more certain it is that he +knows something to the discredit of the Harlowe name, which any +Harlowe would wish to keep dark. Only, I haven't an idea what the +wretched thing can be!" + +"It might be some trifle," Jim suggested, "which a crazy person like +Waberski would exaggerate." + +"Yes," Mr. Haslitt agreed. "That happens. A man brooding over +imagined wrongs, and flighty and extravagant besides--yes, that might +well be, Jim." + +Jeremy Haslitt spoke in a more cheerful voice. + +"Let us see exactly what we do know of the family," he said, and he +pulled up a chair to face Jim Frobisher and the window. But he had +not yet sat down in it, when there came a discreet knock upon the +door, and a clerk entered to announce a visitor. + +"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt before the name of the visitor had been +mentioned. + +"Very good, sir," said the clerk, and he retired. The firm of +Frobisher & Haslitt conducted its business in that way. It was the +real thing as a firm of solicitors, and clients who didn't like its +methods were very welcome to take their affairs to the attorney round +the corner. Just as people who go to the real thing in the line of +tailors must put up with the particular style in which he cuts their +clothes. + +Mr. Haslitt turned back to Jim. + +"Let us see what we know," he said, and he sat down in the chair. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO: _A Cry for Help_ + +"Simon Harlow," he began, "was the owner of the famous Clos du Prince +vineyards on the Côte-d'Or to the east of Dijon. He had an estate in +Norfolk, this big house, the Maison Crenelle in Dijon, and a villa at +Monte Carlo. But he spent most of his time in Dijon, where at the +age of forty-five he married a French lady, Jeanne-Marie Raviart. +There was, I believe, quite a little romance about the affair. +Jeanne-Marie was married and separated from her husband, and Simon +Harlowe waited, I think, for ten years until the husband Raviart +died." + +Jim Frobisher moved quickly and Mr. Haslitt, who seemed to be reading +off this history in the pattern of the carpet, looked up. + +"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, replying to Jim's movement. +"Yes, there might have been some sort of affair between those two +before they were free to marry. But nowadays, my dear Jim! Opinion +takes a more human view than it did in my youth. Besides, don't you +see, this little secret, to be of any value to Boris Waberski, must +be near enough to Betty Harlowe--I don't say to affect her if +published, but to make Waberski think that she would hate to have it +published. Now Betty Harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all +until two years after Simon and Jeanne-Marie were married, when it +became clear that they were not likely to have any children. No, the +love-affairs of Simon Harlowe are sufficiently remote for us to leave +them aside." + +Jim Frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with a flush of +shame. + +"I was a fool to think of it," he said. + +"Not a bit," replied Mr. Haslitt cheerfully. "Let us look at every +possibility. That's the only way which will help us to get a glimpse +of the truth. I resume, then. Simon Harlowe was a collector. Yes, +he had a passion for collecting and a very catholic one. His one +sitting-room at the Maison Crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, not +only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things too. He liked +to live amongst them and do his work amongst them. His married life +did not last long. For he died five years ago at the age of +fifty-one." + +Mr. Haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections amongst the +convolutions of the carpet. + +"That's really about all I know of him. He was a pleasant fellow +enough, but not very sociable. No, there's nothing to light a candle +for us there, I am afraid." + +Mr. Haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow. + +"Jeanne-Marie Harlowe," he said. "It's extraordinary how little I +know about her, now I come to count it up. Natural too, though. For +she sold the Norfolk estate and has since passed her whole time +between Monte Carlo and Dijon and--oh, yes--a little summer-house on +the Côte-d'Or amongst her vineyards." + +"She was left rich, I suppose?" Frobisher asked. + +"Very well off, at all events," Mr. Haslitt replied. "The Clos du +Prince Burgundy has a fine reputation, but there's not a great deal +of it." + +"Did she come to England ever?" + +"Never," said Mr. Haslitt. "She was content, it seems, with Dijon, +though to my mind the smaller provincial towns of France are dull +enough to make one scream. However, she was used to it, and then her +heart began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has been +an invalid. There's nothing to help us there." And Mr. Haslitt +looked across to Jim for confirmation. + +"Nothing," said Jim. + +"Then we are only left the child Betty Harlowe and--oh, yes, your +correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, Ann Upcott. Who is +she, Jim? Where did she spring from? How does she find herself in +the Maison Crenelle? Come, confess, young man," and Mr. Haslitt +archly looked at his junior partner. "Why should Boris Waberski +expect her support?" + +Jim Frobisher threw his arms wide. + +"I haven't an idea," he said. "I have never seen her. I have never +heard of her. I never knew of her existence until that letter came +this morning with her name signed at the end of it." + +Mr. Haslitt started up. He crossed the room to his table and, fixing +his folding glasses on the bridge of his nose, he bent over the +letter. + +"But she writes to you, Jim," he objected. "'Dear Mr. Frobisher,' +she writes. She doesn't address the firm at all"; and he waited, +looking at Jim, expecting him to withdraw this denial. + +Jim, however, only shook his head. + +"It's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "I can't make head or +tail of it"; and Mr. Haslitt could not doubt now that he spoke the +truth, so utterly and frankly baffled the young man was. "Why should +Ann Upcott write to me? I have been asking myself that question for +the last half-hour. And why didn't Betty Harlowe write to you, who +have had her affairs in your care?" + +"Ah!" + +That last question helped Mr. Haslitt to an explanation. His face +took a livelier expression. + +"The answer to that is in Waberski's, the second letter. Betty--she +snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. She doesn't take the charge +seriously. She will have left it to the French notary to dispose of +it. Yes--I think that makes Ann Upcott's letter to you intelligible, +too. The ceremonies of the Law in a foreign country would frighten a +stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than they would Betty +Harlowe, who has lived for four years in the midst of them. So she +writes to the first name in the title of the firm, and writes to him +as a man. That's it, Jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together +in his satisfaction. + +"A girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing to an +abstraction. She wants to know that she's in touch with a real +person. So she writes, 'Dear Mr. Frobisher.' That's it! You can +take my word for it." + +Mr. Haslitt walked back to his chair. But he did not sit down in it; +he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window +over Frobisher's head. + +"But that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out what is Boris +Waberski's strong suit, does it? We haven't a clue to it," he said +ruefully. + +To both of the men, indeed, Mr. Haslitt's flat, unillumined narrative +of facts, without a glimpse into the characters of any of the +participants in the little drama, seemed the most unhelpful thing. +Yet the whole truth was written there--the truth not only of +Waberski's move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into +which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. Jim +Frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the soul, he resumed +his work in the office. For it was interrupted now. + +Mr. Haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's head, saw a +telegraph-boy come swinging across the square and hesitate in the +roadway below. + +"I expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the hopeful +anticipation people in trouble have that something from outside will +happen and set them right. + +Jim turned round quickly. The boy was still upon the pavement +examining the numbers of the houses. + +"We ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said Jim with a touch +of impatience; and Mr. Haslitt's eyebrows rose half the height of his +forehead towards his thick white hair. He was really distressed by +the Waberski incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in the +firm, shocked him like a sacrilege. + +"My dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. "I hope I +am not one of those obstinate old fogies who refuse to march with the +times. We have had, as you know, a telephone instrument recently +installed in the junior clerks' office. I believe that I myself +proposed it. But a brass plate upon the door! My dear Jim! Let us +leave that to Harley Street and Southampton Row! But I see that +telegram is for us." + +The tiny Mercury with the shako and red cord to his uniform made up +his mind and disappeared into the hall below. The telegram was +brought upstairs and Mr. Haslitt tore it open. He stared at it +blankly for a few seconds, then without a word, but with a very +anxious look in his eyes, he handed it to Jim Frobisher. + +Jim Frobisher read: + + + _Please, please, send some one to help me at once. The Prefect + of Police has called in Hanaud, a great detective of the Sûrété + in Paris. They must think me guilty.--Betty Harlowe._ + + +The telegram fluttered from Jim's fingers to the floor. It was like +a cry for help at night coming from a great distance. + +"I must go, sir, by the night boat," he said. + +"To be sure!" said Mr. Haslitt a little absently. + +Jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. His chivalry was +fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the picture his imagination +drew. The little girl, Betty Harlowe! What age was she? +Twenty-one! Not a day more. She had been wandering with all the +proud indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found her +feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked about her; and +terror came and with it a wild cry for help. + +"Girls never notice danger signals," he said. "No, they walk blindly +into the very heart of catastrophe." Who could tell what links of +false and cunning evidence Boris Waberski had been hammering away at +in the dark, to slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and +ankle? And with that question he was seized with a great +discouragement. + +"We know very little of Criminal Procedure, even in our own country, +in this office," he said regretfully. + +"Happily," said Mr. Haslitt with some tartness. With him it was the +Firm first and last. Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt never went in to +the Criminal Courts. Litigation, indeed, even of the purest kind was +frowned upon. It is true there was a small special staff, under the +leadership of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper floor, +like an unpresentable relation in a great house, which did a little +of that kind of work. But it only did it for hereditary clients, and +then as a favour. + +"However," said Mr. Haslitt as he noticed Jim's discomfort, "I +haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be equal to whatever is +wanted. But remember, there's something at the back of this which we +here don't know." + +Jim shifted his position rather abruptly. This cry of the old man +was becoming parrot-like--a phrase, a formula. Jim was thinking of +the girl in Dijon and hearing her piteous cry for help. She was not +"snapping her the fingers" now. + +"It's a matter of common sense," Mr. Haslitt insisted. "Take a +comparison. Bath, for instance, would never call in Scotland Yard +over a case of this kind. There would have to be the certainty of a +crime first, and then grave doubt as to who was the criminal. This +is a case for an autopsy and the doctors. If they call in this man +Hanaud"--and he stopped. + +He picked the telegram up from the floor and read it through again. + +"Yes--Hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and growing bright and +clouding again like a man catching at and just missing a very elusive +recollection. He gave up the pursuit in the end. "Well, Jim, you +had better take the two letters of Waberski, and Ann Upcott's +three-volume novel, and Betty's telegram"--he gathered the papers +together and enclosed them in a long envelope--"and I shall expect +you back again with a smiling face in a very few days. I should like +to see our little Boris when he is asked to explain those letters." + +Mr. Haslitt gave the envelope to Jim and rang his bell. + +"There is some one waiting to see me, I think," he said to the clerk +who answered it. + +The clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking his heels +during the last half-hour in an undusted waiting-room with a few +mouldy old Law books in a battered glass case to keep him company. + +"You can show him in now," said Mr. Haslitt as Jim retired to his own +office; and when the great landowner entered, he merely welcomed him +with a reproach. + +"You didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said. + +But all through that interview, though his advice was just the +precise, clear advice for which the firm was quietly famous, Mr. +Haslitt's mind was still playing hide-and-seek with a memory, +catching glimpses of the fringes of its skirt as it gleamed and +vanished. + +"Memory is a woman," he said to himself. "If I don't run after her +she will come of her own accord." + +But he was in the common case of men with women: he could not but run +after her. Towards the end of the interview, however, his shoulders +and head moved with a little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip +of paper. As soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent +it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an answer. The +messenger returned within the hour and Mr. Haslitt hurried to Jim +Frobisher's office. + +Jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various clerks and +was locking up the drawers of his desk. + +"Jim, I have remembered where I have heard the name of this man +Hanaud before. You have met Julius Ricardo? He's one of our +clients." + +"Yes," said Frobisher. "I remember him--a rather finnicking person +in Grosvenor Square." + +"That's the man. He's a friend of Hanaud and absurdly proud of the +friendship. He and Hanaud were somehow mixed up in a rather +scandalous crime some time ago--at Aix-les-Bains, I think. Well, +Ricardo will give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you +something about him, if you will go round to Grosvenor Square at five +this afternoon." + +"Capital!" said Jim Frobisher. + +He kept the appointment, and was told how he must expect to be awed +at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly at the next, ridiculed at a +third, and treated with great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. +Jim discounted Mr. Ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter and +crossed the Channel that night. On the journey it occurred to him +that if Hanaud was a man of such high mark, he would not be free, +even at an urgent call, to pack his bags and leave for the provinces +in an instant. Jim broke his journey, therefore, at Paris, and in +the course of the morning found his way to the Direction of the +Sûrété on the Quai d'Horloge just behind the Palais de Justice. + +"Monsieur Hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter took his card and +his letter of introduction. The great man was still in Paris, then, +he thought with relief. He was taken to a long dark corridor, lit +with electric globes even on that bright morning of early summer. +There he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for half an +hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. Then a bell rang +and a policeman in plain clothes went up to him. One side of the +corridor was lined with a row of doors. + +"It is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led Frobisher to one +of the doors and opened it, and stood aside. Frobisher straightened +his shoulders and marched in. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE: _Servants of Chance_ + +Frobisher found himself at one end of an oblong room. Opposite to +him a couple of windows looked across the shining river to the big +Théâtre du Chatelet On his left hand was a great table with a few +neatly arranged piles of papers, at which a big, rather heavily-built +man was sitting. Frobisher looked at that man as a novice in a +duelling field might look at the master swordsman whom he was +committed to fight; with a little shock of surprise that after all he +appeared to be just like other men. Hanaud, on his side, could not +have been said to have looked at Frobisher at all; yet when he spoke +it was obvious that somehow he had looked and to very good purpose. +He rose with a little bow and apologised. + +"I have kept you waiting, Mr. Frobisher. My dear friend Mr. Ricardo +did not mention your object in his letter. I had the idea that you +came with the usual wish to see something of the underworld. Now +that I see you, I recognise your wish is more serious." + +Hanaud was a man of middle age with a head of thick dark hair, and +the round face and shaven chin of a comedian. A pair of remarkably +light eyes under rather heavy lids alone gave a significance to him, +at all events when seen for the first time in a mood of good-will. +He pointed to a chair. + +"Will you take a seat? I will tell you, Mr. Frobisher, I have a very +soft place in my heart for Mr. Ricardo, and a friend of his---- +These are words, however. What can I do?" + +Jim Frobisher laid down his hat and stick upon a side table and took +the chair in front of Hanaud's table. + +"I am partner in a firm of lawyers which looks after the English +interests of a family in Dijon," he said, and he saw all life and +expression smoothed out of Hanaud's face. A moment ago he had been +in the company of a genial and friendly companion; now he was looking +at a Chinaman. + +"Yes?" said Hanaud. + +"The family has the name of Harlowe," Jim continued. + +"Oho!" said Hanaud. + +The ejaculation had no surprise in it, and hardly any interest. Jim, +however, persisted. + +"And the surviving member of it, a girl of twenty, Betty Harlowe, has +been charged with murder by a Russian who is connected with the +family by marriage--Boris Waberski." + +"Aha!" said Hanaud. "And why do you come to me, Mr. Frobisher?" + +Jim stared at the detective. The reason of his coming was obvious. + +And yet--he was no longer sure of his ground. Hanaud had pulled open +a drawer in his table and was beginning to put away in it one of his +files. + +"Yes?" he said, as who should say, "I am listening." + +"Well, perhaps I am under a mistake," said Jim. "But my firm has +been informed that you, Monsieur Hanaud, are in charge of the case," +he said, and Hanaud's movements were at once arrested. He sat with +the file poised on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, +extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that he was +more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the file into the drawer and +closed the drawer softly. As softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice +which to Frobisher's ears had a note in it which was actually +alarming. + +"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! And in London! +And--yes--this is only Wednesday! News travels very quickly +nowadays, to be sure! Well, your firm has been correctly informed. +I congratulate you. The first point is scored by you." + +Jim Frobisher was quick to seize upon that word. He had thought out +upon his journey in what spirit he might most usefully approach the +detective. Hanaud's bitter little remark gave him the very opening +which he needed. + +"But, Monsieur Hanaud, I don't take that point of view at all," he +argued earnestly. "I am happy to believe that there is going to be +no antagonism between us. For, if there were, I should assuredly get +the worst of it. No! I am certain that the one wish you have in +this matter is to get at the truth. Whilst my wish is that you +should just look upon me as a very second-rate colleague who by good +fortune can give you a little help." + +A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it to some of its +geniality. + +"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a trowel," he +observed. "Now, what kind of help, Mr. Frobisher?" + +"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters from Boris Waberski +demanding money, the second one with threats. Both were received by +my firm before he brought this charge, and both of course remain +unanswered." + +He took the letters from the long envelope and handed them across the +table to Hanaud, who read them through slowly, mentally translating +the phrases into French as he read. Frobisher watched his face for +some expression of relief or satisfaction. But to his utter +disappointment no such change came; and it was with a deprecating and +almost regretful air that Hanaud turned to him in the end. + +"Yes--no doubt these two letters have a certain importance. But we +mustn't exaggerate it. The case is very difficult." + +"Difficult!" cried Jim in exasperation. He seemed to be hammering +and hammering in vain against some thick wall of stupidity. Yet this +man in front of him wasn't stupid. + +"I can't understand it!" he exclaimed. "Here's the clearest instance +of blackmail that I can imagine----" + +"Blackmail's an ugly word, Mr. Frobisher," Hanaud warned him. + +"And blackmail's an ugly thing," said Jim. "Come, Monsieur Hanaud, +Boris Waberski lives in France. You will know something about him. +You will have a dossier." + +Hanaud pounced upon the word with a little whoop of delight, his face +broke into smiles, he shook a forefinger gleefully at his visitor. + +"Ah, ah, ah, ah! A dossier! Yes, I was waiting for that word! The +great legend of the dossiers! You have that charming belief too, Mr. +Frobisher. France and her dossiers! Yes. If her coal-mines fail +her, she can always keep warm by burning her dossiers! The moment +you land for the first time at Calais--bourn! your dossier begins, +eh? You travel to Paris--so! You dine at the Ritz Hotel--so! +Afterwards you go where you ought not to go--so-o-o! And you go back +late to the hotel very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that +somewhere in the still night six little officials with black beards +and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your dossier. +But--wait!" + +He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his lips, and his +eyes opened wide. Never was a man so mysterious, so important in his +mystery. He stole on tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so +bulky a man, to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an +alert, bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the +handle. Then he jerked the door swiftly inwards towards him. It was +the classic detection of the eavesdropper, seen in a hundred comedies +and farces; and carried out with so excellent a mimicry that Jim, +even in this office of the Sûrété, almost expected to see a flustered +chambermaid sprawl heavily forward on her knees. He saw nothing, +however, but a grimy corridor lit with artificial light in which men +were patiently waiting. Hanaud closed the door again, with an air of +intense relief. + +"The Prime Minister has not overheard us. We are safe," he hissed, +and he crept back to Frobisher's side. He stooped and whispered in +the ear of that bewildered man: + +"I can tell you about those dossiers. They are for nine-tenths the +gossip of the _concièrge_ translated into the language of a policeman +who thinks that everybody had better be in prison. Thus, the +_concièrge_ says: This Mr. Frobisher--on Tuesday he came home at one +in the morning and on Thursday at three in fancy dress; and in the +policeman's report it becomes, 'Mr. Frobisher is of a loose and +excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier--yes, my friend, +just so! But here in the Sûrété--never breathe a word of it, or you +ruin me!--here we are like your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the +fingers at those dossiers.'" + +Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To change from one +mood to another required a progression of ideas. He hardly knew for +the moment whether he was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago +Hanaud had been the grave agent of Justice; without a hint he had +leaped to buffoonery, and with a huge enjoyment. He had become half +urchin, half clown. Jim could almost hear the bells of his cap still +tinkling. He simply stared, and Hanaud with a rueful smile resumed +his seat. + +"If we work together at Dijon, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with +whimsical regret, "I shall not enjoy myself as I did with my dear +little friend Mr. Ricardo at Aix. No, indeed! Had I made this +little pantomime for him, he would have sat with the eyes popping out +of his head. He would have whispered, 'The Prime Minister comes in +the morning to spy outside your door--oh!' and he would have been +thrilled to the marrow of his bones. But you--you look at me all +cold and stony, and you say to yourself, 'This Hanaud, he is a +comic!'" + +"No," said Jim earnestly, and Hanaud interrupted the protest with a +laugh. + +"It does not matter." + +"I am glad," said Jim. "For you just now said something which I am +very anxious you should not withdraw. You held me out a hope that we +should work together." Hanaud leaned forward with his elbows on his +desk. + +"Listen," he said genially. "You have been frank and loyal with me. +So I relieve your mind. This Waberski affair--the Prefect at Dijon +does not take it very seriously; neither do I here. It is, of +course, a charge of murder, and that has to be examined with care." + +"Of course." + +"And equally, of course, there is some little thing behind it," +Hanaud continued, surprising Frobisher with the very words which Mr. +Haslitt had used the day before, though the one spoke in English and +the other in French. "As a lawyer you will know that. Some little +unpleasant fact which is best kept to ourselves. But it is a simple +affair, and with these two letters you have brought me, simpler than +ever. We shall ask Waberski to explain these letters and some other +things too, if he can. He is a type, that Boris Waberski! The body +of Madame Harlowe will be exhumed to-day and the evidence of the +doctors taken, and afterwards, no doubt, the case will be dismissed +and you can deal with Waberski as you please." + +"And that little secret?" asked Jim. + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. + +"No doubt it will come to light. But what does that matter if it +only comes to light in the office of the examining magistrate, and +does not pass beyond the door?" + +"Nothing at all," Jim agreed. + +"You will see. We are not so alarming after all, and your little +client can put her pretty head upon the pillow without any fear that +an injustice will be done to her." + +"Thank you, Monsieur Hanaud!" Jim Frobisher cried warmly. He was +conscious of so great a relief that he himself was surprised by it. +He had been quite captured by his pity for that unknown girl in the +big house, set upon by a crazy rascal and with no champion but +another girl of her own years. "Yes, this is good news to me." + +But he had hardly finished speaking before a doubt crept into his +mind as to the sincerity of the man sitting opposite to him. Jim did +not mean to be played and landed like a silly fish, however +inexperienced he might be. He looked at Hanaud and wondered. Was +this present geniality of his any less assumed than his other moods? +Jim was unsettled in his estimate of the detective. One moment a +judge, and rather implacable, now an urchin, now a friend! Which was +travesty and which truth? Luckily there was a test question which +Mr. Haslitt had put only yesterday as he looked out from the window +across Russell Square. Jim now repeated it. + +"The affair is simple, you say?" + +"Of the simplest." + +"Then how comes it, Monsieur Hanaud, that the examining judge at +Dijon still finds it necessary to call in to his assistance one of +the chiefs of the Sûrété of Paris?" + +The question was obviously expected, and no less obviously difficult +to answer. Hanaud nodded his head once or twice. + +"Yes," he said, and again "Yes," like a man in doubt. He looked at +Jim with appraising eyes. Then with a rush, "I shall tell you +everything, and when I have told you, you will give me your word that +you will not betray my confidence to any one in this world. For this +is serious." + +Jim could not doubt Hanaud's sincerity at this moment, nor his +friendliness. They shone in the man like a strong flame. + +"I give you my word now," he said, and he reached out his hand across +the table. Hanaud shook it. "I can talk to you freely, then," he +answered, and he produced a little blue bundle of very black +cigarettes. "You shall smoke." + +The two men lit their cigarettes and through the blue cloud Hanaud +explained: + +"I go really to Dijon on quite another matter. This Waberski affair, +it is a pretence! The examining judge who calls me in--see, now, you +have a phrase for him," and Hanaud proudly dropped into English more +or less. "He excuse his face! Yes, that is your expressive idiom. +He excuse his face, and you will see, my friend, that it needs a lot +of excusing, that face of his, yes. Now listen! I get hot when I +think of that examining judge." + +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, setting his sentence +in order, resumed in French. + +"The little towns, my friend, where life is not very gay and people +have the time to be interested in the affairs of their neighbours, +have their own crimes, and perhaps the most pernicious of them all is +the crime of anonymous letters. Suddenly out of a clear sky they +will come like a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute +and--who knows?--sometimes perhaps true. For a while these +abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a word is said. If +money is demanded, money is paid. If it is only sheer wickedness +which drives that unknown pen, those who are lashed by it none the +less hold their tongues. But each one begins to suspect his +neighbour. The social life of the town is poisoned. A great canopy +of terror hangs over it, until the postman's knock, a thing so +welcome in the sane life of every day, becomes a thing to shiver at, +and in the end dreadful things happen." + +So grave and quiet was the tone which Hanaud used that Jim himself +shivered, even in this room whence he could see the sunlight +sparkling on the river and hear the pleasant murmur of the Paris +streets. Above that murmur he heard the sharp knock of the postman +upon the door. He saw a white face grow whiter and still eyes grow +haggard with despair. + +"Such a plague has descended upon Dijon," Hanaud continued. "For +more than a year it has raged. The police would not apply to Paris +for help. No, they did not need help, they would solve this pretty +problem for themselves. Yes, but the letters go on and the citizens +complain. The police say, 'Hush! The examining magistrate, he has a +clue. Give him time!' But the letters still go on. Then after a +year comes this godsend of the Waberski affair. At once the Prefect +of Police and the magistrate put their heads together. 'We will send +for Hanaud over this simple affair, and he will find for us the +author of the anonymous letters. We will send for him very +privately, and if any one recognises him in the street and cries +"There is Hanaud," we can say he is investigating the Waberski +affair. Thus the writer of the letters will not be alarmed and +we--we excuse our faces.' Yes," concluded Hanaud heatedly, "but they +should have sent for me a year ago. They have lost a year." + +"And during that year the dreadful things have happened?" asked Jim. + +Hanaud nodded angrily. + +"An old, lonely man who lunches at the hotel and takes his coffee at +the Grande Taverne and does no harm to any one, he flings himself in +front of the Mediterranean express and is cut to pieces. A pair of +lovers shoot themselves in the Forêt des Moissonières. A young girl +comes home from a ball; she says good night to her friends gaily on +the doorstep of her house, and in the morning she is found hanging in +her ball dress from a rivet in the wall of her bedroom, whilst in the +hearth there are the burnt fragments of one of these letters. How +many had she received, that poor girl, before this last one drove her +to this madness? Ah, the magistrate. Did I not tell you? He has +need to excuse his face." + +Hanaud opened a drawer in his desk and took from it a green cover. + +"See, here are two of those precious letters," and removing two +typewritten sheets from the cover he handed them to Frobisher. +"Yes," he added, as he saw the disgust on the reader's face, "those +do not make a nice sauce for your breakfast, do they?" + +"They are abominable," said Jim. "I wouldn't have believed----" he +broke off with a little cry. "One moment, Monsieur Hanaud!" He bent +his head again over the sheets of paper, comparing them, scrutinising +each sentence. No, there were only the two errors which he had +noticed at once. But what errors they were! To any one, at all +events, with eyes to see and some luck in the matter of experience. +Why, they limited the area of search at once! + +"Monsieur Hanaud, I can give you some more help," he cried +enthusiastically. He did not notice the broad grin of delight which +suddenly transfigured the detective's face. "Help which may lead you +very quickly to the writer of these letters." + +"You can?" Hanaud exclaimed. "Give it to me, my young friend. Do +not keep me shaking in excitement. And do not--oh! do not tell me +that you have discovered that the letters were typed upon a Corona +machine. For that we know already." + +Jim Frobisher flushed scarlet. That is just what he had noticed with +so much pride in his perspicuity. Where the text of a sentence +required a capital D, there were instead the two noughts with the +diagonal line separating them (thus, %), which are the symbol of "per +cent."; and where there should have been a capital S lower down the +page, there was the capital S with the transverse lines which stands +for dollars. Jim was familiar with the Corona machine himself, and +he had remembered that if one used by error the stop for figures, +instead of the stop for capital letters, those two mistakes would +result. He realised now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of +him--Hanaud was the urchin now--that the Sûrété was certain not to +have overlooked those two indications even if the magistrate at Dijon +had; and in a moment he began to laugh too. + +"Well, I fairly asked for it, didn't I?" he said as he handed the +letter back. "I said a wise thing to you, Monsieur, when I held it +fortunate that we were not to be on opposite sides." + +Hanaud's face lost its urchin look. + +"Don't make too much of me, my friend, lest you be disappointed," he +said in all seriousness. "We are the servants of Chance, the very +best of us. Our skill is to seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when +it flashes for the fraction of a second before our eyes." + +He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green cover and laid it +again in the drawer. Then he gathered together the two letters which +Boris Waberski had written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher. + +"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will go there to-day?" + +"This afternoon." + +"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express." + +"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook his head. + +"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay at the same +hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon that you are the +English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and those in your company will be +marked men too. By the way, how were you informed in London that I, +Hanaud, had been put in charge of this case?" + +"We had a telegram," replied Jim. + +"Yes? And from whom? I am curious!" + +"From Miss Harlowe." + +For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that interview quite +disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher could have no doubt. He sat for +so long a time, his cigarette half-way to his lips, a man turned into +stone. Then he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned +on Jim. + +"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "I am +putting to myself a riddle. Answer it if you can! What is the +strongest passion in the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of +these things. It is the passion of one public official to take a +great big club and hit his brother official on the back of the head. +It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon so that I may have +some little chance of success. Good! On Saturday it is so arranged, +and already on Monday my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss +Harlowe can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is +kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?" + +Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it to Hanaud, who +received it with a curious eagerness and opened it out on the table +in front of them. He read it very slowly, so slowly that Jim +wondered whether he too heard through the lines of the telegram, as +through the receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help +which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud raised his face all +the bitterness had gone from it. + +"The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The slender fingers, +they do not snap themselves any longer, eh? Well, in a few days we +make all right for her." + +"Yes," said Jim stoutly. + +"Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?" and Hanaud held up the telegraph +form. "It mentions my name. It will be safe with you, no doubt, but +it serves no purpose. Everything which is torn up here is burnt in +the evening. It is for you to say," and he dangled the telegram +before Jim Frobisher's eyes. + +"By all means," said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram across. Then +he placed the torn pieces together and tore them through once again +and dropped them into his waste-paper basket. "So! That is done!" +he said. "Now tell me! There is another young English girl in the +Maison Crenelle." + +"Ann Upcott," said Jim with a nod. + +"Yes, tell me about her." + +Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made to Mr. Haslitt. + +"I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her until +yesterday." + +But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with amazement, +Hanaud accepted it without comment. + +"Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that young lady at +Dijon," he said with a smile, and he rose from his chair. + +Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which had begun badly +and moved on to cordiality was turning back upon itself and ending +not too well. He was conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud's +manner, not a diminution in his friendliness, but--Jim could find +nothing but Hanaud's own phrase to define the change. He seemed to +have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as it flickered for a +second within his range of vision. But when it had flickered Jim +could not even conjecture. + +He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already at the door with +his hand upon the knob. + +"Good-bye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you sincerely for your +visit." + +"I shall see you in Dijon," said Jim. + +"Surely," Hanaud agreed with a smile. "On many occasions. In the +office, perhaps, of the examining magistrate. No doubt in the Maison +Crenelle." + +But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration which Hanaud +had appeared a few minutes ago not merely to accept, but even to look +forward to. Now, on the contrary, he was evading it. + +"But if we are to work together?" Jim suggested. + +"You might want to reach me quickly," Hanaud continued. "Yes. And I +might want to reach you, if not so quickly, still very secretly. +Yes." He turned the question over in his mind. "You will stay at +the Maison Crenelle, I suppose?" + +"No," said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from Hanaud's little +start of disappointment. "There will be no need for that," he +explained. "Boris Waberski can attempt nothing more. Those two +girls will be safe enough." + +"That's true," Hanaud agreed. "You will go, then, to the big hotel +in the Place Darcy. For me I shall stay in one that is more obscure, +and not under my own name. Whatever chance of secrecy is still left +for me, that I shall cling to." + +He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or the name under +which he proposed to masquerade, and Jim was careful not to inquire. +Hanaud stood with his hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes +thoughtfully resting upon Frobisher's face. + +"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, and a smile +warmed and lit his face to good humour. "Do you like the pictures? +No--yes? For me, I adore them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for +the cinema. I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the +dark--so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a friend, and +when the lights go up we are both gone, and only our empty bocks are +left to show where we were sitting. The cinemas--yes! With their +audiences which constantly change and new people coming in who sit +plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an inch beyond their +noses, the cinemas are useful, I tell you. But you will not betray +my little secret?" + +He ended with a laugh. Jim Frobisher's spirits were quite revived by +this renewal of Hanaud's confidence. He felt with a curious elation +that he had travelled a long way from the sedate dignities of Russell +Square. He could not project in his mind any picture of Messrs. +Frobisher & Haslitt meeting a client in a dark corner of a cinema +theatre off the Marylebone Road. Such manoeuvres were not amongst +the firm's methods, and Jim began to find the change exhilarating. +Perhaps, after all, Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt were a little musty, +he reflected. They missed--and he coined a phrase, he, Jim +Frobisher! ... they missed the ozone of police-work. + +"Of course I'll keep your secret," he said with a thrill in his +voice. "I should never have thought of so capital a meeting-place." + +"Good," said Hanaud. "Then at nine o'clock each night, unless there +is something serious to prevent me, I shall be sitting in the big +hall of the Grande Taverne. The Grande Taverne is at the corner +across the square from the railway station. You can't mistake it. I +shall be on the left-hand side of the hall and close up to the screen +and at the edge near the billiard-room. Don't look for me when the +lights are raised, and if I am talking to any one else, you will +avoid me like poison. Is that understood?" + +"Quite," Jim returned. + +"And you have now two secrets of mine to keep." Hanaud's face lost +its smile. In some strange way it seemed to sharpen, the +light-coloured eyes became very still and grave. "That also is +understood, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "For I begin to think that +we may both of us see strange things before we leave Dijon again for +Paris." + +The moment of gravity passed. With a bow he held open the door. But +Jim Frobisher, as he passed out into the corridor, was once again +convinced that at some definite point in the interview Hanaud had at +all events caught a glimpse of the flickering skirts of Chance, even +if he had not grasped them in his hands. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR: _Betty Harlowe_ + +Jim Frobisher reached Dijon that night at an hour too late for any +visit, but at half-past nine on the next morning he turned with a +thrill of excitement into the little street of Charles-Robert. This +street was bordered upon one side, throughout its length, by a high +garden wall above which great sycamores and chestnut trees rustled +friendlily in a stir of wind. Towards the farther mouth of the +street the wall was broken, first by the end of a house with a florid +observation-window of the Renaissance period which overhung the +footway; and again a little farther on by a pair of elaborate tall +iron gates. Before these gates Jim came to a standstill. He gazed +into the courtyard of the Maison Crenelle, and as he gazed his +excitement died away and he felt a trifle ashamed of it. There +seemed so little cause for excitement. + +It was a hot, quiet, cloudless morning. On the left-hand side of the +court women-servants were busy in front of a row of offices; at the +end Jim caught glimpses of a chauffeur moving between a couple of +cars in a garage, and heard him whistling gaily as he moved; on the +right stretched the big house, its steep slate roof marked out gaily +with huge diamond patterns of bright yellow, taking in the sunlight +through all its open windows. The hall door under the horizontal +glass fan stood open. One of the iron gates, too, was ajar. Even +the _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers out in the small street +here seemed to be sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the high +wall rather than exercising any real vigilance. It was impossible to +believe, with all this pleasant evidence of normal life, that any +threat was on that house or upon any of its inhabitants. + +"And indeed there is no threat," Jim reflected. "I have Hanaud's +word for it." + +He pushed the gate open and crossed to the front door. An old +serving-man informed him that Mademoiselle Harlowe did not receive, +but he took Jim's card nevertheless, and knocked upon a door on the +right of the big square hall. As he knocked, he opened the door; and +from his position in the hall Jim looked right through a library to a +window at the end and saw two figures silhouetted against the window, +a man and a girl. The man was protesting, rather extravagantly both +in word and gesture, to Jim's Britannic mind, the girl laughing--a +clear, ringing laugh, with just a touch of cruelty, at the man's +protestations. Jim even caught a word or two of the protest spoken +in French, but with a curiously metallic accent. + +"I have been your slave too long," the man cried, and the girl became +aware that the door was open and that the old man stood inside of it +with a card upon a silver salver. She came quickly forward and took +the card. Jim heard the cry of pleasure, and the girl came running +out into the hall. + +"You!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. "I had no right to expect +you so soon. Oh, thank you!" and she gave him both her hands. + +Jim did not need her words to recognise in her the "little girl" of +Mr. Haslitt's description. Little in actual height Betty Harlowe +certainly was not, but she was such a slender trifle of a girl that +the epithet seemed in place. Her hair was dark brown in colour, with +a hint of copper where the light caught it, parted on one side and +very neatly dressed about her small head. The broad forehead and +oval face were of a clear pallor and made vivid the fresh scarlet of +her lips; and the large pupils of her grey eyes gave to her a look +which was at once haunting and wistful. As she held out her hands in +a warm gratitude and seized his, she seemed to him a creature of +delicate flame and fragile as fair china. She looked him over with +one swift comprehensive glance and breathed a little sigh of relief. + +"I shall give you all my troubles to carry from now on," she said, +with a smile. + +"To be sure. That's what I am here for," he answered. "But don't +take me for anything very choice and particular." + +Betty laughed again and, holding him by the sleeve, drew him into the +library. + +"Monsieur Espinosa," she said, presenting the stranger to Jim. "He +is from Cataluna, but he spends so much of his life in Dijon that we +claim him as a citizen." + +The Catalan bowed and showed a fine set of strong white teeth. + +"Yes, I have the honour to represent a great Spanish firm of +wine-growers. We buy the wines here to mix with our better brands, +and we sell wine here to mix with their cheaper ones." + +"You mustn't give your trade secrets away to me," Jim replied +shortly. He disliked Espinosa on sight, as they say, and he was at +no very great pains to conceal his dislike. Espinosa was altogether +too brilliant a personage. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with +black shining hair and black shining eyes, a florid complexion, a +curled moustache, and gleaming rings upon his fingers. + +"Mr. Frobisher has come from London to see me on quite different +business," Betty interposed. + +"Yes?" said the Catalan a little defiantly, as though he meant to +hold his ground. + +"Yes," replied Betty, and she held out her hand to him. Espinosa +raised it reluctantly to his lips and kissed it. + +"I shall see you when you return," said Betty, and she walked to the +door. + +"If I go away," Espinosa replied stubbornly. "It is not certain, +Mademoiselle Betty, that I shall go"; and with a ceremonious bow to +Jim he walked out of the room; but not so quickly but that Betty +glanced swiftly from one man to the other with keen comparing eyes, +and Jim detected the glance. She closed the door and turned back to +Jim with a friendly little grimace which somehow put him in a good +humour. He was being compared to another man to his advantage, and +however modest one may be, such a comparison promotes a pleasant +warmth. + +"More trouble, Miss Harlowe," he said with a smile, "but this time +the sort of trouble which you must expect for a good many years to +come." + +He moved towards her, and they met at one of the two side windows +which looked out upon the courtyard. Betty sat down in the +window-seat. + +"I really ought to be grateful to him," she said, "for he made me +laugh. And it seems to me ages since I laughed"; she looked out of +the window and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. + +"Oh! don't, please," cried Jim in a voice of trouble. + +The smile trembled once more on Betty's lips deliciously. + +"I won't," she replied. + +"I was so glad to hear you laugh," he continued, "after your unhappy +telegram to my partner and before I told you my good news." + +Betty looked up at him eagerly. + +"Good news?" + +Jim Frobisher took once more from his long envelope the two letters +which Waberski had sent to his firm and handed them to Betty. + +"Read them," he said, "and notice the dates." + +Betty glanced at the handwriting. + +"From Monsieur Boris," she cried, and she settled down in the +window-seat to study them. In her short black frock with her slim +legs in their black silk stockings extended and her feet crossed, and +her head and white neck bent over the sheets of Waberski's letters, +she looked to Jim like a girl fresh from school. She was quick +enough, however, to appreciate the value of the letters. + +"Of course I always knew that it was money that Monsieur Boris +wanted," she said. "And when my aunt's will was read and I found +that everything had been left to me, I made up my mind to consult you +and make some arrangement for him." + +"There was no obligation upon you," Jim protested. "He wasn't really +a relation at all. He married Mrs. Harlowe's sister, that's all." + +"I know," replied Betty, and she laughed. "He always objected to me +because I would call him 'Monsieur Boris' instead of 'uncle.' But I +meant to do something nevertheless. Only he gave me no time. He +bullied me first of all, and I do hate being bullied--don't you, Mr. +Frobisher?" + +"I do." + +Betty looked at the letters again. + +"That's when I snapped me the fingers at him, I suppose," she +continued, with a little gurgle of delight in the phrase. +"Afterwards he brought this horrible charge against me, and to have +suggested any arrangement would have been to plead guilty." + +"You were quite right. It would indeed," Jim agreed cordially. + +Up to this moment, a suspicion had been lurking at the back of Jim +Frobisher's mind that this girl had been a trifle hard in her +treatment of Boris Waberski. He was a sponger, a wastrel, with no +real claim upon her, it was true. On the other hand, he had no means +of livelihood, and Mrs. Harlowe, from whom Betty drew her fortune, +had been content to endure and support him. Now, however, the +suspicion was laid, the little blemish upon the girl removed and by +her own frankness. + +"Then it is all over," Betty said, handing back the letters to Jim +with a sigh of relief. Then she smiled ruefully--"But just for a +little while I was really frightened," she confessed. "You see, I +was sent for and questioned by the examining magistrate. Oh! I +wasn't frightened by the questions, but by him, the man. I've no +doubt it's his business to look severe, but I couldn't help thinking +that if any one looked as terrifically severe as he did, it must be +because he hadn't any brains and wanted you not to know. And people +without brains are always dangerous, aren't they?" + +"Yes, that wasn't encouraging," Jim agreed. + +"Then he forbade me to use a motor-car, as if he expected me to run +away. And to crown everything, when I came away from the Palais de +Justice, I met some friends outside who gave me a long list of people +who had been condemned and only found to be innocent when it was too +late." + +Jim stared at her. + +"The brutes!" he cried. + +"Well, we have all got friends like that," Betty returned +philosophically. "Mine, however, were particularly odious. For they +actually discussed, as a reason of course, why I should engage the +very best advocate, whether, since Mrs. Harlowe had adopted me, the +charge couldn't be made one of matricide. In which case there could +be no pardon, and I must go to the guillotine with a black veil over +my head and naked feet." She saw horror and indignation in Jim +Frobisher's face and she reached out a hand to him. + +"Yes. Malice in the provinces is apt to be a little blunt, +though"--and she lifted a slim foot in a shining slipper and +contemplated it whimsically--"I don't imagine that, given the +circumstances, I should be bothering my head much as to whether I was +wearing my best shoes and stockings or none at all." + +"I never heard of so abominable a suggestion," cried Jim. + +"You can imagine, at all events, that I came home a little rattled," +continued Betty, "and why I sent off that silly panicky telegram. I +would have recalled it when I rose to the surface again. But it was +then too late. The telegram had----" + +She broke off abruptly with a little rise of inflexion and a sharp +indraw of her breath. + +"Who is that?" she asked in a changed voice. She had been speaking +quietly and slowly, with an almost humorous appreciation of the +causes of her fear. Now her question was uttered quickly and anxiety +was predominant in her voice. "Yes, who is that?" she repeated. + +A big, heavily built man sauntering past the great iron gates had +suddenly whipped into the courtyard. A fraction of a second before +he was an idler strolling along the path, now he was already +disappearing under the big glass fan of the porch. + +"It's Hanaud," Jim replied, and Betty rose to her feet as though a +spring in her had been released, and stood swaying. + +"You have nothing to fear from Hanaud," Jim Frobisher reassured her. +"I have shown him those two letters of Waberski. From first to last +he is your friend. Listen. This is what he said to me only +yesterday in Paris." + +"Yesterday, in Paris?" Betty asked suddenly. + +"Yes, I called upon him at the Sûrété. These were his words. I +remembered them particularly so that I could repeat them to you just +as they were spoken. 'Your little client can lay her pretty head +upon her pillow confident that no injustice will be done to her.'" + +The bell of the front door shrilled through the house as Jim finished. + +"Then why is he in Dijon? Why is he at the door now?" Betty asked +stubbornly. + +But that was the one question which Jim must not answer. He had +received a confidence from Hanaud. He had pledged his word not to +betray it. For a little while longer Betty must believe that +Waberski's accusation against her was the true reason of Hanaud's +presence in Dijon, and not merely an excuse for it. + +"Hanaud acts under orders," Jim returned. "He is here because he was +bidden to come"; and to his relief the answer sufficed. In truth, +Betty's thoughts were diverted to some problem to which he had not +the key. + +"So you called upon Monsieur Hanaud in Paris," she said, with a warm +smile. "You have forgotten nothing which could help me." She laid a +hand upon the sill of the open window. "I hope that he felt all the +flattery of my panic-stricken telegram to London." + +"He was simply regretful that you should have been so distressed." + +"So you showed him the telegram?" + +"And he destroyed it. It was my excuse for calling upon him with the +letters." + +Betty sat down again on the window-seat and lifted a finger for +silence. Outside the door voices were speaking. Then the door was +opened and the old man-servant entered. He carried this time no card +upon a salver, but he was obviously impressed and a trifle flustered. + +"Mademoiselle," he began, and Betty interrupted him. All trace of +anxiety had gone from her manner. She was once more mistress of +herself. + +"I know, Gaston. Show Monsieur Hanaud in at once." + +But Monsieur Hanaud was already in. He bowed with a pleasant +ceremony to Betty Harlowe and shook hands cordially with Jim +Frobisher. + +"I was delighted as I came through the court, Mademoiselle, to see +that my friend here was already with you. For he will have told you +that I am not, after all, the ogre of the fairy-books." + +"But you never looked up at the windows once," cried Betty in +perplexity. + +Hanaud smiled gaily. + +"Mademoiselle, it is in the technique of my trade never to look up at +windows and yet to know what is going on behind them. With your +permission?" And he laid his hat and cane upon a big writing-table +in the middle of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE: _Betty Harlowe Answers_ + +"But we cannot see even through the widest of windows," Hanaud +continued, "what happened behind them a fortnight ago. In those +cases, Mademoiselle, we have to make ourselves the nuisance and ask +the questions." + +"I am ready to answer you," returned Betty quietly. + +"Oh, of that--not a doubt," Hanaud cried genially. "Is it permitted +to me to seat myself? Yes?" + +Betty jumped up, the pallor of her face flushed to pink. + +"I beg your pardon. Of course, Monsieur Hanaud." + +That little omission in her manners alone showed Jim Frobisher that +she was nervous. But for it, he would have credited her with a +self-command almost unnatural in her years. + +"It is nothing," said Hanaud with a smile. "After all, we are--the +gentlest of us--disturbing guests." He took a chair from the side of +the table and drew it up close so that he faced Betty. But whatever +advantage was to be gained from the positions he yielded to her. For +the light from the window fell in all its morning strength upon his +face, whilst hers was turned to the interior of the room. + +"So!" he said as he sat down. "Mademoiselle, I will first give you a +plan of our simple procedure, as at present I see it. The body of +Madame Harlowe was exhumed the night before last in the presence of +your notary." + +Betty moved suddenly with a little shiver of revolt. + +"I know," he continued quickly. "These necessities are distressing. +But we do Madame Harlowe no hurt, and we have to think of the living +one, you, Miss Betty Harlowe, and make sure that no suspicion shall +rest upon you--no, not even amongst your most loyal friends. Isn't +that so? Well, next, I put my questions to you here. Then we wait +for the analyst's report. Then the Examining Magistrate will no +doubt make you his compliments, and I, Hanaud, will, if I am lucky, +carry back with me to that dull Paris, a signed portrait of the +beautiful Miss Harlowe against my heart." + +"And that will be all?" cried Betty, clasping her hands together in +her gratitude. + +"For you, Mademoiselle, yes. But for our little Boris--no!" Hanaud +grinned with a mischievous anticipation. "I look forward to half an +hour with that broken-kneed one. I shall talk to him and I shall not +be dignified--no, not at all. I shall take care, too, that my good +friend Monsieur Frobisher is not present. He would take from me all +my enjoyment. He would look at me all prim like my maiden aunt and +he would say to himself, 'Shocking! Oh, that comic! What a fellow! +He is not proper.' No, and I shall not be proper. But, on the other +hand, I will laugh all the way from Dijon to Paris." + +Monsieur Hanaud had indeed begun to laugh already and Betty suddenly +joined in with him. Hers was a clear, ringing laugh of enjoyment, +and Jim fancied himself once more in the hall hearing that laughter +come pealing through the open door. + +"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Hanaud. "You can laugh, Mademoiselle, +even at my foolishnesses. You must keep Monsieur Frobisher here in +Dijon and not let him return to London until he too has learnt that +divinest of the arts." + +Hanaud hitched his chair a little nearer, and a most uncomfortable +image sprang at once into Jim Frobisher's mind. Just so, with light +words and little jokes squeezed out to tenuity, did doctors hitch up +their chairs to the bedsides of patients in a dangerous case. It +took quite a few minutes of Hanaud's questions before that image +entirely vanished from his thoughts. + +"Good!" said Hanaud. "Now let us to business and get the facts all +clear and ordered!" + +"Yes," Jim agreed, and he too hitched his chair a little closer. It +was curious, he reflected, how little he did know of the actual facts +of the case. + +"Now tell me, Mademoiselle! Madame Harlowe died, so far as we know, +quite peacefully in her bed during the night." + +"Yes," replied Betty. + +"During the night of April the 27th?" + +"Yes." + +"She slept alone in her room that night?" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"That was her rule?" + +"Yes." + +"I understand Madame Harlowe's heart had given her trouble for some +time." + +"She had been an invalid for three years." + +"And there was a trained nurse always in the house?" + +"Yes." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"Now tell me, Mademoiselle, where did this nurse sleep? Next door to +Madame?" + +"No. A bedroom had been fitted up for her on the same floor but at +the end of the passage." + +"And how far away was this bedroom?" + +"There were two rooms separating it from my aunt's." + +"Large rooms?" + +"Yes," Betty explained. "These rooms are on the ground-floor, and +are what you would call reception-rooms. But, since Madame's heart +made the stairs dangerous for her, some of them were fitted up +especially for her use." + +"Yes, I see," said Hanaud. "Two big reception-rooms between, eh? +And the walls of the house are thick. It is not difficult to see +that it was not built in these days. I ask you this, Mademoiselle. +Would a cry from Madame Harlowe at night, when all the house was +silent, be heard in the nurse's room?" + +"I am very sure that it would not," Betty returned. "But there was a +bell by Madame's bed which rang in the nurse's room. She had hardly +to lift her arm to press the button." + +"Ah!" said Hanaud. "A bell specially fitted up?" + +"Yes." + +"And the button within reach of the fingers. Yes. That is all very +well, if one does not faint, Mademoiselle. But suppose one does! +Then the bell is not very useful. Was there no room nearer which +could have been set aside for the nurse?" + +"There was one next to my aunt's room, Monsieur Hanaud, with a +communicating door." + +Hanaud was puzzled and sat back in his chair. Jim Frobisher thought +the time had come for him to interpose. He had been growing more and +more restless as the catechism progressed. He could not see any +reason why Betty, however readily and easily she answered, should be +needlessly pestered. + +"Surely, Monsieur Hanaud," he said, "it would save a deal of time if +we paid a visit to these rooms and saw them for ourselves." + +Hanaud swung round like a thing on a swivel. Admiration beamed in +his eyes. He gazed at his junior colleague in wonder. + +"But what an idea!" he cried enthusiastically. "What a fine idea! +How ingenious! How difficult to conceive! And it is you, Monsieur +Frobisher, who have thought of it! I make you my distinguished +compliments!" Then all his enthusiasm declined into lassitude. "But +what a pity!" + +Hanaud waited intently for Jim to ask for an explanation of that +sigh, but Jim simply got red in the face and refused to oblige. He +had obviously made an asinine suggestion and was being rallied for it +in front of the beautiful Betty Harlowe, who looked to him for her +salvation; and on the whole he thought Hanaud to be a rather +insufferable person as he sat there brightly watching for some second +inanity. Hanaud in the end had to explain. + +"We should have visited those rooms before now, Monsieur Frobisher. +But the Commissaire of Police has sealed them up and without his +presence we must not break the seals." + +An almost imperceptible movement was made by Betty Harlowe in the +window; an almost imperceptible smile flickered for the space of a +lightning-flash upon her lips; and Jim saw Hanaud stiffen like a +watch-dog when he hears a sound at night. + +"You are amused, Mademoiselle?" he asked sharply. + +"On the contrary, Monsieur." + +And the smile reappeared upon her face and was seen to be what it +was, pure wistfulness. "I had a hope those great seals with their +linen bands across the doors were all now to be removed. It is +fanciful, no doubt, but I have a horror of them. They seem to me +like an interdict upon the house." + +Hanaud's manner changed in an instant. + +"That I can very well understand, Mademoiselle," he said, "and I will +make it my business to see that those seals are broken. Indeed, +there was no great use in affixing them, since they were only affixed +when the charge was brought and ten days after Madame Harlowe died." +He turned to Jim. "But we in France are all tied up in red tape, +too. However, the question at which I am driving does not depend +upon any aspect of the rooms. It is this, Mademoiselle," and he +turned back to Betty. + +"Madame Harlowe was an invalid with a nurse in constant attendance. +How is it that the nurse did not sleep in that suitable room with the +communicating-door? Why must she be where she could hear no cry, no +sudden call?" + +Betty nodded her head. Here was a question which demanded an answer. +She leaned forward, choosing her words with care. + +"Yes, but for that, Monsieur, you must understand something of Madame +my aunt and put yourself for a moment in her place. She would have +it so. She was, as you say, an invalid. For three years she had not +gone beyond the garden except in a private saloon once a year to +Monte Carlo. But she would not admit her malady. No, she was in her +mind strong and a fighter. She was going to get well, it was always +a question of a few weeks with her, and a nurse in her uniform always +near with the door open, as though she were in the last stages of +illness--that distressed her." Betty paused and went on again. "Of +course, when she had some critical attack, the nurse was moved. I +myself gave the order. But as soon as the attack subsided, the nurse +must go. Madame would not endure it." + +Jim understood that speech. Its very sincerity gave him a glimpse of +the dead woman, made him appreciate her tough vitality. She would +not give in. She did not want the paraphernalia of malady always +about her. No, she would sleep in her own room, and by herself, like +other women of her age. Yes, Jim understood that and believed every +word that Betty spoke. Only--only--she was keeping something back. +It was that which troubled him. What she said was true, but there +was more to be said. There had been hesitation in Betty's speech, +too nice a choice of words and then suddenly a little rush of phrases +to cover up the hesitations. He looked at Hanaud, who was sitting +without a movement and with his eyes fixed upon Betty's face, +demanding more from her by his very impassivity. They were both, Jim +felt sure, upon the edge of that little secret which, according to +Haslitt as to Hanaud was always at the back of such wild charges as +Waberski brought--the little shameful family secret which must be +buried deep from the world's eyes. And while Jim was pondering upon +this explanation of Betty's manner, he was suddenly startled out of +his wits by a passionate cry which broke from her lips. + +"Why do you look at me like that?" she cried to Hanaud, her eyes +suddenly ablaze in her white face and her lips shaking. Her voice +rose to a challenge. + +"Do you disbelieve me, Monsieur Hanaud?" + +Hanaud raised his hands in protest. He leaned back in his chair. +The vigilance of his eyes, of his whole attitude, was relaxed. + +"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he said with a good deal of +self-reproach. "I do not disbelieve you. I was listening with both +my ears to what you said, so that I might never again have to trouble +you with my questions. But I should have remembered, what I forgot, +that for a number of days you have been living under a heavy strain. +My manner was at fault." + +The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back in the corner +of the window-seat, her head resting against the side of the sash and +her face a little upturned. + +"You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud," she returned. +"It is I who should beg your pardon. For I was behaving like a +hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go on with your questions?" + +"Yes," Hanaud replied gently. "It is better that we finish with them +now. Let us come back to the night of the twenty-seventh!" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"Madame was in her usual health that night--neither better nor worse." + +"If anything a little better," returned Betty. + +"So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a dance given +by some friends of yours?" + +Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house on that fatal +night. Here was a new point in her favour. "A dance!" he cried, and +Hanaud lifted his hand. + +"If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!" he said. "Let Mademoiselle +speak!" + +"I did not hesitate," Betty explained. "The life of the household +had to go on normally. It would never have done for me to do unusual +things. Madame was quick to notice. I think that although she would +not admit that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind she +suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not to alarm her." + +"By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a dance to which +she knew that you had meant to go?" said Hanaud. "Yes, Mademoiselle. +I quite understand that." + +He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with a smile, "Ah, you +did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. No, nor our friend Boris +Waberski, I think. Or he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of +Police in such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her +friends on this night when she is supposed to be committing the most +monstrous of crimes. By the way, Mademoiselle, where was Boris +Waberski on the night of the 27th?" + +"He was away," returned Betty. "He went away on the 25th to fish for +trout at a village on the River Ouche, and he did not come back until +the morning of the 28th." + +"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What a type that fellow! Let us hope he +had a better landing-net for his trout than the one he prepared so +hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. Otherwise his three days' sport +cannot have amounted to much." + +His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon Betty's face and +then he swept back to his questions. + +"So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?" + +"At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers." + +"And at what hour did you go?" + +"I left this house at five minutes to nine." + +"You are sure of the hour?" + +"Quite," said Betty. + +"Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?" + +"Yes," Betty answered. "I went to her room just before I left. She +took her dinner in bed, as she often did. I was wearing for the +dance a new frock which I had bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and +I went to her room to show her how I looked in it." + +"Was Madame alone?" + +"No; the nurse was with her." + +And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance of cunning. + +"I knew that, Mademoiselle," he declared with a friendly grin. "See, +I set a little trap for you. For I have here the evidence of the +nurse herself, Jeanne Baudin." + +He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon which a paragraph +was typed. "Yes, the examining magistrate sent for her and took her +statement." + +"I didn't know that," said Betty. "Jeanne left us the day of the +funeral and went home. I have not seen her since." + +She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile of +appreciation. + +"I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide from you, +Monsieur Hanaud," she said admiringly. "I do not think that I should +be able to hide it for long." + +Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, to Jim +Frobisher's thinking, rather like a very vulgar novice. + +"You are wise, Mademoiselle," he exclaimed. "For, after all, I am +Hanaud. There is only one," and he thumped his chest and beamed +delightedly. "Heavens, these are politenesses! Let us get on. This +is what the nurse declared," and he read aloud from his sheet of +paper: + +"Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame might admire her in +her new frock of silver tissue and her silver slippers. Mademoiselle +arranged the pillows and saw that Madame had her favourite books and +her drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, and with +her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she tripped out of the room. +As soon as the door was closed, Madame said to me----" and Hanaud +broke off abruptly. "But that does not matter," he said in a hurry. + +Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward. + +"Does it not, Monsieur?" she asked, her eyes fixed upon his face, and +the blood mounting slowly into her pale cheeks. + +"No," said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet of paper. + +"What does the nurse report that Madame said to her about me, as soon +as the door was closed?" Betty asked, measuring out her words with a +slow insistence. "Come, Monsieur! I have a right to know," and she +held out her hand for the paper. + +"You shall judge for yourself that it was of no importance," said +Hanaud. "Listen!" and once more he read. + +"Madame said to me, looking at her clock, 'It is well that +Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not Paris, and unless you +go in time there are no partners for you to dance with.' It was then +ten minutes to nine." + +With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty's hand; and she bent +her head over it swiftly, as though she doubted whether what he had +recited was really written on that sheet, as if she rather trembled +to think what Mrs. Harlowe had said of her after she had gone from +the room. She took only a second or two to glance over the page, but +when she handed it back to him, her manner was quite changed. + +"Thank you," she said with a note of bitterness, and her deep eyes +gleamed with resentment. Jim understood the change and sympathised +with it. Hanaud had spoken of setting a trap when he had set none. +For there was no conceivable reason why she should hesitate to admit +that she had seen Mrs. Harlowe in the presence of the nurse, and +wished her good night before she went to the party. But he had set a +real trap a minute afterwards and into that Betty had straightway +stumbled. He had tricked her into admitting a dread that Mrs. +Harlowe might have spoken of her in disparagement or even in horror +after she had left the bedroom. + +"You must know, Monsieur Hanaud," she explained very coldly, "that +women are not always very generous to one another, and sometimes have +not the imagination--how shall I put it?--to visualise the possible +consequences of things they may say with merely the intention to hurt +and do a little harm. Jeanne Baudin and I were, so far as I ever +knew, good friends, but one is never sure, and when you folded up her +statement in a hurry I was naturally very anxious to hear the rest of +it." + +"Yes, I agree," Jim intervened. "It did look as if the nurse might +have added something malevolent, which could neither be proved nor +disproved." + +"It was a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle," Hanaud replied in a voice +of apology. "We will take care that there shall not be any other." +He looked over the nurse's statement again. + +"It is said here that you saw that Madame had her favourite books and +her drink beside the bed. That is true." + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"What was that drink?" + +"A glass of lemonade." + +"It was placed on a table, I suppose, ready for her every night?" + +"Every night." + +"And there was no narcotic dissolved in it?" + +"None," Betty replied. "If Mrs. Harlowe was restless, the nurse +would give an opium pill and very occasionally a slight injection of +morphia." + +"But that was not done on this night?" + +"Not to my knowledge. If it was done, it was done after my +departure." + +"Very well," said Hanaud, and he folded the paper and put it away in +his pocket. "That is finished with. We have you now out of the +house at five minutes to nine in the evening, and Madame in her bed +with her health no worse than usual." + +"Yes." + +"Good!" Hanaud changed his attitude. "Now let us go over your +evening, Mademoiselle! I take it that you stayed at the house of M. +de Pouillac until you returned home." + +"Yes." + +"You remember with whom you danced? If it was necessary, could you +give me a list of your partners?" + +She rose and, crossing to the writing table, sat down in front of it. +She drew a sheet of paper towards her and took up a pencil. Pausing +now and again to jog her memory with the blunt end of the pencil at +her lips, she wrote down a list of names. + +"These are all, I think," she said, handing the list to Hanaud. He +put it in his pocket. + +"Thank you!" He was all contentment now. Although his questions +followed without hesitation, one upon the other, it seemed to Jim +that he was receiving just the answers which he expected. He had the +air of a man engaged upon an inevitable formality and anxious to get +it completely accomplished, rather than of one pressing keenly a +strict investigation. + +"Now, Mademoiselle, at what hour did you arrive home?" + +"At twenty minutes past one." + +"You are sure of that exact time? You looked at your watch? Or at +the clock in the hall? Or what? How are you sure that you reached +the Maison Crenelle exactly at twenty minutes past one?" + +Hanaud hitched his chair a little more forward, but he had not to +wait a second for the answer. + +"There is no clock in the hall and I had no watch with me," Betty +replied. "I don't like those wrist-watches which some girls wear. I +hate things round my wrists," and she shook her arm impatiently, as +though she imagined the constriction of a bracelet. "And I did not +put my watch in my hand-bag because I am so liable to leave that +behind. So I had nothing to tell me the time when I reached home. I +was not sure that I had not kept Georges--the chauffeur--out a little +later than he cared for. So I made him my excuse, explaining that I +didn't really know how late I was." + +"I see. It was Georges who told you the time at the actual moment of +your arrival?" + +"Yes." + +"And Georges is no doubt the chauffeur whom I saw at work as I +crossed the courtyard?" + +"Yes. He told me that he was glad to see me have a little gaiety, +and he took out his watch and showed it to me with a laugh." + +"This happened at the front door, or at those big iron gates, +Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked. + +"At the front door. There is no lodge-keeper and the gates are left +open when any one is out." + +"And how did you get into the house?" + +"I used my latch-key." + +"Good! All this is very clear." + +Betty, however, was not mollified by Hanaud's satisfaction with her +replies. Although she answered him without delay, her answers were +given mutinously. Jim began to be a little troubled. She should +have met Hanaud half-way; she was imprudently petulant. + +"She'll make an enemy of this man before she has done," he reflected +uneasily. But he glanced at the detective and was relieved. For +Hanaud was watching her with a smile which would have disarmed any +less offended young lady--a smile half friendliness and half +amusement. Jim took a turn upon himself. + +"After all," he argued, "this very imprudence pleads for her better +than any calculation. The guilty don't behave like that." And he +waited for the next stage in the examination with an easy mind. + +"Now we have got you back home and within the Maison Crenelle before +half past one in the morning," resumed Hanaud. "What did you do +then?" + +"I went straight upstairs to my bedroom," said Betty. + +"Was your maid waiting up for you, Mademoiselle?" + +"No; I had told her that I should be late and that I could undress +myself." + +"You are considerate, Mademoiselle. No wonder that your servants +were pleased that you should have a little gaiety." + +Even that advance did not appease the offended girl. + +"Yes?" she asked with a sort of silky sweetness which was more +hostile than any acid rejoinder. But it did not stir Hanaud to any +resentment. + +"When, then, did you first hear of Madame Harlowe's death?" was asked. + +"The next morning my maid Francine came running into my room at seven +o'clock. The nurse Jeanne had just discovered it. I slipped on my +dressing-gown and ran downstairs. As soon as I saw that it was true, +I rang up the two doctors who were in the habit of attending here." + +"Did you notice the glass of lemonade?" + +"Yes. It was empty." + +"Your maid is still with you?" + +"Yes--Francine Rollard. She is at your disposal." + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders and smiled doubtfully. + +"That, if it is necessary at all, can come later. We have the story +of your movements now from you, Mademoiselle, and that is what is +important." + +He rose from his chair. + +"I have been, I am afraid, a very troublesome person, Mademoiselle +Harlowe," he said with a bow. "But it is very necessary for your own +sake that no obscurities should be left for the world's suspicions to +play with. And we are very close to the end of this ordeal." + +Jim had nursed a hope the moment Hanaud rose that this wearing +interview had already ended. Betty, for her part, was indifferent. + +"That is for you to say, Monsieur," she said implacably. + +"Just two points then, and I think, upon reflection, you will +understand that I have asked you no question which is unfair." + +Betty bowed. + +"Your two points, Monsieur." + +"First, then. You inherit, I believe, the whole fortune of Madame?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you expect to inherit it all? Did you know of her will?" + +"No. I expected that a good deal of the money would be left to +Monsieur Boris. But I don't remember that she ever told me so. I +expected it, because Monsieur Boris so continually repeated that it +was so." + +"No doubt," said Hanaud lightly. "As to yourself, was Madame +generous to you during her life." + +The hard look disappeared from Betty's face. It softened to sorrow +and regret. + +"Very," she answered in a low voice. "I had one thousand pounds a +year as a regular allowance, and a thousand pounds goes a long way in +Dijon. Besides, if I wanted more, I had only to ask for it." + +Betty's voice broke in a sob suddenly and Hanaud turned away with a +delicacy for which Jim was not prepared. He began to look at the +books upon the shelves, that she might have time to control her +sorrow, taking down one here, one there, and speaking of them in a +casual tone. + +"It is easy to see that this was the library of Monsieur Simon +Harlowe," he said, and was suddenly brought to a stop. For the door +was thrown open and a girl broke into the room. + +"Betty," she began, and stood staring from one to another of Betty's +visitors. + +"Ann, this is Monsieur Hanaud," said Betty with a careless wave of +her hand, and Ann went white as a sheet. + +Ann! Then this girl was Ann Upcott, thought Jim Frobisher, the girl +who had written to him, the girl, all acquaintanceship with whom he +had twice denied, and he had sat side by side with her, he had even +spoken to her. She swept across the room to him. + +"So you have come!" she cried. "But I knew that you would!" + +Jim was conscious of a mist of shining yellow hair, a pair of +sapphire eyes, and of a face impertinently lovely and most delicate +in its colour. + +"Of course I have come," he said feebly, and Hanaud looked on with a +smile. He had an eye on Betty Harlowe, and the smile said as clearly +as words could say, "That young man is going to have a deal of +trouble before he gets out of Dijon." + + + + +CHAPTER SIX: _Jim Changes His Lodging_ + +The library was a big oblong room with two tall windows looking into +the court, and the observation window thrown out at the end over the +footway of the street. A door in the inner wall close to this window +led to a room behind, and a big open fire-place faced the windows on +the court. For the rest, the walls were lined with high book-shelves +filled with books, except for a vacant space here and there where a +volume had been removed. Hanaud put back in its place the book which +he had been holding in his hand. + +"One can easily see that this is the library of Simon Harlowe, the +collector," he said. "I have always thought that if one only had the +time to study and compare the books which a man buys and reads, one +would more surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But +alas! one never has the time." He turned towards Jim Frobisher +regretfully. "Come and stand with me, Monsieur Frobisher. For even +a glance at the backs of them tells one something." + +Jim took his place by Hanaud's side. + +"Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and +another--pronounce that title for me, if you please." + +Jim read the title of the book on which Hanaud's finger was placed. + +"Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain." + +Hanaud repeated the inscription and moved along. From a shelf at the +level of his breast and just to the left of the window in which Betty +was sitting, he took a large, thinnish volume in a paper cover, and +turned over the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea Enamel. + +"There should be a second volume," said Jim Frobisher with a glance +at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of remarks. He was not paying +any attention to the paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For +he was really engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his +side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some swift look of +understanding as it was exchanged by the two girls, some sign that +they were in a collusion? If so, he was to be disappointed. For +though Betty and Ann were now free from Hanaud's vigilant eye, +neither of them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. +Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. He answered +Jim's suggestion. + +"Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. But this is +complete," he said, and he put back the book in its place. There was +room next to it for another quarto book, so long as it was no +thicker, and Hanaud rested his finger in the vacant place on the +shelf, with his thoughts clearly far away. + +Betty recalled him to his surroundings. + +"Monsieur Hanaud," she said in her quiet voice from her seat in the +window, "there was a second point, you said, on which you would like +to ask me a question." + +"Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it." + +He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood so that he had +both girls in front of him, Betty on his left in the window, Ann +Upcott standing a little apart upon his right, gazing at him with a +look of awe. + +"Have you, Mademoiselle," he asked, "been pestered, since Boris +Waberski brought his accusation, with any of these anonymous letters +which seem to be flying about Dijon?" + +"I have received one," answered Betty, and Ann Upcott raised her +eyebrows in surprise. "It came on Sunday morning. It was very +slanderous, of course, and I should have taken no notice of it but +for one thing. It told me that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming +from Paris to take up the case." + +"Oho!" said Hanaud softly. "And you received this letter on the +Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, Mademoiselle?" + +Betty shook her head. + +"No, Monsieur." + +Hanaud smiled. + +"Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should be +destroyed." + +"No, I didn't," Betty answered. "I kept it. I put it away in a +drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. But that room is +sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. The letter is in the drawer still." + +Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction. + +"It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle," he said contentedly. But +the contentment passed. "So the Commissaire of Police actually +sealed up your private sitting-room. That, to be sure, was going a +little far." + +Betty shrugged her shoulders. + +"It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. And after all +I was accused!" she said bitterly; but Ann Upcott was not satisfied +to leave the matter there. She drew a step nearer to Betty and then +looked at Hanaud. + +"But that is not all the truth," she said. "Betty's room belongs to +that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe's bedroom was arranged. +It is the last room of the suite opening on to the hall, and for that +reason, as the Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to +seal it up with the others." + +"I thank you, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud with a smile. "Yes, that of +course softens his action." He looked whimsically at Betty in the +window-seat. "It has been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend +Mademoiselle Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome +dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I understand, on the +Saturday morning twelve days ago!" + +"Yes, Monsieur," said Ann Upcott. + +"And after the funeral, on your return to this house, the notary +opened and read the will?" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"And in Boris Waberski's presence?" + +"Yes." + +"Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of May, he goes +off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?" + +"Yes." + +"And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous letter?" + +Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in answer. + +"And a little later on the same morning comes the Commissaire, who +seals the doors." + +"At eleven o'clock, to be exact," replied Ann Upcott. + +Hanaud bowed low. + +"You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the precise hour at +which things happen. It is a rare gift, and very useful to people +like myself." + +Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her manner with each +answer that she gave. Now she could laugh outright. + +"I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud," she said. "But alas! I was +born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, a book disarranged, a +clock not keeping time, or even a pin on the carpet--I cannot bear +these things. I notice them at once and I must put them straight. +Yes, it was precisely eleven o'clock when the Commissaire of Police +rang the bell." + +"Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?" Hanaud asked. + +"No. We both of us thought his negligence strange," Ann replied, +"until he informed us that the Examining Magistrate wanted everything +left just as it was." + +Hanaud laughed genially. + +"That was on my account," he explained. "Who could tell what +wonderful things Hanaud might not discover with his magnifying glass +when he arrived from Paris? What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! +What scraps of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, +Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, even +Hanaud would not expect to make any startling discoveries in rooms +which had been open to the whole household for a fortnight since the +crime. However," and he moved towards the door, "since I am here +now----" + +Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. Hanaud stopped +and swung round upon her, swiftly, with his eyes very challenging and +hard. + +"You are going to break those seals now?" she asked with a curious +breathlessness. "Then may I come with you--please, please! It is I +who am accused. I have a right to be present," and her voice rose +into an earnest cry. + +"Calm yourself, Mademoiselle," Hanaud returned gently. "No advantage +will be taken of you. I am going to break no seals. That, as I have +told you, is the right of the Commissaire, who is a magistrate, and +he will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, what I was +going to propose was that Mademoiselle here," and he pointed to Ann, +"should show me the outside of those reception-rooms and the rest of +the house." + +"Of course," said Betty, and she sat down again in the window-seat. + +"Thank you," said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann Upcott. "Shall we +go? And as we go, will you tell me what you think of Boris Waberski?" + +"He has some nerve. I can tell you that, Monsieur Hanaud," Ann +cried. "He actually came back to this house after he had lodged his +charge, and asked me to support him"; and she passed out of the room +in front of Hanaud. + +Jim Frobisher followed the couple to the door and closed it behind +them. The last few minutes had set his mind altogether at rest. The +author of the anonymous letters was the detective's real quarry. His +manner had quite changed when putting his questions about them. The +flamboyancies and the indifference, even his amusement at Betty's +ill-humour had quite disappeared. He had got to business watchfully, +quietly. Jim came back into the room. He took his cigarette-case +from his pocket and opened it. + +"May I smoke?" he asked. As he turned to Betty for permission, a +fresh shock brought his thoughts and words alike to a standstill. +She was staring at him with panic naked in her eyes and her face set +like a tragic mask. + +"He believes me guilty," she whispered. + +"No," said Jim, and he went to her side. But she would not listen. + +"He does. I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was bound to? He +was sent from Paris. He has his reputation to think of. He must +have his victim before he returns." + +Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had only to tell the +real cause which had fetched Hanaud out of Paris and Betty's distress +was gone. But he could not. Every tradition of his life strove to +keep him silent. He dared not even tell her that this charge against +her was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little while +longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. + +"Betty, don't believe that!" he said, with a consciousness of how +weak that phrase was compared with the statement he could have made. +"I was watching Hanaud, listening to him. I am sure that he already +knew the answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he even +knew that Simon Harlowe had a passion for collecting, though not a +word had been said of it. He was asking questions to see how you +would answer them, setting now and then a little trap, as he +admitted----" + +"Yes," said Betty in trembling voice, "all the time he was setting +traps." + +"And every answer that you gave, even your manner in giving them," +Jim continued stoutly, "more and more made clear your innocence." + +"To him?" asked Betty. + +"Yes, to him. I am sure of it." + +Betty Harlowe caught at his arm and held it in both her hands. She +leaned her head against it. Through the sleeve of his coat he felt +the velvet of her cheek. + +"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Jim," and as she pronounced +the name she smiled. She was thanking him not so much for the stout +confidence of his words, as for the comfort which the touch of him +gave to her. + +"Very likely I am making too much of little things," she went on. +"Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur Hanaud. But he lives +amidst crimes and criminals. He must be so used to seeing people +condemned and passing out of sight into blackness and horrors, that +one more or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, +wouldn't seem to matter very much." + +"Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust," Jim Frobisher remarked +gently. + +"Very well, I take it back," she said, and she let his arm go. "All +the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not to him," and she laughed with +an appealing tremor in the laugh which took his heart by storm. + +"Luckily," said he, "you don't have to look to any one," and he had +hardly finished the sentence before Ann Upcott came back alone into +the room. She was about Betty's height and Betty's age and had the +same sort of boyish slenderness and carriage which marks the girls of +this generation. But in other respects, even to the colour of her +clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be from another. She +was dressed in white from her coat to her shoes, and she wore a big +gold hat so that one was almost at a loss to know where her hat ended +and her hair began. + +"And Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. + +"He is prowling about by himself," she replied. "I showed him all +the rooms and who used them, and he said that he would have a look at +them and sent me back to you." + +"Did he break the seals on the reception-rooms?" Betty Harlowe asked. + +"Oh, no," said Ann. "Why, he told us that he couldn't do that +without the Commissaire." + +"Yes, he told us that," Betty remarked dryly. "But I was wondering +whether he meant what he told us." + +"Oh, I don't think Monsieur Hanaud's alarming," said Ann. She gave +Jim Frobisher the impression that at any moment she might call him a +dear old thing. She had quite got over the first little shock which +the announcement of his presence had caused her. "Besides," and she +sat down by the side of Betty in the window-seat and looked with the +frankest confidence at Jim--"besides, we can feel safe now, anyway." + +Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair. That queer look of +aloofness had played him false with Ann Upcott now, as it had already +done with Betty. If these two girls had called on him for help when +a sudden squall found them in an open sailing-boat with the sheet of +the sail made fast, or on the ice-slope of a mountain, or with a +rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest of the Nile, he +would not have shrunk from their trust. But this was quite a +different matter. They were calmly pitting him against Hanaud. + +"You were safe before," he exclaimed. "Hanaud is not your enemy, and +as for me, I have neither experience nor natural gifts for this sort +of work"--and he broke off with a groan. For both the girls were +watching him with a smile of complete disbelief. + +"Good heavens, they think that I am being astute," he reflected, "and +the more I confess my incapacity the astuter they'll take me to be." +He gave up all arguments. "Of course I am absolutely at your +service," he said. + +"Thank you," said Betty. "You will bring your luggage from your +hotel and stay here, won't you?" + +Jim was tempted to accept that invitation. But, on the one hand, he +might wish to see Hanaud at the Grande Taverne; or Hanaud might wish +to see him, and secrecy was to be the condition of such meetings. It +was better that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. + +"I won't put you to so much trouble, Betty," he replied. "There's no +reason in the world that I should. A call over the telephone and in +five minutes I am at your side." + +Betty Harlowe seemed in doubt to press her invitation or not. + +"It looks a little inhospitable in me," she began, and the door +opened, and Hanaud entered the room. + +"I left my hat and stick here," he said. He picked them up and bowed +to the girls. + +"You have seen everything, Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. + +"Everything, Mademoiselle. I shall not trouble you again until the +report of the analysis is in my hands. I wish you a good morning." + +Betty slipped off the window-seat and accompanied him out into the +hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she was seeking to make some +amends for her ill-humour; and when he heard her voice he thought to +detect in it some note of apology. + +"I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense of that +report as soon as possible," she pleaded. "You, better than any one, +will understand that this is a difficult hour for me." + +"I understand very well, Mademoiselle," Hanaud answered gravely. "I +will see to it that the hour is not prolonged." + +Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood together in the +sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon his arm. He wheeled +about quickly. Ann Upcott was at his side with all the liveliness +and even the delicate colour gone from her face, and a wild and +desperate appeal in her eyes. + +"You will come and stay here? Oh, please!" she whispered. + +"I have just refused," he answered. "You heard me." + +"I know," she went on, the words stumbling over one another from her +lips. "But take back your refusal. Do! Oh, I am frightened out of +my wits. I don't understand anything. I am terrified!" And she +clasped her hands together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear +so stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. It robbed +her exquisite face of all its beauty, and made it in a second, +haggard and old. But before he could answer, a stick clattered +loudly upon the pavement of the hall and startled them both like the +crack of a pistol. + +Jim looked through the doorway. Hanaud was stooping to pick up his +cane. Betty made a dive for it, but Hanaud already had it in his +hands. + +"I thank you, Mademoiselle, but I can still touch my toes. Every +morning I do it five times in my pyjamas," and with a laugh he ran +down the couple of steps into the courtyard and with that curiously +quick saunter of his was out into the street of Charles-Robert in a +moment. When Jim turned again to Ann Upcott, the fear had gone from +her face so completely that he could hardly believe his eyes. + +"Betty, he is going to stay," she cried gaily. + +"So I inferred," replied Betty with a curious smile as she came back +into the room. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN: _Exit Waberski_ + +Jim Frobisher neither saw nor heard any more of Hanaud that day. He +fetched his luggage away from the hotel and spent the evening with +Betty Harlowe and Ann Upcott at the Maison Crenelle. They took their +coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, descending to it +by a short flight of stone steps from a great door at the back of the +hall. And by some sort of unspoken compact they avoided all mention +of Waberski's charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the +analyst's report. But the long line of high, shuttered windows just +above their heads, the windows of the reception-rooms, forbade them +to forget the subject, and their conversation perpetually dwindled +down into long silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, +cool and very still; so that the bustle of a bird amongst the leaves +of the sycamores startled them and the rare footsteps of a passer-by +in the little street of Charles-Robert rang out as though they would +wake a dreaming city. Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcott +leaned swiftly forward and stared across the dark lawns and +glimmering paths to the great screen of tall trees, as if her eyes +had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on each occasion +she said nothing and with an almost inaudible sigh sank back in her +chair. + +"Is there a door into the garden from the street?" Frobisher asked, +and Betty answered him. + +"No. There is a passage at the end of the house under the +reception-rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners use. The only +other entrance is through the hall behind us. This old house was +built in days when your house really was your castle and the fewer +the entrances, the more safely you slept." + +The clocks of that city of Clocks clashed out the hour of eleven, +throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards and forwards above the +pinnacles and roof-tops in a sort of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. + +"There's a day gone, at all events," she said, and Ann Upcott agreed +with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed a pitiful thing that these +two girls, to whom each day should be a succession of sparkling hours +all too short, must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that +another of them had passed. + +"It should be the last of the bad days," he said, and Betty turned +swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining in the darkness. + +"Good night, Jim," she said, her voice ever so slightly lingering +like a caress upon his name and she held out her hand. "It's +terribly dull for you, but we are not unselfish enough to let you go. +You see, we are shunned just now--oh, it's natural! To have you with +us means a great deal. For one thing," and there came a little lilt +in her voice, "I shall sleep to-night." She ran up the steps and +stood for a moment against the light from the hall. "A long-legged +slip of a girl, in black silk stockings"--thus Mr. Haslitt had spoken +of her as she was five years ago, and the description fitted her +still. + +"Good night, Betty," said Jim, and Ann Upcott ran past him up the +steps and waved her hand. + +"Good night," said Jim, and with a little twist of her shoulders Ann +followed Betty. She came back, however. She was wearing a little +white frock of _crêpe de Chine_ with white stockings and satin shoes, +and she gleamed at the head of the steps like a slender thing of +silver. + +"You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you?" She pleaded with +a curious anxiety considering the height of the strong walls about +the garden. + +"I will," said Jim, and he wondered why in all this business Ann +Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was high time indeed, that +the long line of windows was thrown open and the interdict raised +from the house and its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden +in the darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would come +to-morrow. In Betty's room above the reception-rooms the light was +still burning behind the latticed shutters of the windows, in spite +of her confidence that she would sleep--yes, and in Ann Upcott's room +too, at the end of the house towards the street. A fury against +Boris Waberski flamed up in him. + +It was late before he himself went into the house and barred the +door, later still before he fell asleep. But once asleep, he slept +soundly, and when he waked, it was to find his shutters thrown wide +to the sunlight, his coffee cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old +servant, in the room. + +"Monsieur Hanaud asked me to tell you he was in the library," he said. + +Jim was out of bed in an instant. + +"Already? What is the time, Gaston?" + +"Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath." He removed the +tray from the table by the bed. "I will bring some fresh coffee." + +"Thank you! And will you please tell Monsieur Hanaud that I will not +be long." + +"Certainly, Monsieur." + +Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down to the library, +where he found Hanaud seated at the big writing-table in the middle +of the room, with a newspaper spread out over the blotting-pad and +placidly reading the news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the +moment Jim appeared. + +"So you left your hotel in the Place Darcy, after all, eh, my friend? +The exquisite Miss Upcott! She had but to sigh out a little prayer +and clasp her hands together, and it was done. Yes, I saw it all +from the hall. What it is to be young! You have those two letters +which Waberski wrote your firm?" + +"Yes," said Jim. He did not think it necessary to explain that +though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was the thought of Betty which +had brought him to the Maison Grenelle. + +"Good! I have sent for him," said Hanaud. + +"To come to this house?" + +"I am expecting him now." + +"That's capital," cried Jim. "I shall meet him, then! The damned +rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped him," and he clenched his +fist and shook it in a joyous anticipation. + +"I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, I beg of you +to place yourself in my hands this morning, Monsieur Frobisher," +Hanaud interposed soberly. "If you confront Waberski at once with +those two letters, at once his accusation breaks down. He will +withdraw it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent +of complaints and reproaches. And I shall get nothing out of him. +That I do not want." + +"But what is there to be got?" Jim asked impatiently. + +"Something perhaps. Perhaps nothing," the detective returned with a +shrug of the shoulders. "I have a second mission in Dijon, as I told +you in Paris." + +"The anonymous letters?" + +"Yes. You were present yesterday when Mademoiselle Harlowe told me +how she learned that I was summoned from Paris upon this case. It +was not, after all, any of my colleagues here who spread the news. +It is even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer of the +letters. And in so difficult a matter I can afford to neglect no +clue. Did Waberski know that I was going to be sent for? Did he +hear that at the Prefecture when he lodged his charge on the Saturday +or from the examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to +whom did he talk between the time when he saw the magistrate and the +time when letters must be posted if they are to be delivered on the +Sunday morning? These are questions I must have the answer to, and +if we at once administer the knock-out with your letters, I shall not +get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You see that." + +Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see Hanaud dealing with +Waberski in the most outrageous of his moods, pouncing and tearing +and trampling with the gibes of a schoolboy and the improprieties of +the gutter. Hanaud indeed had promised him as much. But he found +him now all for restraint and sobriety and more concerned apparently +with the authorship of the anonymous letters than with the righting +of Betty Harlowe. Jim felt that he had been defrauded. + +"But I am to meet this man," he said. "That must not be forgotten." + +"And it shall not be," Hanaud assured him. He led him over to the +door in the inner wall close to the observation window and opened it. + +"See! If you will please to wait in here," and as the disappointment +deepened on Jim's face, he added, "Oh, I do not ask you to shut the +door. No. Bring up a chair to it--so! And keep the door ajar so! +Then you will see and hear and yet not be seen. You are content? +Not very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole time like an +actor. Yes, we all do. But, at all events, you do not throw up your +part," and with a friendly grin he turned back to the table. + +A shuffling step which merged into the next step with a curiously +slovenly sound rose from the courtyard. + +"It was time we made our little arrangements," said Hanaud in an +undertone. "For here comes our hero from the Steppes." + +Jim popped his head through the doorway. + +"Monsieur Hanaud!" he whispered excitedly. "Monsieur Hanaud! It +cannot be wise to leave those windows open on the courtyard. For if +we can hear a footstep so loudly in this room, anything said in this +room will be easily overheard in the court." + +"But how true that is!" Hanaud replied in the same voice and struck +his forehead with his fist in anger at his folly. "But what are we +to do? The day is so hot. This room will be an oven. The ladies +and Waberski will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain +clothes already stationed in the court to see that it is kept empty. +Yes, we will risk it." + +Jim drew back. + +"That man doesn't welcome advice from any one," he said indignantly, +but he said it only to himself; and almost before he had finished, +the bell rang. A few seconds afterwards Gaston entered. + +"Monsieur Boris," he said. + +"Yes," said Hanaud with a nod. "And will you tell the ladies that we +are ready?" + +Boris Waberski, a long, round-shouldered man with bent knees and +clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding a soft black felt hat in +his hand, shambled quickly into the room and stopped dead at the +sight of Hanaud. Hanaud bowed and Waberski returned the bow; and +then the two men stood looking at one another--Hanaud all geniality +and smiles, Waberski a rather grotesque figure of uneasiness like one +of those many grim caricatures carved by the imagination of the +Middle Ages on the columns of the churches of Dijon. He blinked in +perplexity at the detective and with his long, tobacco-stained +fingers tortured his grey moustache. + +"Will you be seated?" said Hanaud politely. "I think that the ladies +will not keep us waiting." + +He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table but on his +left hand and opposite to the door. + +"I don't understand," said Waberski doubtfully. "I received a +message. I understood that the Examining Magistrate had sent for me." + +"I am his agent," said Hanaud. "I am----" and he stopped. "Yes?" + +Boris Waberski stared. + +"I said nothing." + +"I beg your pardon. I am--Hanaud." + +He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by no start, nor by +any sign of recognition. + +"Hanaud?" Waberski shook his head. "That no doubt should be +sufficient to enlighten me," he said with a smile, "but it is better +to be frank--it doesn't." + +"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris." + +And upon Waberski's face there came slowly a look of utter +consternation. + +"Oh!" he said, and again "Oh!" with a lamentable look towards the +door as if he was in two minds whether to make a bolt of it. Hanaud +pointed again to the chair, and Waberski murmured, "Yes--to be sure," +and made a little run to it and sank down. + +Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was certain of one +thing. Boris Waberski had not written the anonymous letter to Betty +nor had he contributed the information about Hanaud to the writer. +He might well have been thought to have been acting ignorance of +Hanaud's name, up to the moment when Hanaud explained who Hanaud was. +But no longer. His consternation then was too genuine. + +"You will understand, of course, that an accusation so serious as the +one you have brought against Mademoiselle Harlowe demands the closest +inquiry," Hanaud continued without any trace of irony, "and the +Examining Magistrate in charge of the case honoured us in Paris with +a request for help." + +"Yes, it is very difficult," replied Boris Waberski, twisting about +as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. + +But the difficulty was Waberski's, as Jim, with that distressed man +in full view, was now able to appreciate. Waberski had rushed to the +Prefecture when no answer came from Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt to +his letter of threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of +disappointment and rancour, with a hope no doubt that some offer of +cash would be made to him and that he could withdraw it. Now he +found the trained detective service of France upon his heels, asking +for his proofs and evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. + +"I thought," Hanaud continued easily, "that a little informal +conversation between you and me and the two young ladies, without +shorthand writers or secretaries, might be helpful." + +"Yes, indeed," said Waberski hopefully. + +"As a preliminary of course," Hanaud added dryly, "a preliminary to +the more serious and now inevitable procedure." + +Waberski's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. + +"To be sure," he murmured, plucking at his lean throat nervously. +"Cases must proceed." + +"That is what they are there for," said Hanaud sententiously; and the +door of the library was pushed open. Betty came into the room with +Ann Upcott immediately behind her. + +"You sent for me," she began to Hanaud, and then she saw Boris +Waberski. Her little head went up with a jerk, her eyes smouldered. +"Monsieur Boris," she said, and again she spoke to Hanaud. "Come to +take possession, I suppose?" Then she looked round the room for Jim +Frobisher, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay: + +"But I understood that----" and Hanaud was just in time to stop her +from mentioning any name. + +"All in good time, Mademoiselle," he said quickly. "Let us take +things in their order." + +Betty took her old place in the window-seat. Ann Upcott shut the +door and sat down in a chair a little apart from the others. Hanaud +folded up his newspaper and laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad +which was now revealed lay one of those green files which Jim +Frobisher had noticed in the office of the Sûrété. Hanaud opened it +and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to Waberski. + +"Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of April, this +girl here, Betty Harlowe, did wilfully give to her adoptive mother +and benefactress, Jeanne-Marie Harlowe, an overdose of a narcotic by +which her death was brought about." + +"Yes," said Waberski with an air of boldness, "I declare that." + +"You do not specify the narcotic?" + +"It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure." + +"And administered, according to you, if this summary which I hold +here is correct, in the glass of lemonade which Madame Harlowe had +always at her bedside." + +"Yes." + +Hanaud laid the sheet of foolscap down again. + +"You do not charge the nurse, Jeanne Baudin, with complicity in this +crime?" he asked. + +"Oh, no!" Waberski exclaimed with a sort of horror, with his eyes +open wide and his eyebrows running up his forehead towards his hedge +of wiry hair. "I have not a suspicion of Jeanne Baudin. I pray you, +Monsieur Hanaud, to be clear upon that point. There must be no +injustice! No! Oh, it is well that I came here to-day! Jeanne +Baudin! Listen! I would engage her to nurse me to-morrow, were my +health to fail." + +"One cannot say more than that," replied Hanaud with a grave +sympathy. "I only asked you the question because undoubtedly Jeanne +Baudin was in Madame's bedroom when Mademoiselle entered it to wish +Madame good night and show off her new dancing-frock." + +"Yes, I understand," said Waberski. He was growing more and more +confident, so suave and friendly was this Monsieur Hanaud of the +Sûrété. "But the fatal drug was slipped into that glass without a +doubt when Jeanne Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No! +It is that hard one," and his voice began to shake and his mouth to +work, "who slipped it in and then hurried off to dance till morning, +whilst her victim died. It is terrible that! Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, +it is terrible. My poor sister!" + +"Sister-in-law." + +The correction came with an acid calm from an armchair near the door +in which Ann Upcott was reclining. + +"Sister to me!" replied Waberski mournfully and he turned to Hanaud. +"Monsieur, I shall never cease to reproach myself. I was away +fishing in the forest. If I had stayed at home! Think of it! I ask +you to----" and his voice broke. + +"Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Waberski," Hanaud said, "and +this is where I am perplexed. You loved your sister. That is clear, +since you cannot even think of her without tears." + +"Yes, yes," Waberski shaded his eyes with his hand. + +"Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so long before you +took any action to avenge her death? There will be some good reason +not a doubt, but I have not got it." Hanaud continued, spreading out +his hands. "Listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night +of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th; and you do +nothing, you bring no charge, you sit all quiet. She is buried on +the 30th, and after that you still do nothing, you sit all quiet. It +is not until one week after that you launch your accusation against +Mademoiselle. Why? I beg you, Monsieur Waberski, not to look at me +between the fingers, for the answer is not written on my face, and to +explain this difficulty to me." + +The request was made in the same pleasant, friendly voice which +Hanaud had used so far and without any change of intonation. But +Waberski snatched his hand away from his forehead and sat up with a +flush on his face. + +"I answer you at once," he exclaimed. "From the first I knew it +here," and he thumped his heart with his fist, "that murder had been +committed. But as yet I did not know it here," and he patted his +forehead, "in my head. So I think and I think and I think. I see +reasons and motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of +beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, thirsting in +her heart for colour and laughter and enjoyment and the power which +her beauty offers her if she will but grasp it, and yet while +thirsting, very able to conceal all sign of thirst. That is the +picture I give you of that hard one, Betty Harlowe." + +For the first time since the interview had commenced, Betty herself +showed some interest in it. Up till now she had sat without a +movement, a figure of disdain in an ice-house of pride. Now she +flashed into life. She leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed +knee, her chin propped in her hand, her eyes on Waberski, and a smile +of amusement at this analysis of herself giving life to her face. +Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his door felt that he was +listening to blasphemies. Why did Hanaud endure it? There was +information, he had said, which he wanted to get from Boris Waberski. +The point on which he wanted information was settled long ago, at the +very beginning of this informal session. It was as clear as daylight +that Waberski had nothing to do with Betty's anonymous letter. Why, +then, should Hanaud give this mountebank of a fellow a free +opportunity to slander Betty Harlowe? Why should he question and +question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? Why, in a +word, didn't he fling open this door, allow Frobisher to produce the +blackmailing letters to Mr. Haslitt, and then stand aside while Boris +Waberski was put into that condition in which he would call upon the +services of Jeanne Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously annoyed with +Monsieur Hanaud. He explained to himself that he was disappointed. + +Meanwhile, Boris Waberski, after a little nervous check when Betty +had leaned forward, continued his description. + +"For such a one Dijon would be tiresome. It is true there was each +year a month or so at Monte Carlo, just enough to give one a hint of +what might be, like a cigarette to a man who wants to smoke. And +then back to Dijon! Ah, Monsieur, not the Dijon of the Dukes of +Burgundy, not even the Dijon of the Parliament of the States, but the +Dijon of to-day, an ordinary, dull, provincial town of France which +keeps nothing of its former gaieties and glory but some old rare +buildings and a little spirit of mockery. Imagine, then, Monsieur, +this hard one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp if only she +has the boldness on some night when Monsieur Boris is out of the way +to seize them! Nor is that all. For there is an invalid in the +house to whom attentions are owed--yes, and must be given." +Waberski, in a flight of excitement checked himself and half closed +his eyes, with a little cunning nod. "For the invalid was not so +easy. No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we will +not forget them when the moment comes for the extenuating pleas. No, +indeed," and he flung his arm out nobly. "I myself will be the first +to urge them to the judge of the Assizes when the verdict is given." + +Betty Harlowe leaned back once more indifferent. From an arm-chair +near the door, a little gurgle of laughter broke from the lips of Ann +Upcott. Even Hanaud smiled. + +"Yes, yes," he said; "but we have not got quite as far as the Court +of Assizes, Monsieur Waberski. We are still at the point where you +know it in your heart but not in your head." + +"That is so," Waberski returned briskly. "On the seventh of May, a +Saturday, I bring my accusation to the Prefecture. Why? For, on the +morning of that day I am certain. I know it at last here too," and +up went his hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward on +to the edge of his chair. + +"I am in the street of Gambetta, one of the small popular new +streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation not of the +best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly through that street when +from a little shop a few yards in front of me out pops that hard one, +my niece." + +Suddenly the whole character of that session had changed. Jim +Frobisher, though he sat apart from it, felt the new tension, and was +aware of the new expectancy. A moment ago Boris Waberski as he sat +talking and gesticulating had been a thing for ridicule, almost for +outright laughter. Now, though his voice still jumped hysterically +from high notes to low notes and his body jerked like a marionette's, +he held the eyes of every one--every one, that is, except Betty +Harlowe. He was no longer vague. He was speaking of a definite hour +and a place and of a definite incident which happened there. + +"Yes, in that bad little street I see her. I do not believe my +senses. I step into a little narrow alley and I peep round the +corner. I peep with my eyes," and Waberski pointed to them with two +of his fingers as though there was something peculiarly convincing in +the fact that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, "and I am +sure. Then I wait until she is out of sight, and I creep forward to +see what shop it is she visited in that little street of squalor. +Once more I do not believe my eyes. For over the door I read the +name, Jean Cladel, Herbalist." + +He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph and sat back in his +chair, nodding his head violently at intervals of a second. There +was not a sound in the room until Hanaud's voice broke the silence. + +"I don't understand," he said softly. "Who is this Jean Cladel, and +why should a young lady not visit his shop?" + +"I beg your pardon," Waberski replied. "You are not of Dijon. No! +or you would not have asked that question. Jean Cladel has no better +name than the street he very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonnais +about Jean Cladel, and you will see how he becomes silent and shrugs +his shoulders as if here was a topic on which it was becoming to be +silent. Better still, Monsieur Hanaud, ask at the Prefecture. Jean +Cladel! Twice he has been tried for selling prohibited drugs." + +Hanaud was stung at last out of his calm. + +"What is that?" he cried in a sharp voice. + +"Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped through, that is +true. He has powerful friends, and witnesses have been spirited +away. But he is known! Jean Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!" + +"Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta," Hanaud repeated +slowly. "But"--and he leaned back in an easier attitude--"you will +see my difficulty, Monsieur Waberski. Ten o'clock is a public hour. +It is not a likely hour for any one to choose for so imprudent a +visit, even if that one were stupid." + +"Yes, and so I reasoned too," Waberski interposed quickly. "As I +told you, I could not believe my eyes. But I made sure--oh, there +was no doubt, Monsieur Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes +are discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner or +later some foolish thing. Isn't it so? Sometimes they are too +careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an imperfect world. +Sometimes they are too careless or are driven by necessity to a rash +thing. But somehow a mistake is made and justice wins the game." + +Hanaud smiled. + +"Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!" He turned to Betty, and it +struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious discomfort that this was the +first time Hanaud had looked directly at Betty since the interview +had begun. + +"And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?" + +"It is a lie," she answered quietly. + +"You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta at ten +o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May?" + +"I did not, Monsieur." + +Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache. + +"Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle to admit +it. One fights for one's skin, eh?" + +"But, after all," Hanaud interrupted, with enough savagery in his +voice to check all Waberski's complacency, "let us not forget that on +the 7th of May, Madame Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why +should Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?" + +"To pay," said Waberski. "Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel's wares are +expensive and have to be paid for more than once, Monsieur." + +"By wares you mean poison," said Hanaud. "Let us be explicit." + +"Yes." + +"Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe." + +"I say so," Waberski declared, folding his arms across his breast. + +"Very well," said Hanaud. He took from his green file a second paper +written over in a fine hand and emphasised by an official stamp. +"Then what will you say, Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of +Madame Harlowe has been exhumed?" Hanaud continued, and Waberski's +face lost what little colour it had. He stared at Hanaud, his jaw +working up and down nervously, and he did not say a word. + +"And what will you say if I tell you," Hanaud continued, "that no +more morphia was discovered in it than one sleeping-dose would +explain and no trace at all of any other poison?" + +In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief from his pocket +and dabbed his forehead. The game was up. He had hoped to make his +terms, but his bluff was called. He had not one atom of faith in his +own accusation. There was but one course for him to take, and that +was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection for his +sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. But Boris Waberski +was never the man for that. He had that extra share of cunning which +shipwrecks always the minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine +that Hanaud might be bluffing too. + +He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He tittered and +nodded at Hanaud confidentially. + +"You say 'if I tell you,'" he said smoothly. "Yes, but you do not +tell me, Monsieur Hanaud--no, not at all. On the contrary, what you +say is this: 'My friend Waberski, here is a difficult matter which, +if exposed, means a great scandal, and of which the issue is +doubtful. There is no good in stirring the mud.'" + +"Oh, I say that?" Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly. + +Waberski felt sure of his ground now. + +"Yes, and more than that. You say, 'You have been badly treated, my +friend Waberski, and if you will now have a little talk with that +hard one your niece----'" + +And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat gaping +stupidly like a man who has been shot. + +Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering above the table, his +face suddenly dark with passion. + +"Oh, I say all that, do I?" he thundered. "I came all the way from +Paris to Dijon to preside over a little bargain in a murder case! +I--Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! I'll teach you a lesson for that! Read +this!" and bending forward he thrust out the paper with the official +seal. "It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and +read it!" + +Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to venture nearer. Even +when he had the paper in his hands, they shook so he could not read +it. But since he had never believed in his charge that did not +matter. + +"Yes," he muttered, "no doubt I have made a mistake." + +Hanaud caught the word up. + +"Mistake! Ah, there's a fine word! I'll show you what sort of a +mistake you have made. Draw up your chair to this table in front of +me! So! And take a pen--so! And a sheet of paper--so! and now you +write for me a letter." + +"Yes, yes," Waberski agreed. All the bravado had gone from his +bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He was in a quiver from head +to foot. "I will write that I am sorry." + +"That is not necessary," roared Hanaud. "I will see to it that you +are sorry. No! You write for me what I dictate to you and in +English. You are ready? Yes? Then you begin. 'Dear Sirs.' You +have that?" + +"Yes, yes," said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His head was in a +whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the towering bulk of the +detective. He had as yet no comprehension of the goal to which he +was being led. + +"Good! 'Dear Sirs,'" Hanaud repeated. "But we want a date for that +letter. April 30th, eh? That will do. The day Madame Harlowe's +will was read and you found you were left no money. April 30th--put +it in. So! Now we go on. 'Dear Sirs, Send me at once one thousand +pounds by the recommended post, or I make some awkwardnesses----'" + +Waberski dropped his pen and sprang back out of his chair. + +"I don't understand--I can't write that.... There is an error--I +never meant..." he stammered, his hands raised as if to ward off an +attack. + +"Ah, you never meant the blackmail!" Hanaud cried savagely. "Ah! +Ha! Ha! It is good for you that I now know that! For when, as you +put it so delicately to Mademoiselle, the moment comes for the +extenuating pleas, I can rise up in the Court and urge it. Yes! I +will say: 'Mr. the President, though he did the blackmail, poor +fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him five years more,'" +and with that Hanaud swept across the room like a tornado and flung +open the door behind which Frobisher was waiting. + +"Come!" he said, and he led Jim into the room. "You produce the two +letters he wrote to your firm, Monsieur Frobisher. Good!" + +But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris Waberski had dropped +into a chair and burst into tears. There was a little movement of +discomfort made by every one in that room except Hanaud; and even his +anger dropped. He looked at Waberski in silence. + +"You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your hotel," he said +shortly. "But you will not leave Dijon, Monsieur Waberski, until it +is decided what steps we shall take with you." + +Waberski rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the door. + +"I make my apologies," he stammered. "It is all a mistake. I am +very poor ... I meant no harm," and without looking at any one he got +himself out of the room. + +"That type! He at all events cannot any more think that Dijon is +dull," said Hanaud, and once more he adventured on the dangerous seas +of the English language. "Do you know what my friend Mister Ricardo +would have said? No? I tell you. He would have said, 'That fellow! +My God! What a sauce!'" + +Those left in the room, Betty, Ann Upcott, and Jim Frobisher, were in +a mood to welcome any excuse for laughter. The interdict upon the +house was raised, the charge against Betty proved of no account, the +whole bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanaud went +quickly to the door and closed it, and when he turned back there was +no laughter at all upon his face. + +"Now that that man has gone," he said gravely, "I have something to +tell you three which is very serious. I believe that, though +Waberski does not know it, Madame Harlowe was murdered by poison in +this house on the night of April the twenty-seventh." + +The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim Frobisher +stood like a man whom some calamity has stunned. Betty leaned +forward in her seat with a face of horror and incredulity; and then +from the arm-chair by the door where Ann Upcott was sitting there +burst a loud, wild cry. + +"There was some one in the house that night," she cried. + +Hanaud swung round to her, his eyes blazing. + +"And it is you who tell me that, Mademoiselle?" he asked in a +curious, steady voice. + +"Yes. It's the truth," she cried with a sort of relief in her voice, +that at last a secret was out which had grown past endurance. "I am +sure now. There was a stranger in the house." And though her face +was white as paper, her eyes met Hanaud's without fear. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT: _The Book_ + +The two startling declarations, one treading upon the heels of the +other, set Jim Frobisher's brain whirling. Consternation and +bewilderment were all jumbled together. He had no time to ask "how," +for he was already asking "What next?" His first clear thought was +for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger against both Hanaud +and Ann Upcott seized and shook him. Why hadn't they both spoken +before? Why must they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well alone? + +For Betty had fallen back in the window-seat, her hands idle at her +sides and her face utterly weary and distressed. Jim thought of some +stricken patient who wakes in the morning to believe for a few +moments that the malady was a bad dream; and then comes the stab and +the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A moment ago Betty's +ordeal seemed over. Now it was beginning a new phase. + +"I am sorry," he said to her. + +The report of the analysts was lying on the writing-table just +beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was a trick, of course, +with its seals and its signatures, a trick of Hanaud's to force +Waberski to a retraction. He glanced at it, and with an exclamation +began carefully to read it through from the beginning to the end. +When he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanaud. + +"But this report is genuine," he cried. "Here are the details of the +tests applied and the result. There was no trace discovered of any +poison." + +"No trace at all," Hanaud replied. He was not in the least disturbed +by the question. + +"Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation or whom you +accuse," Frobisher exclaimed. + +"I have accused no one," said Hanaud steadily. "Let us be clear +about that! As to your other question--look!" + +He took Frobisher by the elbow and led him to that bookshelf by the +window before which they had stood together yesterday. + +"There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself drew my +attention to it. You see that the space is filled to-day." + +"Yes," said Jim. + +Hanaud took down the volume which occupied the space. It was of +quarto size, fairly thick and bound in a paper cover. + +"Look at that," he said; and Jim Frobisher as he took it noticed with +a queer little start that although Hanaud's eyes were on his face +they were blank of all expression. They did not see him. Hanaud's +senses were concentrated on the two girls at neither of whom he so +much as glanced. He was alert to them, to any movement they might +make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his head in a sudden +revolt. He was being used for another trick, as some conjurer may +use a fool of a fellow whom he has persuaded out of his audience on +to his platform. Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with +enough violence to recall Hanaud's attention: + +"I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed by some +learned society in Edinburgh." + +"It is. And if you will look again, you will see that it was written +by a Professor of Medicine in that University. And if you will look +a third time you will see from a small inscription in ink that the +copy was presented with the Professor's compliments to Mr. Simon +Harlowe." + +Hanaud, whilst he was speaking, went to the second of the two windows +which looked upon the court and putting his head out, spoke for a +little while in a low voice. + +"We shall not need our sentry here any more," he said as he turned +back into the room. "I have sent him upon an errand." + +He went back to Jim Frobisher, who was turning over a page of the +treatise here and there and was never a scrap the wiser. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"Strophanthus Hispidus," Jim read aloud the title of the treatise. +"I can't make head or tail of it." + +"Let me try!" said Hanaud, and he took the book out of Frobisher's +hands. "I will show you all how I spent the half-hour whilst I was +waiting for you this morning." + +He sat down at the writing-table, placed the treatise on the +blotting-pad in front of him and laid it open at a coloured plate. + +"This is the fruit of the plant Strophanthus Hispidus, when it is +ripening," he said. + +The plate showed two long, tapering follicles joined together at +their stems and then separating like a pair of compasses set at an +acute angle. The backs of these follicles were rounded, dark in +colour and speckled; the inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the +curious feature of them was that, from longitudinal crevices, a +number of silky white feathers protruded. + +"Each of these feathers," Hanaud continued, and he looked up to find +that Ann Upcott had drawn close to the table and that Betty Harlowe +herself was leaning forward with a look of curiosity upon her +face--"each of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an +elliptical pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe +and these follicles have opened so that they make a straight line, +the feathers are released and the wind spreads the seed. It is +wonderful, eh? See!" + +Hanaud turned the pages until he came to another plate. Here a +feather was represented in complete detachment from the follicle. It +was outspread like a fan and was extraordinarily pretty and delicate +in its texture; and from it by a stem as fine as a hair the seed hung +like a jewel. + +"What would you say of it, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked, looking up +into the face of Ann Upcott with a smile. "An ornament wrought for a +fine lady, by a dainty artist, eh?" and he turned the book round so +that she on the opposite side of the table might the better admire +the engraving. + +Betty Harlowe, it seemed, was now mastered by her curiosity. Jim +Frobisher, gazing down over Hanaud's shoulder at the plate and +wondering uneasily whither he was being led, saw a shadow fall across +the book. And there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend +with the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table and her face +bent over the book. + +"One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the Strophanthus +Hispidus," Hanaud continued with a shake of the head. "But, alas! it +is not so harmless." + +He turned the book around again to himself and once more turned the +pages. The smile had disappeared altogether from his face. He +stopped at a third plate; and this third plate showed a row of +crudely fashioned arrows with barbed heads. + +Hanaud glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. + +"Do you understand now the importance of this book, Monsieur +Frobisher?" he asked. "No? The seeds of this plant make the famous +arrow-poison of Africa. The deadliest of all the poisons since there +is no antidote for it." His voice grew sombre. "The wickedest of +all the poisons, since it leaves no trace." + +Jim Frobisher was startled. "Is that true?" he cried. + +"Yes," said Hanaud; and Betty suddenly leaned forward and pointed to +the bottom of the plate. + +"There is a mark there below the hilt of that arrow," she said +curiously. "Yes, and a tiny note in ink." + +For a moment a little gift of vision was vouchsafed to Jim Frobisher, +born, no doubt, of his perplexities and trouble. A curtain was rung +up in his brain. He saw no more than what was before him--the pretty +group about the table in the gold of the May morning, but it was all +made grim and terrible and the gold had withered to a light that was +grey and deathly and cold as the grave. There were the two girls in +the grace of their beauty and their youth, daintily tended, +fastidiously dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of +the poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man delivering +the lecture, so close to them, with speech so gentle, was implacably +on the trail of murder, and maybe even now looked upon one of these +two girls as his quarry; was even now perhaps planning to set her in +the dock of an Assize Court and send her out afterwards, carried +screaming and sobbing with terror in the first grey of the morning to +the hideous red engine erected during the night before the prison +gates. Jim saw Hanaud the genial and friendly, as in some flawed +mirror, twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could he +sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point them out +this and that diagram in the plates, he being human and knowing what +he purposed. Jim broke in upon the lecture with a cry of +exasperation. + +"But this isn't a poison! This is a book about a poison. The book +can't kill!" + +At once Hanaud replied to him: + +"Can't it?" he cried sharply. "Listen to what Mademoiselle said a +minute ago. Below the hilt of this arrow marked 'Figure F,' the +Professor has written a tiny note." + +This particular arrow was a little different from the others in the +shape of its shaft. Just below the triangular iron head the shaft +expanded. It was as though the head had been fitted into a bulb; as +one sees sometimes wooden penholders fine enough and tapering at the +upper end, and quite thick just above the nib. + +"'See page 37,'" said Hanaud, reading the Professor's note, and he +turned back the pages. + +"Page 37. Here we are!" + +Hanaud ran a finger half-way down the page and stopped at a word in +capitals. + +"Figure F." + +Hanaud hitched his chair a little closer to the table; Ann Upcott +moved round the end of the table that she might see the better; even +Jim Frobisher found himself stooping above Hanaud's shoulder. They +were all conscious of a queer tension; they were expectant like +explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Hanaud read the +paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed; and this is what he +read: + +"'Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow which was lent to +me by Simon Harlowe, Esq., of Blackman's, Norfolk, and the Maison +Crenelle at Dijon. It was given to him by a Mr. John Carlisle, a +trader on the Shire River in the Kombe country, and is the most +perfect example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The +Strophanthus seed has been pounded up in water and mixed with the +reddish clay used by the Kombe natives, and the compound is thickly +smeared over the head of the arrow shaft and over the actual iron +dart except at the point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and +the compound fresh.'" + +Hanaud leaned back in his chair when he had come to the end of this +paragraph. + +"You see, Monsieur Frobisher, the question we have to answer. Where +is to-day Simon Harlowe's arrow?" + +Betty looked up into Hanaud's face. + +"If it is anywhere in this house, Monsieur, it should be in the +locked cabinet in my sitting-room." + +"Your sitting-room?" Hanaud exclaimed sharply. + +"Yes. It is what we call the Treasure Room--half museum, half +living-room. My uncle Simon used it, Madame too. It was their +favourite room, full of curios and beautiful things. But after Simon +Harlowe died Madame would never enter it. She locked the door which +communicated with her dressing-room, so that she might never even in +a moment of forgetfulness enter it. The room has a door into the +hall. She gave the room to me." + +Hanaud's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. + +"I understand," he said. "And that room is sealed." + +"Yes." + +"Have you ever seen the arrow, Mademoiselle?" + +"Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet once. There +are some horrible things hidden away there"; and Betty shivered and +shook the recollection of them from her shoulders. + +"The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that it never +came back to the house," Frobisher argued stubbornly. "The Professor +in all probability would have kept it." + +"If he could," Hanaud rejoined. "But it's out of all probability +that a collector of rare things would have allowed him to keep it. +No!" and he sat for a little time in a muse. "Do you know what I am +wondering?" he asked at length, and then answered his own question. +"I am wondering whether after all Boris Waberski was not in the +street of Gambetta on the seventh of May and close, very close, to +the shop of Jean Cladel the herbalist." + +"Boris! Boris Waberski," cried Jim. Was he in Hanaud's eyes the +criminal? After all, why not? After all, who more likely if +criminal there was, since Boris Waberski thought himself an inheritor +under Mrs. Harlowe's will? + +"I am wondering whether he was not doing that very thing which he +attributed to you, Mademoiselle Betty," Hanaud continued. + +"Paying?" Betty cried. + +"Paying--or making excuses for not paying, which is more probable, or +recovering the poison arrow now clean of its poison, which is most +probable of all." + +At last Hanaud had made an end of his secrecies and reticence. His +suspicion, winged like the arrow in the plate, was flying straight to +this evident mark. Jim drew a breath like a man waking from a +nightmare; in all of that small company a relaxation was visible; Ann +Upcott drew away from the table; Betty said softly as though speaking +to herself, "Monsieur Boris! Monsieur Boris! Oh, I never thought of +that!" and, to Jim's admiration there was actually a note of regret +in her voice. + +It was audible, too, to Hanaud, since he answered with a smile: + +"But you must bring yourself to think of it, Mademoiselle. After +all, he was not so gentle with you that you need show him so much +good will." + +A slight rush of colour tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim was not quite +sure that a tiny accent of irony had not pointed Hanaud's words. + +"I saw him sitting here," she replied quickly, "half an hour +ago--abject--in tears--a man!" She shrugged her shoulders with a +gesture of distaste. "I wish him nothing worse. I was satisfied." + +Hanaud smiled again with a curious amusement, an appreciation which +Frobisher was quite at a loss to understand. But he had from time to +time received an uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel +was all this while being fought by Betty Harlowe and Hanaud +underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers--a duel in +which now one, now the other of the combatants got some trifling +scratch. This time it seemed Betty was hurt. + +"You are satisfied, Mademoiselle, but the Law is not," Hanaud +returned. "Boris Waberski expected a legacy. Boris Waberski needed +money immediately, as the first of the two letters which he wrote to +Monsieur Frobisher's firm clearly shows. Boris Waberski had a +motive." He looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod +to drive the point home. "Motives, no doubt, are signposts rather +difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss, they lead one very +wide astray. Granted! But you must look for your signposts all the +same and try to read them aright. Listen again to the Professor of +Medicine in the University of Edinburgh! He is as precise as a man +can be." + +Hanaud's eyes fell again upon the description of Figure F in the +treatise still open upon the table in front of him. + +"The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow which he had ever +come across. The poison paste was thickly and smoothly spread over +the arrow head and some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused +and the poison fresh, and these poisons retain their energy for many, +many years. I tell you that if this book and this arrow were handed +over to Jean Cladel, Herbalist, Jean Cladel could with ease make a +solution in alcohol which injected from a hypodermic needle, would +cause death within fifteen minutes and leave not one trace." + +"Within fifteen minutes?" Betty asked incredulously, and from the +arm-chair against the wall, where Ann Upcott had once more seated +herself, there broke a startled exclamation. + +"Oh!" she cried, but no one took any notice of her at all. Both Jim +and Betty had their eyes fixed upon Hanaud, and he was altogether +occupied in driving his argument home. + +"Within fifteen minutes? How do you know?" cried Jim. + +"It is written here, in the book." + +"And where would Jean Cladel have learnt to handle the paste with +safety, how to prepare the solution?" Jim went on. + +"Here! Here! Here!" answered Hanaud, tapping with his knuckles upon +the treatise. "It is all written out here--experiment after +experiment made upon living animals and the action of the poison +measured and registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working +knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, and the +result is certain." + +Betty Harlowe leaned forward again over the book and Hanaud turned it +half round between them, so that both, by craning their heads, could +read. He turned the pages back to the beginning and passed them +quickly in review. + +"See, Mademoiselle, the time tables. Strophanthus constricts the +muscles of the heart like digitalis, only much more violently, much +more swiftly. See the contractions of the heart noted down minute +after minute, until the moment of death and all--here is the +irony!--so that by means of these experiments, the poison may be +transformed into a medicine and the weapon of death become an agent +of life--as in good hands, it has happened." Hanaud leaned back and +contemplated Betty Harlowe between his half-closed eyes. "That is +wonderful, Mademoiselle. What do you think?" + +Betty slowly closed the book. + +"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," she said, "it is no less wonderful that +you should have studied this book so thoroughly during the half-hour +you waited for us here this morning." + +It was Hanaud's turn to change colour. The blood mounted into his +face. He was for a second or two quite disconcerted. Jim once more +had a glimpse of the secret duel and rejoiced that this time it was +Hanaud, the great Hanaud, who was scratched. + +"The study of poisons is particularly my work," he answered shortly. +"Even at the Sûrété we have to specialise nowadays," and he turned +rather quickly towards Frobisher. "You are thoughtful, Monsieur?" + +Jim was following out his own train of thought. + +"Yes," he answered. Then he spoke to Betty. + +"Boris Waberski had a latch-key, I suppose?" + +"Yes," she replied. + +"He took it away with him?" + +"I think so." + +"When are the iron gates locked?" + +"It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed." + +Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. + +"You see, Monsieur Hanaud," he cried, "all this while we have been +leaving out a question of importance. Who put this book back upon +its shelf? And when? Yesterday at noon the space was empty. This +morning it is filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the +garden after dinner behind the house. What could have been easier +than for Waberski to slip in with his latch-key at some moment when +the court was empty, replace the book and slip out again unnoticed? +Why----" + +A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. + +"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The police have a +_sergent-de-ville_ at our gates, night and day." + +Hanaud shook his head. + +"He is there no longer. After you were good enough to answer me so +frankly yesterday morning the questions it was my duty to put to you, +I had him removed at once." + +"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He remembered now that +when he had driven up with his luggage from the hotel in the +afternoon, the street of Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty +Harlowe stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made her +face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she dipped to the +detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice was warm with +gratitude. + +"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday that the man had +been removed, or I should have thanked you before. Indeed I was not +looking for so much consideration at your hands. As I told my friend +Jim, I believed that you went away thinking me guilty." + +Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the flourish of the +sword with which the duellist saluted at the end of the bout. The +little secret combat between these two was over. Hanaud, by removing +the sergeant from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only +to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify any +surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or any limitations +upon her freedom. + +"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at his solution +of the case like a dog with a bone. "You see Waberski had the road +clear for him last night." + +Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head vigorously. + +"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so horrible a +murder. More," and she turned her great eyes pleadingly upon Hanaud, +"I don't believe that any murder was committed here at all. I don't +want to believe it," and for a moment her voice faltered. + +"After all, Monsieur Hanaud, what are you building this dreadful +theory upon? That a book of my Uncle Simon was not in his library +yesterday and is there to-day. We know nothing more. We don't know +even whether Jean Cladel exists at all." + +"We shall know that, Mademoiselle, very soon," said Hanaud, staring +down at the book upon the table. + +"We don't know whether the arrow is in the house, whether it ever +was." + +"We must make sure, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud stubbornly. + +"And even if you had it now, here with the poison clinging in shreds +to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure that the rest of it had been +used. Here is a report, Monsieur, from the doctors. Because it says +that no trace of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a +poison was administered which leaves no trace. You never can prove +it. You have nothing to go upon. It's all guesswork, and guesswork +which will keep us living in a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a +moment that murder had been committed, I'd say, 'Go on, go on'! But +it hasn't. Oh, it hasn't!" + +Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there was so strong a +passion of appeal, for peace, for an end of suspicion, for a right to +forget and be forgotten, that Jim fancied no man could resist it. +Indeed, Hanaud sat for a long while with his eyes bent upon the table +before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently though his +voice began, Jim knew at once that she had lost. + +"You argue and plead very well, Mademoiselle Betty," he said. "But +we have each of us our little creeds by which we live for better or +for worse. Here is mine, a very humble one. I can discover +extenuations in most crimes: even crimes of violence. Passion, +anger, even greed! What are they but good qualities developed beyond +the bounds? Things at the beginning good and since grown monstrous! +So, too, in the execution. This or that habit of life makes natural +this or that weapon which to us is hideous and abnormal and its mere +use a sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognise these +palliations. But there is one crime I never will forgive--murder by +poison. And one criminal in whose pursuit I will never tire nor +slacken, the Poisoner." Through the words there ran a real thrill of +hatred, and though Hanaud's voice was low, and he never once raised +his eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him in a +dreadful spell. + +"Cowardly and secret, the poisoner has his little world at his mercy, +and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be sure," he continued bitterly. +"His hideous work is so easy. It just becomes a vice like drink, no +more than that to the poisoner, but with a thousand times the +pleasure drink can give. Like the practice of some abominable art. +I tell you the truth now! Show me one victim to-day and the poisoner +scot-free, and I'll show you another victim before the year's out. +Make no mistake! Make no mistake!" + +His voice rang out and died away. But the words seemed still to +vibrate in the air of that room, to strike the walls and rebound from +them and still be audible. Jim Frobisher, for all his slow +imagination, felt that had a poisoner been present and heard them, +some cry of guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His +heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his reason +told him there was no mouth in that room from which the cry could +come. + +Hanaud looked up at Betty when he had finished. He begged her pardon +with a little flutter of his hands and a regretful smile. "You must +take me, therefore, as God made me, Mademoiselle, and not blame me +more than you can help for the distress I still must cause you. +There was never a case more difficult. Therefore never one about +which one way or the other I must be more sure." + +Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the door. + +"Come in," Hanaud cried out, and a small, dark, alert man in plain +clothes entered the room. + +"This is Nicolas Moreau, who was keeping watch in the courtyard. I +sent him some while ago upon an errand," he explained and turned +again to Moreau. + +"Well, Nicolas?" + +Nicolas stood at attention, with his hands at the seams of his +trousers, in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited rather than +spoke in a perfectly expressionless official voice. + +"In accordance with instructions I went to the shop of Jean Cladel. +It is number seven. From the Rue Gambetta I went to the Prefecture. +I verified your statement. Jean Cladel has twice appeared before the +Police Correctionelle for selling forbidden drugs and has twice been +acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses." + +"Thank you, Nicolas." + +Moreau saluted, turned on his heel, and went out of the room. There +followed a moment of silence, of discouragement. Hanaud looked +ruefully at Betty. + +"You see! I must go on. We must search in that locked cabinet of +Simon Harlowe's for the poison arrow, if by chance it should be +there." + +"The room is sealed," Frobisher reminded him. + +"We must have those seals removed," he replied, and he took his watch +from his pocket and screwed up his face in grimace. + +"We need Monsieur the Commissary, and Monsieur the Commissary will +not be in a good humour if we disturb him now. For it is twelve +o'clock, the sacred hour of luncheon. You will have observed upon +the stage that Commissaries of Police are never in a good humour. It +is because----" But Hanaud's audience was never to hear his +explanation of this well-known fact. For he stopped with a queer +jerk of his voice, his watch still dangling from his fingers upon its +chain. Both Jim and Betty looked at once where he was looking. They +saw Ann Upcott standing up against the wall with her hand upon the +top rail of a chair to prevent herself from falling. Her eyes were +closed, her whole face a mask of misery. Hanaud was at her side in a +moment. + +"Mademoiselle," he asked with a breathless sort of eagerness, "what +is it you have to tell me?" + +"It is true, then?" she whispered. "Jean Cladel exists?" + +"Yes." + +"And the poison arrow could have been used?" she faltered, and the +next words would not be spoken, but were spoken at the last. "And +death would have followed in fifteen minutes?" + +"Upon my oath it is true," Hanaud insisted. "What is it you have to +tell me?" + +"That I could have hindered it all. I shall never forgive myself. I +could have hindered the murder." + +Hanaud's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was he disappointed, +Frobisher wondered? Did he expect quite another reply? A swift +movement by Betty distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty +looking across the room at them with the strangest glittering eyes he +had ever seen. And then Ann Upcott drew herself away from Hanaud and +stood up against the wall at her full height with her arms +outstretched. She seemed to be setting herself apart as a pariah; +her whole attitude and posture cried, "Stone me! I am waiting." + +Hanaud put his watch into his pocket. + +"Mademoiselle, we will let the Commissary eat his luncheon in peace, +and we will hear your story first. But not here. In the garden +under the shade of the trees." He took his handkerchief and wiped +his forehead. "Indeed I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as +an oven." + +When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon the incidents of +that morning, nothing stood out so vividly in his memories, no, not +even the book of arrows and its plates, not Hanaud's statement of his +creed, as the picture of him twirling his watch at the end of his +chain, whilst it sparkled in the sunlight and he wondered whether he +should break in now upon the Commissaire of Police or let him eat his +luncheon in quiet. So much that was then unsuspected by them all, +hung upon the exact sequence of events. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE: _The Secret_ + +The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn towards the +farther end of the garden in the shadow of the great trees. Hanaud +led the way towards them. + +"We shall be in the cool here and with no one to overhear us but the +birds," he said, and he patted and arranged the cushions in a deep +arm-chair of basket work for Ann Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded +again of the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid and again the +parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer insight into +the character of this implacable being. The little courtesies and +attentions were not assumed. They were natural, but they would not +hinder him for a moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the +cushions with the swift deft hands of a nurse--yes, but he would slip +the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment afterwards, no +less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty prompted him. + +"There!" he said. "Now, Mademoiselle, you are comfortable. For me, +if I am permitted, I shall smoke." + +He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who with Jim had +followed into the garden behind him. + +"Of course," she answered; and coming forward, she sat down in +another of the chairs. + +Hanaud pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of thin black +cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair close to the two +girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind Hanaud. The lawn was dappled with +sunlight and cool shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling +from bough and bush, the garden was riotous with roses and the air +sweet with their perfume. It was a strange setting for the eerie +story which Ann Upcott had to tell of her adventures in the darkness +and silence of a night; but the very contrast seemed to make the +story still more vivid. + +"I did not go to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball on the night of April +the 27th," she began, and Jim started, so that Hanaud raised his hand +to prevent him interrupting. He had not given a thought to where Ann +Upcott had been upon that night. To Hanaud, however, the statement +brought no surprise. + +"You were not well?" he asked. + +"It wasn't that," Ann replied. "But Betty and I had--I won't say a +rule, but a sort of working arrangement which I think had been in +practice ever since I came to the Maison Crenelle. We didn't +encroach upon each other's independence." + +The two girls had recognised from their first coming together that +privacy was the very salt of companionship. Each had a sanctuary in +her own sitting-room. + +"I don't think Betty has ever been in mine, I only once or twice in +hers," said Ann. "We had each our own friends. We didn't pester +each other with questions as to where we had been and with whom. In +a word, we weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels." + +"A wise rule, Mademoiselle," Hanaud agreed cordially. "A good many +households are split from roof to cellar by the absence of just such +a rule. The de Pouillacs then were Mademoiselle Betty's friends." + +"Yes. As soon as Betty had gone," Ann resumed, "I told Gaston that +he might turn off the lights and go to bed whenever he liked; and I +went upstairs to my own sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. +You can see the windows from here. There!" + +They were in a group facing the back of the long house across the +garden. To the right of the hall stretched the line of shuttered +windows, with Betty's bedroom just above. Ann pointed to the wing on +the left of the hall and towards the road. + +"I see. You are above the library, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. + +"Yes. I had a letter to write," Ann continued, and suddenly +faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in the telling of her +story which she had forgotten when she had uttered her cry in the +library. She gasped. "Oh!" she murmured, and again "Oh!" in a low +voice. She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from her +at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows upon her knees and +her eyes on the grass at her feet and apparently miles away in +thought. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud asked smoothly. + +"It was an important letter," Ann went on again, choosing her words +warily, much as yesterday at one moment in her interrogatory Betty +herself had done--concealing something, too, just as Betty had done. +"I had promised faithfully to write it. But the address was +downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a doctor," and +having said that, it seemed that she had cleared her obstacle, for +she went on in a more easy and natural tone. + +"You know what it is, Monsieur Hanaud. I had been playing tennis all +the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. There was a letter to be +written with a good deal of care and the address was all the way +downstairs. I said to myself that I would think out the terms of my +letter first." + +And here Jim Frobisher, who had been shifting impatiently from one +foot to the other, broke in upon the narrative. + +"But what was this letter about and to what doctor?" he asked. + +Hanaud swung round almost angrily. + +"Oh, please!" he cried. "These things will all come to light of +themselves in their due order, if we leave them alone and keep them +in our memories. Let Mademoiselle tell her story in her own way," +and he was back at Ann Upcott again in a flash. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle. You determined to think out the tenor of your +letter." + +A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a second. "But +it was an excuse really, an excuse to sit down in my big arm-chair, +stretch out my legs and do nothing at all. You can guess what +happened." + +Hanaud smiled and nodded. + +"You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young people, who +are healthy and tired, awake," he said. + +"No, but it wakes up with them," Ann returned, "and upbraids at once +bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as people do who have gone to +sleep in their chairs. I was wearing a little thin frock of pale +blue tulle--oh, a feather-weight of a frock! Yes, I was cold and my +conscience was saying, 'Oh, big lazy one! And your letter? Where is +it?' + +"In a moment I was standing up and the next I was out of the room on +the landing, and I was still half dazed with sleep. I closed my door +behind me. It was just chance that I did it. The lights were all +out on the staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn +across the windows. There was no moon that night. I was in a +darkness so complete that I could not see the glimmer of my hand when +I raised it close before my face." + +Hanaud let the end of his cigarette drop at his feet. Betty had +raised her face and was staring at Ann with her mouth parted. For +all of them the garden had disappeared with its sunlight and its +roses and its singing birds. They were upon that staircase with Ann +Upcott in the black night. The swift changes of colour in her cheeks +and of expression in her eyes--the nervous vividness of her compelled +them to follow with her. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle?" said Hanaud quietly. + +"The darkness didn't matter to me," she went on, with an amazement at +her own fearlessness, now that she knew the after-history of that +evening. "I am afraid now. I wasn't then," and Jim remembered how +the night before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark +spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was afraid now! +Her hands were clenched tight upon the arms of her chair, her lips +shook. + +"I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on the balustrade. +There was no sound. It never occurred to me that any one was awake +except myself. I did not even turn on the light in the hall by the +switch at the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch +just inside the door of Betty's room, and that was enough. I think, +too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the foot of the stairs +I turned right like a soldier. Exactly opposite to me across the +hall was the door of Betty's room. I crossed the hall with my hands +out in front of me," and Betty, as though she herself were crossing +the hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. + +"Yes, one would have to do that," she said slowly. "In the +dark--with nothing but space in front of one---- Yes!" and then she +smiled as she saw that Hanaud's eyes were watching her curiously. +"Don't you think so, Monsieur Hanaud?" + +"No doubt," said he. "But let us not interrupt Mademoiselle." + +"I touched the wall first," Ann resumed, "just at the angle of the +corridor and the hall." + +"The corridor with the windows on to the courtyard on the one side +and the doors of the receptions on the other?" Hanaud asked. + +"Yes." + +"Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I felt my way +along the wall to my right--that is, in the hall, of course, not the +corridor--until my hands slipped off the surface and touched nothing. +I had reached the embrasure of the doorway. I felt for the +door-knob, turned it and entered the room. The light switch was in +the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I snapped +it down. I think that I was still half asleep when I turned the +light on in the treasure-room, as we called it. But the next moment +I was wide awake--oh, I have never been more wide awake in my life. +My fingers indeed were hardly off the switch after turning the light +on, before they were back again turning the light off. But this time +I eased the switch up very carefully, so that there should be no +snap--no, not the tiniest sound to betray me. There was so short an +interval between the two movements of my hand that I had just time to +notice the clock on the top of the marquetry cabinet in the middle of +the wall opposite to me, and then once more I stood in darkness, but +stock still and holding my breath--a little frightened--yes, no doubt +a little frightened, but more astonished than frightened. For in the +inner wall of the room, at the other end, close by the window, +there,"--and Ann pointed to the second of those shuttered windows +which stared so blankly on the garden--"the door which was always +locked since Simon Harlowe's death stood open and a bright light +burned beyond." + +Betty Harlowe uttered a little cry. + +"That door?" she exclaimed, now at last really troubled. "It stood +open? How can that have been?" + +Hanaud shifted his position in his chair, and asked her a question. + +"On which side of the door was the key, Mademoiselle?" + +"On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all." + +"Oh! You don't remember whether it was?" + +"No," said Betty. "Of course both Ann and I were in and out of +Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but there was a dressing-room +between the bedroom and the communicating door of my room, so that we +should not have noticed." + +"To be sure," Hanaud agreed. "The dressing-room in which the nurse +might have slept and did when Madame had a seizure. Do you remember +whether the communicating door was still open or unlocked on the next +morning?" + +Betty frowned and reflected, and shook her head. + +"I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. There was so much +to do. I did not notice." + +"No. Indeed why should you?" said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann. +"Before you go on with this curious story, Mademoiselle, tell me +this! Was the light beyond the open door, a light in the +dressing-room or in the room beyond the dressing-room, Madame +Harlowe's bedroom, or didn't you notice?" + +"In the far room, I think," Ann answered confidently. "There would +have been more light in the treasure-room otherwise. The +treasure-room is long no doubt, but where I stood I was completely in +darkness. There was only this panel of yellow light in the open +doorway. It lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up +the sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened like +silver." + +"Oho, there is a sedan chair in that museum?" said Hanaud lightly. +"It will be interesting to see. So the light, Mademoiselle, came +from the far room?" + +"The light and--and the voices," said Ann with a quaver in her throat. + +"Voices!" cried Hanaud. He sat up straight in his chair, whilst +Betty Harlowe went as white as a ghost. "Voices! What is this? Did +you recognise those voices?" + +"One, Madame's. There was no mistaking it. It was loud and violent +for a moment. Then it went off into a mumble of groans. The other +voice only spoke once and very few words and very clearly. But it +spoke in a whisper. There was too a sound of--movements." + +"Movements!" said Hanaud sharply; and with his voice his face seemed +to sharpen too. "Here's a word which does not help us much. A +procession moves. So does the chair if I push it. So does my hand +if I cover a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you +mean, Mademoiselle?" + +Under the stern insistence of his questions Ann Upcott suddenly +weakened. + +"Oh, I am afraid so," she said with a loud cry, and she clapped her +hands to her face. "I never understood until this morning when you +spoke of how the arrow might be used. Oh, I shall never forgive +myself. I stood in the darkness, a few yards away--no more--I stood +quite still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway Madame +was being killed!" She drew her hands from her face and beat upon +her knees with her clenched fists in a frenzy. + +"'Yes, I believe that now!' Madame cried in the hoarse, harsh voice +we knew: 'Stripped, eh? Stripped to the skin!' and she laughed +wildly; and then came the sound, as though--yes, it might have been +that!--as though she were forced down and held, and Madame's voice +died to a mumble and then silence--and then the other voice in a low +clear whisper, 'That will do now.' And all the while I stood in the +darkness--oh!" + +"What did you do after that clear whisper reached your ears?" Hanaud +commanded. "Take your hands from your face, if you please, and let +me hear." + +Ann Upcott obeyed him. She flung her head back with the tears +streaming down her face. + +"I turned," she whispered. "I went out of the room. I closed the +door behind me--oh, ever so gently. I fled." + +"Fled? Fled? Where to?" + +"Up the stairs! To my room." + +"And you rang no bell? You roused no one? You fled to your room! +You hid your head under the bed-clothes like a child! Come, come, +Mademoiselle!" + +Hanaud broke off his savage irony to ask, + +"And whose voice did you think it was that whispered so clearly, +'That will do now?' The stranger's you spoke of in the library this +morning?" + +"No, Monsieur," Ann replied. "I could not tell. With a whisper one +voice is like another." + +"But you must have given that voice an owner. To run away and +hide--no one would do that." + +"I thought it was Jeanne Baudin's." + +And Hanaud sat back in his chair again, gazing at the girl with a +look in which there was as much horror as incredulity. Jim Frobisher +stood behind him ashamed of his very race. Could there be a more +transparent subterfuge? If she thought that the nurse Jeanne Baudin +was in the bedroom, why did she turn and fly? + +"Come, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. His voice had suddenly become +gentle, almost pleading. "You will not make me believe that." + +Ann Upcott turned with a helpless gesture towards Betty. + +"You see!" she said. + +"Yes," Betty answered. She sat in doubt for a second or two and then +sprang to her feet. + +"Wait!" she said, and before any one could have stopped her she was +skimming half-way across the garden to the house. Jim Frobisher +wondered whether Hanaud had meant to stop her and then had given up +the idea as quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some +small quick movement; and even now, he watched Betty's flight across +the broad lawn between the roses with an inscrutable queer look. + +"To run like that!" he said to Frobisher, "with a boy's nimbleness +and a girl's grace! It is pretty, eh? The long slim legs that +twinkle, the body that floats!" and Betty ran up the stone steps into +the house. + +There was a tension in Hanaud's attitude with which his light words +did not agree, and he watched the blank windows of the house with +expectancy. Betty, however, was hardly a minute upon her errand. +She reappeared upon the steps with a largish envelope in her hand and +quickly rejoined the group. + +"Monsieur, we have tried to keep this back from you," she said, +without bitterness but with a deep regret. "I yesterday, Ann to-day, +just as we have tried for many years to keep it from all Dijon. But +there is no help for it now." + +She opened the envelope and, taking out a cabinet photograph, handed +it to Hanaud. + +"This is the portrait of Madame, my aunt, at the time of her marriage +with my uncle." + +It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman, slender with the +straight carriage of youth, in whose face a look of character had +replaced youth's prettiness. It was a face made spiritual by +suffering, the eyes shadowed and wistful, the mouth tender, and +conveying even in the hard medium of a photograph some whimsical +sense of humour. It made Jim Frobisher, gazing over Hanaud's +shoulder, exclaim not "She was beautiful," but "I would like to have +known her." + +"Yes! A companion," Hanaud added. + +Betty took a second photograph from the envelope. + +"But this, Monsieur, is the same lady a year ago." + +The second photograph had been taken at Monte Carlo, and it was +difficult to believe that it was of the same woman, so tragic a +change had taken place within those ten years. Hanaud held the +portraits side by side. The grace, the suggestion of humour had all +gone; the figure had grown broad, the features coarse and heavy; the +cheeks had fattened, the lips were pendulous; and there was nothing +but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful picture of collapse. + +"It is best to be precise, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud gently, "though +these photographs tell their unhappy story clearly enough. Madame +Harlowe, during the last years of her life, drank?" + +"Since my uncle's death," Betty explained. "Her life, as very likely +you know already, had been rather miserable and lonely before she +married him. But she had a dream then on which to live. After Simon +Harlowe died, however----" and she ended her explanation with a +gesture. + +"Yes," Hanaud replied, "of course, Mademoiselle, we have known, +Monsieur Frobisher and I, ever since we came into this affair that +there was some secret. We knew it before your reticence of yesterday +or Mademoiselle Upcott's of to-day. Waberski must have known of +something which you would not care to have exposed before he +threatened your lawyers in London, or brought his charges against +you." + +"Yes, he knew and the doctors and the servants of course who were +very loyal. We did our best to keep our secret but we could never be +sure that we had succeeded." + +A friendly smile broadened Hanaud's face. + +"Well, we can make sure now and here," he said, and both the girls +and Jim stared at him. + +"How?" they exclaimed in an incredulous voice. + +Hanaud beamed. He held them in suspense. He spread out his hands. +The artist as he would have said, the mountebank as Jim Frobisher +would have expressed it, had got the upper hand in him, and prepared +his effect. + +"By answering me one simple question," he said. "Have either of you +two ladies received an anonymous letter upon the subject?" + +The test took them all by surprise; yet each one of them recognised +immediately that they could hardly have a better. All the secrets of +the town had been exploited at one time or another by this unknown +person or group of persons--all the secrets that is, except this one +of Mrs. Harlowe's degradation. For Betty answered, + +"No! I never received one." + +"Nor I," added Ann. + +"Then your secret is your secret still," said Hanaud. + +"For how long now?" Betty asked quickly, and Hanaud did not answer a +word. He could make no promise without being false to what he had +called his creed. + +"It is a pity," said Betty wistfully. "We have striven so hard, Ann +and I," and she gave to the two men a glimpse of the life the two +girls had led in the Maison Crenelle. "We could do very little. We +had neither of us any authority. We were both of us dependent upon +Madame's generosity, and though no one could have been kinder +when--when Madame was herself, she was not easy when she had--the +attacks. There was too much difference in age between us and her for +us really to do anything but keep guard. + +"She would not brook interference; she drank alone in her bedroom; +she grew violent and threatening if any one interfered. She would +turn them all into the street. If she needed any help she could ring +for the nurse, as indeed she sometimes, though rarely, did." It was +a dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlowe described it for the two +young sentinels. + +"We were utterly in despair," Betty continued. "For Madame, of +course, was really ill with her heart, and we always feared some +tragedy would happen. This letter which Ann was to write when I was +at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a +doctor in England--he called himself a doctor at all events--who +advertised that he had a certain remedy which could be given without +the patient's knowledge in her food and drink. Oh, I had no faith in +it, but we had got to try it." + +Hanaud looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. + +"What did I say to you, Monsieur Frobisher, when you wanted to ask a +question about this letter? You see! These things disclose +themselves in their due order if you leave them alone." + +The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his feet and, bowing +to Betty with an unaffected stateliness and respect, he handed her +back the photographs. + +"Mademoiselle, I am very sorry," he said. "It is clear that you and +your friend have lived amongst difficulties which we did not suspect. +And, for the secret, I shall do what I can." + +Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been administered to him for +the excellence of his manner towards Betty. He had a hope even that +now he would forswear his creed, so that the secret might still be +kept and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close +watch. But Hanaud sat down again in his chair, and once more turned +towards Ann Upcott. He meant to go on then. He would not leave well +alone. Jim was all the more disappointed, because he could not but +realise that the case was more and more clearly building itself from +something unsubstantial into something solid, from a conjecture to an +argument--this case against some one. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN: _The Clock upon the Cabinet_ + +Ann Upcott's story was in the light of this new disclosure +intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, she had heard, as she +thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one of her violent outbreaks. Then with a +sense of relief she had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was +with Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally +administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries diminish and +cease and a final whisper from the nurse to her patient or even +perhaps to herself, "That will do now." Then she had turned and +fled, taking care to attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice +had nothing to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her +intervention, which before would only have been a provocation to a +wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was now altogether +without excuse. It would once more have aroused the invalid, and +next day would have added to the discomfort and awkwardness of life +in the Maison Crenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known that +Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful exhibitions. The +best thing which Ann could do, she did, given that her interpretation +of the scene was the true one. She ran noiselessly back in the +darkness to her room. + +"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your interpretation +was not correct. You believe now that whilst you stood in the +darkness with the door open and the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was +being murdered, coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you." + +Ann Upcott shivered from head to foot. + +"I don't want to believe it," she cried. "It's too horrible." + +"You believe now that the one who whispered 'That will do now,' was +not Jeanne Baudin," Hanaud insisted, "but some unknown person, and +that the whisper was uttered after murder had been done to a third +person in that room." + +Ann twisted her body from this side to that; she wrung her hands. + +"I am afraid of it!" she moaned. + +"And what is torturing you now, Mademoiselle, is remorse that you did +not step silently forward and from the darkness of the treasure-room +look through that lighted doorway." He spoke with a great +consideration and his insight into her distress was in its way a +solace to her. + +"Yes," she exclaimed eagerly. "I told you this morning I could have +hindered it. I didn't understand until this morning. You see, that +night something else happened"; and now indeed stark fear drew the +colour from her cheeks and shone in her eyes. + +"Something else?" Betty asked with a quick indraw of her breath, and +she shifted her chair a little so that she might face Ann. She was +wearing a black coat over a white silk shirt open at the throat, and +she took her handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it +across her forehead. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud explained. "It is clear that something +else happened that night to your friend, something which, taken +together with our talk this morning over the book of arrows, had made +her believe that murder was done." He looked at Ann. "You went then +to your room?" + +Ann resumed her story. + +"I went to bed. I was very--what shall I say?--disturbed by Madame's +outburst, as I thought it. One never knew what was going to happen +in this house. It was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side +to side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was asleep, +sound asleep. But only for a time. I woke up and it was still pitch +dark in my room. There was not a thread of light from the shutters. +I turned over from my side on to my back and I stretched out my arms +above my head. As God is my Judge I touched a face----" and even +after all these days the terror of that moment was so vivid and fresh +to her that she shuddered and a little sob broke from her lips. "A +face quite close to me bending over me, in silence. I drew my hands +away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay just for a +second or two dumb, paralysed. Then my voice came back to me and I +screamed." + +It was the look of the girl as she told her story perhaps more than +the words she used; but something of her terror spread like a +contagion amongst her hearers. Jim Frobisher's shoulders worked +uneasily. Betty with her big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, +hung upon Ann's narrative. Hanaud himself said: + +"You screamed? I do not wonder." + +"I knew that no one could hear me and that lying down I was +helpless," Ann continued. "I sprang out of bed in a panic, and now I +touched no one. I was so scared out of my wits that I had lost all +sense of direction. I couldn't find the switch of the electric +light. I stumbled along a wall feeling with my hands. I heard +myself sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked against +a chest of drawers and came a little to myself. I found my way then +to the switch and turned on the light. The room was empty. I tried +to tell myself that I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale +wasn't true. Some one had been stealthily bending down close, oh, so +close over me in the darkness. My hand that had touched the face +seemed to tingle. I asked myself with a shiver, what would have +happened to me if just at that moment I had not waked up? I stood +and listened, but the beating of my heart filled the whole room with +noise. I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, I +could easily have believed that one after another an army was +creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I made up my mind. I flung +the door open wide. For a moment I stood back from it, but once the +door was open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the great +staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an empty church. I +think that I should have heard a spider stir. I suddenly realised +that the light was streaming from my room and that some of it must +reach me. I cried at once, 'Who's there?' And then I ran back to my +room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep no more that +night. I ran to the windows and threw open the shutters. The night +had cleared, the stars were bright in a clean black sky and there was +a freshness of morning in the air. I had been, I should think, about +five minutes at the window when--you know perhaps, Monsieur, how the +clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the hour from one another and +pass it on to the hills--all of them struck three. I stayed by the +window until the morning came." + +After she had finished no one spoke for a little while. Then Hanaud +slowly lit another cigarette, looking now upon the ground, now into +the air, anywhere except at the faces of his companions. + +"So this alarming thing happened just before three o'clock in the +morning?" he asked gravely. "You are very sure of that, I suppose? +For, you see, it may be of the utmost importance." + +"I am quite sure, Monsieur," she said. + +"And you have told this story to no one until this moment?" + +"To no one in the world," replied Ann. "The next morning Madame +Harlowe was found dead. There were the arrangements for the funeral. +Then came Monsieur Boris's accusation. There were troubles enough in +the house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would have +believed my story of the face in the darkness; and I didn't of course +associate it then with the death of Mrs. Harlowe." + +"No," Hanaud agreed. "For you believed that death to have been +natural." + +"Yes, and I am not sure that it wasn't natural now," Ann protested. +"But to-day I had to tell you this story, Monsieur Hanaud"; and she +leaned forward in her chair and claimed his attention with her eyes, +her face, every tense muscle of her body. "Because if you are right +and murder was done in this house on the twenty-seventh, I know the +exact hour when it was done." + +"Ah!" + +Hanaud nodded his head once or twice slowly. He gathered up his feet +beneath him. His eyes glittered very brightly as he looked at Ann. +He gave Frobisher the queer impression of an animal crouching to +spring. + +"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet," he said, "against the middle +of the wall in the treasure-room. The white face of it and the hour +which leapt at you during that fraction of a second when your fingers +were on the switch." + +"Yes," said Ann with a slow and quiet emphasis. "The hour was +half-past ten." + +With that statement the tension was relaxed. Betty's +tightly-clenched hand opened and her trifle of a handkerchief +fluttered down on the grass. Hanaud changed from that queer attitude +of a crouching animal. Jim Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. + +"Yes, that is very important," said Hanaud. + +"Important. I should think it was!" cried Jim. + +For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had been done on the +night of the 27th of April, there was just one person belonging to +the household of the Maison Crenelle who could have no share in it; +and that one person was his client, Betty Harlowe. + +Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when Hanaud spoke to +her; and she drew herself erect again with a little jerk. + +"Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good time, +Mademoiselle?" he asked. + +"Very good," she answered. "Monsieur Sabin the watch-maker in the +Rue de la Liberté has had it more than once to clean. It is an +eight-day clock. It will be going when the seals are broken this +afternoon. You will see for yourself." + +Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. He rose to +his feet and bowed to her with a certain formality but with a smile +which redeemed it. + +"At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing at the house of M. +de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers," he said. "Of that there is no +doubt. Inquiries have been made. Mademoiselle did not leave that +house until after one in the morning. There is evidence enough of +that to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her dancing +partners to M. de Pouillac's coachman, who stood at the bottom of the +steps with a lantern during that evening and remembers to have held +open for Mademoiselle the door of her car when she went away." + +"So that's that," said Jim to himself. Betty at all events was out +of the net for good. And with that certainty there came a revolution +in his thoughts. Why shouldn't Hanaud's search go on? It was +interesting to watch the building up of this case against an unknown +criminal--a case so difficult to bring to its proper conclusion in +the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there was no trace of +poison, a case where out of a mass of conjectures, here and there and +more and more definite facts were coming into view; just as more and +more masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer one +approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to go on, delving +astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things disclose themselves in +their due sequence. But there was one point which Hanaud had missed, +which should be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he +thought with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would come to the +help of the netted lion. He cleared his throat. + +"Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to ask you," he +began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his surprise, with a face of +thunder. + +"You wish to ask a question?" he said. "Well, Monsieur, ask it if +you wish. It is your right." + +His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, "and your +responsibility." Jim hesitated. He could see no harm in the +question he proposed to ask. It was of vital importance. Yet Hanaud +stood in front of him with a lowering face, daring him to put it. +Jim did not doubt any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point +and yet for some unknown reason objected to its disclosure. Jim +yielded, but not with a very good grace. + +"It is nothing," he said surlily, and Hanaud at once was all +cheerfulness again. + +"Then we will adjourn," he said, looking at his watch. "It is nearly +one o'clock. Shall we say three for the Commissary of Police? Yes? +Then I shall inform him and we will meet in the library at three +and"--with a little bow to Betty--"the interdict shall be raised." + +"At three, then," she said gaily. She sprang up from her chair, +stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a swift and supple movement, +twirled upon her heel and cried, "Come along, Ann!" + +The four people moved off towards the house. Betty looked back. + +"You have left your gloves behind you on your chair," she said +suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back. + +"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, "Oh, +Mademoiselle!" + +For Betty had already darted back and now returned dangling the +gloves in her hand. + +"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as he took them from +her. Then he cocked his head at Frobisher, who was looking a little +stiff. + +"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You do not like +that so much kindness should be shown me. No! You are looking very +proper. You have the poker in the back. But ask yourself this: +'What are youth and good looks compared with Hanaud?'" + +No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when the urchin got the +upper hand in him. And the worst of it was that he had no rejoinder. +He flushed very red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in +silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and stick, took +his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. Ann drifted into the +library. Jim felt a touch upon his arm. Betty was standing beside +him with a smile of amusement upon her face. + +"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, did you?" she +asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the amusement softened into +tenderness. "I wouldn't have done it for worlds if I had thought +you'd have minded." + +Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning. + +"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole if it +pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might do the same for +me'!" + +Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. + +"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next moment she was +out on the steps under the glass face of the porch. "Lunch at two, +Ann!" she cried. "I must walk all the grime of this morning out of +my brain." + +She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobisher. She had something +of Ariel in her conception--a delicate creature of fire and spirit +and air. She was across the courtyard and out of sight in the street +of Charles-Robert before he had quite realised that she was going. +He turned doubtfully towards the library, where Ann Upcott stood in +the doorway. + +"I had better follow her," he said, reaching for his hat + +Ann smiled and shook her head wisely. + +"I shouldn't. I know Betty. She wants to be alone." + +"Do you think so?" + +"I am sure." + +Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon the point as +she was. Ann watched him with a rather rueful smile for a little +while. Then she shrugged her shoulders in a sudden exasperation. + +"There is something you ought to do," she said. "You ought to let +Monsieur Bex, Betty's notary here, know that the seals are to be +broken this afternoon. He ought to be here. He was here when they +were affixed. Besides, he has all the keys of Mrs. Harlowe's drawers +and cupboards." + +"That's true," Jim exclaimed. "I'll go at once." + +Ann gave him Monsieur Bex's address in the Place Etienne Dolet, and +from the window of the library watched him go upon his errand. She +stood at the window for a long while after he had disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN: _A New Suspect_ + +Monsieur Bex the notary came out into the hall of his house when +Frobisher sent his card in to him. He was a small, brisk man with a +neat pointed beard, his hair cut _en brosse_ and the corner of his +napkin tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. + +Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from the rooms of the +Maison Grenelle, but said nothing at all of the new developments +which had begun with the discovery of the book of the arrows. + +"I have had communications with Messrs. Frobisher and Haslitt," the +little man exclaimed. "Everything has been as correct as it could +possibly be. I am happy to meet a partner of so distinguished a +firm. Yes. I will certainly present myself at three with my keys +and see the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a disgrace. +That young lady so delicious and so correct! And that animal of a +Waberski! But we can deal with him. We have laws in France." + +He gave Jim the impression that there were in his opinion no laws +anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor into the street. + +Jim returned by the Rue des Godrans and the main thoroughfare of the +town, the street of Liberty. As he crossed the semicircle of the +Place d'Armes in front of the Hôtel de Ville, he almost ran into +Hanaud smoking a cigar. + +"You have lunched already?" he cried. + +"An affair of a quarter of an hour," said Hanaud with a wave of the +hand. "And you?" + +"Not until two. Miss Harlowe wanted a walk." + +Hanaud smiled. + +"How I understand that! The first walk after an ordeal! The first +walk of a convalescent after an operation! The first walk of a +defendant found innocent of a grave charge! It must be worth taking, +that walk. But console yourself, my friend, for the postponement of +your luncheon. You have met me!" and he struck something of an +attitude. + +Now Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, especially +when displayed in public places, and he answered stiffly, "That is a +pleasure, to be sure." + +Hanaud grinned. To make Jim look "proper" was becoming to him an +unfailing entertainment. + +"Now I reward you," he said, though for what Jim could not imagine. +"You shall come with me. At this hour, on the top of old Philippe le +Bon's Terrace Tower, we shall have the world to ourselves." + +He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville. +Behind the long wing which faced them, a square, solid tower rose a +hundred and fifty feet high above the ground. With Frobisher at his +heels, Hanaud climbed the three hundred and sixteen steps and emerged +upon the roof into the blue and gold of a cloudless May in France. +They looked eastwards, and the beauty of the scene took Frobisher's +breath away. Just in front, the slender apse of Notre Dame, fine as +a lady's ornament, set him wondering how in the world through all +these centuries it had endured; and beyond, rich and green and +wonderful, stretched the level plain with its shining streams and +nestling villages. + +Hanaud sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out his arm across +the parapet. "Look!" he cried eagerly, proudly. "There is what I +brought you here to see. Look!" + +Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up. Far away on the horizon's +edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the great mass of Mont Blanc; +white as silver, soft as velvet, and here and there sparkling with +gold as though the flame of a fire leaped and sank. + +"Oho!" said Hanaud as he watched Jim's face. "So we have that in +common. You perhaps have stood on the top of that mountain?" + +"Five times," Jim answered, with a smile made up of many memories. +"I hope to do so again." + +"You are fortunate," said Hanaud a little enviously. "For me I see +him only in the distance. But even so--if I am troubled--it is like +sitting silent in the company of a friend." + +Jim Frobisher's mind strayed back over memories of snow slope and +rock ridge. It was a true phrase which Hanaud had used. It +expressed one of the many elusive, almost incommunicable emotions +which mountains did mean to the people who had "that"--the passion +for mountains--in common. Jim glanced curiously at Hanaud. + +"You are troubled about this case, then?" he said sympathetically. +The distant and exquisite vision of that soaring arc of silver and +velvet set in the blue air had brought the two men into at all events +a momentary brotherhood. + +"Very," Hanaud returned slowly, without turning his eyes from the +horizon, "and for more reasons than one. What do you yourself think +of it?" + +"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," Jim said dryly, "that you do not like any +one to ask any questions except yourself." + +Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. + +"Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful Mademoiselle +Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright the question you meant to +ask! It was whether the face she touched in the darkness was the +smooth face of a woman or the face of a man." + +"Yes. That was it." + +It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly at Jim. There +could be no doubt of the thought which was passing through his mind: +"I must begin to give you a little special attention, my friend." +But he was careful not to put his thoughts into words. + +"I did not want that question asked," he said. + +"Why?" + +"Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions are confusing +things which had best be avoided altogether." + +Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He had too clear a +recollection of the swift movement and the look with which Hanaud had +checked him. Both had been unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud +would not have been alarmed at the prospect of a question being +asked, merely because the question was superfluous. There was +another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in Hanaud's mind. +Only he could not discover it. + +Besides, was the question superfluous? + +"Surely," Hanaud replied. "Suppose that that young lady's hand had +touched in the darkness the face of a man with its stubble, its tough +skin, and the short hair of his head around it, bending down so low +over hers, would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing +to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her hands +carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, unexpectedly, the +face of a man? She could not have told her story at all without +telling that. It would have been the unforgettable detail, the very +heart of her terror. She touched the face of a man!" + +Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he was no nearer to +the solution of his problem--why Hanaud so whole-heartedly objected +to the question being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark +which drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's speculations. + +"Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the darkness that +night--if that night, in the darkness she touched a face at all." + +Jim was utterly startled. + +"You believe that she was lying to us?" he cried. + +Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air. + +"I believe nothing," he said. "I am looking for a criminal." + +"Ann Upcott!" Jim spoke the name in amazement. "Ann Upcott!" Then +he remembered the look of her as she had told her story, her face +convulsed with terror, her shaking tones. "Oh, it's impossible that +she was lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?" + +Hanaud laughed. + +"You may take this from me, my friend. All women who are great +criminals are also very artful actresses. I never knew one who +wasn't." + +"Ann Upcott!" Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, but now with a +trifle less of amazement. He was growing slowly and gradually +accustomed to the idea. Still--that girl with the radiant look of +young Spring! Oh, no! + +"Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe's will," he argued. +"What could she have to gain by murder?" + +"Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! Analyse it. You +will see--what? That it falls into two parts." Hanaud ground the +stump of his cigar beneath his heel, offered one of his black +cigarettes to Jim Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it +with a sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop fizzling, +would never burst into flame. + +"One part when she was alone in her bedroom--a little story of terror +and acted very effectively, but after all any one could invent it. +The other part was not so easy to invent. The communicating door +open for no reason, the light beyond, the voice that whispered, 'That +will do,' the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don't believe +that was invented. There were too many little details which seemed +to have been lived through. The white face of the clock and the hour +leaping at her. No! I think all that must stand. But adapt it a +little. See! This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of +Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!" + +"Yes," said Jim. + +"And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might not be telling a +true story of himself and attributing it to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott's story in the same way," continued +Hanaud. "Suppose that sometime that day she had unlocked the +communicating door! What more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during +the day-time. Her room was empty. And that communicating door +opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps it might have been +discovered whether it was locked or not, but into a dressing-room." + +"Yes," Jim agreed. + +"Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after Mademoiselle +Harlowe's departure to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball. She sends Gaston +to bed. The house is all dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is +joined by--some one--some one with the arrow poison all ready in the +hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room just as Ann +Upcott described. That she turns on the light for a second +whilst--some one--crosses the treasure-room and opens the door. +Suppose that the voice which whispered, 'That will do now,' was the +voice of Ann Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame +Harlowe's body to the third person in that room!" + +"The 'some one,'" exclaimed Jim. "But, who then? Who?" + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. "Why not Waberski?" + +"Waberski?" cried Jim with a new excitement in his voice. + +"You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this murder and you +answered your own question. Nothing you said, Monsieur Frobisher, +but did your quick answer cover the ground? Waberski--he at all +events expected a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for help +proposed to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite +Mademoiselle Ann. Has she no motive now? In the end what do we know +of her at all except that she is the paid companion and therefore +poor? Mademoiselle Ann!"; and he threw up his hands. "Where does +she spring from? How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps +Waberski's friend?"--and a cry from Jim brought Hanaud to a stop. + +Jim had thought of Waberski as the possible murderer if murder had +been done--a murderer who, disappointed of his legacy, the profits of +his murder, had carried on his villainy to blackmail and a false +accusation. But he had not associated Ann Upcott with him until +those moments on the Terrace Tower. Yet now memories began to crowd +upon him. The letter to him, for instance. She had said that +Waberski had claimed her support and ridiculed his claim. Might that +letter not have been a blind and a rather cunning blind? Above all +there was a scene passing vividly through his mind which was very +different from the scene spread out before his eyes, a scene of +lighted rooms and a crowd about a long green table, and a fair +slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until the whole +of her little pile of banknotes was swept in by the croupier's rake, +and then turned away with a high carriage but a quivering lip. + +"Aha!" said Hanaud keenly. "You know something after all of Ann +Upcott, my friend. What do you know?" + +Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to her that he +should relate his story. Explained, it might wear so different a +complexion. At another moment that it would be fairer to let her +explain it. And there was Betty to consider. Yes, above all there +was Betty to consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. + +"I will tell you," he said to Hanaud. "When I saw you in Paris, I +told you that I had never seen Ann Upcott in all my life. I believed +it. It wasn't until she danced into the library yesterday morning +that I realised I had misled you. I saw Ann Upcott at the _trente et +quarante_ table at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in January of +this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and losing her +money. Nothing would go right for her. She bore herself proudly and +well. The only sign I saw of distress was the tightening of her +fingers about her little handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at +the other players when she rose after her last coup, as though she +dared them to pity her. I was on the other hand winning, and I +slipped a thousand-franc note off the table on to the floor, keeping +my heel firmly upon it as you can understand. And as the girl turned +to move out from the crowd I stopped her. I said in English, for she +was obviously of my race, 'This is yours. You have dropped it on the +floor.' She gave me a smile and a little shake of the head. I think +that for the moment she dared not trust her lips to speak, and in a +second, of course, she was swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a +little while longer. Then I too rose and as I passed the entrance to +the bar on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from one of the +many little tables and spoke to me. She called me by my name. She +thanked me very prettily and said that although she had lost that +evening she was not really in any trouble. I doubted the truth of +what she said. For she had not one ring upon any finger, not the +tiniest necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress or +in her hair. She turned away from me at once and went back to the +little table where she sat down again in the company of a man. The +girl of course was Ann Upcott, the man Waberski. It was from him no +doubt that she had got my name." + +"Did this little episode happen before Ann Upcott became a member of +the household?" Hanaud asked. + +"Yes," replied Jim. "I think she joined Mrs. Harlowe and Betty at +Monte Carlo. I think that she came with them back to Dijon." + +"No doubt," said Hanaud. He sat for a little while in silence. Then +he said softly, "That does not look so very well for Mademoiselle +Ann." + +Jim had to admit that it did not. + +"But consider this, Monsieur Hanaud," he urged. "If Ann Upcott, +which I will not believe, is mixed up in this affair, why should she +of her own free will volunteer this story of what she heard upon the +night of the twenty-seventh and invent that face which bent down over +her in the darkness?" + +"I have an idea about that," Hanaud replied. "She told us this +story--when? After I had said that we must have the seals broken +this afternoon and the rooms thrown open. It is possible that we may +come upon something in those rooms which makes it wise for her to +divert suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jeanne Baudin, +or even Mademoiselle Harlowe's maid Francine Rollard." + +"But not Mademoiselle Betty," Jim interposed quickly. + +"No, no!" Hanaud returned with a wave of his hand. "The clock upon +the marquetry cabinet settled that. Mademoiselle Betty is out of the +affair. Well, this afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, +you will be late for your luncheon." + +Hanaud rose from the bench and with a last look at the magical +mountain, that outpost of France, they turned towards the city. + +Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares green with limes and the +steep gaily-patterned roofs of ancient houses. About him the fine +tapering spires leapt high like lances from the slates of its many +churches. A little to the south and a quarter of a mile away across +the roof tops he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke +rising from a chimney stack or two and behind it the tops of tall +trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from their leaves. + +"The Maison Crenelle!" he said. + +There was no answer, not even the slightest movement at his side. + +"Isn't it?" he asked and he turned. + +Hanaud had not even heard him. He was gazing also towards the Maison +Crenelle with the queerest look upon his face; a look with which Jim +was familiar in some sort of association, but which for a moment or +two he could not define. It was not an expression of amazement. On +the other hand interest was too weak a word. Suddenly Jim Frobisher +understood and comprehension brought with it a sense of discomfort. +Hanaud's look, very bright and watchful and more than a little +inhuman, was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master +brings out a gun. + +Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The slates were +broken at intervals by little gabled windows, but at none of them +could he see a figure. From none of them a signal was waved. + +"What is it that you are looking at?" asked Jim in perplexity and +then with a touch of impatience. "You see something, I'm sure." + +Hanaud heard his companion at last. His face changed in a moment, +lost its rather savage vigilance, and became the face of a buffoon. + +"Of course I see something. Always I see something. Am I not +Hanaud? Ah, my friend, the responsibility of being Hanaud! Aren't +you fortunate to be without it? Pity me! For the Hanauds must see +something everywhere--even when there is nothing to see. Come!" + +He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform into the dark +turret of the staircase. The two men descended the steps and came +out again into the semi-circle of the Place d'Armes. + +"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he had some little +thing to say and was not quite sure whether he would say it. Then he +compromised. "You shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to +your luncheon," he said. + +"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied. + +Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his outstretched +forefinger. + +"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take a Vermouth with +me, and you will still reach the Maison Crenelle before Mademoiselle +Harlowe. I say that, Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and +consented. + +"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her and Ann +Upcott half through their meal." + +A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and the Place +d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out on the pavement +beneath an awning. They sat down at one of them, and over the +Vermouth, Hanaud was once more upon the brink of some recommendation +or statement. + +"You see----" he began and then once more ran away. "So you have +been five times upon the top of the Mont Blanc!" he said. "From +Chamonix?" + +"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant by the Brenva +glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once from the Brouillard glacier. +And the last time by the Mont Mandit." + +Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: + +"You tell me things which are interesting and very new to me," he +said warmly. "I am grateful, Monsieur." + +"On the other hand," Jim answered dryly, "you, Monsieur, tell me very +little. Even what you brought me to this café to say, you are going +to keep to yourself. But for my part I shall not be so churlish. I +am going to tell you what I think." + +"Yes?" + +"I think we have missed the way." + +"Oh?" + +Hanaud selected a cigarette from his bundle in its bright blue +wrapping. + +"You will perhaps think me presumptuous in saying so." + +"Not the least little bit in the world," Hanaud replied seriously. +"We of the Police are liable in searching widely to overlook the +truth under our noses. That is our danger. Another angle of +view--there is nothing more precious. I am all attention." + +Jim Frobisher drew his chair closer to the round table of iron and +leaned his elbows upon it. + +"I think there is one question in particular which we must answer if +we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, and if so by +whom." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we have the same +question in our minds." + +"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this--Who put back +the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in its place upon the +bookshelf in the library, between mid-day yesterday and this morning." + +Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and held it in the +shelter of his palm until the flame shone. He lit his cigarette and +took a few puffs at it. + +"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, although in +rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. No. I think there is +another more important still. I think if we could know why the door +of the treasure-room, which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's +death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh of April, we +should be very near to the whole truth of this dark affair. But," +and he flung out his hands, "that baffles me." + +Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily upon the +pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer there. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE: _The Breaking of the Seals_ + +A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that Hanaud guessed +very luckily. He would not allow that it was more than a guess. +Monsieur Hanaud might be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no +insight, however brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a +circumstance. But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at the +Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty Harlowe. He +had loitered with Hanaud at the café just so that this might not take +place. He shrank from being alone with Ann Upcott now that he +suspected her. The most he could hope to do was to conceal the +reason of his trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could +not conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by a +rather wistful expression of sympathy. + +"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you need not be +any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half-past ten +when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away +amongst her friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that." + +"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, and Ann +looked at him with startled eyes. + +Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall before Ann could +ask a question; and throughout their luncheon he made conversation +upon indifferent subjects with rapidity, if without entertainment. + +Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were still indeed +smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when Gaston informed them +that the Commissary of Police with his secretary was waiting in the +library. + +"This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London," said Betty as she +presented Jim. + +The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, middle-aged man +with a pair of folding glasses sitting upon a prominent fat nose; his +secretary, Maurice Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the +police administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in his +own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror amongst the fair. + +"I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle's notary in Dijon, to be +present," said Jim. + +"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and Monsieur Bex +was at that moment announced. He came on the very moment of three. +The clock was striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was +just as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased. + +"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, smiling, "we can +now proceed with the final ceremonies of this affair." + +"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary. + +"Hanaud?" + +"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited by the Examining +Magistrate to take charge of this case," the Commissary explained. + +"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there is no case for +Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty Harlowe drew him a little aside. + +Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary of the incidents +of the morning, Jim went out of the room into the hall in search of +Hanaud. He saw him at once; but to his surprise Hanaud came forward +from the back of the hall as if he had entered the house from the +garden. + +"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to the door of +that room which certainly was at the back of the house behind the +library, with its entrance behind the staircase. "We will join the +others." + +Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex. + +"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly to Thevenet. + +"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, and in a loud +undertone, "a charming youth, of an intelligence which is surprising. +He will go far." + +Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. The young +recruit gazed at the great man with kindling eyes. + +"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, by which, if I +do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence at all," he said +with a formal modesty which quite went to the heart of Monsieur Bex. + +"That is very correct," said he. + +Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He cocked an eye +at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary warmly by the hand. + +"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young friend," he +answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But I was once young Maurice +Thevenet without, alas! his good looks." + +Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming diffidence. + +"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex. + +"This looks like growing into a friendly little family party," Jim +Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a "Hum" and a "Ha" from the +Commissary. + +He moved to the centre of the room. + +"We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now remove the seals," he +said pompously. + +He led the way from the Library across the hall and along the +corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. He broke the +seals and removed the bands. Then he took a key from the hand of his +secretary and opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little +company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out his arms and +barred the way. + +"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his shoulder Jim +Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which made him shiver. + +This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase had made him for +a moment eager that Hanaud should press on, that development should +follow upon development until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. +Since the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower of the +Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and he waited for +developments in fear. This bedroom mistily lit by a few stray +threads of daylight which pierced through the chinks of the shutters, +cold and silent and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, +whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in the shadows. +Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed to the windows opposite, +opened them and flung back the shutters. The clear bright light +flooded every corner in an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher +relief. The room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the +wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; everywhere +there was order; it was as empty of suggestion as a vacant bedroom in +an hotel. + +Hanaud looked about him. + +"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week after Madame's +funeral. It would have been a miracle if we discovered anything +which could help us." + +He went to the bed, which stood with its head against the wall midway +between the door and the windows. A small flat stand with a button +of enamel lay upon the round table by the bed-side, and from the +stand a cord ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the +carpet. + +"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I suppose," he +said, turning towards Betty. + +"Yes." + +Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But there was no sign +that it had ever been tampered with. He stood up again. + +"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into Jeanne Baudin's +bedroom and close the door. I shall press this button, and you will +know whether the bell rings whilst we here shall be able to assure +ourselves whether sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in +the other." + +"Certainly." + +Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few seconds later +those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door close in the corridor. + +"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud requested. + +Bex, the notary, closed it. + +"Now, silence, if you please!" + +Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered him. He pressed +it again and again with the same result. The Commissary returned to +the bedroom. + +"Well?" Hanaud asked. + +"It rang twice," said the Commissary. + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. + +"And an electric bell has a shrill, penetrating sound," he cried. +"Name of a name, but they built good houses when the Maison Crenelle +was built! Are the cupboards and drawers open?" + +He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came forward. + +"All the drawers were locked on the morning when Madame Harlowe's +death was discovered. Mademoiselle Harlowe herself locked them in my +presence and handed to me the keys for the purpose of making an +inventory. Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For +until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will were not +disclosed." + +"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you must have unlocked +them." + +"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. There were the +arrangements for the funeral, a list of the properties to be made for +valuation, and the vineyards to be administered." + +"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes and cupboards and +drawers should hold exactly what they held on the night of the +twenty-seventh of April." He ran quickly about the room trying a +door here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a cupboard +fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The trouble is that a child +with a bent wire could unlock any one of them. Do you know what +Madame Harlowe kept in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with +his knuckles upon the cupboard door. + +"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex produced a bunch of +keys from his pocket. + +"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud. + +He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers, as though time +meant nothing to him at all. He now swung briskly back into the +centre of the room, making notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its +geography. The door opening from the corridor faced, across the +length of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If one +stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the bed was on the +left hand. On the corridor side of the bed, a second smaller door, +which was half open, led to a white-tiled bath-room. On the window +side of the bed was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a +woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the windows, a +great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, and in that same wall, +close to the right-hand window, there was yet another door. Hanaud +moved to it. + +"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of Ann Upcott, and +without waiting for an answer pushed it open. + +Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys rattling. +"Everything here has been locked up too," he said. + +Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened the shutters. + +It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, and with a door +exactly opposite to the door by which Hanaud had entered. He went at +once to this door. + +"And this must be the communicating door which leads into what is +called the treasure-room," he said, and he paused with his hand upon +the knob and his eyes ranging alertly over the faces of the company. + +"Yes," said Ann Upcott. + +Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of the opening of +some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh in a hill-side of the Valley +of Kings. Suspense passed from one to the other as they waited, but +Hanaud did not move. He stood there impassive and still like some +guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that he was never +going to move, and in a voice of exasperation he cried: + +"Is the door locked?" + +Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No doubt he, too, +felt that strange current of emotion and expectancy which bound all +in the room under a spell, and even gave to their diverse faces for a +moment a kind of family similitude. + +"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. "But since +this room is now the private sitting-room of Mademoiselle Harlowe, I +think that we ought to wait until she rejoins us." + +Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, "That is very +correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice rang out from the doorway +leading to Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom: + +"I am here." + +Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. It opened at a +touch--inwards towards the group of people and upwards towards the +corridor. The treasure-room was before them, shrouded in dim light, +but here and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held out a +promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way daintily to the windows +and fastened the shutters back against the outside wall. "I beg that +nothing shall be touched," he said as the others filed into the room. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN: _Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room_ + +Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the corridor, it was +longer than it was broad and more of a gallery than a room. But it +had been arranged for habitation rather than for occasional visits. +For it was furnished with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. +In the fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures by +Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of Chinese +Chippendale by the window every appointment, ink-stand, pen-tray, +candlestick, sand-caster and all were of the pink Battersea enamel +and without a flaw. But they were there for use, not for exhibition. +Moreover a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on the +side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it almost the +appearance of two rooms in communication, The one feature of the +room, indeed, which at a first glimpse betrayed the collector, was +the Sedan chair set in a recess of the wall by the fire-place and +opposite to the door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its +body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately carved +mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions representing +fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses daintily painted in the +middle of them. It had glass windows at the sides to show off the +occupant, and it was lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold +to match the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised +upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold filigree work, and +it had a door in front of which the upper part was glass. Altogether +it was as pretty a gleaming piece of work as the art of +carriage-building could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected +it. Even Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his +hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, until Jim +began to think that he had quite forgotten the business which had +brought him there. However, he brought himself out of his dream with +a start. + +"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "What +pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts and fine gentlemen in silk +stockings! And what splashings of mud for the unhappy devils who had +to walk!" + +He turned his back to the chair and looked across the room. "That is +the clock which marked half-past ten, Mademoiselle, during the moment +when you had the light turned up?" he asked of Ann. + +"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it again. "Yes, +that's it." + +Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change in her +intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an inflexion of +doubt--it was not marked enough for that--but of perplexity. It was +clearly, however, fancy upon his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at +all. Jim pulled himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take +care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to suspect people, +they can say and do nothing which will not provide you with material +for suspicion." + +Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was a beautiful small +gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, shaped with a waist like a +violin; it had a white face, and it stood upon a marquetry Boulle +cabinet, a little more than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian +mirror. Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with +his watch. + +"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, with a +smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. + +He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the clock. He +faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of the room. It had an +Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from the same fawn-coloured wood as the +panels, with slender pillars and some beautiful carving upon the +board beneath the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was +framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should mask it, +there were no high ornaments at all upon the shelf itself. One or +two small boxes of Battersea enamel and a flat glass case alone +decorated it. Hanaud crossed to the mantelshelf and, after a +moment's inspection, lifted, with a low whistle of admiration, the +flat glass case. + +"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. "But I shall +probably never in my life have the luck to see anything so +incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf is a little high for me to +see it properly." + +Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it towards the +window. + +"Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?" he called out, and Jim went +forward to his side. + +The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony and +translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim acknowledged that he +had never seen craftsmanship so exquisite and delicate, but he chafed +none the less at Hanaud's diversion from his business. + +"One could spend a long day in this room," the detective exclaimed, +"admiring these treasures." + +"No doubt," Jim replied dryly. "But I had a notion that we were +going to spend an afternoon looking for an arrow." + +Hanaud laughed. + +"My friend, you recall me to my duty." He looked at the jewel again +and sighed. "Yes, as you say, we are not visitors here to enjoy +ourselves." + +He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and replaced it. +Then all at once his manner changed. He was leaning forward with his +hands still about the glass case. But he was looking down. The +fire-grate was hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; +and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could see over the +screen into the grate itself. + +"What is all this?" he asked. + +He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully aside. All +now could see what had disturbed him--a heap of white ashes in the +grate. + +Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the shovel from the +fender he thrust it between the bars and drew it out again with a +little layer of the ashes upon it. They were white and had been +pulverised into atoms. There was not one flake which would cover a +finger-nail. Hanaud touched them gingerly, as though he had expected +to find them hot. + +"This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and to-day is Thursday +afternoon," said Jim Frobisher with heavy sarcasm. "Ashes do not as +a rule keep hot more than three days, Monsieur Hanaud." + +Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. He was daring +to make fun of Hanaud! He treated the Sûrété with no more respect +than one might treat--well, say Scotland Yard. + +Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a partner of the +firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman was certainly not very +correct. Hanaud on the contrary was milk and water. + +"I have observed it," he replied mildly, and he sat back upon his +heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. + +"Mademoiselle!" he called; and Betty moved forward and leaned against +the mantelshelf at his side. "Who burnt these papers so very +carefully?" he asked. + +"I did," Betty replied. + +"And when?" + +"On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday morning, before +Monsieur le Commissaire arrived." + +"And what were they, Mademoiselle?" + +"Letters, Monsieur." + +Hanaud looked up into her face quickly. + +"Oho!" he said softly. "Letters! Yes! And what kind of letters, if +you please?" + +Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in despair. What in the +world had happened to Hanaud? One moment he forgot altogether the +business upon which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon +Harlowe's collection. The next he was off on his wild-goose chase +after anonymous letters. Jim had not a doubt that he was thinking of +them now. One had only to say "letters," and he was side-tracked at +once, apparently ready to accuse any one of their authorship. + +"They were quite private letters," Betty replied, whilst the colour +slowly stained her cheeks. "They will not help you." + +"So I see," Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a snarl in his +voice as he shook the shovel and flung the ashes back into the grate. +"But I am asking you, Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were." + +Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at the floor, and +then from the floor to the windows; and Jim saw with a stab of pain +that her eyes were glistening with tears. + +"I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a point when +Mademoiselle and I should consult together," he interposed. + +"Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights," said Monsieur +Bex. + +But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little petulant movement of +her shoulders. + +"Very well." + +She showed her face now to them all, with the tears abrim in her big +eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks and recognition. + +"You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud," she said with a catch in +her voice. "It seems that nothing, however sacred, but must be +dragged out into the light. But I say again those letters will not +help you." + +She looked across the group to her notary. + +"Monsieur Bex," she said, and he moved forward to the other side of +Hanaud. + +"In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door of the bathroom +there stood a small chest in which she kept a good many unimportant +papers, such as old receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to +destroy. This chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of +course with Mademoiselle's consent, meaning to go through the papers +at my leisure and recommend that all which were not important should +be destroyed. My time, however, was occupied, as I have already +explained to you, and it was not until the Friday of the sixth of May +that I opened the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my +surprise, a bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, +tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to assure me that +they were very private and sacred things with which Mademoiselle's +notary had nothing whatever to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday +morning, I brought them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty." + +With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued the story. + +"I put the letters aside so that I might read them quietly after +dinner. As it happened I could not in any case have given them +attention before. For on that morning Monsieur Boris formulated his +charge against me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office +of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, I was--I don't +say frightened--but distressed by this accusation; and it was not +until quite late in the evening, and then rather to distract my +thoughts than for any other reason, that I looked at the letters. +But as soon as I did look at them I understood that they must be +destroyed. There were reasons, which"--and her voice faltered, and +with an effort again grew steady--"which I feel it rather a sacrilege +to explain. They were letters which passed between my uncle Simon +and Mrs. Harlowe during the time when she was very unhappily married +to Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him--sometimes long +letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled off--without +reserve--during a moment of freedom. They were the letters of," and +again her voice broke and died away into a whisper, so that none +could misunderstand her meaning--"of lovers--lovers speaking very +intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there was no doubt +that they ought to be destroyed! But I made up my mind that I ought +to read them, every one, first of all lest there should be something +in them which I ought to know. I read a good many that night and +burnt them. But it grew late--I left the rest until the Sunday +morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, and what I had left +over I burnt then. It was soon after I had finished burning them +that Monsieur le Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes +which you see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters +which I burnt upon the Sunday morning." + +Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity which touched her +audience to a warm sympathy. Hanaud gently tilted the ashes back +into the grate. + +"Mademoiselle, I am always in the wrong with you," he said with an +accent of remorse. "For I am always forcing you to statements which +make me ashamed and do you honour." + +Jim acknowledged that Hanaud, when he wished, could do the handsome +thing with a very good grace. Unfortunately grace seemed never to be +an enduring quality in him; as, for instance, now. He was still upon +his knees in front of the hearth. Whilst making his apology he had +been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel without giving, to all +appearance, any thought to what he was doing. But his attention was +now arrested. The shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of +bluish-white paper. Hanaud's body stiffened. He bent forward and +picked the scrap of paper out from the grate, whilst Betty, too, +stooped with a little movement of curiosity. + +Hanaud sat back again upon his heels. + +"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday morning," he said. + +Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the fragment of paper. + +"Bills too, Mademoiselle." + +Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her head over it. It +was obviously the right-hand top corner of a bill. For an intriguing +scrap of a printed address was visible and below a figure or two in a +column. + +"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with the letters," said +Betty. "I don't remember it." + +She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, who sat and looked +at it. Jim Frobisher standing just behind him read the printed ends +of names and words and the figures beneath and happened to remember +the very look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the top +bit of name in large capital letters, the words below echelonned in +smaller capitals, then the figures in the columns and all enclosed in +a rough sort of triangle with the diagonal line browned and made +ragged by the fire--thus-- + + ERON + STRUCTION + LLES + IS + ======== + 375.05 + + +"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud and he tossed the +scrap of paper back into the grate. "Did you notice these ashes, +Monsieur Girardot, on Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the +question might seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an +explanation. + +"It is always good when it is possible to get a corroboration, +Mademoiselle." + +Betty nodded, but Girardot was at a loss. He managed to look +extremely important, but importance was not required. + +"I don't remember," he said. + +However, corroboration of a kind at all events did come though from +another source. + +"If I might speak, Monsieur Hanaud?" said Maurice Thevenet eagerly. + +"But by all means," Hanaud replied. + +"I came into this room just behind Monsieur Girardot on the Sunday +morning. I did not see any ashes in the hearth, that is true. But +Mademoiselle Harlowe was in the act of arranging that screen of blue +lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it to-day. She +arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were she stood up with +a start of surprise." + +"Aha!" said Hanaud cordially. He smiled at Betty. "This evidence is +just as valuable as if he had told us that he had seen the ashes +themselves." + +He rose to his feet and went close to her. + +"But there is another letter which you were good enough to promise to +me," he said. + +"The an----" she began and Hanaud stopped her hurriedly. + +"It is better that we hold our tongues," he said with a nod and a +grin which recognised that in this matter they were accomplices. +"This is to be our exclusive little secret, which, if he is very +good, we will share with Monsieur le Commissaire." + +He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a drawer in the +Chippendale secretary. Girardot the Commissaire tittered, not quite +sure that he thought very highly of it. Monsieur Bex, on the other +hand, by a certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly +clear that in his opinion such a jape was very, very far from correct. + +Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and handed it to +Hanaud, who took it aside to the window and read it carefully. Then +with a look he beckoned Girardot to his side. + +"Monsieur Frobisher can come too. For he is in the secret," he +added; and the three men stood apart at the window looking at the +sheet of paper. It was dated the 7th of May, signed "The Scourge," +like the others of this hideous brood, and it began without any +preface. There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of them +were epithets not to be reproduced which made Jim's blood boil that a +girl like Betty should ever have had to read them. + + + "_Your time is coming now, you----_" and here followed the string + of abominable obscenities. "_You are for it, Betty Harlowe. + Hanaud the detective from Paris is coming to look after you with + his handcuffs in his pocket. You'll look pretty in handcuffs, + won't you, Betty? It's your white neck we want! Three cheers + for Waberski? The Scourge._" + + +Girardot stared at the brutal words and settled his glasses on his +nose and stared again. + +"But--but----" he stammered and he pointed to the date. A warning +gesture made by Hanaud brought him to a sudden stop, but Frobisher +had little doubt as to the purport of that unfinished exclamation. +Girardot was astonished, as Hanaud himself had been, that this item +of news had so quickly leaked abroad. + +Hanaud folded the letter and turned back into the room. + +"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, and Thevenet the +secretary took his notebook from his pocket. + +"Shall I make you a copy of the letter, Monsieur Hanaud?" he said, +sitting down and holding out his hand. + +"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, "and a copy at the +present stage isn't necessary. A little later on I may ask for your +assistance." + +He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case away +in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again he saw that Betty was +holding out to him a key. + +"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," she said. + +"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we shall have +Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," said Hanaud. + +The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the room opposite to +the windows, and close to the door which opened on to the hall. +Hanaud took the key, unlocked the door of the cabinet and started +back with a "Wow." He was really startled, for facing him upon a +shelf were two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in +eyes, but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the heads of +Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the Amazon, and preserved +and reduced by their conquerors by the process common amongst those +forests. + +"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that we should +find it," he said, but though he found many curious oddities in that +cabinet, of the perfect specimen of a poison arrow there was never a +trace. He turned away with an air of disappointment. + +"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," he said +regretfully; and for an hour he searched that room, turning back the +carpet, examining the upholstery of the chairs, and the curtains, +shaking out every vase, and finally giving his attention to Betty's +secretary. He probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple +mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every pigeon-hole; +working with extraordinary swiftness and replacing everything in its +proper place. At the end of the hour the room was as orderly as when +he had entered it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. + +"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in a chair and +drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as the two ladies and +Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was prepared not to find it here." + +"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did not stir. + +"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur Girardot, if +you will remove the seals in the hall from the door at the end of the +room." + +The Commissary went out by the way of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom, +accompanied by his secretary. After a minute had passed a key grated +in the lock and the door was opened. The Commissary and his +secretary returned into the room from the hall. + +"Good!" said Hanaud. + +He rose from this chair and looking around at the little group, now +grown puzzled and anxious, he said very gravely: + +"In the interest of justice I now ask that none of you shall +interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have an experiment to +make." + +In a complete silence he walked to the fireplace and rang the bell. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN: _An Experiment and a Discovery_ + +Gaston answered the bell. + +"Will you please send Francine Rollard here," said Hanaud. + +Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond Hanaud to Betty. + +"If Mademoiselle gives me the order," he said respectfully. + +"At once then, Gaston," Betty replied, and she sat down in a chair. + +Francine Rollard was apparently difficult to persuade. For the +minutes passed, and when at last she did come into the treasure room +she was scared and reluctant. She was a girl hardly over twenty, +very neat and trim and pretty, and rather like some wild shy creature +out of the woods. She looked round the group which awaited her with +restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it was the +suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. + +"Rollard," said Hanaud gently, "I sent for you, for I want another +woman to help me in acting a little scene." + +He turned towards Ann Upcott. + +"Now, Mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly your movements +here on the night when Madame Harlowe died? You came into the +room--so. You stood by the electric-light switch there. You turned +it on, you noticed the time, and you turned it off quickly. For this +communicating door stood wide open--so!--and a strong light poured +out of Madame Harlowe's bedroom through the doorway." + +Hanaud was very busy, placing himself first by the side of Ann to +make sure that she stood in the exact place which she had described, +and then running across the room to set wide open the communicating +door. + +"You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments and panels of +the Sedan chair, on the other side of the fireplace on your right. +So! And there, Mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and," his +words lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each one--"you +heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom and caught some words +spoken in a clear whisper." + +"Yes," Ann replied with a shiver. The solemn manner of authority +with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. She looked at him with +troubled eyes. + +"Then will you stand there once more," he continued, "and once more +listen as you listened on that night. I thank you!" He went away to +Betty. "Now, Mademoiselle, and you, Francine Rollard, will you both +please come with me." + +He walked towards the communicating door but Betty did not even +attempt to rise from her chair. + +"Monsieur Hanaud," she said with her cheeks very white and her voice +shaking, "I can guess what you propose to do. But it is horrible and +rather cruel to us. And I cannot see how it will help." + +Ann Upcott broke in before Hanaud could reply. She was more troubled +even than Betty, though without doubt hers was to be the easier part. + +"It cannot help at all," she said. "Why must we pretend now the +dreadful thing which was lived then?" + +Hanaud turned about in the doorway. + +"Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think that when I have +finished, you will yourselves understand that my experiment has not +been without its use. I understand of course that moments like these +bring their distress. But--you will pardon me--I am not thinking of +you"--and there was so much quietude and gravity in the detective's +voice that his words, harsh though they were, carried with them no +offence. "No, I am thinking of a woman more than double the age of +either of you, whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of +the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs which you, +Mademoiselle Harlowe, showed me this morning--I am moved by them. +Yes, that is the truth." + +He closed his eyes as if he saw those two portraits with their +dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. "I am her advocate," +he cried aloud in a stirring voice. "The tragic woman, I stand for +her! If she was done to death, I mean to know and I mean to punish!" + +Never had Frobisher believed that Hanaud could have been so +transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so much passion. He +stood before them an erect and menacing figure, all his grossness +melted out of him, a man with a flaming sword. + +"As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a little distress +matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? How long will they +last? I beg you not to hinder me!" + +Betty rose up from her chair without another word. But she did not +rise without an effort, and when she stood up at last she swayed upon +her feet and her face was as white as chalk. + +"Come, Francine!" she said, pronouncing her words like a person with +an impediment of speech. "We must show Monsieur Hanaud that we are +not the cowards he takes us for." + +But Francine still held back. + +"I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl and this frightens +me. The police! They set traps--the police." + +Hanaud laughed. + +"And how often do they catch the innocent in them? Tell me that, +Mademoiselle Francine!" + +He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. +Betty and Francine followed upon his heels, the others trooped in +behind, with Frobisher last of all. He indeed was as reluctant to +witness Hanaud's experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. +It savoured of the theatrical. There was to be some sort of imagined +reproduction of the scene which Ann Upcott had described, no doubt +with the object of testing her sincerity. It would really be a test +of nerves more than a test of honesty and to Jim was therefore +neither reliable nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a +word of encouragement to Ann, but she was gazing again with that +curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the marquetry cabinet. + +"There is nothing to fear, Ann," he said, and she withdrew her eyes +from the clock. They were dancing now as she turned them upon +Frobisher. + +"I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me by my name," she +said with a smile. "Thank you, Jim!" She hesitated and then the +blood suddenly mounted into her face. "I'll tell you, I was a little +jealous," she added in a low voice and with a little laugh at herself +as though she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. + +Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer by the appearance +of Hanaud in the doorway. + +"I hate to interrupt, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with a smile; "but +it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle should listen without +anything to distract her." + +Jim followed Hanaud into the bedroom, and was startled. The +Commissary and his secretary and Monsieur Bex were in a group apart +near to one of the windows. Betty Harlowe was stretched upon Mrs. +Harlowe's bed; Francine Rollard stood against the wall, near to the +door, clearly frightened out of her wits and glancing from side to +side with the furtive restless eyes of the half-tamed. But it was +not this curious spectacle which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but +something strange, something which almost shocked, in the aspect of +Betty herself. She was leaning up on an elbow with her eyes fixed +upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable fierce look in +them that he had ever seen. She was quite lost to her environment. +The experiment from which Francine shrank had no meaning for her. +She was possessed--the old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts--though +her face was as still as a mass, a mask of frozen passion. It was +only for a second, however, that the strange seizure lasted. Betty's +face relaxed; she dropped back upon the bed with her eyes upon Hanaud +like one waiting for instructions. + +Hanaud, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take his place amongst +the group at the window. He placed himself upon one side of the bed, +and beckoned to Francine. Very slowly she approached the end of the +bed. Hanaud directed her in the same silent way to come opposite to +him on the other side of the bed. For a little while Francine +refused. She stood stubbornly shaking her head at the very foot of +the bed. She was terrified of some trick, and when at last at a sign +from Betty she took up the position assigned to her, she minced to it +gingerly as though she feared the floor would open beneath her feet. +Hanaud made her another sign and she looked at a scrap of paper on +which Hanaud had written some words. The paper and her orders had +obviously been given to her whilst Jim was talking to Ann Upcott. +Francine knew what she was to do, but her suspicious peasant nature +utterly rebelled against it. Hanaud beckoned to her with his eyes +riveted upon her compelling her, and against her will she bent +forwards over the bed and across Betty Harlowe's body. + +A nod from Hanaud now, and she spoke in a low, clear whisper: + +"That--will--do--now." + +And hardly had she spoken those few words which Ann Upcott said she +had heard on the night of Mrs. Harlowe's death, but Hanaud himself +must repeat them and also in a whisper. + +Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway in his natural +voice: + +"Did you hear, Mademoiselle? Was that the whisper which reached your +ears on the night when Madame died?" + +All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in suspense. Francine +Rollard, indeed, with her eyes fixed upon Hanaud in a very agony of +doubt. And the answer came. + +"Yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this afternoon. On the +night when I came down in the dark to the treasure room, the words +were only whispered once." + +"It was the same voice which whispered them twice, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes ... I think so ... I noticed no difference ... Yes." + +And Hanaud flung out his arms with a comic gesture of despair, and +addressed the room. + +"You understand now my little experiment. A voice that whispers! +How shall one tell it from another voice that whispers! There is no +intonation, no depth, no lightness. There is not even sex in a voice +which whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest to the +identity of the person who whispered, 'That will do now,' on the +night when Madame Harlowe died." He waved his hand towards Monsieur +Bex. "I will be glad if you will open now these cupboards, and +Mademoiselle Harlowe will tell us, to the best of her knowledge, +whether anything has been taken or anything disturbed." + +Hanaud returned to the treasure room, leaving Monsieur Bex and Betty +at their work, with the Commissary and his secretary to supervise +them. Jim Frobisher followed him. He was very far from believing +that Hanaud had truthfully explained the intention of his experiment. +The impossibility of identifying a voice which whispers! Here was +something with which Hanaud must have been familiar from a hundred +cases! No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There was +quite another true reason for this melodramatic little scene which he +had staged. He was following Hanaud in the hope of finding out that +reason, when he heard him speaking in a low voice, and he stopped +inside the dressing-room close to the communicating door where he +could hear every word and yet not be seen himself. + +"Mademoiselle," Hanaud was saying to Ann Upcott, "there is something +about this clock here which troubles you." + +"Yes--of course it's nonsense.... I must be wrong.... For here is +the cabinet and on it stands the clock." + +Jim could gather from the two voices that they were both standing +together close to the marquetry cabinet. + +"Yes, yes," Hanaud urged. "Still you are troubled." + +There was a moment's silence. Jim could imagine the girl looking +from the clock to the door by which she had stood, and back again +from the door to the clock. Surely that scene in the bedroom had +been staged to extort some admission from Ann Upcott of the falsity +of her story. Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting +to another trick, setting a fresh trap? + +"Well?" he asked insistently. "Why are you troubled?" + +"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, "that the clock is +lower now than it was. Of course it can't be ... and I had only one +swift glimpse of it.... Yet my recollection is so vivid--the room +standing out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then +vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock seemed to me to be +placed higher..." and suddenly she stopped as if a warning hand had +been laid upon her arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering +when silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway and +confronting him. + +"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note of relief in his +voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the Sûrété very soon. That I +can see. Come in!" + +He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. + +"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the light goes up and +goes out--it would have been a marvel if you had within that flash of +vision seen every detail precisely true. No, there is nothing +there!" He flung himself into a chair and sat for a little while +silent in an attitude of dejection. + +"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had nothing to go +upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing there, stirring up old +troubles which had better be left quietly in their graves, and at the +end discovering nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My +little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?" + +Hanaud sat up alertly. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter disappointment upon +Hanaud's face and in his attitude had enlightened him. Yes, his +experiment had failed. For it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had +summoned her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant to +act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the hope that it +would work upon her and break her down to a confession of guilt. He +suspected Ann. Well, then, Ann must have had an accomplice. To +discover the accomplice--there was the object of the experiment. And +it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. Francine had +shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the reason of the shrinking was +manifest--fear of the police, suspicion of a trap, the furtive +helplessness of the ignorant. She had not delivered herself into +Hanaud's toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal to +Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he answered simply: + +"Nothing." + +Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms of his chair. + +"Nothing, eh? nothing! That's the only answer in this case. To +every question! To every search! Nothing, nothing, nothing;" and as +he ended in a sinking voice, a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. + +"Betty!" Ann exclaimed. + +Hanaud threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim fancied that he +was out of his chair and across the dressing-room before the sound of +the cry had ceased. Certainly Betty could not have moved. She was +standing in front of the dressing-table, looking down at a big +jewel-case of dark blue morocco leather, and she was lifting up and +down the open lid of it with an expression of utter incredulity. + +"Aha!" said Hanaud. "It is unlocked. We have something, after all, +Monsieur Frobisher. Here is a jewel-case unlocked, and jewel-cases +do not unlock themselves. It was here?" + +He looked towards the cupboard in the wall, of which the door stood +open. + +"Yes," said Betty. "I opened the door, and took the case out by the +side handles. The lid came open when I touched it." + +"Will you look through it, please, and see whether anything is +missing?" + +While Betty began to examine the contents of the jewel-case, Hanaud +went to Francine, who stood apart. He took her by the arm and led +her to the door. + +"I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine," he said. "But, after +all, we are not such alarming people, the Police, eh? No, so long as +good little maids hold their good little tongues, we can be very good +friends. Of course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and +gossip, little Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is +to-morrow spreading over Dijon the story of Hanaud's little +experiment, Hanaud will know where to look for the chatterers." + +"Monsieur, I shall not say one word," cried Francine. + +"And how wise that will be, little Francine!" Hanaud rejoined in a +horribly smooth and silky voice. "For Hanaud can be the wickedest of +wicked Uncles to naughty little chatterers. Ohhoho, yes! He seizes +them tight--so--and it will be ever so long before he says to them +'That--will--do--now!'" + +He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh and gently +pushed Francine Rollard from the room. Then he returned to Betty, +who had lifted the tray out of the box and was opening some smaller +cases which had been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon +pendant and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. + +"You miss something, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes." + +"It was, after all, certain that you would," Hanaud continued. "If +murders are committed, there will be some reason. I will even +venture to guess that the jewel which you miss is of great value." + +"It is," Betty admitted. "But I expect it has only been mislaid. No +doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked away in a drawer." She +spoke with very great eagerness, and a note of supplication that the +matter should rest there. "In any case, what has disappeared is +mine, isn't it? And I am not going to imitate Monsieur Boris. I +make no complaint." + +Hanaud shook his head. + +"You are very kind, Mademoiselle. But we cannot, alas! say here +'That will do now.'" It was strange to Jim to notice how he kept +harping upon the words of that whisper. "We are not dealing with a +case of theft, but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it +that you miss?" + +"A pearl necklace," Betty answered reluctantly. + +"A big one?" + +It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased Hanaud became +more peremptory and abrupt. + +"Not so very." + +"Describe it to me, Mademoiselle!" + +Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face looking out upon the +garden. Then with a shrug of resignation she obeyed. + +"There were thirty-five pearls--not so very large, but they were +perfectly matched and of a beautiful pink. My uncle took a great +deal of trouble and some years to collect them. Madame told me +herself that they actually cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. +They would be worth even more now." + +"A fortune, then," cried Hanaud. + +Not a person in that room had any belief that the necklace would be +found, laid aside somewhere by chance. Here was Hanaud's case +building itself up steadily. Another storey was added to it this +afternoon. This or that experiment might fail. What did that +matter? A motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an +intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result; that the +truth, like a beam of light that travels for a million of years, +would in the end strike upon a dark spot, and that some one would +stand helpless and dazzled in a glare--the criminal. + +"Who knew of this necklace of yours, Mademoiselle, beside yourself?" +Hanaud asked. + +"Every one in the house, Monsieur. Madame wore it nearly always." + +"She wore it, then, on the day of her death?" + +"Yes, I----" Betty began, and she turned towards Ann for +confirmation, and then swiftly turned away again. "I think so." + +"I am sure of it," said Ann steadily, though her face had grown +rather white and her eyes anxious. + +"How long has Francine Rollard been with you?" Hanaud asked of Betty. + +"Three years. No--a little more. She is the only maid I have ever +had," Betty answered with a laugh. + +"I see," Hanaud said thoughtfully; and what he saw, it seemed to Jim +Frobisher that every one else in that room saw too. For no one +looked at Ann Upcott. Old servants do not steal valuable necklaces: +Ann Upcott and Jeanne Baudin, the nurse, were the only new-comers to +the Maison Crenelle these many years; and Jeanne Baudin had the best +of characters. Thus the argument seemed to run though no one +expressed it in words. + +Hanaud turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard, and shook +his head over it. Then he crossed to the dressing-table and the +morocco case. + +"Aha!" he said with a lively interest. "This is a different affair;" +and he bent down closely over it. + +The case was not locked with a key at all. There were three small +gilt knobs in the front of the case, and the lock was set by the +number of revolutions given to each knob. These, of course, could be +varied with each knob, and all must be known before the case could be +opened--Mrs. Harlowe's jewels had been guarded by a formula. + +"There has been no violence used here," said Hanaud, standing up +again. + +"Of course my aunt may have forgotten to lock the case," said Betty. + +"Of course that's possible," Hanaud agreed. + +"And of course this room was open to any one between the time of my +aunt's funeral and Sunday morning, when the doors were sealed." + +"A week, in fact--with Boris Waberski in the house," said Hanaud. + +"Yes ... yes," said Betty. "Only ... but I expect it is just mislaid +and we shall find it. You see Monsieur Boris expected to get some +money from my lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain +with me. It doesn't look as if he had stolen it. He wouldn't want a +thousand pounds if he had." + +Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had recollected him +with a thrill of hope that he would be discovered to be the thief +when Hanaud mentioned his name. But the hope died away again before +the reluctant and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlowe. On the other +hand, if Boris and Ann were really accomplices in the murder, because +he wanted his legacy, the necklace might well have been Ann's share. +More and more, whichever way one looked at it, the facts pointed +damningly towards Ann. + +"Well, we will see if it has been mislaid," said Hanaud. "But +meanwhile, Mademoiselle, it would be well for you to lock that case +up and to take it some time this afternoon to your bankers." + +Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after the other. +Three times a swift succession of sharp little clicks was heard in +the room. + +"You have not used, I hope, the combination which Madame Harlowe +used," said Hanaud. + +"I never knew the combination she used," said Betty. She lifted the +jewel-case back into its cupboard; and the search of the drawers and +the cupboards began. But it was as barren of result as had been the +search of the treasure-room for the arrow. + +"We can do no more," said Hanaud. + +"Yes. One thing more." + +The correction came quietly from Ann Upcott. She was standing by +herself, very pale and defiant. She knew now that she was suspected. +The very care with which every one had avoided even looking at her +had left her in no doubt. + +Hanaud looked about the room. + +"What more can we do?" he asked. + +"You can search my rooms." + +"No!" cried Betty violently. "I won't have it!" + +"If you please," said Ann. "It is only fair to me." + +Monsieur Bex nodded violently. + +"Mademoiselle could not be more correct," said he. + +Ann addressed herself to Hanaud. + +"I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in my room except +a small leather dispatch-case. You will find the key to that in the +left-hand drawer of my dressing-table. I will wait for you in the +library." + +Hanaud bowed, and before he could move from his position Betty did a +thing for which Jim could have hugged her there and then before them +all. She went straight to Ann and set her arm about her waist. + +"I'll wait with you, Ann," she said. "Of course it's ridiculous," +and she led Ann out of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN: _The Finding of the Arrow_ + +Ann's rooms were upon the second floor with the windows upon the +garden, a bedroom and a sitting-room communicating directly with one +another. They were low in the roof, but spacious, and Hanaud, as he +looked around the bedroom, said in a tone of doubt: + +"Yes ... after all, if one were frightened suddenly out of one's +wits, one might stumble about this room in the dark and lose one's +way to the light switch. There isn't one over the bed." Then he +shrugged his shoulders. "But, to be sure, one would be careful that +one's details could be verified. So----" and the doubt passed out of +his voice. + +The words were all Greek to the Commissary of Police and his +secretary and Monsieur Bex. Maurice Thevenet, indeed, looked sharply +at Hanaud, as if he was on the point of asking one of those questions +which he had been invited to ask. But Girardot, the Commissary who +was panting heavily with his ascent of two flights of stairs, spoke +first. + +"We shall find nothing to interest us here," he said. "That pretty +girl would never have asked us to pry about amongst her dainty +belongings if there had been anything to discover." + +"One never knows," replied Hanaud. "Let us see!" + +Jim walked away into the sitting-room. He had no wish to follow step +by step Hanaud and the Commissary in their search; and he had noticed +on the table in the middle of the room a blotting-pad and some +notepaper and the materials for writing. He wanted to get all this +whirl of conjecture and fact and lies, in which during the last two +days he had lived, sorted and separated and set in order in his mind; +and he knew no better way of doing so than by putting it all down +shortly in the "for" and "against" style of Robinson Crusoe on his +desert island. He would have a quiet hour or so whilst Hanaud +indefatigably searched. He took a sheet of paper, selected a pen at +random from the tray and began. It cost Ann Upcott, however, a good +many sheets of notepaper, and more than once the nib dropped out of +his pen-holder and was forced back into it before he had finished. +But he had his problem reduced at last to these terms: + + For Against + + (1) Although suspicion that But in the absence of any + murder had been committed trace of poison in the dead + arose in the first instance only woman's body, it is difficult to + from the return to its shelf of see how the criminal can be + the "Treatise on Sporanthus brought to justice, except by + Hispidus," subsequent developments, + e.g., the disappearance of (a) A confession. + the Poison Arrow, the introduction + into the case of the ill-famed (b) The commission of another + Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story crime of a similar kind. + of her visit to the Treasure Hanaud's theory--once a + Room, and now the mystery of poisoner always a poisoner. + Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, + make out a prima facie case for + inquiry. + + (2) If murder was committed, Ann Upcott's story may be + it is probable that it was partly or wholly false. She + committed at half-past ten at night knew that Mrs. Harlowe's + when Ann Upcott in the Treasure bedroom was to be opened and + Room heard the sound of a examined. If she also knew that + struggle and the whisper, "That the pearl necklace had + will do now." disappeared, she must have realised + that it would be advisable for + her to tell some story before its + disappearance was discovered, + which would divert suspicion + from her. + + (3) It is clear that whoever It is possible that the + committed the murder, if murder disappearance of the necklace is in + was committed, Betty Harlowe no way connected with the + had nothing to do with it. She murder, if murder there was. + had an ample allowance. She + was at M. Pouillac's Ball on + the night. Moreover, once + Mrs. Harlowe was dead, the necklace + became Betty Harlowe's + property. Had she committed the + murder, the necklace would not + have disappeared. + + (4) Who then are possibly + guilty? + + (i) The servants. (i) All of them have many + years of service to their credit. + It is not possible that any of + them would have understood + enough of the "Treatise on + Sporanthus Hispidus" to make + use of it. If any of them were + concerned it can only be as an + accessory or assistant working + under the direction of another. + + (ii) Jeanne Baudin the nurse. No one suspects her. Her + record is good. + More attention might be given + to her. It is too easily accepted + that she has nothing to do + with it. + + (iii) Francine Rollard. She She was frightened of the police + was certainly frightened this as a class, rather than of being + afternoon. The necklace would accused of a crime. She acted + be a temptation. her part in the reconstruction + scene without breaking + Was it she who bent over Ann down. If she were concerned, it + Upcott in the darkness? could only be for the reason + given above, as an assistant. + + (iv) Ann Upcott. Her introductions may be + explicable on favourable grounds. + Her introduction into the Until we know more of her + Maison Crenelle took place history it is impossible to judge. + through Waberski and under + dubious circumstances. She is + poor, a paid companion, and the + necklace is worth a considerable + fortune. + + She was in the house on the Her account of the night of + night of Mrs. Harlowe's death. the 27th April may be true from + She told Gaston he could turn beginning to end. + out the lights and go to bed + early that evening. She could + easily have admitted Waberski + and received the necklace as the + price of her complicity. + + The story she told us in the In that case the theory of a + garden may have been the true murder is enormously strengthened. + story of what occurred adapted. But who whispered, "That + It may have been she who will do now"? And who was + whispered "That will do now." bending over Ann Upcott when + She may have whispered it to she waked up? + Waberski. + + Her connection with Waberski + was sufficiently close to make + him count upon Ann's support + in his charge against Betty. + + (v) Waberski. + + He is a scoundrel, a would-be + blackmailer. + + He was in straits for money + and he expected a thumping + legacy from Mrs. Harlowe. + + He may have brought Ann + Upcott into the house with the + thought of murder in his mind. + + Having failed to obtain any + profit from his crime, he accuses + Betty of the same crime as a + blackmailing proposition. + + As soon as he knew that But he would have collapsed + Mrs. Harlowe had been exhumed and equally if he had believed that + an autopsy made he collapsed. no murder had been committed + He knew, if he had used himself at all. + the poison arrow, that no trace + of poison would be found. + + He knew of Jean Cladel, and + according to his own story was + in the Rue Gambetta close to + Jean Cladel's shop. It is possible + that he himself had been visiting + Cladel to pay for the solution of + Strophanthus. + + +If murder was committed the two people most obviously suspect are Ann +Upcott and Waberski working in collusion. + +To this conclusion Jim Frobisher was reluctantly brought, but even +whilst writing it down there were certain questions racing through +his mind to which he could find no answer. He was well aware that he +was an utter novice in such matters as the investigation of crimes; +and he recognised that were the answers to these questions known to +him, some other direction might be given to his thoughts. + +Accordingly he wrote those troublesome questions beneath his +memorandum--thus: + +But + +(1) Why does Hanaud attach no importance to the return of the +"Treatise on Sporanthus Hispidus" to its place in the library? + +(2) What was it which so startled him upon the top of the Terrace +Tower? + +(3) What was it that he had in his mind to say to me at the Café in +the Place D'Armes and in the end did not say? + +(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the treasure room for the +missing poison arrow--except the interior of the Sedan chair? + +The noise of a door gently closing aroused him from his speculations. +He looked across the room. Hanaud had just entered it from the +bedroom, shutting the communicating door behind him. He stood with +his hand upon the door-knob gazing at Frobisher with a curious +startled stare. He moved swiftly to the end of the table at which +Jim was sitting. + +"How you help me!" he said in a low voice and smiling. "How you do +help me!" + +Alert though Jim's ears were to a note of ridicule, he could discover +not a hint of it. Hanaud was speaking with the utmost sincerity, his +eyes very bright and his heavy face quite changed by that uncannily +sharp expression which Jim had learned to associate with some new +find in the development of the case. + +"May I see what you have written?" Hanaud asked. + +"It could be of no value to you," Jim replied modestly, but Hanaud +would have none of it. + +"It is always of value to know what the other man thinks, and even +more what the other man sees. What did I say to you in Paris? The +last thing one sees one's self is the thing exactly under one's +nose"; and he began to laugh lightly but continuously and with a +great deal of enjoyment, which Jim did not understand. He gave in, +however, over his memorandum and pushed it along to Hanaud, ashamed +of it as something schoolboyish, but hopeful that some of these +written questions might be answered. + +Hanaud sat down at the end of the table close to Jim and read the +items and the questions very slowly with an occasional grunt, and a +still more occasional "Aha!" but with a quite unchanging face. Jim +was in two minds whether to snatch it from his hands and tear it up +or dwell upon its recollected phrases with a good deal of pride. One +thing was clear. Hanaud took it seriously. + +He sat musing over it for a moment or two. + +"Yes, here are questions, and dilemmas." He looked at Frobisher with +friendliness. "I shall make you an allegory. I have a friend who is +a matador in Spain. He told me about the bull and how foolish those +people are who think the bull not clever. Yes, but do not jump and +look the offence with your eyes and tell me how very vulgar I am and +how execrable my taste. All that I know very well. But listen to my +friend the matador! He says all that the bull wants, to kill without +fail all the bull-fighters in Spain, is a little experience. And +very little, he learns so quick. Look! Between the entrance of the +bull into the arena and his death there are reckoned twenty minutes. +And there should not be more, if the matador is wise. The bull--he +learns so quick the warfare of the ring. Well, I am an old bull who +has fought in the arena many times. This is your first corrida. But +only ten minutes of the twenty have passed. Already you have learned +much. Yes, here are some shrewd questions which I had not expected +you to ask. When the twenty are gone, you will answer them all for +yourself. Meanwhile"--he took up another pen and made a tiny +addition to item one--"I carry this on one step farther. See!" + +He replaced the memorandum under Jim's eyes. Jim read: + +"--subsequent developments, e.g., the disappearance of the Poison +Arrow, the introduction into the case of the ill-famed Jean Cladel, +Ann Upcott's story of her visit to the treasure-room, and now the +mystery of Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, _and the finding of the +arrow_, make out a prima facie case for inquiry." + + +Jim sprang to his feet in excitement. + +"You have found the arrow, then?" he cried, glancing towards the door +of Ann Upcott's bedroom. + +"Not I, my friend," replied Hanaud with a grin. + +"The Commissaire, then?" + +"No, not the Commissaire." + +"His secretary, then?" + +Jim sat down again in his chair. + +"I am sorry. He wears cheap rings. I don't like him." + +Hanaud broke into a laugh of delight. + +"Console yourself! I, too, don't like that young gentleman of whom +they are all so proud. Maurice Thevenet has found nothing." + +Jim looked at Hanaud in a perplexity. + +"Here is a riddle," he said. + +Hanaud rubbed his hands together. + +"Prove to me that you have been ten minutes in the bull-ring," he +said. + +"I think that I have only been five," Jim replied with a smile. "Let +me see! The arrow had not been discovered when we first entered +these rooms?" + +"No." + +"And it is discovered now?" + +"Yes." + +"And it was not discovered by you?" + +"No." + +"Nor the Commissaire?" + +"No." + +"Nor Maurice Thevenet?" + +"No." + +Jim stared and shook his head. + +"I have not been one minute in the bull-ring. I don't understand." + +Hanaud's face was all alight with enjoyment. + +"Then I take your memorandum and I write again." + +He hid the paper from Jim Frobisher's eyes with the palm of his left +hand, whilst he wrote with his right. Then with a triumphant gesture +he laid it again before Jim. The last question of all had been +answered in Hanaud's neat, small handwriting. + +Jim read: + + + (4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the treasure-room for + the missing Poison Arrow--except the interior of the Sedan chair? + + +Underneath the question Hanaud had written as if it was Jim Frobisher +himself who answered the question: + + + "It was wrong of Hanaud to forget to examine the Sedan chair, but + fortunately no harm has resulted from that lamentable omission. + For Life, the incorrigible Dramatist, had arranged that the head + of the arrow-shaft should be the pen-holder with which I have + written this memorandum." + + +Jim looked at the pen-holder and dropped it with a startled cry. + +There it was--the slender, pencil-like shaft expanding into a slight +bulb where the fingers held it, and the nib inserted into the tiny +cleft made for the stem of the iron dart! Jim remembered that the +nib had once or twice become loose and spluttered on the page, until +he had jammed it in violently. + +Then came a terrible thought. His jaw dropped; he stared at Hanaud +in awe. + +"I wonder if I sucked the end of it, whilst I was thinking out my +sentences," he stammered. + +"O Lord!" cried Hanaud, and he snatched up the pen-holder and rubbed +it hard with his pocket handkerchief. Then he spread out the +handkerchief upon the table, and fetching a small magnifying glass +from his pocket, examined it minutely. He looked up with relief. + +"There is not the least little trace of that reddish-brown clay which +made the poison paste. The arrow was scraped clean before it was put +on that tray of pens. I am enchanted. I cannot now afford to lose +my junior colleague." + +Frobisher drew a long breath and lit a cigarette, and gave another +proof that he was a very novice of a bull. + +"What a mad thing to put the head of that arrow-shaft, which a glance +at the plates in the Treatise would enable a child to identify, into +an open tray of pens without the slightest concealment!" he exclaimed. + +It looked as if Ann Upcott was wilfully pushing her neck into the +wooden ring of the guillotine. + +Hanaud shook his head. + +"Not so mad, my friend! The old rules are the best. Hide a thing in +some out-of-the-way corner, and it will surely be found. Put it to +lie carelessly under every one's nose and no one will see it at all. +No, no! This was cleverly done. Who could have foreseen that +instead of looking on at our search you were going to plump yourself +down in a chair and write your memorandum so valuable on Mademoiselle +Ann's notepaper? And even then you did not notice your pen. Why +should you?" + +Jim, however, was not satisfied. + +"It is a fortnight since Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, if she was +murdered," he cried. "What I don't understand is why the arrow +wasn't destroyed altogether!" + +"But until this morning there was never any question of the arrow," +Hanaud returned. "It was a curiosity, an item in a collection--why +should one trouble to destroy it? But this morning the arrow becomes +a dangerous thing to possess. So it must be hidden away in a hurry. +For there is not much time. An hour whilst you and I admired Mont +Blanc from the top of the Terrace Tower." + +"And while Betty was out of the house," Jim added quickly. + +"Yes--that is true," said Hanaud. "I had not thought of it. You can +add that point, Monsieur Frobisher, to the reasons which put +Mademoiselle Harlowe out of our considerations. Yes." + +He sat lost in thought for a little while and speaking now and then a +phrase rather to himself than to his companion: "To run up here--to +cut the arrow down--to round off the end as well as one can in a +hurry--to stain it with some varnish--to mix it with the other pens +in the tray. Not so bad!" He nodded his head in appreciation of the +trick. "But nevertheless things begin to look black for that +exquisite Mademoiselle Ann with her delicate colour and her pretty +ways." + +A noise of the shifting of furniture in the bedroom next door +attracted his attention. He removed the nib from the arrow-head. + +"We will keep this little matter to ourselves just for the moment," +he said quickly, and he wrapped the improvised pen-holder in a sheet +of the notepaper. "Just you and I shall know of it. No one else. +This is my case, not Girardot's. We will not inflict a great deal of +pain and trouble until we are sure." + +"I agree," said Jim eagerly. "That's right, I am sure." + +Hanaud tucked the arrow-head carefully away in his pocket. + +"This, too," he said, and he took up Jim Frobisher's memorandum. "It +is not a good thing to carry about, and perhaps lose. I will put it +away at the Prefecture with the other little things I have collected." + +He put the memorandum into his letter-case and got up from his chair. + +"The rest of the arrow-shaft will be somewhere in this room, no +doubt, and quite easy to see. But we shall not have time to look for +it, and, after all, we have the important part of it." + +He turned towards the mantelshelf, where some cards of invitation +were stuck in the frame of the mirror, just as the door was opened +and the Commissary with his secretary came out from the bedroom. + +"The necklace is not in that room," said Monsieur Girardot in a voice +of finality. + +"Nor is it here," Hanaud replied with an unblushing assurance. "Let +us go downstairs." + +Jim was utterly staggered. This room had not been searched for the +necklace at all. First the Sedan chair, then this sitting-room was +neglected. Hanaud actually led the way out to the stairs without so +much as a glance behind him. No wonder that in Paris he had styled +himself and his brethren the Servants of Chance. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN: _Hanaud Laughs_ + +At the bottom of the stairs Hanaud thanked the Commissary of Police +for his assistance. + +"As for the necklace, we shall of course search the baggage of every +one in the house," he said. "But we shall find nothing. Of that we +may be sure. For if the necklace has been stolen, too much time has +passed since it was stolen for us to hope to find it here." + +He bowed Girardot with much respect out of the house, whilst Monsieur +Bex took Jim Frobisher a little aside. + +"I have been thinking that Mademoiselle Ann should have some legal +help," he said. "Now both you and I are attached to the affairs of +Mademoiselle Harlowe. And--it is a little difficult to put it +delicately--it may be that the interests of those two young ladies +are not identical. It would not therefore be at all correct for me, +at all events, to offer her my services. But I can recommend a very +good lawyer in Dijon, a friend of mine. You see, it may be +important." + +Frobisher agreed. + +"It may be, indeed. Will you give me your friend's address?" he said. + +Whilst he was writing the address down Hanaud startled him by +breaking unexpectedly into a loud laugh. The curious thing was that +there was nothing whatever to account for it. Hanaud was standing by +himself between them and the front door. In the courtyard outside +there was no one within view. Within the hall Jim and Monsieur Bex +were talking very seriously in a low voice. Hanaud was laughing at +the empty air and his laughter betokened a very strong sense of +relief. + +"That I should have lived all these years and never noticed that +before," he cried aloud in a sort of amazement that there could be +anything capable of notice which he, Hanaud, had not noticed. + +"What is it?" asked Jim. + +But Hanaud did not answer at all. He dashed back through the hall +past Frobisher and his companion, vanished into the treasure-room, +closed the door behind him and actually locked it. + +Monsieur Bex jerked his chin high in the air. + +"He is an eccentric, that one. He would not do for Dijon." + +Jim was for defending Hanaud. + +"He must act. That is true," he replied. "Whatever he does and +however keenly he does it, he sees a row of footlights in front of +him." + +"There are men like that," Monsieur Bex agreed. Like all Frenchmen, +he was easy in his mind if he could place a man in a category. + +"But he is doing something which is quite important," Jim continued, +swelling a little with pride. He felt that he had been quite fifteen +minutes in the bull-ring. "He is searching for something somewhere. +I told him about it. He had overlooked it altogether. I reproached +him this morning with his reluctance to take suggestions from people +only too anxious to help him. But I did him obviously some +injustice. He is quite willing." + +Monsieur Bex was impressed and a little envious. + +"I must think of some suggestions to make to Hanaud," he said. "Yes, +yes! Was there not once a pearl necklace in England which was +dropped in a match-box into the gutter when the pursuit became too +hot? I have read of it, I am sure. I must tell Hanaud that he +should spend a day or two picking up the match-boxes in the gutters. +He may be very likely to come across that necklace of Madame +Harlowe's. Yes, certainly." + +Monsieur Bex was considerably elated by the bright idea which had +come to him. He felt that he was again upon a level with his English +colleague. He saw Hanaud pouncing his way along the streets of Dijon +and explaining to all who questioned him: "This is the idea of +Monsieur Bex, the notary. You know, Monsieur Bex, of the Place +Etienne Dolet." Until somewhere near--but Monsieur Bex had not +actually located the particular gutter in which Hanaud should +discover the match-box with the priceless beads, when the library +door opened and Betty came out into the hall. + +She looked at the two men in surprise. + +"And Monsieur Hanaud?" she asked. "I didn't see him go." + +"He is in your treasure-room," said Jim. + +"Oh!" Betty exclaimed in a voice which showed her interest. "He has +gone back there!" + +She walked quickly to the door and tried the handle. + +"Locked!" she cried with a little start of surprise. She spoke +without turning round. "He has locked himself in! Why?" + +"Because of the footlights," Monsieur Bex answered, and Betty turned +about and stared at him. "Yes, we came to that conclusion, Monsieur +Frobisher and I. Everything he does must ring a curtain down;" and +once more the key turned in the lock. + +Betty swung round again as the sound reached her ears and came face +to face with Hanaud. Hanaud looked over her shoulder at Frobisher +and shook his head ruefully. + +"You did not find it, then?" Jim asked. + +"No." + +Hanaud looked away from Jim to Betty Harlowe. + +"Monsieur Frobisher put an idea into my head, Mademoiselle. I had +not looked into that exquisite Sedan chair. It might well be that +the necklace had been hidden behind the cushions. But it is not +there." + +"And you locked the door, Monsieur," said Betty stiffly. "The door +of my room, I ask you to notice." + +Hanaud drew himself erect. + +"I did, Mademoiselle," he replied. "And then?" + +Betty hesitated with some sharp rejoinder on the tip of her tongue. +But she did not speak it. She shrugged her shoulders and said coldly +as she turned from him: + +"You are within your rights, no doubt, Monsieur." + +Hanaud smiled at her good-humouredly. He had offended her again. +She was showing him once more the petulant, mutinous child in her +which he had seen the morning before. But the smile did remain upon +his face. In the doorway of the library Ann Upcott was standing, her +face still very pale, and fires smouldering in her eyes. + +"You searched my rooms, I hope, Monsieur," she said in a challenging +voice. + +"Thoroughly, Mademoiselle." + +"And you did not find the necklace?" + +"No!" and he walked straight across the hall to her with a look +suddenly grown stern. + +"Mademoiselle, I should like you to answer me a question. But you +need not. I wish you to understand that. You have a right to +reserve your answers for the Office of the Examining Magistrate and +then give them only in the presence of and with the consent of your +legal adviser. Monsieur Bex will assure you that is so." + +The girl's defiance weakened. + +"What do you wish to ask me?" she asked. + +"Exactly how you came to the Maison Crenelle." + +The fire died out of her eyes; Ann's eyelids fluttered down. She +stretched out a hand against the jamb of the door to steady herself. +Jim wondered whether she guessed that the head of Simon Harlowe's +arrow was now hidden in Hanaud's pocket. + +"I was at Monte Carlo," she began and stopped. + +"And quite alone?" Hanaud continued relentlessly. + +"Yes." + +"And without money?" + +"With a little money," Ann corrected. + +"Which you lost," Hanaud rejoined. + +"Yes." + +"And at Monte Carlo you made the acquaintance of Boris Waberski?" + +"Yes." + +"And so you came to the Maison Crenelle?" + +"Yes." + +"It is all very curious, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud gravely, and "If +it were only curious!" Jim Frobisher wished with all his heart. For +Ann Upcott quailed before the detective's glance. It seemed to him +that with another question from him, an actual confession would +falter and stumble from her lips. A confession of complicity with +Boris Waberski! And then? Jim caught a dreadful glimpse of the +future which awaited her. The guillotine? Probably a fate much +worse. For that would be over soon and she at rest. A few poignant +weeks, an agony of waiting, now in an intoxication of hope, now in +the lowest hell of terror; some dreadful minutes at the breaking of a +dawn--and an end! That would be better after all than the endless +years of sordid heart-breaking labour, coarse food and clothes, +amongst the criminals of a convict prison in France. + +Jim turned his eyes away from her with a shiver of discomfort and saw +with a queer little shock that Betty was watching him with a singular +intentness; as if what interested her was not so much Ann's peril as +his feeling about it. + +Meanwhile Ann had made up her mind. + +"I shall tell you at once the little there is to tell," she declared. +The words were brave enough, but the bravery ended with the words. +She had provoked the short interrogatory with a clear challenge. She +ended it in a hardly audible whisper. However, she managed to tell +her story, leaning there against the post of the door. Indeed her +voice strengthened as she went on and once a smile of real amusement +flickered about her lips and in her eyes and set the dimples playing +in her cheeks. + +Up to eighteen months ago she had lived with her mother, a widow, in +Dorsetshire, a few miles behind Weymouth. The pair of them lived +with difficulty. For Mrs. Upcott found herself in as desperate a +position as England provides for gentlewomen. She was a small +landowner taxed up to her ears, and then rated over the top of her +head. Ann for her part was thought in the neighbourhood to have +promise as an artist. On the death of her mother the estate was sold +as a toy to a manufacturer, and Ann with a small purse and a +sack-load of ambitions set out for London. + +"It took me a year to understand that I was and should remain an +amateur. I counted over my money. I had three hundred pounds left. +What was I going to do with it? It wasn't enough to set me up in a +shop. On the other hand, I hated the idea of dependence. So I made +up my mind to have ten wild gorgeous days at Monte Carlo and make a +fortune, or lose the lot." + +It was then that the smile set her eyes dancing. + +"I should do the same again," she cried quite unrepentantly. "I had +never been out of England in my life, but I knew a good deal of +schoolgirl's French. I bought a few frocks and hats and off I went. +I had the most glorious time. I was nineteen. Everything from the +sleeping-cars to the croupiers enchanted me. I stayed at one of the +smaller hotels up the hill. I met one or two people whom I knew and +they introduced me into the Sporting Club. Oh, and lots and lots of +people wanted to be kind to me!" she cried. + +"That is thoroughly intelligible," said Hanaud dryly. + +"Oh, but quite nice people too," Ann rejoined. Her face was glowing +with the recollections of that short joyous time. She had forgotten, +for the moment, altogether the predicament in which she stood, or she +was acting with an artfulness which Hanaud could hardly have seen +surpassed in all his experience of criminals. + +"There was a croupier, for instance, at the trente-et-quarante table +in the big room of the Sporting Club. I always tried to sit next to +him. For he saw that no one stole my money and that when I was +winning I insured my stake and clawed a little off the heap from time +to time. I was there for five weeks and I had made four hundred +pounds--and then came three dreadful nights and I lost everything +except thirty pounds which I had stowed away in the hotel safe." She +nodded across the hall towards Jim. "Monsieur Frobisher can tell you +about the last night. For he sat beside me and very prettily tried +to make me a present of a thousand francs." + +Hanaud, however, was not to be diverted. + +"Afterwards he shall tell me," he said, and resumed his questions. +"You had met Waberski before that night?" + +"Yes, a fortnight before. But I can't remember who introduced me." + +"And Mademoiselle Harlowe?" + +"Monsieur Boris introduced me a day or two later to Betty at tea-time +in the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris." + +"Aha!" said Hanaud. He glanced at Jim with an almost imperceptible +shrug of the shoulders. It was, indeed, becoming more and more +obvious that Waberski had brought Ann Upcott into that household +deliberately, as part of a plan carefully conceived and in due time +to be fulfilled. + +"When did Waberski first suggest that you should join Mademoiselle +Harlowe?" he asked. + +"That last night," Ann replied. "He had been standing opposite to me +on the other side of the trente-et-quarante table. He saw that I had +been losing." + +"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his head. "He thought that the opportune +moment had come." + +He extended his arms and let his hands fall against his thighs. He +was like a doctor presented with a hopeless case. He turned half +aside from Ann with his shoulders bent and his troubled eyes fixed +upon the marble squares of the floor. Jim could not but believe that +he was at this moment debating whether he should take the girl into +custody. But Betty intervened. + +"You must not be misled, Monsieur Hanaud," she said quickly, "It is +true no doubt that Monsieur Boris mentioned the subject to Ann for +the first time that night. But I had already told both my aunt and +Monsieur Boris that I should like a friend of my own age to live with +me and I had mentioned Ann." + +Hanaud looked up at her doubtfully. + +"On so short an acquaintance, Mademoiselle?" + +Betty, however, stuck to her guns. + +"Yes. I liked her very much from the beginning. She was alone. It +was quite clear that she was of our own world. There was every good +reason why I should wish for her. And the four months she has been +with me have proved to me that I was right." + +She crossed over to Ann with a defiant little nod at Hanaud, who +responded with a cordial grin and dropped into English. + +"So I can push that into my pipe and puff it, as my dear Ricardo +would say. That is what you mean? Well, against loyalty, the whole +world is powerless." As he made Betty a friendly bow. He could +hardly have told Betty in plainer phrase that her intervention had +averted Ann's arrest; or Ann herself that he believed her guilty. + +Every one in the hall understood him in that sense. They stood +foolishly looking here and looking there and not knowing where to +look; and in the midst of their discomfort occurred an incongruous +little incident which added a touch of the bizarre. Up the two steps +to the open door came a girl carrying a big oblong cardboard +milliner's box. Her finger was on the bell, when Hanaud stepped +forward. + +"There is no need to ring," he said. "What have you there?" + +The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann. + +"It is Mademoiselle's dress for the Ball to-morrow night. +Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but did not come. But +Madame Grolin thinks that it will be all right." She laid the box +upon a chest at the side of the hall and went out again. + +"I had forgotten all about it," said Ann. "It was ordered just +before Madame died and tried on once." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"For Madame Le Vay's masked ball, no doubt," he said. "I noticed the +invitation card on the chimney-piece of Mademoiselle's sitting-room. +And in what character did Mademoiselle propose to go?" + +Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst the blood +rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone. + +"Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events," she cried. + +Even Hanaud was brought up with a start. + +"I did not suggest it," he replied coldly. "But let me see!" and in +a moment whilst his face was flushed with anger his hands were busily +untying the tapes of the box. + +Betty stepped forward. + +"We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, more than a +month ago. It is meant to represent a water-lily." + +"What could be more charming?" Hanaud asked, but his fingers did not +pause in their work. + +"Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?" Jim Frobisher +wondered. What could he expect to find in that box? Did he imagine +that this Madame Grolin, the milliner, was an accomplice of +Waberski's too? The episode was ludicrous with a touch of the +horrible. Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the +tissue-paper. Underneath was seen a short _crêpe de Chine_ frock of +a tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold rosette +at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out at the hips, and +it was bordered with a row of white satin rosettes with golden +hearts. To complete the dress there were a pair of white silk +stockings with fine gold clocks and white satin shoes with single +straps across the insteps and little tassels of brilliants where the +straps buttoned, and four gold stripes at the back round the heels. + +Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, replaced the lid, +and stood up again. He never looked at Ann Upcott. He went straight +across to Betty Harlowe. + +"I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you to so much +trouble and occupied so many hours of your day," he said with a good +deal of feeling. He made her a courteous bow, took up his hat and +stick from the table on which he had laid it, and made straight for +the hall door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all +appearances finished. + +But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been nursing his suggestion +for nearly half an hour. Like a poem it demanded utterance. + +"Monsieur Hanaud!" he called; "Monsieur Hanaud! I have to tell you +about a box of matches." + +"Aha!" Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. "A box of matches! I will +walk with you towards your office, and you shall tell me as you go." + +Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great hurry. But he +had time to throw a glance of pride towards his English colleague. +"Your suggestion about the treasure room was of no value, my friend. +Let us see what I can do!" The pride and the airy wave of the hand +spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at Hanaud's side in a +moment, and talked volubly as they passed out of the gates into the +street of Charles-Robert. + +Betty turned to Jim Frobisher. + +"To-morrow, now that I am once allowed to use my motor-car, I shall +take you for a drive and show you something of our neighbourhood. +This afternoon--you will understand, I know--I belong to Ann." + +She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls went out into the +garden. Jim was left alone in the hall--as at that moment he wanted +to be. It was very still here now and very silent. The piping of +birds, the drone of bees outside the open doors were rather an +accompaniment than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed +himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when he had laughed so +strangely--half-way between the foot of the stairs where Monsieur Bex +and he himself had been standing and the open porch. But Jim could +detect nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. +"That I should have lived all these years and never noticed it +before," he had exclaimed. Notice what? There was nothing to +notice. A table, a chair or two, a barometer hanging upon the wall +on one side and a mirror hanging upon the wall on the other--No, +there was nothing. Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of +the mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene might have +been invented by him maliciously, just to annoy and worry and cause +discomfort to Monsieur Bex and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a +trick like that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a great +deal of the mountebank. More than half of him was probably +mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds! + +"Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he notice?" cried Jim. +"What did he notice from the top of the Tower? What did he notice in +this hall? Why must he be always noticing something?" and he jammed +his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: _At Jean Cladel's_ + +At nine o'clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past the cashier's +desk and into the hall of the Grande Taverne. High above his head +the cinematograph machine whirred and clicked and a blade of silver +light cut the darkness. At the opposite end of the hall the square +screen was flooded with radiance and the pictures melted upon it one +into the other. + +For a little while Jim could see nothing but that screen. Then the +hall swam gradually within his vision. He saw the heads of people +like great bullets and a wider central corridor where waitresses with +white aprons moved. Jim walked up the corridor and turned off to the +left between the tables. When he reached the wall he went forward +again towards the top of the hall. On his left the hall fell back, +and in the recess were two large cubicles in which billiard tables +were placed. Against the wall of the first of these a young man was +leaning with his eyes fixed upon the screen. Jim fancied that he +recognised Maurice Thevenet, and nodded to him as he passed. A +little further on a big man with a soft felt hat was seated alone, +with a Bock in front of him--Hanaud. Jim slipped into a seat at his +side. + +"You?" Hanaud exclaimed in surprise. + +"Why not? You told me this is where you would be at this hour," +replied Jim, and some note of discouragement in his voice attracted +Hanaud's attention. + +"I didn't think that those two young ladies would let you go," he +said. + +"On the contrary," Jim replied with a short laugh. "They didn't want +me at all." + +He began to say something more, but thought better of it, and called +to a waitress. + +"Two Bocks, if you please," he ordered, and he offered Hanaud a cigar. + +When the Bocks were brought, Hanaud said to him: + +"It will be well to pay at once, so that we can slip away when we +want." + +"We have something to do to-night?" Jim asked. + +"Yes." + +He said no more until Jim had paid and the waitress had turned the +two little saucers on which she had brought the Bocks upside down and +had gone away. Then he leaned towards Jim and lowered his voice. + +"I am glad that you came here. For I have a hope that we shall get +the truth to-night, and you ought to be present when we do get it." + +Jim lit his own cigar. + +"From whom do you hope to get it?" + +"Jean Cladel," Hanaud answered in a whisper. "A little later when +all the town is quiet we will pay a visit to the street of Gambetta." + +"You think he'll talk?" + +Hanaud nodded. + +"There is no charge against Cladel in this affair. To make a +solution of that poison paste is not an offence. And he has so much +against him that he will want to be on our side if he can. Yes, he +will talk I have no doubt." + +There would be an end of the affair then, to-night. Jim Frobisher +was glad with an unutterable gladness. Betty would be free to order +her life as she liked, and where she liked, to give to her youth its +due scope and range, to forget the terror and horror of these last +weeks, as one forgets old things behind locked doors. + +"I hope, however," he said earnestly to Hanaud, "and I believe, that +you will be found wrong, that if there was a murder Ann Upcott had +nothing to do with it. Yes, I believe that." He repeated his +assertion as much to convince himself as to persuade Hanaud. + +Hanaud touched his elbow. + +"Don't raise your voice too much, my friend," he said. "I think +there is some one against the wall who is honouring us with his +attention." + +Jim shook his head. + +"It is only Maurice Thevenet," he said. + +"Oho?" answered Hanaud in a voice of relief. "Is that all? For a +moment I was anxious. It seemed that there was a sentinel standing +guard over us." He added in a whisper, "I, too, hope from the bottom +of my heart that I may be proved wrong. But what of that arrow head +in the pen tray? Eh? Don't forget that!" Then he fell into a muse. + +"What happened on that night in the Maison Crenelle?" he said. "Why +was that communicating door thrown open? Who was to be stripped to +the skin by that violent woman? Who whispered 'That will do now'? +Is Ann Upcott speaking the truth, and was there some terrible scene +taking place before she entered so unexpectedly the treasure +room--some terrible scene which ended in that dreadful whisper? Or +is Ann Upcott lying from beginning to end? Ah, my friend, you wrote +some questions down upon your memorandum this afternoon. But these +are the questions I want answered, and where shall I find the +answers?" + +Jim had never seen Hanaud so moved. His hands were clenched, and the +veins prominent upon his forehead, and though he whispered his voice +shook. + +"Jean Cladel may help," said Jim. + +"Yes, yes, he may tell us something." + +They sat through an episode of the film, and saw the lights go up and +out again, and then Hanaud looked eagerly at his watch and put it +back again into his pocket with a gesture of annoyance. + +"It is still too early?" Jim asked. + +"Yes. Cladel has no servant and takes his meals abroad. He has not +yet returned home." + +A little before ten o'clock a man strolled in, and seating himself at +a table behind Hanaud twice scraped a match upon a match-box without +getting a light. Hanaud, without moving, said quietly to Frobisher: + +"He is at home now. In a minute I shall go. Give me five minutes +and follow." + +Jim nodded. + +"Where shall we meet?" + +"Walk straight along the Rue de la Liberté, and I will see to that," +said Hanaud. + +He pulled his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one between +his lips, and took his time in lighting it. Then he got up, but to +his annoyance Maurice Thevenet recognised him and came forward. + +"When Monsieur Frobisher wished me good-evening and joined you I +thought it was you, Monsieur Hanaud. But I had not the presumption +to recall myself to your notice." + +"Presumption! Monsieur, we are of the same service, only you have +the advantage of youth," said Hanaud politely, as he turned. + +"But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?" Thevenet asked in distress. "I +am desolated. I have broken into a conversation like a clumsy +fellow." + +"Not at all," Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his patience was as +remarkable as Maurice Thevenet's impudence. "We were idly watching a +film which I think is a little tedious." + +"Then, since you are not busy I beg for your indulgence. One little +moment that is all. I should so dearly love to be able to say to my +friends, 'I sat in the cinema with Monsieur Hanaud--yes, actually +I'--and asked for his advice." + +Hanaud sat down again upon his chair. + +"And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur Girardot speaks so +highly, want my advice?" Hanaud asked with a laugh. + +The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting the eager +youth. To get to Paris--all was in that! Fortune, reputation, a +life of colour. A word from Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. +He would work night and day to justify that word. + +"Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time comes I shall +remember you. But that promise I make now with my whole heart," said +Hanaud warmly, and with a bow he moved away. + +Maurice Thevenet watched him go. + +"What a man!" Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. "I would +not like to try to keep any secrets from him. No, indeed!" Jim had +heard that sentiment before on other lips and with a greater +sympathy. "I did not understand at all what he had in his mind when +he staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But something, +Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. And that search +through the treasure room! How quick and complete! No doubt while +we searched Mademoiselle Upcott's bedroom, he was just as quick and +complete in going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. +No, nothing." + +He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only said "Oho!" + +But Thevenet was not to be extinguished. + +"I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was following out no +suspicions; isn't that so? He was detached. He was gathering up +every trifle, on the chance that each one might sometime fit in with +another and at last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There +was a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe handed to him, +one of those deplorable letters which have disgraced us here--you +remember that letter, Monsieur?" + +"Aha!" said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. "But I see that +this film is coming to its wedding bells. So I shall wish you a good +evening." + +Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream of success in +Paris. He strolled between the groups of spectators to the entrance +and thence into the street. He walked to the arch of the Porte +Guillaume and turned into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial +towns go to bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was +like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred yards on, he +was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from nowhere, walking at his side. + +"So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when I had gone?" he +said. + +"Maurice Thevenet," said Jim, "may be as the Commissary says a young +man of a surprising intelligence, but to tell you the truth, I find +him a very intrusive fellow. First of all he wanted to know if you +had discovered anything in Ann Upcott's sitting-room, and then what +Miss Harlowe's anonymous letter was about." + +Hanaud looked at Jim with interest. + +"Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot is right. He +will go far. And how did you answer him?" + +"I said 'Oho'! first, and then I said 'Aha'! just like a troublesome +friend of mine when I ask him a simple question which he does not +mean to answer." + +Hanaud laughed heartily. + +"And you did very well," he said. "Come, let us turn into this +little street upon the right. It will take us to our destination." + +"Wait!" whispered Jim eagerly. "Don't cross the road for a moment. +Listen!" + +Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and listened in the empty +street. + +"Not a sound," said Hanaud. + +"No! That is what troubles me!" Jim whispered importantly. "A +minute ago there were footsteps behind us. Now that we have stopped +they have stopped too. Let us go on quite straight for a moment or +two." + +"But certainly my friend," said Hanaud. + +"And let us not talk either," Jim urged. + +"Not a single word," said Hanaud. + +They moved forward again and behind them once more footsteps rang +upon the pavement. + +"What did I tell you?" asked Jim, taking Hanaud by the arm. + +"That we would neither of us speak," Hanaud replied. "And lo! you +have spoken!" + +"But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur," Jim shook his +arm indignantly. "We are being followed." + +Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration at his junior +colleague. + +"Oh!" he whispered. "You have discovered that? Yes, it is true. We +are being followed by one of my men who sees to it that we are not +followed." + +Frobisher shook Hanaud's arm off indignantly. He drew himself up +stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud's mouth twitching and he understood that +he was looking "proper." + +"Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel," he said with a laugh and he +crossed the road. They passed into a network of small, mean streets. +There was not a soul abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. +The only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own footsteps on +the pavement and the fainter noise of the man who followed them. +Hanaud turned to the left into a short passage and stopped before a +little house with a shuttered shop front. + +"This is the place," he said in a low voice and he pressed the button +in the pillar of the door. The bell rang with a shrill sharp whirr +just the other side of the panels. + +"We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to bed," said Hanaud, +"since he has no servant in the house." + +A minute or two passed. The clocks struck the half hour. Hanaud +leaned his ear against the panels of the door. He could not hear one +sound within the house. He rang again; and after a few seconds +shutters were thrown back and a window opened on the floor above. +From behind the window some one whispered: + +"Who is there?" + +"The police," Hanaud answered, and at the window above there was +silence. + +"No one is going to do you any harm," Hanaud continued, raising his +voice impatiently. "We want some information from you. That's all." + +"Very well." The whisper came from the same spot. The man standing +within the darkness of the room had not moved. "Wait! I will slip +on some things and come down." + +The window and the shutter were closed again. Then through the +chinks a few beams of light strayed out Hanaud uttered a little grunt +of satisfaction. + +"That animal is getting up at last. He must have some strange +clients amongst the good people of Dijon if he is so careful to +answer them in a whisper." + +He turned about and took a step or two along the pavement and another +step or two back like a man upon a quarter deck. Jim Frobisher had +never known him so restless and impatient during these two days. + +"I can't help it," he said in a low voice to Jim. "I think that in +five minutes we shall touch the truth of this affair. We shall know +who brought the arrow to him from the Maison Crenelle." + +"If any one brought the arrow to him at all," Jim Frobisher added. + +But Hanaud was not in the mood to consider ifs and possibilities. + +"Oh, that!" he said with a shrug of the shoulders. Then he tapped +his forehead. "I am like Waberski. I have it here that some one did +bring the arrow to Jean Cladel." + +He started once more his quarter-deck pacing. Only it was now a trot +rather than a walk. Jim was a little nettled by the indifference to +his suggestion. He was still convinced that Hanaud had taken the +wrong starting point in all his inquiry. He said tartly: + +"Well, if some one did bring the arrow here, it will be the same +person who replaced the treatise on Sporanthus on its book shelf." + +Hanaud came to a stop in front of Jim Frobisher. Then he burst into +a low laugh. + +"I will bet you all the money in the world that that is not true, and +then Madame Harlowe's pearl necklace on the top of it. For after all +it was not I who brought the arrow to Jean Cladel, whereas it was +undoubtedly I who put back the treatise on the shelf." + +Jim took a step back. He stared at Hanaud with his mouth open in a +stupefaction. + +"You?" he exclaimed. + +"I," replied Hanaud, standing up on the tips of his toes. "Alone I +did it." + +Then his manner of burlesque dropped from him. He looked up at the +shuttered windows with a sudden anxiety. + +"That animal is taking longer than he need," he muttered. "After +all, it is not to a court ball of the Duke of Burgundy that we are +inviting him." + +He rang the bell again with a greater urgency. It returned its +shrill reply as though it mocked him. + +"I do not like this," said Hanaud. + +He seized the door-handle and leaned his shoulder against the panel +and drove his weight against it. But the door was strong and did not +give. Hanaud put his fingers to his mouth and whistled softly. From +the direction whence they had come they heard the sound of a man +running swiftly. They saw him pass within the light of the one +street lamp at the corner and out of it again; and then he stood at +their side. Jim recognised Nicolas Moreau, the little agent who had +been sent this very morning by Hanaud to make sure that Jean Cladel +existed. + +"Nicolas, I want you to wait here," said Hanaud. "If the door is +opened, whistle for us and keep it open." + +"Very well, sir." + +Hanaud said in a low and troubled voice to Frobisher: "There is +something here which alarms me." He dived into a narrow alley at the +side of the shop. + +"It was in this alley no doubt that Waberski meant us to believe that +he hid on the morning of the 7th of May," Jim whispered as he hurried +to keep with his companion. + +"No doubt." + +The alley led into a lane which ran parallel with the street of +Gambetta. Hanaud wheeled into it. A wall five feet high, broken at +intervals by rickety wooden doors, enclosed the yards at the backs of +the houses. Before the first of these breaks in the wall Hanaud +stopped. He raised himself upon the tips of his toes and peered over +the wall, first downwards into the yard, and then upwards towards the +back of the house. There was no lamp in the lane, no light showing +from any of the windows. Though the night was clear of mist it was +as dark as a cavern in this narrow lane behind the houses. Jim +Frobisher, though his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, knew that he +could not have seen a man, even if he had moved, ten yards away. Yet +Hanaud still stood peering at the back of the house with the tips of +his fingers on the top of the wall. Finally he touched Jim on the +sleeve. + +"I believe the back window on the first floor is open," he whispered, +and his voice was more troubled than ever. "We will go in and see." + +He touched the wooden door and it swung inwards with a whine of its +hinges. + +"Open," said Hanaud. "Make no noise." + +Silently they crossed the yard. The ground floor of the house was +low. Jim looking upwards could see now that the window above their +heads yawned wide open. + +"You are right," he breathed in Hanaud's ear, and with a touch Hanaud +asked for silence. + +The room beyond the window was black as pitch. The two men stood +below and listened. Not a word came from it. Hanaud drew Jim into +the wall of the house. At the end of the wall a door gave admission +into the house. Hanaud tried the door, turning the handle first and +then gently pressing with his shoulder upon the panel. + +"It's locked, but not bolted like the door in front," he whispered. +"I can manage this." + +Jim Frobisher heard the tiniest possible rattle of a bunch of keys as +Hanaud drew it from his pocket, and then not a noise of any kind +whilst Hanaud stooped above the lock. Yet within half a minute the +door slowly opened. It opened upon a passage as black as that room +above their heads. Hanaud stepped noiselessly into the passage. Jim +Frobisher followed him with a heart beating high in excitement. What +had happened in that lighted room upstairs and in the dark room +behind it? Why didn't Jean Cladel come down and open the door upon +the street of Gambetta? Why didn't they hear Nicolas Moreau's soft +whistle or the sound of his voice? Hanaud stepped back past Jim +Frobisher and shut the door behind them and locked it again. + +"You haven't an electric torch with you, of course?" Hanaud whispered. + +"No," replied Jim. + +"Nor I. And I don't want to strike a match. There's something +upstairs which frightens me." + +You could hardly hear the words. They were spoken as though the mere +vibration of the air they caused would carry a message to the rooms +above. + +"We'll move very carefully. Keep a hand upon my coat," and Hanaud +went forward. After he had gone a few paces he stopped. + +"There's a staircase here on my right. It turns at once. Mind not +to knock your foot on the first step," he whispered over his +shoulder; and a moment later, he reached down and, taking hold of +Jim's right arm, laid his hand upon a balustrade. Jim lifted his +foot, felt for and found the first tread of the stairs, and mounted +behind Hanaud. They halted on a little landing just above the door +by which they had entered the house. + +In front of them the darkness began to thin, to become opaque rather +than a black, impenetrable hood drawn over their heads. Jim +understood that in front of him was an open door and that the faint +glimmer came from that open window on their left hand beyond the door. + +Hanaud passed through the doorway into the room. Jim followed and +was already upon the threshold, when Hanaud stumbled and uttered a +cry. No doubt the cry was low, but coming so abruptly upon their +long silence it startled Frobisher like the explosion of a pistol. +It seemed that it must clash through Dijon like the striking of a +clock. + +But nothing followed. No one stirred, no one cried out a question. +Silence descended upon the house again, impenetrable, like the +darkness a hood upon the senses. Jim was tempted to call out aloud +himself, anything, however childish, so that he might hear a voice +speaking words, if only his own voice. The words came at last, from +Hanaud and from the inner end of the room, but in an accent which Jim +did not recognise. + +"Don't move! ... There is something.... I told you I was +frightened.... Oh!" and his voice died away in a sigh. + +Jim could hear him moving very cautiously. Then he almost screamed +aloud. For the shutters at the window slowly swung to and the room +was once more shrouded in black. + +"Who's that?" Jim whispered violently, and Hanaud answered: + +"It's only me--Hanaud. I don't want to show a light here yet with +that window open. God knows what dreadful thing has happened here. +Come just inside the room and shut the door behind you." + +Jim obeyed, and having moved his position, could see a line of yellow +light, straight and fine as if drawn by a pencil, at the other end of +the room on the floor. There was a door there, a door into the front +room where they had seen the light go up from the street of Gambetta. + +Jim Frobisher had hardly realised that before the door was burst open +with a crash. In the doorway, outlined against the light beyond, +appeared the bulky frame of Hanaud. + +"There is nothing here," he said, standing there blocking up the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. "The room is quite empty." + +That room, the front room--yes! But between Hanaud's legs the light +trickled out into the dark room behind, and here, on the floor +illuminated by a little lane of light, Jim, with a shiver, saw a +clenched hand and a forearm in a crumpled shirt-sleeve. + +"Turn round," he cried to Hanaud. "Look!" + +Hanaud turned. + +"Yes," he said quietly. "That is what I stumbled against." + +He found a switch in the wall close to the door and snapped it down. +The dark room was flooded with light, and on the floor, in the midst +of a scene of disorder, a table pushed back here, a chair overturned +there, lay the body of a man. He wore no coat. He was in his +waistcoat and his shirt sleeves, and he was crumpled up with a +horrible suggestion of agony like a ball, his knees towards his chin, +his head forward towards his knees. One arm clutched the body close, +the other, the one which Jim had seen, was flung out, his hand +clenched in a spasm of intolerable pain. And about the body there +was such a pool of blood as Jim Frobisher thought no body could +contain. + +Jim staggered back with his hands clasped over his eyes. He felt +physically sick. + +"Then he killed himself on our approach," he cried with a groan. + +"Who?" answered Hanaud steadily. + +"Jean Cladel. The man who whispered to us from behind the window." + +Hanaud stunned him with a question. + +"What with?" + +Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and forced his eyes to +their service. There was no gleam of a knife, or a pistol, anywhere +against the dark background of the carpet. + +"You might think that he was a Japanese who had committed +_hari-kari_," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the knife would be at his +side. And there is no knife." + +He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his hand back. + +"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He pointed. +The man was lying on his side in this dreadful pose of contracted +sinews and unendurable pain. And across the sleeve of his shirt +there was a broad red mark. + +"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud. + +Jim bent forward. + +"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, in a voice +of awe: "Then it's murder." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"Not a doubt." + +Jim Frobisher stood up. He pointed a shaking finger at the grotesque +image of pain crumpled upon the floor, death without dignity, an +argument that there was something horribly wrong with the making of +the human race--since such things could be. + +"Jean Cladel?" he asked. + +"We must make sure," answered Hanaud. He went down the stairs to the +front door and, unbolting it, called Moreau within the house. From +the top of the stairs Jim heard him ask: + +"Do you know Jean Cladel by sight?" + +"Yes," answered Moreau. + +"Then follow me." + +Hanaud led him up into the back room. For a moment Moreau stopped +upon the threshold with a blank look upon his face. + +"Is that the man?" Hanaud asked. + +Moreau stepped forward. + +"Yes." + +"He has been murdered," Hanaud explained. "Will you fetch the +Commissary of the district and a doctor? We will wait here." + +Moreau turned on his heel and went downstairs. Hanaud dropped into a +chair and stared moodily at the dead body. + +"Jean Cladel," he said in a voice of discouragement. "Just when he +could have been of a little use in the world! Just when he could +have helped us to the truth! It's my fault, too. I oughtn't to have +waited until to-night. I ought to have foreseen that this might +happen." + +"Who can have murdered him?" Jim Frobisher exclaimed. + +Hanaud roused himself out of his remorse. + +"The man who whispered to us from behind the window," answered Hanaud. + +Jim Frobisher felt his mind reeling. + +"That's impossible!" he cried. + +"Why?" Hanaud asked. "It must have been he. Think it out!" And +step by step he told the story as he read it, testing it by speaking +it aloud. + +"At five minutes past ten a man of mine, still a little out of breath +from his haste, comes to us in the Grande Taverne and tells us that +Jean Cladel has just reached home. He reached home then at five +minutes to ten." + +"Yes," Jim agreed. + +"We were detained for a few minutes by Maurice Thevenet. Yes." He +moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and said softly: "We +shall have to consider that very modest and promising young gentleman +rather carefully. He detained us. We heard the clock strike +half-past ten as we waited in the street." + +"Yes." + +"And all was over then. For the house was as silent as what, indeed, +it is--a grave. And only just over, for the body is still warm. If +this--lying here, is Jean Cladel, some one else must have been +waiting for him to come home to-night, waiting in the lane behind, +since my man didn't see him. And an acquaintance, a friend--for Jean +Cladel lets him in and locks the door behind him." + +Jim interrupted. + +"He might have been here already, waiting for him with his knife +bared in this dark room." + +Hanaud looked around the room. It was furnished cheaply and +stuffily, half office, half living-room. An open bureau stood +against the wall near the window. A closed cabinet occupied the +greater part of one side. + +"I wonder," he said. "It is possible, no doubt---- But if so, why +did the murderer stay so long? No search has been made--no drawers +are ransacked." He tried the door of the cabinet. "This is still +locked. No, I don't think that he was waiting. I think that he was +admitted as a friend or a client--I fancy Jean Cladel had not a few +clients who preferred to call upon him by the back way in the dark of +the night. I think that his visitor came meaning to kill, and waited +his time and killed, and that he had hardly killed before we rang the +bell at the door." Hanaud drew in his breath sharply. "Imagine +that, my friend! He is standing here over the man he has murdered, +and unexpectedly the shrill, clear sound of the bell goes through the +house--as though God said, 'I saw you!' Imagine it! He turned out +the light and stands holding his breath in the dark. The bell rings +again. He must answer it or worse may befall. He goes into the +front room and throws open the window, and hears it is the police who +are at the door." Hanaud nodded his head in a reluctant admiration. +"But that man had an iron nerve! He doesn't lose his head. He +closes the shutter, he turns on the light, that we may think he is +getting up, he runs back into this room. He will not waste time by +stumbling down the stairs and fumbling with the lock of the back +door. No, he opens these shutters and drops to the ground. It is +done in a second. Another second, and he is in the lane; another, +and he is safe, his dreadful mission ended. Cladel will not speak. +Cladel will not tell us the things we want to know." + +Hanaud went over to the cabinet and, using his skeleton keys, again +opened its doors. On the shelves were ranged a glass jar or two, a +retort, the simplest utensils of a laboratory and a few bottles, one +of which, larger than the rest, was half filled with a colourless +liquid. + +"Alcohol," said Hanaud, pointing to the label. + +Jim Frobisher moved carefully round on the outskirts of the room, +taking care not to alter the disarrangements of the furniture. He +looked the bottles over. Not one of them held a drop of that pale +lemon-coloured solution which the Professor, in his Treatise, had +described. Hanaud shut and locked the doors of the cabinet again and +stepped carefully over to the bureau. It stood open, and a few +papers were strewn upon the flap. He sat down at the bureau and +began carefully to search it. Jim sat down in a chair. Somehow it +had leaked out that, since this morning, Hanaud knew of Jean Cladel. +Jean Cladel therefore must be stopped from any revelations; and he +had been stopped. Frobisher could no longer doubt that murder had +been done on the night of April the 27th, in the Maison Crenelle. +Development followed too logically upon development. The case was +building itself up--another storey had been added to the edifice with +this new crime. Yes, certainly and solidly it was building itself +up--this case against some one. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: _The White Tablet_ + +Within the minute that case was to be immeasurably strengthened. An +exclamation broke from Hanaud. He sprang to his feet and turned on +the light of a green-shaded reading lamp, which stood upon the ledge +of the bureau. He was holding now under the light a small drawer, +which he had removed from the front of the bureau. Very gingerly he +lifted some little thing out of it, something that looked like a +badge that men wear in their buttonholes. He laid it down upon the +blotting paper; and in that room of death laughed harshly. + +He beckoned to Jim. + +"Come and look!" + +What Jim saw was a thin, small, barbed iron dart, with an iron stem. +He had no need to ask its nature, for he had seen its likeness that +morning in the Treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. This was the +actual head of Simon Harlowe's poison-arrow. + +"You have found it!" said Jim in a voice that shook. + +"Yes." + +Hanaud gave it a little push, and said thoughtfully: + +"A negro thousands of miles away sits outside his hut in the Kombe +country and pounds up his poison seed and mixes it with red clay, and +smears it thick and slab over the shaft of his fine new arrow, and +waits for his enemy. But his enemy does not come. So he barters it, +or gives it to his white friend the trader on the Shire river. And +the trader brings it home and gives it to Simon Harlowe of the Maison +Crenelle. And Simon Harlowe lends it to a professor in Edinburgh, +who writes about it in a printed book and sends it back again. And +in the end, after all its travels, it comes to the tenement of Jean +Cladel in a slum of Dijon, and is made ready in a new way to do its +deadly work." + +For how much longer Hanaud would have moralised over the arrow in +this deplorable way, no man can tell. Happily Jim Frobisher was +reprieved from listening to him by the shutting of a door below and +the noise of voices in the passage. + +"The Commissary!" said Hanaud, and he went quickly down the stairs. + +Jim heard him speaking in a low tone for quite a long while, and no +doubt was explaining the position of affairs. For when he brought +the Commissary and the doctor up into the room he introduced Jim as +one about whom they already knew. + +"This is that Monsieur Frobisher," he said. + +The Commissary, a younger and more vivacious man than Girardot, bowed +briskly to Jim and looked towards the contorted figure of Jean Cladel. + +Even he could not restrain a little gesture of repulsion. He clacked +his tongue against the roof of his mouth. + +"He is not pretty, that one!" he said. "Most certainly he is not +pretty." + +Hanaud crossed again to the bureau and carefully folded the dart +around with paper. + +"With your permission, Monsieur," he said ceremoniously to the +Commissary, "I shall take this with me. I will be responsible for +it." He put it away in his pocket and looked at the doctor, who was +stooping by the side of Jean Cladel. "I do not wish to interfere, +but I should be glad to have a copy of the medical report. I think +that it might help me. I think it will be found that this murder was +committed in a way peculiar to one man." + +"Certainly you shall have a copy of the report, Monsieur Hanaud," +replied the young Commissary in a polite and formal voice. + +Hanaud laid a hand on Jim's arm. + +"We are in the way, my friend. Oh, yes, in spite of Monsieur le +Commissaire's friendly protestations. This is not our affair. Let +us go!" He conducted Jim to the door and turned about. "I do not +wish to interfere," he repeated, "but it is possible that the +shutters and the window will bear the traces of the murderer's +fingers. I don't think it probable, for that animal had taken his +precautions. But it is possible, for he left in a great hurry." + +The Commissary was overwhelmed with gratitude. + +"Most certainly we will give our attention to the shutters and the +window-sill." + +"A copy of the finger-prints, if any are found?" Hanaud suggested. + +"Shall be at Monsieur Hanaud's disposal as early as possible," the +Commissary agreed. + +Jim experienced a pang of regret that Monsieur Bex was not present at +the little exchange of civilities. The Commissary and Hanaud were so +careful not to tread upon one another's toes and so politely +determined that their own should not be trodden upon. Monsieur Bex +could not but have revelled in the correctness of their deportment. + +Hanaud and Frobisher went downstairs into the street The +neighbourhood had not been aroused. A couple of _sergents-de-ville_ +stood in front of the door. The street of Gambetta was still asleep +and indifferent to the crime which had taken place in one of its +least respectable houses. + +"I shall go to the Prefecture," said Hanaud. "They have given me a +little office there with a sofa. I want to put away the arrow head +before I go to my hotel." + +"I shall come with you," said Jim. "It will be a relief to walk for +a little in the fresh air, after that room." + +The Prefecture lay the better part of a mile away across the city. +Hanaud set off at a great pace, and reaching the building conducted +Jim into an office with a safe set against the wall. + +"Will you sit down for a moment? And smoke, please," he said. + +He was in a mood of such deep dejection; he was so changed from his +mercurial self; that only now did Jim Frobisher understand the great +store he had set upon his interview with Jean Cladel. He unlocked +the safe and brought over to the table a few envelopes of different +sizes, the copy of the Treatise and his green file. He seated +himself in front of Jim and began to open his envelopes and range +their contents in a row, when the door was opened and a gendarme +saluted and advanced. He carried a paper in his hand. + +"A reply came over the telephone from Paris at nine o'clock to-night, +Monsieur Hanaud. They say that this may be the name of the firm you +want. It was established in the Rue de Batignolles, but it ceased to +exist seven years ago." + +"Yes, that would have happened," Hanaud answered glumly, as he took +the paper. He read what was written upon it. "Yes--yes. That's it. +Not a doubt." + +He took an envelope from a rack upon the table and put the paper +inside it and stuck down the flap. On the front of the envelope, Jim +saw him write an illuminating word. "Address." + +Then he looked at Jim with smouldering eyes. + +"There is a fatality in all this," he cried. "We become more and +more certain that murder was committed and how it was committed. We +get a glimpse of possible reasons why. But we are never an inch +nearer to evidence--real convincing evidence--who committed it. +Fatality? I am a fool to use such words. It's keen wits and +audacity and nerve that stop us at the end of each lane and make an +idiot of me!" + +He struck a match viciously and lit a cigarette. Frobisher made an +effort to console him. + +"Yes, but it's the keen wits and the audacity and the nerve of more +than one person." + +Hanaud glanced at Frobisher sharply. + +"Explain, my friend." + +"I have been thinking over it ever since we left the street of +Gambetta. I no longer doubt that Mrs. Harlowe was murdered in the +Maison Crenelle. It is impossible to doubt it. But her murder was +part of the activities of a gang. Else how comes it that Jean Cladel +was murdered too to-night?" + +A smile drove for a moment the gloom from Hanaud's face. + +"Yes. You have been quite fifteen minutes in the bull-ring," he said. + +"Then you agree with me?" + +"Yes!" But Hanaud's gloom had returned. "But we can't lay our hands +upon the gang. We are losing time, and I am afraid that we have no +time to lose." Hanaud shivered like a man suddenly chilled. "Yes, I +am very troubled now. I am very--frightened." + +His fear peered out of him and entered into Frobisher. Frobisher did +not understand it, he had no clue to what it was that Hanaud feared, +but sitting in that brightly-lit office in the silent building, he +was conscious of evil presences thronging about the pair of them, +presences grotesque and malevolent such as some old craftsman of +Dijon might have carved on the pillars of a cathedral. He, too, +shivered. + +"Let us see, now!" said Hanaud. + +He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, and the barb +from his pocket, and fitted them together. The iron barb was loose +now because the hole to receive it at the top of the arrow shaft had +been widened to take a nib. But the spoke was just about the right +length. He laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green +file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, attracted Jim's +notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, but as he shook it out, a +square tablet of some hard white substance rolled on to the table. +It was soiled with dust, and there was a smear of green upon it; and +as Jim turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as +though something sharp had struck it. + +"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" he asked. + +Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his hand swiftly to +take the tablet away from Jim, and drew his hand in again. + +"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said gravely. "But it is +interesting--that tablet. I shall know more about it to-morrow." + +Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion which had +brought this tablet into notice. It certainly had not been +discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for it was already there in the +safe in the office. Jim had noticed the little square envelope as +Hanaud fetched it out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had +been picked up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. +Or--yes, there was that smear of green--from the grass. Jim sat up +straight in his chair. They had all been together in the garden this +morning. Hanaud, himself, Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point +Frobisher's conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction +could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of them had +passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only thing of which he was +quite sure was the great importance which Hanaud attached to it. For +all the time that he handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left +him, never once. They followed each little movement of finger tip +and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when Jim at last +tilted it off his palm back into its little envelope, the detective +undoubtedly drew a breath of relief. + +Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was getting to know his +man. He did not invite any "Aha's" and "Oho's" by vain questionings. +He leaned across the table and took up his own memorandum which +Hanaud had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table +in front of him and added two new questions to those which he had +already written out. Thus: + + + (5) What was the exact message telephoned from Paris to the + Prefecture and hidden away in an envelope marked by Hanaud: + "Address"? + + + (6) When and where and why was the white tablet picked up, and + what, in the name of all the saints, does it mean? + + +With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum back to Hanaud. +Hanaud, however, read them slowly and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to +answer all your questions to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you +see! We break down at every corner, and the question must wait." + +He was fitting methodically the memorandum back into the file when a +look of extreme surprise came over Frobisher's face. He pointed a +finger at the file. + +"That telegram!" + +There was a telegram pinned to the three anonymous letters which +Hanaud had in the file--the two which Hanaud had shown to Frobisher +in Paris and the third which Betty Harlowe had given to him that very +afternoon. And the telegram was pieced together by two strips of +stamp-paper in a cross. + +"That's our telegram. The telegram sent to my firm by Miss Harlowe +on Monday--yes, by George, this last Monday." + +It quite took Jim's breath away, so crowded had his days been with +fears and reliefs, excitements and doubts, discoveries and +disappointments, to realise that this was only the Friday night; that +at so recent a date as Wednesday he had never seen or spoken with +Betty Harlowe. "The telegram announcing to us in London that you +were engaged upon the case." + +Hanaud nodded in assent. + +"Yes. You gave it to me." + +"And you tore it up." + +"I did. But I picked it out of the waste-paper basket afterwards and +stuck it together." Hanaud explained, in no wise disconcerted by Jim +Frobisher's attack of perspicacity. "I meant to make some trouble +here with the Police for letting out the secret. I am very glad now +that I did pick it out. You yourself must have realised its +importance the very next morning before I even arrived at the Maison +Crenelle, when you told Mademoiselle that you had shown it to me." + +Jim cast his memory back. He had a passion for precision and +exactness which was very proper in one of his profession. + +"It was not until you came that I learnt Miss Harlowe had the news by +an anonymous letter," he said. + +"Well, that doesn't matter," Hanaud interposed a trifle quickly. +"The point of importance to me is that when the case is done with, +and I have a little time to devote to these letters, the telegram may +be of value." + +"Yes, I see," said Jim. "I see that," he repeated, and he shifted +uncomfortably in his chair; and opened his mouth and closed it again; +and remained suspended between speech and silence, whilst Hanaud read +through his file and contemplated his exhibits and found no hope in +them. + +"They lead me nowhere!" he cried violently; and Jim Frobisher made up +his mind. + +"Monsieur Hanaud, you do not share your thoughts with me," he said +rather formally, "but I will deal with you in a better way; apart +from this crime in the Maison Crenelle, you have the mystery of these +anonymous letters to solve. I can help you to this extent. Another +of them has been received." + +"When?" + +"To-night, whilst we sat at dinner." + +"By whom?" + +"Ann Upcott." + +"What!" + +Hanaud was out of his chair with a cry, towering up, his face white +as the walls of the room, his eyes burning upon Frobisher. Never +could news have been so unexpected, so startling. + +"You are sure?" he asked. + +"Quite. It came by the evening post--with others. Gaston brought +them into the dining-room. There was one for me from my firm in +London, a couple for Betty, and this one for Ann Upcott. She opened +it with a frown, as though she did not know from whom it came. I saw +it as she unfolded it. It was on the same common paper--typewritten +in the same way--with no address at the head of it. She gasped as +she looked at it, and then she read it again. And then with a smile +she folded it and put it away." + +"With a smile?" Hanaud insisted. + +"Yes. She was pleased. The colour came into her face. The distress +went out of it." + +"She didn't show it to you, then?" + +"No." + +"Nor to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" + +"No." + +"But she was pleased, eh?" It seemed that to Hanaud this was the +most extraordinary feature of the whole business. "Did she say +anything?" + +"Yes," answered Jim. "She said 'He has been always right, hasn't +he?'" + +"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't he?'" Hanaud +slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a man turned into stone. He +looked up in a little while. + +"What happened then?" he asked. + +"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up her letter and +beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who said to me: 'We shall have +to leave you to take your coffee alone.' They went across the hall +to Betty's room. The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever +since I have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed me +into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not interfere. So I came +to find you at the Grande Taverne." + +At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity would have +provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable exhibitions, but now he did +not notice it at all. + +"They went away to talk that letter over together," said Hanaud. +"And that young lady was pleased, she who was so distressed this +afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud was discussing his problem with +himself, his eyes upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I +wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once or +twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a hundred corridas, +I, Hanaud, am baffled!" + +He was not posturing now. He was frankly and simply amazed that he +could be so utterly at a loss. Then, with a swift change of mood, he +came back to the table. + +"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange new incident +to myself, I beg of you your help," he pleaded very earnestly and +even very humbly. Fear had returned to his eyes and his voice. He +was disturbed beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more +important. I want you--how shall I put it so that I may persuade +you? I want you to stay as much as you can in the Maison +Crenelle--to--yes--to keep a little watch on this pretty Ann Upcott, +to----" + +He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher interrupted him +in a very passion of anger. + +"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, Monsieur. I +won't be your spy. I am not here for that. I am here for my client. +As for Ann Upcott, she is my countrywoman. I will not help you +against her. So help me God, I won't!" + +Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry face of his +"junior colleague," who now resigned his office and, without parley, +accepted his defeat. + +"I don't blame you," he answered quietly. "I could, indeed, hope for +no other reply. I must be quick, that's all. I must be very quick!" + +Frobisher's anger fell away from him like a cloak one drops. He saw +Hanaud sitting over against him with a white, desperately troubled +face and eyes in which there shone unmistakeably some gleam of terror. + +"Tell me!" he cried in an exasperation. "Be frank with me for once! +Is Ann Upcott guilty? She's not alone, of course, anyway. There's a +gang. We're agreed upon that. Waberski's one of them, of course? +Is Ann Upcott another? Do you believe it?" + +Hanaud slowly put his exhibits together. There was a struggle going +on within him. The strain of the night had told upon them both, and +he was tempted for once to make a confidant, tempted intolerably. On +the other hand, Jim Frobisher read in him all the traditions of his +service; to wait upon facts, not to utter suspicions; to be fair. It +was not until he had locked everything away again in the safe that +Hanaud yielded to the temptation. And even then he could not bring +himself to be direct. + +"You want to know what I believe of Ann Upcott?" he cried +reluctantly, as though the words were torn from him. "Go to-morrow +to the Church of Notre Dame and look at the façade. There, since you +are not blind, you will see." + +He would say no more; that was clear. Nay, he stood moodily before +Frobisher, already regretting that he had said so much. Frobisher +picked up his hat and stick. + +"Thank you," he said. "Good night." + +Hanaud let him go to the door. Then he said: + +"You are free to-morrow. I shall not go to the Maison Crenelle. +Have you any plans?" + +"Yes. I am to be taken for a motor-drive round the neighbourhood." + +"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. "But remember +to telephone to me before you go. I shall be here. I will tell you +if I have any news. Good night." + +Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the room. Before he +had closed the door Hanaud had forgotten his presence. For he was +saying to himself over and over again, almost with an accent of +despair: "I must be quick! I must be very quick!" + + +Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest Renan and the Rue +de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's injunction to examine the +façade of Notre Dame. He must keep that in mind and obey it in the +morning. But that night was not yet over for him. + +As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert he +heard a light, quick step a little way behind him--a step that seemed +familiar. So when he turned into the street he sauntered and looked +round. He saw a tall man cross the entrance of the street very +quickly and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. The +man paused for a second under the light of a street lamp at the angle +of the street, and Jim could have sworn that it was Hanaud. There +were no hotels, no lodgings in this quarter of the city. It was a +quarter of private houses. What was Hanaud seeking there? + +Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the façade of Notre +Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison Crenelle a little incident +occurred which made the probability that he would soon remember it +remote. He let himself into the house with a latchkey which had been +given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means of a +switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall to the foot of +the stairs, and was about to turn off the light, using the switch +there to which Ann Upcott had referred, when the door of the +treasure-room opened. Betty appeared in the doorway. + +"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased to find her +still afoot and half regretful that she was losing her hours of sleep. + +"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I waited up for my +lodger." + +She held the door open, and he followed her back into the room. + +"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she added: "Jim, +something has happened to-night." + +Jim nodded. + +"What?" she asked. + +"Let it wait till to-morrow, Betty!" + +Betty smiled no longer. The light died out of her dark, haunting +eyes. Lassitude and distress veiled them. + +"Something terrible, then?" she said in a whisper. + +"Yes," and she stretched out a hand to the back of a chair and +steadied herself. + +"Please tell me, now, Jim! I shall not sleep to-night unless you do; +and oh, I am so tired!" + +There was so deep a longing in her voice, so utter a weariness in the +pose of her young body that Jim could not but yield. + +"I'll tell you, Betty," he said gently. "Hanaud and I went to find +Jean Cladel to-night. We found him dead. He had been +murdered--cruelly." + +Betty moaned and swayed upon her feet. She would have fallen had not +Jim caught her in his arms. + +"Betty!" he cried. + +Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could feel the heave of +her bosom against his heart. + +"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No one ever had +heard of him till this morning ... and now he's swept into this +horror--like the rest of us! Oh, where will it end?" + +Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees beside her. + +She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up to his. + +"My dear!" he whispered. + +But she would not raise her head. + +"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed her face +deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung to him with desperate +hands. + +"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll all come right. +I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And whilst he spoke he cursed himself +for the banality of his words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that +were really fine with which to comfort her? Something better than +these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will all straighten +out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that there was no necessity +that he should. For her arms crept round his neck and held him close. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN: _A Plan Frustrated_ + +The road curled like a paper ribbon round the shoulder of a hill and +dropped into a shallow valley. To the left a little below the level +of the road, a stream ran swiftly through a narrow meadow of lush +green grass. Beyond the meadow the wall of the valley rose rough +with outcroppings of rock, and with every tuft of its herbage already +brown from the sun. On the right the northern wall rose almost from +the road's edge. The valley was long and curved slowly, and half-way +along to the point where it disappeared a secondary road, the sort of +road which is indicated in the motorist's hand-books by a dotted +line, branched off to the left, crossed the stream by a stone bridge +and vanished in a cleft of the southern wall. Beyond this branching +road grew trees. The stream disappeared under them as though it ran +into a cavern; the slopes on either side were hidden behind +trees--trees so thick that here at this end the valley looked bare in +the strong sunlight, but low trees, as if they had determined to +harmonise with their environment. Indeed, the whole valley had a +sort of doll's-house effect--it was so shallow and narrow and +stunted. It tried to be a valley and succeeded in being a depression. + +When the little two-seater car swooped round the shoulder of the hill +and descended, the white ribbon of road was empty but for one tiny +speck at the far end, behind which a stream of dust spurted and +spread like smoke from the funnel of an engine. + +"That motor dust is going to smother us when we pass," said Jim. + +"We shall do as much for him," said Betty, looking over her shoulder +from the steering wheel. "No, worse!" Behind the car the dust was a +screen. "But I don't mind, do you, Jim?" she asked with a laugh, in +which for the first time, with a heart of thankfulness, Jim heard a +note of gaiety. "To be free of that town if only for an hour! Oh!" +and Betty opened her lungs to the sunlight and the air. "This is my +first hour of liberty for a week!" + +Frobisher was glad, too, to be out upon the slopes of the Côte-d'Or. +The city of Dijon was ringing that morning with the murder of Jean +Cladel; you could not pass down a street but you heard his name +mentioned and some sarcasms about the police. He wished to forget +that nightmare of a visit to the street of Gambetta and the dreadful +twisted figure on the floor of the back room. + +"You'll be leaving it for good very soon, Betty," he said +significantly. + +Betty made a little grimace at him, and laid her hand upon his sleeve. + +"Jim!" she said, and the colour rose into her face, and the car +swerved across the road. "You mustn't speak like that to the girl at +the wheel," she said with a laugh as she switched the car back into +its course, "or I shall run down the motor-cyclist and that young +lady in the side-car." + +"The young lady," said Jim, "happens to be a port-manteau!" + +The motor-cyclist, indeed, was slowing down as he came nearer to the +branching road, like a tourist unacquainted with the country, and +when he actually reached it he stopped altogether and dismounted. +Betty brought her car to a standstill beside him, and glanced at the +clock and the speedometer in front of her. + +"Can I help you?" she asked. + +The man standing beside the motor-cycle was a young man, slim, dark, +and of a pleasant countenance. He took off his helmet and bowed +politely. + +"Madame, I am looking for Dijon," he said in a harsh accent which +struck Frobisher as somehow familiar to his ears. + +"Monsieur, you can see the tip of it through that gap across the +valley," Betty returned. In the very centre of the cleft the point +of the soaring spire of the cathedral stood up like a delicate lance. +"But I warn you that that way, though short, is not good." + +Through the gradually thinning cloud of dust which hung behind the +car they heard the jug-jug of another motor-cycle. + +"The road by which we have come is the better one," she continued. + +"But how far is it?" the young man asked. + +Betty once more consulted her speedometer. + +"Forty kilometres, and we have covered them in forty minutes, so that +you can see the going is good. We started at eleven punctually, and +it is now twenty minutes to twelve." + +"Surely we started before eleven?" Jim interposed. + +"Yes, but we stopped for a minute or two to tighten the strap of the +tool-box on the edge of the town. And we started from there at +eleven." + +The motor-cyclist consulted his wrist-watch. + +"Yes, it's twenty minutes to twelve now," he said. "But forty +kilometres! I doubt if I have the essence. I think I must try the +nearer road." + +The second motor-cycle came out of the dust like a boat out of a sea +mist and slowed down in turn at the side of them. The rider jumped +out of his saddle, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead and +joined in the conversation. + +"That little road, Monsieur. It is not one of the national highways. +That shows itself at a glance. But it is not so bad. From the stone +bridge one can be at the Hôtel de Ville of Dijon in twenty-five +minutes." + +"I thank you," said the young man. "You will pardon me. I have been +here for seven minutes, and I am expected." + +He replaced his helmet, mounted his machine, and with a splutter and +half a dozen explosions ran down into the bed of the valley. + +The second cyclist readjusted his goggles. + +"Will you go first, Madame?" he suggested. "Otherwise I give you my +dust." + +"Thank you!" said Betty with a smile, and she slipped in the clutch +and started. + +Beyond the little forest and the curve the ground rose and the valley +flattened out. Across their road a broad highway set with kilometre +stones ran north and south. + +"The road to Paris," said Betty as she stopped the car in front of a +little inn with a tangled garden at the angle. She looked along the +road Pariswards. "Air!" she said, and drew a breath of longing, +whilst her eyes kindled and her white strong teeth clicked as though +she was biting a sweet fruit. + +"Soon, Betty," said Jim. "Very soon!" + +Betty drove the car into a little yard at the side of the river. + +"We will lunch here, in the garden," she said, "all amongst the +earwigs and the roses." + +An omelet, a cutlet perfectly cooked and piping hot, with a salad and +a bottle of Clos du Prince of the 1904 vintage brought the glowing +city of Paris immeasurably nearer to them. They sat in the open +under the shade of a tall hedge; they had the tangled garden to +themselves; they laughed and made merry in the golden May, and +visions of wonder trembled and opened before Jim Frobisher's eyes. + +Betty swept them away, however, when he had lit a cigar and she a +cigarette; and their coffee steamed from the little cups in front of +them. + +"Let us be practical, Jim," she said. "I want to talk to you." + +The sparkle of gaiety had left her face. + +"Yes!" he asked. + +"About Ann." Her eyes swept round and rested on Jim's face. "She +ought to go." + +"Run away!" cried Jim with a start. + +"Yes, at once and as secretly as possible." + +Jim turned the proposal over in his mind whilst Betty waited in +suspense. + +"It couldn't be managed," he objected. + +"It could." + +"Even if it could, would she consent?" + +"She does." + +"Of course it's pleading guilty," he said slowly. + +"Oh, it isn't, Jim. She wants time, that's all. Time for my +necklace to be traced, time for the murderer of Jean Cladel to be +discovered. You remember what I told you about Hanaud? He must have +his victim. You wouldn't believe me, but it's true. He has got to +go back to Paris and say, 'You see, they sent from Dijon for me, and +five minutes! That's all I needed! Five little minutes and there's +your murderess, all tied up and safe!' He tried to fix it on me +first." + +"No." + +"He did, Jim. And now that has failed he has turned on Ann. She'll +have to go. Since he can't get me he'll take my friend--yes, and +manufacture the evidence into the bargain." + +"Betty! Hanaud wouldn't do that!" Frobisher protested. + +"But, Jim, he has done it," she said. + +"When?" + +"When he put that Edinburgh man's book about the arrow poison back +upon the bookshelf in the library." + +Jim was utterly taken back. + +"Did you know that he had done that?" + +"I couldn't help knowing," she answered. "The moment he took the +book down it was clear to me. He knew it from end to end, as if it +was a primer. He could put his finger on the plates, on the history +of my uncle's arrow, on the effect of the poison, on the solution +that could be made of it in an instant. He pretended that he had +learnt all that in the half-hour he waited for us. It wasn't +possible. He had found that book the afternoon before somewhere and +had taken it away with him secretly and sat up half the night over +it. That's what he had done." + +Jim Frobisher was sunk in confusion. He had been guessing first this +person, then that, and in the end had had to be told the truth; +whereas Betty had reached it in a flash by using her wits. He felt +that he had been just one minute and a half in the bull-ring. + +Betty added in a hot scorn: + +"Then when he had learnt it all up by heart he puts it back secretly +in the bookshelf and accuses us." + +"But he admits he put it back," said Jim slowly. + +Betty was startled. + +"When did he admit it?" + +"Last night. To me," replied Jim, and Betty laughed bitterly. She +would hear no good of Hanaud. + +"Yes, now that he has something better to go upon." + +"Something better?" + +"The disappearance of my necklace. Oh, Jim, Ann has got to go. If +she could get to England they couldn't bring her back, could they? +They haven't evidence enough. It's only suspicion and suspicion and +suspicion. But here in France it's different, isn't it? They can +hold people on suspicion, keep them shut up by themselves and +question them again and again. Oh, yesterday afternoon in the +hall--don't you remember, Jim?--I thought Hanaud was going to arrest +her there and then." + +Jim Frobisher nodded. + +"I thought so, too." + +He had been a little shocked by Betty's proposal, but the more +familiar he became with it, the more it appealed to him. There was +an overpowering argument in its favour of which neither he nor Hanaud +had told Betty a word. The shaft of the arrow had been discovered in +Ann Upcott's room, and the dart in the house of Jean Cladel. These +were overpowering facts. On the whole, it was better that Ann should +go, now, whilst there was still time--if, that is, Hanaud did +undoubtedly believe her to be guilty. + +"But it is evident that he does," cried Betty. + +Jim answered slowly: + +"I suppose he does. We can make sure, anyway. I had a doubt last +night. So I asked him point-blank." + +"And he answered you?" Betty asked with a gasp. + +"Yes and no. He gave me the strangest answer." + +"What did he say?" + +"He told me to visit the Church of Notre Dame. If I did, I should +read upon the façade whether Ann was innocent or not." + +Slowly every tinge of colour ebbed out of Betty's face. Her eyes +stared at him horror-stricken. She sat, a figure of ice--except for +her eyes which blazed. + +"That's terrible," she said with a low voice, and again "That's +terrible!" Then with a cry she stood erect "You shall see! Come!" +and she ran towards the motorcar. + +The sunlit day was spoilt for both of them. Betty drove homewards, +bending over the wheel, her eyes fixed ahead. But Frobisher wondered +whether she saw anything at all of that white road which the car +devoured. Once as they dropped from the highland and the forests to +the plains, she said: + +"We shall abide by what we see?" + +"Yes." + +"If Hanaud thinks her innocent, she should stay. If he thinks her +guilty, she must go." + +"Yes," said Frobisher. + +Betty guided the car through the streets of the city, and into a wide +square. A great church of the Renaissance type, with octagonal +cupolas upon its two towers and another little cupola surmounted by a +loggia above its porch, confronted them. Betty stopped the car and +led Frobisher into the porch. Above the door was a great bas-relief +of the Last Judgment, God amongst the clouds, angels blowing +trumpets, and the damned rising from their graves to undergo their +torments. Both Betty and Frobisher gazed at the representation for a +while in silence. To Frobisher it was a cruel and brutal piece of +work which well matched Hanaud's revelation of his true belief. + +"Yes, the message is easy to read," he said: and they drove back in a +melancholy silence to the Maison Crenelle. + +The chauffeur, Georges, came forward from the garage to take charge +of the car. Betty ran inside the house and waited for Jim Frobisher +to join her. + +"I am so sorry," she said in a broken voice. "I kept a hope +somewhere that we were all mistaken ... I mean as to the danger Ann +was in.... I don't believe for a moment in her guilt, of course. +But she must go--that's clear." + +She went slowly up the stairs, and Jim saw no more of her until +dinner was served long after its usual hour. Ann Upcott he had not +seen at all that day, nor did he even see her then. Betty came to +him in the library a few minutes before nine. + +"We are very late, I am afraid. There are just the two of us, Jim," +she said with a smile, and she led the way into the dining-room. + +Through the meal she was anxious and preoccupied, nodding her assent +to anything that he said, with her thoughts far away and answering +him at random, or not answering him at all. She was listening, +Frobisher fancied, for some sound in the hall, an expected sound +which was overdue. For her eyes went continually to the clock, and a +flurry and agitation, very strange in one naturally so still, became +more and more evident in her manner. At length, just before ten +o'clock, they both heard the horn of a motor-car in the quiet street. +The car stopped, as it seemed to Frobisher, just outside the gates, +and upon that there followed the sound for which Betty had so +anxiously been listening--the closing of a heavy door by some one +careful to close it quietly. Betty shot a quick glance at Jim +Frobisher and coloured when he intercepted it. A few seconds +afterwards the car moved on, and Betty drew a long breath. Jim +Frobisher leaned forward to Betty. Though they were alone in the +room, he spoke in a low voice of surprise: + +"Ann Upcott has gone then?" + +"Yes." + +"So soon? You had everything already arranged then?" + +"It was all arranged yesterday evening. She should be in Paris +to-morrow morning, England to-morrow night. If only all goes well!" + +Even in the stress of her anxiety Betty had been sensitive to a tiny +note of discontent in Jim Frobisher's questions. He had been left +out of the counsels of the two girls, their arrangements had been +made without his participation, he had only been told of them at the +last minute, just as if he was a babbler not to be trusted and an +incompetent whose advice would only have been a waste of time. Betty +made her excuses. + +"It would have been better, of course, if we had got you to help us, +Jim. But Ann wouldn't have it. She insisted that you had come out +here on my account, and that you mustn't be dragged into such an +affair as her flight and escape at all. She made it a condition, so +I had to give way. But you can help me now tremendously." + +Jim was appeased. Betty at all events had wanted him, was still +alarmed lest their plan undertaken without his advice might miscarry. + +"How can I help?" + +"You can go to that cinema and keep Monsieur Hanaud engaged. It's +important that he should know nothing about Ann's flight until late +to-morrow." + +Jim laughed at the futility of Hanaud's devices to hide himself. It +was obviously all over the town that he spent his evenings in the +Grande Taverne. + +"Yes, I'll go," he returned. "I'll go now." + +But Hanaud was not that night in his accustomed place, and Jim sat +there alone until half-past ten. Then a man strolled out from one of +the billiard-rooms, and standing behind Jim with his eyes upon the +screen, said in a whisper: + +"Do not look at me, Monsieur! It is Moreau. I go outside. Will you +please to follow." + +He strolled away. Jim gave him a couple of minutes' grace. He had +remembered Hanaud's advice and had paid for his Bock when it had been +brought to him. The little saucer was turned upside down to show +that he owed nothing. When two minutes had elapsed he sauntered out +and, looking neither to the right nor to the left, strolled +indolently along the Rue de la Gare. When he reached the Place Darcy +Nicolas Moreau passed him without a sign of recognition and struck +off to the right along the Rue de la Liberté. Frobisher followed him +with a sinking heart. It was folly of course to imagine that Hanaud +could be so easily eluded. No doubt that motor-car had been stopped. +No doubt Ann Upcott was already under lock and key! Why, the last +words he had heard Hanaud speak were "I must be quick!" + +Moreau turned off into the Boulevard Sevigne and, doubling back to +the station square, slipped into one of the small hotels which +cluster in that quarter. The lobby was empty; a staircase narrow and +steep led from it to the upper stories. Moreau now ascended it with +Frobisher at his heels, and opened a door. Frobisher looked into a +small and dingy sitting-room at the back of the house. The windows +were open, but the shutters were closed. A single pendant in the +centre of the room gave it light, and at a table under the pendant +Hanaud sat poring over a map. + +The map was marked with red ink in a curious way. A sort of hoop, +very much the shape of a tennis racket without its handle, was +described upon it and from the butt to the top of the hoop an +irregular line was drawn, separating the hoop roughly into two +semi-circles. Moreau left Jim Frobisher standing there, and in a +moment or two Hanaud looked up. + +"Did you know, my friend," he asked very gravely, "that Ann Upcott +has gone to-night to Madame Le Vay's fancy dress ball?" + +Frobisher was taken completely by surprise. + +"No, I see that you didn't," Hanaud went on. He took up his pen and +placed a red spot at the edge of the hoop close by the butt. + +Jim recovered from his surprise. Madame Le Vay's ball was the spot +from which the start was to be made. The plan after all was not so +ill-devised, if only Ann could have got to the ball unnoticed. +Masked and in fancy dress, amongst a throng of people similarly +accoutred, in a house with a garden, no doubt thrown open upon this +hot night and lit only by lanterns discreetly dim--she had thus her +best chance of escape. But the chance was already lost. For Hanaud +laid down his pen again and said in ominous tones: + +"The water-lily, eh? That pretty water-lily, my friend, will not +dance very gaily to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY: _Map and the Necklace_ + +Hanaud turned his map round and pushed it across the table to Jim +Frobisher. + +"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew up a chair and sat +down to examine it. + +He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and its environments, +the town itself lying at the bottom of the red hoop and constituting +the top of the handle of the tennis racket. As to the red circle, it +seemed to represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, +round a good tract of outlying country and back again to the city. +But there was more to it than that. The wavy dividing line, for +instance, from the top of the circle to the handle, that is to Dijon; +and on the left-hand edge of the hoop, as he bent over the map, and +just outside Dijon, the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud +had just made. Against this square an hour was marked. + +"Eleven a.m.," he read. + +He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where this dividing +line touched the rim of the hoop, another period was inscribed. Here +Frobisher read: + +"Eleven forty." + +Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over the map. The point +where the dividing line branched off was in a valley, as he could see +by the contours--yes--he had found the name now--the Val Terzon. +Just before eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside +Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing back, and had asked +him to tighten the strap of the tool box. They had started again +exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note of the exact time--and they +had stopped where the secondary road branched off and doubled back to +Dijon, at the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and the +dividing line, exactly at eleven forty. + +"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he cried. "We +were followed then?" + +He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who had come up from +behind through the screen of their dust and had stopped by the side +of their car to join in their conversation with the tourist. + +"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no answer. + +But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way round. On +their homeward course they had stopped to lunch in the tangled +garden. There had been no sign of the man. Jim looked at the map +again. He followed the red line from the junction of the two roads, +round the curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National +road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. After luncheon +they had continued along the National road into Dijon, whereas the +red line crossed it and came back by a longer and obviously a less +frequented route. + +"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, Monsieur +Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. "But I can tell you this. The +chase was not very efficiently contrived. We didn't come home that +way at all." + +"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud answered imperturbably. +"The line on that side of the circle has nothing to do with you at +all, as you can see for yourself by looking at the time marked where +the line begins." + +The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there was a space where +the spliced handle of the racket would fit in, the space filled by +the town of Dijon, and at the point on the right hand side where the +line started Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures: + +"Ten twenty-five a.m." + +Jim was more bewildered than ever. + +"I don't understand one word of it," he cried. + +Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the tip of his pen. + +"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who met you at +the branch road at eleven-forty." + +"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed to him +impossible that the fog could thicken about his wits any more. And +yet it had. + +"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his trailer," Hanaud +corrected. "You see that he left his starting point in Dijon +thirty-five minutes before you left yours. The whole manoeuvre seems +to have been admirably planned. For you met precisely at the +arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the cycle had to +wait one moment." + +"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, looking about him +in a sort of despair. "Has every one gone crazy? Why in the world +should a man start out with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at +ten twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by a +roundabout road and then return by a bad straight track? There's no +sense in it!" + +"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded to Moreau who +went out of the room by a communicating door towards the front of the +house. "But I can help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where +you started after tightening the strap of the tool-box, on the edge +of the town, a big country house stands back in a park?" + +"Yes," said Jim. + +"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy dress ball takes +place to-night." + +"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. "Where----" he began +a question and caught it back. But Hanaud completed it for him. + +"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from it at precisely +eleven in the morning." He looked at his watch. "It is not yet +quite eleven at night. So she is still there." + +Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words were like the +blade of silver light cutting through the darkness of the cinema hall +and breaking into a sheet of radiance upon the screen. The meaning +of the red diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive of +Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him. + +"It was a rehearsal," he cried. + +Hanaud nodded. + +"A time-rehearsal." + +"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, without the +principal members of the company," thought Frobisher. But a moment +later he was dissatisfied with that explanation. + +"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy." + +The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his arguments to a +standstill. His times were marked upon the map; they were therefore +of importance. What had he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he +visualised the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with +the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave Frobisher the +clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving Madame Le Vay's house in her +ball-dress, just as if she was returning to the Maison Crenelle--and +without any luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the +morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion and +certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her in the Val +Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her car, and then return to +Dijon by the straight quick road whilst Ann turned off at the end of +the valley to Paris. He remembered now that seven minutes had +elapsed between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and their +separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for the transference of +the luggage. Another argument flashed into his thoughts. Betty had +told him nothing of this plan. It had been presented to him as a +mere excursion on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally +employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the determination of +Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether out of the conspiracy. +Every detail fitted like the blocks in a picture puzzle. Yes, there +had been a time-rehearsal. And Hanaud knew all about it! + +That was the disturbing certainty which first overwhelmed Frobisher +when he had got the better of his surprise at the scheme itself. +Hanaud knew! and Betty had so set her heart on Ann's escape. + +"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott get away to +Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned back in his chair with a +little gasp. The queerest smile broke over his face. + +"I see," he said. + +"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. "You are of the +Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of the High Court in my country +and I have no right to make such a petition. But I do without a +scruple. You can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't +a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion about her +that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin her--yes--but that's +all you can do." + +"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed. + +Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to save her friend +which inspired his plea. He fell back upon the scandal which such a +trial would cause. + +"There has been enough publicity already owing to Boris Waberski," he +continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe has had distress enough. Why must +she stand in the witness-box and give evidence against her friend in +a trial which can have no result? That's what I want you to realise, +Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience of criminal trials"--O +shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why was that punctilious man not there in the +flesh to wipe out with an indignant word the slur upon the firm of +Frobisher and Haslitt?--"And I assure you that no jury could convict +upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl necklace has not been +traced--and it never will be. You can take that from me, Monsieur +Hanaud! It never will be!" + +Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one of those little +cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred cigarettes, which the better +class of manufacturers use in England for their wares. He pushed +this across the table towards Jim. Something which was more +substantial than cigarettes rattled inside of it. Jim seized upon it +in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far sooner lose her +necklace altogether than that her friend Ann Upcott should be +destroyed by it. He opened the lid of the box. It was filled with +cotton-wool. From the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls +perfectly graded in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre +which, even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely. + +"It would have been more correct if I had found them in a matchbox," +said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to Monsieur Bex that after all +matches and cigarettes are akin." + +Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter disappointment when +Moreau knocked upon the other side of the communicating door. Hanaud +looked again at his watch. + +"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has started from +the house of Madame Le Vay." + +He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again within the layers +of cotton-wool, and locked it up once more in the drawer. The room +had faded away from Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, +brilliantly illuminated house, and a girl who slipped from a window +and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening dress, ran down the +dark avenue in her dancing slippers to where a car waited hidden +under trees. + +"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden hopefulness. +"There may have been an accident to it. The chauffeur may be late. +Oh, a hundred things may have happened!" + +"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously rehearsed? No, +my friend." + +Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against the wall and +placed it in his pocket. + +"You are going to leave that necklace just like that in a table +drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it first to the Prefecture." + +"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It will be safe." + +Jim hopefully tried another line of argument. + +"We shall be too late now to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch +road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you say--well past eleven. +And thirty-five minutes on a motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty +minutes in a car at night, especially with a bad road to travel." + +"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch road," Hanaud +returned. He folded up the map and put it aside upon the mantelshelf. + +"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I must take it! +And--no! I can't be wrong!" But he turned from the mantelshelf with +a very anxious and troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh +idea came into his mind. + +"By the way," he said. "The façade of Notre Dame?" + +Jim nodded. + +"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment. We went to see it. We thought +your way of saying what you believed a little brutal." + +Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor for a few +seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am sorry." He tacked on a +question. "You say 'we'?" + +"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained. + +"Oh, yes--to be sure. I should have thought of that," and once more +his troubled cry broke from him. "It must be that!--No, I can't be +wrong.... Anyway, it's too late to change now." + +A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating door. Hanaud +sprang to alertness. + +"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, Monsieur Frobisher! +Good! You are ready?" and the room was at once plunged into darkness. + +Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they passed into the front +room--a bedroom looking out upon the big station square. This room +was in darkness too. But the shutters were not closed, and there +were patches of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and +the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could see one +another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his companions appeared +of a ghastly pallor. + +"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said Moreau. +"Patinot has just joined him." + +He pointed across the square to the station buildings. Some cabs +were waiting for the Paris train, and in front of them two men +dressed like artisans were talking. One of them lit a cigarette from +the stump of a cigarette held out to him by his companion. The +watchers in the room saw the end of the cigarette glow red. + +"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can go." And he +turned and went out of the inn to the staircase. Jim started to +follow him. Whither they were going Jim had not a notion, not even a +conjecture. But he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's +hopes for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski affair +had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not reassured when +Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and detained him. + +"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud with a quiet +authority, his eyes shining very steadily in the darkness, his face +glimmering very white, "that now the Law of France takes charge. +There must not be a finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers +upon their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the promise +you desire. No one shall be arrested on suspicion. Your own eyes +shall bear me out." + +The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into the street. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: _The Secret House_ + +It was a dark, clear night, the air very still and warm, and the sky +bright with innumerable stars. The small company penetrated into the +town by the backways and narrow alleys. Daunay going on ahead, +Patinot the last by some thirty yards, and Moreau keeping upon the +opposite side of the street. Once they had left behind them the +lights of the station square, they walked amongst closed doors and +the blind faces of unlit houses. Frobisher's heart raced within his +bosom. He strained his eyes and ears for some evidence of spies upon +their heels. But no one was concealed in any porch, and not the +stealthiest sound of a pursuit was borne to their hearing. + +"On a night like this," he said in tones which, strive as he might to +steady them, were still a little tremulous, "one could hear a +footstep on the stones a quarter of a mile away, and we hear nothing. +Yet, if there is a gang, it can hardly be that we are unwatched." + +Hanaud disagreed. "This is a night for alibis," he returned, +lowering his voice; "good, sound, incontestable alibis. All but +those engaged will be publicly with their friends, and those engaged +do not know how near we are to their secrets." + +They turned into a narrow street and kept on its left-hand side. + +"Do you know where we are?" Hanaud asked. "No? Yet we are near to +the Maison Crenelle. On the other side of these houses to our left +runs the street of Charles-Robert." + +Jim Frobisher stopped dead. + +"It was here, then, that you came last night after I left you at the +Prefecture," he exclaimed. + +"Ah, you recognised me, then!" Hanaud returned imperturbably. "I +wondered whether you did when you turned at the gates of your house." + +On the opposite side of the street the houses were broken by a high +wall, in which two great wooden doors were set. Behind the wall, at +the end of a courtyard, the upper storey and the roof of a +considerable house rose in a steep ridge against the stars. + +Hanaud pointed towards it. + +"Look at that house, Monsieur! There Madame Raviart came to live +whilst she waited to be set free. It belongs to the Maison Crenelle. +After she married Simon Harlowe, they would never let it, they kept +it just as it was, the shrine of their passion--that strange romantic +couple. But there was more romance in that, to be sure. It has been +unoccupied ever since." + +Jim Frobisher felt a chill close about his heart. Was that house the +goal to which Hanaud was leading him with so confident a step? He +looked at the gates and the house. Even in the night it had a look +of long neglect and decay, the paint peeling from the doors and not a +light in any window. + +Some one in the street, however, was awake, for just above their +heads, a window was raised with the utmost caution and a whisper +floated down to them. + +"No one has appeared." + +Hanaud took no open notice of the whisper. He did not pause in his +walk, but he said to Frobisher: + +"And, as you hear, it is still unoccupied." + +At the end of the street Daunay melted away altogether. Hanaud and +Frobisher crossed the road and, with Moreau just ahead, turned down a +passage between, the houses to the right. + +Beyond the passage they turned again to the right into a narrow lane +between high walls; and when they had covered thirty yards or so, +Frobisher saw the branches of leafy trees over the wall upon his +right. It was so dark here under the shade of the boughs that +Frobisher could not even see his companions; and he knocked against +Moreau before he understood that they had come to the end of their +journey. They were behind the garden of the house in which Madame +Raviart had lived and loved. + +Hanaud's hand tightened upon Jim Frobisher's arm, constraining him to +absolute immobility. Patinot had vanished as completely and +noiselessly as Daunay. The three men left stood in the darkness and +listened. A sentence which Ann Upcott had spoken in the garden of +the Maison Crenelle, when she had been describing the terror with +which she had felt the face bending over her in the darkness, came +back to him. He had thought it false then. He took back his +criticism now. For he too imagined that the beating of his heart +must wake all Dijon. + +They stood there motionless for the space of a minute, and then, at a +touch from Hanaud, Nicolas Moreau stooped. Frobisher heard the palm +of his hand sliding over wood and immediately after the tiniest +little click as a key was fitted into a lock and turned. A door in +the wall swung silently open and let a glimmer of light into the +lane. The three men passed into a garden of weeds and rank grass and +overgrown bushes. Moreau closed and locked the door behind them. As +he locked the door the clocks of the city struck the half hour. + +Hanaud whispered in Frobisher's ear: + +"They have not yet reached the Val Terzon. Come!" + +They crept over the mat of grass and weeds to the back of the house. +A short flight of stone steps, patched with mould, descended from a +terrace; at the back of the terrace were shuttered windows. But in +the corner of the house, on a level with the garden, there was a +door. Once more Moreau stooped, and once more a door swung inwards +without a sound. But whereas the garden door had let through some +gleam of twilight, this door opened upon the blackness of the pit. +Jim Frobisher shrank back from it, not in physical fear but in an +appalling dread that some other man than he, wearing his clothes and +his flesh, would come out of that door again. His heart came to a +standstill, and then Hanaud pushed him gently into the passage. The +door was closed behind them, an almost inaudible sound told him that +now the door was locked. + +"Listen!" Hanaud whispered sharply. His trained ear had caught a +sound in the house above them. And in a second Frobisher heard it +too, a sound regular and continuous and very slight, but in that +uninhabited house filled with uttermost blackness, very daunting. +Gradually the explanation dawned upon Jim. + +"It's a clock ticking," he said under his breath. + +"Yes! A clock ticking away in the empty house!" returned Hanaud. +And though his answer was rather breathed than whispered, there was a +queer thrill in it the sound of which Jim could not mistake. The +hunter had picked up his spoor. Just beyond the quarry would come in +view. + +Suddenly a thread of light gleamed along the passage, lit up a short +flight of stairs and a door on the right at the head of them, and +went out again. Hanaud slipped his electric torch back into his +pocket and, passing Moreau, took the lead. The door at the head of +the stairs opened with a startling whine of its hinges. Frobisher +stopped with his heart in his throat, though what he feared he could +not have told even himself. Again the thread of light shone, and +this time it explored. The three found themselves in a stone-flagged +hall. + +Hanaud crossed it, extinguished his torch and opened a door. A +broken shutter, swinging upon a hinge, enabled them dimly to see a +gallery which stretched away into the gloom. The faint light +penetrating from the window showed them a high double door leading to +some room at the back of the house. Hanaud stole over the boards and +laid his ear to the panel. In a little while he was satisfied; his +hand dropped to the knob and a leaf of the door opened noiselessly. +Once more the torch glowed. Its beam played upon the high ceiling, +the tall windows shrouded in heavy curtains of red silk brocade, and +revealed to Frobisher's amazement a room which had a look of daily +use. All was orderly and clean, the furniture polished and in good +repair; there were fresh flowers in the vases, whose perfume filled +the air; and it was upon the marble chimney-piece of this room that +the clock ticked. + +The room was furnished with lightness and elegance, except for one +fine and massive press, with double doors in marquetry, which +occupied a recess near to the fireplace. Girandoles with mirrors and +gilt frames, now fitted with electric lights, were fixed upon the +walls, with a few pictures in water-colour. A chandelier glittering +with lustres hung from the ceiling, an Empire writing-table stood +near the window, a deep-cushioned divan stretched along the wall +opposite the fire-place. So much had Frobisher noticed when the +light again went out. Hanaud closed the door upon the room again. + +"We shall be hidden in the embrasure of any of these windows," Hanaud +whispered, when they were once more in the long gallery. "No light +will be shown here with that shutter hanging loose, we may be sure. +Meanwhile let us watch and be very silent." + +They took their stations in the deep shadows by the side of the +window with the broken shutter. They could see dimly the courtyard +and the great carriage doors in the wall at the end of it, and they +waited; Jim Frobisher under such a strain of dread and expectancy +that each second seemed an hour, and he wondered at the immobility of +his companions. The only sound of breathing that he heard came from +his own lungs. + +In a while Hanaud laid a hand upon his sleeve, and the clasp of the +hand tightened and tightened. Motionless though he stood like a man +in a seizure, Hanaud too was in the grip of an intense excitement. +For one of the great leaves of the courtyard door was opening +silently. It opened just a little way and as silently closed again. +But some one had slipped in--so vague and swift and noiseless a +figure that Jim would have believed his imagination had misled him +but for a thicker blot of darkness at the centre of the great door. +There some one stood now who had not stood there a minute before, as +silent and still as any of the watchers in the gallery, and more +still than one. For Hanaud moved suddenly away on the tips of his +toes into the deepest of the gloom and, sinking down upon his heels, +drew his watch from his pocket. He drew his coat closely about it +and for a fraction of a second flashed his torchlight on the dial. +It was now five minutes past twelve. + +"It is the time," he breathed as he crept back to his place. "Listen +now!" + +A minute passed and another. Frobisher found himself shivering as a +man shivers at a photographer's when he is told by the operator to +keep still. He had a notion that he was going to fall. Then a +distant noise caught his ear, and at once his nerves grew steady. It +was the throb of a motor-cycle, and it grew louder and louder. He +felt Hanaud stiffen at his side. Hanaud had been right, then! The +conviction deepened in his mind. When all had been darkness and +confusion to him, Hanaud from the first had seen clearly. But what +had he seen? Frobisher was still unable to answer that question, and +whilst he fumbled amongst conjectures a vast relief swept over him. +For the noise of the cycle had ceased altogether. It had roared +through some contiguous street and gone upon its way into the open +country. Not the faintest pulsation of its engine was any longer +audible. That late-faring traveller had taken Dijon in his stride. + +In a revulsion of relief he pictured him devouring the road, the glow +of his lamp putting the stars to shame, the miles leaping away behind +him; and suddenly the pleasant picture was struck from before his +vision and his heart fluttered up into his throat. For the leaf of +the great coach-door was swung wider, and closed again, and the +motor-cycle with its side-car was within the courtyard. The rider +had slipped out his clutch and stopped his engine more than a hundred +yards away in the other street. His own impetus had been enough and +more than enough to swing him round the corner along the road and +into the courtyard. The man who had closed the door moved to his +side as he dismounted. Between them they lifted something from the +side-car and laid it on the ground. The watchman held open the door +again, the cyclist wheeled out his machine, the door was closed, a +key turned in the lock. Not a word had been spoken, not an +unnecessary movement made. It had all happened within the space of a +few seconds. The man waited by the gate, and in a little while from +some other street the cyclist's engine was heard once more to throb. +His work was done. + +Jim Frobisher wondered that Hanaud should let him go. But Hanaud had +eyes for no one but the man who was left behind and the big package +upon the ground under the blank side wall. The man moved to it, +stooped, raised it with an appearance of effort, then stood upright +holding it in his arms. It was something shapeless and long and +heavy. So much the watchers in the gallery could see, but no more. + +The man in the courtyard moved towards the door without a sound; and +Hanaud drew his companions back from the window of the broken +shutter. Quick as they were, they were only just in time to escape +from that revealing twilight. Already the intruder with his burden +stood within the gallery. The front door was unlatched, that was +clear. It had needed but a touch to open it. The intruder moved +without a sound to the double door, of which Hanaud had opened one +leaf. He stood in front of it, pushed it with his foot and both the +leaves swung inwards. He disappeared into the room. But the faint +misty light had fallen upon him for a second, and though none could +imagine who he was, they all three saw that what he carried was a +heavy sack. + +Now, at all events, Hanaud would move, thought Frobisher. But he did +not. They all heard the man now, but not his footsteps. It was just +the brushing of his clothes against furniture: then came a soft, +almost inaudible sound, as though he had laid his burden down upon +the deep-cushioned couch: then he himself reappeared in the doorway, +his arms empty, his hat pressed down upon his forehead, and a dim +whiteness where his face should be. But dark as it was, they saw the +glitter of his eyes. + +"It will be now," Frobisher said to himself, expecting that Hanaud +would leap from the gloom and bear the intruder to the ground. + +But this man, too, Hanaud let go. He closed the doors again, drawing +the two leaves together, and stole from the gallery. No one heard +the outer door close, but with a startling loudness some metal thing +rang upon stone, and within the house. Even Jim Frobisher understood +that the outer door had been locked and the key dropped through the +letter slot. The three men crept back to their window. They saw the +intruder cross the courtyard, open one leaf of the coach door, peer +this way and that and go. Again a key tinkled upon stones. The key +of the great door had been pushed or kicked underneath it back into +the courtyard. The clocks suddenly chimed the quarter. To +Frobisher's amazement it was a quarter-past twelve. Between the +moment when the cyclist rode his car in at the doors and now, just +five minutes had elapsed. And again, but for the three men, the +house was empty. + +Or was it empty? + +For Hanaud had slipped across to the door of the room and opened it; +and a slight sound broke out of that black room, as of some living +thing which moved uneasily. At Jim Frobisher's elbow Hanaud breathed +a sigh of relief. Something, it seemed, had happened for which he +had hardly dared to hope; some great dread he knew with certainty had +not been fulfilled. On the heels of that sigh a sharp loud click +rang out, the release of a spring, the withdrawal of a bolt. Hanaud +drew the door swiftly to and the three men fell back. Some one had +somehow entered that room, some one was moving quietly about it. +From the corner of the corridor in which they had taken refuge, the +three men saw the leaves of the door swing very slowly in upon their +hinges. Some one appeared upon the threshold, and stood motionless, +listening, and after a few seconds advanced across the gallery to the +window. It was a girl--so much they could determine from the contour +of her head and the slim neck. To the surprise of those three a +second shadow flitted to her side. Both of them peered from the +window into the courtyard. There was nothing to tell them there +whether the midnight visitors had come and gone or not yet come at +all. One of them whispered: + +"The key!" + +And the other, the shorter one, crept into the hall and returned with +the key which had been dropped through the letter slot in her hand. +The taller of the two laughed, and the sound of it, so clear, so +joyous like the trill of a bird, it was impossible for Jim Frobisher +even for a second to mistake. The second girl standing at the window +of this dark and secret house, with the key in her hand to tell her +that all that had been plotted had been done, was Betty Harlowe. Jim +Frobisher had never imagined a sound so sinister, so alarming, as +that clear, joyous laughter lilting through the silent gallery. It +startled him, it set his whole faith in the world shuddering. + +"There must be some good explanation," he argued, but his heart was +sinking amidst terrors. Of what dreadful event was that laughter to +be the prelude? + +The two figures at the window flitted back across the gallery. It +seemed that there was no further reason for precautions. + +"Shut the door, Francine," said Betty in her ordinary voice. And +when this was done, within the room the lights went on. But time and +disuse had warped the doors. They did not quite close, and between +them a golden strip of light showed like a wand. + +"Let us see now!" cried Betty. "Let us see," and again she laughed; +and under the cover of her laughter the three men crept forward and +looked in: Moreau upon his knees, Frobisher stooping above him, +Hanaud at his full height behind them all. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: _The Corona Machine_ + +The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's shoulder warning +him to silence; and this warning was needed. The lustres of the big +glass chandelier were so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the +girandoles multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was +ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her white +shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black velvet; from her +carefully dressed copper hair to her black satin shoes she was as +trim as if she had just been unpacked from a bandbox; and she was +laughing whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which +jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. Some one was +imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher could not doubt who that +some one was, and it seemed to him that no sound more soulless and +cruel had ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She +threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white throat working, +her shoulders flashing and shaking. She clapped her hands with a +horrible glee. Something died within Frobisher's breast as he heard +it. Was it in his heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the +last time that Betty Harlowe laughed. + +"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst Francine with a +pair of scissors cut the end of the sack loose, she sat down with her +back to it at the writing-table and unlocked a drawer. The sack was +cut away and thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott +lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound behind her back, +and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her hair was dishevelled, her +face flushed, and she had the look of one quite dazed. She drew in +deep breaths of air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware +for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and her eyes +rested upon Francine and travelled from her to Betty's back without a +gleam of recognition. She wrenched a little at her wrists, but even +that movement was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay +still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at the door +would hardly have believed that she still lived. + +Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a small bottle +half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next a small case of +morocco leather. From the case she took a hypodermic syringe and its +needle, and screwed the two parts together. + +"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper from the +bottle. + +"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began with a giggle, +but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke and she ended with a +startled gasp. For Ann was looking straight at her with the +strangest, disconcerting stare. It was impossible to say whether she +knew Francine or knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her +gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, and in +a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried out: + +"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she added with a shiver: +"It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's like a dead person watching you +as you move about the room." + +Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's eyes wandered off +to her. It seemed as though it needed just that interchange of +glances to awaken her. For as Betty resumed her work of filling the +hypodermic syringe from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into +Ann Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she could +not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her feet kicked upon +the divan. A moan of pain broke from her lips, and with that +consciousness returned to her. + +"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the needle ready in her +hand. She did not speak, but her face spoke for her. Her upper lip +was drawn back a little from her teeth, and there was a look in her +great eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. Once +before he had seen just that look--when Betty was lying on Mrs. +Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment and he had lingered in the +treasure-room with Ann Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then, +but it was as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann +Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank back upon the +divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering lips and her eyes fixed +upon Betty with a dreadful fascination. + +"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You sent me to Madame Le +Vay's--on purpose. Oh! The letter, then! The anonymous +letter!"--and a new light broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror +shook her. "You wrote it! Betty, you! You--the Scourge!" + +She sank back and again struggled vainly with her bonds. Betty rose +from her chair and crossed the room towards her, the needle shining +bright in her hand. Her hapless prisoner saw it. + +"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. The extremity of +her horror lent to her an unnatural strength. Somehow she dragged +herself up and got her feet to the ground. Somehow she stood +upright, swaying as she stood. + +"You are going to----" she began, and broke off. "Oh, no! You +couldn't! You couldn't!" + +Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder and held her so +for a moment, savouring her vengeance. + +"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours in the darkness?" +she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. "Whose face, Ann? Guess!" +She shook her swaying prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her +quiet voice. "You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. You +are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the treasure-room +yesterday evening with your watch in your hand? Eh? Can't you +answer, you pretty fool?" Then Betty's voice changed. It remained +low and quiet, but hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred. + +"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, Ann? Oh, we +both understand very well!" And Hanaud's hand tightened upon +Frobisher's shoulder. Here was the real key and explanation of +Betty's hatred. Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more, +might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! Ann Upcott's +disappearance would look like a panic-stricken flight, would have the +effect of a confession--no doubt! But above all these +considerations, paramount in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at +once to punish and rid herself of a rival. + +"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my way!" she +said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. Yes. I had you bound +hand and foot and brought here. The water-lily!" She looked her +victim over as she stood in her delicate bright frock, her white silk +stockings and satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes, +Ann! That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! That's +all the time the arrow-poison takes!" + +Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her white face and +ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before. + +"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! Oh!" she +would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe pushed her shoulder +gently and she fell back upon the divan. That Betty had been guilty +of that last infamy--the murder of her benefactress--not until this +moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was clear to her, +too, that there was not the slightest hope for her. She burst +suddenly into a storm of tears. + +Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and watched her +closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. The sound of the +girl's sobbing was music in her ears. She would not let it flag. + +"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and alone," she said +in a low voice, bending over her, "To-morrow Espinosa will put you +under one of the stone flags in the kitchen. But to-night you shall +lie just as you are. Come!" + +She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her arm with one +hand and advancing the needle with the other; and a piercing scream +burst from Francine Rollard. + +"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It was open and +Hanaud stood upon the threshold. + +Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from her face. She +sat like an image of wax, staring at the open doorway, and a moment +afterwards with a gesture swift as lightning she drove the needle +into the flesh of her own arm and emptied it. + +Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to prevent her, but +Hanaud roughly thrust him back. + +"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said with a savage +note in his voice, which Jim had not heard before; and Betty Harlowe +dropped the needle on to the couch, whence it rolled to the floor. + +She sprang up now to her full height, her heels together, her arms +outstretched from her sides. + +"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with bravado. "I am +safe from you." + +Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously in her face. + +"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill." + +Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself. + +"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said. + +"We shall see." + +The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed across the +room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, Hanaud met her there. + +"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He seized her +wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod towards Francine. "And you, +Monsieur Frobisher, will you release that young lady, if you please!" + +Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and locked her safely +away. Jim seized upon the big scissors and cut the cords about Ann's +wrists and ankles, and unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had +flung the chair from the writing-table into an open space, that Betty +was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had forced her into +the chair and snatched up one of the cords which Frobisher had +dropped upon the floor. When he had finished his work, he saw that +Betty was sitting with her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to +one of the legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his +handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had bitten him +like a wild animal caught in a trap. + +"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning I met you," +Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you didn't wear a wrist-watch, +because you hated things on your wrists. My apologies! I had +forgotten!" + +He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand into the +drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box and removed the lid. + +"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!" + +He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who was standing +against the wall with a face like death. + +"Look!" + +There were five white tablets in the box. + +"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know where it was. For +I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide of potassium, my friend! Crunch +one of them between your teeth and--fifteen minutes? Not a bit of +it! A fraction of a second! That's all!" + +Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's ear. "Leave them +within her reach!" + +His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty from +destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, and with so +desperate a longing that a deep pity softened Hanaud's eyes. + +"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to Moreau. "There +is a cab waiting at the corner of the Maison Crenelle," and Moreau +went in search of it. Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was +sitting upon the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every now +and then she handled and eased one of her tortured wrists. + +"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I owe you an +explanation and an apology. I never from the beginning--no, not for +one moment--believed that you were guilty of the murder of Madame +Harlowe. I was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink +pearls--oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. I believed +every word of the story you told us in the garden. But none of this +dared I shew you. For only by pretending that I was convinced of +your guilt, could I protect you during this last week in the Maison +Crenelle." + +"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort at a smile. + +"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he continued. "I make it +with shame. That you were to be brought back here to the tender +mercies of Mademoiselle Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to +make sure you should be spared them. But I have never in my life had +a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction in my own +mind, so little proof to put before a court. I had to have the +evidence which I was certain to find in this room to-night. But I +ask you to believe me that if I had imagined for a moment the cruelty +with which you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this +evidence. I beg you to forgive me." + +Ann Upcott held out her hand. + +"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you I should not be +now alive. I should be lying here in the dark and alone, as it was +promised to me, waiting for Espinosa--and his spade." Her voice +broke and she shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which +she sat. + +"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. "You have youth, +as I told you once before. A little time and----" + +The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and with Moreau came a +couple of gendarmes and Girardot the Commissary. + +"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked. + +"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly. + +In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of feet and a +woman's voice screaming abuse. It died away. + +"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," said Hanaud. + +Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted and sullen, +her lips muttering inaudible words. She had not once looked at Jim +Frobisher since he had entered the room; nor did she now. + +Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme raised her +up. But her knees failed beneath her; she could not stand; her +strength and her spirit had left her. The gendarme picked her up as +if she had been a child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher +planted himself in front of him. + +"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and resonant. "Monsieur +Hanaud, you have said just now that you believed every word of +Mademoiselle Ann's story." + +"It is true." + +"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered at half-past ten +on the night of the 27th of April. And at half-past ten Mademoiselle +here was at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free." + +Hanaud did not argue the point. + +"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if you please!" + +Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then drew aside. He +stood with his eyes closed, and such a look of misery upon his face +as Betty was carried out that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of +condolence: + +"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur Frobisher," he +began. + +"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at the first!" Jim +cried volubly. + +"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked Hanaud, and Jim was +silent. "As it was, Monsieur Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I +know now I had not the right to take and I told you more than you +think." + +He turned away towards Moreau. + +"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house after they have +gone and bring the keys here to me." + +Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic syringe, +the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of cord. + +"There is something here of importance," Hanaud observed and, +stooping at the writing-table, he picked up a square, flat-topped +black case. "You will recognise this," he remarked to Jim as he +handed it to Girardot. It was the case of a Corona typewriting +machine; and from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within +the case. + +"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the Commissary. +"This pretty room is the factory where all those abominable letters +were prepared. Here the information was filed away for use; here the +letters were typed; from here they were issued." + +"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding money!" + +"Some of them," answered Hanaud. + +"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, and more if she +chose to ask for it." + +"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with a shake of the head. +"The blackmailer never has enough money. For no one is so +blackmailed." + +A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. They had agreed, +he and Hanaud, that there was a gang involved in all these crimes. +It might be that Betty was of them, yes, even led them, but were they +all to go scot-free? + +"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode this +motor-cycle----" + +"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice his accent when +you stopped at the fork of the roads in the Val Terzon? He did not +mount his cycle again. No!" + +"And the man who carried in the--the sack?" + +"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising young novice. He +is now at the Depot. He will never get that good word from me which +was to unlock Paris for him." + +"And Espinosa himself--who was to come here to-morrow----" he stopped +abruptly with his eyes on Ann. + +"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went on. "A fool that +fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud +looked at his watch. "It is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock +and key by now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you have +never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. Have no fear of +that!" + +Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to Hanaud. Hanaud put +them into a pocket and went over to Ann Upcott. + +"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any questions to-night. +To-morrow you will tell me why you went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It +was given out that you meant to run away. That, of course, was not +true. You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an account of +what happened to you there." + +Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she answered quietly. + +"Yes. I will tell you everything." + +"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully. + +"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you have had us all +locked in." + +Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on the girl, and +he loved surprises so long as they were of his own contriving. + +"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the truth. This +house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart is very close, as the +crow flies, to the Maison Crenelle. There is one row of houses, the +houses of the street of Charles-Robert, between. It was built by +Etienne Bouchart de Crenelle, President of the Parliament during the +reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and important figure; +and he built it, Mademoiselle--this is the point--at the same time +that he built the Maison Crenelle. Having built it, he installed in +it a joyous lady of the province from which it takes its name--Madame +de Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President never came +visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the best of reasons. Between +this house and the Maison Crenelle he had constructed a secret +passage in that age of secret passages." + +Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to him for an +astuteness which he did not possess. He had been occupied heart and +brain by the events of the evening, so rapidly had they followed one +upon the other, so little time had they allowed for speculations. + +"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked. + +"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us content ourselves +with the facts," Hanaud continued. "After the death of Etienne de +Crenelle, at some period or another the secret of this passage was +lost. It is clear, too, I think that it fell into disrepair and +became blocked. At all events at the end of the eighteenth century, +the Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of the +owner of the Maison Crenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, discovered the +secret. He bought back the Hôtel de Brebizart, restored the passage +and put it to the same use as old Etienne de Crenelle had done. For +here Madame Raviart came to live during the years before the death of +her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! My little lecture +is over. Let us go!" + +He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience and unlatched the +double doors of the big buhl cabinet in the recess of the wall. A +cry of surprise broke from Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet. +The cabinet was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and +all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one end and +that a flight of steps ran downwards in the thickness of the wall. + +"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. "Will you take +this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first with Mademoiselle. I will +turn out the lights and follow." + +But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew sharply back. She +put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and steadied herself by it. "I will +come with you," she said. "I am not very steady on my legs." + +She laughed her action off but both men understood it. Jim Frobisher +had thought her guilty--guilty of theft and murder. She shrank from +him to the man who had had no doubt that she was innocent. And even +that was not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply than +any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher inclined his head in +acknowledgment and, pressing the button of the torch, descended five +or six of the narrow steps. Moreau followed him. + +"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud. + +He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up a switch by the +open doors of the cabinet. The room was plunged in darkness. Guided +by the beam of light, they followed Frobisher on to the steps. +Hanaud closed the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together +with the bolts. + +"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be careful of your heels +on these stone steps." + +When his head was just below the level of the first step he called +upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. Then he slid the floor +board of the cabinet back into its place. Beneath this a trap-door +hung downwards. Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place. + +"We can go on." + +Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. From that a +passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. Frobisher led the way +along the passage until the foot of another flight of steps was +reached. + +"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked of Frobisher, +his voice sounding with a strange hollowness in that tunnel. "You +shall tell me." + +Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and Betty had sat in +the dark of the perfumed garden and Ann's eyes had searched this way +and that amidst the gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly: + +"Into the garden of the Maison Crenelle." + +Hanaud chuckled. + +"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?" + +Ann's face clouded over. + +"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered and drew her cloak +slowly about her shoulders. "Let us go up and see!" + +Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the top of the +steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel. + +"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a light. + +Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of Simon Harlowe's +Sedan chair into the treasure room. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry +Cabinet_ + +To the amazement of them all Moreau began to laugh. Up till now he +had been alert, competent and without expression. Stolidity had been +the mark of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his +sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour of things was +altogether unbearable. Once or twice he tried to speak, but laughter +leapt upon the words and drowned them. + +"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" Hanaud asked. + +"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and again merriment seized +and mastered him. At last two intelligible words were heard. "We, +Girardot," he cried, settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the +bridge of his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason of +his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases. + +"We, Girardot!--We fix the seals upon the doors--And all the time +there is a way in and out under our nose! These rooms must not be +disturbed--No! The great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to +look at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but we, +Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous with our linen bands! +We, Girardot shall make the laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes, +yes! I think, we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the +trial is over?" + +Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional for his +audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that night had dulled +their appreciation; certainly Moreau had all the laughter to himself. +Jim Frobisher was driven to the little Louis Quinze clock upon the +marquetry cabinet. He never could for a moment forget it. So much +hung for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild words she +might have used to-night, there was the incontrovertible testimony of +the clock to prove that she had had no hand whatever in the murder of +Mrs. Harlowe. He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it +with the clock. + +"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little accent of +triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past one----" and suddenly +Hanaud was at his side with a curious air of alertness. + +"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a comparison with his +own watch that Frobisher's statement was correct. "Yes. +Twenty-three minutes past one. That is very fortunate." + +He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all now stood grouped +about the cabinet. + +"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, "is to be +found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann used, when the seals were +removed from the doors and she saw this clock again, in the light of +day. She was perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me--it seems to me still--that +the clock was somehow placed higher than it actually is----" + +"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!" + +He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now reached twenty-six +minutes past one. + +"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in the hall in +the dark. For it was in the dark, you will remember, that +Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I shall turn the lights out here +and call you in. When I do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on +and off swiftly, just as she did it on the night of the 27th of +April. Then I think all will be clear to you." + +He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found it locked +with the key upon the inside. + +"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to the Hôtel de +Brebizart, this door would be locked." + +He turned the key and drew the door towards him. The hall gaped +before them black and silent. Hanaud stood aside. + +"If you please!" + +Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated and cast a look +of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities were to be set at rest. +She did not doubt that. This man had saved her from death when it +seemed that nothing could save her. Her trust in him was absolute. +But her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to be +delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could be no recovery. +Ann Upcott was not a good hater of Betty's stamp. She shrank from +the thought that it was to be her hand which would deliver that +stroke. + +"Courage, Mademoiselle!" + +Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann joined the others +in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the door upon them and returned to +the clock. It was twenty-eight minutes past one. + +"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will just do if I am +quick." + +Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. One of the three +shivered suddenly so that her teeth rattled in her mouth. + +"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand within her arm. +Ann Upcott had come to the end of her strength. She clung to his +hand spasmodically. + +"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you were cruel to me!" + +Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room. + +"Come!" + +Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. She threw open +the door with a nervous violence. The treasure-room was pitch dark +like the hall. Ann stepped through the doorway and her fingers +reached for the switch. + +"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook. + +Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as suddenly it was +black again; and in the darkness rose a clamour of voices. + +"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim. + +"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann. + +"That is true," Moreau agreed. + +Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, joined in. + +"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the night of the +twenty-seventh?" + +"Exactly, Monsieur." + +"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!" + +The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it sounded like a +knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers refused their service. +Once more the conviction forced itself into her mind. Some +irretrievable calamity waited upon the movement of her hand. + +"Courage, Mademoiselle!" + +Again the lights shone, and this time they remained burning. The +three witnesses advanced into the room, and as they looked again, +from close at hand and with a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke +from all of them. + +There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all. + +But high above it in the long mirror before which it stood there was +the reflection of a clock, its white face so clear and bright that +even now it was difficult to disbelieve that this was the clock +itself. And the position of the hands gave the hour as precisely +half-past ten. + +"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud. + +The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam mantelpiece and +there staring at them, the true hour was marked. It was exactly +half-past one; the long minute hand pointing to six, the shorter hour +hand on the right-hand side of the figure twelve, half-way between +the one and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all turned +again to the mirror; and the mystery was explained. The shorter +hour-hand seen in the mirror was on the left-hand side of the figure +twelve, and just where it would have been if the hour had been +half-past ten and the clock actually where its reflection was. The +figures on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to +read. + +"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature to save itself +from effort even in the smallest things. We live with clocks and +watches. They are as customary as our daily bread. And with the +instinct to save ourselves from effort, we take our time from the +position of the hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for +granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the one swift flash +of light she sees the hands upon the clock's face. Half-past ten! +She herself, you will remember, Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised +that the hour was so early. She was cold, as though she had slept +long in her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept +long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was half-past one, +and Betty Harlowe had been twenty minutes home from Monsieur de +Pouillac's ball." + +Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice which exasperated +Frobisher. + +"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When the seals were +removed and we entered this room for the first time, the clock was +not upon the mantelshelf but upon the marquetry cabinet." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before luncheon. We entered +this room after luncheon. During the luncheon hours the position of +the clock was changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know +now with what ease that could be done." + +"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It doesn't follow +that it was done." + +"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer now one of the +questions in your memorandum. What was it that I saw from the top of +the Terrace Tower? I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the +air. Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its windows, +and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And there at midday, in all +the warmth of late May, the smoke was rising from the chimney of the +sealed room. There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing! +And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask yourself that! Who +went straight out from the Maison Crenelle the moment I had gone, and +went alone? That clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters +also had to be burnt." + +Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still occupied his +thoughts. His great argument had been riddled; his one dream of +establishing Betty's innocence in despite of every presumption and +fact which could be brought against her had been dispelled. He +dropped on to a chair. + +"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness. + +"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe to me no gifts out +of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am trained--that is all. I have +been my twenty minutes in the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!" +He looked at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager +young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by the lesson. +First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle Betty was here doing +something of great importance. It may be only burning those letters +in the hearth. It may be more. I must wait and see. Good! There, +standing before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little remark +that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand yet? No, no! But I +am interested. Then I notice a curious thing, a beautiful specimen +of Benvenuto Cellini's work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf +where no one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the +window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back to the +mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks upon the wood which +had been concealed by the flat case of the jewel; and those four +little marks are just the marks which the feet of that very pretty +Louis Quinze clock might have made, had it stood regularly there--in +its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry cabinet so +much lower than the mantelshelf is too the natural place for the +Cellini jewel. Every one can see it there. So I say to myself: 'My +good Hanaud, this young lady has been rearranging her ornaments.' +But do I guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell you +again very humbly, that we are the servants of Chance. Chance is a +good mistress if her servants do not go to sleep; and she treated me +well that afternoon. See! I am standing in the hall, in great +trouble about this case. For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a +big old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind me +and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I raise my eyes +from the floor and by chance I see in the mirror the barometer behind +me. By chance my attention is arrested. For I see that the +indicator in the barometer points to stormy weather--which is +ridiculous. I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the +indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the position of +the hand without looking at the letters. If I look the barometer in +the face the hand points to the fair weather. If I turn my back and +look into the mirror the hand points to the stormy weather. Now +indeed I have it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door, +for I do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, no, +for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But I take out my +watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch facing the mirror, I open +the glass and I move the hands until in the mirror they seem to mark +half-past ten. Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. +So now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get it. For as I +unlock the door and open it again, there is Mademoiselle Betty face +to face with me! That young girl! Even though already I suspect her +I get a shock, I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened +enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask had slipped from +her face. I felt a trickle of ice down my spine. For out of her +beautiful great eyes murder looked." + +He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce look. "Ugh," +he grunted; and he shook himself like a great dog coming up out of +the water. + +"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," he cried in a +different voice, "and you are keeping Mademoiselle from her bed, +where she should have been an hour ago. Come!" + +He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on the lights, +locked the door of the treasure-room and pocketed the key. + +"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," he said gently to +Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in the house. You have nothing to +fear. He will not be far from your door. Good night." + +Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile. + +"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she mounted the stairs +slowly, her feet dragging, her body swaying with her fatigue. + +Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher with a whimsical +smile. + +"What a pity!" he said. "You--she! No? After all, perhaps----" and +he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher was growing red and beginning to +look "proper"; and the last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to +offend him in this particular. + +"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent and a gossip. If +I err, it is because I wish you very well. You understand that? +Good! Then a further proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us +what happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house of +Madame Le Vay--everything. I wish you to be present. You shall know +everything. I shall tell you myself step by step, how my conclusions +were reached. All your questions shall be answered. I shall give +you every help, every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are +not even called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And +when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that whatever there +may be of pain and distress, the Law must take its course." + +It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating now. The +tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries had gone. He did not even +triumph. A dignity shone out of the man like a strong light, and +with it he was gentle and considerate. + +"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim on an impulse +thrust out his hand. + +"Good night!" he returned. + +Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went away. + +Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense of desolation +turned back to the hall. He heard the big iron gates swing to. They +had been left open, of course, he recognised, in the usual way when +one of the household was going to be late. Yes, everything had been +planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. Here in this +house, the servants were all tucked up in their beds. But for +Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at this very moment have been stealing up +these stairs noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work +accomplished. The servants would have waked to-morrow to the +knowledge that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial. +Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, would have been +received in the treasure-room, would have found the spade waiting for +him in the great stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart. +Oh, yes, all dangers had been foreseen--except Hanaud. Nay, even he +in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken telegram had +reached Frobisher and Haslitt before Hanaud had started upon his work. + +"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's door, if +you should want me," said Moreau. + +Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections. + +"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs to his room. A +lot of use to Betty that telegram had been, he reflected bitterly! +"Where was she to-night?" he asked, and shut up his mind against the +question. + +He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken telegram and +nothing else which had brought Betty Harlowe's plans crashing about +her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: _Ann Upcott's Story_ + +Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison Crenelle and made +his appointment for the afternoon. Jim accordingly spent the morning +with Monsieur Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which was +told to him. + +"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. "They can claim the +presence of their legal adviser when they are being examined by the +Judge. I will go round at once to the Prefecture"; with his head +erect and his little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried +to do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged, +however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was for the moment +_au secret_. She would not come before the Judge for a couple of +days. It was the turn of Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to +be given to the defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted +an interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before she was +brought up in the Judge's office. + +Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet to find Jim +Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim looked up eagerly, but +Monsieur Bex had no words of comfort. + +"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am not happy. +They are all very polite--yes. But they examine the maid first. +That's bad, I tell you," and he tapped upon the table. "That is +Hanaud. He knows his affair. The servants. They can be made to +talk, and this Francine Rollard----" He shook his head. "I shall +get the best advocate in France." + +Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison Crenelle. It was +obvious that nothing of these new and terrible developments of the +"Affaire Waberski" had yet leaked out. There was not a whisper of it +in the streets, not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison +Crenelle. The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become a +stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her room that he was +removing his luggage to the hotel in the Place Darcy, and leaving the +house to her where he prayed her to remain. Even at that moment +Ann's lips twitched a little with humour as she read the embarrassed +note. + +"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," she reflected, "and +proper enough to make every nerve of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with +delight." + +Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the shade of the +sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the lawn and the bees hummed +amongst the roses, Ann Upcott told a story of terror and darkness, +though to a smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the +story by Hanaud. + +"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame Le Vay's Ball," she +began, "except for the anonymous letter," and Hanaud leaned forward +alertly. + +The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty and Jim Frobisher +were sitting at dinner. It had been posted therefore in the middle +of the day and very soon after Ann had told her first story in the +garden. Ann opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed and +a little terrified to read the signature, "The Scourge." She was +more annoyed than ever when she read the contents, but her terror had +decreased. "The Scourge" bade her attend the Ball. He gave her +explicit instructions that she should leave the ball-room at +half-past ten, follow a particular corridor leading to a wing away +from the reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small +library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a little while +the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. She was warned to tell no +one of her plan. + +"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the letter just a +malicious joke quite in accord with 'The Scourge's' character. I put +it back into its envelope. But I couldn't forget it. Suppose that +by any chance there was something in it--and I didn't go! Why should +'The Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was of no +importance? And all the while the sort of hope which no amount of +reasoning can crush, kept growing and growing!" + +After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room and believed +it and scorned herself for believing it, and believed it again. That +afternoon she had almost felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was +no chance which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from +suspicion, however wild it seemed! + +Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down to the +treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It was half-past nine +o'clock. Ann determined to wait for Betty's return, and was once +more perplexed by the low position of the clock upon the marquetry +cabinet. She stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own +watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it might help her. +And indeed it was very likely to. Had she turned its dial to the +mirror behind the clock, the truth would have leapt at her. But she +had not the time. For a slight movement in the room behind her +arrested her attention. + +She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without doubt it was +from within the room that the faint noise had come. And there was +only one place from which it could have come. Some one was hiding +within the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, its +delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than frightened. Her +first thought was to ring the bell by the fire-place--she could do +that well out of view of the Sedan chair--and carry on until Gaston +answered it. There were treasures enough in the room to repay a +hundred thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the bolder +line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing from the back, +and then with a rush planted herself in front of the glass doors. + +She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in front of the +doors was down, the doors were open, and leaning back upon the +billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. She sat quite still, still as an +image even after Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but +she was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out of the +darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a curious shock. + +"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; and if ever there +had been a chance that she would relent, that chance was gone for +ever now. She had come up out of the secret passage to find Ann +playing with her watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an +explanation of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it--so +very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence pronounced in +those words, "I have been watching you." And though she did not +understand the menace they conveyed, there was something in the slow, +steady utterance of them which a little unnerved her. + +"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice." + +Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous letter from her +hand. + +"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked. + +"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I should. I +shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that there's any suspicion upon +you." + +Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house of mourning +might appear an outrage. + +"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go privately, just +before the time. I have no doubt we can arrange it all. But of +course it's your affair." + +"Why should the Scourge help me?" + +"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty reasoned. "I +imagine that he's attacking other people, and using you." She read +through the letter again. "He has always been right, hasn't he? +That's what would determine me in your place. But I don't want to +interfere." + +Ann spun round on her heel. + +"Very well. I shall go." + +"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as if to tear it. + +"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it "I don't know +Madame Le Vay's house very well. I might easily lose my way without +the instructions. I must take it with me." + +Betty agreed and handed the letter back. + +"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw herself heart +and soul into the necessary arrangements. + +She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself help Ann to +dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. She wrote a letter to +Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's second son and one of Betty's most +indefatigable courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept +that letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity in her +plot. For Betty used to him the same argument which had persuaded +Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly that suspicion had centred upon Ann +Upcott and that it was necessary that she should get away secretly. + +"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. "Ann will come +late. She is to meet the friends who will help her--it is best that +you should know as little as possible about them--in the little +library. If you will keep the corridor clear for a little while, +they can get out by the library doors into the park and be in Paris +the next morning." + +She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann and said, "I will +send this by a messenger to-morrow morning, with orders to deliver it +into Michel's own hands. Now how are you to go?" + +Over that point the two girls had some discussion. It would be +inviting Hanaud's interference if the big limousine were ordered out. +What more likely than that he should imagine Ann meant to run away +and that Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would not do. + +"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call for you. You will +be ready to slip out. She shall stop her car for a second outside +the gates. It will be quite dark. You'll be away in a flash." + +"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back. + +It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite and fastidious +in her own looks and bearing, should have found her friends amongst +the flamboyant and the cheap. But she would rather throne it amongst +her inferiors than take her place amongst her equals. Under her +reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. The desire to +be courted, admired, looked up to as a leader and a chief, burned +within her like a raging flame. Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of +satellites--a big, red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without +good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society of the +town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but distrusted her. She had a +feeling that there was something indefinably wrong in her very nature. + +"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. "That's why I named +her. I know that she is going to Madame Le Vay's dance." + +Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to Jeanne +Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call at the Maison +Crenelle at an early hour in the morning; and Jeanne Leclerc came and +was closeted with Betty for an hour between nine and ten. Thus all +the arrangements were made. + +It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's explanations. + +"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young brother to be +accounted for." + +"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight noise in the +treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe seated in the Sedan chair," +Hanaud replied. "Betty Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de +Brebizart, whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark +and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison Crenelle.... +From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa went to the Rue Gambetta and +waited for Jean Cladel. It was a busy night, that one, my friends. +That old wolf, the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They +could hear him. They had no time to waste!" + +The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim remembered. It was +because Betty was helping Ann to dress, Francine having been given +her holiday. Jim and Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann +Upcott stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her pretty +dress. She held the front door a little open, and the moment Jeanne +Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, she flashed across the +courtyard. Jeanne had the door of her car open. It had hardly +stopped before it went on again. Jim, as the story was told, +remembered vividly Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and +the immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed and +the car moved forward out of the street of Charles-Robert. Ann +Upcott had gone for good from the Maison Crenelle. She would not +interfere with Betty Harlowe any more. + +Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le Vay's house a few +minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay came forward to meet them. + +"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said to Ann, "but you +are late. Madame my mother has left her place at the door of the +ball-room, but we shall find her later." + +He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away they were joined by +Espinosa. + +"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. "No, not yet! +Then Señor Espinosa will take you to the buffet while I look after +others of our guests." + +He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter of high voices +competed with the music of the band. Espinosa conducted the two +ladies to the buffet. There was hardly anybody in the room. + +"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low voice. "We +shall take some coffee." + +But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her feet danced, her +hands could not keep still. Was the letter a trick? Would she, +indeed, within the next few minutes learn the truth? At one moment +her heart sank into her shoes, at another it soared. + +"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa urgently. +"And it is good." + +"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne Leclerc. "You will +send me home, won't you? I shall not wait--afterwards." + +"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is arranged. The +chauffeur has his orders. You will take your coffee, dear?" + +Again Ann would not + +"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I went." She +caught a swift and curious interchange of glances between Jeanne +Leclerc and Espinosa, but she was in no mood to seek an +interpretation. There could be no doubt that the coffee set before +her had had some drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it +from the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug which +would have half stupefied her and made her easy to manage. But she +was not to be persuaded, and she rose to her feet. + +"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, leaving her two +companions together. She did not return to the buffet. + +On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor stretched +out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding it, stood Michel Le Vay. +He made a sign to her, and when she joined him: + +"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a low voice. "The +small library is in front of you." + +Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the house which was +quite deserted and silent. At the end of it a shut door confronted +her. She opened it softly. It was all dark within. But enough +light entered from the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged +against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some dark, +heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, to come to the +tryst. She closed the door behind her and moved slowly and +cautiously forwards with her hands outstretched, until she felt the +curtains yield. She passed in between them into the recess of a +great bow window opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, +creaking sound, brought her heart into her mouth. + +Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody had been quietly +watching as she came in from the lighted corridor. The sound grew +louder. Ann peered between the curtains, holding them apart with +shaking hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague +twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near to the door, +high up on a tall bookcase, something was clinging--something was +climbing down. Whoever it was, had been hiding behind the ornamental +top of the heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves like +the rungs of a ladder. + +Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her throat. She ran +for the door. But she was too late. A black figure dropped from the +book-case to the ground and, as Ann reached out her hands to the +door, a scarf was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was +jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched the light +switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, the room was +lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, driving the breath out of +her lungs, and knotted the scarf tightly at the back of her head. +Ann tried to lift herself, and recognised with a gasp of amazement +that the assailant who pinned her down by the weight of her body and +the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic gave place +to anger and a burning humiliation. She fought with all the strength +of her supple body. But the scarf about her mouth stifled and +weakened her, and with a growing dismay she understood that she was +no match for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two, +but her height did not avail her; she was like a child matched with a +wildcat. Francine's hands were made of steel. She snatched Ann's +arms behind her back and bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards, +her bosom labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must +burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and tied her by +the ankles. + +Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran to the door, +opened it a little way and beckoned. Then she dragged her prisoner +up on to a couch, and Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the +room. + +"It's done?" said Espinosa. + +Francine laughed. + +"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should have given her the +coffee. Then she would have walked with us. Now she must be +carried. She's wicked, I can tell you." + +Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face to hide the +gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held her up, set her white +cloak about her shoulders and fastened it in front. Espinosa then +turned out the light and drew back the curtains. + +The room was at the back of the house. In the front of the window +the park stretched away. But it was the park of a French château, +where the cattle feed up to the windows, and only a strip about the +front terrace is devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns. +Espinosa looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, and +cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night like ghosts. He +opened the window, and the throb of the music from the ball-room came +faintly to their ears. + +"We must be quick," said Espinosa. + +He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out into the park. +They left the window open behind them, and between them they carried +their prisoner across the grass, keeping where it was possible in the +gloom of the trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a +motorcar waited half-way between the house and the gates. A blur of +light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in front of it became +visible away upon their left, but here all was dark. Once or twice +they stopped and set Ann upon her feet, and held her so, while they +rested. + +"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling an oath, he +stopped again. They were on the edge of the drive now, and just +ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a white dress and close to it the +glow of a cigarette. Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her +against a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the +truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk to Ann, +nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively story. Espinosa's +heart stood still as he heard the man say: + +"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. Shall we see?" + +But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the white dress +caught him by the arm. + +"That would not be very tactful," she said with a laugh. "Let us do +as we would be done by," and the couple sauntered past. + +Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! Let us go!" he +whispered in a shaking voice. + +A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed car hidden in a +little alley which led from the main drive. They placed Ann in the +car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside her, and Espinosa took the wheel. +As they took the road to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck +eleven. Within the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann +Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it underneath her +feet. At the branch road young Espinosa was waiting with his +motor-cycle and side-car. + +"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud when +she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay went later into the library, +and bolted the window again, believing you to be well upon your way +to Paris. Second, Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they +returned to Madame Le Vay's ball." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: _What Happened on the Night of the 27th_ + +"We are not yet quite at the end," said Hanaud, as he sat with +Frobisher for awhile upon the lawn after Ann Upcott had gone in. +"But we are near to it. There is still my question to be answered. +'Why was the communicating door open between the bedroom of Madame +Harlowe and the treasure-room on the night when Ann Upcott came down +the stairs in the dark?' When we know that, we shall know why +Francine Rollard and Betty Harlowe between them murdered Madame +Harlowe." + +"Then you believe Francine Rollard had a hand in that crime too?" +asked Jim. + +"I am sure," returned Hanaud. "Do you remember the experiment I +made, the little scene of reconstruction? Betty Harlowe stretched +out upon the bed to represent Madame, and Francine whispering 'That +will do now'?" + +"Yes." + +Hanaud lit a cigarette and smiled. + +"Francine Rollard would not stand at the side of the bed. No! She +would stand at the foot and whisper those simple but appalling words. +But nowhere else. That was significant, my friend. She would not +stand exactly where she had stood when the murder was committed." He +added softly, "I have great hopes of Francine Rollard. A few days of +a prison cell and that untamed little tiger-cat will talk." + +"And what of Waberski in all this?" Jim exclaimed. + +Hanaud laughed and rose from his chair. + +"Waberski? He is for nothing in all this. He brought a charge in +which he didn't believe, and the charge happened to be true. That is +all." He took a step or two away and returned. "But I am wrong. +That is not all. Waberski is indeed for something in all this. For +when he was pressed to make good his charge and must rake up some +excuse for it somehow, by a piece of luck he thinks of a morning when +he saw Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta near to the shop of +Jean Cladel. And so he leads us to the truth. Yes, we owe something +to that animal Boris Waberski. Did I not tell you, Monsieur, that we +are all the servants of Chance?" + +Hanaud went from the garden and for three days Jim Frobisher saw him +no more. But the development which Monsieur Bex feared and for which +Hanaud hoped took place, and on the third day Hanaud invited Jim to +his office in the Prefecture. + +He had Jim's memorandum in his hand. + +"Do you remember what you wrote?" he asked. "See!" He pushed the +memorandum in front of Jim and pointed to a paragraph. + + +"But in the absence of any trace of poison in the dead woman's body, +it is difficult to see how the criminal can be brought to justice +except by: + +"(_a_) A confession. + +"(_b_) The commission of another crime of a similar kind. + +"Hanaud's theory--once a poisoner, always a poisoner." + + +Frobisher read it through. + +"Now that is very true," said Hanaud. "Never have I come across a +case more difficult. At every step we break down. I think I have my +fingers on Jean Cladel. I am five minutes too late. I think that I +shall get some useful evidence from a firm in Paris. The firm has +ceased to be for the last ten years. All the time I strike at air. +So I must take a risk--yes, and a serious one. Shall I tell you what +that risk was? I have to assume that Mademoiselle Ann will be +brought alive to the Hôtel de Brebizart on that night of Madame Le +Vay's ball. That she would be brought back I had no doubt. For one +thing, there could be no safer resting-place for her than under the +stone flags of the kitchen there. For another, there was the +portmanteau in the side-car. It was not light, the portmanteau. +Some friends of mine watched it being put into the side-car before +young Espinosa started for his rendezvous. I have no doubt it +weighed just as many kilos as Mademoiselle Ann." + +"I never understood the reason of that portmanteau," Frobisher +interrupted. + +"It was a matter of timing. There were twenty-five kilometres of a +bad track, with many sharp little twists between the Val Terzon and +the Hôtel de Brebizart. And a motor-cycle with an empty side-car +would take appreciably longer to cover the distance than a cycle with +a side-car weighted, which could take the corners at its top speed. +They were anxious to get the exact time the journey would take with +Ann Upcott in the side-car, so that there might be no needless +hanging about waiting for its arrival. But they were a little too +careful. Our friend Boris said a shrewd thing, didn't he? Some +crimes are discovered because the alibis are too unnaturally perfect. +Oh, there was no doubt they meant to bring back Mademoiselle Ann! +But suppose they brought her back dead! It wasn't likely--no! It +would be so much easier to finish her off with a dose of the +arrow-poison. No struggle, no blood, no trouble at all. I reckoned +that they would dope her at Madame Le Vay's ball and bring her back +half conscious, as indeed they meant to do. But I shivered all that +evening at the risk I had taken, and when that cycle shut off its +engine, as we stood in the darkness of the gallery, I was in despair." + +He shook his shoulders uncomfortably as though the danger was not yet +passed. + +"Anyway, I took the risk," he resumed, "and so we got fulfilled your +condition (_b_). The commission or, in this case, the attempted +commission of another crime of the same kind." + +Frobisher nodded. + +"But now," said Hanaud, leaning forward, "we have got your condition +(_a_) fulfilled--a confession; a clear and complete confession from +Francine Rollard, and so many admissions from the Espinosas, and +Jeanne Leclerc and Maurice Thevenet, that they amount to confessions. +We have put them all together, and here is the new part of the case +with which Monsieur Bex and you will have to deal--the charge not of +murder attempted but of murder committed--the murder of Madame +Harlowe." + +Jim Frobisher was upon the point of interrupting, but he thought +better of it. + +"Go on!" he contented himself with saying. + +"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous letters, Monsieur--who +shall say? The dulness of life for a girl young and beautiful and +passionate in a provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The +craving for excitement? Something bad and vicious and abnormal born +in her, part of her, and craving more and more expression as she grew +in years? The exacting attendance upon Madame? Probably all of +these elements combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly +it became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in Madame +Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years old from the firm of +Chapperon, builders, of the Rue de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the +way, saw an unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth +of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the existence of +the hidden passage between the treasure-room and the Hôtel de +Brebizart. For it was the bill of the builders who had repaired it +at the order of Simon Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging +to Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de Brebizart +made the game easy and safe. But as the opportunity grew, so did the +desire. Betty Harlowe tasted power. She took one or two people into +her confidence--her maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, +and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage--and once started the circle +grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of Betty Harlowe, you +understand! She, the little queen, became the big slave. She must +provide Thevenet with his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his +house, Jeanne Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters +become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet knows the +police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne Leclerc has a--friend, +shall we say?--in the Director of an Insurance Company, and, believe +me, for a blackmailer nothing is more important than to know +accurately the financial resources of one's--let us say, clients. +Thus the game went merrily on until money was wanted and it couldn't +be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. There was no one for +the moment to exploit. Yes, one person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the +justice to believe that the suggestion came from that promising young +novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, Monsieur Frobisher?" + +Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, led up to it +though he had been by Hanaud's exposition. + +"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, and, as Jim +Frobisher started back in a horror of disbelief, he continued: "Yes, +it is so! Madame Harlowe received a letter at dinner-time, just as +Ann Upcott did, on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She +took her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That letter +was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who remembers it very well. It +demanded a large sum of money, and something was said about a number +of passionate letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have +published--not too much, you understand, but enough to make it clear +that the liaison of Madame Raviart and Simon Harlowe was not a secret +from the Scourge. I'll tell you something else which will astonish +you, Monsieur Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne +Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to say good night +and show herself in her new dance frock of silver tissue and her +silver slippers. It was no wonder that Betty Harlowe lost her head a +little when I set my little trap for her in the library and pretended +that I did not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin +after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't one idea what +a very unpleasant little trap it was!" + +"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If Madame Harlowe +showed this letter first of all to Jeanne Baudin, and afterwards to +Betty Harlowe in Jeanne Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin +speak of it at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski brought +his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept silent!" + +"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne Baudin is a good and +decent girl. For her, Madame Harlowe had died a natural death in her +sleep, the very form in which death might be expected to come for +her. Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's accusation. +Why should she rake up old scandals? She herself proposed to Betty +Harlowe to say nothing about the anonymous letter." + +Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted it. "Yes, I see +her point of view," he admitted, and Hanaud continued his narrative. + +"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the Boulevard +Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. Jeanne Baudin has +finished her offices for the night. Madame Harlowe is alone. What +does she do? Drink? For that night--no! She sits and thinks. Were +there any of the letters which passed between her and Simon Harlowe, +before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still existing? She had thought +to have destroyed them all. But she was a woman, she might have +clutched some back. If there were any, where would they be? Why in +that house at the end of the secret passage. Some such thoughts must +have passed through her mind. For she rose from her bed, slipped on +her dressing-gown and shoes, unlocked the communicating door between +her and the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the empty +Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, Monsieur? A room +in daily use, a bundle of her letters ready in the top drawer of her +Empire writing-table, and on the writing-table Simon's Corona +machine, and the paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. +Monsieur, there is only one person who can have access to that room, +the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her exacting way she no +doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock that night Francine Rollard is +startled by the entrance of Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a +moment Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She was very +quickly better informed. She was told to get up, to watch for Betty +Harlowe's return and to bring her immediately to Madame Harlowe's +bedroom. At one o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark +hall. As Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives her +the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet how much of +their villainies has been discovered. But something at all events. +Betty Harlowe bade Francine wait and ran upstairs silently to her +room. Betty Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been +playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had the +arrow-poison ready--yes, ready for herself. She filled her +hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in the palm of her glove +she went to confront her benefactress. + +"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman whose romance and +tragedy were to be exploited blurting out her fury in front of +Francine Rollard. It wasn't Waberski who was to be stripped to the +skin--no, but the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver +slippers. You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under +the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison to destroy +herself when she can save everything--fortune, liberty, position--by +murder? Only she must be quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts +of violence. Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne +Baudin, some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a moment +the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is flung back upon her bed. +Her mouth is covered and held by Francine Rollard. The needle does +its work. 'That will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the +door of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, +unable to identify the voice which whispered, just as you and I were +unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice which whispered to us from the +window of Jean Cladel's house, but taking deep into her memory the +terrible words. And neither of the murderesses knew it. + +"They go calmly about their search for the letters. They cannot find +them, because Madame had pushed them into the coffer of old bills and +papers. They rearrange the bed, they compose their victim in it as +if she were asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget +to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the Hôtel de +Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the arrow-poison and the +needle to put in some safe place, and where else is safe? In the end +when every care has been taken that not a scrap of incriminating +evidence is left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps up +the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and Ann Upcott +waking, stretches up her hands and touches her face. + +"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is what you would +call the case for the Crown. It is the case which you and Monsieur +Bex have to meet." + +Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things which he had almost +said at the beginning of this interview. + +"I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told me. I shall +give him every assistance that I personally or my firm can give. But +I have no longer any formal connection with the defence." + +Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity. + +"I don't understand, Monsieur. This is not the moment to renounce a +client." + +"Nor do I," rejoined Frobisher. "It is the other way about. +Monsieur Bex put it to me very--how shall I say?" + +Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his lips. + +"Very correctly." + +"He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see me again." + +Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation evident in +Frobisher's voice and face moved him. He said very gently, "I can +understand that, can't you? She has fought for a great stake all +this last week, her liberty, her fortune, her good name--and you. +Oh, yes," he continued, as Jim stirred at the table. "Let us be +frank! And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from her +friends. From the earliest moment she set her passions upon you. Do +you remember the first morning I came to the Maison Crenelle? You +promised Ann Upcott to put up there though you had just refused the +same invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy blazed +in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a clatter in the hall +lest she should recognise that I could not but have discovered her +secret. Well, having fought for this stake and lost, she would not +wish to see you. You had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by +the legs like a sheep. I understand her very well." + +Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment Hanaud burst into the +room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, Betty had never once even looked at +him. He got up from his chair and took up his hat and stick. + +"I must go back to my partner in London with this story as soon as I +have told it to Monsieur Bex," he said. "I should like it complete. +When did you first suspect Betty Harlowe?" + +Hanaud nodded. + +"That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don't thank me! I am not so sure +that I should be so ready with all these confidences, if I was not +certain what the verdict in the Assize Court must be. I shall gather +up for you the threads which are still loose, but not here." + +He looked at his watch. + +"See, it is past noon! We shall once more have Philippe Le Bon's +Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may be, too, that we shall see Mont +Blanc across all the leagues of France. Come! Let us take your +memorandum and go there." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: _The Façade of Notre Dame_ + +For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day without mist or +clouds, and the towering silver ridge hung in the blue sky distinct +and magical. Hanaud lit one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly +turned away from it. + +"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One at the very +beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very end by me, and of the +two mine was the least excusable. Let us begin, therefore, at the +beginning. Madame Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; +Betty Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks her +for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should she not? Ah, +but she must have been very sorry a week later that she snapped her +the fingers! For suddenly he flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was +poisoned by her niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when +she heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! But it is +also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing can touch her. Now +suddenly her head is loose upon her neck. She is frightened. She is +questioned in the examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has +nothing against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip. +But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she has done the +murder. Her danger is not any evidence which Waberski can bring, but +just herself. In two days she is still more frightened, for she +hears that Hanaud is called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake. +She sends a telegram to you in London." + +"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly. + +"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does Betty Harlowe know +that Hanaud has been called in?' Oh, to be sure, I made a great +fluster in my office about the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon. +But I did not believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious +about Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, we +come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown me that telegram." + +"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he added slowly, +"that she put out her hand on the window sill--yes, as if to steady +herself." + +"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with a nod of +appreciation. "She must account for that telegram. She cannot tell +me that Maurice Thevenet sent a hurried word to her. No! So when I +ask her if she has ever received one of these anonymous +letters--which, remember, were my real business in Dijon--she says at +once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which told me that +Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris to make an end of me.' That +was quick, eh? Yes, but I know it is a lie. For it was not until +the Sunday evening that any question of my being sent for arose at +all. You see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked her +for the letter. She does not say that she has destroyed it, lest I +should at once believe that she never received any such letter at +all. On the contrary she says that it is in the treasure-room which +is sealed up, knowing quite well that she can write it and place it +there by way of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed. +But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must have received +it on the Sunday morning, since it was on the Sunday morning that the +seals were affixed. She did not know when it was first proposed to +call me in. She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is +lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe." + +He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him with a look of +horror in his eyes. + +"It was I then who put you on her track?--I who came out to defend +her!" he cried. "For it was I who showed you the telegram." + +"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered if Betty Harlowe +had been, as you believed her, innocent," Hanaud replied gravely; and +Frobisher was silent. + +"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, I went over +the house whilst you and Betty talked together in the library!" + +"Yes," said Jim. + +"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found something which +interested me at the first glance. Now tell me what it was!" and he +cocked his head at Jim with the hope that his riddle would divert him +from his self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded. + +"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost of a smile. +"It was the treatise on Sporanthus." + +"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves no trace! +Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. Who would be the first +poisoner to use it? How should I cope with him and prove that it +brought no more security than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are +questions which have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a +house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, I find a +dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away under a pile of +magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. I tell you I was +staggered. What was it doing there? How did it come there? I see a +note upon the cover, indicating a page. I turn to the page and +there, staring at me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect +specimen of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are at once +forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, without knowing it, were +right, and Madame Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I +must find that out. I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my +waistcoat and I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. +Is Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus +Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from Madame Harlowe's +death? Or did she perhaps not know at all that the treatise was +under that pile of magazines upon the table at the side? I do not +know, and my head is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked +look of Betty Harlowe at her friend--Monsieur, a revealing look! I +have not the demure and simple young lady of convention to deal with +at all. No. I go away from the Maison Crenelle, still more curious +about Betty Harlowe." + +Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side. + +"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously. + +"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder. + +"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately after you left the +Maison Crenelle that day you had the _sergent-de-ville_ removed from +its gates?" + +"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered imperturbably. +"The _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers was an absurdity--worse +than that, an actual hindrance. There is little use in watching +people who know that they are being watched. So I remove the +_sergent-de-ville_ and now I can begin really to watch those young +ladies of the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst Monsieur +Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, Betty Harlowe goes +out for a walk, is discreetly followed by Nicolas Moreau--and +vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. He must not press too close upon +her heels. She was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de +Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the wall +which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that she vanished. +There was the anonymous letter to be written, ready for me to receive +when the seals of the treasure-room were broken. But I don't know +that yet. No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for a +walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another street. +Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far as I can how these +young ladies pass their lives and who are their friends. An +examination not very productive, and not altogether futile. For I +find some curious friends in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe +this, Monsieur! Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, +literary, what you will--in their case curious friends mean nothing! +They are to be expected. But with a young girl who is to all +appearance leading the normal life of her class, the case is +different. In her case curious friends are--curious. The Espinosas, +Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc--flashy cheap people of that +type--how shall we account for them as friends of that delicate piece +of china, Betty Harlowe?" + +Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a trifle +disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa and Betty Harlowe. + +"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent so pleasantly in +the cool of the garden with the young ladies, I spent with the +Edinburgh Professor. And I prepared a little trap. Yes, and the +next morning I came early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little +trap. I replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its +obvious place." + +Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black cigarette from +his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to Jim. + +"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; and he tells me +that queer story about Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta close +to the shop of Jean Cladel. He may be lying. He may be speaking the +truth and what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits +in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which is now taking +hold of me. For if that poison was used, then some one who +understood the composition of drugs must have made the solution from +the paste upon the arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty +Harlowe! And the moment that animal has left me, I spring my trap; +and I have a success beyond all my expectations. I point to the +treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was not in its place +yesterday. It is to-day. Who then replaced it? I ask that question +and Mademoiselle Ann is utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that +book. That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On the +other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has replaced that book; +and in a most unwise moment of sarcasm, she allows me to see that she +knows. She knows that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it +since and replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she knows +where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I know it in my heart +that she put it under those magazines in Ann Upcott's room, although +I do not yet know it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to +divert suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should suspicion +arise. But innocent people do not do that, Monsieur. + +"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann tells us her story. +Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you immediately afterwards that all +great criminals who are women are great actresses. But never in my +life have I seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while +that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel murder has been +secretly committed and suddenly the murderess has to listen to a true +account of that murder in the presence of the detective who is there +to fix the guilt! There was some one at hand all the time--almost an +eye-witness--perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she cannot know that +she is safe until the last word of the story is told. Picture to +yourself Betty Harlowe's feelings during that hour in the pleasant +garden, if you can! The questions which must have been racing +through her mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and peer +through the lighted doorway? Does she know the truth--and has she +kept it hidden until this moment when Hanaud and Frobisher are +present and she can speak it safely? Will her next words be 'And +here at my side sits the murderess'? Those must have been terrible +moments for Betty Harlowe!" + +"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher added. + +"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She ran suddenly and +very swiftly into the house." + +"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her." + +"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go and she +returned----" + +"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher interrupted. + +"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud exclaimed. "She +turned her chair towards Mademoiselle Ann. She sat with her +handkerchief in her hand and her face against her handkerchief, +listening--the tender, sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann +told us that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness +overtook her--could not but overtake her. And in that moment of +weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, she picked it up again at +once. Yes, but where the handkerchief had fallen her foot now +rested, and when the story was all ended, and we got up from our +chairs, she spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that +there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was anxious to +discover what it was that she had brought out from the house in her +handkerchief, and had dropped with her handkerchief and had driven +with all the weight of her body into the turf so that no one might +see it. In fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come +back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She fetched my +gloves herself, much to my shame that I, Hanaud, should be waited on +by so exquisite a young lady. However, I found it afterwards when +you and Girardot and the others were all waiting for me in the +library. It was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed +to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much Ann Upcott was +going to reveal. The arrow-poison had been hidden away in the Hôtel +de Brebizart. But she had something else at hand--more rapid--death +like a thunderbolt. So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, +Monsieur, it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close to her +mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. What I do wonder is +that she did not topple straight off her chair in a dead faint before +us all. But no! She sat ready to swallow that tablet at once if +there were need, before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to +you, people who are innocent do not do that." + +Jim had no argument wherewith to answer. + +"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got the tablets no +doubt from Jean Cladel." + +"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated for luncheon +and in the afternoon the seals are to be removed. Before that takes +place, certain things must be done. The clock must be moved from the +mantelshelf in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some +letters too must be burnt." + +"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly. + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. + +"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For my part I +think those old letters between Simon Harlowe and Madame Raviart +alluded too often to the secret passage. But here I am guessing. +What I learnt for certain during that luncheon hour is that there is +a secret passage and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel +de Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no mistake. He +follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I from this tower see the +smoke rising from the chimney. Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no +smoke rises from it to-day." + +He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont Blanc. The trees +in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned roof, and the chimneys of +the Maison Crenelle stood out above the lesser buildings which +surrounded them. Only from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise +to-day, and that one at the extreme end of the building where the +kitchens were. + +"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are removed. We are +in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and something I cannot explain occurs." + +"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher exclaimed confidently; +and Hanaud grinned joyfully. + +"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" he cried. +"The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared for that. The guilt is +being transferred to Mademoiselle Ann. Good! But it is not enough +to hide the book about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide +her also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle inherits +nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds +vanishes, and you must draw from its vanishing what conclusion you +will. No, the little matter I cannot explain is different. Betty +Harlowe and our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom +to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not be heard there." + +"Yes." + +"Our good Girardot comes back." + +"Yes." + +"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot explain. +Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before I go into the +treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and quietly she has slipped in +amongst us again. I am very curious about that, my friend, and I +keep my eyes open for an explanation, I assure you." + +"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with your hand upon the +door and asked for Mademoiselle Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. +I attached no importance to her absence." + +Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was in the artist's +mood. The work was over, the long strain and pain of it. Now let +those outside admire! + +"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, Monsieur +Frobisher. But I answer a question in your memorandum. The instant +I am in the room, I look for the mouth of that secret passage from +the Hôtel de Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. +The elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the wall. +So I am very careful not to pry amongst its cushions for the poison +arrow; just as I am very careful not to ask for the envelope with the +post mark in which the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe +thinks that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud--good! Let her +think so. So we go upstairs and I find the explanation of that +little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence which has been so troubling +me." + +Jim Frobisher stared at him. + +"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into Ann Upcott's +sitting-room. I write my memorandum with the shaft of the poison +arrow and you notice it Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's +absence! No, I haven't got that." + +"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was not there in the +pen-tray on the day before, when I found the book. There was just +one pen--the foolish thing young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed +red--and nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there since. +When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where was that shaft of +the poison-arrow before? In one of two places. Either in the +treasure-room or in the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has +fetched it away during that hour of freedom; she carries it in her +dress; she seizes her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's +bedroom and--pau, pau!--there it is in the pen-tray of Mademoiselle +Ann, to make suspicion still more convincing! Monsieur, I walk away +with Monsieur Bex, who has some admirable scheme that I should search +the gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree--oh yes, that is +the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On the other hand I get +some useful information about the Maison Crenelle and the Hôtel de +Brebizart. I carry that information to a very erudite gentleman in +the Palace of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I know +all about the severe Etienne de Crenelle and the joyous Madame de +Brebizart. So when you and Betty Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val +Terzon, Nicolas Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de +Brebizart--with the results which now are clear to you, and one of +which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in the drawer +of the writing-table." + +Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the story was +clear to him now--a story of dark passions and vanity, and greed of +power with cruelties for its methods. Was there no spark of hope and +cheer in all this desolation? He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He +wished to know the last hidden detail. + +"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. What was it?" + +"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the façade of the +Church of Notre Dame." + +"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking towards the +Maison Crenelle, and his arm swept to the left of the house. His +fingers pointed at the Renaissance church with its cupolas and its +loggia, to which Betty Harlowe had driven him. + +"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief of the Last +Judgment." + +"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church of St. Michel, +Monsieur." + +He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont Blanc, close at his +feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic church, delicate in its +structure like a jewel. + +"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down and look at the +façade." + +Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and pointed to the +frieze. There Frobisher saw such images of devils half beast, half +human, such grinning hog-men, such tortured creatures with heads +twisted round so that they looked backwards, such old and drunken and +vicious horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and amongst +them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, her hands tightly +clasped, an image of terror and faith, a prisoner amongst all these +monsters imploring the passers-by for their pity and their help. + +"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to see," said +Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it." + +His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. He lifted his +hat. + +Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that frieze, heard +Ann Upcott's voice behind him. + +"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur Hanaud?" She +stopped beside the two men. + +"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher to explain to +you." + +Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly towards Hanaud. +But already he was gone. + + + + +THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67514 *** diff --git a/67514-0.zip b/67514-0.zip deleted file mode 100644 index 681252d..0000000 Binary files a/67514-0.zip and /dev/null differ diff --git a/67514-h.zip b/67514-h.zip deleted file mode 100644 index 2b0a730..0000000 Binary files a/67514-h.zip and /dev/null differ diff --git a/67514-h/67514-h.htm b/67514-h/67514-h.htm index 28dea63..8770764 100644 --- a/67514-h/67514-h.htm +++ b/67514-h/67514-h.htm @@ -1,19696 +1,19237 @@ - - - - - - - - - - - -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Arrow, -by A. E. W. Mason - - - - - - - -

