Early the next morning Hanaud rang up the Maison Grenelle and made
his appointment for the afternoon. Jim accordingly spent the morning
with Monsieur Bex, who was quite overwhelmed with the story which was
told to him.
"Prisoners have their rights nowadays," he said. "They can claim the
presence of their legal adviser when they are being examined by the
Judge. I will go round at once to the Prefecture"; with his head
erect and his little chest puffed out like a bantam cock, he hurried
to do battle for his client. There was no battle to be waged,
however. Certainly Monsieur Bex's unhappy client was for the moment
_au secret_. She would not come before the Judge for a couple of
days. It was the turn of Francine Rollard. Every opportunity was to
be given to the defence, and Monsieur Bex would certainly be granted
an interview with Betty Harlowe, if she so wished, before she was
brought up in the Judge's office.
Monsieur Bex returned to the Place Etienne Dolet to find Jim
Frobisher restlessly pacing his office. Jim looked up eagerly, but
Monsieur Bex had no words of comfort.
"I don't like it!" he cried. "It displeases me. I am not happy.
They are all very polite--yes. But they examine the maid first.
That's bad, I tell you," and he tapped upon the table. "That is
Hanaud. He knows his affair. The servants. They can be made to
talk, and this Francine Rollard----" He shook his head. "I shall
get the best advocate in France."
Jim left him to his work and returned to the Maison Grenelle. It was
obvious that nothing of these new and terrible developments of the
"Affaire Waberski" had yet leaked out. There was not a whisper of it
in the streets, not a loiterer about the gates of the Maison
Grenelle. The "Affaire Waberski" had, in the general view, become a
stale joke. Jim sent up word to Ann Upcott in her room that he was
removing his luggage to the hotel in the Place Darcy, and leaving the
house to her where he prayed her to remain. Even at that moment
Ann's lips twitched a little with humour as she read the embarrassed
note.
"He is very correct, as Monsieur Bex would say," she reflected, "and
proper enough to make every nerve of Monsieur Hanaud thrill with
delight."
Jim returned in the afternoon and once more in the shade of the
sycamores whilst the sunlight dappled the lawn and the bees hummed
amongst the roses, Ann Upcott told a story of terror and darkness,
though to a smaller audience. Certain additions were made to the
story by Hanaud.
"I should never have dreamed of going to Madame Le Vay's Ball," she
began, "except for the anonymous letter," and Hanaud leaned forward
alertly.
The anonymous letter had arrived whilst she, Betty and Jim Frobisher
were sitting at dinner. It had been posted therefore in the middle
of the day and very soon after Ann had told her first story in the
garden. Ann opened the envelope expecting a bill, and was amazed and
a little terrified to read the signature, "The Scourge." She was
more annoyed than ever when she read the contents, but her terror had
decreased. "The Scourge" bade her attend the Ball. He gave her
explicit instructions that she should leave the ball-room at
half-past ten, follow a particular corridor leading to a wing away
from the reception-rooms, and hide behind the curtains in a small
library. If she kept very still she would overhear in a little while
the truth about the death of Mrs. Harlowe. She was warned to tell no
one of her plan.
"I told no one then," Ann declared. "I thought the letter just a
malicious joke quite in accord with 'The Scourge's' character. I put
it back into its envelope. But I couldn't forget it. Suppose that
by any chance there was something in it--and I didn't go! Why should
'The Scourge' play a trick on me, who had no money and was of no
importance? And all the while the sort of hope which no amount of
reasoning can crush, kept growing and growing!"
After dinner Ann took the letter up to her sitting-room and believed
it and scorned herself for believing it, and believed it again. That
afternoon she had almost felt the handcuffs on her wrists. There was
no chance which she ought to refuse of clearing herself from
suspicion, however wild it seemed!
Ann made up her mind to consult Betty, and ran down to the
treasure-room, which was lit up but empty. It was half-past nine
o'clock. Ann determined to wait for Betty's return, and was once
more perplexed by the low position of the clock upon the marquetry
cabinet. She stood in front of it, staring at it. She took her own
watch in her hand, with a sort of vague idea that it might help her.
And indeed it was very likely to. Had she turned its dial to the
mirror behind the clock, the truth would have leapt at her. But she
had not the time. For a slight movement in the room behind her
arrested her attention.
She turned abruptly. The room was empty. Yet without doubt it was
from within the room that the faint noise had come. And there was
only one place from which it could have come. Some one was hiding
within the elaborate Sedan chair with its shining grey panels, its
delicate gold beading. Ann was uneasy rather than frightened. Her
first thought was to ring the bell by the fire-place--she could do
that well out of view of the Sedan chair--and carry on until Gaston
answered it. There were treasures enough in the room to repay a
hundred thieves. Then, without arguing at all, she took the bolder
line. She went quietly towards the chair, advancing from the back,
and then with a rush planted herself in front of the glass doors.
She started back with a cry of surprise. The rail in front of the
doors was down, the doors were open, and leaning back upon the
billowy cushions sat Betty Harlowe. She sat quite still, still as an
image even after Ann had appeared and uttered a cry of surprise; but
she was not asleep. Her great eyes were blazing steadily out of the
darkness of the chair in a way which gave Ann a curious shock.
"I have been watching you," said Betty very slowly; and if ever there
had been a chance that she would relent, that chance was gone for
ever now. She had come up out of the secret passage to find Ann
playing with her watch in front of the mirror, seeking for an
explanation of the doubt which troubled her and so near to it--so
very near to it! Ann heard her own death sentence pronounced in
those words, "I have been watching you." And though she did not
understand the menace they conveyed, there was something in the slow,
steady utterance of them which a little unnerved her.
