Mr. Ricardo could no longer complain. It was half-past eight when
Calladine had first disturbed the formalities of his house in
Grosvenor Square. It was barely ten now, and during that short time he
had been flung from surprise to surprise, he had looked underground on
a morning of fresh summer, and had been thrilled by the contrast
between the queer, sinister life below and within and the open call to
joy of the green world above. He had passed from incredulity to
belief, from belief to incredulity, and when at last incredulity was
firmly established, and the story to which he had listened proved the
emanation of a drugged and heated brain, lo! the facts buffeted him in
the face, and the story was shown to be true.
"I am alive once more," Mr. Ricardo thought as he turned back with
Hanaud, and in his excitement he cried his thought aloud.
"Are you?" said Hanaud. "And what is life without a newspaper? If you
will buy one from that remarkably raucous boy at the bottom of the
street I will keep an eye upon Calladine's house till you come back."
Mr. Ricardo sped down to Charing Cross and brought back a copy of the
fourth edition of the _Star_. He handed it to Hanaud, who stared at it
doubtfully, folded as it was.
"Shall we see what it says?" Ricardo asked impatiently.
"By no means," Hanaud answered, waking from his reverie and tucking
briskly away the paper into the tail pocket of his coat. "We will hear
what Miss Joan Carew has to say, with our minds undisturbed by any
discoveries. I was wondering about something totally different."
"Yes?" Mr. Ricardo encouraged him. "What was it?"
"I was wondering, since it is only ten o'clock, at what hour the first
editions of the evening papers appear."
"It is a question," Mr. Ricardo replied sententiously, "which the
greatest minds have failed to answer."
And they walked along the street to the house. The front door stood
open during the day like the front door of any other house which is
let off in sets of rooms. Hanaud and Ricardo went up the staircase and
rang the bell of Calladine's door. A middle-aged woman opened it.
"Mr. Calladine is in?" said Hanaud.
"I will ask," replied the woman. "What name shall I say?"
"It does not matter. I will go straight in," said Hanaud quietly. "I
was here with my friend but a minute ago."
He went straight forward and into Calladine's parlour. Mr. Ricardo
looked over his shoulder as he opened the door and saw a girl turn to
them suddenly a white face of terror, and flinch as though already she
felt the hand of a constable upon her shoulder. Calladine, on the
other hand, uttered a cry of relief.
"These are my friends," he exclaimed to the girl, "the friends of whom
I spoke to you"; and to Hanaud he said: "This is Miss Carew."
Hanaud bowed.
"You shall tell me your story, mademoiselle," he said very gently, and
a little colour returned to the girl's cheeks, a little courage
revived in her.
"But you have heard it," she answered.
"Not from you," said Hanaud.
So for a second time in that room she told the history of that night.
Only this time the sunlight was warm upon the world, the comfortable
sounds of life's routine were borne through the windows, and the girl
herself wore the inconspicuous blue serge of a thousand other girls
afoot that morning. These trifles of circumstance took the edge of
sheer horror off her narrative, so that, to tell the truth, Mr.
Ricardo was a trifle disappointed. He wanted a crescendo motive in his
music, whereas it had begun at its fortissimo. Hanaud, however, was
the perfect listener. He listened without stirring and with most
compassionate eyes, so that Joan Carew spoke only to him, and to him,
each moment that passed, with greater confidence. The life and sparkle
of her had gone altogether. There was nothing in her manner now to
suggest the waywardness, the gay irresponsibility, the radiance, which
had attracted Calladine the night before. She was just a very young
and very pretty girl, telling in a low and remorseful voice of the
tragic dilemma to which she had brought herself. Of Celymene all that
remained was something exquisite and fragile in her beauty, in the
slimness of her figure, in her daintiness of hand and foot--something
almost of the hot-house. But the story she told was, detail for
detail, the same which Calladine had already related.
"Thank you," said Hanaud when she had done. "Now I must ask you two
questions."
"I will answer them."
Mr. Ricardo sat up. He began to think of a third question which he
might put himself, something uncommonly subtle and searching, which
Hanaud would never have thought of. But Hanaud put his questions, and
Ricardo almost jumped out of his chair.
"You will forgive me. Miss Carew. But have you ever stolen before?"
Joan Carew turned upon Hanaud with spirit. Then a change swept over
her face.
"You have a right to ask," she answered. "Never." She looked into his
eyes as she answered. Hanaud did not move. He sat with a hand upon
each knee and led to his second question.
"Early this morning, when you left this room, you told Mr. Calladine
that you would wait at the Semiramis until he telephoned to you?"
"Yes."
"Yet when he telephoned, you had gone out?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I will tell you," said Joan Carew. "I could not bear to keep the
little diamond chain in my room."
For a moment even Hanaud was surprised. He had lost sight of that
complication. Now he leaned forward anxiously; indeed, with a greater
anxiety than he had yet shown in all this affair.
"I was terrified," continued Joan Carew. "I kept thinking: 'They must
have found out by now. They will search everywhere.' I didn't reason.
I lay in bed expecting to hear every moment a loud knocking on the
door. Besides--the chain itself being there in my bedroom--her
chain--the dead woman's chain--no, I couldn't endure it. I felt as if
I had stolen it. Then my maid brought in my tea."
"You had locked it away?" cried Hanaud.
"Yes. My maid did not see it."
Joan Carew explained how she had risen, dressed, wrapped the chain in
a pad of cotton-wool and enclosed it in an envelope. The envelope had
not the stamp of the hotel upon it. It was a rather large envelope,
one of a packet which she had bought in a crowded shop in Oxford
Street on her way from Euston to the Semiramis. She had bought the
envelopes of that particular size in order that when she sent her
letter of introduction to the Director of the Opera at Covent Garden
she might enclose with it a photograph.
"And to whom did you send it?" asked Mr. Ricardo.
"To Mrs. Blumenstein at the Semiramis. I printed the address
carefully. Then I went out and posted it."
"Where?" Hanaud inquired.
"In the big letter-box of the Post Office at the corner of Trafalgar
Square."
Hanaud looked at the girl sharply.
"You had your wits about you, I see," he said.
"What if the envelope gets lost?" said Ricardo.
Hanaud laughed grimly.
"If one envelope is delivered at its address in London to-day, it will
be that one," he said. "The news of the crime is published, you see,"
and he swung round to Joan.
"Did you know that, Miss Carew?"
"No," she answered in an awe-stricken voice.
"Well, then, it is. Let us see what the special investigator has to
say about it." And Hanaud, with a deliberation which Mr. Ricardo found
quite excruciating, spread out the newspaper on the table in front of
him.