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Arrow, by A. E. W. Mason

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-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at www.gutenberg.org. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -
- -

Title: The House of the Arrow

-

Author: A. E. W. Mason

-

Release Date: February 26, 2022 [eBook #67514]
-[Last Updated: March 13, 2022]
-[Last updated: October 19, 2022]

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Language: English

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Produced by: Al Haines

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW ***
- -

-

- The
- House of the Arrow
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- By
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- -

- A. E. W. MASON
-

- -



- -

- New York
- George H. Doran Company
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- -




- -

- COPYRIGHT, 1924,
- BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
-

- -


- -

- THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW
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- -


- -

- PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-

- -




- -

- Books by A. E. W. MASON
-

- -

- THE WINDING STAIR
- THE FOUR FEATHERS
- THE SUMMONS
- THE BROKEN ROAD
- MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY
- CLEMENTINA
- THE TURNSTILE
- THE TRUANTS
- AT THE VILLA ROSE
- RUNNING WATER
- THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER
- THE PHILANDERERS
- LAWRENCE CLAVERING
- THE WATCHERS
- A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE
- ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES
- FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD
-

- -




- -

- CONTENTS
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- -

- CHAPTER
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- ONE: Letters of Mark
- TWO: A Cry for Help
- THREE: Servants of Chance
- FOUR: Betty Harlowe
- FIVE: Betty Harlowe Answers
- SIX: Jim Changes His Lodging
- SEVEN: Exit Waberski
- EIGHT: The Book
- NINE: The Secret
- TEN: The Clock upon the Cabinet
- ELEVEN: A New Suspect
- TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals
- THIRTEEN: Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room
- FOURTEEN: An Experiment and a Discovery
- FIFTEEN: The Finding of the Arrow
- SIXTEEN: Hanaud Laughs
- SEVENTEEN: At Jean Cladel's
- EIGHTEEN: The White Tablet
- NINETEEN: A Plan Frustrated
- TWENTY: A Map and the Necklace
- TWENTY-ONE: The Secret House
- TWENTY-TWO: The Corona Machine
- TWENTY-THREE: The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet
- TWENTY-FOUR: Ann Upcott's Story
- TWENTY-FIVE: What Happened on the Night of the 27th
- TWENTY-SIX: The Façade of Notre Dame
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-THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW -

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-CHAPTER ONE: Letters of Mark -

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-Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt, the solicitors -on the east side of Russell Square, counted amongst -their clients a great many who had undertakings -established in France; and the firm was very proud of this -branch of its business. -

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-"It gives us a place in history," Mr. Jeremy Haslitt -used to say. "For it dates from the year 1806, when -Mr. James Frobisher, then our very energetic senior -partner, organised the escape of hundreds of British -subjects who were detained in France by the edict of the first -Napoleon. The firm received the thanks of His Majesty's -Government and has been fortunate enough to retain the -connection thus made. I look after that side of our -affairs myself." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt's daily batch of letters, therefore, contained -as a rule a fair number bearing the dark-blue stamp of -France upon their envelopes. On this morning of early -April, however, there was only one. It was addressed in -a spidery, uncontrolled hand with which Mr. Haslitt was -unfamiliar. But it bore the postmark of Dijon, and -Mr. Haslitt tore it open rather quickly. He had a client in -Dijon, a widow, Mrs. Harlowe, of whose health he had -had bad reports. The letter was certainly written from -her house, La Maison Crenelle, but not by her. He -turned to the signature. -

- -

-"Waberski?" he said, with a frown. "Boris Waberski?" And -then, as he identified his correspondent, "Oh, -yes, yes." -

- -

-He sat down in his chair and read. The first part of -the letter was merely flowers and compliments, but -half-way down the second page its object was made clear as -glass. It was five hundred pounds. Old Mr. Haslitt -smiled and read on, keeping up, whilst he read, a -one-sided conversation with the writer. -

- -

-"I have a great necessity of that money," wrote Boris, -"and——" -

- -

-"I am quite sure of that," said Mr. Haslitt. -

- -

-"My beloved sister, Jeanne-Marie——" the letter -continued. -

- -

-"Sister-in-law," Mr. Haslitt corrected. -

- -

-"—cannot live for long, in spite of all the care and -attention I give to her," Boris Waberski went on. "She -has left me, as no doubt you know, a large share of her -fortune. Already, then, it is mine—yes? One may say -so and be favourably understood. We must look at the -facts with the eyes. Expedite me, then, by the -recommended post a little of what is mine and agree my -distinguished salutations." -

- -

-Haslitt's smile became a broad grin. He had in one -of his tin boxes a copy of the will of Jeanne-Marie -Harlowe drawn up in due form by her French notary at -Dijon, by which every farthing she possessed was -bequeathed without condition to her husband's niece and -adopted daughter, Betty Harlowe. Jeremy Haslitt almost -destroyed that letter. He folded it; his fingers twitched -at it; there was already actually a tear at the edges of the -sheets when he changed his mind. -

- -

-"No," he said to himself. "No! With the Boris -Waberskis one never knows," and he locked the letter -away on a ledge of his private safe. -

- -

-He was very glad that he had when three weeks later -he read, in the obituary column of The Times, the -announcement of Mrs. Harlowe's death, and received a big -card with a very deep black border in the French style -from Betty Harlowe inviting him to the funeral at Dijon. -The invitation was merely formal. He could hardly have -reached Dijon in time for the ceremony had he started -off that instant. He contented himself with writing a few -lines of sincere condolence to the girl, and a letter to the -French notary in which he placed the services of the firm -at Betty's disposal. Then he waited. -

- -

-"I shall hear again from little Boris," he said, and he -heard within the week. The handwriting was more -spidery and uncontrolled than ever; hysteria and indignation -had played havoc with Waberski's English; also he -had doubled his demand. -

- -

-"It is outside belief," he wrote. "Nothing has she left -to her so attentive brother. There is something here I -do not much like. It must be one thousand pounds now, -by the recommended post. 'You have always had the -world against you, my poor Boris,' she say with the tears -all big in her dear eyes. 'But I make all right for you in -my will.' And now nothing! I speak, of course, to my -niece—ah, that hard one! She snap her the fingers at -me! Is that a behaviour? One thousand pounds, mister! -Otherwise there will be awkwardnesses! Yes! People -do not snap them the fingers at Boris Waberski without -the payment. So one thousand pounds by the recommended -post or awkwardnesses"; and this time Boris -Waberski did not invite Mr. Haslitt to agree any salutations, -distinguished or otherwise, but simply signed his -name with a straggling pen which shot all over the sheet. -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt did not smile over this letter. He rubbed -the palms of his hands softly together. -

- -

-"Then we shall have to make some awkwardnesses -too," he said hastily, and he locked this second letter -away with the first. But Mr. Haslitt found it a little -difficult to settle to his work. There was that girl out -there in the big house at Dijon and no one of her race -near her! He got up from his chair abruptly and crossed -the corridor to the offices of his junior partner. -

- -

-"Jim, you were at Monte Carlo this winter," he said. -

- -

-"For a week," answered Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-"I think I asked you to call on a client of ours who -has a villa there—Mrs. Harlowe." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher nodded. "I did. But Mrs. Harlowe -was ill. There was a niece, but she was out." -

- -

-"You saw no one, then?" Jeremy Haslitt asked. -

- -

-"No, that's wrong," Jim corrected. "I saw a strange -creature who came to the door to make Mrs. Harlowe's -excuses—a Russian." -

- -

-"Boris Waberski," said Mr. Haslitt. -

- -

-"That's the name." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt sat down in a chair. -

- -

-"Tell me about him, Jim." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher stared at nothing for a few moments. -He was a young man of twenty-six who had only during -this last year succeeded to his partnership. Though quick -enough when action was imperative, he was naturally -deliberate in his estimates of other people's characters; and -a certain awe he had of old Jeremy Haslitt doubled that -natural deliberation in any matters of the firm's business. -He answered at length. -

- -

-"He is a tall, shambling fellow with a shock of grey -hair standing up like wires above a narrow forehead and -a pair of wild eyes. He made me think of a marionette -whose limbs have not been properly strung. I should -imagine that he was rather extravagant and emotional. -He kept twitching at his moustache with very long, -tobacco-stained fingers. The sort of man who might go -off at the deep end at any moment." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt smiled. -

- -

-"That's just what I thought." -

- -

-"Is he giving you any trouble?" asked Jim. -

- -

-"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt. "But Mrs. Harlowe is -dead, and I think it very likely that he will. Did he play -at the tables?" -

- -

-"Yes, rather high," said Jim. "I suppose that he lived -on Mrs. Harlowe." -

- -

-"I suppose so," said Mr. Haslitt, and he sat for a little -while in silence. Then: "It's a pity you didn't see Betty -Harlowe. I stopped at Dijon once on my way to the -South of France five years ago when Simon Harlowe, the -husband, was alive. Betty was then a long-legged slip of -a girl in black silk stockings with a pale, clear face and -dark hair and big eyes—rather beautiful." Mr. Haslitt -moved in his chair uncomfortably. That old house with -its great garden of chestnuts and sycamores and that girl -alone in it with an aggrieved and half-crazed man thinking -out awkwardnesses for her—Mr. Haslitt did not like -the picture! -

- -

-"Jim," he said suddenly, "could you arrange your work -so that you could get away at short notice, if it becomes -advisable?" -

- -

-Jim looked up in surprise. Excursions and alarms, as -the old stage directions have it, were not recognised as a -rule by the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt. If its furniture -was dingy, its methods were stately; clients might be -urgent, but haste and hurry were words for which the -firm had no use No doubt, somewhere round the corner, -there would be an attorney who understood them. Yet -here was Mr. Haslitt himself, with his white hair and his -curious round face, half-babyish, half-supremely intelligent, -actually advocating that his junior partner should -be prepared to skip to the Continent at a word. -

- -

-"No doubt I could," said Jim, and Mr. Haslitt looked -him over with approbation. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher had an unusual quality of which his -acquaintances, even his friends, knew only the outward -signs. He was a solitary person. Very few people up -till now had mattered to him at all, and even those he -could do without. It was his passion to feel that his life -and the means of his life did not depend upon the -purchased skill of other people; and he had spent the spare -months of his life in the fulfilment of his passion. A -half-decked sailing-boat which one man could handle, an -ice-axe, a rifle, an inexhaustible volume or two like The -Ring and the Book—these with the stars and his own -thoughts had been his companions on many lonely expeditions; -and in consequence he had acquired a queer little -look of aloofness which made him at once noticeable -amongst his fellows. A misleading look, since it -encouraged a confidence for which there might not be -sufficient justification. It was just this look which persuaded -Mr. Haslitt now. "This is the very man to deal with -creatures like Boris Waberski," he thought, but he did -not say so aloud. -

- -

-What he did say was: -

- -

-"It may not be necessary after all. Betty Harlowe has -a French lawyer. No doubt he is adequate. Besides"—and -he smiled as he recollected a phrase in Waberski's -second letter—"Betty seems very capable of looking after -herself. We shall see." -

- -

-He went back to his own office, and for a week he heard -no more from Dijon. His anxiety, indeed, was almost -forgotten when suddenly startling news arrived and by the -most unexpected channel. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher brought it. He broke into Mr. Haslitt's -office at the sacred moment when the senior partner was -dictating to a clerk the answers to his morning letters. -

- -

-"Sir!" cried Jim, and stopped short at the sight of the -clerk. Mr. Haslitt took a quick look at his young -partner's face and said: -

- -

-"We will resume these answers, Godfrey, later on." -

- -

-The clerk took his shorthand notebook out of the room, -and Mr. Haslitt turned to Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-"Now, what's your bad news, Jim?" -

- -

-Jim blurted it out. -

- -

-"Waberski accuses Betty Harlowe of murder." -

- -

-"What!" -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt sprang to his feet. Jim Frobisher could -not have said whether incredulity or anger had the upper -hand with the old man, the one so creased his forehead, -the other so blazed in his eyes. -

- -

-"Little Betty Harlowe!" he said in a wondering voice. -

- -

-"Yes. Waberski has laid a formal charge with the -Prefect of Police at Dijon. He accuses Betty of -poisoning Mrs. Harlowe on the night of April the -twenty-seventh." -

- -

-"But Betty's not arrested?" Mr. Haslitt exclaimed. -

- -

-"No, but she's under surveillance." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt sat heavily down in his arm-chair at his -table. Extravagant! Uncontrolled! These were very -mild epithets for Boris Waberski. Here was a devilish -malignity at work in the rogue, a passion for revenge -just as mean as could be imagined. -

- -

-"How do you know all this, Jim?" he asked suddenly. -

- -

-"I have had a letter this morning from Dijon." -

- -

-"You?" exclaimed Mr. Haslitt, and the question caught -hold of Jim Frobisher and plunged him too among -perplexities. In the first shock of the news, the monstrous -fact of the accusation had driven everything else out of -his head. Now he asked himself why, after all, had the -news come to him and not to the partner who had the -Harlowe estate in his charge. -

- -

-"Yes, it is strange," he replied. "And here's another -queer thing. The letter doesn't come from Betty -Harlowe, but from a friend, a companion of hers, Ann -Upcott." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt was a little relieved. -

- -

-"Betty had a friend with her, then? That's a good -thing." He reached out his hand across the table. "Let -me read the letter, Jim." -

- -

-Frobisher had been carrying it in his hand, and he -gave it now to Jeremy Haslitt. It was a letter of many -sheets, and Jeremy let the edges slip and flicker under the -ball of his thumb. -

- -

-"Have I got to read all this?" he said ruefully, and -he set himself to his task. Boris Waberski had first of all -accused Betty to her face. Betty had contemptuously -refused to answer the charge, and Waberski had gone -straight off to the Prefect of Police. He had returned -in an hour's time, wildly gesticulating and talking aloud -to himself. He had actually asked Ann Upcott to back -him up. Then he had packed his bags and retired to an -hotel in the town. The story was set out in detail, with -quotations from Waberski's violent, crazy talk; and as -the old man read, Jim Frobisher became more and more -uneasy, more and more troubled. -

- -

-He was sitting by the tall, broad window which looked -out upon the square, expecting some explosion of wrath -and contempt. But he saw anxiety peep out of Mr. Haslitt's -face and stay there as he read. More than once -he stopped altogether in his reading, like a man seeking -to remember or perhaps to discover. -

- -

-"But the whole thing's as clear as daylight," Jim said -to himself impatiently. And yet—and yet—Mr. Haslitt -had sat in that arm-chair during the better part of the -day, during the better part of thirty years. How many -men and women during those years had crossed the -roadway below this window and crept into this quiet oblong -room with their grievances, their calamities, their -confessions? And had passed out again, each one contributing -his little to complete the old man's knowledge and sharpen -the edge of his wit? Then, if Mr. Haslitt was troubled, -there was something in that letter, or some mission from -it, which he himself in his novitiate had overlooked. He -began to read it over again in his mind to the best of his -recollection, but he had not got far before Mr. Haslitt -put the letter down. -

- -

-"Surely, sir," cried Jim, "it's an obvious case of blackmail." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt awoke with a little shake of his shoulders. -

- -

-"Blackmail? Oh! that of course, Jim." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt got up and unlocked his safe. He took -from it the two Waberski letters and brought them across -the room to Jim. -

- -

-"Here's the evidence, as damning as any one could -wish." -

- -

-Jim read the letters through and uttered a little cry of -delight. -

- -

-"The rogue has delivered himself over to us." -

- -

-"Yes," said Mr. Haslitt. -

- -

-But to him, at all events, that was not enough; he was -still looking through the lines of the letter for something -beyond, which he could not find. -

- -

-"Then what's troubling you?" asked Frobisher. -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt took his stand upon the worn hearthrug -with his back towards the fire. -

- -

-"This, Jim," and he began to expound. "In ninety-five -of these cases out of a hundred, there is something else, -something behind the actual charge, which isn't -mentioned, but on which the blackmailer is really banking. -As a rule it's some shameful little secret, some blot on -the family honour, which any sort of public trial would -bring to light. And there must be something of that kind -here. The more preposterous Waberski's accusation is, -the more certain it is that he knows something to the -discredit of the Harlowe name, which any Harlowe would -wish to keep dark. Only, I haven't an idea what the -wretched thing can be!" -

- -

-"It might be some trifle," Jim suggested, "which a -crazy person like Waberski would exaggerate." -

- -

-"Yes," Mr. Haslitt agreed. "That happens. A man -brooding over imagined wrongs, and flighty and -extravagant besides—yes, that might well be, Jim." -

- -

-Jeremy Haslitt spoke in a more cheerful voice. -

- -

-"Let us see exactly what we do know of the family," -he said, and he pulled up a chair to face Jim Frobisher -and the window. But he had not yet sat down in it, when -there came a discreet knock upon the door, and a clerk -entered to announce a visitor. -

- -

-"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt before the name of the -visitor had been mentioned. -

- -

-"Very good, sir," said the clerk, and he retired. The -firm of Frobisher & Haslitt conducted its business in that -way. It was the real thing as a firm of solicitors, and -clients who didn't like its methods were very welcome to -take their affairs to the attorney round the corner. Just -as people who go to the real thing in the line of tailors -must put up with the particular style in which he cuts -their clothes. -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt turned back to Jim. -

- -

-"Let us see what we know," he said, and he sat down -in the chair. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWO: A Cry for Help -

- -

-"Simon Harlow," he began, "was the owner of -the famous Clos du Prince vineyards on the Côte-d'Or -to the east of Dijon. He had an estate in Norfolk, -this big house, the Maison Crenelle in Dijon, and a villa -at Monte Carlo. But he spent most of his time in Dijon, -where at the age of forty-five he married a French lady, -Jeanne-Marie Raviart. There was, I believe, quite a -little romance about the affair. Jeanne-Marie was -married and separated from her husband, and Simon -Harlowe waited, I think, for ten years until the husband -Raviart died." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher moved quickly and Mr. Haslitt, who -seemed to be reading off this history in the pattern of -the carpet, looked up. -

- -

-"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, replying to Jim's -movement. "Yes, there might have been some sort of -affair between those two before they were free to marry. -But nowadays, my dear Jim! Opinion takes a more -human view than it did in my youth. Besides, don't you -see, this little secret, to be of any value to Boris -Waberski, must be near enough to Betty Harlowe—I don't say -to affect her if published, but to make Waberski think -that she would hate to have it published. Now Betty -Harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all until two -years after Simon and Jeanne-Marie were married, when -it became clear that they were not likely to have any -children. No, the love-affairs of Simon Harlowe are -sufficiently remote for us to leave them aside." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with -a flush of shame. -

- -

-"I was a fool to think of it," he said. -

- -

-"Not a bit," replied Mr. Haslitt cheerfully. "Let us -look at every possibility. That's the only way which will -help us to get a glimpse of the truth. I resume, then. -Simon Harlowe was a collector. Yes, he had a passion -for collecting and a very catholic one. His one sitting-room -at the Maison Crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, -not only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things -too. He liked to live amongst them and do his work -amongst them. His married life did not last long. For -he died five years ago at the age of fifty-one." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections -amongst the convolutions of the carpet. -

- -

-"That's really about all I know of him. He was a -pleasant fellow enough, but not very sociable. No, there's -nothing to light a candle for us there, I am afraid." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow. -

- -

-"Jeanne-Marie Harlowe," he said. "It's extraordinary -how little I know about her, now I come to count it up. -Natural too, though. For she sold the Norfolk estate -and has since passed her whole time between Monte Carlo -and Dijon and—oh, yes—a little summer-house on the -Côte-d'Or amongst her vineyards." -

- -

-"She was left rich, I suppose?" Frobisher asked. -

- -

-"Very well off, at all events," Mr. Haslitt replied. -"The Clos du Prince Burgundy has a fine reputation, but -there's not a great deal of it." -

- -

-"Did she come to England ever?" -

- -

-"Never," said Mr. Haslitt. "She was content, it -seems, with Dijon, though to my mind the smaller -provincial towns of France are dull enough to make one -scream. However, she was used to it, and then her heart -began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has -been an invalid. There's nothing to help us there." And -Mr. Haslitt looked across to Jim for confirmation. -

- -

-"Nothing," said Jim. -

- -

-"Then we are only left the child Betty Harlowe and—oh, -yes, your correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, -Ann Upcott. Who is she, Jim? Where did she -spring from? How does she find herself in the Maison -Crenelle? Come, confess, young man," and Mr. Haslitt -archly looked at his junior partner. "Why should Boris -Waberski expect her support?" -

- -

-Jim Frobisher threw his arms wide. -

- -

-"I haven't an idea," he said. "I have never seen her. -I have never heard of her. I never knew of her existence -until that letter came this morning with her name signed -at the end of it." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt started up. He crossed the room to his -table and, fixing his folding glasses on the bridge of his -nose, he bent over the letter. -

- -

-"But she writes to you, Jim," he objected. "'Dear -Mr. Frobisher,' she writes. She doesn't address the firm -at all"; and he waited, looking at Jim, expecting him to -withdraw this denial. -

- -

-Jim, however, only shook his head. -

- -

-"It's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "I can't -make head or tail of it"; and Mr. Haslitt could not doubt -now that he spoke the truth, so utterly and frankly baffled -the young man was. "Why should Ann Upcott write to -me? I have been asking myself that question for the last -half-hour. And why didn't Betty Harlowe write to you, -who have had her affairs in your care?" -

- -

-"Ah!" -

- -

-That last question helped Mr. Haslitt to an explanation. -His face took a livelier expression. -

- -

-"The answer to that is in Waberski's, the second letter. -Betty—she snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. She -doesn't take the charge seriously. She will have left it -to the French notary to dispose of it. Yes—I think that -makes Ann Upcott's letter to you intelligible, too. The -ceremonies of the Law in a foreign country would -frighten a stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than -they would Betty Harlowe, who has lived for four years -in the midst of them. So she writes to the first name in -the title of the firm, and writes to him as a man. That's -it, Jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together in -his satisfaction. -

- -

-"A girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing -to an abstraction. She wants to know that she's in -touch with a real person. So she writes, 'Dear -Mr. Frobisher.' That's it! You can take my word for it." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt walked back to his chair. But he did not -sit down in it; he stood with his hands in his pockets, -looking out of the window over Frobisher's head. -

- -

-"But that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out -what is Boris Waberski's strong suit, does it? We -haven't a clue to it," he said ruefully. -

- -

-To both of the men, indeed, Mr. Haslitt's flat, -unillumined narrative of facts, without a glimpse into the -characters of any of the participants in the little drama, -seemed the most unhelpful thing. Yet the whole truth -was written there—the truth not only of Waberski's -move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into -which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. -Jim Frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the -soul, he resumed his work in the office. For it was -interrupted now. -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's -head, saw a telegraph-boy come swinging across the -square and hesitate in the roadway below. -

- -

-"I expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the -hopeful anticipation people in trouble have that -something from outside will happen and set them right. -

- -

-Jim turned round quickly. The boy was still upon the -pavement examining the numbers of the houses. -

- -

-"We ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said -Jim with a touch of impatience; and Mr. Haslitt's -eyebrows rose half the height of his forehead towards his -thick white hair. He was really distressed by the Waberski -incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in -the firm, shocked him like a sacrilege. -

- -

-"My dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. -"I hope I am not one of those obstinate old fogies -who refuse to march with the times. We have had, as -you know, a telephone instrument recently installed in the -junior clerks' office. I believe that I myself proposed it. -But a brass plate upon the door! My dear Jim! Let us -leave that to Harley Street and Southampton Row! But -I see that telegram is for us." -

- -

-The tiny Mercury with the shako and red cord to his -uniform made up his mind and disappeared into the hall -below. The telegram was brought upstairs and Mr. Haslitt -tore it open. He stared at it blankly for a few -seconds, then without a word, but with a very anxious -look in his eyes, he handed it to Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher read: -

- -

-Please, please, send some one to help me at once. -The Prefect of Police has called in Hanaud, a great -detective of the Sûrété in Paris. They must think -me guilty.—Betty Harlowe. -

- -


- -

-The telegram fluttered from Jim's fingers to the floor. -It was like a cry for help at night coming from a great -distance. -

- -

-"I must go, sir, by the night boat," he said. -

- -

-"To be sure!" said Mr. Haslitt a little absently. -

- -

-Jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. His -chivalry was fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the -picture his imagination drew. The little girl, Betty -Harlowe! What age was she? Twenty-one! Not a day -more. She had been wandering with all the proud -indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found -her feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked -about her; and terror came and with it a wild cry for -help. -

- -

-"Girls never notice danger signals," he said. "No, they -walk blindly into the very heart of catastrophe." Who -could tell what links of false and cunning evidence Boris -Waberski had been hammering away at in the dark, to -slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and ankle? -And with that question he was seized with a great -discouragement. -

- -

-"We know very little of Criminal Procedure, even in -our own country, in this office," he said regretfully. -

- -

-"Happily," said Mr. Haslitt with some tartness. With -him it was the Firm first and last. Messrs. Frobisher & -Haslitt never went in to the Criminal Courts. Litigation, -indeed, even of the purest kind was frowned upon. It is -true there was a small special staff, under the leadership -of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper -floor, like an unpresentable relation in a great house, -which did a little of that kind of work. But it only did -it for hereditary clients, and then as a favour. -

- -

-"However," said Mr. Haslitt as he noticed Jim's -discomfort, "I haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be -equal to whatever is wanted. But remember, there's -something at the back of this which we here don't -know." -

- -

-Jim shifted his position rather abruptly. This cry of -the old man was becoming parrot-like—a phrase, a -formula. Jim was thinking of the girl in Dijon and hearing -her piteous cry for help. She was not "snapping her -the fingers" now. -

- -

-"It's a matter of common sense," Mr. Haslitt insisted. -"Take a comparison. Bath, for instance, would never -call in Scotland Yard over a case of this kind. There -would have to be the certainty of a crime first, and then -grave doubt as to who was the criminal. This is a case -for an autopsy and the doctors. If they call in this man -Hanaud"—and he stopped. -

- -

-He picked the telegram up from the floor and read it -through again. -

- -

-"Yes—Hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and -growing bright and clouding again like a man catching at -and just missing a very elusive recollection. He gave up -the pursuit in the end. "Well, Jim, you had better take -the two letters of Waberski, and Ann Upcott's three-volume -novel, and Betty's telegram"—he gathered the -papers together and enclosed them in a long envelope—"and -I shall expect you back again with a smiling face in -a very few days. I should like to see our little Boris when -he is asked to explain those letters." -

- -

-Mr. Haslitt gave the envelope to Jim and rang his bell. -

- -

-"There is some one waiting to see me, I think," he -said to the clerk who answered it. -

- -

-The clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking -his heels during the last half-hour in an undusted -waiting-room with a few mouldy old Law books in a -battered glass case to keep him company. -

- -

-"You can show him in now," said Mr. Haslitt as Jim -retired to his own office; and when the great landowner -entered, he merely welcomed him with a reproach. -

- -

-"You didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said. -

- -

-But all through that interview, though his advice was -just the precise, clear advice for which the firm was -quietly famous, Mr. Haslitt's mind was still playing -hide-and-seek with a memory, catching glimpses of the fringes -of its skirt as it gleamed and vanished. -

- -

-"Memory is a woman," he said to himself. "If I don't -run after her she will come of her own accord." -

- -

-But he was in the common case of men with women: -he could not but run after her. Towards the end of the -interview, however, his shoulders and head moved with a -little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip of paper. -As soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent -it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an -answer. The messenger returned within the hour and -Mr. Haslitt hurried to Jim Frobisher's office. -

- -

-Jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various -clerks and was locking up the drawers of his desk. -

- -

-"Jim, I have remembered where I have heard the name -of this man Hanaud before. You have met Julius -Ricardo? He's one of our clients." -

- -

-"Yes," said Frobisher. "I remember him—a rather -finnicking person in Grosvenor Square." -

- -

-"That's the man. He's a friend of Hanaud and -absurdly proud of the friendship. He and Hanaud were -somehow mixed up in a rather scandalous crime some -time ago—at Aix-les-Bains, I think. Well, Ricardo will -give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you -something about him, if you will go round to Grosvenor -Square at five this afternoon." -

- -

-"Capital!" said Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-He kept the appointment, and was told how he must -expect to be awed at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly -at the next, ridiculed at a third, and treated with -great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. Jim -discounted Mr. Ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter -and crossed the Channel that night. On the journey it -occurred to him that if Hanaud was a man of such high -mark, he would not be free, even at an urgent call, to -pack his bags and leave for the provinces in an instant. -Jim broke his journey, therefore, at Paris, and in the -course of the morning found his way to the Direction of -the Sûrété on the Quai d'Horloge just behind the Palais -de Justice. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter -took his card and his letter of introduction. The great -man was still in Paris, then, he thought with relief. He -was taken to a long dark corridor, lit with electric globes -even on that bright morning of early summer. There -he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for -half an hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. -Then a bell rang and a policeman in plain clothes went -up to him. One side of the corridor was lined with a -row of doors. -

- -

-"It is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led -Frobisher to one of the doors and opened it, and -stood aside. Frobisher straightened his shoulders and -marched in. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER THREE: Servants of Chance -

- -

-Frobisher found himself at one end of an oblong -room. Opposite to him a couple of windows looked -across the shining river to the big Théâtre du Chatelet -On his left hand was a great table with a few neatly -arranged piles of papers, at which a big, rather -heavily-built man was sitting. Frobisher looked at that man as -a novice in a duelling field might look at the master -swordsman whom he was committed to fight; with a little -shock of surprise that after all he appeared to be just -like other men. Hanaud, on his side, could not have -been said to have looked at Frobisher at all; yet when he -spoke it was obvious that somehow he had looked and to -very good purpose. He rose with a little bow and apologised. -

- -

-"I have kept you waiting, Mr. Frobisher. My dear -friend Mr. Ricardo did not mention your object in his -letter. I had the idea that you came with the usual -wish to see something of the underworld. Now that -I see you, I recognise your wish is more serious." -

- -

-Hanaud was a man of middle age with a head of -thick dark hair, and the round face and shaven chin of -a comedian. A pair of remarkably light eyes under -rather heavy lids alone gave a significance to him, at -all events when seen for the first time in a mood of -good-will. He pointed to a chair. -

- -

-"Will you take a seat? I will tell you, Mr. Frobisher, -I have a very soft place in my heart for Mr. Ricardo, and -a friend of his—— These are words, however. What -can I do?" -

- -

-Jim Frobisher laid down his hat and stick upon a side -table and took the chair in front of Hanaud's table. -

- -

-"I am partner in a firm of lawyers which looks after -the English interests of a family in Dijon," he said, and -he saw all life and expression smoothed out of Hanaud's -face. A moment ago he had been in the company of a -genial and friendly companion; now he was looking at -a Chinaman. -

- -

-"Yes?" said Hanaud. -

- -

-"The family has the name of Harlowe," Jim continued. -

- -

-"Oho!" said Hanaud. -

- -

-The ejaculation had no surprise in it, and hardly any -interest. Jim, however, persisted. -

- -

-"And the surviving member of it, a girl of twenty, -Betty Harlowe, has been charged with murder by a -Russian who is connected with the family by -marriage—Boris Waberski." -

- -

-"Aha!" said Hanaud. "And why do you come to me, -Mr. Frobisher?" -

- -

-Jim stared at the detective. The reason of his coming -was obvious. -

- -

-And yet—he was no longer sure of his ground. -Hanaud had pulled open a drawer in his table and was -beginning to put away in it one of his files. -

- -

-"Yes?" he said, as who should say, "I am listening." -

- -

-"Well, perhaps I am under a mistake," said Jim. "But -my firm has been informed that you, Monsieur Hanaud, -are in charge of the case," he said, and Hanaud's movements -were at once arrested. He sat with the file poised -on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, -extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that -he was more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the -file into the drawer and closed the drawer softly. As -softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice which to Frobisher's -ears had a note in it which was actually alarming. -

- -

-"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! -And in London! And—yes—this is only Wednesday! -News travels very quickly nowadays, to be sure! Well, -your firm has been correctly informed. I congratulate -you. The first point is scored by you." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher was quick to seize upon that word. He -had thought out upon his journey in what spirit he might -most usefully approach the detective. Hanaud's bitter -little remark gave him the very opening which he needed. -

- -

-"But, Monsieur Hanaud, I don't take that point of -view at all," he argued earnestly. "I am happy to believe -that there is going to be no antagonism between us. For, -if there were, I should assuredly get the worst of it. -No! I am certain that the one wish you have in this -matter is to get at the truth. Whilst my wish is that -you should just look upon me as a very second-rate -colleague who by good fortune can give you a little help." -

- -

-A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it -to some of its geniality. -

- -

-"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a -trowel," he observed. "Now, what kind of help, -Mr. Frobisher?" -

- -

-"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters -from Boris Waberski demanding money, the second one -with threats. Both were received by my firm before he -brought this charge, and both of course remain -unanswered." -

- -

-He took the letters from the long envelope and handed -them across the table to Hanaud, who read them through -slowly, mentally translating the phrases into French as -he read. Frobisher watched his face for some expression -of relief or satisfaction. But to his utter disappointment -no such change came; and it was with a deprecating and -almost regretful air that Hanaud turned to him in the -end. -

- -

-"Yes—no doubt these two letters have a certain -importance. But we mustn't exaggerate it. The case is very -difficult." -

- -

-"Difficult!" cried Jim in exasperation. He seemed to -be hammering and hammering in vain against some thick -wall of stupidity. Yet this man in front of him wasn't -stupid. -

- -

-"I can't understand it!" he exclaimed. "Here's the -clearest instance of blackmail that I can imagine——" -

- -

-"Blackmail's an ugly word, Mr. Frobisher," Hanaud -warned him. -

- -

-"And blackmail's an ugly thing," said Jim. "Come, -Monsieur Hanaud, Boris Waberski lives in France. You -will know something about him. You will have a -dossier." -

- -

-Hanaud pounced upon the word with a little whoop -of delight, his face broke into smiles, he shook a -forefinger gleefully at his visitor. -

- -

-"Ah, ah, ah, ah! A dossier! Yes, I was waiting for -that word! The great legend of the dossiers! You have -that charming belief too, Mr. Frobisher. France and her -dossiers! Yes. If her coal-mines fail her, she can always -keep warm by burning her dossiers! The moment you -land for the first time at Calais—bourn! your dossier -begins, eh? You travel to Paris—so! You dine at the -Ritz Hotel—so! Afterwards you go where you ought -not to go—so-o-o! And you go back late to the hotel -very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that somewhere -in the still night six little officials with black beards -and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your -dossier. But—wait!" -

- -

-He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his -lips, and his eyes opened wide. Never was a man so -mysterious, so important in his mystery. He stole on -tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so bulky a man, -to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an alert, -bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the -handle. Then he jerked the door swiftly inwards towards -him. It was the classic detection of the eavesdropper, -seen in a hundred comedies and farces; and carried out -with so excellent a mimicry that Jim, even in this office of -the Sûrété, almost expected to see a flustered chambermaid -sprawl heavily forward on her knees. He saw nothing, -however, but a grimy corridor lit with artificial light -in which men were patiently waiting. Hanaud closed the -door again, with an air of intense relief. -

- -

-"The Prime Minister has not overheard us. We are -safe," he hissed, and he crept back to Frobisher's side. -He stooped and whispered in the ear of that bewildered -man: -

- -

-"I can tell you about those dossiers. They are for -nine-tenths the gossip of the concièrge translated into the -language of a policeman who thinks that everybody had -better be in prison. Thus, the concièrge says: This -Mr. Frobisher—on Tuesday he came home at one in the -morning and on Thursday at three in fancy dress; and in the -policeman's report it becomes, 'Mr. Frobisher is of a loose -and excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier—yes, -my friend, just so! But here in the Sûrété—never -breathe a word of it, or you ruin me!—here we are like -your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the fingers at those -dossiers.'" -

- -

-Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To -change from one mood to another required a progression -of ideas. He hardly knew for the moment whether he -was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago Hanaud -had been the grave agent of Justice; without a hint he -had leaped to buffoonery, and with a huge enjoyment. -He had become half urchin, half clown. Jim could almost -hear the bells of his cap still tinkling. He simply stared, -and Hanaud with a rueful smile resumed his seat. -

- -

-"If we work together at Dijon, Monsieur Frobisher," -he said with whimsical regret, "I shall not enjoy myself -as I did with my dear little friend Mr. Ricardo at Aix. -No, indeed! Had I made this little pantomime for him, -he would have sat with the eyes popping out of his head. -He would have whispered, 'The Prime Minister comes -in the morning to spy outside your door—oh!' and he -would have been thrilled to the marrow of his bones. But -you—you look at me all cold and stony, and you say to -yourself, 'This Hanaud, he is a comic!'" -

- -

-"No," said Jim earnestly, and Hanaud interrupted the -protest with a laugh. -

- -

-"It does not matter." -

- -

-"I am glad," said Jim. "For you just now said something -which I am very anxious you should not withdraw. -You held me out a hope that we should work together." Hanaud -leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. -

- -

-"Listen," he said genially. "You have been frank and -loyal with me. So I relieve your mind. This Waberski -affair—the Prefect at Dijon does not take it very -seriously; neither do I here. It is, of course, a charge of -murder, and that has to be examined with care." -

- -

-"Of course." -

- -

-"And equally, of course, there is some little thing -behind it," Hanaud continued, surprising Frobisher with -the very words which Mr. Haslitt had used the day -before, though the one spoke in English and the other in -French. "As a lawyer you will know that. Some little -unpleasant fact which is best kept to ourselves. But it is -a simple affair, and with these two letters you have -brought me, simpler than ever. We shall ask Waberski -to explain these letters and some other things too, if he -can. He is a type, that Boris Waberski! The body of -Madame Harlowe will be exhumed to-day and the evidence -of the doctors taken, and afterwards, no doubt, -the case will be dismissed and you can deal with Waberski -as you please." -

- -

-"And that little secret?" asked Jim. -

- -

-Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. -

- -

-"No doubt it will come to light. But what does that -matter if it only comes to light in the office of the -examining magistrate, and does not pass beyond the door?" -

- -

-"Nothing at all," Jim agreed. -

- -

-"You will see. We are not so alarming after all, and -your little client can put her pretty head upon the pillow -without any fear that an injustice will be done to her." -

- -

-"Thank you, Monsieur Hanaud!" Jim Frobisher cried -warmly. He was conscious of so great a relief that he -himself was surprised by it. He had been quite captured -by his pity for that unknown girl in the big house, set -upon by a crazy rascal and with no champion but another -girl of her own years. "Yes, this is good news to me." -

- -

-But he had hardly finished speaking before a doubt -crept into his mind as to the sincerity of the man sitting -opposite to him. Jim did not mean to be played and -landed like a silly fish, however inexperienced he might -be. He looked at Hanaud and wondered. Was this -present geniality of his any less assumed than his other -moods? Jim was unsettled in his estimate of the -detective. One moment a judge, and rather implacable, now -an urchin, now a friend! Which was travesty and which -truth? Luckily there was a test question which -Mr. Haslitt had put only yesterday as he looked out from the -window across Russell Square. Jim now repeated it. -

- -

-"The affair is simple, you say?" -

- -

-"Of the simplest." -

- -

-"Then how comes it, Monsieur Hanaud, that the examining -judge at Dijon still finds it necessary to call in to -his assistance one of the chiefs of the Sûrété of Paris?" -

- -

-The question was obviously expected, and no less -obviously difficult to answer. Hanaud nodded his head once -or twice. -

- -

-"Yes," he said, and again "Yes," like a man in doubt. -He looked at Jim with appraising eyes. Then with a -rush, "I shall tell you everything, and when I have told -you, you will give me your word that you will not betray -my confidence to any one in this world. For this is -serious." -

- -

-Jim could not doubt Hanaud's sincerity at this moment, -nor his friendliness. They shone in the man like a strong -flame. -

- -

-"I give you my word now," he said, and he reached out -his hand across the table. Hanaud shook it. "I can talk -to you freely, then," he answered, and he produced a little -blue bundle of very black cigarettes. "You shall smoke." -

- -

-The two men lit their cigarettes and through the blue -cloud Hanaud explained: -

- -

-"I go really to Dijon on quite another matter. This -Waberski affair, it is a pretence! The examining judge -who calls me in—see, now, you have a phrase for him," -and Hanaud proudly dropped into English more or less. -"He excuse his face! Yes, that is your expressive idiom. -He excuse his face, and you will see, my friend, that it -needs a lot of excusing, that face of his, yes. Now listen! -I get hot when I think of that examining judge." -

- -

-He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, setting -his sentence in order, resumed in French. -

- -

-"The little towns, my friend, where life is not very -gay and people have the time to be interested in the affairs -of their neighbours, have their own crimes, and perhaps -the most pernicious of them all is the crime of anonymous -letters. Suddenly out of a clear sky they will come like -a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute -and—who knows?—sometimes perhaps true. For a while -these abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a -word is said. If money is demanded, money is paid. If -it is only sheer wickedness which drives that unknown -pen, those who are lashed by it none the less hold their -tongues. But each one begins to suspect his neighbour. -The social life of the town is poisoned. A great canopy -of terror hangs over it, until the postman's knock, a thing -so welcome in the sane life of every day, becomes a thing -to shiver at, and in the end dreadful things happen." -

- -

-So grave and quiet was the tone which Hanaud used -that Jim himself shivered, even in this room whence he -could see the sunlight sparkling on the river and hear -the pleasant murmur of the Paris streets. Above that -murmur he heard the sharp knock of the postman upon -the door. He saw a white face grow whiter and still -eyes grow haggard with despair. -

- -

-"Such a plague has descended upon Dijon," Hanaud -continued. "For more than a year it has raged. The -police would not apply to Paris for help. No, they did -not need help, they would solve this pretty problem for -themselves. Yes, but the letters go on and the citizens -complain. The police say, 'Hush! The examining -magistrate, he has a clue. Give him time!' But the -letters still go on. Then after a year comes this godsend -of the Waberski affair. At once the Prefect of Police -and the magistrate put their heads together. 'We will -send for Hanaud over this simple affair, and he will find -for us the author of the anonymous letters. We will -send for him very privately, and if any one recognises -him in the street and cries "There is Hanaud," we can say -he is investigating the Waberski affair. Thus the writer -of the letters will not be alarmed and we—we excuse our -faces.' Yes," concluded Hanaud heatedly, "but they -should have sent for me a year ago. They have lost a -year." -

- -

-"And during that year the dreadful things have -happened?" asked Jim. -

- -

-Hanaud nodded angrily. -

- -

-"An old, lonely man who lunches at the hotel and takes -his coffee at the Grande Taverne and does no harm to any -one, he flings himself in front of the Mediterranean -express and is cut to pieces. A pair of lovers shoot -themselves in the Forêt des Moissonières. A young girl comes -home from a ball; she says good night to her friends gaily -on the doorstep of her house, and in the morning she is -found hanging in her ball dress from a rivet in the wall -of her bedroom, whilst in the hearth there are the burnt -fragments of one of these letters. How many had she -received, that poor girl, before this last one drove her to -this madness? Ah, the magistrate. Did I not tell you? -He has need to excuse his face." -

- -

-Hanaud opened a drawer in his desk and took from it -a green cover. -

- -

-"See, here are two of those precious letters," and -removing two typewritten sheets from the cover he handed -them to Frobisher. "Yes," he added, as he saw the disgust -on the reader's face, "those do not make a nice sauce -for your breakfast, do they?" -

- -

-"They are abominable," said Jim. "I wouldn't have -believed——" he broke off with a little cry. "One -moment, Monsieur Hanaud!" He bent his head again over -the sheets of paper, comparing them, scrutinising each -sentence. No, there were only the two errors which he -had noticed at once. But what errors they were! To -any one, at all events, with eyes to see and some luck in -the matter of experience. Why, they limited the area of -search at once! -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud, I can give you some more help," -he cried enthusiastically. He did not notice the broad -grin of delight which suddenly transfigured the detective's -face. "Help which may lead you very quickly to the -writer of these letters." -

- -

-"You can?" Hanaud exclaimed. "Give it to me, my -young friend. Do not keep me shaking in excitement. -And do not—oh! do not tell me that you have discovered -that the letters were typed upon a Corona machine. For -that we know already." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher flushed scarlet. That is just what he -had noticed with so much pride in his perspicuity. Where -the text of a sentence required a capital D, there were -instead the two noughts with the diagonal line separating -them (thus, %), which are the symbol of "per cent."; -and where there should have been a capital S lower down -the page, there was the capital S with the transverse lines -which stands for dollars. Jim was familiar with the -Corona machine himself, and he had remembered that if -one used by error the stop for figures, instead of the stop -for capital letters, those two mistakes would result. He -realised now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of -him—Hanaud was the urchin now—that the Sûrété was -certain not to have overlooked those two indications even -if the magistrate at Dijon had; and in a moment he began -to laugh too. -

- -

-"Well, I fairly asked for it, didn't I?" he said as he -handed the letter back. "I said a wise thing to you, -Monsieur, when I held it fortunate that we were not to be -on opposite sides." -

- -

-Hanaud's face lost its urchin look. -

- -

-"Don't make too much of me, my friend, lest you be -disappointed," he said in all seriousness. "We are the -servants of Chance, the very best of us. Our skill is to -seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when it flashes for the -fraction of a second before our eyes." -

- -

-He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green -cover and laid it again in the drawer. Then he gathered -together the two letters which Boris Waberski had -written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will -go there to-day?" -

- -

-"This afternoon." -

- -

-"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express." -

- -

-"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook -his head. -

- -

-"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay -at the same hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon -that you are the English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and -those in your company will be marked men too. By the -way, how were you informed in London that I, Hanaud, -had been put in charge of this case?" -

- -

-"We had a telegram," replied Jim. -

- -

-"Yes? And from whom? I am curious!" -

- -

-"From Miss Harlowe." -

- -

-For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that -interview quite disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher -could have no doubt. He sat for so long a time, his cigarette -half-way to his lips, a man turned into stone. Then -he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned on -Jim. -

- -

-"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" -he asked. "I am putting to myself a riddle. -Answer it if you can! What is the strongest passion in -the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of these -things. It is the passion of one public official to take a -great big club and hit his brother official on the back of -the head. It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon -so that I may have some little chance of success. Good! -On Saturday it is so arranged, and already on Monday -my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss Harlowe -can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is -kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?" -

- -

-Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it -to Hanaud, who received it with a curious eagerness and -opened it out on the table in front of them. He read it -very slowly, so slowly that Jim wondered whether he too -heard through the lines of the telegram, as through the -receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help -which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud -raised his face all the bitterness had gone from it. -

- -

-"The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The -slender fingers, they do not snap themselves any longer, -eh? Well, in a few days we make all right for her." -

- -

-"Yes," said Jim stoutly. -

- -

-"Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?" and Hanaud held -up the telegraph form. "It mentions my name. It will -be safe with you, no doubt, but it serves no purpose. -Everything which is torn up here is burnt in the evening. -It is for you to say," and he dangled the telegram before -Jim Frobisher's eyes. -

- -

-"By all means," said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram -across. Then he placed the torn pieces together and -tore them through once again and dropped them into his -waste-paper basket. "So! That is done!" he said. -"Now tell me! There is another young English girl in -the Maison Crenelle." -

- -

-"Ann Upcott," said Jim with a nod. -

- -

-"Yes, tell me about her." -

- -

-Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made -to Mr. Haslitt. -

- -

-"I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her -until yesterday." -

- -

-But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with -amazement, Hanaud accepted it without comment. -

- -

-"Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that -young lady at Dijon," he said with a smile, and he rose -from his chair. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which -had begun badly and moved on to cordiality was turning -back upon itself and ending not too well. He was -conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud's manner, not a -diminution in his friendliness, but—Jim could find -nothing but Hanaud's own phrase to define the change. He -seemed to have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as -it flickered for a second within his range of vision. But -when it had flickered Jim could not even conjecture. -

- -

-He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already -at the door with his hand upon the knob. -

- -

-"Good-bye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you -sincerely for your visit." -

- -

-"I shall see you in Dijon," said Jim. -

- -

-"Surely," Hanaud agreed with a smile. "On many -occasions. In the office, perhaps, of the examining -magistrate. No doubt in the Maison Crenelle." -

- -

-But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration -which Hanaud had appeared a few minutes ago not -merely to accept, but even to look forward to. Now, on -the contrary, he was evading it. -

- -

-"But if we are to work together?" Jim suggested. -

- -

-"You might want to reach me quickly," Hanaud -continued. "Yes. And I might want to reach you, if not -so quickly, still very secretly. Yes." He turned the -question over in his mind. "You will stay at the Maison -Crenelle, I suppose?" -

- -

-"No," said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from -Hanaud's little start of disappointment. "There will be -no need for that," he explained. "Boris Waberski can -attempt nothing more. Those two girls will be safe -enough." -

- -

-"That's true," Hanaud agreed. "You will go, then, -to the big hotel in the Place Darcy. For me I shall stay -in one that is more obscure, and not under my own name. -Whatever chance of secrecy is still left for me, that I -shall cling to." -

- -

-He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or -the name under which he proposed to masquerade, and -Jim was careful not to inquire. Hanaud stood with his -hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes thoughtfully -resting upon Frobisher's face. -

- -

-"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, -and a smile warmed and lit his face to good humour. -"Do you like the pictures? No—yes? For me, I adore -them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for the cinema. -I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the -dark—so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a -friend, and when the lights go up we are both gone, and -only our empty bocks are left to show where we were -sitting. The cinemas—yes! With their audiences which -constantly change and new people coming in who sit -plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an -inch beyond their noses, the cinemas are useful, I tell -you. But you will not betray my little secret?" -

- -

-He ended with a laugh. Jim Frobisher's spirits were -quite revived by this renewal of Hanaud's confidence. He -felt with a curious elation that he had travelled a long -way from the sedate dignities of Russell Square. He -could not project in his mind any picture of -Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt meeting a client in a dark corner -of a cinema theatre off the Marylebone Road. Such -manoeuvres were not amongst the firm's methods, and Jim -began to find the change exhilarating. Perhaps, after -all, Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt were a little musty, he -reflected. They missed—and he coined a phrase, he, Jim -Frobisher! ... they missed the ozone of police-work. -

- -

-"Of course I'll keep your secret," he said with a thrill -in his voice. "I should never have thought of so capital -a meeting-place." -

- -

-"Good," said Hanaud. "Then at nine o'clock each -night, unless there is something serious to prevent me, I -shall be sitting in the big hall of the Grande Taverne. -The Grande Taverne is at the corner across the square -from the railway station. You can't mistake it. I shall -be on the left-hand side of the hall and close up to the -screen and at the edge near the billiard-room. Don't look -for me when the lights are raised, and if I am talking to -any one else, you will avoid me like poison. Is that -understood?" -

- -

-"Quite," Jim returned. -

- -

-"And you have now two secrets of mine to keep." Hanaud's -face lost its smile. In some strange way it -seemed to sharpen, the light-coloured eyes became very -still and grave. "That also is understood, Monsieur -Frobisher," he said. "For I begin to think that we may both -of us see strange things before we leave Dijon again for -Paris." -

- -

-The moment of gravity passed. With a bow he held -open the door. But Jim Frobisher, as he passed out into -the corridor, was once again convinced that at some -definite point in the interview Hanaud had at all events -caught a glimpse of the flickering skirts of Chance, even -if he had not grasped them in his hands. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER FOUR: Betty Harlowe -

- -

-Jim Frobisher reached Dijon that night at an hour -too late for any visit, but at half-past nine on the next -morning he turned with a thrill of excitement into the -little street of Charles-Robert. This street was bordered -upon one side, throughout its length, by a high garden -wall above which great sycamores and chestnut trees -rustled friendlily in a stir of wind. Towards the farther -mouth of the street the wall was broken, first by the end of -a house with a florid observation-window of the -Renaissance period which overhung the footway; and again a -little farther on by a pair of elaborate tall iron gates. -Before these gates Jim came to a standstill. He gazed into -the courtyard of the Maison Crenelle, and as he gazed -his excitement died away and he felt a trifle ashamed of -it. There seemed so little cause for excitement. -

- -

-It was a hot, quiet, cloudless morning. On the left-hand -side of the court women-servants were busy in front -of a row of offices; at the end Jim caught glimpses of a -chauffeur moving between a couple of cars in a garage, -and heard him whistling gaily as he moved; on the right -stretched the big house, its steep slate roof marked out -gaily with huge diamond patterns of bright yellow, taking -in the sunlight through all its open windows. The hall -door under the horizontal glass fan stood open. One -of the iron gates, too, was ajar. Even the sergent-de-ville -in his white trousers out in the small street here seemed -to be sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the high -wall rather than exercising any real vigilance. It was -impossible to believe, with all this pleasant evidence of -normal life, that any threat was on that house or upon -any of its inhabitants. -

- -

-"And indeed there is no threat," Jim reflected. "I -have Hanaud's word for it." -

- -

-He pushed the gate open and crossed to the front door. -An old serving-man informed him that Mademoiselle -Harlowe did not receive, but he took Jim's card nevertheless, -and knocked upon a door on the right of the big -square hall. As he knocked, he opened the door; and -from his position in the hall Jim looked right through a -library to a window at the end and saw two figures -silhouetted against the window, a man and a girl. The man -was protesting, rather extravagantly both in word and -gesture, to Jim's Britannic mind, the girl laughing—a -clear, ringing laugh, with just a touch of cruelty, at the -man's protestations. Jim even caught a word or two of -the protest spoken in French, but with a curiously metallic -accent. -

- -

-"I have been your slave too long," the man cried, and -the girl became aware that the door was open and that -the old man stood inside of it with a card upon a silver -salver. She came quickly forward and took the card. -Jim heard the cry of pleasure, and the girl came running -out into the hall. -

- -

-"You!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. "I had no -right to expect you so soon. Oh, thank you!" and she -gave him both her hands. -

- -

-Jim did not need her words to recognise in her the -"little girl" of Mr. Haslitt's description. Little in actual -height Betty Harlowe certainly was not, but she was such -a slender trifle of a girl that the epithet seemed in place. -Her hair was dark brown in colour, with a hint of copper -where the light caught it, parted on one side and very -neatly dressed about her small head. The broad forehead -and oval face were of a clear pallor and made vivid -the fresh scarlet of her lips; and the large pupils of her -grey eyes gave to her a look which was at once haunting -and wistful. As she held out her hands in a warm -gratitude and seized his, she seemed to him a creature of -delicate flame and fragile as fair china. She looked him -over with one swift comprehensive glance and breathed -a little sigh of relief. -

- -

-"I shall give you all my troubles to carry from now -on," she said, with a smile. -

- -

-"To be sure. That's what I am here for," he -answered. "But don't take me for anything very choice -and particular." -

- -

-Betty laughed again and, holding him by the sleeve, -drew him into the library. -

- -

-"Monsieur Espinosa," she said, presenting the stranger -to Jim. "He is from Cataluna, but he spends so much -of his life in Dijon that we claim him as a citizen." -

- -

-The Catalan bowed and showed a fine set of strong -white teeth. -

- -

-"Yes, I have the honour to represent a great Spanish -firm of wine-growers. We buy the wines here to mix -with our better brands, and we sell wine here to mix with -their cheaper ones." -

- -

-"You mustn't give your trade secrets away to me," Jim -replied shortly. He disliked Espinosa on sight, as they -say, and he was at no very great pains to conceal his -dislike. Espinosa was altogether too brilliant a personage. -He was a big, broad-shouldered man with black shining -hair and black shining eyes, a florid complexion, a curled -moustache, and gleaming rings upon his fingers. -

- -

-"Mr. Frobisher has come from London to see me on -quite different business," Betty interposed. -

- -

-"Yes?" said the Catalan a little defiantly, as though he -meant to hold his ground. -

- -

-"Yes," replied Betty, and she held out her hand to him. -Espinosa raised it reluctantly to his lips and kissed it. -

- -

-"I shall see you when you return," said Betty, and she -walked to the door. -

- -

-"If I go away," Espinosa replied stubbornly. "It is not -certain, Mademoiselle Betty, that I shall go"; and with -a ceremonious bow to Jim he walked out of the room; -but not so quickly but that Betty glanced swiftly from -one man to the other with keen comparing eyes, and Jim -detected the glance. She closed the door and turned back -to Jim with a friendly little grimace which somehow put -him in a good humour. He was being compared to another -man to his advantage, and however modest one may -be, such a comparison promotes a pleasant warmth. -

- -

-"More trouble, Miss Harlowe," he said with a smile, -"but this time the sort of trouble which you must expect -for a good many years to come." -

- -

-He moved towards her, and they met at one of the two -side windows which looked out upon the courtyard. -Betty sat down in the window-seat. -

- -

-"I really ought to be grateful to him," she said, "for -he made me laugh. And it seems to me ages since I -laughed"; she looked out of the window and her eyes -suddenly filled with tears. -

- -

-"Oh! don't, please," cried Jim in a voice of trouble. -

- -

-The smile trembled once more on Betty's lips deliciously. -

- -

-"I won't," she replied. -

- -

-"I was so glad to hear you laugh," he continued, "after -your unhappy telegram to my partner and before I told -you my good news." -

- -

-Betty looked up at him eagerly. -

- -

-"Good news?" -

- -

-Jim Frobisher took once more from his long envelope -the two letters which Waberski had sent to his firm and -handed them to Betty. -

- -

-"Read them," he said, "and notice the dates." -

- -

-Betty glanced at the handwriting. -

- -

-"From Monsieur Boris," she cried, and she settled -down in the window-seat to study them. In her short -black frock with her slim legs in their black silk stockings -extended and her feet crossed, and her head and white -neck bent over the sheets of Waberski's letters, she looked -to Jim like a girl fresh from school. She was quick -enough, however, to appreciate the value of the letters. -

- -

-"Of course I always knew that it was money that -Monsieur Boris wanted," she said. "And when my -aunt's will was read and I found that everything had -been left to me, I made up my mind to consult you and -make some arrangement for him." -

- -

-"There was no obligation upon you," Jim protested. -"He wasn't really a relation at all. He married -Mrs. Harlowe's sister, that's all." -

- -

-"I know," replied Betty, and she laughed. "He always -objected to me because I would call him 'Monsieur -Boris' instead of 'uncle.' But I meant to do something -nevertheless. Only he gave me no time. He bullied me -first of all, and I do hate being bullied—don't you, -Mr. Frobisher?" -

- -

-"I do." -

- -

-Betty looked at the letters again. -

- -

-"That's when I snapped me the fingers at him, I suppose," -she continued, with a little gurgle of delight in the -phrase. "Afterwards he brought this horrible charge -against me, and to have suggested any arrangement would -have been to plead guilty." -

- -

-"You were quite right. It would indeed," Jim agreed -cordially. -

- -

-Up to this moment, a suspicion had been lurking at the -back of Jim Frobisher's mind that this girl had been a -trifle hard in her treatment of Boris Waberski. He was -a sponger, a wastrel, with no real claim upon her, it was -true. On the other hand, he had no means of livelihood, -and Mrs. Harlowe, from whom Betty drew her fortune, -had been content to endure and support him. Now, however, -the suspicion was laid, the little blemish upon the -girl removed and by her own frankness. -

- -

-"Then it is all over," Betty said, handing back the -letters to Jim with a sigh of relief. Then she smiled -ruefully—"But just for a little while I was really -frightened," she confessed. "You see, I was sent for and -questioned by the examining magistrate. Oh! I wasn't -frightened by the questions, but by him, the man. I've -no doubt it's his business to look severe, but I couldn't -help thinking that if any one looked as terrifically severe -as he did, it must be because he hadn't any brains and -wanted you not to know. And people without brains are -always dangerous, aren't they?" -

- -

-"Yes, that wasn't encouraging," Jim agreed. -

- -

-"Then he forbade me to use a motor-car, as if he -expected me to run away. And to crown everything, when -I came away from the Palais de Justice, I met some -friends outside who gave me a long list of people who -had been condemned and only found to be innocent when -it was too late." -

- -

-Jim stared at her. -

- -

-"The brutes!" he cried. -

- -

-"Well, we have all got friends like that," Betty returned -philosophically. "Mine, however, were particularly -odious. For they actually discussed, as a reason of -course, why I should engage the very best advocate, -whether, since Mrs. Harlowe had adopted me, the charge -couldn't be made one of matricide. In which case there -could be no pardon, and I must go to the guillotine with -a black veil over my head and naked feet." She saw -horror and indignation in Jim Frobisher's face and she -reached out a hand to him. -

- -

-"Yes. Malice in the provinces is apt to be a little blunt, -though"—and she lifted a slim foot in a shining slipper -and contemplated it whimsically—"I don't imagine that, -given the circumstances, I should be bothering my head -much as to whether I was wearing my best shoes and -stockings or none at all." -

- -

-"I never heard of so abominable a suggestion," cried Jim. -

- -

-"You can imagine, at all events, that I came home a -little rattled," continued Betty, "and why I sent off that -silly panicky telegram. I would have recalled it when I -rose to the surface again. But it was then too late. The -telegram had——" -

- -

-She broke off abruptly with a little rise of inflexion and -a sharp indraw of her breath. -

- -

-"Who is that?" she asked in a changed voice. She -had been speaking quietly and slowly, with an almost -humorous appreciation of the causes of her fear. Now -her question was uttered quickly and anxiety was -predominant in her voice. "Yes, who is that?" she repeated. -

- -

-A big, heavily built man sauntering past the great iron -gates had suddenly whipped into the courtyard. A -fraction of a second before he was an idler strolling along -the path, now he was already disappearing under the big -glass fan of the porch. -

- -

-"It's Hanaud," Jim replied, and Betty rose to her feet -as though a spring in her had been released, and stood -swaying. -

- -

-"You have nothing to fear from Hanaud," Jim Frobisher -reassured her. "I have shown him those two letters -of Waberski. From first to last he is your friend. -Listen. This is what he said to me only yesterday in -Paris." -

- -

-"Yesterday, in Paris?" Betty asked suddenly. -

- -

-"Yes, I called upon him at the Sûrété. These were -his words. I remembered them particularly so that I -could repeat them to you just as they were spoken. 'Your -little client can lay her pretty head upon her pillow -confident that no injustice will be done to her.'" -

- -

-The bell of the front door shrilled through the house -as Jim finished. -

- -

-"Then why is he in Dijon? Why is he at the door -now?" Betty asked stubbornly. -

- -

-But that was the one question which Jim must not -answer. He had received a confidence from Hanaud. -He had pledged his word not to betray it. For a little -while longer Betty must believe that Waberski's accusation -against her was the true reason of Hanaud's presence -in Dijon, and not merely an excuse for it. -

- -

-"Hanaud acts under orders," Jim returned. "He is -here because he was bidden to come"; and to his relief -the answer sufficed. In truth, Betty's thoughts were -diverted to some problem to which he had not the key. -

- -

-"So you called upon Monsieur Hanaud in Paris," she -said, with a warm smile. "You have forgotten nothing -which could help me." She laid a hand upon the sill of -the open window. "I hope that he felt all the flattery -of my panic-stricken telegram to London." -

- -

-"He was simply regretful that you should have been -so distressed." -

- -

-"So you showed him the telegram?" -

- -

-"And he destroyed it. It was my excuse for calling -upon him with the letters." -

- -

-Betty sat down again on the window-seat and lifted a -finger for silence. Outside the door voices were speaking. -Then the door was opened and the old man-servant entered. -He carried this time no card upon a salver, but -he was obviously impressed and a trifle flustered. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle," he began, and Betty interrupted him. -All trace of anxiety had gone from her manner. She -was once more mistress of herself. -

- -

-"I know, Gaston. Show Monsieur Hanaud in at once." -

- -

-But Monsieur Hanaud was already in. He bowed -with a pleasant ceremony to Betty Harlowe and shook -hands cordially with Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-"I was delighted as I came through the court, Mademoiselle, -to see that my friend here was already with you. -For he will have told you that I am not, after all, the ogre -of the fairy-books." -

- -

-"But you never looked up at the windows once," cried -Betty in perplexity. -

- -

-Hanaud smiled gaily. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, it is in the technique of my trade never -to look up at windows and yet to know what is going on -behind them. With your permission?" And he laid his -hat and cane upon a big writing-table in the middle of the -room. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER FIVE: Betty Harlowe Answers -

- -

-"But we cannot see even through the widest of -windows," Hanaud continued, "what happened behind -them a fortnight ago. In those cases, Mademoiselle, we -have to make ourselves the nuisance and ask the questions." -

- -

-"I am ready to answer you," returned Betty quietly. -

- -

-"Oh, of that—not a doubt," Hanaud cried genially. -"Is it permitted to me to seat myself? Yes?" -

- -

-Betty jumped up, the pallor of her face flushed to pink. -

- -

-"I beg your pardon. Of course, Monsieur Hanaud." -

- -

-That little omission in her manners alone showed Jim -Frobisher that she was nervous. But for it, he would -have credited her with a self-command almost unnatural -in her years. -

- -

-"It is nothing," said Hanaud with a smile. "After all, -we are—the gentlest of us—disturbing guests." He took -a chair from the side of the table and drew it up close so -that he faced Betty. But whatever advantage was to be -gained from the positions he yielded to her. For the -light from the window fell in all its morning strength -upon his face, whilst hers was turned to the interior of -the room. -

- -

-"So!" he said as he sat down. "Mademoiselle, I will -first give you a plan of our simple procedure, as at present -I see it. The body of Madame Harlowe was exhumed -the night before last in the presence of your notary." -

- -

-Betty moved suddenly with a little shiver of revolt. -

- -

-"I know," he continued quickly. "These necessities -are distressing. But we do Madame Harlowe no hurt, -and we have to think of the living one, you, Miss Betty -Harlowe, and make sure that no suspicion shall rest upon -you—no, not even amongst your most loyal friends. -Isn't that so? Well, next, I put my questions to you -here. Then we wait for the analyst's report. Then the -Examining Magistrate will no doubt make you his -compliments, and I, Hanaud, will, if I am lucky, carry back -with me to that dull Paris, a signed portrait of the -beautiful Miss Harlowe against my heart." -

- -

-"And that will be all?" cried Betty, clasping her hands -together in her gratitude. -

- -

-"For you, Mademoiselle, yes. But for our little -Boris—no!" Hanaud grinned with a mischievous anticipation. -"I look forward to half an hour with that broken-kneed -one. I shall talk to him and I shall not be dignified—no, -not at all. I shall take care, too, that my good friend -Monsieur Frobisher is not present. He would take from -me all my enjoyment. He would look at me all prim like -my maiden aunt and he would say to himself, 'Shocking! -Oh, that comic! What a fellow! He is not proper.' No, -and I shall not be proper. But, on the other hand, I -will laugh all the way from Dijon to Paris." -

- -

-Monsieur Hanaud had indeed begun to laugh already -and Betty suddenly joined in with him. Hers was a -clear, ringing laugh of enjoyment, and Jim fancied -himself once more in the hall hearing that laughter come -pealing through the open door. -

- -

-"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Hanaud. "You can -laugh, Mademoiselle, even at my foolishnesses. You must -keep Monsieur Frobisher here in Dijon and not let him -return to London until he too has learnt that divinest of -the arts." -

- -

-Hanaud hitched his chair a little nearer, and a most -uncomfortable image sprang at once into Jim Frobisher's -mind. Just so, with light words and little jokes squeezed -out to tenuity, did doctors hitch up their chairs to the -bedsides of patients in a dangerous case. It took quite a -few minutes of Hanaud's questions before that image -entirely vanished from his thoughts. -

- -

-"Good!" said Hanaud. "Now let us to business and -get the facts all clear and ordered!" -

- -

-"Yes," Jim agreed, and he too hitched his chair a little -closer. It was curious, he reflected, how little he did -know of the actual facts of the case. -

- -

-"Now tell me, Mademoiselle! Madame Harlowe died, -so far as we know, quite peacefully in her bed during the -night." -

- -

-"Yes," replied Betty. -

- -

-"During the night of April the 27th?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"She slept alone in her room that night?" -

- -

-"Yes, Monsieur." -

- -

-"That was her rule?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"I understand Madame Harlowe's heart had given her -trouble for some time." -

- -

-"She had been an invalid for three years." -

- -

-"And there was a trained nurse always in the house?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"Now tell me, Mademoiselle, where did this nurse -sleep? Next door to Madame?" -

- -

-"No. A bedroom had been fitted up for her on the -same floor but at the end of the passage." -

- -

-"And how far away was this bedroom?" -

- -

-"There were two rooms separating it from my aunt's." -

- -

-"Large rooms?" -

- -

-"Yes," Betty explained. "These rooms are on the -ground-floor, and are what you would call reception-rooms. -But, since Madame's heart made the stairs dangerous -for her, some of them were fitted up especially for -her use." -

- -

-"Yes, I see," said Hanaud. "Two big reception-rooms -between, eh? And the walls of the house are thick. It is -not difficult to see that it was not built in these days. I -ask you this, Mademoiselle. Would a cry from Madame -Harlowe at night, when all the house was silent, be heard -in the nurse's room?" -

- -

-"I am very sure that it would not," Betty returned. -"But there was a bell by Madame's bed which rang in -the nurse's room. She had hardly to lift her arm to press -the button." -

- -

-"Ah!" said Hanaud. "A bell specially fitted up?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And the button within reach of the fingers. Yes. -That is all very well, if one does not faint, Mademoiselle. -But suppose one does! Then the bell is not very useful. -Was there no room nearer which could have been set -aside for the nurse?" -

- -

-"There was one next to my aunt's room, Monsieur -Hanaud, with a communicating door." -

- -

-Hanaud was puzzled and sat back in his chair. Jim -Frobisher thought the time had come for him to interpose. -He had been growing more and more restless as the -catechism progressed. He could not see any reason why -Betty, however readily and easily she answered, should -be needlessly pestered. -

- -

-"Surely, Monsieur Hanaud," he said, "it would save a -deal of time if we paid a visit to these rooms and saw -them for ourselves." -

- -

-Hanaud swung round like a thing on a swivel. Admiration -beamed in his eyes. He gazed at his junior colleague -in wonder. -

- -

-"But what an idea!" he cried enthusiastically. "What -a fine idea! How ingenious! How difficult to conceive! -And it is you, Monsieur Frobisher, who have thought of -it! I make you my distinguished compliments!" Then -all his enthusiasm declined into lassitude. "But what a -pity!" -

- -

-Hanaud waited intently for Jim to ask for an explanation -of that sigh, but Jim simply got red in the face and -refused to oblige. He had obviously made an asinine -suggestion and was being rallied for it in front of the -beautiful Betty Harlowe, who looked to him for her -salvation; and on the whole he thought Hanaud to be a rather -insufferable person as he sat there brightly watching for -some second inanity. Hanaud in the end had to explain. -

- -

-"We should have visited those rooms before now, -Monsieur Frobisher. But the Commissaire of Police has -sealed them up and without his presence we must not -break the seals." -

- -

-An almost imperceptible movement was made by Betty -Harlowe in the window; an almost imperceptible smile -flickered for the space of a lightning-flash upon her lips; -and Jim saw Hanaud stiffen like a watch-dog when he -hears a sound at night. -

- -

-"You are amused, Mademoiselle?" he asked sharply. -

- -

-"On the contrary, Monsieur." -

- -

-And the smile reappeared upon her face and was seen -to be what it was, pure wistfulness. "I had a hope those -great seals with their linen bands across the doors were -all now to be removed. It is fanciful, no doubt, but I -have a horror of them. They seem to me like an interdict -upon the house." -

- -

-Hanaud's manner changed in an instant. -

- -

-"That I can very well understand, Mademoiselle," he -said, "and I will make it my business to see that those -seals are broken. Indeed, there was no great use in -affixing them, since they were only affixed when the charge -was brought and ten days after Madame Harlowe died." He -turned to Jim. "But we in France are all tied up in -red tape, too. However, the question at which I am -driving does not depend upon any aspect of the rooms. It -is this, Mademoiselle," and he turned back to Betty. -

- -

-"Madame Harlowe was an invalid with a nurse in constant -attendance. How is it that the nurse did not sleep -in that suitable room with the communicating-door? -Why must she be where she could hear no cry, no sudden -call?" -

- -

-Betty nodded her head. Here was a question which -demanded an answer. She leaned forward, choosing her -words with care. -

- -

-"Yes, but for that, Monsieur, you must understand -something of Madame my aunt and put yourself for a -moment in her place. She would have it so. She was, as -you say, an invalid. For three years she had not gone -beyond the garden except in a private saloon once a year -to Monte Carlo. But she would not admit her malady. -No, she was in her mind strong and a fighter. She was -going to get well, it was always a question of a few weeks -with her, and a nurse in her uniform always near with -the door open, as though she were in the last stages of -illness—that distressed her." Betty paused and went on -again. "Of course, when she had some critical attack, -the nurse was moved. I myself gave the order. But as -soon as the attack subsided, the nurse must go. Madame -would not endure it." -

- -

-Jim understood that speech. Its very sincerity gave -him a glimpse of the dead woman, made him appreciate -her tough vitality. She would not give in. She did not -want the paraphernalia of malady always about her. No, -she would sleep in her own room, and by herself, like -other women of her age. Yes, Jim understood that and -believed every word that Betty spoke. Only—only—she -was keeping something back. It was that which troubled -him. What she said was true, but there was more to be -said. There had been hesitation in Betty's speech, too -nice a choice of words and then suddenly a little rush of -phrases to cover up the hesitations. He looked at -Hanaud, who was sitting without a movement and with his -eyes fixed upon Betty's face, demanding more from her -by his very impassivity. They were both, Jim felt sure, -upon the edge of that little secret which, according to -Haslitt as to Hanaud was always at the back of such wild -charges as Waberski brought—the little shameful family -secret which must be buried deep from the world's eyes. -And while Jim was pondering upon this explanation of -Betty's manner, he was suddenly startled out of his wits -by a passionate cry which broke from her lips. -

- -

-"Why do you look at me like that?" she cried to Hanaud, -her eyes suddenly ablaze in her white face and her -lips shaking. Her voice rose to a challenge. -

- -

-"Do you disbelieve me, Monsieur Hanaud?" -

- -

-Hanaud raised his hands in protest. He leaned back -in his chair. The vigilance of his eyes, of his whole -attitude, was relaxed. -

- -

-"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he said with a -good deal of self-reproach. "I do not disbelieve you. I -was listening with both my ears to what you said, so that -I might never again have to trouble you with my -questions. But I should have remembered, what I forgot, -that for a number of days you have been living under a -heavy strain. My manner was at fault." -

- -

-The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back -in the corner of the window-seat, her head resting against -the side of the sash and her face a little upturned. -

- -

-"You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud," -she returned. "It is I who should beg your pardon. For -I was behaving like a hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go -on with your questions?" -

- -

-"Yes," Hanaud replied gently. "It is better that we -finish with them now. Let us come back to the night of -the twenty-seventh!" -

- -

-"Yes, Monsieur." -

- -

-"Madame was in her usual health that night—neither -better nor worse." -

- -

-"If anything a little better," returned Betty. -

- -

-"So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a -dance given by some friends of yours?" -

- -

-Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house -on that fatal night. Here was a new point in her favour. -"A dance!" he cried, and Hanaud lifted his hand. -

- -

-"If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!" he said. "Let -Mademoiselle speak!" -

- -

-"I did not hesitate," Betty explained. "The life of the -household had to go on normally. It would never have -done for me to do unusual things. Madame was quick -to notice. I think that although she would not admit -that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind -she suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not -to alarm her." -

- -

-"By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a -dance to which she knew that you had meant to go?" said -Hanaud. "Yes, Mademoiselle. I quite understand that." -

- -

-He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with -a smile, "Ah, you did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. -No, nor our friend Boris Waberski, I think. Or -he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of Police in -such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her -friends on this night when she is supposed to be -committing the most monstrous of crimes. By the way, -Mademoiselle, where was Boris Waberski on the night of the -27th?" -

- -

-"He was away," returned Betty. "He went away on -the 25th to fish for trout at a village on the River Ouche, -and he did not come back until the morning of the 28th." -

- -

-"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What a type that fellow! -Let us hope he had a better landing-net for his trout than -the one he prepared so hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. -Otherwise his three days' sport cannot have amounted to -much." -

- -

-His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon -Betty's face and then he swept back to his questions. -

- -

-"So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?" -

- -

-"At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the -Boulevard Thiers." -

- -

-"And at what hour did you go?" -

- -

-"I left this house at five minutes to nine." -

- -

-"You are sure of the hour?" -

- -

-"Quite," said Betty. -

- -

-"Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?" -

- -

-"Yes," Betty answered. "I went to her room just before -I left. She took her dinner in bed, as she often did. -I was wearing for the dance a new frock which I had -bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and I went to her -room to show her how I looked in it." -

- -

-"Was Madame alone?" -

- -

-"No; the nurse was with her." -

- -

-And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance -of cunning. -

- -

-"I knew that, Mademoiselle," he declared with a -friendly grin. "See, I set a little trap for you. For I -have here the evidence of the nurse herself, Jeanne -Baudin." -

- -

-He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon -which a paragraph was typed. "Yes, the examining -magistrate sent for her and took her statement." -

- -

-"I didn't know that," said Betty. "Jeanne left us the -day of the funeral and went home. I have not seen her -since." -

- -

-She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile -of appreciation. -

- -

-"I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide -from you, Monsieur Hanaud," she said admiringly. "I -do not think that I should be able to hide it for long." -

- -

-Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, -to Jim Frobisher's thinking, rather like a very vulgar -novice. -

- -

-"You are wise, Mademoiselle," he exclaimed. "For, -after all, I am Hanaud. There is only one," and he -thumped his chest and beamed delightedly. "Heavens, -these are politenesses! Let us get on. This is what the -nurse declared," and he read aloud from his sheet of -paper: -

- -

-"Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame -might admire her in her new frock of silver tissue and -her silver slippers. Mademoiselle arranged the pillows -and saw that Madame had her favourite books and her -drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, -and with her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she -tripped out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, -Madame said to me——" and Hanaud broke off abruptly. -"But that does not matter," he said in a hurry. -

- -

-Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward. -

- -

-"Does it not, Monsieur?" she asked, her eyes fixed -upon his face, and the blood mounting slowly into her -pale cheeks. -

- -

-"No," said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet -of paper. -

- -

-"What does the nurse report that Madame said to her -about me, as soon as the door was closed?" Betty asked, -measuring out her words with a slow insistence. "Come, -Monsieur! I have a right to know," and she held out -her hand for the paper. -

- -

-"You shall judge for yourself that it was of no -importance," said Hanaud. "Listen!" and once more he -read. -

- -

-"Madame said to me, looking at her clock, 'It is well -that Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not -Paris, and unless you go in time there are no partners -for you to dance with.' It was then ten minutes to nine." -

- -

-With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty's hand; -and she bent her head over it swiftly, as though she -doubted whether what he had recited was really written -on that sheet, as if she rather trembled to think what -Mrs. Harlowe had said of her after she had gone from -the room. She took only a second or two to glance over -the page, but when she handed it back to him, her manner -was quite changed. -

- -

-"Thank you," she said with a note of bitterness, and -her deep eyes gleamed with resentment. Jim understood -the change and sympathised with it. Hanaud had spoken -of setting a trap when he had set none. For there was no -conceivable reason why she should hesitate to admit that -she had seen Mrs. Harlowe in the presence of the nurse, -and wished her good night before she went to the party. -But he had set a real trap a minute afterwards and into -that Betty had straightway stumbled. He had tricked -her into admitting a dread that Mrs. Harlowe might have -spoken of her in disparagement or even in horror after -she had left the bedroom. -

- -

-"You must know, Monsieur Hanaud," she explained -very coldly, "that women are not always very generous -to one another, and sometimes have not the imagination—how -shall I put it?—to visualise the possible consequences -of things they may say with merely the intention -to hurt and do a little harm. Jeanne Baudin and I -were, so far as I ever knew, good friends, but one is never -sure, and when you folded up her statement in a hurry I -was naturally very anxious to hear the rest of it." -

- -

-"Yes, I agree," Jim intervened. "It did look as if the -nurse might have added something malevolent, which -could neither be proved nor disproved." -

- -

-"It was a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle," Hanaud -replied in a voice of apology. "We will take care that -there shall not be any other." He looked over the nurse's -statement again. -

- -

-"It is said here that you saw that Madame had her -favourite books and her drink beside the bed. That is -true." -

- -

-"Yes, Monsieur." -

- -

-"What was that drink?" -

- -

-"A glass of lemonade." -

- -

-"It was placed on a table, I suppose, ready for her every -night?" -

- -

-"Every night." -

- -

-"And there was no narcotic dissolved in it?" -

- -

-"None," Betty replied. "If Mrs. Harlowe was restless, -the nurse would give an opium pill and very -occasionally a slight injection of morphia." -

- -

-"But that was not done on this night?" -

- -

-"Not to my knowledge. If it was done, it was done -after my departure." -

- -

-"Very well," said Hanaud, and he folded the paper -and put it away in his pocket. "That is finished with. -We have you now out of the house at five minutes to nine -in the evening, and Madame in her bed with her health -no worse than usual." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Good!" Hanaud changed his attitude. "Now let us -go over your evening, Mademoiselle! I take it that you -stayed at the house of M. de Pouillac until you returned -home." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"You remember with whom you danced? If it was -necessary, could you give me a list of your partners?" -

- -

-She rose and, crossing to the writing table, sat down -in front of it. She drew a sheet of paper towards her and -took up a pencil. Pausing now and again to jog her -memory with the blunt end of the pencil at her lips, she -wrote down a list of names. -

- -

-"These are all, I think," she said, handing the list to -Hanaud. He put it in his pocket. -

- -

-"Thank you!" He was all contentment now. Although -his questions followed without hesitation, one -upon the other, it seemed to Jim that he was receiving -just the answers which he expected. He had the air of -a man engaged upon an inevitable formality and anxious -to get it completely accomplished, rather than of one -pressing keenly a strict investigation. -

- -

-"Now, Mademoiselle, at what hour did you arrive home?" -

- -

-"At twenty minutes past one." -

- -

-"You are sure of that exact time? You looked at your -watch? Or at the clock in the hall? Or what? How are -you sure that you reached the Maison Crenelle exactly at -twenty minutes past one?" -

- -

-Hanaud hitched his chair a little more forward, but -he had not to wait a second for the answer. -

- -

-"There is no clock in the hall and I had no watch with -me," Betty replied. "I don't like those wrist-watches -which some girls wear. I hate things round my wrists," -and she shook her arm impatiently, as though she imagined -the constriction of a bracelet. "And I did not put -my watch in my hand-bag because I am so liable to leave -that behind. So I had nothing to tell me the time when I -reached home. I was not sure that I had not kept Georges—the -chauffeur—out a little later than he cared for. So -I made him my excuse, explaining that I didn't really -know how late I was." -

- -

-"I see. It was Georges who told you the time at the -actual moment of your arrival?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And Georges is no doubt the chauffeur whom I saw -at work as I crossed the courtyard?" -

- -

-"Yes. He told me that he was glad to see me have a -little gaiety, and he took out his watch and showed it to -me with a laugh." -

- -

-"This happened at the front door, or at those big iron -gates, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"At the front door. There is no lodge-keeper and the -gates are left open when any one is out." -

- -

-"And how did you get into the house?" -

- -

-"I used my latch-key." -

- -

-"Good! All this is very clear." -

- -

-Betty, however, was not mollified by Hanaud's -satisfaction with her replies. Although she answered him -without delay, her answers were given mutinously. Jim -began to be a little troubled. She should have met -Hanaud half-way; she was imprudently petulant. -

- -

-"She'll make an enemy of this man before she has -done," he reflected uneasily. But he glanced at the -detective and was relieved. For Hanaud was watching her -with a smile which would have disarmed any less offended -young lady—a smile half friendliness and half amusement. -Jim took a turn upon himself. -

- -

-"After all," he argued, "this very imprudence pleads -for her better than any calculation. The guilty don't -behave like that." And he waited for the next stage in the -examination with an easy mind. -

- -

-"Now we have got you back home and within the -Maison Crenelle before half past one in the morning," -resumed Hanaud. "What did you do then?" -

- -

-"I went straight upstairs to my bedroom," said Betty. -

- -

-"Was your maid waiting up for you, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"No; I had told her that I should be late and that I -could undress myself." -

- -

-"You are considerate, Mademoiselle. No wonder that -your servants were pleased that you should have a little -gaiety." -

- -

-Even that advance did not appease the offended girl. -

- -

-"Yes?" she asked with a sort of silky sweetness which -was more hostile than any acid rejoinder. But it did -not stir Hanaud to any resentment. -

- -

-"When, then, did you first hear of Madame Harlowe's -death?" was asked. -

- -

-"The next morning my maid Francine came running -into my room at seven o'clock. The nurse Jeanne had -just discovered it. I slipped on my dressing-gown and -ran downstairs. As soon as I saw that it was true, I rang -up the two doctors who were in the habit of attending -here." -

- -

-"Did you notice the glass of lemonade?" -

- -

-"Yes. It was empty." -

- -

-"Your maid is still with you?" -

- -

-"Yes—Francine Rollard. She is at your disposal." -

- -

-Hanaud shrugged his shoulders and smiled doubtfully. -

- -

-"That, if it is necessary at all, can come later. We -have the story of your movements now from you, -Mademoiselle, and that is what is important." -

- -

-He rose from his chair. -

- -

-"I have been, I am afraid, a very troublesome person, -Mademoiselle Harlowe," he said with a bow. "But it is -very necessary for your own sake that no obscurities -should be left for the world's suspicions to play with. -And we are very close to the end of this ordeal." -

- -

-Jim had nursed a hope the moment Hanaud rose that -this wearing interview had already ended. Betty, for her -part, was indifferent. -

- -

-"That is for you to say, Monsieur," she said implacably. -

- -

-"Just two points then, and I think, upon reflection, -you will understand that I have asked you no question -which is unfair." -

- -

-Betty bowed. -

- -

-"Your two points, Monsieur." -

- -

-"First, then. You inherit, I believe, the whole fortune -of Madame?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Did you expect to inherit it all? Did you know of her -will?" -

- -

-"No. I expected that a good deal of the money would -be left to Monsieur Boris. But I don't remember that she -ever told me so. I expected it, because Monsieur Boris -so continually repeated that it was so." -

- -

-"No doubt," said Hanaud lightly. "As to yourself, -was Madame generous to you during her life." -

- -

-The hard look disappeared from Betty's face. It -softened to sorrow and regret. -

- -

-"Very," she answered in a low voice. "I had one -thousand pounds a year as a regular allowance, and a -thousand pounds goes a long way in Dijon. Besides, if I -wanted more, I had only to ask for it." -

- -

-Betty's voice broke in a sob suddenly and Hanaud -turned away with a delicacy for which Jim was not -prepared. He began to look at the books upon the shelves, -that she might have time to control her sorrow, taking -down one here, one there, and speaking of them in a casual -tone. -

- -

-"It is easy to see that this was the library of Monsieur -Simon Harlowe," he said, and was suddenly brought to a -stop. For the door was thrown open and a girl broke into -the room. -

- -

-"Betty," she began, and stood staring from one to -another of Betty's visitors. -

- -

-"Ann, this is Monsieur Hanaud," said Betty with a -careless wave of her hand, and Ann went white as a -sheet. -

- -

-Ann! Then this girl was Ann Upcott, thought Jim -Frobisher, the girl who had written to him, the girl, all -acquaintanceship with whom he had twice denied, and he -had sat side by side with her, he had even spoken to her. -She swept across the room to him. -

- -

-"So you have come!" she cried. "But I knew that you -would!" -

- -

-Jim was conscious of a mist of shining yellow hair, a -pair of sapphire eyes, and of a face impertinently lovely -and most delicate in its colour. -

- -

-"Of course I have come," he said feebly, and Hanaud -looked on with a smile. He had an eye on Betty Harlowe, -and the smile said as clearly as words could say, -"That young man is going to have a deal of trouble -before he gets out of Dijon." -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER SIX: Jim Changes His Lodging -

- -

-The library was a big oblong room with two tall -windows looking into the court, and the observation -window thrown out at the end over the footway of the -street. A door in the inner wall close to this window led -to a room behind, and a big open fire-place faced the -windows on the court. For the rest, the walls were lined with -high book-shelves filled with books, except for a vacant -space here and there where a volume had been removed. -Hanaud put back in its place the book which he had been -holding in his hand. -

- -

-"One can easily see that this is the library of Simon -Harlowe, the collector," he said. "I have always thought -that if one only had the time to study and compare the -books which a man buys and reads, one would more -surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But -alas! one never has the time." He turned towards Jim -Frobisher regretfully. "Come and stand with me, Monsieur -Frobisher. For even a glance at the backs of them -tells one something." -

- -

-Jim took his place by Hanaud's side. -

- -

-"Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and -another—pronounce that title for me, if you please." -

- -

-Jim read the title of the book on which Hanaud's finger -was placed. -

- -

-"Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain." -

- -

-Hanaud repeated the inscription and moved along. -From a shelf at the level of his breast and just to the -left of the window in which Betty was sitting, he took a -large, thinnish volume in a paper cover, and turned over -the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea Enamel. -

- -

-"There should be a second volume," said Jim Frobisher -with a glance at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of -remarks. He was not paying any attention to the -paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For he was really -engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his -side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some -swift look of understanding as it was exchanged by the -two girls, some sign that they were in a collusion? If so, -he was to be disappointed. For though Betty and Ann -were now free from Hanaud's vigilant eye, neither of -them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. -Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. -He answered Jim's suggestion. -

- -

-"Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. -But this is complete," he said, and he put back the -book in its place. There was room next to it for another -quarto book, so long as it was no thicker, and Hanaud -rested his finger in the vacant place on the shelf, with his -thoughts clearly far away. -

- -

-Betty recalled him to his surroundings. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud," she said in her quiet voice from -her seat in the window, "there was a second point, you -said, on which you would like to ask me a question." -

- -

-"Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it." -

- -

-He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood -so that he had both girls in front of him, Betty on his -left in the window, Ann Upcott standing a little apart -upon his right, gazing at him with a look of awe. -

- -

-"Have you, Mademoiselle," he asked, "been pestered, -since Boris Waberski brought his accusation, with any -of these anonymous letters which seem to be flying about -Dijon?" -

- -

-"I have received one," answered Betty, and Ann Upcott -raised her eyebrows in surprise. "It came on Sunday -morning. It was very slanderous, of course, and I should -have taken no notice of it but for one thing. It told me -that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming from Paris to -take up the case." -

- -

-"Oho!" said Hanaud softly. "And you received this -letter on the Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, -Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-Betty shook her head. -

- -

-"No, Monsieur." -

- -

-Hanaud smiled. -

- -

-"Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should -be destroyed." -

- -

-"No, I didn't," Betty answered. "I kept it. I put it -away in a drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. -But that room is sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. -The letter is in the drawer still." -

- -

-Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction. -

- -

-"It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle," he said -contentedly. But the contentment passed. "So the Commissaire -of Police actually sealed up your private sitting-room. -That, to be sure, was going a little far." -

- -

-Betty shrugged her shoulders. -

- -

-"It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. -And after all I was accused!" she said bitterly; but Ann -Upcott was not satisfied to leave the matter there. She -drew a step nearer to Betty and then looked at Hanaud. -

- -

-"But that is not all the truth," she said. "Betty's room -belongs to that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe's -bedroom was arranged. It is the last room of the -suite opening on to the hall, and for that reason, as the -Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to -seal it up with the others." -

- -

-"I thank you, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud with a -smile. "Yes, that of course softens his action." He -looked whimsically at Betty in the window-seat. "It has -been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend Mademoiselle -Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome -dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I -understand, on the Saturday morning twelve days ago!" -

- -

-"Yes, Monsieur," said Ann Upcott. -

- -

-"And after the funeral, on your return to this house, -the notary opened and read the will?" -

- -

-"Yes, Monsieur." -

- -

-"And in Boris Waberski's presence?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of -May, he goes off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous -letter?" -

- -

-Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in -answer. -

- -

-"And a little later on the same morning comes the -Commissaire, who seals the doors." -

- -

-"At eleven o'clock, to be exact," replied Ann Upcott. -

- -

-Hanaud bowed low. -

- -

-"You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the -precise hour at which things happen. It is a rare gift, and -very useful to people like myself." -

- -

-Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her -manner with each answer that she gave. Now she could -laugh outright. -

- -

-"I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud," she said. "But -alas! I was born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, -a book disarranged, a clock not keeping time, or even a -pin on the carpet—I cannot bear these things. I notice -them at once and I must put them straight. Yes, it was -precisely eleven o'clock when the Commissaire of Police -rang the bell." -

- -

-"Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?" -Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"No. We both of us thought his negligence strange," -Ann replied, "until he informed us that the Examining -Magistrate wanted everything left just as it was." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed genially. -

- -

-"That was on my account," he explained. "Who could -tell what wonderful things Hanaud might not discover -with his magnifying glass when he arrived from Paris? -What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! What scraps -of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, -Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, -even Hanaud would not expect to make any startling -discoveries in rooms which had been open to the whole -household for a fortnight since the crime. However," -and he moved towards the door, "since I am here -now——" -

- -

-Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. -Hanaud stopped and swung round upon her, swiftly, with -his eyes very challenging and hard. -

- -

-"You are going to break those seals now?" she asked -with a curious breathlessness. "Then may I come with -you—please, please! It is I who am accused. I have a -right to be present," and her voice rose into an earnest -cry. -

- -

-"Calm yourself, Mademoiselle," Hanaud returned -gently. "No advantage will be taken of you. I am going -to break no seals. That, as I have told you, is the -right of the Commissaire, who is a magistrate, and he -will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, -what I was going to propose was that Mademoiselle -here," and he pointed to Ann, "should show me the outside -of those reception-rooms and the rest of the house." -

- -

-"Of course," said Betty, and she sat down again in the -window-seat. -

- -

-"Thank you," said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann -Upcott. "Shall we go? And as we go, will you tell me -what you think of Boris Waberski?" -

- -

-"He has some nerve. I can tell you that, Monsieur -Hanaud," Ann cried. "He actually came back to this -house after he had lodged his charge, and asked me to -support him"; and she passed out of the room in front of -Hanaud. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher followed the couple to the door and -closed it behind them. The last few minutes had set his -mind altogether at rest. The author of the anonymous -letters was the detective's real quarry. His manner had -quite changed when putting his questions about them. -The flamboyancies and the indifference, even his -amusement at Betty's ill-humour had quite disappeared. He -had got to business watchfully, quietly. Jim came back -into the room. He took his cigarette-case from his pocket -and opened it. -

- -

-"May I smoke?" he asked. As he turned to Betty for -permission, a fresh shock brought his thoughts and words -alike to a standstill. She was staring at him with panic -naked in her eyes and her face set like a tragic mask. -

- -

-"He believes me guilty," she whispered. -

- -

-"No," said Jim, and he went to her side. But she -would not listen. -

- -

-"He does. I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was -bound to? He was sent from Paris. He has his reputation -to think of. He must have his victim before he -returns." -

- -

-Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had -only to tell the real cause which had fetched Hanaud out -of Paris and Betty's distress was gone. But he could -not. Every tradition of his life strove to keep him silent. -He dared not even tell her that this charge against her -was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little -while longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. -

- -

-"Betty, don't believe that!" he said, with a consciousness -of how weak that phrase was compared with the -statement he could have made. "I was watching Hanaud, -listening to him. I am sure that he already knew the -answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he -even knew that Simon Harlowe had a passion for collecting, -though not a word had been said of it. He was asking -questions to see how you would answer them, setting -now and then a little trap, as he admitted——" -

- -

-"Yes," said Betty in trembling voice, "all the time he -was setting traps." -

- -

-"And every answer that you gave, even your manner -in giving them," Jim continued stoutly, "more and more -made clear your innocence." -

- -

-"To him?" asked Betty. -

- -

-"Yes, to him. I am sure of it." -

- -

-Betty Harlowe caught at his arm and held it in both -her hands. She leaned her head against it. Through the -sleeve of his coat he felt the velvet of her cheek. -

- -

-"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Jim," and -as she pronounced the name she smiled. She was thanking -him not so much for the stout confidence of his words, -as for the comfort which the touch of him gave to her. -

- -

-"Very likely I am making too much of little things," she -went on. "Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur -Hanaud. But he lives amidst crimes and criminals. He -must be so used to seeing people condemned and passing -out of sight into blackness and horrors, that one more -or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, -wouldn't seem to matter very much." -

- -

-"Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust," Jim -Frobisher remarked gently. -

- -

-"Very well, I take it back," she said, and she let his -arm go. "All the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not -to him," and she laughed with an appealing tremor in the -laugh which took his heart by storm. -

- -

-"Luckily," said he, "you don't have to look to any one," -and he had hardly finished the sentence before Ann -Upcott came back alone into the room. She was about -Betty's height and Betty's age and had the same sort of -boyish slenderness and carriage which marks the girls of -this generation. But in other respects, even to the colour -of her clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be -from another. She was dressed in white from her coat to -her shoes, and she wore a big gold hat so that one was -almost at a loss to know where her hat ended and her -hair began. -

- -

-"And Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. -

- -

-"He is prowling about by himself," she replied. "I -showed him all the rooms and who used them, and he -said that he would have a look at them and sent me back -to you." -

- -

-"Did he break the seals on the reception-rooms?" Betty -Harlowe asked. -

- -

-"Oh, no," said Ann. "Why, he told us that he couldn't -do that without the Commissaire." -

- -

-"Yes, he told us that," Betty remarked dryly. "But I -was wondering whether he meant what he told us." -

- -

-"Oh, I don't think Monsieur Hanaud's alarming," said -Ann. She gave Jim Frobisher the impression that at any -moment she might call him a dear old thing. She had -quite got over the first little shock which the announcement -of his presence had caused her. "Besides," and she -sat down by the side of Betty in the window-seat and -looked with the frankest confidence at Jim—"besides, we -can feel safe now, anyway." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair. That -queer look of aloofness had played him false with Ann -Upcott now, as it had already done with Betty. If these -two girls had called on him for help when a sudden squall -found them in an open sailing-boat with the sheet of the -sail made fast, or on the ice-slope of a mountain, or with -a rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest -of the Nile, he would not have shrunk from their trust. -But this was quite a different matter. They were calmly -pitting him against Hanaud. -

- -

-"You were safe before," he exclaimed. "Hanaud is -not your enemy, and as for me, I have neither experience -nor natural gifts for this sort of work"—and he broke off -with a groan. For both the girls were watching him with -a smile of complete disbelief. -

- -

-"Good heavens, they think that I am being astute," he -reflected, "and the more I confess my incapacity the -astuter they'll take me to be." He gave up all arguments. -"Of course I am absolutely at your service," he said. -

- -

-"Thank you," said Betty. "You will bring your luggage -from your hotel and stay here, won't you?" -

- -

-Jim was tempted to accept that invitation. But, on -the one hand, he might wish to see Hanaud at the Grande -Taverne; or Hanaud might wish to see him, and secrecy -was to be the condition of such meetings. It was better -that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. -

- -

-"I won't put you to so much trouble, Betty," he replied. -"There's no reason in the world that I should. -A call over the telephone and in five minutes I am at your -side." -

- -

-Betty Harlowe seemed in doubt to press her invitation -or not. -

- -

-"It looks a little inhospitable in me," she began, and the -door opened, and Hanaud entered the room. -

- -

-"I left my hat and stick here," he said. He picked them -up and bowed to the girls. -

- -

-"You have seen everything, Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty -asked. -

- -

-"Everything, Mademoiselle. I shall not trouble you -again until the report of the analysis is in my hands. I -wish you a good morning." -

- -

-Betty slipped off the window-seat and accompanied him -out into the hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she -was seeking to make some amends for her ill-humour; and -when he heard her voice he thought to detect in it some -note of apology. -

- -

-"I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense -of that report as soon as possible," she pleaded. "You, -better than any one, will understand that this is a difficult -hour for me." -

- -

-"I understand very well, Mademoiselle," Hanaud answered -gravely. "I will see to it that the hour is not -prolonged." -

- -

-Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood -together in the sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon -his arm. He wheeled about quickly. Ann Upcott was -at his side with all the liveliness and even the delicate -colour gone from her face, and a wild and desperate -appeal in her eyes. -

- -

-"You will come and stay here? Oh, please!" she whispered. -

- -

-"I have just refused," he answered. "You heard me." -

- -

-"I know," she went on, the words stumbling over one -another from her lips. "But take back your refusal. Do! -Oh, I am frightened out of my wits. I don't understand -anything. I am terrified!" And she clasped her hands -together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear so -stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. -It robbed her exquisite face of all its beauty, and made it -in a second, haggard and old. But before he could answer, -a stick clattered loudly upon the pavement of the -hall and startled them both like the crack of a pistol. -

- -

-Jim looked through the doorway. Hanaud was stooping -to pick up his cane. Betty made a dive for it, but -Hanaud already had it in his hands. -

- -

-"I thank you, Mademoiselle, but I can still touch my -toes. Every morning I do it five times in my pyjamas," -and with a laugh he ran down the couple of steps into the -courtyard and with that curiously quick saunter of his -was out into the street of Charles-Robert in a moment. -When Jim turned again to Ann Upcott, the fear had gone -from her face so completely that he could hardly believe -his eyes. -

- -

-"Betty, he is going to stay," she cried gaily. -

- -

-"So I inferred," replied Betty with a curious smile as -she came back into the room. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER SEVEN: Exit Waberski -

- -

-Jim Frobisher neither saw nor heard any more of -Hanaud that day. He fetched his luggage away from -the hotel and spent the evening with Betty Harlowe and -Ann Upcott at the Maison Crenelle. They took their -coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, -descending to it by a short flight of stone steps from a great -door at the back of the hall. And by some sort of -unspoken compact they avoided all mention of Waberski's -charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the -analyst's report. But the long line of high, shuttered -windows just above their heads, the windows of the -reception-rooms, forbade them to forget the subject, and -their conversation perpetually dwindled down into long -silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, cool -and very still; so that the bustle of a bird amongst the -leaves of the sycamores startled them and the rare footsteps -of a passer-by in the little street of Charles-Robert -rang out as though they would wake a dreaming city. -Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcott leaned swiftly -forward and stared across the dark lawns and glimmering -paths to the great screen of tall trees, as if her eyes -had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on -each occasion she said nothing and with an almost -inaudible sigh sank back in her chair. -

- -

-"Is there a door into the garden from the street?" -Frobisher asked, and Betty answered him. -

- -

-"No. There is a passage at the end of the house under -the reception-rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners -use. The only other entrance is through the hall -behind us. This old house was built in days when your -house really was your castle and the fewer the entrances, -the more safely you slept." -

- -

-The clocks of that city of Clocks clashed out the hour -of eleven, throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards -and forwards above the pinnacles and roof-tops in a sort -of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. -

- -

-"There's a day gone, at all events," she said, and Ann -Upcott agreed with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed -a pitiful thing that these two girls, to whom each day -should be a succession of sparkling hours all too short, -must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that another -of them had passed. -

- -

-"It should be the last of the bad days," he said, and -Betty turned swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining -in the darkness. -

- -

-"Good night, Jim," she said, her voice ever so slightly -lingering like a caress upon his name and she held out -her hand. "It's terribly dull for you, but we are not -unselfish enough to let you go. You see, we are shunned -just now—oh, it's natural! To have you with us means -a great deal. For one thing," and there came a little lilt -in her voice, "I shall sleep to-night." She ran up the -steps and stood for a moment against the light from the -hall. "A long-legged slip of a girl, in black silk -stockings"—thus Mr. Haslitt had spoken of her as she was -five years ago, and the description fitted her still. -

- -

-"Good night, Betty," said Jim, and Ann Upcott ran -past him up the steps and waved her hand. -

- -

-"Good night," said Jim, and with a little twist of her -shoulders Ann followed Betty. She came back, however. -She was wearing a little white frock of crêpe de Chine -with white stockings and satin shoes, and she gleamed at -the head of the steps like a slender thing of silver. -

- -

-"You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you?" -She pleaded with a curious anxiety considering the height -of the strong walls about the garden. -

- -

-"I will," said Jim, and he wondered why in all this -business Ann Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was -high time indeed, that the long line of windows was -thrown open and the interdict raised from the house and -its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden in the -darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would -come to-morrow. In Betty's room above the reception-rooms -the light was still burning behind the latticed shutters -of the windows, in spite of her confidence that she -would sleep—yes, and in Ann Upcott's room too, at the -end of the house towards the street. A fury against -Boris Waberski flamed up in him. -

- -

-It was late before he himself went into the house and -barred the door, later still before he fell asleep. But -once asleep, he slept soundly, and when he waked, it was -to find his shutters thrown wide to the sunlight, his coffee -cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old servant, in the -room. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud asked me to tell you he was in the -library," he said. -

- -

-Jim was out of bed in an instant. -

- -

-"Already? What is the time, Gaston?" -

- -

-"Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath." He -removed the tray from the table by the bed. "I will bring -some fresh coffee." -

- -

-"Thank you! And will you please tell Monsieur -Hanaud that I will not be long." -

- -

-"Certainly, Monsieur." -

- -

-Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down -to the library, where he found Hanaud seated at the big -writing-table in the middle of the room, with a newspaper -spread out over the blotting-pad and placidly reading the -news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the moment -Jim appeared. -

- -

-"So you left your hotel in the Place Darcy, after all, -eh, my friend? The exquisite Miss Upcott! She had but -to sigh out a little prayer and clasp her hands together, -and it was done. Yes, I saw it all from the hall. What -it is to be young! You have those two letters which -Waberski wrote your firm?" -

- -

-"Yes," said Jim. He did not think it necessary to -explain that though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was -the thought of Betty which had brought him to the -Maison Grenelle. -

- -

-"Good! I have sent for him," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"To come to this house?" -

- -

-"I am expecting him now." -

- -

-"That's capital," cried Jim. "I shall meet him, then! -The damned rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped -him," and he clenched his fist and shook it in a joyous -anticipation. -

- -

-"I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, -I beg of you to place yourself in my hands this morning, -Monsieur Frobisher," Hanaud interposed soberly. -"If you confront Waberski at once with those two letters, -at once his accusation breaks down. He will withdraw -it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent -of complaints and reproaches. And I shall get nothing -out of him. That I do not want." -

- -

-"But what is there to be got?" Jim asked impatiently. -

- -

-"Something perhaps. Perhaps nothing," the detective -returned with a shrug of the shoulders. "I have a second -mission in Dijon, as I told you in Paris." -

- -

-"The anonymous letters?" -

- -

-"Yes. You were present yesterday when Mademoiselle -Harlowe told me how she learned that I was summoned -from Paris upon this case. It was not, after all, -any of my colleagues here who spread the news. It is -even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer -of the letters. And in so difficult a matter I can afford -to neglect no clue. Did Waberski know that I was going -to be sent for? Did he hear that at the Prefecture when -he lodged his charge on the Saturday or from the -examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to -whom did he talk between the time when he saw the -magistrate and the time when letters must be posted if they -are to be delivered on the Sunday morning? These are -questions I must have the answer to, and if we at once -administer the knock-out with your letters, I shall not -get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You -see that." -

- -

-Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see -Hanaud dealing with Waberski in the most outrageous -of his moods, pouncing and tearing and trampling with -the gibes of a schoolboy and the improprieties of the -gutter. Hanaud indeed had promised him as much. But -he found him now all for restraint and sobriety and more -concerned apparently with the authorship of the anonymous -letters than with the righting of Betty Harlowe. -Jim felt that he had been defrauded. -

- -

-"But I am to meet this man," he said. "That must not -be forgotten." -

- -

-"And it shall not be," Hanaud assured him. He led -him over to the door in the inner wall close to the -observation window and opened it. -

- -

-"See! If you will please to wait in here," and as the -disappointment deepened on Jim's face, he added, "Oh, -I do not ask you to shut the door. No. Bring up a chair -to it—so! And keep the door ajar so! Then you will -see and hear and yet not be seen. You are content? Not -very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole -time like an actor. Yes, we all do. But, at all events, -you do not throw up your part," and with a friendly grin -he turned back to the table. -

- -

-A shuffling step which merged into the next step with -a curiously slovenly sound rose from the courtyard. -

- -

-"It was time we made our little arrangements," said -Hanaud in an undertone. "For here comes our hero from -the Steppes." -

- -

-Jim popped his head through the doorway. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud!" he whispered excitedly. "Monsieur -Hanaud! It cannot be wise to leave those windows -open on the courtyard. For if we can hear a footstep so -loudly in this room, anything said in this room will be -easily overheard in the court." -

- -

-"But how true that is!" Hanaud replied in the same -voice and struck his forehead with his fist in anger at his -folly. "But what are we to do? The day is so hot. -This room will be an oven. The ladies and Waberski -will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain clothes -already stationed in the court to see that it is kept empty. -Yes, we will risk it." -

- -

-Jim drew back. -

- -

-"That man doesn't welcome advice from any one," -he said indignantly, but he said it only to himself; and -almost before he had finished, the bell rang. A few -seconds afterwards Gaston entered. -

- -

-"Monsieur Boris," he said. -

- -

-"Yes," said Hanaud with a nod. "And will you tell -the ladies that we are ready?" -

- -

-Boris Waberski, a long, round-shouldered man with -bent knees and clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding -a soft black felt hat in his hand, shambled quickly into -the room and stopped dead at the sight of Hanaud. -Hanaud bowed and Waberski returned the bow; and -then the two men stood looking at one another—Hanaud -all geniality and smiles, Waberski a rather grotesque -figure of uneasiness like one of those many grim -caricatures carved by the imagination of the Middle Ages on -the columns of the churches of Dijon. He blinked in -perplexity at the detective and with his long, -tobacco-stained fingers tortured his grey moustache. -

- -

-"Will you be seated?" said Hanaud politely. "I think -that the ladies will not keep us waiting." -

- -

-He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table -but on his left hand and opposite to the door. -

- -

-"I don't understand," said Waberski doubtfully. "I -received a message. I understood that the Examining -Magistrate had sent for me." -

- -

-"I am his agent," said Hanaud. "I am——" and he -stopped. "Yes?" -

- -

-Boris Waberski stared. -

- -

-"I said nothing." -

- -

-"I beg your pardon. I am—Hanaud." -

- -

-He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by -no start, nor by any sign of recognition. -

- -

-"Hanaud?" Waberski shook his head. "That no -doubt should be sufficient to enlighten me," he said with -a smile, "but it is better to be frank—it doesn't." -

- -

-"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris." -

- -

-And upon Waberski's face there came slowly a look of -utter consternation. -

- -

-"Oh!" he said, and again "Oh!" with a lamentable look -towards the door as if he was in two minds whether to -make a bolt of it. Hanaud pointed again to the chair, -and Waberski murmured, "Yes—to be sure," and made -a little run to it and sank down. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was -certain of one thing. Boris Waberski had not written the -anonymous letter to Betty nor had he contributed the -information about Hanaud to the writer. He might well -have been thought to have been acting ignorance of -Hanaud's name, up to the moment when Hanaud explained -who Hanaud was. But no longer. His consternation -then was too genuine. -

- -

-"You will understand, of course, that an accusation -so serious as the one you have brought against Mademoiselle -Harlowe demands the closest inquiry," Hanaud continued -without any trace of irony, "and the Examining -Magistrate in charge of the case honoured us in Paris -with a request for help." -

- -

-"Yes, it is very difficult," replied Boris Waberski, -twisting about as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. -

- -

-But the difficulty was Waberski's, as Jim, with that -distressed man in full view, was now able to appreciate. -Waberski had rushed to the Prefecture when no answer -came from Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt to his letter of -threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of -disappointment and rancour, with a hope no doubt that some -offer of cash would be made to him and that he could -withdraw it. Now he found the trained detective service -of France upon his heels, asking for his proofs and -evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. -

- -

-"I thought," Hanaud continued easily, "that a little -informal conversation between you and me and the two -young ladies, without shorthand writers or secretaries, -might be helpful." -

- -

-"Yes, indeed," said Waberski hopefully. -

- -

-"As a preliminary of course," Hanaud added dryly, "a -preliminary to the more serious and now inevitable -procedure." -

- -

-Waberski's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. -

- -

-"To be sure," he murmured, plucking at his lean throat -nervously. "Cases must proceed." -

- -

-"That is what they are there for," said Hanaud -sententiously; and the door of the library was pushed open. -Betty came into the room with Ann Upcott immediately -behind her. -

- -

-"You sent for me," she began to Hanaud, and then she -saw Boris Waberski. Her little head went up with a -jerk, her eyes smouldered. "Monsieur Boris," she said, -and again she spoke to Hanaud. "Come to take possession, -I suppose?" Then she looked round the room for -Jim Frobisher, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay: -

- -

-"But I understood that——" and Hanaud was just in -time to stop her from mentioning any name. -

- -

-"All in good time, Mademoiselle," he said quickly. -"Let us take things in their order." -

- -

-Betty took her old place in the window-seat. Ann -Upcott shut the door and sat down in a chair a little apart -from the others. Hanaud folded up his newspaper and -laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad which was now -revealed lay one of those green files which Jim Frobisher -had noticed in the office of the Sûrété. Hanaud opened -it and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to -Waberski. -

- -

-"Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of -April, this girl here, Betty Harlowe, did wilfully give to -her adoptive mother and benefactress, Jeanne-Marie -Harlowe, an overdose of a narcotic by which her death was -brought about." -

- -

-"Yes," said Waberski with an air of boldness, "I declare -that." -

- -

-"You do not specify the narcotic?" -

- -

-"It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure." -

- -

-"And administered, according to you, if this summary -which I hold here is correct, in the glass of lemonade -which Madame Harlowe had always at her bedside." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-Hanaud laid the sheet of foolscap down again. -

- -

-"You do not charge the nurse, Jeanne Baudin, with -complicity in this crime?" he asked. -

- -

-"Oh, no!" Waberski exclaimed with a sort of horror, -with his eyes open wide and his eyebrows running up his -forehead towards his hedge of wiry hair. "I have not a -suspicion of Jeanne Baudin. I pray you, Monsieur -Hanaud, to be clear upon that point. There must be no -injustice! No! Oh, it is well that I came here to-day! -Jeanne Baudin! Listen! I would engage her to nurse -me to-morrow, were my health to fail." -

- -

-"One cannot say more than that," replied Hanaud with -a grave sympathy. "I only asked you the question -because undoubtedly Jeanne Baudin was in Madame's -bedroom when Mademoiselle entered it to wish Madame -good night and show off her new dancing-frock." -

- -

-"Yes, I understand," said Waberski. He was growing -more and more confident, so suave and friendly was this -Monsieur Hanaud of the Sûrété. "But the fatal drug -was slipped into that glass without a doubt when Jeanne -Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No! It -is that hard one," and his voice began to shake and his -mouth to work, "who slipped it in and then hurried off -to dance till morning, whilst her victim died. It is terrible -that! Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, it is terrible. My poor -sister!" -

- -

-"Sister-in-law." -

- -

-The correction came with an acid calm from an armchair -near the door in which Ann Upcott was reclining. -

- -

-"Sister to me!" replied Waberski mournfully and he -turned to Hanaud. "Monsieur, I shall never cease to -reproach myself. I was away fishing in the forest. If -I had stayed at home! Think of it! I ask you to——" -and his voice broke. -

- -

-"Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Waberski," -Hanaud said, "and this is where I am perplexed. You -loved your sister. That is clear, since you cannot even -think of her without tears." -

- -

-"Yes, yes," Waberski shaded his eyes with his hand. -

- -

-"Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so -long before you took any action to avenge her death? -There will be some good reason not a doubt, but I have -not got it." Hanaud continued, spreading out his hands. -"Listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night -of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th; and -you do nothing, you bring no charge, you sit all quiet. -She is buried on the 30th, and after that you still do -nothing, you sit all quiet. It is not until one week after -that you launch your accusation against Mademoiselle. -Why? I beg you, Monsieur Waberski, not to look at -me between the fingers, for the answer is not written on -my face, and to explain this difficulty to me." -

- -

-The request was made in the same pleasant, friendly -voice which Hanaud had used so far and without any -change of intonation. But Waberski snatched his hand -away from his forehead and sat up with a flush on his -face. -

- -

-"I answer you at once," he exclaimed. "From the first -I knew it here," and he thumped his heart with his fist, -"that murder had been committed. But as yet I did not -know it here," and he patted his forehead, "in my head. -So I think and I think and I think. I see reasons and -motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of -beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, -thirsting in her heart for colour and laughter and -enjoyment and the power which her beauty offers her if she -will but grasp it, and yet while thirsting, very able to -conceal all sign of thirst. That is the picture I give you -of that hard one, Betty Harlowe." -

- -

-For the first time since the interview had commenced, -Betty herself showed some interest in it. Up till now -she had sat without a movement, a figure of disdain in -an ice-house of pride. Now she flashed into life. She -leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed knee, her chin -propped in her hand, her eyes on Waberski, and a smile -of amusement at this analysis of herself giving life to -her face. Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his -door felt that he was listening to blasphemies. Why did -Hanaud endure it? There was information, he had said, -which he wanted to get from Boris Waberski. The point -on which he wanted information was settled long ago, at -the very beginning of this informal session. It was as -clear as daylight that Waberski had nothing to do with -Betty's anonymous letter. Why, then, should Hanaud -give this mountebank of a fellow a free opportunity to -slander Betty Harlowe? Why should he question and -question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? -Why, in a word, didn't he fling open this door, allow -Frobisher to produce the blackmailing letters to -Mr. Haslitt, and then stand aside while Boris Waberski was -put into that condition in which he would call upon the -services of Jeanne Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously -annoyed with Monsieur Hanaud. He explained to -himself that he was disappointed. -

- -

-Meanwhile, Boris Waberski, after a little nervous check -when Betty had leaned forward, continued his description. -

- -

-"For such a one Dijon would be tiresome. It is true -there was each year a month or so at Monte Carlo, just -enough to give one a hint of what might be, like a -cigarette to a man who wants to smoke. And then back -to Dijon! Ah, Monsieur, not the Dijon of the Dukes of -Burgundy, not even the Dijon of the Parliament of the -States, but the Dijon of to-day, an ordinary, dull, -provincial town of France which keeps nothing of its former -gaieties and glory but some old rare buildings and a little -spirit of mockery. Imagine, then, Monsieur, this hard -one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp if only -she has the boldness on some night when Monsieur Boris -is out of the way to seize them! Nor is that all. For -there is an invalid in the house to whom attentions are -owed—yes, and must be given." Waberski, in a flight of -excitement checked himself and half closed his eyes, with -a little cunning nod. "For the invalid was not so easy. -No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we -will not forget them when the moment comes for the -extenuating pleas. No, indeed," and he flung his arm -out nobly. "I myself will be the first to urge them to the -judge of the Assizes when the verdict is given." -

- -

-Betty Harlowe leaned back once more indifferent. -From an arm-chair near the door, a little gurgle of -laughter broke from the lips of Ann Upcott. Even Hanaud -smiled. -

- -

-"Yes, yes," he said; "but we have not got quite as far -as the Court of Assizes, Monsieur Waberski. We are -still at the point where you know it in your heart but not -in your head." -

- -

-"That is so," Waberski returned briskly. "On the -seventh of May, a Saturday, I bring my accusation to the -Prefecture. Why? For, on the morning of that day I -am certain. I know it at last here too," and up went his -hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward on -to the edge of his chair. -

- -

-"I am in the street of Gambetta, one of the small popular -new streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation -not of the best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly -through that street when from a little shop a few yards -in front of me out pops that hard one, my niece." -

- -

-Suddenly the whole character of that session had -changed. Jim Frobisher, though he sat apart from it, -felt the new tension, and was aware of the new expectancy. -A moment ago Boris Waberski as he sat talking -and gesticulating had been a thing for ridicule, almost for -outright laughter. Now, though his voice still jumped -hysterically from high notes to low notes and his body -jerked like a marionette's, he held the eyes of every -one—every one, that is, except Betty Harlowe. He was no -longer vague. He was speaking of a definite hour and a -place and of a definite incident which happened there. -

- -

-"Yes, in that bad little street I see her. I do not -believe my senses. I step into a little narrow alley and I -peep round the corner. I peep with my eyes," and -Waberski pointed to them with two of his fingers as though -there was something peculiarly convincing in the fact -that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, "and -I am sure. Then I wait until she is out of sight, and -I creep forward to see what shop it is she visited in that -little street of squalor. Once more I do not believe my -eyes. For over the door I read the name, Jean Cladel, -Herbalist." -

- -

-He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph and sat -back in his chair, nodding his head violently at intervals -of a second. There was not a sound in the room until -Hanaud's voice broke the silence. -

- -

-"I don't understand," he said softly. "Who is this -Jean Cladel, and why should a young lady not visit his -shop?" -

- -

-"I beg your pardon," Waberski replied. "You are not -of Dijon. No! or you would not have asked that question. -Jean Cladel has no better name than the street he -very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonnais about Jean Cladel, -and you will see how he becomes silent and shrugs his -shoulders as if here was a topic on which it was becoming -to be silent. Better still, Monsieur Hanaud, ask at -the Prefecture. Jean Cladel! Twice he has been tried -for selling prohibited drugs." -

- -

-Hanaud was stung at last out of his calm. -

- -

-"What is that?" he cried in a sharp voice. -

- -

-"Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped -through, that is true. He has powerful friends, and -witnesses have been spirited away. But he is known! Jean -Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!" -

- -

-"Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta," -Hanaud repeated slowly. "But"—and he leaned back in -an easier attitude—"you will see my difficulty, Monsieur -Waberski. Ten o'clock is a public hour. It is not a likely -hour for any one to choose for so imprudent a visit, even -if that one were stupid." -

- -

-"Yes, and so I reasoned too," Waberski interposed -quickly. "As I told you, I could not believe my eyes. -But I made sure—oh, there was no doubt, Monsieur -Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes are -discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner -or later some foolish thing. Isn't it so? Sometimes they -are too careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an -imperfect world. Sometimes they are too careless or are -driven by necessity to a rash thing. But somehow a -mistake is made and justice wins the game." -

- -

-Hanaud smiled. -

- -

-"Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!" He turned to -Betty, and it struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious -discomfort that this was the first time Hanaud had looked -directly at Betty since the interview had begun. -

- -

-"And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"It is a lie," she answered quietly. -

- -

-"You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta -at ten o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May?" -

- -

-"I did not, Monsieur." -

- -

-Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache. -

- -

-"Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle -to admit it. One fights for one's skin, eh?" -

- -

-"But, after all," Hanaud interrupted, with enough -savagery in his voice to check all Waberski's complacency, -"let us not forget that on the 7th of May, Madame -Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why should -Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?" -

- -

-"To pay," said Waberski. "Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel's -wares are expensive and have to be paid for more than -once, Monsieur." -

- -

-"By wares you mean poison," said Hanaud. "Let us -be explicit." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe." -

- -

-"I say so," Waberski declared, folding his arms across -his breast. -

- -

-"Very well," said Hanaud. He took from his green -file a second paper written over in a fine hand and -emphasised by an official stamp. "Then what will you say, -Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of Madame -Harlowe has been exhumed?" Hanaud continued, and -Waberski's face lost what little colour it had. He stared -at Hanaud, his jaw working up and down nervously, and -he did not say a word. -

- -

-"And what will you say if I tell you," Hanaud -continued, "that no more morphia was discovered in it than -one sleeping-dose would explain and no trace at all of any -other poison?" -

- -

-In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief -from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The game was -up. He had hoped to make his terms, but his bluff was -called. He had not one atom of faith in his own accusation. -There was but one course for him to take, and that -was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection -for his sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. -But Boris Waberski was never the man for that. He had -that extra share of cunning which shipwrecks always the -minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine that -Hanaud might be bluffing too. -

- -

-He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He -tittered and nodded at Hanaud confidentially. -

- -

-"You say 'if I tell you,'" he said smoothly. "Yes, but -you do not tell me, Monsieur Hanaud—no, not at all. -On the contrary, what you say is this: 'My friend Waberski, -here is a difficult matter which, if exposed, means a -great scandal, and of which the issue is doubtful. There -is no good in stirring the mud.'" -

- -

-"Oh, I say that?" Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly. -

- -

-Waberski felt sure of his ground now. -

- -

-"Yes, and more than that. You say, 'You have been -badly treated, my friend Waberski, and if you will now -have a little talk with that hard one your niece——'" -

- -

-And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat -gaping stupidly like a man who has been shot. -

- -

-Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering -above the table, his face suddenly dark with passion. -

- -

-"Oh, I say all that, do I?" he thundered. "I came -all the way from Paris to Dijon to preside over a little -bargain in a murder case! I—Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! -I'll teach you a lesson for that! Read this!" and bending -forward he thrust out the paper with the official seal. -"It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and -read it!" -

- -

-Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to -venture nearer. Even when he had the paper in his hands, -they shook so he could not read it. But since he had -never believed in his charge that did not matter. -

- -

-"Yes," he muttered, "no doubt I have made a mistake." -

- -

-Hanaud caught the word up. -

- -

-"Mistake! Ah, there's a fine word! I'll show you -what sort of a mistake you have made. Draw up your -chair to this table in front of me! So! And take a -pen—so! And a sheet of paper—so! and now you write -for me a letter." -

- -

-"Yes, yes," Waberski agreed. All the bravado had -gone from his bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He -was in a quiver from head to foot. "I will write that I -am sorry." -

- -

-"That is not necessary," roared Hanaud. "I will see -to it that you are sorry. No! You write for me what I -dictate to you and in English. You are ready? Yes? -Then you begin. 'Dear Sirs.' You have that?" -

- -

-"Yes, yes," said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His -head was in a whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the -towering bulk of the detective. He had as yet no -comprehension of the goal to which he was being led. -

- -

-"Good! 'Dear Sirs,'" Hanaud repeated. "But we -want a date for that letter. April 30th, eh? That will -do. The day Madame Harlowe's will was read and you -found you were left no money. April 30th—put it in. -So! Now we go on. 'Dear Sirs, Send me at once one -thousand pounds by the recommended post, or I make -some awkwardnesses——'" -

- -

-Waberski dropped his pen and sprang back out of his -chair. -

- -

-"I don't understand—I can't write that.... There -is an error—I never meant..." he stammered, his -hands raised as if to ward off an attack. -

- -

-"Ah, you never meant the blackmail!" Hanaud cried -savagely. "Ah! Ha! Ha! It is good for you that I -now know that! For when, as you put it so delicately -to Mademoiselle, the moment comes for the extenuating -pleas, I can rise up in the Court and urge it. Yes! I -will say: 'Mr. the President, though he did the blackmail, -poor fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him -five years more,'" and with that Hanaud swept across -the room like a tornado and flung open the door behind -which Frobisher was waiting. -

- -

-"Come!" he said, and he led Jim into the room. "You -produce the two letters he wrote to your firm, Monsieur -Frobisher. Good!" -

- -

-But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris -Waberski had dropped into a chair and burst into tears. -There was a little movement of discomfort made by -every one in that room except Hanaud; and even his -anger dropped. He looked at Waberski in silence. -

- -

-"You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your -hotel," he said shortly. "But you will not leave Dijon, -Monsieur Waberski, until it is decided what steps we shall -take with you." -

- -

-Waberski rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the -door. -

- -

-"I make my apologies," he stammered. "It is all a -mistake. I am very poor ... I meant no harm," and -without looking at any one he got himself out of the -room. -

- -

-"That type! He at all events cannot any more think -that Dijon is dull," said Hanaud, and once more he -adventured on the dangerous seas of the English -language. "Do you know what my friend Mister Ricardo -would have said? No? I tell you. He would have said, -'That fellow! My God! What a sauce!'" -

- -

-Those left in the room, Betty, Ann Upcott, and Jim -Frobisher, were in a mood to welcome any excuse for -laughter. The interdict upon the house was raised, the -charge against Betty proved of no account, the whole -bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanaud -went quickly to the door and closed it, and when he -turned back there was no laughter at all upon his face. -

- -

-"Now that that man has gone," he said gravely, "I -have something to tell you three which is very serious. I -believe that, though Waberski does not know it, Madame -Harlowe was murdered by poison in this house on the -night of April the twenty-seventh." -

- -

-The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim -Frobisher stood like a man whom some calamity has -stunned. Betty leaned forward in her seat with a face of -horror and incredulity; and then from the arm-chair by -the door where Ann Upcott was sitting there burst a loud, -wild cry. -

- -

-"There was some one in the house that night," she cried. -

- -

-Hanaud swung round to her, his eyes blazing. -

- -

-"And it is you who tell me that, Mademoiselle?" he -asked in a curious, steady voice. -

- -

-"Yes. It's the truth," she cried with a sort of relief -in her voice, that at last a secret was out which had grown -past endurance. "I am sure now. There was a stranger -in the house." And though her face was white as paper, -her eyes met Hanaud's without fear. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER EIGHT: The Book -

- -

-The two startling declarations, one treading upon the -heels of the other, set Jim Frobisher's brain whirling. -Consternation and bewilderment were all jumbled -together. He had no time to ask "how," for he was -already asking "What next?" His first clear thought -was for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger -against both Hanaud and Ann Upcott seized and shook -him. Why hadn't they both spoken before? Why must -they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well alone? -

- -

-For Betty had fallen back in the window-seat, her -hands idle at her sides and her face utterly weary and -distressed. Jim thought of some stricken patient who -wakes in the morning to believe for a few moments that -the malady was a bad dream; and then comes the stab -and the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A -moment ago Betty's ordeal seemed over. Now it was -beginning a new phase. -

- -

-"I am sorry," he said to her. -

- -

-The report of the analysts was lying on the writing-table -just beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was -a trick, of course, with its seals and its signatures, a -trick of Hanaud's to force Waberski to a retraction. He -glanced at it, and with an exclamation began carefully -to read it through from the beginning to the end. When -he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanaud. -

- -

-"But this report is genuine," he cried. "Here are -the details of the tests applied and the result. There was -no trace discovered of any poison." -

- -

-"No trace at all," Hanaud replied. He was not in the -least disturbed by the question. -

- -

-"Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation -or whom you accuse," Frobisher exclaimed. -

- -

-"I have accused no one," said Hanaud steadily. "Let -us be clear about that! As to your other question—look!" -

- -

-He took Frobisher by the elbow and led him to that -bookshelf by the window before which they had stood -together yesterday. -

- -

-"There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself -drew my attention to it. You see that the space is -filled to-day." -

