The detective's hand fell softly upon Frobisher's shoulder warning
him to silence; and this warning was needed. The lustres of the big
glass chandelier were so many flashing jewels; the mirrors of the
girandoles multiplied their candle-lamps; the small gay room was
ablaze; and in the glare Betty stood and laughed. Her white
shoulders rose from a slim evening frock of black velvet; from her
carefully dressed copper hair to her black satin shoes she was as
trim as if she had just been unpacked from a bandbox; and she was
laughing whole-heartedly at a closed sack on the divan, a sack which
jerked and flapped grotesquely like a fish on a beach. Some one was
imprisoned within that sack. Jim Frobisher could not doubt who that
some one was, and it seemed to him that no sound more soulless and
cruel had ever been heard in the world than Betty's merriment. She
threw her head back: Jim could see her slender white throat working,
her shoulders flashing and shaking. She clapped her hands with a
horrible glee. Something died within Frobisher's breast as he heard
it. Was it in his heart, he wondered? It was, however, to be the
last time that Betty Harlowe laughed.
"You can get her out, Francine," she said, and whilst Francine with a
pair of scissors cut the end of the sack loose, she sat down with her
back to it at the writing-table and unlocked a drawer. The sack was
cut away and thrown upon the floor, and now on the divan Ann Upcott
lay in her gleaming dancing-dress, her hands bound behind her back,
and her ankles tied cruelly together. Her hair was dishevelled, her
face flushed, and she had the look of one quite dazed. She drew in
deep breaths of air, with her bosom labouring. But she was unaware
for the moment of her predicament or surroundings, and her eyes
rested upon Francine and travelled from her to Betty's back without a
gleam of recognition. She wrenched a little at her wrists, but even
that movement was instinctive; and then she closed her eyes and lay
still, so still that but for her breathing the watchers at the door
would hardly have believed that she still lived.
Betty, meanwhile, lifted from the open drawer, first a small bottle
half-filled with a pale yellow liquid, and next a small case of
morocco leather. From the case she took a hypodermic syringe and its
needle, and screwed the two parts together.
"Is she ready?" Betty asked as she removed the stopper from the
bottle.
"Quite, Mademoiselle," answered Francine. She began with a giggle,
but she looked at the prisoner as she spoke and she ended with a
startled gasp. For Ann was looking straight at her with the
strangest, disconcerting stare. It was impossible to say whether she
knew Francine or knowing her would not admit her knowledge. But her
gaze never faltered, it was actually terrifying by its fixity, and in
a sharp, hysterical voice Francine suddenly cried out:
"Turn your eyes away from me, will you?" and she added with a shiver:
"It's horrible, Mademoiselle! It's like a dead person watching you
as you move about the room."
Betty turned curiously towards the divan and Ann's eyes wandered off
to her. It seemed as though it needed just that interchange of
glances to awaken her. For as Betty resumed her work of filling the
hypodermic syringe from the bottle, a look of perplexity crept into
Ann Upcott's face. She tried to sit up, and finding that she could
not, tore at the cords which bound her wrists. Her feet kicked upon
the divan. A moan of pain broke from her lips, and with that
consciousness returned to her.
"Betty!" she whispered, and Betty turned with the needle ready in her
hand. She did not speak, but her face spoke for her. Her upper lip
was drawn back a little from her teeth, and there was a look in her
great eyes which appalled Jim Frobisher outside the door. Once
before he had seen just that look--when Betty was lying on Mrs.
Harlowe's bed for Hanaud's experiment and he had lingered in the
treasure-room with Ann Upcott. It had been inscrutable to him then,
but it was as plain as print now. It meant murder. And so Ann
Upcott understood it. Helpless as she was, she shrank back upon the
divan; in a panic she spoke with faltering lips and her eyes fixed
upon Betty with a dreadful fascination.
"Betty! You had me taken and brought here! You sent me to Madame Le
Vay's--on purpose. Oh! The letter, then! The anonymous
letter!"--and a new light broke in upon Ann's mind, a new terror
shook her. "You wrote it! Betty, you! You--the Scourge!"
She sank back and again struggled vainly with her bonds. Betty rose
from her chair and crossed the room towards her, the needle shining
bright in her hand. Her hapless prisoner saw it.
"What's that?" she cried, and she screamed aloud. The extremity of
her horror lent to her an unnatural strength. Somehow she dragged
herself up and got her feet to the ground. Somehow she stood
upright, swaying as she stood.
