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.