- -

-"Yes," said Jim. -

- -

-Hanaud took down the volume which occupied the -space. It was of quarto size, fairly thick and bound in a -paper cover. -

- -

-"Look at that," he said; and Jim Frobisher as he took -it noticed with a queer little start that although Hanaud's -eyes were on his face they were blank of all expression. -They did not see him. Hanaud's senses were concentrated -on the two girls at neither of whom he so much -as glanced. He was alert to them, to any movement they -might make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his -head in a sudden revolt. He was being used for another -trick, as some conjurer may use a fool of a fellow whom -he has persuaded out of his audience on to his platform. -Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with -enough violence to recall Hanaud's attention: -

- -

-"I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed -by some learned society in Edinburgh." -

- -

-"It is. And if you will look again, you will see that -it was written by a Professor of Medicine in that -University. And if you will look a third time you will see -from a small inscription in ink that the copy was -presented with the Professor's compliments to Mr. Simon -Harlowe." -

- -

-Hanaud, whilst he was speaking, went to the second -of the two windows which looked upon the court and putting -his head out, spoke for a little while in a low voice. -

- -

-"We shall not need our sentry here any more," he -said as he turned back into the room. "I have sent him -upon an errand." -

- -

-He went back to Jim Frobisher, who was turning over -a page of the treatise here and there and was never a -scrap the wiser. -

- -

-"Well?" he asked. -

- -

-"Strophanthus Hispidus," Jim read aloud the title of -the treatise. "I can't make head or tail of it." -

- -

-"Let me try!" said Hanaud, and he took the book out -of Frobisher's hands. "I will show you all how I spent -the half-hour whilst I was waiting for you this morning." -

- -

-He sat down at the writing-table, placed the treatise on -the blotting-pad in front of him and laid it open at a -coloured plate. -

- -

-"This is the fruit of the plant Strophanthus Hispidus, -when it is ripening," he said. -

- -

-The plate showed two long, tapering follicles joined -together at their stems and then separating like a pair -of compasses set at an acute angle. The backs of these -follicles were rounded, dark in colour and speckled; the -inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the curious -feature of them was that, from longitudinal crevices, a -number of silky white feathers protruded. -

- -

-"Each of these feathers," Hanaud continued, and he -looked up to find that Ann Upcott had drawn close to -the table and that Betty Harlowe herself was leaning -forward with a look of curiosity upon her face—"each -of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an elliptical -pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe -and these follicles have opened so that they make a -straight line, the feathers are released and the wind -spreads the seed. It is wonderful, eh? See!" -

- -

-Hanaud turned the pages until he came to another plate. -Here a feather was represented in complete detachment -from the follicle. It was outspread like a fan and was -extraordinarily pretty and delicate in its texture; and -from it by a stem as fine as a hair the seed hung like a -jewel. -

- -

-"What would you say of it, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud -asked, looking up into the face of Ann Upcott with a -smile. "An ornament wrought for a fine lady, by a -dainty artist, eh?" and he turned the book round so that -she on the opposite side of the table might the better -admire the engraving. -

- -

-Betty Harlowe, it seemed, was now mastered by her -curiosity. Jim Frobisher, gazing down over Hanaud's -shoulder at the plate and wondering uneasily whither he -was being led, saw a shadow fall across the book. And -there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend with -the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table and her -face bent over the book. -

- -

-"One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the -Strophanthus Hispidus," Hanaud continued with a shake -of the head. "But, alas! it is not so harmless." -

- -

-He turned the book around again to himself and once -more turned the pages. The smile had disappeared -altogether from his face. He stopped at a third plate; and -this third plate showed a row of crudely fashioned arrows -with barbed heads. -

- -

-Hanaud glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. -

- -

-"Do you understand now the importance of this book, -Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "No? The seeds of -this plant make the famous arrow-poison of Africa. The -deadliest of all the poisons since there is no antidote -for it." His voice grew sombre. "The wickedest of all -the poisons, since it leaves no trace." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher was startled. "Is that true?" he cried. -

- -

-"Yes," said Hanaud; and Betty suddenly leaned -forward and pointed to the bottom of the plate. -

- -

-"There is a mark there below the hilt of that arrow," -she said curiously. "Yes, and a tiny note in ink." -

- -

-For a moment a little gift of vision was vouchsafed -to Jim Frobisher, born, no doubt, of his perplexities and -trouble. A curtain was rung up in his brain. He saw -no more than what was before him—the pretty group -about the table in the gold of the May morning, but it -was all made grim and terrible and the gold had withered -to a light that was grey and deathly and cold as the -grave. There were the two girls in the grace of their -beauty and their youth, daintily tended, fastidiously -dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of the -poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man -delivering the lecture, so close to them, with speech so -gentle, was implacably on the trail of murder, and maybe -even now looked upon one of these two girls as his -quarry; was even now perhaps planning to set her in -the dock of an Assize Court and send her out afterwards, -carried screaming and sobbing with terror in the first -grey of the morning to the hideous red engine erected -during the night before the prison gates. Jim saw -Hanaud the genial and friendly, as in some flawed mirror, -twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could -he sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point -them out this and that diagram in the plates, he being -human and knowing what he purposed. Jim broke in -upon the lecture with a cry of exasperation. -

- -

-"But this isn't a poison! This is a book about a poison. -The book can't kill!" -

- -

-At once Hanaud replied to him: -

- -

-"Can't it?" he cried sharply. "Listen to what Mademoiselle -said a minute ago. Below the hilt of this arrow -marked 'Figure F,' the Professor has written a tiny note." -

- -

-This particular arrow was a little different from the -others in the shape of its shaft. Just below the triangular -iron head the shaft expanded. It was as though the head -had been fitted into a bulb; as one sees sometimes wooden -penholders fine enough and tapering at the upper end, -and quite thick just above the nib. -

- -

-"'See page 37,'" said Hanaud, reading the Professor's -note, and he turned back the pages. -

- -

-"Page 37. Here we are!" -

- -

-Hanaud ran a finger half-way down the page and -stopped at a word in capitals. -

- -

-"Figure F." -

- -

-Hanaud hitched his chair a little closer to the table; -Ann Upcott moved round the end of the table that she -might see the better; even Jim Frobisher found himself -stooping above Hanaud's shoulder. They were all -conscious of a queer tension; they were expectant like -explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Hanaud read -the paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed; and -this is what he read: -

- -

-"'Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow -which was lent to me by Simon Harlowe, Esq., of -Blackman's, Norfolk, and the Maison Crenelle at Dijon. It -was given to him by a Mr. John Carlisle, a trader on the -Shire River in the Kombe country, and is the most perfect -example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The -Strophanthus seed has been pounded up in water and mixed -with the reddish clay used by the Kombe natives, and -the compound is thickly smeared over the head of the -arrow shaft and over the actual iron dart except at the -point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and the -compound fresh.'" -

- -

-Hanaud leaned back in his chair when he had come to -the end of this paragraph. -

- -

-"You see, Monsieur Frobisher, the question we have to -answer. Where is to-day Simon Harlowe's arrow?" -

- -

-Betty looked up into Hanaud's face. -

- -

-"If it is anywhere in this house, Monsieur, it should be -in the locked cabinet in my sitting-room." -

- -

-"Your sitting-room?" Hanaud exclaimed sharply. -

- -

-"Yes. It is what we call the Treasure Room—half -museum, half living-room. My uncle Simon used it, -Madame too. It was their favourite room, full of curios -and beautiful things. But after Simon Harlowe died -Madame would never enter it. She locked the door which -communicated with her dressing-room, so that she might -never even in a moment of forgetfulness enter it. The -room has a door into the hall. She gave the room to -me." -

- -

-Hanaud's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. -

- -

-"I understand," he said. "And that room is sealed." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Have you ever seen the arrow, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet -once. There are some horrible things hidden away -there"; and Betty shivered and shook the recollection of -them from her shoulders. -

- -

-"The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that -it never came back to the house," Frobisher argued -stubbornly. "The Professor in all probability would have -kept it." -

- -

-"If he could," Hanaud rejoined. "But it's out of all -probability that a collector of rare things would have -allowed him to keep it. No!" and he sat for a little time -in a muse. "Do you know what I am wondering?" he -asked at length, and then answered his own question. "I -am wondering whether after all Boris Waberski was not -in the street of Gambetta on the seventh of May and close, -very close, to the shop of Jean Cladel the herbalist." -

- -

-"Boris! Boris Waberski," cried Jim. Was he in -Hanaud's eyes the criminal? After all, why not? After -all, who more likely if criminal there was, since Boris -Waberski thought himself an inheritor under Mrs. Harlowe's -will? -

- -

-"I am wondering whether he was not doing that very -thing which he attributed to you, Mademoiselle Betty," -Hanaud continued. -

- -

-"Paying?" Betty cried. -

- -

-"Paying—or making excuses for not paying, which -is more probable, or recovering the poison arrow now -clean of its poison, which is most probable of all." -

- -

-At last Hanaud had made an end of his secrecies and -reticence. His suspicion, winged like the arrow in the -plate, was flying straight to this evident mark. Jim drew -a breath like a man waking from a nightmare; in all of -that small company a relaxation was visible; Ann Upcott -drew away from the table; Betty said softly as though -speaking to herself, "Monsieur Boris! Monsieur Boris! -Oh, I never thought of that!" and, to Jim's admiration -there was actually a note of regret in her voice. -

- -

-It was audible, too, to Hanaud, since he answered with -a smile: -

- -

-"But you must bring yourself to think of it, Mademoiselle. -After all, he was not so gentle with you that you -need show him so much good will." -

- -

-A slight rush of colour tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim -was not quite sure that a tiny accent of irony had not -pointed Hanaud's words. -

- -

-"I saw him sitting here," she replied quickly, "half an -hour ago—abject—in tears—a man!" She shrugged her -shoulders with a gesture of distaste. "I wish him -nothing worse. I was satisfied." -

- -

-Hanaud smiled again with a curious amusement, an -appreciation which Frobisher was quite at a loss to -understand. But he had from time to time received an -uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel was all -this while being fought by Betty Harlowe and Hanaud -underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers—a -duel in which now one, now the other of the combatants -got some trifling scratch. This time it seemed -Betty was hurt. -

- -

-"You are satisfied, Mademoiselle, but the Law is not," -Hanaud returned. "Boris Waberski expected a legacy. -Boris Waberski needed money immediately, as the first -of the two letters which he wrote to Monsieur Frobisher's -firm clearly shows. Boris Waberski had a motive." He -looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod -to drive the point home. "Motives, no doubt, are signposts -rather difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss, -they lead one very wide astray. Granted! But you -must look for your signposts all the same and try to read -them aright. Listen again to the Professor of Medicine -in the University of Edinburgh! He is as precise as a -man can be." -

- -

-Hanaud's eyes fell again upon the description of -Figure F in the treatise still open upon the table in front -of him. -

- -

-"The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow -which he had ever come across. The poison paste was -thickly and smoothly spread over the arrow head and -some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused and the -poison fresh, and these poisons retain their energy for -many, many years. I tell you that if this book and this -arrow were handed over to Jean Cladel, Herbalist, Jean -Cladel could with ease make a solution in alcohol which -injected from a hypodermic needle, would cause death -within fifteen minutes and leave not one trace." -

- -

-"Within fifteen minutes?" Betty asked incredulously, -and from the arm-chair against the wall, where Ann -Upcott had once more seated herself, there broke a -startled exclamation. -

- -

-"Oh!" she cried, but no one took any notice of her -at all. Both Jim and Betty had their eyes fixed upon -Hanaud, and he was altogether occupied in driving his -argument home. -

- -

-"Within fifteen minutes? How do you know?" cried Jim. -

- -

-"It is written here, in the book." -

- -

-"And where would Jean Cladel have learnt to handle -the paste with safety, how to prepare the solution?" Jim -went on. -

- -

-"Here! Here! Here!" answered Hanaud, tapping -with his knuckles upon the treatise. "It is all written -out here—experiment after experiment made upon living -animals and the action of the poison measured and -registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working -knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, -and the result is certain." -

- -

-Betty Harlowe leaned forward again over the book and -Hanaud turned it half round between them, so that both, -by craning their heads, could read. He turned the pages -back to the beginning and passed them quickly in review. -

- -

-"See, Mademoiselle, the time tables. Strophanthus -constricts the muscles of the heart like digitalis, only much -more violently, much more swiftly. See the contractions -of the heart noted down minute after minute, until the -moment of death and all—here is the irony!—so that by -means of these experiments, the poison may be transformed -into a medicine and the weapon of death become -an agent of life—as in good hands, it has happened." Hanaud -leaned back and contemplated Betty Harlowe between -his half-closed eyes. "That is wonderful, Mademoiselle. -What do you think?" -

- -

-Betty slowly closed the book. -

- -

-"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," she said, "it is no less -wonderful that you should have studied this book so -thoroughly during the half-hour you waited for us here this -morning." -

- -

-It was Hanaud's turn to change colour. The blood -mounted into his face. He was for a second or two quite -disconcerted. Jim once more had a glimpse of the secret -duel and rejoiced that this time it was Hanaud, the great -Hanaud, who was scratched. -

- -

-"The study of poisons is particularly my work," he -answered shortly. "Even at the Sûrété we have to -specialise nowadays," and he turned rather quickly towards -Frobisher. "You are thoughtful, Monsieur?" -

- -

-Jim was following out his own train of thought. -

- -

-"Yes," he answered. Then he spoke to Betty. -

- -

-"Boris Waberski had a latch-key, I suppose?" -

- -

-"Yes," she replied. -

- -

-"He took it away with him?" -

- -

-"I think so." -

- -

-"When are the iron gates locked?" -

- -

-"It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed." -

- -

-Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. -

- -

-"You see, Monsieur Hanaud," he cried, "all this while -we have been leaving out a question of importance. Who -put this book back upon its shelf? And when? Yesterday -at noon the space was empty. This morning it is -filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the garden -after dinner behind the house. What could have been -easier than for Waberski to slip in with his latch-key at -some moment when the court was empty, replace the book -and slip out again unnoticed? Why——" -

- -

-A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. -

- -

-"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The -police have a sergent-de-ville at our gates, night and day." -

- -

-Hanaud shook his head. -

- -

-"He is there no longer. After you were good enough -to answer me so frankly yesterday morning the questions -it was my duty to put to you, I had him removed at -once." -

- -

-"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He -remembered now that when he had driven up with his -luggage from the hotel in the afternoon, the street of -Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty Harlowe -stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made -her face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she -dipped to the detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice -was warm with gratitude. -

- -

-"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday -that the man had been removed, or I should have thanked -you before. Indeed I was not looking for so much -consideration at your hands. As I told my friend Jim, I -believed that you went away thinking me guilty." -

- -

-Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the -flourish of the sword with which the duellist saluted at -the end of the bout. The little secret combat between -these two was over. Hanaud, by removing the sergeant -from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only -to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify -any surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or -any limitations upon her freedom. -

- -

-"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at -his solution of the case like a dog with a bone. "You -see Waberski had the road clear for him last night." -

- -

-Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head -vigorously. -

- -

-"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so -horrible a murder. More," and she turned her great eyes -pleadingly upon Hanaud, "I don't believe that any murder -was committed here at all. I don't want to believe it," -and for a moment her voice faltered. -

- -

-"After all, Monsieur Hanaud, what are you building -this dreadful theory upon? That a book of my Uncle -Simon was not in his library yesterday and is there -to-day. We know nothing more. We don't know even -whether Jean Cladel exists at all." -

- -

-"We shall know that, Mademoiselle, very soon," said -Hanaud, staring down at the book upon the table. -

- -

-"We don't know whether the arrow is in the house, -whether it ever was." -

- -

-"We must make sure, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud -stubbornly. -

- -

-"And even if you had it now, here with the poison -clinging in shreds to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure -that the rest of it had been used. Here is a report, -Monsieur, from the doctors. Because it says that no trace -of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a -poison was administered which leaves no trace. You -never can prove it. You have nothing to go upon. It's -all guesswork, and guesswork which will keep us living in -a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a moment that murder -had been committed, I'd say, 'Go on, go on'! But it -hasn't. Oh, it hasn't!" -

- -

-Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there -was so strong a passion of appeal, for peace, for an -end of suspicion, for a right to forget and be forgotten, -that Jim fancied no man could resist it. Indeed, Hanaud -sat for a long while with his eyes bent upon the table -before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently -though his voice began, Jim knew at once that she had -lost. -

- -

-"You argue and plead very well, Mademoiselle Betty," -he said. "But we have each of us our little creeds by -which we live for better or for worse. Here is mine, a -very humble one. I can discover extenuations in most -crimes: even crimes of violence. Passion, anger, even -greed! What are they but good qualities developed -beyond the bounds? Things at the beginning good and -since grown monstrous! So, too, in the execution. This -or that habit of life makes natural this or that weapon -which to us is hideous and abnormal and its mere use a -sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognise these -palliations. But there is one crime I never will -forgive—murder by poison. And one criminal in whose pursuit -I will never tire nor slacken, the Poisoner." Through the -words there ran a real thrill of hatred, and though -Hanaud's voice was low, and he never once raised his -eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him -in a dreadful spell. -

- -

-"Cowardly and secret, the poisoner has his little world -at his mercy, and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be -sure," he continued bitterly. "His hideous work is so -easy. It just becomes a vice like drink, no more than -that to the poisoner, but with a thousand times the pleasure -drink can give. Like the practice of some abominable -art. I tell you the truth now! Show me one victim -to-day and the poisoner scot-free, and I'll show you -another victim before the year's out. Make no mistake! -Make no mistake!" -

- -

-His voice rang out and died away. But the words -seemed still to vibrate in the air of that room, to strike -the walls and rebound from them and still be audible. -Jim Frobisher, for all his slow imagination, felt that had -a poisoner been present and heard them, some cry of -guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His -heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his -reason told him there was no mouth in that room from -which the cry could come. -

- -

-Hanaud looked up at Betty when he had finished. He -begged her pardon with a little flutter of his hands and a -regretful smile. "You must take me, therefore, as God -made me, Mademoiselle, and not blame me more than -you can help for the distress I still must cause you. -There was never a case more difficult. Therefore never -one about which one way or the other I must be more -sure." -

- -

-Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the -door. -

- -

-"Come in," Hanaud cried out, and a small, dark, alert -man in plain clothes entered the room. -

- -

-"This is Nicolas Moreau, who was keeping watch in -the courtyard. I sent him some while ago upon an -errand," he explained and turned again to Moreau. -

- -

-"Well, Nicolas?" -

- -

-Nicolas stood at attention, with his hands at the seams -of his trousers, in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited -rather than spoke in a perfectly expressionless official -voice. -

- -

-"In accordance with instructions I went to the shop -of Jean Cladel. It is number seven. From the Rue -Gambetta I went to the Prefecture. I verified your -statement. Jean Cladel has twice appeared before the Police -Correctionelle for selling forbidden drugs and has twice -been acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses." -

- -

-"Thank you, Nicolas." -

- -

-Moreau saluted, turned on his heel, and went out of -the room. There followed a moment of silence, of -discouragement. Hanaud looked ruefully at Betty. -

- -

-"You see! I must go on. We must search in that -locked cabinet of Simon Harlowe's for the poison arrow, -if by chance it should be there." -

- -

-"The room is sealed," Frobisher reminded him. -

- -

-"We must have those seals removed," he replied, and -he took his watch from his pocket and screwed up his -face in grimace. -

- -

-"We need Monsieur the Commissary, and Monsieur the -Commissary will not be in a good humour if we disturb -him now. For it is twelve o'clock, the sacred hour of -luncheon. You will have observed upon the stage that -Commissaries of Police are never in a good humour. It -is because——" But Hanaud's audience was never to -hear his explanation of this well-known fact. For he -stopped with a queer jerk of his voice, his watch still -dangling from his fingers upon its chain. Both Jim and -Betty looked at once where he was looking. They saw -Ann Upcott standing up against the wall with her hand -upon the top rail of a chair to prevent herself from -falling. Her eyes were closed, her whole face a mask -of misery. Hanaud was at her side in a moment. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle," he asked with a breathless sort of -eagerness, "what is it you have to tell me?" -

- -

-"It is true, then?" she whispered. "Jean Cladel -exists?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And the poison arrow could have been used?" she -faltered, and the next words would not be spoken, but -were spoken at the last. "And death would have -followed in fifteen minutes?" -

- -

-"Upon my oath it is true," Hanaud insisted. "What -is it you have to tell me?" -

- -

-"That I could have hindered it all. I shall never -forgive myself. I could have hindered the murder." -

- -

-Hanaud's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was -he disappointed, Frobisher wondered? Did he expect -quite another reply? A swift movement by Betty -distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty looking -across the room at them with the strangest glittering eyes -he had ever seen. And then Ann Upcott drew herself -away from Hanaud and stood up against the wall at her -full height with her arms outstretched. She seemed to -be setting herself apart as a pariah; her whole attitude -and posture cried, "Stone me! I am waiting." -

- -

-Hanaud put his watch into his pocket. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, we will let the Commissary eat his -luncheon in peace, and we will hear your story first. But -not here. In the garden under the shade of the trees." He -took his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Indeed -I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as an oven." -

- -

-When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon -the incidents of that morning, nothing stood out so vividly -in his memories, no, not even the book of arrows and its -plates, not Hanaud's statement of his creed, as the picture -of him twirling his watch at the end of his chain, whilst -it sparkled in the sunlight and he wondered whether -he should break in now upon the Commissaire of Police -or let him eat his luncheon in quiet. So much that was -then unsuspected by them all, hung upon the exact -sequence of events. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER NINE: The Secret -

- -

-The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn -towards the farther end of the garden in the shadow -of the great trees. Hanaud led the way towards them. -

- -

-"We shall be in the cool here and with no one to -overhear us but the birds," he said, and he patted and -arranged the cushions in a deep arm-chair of basket work -for Ann Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded again of -the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid and again the -parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer -insight into the character of this implacable being. The -little courtesies and attentions were not assumed. They -were natural, but they would not hinder him for a -moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the cushions with -the swift deft hands of a nurse—yes, but he would slip -the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment -afterwards, no less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty -prompted him. -

- -

-"There!" he said. "Now, Mademoiselle, you are -comfortable. For me, if I am permitted, I shall smoke." -

- -

-He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who -with Jim had followed into the garden behind him. -

- -

-"Of course," she answered; and coming forward, she -sat down in another of the chairs. -

- -

-Hanaud pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of -thin black cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair -close to the two girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind -Hanaud. The lawn was dappled with sunlight and cool -shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling from -bough and bush, the garden was riotous with roses and -the air sweet with their perfume. It was a strange -setting for the eerie story which Ann Upcott had to tell of -her adventures in the darkness and silence of a night; but -the very contrast seemed to make the story still more -vivid. -

- -

-"I did not go to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball on the -night of April the 27th," she began, and Jim started, so -that Hanaud raised his hand to prevent him interrupting. -He had not given a thought to where Ann Upcott had -been upon that night. To Hanaud, however, the -statement brought no surprise. -

- -

-"You were not well?" he asked. -

- -

-"It wasn't that," Ann replied. "But Betty and I had—I -won't say a rule, but a sort of working arrangement -which I think had been in practice ever since I came to -the Maison Crenelle. We didn't encroach upon each -other's independence." -

- -

-The two girls had recognised from their first coming -together that privacy was the very salt of companionship. -Each had a sanctuary in her own sitting-room. -

- -

-"I don't think Betty has ever been in mine, I only once -or twice in hers," said Ann. "We had each our own -friends. We didn't pester each other with questions as -to where we had been and with whom. In a word, we -weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels." -

- -

-"A wise rule, Mademoiselle," Hanaud agreed cordially. -"A good many households are split from roof to cellar -by the absence of just such a rule. The de Pouillacs then -were Mademoiselle Betty's friends." -

- -

-"Yes. As soon as Betty had gone," Ann resumed, -"I told Gaston that he might turn off the lights and go -to bed whenever he liked; and I went upstairs to my own -sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. You can see -the windows from here. There!" -

- -

-They were in a group facing the back of the long house -across the garden. To the right of the hall stretched the -line of shuttered windows, with Betty's bedroom just -above. Ann pointed to the wing on the left of the hall -and towards the road. -

- -

-"I see. You are above the library, Mademoiselle," said -Hanaud. -

- -

-"Yes. I had a letter to write," Ann continued, and -suddenly faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in -the telling of her story which she had forgotten when -she had uttered her cry in the library. She gasped. -"Oh!" she murmured, and again "Oh!" in a low voice. -She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from -her at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows -upon her knees and her eyes on the grass at her feet and -apparently miles away in thought. -

- -

-"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud asked smoothly. -

- -

-"It was an important letter," Ann went on again, -choosing her words warily, much as yesterday at one -moment in her interrogatory Betty herself had -done—concealing something, too, just as Betty had done. "I -had promised faithfully to write it. But the address was -downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a -doctor," and having said that, it seemed that she had -cleared her obstacle, for she went on in a more easy and -natural tone. -

- -

-"You know what it is, Monsieur Hanaud. I had been -playing tennis all the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. -There was a letter to be written with a good deal of care -and the address was all the way downstairs. I said to -myself that I would think out the terms of my letter -first." -

- -

-And here Jim Frobisher, who had been shifting impatiently -from one foot to the other, broke in upon the -narrative. -

- -

-"But what was this letter about and to what doctor?" -he asked. -

- -

-Hanaud swung round almost angrily. -

- -

-"Oh, please!" he cried. "These things will all come to -light of themselves in their due order, if we leave them -alone and keep them in our memories. Let Mademoiselle -tell her story in her own way," and he was back at -Ann Upcott again in a flash. -

- -

-"Yes, Mademoiselle. You determined to think out the -tenor of your letter." -

- -

-A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a -second. "But it was an excuse really, an excuse to sit -down in my big arm-chair, stretch out my legs and do -nothing at all. You can guess what happened." -

- -

-Hanaud smiled and nodded. -

- -

-"You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young -people, who are healthy and tired, awake," he said. -

- -

-"No, but it wakes up with them," Ann returned, "and -upbraids at once bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as -people do who have gone to sleep in their chairs. I was -wearing a little thin frock of pale blue tulle—oh, a -feather-weight of a frock! Yes, I was cold and my conscience -was saying, 'Oh, big lazy one! And your letter? Where -is it?' -

- -

-"In a moment I was standing up and the next I was -out of the room on the landing, and I was still half dazed -with sleep. I closed my door behind me. It was just -chance that I did it. The lights were all out on the -staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn -across the windows. There was no moon that night. I -was in a darkness so complete that I could not see the -glimmer of my hand when I raised it close before my -face." -

- -

-Hanaud let the end of his cigarette drop at his feet. -Betty had raised her face and was staring at Ann with -her mouth parted. For all of them the garden had -disappeared with its sunlight and its roses and its singing -birds. They were upon that staircase with Ann Upcott -in the black night. The swift changes of colour in her -cheeks and of expression in her eyes—the nervous -vividness of her compelled them to follow with her. -

- -

-"Yes, Mademoiselle?" said Hanaud quietly. -

- -

-"The darkness didn't matter to me," she went on, with -an amazement at her own fearlessness, now that she -knew the after-history of that evening. "I am afraid -now. I wasn't then," and Jim remembered how the night -before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark -spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was -afraid now! Her hands were clenched tight upon the -arms of her chair, her lips shook. -

- -

-"I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on -the balustrade. There was no sound. It never occurred -to me that any one was awake except myself. I did -not even turn on the light in the hall by the switch at -the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch -just inside the door of Betty's room, and that was enough. -I think, too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the -foot of the stairs I turned right like a soldier. Exactly -opposite to me across the hall was the door of Betty's -room. I crossed the hall with my hands out in front of -me," and Betty, as though she herself were crossing the -hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. -

- -

-"Yes, one would have to do that," she said slowly. "In -the dark—with nothing but space in front of one—— Yes!" -and then she smiled as she saw that Hanaud's eyes -were watching her curiously. "Don't you think so, -Monsieur Hanaud?" -

- -

-"No doubt," said he. "But let us not interrupt Mademoiselle." -

- -

-"I touched the wall first," Ann resumed, "just at the -angle of the corridor and the hall." -

- -

-"The corridor with the windows on to the courtyard -on the one side and the doors of the receptions on the -other?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, -Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"Yes. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I -felt my way along the wall to my right—that is, in the -hall, of course, not the corridor—until my hands slipped -off the surface and touched nothing. I had reached the -embrasure of the doorway. I felt for the door-knob, -turned it and entered the room. The light switch was in -the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I -snapped it down. I think that I was still half asleep when -I turned the light on in the treasure-room, as we called -it. But the next moment I was wide awake—oh, I have -never been more wide awake in my life. My fingers -indeed were hardly off the switch after turning the light -on, before they were back again turning the light off. But -this time I eased the switch up very carefully, so that -there should be no snap—no, not the tiniest sound to -betray me. There was so short an interval between the -two movements of my hand that I had just time to notice -the clock on the top of the marquetry cabinet in the -middle of the wall opposite to me, and then once more I -stood in darkness, but stock still and holding my breath—a -little frightened—yes, no doubt a little frightened, but -more astonished than frightened. For in the inner wall -of the room, at the other end, close by the window, -there,"—and Ann pointed to the second of those shuttered -windows which stared so blankly on the garden—"the door -which was always locked since Simon Harlowe's death -stood open and a bright light burned beyond." -

- -

-Betty Harlowe uttered a little cry. -

- -

-"That door?" she exclaimed, now at last really -troubled. "It stood open? How can that have been?" -

- -

-Hanaud shifted his position in his chair, and asked her -a question. -

- -

-"On which side of the door was the key, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all." -

- -

-"Oh! You don't remember whether it was?" -

- -

-"No," said Betty. "Of course both Ann and I were -in and out of Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but -there was a dressing-room between the bedroom and the -communicating door of my room, so that we should not -have noticed." -

- -

-"To be sure," Hanaud agreed. "The dressing-room in -which the nurse might have slept and did when Madame -had a seizure. Do you remember whether the communicating -door was still open or unlocked on the next -morning?" -

- -

-Betty frowned and reflected, and shook her head. -

- -

-"I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. -There was so much to do. I did not notice." -

- -

-"No. Indeed why should you?" said Hanaud. He -turned back to Ann. "Before you go on with this curious -story, Mademoiselle, tell me this! Was the light beyond -the open door, a light in the dressing-room or in the room -beyond the dressing-room, Madame Harlowe's bedroom, -or didn't you notice?" -

- -

-"In the far room, I think," Ann answered confidently. -"There would have been more light in the treasure-room -otherwise. The treasure-room is long no doubt, but -where I stood I was completely in darkness. There was -only this panel of yellow light in the open doorway. It -lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up the -sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened -like silver." -

- -

-"Oho, there is a sedan chair in that museum?" said -Hanaud lightly. "It will be interesting to see. So the -light, Mademoiselle, came from the far room?" -

- -

-"The light and—and the voices," said Ann with a -quaver in her throat. -

- -

-"Voices!" cried Hanaud. He sat up straight in his -chair, whilst Betty Harlowe went as white as a ghost. -"Voices! What is this? Did you recognise those -voices?" -

- -

-"One, Madame's. There was no mistaking it. It was -loud and violent for a moment. Then it went off into -a mumble of groans. The other voice only spoke once -and very few words and very clearly. But it spoke in -a whisper. There was too a sound of—movements." -

- -

-"Movements!" said Hanaud sharply; and with his -voice his face seemed to sharpen too. "Here's a word -which does not help us much. A procession moves. So -does the chair if I push it. So does my hand if I cover -a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you -mean, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-Under the stern insistence of his questions Ann Upcott -suddenly weakened. -

- -

-"Oh, I am afraid so," she said with a loud cry, and she -clapped her hands to her face. "I never understood until -this morning when you spoke of how the arrow might -be used. Oh, I shall never forgive myself. I stood in -the darkness, a few yards away—no more—I stood quite -still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway -Madame was being killed!" She drew her hands from -her face and beat upon her knees with her clenched fists -in a frenzy. -

- -

-"'Yes, I believe that now!' Madame cried in the hoarse, -harsh voice we knew: 'Stripped, eh? Stripped to the -skin!' and she laughed wildly; and then came the sound, -as though—yes, it might have been that!—as though she -were forced down and held, and Madame's voice died to -a mumble and then silence—and then the other voice in a -low clear whisper, 'That will do now.' And all the -while I stood in the darkness—oh!" -

- -

-"What did you do after that clear whisper reached your -ears?" Hanaud commanded. "Take your hands from -your face, if you please, and let me hear." -

- -

-Ann Upcott obeyed him. She flung her head back with -the tears streaming down her face. -

- -

-"I turned," she whispered. "I went out of the room. -I closed the door behind me—oh, ever so gently. I -fled." -

- -

-"Fled? Fled? Where to?" -

- -

-"Up the stairs! To my room." -

- -

-"And you rang no bell? You roused no one? You -fled to your room! You hid your head under the -bed-clothes like a child! Come, come, Mademoiselle!" -

- -

-Hanaud broke off his savage irony to ask, -

- -

-"And whose voice did you think it was that whispered -so clearly, 'That will do now?' The stranger's you spoke -of in the library this morning?" -

- -

-"No, Monsieur," Ann replied. "I could not tell. With -a whisper one voice is like another." -

- -

-"But you must have given that voice an owner. To -run away and hide—no one would do that." -

- -

-"I thought it was Jeanne Baudin's." -

- -

-And Hanaud sat back in his chair again, gazing at -the girl with a look in which there was as much horror as -incredulity. Jim Frobisher stood behind him ashamed -of his very race. Could there be a more transparent -subterfuge? If she thought that the nurse Jeanne Baudin -was in the bedroom, why did she turn and fly? -

- -

-"Come, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. His voice had -suddenly become gentle, almost pleading. "You will not -make me believe that." -

- -

-Ann Upcott turned with a helpless gesture towards -Betty. -

- -

-"You see!" she said. -

- -

-"Yes," Betty answered. She sat in doubt for a second -or two and then sprang to her feet. -

- -

-"Wait!" she said, and before any one could have -stopped her she was skimming half-way across the garden -to the house. Jim Frobisher wondered whether Hanaud -had meant to stop her and then had given up the idea as -quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some -small quick movement; and even now, he watched Betty's -flight across the broad lawn between the roses with an -inscrutable queer look. -

- -

-"To run like that!" he said to Frobisher, "with a boy's -nimbleness and a girl's grace! It is pretty, eh? The long -slim legs that twinkle, the body that floats!" and Betty -ran up the stone steps into the house. -

- -

-There was a tension in Hanaud's attitude with which -his light words did not agree, and he watched the blank -windows of the house with expectancy. Betty, however, -was hardly a minute upon her errand. She reappeared -upon the steps with a largish envelope in her hand and -quickly rejoined the group. -

- -

-"Monsieur, we have tried to keep this back from you," -she said, without bitterness but with a deep regret. "I -yesterday, Ann to-day, just as we have tried for many -years to keep it from all Dijon. But there is no help for -it now." -

- -

-She opened the envelope and, taking out a cabinet -photograph, handed it to Hanaud. -

- -

-"This is the portrait of Madame, my aunt, at the time -of her marriage with my uncle." -

- -

-It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman, -slender with the straight carriage of youth, in whose face -a look of character had replaced youth's prettiness. It -was a face made spiritual by suffering, the eyes shadowed -and wistful, the mouth tender, and conveying even in the -hard medium of a photograph some whimsical sense of -humour. It made Jim Frobisher, gazing over Hanaud's -shoulder, exclaim not "She was beautiful," but "I would -like to have known her." -

- -

-"Yes! A companion," Hanaud added. -

- -

-Betty took a second photograph from the envelope. -

- -

-"But this, Monsieur, is the same lady a year ago." -

- -

-The second photograph had been taken at Monte Carlo, -and it was difficult to believe that it was of the same -woman, so tragic a change had taken place within those -ten years. Hanaud held the portraits side by side. The -grace, the suggestion of humour had all gone; the figure -had grown broad, the features coarse and heavy; the -cheeks had fattened, the lips were pendulous; and there -was nothing but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful -picture of collapse. -

- -

-"It is best to be precise, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud -gently, "though these photographs tell their unhappy story -clearly enough. Madame Harlowe, during the last years -of her life, drank?" -

- -

-"Since my uncle's death," Betty explained. "Her life, -as very likely you know already, had been rather miserable -and lonely before she married him. But she had a -dream then on which to live. After Simon Harlowe died, -however——" and she ended her explanation with a -gesture. -

- -

-"Yes," Hanaud replied, "of course, Mademoiselle, we -have known, Monsieur Frobisher and I, ever since we -came into this affair that there was some secret. We -knew it before your reticence of yesterday or Mademoiselle -Upcott's of to-day. Waberski must have known of -something which you would not care to have exposed -before he threatened your lawyers in London, or brought -his charges against you." -

- -

-"Yes, he knew and the doctors and the servants of -course who were very loyal. We did our best to keep -our secret but we could never be sure that we had -succeeded." -

- -

-A friendly smile broadened Hanaud's face. -

- -

-"Well, we can make sure now and here," he said, and -both the girls and Jim stared at him. -

- -

-"How?" they exclaimed in an incredulous voice. -

- -

-Hanaud beamed. He held them in suspense. He -spread out his hands. The artist as he would have said, -the mountebank as Jim Frobisher would have expressed -it, had got the upper hand in him, and prepared his -effect. -

- -

-"By answering me one simple question," he said. -"Have either of you two ladies received an anonymous -letter upon the subject?" -

- -

-The test took them all by surprise; yet each one of -them recognised immediately that they could hardly have -a better. All the secrets of the town had been exploited -at one time or another by this unknown person or group -of persons—all the secrets that is, except this one of -Mrs. Harlowe's degradation. For Betty answered, -

- -

-"No! I never received one." -

- -

-"Nor I," added Ann. -

- -

-"Then your secret is your secret still," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"For how long now?" Betty asked quickly, and Hanaud -did not answer a word. He could make no promise -without being false to what he had called his creed. -

- -

-"It is a pity," said Betty wistfully. "We have striven -so hard, Ann and I," and she gave to the two men a -glimpse of the life the two girls had led in the Maison -Crenelle. "We could do very little. We had neither of -us any authority. We were both of us dependent upon -Madame's generosity, and though no one could have -been kinder when—when Madame was herself, she was -not easy when she had—the attacks. There was too much -difference in age between us and her for us really to do -anything but keep guard. -

- -

-"She would not brook interference; she drank alone in -her bedroom; she grew violent and threatening if any -one interfered. She would turn them all into the street. -If she needed any help she could ring for the nurse, as -indeed she sometimes, though rarely, did." It was a -dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlowe described it -for the two young sentinels. -

- -

-"We were utterly in despair," Betty continued. "For -Madame, of course, was really ill with her heart, and we -always feared some tragedy would happen. This letter -which Ann was to write when I was at Monsieur de -Pouillac's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a doctor -in England—he called himself a doctor at all events—who -advertised that he had a certain remedy which could -be given without the patient's knowledge in her food and -drink. Oh, I had no faith in it, but we had got to try it." -

- -

-Hanaud looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. -

- -

-"What did I say to you, Monsieur Frobisher, when you -wanted to ask a question about this letter? You see! -These things disclose themselves in their due order if you -leave them alone." -

- -

-The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his -feet and, bowing to Betty with an unaffected stateliness -and respect, he handed her back the photographs. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, I am very sorry," he said. "It is clear -that you and your friend have lived amongst difficulties -which we did not suspect. And, for the secret, I shall do -what I can." -

- -

-Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been -administered to him for the excellence of his manner -towards Betty. He had a hope even that now he would -forswear his creed, so that the secret might still be kept -and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close -watch. But Hanaud sat down again in his chair, and -once more turned towards Ann Upcott. He meant to go -on then. He would not leave well alone. Jim was all -the more disappointed, because he could not but realise -that the case was more and more clearly building itself -from something unsubstantial into something solid, from -a conjecture to an argument—this case against some one. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TEN: The Clock upon the Cabinet -

- -

-Ann Upcott's story was in the light of this new -disclosure intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, -she had heard, as she thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one -of her violent outbreaks. Then with a sense of relief she -had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was with -Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally -administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries -diminish and cease and a final whisper from the nurse to -her patient or even perhaps to herself, "That will do -now." Then she had turned and fled, taking care to -attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice had nothing -to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her -intervention, which before would only have been a provocation -to a wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was -now altogether without excuse. It would once more have -aroused the invalid, and next day would have added to -the discomfort and awkwardness of life in the Maison -Crenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known -that Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful -exhibitions. The best thing which Ann could do, she did, -given that her interpretation of the scene was the true one. -She ran noiselessly back in the darkness to her room. -

- -

-"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your -interpretation was not correct. You believe now that -whilst you stood in the darkness with the door open and -the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was being murdered, -coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you." -

- -

-Ann Upcott shivered from head to foot. -

- -

-"I don't want to believe it," she cried. "It's too -horrible." -

- -

-"You believe now that the one who whispered 'That -will do now,' was not Jeanne Baudin," Hanaud insisted, -"but some unknown person, and that the whisper was -uttered after murder had been done to a third person -in that room." -

- -

-Ann twisted her body from this side to that; she wrung -her hands. -

- -

-"I am afraid of it!" she moaned. -

- -

-"And what is torturing you now, Mademoiselle, is -remorse that you did not step silently forward and from -the darkness of the treasure-room look through that -lighted doorway." He spoke with a great consideration -and his insight into her distress was in its way a solace -to her. -

- -

-"Yes," she exclaimed eagerly. "I told you this morning -I could have hindered it. I didn't understand until -this morning. You see, that night something else -happened"; and now indeed stark fear drew the colour from -her cheeks and shone in her eyes. -

- -

-"Something else?" Betty asked with a quick indraw of -her breath, and she shifted her chair a little so that she -might face Ann. She was wearing a black coat over a -white silk shirt open at the throat, and she took her -handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it across -her forehead. -

- -

-"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud explained. "It is clear -that something else happened that night to your friend, -something which, taken together with our talk this -morning over the book of arrows, had made her believe that -murder was done." He looked at Ann. "You went -then to your room?" -

- -

-Ann resumed her story. -

- -

-"I went to bed. I was very—what shall I say?—disturbed -by Madame's outburst, as I thought it. One -never knew what was going to happen in this house. It -was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side to -side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was -asleep, sound asleep. But only for a time. I woke up -and it was still pitch dark in my room. There was not -a thread of light from the shutters. I turned over from -my side on to my back and I stretched out my arms -above my head. As God is my Judge I touched a -face——" and even after all these days the terror of that -moment was so vivid and fresh to her that she shuddered -and a little sob broke from her lips. "A face quite close -to me bending over me, in silence. I drew my hands -away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay -just for a second or two dumb, paralysed. Then my -voice came back to me and I screamed." -

- -

-It was the look of the girl as she told her story -perhaps more than the words she used; but something of her -terror spread like a contagion amongst her hearers. Jim -Frobisher's shoulders worked uneasily. Betty with her -big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, hung upon -Ann's narrative. Hanaud himself said: -

- -

-"You screamed? I do not wonder." -

- -

-"I knew that no one could hear me and that lying down -I was helpless," Ann continued. "I sprang out of bed -in a panic, and now I touched no one. I was so scared out -of my wits that I had lost all sense of direction. I -couldn't find the switch of the electric light. I stumbled -along a wall feeling with my hands. I heard myself -sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked -against a chest of drawers and came a little to myself. -I found my way then to the switch and turned on the -light. The room was empty. I tried to tell myself that -I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale wasn't -true. Some one had been stealthily bending down close, -oh, so close over me in the darkness. My hand that had -touched the face seemed to tingle. I asked myself with -a shiver, what would have happened to me if just at that -moment I had not waked up? I stood and listened, but -the beating of my heart filled the whole room with noise. -I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, -I could easily have believed that one after another an -army was creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I -made up my mind. I flung the door open wide. For a -moment I stood back from it, but once the door was -open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the -great staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an -empty church. I think that I should have heard a spider -stir. I suddenly realised that the light was streaming -from my room and that some of it must reach me. I -cried at once, 'Who's there?' And then I ran back to my -room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep -no more that night. I ran to the windows and threw open -the shutters. The night had cleared, the stars were bright -in a clean black sky and there was a freshness of morning -in the air. I had been, I should think, about five -minutes at the window when—you know perhaps, Monsieur, -how the clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the -hour from one another and pass it on to the hills—all of -them struck three. I stayed by the window until the -morning came." -

- -

-After she had finished no one spoke for a little while. -Then Hanaud slowly lit another cigarette, looking now -upon the ground, now into the air, anywhere except at the -faces of his companions. -

- -

-"So this alarming thing happened just before three -o'clock in the morning?" he asked gravely. "You are -very sure of that, I suppose? For, you see, it may be -of the utmost importance." -

- -

-"I am quite sure, Monsieur," she said. -

- -

-"And you have told this story to no one until this -moment?" -

- -

-"To no one in the world," replied Ann. "The next -morning Madame Harlowe was found dead. There were -the arrangements for the funeral. Then came Monsieur -Boris's accusation. There were troubles enough in the -house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would -have believed my story of the face in the darkness; and -I didn't of course associate it then with the death of -Mrs. Harlowe." -

- -

-"No," Hanaud agreed. "For you believed that death -to have been natural." -

- -

-"Yes, and I am not sure that it wasn't natural now," -Ann protested. "But to-day I had to tell you this story, -Monsieur Hanaud"; and she leaned forward in her chair -and claimed his attention with her eyes, her face, every -tense muscle of her body. "Because if you are right and -murder was done in this house on the twenty-seventh, I -know the exact hour when it was done." -

- -

-"Ah!" -

- -

-Hanaud nodded his head once or twice slowly. He -gathered up his feet beneath him. His eyes glittered very -brightly as he looked at Ann. He gave Frobisher the -queer impression of an animal crouching to spring. -

- -

-"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet," he said, -"against the middle of the wall in the treasure-room. -The white face of it and the hour which leapt at you -during that fraction of a second when your fingers were -on the switch." -

- -

-"Yes," said Ann with a slow and quiet emphasis. "The -hour was half-past ten." -

- -

-With that statement the tension was relaxed. Betty's -tightly-clenched hand opened and her trifle of a -handkerchief fluttered down on the grass. Hanaud changed -from that queer attitude of a crouching animal. Jim -Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. -

- -

-"Yes, that is very important," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"Important. I should think it was!" cried Jim. -

- -

-For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had -been done on the night of the 27th of April, there was -just one person belonging to the household of the Maison -Crenelle who could have no share in it; and that one -person was his client, Betty Harlowe. -

- -

-Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when -Hanaud spoke to her; and she drew herself erect again -with a little jerk. -

- -

-"Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good -time, Mademoiselle?" he asked. -

- -

-"Very good," she answered. "Monsieur Sabin the -watch-maker in the Rue de la Liberté has had it more -than once to clean. It is an eight-day clock. It will be -going when the seals are broken this afternoon. You will -see for yourself." -

- -

-Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. -He rose to his feet and bowed to her with a certain -formality but with a smile which redeemed it. -

- -

-"At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing -at the house of M. de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers," -he said. "Of that there is no doubt. Inquiries have been -made. Mademoiselle did not leave that house until after -one in the morning. There is evidence enough of that -to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her -dancing partners to M. de Pouillac's coachman, who stood -at the bottom of the steps with a lantern during that -evening and remembers to have held open for Mademoiselle -the door of her car when she went away." -

- -

-"So that's that," said Jim to himself. Betty at all -events was out of the net for good. And with that -certainty there came a revolution in his thoughts. Why -shouldn't Hanaud's search go on? It was interesting to -watch the building up of this case against an unknown -criminal—a case so difficult to bring to its proper -conclusion in the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there -was no trace of poison, a case where out of a mass of -conjectures, here and there and more and more definite -facts were coming into view; just as more and more -masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer -one approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to -go on, delving astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things -disclose themselves in their due sequence. But there -was one point which Hanaud had missed, which should -be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he -thought with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would -come to the help of the netted lion. He cleared his -throat. -

- -

-"Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to -ask you," he began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his -surprise, with a face of thunder. -

- -

-"You wish to ask a question?" he said. "Well, -Monsieur, ask it if you wish. It is your right." -

- -

-His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, "and -your responsibility." Jim hesitated. He could see no -harm in the question he proposed to ask. It was of vital -importance. Yet Hanaud stood in front of him with a -lowering face, daring him to put it. Jim did not doubt -any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point -and yet for some unknown reason objected to its -disclosure. Jim yielded, but not with a very good grace. -

- -

-"It is nothing," he said surlily, and Hanaud at once -was all cheerfulness again. -

- -

-"Then we will adjourn," he said, looking at his watch. -"It is nearly one o'clock. Shall we say three for the -Commissary of Police? Yes? Then I shall inform him -and we will meet in the library at three and"—with a -little bow to Betty—"the interdict shall be raised." -

- -

-"At three, then," she said gaily. She sprang up from -her chair, stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a -swift and supple movement, twirled upon her heel and -cried, "Come along, Ann!" -

- -

-The four people moved off towards the house. Betty -looked back. -

- -

-"You have left your gloves behind you on your chair," -she said suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back. -

- -

-"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, -"Oh, Mademoiselle!" -

- -

-For Betty had already darted back and now returned -dangling the gloves in her hand. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as -he took them from her. Then he cocked his head at -Frobisher, who was looking a little stiff. -

- -

-"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You -do not like that so much kindness should be shown me. -No! You are looking very proper. You have the poker -in the back. But ask yourself this: 'What are youth -and good looks compared with Hanaud?'" -

- -

-No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when -the urchin got the upper hand in him. And the worst -of it was that he had no rejoinder. He flushed very -red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in -silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and -stick, took his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. -Ann drifted into the library. Jim felt a touch upon his -arm. Betty was standing beside him with a smile of -amusement upon her face. -

- -

-"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, -did you?" she asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the -amusement softened into tenderness. "I wouldn't have -done it for worlds if I had thought you'd have minded." -

- -

-Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning. -

- -

-"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole -if it pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might -do the same for me'!" -

- -

-Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. -

- -

-"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next -moment she was out on the steps under the glass face of -the porch. "Lunch at two, Ann!" she cried. "I must -walk all the grime of this morning out of my brain." -

- -

-She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobisher. She -had something of Ariel in her conception—a delicate -creature of fire and spirit and air. She was across the -courtyard and out of sight in the street of Charles-Robert -before he had quite realised that she was going. He -turned doubtfully towards the library, where Ann Upcott -stood in the doorway. -

- -

-"I had better follow her," he said, reaching for his hat -

- -

-Ann smiled and shook her head wisely. -

- -

-"I shouldn't. I know Betty. She wants to be alone." -

- -

-"Do you think so?" -

- -

-"I am sure." -

- -

-Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon -the point as she was. Ann watched him with a rather -rueful smile for a little while. Then she shrugged her -shoulders in a sudden exasperation. -

- -

-"There is something you ought to do," she said. "You -ought to let Monsieur Bex, Betty's notary here, know that -the seals are to be broken this afternoon. He ought to be -here. He was here when they were affixed. Besides, he -has all the keys of Mrs. Harlowe's drawers and cupboards." -

- -

-"That's true," Jim exclaimed. "I'll go at once." -

- -

-Ann gave him Monsieur Bex's address in the Place -Etienne Dolet, and from the window of the library -watched him go upon his errand. She stood at the -window for a long while after he had disappeared. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER ELEVEN: A New Suspect -

- -

-Monsieur Bex the notary came out into the hall -of his house when Frobisher sent his card in to -him. He was a small, brisk man with a neat pointed -beard, his hair cut en brosse and the corner of his napkin -tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. -

- -

-Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from -the rooms of the Maison Grenelle, but said nothing at -all of the new developments which had begun with the -discovery of the book of the arrows. -

- -

-"I have had communications with Messrs. Frobisher -and Haslitt," the little man exclaimed. "Everything has -been as correct as it could possibly be. I am happy to -meet a partner of so distinguished a firm. Yes. I will -certainly present myself at three with my keys and see -the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a -disgrace. That young lady so delicious and so correct! -And that animal of a Waberski! But we can deal with -him. We have laws in France." -

- -

-He gave Jim the impression that there were in his -opinion no laws anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor -into the street. -

- -

-Jim returned by the Rue des Godrans and the main -thoroughfare of the town, the street of Liberty. As he -crossed the semicircle of the Place d'Armes in front of -the Hôtel de Ville, he almost ran into Hanaud smoking a -cigar. -

- -

-"You have lunched already?" he cried. -

- -

-"An affair of a quarter of an hour," said Hanaud with -a wave of the hand. "And you?" -

- -

-"Not until two. Miss Harlowe wanted a walk." -

- -

-Hanaud smiled. -

- -

-"How I understand that! The first walk after an -ordeal! The first walk of a convalescent after an -operation! The first walk of a defendant found innocent of -a grave charge! It must be worth taking, that walk. -But console yourself, my friend, for the postponement -of your luncheon. You have met me!" and he struck -something of an attitude. -

- -

-Now Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, -especially when displayed in public places, and he -answered stiffly, "That is a pleasure, to be sure." -

- -

-Hanaud grinned. To make Jim look "proper" was -becoming to him an unfailing entertainment. -

- -

-"Now I reward you," he said, though for what Jim -could not imagine. "You shall come with me. At this -hour, on the top of old Philippe le Bon's Terrace Tower, -we shall have the world to ourselves." -

- -

-He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hôtel -de Ville. Behind the long wing which faced them, a -square, solid tower rose a hundred and fifty feet high -above the ground. With Frobisher at his heels, Hanaud -climbed the three hundred and sixteen steps and emerged -upon the roof into the blue and gold of a cloudless May -in France. They looked eastwards, and the beauty of -the scene took Frobisher's breath away. Just in front, -the slender apse of Notre Dame, fine as a lady's -ornament, set him wondering how in the world through all -these centuries it had endured; and beyond, rich and -green and wonderful, stretched the level plain with its -shining streams and nestling villages. -

- -

-Hanaud sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out -his arm across the parapet. "Look!" he cried eagerly, -proudly. "There is what I brought you here to see. -Look!" -

- -

-Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up. Far away on -the horizon's edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the -great mass of Mont Blanc; white as silver, soft as velvet, -and here and there sparkling with gold as though the -flame of a fire leaped and sank. -

- -

-"Oho!" said Hanaud as he watched Jim's face. "So -we have that in common. You perhaps have stood on -the top of that mountain?" -

- -

-"Five times," Jim answered, with a smile made up of -many memories. "I hope to do so again." -

- -

-"You are fortunate," said Hanaud a little enviously. -"For me I see him only in the distance. But even so—if -I am troubled—it is like sitting silent in the company -of a friend." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher's mind strayed back over memories of -snow slope and rock ridge. It was a true phrase which -Hanaud had used. It expressed one of the many elusive, -almost incommunicable emotions which mountains did -mean to the people who had "that"—the passion for -mountains—in common. Jim glanced curiously at -Hanaud. -

- -

-"You are troubled about this case, then?" he said -sympathetically. The distant and exquisite vision of that -soaring arc of silver and velvet set in the blue air had -brought the two men into at all events a momentary -brotherhood. -

- -

-"Very," Hanaud returned slowly, without turning his -eyes from the horizon, "and for more reasons than one. -What do you yourself think of it?" -

- -

-"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," Jim said dryly, "that you -do not like any one to ask any questions except yourself." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. -

- -

-"Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful -Mademoiselle Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright -the question you meant to ask! It was whether the face -she touched in the darkness was the smooth face of a -woman or the face of a man." -

- -

-"Yes. That was it." -

- -

-It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly -at Jim. There could be no doubt of the thought which -was passing through his mind: "I must begin to give you -a little special attention, my friend." But he was careful -not to put his thoughts into words. -

- -

-"I did not want that question asked," he said. -

- -

-"Why?" -

- -

-"Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions -are confusing things which had best be avoided -altogether." -

- -

-Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He -had too clear a recollection of the swift movement and the -look with which Hanaud had checked him. Both had been -unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud would not have -been alarmed at the prospect of a question being asked, -merely because the question was superfluous. There was -another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in -Hanaud's mind. Only he could not discover it. -

- -

-Besides, was the question superfluous? -

- -

-"Surely," Hanaud replied. "Suppose that that young -lady's hand had touched in the darkness the face of a -man with its stubble, its tough skin, and the short hair -of his head around it, bending down so low over hers, -would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing -to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her -hands carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, -unexpectedly, the face of a man? She could not have -told her story at all without telling that. It would have -been the unforgettable detail, the very heart of her terror. -She touched the face of a man!" -

- -

-Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he -was no nearer to the solution of his problem—why -Hanaud so whole-heartedly objected to the question -being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark which -drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's -speculations. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the -darkness that night—if that night, in the darkness she -touched a face at all." -

- -

-Jim was utterly startled. -

- -

-"You believe that she was lying to us?" he cried. -

- -

-Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air. -

- -

-"I believe nothing," he said. "I am looking for a -criminal." -

- -

-"Ann Upcott!" Jim spoke the name in amazement. -"Ann Upcott!" Then he remembered the look of her -as she had told her story, her face convulsed with terror, -her shaking tones. "Oh, it's impossible that she was -lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?" -

- -

-Hanaud laughed. -

- -

-"You may take this from me, my friend. All women -who are great criminals are also very artful actresses. -I never knew one who wasn't." -

- -

-"Ann Upcott!" Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, -but now with a trifle less of amazement. He was growing -slowly and gradually accustomed to the idea. Still—that -girl with the radiant look of young Spring! Oh, no! -

- -

-"Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe's will," -he argued. "What could she have to gain by murder?" -

- -

-"Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! -Analyse it. You will see—what? That it falls into two -parts." Hanaud ground the stump of his cigar beneath -his heel, offered one of his black cigarettes to Jim -Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it with a -sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop -fizzling, would never burst into flame. -

- -

-"One part when she was alone in her bedroom—a little -story of terror and acted very effectively, but after all -any one could invent it. The other part was not so easy -to invent. The communicating door open for no reason, -the light beyond, the voice that whispered, 'That will do,' -the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don't -believe that was invented. There were too many little -details which seemed to have been lived through. The -white face of the clock and the hour leaping at her. No! -I think all that must stand. But adapt it a little. See! -This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of -Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!" -

- -

-"Yes," said Jim. -

- -

-"And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might -not be telling a true story of himself and attributing it -to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott's story in the same -way," continued Hanaud. "Suppose that sometime that -day she had unlocked the communicating door! What -more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during the day-time. -Her room was empty. And that communicating -door opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps -it might have been discovered whether it was locked or -not, but into a dressing-room." -

- -

-"Yes," Jim agreed. -

- -

-"Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after -Mademoiselle Harlowe's departure to Monsieur de Pouillac's -Ball. She sends Gaston to bed. The house is all -dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is joined -by—some one—some one with the arrow poison all ready in -the hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room -just as Ann Upcott described. That she turns on -the light for a second whilst—some one—crosses the -treasure-room and opens the door. Suppose that the voice -which whispered, 'That will do now,' was the voice of Ann -Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame -Harlowe's body to the third person in that room!" -

- -

-"The 'some one,'" exclaimed Jim. "But, who then? Who?" -

- -

-Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. "Why not Waberski?" -

- -

-"Waberski?" cried Jim with a new excitement in his -voice. -

- -

-"You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this -murder and you answered your own question. Nothing -you said, Monsieur Frobisher, but did your quick answer -cover the ground? Waberski—he at all events expected -a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for help proposed -to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite -Mademoiselle Ann. Has she no motive now? In the end what -do we know of her at all except that she is the paid -companion and therefore poor? Mademoiselle Ann!"; and -he threw up his hands. "Where does she spring from? -How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps -Waberski's friend?"—and a cry from Jim brought -Hanaud to a stop. -

- -

-Jim had thought of Waberski as the possible murderer -if murder had been done—a murderer who, disappointed -of his legacy, the profits of his murder, had carried on -his villainy to blackmail and a false accusation. But he -had not associated Ann Upcott with him until those -moments on the Terrace Tower. Yet now memories -began to crowd upon him. The letter to him, for instance. -She had said that Waberski had claimed her support and -ridiculed his claim. Might that letter not have been a blind -and a rather cunning blind? Above all there was a scene -passing vividly through his mind which was very different -from the scene spread out before his eyes, a scene of lighted -rooms and a crowd about a long green table, and a fair -slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until -the whole of her little pile of banknotes was swept in by -the croupier's rake, and then turned away with a high -carriage but a quivering lip. -

- -

-"Aha!" said Hanaud keenly. "You know something -after all of Ann Upcott, my friend. What do you -know?" -

- -

-Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to -her that he should relate his story. Explained, it might -wear so different a complexion. At another moment that -it would be fairer to let her explain it. And there was -Betty to consider. Yes, above all there was Betty to -consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. -

- -

-"I will tell you," he said to Hanaud. "When I saw -you in Paris, I told you that I had never seen Ann Upcott -in all my life. I believed it. It wasn't until she danced -into the library yesterday morning that I realised I had -misled you. I saw Ann Upcott at the trente et quarante -table at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in January of -this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and -losing her money. Nothing would go right for her. She -bore herself proudly and well. The only sign I saw of -distress was the tightening of her fingers about her little -handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at the other players -when she rose after her last coup, as though she dared -them to pity her. I was on the other hand winning, and -I slipped a thousand-franc note off the table on to the -floor, keeping my heel firmly upon it as you can -understand. And as the girl turned to move out from the -crowd I stopped her. I said in English, for she was -obviously of my race, 'This is yours. You have dropped -it on the floor.' She gave me a smile and a little shake of -the head. I think that for the moment she dared not trust -her lips to speak, and in a second, of course, she was -swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a little while -longer. Then I too rose and as I passed the entrance to -the bar on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from -one of the many little tables and spoke to me. She called -me by my name. She thanked me very prettily and said -that although she had lost that evening she was not really -in any trouble. I doubted the truth of what she said. For -she had not one ring upon any finger, not the tiniest -necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress -or in her hair. She turned away from me at once and -went back to the little table where she sat down again in -the company of a man. The girl of course was Ann -Upcott, the man Waberski. It was from him no doubt -that she had got my name." -

- -

-"Did this little episode happen before Ann Upcott -became a member of the household?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"Yes," replied Jim. "I think she joined Mrs. Harlowe -and Betty at Monte Carlo. I think that she came -with them back to Dijon." -

- -

-"No doubt," said Hanaud. He sat for a little while -in silence. Then he said softly, "That does not look so -very well for Mademoiselle Ann." -

- -

-Jim had to admit that it did not. -

- -

-"But consider this, Monsieur Hanaud," he urged. "If -Ann Upcott, which I will not believe, is mixed up in this -affair, why should she of her own free will volunteer this -story of what she heard upon the night of the -twenty-seventh and invent that face which bent down over her -in the darkness?" -

- -

-"I have an idea about that," Hanaud replied. "She -told us this story—when? After I had said that we must -have the seals broken this afternoon and the rooms thrown -open. It is possible that we may come upon something -in those rooms which makes it wise for her to divert -suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jeanne -Baudin, or even Mademoiselle Harlowe's maid Francine -Rollard." -

- -

-"But not Mademoiselle Betty," Jim interposed quickly. -

- -

-"No, no!" Hanaud returned with a wave of his hand. -"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet settled that. -Mademoiselle Betty is out of the affair. Well, this -afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, you will be -late for your luncheon." -

- -

-Hanaud rose from the bench and with a last look at the -magical mountain, that outpost of France, they turned -towards the city. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares green -with limes and the steep gaily-patterned roofs of ancient -houses. About him the fine tapering spires leapt high -like lances from the slates of its many churches. A little -to the south and a quarter of a mile away across the roof -tops he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke -rising from a chimney stack or two and behind it the tops -of tall trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from -their leaves. -

- -

-"The Maison Crenelle!" he said. -

- -

-There was no answer, not even the slightest movement -at his side. -

- -

-"Isn't it?" he asked and he turned. -

- -

-Hanaud had not even heard him. He was gazing -also towards the Maison Crenelle with the queerest look -upon his face; a look with which Jim was familiar in -some sort of association, but which for a moment or two -he could not define. It was not an expression of -amazement. On the other hand interest was too weak a word. -Suddenly Jim Frobisher understood and comprehension -brought with it a sense of discomfort. Hanaud's look, -very bright and watchful and more than a little inhuman, -was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master -brings out a gun. -

- -

-Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The -slates were broken at intervals by little gabled windows, -but at none of them could he see a figure. From none of -them a signal was waved. -

- -

-"What is it that you are looking at?" asked Jim in -perplexity and then with a touch of impatience. "You -see something, I'm sure." -

- -

-Hanaud heard his companion at last. His face -changed in a moment, lost its rather savage vigilance, and -became the face of a buffoon. -

- -

-"Of course I see something. Always I see something. -Am I not Hanaud? Ah, my friend, the responsibility of -being Hanaud! Aren't you fortunate to be without it? -Pity me! For the Hanauds must see something -everywhere—even when there is nothing to see. Come!" -

- -

-He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform -into the dark turret of the staircase. The two men -descended the steps and came out again into the semi-circle -of the Place d'Armes. -

- -

-"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he -had some little thing to say and was not quite sure -whether he would say it. Then he compromised. "You -shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to your -luncheon," he said. -

- -

-"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied. -

- -

-Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his -outstretched forefinger. -

- -

-"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take -a Vermouth with me, and you will still reach the Maison -Crenelle before Mademoiselle Harlowe. I say that, -Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and -consented. -

- -

-"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her -and Ann Upcott half through their meal." -

- -

-A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and -the Place d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out -on the pavement beneath an awning. They sat down at -one of them, and over the Vermouth, Hanaud was once -more upon the brink of some recommendation or statement. -

- -

-"You see——" he began and then once more ran away. -"So you have been five times upon the top of the Mont -Blanc!" he said. "From Chamonix?" -

- -

-"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant -by the Brenva glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once -from the Brouillard glacier. And the last time by the -Mont Mandit." -

- -

-Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: -

- -

-"You tell me things which are interesting and very -new to me," he said warmly. "I am grateful, Monsieur." -

- -

-"On the other hand," Jim answered dryly, "you, Monsieur, -tell me very little. Even what you brought me to -this café to say, you are going to keep to yourself. But -for my part I shall not be so churlish. I am going to tell -you what I think." -

- -

-"Yes?" -

- -

-"I think we have missed the way." -

- -

-"Oh?" -

- -

-Hanaud selected a cigarette from his bundle in its -bright blue wrapping. -

- -

-"You will perhaps think me presumptuous in saying so." -

- -

-"Not the least little bit in the world," Hanaud replied -seriously. "We of the Police are liable in searching -widely to overlook the truth under our noses. That is our -danger. Another angle of view—there is nothing more -precious. I am all attention." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher drew his chair closer to the round table -of iron and leaned his elbows upon it. -

- -

-"I think there is one question in particular which we -must answer if we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlowe -was murdered, and if so by whom." -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we -have the same question in our minds." -

- -

-"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this—Who -put back the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in -its place upon the bookshelf in the library, between -mid-day yesterday and this morning." -

- -

-Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and -held it in the shelter of his palm until the flame shone. -He lit his cigarette and took a few puffs at it. -

- -

-"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, -although in rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. -No. I think there is another more important still. I -think if we could know why the door of the treasure-room, -which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's -death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh -of April, we should be very near to the whole truth of this -dark affair. But," and he flung out his hands, "that -baffles me." -

- -

-Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily -upon the pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer -there. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals -

- -

-A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that -Hanaud guessed very luckily. He would not allow -that it was more than a guess. Monsieur Hanaud might -be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no insight, however -brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a circumstance. -But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at -the Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty -Harlowe. He had loitered with Hanaud at the café just -so that this might not take place. He shrank from being -alone with Ann Upcott now that he suspected her. The -most he could hope to do was to conceal the reason of his -trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could not -conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by -a rather wistful expression of sympathy. -

- -

-"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you -need not be any longer. What I said this morning was -true. It was half-past ten when that dreadful whisper -reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her -friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that." -

- -

-"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, -and Ann looked at him with startled eyes. -

- -

-Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall -before Ann could ask a question; and throughout their -luncheon he made conversation upon indifferent subjects -with rapidity, if without entertainment. -

- -

-Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were -still indeed smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when -Gaston informed them that the Commissary of Police -with his secretary was waiting in the library. -

- -

-"This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London," said -Betty as she presented Jim. -

- -

-The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, -middle-aged man with a pair of folding glasses sitting -upon a prominent fat nose; his secretary, Maurice -Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the police -administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in -his own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror -amongst the fair. -

- -

-"I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle's notary -in Dijon, to be present," said Jim. -

- -

-"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and -Monsieur Bex was at that moment announced. He -came on the very moment of three. The clock was -striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was just -as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased. -

- -

-"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, -smiling, "we can now proceed with the final ceremonies -of this affair." -

- -

-"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary. -

- -

-"Hanaud?" -

- -

-"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited -by the Examining Magistrate to take charge of this -case," the Commissary explained. -

- -

-"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there -is no case for Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty -Harlowe drew him a little aside. -

- -

-Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary -of the incidents of the morning, Jim went out of the room -into the hall in search of Hanaud. He saw him at once; -but to his surprise Hanaud came forward from the back -of the hall as if he had entered the house from the garden. -

- -

-"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to -the door of that room which certainly was at the back of -the house behind the library, with its entrance behind the -staircase. "We will join the others." -

- -

-Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex. -

- -

-"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly -to Thevenet. -

- -

-"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, -and in a loud undertone, "a charming youth, of an -intelligence which is surprising. He will go far." -

- -

-Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. -The young recruit gazed at the great man with kindling -eyes. -

- -

-"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, -by which, if I do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence -at all," he said with a formal modesty which quite -went to the heart of Monsieur Bex. -

- -

-"That is very correct," said he. -

- -

-Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He -cocked an eye at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary -warmly by the hand. -

- -

-"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young -friend," he answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But -I was once young Maurice Thevenet without, alas! his -good looks." -

- -

-Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming -diffidence. -

- -

-"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex. -

- -

-"This looks like growing into a friendly little family -party," Jim Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a -"Hum" and a "Ha" from the Commissary. -

- -

-He moved to the centre of the room. -

- -

-"We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now -remove the seals," he said pompously. -

- -

-He led the way from the Library across the hall and -along the corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's -bedroom. He broke the seals and removed the bands. -Then he took a key from the hand of his secretary and -opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little -company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out -his arms and barred the way. -

- -

-"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his -shoulder Jim Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which -made him shiver. -

- -

-This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase -had made him for a moment eager that Hanaud should -press on, that development should follow upon development -until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. Since -the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower -of the Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and -he waited for developments in fear. This bedroom -mistily lit by a few stray threads of daylight which -pierced through the chinks of the shutters, cold and silent -and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, -whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in -the shadows. Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed -to the windows opposite, opened them and flung back the -shutters. The clear bright light flooded every corner in -an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher relief. The -room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the -wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; -everywhere there was order; it was as empty of suggestion -as a vacant bedroom in an hotel. -

- -

-Hanaud looked about him. -

- -

-"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week -after Madame's funeral. It would have been a miracle if -we discovered anything which could help us." -

- -

-He went to the bed, which stood with its head against -the wall midway between the door and the windows. A -small flat stand with a button of enamel lay upon the -round table by the bed-side, and from the stand a cord -ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the -carpet. -

- -

-"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I -suppose," he said, turning towards Betty. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But -there was no sign that it had ever been tampered with. -He stood up again. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into -Jeanne Baudin's bedroom and close the door. I shall -press this button, and you will know whether the bell rings -whilst we here shall be able to assure ourselves whether -sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in the -other." -

- -

-"Certainly." -

- -

-Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few -seconds later those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door -close in the corridor. -

- -

-"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud -requested. -

- -

-Bex, the notary, closed it. -

- -

-"Now, silence, if you please!" -

- -

-Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered -him. He pressed it again and again with the same result. -The Commissary returned to the bedroom. -

- -

-"Well?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"It rang twice," said the Commissary. -

- -

-Hanaud shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. -

- -

-"And an electric bell has a shrill, penetrating sound," -he cried. "Name of a name, but they built good houses -when the Maison Crenelle was built! Are the cupboards -and drawers open?" -

- -

-He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came -forward. -

- -

-"All the drawers were locked on the morning when -Madame Harlowe's death was discovered. Mademoiselle -Harlowe herself locked them in my presence and handed -to me the keys for the purpose of making an inventory. -Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For -until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will -were not disclosed." -

- -

-"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you -must have unlocked them." -

- -

-"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. -There were the arrangements for the funeral, a list of the -properties to be made for valuation, and the vineyards to -be administered." -

- -

-"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes -and cupboards and drawers should hold exactly -what they held on the night of the twenty-seventh of -April." He ran quickly about the room trying a door -here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a -cupboard fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The -trouble is that a child with a bent wire could unlock any -one of them. Do you know what Madame Harlowe kept -in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with his -knuckles upon the cupboard door. -

- -

-"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex -produced a bunch of keys from his pocket. -

- -

-"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud. -

- -

-He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers, -as though time meant nothing to him at all. He now -swung briskly back into the centre of the room, making -notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its geography. The -door opening from the corridor faced, across the length -of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If -one stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the -bed was on the left hand. On the corridor side of the -bed, a second smaller door, which was half open, led to a -white-tiled bath-room. On the window side of the bed -was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a -woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the -windows, a great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, -and in that same wall, close to the right-hand window, -there was yet another door. Hanaud moved to it. -

- -

-"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of -Ann Upcott, and without waiting for an answer pushed -it open. -

- -

-Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys -rattling. "Everything here has been locked up too," he -said. -

- -

-Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened -the shutters. -

- -

-It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, -and with a door exactly opposite to the door by which -Hanaud had entered. He went at once to this door. -

- -

-"And this must be the communicating door which -leads into what is called the treasure-room," he said, and -he paused with his hand upon the knob and his eyes ranging -alertly over the faces of the company. -

- -

-"Yes," said Ann Upcott. -

- -

-Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of -the opening of some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh -in a hill-side of the Valley of Kings. Suspense passed -from one to the other as they waited, but Hanaud did -not move. He stood there impassive and still like some -guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that -he was never going to move, and in a voice of -exasperation he cried: -

- -

-"Is the door locked?" -

- -

-Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No -doubt he, too, felt that strange current of emotion and -expectancy which bound all in the room under a spell, -and even gave to their diverse faces for a moment a kind -of family similitude. -

- -

-"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. -"But since this room is now the private sitting-room of -Mademoiselle Harlowe, I think that we ought to wait -until she rejoins us." -

- -

-Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, -"That is very correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice -rang out from the doorway leading to Mrs. Harlowe's -bedroom: -

- -

-"I am here." -

- -

-Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. -It opened at a touch—inwards towards the group of -people and upwards towards the corridor. The treasure-room -was before them, shrouded in dim light, but here -and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held -out a promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way -daintily to the windows and fastened the shutters back -against the outside wall. "I beg that nothing shall be -touched," he said as the others filed into the room. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room -

- -

-Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the -corridor, it was longer than it was broad and more of a -gallery than a room. But it had been arranged for habitation -rather than for occasional visits. For it was furnished -with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. In the -fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures -by Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of -Chinese Chippendale by the window every appointment, -ink-stand, pen-tray, candlestick, sand-caster and all were -of the pink Battersea enamel and without a flaw. But -they were there for use, not for exhibition. Moreover -a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on -the side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it -almost the appearance of two rooms in communication, -The one feature of the room, indeed, which at a first -glimpse betrayed the collector, was the Sedan chair set in -a recess of the wall by the fire-place and opposite to the -door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its -body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately -carved mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions -representing fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses -daintily painted in the middle of them. It had glass -windows at the sides to show off the occupant, and it was -lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold to match -the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised -upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold -filigree work, and it had a door in front of which the -upper part was glass. Altogether it was as pretty a -gleaming piece of work as the art of carriage-building -could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected it. Even -Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his -hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, -until Jim began to think that he had quite forgotten the -business which had brought him there. However, he -brought himself out of his dream with a start. -

- -

-"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," -he said. "What pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts -and fine gentlemen in silk stockings! And what splashings -of mud for the unhappy devils who had to walk!" -

- -

-He turned his back to the chair and looked across the -room. "That is the clock which marked half-past ten, -Mademoiselle, during the moment when you had the light -turned up?" he asked of Ann. -

- -

-"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it -again. "Yes, that's it." -

- -

-Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change -in her intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an -inflexion of doubt—it was not marked enough for that—but -of perplexity. It was clearly, however, fancy upon -his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at all. Jim pulled -himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take -care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to -suspect people, they can say and do nothing which will not -provide you with material for suspicion." -

- -

-Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was -a beautiful small gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, -shaped with a waist like a violin; it had a white face, and -it stood upon a marquetry Boulle cabinet, a little more -than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian mirror. -Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with -his watch. -

- -

-"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to -Betty, with a smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. -

- -

-He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the -clock. He faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of -the room. It had an Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from -the same fawn-coloured wood as the panels, with slender -pillars and some beautiful carving upon the board beneath -the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was -framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should -mask it, there were no high ornaments at all upon the -shelf itself. One or two small boxes of Battersea enamel -and a flat glass case alone decorated it. Hanaud crossed -to the mantelshelf and, after a moment's inspection, lifted, -with a low whistle of admiration, the flat glass case. -

- -

-"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. -"But I shall probably never in my life have the luck to -see anything so incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf -is a little high for me to see it properly." -

- -

-Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it -towards the window. -

- -

-"Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?" he called out, -and Jim went forward to his side. -

- -

-The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony -and translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim -acknowledged that he had never seen craftsmanship so -exquisite and delicate, but he chafed none the less at -Hanaud's diversion from his business. -

- -

-"One could spend a long day in this room," the -detective exclaimed, "admiring these treasures." -

- -

-"No doubt," Jim replied dryly. "But I had a notion -that we were going to spend an afternoon looking for an -arrow." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed. -

- -

-"My friend, you recall me to my duty." He looked at -the jewel again and sighed. "Yes, as you say, we are -not visitors here to enjoy ourselves." -

- -

-He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and -replaced it. Then all at once his manner changed. He -was leaning forward with his hands still about the glass -case. But he was looking down. The fire-grate was -hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; -and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could -see over the screen into the grate itself. -

- -

-"What is all this?" he asked. -

- -

-He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully -aside. All now could see what had disturbed him—a -heap of white ashes in the grate. -

- -

-Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the -shovel from the fender he thrust it between the bars and -drew it out again with a little layer of the ashes upon it. -They were white and had been pulverised into atoms. -There was not one flake which would cover a finger-nail. -Hanaud touched them gingerly, as though he had expected -to find them hot. -

- -

-"This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and -to-day is Thursday afternoon," said Jim Frobisher with -heavy sarcasm. "Ashes do not as a rule keep hot more -than three days, Monsieur Hanaud." -

- -

-Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. -He was daring to make fun of Hanaud! He -treated the Sûrété with no more respect than one might -treat—well, say Scotland Yard. -

- -

-Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a -partner of the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman -was certainly not very correct. Hanaud on the contrary -was milk and water. -

- -

-"I have observed it," he replied mildly, and he sat back -upon his heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle!" he called; and Betty moved forward -and leaned against the mantelshelf at his side. "Who -burnt these papers so very carefully?" he asked. -

- -

-"I did," Betty replied. -

- -

-"And when?" -

- -

-"On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday -morning, before Monsieur le Commissaire arrived." -

- -

-"And what were they, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"Letters, Monsieur." -

- -

-Hanaud looked up into her face quickly. -

- -

-"Oho!" he said softly. "Letters! Yes! And what -kind of letters, if you please?" -

- -

-Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in -despair. What in the world had happened to Hanaud? -One moment he forgot altogether the business upon -which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon -Harlowe's collection. The next he was off on his -wild-goose chase after anonymous letters. Jim had not a -doubt that he was thinking of them now. One had only -to say "letters," and he was side-tracked at once, -apparently ready to accuse any one of their authorship. -

- -

-"They were quite private letters," Betty replied, whilst -the colour slowly stained her cheeks. "They will not -help you." -

- -

-"So I see," Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a -snarl in his voice as he shook the shovel and flung the -ashes back into the grate. "But I am asking you, -Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were." -

- -

-Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at -the floor, and then from the floor to the windows; and -Jim saw with a stab of pain that her eyes were glistening -with tears. -

- -

-"I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a -point when Mademoiselle and I should consult together," -he interposed. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights," -said Monsieur Bex. -

- -

-But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little -petulant movement of her shoulders. -

- -

-"Very well." -

- -

-She showed her face now to them all, with the tears -abrim in her big eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks -and recognition. -

- -

-"You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud," she said -with a catch in her voice. "It seems that nothing, however -sacred, but must be dragged out into the light. But -I say again those letters will not help you." -

- -

-She looked across the group to her notary. -

- -

-"Monsieur Bex," she said, and he moved forward to -the other side of Hanaud. -

- -

-"In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door -of the bathroom there stood a small chest in which she -kept a good many unimportant papers, such as old -receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to destroy. This -chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of course -with Mademoiselle's consent, meaning to go through the -papers at my leisure and recommend that all which were -not important should be destroyed. My time, however, -was occupied, as I have already explained to you, and it -was not until the Friday of the sixth of May that I opened -the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my surprise, a -bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, -tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to -assure me that they were very private and sacred things -with which Mademoiselle's notary had nothing whatever -to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday morning, I brought -them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty." -

- -

-With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued -the story. -

- -

-"I put the letters aside so that I might read them -quietly after dinner. As it happened I could not in any -case have given them attention before. For on that -morning Monsieur Boris formulated his charge against -me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office -of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, -I was—I don't say frightened—but distressed by this -accusation; and it was not until quite late in the evening, -and then rather to distract my thoughts than for any -other reason, that I looked at the letters. But as soon as -I did look at them I understood that they must be -destroyed. There were reasons, which"—and her voice -faltered, and with an effort again grew steady—"which I -feel it rather a sacrilege to explain. They were letters -which passed between my uncle Simon and Mrs. Harlowe -during the time when she was very unhappily married to -Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him—sometimes -long letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled -off—without reserve—during a moment of freedom. -They were the letters of," and again her voice broke and -died away into a whisper, so that none could misunderstand -her meaning—"of lovers—lovers speaking very -intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there -was no doubt that they ought to be destroyed! But I -made up my mind that I ought to read them, every one, -first of all lest there should be something in them which -I ought to know. I read a good many that night and -burnt them. But it grew late—I left the rest until the -Sunday morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, -and what I had left over I burnt then. It was soon -after I had finished burning them that Monsieur le -Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes which you -see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters -which I burnt upon the Sunday morning." -

- -

-Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity -which touched her audience to a warm sympathy. -Hanaud gently tilted the ashes back into the grate. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, I am always in the wrong with you," -he said with an accent of remorse. "For I am always -forcing you to statements which make me ashamed and -do you honour." -

- -

-Jim acknowledged that Hanaud, when he wished, could -do the handsome thing with a very good grace. -Unfortunately grace seemed never to be an enduring quality -in him; as, for instance, now. He was still upon his -knees in front of the hearth. Whilst making his apology -he had been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel -without giving, to all appearance, any thought to what -he was doing. But his attention was now arrested. The -shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of bluish-white -paper. Hanaud's body stiffened. He bent forward and -picked the scrap of paper out from the grate, whilst -Betty, too, stooped with a little movement of curiosity. -

- -

-Hanaud sat back again upon his heels. -

- -

-"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday -morning," he said. -

- -

-Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the -fragment of paper. -

- -

-"Bills too, Mademoiselle." -

- -

-Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her -head over it. It was obviously the right-hand top corner -of a bill. For an intriguing scrap of a printed address -was visible and below a figure or two in a column. -

- -

-"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with -the letters," said Betty. "I don't remember it." -

- -

-She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, -who sat and looked at it. Jim Frobisher standing just -behind him read the printed ends of names and words and -the figures beneath and happened to remember the very -look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the -top bit of name in large capital letters, the words below -echelonned in smaller capitals, then the figures in the -columns and all enclosed in a rough sort of triangle with -the diagonal line browned and made ragged by the -fire—thus— -

- -

- ERON
-     STRUCTION
-                   LLES
-                         IS
-                               ========
-                                 375.05
-

- -


- -

-"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud -and he tossed the scrap of paper back into the grate. -"Did you notice these ashes, Monsieur Girardot, on -Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the question might -seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an -explanation. -

- -

-"It is always good when it is possible to get a -corroboration, Mademoiselle." -

- -

-Betty nodded, but Girardot was at a loss. He -managed to look extremely important, but importance -was not required. -

- -

-"I don't remember," he said. -

- -

-However, corroboration of a kind at all events did -come though from another source. -

- -

-"If I might speak, Monsieur Hanaud?" said Maurice -Thevenet eagerly. -

- -

-"But by all means," Hanaud replied. -

- -

-"I came into this room just behind Monsieur -Girardot on the Sunday morning. I did not see any -ashes in the hearth, that is true. But Mademoiselle -Harlowe was in the act of arranging that screen of blue -lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it to-day. -She arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were -she stood up with a start of surprise." -

- -

-"Aha!" said Hanaud cordially. He smiled at Betty. -"This evidence is just as valuable as if he had told us -that he had seen the ashes themselves." -

- -

-He rose to his feet and went close to her. -

- -

-"But there is another letter which you were good -enough to promise to me," he said. -

- -

-"The an——" she began and Hanaud stopped her -hurriedly. -

- -

-"It is better that we hold our tongues," he said with -a nod and a grin which recognised that in this matter -they were accomplices. "This is to be our exclusive little -secret, which, if he is very good, we will share with -Monsieur le Commissaire." -

- -

-He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a -drawer in the Chippendale secretary. Girardot the -Commissaire tittered, not quite sure that he thought very -highly of it. Monsieur Bex, on the other hand, by a -certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly clear -that in his opinion such a jape was very, very far from -correct. -

- -

-Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and -handed it to Hanaud, who took it aside to the window -and read it carefully. Then with a look he beckoned -Girardot to his side. -

- -

-"Monsieur Frobisher can come too. For he is in the -secret," he added; and the three men stood apart at the -window looking at the sheet of paper. It was dated the -7th of May, signed "The Scourge," like the others of -this hideous brood, and it began without any preface. -There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of -them were epithets not to be reproduced which made -Jim's blood boil that a girl like Betty should ever have -had to read them. -

- -

-"Your time is coming now, you——" and here followed -the string of abominable obscenities. "You -are for it, Betty Harlowe. Hanaud the detective from -Paris is coming to look after you with his handcuffs -in his pocket. You'll look pretty in handcuffs, won't -you, Betty? It's your white neck we want! Three -cheers for Waberski? The Scourge." -

- -


- -

-Girardot stared at the brutal words and settled his -glasses on his nose and stared again. -

- -

-"But—but——" he stammered and he pointed to the -date. A warning gesture made by Hanaud brought him -to a sudden stop, but Frobisher had little doubt as to the -purport of that unfinished exclamation. Girardot was -astonished, as Hanaud himself had been, that this item -of news had so quickly leaked abroad. -

- -

-Hanaud folded the letter and turned back into the -room. -

- -

-"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, and -Thevenet the secretary took his notebook from his -pocket. -

- -

-"Shall I make you a copy of the letter, Monsieur -Hanaud?" he said, sitting down and holding out his -hand. -

- -

-"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, -"and a copy at the present stage isn't necessary. A little -later on I may ask for your assistance." -

- -

-He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case -away in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again -he saw that Betty was holding out to him a key. -

- -

-"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," -she said. -

- -

-"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we -shall have Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," -said Hanaud. -

- -

-The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the -room opposite to the windows, and close to the door which -opened on to the hall. Hanaud took the key, unlocked -the door of the cabinet and started back with a "Wow." He -was really startled, for facing him upon a shelf were -two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in eyes, -but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the -heads of Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the -Amazon, and preserved and reduced by their conquerors -by the process common amongst those forests. -

- -

-"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that -we should find it," he said, but though he found many -curious oddities in that cabinet, of the perfect specimen of -a poison arrow there was never a trace. He turned away -with an air of disappointment. -

- -

-"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," -he said regretfully; and for an hour he searched that -room, turning back the carpet, examining the upholstery -of the chairs, and the curtains, shaking out every vase, -and finally giving his attention to Betty's secretary. He -probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple -mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every -pigeon-hole; working with extraordinary swiftness and -replacing everything in its proper place. At the end of -the hour the room was as orderly as when he had entered -it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. -

- -

-"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in -a chair and drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as -the two ladies and Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was -prepared not to find it here." -

- -

-"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did -not stir. -

- -

-"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur -Girardot, if you will remove the seals in the hall from the -door at the end of the room." -

- -

-The Commissary went out by the way of Mrs. Harlowe's -bedroom, accompanied by his secretary. After a -minute had passed a key grated in the lock and the door -was opened. The Commissary and his secretary returned -into the room from the hall. -

- -

-"Good!" said Hanaud. -

- -

-He rose from this chair and looking around at the little -group, now grown puzzled and anxious, he said very -gravely: -

- -

-"In the interest of justice I now ask that none of you -shall interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have -an experiment to make." -

- -

-In a complete silence he walked to the fireplace and -rang the bell. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER FOURTEEN: An Experiment and a Discovery -

- -

-Gaston answered the bell. -

- -

-"Will you please send Francine Rollard here," -said Hanaud. -

- -

-Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond -Hanaud to Betty. -

- -

-"If Mademoiselle gives me the order," he said -respectfully. -

- -

-"At once then, Gaston," Betty replied, and she sat -down in a chair. -

- -

-Francine Rollard was apparently difficult to persuade. -For the minutes passed, and when at last she did come -into the treasure room she was scared and reluctant. She -was a girl hardly over twenty, very neat and trim and -pretty, and rather like some wild shy creature out of the -woods. She looked round the group which awaited her -with restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it -was the suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. -

- -

-"Rollard," said Hanaud gently, "I sent for you, for -I want another woman to help me in acting a little scene." -

- -

-He turned towards Ann Upcott. -

- -

-"Now, Mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly -your movements here on the night when Madame Harlowe -died? You came into the room—so. You stood -by the electric-light switch there. You turned it on, you -noticed the time, and you turned it off quickly. For this -communicating door stood wide open—so!—and a strong -light poured out of Madame Harlowe's bedroom through -the doorway." -

- -

-Hanaud was very busy, placing himself first by the side -of Ann to make sure that she stood in the exact place -which she had described, and then running across the -room to set wide open the communicating door. -

- -

-"You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments -and panels of the Sedan chair, on the other side of -the fireplace on your right. So! And there, -Mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and," his words -lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each -one—"you heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom -and caught some words spoken in a clear whisper." -

- -

-"Yes," Ann replied with a shiver. The solemn manner -of authority with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. -She looked at him with troubled eyes. -

- -

-"Then will you stand there once more," he continued, -"and once more listen as you listened on that night. I -thank you!" He went away to Betty. "Now, Mademoiselle, -and you, Francine Rollard, will you both please -come with me." -

- -

-He walked towards the communicating door but Betty -did not even attempt to rise from her chair. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud," she said with her cheeks very -white and her voice shaking, "I can guess what you -propose to do. But it is horrible and rather cruel to us. -And I cannot see how it will help." -

- -

-Ann Upcott broke in before Hanaud could reply. She -was more troubled even than Betty, though without doubt -hers was to be the easier part. -

- -

-"It cannot help at all," she said. "Why must we -pretend now the dreadful thing which was lived then?" -

- -

-Hanaud turned about in the doorway. -

- -

-"Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think -that when I have finished, you will yourselves understand -that my experiment has not been without its use. I -understand of course that moments like these bring their -distress. But—you will pardon me—I am not thinking -of you"—and there was so much quietude and gravity in -the detective's voice that his words, harsh though they -were, carried with them no offence. "No, I am thinking -of a woman more than double the age of either of you, -whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of -the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs -which you, Mademoiselle Harlowe, showed me this -morning—I am moved by them. Yes, that is the truth." -

- -

-He closed his eyes as if he saw those two portraits with -their dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. "I -am her advocate," he cried aloud in a stirring voice. "The -tragic woman, I stand for her! If she was done to death, -I mean to know and I mean to punish!" -

- -

-Never had Frobisher believed that Hanaud could have -been so transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so -much passion. He stood before them an erect and -menacing figure, all his grossness melted out of him, a -man with a flaming sword. -

- -

-"As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a -little distress matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? -How long will they last? I beg you not to hinder -me!" -

- -

-Betty rose up from her chair without another word. -But she did not rise without an effort, and when she -stood up at last she swayed upon her feet and her face -was as white as chalk. -

- -

-"Come, Francine!" she said, pronouncing her words -like a person with an impediment of speech. "We must -show Monsieur Hanaud that we are not the cowards he -takes us for." -

- -

-But Francine still held back. -

- -

-"I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl and -this frightens me. The police! They set traps—the -police." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed. -

- -

-"And how often do they catch the innocent in them? -Tell me that, Mademoiselle Francine!" -

- -

-He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Harlowe's -bedroom. Betty and Francine followed upon his -heels, the others trooped in behind, with Frobisher last -of all. He indeed was as reluctant to witness Hanaud's -experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. It -savoured of the theatrical. There was to be some sort -of imagined reproduction of the scene which Ann Upcott -had described, no doubt with the object of testing her -sincerity. It would really be a test of nerves more than a -test of honesty and to Jim was therefore neither reliable -nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a word -of encouragement to Ann, but she was gazing again with -that curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the -marquetry cabinet. -

- -

-"There is nothing to fear, Ann," he said, and she -withdrew her eyes from the clock. They were dancing now -as she turned them upon Frobisher. -

- -

-"I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me -by my name," she said with a smile. "Thank you, Jim!" She -hesitated and then the blood suddenly mounted into -her face. "I'll tell you, I was a little jealous," she added -in a low voice and with a little laugh at herself as though -she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. -

- -

-Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer -by the appearance of Hanaud in the doorway. -

- -

-"I hate to interrupt, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with -a smile; "but it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle -should listen without anything to distract her." -

- -

-Jim followed Hanaud into the bedroom, and was -startled. The Commissary and his secretary and -Monsieur Bex were in a group apart near to one of the -windows. Betty Harlowe was stretched upon Mrs. Harlowe's -bed; Francine Rollard stood against the wall, near -to the door, clearly frightened out of her wits and -glancing from side to side with the furtive restless eyes -of the half-tamed. But it was not this curious spectacle -which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but something strange, -something which almost shocked, in the aspect of Betty -herself. She was leaning up on an elbow with her eyes -fixed upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable -fierce look in them that he had ever seen. She was quite -lost to her environment. The experiment from which -Francine shrank had no meaning for her. She was -possessed—the old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts—though -her face was as still as a mass, a mask of frozen passion. -It was only for a second, however, that the strange seizure -lasted. Betty's face relaxed; she dropped back upon -the bed with her eyes upon Hanaud like one waiting for -instructions. -

- -

-Hanaud, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take -his place amongst the group at the window. He placed -himself upon one side of the bed, and beckoned to -Francine. Very slowly she approached the end of the bed. -Hanaud directed her in the same silent way to come opposite -to him on the other side of the bed. For a little while -Francine refused. She stood stubbornly shaking her -head at the very foot of the bed. She was terrified of -some trick, and when at last at a sign from Betty she took -up the position assigned to her, she minced to it gingerly -as though she feared the floor would open beneath her -feet. Hanaud made her another sign and she looked at a -scrap of paper on which Hanaud had written some words. -The paper and her orders had obviously been given to -her whilst Jim was talking to Ann Upcott. Francine -knew what she was to do, but her suspicious peasant -nature utterly rebelled against it. Hanaud beckoned to -her with his eyes riveted upon her compelling her, and -against her will she bent forwards over the bed and across -Betty Harlowe's body. -

- -

-A nod from Hanaud now, and she spoke in a low, clear -whisper: -

- -

-"That—will—do—now." -

- -

-And hardly had she spoken those few words which -Ann Upcott said she had heard on the night of -Mrs. Harlowe's death, but Hanaud himself must repeat them -and also in a whisper. -

- -

-Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway -in his natural voice: -

- -

-"Did you hear, Mademoiselle? Was that the whisper -which reached your ears on the night when Madame -died?" -

- -

-All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in -suspense. Francine Rollard, indeed, with her eyes fixed -upon Hanaud in a very agony of doubt. And the answer -came. -

- -

-"Yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this -afternoon. On the night when I came down in the dark -to the treasure room, the words were only whispered -once." -

- -

-"It was the same voice which whispered them twice, -Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"Yes ... I think so ... I noticed no difference -... Yes." -

- -

-And Hanaud flung out his arms with a comic gesture -of despair, and addressed the room. -

- -

-"You understand now my little experiment. A voice -that whispers! How shall one tell it from another voice -that whispers! There is no intonation, no depth, no -lightness. There is not even sex in a voice which -whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest to the -identity of the person who whispered, 'That will do now,' -on the night when Madame Harlowe died." He waved -his hand towards Monsieur Bex. "I will be glad if you -will open now these cupboards, and Mademoiselle Harlowe -will tell us, to the best of her knowledge, whether -anything has been taken or anything disturbed." -

- -

-Hanaud returned to the treasure room, leaving -Monsieur Bex and Betty at their work, with the Commissary -and his secretary to supervise them. Jim Frobisher -followed him. He was very far from believing that -Hanaud had truthfully explained the intention of his -experiment. The impossibility of identifying a voice -which whispers! Here was something with which -Hanaud must have been familiar from a hundred cases! -No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There -was quite another true reason for this melodramatic little -scene which he had staged. He was following Hanaud in -the hope of finding out that reason, when he heard him -speaking in a low voice, and he stopped inside the -dressing-room close to the communicating door where he could -hear every word and yet not be seen himself. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle," Hanaud was saying to Ann Upcott, -"there is something about this clock here which troubles -you." -

- -

-"Yes—of course it's nonsense.... I must be wrong.... -For here is the cabinet and on it stands the clock." -

- -

-Jim could gather from the two voices that they were -both standing together close to the marquetry cabinet. -

- -

-"Yes, yes," Hanaud urged. "Still you are troubled." -

- -

-There was a moment's silence. Jim could imagine the -girl looking from the clock to the door by which she had -stood, and back again from the door to the clock. Surely -that scene in the bedroom had been staged to extort some -admission from Ann Upcott of the falsity of her story. -Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting -to another trick, setting a fresh trap? -

- -

-"Well?" he asked insistently. "Why are you -troubled?" -

- -

-"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, -"that the clock is lower now than it was. Of course it -can't be ... and I had only one swift glimpse of it.... -Yet my recollection is so vivid—the room standing -out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then -vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock -seemed to me to be placed higher..." and suddenly -she stopped as if a warning hand had been laid upon her -arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering when -silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway -and confronting him. -

- -

-"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note -of relief in his voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the -Sûrété very soon. That I can see. Come in!" -

- -

-He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. -

- -

-"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the -light goes up and goes out—it would have been a marvel -if you had within that flash of vision seen every detail -precisely true. No, there is nothing there!" He flung -himself into a chair and sat for a little while silent in an -attitude of dejection. -

- -

-"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had -nothing to go upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing -there, stirring up old troubles which had better be -left quietly in their graves, and at the end discovering -nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My -little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?" -

- -

-Hanaud sat up alertly. -

- -

-"What is the matter?" he asked. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter -disappointment upon Hanaud's face and in his attitude had -enlightened him. Yes, his experiment had failed. For -it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had summoned -her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant -to act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the -hope that it would work upon her and break her down to -a confession of guilt. He suspected Ann. Well, then, -Ann must have had an accomplice. To discover the -accomplice—there was the object of the experiment. And -it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. -Francine had shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the -reason of the shrinking was manifest—fear of the police, -suspicion of a trap, the furtive helplessness of the -ignorant. She had not delivered herself into Hanaud's -toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal -to Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he -answered simply: -

- -

-"Nothing." -

- -

-Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms -of his chair. -

- -

-"Nothing, eh? nothing! That's the only answer in -this case. To every question! To every search! Nothing, -nothing, nothing;" and as he ended in a sinking voice, -a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. -

- -

-"Betty!" Ann exclaimed. -

- -

-Hanaud threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim -fancied that he was out of his chair and across the -dressing-room before the sound of the cry had ceased. -Certainly Betty could not have moved. She was standing in -front of the dressing-table, looking down at a big jewel-case -of dark blue morocco leather, and she was lifting up -and down the open lid of it with an expression of utter -incredulity. -

- -

-"Aha!" said Hanaud. "It is unlocked. We have -something, after all, Monsieur Frobisher. Here is a -jewel-case unlocked, and jewel-cases do not unlock -themselves. It was here?" -

- -

-He looked towards the cupboard in the wall, of which -the door stood open. -

- -

-"Yes," said Betty. "I opened the door, and took the -case out by the side handles. The lid came open when -I touched it." -

- -

-"Will you look through it, please, and see whether -anything is missing?" -

- -

-While Betty began to examine the contents of the -jewel-case, Hanaud went to Francine, who stood apart. -He took her by the arm and led her to the door. -

- -

-"I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine," he said. -"But, after all, we are not such alarming people, the -Police, eh? No, so long as good little maids hold their -good little tongues, we can be very good friends. Of -course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and gossip, little -Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is to-morrow -spreading over Dijon the story of Hanaud's little experiment, -Hanaud will know where to look for the chatterers." -

- -

-"Monsieur, I shall not say one word," cried Francine. -

- -

-"And how wise that will be, little Francine!" Hanaud -rejoined in a horribly smooth and silky voice. "For -Hanaud can be the wickedest of wicked Uncles to -naughty little chatterers. Ohhoho, yes! He seizes them -tight—so—and it will be ever so long before he says to -them 'That—will—do—now!'" -

- -

-He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh -and gently pushed Francine Rollard from the room. -Then he returned to Betty, who had lifted the tray out -of the box and was opening some smaller cases which had -been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon pendant -and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. -

- -

-"You miss something, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"It was, after all, certain that you would," Hanaud -continued. "If murders are committed, there will be -some reason. I will even venture to guess that the jewel -which you miss is of great value." -

- -

-"It is," Betty admitted. "But I expect it has only been -mislaid. No doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked -away in a drawer." She spoke with very great eagerness, -and a note of supplication that the matter should rest -there. "In any case, what has disappeared is mine, isn't -it? And I am not going to imitate Monsieur Boris. I -make no complaint." -

- -

-Hanaud shook his head. -

- -

-"You are very kind, Mademoiselle. But we cannot, -alas! say here 'That will do now.'" It was strange to -Jim to notice how he kept harping upon the words of -that whisper. "We are not dealing with a case of theft, -but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it -that you miss?" -

- -

-"A pearl necklace," Betty answered reluctantly. -

- -

-"A big one?" -

- -

-It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased -Hanaud became more peremptory and abrupt. -

- -

-"Not so very." -

- -

-"Describe it to me, Mademoiselle!" -

- -

-Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face looking -out upon the garden. Then with a shrug of resignation -she obeyed. -

- -

-"There were thirty-five pearls—not so very large, but -they were perfectly matched and of a beautiful pink. -My uncle took a great deal of trouble and some years to -collect them. Madame told me herself that they actually -cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. They would -be worth even more now." -

- -

-"A fortune, then," cried Hanaud. -

- -

-Not a person in that room had any belief that the -necklace would be found, laid aside somewhere by chance. -Here was Hanaud's case building itself up steadily. -Another storey was added to it this afternoon. This or -that experiment might fail. What did that matter? A -motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an -intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result; -that the truth, like a beam of light that travels for a -million of years, would in the end strike upon a dark spot, -and that some one would stand helpless and dazzled in a -glare—the criminal. -

- -

-"Who knew of this necklace of yours, Mademoiselle, -beside yourself?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"Every one in the house, Monsieur. Madame wore it -nearly always." -

- -

-"She wore it, then, on the day of her death?" -

- -

-"Yes, I——" Betty began, and she turned towards -Ann for confirmation, and then swiftly turned away -again. "I think so." -

- -

-"I am sure of it," said Ann steadily, though her -face had grown rather white and her eyes anxious. -

- -

-"How long has Francine Rollard been with you?" -Hanaud asked of Betty. -

- -

-"Three years. No—a little more. She is the only -maid I have ever had," Betty answered with a laugh. -

- -

-"I see," Hanaud said thoughtfully; and what he saw, -it seemed to Jim Frobisher that every one else in that -room saw too. For no one looked at Ann Upcott. Old -servants do not steal valuable necklaces: Ann Upcott and -Jeanne Baudin, the nurse, were the only new-comers to -the Maison Crenelle these many years; and Jeanne Baudin -had the best of characters. Thus the argument seemed -to run though no one expressed it in words. -

- -

-Hanaud turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard, -and shook his head over it. Then he crossed to -the dressing-table and the morocco case. -

- -

-"Aha!" he said with a lively interest. "This is a -different affair;" and he bent down closely over it. -

- -

-The case was not locked with a key at all. There were -three small gilt knobs in the front of the case, and the -lock was set by the number of revolutions given to each -knob. These, of course, could be varied with each knob, -and all must be known before the case could be -opened—Mrs. Harlowe's jewels had been guarded by a formula. -

- -

-"There has been no violence used here," said Hanaud, -standing up again. -

- -

-"Of course my aunt may have forgotten to lock the -case," said Betty. -

- -

-"Of course that's possible," Hanaud agreed. -

- -

-"And of course this room was open to any one between -the time of my aunt's funeral and Sunday morning, when -the doors were sealed." -

- -

-"A week, in fact—with Boris Waberski in the house," -said Hanaud. -

- -

-"Yes ... yes," said Betty. "Only ... but I -expect it is just mislaid and we shall find it. You see -Monsieur Boris expected to get some money from my -lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain -with me. It doesn't look as if he had stolen it. He -wouldn't want a thousand pounds if he had." -

- -

-Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had -recollected him with a thrill of hope that he would be -discovered to be the thief when Hanaud mentioned his -name. But the hope died away again before the reluctant -and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlowe. On the other -hand, if Boris and Ann were really accomplices in the -murder, because he wanted his legacy, the necklace might -well have been Ann's share. More and more, whichever -way one looked at it, the facts pointed damningly towards -Ann. -

- -

-"Well, we will see if it has been mislaid," said Hanaud. -"But meanwhile, Mademoiselle, it would be well for you -to lock that case up and to take it some time this afternoon -to your bankers." -

- -

-Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after -the other. Three times a swift succession of sharp little -clicks was heard in the room. -

- -

-"You have not used, I hope, the combination which -Madame Harlowe used," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"I never knew the combination she used," said Betty. -She lifted the jewel-case back into its cupboard; and the -search of the drawers and the cupboards began. But it -was as barren of result as had been the search of the -treasure-room for the arrow. -

- -

-"We can do no more," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"Yes. One thing more." -

- -

-The correction came quietly from Ann Upcott. She -was standing by herself, very pale and defiant. She -knew now that she was suspected. The very care with -which every one had avoided even looking at her had left -her in no doubt. -

- -

-Hanaud looked about the room. -

- -

-"What more can we do?" he asked. -

- -

-"You can search my rooms." -

- -

-"No!" cried Betty violently. "I won't have it!" -

- -

-"If you please," said Ann. "It is only fair to me." -

- -

-Monsieur Bex nodded violently. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle could not be more correct," said he. -

- -

-Ann addressed herself to Hanaud. -

- -

-"I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in -my room except a small leather dispatch-case. You will -find the key to that in the left-hand drawer of my -dressing-table. I will wait for you in the library." -

- -

-Hanaud bowed, and before he could move from his -position Betty did a thing for which Jim could have -hugged her there and then before them all. She went -straight to Ann and set her arm about her waist. -

- -

-"I'll wait with you, Ann," she said. "Of course it's -ridiculous," and she led Ann out of the room. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Finding of the Arrow -

- -

-Ann's rooms were upon the second floor with the -windows upon the garden, a bedroom and a sitting-room -communicating directly with one another. They -were low in the roof, but spacious, and Hanaud, as he -looked around the bedroom, said in a tone of doubt: -

- -

-"Yes ... after all, if one were frightened suddenly -out of one's wits, one might stumble about this room in -the dark and lose one's way to the light switch. There -isn't one over the bed." Then he shrugged his shoulders. -"But, to be sure, one would be careful that one's details -could be verified. So——" and the doubt passed out of -his voice. -

- -

-The words were all Greek to the Commissary of Police -and his secretary and Monsieur Bex. Maurice Thevenet, -indeed, looked sharply at Hanaud, as if he was on the -point of asking one of those questions which he had been -invited to ask. But Girardot, the Commissary who was -panting heavily with his ascent of two flights of stairs, -spoke first. -

- -

-"We shall find nothing to interest us here," he said. -"That pretty girl would never have asked us to pry about -amongst her dainty belongings if there had been -anything to discover." -

- -

-"One never knows," replied Hanaud. "Let us see!" -

- -

-Jim walked away into the sitting-room. He had no -wish to follow step by step Hanaud and the Commissary -in their search; and he had noticed on the table in the -middle of the room a blotting-pad and some notepaper and the -materials for writing. He wanted to get all this whirl of -conjecture and fact and lies, in which during the last two -days he had lived, sorted and separated and set in order -in his mind; and he knew no better way of doing so than -by putting it all down shortly in the "for" and "against" -style of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. He would -have a quiet hour or so whilst Hanaud indefatigably -searched. He took a sheet of paper, selected a pen at -random from the tray and began. It cost Ann Upcott, -however, a good many sheets of notepaper, and more than -once the nib dropped out of his pen-holder and was forced -back into it before he had finished. But he had his -problem reduced at last to these terms: -

- -


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-For - -Against -
-(1) Although suspicion that -murder had been committed -arose in the first instance only -from the return to its shelf of -the "Treatise on Sporanthus -Hispidus," subsequent developments, -e.g., the disappearance of -the Poison Arrow, the introduction -into the case of the ill-famed -Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story -of her visit to the Treasure -Room, and now the mystery of -Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, -make out a prima facie case for -inquiry. - - -But in the absence of any -trace of poison in the dead -woman's body, it is difficult to -see how the criminal can be -brought to justice, except by -

-(a) A confession. -

-(b) The commission of another -crime of a similar kind. -Hanaud's theory—once a -poisoner always a poisoner. -
-(2) If murder was committed, -it is probable that it was -committed at half-past ten at night -when Ann Upcott in the Treasure -Room heard the sound of a -struggle and the whisper, "That -will do now." - -Ann Upcott's story may be -partly or wholly false. She -knew that Mrs. Harlowe's -bedroom was to be opened and -examined. If she also knew that -the pearl necklace had -disappeared, she must have realised -that it would be advisable for -her to tell some story before its -disappearance was discovered, -which would divert suspicion -from her. -
-(3) It is clear that whoever -committed the murder, if murder -was committed, Betty Harlowe -had nothing to do with it. She -had an ample allowance. She -was at M. Pouillac's Ball on -the night. Moreover, once -Mrs. Harlowe was dead, the necklace -became Betty Harlowe's -property. Had she committed the -murder, the necklace would not -have disappeared. -

-(4) Who then are possibly -guilty? -		 -It is possible that the -disappearance of the necklace is in -no way connected with the -murder, if murder there was. -
-(i) The servants. - -(i) All of them have many -years of service to their credit. -It is not possible that any of -them would have understood -enough of the "Treatise on -Sporanthus Hispidus" to make -use of it. If any of them were -concerned it can only be as an -accessory or assistant working -under the direction of another. -
-(ii) Jeanne Baudin the nurse. -

-More attention might be given -to her. It is too easily accepted -that she has nothing to do -with it. -		 -No one suspects her. Her -record is good. -
-(iii) Francine Rollard. She -was certainly frightened this -afternoon. The necklace would -be a temptation. -

-Was it she who bent over Ann -Upcott in the darkness? -		 -She was frightened of the -police as a class, rather than of -being accused of a crime. She -acted her part in the reconstruction -scene without breaking -down. If she were concerned, it -could only be for the reason -given above, as an assistant. -
-(iv) Ann Upcott. -

-Her introduction into the -Maison Crenelle took place -through Waberski and under -dubious circumstances. She is -poor, a paid companion, and the -necklace is worth a considerable -fortune. -		 -Her introductions may be -explicable on favourable grounds. -Until we know more of her -history it is impossible to judge. -
-She was in the house on the -night of Mrs. Harlowe's death. -She told Gaston he could turn -out the lights and go to bed -early that evening. She could -easily have admitted Waberski -and received the necklace as the -price of her complicity. - -Her account of the night of -the 27th April may be true from -beginning to end. -
-The story she told us in the -garden may have been the true -story of what occurred adapted. -It may have been she who -whispered "That will do now." -She may have whispered it to -Waberski. -

-Her connection with Waberski -was sufficiently close to make -him count upon Ann's support -in his charge against Betty. -		 -In that case the theory of a -murder is enormously strengthened. -But who whispered, "That -will do now"?And who was -bending over Ann Upcott when -she waked up? -
-(v) Waberski. -

-He is a scoundrel, a would-be -blackmailer. -

-He was in straits for money -and he expected a thumping -legacy from Mrs. Harlowe. -

-He may have brought Ann -Upcott into the house with the -thought of murder in his mind. -

-Having failed to obtain any -profit from his crime, he accuses -Betty of the same crime as a -blackmailing proposition. -
-As soon as he knew that -Mrs. Harlowe had been exhumed and -an autopsy made he collapsed. -He knew, if he had used himself -the poison arrow, that no trace -of poison would be found. -

-He knew of Jean Cladel, and -according to his own story was -in the Rue Gambetta close to -Jean Cladel's shop. It is possible -that he himself had been visiting -Cladel to pay for the solution of -Strophanthus. -		 -But he would have collapsed -equally if he had believed that -no murder had been committed -at all. -
- -


- -

-If murder was committed the two people most -obviously suspect are Ann Upcott and Waberski -working in collusion. -

- -

-To this conclusion Jim Frobisher was reluctantly -brought, but even whilst writing it down there were -certain questions racing through his mind to which he could -find no answer. He was well aware that he was an utter -novice in such matters as the investigation of crimes; and -he recognised that were the answers to these questions -known to him, some other direction might be given to -his thoughts. -

- -

-Accordingly he wrote those troublesome questions -beneath his memorandum—thus: -

- -

-But -

- -

-(1) Why does Hanaud attach no importance to the -return of the "Treatise on Sporanthus Hispidus" to -its place in the library? -

- -

-(2) What was it which so startled him upon the -top of the Terrace Tower? -

- -

-(3) What was it that he had in his mind to say to -me at the Café in the Place D'Armes and in the end -did not say? -

- -

-(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the -treasure room for the missing poison arrow—except -the interior of the Sedan chair? -

- -

-The noise of a door gently closing aroused him from -his speculations. He looked across the room. Hanaud -had just entered it from the bedroom, shutting the -communicating door behind him. He stood with his hand -upon the door-knob gazing at Frobisher with a curious -startled stare. He moved swiftly to the end of the table -at which Jim was sitting. -

- -

-"How you help me!" he said in a low voice and smiling. -"How you do help me!" -

- -

-Alert though Jim's ears were to a note of ridicule, he -could discover not a hint of it. Hanaud was speaking -with the utmost sincerity, his eyes very bright and his -heavy face quite changed by that uncannily sharp expression -which Jim had learned to associate with some new -find in the development of the case. -

- -

-"May I see what you have written?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"It could be of no value to you," Jim replied modestly, -but Hanaud would have none of it. -

- -

-"It is always of value to know what the other man -thinks, and even more what the other man sees. What -did I say to you in Paris? The last thing one sees one's -self is the thing exactly under one's nose"; and he began -to laugh lightly but continuously and with a great deal of -enjoyment, which Jim did not understand. He gave in, -however, over his memorandum and pushed it along to -Hanaud, ashamed of it as something schoolboyish, but -hopeful that some of these written questions might be -answered. -

- -

-Hanaud sat down at the end of the table close to Jim -and read the items and the questions very slowly with an -occasional grunt, and a still more occasional "Aha!" but -with a quite unchanging face. Jim was in two minds -whether to snatch it from his hands and tear it up or dwell -upon its recollected phrases with a good deal of pride. -One thing was clear. Hanaud took it seriously. -

- -

-He sat musing over it for a moment or two. -

- -

-"Yes, here are questions, and dilemmas." He looked -at Frobisher with friendliness. "I shall make you an -allegory. I have a friend who is a matador in Spain. -He told me about the bull and how foolish those people -are who think the bull not clever. Yes, but do not jump -and look the offence with your eyes and tell me how very -vulgar I am and how execrable my taste. All that I know -very well. But listen to my friend the matador! He -says all that the bull wants, to kill without fail all the -bull-fighters in Spain, is a little experience. And very little, -he learns so quick. Look! Between the entrance of the -bull into the arena and his death there are reckoned -twenty minutes. And there should not be more, if the -matador is wise. The bull—he learns so quick the -warfare of the ring. Well, I am an old bull who has fought -in the arena many times. This is your first corrida. -But only ten minutes of the twenty have passed. Already -you have learned much. Yes, here are some shrewd -questions which I had not expected you to ask. When the -twenty are gone, you will answer them all for yourself. -Meanwhile"—he took up another pen and made a tiny -addition to item one—"I carry this on one step farther. -See!" -

- -

-He replaced the memorandum under Jim's eyes. Jim -read: -

- -

-"—subsequent developments, e.g., the disappearance of -the Poison Arrow, the introduction into the case of the -ill-famed Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story of her visit to -the treasure-room, and now the mystery of Mrs. Harlowe's -pearl necklace, and the finding of the arrow, make -out a prima facie case for inquiry." -

- -


- -

-Jim sprang to his feet in excitement. -

- -

-"You have found the arrow, then?" he cried, glancing -towards the door of Ann Upcott's bedroom. -

- -

-"Not I, my friend," replied Hanaud with a grin. -

- -

-"The Commissaire, then?" -

- -

-"No, not the Commissaire." -

- -

-"His secretary, then?" -

- -

-Jim sat down again in his chair. -

- -

-"I am sorry. He wears cheap rings. I don't like him." -

- -

-Hanaud broke into a laugh of delight. -

- -

-"Console yourself! I, too, don't like that young -gentleman of whom they are all so proud. Maurice -Thevenet has found nothing." -

- -

-Jim looked at Hanaud in a perplexity. -

- -

-"Here is a riddle," he said. -

- -

-Hanaud rubbed his hands together. -

- -

-"Prove to me that you have been ten minutes in the -bull-ring," he said. -

- -

-"I think that I have only been five," Jim replied with -a smile. "Let me see! The arrow had not been -discovered when we first entered these rooms?" -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-"And it is discovered now?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And it was not discovered by you?" -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-"Nor the Commissaire?" -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-"Nor Maurice Thevenet?" -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-Jim stared and shook his head. -

- -

-"I have not been one minute in the bull-ring. I don't -understand." -

- -

-Hanaud's face was all alight with enjoyment. -

- -

-"Then I take your memorandum and I write again." -

- -

-He hid the paper from Jim Frobisher's eyes with the -palm of his left hand, whilst he wrote with his right. -Then with a triumphant gesture he laid it again before -Jim. The last question of all had been answered in -Hanaud's neat, small handwriting. -

- -

-Jim read: -

- -

-(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the -treasure-room for the missing Poison Arrow—except -the interior of the Sedan chair? -

- -


- -

-Underneath the question Hanaud had written as if it -was Jim Frobisher himself who answered the question: -

- -

-"It was wrong of Hanaud to forget to examine the -Sedan chair, but fortunately no harm has resulted -from that lamentable omission. For Life, the -incorrigible Dramatist, had arranged that the head of the -arrow-shaft should be the pen-holder with which I -have written this memorandum." -

- -


- -

-Jim looked at the pen-holder and dropped it with a -startled cry. -

- -

-There it was—the slender, pencil-like shaft expanding -into a slight bulb where the fingers held it, and the nib -inserted into the tiny cleft made for the stem of the iron -dart! Jim remembered that the nib had once or twice -become loose and spluttered on the page, until he had -jammed it in violently. -

- -

-Then came a terrible thought. His jaw dropped; he -stared at Hanaud in awe. -

- -

-"I wonder if I sucked the end of it, whilst I was thinking -out my sentences," he stammered. -

- -

-"O Lord!" cried Hanaud, and he snatched up the pen-holder -and rubbed it hard with his pocket handkerchief. -Then he spread out the handkerchief upon the table, and -fetching a small magnifying glass from his pocket, -examined it minutely. He looked up with relief. -

- -

-"There is not the least little trace of that reddish-brown -clay which made the poison paste. The arrow was -scraped clean before it was put on that tray of pens. I -am enchanted. I cannot now afford to lose my junior -colleague." -

- -

-Frobisher drew a long breath and lit a cigarette, and -gave another proof that he was a very novice of a bull. -

- -

-"What a mad thing to put the head of that arrow-shaft, -which a glance at the plates in the Treatise would -enable a child to identify, into an open tray of pens -without the slightest concealment!" he exclaimed. -

- -

-It looked as if Ann Upcott was wilfully pushing her -neck into the wooden ring of the guillotine. -

- -

-Hanaud shook his head. -

- -

-"Not so mad, my friend! The old rules are the best. -Hide a thing in some out-of-the-way corner, and it will -surely be found. Put it to lie carelessly under every one's -nose and no one will see it at all. No, no! This was -cleverly done. Who could have foreseen that instead of -looking on at our search you were going to plump -yourself down in a chair and write your memorandum so -valuable on Mademoiselle Ann's notepaper? And even -then you did not notice your pen. Why should you?" -

- -

-Jim, however, was not satisfied. -

- -

-"It is a fortnight since Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, -if she was murdered," he cried. "What I don't understand -is why the arrow wasn't destroyed altogether!" -

- -

-"But until this morning there was never any question -of the arrow," Hanaud returned. "It was a curiosity, an -item in a collection—why should one trouble to destroy -it? But this morning the arrow becomes a dangerous -thing to possess. So it must be hidden away in a hurry. -For there is not much time. An hour whilst you and I -admired Mont Blanc from the top of the Terrace Tower." -

- -

-"And while Betty was out of the house," Jim added -quickly. -

- -

-"Yes—that is true," said Hanaud. "I had not thought -of it. You can add that point, Monsieur Frobisher, to -the reasons which put Mademoiselle Harlowe out of our -considerations. Yes." -

- -

-He sat lost in thought for a little while and speaking -now and then a phrase rather to himself than to his -companion: "To run up here—to cut the arrow down—to -round off the end as well as one can in a hurry—to stain -it with some varnish—to mix it with the other pens in -the tray. Not so bad!" He nodded his head in appreciation -of the trick. "But nevertheless things begin to -look black for that exquisite Mademoiselle Ann with her -delicate colour and her pretty ways." -

- -

-A noise of the shifting of furniture in the bedroom -next door attracted his attention. He removed the nib -from the arrow-head. -

- -

-"We will keep this little matter to ourselves just for -the moment," he said quickly, and he wrapped the -improvised pen-holder in a sheet of the notepaper. "Just -you and I shall know of it. No one else. This is my -case, not Girardot's. We will not inflict a great deal of -pain and trouble until we are sure." -

- -

-"I agree," said Jim eagerly. "That's right, I am sure." -

- -

-Hanaud tucked the arrow-head carefully away in his -pocket. -

- -

-"This, too," he said, and he took up Jim Frobisher's -memorandum. "It is not a good thing to carry about, -and perhaps lose. I will put it away at the Prefecture -with the other little things I have collected." -

- -

-He put the memorandum into his letter-case and got -up from his chair. -

- -

-"The rest of the arrow-shaft will be somewhere in -this room, no doubt, and quite easy to see. But we shall -not have time to look for it, and, after all, we have the -important part of it." -

- -

-He turned towards the mantelshelf, where some cards -of invitation were stuck in the frame of the mirror, just -as the door was opened and the Commissary with his -secretary came out from the bedroom. -

- -

-"The necklace is not in that room," said Monsieur -Girardot in a voice of finality. -

- -

-"Nor is it here," Hanaud replied with an unblushing -assurance. "Let us go downstairs." -

- -

-Jim was utterly staggered. This room had not been -searched for the necklace at all. First the Sedan chair, -then this sitting-room was neglected. Hanaud actually -led the way out to the stairs without so much as a glance -behind him. No wonder that in Paris he had styled -himself and his brethren the Servants of Chance. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Hanaud Laughs -

- -

-At the bottom of the stairs Hanaud thanked the -Commissary of Police for his assistance. -

- -

-"As for the necklace, we shall of course search the -baggage of every one in the house," he said. "But we -shall find nothing. Of that we may be sure. For if the -necklace has been stolen, too much time has passed since -it was stolen for us to hope to find it here." -

- -

-He bowed Girardot with much respect out of the house, -whilst Monsieur Bex took Jim Frobisher a little aside. -

- -

-"I have been thinking that Mademoiselle Ann should -have some legal help," he said. "Now both you and I -are attached to the affairs of Mademoiselle Harlowe. -And—it is a little difficult to put it delicately—it may be -that the interests of those two young ladies are not identical. -It would not therefore be at all correct for me, at -all events, to offer her my services. But I can -recommend a very good lawyer in Dijon, a friend of mine. -You see, it may be important." -

- -

-Frobisher agreed. -

- -

-"It may be, indeed. Will you give me your friend's -address?" he said. -

- -

-Whilst he was writing the address down Hanaud -startled him by breaking unexpectedly into a loud laugh. -The curious thing was that there was nothing whatever to -account for it. Hanaud was standing by himself between -them and the front door. In the courtyard outside there -was no one within view. Within the hall Jim and -Monsieur Bex were talking very seriously in a low voice. -Hanaud was laughing at the empty air and his laughter -betokened a very strong sense of relief. -

- -

-"That I should have lived all these years and never -noticed that before," he cried aloud in a sort of -amazement that there could be anything capable of notice which -he, Hanaud, had not noticed. -

- -

-"What is it?" asked Jim. -

- -

-But Hanaud did not answer at all. He dashed back -through the hall past Frobisher and his companion, -vanished into the treasure-room, closed the door behind -him and actually locked it. -

- -

-Monsieur Bex jerked his chin high in the air. -

- -

-"He is an eccentric, that one. He would not do for -Dijon." -

- -

-Jim was for defending Hanaud. -

- -

-"He must act. That is true," he replied. "Whatever -he does and however keenly he does it, he sees a row of -footlights in front of him." -

- -

-"There are men like that," Monsieur Bex agreed. Like -all Frenchmen, he was easy in his mind if he could place -a man in a category. -

- -

-"But he is doing something which is quite important," -Jim continued, swelling a little with pride. He felt that -he had been quite fifteen minutes in the bull-ring. "He -is searching for something somewhere. I told him about -it. He had overlooked it altogether. I reproached him -this morning with his reluctance to take suggestions from -people only too anxious to help him. But I did him -obviously some injustice. He is quite willing." -

- -

-Monsieur Bex was impressed and a little envious. -

- -

-"I must think of some suggestions to make to Hanaud," -he said. "Yes, yes! Was there not once a pearl necklace -in England which was dropped in a match-box into the -gutter when the pursuit became too hot? I have read of -it, I am sure. I must tell Hanaud that he should spend a -day or two picking up the match-boxes in the gutters. He -may be very likely to come across that necklace of -Madame Harlowe's. Yes, certainly." -

- -

-Monsieur Bex was considerably elated by the bright -idea which had come to him. He felt that he was again -upon a level with his English colleague. He saw Hanaud -pouncing his way along the streets of Dijon and -explaining to all who questioned him: "This is the idea of -Monsieur Bex, the notary. You know, Monsieur Bex, -of the Place Etienne Dolet." Until somewhere near—but -Monsieur Bex had not actually located the particular -gutter in which Hanaud should discover the match-box -with the priceless beads, when the library door opened and -Betty came out into the hall. -

- -

-She looked at the two men in surprise. -

- -

-"And Monsieur Hanaud?" she asked. "I didn't see -him go." -

- -

-"He is in your treasure-room," said Jim. -

- -

-"Oh!" Betty exclaimed in a voice which showed her -interest. "He has gone back there!" -

- -

-She walked quickly to the door and tried the handle. -

- -

-"Locked!" she cried with a little start of surprise. She -spoke without turning round. "He has locked himself -in! Why?" -

- -

-"Because of the footlights," Monsieur Bex answered, -and Betty turned about and stared at him. "Yes, we -came to that conclusion, Monsieur Frobisher and I. -Everything he does must ring a curtain down;" and once -more the key turned in the lock. -

- -

-Betty swung round again as the sound reached her ears -and came face to face with Hanaud. Hanaud looked -over her shoulder at Frobisher and shook his head -ruefully. -

- -

-"You did not find it, then?" Jim asked. -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-Hanaud looked away from Jim to Betty Harlowe. -

- -

-"Monsieur Frobisher put an idea into my head, -Mademoiselle. I had not looked into that exquisite Sedan -chair. It might well be that the necklace had been hidden -behind the cushions. But it is not there." -

- -

-"And you locked the door, Monsieur," said Betty -stiffly. "The door of my room, I ask you to notice." -

- -

-Hanaud drew himself erect. -

- -

-"I did, Mademoiselle," he replied. "And then?" -

- -

-Betty hesitated with some sharp rejoinder on the tip -of her tongue. But she did not speak it. She shrugged -her shoulders and said coldly as she turned from him: -

- -

-"You are within your rights, no doubt, Monsieur." -

- -

-Hanaud smiled at her good-humouredly. He had -offended her again. She was showing him once more -the petulant, mutinous child in her which he had seen the -morning before. But the smile did remain upon his face. -In the doorway of the library Ann Upcott was standing, -her face still very pale, and fires smouldering in her eyes. -

- -

-"You searched my rooms, I hope, Monsieur," she said -in a challenging voice. -

- -

-"Thoroughly, Mademoiselle." -

- -

-"And you did not find the necklace?" -

- -

-"No!" and he walked straight across the hall to her -with a look suddenly grown stern. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, I should like you to answer me a question. -But you need not. I wish you to understand that. -You have a right to reserve your answers for the Office -of the Examining Magistrate and then give them only in -the presence of and with the consent of your legal adviser. -Monsieur Bex will assure you that is so." -

- -

-The girl's defiance weakened. -

- -

-"What do you wish to ask me?" she asked. -

- -

-"Exactly how you came to the Maison Crenelle." -

- -

-The fire died out of her eyes; Ann's eyelids fluttered -down. She stretched out a hand against the jamb of the -door to steady herself. Jim wondered whether she -guessed that the head of Simon Harlowe's arrow was now -hidden in Hanaud's pocket. -

- -

-"I was at Monte Carlo," she began and stopped. -

- -

-"And quite alone?" Hanaud continued relentlessly. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And without money?" -

- -

-"With a little money," Ann corrected. -

- -

-"Which you lost," Hanaud rejoined. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And at Monte Carlo you made the acquaintance of -Boris Waberski?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And so you came to the Maison Crenelle?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"It is all very curious, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud -gravely, and "If it were only curious!" Jim Frobisher -wished with all his heart. For Ann Upcott quailed before -the detective's glance. It seemed to him that with another -question from him, an actual confession would falter and -stumble from her lips. A confession of complicity with -Boris Waberski! And then? Jim caught a dreadful -glimpse of the future which awaited her. The guillotine? -Probably a fate much worse. For that would be over -soon and she at rest. A few poignant weeks, an agony of -waiting, now in an intoxication of hope, now in the lowest -hell of terror; some dreadful minutes at the breaking of a -dawn—and an end! That would be better after all than -the endless years of sordid heart-breaking labour, coarse -food and clothes, amongst the criminals of a convict -prison in France. -

- -

-Jim turned his eyes away from her with a shiver of -discomfort and saw with a queer little shock that Betty -was watching him with a singular intentness; as if what -interested her was not so much Ann's peril as his feeling -about it. -

- -

-Meanwhile Ann had made up her mind. -

- -

-"I shall tell you at once the little there is to tell," she -declared. The words were brave enough, but the bravery -ended with the words. She had provoked the short -interrogatory with a clear challenge. She ended it in a -hardly audible whisper. However, she managed to tell -her story, leaning there against the post of the door. -Indeed her voice strengthened as she went on and once a -smile of real amusement flickered about her lips and in -her eyes and set the dimples playing in her cheeks. -

- -

-Up to eighteen months ago she had lived with her -mother, a widow, in Dorsetshire, a few miles behind -Weymouth. The pair of them lived with difficulty. For -Mrs. Upcott found herself in as desperate a position as -England provides for gentlewomen. She was a small -landowner taxed up to her ears, and then rated over the -top of her head. Ann for her part was thought in the -neighbourhood to have promise as an artist. On the -death of her mother the estate was sold as a toy to a -manufacturer, and Ann with a small purse and a -sack-load of ambitions set out for London. -

- -

-"It took me a year to understand that I was and should -remain an amateur. I counted over my money. I had -three hundred pounds left. What was I going to do with -it? It wasn't enough to set me up in a shop. On the -other hand, I hated the idea of dependence. So I made -up my mind to have ten wild gorgeous days at Monte -Carlo and make a fortune, or lose the lot." -

- -

-It was then that the smile set her eyes dancing. -

- -

-"I should do the same again," she cried quite unrepentantly. -"I had never been out of England in my life, but I -knew a good deal of schoolgirl's French. I bought a few -frocks and hats and off I went. I had the most glorious -time. I was nineteen. Everything from the sleeping-cars -to the croupiers enchanted me. I stayed at one of the -smaller hotels up the hill. I met one or two people whom -I knew and they introduced me into the Sporting Club. -Oh, and lots and lots of people wanted to be kind to me!" -she cried. -

- -

-"That is thoroughly intelligible," said Hanaud dryly. -

- -

-"Oh, but quite nice people too," Ann rejoined. Her -face was glowing with the recollections of that short -joyous time. She had forgotten, for the moment, -altogether the predicament in which she stood, or she -was acting with an artfulness which Hanaud could hardly -have seen surpassed in all his experience of criminals. -

- -

-"There was a croupier, for instance, at the trente-et-quarante -table in the big room of the Sporting Club. I -always tried to sit next to him. For he saw that no one -stole my money and that when I was winning I insured -my stake and clawed a little off the heap from time to -time. I was there for five weeks and I had made four -hundred pounds—and then came three dreadful nights -and I lost everything except thirty pounds which I had -stowed away in the hotel safe." She nodded across the -hall towards Jim. "Monsieur Frobisher can tell you -about the last night. For he sat beside me and very -prettily tried to make me a present of a thousand francs." -

- -

-Hanaud, however, was not to be diverted. -

- -

-"Afterwards he shall tell me," he said, and resumed -his questions. "You had met Waberski before that -night?" -

- -

-"Yes, a fortnight before. But I can't remember who -introduced me." -

- -

-"And Mademoiselle Harlowe?" -

- -

-"Monsieur Boris introduced me a day or two later to -Betty at tea-time in the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris." -

- -

-"Aha!" said Hanaud. He glanced at Jim with an -almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. It was, -indeed, becoming more and more obvious that Waberski -had brought Ann Upcott into that household deliberately, -as part of a plan carefully conceived and in due time to -be fulfilled. -

- -

-"When did Waberski first suggest that you should join -Mademoiselle Harlowe?" he asked. -

- -

-"That last night," Ann replied. "He had been standing -opposite to me on the other side of the trente-et-quarante -table. He saw that I had been losing." -

- -

-"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his head. "He thought -that the opportune moment had come." -

- -

-He extended his arms and let his hands fall against his -thighs. He was like a doctor presented with a hopeless -case. He turned half aside from Ann with his shoulders -bent and his troubled eyes fixed upon the marble squares -of the floor. Jim could not but believe that he was at -this moment debating whether he should take the girl -into custody. But Betty intervened. -

- -

-"You must not be misled, Monsieur Hanaud," she said -quickly, "It is true no doubt that Monsieur Boris -mentioned the subject to Ann for the first time that night. -But I had already told both my aunt and Monsieur Boris -that I should like a friend of my own age to live with -me and I had mentioned Ann." -

- -

-Hanaud looked up at her doubtfully. -

- -

-"On so short an acquaintance, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-Betty, however, stuck to her guns. -

- -

-"Yes. I liked her very much from the beginning. She -was alone. It was quite clear that she was of our own -world. There was every good reason why I should wish -for her. And the four months she has been with me -have proved to me that I was right." -

- -

-She crossed over to Ann with a defiant little nod at -Hanaud, who responded with a cordial grin and dropped -into English. -

- -

-"So I can push that into my pipe and puff it, as my -dear Ricardo would say. That is what you mean? Well, -against loyalty, the whole world is powerless." As he -made Betty a friendly bow. He could hardly have told -Betty in plainer phrase that her intervention had averted -Ann's arrest; or Ann herself that he believed her guilty. -

- -

-Every one in the hall understood him in that sense. -They stood foolishly looking here and looking there and -not knowing where to look; and in the midst of their -discomfort occurred an incongruous little incident which -added a touch of the bizarre. Up the two steps to the -open door came a girl carrying a big oblong cardboard -milliner's box. Her finger was on the bell, when Hanaud -stepped forward. -

- -

-"There is no need to ring," he said. "What have you -there?" -

- -

-The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann. -

- -

-"It is Mademoiselle's dress for the Ball to-morrow -night. Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but -did not come. But Madame Grolin thinks that it will be -all right." She laid the box upon a chest at the side of -the hall and went out again. -

- -

-"I had forgotten all about it," said Ann. "It was -ordered just before Madame died and tried on once." -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"For Madame Le Vay's masked ball, no doubt," he -said. "I noticed the invitation card on the chimney-piece -of Mademoiselle's sitting-room. And in what character -did Mademoiselle propose to go?" -

- -

-Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst -the blood rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone. -

- -

-"Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events," -she cried. -

- -

-Even Hanaud was brought up with a start. -

- -

-"I did not suggest it," he replied coldly. "But let me -see!" and in a moment whilst his face was flushed with -anger his hands were busily untying the tapes of the -box. -

- -

-Betty stepped forward. -

- -

-"We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, -more than a month ago. It is meant to represent a -water-lily." -

- -

-"What could be more charming?" Hanaud asked, but -his fingers did not pause in their work. -

- -

-"Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?" Jim -Frobisher wondered. What could he expect to find in -that box? Did he imagine that this Madame Grolin, -the milliner, was an accomplice of Waberski's too? The -episode was ludicrous with a touch of the horrible. -Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the tissue-paper. -Underneath was seen a short crêpe de Chine frock of a -tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold -rosette at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out -at the hips, and it was bordered with a row of white satin -rosettes with golden hearts. To complete the dress there -were a pair of white silk stockings with fine gold clocks -and white satin shoes with single straps across the insteps -and little tassels of brilliants where the straps buttoned, -and four gold stripes at the back round the heels. -

- -

-Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, -replaced the lid, and stood up again. He never looked at -Ann Upcott. He went straight across to Betty Harlowe. -

- -

-"I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you -to so much trouble and occupied so many hours of your -day," he said with a good deal of feeling. He made her -a courteous bow, took up his hat and stick from the table -on which he had laid it, and made straight for the hall -door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all -appearances finished. -

- -

-But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been -nursing his suggestion for nearly half an hour. Like a -poem it demanded utterance. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud!" he called; "Monsieur Hanaud! -I have to tell you about a box of matches." -

- -

-"Aha!" Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. "A box -of matches! I will walk with you towards your office, -and you shall tell me as you go." -

- -

-Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great -hurry. But he had time to throw a glance of pride -towards his English colleague. "Your suggestion about -the treasure room was of no value, my friend. Let us see -what I can do!" The pride and the airy wave of the -hand spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at -Hanaud's side in a moment, and talked volubly as they -passed out of the gates into the street of Charles-Robert. -

- -

-Betty turned to Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-"To-morrow, now that I am once allowed to use my -motor-car, I shall take you for a drive and show you -something of our neighbourhood. This afternoon—you -will understand, I know—I belong to Ann." -

- -

-She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls -went out into the garden. Jim was left alone in the hall—as -at that moment he wanted to be. It was very still here -now and very silent. The piping of birds, the drone of -bees outside the open doors were rather an accompaniment -than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed -himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when -he had laughed so strangely—half-way between the foot -of the stairs where Monsieur Bex and he himself had -been standing and the open porch. But Jim could detect -nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. -"That I should have lived all these years and never -noticed it before," he had exclaimed. Notice what? -There was nothing to notice. A table, a chair or two, a -barometer hanging upon the wall on one side and a mirror -hanging upon the wall on the other—No, there was nothing. -Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of the -mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene -might have been invented by him maliciously, just to -annoy and worry and cause discomfort to Monsieur Bex -and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a trick like -that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a -great deal of the mountebank. More than half of him -was probably mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds! -

- -

-"Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he -notice?" cried Jim. "What did he notice from the top -of the Tower? What did he notice in this hall? Why -must he be always noticing something?" and he jammed -his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: At Jean Cladel's -

- -

-At nine o'clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past -the cashier's desk and into the hall of the Grande -Taverne. High above his head the cinematograph -machine whirred and clicked and a blade of silver light -cut the darkness. At the opposite end of the hall the -square screen was flooded with radiance and the pictures -melted upon it one into the other. -

- -

-For a little while Jim could see nothing but that screen. -Then the hall swam gradually within his vision. He saw -the heads of people like great bullets and a wider central -corridor where waitresses with white aprons moved. Jim -walked up the corridor and turned off to the left between -the tables. When he reached the wall he went forward -again towards the top of the hall. On his left the hall -fell back, and in the recess were two large cubicles in -which billiard tables were placed. Against the wall of the -first of these a young man was leaning with his eyes fixed -upon the screen. Jim fancied that he recognised Maurice -Thevenet, and nodded to him as he passed. A little -further on a big man with a soft felt hat was seated -alone, with a Bock in front of him—Hanaud. Jim -slipped into a seat at his side. -

- -

-"You?" Hanaud exclaimed in surprise. -

- -

-"Why not? You told me this is where you would be -at this hour," replied Jim, and some note of discouragement -in his voice attracted Hanaud's attention. -

- -

-"I didn't think that those two young ladies would let -you go," he said. -

- -

-"On the contrary," Jim replied with a short laugh. -"They didn't want me at all." -

- -

-He began to say something more, but thought better of -it, and called to a waitress. -

- -

-"Two Bocks, if you please," he ordered, and he offered -Hanaud a cigar. -

- -

-When the Bocks were brought, Hanaud said to him: -

- -

-"It will be well to pay at once, so that we can slip away -when we want." -

- -

-"We have something to do to-night?" Jim asked. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-He said no more until Jim had paid and the waitress -had turned the two little saucers on which she had brought -the Bocks upside down and had gone away. Then he -leaned towards Jim and lowered his voice. -

- -

-"I am glad that you came here. For I have a hope -that we shall get the truth to-night, and you ought to be -present when we do get it." -

- -

-Jim lit his own cigar. -

- -

-"From whom do you hope to get it?" -

- -

-"Jean Cladel," Hanaud answered in a whisper. "A -little later when all the town is quiet we will pay a visit -to the street of Gambetta." -

- -

-"You think he'll talk?" -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"There is no charge against Cladel in this affair. To -make a solution of that poison paste is not an offence. -And he has so much against him that he will want to be -on our side if he can. Yes, he will talk I have no doubt." -

- -

-There would be an end of the affair then, to-night. -Jim Frobisher was glad with an unutterable gladness. -Betty would be free to order her life as she liked, and -where she liked, to give to her youth its due scope and -range, to forget the terror and horror of these last weeks, -as one forgets old things behind locked doors. -

- -

-"I hope, however," he said earnestly to Hanaud, "and -I believe, that you will be found wrong, that if there was -a murder Ann Upcott had nothing to do with it. Yes, I -believe that." He repeated his assertion as much to -convince himself as to persuade Hanaud. -

- -

-Hanaud touched his elbow. -

- -

-"Don't raise your voice too much, my friend," he said. -"I think there is some one against the wall who is -honouring us with his attention." -

- -

-Jim shook his head. -

- -

-"It is only Maurice Thevenet," he said. -

- -

-"Oho?" answered Hanaud in a voice of relief. "Is -that all? For a moment I was anxious. It seemed that -there was a sentinel standing guard over us." He added -in a whisper, "I, too, hope from the bottom of my heart -that I may be proved wrong. But what of that arrow -head in the pen tray? Eh? Don't forget that!" Then -he fell into a muse. -

- -

-"What happened on that night in the Maison -Crenelle?" he said. "Why was that communicating door -thrown open? Who was to be stripped to the skin by -that violent woman? Who whispered 'That will do -now'? Is Ann Upcott speaking the truth, and was there -some terrible scene taking place before she entered so -unexpectedly the treasure room—some terrible scene which -ended in that dreadful whisper? Or is Ann Upcott lying -from beginning to end? Ah, my friend, you wrote some -questions down upon your memorandum this afternoon. -But these are the questions I want answered, and where -shall I find the answers?" -

- -

-Jim had never seen Hanaud so moved. His hands -were clenched, and the veins prominent upon his forehead, -and though he whispered his voice shook. -

- -

-"Jean Cladel may help," said Jim. -

- -

-"Yes, yes, he may tell us something." -

- -

-They sat through an episode of the film, and saw the -lights go up and out again, and then Hanaud looked -eagerly at his watch and put it back again into his pocket -with a gesture of annoyance. -

- -

-"It is still too early?" Jim asked. -

- -

-"Yes. Cladel has no servant and takes his meals -abroad. He has not yet returned home." -

- -

-A little before ten o'clock a man strolled in, and seating -himself at a table behind Hanaud twice scraped a match -upon a match-box without getting a light. Hanaud, -without moving, said quietly to Frobisher: -

- -

-"He is at home now. In a minute I shall go. Give -me five minutes and follow." -

- -

-Jim nodded. -

- -

-"Where shall we meet?" -

- -

-"Walk straight along the Rue de la Liberté, and I will -see to that," said Hanaud. -

- -

-He pulled his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put -one between his lips, and took his time in lighting it. -Then he got up, but to his annoyance Maurice Thevenet -recognised him and came forward. -

- -

-"When Monsieur Frobisher wished me good-evening -and joined you I thought it was you, Monsieur Hanaud. -But I had not the presumption to recall myself to your -notice." -

- -

-"Presumption! Monsieur, we are of the same service, -only you have the advantage of youth," said Hanaud -politely, as he turned. -

- -

-"But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?" Thevenet -asked in distress. "I am desolated. I have broken into -a conversation like a clumsy fellow." -

- -

-"Not at all," Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his -patience was as remarkable as Maurice Thevenet's -impudence. "We were idly watching a film which I think -is a little tedious." -

- -

-"Then, since you are not busy I beg for your -indulgence. One little moment that is all. I should so -dearly love to be able to say to my friends, 'I sat in the -cinema with Monsieur Hanaud—yes, actually I'—and -asked for his advice." -

- -

-Hanaud sat down again upon his chair. -

- -

-"And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur -Girardot speaks so highly, want my advice?" Hanaud -asked with a laugh. -

- -

-The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting -the eager youth. To get to Paris—all was in that! -Fortune, reputation, a life of colour. A word from -Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. He would -work night and day to justify that word. -

- -

-"Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time -comes I shall remember you. But that promise I make -now with my whole heart," said Hanaud warmly, and -with a bow he moved away. -

- -

-Maurice Thevenet watched him go. -

- -

-"What a man!" Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. -"I would not like to try to keep any secrets -from him. No, indeed!" Jim had heard that sentiment -before on other lips and with a greater sympathy. "I did -not understand at all what he had in his mind when he -staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But -something, Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. -And that search through the treasure room! How quick -and complete! No doubt while we searched Mademoiselle -Upcott's bedroom, he was just as quick and complete in -going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. -No, nothing." -

- -

-He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only -said "Oho!" -

- -

-But Thevenet was not to be extinguished. -

- -

-"I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was -following out no suspicions; isn't that so? He was -detached. He was gathering up every trifle, on the chance -that each one might sometime fit in with another and at -last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There was -a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe -handed to him, one of those deplorable letters which have -disgraced us here—you remember that letter, Monsieur?" -

- -

-"Aha!" said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. -"But I see that this film is coming to its wedding bells. -So I shall wish you a good evening." -

- -

-Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream -of success in Paris. He strolled between the groups of -spectators to the entrance and thence into the street. He -walked to the arch of the Porte Guillaume and turned -into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial towns go to -bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was -like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred -yards on, he was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from -nowhere, walking at his side. -

- -

-"So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when -I had gone?" he said. -

- -

-"Maurice Thevenet," said Jim, "may be as the Commissary -says a young man of a surprising intelligence, -but to tell you the truth, I find him a very intrusive fellow. -First of all he wanted to know if you had discovered -anything in Ann Upcott's sitting-room, and then what Miss -Harlowe's anonymous letter was about." -

- -

-Hanaud looked at Jim with interest. -

- -

-"Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot -is right. He will go far. And how did you answer him?" -

- -

-"I said 'Oho'! first, and then I said 'Aha'! just like a -troublesome friend of mine when I ask him a simple -question which he does not mean to answer." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed heartily. -

- -

-"And you did very well," he said. "Come, let us turn -into this little street upon the right. It will take us to -our destination." -

- -

-"Wait!" whispered Jim eagerly. "Don't cross the road -for a moment. Listen!" -

- -

-Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and -listened in the empty street. -

- -

-"Not a sound," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"No! That is what troubles me!" Jim whispered -importantly. "A minute ago there were footsteps behind -us. Now that we have stopped they have stopped too. -Let us go on quite straight for a moment or two." -

- -

-"But certainly my friend," said Hanaud. -

- -

-"And let us not talk either," Jim urged. -

- -

-"Not a single word," said Hanaud. -

- -

-They moved forward again and behind them once more -footsteps rang upon the pavement. -

- -

-"What did I tell you?" asked Jim, taking Hanaud by -the arm. -

- -

-"That we would neither of us speak," Hanaud replied. -"And lo! you have spoken!" -

- -

-"But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur," -Jim shook his arm indignantly. "We are being -followed." -

- -

-Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration -at his junior colleague. -

- -

-"Oh!" he whispered. "You have discovered that? -Yes, it is true. We are being followed by one of my -men who sees to it that we are not followed." -

- -

-Frobisher shook Hanaud's arm off indignantly. He -drew himself up stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud's mouth -twitching and he understood that he was looking -"proper." -

- -

-"Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel," he said with -a laugh and he crossed the road. They passed into a -network of small, mean streets. There was not a soul -abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. The -only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own -footsteps on the pavement and the fainter noise of the -man who followed them. Hanaud turned to the left into -a short passage and stopped before a little house with a -shuttered shop front. -

- -

-"This is the place," he said in a low voice and he -pressed the button in the pillar of the door. The bell rang -with a shrill sharp whirr just the other side of the panels. -

- -

-"We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to -bed," said Hanaud, "since he has no servant in the -house." -

- -

-A minute or two passed. The clocks struck the half -hour. Hanaud leaned his ear against the panels of the -door. He could not hear one sound within the house. -He rang again; and after a few seconds shutters were -thrown back and a window opened on the floor above. -From behind the window some one whispered: -

- -

-"Who is there?" -

- -

-"The police," Hanaud answered, and at the window -above there was silence. -

- -

-"No one is going to do you any harm," Hanaud -continued, raising his voice impatiently. "We want some -information from you. That's all." -

- -

-"Very well." The whisper came from the same spot. -The man standing within the darkness of the room had -not moved. "Wait! I will slip on some things and come -down." -

- -

-The window and the shutter were closed again. Then -through the chinks a few beams of light strayed out -Hanaud uttered a little grunt of satisfaction. -

- -

-"That animal is getting up at last. He must have some -strange clients amongst the good people of Dijon if he is -so careful to answer them in a whisper." -

- -

-He turned about and took a step or two along the -pavement and another step or two back like a man upon -a quarter deck. Jim Frobisher had never known him so -restless and impatient during these two days. -

- -

-"I can't help it," he said in a low voice to Jim. "I -think that in five minutes we shall touch the truth of this -affair. We shall know who brought the arrow to him -from the Maison Crenelle." -

- -

-"If any one brought the arrow to him at all," Jim -Frobisher added. -

- -

-But Hanaud was not in the mood to consider ifs and -possibilities. -

- -

-"Oh, that!" he said with a shrug of the shoulders. -Then he tapped his forehead. "I am like Waberski. I -have it here that some one did bring the arrow to Jean -Cladel." -

- -

-He started once more his quarter-deck pacing. Only -it was now a trot rather than a walk. Jim was a little -nettled by the indifference to his suggestion. He was -still convinced that Hanaud had taken the wrong starting -point in all his inquiry. He said tartly: -

- -

-"Well, if some one did bring the arrow here, it will -be the same person who replaced the treatise on -Sporanthus on its book shelf." -

- -

-Hanaud came to a stop in front of Jim Frobisher. -Then he burst into a low laugh. -

- -

-"I will bet you all the money in the world that that -is not true, and then Madame Harlowe's pearl necklace -on the top of it. For after all it was not I who brought -the arrow to Jean Cladel, whereas it was undoubtedly I -who put back the treatise on the shelf." -

- -

-Jim took a step back. He stared at Hanaud with his -mouth open in a stupefaction. -

- -

-"You?" he exclaimed. -

- -

-"I," replied Hanaud, standing up on the tips of his -toes. "Alone I did it." -

- -

-Then his manner of burlesque dropped from him. He -looked up at the shuttered windows with a sudden anxiety. -

- -

-"That animal is taking longer than he need," he muttered. -"After all, it is not to a court ball of the Duke of -Burgundy that we are inviting him." -

- -

-He rang the bell again with a greater urgency. It -returned its shrill reply as though it mocked him. -

- -

-"I do not like this," said Hanaud. -

- -

-He seized the door-handle and leaned his shoulder -against the panel and drove his weight against it. But -the door was strong and did not give. Hanaud put his -fingers to his mouth and whistled softly. From the -direction whence they had come they heard the sound -of a man running swiftly. They saw him pass within -the light of the one street lamp at the corner and out of it -again; and then he stood at their side. Jim recognised -Nicolas Moreau, the little agent who had been sent this -very morning by Hanaud to make sure that Jean Cladel -existed. -

- -

-"Nicolas, I want you to wait here," said Hanaud. "If -the door is opened, whistle for us and keep it open." -

- -

-"Very well, sir." -

- -

-Hanaud said in a low and troubled voice to Frobisher: -"There is something here which alarms me." He dived -into a narrow alley at the side of the shop. -

- -

-"It was in this alley no doubt that Waberski meant us -to believe that he hid on the morning of the 7th of May," -Jim whispered as he hurried to keep with his companion. -

- -

-"No doubt." -

- -

-The alley led into a lane which ran parallel with the -street of Gambetta. Hanaud wheeled into it. A wall five -feet high, broken at intervals by rickety wooden doors, -enclosed the yards at the backs of the houses. Before -the first of these breaks in the wall Hanaud stopped. He -raised himself upon the tips of his toes and peered over -the wall, first downwards into the yard, and then upwards -towards the back of the house. There was no lamp in the -lane, no light showing from any of the windows. Though -the night was clear of mist it was as dark as a cavern in -this narrow lane behind the houses. Jim Frobisher, -though his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, knew that -he could not have seen a man, even if he had moved, ten -yards away. Yet Hanaud still stood peering at the back -of the house with the tips of his fingers on the top of the -wall. Finally he touched Jim on the sleeve. -

- -

-"I believe the back window on the first floor is open," -he whispered, and his voice was more troubled than ever. -"We will go in and see." -

- -

-He touched the wooden door and it swung inwards -with a whine of its hinges. -

- -

-"Open," said Hanaud. "Make no noise." -

- -

-Silently they crossed the yard. The ground floor of -the house was low. Jim looking upwards could see now -that the window above their heads yawned wide open. -

- -

-"You are right," he breathed in Hanaud's ear, and with -a touch Hanaud asked for silence. -

- -

-The room beyond the window was black as pitch. The -two men stood below and listened. Not a word came -from it. Hanaud drew Jim into the wall of the house. -At the end of the wall a door gave admission into the -house. Hanaud tried the door, turning the handle first -and then gently pressing with his shoulder upon the panel. -

- -

-"It's locked, but not bolted like the door in front," he -whispered. "I can manage this." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher heard the tiniest possible rattle of a -bunch of keys as Hanaud drew it from his pocket, and -then not a noise of any kind whilst Hanaud stooped above -the lock. Yet within half a minute the door slowly -opened. It opened upon a passage as black as that room -above their heads. Hanaud stepped noiselessly into the -passage. Jim Frobisher followed him with a heart -beating high in excitement. What had happened in that -lighted room upstairs and in the dark room behind it? -Why didn't Jean Cladel come down and open the door -upon the street of Gambetta? Why didn't they hear -Nicolas Moreau's soft whistle or the sound of his voice? -Hanaud stepped back past Jim Frobisher and shut the -door behind them and locked it again. -

- -

-"You haven't an electric torch with you, of course?" -Hanaud whispered. -

- -

-"No," replied Jim. -

- -

-"Nor I. And I don't want to strike a match. There's -something upstairs which frightens me." -

- -

-You could hardly hear the words. They were spoken -as though the mere vibration of the air they caused would -carry a message to the rooms above. -

- -

-"We'll move very carefully. Keep a hand upon my -coat," and Hanaud went forward. After he had gone a -few paces he stopped. -

- -

-"There's a staircase here on my right. It turns at -once. Mind not to knock your foot on the first step," he -whispered over his shoulder; and a moment later, he -reached down and, taking hold of Jim's right arm, laid -his hand upon a balustrade. Jim lifted his foot, felt for -and found the first tread of the stairs, and mounted -behind Hanaud. They halted on a little landing just above -the door by which they had entered the house. -

- -

-In front of them the darkness began to thin, to become -opaque rather than a black, impenetrable hood drawn over -their heads. Jim understood that in front of him was an -open door and that the faint glimmer came from that -open window on their left hand beyond the door. -

- -

-Hanaud passed through the doorway into the room. -Jim followed and was already upon the threshold, when -Hanaud stumbled and uttered a cry. No doubt the cry -was low, but coming so abruptly upon their long silence -it startled Frobisher like the explosion of a pistol. It -seemed that it must clash through Dijon like the striking -of a clock. -

- -

-But nothing followed. No one stirred, no one cried -out a question. Silence descended upon the house again, -impenetrable, like the darkness a hood upon the senses. -Jim was tempted to call out aloud himself, anything, -however childish, so that he might hear a voice speaking -words, if only his own voice. The words came at last, -from Hanaud and from the inner end of the room, but -in an accent which Jim did not recognise. -

- -

-"Don't move! ... There is something.... I told -you I was frightened.... Oh!" and his voice died away -in a sigh. -

- -

-Jim could hear him moving very cautiously. Then he -almost screamed aloud. For the shutters at the window -slowly swung to and the room was once more shrouded -in black. -

- -

-"Who's that?" Jim whispered violently, and Hanaud -answered: -

- -

-"It's only me—Hanaud. I don't want to show a light -here yet with that window open. God knows what dreadful -thing has happened here. Come just inside the room -and shut the door behind you." -

- -

-Jim obeyed, and having moved his position, could see -a line of yellow light, straight and fine as if drawn by a -pencil, at the other end of the room on the floor. There -was a door there, a door into the front room where they -had seen the light go up from the street of Gambetta. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher had hardly realised that before the door -was burst open with a crash. In the doorway, outlined -against the light beyond, appeared the bulky frame of -Hanaud. -

- -

-"There is nothing here," he said, standing there blocking -up the doorway with his hands in his pockets. "The -room is quite empty." -

- -

-That room, the front room—yes! But between -Hanaud's legs the light trickled out into the dark room -behind, and here, on the floor illuminated by a little lane -of light, Jim, with a shiver, saw a clenched hand and a -forearm in a crumpled shirt-sleeve. -

- -

-"Turn round," he cried to Hanaud. "Look!" -

- -

-Hanaud turned. -

- -

-"Yes," he said quietly. "That is what I stumbled -against." -

- -

-He found a switch in the wall close to the door and -snapped it down. The dark room was flooded with light, -and on the floor, in the midst of a scene of disorder, a -table pushed back here, a chair overturned there, lay the -body of a man. He wore no coat. He was in his waistcoat -and his shirt sleeves, and he was crumpled up with -a horrible suggestion of agony like a ball, his knees -towards his chin, his head forward towards his knees. -One arm clutched the body close, the other, the one which -Jim had seen, was flung out, his hand clenched in a spasm -of intolerable pain. And about the body there was such a -pool of blood as Jim Frobisher thought no body could -contain. -

- -

-Jim staggered back with his hands clasped over his -eyes. He felt physically sick. -

- -

-"Then he killed himself on our approach," he cried -with a groan. -

- -

-"Who?" answered Hanaud steadily. -

- -

-"Jean Cladel. The man who whispered to us from -behind the window." -

- -

-Hanaud stunned him with a question. -

- -

-"What with?" -

- -

-Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and -forced his eyes to their service. There was no gleam of a -knife, or a pistol, anywhere against the dark background -of the carpet. -

- -

-"You might think that he was a Japanese who had -committed hari-kari," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the -knife would be at his side. And there is no knife." -

- -

-He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his -hand back. -

- -

-"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He -pointed. The man was lying on his side in this -dreadful pose of contracted sinews and unendurable pain. -And across the sleeve of his shirt there was a broad red -mark. -

- -

-"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud. -

- -

-Jim bent forward. -

- -

-"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, -in a voice of awe: "Then it's murder." -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"Not a doubt." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher stood up. He pointed a shaking finger -at the grotesque image of pain crumpled upon the floor, -death without dignity, an argument that there was -something horribly wrong with the making of the human -race—since such things could be. -

- -

-"Jean Cladel?" he asked. -

- -

-"We must make sure," answered Hanaud. He went -down the stairs to the front door and, unbolting it, called -Moreau within the house. From the top of the stairs -Jim heard him ask: -

- -

-"Do you know Jean Cladel by sight?" -

- -

-"Yes," answered Moreau. -

- -

-"Then follow me." -

- -

-Hanaud led him up into the back room. For a moment -Moreau stopped upon the threshold with a blank look -upon his face. -

- -

-"Is that the man?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-Moreau stepped forward. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"He has been murdered," Hanaud explained. "Will -you fetch the Commissary of the district and a doctor? -We will wait here." -

- -

-Moreau turned on his heel and went downstairs. -Hanaud dropped into a chair and stared moodily at the -dead body. -

- -

-"Jean Cladel," he said in a voice of discouragement. -"Just when he could have been of a little use in the -world! Just when he could have helped us to the truth! -It's my fault, too. I oughtn't to have waited until -to-night. I ought to have foreseen that this might happen." -

- -

-"Who can have murdered him?" Jim Frobisher exclaimed. -

- -

-Hanaud roused himself out of his remorse. -

- -

-"The man who whispered to us from behind the -window," answered Hanaud. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher felt his mind reeling. -

- -

-"That's impossible!" he cried. -

- -

-"Why?" Hanaud asked. "It must have been he. -Think it out!" And step by step he told the story as -he read it, testing it by speaking it aloud. -

- -

-"At five minutes past ten a man of mine, still a little -out of breath from his haste, comes to us in the Grande -Taverne and tells us that Jean Cladel has just reached -home. He reached home then at five minutes to ten." -

- -

-"Yes," Jim agreed. -

- -

-"We were detained for a few minutes by Maurice -Thevenet. Yes." He moistened his lips with the tip -of his tongue and said softly: "We shall have to consider -that very modest and promising young gentleman rather -carefully. He detained us. We heard the clock strike -half-past ten as we waited in the street." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"And all was over then. For the house was as silent -as what, indeed, it is—a grave. And only just over, for -the body is still warm. If this—lying here, is Jean Cladel, -some one else must have been waiting for him to come -home to-night, waiting in the lane behind, since my man -didn't see him. And an acquaintance, a friend—for Jean -Cladel lets him in and locks the door behind him." -

- -

-Jim interrupted. -

- -

-"He might have been here already, waiting for him -with his knife bared in this dark room." -

- -

-Hanaud looked around the room. It was furnished -cheaply and stuffily, half office, half living-room. An -open bureau stood against the wall near the window. A -closed cabinet occupied the greater part of one side. -

- -

-"I wonder," he said. "It is possible, no doubt—— But -if so, why did the murderer stay so long? No search -has been made—no drawers are ransacked." He tried -the door of the cabinet. "This is still locked. No, I -don't think that he was waiting. I think that he was -admitted as a friend or a client—I fancy Jean Cladel had -not a few clients who preferred to call upon him by the -back way in the dark of the night. I think that his visitor -came meaning to kill, and waited his time and killed, and -that he had hardly killed before we rang the bell at the -door." Hanaud drew in his breath sharply. "Imagine -that, my friend! He is standing here over the man he -has murdered, and unexpectedly the shrill, clear sound of -the bell goes through the house—as though God said, 'I -saw you!' Imagine it! He turned out the light and -stands holding his breath in the dark. The bell rings -again. He must answer it or worse may befall. He goes -into the front room and throws open the window, and -hears it is the police who are at the door." Hanaud -nodded his head in a reluctant admiration. "But that man -had an iron nerve! He doesn't lose his head. He closes -the shutter, he turns on the light, that we may think he is -getting up, he runs back into this room. He will not -waste time by stumbling down the stairs and fumbling -with the lock of the back door. No, he opens these -shutters and drops to the ground. It is done in a second. -Another second, and he is in the lane; another, and he -is safe, his dreadful mission ended. Cladel will not speak. -Cladel will not tell us the things we want to know." -

- -

-Hanaud went over to the cabinet and, using his skeleton -keys, again opened its doors. On the shelves were ranged -a glass jar or two, a retort, the simplest utensils of a -laboratory and a few bottles, one of which, larger than -the rest, was half filled with a colourless liquid. -

- -

-"Alcohol," said Hanaud, pointing to the label. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher moved carefully round on the outskirts -of the room, taking care not to alter the disarrangements -of the furniture. He looked the bottles over. Not one -of them held a drop of that pale lemon-coloured solution -which the Professor, in his Treatise, had described. -Hanaud shut and locked the doors of the cabinet again -and stepped carefully over to the bureau. It stood open, -and a few papers were strewn upon the flap. He sat -down at the bureau and began carefully to search it. Jim -sat down in a chair. Somehow it had leaked out that, -since this morning, Hanaud knew of Jean Cladel. Jean -Cladel therefore must be stopped from any revelations; -and he had been stopped. Frobisher could no longer -doubt that murder had been done on the night of April -the 27th, in the Maison Crenelle. Development followed -too logically upon development. The case was building -itself up—another storey had been added to the edifice -with this new crime. Yes, certainly and solidly it was -building itself up—this case against some one. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The White Tablet -

- -

-Within the minute that case was to be immeasurably -strengthened. An exclamation broke from -Hanaud. He sprang to his feet and turned on the light -of a green-shaded reading lamp, which stood upon the -ledge of the bureau. He was holding now under the -light a small drawer, which he had removed from the -front of the bureau. Very gingerly he lifted some little -thing out of it, something that looked like a badge that -men wear in their buttonholes. He laid it down upon the -blotting paper; and in that room of death laughed -harshly. -

- -

-He beckoned to Jim. -

- -

-"Come and look!" -

- -

-What Jim saw was a thin, small, barbed iron dart, -with an iron stem. He had no need to ask its nature, for -he had seen its likeness that morning in the Treatise of -the Edinburgh Professor. This was the actual head of -Simon Harlowe's poison-arrow. -

- -

-"You have found it!" said Jim in a voice that shook. -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-Hanaud gave it a little push, and said thoughtfully: -

- -

-"A negro thousands of miles away sits outside his hut -in the Kombe country and pounds up his poison seed and -mixes it with red clay, and smears it thick and slab over -the shaft of his fine new arrow, and waits for his enemy. -But his enemy does not come. So he barters it, or gives -it to his white friend the trader on the Shire river. And -the trader brings it home and gives it to Simon Harlowe -of the Maison Crenelle. And Simon Harlowe lends it to -a professor in Edinburgh, who writes about it in a printed -book and sends it back again. And in the end, after all -its travels, it comes to the tenement of Jean Cladel in a -slum of Dijon, and is made ready in a new way to do its -deadly work." -

- -

-For how much longer Hanaud would have moralised -over the arrow in this deplorable way, no man can tell. -Happily Jim Frobisher was reprieved from listening to -him by the shutting of a door below and the noise of -voices in the passage. -

- -

-"The Commissary!" said Hanaud, and he went quickly -down the stairs. -

- -

-Jim heard him speaking in a low tone for quite a long -while, and no doubt was explaining the position of affairs. -For when he brought the Commissary and the doctor up -into the room he introduced Jim as one about whom they -already knew. -

- -

-"This is that Monsieur Frobisher," he said. -

- -

-The Commissary, a younger and more vivacious man -than Girardot, bowed briskly to Jim and looked towards -the contorted figure of Jean Cladel. -

- -

-Even he could not restrain a little gesture of repulsion. -He clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. -

- -

-"He is not pretty, that one!" he said. "Most certainly -he is not pretty." -

- -

-Hanaud crossed again to the bureau and carefully -folded the dart around with paper. -

- -

-"With your permission, Monsieur," he said ceremoniously -to the Commissary, "I shall take this with me. -I will be responsible for it." He put it away in his pocket -and looked at the doctor, who was stooping by the side -of Jean Cladel. "I do not wish to interfere, but I should -be glad to have a copy of the medical report. I think -that it might help me. I think it will be found that this -murder was committed in a way peculiar to one man." -

- -

-"Certainly you shall have a copy of the report, -Monsieur Hanaud," replied the young Commissary in a polite -and formal voice. -

- -

-Hanaud laid a hand on Jim's arm. -

- -

-"We are in the way, my friend. Oh, yes, in spite of -Monsieur le Commissaire's friendly protestations. This -is not our affair. Let us go!" He conducted Jim to the -door and turned about. "I do not wish to interfere," he -repeated, "but it is possible that the shutters and the -window will bear the traces of the murderer's fingers. I -don't think it probable, for that animal had taken his -precautions. But it is possible, for he left in a great hurry." -

- -

-The Commissary was overwhelmed with gratitude. -

- -

-"Most certainly we will give our attention to the -shutters and the window-sill." -

- -

-"A copy of the finger-prints, if any are found?" -Hanaud suggested. -

- -

-"Shall be at Monsieur Hanaud's disposal as early as -possible," the Commissary agreed. -

- -

-Jim experienced a pang of regret that Monsieur Bex -was not present at the little exchange of civilities. The -Commissary and Hanaud were so careful not to tread -upon one another's toes and so politely determined that -their own should not be trodden upon. Monsieur Bex -could not but have revelled in the correctness of their -deportment. -

- -

-Hanaud and Frobisher went downstairs into the street -The neighbourhood had not been aroused. A couple of -sergents-de-ville stood in front of the door. The street of -Gambetta was still asleep and indifferent to the crime -which had taken place in one of its least respectable -houses. -

- -

-"I shall go to the Prefecture," said Hanaud. "They -have given me a little office there with a sofa. I want -to put away the arrow head before I go to my hotel." -

- -

-"I shall come with you," said Jim. "It will be a relief -to walk for a little in the fresh air, after that room." -

- -

-The Prefecture lay the better part of a mile away -across the city. Hanaud set off at a great pace, and reaching -the building conducted Jim into an office with a safe -set against the wall. -

- -

-"Will you sit down for a moment? And smoke, -please," he said. -

- -

-He was in a mood of such deep dejection; he was so -changed from his mercurial self; that only now did Jim -Frobisher understand the great store he had set upon his -interview with Jean Cladel. He unlocked the safe and -brought over to the table a few envelopes of different -sizes, the copy of the Treatise and his green file. He -seated himself in front of Jim and began to open his -envelopes and range their contents in a row, when the -door was opened and a gendarme saluted and advanced. -He carried a paper in his hand. -

- -

-"A reply came over the telephone from Paris at nine -o'clock to-night, Monsieur Hanaud. They say that this -may be the name of the firm you want. It was established -in the Rue de Batignolles, but it ceased to exist -seven years ago." -

- -

-"Yes, that would have happened," Hanaud answered -glumly, as he took the paper. He read what was written -upon it. "Yes—yes. That's it. Not a doubt." -

- -

-He took an envelope from a rack upon the table and -put the paper inside it and stuck down the flap. On the -front of the envelope, Jim saw him write an illuminating -word. "Address." -

- -

-Then he looked at Jim with smouldering eyes. -

- -

-"There is a fatality in all this," he cried. "We become -more and more certain that murder was committed and -how it was committed. We get a glimpse of possible -reasons why. But we are never an inch nearer to evidence—real -convincing evidence—who committed it. Fatality? -I am a fool to use such words. It's keen wits and -audacity and nerve that stop us at the end of each lane and -make an idiot of me!" -

- -

-He struck a match viciously and lit a cigarette. Frobisher -made an effort to console him. -

- -

-"Yes, but it's the keen wits and the audacity and the -nerve of more than one person." -

- -

-Hanaud glanced at Frobisher sharply. -

- -

-"Explain, my friend." -

- -

-"I have been thinking over it ever since we left the -street of Gambetta. I no longer doubt that -Mrs. Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle. It is -impossible to doubt it. But her murder was part of the -activities of a gang. Else how comes it that Jean Cladel was -murdered too to-night?" -

- -

-A smile drove for a moment the gloom from Hanaud's -face. -

- -

-"Yes. You have been quite fifteen minutes in the -bull-ring," he said. -

- -

-"Then you agree with me?" -

- -

-"Yes!" But Hanaud's gloom had returned. "But we -can't lay our hands upon the gang. We are losing time, -and I am afraid that we have no time to lose." Hanaud -shivered like a man suddenly chilled. "Yes, I am very -troubled now. I am very—frightened." -

- -

-His fear peered out of him and entered into Frobisher. -Frobisher did not understand it, he had no clue to what -it was that Hanaud feared, but sitting in that brightly-lit -office in the silent building, he was conscious of evil -presences thronging about the pair of them, presences -grotesque and malevolent such as some old craftsman of -Dijon might have carved on the pillars of a cathedral. -He, too, shivered. -

- -

-"Let us see, now!" said Hanaud. -

- -

-He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, -and the barb from his pocket, and fitted them together. -The iron barb was loose now because the hole to receive -it at the top of the arrow shaft had been widened to take -a nib. But the spoke was just about the right length. He -laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green -file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, -attracted Jim's notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, -but as he shook it out, a square tablet of some hard white -substance rolled on to the table. It was soiled with dust, -and there was a smear of green upon it; and as Jim -turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as -though something sharp had struck it. -

- -

-"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" -he asked. -

- -

-Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his -hand swiftly to take the tablet away from Jim, and drew -his hand in again. -

- -

-"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said -gravely. "But it is interesting—that tablet. I shall know -more about it to-morrow." -

- -

-Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion -which had brought this tablet into notice. It certainly -had not been discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for -it was already there in the safe in the office. Jim had -noticed the little square envelope as Hanaud fetched it -out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had been picked -up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. -Or—yes, there was that smear of green—from the grass. -Jim sat up straight in his chair. They had all been -together in the garden this morning. Hanaud, himself, -Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point Frobisher's -conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction -could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of -them had passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only -thing of which he was quite sure was the great importance -which Hanaud attached to it. For all the time that he -handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left him, -never once. They followed each little movement of finger -tip and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when -Jim at last tilted it off his palm back into its little -envelope, the detective undoubtedly drew a breath of relief. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was -getting to know his man. He did not invite any "Aha's" -and "Oho's" by vain questionings. He leaned across the -table and took up his own memorandum which Hanaud -had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table -in front of him and added two new questions to those -which he had already written out. Thus: -

- -

-(5) What was the exact message telephoned from -Paris to the Prefecture and hidden away in an -envelope marked by Hanaud: "Address"? -

- -

-(6) When and where and why was the white tablet -picked up, and what, in the name of all the saints, does -it mean? -

- -


- -

-With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum -back to Hanaud. Hanaud, however, read them slowly -and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to answer all your questions -to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you see! We -break down at every corner, and the question must wait." -

- -

-He was fitting methodically the memorandum back -into the file when a look of extreme surprise came over -Frobisher's face. He pointed a finger at the file. -

- -

-"That telegram!" -

- -

-There was a telegram pinned to the three anonymous -letters which Hanaud had in the file—the two which -Hanaud had shown to Frobisher in Paris and the third -which Betty Harlowe had given to him that very -afternoon. And the telegram was pieced together by two -strips of stamp-paper in a cross. -

- -

-"That's our telegram. The telegram sent to my firm -by Miss Harlowe on Monday—yes, by George, this last -Monday." -

- -

-It quite took Jim's breath away, so crowded had his -days been with fears and reliefs, excitements and doubts, -discoveries and disappointments, to realise that this was -only the Friday night; that at so recent a date as -Wednesday he had never seen or spoken with Betty -Harlowe. "The telegram announcing to us in London -that you were engaged upon the case." -

- -

-Hanaud nodded in assent. -

- -

-"Yes. You gave it to me." -

- -

-"And you tore it up." -

- -

-"I did. But I picked it out of the waste-paper basket -afterwards and stuck it together." Hanaud explained, in -no wise disconcerted by Jim Frobisher's attack of -perspicacity. "I meant to make some trouble here with -the Police for letting out the secret. I am very glad now -that I did pick it out. You yourself must have realised -its importance the very next morning before I even -arrived at the Maison Crenelle, when you told -Mademoiselle that you had shown it to me." -

- -

-Jim cast his memory back. He had a passion for -precision and exactness which was very proper in one of -his profession. -

- -

-"It was not until you came that I learnt Miss Harlowe -had the news by an anonymous letter," he said. -

- -

-"Well, that doesn't matter," Hanaud interposed a -trifle quickly. "The point of importance to me is that -when the case is done with, and I have a little time to -devote to these letters, the telegram may be of value." -

- -

-"Yes, I see," said Jim. "I see that," he repeated, and -he shifted uncomfortably in his chair; and opened his -mouth and closed it again; and remained suspended -between speech and silence, whilst Hanaud read through his -file and contemplated his exhibits and found no hope in -them. -

- -

-"They lead me nowhere!" he cried violently; and Jim -Frobisher made up his mind. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud, you do not share your thoughts -with me," he said rather formally, "but I will deal -with you in a better way; apart from this crime in the -Maison Crenelle, you have the mystery of these anonymous -letters to solve. I can help you to this extent. -Another of them has been received." -

- -

-"When?" -

- -

-"To-night, whilst we sat at dinner." -

- -

-"By whom?" -

- -

-"Ann Upcott." -

- -

-"What!" -

- -

-Hanaud was out of his chair with a cry, towering up, -his face white as the walls of the room, his eyes burning -upon Frobisher. Never could news have been so -unexpected, so startling. -

- -

-"You are sure?" he asked. -

- -

-"Quite. It came by the evening post—with others. -Gaston brought them into the dining-room. There was -one for me from my firm in London, a couple for Betty, -and this one for Ann Upcott. She opened it with a -frown, as though she did not know from whom it came. -I saw it as she unfolded it. It was on the same common -paper—typewritten in the same way—with no address -at the head of it. She gasped as she looked at it, and -then she read it again. And then with a smile she folded -it and put it away." -

- -

-"With a smile?" Hanaud insisted. -

- -

-"Yes. She was pleased. The colour came into her -face. The distress went out of it." -

- -

-"She didn't show it to you, then?" -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-"Nor to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-"But she was pleased, eh?" It seemed that to Hanaud -this was the most extraordinary feature of the whole -business. "Did she say anything?" -

- -

-"Yes," answered Jim. "She said 'He has been always -right, hasn't he?'" -

- -

-"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't -he?'" Hanaud slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a -man turned into stone. He looked up in a little while. -

- -

-"What happened then?" he asked. -

- -

-"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up -her letter and beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who -said to me: 'We shall have to leave you to take your -coffee alone.' They went across the hall to Betty's room. -The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever since I -have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed -me into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not -interfere. So I came to find you at the Grande Taverne." -

- -

-At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity -would have provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable -exhibitions, but now he did not notice it at all. -

- -

-"They went away to talk that letter over together," -said Hanaud. "And that young lady was pleased, she -who was so distressed this afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud -was discussing his problem with himself, his eyes -upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I -wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once -or twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a -hundred corridas, I, Hanaud, am baffled!" -

- -

-He was not posturing now. He was frankly and -simply amazed that he could be so utterly at a loss. Then, -with a swift change of mood, he came back to the table. -

- -

-"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange -new incident to myself, I beg of you your help," he -pleaded very earnestly and even very humbly. Fear had -returned to his eyes and his voice. He was disturbed -beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more -important. I want you—how shall I put it so that I may -persuade you? I want you to stay as much as you can in -the Maison Crenelle—to—yes—to keep a little watch on -this pretty Ann Upcott, to——" -

- -

-He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher -interrupted him in a very passion of anger. -

- -

-"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, -Monsieur. I won't be your spy. I am not here for that. -I am here for my client. As for Ann Upcott, she is my -countrywoman. I will not help you against her. So help -me God, I won't!" -

- -

-Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry -face of his "junior colleague," who now resigned his -office and, without parley, accepted his defeat. -

- -

-"I don't blame you," he answered quietly. "I could, -indeed, hope for no other reply. I must be quick, that's -all. I must be very quick!" -

- -

-Frobisher's anger fell away from him like a cloak one -drops. He saw Hanaud sitting over against him with a -white, desperately troubled face and eyes in which there -shone unmistakeably some gleam of terror. -

- -

-"Tell me!" he cried in an exasperation. "Be frank -with me for once! Is Ann Upcott guilty? She's not -alone, of course, anyway. There's a gang. We're agreed -upon that. Waberski's one of them, of course? Is Ann -Upcott another? Do you believe it?" -

- -

-Hanaud slowly put his exhibits together. There was -a struggle going on within him. The strain of the night -had told upon them both, and he was tempted for once to -make a confidant, tempted intolerably. On the other -hand, Jim Frobisher read in him all the traditions of his -service; to wait upon facts, not to utter suspicions; to be -fair. It was not until he had locked everything away -again in the safe that Hanaud yielded to the temptation. -And even then he could not bring himself to be direct. -

- -

-"You want to know what I believe of Ann Upcott?" -he cried reluctantly, as though the words were torn from -him. "Go to-morrow to the Church of Notre Dame and -look at the façade. There, since you are not blind, you -will see." -

- -

-He would say no more; that was clear. Nay, he stood -moodily before Frobisher, already regretting that he had -said so much. Frobisher picked up his hat and stick. -

- -

-"Thank you," he said. "Good night." -

- -

-Hanaud let him go to the door. Then he said: -

- -

-"You are free to-morrow. I shall not go to the Maison -Crenelle. Have you any plans?" -

- -

-"Yes. I am to be taken for a motor-drive round the -neighbourhood." -

- -

-"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. -"But remember to telephone to me before you go. I shall -be here. I will tell you if I have any news. Good night." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the -room. Before he had closed the door Hanaud had -forgotten his presence. For he was saying to himself over -and over again, almost with an accent of despair: "I must -be quick! I must be very quick!" -

- -


- -

-Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest -Renan and the Rue de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's -injunction to examine the façade of Notre Dame. He -must keep that in mind and obey it in the morning. But -that night was not yet over for him. -

- -

-As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert -he heard a light, quick step a little way behind -him—a step that seemed familiar. So when he turned -into the street he sauntered and looked round. He saw -a tall man cross the entrance of the street very quickly -and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. -The man paused for a second under the light of a street -lamp at the angle of the street, and Jim could have sworn -that it was Hanaud. There were no hotels, no lodgings -in this quarter of the city. It was a quarter of private -houses. What was Hanaud seeking there? -

- -

-Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the -façade of Notre Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison -Crenelle a little incident occurred which made the -probability that he would soon remember it remote. He let -himself into the house with a latchkey which had been -given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means -of a switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall -to the foot of the stairs, and was about to turn off the -light, using the switch there to which Ann Upcott had -referred, when the door of the treasure-room opened. -Betty appeared in the doorway. -

- -

-"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased -to find her still afoot and half regretful that she was -losing her hours of sleep. -

- -

-"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I -waited up for my lodger." -

- -

-She held the door open, and he followed her back into -the room. -

- -

-"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she -added: "Jim, something has happened to-night." -

- -

-Jim nodded. -

- -

-"What?" she asked. -

- -

-"Let it wait till to-morrow, Betty!" -

- -

-Betty smiled no longer. The light died out of her -dark, haunting eyes. Lassitude and distress veiled them. -

- -

-"Something terrible, then?" she said in a whisper. -

- -

-"Yes," and she stretched out a hand to the back of a -chair and steadied herself. -

- -

-"Please tell me, now, Jim! I shall not sleep to-night -unless you do; and oh, I am so tired!" -

- -

-There was so deep a longing in her voice, so utter a -weariness in the pose of her young body that Jim could -not but yield. -

- -

-"I'll tell you, Betty," he said gently. "Hanaud and -I went to find Jean Cladel to-night. We found him dead. -He had been murdered—cruelly." -

- -

-Betty moaned and swayed upon her feet. She would -have fallen had not Jim caught her in his arms. -

- -

-"Betty!" he cried. -

- -

-Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could -feel the heave of her bosom against his heart. -

- -

-"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No -one ever had heard of him till this morning ... and -now he's swept into this horror—like the rest of us! Oh, -where will it end?" -

- -

-Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees -beside her. -

- -

-She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up -to his. -

- -

-"My dear!" he whispered. -

- -

-But she would not raise her head. -

- -

-"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed -her face deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung -to him with desperate hands. -

- -

-"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll -all come right. I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And -whilst he spoke he cursed himself for the banality of his -words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that were really -fine with which to comfort her? Something better than -these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will -all straighten out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that -there was no necessity that he should. For her arms crept -round his neck and held him close. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER NINETEEN: A Plan Frustrated -

- -

-The road curled like a paper ribbon round the -shoulder of a hill and dropped into a shallow valley. -To the left a little below the level of the road, a stream -ran swiftly through a narrow meadow of lush green grass. -Beyond the meadow the wall of the valley rose rough with -outcroppings of rock, and with every tuft of its herbage -already brown from the sun. On the right the northern -wall rose almost from the road's edge. The valley was -long and curved slowly, and half-way along to the point -where it disappeared a secondary road, the sort of road -which is indicated in the motorist's hand-books by a dotted -line, branched off to the left, crossed the stream by a -stone bridge and vanished in a cleft of the southern wall. -Beyond this branching road grew trees. The stream -disappeared under them as though it ran into a cavern; the -slopes on either side were hidden behind trees—trees so -thick that here at this end the valley looked bare in the -strong sunlight, but low trees, as if they had determined -to harmonise with their environment. Indeed, the whole -valley had a sort of doll's-house effect—it was so shallow -and narrow and stunted. It tried to be a valley and -succeeded in being a depression. -

- -

-When the little two-seater car swooped round the -shoulder of the hill and descended, the white ribbon of -road was empty but for one tiny speck at the far end, -behind which a stream of dust spurted and spread like -smoke from the funnel of an engine. -

- -

-"That motor dust is going to smother us when we -pass," said Jim. -

- -

-"We shall do as much for him," said Betty, looking -over her shoulder from the steering wheel. "No, worse!" Behind -the car the dust was a screen. "But I don't mind, -do you, Jim?" she asked with a laugh, in which for the -first time, with a heart of thankfulness, Jim heard a note -of gaiety. "To be free of that town if only for an hour! -Oh!" and Betty opened her lungs to the sunlight and the -air. "This is my first hour of liberty for a week!" -

- -

-Frobisher was glad, too, to be out upon the slopes of -the Côte-d'Or. The city of Dijon was ringing that -morning with the murder of Jean Cladel; you could not -pass down a street but you heard his name mentioned -and some sarcasms about the police. He wished to forget -that nightmare of a visit to the street of Gambetta -and the dreadful twisted figure on the floor of the back -room. -

- -

-"You'll be leaving it for good very soon, Betty," he -said significantly. -

- -

-Betty made a little grimace at him, and laid her hand -upon his sleeve. -

- -

-"Jim!" she said, and the colour rose into her face, and -the car swerved across the road. "You mustn't speak like -that to the girl at the wheel," she said with a laugh as she -switched the car back into its course, "or I shall run down -the motor-cyclist and that young lady in the side-car." -

- -

-"The young lady," said Jim, "happens to be a port-manteau!" -

- -

-The motor-cyclist, indeed, was slowing down as he -came nearer to the branching road, like a tourist -unacquainted with the country, and when he actually reached -it he stopped altogether and dismounted. Betty brought -her car to a standstill beside him, and glanced at the clock -and the speedometer in front of her. -

- -

-"Can I help you?" she asked. -

- -

-The man standing beside the motor-cycle was a young -man, slim, dark, and of a pleasant countenance. He took -off his helmet and bowed politely. -

- -

-"Madame, I am looking for Dijon," he said in a harsh -accent which struck Frobisher as somehow familiar to -his ears. -

- -

-"Monsieur, you can see the tip of it through that gap -across the valley," Betty returned. In the very centre of -the cleft the point of the soaring spire of the cathedral -stood up like a delicate lance. "But I warn you that that -way, though short, is not good." -

- -

-Through the gradually thinning cloud of dust which -hung behind the car they heard the jug-jug of another -motor-cycle. -

- -

-"The road by which we have come is the better one," -she continued. -

- -

-"But how far is it?" the young man asked. -

- -

-Betty once more consulted her speedometer. -

- -

-"Forty kilometres, and we have covered them in forty -minutes, so that you can see the going is good. We -started at eleven punctually, and it is now twenty minutes -to twelve." -

- -

-"Surely we started before eleven?" Jim interposed. -

- -

-"Yes, but we stopped for a minute or two to tighten -the strap of the tool-box on the edge of the town. And -we started from there at eleven." -

- -

-The motor-cyclist consulted his wrist-watch. -

- -

-"Yes, it's twenty minutes to twelve now," he said. -"But forty kilometres! I doubt if I have the essence. I -think I must try the nearer road." -

- -

-The second motor-cycle came out of the dust like a -boat out of a sea mist and slowed down in turn at the side -of them. The rider jumped out of his saddle, pushed his -goggles up on to his forehead and joined in the conversation. -

- -

-"That little road, Monsieur. It is not one of the -national highways. That shows itself at a glance. But -it is not so bad. From the stone bridge one can be at -the Hôtel de Ville of Dijon in twenty-five minutes." -

- -

-"I thank you," said the young man. "You will pardon -me. I have been here for seven minutes, and I am -expected." -

- -

-He replaced his helmet, mounted his machine, and with -a splutter and half a dozen explosions ran down into the -bed of the valley. -

- -

-The second cyclist readjusted his goggles. -

- -

-"Will you go first, Madame?" he suggested. "Otherwise -I give you my dust." -

- -

-"Thank you!" said Betty with a smile, and she slipped -in the clutch and started. -

- -

-Beyond the little forest and the curve the ground rose -and the valley flattened out. Across their road a broad -highway set with kilometre stones ran north and south. -

- -

-"The road to Paris," said Betty as she stopped the car -in front of a little inn with a tangled garden at the angle. -She looked along the road Pariswards. "Air!" she said, -and drew a breath of longing, whilst her eyes kindled -and her white strong teeth clicked as though she was -biting a sweet fruit. -

- -

-"Soon, Betty," said Jim. "Very soon!" -

- -

-Betty drove the car into a little yard at the side of -the river. -

- -

-"We will lunch here, in the garden," she said, "all -amongst the earwigs and the roses." -

- -

-An omelet, a cutlet perfectly cooked and piping hot, -with a salad and a bottle of Clos du Prince of the 1904 -vintage brought the glowing city of Paris immeasurably -nearer to them. They sat in the open under the shade of -a tall hedge; they had the tangled garden to themselves; -they laughed and made merry in the golden May, and -visions of wonder trembled and opened before Jim -Frobisher's eyes. -

- -

-Betty swept them away, however, when he had lit a -cigar and she a cigarette; and their coffee steamed from -the little cups in front of them. -

- -

-"Let us be practical, Jim," she said. "I want to talk -to you." -

- -

-The sparkle of gaiety had left her face. -

- -

-"Yes!" he asked. -

- -

-"About Ann." Her eyes swept round and rested on -Jim's face. "She ought to go." -

- -

-"Run away!" cried Jim with a start. -

- -

-"Yes, at once and as secretly as possible." -

- -

-Jim turned the proposal over in his mind whilst Betty -waited in suspense. -

- -

-"It couldn't be managed," he objected. -

- -

-"It could." -

- -

-"Even if it could, would she consent?" -

- -

-"She does." -

- -

-"Of course it's pleading guilty," he said slowly. -

- -

-"Oh, it isn't, Jim. She wants time, that's all. Time -for my necklace to be traced, time for the murderer of -Jean Cladel to be discovered. You remember what I told -you about Hanaud? He must have his victim. You -wouldn't believe me, but it's true. He has got to go back -to Paris and say, 'You see, they sent from Dijon for me, -and five minutes! That's all I needed! Five little minutes -and there's your murderess, all tied up and safe!' He -tried to fix it on me first." -

- -

-"No." -

- -

-"He did, Jim. And now that has failed he has turned -on Ann. She'll have to go. Since he can't get me he'll -take my friend—yes, and manufacture the evidence into -the bargain." -

- -

-"Betty! Hanaud wouldn't do that!" Frobisher protested. -

- -

-"But, Jim, he has done it," she said. -

- -

-"When?" -

- -

-"When he put that Edinburgh man's book about the -arrow poison back upon the bookshelf in the library." -

- -

-Jim was utterly taken back. -

- -

-"Did you know that he had done that?" -

- -

-"I couldn't help knowing," she answered. "The -moment he took the book down it was clear to me. He -knew it from end to end, as if it was a primer. He could -put his finger on the plates, on the history of my uncle's -arrow, on the effect of the poison, on the solution that -could be made of it in an instant. He pretended that he -had learnt all that in the half-hour he waited for us. It -wasn't possible. He had found that book the afternoon -before somewhere and had taken it away with him secretly -and sat up half the night over it. That's what he had -done." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher was sunk in confusion. He had been -guessing first this person, then that, and in the end had -had to be told the truth; whereas Betty had reached it in -a flash by using her wits. He felt that he had been just -one minute and a half in the bull-ring. -

- -

-Betty added in a hot scorn: -

- -

-"Then when he had learnt it all up by heart he puts -it back secretly in the bookshelf and accuses us." -

- -

-"But he admits he put it back," said Jim slowly. -

- -

-Betty was startled. -

- -

-"When did he admit it?" -

- -

-"Last night. To me," replied Jim, and Betty laughed -bitterly. She would hear no good of Hanaud. -

- -

-"Yes, now that he has something better to go upon." -

- -

-"Something better?" -

- -

-"The disappearance of my necklace. Oh, Jim, Ann -has got to go. If she could get to England they couldn't -bring her back, could they? They haven't evidence -enough. It's only suspicion and suspicion and suspicion. -But here in France it's different, isn't it? They can hold -people on suspicion, keep them shut up by themselves and -question them again and again. Oh, yesterday afternoon -in the hall—don't you remember, Jim?—I thought -Hanaud was going to arrest her there and then." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher nodded. -

- -

-"I thought so, too." -

- -

-He had been a little shocked by Betty's proposal, but -the more familiar he became with it, the more it appealed -to him. There was an overpowering argument in its -favour of which neither he nor Hanaud had told Betty -a word. The shaft of the arrow had been discovered in -Ann Upcott's room, and the dart in the house of Jean -Cladel. These were overpowering facts. On the whole, -it was better that Ann should go, now, whilst there was -still time—if, that is, Hanaud did undoubtedly believe her -to be guilty. -

- -

-"But it is evident that he does," cried Betty. -

- -

-Jim answered slowly: -

- -

-"I suppose he does. We can make sure, anyway. I -had a doubt last night. So I asked him point-blank." -

- -

-"And he answered you?" Betty asked with a gasp. -

- -

-"Yes and no. He gave me the strangest answer." -

- -

-"What did he say?" -

- -

-"He told me to visit the Church of Notre Dame. If -I did, I should read upon the façade whether Ann was -innocent or not." -

- -

-Slowly every tinge of colour ebbed out of Betty's face. -Her eyes stared at him horror-stricken. She sat, a figure -of ice—except for her eyes which blazed. -

- -

-"That's terrible," she said with a low voice, and again -"That's terrible!" Then with a cry she stood erect -"You shall see! Come!" and she ran towards the motorcar. -

- -

-The sunlit day was spoilt for both of them. Betty -drove homewards, bending over the wheel, her eyes fixed -ahead. But Frobisher wondered whether she saw anything -at all of that white road which the car devoured. -Once as they dropped from the highland and the forests -to the plains, she said: -

- -

-"We shall abide by what we see?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"If Hanaud thinks her innocent, she should stay. If -he thinks her guilty, she must go." -

- -

-"Yes," said Frobisher. -

- -

-Betty guided the car through the streets of the city, -and into a wide square. A great church of the Renaissance -type, with octagonal cupolas upon its two towers -and another little cupola surmounted by a loggia above -its porch, confronted them. Betty stopped the car and -led Frobisher into the porch. Above the door was a -great bas-relief of the Last Judgment, God amongst the -clouds, angels blowing trumpets, and the damned rising -from their graves to undergo their torments. Both Betty -and Frobisher gazed at the representation for a while in -silence. To Frobisher it was a cruel and brutal piece of -work which well matched Hanaud's revelation of his true -belief. -

- -

-"Yes, the message is easy to read," he said: and they -drove back in a melancholy silence to the Maison Crenelle. -

- -

-The chauffeur, Georges, came forward from the garage -to take charge of the car. Betty ran inside the house -and waited for Jim Frobisher to join her. -

- -

-"I am so sorry," she said in a broken voice. "I kept -a hope somewhere that we were all mistaken ... I -mean as to the danger Ann was in.... I don't believe -for a moment in her guilt, of course. But she must -go—that's clear." -

- -

-She went slowly up the stairs, and Jim saw no more of -her until dinner was served long after its usual hour. -Ann Upcott he had not seen at all that day, nor did he -even see her then. Betty came to him in the library a -few minutes before nine. -

- -

-"We are very late, I am afraid. There are just the -two of us, Jim," she said with a smile, and she led the -way into the dining-room. -

- -

-Through the meal she was anxious and preoccupied, -nodding her assent to anything that he said, with her -thoughts far away and answering him at random, or not -answering him at all. She was listening, Frobisher -fancied, for some sound in the hall, an expected sound -which was overdue. For her eyes went continually to -the clock, and a flurry and agitation, very strange in one -naturally so still, became more and more evident in her -manner. At length, just before ten o'clock, they both -heard the horn of a motor-car in the quiet street. The -car stopped, as it seemed to Frobisher, just outside the -gates, and upon that there followed the sound for which -Betty had so anxiously been listening—the closing of a -heavy door by some one careful to close it quietly. Betty -shot a quick glance at Jim Frobisher and coloured when -he intercepted it. A few seconds afterwards the car -moved on, and Betty drew a long breath. Jim Frobisher -leaned forward to Betty. Though they were alone in the -room, he spoke in a low voice of surprise: -

- -

-"Ann Upcott has gone then?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"So soon? You had everything already arranged -then?" -

- -

-"It was all arranged yesterday evening. She should -be in Paris to-morrow morning, England to-morrow -night. If only all goes well!" -

- -

-Even in the stress of her anxiety Betty had been -sensitive to a tiny note of discontent in Jim Frobisher's -questions. He had been left out of the counsels of the two -girls, their arrangements had been made without his -participation, he had only been told of them at the last -minute, just as if he was a babbler not to be trusted and an -incompetent whose advice would only have been a waste -of time. Betty made her excuses. -

- -

-"It would have been better, of course, if we had got -you to help us, Jim. But Ann wouldn't have it. She -insisted that you had come out here on my account, and -that you mustn't be dragged into such an affair as her -flight and escape at all. She made it a condition, so I had -to give way. But you can help me now tremendously." -

- -

-Jim was appeased. Betty at all events had wanted -him, was still alarmed lest their plan undertaken without -his advice might miscarry. -

- -

-"How can I help?" -

- -

-"You can go to that cinema and keep Monsieur Hanaud -engaged. It's important that he should know nothing -about Ann's flight until late to-morrow." -

- -

-Jim laughed at the futility of Hanaud's devices to -hide himself. It was obviously all over the town that -he spent his evenings in the Grande Taverne. -

- -

-"Yes, I'll go," he returned. "I'll go now." -

- -

-But Hanaud was not that night in his accustomed -place, and Jim sat there alone until half-past ten. Then -a man strolled out from one of the billiard-rooms, and -standing behind Jim with his eyes upon the screen, said -in a whisper: -

- -

-"Do not look at me, Monsieur! It is Moreau. I go -outside. Will you please to follow." -

- -

-He strolled away. Jim gave him a couple of minutes' -grace. He had remembered Hanaud's advice and had -paid for his Bock when it had been brought to him. The -little saucer was turned upside down to show that he -owed nothing. When two minutes had elapsed he -sauntered out and, looking neither to the right nor to the -left, strolled indolently along the Rue de la Gare. When -he reached the Place Darcy Nicolas Moreau passed him -without a sign of recognition and struck off to the right -along the Rue de la Liberté. Frobisher followed him -with a sinking heart. It was folly of course to imagine -that Hanaud could be so easily eluded. No doubt that -motor-car had been stopped. No doubt Ann Upcott was -already under lock and key! Why, the last words he had -heard Hanaud speak were "I must be quick!" -

- -

-Moreau turned off into the Boulevard Sevigne and, -doubling back to the station square, slipped into one of -the small hotels which cluster in that quarter. The lobby -was empty; a staircase narrow and steep led from it to the -upper stories. Moreau now ascended it with Frobisher -at his heels, and opened a door. Frobisher looked into a -small and dingy sitting-room at the back of the house. -The windows were open, but the shutters were closed. A -single pendant in the centre of the room gave it light, and -at a table under the pendant Hanaud sat poring over a map. -

- -

-The map was marked with red ink in a curious way. -A sort of hoop, very much the shape of a tennis racket -without its handle, was described upon it and from the -butt to the top of the hoop an irregular line was drawn, -separating the hoop roughly into two semi-circles. -Moreau left Jim Frobisher standing there, and in a -moment or two Hanaud looked up. -

- -

-"Did you know, my friend," he asked very gravely, -"that Ann Upcott has gone to-night to Madame Le Vay's -fancy dress ball?" -

- -

-Frobisher was taken completely by surprise. -

- -

-"No, I see that you didn't," Hanaud went on. He -took up his pen and placed a red spot at the edge of the -hoop close by the butt. -

- -

-Jim recovered from his surprise. Madame Le Vay's -ball was the spot from which the start was to be made. -The plan after all was not so ill-devised, if only Ann could -have got to the ball unnoticed. Masked and in fancy -dress, amongst a throng of people similarly accoutred, in -a house with a garden, no doubt thrown open upon this -hot night and lit only by lanterns discreetly dim—she had -thus her best chance of escape. But the chance was -already lost. For Hanaud laid down his pen again and -said in ominous tones: -

- -

-"The water-lily, eh? That pretty water-lily, my friend, -will not dance very gaily to-night." -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY: Map and the Necklace -

- -

-Hanaud turned his map round and pushed it -across the table to Jim Frobisher. -

- -

-"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew -up a chair and sat down to examine it. -

- -

-He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and -its environments, the town itself lying at the bottom of -the red hoop and constituting the top of the handle of the -tennis racket. As to the red circle, it seemed to -represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, -round a good tract of outlying country and back again to -the city. But there was more to it than that. The wavy -dividing line, for instance, from the top of the circle to -the handle, that is to Dijon; and on the left-hand edge of -the hoop, as he bent over the map, and just outside Dijon, -the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud had just -made. Against this square an hour was marked. -

- -

-"Eleven a.m.," he read. -

- -

-He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where -this dividing line touched the rim of the hoop, another -period was inscribed. Here Frobisher read: -

- -

-"Eleven forty." -

- -

-Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment. -

- -

-"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over -the map. The point where the dividing line branched off -was in a valley, as he could see by the contours—yes—he -had found the name now—the Val Terzon. Just before -eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside -Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing back, and -had asked him to tighten the strap of the tool box. They -had started again exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note -of the exact time—and they had stopped where the -secondary road branched off and doubled back to Dijon, at -the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and -the dividing line, exactly at eleven forty. -

- -

-"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he -cried. "We were followed then?" -

- -

-He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who -had come up from behind through the screen of their -dust and had stopped by the side of their car to join in -their conversation with the tourist. -

- -

-"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no -answer. -

- -

-But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way -round. On their homeward course they had stopped to -lunch in the tangled garden. There had been no sign of -the man. Jim looked at the map again. He followed the -red line from the junction of the two roads, round the -curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National -road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. -After luncheon they had continued along the National -road into Dijon, whereas the red line crossed it and came -back by a longer and obviously a less frequented route. -

- -

-"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, -Monsieur Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. -"But I can tell you this. The chase was not very -efficiently contrived. We didn't come home that way at -all." -

- -

-"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud -answered imperturbably. "The line on that side of the -circle has nothing to do with you at all, as you can see -for yourself by looking at the time marked where the -line begins." -

- -

-The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there -was a space where the spliced handle of the racket would -fit in, the space filled by the town of Dijon, and at the -point on the right hand side where the line started -Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures: -

- -

-"Ten twenty-five a.m." -

- -

-Jim was more bewildered than ever. -

- -

-"I don't understand one word of it," he cried. -

- -

-Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the -tip of his pen. -

- -

-"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who -met you at the branch road at eleven-forty." -

- -

-"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed -to him impossible that the fog could thicken about his -wits any more. And yet it had. -

- -

-"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his -trailer," Hanaud corrected. "You see that he left his -starting point in Dijon thirty-five minutes before you -left yours. The whole manoeuvre seems to have been -admirably planned. For you met precisely at the -arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the -cycle had to wait one moment." -

- -

-"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, -looking about him in a sort of despair. "Has every one -gone crazy? Why in the world should a man start out -with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at ten -twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by -a roundabout road and then return by a bad straight -track? There's no sense in it!" -

- -

-"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded -to Moreau who went out of the room by a communicating -door towards the front of the house. "But I can -help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where you -started after tightening the strap of the tool-box, on the -edge of the town, a big country house stands back in a -park?" -

- -

-"Yes," said Jim. -

- -

-"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy -dress ball takes place to-night." -

- -

-"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. -"Where——" he began a question and caught it back. -But Hanaud completed it for him. -

- -

-"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from -it at precisely eleven in the morning." He looked at his -watch. "It is not yet quite eleven at night. So she is -still there." -

- -

-Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words -were like the blade of silver light cutting through the -darkness of the cinema hall and breaking into a sheet of -radiance upon the screen. The meaning of the red -diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive of -Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him. -

- -

-"It was a rehearsal," he cried. -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"A time-rehearsal." -

- -

-"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, -without the principal members of the company," thought -Frobisher. But a moment later he was dissatisfied with -that explanation. -

- -

-"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy." -

- -

-The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his -arguments to a standstill. His times were marked upon -the map; they were therefore of importance. What had -he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he visualised -the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with -the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave -Frobisher the clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving -Madame Le Vay's house in her ball-dress, just as if she -was returning to the Maison Crenelle—and without any -luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the -morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion -and certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her -in the Val Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her -car, and then return to Dijon by the straight quick road -whilst Ann turned off at the end of the valley to Paris. -He remembered now that seven minutes had elapsed -between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and -their separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for -the transference of the luggage. Another argument -flashed into his thoughts. Betty had told him nothing of -this plan. It had been presented to him as a mere excursion -on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally -employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the -determination of Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether -out of the conspiracy. Every detail fitted like the blocks -in a picture puzzle. Yes, there had been a time-rehearsal. -And Hanaud knew all about it! -

- -

-That was the disturbing certainty which first -overwhelmed Frobisher when he had got the better of his -surprise at the scheme itself. Hanaud knew! and Betty -had so set her heart on Ann's escape. -

- -

-"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott -get away to Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned -back in his chair with a little gasp. The queerest smile -broke over his face. -

- -

-"I see," he said. -

- -

-"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. -"You are of the Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of -the High Court in my country and I have no right to -make such a petition. But I do without a scruple. You -can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't -a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion -about her that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin -her—yes—but that's all you can do." -

- -

-"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed. -

- -

-Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to -save her friend which inspired his plea. He fell back -upon the scandal which such a trial would cause. -

- -

-"There has been enough publicity already owing to -Boris Waberski," he continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe -has had distress enough. Why must she stand in the -witness-box and give evidence against her friend in a -trial which can have no result? That's what I want you -to realise, Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience -of criminal trials"—O shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why -was that punctilious man not there in the flesh to wipe -out with an indignant word the slur upon the firm of -Frobisher and Haslitt?—"And I assure you that no jury -could convict upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl -necklace has not been traced—and it never will be. You -can take that from me, Monsieur Hanaud! It never -will be!" -

- -

-Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one -of those little cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred -cigarettes, which the better class of manufacturers use -in England for their wares. He pushed this across the -table towards Jim. Something which was more substantial -than cigarettes rattled inside of it. Jim seized upon -it in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far -sooner lose her necklace altogether than that her friend -Ann Upcott should be destroyed by it. He opened the -lid of the box. It was filled with cotton-wool. From -the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls perfectly graded -in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre which, -even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely. -

- -

-"It would have been more correct if I had found them -in a matchbox," said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to -Monsieur Bex that after all matches and cigarettes are -akin." -

- -

-Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter -disappointment when Moreau knocked upon the other side of -the communicating door. Hanaud looked again at his -watch. -

- -

-"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has -started from the house of Madame Le Vay." -

- -

-He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again -within the layers of cotton-wool, and locked it up once -more in the drawer. The room had faded away from -Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, brilliantly -illuminated house, and a girl who slipped from a -window and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening -dress, ran down the dark avenue in her dancing slippers -to where a car waited hidden under trees. -

- -

-"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden -hopefulness. "There may have been an accident to it. -The chauffeur may be late. Oh, a hundred things may -have happened!" -

- -

-"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously -rehearsed? No, my friend." -

- -

-Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against -the wall and placed it in his pocket. -

- -

-"You are going to leave that necklace just like that -in a table drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it -first to the Prefecture." -

- -

-"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It -will be safe." -

- -

-Jim hopefully tried another line of argument. -

- -

-"We shall be too late now to intercept Ann Upcott at -the branch road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you -say—well past eleven. And thirty-five minutes on a -motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty minutes in a car -at night, especially with a bad road to travel." -

- -

-"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch -road," Hanaud returned. He folded up the map and -put it aside upon the mantelshelf. -

- -

-"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I -must take it! And—no! I can't be wrong!" But he -turned from the mantelshelf with a very anxious and -troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh idea -came into his mind. -

- -

-"By the way," he said. "The façade of Notre Dame?" -

- -

-Jim nodded. -

- -

-"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment. We went to -see it. We thought your way of saying what you -believed a little brutal." -

- -

-Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor -for a few seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am -sorry." He tacked on a question. "You say 'we'?" -

- -

-"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained. -

- -

-"Oh, yes—to be sure. I should have thought of that," -and once more his troubled cry broke from him. "It -must be that!—No, I can't be wrong.... Anyway, it's -too late to change now." -

- -

-A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating -door. Hanaud sprang to alertness. -

- -

-"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, -Monsieur Frobisher! Good! You are ready?" and the room -was at once plunged into darkness. -

- -

-Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they -passed into the front room—a bedroom looking out upon -the big station square. This room was in darkness too. -But the shutters were not closed, and there were patches -of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and -the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could -see one another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his -companions appeared of a ghastly pallor. -

- -

-"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said -Moreau. "Patinot has just joined him." -

- -

-He pointed across the square to the station buildings. -Some cabs were waiting for the Paris train, and in front -of them two men dressed like artisans were talking. One -of them lit a cigarette from the stump of a cigarette held -out to him by his companion. The watchers in the room -saw the end of the cigarette glow red. -

- -

-"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can -go." And he turned and went out of the inn to the -staircase. Jim started to follow him. Whither they were -going Jim had not a notion, not even a conjecture. But -he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's hopes -for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski -affair had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not -reassured when Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and -detained him. -

- -

-"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud -with a quiet authority, his eyes shining very steadily in -the darkness, his face glimmering very white, "that now -the Law of France takes charge. There must not be a -finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers upon -their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the -promise you desire. No one shall be arrested on -suspicion. Your own eyes shall bear me out." -

- -

-The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into -the street. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Secret House -

- -

-It was a dark, clear night, the air very still and warm, -and the sky bright with innumerable stars. The small -company penetrated into the town by the backways and -narrow alleys. Daunay going on ahead, Patinot the last -by some thirty yards, and Moreau keeping upon the -opposite side of the street. Once they had left behind them -the lights of the station square, they walked amongst -closed doors and the blind faces of unlit houses. -Frobisher's heart raced within his bosom. He strained his -eyes and ears for some evidence of spies upon their heels. -But no one was concealed in any porch, and not the -stealthiest sound of a pursuit was borne to their hearing. -

- -

-"On a night like this," he said in tones which, strive -as he might to steady them, were still a little tremulous, -"one could hear a footstep on the stones a quarter of a -mile away, and we hear nothing. Yet, if there is a gang, -it can hardly be that we are unwatched." -

- -

-Hanaud disagreed. "This is a night for alibis," he -returned, lowering his voice; "good, sound, incontestable -alibis. All but those engaged will be publicly with their -friends, and those engaged do not know how near we are -to their secrets." -

- -

-They turned into a narrow street and kept on its -left-hand side. -

- -

-"Do you know where we are?" Hanaud asked. "No? -Yet we are near to the Maison Crenelle. On the other -side of these houses to our left runs the street of -Charles-Robert." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher stopped dead. -

- -

-"It was here, then, that you came last night after I -left you at the Prefecture," he exclaimed. -

- -

-"Ah, you recognised me, then!" Hanaud returned -imperturbably. "I wondered whether you did when you -turned at the gates of your house." -

- -

-On the opposite side of the street the houses were -broken by a high wall, in which two great wooden doors -were set. Behind the wall, at the end of a courtyard, the -upper storey and the roof of a considerable house rose -in a steep ridge against the stars. -

- -

-Hanaud pointed towards it. -

- -

-"Look at that house, Monsieur! There Madame -Raviart came to live whilst she waited to be set free. It -belongs to the Maison Crenelle. After she married Simon -Harlowe, they would never let it, they kept it just as it -was, the shrine of their passion—that strange romantic -couple. But there was more romance in that, to be sure. -It has been unoccupied ever since." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher felt a chill close about his heart. Was -that house the goal to which Hanaud was leading him -with so confident a step? He looked at the gates and -the house. Even in the night it had a look of long neglect -and decay, the paint peeling from the doors and not a -light in any window. -

- -

-Some one in the street, however, was awake, for just -above their heads, a window was raised with the utmost -caution and a whisper floated down to them. -

- -

-"No one has appeared." -

- -

-Hanaud took no open notice of the whisper. He did -not pause in his walk, but he said to Frobisher: -

- -

-"And, as you hear, it is still unoccupied." -

- -

-At the end of the street Daunay melted away -altogether. Hanaud and Frobisher crossed the road and, -with Moreau just ahead, turned down a passage between, -the houses to the right. -

- -

-Beyond the passage they turned again to the right into -a narrow lane between high walls; and when they had -covered thirty yards or so, Frobisher saw the branches of -leafy trees over the wall upon his right. It was so dark -here under the shade of the boughs that Frobisher could -not even see his companions; and he knocked against -Moreau before he understood that they had come to the -end of their journey. They were behind the garden of -the house in which Madame Raviart had lived and loved. -

- -

-Hanaud's hand tightened upon Jim Frobisher's arm, -constraining him to absolute immobility. Patinot had -vanished as completely and noiselessly as Daunay. The -three men left stood in the darkness and listened. A -sentence which Ann Upcott had spoken in the garden of the -Maison Crenelle, when she had been describing the terror -with which she had felt the face bending over her in -the darkness, came back to him. He had thought it false -then. He took back his criticism now. For he too -imagined that the beating of his heart must wake all -Dijon. -

- -

-They stood there motionless for the space of a minute, -and then, at a touch from Hanaud, Nicolas Moreau -stooped. Frobisher heard the palm of his hand sliding -over wood and immediately after the tiniest little click as -a key was fitted into a lock and turned. A door in the -wall swung silently open and let a glimmer of light into -the lane. The three men passed into a garden of weeds -and rank grass and overgrown bushes. Moreau closed -and locked the door behind them. As he locked the door -the clocks of the city struck the half hour. -

- -

-Hanaud whispered in Frobisher's ear: -

- -

-"They have not yet reached the Val Terzon. Come!" -

- -

-They crept over the mat of grass and weeds to the -back of the house. A short flight of stone steps, patched -with mould, descended from a terrace; at the back of the -terrace were shuttered windows. But in the corner of -the house, on a level with the garden, there was a door. -Once more Moreau stooped, and once more a door swung -inwards without a sound. But whereas the garden door -had let through some gleam of twilight, this door opened -upon the blackness of the pit. Jim Frobisher shrank -back from it, not in physical fear but in an appalling dread -that some other man than he, wearing his clothes and his -flesh, would come out of that door again. His heart -came to a standstill, and then Hanaud pushed him gently -into the passage. The door was closed behind them, an -almost inaudible sound told him that now the door was -locked. -

- -

-"Listen!" Hanaud whispered sharply. His trained ear -had caught a sound in the house above them. And in a -second Frobisher heard it too, a sound regular and -continuous and very slight, but in that uninhabited house -filled with uttermost blackness, very daunting. -Gradually the explanation dawned upon Jim. -

- -

-"It's a clock ticking," he said under his breath. -

- -

-"Yes! A clock ticking away in the empty house!" -returned Hanaud. And though his answer was rather -breathed than whispered, there was a queer thrill in it -the sound of which Jim could not mistake. The hunter -had picked up his spoor. Just beyond the quarry would -come in view. -

- -

-Suddenly a thread of light gleamed along the passage, -lit up a short flight of stairs and a door on the right at the -head of them, and went out again. Hanaud slipped his -electric torch back into his pocket and, passing Moreau, -took the lead. The door at the head of the stairs opened -with a startling whine of its hinges. Frobisher stopped -with his heart in his throat, though what he feared he -could not have told even himself. Again the thread of -light shone, and this time it explored. The three found -themselves in a stone-flagged hall. -

- -

-Hanaud crossed it, extinguished his torch and opened -a door. A broken shutter, swinging upon a hinge, enabled -them dimly to see a gallery which stretched away into the -gloom. The faint light penetrating from the window -showed them a high double door leading to some room -at the back of the house. Hanaud stole over the boards -and laid his ear to the panel. In a little while he was -satisfied; his hand dropped to the knob and a leaf of the -door opened noiselessly. Once more the torch glowed. -Its beam played upon the high ceiling, the tall windows -shrouded in heavy curtains of red silk brocade, and -revealed to Frobisher's amazement a room which had a -look of daily use. All was orderly and clean, the furniture -polished and in good repair; there were fresh flowers -in the vases, whose perfume filled the air; and it was -upon the marble chimney-piece of this room that the clock -ticked. -

- -

-The room was furnished with lightness and elegance, -except for one fine and massive press, with double doors -in marquetry, which occupied a recess near to the -fireplace. Girandoles with mirrors and gilt frames, now -fitted with electric lights, were fixed upon the walls, with -a few pictures in water-colour. A chandelier glittering -with lustres hung from the ceiling, an Empire writing-table -stood near the window, a deep-cushioned divan -stretched along the wall opposite the fire-place. So much -had Frobisher noticed when the light again went out. -Hanaud closed the door upon the room again. -

- -

-"We shall be hidden in the embrasure of any of these -windows," Hanaud whispered, when they were once more -in the long gallery. "No light will be shown here with -that shutter hanging loose, we may be sure. Meanwhile -let us watch and be very silent." -

- -

-They took their stations in the deep shadows by the -side of the window with the broken shutter. They could -see dimly the courtyard and the great carriage doors in -the wall at the end of it, and they waited; Jim Frobisher -under such a strain of dread and expectancy that each -second seemed an hour, and he wondered at the immobility -of his companions. The only sound of breathing -that he heard came from his own lungs. -

- -

-In a while Hanaud laid a hand upon his sleeve, and the -clasp of the hand tightened and tightened. Motionless -though he stood like a man in a seizure, Hanaud too was -in the grip of an intense excitement. For one of the -great leaves of the courtyard door was opening silently. -It opened just a little way and as silently closed again. -But some one had slipped in—so vague and swift and -noiseless a figure that Jim would have believed his -imagination had misled him but for a thicker blot of darkness -at the centre of the great door. There some one stood -now who had not stood there a minute before, as silent -and still as any of the watchers in the gallery, and more -still than one. For Hanaud moved suddenly away on -the tips of his toes into the deepest of the gloom and, -sinking down upon his heels, drew his watch from his -pocket. He drew his coat closely about it and for a -fraction of a second flashed his torchlight on the dial. It was -now five minutes past twelve. -

- -

-"It is the time," he breathed as he crept back to his -place. "Listen now!" -

- -

-A minute passed and another. Frobisher found himself -shivering as a man shivers at a photographer's when -he is told by the operator to keep still. He had a notion -that he was going to fall. Then a distant noise caught his -ear, and at once his nerves grew steady. It was the throb -of a motor-cycle, and it grew louder and louder. He felt -Hanaud stiffen at his side. Hanaud had been right, -then! The conviction deepened in his mind. When all -had been darkness and confusion to him, Hanaud from -the first had seen clearly. But what had he seen? -Frobisher was still unable to answer that question, and whilst -he fumbled amongst conjectures a vast relief swept over -him. For the noise of the cycle had ceased altogether. -It had roared through some contiguous street and gone -upon its way into the open country. Not the faintest -pulsation of its engine was any longer audible. That -late-faring traveller had taken Dijon in his stride. -

- -

-In a revulsion of relief he pictured him devouring the -road, the glow of his lamp putting the stars to shame, the -miles leaping away behind him; and suddenly the pleasant -picture was struck from before his vision and his heart -fluttered up into his throat. For the leaf of the great -coach-door was swung wider, and closed again, and the -motor-cycle with its side-car was within the courtyard. -The rider had slipped out his clutch and stopped his engine -more than a hundred yards away in the other street. His -own impetus had been enough and more than enough to -swing him round the corner along the road and into the -courtyard. The man who had closed the door moved to -his side as he dismounted. Between them they lifted -something from the side-car and laid it on the ground. -The watchman held open the door again, the cyclist -wheeled out his machine, the door was closed, a key -turned in the lock. Not a word had been spoken, not an -unnecessary movement made. It had all happened within -the space of a few seconds. The man waited by the gate, -and in a little while from some other street the cyclist's -engine was heard once more to throb. His work was -done. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher wondered that Hanaud should let him -go. But Hanaud had eyes for no one but the man who -was left behind and the big package upon the ground -under the blank side wall. The man moved to it, stooped, -raised it with an appearance of effort, then stood upright -holding it in his arms. It was something shapeless and -long and heavy. So much the watchers in the gallery -could see, but no more. -

- -

-The man in the courtyard moved towards the door -without a sound; and Hanaud drew his companions back -from the window of the broken shutter. Quick as they -were, they were only just in time to escape from that -revealing twilight. Already the intruder with his burden -stood within the gallery. The front door was unlatched, -that was clear. It had needed but a touch to open it. -The intruder moved without a sound to the double door, -of which Hanaud had opened one leaf. He stood in front -of it, pushed it with his foot and both the leaves swung -inwards. He disappeared into the room. But the faint -misty light had fallen upon him for a second, and though -none could imagine who he was, they all three saw that -what he carried was a heavy sack. -

- -

-Now, at all events, Hanaud would move, thought -Frobisher. But he did not. They all heard the man now, -but not his footsteps. It was just the brushing of his -clothes against furniture: then came a soft, almost -inaudible sound, as though he had laid his burden down -upon the deep-cushioned couch: then he himself -reappeared in the doorway, his arms empty, his hat pressed -down upon his forehead, and a dim whiteness where his -face should be. But dark as it was, they saw the glitter -of his eyes. -

- -

-"It will be now," Frobisher said to himself, expecting -that Hanaud would leap from the gloom and bear the -intruder to the ground. -

- -

-But this man, too, Hanaud let go. He closed the doors -again, drawing the two leaves together, and stole from -the gallery. No one heard the outer door close, but -with a startling loudness some metal thing rang upon -stone, and within the house. Even Jim Frobisher -understood that the outer door had been locked and the key -dropped through the letter slot. The three men crept -back to their window. They saw the intruder cross the -courtyard, open one leaf of the coach door, peer this way -and that and go. Again a key tinkled upon stones. The -key of the great door had been pushed or kicked -underneath it back into the courtyard. The clocks suddenly -chimed the quarter. To Frobisher's amazement it was -a quarter-past twelve. Between the moment when the -cyclist rode his car in at the doors and now, just five -minutes had elapsed. And again, but for the three men, -the house was empty. -

- -

-Or was it empty? -

- -

-For Hanaud had slipped across to the door of the room -and opened it; and a slight sound broke out of that black -room, as of some living thing which moved uneasily. -At Jim Frobisher's elbow Hanaud breathed a sigh of -relief. Something, it seemed, had happened for which -he had hardly dared to hope; some great dread he knew -with certainty had not been fulfilled. On the heels of that -sigh a sharp loud click rang out, the release of a spring, -the withdrawal of a bolt. Hanaud drew the door swiftly -to and the three men fell back. Some one had somehow -entered that room, some one was moving quietly about it. -From the corner of the corridor in which they had taken -refuge, the three men saw the leaves of the door swing -very slowly in upon their hinges. Some one appeared -upon the threshold, and stood motionless, listening, and -after a few seconds advanced across the gallery to the -window. It was a girl—so much they could determine -from the contour of her head and the slim neck. To the -surprise of those three a second shadow flitted to her -side. Both of them peered from the window into the -courtyard. There was nothing to tell them there whether -the midnight visitors had come and gone or not yet come -at all. One of them whispered: -

- -

-"The key!" -

- -

-And the other, the shorter one, crept into the hall and -returned with the key which had been dropped through -the letter slot in her hand. The taller of the two laughed, -and the sound of it, so clear, so joyous like the trill of a -bird, it was impossible for Jim Frobisher even for a -second to mistake. The second girl standing at the window -of this dark and secret house, with the key in her hand to -tell her that all that had been plotted had been done, was -Betty Harlowe. Jim Frobisher had never imagined a -sound so sinister, so alarming, as that clear, joyous -laughter lilting through the silent gallery. It startled -him, it set his whole faith in the world shuddering. -

- -

-"There must be some good explanation," he argued, -but his heart was sinking amidst terrors. Of what -dreadful event was that laughter to be the prelude? -

- -

-The two figures at the window flitted back across the -gallery. It seemed that there was no further reason for -precautions. -

- -

-"Shut the door, Francine," said Betty in her ordinary -voice. And when this was done, within the room the -lights went on. But time and disuse had warped the -doors. They did not quite close, and between them a -golden strip of light showed like a wand. -

- -

-"Let us see now!" cried Betty. "Let us see," and -again she laughed; and under the cover of her laughter -the three men crept forward and looked in: Moreau upon -his knees, Frobisher stooping above him, Hanaud at his -full height behind them all. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Corona Machine -

- -

-The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's -shoulder warning him to silence; and this warning -was needed. The lustres of the big glass chandelier were -so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the girandoles -multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was -ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her -white shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black -velvet; from her carefully dressed copper hair to her -black satin shoes she was as trim as if she had just been -unpacked from a bandbox; and she was laughing -whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which -jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. -Some one was imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher -could not doubt who that some one was, and it -seemed to him that no sound more soulless and cruel had -ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She -threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white -throat working, her shoulders flashing and shaking. She -clapped her hands with a horrible glee. Something died -within Frobisher's breast as he heard it. Was it in his -heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the last -time that Betty Harlowe laughed. -

- -

-"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst -Francine with a pair of scissors cut the end of the sack -loose, she sat down with her back to it at the writing-table -and unlocked a drawer. The sack was cut away and -thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott -lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound -behind her back, and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her -hair was dishevelled, her face flushed, and she had the -look of one quite dazed. She drew in deep breaths of -air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware -for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and -her eyes rested upon Francine and travelled from her to -Betty's back without a gleam of recognition. She -wrenched a little at her wrists, but even that movement -was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay -still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at -the door would hardly have believed that she still lived. -

- -

-Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a -small bottle half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next -a small case of morocco leather. From the case she took -a hypodermic syringe and its needle, and screwed the -two parts together. -

- -

-"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper -from the bottle. -

- -

-"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began -with a giggle, but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke -and she ended with a startled gasp. For Ann was looking -straight at her with the strangest, disconcerting stare. -It was impossible to say whether she knew Francine or -knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her -gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, -and in a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried -out: -

- -

-"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she -added with a shiver: "It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's -like a dead person watching you as you move about the -room." -

- -

-Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's -eyes wandered off to her. It seemed as though it needed -just that interchange of glances to awaken her. For as -Betty resumed her work of filling the hypodermic syringe -from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into Ann -Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she -could not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her -feet kicked upon the divan. A moan of pain broke from -her lips, and with that consciousness returned to her. -

- -

-"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the -needle ready in her hand. She did not speak, but her -face spoke for her. Her upper lip was drawn back a -little from her teeth, and there was a look in her great -eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. -Once before he had seen just that look—when Betty -was lying on Mrs. Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment -and he had lingered in the treasure-room with Ann -Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then, but it was -as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann -Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank -back upon the divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering -lips and her eyes fixed upon Betty with a dreadful -fascination. -

- -

-"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You -sent me to Madame Le Vay's—on purpose. Oh! The -letter, then! The anonymous letter!"—and a new light -broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror shook her. "You -wrote it! Betty, you! You—the Scourge!" -

- -

-She sank back and again struggled vainly with her -bonds. Betty rose from her chair and crossed the room -towards her, the needle shining bright in her hand. Her -hapless prisoner saw it. -

- -

-"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. -The extremity of her horror lent to her an unnatural -strength. Somehow she dragged herself up and got her -feet to the ground. Somehow she stood upright, swaying -as she stood. -

- -

-"You are going to——" she began, and broke off. -"Oh, no! You couldn't! You couldn't!" -

- -

-Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder -and held her so for a moment, savouring her vengeance. -

- -

-"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours -in the darkness?" she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. -"Whose face, Ann? Guess!" She shook her swaying -prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her quiet voice. -"You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. -You are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the -treasure-room yesterday evening with your watch in your -hand? Eh? Can't you answer, you pretty fool?" Then -Betty's voice changed. It remained low and quiet, but -hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred. -

- -

-"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, -Ann? Oh, we both understand very well!" And -Hanaud's hand tightened upon Frobisher's shoulder. -Here was the real key and explanation of Betty's hatred. -Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more, -might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! -Ann Upcott's disappearance would look like a panic-stricken -flight, would have the effect of a confession—no -doubt! But above all these considerations, paramount -in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at once to punish -and rid herself of a rival. -

- -

-"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my -way!" she said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. -Yes. I had you bound hand and foot and brought here. -The water-lily!" She looked her victim over as she stood -in her delicate bright frock, her white silk stockings and -satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes, Ann! -That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! -That's all the time the arrow-poison takes!" -

- -

-Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her -white face and ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before. -

- -

-"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! -Oh!" she would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe -pushed her shoulder gently and she fell back upon the -divan. That Betty had been guilty of that last -infamy—the murder of her benefactress—not until this -moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was -clear to her, too, that there was not the slightest hope -for her. She burst suddenly into a storm of tears. -

- -

-Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and -watched her closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. -The sound of the girl's sobbing was music in her -ears. She would not let it flag. -

- -

-"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and -alone," she said in a low voice, bending over her, -"To-morrow Espinosa will put you under one of the stone flags -in the kitchen. But to-night you shall lie just as you -are. Come!" -

- -

-She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her -arm with one hand and advancing the needle with the -other; and a piercing scream burst from Francine Rollard. -

- -

-"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It -was open and Hanaud stood upon the threshold. -

- -

-Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from -her face. She sat like an image of wax, staring at the -open doorway, and a moment afterwards with a gesture -swift as lightning she drove the needle into the flesh of -her own arm and emptied it. -

- -

-Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to -prevent her, but Hanaud roughly thrust him back. -

- -

-"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said -with a savage note in his voice, which Jim had not heard -before; and Betty Harlowe dropped the needle on to the -couch, whence it rolled to the floor. -

- -

-She sprang up now to her full height, her heels -together, her arms outstretched from her sides. -

- -

-"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with -bravado. "I am safe from you." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously -in her face. -

- -

-"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill." -

- -

-Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself. -

- -

-"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said. -

- -

-"We shall see." -

- -

-The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed -across the room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, -Hanaud met her there. -

- -

-"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He -seized her wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod -towards Francine. "And you, Monsieur Frobisher, will -you release that young lady, if you please!" -

- -

-Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and -locked her safely away. Jim seized upon the big scissors -and cut the cords about Ann's wrists and ankles, and -unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had flung the -chair from the writing-table into an open space, that -Betty was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had -forced her into the chair and snatched up one of the cords -which Frobisher had dropped upon the floor. When he -had finished his work, he saw that Betty was sitting with -her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to one of the -legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his -handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had -bitten him like a wild animal caught in a trap. -

- -

-"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning -I met you," Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you -didn't wear a wrist-watch, because you hated things on -your wrists. My apologies! I had forgotten!" -

- -

-He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand -into the drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box -and removed the lid. -

- -

-"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!" -

- -

-He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who -was standing against the wall with a face like death. -

- -

-"Look!" -

- -

-There were five white tablets in the box. -

- -

-"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know -where it was. For I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide -of potassium, my friend! Crunch one of them between -your teeth and—fifteen minutes? Not a bit of it! A -fraction of a second! That's all!" -

- -

-Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's -ear. "Leave them within her reach!" -

- -

-His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty -from destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, -and with so desperate a longing that a deep pity softened -Hanaud's eyes. -

- -

-"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to -Moreau. "There is a cab waiting at the corner of the -Maison Crenelle," and Moreau went in search of it. -Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was sitting upon -the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every -now and then she handled and eased one of her tortured -wrists. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I -owe you an explanation and an apology. I never from -the beginning—no, not for one moment—believed that -you were guilty of the murder of Madame Harlowe. I -was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink -pearls—oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. -I believed every word of the story you told us in the -garden. But none of this dared I shew you. For only -by pretending that I was convinced of your guilt, could I -protect you during this last week in the Maison Crenelle." -

- -

-"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort -at a smile. -

- -

-"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he -continued. "I make it with shame. That you were to be -brought back here to the tender mercies of Mademoiselle -Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to make sure -you should be spared them. But I have never in my life -had a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction -in my own mind, so little proof to put before a court. I -had to have the evidence which I was certain to find in -this room to-night. But I ask you to believe me that if -I had imagined for a moment the cruelty with which -you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this -evidence. I beg you to forgive me." -

- -

-Ann Upcott held out her hand. -

- -

-"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you -I should not be now alive. I should be lying here in the -dark and alone, as it was promised to me, waiting for -Espinosa—and his spade." Her voice broke and she -shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which she -sat. -

- -

-"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. -"You have youth, as I told you once before. A little -time and——" -

- -

-The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and -with Moreau came a couple of gendarmes and Girardot -the Commissary. -

- -

-"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly. -

- -

-In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of -feet and a woman's voice screaming abuse. It died -away. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," -said Hanaud. -

- -

-Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted -and sullen, her lips muttering inaudible words. She had -not once looked at Jim Frobisher since he had entered -the room; nor did she now. -

- -

-Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme -raised her up. But her knees failed beneath her; -she could not stand; her strength and her spirit had left -her. The gendarme picked her up as if she had been a -child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher planted -himself in front of him. -

- -

-"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and -resonant. "Monsieur Hanaud, you have said just now -that you believed every word of Mademoiselle Ann's -story." -

- -

-"It is true." -

- -

-"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered -at half-past ten on the night of the 27th of April. -And at half-past ten Mademoiselle here was at Monsieur -de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free." -

- -

-Hanaud did not argue the point. -

- -

-"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if -you please!" -

- -

-Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then -drew aside. He stood with his eyes closed, and such a -look of misery upon his face as Betty was carried out -that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of condolence: -

- -

-"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur -Frobisher," he began. -

- -

-"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at -the first!" Jim cried volubly. -

- -

-"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked -Hanaud, and Jim was silent. "As it was, Monsieur -Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I know now I -had not the right to take and I told you more than you -think." -

- -

-He turned away towards Moreau. -

- -

-"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house -after they have gone and bring the keys here to me." -

- -

-Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic -syringe, the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of -cord. -

- -

-"There is something here of importance," Hanaud -observed and, stooping at the writing-table, he picked up -a square, flat-topped black case. "You will recognise -this," he remarked to Jim as he handed it to Girardot. -It was the case of a Corona typewriting machine; and -from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within -the case. -

- -

-"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the -Commissary. "This pretty room is the factory where all -those abominable letters were prepared. Here the -information was filed away for use; here the letters were -typed; from here they were issued." -

- -

-"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding -money!" -

- -

-"Some of them," answered Hanaud. -

- -

-"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, -and more if she chose to ask for it." -

- -

-"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with -a shake of the head. "The blackmailer never has enough -money. For no one is so blackmailed." -

- -

-A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. -They had agreed, he and Hanaud, that there was a gang -involved in all these crimes. It might be that Betty was -of them, yes, even led them, but were they all to go -scot-free? -

- -

-"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode -this motor-cycle——" -

- -

-"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice -his accent when you stopped at the fork of the roads in -the Val Terzon? He did not mount his cycle again. No!" -

- -

-"And the man who carried in the—the sack?" -

- -

-"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising -young novice. He is now at the Depot. He will never -get that good word from me which was to unlock Paris -for him." -

- -

-"And Espinosa himself—who was to come here -to-morrow——" he stopped abruptly with his eyes on Ann. -

- -

-"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went -on. "A fool that fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife -in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud looked at his watch. "It -is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock and key by -now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you -have never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. -Have no fear of that!" -

- -

-Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to -Hanaud. Hanaud put them into a pocket and went over -to Ann Upcott. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any -questions to-night. To-morrow you will tell me why you -went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It was given out that -you meant to run away. That, of course, was not true. -You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an -account of what happened to you there." -

- -

-Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she -answered quietly. -

- -

-"Yes. I will tell you everything." -

- -

-"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully. -

- -

-"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you -have had us all locked in." -

- -

-Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on -the girl, and he loved surprises so long as they were of -his own contriving. -

- -

-"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the -truth. This house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart -is very close, as the crow flies, to the Maison Crenelle. -There is one row of houses, the houses of the street of -Charles-Robert, between. It was built by Etienne -Bouchart de Crenelle, President of the Parliament during -the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and -important figure; and he built it, Mademoiselle—this is the -point—at the same time that he built the Maison Crenelle. -Having built it, he installed in it a joyous lady of the -province from which it takes its name—Madame de -Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President -never came visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the -best of reasons. Between this house and the Maison -Crenelle he had constructed a secret passage in that age -of secret passages." -

- -

-Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to -him for an astuteness which he did not possess. He had -been occupied heart and brain by the events of the -evening, so rapidly had they followed one upon the other, -so little time had they allowed for speculations. -

- -

-"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked. -

- -

-"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us -content ourselves with the facts," Hanaud continued. -"After the death of Etienne de Crenelle, at some period -or another the secret of this passage was lost. It is clear, -too, I think that it fell into disrepair and became blocked. -At all events at the end of the eighteenth century, the -Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of -the owner of the Maison Crenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, -discovered the secret. He bought back the Hôtel de -Brebizart, restored the passage and put it to the same use -as old Etienne de Crenelle had done. For here Madame -Raviart came to live during the years before the death -of her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! -My little lecture is over. Let us go!" -

- -

-He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience -and unlatched the double doors of the big buhl cabinet -in the recess of the wall. A cry of surprise broke from -Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet. The cabinet -was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and -all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one -end and that a flight of steps ran downwards in the -thickness of the wall. -

- -

-"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. -"Will you take this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first -with Mademoiselle. I will turn out the lights and -follow." -

- -

-But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew -sharply back. She put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and -steadied herself by it. "I will come with you," she said. -"I am not very steady on my legs." -

- -

-She laughed her action off but both men understood it. -Jim Frobisher had thought her guilty—guilty of theft -and murder. She shrank from him to the man who had -had no doubt that she was innocent. And even that was -not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply -than any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher -inclined his head in acknowledgment and, pressing the -button of the torch, descended five or six of the narrow -steps. Moreau followed him. -

- -

-"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud. -

- -

-He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up -a switch by the open doors of the cabinet. The room -was plunged in darkness. Guided by the beam of light, -they followed Frobisher on to the steps. Hanaud closed -the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together with -the bolts. -

- -

-"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be -careful of your heels on these stone steps." -

- -

-When his head was just below the level of the first -step he called upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. -Then he slid the floor board of the cabinet back into its -place. Beneath this a trap-door hung downwards. -Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place. -

- -

-"We can go on." -

- -

-Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. -From that a passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. -Frobisher led the way along the passage until the -foot of another flight of steps was reached. -

- -

-"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked -of Frobisher, his voice sounding with a strange -hollowness in that tunnel. "You shall tell me." -

- -

-Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and -Betty had sat in the dark of the perfumed garden and -Ann's eyes had searched this way and that amidst the -gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly: -

- -

-"Into the garden of the Maison Crenelle." -

- -

-Hanaud chuckled. -

- -

-"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?" -

- -

-Ann's face clouded over. -

- -

-"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered -and drew her cloak slowly about her shoulders. "Let us -go up and see!" -

- -

-Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the -top of the steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel. -

- -

-"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a -light. -

- -

-Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of -Simon Harlowe's Sedan chair into the treasure room. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Truth
-About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet -

- -

-To the amazement of them all Moreau began to -laugh. Up till now he had been alert, competent -and without expression. Stolidity had been the mark -of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his -sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour -of things was altogether unbearable. Once or twice he -tried to speak, but laughter leapt upon the words and -drowned them. -

- -

-"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" -Hanaud asked. -

- -

-"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and -again merriment seized and mastered him. At last two -intelligible words were heard. "We, Girardot," he cried, -settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the bridge of -his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason -of his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases. -

- -

-"We, Girardot!—We fix the seals upon the doors—And -all the time there is a way in and out under our -nose! These rooms must not be disturbed—No! The -great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to look -at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but -we, Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous -with our linen bands! We, Girardot shall make the -laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes, yes! I think, -we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the trial -is over?" -

- -

-Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional -for his audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that -night had dulled their appreciation; certainly Moreau had -all the laughter to himself. Jim Frobisher was driven to -the little Louis Quinze clock upon the marquetry cabinet. -He never could for a moment forget it. So much hung -for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild -words she might have used to-night, there was the -incontrovertible testimony of the clock to prove that she had -had no hand whatever in the murder of Mrs. Harlowe. -He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it -with the clock. -

- -

-"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little -accent of triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past -one——" and suddenly Hanaud was at his side with a -curious air of alertness. -

- -

-"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a -comparison with his own watch that Frobisher's statement -was correct. "Yes. Twenty-three minutes past one. -That is very fortunate." -

- -

-He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all -now stood grouped about the cabinet. -

- -

-"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, -"is to be found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann -used, when the seals were removed from the doors and -she saw this clock again, in the light of day. She was -perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?" -

- -

-"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me—it seems -to me still—that the clock was somehow placed higher -than it actually is——" -

- -

-"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!" -

- -

-He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now -reached twenty-six minutes past one. -

- -

-"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in -the hall in the dark. For it was in the dark, you will -remember, that Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I -shall turn the lights out here and call you in. When I -do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on and off swiftly, -just as she did it on the night of the 27th of April. Then -I think all will be clear to you." -

- -

-He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found -it locked with the key upon the inside. -

- -

-"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to -the Hôtel de Brebizart, this door would be locked." -

- -

-He turned the key and drew the door towards him. -The hall gaped before them black and silent. Hanaud -stood aside. -

- -

-"If you please!" -

- -

-Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated -and cast a look of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities -were to be set at rest. She did not doubt that. This -man had saved her from death when it seemed that nothing -could save her. Her trust in him was absolute. But -her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to -be delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could -be no recovery. Ann Upcott was not a good hater of -Betty's stamp. She shrank from the thought that it was -to be her hand which would deliver that stroke. -

- -

-"Courage, Mademoiselle!" -

- -

-Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann -joined the others in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the -door upon them and returned to the clock. It was -twenty-eight minutes past one. -

- -

-"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will -just do if I am quick." -

- -

-Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. -One of the three shivered suddenly so that her teeth -rattled in her mouth. -

- -

-"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand -within her arm. Ann Upcott had come to the end of -her strength. She clung to his hand spasmodically. -

- -

-"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you -were cruel to me!" -

- -

-Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room. -

- -

-"Come!" -

- -

-Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. -She threw open the door with a nervous violence. The -treasure-room was pitch dark like the hall. Ann stepped -through the doorway and her fingers reached for the -switch. -

- -

-"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook. -

- -

-Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as -suddenly it was black again; and in the darkness rose a -clamour of voices. -

- -

-"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim. -

- -

-"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann. -

- -

-"That is true," Moreau agreed. -

- -

-Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, -joined in. -

- -

-"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the -night of the twenty-seventh?" -

- -

-"Exactly, Monsieur." -

- -

-"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!" -

- -

-The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it -sounded like a knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers -refused their service. Once more the conviction forced -itself into her mind. Some irretrievable calamity waited -upon the movement of her hand. -

- -

-"Courage, Mademoiselle!" -

- -

-Again the lights shone, and this time they remained -burning. The three witnesses advanced into the room, -and as they looked again, from close at hand and with -a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke from all of them. -

- -

-There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all. -

- -

-But high above it in the long mirror before which it -stood there was the reflection of a clock, its white face so -clear and bright that even now it was difficult to disbelieve -that this was the clock itself. And the position of -the hands gave the hour as precisely half-past ten. -

- -

-"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud. -

- -

-The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam -mantelpiece and there staring at them, the true hour was -marked. It was exactly half-past one; the long minute -hand pointing to six, the shorter hour hand on the right-hand -side of the figure twelve, half-way between the one -and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all -turned again to the mirror; and the mystery was -explained. The shorter hour-hand seen in the mirror was -on the left-hand side of the figure twelve, and just where -it would have been if the hour had been half-past ten and -the clock actually where its reflection was. The figures -on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to -read. -

- -

-"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature -to save itself from effort even in the smallest things. We -live with clocks and watches. They are as customary as -our daily bread. And with the instinct to save ourselves -from effort, we take our time from the position of the -hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for -granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the -one swift flash of light she sees the hands upon the clock's -face. Half-past ten! She herself, you will remember, -Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised that the hour was -so early. She was cold, as though she had slept long in -her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept -long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was -half-past one, and Betty Harlowe had been twenty -minutes home from Monsieur de Pouillac's ball." -

- -

-Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice -which exasperated Frobisher. -

- -

-"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When -the seals were removed and we entered this room for the -first time, the clock was not upon the mantelshelf but -upon the marquetry cabinet." -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before -luncheon. We entered this room after luncheon. -During the luncheon hours the position of the clock was -changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know -now with what ease that could be done." -

- -

-"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It -doesn't follow that it was done." -

- -

-"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer -now one of the questions in your memorandum. What -was it that I saw from the top of the Terrace Tower? -I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the air. -Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its -windows, and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And -there at midday, in all the warmth of late May, the -smoke was rising from the chimney of the sealed room. -There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing! -And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask -yourself that! Who went straight out from the Maison -Crenelle the moment I had gone, and went alone? That -clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters also -had to be burnt." -

- -

-Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still -occupied his thoughts. His great argument had been -riddled; his one dream of establishing Betty's innocence -in despite of every presumption and fact which could be -brought against her had been dispelled. He dropped on -to a chair. -

- -

-"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness. -

- -

-"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe -to me no gifts out of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am -trained—that is all. I have been my twenty minutes in -the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!" He looked -at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager -young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by -the lesson. First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle -Betty was here doing something of great importance. It -may be only burning those letters in the hearth. It may -be more. I must wait and see. Good! There, standing -before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little -remark that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand -yet? No, no! But I am interested. Then I notice a -curious thing, a beautiful specimen of Benvenuto Cellini's -work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf where no -one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the -window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back -to the mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks -upon the wood which had been concealed by the flat case -of the jewel; and those four little marks are just the -marks which the feet of that very pretty Louis Quinze -clock might have made, had it stood regularly there—in -its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry -cabinet so much lower than the mantelshelf is too the -natural place for the Cellini jewel. Every one can see it -there. So I say to myself: 'My good Hanaud, this young -lady has been rearranging her ornaments.' But do I -guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell -you again very humbly, that we are the servants of -Chance. Chance is a good mistress if her servants do not -go to sleep; and she treated me well that afternoon. See! -I am standing in the hall, in great trouble about this case. -For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a big -old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind -me and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I -raise my eyes from the floor and by chance I see in the -mirror the barometer behind me. By chance my attention -is arrested. For I see that the indicator in the -barometer points to stormy weather—which is ridiculous. -I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the -indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the -position of the hand without looking at the letters. If I look -the barometer in the face the hand points to the fair -weather. If I turn my back and look into the mirror the -hand points to the stormy weather. Now indeed I have -it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door, for I -do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, -no, for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But -I take out my watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch -facing the mirror, I open the glass and I move the hands -until in the mirror they seem to mark half-past ten. -Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. So -now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get -it. For as I unlock the door and open it again, there is -Mademoiselle Betty face to face with me! That young -girl! Even though already I suspect her I get a shock, -I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened -enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask -had slipped from her face. I felt a trickle of ice down -my spine. For out of her beautiful great eyes murder -looked." -

- -

-He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce -look. "Ugh," he grunted; and he shook himself like -a great dog coming up out of the water. -

- -

-"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," -he cried in a different voice, "and you are keeping -Mademoiselle from her bed, where she should have been an -hour ago. Come!" -

- -

-He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on -the lights, locked the door of the treasure-room and -pocketed the key. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," -he said gently to Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in -the house. You have nothing to fear. He will not be -far from your door. Good night." -

- -

-Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile. -

- -

-"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she -mounted the stairs slowly, her feet dragging, her body -swaying with her fatigue. -

- -

-Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher -with a whimsical smile. -

- -

-"What a pity!" he said. "You—she! No? After -all, perhaps——" and he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher -was growing red and beginning to look "proper"; and the -last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to offend him -in this particular. -

- -

-"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent -and a gossip. If I err, it is because I wish you very -well. You understand that? Good! Then a further -proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us what -happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house -of Madame Le Vay—everything. I wish you to be present. -You shall know everything. I shall tell you myself -step by step, how my conclusions were reached. All your -questions shall be answered. I shall give you every help, -every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are not even -called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And -when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that -whatever there may be of pain and distress, the Law must -take its course." -

- -

-It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating -now. The tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries -had gone. He did not even triumph. A dignity -shone out of the man like a strong light, and with it he -was gentle and considerate. -

- -

-"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim -on an impulse thrust out his hand. -

- -

-"Good night!" he returned. -

- -

-Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went -away. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense -of desolation turned back to the hall. He heard the big -iron gates swing to. They had been left open, of course, -he recognised, in the usual way when one of the household -was going to be late. Yes, everything had been -planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. -Here in this house, the servants were all tucked up in -their beds. But for Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at -this very moment have been stealing up these stairs -noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work accomplished. -The servants would have waked to-morrow to the knowledge -that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial. -Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, -would have been received in the treasure-room, would -have found the spade waiting for him in the great -stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart. Oh, yes, all -dangers had been foreseen—except Hanaud. Nay, even -he in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken -telegram had reached Frobisher and Haslitt before -Hanaud had started upon his work. -

- -

-"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's -door, if you should want me," said Moreau. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections. -

- -

-"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs -to his room. A lot of use to Betty that telegram had -been, he reflected bitterly! "Where was she to-night?" -he asked, and shut up his mind against the question. -

- -

-He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken -telegram and nothing else which had brought Betty -Harlowe's plans crashing about her ears. -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Ann Upcott's Story -

- -

-Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison -Crenelle and made his appointment for the afternoon. -Jim accordingly spent the morning with Monsieur -Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which -was told to him. -

- -

-"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. -"They can claim the presence of their legal adviser when -they are being examined by the Judge. I will go round -at once to the Prefecture"; with his head erect and his -little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried to -do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged, -however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was -for the moment au secret. She would not come before -the Judge for a couple of days. It was the turn of -Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to be given to the -defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted an -interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before -she was brought up in the Judge's office. -

- -

-Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet -to find Jim Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim -looked up eagerly, but Monsieur Bex had no words of -comfort. -

- -

-"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am -not happy. They are all very polite—yes. But they -examine the maid first. That's bad, I tell you," and he -tapped upon the table. "That is Hanaud. He knows -his affair. The servants. They can be made to talk, and -this Francine Rollard——" He shook his head. "I shall -get the best advocate in France." -

- -

-Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison -Crenelle. It was obvious that nothing of these new and -terrible developments of the "Affaire Waberski" had yet -leaked out. There was not a whisper of it in the streets, -not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison Crenelle. -The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become -a stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her -room that he was removing his luggage to the hotel in -the Place Darcy, and leaving the house to her where he -prayed her to remain. Even at that moment Ann's lips -twitched a little with humour as she read the -embarrassed note. -

- -

-"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," -she reflected, "and proper enough to make every nerve -of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with delight." -

- -

-Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the -shade of the sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the -lawn and the bees hummed amongst the roses, Ann -Upcott told a story of terror and darkness, though to a -smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the -story by Hanaud. -

- -

-"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame -Le Vay's Ball," she began, "except for the anonymous -letter," and Hanaud leaned forward alertly. -

- -

-The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty -and Jim Frobisher were sitting at dinner. It had been -posted therefore in the middle of the day and very soon -after Ann had told her first story in the garden. Ann -opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed -and a little terrified to read the signature, "The -Scourge." She was more annoyed than ever when she read the -contents, but her terror had decreased. "The Scourge" bade -her attend the Ball. He gave her explicit instructions -that she should leave the ball-room at half-past ten, follow -a particular corridor leading to a wing away from the -reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small -library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a -little while the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. -She was warned to tell no one of her plan. -

- -

-"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the -letter just a malicious joke quite in accord with 'The -Scourge's' character. I put it back into its envelope. But -I couldn't forget it. Suppose that by any chance there -was something in it—and I didn't go! Why should 'The -Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was -of no importance? And all the while the sort of hope -which no amount of reasoning can crush, kept growing -and growing!" -

- -

-After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room -and believed it and scorned herself for believing it, -and believed it again. That afternoon she had almost -felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was no chance -which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from -suspicion, however wild it seemed! -

- -

-Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down -to the treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It -was half-past nine o'clock. Ann determined to wait for -Betty's return, and was once more perplexed by the low -position of the clock upon the marquetry cabinet. She -stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own -watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it -might help her. And indeed it was very likely to. Had -she turned its dial to the mirror behind the clock, the -truth would have leapt at her. But she had not the time. -For a slight movement in the room behind her arrested -her attention. -