"You are going to----" she began, and broke off. "Oh, no! You
couldn't! You couldn't!"
Betty put out a hand and laid it on Ann's shoulder and held her so
for a moment, savouring her vengeance.
"Whose face was it bending so close down over yours in the darkness?"
she asked in a soft and dreadful voice. "Whose face, Ann? Guess!"
She shook her swaying prisoner with a gentleness as dreadful as her
quiet voice. "You talk too much. Your tongue's dangerous, Ann. You
are too curious, Ann! What were you doing in the treasure-room
yesterday evening with your watch in your hand? Eh? Can't you
answer, you pretty fool?" Then Betty's voice changed. It remained
low and quiet, but hatred crept into it, a deep, whole-hearted hatred.
"You have been interfering with me too, haven't you, Ann? Oh, we
both understand very well!" And Hanaud's hand tightened upon
Frobisher's shoulder. Here was the real key and explanation of
Betty's hatred. Ann Upcott knew too much, was getting to know more,
might at any moment light upon the whole truth. Yes! Ann Upcott's
disappearance would look like a panic-stricken flight, would have the
effect of a confession--no doubt! But above all these
considerations, paramount in Betty Harlowe's mind was the resolve at
once to punish and rid herself of a rival.
"All this week, you have been thrusting yourself in my way!" she
said. "And here's your reward for it, Ann. Yes. I had you bound
hand and foot and brought here. The water-lily!" She looked her
victim over as she stood in her delicate bright frock, her white silk
stockings and satin slippers, swaying in terror. "Fifteen minutes,
Ann! That fool of a detective was right! Fifteen minutes! That's
all the time the arrow-poison takes!"
Ann's eyes opened wide. The blood rushed into her white face and
ebbed, leaving it whiter than it was before.
"Arrow-poison!" she cried. "Betty! It was you, then! Oh!" she
would have fallen forward, but Betty Harlowe pushed her shoulder
gently and she fell back upon the divan. That Betty had been guilty
of that last infamy--the murder of her benefactress--not until this
moment had Ann Upcott for one moment suspected. It was clear to her,
too, that there was not the slightest hope for her. She burst
suddenly into a storm of tears.
Betty Harlowe sat down on the divan beside her and watched her
closely and curiously with a devilish enjoyment. The sound of the
girl's sobbing was music in her ears. She would not let it flag.
"You shall lie here in the dark all night, Ann, and alone," she said
in a low voice, bending over her, "To-morrow Espinosa will put you
under one of the stone flags in the kitchen. But to-night you shall
lie just as you are. Come!"
She bent over Ann Upcott, gathering the flesh of her arm with one
hand and advancing the needle with the other; and a piercing scream
burst from Francine Rollard.
"Look!" she cried, and she pointed to the door. It was open and
Hanaud stood upon the threshold.
Betty looked up at the cry and the blood receded from her face. She
sat like an image of wax, staring at the open doorway, and a moment
afterwards with a gesture swift as lightning she drove the needle
into the flesh of her own arm and emptied it.
Frobisher with a cry of horror started forward to prevent her, but
Hanaud roughly thrust him back.
"I warned you, Monsieur, not to interfere," he said with a savage
note in his voice, which Jim had not heard before; and Betty Harlowe
dropped the needle on to the couch, whence it rolled to the floor.
She sprang up now to her full height, her heels together, her arms
outstretched from her sides.
"Fifteen minutes, Monsieur Hanaud," she cried with bravado. "I am
safe from you."
Hanaud laughed and wagged his forefinger contemptuously in her face.
"Coloured water, Mademoiselle, doesn't kill."
Betty swayed upon her feet and steadied herself.
"Bluff, Monsieur Hanaud!" she said.
"We shall see."
The confidence of his tone convinced her. She flashed across the
room to her writing-table. Swift as she was, Hanaud met her there.
"Ah, no!" he cried. "That's quite a different thing!" He seized her
wrists. "Moreau!" he called, with a nod towards Francine. "And you,
Monsieur Frobisher, will you release that young lady, if you please!"
