For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day without mist or
clouds, and the towering silver ridge hung in the blue sky distinct
and magical. Hanaud lit one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly
turned away from it.
"There were two great mistakes made," he said. "One at the very
beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very end by me, and of the
two mine was the least excusable. Let us begin, therefore, at the
beginning. Madame Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried;
Betty Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks her
for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should she not? Ah,
but she must have been very sorry a week later that she snapped her
the fingers! For suddenly he flings his bomb. Madame Harlowe was
poisoned by her niece Betty. Imagine Betty Harlowe's feelings when
she heard of that! The charge is preposterous. No doubt! But it is
also true. A minute back she is safe. Nothing can touch her. Now
suddenly her head is loose upon her neck. She is frightened. She is
questioned in the examining magistrate's room. The magistrate has
nothing against her. All will be well if she does not make a slip.
But there is a good chance she may make a slip. For she has done the
murder. Her danger is not any evidence which Waberski can bring, but
just herself. In two days she is still more frightened, for she
hears that Hanaud is called in from Paris. So she makes her mistake.
She sends a telegram to you in London."
"Why was that a mistake?" Frobisher asked quickly.
"Because I begin to ask myself at once: 'How does Betty Harlowe know
that Hanaud has been called in?' Oh, to be sure, I made a great
fluster in my office about the treachery of my colleagues in Dijon.
But I did not believe a word of that. No! I am at once curious
about Betty Harlowe. That is all. Still, I am curious. Well, we
come to Dijon and you tell her that you have shown me that telegram."
"Yes," Jim admitted. "I did. I remember, too," he added slowly,
"that she put out her hand on the window sill--yes, as if to steady
herself."
"But she was quick to recover," returned Hanaud with a nod of
appreciation. "She must account for that telegram. She cannot tell
me that Maurice Thevenet sent a hurried word to her. No! So when I
ask her if she has ever received one of these anonymous
letters--which, remember, were my real business in Dijon--she says at
once 'Yes, I received one on the Sunday morning which told me that
Monsieur Hanaud was coming from Paris to make an end of me.' That
was quick, eh? Yes, but I know it is a lie. For it was not until
the Sunday evening that any question of my being sent for arose at
all. You see Mademoiselle Betty was in a corner. I had asked her
for the letter. She does not say that she has destroyed it, lest I
should at once believe that she never received any such letter at
all. On the contrary she says that it is in the treasure-room which
is sealed up, knowing quite well that she can write it and place it
there by way of the Hôtel de Brebizart before the seals are removed.
But for the letter to be in the treasure-room she must have received
it on the Sunday morning, since it was on the Sunday morning that the
seals were affixed. She did not know when it was first proposed to
call me in. She draws a bow at a venture, and I know that she is
lying; and I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe."
He stopped. For Jim Frobisher was staring at him with a look of
horror in his eyes.
"It was I then who put you on her track?--I who came out to defend
her!" he cried. "For it was I who showed you the telegram."
"Monsieur Frobisher, that would not have mattered if Betty Harlowe
had been, as you believed her, innocent," Hanaud replied gravely; and
Frobisher was silent.
"Well, then, after my first interview with Betty Harlowe, I went over
the house whilst you and Betty talked together in the library!"
"Yes," said Jim.
"And in Mademoiselle Ann's sitting-room I found something which
interested me at the first glance. Now tell me what it was!" and he
cocked his head at Jim with the hope that his riddle would divert him
from his self-reproaches. And in that to some extent he succeeded.
"That I can guess," Frobisher answered with the ghost of a smile.
"It was the treatise on Strophanthus."
"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves no trace!
Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. Who would be the first
poisoner to use it? How should I cope with him and prove that it
brought no more security than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are
questions which have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a
house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, I find a
dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away under a pile of
magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. I tell you I was
staggered. What was it doing there? How did it come there? I see a
note upon the cover, indicating a page. I turn to the page and
there, staring at me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect
specimen of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are at once
forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, without knowing it, were
right, and Madame Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Grenelle? I
must find that out. I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my
waistcoat and I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions.
Is Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Strophanthus
Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from Madame Harlowe's
death? Or did she perhaps not know at all that the treatise was
under that pile of magazines upon the table at the side? I do not
know, and my head is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked
look of Betty Harlowe at her friend--Monsieur, a revealing look! I
have not the demure and simple young lady of convention to deal with
at all. No. I go away from the Maison Grenelle, still more curious
about Betty Harlowe."
Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side.
"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously.
"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder.
"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately after you left the
Maison Grenelle that day you had the _sergent-de-ville_ removed from
its gates?"
"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered imperturbably.