- -

-She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without -doubt it was from within the room that the faint -noise had come. And there was only one place from -which it could have come. Some one was hiding within -the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, -its delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than -frightened. Her first thought was to ring the bell by the -fire-place—she could do that well out of view of the -Sedan chair—and carry on until Gaston answered it. -There were treasures enough in the room to repay a hundred -thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the -bolder line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing -from the back, and then with a rush planted herself -in front of the glass doors. -

- -

-She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in -front of the doors was down, the doors were open, and -leaning back upon the billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. -She sat quite still, still as an image even after -Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but she -was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out -of the darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a -curious shock. -

- -

-"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; -and if ever there had been a chance that she would relent, -that chance was gone for ever now. She had come up -out of the secret passage to find Ann playing with her -watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an explanation -of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it—so -very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence -pronounced in those words, "I have been watching you." And -though she did not understand the menace they conveyed, -there was something in the slow, steady utterance -of them which a little unnerved her. -

- -

-"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice." -

- -

-Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous -letter from her hand. -

- -

-"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked. -

- -

-"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I -should. I shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that -there's any suspicion upon you." -

- -

-Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house -of mourning might appear an outrage. -

- -

-"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go -privately, just before the time. I have no doubt we can -arrange it all. But of course it's your affair." -

- -

-"Why should the Scourge help me?" -

- -

-"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty -reasoned. "I imagine that he's attacking other people, -and using you." She read through the letter again. "He -has always been right, hasn't he? That's what would -determine me in your place. But I don't want to interfere." -

- -

-Ann spun round on her heel. -

- -

-"Very well. I shall go." -

- -

-"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as -if to tear it. -

- -

-"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it -"I don't know Madame Le Vay's house very well. I -might easily lose my way without the instructions. I -must take it with me." -

- -

-Betty agreed and handed the letter back. -

- -

-"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw -herself heart and soul into the necessary arrangements. -

- -

-She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself -help Ann to dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. -She wrote a letter to Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's -second son and one of Betty's most indefatigable -courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept that -letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity -in her plot. For Betty used to him the same argument -which had persuaded Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly -that suspicion had centred upon Ann Upcott and that it -was necessary that she should get away secretly. -

- -

-"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. -"Ann will come late. She is to meet the friends who will -help her—it is best that you should know as little as -possible about them—in the little library. If you will keep -the corridor clear for a little while, they can get out by -the library doors into the park and be in Paris the next -morning." -

- -

-She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann -and said, "I will send this by a messenger to-morrow -morning, with orders to deliver it into Michel's own -hands. Now how are you to go?" -

- -

-Over that point the two girls had some discussion. -It would be inviting Hanaud's interference if the big -limousine were ordered out. What more likely than that -he should imagine Ann meant to run away and that -Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would -not do. -

- -

-"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call -for you. You will be ready to slip out. She shall stop -her car for a second outside the gates. It will be quite -dark. You'll be away in a flash." -

- -

-"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back. -

- -

-It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite -and fastidious in her own looks and bearing, should have -found her friends amongst the flamboyant and the cheap. -But she would rather throne it amongst her inferiors -than take her place amongst her equals. Under her -reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. -The desire to be courted, admired, looked up to as a -leader and a chief, burned within her like a raging flame. -Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of satellites—a big, -red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without -good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society -of the town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but -distrusted her. She had a feeling that there was something -indefinably wrong in her very nature. -

- -

-"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. -"That's why I named her. I know that she is going to -Madame Le Vay's dance." -

- -

-Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to -Jeanne Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call -at the Maison Crenelle at an early hour in the morning; -and Jeanne Leclerc came and was closeted with Betty for -an hour between nine and ten. Thus all the arrangements -were made. -

- -

-It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's -explanations. -

- -

-"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young -brother to be accounted for." -

- -

-"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight -noise in the treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe -seated in the Sedan chair," Hanaud replied. "Betty -Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de Brebizart, -whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark -and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison -Crenelle.... From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa -went to the Rue Gambetta and waited for Jean Cladel. It -was a busy night, that one, my friends. That old wolf, -the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They -could hear him. They had no time to waste!" -

- -

-The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim -remembered. It was because Betty was helping Ann to -dress, Francine having been given her holiday. Jim and -Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann Upcott -stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her -pretty dress. She held the front door a little open, and -the moment Jeanne Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, -she flashed across the courtyard. Jeanne had the door of -her car open. It had hardly stopped before it went on -again. Jim, as the story was told, remembered vividly -Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and the -immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed -and the car moved forward out of the street of -Charles-Robert. Ann Upcott had gone for good from the Maison -Crenelle. She would not interfere with Betty Harlowe -any more. -

- -

-Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le -Vay's house a few minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay -came forward to meet them. -

- -

-"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said -to Ann, "but you are late. Madame my mother has left -her place at the door of the ball-room, but we shall find -her later." -

- -

-He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away -they were joined by Espinosa. -

- -

-"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. -"No, not yet! Then Señor Espinosa will take you to -the buffet while I look after others of our guests." -

- -

-He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter -of high voices competed with the music of the band. -Espinosa conducted the two ladies to the buffet. There -was hardly anybody in the room. -

- -

-"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low -voice. "We shall take some coffee." -

- -

-But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her -feet danced, her hands could not keep still. Was the -letter a trick? Would she, indeed, within the next few -minutes learn the truth? At one moment her heart sank -into her shoes, at another it soared. -

- -

-"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa -urgently. "And it is good." -

- -

-"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne -Leclerc. "You will send me home, won't you? I shall -not wait—afterwards." -

- -

-"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is -arranged. The chauffeur has his orders. You will take -your coffee, dear?" -

- -

-Again Ann would not -

- -

-"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I -went." She caught a swift and curious interchange of -glances between Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa, but she -was in no mood to seek an interpretation. There could -be no doubt that the coffee set before her had had some -drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it from -the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug -which would have half stupefied her and made her easy -to manage. But she was not to be persuaded, and she rose -to her feet. -

- -

-"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, -leaving her two companions together. She did not return -to the buffet. -

- -

-On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor -stretched out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding -it, stood Michel Le Vay. He made a sign to her, and -when she joined him: -

- -

-"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a -low voice. "The small library is in front of you." -

- -

-Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the -house which was quite deserted and silent. At the end -of it a shut door confronted her. She opened it softly. -It was all dark within. But enough light entered from -the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged -against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some -dark, heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, -to come to the tryst. She closed the door behind her and -moved slowly and cautiously forwards with her hands -outstretched, until she felt the curtains yield. She passed -in between them into the recess of a great bow window -opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, creaking -sound, brought her heart into her mouth. -

- -

-Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody -had been quietly watching as she came in from the -lighted corridor. The sound grew louder. Ann peered -between the curtains, holding them apart with shaking -hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague -twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near -to the door, high up on a tall bookcase, something was -clinging—something was climbing down. Whoever it -was, had been hiding behind the ornamental top of the -heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves -like the rungs of a ladder. -

- -

-Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her -throat. She ran for the door. But she was too late. A -black figure dropped from the book-case to the ground -and, as Ann reached out her hands to the door, a scarf -was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was -jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched -the light switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, -the room was lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, -driving the breath out of her lungs, and knotted the scarf -tightly at the back of her head. Ann tried to lift herself, -and recognised with a gasp of amazement that the assailant -who pinned her down by the weight of her body and -the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic -gave place to anger and a burning humiliation. She -fought with all the strength of her supple body. But the -scarf about her mouth stifled and weakened her, and with -a growing dismay she understood that she was no match -for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two, -but her height did not avail her; she was like a child -matched with a wildcat. Francine's hands were made of -steel. She snatched Ann's arms behind her back and -bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards, her bosom -labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must -burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and -tied her by the ankles. -

- -

-Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran -to the door, opened it a little way and beckoned. Then -she dragged her prisoner up on to a couch, and Jeanne -Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the room. -

- -

-"It's done?" said Espinosa. -

- -

-Francine laughed. -

- -

-"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should -have given her the coffee. Then she would have walked -with us. Now she must be carried. She's wicked, I can -tell you." -

- -

-Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face -to hide the gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held -her up, set her white cloak about her shoulders and -fastened it in front. Espinosa then turned out the light -and drew back the curtains. -

- -

-The room was at the back of the house. In the front -of the window the park stretched away. But it was the -park of a French château, where the cattle feed up to the -windows, and only a strip about the front terrace is -devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns. Espinosa -looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, -and cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night -like ghosts. He opened the window, and the throb of -the music from the ball-room came faintly to their ears. -

- -

-"We must be quick," said Espinosa. -

- -

-He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out -into the park. They left the window open behind them, -and between them they carried their prisoner across the -grass, keeping where it was possible in the gloom of the -trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a motorcar -waited half-way between the house and the gates. A -blur of light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in -front of it became visible away upon their left, but here -all was dark. Once or twice they stopped and set Ann -upon her feet, and held her so, while they rested. -

- -

-"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling -an oath, he stopped again. They were on the edge of the -drive now, and just ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a -white dress and close to it the glow of a cigarette. -Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her against -a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the -truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk -to Ann, nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively -story. Espinosa's heart stood still as he heard the man -say: -

- -

-"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. -Shall we see?" -

- -

-But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the -white dress caught him by the arm. -

- -

-"That would not be very tactful," she said with a -laugh. "Let us do as we would be done by," and the -couple sauntered past. -

- -

-Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! -Let us go!" he whispered in a shaking voice. -

- -

-A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed -car hidden in a little alley which led from the main drive. -They placed Ann in the car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside -her, and Espinosa took the wheel. As they took the road -to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck eleven. Within -the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann -Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it -underneath her feet. At the branch road young Espinosa -was waiting with his motor-cycle and side-car. -

- -

-"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," -said Hanaud when she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay -went later into the library, and bolted the window again, -believing you to be well upon your way to Paris. Second, -Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they returned -to Madame Le Vay's ball." -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: What Happened
-on the Night of the 27th -

- -

-"We are not yet quite at the end," said Hanaud, as -he sat with Frobisher for awhile upon the lawn -after Ann Upcott had gone in. "But we are near to it. -There is still my question to be answered. 'Why was the -communicating door open between the bedroom of -Madame Harlowe and the treasure-room on the night -when Ann Upcott came down the stairs in the dark?' When -we know that, we shall know why Francine Rollard -and Betty Harlowe between them murdered Madame -Harlowe." -

- -

-"Then you believe Francine Rollard had a hand in -that crime too?" asked Jim. -

- -

-"I am sure," returned Hanaud. "Do you remember -the experiment I made, the little scene of reconstruction? -Betty Harlowe stretched out upon the bed to represent -Madame, and Francine whispering 'That will do now'?" -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-Hanaud lit a cigarette and smiled. -

- -

-"Francine Rollard would not stand at the side of the -bed. No! She would stand at the foot and whisper -those simple but appalling words. But nowhere else. -That was significant, my friend. She would not stand -exactly where she had stood when the murder was -committed." He added softly, "I have great hopes of -Francine Rollard. A few days of a prison cell and that -untamed little tiger-cat will talk." -

- -

-"And what of Waberski in all this?" Jim exclaimed. -

- -

-Hanaud laughed and rose from his chair. -

- -

-"Waberski? He is for nothing in all this. He brought -a charge in which he didn't believe, and the charge -happened to be true. That is all." He took a step or two -away and returned. "But I am wrong. That is not all. -Waberski is indeed for something in all this. For when -he was pressed to make good his charge and must rake -up some excuse for it somehow, by a piece of luck he -thinks of a morning when he saw Betty Harlowe in the -street of Gambetta near to the shop of Jean Cladel. And -so he leads us to the truth. Yes, we owe something to -that animal Boris Waberski. Did I not tell you, -Monsieur, that we are all the servants of Chance?" -

- -

-Hanaud went from the garden and for three days Jim -Frobisher saw him no more. But the development which -Monsieur Bex feared and for which Hanaud hoped took -place, and on the third day Hanaud invited Jim to his -office in the Prefecture. -

- -

-He had Jim's memorandum in his hand. -

- -

-"Do you remember what you wrote?" he asked. -"See!" He pushed the memorandum in front of Jim -and pointed to a paragraph. -

- -


- -

-"But in the absence of any trace of poison in the dead -woman's body, it is difficult to see how the criminal can -be brought to justice except by: -

- -

-"(a) A confession. -

- -

-"(b) The commission of another crime of a similar -kind. -

- -

-"Hanaud's theory—once a poisoner, always a poisoner." -

- -


- -

-Frobisher read it through. -

- -

-"Now that is very true," said Hanaud. "Never have -I come across a case more difficult. At every step we -break down. I think I have my fingers on Jean Cladel. -I am five minutes too late. I think that I shall get some -useful evidence from a firm in Paris. The firm has -ceased to be for the last ten years. All the time I strike -at air. So I must take a risk—yes, and a serious one. -Shall I tell you what that risk was? I have to assume -that Mademoiselle Ann will be brought alive to the Hôtel -de Brebizart on that night of Madame Le Vay's ball. -That she would be brought back I had no doubt. For -one thing, there could be no safer resting-place for her -than under the stone flags of the kitchen there. For -another, there was the portmanteau in the side-car. It -was not light, the portmanteau. Some friends of mine -watched it being put into the side-car before young -Espinosa started for his rendezvous. I have no doubt it -weighed just as many kilos as Mademoiselle Ann." -

- -

-"I never understood the reason of that portmanteau," -Frobisher interrupted. -

- -

-"It was a matter of timing. There were twenty-five -kilometres of a bad track, with many sharp little twists -between the Val Terzon and the Hôtel de Brebizart. And -a motor-cycle with an empty side-car would take -appreciably longer to cover the distance than a cycle with -a side-car weighted, which could take the corners at its -top speed. They were anxious to get the exact time the -journey would take with Ann Upcott in the side-car, so -that there might be no needless hanging about waiting -for its arrival. But they were a little too careful. Our -friend Boris said a shrewd thing, didn't he? Some crimes -are discovered because the alibis are too unnaturally -perfect. Oh, there was no doubt they meant to bring back -Mademoiselle Ann! But suppose they brought her back -dead! It wasn't likely—no! It would be so much easier -to finish her off with a dose of the arrow-poison. No -struggle, no blood, no trouble at all. I reckoned that -they would dope her at Madame Le Vay's ball and bring -her back half conscious, as indeed they meant to do. But -I shivered all that evening at the risk I had taken, and -when that cycle shut off its engine, as we stood in the -darkness of the gallery, I was in despair." -

- -

-He shook his shoulders uncomfortably as though the -danger was not yet passed. -

- -

-"Anyway, I took the risk," he resumed, "and so we -got fulfilled your condition (b). The commission or, in -this case, the attempted commission of another crime of -the same kind." -

- -

-Frobisher nodded. -

- -

-"But now," said Hanaud, leaning forward, "we have -got your condition (a) fulfilled—a confession; a clear -and complete confession from Francine Rollard, and so -many admissions from the Espinosas, and Jeanne Leclerc -and Maurice Thevenet, that they amount to confessions. -We have put them all together, and here is the new part -of the case with which Monsieur Bex and you will have -to deal—the charge not of murder attempted but of -murder committed—the murder of Madame Harlowe." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher was upon the point of interrupting, but -he thought better of it. -

- -

-"Go on!" he contented himself with saying. -

- -

-"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous -letters, Monsieur—who shall say? The dulness of life -for a girl young and beautiful and passionate in a -provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The craving -for excitement? Something bad and vicious and -abnormal born in her, part of her, and craving more and -more expression as she grew in years? The exacting -attendance upon Madame? Probably all of these elements -combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly it -became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in -Madame Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years -old from the firm of Chapperon, builders, of the Rue -de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the way, saw an -unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth -of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the -existence of the hidden passage between the treasure-room -and the Hôtel de Brebizart. For it was the bill -of the builders who had repaired it at the order of Simon -Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging to -Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de -Brebizart made the game easy and safe. But as the -opportunity grew, so did the desire. Betty Harlowe tasted -power. She took one or two people into her confidence—her -maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, -and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage—and once -started the circle grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of -Betty Harlowe, you understand! She, the little queen, -became the big slave. She must provide Thevenet with -his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his house, Jeanne -Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters -become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet -knows the police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne -Leclerc has a—friend, shall we say?—in the Director of -an Insurance Company, and, believe me, for a blackmailer -nothing is more important than to know accurately the -financial resources of one's—let us say, clients. Thus the -game went merrily on until money was wanted and it -couldn't be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. -There was no one for the moment to exploit. Yes, one -person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the justice to believe -that the suggestion came from that promising young -novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, -Monsieur Frobisher?" -

- -

-Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, -led up to it though he had been by Hanaud's exposition. -

- -

-"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, -and, as Jim Frobisher started back in a horror of -disbelief, he continued: "Yes, it is so! Madame Harlowe -received a letter at dinner-time, just as Ann Upcott did, -on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She took -her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That -letter was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who -remembers it very well. It demanded a large sum of money, -and something was said about a number of passionate -letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have -published—not too much, you understand, but enough to -make it clear that the liaison of Madame Raviart and -Simon Harlowe was not a secret from the Scourge. I'll -tell you something else which will astonish you, Monsieur -Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne -Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to -say good night and show herself in her new dance frock -of silver tissue and her silver slippers. It was no wonder -that Betty Harlowe lost her head a little when I set my -little trap for her in the library and pretended that I did -not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin -after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't -one idea what a very unpleasant little trap it was!" -

- -

-"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If -Madame Harlowe showed this letter first of all to Jeanne -Baudin, and afterwards to Betty Harlowe in Jeanne -Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin speak of it -at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski -brought his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept -silent!" -

- -

-"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne -Baudin is a good and decent girl. For her, Madame -Harlowe had died a natural death in her sleep, the very form -in which death might be expected to come for her. -Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's -accusation. Why should she rake up old scandals? She -herself proposed to Betty Harlowe to say nothing about -the anonymous letter." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted -it. "Yes, I see her point of view," he admitted, and -Hanaud continued his narrative. -

- -

-"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the -Boulevard Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. -Jeanne Baudin has finished her offices for the night. -Madame Harlowe is alone. What does she do? Drink? -For that night—no! She sits and thinks. Were there -any of the letters which passed between her and Simon -Harlowe, before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still -existing? She had thought to have destroyed them all. -But she was a woman, she might have clutched some -back. If there were any, where would they be? Why -in that house at the end of the secret passage. Some -such thoughts must have passed through her mind. For -she rose from her bed, slipped on her dressing-gown and -shoes, unlocked the communicating door between her and -the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the -empty Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, -Monsieur? A room in daily use, a bundle of her letters -ready in the top drawer of her Empire writing-table, and -on the writing-table Simon's Corona machine, and the -paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. Monsieur, -there is only one person who can have access to that -room, the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her -exacting way she no doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock -that night Francine Rollard is startled by the entrance of -Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a moment -Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She -was very quickly better informed. She was told to get -up, to watch for Betty Harlowe's return and to bring her -immediately to Madame Harlowe's bedroom. At one -o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark hall. As -Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives -her the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet -how much of their villainies has been discovered. But -something at all events. Betty Harlowe bade Francine -wait and ran upstairs silently to her room. Betty -Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been -playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had -the arrow-poison ready—yes, ready for herself. She -filled her hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in -the palm of her glove she went to confront her -benefactress. -

- -

-"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman -whose romance and tragedy were to be exploited blurting -out her fury in front of Francine Rollard. It wasn't -Waberski who was to be stripped to the skin—no, but -the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver slippers. -You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under -the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison -to destroy herself when she can save everything—fortune, -liberty, position—by murder? Only she must be -quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts of violence. -Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne Baudin, -some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a -moment the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is -flung back upon her bed. Her mouth is covered and held -by Francine Rollard. The needle does its work. 'That -will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the door -of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, -unable to identify the voice which whispered, just -as you and I were unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice -which whispered to us from the window of Jean Cladel's -house, but taking deep into her memory the terrible -words. And neither of the murderesses knew it. -

- -

-"They go calmly about their search for the letters. -They cannot find them, because Madame had pushed them -into the coffer of old bills and papers. They rearrange -the bed, they compose their victim in it as if she were -asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget -to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the -Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the -arrow-poison and the needle to put in some safe place, -and where else is safe? In the end when every care has -been taken that not a scrap of incriminating evidence is -left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps -up the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and -Ann Upcott waking, stretches up her hands and touches -her face. -

- -

-"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is -what you would call the case for the Crown. It is the -case which you and Monsieur Bex have to meet." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things -which he had almost said at the beginning of this -interview. -

- -

-"I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told -me. I shall give him every assistance that I personally or -my firm can give. But I have no longer any formal -connection with the defence." -

- -

-Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity. -

- -

-"I don't understand, Monsieur. This is not the -moment to renounce a client." -

- -

-"Nor do I," rejoined Frobisher. "It is the other way -about. Monsieur Bex put it to me very—how shall I -say?" -

- -

-Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his -lips. -

- -

-"Very correctly." -

- -

-"He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see -me again." -

- -

-Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation -evident in Frobisher's voice and face moved him. He -said very gently, "I can understand that, can't you? She -has fought for a great stake all this last week, her liberty, -her fortune, her good name—and you. Oh, yes," he -continued, as Jim stirred at the table. "Let us be frank! -And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from -her friends. From the earliest moment she set her -passions upon you. Do you remember the first morning I -came to the Maison Crenelle? You promised Ann Upcott -to put up there though you had just refused the same -invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy -blazed in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a -clatter in the hall lest she should recognise that I could not -but have discovered her secret. Well, having fought for -this stake and lost, she would not wish to see you. You -had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by the legs -like a sheep. I understand her very well." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment -Hanaud burst into the room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, -Betty had never once even looked at him. He got up -from his chair and took up his hat and stick. -

- -

-"I must go back to my partner in London with this -story as soon as I have told it to Monsieur Bex," he -said. "I should like it complete. When did you first -suspect Betty Harlowe?" -

- -

-Hanaud nodded. -

- -

-"That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don't thank me! I am -not so sure that I should be so ready with all these -confidences, if I was not certain what the verdict in the Assize -Court must be. I shall gather up for you the threads -which are still loose, but not here." -

- -

-He looked at his watch. -

- -

-"See, it is past noon! We shall once more have -Philippe Le Bon's Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may -be, too, that we shall see Mont Blanc across all the -leagues of France. Come! Let us take your -memorandum and go there." -

- -




- -

- -

-CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Façade of Notre Dame -

- -

-For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day -without mist or clouds, and the towering silver ridge -hung in the blue sky distinct and magical. Hanaud lit -one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly turned away -from it. -

- -

-"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One -at the very beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very -end by me, and of the two mine was the least excusable. -Let us begin, therefore, at the beginning. Madame -Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; Betty -Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks -her for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should -she not? Ah, but she must have been very sorry a week -later that she snapped her the fingers! For suddenly he -flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was poisoned by her -niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when she -heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! -But it is also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing -can touch her. Now suddenly her head is loose upon her -neck. She is frightened. She is questioned in the -examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has nothing -against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip. -But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she -has done the murder. Her danger is not any evidence -which Waberski can bring, but just herself. In two days -she is still more frightened, for she hears that Hanaud is -called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake. She -sends a telegram to you in London." -

- -

-"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly. -

- -

-"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does -Betty Harlowe know that Hanaud has been called in?' -Oh, to be sure, I made a great fluster in my office about -the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon. But I did not -believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious about -Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, -we come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown -me that telegram." -

- -

-"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he -added slowly, "that she put out her hand on the window -sill—yes, as if to steady herself." -

- -

-"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with -a nod of appreciation. "She must account for that -telegram. She cannot tell me that Maurice Thevenet sent a -hurried word to her. No! So when I ask her if she -has ever received one of these anonymous letters—which, -remember, were my real business in Dijon—she says at -once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which -told me that Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris -to make an end of me.' That was quick, eh? Yes, but I -know it is a lie. For it was not until the Sunday evening -that any question of my being sent for arose at all. You -see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked -her for the letter. She does not say that she has -destroyed it, lest I should at once believe that she never -received any such letter at all. On the contrary she says -that it is in the treasure-room which is sealed up, knowing -quite well that she can write it and place it there by way -of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed. -But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must -have received it on the Sunday morning, since it was -on the Sunday morning that the seals were affixed. She -did not know when it was first proposed to call me in. -She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is -lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty -Harlowe." -

- -

-He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him -with a look of horror in his eyes. -

- -

-"It was I then who put you on her track?—I who -came out to defend her!" he cried. "For it was I who -showed you the telegram." -

- -

-"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered -if Betty Harlowe had been, as you believed her, innocent," -Hanaud replied gravely; and Frobisher was silent. -

- -

-"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, -I went over the house whilst you and Betty talked -together in the library!" -

- -

-"Yes," said Jim. -

- -

-"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found -something which interested me at the first glance. Now -tell me what it was!" and he cocked his head at Jim with -the hope that his riddle would divert him from his -self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded. -

- -

-"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost -of a smile. "It was the treatise on Sporanthus." -

- -

-"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves -no trace! Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. -Who would be the first poisoner to use it? How should I -cope with him and prove that it brought no more security -than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are questions which -have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a -house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, -I find a dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away -under a pile of magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. -I tell you I was staggered. What was it doing there? -How did it come there? I see a note upon the cover, -indicating a page. I turn to the page and there, staring at -me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect specimen -of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are -at once forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, -without knowing it, were right, and Madame Harlowe was -murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I must find that out. -I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my waistcoat and -I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. Is -Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus -Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from -Madame Harlowe's death? Or did she perhaps not know -at all that the treatise was under that pile of magazines -upon the table at the side? I do not know, and my head -is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked look of -Betty Harlowe at her friend—Monsieur, a revealing look! -I have not the demure and simple young lady of convention -to deal with at all. No. I go away from the Maison -Crenelle, still more curious about Betty Harlowe." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side. -

- -

-"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously. -

- -

-"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder. -

- -

-"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately -after you left the Maison Crenelle that day you had the -sergent-de-ville removed from its gates?" -

- -

-"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered -imperturbably. "The sergent-de-ville in his white trousers -was an absurdity—worse than that, an actual hindrance. -There is little use in watching people who know that they -are being watched. So I remove the sergent-de-ville and -now I can begin really to watch those young ladies of -the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst -Monsieur Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, -Betty Harlowe goes out for a walk, is discreetly followed -by Nicolas Moreau—and vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. -He must not press too close upon her heels. She -was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de -Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the -wall which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that -she vanished. There was the anonymous letter to be -written, ready for me to receive when the seals of the -treasure-room were broken. But I don't know that yet. -No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for -a walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another -street. Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far -as I can how these young ladies pass their lives and who -are their friends. An examination not very productive, -and not altogether futile. For I find some curious friends -in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe this, Monsieur! -Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, literary, -what you will—in their case curious friends mean -nothing! They are to be expected. But with a young girl -who is to all appearance leading the normal life of her -class, the case is different. In her case curious friends -are—curious. The Espinosas, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne -Leclerc—flashy cheap people of that type—how shall we -account for them as friends of that delicate piece of china, -Betty Harlowe?" -

- -

-Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a -trifle disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa -and Betty Harlowe. -

- -

-"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent -so pleasantly in the cool of the garden with the young -ladies, I spent with the Edinburgh Professor. And I -prepared a little trap. Yes, and the next morning I came -early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little trap. I -replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its -obvious place." -

- -

-Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black -cigarette from his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to -Jim. -

- -

-"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; -and he tells me that queer story about Betty Harlowe in -the street of Gambetta close to the shop of Jean Cladel. -He may be lying. He may be speaking the truth and -what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits -in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which -is now taking hold of me. For if that poison was used, -then some one who understood the composition of drugs -must have made the solution from the paste upon the -arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe! -And the moment that animal has left me, I spring -my trap; and I have a success beyond all my expectations. -I point to the treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was -not in its place yesterday. It is to-day. Who then -replaced it? I ask that question and Mademoiselle Ann is -utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that book. -That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On -the other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has -replaced that book; and in a most unwise moment of -sarcasm, she allows me to see that she knows. She knows -that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it since and -replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she -knows where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I -know it in my heart that she put it under those magazines -in Ann Upcott's room, although I do not yet know -it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to divert -suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should -suspicion arise. But innocent people do not do that, -Monsieur. -

- -

-"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann -tells us her story. Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you -immediately afterwards that all great criminals who are -women are great actresses. But never in my life have I -seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while -that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel -murder has been secretly committed and suddenly the -murderess has to listen to a true account of that murder -in the presence of the detective who is there to fix the -guilt! There was some one at hand all the time—almost -an eye-witness—perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she -cannot know that she is safe until the last word of the -story is told. Picture to yourself Betty Harlowe's -feelings during that hour in the pleasant garden, if you can! -The questions which must have been racing through her -mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and -peer through the lighted doorway? Does she know the -truth—and has she kept it hidden until this moment when -Hanaud and Frobisher are present and she can speak it -safely? Will her next words be 'And here at my side sits -the murderess'? Those must have been terrible moments -for Betty Harlowe!" -

- -

-"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher -added. -

- -

-"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She -ran suddenly and very swiftly into the house." -

- -

-"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her." -

- -

-"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go -and she returned——" -

- -

-"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher -interrupted. -

- -

-"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud -exclaimed. "She turned her chair towards Mademoiselle -Ann. She sat with her handkerchief in her hand and her -face against her handkerchief, listening—the tender, -sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann told us -that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness -overtook her—could not but overtake her. And in that -moment of weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, -she picked it up again at once. Yes, but where the -handkerchief had fallen her foot now rested, and when the -story was all ended, and we got up from our chairs, she -spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that -there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was -anxious to discover what it was that she had brought out -from the house in her handkerchief, and had dropped with -her handkerchief and had driven with all the weight of -her body into the turf so that no one might see it. In -fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come -back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She -fetched my gloves herself, much to my shame that I, -Hanaud, should be waited on by so exquisite a young lady. -However, I found it afterwards when you and Girardot -and the others were all waiting for me in the library. It -was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed -to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much -Ann Upcott was going to reveal. The arrow-poison had -been hidden away in the Hôtel de Brebizart. But she had -something else at hand—more rapid—death like a thunderbolt. -So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, Monsieur, -it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close -to her mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. -What I do wonder is that she did not topple straight off -her chair in a dead faint before us all. But no! She sat -ready to swallow that tablet at once if there were need, -before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to you, -people who are innocent do not do that." -

- -

-Jim had no argument wherewith to answer. -

- -

-"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got -the tablets no doubt from Jean Cladel." -

- -

-"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated -for luncheon and in the afternoon the seals are to -be removed. Before that takes place, certain things must -be done. The clock must be moved from the mantelshelf -in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some -letters too must be burnt." -

- -

-"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly. -

- -

-Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. -

- -

-"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For -my part I think those old letters between Simon Harlowe -and Madame Raviart alluded too often to the secret passage. -But here I am guessing. What I learnt for certain -during that luncheon hour is that there is a secret passage -and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel de -Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no -mistake. He follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I -from this tower see the smoke rising from the chimney. -Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no smoke rises from it -to-day." -

- -

-He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont -Blanc. The trees in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned -roof, and the chimneys of the Maison Crenelle stood out -above the lesser buildings which surrounded them. Only -from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise to-day, and -that one at the extreme end of the building where the -kitchens were. -

- -

-"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are -removed. We are in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and -something I cannot explain occurs." -

- -

-"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher -exclaimed confidently; and Hanaud grinned joyfully. -

- -

-"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" -he cried. "The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared -for that. The guilt is being transferred to Mademoiselle -Ann. Good! But it is not enough to hide the book -about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide her -also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle -inherits nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a -hundred thousand pounds vanishes, and you must draw from -its vanishing what conclusion you will. No, the little -matter I cannot explain is different. Betty Harlowe and -our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom -to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not -be heard there." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"Our good Girardot comes back." -

- -

-"Yes." -

- -

-"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot -explain. Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before -I go into the treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and -quietly she has slipped in amongst us again. I am very -curious about that, my friend, and I keep my eyes open -for an explanation, I assure you." -

- -

-"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with -your hand upon the door and asked for Mademoiselle -Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. I attached no -importance to her absence." -

- -

-Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was -in the artist's mood. The work was over, the long strain -and pain of it. Now let those outside admire! -

- -

-"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, -Monsieur Frobisher. But I answer a question in your -memorandum. The instant I am in the room, I look for -the mouth of that secret passage from the Hôtel de -Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. The -elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the -wall. So I am very careful not to pry amongst its -cushions for the poison arrow; just as I am very careful -not to ask for the envelope with the post mark in which -the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe thinks -that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud—good! -Let her think so. So we go upstairs and I find the -explanation of that little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence -which has been so troubling me." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher stared at him. -

- -

-"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into -Ann Upcott's sitting-room. I write my memorandum -with the shaft of the poison arrow and you notice it -Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's absence! No, I -haven't got that." -

- -

-"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was -not there in the pen-tray on the day before, when I found -the book. There was just one pen—the foolish thing -young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed red—and -nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there -since. When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where -was that shaft of the poison-arrow before? In one of -two places. Either in the treasure-room or in the Hôtel -de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has fetched it away during -that hour of freedom; she carries it in her dress; she seizes -her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's -bedroom and—pau, pau!—there it is in the pen-tray of -Mademoiselle Ann, to make suspicion still more -convincing! Monsieur, I walk away with Monsieur Bex, who -has some admirable scheme that I should search the -gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree—oh yes, -that is the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On -the other hand I get some useful information about the -Maison Crenelle and the Hôtel de Brebizart. I carry -that information to a very erudite gentleman in the Palace -of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I -know all about the severe Etienne de Crenelle and the -joyous Madame de Brebizart. So when you and Betty -Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val Terzon, Nicolas -Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de -Brebizart—with the results which now are clear to you, and one of -which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in -the drawer of the writing-table." -

- -

-Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the -story was clear to him now—a story of dark passions and -vanity, and greed of power with cruelties for its methods. -Was there no spark of hope and cheer in all this desolation? -He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He wished to -know the last hidden detail. -

- -

-"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. -What was it?" -

- -

-"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the -façade of the Church of Notre Dame." -

- -

-"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking -towards the Maison Crenelle, and his arm swept to -the left of the house. His fingers pointed at the -Renaissance church with its cupolas and its loggia, to which -Betty Harlowe had driven him. -

- -

-"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief -of the Last Judgment." -

- -

-"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church -of St. Michel, Monsieur." -

- -

-He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont -Blanc, close at his feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic -church, delicate in its structure like a jewel. -

- -

-"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down -and look at the façade." -

- -

-Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and -pointed to the frieze. There Frobisher saw such images -of devils half beast, half human, such grinning hog-men, -such tortured creatures with heads twisted round so that -they looked backwards, such old and drunken and vicious -horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and -amongst them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, -her hands tightly clasped, an image of terror and faith, -a prisoner amongst all these monsters imploring the -passers-by for their pity and their help. -

- -

-"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to -see," said Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it." -

- -

-His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. -He lifted his hat. -

- -

-Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that -frieze, heard Ann Upcott's voice behind him. -

- -

-"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur -Hanaud?" She stopped beside the two men. -

- -

-"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher -to explain to you." -

- -

-Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly -towards Hanaud. But already he was gone. -

- -



- -

-THE END -

- -





- -
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- - - + + + + + + + + + + + +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Arrow, +by A. E. W. Mason + + + + + + + +
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67514 ***
+ +

+

+ The
+ House of the Arrow
+

+ +

+ By
+

+ +

+ A. E. W. MASON
+

+ +



+ +

+ New York
+ George H. Doran Company
+

+ +




+ +

+ COPYRIGHT, 1924,
+ BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+

+ +


+ +

+ THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW
+

+ +


+ +

+ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+

+ +




+ +

+ Books by A. E. W. MASON
+

+ +

+ THE WINDING STAIR
+ THE FOUR FEATHERS
+ THE SUMMONS
+ THE BROKEN ROAD
+ MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY
+ CLEMENTINA
+ THE TURNSTILE
+ THE TRUANTS
+ AT THE VILLA ROSE
+ RUNNING WATER
+ THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER
+ THE PHILANDERERS
+ LAWRENCE CLAVERING
+ THE WATCHERS
+ A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE
+ ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES
+ FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD
+

+ +




+ +

+ CONTENTS
+

+ +

+ CHAPTER
+

+ +

+ ONE: Letters of Mark
+ TWO: A Cry for Help
+ THREE: Servants of Chance
+ FOUR: Betty Harlowe
+ FIVE: Betty Harlowe Answers
+ SIX: Jim Changes His Lodging
+ SEVEN: Exit Waberski
+ EIGHT: The Book
+ NINE: The Secret
+ TEN: The Clock upon the Cabinet
+ ELEVEN: A New Suspect
+ TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals
+ THIRTEEN: Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room
+ FOURTEEN: An Experiment and a Discovery
+ FIFTEEN: The Finding of the Arrow
+ SIXTEEN: Hanaud Laughs
+ SEVENTEEN: At Jean Cladel's
+ EIGHTEEN: The White Tablet
+ NINETEEN: A Plan Frustrated
+ TWENTY: A Map and the Necklace
+ TWENTY-ONE: The Secret House
+ TWENTY-TWO: The Corona Machine
+ TWENTY-THREE: The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet
+ TWENTY-FOUR: Ann Upcott's Story
+ TWENTY-FIVE: What Happened on the Night of the 27th
+ TWENTY-SIX: The Façade of Notre Dame
+

+ +




+ +

+ +

+THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW +

+ +



+ +

+CHAPTER ONE: Letters of Mark +

+ +

+Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt, the solicitors +on the east side of Russell Square, counted amongst +their clients a great many who had undertakings +established in France; and the firm was very proud of this +branch of its business. +

+ +

+"It gives us a place in history," Mr. Jeremy Haslitt +used to say. "For it dates from the year 1806, when +Mr. James Frobisher, then our very energetic senior +partner, organised the escape of hundreds of British +subjects who were detained in France by the edict of the first +Napoleon. The firm received the thanks of His Majesty's +Government and has been fortunate enough to retain the +connection thus made. I look after that side of our +affairs myself." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt's daily batch of letters, therefore, contained +as a rule a fair number bearing the dark-blue stamp of +France upon their envelopes. On this morning of early +April, however, there was only one. It was addressed in +a spidery, uncontrolled hand with which Mr. Haslitt was +unfamiliar. But it bore the postmark of Dijon, and +Mr. Haslitt tore it open rather quickly. He had a client in +Dijon, a widow, Mrs. Harlowe, of whose health he had +had bad reports. The letter was certainly written from +her house, La Maison Crenelle, but not by her. He +turned to the signature. +

+ +

+"Waberski?" he said, with a frown. "Boris Waberski?" And +then, as he identified his correspondent, "Oh, +yes, yes." +

+ +

+He sat down in his chair and read. The first part of +the letter was merely flowers and compliments, but +half-way down the second page its object was made clear as +glass. It was five hundred pounds. Old Mr. Haslitt +smiled and read on, keeping up, whilst he read, a +one-sided conversation with the writer. +

+ +

+"I have a great necessity of that money," wrote Boris, +"and——" +

+ +

+"I am quite sure of that," said Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+"My beloved sister, Jeanne-Marie——" the letter +continued. +

+ +

+"Sister-in-law," Mr. Haslitt corrected. +

+ +

+"—cannot live for long, in spite of all the care and +attention I give to her," Boris Waberski went on. "She +has left me, as no doubt you know, a large share of her +fortune. Already, then, it is mine—yes? One may say +so and be favourably understood. We must look at the +facts with the eyes. Expedite me, then, by the +recommended post a little of what is mine and agree my +distinguished salutations." +

+ +

+Haslitt's smile became a broad grin. He had in one +of his tin boxes a copy of the will of Jeanne-Marie +Harlowe drawn up in due form by her French notary at +Dijon, by which every farthing she possessed was +bequeathed without condition to her husband's niece and +adopted daughter, Betty Harlowe. Jeremy Haslitt almost +destroyed that letter. He folded it; his fingers twitched +at it; there was already actually a tear at the edges of the +sheets when he changed his mind. +

+ +

+"No," he said to himself. "No! With the Boris +Waberskis one never knows," and he locked the letter +away on a ledge of his private safe. +

+ +

+He was very glad that he had when three weeks later +he read, in the obituary column of The Times, the +announcement of Mrs. Harlowe's death, and received a big +card with a very deep black border in the French style +from Betty Harlowe inviting him to the funeral at Dijon. +The invitation was merely formal. He could hardly have +reached Dijon in time for the ceremony had he started +off that instant. He contented himself with writing a few +lines of sincere condolence to the girl, and a letter to the +French notary in which he placed the services of the firm +at Betty's disposal. Then he waited. +

+ +

+"I shall hear again from little Boris," he said, and he +heard within the week. The handwriting was more +spidery and uncontrolled than ever; hysteria and indignation +had played havoc with Waberski's English; also he +had doubled his demand. +

+ +

+"It is outside belief," he wrote. "Nothing has she left +to her so attentive brother. There is something here I +do not much like. It must be one thousand pounds now, +by the recommended post. 'You have always had the +world against you, my poor Boris,' she say with the tears +all big in her dear eyes. 'But I make all right for you in +my will.' And now nothing! I speak, of course, to my +niece—ah, that hard one! She snap her the fingers at +me! Is that a behaviour? One thousand pounds, mister! +Otherwise there will be awkwardnesses! Yes! People +do not snap them the fingers at Boris Waberski without +the payment. So one thousand pounds by the recommended +post or awkwardnesses"; and this time Boris +Waberski did not invite Mr. Haslitt to agree any salutations, +distinguished or otherwise, but simply signed his +name with a straggling pen which shot all over the sheet. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt did not smile over this letter. He rubbed +the palms of his hands softly together. +

+ +

+"Then we shall have to make some awkwardnesses +too," he said hastily, and he locked this second letter +away with the first. But Mr. Haslitt found it a little +difficult to settle to his work. There was that girl out +there in the big house at Dijon and no one of her race +near her! He got up from his chair abruptly and crossed +the corridor to the offices of his junior partner. +

+ +

+"Jim, you were at Monte Carlo this winter," he said. +

+ +

+"For a week," answered Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"I think I asked you to call on a client of ours who +has a villa there—Mrs. Harlowe." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher nodded. "I did. But Mrs. Harlowe +was ill. There was a niece, but she was out." +

+ +

+"You saw no one, then?" Jeremy Haslitt asked. +

+ +

+"No, that's wrong," Jim corrected. "I saw a strange +creature who came to the door to make Mrs. Harlowe's +excuses—a Russian." +

+ +

+"Boris Waberski," said Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+"That's the name." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt sat down in a chair. +

+ +

+"Tell me about him, Jim." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stared at nothing for a few moments. +He was a young man of twenty-six who had only during +this last year succeeded to his partnership. Though quick +enough when action was imperative, he was naturally +deliberate in his estimates of other people's characters; and +a certain awe he had of old Jeremy Haslitt doubled that +natural deliberation in any matters of the firm's business. +He answered at length. +

+ +

+"He is a tall, shambling fellow with a shock of grey +hair standing up like wires above a narrow forehead and +a pair of wild eyes. He made me think of a marionette +whose limbs have not been properly strung. I should +imagine that he was rather extravagant and emotional. +He kept twitching at his moustache with very long, +tobacco-stained fingers. The sort of man who might go +off at the deep end at any moment." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt smiled. +

+ +

+"That's just what I thought." +

+ +

+"Is he giving you any trouble?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt. "But Mrs. Harlowe is +dead, and I think it very likely that he will. Did he play +at the tables?" +

+ +

+"Yes, rather high," said Jim. "I suppose that he lived +on Mrs. Harlowe." +

+ +

+"I suppose so," said Mr. Haslitt, and he sat for a little +while in silence. Then: "It's a pity you didn't see Betty +Harlowe. I stopped at Dijon once on my way to the +South of France five years ago when Simon Harlowe, the +husband, was alive. Betty was then a long-legged slip of +a girl in black silk stockings with a pale, clear face and +dark hair and big eyes—rather beautiful." Mr. Haslitt +moved in his chair uncomfortably. That old house with +its great garden of chestnuts and sycamores and that girl +alone in it with an aggrieved and half-crazed man thinking +out awkwardnesses for her—Mr. Haslitt did not like +the picture! +

+ +

+"Jim," he said suddenly, "could you arrange your work +so that you could get away at short notice, if it becomes +advisable?" +

+ +

+Jim looked up in surprise. Excursions and alarms, as +the old stage directions have it, were not recognised as a +rule by the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt. If its furniture +was dingy, its methods were stately; clients might be +urgent, but haste and hurry were words for which the +firm had no use No doubt, somewhere round the corner, +there would be an attorney who understood them. Yet +here was Mr. Haslitt himself, with his white hair and his +curious round face, half-babyish, half-supremely intelligent, +actually advocating that his junior partner should +be prepared to skip to the Continent at a word. +

+ +

+"No doubt I could," said Jim, and Mr. Haslitt looked +him over with approbation. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had an unusual quality of which his +acquaintances, even his friends, knew only the outward +signs. He was a solitary person. Very few people up +till now had mattered to him at all, and even those he +could do without. It was his passion to feel that his life +and the means of his life did not depend upon the +purchased skill of other people; and he had spent the spare +months of his life in the fulfilment of his passion. A +half-decked sailing-boat which one man could handle, an +ice-axe, a rifle, an inexhaustible volume or two like The +Ring and the Book—these with the stars and his own +thoughts had been his companions on many lonely expeditions; +and in consequence he had acquired a queer little +look of aloofness which made him at once noticeable +amongst his fellows. A misleading look, since it +encouraged a confidence for which there might not be +sufficient justification. It was just this look which persuaded +Mr. Haslitt now. "This is the very man to deal with +creatures like Boris Waberski," he thought, but he did +not say so aloud. +

+ +

+What he did say was: +

+ +

+"It may not be necessary after all. Betty Harlowe has +a French lawyer. No doubt he is adequate. Besides"—and +he smiled as he recollected a phrase in Waberski's +second letter—"Betty seems very capable of looking after +herself. We shall see." +

+ +

+He went back to his own office, and for a week he heard +no more from Dijon. His anxiety, indeed, was almost +forgotten when suddenly startling news arrived and by the +most unexpected channel. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher brought it. He broke into Mr. Haslitt's +office at the sacred moment when the senior partner was +dictating to a clerk the answers to his morning letters. +

+ +

+"Sir!" cried Jim, and stopped short at the sight of the +clerk. Mr. Haslitt took a quick look at his young +partner's face and said: +

+ +

+"We will resume these answers, Godfrey, later on." +

+ +

+The clerk took his shorthand notebook out of the room, +and Mr. Haslitt turned to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"Now, what's your bad news, Jim?" +

+ +

+Jim blurted it out. +

+ +

+"Waberski accuses Betty Harlowe of murder." +

+ +

+"What!" +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt sprang to his feet. Jim Frobisher could +not have said whether incredulity or anger had the upper +hand with the old man, the one so creased his forehead, +the other so blazed in his eyes. +

+ +

+"Little Betty Harlowe!" he said in a wondering voice. +

+ +

+"Yes. Waberski has laid a formal charge with the +Prefect of Police at Dijon. He accuses Betty of +poisoning Mrs. Harlowe on the night of April the +twenty-seventh." +

+ +

+"But Betty's not arrested?" Mr. Haslitt exclaimed. +

+ +

+"No, but she's under surveillance." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt sat heavily down in his arm-chair at his +table. Extravagant! Uncontrolled! These were very +mild epithets for Boris Waberski. Here was a devilish +malignity at work in the rogue, a passion for revenge +just as mean as could be imagined. +

+ +

+"How do you know all this, Jim?" he asked suddenly. +

+ +

+"I have had a letter this morning from Dijon." +

+ +

+"You?" exclaimed Mr. Haslitt, and the question caught +hold of Jim Frobisher and plunged him too among +perplexities. In the first shock of the news, the monstrous +fact of the accusation had driven everything else out of +his head. Now he asked himself why, after all, had the +news come to him and not to the partner who had the +Harlowe estate in his charge. +

+ +

+"Yes, it is strange," he replied. "And here's another +queer thing. The letter doesn't come from Betty +Harlowe, but from a friend, a companion of hers, Ann +Upcott." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt was a little relieved. +

+ +

+"Betty had a friend with her, then? That's a good +thing." He reached out his hand across the table. "Let +me read the letter, Jim." +

+ +

+Frobisher had been carrying it in his hand, and he +gave it now to Jeremy Haslitt. It was a letter of many +sheets, and Jeremy let the edges slip and flicker under the +ball of his thumb. +

+ +

+"Have I got to read all this?" he said ruefully, and +he set himself to his task. Boris Waberski had first of all +accused Betty to her face. Betty had contemptuously +refused to answer the charge, and Waberski had gone +straight off to the Prefect of Police. He had returned +in an hour's time, wildly gesticulating and talking aloud +to himself. He had actually asked Ann Upcott to back +him up. Then he had packed his bags and retired to an +hotel in the town. The story was set out in detail, with +quotations from Waberski's violent, crazy talk; and as +the old man read, Jim Frobisher became more and more +uneasy, more and more troubled. +

+ +

+He was sitting by the tall, broad window which looked +out upon the square, expecting some explosion of wrath +and contempt. But he saw anxiety peep out of Mr. Haslitt's +face and stay there as he read. More than once +he stopped altogether in his reading, like a man seeking +to remember or perhaps to discover. +

+ +

+"But the whole thing's as clear as daylight," Jim said +to himself impatiently. And yet—and yet—Mr. Haslitt +had sat in that arm-chair during the better part of the +day, during the better part of thirty years. How many +men and women during those years had crossed the +roadway below this window and crept into this quiet oblong +room with their grievances, their calamities, their +confessions? And had passed out again, each one contributing +his little to complete the old man's knowledge and sharpen +the edge of his wit? Then, if Mr. Haslitt was troubled, +there was something in that letter, or some mission from +it, which he himself in his novitiate had overlooked. He +began to read it over again in his mind to the best of his +recollection, but he had not got far before Mr. Haslitt +put the letter down. +

+ +

+"Surely, sir," cried Jim, "it's an obvious case of blackmail." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt awoke with a little shake of his shoulders. +

+ +

+"Blackmail? Oh! that of course, Jim." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt got up and unlocked his safe. He took +from it the two Waberski letters and brought them across +the room to Jim. +

+ +

+"Here's the evidence, as damning as any one could +wish." +

+ +

+Jim read the letters through and uttered a little cry of +delight. +

+ +

+"The rogue has delivered himself over to us." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+But to him, at all events, that was not enough; he was +still looking through the lines of the letter for something +beyond, which he could not find. +

+ +

+"Then what's troubling you?" asked Frobisher. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt took his stand upon the worn hearthrug +with his back towards the fire. +

+ +

+"This, Jim," and he began to expound. "In ninety-five +of these cases out of a hundred, there is something else, +something behind the actual charge, which isn't +mentioned, but on which the blackmailer is really banking. +As a rule it's some shameful little secret, some blot on +the family honour, which any sort of public trial would +bring to light. And there must be something of that kind +here. The more preposterous Waberski's accusation is, +the more certain it is that he knows something to the +discredit of the Harlowe name, which any Harlowe would +wish to keep dark. Only, I haven't an idea what the +wretched thing can be!" +

+ +

+"It might be some trifle," Jim suggested, "which a +crazy person like Waberski would exaggerate." +

+ +

+"Yes," Mr. Haslitt agreed. "That happens. A man +brooding over imagined wrongs, and flighty and +extravagant besides—yes, that might well be, Jim." +

+ +

+Jeremy Haslitt spoke in a more cheerful voice. +

+ +

+"Let us see exactly what we do know of the family," +he said, and he pulled up a chair to face Jim Frobisher +and the window. But he had not yet sat down in it, when +there came a discreet knock upon the door, and a clerk +entered to announce a visitor. +

+ +

+"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt before the name of the +visitor had been mentioned. +

+ +

+"Very good, sir," said the clerk, and he retired. The +firm of Frobisher & Haslitt conducted its business in that +way. It was the real thing as a firm of solicitors, and +clients who didn't like its methods were very welcome to +take their affairs to the attorney round the corner. Just +as people who go to the real thing in the line of tailors +must put up with the particular style in which he cuts +their clothes. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt turned back to Jim. +

+ +

+"Let us see what we know," he said, and he sat down +in the chair. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWO: A Cry for Help +

+ +

+"Simon Harlow," he began, "was the owner of +the famous Clos du Prince vineyards on the Côte-d'Or +to the east of Dijon. He had an estate in Norfolk, +this big house, the Maison Crenelle in Dijon, and a villa +at Monte Carlo. But he spent most of his time in Dijon, +where at the age of forty-five he married a French lady, +Jeanne-Marie Raviart. There was, I believe, quite a +little romance about the affair. Jeanne-Marie was +married and separated from her husband, and Simon +Harlowe waited, I think, for ten years until the husband +Raviart died." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher moved quickly and Mr. Haslitt, who +seemed to be reading off this history in the pattern of +the carpet, looked up. +

+ +

+"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, replying to Jim's +movement. "Yes, there might have been some sort of +affair between those two before they were free to marry. +But nowadays, my dear Jim! Opinion takes a more +human view than it did in my youth. Besides, don't you +see, this little secret, to be of any value to Boris +Waberski, must be near enough to Betty Harlowe—I don't say +to affect her if published, but to make Waberski think +that she would hate to have it published. Now Betty +Harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all until two +years after Simon and Jeanne-Marie were married, when +it became clear that they were not likely to have any +children. No, the love-affairs of Simon Harlowe are +sufficiently remote for us to leave them aside." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with +a flush of shame. +

+ +

+"I was a fool to think of it," he said. +

+ +

+"Not a bit," replied Mr. Haslitt cheerfully. "Let us +look at every possibility. That's the only way which will +help us to get a glimpse of the truth. I resume, then. +Simon Harlowe was a collector. Yes, he had a passion +for collecting and a very catholic one. His one sitting-room +at the Maison Crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, +not only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things +too. He liked to live amongst them and do his work +amongst them. His married life did not last long. For +he died five years ago at the age of fifty-one." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections +amongst the convolutions of the carpet. +

+ +

+"That's really about all I know of him. He was a +pleasant fellow enough, but not very sociable. No, there's +nothing to light a candle for us there, I am afraid." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow. +

+ +

+"Jeanne-Marie Harlowe," he said. "It's extraordinary +how little I know about her, now I come to count it up. +Natural too, though. For she sold the Norfolk estate +and has since passed her whole time between Monte Carlo +and Dijon and—oh, yes—a little summer-house on the +Côte-d'Or amongst her vineyards." +

+ +

+"She was left rich, I suppose?" Frobisher asked. +

+ +

+"Very well off, at all events," Mr. Haslitt replied. +"The Clos du Prince Burgundy has a fine reputation, but +there's not a great deal of it." +

+ +

+"Did she come to England ever?" +

+ +

+"Never," said Mr. Haslitt. "She was content, it +seems, with Dijon, though to my mind the smaller +provincial towns of France are dull enough to make one +scream. However, she was used to it, and then her heart +began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has +been an invalid. There's nothing to help us there." And +Mr. Haslitt looked across to Jim for confirmation. +

+ +

+"Nothing," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Then we are only left the child Betty Harlowe and—oh, +yes, your correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, +Ann Upcott. Who is she, Jim? Where did she +spring from? How does she find herself in the Maison +Crenelle? Come, confess, young man," and Mr. Haslitt +archly looked at his junior partner. "Why should Boris +Waberski expect her support?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher threw his arms wide. +

+ +

+"I haven't an idea," he said. "I have never seen her. +I have never heard of her. I never knew of her existence +until that letter came this morning with her name signed +at the end of it." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt started up. He crossed the room to his +table and, fixing his folding glasses on the bridge of his +nose, he bent over the letter. +

+ +

+"But she writes to you, Jim," he objected. "'Dear +Mr. Frobisher,' she writes. She doesn't address the firm +at all"; and he waited, looking at Jim, expecting him to +withdraw this denial. +

+ +

+Jim, however, only shook his head. +

+ +

+"It's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "I can't +make head or tail of it"; and Mr. Haslitt could not doubt +now that he spoke the truth, so utterly and frankly baffled +the young man was. "Why should Ann Upcott write to +me? I have been asking myself that question for the last +half-hour. And why didn't Betty Harlowe write to you, +who have had her affairs in your care?" +

+ +

+"Ah!" +

+ +

+That last question helped Mr. Haslitt to an explanation. +His face took a livelier expression. +

+ +

+"The answer to that is in Waberski's, the second letter. +Betty—she snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. She +doesn't take the charge seriously. She will have left it +to the French notary to dispose of it. Yes—I think that +makes Ann Upcott's letter to you intelligible, too. The +ceremonies of the Law in a foreign country would +frighten a stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than +they would Betty Harlowe, who has lived for four years +in the midst of them. So she writes to the first name in +the title of the firm, and writes to him as a man. That's +it, Jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together in +his satisfaction. +

+ +

+"A girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing +to an abstraction. She wants to know that she's in +touch with a real person. So she writes, 'Dear +Mr. Frobisher.' That's it! You can take my word for it." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt walked back to his chair. But he did not +sit down in it; he stood with his hands in his pockets, +looking out of the window over Frobisher's head. +

+ +

+"But that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out +what is Boris Waberski's strong suit, does it? We +haven't a clue to it," he said ruefully. +

+ +

+To both of the men, indeed, Mr. Haslitt's flat, +unillumined narrative of facts, without a glimpse into the +characters of any of the participants in the little drama, +seemed the most unhelpful thing. Yet the whole truth +was written there—the truth not only of Waberski's +move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into +which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. +Jim Frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the +soul, he resumed his work in the office. For it was +interrupted now. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's +head, saw a telegraph-boy come swinging across the +square and hesitate in the roadway below. +

+ +

+"I expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the +hopeful anticipation people in trouble have that +something from outside will happen and set them right. +

+ +

+Jim turned round quickly. The boy was still upon the +pavement examining the numbers of the houses. +

+ +

+"We ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said +Jim with a touch of impatience; and Mr. Haslitt's +eyebrows rose half the height of his forehead towards his +thick white hair. He was really distressed by the Waberski +incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in +the firm, shocked him like a sacrilege. +

+ +

+"My dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. +"I hope I am not one of those obstinate old fogies +who refuse to march with the times. We have had, as +you know, a telephone instrument recently installed in the +junior clerks' office. I believe that I myself proposed it. +But a brass plate upon the door! My dear Jim! Let us +leave that to Harley Street and Southampton Row! But +I see that telegram is for us." +

+ +

+The tiny Mercury with the shako and red cord to his +uniform made up his mind and disappeared into the hall +below. The telegram was brought upstairs and Mr. Haslitt +tore it open. He stared at it blankly for a few +seconds, then without a word, but with a very anxious +look in his eyes, he handed it to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher read: +

+ +

+Please, please, send some one to help me at once. +The Prefect of Police has called in Hanaud, a great +detective of the Sûrété in Paris. They must think +me guilty.—Betty Harlowe. +

+ +


+ +

+The telegram fluttered from Jim's fingers to the floor. +It was like a cry for help at night coming from a great +distance. +

+ +

+"I must go, sir, by the night boat," he said. +

+ +

+"To be sure!" said Mr. Haslitt a little absently. +

+ +

+Jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. His +chivalry was fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the +picture his imagination drew. The little girl, Betty +Harlowe! What age was she? Twenty-one! Not a day +more. She had been wandering with all the proud +indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found +her feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked +about her; and terror came and with it a wild cry for +help. +

+ +

+"Girls never notice danger signals," he said. "No, they +walk blindly into the very heart of catastrophe." Who +could tell what links of false and cunning evidence Boris +Waberski had been hammering away at in the dark, to +slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and ankle? +And with that question he was seized with a great +discouragement. +

+ +

+"We know very little of Criminal Procedure, even in +our own country, in this office," he said regretfully. +

+ +

+"Happily," said Mr. Haslitt with some tartness. With +him it was the Firm first and last. Messrs. Frobisher & +Haslitt never went in to the Criminal Courts. Litigation, +indeed, even of the purest kind was frowned upon. It is +true there was a small special staff, under the leadership +of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper +floor, like an unpresentable relation in a great house, +which did a little of that kind of work. But it only did +it for hereditary clients, and then as a favour. +

+ +

+"However," said Mr. Haslitt as he noticed Jim's +discomfort, "I haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be +equal to whatever is wanted. But remember, there's +something at the back of this which we here don't +know." +

+ +

+Jim shifted his position rather abruptly. This cry of +the old man was becoming parrot-like—a phrase, a +formula. Jim was thinking of the girl in Dijon and hearing +her piteous cry for help. She was not "snapping her +the fingers" now. +

+ +

+"It's a matter of common sense," Mr. Haslitt insisted. +"Take a comparison. Bath, for instance, would never +call in Scotland Yard over a case of this kind. There +would have to be the certainty of a crime first, and then +grave doubt as to who was the criminal. This is a case +for an autopsy and the doctors. If they call in this man +Hanaud"—and he stopped. +

+ +

+He picked the telegram up from the floor and read it +through again. +

+ +

+"Yes—Hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and +growing bright and clouding again like a man catching at +and just missing a very elusive recollection. He gave up +the pursuit in the end. "Well, Jim, you had better take +the two letters of Waberski, and Ann Upcott's three-volume +novel, and Betty's telegram"—he gathered the +papers together and enclosed them in a long envelope—"and +I shall expect you back again with a smiling face in +a very few days. I should like to see our little Boris when +he is asked to explain those letters." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt gave the envelope to Jim and rang his bell. +

+ +

+"There is some one waiting to see me, I think," he +said to the clerk who answered it. +

+ +

+The clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking +his heels during the last half-hour in an undusted +waiting-room with a few mouldy old Law books in a +battered glass case to keep him company. +

+ +

+"You can show him in now," said Mr. Haslitt as Jim +retired to his own office; and when the great landowner +entered, he merely welcomed him with a reproach. +

+ +

+"You didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said. +

+ +

+But all through that interview, though his advice was +just the precise, clear advice for which the firm was +quietly famous, Mr. Haslitt's mind was still playing +hide-and-seek with a memory, catching glimpses of the fringes +of its skirt as it gleamed and vanished. +

+ +

+"Memory is a woman," he said to himself. "If I don't +run after her she will come of her own accord." +

+ +

+But he was in the common case of men with women: +he could not but run after her. Towards the end of the +interview, however, his shoulders and head moved with a +little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip of paper. +As soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent +it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an +answer. The messenger returned within the hour and +Mr. Haslitt hurried to Jim Frobisher's office. +

+ +

+Jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various +clerks and was locking up the drawers of his desk. +

+ +

+"Jim, I have remembered where I have heard the name +of this man Hanaud before. You have met Julius +Ricardo? He's one of our clients." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Frobisher. "I remember him—a rather +finnicking person in Grosvenor Square." +

+ +

+"That's the man. He's a friend of Hanaud and +absurdly proud of the friendship. He and Hanaud were +somehow mixed up in a rather scandalous crime some +time ago—at Aix-les-Bains, I think. Well, Ricardo will +give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you +something about him, if you will go round to Grosvenor +Square at five this afternoon." +

+ +

+"Capital!" said Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+He kept the appointment, and was told how he must +expect to be awed at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly +at the next, ridiculed at a third, and treated with +great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. Jim +discounted Mr. Ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter +and crossed the Channel that night. On the journey it +occurred to him that if Hanaud was a man of such high +mark, he would not be free, even at an urgent call, to +pack his bags and leave for the provinces in an instant. +Jim broke his journey, therefore, at Paris, and in the +course of the morning found his way to the Direction of +the Sûrété on the Quai d'Horloge just behind the Palais +de Justice. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter +took his card and his letter of introduction. The great +man was still in Paris, then, he thought with relief. He +was taken to a long dark corridor, lit with electric globes +even on that bright morning of early summer. There +he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for +half an hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. +Then a bell rang and a policeman in plain clothes went +up to him. One side of the corridor was lined with a +row of doors. +

+ +

+"It is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led +Frobisher to one of the doors and opened it, and +stood aside. Frobisher straightened his shoulders and +marched in. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER THREE: Servants of Chance +

+ +

+Frobisher found himself at one end of an oblong +room. Opposite to him a couple of windows looked +across the shining river to the big Théâtre du Chatelet +On his left hand was a great table with a few neatly +arranged piles of papers, at which a big, rather +heavily-built man was sitting. Frobisher looked at that man as +a novice in a duelling field might look at the master +swordsman whom he was committed to fight; with a little +shock of surprise that after all he appeared to be just +like other men. Hanaud, on his side, could not have +been said to have looked at Frobisher at all; yet when he +spoke it was obvious that somehow he had looked and to +very good purpose. He rose with a little bow and apologised. +

+ +

+"I have kept you waiting, Mr. Frobisher. My dear +friend Mr. Ricardo did not mention your object in his +letter. I had the idea that you came with the usual +wish to see something of the underworld. Now that +I see you, I recognise your wish is more serious." +

+ +

+Hanaud was a man of middle age with a head of +thick dark hair, and the round face and shaven chin of +a comedian. A pair of remarkably light eyes under +rather heavy lids alone gave a significance to him, at +all events when seen for the first time in a mood of +good-will. He pointed to a chair. +

+ +

+"Will you take a seat? I will tell you, Mr. Frobisher, +I have a very soft place in my heart for Mr. Ricardo, and +a friend of his—— These are words, however. What +can I do?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher laid down his hat and stick upon a side +table and took the chair in front of Hanaud's table. +

+ +

+"I am partner in a firm of lawyers which looks after +the English interests of a family in Dijon," he said, and +he saw all life and expression smoothed out of Hanaud's +face. A moment ago he had been in the company of a +genial and friendly companion; now he was looking at +a Chinaman. +

+ +

+"Yes?" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"The family has the name of Harlowe," Jim continued. +

+ +

+"Oho!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+The ejaculation had no surprise in it, and hardly any +interest. Jim, however, persisted. +

+ +

+"And the surviving member of it, a girl of twenty, +Betty Harlowe, has been charged with murder by a +Russian who is connected with the family by +marriage—Boris Waberski." +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud. "And why do you come to me, +Mr. Frobisher?" +

+ +

+Jim stared at the detective. The reason of his coming +was obvious. +

+ +

+And yet—he was no longer sure of his ground. +Hanaud had pulled open a drawer in his table and was +beginning to put away in it one of his files. +

+ +

+"Yes?" he said, as who should say, "I am listening." +

+ +

+"Well, perhaps I am under a mistake," said Jim. "But +my firm has been informed that you, Monsieur Hanaud, +are in charge of the case," he said, and Hanaud's movements +were at once arrested. He sat with the file poised +on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, +extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that +he was more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the +file into the drawer and closed the drawer softly. As +softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice which to Frobisher's +ears had a note in it which was actually alarming. +

+ +

+"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! +And in London! And—yes—this is only Wednesday! +News travels very quickly nowadays, to be sure! Well, +your firm has been correctly informed. I congratulate +you. The first point is scored by you." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was quick to seize upon that word. He +had thought out upon his journey in what spirit he might +most usefully approach the detective. Hanaud's bitter +little remark gave him the very opening which he needed. +

+ +

+"But, Monsieur Hanaud, I don't take that point of +view at all," he argued earnestly. "I am happy to believe +that there is going to be no antagonism between us. For, +if there were, I should assuredly get the worst of it. +No! I am certain that the one wish you have in this +matter is to get at the truth. Whilst my wish is that +you should just look upon me as a very second-rate +colleague who by good fortune can give you a little help." +

+ +

+A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it +to some of its geniality. +

+ +

+"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a +trowel," he observed. "Now, what kind of help, +Mr. Frobisher?" +

+ +

+"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters +from Boris Waberski demanding money, the second one +with threats. Both were received by my firm before he +brought this charge, and both of course remain +unanswered." +

+ +

+He took the letters from the long envelope and handed +them across the table to Hanaud, who read them through +slowly, mentally translating the phrases into French as +he read. Frobisher watched his face for some expression +of relief or satisfaction. But to his utter disappointment +no such change came; and it was with a deprecating and +almost regretful air that Hanaud turned to him in the +end. +

+ +

+"Yes—no doubt these two letters have a certain +importance. But we mustn't exaggerate it. The case is very +difficult." +

+ +

+"Difficult!" cried Jim in exasperation. He seemed to +be hammering and hammering in vain against some thick +wall of stupidity. Yet this man in front of him wasn't +stupid. +

+ +

+"I can't understand it!" he exclaimed. "Here's the +clearest instance of blackmail that I can imagine——" +

+ +

+"Blackmail's an ugly word, Mr. Frobisher," Hanaud +warned him. +

+ +

+"And blackmail's an ugly thing," said Jim. "Come, +Monsieur Hanaud, Boris Waberski lives in France. You +will know something about him. You will have a +dossier." +

+ +

+Hanaud pounced upon the word with a little whoop +of delight, his face broke into smiles, he shook a +forefinger gleefully at his visitor. +

+ +

+"Ah, ah, ah, ah! A dossier! Yes, I was waiting for +that word! The great legend of the dossiers! You have +that charming belief too, Mr. Frobisher. France and her +dossiers! Yes. If her coal-mines fail her, she can always +keep warm by burning her dossiers! The moment you +land for the first time at Calais—bourn! your dossier +begins, eh? You travel to Paris—so! You dine at the +Ritz Hotel—so! Afterwards you go where you ought +not to go—so-o-o! And you go back late to the hotel +very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that somewhere +in the still night six little officials with black beards +and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your +dossier. But—wait!" +

+ +

+He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his +lips, and his eyes opened wide. Never was a man so +mysterious, so important in his mystery. He stole on +tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so bulky a man, +to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an alert, +bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the +handle. Then he jerked the door swiftly inwards towards +him. It was the classic detection of the eavesdropper, +seen in a hundred comedies and farces; and carried out +with so excellent a mimicry that Jim, even in this office of +the Sûrété, almost expected to see a flustered chambermaid +sprawl heavily forward on her knees. He saw nothing, +however, but a grimy corridor lit with artificial light +in which men were patiently waiting. Hanaud closed the +door again, with an air of intense relief. +

+ +

+"The Prime Minister has not overheard us. We are +safe," he hissed, and he crept back to Frobisher's side. +He stooped and whispered in the ear of that bewildered +man: +

+ +

+"I can tell you about those dossiers. They are for +nine-tenths the gossip of the concièrge translated into the +language of a policeman who thinks that everybody had +better be in prison. Thus, the concièrge says: This +Mr. Frobisher—on Tuesday he came home at one in the +morning and on Thursday at three in fancy dress; and in the +policeman's report it becomes, 'Mr. Frobisher is of a loose +and excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier—yes, +my friend, just so! But here in the Sûrété—never +breathe a word of it, or you ruin me!—here we are like +your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the fingers at those +dossiers.'" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To +change from one mood to another required a progression +of ideas. He hardly knew for the moment whether he +was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago Hanaud +had been the grave agent of Justice; without a hint he +had leaped to buffoonery, and with a huge enjoyment. +He had become half urchin, half clown. Jim could almost +hear the bells of his cap still tinkling. He simply stared, +and Hanaud with a rueful smile resumed his seat. +

+ +

+"If we work together at Dijon, Monsieur Frobisher," +he said with whimsical regret, "I shall not enjoy myself +as I did with my dear little friend Mr. Ricardo at Aix. +No, indeed! Had I made this little pantomime for him, +he would have sat with the eyes popping out of his head. +He would have whispered, 'The Prime Minister comes +in the morning to spy outside your door—oh!' and he +would have been thrilled to the marrow of his bones. But +you—you look at me all cold and stony, and you say to +yourself, 'This Hanaud, he is a comic!'" +

+ +

+"No," said Jim earnestly, and Hanaud interrupted the +protest with a laugh. +

+ +

+"It does not matter." +

+ +

+"I am glad," said Jim. "For you just now said something +which I am very anxious you should not withdraw. +You held me out a hope that we should work together." Hanaud +leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. +

+ +

+"Listen," he said genially. "You have been frank and +loyal with me. So I relieve your mind. This Waberski +affair—the Prefect at Dijon does not take it very +seriously; neither do I here. It is, of course, a charge of +murder, and that has to be examined with care." +

+ +

+"Of course." +

+ +

+"And equally, of course, there is some little thing +behind it," Hanaud continued, surprising Frobisher with +the very words which Mr. Haslitt had used the day +before, though the one spoke in English and the other in +French. "As a lawyer you will know that. Some little +unpleasant fact which is best kept to ourselves. But it is +a simple affair, and with these two letters you have +brought me, simpler than ever. We shall ask Waberski +to explain these letters and some other things too, if he +can. He is a type, that Boris Waberski! The body of +Madame Harlowe will be exhumed to-day and the evidence +of the doctors taken, and afterwards, no doubt, +the case will be dismissed and you can deal with Waberski +as you please." +

+ +

+"And that little secret?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. +

+ +

+"No doubt it will come to light. But what does that +matter if it only comes to light in the office of the +examining magistrate, and does not pass beyond the door?" +

+ +

+"Nothing at all," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"You will see. We are not so alarming after all, and +your little client can put her pretty head upon the pillow +without any fear that an injustice will be done to her." +

+ +

+"Thank you, Monsieur Hanaud!" Jim Frobisher cried +warmly. He was conscious of so great a relief that he +himself was surprised by it. He had been quite captured +by his pity for that unknown girl in the big house, set +upon by a crazy rascal and with no champion but another +girl of her own years. "Yes, this is good news to me." +

+ +

+But he had hardly finished speaking before a doubt +crept into his mind as to the sincerity of the man sitting +opposite to him. Jim did not mean to be played and +landed like a silly fish, however inexperienced he might +be. He looked at Hanaud and wondered. Was this +present geniality of his any less assumed than his other +moods? Jim was unsettled in his estimate of the +detective. One moment a judge, and rather implacable, now +an urchin, now a friend! Which was travesty and which +truth? Luckily there was a test question which +Mr. Haslitt had put only yesterday as he looked out from the +window across Russell Square. Jim now repeated it. +

+ +

+"The affair is simple, you say?" +

+ +

+"Of the simplest." +

+ +

+"Then how comes it, Monsieur Hanaud, that the examining +judge at Dijon still finds it necessary to call in to +his assistance one of the chiefs of the Sûrété of Paris?" +

+ +

+The question was obviously expected, and no less +obviously difficult to answer. Hanaud nodded his head once +or twice. +

+ +

+"Yes," he said, and again "Yes," like a man in doubt. +He looked at Jim with appraising eyes. Then with a +rush, "I shall tell you everything, and when I have told +you, you will give me your word that you will not betray +my confidence to any one in this world. For this is +serious." +

+ +

+Jim could not doubt Hanaud's sincerity at this moment, +nor his friendliness. They shone in the man like a strong +flame. +

+ +

+"I give you my word now," he said, and he reached out +his hand across the table. Hanaud shook it. "I can talk +to you freely, then," he answered, and he produced a little +blue bundle of very black cigarettes. "You shall smoke." +

+ +

+The two men lit their cigarettes and through the blue +cloud Hanaud explained: +

+ +

+"I go really to Dijon on quite another matter. This +Waberski affair, it is a pretence! The examining judge +who calls me in—see, now, you have a phrase for him," +and Hanaud proudly dropped into English more or less. +"He excuse his face! Yes, that is your expressive idiom. +He excuse his face, and you will see, my friend, that it +needs a lot of excusing, that face of his, yes. Now listen! +I get hot when I think of that examining judge." +

+ +

+He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, setting +his sentence in order, resumed in French. +

+ +

+"The little towns, my friend, where life is not very +gay and people have the time to be interested in the affairs +of their neighbours, have their own crimes, and perhaps +the most pernicious of them all is the crime of anonymous +letters. Suddenly out of a clear sky they will come like +a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute +and—who knows?—sometimes perhaps true. For a while +these abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a +word is said. If money is demanded, money is paid. If +it is only sheer wickedness which drives that unknown +pen, those who are lashed by it none the less hold their +tongues. But each one begins to suspect his neighbour. +The social life of the town is poisoned. A great canopy +of terror hangs over it, until the postman's knock, a thing +so welcome in the sane life of every day, becomes a thing +to shiver at, and in the end dreadful things happen." +

+ +

+So grave and quiet was the tone which Hanaud used +that Jim himself shivered, even in this room whence he +could see the sunlight sparkling on the river and hear +the pleasant murmur of the Paris streets. Above that +murmur he heard the sharp knock of the postman upon +the door. He saw a white face grow whiter and still +eyes grow haggard with despair. +

+ +

+"Such a plague has descended upon Dijon," Hanaud +continued. "For more than a year it has raged. The +police would not apply to Paris for help. No, they did +not need help, they would solve this pretty problem for +themselves. Yes, but the letters go on and the citizens +complain. The police say, 'Hush! The examining +magistrate, he has a clue. Give him time!' But the +letters still go on. Then after a year comes this godsend +of the Waberski affair. At once the Prefect of Police +and the magistrate put their heads together. 'We will +send for Hanaud over this simple affair, and he will find +for us the author of the anonymous letters. We will +send for him very privately, and if any one recognises +him in the street and cries "There is Hanaud," we can say +he is investigating the Waberski affair. Thus the writer +of the letters will not be alarmed and we—we excuse our +faces.' Yes," concluded Hanaud heatedly, "but they +should have sent for me a year ago. They have lost a +year." +

+ +

+"And during that year the dreadful things have +happened?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded angrily. +

+ +

+"An old, lonely man who lunches at the hotel and takes +his coffee at the Grande Taverne and does no harm to any +one, he flings himself in front of the Mediterranean +express and is cut to pieces. A pair of lovers shoot +themselves in the Forêt des Moissonières. A young girl comes +home from a ball; she says good night to her friends gaily +on the doorstep of her house, and in the morning she is +found hanging in her ball dress from a rivet in the wall +of her bedroom, whilst in the hearth there are the burnt +fragments of one of these letters. How many had she +received, that poor girl, before this last one drove her to +this madness? Ah, the magistrate. Did I not tell you? +He has need to excuse his face." +

+ +

+Hanaud opened a drawer in his desk and took from it +a green cover. +

+ +

+"See, here are two of those precious letters," and +removing two typewritten sheets from the cover he handed +them to Frobisher. "Yes," he added, as he saw the disgust +on the reader's face, "those do not make a nice sauce +for your breakfast, do they?" +

+ +

+"They are abominable," said Jim. "I wouldn't have +believed——" he broke off with a little cry. "One +moment, Monsieur Hanaud!" He bent his head again over +the sheets of paper, comparing them, scrutinising each +sentence. No, there were only the two errors which he +had noticed at once. But what errors they were! To +any one, at all events, with eyes to see and some luck in +the matter of experience. Why, they limited the area of +search at once! +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud, I can give you some more help," +he cried enthusiastically. He did not notice the broad +grin of delight which suddenly transfigured the detective's +face. "Help which may lead you very quickly to the +writer of these letters." +

+ +

+"You can?" Hanaud exclaimed. "Give it to me, my +young friend. Do not keep me shaking in excitement. +And do not—oh! do not tell me that you have discovered +that the letters were typed upon a Corona machine. For +that we know already." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher flushed scarlet. That is just what he +had noticed with so much pride in his perspicuity. Where +the text of a sentence required a capital D, there were +instead the two noughts with the diagonal line separating +them (thus, %), which are the symbol of "per cent."; +and where there should have been a capital S lower down +the page, there was the capital S with the transverse lines +which stands for dollars. Jim was familiar with the +Corona machine himself, and he had remembered that if +one used by error the stop for figures, instead of the stop +for capital letters, those two mistakes would result. He +realised now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of +him—Hanaud was the urchin now—that the Sûrété was +certain not to have overlooked those two indications even +if the magistrate at Dijon had; and in a moment he began +to laugh too. +

+ +

+"Well, I fairly asked for it, didn't I?" he said as he +handed the letter back. "I said a wise thing to you, +Monsieur, when I held it fortunate that we were not to be +on opposite sides." +

+ +

+Hanaud's face lost its urchin look. +

+ +

+"Don't make too much of me, my friend, lest you be +disappointed," he said in all seriousness. "We are the +servants of Chance, the very best of us. Our skill is to +seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when it flashes for the +fraction of a second before our eyes." +

+ +

+He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green +cover and laid it again in the drawer. Then he gathered +together the two letters which Boris Waberski had +written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will +go there to-day?" +

+ +

+"This afternoon." +

+ +

+"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express." +

+ +

+"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook +his head. +

+ +

+"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay +at the same hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon +that you are the English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and +those in your company will be marked men too. By the +way, how were you informed in London that I, Hanaud, +had been put in charge of this case?" +

+ +

+"We had a telegram," replied Jim. +

+ +

+"Yes? And from whom? I am curious!" +

+ +

+"From Miss Harlowe." +

+ +

+For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that +interview quite disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher +could have no doubt. He sat for so long a time, his cigarette +half-way to his lips, a man turned into stone. Then +he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned on +Jim. +

+ +

+"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" +he asked. "I am putting to myself a riddle. +Answer it if you can! What is the strongest passion in +the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of these +things. It is the passion of one public official to take a +great big club and hit his brother official on the back of +the head. It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon +so that I may have some little chance of success. Good! +On Saturday it is so arranged, and already on Monday +my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss Harlowe +can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is +kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?" +

+ +

+Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it +to Hanaud, who received it with a curious eagerness and +opened it out on the table in front of them. He read it +very slowly, so slowly that Jim wondered whether he too +heard through the lines of the telegram, as through the +receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help +which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud +raised his face all the bitterness had gone from it. +

+ +

+"The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The +slender fingers, they do not snap themselves any longer, +eh? Well, in a few days we make all right for her." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim stoutly. +

+ +

+"Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?" and Hanaud held +up the telegraph form. "It mentions my name. It will +be safe with you, no doubt, but it serves no purpose. +Everything which is torn up here is burnt in the evening. +It is for you to say," and he dangled the telegram before +Jim Frobisher's eyes. +

+ +

+"By all means," said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram +across. Then he placed the torn pieces together and +tore them through once again and dropped them into his +waste-paper basket. "So! That is done!" he said. +"Now tell me! There is another young English girl in +the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott," said Jim with a nod. +

+ +

+"Yes, tell me about her." +

+ +

+Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made +to Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+"I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her +until yesterday." +

+ +

+But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with +amazement, Hanaud accepted it without comment. +

+ +

+"Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that +young lady at Dijon," he said with a smile, and he rose +from his chair. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which +had begun badly and moved on to cordiality was turning +back upon itself and ending not too well. He was +conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud's manner, not a +diminution in his friendliness, but—Jim could find +nothing but Hanaud's own phrase to define the change. He +seemed to have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as +it flickered for a second within his range of vision. But +when it had flickered Jim could not even conjecture. +

+ +

+He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already +at the door with his hand upon the knob. +

+ +

+"Good-bye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you +sincerely for your visit." +

+ +

+"I shall see you in Dijon," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Surely," Hanaud agreed with a smile. "On many +occasions. In the office, perhaps, of the examining +magistrate. No doubt in the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration +which Hanaud had appeared a few minutes ago not +merely to accept, but even to look forward to. Now, on +the contrary, he was evading it. +

+ +

+"But if we are to work together?" Jim suggested. +

+ +

+"You might want to reach me quickly," Hanaud +continued. "Yes. And I might want to reach you, if not +so quickly, still very secretly. Yes." He turned the +question over in his mind. "You will stay at the Maison +Crenelle, I suppose?" +

+ +

+"No," said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from +Hanaud's little start of disappointment. "There will be +no need for that," he explained. "Boris Waberski can +attempt nothing more. Those two girls will be safe +enough." +

+ +

+"That's true," Hanaud agreed. "You will go, then, +to the big hotel in the Place Darcy. For me I shall stay +in one that is more obscure, and not under my own name. +Whatever chance of secrecy is still left for me, that I +shall cling to." +

+ +

+He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or +the name under which he proposed to masquerade, and +Jim was careful not to inquire. Hanaud stood with his +hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes thoughtfully +resting upon Frobisher's face. +

+ +

+"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, +and a smile warmed and lit his face to good humour. +"Do you like the pictures? No—yes? For me, I adore +them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for the cinema. +I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the +dark—so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a +friend, and when the lights go up we are both gone, and +only our empty bocks are left to show where we were +sitting. The cinemas—yes! With their audiences which +constantly change and new people coming in who sit +plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an +inch beyond their noses, the cinemas are useful, I tell +you. But you will not betray my little secret?" +

+ +

+He ended with a laugh. Jim Frobisher's spirits were +quite revived by this renewal of Hanaud's confidence. He +felt with a curious elation that he had travelled a long +way from the sedate dignities of Russell Square. He +could not project in his mind any picture of +Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt meeting a client in a dark corner +of a cinema theatre off the Marylebone Road. Such +manoeuvres were not amongst the firm's methods, and Jim +began to find the change exhilarating. Perhaps, after +all, Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt were a little musty, he +reflected. They missed—and he coined a phrase, he, Jim +Frobisher! ... they missed the ozone of police-work. +

+ +

+"Of course I'll keep your secret," he said with a thrill +in his voice. "I should never have thought of so capital +a meeting-place." +

+ +

+"Good," said Hanaud. "Then at nine o'clock each +night, unless there is something serious to prevent me, I +shall be sitting in the big hall of the Grande Taverne. +The Grande Taverne is at the corner across the square +from the railway station. You can't mistake it. I shall +be on the left-hand side of the hall and close up to the +screen and at the edge near the billiard-room. Don't look +for me when the lights are raised, and if I am talking to +any one else, you will avoid me like poison. Is that +understood?" +

+ +

+"Quite," Jim returned. +

+ +

+"And you have now two secrets of mine to keep." Hanaud's +face lost its smile. In some strange way it +seemed to sharpen, the light-coloured eyes became very +still and grave. "That also is understood, Monsieur +Frobisher," he said. "For I begin to think that we may both +of us see strange things before we leave Dijon again for +Paris." +

+ +

+The moment of gravity passed. With a bow he held +open the door. But Jim Frobisher, as he passed out into +the corridor, was once again convinced that at some +definite point in the interview Hanaud had at all events +caught a glimpse of the flickering skirts of Chance, even +if he had not grasped them in his hands. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FOUR: Betty Harlowe +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher reached Dijon that night at an hour +too late for any visit, but at half-past nine on the next +morning he turned with a thrill of excitement into the +little street of Charles-Robert. This street was bordered +upon one side, throughout its length, by a high garden +wall above which great sycamores and chestnut trees +rustled friendlily in a stir of wind. Towards the farther +mouth of the street the wall was broken, first by the end of +a house with a florid observation-window of the +Renaissance period which overhung the footway; and again a +little farther on by a pair of elaborate tall iron gates. +Before these gates Jim came to a standstill. He gazed into +the courtyard of the Maison Crenelle, and as he gazed +his excitement died away and he felt a trifle ashamed of +it. There seemed so little cause for excitement. +

+ +

+It was a hot, quiet, cloudless morning. On the left-hand +side of the court women-servants were busy in front +of a row of offices; at the end Jim caught glimpses of a +chauffeur moving between a couple of cars in a garage, +and heard him whistling gaily as he moved; on the right +stretched the big house, its steep slate roof marked out +gaily with huge diamond patterns of bright yellow, taking +in the sunlight through all its open windows. The hall +door under the horizontal glass fan stood open. One +of the iron gates, too, was ajar. Even the sergent-de-ville +in his white trousers out in the small street here seemed +to be sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the high +wall rather than exercising any real vigilance. It was +impossible to believe, with all this pleasant evidence of +normal life, that any threat was on that house or upon +any of its inhabitants. +

+ +

+"And indeed there is no threat," Jim reflected. "I +have Hanaud's word for it." +

+ +

+He pushed the gate open and crossed to the front door. +An old serving-man informed him that Mademoiselle +Harlowe did not receive, but he took Jim's card nevertheless, +and knocked upon a door on the right of the big +square hall. As he knocked, he opened the door; and +from his position in the hall Jim looked right through a +library to a window at the end and saw two figures +silhouetted against the window, a man and a girl. The man +was protesting, rather extravagantly both in word and +gesture, to Jim's Britannic mind, the girl laughing—a +clear, ringing laugh, with just a touch of cruelty, at the +man's protestations. Jim even caught a word or two of +the protest spoken in French, but with a curiously metallic +accent. +

+ +

+"I have been your slave too long," the man cried, and +the girl became aware that the door was open and that +the old man stood inside of it with a card upon a silver +salver. She came quickly forward and took the card. +Jim heard the cry of pleasure, and the girl came running +out into the hall. +

+ +

+"You!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. "I had no +right to expect you so soon. Oh, thank you!" and she +gave him both her hands. +

+ +

+Jim did not need her words to recognise in her the +"little girl" of Mr. Haslitt's description. Little in actual +height Betty Harlowe certainly was not, but she was such +a slender trifle of a girl that the epithet seemed in place. +Her hair was dark brown in colour, with a hint of copper +where the light caught it, parted on one side and very +neatly dressed about her small head. The broad forehead +and oval face were of a clear pallor and made vivid +the fresh scarlet of her lips; and the large pupils of her +grey eyes gave to her a look which was at once haunting +and wistful. As she held out her hands in a warm +gratitude and seized his, she seemed to him a creature of +delicate flame and fragile as fair china. She looked him +over with one swift comprehensive glance and breathed +a little sigh of relief. +

+ +

+"I shall give you all my troubles to carry from now +on," she said, with a smile. +

+ +

+"To be sure. That's what I am here for," he +answered. "But don't take me for anything very choice +and particular." +

+ +

+Betty laughed again and, holding him by the sleeve, +drew him into the library. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Espinosa," she said, presenting the stranger +to Jim. "He is from Cataluna, but he spends so much +of his life in Dijon that we claim him as a citizen." +

+ +

+The Catalan bowed and showed a fine set of strong +white teeth. +

+ +

+"Yes, I have the honour to represent a great Spanish +firm of wine-growers. We buy the wines here to mix +with our better brands, and we sell wine here to mix with +their cheaper ones." +

+ +

+"You mustn't give your trade secrets away to me," Jim +replied shortly. He disliked Espinosa on sight, as they +say, and he was at no very great pains to conceal his +dislike. Espinosa was altogether too brilliant a personage. +He was a big, broad-shouldered man with black shining +hair and black shining eyes, a florid complexion, a curled +moustache, and gleaming rings upon his fingers. +

+ +

+"Mr. Frobisher has come from London to see me on +quite different business," Betty interposed. +

+ +

+"Yes?" said the Catalan a little defiantly, as though he +meant to hold his ground. +

+ +

+"Yes," replied Betty, and she held out her hand to him. +Espinosa raised it reluctantly to his lips and kissed it. +

+ +

+"I shall see you when you return," said Betty, and she +walked to the door. +

+ +

+"If I go away," Espinosa replied stubbornly. "It is not +certain, Mademoiselle Betty, that I shall go"; and with +a ceremonious bow to Jim he walked out of the room; +but not so quickly but that Betty glanced swiftly from +one man to the other with keen comparing eyes, and Jim +detected the glance. She closed the door and turned back +to Jim with a friendly little grimace which somehow put +him in a good humour. He was being compared to another +man to his advantage, and however modest one may +be, such a comparison promotes a pleasant warmth. +

+ +

+"More trouble, Miss Harlowe," he said with a smile, +"but this time the sort of trouble which you must expect +for a good many years to come." +

+ +

+He moved towards her, and they met at one of the two +side windows which looked out upon the courtyard. +Betty sat down in the window-seat. +

+ +

+"I really ought to be grateful to him," she said, "for +he made me laugh. And it seems to me ages since I +laughed"; she looked out of the window and her eyes +suddenly filled with tears. +

+ +

+"Oh! don't, please," cried Jim in a voice of trouble. +

+ +

+The smile trembled once more on Betty's lips deliciously. +

+ +

+"I won't," she replied. +

+ +

+"I was so glad to hear you laugh," he continued, "after +your unhappy telegram to my partner and before I told +you my good news." +

+ +

+Betty looked up at him eagerly. +

+ +

+"Good news?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher took once more from his long envelope +the two letters which Waberski had sent to his firm and +handed them to Betty. +

+ +

+"Read them," he said, "and notice the dates." +

+ +

+Betty glanced at the handwriting. +

+ +

+"From Monsieur Boris," she cried, and she settled +down in the window-seat to study them. In her short +black frock with her slim legs in their black silk stockings +extended and her feet crossed, and her head and white +neck bent over the sheets of Waberski's letters, she looked +to Jim like a girl fresh from school. She was quick +enough, however, to appreciate the value of the letters. +

+ +

+"Of course I always knew that it was money that +Monsieur Boris wanted," she said. "And when my +aunt's will was read and I found that everything had +been left to me, I made up my mind to consult you and +make some arrangement for him." +

+ +

+"There was no obligation upon you," Jim protested. +"He wasn't really a relation at all. He married +Mrs. Harlowe's sister, that's all." +

+ +

+"I know," replied Betty, and she laughed. "He always +objected to me because I would call him 'Monsieur +Boris' instead of 'uncle.' But I meant to do something +nevertheless. Only he gave me no time. He bullied me +first of all, and I do hate being bullied—don't you, +Mr. Frobisher?" +

+ +

+"I do." +

+ +

+Betty looked at the letters again. +

+ +

+"That's when I snapped me the fingers at him, I suppose," +she continued, with a little gurgle of delight in the +phrase. "Afterwards he brought this horrible charge +against me, and to have suggested any arrangement would +have been to plead guilty." +

+ +

+"You were quite right. It would indeed," Jim agreed +cordially. +

+ +

+Up to this moment, a suspicion had been lurking at the +back of Jim Frobisher's mind that this girl had been a +trifle hard in her treatment of Boris Waberski. He was +a sponger, a wastrel, with no real claim upon her, it was +true. On the other hand, he had no means of livelihood, +and Mrs. Harlowe, from whom Betty drew her fortune, +had been content to endure and support him. Now, however, +the suspicion was laid, the little blemish upon the +girl removed and by her own frankness. +

+ +

+"Then it is all over," Betty said, handing back the +letters to Jim with a sigh of relief. Then she smiled +ruefully—"But just for a little while I was really +frightened," she confessed. "You see, I was sent for and +questioned by the examining magistrate. Oh! I wasn't +frightened by the questions, but by him, the man. I've +no doubt it's his business to look severe, but I couldn't +help thinking that if any one looked as terrifically severe +as he did, it must be because he hadn't any brains and +wanted you not to know. And people without brains are +always dangerous, aren't they?" +

+ +

+"Yes, that wasn't encouraging," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"Then he forbade me to use a motor-car, as if he +expected me to run away. And to crown everything, when +I came away from the Palais de Justice, I met some +friends outside who gave me a long list of people who +had been condemned and only found to be innocent when +it was too late." +

+ +

+Jim stared at her. +

+ +

+"The brutes!" he cried. +

+ +

+"Well, we have all got friends like that," Betty returned +philosophically. "Mine, however, were particularly +odious. For they actually discussed, as a reason of +course, why I should engage the very best advocate, +whether, since Mrs. Harlowe had adopted me, the charge +couldn't be made one of matricide. In which case there +could be no pardon, and I must go to the guillotine with +a black veil over my head and naked feet." She saw +horror and indignation in Jim Frobisher's face and she +reached out a hand to him. +

+ +

+"Yes. Malice in the provinces is apt to be a little blunt, +though"—and she lifted a slim foot in a shining slipper +and contemplated it whimsically—"I don't imagine that, +given the circumstances, I should be bothering my head +much as to whether I was wearing my best shoes and +stockings or none at all." +

+ +

+"I never heard of so abominable a suggestion," cried Jim. +

+ +

+"You can imagine, at all events, that I came home a +little rattled," continued Betty, "and why I sent off that +silly panicky telegram. I would have recalled it when I +rose to the surface again. But it was then too late. The +telegram had——" +

+ +

+She broke off abruptly with a little rise of inflexion and +a sharp indraw of her breath. +

+ +

+"Who is that?" she asked in a changed voice. She +had been speaking quietly and slowly, with an almost +humorous appreciation of the causes of her fear. Now +her question was uttered quickly and anxiety was +predominant in her voice. "Yes, who is that?" she repeated. +

+ +

+A big, heavily built man sauntering past the great iron +gates had suddenly whipped into the courtyard. A +fraction of a second before he was an idler strolling along +the path, now he was already disappearing under the big +glass fan of the porch. +

+ +

+"It's Hanaud," Jim replied, and Betty rose to her feet +as though a spring in her had been released, and stood +swaying. +

+ +

+"You have nothing to fear from Hanaud," Jim Frobisher +reassured her. "I have shown him those two letters +of Waberski. From first to last he is your friend. +Listen. This is what he said to me only yesterday in +Paris." +

+ +

+"Yesterday, in Paris?" Betty asked suddenly. +

+ +

+"Yes, I called upon him at the Sûrété. These were +his words. I remembered them particularly so that I +could repeat them to you just as they were spoken. 'Your +little client can lay her pretty head upon her pillow +confident that no injustice will be done to her.'" +

+ +

+The bell of the front door shrilled through the house +as Jim finished. +

+ +

+"Then why is he in Dijon? Why is he at the door +now?" Betty asked stubbornly. +

+ +

+But that was the one question which Jim must not +answer. He had received a confidence from Hanaud. +He had pledged his word not to betray it. For a little +while longer Betty must believe that Waberski's accusation +against her was the true reason of Hanaud's presence +in Dijon, and not merely an excuse for it. +

+ +

+"Hanaud acts under orders," Jim returned. "He is +here because he was bidden to come"; and to his relief +the answer sufficed. In truth, Betty's thoughts were +diverted to some problem to which he had not the key. +

+ +

+"So you called upon Monsieur Hanaud in Paris," she +said, with a warm smile. "You have forgotten nothing +which could help me." She laid a hand upon the sill of +the open window. "I hope that he felt all the flattery +of my panic-stricken telegram to London." +

+ +

+"He was simply regretful that you should have been +so distressed." +

+ +

+"So you showed him the telegram?" +

+ +

+"And he destroyed it. It was my excuse for calling +upon him with the letters." +

+ +

+Betty sat down again on the window-seat and lifted a +finger for silence. Outside the door voices were speaking. +Then the door was opened and the old man-servant entered. +He carried this time no card upon a salver, but +he was obviously impressed and a trifle flustered. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," he began, and Betty interrupted him. +All trace of anxiety had gone from her manner. She +was once more mistress of herself. +

+ +

+"I know, Gaston. Show Monsieur Hanaud in at once." +

+ +

+But Monsieur Hanaud was already in. He bowed +with a pleasant ceremony to Betty Harlowe and shook +hands cordially with Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"I was delighted as I came through the court, Mademoiselle, +to see that my friend here was already with you. +For he will have told you that I am not, after all, the ogre +of the fairy-books." +

+ +

+"But you never looked up at the windows once," cried +Betty in perplexity. +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled gaily. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, it is in the technique of my trade never +to look up at windows and yet to know what is going on +behind them. With your permission?" And he laid his +hat and cane upon a big writing-table in the middle of the +room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FIVE: Betty Harlowe Answers +

+ +

+"But we cannot see even through the widest of +windows," Hanaud continued, "what happened behind +them a fortnight ago. In those cases, Mademoiselle, we +have to make ourselves the nuisance and ask the questions." +

+ +

+"I am ready to answer you," returned Betty quietly. +

+ +

+"Oh, of that—not a doubt," Hanaud cried genially. +"Is it permitted to me to seat myself? Yes?" +

+ +

+Betty jumped up, the pallor of her face flushed to pink. +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon. Of course, Monsieur Hanaud." +

+ +

+That little omission in her manners alone showed Jim +Frobisher that she was nervous. But for it, he would +have credited her with a self-command almost unnatural +in her years. +

+ +

+"It is nothing," said Hanaud with a smile. "After all, +we are—the gentlest of us—disturbing guests." He took +a chair from the side of the table and drew it up close so +that he faced Betty. But whatever advantage was to be +gained from the positions he yielded to her. For the +light from the window fell in all its morning strength +upon his face, whilst hers was turned to the interior of +the room. +

+ +

+"So!" he said as he sat down. "Mademoiselle, I will +first give you a plan of our simple procedure, as at present +I see it. The body of Madame Harlowe was exhumed +the night before last in the presence of your notary." +

+ +

+Betty moved suddenly with a little shiver of revolt. +

+ +

+"I know," he continued quickly. "These necessities +are distressing. But we do Madame Harlowe no hurt, +and we have to think of the living one, you, Miss Betty +Harlowe, and make sure that no suspicion shall rest upon +you—no, not even amongst your most loyal friends. +Isn't that so? Well, next, I put my questions to you +here. Then we wait for the analyst's report. Then the +Examining Magistrate will no doubt make you his +compliments, and I, Hanaud, will, if I am lucky, carry back +with me to that dull Paris, a signed portrait of the +beautiful Miss Harlowe against my heart." +

+ +

+"And that will be all?" cried Betty, clasping her hands +together in her gratitude. +

+ +

+"For you, Mademoiselle, yes. But for our little +Boris—no!" Hanaud grinned with a mischievous anticipation. +"I look forward to half an hour with that broken-kneed +one. I shall talk to him and I shall not be dignified—no, +not at all. I shall take care, too, that my good friend +Monsieur Frobisher is not present. He would take from +me all my enjoyment. He would look at me all prim like +my maiden aunt and he would say to himself, 'Shocking! +Oh, that comic! What a fellow! He is not proper.' No, +and I shall not be proper. But, on the other hand, I +will laugh all the way from Dijon to Paris." +

+ +

+Monsieur Hanaud had indeed begun to laugh already +and Betty suddenly joined in with him. Hers was a +clear, ringing laugh of enjoyment, and Jim fancied +himself once more in the hall hearing that laughter come +pealing through the open door. +

+ +

+"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Hanaud. "You can +laugh, Mademoiselle, even at my foolishnesses. You must +keep Monsieur Frobisher here in Dijon and not let him +return to London until he too has learnt that divinest of +the arts." +

+ +

+Hanaud hitched his chair a little nearer, and a most +uncomfortable image sprang at once into Jim Frobisher's +mind. Just so, with light words and little jokes squeezed +out to tenuity, did doctors hitch up their chairs to the +bedsides of patients in a dangerous case. It took quite a +few minutes of Hanaud's questions before that image +entirely vanished from his thoughts. +

+ +

+"Good!" said Hanaud. "Now let us to business and +get the facts all clear and ordered!" +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim agreed, and he too hitched his chair a little +closer. It was curious, he reflected, how little he did +know of the actual facts of the case. +

+ +

+"Now tell me, Mademoiselle! Madame Harlowe died, +so far as we know, quite peacefully in her bed during the +night." +

+ +

+"Yes," replied Betty. +

+ +

+"During the night of April the 27th?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"She slept alone in her room that night?" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"That was her rule?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"I understand Madame Harlowe's heart had given her +trouble for some time." +

+ +

+"She had been an invalid for three years." +

+ +

+"And there was a trained nurse always in the house?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"Now tell me, Mademoiselle, where did this nurse +sleep? Next door to Madame?" +

+ +

+"No. A bedroom had been fitted up for her on the +same floor but at the end of the passage." +

+ +

+"And how far away was this bedroom?" +

+ +

+"There were two rooms separating it from my aunt's." +

+ +

+"Large rooms?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Betty explained. "These rooms are on the +ground-floor, and are what you would call reception-rooms. +But, since Madame's heart made the stairs dangerous +for her, some of them were fitted up especially for +her use." +

+ +

+"Yes, I see," said Hanaud. "Two big reception-rooms +between, eh? And the walls of the house are thick. It is +not difficult to see that it was not built in these days. I +ask you this, Mademoiselle. Would a cry from Madame +Harlowe at night, when all the house was silent, be heard +in the nurse's room?" +

+ +

+"I am very sure that it would not," Betty returned. +"But there was a bell by Madame's bed which rang in +the nurse's room. She had hardly to lift her arm to press +the button." +

+ +

+"Ah!" said Hanaud. "A bell specially fitted up?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And the button within reach of the fingers. Yes. +That is all very well, if one does not faint, Mademoiselle. +But suppose one does! Then the bell is not very useful. +Was there no room nearer which could have been set +aside for the nurse?" +

+ +

+"There was one next to my aunt's room, Monsieur +Hanaud, with a communicating door." +

+ +

+Hanaud was puzzled and sat back in his chair. Jim +Frobisher thought the time had come for him to interpose. +He had been growing more and more restless as the +catechism progressed. He could not see any reason why +Betty, however readily and easily she answered, should +be needlessly pestered. +

+ +

+"Surely, Monsieur Hanaud," he said, "it would save a +deal of time if we paid a visit to these rooms and saw +them for ourselves." +

+ +

+Hanaud swung round like a thing on a swivel. Admiration +beamed in his eyes. He gazed at his junior colleague +in wonder. +

+ +

+"But what an idea!" he cried enthusiastically. "What +a fine idea! How ingenious! How difficult to conceive! +And it is you, Monsieur Frobisher, who have thought of +it! I make you my distinguished compliments!" Then +all his enthusiasm declined into lassitude. "But what a +pity!" +

+ +

+Hanaud waited intently for Jim to ask for an explanation +of that sigh, but Jim simply got red in the face and +refused to oblige. He had obviously made an asinine +suggestion and was being rallied for it in front of the +beautiful Betty Harlowe, who looked to him for her +salvation; and on the whole he thought Hanaud to be a rather +insufferable person as he sat there brightly watching for +some second inanity. Hanaud in the end had to explain. +

+ +

+"We should have visited those rooms before now, +Monsieur Frobisher. But the Commissaire of Police has +sealed them up and without his presence we must not +break the seals." +

+ +

+An almost imperceptible movement was made by Betty +Harlowe in the window; an almost imperceptible smile +flickered for the space of a lightning-flash upon her lips; +and Jim saw Hanaud stiffen like a watch-dog when he +hears a sound at night. +

+ +

+"You are amused, Mademoiselle?" he asked sharply. +

+ +

+"On the contrary, Monsieur." +

+ +

+And the smile reappeared upon her face and was seen +to be what it was, pure wistfulness. "I had a hope those +great seals with their linen bands across the doors were +all now to be removed. It is fanciful, no doubt, but I +have a horror of them. They seem to me like an interdict +upon the house." +

+ +

+Hanaud's manner changed in an instant. +

+ +

+"That I can very well understand, Mademoiselle," he +said, "and I will make it my business to see that those +seals are broken. Indeed, there was no great use in +affixing them, since they were only affixed when the charge +was brought and ten days after Madame Harlowe died." He +turned to Jim. "But we in France are all tied up in +red tape, too. However, the question at which I am +driving does not depend upon any aspect of the rooms. It +is this, Mademoiselle," and he turned back to Betty. +

+ +

+"Madame Harlowe was an invalid with a nurse in constant +attendance. How is it that the nurse did not sleep +in that suitable room with the communicating-door? +Why must she be where she could hear no cry, no sudden +call?" +

+ +

+Betty nodded her head. Here was a question which +demanded an answer. She leaned forward, choosing her +words with care. +

+ +

+"Yes, but for that, Monsieur, you must understand +something of Madame my aunt and put yourself for a +moment in her place. She would have it so. She was, as +you say, an invalid. For three years she had not gone +beyond the garden except in a private saloon once a year +to Monte Carlo. But she would not admit her malady. +No, she was in her mind strong and a fighter. She was +going to get well, it was always a question of a few weeks +with her, and a nurse in her uniform always near with +the door open, as though she were in the last stages of +illness—that distressed her." Betty paused and went on +again. "Of course, when she had some critical attack, +the nurse was moved. I myself gave the order. But as +soon as the attack subsided, the nurse must go. Madame +would not endure it." +

+ +

+Jim understood that speech. Its very sincerity gave +him a glimpse of the dead woman, made him appreciate +her tough vitality. She would not give in. She did not +want the paraphernalia of malady always about her. No, +she would sleep in her own room, and by herself, like +other women of her age. Yes, Jim understood that and +believed every word that Betty spoke. Only—only—she +was keeping something back. It was that which troubled +him. What she said was true, but there was more to be +said. There had been hesitation in Betty's speech, too +nice a choice of words and then suddenly a little rush of +phrases to cover up the hesitations. He looked at +Hanaud, who was sitting without a movement and with his +eyes fixed upon Betty's face, demanding more from her +by his very impassivity. They were both, Jim felt sure, +upon the edge of that little secret which, according to +Haslitt as to Hanaud was always at the back of such wild +charges as Waberski brought—the little shameful family +secret which must be buried deep from the world's eyes. +And while Jim was pondering upon this explanation of +Betty's manner, he was suddenly startled out of his wits +by a passionate cry which broke from her lips. +

+ +

+"Why do you look at me like that?" she cried to Hanaud, +her eyes suddenly ablaze in her white face and her +lips shaking. Her voice rose to a challenge. +

+ +

+"Do you disbelieve me, Monsieur Hanaud?" +

+ +

+Hanaud raised his hands in protest. He leaned back +in his chair. The vigilance of his eyes, of his whole +attitude, was relaxed. +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he said with a +good deal of self-reproach. "I do not disbelieve you. I +was listening with both my ears to what you said, so that +I might never again have to trouble you with my +questions. But I should have remembered, what I forgot, +that for a number of days you have been living under a +heavy strain. My manner was at fault." +

+ +

+The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back +in the corner of the window-seat, her head resting against +the side of the sash and her face a little upturned. +

+ +

+"You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud," +she returned. "It is I who should beg your pardon. For +I was behaving like a hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go +on with your questions?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Hanaud replied gently. "It is better that we +finish with them now. Let us come back to the night of +the twenty-seventh!" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"Madame was in her usual health that night—neither +better nor worse." +

+ +

+"If anything a little better," returned Betty. +

+ +

+"So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a +dance given by some friends of yours?" +

+ +

+Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house +on that fatal night. Here was a new point in her favour. +"A dance!" he cried, and Hanaud lifted his hand. +

+ +

+"If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!" he said. "Let +Mademoiselle speak!" +

+ +

+"I did not hesitate," Betty explained. "The life of the +household had to go on normally. It would never have +done for me to do unusual things. Madame was quick +to notice. I think that although she would not admit +that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind +she suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not +to alarm her." +

+ +

+"By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a +dance to which she knew that you had meant to go?" said +Hanaud. "Yes, Mademoiselle. I quite understand that." +

+ +

+He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with +a smile, "Ah, you did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. +No, nor our friend Boris Waberski, I think. Or +he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of Police in +such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her +friends on this night when she is supposed to be +committing the most monstrous of crimes. By the way, +Mademoiselle, where was Boris Waberski on the night of the +27th?" +

+ +

+"He was away," returned Betty. "He went away on +the 25th to fish for trout at a village on the River Ouche, +and he did not come back until the morning of the 28th." +

+ +

+"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What a type that fellow! +Let us hope he had a better landing-net for his trout than +the one he prepared so hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. +Otherwise his three days' sport cannot have amounted to +much." +

+ +

+His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon +Betty's face and then he swept back to his questions. +

+ +

+"So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?" +

+ +

+"At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the +Boulevard Thiers." +

+ +

+"And at what hour did you go?" +

+ +

+"I left this house at five minutes to nine." +

+ +

+"You are sure of the hour?" +

+ +

+"Quite," said Betty. +

+ +

+"Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Betty answered. "I went to her room just before +I left. She took her dinner in bed, as she often did. +I was wearing for the dance a new frock which I had +bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and I went to her +room to show her how I looked in it." +

+ +

+"Was Madame alone?" +

+ +

+"No; the nurse was with her." +

+ +

+And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance +of cunning. +

+ +

+"I knew that, Mademoiselle," he declared with a +friendly grin. "See, I set a little trap for you. For I +have here the evidence of the nurse herself, Jeanne +Baudin." +

+ +

+He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon +which a paragraph was typed. "Yes, the examining +magistrate sent for her and took her statement." +

+ +

+"I didn't know that," said Betty. "Jeanne left us the +day of the funeral and went home. I have not seen her +since." +

+ +

+She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile +of appreciation. +

+ +

+"I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide +from you, Monsieur Hanaud," she said admiringly. "I +do not think that I should be able to hide it for long." +

+ +

+Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, +to Jim Frobisher's thinking, rather like a very vulgar +novice. +

+ +

+"You are wise, Mademoiselle," he exclaimed. "For, +after all, I am Hanaud. There is only one," and he +thumped his chest and beamed delightedly. "Heavens, +these are politenesses! Let us get on. This is what the +nurse declared," and he read aloud from his sheet of +paper: +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame +might admire her in her new frock of silver tissue and +her silver slippers. Mademoiselle arranged the pillows +and saw that Madame had her favourite books and her +drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, +and with her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she +tripped out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, +Madame said to me——" and Hanaud broke off abruptly. +"But that does not matter," he said in a hurry. +

+ +

+Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward. +

+ +

+"Does it not, Monsieur?" she asked, her eyes fixed +upon his face, and the blood mounting slowly into her +pale cheeks. +

+ +

+"No," said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet +of paper. +

+ +

+"What does the nurse report that Madame said to her +about me, as soon as the door was closed?" Betty asked, +measuring out her words with a slow insistence. "Come, +Monsieur! I have a right to know," and she held out +her hand for the paper. +

+ +

+"You shall judge for yourself that it was of no +importance," said Hanaud. "Listen!" and once more he +read. +

+ +

+"Madame said to me, looking at her clock, 'It is well +that Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not +Paris, and unless you go in time there are no partners +for you to dance with.' It was then ten minutes to nine." +

+ +

+With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty's hand; +and she bent her head over it swiftly, as though she +doubted whether what he had recited was really written +on that sheet, as if she rather trembled to think what +Mrs. Harlowe had said of her after she had gone from +the room. She took only a second or two to glance over +the page, but when she handed it back to him, her manner +was quite changed. +

+ +

+"Thank you," she said with a note of bitterness, and +her deep eyes gleamed with resentment. Jim understood +the change and sympathised with it. Hanaud had spoken +of setting a trap when he had set none. For there was no +conceivable reason why she should hesitate to admit that +she had seen Mrs. Harlowe in the presence of the nurse, +and wished her good night before she went to the party. +But he had set a real trap a minute afterwards and into +that Betty had straightway stumbled. He had tricked +her into admitting a dread that Mrs. Harlowe might have +spoken of her in disparagement or even in horror after +she had left the bedroom. +

+ +

+"You must know, Monsieur Hanaud," she explained +very coldly, "that women are not always very generous +to one another, and sometimes have not the imagination—how +shall I put it?—to visualise the possible consequences +of things they may say with merely the intention +to hurt and do a little harm. Jeanne Baudin and I +were, so far as I ever knew, good friends, but one is never +sure, and when you folded up her statement in a hurry I +was naturally very anxious to hear the rest of it." +

+ +

+"Yes, I agree," Jim intervened. "It did look as if the +nurse might have added something malevolent, which +could neither be proved nor disproved." +

+ +

+"It was a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle," Hanaud +replied in a voice of apology. "We will take care that +there shall not be any other." He looked over the nurse's +statement again. +

+ +

+"It is said here that you saw that Madame had her +favourite books and her drink beside the bed. That is +true." +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"What was that drink?" +

+ +

+"A glass of lemonade." +

+ +

+"It was placed on a table, I suppose, ready for her every +night?" +

+ +

+"Every night." +

+ +

+"And there was no narcotic dissolved in it?" +

+ +

+"None," Betty replied. "If Mrs. Harlowe was restless, +the nurse would give an opium pill and very +occasionally a slight injection of morphia." +

+ +

+"But that was not done on this night?" +

+ +

+"Not to my knowledge. If it was done, it was done +after my departure." +

+ +

+"Very well," said Hanaud, and he folded the paper +and put it away in his pocket. "That is finished with. +We have you now out of the house at five minutes to nine +in the evening, and Madame in her bed with her health +no worse than usual." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Good!" Hanaud changed his attitude. "Now let us +go over your evening, Mademoiselle! I take it that you +stayed at the house of M. de Pouillac until you returned +home." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"You remember with whom you danced? If it was +necessary, could you give me a list of your partners?" +

+ +

+She rose and, crossing to the writing table, sat down +in front of it. She drew a sheet of paper towards her and +took up a pencil. Pausing now and again to jog her +memory with the blunt end of the pencil at her lips, she +wrote down a list of names. +

+ +

+"These are all, I think," she said, handing the list to +Hanaud. He put it in his pocket. +

+ +

+"Thank you!" He was all contentment now. Although +his questions followed without hesitation, one +upon the other, it seemed to Jim that he was receiving +just the answers which he expected. He had the air of +a man engaged upon an inevitable formality and anxious +to get it completely accomplished, rather than of one +pressing keenly a strict investigation. +

+ +

+"Now, Mademoiselle, at what hour did you arrive home?" +

+ +

+"At twenty minutes past one." +

+ +

+"You are sure of that exact time? You looked at your +watch? Or at the clock in the hall? Or what? How are +you sure that you reached the Maison Crenelle exactly at +twenty minutes past one?" +

+ +

+Hanaud hitched his chair a little more forward, but +he had not to wait a second for the answer. +

+ +

+"There is no clock in the hall and I had no watch with +me," Betty replied. "I don't like those wrist-watches +which some girls wear. I hate things round my wrists," +and she shook her arm impatiently, as though she imagined +the constriction of a bracelet. "And I did not put +my watch in my hand-bag because I am so liable to leave +that behind. So I had nothing to tell me the time when I +reached home. I was not sure that I had not kept Georges—the +chauffeur—out a little later than he cared for. So +I made him my excuse, explaining that I didn't really +know how late I was." +

+ +

+"I see. It was Georges who told you the time at the +actual moment of your arrival?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And Georges is no doubt the chauffeur whom I saw +at work as I crossed the courtyard?" +

+ +

+"Yes. He told me that he was glad to see me have a +little gaiety, and he took out his watch and showed it to +me with a laugh." +

+ +

+"This happened at the front door, or at those big iron +gates, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"At the front door. There is no lodge-keeper and the +gates are left open when any one is out." +

+ +

+"And how did you get into the house?" +

+ +

+"I used my latch-key." +

+ +

+"Good! All this is very clear." +

+ +

+Betty, however, was not mollified by Hanaud's +satisfaction with her replies. Although she answered him +without delay, her answers were given mutinously. Jim +began to be a little troubled. She should have met +Hanaud half-way; she was imprudently petulant. +

+ +

+"She'll make an enemy of this man before she has +done," he reflected uneasily. But he glanced at the +detective and was relieved. For Hanaud was watching her +with a smile which would have disarmed any less offended +young lady—a smile half friendliness and half amusement. +Jim took a turn upon himself. +

+ +

+"After all," he argued, "this very imprudence pleads +for her better than any calculation. The guilty don't +behave like that." And he waited for the next stage in the +examination with an easy mind. +

+ +

+"Now we have got you back home and within the +Maison Crenelle before half past one in the morning," +resumed Hanaud. "What did you do then?" +

+ +

+"I went straight upstairs to my bedroom," said Betty. +

+ +

+"Was your maid waiting up for you, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"No; I had told her that I should be late and that I +could undress myself." +

+ +

+"You are considerate, Mademoiselle. No wonder that +your servants were pleased that you should have a little +gaiety." +

+ +

+Even that advance did not appease the offended girl. +

+ +

+"Yes?" she asked with a sort of silky sweetness which +was more hostile than any acid rejoinder. But it did +not stir Hanaud to any resentment. +

+ +

+"When, then, did you first hear of Madame Harlowe's +death?" was asked. +

+ +

+"The next morning my maid Francine came running +into my room at seven o'clock. The nurse Jeanne had +just discovered it. I slipped on my dressing-gown and +ran downstairs. As soon as I saw that it was true, I rang +up the two doctors who were in the habit of attending +here." +

+ +

+"Did you notice the glass of lemonade?" +

+ +

+"Yes. It was empty." +

+ +

+"Your maid is still with you?" +

+ +

+"Yes—Francine Rollard. She is at your disposal." +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders and smiled doubtfully. +

+ +

+"That, if it is necessary at all, can come later. We +have the story of your movements now from you, +Mademoiselle, and that is what is important." +

+ +

+He rose from his chair. +

+ +

+"I have been, I am afraid, a very troublesome person, +Mademoiselle Harlowe," he said with a bow. "But it is +very necessary for your own sake that no obscurities +should be left for the world's suspicions to play with. +And we are very close to the end of this ordeal." +

+ +

+Jim had nursed a hope the moment Hanaud rose that +this wearing interview had already ended. Betty, for her +part, was indifferent. +

+ +

+"That is for you to say, Monsieur," she said implacably. +

+ +

+"Just two points then, and I think, upon reflection, +you will understand that I have asked you no question +which is unfair." +

+ +

+Betty bowed. +

+ +

+"Your two points, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"First, then. You inherit, I believe, the whole fortune +of Madame?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Did you expect to inherit it all? Did you know of her +will?" +

+ +

+"No. I expected that a good deal of the money would +be left to Monsieur Boris. But I don't remember that she +ever told me so. I expected it, because Monsieur Boris +so continually repeated that it was so." +

+ +

+"No doubt," said Hanaud lightly. "As to yourself, +was Madame generous to you during her life." +

+ +

+The hard look disappeared from Betty's face. It +softened to sorrow and regret. +

+ +

+"Very," she answered in a low voice. "I had one +thousand pounds a year as a regular allowance, and a +thousand pounds goes a long way in Dijon. Besides, if I +wanted more, I had only to ask for it." +

+ +

+Betty's voice broke in a sob suddenly and Hanaud +turned away with a delicacy for which Jim was not +prepared. He began to look at the books upon the shelves, +that she might have time to control her sorrow, taking +down one here, one there, and speaking of them in a casual +tone. +

+ +

+"It is easy to see that this was the library of Monsieur +Simon Harlowe," he said, and was suddenly brought to a +stop. For the door was thrown open and a girl broke into +the room. +

+ +

+"Betty," she began, and stood staring from one to +another of Betty's visitors. +

+ +

+"Ann, this is Monsieur Hanaud," said Betty with a +careless wave of her hand, and Ann went white as a +sheet. +

+ +

+Ann! Then this girl was Ann Upcott, thought Jim +Frobisher, the girl who had written to him, the girl, all +acquaintanceship with whom he had twice denied, and he +had sat side by side with her, he had even spoken to her. +She swept across the room to him. +

+ +

+"So you have come!" she cried. "But I knew that you +would!" +

+ +

+Jim was conscious of a mist of shining yellow hair, a +pair of sapphire eyes, and of a face impertinently lovely +and most delicate in its colour. +

+ +

+"Of course I have come," he said feebly, and Hanaud +looked on with a smile. He had an eye on Betty Harlowe, +and the smile said as clearly as words could say, +"That young man is going to have a deal of trouble +before he gets out of Dijon." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SIX: Jim Changes His Lodging +

+ +

+The library was a big oblong room with two tall +windows looking into the court, and the observation +window thrown out at the end over the footway of the +street. A door in the inner wall close to this window led +to a room behind, and a big open fire-place faced the +windows on the court. For the rest, the walls were lined with +high book-shelves filled with books, except for a vacant +space here and there where a volume had been removed. +Hanaud put back in its place the book which he had been +holding in his hand. +

+ +

+"One can easily see that this is the library of Simon +Harlowe, the collector," he said. "I have always thought +that if one only had the time to study and compare the +books which a man buys and reads, one would more +surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But +alas! one never has the time." He turned towards Jim +Frobisher regretfully. "Come and stand with me, Monsieur +Frobisher. For even a glance at the backs of them +tells one something." +

+ +

+Jim took his place by Hanaud's side. +

+ +

+"Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and +another—pronounce that title for me, if you please." +

+ +

+Jim read the title of the book on which Hanaud's finger +was placed. +

+ +

+"Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain." +

+ +

+Hanaud repeated the inscription and moved along. +From a shelf at the level of his breast and just to the +left of the window in which Betty was sitting, he took a +large, thinnish volume in a paper cover, and turned over +the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea Enamel. +

+ +

+"There should be a second volume," said Jim Frobisher +with a glance at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of +remarks. He was not paying any attention to the +paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For he was really +engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his +side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some +swift look of understanding as it was exchanged by the +two girls, some sign that they were in a collusion? If so, +he was to be disappointed. For though Betty and Ann +were now free from Hanaud's vigilant eye, neither of +them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. +Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. +He answered Jim's suggestion. +

+ +

+"Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. +But this is complete," he said, and he put back the +book in its place. There was room next to it for another +quarto book, so long as it was no thicker, and Hanaud +rested his finger in the vacant place on the shelf, with his +thoughts clearly far away. +

+ +

+Betty recalled him to his surroundings. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud," she said in her quiet voice from +her seat in the window, "there was a second point, you +said, on which you would like to ask me a question." +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it." +

+ +

+He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood +so that he had both girls in front of him, Betty on his +left in the window, Ann Upcott standing a little apart +upon his right, gazing at him with a look of awe. +

+ +

+"Have you, Mademoiselle," he asked, "been pestered, +since Boris Waberski brought his accusation, with any +of these anonymous letters which seem to be flying about +Dijon?" +

+ +

+"I have received one," answered Betty, and Ann Upcott +raised her eyebrows in surprise. "It came on Sunday +morning. It was very slanderous, of course, and I should +have taken no notice of it but for one thing. It told me +that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming from Paris to +take up the case." +

+ +

+"Oho!" said Hanaud softly. "And you received this +letter on the Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, +Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+Betty shook her head. +

+ +

+"No, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled. +

+ +

+"Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should +be destroyed." +

+ +

+"No, I didn't," Betty answered. "I kept it. I put it +away in a drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. +But that room is sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. +The letter is in the drawer still." +

+ +

+Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction. +

+ +

+"It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle," he said +contentedly. But the contentment passed. "So the Commissaire +of Police actually sealed up your private sitting-room. +That, to be sure, was going a little far." +

+ +

+Betty shrugged her shoulders. +

+ +

+"It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. +And after all I was accused!" she said bitterly; but Ann +Upcott was not satisfied to leave the matter there. She +drew a step nearer to Betty and then looked at Hanaud. +

+ +

+"But that is not all the truth," she said. "Betty's room +belongs to that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe's +bedroom was arranged. It is the last room of the +suite opening on to the hall, and for that reason, as the +Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to +seal it up with the others." +

+ +

+"I thank you, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud with a +smile. "Yes, that of course softens his action." He +looked whimsically at Betty in the window-seat. "It has +been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend Mademoiselle +Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome +dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I +understand, on the Saturday morning twelve days ago!" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur," said Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+"And after the funeral, on your return to this house, +the notary opened and read the will?" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"And in Boris Waberski's presence?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of +May, he goes off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous +letter?" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in +answer. +

+ +

+"And a little later on the same morning comes the +Commissaire, who seals the doors." +

+ +

+"At eleven o'clock, to be exact," replied Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+Hanaud bowed low. +

+ +

+"You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the +precise hour at which things happen. It is a rare gift, and +very useful to people like myself." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her +manner with each answer that she gave. Now she could +laugh outright. +

+ +

+"I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud," she said. "But +alas! I was born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, +a book disarranged, a clock not keeping time, or even a +pin on the carpet—I cannot bear these things. I notice +them at once and I must put them straight. Yes, it was +precisely eleven o'clock when the Commissaire of Police +rang the bell." +

+ +

+"Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?" +Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"No. We both of us thought his negligence strange," +Ann replied, "until he informed us that the Examining +Magistrate wanted everything left just as it was." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed genially. +

+ +

+"That was on my account," he explained. "Who could +tell what wonderful things Hanaud might not discover +with his magnifying glass when he arrived from Paris? +What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! What scraps +of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, +Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, +even Hanaud would not expect to make any startling +discoveries in rooms which had been open to the whole +household for a fortnight since the crime. However," +and he moved towards the door, "since I am here +now——" +

+ +

+Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. +Hanaud stopped and swung round upon her, swiftly, with +his eyes very challenging and hard. +

+ +

+"You are going to break those seals now?" she asked +with a curious breathlessness. "Then may I come with +you—please, please! It is I who am accused. I have a +right to be present," and her voice rose into an earnest +cry. +

+ +

+"Calm yourself, Mademoiselle," Hanaud returned +gently. "No advantage will be taken of you. I am going +to break no seals. That, as I have told you, is the +right of the Commissaire, who is a magistrate, and he +will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, +what I was going to propose was that Mademoiselle +here," and he pointed to Ann, "should show me the outside +of those reception-rooms and the rest of the house." +

+ +

+"Of course," said Betty, and she sat down again in the +window-seat. +

+ +

+"Thank you," said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann +Upcott. "Shall we go? And as we go, will you tell me +what you think of Boris Waberski?" +

+ +

+"He has some nerve. I can tell you that, Monsieur +Hanaud," Ann cried. "He actually came back to this +house after he had lodged his charge, and asked me to +support him"; and she passed out of the room in front of +Hanaud. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher followed the couple to the door and +closed it behind them. The last few minutes had set his +mind altogether at rest. The author of the anonymous +letters was the detective's real quarry. His manner had +quite changed when putting his questions about them. +The flamboyancies and the indifference, even his +amusement at Betty's ill-humour had quite disappeared. He +had got to business watchfully, quietly. Jim came back +into the room. He took his cigarette-case from his pocket +and opened it. +

+ +

+"May I smoke?" he asked. As he turned to Betty for +permission, a fresh shock brought his thoughts and words +alike to a standstill. She was staring at him with panic +naked in her eyes and her face set like a tragic mask. +

+ +

+"He believes me guilty," she whispered. +

+ +

+"No," said Jim, and he went to her side. But she +would not listen. +

+ +

+"He does. I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was +bound to? He was sent from Paris. He has his reputation +to think of. He must have his victim before he +returns." +

+ +

+Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had +only to tell the real cause which had fetched Hanaud out +of Paris and Betty's distress was gone. But he could +not. Every tradition of his life strove to keep him silent. +He dared not even tell her that this charge against her +was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little +while longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. +

+ +

+"Betty, don't believe that!" he said, with a consciousness +of how weak that phrase was compared with the +statement he could have made. "I was watching Hanaud, +listening to him. I am sure that he already knew the +answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he +even knew that Simon Harlowe had a passion for collecting, +though not a word had been said of it. He was asking +questions to see how you would answer them, setting +now and then a little trap, as he admitted——" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Betty in trembling voice, "all the time he +was setting traps." +

+ +

+"And every answer that you gave, even your manner +in giving them," Jim continued stoutly, "more and more +made clear your innocence." +

+ +

+"To him?" asked Betty. +

+ +

+"Yes, to him. I am sure of it." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe caught at his arm and held it in both +her hands. She leaned her head against it. Through the +sleeve of his coat he felt the velvet of her cheek. +

+ +

+"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Jim," and +as she pronounced the name she smiled. She was thanking +him not so much for the stout confidence of his words, +as for the comfort which the touch of him gave to her. +

+ +

+"Very likely I am making too much of little things," she +went on. "Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur +Hanaud. But he lives amidst crimes and criminals. He +must be so used to seeing people condemned and passing +out of sight into blackness and horrors, that one more +or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, +wouldn't seem to matter very much." +

+ +

+"Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust," Jim +Frobisher remarked gently. +

+ +

+"Very well, I take it back," she said, and she let his +arm go. "All the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not +to him," and she laughed with an appealing tremor in the +laugh which took his heart by storm. +

+ +

+"Luckily," said he, "you don't have to look to any one," +and he had hardly finished the sentence before Ann +Upcott came back alone into the room. She was about +Betty's height and Betty's age and had the same sort of +boyish slenderness and carriage which marks the girls of +this generation. But in other respects, even to the colour +of her clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be +from another. She was dressed in white from her coat to +her shoes, and she wore a big gold hat so that one was +almost at a loss to know where her hat ended and her +hair began. +

+ +

+"And Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. +

+ +

+"He is prowling about by himself," she replied. "I +showed him all the rooms and who used them, and he +said that he would have a look at them and sent me back +to you." +

+ +

+"Did he break the seals on the reception-rooms?" Betty +Harlowe asked. +

+ +

+"Oh, no," said Ann. "Why, he told us that he couldn't +do that without the Commissaire." +

+ +

+"Yes, he told us that," Betty remarked dryly. "But I +was wondering whether he meant what he told us." +

+ +

+"Oh, I don't think Monsieur Hanaud's alarming," said +Ann. She gave Jim Frobisher the impression that at any +moment she might call him a dear old thing. She had +quite got over the first little shock which the announcement +of his presence had caused her. "Besides," and she +sat down by the side of Betty in the window-seat and +looked with the frankest confidence at Jim—"besides, we +can feel safe now, anyway." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair. That +queer look of aloofness had played him false with Ann +Upcott now, as it had already done with Betty. If these +two girls had called on him for help when a sudden squall +found them in an open sailing-boat with the sheet of the +sail made fast, or on the ice-slope of a mountain, or with +a rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest +of the Nile, he would not have shrunk from their trust. +But this was quite a different matter. They were calmly +pitting him against Hanaud. +

+ +

+"You were safe before," he exclaimed. "Hanaud is +not your enemy, and as for me, I have neither experience +nor natural gifts for this sort of work"—and he broke off +with a groan. For both the girls were watching him with +a smile of complete disbelief. +

+ +

+"Good heavens, they think that I am being astute," he +reflected, "and the more I confess my incapacity the +astuter they'll take me to be." He gave up all arguments. +"Of course I am absolutely at your service," he said. +

+ +

+"Thank you," said Betty. "You will bring your luggage +from your hotel and stay here, won't you?" +

+ +

+Jim was tempted to accept that invitation. But, on +the one hand, he might wish to see Hanaud at the Grande +Taverne; or Hanaud might wish to see him, and secrecy +was to be the condition of such meetings. It was better +that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. +

+ +

+"I won't put you to so much trouble, Betty," he replied. +"There's no reason in the world that I should. +A call over the telephone and in five minutes I am at your +side." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe seemed in doubt to press her invitation +or not. +

+ +

+"It looks a little inhospitable in me," she began, and the +door opened, and Hanaud entered the room. +

+ +

+"I left my hat and stick here," he said. He picked them +up and bowed to the girls. +

+ +

+"You have seen everything, Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty +asked. +

+ +

+"Everything, Mademoiselle. I shall not trouble you +again until the report of the analysis is in my hands. I +wish you a good morning." +

+ +

+Betty slipped off the window-seat and accompanied him +out into the hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she +was seeking to make some amends for her ill-humour; and +when he heard her voice he thought to detect in it some +note of apology. +

+ +

+"I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense +of that report as soon as possible," she pleaded. "You, +better than any one, will understand that this is a difficult +hour for me." +

+ +

+"I understand very well, Mademoiselle," Hanaud answered +gravely. "I will see to it that the hour is not +prolonged." +

+ +

+Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood +together in the sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon +his arm. He wheeled about quickly. Ann Upcott was +at his side with all the liveliness and even the delicate +colour gone from her face, and a wild and desperate +appeal in her eyes. +

+ +

+"You will come and stay here? Oh, please!" she whispered. +

+ +

+"I have just refused," he answered. "You heard me." +

+ +

+"I know," she went on, the words stumbling over one +another from her lips. "But take back your refusal. Do! +Oh, I am frightened out of my wits. I don't understand +anything. I am terrified!" And she clasped her hands +together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear so +stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. +It robbed her exquisite face of all its beauty, and made it +in a second, haggard and old. But before he could answer, +a stick clattered loudly upon the pavement of the +hall and startled them both like the crack of a pistol. +

+ +

+Jim looked through the doorway. Hanaud was stooping +to pick up his cane. Betty made a dive for it, but +Hanaud already had it in his hands. +

+ +

+"I thank you, Mademoiselle, but I can still touch my +toes. Every morning I do it five times in my pyjamas," +and with a laugh he ran down the couple of steps into the +courtyard and with that curiously quick saunter of his +was out into the street of Charles-Robert in a moment. +When Jim turned again to Ann Upcott, the fear had gone +from her face so completely that he could hardly believe +his eyes. +

+ +

+"Betty, he is going to stay," she cried gaily. +

+ +

+"So I inferred," replied Betty with a curious smile as +she came back into the room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SEVEN: Exit Waberski +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher neither saw nor heard any more of +Hanaud that day. He fetched his luggage away from +the hotel and spent the evening with Betty Harlowe and +Ann Upcott at the Maison Crenelle. They took their +coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, +descending to it by a short flight of stone steps from a great +door at the back of the hall. And by some sort of +unspoken compact they avoided all mention of Waberski's +charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the +analyst's report. But the long line of high, shuttered +windows just above their heads, the windows of the +reception-rooms, forbade them to forget the subject, and +their conversation perpetually dwindled down into long +silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, cool +and very still; so that the bustle of a bird amongst the +leaves of the sycamores startled them and the rare footsteps +of a passer-by in the little street of Charles-Robert +rang out as though they would wake a dreaming city. +Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcott leaned swiftly +forward and stared across the dark lawns and glimmering +paths to the great screen of tall trees, as if her eyes +had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on +each occasion she said nothing and with an almost +inaudible sigh sank back in her chair. +

+ +

+"Is there a door into the garden from the street?" +Frobisher asked, and Betty answered him. +

+ +

+"No. There is a passage at the end of the house under +the reception-rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners +use. The only other entrance is through the hall +behind us. This old house was built in days when your +house really was your castle and the fewer the entrances, +the more safely you slept." +

+ +

+The clocks of that city of Clocks clashed out the hour +of eleven, throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards +and forwards above the pinnacles and roof-tops in a sort +of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. +

+ +

+"There's a day gone, at all events," she said, and Ann +Upcott agreed with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed +a pitiful thing that these two girls, to whom each day +should be a succession of sparkling hours all too short, +must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that another +of them had passed. +

+ +

+"It should be the last of the bad days," he said, and +Betty turned swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining +in the darkness. +

+ +

+"Good night, Jim," she said, her voice ever so slightly +lingering like a caress upon his name and she held out +her hand. "It's terribly dull for you, but we are not +unselfish enough to let you go. You see, we are shunned +just now—oh, it's natural! To have you with us means +a great deal. For one thing," and there came a little lilt +in her voice, "I shall sleep to-night." She ran up the +steps and stood for a moment against the light from the +hall. "A long-legged slip of a girl, in black silk +stockings"—thus Mr. Haslitt had spoken of her as she was +five years ago, and the description fitted her still. +

+ +

+"Good night, Betty," said Jim, and Ann Upcott ran +past him up the steps and waved her hand. +

+ +

+"Good night," said Jim, and with a little twist of her +shoulders Ann followed Betty. She came back, however. +She was wearing a little white frock of crêpe de Chine +with white stockings and satin shoes, and she gleamed at +the head of the steps like a slender thing of silver. +

+ +

+"You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you?" +She pleaded with a curious anxiety considering the height +of the strong walls about the garden. +

+ +

+"I will," said Jim, and he wondered why in all this +business Ann Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was +high time indeed, that the long line of windows was +thrown open and the interdict raised from the house and +its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden in the +darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would +come to-morrow. In Betty's room above the reception-rooms +the light was still burning behind the latticed shutters +of the windows, in spite of her confidence that she +would sleep—yes, and in Ann Upcott's room too, at the +end of the house towards the street. A fury against +Boris Waberski flamed up in him. +

+ +

+It was late before he himself went into the house and +barred the door, later still before he fell asleep. But +once asleep, he slept soundly, and when he waked, it was +to find his shutters thrown wide to the sunlight, his coffee +cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old servant, in the +room. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud asked me to tell you he was in the +library," he said. +

+ +

+Jim was out of bed in an instant. +

+ +

+"Already? What is the time, Gaston?" +

+ +

+"Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath." He +removed the tray from the table by the bed. "I will bring +some fresh coffee." +

+ +

+"Thank you! And will you please tell Monsieur +Hanaud that I will not be long." +

+ +

+"Certainly, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down +to the library, where he found Hanaud seated at the big +writing-table in the middle of the room, with a newspaper +spread out over the blotting-pad and placidly reading the +news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the moment +Jim appeared. +

+ +

+"So you left your hotel in the Place Darcy, after all, +eh, my friend? The exquisite Miss Upcott! She had but +to sigh out a little prayer and clasp her hands together, +and it was done. Yes, I saw it all from the hall. What +it is to be young! You have those two letters which +Waberski wrote your firm?" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. He did not think it necessary to +explain that though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was +the thought of Betty which had brought him to the +Maison Grenelle. +

+ +

+"Good! I have sent for him," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"To come to this house?" +

+ +

+"I am expecting him now." +

+ +

+"That's capital," cried Jim. "I shall meet him, then! +The damned rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped +him," and he clenched his fist and shook it in a joyous +anticipation. +

+ +

+"I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, +I beg of you to place yourself in my hands this morning, +Monsieur Frobisher," Hanaud interposed soberly. +"If you confront Waberski at once with those two letters, +at once his accusation breaks down. He will withdraw +it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent +of complaints and reproaches. And I shall get nothing +out of him. That I do not want." +

+ +

+"But what is there to be got?" Jim asked impatiently. +

+ +

+"Something perhaps. Perhaps nothing," the detective +returned with a shrug of the shoulders. "I have a second +mission in Dijon, as I told you in Paris." +

+ +

+"The anonymous letters?" +

+ +

+"Yes. You were present yesterday when Mademoiselle +Harlowe told me how she learned that I was summoned +from Paris upon this case. It was not, after all, +any of my colleagues here who spread the news. It is +even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer +of the letters. And in so difficult a matter I can afford +to neglect no clue. Did Waberski know that I was going +to be sent for? Did he hear that at the Prefecture when +he lodged his charge on the Saturday or from the +examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to +whom did he talk between the time when he saw the +magistrate and the time when letters must be posted if they +are to be delivered on the Sunday morning? These are +questions I must have the answer to, and if we at once +administer the knock-out with your letters, I shall not +get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You +see that." +

+ +

+Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see +Hanaud dealing with Waberski in the most outrageous +of his moods, pouncing and tearing and trampling with +the gibes of a schoolboy and the improprieties of the +gutter. Hanaud indeed had promised him as much. But +he found him now all for restraint and sobriety and more +concerned apparently with the authorship of the anonymous +letters than with the righting of Betty Harlowe. +Jim felt that he had been defrauded. +

+ +

+"But I am to meet this man," he said. "That must not +be forgotten." +

+ +

+"And it shall not be," Hanaud assured him. He led +him over to the door in the inner wall close to the +observation window and opened it. +

+ +

+"See! If you will please to wait in here," and as the +disappointment deepened on Jim's face, he added, "Oh, +I do not ask you to shut the door. No. Bring up a chair +to it—so! And keep the door ajar so! Then you will +see and hear and yet not be seen. You are content? Not +very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole +time like an actor. Yes, we all do. But, at all events, +you do not throw up your part," and with a friendly grin +he turned back to the table. +

+ +

+A shuffling step which merged into the next step with +a curiously slovenly sound rose from the courtyard. +

+ +

+"It was time we made our little arrangements," said +Hanaud in an undertone. "For here comes our hero from +the Steppes." +

+ +

+Jim popped his head through the doorway. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud!" he whispered excitedly. "Monsieur +Hanaud! It cannot be wise to leave those windows +open on the courtyard. For if we can hear a footstep so +loudly in this room, anything said in this room will be +easily overheard in the court." +

+ +

+"But how true that is!" Hanaud replied in the same +voice and struck his forehead with his fist in anger at his +folly. "But what are we to do? The day is so hot. +This room will be an oven. The ladies and Waberski +will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain clothes +already stationed in the court to see that it is kept empty. +Yes, we will risk it." +

+ +

+Jim drew back. +

+ +

+"That man doesn't welcome advice from any one," +he said indignantly, but he said it only to himself; and +almost before he had finished, the bell rang. A few +seconds afterwards Gaston entered. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Boris," he said. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud with a nod. "And will you tell +the ladies that we are ready?" +

+ +

+Boris Waberski, a long, round-shouldered man with +bent knees and clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding +a soft black felt hat in his hand, shambled quickly into +the room and stopped dead at the sight of Hanaud. +Hanaud bowed and Waberski returned the bow; and +then the two men stood looking at one another—Hanaud +all geniality and smiles, Waberski a rather grotesque +figure of uneasiness like one of those many grim +caricatures carved by the imagination of the Middle Ages on +the columns of the churches of Dijon. He blinked in +perplexity at the detective and with his long, +tobacco-stained fingers tortured his grey moustache. +

+ +

+"Will you be seated?" said Hanaud politely. "I think +that the ladies will not keep us waiting." +

+ +

+He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table +but on his left hand and opposite to the door. +

+ +

+"I don't understand," said Waberski doubtfully. "I +received a message. I understood that the Examining +Magistrate had sent for me." +

+ +

+"I am his agent," said Hanaud. "I am——" and he +stopped. "Yes?" +

+ +

+Boris Waberski stared. +

+ +

+"I said nothing." +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon. I am—Hanaud." +

+ +

+He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by +no start, nor by any sign of recognition. +

+ +

+"Hanaud?" Waberski shook his head. "That no +doubt should be sufficient to enlighten me," he said with +a smile, "but it is better to be frank—it doesn't." +

+ +

+"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris." +

+ +

+And upon Waberski's face there came slowly a look of +utter consternation. +

+ +

+"Oh!" he said, and again "Oh!" with a lamentable look +towards the door as if he was in two minds whether to +make a bolt of it. Hanaud pointed again to the chair, +and Waberski murmured, "Yes—to be sure," and made +a little run to it and sank down. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was +certain of one thing. Boris Waberski had not written the +anonymous letter to Betty nor had he contributed the +information about Hanaud to the writer. He might well +have been thought to have been acting ignorance of +Hanaud's name, up to the moment when Hanaud explained +who Hanaud was. But no longer. His consternation +then was too genuine. +

+ +

+"You will understand, of course, that an accusation +so serious as the one you have brought against Mademoiselle +Harlowe demands the closest inquiry," Hanaud continued +without any trace of irony, "and the Examining +Magistrate in charge of the case honoured us in Paris +with a request for help." +

+ +

+"Yes, it is very difficult," replied Boris Waberski, +twisting about as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. +

+ +

+But the difficulty was Waberski's, as Jim, with that +distressed man in full view, was now able to appreciate. +Waberski had rushed to the Prefecture when no answer +came from Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt to his letter of +threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of +disappointment and rancour, with a hope no doubt that some +offer of cash would be made to him and that he could +withdraw it. Now he found the trained detective service +of France upon his heels, asking for his proofs and +evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. +

+ +

+"I thought," Hanaud continued easily, "that a little +informal conversation between you and me and the two +young ladies, without shorthand writers or secretaries, +might be helpful." +

+ +

+"Yes, indeed," said Waberski hopefully. +

+ +

+"As a preliminary of course," Hanaud added dryly, "a +preliminary to the more serious and now inevitable +procedure." +

+ +

+Waberski's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. +

+ +

+"To be sure," he murmured, plucking at his lean throat +nervously. "Cases must proceed." +

+ +

+"That is what they are there for," said Hanaud +sententiously; and the door of the library was pushed open. +Betty came into the room with Ann Upcott immediately +behind her. +

+ +

+"You sent for me," she began to Hanaud, and then she +saw Boris Waberski. Her little head went up with a +jerk, her eyes smouldered. "Monsieur Boris," she said, +and again she spoke to Hanaud. "Come to take possession, +I suppose?" Then she looked round the room for +Jim Frobisher, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay: +

+ +

+"But I understood that——" and Hanaud was just in +time to stop her from mentioning any name. +

+ +

+"All in good time, Mademoiselle," he said quickly. +"Let us take things in their order." +

+ +

+Betty took her old place in the window-seat. Ann +Upcott shut the door and sat down in a chair a little apart +from the others. Hanaud folded up his newspaper and +laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad which was now +revealed lay one of those green files which Jim Frobisher +had noticed in the office of the Sûrété. Hanaud opened +it and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to +Waberski. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of +April, this girl here, Betty Harlowe, did wilfully give to +her adoptive mother and benefactress, Jeanne-Marie +Harlowe, an overdose of a narcotic by which her death was +brought about." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Waberski with an air of boldness, "I declare +that." +

+ +

+"You do not specify the narcotic?" +

+ +

+"It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure." +

+ +

+"And administered, according to you, if this summary +which I hold here is correct, in the glass of lemonade +which Madame Harlowe had always at her bedside." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud laid the sheet of foolscap down again. +

+ +

+"You do not charge the nurse, Jeanne Baudin, with +complicity in this crime?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Oh, no!" Waberski exclaimed with a sort of horror, +with his eyes open wide and his eyebrows running up his +forehead towards his hedge of wiry hair. "I have not a +suspicion of Jeanne Baudin. I pray you, Monsieur +Hanaud, to be clear upon that point. There must be no +injustice! No! Oh, it is well that I came here to-day! +Jeanne Baudin! Listen! I would engage her to nurse +me to-morrow, were my health to fail." +

+ +

+"One cannot say more than that," replied Hanaud with +a grave sympathy. "I only asked you the question +because undoubtedly Jeanne Baudin was in Madame's +bedroom when Mademoiselle entered it to wish Madame +good night and show off her new dancing-frock." +

+ +

+"Yes, I understand," said Waberski. He was growing +more and more confident, so suave and friendly was this +Monsieur Hanaud of the Sûrété. "But the fatal drug +was slipped into that glass without a doubt when Jeanne +Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No! It +is that hard one," and his voice began to shake and his +mouth to work, "who slipped it in and then hurried off +to dance till morning, whilst her victim died. It is terrible +that! Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, it is terrible. My poor +sister!" +

+ +

+"Sister-in-law." +

+ +

+The correction came with an acid calm from an armchair +near the door in which Ann Upcott was reclining. +

+ +

+"Sister to me!" replied Waberski mournfully and he +turned to Hanaud. "Monsieur, I shall never cease to +reproach myself. I was away fishing in the forest. If +I had stayed at home! Think of it! I ask you to——" +and his voice broke. +

+ +

+"Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Waberski," +Hanaud said, "and this is where I am perplexed. You +loved your sister. That is clear, since you cannot even +think of her without tears." +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," Waberski shaded his eyes with his hand. +

+ +

+"Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so +long before you took any action to avenge her death? +There will be some good reason not a doubt, but I have +not got it." Hanaud continued, spreading out his hands. +"Listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night +of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th; and +you do nothing, you bring no charge, you sit all quiet. +She is buried on the 30th, and after that you still do +nothing, you sit all quiet. It is not until one week after +that you launch your accusation against Mademoiselle. +Why? I beg you, Monsieur Waberski, not to look at +me between the fingers, for the answer is not written on +my face, and to explain this difficulty to me." +

+ +

+The request was made in the same pleasant, friendly +voice which Hanaud had used so far and without any +change of intonation. But Waberski snatched his hand +away from his forehead and sat up with a flush on his +face. +

+ +

+"I answer you at once," he exclaimed. "From the first +I knew it here," and he thumped his heart with his fist, +"that murder had been committed. But as yet I did not +know it here," and he patted his forehead, "in my head. +So I think and I think and I think. I see reasons and +motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of +beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, +thirsting in her heart for colour and laughter and +enjoyment and the power which her beauty offers her if she +will but grasp it, and yet while thirsting, very able to +conceal all sign of thirst. That is the picture I give you +of that hard one, Betty Harlowe." +

+ +

+For the first time since the interview had commenced, +Betty herself showed some interest in it. Up till now +she had sat without a movement, a figure of disdain in +an ice-house of pride. Now she flashed into life. She +leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed knee, her chin +propped in her hand, her eyes on Waberski, and a smile +of amusement at this analysis of herself giving life to +her face. Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his +door felt that he was listening to blasphemies. Why did +Hanaud endure it? There was information, he had said, +which he wanted to get from Boris Waberski. The point +on which he wanted information was settled long ago, at +the very beginning of this informal session. It was as +clear as daylight that Waberski had nothing to do with +Betty's anonymous letter. Why, then, should Hanaud +give this mountebank of a fellow a free opportunity to +slander Betty Harlowe? Why should he question and +question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? +Why, in a word, didn't he fling open this door, allow +Frobisher to produce the blackmailing letters to +Mr. Haslitt, and then stand aside while Boris Waberski was +put into that condition in which he would call upon the +services of Jeanne Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously +annoyed with Monsieur Hanaud. He explained to +himself that he was disappointed. +

+ +

+Meanwhile, Boris Waberski, after a little nervous check +when Betty had leaned forward, continued his description. +

+ +

+"For such a one Dijon would be tiresome. It is true +there was each year a month or so at Monte Carlo, just +enough to give one a hint of what might be, like a +cigarette to a man who wants to smoke. And then back +to Dijon! Ah, Monsieur, not the Dijon of the Dukes of +Burgundy, not even the Dijon of the Parliament of the +States, but the Dijon of to-day, an ordinary, dull, +provincial town of France which keeps nothing of its former +gaieties and glory but some old rare buildings and a little +spirit of mockery. Imagine, then, Monsieur, this hard +one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp if only +she has the boldness on some night when Monsieur Boris +is out of the way to seize them! Nor is that all. For +there is an invalid in the house to whom attentions are +owed—yes, and must be given." Waberski, in a flight of +excitement checked himself and half closed his eyes, with +a little cunning nod. "For the invalid was not so easy. +No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we +will not forget them when the moment comes for the +extenuating pleas. No, indeed," and he flung his arm +out nobly. "I myself will be the first to urge them to the +judge of the Assizes when the verdict is given." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe leaned back once more indifferent. +From an arm-chair near the door, a little gurgle of +laughter broke from the lips of Ann Upcott. Even Hanaud +smiled. +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," he said; "but we have not got quite as far +as the Court of Assizes, Monsieur Waberski. We are +still at the point where you know it in your heart but not +in your head." +

+ +

+"That is so," Waberski returned briskly. "On the +seventh of May, a Saturday, I bring my accusation to the +Prefecture. Why? For, on the morning of that day I +am certain. I know it at last here too," and up went his +hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward on +to the edge of his chair. +

+ +

+"I am in the street of Gambetta, one of the small popular +new streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation +not of the best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly +through that street when from a little shop a few yards +in front of me out pops that hard one, my niece." +

+ +

+Suddenly the whole character of that session had +changed. Jim Frobisher, though he sat apart from it, +felt the new tension, and was aware of the new expectancy. +A moment ago Boris Waberski as he sat talking +and gesticulating had been a thing for ridicule, almost for +outright laughter. Now, though his voice still jumped +hysterically from high notes to low notes and his body +jerked like a marionette's, he held the eyes of every +one—every one, that is, except Betty Harlowe. He was no +longer vague. He was speaking of a definite hour and a +place and of a definite incident which happened there. +

+ +

+"Yes, in that bad little street I see her. I do not +believe my senses. I step into a little narrow alley and I +peep round the corner. I peep with my eyes," and +Waberski pointed to them with two of his fingers as though +there was something peculiarly convincing in the fact +that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, "and +I am sure. Then I wait until she is out of sight, and +I creep forward to see what shop it is she visited in that +little street of squalor. Once more I do not believe my +eyes. For over the door I read the name, Jean Cladel, +Herbalist." +

+ +

+He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph and sat +back in his chair, nodding his head violently at intervals +of a second. There was not a sound in the room until +Hanaud's voice broke the silence. +

+ +

+"I don't understand," he said softly. "Who is this +Jean Cladel, and why should a young lady not visit his +shop?" +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon," Waberski replied. "You are not +of Dijon. No! or you would not have asked that question. +Jean Cladel has no better name than the street he +very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonnais about Jean Cladel, +and you will see how he becomes silent and shrugs his +shoulders as if here was a topic on which it was becoming +to be silent. Better still, Monsieur Hanaud, ask at +the Prefecture. Jean Cladel! Twice he has been tried +for selling prohibited drugs." +

+ +

+Hanaud was stung at last out of his calm. +

+ +

+"What is that?" he cried in a sharp voice. +

+ +

+"Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped +through, that is true. He has powerful friends, and +witnesses have been spirited away. But he is known! Jean +Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!" +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta," +Hanaud repeated slowly. "But"—and he leaned back in +an easier attitude—"you will see my difficulty, Monsieur +Waberski. Ten o'clock is a public hour. It is not a likely +hour for any one to choose for so imprudent a visit, even +if that one were stupid." +

+ +

+"Yes, and so I reasoned too," Waberski interposed +quickly. "As I told you, I could not believe my eyes. +But I made sure—oh, there was no doubt, Monsieur +Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes are +discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner +or later some foolish thing. Isn't it so? Sometimes they +are too careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an +imperfect world. Sometimes they are too careless or are +driven by necessity to a rash thing. But somehow a +mistake is made and justice wins the game." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled. +

+ +

+"Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!" He turned to +Betty, and it struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious +discomfort that this was the first time Hanaud had looked +directly at Betty since the interview had begun. +

+ +

+"And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"It is a lie," she answered quietly. +

+ +

+"You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta +at ten o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May?" +

+ +

+"I did not, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache. +

+ +

+"Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle +to admit it. One fights for one's skin, eh?" +

+ +

+"But, after all," Hanaud interrupted, with enough +savagery in his voice to check all Waberski's complacency, +"let us not forget that on the 7th of May, Madame +Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why should +Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?" +

+ +

+"To pay," said Waberski. "Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel's +wares are expensive and have to be paid for more than +once, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"By wares you mean poison," said Hanaud. "Let us +be explicit." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe." +

+ +

+"I say so," Waberski declared, folding his arms across +his breast. +

+ +

+"Very well," said Hanaud. He took from his green +file a second paper written over in a fine hand and +emphasised by an official stamp. "Then what will you say, +Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of Madame +Harlowe has been exhumed?" Hanaud continued, and +Waberski's face lost what little colour it had. He stared +at Hanaud, his jaw working up and down nervously, and +he did not say a word. +

+ +

+"And what will you say if I tell you," Hanaud +continued, "that no more morphia was discovered in it than +one sleeping-dose would explain and no trace at all of any +other poison?" +

+ +

+In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief +from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The game was +up. He had hoped to make his terms, but his bluff was +called. He had not one atom of faith in his own accusation. +There was but one course for him to take, and that +was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection +for his sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. +But Boris Waberski was never the man for that. He had +that extra share of cunning which shipwrecks always the +minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine that +Hanaud might be bluffing too. +

+ +

+He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He +tittered and nodded at Hanaud confidentially. +

+ +

+"You say 'if I tell you,'" he said smoothly. "Yes, but +you do not tell me, Monsieur Hanaud—no, not at all. +On the contrary, what you say is this: 'My friend Waberski, +here is a difficult matter which, if exposed, means a +great scandal, and of which the issue is doubtful. There +is no good in stirring the mud.'" +

+ +

+"Oh, I say that?" Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly. +

+ +

+Waberski felt sure of his ground now. +

+ +

+"Yes, and more than that. You say, 'You have been +badly treated, my friend Waberski, and if you will now +have a little talk with that hard one your niece——'" +

+ +

+And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat +gaping stupidly like a man who has been shot. +

+ +

+Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering +above the table, his face suddenly dark with passion. +

+ +

+"Oh, I say all that, do I?" he thundered. "I came +all the way from Paris to Dijon to preside over a little +bargain in a murder case! I—Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! +I'll teach you a lesson for that! Read this!" and bending +forward he thrust out the paper with the official seal. +"It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and +read it!" +

+ +

+Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to +venture nearer. Even when he had the paper in his hands, +they shook so he could not read it. But since he had +never believed in his charge that did not matter. +

+ +

+"Yes," he muttered, "no doubt I have made a mistake." +

+ +

+Hanaud caught the word up. +

+ +

+"Mistake! Ah, there's a fine word! I'll show you +what sort of a mistake you have made. Draw up your +chair to this table in front of me! So! And take a +pen—so! And a sheet of paper—so! and now you write +for me a letter." +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," Waberski agreed. All the bravado had +gone from his bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He +was in a quiver from head to foot. "I will write that I +am sorry." +

+ +

+"That is not necessary," roared Hanaud. "I will see +to it that you are sorry. No! You write for me what I +dictate to you and in English. You are ready? Yes? +Then you begin. 'Dear Sirs.' You have that?" +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His +head was in a whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the +towering bulk of the detective. He had as yet no +comprehension of the goal to which he was being led. +

+ +

+"Good! 'Dear Sirs,'" Hanaud repeated. "But we +want a date for that letter. April 30th, eh? That will +do. The day Madame Harlowe's will was read and you +found you were left no money. April 30th—put it in. +So! Now we go on. 'Dear Sirs, Send me at once one +thousand pounds by the recommended post, or I make +some awkwardnesses——'" +

+ +

+Waberski dropped his pen and sprang back out of his +chair. +

+ +

+"I don't understand—I can't write that.... There +is an error—I never meant..." he stammered, his +hands raised as if to ward off an attack. +

+ +

+"Ah, you never meant the blackmail!" Hanaud cried +savagely. "Ah! Ha! Ha! It is good for you that I +now know that! For when, as you put it so delicately +to Mademoiselle, the moment comes for the extenuating +pleas, I can rise up in the Court and urge it. Yes! I +will say: 'Mr. the President, though he did the blackmail, +poor fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him +five years more,'" and with that Hanaud swept across +the room like a tornado and flung open the door behind +which Frobisher was waiting. +

+ +

+"Come!" he said, and he led Jim into the room. "You +produce the two letters he wrote to your firm, Monsieur +Frobisher. Good!" +

+ +

+But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris +Waberski had dropped into a chair and burst into tears. +There was a little movement of discomfort made by +every one in that room except Hanaud; and even his +anger dropped. He looked at Waberski in silence. +

+ +

+"You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your +hotel," he said shortly. "But you will not leave Dijon, +Monsieur Waberski, until it is decided what steps we shall +take with you." +

+ +

+Waberski rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the +door. +

+ +

+"I make my apologies," he stammered. "It is all a +mistake. I am very poor ... I meant no harm," and +without looking at any one he got himself out of the +room. +

+ +

+"That type! He at all events cannot any more think +that Dijon is dull," said Hanaud, and once more he +adventured on the dangerous seas of the English +language. "Do you know what my friend Mister Ricardo +would have said? No? I tell you. He would have said, +'That fellow! My God! What a sauce!'" +

+ +

+Those left in the room, Betty, Ann Upcott, and Jim +Frobisher, were in a mood to welcome any excuse for +laughter. The interdict upon the house was raised, the +charge against Betty proved of no account, the whole +bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanaud +went quickly to the door and closed it, and when he +turned back there was no laughter at all upon his face. +

+ +

+"Now that that man has gone," he said gravely, "I +have something to tell you three which is very serious. I +believe that, though Waberski does not know it, Madame +Harlowe was murdered by poison in this house on the +night of April the twenty-seventh." +

+ +

+The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim +Frobisher stood like a man whom some calamity has +stunned. Betty leaned forward in her seat with a face of +horror and incredulity; and then from the arm-chair by +the door where Ann Upcott was sitting there burst a loud, +wild cry. +

+ +

+"There was some one in the house that night," she cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud swung round to her, his eyes blazing. +

+ +

+"And it is you who tell me that, Mademoiselle?" he +asked in a curious, steady voice. +

+ +

+"Yes. It's the truth," she cried with a sort of relief +in her voice, that at last a secret was out which had grown +past endurance. "I am sure now. There was a stranger +in the house." And though her face was white as paper, +her eyes met Hanaud's without fear. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER EIGHT: The Book +

+ +

+The two startling declarations, one treading upon the +heels of the other, set Jim Frobisher's brain whirling. +Consternation and bewilderment were all jumbled +together. He had no time to ask "how," for he was +already asking "What next?" His first clear thought +was for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger +against both Hanaud and Ann Upcott seized and shook +him. Why hadn't they both spoken before? Why must +they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well alone? +

+ +

+For Betty had fallen back in the window-seat, her +hands idle at her sides and her face utterly weary and +distressed. Jim thought of some stricken patient who +wakes in the morning to believe for a few moments that +the malady was a bad dream; and then comes the stab +and the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A +moment ago Betty's ordeal seemed over. Now it was +beginning a new phase. +

+ +

+"I am sorry," he said to her. +

+ +

+The report of the analysts was lying on the writing-table +just beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was +a trick, of course, with its seals and its signatures, a +trick of Hanaud's to force Waberski to a retraction. He +glanced at it, and with an exclamation began carefully +to read it through from the beginning to the end. When +he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanaud. +

+ +

+"But this report is genuine," he cried. "Here are +the details of the tests applied and the result. There was +no trace discovered of any poison." +

+ +

+"No trace at all," Hanaud replied. He was not in the +least disturbed by the question. +

+ +

+"Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation +or whom you accuse," Frobisher exclaimed. +

+ +

+"I have accused no one," said Hanaud steadily. "Let +us be clear about that! As to your other question—look!" +

+ +

+He took Frobisher by the elbow and led him to that +bookshelf by the window before which they had stood +together yesterday. +

+ +

+"There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself +drew my attention to it. You see that the space is +filled to-day." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+Hanaud took down the volume which occupied the +space. It was of quarto size, fairly thick and bound in a +paper cover. +

+ +

+"Look at that," he said; and Jim Frobisher as he took +it noticed with a queer little start that although Hanaud's +eyes were on his face they were blank of all expression. +They did not see him. Hanaud's senses were concentrated +on the two girls at neither of whom he so much +as glanced. He was alert to them, to any movement they +might make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his +head in a sudden revolt. He was being used for another +trick, as some conjurer may use a fool of a fellow whom +he has persuaded out of his audience on to his platform. +Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with +enough violence to recall Hanaud's attention: +

+ +

+"I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed +by some learned society in Edinburgh." +

+ +

+"It is. And if you will look again, you will see that +it was written by a Professor of Medicine in that +University. And if you will look a third time you will see +from a small inscription in ink that the copy was +presented with the Professor's compliments to Mr. Simon +Harlowe." +

+ +

+Hanaud, whilst he was speaking, went to the second +of the two windows which looked upon the court and putting +his head out, spoke for a little while in a low voice. +

+ +

+"We shall not need our sentry here any more," he +said as he turned back into the room. "I have sent him +upon an errand." +

+ +

+He went back to Jim Frobisher, who was turning over +a page of the treatise here and there and was never a +scrap the wiser. +

+ +

+"Well?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Strophanthus Hispidus," Jim read aloud the title of +the treatise. "I can't make head or tail of it." +

+ +

+"Let me try!" said Hanaud, and he took the book out +of Frobisher's hands. "I will show you all how I spent +the half-hour whilst I was waiting for you this morning." +

+ +

+He sat down at the writing-table, placed the treatise on +the blotting-pad in front of him and laid it open at a +coloured plate. +

+ +

+"This is the fruit of the plant Strophanthus Hispidus, +when it is ripening," he said. +

+ +

+The plate showed two long, tapering follicles joined +together at their stems and then separating like a pair +of compasses set at an acute angle. The backs of these +follicles were rounded, dark in colour and speckled; the +inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the curious +feature of them was that, from longitudinal crevices, a +number of silky white feathers protruded. +

+ +

+"Each of these feathers," Hanaud continued, and he +looked up to find that Ann Upcott had drawn close to +the table and that Betty Harlowe herself was leaning +forward with a look of curiosity upon her face—"each +of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an elliptical +pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe +and these follicles have opened so that they make a +straight line, the feathers are released and the wind +spreads the seed. It is wonderful, eh? See!" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned the pages until he came to another plate. +Here a feather was represented in complete detachment +from the follicle. It was outspread like a fan and was +extraordinarily pretty and delicate in its texture; and +from it by a stem as fine as a hair the seed hung like a +jewel. +

+ +

+"What would you say of it, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud +asked, looking up into the face of Ann Upcott with a +smile. "An ornament wrought for a fine lady, by a +dainty artist, eh?" and he turned the book round so that +she on the opposite side of the table might the better +admire the engraving. +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe, it seemed, was now mastered by her +curiosity. Jim Frobisher, gazing down over Hanaud's +shoulder at the plate and wondering uneasily whither he +was being led, saw a shadow fall across the book. And +there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend with +the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table and her +face bent over the book. +

+ +

+"One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the +Strophanthus Hispidus," Hanaud continued with a shake +of the head. "But, alas! it is not so harmless." +

+ +

+He turned the book around again to himself and once +more turned the pages. The smile had disappeared +altogether from his face. He stopped at a third plate; and +this third plate showed a row of crudely fashioned arrows +with barbed heads. +

+ +

+Hanaud glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. +

+ +

+"Do you understand now the importance of this book, +Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "No? The seeds of +this plant make the famous arrow-poison of Africa. The +deadliest of all the poisons since there is no antidote +for it." His voice grew sombre. "The wickedest of all +the poisons, since it leaves no trace." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was startled. "Is that true?" he cried. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud; and Betty suddenly leaned +forward and pointed to the bottom of the plate. +

+ +

+"There is a mark there below the hilt of that arrow," +she said curiously. "Yes, and a tiny note in ink." +

+ +

+For a moment a little gift of vision was vouchsafed +to Jim Frobisher, born, no doubt, of his perplexities and +trouble. A curtain was rung up in his brain. He saw +no more than what was before him—the pretty group +about the table in the gold of the May morning, but it +was all made grim and terrible and the gold had withered +to a light that was grey and deathly and cold as the +grave. There were the two girls in the grace of their +beauty and their youth, daintily tended, fastidiously +dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of the +poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man +delivering the lecture, so close to them, with speech so +gentle, was implacably on the trail of murder, and maybe +even now looked upon one of these two girls as his +quarry; was even now perhaps planning to set her in +the dock of an Assize Court and send her out afterwards, +carried screaming and sobbing with terror in the first +grey of the morning to the hideous red engine erected +during the night before the prison gates. Jim saw +Hanaud the genial and friendly, as in some flawed mirror, +twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could +he sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point +them out this and that diagram in the plates, he being +human and knowing what he purposed. Jim broke in +upon the lecture with a cry of exasperation. +

+ +

+"But this isn't a poison! This is a book about a poison. +The book can't kill!" +

+ +

+At once Hanaud replied to him: +

+ +

+"Can't it?" he cried sharply. "Listen to what Mademoiselle +said a minute ago. Below the hilt of this arrow +marked 'Figure F,' the Professor has written a tiny note." +

+ +

+This particular arrow was a little different from the +others in the shape of its shaft. Just below the triangular +iron head the shaft expanded. It was as though the head +had been fitted into a bulb; as one sees sometimes wooden +penholders fine enough and tapering at the upper end, +and quite thick just above the nib. +

+ +

+"'See page 37,'" said Hanaud, reading the Professor's +note, and he turned back the pages. +

+ +

+"Page 37. Here we are!" +

+ +

+Hanaud ran a finger half-way down the page and +stopped at a word in capitals. +

+ +

+"Figure F." +

+ +

+Hanaud hitched his chair a little closer to the table; +Ann Upcott moved round the end of the table that she +might see the better; even Jim Frobisher found himself +stooping above Hanaud's shoulder. They were all +conscious of a queer tension; they were expectant like +explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Hanaud read +the paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed; and +this is what he read: +

+ +

+"'Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow +which was lent to me by Simon Harlowe, Esq., of +Blackman's, Norfolk, and the Maison Crenelle at Dijon. It +was given to him by a Mr. John Carlisle, a trader on the +Shire River in the Kombe country, and is the most perfect +example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The +Strophanthus seed has been pounded up in water and mixed +with the reddish clay used by the Kombe natives, and +the compound is thickly smeared over the head of the +arrow shaft and over the actual iron dart except at the +point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and the +compound fresh.'" +

+ +

+Hanaud leaned back in his chair when he had come to +the end of this paragraph. +

+ +

+"You see, Monsieur Frobisher, the question we have to +answer. Where is to-day Simon Harlowe's arrow?" +

+ +

+Betty looked up into Hanaud's face. +

+ +

+"If it is anywhere in this house, Monsieur, it should be +in the locked cabinet in my sitting-room." +

+ +

+"Your sitting-room?" Hanaud exclaimed sharply. +

+ +

+"Yes. It is what we call the Treasure Room—half +museum, half living-room. My uncle Simon used it, +Madame too. It was their favourite room, full of curios +and beautiful things. But after Simon Harlowe died +Madame would never enter it. She locked the door which +communicated with her dressing-room, so that she might +never even in a moment of forgetfulness enter it. The +room has a door into the hall. She gave the room to +me." +

+ +

+Hanaud's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. +

+ +

+"I understand," he said. "And that room is sealed." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Have you ever seen the arrow, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet +once. There are some horrible things hidden away +there"; and Betty shivered and shook the recollection of +them from her shoulders. +

+ +

+"The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that +it never came back to the house," Frobisher argued +stubbornly. "The Professor in all probability would have +kept it." +

+ +

+"If he could," Hanaud rejoined. "But it's out of all +probability that a collector of rare things would have +allowed him to keep it. No!" and he sat for a little time +in a muse. "Do you know what I am wondering?" he +asked at length, and then answered his own question. "I +am wondering whether after all Boris Waberski was not +in the street of Gambetta on the seventh of May and close, +very close, to the shop of Jean Cladel the herbalist." +

+ +

+"Boris! Boris Waberski," cried Jim. Was he in +Hanaud's eyes the criminal? After all, why not? After +all, who more likely if criminal there was, since Boris +Waberski thought himself an inheritor under Mrs. Harlowe's +will? +

+ +

+"I am wondering whether he was not doing that very +thing which he attributed to you, Mademoiselle Betty," +Hanaud continued. +

+ +

+"Paying?" Betty cried. +

+ +

+"Paying—or making excuses for not paying, which +is more probable, or recovering the poison arrow now +clean of its poison, which is most probable of all." +

+ +

+At last Hanaud had made an end of his secrecies and +reticence. His suspicion, winged like the arrow in the +plate, was flying straight to this evident mark. Jim drew +a breath like a man waking from a nightmare; in all of +that small company a relaxation was visible; Ann Upcott +drew away from the table; Betty said softly as though +speaking to herself, "Monsieur Boris! Monsieur Boris! +Oh, I never thought of that!" and, to Jim's admiration +there was actually a note of regret in her voice. +

+ +

+It was audible, too, to Hanaud, since he answered with +a smile: +

+ +

+"But you must bring yourself to think of it, Mademoiselle. +After all, he was not so gentle with you that you +need show him so much good will." +

+ +

+A slight rush of colour tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim +was not quite sure that a tiny accent of irony had not +pointed Hanaud's words. +

+ +

+"I saw him sitting here," she replied quickly, "half an +hour ago—abject—in tears—a man!" She shrugged her +shoulders with a gesture of distaste. "I wish him +nothing worse. I was satisfied." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled again with a curious amusement, an +appreciation which Frobisher was quite at a loss to +understand. But he had from time to time received an +uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel was all +this while being fought by Betty Harlowe and Hanaud +underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers—a +duel in which now one, now the other of the combatants +got some trifling scratch. This time it seemed +Betty was hurt. +

+ +

+"You are satisfied, Mademoiselle, but the Law is not," +Hanaud returned. "Boris Waberski expected a legacy. +Boris Waberski needed money immediately, as the first +of the two letters which he wrote to Monsieur Frobisher's +firm clearly shows. Boris Waberski had a motive." He +looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod +to drive the point home. "Motives, no doubt, are signposts +rather difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss, +they lead one very wide astray. Granted! But you +must look for your signposts all the same and try to read +them aright. Listen again to the Professor of Medicine +in the University of Edinburgh! He is as precise as a +man can be." +

+ +

+Hanaud's eyes fell again upon the description of +Figure F in the treatise still open upon the table in front +of him. +

+ +

+"The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow +which he had ever come across. The poison paste was +thickly and smoothly spread over the arrow head and +some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused and the +poison fresh, and these poisons retain their energy for +many, many years. I tell you that if this book and this +arrow were handed over to Jean Cladel, Herbalist, Jean +Cladel could with ease make a solution in alcohol which +injected from a hypodermic needle, would cause death +within fifteen minutes and leave not one trace." +

+ +

+"Within fifteen minutes?" Betty asked incredulously, +and from the arm-chair against the wall, where Ann +Upcott had once more seated herself, there broke a +startled exclamation. +

+ +

+"Oh!" she cried, but no one took any notice of her +at all. Both Jim and Betty had their eyes fixed upon +Hanaud, and he was altogether occupied in driving his +argument home. +

+ +

+"Within fifteen minutes? How do you know?" cried Jim. +

+ +

+"It is written here, in the book." +

+ +

+"And where would Jean Cladel have learnt to handle +the paste with safety, how to prepare the solution?" Jim +went on. +

+ +

+"Here! Here! Here!" answered Hanaud, tapping +with his knuckles upon the treatise. "It is all written +out here—experiment after experiment made upon living +animals and the action of the poison measured and +registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working +knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, +and the result is certain." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe leaned forward again over the book and +Hanaud turned it half round between them, so that both, +by craning their heads, could read. He turned the pages +back to the beginning and passed them quickly in review. +

+ +

+"See, Mademoiselle, the time tables. Strophanthus +constricts the muscles of the heart like digitalis, only much +more violently, much more swiftly. See the contractions +of the heart noted down minute after minute, until the +moment of death and all—here is the irony!—so that by +means of these experiments, the poison may be transformed +into a medicine and the weapon of death become +an agent of life—as in good hands, it has happened." Hanaud +leaned back and contemplated Betty Harlowe between +his half-closed eyes. "That is wonderful, Mademoiselle. +What do you think?" +

+ +

+Betty slowly closed the book. +

+ +

+"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," she said, "it is no less +wonderful that you should have studied this book so +thoroughly during the half-hour you waited for us here this +morning." +

+ +

+It was Hanaud's turn to change colour. The blood +mounted into his face. He was for a second or two quite +disconcerted. Jim once more had a glimpse of the secret +duel and rejoiced that this time it was Hanaud, the great +Hanaud, who was scratched. +

+ +

+"The study of poisons is particularly my work," he +answered shortly. "Even at the Sûrété we have to +specialise nowadays," and he turned rather quickly towards +Frobisher. "You are thoughtful, Monsieur?" +

+ +

+Jim was following out his own train of thought. +

+ +

+"Yes," he answered. Then he spoke to Betty. +

+ +

+"Boris Waberski had a latch-key, I suppose?" +

+ +

+"Yes," she replied. +

+ +

+"He took it away with him?" +

+ +

+"I think so." +

+ +

+"When are the iron gates locked?" +

+ +

+"It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed." +

+ +

+Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. +

+ +

+"You see, Monsieur Hanaud," he cried, "all this while +we have been leaving out a question of importance. Who +put this book back upon its shelf? And when? Yesterday +at noon the space was empty. This morning it is +filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the garden +after dinner behind the house. What could have been +easier than for Waberski to slip in with his latch-key at +some moment when the court was empty, replace the book +and slip out again unnoticed? Why——" +

+ +

+A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. +

+ +

+"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The +police have a sergent-de-ville at our gates, night and day." +

+ +

+Hanaud shook his head. +

+ +

+"He is there no longer. After you were good enough +to answer me so frankly yesterday morning the questions +it was my duty to put to you, I had him removed at +once." +

+ +

+"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He +remembered now that when he had driven up with his +luggage from the hotel in the afternoon, the street of +Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty Harlowe +stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made +her face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she +dipped to the detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice +was warm with gratitude. +

+ +

+"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday +that the man had been removed, or I should have thanked +you before. Indeed I was not looking for so much +consideration at your hands. As I told my friend Jim, I +believed that you went away thinking me guilty." +

+ +

+Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the +flourish of the sword with which the duellist saluted at +the end of the bout. The little secret combat between +these two was over. Hanaud, by removing the sergeant +from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only +to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify +any surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or +any limitations upon her freedom. +

+ +

+"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at +his solution of the case like a dog with a bone. "You +see Waberski had the road clear for him last night." +

+ +

+Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head +vigorously. +

+ +

+"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so +horrible a murder. More," and she turned her great eyes +pleadingly upon Hanaud, "I don't believe that any murder +was committed here at all. I don't want to believe it," +and for a moment her voice faltered. +

+ +

+"After all, Monsieur Hanaud, what are you building +this dreadful theory upon? That a book of my Uncle +Simon was not in his library yesterday and is there +to-day. We know nothing more. We don't know even +whether Jean Cladel exists at all." +

+ +

+"We shall know that, Mademoiselle, very soon," said +Hanaud, staring down at the book upon the table. +

+ +

+"We don't know whether the arrow is in the house, +whether it ever was." +

+ +

+"We must make sure, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud +stubbornly. +

+ +

+"And even if you had it now, here with the poison +clinging in shreds to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure +that the rest of it had been used. Here is a report, +Monsieur, from the doctors. Because it says that no trace +of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a +poison was administered which leaves no trace. You +never can prove it. You have nothing to go upon. It's +all guesswork, and guesswork which will keep us living in +a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a moment that murder +had been committed, I'd say, 'Go on, go on'! But it +hasn't. Oh, it hasn't!" +

+ +

+Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there +was so strong a passion of appeal, for peace, for an +end of suspicion, for a right to forget and be forgotten, +that Jim fancied no man could resist it. Indeed, Hanaud +sat for a long while with his eyes bent upon the table +before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently +though his voice began, Jim knew at once that she had +lost. +

+ +

+"You argue and plead very well, Mademoiselle Betty," +he said. "But we have each of us our little creeds by +which we live for better or for worse. Here is mine, a +very humble one. I can discover extenuations in most +crimes: even crimes of violence. Passion, anger, even +greed! What are they but good qualities developed +beyond the bounds? Things at the beginning good and +since grown monstrous! So, too, in the execution. This +or that habit of life makes natural this or that weapon +which to us is hideous and abnormal and its mere use a +sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognise these +palliations. But there is one crime I never will +forgive—murder by poison. And one criminal in whose pursuit +I will never tire nor slacken, the Poisoner." Through the +words there ran a real thrill of hatred, and though +Hanaud's voice was low, and he never once raised his +eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him +in a dreadful spell. +

+ +

+"Cowardly and secret, the poisoner has his little world +at his mercy, and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be +sure," he continued bitterly. "His hideous work is so +easy. It just becomes a vice like drink, no more than +that to the poisoner, but with a thousand times the pleasure +drink can give. Like the practice of some abominable +art. I tell you the truth now! Show me one victim +to-day and the poisoner scot-free, and I'll show you +another victim before the year's out. Make no mistake! +Make no mistake!" +

+ +

+His voice rang out and died away. But the words +seemed still to vibrate in the air of that room, to strike +the walls and rebound from them and still be audible. +Jim Frobisher, for all his slow imagination, felt that had +a poisoner been present and heard them, some cry of +guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His +heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his +reason told him there was no mouth in that room from +which the cry could come. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up at Betty when he had finished. He +begged her pardon with a little flutter of his hands and a +regretful smile. "You must take me, therefore, as God +made me, Mademoiselle, and not blame me more than +you can help for the distress I still must cause you. +There was never a case more difficult. Therefore never +one about which one way or the other I must be more +sure." +

+ +

+Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the +door. +

+ +

+"Come in," Hanaud cried out, and a small, dark, alert +man in plain clothes entered the room. +

+ +

+"This is Nicolas Moreau, who was keeping watch in +the courtyard. I sent him some while ago upon an +errand," he explained and turned again to Moreau. +

+ +

+"Well, Nicolas?" +

+ +

+Nicolas stood at attention, with his hands at the seams +of his trousers, in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited +rather than spoke in a perfectly expressionless official +voice. +

+ +

+"In accordance with instructions I went to the shop +of Jean Cladel. It is number seven. From the Rue +Gambetta I went to the Prefecture. I verified your +statement. Jean Cladel has twice appeared before the Police +Correctionelle for selling forbidden drugs and has twice +been acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses." +

+ +

+"Thank you, Nicolas." +

+ +

+Moreau saluted, turned on his heel, and went out of +the room. There followed a moment of silence, of +discouragement. Hanaud looked ruefully at Betty. +

+ +

+"You see! I must go on. We must search in that +locked cabinet of Simon Harlowe's for the poison arrow, +if by chance it should be there." +

+ +

+"The room is sealed," Frobisher reminded him. +

+ +

+"We must have those seals removed," he replied, and +he took his watch from his pocket and screwed up his +face in grimace. +

+ +

+"We need Monsieur the Commissary, and Monsieur the +Commissary will not be in a good humour if we disturb +him now. For it is twelve o'clock, the sacred hour of +luncheon. You will have observed upon the stage that +Commissaries of Police are never in a good humour. It +is because——" But Hanaud's audience was never to +hear his explanation of this well-known fact. For he +stopped with a queer jerk of his voice, his watch still +dangling from his fingers upon its chain. Both Jim and +Betty looked at once where he was looking. They saw +Ann Upcott standing up against the wall with her hand +upon the top rail of a chair to prevent herself from +falling. Her eyes were closed, her whole face a mask +of misery. Hanaud was at her side in a moment. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," he asked with a breathless sort of +eagerness, "what is it you have to tell me?" +

+ +

+"It is true, then?" she whispered. "Jean Cladel +exists?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And the poison arrow could have been used?" she +faltered, and the next words would not be spoken, but +were spoken at the last. "And death would have +followed in fifteen minutes?" +

+ +

+"Upon my oath it is true," Hanaud insisted. "What +is it you have to tell me?" +

+ +

+"That I could have hindered it all. I shall never +forgive myself. I could have hindered the murder." +

+ +

+Hanaud's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was +he disappointed, Frobisher wondered? Did he expect +quite another reply? A swift movement by Betty +distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty looking +across the room at them with the strangest glittering eyes +he had ever seen. And then Ann Upcott drew herself +away from Hanaud and stood up against the wall at her +full height with her arms outstretched. She seemed to +be setting herself apart as a pariah; her whole attitude +and posture cried, "Stone me! I am waiting." +

+ +

+Hanaud put his watch into his pocket. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, we will let the Commissary eat his +luncheon in peace, and we will hear your story first. But +not here. In the garden under the shade of the trees." He +took his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Indeed +I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as an oven." +

+ +

+When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon +the incidents of that morning, nothing stood out so vividly +in his memories, no, not even the book of arrows and its +plates, not Hanaud's statement of his creed, as the picture +of him twirling his watch at the end of his chain, whilst +it sparkled in the sunlight and he wondered whether +he should break in now upon the Commissaire of Police +or let him eat his luncheon in quiet. So much that was +then unsuspected by them all, hung upon the exact +sequence of events. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER NINE: The Secret +

+ +

+The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn +towards the farther end of the garden in the shadow +of the great trees. Hanaud led the way towards them. +

+ +

+"We shall be in the cool here and with no one to +overhear us but the birds," he said, and he patted and +arranged the cushions in a deep arm-chair of basket work +for Ann Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded again of +the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid and again the +parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer +insight into the character of this implacable being. The +little courtesies and attentions were not assumed. They +were natural, but they would not hinder him for a +moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the cushions with +the swift deft hands of a nurse—yes, but he would slip +the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment +afterwards, no less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty +prompted him. +

+ +

+"There!" he said. "Now, Mademoiselle, you are +comfortable. For me, if I am permitted, I shall smoke." +

+ +

+He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who +with Jim had followed into the garden behind him. +

+ +

+"Of course," she answered; and coming forward, she +sat down in another of the chairs. +

+ +

+Hanaud pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of +thin black cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair +close to the two girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind +Hanaud. The lawn was dappled with sunlight and cool +shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling from +bough and bush, the garden was riotous with roses and +the air sweet with their perfume. It was a strange +setting for the eerie story which Ann Upcott had to tell of +her adventures in the darkness and silence of a night; but +the very contrast seemed to make the story still more +vivid. +

+ +

+"I did not go to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball on the +night of April the 27th," she began, and Jim started, so +that Hanaud raised his hand to prevent him interrupting. +He had not given a thought to where Ann Upcott had +been upon that night. To Hanaud, however, the +statement brought no surprise. +

+ +

+"You were not well?" he asked. +

+ +

+"It wasn't that," Ann replied. "But Betty and I had—I +won't say a rule, but a sort of working arrangement +which I think had been in practice ever since I came to +the Maison Crenelle. We didn't encroach upon each +other's independence." +

+ +

+The two girls had recognised from their first coming +together that privacy was the very salt of companionship. +Each had a sanctuary in her own sitting-room. +

+ +

+"I don't think Betty has ever been in mine, I only once +or twice in hers," said Ann. "We had each our own +friends. We didn't pester each other with questions as +to where we had been and with whom. In a word, we +weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels." +

+ +

+"A wise rule, Mademoiselle," Hanaud agreed cordially. +"A good many households are split from roof to cellar +by the absence of just such a rule. The de Pouillacs then +were Mademoiselle Betty's friends." +

+ +

+"Yes. As soon as Betty had gone," Ann resumed, +"I told Gaston that he might turn off the lights and go +to bed whenever he liked; and I went upstairs to my own +sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. You can see +the windows from here. There!" +

+ +

+They were in a group facing the back of the long house +across the garden. To the right of the hall stretched the +line of shuttered windows, with Betty's bedroom just +above. Ann pointed to the wing on the left of the hall +and towards the road. +

+ +

+"I see. You are above the library, Mademoiselle," said +Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes. I had a letter to write," Ann continued, and +suddenly faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in +the telling of her story which she had forgotten when +she had uttered her cry in the library. She gasped. +"Oh!" she murmured, and again "Oh!" in a low voice. +She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from +her at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows +upon her knees and her eyes on the grass at her feet and +apparently miles away in thought. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud asked smoothly. +

+ +

+"It was an important letter," Ann went on again, +choosing her words warily, much as yesterday at one +moment in her interrogatory Betty herself had +done—concealing something, too, just as Betty had done. "I +had promised faithfully to write it. But the address was +downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a +doctor," and having said that, it seemed that she had +cleared her obstacle, for she went on in a more easy and +natural tone. +

+ +

+"You know what it is, Monsieur Hanaud. I had been +playing tennis all the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. +There was a letter to be written with a good deal of care +and the address was all the way downstairs. I said to +myself that I would think out the terms of my letter +first." +

+ +

+And here Jim Frobisher, who had been shifting impatiently +from one foot to the other, broke in upon the +narrative. +

+ +

+"But what was this letter about and to what doctor?" +he asked. +

+ +

+Hanaud swung round almost angrily. +

+ +

+"Oh, please!" he cried. "These things will all come to +light of themselves in their due order, if we leave them +alone and keep them in our memories. Let Mademoiselle +tell her story in her own way," and he was back at +Ann Upcott again in a flash. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle. You determined to think out the +tenor of your letter." +

+ +

+A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a +second. "But it was an excuse really, an excuse to sit +down in my big arm-chair, stretch out my legs and do +nothing at all. You can guess what happened." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled and nodded. +

+ +

+"You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young +people, who are healthy and tired, awake," he said. +

+ +

+"No, but it wakes up with them," Ann returned, "and +upbraids at once bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as +people do who have gone to sleep in their chairs. I was +wearing a little thin frock of pale blue tulle—oh, a +feather-weight of a frock! Yes, I was cold and my conscience +was saying, 'Oh, big lazy one! And your letter? Where +is it?' +

+ +

+"In a moment I was standing up and the next I was +out of the room on the landing, and I was still half dazed +with sleep. I closed my door behind me. It was just +chance that I did it. The lights were all out on the +staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn +across the windows. There was no moon that night. I +was in a darkness so complete that I could not see the +glimmer of my hand when I raised it close before my +face." +

+ +

+Hanaud let the end of his cigarette drop at his feet. +Betty had raised her face and was staring at Ann with +her mouth parted. For all of them the garden had +disappeared with its sunlight and its roses and its singing +birds. They were upon that staircase with Ann Upcott +in the black night. The swift changes of colour in her +cheeks and of expression in her eyes—the nervous +vividness of her compelled them to follow with her. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle?" said Hanaud quietly. +

+ +

+"The darkness didn't matter to me," she went on, with +an amazement at her own fearlessness, now that she +knew the after-history of that evening. "I am afraid +now. I wasn't then," and Jim remembered how the night +before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark +spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was +afraid now! Her hands were clenched tight upon the +arms of her chair, her lips shook. +

+ +

+"I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on +the balustrade. There was no sound. It never occurred +to me that any one was awake except myself. I did +not even turn on the light in the hall by the switch at +the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch +just inside the door of Betty's room, and that was enough. +I think, too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the +foot of the stairs I turned right like a soldier. Exactly +opposite to me across the hall was the door of Betty's +room. I crossed the hall with my hands out in front of +me," and Betty, as though she herself were crossing the +hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. +

+ +

+"Yes, one would have to do that," she said slowly. "In +the dark—with nothing but space in front of one—— Yes!" +and then she smiled as she saw that Hanaud's eyes +were watching her curiously. "Don't you think so, +Monsieur Hanaud?" +

+ +

+"No doubt," said he. "But let us not interrupt Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+"I touched the wall first," Ann resumed, "just at the +angle of the corridor and the hall." +

+ +

+"The corridor with the windows on to the courtyard +on the one side and the doors of the receptions on the +other?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, +Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I +felt my way along the wall to my right—that is, in the +hall, of course, not the corridor—until my hands slipped +off the surface and touched nothing. I had reached the +embrasure of the doorway. I felt for the door-knob, +turned it and entered the room. The light switch was in +the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I +snapped it down. I think that I was still half asleep when +I turned the light on in the treasure-room, as we called +it. But the next moment I was wide awake—oh, I have +never been more wide awake in my life. My fingers +indeed were hardly off the switch after turning the light +on, before they were back again turning the light off. But +this time I eased the switch up very carefully, so that +there should be no snap—no, not the tiniest sound to +betray me. There was so short an interval between the +two movements of my hand that I had just time to notice +the clock on the top of the marquetry cabinet in the +middle of the wall opposite to me, and then once more I +stood in darkness, but stock still and holding my breath—a +little frightened—yes, no doubt a little frightened, but +more astonished than frightened. For in the inner wall +of the room, at the other end, close by the window, +there,"—and Ann pointed to the second of those shuttered +windows which stared so blankly on the garden—"the door +which was always locked since Simon Harlowe's death +stood open and a bright light burned beyond." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe uttered a little cry. +

+ +

+"That door?" she exclaimed, now at last really +troubled. "It stood open? How can that have been?" +

+ +

+Hanaud shifted his position in his chair, and asked her +a question. +

+ +

+"On which side of the door was the key, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all." +

+ +

+"Oh! You don't remember whether it was?" +

+ +

+"No," said Betty. "Of course both Ann and I were +in and out of Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but +there was a dressing-room between the bedroom and the +communicating door of my room, so that we should not +have noticed." +

+ +

+"To be sure," Hanaud agreed. "The dressing-room in +which the nurse might have slept and did when Madame +had a seizure. Do you remember whether the communicating +door was still open or unlocked on the next +morning?" +

+ +

+Betty frowned and reflected, and shook her head. +

+ +

+"I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. +There was so much to do. I did not notice." +

+ +

+"No. Indeed why should you?" said Hanaud. He +turned back to Ann. "Before you go on with this curious +story, Mademoiselle, tell me this! Was the light beyond +the open door, a light in the dressing-room or in the room +beyond the dressing-room, Madame Harlowe's bedroom, +or didn't you notice?" +

+ +

+"In the far room, I think," Ann answered confidently. +"There would have been more light in the treasure-room +otherwise. The treasure-room is long no doubt, but +where I stood I was completely in darkness. There was +only this panel of yellow light in the open doorway. It +lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up the +sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened +like silver." +

+ +

+"Oho, there is a sedan chair in that museum?" said +Hanaud lightly. "It will be interesting to see. So the +light, Mademoiselle, came from the far room?" +

+ +

+"The light and—and the voices," said Ann with a +quaver in her throat. +

+ +

+"Voices!" cried Hanaud. He sat up straight in his +chair, whilst Betty Harlowe went as white as a ghost. +"Voices! What is this? Did you recognise those +voices?" +

+ +

+"One, Madame's. There was no mistaking it. It was +loud and violent for a moment. Then it went off into +a mumble of groans. The other voice only spoke once +and very few words and very clearly. But it spoke in +a whisper. There was too a sound of—movements." +

+ +

+"Movements!" said Hanaud sharply; and with his +voice his face seemed to sharpen too. "Here's a word +which does not help us much. A procession moves. So +does the chair if I push it. So does my hand if I cover +a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you +mean, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+Under the stern insistence of his questions Ann Upcott +suddenly weakened. +

+ +

+"Oh, I am afraid so," she said with a loud cry, and she +clapped her hands to her face. "I never understood until +this morning when you spoke of how the arrow might +be used. Oh, I shall never forgive myself. I stood in +the darkness, a few yards away—no more—I stood quite +still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway +Madame was being killed!" She drew her hands from +her face and beat upon her knees with her clenched fists +in a frenzy. +

+ +

+"'Yes, I believe that now!' Madame cried in the hoarse, +harsh voice we knew: 'Stripped, eh? Stripped to the +skin!' and she laughed wildly; and then came the sound, +as though—yes, it might have been that!—as though she +were forced down and held, and Madame's voice died to +a mumble and then silence—and then the other voice in a +low clear whisper, 'That will do now.' And all the +while I stood in the darkness—oh!" +

+ +

+"What did you do after that clear whisper reached your +ears?" Hanaud commanded. "Take your hands from +your face, if you please, and let me hear." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott obeyed him. She flung her head back with +the tears streaming down her face. +

+ +

+"I turned," she whispered. "I went out of the room. +I closed the door behind me—oh, ever so gently. I +fled." +

+ +

+"Fled? Fled? Where to?" +

+ +

+"Up the stairs! To my room." +

+ +

+"And you rang no bell? You roused no one? You +fled to your room! You hid your head under the +bed-clothes like a child! Come, come, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Hanaud broke off his savage irony to ask, +

+ +

+"And whose voice did you think it was that whispered +so clearly, 'That will do now?' The stranger's you spoke +of in the library this morning?" +

+ +

+"No, Monsieur," Ann replied. "I could not tell. With +a whisper one voice is like another." +

+ +

+"But you must have given that voice an owner. To +run away and hide—no one would do that." +

+ +

+"I thought it was Jeanne Baudin's." +

+ +

+And Hanaud sat back in his chair again, gazing at +the girl with a look in which there was as much horror as +incredulity. Jim Frobisher stood behind him ashamed +of his very race. Could there be a more transparent +subterfuge? If she thought that the nurse Jeanne Baudin +was in the bedroom, why did she turn and fly? +

+ +

+"Come, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. His voice had +suddenly become gentle, almost pleading. "You will not +make me believe that." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott turned with a helpless gesture towards +Betty. +

+ +

+"You see!" she said. +

+ +

+"Yes," Betty answered. She sat in doubt for a second +or two and then sprang to her feet. +

+ +

+"Wait!" she said, and before any one could have +stopped her she was skimming half-way across the garden +to the house. Jim Frobisher wondered whether Hanaud +had meant to stop her and then had given up the idea as +quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some +small quick movement; and even now, he watched Betty's +flight across the broad lawn between the roses with an +inscrutable queer look. +

+ +

+"To run like that!" he said to Frobisher, "with a boy's +nimbleness and a girl's grace! It is pretty, eh? The long +slim legs that twinkle, the body that floats!" and Betty +ran up the stone steps into the house. +

+ +

+There was a tension in Hanaud's attitude with which +his light words did not agree, and he watched the blank +windows of the house with expectancy. Betty, however, +was hardly a minute upon her errand. She reappeared +upon the steps with a largish envelope in her hand and +quickly rejoined the group. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, we have tried to keep this back from you," +she said, without bitterness but with a deep regret. "I +yesterday, Ann to-day, just as we have tried for many +years to keep it from all Dijon. But there is no help for +it now." +

+ +

+She opened the envelope and, taking out a cabinet +photograph, handed it to Hanaud. +

+ +

+"This is the portrait of Madame, my aunt, at the time +of her marriage with my uncle." +

+ +

+It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman, +slender with the straight carriage of youth, in whose face +a look of character had replaced youth's prettiness. It +was a face made spiritual by suffering, the eyes shadowed +and wistful, the mouth tender, and conveying even in the +hard medium of a photograph some whimsical sense of +humour. It made Jim Frobisher, gazing over Hanaud's +shoulder, exclaim not "She was beautiful," but "I would +like to have known her." +

+ +

+"Yes! A companion," Hanaud added. +

+ +

+Betty took a second photograph from the envelope. +

+ +

+"But this, Monsieur, is the same lady a year ago." +

+ +

+The second photograph had been taken at Monte Carlo, +and it was difficult to believe that it was of the same +woman, so tragic a change had taken place within those +ten years. Hanaud held the portraits side by side. The +grace, the suggestion of humour had all gone; the figure +had grown broad, the features coarse and heavy; the +cheeks had fattened, the lips were pendulous; and there +was nothing but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful +picture of collapse. +

+ +

+"It is best to be precise, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud +gently, "though these photographs tell their unhappy story +clearly enough. Madame Harlowe, during the last years +of her life, drank?" +

+ +

+"Since my uncle's death," Betty explained. "Her life, +as very likely you know already, had been rather miserable +and lonely before she married him. But she had a +dream then on which to live. After Simon Harlowe died, +however——" and she ended her explanation with a +gesture. +

+ +

+"Yes," Hanaud replied, "of course, Mademoiselle, we +have known, Monsieur Frobisher and I, ever since we +came into this affair that there was some secret. We +knew it before your reticence of yesterday or Mademoiselle +Upcott's of to-day. Waberski must have known of +something which you would not care to have exposed +before he threatened your lawyers in London, or brought +his charges against you." +

+ +

+"Yes, he knew and the doctors and the servants of +course who were very loyal. We did our best to keep +our secret but we could never be sure that we had +succeeded." +

+ +

+A friendly smile broadened Hanaud's face. +

+ +

+"Well, we can make sure now and here," he said, and +both the girls and Jim stared at him. +

+ +

+"How?" they exclaimed in an incredulous voice. +

+ +

+Hanaud beamed. He held them in suspense. He +spread out his hands. The artist as he would have said, +the mountebank as Jim Frobisher would have expressed +it, had got the upper hand in him, and prepared his +effect. +

+ +

+"By answering me one simple question," he said. +"Have either of you two ladies received an anonymous +letter upon the subject?" +

+ +

+The test took them all by surprise; yet each one of +them recognised immediately that they could hardly have +a better. All the secrets of the town had been exploited +at one time or another by this unknown person or group +of persons—all the secrets that is, except this one of +Mrs. Harlowe's degradation. For Betty answered, +

+ +

+"No! I never received one." +

+ +

+"Nor I," added Ann. +

+ +

+"Then your secret is your secret still," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"For how long now?" Betty asked quickly, and Hanaud +did not answer a word. He could make no promise +without being false to what he had called his creed. +

+ +

+"It is a pity," said Betty wistfully. "We have striven +so hard, Ann and I," and she gave to the two men a +glimpse of the life the two girls had led in the Maison +Crenelle. "We could do very little. We had neither of +us any authority. We were both of us dependent upon +Madame's generosity, and though no one could have +been kinder when—when Madame was herself, she was +not easy when she had—the attacks. There was too much +difference in age between us and her for us really to do +anything but keep guard. +

+ +

+"She would not brook interference; she drank alone in +her bedroom; she grew violent and threatening if any +one interfered. She would turn them all into the street. +If she needed any help she could ring for the nurse, as +indeed she sometimes, though rarely, did." It was a +dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlowe described it +for the two young sentinels. +

+ +

+"We were utterly in despair," Betty continued. "For +Madame, of course, was really ill with her heart, and we +always feared some tragedy would happen. This letter +which Ann was to write when I was at Monsieur de +Pouillac's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a doctor +in England—he called himself a doctor at all events—who +advertised that he had a certain remedy which could +be given without the patient's knowledge in her food and +drink. Oh, I had no faith in it, but we had got to try it." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. +

+ +

+"What did I say to you, Monsieur Frobisher, when you +wanted to ask a question about this letter? You see! +These things disclose themselves in their due order if you +leave them alone." +

+ +

+The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his +feet and, bowing to Betty with an unaffected stateliness +and respect, he handed her back the photographs. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I am very sorry," he said. "It is clear +that you and your friend have lived amongst difficulties +which we did not suspect. And, for the secret, I shall do +what I can." +

+ +

+Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been +administered to him for the excellence of his manner +towards Betty. He had a hope even that now he would +forswear his creed, so that the secret might still be kept +and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close +watch. But Hanaud sat down again in his chair, and +once more turned towards Ann Upcott. He meant to go +on then. He would not leave well alone. Jim was all +the more disappointed, because he could not but realise +that the case was more and more clearly building itself +from something unsubstantial into something solid, from +a conjecture to an argument—this case against some one. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TEN: The Clock upon the Cabinet +

+ +

+Ann Upcott's story was in the light of this new +disclosure intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, +she had heard, as she thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one +of her violent outbreaks. Then with a sense of relief she +had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was with +Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally +administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries +diminish and cease and a final whisper from the nurse to +her patient or even perhaps to herself, "That will do +now." Then she had turned and fled, taking care to +attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice had nothing +to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her +intervention, which before would only have been a provocation +to a wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was +now altogether without excuse. It would once more have +aroused the invalid, and next day would have added to +the discomfort and awkwardness of life in the Maison +Crenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known +that Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful +exhibitions. The best thing which Ann could do, she did, +given that her interpretation of the scene was the true one. +She ran noiselessly back in the darkness to her room. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your +interpretation was not correct. You believe now that +whilst you stood in the darkness with the door open and +the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was being murdered, +coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott shivered from head to foot. +

+ +

+"I don't want to believe it," she cried. "It's too +horrible." +

+ +

+"You believe now that the one who whispered 'That +will do now,' was not Jeanne Baudin," Hanaud insisted, +"but some unknown person, and that the whisper was +uttered after murder had been done to a third person +in that room." +

+ +

+Ann twisted her body from this side to that; she wrung +her hands. +

+ +

+"I am afraid of it!" she moaned. +

+ +

+"And what is torturing you now, Mademoiselle, is +remorse that you did not step silently forward and from +the darkness of the treasure-room look through that +lighted doorway." He spoke with a great consideration +and his insight into her distress was in its way a solace +to her. +

+ +

+"Yes," she exclaimed eagerly. "I told you this morning +I could have hindered it. I didn't understand until +this morning. You see, that night something else +happened"; and now indeed stark fear drew the colour from +her cheeks and shone in her eyes. +

+ +

+"Something else?" Betty asked with a quick indraw of +her breath, and she shifted her chair a little so that she +might face Ann. She was wearing a black coat over a +white silk shirt open at the throat, and she took her +handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it across +her forehead. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud explained. "It is clear +that something else happened that night to your friend, +something which, taken together with our talk this +morning over the book of arrows, had made her believe that +murder was done." He looked at Ann. "You went +then to your room?" +

+ +

+Ann resumed her story. +

+ +

+"I went to bed. I was very—what shall I say?—disturbed +by Madame's outburst, as I thought it. One +never knew what was going to happen in this house. It +was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side to +side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was +asleep, sound asleep. But only for a time. I woke up +and it was still pitch dark in my room. There was not +a thread of light from the shutters. I turned over from +my side on to my back and I stretched out my arms +above my head. As God is my Judge I touched a +face——" and even after all these days the terror of that +moment was so vivid and fresh to her that she shuddered +and a little sob broke from her lips. "A face quite close +to me bending over me, in silence. I drew my hands +away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay +just for a second or two dumb, paralysed. Then my +voice came back to me and I screamed." +

+ +

+It was the look of the girl as she told her story +perhaps more than the words she used; but something of her +terror spread like a contagion amongst her hearers. Jim +Frobisher's shoulders worked uneasily. Betty with her +big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, hung upon +Ann's narrative. Hanaud himself said: +

+ +

+"You screamed? I do not wonder." +

+ +

+"I knew that no one could hear me and that lying down +I was helpless," Ann continued. "I sprang out of bed +in a panic, and now I touched no one. I was so scared out +of my wits that I had lost all sense of direction. I +couldn't find the switch of the electric light. I stumbled +along a wall feeling with my hands. I heard myself +sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked +against a chest of drawers and came a little to myself. +I found my way then to the switch and turned on the +light. The room was empty. I tried to tell myself that +I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale wasn't +true. Some one had been stealthily bending down close, +oh, so close over me in the darkness. My hand that had +touched the face seemed to tingle. I asked myself with +a shiver, what would have happened to me if just at that +moment I had not waked up? I stood and listened, but +the beating of my heart filled the whole room with noise. +I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, +I could easily have believed that one after another an +army was creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I +made up my mind. I flung the door open wide. For a +moment I stood back from it, but once the door was +open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the +great staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an +empty church. I think that I should have heard a spider +stir. I suddenly realised that the light was streaming +from my room and that some of it must reach me. I +cried at once, 'Who's there?' And then I ran back to my +room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep +no more that night. I ran to the windows and threw open +the shutters. The night had cleared, the stars were bright +in a clean black sky and there was a freshness of morning +in the air. I had been, I should think, about five +minutes at the window when—you know perhaps, Monsieur, +how the clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the +hour from one another and pass it on to the hills—all of +them struck three. I stayed by the window until the +morning came." +

+ +

+After she had finished no one spoke for a little while. +Then Hanaud slowly lit another cigarette, looking now +upon the ground, now into the air, anywhere except at the +faces of his companions. +

+ +

+"So this alarming thing happened just before three +o'clock in the morning?" he asked gravely. "You are +very sure of that, I suppose? For, you see, it may be +of the utmost importance." +

+ +

+"I am quite sure, Monsieur," she said. +

+ +

+"And you have told this story to no one until this +moment?" +

+ +

+"To no one in the world," replied Ann. "The next +morning Madame Harlowe was found dead. There were +the arrangements for the funeral. Then came Monsieur +Boris's accusation. There were troubles enough in the +house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would +have believed my story of the face in the darkness; and +I didn't of course associate it then with the death of +Mrs. Harlowe." +

+ +

+"No," Hanaud agreed. "For you believed that death +to have been natural." +

+ +

+"Yes, and I am not sure that it wasn't natural now," +Ann protested. "But to-day I had to tell you this story, +Monsieur Hanaud"; and she leaned forward in her chair +and claimed his attention with her eyes, her face, every +tense muscle of her body. "Because if you are right and +murder was done in this house on the twenty-seventh, I +know the exact hour when it was done." +

+ +

+"Ah!" +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded his head once or twice slowly. He +gathered up his feet beneath him. His eyes glittered very +brightly as he looked at Ann. He gave Frobisher the +queer impression of an animal crouching to spring. +

+ +

+"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet," he said, +"against the middle of the wall in the treasure-room. +The white face of it and the hour which leapt at you +during that fraction of a second when your fingers were +on the switch." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Ann with a slow and quiet emphasis. "The +hour was half-past ten." +

+ +

+With that statement the tension was relaxed. Betty's +tightly-clenched hand opened and her trifle of a +handkerchief fluttered down on the grass. Hanaud changed +from that queer attitude of a crouching animal. Jim +Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. +

+ +

+"Yes, that is very important," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Important. I should think it was!" cried Jim. +

+ +

+For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had +been done on the night of the 27th of April, there was +just one person belonging to the household of the Maison +Crenelle who could have no share in it; and that one +person was his client, Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when +Hanaud spoke to her; and she drew herself erect again +with a little jerk. +

+ +

+"Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good +time, Mademoiselle?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Very good," she answered. "Monsieur Sabin the +watch-maker in the Rue de la Liberté has had it more +than once to clean. It is an eight-day clock. It will be +going when the seals are broken this afternoon. You will +see for yourself." +

+ +

+Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. +He rose to his feet and bowed to her with a certain +formality but with a smile which redeemed it. +

+ +

+"At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing +at the house of M. de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers," +he said. "Of that there is no doubt. Inquiries have been +made. Mademoiselle did not leave that house until after +one in the morning. There is evidence enough of that +to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her +dancing partners to M. de Pouillac's coachman, who stood +at the bottom of the steps with a lantern during that +evening and remembers to have held open for Mademoiselle +the door of her car when she went away." +

+ +

+"So that's that," said Jim to himself. Betty at all +events was out of the net for good. And with that +certainty there came a revolution in his thoughts. Why +shouldn't Hanaud's search go on? It was interesting to +watch the building up of this case against an unknown +criminal—a case so difficult to bring to its proper +conclusion in the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there +was no trace of poison, a case where out of a mass of +conjectures, here and there and more and more definite +facts were coming into view; just as more and more +masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer +one approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to +go on, delving astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things +disclose themselves in their due sequence. But there +was one point which Hanaud had missed, which should +be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he +thought with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would +come to the help of the netted lion. He cleared his +throat. +

+ +

+"Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to +ask you," he began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his +surprise, with a face of thunder. +

+ +

+"You wish to ask a question?" he said. "Well, +Monsieur, ask it if you wish. It is your right." +

+ +

+His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, "and +your responsibility." Jim hesitated. He could see no +harm in the question he proposed to ask. It was of vital +importance. Yet Hanaud stood in front of him with a +lowering face, daring him to put it. Jim did not doubt +any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point +and yet for some unknown reason objected to its +disclosure. Jim yielded, but not with a very good grace. +

+ +

+"It is nothing," he said surlily, and Hanaud at once +was all cheerfulness again. +

+ +

+"Then we will adjourn," he said, looking at his watch. +"It is nearly one o'clock. Shall we say three for the +Commissary of Police? Yes? Then I shall inform him +and we will meet in the library at three and"—with a +little bow to Betty—"the interdict shall be raised." +

+ +

+"At three, then," she said gaily. She sprang up from +her chair, stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a +swift and supple movement, twirled upon her heel and +cried, "Come along, Ann!" +

+ +

+The four people moved off towards the house. Betty +looked back. +

+ +

+"You have left your gloves behind you on your chair," +she said suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back. +

+ +

+"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, +"Oh, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+For Betty had already darted back and now returned +dangling the gloves in her hand. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as +he took them from her. Then he cocked his head at +Frobisher, who was looking a little stiff. +

+ +

+"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You +do not like that so much kindness should be shown me. +No! You are looking very proper. You have the poker +in the back. But ask yourself this: 'What are youth +and good looks compared with Hanaud?'" +

+ +

+No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when +the urchin got the upper hand in him. And the worst +of it was that he had no rejoinder. He flushed very +red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in +silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and +stick, took his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. +Ann drifted into the library. Jim felt a touch upon his +arm. Betty was standing beside him with a smile of +amusement upon her face. +

+ +

+"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, +did you?" she asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the +amusement softened into tenderness. "I wouldn't have +done it for worlds if I had thought you'd have minded." +

+ +

+Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning. +

+ +

+"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole +if it pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might +do the same for me'!" +

+ +

+Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. +

+ +

+"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next +moment she was out on the steps under the glass face of +the porch. "Lunch at two, Ann!" she cried. "I must +walk all the grime of this morning out of my brain." +

+ +

+She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobisher. She +had something of Ariel in her conception—a delicate +creature of fire and spirit and air. She was across the +courtyard and out of sight in the street of Charles-Robert +before he had quite realised that she was going. He +turned doubtfully towards the library, where Ann Upcott +stood in the doorway. +

+ +

+"I had better follow her," he said, reaching for his hat +

+ +

+Ann smiled and shook her head wisely. +

+ +

+"I shouldn't. I know Betty. She wants to be alone." +

+ +

+"Do you think so?" +

+ +

+"I am sure." +

+ +

+Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon +the point as she was. Ann watched him with a rather +rueful smile for a little while. Then she shrugged her +shoulders in a sudden exasperation. +

+ +

+"There is something you ought to do," she said. "You +ought to let Monsieur Bex, Betty's notary here, know that +the seals are to be broken this afternoon. He ought to be +here. He was here when they were affixed. Besides, he +has all the keys of Mrs. Harlowe's drawers and cupboards." +

+ +

+"That's true," Jim exclaimed. "I'll go at once." +

+ +

+Ann gave him Monsieur Bex's address in the Place +Etienne Dolet, and from the window of the library +watched him go upon his errand. She stood at the +window for a long while after he had disappeared. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER ELEVEN: A New Suspect +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex the notary came out into the hall +of his house when Frobisher sent his card in to +him. He was a small, brisk man with a neat pointed +beard, his hair cut en brosse and the corner of his napkin +tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. +

+ +

+Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from +the rooms of the Maison Grenelle, but said nothing at +all of the new developments which had begun with the +discovery of the book of the arrows. +

+ +

+"I have had communications with Messrs. Frobisher +and Haslitt," the little man exclaimed. "Everything has +been as correct as it could possibly be. I am happy to +meet a partner of so distinguished a firm. Yes. I will +certainly present myself at three with my keys and see +the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a +disgrace. That young lady so delicious and so correct! +And that animal of a Waberski! But we can deal with +him. We have laws in France." +

+ +

+He gave Jim the impression that there were in his +opinion no laws anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor +into the street. +

+ +

+Jim returned by the Rue des Godrans and the main +thoroughfare of the town, the street of Liberty. As he +crossed the semicircle of the Place d'Armes in front of +the Hôtel de Ville, he almost ran into Hanaud smoking a +cigar. +

+ +

+"You have lunched already?" he cried. +

+ +

+"An affair of a quarter of an hour," said Hanaud with +a wave of the hand. "And you?" +

+ +

+"Not until two. Miss Harlowe wanted a walk." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled. +

+ +

+"How I understand that! The first walk after an +ordeal! The first walk of a convalescent after an +operation! The first walk of a defendant found innocent of +a grave charge! It must be worth taking, that walk. +But console yourself, my friend, for the postponement +of your luncheon. You have met me!" and he struck +something of an attitude. +

+ +

+Now Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, +especially when displayed in public places, and he +answered stiffly, "That is a pleasure, to be sure." +

+ +

+Hanaud grinned. To make Jim look "proper" was +becoming to him an unfailing entertainment. +

+ +

+"Now I reward you," he said, though for what Jim +could not imagine. "You shall come with me. At this +hour, on the top of old Philippe le Bon's Terrace Tower, +we shall have the world to ourselves." +

+ +

+He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hôtel +de Ville. Behind the long wing which faced them, a +square, solid tower rose a hundred and fifty feet high +above the ground. With Frobisher at his heels, Hanaud +climbed the three hundred and sixteen steps and emerged +upon the roof into the blue and gold of a cloudless May +in France. They looked eastwards, and the beauty of +the scene took Frobisher's breath away. Just in front, +the slender apse of Notre Dame, fine as a lady's +ornament, set him wondering how in the world through all +these centuries it had endured; and beyond, rich and +green and wonderful, stretched the level plain with its +shining streams and nestling villages. +

+ +

+Hanaud sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out +his arm across the parapet. "Look!" he cried eagerly, +proudly. "There is what I brought you here to see. +Look!" +

+ +

+Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up. Far away on +the horizon's edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the +great mass of Mont Blanc; white as silver, soft as velvet, +and here and there sparkling with gold as though the +flame of a fire leaped and sank. +

+ +

+"Oho!" said Hanaud as he watched Jim's face. "So +we have that in common. You perhaps have stood on +the top of that mountain?" +

+ +

+"Five times," Jim answered, with a smile made up of +many memories. "I hope to do so again." +

+ +

+"You are fortunate," said Hanaud a little enviously. +"For me I see him only in the distance. But even so—if +I am troubled—it is like sitting silent in the company +of a friend." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher's mind strayed back over memories of +snow slope and rock ridge. It was a true phrase which +Hanaud had used. It expressed one of the many elusive, +almost incommunicable emotions which mountains did +mean to the people who had "that"—the passion for +mountains—in common. Jim glanced curiously at +Hanaud. +

+ +

+"You are troubled about this case, then?" he said +sympathetically. The distant and exquisite vision of that +soaring arc of silver and velvet set in the blue air had +brought the two men into at all events a momentary +brotherhood. +

+ +

+"Very," Hanaud returned slowly, without turning his +eyes from the horizon, "and for more reasons than one. +What do you yourself think of it?" +

+ +

+"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," Jim said dryly, "that you +do not like any one to ask any questions except yourself." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. +

+ +

+"Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful +Mademoiselle Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright +the question you meant to ask! It was whether the face +she touched in the darkness was the smooth face of a +woman or the face of a man." +

+ +

+"Yes. That was it." +

+ +

+It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly +at Jim. There could be no doubt of the thought which +was passing through his mind: "I must begin to give you +a little special attention, my friend." But he was careful +not to put his thoughts into words. +

+ +

+"I did not want that question asked," he said. +

+ +

+"Why?" +

+ +

+"Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions +are confusing things which had best be avoided +altogether." +

+ +

+Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He +had too clear a recollection of the swift movement and the +look with which Hanaud had checked him. Both had been +unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud would not have +been alarmed at the prospect of a question being asked, +merely because the question was superfluous. There was +another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in +Hanaud's mind. Only he could not discover it. +

+ +

+Besides, was the question superfluous? +

+ +

+"Surely," Hanaud replied. "Suppose that that young +lady's hand had touched in the darkness the face of a +man with its stubble, its tough skin, and the short hair +of his head around it, bending down so low over hers, +would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing +to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her +hands carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, +unexpectedly, the face of a man? She could not have +told her story at all without telling that. It would have +been the unforgettable detail, the very heart of her terror. +She touched the face of a man!" +

+ +

+Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he +was no nearer to the solution of his problem—why +Hanaud so whole-heartedly objected to the question +being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark which +drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's +speculations. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the +darkness that night—if that night, in the darkness she +touched a face at all." +

+ +

+Jim was utterly startled. +

+ +

+"You believe that she was lying to us?" he cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air. +

+ +

+"I believe nothing," he said. "I am looking for a +criminal." +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott!" Jim spoke the name in amazement. +"Ann Upcott!" Then he remembered the look of her +as she had told her story, her face convulsed with terror, +her shaking tones. "Oh, it's impossible that she was +lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?" +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. +

+ +

+"You may take this from me, my friend. All women +who are great criminals are also very artful actresses. +I never knew one who wasn't." +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott!" Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, +but now with a trifle less of amazement. He was growing +slowly and gradually accustomed to the idea. Still—that +girl with the radiant look of young Spring! Oh, no! +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe's will," +he argued. "What could she have to gain by murder?" +

+ +

+"Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! +Analyse it. You will see—what? That it falls into two +parts." Hanaud ground the stump of his cigar beneath +his heel, offered one of his black cigarettes to Jim +Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it with a +sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop +fizzling, would never burst into flame. +

+ +

+"One part when she was alone in her bedroom—a little +story of terror and acted very effectively, but after all +any one could invent it. The other part was not so easy +to invent. The communicating door open for no reason, +the light beyond, the voice that whispered, 'That will do,' +the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don't +believe that was invented. There were too many little +details which seemed to have been lived through. The +white face of the clock and the hour leaping at her. No! +I think all that must stand. But adapt it a little. See! +This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of +Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+"And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might +not be telling a true story of himself and attributing it +to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott's story in the same +way," continued Hanaud. "Suppose that sometime that +day she had unlocked the communicating door! What +more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during the day-time. +Her room was empty. And that communicating +door opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps +it might have been discovered whether it was locked or +not, but into a dressing-room." +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after +Mademoiselle Harlowe's departure to Monsieur de Pouillac's +Ball. She sends Gaston to bed. The house is all +dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is joined +by—some one—some one with the arrow poison all ready in +the hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room +just as Ann Upcott described. That she turns on +the light for a second whilst—some one—crosses the +treasure-room and opens the door. Suppose that the voice +which whispered, 'That will do now,' was the voice of Ann +Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame +Harlowe's body to the third person in that room!" +

+ +

+"The 'some one,'" exclaimed Jim. "But, who then? Who?" +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. "Why not Waberski?" +

+ +

+"Waberski?" cried Jim with a new excitement in his +voice. +

+ +

+"You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this +murder and you answered your own question. Nothing +you said, Monsieur Frobisher, but did your quick answer +cover the ground? Waberski—he at all events expected +a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for help proposed +to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite +Mademoiselle Ann. Has she no motive now? In the end what +do we know of her at all except that she is the paid +companion and therefore poor? Mademoiselle Ann!"; and +he threw up his hands. "Where does she spring from? +How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps +Waberski's friend?"—and a cry from Jim brought +Hanaud to a stop. +

+ +

+Jim had thought of Waberski as the possible murderer +if murder had been done—a murderer who, disappointed +of his legacy, the profits of his murder, had carried on +his villainy to blackmail and a false accusation. But he +had not associated Ann Upcott with him until those +moments on the Terrace Tower. Yet now memories +began to crowd upon him. The letter to him, for instance. +She had said that Waberski had claimed her support and +ridiculed his claim. Might that letter not have been a blind +and a rather cunning blind? Above all there was a scene +passing vividly through his mind which was very different +from the scene spread out before his eyes, a scene of lighted +rooms and a crowd about a long green table, and a fair +slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until +the whole of her little pile of banknotes was swept in by +the croupier's rake, and then turned away with a high +carriage but a quivering lip. +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud keenly. "You know something +after all of Ann Upcott, my friend. What do you +know?" +

+ +

+Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to +her that he should relate his story. Explained, it might +wear so different a complexion. At another moment that +it would be fairer to let her explain it. And there was +Betty to consider. Yes, above all there was Betty to +consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. +

+ +

+"I will tell you," he said to Hanaud. "When I saw +you in Paris, I told you that I had never seen Ann Upcott +in all my life. I believed it. It wasn't until she danced +into the library yesterday morning that I realised I had +misled you. I saw Ann Upcott at the trente et quarante +table at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in January of +this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and +losing her money. Nothing would go right for her. She +bore herself proudly and well. The only sign I saw of +distress was the tightening of her fingers about her little +handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at the other players +when she rose after her last coup, as though she dared +them to pity her. I was on the other hand winning, and +I slipped a thousand-franc note off the table on to the +floor, keeping my heel firmly upon it as you can +understand. And as the girl turned to move out from the +crowd I stopped her. I said in English, for she was +obviously of my race, 'This is yours. You have dropped +it on the floor.' She gave me a smile and a little shake of +the head. I think that for the moment she dared not trust +her lips to speak, and in a second, of course, she was +swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a little while +longer. Then I too rose and as I passed the entrance to +the bar on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from +one of the many little tables and spoke to me. She called +me by my name. She thanked me very prettily and said +that although she had lost that evening she was not really +in any trouble. I doubted the truth of what she said. For +she had not one ring upon any finger, not the tiniest +necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress +or in her hair. She turned away from me at once and +went back to the little table where she sat down again in +the company of a man. The girl of course was Ann +Upcott, the man Waberski. It was from him no doubt +that she had got my name." +

+ +

+"Did this little episode happen before Ann Upcott +became a member of the household?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"Yes," replied Jim. "I think she joined Mrs. Harlowe +and Betty at Monte Carlo. I think that she came +with them back to Dijon." +

+ +

+"No doubt," said Hanaud. He sat for a little while +in silence. Then he said softly, "That does not look so +very well for Mademoiselle Ann." +

+ +

+Jim had to admit that it did not. +

+ +

+"But consider this, Monsieur Hanaud," he urged. "If +Ann Upcott, which I will not believe, is mixed up in this +affair, why should she of her own free will volunteer this +story of what she heard upon the night of the +twenty-seventh and invent that face which bent down over her +in the darkness?" +

+ +

+"I have an idea about that," Hanaud replied. "She +told us this story—when? After I had said that we must +have the seals broken this afternoon and the rooms thrown +open. It is possible that we may come upon something +in those rooms which makes it wise for her to divert +suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jeanne +Baudin, or even Mademoiselle Harlowe's maid Francine +Rollard." +

+ +

+"But not Mademoiselle Betty," Jim interposed quickly. +

+ +

+"No, no!" Hanaud returned with a wave of his hand. +"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet settled that. +Mademoiselle Betty is out of the affair. Well, this +afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, you will be +late for your luncheon." +

+ +

+Hanaud rose from the bench and with a last look at the +magical mountain, that outpost of France, they turned +towards the city. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares green +with limes and the steep gaily-patterned roofs of ancient +houses. About him the fine tapering spires leapt high +like lances from the slates of its many churches. A little +to the south and a quarter of a mile away across the roof +tops he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke +rising from a chimney stack or two and behind it the tops +of tall trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from +their leaves. +

+ +

+"The Maison Crenelle!" he said. +

+ +

+There was no answer, not even the slightest movement +at his side. +

+ +

+"Isn't it?" he asked and he turned. +

+ +

+Hanaud had not even heard him. He was gazing +also towards the Maison Crenelle with the queerest look +upon his face; a look with which Jim was familiar in +some sort of association, but which for a moment or two +he could not define. It was not an expression of +amazement. On the other hand interest was too weak a word. +Suddenly Jim Frobisher understood and comprehension +brought with it a sense of discomfort. Hanaud's look, +very bright and watchful and more than a little inhuman, +was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master +brings out a gun. +

+ +

+Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The +slates were broken at intervals by little gabled windows, +but at none of them could he see a figure. From none of +them a signal was waved. +

+ +

+"What is it that you are looking at?" asked Jim in +perplexity and then with a touch of impatience. "You +see something, I'm sure." +

+ +

+Hanaud heard his companion at last. His face +changed in a moment, lost its rather savage vigilance, and +became the face of a buffoon. +

+ +

+"Of course I see something. Always I see something. +Am I not Hanaud? Ah, my friend, the responsibility of +being Hanaud! Aren't you fortunate to be without it? +Pity me! For the Hanauds must see something +everywhere—even when there is nothing to see. Come!" +

+ +

+He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform +into the dark turret of the staircase. The two men +descended the steps and came out again into the semi-circle +of the Place d'Armes. +

+ +

+"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he +had some little thing to say and was not quite sure +whether he would say it. Then he compromised. "You +shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to your +luncheon," he said. +

+ +

+"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied. +

+ +

+Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his +outstretched forefinger. +

+ +

+"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take +a Vermouth with me, and you will still reach the Maison +Crenelle before Mademoiselle Harlowe. I say that, +Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and +consented. +

+ +

+"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her +and Ann Upcott half through their meal." +

+ +

+A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and +the Place d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out +on the pavement beneath an awning. They sat down at +one of them, and over the Vermouth, Hanaud was once +more upon the brink of some recommendation or statement. +

+ +

+"You see——" he began and then once more ran away. +"So you have been five times upon the top of the Mont +Blanc!" he said. "From Chamonix?" +

+ +

+"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant +by the Brenva glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once +from the Brouillard glacier. And the last time by the +Mont Mandit." +

+ +

+Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: +

+ +

+"You tell me things which are interesting and very +new to me," he said warmly. "I am grateful, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"On the other hand," Jim answered dryly, "you, Monsieur, +tell me very little. Even what you brought me to +this café to say, you are going to keep to yourself. But +for my part I shall not be so churlish. I am going to tell +you what I think." +

+ +

+"Yes?" +

+ +

+"I think we have missed the way." +

+ +

+"Oh?" +

+ +

+Hanaud selected a cigarette from his bundle in its +bright blue wrapping. +

+ +

+"You will perhaps think me presumptuous in saying so." +

+ +

+"Not the least little bit in the world," Hanaud replied +seriously. "We of the Police are liable in searching +widely to overlook the truth under our noses. That is our +danger. Another angle of view—there is nothing more +precious. I am all attention." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher drew his chair closer to the round table +of iron and leaned his elbows upon it. +

+ +

+"I think there is one question in particular which we +must answer if we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlowe +was murdered, and if so by whom." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we +have the same question in our minds." +

+ +

+"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this—Who +put back the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in +its place upon the bookshelf in the library, between +mid-day yesterday and this morning." +

+ +

+Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and +held it in the shelter of his palm until the flame shone. +He lit his cigarette and took a few puffs at it. +

+ +

+"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, +although in rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. +No. I think there is another more important still. I +think if we could know why the door of the treasure-room, +which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's +death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh +of April, we should be very near to the whole truth of this +dark affair. But," and he flung out his hands, "that +baffles me." +

+ +

+Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily +upon the pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer +there. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals +

+ +

+A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that +Hanaud guessed very luckily. He would not allow +that it was more than a guess. Monsieur Hanaud might +be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no insight, however +brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a circumstance. +But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at +the Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty +Harlowe. He had loitered with Hanaud at the café just +so that this might not take place. He shrank from being +alone with Ann Upcott now that he suspected her. The +most he could hope to do was to conceal the reason of his +trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could not +conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by +a rather wistful expression of sympathy. +

+ +

+"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you +need not be any longer. What I said this morning was +true. It was half-past ten when that dreadful whisper +reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her +friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that." +

+ +

+"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, +and Ann looked at him with startled eyes. +

+ +

+Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall +before Ann could ask a question; and throughout their +luncheon he made conversation upon indifferent subjects +with rapidity, if without entertainment. +

+ +

+Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were +still indeed smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when +Gaston informed them that the Commissary of Police +with his secretary was waiting in the library. +

+ +

+"This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London," said +Betty as she presented Jim. +

+ +

+The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, +middle-aged man with a pair of folding glasses sitting +upon a prominent fat nose; his secretary, Maurice +Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the police +administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in +his own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror +amongst the fair. +

+ +

+"I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle's notary +in Dijon, to be present," said Jim. +

+ +

+"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and +Monsieur Bex was at that moment announced. He +came on the very moment of three. The clock was +striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was just +as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased. +

+ +

+"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, +smiling, "we can now proceed with the final ceremonies +of this affair." +

+ +

+"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary. +

+ +

+"Hanaud?" +

+ +

+"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited +by the Examining Magistrate to take charge of this +case," the Commissary explained. +

+ +

+"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there +is no case for Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty +Harlowe drew him a little aside. +

+ +

+Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary +of the incidents of the morning, Jim went out of the room +into the hall in search of Hanaud. He saw him at once; +but to his surprise Hanaud came forward from the back +of the hall as if he had entered the house from the garden. +

+ +

+"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to +the door of that room which certainly was at the back of +the house behind the library, with its entrance behind the +staircase. "We will join the others." +

+ +

+Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly +to Thevenet. +

+ +

+"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, +and in a loud undertone, "a charming youth, of an +intelligence which is surprising. He will go far." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. +The young recruit gazed at the great man with kindling +eyes. +

+ +

+"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, +by which, if I do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence +at all," he said with a formal modesty which quite +went to the heart of Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+"That is very correct," said he. +

+ +

+Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He +cocked an eye at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary +warmly by the hand. +

+ +

+"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young +friend," he answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But +I was once young Maurice Thevenet without, alas! his +good looks." +

+ +

+Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming +diffidence. +

+ +

+"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+"This looks like growing into a friendly little family +party," Jim Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a +"Hum" and a "Ha" from the Commissary. +

+ +

+He moved to the centre of the room. +

+ +

+"We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now +remove the seals," he said pompously. +

+ +

+He led the way from the Library across the hall and +along the corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom. He broke the seals and removed the bands. +Then he took a key from the hand of his secretary and +opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little +company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out +his arms and barred the way. +

+ +

+"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his +shoulder Jim Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which +made him shiver. +

+ +

+This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase +had made him for a moment eager that Hanaud should +press on, that development should follow upon development +until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. Since +the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower +of the Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and +he waited for developments in fear. This bedroom +mistily lit by a few stray threads of daylight which +pierced through the chinks of the shutters, cold and silent +and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, +whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in +the shadows. Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed +to the windows opposite, opened them and flung back the +shutters. The clear bright light flooded every corner in +an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher relief. The +room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the +wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; +everywhere there was order; it was as empty of suggestion +as a vacant bedroom in an hotel. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked about him. +

+ +

+"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week +after Madame's funeral. It would have been a miracle if +we discovered anything which could help us." +

+ +

+He went to the bed, which stood with its head against +the wall midway between the door and the windows. A +small flat stand with a button of enamel lay upon the +round table by the bed-side, and from the stand a cord +ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the +carpet. +

+ +

+"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I +suppose," he said, turning towards Betty. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But +there was no sign that it had ever been tampered with. +He stood up again. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into +Jeanne Baudin's bedroom and close the door. I shall +press this button, and you will know whether the bell rings +whilst we here shall be able to assure ourselves whether +sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in the +other." +

+ +

+"Certainly." +

+ +

+Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few +seconds later those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door +close in the corridor. +

+ +

+"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud +requested. +

+ +

+Bex, the notary, closed it. +

+ +

+"Now, silence, if you please!" +

+ +

+Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered +him. He pressed it again and again with the same result. +The Commissary returned to the bedroom. +

+ +

+"Well?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"It rang twice," said the Commissary. +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. +

+ +

+"And an electric bell has a shrill, penetrating sound," +he cried. "Name of a name, but they built good houses +when the Maison Crenelle was built! Are the cupboards +and drawers open?" +

+ +

+He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came +forward. +

+ +

+"All the drawers were locked on the morning when +Madame Harlowe's death was discovered. Mademoiselle +Harlowe herself locked them in my presence and handed +to me the keys for the purpose of making an inventory. +Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For +until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will +were not disclosed." +

+ +

+"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you +must have unlocked them." +

+ +

+"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. +There were the arrangements for the funeral, a list of the +properties to be made for valuation, and the vineyards to +be administered." +

+ +

+"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes +and cupboards and drawers should hold exactly +what they held on the night of the twenty-seventh of +April." He ran quickly about the room trying a door +here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a +cupboard fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The +trouble is that a child with a bent wire could unlock any +one of them. Do you know what Madame Harlowe kept +in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with his +knuckles upon the cupboard door. +

+ +

+"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex +produced a bunch of keys from his pocket. +

+ +

+"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers, +as though time meant nothing to him at all. He now +swung briskly back into the centre of the room, making +notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its geography. The +door opening from the corridor faced, across the length +of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If +one stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the +bed was on the left hand. On the corridor side of the +bed, a second smaller door, which was half open, led to a +white-tiled bath-room. On the window side of the bed +was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a +woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the +windows, a great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, +and in that same wall, close to the right-hand window, +there was yet another door. Hanaud moved to it. +

+ +

+"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of +Ann Upcott, and without waiting for an answer pushed +it open. +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys +rattling. "Everything here has been locked up too," he +said. +

+ +

+Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened +the shutters. +

+ +

+It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, +and with a door exactly opposite to the door by which +Hanaud had entered. He went at once to this door. +

+ +

+"And this must be the communicating door which +leads into what is called the treasure-room," he said, and +he paused with his hand upon the knob and his eyes ranging +alertly over the faces of the company. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of +the opening of some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh +in a hill-side of the Valley of Kings. Suspense passed +from one to the other as they waited, but Hanaud did +not move. He stood there impassive and still like some +guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that +he was never going to move, and in a voice of +exasperation he cried: +

+ +

+"Is the door locked?" +

+ +

+Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No +doubt he, too, felt that strange current of emotion and +expectancy which bound all in the room under a spell, +and even gave to their diverse faces for a moment a kind +of family similitude. +

+ +

+"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. +"But since this room is now the private sitting-room of +Mademoiselle Harlowe, I think that we ought to wait +until she rejoins us." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, +"That is very correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice +rang out from the doorway leading to Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom: +

+ +

+"I am here." +

+ +

+Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. +It opened at a touch—inwards towards the group of +people and upwards towards the corridor. The treasure-room +was before them, shrouded in dim light, but here +and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held +out a promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way +daintily to the windows and fastened the shutters back +against the outside wall. "I beg that nothing shall be +touched," he said as the others filed into the room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room +

+ +

+Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the +corridor, it was longer than it was broad and more of a +gallery than a room. But it had been arranged for habitation +rather than for occasional visits. For it was furnished +with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. In the +fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures +by Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of +Chinese Chippendale by the window every appointment, +ink-stand, pen-tray, candlestick, sand-caster and all were +of the pink Battersea enamel and without a flaw. But +they were there for use, not for exhibition. Moreover +a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on +the side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it +almost the appearance of two rooms in communication, +The one feature of the room, indeed, which at a first +glimpse betrayed the collector, was the Sedan chair set in +a recess of the wall by the fire-place and opposite to the +door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its +body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately +carved mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions +representing fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses +daintily painted in the middle of them. It had glass +windows at the sides to show off the occupant, and it was +lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold to match +the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised +upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold +filigree work, and it had a door in front of which the +upper part was glass. Altogether it was as pretty a +gleaming piece of work as the art of carriage-building +could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected it. Even +Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his +hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, +until Jim began to think that he had quite forgotten the +business which had brought him there. However, he +brought himself out of his dream with a start. +

+ +

+"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," +he said. "What pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts +and fine gentlemen in silk stockings! And what splashings +of mud for the unhappy devils who had to walk!" +

+ +

+He turned his back to the chair and looked across the +room. "That is the clock which marked half-past ten, +Mademoiselle, during the moment when you had the light +turned up?" he asked of Ann. +

+ +

+"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it +again. "Yes, that's it." +

+ +

+Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change +in her intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an +inflexion of doubt—it was not marked enough for that—but +of perplexity. It was clearly, however, fancy upon +his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at all. Jim pulled +himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take +care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to +suspect people, they can say and do nothing which will not +provide you with material for suspicion." +

+ +

+Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was +a beautiful small gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, +shaped with a waist like a violin; it had a white face, and +it stood upon a marquetry Boulle cabinet, a little more +than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian mirror. +Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with +his watch. +

+ +

+"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to +Betty, with a smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. +

+ +

+He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the +clock. He faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of +the room. It had an Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from +the same fawn-coloured wood as the panels, with slender +pillars and some beautiful carving upon the board beneath +the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was +framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should +mask it, there were no high ornaments at all upon the +shelf itself. One or two small boxes of Battersea enamel +and a flat glass case alone decorated it. Hanaud crossed +to the mantelshelf and, after a moment's inspection, lifted, +with a low whistle of admiration, the flat glass case. +

+ +

+"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. +"But I shall probably never in my life have the luck to +see anything so incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf +is a little high for me to see it properly." +

+ +

+Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it +towards the window. +

+ +

+"Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?" he called out, +and Jim went forward to his side. +

+ +

+The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony +and translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim +acknowledged that he had never seen craftsmanship so +exquisite and delicate, but he chafed none the less at +Hanaud's diversion from his business. +

+ +

+"One could spend a long day in this room," the +detective exclaimed, "admiring these treasures." +

+ +

+"No doubt," Jim replied dryly. "But I had a notion +that we were going to spend an afternoon looking for an +arrow." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. +

+ +

+"My friend, you recall me to my duty." He looked at +the jewel again and sighed. "Yes, as you say, we are +not visitors here to enjoy ourselves." +

+ +

+He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and +replaced it. Then all at once his manner changed. He +was leaning forward with his hands still about the glass +case. But he was looking down. The fire-grate was +hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; +and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could +see over the screen into the grate itself. +

+ +

+"What is all this?" he asked. +

+ +

+He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully +aside. All now could see what had disturbed him—a +heap of white ashes in the grate. +

+ +

+Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the +shovel from the fender he thrust it between the bars and +drew it out again with a little layer of the ashes upon it. +They were white and had been pulverised into atoms. +There was not one flake which would cover a finger-nail. +Hanaud touched them gingerly, as though he had expected +to find them hot. +

+ +

+"This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and +to-day is Thursday afternoon," said Jim Frobisher with +heavy sarcasm. "Ashes do not as a rule keep hot more +than three days, Monsieur Hanaud." +

+ +

+Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. +He was daring to make fun of Hanaud! He +treated the Sûrété with no more respect than one might +treat—well, say Scotland Yard. +

+ +

+Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a +partner of the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman +was certainly not very correct. Hanaud on the contrary +was milk and water. +

+ +

+"I have observed it," he replied mildly, and he sat back +upon his heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle!" he called; and Betty moved forward +and leaned against the mantelshelf at his side. "Who +burnt these papers so very carefully?" he asked. +

+ +

+"I did," Betty replied. +

+ +

+"And when?" +

+ +

+"On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday +morning, before Monsieur le Commissaire arrived." +

+ +

+"And what were they, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Letters, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up into her face quickly. +

+ +

+"Oho!" he said softly. "Letters! Yes! And what +kind of letters, if you please?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in +despair. What in the world had happened to Hanaud? +One moment he forgot altogether the business upon +which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon +Harlowe's collection. The next he was off on his +wild-goose chase after anonymous letters. Jim had not a +doubt that he was thinking of them now. One had only +to say "letters," and he was side-tracked at once, +apparently ready to accuse any one of their authorship. +

+ +

+"They were quite private letters," Betty replied, whilst +the colour slowly stained her cheeks. "They will not +help you." +

+ +

+"So I see," Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a +snarl in his voice as he shook the shovel and flung the +ashes back into the grate. "But I am asking you, +Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were." +

+ +

+Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at +the floor, and then from the floor to the windows; and +Jim saw with a stab of pain that her eyes were glistening +with tears. +

+ +

+"I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a +point when Mademoiselle and I should consult together," +he interposed. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights," +said Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little +petulant movement of her shoulders. +

+ +

+"Very well." +

+ +

+She showed her face now to them all, with the tears +abrim in her big eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks +and recognition. +

+ +

+"You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud," she said +with a catch in her voice. "It seems that nothing, however +sacred, but must be dragged out into the light. But +I say again those letters will not help you." +

+ +

+She looked across the group to her notary. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Bex," she said, and he moved forward to +the other side of Hanaud. +

+ +

+"In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door +of the bathroom there stood a small chest in which she +kept a good many unimportant papers, such as old +receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to destroy. This +chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of course +with Mademoiselle's consent, meaning to go through the +papers at my leisure and recommend that all which were +not important should be destroyed. My time, however, +was occupied, as I have already explained to you, and it +was not until the Friday of the sixth of May that I opened +the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my surprise, a +bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, +tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to +assure me that they were very private and sacred things +with which Mademoiselle's notary had nothing whatever +to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday morning, I brought +them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty." +

+ +

+With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued +the story. +

+ +

+"I put the letters aside so that I might read them +quietly after dinner. As it happened I could not in any +case have given them attention before. For on that +morning Monsieur Boris formulated his charge against +me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office +of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, +I was—I don't say frightened—but distressed by this +accusation; and it was not until quite late in the evening, +and then rather to distract my thoughts than for any +other reason, that I looked at the letters. But as soon as +I did look at them I understood that they must be +destroyed. There were reasons, which"—and her voice +faltered, and with an effort again grew steady—"which I +feel it rather a sacrilege to explain. They were letters +which passed between my uncle Simon and Mrs. Harlowe +during the time when she was very unhappily married to +Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him—sometimes +long letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled +off—without reserve—during a moment of freedom. +They were the letters of," and again her voice broke and +died away into a whisper, so that none could misunderstand +her meaning—"of lovers—lovers speaking very +intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there +was no doubt that they ought to be destroyed! But I +made up my mind that I ought to read them, every one, +first of all lest there should be something in them which +I ought to know. I read a good many that night and +burnt them. But it grew late—I left the rest until the +Sunday morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, +and what I had left over I burnt then. It was soon +after I had finished burning them that Monsieur le +Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes which you +see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters +which I burnt upon the Sunday morning." +

+ +

+Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity +which touched her audience to a warm sympathy. +Hanaud gently tilted the ashes back into the grate. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I am always in the wrong with you," +he said with an accent of remorse. "For I am always +forcing you to statements which make me ashamed and +do you honour." +

+ +

+Jim acknowledged that Hanaud, when he wished, could +do the handsome thing with a very good grace. +Unfortunately grace seemed never to be an enduring quality +in him; as, for instance, now. He was still upon his +knees in front of the hearth. Whilst making his apology +he had been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel +without giving, to all appearance, any thought to what +he was doing. But his attention was now arrested. The +shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of bluish-white +paper. Hanaud's body stiffened. He bent forward and +picked the scrap of paper out from the grate, whilst +Betty, too, stooped with a little movement of curiosity. +

+ +

+Hanaud sat back again upon his heels. +

+ +

+"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday +morning," he said. +

+ +

+Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the +fragment of paper. +

+ +

+"Bills too, Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her +head over it. It was obviously the right-hand top corner +of a bill. For an intriguing scrap of a printed address +was visible and below a figure or two in a column. +

+ +

+"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with +the letters," said Betty. "I don't remember it." +

+ +

+She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, +who sat and looked at it. Jim Frobisher standing just +behind him read the printed ends of names and words and +the figures beneath and happened to remember the very +look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the +top bit of name in large capital letters, the words below +echelonned in smaller capitals, then the figures in the +columns and all enclosed in a rough sort of triangle with +the diagonal line browned and made ragged by the +fire—thus— +

+ +

+ ERON
+     STRUCTION
+                   LLES
+                         IS
+                               ========
+                                 375.05
+

+ +


+ +

+"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud +and he tossed the scrap of paper back into the grate. +"Did you notice these ashes, Monsieur Girardot, on +Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the question might +seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an +explanation. +

+ +

+"It is always good when it is possible to get a +corroboration, Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+Betty nodded, but Girardot was at a loss. He +managed to look extremely important, but importance +was not required. +

+ +

+"I don't remember," he said. +

+ +

+However, corroboration of a kind at all events did +come though from another source. +

+ +

+"If I might speak, Monsieur Hanaud?" said Maurice +Thevenet eagerly. +

+ +

+"But by all means," Hanaud replied. +

+ +

+"I came into this room just behind Monsieur +Girardot on the Sunday morning. I did not see any +ashes in the hearth, that is true. But Mademoiselle +Harlowe was in the act of arranging that screen of blue +lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it to-day. +She arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were +she stood up with a start of surprise." +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud cordially. He smiled at Betty. +"This evidence is just as valuable as if he had told us +that he had seen the ashes themselves." +

+ +

+He rose to his feet and went close to her. +

+ +

+"But there is another letter which you were good +enough to promise to me," he said. +

+ +

+"The an——" she began and Hanaud stopped her +hurriedly. +

+ +

+"It is better that we hold our tongues," he said with +a nod and a grin which recognised that in this matter +they were accomplices. "This is to be our exclusive little +secret, which, if he is very good, we will share with +Monsieur le Commissaire." +

+ +

+He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a +drawer in the Chippendale secretary. Girardot the +Commissaire tittered, not quite sure that he thought very +highly of it. Monsieur Bex, on the other hand, by a +certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly clear +that in his opinion such a jape was very, very far from +correct. +

+ +

+Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and +handed it to Hanaud, who took it aside to the window +and read it carefully. Then with a look he beckoned +Girardot to his side. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher can come too. For he is in the +secret," he added; and the three men stood apart at the +window looking at the sheet of paper. It was dated the +7th of May, signed "The Scourge," like the others of +this hideous brood, and it began without any preface. +There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of +them were epithets not to be reproduced which made +Jim's blood boil that a girl like Betty should ever have +had to read them. +

+ +

+"Your time is coming now, you——" and here followed +the string of abominable obscenities. "You +are for it, Betty Harlowe. Hanaud the detective from +Paris is coming to look after you with his handcuffs +in his pocket. You'll look pretty in handcuffs, won't +you, Betty? It's your white neck we want! Three +cheers for Waberski? The Scourge." +

+ +


+ +

+Girardot stared at the brutal words and settled his +glasses on his nose and stared again. +

+ +

+"But—but——" he stammered and he pointed to the +date. A warning gesture made by Hanaud brought him +to a sudden stop, but Frobisher had little doubt as to the +purport of that unfinished exclamation. Girardot was +astonished, as Hanaud himself had been, that this item +of news had so quickly leaked abroad. +

+ +

+Hanaud folded the letter and turned back into the +room. +

+ +

+"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, and +Thevenet the secretary took his notebook from his +pocket. +

+ +

+"Shall I make you a copy of the letter, Monsieur +Hanaud?" he said, sitting down and holding out his +hand. +

+ +

+"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, +"and a copy at the present stage isn't necessary. A little +later on I may ask for your assistance." +

+ +

+He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case +away in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again +he saw that Betty was holding out to him a key. +

+ +

+"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," +she said. +

+ +

+"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we +shall have Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the +room opposite to the windows, and close to the door which +opened on to the hall. Hanaud took the key, unlocked +the door of the cabinet and started back with a "Wow." He +was really startled, for facing him upon a shelf were +two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in eyes, +but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the +heads of Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the +Amazon, and preserved and reduced by their conquerors +by the process common amongst those forests. +

+ +

+"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that +we should find it," he said, but though he found many +curious oddities in that cabinet, of the perfect specimen of +a poison arrow there was never a trace. He turned away +with an air of disappointment. +

+ +

+"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," +he said regretfully; and for an hour he searched that +room, turning back the carpet, examining the upholstery +of the chairs, and the curtains, shaking out every vase, +and finally giving his attention to Betty's secretary. He +probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple +mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every +pigeon-hole; working with extraordinary swiftness and +replacing everything in its proper place. At the end of +the hour the room was as orderly as when he had entered +it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. +

+ +

+"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in +a chair and drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as +the two ladies and Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was +prepared not to find it here." +

+ +

+"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did +not stir. +

+ +

+"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur +Girardot, if you will remove the seals in the hall from the +door at the end of the room." +

+ +

+The Commissary went out by the way of Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom, accompanied by his secretary. After a +minute had passed a key grated in the lock and the door +was opened. The Commissary and his secretary returned +into the room from the hall. +

+ +

+"Good!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He rose from this chair and looking around at the little +group, now grown puzzled and anxious, he said very +gravely: +

+ +

+"In the interest of justice I now ask that none of you +shall interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have +an experiment to make." +

+ +

+In a complete silence he walked to the fireplace and +rang the bell. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FOURTEEN: An Experiment and a Discovery +

+ +

+Gaston answered the bell. +

+ +

+"Will you please send Francine Rollard here," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond +Hanaud to Betty. +

+ +

+"If Mademoiselle gives me the order," he said +respectfully. +

+ +

+"At once then, Gaston," Betty replied, and she sat +down in a chair. +

+ +

+Francine Rollard was apparently difficult to persuade. +For the minutes passed, and when at last she did come +into the treasure room she was scared and reluctant. She +was a girl hardly over twenty, very neat and trim and +pretty, and rather like some wild shy creature out of the +woods. She looked round the group which awaited her +with restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it +was the suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. +

+ +

+"Rollard," said Hanaud gently, "I sent for you, for +I want another woman to help me in acting a little scene." +

+ +

+He turned towards Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+"Now, Mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly +your movements here on the night when Madame Harlowe +died? You came into the room—so. You stood +by the electric-light switch there. You turned it on, you +noticed the time, and you turned it off quickly. For this +communicating door stood wide open—so!—and a strong +light poured out of Madame Harlowe's bedroom through +the doorway." +

+ +

+Hanaud was very busy, placing himself first by the side +of Ann to make sure that she stood in the exact place +which she had described, and then running across the +room to set wide open the communicating door. +

+ +

+"You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments +and panels of the Sedan chair, on the other side of +the fireplace on your right. So! And there, +Mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and," his words +lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each +one—"you heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom +and caught some words spoken in a clear whisper." +

+ +

+"Yes," Ann replied with a shiver. The solemn manner +of authority with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. +She looked at him with troubled eyes. +

+ +

+"Then will you stand there once more," he continued, +"and once more listen as you listened on that night. I +thank you!" He went away to Betty. "Now, Mademoiselle, +and you, Francine Rollard, will you both please +come with me." +

+ +

+He walked towards the communicating door but Betty +did not even attempt to rise from her chair. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud," she said with her cheeks very +white and her voice shaking, "I can guess what you +propose to do. But it is horrible and rather cruel to us. +And I cannot see how it will help." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott broke in before Hanaud could reply. She +was more troubled even than Betty, though without doubt +hers was to be the easier part. +