Moreau dragged Francine Rollard from the room and locked her safely
away. Jim seized upon the big scissors and cut the cords about Ann's
wrists and ankles, and unwound them. He was aware that Hanaud had
flung the chair from the writing-table into an open space, that Betty
was struggling and then was still, that Hanaud had forced her into
the chair and snatched up one of the cords which Frobisher had
dropped upon the floor. When he had finished his work, he saw that
Betty was sitting with her hands in handcuffs and her ankles tied to
one of the legs of the chair; and Hanaud was staunching with his
handkerchief a wound in his hand which bled. Betty had bitten him
like a wild animal caught in a trap.
"Yes, you warned me, Mademoiselle, the first morning I met you,"
Hanaud said with a savage irony, "that you didn't wear a wrist-watch,
because you hated things on your wrists. My apologies! I had
forgotten!"
He went back to the writing-table and thrust his hand into the
drawer. He drew out a small cardboard box and removed the lid.
"Five!" he said. "Yes! Five!"
He carried the box across the room to Frobisher, who was standing
against the wall with a face like death.
"Look!"
There were five white tablets in the box.
"We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know where it was. For
I had it analysed to-day. Cyanide of potassium, my friend! Crunch
one of them between your teeth and--fifteen minutes? Not a bit of
it! A fraction of a second! That's all!"
Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud's ear. "Leave them
within her reach!"
His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty from
destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, and with so
desperate a longing that a deep pity softened Hanaud's eyes.
"I must not, Monsieur," he said gently. He turned to Moreau. "There
is a cab waiting at the corner of the Maison Grenelle," and Moreau
went in search of it. Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was
sitting upon the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every now
and then she handled and eased one of her tortured wrists.
"Mademoiselle," he said, standing in front of her, "I owe you an
explanation and an apology. I never from the beginning--no, not for
one moment--believed that you were guilty of the murder of Madame
Harlowe. I was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink
pearls--oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. I believed
every word of the story you told us in the garden. But none of this
dared I shew you. For only by pretending that I was convinced of
your guilt, could I protect you during this last week in the Maison
Grenelle."
"Thank you, Monsieur," she replied with a wan effort at a smile.
"But, for to-night, I owe you an apology," he continued. "I make it
with shame. That you were to be brought back here to the tender
mercies of Mademoiselle Betty, I hadn't a doubt. And I was here to
make sure you should be spared them. But I have never in my life had
a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction in my own
mind, so little proof to put before a court. I had to have the
evidence which I was certain to find in this room to-night. But I
ask you to believe me that if I had imagined for a moment the cruelty
with which you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this
evidence. I beg you to forgive me."
Ann Upcott held out her hand.
"Monsieur Hanaud," she replied simply, "but for you I should not be
now alive. I should be lying here in the dark and alone, as it was
promised to me, waiting for Espinosa--and his spade." Her voice
broke and she shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which
she sat.
"You must forget these miseries," he said gently. "You have youth,
as I told you once before. A little time and----"
The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and with Moreau came a
couple of gendarmes and Girardot the Commissary.
"You have Francine Rollard?" Hanaud asked.
"You can hear her," Moreau returned dryly.
In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of feet and a
woman's voice screaming abuse. It died away.
"Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble," said Hanaud.
Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted and sullen,
her lips muttering inaudible words. She had not once looked at Jim
Frobisher since he had entered the room; nor did she now.
Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme raised her
up. But her knees failed beneath her; she could not stand; her
strength and her spirit had left her. The gendarme picked her up as
if she had been a child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher
planted himself in front of him.
"Stop!" he cried, and his voice was strong and resonant. "Monsieur
Hanaud, you have said just now that you believed every word of
Mademoiselle Ann's story."
"It is true."
"You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered at half-past ten
on the night of the 27th of April. And at half-past ten Mademoiselle
here was at Monsieur de Pouillac's ball! You will set her free."
Hanaud did not argue the point.
"And what of to-night?" he asked. "Stand aside, if you please!"
Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then drew aside. He
stood with his eyes closed, and such a look of misery upon his face
as Betty was carried out that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of
condolence:
"This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur Frobisher," he
began.
"Would that you had taken me into your confidence at the first!" Jim
cried volubly.
"Would you have believed me if I had?" asked Hanaud, and Jim was
silent. "As it was, Monsieur Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I
know now I had not the right to take and I told you more than you
think."
He turned away towards Moreau.
"Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house after they have
gone and bring the keys here to me."
Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic syringe,
the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of cord.
