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?"