+ +

+"It cannot help at all," she said. "Why must we +pretend now the dreadful thing which was lived then?" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned about in the doorway. +

+ +

+"Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think +that when I have finished, you will yourselves understand +that my experiment has not been without its use. I +understand of course that moments like these bring their +distress. But—you will pardon me—I am not thinking +of you"—and there was so much quietude and gravity in +the detective's voice that his words, harsh though they +were, carried with them no offence. "No, I am thinking +of a woman more than double the age of either of you, +whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of +the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs +which you, Mademoiselle Harlowe, showed me this +morning—I am moved by them. Yes, that is the truth." +

+ +

+He closed his eyes as if he saw those two portraits with +their dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. "I +am her advocate," he cried aloud in a stirring voice. "The +tragic woman, I stand for her! If she was done to death, +I mean to know and I mean to punish!" +

+ +

+Never had Frobisher believed that Hanaud could have +been so transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so +much passion. He stood before them an erect and +menacing figure, all his grossness melted out of him, a +man with a flaming sword. +

+ +

+"As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a +little distress matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? +How long will they last? I beg you not to hinder +me!" +

+ +

+Betty rose up from her chair without another word. +But she did not rise without an effort, and when she +stood up at last she swayed upon her feet and her face +was as white as chalk. +

+ +

+"Come, Francine!" she said, pronouncing her words +like a person with an impediment of speech. "We must +show Monsieur Hanaud that we are not the cowards he +takes us for." +

+ +

+But Francine still held back. +

+ +

+"I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl and +this frightens me. The police! They set traps—the +police." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. +

+ +

+"And how often do they catch the innocent in them? +Tell me that, Mademoiselle Francine!" +

+ +

+He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom. Betty and Francine followed upon his +heels, the others trooped in behind, with Frobisher last +of all. He indeed was as reluctant to witness Hanaud's +experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. It +savoured of the theatrical. There was to be some sort +of imagined reproduction of the scene which Ann Upcott +had described, no doubt with the object of testing her +sincerity. It would really be a test of nerves more than a +test of honesty and to Jim was therefore neither reliable +nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a word +of encouragement to Ann, but she was gazing again with +that curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the +marquetry cabinet. +

+ +

+"There is nothing to fear, Ann," he said, and she +withdrew her eyes from the clock. They were dancing now +as she turned them upon Frobisher. +

+ +

+"I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me +by my name," she said with a smile. "Thank you, Jim!" She +hesitated and then the blood suddenly mounted into +her face. "I'll tell you, I was a little jealous," she added +in a low voice and with a little laugh at herself as though +she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. +

+ +

+Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer +by the appearance of Hanaud in the doorway. +

+ +

+"I hate to interrupt, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with +a smile; "but it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle +should listen without anything to distract her." +

+ +

+Jim followed Hanaud into the bedroom, and was +startled. The Commissary and his secretary and +Monsieur Bex were in a group apart near to one of the +windows. Betty Harlowe was stretched upon Mrs. Harlowe's +bed; Francine Rollard stood against the wall, near +to the door, clearly frightened out of her wits and +glancing from side to side with the furtive restless eyes +of the half-tamed. But it was not this curious spectacle +which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but something strange, +something which almost shocked, in the aspect of Betty +herself. She was leaning up on an elbow with her eyes +fixed upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable +fierce look in them that he had ever seen. She was quite +lost to her environment. The experiment from which +Francine shrank had no meaning for her. She was +possessed—the old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts—though +her face was as still as a mass, a mask of frozen passion. +It was only for a second, however, that the strange seizure +lasted. Betty's face relaxed; she dropped back upon +the bed with her eyes upon Hanaud like one waiting for +instructions. +

+ +

+Hanaud, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take +his place amongst the group at the window. He placed +himself upon one side of the bed, and beckoned to +Francine. Very slowly she approached the end of the bed. +Hanaud directed her in the same silent way to come opposite +to him on the other side of the bed. For a little while +Francine refused. She stood stubbornly shaking her +head at the very foot of the bed. She was terrified of +some trick, and when at last at a sign from Betty she took +up the position assigned to her, she minced to it gingerly +as though she feared the floor would open beneath her +feet. Hanaud made her another sign and she looked at a +scrap of paper on which Hanaud had written some words. +The paper and her orders had obviously been given to +her whilst Jim was talking to Ann Upcott. Francine +knew what she was to do, but her suspicious peasant +nature utterly rebelled against it. Hanaud beckoned to +her with his eyes riveted upon her compelling her, and +against her will she bent forwards over the bed and across +Betty Harlowe's body. +

+ +

+A nod from Hanaud now, and she spoke in a low, clear +whisper: +

+ +

+"That—will—do—now." +

+ +

+And hardly had she spoken those few words which +Ann Upcott said she had heard on the night of +Mrs. Harlowe's death, but Hanaud himself must repeat them +and also in a whisper. +

+ +

+Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway +in his natural voice: +

+ +

+"Did you hear, Mademoiselle? Was that the whisper +which reached your ears on the night when Madame +died?" +

+ +

+All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in +suspense. Francine Rollard, indeed, with her eyes fixed +upon Hanaud in a very agony of doubt. And the answer +came. +

+ +

+"Yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this +afternoon. On the night when I came down in the dark +to the treasure room, the words were only whispered +once." +

+ +

+"It was the same voice which whispered them twice, +Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes ... I think so ... I noticed no difference +... Yes." +

+ +

+And Hanaud flung out his arms with a comic gesture +of despair, and addressed the room. +

+ +

+"You understand now my little experiment. A voice +that whispers! How shall one tell it from another voice +that whispers! There is no intonation, no depth, no +lightness. There is not even sex in a voice which +whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest to the +identity of the person who whispered, 'That will do now,' +on the night when Madame Harlowe died." He waved +his hand towards Monsieur Bex. "I will be glad if you +will open now these cupboards, and Mademoiselle Harlowe +will tell us, to the best of her knowledge, whether +anything has been taken or anything disturbed." +

+ +

+Hanaud returned to the treasure room, leaving +Monsieur Bex and Betty at their work, with the Commissary +and his secretary to supervise them. Jim Frobisher +followed him. He was very far from believing that +Hanaud had truthfully explained the intention of his +experiment. The impossibility of identifying a voice +which whispers! Here was something with which +Hanaud must have been familiar from a hundred cases! +No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There +was quite another true reason for this melodramatic little +scene which he had staged. He was following Hanaud in +the hope of finding out that reason, when he heard him +speaking in a low voice, and he stopped inside the +dressing-room close to the communicating door where he could +hear every word and yet not be seen himself. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," Hanaud was saying to Ann Upcott, +"there is something about this clock here which troubles +you." +

+ +

+"Yes—of course it's nonsense.... I must be wrong.... +For here is the cabinet and on it stands the clock." +

+ +

+Jim could gather from the two voices that they were +both standing together close to the marquetry cabinet. +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," Hanaud urged. "Still you are troubled." +

+ +

+There was a moment's silence. Jim could imagine the +girl looking from the clock to the door by which she had +stood, and back again from the door to the clock. Surely +that scene in the bedroom had been staged to extort some +admission from Ann Upcott of the falsity of her story. +Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting +to another trick, setting a fresh trap? +

+ +

+"Well?" he asked insistently. "Why are you +troubled?" +

+ +

+"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, +"that the clock is lower now than it was. Of course it +can't be ... and I had only one swift glimpse of it.... +Yet my recollection is so vivid—the room standing +out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then +vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock +seemed to me to be placed higher..." and suddenly +she stopped as if a warning hand had been laid upon her +arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering when +silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway +and confronting him. +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note +of relief in his voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the +Sûrété very soon. That I can see. Come in!" +

+ +

+He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. +

+ +

+"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the +light goes up and goes out—it would have been a marvel +if you had within that flash of vision seen every detail +precisely true. No, there is nothing there!" He flung +himself into a chair and sat for a little while silent in an +attitude of dejection. +

+ +

+"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had +nothing to go upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing +there, stirring up old troubles which had better be +left quietly in their graves, and at the end discovering +nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My +little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?" +

+ +

+Hanaud sat up alertly. +

+ +

+"What is the matter?" he asked. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter +disappointment upon Hanaud's face and in his attitude had +enlightened him. Yes, his experiment had failed. For +it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had summoned +her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant +to act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the +hope that it would work upon her and break her down to +a confession of guilt. He suspected Ann. Well, then, +Ann must have had an accomplice. To discover the +accomplice—there was the object of the experiment. And +it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. +Francine had shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the +reason of the shrinking was manifest—fear of the police, +suspicion of a trap, the furtive helplessness of the +ignorant. She had not delivered herself into Hanaud's +toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal +to Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he +answered simply: +

+ +

+"Nothing." +

+ +

+Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms +of his chair. +

+ +

+"Nothing, eh? nothing! That's the only answer in +this case. To every question! To every search! Nothing, +nothing, nothing;" and as he ended in a sinking voice, +a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. +

+ +

+"Betty!" Ann exclaimed. +

+ +

+Hanaud threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim +fancied that he was out of his chair and across the +dressing-room before the sound of the cry had ceased. +Certainly Betty could not have moved. She was standing in +front of the dressing-table, looking down at a big jewel-case +of dark blue morocco leather, and she was lifting up +and down the open lid of it with an expression of utter +incredulity. +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud. "It is unlocked. We have +something, after all, Monsieur Frobisher. Here is a +jewel-case unlocked, and jewel-cases do not unlock +themselves. It was here?" +

+ +

+He looked towards the cupboard in the wall, of which +the door stood open. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Betty. "I opened the door, and took the +case out by the side handles. The lid came open when +I touched it." +

+ +

+"Will you look through it, please, and see whether +anything is missing?" +

+ +

+While Betty began to examine the contents of the +jewel-case, Hanaud went to Francine, who stood apart. +He took her by the arm and led her to the door. +

+ +

+"I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine," he said. +"But, after all, we are not such alarming people, the +Police, eh? No, so long as good little maids hold their +good little tongues, we can be very good friends. Of +course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and gossip, little +Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is to-morrow +spreading over Dijon the story of Hanaud's little experiment, +Hanaud will know where to look for the chatterers." +

+ +

+"Monsieur, I shall not say one word," cried Francine. +

+ +

+"And how wise that will be, little Francine!" Hanaud +rejoined in a horribly smooth and silky voice. "For +Hanaud can be the wickedest of wicked Uncles to +naughty little chatterers. Ohhoho, yes! He seizes them +tight—so—and it will be ever so long before he says to +them 'That—will—do—now!'" +

+ +

+He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh +and gently pushed Francine Rollard from the room. +Then he returned to Betty, who had lifted the tray out +of the box and was opening some smaller cases which had +been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon pendant +and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. +

+ +

+"You miss something, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"It was, after all, certain that you would," Hanaud +continued. "If murders are committed, there will be +some reason. I will even venture to guess that the jewel +which you miss is of great value." +

+ +

+"It is," Betty admitted. "But I expect it has only been +mislaid. No doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked +away in a drawer." She spoke with very great eagerness, +and a note of supplication that the matter should rest +there. "In any case, what has disappeared is mine, isn't +it? And I am not going to imitate Monsieur Boris. I +make no complaint." +

+ +

+Hanaud shook his head. +

+ +

+"You are very kind, Mademoiselle. But we cannot, +alas! say here 'That will do now.'" It was strange to +Jim to notice how he kept harping upon the words of +that whisper. "We are not dealing with a case of theft, +but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it +that you miss?" +

+ +

+"A pearl necklace," Betty answered reluctantly. +

+ +

+"A big one?" +

+ +

+It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased +Hanaud became more peremptory and abrupt. +

+ +

+"Not so very." +

+ +

+"Describe it to me, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face looking +out upon the garden. Then with a shrug of resignation +she obeyed. +

+ +

+"There were thirty-five pearls—not so very large, but +they were perfectly matched and of a beautiful pink. +My uncle took a great deal of trouble and some years to +collect them. Madame told me herself that they actually +cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. They would +be worth even more now." +

+ +

+"A fortune, then," cried Hanaud. +

+ +

+Not a person in that room had any belief that the +necklace would be found, laid aside somewhere by chance. +Here was Hanaud's case building itself up steadily. +Another storey was added to it this afternoon. This or +that experiment might fail. What did that matter? A +motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an +intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result; +that the truth, like a beam of light that travels for a +million of years, would in the end strike upon a dark spot, +and that some one would stand helpless and dazzled in a +glare—the criminal. +

+ +

+"Who knew of this necklace of yours, Mademoiselle, +beside yourself?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"Every one in the house, Monsieur. Madame wore it +nearly always." +

+ +

+"She wore it, then, on the day of her death?" +

+ +

+"Yes, I——" Betty began, and she turned towards +Ann for confirmation, and then swiftly turned away +again. "I think so." +

+ +

+"I am sure of it," said Ann steadily, though her +face had grown rather white and her eyes anxious. +

+ +

+"How long has Francine Rollard been with you?" +Hanaud asked of Betty. +

+ +

+"Three years. No—a little more. She is the only +maid I have ever had," Betty answered with a laugh. +

+ +

+"I see," Hanaud said thoughtfully; and what he saw, +it seemed to Jim Frobisher that every one else in that +room saw too. For no one looked at Ann Upcott. Old +servants do not steal valuable necklaces: Ann Upcott and +Jeanne Baudin, the nurse, were the only new-comers to +the Maison Crenelle these many years; and Jeanne Baudin +had the best of characters. Thus the argument seemed +to run though no one expressed it in words. +

+ +

+Hanaud turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard, +and shook his head over it. Then he crossed to +the dressing-table and the morocco case. +

+ +

+"Aha!" he said with a lively interest. "This is a +different affair;" and he bent down closely over it. +

+ +

+The case was not locked with a key at all. There were +three small gilt knobs in the front of the case, and the +lock was set by the number of revolutions given to each +knob. These, of course, could be varied with each knob, +and all must be known before the case could be +opened—Mrs. Harlowe's jewels had been guarded by a formula. +

+ +

+"There has been no violence used here," said Hanaud, +standing up again. +

+ +

+"Of course my aunt may have forgotten to lock the +case," said Betty. +

+ +

+"Of course that's possible," Hanaud agreed. +

+ +

+"And of course this room was open to any one between +the time of my aunt's funeral and Sunday morning, when +the doors were sealed." +

+ +

+"A week, in fact—with Boris Waberski in the house," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes ... yes," said Betty. "Only ... but I +expect it is just mislaid and we shall find it. You see +Monsieur Boris expected to get some money from my +lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain +with me. It doesn't look as if he had stolen it. He +wouldn't want a thousand pounds if he had." +

+ +

+Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had +recollected him with a thrill of hope that he would be +discovered to be the thief when Hanaud mentioned his +name. But the hope died away again before the reluctant +and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlowe. On the other +hand, if Boris and Ann were really accomplices in the +murder, because he wanted his legacy, the necklace might +well have been Ann's share. More and more, whichever +way one looked at it, the facts pointed damningly towards +Ann. +

+ +

+"Well, we will see if it has been mislaid," said Hanaud. +"But meanwhile, Mademoiselle, it would be well for you +to lock that case up and to take it some time this afternoon +to your bankers." +

+ +

+Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after +the other. Three times a swift succession of sharp little +clicks was heard in the room. +

+ +

+"You have not used, I hope, the combination which +Madame Harlowe used," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"I never knew the combination she used," said Betty. +She lifted the jewel-case back into its cupboard; and the +search of the drawers and the cupboards began. But it +was as barren of result as had been the search of the +treasure-room for the arrow. +

+ +

+"We can do no more," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes. One thing more." +

+ +

+The correction came quietly from Ann Upcott. She +was standing by herself, very pale and defiant. She +knew now that she was suspected. The very care with +which every one had avoided even looking at her had left +her in no doubt. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked about the room. +

+ +

+"What more can we do?" he asked. +

+ +

+"You can search my rooms." +

+ +

+"No!" cried Betty violently. "I won't have it!" +

+ +

+"If you please," said Ann. "It is only fair to me." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex nodded violently. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle could not be more correct," said he. +

+ +

+Ann addressed herself to Hanaud. +

+ +

+"I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in +my room except a small leather dispatch-case. You will +find the key to that in the left-hand drawer of my +dressing-table. I will wait for you in the library." +

+ +

+Hanaud bowed, and before he could move from his +position Betty did a thing for which Jim could have +hugged her there and then before them all. She went +straight to Ann and set her arm about her waist. +

+ +

+"I'll wait with you, Ann," she said. "Of course it's +ridiculous," and she led Ann out of the room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Finding of the Arrow +

+ +

+Ann's rooms were upon the second floor with the +windows upon the garden, a bedroom and a sitting-room +communicating directly with one another. They +were low in the roof, but spacious, and Hanaud, as he +looked around the bedroom, said in a tone of doubt: +

+ +

+"Yes ... after all, if one were frightened suddenly +out of one's wits, one might stumble about this room in +the dark and lose one's way to the light switch. There +isn't one over the bed." Then he shrugged his shoulders. +"But, to be sure, one would be careful that one's details +could be verified. So——" and the doubt passed out of +his voice. +

+ +

+The words were all Greek to the Commissary of Police +and his secretary and Monsieur Bex. Maurice Thevenet, +indeed, looked sharply at Hanaud, as if he was on the +point of asking one of those questions which he had been +invited to ask. But Girardot, the Commissary who was +panting heavily with his ascent of two flights of stairs, +spoke first. +

+ +

+"We shall find nothing to interest us here," he said. +"That pretty girl would never have asked us to pry about +amongst her dainty belongings if there had been +anything to discover." +

+ +

+"One never knows," replied Hanaud. "Let us see!" +

+ +

+Jim walked away into the sitting-room. He had no +wish to follow step by step Hanaud and the Commissary +in their search; and he had noticed on the table in the +middle of the room a blotting-pad and some notepaper and the +materials for writing. He wanted to get all this whirl of +conjecture and fact and lies, in which during the last two +days he had lived, sorted and separated and set in order +in his mind; and he knew no better way of doing so than +by putting it all down shortly in the "for" and "against" +style of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. He would +have a quiet hour or so whilst Hanaud indefatigably +searched. He took a sheet of paper, selected a pen at +random from the tray and began. It cost Ann Upcott, +however, a good many sheets of notepaper, and more than +once the nib dropped out of his pen-holder and was forced +back into it before he had finished. But he had his +problem reduced at last to these terms: +

+ +


+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+For + +Against +
+(1) Although suspicion that +murder had been committed +arose in the first instance only +from the return to its shelf of +the "Treatise on Sporanthus +Hispidus," subsequent developments, +e.g., the disappearance of +the Poison Arrow, the introduction +into the case of the ill-famed +Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story +of her visit to the Treasure +Room, and now the mystery of +Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, +make out a prima facie case for +inquiry. + + +But in the absence of any +trace of poison in the dead +woman's body, it is difficult to +see how the criminal can be +brought to justice, except by +

+(a) A confession. +

+(b) The commission of another +crime of a similar kind. +Hanaud's theory—once a +poisoner always a poisoner. +
+(2) If murder was committed, +it is probable that it was +committed at half-past ten at night +when Ann Upcott in the Treasure +Room heard the sound of a +struggle and the whisper, "That +will do now." + +Ann Upcott's story may be +partly or wholly false. She +knew that Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom was to be opened and +examined. If she also knew that +the pearl necklace had +disappeared, she must have realised +that it would be advisable for +her to tell some story before its +disappearance was discovered, +which would divert suspicion +from her. +
+(3) It is clear that whoever +committed the murder, if murder +was committed, Betty Harlowe +had nothing to do with it. She +had an ample allowance. She +was at M. Pouillac's Ball on +the night. Moreover, once +Mrs. Harlowe was dead, the necklace +became Betty Harlowe's +property. Had she committed the +murder, the necklace would not +have disappeared. +

+(4) Who then are possibly +guilty? +		 +It is possible that the +disappearance of the necklace is in +no way connected with the +murder, if murder there was. +
+(i) The servants. + +(i) All of them have many +years of service to their credit. +It is not possible that any of +them would have understood +enough of the "Treatise on +Sporanthus Hispidus" to make +use of it. If any of them were +concerned it can only be as an +accessory or assistant working +under the direction of another. +
+(ii) Jeanne Baudin the nurse. +

+More attention might be given +to her. It is too easily accepted +that she has nothing to do +with it. +		 +No one suspects her. Her +record is good. +
+(iii) Francine Rollard. She +was certainly frightened this +afternoon. The necklace would +be a temptation. +

+Was it she who bent over Ann +Upcott in the darkness? +		 +She was frightened of the +police as a class, rather than of +being accused of a crime. She +acted her part in the reconstruction +scene without breaking +down. If she were concerned, it +could only be for the reason +given above, as an assistant. +
+(iv) Ann Upcott. +

+Her introduction into the +Maison Crenelle took place +through Waberski and under +dubious circumstances. She is +poor, a paid companion, and the +necklace is worth a considerable +fortune. +		 +Her introductions may be +explicable on favourable grounds. +Until we know more of her +history it is impossible to judge. +
+She was in the house on the +night of Mrs. Harlowe's death. +She told Gaston he could turn +out the lights and go to bed +early that evening. She could +easily have admitted Waberski +and received the necklace as the +price of her complicity. + +Her account of the night of +the 27th April may be true from +beginning to end. +
+The story she told us in the +garden may have been the true +story of what occurred adapted. +It may have been she who +whispered "That will do now." +She may have whispered it to +Waberski. +

+Her connection with Waberski +was sufficiently close to make +him count upon Ann's support +in his charge against Betty. +		 +In that case the theory of a +murder is enormously strengthened. +But who whispered, "That +will do now"?And who was +bending over Ann Upcott when +she waked up? +
+(v) Waberski. +

+He is a scoundrel, a would-be +blackmailer. +

+He was in straits for money +and he expected a thumping +legacy from Mrs. Harlowe. +

+He may have brought Ann +Upcott into the house with the +thought of murder in his mind. +

+Having failed to obtain any +profit from his crime, he accuses +Betty of the same crime as a +blackmailing proposition. +
+As soon as he knew that +Mrs. Harlowe had been exhumed and +an autopsy made he collapsed. +He knew, if he had used himself +the poison arrow, that no trace +of poison would be found. +

+He knew of Jean Cladel, and +according to his own story was +in the Rue Gambetta close to +Jean Cladel's shop. It is possible +that he himself had been visiting +Cladel to pay for the solution of +Strophanthus. +		 +But he would have collapsed +equally if he had believed that +no murder had been committed +at all. +
+ +


+ +

+If murder was committed the two people most +obviously suspect are Ann Upcott and Waberski +working in collusion. +

+ +

+To this conclusion Jim Frobisher was reluctantly +brought, but even whilst writing it down there were +certain questions racing through his mind to which he could +find no answer. He was well aware that he was an utter +novice in such matters as the investigation of crimes; and +he recognised that were the answers to these questions +known to him, some other direction might be given to +his thoughts. +

+ +

+Accordingly he wrote those troublesome questions +beneath his memorandum—thus: +

+ +

+But +

+ +

+(1) Why does Hanaud attach no importance to the +return of the "Treatise on Sporanthus Hispidus" to +its place in the library? +

+ +

+(2) What was it which so startled him upon the +top of the Terrace Tower? +

+ +

+(3) What was it that he had in his mind to say to +me at the Café in the Place D'Armes and in the end +did not say? +

+ +

+(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the +treasure room for the missing poison arrow—except +the interior of the Sedan chair? +

+ +

+The noise of a door gently closing aroused him from +his speculations. He looked across the room. Hanaud +had just entered it from the bedroom, shutting the +communicating door behind him. He stood with his hand +upon the door-knob gazing at Frobisher with a curious +startled stare. He moved swiftly to the end of the table +at which Jim was sitting. +

+ +

+"How you help me!" he said in a low voice and smiling. +"How you do help me!" +

+ +

+Alert though Jim's ears were to a note of ridicule, he +could discover not a hint of it. Hanaud was speaking +with the utmost sincerity, his eyes very bright and his +heavy face quite changed by that uncannily sharp expression +which Jim had learned to associate with some new +find in the development of the case. +

+ +

+"May I see what you have written?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"It could be of no value to you," Jim replied modestly, +but Hanaud would have none of it. +

+ +

+"It is always of value to know what the other man +thinks, and even more what the other man sees. What +did I say to you in Paris? The last thing one sees one's +self is the thing exactly under one's nose"; and he began +to laugh lightly but continuously and with a great deal of +enjoyment, which Jim did not understand. He gave in, +however, over his memorandum and pushed it along to +Hanaud, ashamed of it as something schoolboyish, but +hopeful that some of these written questions might be +answered. +

+ +

+Hanaud sat down at the end of the table close to Jim +and read the items and the questions very slowly with an +occasional grunt, and a still more occasional "Aha!" but +with a quite unchanging face. Jim was in two minds +whether to snatch it from his hands and tear it up or dwell +upon its recollected phrases with a good deal of pride. +One thing was clear. Hanaud took it seriously. +

+ +

+He sat musing over it for a moment or two. +

+ +

+"Yes, here are questions, and dilemmas." He looked +at Frobisher with friendliness. "I shall make you an +allegory. I have a friend who is a matador in Spain. +He told me about the bull and how foolish those people +are who think the bull not clever. Yes, but do not jump +and look the offence with your eyes and tell me how very +vulgar I am and how execrable my taste. All that I know +very well. But listen to my friend the matador! He +says all that the bull wants, to kill without fail all the +bull-fighters in Spain, is a little experience. And very little, +he learns so quick. Look! Between the entrance of the +bull into the arena and his death there are reckoned +twenty minutes. And there should not be more, if the +matador is wise. The bull—he learns so quick the +warfare of the ring. Well, I am an old bull who has fought +in the arena many times. This is your first corrida. +But only ten minutes of the twenty have passed. Already +you have learned much. Yes, here are some shrewd +questions which I had not expected you to ask. When the +twenty are gone, you will answer them all for yourself. +Meanwhile"—he took up another pen and made a tiny +addition to item one—"I carry this on one step farther. +See!" +

+ +

+He replaced the memorandum under Jim's eyes. Jim +read: +

+ +

+"—subsequent developments, e.g., the disappearance of +the Poison Arrow, the introduction into the case of the +ill-famed Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story of her visit to +the treasure-room, and now the mystery of Mrs. Harlowe's +pearl necklace, and the finding of the arrow, make +out a prima facie case for inquiry." +

+ +


+ +

+Jim sprang to his feet in excitement. +

+ +

+"You have found the arrow, then?" he cried, glancing +towards the door of Ann Upcott's bedroom. +

+ +

+"Not I, my friend," replied Hanaud with a grin. +

+ +

+"The Commissaire, then?" +

+ +

+"No, not the Commissaire." +

+ +

+"His secretary, then?" +

+ +

+Jim sat down again in his chair. +

+ +

+"I am sorry. He wears cheap rings. I don't like him." +

+ +

+Hanaud broke into a laugh of delight. +

+ +

+"Console yourself! I, too, don't like that young +gentleman of whom they are all so proud. Maurice +Thevenet has found nothing." +

+ +

+Jim looked at Hanaud in a perplexity. +

+ +

+"Here is a riddle," he said. +

+ +

+Hanaud rubbed his hands together. +

+ +

+"Prove to me that you have been ten minutes in the +bull-ring," he said. +

+ +

+"I think that I have only been five," Jim replied with +a smile. "Let me see! The arrow had not been +discovered when we first entered these rooms?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"And it is discovered now?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And it was not discovered by you?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"Nor the Commissaire?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"Nor Maurice Thevenet?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+Jim stared and shook his head. +

+ +

+"I have not been one minute in the bull-ring. I don't +understand." +

+ +

+Hanaud's face was all alight with enjoyment. +

+ +

+"Then I take your memorandum and I write again." +

+ +

+He hid the paper from Jim Frobisher's eyes with the +palm of his left hand, whilst he wrote with his right. +Then with a triumphant gesture he laid it again before +Jim. The last question of all had been answered in +Hanaud's neat, small handwriting. +

+ +

+Jim read: +

+ +

+(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the +treasure-room for the missing Poison Arrow—except +the interior of the Sedan chair? +

+ +


+ +

+Underneath the question Hanaud had written as if it +was Jim Frobisher himself who answered the question: +

+ +

+"It was wrong of Hanaud to forget to examine the +Sedan chair, but fortunately no harm has resulted +from that lamentable omission. For Life, the +incorrigible Dramatist, had arranged that the head of the +arrow-shaft should be the pen-holder with which I +have written this memorandum." +

+ +


+ +

+Jim looked at the pen-holder and dropped it with a +startled cry. +

+ +

+There it was—the slender, pencil-like shaft expanding +into a slight bulb where the fingers held it, and the nib +inserted into the tiny cleft made for the stem of the iron +dart! Jim remembered that the nib had once or twice +become loose and spluttered on the page, until he had +jammed it in violently. +

+ +

+Then came a terrible thought. His jaw dropped; he +stared at Hanaud in awe. +

+ +

+"I wonder if I sucked the end of it, whilst I was thinking +out my sentences," he stammered. +

+ +

+"O Lord!" cried Hanaud, and he snatched up the pen-holder +and rubbed it hard with his pocket handkerchief. +Then he spread out the handkerchief upon the table, and +fetching a small magnifying glass from his pocket, +examined it minutely. He looked up with relief. +

+ +

+"There is not the least little trace of that reddish-brown +clay which made the poison paste. The arrow was +scraped clean before it was put on that tray of pens. I +am enchanted. I cannot now afford to lose my junior +colleague." +

+ +

+Frobisher drew a long breath and lit a cigarette, and +gave another proof that he was a very novice of a bull. +

+ +

+"What a mad thing to put the head of that arrow-shaft, +which a glance at the plates in the Treatise would +enable a child to identify, into an open tray of pens +without the slightest concealment!" he exclaimed. +

+ +

+It looked as if Ann Upcott was wilfully pushing her +neck into the wooden ring of the guillotine. +

+ +

+Hanaud shook his head. +

+ +

+"Not so mad, my friend! The old rules are the best. +Hide a thing in some out-of-the-way corner, and it will +surely be found. Put it to lie carelessly under every one's +nose and no one will see it at all. No, no! This was +cleverly done. Who could have foreseen that instead of +looking on at our search you were going to plump +yourself down in a chair and write your memorandum so +valuable on Mademoiselle Ann's notepaper? And even +then you did not notice your pen. Why should you?" +

+ +

+Jim, however, was not satisfied. +

+ +

+"It is a fortnight since Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, +if she was murdered," he cried. "What I don't understand +is why the arrow wasn't destroyed altogether!" +

+ +

+"But until this morning there was never any question +of the arrow," Hanaud returned. "It was a curiosity, an +item in a collection—why should one trouble to destroy +it? But this morning the arrow becomes a dangerous +thing to possess. So it must be hidden away in a hurry. +For there is not much time. An hour whilst you and I +admired Mont Blanc from the top of the Terrace Tower." +

+ +

+"And while Betty was out of the house," Jim added +quickly. +

+ +

+"Yes—that is true," said Hanaud. "I had not thought +of it. You can add that point, Monsieur Frobisher, to +the reasons which put Mademoiselle Harlowe out of our +considerations. Yes." +

+ +

+He sat lost in thought for a little while and speaking +now and then a phrase rather to himself than to his +companion: "To run up here—to cut the arrow down—to +round off the end as well as one can in a hurry—to stain +it with some varnish—to mix it with the other pens in +the tray. Not so bad!" He nodded his head in appreciation +of the trick. "But nevertheless things begin to +look black for that exquisite Mademoiselle Ann with her +delicate colour and her pretty ways." +

+ +

+A noise of the shifting of furniture in the bedroom +next door attracted his attention. He removed the nib +from the arrow-head. +

+ +

+"We will keep this little matter to ourselves just for +the moment," he said quickly, and he wrapped the +improvised pen-holder in a sheet of the notepaper. "Just +you and I shall know of it. No one else. This is my +case, not Girardot's. We will not inflict a great deal of +pain and trouble until we are sure." +

+ +

+"I agree," said Jim eagerly. "That's right, I am sure." +

+ +

+Hanaud tucked the arrow-head carefully away in his +pocket. +

+ +

+"This, too," he said, and he took up Jim Frobisher's +memorandum. "It is not a good thing to carry about, +and perhaps lose. I will put it away at the Prefecture +with the other little things I have collected." +

+ +

+He put the memorandum into his letter-case and got +up from his chair. +

+ +

+"The rest of the arrow-shaft will be somewhere in +this room, no doubt, and quite easy to see. But we shall +not have time to look for it, and, after all, we have the +important part of it." +

+ +

+He turned towards the mantelshelf, where some cards +of invitation were stuck in the frame of the mirror, just +as the door was opened and the Commissary with his +secretary came out from the bedroom. +

+ +

+"The necklace is not in that room," said Monsieur +Girardot in a voice of finality. +

+ +

+"Nor is it here," Hanaud replied with an unblushing +assurance. "Let us go downstairs." +

+ +

+Jim was utterly staggered. This room had not been +searched for the necklace at all. First the Sedan chair, +then this sitting-room was neglected. Hanaud actually +led the way out to the stairs without so much as a glance +behind him. No wonder that in Paris he had styled +himself and his brethren the Servants of Chance. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Hanaud Laughs +

+ +

+At the bottom of the stairs Hanaud thanked the +Commissary of Police for his assistance. +

+ +

+"As for the necklace, we shall of course search the +baggage of every one in the house," he said. "But we +shall find nothing. Of that we may be sure. For if the +necklace has been stolen, too much time has passed since +it was stolen for us to hope to find it here." +

+ +

+He bowed Girardot with much respect out of the house, +whilst Monsieur Bex took Jim Frobisher a little aside. +

+ +

+"I have been thinking that Mademoiselle Ann should +have some legal help," he said. "Now both you and I +are attached to the affairs of Mademoiselle Harlowe. +And—it is a little difficult to put it delicately—it may be +that the interests of those two young ladies are not identical. +It would not therefore be at all correct for me, at +all events, to offer her my services. But I can +recommend a very good lawyer in Dijon, a friend of mine. +You see, it may be important." +

+ +

+Frobisher agreed. +

+ +

+"It may be, indeed. Will you give me your friend's +address?" he said. +

+ +

+Whilst he was writing the address down Hanaud +startled him by breaking unexpectedly into a loud laugh. +The curious thing was that there was nothing whatever to +account for it. Hanaud was standing by himself between +them and the front door. In the courtyard outside there +was no one within view. Within the hall Jim and +Monsieur Bex were talking very seriously in a low voice. +Hanaud was laughing at the empty air and his laughter +betokened a very strong sense of relief. +

+ +

+"That I should have lived all these years and never +noticed that before," he cried aloud in a sort of +amazement that there could be anything capable of notice which +he, Hanaud, had not noticed. +

+ +

+"What is it?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+But Hanaud did not answer at all. He dashed back +through the hall past Frobisher and his companion, +vanished into the treasure-room, closed the door behind +him and actually locked it. +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex jerked his chin high in the air. +

+ +

+"He is an eccentric, that one. He would not do for +Dijon." +

+ +

+Jim was for defending Hanaud. +

+ +

+"He must act. That is true," he replied. "Whatever +he does and however keenly he does it, he sees a row of +footlights in front of him." +

+ +

+"There are men like that," Monsieur Bex agreed. Like +all Frenchmen, he was easy in his mind if he could place +a man in a category. +

+ +

+"But he is doing something which is quite important," +Jim continued, swelling a little with pride. He felt that +he had been quite fifteen minutes in the bull-ring. "He +is searching for something somewhere. I told him about +it. He had overlooked it altogether. I reproached him +this morning with his reluctance to take suggestions from +people only too anxious to help him. But I did him +obviously some injustice. He is quite willing." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex was impressed and a little envious. +

+ +

+"I must think of some suggestions to make to Hanaud," +he said. "Yes, yes! Was there not once a pearl necklace +in England which was dropped in a match-box into the +gutter when the pursuit became too hot? I have read of +it, I am sure. I must tell Hanaud that he should spend a +day or two picking up the match-boxes in the gutters. He +may be very likely to come across that necklace of +Madame Harlowe's. Yes, certainly." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex was considerably elated by the bright +idea which had come to him. He felt that he was again +upon a level with his English colleague. He saw Hanaud +pouncing his way along the streets of Dijon and +explaining to all who questioned him: "This is the idea of +Monsieur Bex, the notary. You know, Monsieur Bex, +of the Place Etienne Dolet." Until somewhere near—but +Monsieur Bex had not actually located the particular +gutter in which Hanaud should discover the match-box +with the priceless beads, when the library door opened and +Betty came out into the hall. +

+ +

+She looked at the two men in surprise. +

+ +

+"And Monsieur Hanaud?" she asked. "I didn't see +him go." +

+ +

+"He is in your treasure-room," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Oh!" Betty exclaimed in a voice which showed her +interest. "He has gone back there!" +

+ +

+She walked quickly to the door and tried the handle. +

+ +

+"Locked!" she cried with a little start of surprise. She +spoke without turning round. "He has locked himself +in! Why?" +

+ +

+"Because of the footlights," Monsieur Bex answered, +and Betty turned about and stared at him. "Yes, we +came to that conclusion, Monsieur Frobisher and I. +Everything he does must ring a curtain down;" and once +more the key turned in the lock. +

+ +

+Betty swung round again as the sound reached her ears +and came face to face with Hanaud. Hanaud looked +over her shoulder at Frobisher and shook his head +ruefully. +

+ +

+"You did not find it, then?" Jim asked. +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked away from Jim to Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher put an idea into my head, +Mademoiselle. I had not looked into that exquisite Sedan +chair. It might well be that the necklace had been hidden +behind the cushions. But it is not there." +

+ +

+"And you locked the door, Monsieur," said Betty +stiffly. "The door of my room, I ask you to notice." +

+ +

+Hanaud drew himself erect. +

+ +

+"I did, Mademoiselle," he replied. "And then?" +

+ +

+Betty hesitated with some sharp rejoinder on the tip +of her tongue. But she did not speak it. She shrugged +her shoulders and said coldly as she turned from him: +

+ +

+"You are within your rights, no doubt, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled at her good-humouredly. He had +offended her again. She was showing him once more +the petulant, mutinous child in her which he had seen the +morning before. But the smile did remain upon his face. +In the doorway of the library Ann Upcott was standing, +her face still very pale, and fires smouldering in her eyes. +

+ +

+"You searched my rooms, I hope, Monsieur," she said +in a challenging voice. +

+ +

+"Thoroughly, Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+"And you did not find the necklace?" +

+ +

+"No!" and he walked straight across the hall to her +with a look suddenly grown stern. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I should like you to answer me a question. +But you need not. I wish you to understand that. +You have a right to reserve your answers for the Office +of the Examining Magistrate and then give them only in +the presence of and with the consent of your legal adviser. +Monsieur Bex will assure you that is so." +

+ +

+The girl's defiance weakened. +

+ +

+"What do you wish to ask me?" she asked. +

+ +

+"Exactly how you came to the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+The fire died out of her eyes; Ann's eyelids fluttered +down. She stretched out a hand against the jamb of the +door to steady herself. Jim wondered whether she +guessed that the head of Simon Harlowe's arrow was now +hidden in Hanaud's pocket. +

+ +

+"I was at Monte Carlo," she began and stopped. +

+ +

+"And quite alone?" Hanaud continued relentlessly. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And without money?" +

+ +

+"With a little money," Ann corrected. +

+ +

+"Which you lost," Hanaud rejoined. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And at Monte Carlo you made the acquaintance of +Boris Waberski?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And so you came to the Maison Crenelle?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"It is all very curious, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud +gravely, and "If it were only curious!" Jim Frobisher +wished with all his heart. For Ann Upcott quailed before +the detective's glance. It seemed to him that with another +question from him, an actual confession would falter and +stumble from her lips. A confession of complicity with +Boris Waberski! And then? Jim caught a dreadful +glimpse of the future which awaited her. The guillotine? +Probably a fate much worse. For that would be over +soon and she at rest. A few poignant weeks, an agony of +waiting, now in an intoxication of hope, now in the lowest +hell of terror; some dreadful minutes at the breaking of a +dawn—and an end! That would be better after all than +the endless years of sordid heart-breaking labour, coarse +food and clothes, amongst the criminals of a convict +prison in France. +

+ +

+Jim turned his eyes away from her with a shiver of +discomfort and saw with a queer little shock that Betty +was watching him with a singular intentness; as if what +interested her was not so much Ann's peril as his feeling +about it. +

+ +

+Meanwhile Ann had made up her mind. +

+ +

+"I shall tell you at once the little there is to tell," she +declared. The words were brave enough, but the bravery +ended with the words. She had provoked the short +interrogatory with a clear challenge. She ended it in a +hardly audible whisper. However, she managed to tell +her story, leaning there against the post of the door. +Indeed her voice strengthened as she went on and once a +smile of real amusement flickered about her lips and in +her eyes and set the dimples playing in her cheeks. +

+ +

+Up to eighteen months ago she had lived with her +mother, a widow, in Dorsetshire, a few miles behind +Weymouth. The pair of them lived with difficulty. For +Mrs. Upcott found herself in as desperate a position as +England provides for gentlewomen. She was a small +landowner taxed up to her ears, and then rated over the +top of her head. Ann for her part was thought in the +neighbourhood to have promise as an artist. On the +death of her mother the estate was sold as a toy to a +manufacturer, and Ann with a small purse and a +sack-load of ambitions set out for London. +

+ +

+"It took me a year to understand that I was and should +remain an amateur. I counted over my money. I had +three hundred pounds left. What was I going to do with +it? It wasn't enough to set me up in a shop. On the +other hand, I hated the idea of dependence. So I made +up my mind to have ten wild gorgeous days at Monte +Carlo and make a fortune, or lose the lot." +

+ +

+It was then that the smile set her eyes dancing. +

+ +

+"I should do the same again," she cried quite unrepentantly. +"I had never been out of England in my life, but I +knew a good deal of schoolgirl's French. I bought a few +frocks and hats and off I went. I had the most glorious +time. I was nineteen. Everything from the sleeping-cars +to the croupiers enchanted me. I stayed at one of the +smaller hotels up the hill. I met one or two people whom +I knew and they introduced me into the Sporting Club. +Oh, and lots and lots of people wanted to be kind to me!" +she cried. +

+ +

+"That is thoroughly intelligible," said Hanaud dryly. +

+ +

+"Oh, but quite nice people too," Ann rejoined. Her +face was glowing with the recollections of that short +joyous time. She had forgotten, for the moment, +altogether the predicament in which she stood, or she +was acting with an artfulness which Hanaud could hardly +have seen surpassed in all his experience of criminals. +

+ +

+"There was a croupier, for instance, at the trente-et-quarante +table in the big room of the Sporting Club. I +always tried to sit next to him. For he saw that no one +stole my money and that when I was winning I insured +my stake and clawed a little off the heap from time to +time. I was there for five weeks and I had made four +hundred pounds—and then came three dreadful nights +and I lost everything except thirty pounds which I had +stowed away in the hotel safe." She nodded across the +hall towards Jim. "Monsieur Frobisher can tell you +about the last night. For he sat beside me and very +prettily tried to make me a present of a thousand francs." +

+ +

+Hanaud, however, was not to be diverted. +

+ +

+"Afterwards he shall tell me," he said, and resumed +his questions. "You had met Waberski before that +night?" +

+ +

+"Yes, a fortnight before. But I can't remember who +introduced me." +

+ +

+"And Mademoiselle Harlowe?" +

+ +

+"Monsieur Boris introduced me a day or two later to +Betty at tea-time in the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris." +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud. He glanced at Jim with an +almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. It was, +indeed, becoming more and more obvious that Waberski +had brought Ann Upcott into that household deliberately, +as part of a plan carefully conceived and in due time to +be fulfilled. +

+ +

+"When did Waberski first suggest that you should join +Mademoiselle Harlowe?" he asked. +

+ +

+"That last night," Ann replied. "He had been standing +opposite to me on the other side of the trente-et-quarante +table. He saw that I had been losing." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his head. "He thought +that the opportune moment had come." +

+ +

+He extended his arms and let his hands fall against his +thighs. He was like a doctor presented with a hopeless +case. He turned half aside from Ann with his shoulders +bent and his troubled eyes fixed upon the marble squares +of the floor. Jim could not but believe that he was at +this moment debating whether he should take the girl +into custody. But Betty intervened. +

+ +

+"You must not be misled, Monsieur Hanaud," she said +quickly, "It is true no doubt that Monsieur Boris +mentioned the subject to Ann for the first time that night. +But I had already told both my aunt and Monsieur Boris +that I should like a friend of my own age to live with +me and I had mentioned Ann." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up at her doubtfully. +

+ +

+"On so short an acquaintance, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+Betty, however, stuck to her guns. +

+ +

+"Yes. I liked her very much from the beginning. She +was alone. It was quite clear that she was of our own +world. There was every good reason why I should wish +for her. And the four months she has been with me +have proved to me that I was right." +

+ +

+She crossed over to Ann with a defiant little nod at +Hanaud, who responded with a cordial grin and dropped +into English. +

+ +

+"So I can push that into my pipe and puff it, as my +dear Ricardo would say. That is what you mean? Well, +against loyalty, the whole world is powerless." As he +made Betty a friendly bow. He could hardly have told +Betty in plainer phrase that her intervention had averted +Ann's arrest; or Ann herself that he believed her guilty. +

+ +

+Every one in the hall understood him in that sense. +They stood foolishly looking here and looking there and +not knowing where to look; and in the midst of their +discomfort occurred an incongruous little incident which +added a touch of the bizarre. Up the two steps to the +open door came a girl carrying a big oblong cardboard +milliner's box. Her finger was on the bell, when Hanaud +stepped forward. +

+ +

+"There is no need to ring," he said. "What have you +there?" +

+ +

+The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann. +

+ +

+"It is Mademoiselle's dress for the Ball to-morrow +night. Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but +did not come. But Madame Grolin thinks that it will be +all right." She laid the box upon a chest at the side of +the hall and went out again. +

+ +

+"I had forgotten all about it," said Ann. "It was +ordered just before Madame died and tried on once." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"For Madame Le Vay's masked ball, no doubt," he +said. "I noticed the invitation card on the chimney-piece +of Mademoiselle's sitting-room. And in what character +did Mademoiselle propose to go?" +

+ +

+Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst +the blood rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone. +

+ +

+"Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events," +she cried. +

+ +

+Even Hanaud was brought up with a start. +

+ +

+"I did not suggest it," he replied coldly. "But let me +see!" and in a moment whilst his face was flushed with +anger his hands were busily untying the tapes of the +box. +

+ +

+Betty stepped forward. +

+ +

+"We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, +more than a month ago. It is meant to represent a +water-lily." +

+ +

+"What could be more charming?" Hanaud asked, but +his fingers did not pause in their work. +

+ +

+"Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?" Jim +Frobisher wondered. What could he expect to find in +that box? Did he imagine that this Madame Grolin, +the milliner, was an accomplice of Waberski's too? The +episode was ludicrous with a touch of the horrible. +Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the tissue-paper. +Underneath was seen a short crêpe de Chine frock of a +tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold +rosette at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out +at the hips, and it was bordered with a row of white satin +rosettes with golden hearts. To complete the dress there +were a pair of white silk stockings with fine gold clocks +and white satin shoes with single straps across the insteps +and little tassels of brilliants where the straps buttoned, +and four gold stripes at the back round the heels. +

+ +

+Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, +replaced the lid, and stood up again. He never looked at +Ann Upcott. He went straight across to Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+"I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you +to so much trouble and occupied so many hours of your +day," he said with a good deal of feeling. He made her +a courteous bow, took up his hat and stick from the table +on which he had laid it, and made straight for the hall +door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all +appearances finished. +

+ +

+But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been +nursing his suggestion for nearly half an hour. Like a +poem it demanded utterance. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud!" he called; "Monsieur Hanaud! +I have to tell you about a box of matches." +

+ +

+"Aha!" Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. "A box +of matches! I will walk with you towards your office, +and you shall tell me as you go." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great +hurry. But he had time to throw a glance of pride +towards his English colleague. "Your suggestion about +the treasure room was of no value, my friend. Let us see +what I can do!" The pride and the airy wave of the +hand spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at +Hanaud's side in a moment, and talked volubly as they +passed out of the gates into the street of Charles-Robert. +

+ +

+Betty turned to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"To-morrow, now that I am once allowed to use my +motor-car, I shall take you for a drive and show you +something of our neighbourhood. This afternoon—you +will understand, I know—I belong to Ann." +

+ +

+She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls +went out into the garden. Jim was left alone in the hall—as +at that moment he wanted to be. It was very still here +now and very silent. The piping of birds, the drone of +bees outside the open doors were rather an accompaniment +than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed +himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when +he had laughed so strangely—half-way between the foot +of the stairs where Monsieur Bex and he himself had +been standing and the open porch. But Jim could detect +nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. +"That I should have lived all these years and never +noticed it before," he had exclaimed. Notice what? +There was nothing to notice. A table, a chair or two, a +barometer hanging upon the wall on one side and a mirror +hanging upon the wall on the other—No, there was nothing. +Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of the +mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene +might have been invented by him maliciously, just to +annoy and worry and cause discomfort to Monsieur Bex +and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a trick like +that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a +great deal of the mountebank. More than half of him +was probably mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds! +

+ +

+"Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he +notice?" cried Jim. "What did he notice from the top +of the Tower? What did he notice in this hall? Why +must he be always noticing something?" and he jammed +his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: At Jean Cladel's +

+ +

+At nine o'clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past +the cashier's desk and into the hall of the Grande +Taverne. High above his head the cinematograph +machine whirred and clicked and a blade of silver light +cut the darkness. At the opposite end of the hall the +square screen was flooded with radiance and the pictures +melted upon it one into the other. +

+ +

+For a little while Jim could see nothing but that screen. +Then the hall swam gradually within his vision. He saw +the heads of people like great bullets and a wider central +corridor where waitresses with white aprons moved. Jim +walked up the corridor and turned off to the left between +the tables. When he reached the wall he went forward +again towards the top of the hall. On his left the hall +fell back, and in the recess were two large cubicles in +which billiard tables were placed. Against the wall of the +first of these a young man was leaning with his eyes fixed +upon the screen. Jim fancied that he recognised Maurice +Thevenet, and nodded to him as he passed. A little +further on a big man with a soft felt hat was seated +alone, with a Bock in front of him—Hanaud. Jim +slipped into a seat at his side. +

+ +

+"You?" Hanaud exclaimed in surprise. +

+ +

+"Why not? You told me this is where you would be +at this hour," replied Jim, and some note of discouragement +in his voice attracted Hanaud's attention. +

+ +

+"I didn't think that those two young ladies would let +you go," he said. +

+ +

+"On the contrary," Jim replied with a short laugh. +"They didn't want me at all." +

+ +

+He began to say something more, but thought better of +it, and called to a waitress. +

+ +

+"Two Bocks, if you please," he ordered, and he offered +Hanaud a cigar. +

+ +

+When the Bocks were brought, Hanaud said to him: +

+ +

+"It will be well to pay at once, so that we can slip away +when we want." +

+ +

+"We have something to do to-night?" Jim asked. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+He said no more until Jim had paid and the waitress +had turned the two little saucers on which she had brought +the Bocks upside down and had gone away. Then he +leaned towards Jim and lowered his voice. +

+ +

+"I am glad that you came here. For I have a hope +that we shall get the truth to-night, and you ought to be +present when we do get it." +

+ +

+Jim lit his own cigar. +

+ +

+"From whom do you hope to get it?" +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel," Hanaud answered in a whisper. "A +little later when all the town is quiet we will pay a visit +to the street of Gambetta." +

+ +

+"You think he'll talk?" +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"There is no charge against Cladel in this affair. To +make a solution of that poison paste is not an offence. +And he has so much against him that he will want to be +on our side if he can. Yes, he will talk I have no doubt." +

+ +

+There would be an end of the affair then, to-night. +Jim Frobisher was glad with an unutterable gladness. +Betty would be free to order her life as she liked, and +where she liked, to give to her youth its due scope and +range, to forget the terror and horror of these last weeks, +as one forgets old things behind locked doors. +

+ +

+"I hope, however," he said earnestly to Hanaud, "and +I believe, that you will be found wrong, that if there was +a murder Ann Upcott had nothing to do with it. Yes, I +believe that." He repeated his assertion as much to +convince himself as to persuade Hanaud. +

+ +

+Hanaud touched his elbow. +

+ +

+"Don't raise your voice too much, my friend," he said. +"I think there is some one against the wall who is +honouring us with his attention." +

+ +

+Jim shook his head. +

+ +

+"It is only Maurice Thevenet," he said. +

+ +

+"Oho?" answered Hanaud in a voice of relief. "Is +that all? For a moment I was anxious. It seemed that +there was a sentinel standing guard over us." He added +in a whisper, "I, too, hope from the bottom of my heart +that I may be proved wrong. But what of that arrow +head in the pen tray? Eh? Don't forget that!" Then +he fell into a muse. +

+ +

+"What happened on that night in the Maison +Crenelle?" he said. "Why was that communicating door +thrown open? Who was to be stripped to the skin by +that violent woman? Who whispered 'That will do +now'? Is Ann Upcott speaking the truth, and was there +some terrible scene taking place before she entered so +unexpectedly the treasure room—some terrible scene which +ended in that dreadful whisper? Or is Ann Upcott lying +from beginning to end? Ah, my friend, you wrote some +questions down upon your memorandum this afternoon. +But these are the questions I want answered, and where +shall I find the answers?" +

+ +

+Jim had never seen Hanaud so moved. His hands +were clenched, and the veins prominent upon his forehead, +and though he whispered his voice shook. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel may help," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Yes, yes, he may tell us something." +

+ +

+They sat through an episode of the film, and saw the +lights go up and out again, and then Hanaud looked +eagerly at his watch and put it back again into his pocket +with a gesture of annoyance. +

+ +

+"It is still too early?" Jim asked. +

+ +

+"Yes. Cladel has no servant and takes his meals +abroad. He has not yet returned home." +

+ +

+A little before ten o'clock a man strolled in, and seating +himself at a table behind Hanaud twice scraped a match +upon a match-box without getting a light. Hanaud, +without moving, said quietly to Frobisher: +

+ +

+"He is at home now. In a minute I shall go. Give +me five minutes and follow." +

+ +

+Jim nodded. +

+ +

+"Where shall we meet?" +

+ +

+"Walk straight along the Rue de la Liberté, and I will +see to that," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He pulled his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put +one between his lips, and took his time in lighting it. +Then he got up, but to his annoyance Maurice Thevenet +recognised him and came forward. +

+ +

+"When Monsieur Frobisher wished me good-evening +and joined you I thought it was you, Monsieur Hanaud. +But I had not the presumption to recall myself to your +notice." +

+ +

+"Presumption! Monsieur, we are of the same service, +only you have the advantage of youth," said Hanaud +politely, as he turned. +

+ +

+"But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?" Thevenet +asked in distress. "I am desolated. I have broken into +a conversation like a clumsy fellow." +

+ +

+"Not at all," Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his +patience was as remarkable as Maurice Thevenet's +impudence. "We were idly watching a film which I think +is a little tedious." +

+ +

+"Then, since you are not busy I beg for your +indulgence. One little moment that is all. I should so +dearly love to be able to say to my friends, 'I sat in the +cinema with Monsieur Hanaud—yes, actually I'—and +asked for his advice." +

+ +

+Hanaud sat down again upon his chair. +

+ +

+"And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur +Girardot speaks so highly, want my advice?" Hanaud +asked with a laugh. +

+ +

+The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting +the eager youth. To get to Paris—all was in that! +Fortune, reputation, a life of colour. A word from +Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. He would +work night and day to justify that word. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time +comes I shall remember you. But that promise I make +now with my whole heart," said Hanaud warmly, and +with a bow he moved away. +

+ +

+Maurice Thevenet watched him go. +

+ +

+"What a man!" Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. +"I would not like to try to keep any secrets +from him. No, indeed!" Jim had heard that sentiment +before on other lips and with a greater sympathy. "I did +not understand at all what he had in his mind when he +staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But +something, Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. +And that search through the treasure room! How quick +and complete! No doubt while we searched Mademoiselle +Upcott's bedroom, he was just as quick and complete in +going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. +No, nothing." +

+ +

+He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only +said "Oho!" +

+ +

+But Thevenet was not to be extinguished. +

+ +

+"I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was +following out no suspicions; isn't that so? He was +detached. He was gathering up every trifle, on the chance +that each one might sometime fit in with another and at +last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There was +a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe +handed to him, one of those deplorable letters which have +disgraced us here—you remember that letter, Monsieur?" +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. +"But I see that this film is coming to its wedding bells. +So I shall wish you a good evening." +

+ +

+Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream +of success in Paris. He strolled between the groups of +spectators to the entrance and thence into the street. He +walked to the arch of the Porte Guillaume and turned +into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial towns go to +bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was +like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred +yards on, he was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from +nowhere, walking at his side. +

+ +

+"So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when +I had gone?" he said. +

+ +

+"Maurice Thevenet," said Jim, "may be as the Commissary +says a young man of a surprising intelligence, +but to tell you the truth, I find him a very intrusive fellow. +First of all he wanted to know if you had discovered +anything in Ann Upcott's sitting-room, and then what Miss +Harlowe's anonymous letter was about." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked at Jim with interest. +

+ +

+"Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot +is right. He will go far. And how did you answer him?" +

+ +

+"I said 'Oho'! first, and then I said 'Aha'! just like a +troublesome friend of mine when I ask him a simple +question which he does not mean to answer." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed heartily. +

+ +

+"And you did very well," he said. "Come, let us turn +into this little street upon the right. It will take us to +our destination." +

+ +

+"Wait!" whispered Jim eagerly. "Don't cross the road +for a moment. Listen!" +

+ +

+Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and +listened in the empty street. +

+ +

+"Not a sound," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"No! That is what troubles me!" Jim whispered +importantly. "A minute ago there were footsteps behind +us. Now that we have stopped they have stopped too. +Let us go on quite straight for a moment or two." +

+ +

+"But certainly my friend," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"And let us not talk either," Jim urged. +

+ +

+"Not a single word," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+They moved forward again and behind them once more +footsteps rang upon the pavement. +

+ +

+"What did I tell you?" asked Jim, taking Hanaud by +the arm. +

+ +

+"That we would neither of us speak," Hanaud replied. +"And lo! you have spoken!" +

+ +

+"But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur," +Jim shook his arm indignantly. "We are being +followed." +

+ +

+Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration +at his junior colleague. +

+ +

+"Oh!" he whispered. "You have discovered that? +Yes, it is true. We are being followed by one of my +men who sees to it that we are not followed." +

+ +

+Frobisher shook Hanaud's arm off indignantly. He +drew himself up stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud's mouth +twitching and he understood that he was looking +"proper." +

+ +

+"Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel," he said with +a laugh and he crossed the road. They passed into a +network of small, mean streets. There was not a soul +abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. The +only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own +footsteps on the pavement and the fainter noise of the +man who followed them. Hanaud turned to the left into +a short passage and stopped before a little house with a +shuttered shop front. +

+ +

+"This is the place," he said in a low voice and he +pressed the button in the pillar of the door. The bell rang +with a shrill sharp whirr just the other side of the panels. +

+ +

+"We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to +bed," said Hanaud, "since he has no servant in the +house." +

+ +

+A minute or two passed. The clocks struck the half +hour. Hanaud leaned his ear against the panels of the +door. He could not hear one sound within the house. +He rang again; and after a few seconds shutters were +thrown back and a window opened on the floor above. +From behind the window some one whispered: +

+ +

+"Who is there?" +

+ +

+"The police," Hanaud answered, and at the window +above there was silence. +

+ +

+"No one is going to do you any harm," Hanaud +continued, raising his voice impatiently. "We want some +information from you. That's all." +

+ +

+"Very well." The whisper came from the same spot. +The man standing within the darkness of the room had +not moved. "Wait! I will slip on some things and come +down." +

+ +

+The window and the shutter were closed again. Then +through the chinks a few beams of light strayed out +Hanaud uttered a little grunt of satisfaction. +

+ +

+"That animal is getting up at last. He must have some +strange clients amongst the good people of Dijon if he is +so careful to answer them in a whisper." +

+ +

+He turned about and took a step or two along the +pavement and another step or two back like a man upon +a quarter deck. Jim Frobisher had never known him so +restless and impatient during these two days. +

+ +

+"I can't help it," he said in a low voice to Jim. "I +think that in five minutes we shall touch the truth of this +affair. We shall know who brought the arrow to him +from the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+"If any one brought the arrow to him at all," Jim +Frobisher added. +

+ +

+But Hanaud was not in the mood to consider ifs and +possibilities. +

+ +

+"Oh, that!" he said with a shrug of the shoulders. +Then he tapped his forehead. "I am like Waberski. I +have it here that some one did bring the arrow to Jean +Cladel." +

+ +

+He started once more his quarter-deck pacing. Only +it was now a trot rather than a walk. Jim was a little +nettled by the indifference to his suggestion. He was +still convinced that Hanaud had taken the wrong starting +point in all his inquiry. He said tartly: +

+ +

+"Well, if some one did bring the arrow here, it will +be the same person who replaced the treatise on +Sporanthus on its book shelf." +

+ +

+Hanaud came to a stop in front of Jim Frobisher. +Then he burst into a low laugh. +

+ +

+"I will bet you all the money in the world that that +is not true, and then Madame Harlowe's pearl necklace +on the top of it. For after all it was not I who brought +the arrow to Jean Cladel, whereas it was undoubtedly I +who put back the treatise on the shelf." +

+ +

+Jim took a step back. He stared at Hanaud with his +mouth open in a stupefaction. +

+ +

+"You?" he exclaimed. +

+ +

+"I," replied Hanaud, standing up on the tips of his +toes. "Alone I did it." +

+ +

+Then his manner of burlesque dropped from him. He +looked up at the shuttered windows with a sudden anxiety. +

+ +

+"That animal is taking longer than he need," he muttered. +"After all, it is not to a court ball of the Duke of +Burgundy that we are inviting him." +

+ +

+He rang the bell again with a greater urgency. It +returned its shrill reply as though it mocked him. +

+ +

+"I do not like this," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He seized the door-handle and leaned his shoulder +against the panel and drove his weight against it. But +the door was strong and did not give. Hanaud put his +fingers to his mouth and whistled softly. From the +direction whence they had come they heard the sound +of a man running swiftly. They saw him pass within +the light of the one street lamp at the corner and out of it +again; and then he stood at their side. Jim recognised +Nicolas Moreau, the little agent who had been sent this +very morning by Hanaud to make sure that Jean Cladel +existed. +

+ +

+"Nicolas, I want you to wait here," said Hanaud. "If +the door is opened, whistle for us and keep it open." +

+ +

+"Very well, sir." +

+ +

+Hanaud said in a low and troubled voice to Frobisher: +"There is something here which alarms me." He dived +into a narrow alley at the side of the shop. +

+ +

+"It was in this alley no doubt that Waberski meant us +to believe that he hid on the morning of the 7th of May," +Jim whispered as he hurried to keep with his companion. +

+ +

+"No doubt." +

+ +

+The alley led into a lane which ran parallel with the +street of Gambetta. Hanaud wheeled into it. A wall five +feet high, broken at intervals by rickety wooden doors, +enclosed the yards at the backs of the houses. Before +the first of these breaks in the wall Hanaud stopped. He +raised himself upon the tips of his toes and peered over +the wall, first downwards into the yard, and then upwards +towards the back of the house. There was no lamp in the +lane, no light showing from any of the windows. Though +the night was clear of mist it was as dark as a cavern in +this narrow lane behind the houses. Jim Frobisher, +though his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, knew that +he could not have seen a man, even if he had moved, ten +yards away. Yet Hanaud still stood peering at the back +of the house with the tips of his fingers on the top of the +wall. Finally he touched Jim on the sleeve. +

+ +

+"I believe the back window on the first floor is open," +he whispered, and his voice was more troubled than ever. +"We will go in and see." +

+ +

+He touched the wooden door and it swung inwards +with a whine of its hinges. +

+ +

+"Open," said Hanaud. "Make no noise." +

+ +

+Silently they crossed the yard. The ground floor of +the house was low. Jim looking upwards could see now +that the window above their heads yawned wide open. +

+ +

+"You are right," he breathed in Hanaud's ear, and with +a touch Hanaud asked for silence. +

+ +

+The room beyond the window was black as pitch. The +two men stood below and listened. Not a word came +from it. Hanaud drew Jim into the wall of the house. +At the end of the wall a door gave admission into the +house. Hanaud tried the door, turning the handle first +and then gently pressing with his shoulder upon the panel. +

+ +

+"It's locked, but not bolted like the door in front," he +whispered. "I can manage this." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher heard the tiniest possible rattle of a +bunch of keys as Hanaud drew it from his pocket, and +then not a noise of any kind whilst Hanaud stooped above +the lock. Yet within half a minute the door slowly +opened. It opened upon a passage as black as that room +above their heads. Hanaud stepped noiselessly into the +passage. Jim Frobisher followed him with a heart +beating high in excitement. What had happened in that +lighted room upstairs and in the dark room behind it? +Why didn't Jean Cladel come down and open the door +upon the street of Gambetta? Why didn't they hear +Nicolas Moreau's soft whistle or the sound of his voice? +Hanaud stepped back past Jim Frobisher and shut the +door behind them and locked it again. +

+ +

+"You haven't an electric torch with you, of course?" +Hanaud whispered. +

+ +

+"No," replied Jim. +

+ +

+"Nor I. And I don't want to strike a match. There's +something upstairs which frightens me." +

+ +

+You could hardly hear the words. They were spoken +as though the mere vibration of the air they caused would +carry a message to the rooms above. +

+ +

+"We'll move very carefully. Keep a hand upon my +coat," and Hanaud went forward. After he had gone a +few paces he stopped. +

+ +

+"There's a staircase here on my right. It turns at +once. Mind not to knock your foot on the first step," he +whispered over his shoulder; and a moment later, he +reached down and, taking hold of Jim's right arm, laid +his hand upon a balustrade. Jim lifted his foot, felt for +and found the first tread of the stairs, and mounted +behind Hanaud. They halted on a little landing just above +the door by which they had entered the house. +

+ +

+In front of them the darkness began to thin, to become +opaque rather than a black, impenetrable hood drawn over +their heads. Jim understood that in front of him was an +open door and that the faint glimmer came from that +open window on their left hand beyond the door. +

+ +

+Hanaud passed through the doorway into the room. +Jim followed and was already upon the threshold, when +Hanaud stumbled and uttered a cry. No doubt the cry +was low, but coming so abruptly upon their long silence +it startled Frobisher like the explosion of a pistol. It +seemed that it must clash through Dijon like the striking +of a clock. +

+ +

+But nothing followed. No one stirred, no one cried +out a question. Silence descended upon the house again, +impenetrable, like the darkness a hood upon the senses. +Jim was tempted to call out aloud himself, anything, +however childish, so that he might hear a voice speaking +words, if only his own voice. The words came at last, +from Hanaud and from the inner end of the room, but +in an accent which Jim did not recognise. +

+ +

+"Don't move! ... There is something.... I told +you I was frightened.... Oh!" and his voice died away +in a sigh. +

+ +

+Jim could hear him moving very cautiously. Then he +almost screamed aloud. For the shutters at the window +slowly swung to and the room was once more shrouded +in black. +

+ +

+"Who's that?" Jim whispered violently, and Hanaud +answered: +

+ +

+"It's only me—Hanaud. I don't want to show a light +here yet with that window open. God knows what dreadful +thing has happened here. Come just inside the room +and shut the door behind you." +

+ +

+Jim obeyed, and having moved his position, could see +a line of yellow light, straight and fine as if drawn by a +pencil, at the other end of the room on the floor. There +was a door there, a door into the front room where they +had seen the light go up from the street of Gambetta. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had hardly realised that before the door +was burst open with a crash. In the doorway, outlined +against the light beyond, appeared the bulky frame of +Hanaud. +

+ +

+"There is nothing here," he said, standing there blocking +up the doorway with his hands in his pockets. "The +room is quite empty." +

+ +

+That room, the front room—yes! But between +Hanaud's legs the light trickled out into the dark room +behind, and here, on the floor illuminated by a little lane +of light, Jim, with a shiver, saw a clenched hand and a +forearm in a crumpled shirt-sleeve. +

+ +

+"Turn round," he cried to Hanaud. "Look!" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned. +

+ +

+"Yes," he said quietly. "That is what I stumbled +against." +

+ +

+He found a switch in the wall close to the door and +snapped it down. The dark room was flooded with light, +and on the floor, in the midst of a scene of disorder, a +table pushed back here, a chair overturned there, lay the +body of a man. He wore no coat. He was in his waistcoat +and his shirt sleeves, and he was crumpled up with +a horrible suggestion of agony like a ball, his knees +towards his chin, his head forward towards his knees. +One arm clutched the body close, the other, the one which +Jim had seen, was flung out, his hand clenched in a spasm +of intolerable pain. And about the body there was such a +pool of blood as Jim Frobisher thought no body could +contain. +

+ +

+Jim staggered back with his hands clasped over his +eyes. He felt physically sick. +

+ +

+"Then he killed himself on our approach," he cried +with a groan. +

+ +

+"Who?" answered Hanaud steadily. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel. The man who whispered to us from +behind the window." +

+ +

+Hanaud stunned him with a question. +

+ +

+"What with?" +

+ +

+Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and +forced his eyes to their service. There was no gleam of a +knife, or a pistol, anywhere against the dark background +of the carpet. +

+ +

+"You might think that he was a Japanese who had +committed hari-kari," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the +knife would be at his side. And there is no knife." +

+ +

+He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his +hand back. +

+ +

+"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He +pointed. The man was lying on his side in this +dreadful pose of contracted sinews and unendurable pain. +And across the sleeve of his shirt there was a broad red +mark. +

+ +

+"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+Jim bent forward. +

+ +

+"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, +in a voice of awe: "Then it's murder." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"Not a doubt." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stood up. He pointed a shaking finger +at the grotesque image of pain crumpled upon the floor, +death without dignity, an argument that there was +something horribly wrong with the making of the human +race—since such things could be. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel?" he asked. +

+ +

+"We must make sure," answered Hanaud. He went +down the stairs to the front door and, unbolting it, called +Moreau within the house. From the top of the stairs +Jim heard him ask: +

+ +

+"Do you know Jean Cladel by sight?" +

+ +

+"Yes," answered Moreau. +

+ +

+"Then follow me." +

+ +

+Hanaud led him up into the back room. For a moment +Moreau stopped upon the threshold with a blank look +upon his face. +

+ +

+"Is that the man?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+Moreau stepped forward. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"He has been murdered," Hanaud explained. "Will +you fetch the Commissary of the district and a doctor? +We will wait here." +

+ +

+Moreau turned on his heel and went downstairs. +Hanaud dropped into a chair and stared moodily at the +dead body. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel," he said in a voice of discouragement. +"Just when he could have been of a little use in the +world! Just when he could have helped us to the truth! +It's my fault, too. I oughtn't to have waited until +to-night. I ought to have foreseen that this might happen." +

+ +

+"Who can have murdered him?" Jim Frobisher exclaimed. +

+ +

+Hanaud roused himself out of his remorse. +

+ +

+"The man who whispered to us from behind the +window," answered Hanaud. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher felt his mind reeling. +

+ +

+"That's impossible!" he cried. +

+ +

+"Why?" Hanaud asked. "It must have been he. +Think it out!" And step by step he told the story as +he read it, testing it by speaking it aloud. +

+ +

+"At five minutes past ten a man of mine, still a little +out of breath from his haste, comes to us in the Grande +Taverne and tells us that Jean Cladel has just reached +home. He reached home then at five minutes to ten." +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"We were detained for a few minutes by Maurice +Thevenet. Yes." He moistened his lips with the tip +of his tongue and said softly: "We shall have to consider +that very modest and promising young gentleman rather +carefully. He detained us. We heard the clock strike +half-past ten as we waited in the street." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And all was over then. For the house was as silent +as what, indeed, it is—a grave. And only just over, for +the body is still warm. If this—lying here, is Jean Cladel, +some one else must have been waiting for him to come +home to-night, waiting in the lane behind, since my man +didn't see him. And an acquaintance, a friend—for Jean +Cladel lets him in and locks the door behind him." +

+ +

+Jim interrupted. +

+ +

+"He might have been here already, waiting for him +with his knife bared in this dark room." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked around the room. It was furnished +cheaply and stuffily, half office, half living-room. An +open bureau stood against the wall near the window. A +closed cabinet occupied the greater part of one side. +

+ +

+"I wonder," he said. "It is possible, no doubt—— But +if so, why did the murderer stay so long? No search +has been made—no drawers are ransacked." He tried +the door of the cabinet. "This is still locked. No, I +don't think that he was waiting. I think that he was +admitted as a friend or a client—I fancy Jean Cladel had +not a few clients who preferred to call upon him by the +back way in the dark of the night. I think that his visitor +came meaning to kill, and waited his time and killed, and +that he had hardly killed before we rang the bell at the +door." Hanaud drew in his breath sharply. "Imagine +that, my friend! He is standing here over the man he +has murdered, and unexpectedly the shrill, clear sound of +the bell goes through the house—as though God said, 'I +saw you!' Imagine it! He turned out the light and +stands holding his breath in the dark. The bell rings +again. He must answer it or worse may befall. He goes +into the front room and throws open the window, and +hears it is the police who are at the door." Hanaud +nodded his head in a reluctant admiration. "But that man +had an iron nerve! He doesn't lose his head. He closes +the shutter, he turns on the light, that we may think he is +getting up, he runs back into this room. He will not +waste time by stumbling down the stairs and fumbling +with the lock of the back door. No, he opens these +shutters and drops to the ground. It is done in a second. +Another second, and he is in the lane; another, and he +is safe, his dreadful mission ended. Cladel will not speak. +Cladel will not tell us the things we want to know." +

+ +

+Hanaud went over to the cabinet and, using his skeleton +keys, again opened its doors. On the shelves were ranged +a glass jar or two, a retort, the simplest utensils of a +laboratory and a few bottles, one of which, larger than +the rest, was half filled with a colourless liquid. +

+ +

+"Alcohol," said Hanaud, pointing to the label. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher moved carefully round on the outskirts +of the room, taking care not to alter the disarrangements +of the furniture. He looked the bottles over. Not one +of them held a drop of that pale lemon-coloured solution +which the Professor, in his Treatise, had described. +Hanaud shut and locked the doors of the cabinet again +and stepped carefully over to the bureau. It stood open, +and a few papers were strewn upon the flap. He sat +down at the bureau and began carefully to search it. Jim +sat down in a chair. Somehow it had leaked out that, +since this morning, Hanaud knew of Jean Cladel. Jean +Cladel therefore must be stopped from any revelations; +and he had been stopped. Frobisher could no longer +doubt that murder had been done on the night of April +the 27th, in the Maison Crenelle. Development followed +too logically upon development. The case was building +itself up—another storey had been added to the edifice +with this new crime. Yes, certainly and solidly it was +building itself up—this case against some one. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The White Tablet +

+ +

+Within the minute that case was to be immeasurably +strengthened. An exclamation broke from +Hanaud. He sprang to his feet and turned on the light +of a green-shaded reading lamp, which stood upon the +ledge of the bureau. He was holding now under the +light a small drawer, which he had removed from the +front of the bureau. Very gingerly he lifted some little +thing out of it, something that looked like a badge that +men wear in their buttonholes. He laid it down upon the +blotting paper; and in that room of death laughed +harshly. +

+ +

+He beckoned to Jim. +

+ +

+"Come and look!" +

+ +

+What Jim saw was a thin, small, barbed iron dart, +with an iron stem. He had no need to ask its nature, for +he had seen its likeness that morning in the Treatise of +the Edinburgh Professor. This was the actual head of +Simon Harlowe's poison-arrow. +

+ +

+"You have found it!" said Jim in a voice that shook. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud gave it a little push, and said thoughtfully: +

+ +

+"A negro thousands of miles away sits outside his hut +in the Kombe country and pounds up his poison seed and +mixes it with red clay, and smears it thick and slab over +the shaft of his fine new arrow, and waits for his enemy. +But his enemy does not come. So he barters it, or gives +it to his white friend the trader on the Shire river. And +the trader brings it home and gives it to Simon Harlowe +of the Maison Crenelle. And Simon Harlowe lends it to +a professor in Edinburgh, who writes about it in a printed +book and sends it back again. And in the end, after all +its travels, it comes to the tenement of Jean Cladel in a +slum of Dijon, and is made ready in a new way to do its +deadly work." +

+ +

+For how much longer Hanaud would have moralised +over the arrow in this deplorable way, no man can tell. +Happily Jim Frobisher was reprieved from listening to +him by the shutting of a door below and the noise of +voices in the passage. +

+ +

+"The Commissary!" said Hanaud, and he went quickly +down the stairs. +

+ +

+Jim heard him speaking in a low tone for quite a long +while, and no doubt was explaining the position of affairs. +For when he brought the Commissary and the doctor up +into the room he introduced Jim as one about whom they +already knew. +

+ +

+"This is that Monsieur Frobisher," he said. +

+ +

+The Commissary, a younger and more vivacious man +than Girardot, bowed briskly to Jim and looked towards +the contorted figure of Jean Cladel. +

+ +

+Even he could not restrain a little gesture of repulsion. +He clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. +

+ +

+"He is not pretty, that one!" he said. "Most certainly +he is not pretty." +

+ +

+Hanaud crossed again to the bureau and carefully +folded the dart around with paper. +

+ +

+"With your permission, Monsieur," he said ceremoniously +to the Commissary, "I shall take this with me. +I will be responsible for it." He put it away in his pocket +and looked at the doctor, who was stooping by the side +of Jean Cladel. "I do not wish to interfere, but I should +be glad to have a copy of the medical report. I think +that it might help me. I think it will be found that this +murder was committed in a way peculiar to one man." +

+ +

+"Certainly you shall have a copy of the report, +Monsieur Hanaud," replied the young Commissary in a polite +and formal voice. +

+ +

+Hanaud laid a hand on Jim's arm. +

+ +

+"We are in the way, my friend. Oh, yes, in spite of +Monsieur le Commissaire's friendly protestations. This +is not our affair. Let us go!" He conducted Jim to the +door and turned about. "I do not wish to interfere," he +repeated, "but it is possible that the shutters and the +window will bear the traces of the murderer's fingers. I +don't think it probable, for that animal had taken his +precautions. But it is possible, for he left in a great hurry." +

+ +

+The Commissary was overwhelmed with gratitude. +

+ +

+"Most certainly we will give our attention to the +shutters and the window-sill." +

+ +

+"A copy of the finger-prints, if any are found?" +Hanaud suggested. +

+ +

+"Shall be at Monsieur Hanaud's disposal as early as +possible," the Commissary agreed. +

+ +

+Jim experienced a pang of regret that Monsieur Bex +was not present at the little exchange of civilities. The +Commissary and Hanaud were so careful not to tread +upon one another's toes and so politely determined that +their own should not be trodden upon. Monsieur Bex +could not but have revelled in the correctness of their +deportment. +

+ +

+Hanaud and Frobisher went downstairs into the street +The neighbourhood had not been aroused. A couple of +sergents-de-ville stood in front of the door. The street of +Gambetta was still asleep and indifferent to the crime +which had taken place in one of its least respectable +houses. +

+ +

+"I shall go to the Prefecture," said Hanaud. "They +have given me a little office there with a sofa. I want +to put away the arrow head before I go to my hotel." +

+ +

+"I shall come with you," said Jim. "It will be a relief +to walk for a little in the fresh air, after that room." +

+ +

+The Prefecture lay the better part of a mile away +across the city. Hanaud set off at a great pace, and reaching +the building conducted Jim into an office with a safe +set against the wall. +

+ +

+"Will you sit down for a moment? And smoke, +please," he said. +

+ +

+He was in a mood of such deep dejection; he was so +changed from his mercurial self; that only now did Jim +Frobisher understand the great store he had set upon his +interview with Jean Cladel. He unlocked the safe and +brought over to the table a few envelopes of different +sizes, the copy of the Treatise and his green file. He +seated himself in front of Jim and began to open his +envelopes and range their contents in a row, when the +door was opened and a gendarme saluted and advanced. +He carried a paper in his hand. +

+ +

+"A reply came over the telephone from Paris at nine +o'clock to-night, Monsieur Hanaud. They say that this +may be the name of the firm you want. It was established +in the Rue de Batignolles, but it ceased to exist +seven years ago." +

+ +

+"Yes, that would have happened," Hanaud answered +glumly, as he took the paper. He read what was written +upon it. "Yes—yes. That's it. Not a doubt." +

+ +

+He took an envelope from a rack upon the table and +put the paper inside it and stuck down the flap. On the +front of the envelope, Jim saw him write an illuminating +word. "Address." +

+ +

+Then he looked at Jim with smouldering eyes. +

+ +

+"There is a fatality in all this," he cried. "We become +more and more certain that murder was committed and +how it was committed. We get a glimpse of possible +reasons why. But we are never an inch nearer to evidence—real +convincing evidence—who committed it. Fatality? +I am a fool to use such words. It's keen wits and +audacity and nerve that stop us at the end of each lane and +make an idiot of me!" +

+ +

+He struck a match viciously and lit a cigarette. Frobisher +made an effort to console him. +

+ +

+"Yes, but it's the keen wits and the audacity and the +nerve of more than one person." +

+ +

+Hanaud glanced at Frobisher sharply. +

+ +

+"Explain, my friend." +

+ +

+"I have been thinking over it ever since we left the +street of Gambetta. I no longer doubt that +Mrs. Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle. It is +impossible to doubt it. But her murder was part of the +activities of a gang. Else how comes it that Jean Cladel was +murdered too to-night?" +

+ +

+A smile drove for a moment the gloom from Hanaud's +face. +

+ +

+"Yes. You have been quite fifteen minutes in the +bull-ring," he said. +

+ +

+"Then you agree with me?" +

+ +

+"Yes!" But Hanaud's gloom had returned. "But we +can't lay our hands upon the gang. We are losing time, +and I am afraid that we have no time to lose." Hanaud +shivered like a man suddenly chilled. "Yes, I am very +troubled now. I am very—frightened." +

+ +

+His fear peered out of him and entered into Frobisher. +Frobisher did not understand it, he had no clue to what +it was that Hanaud feared, but sitting in that brightly-lit +office in the silent building, he was conscious of evil +presences thronging about the pair of them, presences +grotesque and malevolent such as some old craftsman of +Dijon might have carved on the pillars of a cathedral. +He, too, shivered. +

+ +

+"Let us see, now!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, +and the barb from his pocket, and fitted them together. +The iron barb was loose now because the hole to receive +it at the top of the arrow shaft had been widened to take +a nib. But the spoke was just about the right length. He +laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green +file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, +attracted Jim's notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, +but as he shook it out, a square tablet of some hard white +substance rolled on to the table. It was soiled with dust, +and there was a smear of green upon it; and as Jim +turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as +though something sharp had struck it. +

+ +

+"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" +he asked. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his +hand swiftly to take the tablet away from Jim, and drew +his hand in again. +

+ +

+"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said +gravely. "But it is interesting—that tablet. I shall know +more about it to-morrow." +

+ +

+Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion +which had brought this tablet into notice. It certainly +had not been discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for +it was already there in the safe in the office. Jim had +noticed the little square envelope as Hanaud fetched it +out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had been picked +up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. +Or—yes, there was that smear of green—from the grass. +Jim sat up straight in his chair. They had all been +together in the garden this morning. Hanaud, himself, +Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point Frobisher's +conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction +could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of +them had passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only +thing of which he was quite sure was the great importance +which Hanaud attached to it. For all the time that he +handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left him, +never once. They followed each little movement of finger +tip and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when +Jim at last tilted it off his palm back into its little +envelope, the detective undoubtedly drew a breath of relief. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was +getting to know his man. He did not invite any "Aha's" +and "Oho's" by vain questionings. He leaned across the +table and took up his own memorandum which Hanaud +had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table +in front of him and added two new questions to those +which he had already written out. Thus: +

+ +

+(5) What was the exact message telephoned from +Paris to the Prefecture and hidden away in an +envelope marked by Hanaud: "Address"? +

+ +

+(6) When and where and why was the white tablet +picked up, and what, in the name of all the saints, does +it mean? +

+ +


+ +

+With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum +back to Hanaud. Hanaud, however, read them slowly +and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to answer all your questions +to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you see! We +break down at every corner, and the question must wait." +

+ +

+He was fitting methodically the memorandum back +into the file when a look of extreme surprise came over +Frobisher's face. He pointed a finger at the file. +

+ +

+"That telegram!" +

+ +

+There was a telegram pinned to the three anonymous +letters which Hanaud had in the file—the two which +Hanaud had shown to Frobisher in Paris and the third +which Betty Harlowe had given to him that very +afternoon. And the telegram was pieced together by two +strips of stamp-paper in a cross. +

+ +

+"That's our telegram. The telegram sent to my firm +by Miss Harlowe on Monday—yes, by George, this last +Monday." +

+ +

+It quite took Jim's breath away, so crowded had his +days been with fears and reliefs, excitements and doubts, +discoveries and disappointments, to realise that this was +only the Friday night; that at so recent a date as +Wednesday he had never seen or spoken with Betty +Harlowe. "The telegram announcing to us in London +that you were engaged upon the case." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded in assent. +

+ +

+"Yes. You gave it to me." +

+ +

+"And you tore it up." +

+ +

+"I did. But I picked it out of the waste-paper basket +afterwards and stuck it together." Hanaud explained, in +no wise disconcerted by Jim Frobisher's attack of +perspicacity. "I meant to make some trouble here with +the Police for letting out the secret. I am very glad now +that I did pick it out. You yourself must have realised +its importance the very next morning before I even +arrived at the Maison Crenelle, when you told +Mademoiselle that you had shown it to me." +

+ +

+Jim cast his memory back. He had a passion for +precision and exactness which was very proper in one of +his profession. +

+ +

+"It was not until you came that I learnt Miss Harlowe +had the news by an anonymous letter," he said. +

+ +

+"Well, that doesn't matter," Hanaud interposed a +trifle quickly. "The point of importance to me is that +when the case is done with, and I have a little time to +devote to these letters, the telegram may be of value." +

+ +

+"Yes, I see," said Jim. "I see that," he repeated, and +he shifted uncomfortably in his chair; and opened his +mouth and closed it again; and remained suspended +between speech and silence, whilst Hanaud read through his +file and contemplated his exhibits and found no hope in +them. +

+ +

+"They lead me nowhere!" he cried violently; and Jim +Frobisher made up his mind. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud, you do not share your thoughts +with me," he said rather formally, "but I will deal +with you in a better way; apart from this crime in the +Maison Crenelle, you have the mystery of these anonymous +letters to solve. I can help you to this extent. +Another of them has been received." +

+ +

+"When?" +

+ +

+"To-night, whilst we sat at dinner." +

+ +

+"By whom?" +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott." +

+ +

+"What!" +

+ +

+Hanaud was out of his chair with a cry, towering up, +his face white as the walls of the room, his eyes burning +upon Frobisher. Never could news have been so +unexpected, so startling. +

+ +

+"You are sure?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Quite. It came by the evening post—with others. +Gaston brought them into the dining-room. There was +one for me from my firm in London, a couple for Betty, +and this one for Ann Upcott. She opened it with a +frown, as though she did not know from whom it came. +I saw it as she unfolded it. It was on the same common +paper—typewritten in the same way—with no address +at the head of it. She gasped as she looked at it, and +then she read it again. And then with a smile she folded +it and put it away." +

+ +

+"With a smile?" Hanaud insisted. +

+ +

+"Yes. She was pleased. The colour came into her +face. The distress went out of it." +

+ +

+"She didn't show it to you, then?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"Nor to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"But she was pleased, eh?" It seemed that to Hanaud +this was the most extraordinary feature of the whole +business. "Did she say anything?" +

+ +

+"Yes," answered Jim. "She said 'He has been always +right, hasn't he?'" +

+ +

+"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't +he?'" Hanaud slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a +man turned into stone. He looked up in a little while. +

+ +

+"What happened then?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up +her letter and beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who +said to me: 'We shall have to leave you to take your +coffee alone.' They went across the hall to Betty's room. +The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever since I +have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed +me into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not +interfere. So I came to find you at the Grande Taverne." +

+ +

+At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity +would have provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable +exhibitions, but now he did not notice it at all. +

+ +

+"They went away to talk that letter over together," +said Hanaud. "And that young lady was pleased, she +who was so distressed this afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud +was discussing his problem with himself, his eyes +upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I +wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once +or twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a +hundred corridas, I, Hanaud, am baffled!" +

+ +

+He was not posturing now. He was frankly and +simply amazed that he could be so utterly at a loss. Then, +with a swift change of mood, he came back to the table. +

+ +

+"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange +new incident to myself, I beg of you your help," he +pleaded very earnestly and even very humbly. Fear had +returned to his eyes and his voice. He was disturbed +beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more +important. I want you—how shall I put it so that I may +persuade you? I want you to stay as much as you can in +the Maison Crenelle—to—yes—to keep a little watch on +this pretty Ann Upcott, to——" +

+ +

+He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher +interrupted him in a very passion of anger. +

+ +

+"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, +Monsieur. I won't be your spy. I am not here for that. +I am here for my client. As for Ann Upcott, she is my +countrywoman. I will not help you against her. So help +me God, I won't!" +

+ +

+Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry +face of his "junior colleague," who now resigned his +office and, without parley, accepted his defeat. +

+ +

+"I don't blame you," he answered quietly. "I could, +indeed, hope for no other reply. I must be quick, that's +all. I must be very quick!" +

+ +

+Frobisher's anger fell away from him like a cloak one +drops. He saw Hanaud sitting over against him with a +white, desperately troubled face and eyes in which there +shone unmistakeably some gleam of terror. +

+ +

+"Tell me!" he cried in an exasperation. "Be frank +with me for once! Is Ann Upcott guilty? She's not +alone, of course, anyway. There's a gang. We're agreed +upon that. Waberski's one of them, of course? Is Ann +Upcott another? Do you believe it?" +

+ +

+Hanaud slowly put his exhibits together. There was +a struggle going on within him. The strain of the night +had told upon them both, and he was tempted for once to +make a confidant, tempted intolerably. On the other +hand, Jim Frobisher read in him all the traditions of his +service; to wait upon facts, not to utter suspicions; to be +fair. It was not until he had locked everything away +again in the safe that Hanaud yielded to the temptation. +And even then he could not bring himself to be direct. +

+ +

+"You want to know what I believe of Ann Upcott?" +he cried reluctantly, as though the words were torn from +him. "Go to-morrow to the Church of Notre Dame and +look at the façade. There, since you are not blind, you +will see." +

+ +

+He would say no more; that was clear. Nay, he stood +moodily before Frobisher, already regretting that he had +said so much. Frobisher picked up his hat and stick. +

+ +

+"Thank you," he said. "Good night." +

+ +

+Hanaud let him go to the door. Then he said: +

+ +

+"You are free to-morrow. I shall not go to the Maison +Crenelle. Have you any plans?" +

+ +

+"Yes. I am to be taken for a motor-drive round the +neighbourhood." +

+ +

+"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. +"But remember to telephone to me before you go. I shall +be here. I will tell you if I have any news. Good night." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the +room. Before he had closed the door Hanaud had +forgotten his presence. For he was saying to himself over +and over again, almost with an accent of despair: "I must +be quick! I must be very quick!" +

+ +


+ +

+Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest +Renan and the Rue de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's +injunction to examine the façade of Notre Dame. He +must keep that in mind and obey it in the morning. But +that night was not yet over for him. +

+ +

+As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert +he heard a light, quick step a little way behind +him—a step that seemed familiar. So when he turned +into the street he sauntered and looked round. He saw +a tall man cross the entrance of the street very quickly +and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. +The man paused for a second under the light of a street +lamp at the angle of the street, and Jim could have sworn +that it was Hanaud. There were no hotels, no lodgings +in this quarter of the city. It was a quarter of private +houses. What was Hanaud seeking there? +

+ +

+Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the +façade of Notre Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison +Crenelle a little incident occurred which made the +probability that he would soon remember it remote. He let +himself into the house with a latchkey which had been +given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means +of a switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall +to the foot of the stairs, and was about to turn off the +light, using the switch there to which Ann Upcott had +referred, when the door of the treasure-room opened. +Betty appeared in the doorway. +

+ +

+"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased +to find her still afoot and half regretful that she was +losing her hours of sleep. +

+ +

+"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I +waited up for my lodger." +

+ +

+She held the door open, and he followed her back into +the room. +

+ +

+"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she +added: "Jim, something has happened to-night." +

+ +

+Jim nodded. +

+ +

+"What?" she asked. +

+ +

+"Let it wait till to-morrow, Betty!" +

+ +

+Betty smiled no longer. The light died out of her +dark, haunting eyes. Lassitude and distress veiled them. +

+ +

+"Something terrible, then?" she said in a whisper. +

+ +

+"Yes," and she stretched out a hand to the back of a +chair and steadied herself. +

+ +

+"Please tell me, now, Jim! I shall not sleep to-night +unless you do; and oh, I am so tired!" +

+ +

+There was so deep a longing in her voice, so utter a +weariness in the pose of her young body that Jim could +not but yield. +

+ +

+"I'll tell you, Betty," he said gently. "Hanaud and +I went to find Jean Cladel to-night. We found him dead. +He had been murdered—cruelly." +

+ +

+Betty moaned and swayed upon her feet. She would +have fallen had not Jim caught her in his arms. +

+ +

+"Betty!" he cried. +

+ +

+Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could +feel the heave of her bosom against his heart. +

+ +

+"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No +one ever had heard of him till this morning ... and +now he's swept into this horror—like the rest of us! Oh, +where will it end?" +

+ +

+Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees +beside her. +

+ +

+She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up +to his. +

+ +

+"My dear!" he whispered. +

+ +

+But she would not raise her head. +

+ +

+"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed +her face deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung +to him with desperate hands. +

+ +

+"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll +all come right. I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And +whilst he spoke he cursed himself for the banality of his +words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that were really +fine with which to comfort her? Something better than +these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will +all straighten out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that +there was no necessity that he should. For her arms crept +round his neck and held him close. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER NINETEEN: A Plan Frustrated +

+ +

+The road curled like a paper ribbon round the +shoulder of a hill and dropped into a shallow valley. +To the left a little below the level of the road, a stream +ran swiftly through a narrow meadow of lush green grass. +Beyond the meadow the wall of the valley rose rough with +outcroppings of rock, and with every tuft of its herbage +already brown from the sun. On the right the northern +wall rose almost from the road's edge. The valley was +long and curved slowly, and half-way along to the point +where it disappeared a secondary road, the sort of road +which is indicated in the motorist's hand-books by a dotted +line, branched off to the left, crossed the stream by a +stone bridge and vanished in a cleft of the southern wall. +Beyond this branching road grew trees. The stream +disappeared under them as though it ran into a cavern; the +slopes on either side were hidden behind trees—trees so +thick that here at this end the valley looked bare in the +strong sunlight, but low trees, as if they had determined +to harmonise with their environment. Indeed, the whole +valley had a sort of doll's-house effect—it was so shallow +and narrow and stunted. It tried to be a valley and +succeeded in being a depression. +

+ +

+When the little two-seater car swooped round the +shoulder of the hill and descended, the white ribbon of +road was empty but for one tiny speck at the far end, +behind which a stream of dust spurted and spread like +smoke from the funnel of an engine. +

+ +

+"That motor dust is going to smother us when we +pass," said Jim. +

+ +

+"We shall do as much for him," said Betty, looking +over her shoulder from the steering wheel. "No, worse!" Behind +the car the dust was a screen. "But I don't mind, +do you, Jim?" she asked with a laugh, in which for the +first time, with a heart of thankfulness, Jim heard a note +of gaiety. "To be free of that town if only for an hour! +Oh!" and Betty opened her lungs to the sunlight and the +air. "This is my first hour of liberty for a week!" +

+ +

+Frobisher was glad, too, to be out upon the slopes of +the Côte-d'Or. The city of Dijon was ringing that +morning with the murder of Jean Cladel; you could not +pass down a street but you heard his name mentioned +and some sarcasms about the police. He wished to forget +that nightmare of a visit to the street of Gambetta +and the dreadful twisted figure on the floor of the back +room. +

+ +

+"You'll be leaving it for good very soon, Betty," he +said significantly. +

+ +

+Betty made a little grimace at him, and laid her hand +upon his sleeve. +

+ +

+"Jim!" she said, and the colour rose into her face, and +the car swerved across the road. "You mustn't speak like +that to the girl at the wheel," she said with a laugh as she +switched the car back into its course, "or I shall run down +the motor-cyclist and that young lady in the side-car." +

+ +

+"The young lady," said Jim, "happens to be a port-manteau!" +

+ +

+The motor-cyclist, indeed, was slowing down as he +came nearer to the branching road, like a tourist +unacquainted with the country, and when he actually reached +it he stopped altogether and dismounted. Betty brought +her car to a standstill beside him, and glanced at the clock +and the speedometer in front of her. +

+ +

+"Can I help you?" she asked. +

+ +

+The man standing beside the motor-cycle was a young +man, slim, dark, and of a pleasant countenance. He took +off his helmet and bowed politely. +

+ +

+"Madame, I am looking for Dijon," he said in a harsh +accent which struck Frobisher as somehow familiar to +his ears. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, you can see the tip of it through that gap +across the valley," Betty returned. In the very centre of +the cleft the point of the soaring spire of the cathedral +stood up like a delicate lance. "But I warn you that that +way, though short, is not good." +

+ +

+Through the gradually thinning cloud of dust which +hung behind the car they heard the jug-jug of another +motor-cycle. +

+ +

+"The road by which we have come is the better one," +she continued. +

+ +

+"But how far is it?" the young man asked. +

+ +

+Betty once more consulted her speedometer. +

+ +

+"Forty kilometres, and we have covered them in forty +minutes, so that you can see the going is good. We +started at eleven punctually, and it is now twenty minutes +to twelve." +

+ +

+"Surely we started before eleven?" Jim interposed. +

+ +

+"Yes, but we stopped for a minute or two to tighten +the strap of the tool-box on the edge of the town. And +we started from there at eleven." +

+ +

+The motor-cyclist consulted his wrist-watch. +

+ +

+"Yes, it's twenty minutes to twelve now," he said. +"But forty kilometres! I doubt if I have the essence. I +think I must try the nearer road." +

+ +

+The second motor-cycle came out of the dust like a +boat out of a sea mist and slowed down in turn at the side +of them. The rider jumped out of his saddle, pushed his +goggles up on to his forehead and joined in the conversation. +

+ +

+"That little road, Monsieur. It is not one of the +national highways. That shows itself at a glance. But +it is not so bad. From the stone bridge one can be at +the Hôtel de Ville of Dijon in twenty-five minutes." +

+ +

+"I thank you," said the young man. "You will pardon +me. I have been here for seven minutes, and I am +expected." +

+ +

+He replaced his helmet, mounted his machine, and with +a splutter and half a dozen explosions ran down into the +bed of the valley. +

+ +

+The second cyclist readjusted his goggles. +

+ +

+"Will you go first, Madame?" he suggested. "Otherwise +I give you my dust." +

+ +

+"Thank you!" said Betty with a smile, and she slipped +in the clutch and started. +

+ +

+Beyond the little forest and the curve the ground rose +and the valley flattened out. Across their road a broad +highway set with kilometre stones ran north and south. +

+ +

+"The road to Paris," said Betty as she stopped the car +in front of a little inn with a tangled garden at the angle. +She looked along the road Pariswards. "Air!" she said, +and drew a breath of longing, whilst her eyes kindled +and her white strong teeth clicked as though she was +biting a sweet fruit. +

+ +

+"Soon, Betty," said Jim. "Very soon!" +

+ +

+Betty drove the car into a little yard at the side of +the river. +

+ +

+"We will lunch here, in the garden," she said, "all +amongst the earwigs and the roses." +

+ +

+An omelet, a cutlet perfectly cooked and piping hot, +with a salad and a bottle of Clos du Prince of the 1904 +vintage brought the glowing city of Paris immeasurably +nearer to them. They sat in the open under the shade of +a tall hedge; they had the tangled garden to themselves; +they laughed and made merry in the golden May, and +visions of wonder trembled and opened before Jim +Frobisher's eyes. +

+ +

+Betty swept them away, however, when he had lit a +cigar and she a cigarette; and their coffee steamed from +the little cups in front of them. +

+ +

+"Let us be practical, Jim," she said. "I want to talk +to you." +

+ +

+The sparkle of gaiety had left her face. +

+ +

+"Yes!" he asked. +

+ +

+"About Ann." Her eyes swept round and rested on +Jim's face. "She ought to go." +

+ +

+"Run away!" cried Jim with a start. +

+ +

+"Yes, at once and as secretly as possible." +

+ +

+Jim turned the proposal over in his mind whilst Betty +waited in suspense. +

+ +

+"It couldn't be managed," he objected. +

+ +

+"It could." +

+ +

+"Even if it could, would she consent?" +

+ +

+"She does." +

+ +

+"Of course it's pleading guilty," he said slowly. +

+ +

+"Oh, it isn't, Jim. She wants time, that's all. Time +for my necklace to be traced, time for the murderer of +Jean Cladel to be discovered. You remember what I told +you about Hanaud? He must have his victim. You +wouldn't believe me, but it's true. He has got to go back +to Paris and say, 'You see, they sent from Dijon for me, +and five minutes! That's all I needed! Five little minutes +and there's your murderess, all tied up and safe!' He +tried to fix it on me first." +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"He did, Jim. And now that has failed he has turned +on Ann. She'll have to go. Since he can't get me he'll +take my friend—yes, and manufacture the evidence into +the bargain." +

+ +

+"Betty! Hanaud wouldn't do that!" Frobisher protested. +

+ +

+"But, Jim, he has done it," she said. +

+ +

+"When?" +

+ +

+"When he put that Edinburgh man's book about the +arrow poison back upon the bookshelf in the library." +

+ +

+Jim was utterly taken back. +

+ +

+"Did you know that he had done that?" +

+ +

+"I couldn't help knowing," she answered. "The +moment he took the book down it was clear to me. He +knew it from end to end, as if it was a primer. He could +put his finger on the plates, on the history of my uncle's +arrow, on the effect of the poison, on the solution that +could be made of it in an instant. He pretended that he +had learnt all that in the half-hour he waited for us. It +wasn't possible. He had found that book the afternoon +before somewhere and had taken it away with him secretly +and sat up half the night over it. That's what he had +done." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was sunk in confusion. He had been +guessing first this person, then that, and in the end had +had to be told the truth; whereas Betty had reached it in +a flash by using her wits. He felt that he had been just +one minute and a half in the bull-ring. +

+ +

+Betty added in a hot scorn: +

+ +

+"Then when he had learnt it all up by heart he puts +it back secretly in the bookshelf and accuses us." +

+ +

+"But he admits he put it back," said Jim slowly. +

+ +

+Betty was startled. +

+ +

+"When did he admit it?" +

+ +

+"Last night. To me," replied Jim, and Betty laughed +bitterly. She would hear no good of Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes, now that he has something better to go upon." +

+ +

+"Something better?" +

+ +

+"The disappearance of my necklace. Oh, Jim, Ann +has got to go. If she could get to England they couldn't +bring her back, could they? They haven't evidence +enough. It's only suspicion and suspicion and suspicion. +But here in France it's different, isn't it? They can hold +people on suspicion, keep them shut up by themselves and +question them again and again. Oh, yesterday afternoon +in the hall—don't you remember, Jim?—I thought +Hanaud was going to arrest her there and then." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher nodded. +

+ +

+"I thought so, too." +

+ +

+He had been a little shocked by Betty's proposal, but +the more familiar he became with it, the more it appealed +to him. There was an overpowering argument in its +favour of which neither he nor Hanaud had told Betty +a word. The shaft of the arrow had been discovered in +Ann Upcott's room, and the dart in the house of Jean +Cladel. These were overpowering facts. On the whole, +it was better that Ann should go, now, whilst there was +still time—if, that is, Hanaud did undoubtedly believe her +to be guilty. +

+ +

+"But it is evident that he does," cried Betty. +

+ +

+Jim answered slowly: +

+ +

+"I suppose he does. We can make sure, anyway. I +had a doubt last night. So I asked him point-blank." +

+ +

+"And he answered you?" Betty asked with a gasp. +

+ +

+"Yes and no. He gave me the strangest answer." +

+ +

+"What did he say?" +

+ +

+"He told me to visit the Church of Notre Dame. If +I did, I should read upon the façade whether Ann was +innocent or not." +

+ +

+Slowly every tinge of colour ebbed out of Betty's face. +Her eyes stared at him horror-stricken. She sat, a figure +of ice—except for her eyes which blazed. +

+ +

+"That's terrible," she said with a low voice, and again +"That's terrible!" Then with a cry she stood erect +"You shall see! Come!" and she ran towards the motorcar. +

+ +

+The sunlit day was spoilt for both of them. Betty +drove homewards, bending over the wheel, her eyes fixed +ahead. But Frobisher wondered whether she saw anything +at all of that white road which the car devoured. +Once as they dropped from the highland and the forests +to the plains, she said: +

+ +

+"We shall abide by what we see?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"If Hanaud thinks her innocent, she should stay. If +he thinks her guilty, she must go." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Frobisher. +

+ +

+Betty guided the car through the streets of the city, +and into a wide square. A great church of the Renaissance +type, with octagonal cupolas upon its two towers +and another little cupola surmounted by a loggia above +its porch, confronted them. Betty stopped the car and +led Frobisher into the porch. Above the door was a +great bas-relief of the Last Judgment, God amongst the +clouds, angels blowing trumpets, and the damned rising +from their graves to undergo their torments. Both Betty +and Frobisher gazed at the representation for a while in +silence. To Frobisher it was a cruel and brutal piece of +work which well matched Hanaud's revelation of his true +belief. +

+ +

+"Yes, the message is easy to read," he said: and they +drove back in a melancholy silence to the Maison Crenelle. +

+ +

+The chauffeur, Georges, came forward from the garage +to take charge of the car. Betty ran inside the house +and waited for Jim Frobisher to join her. +

+ +

+"I am so sorry," she said in a broken voice. "I kept +a hope somewhere that we were all mistaken ... I +mean as to the danger Ann was in.... I don't believe +for a moment in her guilt, of course. But she must +go—that's clear." +

+ +

+She went slowly up the stairs, and Jim saw no more of +her until dinner was served long after its usual hour. +Ann Upcott he had not seen at all that day, nor did he +even see her then. Betty came to him in the library a +few minutes before nine. +

+ +

+"We are very late, I am afraid. There are just the +two of us, Jim," she said with a smile, and she led the +way into the dining-room. +

+ +

+Through the meal she was anxious and preoccupied, +nodding her assent to anything that he said, with her +thoughts far away and answering him at random, or not +answering him at all. She was listening, Frobisher +fancied, for some sound in the hall, an expected sound +which was overdue. For her eyes went continually to +the clock, and a flurry and agitation, very strange in one +naturally so still, became more and more evident in her +manner. At length, just before ten o'clock, they both +heard the horn of a motor-car in the quiet street. The +car stopped, as it seemed to Frobisher, just outside the +gates, and upon that there followed the sound for which +Betty had so anxiously been listening—the closing of a +heavy door by some one careful to close it quietly. Betty +shot a quick glance at Jim Frobisher and coloured when +he intercepted it. A few seconds afterwards the car +moved on, and Betty drew a long breath. Jim Frobisher +leaned forward to Betty. Though they were alone in the +room, he spoke in a low voice of surprise: +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott has gone then?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"So soon? You had everything already arranged +then?" +

+ +

+"It was all arranged yesterday evening. She should +be in Paris to-morrow morning, England to-morrow +night. If only all goes well!" +

+ +

+Even in the stress of her anxiety Betty had been +sensitive to a tiny note of discontent in Jim Frobisher's +questions. He had been left out of the counsels of the two +girls, their arrangements had been made without his +participation, he had only been told of them at the last +minute, just as if he was a babbler not to be trusted and an +incompetent whose advice would only have been a waste +of time. Betty made her excuses. +

+ +

+"It would have been better, of course, if we had got +you to help us, Jim. But Ann wouldn't have it. She +insisted that you had come out here on my account, and +that you mustn't be dragged into such an affair as her +flight and escape at all. She made it a condition, so I had +to give way. But you can help me now tremendously." +

+ +

+Jim was appeased. Betty at all events had wanted +him, was still alarmed lest their plan undertaken without +his advice might miscarry. +

+ +

+"How can I help?" +

+ +

+"You can go to that cinema and keep Monsieur Hanaud +engaged. It's important that he should know nothing +about Ann's flight until late to-morrow." +

+ +

+Jim laughed at the futility of Hanaud's devices to +hide himself. It was obviously all over the town that +he spent his evenings in the Grande Taverne. +

+ +

+"Yes, I'll go," he returned. "I'll go now." +

+ +

+But Hanaud was not that night in his accustomed +place, and Jim sat there alone until half-past ten. Then +a man strolled out from one of the billiard-rooms, and +standing behind Jim with his eyes upon the screen, said +in a whisper: +

+ +

+"Do not look at me, Monsieur! It is Moreau. I go +outside. Will you please to follow." +

+ +

+He strolled away. Jim gave him a couple of minutes' +grace. He had remembered Hanaud's advice and had +paid for his Bock when it had been brought to him. The +little saucer was turned upside down to show that he +owed nothing. When two minutes had elapsed he +sauntered out and, looking neither to the right nor to the +left, strolled indolently along the Rue de la Gare. When +he reached the Place Darcy Nicolas Moreau passed him +without a sign of recognition and struck off to the right +along the Rue de la Liberté. Frobisher followed him +with a sinking heart. It was folly of course to imagine +that Hanaud could be so easily eluded. No doubt that +motor-car had been stopped. No doubt Ann Upcott was +already under lock and key! Why, the last words he had +heard Hanaud speak were "I must be quick!" +

+ +

+Moreau turned off into the Boulevard Sevigne and, +doubling back to the station square, slipped into one of +the small hotels which cluster in that quarter. The lobby +was empty; a staircase narrow and steep led from it to the +upper stories. Moreau now ascended it with Frobisher +at his heels, and opened a door. Frobisher looked into a +small and dingy sitting-room at the back of the house. +The windows were open, but the shutters were closed. A +single pendant in the centre of the room gave it light, and +at a table under the pendant Hanaud sat poring over a map. +

+ +

+The map was marked with red ink in a curious way. +A sort of hoop, very much the shape of a tennis racket +without its handle, was described upon it and from the +butt to the top of the hoop an irregular line was drawn, +separating the hoop roughly into two semi-circles. +Moreau left Jim Frobisher standing there, and in a +moment or two Hanaud looked up. +

+ +

+"Did you know, my friend," he asked very gravely, +"that Ann Upcott has gone to-night to Madame Le Vay's +fancy dress ball?" +

+ +

+Frobisher was taken completely by surprise. +

+ +

+"No, I see that you didn't," Hanaud went on. He +took up his pen and placed a red spot at the edge of the +hoop close by the butt. +

+ +

+Jim recovered from his surprise. Madame Le Vay's +ball was the spot from which the start was to be made. +The plan after all was not so ill-devised, if only Ann could +have got to the ball unnoticed. Masked and in fancy +dress, amongst a throng of people similarly accoutred, in +a house with a garden, no doubt thrown open upon this +hot night and lit only by lanterns discreetly dim—she had +thus her best chance of escape. But the chance was +already lost. For Hanaud laid down his pen again and +said in ominous tones: +

+ +

+"The water-lily, eh? That pretty water-lily, my friend, +will not dance very gaily to-night." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY: Map and the Necklace +

+ +

+Hanaud turned his map round and pushed it +across the table to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew +up a chair and sat down to examine it. +

+ +

+He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and +its environments, the town itself lying at the bottom of +the red hoop and constituting the top of the handle of the +tennis racket. As to the red circle, it seemed to +represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, +round a good tract of outlying country and back again to +the city. But there was more to it than that. The wavy +dividing line, for instance, from the top of the circle to +the handle, that is to Dijon; and on the left-hand edge of +the hoop, as he bent over the map, and just outside Dijon, +the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud had just +made. Against this square an hour was marked. +

+ +

+"Eleven a.m.," he read. +

+ +

+He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where +this dividing line touched the rim of the hoop, another +period was inscribed. Here Frobisher read: +

+ +

+"Eleven forty." +

+ +

+Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment. +

+ +

+"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over +the map. The point where the dividing line branched off +was in a valley, as he could see by the contours—yes—he +had found the name now—the Val Terzon. Just before +eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside +Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing back, and +had asked him to tighten the strap of the tool box. They +had started again exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note +of the exact time—and they had stopped where the +secondary road branched off and doubled back to Dijon, at +the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and +the dividing line, exactly at eleven forty. +

+ +

+"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he +cried. "We were followed then?" +

+ +

+He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who +had come up from behind through the screen of their +dust and had stopped by the side of their car to join in +their conversation with the tourist. +

+ +

+"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no +answer. +

+ +

+But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way +round. On their homeward course they had stopped to +lunch in the tangled garden. There had been no sign of +the man. Jim looked at the map again. He followed the +red line from the junction of the two roads, round the +curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National +road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. +After luncheon they had continued along the National +road into Dijon, whereas the red line crossed it and came +back by a longer and obviously a less frequented route. +

+ +

+"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, +Monsieur Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. +"But I can tell you this. The chase was not very +efficiently contrived. We didn't come home that way at +all." +

+ +

+"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud +answered imperturbably. "The line on that side of the +circle has nothing to do with you at all, as you can see +for yourself by looking at the time marked where the +line begins." +

+ +

+The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there +was a space where the spliced handle of the racket would +fit in, the space filled by the town of Dijon, and at the +point on the right hand side where the line started +Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures: +

+ +

+"Ten twenty-five a.m." +

+ +

+Jim was more bewildered than ever. +

+ +

+"I don't understand one word of it," he cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the +tip of his pen. +

+ +

+"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who +met you at the branch road at eleven-forty." +

+ +

+"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed +to him impossible that the fog could thicken about his +wits any more. And yet it had. +

+ +

+"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his +trailer," Hanaud corrected. "You see that he left his +starting point in Dijon thirty-five minutes before you +left yours. The whole manoeuvre seems to have been +admirably planned. For you met precisely at the +arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the +cycle had to wait one moment." +

+ +

+"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, +looking about him in a sort of despair. "Has every one +gone crazy? Why in the world should a man start out +with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at ten +twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by +a roundabout road and then return by a bad straight +track? There's no sense in it!" +

+ +

+"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded +to Moreau who went out of the room by a communicating +door towards the front of the house. "But I can +help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where you +started after tightening the strap of the tool-box, on the +edge of the town, a big country house stands back in a +park?" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy +dress ball takes place to-night." +

+ +

+"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. +"Where——" he began a question and caught it back. +But Hanaud completed it for him. +

+ +

+"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from +it at precisely eleven in the morning." He looked at his +watch. "It is not yet quite eleven at night. So she is +still there." +

+ +

+Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words +were like the blade of silver light cutting through the +darkness of the cinema hall and breaking into a sheet of +radiance upon the screen. The meaning of the red +diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive of +Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him. +

+ +

+"It was a rehearsal," he cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"A time-rehearsal." +

+ +

+"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, +without the principal members of the company," thought +Frobisher. But a moment later he was dissatisfied with +that explanation. +

+ +

+"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy." +

+ +

+The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his +arguments to a standstill. His times were marked upon +the map; they were therefore of importance. What had +he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he visualised +the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with +the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave +Frobisher the clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving +Madame Le Vay's house in her ball-dress, just as if she +was returning to the Maison Crenelle—and without any +luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the +morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion +and certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her +in the Val Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her +car, and then return to Dijon by the straight quick road +whilst Ann turned off at the end of the valley to Paris. +He remembered now that seven minutes had elapsed +between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and +their separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for +the transference of the luggage. Another argument +flashed into his thoughts. Betty had told him nothing of +this plan. It had been presented to him as a mere excursion +on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally +employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the +determination of Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether +out of the conspiracy. Every detail fitted like the blocks +in a picture puzzle. Yes, there had been a time-rehearsal. +And Hanaud knew all about it! +

+ +

+That was the disturbing certainty which first +overwhelmed Frobisher when he had got the better of his +surprise at the scheme itself. Hanaud knew! and Betty +had so set her heart on Ann's escape. +

+ +

+"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott +get away to Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned +back in his chair with a little gasp. The queerest smile +broke over his face. +

+ +

+"I see," he said. +

+ +

+"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. +"You are of the Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of +the High Court in my country and I have no right to +make such a petition. But I do without a scruple. You +can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't +a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion +about her that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin +her—yes—but that's all you can do." +

+ +

+"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed. +

+ +

+Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to +save her friend which inspired his plea. He fell back +upon the scandal which such a trial would cause. +

+ +

+"There has been enough publicity already owing to +Boris Waberski," he continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe +has had distress enough. Why must she stand in the +witness-box and give evidence against her friend in a +trial which can have no result? That's what I want you +to realise, Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience +of criminal trials"—O shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why +was that punctilious man not there in the flesh to wipe +out with an indignant word the slur upon the firm of +Frobisher and Haslitt?—"And I assure you that no jury +could convict upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl +necklace has not been traced—and it never will be. You +can take that from me, Monsieur Hanaud! It never +will be!" +

+ +

+Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one +of those little cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred +cigarettes, which the better class of manufacturers use +in England for their wares. He pushed this across the +table towards Jim. Something which was more substantial +than cigarettes rattled inside of it. Jim seized upon +it in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far +sooner lose her necklace altogether than that her friend +Ann Upcott should be destroyed by it. He opened the +lid of the box. It was filled with cotton-wool. From +the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls perfectly graded +in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre which, +even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely. +

+ +

+"It would have been more correct if I had found them +in a matchbox," said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to +Monsieur Bex that after all matches and cigarettes are +akin." +

+ +

+Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter +disappointment when Moreau knocked upon the other side of +the communicating door. Hanaud looked again at his +watch. +

+ +

+"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has +started from the house of Madame Le Vay." +

+ +

+He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again +within the layers of cotton-wool, and locked it up once +more in the drawer. The room had faded away from +Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, brilliantly +illuminated house, and a girl who slipped from a +window and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening +dress, ran down the dark avenue in her dancing slippers +to where a car waited hidden under trees. +

+ +

+"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden +hopefulness. "There may have been an accident to it. +The chauffeur may be late. Oh, a hundred things may +have happened!" +

+ +

+"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously +rehearsed? No, my friend." +

+ +

+Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against +the wall and placed it in his pocket. +

+ +

+"You are going to leave that necklace just like that +in a table drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it +first to the Prefecture." +

+ +

+"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It +will be safe." +

+ +

+Jim hopefully tried another line of argument. +

+ +

+"We shall be too late now to intercept Ann Upcott at +the branch road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you +say—well past eleven. And thirty-five minutes on a +motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty minutes in a car +at night, especially with a bad road to travel." +

+ +

+"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch +road," Hanaud returned. He folded up the map and +put it aside upon the mantelshelf. +

+ +

+"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I +must take it! And—no! I can't be wrong!" But he +turned from the mantelshelf with a very anxious and +troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh idea +came into his mind. +

+ +

+"By the way," he said. "The façade of Notre Dame?" +

+ +

+Jim nodded. +

+ +

+"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment. We went to +see it. We thought your way of saying what you +believed a little brutal." +

+ +

+Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor +for a few seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am +sorry." He tacked on a question. "You say 'we'?" +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained. +

+ +

+"Oh, yes—to be sure. I should have thought of that," +and once more his troubled cry broke from him. "It +must be that!—No, I can't be wrong.... Anyway, it's +too late to change now." +

+ +

+A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating +door. Hanaud sprang to alertness. +

+ +

+"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, +Monsieur Frobisher! Good! You are ready?" and the room +was at once plunged into darkness. +

+ +

+Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they +passed into the front room—a bedroom looking out upon +the big station square. This room was in darkness too. +But the shutters were not closed, and there were patches +of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and +the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could +see one another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his +companions appeared of a ghastly pallor. +

+ +

+"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said +Moreau. "Patinot has just joined him." +

+ +

+He pointed across the square to the station buildings. +Some cabs were waiting for the Paris train, and in front +of them two men dressed like artisans were talking. One +of them lit a cigarette from the stump of a cigarette held +out to him by his companion. The watchers in the room +saw the end of the cigarette glow red. +

+ +

+"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can +go." And he turned and went out of the inn to the +staircase. Jim started to follow him. Whither they were +going Jim had not a notion, not even a conjecture. But +he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's hopes +for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski +affair had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not +reassured when Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and +detained him. +

+ +

+"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud +with a quiet authority, his eyes shining very steadily in +the darkness, his face glimmering very white, "that now +the Law of France takes charge. There must not be a +finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers upon +their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the +promise you desire. No one shall be arrested on +suspicion. Your own eyes shall bear me out." +

+ +

+The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into +the street. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Secret House +

+ +

+It was a dark, clear night, the air very still and warm, +and the sky bright with innumerable stars. The small +company penetrated into the town by the backways and +narrow alleys. Daunay going on ahead, Patinot the last +by some thirty yards, and Moreau keeping upon the +opposite side of the street. Once they had left behind them +the lights of the station square, they walked amongst +closed doors and the blind faces of unlit houses. +Frobisher's heart raced within his bosom. He strained his +eyes and ears for some evidence of spies upon their heels. +But no one was concealed in any porch, and not the +stealthiest sound of a pursuit was borne to their hearing. +

+ +

+"On a night like this," he said in tones which, strive +as he might to steady them, were still a little tremulous, +"one could hear a footstep on the stones a quarter of a +mile away, and we hear nothing. Yet, if there is a gang, +it can hardly be that we are unwatched." +

+ +

+Hanaud disagreed. "This is a night for alibis," he +returned, lowering his voice; "good, sound, incontestable +alibis. All but those engaged will be publicly with their +friends, and those engaged do not know how near we are +to their secrets." +

+ +

+They turned into a narrow street and kept on its +left-hand side. +

+ +

+"Do you know where we are?" Hanaud asked. "No? +Yet we are near to the Maison Crenelle. On the other +side of these houses to our left runs the street of +Charles-Robert." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stopped dead. +

+ +

+"It was here, then, that you came last night after I +left you at the Prefecture," he exclaimed. +

+ +

+"Ah, you recognised me, then!" Hanaud returned +imperturbably. "I wondered whether you did when you +turned at the gates of your house." +

+ +

+On the opposite side of the street the houses were +broken by a high wall, in which two great wooden doors +were set. Behind the wall, at the end of a courtyard, the +upper storey and the roof of a considerable house rose +in a steep ridge against the stars. +

+ +

+Hanaud pointed towards it. +

+ +

+"Look at that house, Monsieur! There Madame +Raviart came to live whilst she waited to be set free. It +belongs to the Maison Crenelle. After she married Simon +Harlowe, they would never let it, they kept it just as it +was, the shrine of their passion—that strange romantic +couple. But there was more romance in that, to be sure. +It has been unoccupied ever since." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher felt a chill close about his heart. Was +that house the goal to which Hanaud was leading him +with so confident a step? He looked at the gates and +the house. Even in the night it had a look of long neglect +and decay, the paint peeling from the doors and not a +light in any window. +

+ +

+Some one in the street, however, was awake, for just +above their heads, a window was raised with the utmost +caution and a whisper floated down to them. +

+ +

+"No one has appeared." +

+ +

+Hanaud took no open notice of the whisper. He did +not pause in his walk, but he said to Frobisher: +

+ +

+"And, as you hear, it is still unoccupied." +

+ +

+At the end of the street Daunay melted away +altogether. Hanaud and Frobisher crossed the road and, +with Moreau just ahead, turned down a passage between, +the houses to the right. +

+ +

+Beyond the passage they turned again to the right into +a narrow lane between high walls; and when they had +covered thirty yards or so, Frobisher saw the branches of +leafy trees over the wall upon his right. It was so dark +here under the shade of the boughs that Frobisher could +not even see his companions; and he knocked against +Moreau before he understood that they had come to the +end of their journey. They were behind the garden of +the house in which Madame Raviart had lived and loved. +

+ +

+Hanaud's hand tightened upon Jim Frobisher's arm, +constraining him to absolute immobility. Patinot had +vanished as completely and noiselessly as Daunay. The +three men left stood in the darkness and listened. A +sentence which Ann Upcott had spoken in the garden of the +Maison Crenelle, when she had been describing the terror +with which she had felt the face bending over her in +the darkness, came back to him. He had thought it false +then. He took back his criticism now. For he too +imagined that the beating of his heart must wake all +Dijon. +

+ +

+They stood there motionless for the space of a minute, +and then, at a touch from Hanaud, Nicolas Moreau +stooped. Frobisher heard the palm of his hand sliding +over wood and immediately after the tiniest little click as +a key was fitted into a lock and turned. A door in the +wall swung silently open and let a glimmer of light into +the lane. The three men passed into a garden of weeds +and rank grass and overgrown bushes. Moreau closed +and locked the door behind them. As he locked the door +the clocks of the city struck the half hour. +

+ +

+Hanaud whispered in Frobisher's ear: +

+ +

+"They have not yet reached the Val Terzon. Come!" +

+ +

+They crept over the mat of grass and weeds to the +back of the house. A short flight of stone steps, patched +with mould, descended from a terrace; at the back of the +terrace were shuttered windows. But in the corner of +the house, on a level with the garden, there was a door. +Once more Moreau stooped, and once more a door swung +inwards without a sound. But whereas the garden door +had let through some gleam of twilight, this door opened +upon the blackness of the pit. Jim Frobisher shrank +back from it, not in physical fear but in an appalling dread +that some other man than he, wearing his clothes and his +flesh, would come out of that door again. His heart +came to a standstill, and then Hanaud pushed him gently +into the passage. The door was closed behind them, an +almost inaudible sound told him that now the door was +locked. +

+ +

+"Listen!" Hanaud whispered sharply. His trained ear +had caught a sound in the house above them. And in a +second Frobisher heard it too, a sound regular and +continuous and very slight, but in that uninhabited house +filled with uttermost blackness, very daunting. +Gradually the explanation dawned upon Jim. +

+ +

+"It's a clock ticking," he said under his breath. +

+ +

+"Yes! A clock ticking away in the empty house!" +returned Hanaud. And though his answer was rather +breathed than whispered, there was a queer thrill in it +the sound of which Jim could not mistake. The hunter +had picked up his spoor. Just beyond the quarry would +come in view. +

+ +

+Suddenly a thread of light gleamed along the passage, +lit up a short flight of stairs and a door on the right at the +head of them, and went out again. Hanaud slipped his +electric torch back into his pocket and, passing Moreau, +took the lead. The door at the head of the stairs opened +with a startling whine of its hinges. Frobisher stopped +with his heart in his throat, though what he feared he +could not have told even himself. Again the thread of +light shone, and this time it explored. The three found +themselves in a stone-flagged hall. +

+ +

+Hanaud crossed it, extinguished his torch and opened +a door. A broken shutter, swinging upon a hinge, enabled +them dimly to see a gallery which stretched away into the +gloom. The faint light penetrating from the window +showed them a high double door leading to some room +at the back of the house. Hanaud stole over the boards +and laid his ear to the panel. In a little while he was +satisfied; his hand dropped to the knob and a leaf of the +door opened noiselessly. Once more the torch glowed. +Its beam played upon the high ceiling, the tall windows +shrouded in heavy curtains of red silk brocade, and +revealed to Frobisher's amazement a room which had a +look of daily use. All was orderly and clean, the furniture +polished and in good repair; there were fresh flowers +in the vases, whose perfume filled the air; and it was +upon the marble chimney-piece of this room that the clock +ticked. +

+ +

+The room was furnished with lightness and elegance, +except for one fine and massive press, with double doors +in marquetry, which occupied a recess near to the +fireplace. Girandoles with mirrors and gilt frames, now +fitted with electric lights, were fixed upon the walls, with +a few pictures in water-colour. A chandelier glittering +with lustres hung from the ceiling, an Empire writing-table +stood near the window, a deep-cushioned divan +stretched along the wall opposite the fire-place. So much +had Frobisher noticed when the light again went out. +Hanaud closed the door upon the room again. +

+ +

+"We shall be hidden in the embrasure of any of these +windows," Hanaud whispered, when they were once more +in the long gallery. "No light will be shown here with +that shutter hanging loose, we may be sure. Meanwhile +let us watch and be very silent." +

+ +

+They took their stations in the deep shadows by the +side of the window with the broken shutter. They could +see dimly the courtyard and the great carriage doors in +the wall at the end of it, and they waited; Jim Frobisher +under such a strain of dread and expectancy that each +second seemed an hour, and he wondered at the immobility +of his companions. The only sound of breathing +that he heard came from his own lungs. +

+ +

+In a while Hanaud laid a hand upon his sleeve, and the +clasp of the hand tightened and tightened. Motionless +though he stood like a man in a seizure, Hanaud too was +in the grip of an intense excitement. For one of the +great leaves of the courtyard door was opening silently. +It opened just a little way and as silently closed again. +But some one had slipped in—so vague and swift and +noiseless a figure that Jim would have believed his +imagination had misled him but for a thicker blot of darkness +at the centre of the great door. There some one stood +now who had not stood there a minute before, as silent +and still as any of the watchers in the gallery, and more +still than one. For Hanaud moved suddenly away on +the tips of his toes into the deepest of the gloom and, +sinking down upon his heels, drew his watch from his +pocket. He drew his coat closely about it and for a +fraction of a second flashed his torchlight on the dial. It was +now five minutes past twelve. +

+ +

+"It is the time," he breathed as he crept back to his +place. "Listen now!" +

+ +

+A minute passed and another. Frobisher found himself +shivering as a man shivers at a photographer's when +he is told by the operator to keep still. He had a notion +that he was going to fall. Then a distant noise caught his +ear, and at once his nerves grew steady. It was the throb +of a motor-cycle, and it grew louder and louder. He felt +Hanaud stiffen at his side. Hanaud had been right, +then! The conviction deepened in his mind. When all +had been darkness and confusion to him, Hanaud from +the first had seen clearly. But what had he seen? +Frobisher was still unable to answer that question, and whilst +he fumbled amongst conjectures a vast relief swept over +him. For the noise of the cycle had ceased altogether. +It had roared through some contiguous street and gone +upon its way into the open country. Not the faintest +pulsation of its engine was any longer audible. That +late-faring traveller had taken Dijon in his stride. +

+ +

+In a revulsion of relief he pictured him devouring the +road, the glow of his lamp putting the stars to shame, the +miles leaping away behind him; and suddenly the pleasant +picture was struck from before his vision and his heart +fluttered up into his throat. For the leaf of the great +coach-door was swung wider, and closed again, and the +motor-cycle with its side-car was within the courtyard. +The rider had slipped out his clutch and stopped his engine +more than a hundred yards away in the other street. His +own impetus had been enough and more than enough to +swing him round the corner along the road and into the +courtyard. The man who had closed the door moved to +his side as he dismounted. Between them they lifted +something from the side-car and laid it on the ground. +The watchman held open the door again, the cyclist +wheeled out his machine, the door was closed, a key +turned in the lock. Not a word had been spoken, not an +unnecessary movement made. It had all happened within +the space of a few seconds. The man waited by the gate, +and in a little while from some other street the cyclist's +engine was heard once more to throb. His work was +done. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher wondered that Hanaud should let him +go. But Hanaud had eyes for no one but the man who +was left behind and the big package upon the ground +under the blank side wall. The man moved to it, stooped, +raised it with an appearance of effort, then stood upright +holding it in his arms. It was something shapeless and +long and heavy. So much the watchers in the gallery +could see, but no more. +

+ +

+The man in the courtyard moved towards the door +without a sound; and Hanaud drew his companions back +from the window of the broken shutter. Quick as they +were, they were only just in time to escape from that +revealing twilight. Already the intruder with his burden +stood within the gallery. The front door was unlatched, +that was clear. It had needed but a touch to open it. +The intruder moved without a sound to the double door, +of which Hanaud had opened one leaf. He stood in front +of it, pushed it with his foot and both the leaves swung +inwards. He disappeared into the room. But the faint +misty light had fallen upon him for a second, and though +none could imagine who he was, they all three saw that +what he carried was a heavy sack. +

+ +

+Now, at all events, Hanaud would move, thought +Frobisher. But he did not. They all heard the man now, +but not his footsteps. It was just the brushing of his +clothes against furniture: then came a soft, almost +inaudible sound, as though he had laid his burden down +upon the deep-cushioned couch: then he himself +reappeared in the doorway, his arms empty, his hat pressed +down upon his forehead, and a dim whiteness where his +face should be. But dark as it was, they saw the glitter +of his eyes. +

+ +

+"It will be now," Frobisher said to himself, expecting +that Hanaud would leap from the gloom and bear the +intruder to the ground. +

+ +

+But this man, too, Hanaud let go. He closed the doors +again, drawing the two leaves together, and stole from +the gallery. No one heard the outer door close, but +with a startling loudness some metal thing rang upon +stone, and within the house. Even Jim Frobisher +understood that the outer door had been locked and the key +dropped through the letter slot. The three men crept +back to their window. They saw the intruder cross the +courtyard, open one leaf of the coach door, peer this way +and that and go. Again a key tinkled upon stones. The +key of the great door had been pushed or kicked +underneath it back into the courtyard. The clocks suddenly +chimed the quarter. To Frobisher's amazement it was +a quarter-past twelve. Between the moment when the +cyclist rode his car in at the doors and now, just five +minutes had elapsed. And again, but for the three men, +the house was empty. +

+ +

+Or was it empty? +

+ +

+For Hanaud had slipped across to the door of the room +and opened it; and a slight sound broke out of that black +room, as of some living thing which moved uneasily. +At Jim Frobisher's elbow Hanaud breathed a sigh of +relief. Something, it seemed, had happened for which +he had hardly dared to hope; some great dread he knew +with certainty had not been fulfilled. On the heels of that +sigh a sharp loud click rang out, the release of a spring, +the withdrawal of a bolt. Hanaud drew the door swiftly +to and the three men fell back. Some one had somehow +entered that room, some one was moving quietly about it. +From the corner of the corridor in which they had taken +refuge, the three men saw the leaves of the door swing +very slowly in upon their hinges. Some one appeared +upon the threshold, and stood motionless, listening, and +after a few seconds advanced across the gallery to the +window. It was a girl—so much they could determine +from the contour of her head and the slim neck. To the +surprise of those three a second shadow flitted to her +side. Both of them peered from the window into the +courtyard. There was nothing to tell them there whether +the midnight visitors had come and gone or not yet come +at all. One of them whispered: +

+ +

+"The key!" +

+ +

+And the other, the shorter one, crept into the hall and +returned with the key which had been dropped through +the letter slot in her hand. The taller of the two laughed, +and the sound of it, so clear, so joyous like the trill of a +bird, it was impossible for Jim Frobisher even for a +second to mistake. The second girl standing at the window +of this dark and secret house, with the key in her hand to +tell her that all that had been plotted had been done, was +Betty Harlowe. Jim Frobisher had never imagined a +sound so sinister, so alarming, as that clear, joyous +laughter lilting through the silent gallery. It startled +him, it set his whole faith in the world shuddering. +

+ +

+"There must be some good explanation," he argued, +but his heart was sinking amidst terrors. Of what +dreadful event was that laughter to be the prelude? +

+ +

+The two figures at the window flitted back across the +gallery. It seemed that there was no further reason for +precautions. +

+ +

+"Shut the door, Francine," said Betty in her ordinary +voice. And when this was done, within the room the +lights went on. But time and disuse had warped the +doors. They did not quite close, and between them a +golden strip of light showed like a wand. +

+ +

+"Let us see now!" cried Betty. "Let us see," and +again she laughed; and under the cover of her laughter +the three men crept forward and looked in: Moreau upon +his knees, Frobisher stooping above him, Hanaud at his +full height behind them all. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Corona Machine +

+ +

+The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's +shoulder warning him to silence; and this warning +was needed. The lustres of the big glass chandelier were +so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the girandoles +multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was +ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her +white shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black +velvet; from her carefully dressed copper hair to her +black satin shoes she was as trim as if she had just been +unpacked from a bandbox; and she was laughing +whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which +jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. +Some one was imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher +could not doubt who that some one was, and it +seemed to him that no sound more soulless and cruel had +ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She +threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white +throat working, her shoulders flashing and shaking. She +clapped her hands with a horrible glee. Something died +within Frobisher's breast as he heard it. Was it in his +heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the last +time that Betty Harlowe laughed. +

+ +

+"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst +Francine with a pair of scissors cut the end of the sack +loose, she sat down with her back to it at the writing-table +and unlocked a drawer. The sack was cut away and +thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott +lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound +behind her back, and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her +hair was dishevelled, her face flushed, and she had the +look of one quite dazed. She drew in deep breaths of +air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware +for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and +her eyes rested upon Francine and travelled from her to +Betty's back without a gleam of recognition. She +wrenched a little at her wrists, but even that movement +was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay +still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at +the door would hardly have believed that she still lived. +

+ +

+Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a +small bottle half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next +a small case of morocco leather. From the case she took +a hypodermic syringe and its needle, and screwed the +two parts together. +

+ +

+"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper +from the bottle. +

+ +

+"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began +with a giggle, but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke +and she ended with a startled gasp. For Ann was looking +straight at her with the strangest, disconcerting stare. +It was impossible to say whether she knew Francine or +knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her +gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, +and in a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried +out: +

+ +

+"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she +added with a shiver: "It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's +like a dead person watching you as you move about the +room." +

+ +

+Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's +eyes wandered off to her. It seemed as though it needed +just that interchange of glances to awaken her. For as +Betty resumed her work of filling the hypodermic syringe +from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into Ann +Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she +could not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her +feet kicked upon the divan. A moan of pain broke from +her lips, and with that consciousness returned to her. +

+ +

+"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the +needle ready in her hand. She did not speak, but her +face spoke for her. Her upper lip was drawn back a +little from her teeth, and there was a look in her great +eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. +Once before he had seen just that look—when Betty +was lying on Mrs. Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment +and he had lingered in the treasure-room with Ann +Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then, but it was +as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann +Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank +back upon the divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering +lips and her eyes fixed upon Betty with a dreadful +fascination. +

+ +

+"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You +sent me to Madame Le Vay's—on purpose. Oh! The +letter, then! The anonymous letter!"—and a new light +broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror shook her. "You +wrote it! Betty, you! You—the Scourge!" +

+ +

+She sank back and again struggled vainly with her +bonds. Betty rose from her chair and crossed the room +towards her, the needle shining bright in her hand. Her +hapless prisoner saw it. +

+ +

+"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. +The extremity of her horror lent to her an unnatural +strength. Somehow she dragged herself up and got her +feet to the ground. Somehow she stood upright, swaying +as she stood. +

+ +

+"You are going to——" she began, and broke off. +"Oh, no! You couldn't! You couldn't!" +

+ +

+Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder +and held her so for a moment, savouring her vengeance. +

+ +

+"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours +in the darkness?" she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. +"Whose face, Ann? Guess!" She shook her swaying +prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her quiet voice. +"You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. +You are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the +treasure-room yesterday evening with your watch in your +hand? Eh? Can't you answer, you pretty fool?" Then +Betty's voice changed. It remained low and quiet, but +hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred. +

+ +

+"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, +Ann? Oh, we both understand very well!" And +Hanaud's hand tightened upon Frobisher's shoulder. +Here was the real key and explanation of Betty's hatred. +Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more, +might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! +Ann Upcott's disappearance would look like a panic-stricken +flight, would have the effect of a confession—no +doubt! But above all these considerations, paramount +in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at once to punish +and rid herself of a rival. +

+ +

+"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my +way!" she said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. +Yes. I had you bound hand and foot and brought here. +The water-lily!" She looked her victim over as she stood +in her delicate bright frock, her white silk stockings and +satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes, Ann! +That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! +That's all the time the arrow-poison takes!" +

+ +

+Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her +white face and ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before. +

+ +

+"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! +Oh!" she would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe +pushed her shoulder gently and she fell back upon the +divan. That Betty had been guilty of that last +infamy—the murder of her benefactress—not until this +moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was +clear to her, too, that there was not the slightest hope +for her. She burst suddenly into a storm of tears. +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and +watched her closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. +The sound of the girl's sobbing was music in her +ears. She would not let it flag. +

+ +

+"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and +alone," she said in a low voice, bending over her, +"To-morrow Espinosa will put you under one of the stone flags +in the kitchen. But to-night you shall lie just as you +are. Come!" +

+ +

+She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her +arm with one hand and advancing the needle with the +other; and a piercing scream burst from Francine Rollard. +

+ +

+"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It +was open and Hanaud stood upon the threshold. +

+ +

+Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from +her face. She sat like an image of wax, staring at the +open doorway, and a moment afterwards with a gesture +swift as lightning she drove the needle into the flesh of +her own arm and emptied it. +

+ +

+Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to +prevent her, but Hanaud roughly thrust him back. +

+ +

+"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said +with a savage note in his voice, which Jim had not heard +before; and Betty Harlowe dropped the needle on to the +couch, whence it rolled to the floor. +

+ +

+She sprang up now to her full height, her heels +together, her arms outstretched from her sides. +

+ +

+"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with +bravado. "I am safe from you." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously +in her face. +

+ +

+"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill." +

+ +

+Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself. +

+ +

+"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said. +

+ +

+"We shall see." +

+ +

+The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed +across the room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, +Hanaud met her there. +

+ +

+"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He +seized her wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod +towards Francine. "And you, Monsieur Frobisher, will +you release that young lady, if you please!" +

+ +

+Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and +locked her safely away. Jim seized upon the big scissors +and cut the cords about Ann's wrists and ankles, and +unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had flung the +chair from the writing-table into an open space, that +Betty was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had +forced her into the chair and snatched up one of the cords +which Frobisher had dropped upon the floor. When he +had finished his work, he saw that Betty was sitting with +her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to one of the +legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his +handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had +bitten him like a wild animal caught in a trap. +

+ +

+"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning +I met you," Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you +didn't wear a wrist-watch, because you hated things on +your wrists. My apologies! I had forgotten!" +

+ +

+He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand +into the drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box +and removed the lid. +

+ +

+"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!" +

+ +

+He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who +was standing against the wall with a face like death. +

+ +

+"Look!" +

+ +

+There were five white tablets in the box. +

+ +

+"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know +where it was. For I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide +of potassium, my friend! Crunch one of them between +your teeth and—fifteen minutes? Not a bit of it! A +fraction of a second! That's all!" +

+ +

+Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's +ear. "Leave them within her reach!" +

+ +

+His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty +from destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, +and with so desperate a longing that a deep pity softened +Hanaud's eyes. +

+ +

+"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to +Moreau. "There is a cab waiting at the corner of the +Maison Crenelle," and Moreau went in search of it. +Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was sitting upon +the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every +now and then she handled and eased one of her tortured +wrists. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I +owe you an explanation and an apology. I never from +the beginning—no, not for one moment—believed that +you were guilty of the murder of Madame Harlowe. I +was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink +pearls—oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. +I believed every word of the story you told us in the +garden. But none of this dared I shew you. For only +by pretending that I was convinced of your guilt, could I +protect you during this last week in the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort +at a smile. +

+ +

+"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he +continued. "I make it with shame. That you were to be +brought back here to the tender mercies of Mademoiselle +Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to make sure +you should be spared them. But I have never in my life +had a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction +in my own mind, so little proof to put before a court. I +had to have the evidence which I was certain to find in +this room to-night. But I ask you to believe me that if +I had imagined for a moment the cruelty with which +you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this +evidence. I beg you to forgive me." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott held out her hand. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you +I should not be now alive. I should be lying here in the +dark and alone, as it was promised to me, waiting for +Espinosa—and his spade." Her voice broke and she +shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which she +sat. +

+ +

+"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. +"You have youth, as I told you once before. A little +time and——" +

+ +

+The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and +with Moreau came a couple of gendarmes and Girardot +the Commissary. +

+ +

+"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly. +

+ +

+In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of +feet and a woman's voice screaming abuse. It died +away. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted +and sullen, her lips muttering inaudible words. She had +not once looked at Jim Frobisher since he had entered +the room; nor did she now. +

+ +

+Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme +raised her up. But her knees failed beneath her; +she could not stand; her strength and her spirit had left +her. The gendarme picked her up as if she had been a +child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher planted +himself in front of him. +

+ +

+"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and +resonant. "Monsieur Hanaud, you have said just now +that you believed every word of Mademoiselle Ann's +story." +

+ +

+"It is true." +

+ +

+"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered +at half-past ten on the night of the 27th of April. +And at half-past ten Mademoiselle here was at Monsieur +de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free." +

+ +

+Hanaud did not argue the point. +

+ +

+"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if +you please!" +

+ +

+Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then +drew aside. He stood with his eyes closed, and such a +look of misery upon his face as Betty was carried out +that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of condolence: +

+ +

+"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur +Frobisher," he began. +

+ +

+"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at +the first!" Jim cried volubly. +

+ +

+"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked +Hanaud, and Jim was silent. "As it was, Monsieur +Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I know now I +had not the right to take and I told you more than you +think." +

+ +

+He turned away towards Moreau. +

+ +

+"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house +after they have gone and bring the keys here to me." +

+ +

+Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic +syringe, the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of +cord. +

+ +

+"There is something here of importance," Hanaud +observed and, stooping at the writing-table, he picked up +a square, flat-topped black case. "You will recognise +this," he remarked to Jim as he handed it to Girardot. +It was the case of a Corona typewriting machine; and +from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within +the case. +

+ +

+"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the +Commissary. "This pretty room is the factory where all +those abominable letters were prepared. Here the +information was filed away for use; here the letters were +typed; from here they were issued." +

+ +

+"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding +money!" +

+ +

+"Some of them," answered Hanaud. +

+ +

+"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, +and more if she chose to ask for it." +

+ +

+"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with +a shake of the head. "The blackmailer never has enough +money. For no one is so blackmailed." +

+ +

+A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. +They had agreed, he and Hanaud, that there was a gang +involved in all these crimes. It might be that Betty was +of them, yes, even led them, but were they all to go +scot-free? +

+ +

+"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode +this motor-cycle——" +

+ +

+"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice +his accent when you stopped at the fork of the roads in +the Val Terzon? He did not mount his cycle again. No!" +

+ +

+"And the man who carried in the—the sack?" +

+ +

+"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising +young novice. He is now at the Depot. He will never +get that good word from me which was to unlock Paris +for him." +

+ +

+"And Espinosa himself—who was to come here +to-morrow——" he stopped abruptly with his eyes on Ann. +

+ +

+"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went +on. "A fool that fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife +in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud looked at his watch. "It +is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock and key by +now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you +have never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. +Have no fear of that!" +

+ +

+Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to +Hanaud. Hanaud put them into a pocket and went over +to Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any +questions to-night. To-morrow you will tell me why you +went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It was given out that +you meant to run away. That, of course, was not true. +You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an +account of what happened to you there." +

+ +

+Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she +answered quietly. +

+ +

+"Yes. I will tell you everything." +

+ +

+"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully. +

+ +

+"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you +have had us all locked in." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on +the girl, and he loved surprises so long as they were of +his own contriving. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the +truth. This house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart +is very close, as the crow flies, to the Maison Crenelle. +There is one row of houses, the houses of the street of +Charles-Robert, between. It was built by Etienne +Bouchart de Crenelle, President of the Parliament during +the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and +important figure; and he built it, Mademoiselle—this is the +point—at the same time that he built the Maison Crenelle. +Having built it, he installed in it a joyous lady of the +province from which it takes its name—Madame de +Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President +never came visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the +best of reasons. Between this house and the Maison +Crenelle he had constructed a secret passage in that age +of secret passages." +

+ +

+Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to +him for an astuteness which he did not possess. He had +been occupied heart and brain by the events of the +evening, so rapidly had they followed one upon the other, +so little time had they allowed for speculations. +

+ +

+"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked. +

+ +

+"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us +content ourselves with the facts," Hanaud continued. +"After the death of Etienne de Crenelle, at some period +or another the secret of this passage was lost. It is clear, +too, I think that it fell into disrepair and became blocked. +At all events at the end of the eighteenth century, the +Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of +the owner of the Maison Crenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, +discovered the secret. He bought back the Hôtel de +Brebizart, restored the passage and put it to the same use +as old Etienne de Crenelle had done. For here Madame +Raviart came to live during the years before the death +of her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! +My little lecture is over. Let us go!" +

+ +

+He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience +and unlatched the double doors of the big buhl cabinet +in the recess of the wall. A cry of surprise broke from +Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet. The cabinet +was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and +all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one +end and that a flight of steps ran downwards in the +thickness of the wall. +

+ +

+"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. +"Will you take this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first +with Mademoiselle. I will turn out the lights and +follow." +

+ +

+But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew +sharply back. She put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and +steadied herself by it. "I will come with you," she said. +"I am not very steady on my legs." +

+ +

+She laughed her action off but both men understood it. +Jim Frobisher had thought her guilty—guilty of theft +and murder. She shrank from him to the man who had +had no doubt that she was innocent. And even that was +not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply +than any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher +inclined his head in acknowledgment and, pressing the +button of the torch, descended five or six of the narrow +steps. Moreau followed him. +

+ +

+"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up +a switch by the open doors of the cabinet. The room +was plunged in darkness. Guided by the beam of light, +they followed Frobisher on to the steps. Hanaud closed +the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together with +the bolts. +

+ +

+"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be +careful of your heels on these stone steps." +

+ +

+When his head was just below the level of the first +step he called upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. +Then he slid the floor board of the cabinet back into its +place. Beneath this a trap-door hung downwards. +Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place. +

+ +

+"We can go on." +

+ +

+Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. +From that a passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. +Frobisher led the way along the passage until the +foot of another flight of steps was reached. +

+ +

+"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked +of Frobisher, his voice sounding with a strange +hollowness in that tunnel. "You shall tell me." +

+ +

+Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and +Betty had sat in the dark of the perfumed garden and +Ann's eyes had searched this way and that amidst the +gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly: +

+ +

+"Into the garden of the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+Hanaud chuckled. +

+ +

+"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?" +

+ +

+Ann's face clouded over. +

+ +

+"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered +and drew her cloak slowly about her shoulders. "Let us +go up and see!" +

+ +

+Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the +top of the steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel. +

+ +

+"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a +light. +

+ +

+Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of +Simon Harlowe's Sedan chair into the treasure room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Truth
+About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet +

+ +

+To the amazement of them all Moreau began to +laugh. Up till now he had been alert, competent +and without expression. Stolidity had been the mark +of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his +sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour +of things was altogether unbearable. Once or twice he +tried to speak, but laughter leapt upon the words and +drowned them. +

+ +

+"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" +Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and +again merriment seized and mastered him. At last two +intelligible words were heard. "We, Girardot," he cried, +settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the bridge of +his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason +of his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases. +

+ +

+"We, Girardot!—We fix the seals upon the doors—And +all the time there is a way in and out under our +nose! These rooms must not be disturbed—No! The +great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to look +at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but +we, Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous +with our linen bands! We, Girardot shall make the +laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes, yes! I think, +we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the trial +is over?" +

+ +

+Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional +for his audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that +night had dulled their appreciation; certainly Moreau had +all the laughter to himself. Jim Frobisher was driven to +the little Louis Quinze clock upon the marquetry cabinet. +He never could for a moment forget it. So much hung +for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild +words she might have used to-night, there was the +incontrovertible testimony of the clock to prove that she had +had no hand whatever in the murder of Mrs. Harlowe. +He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it +with the clock. +

+ +

+"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little +accent of triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past +one——" and suddenly Hanaud was at his side with a +curious air of alertness. +

+ +

+"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a +comparison with his own watch that Frobisher's statement +was correct. "Yes. Twenty-three minutes past one. +That is very fortunate." +

+ +

+He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all +now stood grouped about the cabinet. +

+ +

+"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, +"is to be found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann +used, when the seals were removed from the doors and +she saw this clock again, in the light of day. She was +perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me—it seems +to me still—that the clock was somehow placed higher +than it actually is——" +

+ +

+"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!" +

+ +

+He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now +reached twenty-six minutes past one. +

+ +

+"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in +the hall in the dark. For it was in the dark, you will +remember, that Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I +shall turn the lights out here and call you in. When I +do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on and off swiftly, +just as she did it on the night of the 27th of April. Then +I think all will be clear to you." +

+ +

+He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found +it locked with the key upon the inside. +

+ +

+"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to +the Hôtel de Brebizart, this door would be locked." +

+ +

+He turned the key and drew the door towards him. +The hall gaped before them black and silent. Hanaud +stood aside. +

+ +

+"If you please!" +

+ +

+Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated +and cast a look of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities +were to be set at rest. She did not doubt that. This +man had saved her from death when it seemed that nothing +could save her. Her trust in him was absolute. But +her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to +be delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could +be no recovery. Ann Upcott was not a good hater of +Betty's stamp. She shrank from the thought that it was +to be her hand which would deliver that stroke. +

+ +

+"Courage, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann +joined the others in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the +door upon them and returned to the clock. It was +twenty-eight minutes past one. +

+ +

+"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will +just do if I am quick." +

+ +

+Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. +One of the three shivered suddenly so that her teeth +rattled in her mouth. +

+ +

+"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand +within her arm. Ann Upcott had come to the end of +her strength. She clung to his hand spasmodically. +

+ +

+"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you +were cruel to me!" +

+ +

+Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room. +

+ +

+"Come!" +

+ +

+Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. +She threw open the door with a nervous violence. The +treasure-room was pitch dark like the hall. Ann stepped +through the doorway and her fingers reached for the +switch. +

+ +

+"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook. +

+ +

+Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as +suddenly it was black again; and in the darkness rose a +clamour of voices. +

+ +

+"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim. +

+ +

+"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann. +

+ +

+"That is true," Moreau agreed. +

+ +

+Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, +joined in. +

+ +

+"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the +night of the twenty-seventh?" +

+ +

+"Exactly, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!" +

+ +

+The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it +sounded like a knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers +refused their service. Once more the conviction forced +itself into her mind. Some irretrievable calamity waited +upon the movement of her hand. +

+ +

+"Courage, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Again the lights shone, and this time they remained +burning. The three witnesses advanced into the room, +and as they looked again, from close at hand and with +a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke from all of them. +

+ +

+There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all. +

+ +

+But high above it in the long mirror before which it +stood there was the reflection of a clock, its white face so +clear and bright that even now it was difficult to disbelieve +that this was the clock itself. And the position of +the hands gave the hour as precisely half-past ten. +

+ +

+"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam +mantelpiece and there staring at them, the true hour was +marked. It was exactly half-past one; the long minute +hand pointing to six, the shorter hour hand on the right-hand +side of the figure twelve, half-way between the one +and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all +turned again to the mirror; and the mystery was +explained. The shorter hour-hand seen in the mirror was +on the left-hand side of the figure twelve, and just where +it would have been if the hour had been half-past ten and +the clock actually where its reflection was. The figures +on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to +read. +

+ +

+"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature +to save itself from effort even in the smallest things. We +live with clocks and watches. They are as customary as +our daily bread. And with the instinct to save ourselves +from effort, we take our time from the position of the +hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for +granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the +one swift flash of light she sees the hands upon the clock's +face. Half-past ten! She herself, you will remember, +Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised that the hour was +so early. She was cold, as though she had slept long in +her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept +long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was +half-past one, and Betty Harlowe had been twenty +minutes home from Monsieur de Pouillac's ball." +

+ +

+Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice +which exasperated Frobisher. +

+ +

+"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When +the seals were removed and we entered this room for the +first time, the clock was not upon the mantelshelf but +upon the marquetry cabinet." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before +luncheon. We entered this room after luncheon. +During the luncheon hours the position of the clock was +changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know +now with what ease that could be done." +

+ +

+"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It +doesn't follow that it was done." +

+ +

+"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer +now one of the questions in your memorandum. What +was it that I saw from the top of the Terrace Tower? +I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the air. +Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its +windows, and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And +there at midday, in all the warmth of late May, the +smoke was rising from the chimney of the sealed room. +There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing! +And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask +yourself that! Who went straight out from the Maison +Crenelle the moment I had gone, and went alone? That +clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters also +had to be burnt." +

+ +

+Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still +occupied his thoughts. His great argument had been +riddled; his one dream of establishing Betty's innocence +in despite of every presumption and fact which could be +brought against her had been dispelled. He dropped on +to a chair. +

+ +

+"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness. +

+ +

+"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe +to me no gifts out of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am +trained—that is all. I have been my twenty minutes in +the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!" He looked +at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager +young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by +the lesson. First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle +Betty was here doing something of great importance. It +may be only burning those letters in the hearth. It may +be more. I must wait and see. Good! There, standing +before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little +remark that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand +yet? No, no! But I am interested. Then I notice a +curious thing, a beautiful specimen of Benvenuto Cellini's +work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf where no +one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the +window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back +to the mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks +upon the wood which had been concealed by the flat case +of the jewel; and those four little marks are just the +marks which the feet of that very pretty Louis Quinze +clock might have made, had it stood regularly there—in +its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry +cabinet so much lower than the mantelshelf is too the +natural place for the Cellini jewel. Every one can see it +there. So I say to myself: 'My good Hanaud, this young +lady has been rearranging her ornaments.' But do I +guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell +you again very humbly, that we are the servants of +Chance. Chance is a good mistress if her servants do not +go to sleep; and she treated me well that afternoon. See! +I am standing in the hall, in great trouble about this case. +For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a big +old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind +me and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I +raise my eyes from the floor and by chance I see in the +mirror the barometer behind me. By chance my attention +is arrested. For I see that the indicator in the +barometer points to stormy weather—which is ridiculous. +I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the +indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the +position of the hand without looking at the letters. If I look +the barometer in the face the hand points to the fair +weather. If I turn my back and look into the mirror the +hand points to the stormy weather. Now indeed I have +it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door, for I +do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, +no, for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But +I take out my watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch +facing the mirror, I open the glass and I move the hands +until in the mirror they seem to mark half-past ten. +Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. So +now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get +it. For as I unlock the door and open it again, there is +Mademoiselle Betty face to face with me! That young +girl! Even though already I suspect her I get a shock, +I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened +enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask +had slipped from her face. I felt a trickle of ice down +my spine. For out of her beautiful great eyes murder +looked." +

+ +

+He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce +look. "Ugh," he grunted; and he shook himself like +a great dog coming up out of the water. +

+ +

+"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," +he cried in a different voice, "and you are keeping +Mademoiselle from her bed, where she should have been an +hour ago. Come!" +

+ +

+He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on +the lights, locked the door of the treasure-room and +pocketed the key. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," +he said gently to Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in +the house. You have nothing to fear. He will not be +far from your door. Good night." +

+ +

+Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile. +

+ +

+"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she +mounted the stairs slowly, her feet dragging, her body +swaying with her fatigue. +

+ +

+Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher +with a whimsical smile. +

+ +

+"What a pity!" he said. "You—she! No? After +all, perhaps——" and he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher +was growing red and beginning to look "proper"; and the +last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to offend him +in this particular. +

+ +

+"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent +and a gossip. If I err, it is because I wish you very +well. You understand that? Good! Then a further +proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us what +happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house +of Madame Le Vay—everything. I wish you to be present. +You shall know everything. I shall tell you myself +step by step, how my conclusions were reached. All your +questions shall be answered. I shall give you every help, +every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are not even +called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And +when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that +whatever there may be of pain and distress, the Law must +take its course." +

+ +

+It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating +now. The tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries +had gone. He did not even triumph. A dignity +shone out of the man like a strong light, and with it he +was gentle and considerate. +

+ +

+"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim +on an impulse thrust out his hand. +

+ +

+"Good night!" he returned. +

+ +

+Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went +away. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense +of desolation turned back to the hall. He heard the big +iron gates swing to. They had been left open, of course, +he recognised, in the usual way when one of the household +was going to be late. Yes, everything had been +planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. +Here in this house, the servants were all tucked up in +their beds. But for Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at +this very moment have been stealing up these stairs +noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work accomplished. +The servants would have waked to-morrow to the knowledge +that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial. +Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, +would have been received in the treasure-room, would +have found the spade waiting for him in the great +stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart. Oh, yes, all +dangers had been foreseen—except Hanaud. Nay, even +he in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken +telegram had reached Frobisher and Haslitt before +Hanaud had started upon his work. +

+ +

+"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's +door, if you should want me," said Moreau. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections. +

+ +

+"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs +to his room. A lot of use to Betty that telegram had +been, he reflected bitterly! "Where was she to-night?" +he asked, and shut up his mind against the question. +

+ +

+He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken +telegram and nothing else which had brought Betty +Harlowe's plans crashing about her ears. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Ann Upcott's Story +

+ +

+Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison +Crenelle and made his appointment for the afternoon. +Jim accordingly spent the morning with Monsieur +Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which +was told to him. +

+ +

+"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. +"They can claim the presence of their legal adviser when +they are being examined by the Judge. I will go round +at once to the Prefecture"; with his head erect and his +little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried to +do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged, +however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was +for the moment au secret. She would not come before +the Judge for a couple of days. It was the turn of +Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to be given to the +defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted an +interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before +she was brought up in the Judge's office. +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet +to find Jim Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim +looked up eagerly, but Monsieur Bex had no words of +comfort. +

+ +

+"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am +not happy. They are all very polite—yes. But they +examine the maid first. That's bad, I tell you," and he +tapped upon the table. "That is Hanaud. He knows +his affair. The servants. They can be made to talk, and +this Francine Rollard——" He shook his head. "I shall +get the best advocate in France." +

+ +

+Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison +Crenelle. It was obvious that nothing of these new and +terrible developments of the "Affaire Waberski" had yet +leaked out. There was not a whisper of it in the streets, +not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison Crenelle. +The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become +a stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her +room that he was removing his luggage to the hotel in +the Place Darcy, and leaving the house to her where he +prayed her to remain. Even at that moment Ann's lips +twitched a little with humour as she read the +embarrassed note. +

+ +

+"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," +she reflected, "and proper enough to make every nerve +of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with delight." +

+ +

+Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the +shade of the sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the +lawn and the bees hummed amongst the roses, Ann +Upcott told a story of terror and darkness, though to a +smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the +story by Hanaud. +

+ +

+"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame +Le Vay's Ball," she began, "except for the anonymous +letter," and Hanaud leaned forward alertly. +

+ +

+The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty +and Jim Frobisher were sitting at dinner. It had been +posted therefore in the middle of the day and very soon +after Ann had told her first story in the garden. Ann +opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed +and a little terrified to read the signature, "The +Scourge." She was more annoyed than ever when she read the +contents, but her terror had decreased. "The Scourge" bade +her attend the Ball. He gave her explicit instructions +that she should leave the ball-room at half-past ten, follow +a particular corridor leading to a wing away from the +reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small +library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a +little while the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. +She was warned to tell no one of her plan. +

+ +

+"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the +letter just a malicious joke quite in accord with 'The +Scourge's' character. I put it back into its envelope. But +I couldn't forget it. Suppose that by any chance there +was something in it—and I didn't go! Why should 'The +Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was +of no importance? And all the while the sort of hope +which no amount of reasoning can crush, kept growing +and growing!" +

+ +

+After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room +and believed it and scorned herself for believing it, +and believed it again. That afternoon she had almost +felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was no chance +which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from +suspicion, however wild it seemed! +

+ +

+Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down +to the treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It +was half-past nine o'clock. Ann determined to wait for +Betty's return, and was once more perplexed by the low +position of the clock upon the marquetry cabinet. She +stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own +watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it +might help her. And indeed it was very likely to. Had +she turned its dial to the mirror behind the clock, the +truth would have leapt at her. But she had not the time. +For a slight movement in the room behind her arrested +her attention. +

+ +

+She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without +doubt it was from within the room that the faint +noise had come. And there was only one place from +which it could have come. Some one was hiding within +the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, +its delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than +frightened. Her first thought was to ring the bell by the +fire-place—she could do that well out of view of the +Sedan chair—and carry on until Gaston answered it. +There were treasures enough in the room to repay a hundred +thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the +bolder line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing +from the back, and then with a rush planted herself +in front of the glass doors. +

+ +

+She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in +front of the doors was down, the doors were open, and +leaning back upon the billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. +She sat quite still, still as an image even after +Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but she +was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out +of the darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a +curious shock. +

+ +

+"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; +and if ever there had been a chance that she would relent, +that chance was gone for ever now. She had come up +out of the secret passage to find Ann playing with her +watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an explanation +of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it—so +very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence +pronounced in those words, "I have been watching you." And +though she did not understand the menace they conveyed, +there was something in the slow, steady utterance +of them which a little unnerved her. +

+ +

+"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice." +

+ +

+Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous +letter from her hand. +

+ +

+"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked. +

+ +

+"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I +should. I shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that +there's any suspicion upon you." +

+ +

+Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house +of mourning might appear an outrage. +

+ +

+"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go +privately, just before the time. I have no doubt we can +arrange it all. But of course it's your affair." +

+ +

+"Why should the Scourge help me?" +

+ +

+"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty +reasoned. "I imagine that he's attacking other people, +and using you." She read through the letter again. "He +has always been right, hasn't he? That's what would +determine me in your place. But I don't want to interfere." +

+ +

+Ann spun round on her heel. +

+ +

+"Very well. I shall go." +

+ +

+"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as +if to tear it. +

+ +

+"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it +"I don't know Madame Le Vay's house very well. I +might easily lose my way without the instructions. I +must take it with me." +

+ +

+Betty agreed and handed the letter back. +

+ +

+"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw +herself heart and soul into the necessary arrangements. +

+ +

+She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself +help Ann to dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. +She wrote a letter to Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's +second son and one of Betty's most indefatigable +courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept that +letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity +in her plot. For Betty used to him the same argument +which had persuaded Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly +that suspicion had centred upon Ann Upcott and that it +was necessary that she should get away secretly. +

+ +

+"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. +"Ann will come late. She is to meet the friends who will +help her—it is best that you should know as little as +possible about them—in the little library. If you will keep +the corridor clear for a little while, they can get out by +the library doors into the park and be in Paris the next +morning." +

+ +

+She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann +and said, "I will send this by a messenger to-morrow +morning, with orders to deliver it into Michel's own +hands. Now how are you to go?" +

+ +

+Over that point the two girls had some discussion. +It would be inviting Hanaud's interference if the big +limousine were ordered out. What more likely than that +he should imagine Ann meant to run away and that +Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would +not do. +

+ +

+"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call +for you. You will be ready to slip out. She shall stop +her car for a second outside the gates. It will be quite +dark. You'll be away in a flash." +

+ +

+"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back. +

+ +

+It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite +and fastidious in her own looks and bearing, should have +found her friends amongst the flamboyant and the cheap. +But she would rather throne it amongst her inferiors +than take her place amongst her equals. Under her +reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. +The desire to be courted, admired, looked up to as a +leader and a chief, burned within her like a raging flame. +Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of satellites—a big, +red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without +good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society +of the town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but +distrusted her. She had a feeling that there was something +indefinably wrong in her very nature. +

+ +

+"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. +"That's why I named her. I know that she is going to +Madame Le Vay's dance." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to +Jeanne Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call +at the Maison Crenelle at an early hour in the morning; +and Jeanne Leclerc came and was closeted with Betty for +an hour between nine and ten. Thus all the arrangements +were made. +

+ +

+It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's +explanations. +

+ +

+"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young +brother to be accounted for." +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight +noise in the treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe +seated in the Sedan chair," Hanaud replied. "Betty +Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de Brebizart, +whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark +and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison +Crenelle.... From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa +went to the Rue Gambetta and waited for Jean Cladel. It +was a busy night, that one, my friends. That old wolf, +the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They +could hear him. They had no time to waste!" +

+ +

+The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim +remembered. It was because Betty was helping Ann to +dress, Francine having been given her holiday. Jim and +Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann Upcott +stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her +pretty dress. She held the front door a little open, and +the moment Jeanne Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, +she flashed across the courtyard. Jeanne had the door of +her car open. It had hardly stopped before it went on +again. Jim, as the story was told, remembered vividly +Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and the +immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed +and the car moved forward out of the street of +Charles-Robert. Ann Upcott had gone for good from the Maison +Crenelle. She would not interfere with Betty Harlowe +any more. +

+ +

+Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le +Vay's house a few minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay +came forward to meet them. +

+ +

+"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said +to Ann, "but you are late. Madame my mother has left +her place at the door of the ball-room, but we shall find +her later." +

+ +

+He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away +they were joined by Espinosa. +

+ +

+"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. +"No, not yet! Then Señor Espinosa will take you to +the buffet while I look after others of our guests." +

+ +

+He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter +of high voices competed with the music of the band. +Espinosa conducted the two ladies to the buffet. There +was hardly anybody in the room. +

+ +

+"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low +voice. "We shall take some coffee." +

+ +

+But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her +feet danced, her hands could not keep still. Was the +letter a trick? Would she, indeed, within the next few +minutes learn the truth? At one moment her heart sank +into her shoes, at another it soared. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa +urgently. "And it is good." +

+ +

+"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne +Leclerc. "You will send me home, won't you? I shall +not wait—afterwards." +

+ +

+"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is +arranged. The chauffeur has his orders. You will take +your coffee, dear?" +

+ +

+Again Ann would not +

+ +

+"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I +went." She caught a swift and curious interchange of +glances between Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa, but she +was in no mood to seek an interpretation. There could +be no doubt that the coffee set before her had had some +drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it from +the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug +which would have half stupefied her and made her easy +to manage. But she was not to be persuaded, and she rose +to her feet. +

+ +

+"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, +leaving her two companions together. She did not return +to the buffet. +

+ +

+On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor +stretched out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding +it, stood Michel Le Vay. He made a sign to her, and +when she joined him: +

+ +

+"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a +low voice. "The small library is in front of you." +

+ +

+Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the +house which was quite deserted and silent. At the end +of it a shut door confronted her. She opened it softly. +It was all dark within. But enough light entered from +the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged +against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some +dark, heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, +to come to the tryst. She closed the door behind her and +moved slowly and cautiously forwards with her hands +outstretched, until she felt the curtains yield. She passed +in between them into the recess of a great bow window +opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, creaking +sound, brought her heart into her mouth. +

+ +

+Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody +had been quietly watching as she came in from the +lighted corridor. The sound grew louder. Ann peered +between the curtains, holding them apart with shaking +hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague +twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near +to the door, high up on a tall bookcase, something was +clinging—something was climbing down. Whoever it +was, had been hiding behind the ornamental top of the +heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves +like the rungs of a ladder. +

+ +

+Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her +throat. She ran for the door. But she was too late. A +black figure dropped from the book-case to the ground +and, as Ann reached out her hands to the door, a scarf +was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was +jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched +the light switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, +the room was lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, +driving the breath out of her lungs, and knotted the scarf +tightly at the back of her head. Ann tried to lift herself, +and recognised with a gasp of amazement that the assailant +who pinned her down by the weight of her body and +the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic +gave place to anger and a burning humiliation. She +fought with all the strength of her supple body. But the +scarf about her mouth stifled and weakened her, and with +a growing dismay she understood that she was no match +for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two, +but her height did not avail her; she was like a child +matched with a wildcat. Francine's hands were made of +steel. She snatched Ann's arms behind her back and +bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards, her bosom +labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must +burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and +tied her by the ankles. +

+ +

+Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran +to the door, opened it a little way and beckoned. Then +she dragged her prisoner up on to a couch, and Jeanne +Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the room. +

+ +

+"It's done?" said Espinosa. +

+ +

+Francine laughed. +

+ +

+"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should +have given her the coffee. Then she would have walked +with us. Now she must be carried. She's wicked, I can +tell you." +

+ +

+Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face +to hide the gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held +her up, set her white cloak about her shoulders and +fastened it in front. Espinosa then turned out the light +and drew back the curtains. +

+ +

+The room was at the back of the house. In the front +of the window the park stretched away. But it was the +park of a French château, where the cattle feed up to the +windows, and only a strip about the front terrace is +devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns. Espinosa +looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, +and cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night +like ghosts. He opened the window, and the throb of +the music from the ball-room came faintly to their ears. +

+ +

+"We must be quick," said Espinosa. +

+ +

+He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out +into the park. They left the window open behind them, +and between them they carried their prisoner across the +grass, keeping where it was possible in the gloom of the +trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a motorcar +waited half-way between the house and the gates. A +blur of light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in +front of it became visible away upon their left, but here +all was dark. Once or twice they stopped and set Ann +upon her feet, and held her so, while they rested. +

+ +

+"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling +an oath, he stopped again. They were on the edge of the +drive now, and just ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a +white dress and close to it the glow of a cigarette. +Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her against +a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the +truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk +to Ann, nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively +story. Espinosa's heart stood still as he heard the man +say: +

+ +

+"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. +Shall we see?" +

+ +

+But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the +white dress caught him by the arm. +

+ +

+"That would not be very tactful," she said with a +laugh. "Let us do as we would be done by," and the +couple sauntered past. +

+ +

+Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! +Let us go!" he whispered in a shaking voice. +

+ +

+A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed +car hidden in a little alley which led from the main drive. +They placed Ann in the car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside +her, and Espinosa took the wheel. As they took the road +to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck eleven. Within +the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann +Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it +underneath her feet. At the branch road young Espinosa +was waiting with his motor-cycle and side-car. +

+ +

+"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," +said Hanaud when she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay +went later into the library, and bolted the window again, +believing you to be well upon your way to Paris. Second, +Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they returned +to Madame Le Vay's ball." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: What Happened
+on the Night of the 27th +

+ +

+"We are not yet quite at the end," said Hanaud, as +he sat with Frobisher for awhile upon the lawn +after Ann Upcott had gone in. "But we are near to it. +There is still my question to be answered. 'Why was the +communicating door open between the bedroom of +Madame Harlowe and the treasure-room on the night +when Ann Upcott came down the stairs in the dark?' When +we know that, we shall know why Francine Rollard +and Betty Harlowe between them murdered Madame +Harlowe." +

+ +

+"Then you believe Francine Rollard had a hand in +that crime too?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+"I am sure," returned Hanaud. "Do you remember +the experiment I made, the little scene of reconstruction? +Betty Harlowe stretched out upon the bed to represent +Madame, and Francine whispering 'That will do now'?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud lit a cigarette and smiled. +

+ +

+"Francine Rollard would not stand at the side of the +bed. No! She would stand at the foot and whisper +those simple but appalling words. But nowhere else. +That was significant, my friend. She would not stand +exactly where she had stood when the murder was +committed." He added softly, "I have great hopes of +Francine Rollard. A few days of a prison cell and that +untamed little tiger-cat will talk." +

+ +

+"And what of Waberski in all this?" Jim exclaimed. +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed and rose from his chair. +

+ +

+"Waberski? He is for nothing in all this. He brought +a charge in which he didn't believe, and the charge +happened to be true. That is all." He took a step or two +away and returned. "But I am wrong. That is not all. +Waberski is indeed for something in all this. For when +he was pressed to make good his charge and must rake +up some excuse for it somehow, by a piece of luck he +thinks of a morning when he saw Betty Harlowe in the +street of Gambetta near to the shop of Jean Cladel. And +so he leads us to the truth. Yes, we owe something to +that animal Boris Waberski. Did I not tell you, +Monsieur, that we are all the servants of Chance?" +

+ +

+Hanaud went from the garden and for three days Jim +Frobisher saw him no more. But the development which +Monsieur Bex feared and for which Hanaud hoped took +place, and on the third day Hanaud invited Jim to his +office in the Prefecture. +

+ +

+He had Jim's memorandum in his hand. +

+ +

+"Do you remember what you wrote?" he asked. +"See!" He pushed the memorandum in front of Jim +and pointed to a paragraph. +

+ +


+ +

+"But in the absence of any trace of poison in the dead +woman's body, it is difficult to see how the criminal can +be brought to justice except by: +

+ +

+"(a) A confession. +

+ +

+"(b) The commission of another crime of a similar +kind. +

+ +

+"Hanaud's theory—once a poisoner, always a poisoner." +

+ +


+ +

+Frobisher read it through. +

+ +

+"Now that is very true," said Hanaud. "Never have +I come across a case more difficult. At every step we +break down. I think I have my fingers on Jean Cladel. +I am five minutes too late. I think that I shall get some +useful evidence from a firm in Paris. The firm has +ceased to be for the last ten years. All the time I strike +at air. So I must take a risk—yes, and a serious one. +Shall I tell you what that risk was? I have to assume +that Mademoiselle Ann will be brought alive to the Hôtel +de Brebizart on that night of Madame Le Vay's ball. +That she would be brought back I had no doubt. For +one thing, there could be no safer resting-place for her +than under the stone flags of the kitchen there. For +another, there was the portmanteau in the side-car. It +was not light, the portmanteau. Some friends of mine +watched it being put into the side-car before young +Espinosa started for his rendezvous. I have no doubt it +weighed just as many kilos as Mademoiselle Ann." +

+ +

+"I never understood the reason of that portmanteau," +Frobisher interrupted. +

+ +

+"It was a matter of timing. There were twenty-five +kilometres of a bad track, with many sharp little twists +between the Val Terzon and the Hôtel de Brebizart. And +a motor-cycle with an empty side-car would take +appreciably longer to cover the distance than a cycle with +a side-car weighted, which could take the corners at its +top speed. They were anxious to get the exact time the +journey would take with Ann Upcott in the side-car, so +that there might be no needless hanging about waiting +for its arrival. But they were a little too careful. Our +friend Boris said a shrewd thing, didn't he? Some crimes +are discovered because the alibis are too unnaturally +perfect. Oh, there was no doubt they meant to bring back +Mademoiselle Ann! But suppose they brought her back +dead! It wasn't likely—no! It would be so much easier +to finish her off with a dose of the arrow-poison. No +struggle, no blood, no trouble at all. I reckoned that +they would dope her at Madame Le Vay's ball and bring +her back half conscious, as indeed they meant to do. But +I shivered all that evening at the risk I had taken, and +when that cycle shut off its engine, as we stood in the +darkness of the gallery, I was in despair." +

+ +

+He shook his shoulders uncomfortably as though the +danger was not yet passed. +

+ +

+"Anyway, I took the risk," he resumed, "and so we +got fulfilled your condition (b). The commission or, in +this case, the attempted commission of another crime of +the same kind." +

+ +

+Frobisher nodded. +

+ +

+"But now," said Hanaud, leaning forward, "we have +got your condition (a) fulfilled—a confession; a clear +and complete confession from Francine Rollard, and so +many admissions from the Espinosas, and Jeanne Leclerc +and Maurice Thevenet, that they amount to confessions. +We have put them all together, and here is the new part +of the case with which Monsieur Bex and you will have +to deal—the charge not of murder attempted but of +murder committed—the murder of Madame Harlowe." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was upon the point of interrupting, but +he thought better of it. +

+ +

+"Go on!" he contented himself with saying. +

+ +

+"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous +letters, Monsieur—who shall say? The dulness of life +for a girl young and beautiful and passionate in a +provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The craving +for excitement? Something bad and vicious and +abnormal born in her, part of her, and craving more and +more expression as she grew in years? The exacting +attendance upon Madame? Probably all of these elements +combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly it +became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in +Madame Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years +old from the firm of Chapperon, builders, of the Rue +de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the way, saw an +unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth +of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the +existence of the hidden passage between the treasure-room +and the Hôtel de Brebizart. For it was the bill +of the builders who had repaired it at the order of Simon +Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging to +Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de +Brebizart made the game easy and safe. But as the +opportunity grew, so did the desire. Betty Harlowe tasted +power. She took one or two people into her confidence—her +maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, +and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage—and once +started the circle grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of +Betty Harlowe, you understand! She, the little queen, +became the big slave. She must provide Thevenet with +his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his house, Jeanne +Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters +become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet +knows the police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne +Leclerc has a—friend, shall we say?—in the Director of +an Insurance Company, and, believe me, for a blackmailer +nothing is more important than to know accurately the +financial resources of one's—let us say, clients. Thus the +game went merrily on until money was wanted and it +couldn't be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. +There was no one for the moment to exploit. Yes, one +person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the justice to believe +that the suggestion came from that promising young +novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, +Monsieur Frobisher?" +

+ +

+Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, +led up to it though he had been by Hanaud's exposition. +

+ +

+"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, +and, as Jim Frobisher started back in a horror of +disbelief, he continued: "Yes, it is so! Madame Harlowe +received a letter at dinner-time, just as Ann Upcott did, +on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She took +her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That +letter was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who +remembers it very well. It demanded a large sum of money, +and something was said about a number of passionate +letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have +published—not too much, you understand, but enough to +make it clear that the liaison of Madame Raviart and +Simon Harlowe was not a secret from the Scourge. I'll +tell you something else which will astonish you, Monsieur +Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne +Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to +say good night and show herself in her new dance frock +of silver tissue and her silver slippers. It was no wonder +that Betty Harlowe lost her head a little when I set my +little trap for her in the library and pretended that I did +not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin +after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't +one idea what a very unpleasant little trap it was!" +

+ +

+"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If +Madame Harlowe showed this letter first of all to Jeanne +Baudin, and afterwards to Betty Harlowe in Jeanne +Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin speak of it +at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski +brought his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept +silent!" +

+ +

+"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne +Baudin is a good and decent girl. For her, Madame +Harlowe had died a natural death in her sleep, the very form +in which death might be expected to come for her. +Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's +accusation. Why should she rake up old scandals? She +herself proposed to Betty Harlowe to say nothing about +the anonymous letter." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted +it. "Yes, I see her point of view," he admitted, and +Hanaud continued his narrative. +

+ +

+"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the +Boulevard Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. +Jeanne Baudin has finished her offices for the night. +Madame Harlowe is alone. What does she do? Drink? +For that night—no! She sits and thinks. Were there +any of the letters which passed between her and Simon +Harlowe, before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still +existing? She had thought to have destroyed them all. +But she was a woman, she might have clutched some +back. If there were any, where would they be? Why +in that house at the end of the secret passage. Some +such thoughts must have passed through her mind. For +she rose from her bed, slipped on her dressing-gown and +shoes, unlocked the communicating door between her and +the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the +empty Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, +Monsieur? A room in daily use, a bundle of her letters +ready in the top drawer of her Empire writing-table, and +on the writing-table Simon's Corona machine, and the +paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. Monsieur, +there is only one person who can have access to that +room, the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her +exacting way she no doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock +that night Francine Rollard is startled by the entrance of +Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a moment +Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She +was very quickly better informed. She was told to get +up, to watch for Betty Harlowe's return and to bring her +immediately to Madame Harlowe's bedroom. At one +o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark hall. As +Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives +her the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet +how much of their villainies has been discovered. But +something at all events. Betty Harlowe bade Francine +wait and ran upstairs silently to her room. Betty +Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been +playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had +the arrow-poison ready—yes, ready for herself. She +filled her hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in +the palm of her glove she went to confront her +benefactress. +

+ +

+"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman +whose romance and tragedy were to be exploited blurting +out her fury in front of Francine Rollard. It wasn't +Waberski who was to be stripped to the skin—no, but +the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver slippers. +You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under +the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison +to destroy herself when she can save everything—fortune, +liberty, position—by murder? Only she must be +quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts of violence. +Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne Baudin, +some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a +moment the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is +flung back upon her bed. Her mouth is covered and held +by Francine Rollard. The needle does its work. 'That +will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the door +of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, +unable to identify the voice which whispered, just +as you and I were unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice +which whispered to us from the window of Jean Cladel's +house, but taking deep into her memory the terrible +words. And neither of the murderesses knew it. +

+ +

+"They go calmly about their search for the letters. +They cannot find them, because Madame had pushed them +into the coffer of old bills and papers. They rearrange +the bed, they compose their victim in it as if she were +asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget +to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the +Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the +arrow-poison and the needle to put in some safe place, +and where else is safe? In the end when every care has +been taken that not a scrap of incriminating evidence is +left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps +up the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and +Ann Upcott waking, stretches up her hands and touches +her face. +

+ +

+"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is +what you would call the case for the Crown. It is the +case which you and Monsieur Bex have to meet." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things +which he had almost said at the beginning of this +interview. +

+ +

+"I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told +me. I shall give him every assistance that I personally or +my firm can give. But I have no longer any formal +connection with the defence." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity. +

+ +

+"I don't understand, Monsieur. This is not the +moment to renounce a client." +

+ +

+"Nor do I," rejoined Frobisher. "It is the other way +about. Monsieur Bex put it to me very—how shall I +say?" +

+ +

+Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his +lips. +

+ +

+"Very correctly." +

+ +

+"He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see +me again." +

+ +

+Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation +evident in Frobisher's voice and face moved him. He +said very gently, "I can understand that, can't you? She +has fought for a great stake all this last week, her liberty, +her fortune, her good name—and you. Oh, yes," he +continued, as Jim stirred at the table. "Let us be frank! +And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from +her friends. From the earliest moment she set her +passions upon you. Do you remember the first morning I +came to the Maison Crenelle? You promised Ann Upcott +to put up there though you had just refused the same +invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy +blazed in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a +clatter in the hall lest she should recognise that I could not +but have discovered her secret. Well, having fought for +this stake and lost, she would not wish to see you. You +had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by the legs +like a sheep. I understand her very well." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment +Hanaud burst into the room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, +Betty had never once even looked at him. He got up +from his chair and took up his hat and stick. +

+ +

+"I must go back to my partner in London with this +story as soon as I have told it to Monsieur Bex," he +said. "I should like it complete. When did you first +suspect Betty Harlowe?" +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don't thank me! I am +not so sure that I should be so ready with all these +confidences, if I was not certain what the verdict in the Assize +Court must be. I shall gather up for you the threads +which are still loose, but not here." +

+ +

+He looked at his watch. +

+ +

+"See, it is past noon! We shall once more have +Philippe Le Bon's Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may +be, too, that we shall see Mont Blanc across all the +leagues of France. Come! Let us take your +memorandum and go there." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Façade of Notre Dame +

+ +

+For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day +without mist or clouds, and the towering silver ridge +hung in the blue sky distinct and magical. Hanaud lit +one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly turned away +from it. +

+ +

+"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One +at the very beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very +end by me, and of the two mine was the least excusable. +Let us begin, therefore, at the beginning. Madame +Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; Betty +Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks +her for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should +she not? Ah, but she must have been very sorry a week +later that she snapped her the fingers! For suddenly he +flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was poisoned by her +niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when she +heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! +But it is also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing +can touch her. Now suddenly her head is loose upon her +neck. She is frightened. She is questioned in the +examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has nothing +against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip. +But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she +has done the murder. Her danger is not any evidence +which Waberski can bring, but just herself. In two days +she is still more frightened, for she hears that Hanaud is +called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake. She +sends a telegram to you in London." +

+ +

+"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly. +

+ +

+"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does +Betty Harlowe know that Hanaud has been called in?' +Oh, to be sure, I made a great fluster in my office about +the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon. But I did not +believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious about +Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, +we come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown +me that telegram." +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he +added slowly, "that she put out her hand on the window +sill—yes, as if to steady herself." +

+ +

+"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with +a nod of appreciation. "She must account for that +telegram. She cannot tell me that Maurice Thevenet sent a +hurried word to her. No! So when I ask her if she +has ever received one of these anonymous letters—which, +remember, were my real business in Dijon—she says at +once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which +told me that Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris +to make an end of me.' That was quick, eh? Yes, but I +know it is a lie. For it was not until the Sunday evening +that any question of my being sent for arose at all. You +see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked +her for the letter. She does not say that she has +destroyed it, lest I should at once believe that she never +received any such letter at all. On the contrary she says +that it is in the treasure-room which is sealed up, knowing +quite well that she can write it and place it there by way +of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed. +But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must +have received it on the Sunday morning, since it was +on the Sunday morning that the seals were affixed. She +did not know when it was first proposed to call me in. +She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is +lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty +Harlowe." +

+ +

+He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him +with a look of horror in his eyes. +

+ +

+"It was I then who put you on her track?—I who +came out to defend her!" he cried. "For it was I who +showed you the telegram." +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered +if Betty Harlowe had been, as you believed her, innocent," +Hanaud replied gravely; and Frobisher was silent. +

+ +

+"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, +I went over the house whilst you and Betty talked +together in the library!" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found +something which interested me at the first glance. Now +tell me what it was!" and he cocked his head at Jim with +the hope that his riddle would divert him from his +self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded. +

+ +

+"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost +of a smile. "It was the treatise on Sporanthus." +

+ +

+"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves +no trace! Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. +Who would be the first poisoner to use it? How should I +cope with him and prove that it brought no more security +than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are questions which +have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a +house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, +I find a dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away +under a pile of magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. +I tell you I was staggered. What was it doing there? +How did it come there? I see a note upon the cover, +indicating a page. I turn to the page and there, staring at +me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect specimen +of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are +at once forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, +without knowing it, were right, and Madame Harlowe was +murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I must find that out. +I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my waistcoat and +I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. Is +Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus +Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from +Madame Harlowe's death? Or did she perhaps not know +at all that the treatise was under that pile of magazines +upon the table at the side? I do not know, and my head +is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked look of +Betty Harlowe at her friend—Monsieur, a revealing look! +I have not the demure and simple young lady of convention +to deal with at all. No. I go away from the Maison +Crenelle, still more curious about Betty Harlowe." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side. +

+ +

+"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously. +

+ +

+"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder. +

+ +

+"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately +after you left the Maison Crenelle that day you had the +sergent-de-ville removed from its gates?" +

+ +

+"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered +imperturbably. "The sergent-de-ville in his white trousers +was an absurdity—worse than that, an actual hindrance. +There is little use in watching people who know that they +are being watched. So I remove the sergent-de-ville and +now I can begin really to watch those young ladies of +the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst +Monsieur Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, +Betty Harlowe goes out for a walk, is discreetly followed +by Nicolas Moreau—and vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. +He must not press too close upon her heels. She +was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de +Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the +wall which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that +she vanished. There was the anonymous letter to be +written, ready for me to receive when the seals of the +treasure-room were broken. But I don't know that yet. +No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for +a walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another +street. Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far +as I can how these young ladies pass their lives and who +are their friends. An examination not very productive, +and not altogether futile. For I find some curious friends +in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe this, Monsieur! +Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, literary, +what you will—in their case curious friends mean +nothing! They are to be expected. But with a young girl +who is to all appearance leading the normal life of her +class, the case is different. In her case curious friends +are—curious. The Espinosas, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne +Leclerc—flashy cheap people of that type—how shall we +account for them as friends of that delicate piece of china, +Betty Harlowe?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a +trifle disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa +and Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent +so pleasantly in the cool of the garden with the young +ladies, I spent with the Edinburgh Professor. And I +prepared a little trap. Yes, and the next morning I came +early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little trap. I +replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its +obvious place." +

+ +

+Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black +cigarette from his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to +Jim. +

+ +

+"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; +and he tells me that queer story about Betty Harlowe in +the street of Gambetta close to the shop of Jean Cladel. +He may be lying. He may be speaking the truth and +what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits +in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which +is now taking hold of me. For if that poison was used, +then some one who understood the composition of drugs +must have made the solution from the paste upon the +arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe! +And the moment that animal has left me, I spring +my trap; and I have a success beyond all my expectations. +I point to the treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was +not in its place yesterday. It is to-day. Who then +replaced it? I ask that question and Mademoiselle Ann is +utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that book. +That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On +the other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has +replaced that book; and in a most unwise moment of +sarcasm, she allows me to see that she knows. She knows +that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it since and +replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she +knows where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I +know it in my heart that she put it under those magazines +in Ann Upcott's room, although I do not yet know +it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to divert +suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should +suspicion arise. But innocent people do not do that, +Monsieur. +

+ +

+"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann +tells us her story. Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you +immediately afterwards that all great criminals who are +women are great actresses. But never in my life have I +seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while +that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel +murder has been secretly committed and suddenly the +murderess has to listen to a true account of that murder +in the presence of the detective who is there to fix the +guilt! There was some one at hand all the time—almost +an eye-witness—perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she +cannot know that she is safe until the last word of the +story is told. Picture to yourself Betty Harlowe's +feelings during that hour in the pleasant garden, if you can! +The questions which must have been racing through her +mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and +peer through the lighted doorway? Does she know the +truth—and has she kept it hidden until this moment when +Hanaud and Frobisher are present and she can speak it +safely? Will her next words be 'And here at my side sits +the murderess'? Those must have been terrible moments +for Betty Harlowe!" +

+ +

+"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher +added. +

+ +

+"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She +ran suddenly and very swiftly into the house." +

+ +

+"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her." +

+ +

+"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go +and she returned——" +

+ +

+"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher +interrupted. +

+ +

+"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud +exclaimed. "She turned her chair towards Mademoiselle +Ann. She sat with her handkerchief in her hand and her +face against her handkerchief, listening—the tender, +sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann told us +that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness +overtook her—could not but overtake her. And in that +moment of weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, +she picked it up again at once. Yes, but where the +handkerchief had fallen her foot now rested, and when the +story was all ended, and we got up from our chairs, she +spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that +there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was +anxious to discover what it was that she had brought out +from the house in her handkerchief, and had dropped with +her handkerchief and had driven with all the weight of +her body into the turf so that no one might see it. In +fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come +back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She +fetched my gloves herself, much to my shame that I, +Hanaud, should be waited on by so exquisite a young lady. +However, I found it afterwards when you and Girardot +and the others were all waiting for me in the library. It +was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed +to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much +Ann Upcott was going to reveal. The arrow-poison had +been hidden away in the Hôtel de Brebizart. But she had +something else at hand—more rapid—death like a thunderbolt. +So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, Monsieur, +it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close +to her mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. +What I do wonder is that she did not topple straight off +her chair in a dead faint before us all. But no! She sat +ready to swallow that tablet at once if there were need, +before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to you, +people who are innocent do not do that." +

+ +

+Jim had no argument wherewith to answer. +

+ +

+"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got +the tablets no doubt from Jean Cladel." +

+ +

+"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated +for luncheon and in the afternoon the seals are to +be removed. Before that takes place, certain things must +be done. The clock must be moved from the mantelshelf +in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some +letters too must be burnt." +

+ +

+"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly. +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. +

+ +

+"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For +my part I think those old letters between Simon Harlowe +and Madame Raviart alluded too often to the secret passage. +But here I am guessing. What I learnt for certain +during that luncheon hour is that there is a secret passage +and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel de +Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no +mistake. He follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I +from this tower see the smoke rising from the chimney. +Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no smoke rises from it +to-day." +

+ +

+He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont +Blanc. The trees in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned +roof, and the chimneys of the Maison Crenelle stood out +above the lesser buildings which surrounded them. Only +from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise to-day, and +that one at the extreme end of the building where the +kitchens were. +

+ +

+"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are +removed. We are in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and +something I cannot explain occurs." +

+ +

+"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher +exclaimed confidently; and Hanaud grinned joyfully. +

+ +

+"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" +he cried. "The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared +for that. The guilt is being transferred to Mademoiselle +Ann. Good! But it is not enough to hide the book +about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide her +also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle +inherits nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a +hundred thousand pounds vanishes, and you must draw from +its vanishing what conclusion you will. No, the little +matter I cannot explain is different. Betty Harlowe and +our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom +to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not +be heard there." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Our good Girardot comes back." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot +explain. Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before +I go into the treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and +quietly she has slipped in amongst us again. I am very +curious about that, my friend, and I keep my eyes open +for an explanation, I assure you." +

+ +

+"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with +your hand upon the door and asked for Mademoiselle +Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. I attached no +importance to her absence." +

+ +

+Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was +in the artist's mood. The work was over, the long strain +and pain of it. Now let those outside admire! +

+ +

+"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, +Monsieur Frobisher. But I answer a question in your +memorandum. The instant I am in the room, I look for +the mouth of that secret passage from the Hôtel de +Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. The +elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the +wall. So I am very careful not to pry amongst its +cushions for the poison arrow; just as I am very careful +not to ask for the envelope with the post mark in which +the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe thinks +that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud—good! +Let her think so. So we go upstairs and I find the +explanation of that little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence +which has been so troubling me." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stared at him. +

+ +

+"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into +Ann Upcott's sitting-room. I write my memorandum +with the shaft of the poison arrow and you notice it +Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's absence! No, I +haven't got that." +

+ +

+"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was +not there in the pen-tray on the day before, when I found +the book. There was just one pen—the foolish thing +young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed red—and +nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there +since. When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where +was that shaft of the poison-arrow before? In one of +two places. Either in the treasure-room or in the Hôtel +de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has fetched it away during +that hour of freedom; she carries it in her dress; she seizes +her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's +bedroom and—pau, pau!—there it is in the pen-tray of +Mademoiselle Ann, to make suspicion still more +convincing! Monsieur, I walk away with Monsieur Bex, who +has some admirable scheme that I should search the +gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree—oh yes, +that is the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On +the other hand I get some useful information about the +Maison Crenelle and the Hôtel de Brebizart. I carry +that information to a very erudite gentleman in the Palace +of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I +know all about the severe Etienne de Crenelle and the +joyous Madame de Brebizart. So when you and Betty +Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val Terzon, Nicolas +Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de +Brebizart—with the results which now are clear to you, and one of +which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in +the drawer of the writing-table." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the +story was clear to him now—a story of dark passions and +vanity, and greed of power with cruelties for its methods. +Was there no spark of hope and cheer in all this desolation? +He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He wished to +know the last hidden detail. +

+ +

+"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. +What was it?" +

+ +

+"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the +façade of the Church of Notre Dame." +

+ +

+"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking +towards the Maison Crenelle, and his arm swept to +the left of the house. His fingers pointed at the +Renaissance church with its cupolas and its loggia, to which +Betty Harlowe had driven him. +

+ +

+"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief +of the Last Judgment." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church +of St. Michel, Monsieur." +

+ +

+He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont +Blanc, close at his feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic +church, delicate in its structure like a jewel. +

+ +

+"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down +and look at the façade." +

+ +

+Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and +pointed to the frieze. There Frobisher saw such images +of devils half beast, half human, such grinning hog-men, +such tortured creatures with heads twisted round so that +they looked backwards, such old and drunken and vicious +horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and +amongst them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, +her hands tightly clasped, an image of terror and faith, +a prisoner amongst all these monsters imploring the +passers-by for their pity and their help. +

+ +

+"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to +see," said Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it." +

+ +

+His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. +He lifted his hat. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that +frieze, heard Ann Upcott's voice behind him. +

+ +

+"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur +Hanaud?" She stopped beside the two men. +

+ +

+"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher +to explain to you." +

+ +

+Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly +towards Hanaud. But already he was gone. +