"There is something here of importance," Hanaud observed and,
stooping at the writing-table, he picked up a square, flat-topped
black case. "You will recognise this," he remarked to Jim as he
handed it to Girardot. It was the case of a Corona typewriting
machine; and from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within
the case.
"Yes," Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the Commissary.
"This pretty room is the factory where all those abominable letters
were prepared. Here the information was filed away for use; here the
letters were typed; from here they were issued."
"Blackmailing letters!" cried Jim. "Letters demanding money!"
"Some of them," answered Hanaud.
"But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, and more if she
chose to ask for it."
"All that she needed? No," answered Hanaud with a shake of the head.
"The blackmailer never has enough money. For no one is so
blackmailed."
A sudden and irrational fury seized upon Frobisher. They had agreed,
he and Hanaud, that there was a gang involved in all these crimes.
It might be that Betty was of them, yes, even led them, but were they
all to go scot-free?
"There are others," he exclaimed. "The man who rode this
motor-cycle----"
"Young Espinosa," replied Hanaud. "Did you notice his accent when
you stopped at the fork of the roads in the Val Terzon? He did not
mount his cycle again. No!"
"And the man who carried in the--the sack?"
"Maurice Thevenet," said Hanaud. "That promising young novice. He
is now at the Depot. He will never get that good word from me which
was to unlock Paris for him."
"And Espinosa himself--who was to come here to-morrow----" he stopped
abruptly with his eyes on Ann.
"And who murdered Jean Cladel, eh?" Hanaud went on. "A fool that
fellow! Why use the Catalan's knife in the Catalan's way?" Hanaud
looked at his watch. "It is over. No doubt Espinosa is under lock
and key by now. And there are others, Monsieur, of whom you have
never heard. The net has been cast wide to-night. Have no fear of
that!"
Moreau returned with the keys and handed them to Hanaud. Hanaud put
them into a pocket and went over to Ann Upcott.
"Mademoiselle, I shall not trouble you with any questions to-night.
To-morrow you will tell me why you went to Madame Le Vay's ball. It
was given out that you meant to run away. That, of course, was not
true. You shall give me the real reason to-morrow and an account of
what happened to you there."
Ann shivered at the memories of that night, but she answered quietly.
"Yes. I will tell you everything."
"Good. Then we can go," said Hanaud cheerfully.
"Go?" Ann Upcott asked in wonderment. "But you have had us all
locked in."
Hanaud laughed. He had a little surprise to spring on the girl, and
he loved surprises so long as they were of his own contriving.
"Monsieur Frobisher, I think, must have guessed the truth. This
house, Mademoiselle, the Hôtel de Brebizart is very close, as the
crow flies, to the Maison Grenelle. There is one row of houses, the
houses of the street of Charles-Robert, between. It was built by
Etienne Bouchart de Grenelle, President of the Parliament during the
reign of Louis the Fifteenth, a very dignified and important figure;
and he built it, Mademoiselle--this is the point--at the same time
that he built the Maison Grenelle. Having built it, he installed in
it a joyous lady of the province from which it takes its name--Madame
de Brebizart. There was no scandal. For the President never came
visiting Madame de Brebizart. And for the best of reasons. Between
this house and the Maison Grenelle he had constructed a secret
passage in that age of secret passages."
Frobisher was startled. Hanaud had given credit to him for an
astuteness which he did not possess. He had been occupied heart and
brain by the events of the evening, so rapidly had they followed one
upon the other, so little time had they allowed for speculations.
"How in the world did you discover this?" he asked.
"You shall know in due time. For the moment let us content ourselves
with the facts," Hanaud continued. "After the death of Etienne de
Grenelle, at some period or another the secret of this passage was
lost. It is clear, too, I think that it fell into disrepair and
became blocked. At all events at the end of the eighteenth century,
the Hôtel de Brebizart passed into other hands than those of the
owner of the Maison Grenelle. Simon Harlowe, however, discovered the
secret. He bought back the Hôtel de Brebizart, restored the passage
and put it to the same use as old Etienne de Grenelle had done. For
here Madame Raviart came to live during the years before the death of
her husband set her free to marry Simon. There! My little lecture
is over. Let us go!"
He bowed low to Ann like a lecturer to his audience and unlatched the
double doors of the big buhl cabinet in the recess of the wall. A
cry of surprise broke from Ann, who had risen unsteadily to her feet.
The cabinet was quite empty. There was not so much as a shelf, and
all could see that the floor of it was tilted up against one end and
that a flight of steps ran downwards in the thickness of the wall.
