"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.
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.
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.
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.