+ +



+ +

+THE END +

+ +





+ +
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67514 ***
+ + + diff --git a/old/67514-0.txt b/old/67514-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..541c178 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/67514-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12355 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Arrow, by A. E. W. +Mason + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The House of the Arrow + +Author: A. E. W. Mason + +Release Date: February 26, 2022 [eBook #67514] +[Last Updated: October 19, 2022] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Al Haines + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW *** + + + + + + + + _The + House of the Arrow_ + + _By_ + + A. E. W. MASON + + + _New York + George H. Doran Company_ + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1924, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + Books by A. E. W. MASON + + THE WINDING STAIR + THE FOUR FEATHERS + THE SUMMONS + THE BROKEN ROAD + MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY + CLEMENTINA + THE TURNSTILE + THE TRUANTS + AT THE VILLA ROSE + RUNNING WATER + THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER + THE PHILANDERERS + LAWRENCE CLAVERING + THE WATCHERS + A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE + ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES + FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER + + ONE: _Letters of Mark_ + TWO: _A Cry for Help_ + THREE: _Servants of Chance_ + FOUR: _Betty Harlowe_ + FIVE: _Betty Harlowe Answers_ + SIX: _Jim Changes His Lodging_ + SEVEN: _Exit Waberski_ + EIGHT: _The Book_ + NINE: _The Secret_ + TEN: _The Clock upon the Cabinet_ + ELEVEN: _A New Suspect_ + TWELVE: _The Breaking of the Seals_ + THIRTEEN: _Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room_ + FOURTEEN: _An Experiment and a Discovery_ + FIFTEEN: _The Finding of the Arrow_ + SIXTEEN: _Hanaud Laughs_ + SEVENTEEN: _At Jean Cladel's_ + EIGHTEEN: _The White Tablet_ + NINETEEN: _A Plan Frustrated_ + TWENTY: _A Map and the Necklace_ + TWENTY-ONE: _The Secret House_ + TWENTY-TWO: _The Corona Machine_ + TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet_ + TWENTY-FOUR: _Ann Upcott's Story_ + TWENTY-FIVE: _What Happened on the Night of the 27th_ + TWENTY-SIX: _The Façade of Notre Dame_ + + + + +THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW + + + + +CHAPTER ONE: _Letters of Mark_ + +Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt, the solicitors on the east side of +Russell Square, counted amongst their clients a great many who had +undertakings established in France; and the firm was very proud of +this branch of its business. + +"It gives us a place in history," Mr. Jeremy Haslitt used to say. +"For it dates from the year 1806, when Mr. James Frobisher, then our +very energetic senior partner, organised the escape of hundreds of +British subjects who were detained in France by the edict of the +first Napoleon. The firm received the thanks of His Majesty's +Government and has been fortunate enough to retain the connection +thus made. I look after that side of our affairs myself." + +Mr. Haslitt's daily batch of letters, therefore, contained as a rule +a fair number bearing the dark-blue stamp of France upon their +envelopes. On this morning of early April, however, there was only +one. It was addressed in a spidery, uncontrolled hand with which Mr. +Haslitt was unfamiliar. But it bore the postmark of Dijon, and Mr. +Haslitt tore it open rather quickly. He had a client in Dijon, a +widow, Mrs. Harlowe, of whose health he had had bad reports. The +letter was certainly written from her house, La Maison Crenelle, but +not by her. He turned to the signature. + +"Waberski?" he said, with a frown. "Boris Waberski?" And then, as +he identified his correspondent, "Oh, yes, yes." + +He sat down in his chair and read. The first part of the letter was +merely flowers and compliments, but half-way down the second page its +object was made clear as glass. It was five hundred pounds. Old Mr. +Haslitt smiled and read on, keeping up, whilst he read, a one-sided +conversation with the writer. + +"I have a great necessity of that money," wrote Boris, "and----" + +"I am quite sure of that," said Mr. Haslitt. + +"My beloved sister, Jeanne-Marie----" the letter continued. + +"Sister-in-law," Mr. Haslitt corrected. + +"--cannot live for long, in spite of all the care and attention I +give to her," Boris Waberski went on. "She has left me, as no doubt +you know, a large share of her fortune. Already, then, it is +mine--yes? One may say so and be favourably understood. We must +look at the facts with the eyes. Expedite me, then, by the +recommended post a little of what is mine and agree my distinguished +salutations." + +Haslitt's smile became a broad grin. He had in one of his tin boxes +a copy of the will of Jeanne-Marie Harlowe drawn up in due form by +her French notary at Dijon, by which every farthing she possessed was +bequeathed without condition to her husband's niece and adopted +daughter, Betty Harlowe. Jeremy Haslitt almost destroyed that +letter. He folded it; his fingers twitched at it; there was already +actually a tear at the edges of the sheets when he changed his mind. + +"No," he said to himself. "No! With the Boris Waberskis one never +knows," and he locked the letter away on a ledge of his private safe. + +He was very glad that he had when three weeks later he read, in the +obituary column of _The Times_, the announcement of Mrs. Harlowe's +death, and received a big card with a very deep black border in the +French style from Betty Harlowe inviting him to the funeral at Dijon. +The invitation was merely formal. He could hardly have reached Dijon +in time for the ceremony had he started off that instant. He +contented himself with writing a few lines of sincere condolence to +the girl, and a letter to the French notary in which he placed the +services of the firm at Betty's disposal. Then he waited. + +"I shall hear again from little Boris," he said, and he heard within +the week. The handwriting was more spidery and uncontrolled than +ever; hysteria and indignation had played havoc with Waberski's +English; also he had doubled his demand. + +"It is outside belief," he wrote. "Nothing has she left to her so +attentive brother. There is something here I do not much like. It +must be one thousand pounds now, by the recommended post. 'You have +always had the world against you, my poor Boris,' she say with the +tears all big in her dear eyes. 'But I make all right for you in my +will.' And now nothing! I speak, of course, to my niece--ah, that +hard one! She snap her the fingers at me! Is that a behaviour? One +thousand pounds, mister! Otherwise there will be awkwardnesses! +Yes! People do not snap them the fingers at Boris Waberski without +the payment. So one thousand pounds by the recommended post or +awkwardnesses"; and this time Boris Waberski did not invite Mr. +Haslitt to agree any salutations, distinguished or otherwise, but +simply signed his name with a straggling pen which shot all over the +sheet. + +Mr. Haslitt did not smile over this letter. He rubbed the palms of +his hands softly together. + +"Then we shall have to make some awkwardnesses too," he said hastily, +and he locked this second letter away with the first. But Mr. +Haslitt found it a little difficult to settle to his work. There was +that girl out there in the big house at Dijon and no one of her race +near her! He got up from his chair abruptly and crossed the corridor +to the offices of his junior partner. + +"Jim, you were at Monte Carlo this winter," he said. + +"For a week," answered Jim Frobisher. + +"I think I asked you to call on a client of ours who has a villa +there--Mrs. Harlowe." + +Jim Frobisher nodded. "I did. But Mrs. Harlowe was ill. There was +a niece, but she was out." + +"You saw no one, then?" Jeremy Haslitt asked. + +"No, that's wrong," Jim corrected. "I saw a strange creature who +came to the door to make Mrs. Harlowe's excuses--a Russian." + +"Boris Waberski," said Mr. Haslitt. + +"That's the name." + +Mr. Haslitt sat down in a chair. + +"Tell me about him, Jim." + +Jim Frobisher stared at nothing for a few moments. He was a young +man of twenty-six who had only during this last year succeeded to his +partnership. Though quick enough when action was imperative, he was +naturally deliberate in his estimates of other people's characters; +and a certain awe he had of old Jeremy Haslitt doubled that natural +deliberation in any matters of the firm's business. He answered at +length. + +"He is a tall, shambling fellow with a shock of grey hair standing up +like wires above a narrow forehead and a pair of wild eyes. He made +me think of a marionette whose limbs have not been properly strung. +I should imagine that he was rather extravagant and emotional. He +kept twitching at his moustache with very long, tobacco-stained +fingers. The sort of man who might go off at the deep end at any +moment." + +Mr. Haslitt smiled. + +"That's just what I thought." + +"Is he giving you any trouble?" asked Jim. + +"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt. "But Mrs. Harlowe is dead, and I think +it very likely that he will. Did he play at the tables?" + +"Yes, rather high," said Jim. "I suppose that he lived on Mrs. +Harlowe." + +"I suppose so," said Mr. Haslitt, and he sat for a little while in +silence. Then: "It's a pity you didn't see Betty Harlowe. I stopped +at Dijon once on my way to the South of France five years ago when +Simon Harlowe, the husband, was alive. Betty was then a long-legged +slip of a girl in black silk stockings with a pale, clear face and +dark hair and big eyes--rather beautiful." Mr. Haslitt moved in his +chair uncomfortably. That old house with its great garden of +chestnuts and sycamores and that girl alone in it with an aggrieved +and half-crazed man thinking out awkwardnesses for her--Mr. Haslitt +did not like the picture! + +"Jim," he said suddenly, "could you arrange your work so that you +could get away at short notice, if it becomes advisable?" + +Jim looked up in surprise. Excursions and alarms, as the old stage +directions have it, were not recognised as a rule by the firm of +Frobisher & Haslitt. If its furniture was dingy, its methods were +stately; clients might be urgent, but haste and hurry were words for +which the firm had no use No doubt, somewhere round the corner, there +would be an attorney who understood them. Yet here was Mr. Haslitt +himself, with his white hair and his curious round face, +half-babyish, half-supremely intelligent, actually advocating that +his junior partner should be prepared to skip to the Continent at a +word. + +"No doubt I could," said Jim, and Mr. Haslitt looked him over with +approbation. + +Jim Frobisher had an unusual quality of which his acquaintances, even +his friends, knew only the outward signs. He was a solitary person. +Very few people up till now had mattered to him at all, and even +those he could do without. It was his passion to feel that his life +and the means of his life did not depend upon the purchased skill of +other people; and he had spent the spare months of his life in the +fulfilment of his passion. A half-decked sailing-boat which one man +could handle, an ice-axe, a rifle, an inexhaustible volume or two +like _The Ring and the Book_--these with the stars and his own +thoughts had been his companions on many lonely expeditions; and in +consequence he had acquired a queer little look of aloofness which +made him at once noticeable amongst his fellows. A misleading look, +since it encouraged a confidence for which there might not be +sufficient justification. It was just this look which persuaded Mr. +Haslitt now. "This is the very man to deal with creatures like Boris +Waberski," he thought, but he did not say so aloud. + +What he did say was: + +"It may not be necessary after all. Betty Harlowe has a French +lawyer. No doubt he is adequate. Besides"--and he smiled as he +recollected a phrase in Waberski's second letter--"Betty seems very +capable of looking after herself. We shall see." + +He went back to his own office, and for a week he heard no more from +Dijon. His anxiety, indeed, was almost forgotten when suddenly +startling news arrived and by the most unexpected channel. + +Jim Frobisher brought it. He broke into Mr. Haslitt's office at the +sacred moment when the senior partner was dictating to a clerk the +answers to his morning letters. + +"Sir!" cried Jim, and stopped short at the sight of the clerk. Mr. +Haslitt took a quick look at his young partner's face and said: + +"We will resume these answers, Godfrey, later on." + +The clerk took his shorthand notebook out of the room, and Mr. +Haslitt turned to Jim Frobisher. + +"Now, what's your bad news, Jim?" + +Jim blurted it out. + +"Waberski accuses Betty Harlowe of murder." + +"What!" + +Mr. Haslitt sprang to his feet. Jim Frobisher could not have said +whether incredulity or anger had the upper hand with the old man, the +one so creased his forehead, the other so blazed in his eyes. + +"Little Betty Harlowe!" he said in a wondering voice. + +"Yes. Waberski has laid a formal charge with the Prefect of Police +at Dijon. He accuses Betty of poisoning Mrs. Harlowe on the night of +April the twenty-seventh." + +"But Betty's not arrested?" Mr. Haslitt exclaimed. + +"No, but she's under surveillance." + +Mr. Haslitt sat heavily down in his arm-chair at his table. +Extravagant! Uncontrolled! These were very mild epithets for Boris +Waberski. Here was a devilish malignity at work in the rogue, a +passion for revenge just as mean as could be imagined. + +"How do you know all this, Jim?" he asked suddenly. + +"I have had a letter this morning from Dijon." + +"You?" exclaimed Mr. Haslitt, and the question caught hold of Jim +Frobisher and plunged him too among perplexities. In the first shock +of the news, the monstrous fact of the accusation had driven +everything else out of his head. Now he asked himself why, after +all, had the news come to him and not to the partner who had the +Harlowe estate in his charge. + +"Yes, it is strange," he replied. "And here's another queer thing. +The letter doesn't come from Betty Harlowe, but from a friend, a +companion of hers, Ann Upcott." + +Mr. Haslitt was a little relieved. + +"Betty had a friend with her, then? That's a good thing." He +reached out his hand across the table. "Let me read the letter, Jim." + +Frobisher had been carrying it in his hand, and he gave it now to +Jeremy Haslitt. It was a letter of many sheets, and Jeremy let the +edges slip and flicker under the ball of his thumb. + +"Have I got to read all this?" he said ruefully, and he set himself +to his task. Boris Waberski had first of all accused Betty to her +face. Betty had contemptuously refused to answer the charge, and +Waberski had gone straight off to the Prefect of Police. He had +returned in an hour's time, wildly gesticulating and talking aloud to +himself. He had actually asked Ann Upcott to back him up. Then he +had packed his bags and retired to an hotel in the town. The story +was set out in detail, with quotations from Waberski's violent, crazy +talk; and as the old man read, Jim Frobisher became more and more +uneasy, more and more troubled. + +He was sitting by the tall, broad window which looked out upon the +square, expecting some explosion of wrath and contempt. But he saw +anxiety peep out of Mr. Haslitt's face and stay there as he read. +More than once he stopped altogether in his reading, like a man +seeking to remember or perhaps to discover. + +"But the whole thing's as clear as daylight," Jim said to himself +impatiently. And yet--and yet--Mr. Haslitt had sat in that arm-chair +during the better part of the day, during the better part of thirty +years. How many men and women during those years had crossed the +roadway below this window and crept into this quiet oblong room with +their grievances, their calamities, their confessions? And had +passed out again, each one contributing his little to complete the +old man's knowledge and sharpen the edge of his wit? Then, if Mr. +Haslitt was troubled, there was something in that letter, or some +mission from it, which he himself in his novitiate had overlooked. +He began to read it over again in his mind to the best of his +recollection, but he had not got far before Mr. Haslitt put the +letter down. + +"Surely, sir," cried Jim, "it's an obvious case of blackmail." + +Mr. Haslitt awoke with a little shake of his shoulders. + +"Blackmail? Oh! that of course, Jim." + +Mr. Haslitt got up and unlocked his safe. He took from it the two +Waberski letters and brought them across the room to Jim. + +"Here's the evidence, as damning as any one could wish." + +Jim read the letters through and uttered a little cry of delight. + +"The rogue has delivered himself over to us." + +"Yes," said Mr. Haslitt. + +But to him, at all events, that was not enough; he was still looking +through the lines of the letter for something beyond, which he could +not find. + +"Then what's troubling you?" asked Frobisher. + +Mr. Haslitt took his stand upon the worn hearthrug with his back +towards the fire. + +"This, Jim," and he began to expound. "In ninety-five of these cases +out of a hundred, there is something else, something behind the +actual charge, which isn't mentioned, but on which the blackmailer is +really banking. As a rule it's some shameful little secret, some +blot on the family honour, which any sort of public trial would bring +to light. And there must be something of that kind here. The more +preposterous Waberski's accusation is, the more certain it is that he +knows something to the discredit of the Harlowe name, which any +Harlowe would wish to keep dark. Only, I haven't an idea what the +wretched thing can be!" + +"It might be some trifle," Jim suggested, "which a crazy person like +Waberski would exaggerate." + +"Yes," Mr. Haslitt agreed. "That happens. A man brooding over +imagined wrongs, and flighty and extravagant besides--yes, that might +well be, Jim." + +Jeremy Haslitt spoke in a more cheerful voice. + +"Let us see exactly what we do know of the family," he said, and he +pulled up a chair to face Jim Frobisher and the window. But he had +not yet sat down in it, when there came a discreet knock upon the +door, and a clerk entered to announce a visitor. + +"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt before the name of the visitor had been +mentioned. + +"Very good, sir," said the clerk, and he retired. The firm of +Frobisher & Haslitt conducted its business in that way. It was the +real thing as a firm of solicitors, and clients who didn't like its +methods were very welcome to take their affairs to the attorney round +the corner. Just as people who go to the real thing in the line of +tailors must put up with the particular style in which he cuts their +clothes. + +Mr. Haslitt turned back to Jim. + +"Let us see what we know," he said, and he sat down in the chair. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO: _A Cry for Help_ + +"Simon Harlow," he began, "was the owner of the famous Clos du Prince +vineyards on the Côte-d'Or to the east of Dijon. He had an estate in +Norfolk, this big house, the Maison Crenelle in Dijon, and a villa at +Monte Carlo. But he spent most of his time in Dijon, where at the +age of forty-five he married a French lady, Jeanne-Marie Raviart. +There was, I believe, quite a little romance about the affair. +Jeanne-Marie was married and separated from her husband, and Simon +Harlowe waited, I think, for ten years until the husband Raviart +died." + +Jim Frobisher moved quickly and Mr. Haslitt, who seemed to be reading +off this history in the pattern of the carpet, looked up. + +"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, replying to Jim's movement. +"Yes, there might have been some sort of affair between those two +before they were free to marry. But nowadays, my dear Jim! Opinion +takes a more human view than it did in my youth. Besides, don't you +see, this little secret, to be of any value to Boris Waberski, must +be near enough to Betty Harlowe--I don't say to affect her if +published, but to make Waberski think that she would hate to have it +published. Now Betty Harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all +until two years after Simon and Jeanne-Marie were married, when it +became clear that they were not likely to have any children. No, the +love-affairs of Simon Harlowe are sufficiently remote for us to leave +them aside." + +Jim Frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with a flush of +shame. + +"I was a fool to think of it," he said. + +"Not a bit," replied Mr. Haslitt cheerfully. "Let us look at every +possibility. That's the only way which will help us to get a glimpse +of the truth. I resume, then. Simon Harlowe was a collector. Yes, +he had a passion for collecting and a very catholic one. His one +sitting-room at the Maison Crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, not +only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things too. He liked +to live amongst them and do his work amongst them. His married life +did not last long. For he died five years ago at the age of +fifty-one." + +Mr. Haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections amongst the +convolutions of the carpet. + +"That's really about all I know of him. He was a pleasant fellow +enough, but not very sociable. No, there's nothing to light a candle +for us there, I am afraid." + +Mr. Haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow. + +"Jeanne-Marie Harlowe," he said. "It's extraordinary how little I +know about her, now I come to count it up. Natural too, though. For +she sold the Norfolk estate and has since passed her whole time +between Monte Carlo and Dijon and--oh, yes--a little summer-house on +the Côte-d'Or amongst her vineyards." + +"She was left rich, I suppose?" Frobisher asked. + +"Very well off, at all events," Mr. Haslitt replied. "The Clos du +Prince Burgundy has a fine reputation, but there's not a great deal +of it." + +"Did she come to England ever?" + +"Never," said Mr. Haslitt. "She was content, it seems, with Dijon, +though to my mind the smaller provincial towns of France are dull +enough to make one scream. However, she was used to it, and then her +heart began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has been +an invalid. There's nothing to help us there." And Mr. Haslitt +looked across to Jim for confirmation. + +"Nothing," said Jim. + +"Then we are only left the child Betty Harlowe and--oh, yes, your +correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, Ann Upcott. Who is +she, Jim? Where did she spring from? How does she find herself in +the Maison Crenelle? Come, confess, young man," and Mr. Haslitt +archly looked at his junior partner. "Why should Boris Waberski +expect her support?" + +Jim Frobisher threw his arms wide. + +"I haven't an idea," he said. "I have never seen her. I have never +heard of her. I never knew of her existence until that letter came +this morning with her name signed at the end of it." + +Mr. Haslitt started up. He crossed the room to his table and, fixing +his folding glasses on the bridge of his nose, he bent over the +letter. + +"But she writes to you, Jim," he objected. "'Dear Mr. Frobisher,' +she writes. She doesn't address the firm at all"; and he waited, +looking at Jim, expecting him to withdraw this denial. + +Jim, however, only shook his head. + +"It's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "I can't make head or +tail of it"; and Mr. Haslitt could not doubt now that he spoke the +truth, so utterly and frankly baffled the young man was. "Why should +Ann Upcott write to me? I have been asking myself that question for +the last half-hour. And why didn't Betty Harlowe write to you, who +have had her affairs in your care?" + +"Ah!" + +That last question helped Mr. Haslitt to an explanation. His face +took a livelier expression. + +"The answer to that is in Waberski's, the second letter. Betty--she +snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. She doesn't take the charge +seriously. She will have left it to the French notary to dispose of +it. Yes--I think that makes Ann Upcott's letter to you intelligible, +too. The ceremonies of the Law in a foreign country would frighten a +stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than they would Betty +Harlowe, who has lived for four years in the midst of them. So she +writes to the first name in the title of the firm, and writes to him +as a man. That's it, Jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together +in his satisfaction. + +"A girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing to an +abstraction. She wants to know that she's in touch with a real +person. So she writes, 'Dear Mr. Frobisher.' That's it! You can +take my word for it." + +Mr. Haslitt walked back to his chair. But he did not sit down in it; +he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window +over Frobisher's head. + +"But that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out what is Boris +Waberski's strong suit, does it? We haven't a clue to it," he said +ruefully. + +To both of the men, indeed, Mr. Haslitt's flat, unillumined narrative +of facts, without a glimpse into the characters of any of the +participants in the little drama, seemed the most unhelpful thing. +Yet the whole truth was written there--the truth not only of +Waberski's move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into +which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. Jim +Frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the soul, he resumed +his work in the office. For it was interrupted now. + +Mr. Haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's head, saw a +telegraph-boy come swinging across the square and hesitate in the +roadway below. + +"I expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the hopeful +anticipation people in trouble have that something from outside will +happen and set them right. + +Jim turned round quickly. The boy was still upon the pavement +examining the numbers of the houses. + +"We ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said Jim with a touch +of impatience; and Mr. Haslitt's eyebrows rose half the height of his +forehead towards his thick white hair. He was really distressed by +the Waberski incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in the +firm, shocked him like a sacrilege. + +"My dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. "I hope I +am not one of those obstinate old fogies who refuse to march with the +times. We have had, as you know, a telephone instrument recently +installed in the junior clerks' office. I believe that I myself +proposed it. But a brass plate upon the door! My dear Jim! Let us +leave that to Harley Street and Southampton Row! But I see that +telegram is for us." + +The tiny Mercury with the shako and red cord to his uniform made up +his mind and disappeared into the hall below. The telegram was +brought upstairs and Mr. Haslitt tore it open. He stared at it +blankly for a few seconds, then without a word, but with a very +anxious look in his eyes, he handed it to Jim Frobisher. + +Jim Frobisher read: + + + _Please, please, send some one to help me at once. The Prefect + of Police has called in Hanaud, a great detective of the Sûrété + in Paris. They must think me guilty.--Betty Harlowe._ + + +The telegram fluttered from Jim's fingers to the floor. It was like +a cry for help at night coming from a great distance. + +"I must go, sir, by the night boat," he said. + +"To be sure!" said Mr. Haslitt a little absently. + +Jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. His chivalry was +fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the picture his imagination +drew. The little girl, Betty Harlowe! What age was she? +Twenty-one! Not a day more. She had been wandering with all the +proud indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found her +feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked about her; and +terror came and with it a wild cry for help. + +"Girls never notice danger signals," he said. "No, they walk blindly +into the very heart of catastrophe." Who could tell what links of +false and cunning evidence Boris Waberski had been hammering away at +in the dark, to slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and +ankle? And with that question he was seized with a great +discouragement. + +"We know very little of Criminal Procedure, even in our own country, +in this office," he said regretfully. + +"Happily," said Mr. Haslitt with some tartness. With him it was the +Firm first and last. Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt never went in to +the Criminal Courts. Litigation, indeed, even of the purest kind was +frowned upon. It is true there was a small special staff, under the +leadership of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper floor, +like an unpresentable relation in a great house, which did a little +of that kind of work. But it only did it for hereditary clients, and +then as a favour. + +"However," said Mr. Haslitt as he noticed Jim's discomfort, "I +haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be equal to whatever is +wanted. But remember, there's something at the back of this which we +here don't know." + +Jim shifted his position rather abruptly. This cry of the old man +was becoming parrot-like--a phrase, a formula. Jim was thinking of +the girl in Dijon and hearing her piteous cry for help. She was not +"snapping her the fingers" now. + +"It's a matter of common sense," Mr. Haslitt insisted. "Take a +comparison. Bath, for instance, would never call in Scotland Yard +over a case of this kind. There would have to be the certainty of a +crime first, and then grave doubt as to who was the criminal. This +is a case for an autopsy and the doctors. If they call in this man +Hanaud"--and he stopped. + +He picked the telegram up from the floor and read it through again. + +"Yes--Hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and growing bright and +clouding again like a man catching at and just missing a very elusive +recollection. He gave up the pursuit in the end. "Well, Jim, you +had better take the two letters of Waberski, and Ann Upcott's +three-volume novel, and Betty's telegram"--he gathered the papers +together and enclosed them in a long envelope--"and I shall expect +you back again with a smiling face in a very few days. I should like +to see our little Boris when he is asked to explain those letters." + +Mr. Haslitt gave the envelope to Jim and rang his bell. + +"There is some one waiting to see me, I think," he said to the clerk +who answered it. + +The clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking his heels +during the last half-hour in an undusted waiting-room with a few +mouldy old Law books in a battered glass case to keep him company. + +"You can show him in now," said Mr. Haslitt as Jim retired to his own +office; and when the great landowner entered, he merely welcomed him +with a reproach. + +"You didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said. + +But all through that interview, though his advice was just the +precise, clear advice for which the firm was quietly famous, Mr. +Haslitt's mind was still playing hide-and-seek with a memory, +catching glimpses of the fringes of its skirt as it gleamed and +vanished. + +"Memory is a woman," he said to himself. "If I don't run after her +she will come of her own accord." + +But he was in the common case of men with women: he could not but run +after her. Towards the end of the interview, however, his shoulders +and head moved with a little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip +of paper. As soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent +it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an answer. The +messenger returned within the hour and Mr. Haslitt hurried to Jim +Frobisher's office. + +Jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various clerks and +was locking up the drawers of his desk. + +"Jim, I have remembered where I have heard the name of this man +Hanaud before. You have met Julius Ricardo? He's one of our +clients." + +"Yes," said Frobisher. "I remember him--a rather finnicking person +in Grosvenor Square." + +"That's the man. He's a friend of Hanaud and absurdly proud of the +friendship. He and Hanaud were somehow mixed up in a rather +scandalous crime some time ago--at Aix-les-Bains, I think. Well, +Ricardo will give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you +something about him, if you will go round to Grosvenor Square at five +this afternoon." + +"Capital!" said Jim Frobisher. + +He kept the appointment, and was told how he must expect to be awed +at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly at the next, ridiculed at a +third, and treated with great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. +Jim discounted Mr. Ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter and +crossed the Channel that night. On the journey it occurred to him +that if Hanaud was a man of such high mark, he would not be free, +even at an urgent call, to pack his bags and leave for the provinces +in an instant. Jim broke his journey, therefore, at Paris, and in +the course of the morning found his way to the Direction of the +Sûrété on the Quai d'Horloge just behind the Palais de Justice. + +"Monsieur Hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter took his card and +his letter of introduction. The great man was still in Paris, then, +he thought with relief. He was taken to a long dark corridor, lit +with electric globes even on that bright morning of early summer. +There he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for half an +hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. Then a bell rang +and a policeman in plain clothes went up to him. One side of the +corridor was lined with a row of doors. + +"It is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led Frobisher to one +of the doors and opened it, and stood aside. Frobisher straightened +his shoulders and marched in. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE: _Servants of Chance_ + +Frobisher found himself at one end of an oblong room. Opposite to +him a couple of windows looked across the shining river to the big +Théâtre du Chatelet On his left hand was a great table with a few +neatly arranged piles of papers, at which a big, rather heavily-built +man was sitting. Frobisher looked at that man as a novice in a +duelling field might look at the master swordsman whom he was +committed to fight; with a little shock of surprise that after all he +appeared to be just like other men. Hanaud, on his side, could not +have been said to have looked at Frobisher at all; yet when he spoke +it was obvious that somehow he had looked and to very good purpose. +He rose with a little bow and apologised. + +"I have kept you waiting, Mr. Frobisher. My dear friend Mr. Ricardo +did not mention your object in his letter. I had the idea that you +came with the usual wish to see something of the underworld. Now +that I see you, I recognise your wish is more serious." + +Hanaud was a man of middle age with a head of thick dark hair, and +the round face and shaven chin of a comedian. A pair of remarkably +light eyes under rather heavy lids alone gave a significance to him, +at all events when seen for the first time in a mood of good-will. +He pointed to a chair. + +"Will you take a seat? I will tell you, Mr. Frobisher, I have a very +soft place in my heart for Mr. Ricardo, and a friend of his---- +These are words, however. What can I do?" + +Jim Frobisher laid down his hat and stick upon a side table and took +the chair in front of Hanaud's table. + +"I am partner in a firm of lawyers which looks after the English +interests of a family in Dijon," he said, and he saw all life and +expression smoothed out of Hanaud's face. A moment ago he had been +in the company of a genial and friendly companion; now he was looking +at a Chinaman. + +"Yes?" said Hanaud. + +"The family has the name of Harlowe," Jim continued. + +"Oho!" said Hanaud. + +The ejaculation had no surprise in it, and hardly any interest. Jim, +however, persisted. + +"And the surviving member of it, a girl of twenty, Betty Harlowe, has +been charged with murder by a Russian who is connected with the +family by marriage--Boris Waberski." + +"Aha!" said Hanaud. "And why do you come to me, Mr. Frobisher?" + +Jim stared at the detective. The reason of his coming was obvious. + +And yet--he was no longer sure of his ground. Hanaud had pulled open +a drawer in his table and was beginning to put away in it one of his +files. + +"Yes?" he said, as who should say, "I am listening." + +"Well, perhaps I am under a mistake," said Jim. "But my firm has +been informed that you, Monsieur Hanaud, are in charge of the case," +he said, and Hanaud's movements were at once arrested. He sat with +the file poised on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, +extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that he was +more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the file into the drawer and +closed the drawer softly. As softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice +which to Frobisher's ears had a note in it which was actually +alarming. + +"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! And in London! +And--yes--this is only Wednesday! News travels very quickly +nowadays, to be sure! Well, your firm has been correctly informed. +I congratulate you. The first point is scored by you." + +Jim Frobisher was quick to seize upon that word. He had thought out +upon his journey in what spirit he might most usefully approach the +detective. Hanaud's bitter little remark gave him the very opening +which he needed. + +"But, Monsieur Hanaud, I don't take that point of view at all," he +argued earnestly. "I am happy to believe that there is going to be +no antagonism between us. For, if there were, I should assuredly get +the worst of it. No! I am certain that the one wish you have in +this matter is to get at the truth. Whilst my wish is that you +should just look upon me as a very second-rate colleague who by good +fortune can give you a little help." + +A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it to some of its +geniality. + +"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a trowel," he +observed. "Now, what kind of help, Mr. Frobisher?" + +"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters from Boris Waberski +demanding money, the second one with threats. Both were received by +my firm before he brought this charge, and both of course remain +unanswered." + +He took the letters from the long envelope and handed them across the +table to Hanaud, who read them through slowly, mentally translating +the phrases into French as he read. Frobisher watched his face for +some expression of relief or satisfaction. But to his utter +disappointment no such change came; and it was with a deprecating and +almost regretful air that Hanaud turned to him in the end. + +"Yes--no doubt these two letters have a certain importance. But we +mustn't exaggerate it. The case is very difficult." + +"Difficult!" cried Jim in exasperation. He seemed to be hammering +and hammering in vain against some thick wall of stupidity. Yet this +man in front of him wasn't stupid. + +"I can't understand it!" he exclaimed. "Here's the clearest instance +of blackmail that I can imagine----" + +"Blackmail's an ugly word, Mr. Frobisher," Hanaud warned him. + +"And blackmail's an ugly thing," said Jim. "Come, Monsieur Hanaud, +Boris Waberski lives in France. You will know something about him. +You will have a dossier." + +Hanaud pounced upon the word with a little whoop of delight, his face +broke into smiles, he shook a forefinger gleefully at his visitor. + +"Ah, ah, ah, ah! A dossier! Yes, I was waiting for that word! The +great legend of the dossiers! You have that charming belief too, Mr. +Frobisher. France and her dossiers! Yes. If her coal-mines fail +her, she can always keep warm by burning her dossiers! The moment +you land for the first time at Calais--bourn! your dossier begins, +eh? You travel to Paris--so! You dine at the Ritz Hotel--so! +Afterwards you go where you ought not to go--so-o-o! And you go back +late to the hotel very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that +somewhere in the still night six little officials with black beards +and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your dossier. +But--wait!" + +He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his lips, and his +eyes opened wide. Never was a man so mysterious, so important in his +mystery. He stole on tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so +bulky a man, to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an +alert, bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the +handle. Then he jerked the door swiftly inwards towards him. It was +the classic detection of the eavesdropper, seen in a hundred comedies +and farces; and carried out with so excellent a mimicry that Jim, +even in this office of the Sûrété, almost expected to see a flustered +chambermaid sprawl heavily forward on her knees. He saw nothing, +however, but a grimy corridor lit with artificial light in which men +were patiently waiting. Hanaud closed the door again, with an air of +intense relief. + +"The Prime Minister has not overheard us. We are safe," he hissed, +and he crept back to Frobisher's side. He stooped and whispered in +the ear of that bewildered man: + +"I can tell you about those dossiers. They are for nine-tenths the +gossip of the _concièrge_ translated into the language of a policeman +who thinks that everybody had better be in prison. Thus, the +_concièrge_ says: This Mr. Frobisher--on Tuesday he came home at one +in the morning and on Thursday at three in fancy dress; and in the +policeman's report it becomes, 'Mr. Frobisher is of a loose and +excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier--yes, my friend, +just so! But here in the Sûrété--never breathe a word of it, or you +ruin me!--here we are like your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the +fingers at those dossiers.'" + +Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To change from one +mood to another required a progression of ideas. He hardly knew for +the moment whether he was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago +Hanaud had been the grave agent of Justice; without a hint he had +leaped to buffoonery, and with a huge enjoyment. He had become half +urchin, half clown. Jim could almost hear the bells of his cap still +tinkling. He simply stared, and Hanaud with a rueful smile resumed +his seat. + +"If we work together at Dijon, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with +whimsical regret, "I shall not enjoy myself as I did with my dear +little friend Mr. Ricardo at Aix. No, indeed! Had I made this +little pantomime for him, he would have sat with the eyes popping out +of his head. He would have whispered, 'The Prime Minister comes in +the morning to spy outside your door--oh!' and he would have been +thrilled to the marrow of his bones. But you--you look at me all +cold and stony, and you say to yourself, 'This Hanaud, he is a +comic!'" + +"No," said Jim earnestly, and Hanaud interrupted the protest with a +laugh. + +"It does not matter." + +"I am glad," said Jim. "For you just now said something which I am +very anxious you should not withdraw. You held me out a hope that we +should work together." Hanaud leaned forward with his elbows on his +desk. + +"Listen," he said genially. "You have been frank and loyal with me. +So I relieve your mind. This Waberski affair--the Prefect at Dijon +does not take it very seriously; neither do I here. It is, of +course, a charge of murder, and that has to be examined with care." + +"Of course." + +"And equally, of course, there is some little thing behind it," +Hanaud continued, surprising Frobisher with the very words which Mr. +Haslitt had used the day before, though the one spoke in English and +the other in French. "As a lawyer you will know that. Some little +unpleasant fact which is best kept to ourselves. But it is a simple +affair, and with these two letters you have brought me, simpler than +ever. We shall ask Waberski to explain these letters and some other +things too, if he can. He is a type, that Boris Waberski! The body +of Madame Harlowe will be exhumed to-day and the evidence of the +doctors taken, and afterwards, no doubt, the case will be dismissed +and you can deal with Waberski as you please." + +"And that little secret?" asked Jim. + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. + +"No doubt it will come to light. But what does that matter if it +only comes to light in the office of the examining magistrate, and +does not pass beyond the door?" + +"Nothing at all," Jim agreed. + +"You will see. We are not so alarming after all, and your little +client can put her pretty head upon the pillow without any fear that +an injustice will be done to her." + +"Thank you, Monsieur Hanaud!" Jim Frobisher cried warmly. He was +conscious of so great a relief that he himself was surprised by it. +He had been quite captured by his pity for that unknown girl in the +big house, set upon by a crazy rascal and with no champion but +another girl of her own years. "Yes, this is good news to me." + +But he had hardly finished speaking before a doubt crept into his +mind as to the sincerity of the man sitting opposite to him. Jim did +not mean to be played and landed like a silly fish, however +inexperienced he might be. He looked at Hanaud and wondered. Was +this present geniality of his any less assumed than his other moods? +Jim was unsettled in his estimate of the detective. One moment a +judge, and rather implacable, now an urchin, now a friend! Which was +travesty and which truth? Luckily there was a test question which +Mr. Haslitt had put only yesterday as he looked out from the window +across Russell Square. Jim now repeated it. + +"The affair is simple, you say?" + +"Of the simplest." + +"Then how comes it, Monsieur Hanaud, that the examining judge at +Dijon still finds it necessary to call in to his assistance one of +the chiefs of the Sûrété of Paris?" + +The question was obviously expected, and no less obviously difficult +to answer. Hanaud nodded his head once or twice. + +"Yes," he said, and again "Yes," like a man in doubt. He looked at +Jim with appraising eyes. Then with a rush, "I shall tell you +everything, and when I have told you, you will give me your word that +you will not betray my confidence to any one in this world. For this +is serious." + +Jim could not doubt Hanaud's sincerity at this moment, nor his +friendliness. They shone in the man like a strong flame. + +"I give you my word now," he said, and he reached out his hand across +the table. Hanaud shook it. "I can talk to you freely, then," he +answered, and he produced a little blue bundle of very black +cigarettes. "You shall smoke." + +The two men lit their cigarettes and through the blue cloud Hanaud +explained: + +"I go really to Dijon on quite another matter. This Waberski affair, +it is a pretence! The examining judge who calls me in--see, now, you +have a phrase for him," and Hanaud proudly dropped into English more +or less. "He excuse his face! Yes, that is your expressive idiom. +He excuse his face, and you will see, my friend, that it needs a lot +of excusing, that face of his, yes. Now listen! I get hot when I +think of that examining judge." + +He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, setting his sentence +in order, resumed in French. + +"The little towns, my friend, where life is not very gay and people +have the time to be interested in the affairs of their neighbours, +have their own crimes, and perhaps the most pernicious of them all is +the crime of anonymous letters. Suddenly out of a clear sky they +will come like a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute +and--who knows?--sometimes perhaps true. For a while these +abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a word is said. If +money is demanded, money is paid. If it is only sheer wickedness +which drives that unknown pen, those who are lashed by it none the +less hold their tongues. But each one begins to suspect his +neighbour. The social life of the town is poisoned. A great canopy +of terror hangs over it, until the postman's knock, a thing so +welcome in the sane life of every day, becomes a thing to shiver at, +and in the end dreadful things happen." + +So grave and quiet was the tone which Hanaud used that Jim himself +shivered, even in this room whence he could see the sunlight +sparkling on the river and hear the pleasant murmur of the Paris +streets. Above that murmur he heard the sharp knock of the postman +upon the door. He saw a white face grow whiter and still eyes grow +haggard with despair. + +"Such a plague has descended upon Dijon," Hanaud continued. "For +more than a year it has raged. The police would not apply to Paris +for help. No, they did not need help, they would solve this pretty +problem for themselves. Yes, but the letters go on and the citizens +complain. The police say, 'Hush! The examining magistrate, he has a +clue. Give him time!' But the letters still go on. Then after a +year comes this godsend of the Waberski affair. At once the Prefect +of Police and the magistrate put their heads together. 'We will send +for Hanaud over this simple affair, and he will find for us the +author of the anonymous letters. We will send for him very +privately, and if any one recognises him in the street and cries +"There is Hanaud," we can say he is investigating the Waberski +affair. Thus the writer of the letters will not be alarmed and +we--we excuse our faces.' Yes," concluded Hanaud heatedly, "but they +should have sent for me a year ago. They have lost a year." + +"And during that year the dreadful things have happened?" asked Jim. + +Hanaud nodded angrily. + +"An old, lonely man who lunches at the hotel and takes his coffee at +the Grande Taverne and does no harm to any one, he flings himself in +front of the Mediterranean express and is cut to pieces. A pair of +lovers shoot themselves in the Forêt des Moissonières. A young girl +comes home from a ball; she says good night to her friends gaily on +the doorstep of her house, and in the morning she is found hanging in +her ball dress from a rivet in the wall of her bedroom, whilst in the +hearth there are the burnt fragments of one of these letters. How +many had she received, that poor girl, before this last one drove her +to this madness? Ah, the magistrate. Did I not tell you? He has +need to excuse his face." + +Hanaud opened a drawer in his desk and took from it a green cover. + +"See, here are two of those precious letters," and removing two +typewritten sheets from the cover he handed them to Frobisher. +"Yes," he added, as he saw the disgust on the reader's face, "those +do not make a nice sauce for your breakfast, do they?" + +"They are abominable," said Jim. "I wouldn't have believed----" he +broke off with a little cry. "One moment, Monsieur Hanaud!" He bent +his head again over the sheets of paper, comparing them, scrutinising +each sentence. No, there were only the two errors which he had +noticed at once. But what errors they were! To any one, at all +events, with eyes to see and some luck in the matter of experience. +Why, they limited the area of search at once! + +"Monsieur Hanaud, I can give you some more help," he cried +enthusiastically. He did not notice the broad grin of delight which +suddenly transfigured the detective's face. "Help which may lead you +very quickly to the writer of these letters." + +"You can?" Hanaud exclaimed. "Give it to me, my young friend. Do +not keep me shaking in excitement. And do not--oh! do not tell me +that you have discovered that the letters were typed upon a Corona +machine. For that we know already." + +Jim Frobisher flushed scarlet. That is just what he had noticed with +so much pride in his perspicuity. Where the text of a sentence +required a capital D, there were instead the two noughts with the +diagonal line separating them (thus, %), which are the symbol of "per +cent."; and where there should have been a capital S lower down the +page, there was the capital S with the transverse lines which stands +for dollars. Jim was familiar with the Corona machine himself, and +he had remembered that if one used by error the stop for figures, +instead of the stop for capital letters, those two mistakes would +result. He realised now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of +him--Hanaud was the urchin now--that the Sûrété was certain not to +have overlooked those two indications even if the magistrate at Dijon +had; and in a moment he began to laugh too. + +"Well, I fairly asked for it, didn't I?" he said as he handed the +letter back. "I said a wise thing to you, Monsieur, when I held it +fortunate that we were not to be on opposite sides." + +Hanaud's face lost its urchin look. + +"Don't make too much of me, my friend, lest you be disappointed," he +said in all seriousness. "We are the servants of Chance, the very +best of us. Our skill is to seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when +it flashes for the fraction of a second before our eyes." + +He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green cover and laid it +again in the drawer. Then he gathered together the two letters which +Boris Waberski had written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher. + +"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will go there to-day?" + +"This afternoon." + +"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express." + +"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook his head. + +"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay at the same +hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon that you are the +English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and those in your company will be +marked men too. By the way, how were you informed in London that I, +Hanaud, had been put in charge of this case?" + +"We had a telegram," replied Jim. + +"Yes? And from whom? I am curious!" + +"From Miss Harlowe." + +For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that interview quite +disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher could have no doubt. He sat for +so long a time, his cigarette half-way to his lips, a man turned into +stone. Then he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned +on Jim. + +"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "I am +putting to myself a riddle. Answer it if you can! What is the +strongest passion in the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of +these things. It is the passion of one public official to take a +great big club and hit his brother official on the back of the head. +It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon so that I may have +some little chance of success. Good! On Saturday it is so arranged, +and already on Monday my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss +Harlowe can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is +kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?" + +Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it to Hanaud, who +received it with a curious eagerness and opened it out on the table +in front of them. He read it very slowly, so slowly that Jim +wondered whether he too heard through the lines of the telegram, as +through the receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help +which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud raised his face all +the bitterness had gone from it. + +"The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The slender fingers, +they do not snap themselves any longer, eh? Well, in a few days we +make all right for her." + +"Yes," said Jim stoutly. + +"Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?" and Hanaud held up the telegraph +form. "It mentions my name. It will be safe with you, no doubt, but +it serves no purpose. Everything which is torn up here is burnt in +the evening. It is for you to say," and he dangled the telegram +before Jim Frobisher's eyes. + +"By all means," said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram across. Then +he placed the torn pieces together and tore them through once again +and dropped them into his waste-paper basket. "So! That is done!" +he said. "Now tell me! There is another young English girl in the +Maison Crenelle." + +"Ann Upcott," said Jim with a nod. + +"Yes, tell me about her." + +Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made to Mr. Haslitt. + +"I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her until +yesterday." + +But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with amazement, +Hanaud accepted it without comment. + +"Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that young lady at +Dijon," he said with a smile, and he rose from his chair. + +Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which had begun badly +and moved on to cordiality was turning back upon itself and ending +not too well. He was conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud's +manner, not a diminution in his friendliness, but--Jim could find +nothing but Hanaud's own phrase to define the change. He seemed to +have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as it flickered for a +second within his range of vision. But when it had flickered Jim +could not even conjecture. + +He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already at the door with +his hand upon the knob. + +"Good-bye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you sincerely for your +visit." + +"I shall see you in Dijon," said Jim. + +"Surely," Hanaud agreed with a smile. "On many occasions. In the +office, perhaps, of the examining magistrate. No doubt in the Maison +Crenelle." + +But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration which Hanaud +had appeared a few minutes ago not merely to accept, but even to look +forward to. Now, on the contrary, he was evading it. + +"But if we are to work together?" Jim suggested. + +"You might want to reach me quickly," Hanaud continued. "Yes. And I +might want to reach you, if not so quickly, still very secretly. +Yes." He turned the question over in his mind. "You will stay at +the Maison Crenelle, I suppose?" + +"No," said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from Hanaud's little +start of disappointment. "There will be no need for that," he +explained. "Boris Waberski can attempt nothing more. Those two +girls will be safe enough." + +"That's true," Hanaud agreed. "You will go, then, to the big hotel +in the Place Darcy. For me I shall stay in one that is more obscure, +and not under my own name. Whatever chance of secrecy is still left +for me, that I shall cling to." + +He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or the name under +which he proposed to masquerade, and Jim was careful not to inquire. +Hanaud stood with his hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes +thoughtfully resting upon Frobisher's face. + +"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, and a smile +warmed and lit his face to good humour. "Do you like the pictures? +No--yes? For me, I adore them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for +the cinema. I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the +dark--so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a friend, and +when the lights go up we are both gone, and only our empty bocks are +left to show where we were sitting. The cinemas--yes! With their +audiences which constantly change and new people coming in who sit +plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an inch beyond their +noses, the cinemas are useful, I tell you. But you will not betray +my little secret?" + +He ended with a laugh. Jim Frobisher's spirits were quite revived by +this renewal of Hanaud's confidence. He felt with a curious elation +that he had travelled a long way from the sedate dignities of Russell +Square. He could not project in his mind any picture of Messrs. +Frobisher & Haslitt meeting a client in a dark corner of a cinema +theatre off the Marylebone Road. Such manoeuvres were not amongst +the firm's methods, and Jim began to find the change exhilarating. +Perhaps, after all, Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt were a little musty, +he reflected. They missed--and he coined a phrase, he, Jim +Frobisher! ... they missed the ozone of police-work. + +"Of course I'll keep your secret," he said with a thrill in his +voice. "I should never have thought of so capital a meeting-place." + +"Good," said Hanaud. "Then at nine o'clock each night, unless there +is something serious to prevent me, I shall be sitting in the big +hall of the Grande Taverne. The Grande Taverne is at the corner +across the square from the railway station. You can't mistake it. I +shall be on the left-hand side of the hall and close up to the screen +and at the edge near the billiard-room. Don't look for me when the +lights are raised, and if I am talking to any one else, you will +avoid me like poison. Is that understood?" + +"Quite," Jim returned. + +"And you have now two secrets of mine to keep." Hanaud's face lost +its smile. In some strange way it seemed to sharpen, the +light-coloured eyes became very still and grave. "That also is +understood, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "For I begin to think that +we may both of us see strange things before we leave Dijon again for +Paris." + +The moment of gravity passed. With a bow he held open the door. But +Jim Frobisher, as he passed out into the corridor, was once again +convinced that at some definite point in the interview Hanaud had at +all events caught a glimpse of the flickering skirts of Chance, even +if he had not grasped them in his hands. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR: _Betty Harlowe_ + +Jim Frobisher reached Dijon that night at an hour too late for any +visit, but at half-past nine on the next morning he turned with a +thrill of excitement into the little street of Charles-Robert. This +street was bordered upon one side, throughout its length, by a high +garden wall above which great sycamores and chestnut trees rustled +friendlily in a stir of wind. Towards the farther mouth of the +street the wall was broken, first by the end of a house with a florid +observation-window of the Renaissance period which overhung the +footway; and again a little farther on by a pair of elaborate tall +iron gates. Before these gates Jim came to a standstill. He gazed +into the courtyard of the Maison Crenelle, and as he gazed his +excitement died away and he felt a trifle ashamed of it. There +seemed so little cause for excitement. + +It was a hot, quiet, cloudless morning. On the left-hand side of the +court women-servants were busy in front of a row of offices; at the +end Jim caught glimpses of a chauffeur moving between a couple of +cars in a garage, and heard him whistling gaily as he moved; on the +right stretched the big house, its steep slate roof marked out gaily +with huge diamond patterns of bright yellow, taking in the sunlight +through all its open windows. The hall door under the horizontal +glass fan stood open. One of the iron gates, too, was ajar. Even +the _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers out in the small street +here seemed to be sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the high +wall rather than exercising any real vigilance. It was impossible to +believe, with all this pleasant evidence of normal life, that any +threat was on that house or upon any of its inhabitants. + +"And indeed there is no threat," Jim reflected. "I have Hanaud's +word for it." + +He pushed the gate open and crossed to the front door. An old +serving-man informed him that Mademoiselle Harlowe did not receive, +but he took Jim's card nevertheless, and knocked upon a door on the +right of the big square hall. As he knocked, he opened the door; and +from his position in the hall Jim looked right through a library to a +window at the end and saw two figures silhouetted against the window, +a man and a girl. The man was protesting, rather extravagantly both +in word and gesture, to Jim's Britannic mind, the girl laughing--a +clear, ringing laugh, with just a touch of cruelty, at the man's +protestations. Jim even caught a word or two of the protest spoken +in French, but with a curiously metallic accent. + +"I have been your slave too long," the man cried, and the girl became +aware that the door was open and that the old man stood inside of it +with a card upon a silver salver. She came quickly forward and took +the card. Jim heard the cry of pleasure, and the girl came running +out into the hall. + +"You!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. "I had no right to expect +you so soon. Oh, thank you!" and she gave him both her hands. + +Jim did not need her words to recognise in her the "little girl" of +Mr. Haslitt's description. Little in actual height Betty Harlowe +certainly was not, but she was such a slender trifle of a girl that +the epithet seemed in place. Her hair was dark brown in colour, with +a hint of copper where the light caught it, parted on one side and +very neatly dressed about her small head. The broad forehead and +oval face were of a clear pallor and made vivid the fresh scarlet of +her lips; and the large pupils of her grey eyes gave to her a look +which was at once haunting and wistful. As she held out her hands in +a warm gratitude and seized his, she seemed to him a creature of +delicate flame and fragile as fair china. She looked him over with +one swift comprehensive glance and breathed a little sigh of relief. + +"I shall give you all my troubles to carry from now on," she said, +with a smile. + +"To be sure. That's what I am here for," he answered. "But don't +take me for anything very choice and particular." + +Betty laughed again and, holding him by the sleeve, drew him into the +library. + +"Monsieur Espinosa," she said, presenting the stranger to Jim. "He +is from Cataluna, but he spends so much of his life in Dijon that we +claim him as a citizen." + +The Catalan bowed and showed a fine set of strong white teeth. + +"Yes, I have the honour to represent a great Spanish firm of +wine-growers. We buy the wines here to mix with our better brands, +and we sell wine here to mix with their cheaper ones." + +"You mustn't give your trade secrets away to me," Jim replied +shortly. He disliked Espinosa on sight, as they say, and he was at +no very great pains to conceal his dislike. Espinosa was altogether +too brilliant a personage. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with +black shining hair and black shining eyes, a florid complexion, a +curled moustache, and gleaming rings upon his fingers. + +"Mr. Frobisher has come from London to see me on quite different +business," Betty interposed. + +"Yes?" said the Catalan a little defiantly, as though he meant to +hold his ground. + +"Yes," replied Betty, and she held out her hand to him. Espinosa +raised it reluctantly to his lips and kissed it. + +"I shall see you when you return," said Betty, and she walked to the +door. + +"If I go away," Espinosa replied stubbornly. "It is not certain, +Mademoiselle Betty, that I shall go"; and with a ceremonious bow to +Jim he walked out of the room; but not so quickly but that Betty +glanced swiftly from one man to the other with keen comparing eyes, +and Jim detected the glance. She closed the door and turned back to +Jim with a friendly little grimace which somehow put him in a good +humour. He was being compared to another man to his advantage, and +however modest one may be, such a comparison promotes a pleasant +warmth. + +"More trouble, Miss Harlowe," he said with a smile, "but this time +the sort of trouble which you must expect for a good many years to +come." + +He moved towards her, and they met at one of the two side windows +which looked out upon the courtyard. Betty sat down in the +window-seat. + +"I really ought to be grateful to him," she said, "for he made me +laugh. And it seems to me ages since I laughed"; she looked out of +the window and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. + +"Oh! don't, please," cried Jim in a voice of trouble. + +The smile trembled once more on Betty's lips deliciously. + +"I won't," she replied. + +"I was so glad to hear you laugh," he continued, "after your unhappy +telegram to my partner and before I told you my good news." + +Betty looked up at him eagerly. + +"Good news?" + +Jim Frobisher took once more from his long envelope the two letters +which Waberski had sent to his firm and handed them to Betty. + +"Read them," he said, "and notice the dates." + +Betty glanced at the handwriting. + +"From Monsieur Boris," she cried, and she settled down in the +window-seat to study them. In her short black frock with her slim +legs in their black silk stockings extended and her feet crossed, and +her head and white neck bent over the sheets of Waberski's letters, +she looked to Jim like a girl fresh from school. She was quick +enough, however, to appreciate the value of the letters. + +"Of course I always knew that it was money that Monsieur Boris +wanted," she said. "And when my aunt's will was read and I found +that everything had been left to me, I made up my mind to consult you +and make some arrangement for him." + +"There was no obligation upon you," Jim protested. "He wasn't really +a relation at all. He married Mrs. Harlowe's sister, that's all." + +"I know," replied Betty, and she laughed. "He always objected to me +because I would call him 'Monsieur Boris' instead of 'uncle.' But I +meant to do something nevertheless. Only he gave me no time. He +bullied me first of all, and I do hate being bullied--don't you, Mr. +Frobisher?" + +"I do." + +Betty looked at the letters again. + +"That's when I snapped me the fingers at him, I suppose," she +continued, with a little gurgle of delight in the phrase. +"Afterwards he brought this horrible charge against me, and to have +suggested any arrangement would have been to plead guilty." + +"You were quite right. It would indeed," Jim agreed cordially. + +Up to this moment, a suspicion had been lurking at the back of Jim +Frobisher's mind that this girl had been a trifle hard in her +treatment of Boris Waberski. He was a sponger, a wastrel, with no +real claim upon her, it was true. On the other hand, he had no means +of livelihood, and Mrs. Harlowe, from whom Betty drew her fortune, +had been content to endure and support him. Now, however, the +suspicion was laid, the little blemish upon the girl removed and by +her own frankness. + +"Then it is all over," Betty said, handing back the letters to Jim +with a sigh of relief. Then she smiled ruefully--"But just for a +little while I was really frightened," she confessed. "You see, I +was sent for and questioned by the examining magistrate. Oh! I +wasn't frightened by the questions, but by him, the man. I've no +doubt it's his business to look severe, but I couldn't help thinking +that if any one looked as terrifically severe as he did, it must be +because he hadn't any brains and wanted you not to know. And people +without brains are always dangerous, aren't they?" + +"Yes, that wasn't encouraging," Jim agreed. + +"Then he forbade me to use a motor-car, as if he expected me to run +away. And to crown everything, when I came away from the Palais de +Justice, I met some friends outside who gave me a long list of people +who had been condemned and only found to be innocent when it was too +late." + +Jim stared at her. + +"The brutes!" he cried. + +"Well, we have all got friends like that," Betty returned +philosophically. "Mine, however, were particularly odious. For they +actually discussed, as a reason of course, why I should engage the +very best advocate, whether, since Mrs. Harlowe had adopted me, the +charge couldn't be made one of matricide. In which case there could +be no pardon, and I must go to the guillotine with a black veil over +my head and naked feet." She saw horror and indignation in Jim +Frobisher's face and she reached out a hand to him. + +"Yes. Malice in the provinces is apt to be a little blunt, +though"--and she lifted a slim foot in a shining slipper and +contemplated it whimsically--"I don't imagine that, given the +circumstances, I should be bothering my head much as to whether I was +wearing my best shoes and stockings or none at all." + +"I never heard of so abominable a suggestion," cried Jim. + +"You can imagine, at all events, that I came home a little rattled," +continued Betty, "and why I sent off that silly panicky telegram. I +would have recalled it when I rose to the surface again. But it was +then too late. The telegram had----" + +She broke off abruptly with a little rise of inflexion and a sharp +indraw of her breath. + +"Who is that?" she asked in a changed voice. She had been speaking +quietly and slowly, with an almost humorous appreciation of the +causes of her fear. Now her question was uttered quickly and anxiety +was predominant in her voice. "Yes, who is that?" she repeated. + +A big, heavily built man sauntering past the great iron gates had +suddenly whipped into the courtyard. A fraction of a second before +he was an idler strolling along the path, now he was already +disappearing under the big glass fan of the porch. + +"It's Hanaud," Jim replied, and Betty rose to her feet as though a +spring in her had been released, and stood swaying. + +"You have nothing to fear from Hanaud," Jim Frobisher reassured her. +"I have shown him those two letters of Waberski. From first to last +he is your friend. Listen. This is what he said to me only +yesterday in Paris." + +"Yesterday, in Paris?" Betty asked suddenly. + +"Yes, I called upon him at the Sûrété. These were his words. I +remembered them particularly so that I could repeat them to you just +as they were spoken. 'Your little client can lay her pretty head +upon her pillow confident that no injustice will be done to her.'" + +The bell of the front door shrilled through the house as Jim finished. + +"Then why is he in Dijon? Why is he at the door now?" Betty asked +stubbornly. + +But that was the one question which Jim must not answer. He had +received a confidence from Hanaud. He had pledged his word not to +betray it. For a little while longer Betty must believe that +Waberski's accusation against her was the true reason of Hanaud's +presence in Dijon, and not merely an excuse for it. + +"Hanaud acts under orders," Jim returned. "He is here because he was +bidden to come"; and to his relief the answer sufficed. In truth, +Betty's thoughts were diverted to some problem to which he had not +the key. + +"So you called upon Monsieur Hanaud in Paris," she said, with a warm +smile. "You have forgotten nothing which could help me." She laid a +hand upon the sill of the open window. "I hope that he felt all the +flattery of my panic-stricken telegram to London." + +"He was simply regretful that you should have been so distressed." + +"So you showed him the telegram?" + +"And he destroyed it. It was my excuse for calling upon him with the +letters." + +Betty sat down again on the window-seat and lifted a finger for +silence. Outside the door voices were speaking. Then the door was +opened and the old man-servant entered. He carried this time no card +upon a salver, but he was obviously impressed and a trifle flustered. + +"Mademoiselle," he began, and Betty interrupted him. All trace of +anxiety had gone from her manner. She was once more mistress of +herself. + +"I know, Gaston. Show Monsieur Hanaud in at once." + +But Monsieur Hanaud was already in. He bowed with a pleasant +ceremony to Betty Harlowe and shook hands cordially with Jim +Frobisher. + +"I was delighted as I came through the court, Mademoiselle, to see +that my friend here was already with you. For he will have told you +that I am not, after all, the ogre of the fairy-books." + +"But you never looked up at the windows once," cried Betty in +perplexity. + +Hanaud smiled gaily. + +"Mademoiselle, it is in the technique of my trade never to look up at +windows and yet to know what is going on behind them. With your +permission?" And he laid his hat and cane upon a big writing-table +in the middle of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE: _Betty Harlowe Answers_ + +"But we cannot see even through the widest of windows," Hanaud +continued, "what happened behind them a fortnight ago. In those +cases, Mademoiselle, we have to make ourselves the nuisance and ask +the questions." + +"I am ready to answer you," returned Betty quietly. + +"Oh, of that--not a doubt," Hanaud cried genially. "Is it permitted +to me to seat myself? Yes?" + +Betty jumped up, the pallor of her face flushed to pink. + +"I beg your pardon. Of course, Monsieur Hanaud." + +That little omission in her manners alone showed Jim Frobisher that +she was nervous. But for it, he would have credited her with a +self-command almost unnatural in her years. + +"It is nothing," said Hanaud with a smile. "After all, we are--the +gentlest of us--disturbing guests." He took a chair from the side of +the table and drew it up close so that he faced Betty. But whatever +advantage was to be gained from the positions he yielded to her. For +the light from the window fell in all its morning strength upon his +face, whilst hers was turned to the interior of the room. + +"So!" he said as he sat down. "Mademoiselle, I will first give you a +plan of our simple procedure, as at present I see it. The body of +Madame Harlowe was exhumed the night before last in the presence of +your notary." + +Betty moved suddenly with a little shiver of revolt. + +"I know," he continued quickly. "These necessities are distressing. +But we do Madame Harlowe no hurt, and we have to think of the living +one, you, Miss Betty Harlowe, and make sure that no suspicion shall +rest upon you--no, not even amongst your most loyal friends. Isn't +that so? Well, next, I put my questions to you here. Then we wait +for the analyst's report. Then the Examining Magistrate will no +doubt make you his compliments, and I, Hanaud, will, if I am lucky, +carry back with me to that dull Paris, a signed portrait of the +beautiful Miss Harlowe against my heart." + +"And that will be all?" cried Betty, clasping her hands together in +her gratitude. + +"For you, Mademoiselle, yes. But for our little Boris--no!" Hanaud +grinned with a mischievous anticipation. "I look forward to half an +hour with that broken-kneed one. I shall talk to him and I shall not +be dignified--no, not at all. I shall take care, too, that my good +friend Monsieur Frobisher is not present. He would take from me all +my enjoyment. He would look at me all prim like my maiden aunt and +he would say to himself, 'Shocking! Oh, that comic! What a fellow! +He is not proper.' No, and I shall not be proper. But, on the other +hand, I will laugh all the way from Dijon to Paris." + +Monsieur Hanaud had indeed begun to laugh already and Betty suddenly +joined in with him. Hers was a clear, ringing laugh of enjoyment, +and Jim fancied himself once more in the hall hearing that laughter +come pealing through the open door. + +"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Hanaud. "You can laugh, Mademoiselle, +even at my foolishnesses. You must keep Monsieur Frobisher here in +Dijon and not let him return to London until he too has learnt that +divinest of the arts." + +Hanaud hitched his chair a little nearer, and a most uncomfortable +image sprang at once into Jim Frobisher's mind. Just so, with light +words and little jokes squeezed out to tenuity, did doctors hitch up +their chairs to the bedsides of patients in a dangerous case. It +took quite a few minutes of Hanaud's questions before that image +entirely vanished from his thoughts. + +"Good!" said Hanaud. "Now let us to business and get the facts all +clear and ordered!" + +"Yes," Jim agreed, and he too hitched his chair a little closer. It +was curious, he reflected, how little he did know of the actual facts +of the case. + +"Now tell me, Mademoiselle! Madame Harlowe died, so far as we know, +quite peacefully in her bed during the night." + +"Yes," replied Betty. + +"During the night of April the 27th?" + +"Yes." + +"She slept alone in her room that night?" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"That was her rule?" + +"Yes." + +"I understand Madame Harlowe's heart had given her trouble for some +time." + +"She had been an invalid for three years." + +"And there was a trained nurse always in the house?" + +"Yes." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"Now tell me, Mademoiselle, where did this nurse sleep? Next door to +Madame?" + +"No. A bedroom had been fitted up for her on the same floor but at +the end of the passage." + +"And how far away was this bedroom?" + +"There were two rooms separating it from my aunt's." + +"Large rooms?" + +"Yes," Betty explained. "These rooms are on the ground-floor, and +are what you would call reception-rooms. But, since Madame's heart +made the stairs dangerous for her, some of them were fitted up +especially for her use." + +"Yes, I see," said Hanaud. "Two big reception-rooms between, eh? +And the walls of the house are thick. It is not difficult to see +that it was not built in these days. I ask you this, Mademoiselle. +Would a cry from Madame Harlowe at night, when all the house was +silent, be heard in the nurse's room?" + +"I am very sure that it would not," Betty returned. "But there was a +bell by Madame's bed which rang in the nurse's room. She had hardly +to lift her arm to press the button." + +"Ah!" said Hanaud. "A bell specially fitted up?" + +"Yes." + +"And the button within reach of the fingers. Yes. That is all very +well, if one does not faint, Mademoiselle. But suppose one does! +Then the bell is not very useful. Was there no room nearer which +could have been set aside for the nurse?" + +"There was one next to my aunt's room, Monsieur Hanaud, with a +communicating door." + +Hanaud was puzzled and sat back in his chair. Jim Frobisher thought +the time had come for him to interpose. He had been growing more and +more restless as the catechism progressed. He could not see any +reason why Betty, however readily and easily she answered, should be +needlessly pestered. + +"Surely, Monsieur Hanaud," he said, "it would save a deal of time if +we paid a visit to these rooms and saw them for ourselves." + +Hanaud swung round like a thing on a swivel. Admiration beamed in +his eyes. He gazed at his junior colleague in wonder. + +"But what an idea!" he cried enthusiastically. "What a fine idea! +How ingenious! How difficult to conceive! And it is you, Monsieur +Frobisher, who have thought of it! I make you my distinguished +compliments!" Then all his enthusiasm declined into lassitude. "But +what a pity!" + +Hanaud waited intently for Jim to ask for an explanation of that +sigh, but Jim simply got red in the face and refused to oblige. He +had obviously made an asinine suggestion and was being rallied for it +in front of the beautiful Betty Harlowe, who looked to him for her +salvation; and on the whole he thought Hanaud to be a rather +insufferable person as he sat there brightly watching for some second +inanity. Hanaud in the end had to explain. + +"We should have visited those rooms before now, Monsieur Frobisher. +But the Commissaire of Police has sealed them up and without his +presence we must not break the seals." + +An almost imperceptible movement was made by Betty Harlowe in the +window; an almost imperceptible smile flickered for the space of a +lightning-flash upon her lips; and Jim saw Hanaud stiffen like a +watch-dog when he hears a sound at night. + +"You are amused, Mademoiselle?" he asked sharply. + +"On the contrary, Monsieur." + +And the smile reappeared upon her face and was seen to be what it +was, pure wistfulness. "I had a hope those great seals with their +linen bands across the doors were all now to be removed. It is +fanciful, no doubt, but I have a horror of them. They seem to me +like an interdict upon the house." + +Hanaud's manner changed in an instant. + +"That I can very well understand, Mademoiselle," he said, "and I will +make it my business to see that those seals are broken. Indeed, +there was no great use in affixing them, since they were only affixed +when the charge was brought and ten days after Madame Harlowe died." +He turned to Jim. "But we in France are all tied up in red tape, +too. However, the question at which I am driving does not depend +upon any aspect of the rooms. It is this, Mademoiselle," and he +turned back to Betty. + +"Madame Harlowe was an invalid with a nurse in constant attendance. +How is it that the nurse did not sleep in that suitable room with the +communicating-door? Why must she be where she could hear no cry, no +sudden call?" + +Betty nodded her head. Here was a question which demanded an answer. +She leaned forward, choosing her words with care. + +"Yes, but for that, Monsieur, you must understand something of Madame +my aunt and put yourself for a moment in her place. She would have +it so. She was, as you say, an invalid. For three years she had not +gone beyond the garden except in a private saloon once a year to +Monte Carlo. But she would not admit her malady. No, she was in her +mind strong and a fighter. She was going to get well, it was always +a question of a few weeks with her, and a nurse in her uniform always +near with the door open, as though she were in the last stages of +illness--that distressed her." Betty paused and went on again. "Of +course, when she had some critical attack, the nurse was moved. I +myself gave the order. But as soon as the attack subsided, the nurse +must go. Madame would not endure it." + +Jim understood that speech. Its very sincerity gave him a glimpse of +the dead woman, made him appreciate her tough vitality. She would +not give in. She did not want the paraphernalia of malady always +about her. No, she would sleep in her own room, and by herself, like +other women of her age. Yes, Jim understood that and believed every +word that Betty spoke. Only--only--she was keeping something back. +It was that which troubled him. What she said was true, but there +was more to be said. There had been hesitation in Betty's speech, +too nice a choice of words and then suddenly a little rush of phrases +to cover up the hesitations. He looked at Hanaud, who was sitting +without a movement and with his eyes fixed upon Betty's face, +demanding more from her by his very impassivity. They were both, Jim +felt sure, upon the edge of that little secret which, according to +Haslitt as to Hanaud was always at the back of such wild charges as +Waberski brought--the little shameful family secret which must be +buried deep from the world's eyes. And while Jim was pondering upon +this explanation of Betty's manner, he was suddenly startled out of +his wits by a passionate cry which broke from her lips. + +"Why do you look at me like that?" she cried to Hanaud, her eyes +suddenly ablaze in her white face and her lips shaking. Her voice +rose to a challenge. + +"Do you disbelieve me, Monsieur Hanaud?" + +Hanaud raised his hands in protest. He leaned back in his chair. +The vigilance of his eyes, of his whole attitude, was relaxed. + +"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he said with a good deal of +self-reproach. "I do not disbelieve you. I was listening with both +my ears to what you said, so that I might never again have to trouble +you with my questions. But I should have remembered, what I forgot, +that for a number of days you have been living under a heavy strain. +My manner was at fault." + +The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back in the corner +of the window-seat, her head resting against the side of the sash and +her face a little upturned. + +"You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud," she returned. +"It is I who should beg your pardon. For I was behaving like a +hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go on with your questions?" + +"Yes," Hanaud replied gently. "It is better that we finish with them +now. Let us come back to the night of the twenty-seventh!" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"Madame was in her usual health that night--neither better nor worse." + +"If anything a little better," returned Betty. + +"So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a dance given +by some friends of yours?" + +Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house on that fatal +night. Here was a new point in her favour. "A dance!" he cried, and +Hanaud lifted his hand. + +"If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!" he said. "Let Mademoiselle +speak!" + +"I did not hesitate," Betty explained. "The life of the household +had to go on normally. It would never have done for me to do unusual +things. Madame was quick to notice. I think that although she would +not admit that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind she +suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not to alarm her." + +"By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a dance to which +she knew that you had meant to go?" said Hanaud. "Yes, Mademoiselle. +I quite understand that." + +He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with a smile, "Ah, you +did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. No, nor our friend Boris +Waberski, I think. Or he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of +Police in such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her +friends on this night when she is supposed to be committing the most +monstrous of crimes. By the way, Mademoiselle, where was Boris +Waberski on the night of the 27th?" + +"He was away," returned Betty. "He went away on the 25th to fish for +trout at a village on the River Ouche, and he did not come back until +the morning of the 28th." + +"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What a type that fellow! Let us hope he +had a better landing-net for his trout than the one he prepared so +hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. Otherwise his three days' sport +cannot have amounted to much." + +His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon Betty's face and +then he swept back to his questions. + +"So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?" + +"At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers." + +"And at what hour did you go?" + +"I left this house at five minutes to nine." + +"You are sure of the hour?" + +"Quite," said Betty. + +"Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?" + +"Yes," Betty answered. "I went to her room just before I left. She +took her dinner in bed, as she often did. I was wearing for the +dance a new frock which I had bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and +I went to her room to show her how I looked in it." + +"Was Madame alone?" + +"No; the nurse was with her." + +And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance of cunning. + +"I knew that, Mademoiselle," he declared with a friendly grin. "See, +I set a little trap for you. For I have here the evidence of the +nurse herself, Jeanne Baudin." + +He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon which a paragraph +was typed. "Yes, the examining magistrate sent for her and took her +statement." + +"I didn't know that," said Betty. "Jeanne left us the day of the +funeral and went home. I have not seen her since." + +She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile of +appreciation. + +"I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide from you, +Monsieur Hanaud," she said admiringly. "I do not think that I should +be able to hide it for long." + +Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, to Jim +Frobisher's thinking, rather like a very vulgar novice. + +"You are wise, Mademoiselle," he exclaimed. "For, after all, I am +Hanaud. There is only one," and he thumped his chest and beamed +delightedly. "Heavens, these are politenesses! Let us get on. This +is what the nurse declared," and he read aloud from his sheet of +paper: + +"Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame might admire her in +her new frock of silver tissue and her silver slippers. Mademoiselle +arranged the pillows and saw that Madame had her favourite books and +her drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, and with +her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she tripped out of the room. +As soon as the door was closed, Madame said to me----" and Hanaud +broke off abruptly. "But that does not matter," he said in a hurry. + +Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward. + +"Does it not, Monsieur?" she asked, her eyes fixed upon his face, and +the blood mounting slowly into her pale cheeks. + +"No," said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet of paper. + +"What does the nurse report that Madame said to her about me, as soon +as the door was closed?" Betty asked, measuring out her words with a +slow insistence. "Come, Monsieur! I have a right to know," and she +held out her hand for the paper. + +"You shall judge for yourself that it was of no importance," said +Hanaud. "Listen!" and once more he read. + +"Madame said to me, looking at her clock, 'It is well that +Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not Paris, and unless you +go in time there are no partners for you to dance with.' It was then +ten minutes to nine." + +With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty's hand; and she bent +her head over it swiftly, as though she doubted whether what he had +recited was really written on that sheet, as if she rather trembled +to think what Mrs. Harlowe had said of her after she had gone from +the room. She took only a second or two to glance over the page, but +when she handed it back to him, her manner was quite changed. + +"Thank you," she said with a note of bitterness, and her deep eyes +gleamed with resentment. Jim understood the change and sympathised +with it. Hanaud had spoken of setting a trap when he had set none. +For there was no conceivable reason why she should hesitate to admit +that she had seen Mrs. Harlowe in the presence of the nurse, and +wished her good night before she went to the party. But he had set a +real trap a minute afterwards and into that Betty had straightway +stumbled. He had tricked her into admitting a dread that Mrs. +Harlowe might have spoken of her in disparagement or even in horror +after she had left the bedroom. + +"You must know, Monsieur Hanaud," she explained very coldly, "that +women are not always very generous to one another, and sometimes have +not the imagination--how shall I put it?--to visualise the possible +consequences of things they may say with merely the intention to hurt +and do a little harm. Jeanne Baudin and I were, so far as I ever +knew, good friends, but one is never sure, and when you folded up her +statement in a hurry I was naturally very anxious to hear the rest of +it." + +"Yes, I agree," Jim intervened. "It did look as if the nurse might +have added something malevolent, which could neither be proved nor +disproved." + +"It was a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle," Hanaud replied in a voice +of apology. "We will take care that there shall not be any other." +He looked over the nurse's statement again. + +"It is said here that you saw that Madame had her favourite books and +her drink beside the bed. That is true." + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"What was that drink?" + +"A glass of lemonade." + +"It was placed on a table, I suppose, ready for her every night?" + +"Every night." + +"And there was no narcotic dissolved in it?" + +"None," Betty replied. "If Mrs. Harlowe was restless, the nurse +would give an opium pill and very occasionally a slight injection of +morphia." + +"But that was not done on this night?" + +"Not to my knowledge. If it was done, it was done after my +departure." + +"Very well," said Hanaud, and he folded the paper and put it away in +his pocket. "That is finished with. We have you now out of the +house at five minutes to nine in the evening, and Madame in her bed +with her health no worse than usual." + +"Yes." + +"Good!" Hanaud changed his attitude. "Now let us go over your +evening, Mademoiselle! I take it that you stayed at the house of M. +de Pouillac until you returned home." + +"Yes." + +"You remember with whom you danced? If it was necessary, could you +give me a list of your partners?" + +She rose and, crossing to the writing table, sat down in front of it. +She drew a sheet of paper towards her and took up a pencil. Pausing +now and again to jog her memory with the blunt end of the pencil at +her lips, she wrote down a list of names. + +"These are all, I think," she said, handing the list to Hanaud. He +put it in his pocket. + +"Thank you!" He was all contentment now. Although his questions +followed without hesitation, one upon the other, it seemed to Jim +that he was receiving just the answers which he expected. He had the +air of a man engaged upon an inevitable formality and anxious to get +it completely accomplished, rather than of one pressing keenly a +strict investigation. + +"Now, Mademoiselle, at what hour did you arrive home?" + +"At twenty minutes past one." + +"You are sure of that exact time? You looked at your watch? Or at +the clock in the hall? Or what? How are you sure that you reached +the Maison Crenelle exactly at twenty minutes past one?" + +Hanaud hitched his chair a little more forward, but he had not to +wait a second for the answer. + +"There is no clock in the hall and I had no watch with me," Betty +replied. "I don't like those wrist-watches which some girls wear. I +hate things round my wrists," and she shook her arm impatiently, as +though she imagined the constriction of a bracelet. "And I did not +put my watch in my hand-bag because I am so liable to leave that +behind. So I had nothing to tell me the time when I reached home. I +was not sure that I had not kept Georges--the chauffeur--out a little +later than he cared for. So I made him my excuse, explaining that I +didn't really know how late I was." + +"I see. It was Georges who told you the time at the actual moment of +your arrival?" + +"Yes." + +"And Georges is no doubt the chauffeur whom I saw at work as I +crossed the courtyard?" + +"Yes. He told me that he was glad to see me have a little gaiety, +and he took out his watch and showed it to me with a laugh." + +"This happened at the front door, or at those big iron gates, +Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked. + +"At the front door. There is no lodge-keeper and the gates are left +open when any one is out." + +"And how did you get into the house?" + +"I used my latch-key." + +"Good! All this is very clear." + +Betty, however, was not mollified by Hanaud's satisfaction with her +replies. Although she answered him without delay, her answers were +given mutinously. Jim began to be a little troubled. She should +have met Hanaud half-way; she was imprudently petulant. + +"She'll make an enemy of this man before she has done," he reflected +uneasily. But he glanced at the detective and was relieved. For +Hanaud was watching her with a smile which would have disarmed any +less offended young lady--a smile half friendliness and half +amusement. Jim took a turn upon himself. + +"After all," he argued, "this very imprudence pleads for her better +than any calculation. The guilty don't behave like that." And he +waited for the next stage in the examination with an easy mind. + +"Now we have got you back home and within the Maison Crenelle before +half past one in the morning," resumed Hanaud. "What did you do +then?" + +"I went straight upstairs to my bedroom," said Betty. + +"Was your maid waiting up for you, Mademoiselle?" + +"No; I had told her that I should be late and that I could undress +myself." + +"You are considerate, Mademoiselle. No wonder that your servants +were pleased that you should have a little gaiety." + +Even that advance did not appease the offended girl. + +"Yes?" she asked with a sort of silky sweetness which was more +hostile than any acid rejoinder. But it did not stir Hanaud to any +resentment. + +"When, then, did you first hear of Madame Harlowe's death?" was asked. + +"The next morning my maid Francine came running into my room at seven +o'clock. The nurse Jeanne had just discovered it. I slipped on my +dressing-gown and ran downstairs. As soon as I saw that it was true, +I rang up the two doctors who were in the habit of attending here." + +"Did you notice the glass of lemonade?" + +"Yes. It was empty." + +"Your maid is still with you?" + +"Yes--Francine Rollard. She is at your disposal." + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders and smiled doubtfully. + +"That, if it is necessary at all, can come later. We have the story +of your movements now from you, Mademoiselle, and that is what is +important." + +He rose from his chair. + +"I have been, I am afraid, a very troublesome person, Mademoiselle +Harlowe," he said with a bow. "But it is very necessary for your own +sake that no obscurities should be left for the world's suspicions to +play with. And we are very close to the end of this ordeal." + +Jim had nursed a hope the moment Hanaud rose that this wearing +interview had already ended. Betty, for her part, was indifferent. + +"That is for you to say, Monsieur," she said implacably. + +"Just two points then, and I think, upon reflection, you will +understand that I have asked you no question which is unfair." + +Betty bowed. + +"Your two points, Monsieur." + +"First, then. You inherit, I believe, the whole fortune of Madame?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you expect to inherit it all? Did you know of her will?" + +"No. I expected that a good deal of the money would be left to +Monsieur Boris. But I don't remember that she ever told me so. I +expected it, because Monsieur Boris so continually repeated that it +was so." + +"No doubt," said Hanaud lightly. "As to yourself, was Madame +generous to you during her life." + +The hard look disappeared from Betty's face. It softened to sorrow +and regret. + +"Very," she answered in a low voice. "I had one thousand pounds a +year as a regular allowance, and a thousand pounds goes a long way in +Dijon. Besides, if I wanted more, I had only to ask for it." + +Betty's voice broke in a sob suddenly and Hanaud turned away with a +delicacy for which Jim was not prepared. He began to look at the +books upon the shelves, that she might have time to control her +sorrow, taking down one here, one there, and speaking of them in a +casual tone. + +"It is easy to see that this was the library of Monsieur Simon +Harlowe," he said, and was suddenly brought to a stop. For the door +was thrown open and a girl broke into the room. + +"Betty," she began, and stood staring from one to another of Betty's +visitors. + +"Ann, this is Monsieur Hanaud," said Betty with a careless wave of +her hand, and Ann went white as a sheet. + +Ann! Then this girl was Ann Upcott, thought Jim Frobisher, the girl +who had written to him, the girl, all acquaintanceship with whom he +had twice denied, and he had sat side by side with her, he had even +spoken to her. She swept across the room to him. + +"So you have come!" she cried. "But I knew that you would!" + +Jim was conscious of a mist of shining yellow hair, a pair of +sapphire eyes, and of a face impertinently lovely and most delicate +in its colour. + +"Of course I have come," he said feebly, and Hanaud looked on with a +smile. He had an eye on Betty Harlowe, and the smile said as clearly +as words could say, "That young man is going to have a deal of +trouble before he gets out of Dijon." + + + + +CHAPTER SIX: _Jim Changes His Lodging_ + +The library was a big oblong room with two tall windows looking into +the court, and the observation window thrown out at the end over the +footway of the street. A door in the inner wall close to this window +led to a room behind, and a big open fire-place faced the windows on +the court. For the rest, the walls were lined with high book-shelves +filled with books, except for a vacant space here and there where a +volume had been removed. Hanaud put back in its place the book which +he had been holding in his hand. + +"One can easily see that this is the library of Simon Harlowe, the +collector," he said. "I have always thought that if one only had the +time to study and compare the books which a man buys and reads, one +would more surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But +alas! one never has the time." He turned towards Jim Frobisher +regretfully. "Come and stand with me, Monsieur Frobisher. For even +a glance at the backs of them tells one something." + +Jim took his place by Hanaud's side. + +"Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and +another--pronounce that title for me, if you please." + +Jim read the title of the book on which Hanaud's finger was placed. + +"Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain." + +Hanaud repeated the inscription and moved along. From a shelf at the +level of his breast and just to the left of the window in which Betty +was sitting, he took a large, thinnish volume in a paper cover, and +turned over the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea Enamel. + +"There should be a second volume," said Jim Frobisher with a glance +at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of remarks. He was not paying +any attention to the paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For +he was really engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his +side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some swift look of +understanding as it was exchanged by the two girls, some sign that +they were in a collusion? If so, he was to be disappointed. For +though Betty and Ann were now free from Hanaud's vigilant eye, +neither of them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. +Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. He answered +Jim's suggestion. + +"Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. But this is +complete," he said, and he put back the book in its place. There was +room next to it for another quarto book, so long as it was no +thicker, and Hanaud rested his finger in the vacant place on the +shelf, with his thoughts clearly far away. + +Betty recalled him to his surroundings. + +"Monsieur Hanaud," she said in her quiet voice from her seat in the +window, "there was a second point, you said, on which you would like +to ask me a question." + +"Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it." + +He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood so that he had +both girls in front of him, Betty on his left in the window, Ann +Upcott standing a little apart upon his right, gazing at him with a +look of awe. + +"Have you, Mademoiselle," he asked, "been pestered, since Boris +Waberski brought his accusation, with any of these anonymous letters +which seem to be flying about Dijon?" + +"I have received one," answered Betty, and Ann Upcott raised her +eyebrows in surprise. "It came on Sunday morning. It was very +slanderous, of course, and I should have taken no notice of it but +for one thing. It told me that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming +from Paris to take up the case." + +"Oho!" said Hanaud softly. "And you received this letter on the +Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, Mademoiselle?" + +Betty shook her head. + +"No, Monsieur." + +Hanaud smiled. + +"Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should be +destroyed." + +"No, I didn't," Betty answered. "I kept it. I put it away in a +drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. But that room is +sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. The letter is in the drawer still." + +Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction. + +"It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle," he said contentedly. But +the contentment passed. "So the Commissaire of Police actually +sealed up your private sitting-room. That, to be sure, was going a +little far." + +Betty shrugged her shoulders. + +"It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. And after all +I was accused!" she said bitterly; but Ann Upcott was not satisfied +to leave the matter there. She drew a step nearer to Betty and then +looked at Hanaud. + +"But that is not all the truth," she said. "Betty's room belongs to +that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe's bedroom was arranged. +It is the last room of the suite opening on to the hall, and for that +reason, as the Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to +seal it up with the others." + +"I thank you, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud with a smile. "Yes, that of +course softens his action." He looked whimsically at Betty in the +window-seat. "It has been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend +Mademoiselle Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome +dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I understand, on the +Saturday morning twelve days ago!" + +"Yes, Monsieur," said Ann Upcott. + +"And after the funeral, on your return to this house, the notary +opened and read the will?" + +"Yes, Monsieur." + +"And in Boris Waberski's presence?" + +"Yes." + +"Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of May, he goes +off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?" + +"Yes." + +"And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous letter?" + +Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in answer. + +"And a little later on the same morning comes the Commissaire, who +seals the doors." + +"At eleven o'clock, to be exact," replied Ann Upcott. + +Hanaud bowed low. + +"You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the precise hour at +which things happen. It is a rare gift, and very useful to people +like myself." + +Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her manner with each +answer that she gave. Now she could laugh outright. + +"I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud," she said. "But alas! I was +born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, a book disarranged, a +clock not keeping time, or even a pin on the carpet--I cannot bear +these things. I notice them at once and I must put them straight. +Yes, it was precisely eleven o'clock when the Commissaire of Police +rang the bell." + +"Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?" Hanaud asked. + +"No. We both of us thought his negligence strange," Ann replied, +"until he informed us that the Examining Magistrate wanted everything +left just as it was." + +Hanaud laughed genially. + +"That was on my account," he explained. "Who could tell what +wonderful things Hanaud might not discover with his magnifying glass +when he arrived from Paris? What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! +What scraps of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, +Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, even +Hanaud would not expect to make any startling discoveries in rooms +which had been open to the whole household for a fortnight since the +crime. However," and he moved towards the door, "since I am here +now----" + +Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. Hanaud stopped +and swung round upon her, swiftly, with his eyes very challenging and +hard. + +"You are going to break those seals now?" she asked with a curious +breathlessness. "Then may I come with you--please, please! It is I +who am accused. I have a right to be present," and her voice rose +into an earnest cry. + +"Calm yourself, Mademoiselle," Hanaud returned gently. "No advantage +will be taken of you. I am going to break no seals. That, as I have +told you, is the right of the Commissaire, who is a magistrate, and +he will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, what I was +going to propose was that Mademoiselle here," and he pointed to Ann, +"should show me the outside of those reception-rooms and the rest of +the house." + +"Of course," said Betty, and she sat down again in the window-seat. + +"Thank you," said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann Upcott. "Shall we +go? And as we go, will you tell me what you think of Boris Waberski?" + +"He has some nerve. I can tell you that, Monsieur Hanaud," Ann +cried. "He actually came back to this house after he had lodged his +charge, and asked me to support him"; and she passed out of the room +in front of Hanaud. + +Jim Frobisher followed the couple to the door and closed it behind +them. The last few minutes had set his mind altogether at rest. The +author of the anonymous letters was the detective's real quarry. His +manner had quite changed when putting his questions about them. The +flamboyancies and the indifference, even his amusement at Betty's +ill-humour had quite disappeared. He had got to business watchfully, +quietly. Jim came back into the room. He took his cigarette-case +from his pocket and opened it. + +"May I smoke?" he asked. As he turned to Betty for permission, a +fresh shock brought his thoughts and words alike to a standstill. +She was staring at him with panic naked in her eyes and her face set +like a tragic mask. + +"He believes me guilty," she whispered. + +"No," said Jim, and he went to her side. But she would not listen. + +"He does. I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was bound to? He +was sent from Paris. He has his reputation to think of. He must +have his victim before he returns." + +Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had only to tell the +real cause which had fetched Hanaud out of Paris and Betty's distress +was gone. But he could not. Every tradition of his life strove to +keep him silent. He dared not even tell her that this charge against +her was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little while +longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. + +"Betty, don't believe that!" he said, with a consciousness of how +weak that phrase was compared with the statement he could have made. +"I was watching Hanaud, listening to him. I am sure that he already +knew the answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he even +knew that Simon Harlowe had a passion for collecting, though not a +word had been said of it. He was asking questions to see how you +would answer them, setting now and then a little trap, as he +admitted----" + +"Yes," said Betty in trembling voice, "all the time he was setting +traps." + +"And every answer that you gave, even your manner in giving them," +Jim continued stoutly, "more and more made clear your innocence." + +"To him?" asked Betty. + +"Yes, to him. I am sure of it." + +Betty Harlowe caught at his arm and held it in both her hands. She +leaned her head against it. Through the sleeve of his coat he felt +the velvet of her cheek. + +"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Jim," and as she pronounced +the name she smiled. She was thanking him not so much for the stout +confidence of his words, as for the comfort which the touch of him +gave to her. + +"Very likely I am making too much of little things," she went on. +"Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur Hanaud. But he lives +amidst crimes and criminals. He must be so used to seeing people +condemned and passing out of sight into blackness and horrors, that +one more or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, +wouldn't seem to matter very much." + +"Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust," Jim Frobisher remarked +gently. + +"Very well, I take it back," she said, and she let his arm go. "All +the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not to him," and she laughed with +an appealing tremor in the laugh which took his heart by storm. + +"Luckily," said he, "you don't have to look to any one," and he had +hardly finished the sentence before Ann Upcott came back alone into +the room. She was about Betty's height and Betty's age and had the +same sort of boyish slenderness and carriage which marks the girls of +this generation. But in other respects, even to the colour of her +clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be from another. She +was dressed in white from her coat to her shoes, and she wore a big +gold hat so that one was almost at a loss to know where her hat ended +and her hair began. + +"And Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. + +"He is prowling about by himself," she replied. "I showed him all +the rooms and who used them, and he said that he would have a look at +them and sent me back to you." + +"Did he break the seals on the reception-rooms?" Betty Harlowe asked. + +"Oh, no," said Ann. "Why, he told us that he couldn't do that +without the Commissaire." + +"Yes, he told us that," Betty remarked dryly. "But I was wondering +whether he meant what he told us." + +"Oh, I don't think Monsieur Hanaud's alarming," said Ann. She gave +Jim Frobisher the impression that at any moment she might call him a +dear old thing. She had quite got over the first little shock which +the announcement of his presence had caused her. "Besides," and she +sat down by the side of Betty in the window-seat and looked with the +frankest confidence at Jim--"besides, we can feel safe now, anyway." + +Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair. That queer look of +aloofness had played him false with Ann Upcott now, as it had already +done with Betty. If these two girls had called on him for help when +a sudden squall found them in an open sailing-boat with the sheet of +the sail made fast, or on the ice-slope of a mountain, or with a +rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest of the Nile, he +would not have shrunk from their trust. But this was quite a +different matter. They were calmly pitting him against Hanaud. + +"You were safe before," he exclaimed. "Hanaud is not your enemy, and +as for me, I have neither experience nor natural gifts for this sort +of work"--and he broke off with a groan. For both the girls were +watching him with a smile of complete disbelief. + +"Good heavens, they think that I am being astute," he reflected, "and +the more I confess my incapacity the astuter they'll take me to be." +He gave up all arguments. "Of course I am absolutely at your +service," he said. + +"Thank you," said Betty. "You will bring your luggage from your +hotel and stay here, won't you?" + +Jim was tempted to accept that invitation. But, on the one hand, he +might wish to see Hanaud at the Grande Taverne; or Hanaud might wish +to see him, and secrecy was to be the condition of such meetings. It +was better that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. + +"I won't put you to so much trouble, Betty," he replied. "There's no +reason in the world that I should. A call over the telephone and in +five minutes I am at your side." + +Betty Harlowe seemed in doubt to press her invitation or not. + +"It looks a little inhospitable in me," she began, and the door +opened, and Hanaud entered the room. + +"I left my hat and stick here," he said. He picked them up and bowed +to the girls. + +"You have seen everything, Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. + +"Everything, Mademoiselle. I shall not trouble you again until the +report of the analysis is in my hands. I wish you a good morning." + +Betty slipped off the window-seat and accompanied him out into the +hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she was seeking to make some +amends for her ill-humour; and when he heard her voice he thought to +detect in it some note of apology. + +"I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense of that +report as soon as possible," she pleaded. "You, better than any one, +will understand that this is a difficult hour for me." + +"I understand very well, Mademoiselle," Hanaud answered gravely. "I +will see to it that the hour is not prolonged." + +Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood together in the +sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon his arm. He wheeled +about quickly. Ann Upcott was at his side with all the liveliness +and even the delicate colour gone from her face, and a wild and +desperate appeal in her eyes. + +"You will come and stay here? Oh, please!" she whispered. + +"I have just refused," he answered. "You heard me." + +"I know," she went on, the words stumbling over one another from her +lips. "But take back your refusal. Do! Oh, I am frightened out of +my wits. I don't understand anything. I am terrified!" And she +clasped her hands together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear +so stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. It robbed +her exquisite face of all its beauty, and made it in a second, +haggard and old. But before he could answer, a stick clattered +loudly upon the pavement of the hall and startled them both like the +crack of a pistol. + +Jim looked through the doorway. Hanaud was stooping to pick up his +cane. Betty made a dive for it, but Hanaud already had it in his +hands. + +"I thank you, Mademoiselle, but I can still touch my toes. Every +morning I do it five times in my pyjamas," and with a laugh he ran +down the couple of steps into the courtyard and with that curiously +quick saunter of his was out into the street of Charles-Robert in a +moment. When Jim turned again to Ann Upcott, the fear had gone from +her face so completely that he could hardly believe his eyes. + +"Betty, he is going to stay," she cried gaily. + +"So I inferred," replied Betty with a curious smile as she came back +into the room. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN: _Exit Waberski_ + +Jim Frobisher neither saw nor heard any more of Hanaud that day. He +fetched his luggage away from the hotel and spent the evening with +Betty Harlowe and Ann Upcott at the Maison Crenelle. They took their +coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, descending to it +by a short flight of stone steps from a great door at the back of the +hall. And by some sort of unspoken compact they avoided all mention +of Waberski's charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the +analyst's report. But the long line of high, shuttered windows just +above their heads, the windows of the reception-rooms, forbade them +to forget the subject, and their conversation perpetually dwindled +down into long silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, +cool and very still; so that the bustle of a bird amongst the leaves +of the sycamores startled them and the rare footsteps of a passer-by +in the little street of Charles-Robert rang out as though they would +wake a dreaming city. Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcott +leaned swiftly forward and stared across the dark lawns and +glimmering paths to the great screen of tall trees, as if her eyes +had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on each occasion +she said nothing and with an almost inaudible sigh sank back in her +chair. + +"Is there a door into the garden from the street?" Frobisher asked, +and Betty answered him. + +"No. There is a passage at the end of the house under the +reception-rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners use. The only +other entrance is through the hall behind us. This old house was +built in days when your house really was your castle and the fewer +the entrances, the more safely you slept." + +The clocks of that city of Clocks clashed out the hour of eleven, +throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards and forwards above the +pinnacles and roof-tops in a sort of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. + +"There's a day gone, at all events," she said, and Ann Upcott agreed +with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed a pitiful thing that these +two girls, to whom each day should be a succession of sparkling hours +all too short, must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that +another of them had passed. + +"It should be the last of the bad days," he said, and Betty turned +swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining in the darkness. + +"Good night, Jim," she said, her voice ever so slightly lingering +like a caress upon his name and she held out her hand. "It's +terribly dull for you, but we are not unselfish enough to let you go. +You see, we are shunned just now--oh, it's natural! To have you with +us means a great deal. For one thing," and there came a little lilt +in her voice, "I shall sleep to-night." She ran up the steps and +stood for a moment against the light from the hall. "A long-legged +slip of a girl, in black silk stockings"--thus Mr. Haslitt had spoken +of her as she was five years ago, and the description fitted her +still. + +"Good night, Betty," said Jim, and Ann Upcott ran past him up the +steps and waved her hand. + +"Good night," said Jim, and with a little twist of her shoulders Ann +followed Betty. She came back, however. She was wearing a little +white frock of _crêpe de Chine_ with white stockings and satin shoes, +and she gleamed at the head of the steps like a slender thing of +silver. + +"You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you?" She pleaded with +a curious anxiety considering the height of the strong walls about +the garden. + +"I will," said Jim, and he wondered why in all this business Ann +Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was high time indeed, that +the long line of windows was thrown open and the interdict raised +from the house and its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden +in the darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would come +to-morrow. In Betty's room above the reception-rooms the light was +still burning behind the latticed shutters of the windows, in spite +of her confidence that she would sleep--yes, and in Ann Upcott's room +too, at the end of the house towards the street. A fury against +Boris Waberski flamed up in him. + +It was late before he himself went into the house and barred the +door, later still before he fell asleep. But once asleep, he slept +soundly, and when he waked, it was to find his shutters thrown wide +to the sunlight, his coffee cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old +servant, in the room. + +"Monsieur Hanaud asked me to tell you he was in the library," he said. + +Jim was out of bed in an instant. + +"Already? What is the time, Gaston?" + +"Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath." He removed the +tray from the table by the bed. "I will bring some fresh coffee." + +"Thank you! And will you please tell Monsieur Hanaud that I will not +be long." + +"Certainly, Monsieur." + +Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down to the library, +where he found Hanaud seated at the big writing-table in the middle +of the room, with a newspaper spread out over the blotting-pad and +placidly reading the news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the +moment Jim appeared. + +"So you left your hotel in the Place Darcy, after all, eh, my friend? +The exquisite Miss Upcott! She had but to sigh out a little prayer +and clasp her hands together, and it was done. Yes, I saw it all +from the hall. What it is to be young! You have those two letters +which Waberski wrote your firm?" + +"Yes," said Jim. He did not think it necessary to explain that +though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was the thought of Betty which +had brought him to the Maison Grenelle. + +"Good! I have sent for him," said Hanaud. + +"To come to this house?" + +"I am expecting him now." + +"That's capital," cried Jim. "I shall meet him, then! The damned +rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped him," and he clenched his +fist and shook it in a joyous anticipation. + +"I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, I beg of you +to place yourself in my hands this morning, Monsieur Frobisher," +Hanaud interposed soberly. "If you confront Waberski at once with +those two letters, at once his accusation breaks down. He will +withdraw it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent +of complaints and reproaches. And I shall get nothing out of him. +That I do not want." + +"But what is there to be got?" Jim asked impatiently. + +"Something perhaps. Perhaps nothing," the detective returned with a +shrug of the shoulders. "I have a second mission in Dijon, as I told +you in Paris." + +"The anonymous letters?" + +"Yes. You were present yesterday when Mademoiselle Harlowe told me +how she learned that I was summoned from Paris upon this case. It +was not, after all, any of my colleagues here who spread the news. +It is even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer of the +letters. And in so difficult a matter I can afford to neglect no +clue. Did Waberski know that I was going to be sent for? Did he +hear that at the Prefecture when he lodged his charge on the Saturday +or from the examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to +whom did he talk between the time when he saw the magistrate and the +time when letters must be posted if they are to be delivered on the +Sunday morning? These are questions I must have the answer to, and +if we at once administer the knock-out with your letters, I shall not +get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You see that." + +Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see Hanaud dealing with +Waberski in the most outrageous of his moods, pouncing and tearing +and trampling with the gibes of a schoolboy and the improprieties of +the gutter. Hanaud indeed had promised him as much. But he found +him now all for restraint and sobriety and more concerned apparently +with the authorship of the anonymous letters than with the righting +of Betty Harlowe. Jim felt that he had been defrauded. + +"But I am to meet this man," he said. "That must not be forgotten." + +"And it shall not be," Hanaud assured him. He led him over to the +door in the inner wall close to the observation window and opened it. + +"See! If you will please to wait in here," and as the disappointment +deepened on Jim's face, he added, "Oh, I do not ask you to shut the +door. No. Bring up a chair to it--so! And keep the door ajar so! +Then you will see and hear and yet not be seen. You are content? +Not very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole time like an +actor. Yes, we all do. But, at all events, you do not throw up your +part," and with a friendly grin he turned back to the table. + +A shuffling step which merged into the next step with a curiously +slovenly sound rose from the courtyard. + +"It was time we made our little arrangements," said Hanaud in an +undertone. "For here comes our hero from the Steppes." + +Jim popped his head through the doorway. + +"Monsieur Hanaud!" he whispered excitedly. "Monsieur Hanaud! It +cannot be wise to leave those windows open on the courtyard. For if +we can hear a footstep so loudly in this room, anything said in this +room will be easily overheard in the court." + +"But how true that is!" Hanaud replied in the same voice and struck +his forehead with his fist in anger at his folly. "But what are we +to do? The day is so hot. This room will be an oven. The ladies +and Waberski will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain +clothes already stationed in the court to see that it is kept empty. +Yes, we will risk it." + +Jim drew back. + +"That man doesn't welcome advice from any one," he said indignantly, +but he said it only to himself; and almost before he had finished, +the bell rang. A few seconds afterwards Gaston entered. + +"Monsieur Boris," he said. + +"Yes," said Hanaud with a nod. "And will you tell the ladies that we +are ready?" + +Boris Waberski, a long, round-shouldered man with bent knees and +clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding a soft black felt hat in +his hand, shambled quickly into the room and stopped dead at the +sight of Hanaud. Hanaud bowed and Waberski returned the bow; and +then the two men stood looking at one another--Hanaud all geniality +and smiles, Waberski a rather grotesque figure of uneasiness like one +of those many grim caricatures carved by the imagination of the +Middle Ages on the columns of the churches of Dijon. He blinked in +perplexity at the detective and with his long, tobacco-stained +fingers tortured his grey moustache. + +"Will you be seated?" said Hanaud politely. "I think that the ladies +will not keep us waiting." + +He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table but on his +left hand and opposite to the door. + +"I don't understand," said Waberski doubtfully. "I received a +message. I understood that the Examining Magistrate had sent for me." + +"I am his agent," said Hanaud. "I am----" and he stopped. "Yes?" + +Boris Waberski stared. + +"I said nothing." + +"I beg your pardon. I am--Hanaud." + +He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by no start, nor by +any sign of recognition. + +"Hanaud?" Waberski shook his head. "That no doubt should be +sufficient to enlighten me," he said with a smile, "but it is better +to be frank--it doesn't." + +"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris." + +And upon Waberski's face there came slowly a look of utter +consternation. + +"Oh!" he said, and again "Oh!" with a lamentable look towards the +door as if he was in two minds whether to make a bolt of it. Hanaud +pointed again to the chair, and Waberski murmured, "Yes--to be sure," +and made a little run to it and sank down. + +Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was certain of one +thing. Boris Waberski had not written the anonymous letter to Betty +nor had he contributed the information about Hanaud to the writer. +He might well have been thought to have been acting ignorance of +Hanaud's name, up to the moment when Hanaud explained who Hanaud was. +But no longer. His consternation then was too genuine. + +"You will understand, of course, that an accusation so serious as the +one you have brought against Mademoiselle Harlowe demands the closest +inquiry," Hanaud continued without any trace of irony, "and the +Examining Magistrate in charge of the case honoured us in Paris with +a request for help." + +"Yes, it is very difficult," replied Boris Waberski, twisting about +as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. + +But the difficulty was Waberski's, as Jim, with that distressed man +in full view, was now able to appreciate. Waberski had rushed to the +Prefecture when no answer came from Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt to +his letter of threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of +disappointment and rancour, with a hope no doubt that some offer of +cash would be made to him and that he could withdraw it. Now he +found the trained detective service of France upon his heels, asking +for his proofs and evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. + +"I thought," Hanaud continued easily, "that a little informal +conversation between you and me and the two young ladies, without +shorthand writers or secretaries, might be helpful." + +"Yes, indeed," said Waberski hopefully. + +"As a preliminary of course," Hanaud added dryly, "a preliminary to +the more serious and now inevitable procedure." + +Waberski's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. + +"To be sure," he murmured, plucking at his lean throat nervously. +"Cases must proceed." + +"That is what they are there for," said Hanaud sententiously; and the +door of the library was pushed open. Betty came into the room with +Ann Upcott immediately behind her. + +"You sent for me," she began to Hanaud, and then she saw Boris +Waberski. Her little head went up with a jerk, her eyes smouldered. +"Monsieur Boris," she said, and again she spoke to Hanaud. "Come to +take possession, I suppose?" Then she looked round the room for Jim +Frobisher, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay: + +"But I understood that----" and Hanaud was just in time to stop her +from mentioning any name. + +"All in good time, Mademoiselle," he said quickly. "Let us take +things in their order." + +Betty took her old place in the window-seat. Ann Upcott shut the +door and sat down in a chair a little apart from the others. Hanaud +folded up his newspaper and laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad +which was now revealed lay one of those green files which Jim +Frobisher had noticed in the office of the Sûrété. Hanaud opened it +and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to Waberski. + +"Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of April, this +girl here, Betty Harlowe, did wilfully give to her adoptive mother +and benefactress, Jeanne-Marie Harlowe, an overdose of a narcotic by +which her death was brought about." + +"Yes," said Waberski with an air of boldness, "I declare that." + +"You do not specify the narcotic?" + +"It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure." + +"And administered, according to you, if this summary which I hold +here is correct, in the glass of lemonade which Madame Harlowe had +always at her bedside." + +"Yes." + +Hanaud laid the sheet of foolscap down again. + +"You do not charge the nurse, Jeanne Baudin, with complicity in this +crime?" he asked. + +"Oh, no!" Waberski exclaimed with a sort of horror, with his eyes +open wide and his eyebrows running up his forehead towards his hedge +of wiry hair. "I have not a suspicion of Jeanne Baudin. I pray you, +Monsieur Hanaud, to be clear upon that point. There must be no +injustice! No! Oh, it is well that I came here to-day! Jeanne +Baudin! Listen! I would engage her to nurse me to-morrow, were my +health to fail." + +"One cannot say more than that," replied Hanaud with a grave +sympathy. "I only asked you the question because undoubtedly Jeanne +Baudin was in Madame's bedroom when Mademoiselle entered it to wish +Madame good night and show off her new dancing-frock." + +"Yes, I understand," said Waberski. He was growing more and more +confident, so suave and friendly was this Monsieur Hanaud of the +Sûrété. "But the fatal drug was slipped into that glass without a +doubt when Jeanne Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No! +It is that hard one," and his voice began to shake and his mouth to +work, "who slipped it in and then hurried off to dance till morning, +whilst her victim died. It is terrible that! Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, +it is terrible. My poor sister!" + +"Sister-in-law." + +The correction came with an acid calm from an armchair near the door +in which Ann Upcott was reclining. + +"Sister to me!" replied Waberski mournfully and he turned to Hanaud. +"Monsieur, I shall never cease to reproach myself. I was away +fishing in the forest. If I had stayed at home! Think of it! I ask +you to----" and his voice broke. + +"Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Waberski," Hanaud said, "and +this is where I am perplexed. You loved your sister. That is clear, +since you cannot even think of her without tears." + +"Yes, yes," Waberski shaded his eyes with his hand. + +"Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so long before you +took any action to avenge her death? There will be some good reason +not a doubt, but I have not got it." Hanaud continued, spreading out +his hands. "Listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night +of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th; and you do +nothing, you bring no charge, you sit all quiet. She is buried on +the 30th, and after that you still do nothing, you sit all quiet. It +is not until one week after that you launch your accusation against +Mademoiselle. Why? I beg you, Monsieur Waberski, not to look at me +between the fingers, for the answer is not written on my face, and to +explain this difficulty to me." + +The request was made in the same pleasant, friendly voice which +Hanaud had used so far and without any change of intonation. But +Waberski snatched his hand away from his forehead and sat up with a +flush on his face. + +"I answer you at once," he exclaimed. "From the first I knew it +here," and he thumped his heart with his fist, "that murder had been +committed. But as yet I did not know it here," and he patted his +forehead, "in my head. So I think and I think and I think. I see +reasons and motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of +beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, thirsting in +her heart for colour and laughter and enjoyment and the power which +her beauty offers her if she will but grasp it, and yet while +thirsting, very able to conceal all sign of thirst. That is the +picture I give you of that hard one, Betty Harlowe." + +For the first time since the interview had commenced, Betty herself +showed some interest in it. Up till now she had sat without a +movement, a figure of disdain in an ice-house of pride. Now she +flashed into life. She leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed +knee, her chin propped in her hand, her eyes on Waberski, and a smile +of amusement at this analysis of herself giving life to her face. +Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his door felt that he was +listening to blasphemies. Why did Hanaud endure it? There was +information, he had said, which he wanted to get from Boris Waberski. +The point on which he wanted information was settled long ago, at the +very beginning of this informal session. It was as clear as daylight +that Waberski had nothing to do with Betty's anonymous letter. Why, +then, should Hanaud give this mountebank of a fellow a free +opportunity to slander Betty Harlowe? Why should he question and +question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? Why, in a +word, didn't he fling open this door, allow Frobisher to produce the +blackmailing letters to Mr. Haslitt, and then stand aside while Boris +Waberski was put into that condition in which he would call upon the +services of Jeanne Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously annoyed with +Monsieur Hanaud. He explained to himself that he was disappointed. + +Meanwhile, Boris Waberski, after a little nervous check when Betty +had leaned forward, continued his description. + +"For such a one Dijon would be tiresome. It is true there was each +year a month or so at Monte Carlo, just enough to give one a hint of +what might be, like a cigarette to a man who wants to smoke. And +then back to Dijon! Ah, Monsieur, not the Dijon of the Dukes of +Burgundy, not even the Dijon of the Parliament of the States, but the +Dijon of to-day, an ordinary, dull, provincial town of France which +keeps nothing of its former gaieties and glory but some old rare +buildings and a little spirit of mockery. Imagine, then, Monsieur, +this hard one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp if only she +has the boldness on some night when Monsieur Boris is out of the way +to seize them! Nor is that all. For there is an invalid in the +house to whom attentions are owed--yes, and must be given." +Waberski, in a flight of excitement checked himself and half closed +his eyes, with a little cunning nod. "For the invalid was not so +easy. No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we will +not forget them when the moment comes for the extenuating pleas. No, +indeed," and he flung his arm out nobly. "I myself will be the first +to urge them to the judge of the Assizes when the verdict is given." + +Betty Harlowe leaned back once more indifferent. From an arm-chair +near the door, a little gurgle of laughter broke from the lips of Ann +Upcott. Even Hanaud smiled. + +"Yes, yes," he said; "but we have not got quite as far as the Court +of Assizes, Monsieur Waberski. We are still at the point where you +know it in your heart but not in your head." + +"That is so," Waberski returned briskly. "On the seventh of May, a +Saturday, I bring my accusation to the Prefecture. Why? For, on the +morning of that day I am certain. I know it at last here too," and +up went his hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward on +to the edge of his chair. + +"I am in the street of Gambetta, one of the small popular new +streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation not of the +best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly through that street when +from a little shop a few yards in front of me out pops that hard one, +my niece." + +Suddenly the whole character of that session had changed. Jim +Frobisher, though he sat apart from it, felt the new tension, and was +aware of the new expectancy. A moment ago Boris Waberski as he sat +talking and gesticulating had been a thing for ridicule, almost for +outright laughter. Now, though his voice still jumped hysterically +from high notes to low notes and his body jerked like a marionette's, +he held the eyes of every one--every one, that is, except Betty +Harlowe. He was no longer vague. He was speaking of a definite hour +and a place and of a definite incident which happened there. + +"Yes, in that bad little street I see her. I do not believe my +senses. I step into a little narrow alley and I peep round the +corner. I peep with my eyes," and Waberski pointed to them with two +of his fingers as though there was something peculiarly convincing in +the fact that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, "and I am +sure. Then I wait until she is out of sight, and I creep forward to +see what shop it is she visited in that little street of squalor. +Once more I do not believe my eyes. For over the door I read the +name, Jean Cladel, Herbalist." + +He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph and sat back in his +chair, nodding his head violently at intervals of a second. There +was not a sound in the room until Hanaud's voice broke the silence. + +"I don't understand," he said softly. "Who is this Jean Cladel, and +why should a young lady not visit his shop?" + +"I beg your pardon," Waberski replied. "You are not of Dijon. No! +or you would not have asked that question. Jean Cladel has no better +name than the street he very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonnais +about Jean Cladel, and you will see how he becomes silent and shrugs +his shoulders as if here was a topic on which it was becoming to be +silent. Better still, Monsieur Hanaud, ask at the Prefecture. Jean +Cladel! Twice he has been tried for selling prohibited drugs." + +Hanaud was stung at last out of his calm. + +"What is that?" he cried in a sharp voice. + +"Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped through, that is +true. He has powerful friends, and witnesses have been spirited +away. But he is known! Jean Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!" + +"Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta," Hanaud repeated +slowly. "But"--and he leaned back in an easier attitude--"you will +see my difficulty, Monsieur Waberski. Ten o'clock is a public hour. +It is not a likely hour for any one to choose for so imprudent a +visit, even if that one were stupid." + +"Yes, and so I reasoned too," Waberski interposed quickly. "As I +told you, I could not believe my eyes. But I made sure--oh, there +was no doubt, Monsieur Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes +are discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner or +later some foolish thing. Isn't it so? Sometimes they are too +careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an imperfect world. +Sometimes they are too careless or are driven by necessity to a rash +thing. But somehow a mistake is made and justice wins the game." + +Hanaud smiled. + +"Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!" He turned to Betty, and it +struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious discomfort that this was the +first time Hanaud had looked directly at Betty since the interview +had begun. + +"And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?" + +"It is a lie," she answered quietly. + +"You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta at ten +o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May?" + +"I did not, Monsieur." + +Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache. + +"Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle to admit +it. One fights for one's skin, eh?" + +"But, after all," Hanaud interrupted, with enough savagery in his +voice to check all Waberski's complacency, "let us not forget that on +the 7th of May, Madame Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why +should Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?" + +"To pay," said Waberski. "Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel's wares are +expensive and have to be paid for more than once, Monsieur." + +"By wares you mean poison," said Hanaud. "Let us be explicit." + +"Yes." + +"Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe." + +"I say so," Waberski declared, folding his arms across his breast. + +"Very well," said Hanaud. He took from his green file a second paper +written over in a fine hand and emphasised by an official stamp. +"Then what will you say, Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of +Madame Harlowe has been exhumed?" Hanaud continued, and Waberski's +face lost what little colour it had. He stared at Hanaud, his jaw +working up and down nervously, and he did not say a word. + +"And what will you say if I tell you," Hanaud continued, "that no +more morphia was discovered in it than one sleeping-dose would +explain and no trace at all of any other poison?" + +In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief from his pocket +and dabbed his forehead. The game was up. He had hoped to make his +terms, but his bluff was called. He had not one atom of faith in his +own accusation. There was but one course for him to take, and that +was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection for his +sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. But Boris Waberski +was never the man for that. He had that extra share of cunning which +shipwrecks always the minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine +that Hanaud might be bluffing too. + +He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He tittered and +nodded at Hanaud confidentially. + +"You say 'if I tell you,'" he said smoothly. "Yes, but you do not +tell me, Monsieur Hanaud--no, not at all. On the contrary, what you +say is this: 'My friend Waberski, here is a difficult matter which, +if exposed, means a great scandal, and of which the issue is +doubtful. There is no good in stirring the mud.'" + +"Oh, I say that?" Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly. + +Waberski felt sure of his ground now. + +"Yes, and more than that. You say, 'You have been badly treated, my +friend Waberski, and if you will now have a little talk with that +hard one your niece----'" + +And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat gaping +stupidly like a man who has been shot. + +Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering above the table, his +face suddenly dark with passion. + +"Oh, I say all that, do I?" he thundered. "I came all the way from +Paris to Dijon to preside over a little bargain in a murder case! +I--Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! I'll teach you a lesson for that! Read +this!" and bending forward he thrust out the paper with the official +seal. "It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and +read it!" + +Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to venture nearer. Even +when he had the paper in his hands, they shook so he could not read +it. But since he had never believed in his charge that did not +matter. + +"Yes," he muttered, "no doubt I have made a mistake." + +Hanaud caught the word up. + +"Mistake! Ah, there's a fine word! I'll show you what sort of a +mistake you have made. Draw up your chair to this table in front of +me! So! And take a pen--so! And a sheet of paper--so! and now you +write for me a letter." + +"Yes, yes," Waberski agreed. All the bravado had gone from his +bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He was in a quiver from head +to foot. "I will write that I am sorry." + +"That is not necessary," roared Hanaud. "I will see to it that you +are sorry. No! You write for me what I dictate to you and in +English. You are ready? Yes? Then you begin. 'Dear Sirs.' You +have that?" + +"Yes, yes," said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His head was in a +whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the towering bulk of the +detective. He had as yet no comprehension of the goal to which he +was being led. + +"Good! 'Dear Sirs,'" Hanaud repeated. "But we want a date for that +letter. April 30th, eh? That will do. The day Madame Harlowe's +will was read and you found you were left no money. April 30th--put +it in. So! Now we go on. 'Dear Sirs, Send me at once one thousand +pounds by the recommended post, or I make some awkwardnesses----'" + +Waberski dropped his pen and sprang back out of his chair. + +"I don't understand--I can't write that.... There is an error--I +never meant..." he stammered, his hands raised as if to ward off an +attack. + +"Ah, you never meant the blackmail!" Hanaud cried savagely. "Ah! +Ha! Ha! It is good for you that I now know that! For when, as you +put it so delicately to Mademoiselle, the moment comes for the +extenuating pleas, I can rise up in the Court and urge it. Yes! I +will say: 'Mr. the President, though he did the blackmail, poor +fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him five years more,'" +and with that Hanaud swept across the room like a tornado and flung +open the door behind which Frobisher was waiting. + +"Come!" he said, and he led Jim into the room. "You produce the two +letters he wrote to your firm, Monsieur Frobisher. Good!" + +But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris Waberski had dropped +into a chair and burst into tears. There was a little movement of +discomfort made by every one in that room except Hanaud; and even his +anger dropped. He looked at Waberski in silence. + +"You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your hotel," he said +shortly. "But you will not leave Dijon, Monsieur Waberski, until it +is decided what steps we shall take with you." + +Waberski rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the door. + +"I make my apologies," he stammered. "It is all a mistake. I am +very poor ... I meant no harm," and without looking at any one he got +himself out of the room. + +"That type! He at all events cannot any more think that Dijon is +dull," said Hanaud, and once more he adventured on the dangerous seas +of the English language. "Do you know what my friend Mister Ricardo +would have said? No? I tell you. He would have said, 'That fellow! +My God! What a sauce!'" + +Those left in the room, Betty, Ann Upcott, and Jim Frobisher, were in +a mood to welcome any excuse for laughter. The interdict upon the +house was raised, the charge against Betty proved of no account, the +whole bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanaud went +quickly to the door and closed it, and when he turned back there was +no laughter at all upon his face. + +"Now that that man has gone," he said gravely, "I have something to +tell you three which is very serious. I believe that, though +Waberski does not know it, Madame Harlowe was murdered by poison in +this house on the night of April the twenty-seventh." + +The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim Frobisher +stood like a man whom some calamity has stunned. Betty leaned +forward in her seat with a face of horror and incredulity; and then +from the arm-chair by the door where Ann Upcott was sitting there +burst a loud, wild cry. + +"There was some one in the house that night," she cried. + +Hanaud swung round to her, his eyes blazing. + +"And it is you who tell me that, Mademoiselle?" he asked in a +curious, steady voice. + +"Yes. It's the truth," she cried with a sort of relief in her voice, +that at last a secret was out which had grown past endurance. "I am +sure now. There was a stranger in the house." And though her face +was white as paper, her eyes met Hanaud's without fear. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT: _The Book_ + +The two startling declarations, one treading upon the heels of the +other, set Jim Frobisher's brain whirling. Consternation and +bewilderment were all jumbled together. He had no time to ask "how," +for he was already asking "What next?" His first clear thought was +for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger against both Hanaud +and Ann Upcott seized and shook him. Why hadn't they both spoken +before? Why must they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well alone? + +For Betty had fallen back in the window-seat, her hands idle at her +sides and her face utterly weary and distressed. Jim thought of some +stricken patient who wakes in the morning to believe for a few +moments that the malady was a bad dream; and then comes the stab and +the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A moment ago Betty's +ordeal seemed over. Now it was beginning a new phase. + +"I am sorry," he said to her. + +The report of the analysts was lying on the writing-table just +beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was a trick, of course, +with its seals and its signatures, a trick of Hanaud's to force +Waberski to a retraction. He glanced at it, and with an exclamation +began carefully to read it through from the beginning to the end. +When he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanaud. + +"But this report is genuine," he cried. "Here are the details of the +tests applied and the result. There was no trace discovered of any +poison." + +"No trace at all," Hanaud replied. He was not in the least disturbed +by the question. + +"Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation or whom you +accuse," Frobisher exclaimed. + +"I have accused no one," said Hanaud steadily. "Let us be clear +about that! As to your other question--look!" + +He took Frobisher by the elbow and led him to that bookshelf by the +window before which they had stood together yesterday. + +"There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself drew my +attention to it. You see that the space is filled to-day." + +"Yes," said Jim. + +Hanaud took down the volume which occupied the space. It was of +quarto size, fairly thick and bound in a paper cover. + +"Look at that," he said; and Jim Frobisher as he took it noticed with +a queer little start that although Hanaud's eyes were on his face +they were blank of all expression. They did not see him. Hanaud's +senses were concentrated on the two girls at neither of whom he so +much as glanced. He was alert to them, to any movement they might +make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his head in a sudden +revolt. He was being used for another trick, as some conjurer may +use a fool of a fellow whom he has persuaded out of his audience on +to his platform. Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with +enough violence to recall Hanaud's attention: + +"I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed by some +learned society in Edinburgh." + +"It is. And if you will look again, you will see that it was written +by a Professor of Medicine in that University. And if you will look +a third time you will see from a small inscription in ink that the +copy was presented with the Professor's compliments to Mr. Simon +Harlowe." + +Hanaud, whilst he was speaking, went to the second of the two windows +which looked upon the court and putting his head out, spoke for a +little while in a low voice. + +"We shall not need our sentry here any more," he said as he turned +back into the room. "I have sent him upon an errand." + +He went back to Jim Frobisher, who was turning over a page of the +treatise here and there and was never a scrap the wiser. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"Strophanthus Hispidus," Jim read aloud the title of the treatise. +"I can't make head or tail of it." + +"Let me try!" said Hanaud, and he took the book out of Frobisher's +hands. "I will show you all how I spent the half-hour whilst I was +waiting for you this morning." + +He sat down at the writing-table, placed the treatise on the +blotting-pad in front of him and laid it open at a coloured plate. + +"This is the fruit of the plant Strophanthus Hispidus, when it is +ripening," he said. + +The plate showed two long, tapering follicles joined together at +their stems and then separating like a pair of compasses set at an +acute angle. The backs of these follicles were rounded, dark in +colour and speckled; the inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the +curious feature of them was that, from longitudinal crevices, a +number of silky white feathers protruded. + +"Each of these feathers," Hanaud continued, and he looked up to find +that Ann Upcott had drawn close to the table and that Betty Harlowe +herself was leaning forward with a look of curiosity upon her +face--"each of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an +elliptical pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe +and these follicles have opened so that they make a straight line, +the feathers are released and the wind spreads the seed. It is +wonderful, eh? See!" + +Hanaud turned the pages until he came to another plate. Here a +feather was represented in complete detachment from the follicle. It +was outspread like a fan and was extraordinarily pretty and delicate +in its texture; and from it by a stem as fine as a hair the seed hung +like a jewel. + +"What would you say of it, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked, looking up +into the face of Ann Upcott with a smile. "An ornament wrought for a +fine lady, by a dainty artist, eh?" and he turned the book round so +that she on the opposite side of the table might the better admire +the engraving. + +Betty Harlowe, it seemed, was now mastered by her curiosity. Jim +Frobisher, gazing down over Hanaud's shoulder at the plate and +wondering uneasily whither he was being led, saw a shadow fall across +the book. And there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend +with the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table and her face +bent over the book. + +"One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the Strophanthus +Hispidus," Hanaud continued with a shake of the head. "But, alas! it +is not so harmless." + +He turned the book around again to himself and once more turned the +pages. The smile had disappeared altogether from his face. He +stopped at a third plate; and this third plate showed a row of +crudely fashioned arrows with barbed heads. + +Hanaud glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. + +"Do you understand now the importance of this book, Monsieur +Frobisher?" he asked. "No? The seeds of this plant make the famous +arrow-poison of Africa. The deadliest of all the poisons since there +is no antidote for it." His voice grew sombre. "The wickedest of +all the poisons, since it leaves no trace." + +Jim Frobisher was startled. "Is that true?" he cried. + +"Yes," said Hanaud; and Betty suddenly leaned forward and pointed to +the bottom of the plate. + +"There is a mark there below the hilt of that arrow," she said +curiously. "Yes, and a tiny note in ink." + +For a moment a little gift of vision was vouchsafed to Jim Frobisher, +born, no doubt, of his perplexities and trouble. A curtain was rung +up in his brain. He saw no more than what was before him--the pretty +group about the table in the gold of the May morning, but it was all +made grim and terrible and the gold had withered to a light that was +grey and deathly and cold as the grave. There were the two girls in +the grace of their beauty and their youth, daintily tended, +fastidiously dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of +the poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man delivering +the lecture, so close to them, with speech so gentle, was implacably +on the trail of murder, and maybe even now looked upon one of these +two girls as his quarry; was even now perhaps planning to set her in +the dock of an Assize Court and send her out afterwards, carried +screaming and sobbing with terror in the first grey of the morning to +the hideous red engine erected during the night before the prison +gates. Jim saw Hanaud the genial and friendly, as in some flawed +mirror, twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could he +sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point them out +this and that diagram in the plates, he being human and knowing what +he purposed. Jim broke in upon the lecture with a cry of +exasperation. + +"But this isn't a poison! This is a book about a poison. The book +can't kill!" + +At once Hanaud replied to him: + +"Can't it?" he cried sharply. "Listen to what Mademoiselle said a +minute ago. Below the hilt of this arrow marked 'Figure F,' the +Professor has written a tiny note." + +This particular arrow was a little different from the others in the +shape of its shaft. Just below the triangular iron head the shaft +expanded. It was as though the head had been fitted into a bulb; as +one sees sometimes wooden penholders fine enough and tapering at the +upper end, and quite thick just above the nib. + +"'See page 37,'" said Hanaud, reading the Professor's note, and he +turned back the pages. + +"Page 37. Here we are!" + +Hanaud ran a finger half-way down the page and stopped at a word in +capitals. + +"Figure F." + +Hanaud hitched his chair a little closer to the table; Ann Upcott +moved round the end of the table that she might see the better; even +Jim Frobisher found himself stooping above Hanaud's shoulder. They +were all conscious of a queer tension; they were expectant like +explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Hanaud read the +paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed; and this is what he +read: + +"'Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow which was lent to +me by Simon Harlowe, Esq., of Blackman's, Norfolk, and the Maison +Crenelle at Dijon. It was given to him by a Mr. John Carlisle, a +trader on the Shire River in the Kombe country, and is the most +perfect example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The +Strophanthus seed has been pounded up in water and mixed with the +reddish clay used by the Kombe natives, and the compound is thickly +smeared over the head of the arrow shaft and over the actual iron +dart except at the point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and +the compound fresh.'" + +Hanaud leaned back in his chair when he had come to the end of this +paragraph. + +"You see, Monsieur Frobisher, the question we have to answer. Where +is to-day Simon Harlowe's arrow?" + +Betty looked up into Hanaud's face. + +"If it is anywhere in this house, Monsieur, it should be in the +locked cabinet in my sitting-room." + +"Your sitting-room?" Hanaud exclaimed sharply. + +"Yes. It is what we call the Treasure Room--half museum, half +living-room. My uncle Simon used it, Madame too. It was their +favourite room, full of curios and beautiful things. But after Simon +Harlowe died Madame would never enter it. She locked the door which +communicated with her dressing-room, so that she might never even in +a moment of forgetfulness enter it. The room has a door into the +hall. She gave the room to me." + +Hanaud's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. + +"I understand," he said. "And that room is sealed." + +"Yes." + +"Have you ever seen the arrow, Mademoiselle?" + +"Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet once. There +are some horrible things hidden away there"; and Betty shivered and +shook the recollection of them from her shoulders. + +"The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that it never +came back to the house," Frobisher argued stubbornly. "The Professor +in all probability would have kept it." + +"If he could," Hanaud rejoined. "But it's out of all probability +that a collector of rare things would have allowed him to keep it. +No!" and he sat for a little time in a muse. "Do you know what I am +wondering?" he asked at length, and then answered his own question. +"I am wondering whether after all Boris Waberski was not in the +street of Gambetta on the seventh of May and close, very close, to +the shop of Jean Cladel the herbalist." + +"Boris! Boris Waberski," cried Jim. Was he in Hanaud's eyes the +criminal? After all, why not? After all, who more likely if +criminal there was, since Boris Waberski thought himself an inheritor +under Mrs. Harlowe's will? + +"I am wondering whether he was not doing that very thing which he +attributed to you, Mademoiselle Betty," Hanaud continued. + +"Paying?" Betty cried. + +"Paying--or making excuses for not paying, which is more probable, or +recovering the poison arrow now clean of its poison, which is most +probable of all." + +At last Hanaud had made an end of his secrecies and reticence. His +suspicion, winged like the arrow in the plate, was flying straight to +this evident mark. Jim drew a breath like a man waking from a +nightmare; in all of that small company a relaxation was visible; Ann +Upcott drew away from the table; Betty said softly as though speaking +to herself, "Monsieur Boris! Monsieur Boris! Oh, I never thought of +that!" and, to Jim's admiration there was actually a note of regret +in her voice. + +It was audible, too, to Hanaud, since he answered with a smile: + +"But you must bring yourself to think of it, Mademoiselle. After +all, he was not so gentle with you that you need show him so much +good will." + +A slight rush of colour tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim was not quite +sure that a tiny accent of irony had not pointed Hanaud's words. + +"I saw him sitting here," she replied quickly, "half an hour +ago--abject--in tears--a man!" She shrugged her shoulders with a +gesture of distaste. "I wish him nothing worse. I was satisfied." + +Hanaud smiled again with a curious amusement, an appreciation which +Frobisher was quite at a loss to understand. But he had from time to +time received an uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel +was all this while being fought by Betty Harlowe and Hanaud +underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers--a duel in +which now one, now the other of the combatants got some trifling +scratch. This time it seemed Betty was hurt. + +"You are satisfied, Mademoiselle, but the Law is not," Hanaud +returned. "Boris Waberski expected a legacy. Boris Waberski needed +money immediately, as the first of the two letters which he wrote to +Monsieur Frobisher's firm clearly shows. Boris Waberski had a +motive." He looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod +to drive the point home. "Motives, no doubt, are signposts rather +difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss, they lead one very +wide astray. Granted! But you must look for your signposts all the +same and try to read them aright. Listen again to the Professor of +Medicine in the University of Edinburgh! He is as precise as a man +can be." + +Hanaud's eyes fell again upon the description of Figure F in the +treatise still open upon the table in front of him. + +"The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow which he had ever +come across. The poison paste was thickly and smoothly spread over +the arrow head and some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused +and the poison fresh, and these poisons retain their energy for many, +many years. I tell you that if this book and this arrow were handed +over to Jean Cladel, Herbalist, Jean Cladel could with ease make a +solution in alcohol which injected from a hypodermic needle, would +cause death within fifteen minutes and leave not one trace." + +"Within fifteen minutes?" Betty asked incredulously, and from the +arm-chair against the wall, where Ann Upcott had once more seated +herself, there broke a startled exclamation. + +"Oh!" she cried, but no one took any notice of her at all. Both Jim +and Betty had their eyes fixed upon Hanaud, and he was altogether +occupied in driving his argument home. + +"Within fifteen minutes? How do you know?" cried Jim. + +"It is written here, in the book." + +"And where would Jean Cladel have learnt to handle the paste with +safety, how to prepare the solution?" Jim went on. + +"Here! Here! Here!" answered Hanaud, tapping with his knuckles upon +the treatise. "It is all written out here--experiment after +experiment made upon living animals and the action of the poison +measured and registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working +knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, and the +result is certain." + +Betty Harlowe leaned forward again over the book and Hanaud turned it +half round between them, so that both, by craning their heads, could +read. He turned the pages back to the beginning and passed them +quickly in review. + +"See, Mademoiselle, the time tables. Strophanthus constricts the +muscles of the heart like digitalis, only much more violently, much +more swiftly. See the contractions of the heart noted down minute +after minute, until the moment of death and all--here is the +irony!--so that by means of these experiments, the poison may be +transformed into a medicine and the weapon of death become an agent +of life--as in good hands, it has happened." Hanaud leaned back and +contemplated Betty Harlowe between his half-closed eyes. "That is +wonderful, Mademoiselle. What do you think?" + +Betty slowly closed the book. + +"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," she said, "it is no less wonderful that +you should have studied this book so thoroughly during the half-hour +you waited for us here this morning." + +It was Hanaud's turn to change colour. The blood mounted into his +face. He was for a second or two quite disconcerted. Jim once more +had a glimpse of the secret duel and rejoiced that this time it was +Hanaud, the great Hanaud, who was scratched. + +"The study of poisons is particularly my work," he answered shortly. +"Even at the Sûrété we have to specialise nowadays," and he turned +rather quickly towards Frobisher. "You are thoughtful, Monsieur?" + +Jim was following out his own train of thought. + +"Yes," he answered. Then he spoke to Betty. + +"Boris Waberski had a latch-key, I suppose?" + +"Yes," she replied. + +"He took it away with him?" + +"I think so." + +"When are the iron gates locked?" + +"It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed." + +Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. + +"You see, Monsieur Hanaud," he cried, "all this while we have been +leaving out a question of importance. Who put this book back upon +its shelf? And when? Yesterday at noon the space was empty. This +morning it is filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the +garden after dinner behind the house. What could have been easier +than for Waberski to slip in with his latch-key at some moment when +the court was empty, replace the book and slip out again unnoticed? +Why----" + +A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. + +"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The police have a +_sergent-de-ville_ at our gates, night and day." + +Hanaud shook his head. + +"He is there no longer. After you were good enough to answer me so +frankly yesterday morning the questions it was my duty to put to you, +I had him removed at once." + +"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He remembered now that +when he had driven up with his luggage from the hotel in the +afternoon, the street of Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty +Harlowe stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made her +face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she dipped to the +detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice was warm with +gratitude. + +"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday that the man had +been removed, or I should have thanked you before. Indeed I was not +looking for so much consideration at your hands. As I told my friend +Jim, I believed that you went away thinking me guilty." + +Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the flourish of the +sword with which the duellist saluted at the end of the bout. The +little secret combat between these two was over. Hanaud, by removing +the sergeant from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only +to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify any +surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or any limitations +upon her freedom. + +"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at his solution +of the case like a dog with a bone. "You see Waberski had the road +clear for him last night." + +Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head vigorously. + +"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so horrible a +murder. More," and she turned her great eyes pleadingly upon Hanaud, +"I don't believe that any murder was committed here at all. I don't +want to believe it," and for a moment her voice faltered. + +"After all, Monsieur Hanaud, what are you building this dreadful +theory upon? That a book of my Uncle Simon was not in his library +yesterday and is there to-day. We know nothing more. We don't know +even whether Jean Cladel exists at all." + +"We shall know that, Mademoiselle, very soon," said Hanaud, staring +down at the book upon the table. + +"We don't know whether the arrow is in the house, whether it ever +was." + +"We must make sure, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud stubbornly. + +"And even if you had it now, here with the poison clinging in shreds +to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure that the rest of it had been +used. Here is a report, Monsieur, from the doctors. Because it says +that no trace of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a +poison was administered which leaves no trace. You never can prove +it. You have nothing to go upon. It's all guesswork, and guesswork +which will keep us living in a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a +moment that murder had been committed, I'd say, 'Go on, go on'! But +it hasn't. Oh, it hasn't!" + +Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there was so strong a +passion of appeal, for peace, for an end of suspicion, for a right to +forget and be forgotten, that Jim fancied no man could resist it. +Indeed, Hanaud sat for a long while with his eyes bent upon the table +before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently though his +voice began, Jim knew at once that she had lost. + +"You argue and plead very well, Mademoiselle Betty," he said. "But +we have each of us our little creeds by which we live for better or +for worse. Here is mine, a very humble one. I can discover +extenuations in most crimes: even crimes of violence. Passion, +anger, even greed! What are they but good qualities developed beyond +the bounds? Things at the beginning good and since grown monstrous! +So, too, in the execution. This or that habit of life makes natural +this or that weapon which to us is hideous and abnormal and its mere +use a sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognise these +palliations. But there is one crime I never will forgive--murder by +poison. And one criminal in whose pursuit I will never tire nor +slacken, the Poisoner." Through the words there ran a real thrill of +hatred, and though Hanaud's voice was low, and he never once raised +his eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him in a +dreadful spell. + +"Cowardly and secret, the poisoner has his little world at his mercy, +and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be sure," he continued bitterly. +"His hideous work is so easy. It just becomes a vice like drink, no +more than that to the poisoner, but with a thousand times the +pleasure drink can give. Like the practice of some abominable art. +I tell you the truth now! Show me one victim to-day and the poisoner +scot-free, and I'll show you another victim before the year's out. +Make no mistake! Make no mistake!" + +His voice rang out and died away. But the words seemed still to +vibrate in the air of that room, to strike the walls and rebound from +them and still be audible. Jim Frobisher, for all his slow +imagination, felt that had a poisoner been present and heard them, +some cry of guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His +heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his reason +told him there was no mouth in that room from which the cry could +come. + +Hanaud looked up at Betty when he had finished. He begged her pardon +with a little flutter of his hands and a regretful smile. "You must +take me, therefore, as God made me, Mademoiselle, and not blame me +more than you can help for the distress I still must cause you. +There was never a case more difficult. Therefore never one about +which one way or the other I must be more sure." + +Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the door. + +"Come in," Hanaud cried out, and a small, dark, alert man in plain +clothes entered the room. + +"This is Nicolas Moreau, who was keeping watch in the courtyard. I +sent him some while ago upon an errand," he explained and turned +again to Moreau. + +"Well, Nicolas?" + +Nicolas stood at attention, with his hands at the seams of his +trousers, in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited rather than +spoke in a perfectly expressionless official voice. + +"In accordance with instructions I went to the shop of Jean Cladel. +It is number seven. From the Rue Gambetta I went to the Prefecture. +I verified your statement. Jean Cladel has twice appeared before the +Police Correctionelle for selling forbidden drugs and has twice been +acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses." + +"Thank you, Nicolas." + +Moreau saluted, turned on his heel, and went out of the room. There +followed a moment of silence, of discouragement. Hanaud looked +ruefully at Betty. + +"You see! I must go on. We must search in that locked cabinet of +Simon Harlowe's for the poison arrow, if by chance it should be +there." + +"The room is sealed," Frobisher reminded him. + +"We must have those seals removed," he replied, and he took his watch +from his pocket and screwed up his face in grimace. + +"We need Monsieur the Commissary, and Monsieur the Commissary will +not be in a good humour if we disturb him now. For it is twelve +o'clock, the sacred hour of luncheon. You will have observed upon +the stage that Commissaries of Police are never in a good humour. It +is because----" But Hanaud's audience was never to hear his +explanation of this well-known fact. For he stopped with a queer +jerk of his voice, his watch still dangling from his fingers upon its +chain. Both Jim and Betty looked at once where he was looking. They +saw Ann Upcott standing up against the wall with her hand upon the +top rail of a chair to prevent herself from falling. Her eyes were +closed, her whole face a mask of misery. Hanaud was at her side in a +moment. + +"Mademoiselle," he asked with a breathless sort of eagerness, "what +is it you have to tell me?" + +"It is true, then?" she whispered. "Jean Cladel exists?" + +"Yes." + +"And the poison arrow could have been used?" she faltered, and the +next words would not be spoken, but were spoken at the last. "And +death would have followed in fifteen minutes?" + +"Upon my oath it is true," Hanaud insisted. "What is it you have to +tell me?" + +"That I could have hindered it all. I shall never forgive myself. I +could have hindered the murder." + +Hanaud's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was he disappointed, +Frobisher wondered? Did he expect quite another reply? A swift +movement by Betty distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty +looking across the room at them with the strangest glittering eyes he +had ever seen. And then Ann Upcott drew herself away from Hanaud and +stood up against the wall at her full height with her arms +outstretched. She seemed to be setting herself apart as a pariah; +her whole attitude and posture cried, "Stone me! I am waiting." + +Hanaud put his watch into his pocket. + +"Mademoiselle, we will let the Commissary eat his luncheon in peace, +and we will hear your story first. But not here. In the garden +under the shade of the trees." He took his handkerchief and wiped +his forehead. "Indeed I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as +an oven." + +When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon the incidents of +that morning, nothing stood out so vividly in his memories, no, not +even the book of arrows and its plates, not Hanaud's statement of his +creed, as the picture of him twirling his watch at the end of his +chain, whilst it sparkled in the sunlight and he wondered whether he +should break in now upon the Commissaire of Police or let him eat his +luncheon in quiet. So much that was then unsuspected by them all, +hung upon the exact sequence of events. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE: _The Secret_ + +The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn towards the +farther end of the garden in the shadow of the great trees. Hanaud +led the way towards them. + +"We shall be in the cool here and with no one to overhear us but the +birds," he said, and he patted and arranged the cushions in a deep +arm-chair of basket work for Ann Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded +again of the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid and again the +parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer insight into +the character of this implacable being. The little courtesies and +attentions were not assumed. They were natural, but they would not +hinder him for a moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the +cushions with the swift deft hands of a nurse--yes, but he would slip +the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment afterwards, no +less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty prompted him. + +"There!" he said. "Now, Mademoiselle, you are comfortable. For me, +if I am permitted, I shall smoke." + +He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who with Jim had +followed into the garden behind him. + +"Of course," she answered; and coming forward, she sat down in +another of the chairs. + +Hanaud pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of thin black +cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair close to the two +girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind Hanaud. The lawn was dappled with +sunlight and cool shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling +from bough and bush, the garden was riotous with roses and the air +sweet with their perfume. It was a strange setting for the eerie +story which Ann Upcott had to tell of her adventures in the darkness +and silence of a night; but the very contrast seemed to make the +story still more vivid. + +"I did not go to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball on the night of April +the 27th," she began, and Jim started, so that Hanaud raised his hand +to prevent him interrupting. He had not given a thought to where Ann +Upcott had been upon that night. To Hanaud, however, the statement +brought no surprise. + +"You were not well?" he asked. + +"It wasn't that," Ann replied. "But Betty and I had--I won't say a +rule, but a sort of working arrangement which I think had been in +practice ever since I came to the Maison Crenelle. We didn't +encroach upon each other's independence." + +The two girls had recognised from their first coming together that +privacy was the very salt of companionship. Each had a sanctuary in +her own sitting-room. + +"I don't think Betty has ever been in mine, I only once or twice in +hers," said Ann. "We had each our own friends. We didn't pester +each other with questions as to where we had been and with whom. In +a word, we weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels." + +"A wise rule, Mademoiselle," Hanaud agreed cordially. "A good many +households are split from roof to cellar by the absence of just such +a rule. The de Pouillacs then were Mademoiselle Betty's friends." + +"Yes. As soon as Betty had gone," Ann resumed, "I told Gaston that +he might turn off the lights and go to bed whenever he liked; and I +went upstairs to my own sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. +You can see the windows from here. There!" + +They were in a group facing the back of the long house across the +garden. To the right of the hall stretched the line of shuttered +windows, with Betty's bedroom just above. Ann pointed to the wing on +the left of the hall and towards the road. + +"I see. You are above the library, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. + +"Yes. I had a letter to write," Ann continued, and suddenly +faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in the telling of her +story which she had forgotten when she had uttered her cry in the +library. She gasped. "Oh!" she murmured, and again "Oh!" in a low +voice. She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from her +at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows upon her knees and +her eyes on the grass at her feet and apparently miles away in +thought. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud asked smoothly. + +"It was an important letter," Ann went on again, choosing her words +warily, much as yesterday at one moment in her interrogatory Betty +herself had done--concealing something, too, just as Betty had done. +"I had promised faithfully to write it. But the address was +downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a doctor," and +having said that, it seemed that she had cleared her obstacle, for +she went on in a more easy and natural tone. + +"You know what it is, Monsieur Hanaud. I had been playing tennis all +the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. There was a letter to be +written with a good deal of care and the address was all the way +downstairs. I said to myself that I would think out the terms of my +letter first." + +And here Jim Frobisher, who had been shifting impatiently from one +foot to the other, broke in upon the narrative. + +"But what was this letter about and to what doctor?" he asked. + +Hanaud swung round almost angrily. + +"Oh, please!" he cried. "These things will all come to light of +themselves in their due order, if we leave them alone and keep them +in our memories. Let Mademoiselle tell her story in her own way," +and he was back at Ann Upcott again in a flash. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle. You determined to think out the tenor of your +letter." + +A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a second. "But +it was an excuse really, an excuse to sit down in my big arm-chair, +stretch out my legs and do nothing at all. You can guess what +happened." + +Hanaud smiled and nodded. + +"You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young people, who +are healthy and tired, awake," he said. + +"No, but it wakes up with them," Ann returned, "and upbraids at once +bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as people do who have gone to +sleep in their chairs. I was wearing a little thin frock of pale +blue tulle--oh, a feather-weight of a frock! Yes, I was cold and my +conscience was saying, 'Oh, big lazy one! And your letter? Where is +it?' + +"In a moment I was standing up and the next I was out of the room on +the landing, and I was still half dazed with sleep. I closed my door +behind me. It was just chance that I did it. The lights were all +out on the staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn +across the windows. There was no moon that night. I was in a +darkness so complete that I could not see the glimmer of my hand when +I raised it close before my face." + +Hanaud let the end of his cigarette drop at his feet. Betty had +raised her face and was staring at Ann with her mouth parted. For +all of them the garden had disappeared with its sunlight and its +roses and its singing birds. They were upon that staircase with Ann +Upcott in the black night. The swift changes of colour in her cheeks +and of expression in her eyes--the nervous vividness of her compelled +them to follow with her. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle?" said Hanaud quietly. + +"The darkness didn't matter to me," she went on, with an amazement at +her own fearlessness, now that she knew the after-history of that +evening. "I am afraid now. I wasn't then," and Jim remembered how +the night before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark +spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was afraid now! +Her hands were clenched tight upon the arms of her chair, her lips +shook. + +"I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on the balustrade. +There was no sound. It never occurred to me that any one was awake +except myself. I did not even turn on the light in the hall by the +switch at the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch +just inside the door of Betty's room, and that was enough. I think, +too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the foot of the stairs +I turned right like a soldier. Exactly opposite to me across the +hall was the door of Betty's room. I crossed the hall with my hands +out in front of me," and Betty, as though she herself were crossing +the hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. + +"Yes, one would have to do that," she said slowly. "In the +dark--with nothing but space in front of one---- Yes!" and then she +smiled as she saw that Hanaud's eyes were watching her curiously. +"Don't you think so, Monsieur Hanaud?" + +"No doubt," said he. "But let us not interrupt Mademoiselle." + +"I touched the wall first," Ann resumed, "just at the angle of the +corridor and the hall." + +"The corridor with the windows on to the courtyard on the one side +and the doors of the receptions on the other?" Hanaud asked. + +"Yes." + +"Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I felt my way +along the wall to my right--that is, in the hall, of course, not the +corridor--until my hands slipped off the surface and touched nothing. +I had reached the embrasure of the doorway. I felt for the +door-knob, turned it and entered the room. The light switch was in +the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I snapped +it down. I think that I was still half asleep when I turned the +light on in the treasure-room, as we called it. But the next moment +I was wide awake--oh, I have never been more wide awake in my life. +My fingers indeed were hardly off the switch after turning the light +on, before they were back again turning the light off. But this time +I eased the switch up very carefully, so that there should be no +snap--no, not the tiniest sound to betray me. There was so short an +interval between the two movements of my hand that I had just time to +notice the clock on the top of the marquetry cabinet in the middle of +the wall opposite to me, and then once more I stood in darkness, but +stock still and holding my breath--a little frightened--yes, no doubt +a little frightened, but more astonished than frightened. For in the +inner wall of the room, at the other end, close by the window, +there,"--and Ann pointed to the second of those shuttered windows +which stared so blankly on the garden--"the door which was always +locked since Simon Harlowe's death stood open and a bright light +burned beyond." + +Betty Harlowe uttered a little cry. + +"That door?" she exclaimed, now at last really troubled. "It stood +open? How can that have been?" + +Hanaud shifted his position in his chair, and asked her a question. + +"On which side of the door was the key, Mademoiselle?" + +"On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all." + +"Oh! You don't remember whether it was?" + +"No," said Betty. "Of course both Ann and I were in and out of +Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but there was a dressing-room +between the bedroom and the communicating door of my room, so that we +should not have noticed." + +"To be sure," Hanaud agreed. "The dressing-room in which the nurse +might have slept and did when Madame had a seizure. Do you remember +whether the communicating door was still open or unlocked on the next +morning?" + +Betty frowned and reflected, and shook her head. + +"I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. There was so much +to do. I did not notice." + +"No. Indeed why should you?" said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann. +"Before you go on with this curious story, Mademoiselle, tell me +this! Was the light beyond the open door, a light in the +dressing-room or in the room beyond the dressing-room, Madame +Harlowe's bedroom, or didn't you notice?" + +"In the far room, I think," Ann answered confidently. "There would +have been more light in the treasure-room otherwise. The +treasure-room is long no doubt, but where I stood I was completely in +darkness. There was only this panel of yellow light in the open +doorway. It lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up +the sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened like +silver." + +"Oho, there is a sedan chair in that museum?" said Hanaud lightly. +"It will be interesting to see. So the light, Mademoiselle, came +from the far room?" + +"The light and--and the voices," said Ann with a quaver in her throat. + +"Voices!" cried Hanaud. He sat up straight in his chair, whilst +Betty Harlowe went as white as a ghost. "Voices! What is this? Did +you recognise those voices?" + +"One, Madame's. There was no mistaking it. It was loud and violent +for a moment. Then it went off into a mumble of groans. The other +voice only spoke once and very few words and very clearly. But it +spoke in a whisper. There was too a sound of--movements." + +"Movements!" said Hanaud sharply; and with his voice his face seemed +to sharpen too. "Here's a word which does not help us much. A +procession moves. So does the chair if I push it. So does my hand +if I cover a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you +mean, Mademoiselle?" + +Under the stern insistence of his questions Ann Upcott suddenly +weakened. + +"Oh, I am afraid so," she said with a loud cry, and she clapped her +hands to her face. "I never understood until this morning when you +spoke of how the arrow might be used. Oh, I shall never forgive +myself. I stood in the darkness, a few yards away--no more--I stood +quite still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway Madame +was being killed!" She drew her hands from her face and beat upon +her knees with her clenched fists in a frenzy. + +"'Yes, I believe that now!' Madame cried in the hoarse, harsh voice +we knew: 'Stripped, eh? Stripped to the skin!' and she laughed +wildly; and then came the sound, as though--yes, it might have been +that!--as though she were forced down and held, and Madame's voice +died to a mumble and then silence--and then the other voice in a low +clear whisper, 'That will do now.' And all the while I stood in the +darkness--oh!" + +"What did you do after that clear whisper reached your ears?" Hanaud +commanded. "Take your hands from your face, if you please, and let +me hear." + +Ann Upcott obeyed him. She flung her head back with the tears +streaming down her face. + +"I turned," she whispered. "I went out of the room. I closed the +door behind me--oh, ever so gently. I fled." + +"Fled? Fled? Where to?" + +"Up the stairs! To my room." + +"And you rang no bell? You roused no one? You fled to your room! +You hid your head under the bed-clothes like a child! Come, come, +Mademoiselle!" + +Hanaud broke off his savage irony to ask, + +"And whose voice did you think it was that whispered so clearly, +'That will do now?' The stranger's you spoke of in the library this +morning?" + +"No, Monsieur," Ann replied. "I could not tell. With a whisper one +voice is like another." + +"But you must have given that voice an owner. To run away and +hide--no one would do that." + +"I thought it was Jeanne Baudin's." + +And Hanaud sat back in his chair again, gazing at the girl with a +look in which there was as much horror as incredulity. Jim Frobisher +stood behind him ashamed of his very race. Could there be a more +transparent subterfuge? If she thought that the nurse Jeanne Baudin +was in the bedroom, why did she turn and fly? + +"Come, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. His voice had suddenly become +gentle, almost pleading. "You will not make me believe that." + +Ann Upcott turned with a helpless gesture towards Betty. + +"You see!" she said. + +"Yes," Betty answered. She sat in doubt for a second or two and then +sprang to her feet. + +"Wait!" she said, and before any one could have stopped her she was +skimming half-way across the garden to the house. Jim Frobisher +wondered whether Hanaud had meant to stop her and then had given up +the idea as quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some +small quick movement; and even now, he watched Betty's flight across +the broad lawn between the roses with an inscrutable queer look. + +"To run like that!" he said to Frobisher, "with a boy's nimbleness +and a girl's grace! It is pretty, eh? The long slim legs that +twinkle, the body that floats!" and Betty ran up the stone steps into +the house. + +There was a tension in Hanaud's attitude with which his light words +did not agree, and he watched the blank windows of the house with +expectancy. Betty, however, was hardly a minute upon her errand. +She reappeared upon the steps with a largish envelope in her hand and +quickly rejoined the group. + +"Monsieur, we have tried to keep this back from you," she said, +without bitterness but with a deep regret. "I yesterday, Ann to-day, +just as we have tried for many years to keep it from all Dijon. But +there is no help for it now." + +She opened the envelope and, taking out a cabinet photograph, handed +it to Hanaud. + +"This is the portrait of Madame, my aunt, at the time of her marriage +with my uncle." + +It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman, slender with the +straight carriage of youth, in whose face a look of character had +replaced youth's prettiness. It was a face made spiritual by +suffering, the eyes shadowed and wistful, the mouth tender, and +conveying even in the hard medium of a photograph some whimsical +sense of humour. It made Jim Frobisher, gazing over Hanaud's +shoulder, exclaim not "She was beautiful," but "I would like to have +known her." + +"Yes! A companion," Hanaud added. + +Betty took a second photograph from the envelope. + +"But this, Monsieur, is the same lady a year ago." + +The second photograph had been taken at Monte Carlo, and it was +difficult to believe that it was of the same woman, so tragic a +change had taken place within those ten years. Hanaud held the +portraits side by side. The grace, the suggestion of humour had all +gone; the figure had grown broad, the features coarse and heavy; the +cheeks had fattened, the lips were pendulous; and there was nothing +but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful picture of collapse. + +"It is best to be precise, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud gently, "though +these photographs tell their unhappy story clearly enough. Madame +Harlowe, during the last years of her life, drank?" + +"Since my uncle's death," Betty explained. "Her life, as very likely +you know already, had been rather miserable and lonely before she +married him. But she had a dream then on which to live. After Simon +Harlowe died, however----" and she ended her explanation with a +gesture. + +"Yes," Hanaud replied, "of course, Mademoiselle, we have known, +Monsieur Frobisher and I, ever since we came into this affair that +there was some secret. We knew it before your reticence of yesterday +or Mademoiselle Upcott's of to-day. Waberski must have known of +something which you would not care to have exposed before he +threatened your lawyers in London, or brought his charges against +you." + +"Yes, he knew and the doctors and the servants of course who were +very loyal. We did our best to keep our secret but we could never be +sure that we had succeeded." + +A friendly smile broadened Hanaud's face. + +"Well, we can make sure now and here," he said, and both the girls +and Jim stared at him. + +"How?" they exclaimed in an incredulous voice. + +Hanaud beamed. He held them in suspense. He spread out his hands. +The artist as he would have said, the mountebank as Jim Frobisher +would have expressed it, had got the upper hand in him, and prepared +his effect. + +"By answering me one simple question," he said. "Have either of you +two ladies received an anonymous letter upon the subject?" + +The test took them all by surprise; yet each one of them recognised +immediately that they could hardly have a better. All the secrets of +the town had been exploited at one time or another by this unknown +person or group of persons--all the secrets that is, except this one +of Mrs. Harlowe's degradation. For Betty answered, + +"No! I never received one." + +"Nor I," added Ann. + +"Then your secret is your secret still," said Hanaud. + +"For how long now?" Betty asked quickly, and Hanaud did not answer a +word. He could make no promise without being false to what he had +called his creed. + +"It is a pity," said Betty wistfully. "We have striven so hard, Ann +and I," and she gave to the two men a glimpse of the life the two +girls had led in the Maison Crenelle. "We could do very little. We +had neither of us any authority. We were both of us dependent upon +Madame's generosity, and though no one could have been kinder +when--when Madame was herself, she was not easy when she had--the +attacks. There was too much difference in age between us and her for +us really to do anything but keep guard. + +"She would not brook interference; she drank alone in her bedroom; +she grew violent and threatening if any one interfered. She would +turn them all into the street. If she needed any help she could ring +for the nurse, as indeed she sometimes, though rarely, did." It was +a dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlowe described it for the two +young sentinels. + +"We were utterly in despair," Betty continued. "For Madame, of +course, was really ill with her heart, and we always feared some +tragedy would happen. This letter which Ann was to write when I was +at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a +doctor in England--he called himself a doctor at all events--who +advertised that he had a certain remedy which could be given without +the patient's knowledge in her food and drink. Oh, I had no faith in +it, but we had got to try it." + +Hanaud looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. + +"What did I say to you, Monsieur Frobisher, when you wanted to ask a +question about this letter? You see! These things disclose +themselves in their due order if you leave them alone." + +The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his feet and, bowing +to Betty with an unaffected stateliness and respect, he handed her +back the photographs. + +"Mademoiselle, I am very sorry," he said. "It is clear that you and +your friend have lived amongst difficulties which we did not suspect. +And, for the secret, I shall do what I can." + +Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been administered to him for +the excellence of his manner towards Betty. He had a hope even that +now he would forswear his creed, so that the secret might still be +kept and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close +watch. But Hanaud sat down again in his chair, and once more turned +towards Ann Upcott. He meant to go on then. He would not leave well +alone. Jim was all the more disappointed, because he could not but +realise that the case was more and more clearly building itself from +something unsubstantial into something solid, from a conjecture to an +argument--this case against some one. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN: _The Clock upon the Cabinet_ + +Ann Upcott's story was in the light of this new disclosure +intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, she had heard, as she +thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one of her violent outbreaks. Then with a +sense of relief she had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was +with Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally +administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries diminish and +cease and a final whisper from the nurse to her patient or even +perhaps to herself, "That will do now." Then she had turned and +fled, taking care to attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice +had nothing to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her +intervention, which before would only have been a provocation to a +wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was now altogether +without excuse. It would once more have aroused the invalid, and +next day would have added to the discomfort and awkwardness of life +in the Maison Crenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known that +Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful exhibitions. The +best thing which Ann could do, she did, given that her interpretation +of the scene was the true one. She ran noiselessly back in the +darkness to her room. + +"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your interpretation +was not correct. You believe now that whilst you stood in the +darkness with the door open and the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was +being murdered, coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you." + +Ann Upcott shivered from head to foot. + +"I don't want to believe it," she cried. "It's too horrible." + +"You believe now that the one who whispered 'That will do now,' was +not Jeanne Baudin," Hanaud insisted, "but some unknown person, and +that the whisper was uttered after murder had been done to a third +person in that room." + +Ann twisted her body from this side to that; she wrung her hands. + +"I am afraid of it!" she moaned. + +"And what is torturing you now, Mademoiselle, is remorse that you did +not step silently forward and from the darkness of the treasure-room +look through that lighted doorway." He spoke with a great +consideration and his insight into her distress was in its way a +solace to her. + +"Yes," she exclaimed eagerly. "I told you this morning I could have +hindered it. I didn't understand until this morning. You see, that +night something else happened"; and now indeed stark fear drew the +colour from her cheeks and shone in her eyes. + +"Something else?" Betty asked with a quick indraw of her breath, and +she shifted her chair a little so that she might face Ann. She was +wearing a black coat over a white silk shirt open at the throat, and +she took her handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it +across her forehead. + +"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud explained. "It is clear that something +else happened that night to your friend, something which, taken +together with our talk this morning over the book of arrows, had made +her believe that murder was done." He looked at Ann. "You went then +to your room?" + +Ann resumed her story. + +"I went to bed. I was very--what shall I say?--disturbed by Madame's +outburst, as I thought it. One never knew what was going to happen +in this house. It was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side +to side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was asleep, +sound asleep. But only for a time. I woke up and it was still pitch +dark in my room. There was not a thread of light from the shutters. +I turned over from my side on to my back and I stretched out my arms +above my head. As God is my Judge I touched a face----" and even +after all these days the terror of that moment was so vivid and fresh +to her that she shuddered and a little sob broke from her lips. "A +face quite close to me bending over me, in silence. I drew my hands +away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay just for a +second or two dumb, paralysed. Then my voice came back to me and I +screamed." + +It was the look of the girl as she told her story perhaps more than +the words she used; but something of her terror spread like a +contagion amongst her hearers. Jim Frobisher's shoulders worked +uneasily. Betty with her big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, +hung upon Ann's narrative. Hanaud himself said: + +"You screamed? I do not wonder." + +"I knew that no one could hear me and that lying down I was +helpless," Ann continued. "I sprang out of bed in a panic, and now I +touched no one. I was so scared out of my wits that I had lost all +sense of direction. I couldn't find the switch of the electric +light. I stumbled along a wall feeling with my hands. I heard +myself sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked against +a chest of drawers and came a little to myself. I found my way then +to the switch and turned on the light. The room was empty. I tried +to tell myself that I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale +wasn't true. Some one had been stealthily bending down close, oh, so +close over me in the darkness. My hand that had touched the face +seemed to tingle. I asked myself with a shiver, what would have +happened to me if just at that moment I had not waked up? I stood +and listened, but the beating of my heart filled the whole room with +noise. I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, I +could easily have believed that one after another an army was +creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I made up my mind. I flung +the door open wide. For a moment I stood back from it, but once the +door was open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the great +staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an empty church. I +think that I should have heard a spider stir. I suddenly realised +that the light was streaming from my room and that some of it must +reach me. I cried at once, 'Who's there?' And then I ran back to my +room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep no more that +night. I ran to the windows and threw open the shutters. The night +had cleared, the stars were bright in a clean black sky and there was +a freshness of morning in the air. I had been, I should think, about +five minutes at the window when--you know perhaps, Monsieur, how the +clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the hour from one another and +pass it on to the hills--all of them struck three. I stayed by the +window until the morning came." + +After she had finished no one spoke for a little while. Then Hanaud +slowly lit another cigarette, looking now upon the ground, now into +the air, anywhere except at the faces of his companions. + +"So this alarming thing happened just before three o'clock in the +morning?" he asked gravely. "You are very sure of that, I suppose? +For, you see, it may be of the utmost importance." + +"I am quite sure, Monsieur," she said. + +"And you have told this story to no one until this moment?" + +"To no one in the world," replied Ann. "The next morning Madame +Harlowe was found dead. There were the arrangements for the funeral. +Then came Monsieur Boris's accusation. There were troubles enough in +the house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would have +believed my story of the face in the darkness; and I didn't of course +associate it then with the death of Mrs. Harlowe." + +"No," Hanaud agreed. "For you believed that death to have been +natural." + +"Yes, and I am not sure that it wasn't natural now," Ann protested. +"But to-day I had to tell you this story, Monsieur Hanaud"; and she +leaned forward in her chair and claimed his attention with her eyes, +her face, every tense muscle of her body. "Because if you are right +and murder was done in this house on the twenty-seventh, I know the +exact hour when it was done." + +"Ah!" + +Hanaud nodded his head once or twice slowly. He gathered up his feet +beneath him. His eyes glittered very brightly as he looked at Ann. +He gave Frobisher the queer impression of an animal crouching to +spring. + +"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet," he said, "against the middle +of the wall in the treasure-room. The white face of it and the hour +which leapt at you during that fraction of a second when your fingers +were on the switch." + +"Yes," said Ann with a slow and quiet emphasis. "The hour was +half-past ten." + +With that statement the tension was relaxed. Betty's +tightly-clenched hand opened and her trifle of a handkerchief +fluttered down on the grass. Hanaud changed from that queer attitude +of a crouching animal. Jim Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. + +"Yes, that is very important," said Hanaud. + +"Important. I should think it was!" cried Jim. + +For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had been done on the +night of the 27th of April, there was just one person belonging to +the household of the Maison Crenelle who could have no share in it; +and that one person was his client, Betty Harlowe. + +Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when Hanaud spoke to +her; and she drew herself erect again with a little jerk. + +"Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good time, +Mademoiselle?" he asked. + +"Very good," she answered. "Monsieur Sabin the watch-maker in the +Rue de la Liberté has had it more than once to clean. It is an +eight-day clock. It will be going when the seals are broken this +afternoon. You will see for yourself." + +Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. He rose to +his feet and bowed to her with a certain formality but with a smile +which redeemed it. + +"At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing at the house of M. +de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers," he said. "Of that there is no +doubt. Inquiries have been made. Mademoiselle did not leave that +house until after one in the morning. There is evidence enough of +that to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her dancing +partners to M. de Pouillac's coachman, who stood at the bottom of the +steps with a lantern during that evening and remembers to have held +open for Mademoiselle the door of her car when she went away." + +"So that's that," said Jim to himself. Betty at all events was out +of the net for good. And with that certainty there came a revolution +in his thoughts. Why shouldn't Hanaud's search go on? It was +interesting to watch the building up of this case against an unknown +criminal--a case so difficult to bring to its proper conclusion in +the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there was no trace of +poison, a case where out of a mass of conjectures, here and there and +more and more definite facts were coming into view; just as more and +more masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer one +approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to go on, delving +astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things disclose themselves in +their due sequence. But there was one point which Hanaud had missed, +which should be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he +thought with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would come to the +help of the netted lion. He cleared his throat. + +"Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to ask you," he +began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his surprise, with a face of +thunder. + +"You wish to ask a question?" he said. "Well, Monsieur, ask it if +you wish. It is your right." + +His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, "and your +responsibility." Jim hesitated. He could see no harm in the +question he proposed to ask. It was of vital importance. Yet Hanaud +stood in front of him with a lowering face, daring him to put it. +Jim did not doubt any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point +and yet for some unknown reason objected to its disclosure. Jim +yielded, but not with a very good grace. + +"It is nothing," he said surlily, and Hanaud at once was all +cheerfulness again. + +"Then we will adjourn," he said, looking at his watch. "It is nearly +one o'clock. Shall we say three for the Commissary of Police? Yes? +Then I shall inform him and we will meet in the library at three +and"--with a little bow to Betty--"the interdict shall be raised." + +"At three, then," she said gaily. She sprang up from her chair, +stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a swift and supple movement, +twirled upon her heel and cried, "Come along, Ann!" + +The four people moved off towards the house. Betty looked back. + +"You have left your gloves behind you on your chair," she said +suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back. + +"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, "Oh, +Mademoiselle!" + +For Betty had already darted back and now returned dangling the +gloves in her hand. + +"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as he took them from +her. Then he cocked his head at Frobisher, who was looking a little +stiff. + +"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You do not like +that so much kindness should be shown me. No! You are looking very +proper. You have the poker in the back. But ask yourself this: +'What are youth and good looks compared with Hanaud?'" + +No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when the urchin got the +upper hand in him. And the worst of it was that he had no rejoinder. +He flushed very red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in +silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and stick, took +his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. Ann drifted into the +library. Jim felt a touch upon his arm. Betty was standing beside +him with a smile of amusement upon her face. + +"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, did you?" she +asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the amusement softened into +tenderness. "I wouldn't have done it for worlds if I had thought +you'd have minded." + +Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning. + +"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole if it +pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might do the same for +me'!" + +Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. + +"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next moment she was +out on the steps under the glass face of the porch. "Lunch at two, +Ann!" she cried. "I must walk all the grime of this morning out of +my brain." + +She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobisher. She had something +of Ariel in her conception--a delicate creature of fire and spirit +and air. She was across the courtyard and out of sight in the street +of Charles-Robert before he had quite realised that she was going. +He turned doubtfully towards the library, where Ann Upcott stood in +the doorway. + +"I had better follow her," he said, reaching for his hat + +Ann smiled and shook her head wisely. + +"I shouldn't. I know Betty. She wants to be alone." + +"Do you think so?" + +"I am sure." + +Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon the point as +she was. Ann watched him with a rather rueful smile for a little +while. Then she shrugged her shoulders in a sudden exasperation. + +"There is something you ought to do," she said. "You ought to let +Monsieur Bex, Betty's notary here, know that the seals are to be +broken this afternoon. He ought to be here. He was here when they +were affixed. Besides, he has all the keys of Mrs. Harlowe's drawers +and cupboards." + +"That's true," Jim exclaimed. "I'll go at once." + +Ann gave him Monsieur Bex's address in the Place Etienne Dolet, and +from the window of the library watched him go upon his errand. She +stood at the window for a long while after he had disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN: _A New Suspect_ + +Monsieur Bex the notary came out into the hall of his house when +Frobisher sent his card in to him. He was a small, brisk man with a +neat pointed beard, his hair cut _en brosse_ and the corner of his +napkin tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. + +Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from the rooms of the +Maison Grenelle, but said nothing at all of the new developments +which had begun with the discovery of the book of the arrows. + +"I have had communications with Messrs. Frobisher and Haslitt," the +little man exclaimed. "Everything has been as correct as it could +possibly be. I am happy to meet a partner of so distinguished a +firm. Yes. I will certainly present myself at three with my keys +and see the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a disgrace. +That young lady so delicious and so correct! And that animal of a +Waberski! But we can deal with him. We have laws in France." + +He gave Jim the impression that there were in his opinion no laws +anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor into the street. + +Jim returned by the Rue des Godrans and the main thoroughfare of the +town, the street of Liberty. As he crossed the semicircle of the +Place d'Armes in front of the Hôtel de Ville, he almost ran into +Hanaud smoking a cigar. + +"You have lunched already?" he cried. + +"An affair of a quarter of an hour," said Hanaud with a wave of the +hand. "And you?" + +"Not until two. Miss Harlowe wanted a walk." + +Hanaud smiled. + +"How I understand that! The first walk after an ordeal! The first +walk of a convalescent after an operation! The first walk of a +defendant found innocent of a grave charge! It must be worth taking, +that walk. But console yourself, my friend, for the postponement of +your luncheon. You have met me!" and he struck something of an +attitude. + +Now Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, especially +when displayed in public places, and he answered stiffly, "That is a +pleasure, to be sure." + +Hanaud grinned. To make Jim look "proper" was becoming to him an +unfailing entertainment. + +"Now I reward you," he said, though for what Jim could not imagine. +"You shall come with me. At this hour, on the top of old Philippe le +Bon's Terrace Tower, we shall have the world to ourselves." + +He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville. +Behind the long wing which faced them, a square, solid tower rose a +hundred and fifty feet high above the ground. With Frobisher at his +heels, Hanaud climbed the three hundred and sixteen steps and emerged +upon the roof into the blue and gold of a cloudless May in France. +They looked eastwards, and the beauty of the scene took Frobisher's +breath away. Just in front, the slender apse of Notre Dame, fine as +a lady's ornament, set him wondering how in the world through all +these centuries it had endured; and beyond, rich and green and +wonderful, stretched the level plain with its shining streams and +nestling villages. + +Hanaud sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out his arm across +the parapet. "Look!" he cried eagerly, proudly. "There is what I +brought you here to see. Look!" + +Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up. Far away on the horizon's +edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the great mass of Mont Blanc; +white as silver, soft as velvet, and here and there sparkling with +gold as though the flame of a fire leaped and sank. + +"Oho!" said Hanaud as he watched Jim's face. "So we have that in +common. You perhaps have stood on the top of that mountain?" + +"Five times," Jim answered, with a smile made up of many memories. +"I hope to do so again." + +"You are fortunate," said Hanaud a little enviously. "For me I see +him only in the distance. But even so--if I am troubled--it is like +sitting silent in the company of a friend." + +Jim Frobisher's mind strayed back over memories of snow slope and +rock ridge. It was a true phrase which Hanaud had used. It +expressed one of the many elusive, almost incommunicable emotions +which mountains did mean to the people who had "that"--the passion +for mountains--in common. Jim glanced curiously at Hanaud. + +"You are troubled about this case, then?" he said sympathetically. +The distant and exquisite vision of that soaring arc of silver and +velvet set in the blue air had brought the two men into at all events +a momentary brotherhood. + +"Very," Hanaud returned slowly, without turning his eyes from the +horizon, "and for more reasons than one. What do you yourself think +of it?" + +"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," Jim said dryly, "that you do not like any +one to ask any questions except yourself." + +Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. + +"Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful Mademoiselle +Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright the question you meant to +ask! It was whether the face she touched in the darkness was the +smooth face of a woman or the face of a man." + +"Yes. That was it." + +It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly at Jim. There +could be no doubt of the thought which was passing through his mind: +"I must begin to give you a little special attention, my friend." +But he was careful not to put his thoughts into words. + +"I did not want that question asked," he said. + +"Why?" + +"Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions are confusing +things which had best be avoided altogether." + +Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He had too clear a +recollection of the swift movement and the look with which Hanaud had +checked him. Both had been unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud +would not have been alarmed at the prospect of a question being +asked, merely because the question was superfluous. There was +another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in Hanaud's mind. +Only he could not discover it. + +Besides, was the question superfluous? + +"Surely," Hanaud replied. "Suppose that that young lady's hand had +touched in the darkness the face of a man with its stubble, its tough +skin, and the short hair of his head around it, bending down so low +over hers, would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing +to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her hands +carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, unexpectedly, the +face of a man? She could not have told her story at all without +telling that. It would have been the unforgettable detail, the very +heart of her terror. She touched the face of a man!" + +Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he was no nearer to +the solution of his problem--why Hanaud so whole-heartedly objected +to the question being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark +which drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's speculations. + +"Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the darkness that +night--if that night, in the darkness she touched a face at all." + +Jim was utterly startled. + +"You believe that she was lying to us?" he cried. + +Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air. + +"I believe nothing," he said. "I am looking for a criminal." + +"Ann Upcott!" Jim spoke the name in amazement. "Ann Upcott!" Then +he remembered the look of her as she had told her story, her face +convulsed with terror, her shaking tones. "Oh, it's impossible that +she was lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?" + +Hanaud laughed. + +"You may take this from me, my friend. All women who are great +criminals are also very artful actresses. I never knew one who +wasn't." + +"Ann Upcott!" Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, but now with a +trifle less of amazement. He was growing slowly and gradually +accustomed to the idea. Still--that girl with the radiant look of +young Spring! Oh, no! + +"Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe's will," he argued. +"What could she have to gain by murder?" + +"Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! Analyse it. You +will see--what? That it falls into two parts." Hanaud ground the +stump of his cigar beneath his heel, offered one of his black +cigarettes to Jim Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it +with a sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop fizzling, +would never burst into flame. + +"One part when she was alone in her bedroom--a little story of terror +and acted very effectively, but after all any one could invent it. +The other part was not so easy to invent. The communicating door +open for no reason, the light beyond, the voice that whispered, 'That +will do,' the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don't believe +that was invented. There were too many little details which seemed +to have been lived through. The white face of the clock and the hour +leaping at her. No! I think all that must stand. But adapt it a +little. See! This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of +Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!" + +"Yes," said Jim. + +"And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might not be telling a +true story of himself and attributing it to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott's story in the same way," continued +Hanaud. "Suppose that sometime that day she had unlocked the +communicating door! What more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during +the day-time. Her room was empty. And that communicating door +opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps it might have been +discovered whether it was locked or not, but into a dressing-room." + +"Yes," Jim agreed. + +"Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after Mademoiselle +Harlowe's departure to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball. She sends Gaston +to bed. The house is all dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is +joined by--some one--some one with the arrow poison all ready in the +hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room just as Ann +Upcott described. That she turns on the light for a second +whilst--some one--crosses the treasure-room and opens the door. +Suppose that the voice which whispered, 'That will do now,' was the +voice of Ann Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame +Harlowe's body to the third person in that room!" + +"The 'some one,'" exclaimed Jim. "But, who then? Who?" + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. "Why not Waberski?" + +"Waberski?" cried Jim with a new excitement in his voice. + +"You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this murder and you +answered your own question. Nothing you said, Monsieur Frobisher, +but did your quick answer cover the ground? Waberski--he at all +events expected a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for help +proposed to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite +Mademoiselle Ann. Has she no motive now? In the end what do we know +of her at all except that she is the paid companion and therefore +poor? Mademoiselle Ann!"; and he threw up his hands. "Where does +she spring from? How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps +Waberski's friend?"--and a cry from Jim brought Hanaud to a stop. + +Jim had thought of Waberski as the possible murderer if murder had +been done--a murderer who, disappointed of his legacy, the profits of +his murder, had carried on his villainy to blackmail and a false +accusation. But he had not associated Ann Upcott with him until +those moments on the Terrace Tower. Yet now memories began to crowd +upon him. The letter to him, for instance. She had said that +Waberski had claimed her support and ridiculed his claim. Might that +letter not have been a blind and a rather cunning blind? Above all +there was a scene passing vividly through his mind which was very +different from the scene spread out before his eyes, a scene of +lighted rooms and a crowd about a long green table, and a fair +slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until the whole +of her little pile of banknotes was swept in by the croupier's rake, +and then turned away with a high carriage but a quivering lip. + +"Aha!" said Hanaud keenly. "You know something after all of Ann +Upcott, my friend. What do you know?" + +Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to her that he +should relate his story. Explained, it might wear so different a +complexion. At another moment that it would be fairer to let her +explain it. And there was Betty to consider. Yes, above all there +was Betty to consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. + +"I will tell you," he said to Hanaud. "When I saw you in Paris, I +told you that I had never seen Ann Upcott in all my life. I believed +it. It wasn't until she danced into the library yesterday morning +that I realised I had misled you. I saw Ann Upcott at the _trente et +quarante_ table at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in January of +this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and losing her +money. Nothing would go right for her. She bore herself proudly and +well. The only sign I saw of distress was the tightening of her +fingers about her little handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at +the other players when she rose after her last coup, as though she +dared them to pity her. I was on the other hand winning, and I +slipped a thousand-franc note off the table on to the floor, keeping +my heel firmly upon it as you can understand. And as the girl turned +to move out from the crowd I stopped her. I said in English, for she +was obviously of my race, 'This is yours. You have dropped it on the +floor.' She gave me a smile and a little shake of the head. I think +that for the moment she dared not trust her lips to speak, and in a +second, of course, she was swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a +little while longer. Then I too rose and as I passed the entrance to +the bar on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from one of the +many little tables and spoke to me. She called me by my name. She +thanked me very prettily and said that although she had lost that +evening she was not really in any trouble. I doubted the truth of +what she said. For she had not one ring upon any finger, not the +tiniest necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress or +in her hair. She turned away from me at once and went back to the +little table where she sat down again in the company of a man. The +girl of course was Ann Upcott, the man Waberski. It was from him no +doubt that she had got my name." + +"Did this little episode happen before Ann Upcott became a member of +the household?" Hanaud asked. + +"Yes," replied Jim. "I think she joined Mrs. Harlowe and Betty at +Monte Carlo. I think that she came with them back to Dijon." + +"No doubt," said Hanaud. He sat for a little while in silence. Then +he said softly, "That does not look so very well for Mademoiselle +Ann." + +Jim had to admit that it did not. + +"But consider this, Monsieur Hanaud," he urged. "If Ann Upcott, +which I will not believe, is mixed up in this affair, why should she +of her own free will volunteer this story of what she heard upon the +night of the twenty-seventh and invent that face which bent down over +her in the darkness?" + +"I have an idea about that," Hanaud replied. "She told us this +story--when? After I had said that we must have the seals broken +this afternoon and the rooms thrown open. It is possible that we may +come upon something in those rooms which makes it wise for her to +divert suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jeanne Baudin, +or even Mademoiselle Harlowe's maid Francine Rollard." + +"But not Mademoiselle Betty," Jim interposed quickly. + +"No, no!" Hanaud returned with a wave of his hand. "The clock upon +the marquetry cabinet settled that. Mademoiselle Betty is out of the +affair. Well, this afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, +you will be late for your luncheon." + +Hanaud rose from the bench and with a last look at the magical +mountain, that outpost of France, they turned towards the city. + +Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares green with limes and the +steep gaily-patterned roofs of ancient houses. About him the fine +tapering spires leapt high like lances from the slates of its many +churches. A little to the south and a quarter of a mile away across +the roof tops he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke +rising from a chimney stack or two and behind it the tops of tall +trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from their leaves. + +"The Maison Crenelle!" he said. + +There was no answer, not even the slightest movement at his side. + +"Isn't it?" he asked and he turned. + +Hanaud had not even heard him. He was gazing also towards the Maison +Crenelle with the queerest look upon his face; a look with which Jim +was familiar in some sort of association, but which for a moment or +two he could not define. It was not an expression of amazement. On +the other hand interest was too weak a word. Suddenly Jim Frobisher +understood and comprehension brought with it a sense of discomfort. +Hanaud's look, very bright and watchful and more than a little +inhuman, was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master +brings out a gun. + +Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The slates were +broken at intervals by little gabled windows, but at none of them +could he see a figure. From none of them a signal was waved. + +"What is it that you are looking at?" asked Jim in perplexity and +then with a touch of impatience. "You see something, I'm sure." + +Hanaud heard his companion at last. His face changed in a moment, +lost its rather savage vigilance, and became the face of a buffoon. + +"Of course I see something. Always I see something. Am I not +Hanaud? Ah, my friend, the responsibility of being Hanaud! Aren't +you fortunate to be without it? Pity me! For the Hanauds must see +something everywhere--even when there is nothing to see. Come!" + +He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform into the dark +turret of the staircase. The two men descended the steps and came +out again into the semi-circle of the Place d'Armes. + +"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he had some little +thing to say and was not quite sure whether he would say it. Then he +compromised. "You shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to +your luncheon," he said. + +"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied. + +Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his outstretched +forefinger. + +"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take a Vermouth with +me, and you will still reach the Maison Crenelle before Mademoiselle +Harlowe. I say that, Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and +consented. + +"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her and Ann +Upcott half through their meal." + +A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and the Place +d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out on the pavement +beneath an awning. They sat down at one of them, and over the +Vermouth, Hanaud was once more upon the brink of some recommendation +or statement. + +"You see----" he began and then once more ran away. "So you have +been five times upon the top of the Mont Blanc!" he said. "From +Chamonix?" + +"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant by the Brenva +glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once from the Brouillard glacier. +And the last time by the Mont Mandit." + +Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: + +"You tell me things which are interesting and very new to me," he +said warmly. "I am grateful, Monsieur." + +"On the other hand," Jim answered dryly, "you, Monsieur, tell me very +little. Even what you brought me to this café to say, you are going +to keep to yourself. But for my part I shall not be so churlish. I +am going to tell you what I think." + +"Yes?" + +"I think we have missed the way." + +"Oh?" + +Hanaud selected a cigarette from his bundle in its bright blue +wrapping. + +"You will perhaps think me presumptuous in saying so." + +"Not the least little bit in the world," Hanaud replied seriously. +"We of the Police are liable in searching widely to overlook the +truth under our noses. That is our danger. Another angle of +view--there is nothing more precious. I am all attention." + +Jim Frobisher drew his chair closer to the round table of iron and +leaned his elbows upon it. + +"I think there is one question in particular which we must answer if +we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, and if so by +whom." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we have the same +question in our minds." + +"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this--Who put back +the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in its place upon the +bookshelf in the library, between mid-day yesterday and this morning." + +Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and held it in the +shelter of his palm until the flame shone. He lit his cigarette and +took a few puffs at it. + +"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, although in +rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. No. I think there is +another more important still. I think if we could know why the door +of the treasure-room, which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's +death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh of April, we +should be very near to the whole truth of this dark affair. But," +and he flung out his hands, "that baffles me." + +Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily upon the +pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer there. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE: _The Breaking of the Seals_ + +A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that Hanaud guessed +very luckily. He would not allow that it was more than a guess. +Monsieur Hanaud might be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no +insight, however brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a +circumstance. But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at the +Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty Harlowe. He +had loitered with Hanaud at the café just so that this might not take +place. He shrank from being alone with Ann Upcott now that he +suspected her. The most he could hope to do was to conceal the +reason of his trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could +not conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by a +rather wistful expression of sympathy. + +"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you need not be +any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half-past ten +when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away +amongst her friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that." + +"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, and Ann +looked at him with startled eyes. + +Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall before Ann could +ask a question; and throughout their luncheon he made conversation +upon indifferent subjects with rapidity, if without entertainment. + +Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were still indeed +smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when Gaston informed them +that the Commissary of Police with his secretary was waiting in the +library. + +"This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London," said Betty as she +presented Jim. + +The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, middle-aged man +with a pair of folding glasses sitting upon a prominent fat nose; his +secretary, Maurice Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the +police administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in his +own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror amongst the fair. + +"I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle's notary in Dijon, to be +present," said Jim. + +"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and Monsieur Bex +was at that moment announced. He came on the very moment of three. +The clock was striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was +just as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased. + +"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, smiling, "we can +now proceed with the final ceremonies of this affair." + +"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary. + +"Hanaud?" + +"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited by the Examining +Magistrate to take charge of this case," the Commissary explained. + +"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there is no case for +Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty Harlowe drew him a little aside. + +Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary of the incidents +of the morning, Jim went out of the room into the hall in search of +Hanaud. He saw him at once; but to his surprise Hanaud came forward +from the back of the hall as if he had entered the house from the +garden. + +"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to the door of +that room which certainly was at the back of the house behind the +library, with its entrance behind the staircase. "We will join the +others." + +Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex. + +"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly to Thevenet. + +"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, and in a loud +undertone, "a charming youth, of an intelligence which is surprising. +He will go far." + +Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. The young +recruit gazed at the great man with kindling eyes. + +"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, by which, if I +do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence at all," he said +with a formal modesty which quite went to the heart of Monsieur Bex. + +"That is very correct," said he. + +Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He cocked an eye +at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary warmly by the hand. + +"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young friend," he +answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But I was once young Maurice +Thevenet without, alas! his good looks." + +Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming diffidence. + +"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex. + +"This looks like growing into a friendly little family party," Jim +Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a "Hum" and a "Ha" from the +Commissary. + +He moved to the centre of the room. + +"We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now remove the seals," he +said pompously. + +He led the way from the Library across the hall and along the +corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. He broke the +seals and removed the bands. Then he took a key from the hand of his +secretary and opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little +company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out his arms and +barred the way. + +"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his shoulder Jim +Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which made him shiver. + +This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase had made him for +a moment eager that Hanaud should press on, that development should +follow upon development until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. +Since the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower of the +Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and he waited for +developments in fear. This bedroom mistily lit by a few stray +threads of daylight which pierced through the chinks of the shutters, +cold and silent and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, +whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in the shadows. +Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed to the windows opposite, +opened them and flung back the shutters. The clear bright light +flooded every corner in an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher +relief. The room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the +wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; everywhere +there was order; it was as empty of suggestion as a vacant bedroom in +an hotel. + +Hanaud looked about him. + +"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week after Madame's +funeral. It would have been a miracle if we discovered anything +which could help us." + +He went to the bed, which stood with its head against the wall midway +between the door and the windows. A small flat stand with a button +of enamel lay upon the round table by the bed-side, and from the +stand a cord ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the +carpet. + +"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I suppose," he +said, turning towards Betty. + +"Yes." + +Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But there was no sign +that it had ever been tampered with. He stood up again. + +"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into Jeanne Baudin's +bedroom and close the door. I shall press this button, and you will +know whether the bell rings whilst we here shall be able to assure +ourselves whether sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in +the other." + +"Certainly." + +Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few seconds later +those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door close in the corridor. + +"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud requested. + +Bex, the notary, closed it. + +"Now, silence, if you please!" + +Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered him. He pressed +it again and again with the same result. The Commissary returned to +the bedroom. + +"Well?" Hanaud asked. + +"It rang twice," said the Commissary. + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. + +"And an electric bell has a shrill, penetrating sound," he cried. +"Name of a name, but they built good houses when the Maison Crenelle +was built! Are the cupboards and drawers open?" + +He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came forward. + +"All the drawers were locked on the morning when Madame Harlowe's +death was discovered. Mademoiselle Harlowe herself locked them in my +presence and handed to me the keys for the purpose of making an +inventory. Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For +until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will were not +disclosed." + +"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you must have unlocked +them." + +"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. There were the +arrangements for the funeral, a list of the properties to be made for +valuation, and the vineyards to be administered." + +"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes and cupboards and +drawers should hold exactly what they held on the night of the +twenty-seventh of April." He ran quickly about the room trying a +door here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a cupboard +fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The trouble is that a child +with a bent wire could unlock any one of them. Do you know what +Madame Harlowe kept in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with +his knuckles upon the cupboard door. + +"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex produced a bunch of +keys from his pocket. + +"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud. + +He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers, as though time +meant nothing to him at all. He now swung briskly back into the +centre of the room, making notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its +geography. The door opening from the corridor faced, across the +length of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If one +stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the bed was on the +left hand. On the corridor side of the bed, a second smaller door, +which was half open, led to a white-tiled bath-room. On the window +side of the bed was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a +woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the windows, a +great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, and in that same wall, +close to the right-hand window, there was yet another door. Hanaud +moved to it. + +"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of Ann Upcott, and +without waiting for an answer pushed it open. + +Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys rattling. +"Everything here has been locked up too," he said. + +Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened the shutters. + +It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, and with a door +exactly opposite to the door by which Hanaud had entered. He went at +once to this door. + +"And this must be the communicating door which leads into what is +called the treasure-room," he said, and he paused with his hand upon +the knob and his eyes ranging alertly over the faces of the company. + +"Yes," said Ann Upcott. + +Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of the opening of +some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh in a hill-side of the Valley +of Kings. Suspense passed from one to the other as they waited, but +Hanaud did not move. He stood there impassive and still like some +guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that he was never +going to move, and in a voice of exasperation he cried: + +"Is the door locked?" + +Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No doubt he, too, +felt that strange current of emotion and expectancy which bound all +in the room under a spell, and even gave to their diverse faces for a +moment a kind of family similitude. + +"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. "But since +this room is now the private sitting-room of Mademoiselle Harlowe, I +think that we ought to wait until she rejoins us." + +Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, "That is very +correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice rang out from the doorway +leading to Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom: + +"I am here." + +Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. It opened at a +touch--inwards towards the group of people and upwards towards the +corridor. The treasure-room was before them, shrouded in dim light, +but here and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held out a +promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way daintily to the windows +and fastened the shutters back against the outside wall. "I beg that +nothing shall be touched," he said as the others filed into the room. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN: _Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room_ + +Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the corridor, it was +longer than it was broad and more of a gallery than a room. But it +had been arranged for habitation rather than for occasional visits. +For it was furnished with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. +In the fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures by +Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of Chinese +Chippendale by the window every appointment, ink-stand, pen-tray, +candlestick, sand-caster and all were of the pink Battersea enamel +and without a flaw. But they were there for use, not for exhibition. +Moreover a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on the +side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it almost the +appearance of two rooms in communication, The one feature of the +room, indeed, which at a first glimpse betrayed the collector, was +the Sedan chair set in a recess of the wall by the fire-place and +opposite to the door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its +body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately carved +mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions representing +fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses daintily painted in the +middle of them. It had glass windows at the sides to show off the +occupant, and it was lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold +to match the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised +upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold filigree work, and +it had a door in front of which the upper part was glass. Altogether +it was as pretty a gleaming piece of work as the art of +carriage-building could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected +it. Even Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his +hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, until Jim +began to think that he had quite forgotten the business which had +brought him there. However, he brought himself out of his dream with +a start. + +"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "What +pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts and fine gentlemen in silk +stockings! And what splashings of mud for the unhappy devils who had +to walk!" + +He turned his back to the chair and looked across the room. "That is +the clock which marked half-past ten, Mademoiselle, during the moment +when you had the light turned up?" he asked of Ann. + +"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it again. "Yes, +that's it." + +Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change in her +intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an inflexion of +doubt--it was not marked enough for that--but of perplexity. It was +clearly, however, fancy upon his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at +all. Jim pulled himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take +care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to suspect people, +they can say and do nothing which will not provide you with material +for suspicion." + +Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was a beautiful small +gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, shaped with a waist like a +violin; it had a white face, and it stood upon a marquetry Boulle +cabinet, a little more than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian +mirror. Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with +his watch. + +"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, with a +smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. + +He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the clock. He +faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of the room. It had an +Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from the same fawn-coloured wood as the +panels, with slender pillars and some beautiful carving upon the +board beneath the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was +framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should mask it, +there were no high ornaments at all upon the shelf itself. One or +two small boxes of Battersea enamel and a flat glass case alone +decorated it. Hanaud crossed to the mantelshelf and, after a +moment's inspection, lifted, with a low whistle of admiration, the +flat glass case. + +"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. "But I shall +probably never in my life have the luck to see anything so +incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf is a little high for me to +see it properly." + +Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it towards the +window. + +"Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?" he called out, and Jim went +forward to his side. + +The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony and +translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim acknowledged that he +had never seen craftsmanship so exquisite and delicate, but he chafed +none the less at Hanaud's diversion from his business. + +"One could spend a long day in this room," the detective exclaimed, +"admiring these treasures." + +"No doubt," Jim replied dryly. "But I had a notion that we were +going to spend an afternoon looking for an arrow." + +Hanaud laughed. + +"My friend, you recall me to my duty." He looked at the jewel again +and sighed. "Yes, as you say, we are not visitors here to enjoy +ourselves." + +He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and replaced it. +Then all at once his manner changed. He was leaning forward with his +hands still about the glass case. But he was looking down. The +fire-grate was hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; +and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could see over the +screen into the grate itself. + +"What is all this?" he asked. + +He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully aside. All +now could see what had disturbed him--a heap of white ashes in the +grate. + +Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the shovel from the +fender he thrust it between the bars and drew it out again with a +little layer of the ashes upon it. They were white and had been +pulverised into atoms. There was not one flake which would cover a +finger-nail. Hanaud touched them gingerly, as though he had expected +to find them hot. + +"This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and to-day is Thursday +afternoon," said Jim Frobisher with heavy sarcasm. "Ashes do not as +a rule keep hot more than three days, Monsieur Hanaud." + +Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. He was daring +to make fun of Hanaud! He treated the Sûrété with no more respect +than one might treat--well, say Scotland Yard. + +Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a partner of the +firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman was certainly not very +correct. Hanaud on the contrary was milk and water. + +"I have observed it," he replied mildly, and he sat back upon his +heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. + +"Mademoiselle!" he called; and Betty moved forward and leaned against +the mantelshelf at his side. "Who burnt these papers so very +carefully?" he asked. + +"I did," Betty replied. + +"And when?" + +"On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday morning, before +Monsieur le Commissaire arrived." + +"And what were they, Mademoiselle?" + +"Letters, Monsieur." + +Hanaud looked up into her face quickly. + +"Oho!" he said softly. "Letters! Yes! And what kind of letters, if +you please?" + +Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in despair. What in the +world had happened to Hanaud? One moment he forgot altogether the +business upon which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon +Harlowe's collection. The next he was off on his wild-goose chase +after anonymous letters. Jim had not a doubt that he was thinking of +them now. One had only to say "letters," and he was side-tracked at +once, apparently ready to accuse any one of their authorship. + +"They were quite private letters," Betty replied, whilst the colour +slowly stained her cheeks. "They will not help you." + +"So I see," Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a snarl in his +voice as he shook the shovel and flung the ashes back into the grate. +"But I am asking you, Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were." + +Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at the floor, and +then from the floor to the windows; and Jim saw with a stab of pain +that her eyes were glistening with tears. + +"I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a point when +Mademoiselle and I should consult together," he interposed. + +"Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights," said Monsieur +Bex. + +But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little petulant movement of +her shoulders. + +"Very well." + +She showed her face now to them all, with the tears abrim in her big +eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks and recognition. + +"You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud," she said with a catch in +her voice. "It seems that nothing, however sacred, but must be +dragged out into the light. But I say again those letters will not +help you." + +She looked across the group to her notary. + +"Monsieur Bex," she said, and he moved forward to the other side of +Hanaud. + +"In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door of the bathroom +there stood a small chest in which she kept a good many unimportant +papers, such as old receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to +destroy. This chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of +course with Mademoiselle's consent, meaning to go through the papers +at my leisure and recommend that all which were not important should +be destroyed. My time, however, was occupied, as I have already +explained to you, and it was not until the Friday of the sixth of May +that I opened the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my +surprise, a bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, +tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to assure me that +they were very private and sacred things with which Mademoiselle's +notary had nothing whatever to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday +morning, I brought them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty." + +With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued the story. + +"I put the letters aside so that I might read them quietly after +dinner. As it happened I could not in any case have given them +attention before. For on that morning Monsieur Boris formulated his +charge against me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office +of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, I was--I don't +say frightened--but distressed by this accusation; and it was not +until quite late in the evening, and then rather to distract my +thoughts than for any other reason, that I looked at the letters. +But as soon as I did look at them I understood that they must be +destroyed. There were reasons, which"--and her voice faltered, and +with an effort again grew steady--"which I feel it rather a sacrilege +to explain. They were letters which passed between my uncle Simon +and Mrs. Harlowe during the time when she was very unhappily married +to Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him--sometimes long +letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled off--without +reserve--during a moment of freedom. They were the letters of," and +again her voice broke and died away into a whisper, so that none +could misunderstand her meaning--"of lovers--lovers speaking very +intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there was no doubt +that they ought to be destroyed! But I made up my mind that I ought +to read them, every one, first of all lest there should be something +in them which I ought to know. I read a good many that night and +burnt them. But it grew late--I left the rest until the Sunday +morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, and what I had left +over I burnt then. It was soon after I had finished burning them +that Monsieur le Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes +which you see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters +which I burnt upon the Sunday morning." + +Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity which touched her +audience to a warm sympathy. Hanaud gently tilted the ashes back +into the grate. + +"Mademoiselle, I am always in the wrong with you," he said with an +accent of remorse. "For I am always forcing you to statements which +make me ashamed and do you honour." + +Jim acknowledged that Hanaud, when he wished, could do the handsome +thing with a very good grace. Unfortunately grace seemed never to be +an enduring quality in him; as, for instance, now. He was still upon +his knees in front of the hearth. Whilst making his apology he had +been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel without giving, to all +appearance, any thought to what he was doing. But his attention was +now arrested. The shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of +bluish-white paper. Hanaud's body stiffened. He bent forward and +picked the scrap of paper out from the grate, whilst Betty, too, +stooped with a little movement of curiosity. + +Hanaud sat back again upon his heels. + +"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday morning," he said. + +Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the fragment of paper. + +"Bills too, Mademoiselle." + +Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her head over it. It +was obviously the right-hand top corner of a bill. For an intriguing +scrap of a printed address was visible and below a figure or two in a +column. + +"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with the letters," said +Betty. "I don't remember it." + +She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, who sat and looked +at it. Jim Frobisher standing just behind him read the printed ends +of names and words and the figures beneath and happened to remember +the very look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the top +bit of name in large capital letters, the words below echelonned in +smaller capitals, then the figures in the columns and all enclosed in +a rough sort of triangle with the diagonal line browned and made +ragged by the fire--thus-- + + ERON + STRUCTION + LLES + IS + ======== + 375.05 + + +"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud and he tossed the +scrap of paper back into the grate. "Did you notice these ashes, +Monsieur Girardot, on Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the +question might seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an +explanation. + +"It is always good when it is possible to get a corroboration, +Mademoiselle." + +Betty nodded, but Girardot was at a loss. He managed to look +extremely important, but importance was not required. + +"I don't remember," he said. + +However, corroboration of a kind at all events did come though from +another source. + +"If I might speak, Monsieur Hanaud?" said Maurice Thevenet eagerly. + +"But by all means," Hanaud replied. + +"I came into this room just behind Monsieur Girardot on the Sunday +morning. I did not see any ashes in the hearth, that is true. But +Mademoiselle Harlowe was in the act of arranging that screen of blue +lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it to-day. She +arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were she stood up with +a start of surprise." + +"Aha!" said Hanaud cordially. He smiled at Betty. "This evidence is +just as valuable as if he had told us that he had seen the ashes +themselves." + +He rose to his feet and went close to her. + +"But there is another letter which you were good enough to promise to +me," he said. + +"The an----" she began and Hanaud stopped her hurriedly. + +"It is better that we hold our tongues," he said with a nod and a +grin which recognised that in this matter they were accomplices. +"This is to be our exclusive little secret, which, if he is very +good, we will share with Monsieur le Commissaire." + +He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a drawer in the +Chippendale secretary. Girardot the Commissaire tittered, not quite +sure that he thought very highly of it. Monsieur Bex, on the other +hand, by a certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly +clear that in his opinion such a jape was very, very far from correct. + +Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and handed it to +Hanaud, who took it aside to the window and read it carefully. Then +with a look he beckoned Girardot to his side. + +"Monsieur Frobisher can come too. For he is in the secret," he +added; and the three men stood apart at the window looking at the +sheet of paper. It was dated the 7th of May, signed "The Scourge," +like the others of this hideous brood, and it began without any +preface. There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of them +were epithets not to be reproduced which made Jim's blood boil that a +girl like Betty should ever have had to read them. + + + "_Your time is coming now, you----_" and here followed the string + of abominable obscenities. "_You are for it, Betty Harlowe. + Hanaud the detective from Paris is coming to look after you with + his handcuffs in his pocket. You'll look pretty in handcuffs, + won't you, Betty? It's your white neck we want! Three cheers + for Waberski? The Scourge._" + + +Girardot stared at the brutal words and settled his glasses on his +nose and stared again. + +"But--but----" he stammered and he pointed to the date. A warning +gesture made by Hanaud brought him to a sudden stop, but Frobisher +had little doubt as to the purport of that unfinished exclamation. +Girardot was astonished, as Hanaud himself had been, that this item +of news had so quickly leaked abroad. + +Hanaud folded the letter and turned back into the room. + +"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, and Thevenet the +secretary took his notebook from his pocket. + +"Shall I make you a copy of the letter, Monsieur Hanaud?" he said, +sitting down and holding out his hand. + +"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, "and a copy at the +present stage isn't necessary. A little later on I may ask for your +assistance." + +He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case away +in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again he saw that Betty was +holding out to him a key. + +"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," she said. + +"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we shall have +Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," said Hanaud. + +The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the room opposite to +the windows, and close to the door which opened on to the hall. +Hanaud took the key, unlocked the door of the cabinet and started +back with a "Wow." He was really startled, for facing him upon a +shelf were two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in +eyes, but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the heads of +Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the Amazon, and preserved +and reduced by their conquerors by the process common amongst those +forests. + +"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that we should +find it," he said, but though he found many curious oddities in that +cabinet, of the perfect specimen of a poison arrow there was never a +trace. He turned away with an air of disappointment. + +"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," he said +regretfully; and for an hour he searched that room, turning back the +carpet, examining the upholstery of the chairs, and the curtains, +shaking out every vase, and finally giving his attention to Betty's +secretary. He probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple +mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every pigeon-hole; +working with extraordinary swiftness and replacing everything in its +proper place. At the end of the hour the room was as orderly as when +he had entered it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. + +"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in a chair and +drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as the two ladies and +Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was prepared not to find it here." + +"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did not stir. + +"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur Girardot, if +you will remove the seals in the hall from the door at the end of the +room." + +The Commissary went out by the way of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom, +accompanied by his secretary. After a minute had passed a key grated +in the lock and the door was opened. The Commissary and his +secretary returned into the room from the hall. + +"Good!" said Hanaud. + +He rose from this chair and looking around at the little group, now +grown puzzled and anxious, he said very gravely: + +"In the interest of justice I now ask that none of you shall +interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have an experiment to +make." + +In a complete silence he walked to the fireplace and rang the bell. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN: _An Experiment and a Discovery_ + +Gaston answered the bell. + +"Will you please send Francine Rollard here," said Hanaud. + +Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond Hanaud to Betty. + +"If Mademoiselle gives me the order," he said respectfully. + +"At once then, Gaston," Betty replied, and she sat down in a chair. + +Francine Rollard was apparently difficult to persuade. For the +minutes passed, and when at last she did come into the treasure room +she was scared and reluctant. She was a girl hardly over twenty, +very neat and trim and pretty, and rather like some wild shy creature +out of the woods. She looked round the group which awaited her with +restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it was the +suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. + +"Rollard," said Hanaud gently, "I sent for you, for I want another +woman to help me in acting a little scene." + +He turned towards Ann Upcott. + +"Now, Mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly your movements +here on the night when Madame Harlowe died? You came into the +room--so. You stood by the electric-light switch there. You turned +it on, you noticed the time, and you turned it off quickly. For this +communicating door stood wide open--so!--and a strong light poured +out of Madame Harlowe's bedroom through the doorway." + +Hanaud was very busy, placing himself first by the side of Ann to +make sure that she stood in the exact place which she had described, +and then running across the room to set wide open the communicating +door. + +"You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments and panels of +the Sedan chair, on the other side of the fireplace on your right. +So! And there, Mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and," his +words lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each one--"you +heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom and caught some words +spoken in a clear whisper." + +"Yes," Ann replied with a shiver. The solemn manner of authority +with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. She looked at him with +troubled eyes. + +"Then will you stand there once more," he continued, "and once more +listen as you listened on that night. I thank you!" He went away to +Betty. "Now, Mademoiselle, and you, Francine Rollard, will you both +please come with me." + +He walked towards the communicating door but Betty did not even +attempt to rise from her chair. + +"Monsieur Hanaud," she said with her cheeks very white and her voice +shaking, "I can guess what you propose to do. But it is horrible and +rather cruel to us. And I cannot see how it will help." + +Ann Upcott broke in before Hanaud could reply. She was more troubled +even than Betty, though without doubt hers was to be the easier part. + +"It cannot help at all," she said. "Why must we pretend now the +dreadful thing which was lived then?" + +Hanaud turned about in the doorway. + +"Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think that when I have +finished, you will yourselves understand that my experiment has not +been without its use. I understand of course that moments like these +bring their distress. But--you will pardon me--I am not thinking of +you"--and there was so much quietude and gravity in the detective's +voice that his words, harsh though they were, carried with them no +offence. "No, I am thinking of a woman more than double the age of +either of you, whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of +the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs which you, +Mademoiselle Harlowe, showed me this morning--I am moved by them. +Yes, that is the truth." + +He closed his eyes as if he saw those two portraits with their +dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. "I am her advocate," +he cried aloud in a stirring voice. "The tragic woman, I stand for +her! If she was done to death, I mean to know and I mean to punish!" + +Never had Frobisher believed that Hanaud could have been so +transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so much passion. He +stood before them an erect and menacing figure, all his grossness +melted out of him, a man with a flaming sword. + +"As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a little distress +matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? How long will they +last? I beg you not to hinder me!" + +Betty rose up from her chair without another word. But she did not +rise without an effort, and when she stood up at last she swayed upon +her feet and her face was as white as chalk. + +"Come, Francine!" she said, pronouncing her words like a person with +an impediment of speech. "We must show Monsieur Hanaud that we are +not the cowards he takes us for." + +But Francine still held back. + +"I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl and this frightens +me. The police! They set traps--the police." + +Hanaud laughed. + +"And how often do they catch the innocent in them? Tell me that, +Mademoiselle Francine!" + +He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. +Betty and Francine followed upon his heels, the others trooped in +behind, with Frobisher last of all. He indeed was as reluctant to +witness Hanaud's experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. +It savoured of the theatrical. There was to be some sort of imagined +reproduction of the scene which Ann Upcott had described, no doubt +with the object of testing her sincerity. It would really be a test +of nerves more than a test of honesty and to Jim was therefore +neither reliable nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a +word of encouragement to Ann, but she was gazing again with that +curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the marquetry cabinet. + +"There is nothing to fear, Ann," he said, and she withdrew her eyes +from the clock. They were dancing now as she turned them upon +Frobisher. + +"I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me by my name," she +said with a smile. "Thank you, Jim!" She hesitated and then the +blood suddenly mounted into her face. "I'll tell you, I was a little +jealous," she added in a low voice and with a little laugh at herself +as though she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. + +Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer by the appearance +of Hanaud in the doorway. + +"I hate to interrupt, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with a smile; "but +it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle should listen without +anything to distract her." + +Jim followed Hanaud into the bedroom, and was startled. The +Commissary and his secretary and Monsieur Bex were in a group apart +near to one of the windows. Betty Harlowe was stretched upon Mrs. +Harlowe's bed; Francine Rollard stood against the wall, near to the +door, clearly frightened out of her wits and glancing from side to +side with the furtive restless eyes of the half-tamed. But it was +not this curious spectacle which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but +something strange, something which almost shocked, in the aspect of +Betty herself. She was leaning up on an elbow with her eyes fixed +upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable fierce look in +them that he had ever seen. She was quite lost to her environment. +The experiment from which Francine shrank had no meaning for her. +She was possessed--the old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts--though +her face was as still as a mass, a mask of frozen passion. It was +only for a second, however, that the strange seizure lasted. Betty's +face relaxed; she dropped back upon the bed with her eyes upon Hanaud +like one waiting for instructions. + +Hanaud, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take his place amongst +the group at the window. He placed himself upon one side of the bed, +and beckoned to Francine. Very slowly she approached the end of the +bed. Hanaud directed her in the same silent way to come opposite to +him on the other side of the bed. For a little while Francine +refused. She stood stubbornly shaking her head at the very foot of +the bed. She was terrified of some trick, and when at last at a sign +from Betty she took up the position assigned to her, she minced to it +gingerly as though she feared the floor would open beneath her feet. +Hanaud made her another sign and she looked at a scrap of paper on +which Hanaud had written some words. The paper and her orders had +obviously been given to her whilst Jim was talking to Ann Upcott. +Francine knew what she was to do, but her suspicious peasant nature +utterly rebelled against it. Hanaud beckoned to her with his eyes +riveted upon her compelling her, and against her will she bent +forwards over the bed and across Betty Harlowe's body. + +A nod from Hanaud now, and she spoke in a low, clear whisper: + +"That--will--do--now." + +And hardly had she spoken those few words which Ann Upcott said she +had heard on the night of Mrs. Harlowe's death, but Hanaud himself +must repeat them and also in a whisper. + +Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway in his natural +voice: + +"Did you hear, Mademoiselle? Was that the whisper which reached your +ears on the night when Madame died?" + +All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in suspense. Francine +Rollard, indeed, with her eyes fixed upon Hanaud in a very agony of +doubt. And the answer came. + +"Yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this afternoon. On the +night when I came down in the dark to the treasure room, the words +were only whispered once." + +"It was the same voice which whispered them twice, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes ... I think so ... I noticed no difference ... Yes." + +And Hanaud flung out his arms with a comic gesture of despair, and +addressed the room. + +"You understand now my little experiment. A voice that whispers! +How shall one tell it from another voice that whispers! There is no +intonation, no depth, no lightness. There is not even sex in a voice +which whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest to the +identity of the person who whispered, 'That will do now,' on the +night when Madame Harlowe died." He waved his hand towards Monsieur +Bex. "I will be glad if you will open now these cupboards, and +Mademoiselle Harlowe will tell us, to the best of her knowledge, +whether anything has been taken or anything disturbed." + +Hanaud returned to the treasure room, leaving Monsieur Bex and Betty +at their work, with the Commissary and his secretary to supervise +them. Jim Frobisher followed him. He was very far from believing +that Hanaud had truthfully explained the intention of his experiment. +The impossibility of identifying a voice which whispers! Here was +something with which Hanaud must have been familiar from a hundred +cases! No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There was +quite another true reason for this melodramatic little scene which he +had staged. He was following Hanaud in the hope of finding out that +reason, when he heard him speaking in a low voice, and he stopped +inside the dressing-room close to the communicating door where he +could hear every word and yet not be seen himself. + +"Mademoiselle," Hanaud was saying to Ann Upcott, "there is something +about this clock here which troubles you." + +"Yes--of course it's nonsense.... I must be wrong.... For here is +the cabinet and on it stands the clock." + +Jim could gather from the two voices that they were both standing +together close to the marquetry cabinet. + +"Yes, yes," Hanaud urged. "Still you are troubled." + +There was a moment's silence. Jim could imagine the girl looking +from the clock to the door by which she had stood, and back again +from the door to the clock. Surely that scene in the bedroom had +been staged to extort some admission from Ann Upcott of the falsity +of her story. Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting +to another trick, setting a fresh trap? + +"Well?" he asked insistently. "Why are you troubled?" + +"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, "that the clock is +lower now than it was. Of course it can't be ... and I had only one +swift glimpse of it.... Yet my recollection is so vivid--the room +standing out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then +vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock seemed to me to be +placed higher..." and suddenly she stopped as if a warning hand had +been laid upon her arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering +when silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway and +confronting him. + +"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note of relief in his +voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the Sûrété very soon. That I +can see. Come in!" + +He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. + +"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the light goes up and +goes out--it would have been a marvel if you had within that flash of +vision seen every detail precisely true. No, there is nothing +there!" He flung himself into a chair and sat for a little while +silent in an attitude of dejection. + +"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had nothing to go +upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing there, stirring up old +troubles which had better be left quietly in their graves, and at the +end discovering nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My +little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?" + +Hanaud sat up alertly. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter disappointment upon +Hanaud's face and in his attitude had enlightened him. Yes, his +experiment had failed. For it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had +summoned her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant to +act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the hope that it +would work upon her and break her down to a confession of guilt. He +suspected Ann. Well, then, Ann must have had an accomplice. To +discover the accomplice--there was the object of the experiment. And +it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. Francine had +shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the reason of the shrinking was +manifest--fear of the police, suspicion of a trap, the furtive +helplessness of the ignorant. She had not delivered herself into +Hanaud's toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal to +Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he answered simply: + +"Nothing." + +Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms of his chair. + +"Nothing, eh? nothing! That's the only answer in this case. To +every question! To every search! Nothing, nothing, nothing;" and as +he ended in a sinking voice, a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. + +"Betty!" Ann exclaimed. + +Hanaud threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim fancied that he +was out of his chair and across the dressing-room before the sound of +the cry had ceased. Certainly Betty could not have moved. She was +standing in front of the dressing-table, looking down at a big +jewel-case of dark blue morocco leather, and she was lifting up and +down the open lid of it with an expression of utter incredulity. + +"Aha!" said Hanaud. "It is unlocked. We have something, after all, +Monsieur Frobisher. Here is a jewel-case unlocked, and jewel-cases +do not unlock themselves. It was here?" + +He looked towards the cupboard in the wall, of which the door stood +open. + +"Yes," said Betty. "I opened the door, and took the case out by the +side handles. The lid came open when I touched it." + +"Will you look through it, please, and see whether anything is +missing?" + +While Betty began to examine the contents of the jewel-case, Hanaud +went to Francine, who stood apart. He took her by the arm and led +her to the door. + +"I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine," he said. "But, after +all, we are not such alarming people, the Police, eh? No, so long as +good little maids hold their good little tongues, we can be very good +friends. Of course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and +gossip, little Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is +to-morrow spreading over Dijon the story of Hanaud's little +experiment, Hanaud will know where to look for the chatterers." + +"Monsieur, I shall not say one word," cried Francine. + +"And how wise that will be, little Francine!" Hanaud rejoined in a +horribly smooth and silky voice. "For Hanaud can be the wickedest of +wicked Uncles to naughty little chatterers. Ohhoho, yes! He seizes +them tight--so--and it will be ever so long before he says to them +'That--will--do--now!'" + +He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh and gently +pushed Francine Rollard from the room. Then he returned to Betty, +who had lifted the tray out of the box and was opening some smaller +cases which had been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon +pendant and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. + +"You miss something, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes." + +"It was, after all, certain that you would," Hanaud continued. "If +murders are committed, there will be some reason. I will even +venture to guess that the jewel which you miss is of great value." + +"It is," Betty admitted. "But I expect it has only been mislaid. No +doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked away in a drawer." She +spoke with very great eagerness, and a note of supplication that the +matter should rest there. "In any case, what has disappeared is +mine, isn't it? And I am not going to imitate Monsieur Boris. I +make no complaint." + +Hanaud shook his head. + +"You are very kind, Mademoiselle. But we cannot, alas! say here +'That will do now.'" It was strange to Jim to notice how he kept +harping upon the words of that whisper. "We are not dealing with a +case of theft, but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it +that you miss?" + +"A pearl necklace," Betty answered reluctantly. + +"A big one?" + +It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased Hanaud became +more peremptory and abrupt. + +"Not so very." + +"Describe it to me, Mademoiselle!" + +Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face looking out upon the +garden. Then with a shrug of resignation she obeyed. + +"There were thirty-five pearls--not so very large, but they were +perfectly matched and of a beautiful pink. My uncle took a great +deal of trouble and some years to collect them. Madame told me +herself that they actually cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. +They would be worth even more now." + +"A fortune, then," cried Hanaud. + +Not a person in that room had any belief that the necklace would be +found, laid aside somewhere by chance. Here was Hanaud's case +building itself up steadily. Another storey was added to it this +afternoon. This or that experiment might fail. What did that +matter? A motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an +intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result; that the +truth, like a beam of light that travels for a million of years, +would in the end strike upon a dark spot, and that some one would +stand helpless and dazzled in a glare--the criminal. + +"Who knew of this necklace of yours, Mademoiselle, beside yourself?" +Hanaud asked. + +"Every one in the house, Monsieur. Madame wore it nearly always." + +"She wore it, then, on the day of her death?" + +"Yes, I----" Betty began, and she turned towards Ann for +confirmation, and then swiftly turned away again. "I think so." + +"I am sure of it," said Ann steadily, though her face had grown +rather white and her eyes anxious. + +"How long has Francine Rollard been with you?" Hanaud asked of Betty. + +"Three years. No--a little more. She is the only maid I have ever +had," Betty answered with a laugh. + +"I see," Hanaud said thoughtfully; and what he saw, it seemed to Jim +Frobisher that every one else in that room saw too. For no one +looked at Ann Upcott. Old servants do not steal valuable necklaces: +Ann Upcott and Jeanne Baudin, the nurse, were the only new-comers to +the Maison Crenelle these many years; and Jeanne Baudin had the best +of characters. Thus the argument seemed to run though no one +expressed it in words. + +Hanaud turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard, and shook +his head over it. Then he crossed to the dressing-table and the +morocco case. + +"Aha!" he said with a lively interest. "This is a different affair;" +and he bent down closely over it. + +The case was not locked with a key at all. There were three small +gilt knobs in the front of the case, and the lock was set by the +number of revolutions given to each knob. These, of course, could be +varied with each knob, and all must be known before the case could be +opened--Mrs. Harlowe's jewels had been guarded by a formula. + +"There has been no violence used here," said Hanaud, standing up +again. + +"Of course my aunt may have forgotten to lock the case," said Betty. + +"Of course that's possible," Hanaud agreed. + +"And of course this room was open to any one between the time of my +aunt's funeral and Sunday morning, when the doors were sealed." + +"A week, in fact--with Boris Waberski in the house," said Hanaud. + +"Yes ... yes," said Betty. "Only ... but I expect it is just mislaid +and we shall find it. You see Monsieur Boris expected to get some +money from my lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain +with me. It doesn't look as if he had stolen it. He wouldn't want a +thousand pounds if he had." + +Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had recollected him +with a thrill of hope that he would be discovered to be the thief +when Hanaud mentioned his name. But the hope died away again before +the reluctant and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlowe. On the other +hand, if Boris and Ann were really accomplices in the murder, because +he wanted his legacy, the necklace might well have been Ann's share. +More and more, whichever way one looked at it, the facts pointed +damningly towards Ann. + +"Well, we will see if it has been mislaid," said Hanaud. "But +meanwhile, Mademoiselle, it would be well for you to lock that case +up and to take it some time this afternoon to your bankers." + +Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after the other. +Three times a swift succession of sharp little clicks was heard in +the room. + +"You have not used, I hope, the combination which Madame Harlowe +used," said Hanaud. + +"I never knew the combination she used," said Betty. She lifted the +jewel-case back into its cupboard; and the search of the drawers and +the cupboards began. But it was as barren of result as had been the +search of the treasure-room for the arrow. + +"We can do no more," said Hanaud. + +"Yes. One thing more." + +The correction came quietly from Ann Upcott. She was standing by +herself, very pale and defiant. She knew now that she was suspected. +The very care with which every one had avoided even looking at her +had left her in no doubt. + +Hanaud looked about the room. + +"What more can we do?" he asked. + +"You can search my rooms." + +"No!" cried Betty violently. "I won't have it!" + +"If you please," said Ann. "It is only fair to me." + +Monsieur Bex nodded violently. + +"Mademoiselle could not be more correct," said he. + +Ann addressed herself to Hanaud. + +"I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in my room except +a small leather dispatch-case. You will find the key to that in the +left-hand drawer of my dressing-table. I will wait for you in the +library." + +Hanaud bowed, and before he could move from his position Betty did a +thing for which Jim could have hugged her there and then before them +all. She went straight to Ann and set her arm about her waist. + +"I'll wait with you, Ann," she said. "Of course it's ridiculous," +and she led Ann out of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN: _The Finding of the Arrow_ + +Ann's rooms were upon the second floor with the windows upon the +garden, a bedroom and a sitting-room communicating directly with one +another. They were low in the roof, but spacious, and Hanaud, as he +looked around the bedroom, said in a tone of doubt: + +"Yes ... after all, if one were frightened suddenly out of one's +wits, one might stumble about this room in the dark and lose one's +way to the light switch. There isn't one over the bed." Then he +shrugged his shoulders. "But, to be sure, one would be careful that +one's details could be verified. So----" and the doubt passed out of +his voice. + +The words were all Greek to the Commissary of Police and his +secretary and Monsieur Bex. Maurice Thevenet, indeed, looked sharply +at Hanaud, as if he was on the point of asking one of those questions +which he had been invited to ask. But Girardot, the Commissary who +was panting heavily with his ascent of two flights of stairs, spoke +first. + +"We shall find nothing to interest us here," he said. "That pretty +girl would never have asked us to pry about amongst her dainty +belongings if there had been anything to discover." + +"One never knows," replied Hanaud. "Let us see!" + +Jim walked away into the sitting-room. He had no wish to follow step +by step Hanaud and the Commissary in their search; and he had noticed +on the table in the middle of the room a blotting-pad and some +notepaper and the materials for writing. He wanted to get all this +whirl of conjecture and fact and lies, in which during the last two +days he had lived, sorted and separated and set in order in his mind; +and he knew no better way of doing so than by putting it all down +shortly in the "for" and "against" style of Robinson Crusoe on his +desert island. He would have a quiet hour or so whilst Hanaud +indefatigably searched. He took a sheet of paper, selected a pen at +random from the tray and began. It cost Ann Upcott, however, a good +many sheets of notepaper, and more than once the nib dropped out of +his pen-holder and was forced back into it before he had finished. +But he had his problem reduced at last to these terms: + + For Against + + (1) Although suspicion that But in the absence of any + murder had been committed trace of poison in the dead + arose in the first instance only woman's body, it is difficult to + from the return to its shelf of see how the criminal can be + the "Treatise on Sporanthus brought to justice, except by + Hispidus," subsequent developments, + e.g., the disappearance of (a) A confession. + the Poison Arrow, the introduction + into the case of the ill-famed (b) The commission of another + Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story crime of a similar kind. + of her visit to the Treasure Hanaud's theory--once a + Room, and now the mystery of poisoner always a poisoner. + Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, + make out a prima facie case for + inquiry. + + (2) If murder was committed, Ann Upcott's story may be + it is probable that it was partly or wholly false. She + committed at half-past ten at night knew that Mrs. Harlowe's + when Ann Upcott in the Treasure bedroom was to be opened and + Room heard the sound of a examined. If she also knew that + struggle and the whisper, "That the pearl necklace had + will do now." disappeared, she must have realised + that it would be advisable for + her to tell some story before its + disappearance was discovered, + which would divert suspicion + from her. + + (3) It is clear that whoever It is possible that the + committed the murder, if murder disappearance of the necklace is in + was committed, Betty Harlowe no way connected with the + had nothing to do with it. She murder, if murder there was. + had an ample allowance. She + was at M. Pouillac's Ball on + the night. Moreover, once + Mrs. Harlowe was dead, the necklace + became Betty Harlowe's + property. Had she committed the + murder, the necklace would not + have disappeared. + + (4) Who then are possibly + guilty? + + (i) The servants. (i) All of them have many + years of service to their credit. + It is not possible that any of + them would have understood + enough of the "Treatise on + Sporanthus Hispidus" to make + use of it. If any of them were + concerned it can only be as an + accessory or assistant working + under the direction of another. + + (ii) Jeanne Baudin the nurse. No one suspects her. Her + record is good. + More attention might be given + to her. It is too easily accepted + that she has nothing to do + with it. + + (iii) Francine Rollard. She She was frightened of the police + was certainly frightened this as a class, rather than of being + afternoon. The necklace would accused of a crime. She acted + be a temptation. her part in the reconstruction + scene without breaking + Was it she who bent over Ann down. If she were concerned, it + Upcott in the darkness? could only be for the reason + given above, as an assistant. + + (iv) Ann Upcott. Her introductions may be + explicable on favourable grounds. + Her introduction into the Until we know more of her + Maison Crenelle took place history it is impossible to judge. + through Waberski and under + dubious circumstances. She is + poor, a paid companion, and the + necklace is worth a considerable + fortune. + + She was in the house on the Her account of the night of + night of Mrs. Harlowe's death. the 27th April may be true from + She told Gaston he could turn beginning to end. + out the lights and go to bed + early that evening. She could + easily have admitted Waberski + and received the necklace as the + price of her complicity. + + The story she told us in the In that case the theory of a + garden may have been the true murder is enormously strengthened. + story of what occurred adapted. But who whispered, "That + It may have been she who will do now"? And who was + whispered "That will do now." bending over Ann Upcott when + She may have whispered it to she waked up? + Waberski. + + Her connection with Waberski + was sufficiently close to make + him count upon Ann's support + in his charge against Betty. + + (v) Waberski. + + He is a scoundrel, a would-be + blackmailer. + + He was in straits for money + and he expected a thumping + legacy from Mrs. Harlowe. + + He may have brought Ann + Upcott into the house with the + thought of murder in his mind. + + Having failed to obtain any + profit from his crime, he accuses + Betty of the same crime as a + blackmailing proposition. + + As soon as he knew that But he would have collapsed + Mrs. Harlowe had been exhumed and equally if he had believed that + an autopsy made he collapsed. no murder had been committed + He knew, if he had used himself at all. + the poison arrow, that no trace + of poison would be found. + + He knew of Jean Cladel, and + according to his own story was + in the Rue Gambetta close to + Jean Cladel's shop. It is possible + that he himself had been visiting + Cladel to pay for the solution of + Strophanthus. + + +If murder was committed the two people most obviously suspect are Ann +Upcott and Waberski working in collusion. + +To this conclusion Jim Frobisher was reluctantly brought, but even +whilst writing it down there were certain questions racing through +his mind to which he could find no answer. He was well aware that he +was an utter novice in such matters as the investigation of crimes; +and he recognised that were the answers to these questions known to +him, some other direction might be given to his thoughts. + +Accordingly he wrote those troublesome questions beneath his +memorandum--thus: + +But + +(1) Why does Hanaud attach no importance to the return of the +"Treatise on Sporanthus Hispidus" to its place in the library? + +(2) What was it which so startled him upon the top of the Terrace +Tower? + +(3) What was it that he had in his mind to say to me at the Café in +the Place D'Armes and in the end did not say? + +(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the treasure room for the +missing poison arrow--except the interior of the Sedan chair? + +The noise of a door gently closing aroused him from his speculations. +He looked across the room. Hanaud had just entered it from the +bedroom, shutting the communicating door behind him. He stood with +his hand upon the door-knob gazing at Frobisher with a curious +startled stare. He moved swiftly to the end of the table at which +Jim was sitting. + +"How you help me!" he said in a low voice and smiling. "How you do +help me!" + +Alert though Jim's ears were to a note of ridicule, he could discover +not a hint of it. Hanaud was speaking with the utmost sincerity, his +eyes very bright and his heavy face quite changed by that uncannily +sharp expression which Jim had learned to associate with some new +find in the development of the case. + +"May I see what you have written?" Hanaud asked. + +"It could be of no value to you," Jim replied modestly, but Hanaud +would have none of it. + +"It is always of value to know what the other man thinks, and even +more what the other man sees. What did I say to you in Paris? The +last thing one sees one's self is the thing exactly under one's +nose"; and he began to laugh lightly but continuously and with a +great deal of enjoyment, which Jim did not understand. He gave in, +however, over his memorandum and pushed it along to Hanaud, ashamed +of it as something schoolboyish, but hopeful that some of these +written questions might be answered. + +Hanaud sat down at the end of the table close to Jim and read the +items and the questions very slowly with an occasional grunt, and a +still more occasional "Aha!" but with a quite unchanging face. Jim +was in two minds whether to snatch it from his hands and tear it up +or dwell upon its recollected phrases with a good deal of pride. One +thing was clear. Hanaud took it seriously. + +He sat musing over it for a moment or two. + +"Yes, here are questions, and dilemmas." He looked at Frobisher with +friendliness. "I shall make you an allegory. I have a friend who is +a matador in Spain. He told me about the bull and how foolish those +people are who think the bull not clever. Yes, but do not jump and +look the offence with your eyes and tell me how very vulgar I am and +how execrable my taste. All that I know very well. But listen to my +friend the matador! He says all that the bull wants, to kill without +fail all the bull-fighters in Spain, is a little experience. And +very little, he learns so quick. Look! Between the entrance of the +bull into the arena and his death there are reckoned twenty minutes. +And there should not be more, if the matador is wise. The bull--he +learns so quick the warfare of the ring. Well, I am an old bull who +has fought in the arena many times. This is your first corrida. But +only ten minutes of the twenty have passed. Already you have learned +much. Yes, here are some shrewd questions which I had not expected +you to ask. When the twenty are gone, you will answer them all for +yourself. Meanwhile"--he took up another pen and made a tiny +addition to item one--"I carry this on one step farther. See!" + +He replaced the memorandum under Jim's eyes. Jim read: + +"--subsequent developments, e.g., the disappearance of the Poison +Arrow, the introduction into the case of the ill-famed Jean Cladel, +Ann Upcott's story of her visit to the treasure-room, and now the +mystery of Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, _and the finding of the +arrow_, make out a prima facie case for inquiry." + + +Jim sprang to his feet in excitement. + +"You have found the arrow, then?" he cried, glancing towards the door +of Ann Upcott's bedroom. + +"Not I, my friend," replied Hanaud with a grin. + +"The Commissaire, then?" + +"No, not the Commissaire." + +"His secretary, then?" + +Jim sat down again in his chair. + +"I am sorry. He wears cheap rings. I don't like him." + +Hanaud broke into a laugh of delight. + +"Console yourself! I, too, don't like that young gentleman of whom +they are all so proud. Maurice Thevenet has found nothing." + +Jim looked at Hanaud in a perplexity. + +"Here is a riddle," he said. + +Hanaud rubbed his hands together. + +"Prove to me that you have been ten minutes in the bull-ring," he +said. + +"I think that I have only been five," Jim replied with a smile. "Let +me see! The arrow had not been discovered when we first entered +these rooms?" + +"No." + +"And it is discovered now?" + +"Yes." + +"And it was not discovered by you?" + +"No." + +"Nor the Commissaire?" + +"No." + +"Nor Maurice Thevenet?" + +"No." + +Jim stared and shook his head. + +"I have not been one minute in the bull-ring. I don't understand." + +Hanaud's face was all alight with enjoyment. + +"Then I take your memorandum and I write again." + +He hid the paper from Jim Frobisher's eyes with the palm of his left +hand, whilst he wrote with his right. Then with a triumphant gesture +he laid it again before Jim. The last question of all had been +answered in Hanaud's neat, small handwriting. + +Jim read: + + + (4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the treasure-room for + the missing Poison Arrow--except the interior of the Sedan chair? + + +Underneath the question Hanaud had written as if it was Jim Frobisher +himself who answered the question: + + + "It was wrong of Hanaud to forget to examine the Sedan chair, but + fortunately no harm has resulted from that lamentable omission. + For Life, the incorrigible Dramatist, had arranged that the head + of the arrow-shaft should be the pen-holder with which I have + written this memorandum." + + +Jim looked at the pen-holder and dropped it with a startled cry. + +There it was--the slender, pencil-like shaft expanding into a slight +bulb where the fingers held it, and the nib inserted into the tiny +cleft made for the stem of the iron dart! Jim remembered that the +nib had once or twice become loose and spluttered on the page, until +he had jammed it in violently. + +Then came a terrible thought. His jaw dropped; he stared at Hanaud +in awe. + +"I wonder if I sucked the end of it, whilst I was thinking out my +sentences," he stammered. + +"O Lord!" cried Hanaud, and he snatched up the pen-holder and rubbed +it hard with his pocket handkerchief. Then he spread out the +handkerchief upon the table, and fetching a small magnifying glass +from his pocket, examined it minutely. He looked up with relief. + +"There is not the least little trace of that reddish-brown clay which +made the poison paste. The arrow was scraped clean before it was put +on that tray of pens. I am enchanted. I cannot now afford to lose +my junior colleague." + +Frobisher drew a long breath and lit a cigarette, and gave another +proof that he was a very novice of a bull. + +"What a mad thing to put the head of that arrow-shaft, which a glance +at the plates in the Treatise would enable a child to identify, into +an open tray of pens without the slightest concealment!" he exclaimed. + +It looked as if Ann Upcott was wilfully pushing her neck into the +wooden ring of the guillotine. + +Hanaud shook his head. + +"Not so mad, my friend! The old rules are the best. Hide a thing in +some out-of-the-way corner, and it will surely be found. Put it to +lie carelessly under every one's nose and no one will see it at all. +No, no! This was cleverly done. Who could have foreseen that +instead of looking on at our search you were going to plump yourself +down in a chair and write your memorandum so valuable on Mademoiselle +Ann's notepaper? And even then you did not notice your pen. Why +should you?" + +Jim, however, was not satisfied. + +"It is a fortnight since Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, if she was +murdered," he cried. "What I don't understand is why the arrow +wasn't destroyed altogether!" + +"But until this morning there was never any question of the arrow," +Hanaud returned. "It was a curiosity, an item in a collection--why +should one trouble to destroy it? But this morning the arrow becomes +a dangerous thing to possess. So it must be hidden away in a hurry. +For there is not much time. An hour whilst you and I admired Mont +Blanc from the top of the Terrace Tower." + +"And while Betty was out of the house," Jim added quickly. + +"Yes--that is true," said Hanaud. "I had not thought of it. You can +add that point, Monsieur Frobisher, to the reasons which put +Mademoiselle Harlowe out of our considerations. Yes." + +He sat lost in thought for a little while and speaking now and then a +phrase rather to himself than to his companion: "To run up here--to +cut the arrow down--to round off the end as well as one can in a +hurry--to stain it with some varnish--to mix it with the other pens +in the tray. Not so bad!" He nodded his head in appreciation of the +trick. "But nevertheless things begin to look black for that +exquisite Mademoiselle Ann with her delicate colour and her pretty +ways." + +A noise of the shifting of furniture in the bedroom next door +attracted his attention. He removed the nib from the arrow-head. + +"We will keep this little matter to ourselves just for the moment," +he said quickly, and he wrapped the improvised pen-holder in a sheet +of the notepaper. "Just you and I shall know of it. No one else. +This is my case, not Girardot's. We will not inflict a great deal of +pain and trouble until we are sure." + +"I agree," said Jim eagerly. "That's right, I am sure." + +Hanaud tucked the arrow-head carefully away in his pocket. + +"This, too," he said, and he took up Jim Frobisher's memorandum. "It +is not a good thing to carry about, and perhaps lose. I will put it +away at the Prefecture with the other little things I have collected." + +He put the memorandum into his letter-case and got up from his chair. + +"The rest of the arrow-shaft will be somewhere in this room, no +doubt, and quite easy to see. But we shall not have time to look for +it, and, after all, we have the important part of it." + +He turned towards the mantelshelf, where some cards of invitation +were stuck in the frame of the mirror, just as the door was opened +and the Commissary with his secretary came out from the bedroom. + +"The necklace is not in that room," said Monsieur Girardot in a voice +of finality. + +"Nor is it here," Hanaud replied with an unblushing assurance. "Let +us go downstairs." + +Jim was utterly staggered. This room had not been searched for the +necklace at all. First the Sedan chair, then this sitting-room was +neglected. Hanaud actually led the way out to the stairs without so +much as a glance behind him. No wonder that in Paris he had styled +himself and his brethren the Servants of Chance. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN: _Hanaud Laughs_ + +At the bottom of the stairs Hanaud thanked the Commissary of Police +for his assistance. + +"As for the necklace, we shall of course search the baggage of every +one in the house," he said. "But we shall find nothing. Of that we +may be sure. For if the necklace has been stolen, too much time has +passed since it was stolen for us to hope to find it here." + +He bowed Girardot with much respect out of the house, whilst Monsieur +Bex took Jim Frobisher a little aside. + +"I have been thinking that Mademoiselle Ann should have some legal +help," he said. "Now both you and I are attached to the affairs of +Mademoiselle Harlowe. And--it is a little difficult to put it +delicately--it may be that the interests of those two young ladies +are not identical. It would not therefore be at all correct for me, +at all events, to offer her my services. But I can recommend a very +good lawyer in Dijon, a friend of mine. You see, it may be +important." + +Frobisher agreed. + +"It may be, indeed. Will you give me your friend's address?" he said. + +Whilst he was writing the address down Hanaud startled him by +breaking unexpectedly into a loud laugh. The curious thing was that +there was nothing whatever to account for it. Hanaud was standing by +himself between them and the front door. In the courtyard outside +there was no one within view. Within the hall Jim and Monsieur Bex +were talking very seriously in a low voice. Hanaud was laughing at +the empty air and his laughter betokened a very strong sense of +relief. + +"That I should have lived all these years and never noticed that +before," he cried aloud in a sort of amazement that there could be +anything capable of notice which he, Hanaud, had not noticed. + +"What is it?" asked Jim. + +But Hanaud did not answer at all. He dashed back through the hall +past Frobisher and his companion, vanished into the treasure-room, +closed the door behind him and actually locked it. + +Monsieur Bex jerked his chin high in the air. + +"He is an eccentric, that one. He would not do for Dijon." + +Jim was for defending Hanaud. + +"He must act. That is true," he replied. "Whatever he does and +however keenly he does it, he sees a row of footlights in front of +him." + +"There are men like that," Monsieur Bex agreed. Like all Frenchmen, +he was easy in his mind if he could place a man in a category. + +"But he is doing something which is quite important," Jim continued, +swelling a little with pride. He felt that he had been quite fifteen +minutes in the bull-ring. "He is searching for something somewhere. +I told him about it. He had overlooked it altogether. I reproached +him this morning with his reluctance to take suggestions from people +only too anxious to help him. But I did him obviously some +injustice. He is quite willing." + +Monsieur Bex was impressed and a little envious. + +"I must think of some suggestions to make to Hanaud," he said. "Yes, +yes! Was there not once a pearl necklace in England which was +dropped in a match-box into the gutter when the pursuit became too +hot? I have read of it, I am sure. I must tell Hanaud that he +should spend a day or two picking up the match-boxes in the gutters. +He may be very likely to come across that necklace of Madame +Harlowe's. Yes, certainly." + +Monsieur Bex was considerably elated by the bright idea which had +come to him. He felt that he was again upon a level with his English +colleague. He saw Hanaud pouncing his way along the streets of Dijon +and explaining to all who questioned him: "This is the idea of +Monsieur Bex, the notary. You know, Monsieur Bex, of the Place +Etienne Dolet." Until somewhere near--but Monsieur Bex had not +actually located the particular gutter in which Hanaud should +discover the match-box with the priceless beads, when the library +door opened and Betty came out into the hall. + +She looked at the two men in surprise. + +"And Monsieur Hanaud?" she asked. "I didn't see him go." + +"He is in your treasure-room," said Jim. + +"Oh!" Betty exclaimed in a voice which showed her interest. "He has +gone back there!" + +She walked quickly to the door and tried the handle. + +"Locked!" she cried with a little start of surprise. She spoke +without turning round. "He has locked himself in! Why?" + +"Because of the footlights," Monsieur Bex answered, and Betty turned +about and stared at him. "Yes, we came to that conclusion, Monsieur +Frobisher and I. Everything he does must ring a curtain down;" and +once more the key turned in the lock. + +Betty swung round again as the sound reached her ears and came face +to face with Hanaud. Hanaud looked over her shoulder at Frobisher +and shook his head ruefully. + +"You did not find it, then?" Jim asked. + +"No." + +Hanaud looked away from Jim to Betty Harlowe. + +"Monsieur Frobisher put an idea into my head, Mademoiselle. I had +not looked into that exquisite Sedan chair. It might well be that +the necklace had been hidden behind the cushions. But it is not +there." + +"And you locked the door, Monsieur," said Betty stiffly. "The door +of my room, I ask you to notice." + +Hanaud drew himself erect. + +"I did, Mademoiselle," he replied. "And then?" + +Betty hesitated with some sharp rejoinder on the tip of her tongue. +But she did not speak it. She shrugged her shoulders and said coldly +as she turned from him: + +"You are within your rights, no doubt, Monsieur." + +Hanaud smiled at her good-humouredly. He had offended her again. +She was showing him once more the petulant, mutinous child in her +which he had seen the morning before. But the smile did remain upon +his face. In the doorway of the library Ann Upcott was standing, her +face still very pale, and fires smouldering in her eyes. + +"You searched my rooms, I hope, Monsieur," she said in a challenging +voice. + +"Thoroughly, Mademoiselle." + +"And you did not find the necklace?" + +"No!" and he walked straight across the hall to her with a look +suddenly grown stern. + +"Mademoiselle, I should like you to answer me a question. But you +need not. I wish you to understand that. You have a right to +reserve your answers for the Office of the Examining Magistrate and +then give them only in the presence of and with the consent of your +legal adviser. Monsieur Bex will assure you that is so." + +The girl's defiance weakened. + +"What do you wish to ask me?" she asked. + +"Exactly how you came to the Maison Crenelle." + +The fire died out of her eyes; Ann's eyelids fluttered down. She +stretched out a hand against the jamb of the door to steady herself. +Jim wondered whether she guessed that the head of Simon Harlowe's +arrow was now hidden in Hanaud's pocket. + +"I was at Monte Carlo," she began and stopped. + +"And quite alone?" Hanaud continued relentlessly. + +"Yes." + +"And without money?" + +"With a little money," Ann corrected. + +"Which you lost," Hanaud rejoined. + +"Yes." + +"And at Monte Carlo you made the acquaintance of Boris Waberski?" + +"Yes." + +"And so you came to the Maison Crenelle?" + +"Yes." + +"It is all very curious, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud gravely, and "If +it were only curious!" Jim Frobisher wished with all his heart. For +Ann Upcott quailed before the detective's glance. It seemed to him +that with another question from him, an actual confession would +falter and stumble from her lips. A confession of complicity with +Boris Waberski! And then? Jim caught a dreadful glimpse of the +future which awaited her. The guillotine? Probably a fate much +worse. For that would be over soon and she at rest. A few poignant +weeks, an agony of waiting, now in an intoxication of hope, now in +the lowest hell of terror; some dreadful minutes at the breaking of a +dawn--and an end! That would be better after all than the endless +years of sordid heart-breaking labour, coarse food and clothes, +amongst the criminals of a convict prison in France. + +Jim turned his eyes away from her with a shiver of discomfort and saw +with a queer little shock that Betty was watching him with a singular +intentness; as if what interested her was not so much Ann's peril as +his feeling about it. + +Meanwhile Ann had made up her mind. + +"I shall tell you at once the little there is to tell," she declared. +The words were brave enough, but the bravery ended with the words. +She had provoked the short interrogatory with a clear challenge. She +ended it in a hardly audible whisper. However, she managed to tell +her story, leaning there against the post of the door. Indeed her +voice strengthened as she went on and once a smile of real amusement +flickered about her lips and in her eyes and set the dimples playing +in her cheeks. + +Up to eighteen months ago she had lived with her mother, a widow, in +Dorsetshire, a few miles behind Weymouth. The pair of them lived +with difficulty. For Mrs. Upcott found herself in as desperate a +position as England provides for gentlewomen. She was a small +landowner taxed up to her ears, and then rated over the top of her +head. Ann for her part was thought in the neighbourhood to have +promise as an artist. On the death of her mother the estate was sold +as a toy to a manufacturer, and Ann with a small purse and a +sack-load of ambitions set out for London. + +"It took me a year to understand that I was and should remain an +amateur. I counted over my money. I had three hundred pounds left. +What was I going to do with it? It wasn't enough to set me up in a +shop. On the other hand, I hated the idea of dependence. So I made +up my mind to have ten wild gorgeous days at Monte Carlo and make a +fortune, or lose the lot." + +It was then that the smile set her eyes dancing. + +"I should do the same again," she cried quite unrepentantly. "I had +never been out of England in my life, but I knew a good deal of +schoolgirl's French. I bought a few frocks and hats and off I went. +I had the most glorious time. I was nineteen. Everything from the +sleeping-cars to the croupiers enchanted me. I stayed at one of the +smaller hotels up the hill. I met one or two people whom I knew and +they introduced me into the Sporting Club. Oh, and lots and lots of +people wanted to be kind to me!" she cried. + +"That is thoroughly intelligible," said Hanaud dryly. + +"Oh, but quite nice people too," Ann rejoined. Her face was glowing +with the recollections of that short joyous time. She had forgotten, +for the moment, altogether the predicament in which she stood, or she +was acting with an artfulness which Hanaud could hardly have seen +surpassed in all his experience of criminals. + +"There was a croupier, for instance, at the trente-et-quarante table +in the big room of the Sporting Club. I always tried to sit next to +him. For he saw that no one stole my money and that when I was +winning I insured my stake and clawed a little off the heap from time +to time. I was there for five weeks and I had made four hundred +pounds--and then came three dreadful nights and I lost everything +except thirty pounds which I had stowed away in the hotel safe." She +nodded across the hall towards Jim. "Monsieur Frobisher can tell you +about the last night. For he sat beside me and very prettily tried +to make me a present of a thousand francs." + +Hanaud, however, was not to be diverted. + +"Afterwards he shall tell me," he said, and resumed his questions. +"You had met Waberski before that night?" + +"Yes, a fortnight before. But I can't remember who introduced me." + +"And Mademoiselle Harlowe?" + +"Monsieur Boris introduced me a day or two later to Betty at tea-time +in the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris." + +"Aha!" said Hanaud. He glanced at Jim with an almost imperceptible +shrug of the shoulders. It was, indeed, becoming more and more +obvious that Waberski had brought Ann Upcott into that household +deliberately, as part of a plan carefully conceived and in due time +to be fulfilled. + +"When did Waberski first suggest that you should join Mademoiselle +Harlowe?" he asked. + +"That last night," Ann replied. "He had been standing opposite to me +on the other side of the trente-et-quarante table. He saw that I had +been losing." + +"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his head. "He thought that the opportune +moment had come." + +He extended his arms and let his hands fall against his thighs. He +was like a doctor presented with a hopeless case. He turned half +aside from Ann with his shoulders bent and his troubled eyes fixed +upon the marble squares of the floor. Jim could not but believe that +he was at this moment debating whether he should take the girl into +custody. But Betty intervened. + +"You must not be misled, Monsieur Hanaud," she said quickly, "It is +true no doubt that Monsieur Boris mentioned the subject to Ann for +the first time that night. But I had already told both my aunt and +Monsieur Boris that I should like a friend of my own age to live with +me and I had mentioned Ann." + +Hanaud looked up at her doubtfully. + +"On so short an acquaintance, Mademoiselle?" + +Betty, however, stuck to her guns. + +"Yes. I liked her very much from the beginning. She was alone. It +was quite clear that she was of our own world. There was every good +reason why I should wish for her. And the four months she has been +with me have proved to me that I was right." + +She crossed over to Ann with a defiant little nod at Hanaud, who +responded with a cordial grin and dropped into English. + +"So I can push that into my pipe and puff it, as my dear Ricardo +would say. That is what you mean? Well, against loyalty, the whole +world is powerless." As he made Betty a friendly bow. He could +hardly have told Betty in plainer phrase that her intervention had +averted Ann's arrest; or Ann herself that he believed her guilty. + +Every one in the hall understood him in that sense. They stood +foolishly looking here and looking there and not knowing where to +look; and in the midst of their discomfort occurred an incongruous +little incident which added a touch of the bizarre. Up the two steps +to the open door came a girl carrying a big oblong cardboard +milliner's box. Her finger was on the bell, when Hanaud stepped +forward. + +"There is no need to ring," he said. "What have you there?" + +The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann. + +"It is Mademoiselle's dress for the Ball to-morrow night. +Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but did not come. But +Madame Grolin thinks that it will be all right." She laid the box +upon a chest at the side of the hall and went out again. + +"I had forgotten all about it," said Ann. "It was ordered just +before Madame died and tried on once." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"For Madame Le Vay's masked ball, no doubt," he said. "I noticed the +invitation card on the chimney-piece of Mademoiselle's sitting-room. +And in what character did Mademoiselle propose to go?" + +Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst the blood +rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone. + +"Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events," she cried. + +Even Hanaud was brought up with a start. + +"I did not suggest it," he replied coldly. "But let me see!" and in +a moment whilst his face was flushed with anger his hands were busily +untying the tapes of the box. + +Betty stepped forward. + +"We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, more than a +month ago. It is meant to represent a water-lily." + +"What could be more charming?" Hanaud asked, but his fingers did not +pause in their work. + +"Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?" Jim Frobisher +wondered. What could he expect to find in that box? Did he imagine +that this Madame Grolin, the milliner, was an accomplice of +Waberski's too? The episode was ludicrous with a touch of the +horrible. Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the +tissue-paper. Underneath was seen a short _crêpe de Chine_ frock of +a tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold rosette +at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out at the hips, and +it was bordered with a row of white satin rosettes with golden +hearts. To complete the dress there were a pair of white silk +stockings with fine gold clocks and white satin shoes with single +straps across the insteps and little tassels of brilliants where the +straps buttoned, and four gold stripes at the back round the heels. + +Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, replaced the lid, +and stood up again. He never looked at Ann Upcott. He went straight +across to Betty Harlowe. + +"I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you to so much +trouble and occupied so many hours of your day," he said with a good +deal of feeling. He made her a courteous bow, took up his hat and +stick from the table on which he had laid it, and made straight for +the hall door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all +appearances finished. + +But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been nursing his suggestion +for nearly half an hour. Like a poem it demanded utterance. + +"Monsieur Hanaud!" he called; "Monsieur Hanaud! I have to tell you +about a box of matches." + +"Aha!" Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. "A box of matches! I will +walk with you towards your office, and you shall tell me as you go." + +Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great hurry. But he +had time to throw a glance of pride towards his English colleague. +"Your suggestion about the treasure room was of no value, my friend. +Let us see what I can do!" The pride and the airy wave of the hand +spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at Hanaud's side in a +moment, and talked volubly as they passed out of the gates into the +street of Charles-Robert. + +Betty turned to Jim Frobisher. + +"To-morrow, now that I am once allowed to use my motor-car, I shall +take you for a drive and show you something of our neighbourhood. +This afternoon--you will understand, I know--I belong to Ann." + +She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls went out into the +garden. Jim was left alone in the hall--as at that moment he wanted +to be. It was very still here now and very silent. The piping of +birds, the drone of bees outside the open doors were rather an +accompaniment than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed +himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when he had laughed so +strangely--half-way between the foot of the stairs where Monsieur Bex +and he himself had been standing and the open porch. But Jim could +detect nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. +"That I should have lived all these years and never noticed it +before," he had exclaimed. Notice what? There was nothing to +notice. A table, a chair or two, a barometer hanging upon the wall +on one side and a mirror hanging upon the wall on the other--No, +there was nothing. Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of +the mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene might have +been invented by him maliciously, just to annoy and worry and cause +discomfort to Monsieur Bex and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a +trick like that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a great +deal of the mountebank. More than half of him was probably +mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds! + +"Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he notice?" cried Jim. +"What did he notice from the top of the Tower? What did he notice in +this hall? Why must he be always noticing something?" and he jammed +his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: _At Jean Cladel's_ + +At nine o'clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past the cashier's +desk and into the hall of the Grande Taverne. High above his head +the cinematograph machine whirred and clicked and a blade of silver +light cut the darkness. At the opposite end of the hall the square +screen was flooded with radiance and the pictures melted upon it one +into the other. + +For a little while Jim could see nothing but that screen. Then the +hall swam gradually within his vision. He saw the heads of people +like great bullets and a wider central corridor where waitresses with +white aprons moved. Jim walked up the corridor and turned off to the +left between the tables. When he reached the wall he went forward +again towards the top of the hall. On his left the hall fell back, +and in the recess were two large cubicles in which billiard tables +were placed. Against the wall of the first of these a young man was +leaning with his eyes fixed upon the screen. Jim fancied that he +recognised Maurice Thevenet, and nodded to him as he passed. A +little further on a big man with a soft felt hat was seated alone, +with a Bock in front of him--Hanaud. Jim slipped into a seat at his +side. + +"You?" Hanaud exclaimed in surprise. + +"Why not? You told me this is where you would be at this hour," +replied Jim, and some note of discouragement in his voice attracted +Hanaud's attention. + +"I didn't think that those two young ladies would let you go," he +said. + +"On the contrary," Jim replied with a short laugh. "They didn't want +me at all." + +He began to say something more, but thought better of it, and called +to a waitress. + +"Two Bocks, if you please," he ordered, and he offered Hanaud a cigar. + +When the Bocks were brought, Hanaud said to him: + +"It will be well to pay at once, so that we can slip away when we +want." + +"We have something to do to-night?" Jim asked. + +"Yes." + +He said no more until Jim had paid and the waitress had turned the +two little saucers on which she had brought the Bocks upside down and +had gone away. Then he leaned towards Jim and lowered his voice. + +"I am glad that you came here. For I have a hope that we shall get +the truth to-night, and you ought to be present when we do get it." + +Jim lit his own cigar. + +"From whom do you hope to get it?" + +"Jean Cladel," Hanaud answered in a whisper. "A little later when +all the town is quiet we will pay a visit to the street of Gambetta." + +"You think he'll talk?" + +Hanaud nodded. + +"There is no charge against Cladel in this affair. To make a +solution of that poison paste is not an offence. And he has so much +against him that he will want to be on our side if he can. Yes, he +will talk I have no doubt." + +There would be an end of the affair then, to-night. Jim Frobisher +was glad with an unutterable gladness. Betty would be free to order +her life as she liked, and where she liked, to give to her youth its +due scope and range, to forget the terror and horror of these last +weeks, as one forgets old things behind locked doors. + +"I hope, however," he said earnestly to Hanaud, "and I believe, that +you will be found wrong, that if there was a murder Ann Upcott had +nothing to do with it. Yes, I believe that." He repeated his +assertion as much to convince himself as to persuade Hanaud. + +Hanaud touched his elbow. + +"Don't raise your voice too much, my friend," he said. "I think +there is some one against the wall who is honouring us with his +attention." + +Jim shook his head. + +"It is only Maurice Thevenet," he said. + +"Oho?" answered Hanaud in a voice of relief. "Is that all? For a +moment I was anxious. It seemed that there was a sentinel standing +guard over us." He added in a whisper, "I, too, hope from the bottom +of my heart that I may be proved wrong. But what of that arrow head +in the pen tray? Eh? Don't forget that!" Then he fell into a muse. + +"What happened on that night in the Maison Crenelle?" he said. "Why +was that communicating door thrown open? Who was to be stripped to +the skin by that violent woman? Who whispered 'That will do now'? +Is Ann Upcott speaking the truth, and was there some terrible scene +taking place before she entered so unexpectedly the treasure +room--some terrible scene which ended in that dreadful whisper? Or +is Ann Upcott lying from beginning to end? Ah, my friend, you wrote +some questions down upon your memorandum this afternoon. But these +are the questions I want answered, and where shall I find the +answers?" + +Jim had never seen Hanaud so moved. His hands were clenched, and the +veins prominent upon his forehead, and though he whispered his voice +shook. + +"Jean Cladel may help," said Jim. + +"Yes, yes, he may tell us something." + +They sat through an episode of the film, and saw the lights go up and +out again, and then Hanaud looked eagerly at his watch and put it +back again into his pocket with a gesture of annoyance. + +"It is still too early?" Jim asked. + +"Yes. Cladel has no servant and takes his meals abroad. He has not +yet returned home." + +A little before ten o'clock a man strolled in, and seating himself at +a table behind Hanaud twice scraped a match upon a match-box without +getting a light. Hanaud, without moving, said quietly to Frobisher: + +"He is at home now. In a minute I shall go. Give me five minutes +and follow." + +Jim nodded. + +"Where shall we meet?" + +"Walk straight along the Rue de la Liberté, and I will see to that," +said Hanaud. + +He pulled his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put one between +his lips, and took his time in lighting it. Then he got up, but to +his annoyance Maurice Thevenet recognised him and came forward. + +"When Monsieur Frobisher wished me good-evening and joined you I +thought it was you, Monsieur Hanaud. But I had not the presumption +to recall myself to your notice." + +"Presumption! Monsieur, we are of the same service, only you have +the advantage of youth," said Hanaud politely, as he turned. + +"But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?" Thevenet asked in distress. "I +am desolated. I have broken into a conversation like a clumsy +fellow." + +"Not at all," Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his patience was as +remarkable as Maurice Thevenet's impudence. "We were idly watching a +film which I think is a little tedious." + +"Then, since you are not busy I beg for your indulgence. One little +moment that is all. I should so dearly love to be able to say to my +friends, 'I sat in the cinema with Monsieur Hanaud--yes, actually +I'--and asked for his advice." + +Hanaud sat down again upon his chair. + +"And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur Girardot speaks so +highly, want my advice?" Hanaud asked with a laugh. + +The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting the eager +youth. To get to Paris--all was in that! Fortune, reputation, a +life of colour. A word from Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. +He would work night and day to justify that word. + +"Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time comes I shall +remember you. But that promise I make now with my whole heart," said +Hanaud warmly, and with a bow he moved away. + +Maurice Thevenet watched him go. + +"What a man!" Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. "I would +not like to try to keep any secrets from him. No, indeed!" Jim had +heard that sentiment before on other lips and with a greater +sympathy. "I did not understand at all what he had in his mind when +he staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But something, +Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. And that search +through the treasure room! How quick and complete! No doubt while +we searched Mademoiselle Upcott's bedroom, he was just as quick and +complete in going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. +No, nothing." + +He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only said "Oho!" + +But Thevenet was not to be extinguished. + +"I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was following out no +suspicions; isn't that so? He was detached. He was gathering up +every trifle, on the chance that each one might sometime fit in with +another and at last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There +was a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe handed to him, +one of those deplorable letters which have disgraced us here--you +remember that letter, Monsieur?" + +"Aha!" said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. "But I see that +this film is coming to its wedding bells. So I shall wish you a good +evening." + +Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream of success in +Paris. He strolled between the groups of spectators to the entrance +and thence into the street. He walked to the arch of the Porte +Guillaume and turned into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial +towns go to bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was +like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred yards on, he +was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from nowhere, walking at his side. + +"So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when I had gone?" he +said. + +"Maurice Thevenet," said Jim, "may be as the Commissary says a young +man of a surprising intelligence, but to tell you the truth, I find +him a very intrusive fellow. First of all he wanted to know if you +had discovered anything in Ann Upcott's sitting-room, and then what +Miss Harlowe's anonymous letter was about." + +Hanaud looked at Jim with interest. + +"Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot is right. He +will go far. And how did you answer him?" + +"I said 'Oho'! first, and then I said 'Aha'! just like a troublesome +friend of mine when I ask him a simple question which he does not +mean to answer." + +Hanaud laughed heartily. + +"And you did very well," he said. "Come, let us turn into this +little street upon the right. It will take us to our destination." + +"Wait!" whispered Jim eagerly. "Don't cross the road for a moment. +Listen!" + +Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and listened in the empty +street. + +"Not a sound," said Hanaud. + +"No! That is what troubles me!" Jim whispered importantly. "A +minute ago there were footsteps behind us. Now that we have stopped +they have stopped too. Let us go on quite straight for a moment or +two." + +"But certainly my friend," said Hanaud. + +"And let us not talk either," Jim urged. + +"Not a single word," said Hanaud. + +They moved forward again and behind them once more footsteps rang +upon the pavement. + +"What did I tell you?" asked Jim, taking Hanaud by the arm. + +"That we would neither of us speak," Hanaud replied. "And lo! you +have spoken!" + +"But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur," Jim shook his +arm indignantly. "We are being followed." + +Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration at his junior +colleague. + +"Oh!" he whispered. "You have discovered that? Yes, it is true. We +are being followed by one of my men who sees to it that we are not +followed." + +Frobisher shook Hanaud's arm off indignantly. He drew himself up +stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud's mouth twitching and he understood that +he was looking "proper." + +"Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel," he said with a laugh and he +crossed the road. They passed into a network of small, mean streets. +There was not a soul abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. +The only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own footsteps on +the pavement and the fainter noise of the man who followed them. +Hanaud turned to the left into a short passage and stopped before a +little house with a shuttered shop front. + +"This is the place," he said in a low voice and he pressed the button +in the pillar of the door. The bell rang with a shrill sharp whirr +just the other side of the panels. + +"We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to bed," said Hanaud, +"since he has no servant in the house." + +A minute or two passed. The clocks struck the half hour. Hanaud +leaned his ear against the panels of the door. He could not hear one +sound within the house. He rang again; and after a few seconds +shutters were thrown back and a window opened on the floor above. +From behind the window some one whispered: + +"Who is there?" + +"The police," Hanaud answered, and at the window above there was +silence. + +"No one is going to do you any harm," Hanaud continued, raising his +voice impatiently. "We want some information from you. That's all." + +"Very well." The whisper came from the same spot. The man standing +within the darkness of the room had not moved. "Wait! I will slip +on some things and come down." + +The window and the shutter were closed again. Then through the +chinks a few beams of light strayed out Hanaud uttered a little grunt +of satisfaction. + +"That animal is getting up at last. He must have some strange +clients amongst the good people of Dijon if he is so careful to +answer them in a whisper." + +He turned about and took a step or two along the pavement and another +step or two back like a man upon a quarter deck. Jim Frobisher had +never known him so restless and impatient during these two days. + +"I can't help it," he said in a low voice to Jim. "I think that in +five minutes we shall touch the truth of this affair. We shall know +who brought the arrow to him from the Maison Crenelle." + +"If any one brought the arrow to him at all," Jim Frobisher added. + +But Hanaud was not in the mood to consider ifs and possibilities. + +"Oh, that!" he said with a shrug of the shoulders. Then he tapped +his forehead. "I am like Waberski. I have it here that some one did +bring the arrow to Jean Cladel." + +He started once more his quarter-deck pacing. Only it was now a trot +rather than a walk. Jim was a little nettled by the indifference to +his suggestion. He was still convinced that Hanaud had taken the +wrong starting point in all his inquiry. He said tartly: + +"Well, if some one did bring the arrow here, it will be the same +person who replaced the treatise on Sporanthus on its book shelf." + +Hanaud came to a stop in front of Jim Frobisher. Then he burst into +a low laugh. + +"I will bet you all the money in the world that that is not true, and +then Madame Harlowe's pearl necklace on the top of it. For after all +it was not I who brought the arrow to Jean Cladel, whereas it was +undoubtedly I who put back the treatise on the shelf." + +Jim took a step back. He stared at Hanaud with his mouth open in a +stupefaction. + +"You?" he exclaimed. + +"I," replied Hanaud, standing up on the tips of his toes. "Alone I +did it." + +Then his manner of burlesque dropped from him. He looked up at the +shuttered windows with a sudden anxiety. + +"That animal is taking longer than he need," he muttered. "After +all, it is not to a court ball of the Duke of Burgundy that we are +inviting him." + +He rang the bell again with a greater urgency. It returned its +shrill reply as though it mocked him. + +"I do not like this," said Hanaud. + +He seized the door-handle and leaned his shoulder against the panel +and drove his weight against it. But the door was strong and did not +give. Hanaud put his fingers to his mouth and whistled softly. From +the direction whence they had come they heard the sound of a man +running swiftly. They saw him pass within the light of the one +street lamp at the corner and out of it again; and then he stood at +their side. Jim recognised Nicolas Moreau, the little agent who had +been sent this very morning by Hanaud to make sure that Jean Cladel +existed. + +"Nicolas, I want you to wait here," said Hanaud. "If the door is +opened, whistle for us and keep it open." + +"Very well, sir." + +Hanaud said in a low and troubled voice to Frobisher: "There is +something here which alarms me." He dived into a narrow alley at the +side of the shop. + +"It was in this alley no doubt that Waberski meant us to believe that +he hid on the morning of the 7th of May," Jim whispered as he hurried +to keep with his companion. + +"No doubt." + +The alley led into a lane which ran parallel with the street of +Gambetta. Hanaud wheeled into it. A wall five feet high, broken at +intervals by rickety wooden doors, enclosed the yards at the backs of +the houses. Before the first of these breaks in the wall Hanaud +stopped. He raised himself upon the tips of his toes and peered over +the wall, first downwards into the yard, and then upwards towards the +back of the house. There was no lamp in the lane, no light showing +from any of the windows. Though the night was clear of mist it was +as dark as a cavern in this narrow lane behind the houses. Jim +Frobisher, though his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, knew that he +could not have seen a man, even if he had moved, ten yards away. Yet +Hanaud still stood peering at the back of the house with the tips of +his fingers on the top of the wall. Finally he touched Jim on the +sleeve. + +"I believe the back window on the first floor is open," he whispered, +and his voice was more troubled than ever. "We will go in and see." + +He touched the wooden door and it swung inwards with a whine of its +hinges. + +"Open," said Hanaud. "Make no noise." + +Silently they crossed the yard. The ground floor of the house was +low. Jim looking upwards could see now that the window above their +heads yawned wide open. + +"You are right," he breathed in Hanaud's ear, and with a touch Hanaud +asked for silence. + +The room beyond the window was black as pitch. The two men stood +below and listened. Not a word came from it. Hanaud drew Jim into +the wall of the house. At the end of the wall a door gave admission +into the house. Hanaud tried the door, turning the handle first and +then gently pressing with his shoulder upon the panel. + +"It's locked, but not bolted like the door in front," he whispered. +"I can manage this." + +Jim Frobisher heard the tiniest possible rattle of a bunch of keys as +Hanaud drew it from his pocket, and then not a noise of any kind +whilst Hanaud stooped above the lock. Yet within half a minute the +door slowly opened. It opened upon a passage as black as that room +above their heads. Hanaud stepped noiselessly into the passage. Jim +Frobisher followed him with a heart beating high in excitement. What +had happened in that lighted room upstairs and in the dark room +behind it? Why didn't Jean Cladel come down and open the door upon +the street of Gambetta? Why didn't they hear Nicolas Moreau's soft +whistle or the sound of his voice? Hanaud stepped back past Jim +Frobisher and shut the door behind them and locked it again. + +"You haven't an electric torch with you, of course?" Hanaud whispered. + +"No," replied Jim. + +"Nor I. And I don't want to strike a match. There's something +upstairs which frightens me." + +You could hardly hear the words. They were spoken as though the mere +vibration of the air they caused would carry a message to the rooms +above. + +"We'll move very carefully. Keep a hand upon my coat," and Hanaud +went forward. After he had gone a few paces he stopped. + +"There's a staircase here on my right. It turns at once. Mind not +to knock your foot on the first step," he whispered over his +shoulder; and a moment later, he reached down and, taking hold of +Jim's right arm, laid his hand upon a balustrade. Jim lifted his +foot, felt for and found the first tread of the stairs, and mounted +behind Hanaud. They halted on a little landing just above the door +by which they had entered the house. + +In front of them the darkness began to thin, to become opaque rather +than a black, impenetrable hood drawn over their heads. Jim +understood that in front of him was an open door and that the faint +glimmer came from that open window on their left hand beyond the door. + +Hanaud passed through the doorway into the room. Jim followed and +was already upon the threshold, when Hanaud stumbled and uttered a +cry. No doubt the cry was low, but coming so abruptly upon their +long silence it startled Frobisher like the explosion of a pistol. +It seemed that it must clash through Dijon like the striking of a +clock. + +But nothing followed. No one stirred, no one cried out a question. +Silence descended upon the house again, impenetrable, like the +darkness a hood upon the senses. Jim was tempted to call out aloud +himself, anything, however childish, so that he might hear a voice +speaking words, if only his own voice. The words came at last, from +Hanaud and from the inner end of the room, but in an accent which Jim +did not recognise. + +"Don't move! ... There is something.... I told you I was +frightened.... Oh!" and his voice died away in a sigh. + +Jim could hear him moving very cautiously. Then he almost screamed +aloud. For the shutters at the window slowly swung to and the room +was once more shrouded in black. + +"Who's that?" Jim whispered violently, and Hanaud answered: + +"It's only me--Hanaud. I don't want to show a light here yet with +that window open. God knows what dreadful thing has happened here. +Come just inside the room and shut the door behind you." + +Jim obeyed, and having moved his position, could see a line of yellow +light, straight and fine as if drawn by a pencil, at the other end of +the room on the floor. There was a door there, a door into the front +room where they had seen the light go up from the street of Gambetta. + +Jim Frobisher had hardly realised that before the door was burst open +with a crash. In the doorway, outlined against the light beyond, +appeared the bulky frame of Hanaud. + +"There is nothing here," he said, standing there blocking up the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. "The room is quite empty." + +That room, the front room--yes! But between Hanaud's legs the light +trickled out into the dark room behind, and here, on the floor +illuminated by a little lane of light, Jim, with a shiver, saw a +clenched hand and a forearm in a crumpled shirt-sleeve. + +"Turn round," he cried to Hanaud. "Look!" + +Hanaud turned. + +"Yes," he said quietly. "That is what I stumbled against." + +He found a switch in the wall close to the door and snapped it down. +The dark room was flooded with light, and on the floor, in the midst +of a scene of disorder, a table pushed back here, a chair overturned +there, lay the body of a man. He wore no coat. He was in his +waistcoat and his shirt sleeves, and he was crumpled up with a +horrible suggestion of agony like a ball, his knees towards his chin, +his head forward towards his knees. One arm clutched the body close, +the other, the one which Jim had seen, was flung out, his hand +clenched in a spasm of intolerable pain. And about the body there +was such a pool of blood as Jim Frobisher thought no body could +contain. + +Jim staggered back with his hands clasped over his eyes. He felt +physically sick. + +"Then he killed himself on our approach," he cried with a groan. + +"Who?" answered Hanaud steadily. + +"Jean Cladel. The man who whispered to us from behind the window." + +Hanaud stunned him with a question. + +"What with?" + +Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and forced his eyes to +their service. There was no gleam of a knife, or a pistol, anywhere +against the dark background of the carpet. + +"You might think that he was a Japanese who had committed +_hari-kari_," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the knife would be at his +side. And there is no knife." + +He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his hand back. + +"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He pointed. +The man was lying on his side in this dreadful pose of contracted +sinews and unendurable pain. And across the sleeve of his shirt +there was a broad red mark. + +"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud. + +Jim bent forward. + +"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, in a voice +of awe: "Then it's murder." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"Not a doubt." + +Jim Frobisher stood up. He pointed a shaking finger at the grotesque +image of pain crumpled upon the floor, death without dignity, an +argument that there was something horribly wrong with the making of +the human race--since such things could be. + +"Jean Cladel?" he asked. + +"We must make sure," answered Hanaud. He went down the stairs to the +front door and, unbolting it, called Moreau within the house. From +the top of the stairs Jim heard him ask: + +"Do you know Jean Cladel by sight?" + +"Yes," answered Moreau. + +"Then follow me." + +Hanaud led him up into the back room. For a moment Moreau stopped +upon the threshold with a blank look upon his face. + +"Is that the man?" Hanaud asked. + +Moreau stepped forward. + +"Yes." + +"He has been murdered," Hanaud explained. "Will you fetch the +Commissary of the district and a doctor? We will wait here." + +Moreau turned on his heel and went downstairs. Hanaud dropped into a +chair and stared moodily at the dead body. + +"Jean Cladel," he said in a voice of discouragement. "Just when he +could have been of a little use in the world! Just when he could +have helped us to the truth! It's my fault, too. I oughtn't to have +waited until to-night. I ought to have foreseen that this might +happen." + +"Who can have murdered him?" Jim Frobisher exclaimed. + +Hanaud roused himself out of his remorse. + +"The man who whispered to us from behind the window," answered Hanaud. + +Jim Frobisher felt his mind reeling. + +"That's impossible!" he cried. + +"Why?" Hanaud asked. "It must have been he. Think it out!" And +step by step he told the story as he read it, testing it by speaking +it aloud. + +"At five minutes past ten a man of mine, still a little out of breath +from his haste, comes to us in the Grande Taverne and tells us that +Jean Cladel has just reached home. He reached home then at five +minutes to ten." + +"Yes," Jim agreed. + +"We were detained for a few minutes by Maurice Thevenet. Yes." He +moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and said softly: "We +shall have to consider that very modest and promising young gentleman +rather carefully. He detained us. We heard the clock strike +half-past ten as we waited in the street." + +"Yes." + +"And all was over then. For the house was as silent as what, indeed, +it is--a grave. And only just over, for the body is still warm. If +this--lying here, is Jean Cladel, some one else must have been +waiting for him to come home to-night, waiting in the lane behind, +since my man didn't see him. And an acquaintance, a friend--for Jean +Cladel lets him in and locks the door behind him." + +Jim interrupted. + +"He might have been here already, waiting for him with his knife +bared in this dark room." + +Hanaud looked around the room. It was furnished cheaply and +stuffily, half office, half living-room. An open bureau stood +against the wall near the window. A closed cabinet occupied the +greater part of one side. + +"I wonder," he said. "It is possible, no doubt---- But if so, why +did the murderer stay so long? No search has been made--no drawers +are ransacked." He tried the door of the cabinet. "This is still +locked. No, I don't think that he was waiting. I think that he was +admitted as a friend or a client--I fancy Jean Cladel had not a few +clients who preferred to call upon him by the back way in the dark of +the night. I think that his visitor came meaning to kill, and waited +his time and killed, and that he had hardly killed before we rang the +bell at the door." Hanaud drew in his breath sharply. "Imagine +that, my friend! He is standing here over the man he has murdered, +and unexpectedly the shrill, clear sound of the bell goes through the +house--as though God said, 'I saw you!' Imagine it! He turned out +the light and stands holding his breath in the dark. The bell rings +again. He must answer it or worse may befall. He goes into the +front room and throws open the window, and hears it is the police who +are at the door." Hanaud nodded his head in a reluctant admiration. +"But that man had an iron nerve! He doesn't lose his head. He +closes the shutter, he turns on the light, that we may think he is +getting up, he runs back into this room. He will not waste time by +stumbling down the stairs and fumbling with the lock of the back +door. No, he opens these shutters and drops to the ground. It is +done in a second. Another second, and he is in the lane; another, +and he is safe, his dreadful mission ended. Cladel will not speak. +Cladel will not tell us the things we want to know." + +Hanaud went over to the cabinet and, using his skeleton keys, again +opened its doors. On the shelves were ranged a glass jar or two, a +retort, the simplest utensils of a laboratory and a few bottles, one +of which, larger than the rest, was half filled with a colourless +liquid. + +"Alcohol," said Hanaud, pointing to the label. + +Jim Frobisher moved carefully round on the outskirts of the room, +taking care not to alter the disarrangements of the furniture. He +looked the bottles over. Not one of them held a drop of that pale +lemon-coloured solution which the Professor, in his Treatise, had +described. Hanaud shut and locked the doors of the cabinet again and +stepped carefully over to the bureau. It stood open, and a few +papers were strewn upon the flap. He sat down at the bureau and +began carefully to search it. Jim sat down in a chair. Somehow it +had leaked out that, since this morning, Hanaud knew of Jean Cladel. +Jean Cladel therefore must be stopped from any revelations; and he +had been stopped. Frobisher could no longer doubt that murder had +been done on the night of April the 27th, in the Maison Crenelle. +Development followed too logically upon development. The case was +building itself up--another storey had been added to the edifice with +this new crime. Yes, certainly and solidly it was building itself +up--this case against some one. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: _The White Tablet_ + +Within the minute that case was to be immeasurably strengthened. An +exclamation broke from Hanaud. He sprang to his feet and turned on +the light of a green-shaded reading lamp, which stood upon the ledge +of the bureau. He was holding now under the light a small drawer, +which he had removed from the front of the bureau. Very gingerly he +lifted some little thing out of it, something that looked like a +badge that men wear in their buttonholes. He laid it down upon the +blotting paper; and in that room of death laughed harshly. + +He beckoned to Jim. + +"Come and look!" + +What Jim saw was a thin, small, barbed iron dart, with an iron stem. +He had no need to ask its nature, for he had seen its likeness that +morning in the Treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. This was the +actual head of Simon Harlowe's poison-arrow. + +"You have found it!" said Jim in a voice that shook. + +"Yes." + +Hanaud gave it a little push, and said thoughtfully: + +"A negro thousands of miles away sits outside his hut in the Kombe +country and pounds up his poison seed and mixes it with red clay, and +smears it thick and slab over the shaft of his fine new arrow, and +waits for his enemy. But his enemy does not come. So he barters it, +or gives it to his white friend the trader on the Shire river. And +the trader brings it home and gives it to Simon Harlowe of the Maison +Crenelle. And Simon Harlowe lends it to a professor in Edinburgh, +who writes about it in a printed book and sends it back again. And +in the end, after all its travels, it comes to the tenement of Jean +Cladel in a slum of Dijon, and is made ready in a new way to do its +deadly work." + +For how much longer Hanaud would have moralised over the arrow in +this deplorable way, no man can tell. Happily Jim Frobisher was +reprieved from listening to him by the shutting of a door below and +the noise of voices in the passage. + +"The Commissary!" said Hanaud, and he went quickly down the stairs. + +Jim heard him speaking in a low tone for quite a long while, and no +doubt was explaining the position of affairs. For when he brought +the Commissary and the doctor up into the room he introduced Jim as +one about whom they already knew. + +"This is that Monsieur Frobisher," he said. + +The Commissary, a younger and more vivacious man than Girardot, bowed +briskly to Jim and looked towards the contorted figure of Jean Cladel. + +Even he could not restrain a little gesture of repulsion. He clacked +his tongue against the roof of his mouth. + +"He is not pretty, that one!" he said. "Most certainly he is not +pretty." + +Hanaud crossed again to the bureau and carefully folded the dart +around with paper. + +"With your permission, Monsieur," he said ceremoniously to the +Commissary, "I shall take this with me. I will be responsible for +it." He put it away in his pocket and looked at the doctor, who was +stooping by the side of Jean Cladel. "I do not wish to interfere, +but I should be glad to have a copy of the medical report. I think +that it might help me. I think it will be found that this murder was +committed in a way peculiar to one man." + +"Certainly you shall have a copy of the report, Monsieur Hanaud," +replied the young Commissary in a polite and formal voice. + +Hanaud laid a hand on Jim's arm. + +"We are in the way, my friend. Oh, yes, in spite of Monsieur le +Commissaire's friendly protestations. This is not our affair. Let +us go!" He conducted Jim to the door and turned about. "I do not +wish to interfere," he repeated, "but it is possible that the +shutters and the window will bear the traces of the murderer's +fingers. I don't think it probable, for that animal had taken his +precautions. But it is possible, for he left in a great hurry." + +The Commissary was overwhelmed with gratitude. + +"Most certainly we will give our attention to the shutters and the +window-sill." + +"A copy of the finger-prints, if any are found?" Hanaud suggested. + +"Shall be at Monsieur Hanaud's disposal as early as possible," the +Commissary agreed. + +Jim experienced a pang of regret that Monsieur Bex was not present at +the little exchange of civilities. The Commissary and Hanaud were so +careful not to tread upon one another's toes and so politely +determined that their own should not be trodden upon. Monsieur Bex +could not but have revelled in the correctness of their deportment. + +Hanaud and Frobisher went downstairs into the street The +neighbourhood had not been aroused. A couple of _sergents-de-ville_ +stood in front of the door. The street of Gambetta was still asleep +and indifferent to the crime which had taken place in one of its +least respectable houses. + +"I shall go to the Prefecture," said Hanaud. "They have given me a +little office there with a sofa. I want to put away the arrow head +before I go to my hotel." + +"I shall come with you," said Jim. "It will be a relief to walk for +a little in the fresh air, after that room." + +The Prefecture lay the better part of a mile away across the city. +Hanaud set off at a great pace, and reaching the building conducted +Jim into an office with a safe set against the wall. + +"Will you sit down for a moment? And smoke, please," he said. + +He was in a mood of such deep dejection; he was so changed from his +mercurial self; that only now did Jim Frobisher understand the great +store he had set upon his interview with Jean Cladel. He unlocked +the safe and brought over to the table a few envelopes of different +sizes, the copy of the Treatise and his green file. He seated +himself in front of Jim and began to open his envelopes and range +their contents in a row, when the door was opened and a gendarme +saluted and advanced. He carried a paper in his hand. + +"A reply came over the telephone from Paris at nine o'clock to-night, +Monsieur Hanaud. They say that this may be the name of the firm you +want. It was established in the Rue de Batignolles, but it ceased to +exist seven years ago." + +"Yes, that would have happened," Hanaud answered glumly, as he took +the paper. He read what was written upon it. "Yes--yes. That's it. +Not a doubt." + +He took an envelope from a rack upon the table and put the paper +inside it and stuck down the flap. On the front of the envelope, Jim +saw him write an illuminating word. "Address." + +Then he looked at Jim with smouldering eyes. + +"There is a fatality in all this," he cried. "We become more and +more certain that murder was committed and how it was committed. We +get a glimpse of possible reasons why. But we are never an inch +nearer to evidence--real convincing evidence--who committed it. +Fatality? I am a fool to use such words. It's keen wits and +audacity and nerve that stop us at the end of each lane and make an +idiot of me!" + +He struck a match viciously and lit a cigarette. Frobisher made an +effort to console him. + +"Yes, but it's the keen wits and the audacity and the nerve of more +than one person." + +Hanaud glanced at Frobisher sharply. + +"Explain, my friend." + +"I have been thinking over it ever since we left the street of +Gambetta. I no longer doubt that Mrs. Harlowe was murdered in the +Maison Crenelle. It is impossible to doubt it. But her murder was +part of the activities of a gang. Else how comes it that Jean Cladel +was murdered too to-night?" + +A smile drove for a moment the gloom from Hanaud's face. + +"Yes. You have been quite fifteen minutes in the bull-ring," he said. + +"Then you agree with me?" + +"Yes!" But Hanaud's gloom had returned. "But we can't lay our hands +upon the gang. We are losing time, and I am afraid that we have no +time to lose." Hanaud shivered like a man suddenly chilled. "Yes, I +am very troubled now. I am very--frightened." + +His fear peered out of him and entered into Frobisher. Frobisher did +not understand it, he had no clue to what it was that Hanaud feared, +but sitting in that brightly-lit office in the silent building, he +was conscious of evil presences thronging about the pair of them, +presences grotesque and malevolent such as some old craftsman of +Dijon might have carved on the pillars of a cathedral. He, too, +shivered. + +"Let us see, now!" said Hanaud. + +He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, and the barb +from his pocket, and fitted them together. The iron barb was loose +now because the hole to receive it at the top of the arrow shaft had +been widened to take a nib. But the spoke was just about the right +length. He laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green +file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, attracted Jim's +notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, but as he shook it out, a +square tablet of some hard white substance rolled on to the table. +It was soiled with dust, and there was a smear of green upon it; and +as Jim turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as +though something sharp had struck it. + +"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" he asked. + +Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his hand swiftly to +take the tablet away from Jim, and drew his hand in again. + +"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said gravely. "But it is +interesting--that tablet. I shall know more about it to-morrow." + +Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion which had +brought this tablet into notice. It certainly had not been +discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for it was already there in the +safe in the office. Jim had noticed the little square envelope as +Hanaud fetched it out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had +been picked up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. +Or--yes, there was that smear of green--from the grass. Jim sat up +straight in his chair. They had all been together in the garden this +morning. Hanaud, himself, Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point +Frobisher's conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction +could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of them had +passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only thing of which he was +quite sure was the great importance which Hanaud attached to it. For +all the time that he handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left +him, never once. They followed each little movement of finger tip +and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when Jim at last +tilted it off his palm back into its little envelope, the detective +undoubtedly drew a breath of relief. + +Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was getting to know his +man. He did not invite any "Aha's" and "Oho's" by vain questionings. +He leaned across the table and took up his own memorandum which +Hanaud had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table +in front of him and added two new questions to those which he had +already written out. Thus: + + + (5) What was the exact message telephoned from Paris to the + Prefecture and hidden away in an envelope marked by Hanaud: + "Address"? + + + (6) When and where and why was the white tablet picked up, and + what, in the name of all the saints, does it mean? + + +With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum back to Hanaud. +Hanaud, however, read them slowly and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to +answer all your questions to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you +see! We break down at every corner, and the question must wait." + +He was fitting methodically the memorandum back into the file when a +look of extreme surprise came over Frobisher's face. He pointed a +finger at the file. + +"That telegram!" + +There was a telegram pinned to the three anonymous letters which +Hanaud had in the file--the two which Hanaud had shown to Frobisher +in Paris and the third which Betty Harlowe had given to him that very +afternoon. And the telegram was pieced together by two strips of +stamp-paper in a cross. + +"That's our telegram. The telegram sent to my firm by Miss Harlowe +on Monday--yes, by George, this last Monday." + +It quite took Jim's breath away, so crowded had his days been with +fears and reliefs, excitements and doubts, discoveries and +disappointments, to realise that this was only the Friday night; that +at so recent a date as Wednesday he had never seen or spoken with +Betty Harlowe. "The telegram announcing to us in London that you +were engaged upon the case." + +Hanaud nodded in assent. + +"Yes. You gave it to me." + +"And you tore it up." + +"I did. But I picked it out of the waste-paper basket afterwards and +stuck it together." Hanaud explained, in no wise disconcerted by Jim +Frobisher's attack of perspicacity. "I meant to make some trouble +here with the Police for letting out the secret. I am very glad now +that I did pick it out. You yourself must have realised its +importance the very next morning before I even arrived at the Maison +Crenelle, when you told Mademoiselle that you had shown it to me." + +Jim cast his memory back. He had a passion for precision and +exactness which was very proper in one of his profession. + +"It was not until you came that I learnt Miss Harlowe had the news by +an anonymous letter," he said. + +"Well, that doesn't matter," Hanaud interposed a trifle quickly. +"The point of importance to me is that when the case is done with, +and I have a little time to devote to these letters, the telegram may +be of value." + +"Yes, I see," said Jim. "I see that," he repeated, and he shifted +uncomfortably in his chair; and opened his mouth and closed it again; +and remained suspended between speech and silence, whilst Hanaud read +through his file and contemplated his exhibits and found no hope in +them. + +"They lead me nowhere!" he cried violently; and Jim Frobisher made up +his mind. + +"Monsieur Hanaud, you do not share your thoughts with me," he said +rather formally, "but I will deal with you in a better way; apart +from this crime in the Maison Crenelle, you have the mystery of these +anonymous letters to solve. I can help you to this extent. Another +of them has been received." + +"When?" + +"To-night, whilst we sat at dinner." + +"By whom?" + +"Ann Upcott." + +"What!" + +Hanaud was out of his chair with a cry, towering up, his face white +as the walls of the room, his eyes burning upon Frobisher. Never +could news have been so unexpected, so startling. + +"You are sure?" he asked. + +"Quite. It came by the evening post--with others. Gaston brought +them into the dining-room. There was one for me from my firm in +London, a couple for Betty, and this one for Ann Upcott. She opened +it with a frown, as though she did not know from whom it came. I saw +it as she unfolded it. It was on the same common paper--typewritten +in the same way--with no address at the head of it. She gasped as +she looked at it, and then she read it again. And then with a smile +she folded it and put it away." + +"With a smile?" Hanaud insisted. + +"Yes. She was pleased. The colour came into her face. The distress +went out of it." + +"She didn't show it to you, then?" + +"No." + +"Nor to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" + +"No." + +"But she was pleased, eh?" It seemed that to Hanaud this was the +most extraordinary feature of the whole business. "Did she say +anything?" + +"Yes," answered Jim. "She said 'He has been always right, hasn't +he?'" + +"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't he?'" Hanaud +slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a man turned into stone. He +looked up in a little while. + +"What happened then?" he asked. + +"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up her letter and +beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who said to me: 'We shall have +to leave you to take your coffee alone.' They went across the hall +to Betty's room. The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever +since I have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed me +into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not interfere. So I came +to find you at the Grande Taverne." + +At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity would have +provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable exhibitions, but now he did +not notice it at all. + +"They went away to talk that letter over together," said Hanaud. +"And that young lady was pleased, she who was so distressed this +afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud was discussing his problem with +himself, his eyes upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I +wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once or +twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a hundred corridas, +I, Hanaud, am baffled!" + +He was not posturing now. He was frankly and simply amazed that he +could be so utterly at a loss. Then, with a swift change of mood, he +came back to the table. + +"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange new incident +to myself, I beg of you your help," he pleaded very earnestly and +even very humbly. Fear had returned to his eyes and his voice. He +was disturbed beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more +important. I want you--how shall I put it so that I may persuade +you? I want you to stay as much as you can in the Maison +Crenelle--to--yes--to keep a little watch on this pretty Ann Upcott, +to----" + +He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher interrupted him +in a very passion of anger. + +"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, Monsieur. I +won't be your spy. I am not here for that. I am here for my client. +As for Ann Upcott, she is my countrywoman. I will not help you +against her. So help me God, I won't!" + +Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry face of his +"junior colleague," who now resigned his office and, without parley, +accepted his defeat. + +"I don't blame you," he answered quietly. "I could, indeed, hope for +no other reply. I must be quick, that's all. I must be very quick!" + +Frobisher's anger fell away from him like a cloak one drops. He saw +Hanaud sitting over against him with a white, desperately troubled +face and eyes in which there shone unmistakeably some gleam of terror. + +"Tell me!" he cried in an exasperation. "Be frank with me for once! +Is Ann Upcott guilty? She's not alone, of course, anyway. There's a +gang. We're agreed upon that. Waberski's one of them, of course? +Is Ann Upcott another? Do you believe it?" + +Hanaud slowly put his exhibits together. There was a struggle going +on within him. The strain of the night had told upon them both, and +he was tempted for once to make a confidant, tempted intolerably. On +the other hand, Jim Frobisher read in him all the traditions of his +service; to wait upon facts, not to utter suspicions; to be fair. It +was not until he had locked everything away again in the safe that +Hanaud yielded to the temptation. And even then he could not bring +himself to be direct. + +"You want to know what I believe of Ann Upcott?" he cried +reluctantly, as though the words were torn from him. "Go to-morrow +to the Church of Notre Dame and look at the façade. There, since you +are not blind, you will see." + +He would say no more; that was clear. Nay, he stood moodily before +Frobisher, already regretting that he had said so much. Frobisher +picked up his hat and stick. + +"Thank you," he said. "Good night." + +Hanaud let him go to the door. Then he said: + +"You are free to-morrow. I shall not go to the Maison Crenelle. +Have you any plans?" + +"Yes. I am to be taken for a motor-drive round the neighbourhood." + +"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. "But remember +to telephone to me before you go. I shall be here. I will tell you +if I have any news. Good night." + +Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the room. Before he +had closed the door Hanaud had forgotten his presence. For he was +saying to himself over and over again, almost with an accent of +despair: "I must be quick! I must be very quick!" + + +Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest Renan and the Rue +de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's injunction to examine the +façade of Notre Dame. He must keep that in mind and obey it in the +morning. But that night was not yet over for him. + +As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert he +heard a light, quick step a little way behind him--a step that seemed +familiar. So when he turned into the street he sauntered and looked +round. He saw a tall man cross the entrance of the street very +quickly and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. The +man paused for a second under the light of a street lamp at the angle +of the street, and Jim could have sworn that it was Hanaud. There +were no hotels, no lodgings in this quarter of the city. It was a +quarter of private houses. What was Hanaud seeking there? + +Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the façade of Notre +Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison Crenelle a little incident +occurred which made the probability that he would soon remember it +remote. He let himself into the house with a latchkey which had been +given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means of a +switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall to the foot of +the stairs, and was about to turn off the light, using the switch +there to which Ann Upcott had referred, when the door of the +treasure-room opened. Betty appeared in the doorway. + +"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased to find her +still afoot and half regretful that she was losing her hours of sleep. + +"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I waited up for my +lodger." + +She held the door open, and he followed her back into the room. + +"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she added: "Jim, +something has happened to-night." + +Jim nodded. + +"What?" she asked. + +"Let it wait till to-morrow, Betty!" + +Betty smiled no longer. The light died out of her dark, haunting +eyes. Lassitude and distress veiled them. + +"Something terrible, then?" she said in a whisper. + +"Yes," and she stretched out a hand to the back of a chair and +steadied herself. + +"Please tell me, now, Jim! I shall not sleep to-night unless you do; +and oh, I am so tired!" + +There was so deep a longing in her voice, so utter a weariness in the +pose of her young body that Jim could not but yield. + +"I'll tell you, Betty," he said gently. "Hanaud and I went to find +Jean Cladel to-night. We found him dead. He had been +murdered--cruelly." + +Betty moaned and swayed upon her feet. She would have fallen had not +Jim caught her in his arms. + +"Betty!" he cried. + +Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could feel the heave of +her bosom against his heart. + +"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No one ever had +heard of him till this morning ... and now he's swept into this +horror--like the rest of us! Oh, where will it end?" + +Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees beside her. + +She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up to his. + +"My dear!" he whispered. + +But she would not raise her head. + +"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed her face +deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung to him with desperate +hands. + +"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll all come right. +I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And whilst he spoke he cursed himself +for the banality of his words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that +were really fine with which to comfort her? Something better than +these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will all straighten +out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that there was no necessity +that he should. For her arms crept round his neck and held him close. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN: _A Plan Frustrated_ + +The road curled like a paper ribbon round the shoulder of a hill and +dropped into a shallow valley. To the left a little below the level +of the road, a stream ran swiftly through a narrow meadow of lush +green grass. Beyond the meadow the wall of the valley rose rough +with outcroppings of rock, and with every tuft of its herbage already +brown from the sun. On the right the northern wall rose almost from +the road's edge. The valley was long and curved slowly, and half-way +along to the point where it disappeared a secondary road, the sort of +road which is indicated in the motorist's hand-books by a dotted +line, branched off to the left, crossed the stream by a stone bridge +and vanished in a cleft of the southern wall. Beyond this branching +road grew trees. The stream disappeared under them as though it ran +into a cavern; the slopes on either side were hidden behind +trees--trees so thick that here at this end the valley looked bare in +the strong sunlight, but low trees, as if they had determined to +harmonise with their environment. Indeed, the whole valley had a +sort of doll's-house effect--it was so shallow and narrow and +stunted. It tried to be a valley and succeeded in being a depression. + +When the little two-seater car swooped round the shoulder of the hill +and descended, the white ribbon of road was empty but for one tiny +speck at the far end, behind which a stream of dust spurted and +spread like smoke from the funnel of an engine. + +"That motor dust is going to smother us when we pass," said Jim. + +"We shall do as much for him," said Betty, looking over her shoulder +from the steering wheel. "No, worse!" Behind the car the dust was a +screen. "But I don't mind, do you, Jim?" she asked with a laugh, in +which for the first time, with a heart of thankfulness, Jim heard a +note of gaiety. "To be free of that town if only for an hour! Oh!" +and Betty opened her lungs to the sunlight and the air. "This is my +first hour of liberty for a week!" + +Frobisher was glad, too, to be out upon the slopes of the Côte-d'Or. +The city of Dijon was ringing that morning with the murder of Jean +Cladel; you could not pass down a street but you heard his name +mentioned and some sarcasms about the police. He wished to forget +that nightmare of a visit to the street of Gambetta and the dreadful +twisted figure on the floor of the back room. + +"You'll be leaving it for good very soon, Betty," he said +significantly. + +Betty made a little grimace at him, and laid her hand upon his sleeve. + +"Jim!" she said, and the colour rose into her face, and the car +swerved across the road. "You mustn't speak like that to the girl at +the wheel," she said with a laugh as she switched the car back into +its course, "or I shall run down the motor-cyclist and that young +lady in the side-car." + +"The young lady," said Jim, "happens to be a port-manteau!" + +The motor-cyclist, indeed, was slowing down as he came nearer to the +branching road, like a tourist unacquainted with the country, and +when he actually reached it he stopped altogether and dismounted. +Betty brought her car to a standstill beside him, and glanced at the +clock and the speedometer in front of her. + +"Can I help you?" she asked. + +The man standing beside the motor-cycle was a young man, slim, dark, +and of a pleasant countenance. He took off his helmet and bowed +politely. + +"Madame, I am looking for Dijon," he said in a harsh accent which +struck Frobisher as somehow familiar to his ears. + +"Monsieur, you can see the tip of it through that gap across the +valley," Betty returned. In the very centre of the cleft the point +of the soaring spire of the cathedral stood up like a delicate lance. +"But I warn you that that way, though short, is not good." + +Through the gradually thinning cloud of dust which hung behind the +car they heard the jug-jug of another motor-cycle. + +"The road by which we have come is the better one," she continued. + +"But how far is it?" the young man asked. + +Betty once more consulted her speedometer. + +"Forty kilometres, and we have covered them in forty minutes, so that +you can see the going is good. We started at eleven punctually, and +it is now twenty minutes to twelve." + +"Surely we started before eleven?" Jim interposed. + +"Yes, but we stopped for a minute or two to tighten the strap of the +tool-box on the edge of the town. And we started from there at +eleven." + +The motor-cyclist consulted his wrist-watch. + +"Yes, it's twenty minutes to twelve now," he said. "But forty +kilometres! I doubt if I have the essence. I think I must try the +nearer road." + +The second motor-cycle came out of the dust like a boat out of a sea +mist and slowed down in turn at the side of them. The rider jumped +out of his saddle, pushed his goggles up on to his forehead and +joined in the conversation. + +"That little road, Monsieur. It is not one of the national highways. +That shows itself at a glance. But it is not so bad. From the stone +bridge one can be at the Hôtel de Ville of Dijon in twenty-five +minutes." + +"I thank you," said the young man. "You will pardon me. I have been +here for seven minutes, and I am expected." + +He replaced his helmet, mounted his machine, and with a splutter and +half a dozen explosions ran down into the bed of the valley. + +The second cyclist readjusted his goggles. + +"Will you go first, Madame?" he suggested. "Otherwise I give you my +dust." + +"Thank you!" said Betty with a smile, and she slipped in the clutch +and started. + +Beyond the little forest and the curve the ground rose and the valley +flattened out. Across their road a broad highway set with kilometre +stones ran north and south. + +"The road to Paris," said Betty as she stopped the car in front of a +little inn with a tangled garden at the angle. She looked along the +road Pariswards. "Air!" she said, and drew a breath of longing, +whilst her eyes kindled and her white strong teeth clicked as though +she was biting a sweet fruit. + +"Soon, Betty," said Jim. "Very soon!" + +Betty drove the car into a little yard at the side of the river. + +"We will lunch here, in the garden," she said, "all amongst the +earwigs and the roses." + +An omelet, a cutlet perfectly cooked and piping hot, with a salad and +a bottle of Clos du Prince of the 1904 vintage brought the glowing +city of Paris immeasurably nearer to them. They sat in the open +under the shade of a tall hedge; they had the tangled garden to +themselves; they laughed and made merry in the golden May, and +visions of wonder trembled and opened before Jim Frobisher's eyes. + +Betty swept them away, however, when he had lit a cigar and she a +cigarette; and their coffee steamed from the little cups in front of +them. + +"Let us be practical, Jim," she said. "I want to talk to you." + +The sparkle of gaiety had left her face. + +"Yes!" he asked. + +"About Ann." Her eyes swept round and rested on Jim's face. "She +ought to go." + +"Run away!" cried Jim with a start. + +"Yes, at once and as secretly as possible." + +Jim turned the proposal over in his mind whilst Betty waited in +suspense. + +"It couldn't be managed," he objected. + +"It could." + +"Even if it could, would she consent?" + +"She does." + +"Of course it's pleading guilty," he said slowly. + +"Oh, it isn't, Jim. She wants time, that's all. Time for my +necklace to be traced, time for the murderer of Jean Cladel to be +discovered. You remember what I told you about Hanaud? He must have +his victim. You wouldn't believe me, but it's true. He has got to +go back to Paris and say, 'You see, they sent from Dijon for me, and +five minutes! That's all I needed! Five little minutes and there's +your murderess, all tied up and safe!' He tried to fix it on me +first." + +"No." + +"He did, Jim. And now that has failed he has turned on Ann. She'll +have to go. Since he can't get me he'll take my friend--yes, and +manufacture the evidence into the bargain." + +"Betty! Hanaud wouldn't do that!" Frobisher protested. + +"But, Jim, he has done it," she said. + +"When?" + +"When he put that Edinburgh man's book about the arrow poison back +upon the bookshelf in the library." + +Jim was utterly taken back. + +"Did you know that he had done that?" + +"I couldn't help knowing," she answered. "The moment he took the +book down it was clear to me. He knew it from end to end, as if it +was a primer. He could put his finger on the plates, on the history +of my uncle's arrow, on the effect of the poison, on the solution +that could be made of it in an instant. He pretended that he had +learnt all that in the half-hour he waited for us. It wasn't +possible. He had found that book the afternoon before somewhere and +had taken it away with him secretly and sat up half the night over +it. That's what he had done." + +Jim Frobisher was sunk in confusion. He had been guessing first this +person, then that, and in the end had had to be told the truth; +whereas Betty had reached it in a flash by using her wits. He felt +that he had been just one minute and a half in the bull-ring. + +Betty added in a hot scorn: + +"Then when he had learnt it all up by heart he puts it back secretly +in the bookshelf and accuses us." + +"But he admits he put it back," said Jim slowly. + +Betty was startled. + +"When did he admit it?" + +"Last night. To me," replied Jim, and Betty laughed bitterly. She +would hear no good of Hanaud. + +"Yes, now that he has something better to go upon." + +"Something better?" + +"The disappearance of my necklace. Oh, Jim, Ann has got to go. If +she could get to England they couldn't bring her back, could they? +They haven't evidence enough. It's only suspicion and suspicion and +suspicion. But here in France it's different, isn't it? They can +hold people on suspicion, keep them shut up by themselves and +question them again and again. Oh, yesterday afternoon in the +hall--don't you remember, Jim?--I thought Hanaud was going to arrest +her there and then." + +Jim Frobisher nodded. + +"I thought so, too." + +He had been a little shocked by Betty's proposal, but the more +familiar he became with it, the more it appealed to him. There was +an overpowering argument in its favour of which neither he nor Hanaud +had told Betty a word. The shaft of the arrow had been discovered in +Ann Upcott's room, and the dart in the house of Jean Cladel. These +were overpowering facts. On the whole, it was better that Ann should +go, now, whilst there was still time--if, that is, Hanaud did +undoubtedly believe her to be guilty. + +"But it is evident that he does," cried Betty. + +Jim answered slowly: + +"I suppose he does. We can make sure, anyway. I had a doubt last +night. So I asked him point-blank." + +"And he answered you?" Betty asked with a gasp. + +"Yes and no. He gave me the strangest answer." + +"What did he say?" + +"He told me to visit the Church of Notre Dame. If I did, I should +read upon the façade whether Ann was innocent or not." + +Slowly every tinge of colour ebbed out of Betty's face. Her eyes +stared at him horror-stricken. She sat, a figure of ice--except for +her eyes which blazed. + +"That's terrible," she said with a low voice, and again "That's +terrible!" Then with a cry she stood erect "You shall see! Come!" +and she ran towards the motorcar. + +The sunlit day was spoilt for both of them. Betty drove homewards, +bending over the wheel, her eyes fixed ahead. But Frobisher wondered +whether she saw anything at all of that white road which the car +devoured. Once as they dropped from the highland and the forests to +the plains, she said: + +"We shall abide by what we see?" + +"Yes." + +"If Hanaud thinks her innocent, she should stay. If he thinks her +guilty, she must go." + +"Yes," said Frobisher. + +Betty guided the car through the streets of the city, and into a wide +square. A great church of the Renaissance type, with octagonal +cupolas upon its two towers and another little cupola surmounted by a +loggia above its porch, confronted them. Betty stopped the car and +led Frobisher into the porch. Above the door was a great bas-relief +of the Last Judgment, God amongst the clouds, angels blowing +trumpets, and the damned rising from their graves to undergo their +torments. Both Betty and Frobisher gazed at the representation for a +while in silence. To Frobisher it was a cruel and brutal piece of +work which well matched Hanaud's revelation of his true belief. + +"Yes, the message is easy to read," he said: and they drove back in a +melancholy silence to the Maison Crenelle. + +The chauffeur, Georges, came forward from the garage to take charge +of the car. Betty ran inside the house and waited for Jim Frobisher +to join her. + +"I am so sorry," she said in a broken voice. "I kept a hope +somewhere that we were all mistaken ... I mean as to the danger Ann +was in.... I don't believe for a moment in her guilt, of course. +But she must go--that's clear." + +She went slowly up the stairs, and Jim saw no more of her until +dinner was served long after its usual hour. Ann Upcott he had not +seen at all that day, nor did he even see her then. Betty came to +him in the library a few minutes before nine. + +"We are very late, I am afraid. There are just the two of us, Jim," +she said with a smile, and she led the way into the dining-room. + +Through the meal she was anxious and preoccupied, nodding her assent +to anything that he said, with her thoughts far away and answering +him at random, or not answering him at all. She was listening, +Frobisher fancied, for some sound in the hall, an expected sound +which was overdue. For her eyes went continually to the clock, and a +flurry and agitation, very strange in one naturally so still, became +more and more evident in her manner. At length, just before ten +o'clock, they both heard the horn of a motor-car in the quiet street. +The car stopped, as it seemed to Frobisher, just outside the gates, +and upon that there followed the sound for which Betty had so +anxiously been listening--the closing of a heavy door by some one +careful to close it quietly. Betty shot a quick glance at Jim +Frobisher and coloured when he intercepted it. A few seconds +afterwards the car moved on, and Betty drew a long breath. Jim +Frobisher leaned forward to Betty. Though they were alone in the +room, he spoke in a low voice of surprise: + +"Ann Upcott has gone then?" + +"Yes." + +"So soon? You had everything already arranged then?" + +"It was all arranged yesterday evening. She should be in Paris +to-morrow morning, England to-morrow night. If only all goes well!" + +Even in the stress of her anxiety Betty had been sensitive to a tiny +note of discontent in Jim Frobisher's questions. He had been left +out of the counsels of the two girls, their arrangements had been +made without his participation, he had only been told of them at the +last minute, just as if he was a babbler not to be trusted and an +incompetent whose advice would only have been a waste of time. Betty +made her excuses. + +"It would have been better, of course, if we had got you to help us, +Jim. But Ann wouldn't have it. She insisted that you had come out +here on my account, and that you mustn't be dragged into such an +affair as her flight and escape at all. She made it a condition, so +I had to give way. But you can help me now tremendously." + +Jim was appeased. Betty at all events had wanted him, was still +alarmed lest their plan undertaken without his advice might miscarry. + +"How can I help?" + +"You can go to that cinema and keep Monsieur Hanaud engaged. It's +important that he should know nothing about Ann's flight until late +to-morrow." + +Jim laughed at the futility of Hanaud's devices to hide himself. It +was obviously all over the town that he spent his evenings in the +Grande Taverne. + +"Yes, I'll go," he returned. "I'll go now." + +But Hanaud was not that night in his accustomed place, and Jim sat +there alone until half-past ten. Then a man strolled out from one of +the billiard-rooms, and standing behind Jim with his eyes upon the +screen, said in a whisper: + +"Do not look at me, Monsieur! It is Moreau. I go outside. Will you +please to follow." + +He strolled away. Jim gave him a couple of minutes' grace. He had +remembered Hanaud's advice and had paid for his Bock when it had been +brought to him. The little saucer was turned upside down to show +that he owed nothing. When two minutes had elapsed he sauntered out +and, looking neither to the right nor to the left, strolled +indolently along the Rue de la Gare. When he reached the Place Darcy +Nicolas Moreau passed him without a sign of recognition and struck +off to the right along the Rue de la Liberté. Frobisher followed him +with a sinking heart. It was folly of course to imagine that Hanaud +could be so easily eluded. No doubt that motor-car had been stopped. +No doubt Ann Upcott was already under lock and key! Why, the last +words he had heard Hanaud speak were "I must be quick!" + +Moreau turned off into the Boulevard Sevigne and, doubling back to +the station square, slipped into one of the small hotels which +cluster in that quarter. The lobby was empty; a staircase narrow and +steep led from it to the upper stories. Moreau now ascended it with +Frobisher at his heels, and opened a door. Frobisher looked into a +small and dingy sitting-room at the back of the house. The windows +were open, but the shutters were closed. A single pendant in the +centre of the room gave it light, and at a table under the pendant +Hanaud sat poring over a map. + +The map was marked with red ink in a curious way. A sort of hoop, +very much the shape of a tennis racket without its handle, was +described upon it and from the butt to the top of the hoop an +irregular line was drawn, separating the hoop roughly into two +semi-circles. Moreau left Jim Frobisher standing there, and in a +moment or two Hanaud looked up. + +"Did you know, my friend," he asked very gravely, "that Ann Upcott +has gone to-night to Madame Le Vay's fancy dress ball?" + +Frobisher was taken completely by surprise. + +"No, I see that you didn't," Hanaud went on. He took up his pen and +placed a red spot at the edge of the hoop close by the butt. + +Jim recovered from his surprise. Madame Le Vay's ball was the spot +from which the start was to be made. The plan after all was not so +ill-devised, if only Ann could have got to the ball unnoticed. +Masked and in fancy dress, amongst a throng of people similarly +accoutred, in a house with a garden, no doubt thrown open upon this +hot night and lit only by lanterns discreetly dim--she had thus her +best chance of escape. But the chance was already lost. For Hanaud +laid down his pen again and said in ominous tones: + +"The water-lily, eh? That pretty water-lily, my friend, will not +dance very gaily to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY: _Map and the Necklace_ + +Hanaud turned his map round and pushed it across the table to Jim +Frobisher. + +"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew up a chair and sat +down to examine it. + +He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and its environments, +the town itself lying at the bottom of the red hoop and constituting +the top of the handle of the tennis racket. As to the red circle, it +seemed to represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, +round a good tract of outlying country and back again to the city. +But there was more to it than that. The wavy dividing line, for +instance, from the top of the circle to the handle, that is to Dijon; +and on the left-hand edge of the hoop, as he bent over the map, and +just outside Dijon, the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud +had just made. Against this square an hour was marked. + +"Eleven a.m.," he read. + +He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where this dividing +line touched the rim of the hoop, another period was inscribed. Here +Frobisher read: + +"Eleven forty." + +Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over the map. The point +where the dividing line branched off was in a valley, as he could see +by the contours--yes--he had found the name now--the Val Terzon. +Just before eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside +Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing back, and had asked +him to tighten the strap of the tool box. They had started again +exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note of the exact time--and they +had stopped where the secondary road branched off and doubled back to +Dijon, at the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and the +dividing line, exactly at eleven forty. + +"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he cried. "We +were followed then?" + +He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who had come up from +behind through the screen of their dust and had stopped by the side +of their car to join in their conversation with the tourist. + +"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no answer. + +But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way round. On +their homeward course they had stopped to lunch in the tangled +garden. There had been no sign of the man. Jim looked at the map +again. He followed the red line from the junction of the two roads, +round the curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National +road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. After luncheon +they had continued along the National road into Dijon, whereas the +red line crossed it and came back by a longer and obviously a less +frequented route. + +"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, Monsieur +Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. "But I can tell you this. The +chase was not very efficiently contrived. We didn't come home that +way at all." + +"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud answered imperturbably. +"The line on that side of the circle has nothing to do with you at +all, as you can see for yourself by looking at the time marked where +the line begins." + +The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there was a space where +the spliced handle of the racket would fit in, the space filled by +the town of Dijon, and at the point on the right hand side where the +line started Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures: + +"Ten twenty-five a.m." + +Jim was more bewildered than ever. + +"I don't understand one word of it," he cried. + +Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the tip of his pen. + +"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who met you at +the branch road at eleven-forty." + +"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed to him +impossible that the fog could thicken about his wits any more. And +yet it had. + +"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his trailer," Hanaud +corrected. "You see that he left his starting point in Dijon +thirty-five minutes before you left yours. The whole manoeuvre seems +to have been admirably planned. For you met precisely at the +arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the cycle had to +wait one moment." + +"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, looking about him +in a sort of despair. "Has every one gone crazy? Why in the world +should a man start out with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at +ten twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by a +roundabout road and then return by a bad straight track? There's no +sense in it!" + +"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded to Moreau who +went out of the room by a communicating door towards the front of the +house. "But I can help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where +you started after tightening the strap of the tool-box, on the edge +of the town, a big country house stands back in a park?" + +"Yes," said Jim. + +"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy dress ball takes +place to-night." + +"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. "Where----" he began +a question and caught it back. But Hanaud completed it for him. + +"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from it at precisely +eleven in the morning." He looked at his watch. "It is not yet +quite eleven at night. So she is still there." + +Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words were like the +blade of silver light cutting through the darkness of the cinema hall +and breaking into a sheet of radiance upon the screen. The meaning +of the red diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive of +Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him. + +"It was a rehearsal," he cried. + +Hanaud nodded. + +"A time-rehearsal." + +"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, without the +principal members of the company," thought Frobisher. But a moment +later he was dissatisfied with that explanation. + +"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy." + +The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his arguments to a +standstill. His times were marked upon the map; they were therefore +of importance. What had he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he +visualised the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with +the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave Frobisher the +clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving Madame Le Vay's house in her +ball-dress, just as if she was returning to the Maison Crenelle--and +without any luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the +morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion and +certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her in the Val +Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her car, and then return to +Dijon by the straight quick road whilst Ann turned off at the end of +the valley to Paris. He remembered now that seven minutes had +elapsed between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and their +separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for the transference of +the luggage. Another argument flashed into his thoughts. Betty had +told him nothing of this plan. It had been presented to him as a +mere excursion on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally +employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the determination of +Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether out of the conspiracy. +Every detail fitted like the blocks in a picture puzzle. Yes, there +had been a time-rehearsal. And Hanaud knew all about it! + +That was the disturbing certainty which first overwhelmed Frobisher +when he had got the better of his surprise at the scheme itself. +Hanaud knew! and Betty had so set her heart on Ann's escape. + +"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott get away to +Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned back in his chair with a +little gasp. The queerest smile broke over his face. + +"I see," he said. + +"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. "You are of the +Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of the High Court in my country +and I have no right to make such a petition. But I do without a +scruple. You can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't +a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion about her +that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin her--yes--but that's +all you can do." + +"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed. + +Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to save her friend +which inspired his plea. He fell back upon the scandal which such a +trial would cause. + +"There has been enough publicity already owing to Boris Waberski," he +continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe has had distress enough. Why must +she stand in the witness-box and give evidence against her friend in +a trial which can have no result? That's what I want you to realise, +Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience of criminal trials"--O +shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why was that punctilious man not there in the +flesh to wipe out with an indignant word the slur upon the firm of +Frobisher and Haslitt?--"And I assure you that no jury could convict +upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl necklace has not been +traced--and it never will be. You can take that from me, Monsieur +Hanaud! It never will be!" + +Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one of those little +cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred cigarettes, which the better +class of manufacturers use in England for their wares. He pushed +this across the table towards Jim. Something which was more +substantial than cigarettes rattled inside of it. Jim seized upon it +in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far sooner lose her +necklace altogether than that her friend Ann Upcott should be +destroyed by it. He opened the lid of the box. It was filled with +cotton-wool. From the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls +perfectly graded in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre +which, even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely. + +"It would have been more correct if I had found them in a matchbox," +said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to Monsieur Bex that after all +matches and cigarettes are akin." + +Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter disappointment when +Moreau knocked upon the other side of the communicating door. Hanaud +looked again at his watch. + +"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has started from +the house of Madame Le Vay." + +He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again within the layers +of cotton-wool, and locked it up once more in the drawer. The room +had faded away from Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, +brilliantly illuminated house, and a girl who slipped from a window +and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening dress, ran down the +dark avenue in her dancing slippers to where a car waited hidden +under trees. + +"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden hopefulness. +"There may have been an accident to it. The chauffeur may be late. +Oh, a hundred things may have happened!" + +"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously rehearsed? No, +my friend." + +Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against the wall and +placed it in his pocket. + +"You are going to leave that necklace just like that in a table +drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it first to the Prefecture." + +"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It will be safe." + +Jim hopefully tried another line of argument. + +"We shall be too late now to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch +road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you say--well past eleven. +And thirty-five minutes on a motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty +minutes in a car at night, especially with a bad road to travel." + +"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch road," Hanaud +returned. He folded up the map and put it aside upon the mantelshelf. + +"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I must take it! +And--no! I can't be wrong!" But he turned from the mantelshelf with +a very anxious and troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh +idea came into his mind. + +"By the way," he said. "The façade of Notre Dame?" + +Jim nodded. + +"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment. We went to see it. We thought +your way of saying what you believed a little brutal." + +Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor for a few +seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am sorry." He tacked on a +question. "You say 'we'?" + +"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained. + +"Oh, yes--to be sure. I should have thought of that," and once more +his troubled cry broke from him. "It must be that!--No, I can't be +wrong.... Anyway, it's too late to change now." + +A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating door. Hanaud +sprang to alertness. + +"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, Monsieur Frobisher! +Good! You are ready?" and the room was at once plunged into darkness. + +Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they passed into the front +room--a bedroom looking out upon the big station square. This room +was in darkness too. But the shutters were not closed, and there +were patches of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and +the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could see one +another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his companions appeared +of a ghastly pallor. + +"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said Moreau. +"Patinot has just joined him." + +He pointed across the square to the station buildings. Some cabs +were waiting for the Paris train, and in front of them two men +dressed like artisans were talking. One of them lit a cigarette from +the stump of a cigarette held out to him by his companion. The +watchers in the room saw the end of the cigarette glow red. + +"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can go." And he +turned and went out of the inn to the staircase. Jim started to +follow him. Whither they were going Jim had not a notion, not even a +conjecture. But he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's +hopes for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski affair +had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not reassured when +Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and detained him. + +"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud with a quiet +authority, his eyes shining very steadily in the darkness, his face +glimmering very white, "that now the Law of France takes charge. +There must not be a finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers +upon their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the promise +you desire. No one shall be arrested on suspicion. Your own eyes +shall bear me out." + +The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into the street. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: _The Secret House_ + +It was a dark, clear night, the air very still and warm, and the sky +bright with innumerable stars. The small company penetrated into the +town by the backways and narrow alleys. Daunay going on ahead, +Patinot the last by some thirty yards, and Moreau keeping upon the +opposite side of the street. Once they had left behind them the +lights of the station square, they walked amongst closed doors and +the blind faces of unlit houses. Frobisher's heart raced within his +bosom. He strained his eyes and ears for some evidence of spies upon +their heels. But no one was concealed in any porch, and not the +stealthiest sound of a pursuit was borne to their hearing. + +"On a night like this," he said in tones which, strive as he might to +steady them, were still a little tremulous, "one could hear a +footstep on the stones a quarter of a mile away, and we hear nothing. +Yet, if there is a gang, it can hardly be that we are unwatched." + +Hanaud disagreed. "This is a night for alibis," he returned, +lowering his voice; "good, sound, incontestable alibis. All but +those engaged will be publicly with their friends, and those engaged +do not know how near we are to their secrets." + +They turned into a narrow street and kept on its left-hand side. + +"Do you know where we are?" Hanaud asked. "No? Yet we are near to +the Maison Crenelle. On the other side of these houses to our left +runs the street of Charles-Robert." + +Jim Frobisher stopped dead. + +"It was here, then, that you came last night after I left you at the +Prefecture," he exclaimed. + +"Ah, you recognised me, then!" Hanaud returned imperturbably. "I +wondered whether you did when you turned at the gates of your house." + +On the opposite side of the street the houses were broken by a high +wall, in which two great wooden doors were set. Behind the wall, at +the end of a courtyard, the upper storey and the roof of a +considerable house rose in a steep ridge against the stars. + +Hanaud pointed towards it. + +"Look at that house, Monsieur! There Madame Raviart came to live +whilst she waited to be set free. It belongs to the Maison Crenelle. +After she married Simon Harlowe, they would never let it, they kept +it just as it was, the shrine of their passion--that strange romantic +couple. But there was more romance in that, to be sure. It has been +unoccupied ever since." + +Jim Frobisher felt a chill close about his heart. Was that house the +goal to which Hanaud was leading him with so confident a step? He +looked at the gates and the house. Even in the night it had a look +of long neglect and decay, the paint peeling from the doors and not a +light in any window. + +Some one in the street, however, was awake, for just above their +heads, a window was raised with the utmost caution and a whisper +floated down to them. + +"No one has appeared." + +Hanaud took no open notice of the whisper. He did not pause in his +walk, but he said to Frobisher: + +"And, as you hear, it is still unoccupied." + +At the end of the street Daunay melted away altogether. Hanaud and +Frobisher crossed the road and, with Moreau just ahead, turned down a +passage between, the houses to the right. + +Beyond the passage they turned again to the right into a narrow lane +between high walls; and when they had covered thirty yards or so, +Frobisher saw the branches of leafy trees over the wall upon his +right. It was so dark here under the shade of the boughs that +Frobisher could not even see his companions; and he knocked against +Moreau before he understood that they had come to the end of their +journey. They were behind the garden of the house in which Madame +Raviart had lived and loved. + +Hanaud's hand tightened upon Jim Frobisher's arm, constraining him to +absolute immobility. Patinot had vanished as completely and +noiselessly as Daunay. The three men left stood in the darkness and +listened. A sentence which Ann Upcott had spoken in the garden of +the Maison Crenelle, when she had been describing the terror with +which she had felt the face bending over her in the darkness, came +back to him. He had thought it false then. He took back his +criticism now. For he too imagined that the beating of his heart +must wake all Dijon. + +They stood there motionless for the space of a minute, and then, at a +touch from Hanaud, Nicolas Moreau stooped. Frobisher heard the palm +of his hand sliding over wood and immediately after the tiniest +little click as a key was fitted into a lock and turned. A door in +the wall swung silently open and let a glimmer of light into the +lane. The three men passed into a garden of weeds and rank grass and +overgrown bushes. Moreau closed and locked the door behind them. As +he locked the door the clocks of the city struck the half hour. + +Hanaud whispered in Frobisher's ear: + +"They have not yet reached the Val Terzon. Come!" + +They crept over the mat of grass and weeds to the back of the house. +A short flight of stone steps, patched with mould, descended from a +terrace; at the back of the terrace were shuttered windows. But in +the corner of the house, on a level with the garden, there was a +door. Once more Moreau stooped, and once more a door swung inwards +without a sound. But whereas the garden door had let through some +gleam of twilight, this door opened upon the blackness of the pit. +Jim Frobisher shrank back from it, not in physical fear but in an +appalling dread that some other man than he, wearing his clothes and +his flesh, would come out of that door again. His heart came to a +standstill, and then Hanaud pushed him gently into the passage. The +door was closed behind them, an almost inaudible sound told him that +now the door was locked. + +"Listen!" Hanaud whispered sharply. His trained ear had caught a +sound in the house above them. And in a second Frobisher heard it +too, a sound regular and continuous and very slight, but in that +uninhabited house filled with uttermost blackness, very daunting. +Gradually the explanation dawned upon Jim. + +"It's a clock ticking," he said under his breath. + +"Yes! A clock ticking away in the empty house!" returned Hanaud. +And though his answer was rather breathed than whispered, there was a +queer thrill in it the sound of which Jim could not mistake. The +hunter had picked up his spoor. Just beyond the quarry would come in +view. + +Suddenly a thread of light gleamed along the passage, lit up a short +flight of stairs and a door on the right at the head of them, and +went out again. Hanaud slipped his electric torch back into his +pocket and, passing Moreau, took the lead. The door at the head of +the stairs opened with a startling whine of its hinges. Frobisher +stopped with his heart in his throat, though what he feared he could +not have told even himself. Again the thread of light shone, and +this time it explored. The three found themselves in a stone-flagged +hall. + +Hanaud crossed it, extinguished his torch and opened a door. A +broken shutter, swinging upon a hinge, enabled them dimly to see a +gallery which stretched away into the gloom. The faint light +penetrating from the window showed them a high double door leading to +some room at the back of the house. Hanaud stole over the boards and +laid his ear to the panel. In a little while he was satisfied; his +hand dropped to the knob and a leaf of the door opened noiselessly. +Once more the torch glowed. Its beam played upon the high ceiling, +the tall windows shrouded in heavy curtains of red silk brocade, and +revealed to Frobisher's amazement a room which had a look of daily +use. All was orderly and clean, the furniture polished and in good +repair; there were fresh flowers in the vases, whose perfume filled +the air; and it was upon the marble chimney-piece of this room that +the clock ticked. + +The room was furnished with lightness and elegance, except for one +fine and massive press, with double doors in marquetry, which +occupied a recess near to the fireplace. Girandoles with mirrors and +gilt frames, now fitted with electric lights, were fixed upon the +walls, with a few pictures in water-colour. A chandelier glittering +with lustres hung from the ceiling, an Empire writing-table stood +near the window, a deep-cushioned divan stretched along the wall +opposite the fire-place. So much had Frobisher noticed when the +light again went out. Hanaud closed the door upon the room again. + +"We shall be hidden in the embrasure of any of these windows," Hanaud +whispered, when they were once more in the long gallery. "No light +will be shown here with that shutter hanging loose, we may be sure. +Meanwhile let us watch and be very silent." + +They took their stations in the deep shadows by the side of the +window with the broken shutter. They could see dimly the courtyard +and the great carriage doors in the wall at the end of it, and they +waited; Jim Frobisher under such a strain of dread and expectancy +that each second seemed an hour, and he wondered at the immobility of +his companions. The only sound of breathing that he heard came from +his own lungs. + +In a while Hanaud laid a hand upon his sleeve, and the clasp of the +hand tightened and tightened. Motionless though he stood like a man +in a seizure, Hanaud too was in the grip of an intense excitement. +For one of the great leaves of the courtyard door was opening +silently. It opened just a little way and as silently closed again. +But some one had slipped in--so vague and swift and noiseless a +figure that Jim would have believed his imagination had misled him +but for a thicker blot of darkness at the centre of the great door. +There some one stood now who had not stood there a minute before, as +silent and still as any of the watchers in the gallery, and more +still than one. For Hanaud moved suddenly away on the tips of his +toes into the deepest of the gloom and, sinking down upon his heels, +drew his watch from his pocket. He drew his coat closely about it +and for a fraction of a second flashed his torchlight on the dial. +It was now five minutes past twelve. + +"It is the time," he breathed as he crept back to his place. "Listen +now!" + +A minute passed and another. Frobisher found himself shivering as a +man shivers at a photographer's when he is told by the operator to +keep still. He had a notion that he was going to fall. Then a +distant noise caught his ear, and at once his nerves grew steady. It +was the throb of a motor-cycle, and it grew louder and louder. He +felt Hanaud stiffen at his side. Hanaud had been right, then! The +conviction deepened in his mind. When all had been darkness and +confusion to him, Hanaud from the first had seen clearly. But what +had he seen? Frobisher was still unable to answer that question, and +whilst he fumbled amongst conjectures a vast relief swept over him. +For the noise of the cycle had ceased altogether. It had roared +through some contiguous street and gone upon its way into the open +country. Not the faintest pulsation of its engine was any longer +audible. That late-faring traveller had taken Dijon in his stride. + +In a revulsion of relief he pictured him devouring the road, the glow +of his lamp putting the stars to shame, the miles leaping away behind +him; and suddenly the pleasant picture was struck from before his +vision and his heart fluttered up into his throat. For the leaf of +the great coach-door was swung wider, and closed again, and the +motor-cycle with its side-car was within the courtyard. The rider +had slipped out his clutch and stopped his engine more than a hundred +yards away in the other street. His own impetus had been enough and +more than enough to swing him round the corner along the road and +into the courtyard. The man who had closed the door moved to his +side as he dismounted. Between them they lifted something from the +side-car and laid it on the ground. The watchman held open the door +again, the cyclist wheeled out his machine, the door was closed, a +key turned in the lock. Not a word had been spoken, not an +unnecessary movement made. It had all happened within the space of a +few seconds. The man waited by the gate, and in a little while from +some other street the cyclist's engine was heard once more to throb. +His work was done. + +Jim Frobisher wondered that Hanaud should let him go. But Hanaud had +eyes for no one but the man who was left behind and the big package +upon the ground under the blank side wall. The man moved to it, +stooped, raised it with an appearance of effort, then stood upright +holding it in his arms. It was something shapeless and long and +heavy. So much the watchers in the gallery could see, but no more. + +The man in the courtyard moved towards the door without a sound; and +Hanaud drew his companions back from the window of the broken +shutter. Quick as they were, they were only just in time to escape +from that revealing twilight. Already the intruder with his burden +stood within the gallery. The front door was unlatched, that was +clear. It had needed but a touch to open it. The intruder moved +without a sound to the double door, of which Hanaud had opened one +leaf. He stood in front of it, pushed it with his foot and both the +leaves swung inwards. He disappeared into the room. But the faint +misty light had fallen upon him for a second, and though none could +imagine who he was, they all three saw that what he carried was a +heavy sack. + +Now, at all events, Hanaud would move, thought Frobisher. But he did +not. They all heard the man now, but not his footsteps. It was just +the brushing of his clothes against furniture: then came a soft, +almost inaudible sound, as though he had laid his burden down upon +the deep-cushioned couch: then he himself reappeared in the doorway, +his arms empty, his hat pressed down upon his forehead, and a dim +whiteness where his face should be. But dark as it was, they saw the +glitter of his eyes. + +"It will be now," Frobisher said to himself, expecting that Hanaud +would leap from the gloom and bear the intruder to the ground. + +But this man, too, Hanaud let go. He closed the doors again, drawing +the two leaves together, and stole from the gallery. No one heard +the outer door close, but with a startling loudness some metal thing +rang upon stone, and within the house. Even Jim Frobisher understood +that the outer door had been locked and the key dropped through the +letter slot. The three men crept back to their window. They saw the +intruder cross the courtyard, open one leaf of the coach door, peer +this way and that and go. Again a key tinkled upon stones. The key +of the great door had been pushed or kicked underneath it back into +the courtyard. The clocks suddenly chimed the quarter. To +Frobisher's amazement it was a quarter-past twelve. Between the +moment when the cyclist rode his car in at the doors and now, just +five minutes had elapsed. And again, but for the three men, the +house was empty. + +Or was it empty? + +For Hanaud had slipped across to the door of the room and opened it; +and a slight sound broke out of that black room, as of some living +thing which moved uneasily. At Jim Frobisher's elbow Hanaud breathed +a sigh of relief. Something, it seemed, had happened for which he +had hardly dared to hope; some great dread he knew with certainty had +not been fulfilled. On the heels of that sigh a sharp loud click +rang out, the release of a spring, the withdrawal of a bolt. Hanaud +drew the door swiftly to and the three men fell back. Some one had +somehow entered that room, some one was moving quietly about it. +From the corner of the corridor in which they had taken refuge, the +three men saw the leaves of the door swing very slowly in upon their +hinges. Some one appeared upon the threshold, and stood motionless, +listening, and after a few seconds advanced across the gallery to the +window. It was a girl--so much they could determine from the contour +of her head and the slim neck. To the surprise of those three a +second shadow flitted to her side. Both of them peered from the +window into the courtyard. There was nothing to tell them there +whether the midnight visitors had come and gone or not yet come at +all. One of them whispered: + +"The key!" + +And the other, the shorter one, crept into the hall and returned with +the key which had been dropped through the letter slot in her hand. +The taller of the two laughed, and the sound of it, so clear, so +joyous like the trill of a bird, it was impossible for Jim Frobisher +even for a second to mistake. The second girl standing at the window +of this dark and secret house, with the key in her hand to tell her +that all that had been plotted had been done, was Betty Harlowe. Jim +Frobisher had never imagined a sound so sinister, so alarming, as +that clear, joyous laughter lilting through the silent gallery. It +startled him, it set his whole faith in the world shuddering. + +"There must be some good explanation," he argued, but his heart was +sinking amidst terrors. Of what dreadful event was that laughter to +be the prelude? + +The two figures at the window flitted back across the gallery. It +seemed that there was no further reason for precautions. + +"Shut the door, Francine," said Betty in her ordinary voice. And +when this was done, within the room the lights went on. But time and +disuse had warped the doors. They did not quite close, and between +them a golden strip of light showed like a wand. + +"Let us see now!" cried Betty. "Let us see," and again she laughed; +and under the cover of her laughter the three men crept forward and +looked in: Moreau upon his knees, Frobisher stooping above him, +Hanaud at his full height behind them all. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: _The Corona Machine_ + +The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's shoulder warning +him to silence; and this warning was needed. The lustres of the big +glass chandelier were so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the +girandoles multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was +ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her white +shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black velvet; from her +carefully dressed copper hair to her black satin shoes she was as +trim as if she had just been unpacked from a bandbox; and she was +laughing whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which +jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. Some one was +imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher could not doubt who that +some one was, and it seemed to him that no sound more soulless and +cruel had ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She +threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white throat working, +her shoulders flashing and shaking. She clapped her hands with a +horrible glee. Something died within Frobisher's breast as he heard +it. Was it in his heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the +last time that Betty Harlowe laughed. + +"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst Francine with a +pair of scissors cut the end of the sack loose, she sat down with her +back to it at the writing-table and unlocked a drawer. The sack was +cut away and thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott +lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound behind her back, +and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her hair was dishevelled, her +face flushed, and she had the look of one quite dazed. She drew in +deep breaths of air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware +for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and her eyes +rested upon Francine and travelled from her to Betty's back without a +gleam of recognition. She wrenched a little at her wrists, but even +that movement was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay +still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at the door +would hardly have believed that she still lived. + +Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a small bottle +half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next a small case of +morocco leather. From the case she took a hypodermic syringe and its +needle, and screwed the two parts together. + +"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper from the +bottle. + +"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began with a giggle, +but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke and she ended with a +startled gasp. For Ann was looking straight at her with the +strangest, disconcerting stare. It was impossible to say whether she +knew Francine or knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her +gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, and in +a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried out: + +"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she added with a shiver: +"It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's like a dead person watching you +as you move about the room." + +Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's eyes wandered off +to her. It seemed as though it needed just that interchange of +glances to awaken her. For as Betty resumed her work of filling the +hypodermic syringe from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into +Ann Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she could +not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her feet kicked upon +the divan. A moan of pain broke from her lips, and with that +consciousness returned to her. + +"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the needle ready in her +hand. She did not speak, but her face spoke for her. Her upper lip +was drawn back a little from her teeth, and there was a look in her +great eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. Once +before he had seen just that look--when Betty was lying on Mrs. +Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment and he had lingered in the +treasure-room with Ann Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then, +but it was as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann +Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank back upon the +divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering lips and her eyes fixed +upon Betty with a dreadful fascination. + +"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You sent me to Madame Le +Vay's--on purpose. Oh! The letter, then! The anonymous +letter!"--and a new light broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror +shook her. "You wrote it! Betty, you! You--the Scourge!" + +She sank back and again struggled vainly with her bonds. Betty rose +from her chair and crossed the room towards her, the needle shining +bright in her hand. Her hapless prisoner saw it. + +"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. The extremity of +her horror lent to her an unnatural strength. Somehow she dragged +herself up and got her feet to the ground. Somehow she stood +upright, swaying as she stood. + +"You are going to----" she began, and broke off. "Oh, no! You +couldn't! You couldn't!" + +Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder and held her so +for a moment, savouring her vengeance. + +"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours in the darkness?" +she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. "Whose face, Ann? Guess!" +She shook her swaying prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her +quiet voice. "You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. You +are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the treasure-room +yesterday evening with your watch in your hand? Eh? Can't you +answer, you pretty fool?" Then Betty's voice changed. It remained +low and quiet, but hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred. + +"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, Ann? Oh, we +both understand very well!" And Hanaud's hand tightened upon +Frobisher's shoulder. Here was the real key and explanation of +Betty's hatred. Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more, +might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! Ann Upcott's +disappearance would look like a panic-stricken flight, would have the +effect of a confession--no doubt! But above all these +considerations, paramount in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at +once to punish and rid herself of a rival. + +"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my way!" she +said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. Yes. I had you bound +hand and foot and brought here. The water-lily!" She looked her +victim over as she stood in her delicate bright frock, her white silk +stockings and satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes, +Ann! That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! That's +all the time the arrow-poison takes!" + +Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her white face and +ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before. + +"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! Oh!" she +would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe pushed her shoulder +gently and she fell back upon the divan. That Betty had been guilty +of that last infamy--the murder of her benefactress--not until this +moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was clear to her, +too, that there was not the slightest hope for her. She burst +suddenly into a storm of tears. + +Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and watched her +closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. The sound of the +girl's sobbing was music in her ears. She would not let it flag. + +"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and alone," she said +in a low voice, bending over her, "To-morrow Espinosa will put you +under one of the stone flags in the kitchen. But to-night you shall +lie just as you are. Come!" + +She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her arm with one +hand and advancing the needle with the other; and a piercing scream +burst from Francine Rollard. + +"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It was open and +Hanaud stood upon the threshold. + +Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from her face. She +sat like an image of wax, staring at the open doorway, and a moment +afterwards with a gesture swift as lightning she drove the needle +into the flesh of her own arm and emptied it. + +Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to prevent her, but +Hanaud roughly thrust him back. + +"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said with a savage +note in his voice, which Jim had not heard before; and Betty Harlowe +dropped the needle on to the couch, whence it rolled to the floor. + +She sprang up now to her full height, her heels together, her arms +outstretched from her sides. + +"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with bravado. "I am +safe from you." + +Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously in her face. + +"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill." + +Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself. + +"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said. + +"We shall see." + +The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed across the +room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, Hanaud met her there. + +"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He seized her +wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod towards Francine. "And you, +Monsieur Frobisher, will you release that young lady, if you please!" + +Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and locked her safely +away. Jim seized upon the big scissors and cut the cords about Ann's +wrists and ankles, and unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had +flung the chair from the writing-table into an open space, that Betty +was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had forced her into +the chair and snatched up one of the cords which Frobisher had +dropped upon the floor. When he had finished his work, he saw that +Betty was sitting with her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to +one of the legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his +handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had bitten him +like a wild animal caught in a trap. + +"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning I met you," +Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you didn't wear a wrist-watch, +because you hated things on your wrists. My apologies! I had +forgotten!" + +He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand into the +drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box and removed the lid. + +"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!" + +He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who was standing +against the wall with a face like death. + +"Look!" + +There were five white tablets in the box. + +"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know where it was. For +I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide of potassium, my friend! Crunch +one of them between your teeth and--fifteen minutes? Not a bit of +it! A fraction of a second! That's all!" + +Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's ear. "Leave them +within her reach!" + +His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty from +destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, and with so +desperate a longing that a deep pity softened Hanaud's eyes. + +"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to Moreau. "There +is a cab waiting at the corner of the Maison Crenelle," and Moreau +went in search of it. Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was +sitting upon the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every now +and then she handled and eased one of her tortured wrists. + +"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I owe you an +explanation and an apology. I never from the beginning--no, not for +one moment--believed that you were guilty of the murder of Madame +Harlowe. I was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink +pearls--oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. I believed +every word of the story you told us in the garden. But none of this +dared I shew you. For only by pretending that I was convinced of +your guilt, could I protect you during this last week in the Maison +Crenelle." + +"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort at a smile. + +"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he continued. "I make it +with shame. That you were to be brought back here to the tender +mercies of Mademoiselle Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to +make sure you should be spared them. But I have never in my life had +a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction in my own +mind, so little proof to put before a court. I had to have the +evidence which I was certain to find in this room to-night. But I +ask you to believe me that if I had imagined for a moment the cruelty +with which you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this +evidence. I beg you to forgive me." + +Ann Upcott held out her hand. + +"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you I should not be +now alive. I should be lying here in the dark and alone, as it was +promised to me, waiting for Espinosa--and his spade." Her voice +broke and she shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which +she sat. + +"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. "You have youth, +as I told you once before. A little time and----" + +The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and with Moreau came a +couple of gendarmes and Girardot the Commissary. + +"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked. + +"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly. + +In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of feet and a +woman's voice screaming abuse. It died away. + +"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," said Hanaud. + +Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted and sullen, +her lips muttering inaudible words. She had not once looked at Jim +Frobisher since he had entered the room; nor did she now. + +Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme raised her +up. But her knees failed beneath her; she could not stand; her +strength and her spirit had left her. The gendarme picked her up as +if she had been a child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher +planted himself in front of him. + +"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and resonant. "Monsieur +Hanaud, you have said just now that you believed every word of +Mademoiselle Ann's story." + +"It is true." + +"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered at half-past ten +on the night of the 27th of April. And at half-past ten Mademoiselle +here was at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free." + +Hanaud did not argue the point. + +"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if you please!" + +Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then drew aside. He +stood with his eyes closed, and such a look of misery upon his face +as Betty was carried out that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of +condolence: + +"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur Frobisher," he +began. + +"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at the first!" Jim +cried volubly. + +"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked Hanaud, and Jim was +silent. "As it was, Monsieur Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I +know now I had not the right to take and I told you more than you +think." + +He turned away towards Moreau. + +"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house after they have +gone and bring the keys here to me." + +Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic syringe, +the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of cord. + +"There is something here of importance," Hanaud observed and, +stooping at the writing-table, he picked up a square, flat-topped +black case. "You will recognise this," he remarked to Jim as he +handed it to Girardot. It was the case of a Corona typewriting +machine; and from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within +the case. + +"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the Commissary. +"This pretty room is the factory where all those abominable letters +were prepared. Here the information was filed away for use; here the +letters were typed; from here they were issued." + +"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding money!" + +"Some of them," answered Hanaud. + +"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, and more if she +chose to ask for it." + +"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with a shake of the head. +"The blackmailer never has enough money. For no one is so +blackmailed." + +A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. They had agreed, +he and Hanaud, that there was a gang involved in all these crimes. +It might be that Betty was of them, yes, even led them, but were they +all to go scot-free? + +"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode this +motor-cycle----" + +"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice his accent when +you stopped at the fork of the roads in the Val Terzon? He did not +mount his cycle again. No!" + +"And the man who carried in the--the sack?" + +"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising young novice. He +is now at the Depot. He will never get that good word from me which +was to unlock Paris for him." + +"And Espinosa himself--who was to come here to-morrow----" he stopped +abruptly with his eyes on Ann. + +"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went on. "A fool that +fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud +looked at his watch. "It is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock +and key by now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you have +never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. Have no fear of +that!" + +Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to Hanaud. Hanaud put +them into a pocket and went over to Ann Upcott. + +"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any questions to-night. +To-morrow you will tell me why you went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It +was given out that you meant to run away. That, of course, was not +true. You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an account of +what happened to you there." + +Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she answered quietly. + +"Yes. I will tell you everything." + +"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully. + +"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you have had us all +locked in." + +Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on the girl, and +he loved surprises so long as they were of his own contriving. + +"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the truth. This +house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart is very close, as the +crow flies, to the Maison Crenelle. There is one row of houses, the +houses of the street of Charles-Robert, between. It was built by +Etienne Bouchart de Crenelle, President of the Parliament during the +reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and important figure; +and he built it, Mademoiselle--this is the point--at the same time +that he built the Maison Crenelle. Having built it, he installed in +it a joyous lady of the province from which it takes its name--Madame +de Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President never came +visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the best of reasons. Between +this house and the Maison Crenelle he had constructed a secret +passage in that age of secret passages." + +Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to him for an +astuteness which he did not possess. He had been occupied heart and +brain by the events of the evening, so rapidly had they followed one +upon the other, so little time had they allowed for speculations. + +"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked. + +"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us content ourselves +with the facts," Hanaud continued. "After the death of Etienne de +Crenelle, at some period or another the secret of this passage was +lost. It is clear, too, I think that it fell into disrepair and +became blocked. At all events at the end of the eighteenth century, +the Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of the +owner of the Maison Crenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, discovered the +secret. He bought back the Hôtel de Brebizart, restored the passage +and put it to the same use as old Etienne de Crenelle had done. For +here Madame Raviart came to live during the years before the death of +her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! My little lecture +is over. Let us go!" + +He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience and unlatched the +double doors of the big buhl cabinet in the recess of the wall. A +cry of surprise broke from Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet. +The cabinet was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and +all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one end and +that a flight of steps ran downwards in the thickness of the wall. + +"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. "Will you take +this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first with Mademoiselle. I will +turn out the lights and follow." + +But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew sharply back. She +put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and steadied herself by it. "I will +come with you," she said. "I am not very steady on my legs." + +She laughed her action off but both men understood it. Jim Frobisher +had thought her guilty--guilty of theft and murder. She shrank from +him to the man who had had no doubt that she was innocent. And even +that was not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply than +any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher inclined his head in +acknowledgment and, pressing the button of the torch, descended five +or six of the narrow steps. Moreau followed him. + +"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud. + +He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up a switch by the +open doors of the cabinet. The room was plunged in darkness. Guided +by the beam of light, they followed Frobisher on to the steps. +Hanaud closed the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together +with the bolts. + +"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be careful of your heels +on these stone steps." + +When his head was just below the level of the first step he called +upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. Then he slid the floor +board of the cabinet back into its place. Beneath this a trap-door +hung downwards. Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place. + +"We can go on." + +Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. From that a +passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. Frobisher led the way +along the passage until the foot of another flight of steps was +reached. + +"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked of Frobisher, +his voice sounding with a strange hollowness in that tunnel. "You +shall tell me." + +Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and Betty had sat in +the dark of the perfumed garden and Ann's eyes had searched this way +and that amidst the gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly: + +"Into the garden of the Maison Crenelle." + +Hanaud chuckled. + +"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?" + +Ann's face clouded over. + +"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered and drew her cloak +slowly about her shoulders. "Let us go up and see!" + +Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the top of the +steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel. + +"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a light. + +Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of Simon Harlowe's +Sedan chair into the treasure room. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry +Cabinet_ + +To the amazement of them all Moreau began to laugh. Up till now he +had been alert, competent and without expression. Stolidity had been +the mark of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his +sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour of things was +altogether unbearable. Once or twice he tried to speak, but laughter +leapt upon the words and drowned them. + +"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" Hanaud asked. + +"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and again merriment seized +and mastered him. At last two intelligible words were heard. "We, +Girardot," he cried, settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the +bridge of his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason of +his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases. + +"We, Girardot!--We fix the seals upon the doors--And all the time +there is a way in and out under our nose! These rooms must not be +disturbed--No! The great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to +look at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but we, +Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous with our linen bands! +We, Girardot shall make the laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes, +yes! I think, we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the +trial is over?" + +Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional for his +audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that night had dulled +their appreciation; certainly Moreau had all the laughter to himself. +Jim Frobisher was driven to the little Louis Quinze clock upon the +marquetry cabinet. He never could for a moment forget it. So much +hung for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild words she +might have used to-night, there was the incontrovertible testimony of +the clock to prove that she had had no hand whatever in the murder of +Mrs. Harlowe. He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it +with the clock. + +"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little accent of +triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past one----" and suddenly +Hanaud was at his side with a curious air of alertness. + +"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a comparison with his +own watch that Frobisher's statement was correct. "Yes. +Twenty-three minutes past one. That is very fortunate." + +He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all now stood grouped +about the cabinet. + +"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, "is to be +found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann used, when the seals were +removed from the doors and she saw this clock again, in the light of +day. She was perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?" + +"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me--it seems to me still--that +the clock was somehow placed higher than it actually is----" + +"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!" + +He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now reached twenty-six +minutes past one. + +"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in the hall in +the dark. For it was in the dark, you will remember, that +Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I shall turn the lights out here +and call you in. When I do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on +and off swiftly, just as she did it on the night of the 27th of +April. Then I think all will be clear to you." + +He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found it locked +with the key upon the inside. + +"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to the Hôtel de +Brebizart, this door would be locked." + +He turned the key and drew the door towards him. The hall gaped +before them black and silent. Hanaud stood aside. + +"If you please!" + +Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated and cast a look +of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities were to be set at rest. +She did not doubt that. This man had saved her from death when it +seemed that nothing could save her. Her trust in him was absolute. +But her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to be +delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could be no recovery. +Ann Upcott was not a good hater of Betty's stamp. She shrank from +the thought that it was to be her hand which would deliver that +stroke. + +"Courage, Mademoiselle!" + +Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann joined the others +in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the door upon them and returned to +the clock. It was twenty-eight minutes past one. + +"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will just do if I am +quick." + +Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. One of the three +shivered suddenly so that her teeth rattled in her mouth. + +"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand within her arm. +Ann Upcott had come to the end of her strength. She clung to his +hand spasmodically. + +"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you were cruel to me!" + +Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room. + +"Come!" + +Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. She threw open +the door with a nervous violence. The treasure-room was pitch dark +like the hall. Ann stepped through the doorway and her fingers +reached for the switch. + +"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook. + +Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as suddenly it was +black again; and in the darkness rose a clamour of voices. + +"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim. + +"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann. + +"That is true," Moreau agreed. + +Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, joined in. + +"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the night of the +twenty-seventh?" + +"Exactly, Monsieur." + +"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!" + +The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it sounded like a +knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers refused their service. +Once more the conviction forced itself into her mind. Some +irretrievable calamity waited upon the movement of her hand. + +"Courage, Mademoiselle!" + +Again the lights shone, and this time they remained burning. The +three witnesses advanced into the room, and as they looked again, +from close at hand and with a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke +from all of them. + +There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all. + +But high above it in the long mirror before which it stood there was +the reflection of a clock, its white face so clear and bright that +even now it was difficult to disbelieve that this was the clock +itself. And the position of the hands gave the hour as precisely +half-past ten. + +"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud. + +The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam mantelpiece and +there staring at them, the true hour was marked. It was exactly +half-past one; the long minute hand pointing to six, the shorter hour +hand on the right-hand side of the figure twelve, half-way between +the one and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all turned +again to the mirror; and the mystery was explained. The shorter +hour-hand seen in the mirror was on the left-hand side of the figure +twelve, and just where it would have been if the hour had been +half-past ten and the clock actually where its reflection was. The +figures on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to +read. + +"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature to save itself +from effort even in the smallest things. We live with clocks and +watches. They are as customary as our daily bread. And with the +instinct to save ourselves from effort, we take our time from the +position of the hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for +granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the one swift flash +of light she sees the hands upon the clock's face. Half-past ten! +She herself, you will remember, Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised +that the hour was so early. She was cold, as though she had slept +long in her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept +long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was half-past one, +and Betty Harlowe had been twenty minutes home from Monsieur de +Pouillac's ball." + +Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice which exasperated +Frobisher. + +"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When the seals were +removed and we entered this room for the first time, the clock was +not upon the mantelshelf but upon the marquetry cabinet." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before luncheon. We entered +this room after luncheon. During the luncheon hours the position of +the clock was changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know +now with what ease that could be done." + +"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It doesn't follow +that it was done." + +"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer now one of the +questions in your memorandum. What was it that I saw from the top of +the Terrace Tower? I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the +air. Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its windows, +and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And there at midday, in all +the warmth of late May, the smoke was rising from the chimney of the +sealed room. There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing! +And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask yourself that! Who +went straight out from the Maison Crenelle the moment I had gone, and +went alone? That clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters +also had to be burnt." + +Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still occupied his +thoughts. His great argument had been riddled; his one dream of +establishing Betty's innocence in despite of every presumption and +fact which could be brought against her had been dispelled. He +dropped on to a chair. + +"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness. + +"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe to me no gifts out +of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am trained--that is all. I have +been my twenty minutes in the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!" +He looked at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager +young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by the lesson. +First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle Betty was here doing +something of great importance. It may be only burning those letters +in the hearth. It may be more. I must wait and see. Good! There, +standing before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little remark +that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand yet? No, no! But I +am interested. Then I notice a curious thing, a beautiful specimen +of Benvenuto Cellini's work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf +where no one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the +window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back to the +mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks upon the wood which +had been concealed by the flat case of the jewel; and those four +little marks are just the marks which the feet of that very pretty +Louis Quinze clock might have made, had it stood regularly there--in +its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry cabinet so +much lower than the mantelshelf is too the natural place for the +Cellini jewel. Every one can see it there. So I say to myself: 'My +good Hanaud, this young lady has been rearranging her ornaments.' +But do I guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell you +again very humbly, that we are the servants of Chance. Chance is a +good mistress if her servants do not go to sleep; and she treated me +well that afternoon. See! I am standing in the hall, in great +trouble about this case. For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a +big old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind me +and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I raise my eyes +from the floor and by chance I see in the mirror the barometer behind +me. By chance my attention is arrested. For I see that the +indicator in the barometer points to stormy weather--which is +ridiculous. I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the +indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the position of +the hand without looking at the letters. If I look the barometer in +the face the hand points to the fair weather. If I turn my back and +look into the mirror the hand points to the stormy weather. Now +indeed I have it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door, +for I do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, no, +for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But I take out my +watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch facing the mirror, I open +the glass and I move the hands until in the mirror they seem to mark +half-past ten. Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. +So now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get it. For as I +unlock the door and open it again, there is Mademoiselle Betty face +to face with me! That young girl! Even though already I suspect her +I get a shock, I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened +enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask had slipped from +her face. I felt a trickle of ice down my spine. For out of her +beautiful great eyes murder looked." + +He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce look. "Ugh," +he grunted; and he shook himself like a great dog coming up out of +the water. + +"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," he cried in a +different voice, "and you are keeping Mademoiselle from her bed, +where she should have been an hour ago. Come!" + +He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on the lights, +locked the door of the treasure-room and pocketed the key. + +"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," he said gently to +Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in the house. You have nothing to +fear. He will not be far from your door. Good night." + +Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile. + +"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she mounted the stairs +slowly, her feet dragging, her body swaying with her fatigue. + +Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher with a whimsical +smile. + +"What a pity!" he said. "You--she! No? After all, perhaps----" and +he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher was growing red and beginning to +look "proper"; and the last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to +offend him in this particular. + +"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent and a gossip. If +I err, it is because I wish you very well. You understand that? +Good! Then a further proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us +what happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house of +Madame Le Vay--everything. I wish you to be present. You shall know +everything. I shall tell you myself step by step, how my conclusions +were reached. All your questions shall be answered. I shall give +you every help, every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are +not even called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And +when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that whatever there +may be of pain and distress, the Law must take its course." + +It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating now. The +tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries had gone. He did not even +triumph. A dignity shone out of the man like a strong light, and +with it he was gentle and considerate. + +"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim on an impulse +thrust out his hand. + +"Good night!" he returned. + +Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went away. + +Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense of desolation +turned back to the hall. He heard the big iron gates swing to. They +had been left open, of course, he recognised, in the usual way when +one of the household was going to be late. Yes, everything had been +planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. Here in this +house, the servants were all tucked up in their beds. But for +Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at this very moment have been stealing up +these stairs noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work +accomplished. The servants would have waked to-morrow to the +knowledge that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial. +Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, would have been +received in the treasure-room, would have found the spade waiting for +him in the great stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart. +Oh, yes, all dangers had been foreseen--except Hanaud. Nay, even he +in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken telegram had +reached Frobisher and Haslitt before Hanaud had started upon his work. + +"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's door, if +you should want me," said Moreau. + +Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections. + +"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs to his room. A +lot of use to Betty that telegram had been, he reflected bitterly! +"Where was she to-night?" he asked, and shut up his mind against the +question. + +He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken telegram and +nothing else which had brought Betty Harlowe's plans crashing about +her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: _Ann Upcott's Story_ + +Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison Crenelle and made +his appointment for the afternoon. Jim accordingly spent the morning +with Monsieur Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which was +told to him. + +"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. "They can claim the +presence of their legal adviser when they are being examined by the +Judge. I will go round at once to the Prefecture"; with his head +erect and his little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried +to do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged, +however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was for the moment +_au secret_. She would not come before the Judge for a couple of +days. It was the turn of Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to +be given to the defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted +an interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before she was +brought up in the Judge's office. + +Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet to find Jim +Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim looked up eagerly, but +Monsieur Bex had no words of comfort. + +"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am not happy. +They are all very polite--yes. But they examine the maid first. +That's bad, I tell you," and he tapped upon the table. "That is +Hanaud. He knows his affair. The servants. They can be made to +talk, and this Francine Rollard----" He shook his head. "I shall +get the best advocate in France." + +Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison Crenelle. It was +obvious that nothing of these new and terrible developments of the +"Affaire Waberski" had yet leaked out. There was not a whisper of it +in the streets, not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison +Crenelle. The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become a +stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her room that he was +removing his luggage to the hotel in the Place Darcy, and leaving the +house to her where he prayed her to remain. Even at that moment +Ann's lips twitched a little with humour as she read the embarrassed +note. + +"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," she reflected, "and +proper enough to make every nerve of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with +delight." + +Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the shade of the +sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the lawn and the bees hummed +amongst the roses, Ann Upcott told a story of terror and darkness, +though to a smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the +story by Hanaud. + +"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame Le Vay's Ball," she +began, "except for the anonymous letter," and Hanaud leaned forward +alertly. + +The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty and Jim Frobisher +were sitting at dinner. It had been posted therefore in the middle +of the day and very soon after Ann had told her first story in the +garden. Ann opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed and +a little terrified to read the signature, "The Scourge." She was +more annoyed than ever when she read the contents, but her terror had +decreased. "The Scourge" bade her attend the Ball. He gave her +explicit instructions that she should leave the ball-room at +half-past ten, follow a particular corridor leading to a wing away +from the reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small +library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a little while +the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. She was warned to tell no +one of her plan. + +"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the letter just a +malicious joke quite in accord with 'The Scourge's' character. I put +it back into its envelope. But I couldn't forget it. Suppose that +by any chance there was something in it--and I didn't go! Why should +'The Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was of no +importance? And all the while the sort of hope which no amount of +reasoning can crush, kept growing and growing!" + +After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room and believed +it and scorned herself for believing it, and believed it again. That +afternoon she had almost felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was +no chance which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from +suspicion, however wild it seemed! + +Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down to the +treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It was half-past nine +o'clock. Ann determined to wait for Betty's return, and was once +more perplexed by the low position of the clock upon the marquetry +cabinet. She stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own +watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it might help her. +And indeed it was very likely to. Had she turned its dial to the +mirror behind the clock, the truth would have leapt at her. But she +had not the time. For a slight movement in the room behind her +arrested her attention. + +She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without doubt it was +from within the room that the faint noise had come. And there was +only one place from which it could have come. Some one was hiding +within the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, its +delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than frightened. Her +first thought was to ring the bell by the fire-place--she could do +that well out of view of the Sedan chair--and carry on until Gaston +answered it. There were treasures enough in the room to repay a +hundred thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the bolder +line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing from the back, +and then with a rush planted herself in front of the glass doors. + +She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in front of the +doors was down, the doors were open, and leaning back upon the +billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. She sat quite still, still as an +image even after Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but +she was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out of the +darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a curious shock. + +"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; and if ever there +had been a chance that she would relent, that chance was gone for +ever now. She had come up out of the secret passage to find Ann +playing with her watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an +explanation of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it--so +very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence pronounced in +those words, "I have been watching you." And though she did not +understand the menace they conveyed, there was something in the slow, +steady utterance of them which a little unnerved her. + +"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice." + +Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous letter from her +hand. + +"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked. + +"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I should. I +shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that there's any suspicion upon +you." + +Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house of mourning +might appear an outrage. + +"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go privately, just +before the time. I have no doubt we can arrange it all. But of +course it's your affair." + +"Why should the Scourge help me?" + +"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty reasoned. "I +imagine that he's attacking other people, and using you." She read +through the letter again. "He has always been right, hasn't he? +That's what would determine me in your place. But I don't want to +interfere." + +Ann spun round on her heel. + +"Very well. I shall go." + +"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as if to tear it. + +"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it "I don't know +Madame Le Vay's house very well. I might easily lose my way without +the instructions. I must take it with me." + +Betty agreed and handed the letter back. + +"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw herself heart +and soul into the necessary arrangements. + +She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself help Ann to +dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. She wrote a letter to +Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's second son and one of Betty's most +indefatigable courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept +that letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity in her +plot. For Betty used to him the same argument which had persuaded +Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly that suspicion had centred upon Ann +Upcott and that it was necessary that she should get away secretly. + +"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. "Ann will come +late. She is to meet the friends who will help her--it is best that +you should know as little as possible about them--in the little +library. If you will keep the corridor clear for a little while, +they can get out by the library doors into the park and be in Paris +the next morning." + +She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann and said, "I will +send this by a messenger to-morrow morning, with orders to deliver it +into Michel's own hands. Now how are you to go?" + +Over that point the two girls had some discussion. It would be +inviting Hanaud's interference if the big limousine were ordered out. +What more likely than that he should imagine Ann meant to run away +and that Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would not do. + +"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call for you. You will +be ready to slip out. She shall stop her car for a second outside +the gates. It will be quite dark. You'll be away in a flash." + +"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back. + +It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite and fastidious +in her own looks and bearing, should have found her friends amongst +the flamboyant and the cheap. But she would rather throne it amongst +her inferiors than take her place amongst her equals. Under her +reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. The desire to +be courted, admired, looked up to as a leader and a chief, burned +within her like a raging flame. Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of +satellites--a big, red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without +good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society of the +town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but distrusted her. She had a +feeling that there was something indefinably wrong in her very nature. + +"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. "That's why I named +her. I know that she is going to Madame Le Vay's dance." + +Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to Jeanne +Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call at the Maison +Crenelle at an early hour in the morning; and Jeanne Leclerc came and +was closeted with Betty for an hour between nine and ten. Thus all +the arrangements were made. + +It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's explanations. + +"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young brother to be +accounted for." + +"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight noise in the +treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe seated in the Sedan chair," +Hanaud replied. "Betty Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de +Brebizart, whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark +and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison Crenelle.... +From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa went to the Rue Gambetta and +waited for Jean Cladel. It was a busy night, that one, my friends. +That old wolf, the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They +could hear him. They had no time to waste!" + +The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim remembered. It was +because Betty was helping Ann to dress, Francine having been given +her holiday. Jim and Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann +Upcott stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her pretty +dress. She held the front door a little open, and the moment Jeanne +Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, she flashed across the +courtyard. Jeanne had the door of her car open. It had hardly +stopped before it went on again. Jim, as the story was told, +remembered vividly Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and +the immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed and +the car moved forward out of the street of Charles-Robert. Ann +Upcott had gone for good from the Maison Crenelle. She would not +interfere with Betty Harlowe any more. + +Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le Vay's house a few +minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay came forward to meet them. + +"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said to Ann, "but you +are late. Madame my mother has left her place at the door of the +ball-room, but we shall find her later." + +He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away they were joined by +Espinosa. + +"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. "No, not yet! +Then Señor Espinosa will take you to the buffet while I look after +others of our guests." + +He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter of high voices +competed with the music of the band. Espinosa conducted the two +ladies to the buffet. There was hardly anybody in the room. + +"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low voice. "We +shall take some coffee." + +But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her feet danced, her +hands could not keep still. Was the letter a trick? Would she, +indeed, within the next few minutes learn the truth? At one moment +her heart sank into her shoes, at another it soared. + +"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa urgently. +"And it is good." + +"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne Leclerc. "You will +send me home, won't you? I shall not wait--afterwards." + +"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is arranged. The +chauffeur has his orders. You will take your coffee, dear?" + +Again Ann would not + +"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I went." She +caught a swift and curious interchange of glances between Jeanne +Leclerc and Espinosa, but she was in no mood to seek an +interpretation. There could be no doubt that the coffee set before +her had had some drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it +from the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug which +would have half stupefied her and made her easy to manage. But she +was not to be persuaded, and she rose to her feet. + +"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, leaving her two +companions together. She did not return to the buffet. + +On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor stretched +out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding it, stood Michel Le Vay. +He made a sign to her, and when she joined him: + +"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a low voice. "The +small library is in front of you." + +Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the house which was +quite deserted and silent. At the end of it a shut door confronted +her. She opened it softly. It was all dark within. But enough +light entered from the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged +against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some dark, +heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, to come to the +tryst. She closed the door behind her and moved slowly and +cautiously forwards with her hands outstretched, until she felt the +curtains yield. She passed in between them into the recess of a +great bow window opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, +creaking sound, brought her heart into her mouth. + +Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody had been quietly +watching as she came in from the lighted corridor. The sound grew +louder. Ann peered between the curtains, holding them apart with +shaking hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague +twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near to the door, +high up on a tall bookcase, something was clinging--something was +climbing down. Whoever it was, had been hiding behind the ornamental +top of the heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves like +the rungs of a ladder. + +Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her throat. She ran +for the door. But she was too late. A black figure dropped from the +book-case to the ground and, as Ann reached out her hands to the +door, a scarf was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was +jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched the light +switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, the room was +lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, driving the breath out of +her lungs, and knotted the scarf tightly at the back of her head. +Ann tried to lift herself, and recognised with a gasp of amazement +that the assailant who pinned her down by the weight of her body and +the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic gave place +to anger and a burning humiliation. She fought with all the strength +of her supple body. But the scarf about her mouth stifled and +weakened her, and with a growing dismay she understood that she was +no match for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two, +but her height did not avail her; she was like a child matched with a +wildcat. Francine's hands were made of steel. She snatched Ann's +arms behind her back and bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards, +her bosom labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must +burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and tied her by +the ankles. + +Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran to the door, +opened it a little way and beckoned. Then she dragged her prisoner +up on to a couch, and Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the +room. + +"It's done?" said Espinosa. + +Francine laughed. + +"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should have given her the +coffee. Then she would have walked with us. Now she must be +carried. She's wicked, I can tell you." + +Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face to hide the +gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held her up, set her white +cloak about her shoulders and fastened it in front. Espinosa then +turned out the light and drew back the curtains. + +The room was at the back of the house. In the front of the window +the park stretched away. But it was the park of a French château, +where the cattle feed up to the windows, and only a strip about the +front terrace is devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns. +Espinosa looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, and +cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night like ghosts. He +opened the window, and the throb of the music from the ball-room came +faintly to their ears. + +"We must be quick," said Espinosa. + +He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out into the park. +They left the window open behind them, and between them they carried +their prisoner across the grass, keeping where it was possible in the +gloom of the trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a +motorcar waited half-way between the house and the gates. A blur of +light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in front of it became +visible away upon their left, but here all was dark. Once or twice +they stopped and set Ann upon her feet, and held her so, while they +rested. + +"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling an oath, he +stopped again. They were on the edge of the drive now, and just +ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a white dress and close to it the +glow of a cigarette. Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her +against a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the +truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk to Ann, +nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively story. Espinosa's +heart stood still as he heard the man say: + +"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. Shall we see?" + +But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the white dress +caught him by the arm. + +"That would not be very tactful," she said with a laugh. "Let us do +as we would be done by," and the couple sauntered past. + +Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! Let us go!" he +whispered in a shaking voice. + +A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed car hidden in a +little alley which led from the main drive. They placed Ann in the +car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside her, and Espinosa took the wheel. +As they took the road to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck +eleven. Within the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann +Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it underneath her +feet. At the branch road young Espinosa was waiting with his +motor-cycle and side-car. + +"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud when +she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay went later into the library, +and bolted the window again, believing you to be well upon your way +to Paris. Second, Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they +returned to Madame Le Vay's ball." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: _What Happened on the Night of the 27th_ + +"We are not yet quite at the end," said Hanaud, as he sat with +Frobisher for awhile upon the lawn after Ann Upcott had gone in. +"But we are near to it. There is still my question to be answered. +'Why was the communicating door open between the bedroom of Madame +Harlowe and the treasure-room on the night when Ann Upcott came down +the stairs in the dark?' When we know that, we shall know why +Francine Rollard and Betty Harlowe between them murdered Madame +Harlowe." + +"Then you believe Francine Rollard had a hand in that crime too?" +asked Jim. + +"I am sure," returned Hanaud. "Do you remember the experiment I +made, the little scene of reconstruction? Betty Harlowe stretched +out upon the bed to represent Madame, and Francine whispering 'That +will do now'?" + +"Yes." + +Hanaud lit a cigarette and smiled. + +"Francine Rollard would not stand at the side of the bed. No! She +would stand at the foot and whisper those simple but appalling words. +But nowhere else. That was significant, my friend. She would not +stand exactly where she had stood when the murder was committed." He +added softly, "I have great hopes of Francine Rollard. A few days of +a prison cell and that untamed little tiger-cat will talk." + +"And what of Waberski in all this?" Jim exclaimed. + +Hanaud laughed and rose from his chair. + +"Waberski? He is for nothing in all this. He brought a charge in +which he didn't believe, and the charge happened to be true. That is +all." He took a step or two away and returned. "But I am wrong. +That is not all. Waberski is indeed for something in all this. For +when he was pressed to make good his charge and must rake up some +excuse for it somehow, by a piece of luck he thinks of a morning when +he saw Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta near to the shop of +Jean Cladel. And so he leads us to the truth. Yes, we owe something +to that animal Boris Waberski. Did I not tell you, Monsieur, that we +are all the servants of Chance?" + +Hanaud went from the garden and for three days Jim Frobisher saw him +no more. But the development which Monsieur Bex feared and for which +Hanaud hoped took place, and on the third day Hanaud invited Jim to +his office in the Prefecture. + +He had Jim's memorandum in his hand. + +"Do you remember what you wrote?" he asked. "See!" He pushed the +memorandum in front of Jim and pointed to a paragraph. + + +"But in the absence of any trace of poison in the dead woman's body, +it is difficult to see how the criminal can be brought to justice +except by: + +"(_a_) A confession. + +"(_b_) The commission of another crime of a similar kind. + +"Hanaud's theory--once a poisoner, always a poisoner." + + +Frobisher read it through. + +"Now that is very true," said Hanaud. "Never have I come across a +case more difficult. At every step we break down. I think I have my +fingers on Jean Cladel. I am five minutes too late. I think that I +shall get some useful evidence from a firm in Paris. The firm has +ceased to be for the last ten years. All the time I strike at air. +So I must take a risk--yes, and a serious one. Shall I tell you what +that risk was? I have to assume that Mademoiselle Ann will be +brought alive to the Hôtel de Brebizart on that night of Madame Le +Vay's ball. That she would be brought back I had no doubt. For one +thing, there could be no safer resting-place for her than under the +stone flags of the kitchen there. For another, there was the +portmanteau in the side-car. It was not light, the portmanteau. +Some friends of mine watched it being put into the side-car before +young Espinosa started for his rendezvous. I have no doubt it +weighed just as many kilos as Mademoiselle Ann." + +"I never understood the reason of that portmanteau," Frobisher +interrupted. + +"It was a matter of timing. There were twenty-five kilometres of a +bad track, with many sharp little twists between the Val Terzon and +the Hôtel de Brebizart. And a motor-cycle with an empty side-car +would take appreciably longer to cover the distance than a cycle with +a side-car weighted, which could take the corners at its top speed. +They were anxious to get the exact time the journey would take with +Ann Upcott in the side-car, so that there might be no needless +hanging about waiting for its arrival. But they were a little too +careful. Our friend Boris said a shrewd thing, didn't he? Some +crimes are discovered because the alibis are too unnaturally perfect. +Oh, there was no doubt they meant to bring back Mademoiselle Ann! +But suppose they brought her back dead! It wasn't likely--no! It +would be so much easier to finish her off with a dose of the +arrow-poison. No struggle, no blood, no trouble at all. I reckoned +that they would dope her at Madame Le Vay's ball and bring her back +half conscious, as indeed they meant to do. But I shivered all that +evening at the risk I had taken, and when that cycle shut off its +engine, as we stood in the darkness of the gallery, I was in despair." + +He shook his shoulders uncomfortably as though the danger was not yet +passed. + +"Anyway, I took the risk," he resumed, "and so we got fulfilled your +condition (_b_). The commission or, in this case, the attempted +commission of another crime of the same kind." + +Frobisher nodded. + +"But now," said Hanaud, leaning forward, "we have got your condition +(_a_) fulfilled--a confession; a clear and complete confession from +Francine Rollard, and so many admissions from the Espinosas, and +Jeanne Leclerc and Maurice Thevenet, that they amount to confessions. +We have put them all together, and here is the new part of the case +with which Monsieur Bex and you will have to deal--the charge not of +murder attempted but of murder committed--the murder of Madame +Harlowe." + +Jim Frobisher was upon the point of interrupting, but he thought +better of it. + +"Go on!" he contented himself with saying. + +"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous letters, Monsieur--who +shall say? The dulness of life for a girl young and beautiful and +passionate in a provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The +craving for excitement? Something bad and vicious and abnormal born +in her, part of her, and craving more and more expression as she grew +in years? The exacting attendance upon Madame? Probably all of +these elements combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly +it became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in Madame +Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years old from the firm of +Chapperon, builders, of the Rue de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the +way, saw an unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth +of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the existence of +the hidden passage between the treasure-room and the Hôtel de +Brebizart. For it was the bill of the builders who had repaired it +at the order of Simon Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging +to Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de Brebizart +made the game easy and safe. But as the opportunity grew, so did the +desire. Betty Harlowe tasted power. She took one or two people into +her confidence--her maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, +and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage--and once started the circle +grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of Betty Harlowe, you +understand! She, the little queen, became the big slave. She must +provide Thevenet with his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his +house, Jeanne Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters +become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet knows the +police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne Leclerc has a--friend, +shall we say?--in the Director of an Insurance Company, and, believe +me, for a blackmailer nothing is more important than to know +accurately the financial resources of one's--let us say, clients. +Thus the game went merrily on until money was wanted and it couldn't +be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. There was no one for +the moment to exploit. Yes, one person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the +justice to believe that the suggestion came from that promising young +novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, Monsieur Frobisher?" + +Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, led up to it +though he had been by Hanaud's exposition. + +"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, and, as Jim +Frobisher started back in a horror of disbelief, he continued: "Yes, +it is so! Madame Harlowe received a letter at dinner-time, just as +Ann Upcott did, on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She +took her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That letter +was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who remembers it very well. It +demanded a large sum of money, and something was said about a number +of passionate letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have +published--not too much, you understand, but enough to make it clear +that the liaison of Madame Raviart and Simon Harlowe was not a secret +from the Scourge. I'll tell you something else which will astonish +you, Monsieur Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne +Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to say good night +and show herself in her new dance frock of silver tissue and her +silver slippers. It was no wonder that Betty Harlowe lost her head a +little when I set my little trap for her in the library and pretended +that I did not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin +after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't one idea what +a very unpleasant little trap it was!" + +"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If Madame Harlowe +showed this letter first of all to Jeanne Baudin, and afterwards to +Betty Harlowe in Jeanne Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin +speak of it at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski brought +his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept silent!" + +"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne Baudin is a good and +decent girl. For her, Madame Harlowe had died a natural death in her +sleep, the very form in which death might be expected to come for +her. Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's accusation. +Why should she rake up old scandals? She herself proposed to Betty +Harlowe to say nothing about the anonymous letter." + +Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted it. "Yes, I see +her point of view," he admitted, and Hanaud continued his narrative. + +"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the Boulevard +Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. Jeanne Baudin has +finished her offices for the night. Madame Harlowe is alone. What +does she do? Drink? For that night--no! She sits and thinks. Were +there any of the letters which passed between her and Simon Harlowe, +before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still existing? She had thought +to have destroyed them all. But she was a woman, she might have +clutched some back. If there were any, where would they be? Why in +that house at the end of the secret passage. Some such thoughts must +have passed through her mind. For she rose from her bed, slipped on +her dressing-gown and shoes, unlocked the communicating door between +her and the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the empty +Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, Monsieur? A room +in daily use, a bundle of her letters ready in the top drawer of her +Empire writing-table, and on the writing-table Simon's Corona +machine, and the paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. +Monsieur, there is only one person who can have access to that room, +the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her exacting way she no +doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock that night Francine Rollard is +startled by the entrance of Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a +moment Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She was very +quickly better informed. She was told to get up, to watch for Betty +Harlowe's return and to bring her immediately to Madame Harlowe's +bedroom. At one o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark +hall. As Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives her +the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet how much of +their villainies has been discovered. But something at all events. +Betty Harlowe bade Francine wait and ran upstairs silently to her +room. Betty Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been +playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had the +arrow-poison ready--yes, ready for herself. She filled her +hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in the palm of her glove +she went to confront her benefactress. + +"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman whose romance and +tragedy were to be exploited blurting out her fury in front of +Francine Rollard. It wasn't Waberski who was to be stripped to the +skin--no, but the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver +slippers. You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under +the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison to destroy +herself when she can save everything--fortune, liberty, position--by +murder? Only she must be quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts +of violence. Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne +Baudin, some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a moment +the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is flung back upon her bed. +Her mouth is covered and held by Francine Rollard. The needle does +its work. 'That will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the +door of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, +unable to identify the voice which whispered, just as you and I were +unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice which whispered to us from the +window of Jean Cladel's house, but taking deep into her memory the +terrible words. And neither of the murderesses knew it. + +"They go calmly about their search for the letters. They cannot find +them, because Madame had pushed them into the coffer of old bills and +papers. They rearrange the bed, they compose their victim in it as +if she were asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget +to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the Hôtel de +Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the arrow-poison and the +needle to put in some safe place, and where else is safe? In the end +when every care has been taken that not a scrap of incriminating +evidence is left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps up +the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and Ann Upcott +waking, stretches up her hands and touches her face. + +"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is what you would +call the case for the Crown. It is the case which you and Monsieur +Bex have to meet." + +Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things which he had almost +said at the beginning of this interview. + +"I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told me. I shall +give him every assistance that I personally or my firm can give. But +I have no longer any formal connection with the defence." + +Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity. + +"I don't understand, Monsieur. This is not the moment to renounce a +client." + +"Nor do I," rejoined Frobisher. "It is the other way about. +Monsieur Bex put it to me very--how shall I say?" + +Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his lips. + +"Very correctly." + +"He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see me again." + +Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation evident in +Frobisher's voice and face moved him. He said very gently, "I can +understand that, can't you? She has fought for a great stake all +this last week, her liberty, her fortune, her good name--and you. +Oh, yes," he continued, as Jim stirred at the table. "Let us be +frank! And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from her +friends. From the earliest moment she set her passions upon you. Do +you remember the first morning I came to the Maison Crenelle? You +promised Ann Upcott to put up there though you had just refused the +same invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy blazed +in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a clatter in the hall +lest she should recognise that I could not but have discovered her +secret. Well, having fought for this stake and lost, she would not +wish to see you. You had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by +the legs like a sheep. I understand her very well." + +Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment Hanaud burst into the +room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, Betty had never once even looked at +him. He got up from his chair and took up his hat and stick. + +"I must go back to my partner in London with this story as soon as I +have told it to Monsieur Bex," he said. "I should like it complete. +When did you first suspect Betty Harlowe?" + +Hanaud nodded. + +"That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don't thank me! I am not so sure +that I should be so ready with all these confidences, if I was not +certain what the verdict in the Assize Court must be. I shall gather +up for you the threads which are still loose, but not here." + +He looked at his watch. + +"See, it is past noon! We shall once more have Philippe Le Bon's +Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may be, too, that we shall see Mont +Blanc across all the leagues of France. Come! Let us take your +memorandum and go there." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: _The Façade of Notre Dame_ + +For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day without mist or +clouds, and the towering silver ridge hung in the blue sky distinct +and magical. Hanaud lit one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly +turned away from it. + +"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One at the very +beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very end by me, and of the +two mine was the least excusable. Let us begin, therefore, at the +beginning. Madame Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; +Betty Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks her +for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should she not? Ah, +but she must have been very sorry a week later that she snapped her +the fingers! For suddenly he flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was +poisoned by her niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when +she heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! But it is +also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing can touch her. Now +suddenly her head is loose upon her neck. She is frightened. She is +questioned in the examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has +nothing against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip. +But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she has done the +murder. Her danger is not any evidence which Waberski can bring, but +just herself. In two days she is still more frightened, for she +hears that Hanaud is called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake. +She sends a telegram to you in London." + +"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly. + +"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does Betty Harlowe know +that Hanaud has been called in?' Oh, to be sure, I made a great +fluster in my office about the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon. +But I did not believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious +about Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, we +come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown me that telegram." + +"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he added slowly, +"that she put out her hand on the window sill--yes, as if to steady +herself." + +"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with a nod of +appreciation. "She must account for that telegram. She cannot tell +me that Maurice Thevenet sent a hurried word to her. No! So when I +ask her if she has ever received one of these anonymous +letters--which, remember, were my real business in Dijon--she says at +once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which told me that +Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris to make an end of me.' That +was quick, eh? Yes, but I know it is a lie. For it was not until +the Sunday evening that any question of my being sent for arose at +all. You see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked her +for the letter. She does not say that she has destroyed it, lest I +should at once believe that she never received any such letter at +all. On the contrary she says that it is in the treasure-room which +is sealed up, knowing quite well that she can write it and place it +there by way of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed. +But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must have received +it on the Sunday morning, since it was on the Sunday morning that the +seals were affixed. She did not know when it was first proposed to +call me in. She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is +lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe." + +He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him with a look of +horror in his eyes. + +"It was I then who put you on her track?--I who came out to defend +her!" he cried. "For it was I who showed you the telegram." + +"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered if Betty Harlowe +had been, as you believed her, innocent," Hanaud replied gravely; and +Frobisher was silent. + +"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, I went over +the house whilst you and Betty talked together in the library!" + +"Yes," said Jim. + +"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found something which +interested me at the first glance. Now tell me what it was!" and he +cocked his head at Jim with the hope that his riddle would divert him +from his self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded. + +"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost of a smile. +"It was the treatise on Sporanthus." + +"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves no trace! +Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. Who would be the first +poisoner to use it? How should I cope with him and prove that it +brought no more security than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are +questions which have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a +house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, I find a +dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away under a pile of +magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. I tell you I was +staggered. What was it doing there? How did it come there? I see a +note upon the cover, indicating a page. I turn to the page and +there, staring at me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect +specimen of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are at once +forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, without knowing it, were +right, and Madame Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I +must find that out. I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my +waistcoat and I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. +Is Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus +Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from Madame Harlowe's +death? Or did she perhaps not know at all that the treatise was +under that pile of magazines upon the table at the side? I do not +know, and my head is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked +look of Betty Harlowe at her friend--Monsieur, a revealing look! I +have not the demure and simple young lady of convention to deal with +at all. No. I go away from the Maison Crenelle, still more curious +about Betty Harlowe." + +Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side. + +"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously. + +"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder. + +"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately after you left the +Maison Crenelle that day you had the _sergent-de-ville_ removed from +its gates?" + +"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered imperturbably. +"The _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers was an absurdity--worse +than that, an actual hindrance. There is little use in watching +people who know that they are being watched. So I remove the +_sergent-de-ville_ and now I can begin really to watch those young +ladies of the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst Monsieur +Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, Betty Harlowe goes +out for a walk, is discreetly followed by Nicolas Moreau--and +vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. He must not press too close upon +her heels. She was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de +Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the wall +which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that she vanished. +There was the anonymous letter to be written, ready for me to receive +when the seals of the treasure-room were broken. But I don't know +that yet. No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for a +walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another street. +Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far as I can how these +young ladies pass their lives and who are their friends. An +examination not very productive, and not altogether futile. For I +find some curious friends in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe +this, Monsieur! Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, +literary, what you will--in their case curious friends mean nothing! +They are to be expected. But with a young girl who is to all +appearance leading the normal life of her class, the case is +different. In her case curious friends are--curious. The Espinosas, +Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc--flashy cheap people of that +type--how shall we account for them as friends of that delicate piece +of china, Betty Harlowe?" + +Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a trifle +disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa and Betty Harlowe. + +"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent so pleasantly in +the cool of the garden with the young ladies, I spent with the +Edinburgh Professor. And I prepared a little trap. Yes, and the +next morning I came early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little +trap. I replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its +obvious place." + +Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black cigarette from +his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to Jim. + +"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; and he tells me +that queer story about Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta close +to the shop of Jean Cladel. He may be lying. He may be speaking the +truth and what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits +in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which is now taking +hold of me. For if that poison was used, then some one who +understood the composition of drugs must have made the solution from +the paste upon the arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty +Harlowe! And the moment that animal has left me, I spring my trap; +and I have a success beyond all my expectations. I point to the +treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was not in its place +yesterday. It is to-day. Who then replaced it? I ask that question +and Mademoiselle Ann is utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that +book. That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On the +other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has replaced that book; +and in a most unwise moment of sarcasm, she allows me to see that she +knows. She knows that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it +since and replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she knows +where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I know it in my heart +that she put it under those magazines in Ann Upcott's room, although +I do not yet know it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to +divert suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should suspicion +arise. But innocent people do not do that, Monsieur. + +"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann tells us her story. +Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you immediately afterwards that all +great criminals who are women are great actresses. But never in my +life have I seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while +that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel murder has been +secretly committed and suddenly the murderess has to listen to a true +account of that murder in the presence of the detective who is there +to fix the guilt! There was some one at hand all the time--almost an +eye-witness--perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she cannot know that +she is safe until the last word of the story is told. Picture to +yourself Betty Harlowe's feelings during that hour in the pleasant +garden, if you can! The questions which must have been racing +through her mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and peer +through the lighted doorway? Does she know the truth--and has she +kept it hidden until this moment when Hanaud and Frobisher are +present and she can speak it safely? Will her next words be 'And +here at my side sits the murderess'? Those must have been terrible +moments for Betty Harlowe!" + +"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher added. + +"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She ran suddenly and +very swiftly into the house." + +"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her." + +"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go and she +returned----" + +"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher interrupted. + +"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud exclaimed. "She +turned her chair towards Mademoiselle Ann. She sat with her +handkerchief in her hand and her face against her handkerchief, +listening--the tender, sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann +told us that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness +overtook her--could not but overtake her. And in that moment of +weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, she picked it up again at +once. Yes, but where the handkerchief had fallen her foot now +rested, and when the story was all ended, and we got up from our +chairs, she spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that +there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was anxious to +discover what it was that she had brought out from the house in her +handkerchief, and had dropped with her handkerchief and had driven +with all the weight of her body into the turf so that no one might +see it. In fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come +back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She fetched my +gloves herself, much to my shame that I, Hanaud, should be waited on +by so exquisite a young lady. However, I found it afterwards when +you and Girardot and the others were all waiting for me in the +library. It was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed +to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much Ann Upcott was +going to reveal. The arrow-poison had been hidden away in the Hôtel +de Brebizart. But she had something else at hand--more rapid--death +like a thunderbolt. So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, +Monsieur, it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close to her +mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. What I do wonder is +that she did not topple straight off her chair in a dead faint before +us all. But no! She sat ready to swallow that tablet at once if +there were need, before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to +you, people who are innocent do not do that." + +Jim had no argument wherewith to answer. + +"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got the tablets no +doubt from Jean Cladel." + +"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated for luncheon +and in the afternoon the seals are to be removed. Before that takes +place, certain things must be done. The clock must be moved from the +mantelshelf in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some +letters too must be burnt." + +"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly. + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. + +"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For my part I +think those old letters between Simon Harlowe and Madame Raviart +alluded too often to the secret passage. But here I am guessing. +What I learnt for certain during that luncheon hour is that there is +a secret passage and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel +de Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no mistake. He +follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I from this tower see the +smoke rising from the chimney. Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no +smoke rises from it to-day." + +He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont Blanc. The trees +in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned roof, and the chimneys of +the Maison Crenelle stood out above the lesser buildings which +surrounded them. Only from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise +to-day, and that one at the extreme end of the building where the +kitchens were. + +"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are removed. We are +in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and something I cannot explain occurs." + +"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher exclaimed confidently; +and Hanaud grinned joyfully. + +"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" he cried. +"The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared for that. The guilt is +being transferred to Mademoiselle Ann. Good! But it is not enough +to hide the book about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide +her also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle inherits +nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds +vanishes, and you must draw from its vanishing what conclusion you +will. No, the little matter I cannot explain is different. Betty +Harlowe and our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom +to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not be heard there." + +"Yes." + +"Our good Girardot comes back." + +"Yes." + +"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot explain. +Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before I go into the +treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and quietly she has slipped in +amongst us again. I am very curious about that, my friend, and I +keep my eyes open for an explanation, I assure you." + +"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with your hand upon the +door and asked for Mademoiselle Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. +I attached no importance to her absence." + +Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was in the artist's +mood. The work was over, the long strain and pain of it. Now let +those outside admire! + +"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, Monsieur +Frobisher. But I answer a question in your memorandum. The instant +I am in the room, I look for the mouth of that secret passage from +the Hôtel de Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. +The elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the wall. +So I am very careful not to pry amongst its cushions for the poison +arrow; just as I am very careful not to ask for the envelope with the +post mark in which the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe +thinks that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud--good! Let her +think so. So we go upstairs and I find the explanation of that +little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence which has been so troubling +me." + +Jim Frobisher stared at him. + +"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into Ann Upcott's +sitting-room. I write my memorandum with the shaft of the poison +arrow and you notice it Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's +absence! No, I haven't got that." + +"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was not there in the +pen-tray on the day before, when I found the book. There was just +one pen--the foolish thing young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed +red--and nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there since. +When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where was that shaft of +the poison-arrow before? In one of two places. Either in the +treasure-room or in the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has +fetched it away during that hour of freedom; she carries it in her +dress; she seizes her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's +bedroom and--pau, pau!--there it is in the pen-tray of Mademoiselle +Ann, to make suspicion still more convincing! Monsieur, I walk away +with Monsieur Bex, who has some admirable scheme that I should search +the gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree--oh yes, that is +the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On the other hand I get +some useful information about the Maison Crenelle and the Hôtel de +Brebizart. I carry that information to a very erudite gentleman in +the Palace of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I know +all about the severe Etienne de Crenelle and the joyous Madame de +Brebizart. So when you and Betty Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val +Terzon, Nicolas Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de +Brebizart--with the results which now are clear to you, and one of +which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in the drawer +of the writing-table." + +Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the story was +clear to him now--a story of dark passions and vanity, and greed of +power with cruelties for its methods. Was there no spark of hope and +cheer in all this desolation? He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He +wished to know the last hidden detail. + +"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. What was it?" + +"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the façade of the +Church of Notre Dame." + +"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking towards the +Maison Crenelle, and his arm swept to the left of the house. His +fingers pointed at the Renaissance church with its cupolas and its +loggia, to which Betty Harlowe had driven him. + +"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief of the Last +Judgment." + +"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church of St. Michel, +Monsieur." + +He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont Blanc, close at his +feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic church, delicate in its +structure like a jewel. + +"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down and look at the +façade." + +Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and pointed to the +frieze. There Frobisher saw such images of devils half beast, half +human, such grinning hog-men, such tortured creatures with heads +twisted round so that they looked backwards, such old and drunken and +vicious horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and amongst +them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, her hands tightly +clasped, an image of terror and faith, a prisoner amongst all these +monsters imploring the passers-by for their pity and their help. + +"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to see," said +Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it." + +His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. He lifted his +hat. + +Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that frieze, heard +Ann Upcott's voice behind him. + +"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur Hanaud?" She +stopped beside the two men. + +"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher to explain to +you." + +Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly towards Hanaud. +But already he was gone. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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Mason + + + + + + + +