"Come," said Hanaud, producing his electric torch. "Will you take
this, Monsieur Frobisher, and go first with Mademoiselle. I will
turn out the lights and follow."
But Ann with a little frown upon her forehead drew sharply back. She
put a hand to Hanaud's sleeve and steadied herself by it. "I will
come with you," she said. "I am not very steady on my legs."
She laughed her action off but both men understood it. Jim Frobisher
had thought her guilty--guilty of theft and murder. She shrank from
him to the man who had had no doubt that she was innocent. And even
that was not all. She was wounded by Jim's distrust more deeply than
any one else could have wounded her. Frobisher inclined his head in
acknowledgment and, pressing the button of the torch, descended five
or six of the narrow steps. Moreau followed him.
"You are ready, Mademoiselle? So!" said Hanaud.
He put an arm about her to steady her and pressed up a switch by the
open doors of the cabinet. The room was plunged in darkness. Guided
by the beam of light, they followed Frobisher on to the steps.
Hanaud closed the doors of the cabinet and fastened them together
with the bolts.
"Forward," he cried, "and you, Mademoiselle, be careful of your heels
on these stone steps."
When his head was just below the level of the first step he called
upon Frobisher to halt and raise the torch. Then he slid the floor
board of the cabinet back into its place. Beneath this a trap-door
hung downwards. Hanaud raised it and bolted it in place.
"We can go on."
Ten more steps brought them to a tiny vaulted hall. From that a
passage, bricked and paved, led into darkness. Frobisher led the way
along the passage until the foot of another flight of steps was
reached.
"Where do these steps lead, my friend?" Hanaud asked of Frobisher,
his voice sounding with a strange hollowness in that tunnel. "You
shall tell me."
Jim, with memories of that night when he and Ann and Betty had sat in
the dark of the perfumed garden and Ann's eyes had searched this way
and that amidst the gloom of the sycamores, answered promptly:
"Into the garden of the Maison Grenelle."
Hanaud chuckled.
"And you, Mademoiselle, what do you say?"
Ann's face clouded over.
"I know now," she said gravely. Then she shivered and drew her cloak
slowly about her shoulders. "Let us go up and see!"
Hanaud took the lead. He lowered a trap-door at the top of the
steps, touched a spring and slid back a panel.
"Wait," said he, and he sprang out and turned on a light.
Ann Upcott, Jim Frobisher and Moreau climbed out of Simon Harlowe's
Sedan chair into the treasure room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: _The Truth About the Clock on the Marquetry
Cabinet_
To the amazement of them all Moreau began to laugh. Up till now he
had been alert, competent and without expression. Stolidity had been
the mark of him. And now he laughed in great gusts, holding his
sides and then wringing his hands, as though the humour of things was
altogether unbearable. Once or twice he tried to speak, but laughter
leapt upon the words and drowned them.
"What in the world is the matter with you, Nicolas?" Hanaud asked.
"But I beg your pardon," Moreau stammered, and again merriment seized
and mastered him. At last two intelligible words were heard. "We,
Girardot," he cried, settling an imaginary pair of glasses on the
bridge of his nose, and went off into a fit. Gradually the reason of
his paroxysms was explained in broken phrases.
"We, Girardot!--We fix the seals upon the doors--And all the time
there is a way in and out under our nose! These rooms must not be
disturbed--No! The great Monsieur Hanaud is coming from Paris to
look at them. So we seal them tight, we, Girardot. My God! but we,
Girardot look the fool! So careful and pompous with our linen bands!
We, Girardot shall make the laughter at the Assize Court! Yes, yes,
yes! I think, we, Girardot shall hand in our resignation before the
trial is over?"
Perhaps Moreau's humour was a little too professional for his
audience. Perhaps, too, the circumstances of that night had dulled
their appreciation; certainly Moreau had all the laughter to himself.
Jim Frobisher was driven to the little Louis Quinze clock upon the
marquetry cabinet. He never could for a moment forget it. So much
hung for Betty Harlowe upon its existence. Whatever wild words she
might have used to-night, there was the incontrovertible testimony of
the clock to prove that she had had no hand whatever in the murder of
Mrs. Harlowe. He drew his own watch from his pocket and compared it
with the clock.
"It is exact to the minute," he declared with a little accent of
triumph. "It is now twenty-three minutes past one----" and suddenly
Hanaud was at his side with a curious air of alertness.