"The _sergent-de-ville_ in his white trousers was an absurdity--worse
than that, an actual hindrance. There is little use in watching
people who know that they are being watched. So I remove the
_sergent-de-ville_ and now I can begin really to watch those young
ladies of the Maison Grenelle. And that afternoon, whilst Monsieur
Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, Betty Harlowe goes
out for a walk, is discreetly followed by Nicolas Moreau--and
vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. He must not press too close upon
her heels. She was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de
Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the wall
which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that she vanished.
There was the anonymous letter to be written, ready for me to receive
when the seals of the treasure-room were broken. But I don't know
that yet. No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for a
walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another street.
Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far as I can how these
young ladies pass their lives and who are their friends. An
examination not very productive, and not altogether futile. For I
find some curious friends in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe
this, Monsieur! Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political,
literary, what you will--in their case curious friends mean nothing!
They are to be expected. But with a young girl who is to all
appearance leading the normal life of her class, the case is
different. In her case curious friends are--curious. The Espinosas,
Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc--flashy cheap people of that
type--how shall we account for them as friends of that delicate piece
of china, Betty Harlowe?"
Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a trifle
disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa and Betty Harlowe.
"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent so pleasantly in
the cool of the garden with the young ladies, I spent with the
Edinburgh Professor. And I prepared a little trap. Yes, and the
next morning I came early to the Maison Grenelle and I set my little
trap. I replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its
obvious place."
Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black cigarette from
his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to Jim.
"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; and he tells me
that queer story about Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta close
to the shop of Jean Cladel. He may be lying. He may be speaking the
truth and what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits
in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which is now taking
hold of me. For if that poison was used, then some one who
understood the composition of drugs must have made the solution from
the paste upon the arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty
Harlowe! And the moment that animal has left me, I spring my trap;
and I have a success beyond all my expectations. I point to the
treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was not in its place
yesterday. It is to-day. Who then replaced it? I ask that question
and Mademoiselle Ann is utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that
book. That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On the
other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has replaced that book;
and in a most unwise moment of sarcasm, she allows me to see that she
knows. She knows that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it
since and replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she knows
where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I know it in my heart
that she put it under those magazines in Ann Upcott's room, although
I do not yet know it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to
divert suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should suspicion
arise. But innocent people do not do that, Monsieur.
"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann tells us her story.
Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you immediately afterwards that all
great criminals who are women are great actresses. But never in my
life have I seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while
that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel murder has been
secretly committed and suddenly the murderess has to listen to a true
account of that murder in the presence of the detective who is there
to fix the guilt! There was some one at hand all the time--almost an
eye-witness--perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she cannot know that
she is safe until the last word of the story is told. Picture to
yourself Betty Harlowe's feelings during that hour in the pleasant
garden, if you can! The questions which must have been racing
through her mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and peer
through the lighted doorway? Does she know the truth--and has she
kept it hidden until this moment when Hanaud and Frobisher are
present and she can speak it safely? Will her next words be 'And
here at my side sits the murderess'? Those must have been terrible
moments for Betty Harlowe!"
"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher added.
"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She ran suddenly and
very swiftly into the house."
"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her."
"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go and she
returned----"
"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher interrupted.
"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud exclaimed. "She
turned her chair towards Mademoiselle Ann. She sat with her
handkerchief in her hand and her face against her handkerchief,
listening--the tender, sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann
told us that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness
overtook her--could not but overtake her. And in that moment of
weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, she picked it up again at
once. Yes, but where the handkerchief had fallen her foot now
rested, and when the story was all ended, and we got up from our
chairs, she spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that
there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was anxious to
discover what it was that she had brought out from the house in her
handkerchief, and had dropped with her handkerchief and had driven
with all the weight of her body into the turf so that no one might
see it. In fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come
back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She fetched my
gloves herself, much to my shame that I, Hanaud, should be waited on
by so exquisite a young lady. However, I found it afterwards when
you and Girardot and the others were all waiting for me in the
library. It was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed
to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much Ann Upcott was
going to reveal. The arrow-poison had been hidden away in the Hôtel
de Brebizart. But she had something else at hand--more rapid--death
like a thunderbolt. So she ran into the house for it. I tell you,
Monsieur, it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close to her
mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. What I do wonder is
that she did not topple straight off her chair in a dead faint before
us all. But no! She sat ready to swallow that tablet at once if
there were need, before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to
you, people who are innocent do not do that."
Jim had no argument wherewith to answer.
"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got the tablets no
doubt from Jean Cladel."
"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated for luncheon
and in the afternoon the seals are to be removed. Before that takes
place, certain things must be done. The clock must be moved from the
mantelshelf in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some
letters too must be burnt."
"Yes. Why?" Frobisher asked eagerly.
Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
"The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For my part I
think those old letters between Simon Harlowe and Madame Raviart
alluded too often to the secret passage. But here I am guessing.
What I learnt for certain during that luncheon hour is that there is
a secret passage and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel
de Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no mistake. He
follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I from this tower see the
smoke rising from the chimney. Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no
smoke rises from it to-day."
He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont Blanc. The trees
in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned roof, and the chimneys of
the Maison Grenelle stood out above the lesser buildings which
surrounded them. Only from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise
to-day, and that one at the extreme end of the building where the
kitchens were.
"We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are removed. We are
in Madame Harlowe's bedroom and something I cannot explain occurs."
"The disappearance of the necklace," Frobisher exclaimed confidently;
and Hanaud grinned joyfully.
"See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!" he cried.
"The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared for that. The guilt is
being transferred to Mademoiselle Ann. Good! But it is not enough
to hide the book about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide
her also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle inherits
nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds
vanishes, and you must draw from its vanishing what conclusion you
will. No, the little matter I cannot explain is different. Betty
Harlowe and our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin's bedroom
to make sure that a cry from Madame's room could not be heard there."
"Yes."
"Our good Girardot comes back."
"Yes."
"But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot explain.
Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before I go into the
treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and quietly she has slipped in
amongst us again. I am very curious about that, my friend, and I
keep my eyes open for an explanation, I assure you."
"I remember," said Frobisher. "You stopped with your hand upon the
door and asked for Mademoiselle Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped.
I attached no importance to her absence."
Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was in the artist's
mood. The work was over, the long strain and pain of it. Now let
those outside admire!
"Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, Monsieur
Frobisher. But I answer a question in your memorandum. The instant
I am in the room, I look for the mouth of that secret passage from
the Hôtel de Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place.
The elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the wall.
So I am very careful not to pry amongst its cushions for the poison
arrow; just as I am very careful not to ask for the envelope with the
post mark in which the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe
thinks that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud--good! Let her
think so. So we go upstairs and I find the explanation of that
little matter of Betty Harlowe's absence which has been so troubling
me."
Jim Frobisher stared at him.
"No," he said. "I haven't got that. We went into Ann Upcott's
sitting-room. I write my memorandum with the shaft of the poison
arrow and you notice it Yes! But the matter of Betty Harlowe's
absence! No, I haven't got that."
"But you have," cried Hanaud. "That pen! It was not there in the
pen-tray on the day before, when I found the book. There was just
one pen--the foolish thing young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed
red--and nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there since.
When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where was that shaft of
the poison-arrow before? In one of two places. Either in the
treasure-room or in the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has
fetched it away during that hour of freedom; she carries it in her
dress; she seizes her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe's
bedroom and--pau, pau!--there it is in the pen-tray of Mademoiselle
Ann, to make suspicion still more convincing! Monsieur, I walk away
with Monsieur Bex, who has some admirable scheme that I should search
the gutters for a match-box full of pearls. I agree--oh yes, that is
the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On the other hand I get
some useful information about the Maison Grenelle and the Hôtel de
Brebizart. I carry that information to a very erudite gentleman in
the Palace of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I know
all about the severe Etienne de Grenelle and the joyous Madame de
Brebizart. So when you and Betty Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val
Terzon, Nicolas Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de
Brebizart--with the results which now are clear to you, and one of
which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in the drawer
of the writing-table."
Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the story was
clear to him now--a story of dark passions and vanity, and greed of
power with cruelties for its methods. Was there no spark of hope and
cheer in all this desolation? He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He
wished to know the last hidden detail.
"You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. What was it?"
"I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the façade of the
Church of Notre Dame."
"And I did," cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking towards the
Maison Grenelle, and his arm swept to the left of the house. His
fingers pointed at the Renaissance church with its cupolas and its
loggia, to which Betty Harlowe had driven him.
"There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief of the Last
Judgment."
"Yes," said Hanaud quietly. "But that is the Church of St. Michel,
Monsieur."
He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont Blanc, close at his
feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic church, delicate in its
structure like a jewel.
"That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down and look at the
façade."
Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and pointed to the
frieze. There Frobisher saw such images of devils half beast, half
human, such grinning hog-men, such tortured creatures with heads
twisted round so that they looked backwards, such old and drunken and
vicious horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and amongst
them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, her hands tightly
clasped, an image of terror and faith, a prisoner amongst all these
monsters imploring the passers-by for their pity and their help.
"That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to see," said
Hanaud gravely. "But you did not see it."
His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. He lifted his
hat.
Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that frieze, heard
Ann Upcott's voice behind him.
"And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur Hanaud?" She
stopped beside the two men.
"That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher to explain to
you."
Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly towards Hanaud.
But already he was gone.