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The House of the Arrow, by A. E. W. Mason

+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at www.gutenberg.org. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +
+ +

Title: The House of the Arrow

+

Author: A. E. W. Mason

+

Release Date: February 26, 2022 [eBook #67514]
+[Last Updated: March 13, 2022]
+[Last updated: October 19, 2022]

+

Language: English

+

Produced by: Al Haines

+
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW ***
+ +

+

+ The
+ House of the Arrow
+

+ +

+ By
+

+ +

+ A. E. W. MASON
+

+ +



+ +

+ New York
+ George H. Doran Company
+

+ +




+ +

+ COPYRIGHT, 1924,
+ BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+

+ +


+ +

+ THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW
+

+ +


+ +

+ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+

+ +




+ +

+ Books by A. E. W. MASON
+

+ +

+ THE WINDING STAIR
+ THE FOUR FEATHERS
+ THE SUMMONS
+ THE BROKEN ROAD
+ MIRANDA OF THE BALCONY
+ CLEMENTINA
+ THE TURNSTILE
+ THE TRUANTS
+ AT THE VILLA ROSE
+ RUNNING WATER
+ THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER
+ THE PHILANDERERS
+ LAWRENCE CLAVERING
+ THE WATCHERS
+ A ROMANCE OF WASTDALE
+ ENSIGN KNIGHTLEY AND OTHER TALES
+ FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD
+

+ +




+ +

+ CONTENTS
+

+ +

+ CHAPTER
+

+ +

+ ONE: Letters of Mark
+ TWO: A Cry for Help
+ THREE: Servants of Chance
+ FOUR: Betty Harlowe
+ FIVE: Betty Harlowe Answers
+ SIX: Jim Changes His Lodging
+ SEVEN: Exit Waberski
+ EIGHT: The Book
+ NINE: The Secret
+ TEN: The Clock upon the Cabinet
+ ELEVEN: A New Suspect
+ TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals
+ THIRTEEN: Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room
+ FOURTEEN: An Experiment and a Discovery
+ FIFTEEN: The Finding of the Arrow
+ SIXTEEN: Hanaud Laughs
+ SEVENTEEN: At Jean Cladel's
+ EIGHTEEN: The White Tablet
+ NINETEEN: A Plan Frustrated
+ TWENTY: A Map and the Necklace
+ TWENTY-ONE: The Secret House
+ TWENTY-TWO: The Corona Machine
+ TWENTY-THREE: The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet
+ TWENTY-FOUR: Ann Upcott's Story
+ TWENTY-FIVE: What Happened on the Night of the 27th
+ TWENTY-SIX: The Façade of Notre Dame
+

+ +




+ +

+ +

+THE HOUSE OF THE ARROW +

+ +



+ +

+CHAPTER ONE: Letters of Mark +

+ +

+Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt, the solicitors +on the east side of Russell Square, counted amongst +their clients a great many who had undertakings +established in France; and the firm was very proud of this +branch of its business. +

+ +

+"It gives us a place in history," Mr. Jeremy Haslitt +used to say. "For it dates from the year 1806, when +Mr. James Frobisher, then our very energetic senior +partner, organised the escape of hundreds of British +subjects who were detained in France by the edict of the first +Napoleon. The firm received the thanks of His Majesty's +Government and has been fortunate enough to retain the +connection thus made. I look after that side of our +affairs myself." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt's daily batch of letters, therefore, contained +as a rule a fair number bearing the dark-blue stamp of +France upon their envelopes. On this morning of early +April, however, there was only one. It was addressed in +a spidery, uncontrolled hand with which Mr. Haslitt was +unfamiliar. But it bore the postmark of Dijon, and +Mr. Haslitt tore it open rather quickly. He had a client in +Dijon, a widow, Mrs. Harlowe, of whose health he had +had bad reports. The letter was certainly written from +her house, La Maison Crenelle, but not by her. He +turned to the signature. +

+ +

+"Waberski?" he said, with a frown. "Boris Waberski?" And +then, as he identified his correspondent, "Oh, +yes, yes." +

+ +

+He sat down in his chair and read. The first part of +the letter was merely flowers and compliments, but +half-way down the second page its object was made clear as +glass. It was five hundred pounds. Old Mr. Haslitt +smiled and read on, keeping up, whilst he read, a +one-sided conversation with the writer. +

+ +

+"I have a great necessity of that money," wrote Boris, +"and——" +

+ +

+"I am quite sure of that," said Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+"My beloved sister, Jeanne-Marie——" the letter +continued. +

+ +

+"Sister-in-law," Mr. Haslitt corrected. +

+ +

+"—cannot live for long, in spite of all the care and +attention I give to her," Boris Waberski went on. "She +has left me, as no doubt you know, a large share of her +fortune. Already, then, it is mine—yes? One may say +so and be favourably understood. We must look at the +facts with the eyes. Expedite me, then, by the +recommended post a little of what is mine and agree my +distinguished salutations." +

+ +

+Haslitt's smile became a broad grin. He had in one +of his tin boxes a copy of the will of Jeanne-Marie +Harlowe drawn up in due form by her French notary at +Dijon, by which every farthing she possessed was +bequeathed without condition to her husband's niece and +adopted daughter, Betty Harlowe. Jeremy Haslitt almost +destroyed that letter. He folded it; his fingers twitched +at it; there was already actually a tear at the edges of the +sheets when he changed his mind. +

+ +

+"No," he said to himself. "No! With the Boris +Waberskis one never knows," and he locked the letter +away on a ledge of his private safe. +

+ +

+He was very glad that he had when three weeks later +he read, in the obituary column of The Times, the +announcement of Mrs. Harlowe's death, and received a big +card with a very deep black border in the French style +from Betty Harlowe inviting him to the funeral at Dijon. +The invitation was merely formal. He could hardly have +reached Dijon in time for the ceremony had he started +off that instant. He contented himself with writing a few +lines of sincere condolence to the girl, and a letter to the +French notary in which he placed the services of the firm +at Betty's disposal. Then he waited. +

+ +

+"I shall hear again from little Boris," he said, and he +heard within the week. The handwriting was more +spidery and uncontrolled than ever; hysteria and indignation +had played havoc with Waberski's English; also he +had doubled his demand. +

+ +

+"It is outside belief," he wrote. "Nothing has she left +to her so attentive brother. There is something here I +do not much like. It must be one thousand pounds now, +by the recommended post. 'You have always had the +world against you, my poor Boris,' she say with the tears +all big in her dear eyes. 'But I make all right for you in +my will.' And now nothing! I speak, of course, to my +niece—ah, that hard one! She snap her the fingers at +me! Is that a behaviour? One thousand pounds, mister! +Otherwise there will be awkwardnesses! Yes! People +do not snap them the fingers at Boris Waberski without +the payment. So one thousand pounds by the recommended +post or awkwardnesses"; and this time Boris +Waberski did not invite Mr. Haslitt to agree any salutations, +distinguished or otherwise, but simply signed his +name with a straggling pen which shot all over the sheet. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt did not smile over this letter. He rubbed +the palms of his hands softly together. +

+ +

+"Then we shall have to make some awkwardnesses +too," he said hastily, and he locked this second letter +away with the first. But Mr. Haslitt found it a little +difficult to settle to his work. There was that girl out +there in the big house at Dijon and no one of her race +near her! He got up from his chair abruptly and crossed +the corridor to the offices of his junior partner. +

+ +

+"Jim, you were at Monte Carlo this winter," he said. +

+ +

+"For a week," answered Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"I think I asked you to call on a client of ours who +has a villa there—Mrs. Harlowe." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher nodded. "I did. But Mrs. Harlowe +was ill. There was a niece, but she was out." +

+ +

+"You saw no one, then?" Jeremy Haslitt asked. +

+ +

+"No, that's wrong," Jim corrected. "I saw a strange +creature who came to the door to make Mrs. Harlowe's +excuses—a Russian." +

+ +

+"Boris Waberski," said Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+"That's the name." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt sat down in a chair. +

+ +

+"Tell me about him, Jim." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stared at nothing for a few moments. +He was a young man of twenty-six who had only during +this last year succeeded to his partnership. Though quick +enough when action was imperative, he was naturally +deliberate in his estimates of other people's characters; and +a certain awe he had of old Jeremy Haslitt doubled that +natural deliberation in any matters of the firm's business. +He answered at length. +

+ +

+"He is a tall, shambling fellow with a shock of grey +hair standing up like wires above a narrow forehead and +a pair of wild eyes. He made me think of a marionette +whose limbs have not been properly strung. I should +imagine that he was rather extravagant and emotional. +He kept twitching at his moustache with very long, +tobacco-stained fingers. The sort of man who might go +off at the deep end at any moment." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt smiled. +

+ +

+"That's just what I thought." +

+ +

+"Is he giving you any trouble?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt. "But Mrs. Harlowe is +dead, and I think it very likely that he will. Did he play +at the tables?" +

+ +

+"Yes, rather high," said Jim. "I suppose that he lived +on Mrs. Harlowe." +

+ +

+"I suppose so," said Mr. Haslitt, and he sat for a little +while in silence. Then: "It's a pity you didn't see Betty +Harlowe. I stopped at Dijon once on my way to the +South of France five years ago when Simon Harlowe, the +husband, was alive. Betty was then a long-legged slip of +a girl in black silk stockings with a pale, clear face and +dark hair and big eyes—rather beautiful." Mr. Haslitt +moved in his chair uncomfortably. That old house with +its great garden of chestnuts and sycamores and that girl +alone in it with an aggrieved and half-crazed man thinking +out awkwardnesses for her—Mr. Haslitt did not like +the picture! +

+ +

+"Jim," he said suddenly, "could you arrange your work +so that you could get away at short notice, if it becomes +advisable?" +

+ +

+Jim looked up in surprise. Excursions and alarms, as +the old stage directions have it, were not recognised as a +rule by the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt. If its furniture +was dingy, its methods were stately; clients might be +urgent, but haste and hurry were words for which the +firm had no use No doubt, somewhere round the corner, +there would be an attorney who understood them. Yet +here was Mr. Haslitt himself, with his white hair and his +curious round face, half-babyish, half-supremely intelligent, +actually advocating that his junior partner should +be prepared to skip to the Continent at a word. +

+ +

+"No doubt I could," said Jim, and Mr. Haslitt looked +him over with approbation. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had an unusual quality of which his +acquaintances, even his friends, knew only the outward +signs. He was a solitary person. Very few people up +till now had mattered to him at all, and even those he +could do without. It was his passion to feel that his life +and the means of his life did not depend upon the +purchased skill of other people; and he had spent the spare +months of his life in the fulfilment of his passion. A +half-decked sailing-boat which one man could handle, an +ice-axe, a rifle, an inexhaustible volume or two like The +Ring and the Book—these with the stars and his own +thoughts had been his companions on many lonely expeditions; +and in consequence he had acquired a queer little +look of aloofness which made him at once noticeable +amongst his fellows. A misleading look, since it +encouraged a confidence for which there might not be +sufficient justification. It was just this look which persuaded +Mr. Haslitt now. "This is the very man to deal with +creatures like Boris Waberski," he thought, but he did +not say so aloud. +

+ +

+What he did say was: +

+ +

+"It may not be necessary after all. Betty Harlowe has +a French lawyer. No doubt he is adequate. Besides"—and +he smiled as he recollected a phrase in Waberski's +second letter—"Betty seems very capable of looking after +herself. We shall see." +

+ +

+He went back to his own office, and for a week he heard +no more from Dijon. His anxiety, indeed, was almost +forgotten when suddenly startling news arrived and by the +most unexpected channel. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher brought it. He broke into Mr. Haslitt's +office at the sacred moment when the senior partner was +dictating to a clerk the answers to his morning letters. +

+ +

+"Sir!" cried Jim, and stopped short at the sight of the +clerk. Mr. Haslitt took a quick look at his young +partner's face and said: +

+ +

+"We will resume these answers, Godfrey, later on." +

+ +

+The clerk took his shorthand notebook out of the room, +and Mr. Haslitt turned to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"Now, what's your bad news, Jim?" +

+ +

+Jim blurted it out. +

+ +

+"Waberski accuses Betty Harlowe of murder." +

+ +

+"What!" +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt sprang to his feet. Jim Frobisher could +not have said whether incredulity or anger had the upper +hand with the old man, the one so creased his forehead, +the other so blazed in his eyes. +

+ +

+"Little Betty Harlowe!" he said in a wondering voice. +

+ +

+"Yes. Waberski has laid a formal charge with the +Prefect of Police at Dijon. He accuses Betty of +poisoning Mrs. Harlowe on the night of April the +twenty-seventh." +

+ +

+"But Betty's not arrested?" Mr. Haslitt exclaimed. +

+ +

+"No, but she's under surveillance." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt sat heavily down in his arm-chair at his +table. Extravagant! Uncontrolled! These were very +mild epithets for Boris Waberski. Here was a devilish +malignity at work in the rogue, a passion for revenge +just as mean as could be imagined. +

+ +

+"How do you know all this, Jim?" he asked suddenly. +

+ +

+"I have had a letter this morning from Dijon." +

+ +

+"You?" exclaimed Mr. Haslitt, and the question caught +hold of Jim Frobisher and plunged him too among +perplexities. In the first shock of the news, the monstrous +fact of the accusation had driven everything else out of +his head. Now he asked himself why, after all, had the +news come to him and not to the partner who had the +Harlowe estate in his charge. +

+ +

+"Yes, it is strange," he replied. "And here's another +queer thing. The letter doesn't come from Betty +Harlowe, but from a friend, a companion of hers, Ann +Upcott." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt was a little relieved. +

+ +

+"Betty had a friend with her, then? That's a good +thing." He reached out his hand across the table. "Let +me read the letter, Jim." +

+ +

+Frobisher had been carrying it in his hand, and he +gave it now to Jeremy Haslitt. It was a letter of many +sheets, and Jeremy let the edges slip and flicker under the +ball of his thumb. +

+ +

+"Have I got to read all this?" he said ruefully, and +he set himself to his task. Boris Waberski had first of all +accused Betty to her face. Betty had contemptuously +refused to answer the charge, and Waberski had gone +straight off to the Prefect of Police. He had returned +in an hour's time, wildly gesticulating and talking aloud +to himself. He had actually asked Ann Upcott to back +him up. Then he had packed his bags and retired to an +hotel in the town. The story was set out in detail, with +quotations from Waberski's violent, crazy talk; and as +the old man read, Jim Frobisher became more and more +uneasy, more and more troubled. +

+ +

+He was sitting by the tall, broad window which looked +out upon the square, expecting some explosion of wrath +and contempt. But he saw anxiety peep out of Mr. Haslitt's +face and stay there as he read. More than once +he stopped altogether in his reading, like a man seeking +to remember or perhaps to discover. +

+ +

+"But the whole thing's as clear as daylight," Jim said +to himself impatiently. And yet—and yet—Mr. Haslitt +had sat in that arm-chair during the better part of the +day, during the better part of thirty years. How many +men and women during those years had crossed the +roadway below this window and crept into this quiet oblong +room with their grievances, their calamities, their +confessions? And had passed out again, each one contributing +his little to complete the old man's knowledge and sharpen +the edge of his wit? Then, if Mr. Haslitt was troubled, +there was something in that letter, or some mission from +it, which he himself in his novitiate had overlooked. He +began to read it over again in his mind to the best of his +recollection, but he had not got far before Mr. Haslitt +put the letter down. +

+ +

+"Surely, sir," cried Jim, "it's an obvious case of blackmail." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt awoke with a little shake of his shoulders. +

+ +

+"Blackmail? Oh! that of course, Jim." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt got up and unlocked his safe. He took +from it the two Waberski letters and brought them across +the room to Jim. +

+ +

+"Here's the evidence, as damning as any one could +wish." +

+ +

+Jim read the letters through and uttered a little cry of +delight. +

+ +

+"The rogue has delivered himself over to us." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+But to him, at all events, that was not enough; he was +still looking through the lines of the letter for something +beyond, which he could not find. +

+ +

+"Then what's troubling you?" asked Frobisher. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt took his stand upon the worn hearthrug +with his back towards the fire. +

+ +

+"This, Jim," and he began to expound. "In ninety-five +of these cases out of a hundred, there is something else, +something behind the actual charge, which isn't +mentioned, but on which the blackmailer is really banking. +As a rule it's some shameful little secret, some blot on +the family honour, which any sort of public trial would +bring to light. And there must be something of that kind +here. The more preposterous Waberski's accusation is, +the more certain it is that he knows something to the +discredit of the Harlowe name, which any Harlowe would +wish to keep dark. Only, I haven't an idea what the +wretched thing can be!" +

+ +

+"It might be some trifle," Jim suggested, "which a +crazy person like Waberski would exaggerate." +

+ +

+"Yes," Mr. Haslitt agreed. "That happens. A man +brooding over imagined wrongs, and flighty and +extravagant besides—yes, that might well be, Jim." +

+ +

+Jeremy Haslitt spoke in a more cheerful voice. +

+ +

+"Let us see exactly what we do know of the family," +he said, and he pulled up a chair to face Jim Frobisher +and the window. But he had not yet sat down in it, when +there came a discreet knock upon the door, and a clerk +entered to announce a visitor. +

+ +

+"Not yet," said Mr. Haslitt before the name of the +visitor had been mentioned. +

+ +

+"Very good, sir," said the clerk, and he retired. The +firm of Frobisher & Haslitt conducted its business in that +way. It was the real thing as a firm of solicitors, and +clients who didn't like its methods were very welcome to +take their affairs to the attorney round the corner. Just +as people who go to the real thing in the line of tailors +must put up with the particular style in which he cuts +their clothes. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt turned back to Jim. +

+ +

+"Let us see what we know," he said, and he sat down +in the chair. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWO: A Cry for Help +

+ +

+"Simon Harlow," he began, "was the owner of +the famous Clos du Prince vineyards on the Côte-d'Or +to the east of Dijon. He had an estate in Norfolk, +this big house, the Maison Crenelle in Dijon, and a villa +at Monte Carlo. But he spent most of his time in Dijon, +where at the age of forty-five he married a French lady, +Jeanne-Marie Raviart. There was, I believe, quite a +little romance about the affair. Jeanne-Marie was +married and separated from her husband, and Simon +Harlowe waited, I think, for ten years until the husband +Raviart died." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher moved quickly and Mr. Haslitt, who +seemed to be reading off this history in the pattern of +the carpet, looked up. +

+ +

+"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, replying to Jim's +movement. "Yes, there might have been some sort of +affair between those two before they were free to marry. +But nowadays, my dear Jim! Opinion takes a more +human view than it did in my youth. Besides, don't you +see, this little secret, to be of any value to Boris +Waberski, must be near enough to Betty Harlowe—I don't say +to affect her if published, but to make Waberski think +that she would hate to have it published. Now Betty +Harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all until two +years after Simon and Jeanne-Marie were married, when +it became clear that they were not likely to have any +children. No, the love-affairs of Simon Harlowe are +sufficiently remote for us to leave them aside." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with +a flush of shame. +

+ +

+"I was a fool to think of it," he said. +

+ +

+"Not a bit," replied Mr. Haslitt cheerfully. "Let us +look at every possibility. That's the only way which will +help us to get a glimpse of the truth. I resume, then. +Simon Harlowe was a collector. Yes, he had a passion +for collecting and a very catholic one. His one sitting-room +at the Maison Crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, +not only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things +too. He liked to live amongst them and do his work +amongst them. His married life did not last long. For +he died five years ago at the age of fifty-one." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections +amongst the convolutions of the carpet. +

+ +

+"That's really about all I know of him. He was a +pleasant fellow enough, but not very sociable. No, there's +nothing to light a candle for us there, I am afraid." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow. +

+ +

+"Jeanne-Marie Harlowe," he said. "It's extraordinary +how little I know about her, now I come to count it up. +Natural too, though. For she sold the Norfolk estate +and has since passed her whole time between Monte Carlo +and Dijon and—oh, yes—a little summer-house on the +Côte-d'Or amongst her vineyards." +

+ +

+"She was left rich, I suppose?" Frobisher asked. +

+ +

+"Very well off, at all events," Mr. Haslitt replied. +"The Clos du Prince Burgundy has a fine reputation, but +there's not a great deal of it." +

+ +

+"Did she come to England ever?" +

+ +

+"Never," said Mr. Haslitt. "She was content, it +seems, with Dijon, though to my mind the smaller +provincial towns of France are dull enough to make one +scream. However, she was used to it, and then her heart +began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has +been an invalid. There's nothing to help us there." And +Mr. Haslitt looked across to Jim for confirmation. +

+ +

+"Nothing," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Then we are only left the child Betty Harlowe and—oh, +yes, your correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, +Ann Upcott. Who is she, Jim? Where did she +spring from? How does she find herself in the Maison +Crenelle? Come, confess, young man," and Mr. Haslitt +archly looked at his junior partner. "Why should Boris +Waberski expect her support?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher threw his arms wide. +

+ +

+"I haven't an idea," he said. "I have never seen her. +I have never heard of her. I never knew of her existence +until that letter came this morning with her name signed +at the end of it." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt started up. He crossed the room to his +table and, fixing his folding glasses on the bridge of his +nose, he bent over the letter. +

+ +

+"But she writes to you, Jim," he objected. "'Dear +Mr. Frobisher,' she writes. She doesn't address the firm +at all"; and he waited, looking at Jim, expecting him to +withdraw this denial. +

+ +

+Jim, however, only shook his head. +

+ +

+"It's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "I can't +make head or tail of it"; and Mr. Haslitt could not doubt +now that he spoke the truth, so utterly and frankly baffled +the young man was. "Why should Ann Upcott write to +me? I have been asking myself that question for the last +half-hour. And why didn't Betty Harlowe write to you, +who have had her affairs in your care?" +

+ +

+"Ah!" +

+ +

+That last question helped Mr. Haslitt to an explanation. +His face took a livelier expression. +

+ +

+"The answer to that is in Waberski's, the second letter. +Betty—she snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. She +doesn't take the charge seriously. She will have left it +to the French notary to dispose of it. Yes—I think that +makes Ann Upcott's letter to you intelligible, too. The +ceremonies of the Law in a foreign country would +frighten a stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than +they would Betty Harlowe, who has lived for four years +in the midst of them. So she writes to the first name in +the title of the firm, and writes to him as a man. That's +it, Jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together in +his satisfaction. +

+ +

+"A girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing +to an abstraction. She wants to know that she's in +touch with a real person. So she writes, 'Dear +Mr. Frobisher.' That's it! You can take my word for it." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt walked back to his chair. But he did not +sit down in it; he stood with his hands in his pockets, +looking out of the window over Frobisher's head. +

+ +

+"But that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out +what is Boris Waberski's strong suit, does it? We +haven't a clue to it," he said ruefully. +

+ +

+To both of the men, indeed, Mr. Haslitt's flat, +unillumined narrative of facts, without a glimpse into the +characters of any of the participants in the little drama, +seemed the most unhelpful thing. Yet the whole truth +was written there—the truth not only of Waberski's +move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into +which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. +Jim Frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the +soul, he resumed his work in the office. For it was +interrupted now. +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's +head, saw a telegraph-boy come swinging across the +square and hesitate in the roadway below. +

+ +

+"I expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the +hopeful anticipation people in trouble have that +something from outside will happen and set them right. +

+ +

+Jim turned round quickly. The boy was still upon the +pavement examining the numbers of the houses. +

+ +

+"We ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said +Jim with a touch of impatience; and Mr. Haslitt's +eyebrows rose half the height of his forehead towards his +thick white hair. He was really distressed by the Waberski +incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in +the firm, shocked him like a sacrilege. +

+ +

+"My dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. +"I hope I am not one of those obstinate old fogies +who refuse to march with the times. We have had, as +you know, a telephone instrument recently installed in the +junior clerks' office. I believe that I myself proposed it. +But a brass plate upon the door! My dear Jim! Let us +leave that to Harley Street and Southampton Row! But +I see that telegram is for us." +

+ +

+The tiny Mercury with the shako and red cord to his +uniform made up his mind and disappeared into the hall +below. The telegram was brought upstairs and Mr. Haslitt +tore it open. He stared at it blankly for a few +seconds, then without a word, but with a very anxious +look in his eyes, he handed it to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher read: +

+ +

+Please, please, send some one to help me at once. +The Prefect of Police has called in Hanaud, a great +detective of the Sûrété in Paris. They must think +me guilty.—Betty Harlowe. +

+ +


+ +

+The telegram fluttered from Jim's fingers to the floor. +It was like a cry for help at night coming from a great +distance. +

+ +

+"I must go, sir, by the night boat," he said. +

+ +

+"To be sure!" said Mr. Haslitt a little absently. +

+ +

+Jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. His +chivalry was fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the +picture his imagination drew. The little girl, Betty +Harlowe! What age was she? Twenty-one! Not a day +more. She had been wandering with all the proud +indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found +her feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked +about her; and terror came and with it a wild cry for +help. +

+ +

+"Girls never notice danger signals," he said. "No, they +walk blindly into the very heart of catastrophe." Who +could tell what links of false and cunning evidence Boris +Waberski had been hammering away at in the dark, to +slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and ankle? +And with that question he was seized with a great +discouragement. +

+ +

+"We know very little of Criminal Procedure, even in +our own country, in this office," he said regretfully. +

+ +

+"Happily," said Mr. Haslitt with some tartness. With +him it was the Firm first and last. Messrs. Frobisher & +Haslitt never went in to the Criminal Courts. Litigation, +indeed, even of the purest kind was frowned upon. It is +true there was a small special staff, under the leadership +of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper +floor, like an unpresentable relation in a great house, +which did a little of that kind of work. But it only did +it for hereditary clients, and then as a favour. +

+ +

+"However," said Mr. Haslitt as he noticed Jim's +discomfort, "I haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be +equal to whatever is wanted. But remember, there's +something at the back of this which we here don't +know." +

+ +

+Jim shifted his position rather abruptly. This cry of +the old man was becoming parrot-like—a phrase, a +formula. Jim was thinking of the girl in Dijon and hearing +her piteous cry for help. She was not "snapping her +the fingers" now. +

+ +

+"It's a matter of common sense," Mr. Haslitt insisted. +"Take a comparison. Bath, for instance, would never +call in Scotland Yard over a case of this kind. There +would have to be the certainty of a crime first, and then +grave doubt as to who was the criminal. This is a case +for an autopsy and the doctors. If they call in this man +Hanaud"—and he stopped. +

+ +

+He picked the telegram up from the floor and read it +through again. +

+ +

+"Yes—Hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and +growing bright and clouding again like a man catching at +and just missing a very elusive recollection. He gave up +the pursuit in the end. "Well, Jim, you had better take +the two letters of Waberski, and Ann Upcott's three-volume +novel, and Betty's telegram"—he gathered the +papers together and enclosed them in a long envelope—"and +I shall expect you back again with a smiling face in +a very few days. I should like to see our little Boris when +he is asked to explain those letters." +

+ +

+Mr. Haslitt gave the envelope to Jim and rang his bell. +

+ +

+"There is some one waiting to see me, I think," he +said to the clerk who answered it. +

+ +

+The clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking +his heels during the last half-hour in an undusted +waiting-room with a few mouldy old Law books in a +battered glass case to keep him company. +

+ +

+"You can show him in now," said Mr. Haslitt as Jim +retired to his own office; and when the great landowner +entered, he merely welcomed him with a reproach. +

+ +

+"You didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said. +

+ +

+But all through that interview, though his advice was +just the precise, clear advice for which the firm was +quietly famous, Mr. Haslitt's mind was still playing +hide-and-seek with a memory, catching glimpses of the fringes +of its skirt as it gleamed and vanished. +

+ +

+"Memory is a woman," he said to himself. "If I don't +run after her she will come of her own accord." +

+ +

+But he was in the common case of men with women: +he could not but run after her. Towards the end of the +interview, however, his shoulders and head moved with a +little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip of paper. +As soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent +it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an +answer. The messenger returned within the hour and +Mr. Haslitt hurried to Jim Frobisher's office. +

+ +

+Jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various +clerks and was locking up the drawers of his desk. +

+ +

+"Jim, I have remembered where I have heard the name +of this man Hanaud before. You have met Julius +Ricardo? He's one of our clients." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Frobisher. "I remember him—a rather +finnicking person in Grosvenor Square." +

+ +

+"That's the man. He's a friend of Hanaud and +absurdly proud of the friendship. He and Hanaud were +somehow mixed up in a rather scandalous crime some +time ago—at Aix-les-Bains, I think. Well, Ricardo will +give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you +something about him, if you will go round to Grosvenor +Square at five this afternoon." +

+ +

+"Capital!" said Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+He kept the appointment, and was told how he must +expect to be awed at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly +at the next, ridiculed at a third, and treated with +great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. Jim +discounted Mr. Ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter +and crossed the Channel that night. On the journey it +occurred to him that if Hanaud was a man of such high +mark, he would not be free, even at an urgent call, to +pack his bags and leave for the provinces in an instant. +Jim broke his journey, therefore, at Paris, and in the +course of the morning found his way to the Direction of +the Sûrété on the Quai d'Horloge just behind the Palais +de Justice. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter +took his card and his letter of introduction. The great +man was still in Paris, then, he thought with relief. He +was taken to a long dark corridor, lit with electric globes +even on that bright morning of early summer. There +he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for +half an hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. +Then a bell rang and a policeman in plain clothes went +up to him. One side of the corridor was lined with a +row of doors. +

+ +

+"It is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led +Frobisher to one of the doors and opened it, and +stood aside. Frobisher straightened his shoulders and +marched in. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER THREE: Servants of Chance +

+ +

+Frobisher found himself at one end of an oblong +room. Opposite to him a couple of windows looked +across the shining river to the big Théâtre du Chatelet +On his left hand was a great table with a few neatly +arranged piles of papers, at which a big, rather +heavily-built man was sitting. Frobisher looked at that man as +a novice in a duelling field might look at the master +swordsman whom he was committed to fight; with a little +shock of surprise that after all he appeared to be just +like other men. Hanaud, on his side, could not have +been said to have looked at Frobisher at all; yet when he +spoke it was obvious that somehow he had looked and to +very good purpose. He rose with a little bow and apologised. +

+ +

+"I have kept you waiting, Mr. Frobisher. My dear +friend Mr. Ricardo did not mention your object in his +letter. I had the idea that you came with the usual +wish to see something of the underworld. Now that +I see you, I recognise your wish is more serious." +

+ +

+Hanaud was a man of middle age with a head of +thick dark hair, and the round face and shaven chin of +a comedian. A pair of remarkably light eyes under +rather heavy lids alone gave a significance to him, at +all events when seen for the first time in a mood of +good-will. He pointed to a chair. +

+ +

+"Will you take a seat? I will tell you, Mr. Frobisher, +I have a very soft place in my heart for Mr. Ricardo, and +a friend of his—— These are words, however. What +can I do?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher laid down his hat and stick upon a side +table and took the chair in front of Hanaud's table. +

+ +

+"I am partner in a firm of lawyers which looks after +the English interests of a family in Dijon," he said, and +he saw all life and expression smoothed out of Hanaud's +face. A moment ago he had been in the company of a +genial and friendly companion; now he was looking at +a Chinaman. +

+ +

+"Yes?" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"The family has the name of Harlowe," Jim continued. +

+ +

+"Oho!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+The ejaculation had no surprise in it, and hardly any +interest. Jim, however, persisted. +

+ +

+"And the surviving member of it, a girl of twenty, +Betty Harlowe, has been charged with murder by a +Russian who is connected with the family by +marriage—Boris Waberski." +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud. "And why do you come to me, +Mr. Frobisher?" +

+ +

+Jim stared at the detective. The reason of his coming +was obvious. +

+ +

+And yet—he was no longer sure of his ground. +Hanaud had pulled open a drawer in his table and was +beginning to put away in it one of his files. +

+ +

+"Yes?" he said, as who should say, "I am listening." +

+ +

+"Well, perhaps I am under a mistake," said Jim. "But +my firm has been informed that you, Monsieur Hanaud, +are in charge of the case," he said, and Hanaud's movements +were at once arrested. He sat with the file poised +on the palm of his hand as though he was weighing it, +extraordinarily still; and Jim had a swift impression that +he was more than disconcerted. Then Hanaud put the +file into the drawer and closed the drawer softly. As +softly he spoke, but in a sleek voice which to Frobisher's +ears had a note in it which was actually alarming. +

+ +

+"So you have been informed of that, Mr. Frobisher! +And in London! And—yes—this is only Wednesday! +News travels very quickly nowadays, to be sure! Well, +your firm has been correctly informed. I congratulate +you. The first point is scored by you." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was quick to seize upon that word. He +had thought out upon his journey in what spirit he might +most usefully approach the detective. Hanaud's bitter +little remark gave him the very opening which he needed. +

+ +

+"But, Monsieur Hanaud, I don't take that point of +view at all," he argued earnestly. "I am happy to believe +that there is going to be no antagonism between us. For, +if there were, I should assuredly get the worst of it. +No! I am certain that the one wish you have in this +matter is to get at the truth. Whilst my wish is that +you should just look upon me as a very second-rate +colleague who by good fortune can give you a little help." +

+ +

+A smile flickered across Hanaud's face and restored it +to some of its geniality. +

+ +

+"It has always been a good rule to lay it on with a +trowel," he observed. "Now, what kind of help, +Mr. Frobisher?" +

+ +

+"This kind of help, Monsieur Hanaud. Two letters +from Boris Waberski demanding money, the second one +with threats. Both were received by my firm before he +brought this charge, and both of course remain +unanswered." +

+ +

+He took the letters from the long envelope and handed +them across the table to Hanaud, who read them through +slowly, mentally translating the phrases into French as +he read. Frobisher watched his face for some expression +of relief or satisfaction. But to his utter disappointment +no such change came; and it was with a deprecating and +almost regretful air that Hanaud turned to him in the +end. +

+ +

+"Yes—no doubt these two letters have a certain +importance. But we mustn't exaggerate it. The case is very +difficult." +

+ +

+"Difficult!" cried Jim in exasperation. He seemed to +be hammering and hammering in vain against some thick +wall of stupidity. Yet this man in front of him wasn't +stupid. +

+ +

+"I can't understand it!" he exclaimed. "Here's the +clearest instance of blackmail that I can imagine——" +

+ +

+"Blackmail's an ugly word, Mr. Frobisher," Hanaud +warned him. +

+ +

+"And blackmail's an ugly thing," said Jim. "Come, +Monsieur Hanaud, Boris Waberski lives in France. You +will know something about him. You will have a +dossier." +

+ +

+Hanaud pounced upon the word with a little whoop +of delight, his face broke into smiles, he shook a +forefinger gleefully at his visitor. +

+ +

+"Ah, ah, ah, ah! A dossier! Yes, I was waiting for +that word! The great legend of the dossiers! You have +that charming belief too, Mr. Frobisher. France and her +dossiers! Yes. If her coal-mines fail her, she can always +keep warm by burning her dossiers! The moment you +land for the first time at Calais—bourn! your dossier +begins, eh? You travel to Paris—so! You dine at the +Ritz Hotel—so! Afterwards you go where you ought +not to go—so-o-o! And you go back late to the hotel +very uncomfortable because you are quite sure that somewhere +in the still night six little officials with black beards +and green-shaded lamps are writing it all down in your +dossier. But—wait!" +

+ +

+He suddenly rose from his chair with his finger to his +lips, and his eyes opened wide. Never was a man so +mysterious, so important in his mystery. He stole on +tiptoe, with a lightness of step amazing in so bulky a man, +to the door. Noiselessly and very slowly, with an alert, +bright eye cocked at Frobisher like a bird's, he turned the +handle. Then he jerked the door swiftly inwards towards +him. It was the classic detection of the eavesdropper, +seen in a hundred comedies and farces; and carried out +with so excellent a mimicry that Jim, even in this office of +the Sûrété, almost expected to see a flustered chambermaid +sprawl heavily forward on her knees. He saw nothing, +however, but a grimy corridor lit with artificial light +in which men were patiently waiting. Hanaud closed the +door again, with an air of intense relief. +

+ +

+"The Prime Minister has not overheard us. We are +safe," he hissed, and he crept back to Frobisher's side. +He stooped and whispered in the ear of that bewildered +man: +

+ +

+"I can tell you about those dossiers. They are for +nine-tenths the gossip of the concièrge translated into the +language of a policeman who thinks that everybody had +better be in prison. Thus, the concièrge says: This +Mr. Frobisher—on Tuesday he came home at one in the +morning and on Thursday at three in fancy dress; and in the +policeman's report it becomes, 'Mr. Frobisher is of a loose +and excessive life.' And that goes into your dossier—yes, +my friend, just so! But here in the Sûrété—never +breathe a word of it, or you ruin me!—here we are like +your Miss Betty Harlowe, 'we snap us the fingers at those +dossiers.'" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher's mind was of the deliberate order. To +change from one mood to another required a progression +of ideas. He hardly knew for the moment whether he +was upon his head or his heels. A minute ago Hanaud +had been the grave agent of Justice; without a hint he +had leaped to buffoonery, and with a huge enjoyment. +He had become half urchin, half clown. Jim could almost +hear the bells of his cap still tinkling. He simply stared, +and Hanaud with a rueful smile resumed his seat. +

+ +

+"If we work together at Dijon, Monsieur Frobisher," +he said with whimsical regret, "I shall not enjoy myself +as I did with my dear little friend Mr. Ricardo at Aix. +No, indeed! Had I made this little pantomime for him, +he would have sat with the eyes popping out of his head. +He would have whispered, 'The Prime Minister comes +in the morning to spy outside your door—oh!' and he +would have been thrilled to the marrow of his bones. But +you—you look at me all cold and stony, and you say to +yourself, 'This Hanaud, he is a comic!'" +

+ +

+"No," said Jim earnestly, and Hanaud interrupted the +protest with a laugh. +

+ +

+"It does not matter." +

+ +

+"I am glad," said Jim. "For you just now said something +which I am very anxious you should not withdraw. +You held me out a hope that we should work together." Hanaud +leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. +

+ +

+"Listen," he said genially. "You have been frank and +loyal with me. So I relieve your mind. This Waberski +affair—the Prefect at Dijon does not take it very +seriously; neither do I here. It is, of course, a charge of +murder, and that has to be examined with care." +

+ +

+"Of course." +

+ +

+"And equally, of course, there is some little thing +behind it," Hanaud continued, surprising Frobisher with +the very words which Mr. Haslitt had used the day +before, though the one spoke in English and the other in +French. "As a lawyer you will know that. Some little +unpleasant fact which is best kept to ourselves. But it is +a simple affair, and with these two letters you have +brought me, simpler than ever. We shall ask Waberski +to explain these letters and some other things too, if he +can. He is a type, that Boris Waberski! The body of +Madame Harlowe will be exhumed to-day and the evidence +of the doctors taken, and afterwards, no doubt, +the case will be dismissed and you can deal with Waberski +as you please." +

+ +

+"And that little secret?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. +

+ +

+"No doubt it will come to light. But what does that +matter if it only comes to light in the office of the +examining magistrate, and does not pass beyond the door?" +

+ +

+"Nothing at all," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"You will see. We are not so alarming after all, and +your little client can put her pretty head upon the pillow +without any fear that an injustice will be done to her." +

+ +

+"Thank you, Monsieur Hanaud!" Jim Frobisher cried +warmly. He was conscious of so great a relief that he +himself was surprised by it. He had been quite captured +by his pity for that unknown girl in the big house, set +upon by a crazy rascal and with no champion but another +girl of her own years. "Yes, this is good news to me." +

+ +

+But he had hardly finished speaking before a doubt +crept into his mind as to the sincerity of the man sitting +opposite to him. Jim did not mean to be played and +landed like a silly fish, however inexperienced he might +be. He looked at Hanaud and wondered. Was this +present geniality of his any less assumed than his other +moods? Jim was unsettled in his estimate of the +detective. One moment a judge, and rather implacable, now +an urchin, now a friend! Which was travesty and which +truth? Luckily there was a test question which +Mr. Haslitt had put only yesterday as he looked out from the +window across Russell Square. Jim now repeated it. +

+ +

+"The affair is simple, you say?" +

+ +

+"Of the simplest." +

+ +

+"Then how comes it, Monsieur Hanaud, that the examining +judge at Dijon still finds it necessary to call in to +his assistance one of the chiefs of the Sûrété of Paris?" +

+ +

+The question was obviously expected, and no less +obviously difficult to answer. Hanaud nodded his head once +or twice. +

+ +

+"Yes," he said, and again "Yes," like a man in doubt. +He looked at Jim with appraising eyes. Then with a +rush, "I shall tell you everything, and when I have told +you, you will give me your word that you will not betray +my confidence to any one in this world. For this is +serious." +

+ +

+Jim could not doubt Hanaud's sincerity at this moment, +nor his friendliness. They shone in the man like a strong +flame. +

+ +

+"I give you my word now," he said, and he reached out +his hand across the table. Hanaud shook it. "I can talk +to you freely, then," he answered, and he produced a little +blue bundle of very black cigarettes. "You shall smoke." +

+ +

+The two men lit their cigarettes and through the blue +cloud Hanaud explained: +

+ +

+"I go really to Dijon on quite another matter. This +Waberski affair, it is a pretence! The examining judge +who calls me in—see, now, you have a phrase for him," +and Hanaud proudly dropped into English more or less. +"He excuse his face! Yes, that is your expressive idiom. +He excuse his face, and you will see, my friend, that it +needs a lot of excusing, that face of his, yes. Now listen! +I get hot when I think of that examining judge." +

+ +

+He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and, setting +his sentence in order, resumed in French. +

+ +

+"The little towns, my friend, where life is not very +gay and people have the time to be interested in the affairs +of their neighbours, have their own crimes, and perhaps +the most pernicious of them all is the crime of anonymous +letters. Suddenly out of a clear sky they will come like +a pestilence, full of vile charges difficult to refute +and—who knows?—sometimes perhaps true. For a while +these abominations flow into the letter-boxes and not a +word is said. If money is demanded, money is paid. If +it is only sheer wickedness which drives that unknown +pen, those who are lashed by it none the less hold their +tongues. But each one begins to suspect his neighbour. +The social life of the town is poisoned. A great canopy +of terror hangs over it, until the postman's knock, a thing +so welcome in the sane life of every day, becomes a thing +to shiver at, and in the end dreadful things happen." +

+ +

+So grave and quiet was the tone which Hanaud used +that Jim himself shivered, even in this room whence he +could see the sunlight sparkling on the river and hear +the pleasant murmur of the Paris streets. Above that +murmur he heard the sharp knock of the postman upon +the door. He saw a white face grow whiter and still +eyes grow haggard with despair. +

+ +

+"Such a plague has descended upon Dijon," Hanaud +continued. "For more than a year it has raged. The +police would not apply to Paris for help. No, they did +not need help, they would solve this pretty problem for +themselves. Yes, but the letters go on and the citizens +complain. The police say, 'Hush! The examining +magistrate, he has a clue. Give him time!' But the +letters still go on. Then after a year comes this godsend +of the Waberski affair. At once the Prefect of Police +and the magistrate put their heads together. 'We will +send for Hanaud over this simple affair, and he will find +for us the author of the anonymous letters. We will +send for him very privately, and if any one recognises +him in the street and cries "There is Hanaud," we can say +he is investigating the Waberski affair. Thus the writer +of the letters will not be alarmed and we—we excuse our +faces.' Yes," concluded Hanaud heatedly, "but they +should have sent for me a year ago. They have lost a +year." +

+ +

+"And during that year the dreadful things have +happened?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded angrily. +

+ +

+"An old, lonely man who lunches at the hotel and takes +his coffee at the Grande Taverne and does no harm to any +one, he flings himself in front of the Mediterranean +express and is cut to pieces. A pair of lovers shoot +themselves in the Forêt des Moissonières. A young girl comes +home from a ball; she says good night to her friends gaily +on the doorstep of her house, and in the morning she is +found hanging in her ball dress from a rivet in the wall +of her bedroom, whilst in the hearth there are the burnt +fragments of one of these letters. How many had she +received, that poor girl, before this last one drove her to +this madness? Ah, the magistrate. Did I not tell you? +He has need to excuse his face." +

+ +

+Hanaud opened a drawer in his desk and took from it +a green cover. +

+ +

+"See, here are two of those precious letters," and +removing two typewritten sheets from the cover he handed +them to Frobisher. "Yes," he added, as he saw the disgust +on the reader's face, "those do not make a nice sauce +for your breakfast, do they?" +

+ +

+"They are abominable," said Jim. "I wouldn't have +believed——" he broke off with a little cry. "One +moment, Monsieur Hanaud!" He bent his head again over +the sheets of paper, comparing them, scrutinising each +sentence. No, there were only the two errors which he +had noticed at once. But what errors they were! To +any one, at all events, with eyes to see and some luck in +the matter of experience. Why, they limited the area of +search at once! +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud, I can give you some more help," +he cried enthusiastically. He did not notice the broad +grin of delight which suddenly transfigured the detective's +face. "Help which may lead you very quickly to the +writer of these letters." +

+ +

+"You can?" Hanaud exclaimed. "Give it to me, my +young friend. Do not keep me shaking in excitement. +And do not—oh! do not tell me that you have discovered +that the letters were typed upon a Corona machine. For +that we know already." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher flushed scarlet. That is just what he +had noticed with so much pride in his perspicuity. Where +the text of a sentence required a capital D, there were +instead the two noughts with the diagonal line separating +them (thus, %), which are the symbol of "per cent."; +and where there should have been a capital S lower down +the page, there was the capital S with the transverse lines +which stands for dollars. Jim was familiar with the +Corona machine himself, and he had remembered that if +one used by error the stop for figures, instead of the stop +for capital letters, those two mistakes would result. He +realised now, with Hanaud's delighted face in front of +him—Hanaud was the urchin now—that the Sûrété was +certain not to have overlooked those two indications even +if the magistrate at Dijon had; and in a moment he began +to laugh too. +

+ +

+"Well, I fairly asked for it, didn't I?" he said as he +handed the letter back. "I said a wise thing to you, +Monsieur, when I held it fortunate that we were not to be +on opposite sides." +

+ +

+Hanaud's face lost its urchin look. +

+ +

+"Don't make too much of me, my friend, lest you be +disappointed," he said in all seriousness. "We are the +servants of Chance, the very best of us. Our skill is to +seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when it flashes for the +fraction of a second before our eyes." +

+ +

+He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green +cover and laid it again in the drawer. Then he gathered +together the two letters which Boris Waberski had +written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will +go there to-day?" +

+ +

+"This afternoon." +

+ +

+"Good!" said Hanaud. "I shall take the night express." +

+ +

+"I can wait for that," said Jim. But Hanaud shook +his head. +

+ +

+"It is better that we should not go together, nor stay +at the same hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon +that you are the English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and +those in your company will be marked men too. By the +way, how were you informed in London that I, Hanaud, +had been put in charge of this case?" +

+ +

+"We had a telegram," replied Jim. +

+ +

+"Yes? And from whom? I am curious!" +

+ +

+"From Miss Harlowe." +

+ +

+For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that +interview quite disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher +could have no doubt. He sat for so long a time, his cigarette +half-way to his lips, a man turned into stone. Then +he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned on +Jim. +

+ +

+"Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?" +he asked. "I am putting to myself a riddle. +Answer it if you can! What is the strongest passion in +the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of these +things. It is the passion of one public official to take a +great big club and hit his brother official on the back of +the head. It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon +so that I may have some little chance of success. Good! +On Saturday it is so arranged, and already on Monday +my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss Harlowe +can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is +kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?" +

+ +

+Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it +to Hanaud, who received it with a curious eagerness and +opened it out on the table in front of them. He read it +very slowly, so slowly that Jim wondered whether he too +heard through the lines of the telegram, as through the +receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help +which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud +raised his face all the bitterness had gone from it. +

+ +

+"The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The +slender fingers, they do not snap themselves any longer, +eh? Well, in a few days we make all right for her." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim stoutly. +

+ +

+"Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?" and Hanaud held +up the telegraph form. "It mentions my name. It will +be safe with you, no doubt, but it serves no purpose. +Everything which is torn up here is burnt in the evening. +It is for you to say," and he dangled the telegram before +Jim Frobisher's eyes. +

+ +

+"By all means," said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram +across. Then he placed the torn pieces together and +tore them through once again and dropped them into his +waste-paper basket. "So! That is done!" he said. +"Now tell me! There is another young English girl in +the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott," said Jim with a nod. +

+ +

+"Yes, tell me about her." +

+ +

+Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made +to Mr. Haslitt. +

+ +

+"I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her +until yesterday." +

+ +

+But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with +amazement, Hanaud accepted it without comment. +

+ +

+"Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that +young lady at Dijon," he said with a smile, and he rose +from his chair. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which +had begun badly and moved on to cordiality was turning +back upon itself and ending not too well. He was +conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud's manner, not a +diminution in his friendliness, but—Jim could find +nothing but Hanaud's own phrase to define the change. He +seemed to have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as +it flickered for a second within his range of vision. But +when it had flickered Jim could not even conjecture. +

+ +

+He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already +at the door with his hand upon the knob. +

+ +

+"Good-bye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you +sincerely for your visit." +

+ +

+"I shall see you in Dijon," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Surely," Hanaud agreed with a smile. "On many +occasions. In the office, perhaps, of the examining +magistrate. No doubt in the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration +which Hanaud had appeared a few minutes ago not +merely to accept, but even to look forward to. Now, on +the contrary, he was evading it. +

+ +

+"But if we are to work together?" Jim suggested. +

+ +

+"You might want to reach me quickly," Hanaud +continued. "Yes. And I might want to reach you, if not +so quickly, still very secretly. Yes." He turned the +question over in his mind. "You will stay at the Maison +Crenelle, I suppose?" +

+ +

+"No," said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from +Hanaud's little start of disappointment. "There will be +no need for that," he explained. "Boris Waberski can +attempt nothing more. Those two girls will be safe +enough." +

+ +

+"That's true," Hanaud agreed. "You will go, then, +to the big hotel in the Place Darcy. For me I shall stay +in one that is more obscure, and not under my own name. +Whatever chance of secrecy is still left for me, that I +shall cling to." +

+ +

+He did not volunteer the name of the obscure hotel or +the name under which he proposed to masquerade, and +Jim was careful not to inquire. Hanaud stood with his +hand upon the knob of the door and his eyes thoughtfully +resting upon Frobisher's face. +

+ +

+"I will trust you with a little trick of mine," he said, +and a smile warmed and lit his face to good humour. +"Do you like the pictures? No—yes? For me, I adore +them. Wherever I go I snatch an hour for the cinema. +I behold wonderful things and I behold them in the +dark—so that while I watch I can talk quietly with a +friend, and when the lights go up we are both gone, and +only our empty bocks are left to show where we were +sitting. The cinemas—yes! With their audiences which +constantly change and new people coming in who sit +plump down upon your lap because they cannot see an +inch beyond their noses, the cinemas are useful, I tell +you. But you will not betray my little secret?" +

+ +

+He ended with a laugh. Jim Frobisher's spirits were +quite revived by this renewal of Hanaud's confidence. He +felt with a curious elation that he had travelled a long +way from the sedate dignities of Russell Square. He +could not project in his mind any picture of +Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt meeting a client in a dark corner +of a cinema theatre off the Marylebone Road. Such +manoeuvres were not amongst the firm's methods, and Jim +began to find the change exhilarating. Perhaps, after +all, Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt were a little musty, he +reflected. They missed—and he coined a phrase, he, Jim +Frobisher! ... they missed the ozone of police-work. +

+ +

+"Of course I'll keep your secret," he said with a thrill +in his voice. "I should never have thought of so capital +a meeting-place." +

+ +

+"Good," said Hanaud. "Then at nine o'clock each +night, unless there is something serious to prevent me, I +shall be sitting in the big hall of the Grande Taverne. +The Grande Taverne is at the corner across the square +from the railway station. You can't mistake it. I shall +be on the left-hand side of the hall and close up to the +screen and at the edge near the billiard-room. Don't look +for me when the lights are raised, and if I am talking to +any one else, you will avoid me like poison. Is that +understood?" +

+ +

+"Quite," Jim returned. +

+ +

+"And you have now two secrets of mine to keep." Hanaud's +face lost its smile. In some strange way it +seemed to sharpen, the light-coloured eyes became very +still and grave. "That also is understood, Monsieur +Frobisher," he said. "For I begin to think that we may both +of us see strange things before we leave Dijon again for +Paris." +

+ +

+The moment of gravity passed. With a bow he held +open the door. But Jim Frobisher, as he passed out into +the corridor, was once again convinced that at some +definite point in the interview Hanaud had at all events +caught a glimpse of the flickering skirts of Chance, even +if he had not grasped them in his hands. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FOUR: Betty Harlowe +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher reached Dijon that night at an hour +too late for any visit, but at half-past nine on the next +morning he turned with a thrill of excitement into the +little street of Charles-Robert. This street was bordered +upon one side, throughout its length, by a high garden +wall above which great sycamores and chestnut trees +rustled friendlily in a stir of wind. Towards the farther +mouth of the street the wall was broken, first by the end of +a house with a florid observation-window of the +Renaissance period which overhung the footway; and again a +little farther on by a pair of elaborate tall iron gates. +Before these gates Jim came to a standstill. He gazed into +the courtyard of the Maison Crenelle, and as he gazed +his excitement died away and he felt a trifle ashamed of +it. There seemed so little cause for excitement. +

+ +

+It was a hot, quiet, cloudless morning. On the left-hand +side of the court women-servants were busy in front +of a row of offices; at the end Jim caught glimpses of a +chauffeur moving between a couple of cars in a garage, +and heard him whistling gaily as he moved; on the right +stretched the big house, its steep slate roof marked out +gaily with huge diamond patterns of bright yellow, taking +in the sunlight through all its open windows. The hall +door under the horizontal glass fan stood open. One +of the iron gates, too, was ajar. Even the sergent-de-ville +in his white trousers out in the small street here seemed +to be sheltering from the sun in the shadow of the high +wall rather than exercising any real vigilance. It was +impossible to believe, with all this pleasant evidence of +normal life, that any threat was on that house or upon +any of its inhabitants. +

+ +

+"And indeed there is no threat," Jim reflected. "I +have Hanaud's word for it." +

+ +

+He pushed the gate open and crossed to the front door. +An old serving-man informed him that Mademoiselle +Harlowe did not receive, but he took Jim's card nevertheless, +and knocked upon a door on the right of the big +square hall. As he knocked, he opened the door; and +from his position in the hall Jim looked right through a +library to a window at the end and saw two figures +silhouetted against the window, a man and a girl. The man +was protesting, rather extravagantly both in word and +gesture, to Jim's Britannic mind, the girl laughing—a +clear, ringing laugh, with just a touch of cruelty, at the +man's protestations. Jim even caught a word or two of +the protest spoken in French, but with a curiously metallic +accent. +

+ +

+"I have been your slave too long," the man cried, and +the girl became aware that the door was open and that +the old man stood inside of it with a card upon a silver +salver. She came quickly forward and took the card. +Jim heard the cry of pleasure, and the girl came running +out into the hall. +

+ +

+"You!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. "I had no +right to expect you so soon. Oh, thank you!" and she +gave him both her hands. +

+ +

+Jim did not need her words to recognise in her the +"little girl" of Mr. Haslitt's description. Little in actual +height Betty Harlowe certainly was not, but she was such +a slender trifle of a girl that the epithet seemed in place. +Her hair was dark brown in colour, with a hint of copper +where the light caught it, parted on one side and very +neatly dressed about her small head. The broad forehead +and oval face were of a clear pallor and made vivid +the fresh scarlet of her lips; and the large pupils of her +grey eyes gave to her a look which was at once haunting +and wistful. As she held out her hands in a warm +gratitude and seized his, she seemed to him a creature of +delicate flame and fragile as fair china. She looked him +over with one swift comprehensive glance and breathed +a little sigh of relief. +

+ +

+"I shall give you all my troubles to carry from now +on," she said, with a smile. +

+ +

+"To be sure. That's what I am here for," he +answered. "But don't take me for anything very choice +and particular." +

+ +

+Betty laughed again and, holding him by the sleeve, +drew him into the library. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Espinosa," she said, presenting the stranger +to Jim. "He is from Cataluna, but he spends so much +of his life in Dijon that we claim him as a citizen." +

+ +

+The Catalan bowed and showed a fine set of strong +white teeth. +

+ +

+"Yes, I have the honour to represent a great Spanish +firm of wine-growers. We buy the wines here to mix +with our better brands, and we sell wine here to mix with +their cheaper ones." +

+ +

+"You mustn't give your trade secrets away to me," Jim +replied shortly. He disliked Espinosa on sight, as they +say, and he was at no very great pains to conceal his +dislike. Espinosa was altogether too brilliant a personage. +He was a big, broad-shouldered man with black shining +hair and black shining eyes, a florid complexion, a curled +moustache, and gleaming rings upon his fingers. +

+ +

+"Mr. Frobisher has come from London to see me on +quite different business," Betty interposed. +

+ +

+"Yes?" said the Catalan a little defiantly, as though he +meant to hold his ground. +

+ +

+"Yes," replied Betty, and she held out her hand to him. +Espinosa raised it reluctantly to his lips and kissed it. +

+ +

+"I shall see you when you return," said Betty, and she +walked to the door. +

+ +

+"If I go away," Espinosa replied stubbornly. "It is not +certain, Mademoiselle Betty, that I shall go"; and with +a ceremonious bow to Jim he walked out of the room; +but not so quickly but that Betty glanced swiftly from +one man to the other with keen comparing eyes, and Jim +detected the glance. She closed the door and turned back +to Jim with a friendly little grimace which somehow put +him in a good humour. He was being compared to another +man to his advantage, and however modest one may +be, such a comparison promotes a pleasant warmth. +

+ +

+"More trouble, Miss Harlowe," he said with a smile, +"but this time the sort of trouble which you must expect +for a good many years to come." +

+ +

+He moved towards her, and they met at one of the two +side windows which looked out upon the courtyard. +Betty sat down in the window-seat. +

+ +

+"I really ought to be grateful to him," she said, "for +he made me laugh. And it seems to me ages since I +laughed"; she looked out of the window and her eyes +suddenly filled with tears. +

+ +

+"Oh! don't, please," cried Jim in a voice of trouble. +

+ +

+The smile trembled once more on Betty's lips deliciously. +

+ +

+"I won't," she replied. +

+ +

+"I was so glad to hear you laugh," he continued, "after +your unhappy telegram to my partner and before I told +you my good news." +

+ +

+Betty looked up at him eagerly. +

+ +

+"Good news?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher took once more from his long envelope +the two letters which Waberski had sent to his firm and +handed them to Betty. +

+ +

+"Read them," he said, "and notice the dates." +

+ +

+Betty glanced at the handwriting. +

+ +

+"From Monsieur Boris," she cried, and she settled +down in the window-seat to study them. In her short +black frock with her slim legs in their black silk stockings +extended and her feet crossed, and her head and white +neck bent over the sheets of Waberski's letters, she looked +to Jim like a girl fresh from school. She was quick +enough, however, to appreciate the value of the letters. +

+ +

+"Of course I always knew that it was money that +Monsieur Boris wanted," she said. "And when my +aunt's will was read and I found that everything had +been left to me, I made up my mind to consult you and +make some arrangement for him." +

+ +

+"There was no obligation upon you," Jim protested. +"He wasn't really a relation at all. He married +Mrs. Harlowe's sister, that's all." +

+ +

+"I know," replied Betty, and she laughed. "He always +objected to me because I would call him 'Monsieur +Boris' instead of 'uncle.' But I meant to do something +nevertheless. Only he gave me no time. He bullied me +first of all, and I do hate being bullied—don't you, +Mr. Frobisher?" +

+ +

+"I do." +

+ +

+Betty looked at the letters again. +

+ +

+"That's when I snapped me the fingers at him, I suppose," +she continued, with a little gurgle of delight in the +phrase. "Afterwards he brought this horrible charge +against me, and to have suggested any arrangement would +have been to plead guilty." +

+ +

+"You were quite right. It would indeed," Jim agreed +cordially. +

+ +

+Up to this moment, a suspicion had been lurking at the +back of Jim Frobisher's mind that this girl had been a +trifle hard in her treatment of Boris Waberski. He was +a sponger, a wastrel, with no real claim upon her, it was +true. On the other hand, he had no means of livelihood, +and Mrs. Harlowe, from whom Betty drew her fortune, +had been content to endure and support him. Now, however, +the suspicion was laid, the little blemish upon the +girl removed and by her own frankness. +

+ +

+"Then it is all over," Betty said, handing back the +letters to Jim with a sigh of relief. Then she smiled +ruefully—"But just for a little while I was really +frightened," she confessed. "You see, I was sent for and +questioned by the examining magistrate. Oh! I wasn't +frightened by the questions, but by him, the man. I've +no doubt it's his business to look severe, but I couldn't +help thinking that if any one looked as terrifically severe +as he did, it must be because he hadn't any brains and +wanted you not to know. And people without brains are +always dangerous, aren't they?" +

+ +

+"Yes, that wasn't encouraging," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"Then he forbade me to use a motor-car, as if he +expected me to run away. And to crown everything, when +I came away from the Palais de Justice, I met some +friends outside who gave me a long list of people who +had been condemned and only found to be innocent when +it was too late." +

+ +

+Jim stared at her. +

+ +

+"The brutes!" he cried. +

+ +

+"Well, we have all got friends like that," Betty returned +philosophically. "Mine, however, were particularly +odious. For they actually discussed, as a reason of +course, why I should engage the very best advocate, +whether, since Mrs. Harlowe had adopted me, the charge +couldn't be made one of matricide. In which case there +could be no pardon, and I must go to the guillotine with +a black veil over my head and naked feet." She saw +horror and indignation in Jim Frobisher's face and she +reached out a hand to him. +

+ +

+"Yes. Malice in the provinces is apt to be a little blunt, +though"—and she lifted a slim foot in a shining slipper +and contemplated it whimsically—"I don't imagine that, +given the circumstances, I should be bothering my head +much as to whether I was wearing my best shoes and +stockings or none at all." +

+ +

+"I never heard of so abominable a suggestion," cried Jim. +

+ +

+"You can imagine, at all events, that I came home a +little rattled," continued Betty, "and why I sent off that +silly panicky telegram. I would have recalled it when I +rose to the surface again. But it was then too late. The +telegram had——" +

+ +

+She broke off abruptly with a little rise of inflexion and +a sharp indraw of her breath. +

+ +

+"Who is that?" she asked in a changed voice. She +had been speaking quietly and slowly, with an almost +humorous appreciation of the causes of her fear. Now +her question was uttered quickly and anxiety was +predominant in her voice. "Yes, who is that?" she repeated. +

+ +

+A big, heavily built man sauntering past the great iron +gates had suddenly whipped into the courtyard. A +fraction of a second before he was an idler strolling along +the path, now he was already disappearing under the big +glass fan of the porch. +

+ +

+"It's Hanaud," Jim replied, and Betty rose to her feet +as though a spring in her had been released, and stood +swaying. +

+ +

+"You have nothing to fear from Hanaud," Jim Frobisher +reassured her. "I have shown him those two letters +of Waberski. From first to last he is your friend. +Listen. This is what he said to me only yesterday in +Paris." +

+ +

+"Yesterday, in Paris?" Betty asked suddenly. +

+ +

+"Yes, I called upon him at the Sûrété. These were +his words. I remembered them particularly so that I +could repeat them to you just as they were spoken. 'Your +little client can lay her pretty head upon her pillow +confident that no injustice will be done to her.'" +

+ +

+The bell of the front door shrilled through the house +as Jim finished. +

+ +

+"Then why is he in Dijon? Why is he at the door +now?" Betty asked stubbornly. +

+ +

+But that was the one question which Jim must not +answer. He had received a confidence from Hanaud. +He had pledged his word not to betray it. For a little +while longer Betty must believe that Waberski's accusation +against her was the true reason of Hanaud's presence +in Dijon, and not merely an excuse for it. +

+ +

+"Hanaud acts under orders," Jim returned. "He is +here because he was bidden to come"; and to his relief +the answer sufficed. In truth, Betty's thoughts were +diverted to some problem to which he had not the key. +

+ +

+"So you called upon Monsieur Hanaud in Paris," she +said, with a warm smile. "You have forgotten nothing +which could help me." She laid a hand upon the sill of +the open window. "I hope that he felt all the flattery +of my panic-stricken telegram to London." +

+ +

+"He was simply regretful that you should have been +so distressed." +

+ +

+"So you showed him the telegram?" +

+ +

+"And he destroyed it. It was my excuse for calling +upon him with the letters." +

+ +

+Betty sat down again on the window-seat and lifted a +finger for silence. Outside the door voices were speaking. +Then the door was opened and the old man-servant entered. +He carried this time no card upon a salver, but +he was obviously impressed and a trifle flustered. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," he began, and Betty interrupted him. +All trace of anxiety had gone from her manner. She +was once more mistress of herself. +

+ +

+"I know, Gaston. Show Monsieur Hanaud in at once." +

+ +

+But Monsieur Hanaud was already in. He bowed +with a pleasant ceremony to Betty Harlowe and shook +hands cordially with Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"I was delighted as I came through the court, Mademoiselle, +to see that my friend here was already with you. +For he will have told you that I am not, after all, the ogre +of the fairy-books." +

+ +

+"But you never looked up at the windows once," cried +Betty in perplexity. +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled gaily. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, it is in the technique of my trade never +to look up at windows and yet to know what is going on +behind them. With your permission?" And he laid his +hat and cane upon a big writing-table in the middle of the +room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FIVE: Betty Harlowe Answers +

+ +

+"But we cannot see even through the widest of +windows," Hanaud continued, "what happened behind +them a fortnight ago. In those cases, Mademoiselle, we +have to make ourselves the nuisance and ask the questions." +

+ +

+"I am ready to answer you," returned Betty quietly. +

+ +

+"Oh, of that—not a doubt," Hanaud cried genially. +"Is it permitted to me to seat myself? Yes?" +

+ +

+Betty jumped up, the pallor of her face flushed to pink. +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon. Of course, Monsieur Hanaud." +

+ +

+That little omission in her manners alone showed Jim +Frobisher that she was nervous. But for it, he would +have credited her with a self-command almost unnatural +in her years. +

+ +

+"It is nothing," said Hanaud with a smile. "After all, +we are—the gentlest of us—disturbing guests." He took +a chair from the side of the table and drew it up close so +that he faced Betty. But whatever advantage was to be +gained from the positions he yielded to her. For the +light from the window fell in all its morning strength +upon his face, whilst hers was turned to the interior of +the room. +

+ +

+"So!" he said as he sat down. "Mademoiselle, I will +first give you a plan of our simple procedure, as at present +I see it. The body of Madame Harlowe was exhumed +the night before last in the presence of your notary." +

+ +

+Betty moved suddenly with a little shiver of revolt. +

+ +

+"I know," he continued quickly. "These necessities +are distressing. But we do Madame Harlowe no hurt, +and we have to think of the living one, you, Miss Betty +Harlowe, and make sure that no suspicion shall rest upon +you—no, not even amongst your most loyal friends. +Isn't that so? Well, next, I put my questions to you +here. Then we wait for the analyst's report. Then the +Examining Magistrate will no doubt make you his +compliments, and I, Hanaud, will, if I am lucky, carry back +with me to that dull Paris, a signed portrait of the +beautiful Miss Harlowe against my heart." +

+ +

+"And that will be all?" cried Betty, clasping her hands +together in her gratitude. +

+ +

+"For you, Mademoiselle, yes. But for our little +Boris—no!" Hanaud grinned with a mischievous anticipation. +"I look forward to half an hour with that broken-kneed +one. I shall talk to him and I shall not be dignified—no, +not at all. I shall take care, too, that my good friend +Monsieur Frobisher is not present. He would take from +me all my enjoyment. He would look at me all prim like +my maiden aunt and he would say to himself, 'Shocking! +Oh, that comic! What a fellow! He is not proper.' No, +and I shall not be proper. But, on the other hand, I +will laugh all the way from Dijon to Paris." +

+ +

+Monsieur Hanaud had indeed begun to laugh already +and Betty suddenly joined in with him. Hers was a +clear, ringing laugh of enjoyment, and Jim fancied +himself once more in the hall hearing that laughter come +pealing through the open door. +

+ +

+"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Hanaud. "You can +laugh, Mademoiselle, even at my foolishnesses. You must +keep Monsieur Frobisher here in Dijon and not let him +return to London until he too has learnt that divinest of +the arts." +

+ +

+Hanaud hitched his chair a little nearer, and a most +uncomfortable image sprang at once into Jim Frobisher's +mind. Just so, with light words and little jokes squeezed +out to tenuity, did doctors hitch up their chairs to the +bedsides of patients in a dangerous case. It took quite a +few minutes of Hanaud's questions before that image +entirely vanished from his thoughts. +

+ +

+"Good!" said Hanaud. "Now let us to business and +get the facts all clear and ordered!" +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim agreed, and he too hitched his chair a little +closer. It was curious, he reflected, how little he did +know of the actual facts of the case. +

+ +

+"Now tell me, Mademoiselle! Madame Harlowe died, +so far as we know, quite peacefully in her bed during the +night." +

+ +

+"Yes," replied Betty. +

+ +

+"During the night of April the 27th?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"She slept alone in her room that night?" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"That was her rule?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"I understand Madame Harlowe's heart had given her +trouble for some time." +

+ +

+"She had been an invalid for three years." +

+ +

+"And there was a trained nurse always in the house?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"Now tell me, Mademoiselle, where did this nurse +sleep? Next door to Madame?" +

+ +

+"No. A bedroom had been fitted up for her on the +same floor but at the end of the passage." +

+ +

+"And how far away was this bedroom?" +

+ +

+"There were two rooms separating it from my aunt's." +

+ +

+"Large rooms?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Betty explained. "These rooms are on the +ground-floor, and are what you would call reception-rooms. +But, since Madame's heart made the stairs dangerous +for her, some of them were fitted up especially for +her use." +

+ +

+"Yes, I see," said Hanaud. "Two big reception-rooms +between, eh? And the walls of the house are thick. It is +not difficult to see that it was not built in these days. I +ask you this, Mademoiselle. Would a cry from Madame +Harlowe at night, when all the house was silent, be heard +in the nurse's room?" +

+ +

+"I am very sure that it would not," Betty returned. +"But there was a bell by Madame's bed which rang in +the nurse's room. She had hardly to lift her arm to press +the button." +

+ +

+"Ah!" said Hanaud. "A bell specially fitted up?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And the button within reach of the fingers. Yes. +That is all very well, if one does not faint, Mademoiselle. +But suppose one does! Then the bell is not very useful. +Was there no room nearer which could have been set +aside for the nurse?" +

+ +

+"There was one next to my aunt's room, Monsieur +Hanaud, with a communicating door." +

+ +

+Hanaud was puzzled and sat back in his chair. Jim +Frobisher thought the time had come for him to interpose. +He had been growing more and more restless as the +catechism progressed. He could not see any reason why +Betty, however readily and easily she answered, should +be needlessly pestered. +

+ +

+"Surely, Monsieur Hanaud," he said, "it would save a +deal of time if we paid a visit to these rooms and saw +them for ourselves." +

+ +

+Hanaud swung round like a thing on a swivel. Admiration +beamed in his eyes. He gazed at his junior colleague +in wonder. +

+ +

+"But what an idea!" he cried enthusiastically. "What +a fine idea! How ingenious! How difficult to conceive! +And it is you, Monsieur Frobisher, who have thought of +it! I make you my distinguished compliments!" Then +all his enthusiasm declined into lassitude. "But what a +pity!" +

+ +

+Hanaud waited intently for Jim to ask for an explanation +of that sigh, but Jim simply got red in the face and +refused to oblige. He had obviously made an asinine +suggestion and was being rallied for it in front of the +beautiful Betty Harlowe, who looked to him for her +salvation; and on the whole he thought Hanaud to be a rather +insufferable person as he sat there brightly watching for +some second inanity. Hanaud in the end had to explain. +

+ +

+"We should have visited those rooms before now, +Monsieur Frobisher. But the Commissaire of Police has +sealed them up and without his presence we must not +break the seals." +

+ +

+An almost imperceptible movement was made by Betty +Harlowe in the window; an almost imperceptible smile +flickered for the space of a lightning-flash upon her lips; +and Jim saw Hanaud stiffen like a watch-dog when he +hears a sound at night. +

+ +

+"You are amused, Mademoiselle?" he asked sharply. +

+ +

+"On the contrary, Monsieur." +

+ +

+And the smile reappeared upon her face and was seen +to be what it was, pure wistfulness. "I had a hope those +great seals with their linen bands across the doors were +all now to be removed. It is fanciful, no doubt, but I +have a horror of them. They seem to me like an interdict +upon the house." +

+ +

+Hanaud's manner changed in an instant. +

+ +

+"That I can very well understand, Mademoiselle," he +said, "and I will make it my business to see that those +seals are broken. Indeed, there was no great use in +affixing them, since they were only affixed when the charge +was brought and ten days after Madame Harlowe died." He +turned to Jim. "But we in France are all tied up in +red tape, too. However, the question at which I am +driving does not depend upon any aspect of the rooms. It +is this, Mademoiselle," and he turned back to Betty. +

+ +

+"Madame Harlowe was an invalid with a nurse in constant +attendance. How is it that the nurse did not sleep +in that suitable room with the communicating-door? +Why must she be where she could hear no cry, no sudden +call?" +

+ +

+Betty nodded her head. Here was a question which +demanded an answer. She leaned forward, choosing her +words with care. +

+ +

+"Yes, but for that, Monsieur, you must understand +something of Madame my aunt and put yourself for a +moment in her place. She would have it so. She was, as +you say, an invalid. For three years she had not gone +beyond the garden except in a private saloon once a year +to Monte Carlo. But she would not admit her malady. +No, she was in her mind strong and a fighter. She was +going to get well, it was always a question of a few weeks +with her, and a nurse in her uniform always near with +the door open, as though she were in the last stages of +illness—that distressed her." Betty paused and went on +again. "Of course, when she had some critical attack, +the nurse was moved. I myself gave the order. But as +soon as the attack subsided, the nurse must go. Madame +would not endure it." +

+ +

+Jim understood that speech. Its very sincerity gave +him a glimpse of the dead woman, made him appreciate +her tough vitality. She would not give in. She did not +want the paraphernalia of malady always about her. No, +she would sleep in her own room, and by herself, like +other women of her age. Yes, Jim understood that and +believed every word that Betty spoke. Only—only—she +was keeping something back. It was that which troubled +him. What she said was true, but there was more to be +said. There had been hesitation in Betty's speech, too +nice a choice of words and then suddenly a little rush of +phrases to cover up the hesitations. He looked at +Hanaud, who was sitting without a movement and with his +eyes fixed upon Betty's face, demanding more from her +by his very impassivity. They were both, Jim felt sure, +upon the edge of that little secret which, according to +Haslitt as to Hanaud was always at the back of such wild +charges as Waberski brought—the little shameful family +secret which must be buried deep from the world's eyes. +And while Jim was pondering upon this explanation of +Betty's manner, he was suddenly startled out of his wits +by a passionate cry which broke from her lips. +

+ +

+"Why do you look at me like that?" she cried to Hanaud, +her eyes suddenly ablaze in her white face and her +lips shaking. Her voice rose to a challenge. +

+ +

+"Do you disbelieve me, Monsieur Hanaud?" +

+ +

+Hanaud raised his hands in protest. He leaned back +in his chair. The vigilance of his eyes, of his whole +attitude, was relaxed. +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle," he said with a +good deal of self-reproach. "I do not disbelieve you. I +was listening with both my ears to what you said, so that +I might never again have to trouble you with my +questions. But I should have remembered, what I forgot, +that for a number of days you have been living under a +heavy strain. My manner was at fault." +

+ +

+The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back +in the corner of the window-seat, her head resting against +the side of the sash and her face a little upturned. +

+ +

+"You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud," +she returned. "It is I who should beg your pardon. For +I was behaving like a hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go +on with your questions?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Hanaud replied gently. "It is better that we +finish with them now. Let us come back to the night of +the twenty-seventh!" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"Madame was in her usual health that night—neither +better nor worse." +

+ +

+"If anything a little better," returned Betty. +

+ +

+"So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a +dance given by some friends of yours?" +

+ +

+Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house +on that fatal night. Here was a new point in her favour. +"A dance!" he cried, and Hanaud lifted his hand. +

+ +

+"If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!" he said. "Let +Mademoiselle speak!" +

+ +

+"I did not hesitate," Betty explained. "The life of the +household had to go on normally. It would never have +done for me to do unusual things. Madame was quick +to notice. I think that although she would not admit +that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind +she suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not +to alarm her." +

+ +

+"By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a +dance to which she knew that you had meant to go?" said +Hanaud. "Yes, Mademoiselle. I quite understand that." +

+ +

+He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with +a smile, "Ah, you did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. +No, nor our friend Boris Waberski, I think. Or +he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of Police in +such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her +friends on this night when she is supposed to be +committing the most monstrous of crimes. By the way, +Mademoiselle, where was Boris Waberski on the night of the +27th?" +

+ +

+"He was away," returned Betty. "He went away on +the 25th to fish for trout at a village on the River Ouche, +and he did not come back until the morning of the 28th." +

+ +

+"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What a type that fellow! +Let us hope he had a better landing-net for his trout than +the one he prepared so hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. +Otherwise his three days' sport cannot have amounted to +much." +

+ +

+His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon +Betty's face and then he swept back to his questions. +

+ +

+"So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?" +

+ +

+"At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the +Boulevard Thiers." +

+ +

+"And at what hour did you go?" +

+ +

+"I left this house at five minutes to nine." +

+ +

+"You are sure of the hour?" +

+ +

+"Quite," said Betty. +

+ +

+"Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Betty answered. "I went to her room just before +I left. She took her dinner in bed, as she often did. +I was wearing for the dance a new frock which I had +bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and I went to her +room to show her how I looked in it." +

+ +

+"Was Madame alone?" +

+ +

+"No; the nurse was with her." +

+ +

+And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance +of cunning. +

+ +

+"I knew that, Mademoiselle," he declared with a +friendly grin. "See, I set a little trap for you. For I +have here the evidence of the nurse herself, Jeanne +Baudin." +

+ +

+He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon +which a paragraph was typed. "Yes, the examining +magistrate sent for her and took her statement." +

+ +

+"I didn't know that," said Betty. "Jeanne left us the +day of the funeral and went home. I have not seen her +since." +

+ +

+She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile +of appreciation. +

+ +

+"I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide +from you, Monsieur Hanaud," she said admiringly. "I +do not think that I should be able to hide it for long." +

+ +

+Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, +to Jim Frobisher's thinking, rather like a very vulgar +novice. +

+ +

+"You are wise, Mademoiselle," he exclaimed. "For, +after all, I am Hanaud. There is only one," and he +thumped his chest and beamed delightedly. "Heavens, +these are politenesses! Let us get on. This is what the +nurse declared," and he read aloud from his sheet of +paper: +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame +might admire her in her new frock of silver tissue and +her silver slippers. Mademoiselle arranged the pillows +and saw that Madame had her favourite books and her +drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, +and with her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she +tripped out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, +Madame said to me——" and Hanaud broke off abruptly. +"But that does not matter," he said in a hurry. +

+ +

+Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward. +

+ +

+"Does it not, Monsieur?" she asked, her eyes fixed +upon his face, and the blood mounting slowly into her +pale cheeks. +

+ +

+"No," said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet +of paper. +

+ +

+"What does the nurse report that Madame said to her +about me, as soon as the door was closed?" Betty asked, +measuring out her words with a slow insistence. "Come, +Monsieur! I have a right to know," and she held out +her hand for the paper. +

+ +

+"You shall judge for yourself that it was of no +importance," said Hanaud. "Listen!" and once more he +read. +

+ +

+"Madame said to me, looking at her clock, 'It is well +that Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not +Paris, and unless you go in time there are no partners +for you to dance with.' It was then ten minutes to nine." +

+ +

+With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty's hand; +and she bent her head over it swiftly, as though she +doubted whether what he had recited was really written +on that sheet, as if she rather trembled to think what +Mrs. Harlowe had said of her after she had gone from +the room. She took only a second or two to glance over +the page, but when she handed it back to him, her manner +was quite changed. +

+ +

+"Thank you," she said with a note of bitterness, and +her deep eyes gleamed with resentment. Jim understood +the change and sympathised with it. Hanaud had spoken +of setting a trap when he had set none. For there was no +conceivable reason why she should hesitate to admit that +she had seen Mrs. Harlowe in the presence of the nurse, +and wished her good night before she went to the party. +But he had set a real trap a minute afterwards and into +that Betty had straightway stumbled. He had tricked +her into admitting a dread that Mrs. Harlowe might have +spoken of her in disparagement or even in horror after +she had left the bedroom. +

+ +

+"You must know, Monsieur Hanaud," she explained +very coldly, "that women are not always very generous +to one another, and sometimes have not the imagination—how +shall I put it?—to visualise the possible consequences +of things they may say with merely the intention +to hurt and do a little harm. Jeanne Baudin and I +were, so far as I ever knew, good friends, but one is never +sure, and when you folded up her statement in a hurry I +was naturally very anxious to hear the rest of it." +

+ +

+"Yes, I agree," Jim intervened. "It did look as if the +nurse might have added something malevolent, which +could neither be proved nor disproved." +

+ +

+"It was a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle," Hanaud +replied in a voice of apology. "We will take care that +there shall not be any other." He looked over the nurse's +statement again. +

+ +

+"It is said here that you saw that Madame had her +favourite books and her drink beside the bed. That is +true." +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"What was that drink?" +

+ +

+"A glass of lemonade." +

+ +

+"It was placed on a table, I suppose, ready for her every +night?" +

+ +

+"Every night." +

+ +

+"And there was no narcotic dissolved in it?" +

+ +

+"None," Betty replied. "If Mrs. Harlowe was restless, +the nurse would give an opium pill and very +occasionally a slight injection of morphia." +

+ +

+"But that was not done on this night?" +

+ +

+"Not to my knowledge. If it was done, it was done +after my departure." +

+ +

+"Very well," said Hanaud, and he folded the paper +and put it away in his pocket. "That is finished with. +We have you now out of the house at five minutes to nine +in the evening, and Madame in her bed with her health +no worse than usual." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Good!" Hanaud changed his attitude. "Now let us +go over your evening, Mademoiselle! I take it that you +stayed at the house of M. de Pouillac until you returned +home." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"You remember with whom you danced? If it was +necessary, could you give me a list of your partners?" +

+ +

+She rose and, crossing to the writing table, sat down +in front of it. She drew a sheet of paper towards her and +took up a pencil. Pausing now and again to jog her +memory with the blunt end of the pencil at her lips, she +wrote down a list of names. +

+ +

+"These are all, I think," she said, handing the list to +Hanaud. He put it in his pocket. +

+ +

+"Thank you!" He was all contentment now. Although +his questions followed without hesitation, one +upon the other, it seemed to Jim that he was receiving +just the answers which he expected. He had the air of +a man engaged upon an inevitable formality and anxious +to get it completely accomplished, rather than of one +pressing keenly a strict investigation. +

+ +

+"Now, Mademoiselle, at what hour did you arrive home?" +

+ +

+"At twenty minutes past one." +

+ +

+"You are sure of that exact time? You looked at your +watch? Or at the clock in the hall? Or what? How are +you sure that you reached the Maison Crenelle exactly at +twenty minutes past one?" +

+ +

+Hanaud hitched his chair a little more forward, but +he had not to wait a second for the answer. +

+ +

+"There is no clock in the hall and I had no watch with +me," Betty replied. "I don't like those wrist-watches +which some girls wear. I hate things round my wrists," +and she shook her arm impatiently, as though she imagined +the constriction of a bracelet. "And I did not put +my watch in my hand-bag because I am so liable to leave +that behind. So I had nothing to tell me the time when I +reached home. I was not sure that I had not kept Georges—the +chauffeur—out a little later than he cared for. So +I made him my excuse, explaining that I didn't really +know how late I was." +

+ +

+"I see. It was Georges who told you the time at the +actual moment of your arrival?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And Georges is no doubt the chauffeur whom I saw +at work as I crossed the courtyard?" +

+ +

+"Yes. He told me that he was glad to see me have a +little gaiety, and he took out his watch and showed it to +me with a laugh." +

+ +

+"This happened at the front door, or at those big iron +gates, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"At the front door. There is no lodge-keeper and the +gates are left open when any one is out." +

+ +

+"And how did you get into the house?" +

+ +

+"I used my latch-key." +

+ +

+"Good! All this is very clear." +

+ +

+Betty, however, was not mollified by Hanaud's +satisfaction with her replies. Although she answered him +without delay, her answers were given mutinously. Jim +began to be a little troubled. She should have met +Hanaud half-way; she was imprudently petulant. +

+ +

+"She'll make an enemy of this man before she has +done," he reflected uneasily. But he glanced at the +detective and was relieved. For Hanaud was watching her +with a smile which would have disarmed any less offended +young lady—a smile half friendliness and half amusement. +Jim took a turn upon himself. +

+ +

+"After all," he argued, "this very imprudence pleads +for her better than any calculation. The guilty don't +behave like that." And he waited for the next stage in the +examination with an easy mind. +

+ +

+"Now we have got you back home and within the +Maison Crenelle before half past one in the morning," +resumed Hanaud. "What did you do then?" +

+ +

+"I went straight upstairs to my bedroom," said Betty. +

+ +

+"Was your maid waiting up for you, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"No; I had told her that I should be late and that I +could undress myself." +

+ +

+"You are considerate, Mademoiselle. No wonder that +your servants were pleased that you should have a little +gaiety." +

+ +

+Even that advance did not appease the offended girl. +

+ +

+"Yes?" she asked with a sort of silky sweetness which +was more hostile than any acid rejoinder. But it did +not stir Hanaud to any resentment. +

+ +

+"When, then, did you first hear of Madame Harlowe's +death?" was asked. +

+ +

+"The next morning my maid Francine came running +into my room at seven o'clock. The nurse Jeanne had +just discovered it. I slipped on my dressing-gown and +ran downstairs. As soon as I saw that it was true, I rang +up the two doctors who were in the habit of attending +here." +

+ +

+"Did you notice the glass of lemonade?" +

+ +

+"Yes. It was empty." +

+ +

+"Your maid is still with you?" +

+ +

+"Yes—Francine Rollard. She is at your disposal." +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders and smiled doubtfully. +

+ +

+"That, if it is necessary at all, can come later. We +have the story of your movements now from you, +Mademoiselle, and that is what is important." +

+ +

+He rose from his chair. +

+ +

+"I have been, I am afraid, a very troublesome person, +Mademoiselle Harlowe," he said with a bow. "But it is +very necessary for your own sake that no obscurities +should be left for the world's suspicions to play with. +And we are very close to the end of this ordeal." +

+ +

+Jim had nursed a hope the moment Hanaud rose that +this wearing interview had already ended. Betty, for her +part, was indifferent. +

+ +

+"That is for you to say, Monsieur," she said implacably. +

+ +

+"Just two points then, and I think, upon reflection, +you will understand that I have asked you no question +which is unfair." +

+ +

+Betty bowed. +

+ +

+"Your two points, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"First, then. You inherit, I believe, the whole fortune +of Madame?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Did you expect to inherit it all? Did you know of her +will?" +

+ +

+"No. I expected that a good deal of the money would +be left to Monsieur Boris. But I don't remember that she +ever told me so. I expected it, because Monsieur Boris +so continually repeated that it was so." +

+ +

+"No doubt," said Hanaud lightly. "As to yourself, +was Madame generous to you during her life." +

+ +

+The hard look disappeared from Betty's face. It +softened to sorrow and regret. +

+ +

+"Very," she answered in a low voice. "I had one +thousand pounds a year as a regular allowance, and a +thousand pounds goes a long way in Dijon. Besides, if I +wanted more, I had only to ask for it." +

+ +

+Betty's voice broke in a sob suddenly and Hanaud +turned away with a delicacy for which Jim was not +prepared. He began to look at the books upon the shelves, +that she might have time to control her sorrow, taking +down one here, one there, and speaking of them in a casual +tone. +

+ +

+"It is easy to see that this was the library of Monsieur +Simon Harlowe," he said, and was suddenly brought to a +stop. For the door was thrown open and a girl broke into +the room. +

+ +

+"Betty," she began, and stood staring from one to +another of Betty's visitors. +

+ +

+"Ann, this is Monsieur Hanaud," said Betty with a +careless wave of her hand, and Ann went white as a +sheet. +

+ +

+Ann! Then this girl was Ann Upcott, thought Jim +Frobisher, the girl who had written to him, the girl, all +acquaintanceship with whom he had twice denied, and he +had sat side by side with her, he had even spoken to her. +She swept across the room to him. +

+ +

+"So you have come!" she cried. "But I knew that you +would!" +

+ +

+Jim was conscious of a mist of shining yellow hair, a +pair of sapphire eyes, and of a face impertinently lovely +and most delicate in its colour. +

+ +

+"Of course I have come," he said feebly, and Hanaud +looked on with a smile. He had an eye on Betty Harlowe, +and the smile said as clearly as words could say, +"That young man is going to have a deal of trouble +before he gets out of Dijon." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SIX: Jim Changes His Lodging +

+ +

+The library was a big oblong room with two tall +windows looking into the court, and the observation +window thrown out at the end over the footway of the +street. A door in the inner wall close to this window led +to a room behind, and a big open fire-place faced the +windows on the court. For the rest, the walls were lined with +high book-shelves filled with books, except for a vacant +space here and there where a volume had been removed. +Hanaud put back in its place the book which he had been +holding in his hand. +

+ +

+"One can easily see that this is the library of Simon +Harlowe, the collector," he said. "I have always thought +that if one only had the time to study and compare the +books which a man buys and reads, one would more +surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But +alas! one never has the time." He turned towards Jim +Frobisher regretfully. "Come and stand with me, Monsieur +Frobisher. For even a glance at the backs of them +tells one something." +

+ +

+Jim took his place by Hanaud's side. +

+ +

+"Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and +another—pronounce that title for me, if you please." +

+ +

+Jim read the title of the book on which Hanaud's finger +was placed. +

+ +

+"Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain." +

+ +

+Hanaud repeated the inscription and moved along. +From a shelf at the level of his breast and just to the +left of the window in which Betty was sitting, he took a +large, thinnish volume in a paper cover, and turned over +the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea Enamel. +

+ +

+"There should be a second volume," said Jim Frobisher +with a glance at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of +remarks. He was not paying any attention to the +paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For he was really +engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his +side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some +swift look of understanding as it was exchanged by the +two girls, some sign that they were in a collusion? If so, +he was to be disappointed. For though Betty and Ann +were now free from Hanaud's vigilant eye, neither of +them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. +Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. +He answered Jim's suggestion. +

+ +

+"Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. +But this is complete," he said, and he put back the +book in its place. There was room next to it for another +quarto book, so long as it was no thicker, and Hanaud +rested his finger in the vacant place on the shelf, with his +thoughts clearly far away. +

+ +

+Betty recalled him to his surroundings. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud," she said in her quiet voice from +her seat in the window, "there was a second point, you +said, on which you would like to ask me a question." +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it." +

+ +

+He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood +so that he had both girls in front of him, Betty on his +left in the window, Ann Upcott standing a little apart +upon his right, gazing at him with a look of awe. +

+ +

+"Have you, Mademoiselle," he asked, "been pestered, +since Boris Waberski brought his accusation, with any +of these anonymous letters which seem to be flying about +Dijon?" +

+ +

+"I have received one," answered Betty, and Ann Upcott +raised her eyebrows in surprise. "It came on Sunday +morning. It was very slanderous, of course, and I should +have taken no notice of it but for one thing. It told me +that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming from Paris to +take up the case." +

+ +

+"Oho!" said Hanaud softly. "And you received this +letter on the Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, +Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+Betty shook her head. +

+ +

+"No, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled. +

+ +

+"Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should +be destroyed." +

+ +

+"No, I didn't," Betty answered. "I kept it. I put it +away in a drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. +But that room is sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. +The letter is in the drawer still." +

+ +

+Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction. +

+ +

+"It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle," he said +contentedly. But the contentment passed. "So the Commissaire +of Police actually sealed up your private sitting-room. +That, to be sure, was going a little far." +

+ +

+Betty shrugged her shoulders. +

+ +

+"It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. +And after all I was accused!" she said bitterly; but Ann +Upcott was not satisfied to leave the matter there. She +drew a step nearer to Betty and then looked at Hanaud. +

+ +

+"But that is not all the truth," she said. "Betty's room +belongs to that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe's +bedroom was arranged. It is the last room of the +suite opening on to the hall, and for that reason, as the +Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to +seal it up with the others." +

+ +

+"I thank you, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud with a +smile. "Yes, that of course softens his action." He +looked whimsically at Betty in the window-seat. "It has +been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend Mademoiselle +Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome +dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I +understand, on the Saturday morning twelve days ago!" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur," said Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+"And after the funeral, on your return to this house, +the notary opened and read the will?" +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"And in Boris Waberski's presence?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of +May, he goes off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous +letter?" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in +answer. +

+ +

+"And a little later on the same morning comes the +Commissaire, who seals the doors." +

+ +

+"At eleven o'clock, to be exact," replied Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+Hanaud bowed low. +

+ +

+"You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the +precise hour at which things happen. It is a rare gift, and +very useful to people like myself." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her +manner with each answer that she gave. Now she could +laugh outright. +

+ +

+"I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud," she said. "But +alas! I was born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, +a book disarranged, a clock not keeping time, or even a +pin on the carpet—I cannot bear these things. I notice +them at once and I must put them straight. Yes, it was +precisely eleven o'clock when the Commissaire of Police +rang the bell." +

+ +

+"Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?" +Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"No. We both of us thought his negligence strange," +Ann replied, "until he informed us that the Examining +Magistrate wanted everything left just as it was." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed genially. +

+ +

+"That was on my account," he explained. "Who could +tell what wonderful things Hanaud might not discover +with his magnifying glass when he arrived from Paris? +What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! What scraps +of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, +Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, +even Hanaud would not expect to make any startling +discoveries in rooms which had been open to the whole +household for a fortnight since the crime. However," +and he moved towards the door, "since I am here +now——" +

+ +

+Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. +Hanaud stopped and swung round upon her, swiftly, with +his eyes very challenging and hard. +

+ +

+"You are going to break those seals now?" she asked +with a curious breathlessness. "Then may I come with +you—please, please! It is I who am accused. I have a +right to be present," and her voice rose into an earnest +cry. +

+ +

+"Calm yourself, Mademoiselle," Hanaud returned +gently. "No advantage will be taken of you. I am going +to break no seals. That, as I have told you, is the +right of the Commissaire, who is a magistrate, and he +will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, +what I was going to propose was that Mademoiselle +here," and he pointed to Ann, "should show me the outside +of those reception-rooms and the rest of the house." +

+ +

+"Of course," said Betty, and she sat down again in the +window-seat. +

+ +

+"Thank you," said Hanaud. He turned back to Ann +Upcott. "Shall we go? And as we go, will you tell me +what you think of Boris Waberski?" +

+ +

+"He has some nerve. I can tell you that, Monsieur +Hanaud," Ann cried. "He actually came back to this +house after he had lodged his charge, and asked me to +support him"; and she passed out of the room in front of +Hanaud. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher followed the couple to the door and +closed it behind them. The last few minutes had set his +mind altogether at rest. The author of the anonymous +letters was the detective's real quarry. His manner had +quite changed when putting his questions about them. +The flamboyancies and the indifference, even his +amusement at Betty's ill-humour had quite disappeared. He +had got to business watchfully, quietly. Jim came back +into the room. He took his cigarette-case from his pocket +and opened it. +

+ +

+"May I smoke?" he asked. As he turned to Betty for +permission, a fresh shock brought his thoughts and words +alike to a standstill. She was staring at him with panic +naked in her eyes and her face set like a tragic mask. +

+ +

+"He believes me guilty," she whispered. +

+ +

+"No," said Jim, and he went to her side. But she +would not listen. +

+ +

+"He does. I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was +bound to? He was sent from Paris. He has his reputation +to think of. He must have his victim before he +returns." +

+ +

+Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had +only to tell the real cause which had fetched Hanaud out +of Paris and Betty's distress was gone. But he could +not. Every tradition of his life strove to keep him silent. +He dared not even tell her that this charge against her +was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little +while longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. +

+ +

+"Betty, don't believe that!" he said, with a consciousness +of how weak that phrase was compared with the +statement he could have made. "I was watching Hanaud, +listening to him. I am sure that he already knew the +answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he +even knew that Simon Harlowe had a passion for collecting, +though not a word had been said of it. He was asking +questions to see how you would answer them, setting +now and then a little trap, as he admitted——" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Betty in trembling voice, "all the time he +was setting traps." +

+ +

+"And every answer that you gave, even your manner +in giving them," Jim continued stoutly, "more and more +made clear your innocence." +

+ +

+"To him?" asked Betty. +

+ +

+"Yes, to him. I am sure of it." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe caught at his arm and held it in both +her hands. She leaned her head against it. Through the +sleeve of his coat he felt the velvet of her cheek. +

+ +

+"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Jim," and +as she pronounced the name she smiled. She was thanking +him not so much for the stout confidence of his words, +as for the comfort which the touch of him gave to her. +

+ +

+"Very likely I am making too much of little things," she +went on. "Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur +Hanaud. But he lives amidst crimes and criminals. He +must be so used to seeing people condemned and passing +out of sight into blackness and horrors, that one more +or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, +wouldn't seem to matter very much." +

+ +

+"Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust," Jim +Frobisher remarked gently. +

+ +

+"Very well, I take it back," she said, and she let his +arm go. "All the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not +to him," and she laughed with an appealing tremor in the +laugh which took his heart by storm. +

+ +

+"Luckily," said he, "you don't have to look to any one," +and he had hardly finished the sentence before Ann +Upcott came back alone into the room. She was about +Betty's height and Betty's age and had the same sort of +boyish slenderness and carriage which marks the girls of +this generation. But in other respects, even to the colour +of her clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be +from another. She was dressed in white from her coat to +her shoes, and she wore a big gold hat so that one was +almost at a loss to know where her hat ended and her +hair began. +

+ +

+"And Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty asked. +

+ +

+"He is prowling about by himself," she replied. "I +showed him all the rooms and who used them, and he +said that he would have a look at them and sent me back +to you." +

+ +

+"Did he break the seals on the reception-rooms?" Betty +Harlowe asked. +

+ +

+"Oh, no," said Ann. "Why, he told us that he couldn't +do that without the Commissaire." +

+ +

+"Yes, he told us that," Betty remarked dryly. "But I +was wondering whether he meant what he told us." +

+ +

+"Oh, I don't think Monsieur Hanaud's alarming," said +Ann. She gave Jim Frobisher the impression that at any +moment she might call him a dear old thing. She had +quite got over the first little shock which the announcement +of his presence had caused her. "Besides," and she +sat down by the side of Betty in the window-seat and +looked with the frankest confidence at Jim—"besides, we +can feel safe now, anyway." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair. That +queer look of aloofness had played him false with Ann +Upcott now, as it had already done with Betty. If these +two girls had called on him for help when a sudden squall +found them in an open sailing-boat with the sheet of the +sail made fast, or on the ice-slope of a mountain, or with +a rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest +of the Nile, he would not have shrunk from their trust. +But this was quite a different matter. They were calmly +pitting him against Hanaud. +

+ +

+"You were safe before," he exclaimed. "Hanaud is +not your enemy, and as for me, I have neither experience +nor natural gifts for this sort of work"—and he broke off +with a groan. For both the girls were watching him with +a smile of complete disbelief. +

+ +

+"Good heavens, they think that I am being astute," he +reflected, "and the more I confess my incapacity the +astuter they'll take me to be." He gave up all arguments. +"Of course I am absolutely at your service," he said. +

+ +

+"Thank you," said Betty. "You will bring your luggage +from your hotel and stay here, won't you?" +

+ +

+Jim was tempted to accept that invitation. But, on +the one hand, he might wish to see Hanaud at the Grande +Taverne; or Hanaud might wish to see him, and secrecy +was to be the condition of such meetings. It was better +that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. +

+ +

+"I won't put you to so much trouble, Betty," he replied. +"There's no reason in the world that I should. +A call over the telephone and in five minutes I am at your +side." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe seemed in doubt to press her invitation +or not. +

+ +

+"It looks a little inhospitable in me," she began, and the +door opened, and Hanaud entered the room. +

+ +

+"I left my hat and stick here," he said. He picked them +up and bowed to the girls. +

+ +

+"You have seen everything, Monsieur Hanaud?" Betty +asked. +

+ +

+"Everything, Mademoiselle. I shall not trouble you +again until the report of the analysis is in my hands. I +wish you a good morning." +

+ +

+Betty slipped off the window-seat and accompanied him +out into the hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she +was seeking to make some amends for her ill-humour; and +when he heard her voice he thought to detect in it some +note of apology. +

+ +

+"I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense +of that report as soon as possible," she pleaded. "You, +better than any one, will understand that this is a difficult +hour for me." +

+ +

+"I understand very well, Mademoiselle," Hanaud answered +gravely. "I will see to it that the hour is not +prolonged." +

+ +

+Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood +together in the sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon +his arm. He wheeled about quickly. Ann Upcott was +at his side with all the liveliness and even the delicate +colour gone from her face, and a wild and desperate +appeal in her eyes. +

+ +

+"You will come and stay here? Oh, please!" she whispered. +

+ +

+"I have just refused," he answered. "You heard me." +

+ +

+"I know," she went on, the words stumbling over one +another from her lips. "But take back your refusal. Do! +Oh, I am frightened out of my wits. I don't understand +anything. I am terrified!" And she clasped her hands +together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear so +stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. +It robbed her exquisite face of all its beauty, and made it +in a second, haggard and old. But before he could answer, +a stick clattered loudly upon the pavement of the +hall and startled them both like the crack of a pistol. +

+ +

+Jim looked through the doorway. Hanaud was stooping +to pick up his cane. Betty made a dive for it, but +Hanaud already had it in his hands. +

+ +

+"I thank you, Mademoiselle, but I can still touch my +toes. Every morning I do it five times in my pyjamas," +and with a laugh he ran down the couple of steps into the +courtyard and with that curiously quick saunter of his +was out into the street of Charles-Robert in a moment. +When Jim turned again to Ann Upcott, the fear had gone +from her face so completely that he could hardly believe +his eyes. +

+ +

+"Betty, he is going to stay," she cried gaily. +

+ +

+"So I inferred," replied Betty with a curious smile as +she came back into the room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SEVEN: Exit Waberski +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher neither saw nor heard any more of +Hanaud that day. He fetched his luggage away from +the hotel and spent the evening with Betty Harlowe and +Ann Upcott at the Maison Crenelle. They took their +coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, +descending to it by a short flight of stone steps from a great +door at the back of the hall. And by some sort of +unspoken compact they avoided all mention of Waberski's +charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the +analyst's report. But the long line of high, shuttered +windows just above their heads, the windows of the +reception-rooms, forbade them to forget the subject, and +their conversation perpetually dwindled down into long +silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, cool +and very still; so that the bustle of a bird amongst the +leaves of the sycamores startled them and the rare footsteps +of a passer-by in the little street of Charles-Robert +rang out as though they would wake a dreaming city. +Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcott leaned swiftly +forward and stared across the dark lawns and glimmering +paths to the great screen of tall trees, as if her eyes +had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on +each occasion she said nothing and with an almost +inaudible sigh sank back in her chair. +

+ +

+"Is there a door into the garden from the street?" +Frobisher asked, and Betty answered him. +

+ +

+"No. There is a passage at the end of the house under +the reception-rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners +use. The only other entrance is through the hall +behind us. This old house was built in days when your +house really was your castle and the fewer the entrances, +the more safely you slept." +

+ +

+The clocks of that city of Clocks clashed out the hour +of eleven, throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards +and forwards above the pinnacles and roof-tops in a sort +of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. +

+ +

+"There's a day gone, at all events," she said, and Ann +Upcott agreed with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed +a pitiful thing that these two girls, to whom each day +should be a succession of sparkling hours all too short, +must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that another +of them had passed. +

+ +

+"It should be the last of the bad days," he said, and +Betty turned swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining +in the darkness. +

+ +

+"Good night, Jim," she said, her voice ever so slightly +lingering like a caress upon his name and she held out +her hand. "It's terribly dull for you, but we are not +unselfish enough to let you go. You see, we are shunned +just now—oh, it's natural! To have you with us means +a great deal. For one thing," and there came a little lilt +in her voice, "I shall sleep to-night." She ran up the +steps and stood for a moment against the light from the +hall. "A long-legged slip of a girl, in black silk +stockings"—thus Mr. Haslitt had spoken of her as she was +five years ago, and the description fitted her still. +

+ +

+"Good night, Betty," said Jim, and Ann Upcott ran +past him up the steps and waved her hand. +

+ +

+"Good night," said Jim, and with a little twist of her +shoulders Ann followed Betty. She came back, however. +She was wearing a little white frock of crêpe de Chine +with white stockings and satin shoes, and she gleamed at +the head of the steps like a slender thing of silver. +

+ +

+"You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you?" +She pleaded with a curious anxiety considering the height +of the strong walls about the garden. +

+ +

+"I will," said Jim, and he wondered why in all this +business Ann Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was +high time indeed, that the long line of windows was +thrown open and the interdict raised from the house and +its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden in the +darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would +come to-morrow. In Betty's room above the reception-rooms +the light was still burning behind the latticed shutters +of the windows, in spite of her confidence that she +would sleep—yes, and in Ann Upcott's room too, at the +end of the house towards the street. A fury against +Boris Waberski flamed up in him. +

+ +

+It was late before he himself went into the house and +barred the door, later still before he fell asleep. But +once asleep, he slept soundly, and when he waked, it was +to find his shutters thrown wide to the sunlight, his coffee +cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old servant, in the +room. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud asked me to tell you he was in the +library," he said. +

+ +

+Jim was out of bed in an instant. +

+ +

+"Already? What is the time, Gaston?" +

+ +

+"Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath." He +removed the tray from the table by the bed. "I will bring +some fresh coffee." +

+ +

+"Thank you! And will you please tell Monsieur +Hanaud that I will not be long." +

+ +

+"Certainly, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down +to the library, where he found Hanaud seated at the big +writing-table in the middle of the room, with a newspaper +spread out over the blotting-pad and placidly reading the +news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the moment +Jim appeared. +

+ +

+"So you left your hotel in the Place Darcy, after all, +eh, my friend? The exquisite Miss Upcott! She had but +to sigh out a little prayer and clasp her hands together, +and it was done. Yes, I saw it all from the hall. What +it is to be young! You have those two letters which +Waberski wrote your firm?" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. He did not think it necessary to +explain that though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was +the thought of Betty which had brought him to the +Maison Grenelle. +

+ +

+"Good! I have sent for him," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"To come to this house?" +

+ +

+"I am expecting him now." +

+ +

+"That's capital," cried Jim. "I shall meet him, then! +The damned rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped +him," and he clenched his fist and shook it in a joyous +anticipation. +

+ +

+"I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, +I beg of you to place yourself in my hands this morning, +Monsieur Frobisher," Hanaud interposed soberly. +"If you confront Waberski at once with those two letters, +at once his accusation breaks down. He will withdraw +it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent +of complaints and reproaches. And I shall get nothing +out of him. That I do not want." +

+ +

+"But what is there to be got?" Jim asked impatiently. +

+ +

+"Something perhaps. Perhaps nothing," the detective +returned with a shrug of the shoulders. "I have a second +mission in Dijon, as I told you in Paris." +

+ +

+"The anonymous letters?" +

+ +

+"Yes. You were present yesterday when Mademoiselle +Harlowe told me how she learned that I was summoned +from Paris upon this case. It was not, after all, +any of my colleagues here who spread the news. It is +even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer +of the letters. And in so difficult a matter I can afford +to neglect no clue. Did Waberski know that I was going +to be sent for? Did he hear that at the Prefecture when +he lodged his charge on the Saturday or from the +examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to +whom did he talk between the time when he saw the +magistrate and the time when letters must be posted if they +are to be delivered on the Sunday morning? These are +questions I must have the answer to, and if we at once +administer the knock-out with your letters, I shall not +get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You +see that." +

+ +

+Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see +Hanaud dealing with Waberski in the most outrageous +of his moods, pouncing and tearing and trampling with +the gibes of a schoolboy and the improprieties of the +gutter. Hanaud indeed had promised him as much. But +he found him now all for restraint and sobriety and more +concerned apparently with the authorship of the anonymous +letters than with the righting of Betty Harlowe. +Jim felt that he had been defrauded. +

+ +

+"But I am to meet this man," he said. "That must not +be forgotten." +

+ +

+"And it shall not be," Hanaud assured him. He led +him over to the door in the inner wall close to the +observation window and opened it. +

+ +

+"See! If you will please to wait in here," and as the +disappointment deepened on Jim's face, he added, "Oh, +I do not ask you to shut the door. No. Bring up a chair +to it—so! And keep the door ajar so! Then you will +see and hear and yet not be seen. You are content? Not +very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole +time like an actor. Yes, we all do. But, at all events, +you do not throw up your part," and with a friendly grin +he turned back to the table. +

+ +

+A shuffling step which merged into the next step with +a curiously slovenly sound rose from the courtyard. +

+ +

+"It was time we made our little arrangements," said +Hanaud in an undertone. "For here comes our hero from +the Steppes." +

+ +

+Jim popped his head through the doorway. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud!" he whispered excitedly. "Monsieur +Hanaud! It cannot be wise to leave those windows +open on the courtyard. For if we can hear a footstep so +loudly in this room, anything said in this room will be +easily overheard in the court." +

+ +

+"But how true that is!" Hanaud replied in the same +voice and struck his forehead with his fist in anger at his +folly. "But what are we to do? The day is so hot. +This room will be an oven. The ladies and Waberski +will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain clothes +already stationed in the court to see that it is kept empty. +Yes, we will risk it." +

+ +

+Jim drew back. +

+ +

+"That man doesn't welcome advice from any one," +he said indignantly, but he said it only to himself; and +almost before he had finished, the bell rang. A few +seconds afterwards Gaston entered. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Boris," he said. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud with a nod. "And will you tell +the ladies that we are ready?" +

+ +

+Boris Waberski, a long, round-shouldered man with +bent knees and clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding +a soft black felt hat in his hand, shambled quickly into +the room and stopped dead at the sight of Hanaud. +Hanaud bowed and Waberski returned the bow; and +then the two men stood looking at one another—Hanaud +all geniality and smiles, Waberski a rather grotesque +figure of uneasiness like one of those many grim +caricatures carved by the imagination of the Middle Ages on +the columns of the churches of Dijon. He blinked in +perplexity at the detective and with his long, +tobacco-stained fingers tortured his grey moustache. +

+ +

+"Will you be seated?" said Hanaud politely. "I think +that the ladies will not keep us waiting." +

+ +

+He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table +but on his left hand and opposite to the door. +

+ +

+"I don't understand," said Waberski doubtfully. "I +received a message. I understood that the Examining +Magistrate had sent for me." +

+ +

+"I am his agent," said Hanaud. "I am——" and he +stopped. "Yes?" +

+ +

+Boris Waberski stared. +

+ +

+"I said nothing." +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon. I am—Hanaud." +

+ +

+He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by +no start, nor by any sign of recognition. +

+ +

+"Hanaud?" Waberski shook his head. "That no +doubt should be sufficient to enlighten me," he said with +a smile, "but it is better to be frank—it doesn't." +

+ +

+"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris." +

+ +

+And upon Waberski's face there came slowly a look of +utter consternation. +

+ +

+"Oh!" he said, and again "Oh!" with a lamentable look +towards the door as if he was in two minds whether to +make a bolt of it. Hanaud pointed again to the chair, +and Waberski murmured, "Yes—to be sure," and made +a little run to it and sank down. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was +certain of one thing. Boris Waberski had not written the +anonymous letter to Betty nor had he contributed the +information about Hanaud to the writer. He might well +have been thought to have been acting ignorance of +Hanaud's name, up to the moment when Hanaud explained +who Hanaud was. But no longer. His consternation +then was too genuine. +

+ +

+"You will understand, of course, that an accusation +so serious as the one you have brought against Mademoiselle +Harlowe demands the closest inquiry," Hanaud continued +without any trace of irony, "and the Examining +Magistrate in charge of the case honoured us in Paris +with a request for help." +

+ +

+"Yes, it is very difficult," replied Boris Waberski, +twisting about as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. +

+ +

+But the difficulty was Waberski's, as Jim, with that +distressed man in full view, was now able to appreciate. +Waberski had rushed to the Prefecture when no answer +came from Messrs. Frobisher & Haslitt to his letter of +threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of +disappointment and rancour, with a hope no doubt that some +offer of cash would be made to him and that he could +withdraw it. Now he found the trained detective service +of France upon his heels, asking for his proofs and +evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. +

+ +

+"I thought," Hanaud continued easily, "that a little +informal conversation between you and me and the two +young ladies, without shorthand writers or secretaries, +might be helpful." +

+ +

+"Yes, indeed," said Waberski hopefully. +

+ +

+"As a preliminary of course," Hanaud added dryly, "a +preliminary to the more serious and now inevitable +procedure." +

+ +

+Waberski's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. +

+ +

+"To be sure," he murmured, plucking at his lean throat +nervously. "Cases must proceed." +

+ +

+"That is what they are there for," said Hanaud +sententiously; and the door of the library was pushed open. +Betty came into the room with Ann Upcott immediately +behind her. +

+ +

+"You sent for me," she began to Hanaud, and then she +saw Boris Waberski. Her little head went up with a +jerk, her eyes smouldered. "Monsieur Boris," she said, +and again she spoke to Hanaud. "Come to take possession, +I suppose?" Then she looked round the room for +Jim Frobisher, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay: +

+ +

+"But I understood that——" and Hanaud was just in +time to stop her from mentioning any name. +

+ +

+"All in good time, Mademoiselle," he said quickly. +"Let us take things in their order." +

+ +

+Betty took her old place in the window-seat. Ann +Upcott shut the door and sat down in a chair a little apart +from the others. Hanaud folded up his newspaper and +laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad which was now +revealed lay one of those green files which Jim Frobisher +had noticed in the office of the Sûrété. Hanaud opened +it and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to +Waberski. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of +April, this girl here, Betty Harlowe, did wilfully give to +her adoptive mother and benefactress, Jeanne-Marie +Harlowe, an overdose of a narcotic by which her death was +brought about." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Waberski with an air of boldness, "I declare +that." +

+ +

+"You do not specify the narcotic?" +

+ +

+"It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure." +

+ +

+"And administered, according to you, if this summary +which I hold here is correct, in the glass of lemonade +which Madame Harlowe had always at her bedside." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud laid the sheet of foolscap down again. +

+ +

+"You do not charge the nurse, Jeanne Baudin, with +complicity in this crime?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Oh, no!" Waberski exclaimed with a sort of horror, +with his eyes open wide and his eyebrows running up his +forehead towards his hedge of wiry hair. "I have not a +suspicion of Jeanne Baudin. I pray you, Monsieur +Hanaud, to be clear upon that point. There must be no +injustice! No! Oh, it is well that I came here to-day! +Jeanne Baudin! Listen! I would engage her to nurse +me to-morrow, were my health to fail." +

+ +

+"One cannot say more than that," replied Hanaud with +a grave sympathy. "I only asked you the question +because undoubtedly Jeanne Baudin was in Madame's +bedroom when Mademoiselle entered it to wish Madame +good night and show off her new dancing-frock." +

+ +

+"Yes, I understand," said Waberski. He was growing +more and more confident, so suave and friendly was this +Monsieur Hanaud of the Sûrété. "But the fatal drug +was slipped into that glass without a doubt when Jeanne +Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No! It +is that hard one," and his voice began to shake and his +mouth to work, "who slipped it in and then hurried off +to dance till morning, whilst her victim died. It is terrible +that! Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, it is terrible. My poor +sister!" +

+ +

+"Sister-in-law." +

+ +

+The correction came with an acid calm from an armchair +near the door in which Ann Upcott was reclining. +

+ +

+"Sister to me!" replied Waberski mournfully and he +turned to Hanaud. "Monsieur, I shall never cease to +reproach myself. I was away fishing in the forest. If +I had stayed at home! Think of it! I ask you to——" +and his voice broke. +

+ +

+"Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Waberski," +Hanaud said, "and this is where I am perplexed. You +loved your sister. That is clear, since you cannot even +think of her without tears." +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," Waberski shaded his eyes with his hand. +

+ +

+"Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so +long before you took any action to avenge her death? +There will be some good reason not a doubt, but I have +not got it." Hanaud continued, spreading out his hands. +"Listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night +of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th; and +you do nothing, you bring no charge, you sit all quiet. +She is buried on the 30th, and after that you still do +nothing, you sit all quiet. It is not until one week after +that you launch your accusation against Mademoiselle. +Why? I beg you, Monsieur Waberski, not to look at +me between the fingers, for the answer is not written on +my face, and to explain this difficulty to me." +

+ +

+The request was made in the same pleasant, friendly +voice which Hanaud had used so far and without any +change of intonation. But Waberski snatched his hand +away from his forehead and sat up with a flush on his +face. +

+ +

+"I answer you at once," he exclaimed. "From the first +I knew it here," and he thumped his heart with his fist, +"that murder had been committed. But as yet I did not +know it here," and he patted his forehead, "in my head. +So I think and I think and I think. I see reasons and +motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of +beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, +thirsting in her heart for colour and laughter and +enjoyment and the power which her beauty offers her if she +will but grasp it, and yet while thirsting, very able to +conceal all sign of thirst. That is the picture I give you +of that hard one, Betty Harlowe." +

+ +

+For the first time since the interview had commenced, +Betty herself showed some interest in it. Up till now +she had sat without a movement, a figure of disdain in +an ice-house of pride. Now she flashed into life. She +leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed knee, her chin +propped in her hand, her eyes on Waberski, and a smile +of amusement at this analysis of herself giving life to +her face. Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his +door felt that he was listening to blasphemies. Why did +Hanaud endure it? There was information, he had said, +which he wanted to get from Boris Waberski. The point +on which he wanted information was settled long ago, at +the very beginning of this informal session. It was as +clear as daylight that Waberski had nothing to do with +Betty's anonymous letter. Why, then, should Hanaud +give this mountebank of a fellow a free opportunity to +slander Betty Harlowe? Why should he question and +question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? +Why, in a word, didn't he fling open this door, allow +Frobisher to produce the blackmailing letters to +Mr. Haslitt, and then stand aside while Boris Waberski was +put into that condition in which he would call upon the +services of Jeanne Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously +annoyed with Monsieur Hanaud. He explained to +himself that he was disappointed. +

+ +

+Meanwhile, Boris Waberski, after a little nervous check +when Betty had leaned forward, continued his description. +

+ +

+"For such a one Dijon would be tiresome. It is true +there was each year a month or so at Monte Carlo, just +enough to give one a hint of what might be, like a +cigarette to a man who wants to smoke. And then back +to Dijon! Ah, Monsieur, not the Dijon of the Dukes of +Burgundy, not even the Dijon of the Parliament of the +States, but the Dijon of to-day, an ordinary, dull, +provincial town of France which keeps nothing of its former +gaieties and glory but some old rare buildings and a little +spirit of mockery. Imagine, then, Monsieur, this hard +one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp if only +she has the boldness on some night when Monsieur Boris +is out of the way to seize them! Nor is that all. For +there is an invalid in the house to whom attentions are +owed—yes, and must be given." Waberski, in a flight of +excitement checked himself and half closed his eyes, with +a little cunning nod. "For the invalid was not so easy. +No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we +will not forget them when the moment comes for the +extenuating pleas. No, indeed," and he flung his arm +out nobly. "I myself will be the first to urge them to the +judge of the Assizes when the verdict is given." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe leaned back once more indifferent. +From an arm-chair near the door, a little gurgle of +laughter broke from the lips of Ann Upcott. Even Hanaud +smiled. +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," he said; "but we have not got quite as far +as the Court of Assizes, Monsieur Waberski. We are +still at the point where you know it in your heart but not +in your head." +

+ +

+"That is so," Waberski returned briskly. "On the +seventh of May, a Saturday, I bring my accusation to the +Prefecture. Why? For, on the morning of that day I +am certain. I know it at last here too," and up went his +hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward on +to the edge of his chair. +

+ +

+"I am in the street of Gambetta, one of the small popular +new streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation +not of the best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly +through that street when from a little shop a few yards +in front of me out pops that hard one, my niece." +

+ +

+Suddenly the whole character of that session had +changed. Jim Frobisher, though he sat apart from it, +felt the new tension, and was aware of the new expectancy. +A moment ago Boris Waberski as he sat talking +and gesticulating had been a thing for ridicule, almost for +outright laughter. Now, though his voice still jumped +hysterically from high notes to low notes and his body +jerked like a marionette's, he held the eyes of every +one—every one, that is, except Betty Harlowe. He was no +longer vague. He was speaking of a definite hour and a +place and of a definite incident which happened there. +

+ +

+"Yes, in that bad little street I see her. I do not +believe my senses. I step into a little narrow alley and I +peep round the corner. I peep with my eyes," and +Waberski pointed to them with two of his fingers as though +there was something peculiarly convincing in the fact +that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, "and +I am sure. Then I wait until she is out of sight, and +I creep forward to see what shop it is she visited in that +little street of squalor. Once more I do not believe my +eyes. For over the door I read the name, Jean Cladel, +Herbalist." +

+ +

+He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph and sat +back in his chair, nodding his head violently at intervals +of a second. There was not a sound in the room until +Hanaud's voice broke the silence. +

+ +

+"I don't understand," he said softly. "Who is this +Jean Cladel, and why should a young lady not visit his +shop?" +

+ +

+"I beg your pardon," Waberski replied. "You are not +of Dijon. No! or you would not have asked that question. +Jean Cladel has no better name than the street he +very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonnais about Jean Cladel, +and you will see how he becomes silent and shrugs his +shoulders as if here was a topic on which it was becoming +to be silent. Better still, Monsieur Hanaud, ask at +the Prefecture. Jean Cladel! Twice he has been tried +for selling prohibited drugs." +

+ +

+Hanaud was stung at last out of his calm. +

+ +

+"What is that?" he cried in a sharp voice. +

+ +

+"Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped +through, that is true. He has powerful friends, and +witnesses have been spirited away. But he is known! Jean +Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!" +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta," +Hanaud repeated slowly. "But"—and he leaned back in +an easier attitude—"you will see my difficulty, Monsieur +Waberski. Ten o'clock is a public hour. It is not a likely +hour for any one to choose for so imprudent a visit, even +if that one were stupid." +

+ +

+"Yes, and so I reasoned too," Waberski interposed +quickly. "As I told you, I could not believe my eyes. +But I made sure—oh, there was no doubt, Monsieur +Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes are +discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner +or later some foolish thing. Isn't it so? Sometimes they +are too careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an +imperfect world. Sometimes they are too careless or are +driven by necessity to a rash thing. But somehow a +mistake is made and justice wins the game." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled. +

+ +

+"Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!" He turned to +Betty, and it struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious +discomfort that this was the first time Hanaud had looked +directly at Betty since the interview had begun. +

+ +

+"And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"It is a lie," she answered quietly. +

+ +

+"You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta +at ten o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May?" +

+ +

+"I did not, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache. +

+ +

+"Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle +to admit it. One fights for one's skin, eh?" +

+ +

+"But, after all," Hanaud interrupted, with enough +savagery in his voice to check all Waberski's complacency, +"let us not forget that on the 7th of May, Madame +Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why should +Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?" +

+ +

+"To pay," said Waberski. "Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel's +wares are expensive and have to be paid for more than +once, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"By wares you mean poison," said Hanaud. "Let us +be explicit." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe." +

+ +

+"I say so," Waberski declared, folding his arms across +his breast. +

+ +

+"Very well," said Hanaud. He took from his green +file a second paper written over in a fine hand and +emphasised by an official stamp. "Then what will you say, +Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of Madame +Harlowe has been exhumed?" Hanaud continued, and +Waberski's face lost what little colour it had. He stared +at Hanaud, his jaw working up and down nervously, and +he did not say a word. +

+ +

+"And what will you say if I tell you," Hanaud +continued, "that no more morphia was discovered in it than +one sleeping-dose would explain and no trace at all of any +other poison?" +

+ +

+In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief +from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The game was +up. He had hoped to make his terms, but his bluff was +called. He had not one atom of faith in his own accusation. +There was but one course for him to take, and that +was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection +for his sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. +But Boris Waberski was never the man for that. He had +that extra share of cunning which shipwrecks always the +minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine that +Hanaud might be bluffing too. +

+ +

+He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He +tittered and nodded at Hanaud confidentially. +

+ +

+"You say 'if I tell you,'" he said smoothly. "Yes, but +you do not tell me, Monsieur Hanaud—no, not at all. +On the contrary, what you say is this: 'My friend Waberski, +here is a difficult matter which, if exposed, means a +great scandal, and of which the issue is doubtful. There +is no good in stirring the mud.'" +

+ +

+"Oh, I say that?" Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly. +

+ +

+Waberski felt sure of his ground now. +

+ +

+"Yes, and more than that. You say, 'You have been +badly treated, my friend Waberski, and if you will now +have a little talk with that hard one your niece——'" +

+ +

+And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat +gaping stupidly like a man who has been shot. +

+ +

+Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering +above the table, his face suddenly dark with passion. +

+ +

+"Oh, I say all that, do I?" he thundered. "I came +all the way from Paris to Dijon to preside over a little +bargain in a murder case! I—Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! +I'll teach you a lesson for that! Read this!" and bending +forward he thrust out the paper with the official seal. +"It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and +read it!" +

+ +

+Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to +venture nearer. Even when he had the paper in his hands, +they shook so he could not read it. But since he had +never believed in his charge that did not matter. +

+ +

+"Yes," he muttered, "no doubt I have made a mistake." +

+ +

+Hanaud caught the word up. +

+ +

+"Mistake! Ah, there's a fine word! I'll show you +what sort of a mistake you have made. Draw up your +chair to this table in front of me! So! And take a +pen—so! And a sheet of paper—so! and now you write +for me a letter." +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," Waberski agreed. All the bravado had +gone from his bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He +was in a quiver from head to foot. "I will write that I +am sorry." +

+ +

+"That is not necessary," roared Hanaud. "I will see +to it that you are sorry. No! You write for me what I +dictate to you and in English. You are ready? Yes? +Then you begin. 'Dear Sirs.' You have that?" +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His +head was in a whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the +towering bulk of the detective. He had as yet no +comprehension of the goal to which he was being led. +

+ +

+"Good! 'Dear Sirs,'" Hanaud repeated. "But we +want a date for that letter. April 30th, eh? That will +do. The day Madame Harlowe's will was read and you +found you were left no money. April 30th—put it in. +So! Now we go on. 'Dear Sirs, Send me at once one +thousand pounds by the recommended post, or I make +some awkwardnesses——'" +

+ +

+Waberski dropped his pen and sprang back out of his +chair. +

+ +

+"I don't understand—I can't write that.... There +is an error—I never meant..." he stammered, his +hands raised as if to ward off an attack. +

+ +

+"Ah, you never meant the blackmail!" Hanaud cried +savagely. "Ah! Ha! Ha! It is good for you that I +now know that! For when, as you put it so delicately +to Mademoiselle, the moment comes for the extenuating +pleas, I can rise up in the Court and urge it. Yes! I +will say: 'Mr. the President, though he did the blackmail, +poor fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him +five years more,'" and with that Hanaud swept across +the room like a tornado and flung open the door behind +which Frobisher was waiting. +

+ +

+"Come!" he said, and he led Jim into the room. "You +produce the two letters he wrote to your firm, Monsieur +Frobisher. Good!" +

+ +

+But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris +Waberski had dropped into a chair and burst into tears. +There was a little movement of discomfort made by +every one in that room except Hanaud; and even his +anger dropped. He looked at Waberski in silence. +

+ +

+"You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your +hotel," he said shortly. "But you will not leave Dijon, +Monsieur Waberski, until it is decided what steps we shall +take with you." +

+ +

+Waberski rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the +door. +

+ +

+"I make my apologies," he stammered. "It is all a +mistake. I am very poor ... I meant no harm," and +without looking at any one he got himself out of the +room. +

+ +

+"That type! He at all events cannot any more think +that Dijon is dull," said Hanaud, and once more he +adventured on the dangerous seas of the English +language. "Do you know what my friend Mister Ricardo +would have said? No? I tell you. He would have said, +'That fellow! My God! What a sauce!'" +

+ +

+Those left in the room, Betty, Ann Upcott, and Jim +Frobisher, were in a mood to welcome any excuse for +laughter. The interdict upon the house was raised, the +charge against Betty proved of no account, the whole +bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanaud +went quickly to the door and closed it, and when he +turned back there was no laughter at all upon his face. +

+ +

+"Now that that man has gone," he said gravely, "I +have something to tell you three which is very serious. I +believe that, though Waberski does not know it, Madame +Harlowe was murdered by poison in this house on the +night of April the twenty-seventh." +

+ +

+The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim +Frobisher stood like a man whom some calamity has +stunned. Betty leaned forward in her seat with a face of +horror and incredulity; and then from the arm-chair by +the door where Ann Upcott was sitting there burst a loud, +wild cry. +

+ +

+"There was some one in the house that night," she cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud swung round to her, his eyes blazing. +

+ +

+"And it is you who tell me that, Mademoiselle?" he +asked in a curious, steady voice. +

+ +

+"Yes. It's the truth," she cried with a sort of relief +in her voice, that at last a secret was out which had grown +past endurance. "I am sure now. There was a stranger +in the house." And though her face was white as paper, +her eyes met Hanaud's without fear. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER EIGHT: The Book +

+ +

+The two startling declarations, one treading upon the +heels of the other, set Jim Frobisher's brain whirling. +Consternation and bewilderment were all jumbled +together. He had no time to ask "how," for he was +already asking "What next?" His first clear thought +was for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger +against both Hanaud and Ann Upcott seized and shook +him. Why hadn't they both spoken before? Why must +they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well alone? +

+ +

+For Betty had fallen back in the window-seat, her +hands idle at her sides and her face utterly weary and +distressed. Jim thought of some stricken patient who +wakes in the morning to believe for a few moments that +the malady was a bad dream; and then comes the stab +and the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A +moment ago Betty's ordeal seemed over. Now it was +beginning a new phase. +

+ +

+"I am sorry," he said to her. +

+ +

+The report of the analysts was lying on the writing-table +just beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was +a trick, of course, with its seals and its signatures, a +trick of Hanaud's to force Waberski to a retraction. He +glanced at it, and with an exclamation began carefully +to read it through from the beginning to the end. When +he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanaud. +

+ +

+"But this report is genuine," he cried. "Here are +the details of the tests applied and the result. There was +no trace discovered of any poison." +

+ +

+"No trace at all," Hanaud replied. He was not in the +least disturbed by the question. +

+ +

+"Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation +or whom you accuse," Frobisher exclaimed. +

+ +

+"I have accused no one," said Hanaud steadily. "Let +us be clear about that! As to your other question—look!" +

+ +

+He took Frobisher by the elbow and led him to that +bookshelf by the window before which they had stood +together yesterday. +

+ +

+"There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself +drew my attention to it. You see that the space is +filled to-day." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+Hanaud took down the volume which occupied the +space. It was of quarto size, fairly thick and bound in a +paper cover. +

+ +

+"Look at that," he said; and Jim Frobisher as he took +it noticed with a queer little start that although Hanaud's +eyes were on his face they were blank of all expression. +They did not see him. Hanaud's senses were concentrated +on the two girls at neither of whom he so much +as glanced. He was alert to them, to any movement they +might make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his +head in a sudden revolt. He was being used for another +trick, as some conjurer may use a fool of a fellow whom +he has persuaded out of his audience on to his platform. +Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with +enough violence to recall Hanaud's attention: +

+ +

+"I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed +by some learned society in Edinburgh." +

+ +

+"It is. And if you will look again, you will see that +it was written by a Professor of Medicine in that +University. And if you will look a third time you will see +from a small inscription in ink that the copy was +presented with the Professor's compliments to Mr. Simon +Harlowe." +

+ +

+Hanaud, whilst he was speaking, went to the second +of the two windows which looked upon the court and putting +his head out, spoke for a little while in a low voice. +

+ +

+"We shall not need our sentry here any more," he +said as he turned back into the room. "I have sent him +upon an errand." +

+ +

+He went back to Jim Frobisher, who was turning over +a page of the treatise here and there and was never a +scrap the wiser. +

+ +

+"Well?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Strophanthus Hispidus," Jim read aloud the title of +the treatise. "I can't make head or tail of it." +

+ +

+"Let me try!" said Hanaud, and he took the book out +of Frobisher's hands. "I will show you all how I spent +the half-hour whilst I was waiting for you this morning." +

+ +

+He sat down at the writing-table, placed the treatise on +the blotting-pad in front of him and laid it open at a +coloured plate. +

+ +

+"This is the fruit of the plant Strophanthus Hispidus, +when it is ripening," he said. +

+ +

+The plate showed two long, tapering follicles joined +together at their stems and then separating like a pair +of compasses set at an acute angle. The backs of these +follicles were rounded, dark in colour and speckled; the +inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the curious +feature of them was that, from longitudinal crevices, a +number of silky white feathers protruded. +

+ +

+"Each of these feathers," Hanaud continued, and he +looked up to find that Ann Upcott had drawn close to +the table and that Betty Harlowe herself was leaning +forward with a look of curiosity upon her face—"each +of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an elliptical +pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe +and these follicles have opened so that they make a +straight line, the feathers are released and the wind +spreads the seed. It is wonderful, eh? See!" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned the pages until he came to another plate. +Here a feather was represented in complete detachment +from the follicle. It was outspread like a fan and was +extraordinarily pretty and delicate in its texture; and +from it by a stem as fine as a hair the seed hung like a +jewel. +

+ +

+"What would you say of it, Mademoiselle?" Hanaud +asked, looking up into the face of Ann Upcott with a +smile. "An ornament wrought for a fine lady, by a +dainty artist, eh?" and he turned the book round so that +she on the opposite side of the table might the better +admire the engraving. +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe, it seemed, was now mastered by her +curiosity. Jim Frobisher, gazing down over Hanaud's +shoulder at the plate and wondering uneasily whither he +was being led, saw a shadow fall across the book. And +there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend with +the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table and her +face bent over the book. +

+ +

+"One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the +Strophanthus Hispidus," Hanaud continued with a shake +of the head. "But, alas! it is not so harmless." +

+ +

+He turned the book around again to himself and once +more turned the pages. The smile had disappeared +altogether from his face. He stopped at a third plate; and +this third plate showed a row of crudely fashioned arrows +with barbed heads. +

+ +

+Hanaud glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. +

+ +

+"Do you understand now the importance of this book, +Monsieur Frobisher?" he asked. "No? The seeds of +this plant make the famous arrow-poison of Africa. The +deadliest of all the poisons since there is no antidote +for it." His voice grew sombre. "The wickedest of all +the poisons, since it leaves no trace." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was startled. "Is that true?" he cried. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud; and Betty suddenly leaned +forward and pointed to the bottom of the plate. +

+ +

+"There is a mark there below the hilt of that arrow," +she said curiously. "Yes, and a tiny note in ink." +

+ +

+For a moment a little gift of vision was vouchsafed +to Jim Frobisher, born, no doubt, of his perplexities and +trouble. A curtain was rung up in his brain. He saw +no more than what was before him—the pretty group +about the table in the gold of the May morning, but it +was all made grim and terrible and the gold had withered +to a light that was grey and deathly and cold as the +grave. There were the two girls in the grace of their +beauty and their youth, daintily tended, fastidiously +dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of the +poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man +delivering the lecture, so close to them, with speech so +gentle, was implacably on the trail of murder, and maybe +even now looked upon one of these two girls as his +quarry; was even now perhaps planning to set her in +the dock of an Assize Court and send her out afterwards, +carried screaming and sobbing with terror in the first +grey of the morning to the hideous red engine erected +during the night before the prison gates. Jim saw +Hanaud the genial and friendly, as in some flawed mirror, +twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could +he sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point +them out this and that diagram in the plates, he being +human and knowing what he purposed. Jim broke in +upon the lecture with a cry of exasperation. +

+ +

+"But this isn't a poison! This is a book about a poison. +The book can't kill!" +

+ +

+At once Hanaud replied to him: +

+ +

+"Can't it?" he cried sharply. "Listen to what Mademoiselle +said a minute ago. Below the hilt of this arrow +marked 'Figure F,' the Professor has written a tiny note." +

+ +

+This particular arrow was a little different from the +others in the shape of its shaft. Just below the triangular +iron head the shaft expanded. It was as though the head +had been fitted into a bulb; as one sees sometimes wooden +penholders fine enough and tapering at the upper end, +and quite thick just above the nib. +

+ +

+"'See page 37,'" said Hanaud, reading the Professor's +note, and he turned back the pages. +

+ +

+"Page 37. Here we are!" +

+ +

+Hanaud ran a finger half-way down the page and +stopped at a word in capitals. +

+ +

+"Figure F." +

+ +

+Hanaud hitched his chair a little closer to the table; +Ann Upcott moved round the end of the table that she +might see the better; even Jim Frobisher found himself +stooping above Hanaud's shoulder. They were all +conscious of a queer tension; they were expectant like +explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Hanaud read +the paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed; and +this is what he read: +

+ +

+"'Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow +which was lent to me by Simon Harlowe, Esq., of +Blackman's, Norfolk, and the Maison Crenelle at Dijon. It +was given to him by a Mr. John Carlisle, a trader on the +Shire River in the Kombe country, and is the most perfect +example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The +Strophanthus seed has been pounded up in water and mixed +with the reddish clay used by the Kombe natives, and +the compound is thickly smeared over the head of the +arrow shaft and over the actual iron dart except at the +point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and the +compound fresh.'" +

+ +

+Hanaud leaned back in his chair when he had come to +the end of this paragraph. +

+ +

+"You see, Monsieur Frobisher, the question we have to +answer. Where is to-day Simon Harlowe's arrow?" +

+ +

+Betty looked up into Hanaud's face. +

+ +

+"If it is anywhere in this house, Monsieur, it should be +in the locked cabinet in my sitting-room." +

+ +

+"Your sitting-room?" Hanaud exclaimed sharply. +

+ +

+"Yes. It is what we call the Treasure Room—half +museum, half living-room. My uncle Simon used it, +Madame too. It was their favourite room, full of curios +and beautiful things. But after Simon Harlowe died +Madame would never enter it. She locked the door which +communicated with her dressing-room, so that she might +never even in a moment of forgetfulness enter it. The +room has a door into the hall. She gave the room to +me." +

+ +

+Hanaud's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. +

+ +

+"I understand," he said. "And that room is sealed." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Have you ever seen the arrow, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet +once. There are some horrible things hidden away +there"; and Betty shivered and shook the recollection of +them from her shoulders. +

+ +

+"The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that +it never came back to the house," Frobisher argued +stubbornly. "The Professor in all probability would have +kept it." +

+ +

+"If he could," Hanaud rejoined. "But it's out of all +probability that a collector of rare things would have +allowed him to keep it. No!" and he sat for a little time +in a muse. "Do you know what I am wondering?" he +asked at length, and then answered his own question. "I +am wondering whether after all Boris Waberski was not +in the street of Gambetta on the seventh of May and close, +very close, to the shop of Jean Cladel the herbalist." +

+ +

+"Boris! Boris Waberski," cried Jim. Was he in +Hanaud's eyes the criminal? After all, why not? After +all, who more likely if criminal there was, since Boris +Waberski thought himself an inheritor under Mrs. Harlowe's +will? +

+ +

+"I am wondering whether he was not doing that very +thing which he attributed to you, Mademoiselle Betty," +Hanaud continued. +

+ +

+"Paying?" Betty cried. +

+ +

+"Paying—or making excuses for not paying, which +is more probable, or recovering the poison arrow now +clean of its poison, which is most probable of all." +

+ +

+At last Hanaud had made an end of his secrecies and +reticence. His suspicion, winged like the arrow in the +plate, was flying straight to this evident mark. Jim drew +a breath like a man waking from a nightmare; in all of +that small company a relaxation was visible; Ann Upcott +drew away from the table; Betty said softly as though +speaking to herself, "Monsieur Boris! Monsieur Boris! +Oh, I never thought of that!" and, to Jim's admiration +there was actually a note of regret in her voice. +

+ +

+It was audible, too, to Hanaud, since he answered with +a smile: +

+ +

+"But you must bring yourself to think of it, Mademoiselle. +After all, he was not so gentle with you that you +need show him so much good will." +

+ +

+A slight rush of colour tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim +was not quite sure that a tiny accent of irony had not +pointed Hanaud's words. +

+ +

+"I saw him sitting here," she replied quickly, "half an +hour ago—abject—in tears—a man!" She shrugged her +shoulders with a gesture of distaste. "I wish him +nothing worse. I was satisfied." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled again with a curious amusement, an +appreciation which Frobisher was quite at a loss to +understand. But he had from time to time received an +uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel was all +this while being fought by Betty Harlowe and Hanaud +underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers—a +duel in which now one, now the other of the combatants +got some trifling scratch. This time it seemed +Betty was hurt. +

+ +

+"You are satisfied, Mademoiselle, but the Law is not," +Hanaud returned. "Boris Waberski expected a legacy. +Boris Waberski needed money immediately, as the first +of the two letters which he wrote to Monsieur Frobisher's +firm clearly shows. Boris Waberski had a motive." He +looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod +to drive the point home. "Motives, no doubt, are signposts +rather difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss, +they lead one very wide astray. Granted! But you +must look for your signposts all the same and try to read +them aright. Listen again to the Professor of Medicine +in the University of Edinburgh! He is as precise as a +man can be." +

+ +

+Hanaud's eyes fell again upon the description of +Figure F in the treatise still open upon the table in front +of him. +

+ +

+"The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow +which he had ever come across. The poison paste was +thickly and smoothly spread over the arrow head and +some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused and the +poison fresh, and these poisons retain their energy for +many, many years. I tell you that if this book and this +arrow were handed over to Jean Cladel, Herbalist, Jean +Cladel could with ease make a solution in alcohol which +injected from a hypodermic needle, would cause death +within fifteen minutes and leave not one trace." +

+ +

+"Within fifteen minutes?" Betty asked incredulously, +and from the arm-chair against the wall, where Ann +Upcott had once more seated herself, there broke a +startled exclamation. +

+ +

+"Oh!" she cried, but no one took any notice of her +at all. Both Jim and Betty had their eyes fixed upon +Hanaud, and he was altogether occupied in driving his +argument home. +

+ +

+"Within fifteen minutes? How do you know?" cried Jim. +

+ +

+"It is written here, in the book." +

+ +

+"And where would Jean Cladel have learnt to handle +the paste with safety, how to prepare the solution?" Jim +went on. +

+ +

+"Here! Here! Here!" answered Hanaud, tapping +with his knuckles upon the treatise. "It is all written +out here—experiment after experiment made upon living +animals and the action of the poison measured and +registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working +knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, +and the result is certain." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe leaned forward again over the book and +Hanaud turned it half round between them, so that both, +by craning their heads, could read. He turned the pages +back to the beginning and passed them quickly in review. +

+ +

+"See, Mademoiselle, the time tables. Strophanthus +constricts the muscles of the heart like digitalis, only much +more violently, much more swiftly. See the contractions +of the heart noted down minute after minute, until the +moment of death and all—here is the irony!—so that by +means of these experiments, the poison may be transformed +into a medicine and the weapon of death become +an agent of life—as in good hands, it has happened." Hanaud +leaned back and contemplated Betty Harlowe between +his half-closed eyes. "That is wonderful, Mademoiselle. +What do you think?" +

+ +

+Betty slowly closed the book. +

+ +

+"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," she said, "it is no less +wonderful that you should have studied this book so +thoroughly during the half-hour you waited for us here this +morning." +

+ +

+It was Hanaud's turn to change colour. The blood +mounted into his face. He was for a second or two quite +disconcerted. Jim once more had a glimpse of the secret +duel and rejoiced that this time it was Hanaud, the great +Hanaud, who was scratched. +

+ +

+"The study of poisons is particularly my work," he +answered shortly. "Even at the Sûrété we have to +specialise nowadays," and he turned rather quickly towards +Frobisher. "You are thoughtful, Monsieur?" +

+ +

+Jim was following out his own train of thought. +

+ +

+"Yes," he answered. Then he spoke to Betty. +

+ +

+"Boris Waberski had a latch-key, I suppose?" +

+ +

+"Yes," she replied. +

+ +

+"He took it away with him?" +

+ +

+"I think so." +

+ +

+"When are the iron gates locked?" +

+ +

+"It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed." +

+ +

+Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. +

+ +

+"You see, Monsieur Hanaud," he cried, "all this while +we have been leaving out a question of importance. Who +put this book back upon its shelf? And when? Yesterday +at noon the space was empty. This morning it is +filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the garden +after dinner behind the house. What could have been +easier than for Waberski to slip in with his latch-key at +some moment when the court was empty, replace the book +and slip out again unnoticed? Why——" +

+ +

+A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. +

+ +

+"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The +police have a sergent-de-ville at our gates, night and day." +

+ +

+Hanaud shook his head. +

+ +

+"He is there no longer. After you were good enough +to answer me so frankly yesterday morning the questions +it was my duty to put to you, I had him removed at +once." +

+ +

+"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He +remembered now that when he had driven up with his +luggage from the hotel in the afternoon, the street of +Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty Harlowe +stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made +her face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she +dipped to the detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice +was warm with gratitude. +

+ +

+"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday +that the man had been removed, or I should have thanked +you before. Indeed I was not looking for so much +consideration at your hands. As I told my friend Jim, I +believed that you went away thinking me guilty." +

+ +

+Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the +flourish of the sword with which the duellist saluted at +the end of the bout. The little secret combat between +these two was over. Hanaud, by removing the sergeant +from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only +to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify +any surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or +any limitations upon her freedom. +

+ +

+"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at +his solution of the case like a dog with a bone. "You +see Waberski had the road clear for him last night." +

+ +

+Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head +vigorously. +

+ +

+"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so +horrible a murder. More," and she turned her great eyes +pleadingly upon Hanaud, "I don't believe that any murder +was committed here at all. I don't want to believe it," +and for a moment her voice faltered. +

+ +

+"After all, Monsieur Hanaud, what are you building +this dreadful theory upon? That a book of my Uncle +Simon was not in his library yesterday and is there +to-day. We know nothing more. We don't know even +whether Jean Cladel exists at all." +

+ +

+"We shall know that, Mademoiselle, very soon," said +Hanaud, staring down at the book upon the table. +

+ +

+"We don't know whether the arrow is in the house, +whether it ever was." +

+ +

+"We must make sure, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud +stubbornly. +

+ +

+"And even if you had it now, here with the poison +clinging in shreds to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure +that the rest of it had been used. Here is a report, +Monsieur, from the doctors. Because it says that no trace +of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a +poison was administered which leaves no trace. You +never can prove it. You have nothing to go upon. It's +all guesswork, and guesswork which will keep us living in +a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a moment that murder +had been committed, I'd say, 'Go on, go on'! But it +hasn't. Oh, it hasn't!" +

+ +

+Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there +was so strong a passion of appeal, for peace, for an +end of suspicion, for a right to forget and be forgotten, +that Jim fancied no man could resist it. Indeed, Hanaud +sat for a long while with his eyes bent upon the table +before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently +though his voice began, Jim knew at once that she had +lost. +

+ +

+"You argue and plead very well, Mademoiselle Betty," +he said. "But we have each of us our little creeds by +which we live for better or for worse. Here is mine, a +very humble one. I can discover extenuations in most +crimes: even crimes of violence. Passion, anger, even +greed! What are they but good qualities developed +beyond the bounds? Things at the beginning good and +since grown monstrous! So, too, in the execution. This +or that habit of life makes natural this or that weapon +which to us is hideous and abnormal and its mere use a +sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognise these +palliations. But there is one crime I never will +forgive—murder by poison. And one criminal in whose pursuit +I will never tire nor slacken, the Poisoner." Through the +words there ran a real thrill of hatred, and though +Hanaud's voice was low, and he never once raised his +eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him +in a dreadful spell. +

+ +

+"Cowardly and secret, the poisoner has his little world +at his mercy, and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be +sure," he continued bitterly. "His hideous work is so +easy. It just becomes a vice like drink, no more than +that to the poisoner, but with a thousand times the pleasure +drink can give. Like the practice of some abominable +art. I tell you the truth now! Show me one victim +to-day and the poisoner scot-free, and I'll show you +another victim before the year's out. Make no mistake! +Make no mistake!" +

+ +

+His voice rang out and died away. But the words +seemed still to vibrate in the air of that room, to strike +the walls and rebound from them and still be audible. +Jim Frobisher, for all his slow imagination, felt that had +a poisoner been present and heard them, some cry of +guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His +heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his +reason told him there was no mouth in that room from +which the cry could come. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up at Betty when he had finished. He +begged her pardon with a little flutter of his hands and a +regretful smile. "You must take me, therefore, as God +made me, Mademoiselle, and not blame me more than +you can help for the distress I still must cause you. +There was never a case more difficult. Therefore never +one about which one way or the other I must be more +sure." +

+ +

+Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the +door. +

+ +

+"Come in," Hanaud cried out, and a small, dark, alert +man in plain clothes entered the room. +

+ +

+"This is Nicolas Moreau, who was keeping watch in +the courtyard. I sent him some while ago upon an +errand," he explained and turned again to Moreau. +

+ +

+"Well, Nicolas?" +

+ +

+Nicolas stood at attention, with his hands at the seams +of his trousers, in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited +rather than spoke in a perfectly expressionless official +voice. +

+ +

+"In accordance with instructions I went to the shop +of Jean Cladel. It is number seven. From the Rue +Gambetta I went to the Prefecture. I verified your +statement. Jean Cladel has twice appeared before the Police +Correctionelle for selling forbidden drugs and has twice +been acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses." +

+ +

+"Thank you, Nicolas." +

+ +

+Moreau saluted, turned on his heel, and went out of +the room. There followed a moment of silence, of +discouragement. Hanaud looked ruefully at Betty. +

+ +

+"You see! I must go on. We must search in that +locked cabinet of Simon Harlowe's for the poison arrow, +if by chance it should be there." +

+ +

+"The room is sealed," Frobisher reminded him. +

+ +

+"We must have those seals removed," he replied, and +he took his watch from his pocket and screwed up his +face in grimace. +

+ +

+"We need Monsieur the Commissary, and Monsieur the +Commissary will not be in a good humour if we disturb +him now. For it is twelve o'clock, the sacred hour of +luncheon. You will have observed upon the stage that +Commissaries of Police are never in a good humour. It +is because——" But Hanaud's audience was never to +hear his explanation of this well-known fact. For he +stopped with a queer jerk of his voice, his watch still +dangling from his fingers upon its chain. Both Jim and +Betty looked at once where he was looking. They saw +Ann Upcott standing up against the wall with her hand +upon the top rail of a chair to prevent herself from +falling. Her eyes were closed, her whole face a mask +of misery. Hanaud was at her side in a moment. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," he asked with a breathless sort of +eagerness, "what is it you have to tell me?" +

+ +

+"It is true, then?" she whispered. "Jean Cladel +exists?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And the poison arrow could have been used?" she +faltered, and the next words would not be spoken, but +were spoken at the last. "And death would have +followed in fifteen minutes?" +

+ +

+"Upon my oath it is true," Hanaud insisted. "What +is it you have to tell me?" +

+ +

+"That I could have hindered it all. I shall never +forgive myself. I could have hindered the murder." +

+ +

+Hanaud's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was +he disappointed, Frobisher wondered? Did he expect +quite another reply? A swift movement by Betty +distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty looking +across the room at them with the strangest glittering eyes +he had ever seen. And then Ann Upcott drew herself +away from Hanaud and stood up against the wall at her +full height with her arms outstretched. She seemed to +be setting herself apart as a pariah; her whole attitude +and posture cried, "Stone me! I am waiting." +

+ +

+Hanaud put his watch into his pocket. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, we will let the Commissary eat his +luncheon in peace, and we will hear your story first. But +not here. In the garden under the shade of the trees." He +took his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Indeed +I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as an oven." +

+ +

+When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon +the incidents of that morning, nothing stood out so vividly +in his memories, no, not even the book of arrows and its +plates, not Hanaud's statement of his creed, as the picture +of him twirling his watch at the end of his chain, whilst +it sparkled in the sunlight and he wondered whether +he should break in now upon the Commissaire of Police +or let him eat his luncheon in quiet. So much that was +then unsuspected by them all, hung upon the exact +sequence of events. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER NINE: The Secret +

+ +

+The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn +towards the farther end of the garden in the shadow +of the great trees. Hanaud led the way towards them. +

+ +

+"We shall be in the cool here and with no one to +overhear us but the birds," he said, and he patted and +arranged the cushions in a deep arm-chair of basket work +for Ann Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded again of +the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid and again the +parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer +insight into the character of this implacable being. The +little courtesies and attentions were not assumed. They +were natural, but they would not hinder him for a +moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the cushions with +the swift deft hands of a nurse—yes, but he would slip +the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment +afterwards, no less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty +prompted him. +

+ +

+"There!" he said. "Now, Mademoiselle, you are +comfortable. For me, if I am permitted, I shall smoke." +

+ +

+He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who +with Jim had followed into the garden behind him. +

+ +

+"Of course," she answered; and coming forward, she +sat down in another of the chairs. +

+ +

+Hanaud pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of +thin black cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair +close to the two girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind +Hanaud. The lawn was dappled with sunlight and cool +shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling from +bough and bush, the garden was riotous with roses and +the air sweet with their perfume. It was a strange +setting for the eerie story which Ann Upcott had to tell of +her adventures in the darkness and silence of a night; but +the very contrast seemed to make the story still more +vivid. +

+ +

+"I did not go to Monsieur de Pouillac's Ball on the +night of April the 27th," she began, and Jim started, so +that Hanaud raised his hand to prevent him interrupting. +He had not given a thought to where Ann Upcott had +been upon that night. To Hanaud, however, the +statement brought no surprise. +

+ +

+"You were not well?" he asked. +

+ +

+"It wasn't that," Ann replied. "But Betty and I had—I +won't say a rule, but a sort of working arrangement +which I think had been in practice ever since I came to +the Maison Crenelle. We didn't encroach upon each +other's independence." +

+ +

+The two girls had recognised from their first coming +together that privacy was the very salt of companionship. +Each had a sanctuary in her own sitting-room. +

+ +

+"I don't think Betty has ever been in mine, I only once +or twice in hers," said Ann. "We had each our own +friends. We didn't pester each other with questions as +to where we had been and with whom. In a word, we +weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels." +

+ +

+"A wise rule, Mademoiselle," Hanaud agreed cordially. +"A good many households are split from roof to cellar +by the absence of just such a rule. The de Pouillacs then +were Mademoiselle Betty's friends." +

+ +

+"Yes. As soon as Betty had gone," Ann resumed, +"I told Gaston that he might turn off the lights and go +to bed whenever he liked; and I went upstairs to my own +sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. You can see +the windows from here. There!" +

+ +

+They were in a group facing the back of the long house +across the garden. To the right of the hall stretched the +line of shuttered windows, with Betty's bedroom just +above. Ann pointed to the wing on the left of the hall +and towards the road. +

+ +

+"I see. You are above the library, Mademoiselle," said +Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes. I had a letter to write," Ann continued, and +suddenly faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in +the telling of her story which she had forgotten when +she had uttered her cry in the library. She gasped. +"Oh!" she murmured, and again "Oh!" in a low voice. +She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from +her at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows +upon her knees and her eyes on the grass at her feet and +apparently miles away in thought. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud asked smoothly. +

+ +

+"It was an important letter," Ann went on again, +choosing her words warily, much as yesterday at one +moment in her interrogatory Betty herself had +done—concealing something, too, just as Betty had done. "I +had promised faithfully to write it. But the address was +downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a +doctor," and having said that, it seemed that she had +cleared her obstacle, for she went on in a more easy and +natural tone. +

+ +

+"You know what it is, Monsieur Hanaud. I had been +playing tennis all the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. +There was a letter to be written with a good deal of care +and the address was all the way downstairs. I said to +myself that I would think out the terms of my letter +first." +

+ +

+And here Jim Frobisher, who had been shifting impatiently +from one foot to the other, broke in upon the +narrative. +

+ +

+"But what was this letter about and to what doctor?" +he asked. +

+ +

+Hanaud swung round almost angrily. +

+ +

+"Oh, please!" he cried. "These things will all come to +light of themselves in their due order, if we leave them +alone and keep them in our memories. Let Mademoiselle +tell her story in her own way," and he was back at +Ann Upcott again in a flash. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle. You determined to think out the +tenor of your letter." +

+ +

+A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a +second. "But it was an excuse really, an excuse to sit +down in my big arm-chair, stretch out my legs and do +nothing at all. You can guess what happened." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled and nodded. +

+ +

+"You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young +people, who are healthy and tired, awake," he said. +

+ +

+"No, but it wakes up with them," Ann returned, "and +upbraids at once bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as +people do who have gone to sleep in their chairs. I was +wearing a little thin frock of pale blue tulle—oh, a +feather-weight of a frock! Yes, I was cold and my conscience +was saying, 'Oh, big lazy one! And your letter? Where +is it?' +

+ +

+"In a moment I was standing up and the next I was +out of the room on the landing, and I was still half dazed +with sleep. I closed my door behind me. It was just +chance that I did it. The lights were all out on the +staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn +across the windows. There was no moon that night. I +was in a darkness so complete that I could not see the +glimmer of my hand when I raised it close before my +face." +

+ +

+Hanaud let the end of his cigarette drop at his feet. +Betty had raised her face and was staring at Ann with +her mouth parted. For all of them the garden had +disappeared with its sunlight and its roses and its singing +birds. They were upon that staircase with Ann Upcott +in the black night. The swift changes of colour in her +cheeks and of expression in her eyes—the nervous +vividness of her compelled them to follow with her. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle?" said Hanaud quietly. +

+ +

+"The darkness didn't matter to me," she went on, with +an amazement at her own fearlessness, now that she +knew the after-history of that evening. "I am afraid +now. I wasn't then," and Jim remembered how the night +before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark +spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was +afraid now! Her hands were clenched tight upon the +arms of her chair, her lips shook. +

+ +

+"I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on +the balustrade. There was no sound. It never occurred +to me that any one was awake except myself. I did +not even turn on the light in the hall by the switch at +the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch +just inside the door of Betty's room, and that was enough. +I think, too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the +foot of the stairs I turned right like a soldier. Exactly +opposite to me across the hall was the door of Betty's +room. I crossed the hall with my hands out in front of +me," and Betty, as though she herself were crossing the +hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. +

+ +

+"Yes, one would have to do that," she said slowly. "In +the dark—with nothing but space in front of one—— Yes!" +and then she smiled as she saw that Hanaud's eyes +were watching her curiously. "Don't you think so, +Monsieur Hanaud?" +

+ +

+"No doubt," said he. "But let us not interrupt Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+"I touched the wall first," Ann resumed, "just at the +angle of the corridor and the hall." +

+ +

+"The corridor with the windows on to the courtyard +on the one side and the doors of the receptions on the +other?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, +Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes. There was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I +felt my way along the wall to my right—that is, in the +hall, of course, not the corridor—until my hands slipped +off the surface and touched nothing. I had reached the +embrasure of the doorway. I felt for the door-knob, +turned it and entered the room. The light switch was in +the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I +snapped it down. I think that I was still half asleep when +I turned the light on in the treasure-room, as we called +it. But the next moment I was wide awake—oh, I have +never been more wide awake in my life. My fingers +indeed were hardly off the switch after turning the light +on, before they were back again turning the light off. But +this time I eased the switch up very carefully, so that +there should be no snap—no, not the tiniest sound to +betray me. There was so short an interval between the +two movements of my hand that I had just time to notice +the clock on the top of the marquetry cabinet in the +middle of the wall opposite to me, and then once more I +stood in darkness, but stock still and holding my breath—a +little frightened—yes, no doubt a little frightened, but +more astonished than frightened. For in the inner wall +of the room, at the other end, close by the window, +there,"—and Ann pointed to the second of those shuttered +windows which stared so blankly on the garden—"the door +which was always locked since Simon Harlowe's death +stood open and a bright light burned beyond." +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe uttered a little cry. +

+ +

+"That door?" she exclaimed, now at last really +troubled. "It stood open? How can that have been?" +

+ +

+Hanaud shifted his position in his chair, and asked her +a question. +

+ +

+"On which side of the door was the key, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all." +

+ +

+"Oh! You don't remember whether it was?" +

+ +

+"No," said Betty. "Of course both Ann and I were +in and out of Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but +there was a dressing-room between the bedroom and the +communicating door of my room, so that we should not +have noticed." +

+ +

+"To be sure," Hanaud agreed. "The dressing-room in +which the nurse might have slept and did when Madame +had a seizure. Do you remember whether the communicating +door was still open or unlocked on the next +morning?" +

+ +

+Betty frowned and reflected, and shook her head. +

+ +

+"I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. +There was so much to do. I did not notice." +

+ +

+"No. Indeed why should you?" said Hanaud. He +turned back to Ann. "Before you go on with this curious +story, Mademoiselle, tell me this! Was the light beyond +the open door, a light in the dressing-room or in the room +beyond the dressing-room, Madame Harlowe's bedroom, +or didn't you notice?" +

+ +

+"In the far room, I think," Ann answered confidently. +"There would have been more light in the treasure-room +otherwise. The treasure-room is long no doubt, but +where I stood I was completely in darkness. There was +only this panel of yellow light in the open doorway. It +lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up the +sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened +like silver." +

+ +

+"Oho, there is a sedan chair in that museum?" said +Hanaud lightly. "It will be interesting to see. So the +light, Mademoiselle, came from the far room?" +

+ +

+"The light and—and the voices," said Ann with a +quaver in her throat. +

+ +

+"Voices!" cried Hanaud. He sat up straight in his +chair, whilst Betty Harlowe went as white as a ghost. +"Voices! What is this? Did you recognise those +voices?" +

+ +

+"One, Madame's. There was no mistaking it. It was +loud and violent for a moment. Then it went off into +a mumble of groans. The other voice only spoke once +and very few words and very clearly. But it spoke in +a whisper. There was too a sound of—movements." +

+ +

+"Movements!" said Hanaud sharply; and with his +voice his face seemed to sharpen too. "Here's a word +which does not help us much. A procession moves. So +does the chair if I push it. So does my hand if I cover +a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you +mean, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+Under the stern insistence of his questions Ann Upcott +suddenly weakened. +

+ +

+"Oh, I am afraid so," she said with a loud cry, and she +clapped her hands to her face. "I never understood until +this morning when you spoke of how the arrow might +be used. Oh, I shall never forgive myself. I stood in +the darkness, a few yards away—no more—I stood quite +still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway +Madame was being killed!" She drew her hands from +her face and beat upon her knees with her clenched fists +in a frenzy. +

+ +

+"'Yes, I believe that now!' Madame cried in the hoarse, +harsh voice we knew: 'Stripped, eh? Stripped to the +skin!' and she laughed wildly; and then came the sound, +as though—yes, it might have been that!—as though she +were forced down and held, and Madame's voice died to +a mumble and then silence—and then the other voice in a +low clear whisper, 'That will do now.' And all the +while I stood in the darkness—oh!" +

+ +

+"What did you do after that clear whisper reached your +ears?" Hanaud commanded. "Take your hands from +your face, if you please, and let me hear." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott obeyed him. She flung her head back with +the tears streaming down her face. +

+ +

+"I turned," she whispered. "I went out of the room. +I closed the door behind me—oh, ever so gently. I +fled." +

+ +

+"Fled? Fled? Where to?" +

+ +

+"Up the stairs! To my room." +

+ +

+"And you rang no bell? You roused no one? You +fled to your room! You hid your head under the +bed-clothes like a child! Come, come, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Hanaud broke off his savage irony to ask, +

+ +

+"And whose voice did you think it was that whispered +so clearly, 'That will do now?' The stranger's you spoke +of in the library this morning?" +

+ +

+"No, Monsieur," Ann replied. "I could not tell. With +a whisper one voice is like another." +

+ +

+"But you must have given that voice an owner. To +run away and hide—no one would do that." +

+ +

+"I thought it was Jeanne Baudin's." +

+ +

+And Hanaud sat back in his chair again, gazing at +the girl with a look in which there was as much horror as +incredulity. Jim Frobisher stood behind him ashamed +of his very race. Could there be a more transparent +subterfuge? If she thought that the nurse Jeanne Baudin +was in the bedroom, why did she turn and fly? +

+ +

+"Come, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud. His voice had +suddenly become gentle, almost pleading. "You will not +make me believe that." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott turned with a helpless gesture towards +Betty. +

+ +

+"You see!" she said. +

+ +

+"Yes," Betty answered. She sat in doubt for a second +or two and then sprang to her feet. +

+ +

+"Wait!" she said, and before any one could have +stopped her she was skimming half-way across the garden +to the house. Jim Frobisher wondered whether Hanaud +had meant to stop her and then had given up the idea as +quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some +small quick movement; and even now, he watched Betty's +flight across the broad lawn between the roses with an +inscrutable queer look. +

+ +

+"To run like that!" he said to Frobisher, "with a boy's +nimbleness and a girl's grace! It is pretty, eh? The long +slim legs that twinkle, the body that floats!" and Betty +ran up the stone steps into the house. +

+ +

+There was a tension in Hanaud's attitude with which +his light words did not agree, and he watched the blank +windows of the house with expectancy. Betty, however, +was hardly a minute upon her errand. She reappeared +upon the steps with a largish envelope in her hand and +quickly rejoined the group. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, we have tried to keep this back from you," +she said, without bitterness but with a deep regret. "I +yesterday, Ann to-day, just as we have tried for many +years to keep it from all Dijon. But there is no help for +it now." +

+ +

+She opened the envelope and, taking out a cabinet +photograph, handed it to Hanaud. +

+ +

+"This is the portrait of Madame, my aunt, at the time +of her marriage with my uncle." +

+ +

+It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman, +slender with the straight carriage of youth, in whose face +a look of character had replaced youth's prettiness. It +was a face made spiritual by suffering, the eyes shadowed +and wistful, the mouth tender, and conveying even in the +hard medium of a photograph some whimsical sense of +humour. It made Jim Frobisher, gazing over Hanaud's +shoulder, exclaim not "She was beautiful," but "I would +like to have known her." +

+ +

+"Yes! A companion," Hanaud added. +

+ +

+Betty took a second photograph from the envelope. +

+ +

+"But this, Monsieur, is the same lady a year ago." +

+ +

+The second photograph had been taken at Monte Carlo, +and it was difficult to believe that it was of the same +woman, so tragic a change had taken place within those +ten years. Hanaud held the portraits side by side. The +grace, the suggestion of humour had all gone; the figure +had grown broad, the features coarse and heavy; the +cheeks had fattened, the lips were pendulous; and there +was nothing but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful +picture of collapse. +

+ +

+"It is best to be precise, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud +gently, "though these photographs tell their unhappy story +clearly enough. Madame Harlowe, during the last years +of her life, drank?" +

+ +

+"Since my uncle's death," Betty explained. "Her life, +as very likely you know already, had been rather miserable +and lonely before she married him. But she had a +dream then on which to live. After Simon Harlowe died, +however——" and she ended her explanation with a +gesture. +

+ +

+"Yes," Hanaud replied, "of course, Mademoiselle, we +have known, Monsieur Frobisher and I, ever since we +came into this affair that there was some secret. We +knew it before your reticence of yesterday or Mademoiselle +Upcott's of to-day. Waberski must have known of +something which you would not care to have exposed +before he threatened your lawyers in London, or brought +his charges against you." +

+ +

+"Yes, he knew and the doctors and the servants of +course who were very loyal. We did our best to keep +our secret but we could never be sure that we had +succeeded." +

+ +

+A friendly smile broadened Hanaud's face. +

+ +

+"Well, we can make sure now and here," he said, and +both the girls and Jim stared at him. +

+ +

+"How?" they exclaimed in an incredulous voice. +

+ +

+Hanaud beamed. He held them in suspense. He +spread out his hands. The artist as he would have said, +the mountebank as Jim Frobisher would have expressed +it, had got the upper hand in him, and prepared his +effect. +

+ +

+"By answering me one simple question," he said. +"Have either of you two ladies received an anonymous +letter upon the subject?" +

+ +

+The test took them all by surprise; yet each one of +them recognised immediately that they could hardly have +a better. All the secrets of the town had been exploited +at one time or another by this unknown person or group +of persons—all the secrets that is, except this one of +Mrs. Harlowe's degradation. For Betty answered, +

+ +

+"No! I never received one." +

+ +

+"Nor I," added Ann. +

+ +

+"Then your secret is your secret still," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"For how long now?" Betty asked quickly, and Hanaud +did not answer a word. He could make no promise +without being false to what he had called his creed. +

+ +

+"It is a pity," said Betty wistfully. "We have striven +so hard, Ann and I," and she gave to the two men a +glimpse of the life the two girls had led in the Maison +Crenelle. "We could do very little. We had neither of +us any authority. We were both of us dependent upon +Madame's generosity, and though no one could have +been kinder when—when Madame was herself, she was +not easy when she had—the attacks. There was too much +difference in age between us and her for us really to do +anything but keep guard. +

+ +

+"She would not brook interference; she drank alone in +her bedroom; she grew violent and threatening if any +one interfered. She would turn them all into the street. +If she needed any help she could ring for the nurse, as +indeed she sometimes, though rarely, did." It was a +dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlowe described it +for the two young sentinels. +

+ +

+"We were utterly in despair," Betty continued. "For +Madame, of course, was really ill with her heart, and we +always feared some tragedy would happen. This letter +which Ann was to write when I was at Monsieur de +Pouillac's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a doctor +in England—he called himself a doctor at all events—who +advertised that he had a certain remedy which could +be given without the patient's knowledge in her food and +drink. Oh, I had no faith in it, but we had got to try it." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. +

+ +

+"What did I say to you, Monsieur Frobisher, when you +wanted to ask a question about this letter? You see! +These things disclose themselves in their due order if you +leave them alone." +

+ +

+The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his +feet and, bowing to Betty with an unaffected stateliness +and respect, he handed her back the photographs. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I am very sorry," he said. "It is clear +that you and your friend have lived amongst difficulties +which we did not suspect. And, for the secret, I shall do +what I can." +

+ +

+Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been +administered to him for the excellence of his manner +towards Betty. He had a hope even that now he would +forswear his creed, so that the secret might still be kept +and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close +watch. But Hanaud sat down again in his chair, and +once more turned towards Ann Upcott. He meant to go +on then. He would not leave well alone. Jim was all +the more disappointed, because he could not but realise +that the case was more and more clearly building itself +from something unsubstantial into something solid, from +a conjecture to an argument—this case against some one. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TEN: The Clock upon the Cabinet +

+ +

+Ann Upcott's story was in the light of this new +disclosure intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, +she had heard, as she thought, Mrs. Harlowe in one +of her violent outbreaks. Then with a sense of relief she +had understood that Jeanne Baudin the nurse was with +Mrs. Harlowe, controlling and restraining her and finally +administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries +diminish and cease and a final whisper from the nurse to +her patient or even perhaps to herself, "That will do +now." Then she had turned and fled, taking care to +attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice had nothing +to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her +intervention, which before would only have been a provocation +to a wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlowe, was +now altogether without excuse. It would once more have +aroused the invalid, and next day would have added to +the discomfort and awkwardness of life in the Maison +Crenelle. For Mrs. Harlowe sober would have known +that Ann had been a witness of one more of her dreadful +exhibitions. The best thing which Ann could do, she did, +given that her interpretation of the scene was the true one. +She ran noiselessly back in the darkness to her room. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud. "But you believe now that your +interpretation was not correct. You believe now that +whilst you stood in the darkness with the door open and +the light beyond, Madame Harlowe was being murdered, +coldly and cruelly murdered a few feet away from you." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott shivered from head to foot. +