"Is it so?" he asked, and he too made sure by a comparison with his
own watch that Frobisher's statement was correct. "Yes.
Twenty-three minutes past one. That is very fortunate."
He called Ann Upcott and Moreau to him and they all now stood grouped
about the cabinet.
"The key to the mystery about this clock," he remarked, "is to be
found in the words which Mademoiselle Ann used, when the seals were
removed from the doors and she saw this clock again, in the light of
day. She was perplexed. Isn't that so, Mademoiselle?"
"Yes," Ann returned. "It seemed to me--it seems to me still--that
the clock was somehow placed higher than it actually is----"
"Exactly. Let us put it to the test!"
He looked at the clock and saw that the hands now reached twenty-six
minutes past one.
"I will ask you all to go out of this room and wait in the hall in
the dark. For it was in the dark, you will remember, that
Mademoiselle descended the stairs. I shall turn the lights out here
and call you in. When I do, Mademoiselle will switch the lights on
and off swiftly, just as she did it on the night of the 27th of
April. Then I think all will be clear to you."
He crossed to the door leading into the hall, and found it locked
with the key upon the inside.
"Of course," he said, "when the passage is used to the Hôtel de
Brebizart, this door would be locked."
He turned the key and drew the door towards him. The hall gaped
before them black and silent. Hanaud stood aside.
"If you please!"
Moreau and Frobisher went out; Ann Upcott hesitated and cast a look
of appeal towards Hanaud. Her perplexities were to be set at rest.
She did not doubt that. This man had saved her from death when it
seemed that nothing could save her. Her trust in him was absolute.
But her perplexities were unimportant. Some stroke was to be
delivered upon Betty Harlowe from which there could be no recovery.
Ann Upcott was not a good hater of Betty's stamp. She shrank from
the thought that it was to be her hand which would deliver that
stroke.
"Courage, Mademoiselle!"
Hanaud exhorted her with a friendly smile and Ann joined the others
in the dark hall. Hanaud closed the door upon them and returned to
the clock. It was twenty-eight minutes past one.
"I have two minutes," he said to himself. "That will just do if I am
quick."
Outside the three witnesses waited in the darkness. One of the three
shivered suddenly so that her teeth rattled in her mouth.
"Ann," Jim Frobisher whispered and he put his hand within her arm.
Ann Upcott had come to the end of her strength. She clung to his
hand spasmodically.
"Jim!" she answered under her breath. "Oh, but you were cruel to me!"
Hanaud's voice called to them from within the room.
"Come!"
Ann stepped forward, felt for and found the handle. She threw open
the door with a nervous violence. The treasure-room was pitch dark
like the hall. Ann stepped through the doorway and her fingers
reached for the switch.
"Now," she warned them in a voice which shook.
Suddenly the treasure-room blazed with light; as suddenly it was
black again; and in the darkness rose a clamour of voices.
"Half-past ten! I saw the hour!" cried Jim.
"And again the clock was higher!" exclaimed Ann.
"That is true," Moreau agreed.
Hanaud's voice, from the far corner of the room, joined in.
"Is that exactly what you saw, Mademoiselle, on the night of the
twenty-seventh?"
"Exactly, Monsieur."
"Then turn on the lights again and know the truth!"
The injunction was uttered in tones so grave that it sounded like a
knell. For a second or two Ann's fingers refused their service.
Once more the conviction forced itself into her mind. Some
irretrievable calamity waited upon the movement of her hand.
"Courage, Mademoiselle!"
Again the lights shone, and this time they remained burning. The
three witnesses advanced into the room, and as they looked again,
from close at hand and with a longer gaze, a cry of surprise broke
from all of them.
There was no clock upon the marquetry cabinet at all.
But high above it in the long mirror before which it stood there was
the reflection of a clock, its white face so clear and bright that
even now it was difficult to disbelieve that this was the clock
itself. And the position of the hands gave the hour as precisely
half-past ten.
"Now turn about and see!" said Hanaud.
The clock itself stood upon the shelf of the Adam mantelpiece and
there staring at them, the true hour was marked. It was exactly
half-past one; the long minute hand pointing to six, the shorter hour
hand on the right-hand side of the figure twelve, half-way between
the one and the two. With a simultaneous movement they all turned
again to the mirror; and the mystery was explained. The shorter
hour-hand seen in the mirror was on the left-hand side of the figure
twelve, and just where it would have been if the hour had been
half-past ten and the clock actually where its reflection was. The
figures on the dial were reversed and difficult at a first glance to
read.