"Betty," she cried, "I want your advice."
Betty came out of the chair and took the anonymous letter from her
hand.
"Ought I to go?" Ann Upcott asked.
"It's your affair," Betty replied. "In your place I should. I
shouldn't hesitate. No one knows yet that there's any suspicion upon
you."
Ann put forward her objection. To go from this house of mourning
might appear an outrage.
"You're not a relation," Betty argued. "You can go privately, just
before the time. I have no doubt we can arrange it all. But of
course it's your affair."
"Why should the Scourge help me?"
"I don't suppose that he is, except indirectly," Betty reasoned. "I
imagine that he's attacking other people, and using you." She read
through the letter again. "He has always been right, hasn't he?
That's what would determine me in your place. But I don't want to
interfere."
Ann spun round on her heel.
"Very well. I shall go."
"Then I should destroy that letter"; and she made as if to tear it.
"No!" cried Ann, and she held out her hand for it "I don't know
Madame Le Vay's house very well. I might easily lose my way without
the instructions. I must take it with me."
Betty agreed and handed the letter back.
"You want to go quite quietly," she said, and she threw herself heart
and soul into the necessary arrangements.
She would give Francine Rollard a holiday and herself help Ann to
dress in her fanciful and glistening frock. She wrote a letter to
Michel Le Vay, Madame Le Vay's second son and one of Betty's most
indefatigable courtiers. Fortunately for himself, Michel Le Vay kept
that letter, and it saved him from any charge of complicity in her
plot. For Betty used to him the same argument which had persuaded
Jim Frobisher. She wrote frankly that suspicion had centred upon Ann
Upcott and that it was necessary that she should get away secretly.
"All the plans have been made, Michel," she wrote. "Ann will come
late. She is to meet the friends who will help her--it is best that
you should know as little as possible about them--in the little
library. If you will keep the corridor clear for a little while,
they can get out by the library doors into the park and be in Paris
the next morning."
She sealed up this letter without showing it to Ann and said, "I will
send this by a messenger to-morrow morning, with orders to deliver it
into Michel's own hands. Now how are you to go?"
Over that point the two girls had some discussion. It would be
inviting Hanaud's interference if the big limousine were ordered out.
What more likely than that he should imagine Ann meant to run away
and that Betty was helping her? That plan certainly would not do.
"I know," Betty cried. "Jeanne Leclerc shall call for you. You will
be ready to slip out. She shall stop her car for a second outside
the gates. It will be quite dark. You'll be away in a flash."
"Jeanne Leclerc!" Ann exclaimed, drawing back.
It had always perplexed Ann that Betty, so exquisite and fastidious
in her own looks and bearing, should have found her friends amongst
the flamboyant and the cheap. But she would rather throne it amongst
her inferiors than take her place amongst her equals. Under her
reserved demeanour she was insatiable of recognition. The desire to
be courted, admired, looked up to as a leader and a chief, burned
within her like a raging flame. Jeanne Leclerc was of her company of
satellites--a big, red-haired woman of excessive manners, not without
good looks of a kind, and certainly received in the society of the
town. Ann Upcott not merely disliked, but distrusted her. She had a
feeling that there was something indefinably wrong in her very nature.
"She will do anything for me, Ann," said Betty. "That's why I named
her. I know that she is going to Madame Le Vay's dance."
Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to Jeanne
Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call at the Maison
Grenelle at an early hour in the morning; and Jeanne Leclerc came and
was closeted with Betty for an hour between nine and ten. Thus all
the arrangements were made.
It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud's explanations.
"No," he said. "There remain Espinosa and the young brother to be
accounted for."
"Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight noise in the
treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe seated in the Sedan chair,"
Hanaud replied. "Betty Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de
Brebizart, whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark
and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison Grenelle....
From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa went to the Rue Gambetta and
waited for Jean Cladel. It was a busy night, that one, my friends.
That old wolf, the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They
could hear him. They had no time to waste!"
The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim remembered. It was
because Betty was helping Ann to dress, Francine having been given
her holiday. Jim and Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann
Upcott stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her pretty
dress. She held the front door a little open, and the moment Jeanne
Leclerc's car stopped before the gates, she flashed across the
courtyard. Jeanne had the door of her car open. It had hardly
stopped before it went on again. Jim, as the story was told,
remembered vividly Betty's preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and
the immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed and
the car moved forward out of the street of Charles-Robert. Ann
Upcott had gone for good from the Maison Grenelle. She would not
interfere with Betty Harlowe any more.
Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le Vay's house a few
minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay came forward to meet them.
"I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle," he said to Ann, "but you
are late. Madame my mother has left her place at the door of the
ball-room, but we shall find her later."
He took them to the cloak-room, and coming away they were joined by
Espinosa.
"You are going to dance now?" Michel Le Vay asked. "No, not yet!
Then Señor Espinosa will take you to the buffet while I look after
others of our guests."
He hurried away towards the ball-room, where a clatter of high voices
competed with the music of the band. Espinosa conducted the two
ladies to the buffet. There was hardly anybody in the room.
"We are still too early," said Jeanne Leclerc in a low voice. "We
shall take some coffee."
But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her feet danced, her
hands could not keep still. Was the letter a trick? Would she,
indeed, within the next few minutes learn the truth? At one moment
her heart sank into her shoes, at another it soared.
"Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee," said Espinosa urgently.
"And it is good."
"No doubt," Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne Leclerc. "You will
send me home, won't you? I shall not wait--afterwards."
"But of course," Jeanne Leclerc agreed. "All that is arranged. The
chauffeur has his orders. You will take your coffee, dear?"