+ +

+"I don't want to believe it," she cried. "It's too +horrible." +

+ +

+"You believe now that the one who whispered 'That +will do now,' was not Jeanne Baudin," Hanaud insisted, +"but some unknown person, and that the whisper was +uttered after murder had been done to a third person +in that room." +

+ +

+Ann twisted her body from this side to that; she wrung +her hands. +

+ +

+"I am afraid of it!" she moaned. +

+ +

+"And what is torturing you now, Mademoiselle, is +remorse that you did not step silently forward and from +the darkness of the treasure-room look through that +lighted doorway." He spoke with a great consideration +and his insight into her distress was in its way a solace +to her. +

+ +

+"Yes," she exclaimed eagerly. "I told you this morning +I could have hindered it. I didn't understand until +this morning. You see, that night something else +happened"; and now indeed stark fear drew the colour from +her cheeks and shone in her eyes. +

+ +

+"Something else?" Betty asked with a quick indraw of +her breath, and she shifted her chair a little so that she +might face Ann. She was wearing a black coat over a +white silk shirt open at the throat, and she took her +handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it across +her forehead. +

+ +

+"Yes, Mademoiselle," Hanaud explained. "It is clear +that something else happened that night to your friend, +something which, taken together with our talk this +morning over the book of arrows, had made her believe that +murder was done." He looked at Ann. "You went +then to your room?" +

+ +

+Ann resumed her story. +

+ +

+"I went to bed. I was very—what shall I say?—disturbed +by Madame's outburst, as I thought it. One +never knew what was going to happen in this house. It +was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side to +side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was +asleep, sound asleep. But only for a time. I woke up +and it was still pitch dark in my room. There was not +a thread of light from the shutters. I turned over from +my side on to my back and I stretched out my arms +above my head. As God is my Judge I touched a +face——" and even after all these days the terror of that +moment was so vivid and fresh to her that she shuddered +and a little sob broke from her lips. "A face quite close +to me bending over me, in silence. I drew my hands +away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay +just for a second or two dumb, paralysed. Then my +voice came back to me and I screamed." +

+ +

+It was the look of the girl as she told her story +perhaps more than the words she used; but something of her +terror spread like a contagion amongst her hearers. Jim +Frobisher's shoulders worked uneasily. Betty with her +big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, hung upon +Ann's narrative. Hanaud himself said: +

+ +

+"You screamed? I do not wonder." +

+ +

+"I knew that no one could hear me and that lying down +I was helpless," Ann continued. "I sprang out of bed +in a panic, and now I touched no one. I was so scared out +of my wits that I had lost all sense of direction. I +couldn't find the switch of the electric light. I stumbled +along a wall feeling with my hands. I heard myself +sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked +against a chest of drawers and came a little to myself. +I found my way then to the switch and turned on the +light. The room was empty. I tried to tell myself that +I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale wasn't +true. Some one had been stealthily bending down close, +oh, so close over me in the darkness. My hand that had +touched the face seemed to tingle. I asked myself with +a shiver, what would have happened to me if just at that +moment I had not waked up? I stood and listened, but +the beating of my heart filled the whole room with noise. +I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, +I could easily have believed that one after another an +army was creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I +made up my mind. I flung the door open wide. For a +moment I stood back from it, but once the door was +open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the +great staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an +empty church. I think that I should have heard a spider +stir. I suddenly realised that the light was streaming +from my room and that some of it must reach me. I +cried at once, 'Who's there?' And then I ran back to my +room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep +no more that night. I ran to the windows and threw open +the shutters. The night had cleared, the stars were bright +in a clean black sky and there was a freshness of morning +in the air. I had been, I should think, about five +minutes at the window when—you know perhaps, Monsieur, +how the clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the +hour from one another and pass it on to the hills—all of +them struck three. I stayed by the window until the +morning came." +

+ +

+After she had finished no one spoke for a little while. +Then Hanaud slowly lit another cigarette, looking now +upon the ground, now into the air, anywhere except at the +faces of his companions. +

+ +

+"So this alarming thing happened just before three +o'clock in the morning?" he asked gravely. "You are +very sure of that, I suppose? For, you see, it may be +of the utmost importance." +

+ +

+"I am quite sure, Monsieur," she said. +

+ +

+"And you have told this story to no one until this +moment?" +

+ +

+"To no one in the world," replied Ann. "The next +morning Madame Harlowe was found dead. There were +the arrangements for the funeral. Then came Monsieur +Boris's accusation. There were troubles enough in the +house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would +have believed my story of the face in the darkness; and +I didn't of course associate it then with the death of +Mrs. Harlowe." +

+ +

+"No," Hanaud agreed. "For you believed that death +to have been natural." +

+ +

+"Yes, and I am not sure that it wasn't natural now," +Ann protested. "But to-day I had to tell you this story, +Monsieur Hanaud"; and she leaned forward in her chair +and claimed his attention with her eyes, her face, every +tense muscle of her body. "Because if you are right and +murder was done in this house on the twenty-seventh, I +know the exact hour when it was done." +

+ +

+"Ah!" +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded his head once or twice slowly. He +gathered up his feet beneath him. His eyes glittered very +brightly as he looked at Ann. He gave Frobisher the +queer impression of an animal crouching to spring. +

+ +

+"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet," he said, +"against the middle of the wall in the treasure-room. +The white face of it and the hour which leapt at you +during that fraction of a second when your fingers were +on the switch." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Ann with a slow and quiet emphasis. "The +hour was half-past ten." +

+ +

+With that statement the tension was relaxed. Betty's +tightly-clenched hand opened and her trifle of a +handkerchief fluttered down on the grass. Hanaud changed +from that queer attitude of a crouching animal. Jim +Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. +

+ +

+"Yes, that is very important," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Important. I should think it was!" cried Jim. +

+ +

+For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had +been done on the night of the 27th of April, there was +just one person belonging to the household of the Maison +Crenelle who could have no share in it; and that one +person was his client, Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when +Hanaud spoke to her; and she drew herself erect again +with a little jerk. +

+ +

+"Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good +time, Mademoiselle?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Very good," she answered. "Monsieur Sabin the +watch-maker in the Rue de la Liberté has had it more +than once to clean. It is an eight-day clock. It will be +going when the seals are broken this afternoon. You will +see for yourself." +

+ +

+Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. +He rose to his feet and bowed to her with a certain +formality but with a smile which redeemed it. +

+ +

+"At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing +at the house of M. de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers," +he said. "Of that there is no doubt. Inquiries have been +made. Mademoiselle did not leave that house until after +one in the morning. There is evidence enough of that +to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her +dancing partners to M. de Pouillac's coachman, who stood +at the bottom of the steps with a lantern during that +evening and remembers to have held open for Mademoiselle +the door of her car when she went away." +

+ +

+"So that's that," said Jim to himself. Betty at all +events was out of the net for good. And with that +certainty there came a revolution in his thoughts. Why +shouldn't Hanaud's search go on? It was interesting to +watch the building up of this case against an unknown +criminal—a case so difficult to bring to its proper +conclusion in the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there +was no trace of poison, a case where out of a mass of +conjectures, here and there and more and more definite +facts were coming into view; just as more and more +masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer +one approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to +go on, delving astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things +disclose themselves in their due sequence. But there +was one point which Hanaud had missed, which should +be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he +thought with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would +come to the help of the netted lion. He cleared his +throat. +

+ +

+"Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to +ask you," he began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his +surprise, with a face of thunder. +

+ +

+"You wish to ask a question?" he said. "Well, +Monsieur, ask it if you wish. It is your right." +

+ +

+His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, "and +your responsibility." Jim hesitated. He could see no +harm in the question he proposed to ask. It was of vital +importance. Yet Hanaud stood in front of him with a +lowering face, daring him to put it. Jim did not doubt +any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point +and yet for some unknown reason objected to its +disclosure. Jim yielded, but not with a very good grace. +

+ +

+"It is nothing," he said surlily, and Hanaud at once +was all cheerfulness again. +

+ +

+"Then we will adjourn," he said, looking at his watch. +"It is nearly one o'clock. Shall we say three for the +Commissary of Police? Yes? Then I shall inform him +and we will meet in the library at three and"—with a +little bow to Betty—"the interdict shall be raised." +

+ +

+"At three, then," she said gaily. She sprang up from +her chair, stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a +swift and supple movement, twirled upon her heel and +cried, "Come along, Ann!" +

+ +

+The four people moved off towards the house. Betty +looked back. +

+ +

+"You have left your gloves behind you on your chair," +she said suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back. +

+ +

+"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, +"Oh, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+For Betty had already darted back and now returned +dangling the gloves in her hand. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as +he took them from her. Then he cocked his head at +Frobisher, who was looking a little stiff. +

+ +

+"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You +do not like that so much kindness should be shown me. +No! You are looking very proper. You have the poker +in the back. But ask yourself this: 'What are youth +and good looks compared with Hanaud?'" +

+ +

+No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when +the urchin got the upper hand in him. And the worst +of it was that he had no rejoinder. He flushed very +red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in +silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and +stick, took his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. +Ann drifted into the library. Jim felt a touch upon his +arm. Betty was standing beside him with a smile of +amusement upon her face. +

+ +

+"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, +did you?" she asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the +amusement softened into tenderness. "I wouldn't have +done it for worlds if I had thought you'd have minded." +

+ +

+Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning. +

+ +

+"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole +if it pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might +do the same for me'!" +

+ +

+Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. +

+ +

+"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next +moment she was out on the steps under the glass face of +the porch. "Lunch at two, Ann!" she cried. "I must +walk all the grime of this morning out of my brain." +

+ +

+She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobisher. She +had something of Ariel in her conception—a delicate +creature of fire and spirit and air. She was across the +courtyard and out of sight in the street of Charles-Robert +before he had quite realised that she was going. He +turned doubtfully towards the library, where Ann Upcott +stood in the doorway. +

+ +

+"I had better follow her," he said, reaching for his hat +

+ +

+Ann smiled and shook her head wisely. +

+ +

+"I shouldn't. I know Betty. She wants to be alone." +

+ +

+"Do you think so?" +

+ +

+"I am sure." +

+ +

+Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon +the point as she was. Ann watched him with a rather +rueful smile for a little while. Then she shrugged her +shoulders in a sudden exasperation. +

+ +

+"There is something you ought to do," she said. "You +ought to let Monsieur Bex, Betty's notary here, know that +the seals are to be broken this afternoon. He ought to be +here. He was here when they were affixed. Besides, he +has all the keys of Mrs. Harlowe's drawers and cupboards." +

+ +

+"That's true," Jim exclaimed. "I'll go at once." +

+ +

+Ann gave him Monsieur Bex's address in the Place +Etienne Dolet, and from the window of the library +watched him go upon his errand. She stood at the +window for a long while after he had disappeared. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER ELEVEN: A New Suspect +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex the notary came out into the hall +of his house when Frobisher sent his card in to +him. He was a small, brisk man with a neat pointed +beard, his hair cut en brosse and the corner of his napkin +tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. +

+ +

+Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from +the rooms of the Maison Grenelle, but said nothing at +all of the new developments which had begun with the +discovery of the book of the arrows. +

+ +

+"I have had communications with Messrs. Frobisher +and Haslitt," the little man exclaimed. "Everything has +been as correct as it could possibly be. I am happy to +meet a partner of so distinguished a firm. Yes. I will +certainly present myself at three with my keys and see +the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a +disgrace. That young lady so delicious and so correct! +And that animal of a Waberski! But we can deal with +him. We have laws in France." +

+ +

+He gave Jim the impression that there were in his +opinion no laws anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor +into the street. +

+ +

+Jim returned by the Rue des Godrans and the main +thoroughfare of the town, the street of Liberty. As he +crossed the semicircle of the Place d'Armes in front of +the Hôtel de Ville, he almost ran into Hanaud smoking a +cigar. +

+ +

+"You have lunched already?" he cried. +

+ +

+"An affair of a quarter of an hour," said Hanaud with +a wave of the hand. "And you?" +

+ +

+"Not until two. Miss Harlowe wanted a walk." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled. +

+ +

+"How I understand that! The first walk after an +ordeal! The first walk of a convalescent after an +operation! The first walk of a defendant found innocent of +a grave charge! It must be worth taking, that walk. +But console yourself, my friend, for the postponement +of your luncheon. You have met me!" and he struck +something of an attitude. +

+ +

+Now Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, +especially when displayed in public places, and he +answered stiffly, "That is a pleasure, to be sure." +

+ +

+Hanaud grinned. To make Jim look "proper" was +becoming to him an unfailing entertainment. +

+ +

+"Now I reward you," he said, though for what Jim +could not imagine. "You shall come with me. At this +hour, on the top of old Philippe le Bon's Terrace Tower, +we shall have the world to ourselves." +

+ +

+He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hôtel +de Ville. Behind the long wing which faced them, a +square, solid tower rose a hundred and fifty feet high +above the ground. With Frobisher at his heels, Hanaud +climbed the three hundred and sixteen steps and emerged +upon the roof into the blue and gold of a cloudless May +in France. They looked eastwards, and the beauty of +the scene took Frobisher's breath away. Just in front, +the slender apse of Notre Dame, fine as a lady's +ornament, set him wondering how in the world through all +these centuries it had endured; and beyond, rich and +green and wonderful, stretched the level plain with its +shining streams and nestling villages. +

+ +

+Hanaud sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out +his arm across the parapet. "Look!" he cried eagerly, +proudly. "There is what I brought you here to see. +Look!" +

+ +

+Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up. Far away on +the horizon's edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the +great mass of Mont Blanc; white as silver, soft as velvet, +and here and there sparkling with gold as though the +flame of a fire leaped and sank. +

+ +

+"Oho!" said Hanaud as he watched Jim's face. "So +we have that in common. You perhaps have stood on +the top of that mountain?" +

+ +

+"Five times," Jim answered, with a smile made up of +many memories. "I hope to do so again." +

+ +

+"You are fortunate," said Hanaud a little enviously. +"For me I see him only in the distance. But even so—if +I am troubled—it is like sitting silent in the company +of a friend." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher's mind strayed back over memories of +snow slope and rock ridge. It was a true phrase which +Hanaud had used. It expressed one of the many elusive, +almost incommunicable emotions which mountains did +mean to the people who had "that"—the passion for +mountains—in common. Jim glanced curiously at +Hanaud. +

+ +

+"You are troubled about this case, then?" he said +sympathetically. The distant and exquisite vision of that +soaring arc of silver and velvet set in the blue air had +brought the two men into at all events a momentary +brotherhood. +

+ +

+"Very," Hanaud returned slowly, without turning his +eyes from the horizon, "and for more reasons than one. +What do you yourself think of it?" +

+ +

+"I think, Monsieur Hanaud," Jim said dryly, "that you +do not like any one to ask any questions except yourself." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. +

+ +

+"Yes, you wished to ask a question of the beautiful +Mademoiselle Upcott. Tell me if I have guessed aright +the question you meant to ask! It was whether the face +she touched in the darkness was the smooth face of a +woman or the face of a man." +

+ +

+"Yes. That was it." +

+ +

+It was now for Hanaud to glance curiously and quickly +at Jim. There could be no doubt of the thought which +was passing through his mind: "I must begin to give you +a little special attention, my friend." But he was careful +not to put his thoughts into words. +

+ +

+"I did not want that question asked," he said. +

+ +

+"Why?" +

+ +

+"Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions +are confusing things which had best be avoided +altogether." +

+ +

+Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He +had too clear a recollection of the swift movement and the +look with which Hanaud had checked him. Both had been +unmistakably signs of alarm. Hanaud would not have +been alarmed at the prospect of a question being asked, +merely because the question was superfluous. There was +another and, Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in +Hanaud's mind. Only he could not discover it. +

+ +

+Besides, was the question superfluous? +

+ +

+"Surely," Hanaud replied. "Suppose that that young +lady's hand had touched in the darkness the face of a +man with its stubble, its tough skin, and the short hair +of his head around it, bending down so low over hers, +would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing +to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her +hands carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, +unexpectedly, the face of a man? She could not have +told her story at all without telling that. It would have +been the unforgettable detail, the very heart of her terror. +She touched the face of a man!" +

+ +

+Jim recognised that the reasoning was sound, but he +was no nearer to the solution of his problem—why +Hanaud so whole-heartedly objected to the question +being asked. And then Hanaud made a quiet remark which +drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's +speculations. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle Ann touched the face of a woman in the +darkness that night—if that night, in the darkness she +touched a face at all." +

+ +

+Jim was utterly startled. +

+ +

+"You believe that she was lying to us?" he cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud shook a protesting hand in the air. +

+ +

+"I believe nothing," he said. "I am looking for a +criminal." +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott!" Jim spoke the name in amazement. +"Ann Upcott!" Then he remembered the look of her +as she had told her story, her face convulsed with terror, +her shaking tones. "Oh, it's impossible that she was +lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear?" +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. +

+ +

+"You may take this from me, my friend. All women +who are great criminals are also very artful actresses. +I never knew one who wasn't." +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott!" Jim Frobisher once more exclaimed, +but now with a trifle less of amazement. He was growing +slowly and gradually accustomed to the idea. Still—that +girl with the radiant look of young Spring! Oh, no! +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott was left nothing in Mrs. Harlowe's will," +he argued. "What could she have to gain by murder?" +

+ +

+"Wait, my friend! Look carefully at her story! +Analyse it. You will see—what? That it falls into two +parts." Hanaud ground the stump of his cigar beneath +his heel, offered one of his black cigarettes to Jim +Frobisher and lighted one for himself. He lit it with a +sulphur match which Jim thought would never stop +fizzling, would never burst into flame. +

+ +

+"One part when she was alone in her bedroom—a little +story of terror and acted very effectively, but after all +any one could invent it. The other part was not so easy +to invent. The communicating door open for no reason, +the light beyond, the voice that whispered, 'That will do,' +the sound of the struggle! No, my friend, I don't +believe that was invented. There were too many little +details which seemed to have been lived through. The +white face of the clock and the hour leaping at her. No! +I think all that must stand. But adapt it a little. See! +This morning Waberski told us a story of the Street of +Gambetta and of Jean Cladel!" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+"And I asked you afterwards whether Waberski might +not be telling a true story of himself and attributing it +to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Well, then, interpret Ann Upcott's story in the same +way," continued Hanaud. "Suppose that sometime that +day she had unlocked the communicating door! What +more easy? Madame Harlowe was up during the day-time. +Her room was empty. And that communicating +door opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps +it might have been discovered whether it was locked or +not, but into a dressing-room." +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"Well then, continue! Ann Upcott is left alone after +Mademoiselle Harlowe's departure to Monsieur de Pouillac's +Ball. She sends Gaston to bed. The house is all +dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is joined +by—some one—some one with the arrow poison all ready in +the hypodermic needle. That they enter the treasure-room +just as Ann Upcott described. That she turns on +the light for a second whilst—some one—crosses the +treasure-room and opens the door. Suppose that the voice +which whispered, 'That will do now,' was the voice of Ann +Upcott herself and that she whispered it across Madame +Harlowe's body to the third person in that room!" +

+ +

+"The 'some one,'" exclaimed Jim. "But, who then? Who?" +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. "Why not Waberski?" +

+ +

+"Waberski?" cried Jim with a new excitement in his +voice. +

+ +

+"You asked me what had Ann Upcott to gain by this +murder and you answered your own question. Nothing +you said, Monsieur Frobisher, but did your quick answer +cover the ground? Waberski—he at all events expected +a fine fat legacy. What if he in return for help proposed +to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite +Mademoiselle Ann. Has she no motive now? In the end what +do we know of her at all except that she is the paid +companion and therefore poor? Mademoiselle Ann!"; and +he threw up his hands. "Where does she spring from? +How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps +Waberski's friend?"—and a cry from Jim brought +Hanaud to a stop. +

+ +

+Jim had thought of Waberski as the possible murderer +if murder had been done—a murderer who, disappointed +of his legacy, the profits of his murder, had carried on +his villainy to blackmail and a false accusation. But he +had not associated Ann Upcott with him until those +moments on the Terrace Tower. Yet now memories +began to crowd upon him. The letter to him, for instance. +She had said that Waberski had claimed her support and +ridiculed his claim. Might that letter not have been a blind +and a rather cunning blind? Above all there was a scene +passing vividly through his mind which was very different +from the scene spread out before his eyes, a scene of lighted +rooms and a crowd about a long green table, and a fair +slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until +the whole of her little pile of banknotes was swept in by +the croupier's rake, and then turned away with a high +carriage but a quivering lip. +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud keenly. "You know something +after all of Ann Upcott, my friend. What do you +know?" +

+ +

+Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to +her that he should relate his story. Explained, it might +wear so different a complexion. At another moment that +it would be fairer to let her explain it. And there was +Betty to consider. Yes, above all there was Betty to +consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. +

+ +

+"I will tell you," he said to Hanaud. "When I saw +you in Paris, I told you that I had never seen Ann Upcott +in all my life. I believed it. It wasn't until she danced +into the library yesterday morning that I realised I had +misled you. I saw Ann Upcott at the trente et quarante +table at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo in January of +this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and +losing her money. Nothing would go right for her. She +bore herself proudly and well. The only sign I saw of +distress was the tightening of her fingers about her little +handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at the other players +when she rose after her last coup, as though she dared +them to pity her. I was on the other hand winning, and +I slipped a thousand-franc note off the table on to the +floor, keeping my heel firmly upon it as you can +understand. And as the girl turned to move out from the +crowd I stopped her. I said in English, for she was +obviously of my race, 'This is yours. You have dropped +it on the floor.' She gave me a smile and a little shake of +the head. I think that for the moment she dared not trust +her lips to speak, and in a second, of course, she was +swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a little while +longer. Then I too rose and as I passed the entrance to +the bar on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from +one of the many little tables and spoke to me. She called +me by my name. She thanked me very prettily and said +that although she had lost that evening she was not really +in any trouble. I doubted the truth of what she said. For +she had not one ring upon any finger, not the tiniest +necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress +or in her hair. She turned away from me at once and +went back to the little table where she sat down again in +the company of a man. The girl of course was Ann +Upcott, the man Waberski. It was from him no doubt +that she had got my name." +

+ +

+"Did this little episode happen before Ann Upcott +became a member of the household?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"Yes," replied Jim. "I think she joined Mrs. Harlowe +and Betty at Monte Carlo. I think that she came +with them back to Dijon." +

+ +

+"No doubt," said Hanaud. He sat for a little while +in silence. Then he said softly, "That does not look so +very well for Mademoiselle Ann." +

+ +

+Jim had to admit that it did not. +

+ +

+"But consider this, Monsieur Hanaud," he urged. "If +Ann Upcott, which I will not believe, is mixed up in this +affair, why should she of her own free will volunteer this +story of what she heard upon the night of the +twenty-seventh and invent that face which bent down over her +in the darkness?" +

+ +

+"I have an idea about that," Hanaud replied. "She +told us this story—when? After I had said that we must +have the seals broken this afternoon and the rooms thrown +open. It is possible that we may come upon something +in those rooms which makes it wise for her to divert +suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jeanne +Baudin, or even Mademoiselle Harlowe's maid Francine +Rollard." +

+ +

+"But not Mademoiselle Betty," Jim interposed quickly. +

+ +

+"No, no!" Hanaud returned with a wave of his hand. +"The clock upon the marquetry cabinet settled that. +Mademoiselle Betty is out of the affair. Well, this +afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, you will be +late for your luncheon." +

+ +

+Hanaud rose from the bench and with a last look at the +magical mountain, that outpost of France, they turned +towards the city. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares green +with limes and the steep gaily-patterned roofs of ancient +houses. About him the fine tapering spires leapt high +like lances from the slates of its many churches. A little +to the south and a quarter of a mile away across the roof +tops he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke +rising from a chimney stack or two and behind it the tops +of tall trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from +their leaves. +

+ +

+"The Maison Crenelle!" he said. +

+ +

+There was no answer, not even the slightest movement +at his side. +

+ +

+"Isn't it?" he asked and he turned. +

+ +

+Hanaud had not even heard him. He was gazing +also towards the Maison Crenelle with the queerest look +upon his face; a look with which Jim was familiar in +some sort of association, but which for a moment or two +he could not define. It was not an expression of +amazement. On the other hand interest was too weak a word. +Suddenly Jim Frobisher understood and comprehension +brought with it a sense of discomfort. Hanaud's look, +very bright and watchful and more than a little inhuman, +was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master +brings out a gun. +

+ +

+Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The +slates were broken at intervals by little gabled windows, +but at none of them could he see a figure. From none of +them a signal was waved. +

+ +

+"What is it that you are looking at?" asked Jim in +perplexity and then with a touch of impatience. "You +see something, I'm sure." +

+ +

+Hanaud heard his companion at last. His face +changed in a moment, lost its rather savage vigilance, and +became the face of a buffoon. +

+ +

+"Of course I see something. Always I see something. +Am I not Hanaud? Ah, my friend, the responsibility of +being Hanaud! Aren't you fortunate to be without it? +Pity me! For the Hanauds must see something +everywhere—even when there is nothing to see. Come!" +

+ +

+He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform +into the dark turret of the staircase. The two men +descended the steps and came out again into the semi-circle +of the Place d'Armes. +

+ +

+"Well!" said Hanaud and then "Yes," as though he +had some little thing to say and was not quite sure +whether he would say it. Then he compromised. "You +shall take a Vermouth with me before you go to your +luncheon," he said. +

+ +

+"I should be late if I did," Frobisher replied. +

+ +

+Hanaud waved the objection aside with a shake of his +outstretched forefinger. +

+ +

+"You have plenty of time, Monsieur. You shall take +a Vermouth with me, and you will still reach the Maison +Crenelle before Mademoiselle Harlowe. I say that, +Hanaud," he said superbly, and Jim laughed and +consented. +

+ +

+"I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her +and Ann Upcott half through their meal." +

+ +

+A café stands at the corner of the street of Liberty and +the Place d'Armes, with two or three little tables set out +on the pavement beneath an awning. They sat down at +one of them, and over the Vermouth, Hanaud was once +more upon the brink of some recommendation or statement. +

+ +

+"You see——" he began and then once more ran away. +"So you have been five times upon the top of the Mont +Blanc!" he said. "From Chamonix?" +

+ +

+"Once," Jim replied. "Once from the Col du Géant +by the Brenva glacier. Once by the Dôme route. Once +from the Brouillard glacier. And the last time by the +Mont Mandit." +

+ +

+Hanaud listened with genuine friendliness and said: +

+ +

+"You tell me things which are interesting and very +new to me," he said warmly. "I am grateful, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"On the other hand," Jim answered dryly, "you, Monsieur, +tell me very little. Even what you brought me to +this café to say, you are going to keep to yourself. But +for my part I shall not be so churlish. I am going to tell +you what I think." +

+ +

+"Yes?" +

+ +

+"I think we have missed the way." +

+ +

+"Oh?" +

+ +

+Hanaud selected a cigarette from his bundle in its +bright blue wrapping. +

+ +

+"You will perhaps think me presumptuous in saying so." +

+ +

+"Not the least little bit in the world," Hanaud replied +seriously. "We of the Police are liable in searching +widely to overlook the truth under our noses. That is our +danger. Another angle of view—there is nothing more +precious. I am all attention." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher drew his chair closer to the round table +of iron and leaned his elbows upon it. +

+ +

+"I think there is one question in particular which we +must answer if we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlowe +was murdered, and if so by whom." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we +have the same question in our minds." +

+ +

+"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this—Who +put back the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in +its place upon the bookshelf in the library, between +mid-day yesterday and this morning." +

+ +

+Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and +held it in the shelter of his palm until the flame shone. +He lit his cigarette and took a few puffs at it. +

+ +

+"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, +although in rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. +No. I think there is another more important still. I +think if we could know why the door of the treasure-room, +which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's +death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh +of April, we should be very near to the whole truth of this +dark affair. But," and he flung out his hands, "that +baffles me." +

+ +

+Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily +upon the pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer +there. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals +

+ +

+A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that +Hanaud guessed very luckily. He would not allow +that it was more than a guess. Monsieur Hanaud might +be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no insight, however +brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a circumstance. +But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at +the Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty +Harlowe. He had loitered with Hanaud at the café just +so that this might not take place. He shrank from being +alone with Ann Upcott now that he suspected her. The +most he could hope to do was to conceal the reason of his +trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could not +conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by +a rather wistful expression of sympathy. +

+ +

+"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you +need not be any longer. What I said this morning was +true. It was half-past ten when that dreadful whisper +reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her +friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that." +

+ +

+"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, +and Ann looked at him with startled eyes. +

+ +

+Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall +before Ann could ask a question; and throughout their +luncheon he made conversation upon indifferent subjects +with rapidity, if without entertainment. +

+ +

+Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were +still indeed smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when +Gaston informed them that the Commissary of Police +with his secretary was waiting in the library. +

+ +

+"This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London," said +Betty as she presented Jim. +

+ +

+The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, +middle-aged man with a pair of folding glasses sitting +upon a prominent fat nose; his secretary, Maurice +Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the police +administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in +his own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror +amongst the fair. +

+ +

+"I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle's notary +in Dijon, to be present," said Jim. +

+ +

+"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and +Monsieur Bex was at that moment announced. He +came on the very moment of three. The clock was +striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was just +as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased. +

+ +

+"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, +smiling, "we can now proceed with the final ceremonies +of this affair." +

+ +

+"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary. +

+ +

+"Hanaud?" +

+ +

+"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited +by the Examining Magistrate to take charge of this +case," the Commissary explained. +

+ +

+"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there +is no case for Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty +Harlowe drew him a little aside. +

+ +

+Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary +of the incidents of the morning, Jim went out of the room +into the hall in search of Hanaud. He saw him at once; +but to his surprise Hanaud came forward from the back +of the hall as if he had entered the house from the garden. +

+ +

+"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to +the door of that room which certainly was at the back of +the house behind the library, with its entrance behind the +staircase. "We will join the others." +

+ +

+Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly +to Thevenet. +

+ +

+"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, +and in a loud undertone, "a charming youth, of an +intelligence which is surprising. He will go far." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. +The young recruit gazed at the great man with kindling +eyes. +

+ +

+"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, +by which, if I do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence +at all," he said with a formal modesty which quite +went to the heart of Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+"That is very correct," said he. +

+ +

+Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He +cocked an eye at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary +warmly by the hand. +

+ +

+"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young +friend," he answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But +I was once young Maurice Thevenet without, alas! his +good looks." +

+ +

+Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming +diffidence. +

+ +

+"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+"This looks like growing into a friendly little family +party," Jim Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a +"Hum" and a "Ha" from the Commissary. +

+ +

+He moved to the centre of the room. +

+ +

+"We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now +remove the seals," he said pompously. +

+ +

+He led the way from the Library across the hall and +along the corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom. He broke the seals and removed the bands. +Then he took a key from the hand of his secretary and +opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little +company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out +his arms and barred the way. +

+ +

+"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his +shoulder Jim Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which +made him shiver. +

+ +

+This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase +had made him for a moment eager that Hanaud should +press on, that development should follow upon development +until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. Since +the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower +of the Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and +he waited for developments in fear. This bedroom +mistily lit by a few stray threads of daylight which +pierced through the chinks of the shutters, cold and silent +and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, +whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in +the shadows. Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed +to the windows opposite, opened them and flung back the +shutters. The clear bright light flooded every corner in +an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher relief. The +room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the +wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; +everywhere there was order; it was as empty of suggestion +as a vacant bedroom in an hotel. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked about him. +

+ +

+"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week +after Madame's funeral. It would have been a miracle if +we discovered anything which could help us." +

+ +

+He went to the bed, which stood with its head against +the wall midway between the door and the windows. A +small flat stand with a button of enamel lay upon the +round table by the bed-side, and from the stand a cord +ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the +carpet. +

+ +

+"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I +suppose," he said, turning towards Betty. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But +there was no sign that it had ever been tampered with. +He stood up again. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into +Jeanne Baudin's bedroom and close the door. I shall +press this button, and you will know whether the bell rings +whilst we here shall be able to assure ourselves whether +sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in the +other." +

+ +

+"Certainly." +

+ +

+Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few +seconds later those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door +close in the corridor. +

+ +

+"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud +requested. +

+ +

+Bex, the notary, closed it. +

+ +

+"Now, silence, if you please!" +

+ +

+Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered +him. He pressed it again and again with the same result. +The Commissary returned to the bedroom. +

+ +

+"Well?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"It rang twice," said the Commissary. +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. +

+ +

+"And an electric bell has a shrill, penetrating sound," +he cried. "Name of a name, but they built good houses +when the Maison Crenelle was built! Are the cupboards +and drawers open?" +

+ +

+He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came +forward. +

+ +

+"All the drawers were locked on the morning when +Madame Harlowe's death was discovered. Mademoiselle +Harlowe herself locked them in my presence and handed +to me the keys for the purpose of making an inventory. +Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For +until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will +were not disclosed." +

+ +

+"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you +must have unlocked them." +

+ +

+"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. +There were the arrangements for the funeral, a list of the +properties to be made for valuation, and the vineyards to +be administered." +

+ +

+"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes +and cupboards and drawers should hold exactly +what they held on the night of the twenty-seventh of +April." He ran quickly about the room trying a door +here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a +cupboard fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The +trouble is that a child with a bent wire could unlock any +one of them. Do you know what Madame Harlowe kept +in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with his +knuckles upon the cupboard door. +

+ +

+"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex +produced a bunch of keys from his pocket. +

+ +

+"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers, +as though time meant nothing to him at all. He now +swung briskly back into the centre of the room, making +notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its geography. The +door opening from the corridor faced, across the length +of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If +one stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the +bed was on the left hand. On the corridor side of the +bed, a second smaller door, which was half open, led to a +white-tiled bath-room. On the window side of the bed +was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a +woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the +windows, a great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, +and in that same wall, close to the right-hand window, +there was yet another door. Hanaud moved to it. +

+ +

+"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of +Ann Upcott, and without waiting for an answer pushed +it open. +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys +rattling. "Everything here has been locked up too," he +said. +

+ +

+Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened +the shutters. +

+ +

+It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, +and with a door exactly opposite to the door by which +Hanaud had entered. He went at once to this door. +

+ +

+"And this must be the communicating door which +leads into what is called the treasure-room," he said, and +he paused with his hand upon the knob and his eyes ranging +alertly over the faces of the company. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of +the opening of some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh +in a hill-side of the Valley of Kings. Suspense passed +from one to the other as they waited, but Hanaud did +not move. He stood there impassive and still like some +guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that +he was never going to move, and in a voice of +exasperation he cried: +

+ +

+"Is the door locked?" +

+ +

+Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No +doubt he, too, felt that strange current of emotion and +expectancy which bound all in the room under a spell, +and even gave to their diverse faces for a moment a kind +of family similitude. +

+ +

+"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. +"But since this room is now the private sitting-room of +Mademoiselle Harlowe, I think that we ought to wait +until she rejoins us." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, +"That is very correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice +rang out from the doorway leading to Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom: +

+ +

+"I am here." +

+ +

+Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. +It opened at a touch—inwards towards the group of +people and upwards towards the corridor. The treasure-room +was before them, shrouded in dim light, but here +and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held +out a promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way +daintily to the windows and fastened the shutters back +against the outside wall. "I beg that nothing shall be +touched," he said as the others filed into the room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Simon Harlowe's Treasure-room +

+ +

+Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the +corridor, it was longer than it was broad and more of a +gallery than a room. But it had been arranged for habitation +rather than for occasional visits. For it was furnished +with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. In the +fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures +by Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of +Chinese Chippendale by the window every appointment, +ink-stand, pen-tray, candlestick, sand-caster and all were +of the pink Battersea enamel and without a flaw. But +they were there for use, not for exhibition. Moreover +a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on +the side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it +almost the appearance of two rooms in communication, +The one feature of the room, indeed, which at a first +glimpse betrayed the collector, was the Sedan chair set in +a recess of the wall by the fire-place and opposite to the +door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its +body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately +carved mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions +representing fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses +daintily painted in the middle of them. It had glass +windows at the sides to show off the occupant, and it was +lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold to match +the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised +upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold +filigree work, and it had a door in front of which the +upper part was glass. Altogether it was as pretty a +gleaming piece of work as the art of carriage-building +could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected it. Even +Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his +hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, +until Jim began to think that he had quite forgotten the +business which had brought him there. However, he +brought himself out of his dream with a start. +

+ +

+"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," +he said. "What pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts +and fine gentlemen in silk stockings! And what splashings +of mud for the unhappy devils who had to walk!" +

+ +

+He turned his back to the chair and looked across the +room. "That is the clock which marked half-past ten, +Mademoiselle, during the moment when you had the light +turned up?" he asked of Ann. +

+ +

+"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it +again. "Yes, that's it." +

+ +

+Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change +in her intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an +inflexion of doubt—it was not marked enough for that—but +of perplexity. It was clearly, however, fancy upon +his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at all. Jim pulled +himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take +care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to +suspect people, they can say and do nothing which will not +provide you with material for suspicion." +

+ +

+Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was +a beautiful small gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, +shaped with a waist like a violin; it had a white face, and +it stood upon a marquetry Boulle cabinet, a little more +than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian mirror. +Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with +his watch. +

+ +

+"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to +Betty, with a smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. +

+ +

+He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the +clock. He faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of +the room. It had an Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from +the same fawn-coloured wood as the panels, with slender +pillars and some beautiful carving upon the board beneath +the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was +framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should +mask it, there were no high ornaments at all upon the +shelf itself. One or two small boxes of Battersea enamel +and a flat glass case alone decorated it. Hanaud crossed +to the mantelshelf and, after a moment's inspection, lifted, +with a low whistle of admiration, the flat glass case. +

+ +

+"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. +"But I shall probably never in my life have the luck to +see anything so incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf +is a little high for me to see it properly." +

+ +

+Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it +towards the window. +

+ +

+"Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?" he called out, +and Jim went forward to his side. +

+ +

+The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony +and translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim +acknowledged that he had never seen craftsmanship so +exquisite and delicate, but he chafed none the less at +Hanaud's diversion from his business. +

+ +

+"One could spend a long day in this room," the +detective exclaimed, "admiring these treasures." +

+ +

+"No doubt," Jim replied dryly. "But I had a notion +that we were going to spend an afternoon looking for an +arrow." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. +

+ +

+"My friend, you recall me to my duty." He looked at +the jewel again and sighed. "Yes, as you say, we are +not visitors here to enjoy ourselves." +

+ +

+He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and +replaced it. Then all at once his manner changed. He +was leaning forward with his hands still about the glass +case. But he was looking down. The fire-grate was +hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; +and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could +see over the screen into the grate itself. +

+ +

+"What is all this?" he asked. +

+ +

+He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully +aside. All now could see what had disturbed him—a +heap of white ashes in the grate. +

+ +

+Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the +shovel from the fender he thrust it between the bars and +drew it out again with a little layer of the ashes upon it. +They were white and had been pulverised into atoms. +There was not one flake which would cover a finger-nail. +Hanaud touched them gingerly, as though he had expected +to find them hot. +

+ +

+"This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and +to-day is Thursday afternoon," said Jim Frobisher with +heavy sarcasm. "Ashes do not as a rule keep hot more +than three days, Monsieur Hanaud." +

+ +

+Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. +He was daring to make fun of Hanaud! He +treated the Sûrété with no more respect than one might +treat—well, say Scotland Yard. +

+ +

+Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a +partner of the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman +was certainly not very correct. Hanaud on the contrary +was milk and water. +

+ +

+"I have observed it," he replied mildly, and he sat back +upon his heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle!" he called; and Betty moved forward +and leaned against the mantelshelf at his side. "Who +burnt these papers so very carefully?" he asked. +

+ +

+"I did," Betty replied. +

+ +

+"And when?" +

+ +

+"On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday +morning, before Monsieur le Commissaire arrived." +

+ +

+"And what were they, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Letters, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up into her face quickly. +

+ +

+"Oho!" he said softly. "Letters! Yes! And what +kind of letters, if you please?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in +despair. What in the world had happened to Hanaud? +One moment he forgot altogether the business upon +which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon +Harlowe's collection. The next he was off on his +wild-goose chase after anonymous letters. Jim had not a +doubt that he was thinking of them now. One had only +to say "letters," and he was side-tracked at once, +apparently ready to accuse any one of their authorship. +

+ +

+"They were quite private letters," Betty replied, whilst +the colour slowly stained her cheeks. "They will not +help you." +

+ +

+"So I see," Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a +snarl in his voice as he shook the shovel and flung the +ashes back into the grate. "But I am asking you, +Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were." +

+ +

+Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at +the floor, and then from the floor to the windows; and +Jim saw with a stab of pain that her eyes were glistening +with tears. +

+ +

+"I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a +point when Mademoiselle and I should consult together," +he interposed. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights," +said Monsieur Bex. +

+ +

+But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little +petulant movement of her shoulders. +

+ +

+"Very well." +

+ +

+She showed her face now to them all, with the tears +abrim in her big eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks +and recognition. +

+ +

+"You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud," she said +with a catch in her voice. "It seems that nothing, however +sacred, but must be dragged out into the light. But +I say again those letters will not help you." +

+ +

+She looked across the group to her notary. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Bex," she said, and he moved forward to +the other side of Hanaud. +

+ +

+"In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door +of the bathroom there stood a small chest in which she +kept a good many unimportant papers, such as old +receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to destroy. This +chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of course +with Mademoiselle's consent, meaning to go through the +papers at my leisure and recommend that all which were +not important should be destroyed. My time, however, +was occupied, as I have already explained to you, and it +was not until the Friday of the sixth of May that I opened +the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my surprise, a +bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, +tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to +assure me that they were very private and sacred things +with which Mademoiselle's notary had nothing whatever +to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday morning, I brought +them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty." +

+ +

+With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued +the story. +

+ +

+"I put the letters aside so that I might read them +quietly after dinner. As it happened I could not in any +case have given them attention before. For on that +morning Monsieur Boris formulated his charge against +me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office +of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, +I was—I don't say frightened—but distressed by this +accusation; and it was not until quite late in the evening, +and then rather to distract my thoughts than for any +other reason, that I looked at the letters. But as soon as +I did look at them I understood that they must be +destroyed. There were reasons, which"—and her voice +faltered, and with an effort again grew steady—"which I +feel it rather a sacrilege to explain. They were letters +which passed between my uncle Simon and Mrs. Harlowe +during the time when she was very unhappily married to +Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him—sometimes +long letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled +off—without reserve—during a moment of freedom. +They were the letters of," and again her voice broke and +died away into a whisper, so that none could misunderstand +her meaning—"of lovers—lovers speaking very +intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there +was no doubt that they ought to be destroyed! But I +made up my mind that I ought to read them, every one, +first of all lest there should be something in them which +I ought to know. I read a good many that night and +burnt them. But it grew late—I left the rest until the +Sunday morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, +and what I had left over I burnt then. It was soon +after I had finished burning them that Monsieur le +Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes which you +see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters +which I burnt upon the Sunday morning." +

+ +

+Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity +which touched her audience to a warm sympathy. +Hanaud gently tilted the ashes back into the grate. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I am always in the wrong with you," +he said with an accent of remorse. "For I am always +forcing you to statements which make me ashamed and +do you honour." +

+ +

+Jim acknowledged that Hanaud, when he wished, could +do the handsome thing with a very good grace. +Unfortunately grace seemed never to be an enduring quality +in him; as, for instance, now. He was still upon his +knees in front of the hearth. Whilst making his apology +he had been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel +without giving, to all appearance, any thought to what +he was doing. But his attention was now arrested. The +shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of bluish-white +paper. Hanaud's body stiffened. He bent forward and +picked the scrap of paper out from the grate, whilst +Betty, too, stooped with a little movement of curiosity. +

+ +

+Hanaud sat back again upon his heels. +

+ +

+"So! You burnt more than letters last Sunday +morning," he said. +

+ +

+Betty was puzzled and Hanaud held out to her the +fragment of paper. +

+ +

+"Bills too, Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her +head over it. It was obviously the right-hand top corner +of a bill. For an intriguing scrap of a printed address +was visible and below a figure or two in a column. +

+ +

+"There must have been a bill or two mixed up with +the letters," said Betty. "I don't remember it." +

+ +

+She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanaud, +who sat and looked at it. Jim Frobisher standing just +behind him read the printed ends of names and words and +the figures beneath and happened to remember the very +look of them, Hanaud held them so long in his hand; the +top bit of name in large capital letters, the words below +echelonned in smaller capitals, then the figures in the +columns and all enclosed in a rough sort of triangle with +the diagonal line browned and made ragged by the +fire—thus— +

+ +

+ ERON
+     STRUCTION
+                   LLES
+                         IS
+                               ========
+                                 375.05
+

+ +


+ +

+"Well, it is of no importance luckily," said Hanaud +and he tossed the scrap of paper back into the grate. +"Did you notice these ashes, Monsieur Girardot, on +Sunday morning?" He turned any slur the question might +seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an +explanation. +

+ +

+"It is always good when it is possible to get a +corroboration, Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+Betty nodded, but Girardot was at a loss. He +managed to look extremely important, but importance +was not required. +

+ +

+"I don't remember," he said. +

+ +

+However, corroboration of a kind at all events did +come though from another source. +

+ +

+"If I might speak, Monsieur Hanaud?" said Maurice +Thevenet eagerly. +

+ +

+"But by all means," Hanaud replied. +

+ +

+"I came into this room just behind Monsieur +Girardot on the Sunday morning. I did not see any +ashes in the hearth, that is true. But Mademoiselle +Harlowe was in the act of arranging that screen of blue +lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it to-day. +She arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were +she stood up with a start of surprise." +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud cordially. He smiled at Betty. +"This evidence is just as valuable as if he had told us +that he had seen the ashes themselves." +

+ +

+He rose to his feet and went close to her. +

+ +

+"But there is another letter which you were good +enough to promise to me," he said. +

+ +

+"The an——" she began and Hanaud stopped her +hurriedly. +

+ +

+"It is better that we hold our tongues," he said with +a nod and a grin which recognised that in this matter +they were accomplices. "This is to be our exclusive little +secret, which, if he is very good, we will share with +Monsieur le Commissaire." +

+ +

+He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a +drawer in the Chippendale secretary. Girardot the +Commissaire tittered, not quite sure that he thought very +highly of it. Monsieur Bex, on the other hand, by a +certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly clear +that in his opinion such a jape was very, very far from +correct. +

+ +

+Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and +handed it to Hanaud, who took it aside to the window +and read it carefully. Then with a look he beckoned +Girardot to his side. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher can come too. For he is in the +secret," he added; and the three men stood apart at the +window looking at the sheet of paper. It was dated the +7th of May, signed "The Scourge," like the others of +this hideous brood, and it began without any preface. +There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of +them were epithets not to be reproduced which made +Jim's blood boil that a girl like Betty should ever have +had to read them. +

+ +

+"Your time is coming now, you——" and here followed +the string of abominable obscenities. "You +are for it, Betty Harlowe. Hanaud the detective from +Paris is coming to look after you with his handcuffs +in his pocket. You'll look pretty in handcuffs, won't +you, Betty? It's your white neck we want! Three +cheers for Waberski? The Scourge." +

+ +


+ +

+Girardot stared at the brutal words and settled his +glasses on his nose and stared again. +

+ +

+"But—but——" he stammered and he pointed to the +date. A warning gesture made by Hanaud brought him +to a sudden stop, but Frobisher had little doubt as to the +purport of that unfinished exclamation. Girardot was +astonished, as Hanaud himself had been, that this item +of news had so quickly leaked abroad. +

+ +

+Hanaud folded the letter and turned back into the +room. +

+ +

+"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, and +Thevenet the secretary took his notebook from his +pocket. +

+ +

+"Shall I make you a copy of the letter, Monsieur +Hanaud?" he said, sitting down and holding out his +hand. +

+ +

+"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, +"and a copy at the present stage isn't necessary. A little +later on I may ask for your assistance." +

+ +

+He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case +away in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again +he saw that Betty was holding out to him a key. +

+ +

+"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," +she said. +

+ +

+"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we +shall have Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the +room opposite to the windows, and close to the door which +opened on to the hall. Hanaud took the key, unlocked +the door of the cabinet and started back with a "Wow." He +was really startled, for facing him upon a shelf were +two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in eyes, +but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the +heads of Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the +Amazon, and preserved and reduced by their conquerors +by the process common amongst those forests. +

+ +

+"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that +we should find it," he said, but though he found many +curious oddities in that cabinet, of the perfect specimen of +a poison arrow there was never a trace. He turned away +with an air of disappointment. +

+ +

+"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," +he said regretfully; and for an hour he searched that +room, turning back the carpet, examining the upholstery +of the chairs, and the curtains, shaking out every vase, +and finally giving his attention to Betty's secretary. He +probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple +mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every +pigeon-hole; working with extraordinary swiftness and +replacing everything in its proper place. At the end of +the hour the room was as orderly as when he had entered +it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. +

+ +

+"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in +a chair and drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as +the two ladies and Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was +prepared not to find it here." +

+ +

+"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did +not stir. +

+ +

+"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur +Girardot, if you will remove the seals in the hall from the +door at the end of the room." +

+ +

+The Commissary went out by the way of Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom, accompanied by his secretary. After a +minute had passed a key grated in the lock and the door +was opened. The Commissary and his secretary returned +into the room from the hall. +

+ +

+"Good!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He rose from this chair and looking around at the little +group, now grown puzzled and anxious, he said very +gravely: +

+ +

+"In the interest of justice I now ask that none of you +shall interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have +an experiment to make." +

+ +

+In a complete silence he walked to the fireplace and +rang the bell. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FOURTEEN: An Experiment and a Discovery +

+ +

+Gaston answered the bell. +

+ +

+"Will you please send Francine Rollard here," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond +Hanaud to Betty. +

+ +

+"If Mademoiselle gives me the order," he said +respectfully. +

+ +

+"At once then, Gaston," Betty replied, and she sat +down in a chair. +

+ +

+Francine Rollard was apparently difficult to persuade. +For the minutes passed, and when at last she did come +into the treasure room she was scared and reluctant. She +was a girl hardly over twenty, very neat and trim and +pretty, and rather like some wild shy creature out of the +woods. She looked round the group which awaited her +with restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it +was the suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. +

+ +

+"Rollard," said Hanaud gently, "I sent for you, for +I want another woman to help me in acting a little scene." +

+ +

+He turned towards Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+"Now, Mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly +your movements here on the night when Madame Harlowe +died? You came into the room—so. You stood +by the electric-light switch there. You turned it on, you +noticed the time, and you turned it off quickly. For this +communicating door stood wide open—so!—and a strong +light poured out of Madame Harlowe's bedroom through +the doorway." +

+ +

+Hanaud was very busy, placing himself first by the side +of Ann to make sure that she stood in the exact place +which she had described, and then running across the +room to set wide open the communicating door. +

+ +

+"You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments +and panels of the Sedan chair, on the other side of +the fireplace on your right. So! And there, +Mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and," his words +lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each +one—"you heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom +and caught some words spoken in a clear whisper." +

+ +

+"Yes," Ann replied with a shiver. The solemn manner +of authority with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. +She looked at him with troubled eyes. +

+ +

+"Then will you stand there once more," he continued, +"and once more listen as you listened on that night. I +thank you!" He went away to Betty. "Now, Mademoiselle, +and you, Francine Rollard, will you both please +come with me." +

+ +

+He walked towards the communicating door but Betty +did not even attempt to rise from her chair. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud," she said with her cheeks very +white and her voice shaking, "I can guess what you +propose to do. But it is horrible and rather cruel to us. +And I cannot see how it will help." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott broke in before Hanaud could reply. She +was more troubled even than Betty, though without doubt +hers was to be the easier part. +

+ +

+"It cannot help at all," she said. "Why must we +pretend now the dreadful thing which was lived then?" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned about in the doorway. +

+ +

+"Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think +that when I have finished, you will yourselves understand +that my experiment has not been without its use. I +understand of course that moments like these bring their +distress. But—you will pardon me—I am not thinking +of you"—and there was so much quietude and gravity in +the detective's voice that his words, harsh though they +were, carried with them no offence. "No, I am thinking +of a woman more than double the age of either of you, +whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of +the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs +which you, Mademoiselle Harlowe, showed me this +morning—I am moved by them. Yes, that is the truth." +

+ +

+He closed his eyes as if he saw those two portraits with +their dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. "I +am her advocate," he cried aloud in a stirring voice. "The +tragic woman, I stand for her! If she was done to death, +I mean to know and I mean to punish!" +

+ +

+Never had Frobisher believed that Hanaud could have +been so transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so +much passion. He stood before them an erect and +menacing figure, all his grossness melted out of him, a +man with a flaming sword. +

+ +

+"As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a +little distress matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? +How long will they last? I beg you not to hinder +me!" +

+ +

+Betty rose up from her chair without another word. +But she did not rise without an effort, and when she +stood up at last she swayed upon her feet and her face +was as white as chalk. +

+ +

+"Come, Francine!" she said, pronouncing her words +like a person with an impediment of speech. "We must +show Monsieur Hanaud that we are not the cowards he +takes us for." +

+ +

+But Francine still held back. +

+ +

+"I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl and +this frightens me. The police! They set traps—the +police." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. +

+ +

+"And how often do they catch the innocent in them? +Tell me that, Mademoiselle Francine!" +

+ +

+He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom. Betty and Francine followed upon his +heels, the others trooped in behind, with Frobisher last +of all. He indeed was as reluctant to witness Hanaud's +experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. It +savoured of the theatrical. There was to be some sort +of imagined reproduction of the scene which Ann Upcott +had described, no doubt with the object of testing her +sincerity. It would really be a test of nerves more than a +test of honesty and to Jim was therefore neither reliable +nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a word +of encouragement to Ann, but she was gazing again with +that curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the +marquetry cabinet. +

+ +

+"There is nothing to fear, Ann," he said, and she +withdrew her eyes from the clock. They were dancing now +as she turned them upon Frobisher. +

+ +

+"I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me +by my name," she said with a smile. "Thank you, Jim!" She +hesitated and then the blood suddenly mounted into +her face. "I'll tell you, I was a little jealous," she added +in a low voice and with a little laugh at herself as though +she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. +

+ +

+Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer +by the appearance of Hanaud in the doorway. +

+ +

+"I hate to interrupt, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with +a smile; "but it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle +should listen without anything to distract her." +

+ +

+Jim followed Hanaud into the bedroom, and was +startled. The Commissary and his secretary and +Monsieur Bex were in a group apart near to one of the +windows. Betty Harlowe was stretched upon Mrs. Harlowe's +bed; Francine Rollard stood against the wall, near +to the door, clearly frightened out of her wits and +glancing from side to side with the furtive restless eyes +of the half-tamed. But it was not this curious spectacle +which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but something strange, +something which almost shocked, in the aspect of Betty +herself. She was leaning up on an elbow with her eyes +fixed upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable +fierce look in them that he had ever seen. She was quite +lost to her environment. The experiment from which +Francine shrank had no meaning for her. She was +possessed—the old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts—though +her face was as still as a mass, a mask of frozen passion. +It was only for a second, however, that the strange seizure +lasted. Betty's face relaxed; she dropped back upon +the bed with her eyes upon Hanaud like one waiting for +instructions. +

+ +

+Hanaud, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take +his place amongst the group at the window. He placed +himself upon one side of the bed, and beckoned to +Francine. Very slowly she approached the end of the bed. +Hanaud directed her in the same silent way to come opposite +to him on the other side of the bed. For a little while +Francine refused. She stood stubbornly shaking her +head at the very foot of the bed. She was terrified of +some trick, and when at last at a sign from Betty she took +up the position assigned to her, she minced to it gingerly +as though she feared the floor would open beneath her +feet. Hanaud made her another sign and she looked at a +scrap of paper on which Hanaud had written some words. +The paper and her orders had obviously been given to +her whilst Jim was talking to Ann Upcott. Francine +knew what she was to do, but her suspicious peasant +nature utterly rebelled against it. Hanaud beckoned to +her with his eyes riveted upon her compelling her, and +against her will she bent forwards over the bed and across +Betty Harlowe's body. +

+ +

+A nod from Hanaud now, and she spoke in a low, clear +whisper: +

+ +

+"That—will—do—now." +

+ +

+And hardly had she spoken those few words which +Ann Upcott said she had heard on the night of +Mrs. Harlowe's death, but Hanaud himself must repeat them +and also in a whisper. +

+ +

+Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway +in his natural voice: +

+ +

+"Did you hear, Mademoiselle? Was that the whisper +which reached your ears on the night when Madame +died?" +

+ +

+All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in +suspense. Francine Rollard, indeed, with her eyes fixed +upon Hanaud in a very agony of doubt. And the answer +came. +

+ +

+"Yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this +afternoon. On the night when I came down in the dark +to the treasure room, the words were only whispered +once." +

+ +

+"It was the same voice which whispered them twice, +Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes ... I think so ... I noticed no difference +... Yes." +

+ +

+And Hanaud flung out his arms with a comic gesture +of despair, and addressed the room. +

+ +

+"You understand now my little experiment. A voice +that whispers! How shall one tell it from another voice +that whispers! There is no intonation, no depth, no +lightness. There is not even sex in a voice which +whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest to the +identity of the person who whispered, 'That will do now,' +on the night when Madame Harlowe died." He waved +his hand towards Monsieur Bex. "I will be glad if you +will open now these cupboards, and Mademoiselle Harlowe +will tell us, to the best of her knowledge, whether +anything has been taken or anything disturbed." +

+ +

+Hanaud returned to the treasure room, leaving +Monsieur Bex and Betty at their work, with the Commissary +and his secretary to supervise them. Jim Frobisher +followed him. He was very far from believing that +Hanaud had truthfully explained the intention of his +experiment. The impossibility of identifying a voice +which whispers! Here was something with which +Hanaud must have been familiar from a hundred cases! +No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There +was quite another true reason for this melodramatic little +scene which he had staged. He was following Hanaud in +the hope of finding out that reason, when he heard him +speaking in a low voice, and he stopped inside the +dressing-room close to the communicating door where he could +hear every word and yet not be seen himself. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," Hanaud was saying to Ann Upcott, +"there is something about this clock here which troubles +you." +

+ +

+"Yes—of course it's nonsense.... I must be wrong.... +For here is the cabinet and on it stands the clock." +

+ +

+Jim could gather from the two voices that they were +both standing together close to the marquetry cabinet. +

+ +

+"Yes, yes," Hanaud urged. "Still you are troubled." +

+ +

+There was a moment's silence. Jim could imagine the +girl looking from the clock to the door by which she had +stood, and back again from the door to the clock. Surely +that scene in the bedroom had been staged to extort some +admission from Ann Upcott of the falsity of her story. +Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting +to another trick, setting a fresh trap? +

+ +

+"Well?" he asked insistently. "Why are you +troubled?" +

+ +

+"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, +"that the clock is lower now than it was. Of course it +can't be ... and I had only one swift glimpse of it.... +Yet my recollection is so vivid—the room standing +out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then +vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock +seemed to me to be placed higher..." and suddenly +she stopped as if a warning hand had been laid upon her +arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering when +silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway +and confronting him. +

+ +

+"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note +of relief in his voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the +Sûrété very soon. That I can see. Come in!" +

+ +

+He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. +

+ +

+"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the +light goes up and goes out—it would have been a marvel +if you had within that flash of vision seen every detail +precisely true. No, there is nothing there!" He flung +himself into a chair and sat for a little while silent in an +attitude of dejection. +

+ +

+"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had +nothing to go upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing +there, stirring up old troubles which had better be +left quietly in their graves, and at the end discovering +nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My +little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?" +

+ +

+Hanaud sat up alertly. +

+ +

+"What is the matter?" he asked. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter +disappointment upon Hanaud's face and in his attitude had +enlightened him. Yes, his experiment had failed. For +it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had summoned +her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant +to act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the +hope that it would work upon her and break her down to +a confession of guilt. He suspected Ann. Well, then, +Ann must have had an accomplice. To discover the +accomplice—there was the object of the experiment. And +it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. +Francine had shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the +reason of the shrinking was manifest—fear of the police, +suspicion of a trap, the furtive helplessness of the +ignorant. She had not delivered herself into Hanaud's +toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal +to Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he +answered simply: +

+ +

+"Nothing." +

+ +

+Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms +of his chair. +

+ +

+"Nothing, eh? nothing! That's the only answer in +this case. To every question! To every search! Nothing, +nothing, nothing;" and as he ended in a sinking voice, +a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. +

+ +

+"Betty!" Ann exclaimed. +

+ +

+Hanaud threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim +fancied that he was out of his chair and across the +dressing-room before the sound of the cry had ceased. +Certainly Betty could not have moved. She was standing in +front of the dressing-table, looking down at a big jewel-case +of dark blue morocco leather, and she was lifting up +and down the open lid of it with an expression of utter +incredulity. +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud. "It is unlocked. We have +something, after all, Monsieur Frobisher. Here is a +jewel-case unlocked, and jewel-cases do not unlock +themselves. It was here?" +

+ +

+He looked towards the cupboard in the wall, of which +the door stood open. +

+ +

+"Yes," said Betty. "I opened the door, and took the +case out by the side handles. The lid came open when +I touched it." +

+ +

+"Will you look through it, please, and see whether +anything is missing?" +

+ +

+While Betty began to examine the contents of the +jewel-case, Hanaud went to Francine, who stood apart. +He took her by the arm and led her to the door. +

+ +

+"I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine," he said. +"But, after all, we are not such alarming people, the +Police, eh? No, so long as good little maids hold their +good little tongues, we can be very good friends. Of +course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and gossip, little +Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is to-morrow +spreading over Dijon the story of Hanaud's little experiment, +Hanaud will know where to look for the chatterers." +

+ +

+"Monsieur, I shall not say one word," cried Francine. +

+ +

+"And how wise that will be, little Francine!" Hanaud +rejoined in a horribly smooth and silky voice. "For +Hanaud can be the wickedest of wicked Uncles to +naughty little chatterers. Ohhoho, yes! He seizes them +tight—so—and it will be ever so long before he says to +them 'That—will—do—now!'" +

+ +

+He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh +and gently pushed Francine Rollard from the room. +Then he returned to Betty, who had lifted the tray out +of the box and was opening some smaller cases which had +been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon pendant +and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. +

+ +

+"You miss something, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"It was, after all, certain that you would," Hanaud +continued. "If murders are committed, there will be +some reason. I will even venture to guess that the jewel +which you miss is of great value." +

+ +

+"It is," Betty admitted. "But I expect it has only been +mislaid. No doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked +away in a drawer." She spoke with very great eagerness, +and a note of supplication that the matter should rest +there. "In any case, what has disappeared is mine, isn't +it? And I am not going to imitate Monsieur Boris. I +make no complaint." +

+ +

+Hanaud shook his head. +

+ +

+"You are very kind, Mademoiselle. But we cannot, +alas! say here 'That will do now.'" It was strange to +Jim to notice how he kept harping upon the words of +that whisper. "We are not dealing with a case of theft, +but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it +that you miss?" +

+ +

+"A pearl necklace," Betty answered reluctantly. +

+ +

+"A big one?" +

+ +

+It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased +Hanaud became more peremptory and abrupt. +

+ +

+"Not so very." +

+ +

+"Describe it to me, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face looking +out upon the garden. Then with a shrug of resignation +she obeyed. +

+ +

+"There were thirty-five pearls—not so very large, but +they were perfectly matched and of a beautiful pink. +My uncle took a great deal of trouble and some years to +collect them. Madame told me herself that they actually +cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. They would +be worth even more now." +

+ +

+"A fortune, then," cried Hanaud. +

+ +

+Not a person in that room had any belief that the +necklace would be found, laid aside somewhere by chance. +Here was Hanaud's case building itself up steadily. +Another storey was added to it this afternoon. This or +that experiment might fail. What did that matter? A +motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an +intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result; +that the truth, like a beam of light that travels for a +million of years, would in the end strike upon a dark spot, +and that some one would stand helpless and dazzled in a +glare—the criminal. +

+ +

+"Who knew of this necklace of yours, Mademoiselle, +beside yourself?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"Every one in the house, Monsieur. Madame wore it +nearly always." +

+ +

+"She wore it, then, on the day of her death?" +

+ +

+"Yes, I——" Betty began, and she turned towards +Ann for confirmation, and then swiftly turned away +again. "I think so." +

+ +

+"I am sure of it," said Ann steadily, though her +face had grown rather white and her eyes anxious. +

+ +

+"How long has Francine Rollard been with you?" +Hanaud asked of Betty. +

+ +

+"Three years. No—a little more. She is the only +maid I have ever had," Betty answered with a laugh. +

+ +

+"I see," Hanaud said thoughtfully; and what he saw, +it seemed to Jim Frobisher that every one else in that +room saw too. For no one looked at Ann Upcott. Old +servants do not steal valuable necklaces: Ann Upcott and +Jeanne Baudin, the nurse, were the only new-comers to +the Maison Crenelle these many years; and Jeanne Baudin +had the best of characters. Thus the argument seemed +to run though no one expressed it in words. +

+ +

+Hanaud turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard, +and shook his head over it. Then he crossed to +the dressing-table and the morocco case. +

+ +

+"Aha!" he said with a lively interest. "This is a +different affair;" and he bent down closely over it. +

+ +

+The case was not locked with a key at all. There were +three small gilt knobs in the front of the case, and the +lock was set by the number of revolutions given to each +knob. These, of course, could be varied with each knob, +and all must be known before the case could be +opened—Mrs. Harlowe's jewels had been guarded by a formula. +

+ +

+"There has been no violence used here," said Hanaud, +standing up again. +

+ +

+"Of course my aunt may have forgotten to lock the +case," said Betty. +

+ +

+"Of course that's possible," Hanaud agreed. +

+ +

+"And of course this room was open to any one between +the time of my aunt's funeral and Sunday morning, when +the doors were sealed." +

+ +

+"A week, in fact—with Boris Waberski in the house," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes ... yes," said Betty. "Only ... but I +expect it is just mislaid and we shall find it. You see +Monsieur Boris expected to get some money from my +lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain +with me. It doesn't look as if he had stolen it. He +wouldn't want a thousand pounds if he had." +

+ +

+Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had +recollected him with a thrill of hope that he would be +discovered to be the thief when Hanaud mentioned his +name. But the hope died away again before the reluctant +and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlowe. On the other +hand, if Boris and Ann were really accomplices in the +murder, because he wanted his legacy, the necklace might +well have been Ann's share. More and more, whichever +way one looked at it, the facts pointed damningly towards +Ann. +

+ +

+"Well, we will see if it has been mislaid," said Hanaud. +"But meanwhile, Mademoiselle, it would be well for you +to lock that case up and to take it some time this afternoon +to your bankers." +

+ +

+Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after +the other. Three times a swift succession of sharp little +clicks was heard in the room. +

+ +

+"You have not used, I hope, the combination which +Madame Harlowe used," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"I never knew the combination she used," said Betty. +She lifted the jewel-case back into its cupboard; and the +search of the drawers and the cupboards began. But it +was as barren of result as had been the search of the +treasure-room for the arrow. +

+ +

+"We can do no more," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes. One thing more." +

+ +

+The correction came quietly from Ann Upcott. She +was standing by herself, very pale and defiant. She +knew now that she was suspected. The very care with +which every one had avoided even looking at her had left +her in no doubt. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked about the room. +

+ +

+"What more can we do?" he asked. +

+ +

+"You can search my rooms." +

+ +

+"No!" cried Betty violently. "I won't have it!" +

+ +

+"If you please," said Ann. "It is only fair to me." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex nodded violently. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle could not be more correct," said he. +

+ +

+Ann addressed herself to Hanaud. +

+ +

+"I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in +my room except a small leather dispatch-case. You will +find the key to that in the left-hand drawer of my +dressing-table. I will wait for you in the library." +

+ +

+Hanaud bowed, and before he could move from his +position Betty did a thing for which Jim could have +hugged her there and then before them all. She went +straight to Ann and set her arm about her waist. +

+ +

+"I'll wait with you, Ann," she said. "Of course it's +ridiculous," and she led Ann out of the room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Finding of the Arrow +

+ +

+Ann's rooms were upon the second floor with the +windows upon the garden, a bedroom and a sitting-room +communicating directly with one another. They +were low in the roof, but spacious, and Hanaud, as he +looked around the bedroom, said in a tone of doubt: +

+ +

+"Yes ... after all, if one were frightened suddenly +out of one's wits, one might stumble about this room in +the dark and lose one's way to the light switch. There +isn't one over the bed." Then he shrugged his shoulders. +"But, to be sure, one would be careful that one's details +could be verified. So——" and the doubt passed out of +his voice. +

+ +

+The words were all Greek to the Commissary of Police +and his secretary and Monsieur Bex. Maurice Thevenet, +indeed, looked sharply at Hanaud, as if he was on the +point of asking one of those questions which he had been +invited to ask. But Girardot, the Commissary who was +panting heavily with his ascent of two flights of stairs, +spoke first. +

+ +

+"We shall find nothing to interest us here," he said. +"That pretty girl would never have asked us to pry about +amongst her dainty belongings if there had been +anything to discover." +

+ +

+"One never knows," replied Hanaud. "Let us see!" +

+ +

+Jim walked away into the sitting-room. He had no +wish to follow step by step Hanaud and the Commissary +in their search; and he had noticed on the table in the +middle of the room a blotting-pad and some notepaper and the +materials for writing. He wanted to get all this whirl of +conjecture and fact and lies, in which during the last two +days he had lived, sorted and separated and set in order +in his mind; and he knew no better way of doing so than +by putting it all down shortly in the "for" and "against" +style of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. He would +have a quiet hour or so whilst Hanaud indefatigably +searched. He took a sheet of paper, selected a pen at +random from the tray and began. It cost Ann Upcott, +however, a good many sheets of notepaper, and more than +once the nib dropped out of his pen-holder and was forced +back into it before he had finished. But he had his +problem reduced at last to these terms: +

+ +


+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+For + +Against +
+(1) Although suspicion that +murder had been committed +arose in the first instance only +from the return to its shelf of +the "Treatise on Sporanthus +Hispidus," subsequent developments, +e.g., the disappearance of +the Poison Arrow, the introduction +into the case of the ill-famed +Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story +of her visit to the Treasure +Room, and now the mystery of +Mrs. Harlowe's pearl necklace, +make out a prima facie case for +inquiry. + + +But in the absence of any +trace of poison in the dead +woman's body, it is difficult to +see how the criminal can be +brought to justice, except by +

+(a) A confession. +

+(b) The commission of another +crime of a similar kind. +Hanaud's theory—once a +poisoner always a poisoner. +
+(2) If murder was committed, +it is probable that it was +committed at half-past ten at night +when Ann Upcott in the Treasure +Room heard the sound of a +struggle and the whisper, "That +will do now." + +Ann Upcott's story may be +partly or wholly false. She +knew that Mrs. Harlowe's +bedroom was to be opened and +examined. If she also knew that +the pearl necklace had +disappeared, she must have realised +that it would be advisable for +her to tell some story before its +disappearance was discovered, +which would divert suspicion +from her. +
+(3) It is clear that whoever +committed the murder, if murder +was committed, Betty Harlowe +had nothing to do with it. She +had an ample allowance. She +was at M. Pouillac's Ball on +the night. Moreover, once +Mrs. Harlowe was dead, the necklace +became Betty Harlowe's +property. Had she committed the +murder, the necklace would not +have disappeared. +

+(4) Who then are possibly +guilty? +		 +It is possible that the +disappearance of the necklace is in +no way connected with the +murder, if murder there was. +
+(i) The servants. + +(i) All of them have many +years of service to their credit. +It is not possible that any of +them would have understood +enough of the "Treatise on +Sporanthus Hispidus" to make +use of it. If any of them were +concerned it can only be as an +accessory or assistant working +under the direction of another. +
+(ii) Jeanne Baudin the nurse. +

+More attention might be given +to her. It is too easily accepted +that she has nothing to do +with it. +		 +No one suspects her. Her +record is good. +
+(iii) Francine Rollard. She +was certainly frightened this +afternoon. The necklace would +be a temptation. +

+Was it she who bent over Ann +Upcott in the darkness? +		 +She was frightened of the +police as a class, rather than of +being accused of a crime. She +acted her part in the reconstruction +scene without breaking +down. If she were concerned, it +could only be for the reason +given above, as an assistant. +
+(iv) Ann Upcott. +

+Her introduction into the +Maison Crenelle took place +through Waberski and under +dubious circumstances. She is +poor, a paid companion, and the +necklace is worth a considerable +fortune. +		 +Her introductions may be +explicable on favourable grounds. +Until we know more of her +history it is impossible to judge. +
+She was in the house on the +night of Mrs. Harlowe's death. +She told Gaston he could turn +out the lights and go to bed +early that evening. She could +easily have admitted Waberski +and received the necklace as the +price of her complicity. + +Her account of the night of +the 27th April may be true from +beginning to end. +
+The story she told us in the +garden may have been the true +story of what occurred adapted. +It may have been she who +whispered "That will do now." +She may have whispered it to +Waberski. +

+Her connection with Waberski +was sufficiently close to make +him count upon Ann's support +in his charge against Betty. +		 +In that case the theory of a +murder is enormously strengthened. +But who whispered, "That +will do now"?And who was +bending over Ann Upcott when +she waked up? +
+(v) Waberski. +

+He is a scoundrel, a would-be +blackmailer. +

+He was in straits for money +and he expected a thumping +legacy from Mrs. Harlowe. +

+He may have brought Ann +Upcott into the house with the +thought of murder in his mind. +

+Having failed to obtain any +profit from his crime, he accuses +Betty of the same crime as a +blackmailing proposition. +
+As soon as he knew that +Mrs. Harlowe had been exhumed and +an autopsy made he collapsed. +He knew, if he had used himself +the poison arrow, that no trace +of poison would be found. +

+He knew of Jean Cladel, and +according to his own story was +in the Rue Gambetta close to +Jean Cladel's shop. It is possible +that he himself had been visiting +Cladel to pay for the solution of +Strophanthus. +		 +But he would have collapsed +equally if he had believed that +no murder had been committed +at all. +
+ +


+ +

+If murder was committed the two people most +obviously suspect are Ann Upcott and Waberski +working in collusion. +

+ +

+To this conclusion Jim Frobisher was reluctantly +brought, but even whilst writing it down there were +certain questions racing through his mind to which he could +find no answer. He was well aware that he was an utter +novice in such matters as the investigation of crimes; and +he recognised that were the answers to these questions +known to him, some other direction might be given to +his thoughts. +

+ +

+Accordingly he wrote those troublesome questions +beneath his memorandum—thus: +

+ +

+But +

+ +

+(1) Why does Hanaud attach no importance to the +return of the "Treatise on Sporanthus Hispidus" to +its place in the library? +

+ +

+(2) What was it which so startled him upon the +top of the Terrace Tower? +

+ +

+(3) What was it that he had in his mind to say to +me at the Café in the Place D'Armes and in the end +did not say? +

+ +

+(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the +treasure room for the missing poison arrow—except +the interior of the Sedan chair? +

+ +

+The noise of a door gently closing aroused him from +his speculations. He looked across the room. Hanaud +had just entered it from the bedroom, shutting the +communicating door behind him. He stood with his hand +upon the door-knob gazing at Frobisher with a curious +startled stare. He moved swiftly to the end of the table +at which Jim was sitting. +

+ +

+"How you help me!" he said in a low voice and smiling. +"How you do help me!" +

+ +

+Alert though Jim's ears were to a note of ridicule, he +could discover not a hint of it. Hanaud was speaking +with the utmost sincerity, his eyes very bright and his +heavy face quite changed by that uncannily sharp expression +which Jim had learned to associate with some new +find in the development of the case. +

+ +

+"May I see what you have written?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"It could be of no value to you," Jim replied modestly, +but Hanaud would have none of it. +

+ +

+"It is always of value to know what the other man +thinks, and even more what the other man sees. What +did I say to you in Paris? The last thing one sees one's +self is the thing exactly under one's nose"; and he began +to laugh lightly but continuously and with a great deal of +enjoyment, which Jim did not understand. He gave in, +however, over his memorandum and pushed it along to +Hanaud, ashamed of it as something schoolboyish, but +hopeful that some of these written questions might be +answered. +

+ +

+Hanaud sat down at the end of the table close to Jim +and read the items and the questions very slowly with an +occasional grunt, and a still more occasional "Aha!" but +with a quite unchanging face. Jim was in two minds +whether to snatch it from his hands and tear it up or dwell +upon its recollected phrases with a good deal of pride. +One thing was clear. Hanaud took it seriously. +

+ +

+He sat musing over it for a moment or two. +

+ +

+"Yes, here are questions, and dilemmas." He looked +at Frobisher with friendliness. "I shall make you an +allegory. I have a friend who is a matador in Spain. +He told me about the bull and how foolish those people +are who think the bull not clever. Yes, but do not jump +and look the offence with your eyes and tell me how very +vulgar I am and how execrable my taste. All that I know +very well. But listen to my friend the matador! He +says all that the bull wants, to kill without fail all the +bull-fighters in Spain, is a little experience. And very little, +he learns so quick. Look! Between the entrance of the +bull into the arena and his death there are reckoned +twenty minutes. And there should not be more, if the +matador is wise. The bull—he learns so quick the +warfare of the ring. Well, I am an old bull who has fought +in the arena many times. This is your first corrida. +But only ten minutes of the twenty have passed. Already +you have learned much. Yes, here are some shrewd +questions which I had not expected you to ask. When the +twenty are gone, you will answer them all for yourself. +Meanwhile"—he took up another pen and made a tiny +addition to item one—"I carry this on one step farther. +See!" +

+ +

+He replaced the memorandum under Jim's eyes. Jim +read: +

+ +

+"—subsequent developments, e.g., the disappearance of +the Poison Arrow, the introduction into the case of the +ill-famed Jean Cladel, Ann Upcott's story of her visit to +the treasure-room, and now the mystery of Mrs. Harlowe's +pearl necklace, and the finding of the arrow, make +out a prima facie case for inquiry." +

+ +


+ +

+Jim sprang to his feet in excitement. +

+ +

+"You have found the arrow, then?" he cried, glancing +towards the door of Ann Upcott's bedroom. +

+ +

+"Not I, my friend," replied Hanaud with a grin. +

+ +

+"The Commissaire, then?" +

+ +

+"No, not the Commissaire." +

+ +

+"His secretary, then?" +

+ +

+Jim sat down again in his chair. +

+ +

+"I am sorry. He wears cheap rings. I don't like him." +

+ +

+Hanaud broke into a laugh of delight. +

+ +

+"Console yourself! I, too, don't like that young +gentleman of whom they are all so proud. Maurice +Thevenet has found nothing." +

+ +

+Jim looked at Hanaud in a perplexity. +

+ +

+"Here is a riddle," he said. +

+ +

+Hanaud rubbed his hands together. +

+ +

+"Prove to me that you have been ten minutes in the +bull-ring," he said. +

+ +

+"I think that I have only been five," Jim replied with +a smile. "Let me see! The arrow had not been +discovered when we first entered these rooms?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"And it is discovered now?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And it was not discovered by you?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"Nor the Commissaire?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"Nor Maurice Thevenet?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+Jim stared and shook his head. +

+ +

+"I have not been one minute in the bull-ring. I don't +understand." +

+ +

+Hanaud's face was all alight with enjoyment. +

+ +

+"Then I take your memorandum and I write again." +

+ +

+He hid the paper from Jim Frobisher's eyes with the +palm of his left hand, whilst he wrote with his right. +Then with a triumphant gesture he laid it again before +Jim. The last question of all had been answered in +Hanaud's neat, small handwriting. +

+ +

+Jim read: +

+ +

+(4) Why did Hanaud search every corner of the +treasure-room for the missing Poison Arrow—except +the interior of the Sedan chair? +

+ +


+ +

+Underneath the question Hanaud had written as if it +was Jim Frobisher himself who answered the question: +

+ +

+"It was wrong of Hanaud to forget to examine the +Sedan chair, but fortunately no harm has resulted +from that lamentable omission. For Life, the +incorrigible Dramatist, had arranged that the head of the +arrow-shaft should be the pen-holder with which I +have written this memorandum." +

+ +


+ +

+Jim looked at the pen-holder and dropped it with a +startled cry. +

+ +

+There it was—the slender, pencil-like shaft expanding +into a slight bulb where the fingers held it, and the nib +inserted into the tiny cleft made for the stem of the iron +dart! Jim remembered that the nib had once or twice +become loose and spluttered on the page, until he had +jammed it in violently. +

+ +

+Then came a terrible thought. His jaw dropped; he +stared at Hanaud in awe. +

+ +

+"I wonder if I sucked the end of it, whilst I was thinking +out my sentences," he stammered. +

+ +

+"O Lord!" cried Hanaud, and he snatched up the pen-holder +and rubbed it hard with his pocket handkerchief. +Then he spread out the handkerchief upon the table, and +fetching a small magnifying glass from his pocket, +examined it minutely. He looked up with relief. +

+ +

+"There is not the least little trace of that reddish-brown +clay which made the poison paste. The arrow was +scraped clean before it was put on that tray of pens. I +am enchanted. I cannot now afford to lose my junior +colleague." +

+ +

+Frobisher drew a long breath and lit a cigarette, and +gave another proof that he was a very novice of a bull. +

+ +

+"What a mad thing to put the head of that arrow-shaft, +which a glance at the plates in the Treatise would +enable a child to identify, into an open tray of pens +without the slightest concealment!" he exclaimed. +

+ +

+It looked as if Ann Upcott was wilfully pushing her +neck into the wooden ring of the guillotine. +

+ +

+Hanaud shook his head. +

+ +

+"Not so mad, my friend! The old rules are the best. +Hide a thing in some out-of-the-way corner, and it will +surely be found. Put it to lie carelessly under every one's +nose and no one will see it at all. No, no! This was +cleverly done. Who could have foreseen that instead of +looking on at our search you were going to plump +yourself down in a chair and write your memorandum so +valuable on Mademoiselle Ann's notepaper? And even +then you did not notice your pen. Why should you?" +

+ +

+Jim, however, was not satisfied. +

+ +

+"It is a fortnight since Mrs. Harlowe was murdered, +if she was murdered," he cried. "What I don't understand +is why the arrow wasn't destroyed altogether!" +

+ +

+"But until this morning there was never any question +of the arrow," Hanaud returned. "It was a curiosity, an +item in a collection—why should one trouble to destroy +it? But this morning the arrow becomes a dangerous +thing to possess. So it must be hidden away in a hurry. +For there is not much time. An hour whilst you and I +admired Mont Blanc from the top of the Terrace Tower." +

+ +

+"And while Betty was out of the house," Jim added +quickly. +

+ +

+"Yes—that is true," said Hanaud. "I had not thought +of it. You can add that point, Monsieur Frobisher, to +the reasons which put Mademoiselle Harlowe out of our +considerations. Yes." +

+ +

+He sat lost in thought for a little while and speaking +now and then a phrase rather to himself than to his +companion: "To run up here—to cut the arrow down—to +round off the end as well as one can in a hurry—to stain +it with some varnish—to mix it with the other pens in +the tray. Not so bad!" He nodded his head in appreciation +of the trick. "But nevertheless things begin to +look black for that exquisite Mademoiselle Ann with her +delicate colour and her pretty ways." +

+ +

+A noise of the shifting of furniture in the bedroom +next door attracted his attention. He removed the nib +from the arrow-head. +

+ +

+"We will keep this little matter to ourselves just for +the moment," he said quickly, and he wrapped the +improvised pen-holder in a sheet of the notepaper. "Just +you and I shall know of it. No one else. This is my +case, not Girardot's. We will not inflict a great deal of +pain and trouble until we are sure." +

+ +

+"I agree," said Jim eagerly. "That's right, I am sure." +

+ +

+Hanaud tucked the arrow-head carefully away in his +pocket. +

+ +

+"This, too," he said, and he took up Jim Frobisher's +memorandum. "It is not a good thing to carry about, +and perhaps lose. I will put it away at the Prefecture +with the other little things I have collected." +

+ +

+He put the memorandum into his letter-case and got +up from his chair. +

+ +

+"The rest of the arrow-shaft will be somewhere in +this room, no doubt, and quite easy to see. But we shall +not have time to look for it, and, after all, we have the +important part of it." +

+ +

+He turned towards the mantelshelf, where some cards +of invitation were stuck in the frame of the mirror, just +as the door was opened and the Commissary with his +secretary came out from the bedroom. +

+ +

+"The necklace is not in that room," said Monsieur +Girardot in a voice of finality. +

+ +

+"Nor is it here," Hanaud replied with an unblushing +assurance. "Let us go downstairs." +

+ +

+Jim was utterly staggered. This room had not been +searched for the necklace at all. First the Sedan chair, +then this sitting-room was neglected. Hanaud actually +led the way out to the stairs without so much as a glance +behind him. No wonder that in Paris he had styled +himself and his brethren the Servants of Chance. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Hanaud Laughs +

+ +

+At the bottom of the stairs Hanaud thanked the +Commissary of Police for his assistance. +

+ +

+"As for the necklace, we shall of course search the +baggage of every one in the house," he said. "But we +shall find nothing. Of that we may be sure. For if the +necklace has been stolen, too much time has passed since +it was stolen for us to hope to find it here." +

+ +

+He bowed Girardot with much respect out of the house, +whilst Monsieur Bex took Jim Frobisher a little aside. +

+ +

+"I have been thinking that Mademoiselle Ann should +have some legal help," he said. "Now both you and I +are attached to the affairs of Mademoiselle Harlowe. +And—it is a little difficult to put it delicately—it may be +that the interests of those two young ladies are not identical. +It would not therefore be at all correct for me, at +all events, to offer her my services. But I can +recommend a very good lawyer in Dijon, a friend of mine. +You see, it may be important." +

+ +

+Frobisher agreed. +

+ +

+"It may be, indeed. Will you give me your friend's +address?" he said. +

+ +

+Whilst he was writing the address down Hanaud +startled him by breaking unexpectedly into a loud laugh. +The curious thing was that there was nothing whatever to +account for it. Hanaud was standing by himself between +them and the front door. In the courtyard outside there +was no one within view. Within the hall Jim and +Monsieur Bex were talking very seriously in a low voice. +Hanaud was laughing at the empty air and his laughter +betokened a very strong sense of relief. +

+ +

+"That I should have lived all these years and never +noticed that before," he cried aloud in a sort of +amazement that there could be anything capable of notice which +he, Hanaud, had not noticed. +

+ +

+"What is it?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+But Hanaud did not answer at all. He dashed back +through the hall past Frobisher and his companion, +vanished into the treasure-room, closed the door behind +him and actually locked it. +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex jerked his chin high in the air. +

+ +

+"He is an eccentric, that one. He would not do for +Dijon." +

+ +

+Jim was for defending Hanaud. +

+ +

+"He must act. That is true," he replied. "Whatever +he does and however keenly he does it, he sees a row of +footlights in front of him." +

+ +

+"There are men like that," Monsieur Bex agreed. Like +all Frenchmen, he was easy in his mind if he could place +a man in a category. +

+ +

+"But he is doing something which is quite important," +Jim continued, swelling a little with pride. He felt that +he had been quite fifteen minutes in the bull-ring. "He +is searching for something somewhere. I told him about +it. He had overlooked it altogether. I reproached him +this morning with his reluctance to take suggestions from +people only too anxious to help him. But I did him +obviously some injustice. He is quite willing." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex was impressed and a little envious. +

+ +

+"I must think of some suggestions to make to Hanaud," +he said. "Yes, yes! Was there not once a pearl necklace +in England which was dropped in a match-box into the +gutter when the pursuit became too hot? I have read of +it, I am sure. I must tell Hanaud that he should spend a +day or two picking up the match-boxes in the gutters. He +may be very likely to come across that necklace of +Madame Harlowe's. Yes, certainly." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex was considerably elated by the bright +idea which had come to him. He felt that he was again +upon a level with his English colleague. He saw Hanaud +pouncing his way along the streets of Dijon and +explaining to all who questioned him: "This is the idea of +Monsieur Bex, the notary. You know, Monsieur Bex, +of the Place Etienne Dolet." Until somewhere near—but +Monsieur Bex had not actually located the particular +gutter in which Hanaud should discover the match-box +with the priceless beads, when the library door opened and +Betty came out into the hall. +

+ +

+She looked at the two men in surprise. +

+ +

+"And Monsieur Hanaud?" she asked. "I didn't see +him go." +

+ +

+"He is in your treasure-room," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Oh!" Betty exclaimed in a voice which showed her +interest. "He has gone back there!" +

+ +

+She walked quickly to the door and tried the handle. +

+ +

+"Locked!" she cried with a little start of surprise. She +spoke without turning round. "He has locked himself +in! Why?" +

+ +

+"Because of the footlights," Monsieur Bex answered, +and Betty turned about and stared at him. "Yes, we +came to that conclusion, Monsieur Frobisher and I. +Everything he does must ring a curtain down;" and once +more the key turned in the lock. +

+ +

+Betty swung round again as the sound reached her ears +and came face to face with Hanaud. Hanaud looked +over her shoulder at Frobisher and shook his head +ruefully. +

+ +

+"You did not find it, then?" Jim asked. +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked away from Jim to Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher put an idea into my head, +Mademoiselle. I had not looked into that exquisite Sedan +chair. It might well be that the necklace had been hidden +behind the cushions. But it is not there." +

+ +

+"And you locked the door, Monsieur," said Betty +stiffly. "The door of my room, I ask you to notice." +

+ +

+Hanaud drew himself erect. +

+ +

+"I did, Mademoiselle," he replied. "And then?" +

+ +

+Betty hesitated with some sharp rejoinder on the tip +of her tongue. But she did not speak it. She shrugged +her shoulders and said coldly as she turned from him: +

+ +

+"You are within your rights, no doubt, Monsieur." +

+ +

+Hanaud smiled at her good-humouredly. He had +offended her again. She was showing him once more +the petulant, mutinous child in her which he had seen the +morning before. But the smile did remain upon his face. +In the doorway of the library Ann Upcott was standing, +her face still very pale, and fires smouldering in her eyes. +

+ +

+"You searched my rooms, I hope, Monsieur," she said +in a challenging voice. +

+ +

+"Thoroughly, Mademoiselle." +

+ +

+"And you did not find the necklace?" +

+ +

+"No!" and he walked straight across the hall to her +with a look suddenly grown stern. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I should like you to answer me a question. +But you need not. I wish you to understand that. +You have a right to reserve your answers for the Office +of the Examining Magistrate and then give them only in +the presence of and with the consent of your legal adviser. +Monsieur Bex will assure you that is so." +

+ +

+The girl's defiance weakened. +

+ +

+"What do you wish to ask me?" she asked. +

+ +

+"Exactly how you came to the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+The fire died out of her eyes; Ann's eyelids fluttered +down. She stretched out a hand against the jamb of the +door to steady herself. Jim wondered whether she +guessed that the head of Simon Harlowe's arrow was now +hidden in Hanaud's pocket. +

+ +

+"I was at Monte Carlo," she began and stopped. +

+ +

+"And quite alone?" Hanaud continued relentlessly. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And without money?" +

+ +

+"With a little money," Ann corrected. +

+ +

+"Which you lost," Hanaud rejoined. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And at Monte Carlo you made the acquaintance of +Boris Waberski?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And so you came to the Maison Crenelle?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"It is all very curious, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud +gravely, and "If it were only curious!" Jim Frobisher +wished with all his heart. For Ann Upcott quailed before +the detective's glance. It seemed to him that with another +question from him, an actual confession would falter and +stumble from her lips. A confession of complicity with +Boris Waberski! And then? Jim caught a dreadful +glimpse of the future which awaited her. The guillotine? +Probably a fate much worse. For that would be over +soon and she at rest. A few poignant weeks, an agony of +waiting, now in an intoxication of hope, now in the lowest +hell of terror; some dreadful minutes at the breaking of a +dawn—and an end! That would be better after all than +the endless years of sordid heart-breaking labour, coarse +food and clothes, amongst the criminals of a convict +prison in France. +

+ +

+Jim turned his eyes away from her with a shiver of +discomfort and saw with a queer little shock that Betty +was watching him with a singular intentness; as if what +interested her was not so much Ann's peril as his feeling +about it. +

+ +

+Meanwhile Ann had made up her mind. +

+ +

+"I shall tell you at once the little there is to tell," she +declared. The words were brave enough, but the bravery +ended with the words. She had provoked the short +interrogatory with a clear challenge. She ended it in a +hardly audible whisper. However, she managed to tell +her story, leaning there against the post of the door. +Indeed her voice strengthened as she went on and once a +smile of real amusement flickered about her lips and in +her eyes and set the dimples playing in her cheeks. +

+ +

+Up to eighteen months ago she had lived with her +mother, a widow, in Dorsetshire, a few miles behind +Weymouth. The pair of them lived with difficulty. For +Mrs. Upcott found herself in as desperate a position as +England provides for gentlewomen. She was a small +landowner taxed up to her ears, and then rated over the +top of her head. Ann for her part was thought in the +neighbourhood to have promise as an artist. On the +death of her mother the estate was sold as a toy to a +manufacturer, and Ann with a small purse and a +sack-load of ambitions set out for London. +

+ +

+"It took me a year to understand that I was and should +remain an amateur. I counted over my money. I had +three hundred pounds left. What was I going to do with +it? It wasn't enough to set me up in a shop. On the +other hand, I hated the idea of dependence. So I made +up my mind to have ten wild gorgeous days at Monte +Carlo and make a fortune, or lose the lot." +

+ +

+It was then that the smile set her eyes dancing. +

+ +

+"I should do the same again," she cried quite unrepentantly. +"I had never been out of England in my life, but I +knew a good deal of schoolgirl's French. I bought a few +frocks and hats and off I went. I had the most glorious +time. I was nineteen. Everything from the sleeping-cars +to the croupiers enchanted me. I stayed at one of the +smaller hotels up the hill. I met one or two people whom +I knew and they introduced me into the Sporting Club. +Oh, and lots and lots of people wanted to be kind to me!" +she cried. +

+ +

+"That is thoroughly intelligible," said Hanaud dryly. +

+ +

+"Oh, but quite nice people too," Ann rejoined. Her +face was glowing with the recollections of that short +joyous time. She had forgotten, for the moment, +altogether the predicament in which she stood, or she +was acting with an artfulness which Hanaud could hardly +have seen surpassed in all his experience of criminals. +

+ +

+"There was a croupier, for instance, at the trente-et-quarante +table in the big room of the Sporting Club. I +always tried to sit next to him. For he saw that no one +stole my money and that when I was winning I insured +my stake and clawed a little off the heap from time to +time. I was there for five weeks and I had made four +hundred pounds—and then came three dreadful nights +and I lost everything except thirty pounds which I had +stowed away in the hotel safe." She nodded across the +hall towards Jim. "Monsieur Frobisher can tell you +about the last night. For he sat beside me and very +prettily tried to make me a present of a thousand francs." +

+ +

+Hanaud, however, was not to be diverted. +

+ +

+"Afterwards he shall tell me," he said, and resumed +his questions. "You had met Waberski before that +night?" +

+ +

+"Yes, a fortnight before. But I can't remember who +introduced me." +

+ +

+"And Mademoiselle Harlowe?" +

+ +

+"Monsieur Boris introduced me a day or two later to +Betty at tea-time in the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris." +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Hanaud. He glanced at Jim with an +almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. It was, +indeed, becoming more and more obvious that Waberski +had brought Ann Upcott into that household deliberately, +as part of a plan carefully conceived and in due time to +be fulfilled. +

+ +

+"When did Waberski first suggest that you should join +Mademoiselle Harlowe?" he asked. +

+ +

+"That last night," Ann replied. "He had been standing +opposite to me on the other side of the trente-et-quarante +table. He saw that I had been losing." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his head. "He thought +that the opportune moment had come." +

+ +

+He extended his arms and let his hands fall against his +thighs. He was like a doctor presented with a hopeless +case. He turned half aside from Ann with his shoulders +bent and his troubled eyes fixed upon the marble squares +of the floor. Jim could not but believe that he was at +this moment debating whether he should take the girl +into custody. But Betty intervened. +

+ +

+"You must not be misled, Monsieur Hanaud," she said +quickly, "It is true no doubt that Monsieur Boris +mentioned the subject to Ann for the first time that night. +But I had already told both my aunt and Monsieur Boris +that I should like a friend of my own age to live with +me and I had mentioned Ann." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up at her doubtfully. +

+ +

+"On so short an acquaintance, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+Betty, however, stuck to her guns. +

+ +

+"Yes. I liked her very much from the beginning. She +was alone. It was quite clear that she was of our own +world. There was every good reason why I should wish +for her. And the four months she has been with me +have proved to me that I was right." +

+ +

+She crossed over to Ann with a defiant little nod at +Hanaud, who responded with a cordial grin and dropped +into English. +

+ +

+"So I can push that into my pipe and puff it, as my +dear Ricardo would say. That is what you mean? Well, +against loyalty, the whole world is powerless." As he +made Betty a friendly bow. He could hardly have told +Betty in plainer phrase that her intervention had averted +Ann's arrest; or Ann herself that he believed her guilty. +

+ +

+Every one in the hall understood him in that sense. +They stood foolishly looking here and looking there and +not knowing where to look; and in the midst of their +discomfort occurred an incongruous little incident which +added a touch of the bizarre. Up the two steps to the +open door came a girl carrying a big oblong cardboard +milliner's box. Her finger was on the bell, when Hanaud +stepped forward. +

+ +

+"There is no need to ring," he said. "What have you +there?" +

+ +

+The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann. +

+ +

+"It is Mademoiselle's dress for the Ball to-morrow +night. Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but +did not come. But Madame Grolin thinks that it will be +all right." She laid the box upon a chest at the side of +the hall and went out again. +

+ +

+"I had forgotten all about it," said Ann. "It was +ordered just before Madame died and tried on once." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"For Madame Le Vay's masked ball, no doubt," he +said. "I noticed the invitation card on the chimney-piece +of Mademoiselle's sitting-room. And in what character +did Mademoiselle propose to go?" +

+ +

+Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst +the blood rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone. +

+ +

+"Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events," +she cried. +

+ +

+Even Hanaud was brought up with a start. +

+ +

+"I did not suggest it," he replied coldly. "But let me +see!" and in a moment whilst his face was flushed with +anger his hands were busily untying the tapes of the +box. +

+ +

+Betty stepped forward. +

+ +

+"We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, +more than a month ago. It is meant to represent a +water-lily." +

+ +

+"What could be more charming?" Hanaud asked, but +his fingers did not pause in their work. +

+ +

+"Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?" Jim +Frobisher wondered. What could he expect to find in +that box? Did he imagine that this Madame Grolin, +the milliner, was an accomplice of Waberski's too? The +episode was ludicrous with a touch of the horrible. +Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the tissue-paper. +Underneath was seen a short crêpe de Chine frock of a +tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold +rosette at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out +at the hips, and it was bordered with a row of white satin +rosettes with golden hearts. To complete the dress there +were a pair of white silk stockings with fine gold clocks +and white satin shoes with single straps across the insteps +and little tassels of brilliants where the straps buttoned, +and four gold stripes at the back round the heels. +

+ +

+Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, +replaced the lid, and stood up again. He never looked at +Ann Upcott. He went straight across to Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+"I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you +to so much trouble and occupied so many hours of your +day," he said with a good deal of feeling. He made her +a courteous bow, took up his hat and stick from the table +on which he had laid it, and made straight for the hall +door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all +appearances finished. +

+ +

+But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been +nursing his suggestion for nearly half an hour. Like a +poem it demanded utterance. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud!" he called; "Monsieur Hanaud! +I have to tell you about a box of matches." +

+ +

+"Aha!" Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. "A box +of matches! I will walk with you towards your office, +and you shall tell me as you go." +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great +hurry. But he had time to throw a glance of pride +towards his English colleague. "Your suggestion about +the treasure room was of no value, my friend. Let us see +what I can do!" The pride and the airy wave of the +hand spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at +Hanaud's side in a moment, and talked volubly as they +passed out of the gates into the street of Charles-Robert. +

+ +

+Betty turned to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"To-morrow, now that I am once allowed to use my +motor-car, I shall take you for a drive and show you +something of our neighbourhood. This afternoon—you +will understand, I know—I belong to Ann." +

+ +

+She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls +went out into the garden. Jim was left alone in the hall—as +at that moment he wanted to be. It was very still here +now and very silent. The piping of birds, the drone of +bees outside the open doors were rather an accompaniment +than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed +himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when +he had laughed so strangely—half-way between the foot +of the stairs where Monsieur Bex and he himself had +been standing and the open porch. But Jim could detect +nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. +"That I should have lived all these years and never +noticed it before," he had exclaimed. Notice what? +There was nothing to notice. A table, a chair or two, a +barometer hanging upon the wall on one side and a mirror +hanging upon the wall on the other—No, there was nothing. +Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of the +mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene +might have been invented by him maliciously, just to +annoy and worry and cause discomfort to Monsieur Bex +and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a trick like +that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a +great deal of the mountebank. More than half of him +was probably mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds! +

+ +

+"Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he +notice?" cried Jim. "What did he notice from the top +of the Tower? What did he notice in this hall? Why +must he be always noticing something?" and he jammed +his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: At Jean Cladel's +

+ +

+At nine o'clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past +the cashier's desk and into the hall of the Grande +Taverne. High above his head the cinematograph +machine whirred and clicked and a blade of silver light +cut the darkness. At the opposite end of the hall the +square screen was flooded with radiance and the pictures +melted upon it one into the other. +

+ +

+For a little while Jim could see nothing but that screen. +Then the hall swam gradually within his vision. He saw +the heads of people like great bullets and a wider central +corridor where waitresses with white aprons moved. Jim +walked up the corridor and turned off to the left between +the tables. When he reached the wall he went forward +again towards the top of the hall. On his left the hall +fell back, and in the recess were two large cubicles in +which billiard tables were placed. Against the wall of the +first of these a young man was leaning with his eyes fixed +upon the screen. Jim fancied that he recognised Maurice +Thevenet, and nodded to him as he passed. A little +further on a big man with a soft felt hat was seated +alone, with a Bock in front of him—Hanaud. Jim +slipped into a seat at his side. +

+ +

+"You?" Hanaud exclaimed in surprise. +

+ +

+"Why not? You told me this is where you would be +at this hour," replied Jim, and some note of discouragement +in his voice attracted Hanaud's attention. +

+ +

+"I didn't think that those two young ladies would let +you go," he said. +

+ +

+"On the contrary," Jim replied with a short laugh. +"They didn't want me at all." +

+ +

+He began to say something more, but thought better of +it, and called to a waitress. +

+ +

+"Two Bocks, if you please," he ordered, and he offered +Hanaud a cigar. +

+ +

+When the Bocks were brought, Hanaud said to him: +

+ +

+"It will be well to pay at once, so that we can slip away +when we want." +

+ +

+"We have something to do to-night?" Jim asked. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+He said no more until Jim had paid and the waitress +had turned the two little saucers on which she had brought +the Bocks upside down and had gone away. Then he +leaned towards Jim and lowered his voice. +

+ +

+"I am glad that you came here. For I have a hope +that we shall get the truth to-night, and you ought to be +present when we do get it." +

+ +

+Jim lit his own cigar. +

+ +

+"From whom do you hope to get it?" +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel," Hanaud answered in a whisper. "A +little later when all the town is quiet we will pay a visit +to the street of Gambetta." +

+ +

+"You think he'll talk?" +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"There is no charge against Cladel in this affair. To +make a solution of that poison paste is not an offence. +And he has so much against him that he will want to be +on our side if he can. Yes, he will talk I have no doubt." +

+ +

+There would be an end of the affair then, to-night. +Jim Frobisher was glad with an unutterable gladness. +Betty would be free to order her life as she liked, and +where she liked, to give to her youth its due scope and +range, to forget the terror and horror of these last weeks, +as one forgets old things behind locked doors. +

+ +

+"I hope, however," he said earnestly to Hanaud, "and +I believe, that you will be found wrong, that if there was +a murder Ann Upcott had nothing to do with it. Yes, I +believe that." He repeated his assertion as much to +convince himself as to persuade Hanaud. +

+ +

+Hanaud touched his elbow. +

+ +

+"Don't raise your voice too much, my friend," he said. +"I think there is some one against the wall who is +honouring us with his attention." +

+ +

+Jim shook his head. +

+ +

+"It is only Maurice Thevenet," he said. +

+ +

+"Oho?" answered Hanaud in a voice of relief. "Is +that all? For a moment I was anxious. It seemed that +there was a sentinel standing guard over us." He added +in a whisper, "I, too, hope from the bottom of my heart +that I may be proved wrong. But what of that arrow +head in the pen tray? Eh? Don't forget that!" Then +he fell into a muse. +

+ +

+"What happened on that night in the Maison +Crenelle?" he said. "Why was that communicating door +thrown open? Who was to be stripped to the skin by +that violent woman? Who whispered 'That will do +now'? Is Ann Upcott speaking the truth, and was there +some terrible scene taking place before she entered so +unexpectedly the treasure room—some terrible scene which +ended in that dreadful whisper? Or is Ann Upcott lying +from beginning to end? Ah, my friend, you wrote some +questions down upon your memorandum this afternoon. +But these are the questions I want answered, and where +shall I find the answers?" +

+ +

+Jim had never seen Hanaud so moved. His hands +were clenched, and the veins prominent upon his forehead, +and though he whispered his voice shook. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel may help," said Jim. +

+ +

+"Yes, yes, he may tell us something." +

+ +

+They sat through an episode of the film, and saw the +lights go up and out again, and then Hanaud looked +eagerly at his watch and put it back again into his pocket +with a gesture of annoyance. +

+ +

+"It is still too early?" Jim asked. +

+ +

+"Yes. Cladel has no servant and takes his meals +abroad. He has not yet returned home." +

+ +

+A little before ten o'clock a man strolled in, and seating +himself at a table behind Hanaud twice scraped a match +upon a match-box without getting a light. Hanaud, +without moving, said quietly to Frobisher: +

+ +

+"He is at home now. In a minute I shall go. Give +me five minutes and follow." +

+ +

+Jim nodded. +

+ +

+"Where shall we meet?" +

+ +

+"Walk straight along the Rue de la Liberté, and I will +see to that," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He pulled his packet of cigarettes from his pocket, put +one between his lips, and took his time in lighting it. +Then he got up, but to his annoyance Maurice Thevenet +recognised him and came forward. +

+ +

+"When Monsieur Frobisher wished me good-evening +and joined you I thought it was you, Monsieur Hanaud. +But I had not the presumption to recall myself to your +notice." +

+ +

+"Presumption! Monsieur, we are of the same service, +only you have the advantage of youth," said Hanaud +politely, as he turned. +

+ +

+"But you are going, Monsieur Hanaud?" Thevenet +asked in distress. "I am desolated. I have broken into +a conversation like a clumsy fellow." +

+ +

+"Not at all," Hanaud replied. To Frobisher his +patience was as remarkable as Maurice Thevenet's +impudence. "We were idly watching a film which I think +is a little tedious." +

+ +

+"Then, since you are not busy I beg for your +indulgence. One little moment that is all. I should so +dearly love to be able to say to my friends, 'I sat in the +cinema with Monsieur Hanaud—yes, actually I'—and +asked for his advice." +

+ +

+Hanaud sat down again upon his chair. +

+ +

+"And upon what subject can you, of whom Monsieur +Girardot speaks so highly, want my advice?" Hanaud +asked with a laugh. +

+ +

+The eternal ambition of the provincial was tormenting +the eager youth. To get to Paris—all was in that! +Fortune, reputation, a life of colour. A word from +Monsieur Hanaud and a way would open. He would +work night and day to justify that word. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, all I can promise is that when the time +comes I shall remember you. But that promise I make +now with my whole heart," said Hanaud warmly, and +with a bow he moved away. +

+ +

+Maurice Thevenet watched him go. +

+ +

+"What a man!" Maurice Thevenet went on enthusiastically. +"I would not like to try to keep any secrets +from him. No, indeed!" Jim had heard that sentiment +before on other lips and with a greater sympathy. "I did +not understand at all what he had in his mind when he +staged that little scene with Francine Rollard. But +something, Monsieur. Oh, you may be sure. Something wise. +And that search through the treasure room! How quick +and complete! No doubt while we searched Mademoiselle +Upcott's bedroom, he was just as quick and complete in +going through her sitting-room. But he found nothing. +No, nothing." +

+ +

+He waited for Jim to corroborate him, but Jim only +said "Oho!" +

+ +

+But Thevenet was not to be extinguished. +

+ +

+"I shall tell you what struck me, Monsieur. He was +following out no suspicions; isn't that so? He was +detached. He was gathering up every trifle, on the chance +that each one might sometime fit in with another and at +last a whole picture be composed. An artist! There was +a letter, for instance, which Mademoiselle Harlowe +handed to him, one of those deplorable letters which have +disgraced us here—you remember that letter, Monsieur?" +

+ +

+"Aha!" said Frobisher, quite in the style of Hanaud. +"But I see that this film is coming to its wedding bells. +So I shall wish you a good evening." +

+ +

+Frobisher bowed and left Maurice Thevenet to dream +of success in Paris. He strolled between the groups of +spectators to the entrance and thence into the street. He +walked to the arch of the Porte Guillaume and turned +into the Rue de la Liberté. The provincial towns go to +bed early and the street so busy throughout the day was +like the street of a deserted city. A couple of hundred +yards on, he was startled to find Hanaud, sprung from +nowhere, walking at his side. +

+ +

+"So my young friend, the secretary engaged you when +I had gone?" he said. +

+ +

+"Maurice Thevenet," said Jim, "may be as the Commissary +says a young man of a surprising intelligence, +but to tell you the truth, I find him a very intrusive fellow. +First of all he wanted to know if you had discovered +anything in Ann Upcott's sitting-room, and then what Miss +Harlowe's anonymous letter was about." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked at Jim with interest. +

+ +

+"Yes, he is anxious to learn, that young man, Girardot +is right. He will go far. And how did you answer him?" +

+ +

+"I said 'Oho'! first, and then I said 'Aha'! just like a +troublesome friend of mine when I ask him a simple +question which he does not mean to answer." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed heartily. +

+ +

+"And you did very well," he said. "Come, let us turn +into this little street upon the right. It will take us to +our destination." +

+ +

+"Wait!" whispered Jim eagerly. "Don't cross the road +for a moment. Listen!" +

+ +

+Hanaud obeyed at once; and both men stood and +listened in the empty street. +

+ +

+"Not a sound," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"No! That is what troubles me!" Jim whispered +importantly. "A minute ago there were footsteps behind +us. Now that we have stopped they have stopped too. +Let us go on quite straight for a moment or two." +

+ +

+"But certainly my friend," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+"And let us not talk either," Jim urged. +

+ +

+"Not a single word," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+They moved forward again and behind them once more +footsteps rang upon the pavement. +

+ +

+"What did I tell you?" asked Jim, taking Hanaud by +the arm. +

+ +

+"That we would neither of us speak," Hanaud replied. +"And lo! you have spoken!" +

+ +

+"But why? Why have I spoken? Be serious, Monsieur," +Jim shook his arm indignantly. "We are being +followed." +

+ +

+Hanaud stopped dead and gazed in steady admiration +at his junior colleague. +

+ +

+"Oh!" he whispered. "You have discovered that? +Yes, it is true. We are being followed by one of my +men who sees to it that we are not followed." +

+ +

+Frobisher shook Hanaud's arm off indignantly. He +drew himself up stiffly. Then he saw Hanaud's mouth +twitching and he understood that he was looking +"proper." +

+ +

+"Oh, let us go and find Jean Cladel," he said with +a laugh and he crossed the road. They passed into a +network of small, mean streets. There was not a soul +abroad. The houses were shrouded in darkness. The +only sounds they heard were the clatter of their own +footsteps on the pavement and the fainter noise of the +man who followed them. Hanaud turned to the left into +a short passage and stopped before a little house with a +shuttered shop front. +

+ +

+"This is the place," he said in a low voice and he +pressed the button in the pillar of the door. The bell rang +with a shrill sharp whirr just the other side of the panels. +

+ +

+"We may have to wait a moment if he has gone to +bed," said Hanaud, "since he has no servant in the +house." +

+ +

+A minute or two passed. The clocks struck the half +hour. Hanaud leaned his ear against the panels of the +door. He could not hear one sound within the house. +He rang again; and after a few seconds shutters were +thrown back and a window opened on the floor above. +From behind the window some one whispered: +

+ +

+"Who is there?" +

+ +

+"The police," Hanaud answered, and at the window +above there was silence. +

+ +

+"No one is going to do you any harm," Hanaud +continued, raising his voice impatiently. "We want some +information from you. That's all." +

+ +

+"Very well." The whisper came from the same spot. +The man standing within the darkness of the room had +not moved. "Wait! I will slip on some things and come +down." +

+ +

+The window and the shutter were closed again. Then +through the chinks a few beams of light strayed out +Hanaud uttered a little grunt of satisfaction. +

+ +

+"That animal is getting up at last. He must have some +strange clients amongst the good people of Dijon if he is +so careful to answer them in a whisper." +

+ +

+He turned about and took a step or two along the +pavement and another step or two back like a man upon +a quarter deck. Jim Frobisher had never known him so +restless and impatient during these two days. +

+ +

+"I can't help it," he said in a low voice to Jim. "I +think that in five minutes we shall touch the truth of this +affair. We shall know who brought the arrow to him +from the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+"If any one brought the arrow to him at all," Jim +Frobisher added. +

+ +

+But Hanaud was not in the mood to consider ifs and +possibilities. +

+ +

+"Oh, that!" he said with a shrug of the shoulders. +Then he tapped his forehead. "I am like Waberski. I +have it here that some one did bring the arrow to Jean +Cladel." +

+ +

+He started once more his quarter-deck pacing. Only +it was now a trot rather than a walk. Jim was a little +nettled by the indifference to his suggestion. He was +still convinced that Hanaud had taken the wrong starting +point in all his inquiry. He said tartly: +

+ +

+"Well, if some one did bring the arrow here, it will +be the same person who replaced the treatise on +Sporanthus on its book shelf." +

+ +

+Hanaud came to a stop in front of Jim Frobisher. +Then he burst into a low laugh. +

+ +

+"I will bet you all the money in the world that that +is not true, and then Madame Harlowe's pearl necklace +on the top of it. For after all it was not I who brought +the arrow to Jean Cladel, whereas it was undoubtedly I +who put back the treatise on the shelf." +

+ +

+Jim took a step back. He stared at Hanaud with his +mouth open in a stupefaction. +

+ +

+"You?" he exclaimed. +

+ +

+"I," replied Hanaud, standing up on the tips of his +toes. "Alone I did it." +

+ +

+Then his manner of burlesque dropped from him. He +looked up at the shuttered windows with a sudden anxiety. +

+ +

+"That animal is taking longer than he need," he muttered. +"After all, it is not to a court ball of the Duke of +Burgundy that we are inviting him." +

+ +

+He rang the bell again with a greater urgency. It +returned its shrill reply as though it mocked him. +

+ +

+"I do not like this," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He seized the door-handle and leaned his shoulder +against the panel and drove his weight against it. But +the door was strong and did not give. Hanaud put his +fingers to his mouth and whistled softly. From the +direction whence they had come they heard the sound +of a man running swiftly. They saw him pass within +the light of the one street lamp at the corner and out of it +again; and then he stood at their side. Jim recognised +Nicolas Moreau, the little agent who had been sent this +very morning by Hanaud to make sure that Jean Cladel +existed. +

+ +

+"Nicolas, I want you to wait here," said Hanaud. "If +the door is opened, whistle for us and keep it open." +

+ +

+"Very well, sir." +

+ +

+Hanaud said in a low and troubled voice to Frobisher: +"There is something here which alarms me." He dived +into a narrow alley at the side of the shop. +

+ +

+"It was in this alley no doubt that Waberski meant us +to believe that he hid on the morning of the 7th of May," +Jim whispered as he hurried to keep with his companion. +

+ +

+"No doubt." +

+ +

+The alley led into a lane which ran parallel with the +street of Gambetta. Hanaud wheeled into it. A wall five +feet high, broken at intervals by rickety wooden doors, +enclosed the yards at the backs of the houses. Before +the first of these breaks in the wall Hanaud stopped. He +raised himself upon the tips of his toes and peered over +the wall, first downwards into the yard, and then upwards +towards the back of the house. There was no lamp in the +lane, no light showing from any of the windows. Though +the night was clear of mist it was as dark as a cavern in +this narrow lane behind the houses. Jim Frobisher, +though his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, knew that +he could not have seen a man, even if he had moved, ten +yards away. Yet Hanaud still stood peering at the back +of the house with the tips of his fingers on the top of the +wall. Finally he touched Jim on the sleeve. +

+ +

+"I believe the back window on the first floor is open," +he whispered, and his voice was more troubled than ever. +"We will go in and see." +

+ +

+He touched the wooden door and it swung inwards +with a whine of its hinges. +

+ +

+"Open," said Hanaud. "Make no noise." +

+ +

+Silently they crossed the yard. The ground floor of +the house was low. Jim looking upwards could see now +that the window above their heads yawned wide open. +

+ +

+"You are right," he breathed in Hanaud's ear, and with +a touch Hanaud asked for silence. +

+ +

+The room beyond the window was black as pitch. The +two men stood below and listened. Not a word came +from it. Hanaud drew Jim into the wall of the house. +At the end of the wall a door gave admission into the +house. Hanaud tried the door, turning the handle first +and then gently pressing with his shoulder upon the panel. +

+ +

+"It's locked, but not bolted like the door in front," he +whispered. "I can manage this." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher heard the tiniest possible rattle of a +bunch of keys as Hanaud drew it from his pocket, and +then not a noise of any kind whilst Hanaud stooped above +the lock. Yet within half a minute the door slowly +opened. It opened upon a passage as black as that room +above their heads. Hanaud stepped noiselessly into the +passage. Jim Frobisher followed him with a heart +beating high in excitement. What had happened in that +lighted room upstairs and in the dark room behind it? +Why didn't Jean Cladel come down and open the door +upon the street of Gambetta? Why didn't they hear +Nicolas Moreau's soft whistle or the sound of his voice? +Hanaud stepped back past Jim Frobisher and shut the +door behind them and locked it again. +

+ +

+"You haven't an electric torch with you, of course?" +Hanaud whispered. +

+ +

+"No," replied Jim. +

+ +

+"Nor I. And I don't want to strike a match. There's +something upstairs which frightens me." +

+ +

+You could hardly hear the words. They were spoken +as though the mere vibration of the air they caused would +carry a message to the rooms above. +

+ +

+"We'll move very carefully. Keep a hand upon my +coat," and Hanaud went forward. After he had gone a +few paces he stopped. +

+ +

+"There's a staircase here on my right. It turns at +once. Mind not to knock your foot on the first step," he +whispered over his shoulder; and a moment later, he +reached down and, taking hold of Jim's right arm, laid +his hand upon a balustrade. Jim lifted his foot, felt for +and found the first tread of the stairs, and mounted +behind Hanaud. They halted on a little landing just above +the door by which they had entered the house. +

+ +

+In front of them the darkness began to thin, to become +opaque rather than a black, impenetrable hood drawn over +their heads. Jim understood that in front of him was an +open door and that the faint glimmer came from that +open window on their left hand beyond the door. +

+ +

+Hanaud passed through the doorway into the room. +Jim followed and was already upon the threshold, when +Hanaud stumbled and uttered a cry. No doubt the cry +was low, but coming so abruptly upon their long silence +it startled Frobisher like the explosion of a pistol. It +seemed that it must clash through Dijon like the striking +of a clock. +

+ +

+But nothing followed. No one stirred, no one cried +out a question. Silence descended upon the house again, +impenetrable, like the darkness a hood upon the senses. +Jim was tempted to call out aloud himself, anything, +however childish, so that he might hear a voice speaking +words, if only his own voice. The words came at last, +from Hanaud and from the inner end of the room, but +in an accent which Jim did not recognise. +

+ +

+"Don't move! ... There is something.... I told +you I was frightened.... Oh!" and his voice died away +in a sigh. +

+ +

+Jim could hear him moving very cautiously. Then he +almost screamed aloud. For the shutters at the window +slowly swung to and the room was once more shrouded +in black. +

+ +

+"Who's that?" Jim whispered violently, and Hanaud +answered: +

+ +

+"It's only me—Hanaud. I don't want to show a light +here yet with that window open. God knows what dreadful +thing has happened here. Come just inside the room +and shut the door behind you." +

+ +

+Jim obeyed, and having moved his position, could see +a line of yellow light, straight and fine as if drawn by a +pencil, at the other end of the room on the floor. There +was a door there, a door into the front room where they +had seen the light go up from the street of Gambetta. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher had hardly realised that before the door +was burst open with a crash. In the doorway, outlined +against the light beyond, appeared the bulky frame of +Hanaud. +

+ +

+"There is nothing here," he said, standing there blocking +up the doorway with his hands in his pockets. "The +room is quite empty." +

+ +

+That room, the front room—yes! But between +Hanaud's legs the light trickled out into the dark room +behind, and here, on the floor illuminated by a little lane +of light, Jim, with a shiver, saw a clenched hand and a +forearm in a crumpled shirt-sleeve. +

+ +

+"Turn round," he cried to Hanaud. "Look!" +

+ +

+Hanaud turned. +

+ +

+"Yes," he said quietly. "That is what I stumbled +against." +

+ +

+He found a switch in the wall close to the door and +snapped it down. The dark room was flooded with light, +and on the floor, in the midst of a scene of disorder, a +table pushed back here, a chair overturned there, lay the +body of a man. He wore no coat. He was in his waistcoat +and his shirt sleeves, and he was crumpled up with +a horrible suggestion of agony like a ball, his knees +towards his chin, his head forward towards his knees. +One arm clutched the body close, the other, the one which +Jim had seen, was flung out, his hand clenched in a spasm +of intolerable pain. And about the body there was such a +pool of blood as Jim Frobisher thought no body could +contain. +

+ +

+Jim staggered back with his hands clasped over his +eyes. He felt physically sick. +

+ +

+"Then he killed himself on our approach," he cried +with a groan. +

+ +

+"Who?" answered Hanaud steadily. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel. The man who whispered to us from +behind the window." +

+ +

+Hanaud stunned him with a question. +

+ +

+"What with?" +

+ +

+Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and +forced his eyes to their service. There was no gleam of a +knife, or a pistol, anywhere against the dark background +of the carpet. +

+ +

+"You might think that he was a Japanese who had +committed hari-kari," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the +knife would be at his side. And there is no knife." +

+ +

+He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his +hand back. +

+ +

+"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He +pointed. The man was lying on his side in this +dreadful pose of contracted sinews and unendurable pain. +And across the sleeve of his shirt there was a broad red +mark. +

+ +

+"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud. +

+ +

+Jim bent forward. +

+ +

+"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, +in a voice of awe: "Then it's murder." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"Not a doubt." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stood up. He pointed a shaking finger +at the grotesque image of pain crumpled upon the floor, +death without dignity, an argument that there was +something horribly wrong with the making of the human +race—since such things could be. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel?" he asked. +

+ +

+"We must make sure," answered Hanaud. He went +down the stairs to the front door and, unbolting it, called +Moreau within the house. From the top of the stairs +Jim heard him ask: +

+ +

+"Do you know Jean Cladel by sight?" +

+ +

+"Yes," answered Moreau. +

+ +

+"Then follow me." +

+ +

+Hanaud led him up into the back room. For a moment +Moreau stopped upon the threshold with a blank look +upon his face. +

+ +

+"Is that the man?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+Moreau stepped forward. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"He has been murdered," Hanaud explained. "Will +you fetch the Commissary of the district and a doctor? +We will wait here." +

+ +

+Moreau turned on his heel and went downstairs. +Hanaud dropped into a chair and stared moodily at the +dead body. +

+ +

+"Jean Cladel," he said in a voice of discouragement. +"Just when he could have been of a little use in the +world! Just when he could have helped us to the truth! +It's my fault, too. I oughtn't to have waited until +to-night. I ought to have foreseen that this might happen." +

+ +

+"Who can have murdered him?" Jim Frobisher exclaimed. +

+ +

+Hanaud roused himself out of his remorse. +

+ +

+"The man who whispered to us from behind the +window," answered Hanaud. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher felt his mind reeling. +

+ +

+"That's impossible!" he cried. +

+ +

+"Why?" Hanaud asked. "It must have been he. +Think it out!" And step by step he told the story as +he read it, testing it by speaking it aloud. +

+ +

+"At five minutes past ten a man of mine, still a little +out of breath from his haste, comes to us in the Grande +Taverne and tells us that Jean Cladel has just reached +home. He reached home then at five minutes to ten." +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim agreed. +

+ +

+"We were detained for a few minutes by Maurice +Thevenet. Yes." He moistened his lips with the tip +of his tongue and said softly: "We shall have to consider +that very modest and promising young gentleman rather +carefully. He detained us. We heard the clock strike +half-past ten as we waited in the street." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"And all was over then. For the house was as silent +as what, indeed, it is—a grave. And only just over, for +the body is still warm. If this—lying here, is Jean Cladel, +some one else must have been waiting for him to come +home to-night, waiting in the lane behind, since my man +didn't see him. And an acquaintance, a friend—for Jean +Cladel lets him in and locks the door behind him." +

+ +

+Jim interrupted. +

+ +

+"He might have been here already, waiting for him +with his knife bared in this dark room." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked around the room. It was furnished +cheaply and stuffily, half office, half living-room. An +open bureau stood against the wall near the window. A +closed cabinet occupied the greater part of one side. +

+ +

+"I wonder," he said. "It is possible, no doubt—— But +if so, why did the murderer stay so long? No search +has been made—no drawers are ransacked." He tried +the door of the cabinet. "This is still locked. No, I +don't think that he was waiting. I think that he was +admitted as a friend or a client—I fancy Jean Cladel had +not a few clients who preferred to call upon him by the +back way in the dark of the night. I think that his visitor +came meaning to kill, and waited his time and killed, and +that he had hardly killed before we rang the bell at the +door." Hanaud drew in his breath sharply. "Imagine +that, my friend! He is standing here over the man he +has murdered, and unexpectedly the shrill, clear sound of +the bell goes through the house—as though God said, 'I +saw you!' Imagine it! He turned out the light and +stands holding his breath in the dark. The bell rings +again. He must answer it or worse may befall. He goes +into the front room and throws open the window, and +hears it is the police who are at the door." Hanaud +nodded his head in a reluctant admiration. "But that man +had an iron nerve! He doesn't lose his head. He closes +the shutter, he turns on the light, that we may think he is +getting up, he runs back into this room. He will not +waste time by stumbling down the stairs and fumbling +with the lock of the back door. No, he opens these +shutters and drops to the ground. It is done in a second. +Another second, and he is in the lane; another, and he +is safe, his dreadful mission ended. Cladel will not speak. +Cladel will not tell us the things we want to know." +

+ +

+Hanaud went over to the cabinet and, using his skeleton +keys, again opened its doors. On the shelves were ranged +a glass jar or two, a retort, the simplest utensils of a +laboratory and a few bottles, one of which, larger than +the rest, was half filled with a colourless liquid. +

+ +

+"Alcohol," said Hanaud, pointing to the label. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher moved carefully round on the outskirts +of the room, taking care not to alter the disarrangements +of the furniture. He looked the bottles over. Not one +of them held a drop of that pale lemon-coloured solution +which the Professor, in his Treatise, had described. +Hanaud shut and locked the doors of the cabinet again +and stepped carefully over to the bureau. It stood open, +and a few papers were strewn upon the flap. He sat +down at the bureau and began carefully to search it. Jim +sat down in a chair. Somehow it had leaked out that, +since this morning, Hanaud knew of Jean Cladel. Jean +Cladel therefore must be stopped from any revelations; +and he had been stopped. Frobisher could no longer +doubt that murder had been done on the night of April +the 27th, in the Maison Crenelle. Development followed +too logically upon development. The case was building +itself up—another storey had been added to the edifice +with this new crime. Yes, certainly and solidly it was +building itself up—this case against some one. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The White Tablet +

+ +

+Within the minute that case was to be immeasurably +strengthened. An exclamation broke from +Hanaud. He sprang to his feet and turned on the light +of a green-shaded reading lamp, which stood upon the +ledge of the bureau. He was holding now under the +light a small drawer, which he had removed from the +front of the bureau. Very gingerly he lifted some little +thing out of it, something that looked like a badge that +men wear in their buttonholes. He laid it down upon the +blotting paper; and in that room of death laughed +harshly. +

+ +

+He beckoned to Jim. +

+ +

+"Come and look!" +

+ +

+What Jim saw was a thin, small, barbed iron dart, +with an iron stem. He had no need to ask its nature, for +he had seen its likeness that morning in the Treatise of +the Edinburgh Professor. This was the actual head of +Simon Harlowe's poison-arrow. +

+ +

+"You have found it!" said Jim in a voice that shook. +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud gave it a little push, and said thoughtfully: +

+ +

+"A negro thousands of miles away sits outside his hut +in the Kombe country and pounds up his poison seed and +mixes it with red clay, and smears it thick and slab over +the shaft of his fine new arrow, and waits for his enemy. +But his enemy does not come. So he barters it, or gives +it to his white friend the trader on the Shire river. And +the trader brings it home and gives it to Simon Harlowe +of the Maison Crenelle. And Simon Harlowe lends it to +a professor in Edinburgh, who writes about it in a printed +book and sends it back again. And in the end, after all +its travels, it comes to the tenement of Jean Cladel in a +slum of Dijon, and is made ready in a new way to do its +deadly work." +

+ +

+For how much longer Hanaud would have moralised +over the arrow in this deplorable way, no man can tell. +Happily Jim Frobisher was reprieved from listening to +him by the shutting of a door below and the noise of +voices in the passage. +

+ +

+"The Commissary!" said Hanaud, and he went quickly +down the stairs. +

+ +

+Jim heard him speaking in a low tone for quite a long +while, and no doubt was explaining the position of affairs. +For when he brought the Commissary and the doctor up +into the room he introduced Jim as one about whom they +already knew. +

+ +

+"This is that Monsieur Frobisher," he said. +

+ +

+The Commissary, a younger and more vivacious man +than Girardot, bowed briskly to Jim and looked towards +the contorted figure of Jean Cladel. +

+ +

+Even he could not restrain a little gesture of repulsion. +He clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. +

+ +

+"He is not pretty, that one!" he said. "Most certainly +he is not pretty." +

+ +

+Hanaud crossed again to the bureau and carefully +folded the dart around with paper. +

+ +

+"With your permission, Monsieur," he said ceremoniously +to the Commissary, "I shall take this with me. +I will be responsible for it." He put it away in his pocket +and looked at the doctor, who was stooping by the side +of Jean Cladel. "I do not wish to interfere, but I should +be glad to have a copy of the medical report. I think +that it might help me. I think it will be found that this +murder was committed in a way peculiar to one man." +

+ +

+"Certainly you shall have a copy of the report, +Monsieur Hanaud," replied the young Commissary in a polite +and formal voice. +

+ +

+Hanaud laid a hand on Jim's arm. +

+ +

+"We are in the way, my friend. Oh, yes, in spite of +Monsieur le Commissaire's friendly protestations. This +is not our affair. Let us go!" He conducted Jim to the +door and turned about. "I do not wish to interfere," he +repeated, "but it is possible that the shutters and the +window will bear the traces of the murderer's fingers. I +don't think it probable, for that animal had taken his +precautions. But it is possible, for he left in a great hurry." +

+ +

+The Commissary was overwhelmed with gratitude. +

+ +

+"Most certainly we will give our attention to the +shutters and the window-sill." +

+ +

+"A copy of the finger-prints, if any are found?" +Hanaud suggested. +

+ +

+"Shall be at Monsieur Hanaud's disposal as early as +possible," the Commissary agreed. +

+ +

+Jim experienced a pang of regret that Monsieur Bex +was not present at the little exchange of civilities. The +Commissary and Hanaud were so careful not to tread +upon one another's toes and so politely determined that +their own should not be trodden upon. Monsieur Bex +could not but have revelled in the correctness of their +deportment. +

+ +

+Hanaud and Frobisher went downstairs into the street +The neighbourhood had not been aroused. A couple of +sergents-de-ville stood in front of the door. The street of +Gambetta was still asleep and indifferent to the crime +which had taken place in one of its least respectable +houses. +

+ +

+"I shall go to the Prefecture," said Hanaud. "They +have given me a little office there with a sofa. I want +to put away the arrow head before I go to my hotel." +

+ +

+"I shall come with you," said Jim. "It will be a relief +to walk for a little in the fresh air, after that room." +

+ +

+The Prefecture lay the better part of a mile away +across the city. Hanaud set off at a great pace, and reaching +the building conducted Jim into an office with a safe +set against the wall. +

+ +

+"Will you sit down for a moment? And smoke, +please," he said. +

+ +

+He was in a mood of such deep dejection; he was so +changed from his mercurial self; that only now did Jim +Frobisher understand the great store he had set upon his +interview with Jean Cladel. He unlocked the safe and +brought over to the table a few envelopes of different +sizes, the copy of the Treatise and his green file. He +seated himself in front of Jim and began to open his +envelopes and range their contents in a row, when the +door was opened and a gendarme saluted and advanced. +He carried a paper in his hand. +

+ +

+"A reply came over the telephone from Paris at nine +o'clock to-night, Monsieur Hanaud. They say that this +may be the name of the firm you want. It was established +in the Rue de Batignolles, but it ceased to exist +seven years ago." +

+ +

+"Yes, that would have happened," Hanaud answered +glumly, as he took the paper. He read what was written +upon it. "Yes—yes. That's it. Not a doubt." +

+ +

+He took an envelope from a rack upon the table and +put the paper inside it and stuck down the flap. On the +front of the envelope, Jim saw him write an illuminating +word. "Address." +

+ +

+Then he looked at Jim with smouldering eyes. +

+ +

+"There is a fatality in all this," he cried. "We become +more and more certain that murder was committed and +how it was committed. We get a glimpse of possible +reasons why. But we are never an inch nearer to evidence—real +convincing evidence—who committed it. Fatality? +I am a fool to use such words. It's keen wits and +audacity and nerve that stop us at the end of each lane and +make an idiot of me!" +

+ +

+He struck a match viciously and lit a cigarette. Frobisher +made an effort to console him. +

+ +

+"Yes, but it's the keen wits and the audacity and the +nerve of more than one person." +

+ +

+Hanaud glanced at Frobisher sharply. +

+ +

+"Explain, my friend." +

+ +

+"I have been thinking over it ever since we left the +street of Gambetta. I no longer doubt that +Mrs. Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle. It is +impossible to doubt it. But her murder was part of the +activities of a gang. Else how comes it that Jean Cladel was +murdered too to-night?" +

+ +

+A smile drove for a moment the gloom from Hanaud's +face. +

+ +

+"Yes. You have been quite fifteen minutes in the +bull-ring," he said. +

+ +

+"Then you agree with me?" +

+ +

+"Yes!" But Hanaud's gloom had returned. "But we +can't lay our hands upon the gang. We are losing time, +and I am afraid that we have no time to lose." Hanaud +shivered like a man suddenly chilled. "Yes, I am very +troubled now. I am very—frightened." +

+ +

+His fear peered out of him and entered into Frobisher. +Frobisher did not understand it, he had no clue to what +it was that Hanaud feared, but sitting in that brightly-lit +office in the silent building, he was conscious of evil +presences thronging about the pair of them, presences +grotesque and malevolent such as some old craftsman of +Dijon might have carved on the pillars of a cathedral. +He, too, shivered. +

+ +

+"Let us see, now!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, +and the barb from his pocket, and fitted them together. +The iron barb was loose now because the hole to receive +it at the top of the arrow shaft had been widened to take +a nib. But the spoke was just about the right length. He +laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green +file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, +attracted Jim's notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, +but as he shook it out, a square tablet of some hard white +substance rolled on to the table. It was soiled with dust, +and there was a smear of green upon it; and as Jim +turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as +though something sharp had struck it. +

+ +

+"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" +he asked. +

+ +

+Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his +hand swiftly to take the tablet away from Jim, and drew +his hand in again. +

+ +

+"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said +gravely. "But it is interesting—that tablet. I shall know +more about it to-morrow." +

+ +

+Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion +which had brought this tablet into notice. It certainly +had not been discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for +it was already there in the safe in the office. Jim had +noticed the little square envelope as Hanaud fetched it +out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had been picked +up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. +Or—yes, there was that smear of green—from the grass. +Jim sat up straight in his chair. They had all been +together in the garden this morning. Hanaud, himself, +Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point Frobisher's +conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction +could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of +them had passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only +thing of which he was quite sure was the great importance +which Hanaud attached to it. For all the time that he +handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left him, +never once. They followed each little movement of finger +tip and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when +Jim at last tilted it off his palm back into its little +envelope, the detective undoubtedly drew a breath of relief. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was +getting to know his man. He did not invite any "Aha's" +and "Oho's" by vain questionings. He leaned across the +table and took up his own memorandum which Hanaud +had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table +in front of him and added two new questions to those +which he had already written out. Thus: +

+ +

+(5) What was the exact message telephoned from +Paris to the Prefecture and hidden away in an +envelope marked by Hanaud: "Address"? +

+ +

+(6) When and where and why was the white tablet +picked up, and what, in the name of all the saints, does +it mean? +

+ +


+ +

+With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum +back to Hanaud. Hanaud, however, read them slowly +and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to answer all your questions +to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you see! We +break down at every corner, and the question must wait." +

+ +

+He was fitting methodically the memorandum back +into the file when a look of extreme surprise came over +Frobisher's face. He pointed a finger at the file. +

+ +

+"That telegram!" +

+ +

+There was a telegram pinned to the three anonymous +letters which Hanaud had in the file—the two which +Hanaud had shown to Frobisher in Paris and the third +which Betty Harlowe had given to him that very +afternoon. And the telegram was pieced together by two +strips of stamp-paper in a cross. +

+ +

+"That's our telegram. The telegram sent to my firm +by Miss Harlowe on Monday—yes, by George, this last +Monday." +

+ +

+It quite took Jim's breath away, so crowded had his +days been with fears and reliefs, excitements and doubts, +discoveries and disappointments, to realise that this was +only the Friday night; that at so recent a date as +Wednesday he had never seen or spoken with Betty +Harlowe. "The telegram announcing to us in London +that you were engaged upon the case." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded in assent. +

+ +

+"Yes. You gave it to me." +

+ +

+"And you tore it up." +

+ +

+"I did. But I picked it out of the waste-paper basket +afterwards and stuck it together." Hanaud explained, in +no wise disconcerted by Jim Frobisher's attack of +perspicacity. "I meant to make some trouble here with +the Police for letting out the secret. I am very glad now +that I did pick it out. You yourself must have realised +its importance the very next morning before I even +arrived at the Maison Crenelle, when you told +Mademoiselle that you had shown it to me." +

+ +

+Jim cast his memory back. He had a passion for +precision and exactness which was very proper in one of +his profession. +

+ +

+"It was not until you came that I learnt Miss Harlowe +had the news by an anonymous letter," he said. +

+ +

+"Well, that doesn't matter," Hanaud interposed a +trifle quickly. "The point of importance to me is that +when the case is done with, and I have a little time to +devote to these letters, the telegram may be of value." +

+ +

+"Yes, I see," said Jim. "I see that," he repeated, and +he shifted uncomfortably in his chair; and opened his +mouth and closed it again; and remained suspended +between speech and silence, whilst Hanaud read through his +file and contemplated his exhibits and found no hope in +them. +

+ +

+"They lead me nowhere!" he cried violently; and Jim +Frobisher made up his mind. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud, you do not share your thoughts +with me," he said rather formally, "but I will deal +with you in a better way; apart from this crime in the +Maison Crenelle, you have the mystery of these anonymous +letters to solve. I can help you to this extent. +Another of them has been received." +

+ +

+"When?" +

+ +

+"To-night, whilst we sat at dinner." +

+ +

+"By whom?" +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott." +

+ +

+"What!" +

+ +

+Hanaud was out of his chair with a cry, towering up, +his face white as the walls of the room, his eyes burning +upon Frobisher. Never could news have been so +unexpected, so startling. +

+ +

+"You are sure?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Quite. It came by the evening post—with others. +Gaston brought them into the dining-room. There was +one for me from my firm in London, a couple for Betty, +and this one for Ann Upcott. She opened it with a +frown, as though she did not know from whom it came. +I saw it as she unfolded it. It was on the same common +paper—typewritten in the same way—with no address +at the head of it. She gasped as she looked at it, and +then she read it again. And then with a smile she folded +it and put it away." +

+ +

+"With a smile?" Hanaud insisted. +

+ +

+"Yes. She was pleased. The colour came into her +face. The distress went out of it." +

+ +

+"She didn't show it to you, then?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"Nor to Mademoiselle Harlowe?" +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"But she was pleased, eh?" It seemed that to Hanaud +this was the most extraordinary feature of the whole +business. "Did she say anything?" +

+ +

+"Yes," answered Jim. "She said 'He has been always +right, hasn't he?'" +

+ +

+"She said that! 'He has been always right, hasn't +he?'" Hanaud slowly resumed his seat, and sat like a +man turned into stone. He looked up in a little while. +

+ +

+"What happened then?" he asked. +

+ +

+"Nothing until dinner was over. Then she picked up +her letter and beckoned with her head to Miss Betty, who +said to me: 'We shall have to leave you to take your +coffee alone.' They went across the hall to Betty's room. +The treasure-room. I was a little nettled. Ever since I +have been in Dijon one person after another has pushed +me into a corner with orders to keep quiet and not +interfere. So I came to find you at the Grande Taverne." +

+ +

+At another moment Jim's eruption of injured vanity +would have provoked Hanaud to one of his lamentable +exhibitions, but now he did not notice it at all. +

+ +

+"They went away to talk that letter over together," +said Hanaud. "And that young lady was pleased, she +who was so distressed this afternoon. A way out, then!" Hanaud +was discussing his problem with himself, his eyes +upon the table. "For once the Scourge is kind? I +wonder! It baffles me!" He rose to his feet and walked once +or twice across the room. "Yes, I the old bull of a +hundred corridas, I, Hanaud, am baffled!" +

+ +

+He was not posturing now. He was frankly and +simply amazed that he could be so utterly at a loss. Then, +with a swift change of mood, he came back to the table. +

+ +

+"Meanwhile, Monsieur, until I can explain this strange +new incident to myself, I beg of you your help," he +pleaded very earnestly and even very humbly. Fear had +returned to his eyes and his voice. He was disturbed +beyond Jim's comprehension. "There is nothing more +important. I want you—how shall I put it so that I may +persuade you? I want you to stay as much as you can in +the Maison Crenelle—to—yes—to keep a little watch on +this pretty Ann Upcott, to——" +

+ +

+He got no further with his proposal. Jim Frobisher +interrupted him in a very passion of anger. +

+ +

+"No, no, I won't," he cried. "You go much too far, +Monsieur. I won't be your spy. I am not here for that. +I am here for my client. As for Ann Upcott, she is my +countrywoman. I will not help you against her. So help +me God, I won't!" +

+ +

+Hanaud looked across the table at the flushed and angry +face of his "junior colleague," who now resigned his +office and, without parley, accepted his defeat. +

+ +

+"I don't blame you," he answered quietly. "I could, +indeed, hope for no other reply. I must be quick, that's +all. I must be very quick!" +

+ +

+Frobisher's anger fell away from him like a cloak one +drops. He saw Hanaud sitting over against him with a +white, desperately troubled face and eyes in which there +shone unmistakeably some gleam of terror. +

+ +

+"Tell me!" he cried in an exasperation. "Be frank +with me for once! Is Ann Upcott guilty? She's not +alone, of course, anyway. There's a gang. We're agreed +upon that. Waberski's one of them, of course? Is Ann +Upcott another? Do you believe it?" +

+ +

+Hanaud slowly put his exhibits together. There was +a struggle going on within him. The strain of the night +had told upon them both, and he was tempted for once to +make a confidant, tempted intolerably. On the other +hand, Jim Frobisher read in him all the traditions of his +service; to wait upon facts, not to utter suspicions; to be +fair. It was not until he had locked everything away +again in the safe that Hanaud yielded to the temptation. +And even then he could not bring himself to be direct. +

+ +

+"You want to know what I believe of Ann Upcott?" +he cried reluctantly, as though the words were torn from +him. "Go to-morrow to the Church of Notre Dame and +look at the façade. There, since you are not blind, you +will see." +

+ +

+He would say no more; that was clear. Nay, he stood +moodily before Frobisher, already regretting that he had +said so much. Frobisher picked up his hat and stick. +

+ +

+"Thank you," he said. "Good night." +

+ +

+Hanaud let him go to the door. Then he said: +

+ +

+"You are free to-morrow. I shall not go to the Maison +Crenelle. Have you any plans?" +

+ +

+"Yes. I am to be taken for a motor-drive round the +neighbourhood." +

+ +

+"Yes. It is worth while," Hanaud answered listlessly. +"But remember to telephone to me before you go. I shall +be here. I will tell you if I have any news. Good night." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher left him standing in the middle of the +room. Before he had closed the door Hanaud had +forgotten his presence. For he was saying to himself over +and over again, almost with an accent of despair: "I must +be quick! I must be very quick!" +

+ +


+ +

+Frobisher walked briskly down to the Place Ernest +Renan and the Rue de la Liberté, dwelling upon Hanaud's +injunction to examine the façade of Notre Dame. He +must keep that in mind and obey it in the morning. But +that night was not yet over for him. +

+ +

+As he reached the mouth of the little street of Charles-Robert +he heard a light, quick step a little way behind +him—a step that seemed familiar. So when he turned +into the street he sauntered and looked round. He saw +a tall man cross the entrance of the street very quickly +and disappear between, the houses on the opposite side. +The man paused for a second under the light of a street +lamp at the angle of the street, and Jim could have sworn +that it was Hanaud. There were no hotels, no lodgings +in this quarter of the city. It was a quarter of private +houses. What was Hanaud seeking there? +

+ +

+Speculating upon this new question, he forgot the +façade of Notre Dame; and upon his arrival at the Maison +Crenelle a little incident occurred which made the +probability that he would soon remember it remote. He let +himself into the house with a latchkey which had been +given to him, and turned on the light in the hall by means +of a switch at the side of the door. He crossed the hall +to the foot of the stairs, and was about to turn off the +light, using the switch there to which Ann Upcott had +referred, when the door of the treasure-room opened. +Betty appeared in the doorway. +

+ +

+"You are still up?" he said in a low voice, half pleased +to find her still afoot and half regretful that she was +losing her hours of sleep. +

+ +

+"Yes," and slowly her face softened to a smile. "I +waited up for my lodger." +

+ +

+She held the door open, and he followed her back into +the room. +

+ +

+"Let me look at you," she said, and having looked, she +added: "Jim, something has happened to-night." +

+ +

+Jim nodded. +

+ +

+"What?" she asked. +

+ +

+"Let it wait till to-morrow, Betty!" +

+ +

+Betty smiled no longer. The light died out of her +dark, haunting eyes. Lassitude and distress veiled them. +

+ +

+"Something terrible, then?" she said in a whisper. +

+ +

+"Yes," and she stretched out a hand to the back of a +chair and steadied herself. +

+ +

+"Please tell me, now, Jim! I shall not sleep to-night +unless you do; and oh, I am so tired!" +

+ +

+There was so deep a longing in her voice, so utter a +weariness in the pose of her young body that Jim could +not but yield. +

+ +

+"I'll tell you, Betty," he said gently. "Hanaud and +I went to find Jean Cladel to-night. We found him dead. +He had been murdered—cruelly." +

+ +

+Betty moaned and swayed upon her feet. She would +have fallen had not Jim caught her in his arms. +

+ +

+"Betty!" he cried. +

+ +

+Betty buried her face upon his shoulder. He could +feel the heave of her bosom against his heart. +

+ +

+"It's appalling!" she moaned. "Jean Cladel! ... No +one ever had heard of him till this morning ... and +now he's swept into this horror—like the rest of us! Oh, +where will it end?" +

+ +

+Jim placed her in a chair and dropped on his knees +beside her. +

+ +

+She was sobbing now, and he tried to lift her face up +to his. +

+ +

+"My dear!" he whispered. +

+ +

+But she would not raise her head. +

+ +

+"No," she said in a stifled voice, "no," and she pressed +her face deeper into the crook of his shoulder and clung +to him with desperate hands. +

+ +

+"Betty!" he repeated, "I am so sorry.... But it'll +all come right. I'm sure it will. Oh, Betty!" And +whilst he spoke he cursed himself for the banality of his +words. Why couldn't he find some ideas that were really +fine with which to comfort her? Something better than +these stupid commonplaces of "I am sorry" and "It will +all straighten out"? But he couldn't, and it seemed that +there was no necessity that he should. For her arms crept +round his neck and held him close. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER NINETEEN: A Plan Frustrated +

+ +

+The road curled like a paper ribbon round the +shoulder of a hill and dropped into a shallow valley. +To the left a little below the level of the road, a stream +ran swiftly through a narrow meadow of lush green grass. +Beyond the meadow the wall of the valley rose rough with +outcroppings of rock, and with every tuft of its herbage +already brown from the sun. On the right the northern +wall rose almost from the road's edge. The valley was +long and curved slowly, and half-way along to the point +where it disappeared a secondary road, the sort of road +which is indicated in the motorist's hand-books by a dotted +line, branched off to the left, crossed the stream by a +stone bridge and vanished in a cleft of the southern wall. +Beyond this branching road grew trees. The stream +disappeared under them as though it ran into a cavern; the +slopes on either side were hidden behind trees—trees so +thick that here at this end the valley looked bare in the +strong sunlight, but low trees, as if they had determined +to harmonise with their environment. Indeed, the whole +valley had a sort of doll's-house effect—it was so shallow +and narrow and stunted. It tried to be a valley and +succeeded in being a depression. +

+ +

+When the little two-seater car swooped round the +shoulder of the hill and descended, the white ribbon of +road was empty but for one tiny speck at the far end, +behind which a stream of dust spurted and spread like +smoke from the funnel of an engine. +

+ +

+"That motor dust is going to smother us when we +pass," said Jim. +

+ +

+"We shall do as much for him," said Betty, looking +over her shoulder from the steering wheel. "No, worse!" Behind +the car the dust was a screen. "But I don't mind, +do you, Jim?" she asked with a laugh, in which for the +first time, with a heart of thankfulness, Jim heard a note +of gaiety. "To be free of that town if only for an hour! +Oh!" and Betty opened her lungs to the sunlight and the +air. "This is my first hour of liberty for a week!" +

+ +

+Frobisher was glad, too, to be out upon the slopes of +the Côte-d'Or. The city of Dijon was ringing that +morning with the murder of Jean Cladel; you could not +pass down a street but you heard his name mentioned +and some sarcasms about the police. He wished to forget +that nightmare of a visit to the street of Gambetta +and the dreadful twisted figure on the floor of the back +room. +

+ +

+"You'll be leaving it for good very soon, Betty," he +said significantly. +

+ +

+Betty made a little grimace at him, and laid her hand +upon his sleeve. +

+ +

+"Jim!" she said, and the colour rose into her face, and +the car swerved across the road. "You mustn't speak like +that to the girl at the wheel," she said with a laugh as she +switched the car back into its course, "or I shall run down +the motor-cyclist and that young lady in the side-car." +

+ +

+"The young lady," said Jim, "happens to be a port-manteau!" +

+ +

+The motor-cyclist, indeed, was slowing down as he +came nearer to the branching road, like a tourist +unacquainted with the country, and when he actually reached +it he stopped altogether and dismounted. Betty brought +her car to a standstill beside him, and glanced at the clock +and the speedometer in front of her. +

+ +

+"Can I help you?" she asked. +

+ +

+The man standing beside the motor-cycle was a young +man, slim, dark, and of a pleasant countenance. He took +off his helmet and bowed politely. +

+ +

+"Madame, I am looking for Dijon," he said in a harsh +accent which struck Frobisher as somehow familiar to +his ears. +

+ +

+"Monsieur, you can see the tip of it through that gap +across the valley," Betty returned. In the very centre of +the cleft the point of the soaring spire of the cathedral +stood up like a delicate lance. "But I warn you that that +way, though short, is not good." +

+ +

+Through the gradually thinning cloud of dust which +hung behind the car they heard the jug-jug of another +motor-cycle. +

+ +

+"The road by which we have come is the better one," +she continued. +

+ +

+"But how far is it?" the young man asked. +

+ +

+Betty once more consulted her speedometer. +

+ +

+"Forty kilometres, and we have covered them in forty +minutes, so that you can see the going is good. We +started at eleven punctually, and it is now twenty minutes +to twelve." +

+ +

+"Surely we started before eleven?" Jim interposed. +

+ +

+"Yes, but we stopped for a minute or two to tighten +the strap of the tool-box on the edge of the town. And +we started from there at eleven." +

+ +

+The motor-cyclist consulted his wrist-watch. +

+ +

+"Yes, it's twenty minutes to twelve now," he said. +"But forty kilometres! I doubt if I have the essence. I +think I must try the nearer road." +

+ +

+The second motor-cycle came out of the dust like a +boat out of a sea mist and slowed down in turn at the side +of them. The rider jumped out of his saddle, pushed his +goggles up on to his forehead and joined in the conversation. +

+ +

+"That little road, Monsieur. It is not one of the +national highways. That shows itself at a glance. But +it is not so bad. From the stone bridge one can be at +the Hôtel de Ville of Dijon in twenty-five minutes." +

+ +

+"I thank you," said the young man. "You will pardon +me. I have been here for seven minutes, and I am +expected." +

+ +

+He replaced his helmet, mounted his machine, and with +a splutter and half a dozen explosions ran down into the +bed of the valley. +

+ +

+The second cyclist readjusted his goggles. +

+ +

+"Will you go first, Madame?" he suggested. "Otherwise +I give you my dust." +

+ +

+"Thank you!" said Betty with a smile, and she slipped +in the clutch and started. +

+ +

+Beyond the little forest and the curve the ground rose +and the valley flattened out. Across their road a broad +highway set with kilometre stones ran north and south. +

+ +

+"The road to Paris," said Betty as she stopped the car +in front of a little inn with a tangled garden at the angle. +She looked along the road Pariswards. "Air!" she said, +and drew a breath of longing, whilst her eyes kindled +and her white strong teeth clicked as though she was +biting a sweet fruit. +

+ +

+"Soon, Betty," said Jim. "Very soon!" +

+ +

+Betty drove the car into a little yard at the side of +the river. +

+ +

+"We will lunch here, in the garden," she said, "all +amongst the earwigs and the roses." +

+ +

+An omelet, a cutlet perfectly cooked and piping hot, +with a salad and a bottle of Clos du Prince of the 1904 +vintage brought the glowing city of Paris immeasurably +nearer to them. They sat in the open under the shade of +a tall hedge; they had the tangled garden to themselves; +they laughed and made merry in the golden May, and +visions of wonder trembled and opened before Jim +Frobisher's eyes. +

+ +

+Betty swept them away, however, when he had lit a +cigar and she a cigarette; and their coffee steamed from +the little cups in front of them. +

+ +

+"Let us be practical, Jim," she said. "I want to talk +to you." +

+ +

+The sparkle of gaiety had left her face. +

+ +

+"Yes!" he asked. +

+ +

+"About Ann." Her eyes swept round and rested on +Jim's face. "She ought to go." +

+ +

+"Run away!" cried Jim with a start. +

+ +

+"Yes, at once and as secretly as possible." +

+ +

+Jim turned the proposal over in his mind whilst Betty +waited in suspense. +

+ +

+"It couldn't be managed," he objected. +

+ +

+"It could." +

+ +

+"Even if it could, would she consent?" +

+ +

+"She does." +

+ +

+"Of course it's pleading guilty," he said slowly. +

+ +

+"Oh, it isn't, Jim. She wants time, that's all. Time +for my necklace to be traced, time for the murderer of +Jean Cladel to be discovered. You remember what I told +you about Hanaud? He must have his victim. You +wouldn't believe me, but it's true. He has got to go back +to Paris and say, 'You see, they sent from Dijon for me, +and five minutes! That's all I needed! Five little minutes +and there's your murderess, all tied up and safe!' He +tried to fix it on me first." +

+ +

+"No." +

+ +

+"He did, Jim. And now that has failed he has turned +on Ann. She'll have to go. Since he can't get me he'll +take my friend—yes, and manufacture the evidence into +the bargain." +

+ +

+"Betty! Hanaud wouldn't do that!" Frobisher protested. +

+ +

+"But, Jim, he has done it," she said. +

+ +

+"When?" +

+ +

+"When he put that Edinburgh man's book about the +arrow poison back upon the bookshelf in the library." +

+ +

+Jim was utterly taken back. +

+ +

+"Did you know that he had done that?" +

+ +

+"I couldn't help knowing," she answered. "The +moment he took the book down it was clear to me. He +knew it from end to end, as if it was a primer. He could +put his finger on the plates, on the history of my uncle's +arrow, on the effect of the poison, on the solution that +could be made of it in an instant. He pretended that he +had learnt all that in the half-hour he waited for us. It +wasn't possible. He had found that book the afternoon +before somewhere and had taken it away with him secretly +and sat up half the night over it. That's what he had +done." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was sunk in confusion. He had been +guessing first this person, then that, and in the end had +had to be told the truth; whereas Betty had reached it in +a flash by using her wits. He felt that he had been just +one minute and a half in the bull-ring. +

+ +

+Betty added in a hot scorn: +

+ +

+"Then when he had learnt it all up by heart he puts +it back secretly in the bookshelf and accuses us." +

+ +

+"But he admits he put it back," said Jim slowly. +

+ +

+Betty was startled. +

+ +

+"When did he admit it?" +

+ +

+"Last night. To me," replied Jim, and Betty laughed +bitterly. She would hear no good of Hanaud. +

+ +

+"Yes, now that he has something better to go upon." +

+ +

+"Something better?" +

+ +

+"The disappearance of my necklace. Oh, Jim, Ann +has got to go. If she could get to England they couldn't +bring her back, could they? They haven't evidence +enough. It's only suspicion and suspicion and suspicion. +But here in France it's different, isn't it? They can hold +people on suspicion, keep them shut up by themselves and +question them again and again. Oh, yesterday afternoon +in the hall—don't you remember, Jim?—I thought +Hanaud was going to arrest her there and then." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher nodded. +

+ +

+"I thought so, too." +

+ +

+He had been a little shocked by Betty's proposal, but +the more familiar he became with it, the more it appealed +to him. There was an overpowering argument in its +favour of which neither he nor Hanaud had told Betty +a word. The shaft of the arrow had been discovered in +Ann Upcott's room, and the dart in the house of Jean +Cladel. These were overpowering facts. On the whole, +it was better that Ann should go, now, whilst there was +still time—if, that is, Hanaud did undoubtedly believe her +to be guilty. +

+ +

+"But it is evident that he does," cried Betty. +

+ +

+Jim answered slowly: +

+ +

+"I suppose he does. We can make sure, anyway. I +had a doubt last night. So I asked him point-blank." +

+ +

+"And he answered you?" Betty asked with a gasp. +

+ +

+"Yes and no. He gave me the strangest answer." +

+ +

+"What did he say?" +

+ +

+"He told me to visit the Church of Notre Dame. If +I did, I should read upon the façade whether Ann was +innocent or not." +

+ +

+Slowly every tinge of colour ebbed out of Betty's face. +Her eyes stared at him horror-stricken. She sat, a figure +of ice—except for her eyes which blazed. +

+ +

+"That's terrible," she said with a low voice, and again +"That's terrible!" Then with a cry she stood erect +"You shall see! Come!" and she ran towards the motorcar. +

+ +

+The sunlit day was spoilt for both of them. Betty +drove homewards, bending over the wheel, her eyes fixed +ahead. But Frobisher wondered whether she saw anything +at all of that white road which the car devoured. +Once as they dropped from the highland and the forests +to the plains, she said: +

+ +

+"We shall abide by what we see?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"If Hanaud thinks her innocent, she should stay. If +he thinks her guilty, she must go." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Frobisher. +

+ +

+Betty guided the car through the streets of the city, +and into a wide square. A great church of the Renaissance +type, with octagonal cupolas upon its two towers +and another little cupola surmounted by a loggia above +its porch, confronted them. Betty stopped the car and +led Frobisher into the porch. Above the door was a +great bas-relief of the Last Judgment, God amongst the +clouds, angels blowing trumpets, and the damned rising +from their graves to undergo their torments. Both Betty +and Frobisher gazed at the representation for a while in +silence. To Frobisher it was a cruel and brutal piece of +work which well matched Hanaud's revelation of his true +belief. +

+ +

+"Yes, the message is easy to read," he said: and they +drove back in a melancholy silence to the Maison Crenelle. +

+ +

+The chauffeur, Georges, came forward from the garage +to take charge of the car. Betty ran inside the house +and waited for Jim Frobisher to join her. +

+ +

+"I am so sorry," she said in a broken voice. "I kept +a hope somewhere that we were all mistaken ... I +mean as to the danger Ann was in.... I don't believe +for a moment in her guilt, of course. But she must +go—that's clear." +

+ +

+She went slowly up the stairs, and Jim saw no more of +her until dinner was served long after its usual hour. +Ann Upcott he had not seen at all that day, nor did he +even see her then. Betty came to him in the library a +few minutes before nine. +

+ +

+"We are very late, I am afraid. There are just the +two of us, Jim," she said with a smile, and she led the +way into the dining-room. +

+ +

+Through the meal she was anxious and preoccupied, +nodding her assent to anything that he said, with her +thoughts far away and answering him at random, or not +answering him at all. She was listening, Frobisher +fancied, for some sound in the hall, an expected sound +which was overdue. For her eyes went continually to +the clock, and a flurry and agitation, very strange in one +naturally so still, became more and more evident in her +manner. At length, just before ten o'clock, they both +heard the horn of a motor-car in the quiet street. The +car stopped, as it seemed to Frobisher, just outside the +gates, and upon that there followed the sound for which +Betty had so anxiously been listening—the closing of a +heavy door by some one careful to close it quietly. Betty +shot a quick glance at Jim Frobisher and coloured when +he intercepted it. A few seconds afterwards the car +moved on, and Betty drew a long breath. Jim Frobisher +leaned forward to Betty. Though they were alone in the +room, he spoke in a low voice of surprise: +

+ +

+"Ann Upcott has gone then?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"So soon? You had everything already arranged +then?" +

+ +

+"It was all arranged yesterday evening. She should +be in Paris to-morrow morning, England to-morrow +night. If only all goes well!" +

+ +

+Even in the stress of her anxiety Betty had been +sensitive to a tiny note of discontent in Jim Frobisher's +questions. He had been left out of the counsels of the two +girls, their arrangements had been made without his +participation, he had only been told of them at the last +minute, just as if he was a babbler not to be trusted and an +incompetent whose advice would only have been a waste +of time. Betty made her excuses. +

+ +

+"It would have been better, of course, if we had got +you to help us, Jim. But Ann wouldn't have it. She +insisted that you had come out here on my account, and +that you mustn't be dragged into such an affair as her +flight and escape at all. She made it a condition, so I had +to give way. But you can help me now tremendously." +

+ +

+Jim was appeased. Betty at all events had wanted +him, was still alarmed lest their plan undertaken without +his advice might miscarry. +

+ +

+"How can I help?" +

+ +

+"You can go to that cinema and keep Monsieur Hanaud +engaged. It's important that he should know nothing +about Ann's flight until late to-morrow." +

+ +

+Jim laughed at the futility of Hanaud's devices to +hide himself. It was obviously all over the town that +he spent his evenings in the Grande Taverne. +

+ +

+"Yes, I'll go," he returned. "I'll go now." +

+ +

+But Hanaud was not that night in his accustomed +place, and Jim sat there alone until half-past ten. Then +a man strolled out from one of the billiard-rooms, and +standing behind Jim with his eyes upon the screen, said +in a whisper: +

+ +

+"Do not look at me, Monsieur! It is Moreau. I go +outside. Will you please to follow." +

+ +

+He strolled away. Jim gave him a couple of minutes' +grace. He had remembered Hanaud's advice and had +paid for his Bock when it had been brought to him. The +little saucer was turned upside down to show that he +owed nothing. When two minutes had elapsed he +sauntered out and, looking neither to the right nor to the +left, strolled indolently along the Rue de la Gare. When +he reached the Place Darcy Nicolas Moreau passed him +without a sign of recognition and struck off to the right +along the Rue de la Liberté. Frobisher followed him +with a sinking heart. It was folly of course to imagine +that Hanaud could be so easily eluded. No doubt that +motor-car had been stopped. No doubt Ann Upcott was +already under lock and key! Why, the last words he had +heard Hanaud speak were "I must be quick!" +

+ +

+Moreau turned off into the Boulevard Sevigne and, +doubling back to the station square, slipped into one of +the small hotels which cluster in that quarter. The lobby +was empty; a staircase narrow and steep led from it to the +upper stories. Moreau now ascended it with Frobisher +at his heels, and opened a door. Frobisher looked into a +small and dingy sitting-room at the back of the house. +The windows were open, but the shutters were closed. A +single pendant in the centre of the room gave it light, and +at a table under the pendant Hanaud sat poring over a map. +

+ +

+The map was marked with red ink in a curious way. +A sort of hoop, very much the shape of a tennis racket +without its handle, was described upon it and from the +butt to the top of the hoop an irregular line was drawn, +separating the hoop roughly into two semi-circles. +Moreau left Jim Frobisher standing there, and in a +moment or two Hanaud looked up. +

+ +

+"Did you know, my friend," he asked very gravely, +"that Ann Upcott has gone to-night to Madame Le Vay's +fancy dress ball?" +

+ +

+Frobisher was taken completely by surprise. +

+ +

+"No, I see that you didn't," Hanaud went on. He +took up his pen and placed a red spot at the edge of the +hoop close by the butt. +

+ +

+Jim recovered from his surprise. Madame Le Vay's +ball was the spot from which the start was to be made. +The plan after all was not so ill-devised, if only Ann could +have got to the ball unnoticed. Masked and in fancy +dress, amongst a throng of people similarly accoutred, in +a house with a garden, no doubt thrown open upon this +hot night and lit only by lanterns discreetly dim—she had +thus her best chance of escape. But the chance was +already lost. For Hanaud laid down his pen again and +said in ominous tones: +

+ +

+"The water-lily, eh? That pretty water-lily, my friend, +will not dance very gaily to-night." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY: Map and the Necklace +

+ +

+Hanaud turned his map round and pushed it +across the table to Jim Frobisher. +

+ +

+"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew +up a chair and sat down to examine it. +

+ +

+He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and +its environments, the town itself lying at the bottom of +the red hoop and constituting the top of the handle of the +tennis racket. As to the red circle, it seemed to +represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, +round a good tract of outlying country and back again to +the city. But there was more to it than that. The wavy +dividing line, for instance, from the top of the circle to +the handle, that is to Dijon; and on the left-hand edge of +the hoop, as he bent over the map, and just outside Dijon, +the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud had just +made. Against this square an hour was marked. +

+ +

+"Eleven a.m.," he read. +

+ +

+He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where +this dividing line touched the rim of the hoop, another +period was inscribed. Here Frobisher read: +

+ +

+"Eleven forty." +

+ +

+Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment. +

+ +

+"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over +the map. The point where the dividing line branched off +was in a valley, as he could see by the contours—yes—he +had found the name now—the Val Terzon. Just before +eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside +Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing back, and +had asked him to tighten the strap of the tool box. They +had started again exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note +of the exact time—and they had stopped where the +secondary road branched off and doubled back to Dijon, at +the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and +the dividing line, exactly at eleven forty. +

+ +

+"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he +cried. "We were followed then?" +

+ +

+He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who +had come up from behind through the screen of their +dust and had stopped by the side of their car to join in +their conversation with the tourist. +

+ +

+"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no +answer. +

+ +

+But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way +round. On their homeward course they had stopped to +lunch in the tangled garden. There had been no sign of +the man. Jim looked at the map again. He followed the +red line from the junction of the two roads, round the +curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National +road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. +After luncheon they had continued along the National +road into Dijon, whereas the red line crossed it and came +back by a longer and obviously a less frequented route. +

+ +

+"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, +Monsieur Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. +"But I can tell you this. The chase was not very +efficiently contrived. We didn't come home that way at +all." +

+ +

+"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud +answered imperturbably. "The line on that side of the +circle has nothing to do with you at all, as you can see +for yourself by looking at the time marked where the +line begins." +

+ +

+The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there +was a space where the spliced handle of the racket would +fit in, the space filled by the town of Dijon, and at the +point on the right hand side where the line started +Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures: +

+ +

+"Ten twenty-five a.m." +

+ +

+Jim was more bewildered than ever. +

+ +

+"I don't understand one word of it," he cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the +tip of his pen. +

+ +

+"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who +met you at the branch road at eleven-forty." +

+ +

+"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed +to him impossible that the fog could thicken about his +wits any more. And yet it had. +

+ +

+"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his +trailer," Hanaud corrected. "You see that he left his +starting point in Dijon thirty-five minutes before you +left yours. The whole manoeuvre seems to have been +admirably planned. For you met precisely at the +arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the +cycle had to wait one moment." +

+ +

+"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, +looking about him in a sort of despair. "Has every one +gone crazy? Why in the world should a man start out +with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at ten +twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by +a roundabout road and then return by a bad straight +track? There's no sense in it!" +

+ +

+"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded +to Moreau who went out of the room by a communicating +door towards the front of the house. "But I can +help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where you +started after tightening the strap of the tool-box, on the +edge of the town, a big country house stands back in a +park?" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy +dress ball takes place to-night." +

+ +

+"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. +"Where——" he began a question and caught it back. +But Hanaud completed it for him. +

+ +

+"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from +it at precisely eleven in the morning." He looked at his +watch. "It is not yet quite eleven at night. So she is +still there." +

+ +

+Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words +were like the blade of silver light cutting through the +darkness of the cinema hall and breaking into a sheet of +radiance upon the screen. The meaning of the red +diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive of +Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him. +

+ +

+"It was a rehearsal," he cried. +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"A time-rehearsal." +

+ +

+"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, +without the principal members of the company," thought +Frobisher. But a moment later he was dissatisfied with +that explanation. +

+ +

+"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy." +

+ +

+The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his +arguments to a standstill. His times were marked upon +the map; they were therefore of importance. What had +he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he visualised +the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with +the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave +Frobisher the clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving +Madame Le Vay's house in her ball-dress, just as if she +was returning to the Maison Crenelle—and without any +luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the +morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion +and certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her +in the Val Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her +car, and then return to Dijon by the straight quick road +whilst Ann turned off at the end of the valley to Paris. +He remembered now that seven minutes had elapsed +between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and +their separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for +the transference of the luggage. Another argument +flashed into his thoughts. Betty had told him nothing of +this plan. It had been presented to him as a mere excursion +on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally +employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the +determination of Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether +out of the conspiracy. Every detail fitted like the blocks +in a picture puzzle. Yes, there had been a time-rehearsal. +And Hanaud knew all about it! +

+ +

+That was the disturbing certainty which first +overwhelmed Frobisher when he had got the better of his +surprise at the scheme itself. Hanaud knew! and Betty +had so set her heart on Ann's escape. +

+ +

+"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott +get away to Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned +back in his chair with a little gasp. The queerest smile +broke over his face. +

+ +

+"I see," he said. +

+ +

+"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. +"You are of the Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of +the High Court in my country and I have no right to +make such a petition. But I do without a scruple. You +can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't +a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion +about her that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin +her—yes—but that's all you can do." +

+ +

+"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed. +

+ +

+Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to +save her friend which inspired his plea. He fell back +upon the scandal which such a trial would cause. +

+ +

+"There has been enough publicity already owing to +Boris Waberski," he continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe +has had distress enough. Why must she stand in the +witness-box and give evidence against her friend in a +trial which can have no result? That's what I want you +to realise, Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience +of criminal trials"—O shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why +was that punctilious man not there in the flesh to wipe +out with an indignant word the slur upon the firm of +Frobisher and Haslitt?—"And I assure you that no jury +could convict upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl +necklace has not been traced—and it never will be. You +can take that from me, Monsieur Hanaud! It never +will be!" +

+ +

+Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one +of those little cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred +cigarettes, which the better class of manufacturers use +in England for their wares. He pushed this across the +table towards Jim. Something which was more substantial +than cigarettes rattled inside of it. Jim seized upon +it in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far +sooner lose her necklace altogether than that her friend +Ann Upcott should be destroyed by it. He opened the +lid of the box. It was filled with cotton-wool. From +the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls perfectly graded +in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre which, +even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely. +

+ +

+"It would have been more correct if I had found them +in a matchbox," said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to +Monsieur Bex that after all matches and cigarettes are +akin." +

+ +

+Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter +disappointment when Moreau knocked upon the other side of +the communicating door. Hanaud looked again at his +watch. +

+ +

+"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has +started from the house of Madame Le Vay." +

+ +

+He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again +within the layers of cotton-wool, and locked it up once +more in the drawer. The room had faded away from +Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, brilliantly +illuminated house, and a girl who slipped from a +window and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening +dress, ran down the dark avenue in her dancing slippers +to where a car waited hidden under trees. +

+ +

+"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden +hopefulness. "There may have been an accident to it. +The chauffeur may be late. Oh, a hundred things may +have happened!" +

+ +

+"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously +rehearsed? No, my friend." +

+ +

+Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against +the wall and placed it in his pocket. +

+ +

+"You are going to leave that necklace just like that +in a table drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it +first to the Prefecture." +

+ +

+"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It +will be safe." +

+ +

+Jim hopefully tried another line of argument. +

+ +

+"We shall be too late now to intercept Ann Upcott at +the branch road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you +say—well past eleven. And thirty-five minutes on a +motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty minutes in a car +at night, especially with a bad road to travel." +

+ +

+"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch +road," Hanaud returned. He folded up the map and +put it aside upon the mantelshelf. +

+ +

+"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I +must take it! And—no! I can't be wrong!" But he +turned from the mantelshelf with a very anxious and +troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh idea +came into his mind. +

+ +

+"By the way," he said. "The façade of Notre Dame?" +

+ +

+Jim nodded. +

+ +

+"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment. We went to +see it. We thought your way of saying what you +believed a little brutal." +

+ +

+Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor +for a few seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am +sorry." He tacked on a question. "You say 'we'?" +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained. +

+ +

+"Oh, yes—to be sure. I should have thought of that," +and once more his troubled cry broke from him. "It +must be that!—No, I can't be wrong.... Anyway, it's +too late to change now." +

+ +

+A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating +door. Hanaud sprang to alertness. +

+ +

+"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, +Monsieur Frobisher! Good! You are ready?" and the room +was at once plunged into darkness. +

+ +

+Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they +passed into the front room—a bedroom looking out upon +the big station square. This room was in darkness too. +But the shutters were not closed, and there were patches +of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and +the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could +see one another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his +companions appeared of a ghastly pallor. +

+ +

+"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said +Moreau. "Patinot has just joined him." +

+ +

+He pointed across the square to the station buildings. +Some cabs were waiting for the Paris train, and in front +of them two men dressed like artisans were talking. One +of them lit a cigarette from the stump of a cigarette held +out to him by his companion. The watchers in the room +saw the end of the cigarette glow red. +

+ +

+"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can +go." And he turned and went out of the inn to the +staircase. Jim started to follow him. Whither they were +going Jim had not a notion, not even a conjecture. But +he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's hopes +for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski +affair had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not +reassured when Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and +detained him. +

+ +

+"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud +with a quiet authority, his eyes shining very steadily in +the darkness, his face glimmering very white, "that now +the Law of France takes charge. There must not be a +finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers upon +their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the +promise you desire. No one shall be arrested on +suspicion. Your own eyes shall bear me out." +

+ +

+The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into +the street. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Secret House +

+ +

+It was a dark, clear night, the air very still and warm, +and the sky bright with innumerable stars. The small +company penetrated into the town by the backways and +narrow alleys. Daunay going on ahead, Patinot the last +by some thirty yards, and Moreau keeping upon the +opposite side of the street. Once they had left behind them +the lights of the station square, they walked amongst +closed doors and the blind faces of unlit houses. +Frobisher's heart raced within his bosom. He strained his +eyes and ears for some evidence of spies upon their heels. +But no one was concealed in any porch, and not the +stealthiest sound of a pursuit was borne to their hearing. +

+ +

+"On a night like this," he said in tones which, strive +as he might to steady them, were still a little tremulous, +"one could hear a footstep on the stones a quarter of a +mile away, and we hear nothing. Yet, if there is a gang, +it can hardly be that we are unwatched." +

+ +

+Hanaud disagreed. "This is a night for alibis," he +returned, lowering his voice; "good, sound, incontestable +alibis. All but those engaged will be publicly with their +friends, and those engaged do not know how near we are +to their secrets." +

+ +

+They turned into a narrow street and kept on its +left-hand side. +

+ +

+"Do you know where we are?" Hanaud asked. "No? +Yet we are near to the Maison Crenelle. On the other +side of these houses to our left runs the street of +Charles-Robert." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stopped dead. +

+ +

+"It was here, then, that you came last night after I +left you at the Prefecture," he exclaimed. +

+ +

+"Ah, you recognised me, then!" Hanaud returned +imperturbably. "I wondered whether you did when you +turned at the gates of your house." +

+ +

+On the opposite side of the street the houses were +broken by a high wall, in which two great wooden doors +were set. Behind the wall, at the end of a courtyard, the +upper storey and the roof of a considerable house rose +in a steep ridge against the stars. +

+ +

+Hanaud pointed towards it. +

+ +

+"Look at that house, Monsieur! There Madame +Raviart came to live whilst she waited to be set free. It +belongs to the Maison Crenelle. After she married Simon +Harlowe, they would never let it, they kept it just as it +was, the shrine of their passion—that strange romantic +couple. But there was more romance in that, to be sure. +It has been unoccupied ever since." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher felt a chill close about his heart. Was +that house the goal to which Hanaud was leading him +with so confident a step? He looked at the gates and +the house. Even in the night it had a look of long neglect +and decay, the paint peeling from the doors and not a +light in any window. +

+ +

+Some one in the street, however, was awake, for just +above their heads, a window was raised with the utmost +caution and a whisper floated down to them. +

+ +

+"No one has appeared." +

+ +

+Hanaud took no open notice of the whisper. He did +not pause in his walk, but he said to Frobisher: +

+ +

+"And, as you hear, it is still unoccupied." +

+ +

+At the end of the street Daunay melted away +altogether. Hanaud and Frobisher crossed the road and, +with Moreau just ahead, turned down a passage between, +the houses to the right. +

+ +

+Beyond the passage they turned again to the right into +a narrow lane between high walls; and when they had +covered thirty yards or so, Frobisher saw the branches of +leafy trees over the wall upon his right. It was so dark +here under the shade of the boughs that Frobisher could +not even see his companions; and he knocked against +Moreau before he understood that they had come to the +end of their journey. They were behind the garden of +the house in which Madame Raviart had lived and loved. +

+ +

+Hanaud's hand tightened upon Jim Frobisher's arm, +constraining him to absolute immobility. Patinot had +vanished as completely and noiselessly as Daunay. The +three men left stood in the darkness and listened. A +sentence which Ann Upcott had spoken in the garden of the +Maison Crenelle, when she had been describing the terror +with which she had felt the face bending over her in +the darkness, came back to him. He had thought it false +then. He took back his criticism now. For he too +imagined that the beating of his heart must wake all +Dijon. +

+ +

+They stood there motionless for the space of a minute, +and then, at a touch from Hanaud, Nicolas Moreau +stooped. Frobisher heard the palm of his hand sliding +over wood and immediately after the tiniest little click as +a key was fitted into a lock and turned. A door in the +wall swung silently open and let a glimmer of light into +the lane. The three men passed into a garden of weeds +and rank grass and overgrown bushes. Moreau closed +and locked the door behind them. As he locked the door +the clocks of the city struck the half hour. +

+ +

+Hanaud whispered in Frobisher's ear: +

+ +

+"They have not yet reached the Val Terzon. Come!" +

+ +

+They crept over the mat of grass and weeds to the +back of the house. A short flight of stone steps, patched +with mould, descended from a terrace; at the back of the +terrace were shuttered windows. But in the corner of +the house, on a level with the garden, there was a door. +Once more Moreau stooped, and once more a door swung +inwards without a sound. But whereas the garden door +had let through some gleam of twilight, this door opened +upon the blackness of the pit. Jim Frobisher shrank +back from it, not in physical fear but in an appalling dread +that some other man than he, wearing his clothes and his +flesh, would come out of that door again. His heart +came to a standstill, and then Hanaud pushed him gently +into the passage. The door was closed behind them, an +almost inaudible sound told him that now the door was +locked. +

+ +

+"Listen!" Hanaud whispered sharply. His trained ear +had caught a sound in the house above them. And in a +second Frobisher heard it too, a sound regular and +continuous and very slight, but in that uninhabited house +filled with uttermost blackness, very daunting. +Gradually the explanation dawned upon Jim. +

+ +

+"It's a clock ticking," he said under his breath. +

+ +

+"Yes! A clock ticking away in the empty house!" +returned Hanaud. And though his answer was rather +breathed than whispered, there was a queer thrill in it +the sound of which Jim could not mistake. The hunter +had picked up his spoor. Just beyond the quarry would +come in view. +

+ +

+Suddenly a thread of light gleamed along the passage, +lit up a short flight of stairs and a door on the right at the +head of them, and went out again. Hanaud slipped his +electric torch back into his pocket and, passing Moreau, +took the lead. The door at the head of the stairs opened +with a startling whine of its hinges. Frobisher stopped +with his heart in his throat, though what he feared he +could not have told even himself. Again the thread of +light shone, and this time it explored. The three found +themselves in a stone-flagged hall. +

+ +

+Hanaud crossed it, extinguished his torch and opened +a door. A broken shutter, swinging upon a hinge, enabled +them dimly to see a gallery which stretched away into the +gloom. The faint light penetrating from the window +showed them a high double door leading to some room +at the back of the house. Hanaud stole over the boards +and laid his ear to the panel. In a little while he was +satisfied; his hand dropped to the knob and a leaf of the +door opened noiselessly. Once more the torch glowed. +Its beam played upon the high ceiling, the tall windows +shrouded in heavy curtains of red silk brocade, and +revealed to Frobisher's amazement a room which had a +look of daily use. All was orderly and clean, the furniture +polished and in good repair; there were fresh flowers +in the vases, whose perfume filled the air; and it was +upon the marble chimney-piece of this room that the clock +ticked. +

+ +

+The room was furnished with lightness and elegance, +except for one fine and massive press, with double doors +in marquetry, which occupied a recess near to the +fireplace. Girandoles with mirrors and gilt frames, now +fitted with electric lights, were fixed upon the walls, with +a few pictures in water-colour. A chandelier glittering +with lustres hung from the ceiling, an Empire writing-table +stood near the window, a deep-cushioned divan +stretched along the wall opposite the fire-place. So much +had Frobisher noticed when the light again went out. +Hanaud closed the door upon the room again. +

+ +

+"We shall be hidden in the embrasure of any of these +windows," Hanaud whispered, when they were once more +in the long gallery. "No light will be shown here with +that shutter hanging loose, we may be sure. Meanwhile +let us watch and be very silent." +

+ +

+They took their stations in the deep shadows by the +side of the window with the broken shutter. They could +see dimly the courtyard and the great carriage doors in +the wall at the end of it, and they waited; Jim Frobisher +under such a strain of dread and expectancy that each +second seemed an hour, and he wondered at the immobility +of his companions. The only sound of breathing +that he heard came from his own lungs. +

+ +

+In a while Hanaud laid a hand upon his sleeve, and the +clasp of the hand tightened and tightened. Motionless +though he stood like a man in a seizure, Hanaud too was +in the grip of an intense excitement. For one of the +great leaves of the courtyard door was opening silently. +It opened just a little way and as silently closed again. +But some one had slipped in—so vague and swift and +noiseless a figure that Jim would have believed his +imagination had misled him but for a thicker blot of darkness +at the centre of the great door. There some one stood +now who had not stood there a minute before, as silent +and still as any of the watchers in the gallery, and more +still than one. For Hanaud moved suddenly away on +the tips of his toes into the deepest of the gloom and, +sinking down upon his heels, drew his watch from his +pocket. He drew his coat closely about it and for a +fraction of a second flashed his torchlight on the dial. It was +now five minutes past twelve. +

+ +

+"It is the time," he breathed as he crept back to his +place. "Listen now!" +

+ +

+A minute passed and another. Frobisher found himself +shivering as a man shivers at a photographer's when +he is told by the operator to keep still. He had a notion +that he was going to fall. Then a distant noise caught his +ear, and at once his nerves grew steady. It was the throb +of a motor-cycle, and it grew louder and louder. He felt +Hanaud stiffen at his side. Hanaud had been right, +then! The conviction deepened in his mind. When all +had been darkness and confusion to him, Hanaud from +the first had seen clearly. But what had he seen? +Frobisher was still unable to answer that question, and whilst +he fumbled amongst conjectures a vast relief swept over +him. For the noise of the cycle had ceased altogether. +It had roared through some contiguous street and gone +upon its way into the open country. Not the faintest +pulsation of its engine was any longer audible. That +late-faring traveller had taken Dijon in his stride. +

+ +

+In a revulsion of relief he pictured him devouring the +road, the glow of his lamp putting the stars to shame, the +miles leaping away behind him; and suddenly the pleasant +picture was struck from before his vision and his heart +fluttered up into his throat. For the leaf of the great +coach-door was swung wider, and closed again, and the +motor-cycle with its side-car was within the courtyard. +The rider had slipped out his clutch and stopped his engine +more than a hundred yards away in the other street. His +own impetus had been enough and more than enough to +swing him round the corner along the road and into the +courtyard. The man who had closed the door moved to +his side as he dismounted. Between them they lifted +something from the side-car and laid it on the ground. +The watchman held open the door again, the cyclist +wheeled out his machine, the door was closed, a key +turned in the lock. Not a word had been spoken, not an +unnecessary movement made. It had all happened within +the space of a few seconds. The man waited by the gate, +and in a little while from some other street the cyclist's +engine was heard once more to throb. His work was +done. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher wondered that Hanaud should let him +go. But Hanaud had eyes for no one but the man who +was left behind and the big package upon the ground +under the blank side wall. The man moved to it, stooped, +raised it with an appearance of effort, then stood upright +holding it in his arms. It was something shapeless and +long and heavy. So much the watchers in the gallery +could see, but no more. +

+ +

+The man in the courtyard moved towards the door +without a sound; and Hanaud drew his companions back +from the window of the broken shutter. Quick as they +were, they were only just in time to escape from that +revealing twilight. Already the intruder with his burden +stood within the gallery. The front door was unlatched, +that was clear. It had needed but a touch to open it. +The intruder moved without a sound to the double door, +of which Hanaud had opened one leaf. He stood in front +of it, pushed it with his foot and both the leaves swung +inwards. He disappeared into the room. But the faint +misty light had fallen upon him for a second, and though +none could imagine who he was, they all three saw that +what he carried was a heavy sack. +

+ +

+Now, at all events, Hanaud would move, thought +Frobisher. But he did not. They all heard the man now, +but not his footsteps. It was just the brushing of his +clothes against furniture: then came a soft, almost +inaudible sound, as though he had laid his burden down +upon the deep-cushioned couch: then he himself +reappeared in the doorway, his arms empty, his hat pressed +down upon his forehead, and a dim whiteness where his +face should be. But dark as it was, they saw the glitter +of his eyes. +

+ +

+"It will be now," Frobisher said to himself, expecting +that Hanaud would leap from the gloom and bear the +intruder to the ground. +

+ +

+But this man, too, Hanaud let go. He closed the doors +again, drawing the two leaves together, and stole from +the gallery. No one heard the outer door close, but +with a startling loudness some metal thing rang upon +stone, and within the house. Even Jim Frobisher +understood that the outer door had been locked and the key +dropped through the letter slot. The three men crept +back to their window. They saw the intruder cross the +courtyard, open one leaf of the coach door, peer this way +and that and go. Again a key tinkled upon stones. The +key of the great door had been pushed or kicked +underneath it back into the courtyard. The clocks suddenly +chimed the quarter. To Frobisher's amazement it was +a quarter-past twelve. Between the moment when the +cyclist rode his car in at the doors and now, just five +minutes had elapsed. And again, but for the three men, +the house was empty. +

+ +

+Or was it empty? +

+ +

+For Hanaud had slipped across to the door of the room +and opened it; and a slight sound broke out of that black +room, as of some living thing which moved uneasily. +At Jim Frobisher's elbow Hanaud breathed a sigh of +relief. Something, it seemed, had happened for which +he had hardly dared to hope; some great dread he knew +with certainty had not been fulfilled. On the heels of that +sigh a sharp loud click rang out, the release of a spring, +the withdrawal of a bolt. Hanaud drew the door swiftly +to and the three men fell back. Some one had somehow +entered that room, some one was moving quietly about it. +From the corner of the corridor in which they had taken +refuge, the three men saw the leaves of the door swing +very slowly in upon their hinges. Some one appeared +upon the threshold, and stood motionless, listening, and +after a few seconds advanced across the gallery to the +window. It was a girl—so much they could determine +from the contour of her head and the slim neck. To the +surprise of those three a second shadow flitted to her +side. Both of them peered from the window into the +courtyard. There was nothing to tell them there whether +the midnight visitors had come and gone or not yet come +at all. One of them whispered: +

+ +

+"The key!" +

+ +

+And the other, the shorter one, crept into the hall and +returned with the key which had been dropped through +the letter slot in her hand. The taller of the two laughed, +and the sound of it, so clear, so joyous like the trill of a +bird, it was impossible for Jim Frobisher even for a +second to mistake. The second girl standing at the window +of this dark and secret house, with the key in her hand to +tell her that all that had been plotted had been done, was +Betty Harlowe. Jim Frobisher had never imagined a +sound so sinister, so alarming, as that clear, joyous +laughter lilting through the silent gallery. It startled +him, it set his whole faith in the world shuddering. +

+ +

+"There must be some good explanation," he argued, +but his heart was sinking amidst terrors. Of what +dreadful event was that laughter to be the prelude? +

+ +

+The two figures at the window flitted back across the +gallery. It seemed that there was no further reason for +precautions. +

+ +

+"Shut the door, Francine," said Betty in her ordinary +voice. And when this was done, within the room the +lights went on. But time and disuse had warped the +doors. They did not quite close, and between them a +golden strip of light showed like a wand. +

+ +

+"Let us see now!" cried Betty. "Let us see," and +again she laughed; and under the cover of her laughter +the three men crept forward and looked in: Moreau upon +his knees, Frobisher stooping above him, Hanaud at his +full height behind them all. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Corona Machine +

+ +

+The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's +shoulder warning him to silence; and this warning +was needed. The lustres of the big glass chandelier were +so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the girandoles +multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was +ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her +white shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black +velvet; from her carefully dressed copper hair to her +black satin shoes she was as trim as if she had just been +unpacked from a bandbox; and she was laughing +whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which +jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. +Some one was imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher +could not doubt who that some one was, and it +seemed to him that no sound more soulless and cruel had +ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She +threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white +throat working, her shoulders flashing and shaking. She +clapped her hands with a horrible glee. Something died +within Frobisher's breast as he heard it. Was it in his +heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the last +time that Betty Harlowe laughed. +

+ +

+"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst +Francine with a pair of scissors cut the end of the sack +loose, she sat down with her back to it at the writing-table +and unlocked a drawer. The sack was cut away and +thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott +lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound +behind her back, and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her +hair was dishevelled, her face flushed, and she had the +look of one quite dazed. She drew in deep breaths of +air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware +for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and +her eyes rested upon Francine and travelled from her to +Betty's back without a gleam of recognition. She +wrenched a little at her wrists, but even that movement +was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay +still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at +the door would hardly have believed that she still lived. +

+ +

+Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a +small bottle half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next +a small case of morocco leather. From the case she took +a hypodermic syringe and its needle, and screwed the +two parts together. +

+ +

+"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper +from the bottle. +

+ +

+"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began +with a giggle, but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke +and she ended with a startled gasp. For Ann was looking +straight at her with the strangest, disconcerting stare. +It was impossible to say whether she knew Francine or +knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her +gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, +and in a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried +out: +

+ +

+"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she +added with a shiver: "It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's +like a dead person watching you as you move about the +room." +

+ +

+Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's +eyes wandered off to her. It seemed as though it needed +just that interchange of glances to awaken her. For as +Betty resumed her work of filling the hypodermic syringe +from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into Ann +Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she +could not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her +feet kicked upon the divan. A moan of pain broke from +her lips, and with that consciousness returned to her. +

+ +

+"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the +needle ready in her hand. She did not speak, but her +face spoke for her. Her upper lip was drawn back a +little from her teeth, and there was a look in her great +eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. +Once before he had seen just that look—when Betty +was lying on Mrs. Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment +and he had lingered in the treasure-room with Ann +Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then, but it was +as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann +Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank +back upon the divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering +lips and her eyes fixed upon Betty with a dreadful +fascination. +

+ +

+"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You +sent me to Madame Le Vay's—on purpose. Oh! The +letter, then! The anonymous letter!"—and a new light +broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror shook her. "You +wrote it! Betty, you! You—the Scourge!" +

+ +

+She sank back and again struggled vainly with her +bonds. Betty rose from her chair and crossed the room +towards her, the needle shining bright in her hand. Her +hapless prisoner saw it. +

+ +

+"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. +The extremity of her horror lent to her an unnatural +strength. Somehow she dragged herself up and got her +feet to the ground. Somehow she stood upright, swaying +as she stood. +

+ +

+"You are going to——" she began, and broke off. +"Oh, no! You couldn't! You couldn't!" +

+ +

+Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder +and held her so for a moment, savouring her vengeance. +

+ +

+"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours +in the darkness?" she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. +"Whose face, Ann? Guess!" She shook her swaying +prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her quiet voice. +"You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. +You are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the +treasure-room yesterday evening with your watch in your +hand? Eh? Can't you answer, you pretty fool?" Then +Betty's voice changed. It remained low and quiet, but +hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred. +

+ +

+"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, +Ann? Oh, we both understand very well!" And +Hanaud's hand tightened upon Frobisher's shoulder. +Here was the real key and explanation of Betty's hatred. +Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more, +might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! +Ann Upcott's disappearance would look like a panic-stricken +flight, would have the effect of a confession—no +doubt! But above all these considerations, paramount +in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at once to punish +and rid herself of a rival. +

+ +

+"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my +way!" she said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. +Yes. I had you bound hand and foot and brought here. +The water-lily!" She looked her victim over as she stood +in her delicate bright frock, her white silk stockings and +satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes, Ann! +That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! +That's all the time the arrow-poison takes!" +

+ +

+Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her +white face and ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before. +

+ +

+"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! +Oh!" she would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe +pushed her shoulder gently and she fell back upon the +divan. That Betty had been guilty of that last +infamy—the murder of her benefactress—not until this +moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was +clear to her, too, that there was not the slightest hope +for her. She burst suddenly into a storm of tears. +

+ +

+Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and +watched her closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. +The sound of the girl's sobbing was music in her +ears. She would not let it flag. +

+ +

+"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and +alone," she said in a low voice, bending over her, +"To-morrow Espinosa will put you under one of the stone flags +in the kitchen. But to-night you shall lie just as you +are. Come!" +

+ +

+She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her +arm with one hand and advancing the needle with the +other; and a piercing scream burst from Francine Rollard. +

+ +

+"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It +was open and Hanaud stood upon the threshold. +

+ +

+Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from +her face. She sat like an image of wax, staring at the +open doorway, and a moment afterwards with a gesture +swift as lightning she drove the needle into the flesh of +her own arm and emptied it. +

+ +

+Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to +prevent her, but Hanaud roughly thrust him back. +

+ +

+"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said +with a savage note in his voice, which Jim had not heard +before; and Betty Harlowe dropped the needle on to the +couch, whence it rolled to the floor. +

+ +

+She sprang up now to her full height, her heels +together, her arms outstretched from her sides. +

+ +

+"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with +bravado. "I am safe from you." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously +in her face. +

+ +

+"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill." +

+ +

+Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself. +

+ +

+"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said. +

+ +

+"We shall see." +

+ +

+The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed +across the room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, +Hanaud met her there. +

+ +

+"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He +seized her wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod +towards Francine. "And you, Monsieur Frobisher, will +you release that young lady, if you please!" +

+ +

+Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and +locked her safely away. Jim seized upon the big scissors +and cut the cords about Ann's wrists and ankles, and +unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had flung the +chair from the writing-table into an open space, that +Betty was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had +forced her into the chair and snatched up one of the cords +which Frobisher had dropped upon the floor. When he +had finished his work, he saw that Betty was sitting with +her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to one of the +legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his +handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had +bitten him like a wild animal caught in a trap. +

+ +

+"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning +I met you," Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you +didn't wear a wrist-watch, because you hated things on +your wrists. My apologies! I had forgotten!" +

+ +

+He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand +into the drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box +and removed the lid. +

+ +

+"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!" +

+ +

+He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who +was standing against the wall with a face like death. +

+ +

+"Look!" +

+ +

+There were five white tablets in the box. +

+ +

+"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know +where it was. For I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide +of potassium, my friend! Crunch one of them between +your teeth and—fifteen minutes? Not a bit of it! A +fraction of a second! That's all!" +

+ +

+Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's +ear. "Leave them within her reach!" +

+ +

+His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty +from destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, +and with so desperate a longing that a deep pity softened +Hanaud's eyes. +

+ +

+"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to +Moreau. "There is a cab waiting at the corner of the +Maison Crenelle," and Moreau went in search of it. +Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was sitting upon +the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every +now and then she handled and eased one of her tortured +wrists. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I +owe you an explanation and an apology. I never from +the beginning—no, not for one moment—believed that +you were guilty of the murder of Madame Harlowe. I +was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink +pearls—oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. +I believed every word of the story you told us in the +garden. But none of this dared I shew you. For only +by pretending that I was convinced of your guilt, could I +protect you during this last week in the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort +at a smile. +

+ +

+"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he +continued. "I make it with shame. That you were to be +brought back here to the tender mercies of Mademoiselle +Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to make sure +you should be spared them. But I have never in my life +had a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction +in my own mind, so little proof to put before a court. I +had to have the evidence which I was certain to find in +this room to-night. But I ask you to believe me that if +I had imagined for a moment the cruelty with which +you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this +evidence. I beg you to forgive me." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott held out her hand. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you +I should not be now alive. I should be lying here in the +dark and alone, as it was promised to me, waiting for +Espinosa—and his spade." Her voice broke and she +shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which she +sat. +

+ +

+"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. +"You have youth, as I told you once before. A little +time and——" +

+ +

+The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and +with Moreau came a couple of gendarmes and Girardot +the Commissary. +

+ +

+"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly. +

+ +

+In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of +feet and a woman's voice screaming abuse. It died +away. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," +said Hanaud. +

+ +

+Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted +and sullen, her lips muttering inaudible words. She had +not once looked at Jim Frobisher since he had entered +the room; nor did she now. +

+ +

+Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme +raised her up. But her knees failed beneath her; +she could not stand; her strength and her spirit had left +her. The gendarme picked her up as if she had been a +child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher planted +himself in front of him. +

+ +

+"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and +resonant. "Monsieur Hanaud, you have said just now +that you believed every word of Mademoiselle Ann's +story." +

+ +

+"It is true." +

+ +

+"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered +at half-past ten on the night of the 27th of April. +And at half-past ten Mademoiselle here was at Monsieur +de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free." +

+ +

+Hanaud did not argue the point. +

+ +

+"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if +you please!" +

+ +

+Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then +drew aside. He stood with his eyes closed, and such a +look of misery upon his face as Betty was carried out +that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of condolence: +

+ +

+"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur +Frobisher," he began. +

+ +

+"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at +the first!" Jim cried volubly. +

+ +

+"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked +Hanaud, and Jim was silent. "As it was, Monsieur +Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I know now I +had not the right to take and I told you more than you +think." +

+ +

+He turned away towards Moreau. +

+ +

+"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house +after they have gone and bring the keys here to me." +

+ +

+Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic +syringe, the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of +cord. +

+ +

+"There is something here of importance," Hanaud +observed and, stooping at the writing-table, he picked up +a square, flat-topped black case. "You will recognise +this," he remarked to Jim as he handed it to Girardot. +It was the case of a Corona typewriting machine; and +from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within +the case. +

+ +

+"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the +Commissary. "This pretty room is the factory where all +those abominable letters were prepared. Here the +information was filed away for use; here the letters were +typed; from here they were issued." +

+ +

+"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding +money!" +

+ +

+"Some of them," answered Hanaud. +

+ +

+"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, +and more if she chose to ask for it." +

+ +

+"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with +a shake of the head. "The blackmailer never has enough +money. For no one is so blackmailed." +

+ +

+A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. +They had agreed, he and Hanaud, that there was a gang +involved in all these crimes. It might be that Betty was +of them, yes, even led them, but were they all to go +scot-free? +

+ +

+"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode +this motor-cycle——" +

+ +

+"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice +his accent when you stopped at the fork of the roads in +the Val Terzon? He did not mount his cycle again. No!" +

+ +

+"And the man who carried in the—the sack?" +

+ +

+"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising +young novice. He is now at the Depot. He will never +get that good word from me which was to unlock Paris +for him." +

+ +

+"And Espinosa himself—who was to come here +to-morrow——" he stopped abruptly with his eyes on Ann. +

+ +

+"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went +on. "A fool that fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife +in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud looked at his watch. "It +is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock and key by +now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you +have never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. +Have no fear of that!" +

+ +

+Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to +Hanaud. Hanaud put them into a pocket and went over +to Ann Upcott. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any +questions to-night. To-morrow you will tell me why you +went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It was given out that +you meant to run away. That, of course, was not true. +You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an +account of what happened to you there." +

+ +

+Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she +answered quietly. +

+ +

+"Yes. I will tell you everything." +

+ +

+"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully. +

+ +

+"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you +have had us all locked in." +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on +the girl, and he loved surprises so long as they were of +his own contriving. +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the +truth. This house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart +is very close, as the crow flies, to the Maison Crenelle. +There is one row of houses, the houses of the street of +Charles-Robert, between. It was built by Etienne +Bouchart de Crenelle, President of the Parliament during +the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and +important figure; and he built it, Mademoiselle—this is the +point—at the same time that he built the Maison Crenelle. +Having built it, he installed in it a joyous lady of the +province from which it takes its name—Madame de +Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President +never came visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the +best of reasons. Between this house and the Maison +Crenelle he had constructed a secret passage in that age +of secret passages." +

+ +

+Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to +him for an astuteness which he did not possess. He had +been occupied heart and brain by the events of the +evening, so rapidly had they followed one upon the other, +so little time had they allowed for speculations. +

+ +

+"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked. +

+ +

+"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us +content ourselves with the facts," Hanaud continued. +"After the death of Etienne de Crenelle, at some period +or another the secret of this passage was lost. It is clear, +too, I think that it fell into disrepair and became blocked. +At all events at the end of the eighteenth century, the +Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of +the owner of the Maison Crenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, +discovered the secret. He bought back the Hôtel de +Brebizart, restored the passage and put it to the same use +as old Etienne de Crenelle had done. For here Madame +Raviart came to live during the years before the death +of her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! +My little lecture is over. Let us go!" +

+ +

+He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience +and unlatched the double doors of the big buhl cabinet +in the recess of the wall. A cry of surprise broke from +Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet. The cabinet +was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and +all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one +end and that a flight of steps ran downwards in the +thickness of the wall. +

+ +

+"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. +"Will you take this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first +with Mademoiselle. I will turn out the lights and +follow." +

+ +

+But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew +sharply back. She put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and +steadied herself by it. "I will come with you," she said. +"I am not very steady on my legs." +

+ +

+She laughed her action off but both men understood it. +Jim Frobisher had thought her guilty—guilty of theft +and murder. She shrank from him to the man who had +had no doubt that she was innocent. And even that was +not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply +than any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher +inclined his head in acknowledgment and, pressing the +button of the torch, descended five or six of the narrow +steps. Moreau followed him. +

+ +

+"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up +a switch by the open doors of the cabinet. The room +was plunged in darkness. Guided by the beam of light, +they followed Frobisher on to the steps. Hanaud closed +the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together with +the bolts. +

+ +

+"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be +careful of your heels on these stone steps." +

+ +

+When his head was just below the level of the first +step he called upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. +Then he slid the floor board of the cabinet back into its +place. Beneath this a trap-door hung downwards. +Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place. +

+ +

+"We can go on." +

+ +

+Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. +From that a passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. +Frobisher led the way along the passage until the +foot of another flight of steps was reached. +

+ +

+"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked +of Frobisher, his voice sounding with a strange +hollowness in that tunnel. "You shall tell me." +

+ +

+Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and +Betty had sat in the dark of the perfumed garden and +Ann's eyes had searched this way and that amidst the +gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly: +

+ +

+"Into the garden of the Maison Crenelle." +

+ +

+Hanaud chuckled. +

+ +

+"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?" +

+ +

+Ann's face clouded over. +

+ +

+"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered +and drew her cloak slowly about her shoulders. "Let us +go up and see!" +

+ +

+Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the +top of the steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel. +

+ +

+"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a +light. +

+ +

+Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of +Simon Harlowe's Sedan chair into the treasure room. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Truth
+About the Clock on the Marquetry Cabinet +

+ +

+To the amazement of them all Moreau began to +laugh. Up till now he had been alert, competent +and without expression. Stolidity had been the mark +of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his +sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour +of things was altogether unbearable. Once or twice he +tried to speak, but laughter leapt upon the words and +drowned them. +

+ +

+"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" +Hanaud asked. +

+ +

+"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and +again merriment seized and mastered him. At last two +intelligible words were heard. "We, Girardot," he cried, +settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the bridge of +his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason +of his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases. +

+ +

+"We, Girardot!—We fix the seals upon the doors—And +all the time there is a way in and out under our +nose! These rooms must not be disturbed—No! The +great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to look +at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but +we, Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous +with our linen bands! We, Girardot shall make the +laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes, yes! I think, +we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the trial +is over?" +

+ +

+Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional +for his audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that +night had dulled their appreciation; certainly Moreau had +all the laughter to himself. Jim Frobisher was driven to +the little Louis Quinze clock upon the marquetry cabinet. +He never could for a moment forget it. So much hung +for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild +words she might have used to-night, there was the +incontrovertible testimony of the clock to prove that she had +had no hand whatever in the murder of Mrs. Harlowe. +He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it +with the clock. +

+ +

+"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little +accent of triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past +one——" and suddenly Hanaud was at his side with a +curious air of alertness. +

+ +

+"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a +comparison with his own watch that Frobisher's statement +was correct. "Yes. Twenty-three minutes past one. +That is very fortunate." +

+ +

+He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all +now stood grouped about the cabinet. +

+ +

+"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, +"is to be found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann +used, when the seals were removed from the doors and +she saw this clock again, in the light of day. She was +perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?" +

+ +

+"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me—it seems +to me still—that the clock was somehow placed higher +than it actually is——" +

+ +

+"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!" +

+ +

+He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now +reached twenty-six minutes past one. +

+ +

+"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in +the hall in the dark. For it was in the dark, you will +remember, that Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I +shall turn the lights out here and call you in. When I +do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on and off swiftly, +just as she did it on the night of the 27th of April. Then +I think all will be clear to you." +

+ +

+He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found +it locked with the key upon the inside. +

+ +

+"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to +the Hôtel de Brebizart, this door would be locked." +

+ +

+He turned the key and drew the door towards him. +The hall gaped before them black and silent. Hanaud +stood aside. +

+ +

+"If you please!" +

+ +

+Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated +and cast a look of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities +were to be set at rest. She did not doubt that. This +man had saved her from death when it seemed that nothing +could save her. Her trust in him was absolute. But +her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to +be delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could +be no recovery. Ann Upcott was not a good hater of +Betty's stamp. She shrank from the thought that it was +to be her hand which would deliver that stroke. +

+ +

+"Courage, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann +joined the others in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the +door upon them and returned to the clock. It was +twenty-eight minutes past one. +

+ +

+"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will +just do if I am quick." +

+ +

+Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. +One of the three shivered suddenly so that her teeth +rattled in her mouth. +

+ +

+"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand +within her arm. Ann Upcott had come to the end of +her strength. She clung to his hand spasmodically. +

+ +

+"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you +were cruel to me!" +

+ +

+Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room. +

+ +

+"Come!" +

+ +

+Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. +She threw open the door with a nervous violence. The +treasure-room was pitch dark like the hall. Ann stepped +through the doorway and her fingers reached for the +switch. +

+ +

+"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook. +

+ +

+Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as +suddenly it was black again; and in the darkness rose a +clamour of voices. +

+ +

+"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim. +

+ +

+"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann. +

+ +

+"That is true," Moreau agreed. +

+ +

+Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, +joined in. +

+ +

+"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the +night of the twenty-seventh?" +

+ +

+"Exactly, Monsieur." +

+ +

+"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!" +

+ +

+The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it +sounded like a knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers +refused their service. Once more the conviction forced +itself into her mind. Some irretrievable calamity waited +upon the movement of her hand. +

+ +

+"Courage, Mademoiselle!" +

+ +

+Again the lights shone, and this time they remained +burning. The three witnesses advanced into the room, +and as they looked again, from close at hand and with +a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke from all of them. +

+ +

+There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all. +

+ +

+But high above it in the long mirror before which it +stood there was the reflection of a clock, its white face so +clear and bright that even now it was difficult to disbelieve +that this was the clock itself. And the position of +the hands gave the hour as precisely half-past ten. +

+ +

+"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud. +

+ +

+The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam +mantelpiece and there staring at them, the true hour was +marked. It was exactly half-past one; the long minute +hand pointing to six, the shorter hour hand on the right-hand +side of the figure twelve, half-way between the one +and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all +turned again to the mirror; and the mystery was +explained. The shorter hour-hand seen in the mirror was +on the left-hand side of the figure twelve, and just where +it would have been if the hour had been half-past ten and +the clock actually where its reflection was. The figures +on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to +read. +

+ +

+"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature +to save itself from effort even in the smallest things. We +live with clocks and watches. They are as customary as +our daily bread. And with the instinct to save ourselves +from effort, we take our time from the position of the +hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for +granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the +one swift flash of light she sees the hands upon the clock's +face. Half-past ten! She herself, you will remember, +Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised that the hour was +so early. She was cold, as though she had slept long in +her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept +long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was +half-past one, and Betty Harlowe had been twenty +minutes home from Monsieur de Pouillac's ball." +

+ +

+Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice +which exasperated Frobisher. +

+ +

+"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When +the seals were removed and we entered this room for the +first time, the clock was not upon the mantelshelf but +upon the marquetry cabinet." +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before +luncheon. We entered this room after luncheon. +During the luncheon hours the position of the clock was +changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know +now with what ease that could be done." +

+ +

+"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It +doesn't follow that it was done." +

+ +

+"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer +now one of the questions in your memorandum. What +was it that I saw from the top of the Terrace Tower? +I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the air. +Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its +windows, and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And +there at midday, in all the warmth of late May, the +smoke was rising from the chimney of the sealed room. +There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing! +And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask +yourself that! Who went straight out from the Maison +Crenelle the moment I had gone, and went alone? That +clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters also +had to be burnt." +

+ +

+Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still +occupied his thoughts. His great argument had been +riddled; his one dream of establishing Betty's innocence +in despite of every presumption and fact which could be +brought against her had been dispelled. He dropped on +to a chair. +

+ +

+"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness. +

+ +

+"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe +to me no gifts out of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am +trained—that is all. I have been my twenty minutes in +the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!" He looked +at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager +young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by +the lesson. First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle +Betty was here doing something of great importance. It +may be only burning those letters in the hearth. It may +be more. I must wait and see. Good! There, standing +before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little +remark that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand +yet? No, no! But I am interested. Then I notice a +curious thing, a beautiful specimen of Benvenuto Cellini's +work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf where no +one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the +window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back +to the mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks +upon the wood which had been concealed by the flat case +of the jewel; and those four little marks are just the +marks which the feet of that very pretty Louis Quinze +clock might have made, had it stood regularly there—in +its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry +cabinet so much lower than the mantelshelf is too the +natural place for the Cellini jewel. Every one can see it +there. So I say to myself: 'My good Hanaud, this young +lady has been rearranging her ornaments.' But do I +guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell +you again very humbly, that we are the servants of +Chance. Chance is a good mistress if her servants do not +go to sleep; and she treated me well that afternoon. See! +I am standing in the hall, in great trouble about this case. +For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a big +old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind +me and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I +raise my eyes from the floor and by chance I see in the +mirror the barometer behind me. By chance my attention +is arrested. For I see that the indicator in the +barometer points to stormy weather—which is ridiculous. +I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the +indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the +position of the hand without looking at the letters. If I look +the barometer in the face the hand points to the fair +weather. If I turn my back and look into the mirror the +hand points to the stormy weather. Now indeed I have +it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door, for I +do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, +no, for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But +I take out my watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch +facing the mirror, I open the glass and I move the hands +until in the mirror they seem to mark half-past ten. +Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one. So +now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get +it. For as I unlock the door and open it again, there is +Mademoiselle Betty face to face with me! That young +girl! Even though already I suspect her I get a shock, +I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened +enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask +had slipped from her face. I felt a trickle of ice down +my spine. For out of her beautiful great eyes murder +looked." +

+ +

+He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce +look. "Ugh," he grunted; and he shook himself like +a great dog coming up out of the water. +

+ +

+"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," +he cried in a different voice, "and you are keeping +Mademoiselle from her bed, where she should have been an +hour ago. Come!" +

+ +

+He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on +the lights, locked the door of the treasure-room and +pocketed the key. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," +he said gently to Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in +the house. You have nothing to fear. He will not be +far from your door. Good night." +

+ +

+Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile. +

+ +

+"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she +mounted the stairs slowly, her feet dragging, her body +swaying with her fatigue. +

+ +

+Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher +with a whimsical smile. +

+ +

+"What a pity!" he said. "You—she! No? After +all, perhaps——" and he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher +was growing red and beginning to look "proper"; and the +last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to offend him +in this particular. +

+ +

+"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent +and a gossip. If I err, it is because I wish you very +well. You understand that? Good! Then a further +proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us what +happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house +of Madame Le Vay—everything. I wish you to be present. +You shall know everything. I shall tell you myself +step by step, how my conclusions were reached. All your +questions shall be answered. I shall give you every help, +every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are not even +called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And +when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that +whatever there may be of pain and distress, the Law must +take its course." +

+ +

+It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating +now. The tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries +had gone. He did not even triumph. A dignity +shone out of the man like a strong light, and with it he +was gentle and considerate. +

+ +

+"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim +on an impulse thrust out his hand. +

+ +

+"Good night!" he returned. +

+ +

+Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went +away. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense +of desolation turned back to the hall. He heard the big +iron gates swing to. They had been left open, of course, +he recognised, in the usual way when one of the household +was going to be late. Yes, everything had been +planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. +Here in this house, the servants were all tucked up in +their beds. But for Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at +this very moment have been stealing up these stairs +noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work accomplished. +The servants would have waked to-morrow to the knowledge +that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial. +Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, +would have been received in the treasure-room, would +have found the spade waiting for him in the great +stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart. Oh, yes, all +dangers had been foreseen—except Hanaud. Nay, even +he in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken +telegram had reached Frobisher and Haslitt before +Hanaud had started upon his work. +

+ +

+"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's +door, if you should want me," said Moreau. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections. +

+ +

+"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs +to his room. A lot of use to Betty that telegram had +been, he reflected bitterly! "Where was she to-night?" +he asked, and shut up his mind against the question. +

+ +

+He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken +telegram and nothing else which had brought Betty +Harlowe's plans crashing about her ears. +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Ann Upcott's Story +

+ +

+Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison +Crenelle and made his appointment for the afternoon. +Jim accordingly spent the morning with Monsieur +Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which +was told to him. +

+ +

+"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. +"They can claim the presence of their legal adviser when +they are being examined by the Judge. I will go round +at once to the Prefecture"; with his head erect and his +little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried to +do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged, +however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was +for the moment au secret. She would not come before +the Judge for a couple of days. It was the turn of +Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to be given to the +defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted an +interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before +she was brought up in the Judge's office. +

+ +

+Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet +to find Jim Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim +looked up eagerly, but Monsieur Bex had no words of +comfort. +

+ +

+"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am +not happy. They are all very polite—yes. But they +examine the maid first. That's bad, I tell you," and he +tapped upon the table. "That is Hanaud. He knows +his affair. The servants. They can be made to talk, and +this Francine Rollard——" He shook his head. "I shall +get the best advocate in France." +

+ +

+Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison +Crenelle. It was obvious that nothing of these new and +terrible developments of the "Affaire Waberski" had yet +leaked out. There was not a whisper of it in the streets, +not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison Crenelle. +The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become +a stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her +room that he was removing his luggage to the hotel in +the Place Darcy, and leaving the house to her where he +prayed her to remain. Even at that moment Ann's lips +twitched a little with humour as she read the +embarrassed note. +

+ +

+"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," +she reflected, "and proper enough to make every nerve +of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with delight." +

+ +

+Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the +shade of the sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the +lawn and the bees hummed amongst the roses, Ann +Upcott told a story of terror and darkness, though to a +smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the +story by Hanaud. +

+ +

+"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame +Le Vay's Ball," she began, "except for the anonymous +letter," and Hanaud leaned forward alertly. +

+ +

+The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty +and Jim Frobisher were sitting at dinner. It had been +posted therefore in the middle of the day and very soon +after Ann had told her first story in the garden. Ann +opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed +and a little terrified to read the signature, "The +Scourge." She was more annoyed than ever when she read the +contents, but her terror had decreased. "The Scourge" bade +her attend the Ball. He gave her explicit instructions +that she should leave the ball-room at half-past ten, follow +a particular corridor leading to a wing away from the +reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small +library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a +little while the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. +She was warned to tell no one of her plan. +

+ +

+"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the +letter just a malicious joke quite in accord with 'The +Scourge's' character. I put it back into its envelope. But +I couldn't forget it. Suppose that by any chance there +was something in it—and I didn't go! Why should 'The +Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was +of no importance? And all the while the sort of hope +which no amount of reasoning can crush, kept growing +and growing!" +

+ +

+After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room +and believed it and scorned herself for believing it, +and believed it again. That afternoon she had almost +felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was no chance +which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from +suspicion, however wild it seemed! +

+ +

+Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down +to the treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It +was half-past nine o'clock. Ann determined to wait for +Betty's return, and was once more perplexed by the low +position of the clock upon the marquetry cabinet. She +stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own +watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it +might help her. And indeed it was very likely to. Had +she turned its dial to the mirror behind the clock, the +truth would have leapt at her. But she had not the time. +For a slight movement in the room behind her arrested +her attention. +

+ +

+She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without +doubt it was from within the room that the faint +noise had come. And there was only one place from +which it could have come. Some one was hiding within +the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, +its delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than +frightened. Her first thought was to ring the bell by the +fire-place—she could do that well out of view of the +Sedan chair—and carry on until Gaston answered it. +There were treasures enough in the room to repay a hundred +thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the +bolder line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing +from the back, and then with a rush planted herself +in front of the glass doors. +

+ +

+She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in +front of the doors was down, the doors were open, and +leaning back upon the billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. +She sat quite still, still as an image even after +Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but she +was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out +of the darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a +curious shock. +

+ +

+"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; +and if ever there had been a chance that she would relent, +that chance was gone for ever now. She had come up +out of the secret passage to find Ann playing with her +watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an explanation +of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it—so +very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence +pronounced in those words, "I have been watching you." And +though she did not understand the menace they conveyed, +there was something in the slow, steady utterance +of them which a little unnerved her. +

+ +

+"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice." +

+ +

+Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous +letter from her hand. +

+ +

+"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked. +

+ +

+"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I +should. I shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that +there's any suspicion upon you." +

+ +

+Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house +of mourning might appear an outrage. +

+ +

+"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go +privately, just before the time. I have no doubt we can +arrange it all. But of course it's your affair." +

+ +

+"Why should the Scourge help me?" +

+ +

+"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty +reasoned. "I imagine that he's attacking other people, +and using you." She read through the letter again. "He +has always been right, hasn't he? That's what would +determine me in your place. But I don't want to interfere." +

+ +

+Ann spun round on her heel. +

+ +

+"Very well. I shall go." +

+ +

+"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as +if to tear it. +

+ +

+"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it +"I don't know Madame Le Vay's house very well. I +might easily lose my way without the instructions. I +must take it with me." +

+ +

+Betty agreed and handed the letter back. +

+ +

+"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw +herself heart and soul into the necessary arrangements. +

+ +

+She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself +help Ann to dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. +She wrote a letter to Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's +second son and one of Betty's most indefatigable +courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept that +letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity +in her plot. For Betty used to him the same argument +which had persuaded Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly +that suspicion had centred upon Ann Upcott and that it +was necessary that she should get away secretly. +

+ +

+"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. +"Ann will come late. She is to meet the friends who will +help her—it is best that you should know as little as +possible about them—in the little library. If you will keep +the corridor clear for a little while, they can get out by +the library doors into the park and be in Paris the next +morning." +

+ +

+She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann +and said, "I will send this by a messenger to-morrow +morning, with orders to deliver it into Michel's own +hands. Now how are you to go?" +

+ +

+Over that point the two girls had some discussion. +It would be inviting Hanaud's interference if the big +limousine were ordered out. What more likely than that +he should imagine Ann meant to run away and that +Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would +not do. +

+ +

+"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call +for you. You will be ready to slip out. She shall stop +her car for a second outside the gates. It will be quite +dark. You'll be away in a flash." +

+ +

+"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back. +

+ +

+It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite +and fastidious in her own looks and bearing, should have +found her friends amongst the flamboyant and the cheap. +But she would rather throne it amongst her inferiors +than take her place amongst her equals. Under her +reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. +The desire to be courted, admired, looked up to as a +leader and a chief, burned within her like a raging flame. +Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of satellites—a big, +red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without +good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society +of the town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but +distrusted her. She had a feeling that there was something +indefinably wrong in her very nature. +

+ +

+"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. +"That's why I named her. I know that she is going to +Madame Le Vay's dance." +

+ +

+Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to +Jeanne Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call +at the Maison Crenelle at an early hour in the morning; +and Jeanne Leclerc came and was closeted with Betty for +an hour between nine and ten. Thus all the arrangements +were made. +

+ +

+It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's +explanations. +

+ +

+"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young +brother to be accounted for." +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight +noise in the treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe +seated in the Sedan chair," Hanaud replied. "Betty +Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de Brebizart, +whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark +and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison +Crenelle.... From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa +went to the Rue Gambetta and waited for Jean Cladel. It +was a busy night, that one, my friends. That old wolf, +the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They +could hear him. They had no time to waste!" +

+ +

+The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim +remembered. It was because Betty was helping Ann to +dress, Francine having been given her holiday. Jim and +Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann Upcott +stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her +pretty dress. She held the front door a little open, and +the moment Jeanne Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, +she flashed across the courtyard. Jeanne had the door of +her car open. It had hardly stopped before it went on +again. Jim, as the story was told, remembered vividly +Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and the +immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed +and the car moved forward out of the street of +Charles-Robert. Ann Upcott had gone for good from the Maison +Crenelle. She would not interfere with Betty Harlowe +any more. +

+ +

+Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le +Vay's house a few minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay +came forward to meet them. +

+ +

+"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said +to Ann, "but you are late. Madame my mother has left +her place at the door of the ball-room, but we shall find +her later." +

+ +

+He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away +they were joined by Espinosa. +

+ +

+"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. +"No, not yet! Then Señor Espinosa will take you to +the buffet while I look after others of our guests." +

+ +

+He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter +of high voices competed with the music of the band. +Espinosa conducted the two ladies to the buffet. There +was hardly anybody in the room. +

+ +

+"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low +voice. "We shall take some coffee." +

+ +

+But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her +feet danced, her hands could not keep still. Was the +letter a trick? Would she, indeed, within the next few +minutes learn the truth? At one moment her heart sank +into her shoes, at another it soared. +

+ +

+"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa +urgently. "And it is good." +

+ +

+"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne +Leclerc. "You will send me home, won't you? I shall +not wait—afterwards." +

+ +

+"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is +arranged. The chauffeur has his orders. You will take +your coffee, dear?" +

+ +

+Again Ann would not +

+ +

+"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I +went." She caught a swift and curious interchange of +glances between Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa, but she +was in no mood to seek an interpretation. There could +be no doubt that the coffee set before her had had some +drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it from +the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug +which would have half stupefied her and made her easy +to manage. But she was not to be persuaded, and she rose +to her feet. +

+ +

+"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, +leaving her two companions together. She did not return +to the buffet. +

+ +

+On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor +stretched out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding +it, stood Michel Le Vay. He made a sign to her, and +when she joined him: +

+ +

+"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a +low voice. "The small library is in front of you." +

+ +

+Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the +house which was quite deserted and silent. At the end +of it a shut door confronted her. She opened it softly. +It was all dark within. But enough light entered from +the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged +against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some +dark, heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, +to come to the tryst. She closed the door behind her and +moved slowly and cautiously forwards with her hands +outstretched, until she felt the curtains yield. She passed +in between them into the recess of a great bow window +opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, creaking +sound, brought her heart into her mouth. +

+ +

+Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody +had been quietly watching as she came in from the +lighted corridor. The sound grew louder. Ann peered +between the curtains, holding them apart with shaking +hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague +twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near +to the door, high up on a tall bookcase, something was +clinging—something was climbing down. Whoever it +was, had been hiding behind the ornamental top of the +heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves +like the rungs of a ladder. +

+ +

+Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her +throat. She ran for the door. But she was too late. A +black figure dropped from the book-case to the ground +and, as Ann reached out her hands to the door, a scarf +was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was +jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched +the light switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, +the room was lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, +driving the breath out of her lungs, and knotted the scarf +tightly at the back of her head. Ann tried to lift herself, +and recognised with a gasp of amazement that the assailant +who pinned her down by the weight of her body and +the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic +gave place to anger and a burning humiliation. She +fought with all the strength of her supple body. But the +scarf about her mouth stifled and weakened her, and with +a growing dismay she understood that she was no match +for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two, +but her height did not avail her; she was like a child +matched with a wildcat. Francine's hands were made of +steel. She snatched Ann's arms behind her back and +bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards, her bosom +labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must +burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and +tied her by the ankles. +

+ +

+Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran +to the door, opened it a little way and beckoned. Then +she dragged her prisoner up on to a couch, and Jeanne +Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the room. +

+ +

+"It's done?" said Espinosa. +

+ +

+Francine laughed. +

+ +

+"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should +have given her the coffee. Then she would have walked +with us. Now she must be carried. She's wicked, I can +tell you." +

+ +

+Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face +to hide the gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held +her up, set her white cloak about her shoulders and +fastened it in front. Espinosa then turned out the light +and drew back the curtains. +

+ +

+The room was at the back of the house. In the front +of the window the park stretched away. But it was the +park of a French château, where the cattle feed up to the +windows, and only a strip about the front terrace is +devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns. Espinosa +looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, +and cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night +like ghosts. He opened the window, and the throb of +the music from the ball-room came faintly to their ears. +

+ +

+"We must be quick," said Espinosa. +

+ +

+He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out +into the park. They left the window open behind them, +and between them they carried their prisoner across the +grass, keeping where it was possible in the gloom of the +trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a motorcar +waited half-way between the house and the gates. A +blur of light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in +front of it became visible away upon their left, but here +all was dark. Once or twice they stopped and set Ann +upon her feet, and held her so, while they rested. +

+ +

+"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling +an oath, he stopped again. They were on the edge of the +drive now, and just ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a +white dress and close to it the glow of a cigarette. +Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her against +a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the +truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk +to Ann, nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively +story. Espinosa's heart stood still as he heard the man +say: +

+ +

+"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. +Shall we see?" +

+ +

+But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the +white dress caught him by the arm. +

+ +

+"That would not be very tactful," she said with a +laugh. "Let us do as we would be done by," and the +couple sauntered past. +

+ +

+Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! +Let us go!" he whispered in a shaking voice. +

+ +

+A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed +car hidden in a little alley which led from the main drive. +They placed Ann in the car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside +her, and Espinosa took the wheel. As they took the road +to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck eleven. Within +the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann +Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it +underneath her feet. At the branch road young Espinosa +was waiting with his motor-cycle and side-car. +

+ +

+"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," +said Hanaud when she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay +went later into the library, and bolted the window again, +believing you to be well upon your way to Paris. Second, +Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they returned +to Madame Le Vay's ball." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: What Happened
+on the Night of the 27th +

+ +

+"We are not yet quite at the end," said Hanaud, as +he sat with Frobisher for awhile upon the lawn +after Ann Upcott had gone in. "But we are near to it. +There is still my question to be answered. 'Why was the +communicating door open between the bedroom of +Madame Harlowe and the treasure-room on the night +when Ann Upcott came down the stairs in the dark?' When +we know that, we shall know why Francine Rollard +and Betty Harlowe between them murdered Madame +Harlowe." +

+ +

+"Then you believe Francine Rollard had a hand in +that crime too?" asked Jim. +

+ +

+"I am sure," returned Hanaud. "Do you remember +the experiment I made, the little scene of reconstruction? +Betty Harlowe stretched out upon the bed to represent +Madame, and Francine whispering 'That will do now'?" +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+Hanaud lit a cigarette and smiled. +

+ +

+"Francine Rollard would not stand at the side of the +bed. No! She would stand at the foot and whisper +those simple but appalling words. But nowhere else. +That was significant, my friend. She would not stand +exactly where she had stood when the murder was +committed." He added softly, "I have great hopes of +Francine Rollard. A few days of a prison cell and that +untamed little tiger-cat will talk." +

+ +

+"And what of Waberski in all this?" Jim exclaimed. +

+ +

+Hanaud laughed and rose from his chair. +

+ +

+"Waberski? He is for nothing in all this. He brought +a charge in which he didn't believe, and the charge +happened to be true. That is all." He took a step or two +away and returned. "But I am wrong. That is not all. +Waberski is indeed for something in all this. For when +he was pressed to make good his charge and must rake +up some excuse for it somehow, by a piece of luck he +thinks of a morning when he saw Betty Harlowe in the +street of Gambetta near to the shop of Jean Cladel. And +so he leads us to the truth. Yes, we owe something to +that animal Boris Waberski. Did I not tell you, +Monsieur, that we are all the servants of Chance?" +

+ +

+Hanaud went from the garden and for three days Jim +Frobisher saw him no more. But the development which +Monsieur Bex feared and for which Hanaud hoped took +place, and on the third day Hanaud invited Jim to his +office in the Prefecture. +

+ +

+He had Jim's memorandum in his hand. +

+ +

+"Do you remember what you wrote?" he asked. +"See!" He pushed the memorandum in front of Jim +and pointed to a paragraph. +

+ +


+ +

+"But in the absence of any trace of poison in the dead +woman's body, it is difficult to see how the criminal can +be brought to justice except by: +

+ +

+"(a) A confession. +

+ +

+"(b) The commission of another crime of a similar +kind. +

+ +

+"Hanaud's theory—once a poisoner, always a poisoner." +

+ +


+ +

+Frobisher read it through. +

+ +

+"Now that is very true," said Hanaud. "Never have +I come across a case more difficult. At every step we +break down. I think I have my fingers on Jean Cladel. +I am five minutes too late. I think that I shall get some +useful evidence from a firm in Paris. The firm has +ceased to be for the last ten years. All the time I strike +at air. So I must take a risk—yes, and a serious one. +Shall I tell you what that risk was? I have to assume +that Mademoiselle Ann will be brought alive to the Hôtel +de Brebizart on that night of Madame Le Vay's ball. +That she would be brought back I had no doubt. For +one thing, there could be no safer resting-place for her +than under the stone flags of the kitchen there. For +another, there was the portmanteau in the side-car. It +was not light, the portmanteau. Some friends of mine +watched it being put into the side-car before young +Espinosa started for his rendezvous. I have no doubt it +weighed just as many kilos as Mademoiselle Ann." +

+ +

+"I never understood the reason of that portmanteau," +Frobisher interrupted. +

+ +

+"It was a matter of timing. There were twenty-five +kilometres of a bad track, with many sharp little twists +between the Val Terzon and the Hôtel de Brebizart. And +a motor-cycle with an empty side-car would take +appreciably longer to cover the distance than a cycle with +a side-car weighted, which could take the corners at its +top speed. They were anxious to get the exact time the +journey would take with Ann Upcott in the side-car, so +that there might be no needless hanging about waiting +for its arrival. But they were a little too careful. Our +friend Boris said a shrewd thing, didn't he? Some crimes +are discovered because the alibis are too unnaturally +perfect. Oh, there was no doubt they meant to bring back +Mademoiselle Ann! But suppose they brought her back +dead! It wasn't likely—no! It would be so much easier +to finish her off with a dose of the arrow-poison. No +struggle, no blood, no trouble at all. I reckoned that +they would dope her at Madame Le Vay's ball and bring +her back half conscious, as indeed they meant to do. But +I shivered all that evening at the risk I had taken, and +when that cycle shut off its engine, as we stood in the +darkness of the gallery, I was in despair." +

+ +

+He shook his shoulders uncomfortably as though the +danger was not yet passed. +

+ +

+"Anyway, I took the risk," he resumed, "and so we +got fulfilled your condition (b). The commission or, in +this case, the attempted commission of another crime of +the same kind." +

+ +

+Frobisher nodded. +

+ +

+"But now," said Hanaud, leaning forward, "we have +got your condition (a) fulfilled—a confession; a clear +and complete confession from Francine Rollard, and so +many admissions from the Espinosas, and Jeanne Leclerc +and Maurice Thevenet, that they amount to confessions. +We have put them all together, and here is the new part +of the case with which Monsieur Bex and you will have +to deal—the charge not of murder attempted but of +murder committed—the murder of Madame Harlowe." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher was upon the point of interrupting, but +he thought better of it. +

+ +

+"Go on!" he contented himself with saying. +

+ +

+"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous +letters, Monsieur—who shall say? The dulness of life +for a girl young and beautiful and passionate in a +provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The craving +for excitement? Something bad and vicious and +abnormal born in her, part of her, and craving more and +more expression as she grew in years? The exacting +attendance upon Madame? Probably all of these elements +combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly it +became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in +Madame Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years +old from the firm of Chapperon, builders, of the Rue +de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the way, saw an +unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth +of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the +existence of the hidden passage between the treasure-room +and the Hôtel de Brebizart. For it was the bill +of the builders who had repaired it at the order of Simon +Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging to +Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de +Brebizart made the game easy and safe. But as the +opportunity grew, so did the desire. Betty Harlowe tasted +power. She took one or two people into her confidence—her +maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, +and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage—and once +started the circle grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of +Betty Harlowe, you understand! She, the little queen, +became the big slave. She must provide Thevenet with +his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his house, Jeanne +Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters +become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet +knows the police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne +Leclerc has a—friend, shall we say?—in the Director of +an Insurance Company, and, believe me, for a blackmailer +nothing is more important than to know accurately the +financial resources of one's—let us say, clients. Thus the +game went merrily on until money was wanted and it +couldn't be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. +There was no one for the moment to exploit. Yes, one +person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the justice to believe +that the suggestion came from that promising young +novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, +Monsieur Frobisher?" +

+ +

+Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, +led up to it though he had been by Hanaud's exposition. +

+ +

+"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, +and, as Jim Frobisher started back in a horror of +disbelief, he continued: "Yes, it is so! Madame Harlowe +received a letter at dinner-time, just as Ann Upcott did, +on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She took +her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That +letter was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who +remembers it very well. It demanded a large sum of money, +and something was said about a number of passionate +letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have +published—not too much, you understand, but enough to +make it clear that the liaison of Madame Raviart and +Simon Harlowe was not a secret from the Scourge. I'll +tell you something else which will astonish you, Monsieur +Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne +Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to +say good night and show herself in her new dance frock +of silver tissue and her silver slippers. It was no wonder +that Betty Harlowe lost her head a little when I set my +little trap for her in the library and pretended that I did +not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin +after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't +one idea what a very unpleasant little trap it was!" +

+ +

+"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If +Madame Harlowe showed this letter first of all to Jeanne +Baudin, and afterwards to Betty Harlowe in Jeanne +Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin speak of it +at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski +brought his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept +silent!" +

+ +

+"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne +Baudin is a good and decent girl. For her, Madame +Harlowe had died a natural death in her sleep, the very form +in which death might be expected to come for her. +Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's +accusation. Why should she rake up old scandals? She +herself proposed to Betty Harlowe to say nothing about +the anonymous letter." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted +it. "Yes, I see her point of view," he admitted, and +Hanaud continued his narrative. +

+ +

+"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the +Boulevard Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. +Jeanne Baudin has finished her offices for the night. +Madame Harlowe is alone. What does she do? Drink? +For that night—no! She sits and thinks. Were there +any of the letters which passed between her and Simon +Harlowe, before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still +existing? She had thought to have destroyed them all. +But she was a woman, she might have clutched some +back. If there were any, where would they be? Why +in that house at the end of the secret passage. Some +such thoughts must have passed through her mind. For +she rose from her bed, slipped on her dressing-gown and +shoes, unlocked the communicating door between her and +the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the +empty Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, +Monsieur? A room in daily use, a bundle of her letters +ready in the top drawer of her Empire writing-table, and +on the writing-table Simon's Corona machine, and the +paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. Monsieur, +there is only one person who can have access to that +room, the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her +exacting way she no doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock +that night Francine Rollard is startled by the entrance of +Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a moment +Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She +was very quickly better informed. She was told to get +up, to watch for Betty Harlowe's return and to bring her +immediately to Madame Harlowe's bedroom. At one +o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark hall. As +Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives +her the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet +how much of their villainies has been discovered. But +something at all events. Betty Harlowe bade Francine +wait and ran upstairs silently to her room. Betty +Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been +playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had +the arrow-poison ready—yes, ready for herself. She +filled her hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in +the palm of her glove she went to confront her +benefactress. +

+ +

+"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman +whose romance and tragedy were to be exploited blurting +out her fury in front of Francine Rollard. It wasn't +Waberski who was to be stripped to the skin—no, but +the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver slippers. +You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under +the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison +to destroy herself when she can save everything—fortune, +liberty, position—by murder? Only she must be +quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts of violence. +Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne Baudin, +some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a +moment the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is +flung back upon her bed. Her mouth is covered and held +by Francine Rollard. The needle does its work. 'That +will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the door +of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, +unable to identify the voice which whispered, just +as you and I were unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice +which whispered to us from the window of Jean Cladel's +house, but taking deep into her memory the terrible +words. And neither of the murderesses knew it. +

+ +

+"They go calmly about their search for the letters. +They cannot find them, because Madame had pushed them +into the coffer of old bills and papers. They rearrange +the bed, they compose their victim in it as if she were +asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget +to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the +Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the +arrow-poison and the needle to put in some safe place, +and where else is safe? In the end when every care has +been taken that not a scrap of incriminating evidence is +left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps +up the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and +Ann Upcott waking, stretches up her hands and touches +her face. +

+ +

+"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is +what you would call the case for the Crown. It is the +case which you and Monsieur Bex have to meet." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things +which he had almost said at the beginning of this +interview. +

+ +

+"I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told +me. I shall give him every assistance that I personally or +my firm can give. But I have no longer any formal +connection with the defence." +

+ +

+Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity. +

+ +

+"I don't understand, Monsieur. This is not the +moment to renounce a client." +

+ +

+"Nor do I," rejoined Frobisher. "It is the other way +about. Monsieur Bex put it to me very—how shall I +say?" +

+ +

+Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his +lips. +

+ +

+"Very correctly." +

+ +

+"He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see +me again." +

+ +

+Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation +evident in Frobisher's voice and face moved him. He +said very gently, "I can understand that, can't you? She +has fought for a great stake all this last week, her liberty, +her fortune, her good name—and you. Oh, yes," he +continued, as Jim stirred at the table. "Let us be frank! +And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from +her friends. From the earliest moment she set her +passions upon you. Do you remember the first morning I +came to the Maison Crenelle? You promised Ann Upcott +to put up there though you had just refused the same +invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy +blazed in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a +clatter in the hall lest she should recognise that I could not +but have discovered her secret. Well, having fought for +this stake and lost, she would not wish to see you. You +had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by the legs +like a sheep. I understand her very well." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment +Hanaud burst into the room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, +Betty had never once even looked at him. He got up +from his chair and took up his hat and stick. +

+ +

+"I must go back to my partner in London with this +story as soon as I have told it to Monsieur Bex," he +said. "I should like it complete. When did you first +suspect Betty Harlowe?" +

+ +

+Hanaud nodded. +

+ +

+"That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don't thank me! I am +not so sure that I should be so ready with all these +confidences, if I was not certain what the verdict in the Assize +Court must be. I shall gather up for you the threads +which are still loose, but not here." +

+ +

+He looked at his watch. +

+ +

+"See, it is past noon! We shall once more have +Philippe Le Bon's Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may +be, too, that we shall see Mont Blanc across all the +leagues of France. Come! Let us take your +memorandum and go there." +

+ +




+ +

+ +

+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Façade of Notre Dame +

+ +

+For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day +without mist or clouds, and the towering silver ridge +hung in the blue sky distinct and magical. Hanaud lit +one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly turned away +from it. +

+ +

+"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One +at the very beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very +end by me, and of the two mine was the least excusable. +Let us begin, therefore, at the beginning. Madame +Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; Betty +Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks +her for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should +she not? Ah, but she must have been very sorry a week +later that she snapped her the fingers! For suddenly he +flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was poisoned by her +niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when she +heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! +But it is also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing +can touch her. Now suddenly her head is loose upon her +neck. She is frightened. She is questioned in the +examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has nothing +against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip. +But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she +has done the murder. Her danger is not any evidence +which Waberski can bring, but just herself. In two days +she is still more frightened, for she hears that Hanaud is +called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake. She +sends a telegram to you in London." +

+ +

+"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly. +

+ +

+"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does +Betty Harlowe know that Hanaud has been called in?' +Oh, to be sure, I made a great fluster in my office about +the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon. But I did not +believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious about +Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, +we come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown +me that telegram." +

+ +

+"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he +added slowly, "that she put out her hand on the window +sill—yes, as if to steady herself." +

+ +

+"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with +a nod of appreciation. "She must account for that +telegram. She cannot tell me that Maurice Thevenet sent a +hurried word to her. No! So when I ask her if she +has ever received one of these anonymous letters—which, +remember, were my real business in Dijon—she says at +once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which +told me that Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris +to make an end of me.' That was quick, eh? Yes, but I +know it is a lie. For it was not until the Sunday evening +that any question of my being sent for arose at all. You +see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked +her for the letter. She does not say that she has +destroyed it, lest I should at once believe that she never +received any such letter at all. On the contrary she says +that it is in the treasure-room which is sealed up, knowing +quite well that she can write it and place it there by way +of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed. +But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must +have received it on the Sunday morning, since it was +on the Sunday morning that the seals were affixed. She +did not know when it was first proposed to call me in. +She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is +lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty +Harlowe." +

+ +

+He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him +with a look of horror in his eyes. +

+ +

+"It was I then who put you on her track?—I who +came out to defend her!" he cried. "For it was I who +showed you the telegram." +

+ +

+"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered +if Betty Harlowe had been, as you believed her, innocent," +Hanaud replied gravely; and Frobisher was silent. +

+ +

+"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, +I went over the house whilst you and Betty talked +together in the library!" +

+ +

+"Yes," said Jim. +

+ +

+"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found +something which interested me at the first glance. Now +tell me what it was!" and he cocked his head at Jim with +the hope that his riddle would divert him from his +self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded. +

+ +

+"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost +of a smile. "It was the treatise on Sporanthus." +

+ +

+"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves +no trace! Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. +Who would be the first poisoner to use it? How should I +cope with him and prove that it brought no more security +than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are questions which +have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a +house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, +I find a dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away +under a pile of magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. +I tell you I was staggered. What was it doing there? +How did it come there? I see a note upon the cover, +indicating a page. I turn to the page and there, staring at +me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect specimen +of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are +at once forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, +without knowing it, were right, and Madame Harlowe was +murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I must find that out. +I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my waistcoat and +I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. Is +Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus +Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from +Madame Harlowe's death? Or did she perhaps not know +at all that the treatise was under that pile of magazines +upon the table at the side? I do not know, and my head +is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked look of +Betty Harlowe at her friend—Monsieur, a revealing look! +I have not the demure and simple young lady of convention +to deal with at all. No. I go away from the Maison +Crenelle, still more curious about Betty Harlowe." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side. +

+ +

+"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously. +

+ +

+"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder. +

+ +

+"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately +after you left the Maison Crenelle that day you had the +sergent-de-ville removed from its gates?" +

+ +

+"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered +imperturbably. "The sergent-de-ville in his white trousers +was an absurdity—worse than that, an actual hindrance. +There is little use in watching people who know that they +are being watched. So I remove the sergent-de-ville and +now I can begin really to watch those young ladies of +the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst +Monsieur Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, +Betty Harlowe goes out for a walk, is discreetly followed +by Nicolas Moreau—and vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. +He must not press too close upon her heels. She +was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de +Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the +wall which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that +she vanished. There was the anonymous letter to be +written, ready for me to receive when the seals of the +treasure-room were broken. But I don't know that yet. +No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for +a walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another +street. Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far +as I can how these young ladies pass their lives and who +are their friends. An examination not very productive, +and not altogether futile. For I find some curious friends +in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe this, Monsieur! +Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, literary, +what you will—in their case curious friends mean +nothing! They are to be expected. But with a young girl +who is to all appearance leading the normal life of her +class, the case is different. In her case curious friends +are—curious. The Espinosas, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne +Leclerc—flashy cheap people of that type—how shall we +account for them as friends of that delicate piece of china, +Betty Harlowe?" +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a +trifle disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa +and Betty Harlowe. +

+ +

+"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent +so pleasantly in the cool of the garden with the young +ladies, I spent with the Edinburgh Professor. And I +prepared a little trap. Yes, and the next morning I came +early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little trap. I +replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its +obvious place." +

+ +

+Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black +cigarette from his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to +Jim. +

+ +

+"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; +and he tells me that queer story about Betty Harlowe in +the street of Gambetta close to the shop of Jean Cladel. +He may be lying. He may be speaking the truth and +what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits +in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which +is now taking hold of me. For if that poison was used, +then some one who understood the composition of drugs +must have made the solution from the paste upon the +arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe! +And the moment that animal has left me, I spring +my trap; and I have a success beyond all my expectations. +I point to the treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was +not in its place yesterday. It is to-day. Who then +replaced it? I ask that question and Mademoiselle Ann is +utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that book. +That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On +the other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has +replaced that book; and in a most unwise moment of +sarcasm, she allows me to see that she knows. She knows +that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it since and +replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she +knows where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I +know it in my heart that she put it under those magazines +in Ann Upcott's room, although I do not yet know +it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to divert +suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should +suspicion arise. But innocent people do not do that, +Monsieur. +

+ +

+"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann +tells us her story. Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you +immediately afterwards that all great criminals who are +women are great actresses. But never in my life have I +seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while +that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel +murder has been secretly committed and suddenly the +murderess has to listen to a true account of that murder +in the presence of the detective who is there to fix the +guilt! There was some one at hand all the time—almost +an eye-witness—perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she +cannot know that she is safe until the last word of the +story is told. Picture to yourself Betty Harlowe's +feelings during that hour in the pleasant garden, if you can! +The questions which must have been racing through her +mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and +peer through the lighted doorway? Does she know the +truth—and has she kept it hidden until this moment when +Hanaud and Frobisher are present and she can speak it +safely? Will her next words be 'And here at my side sits +the murderess'? Those must have been terrible moments +for Betty Harlowe!" +

+ +

+"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher +added. +

+ +

+"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She +ran suddenly and very swiftly into the house." +

+ +

+"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her." +

+ +

+"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go +and she returned——" +

+ +

+"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher +interrupted. +

+ +

+"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud +exclaimed. "She turned her chair towards Mademoiselle +Ann. She sat with her handkerchief in her hand and her +face against her handkerchief, listening—the tender, +sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann told us +that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness +overtook her—could not but overtake her. And in that +moment of weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, +she picked it up again at once. Yes, but where the +handkerchief had fallen her foot now rested, and when the +story was all ended, and we got up from our chairs, she +spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that +there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was +anxious to discover what it was that she had brought out +from the house in her handkerchief, and had dropped with +her handkerchief and had driven with all the weight of +her body into the turf so that no one might see it. In +fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come +back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She +fetched my gloves herself, much to my shame that I, +Hanaud, should be waited on by so exquisite a young lady. +However, I found it afterwards when you and Girardot +and the others were all waiting for me in the library. It +was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed +to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much +Ann Upcott was going to reveal. The arrow-poison had +been hidden away in the Hôtel de Brebizart. But she had +something else at hand—more rapid—death like a thunderbolt. +So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, Monsieur, +it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close +to her mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. +What I do wonder is that she did not topple straight off +her chair in a dead faint before us all. But no! She sat +ready to swallow that tablet at once if there were need, +before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to you, +people who are innocent do not do that." +

+ +

+Jim had no argument wherewith to answer. +

+ +

+"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got +the tablets no doubt from Jean Cladel." +

+ +

+"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated +for luncheon and in the afternoon the seals are to +be removed. Before that takes place, certain things must +be done. The clock must be moved from the mantelshelf +in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some +letters too must be burnt." +

+ +

+"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly. +

+ +

+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. +

+ +

+"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For +my part I think those old letters between Simon Harlowe +and Madame Raviart alluded too often to the secret passage. +But here I am guessing. What I learnt for certain +during that luncheon hour is that there is a secret passage +and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel de +Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no +mistake. He follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I +from this tower see the smoke rising from the chimney. +Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no smoke rises from it +to-day." +

+ +

+He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont +Blanc. The trees in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned +roof, and the chimneys of the Maison Crenelle stood out +above the lesser buildings which surrounded them. Only +from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise to-day, and +that one at the extreme end of the building where the +kitchens were. +

+ +

+"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are +removed. We are in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and +something I cannot explain occurs." +

+ +

+"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher +exclaimed confidently; and Hanaud grinned joyfully. +

+ +

+"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" +he cried. "The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared +for that. The guilt is being transferred to Mademoiselle +Ann. Good! But it is not enough to hide the book +about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide her +also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle +inherits nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a +hundred thousand pounds vanishes, and you must draw from +its vanishing what conclusion you will. No, the little +matter I cannot explain is different. Betty Harlowe and +our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom +to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not +be heard there." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"Our good Girardot comes back." +

+ +

+"Yes." +

+ +

+"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot +explain. Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before +I go into the treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and +quietly she has slipped in amongst us again. I am very +curious about that, my friend, and I keep my eyes open +for an explanation, I assure you." +

+ +

+"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with +your hand upon the door and asked for Mademoiselle +Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. I attached no +importance to her absence." +

+ +

+Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was +in the artist's mood. The work was over, the long strain +and pain of it. Now let those outside admire! +

+ +

+"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, +Monsieur Frobisher. But I answer a question in your +memorandum. The instant I am in the room, I look for +the mouth of that secret passage from the Hôtel de +Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. The +elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the +wall. So I am very careful not to pry amongst its +cushions for the poison arrow; just as I am very careful +not to ask for the envelope with the post mark in which +the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe thinks +that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud—good! +Let her think so. So we go upstairs and I find the +explanation of that little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence +which has been so troubling me." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher stared at him. +

+ +

+"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into +Ann Upcott's sitting-room. I write my memorandum +with the shaft of the poison arrow and you notice it +Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's absence! No, I +haven't got that." +

+ +

+"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was +not there in the pen-tray on the day before, when I found +the book. There was just one pen—the foolish thing +young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed red—and +nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there +since. When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where +was that shaft of the poison-arrow before? In one of +two places. Either in the treasure-room or in the Hôtel +de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has fetched it away during +that hour of freedom; she carries it in her dress; she seizes +her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's +bedroom and—pau, pau!—there it is in the pen-tray of +Mademoiselle Ann, to make suspicion still more +convincing! Monsieur, I walk away with Monsieur Bex, who +has some admirable scheme that I should search the +gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree—oh yes, +that is the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On +the other hand I get some useful information about the +Maison Crenelle and the Hôtel de Brebizart. I carry +that information to a very erudite gentleman in the Palace +of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I +know all about the severe Etienne de Crenelle and the +joyous Madame de Brebizart. So when you and Betty +Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val Terzon, Nicolas +Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de +Brebizart—with the results which now are clear to you, and one of +which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in +the drawer of the writing-table." +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the +story was clear to him now—a story of dark passions and +vanity, and greed of power with cruelties for its methods. +Was there no spark of hope and cheer in all this desolation? +He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He wished to +know the last hidden detail. +

+ +

+"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. +What was it?" +

+ +

+"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the +façade of the Church of Notre Dame." +

+ +

+"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking +towards the Maison Crenelle, and his arm swept to +the left of the house. His fingers pointed at the +Renaissance church with its cupolas and its loggia, to which +Betty Harlowe had driven him. +

+ +

+"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief +of the Last Judgment." +

+ +

+"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church +of St. Michel, Monsieur." +

+ +

+He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont +Blanc, close at his feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic +church, delicate in its structure like a jewel. +

+ +

+"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down +and look at the façade." +

+ +

+Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and +pointed to the frieze. There Frobisher saw such images +of devils half beast, half human, such grinning hog-men, +such tortured creatures with heads twisted round so that +they looked backwards, such old and drunken and vicious +horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and +amongst them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, +her hands tightly clasped, an image of terror and faith, +a prisoner amongst all these monsters imploring the +passers-by for their pity and their help. +

+ +

+"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to +see," said Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it." +

+ +

+His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. +He lifted his hat. +

+ +

+Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that +frieze, heard Ann Upcott's voice behind him. +

+ +

+"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur +Hanaud?" She stopped beside the two men. +

+ +

+"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher +to explain to you." +

+ +

+Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly +towards Hanaud. But already he was gone. +

+ +



+ +

+THE END +

+ +





+ +
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