"You see," Hanaud explained, "it is the law of nature to save itself
from effort even in the smallest things. We live with clocks and
watches. They are as customary as our daily bread. And with the
instinct to save ourselves from effort, we take our time from the
position of the hands. We take the actual figures of the hours for
granted. Mademoiselle comes out of the dark. In the one swift flash
of light she sees the hands upon the clock's face. Half-past ten!
She herself, you will remember, Monsieur Frobisher, was surprised
that the hour was so early. She was cold, as though she had slept
long in her arm-chair. She had the impression that she had slept
long. And Mademoiselle was right. For the time was half-past one,
and Betty Harlowe had been twenty minutes home from Monsieur de
Pouillac's ball."
Hanaud ended with a note of triumph in his voice which exasperated
Frobisher.
"Aren't you going a little too fast?" he asked. "When the seals were
removed and we entered this room for the first time, the clock was
not upon the mantelshelf but upon the marquetry cabinet."
Hanaud nodded.
"Mademoiselle Upcott told us her story before luncheon. We entered
this room after luncheon. During the luncheon hours the position of
the clock was changed." He pointed to the Sedan chair. "You know
now with what ease that could be done."
"'Could, could!'" Frobisher repeated impatiently. "It doesn't follow
that it was done."
"That is true," Hanaud replied. "So I will answer now one of the
questions in your memorandum. What was it that I saw from the top of
the Terrace Tower? I saw the smoke rising from this chimney into the
air. Oh, Monsieur, I had paid attention to this house, its windows,
and its doors, and its chimney-stacks. And there at midday, in all
the warmth of late May, the smoke was rising from the chimney of the
sealed room. There was an entrance then of which we knew nothing!
And somebody had just made use of it. Who? Ask yourself that! Who
went straight out from the Maison Grenelle the moment I had gone, and
went alone? That clock had to be changed. Apparently some letters
also had to be burnt."
Jim hardly heard the last sentence. The clock still occupied his
thoughts. His great argument had been riddled; his one dream of
establishing Betty's innocence in despite of every presumption and
fact which could be brought against her had been dispelled. He
dropped on to a chair.
"You understood it all so quickly," he said with bitterness.
"Oh, I was not quick!" Hanaud answered. "Ascribe to me no gifts out
of the ordinary run, Monsieur. I am trained--that is all. I have
been my twenty minutes in the bull-ring. Listen how it came about!"
He looked at Frobisher with a comical smile. "It is a pity our eager
young friend, Maurice Thevenet, is not here to profit by the lesson.
First of all, then! I knew that Mademoiselle Betty was here doing
something of great importance. It may be only burning those letters
in the hearth. It may be more. I must wait and see. Good! There,
standing before the mirror, Mademoiselle Ann makes her little remark
that the clock seemed higher. Do I understand yet? No, no! But I
am interested. Then I notice a curious thing, a beautiful specimen
of Benvenuto Cellini's work set up high and flat on that mantelshelf
where no one can see it. So I take it down, and I carry it to the
window, and I admire it very much and I carry it back to the
mantelshelf; and then I notice four little marks upon the wood which
had been concealed by the flat case of the jewel; and those four
little marks are just the marks which the feet of that very pretty
Louis Quinze clock might have made, had it stood regularly there--in
its natural place. Yes, and the top of that marquetry cabinet so
much lower than the mantelshelf is too the natural place for the
Cellini jewel. Every one can see it there. So I say to myself: 'My
good Hanaud, this young lady has been rearranging her ornaments.'
But do I guess why? No, my friend. I told you once, and I tell you
again very humbly, that we are the servants of Chance. Chance is a
good mistress if her servants do not go to sleep; and she treated me
well that afternoon. See! I am standing in the hall, in great
trouble about this case. For nothing leads me anywhere. There is a
big old-fashioned barometer like a frying-pan on the wall behind me
and a mirror on the opposite wall in front of me. I raise my eyes
from the floor and by chance I see in the mirror the barometer behind
me. By chance my attention is arrested. For I see that the
indicator in the barometer points to stormy weather--which is
ridiculous. I turn me about so. It is to fine weather that the
indicator points. And in a flash I see. I look at the position of
the hand without looking at the letters. If I look the barometer in
the face the hand points to the fair weather. If I turn my back and
look into the mirror the hand points to the stormy weather. Now
indeed I have it! I run into the treasure-room. I lock the door,
for I do not wish to be caught. I do not move the clock. No, no,
for nothing in the world will I move that clock. But I take out my
watch. I face the mirror. I hold my watch facing the mirror, I open
the glass and I move the hands until in the mirror they seem to mark
half-past ten. Then I look at my watch itself. It is half-past one.
So now I know! Do I want more proof? Monsieur, I get it. For as I
unlock the door and open it again, there is Mademoiselle Betty face
to face with me! That young girl! Even though already I suspect her
I get a shock, I can tell you. The good God knows that I am hardened
enough against surprises. But for a moment the mask had slipped from
her face. I felt a trickle of ice down my spine. For out of her
beautiful great eyes murder looked."
He stood held in a spell by the memory of that fierce look. "Ugh,"
he grunted; and he shook himself like a great dog coming up out of
the water.
"But you are talking too much, Monsieur Frobisher," he cried in a
different voice, "and you are keeping Mademoiselle from her bed,
where she should have been an hour ago. Come!"
He drove his companions out into the hall, turned on the lights,
locked the door of the treasure-room and pocketed the key.
"Mademoiselle, we will leave these lights burning," he said gently to
Ann, "and Moreau will keep watch in the house. You have nothing to
fear. He will not be far from your door. Good night."
Ann gave him her hand with a wan smile.
"I shall thank you to-morrow," she said, and she mounted the stairs
slowly, her feet dragging, her body swaying with her fatigue.
Hanaud watched her go. Then he turned to Frobisher with a whimsical
smile.
"What a pity!" he said. "You--she! No? After all, perhaps----" and
he broke off hurriedly. Frobisher was growing red and beginning to
look "proper"; and the last thing which Hanaud wished to do was to
offend him in this particular.
"I make my apologies," he said. "I am impertinent and a gossip. If
I err, it is because I wish you very well. You understand that?
Good! Then a further proof. To-morrow Mademoiselle will tell us
what happened to her to-night, how she came to go to the house of
Madame Le Vay--everything. I wish you to be present. You shall know
everything. I shall tell you myself step by step, how my conclusions
were reached. All your questions shall be answered. I shall give
you every help, every opportunity. I shall see to it that you are
not even called as a witness of what you have seen to-night. And
when all is over, Monsieur, you will see with me that whatever there
may be of pain and distress, the Law must take its course."
It was a new Hanaud whom Frobisher was contemplating now. The
tricks, the Gasconnades, the buffooneries had gone. He did not even
triumph. A dignity shone out of the man like a strong light, and
with it he was gentle and considerate.
"Good night, Monsieur!" he said, and bowed; and Jim on an impulse
thrust out his hand.
"Good night!" he returned.
Hanaud took it with a smile of recognition and went away.
Jim Frobisher locked the front door and with a sense of desolation
turned back to the hall. He heard the big iron gates swing to. They
had been left open, of course, he recognised, in the usual way when
one of the household was going to be late. Yes, everything had been
planned with the care of a commander planning a battle. Here in this
house, the servants were all tucked up in their beds. But for
Hanaud, Betty Harlowe might at this very moment have been stealing up
these stairs noiselessly to her own room, her dreadful work
accomplished. The servants would have waked to-morrow to the
knowledge that Ann Upcott had fled rather than face a trial.
Sometime in the evening, Espinosa would have called, would have been
received in the treasure-room, would have found the spade waiting for
him in the great stone-vaulted kitchen of the Hôtel de Brebizart.
Oh, yes, all dangers had been foreseen--except Hanaud. Nay, even he
in a measure had been foreseen! For a panic-stricken telegram had
reached Frobisher and Haslitt before Hanaud had started upon his work.
"I shall be on the stairs, Monsieur, below Mademoiselle's door, if
you should want me," said Moreau.
Jim Frobisher roused himself from his reflections.
"Thank you," he answered, and he went up the stairs to his room. A
lot of use to Betty that telegram had been, he reflected bitterly!
"Where was she to-night?" he asked, and shut up his mind against the
question.
He was to know that it was precisely that panic-stricken telegram and
nothing else which had brought Betty Harlowe's plans crashing about
her ears.