IV

There was only one new fact in the couple of columns devoted to the

mystery. Mrs. Blumenstein had died from chloroform poisoning. She was

of a stout habit, and the thieves were not skilled in the

administration of the anaesthetic.

"It's murder none the less," said Hanaud, and he gazed straight at

Joan, asking her by the direct summons of his eyes what she was going

to do.

"I must tell my story to the police," she replied painfully and

slowly. But she did not hesitate; she was announcing a meditated plan.

Hanaud neither agreed nor differed. His face was blank, and when he

spoke there was no cordiality in his voice. "Well," he asked, "and

what is it that you have to say to the police, miss? That you went

into the room to steal, and that you were attacked by two strangers,

dressed as apaches, and masked? That is all?"

"Yes."

"And how many men at the Semiramis ball were dressed as apaches and

wore masks? Come! Make a guess. A hundred at the least?"

"I should think so."

"Then what will your confession do beyond--I quote your English

idiom--putting you in the coach?"

Mr. Ricardo now smiled with relief. Hanaud was taking a definite line.

His knowledge of idiomatic English might be incomplete, but his heart

was in the right place. The girl traced a vague pattern on the

tablecloth with her fingers.

"Yet I think I must tell the police," she repeated, looking up and

dropping her eyes again. Mr. Ricardo noticed that her eyelashes were

very long. For the first time Hanaud's face relaxed.

"And I think you are quite right," he cried heartily, to Mr. Ricardo's

surprise. "Tell them the truth before they suspect it, and they will

help you out of the affair if they can. Not a doubt of it. Come, I

will go with you myself to Scotland Yard."

"Thank you," said Joan, and the pair drove away in a cab together.

Hanaud returned to Grosvenor Square alone and lunched with Ricardo.

"It was all right," he said. "The police were very kind. Miss Joan

Carew told her story to them as she had told it to us. Fortunately,

the envelope with the aluminium chain had already been delivered, and

was in their hands. They were much mystified about it, but Miss Joan's

story gave them a reasonable explanation. I think they are inclined to

believe her; and, if she is speaking the truth, they will keep her out

of the witness-box if they can."

"She is to stay here in London, then?" asked Ricardo.

"Oh, yes; she is not to go. She will present her letters at the Opera

House and secure an engagement, if she can. The criminals might be

lulled thereby into a belief that the girl had kept the whole strange

incident to herself, and that there was nowhere even a knowledge of

the disguise which they had used." Hanaud spoke as carelessly as if

the matter was not very important; and Ricardo, with an unusual flash

of shrewdness, said:

"It is clear, my friend, that you do not think those two men will ever

be caught at all."

Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.

"There is always a chance. But listen. There is a room with a

hundred guns, one of which is loaded. Outside the room there are a

hundred pigeons, one of which is white. You are taken into the room

blind-fold. You choose the loaded gun and you shoot the one white

pigeon. That is the value of the chance."

"But," exclaimed Ricardo, "those pearls were of great value, and I

have heard at a trial expert evidence given by pearl merchants. All

agree that the pearls of great value are known; so, when they come

upon the market----"

"That is true," Hanaud interrupted imperturbably. "But how are they

known?"

"By their weight," said Mr. Ricardo.

"Exactly," replied Hanaud. "But did you not also hear at this trial of

yours that pearls can be peeled like an onion? No? It is true. Remove

a skin, two skins, the weight is altered, the pearl is a trifle

smaller. It has lost a little of its value, yes--but you can no longer

identify it as the so-and-so pearl which belonged to this or that

sultan, was stolen by the vizier, bought by Messrs. Lustre and

Steinopolis, of Hatton Garden, and subsequently sold to the wealthy

Mrs. Blumenstein. No, your pearl has vanished altogether. There is a

new pearl which can be traded." He looked at Ricardo. "Who shall say

that those pearls are not already in one of the queer little back

streets of Amsterdam, undergoing their transformation?"

Mr. Ricardo was not persuaded because he would not be. "I have some

experience in these matters," he said loftily to Hanaud. "I am sure

that we shall lay our hands upon the criminals. We have never failed."

Hanaud grinned from ear to ear. The only experience which Mr. Ricardo

had ever had was gained on the shores of Geneva and at Aix under

Hanaud's tuition. But Hanaud did not argue, and there the matter

rested.

The days flew by. It was London's play-time. The green and gold of

early summer deepened and darkened; wondrous warm nights under

England's pale blue sky, when the streets rang with the joyous feet of

youth, led in clear dawns and lovely glowing days. Hanaud made

acquaintance with the wooded reaches of the Thames; Joan Carew sang

"Louise" at Covent Garden with notable success; and the affair of the

Semiramis Hotel, in the minds of the few who remembered it, was

already added to the long list of unfathomed mysteries.

But towards the end of May there occurred a startling development.

Joan Carew wrote to Mr. Ricardo that she would call upon him in

the afternoon, and she begged him to secure the presence of Hanaud.

She came as the clock struck; she was pale and agitated; and in the

room where Calladine had first told the story of her visit she told

another story which, to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was yet more strange

and--yes--yet more suspicious.

"It has been going on for some time," she began. "I thought of coming

to you at once. Then I wondered whether, if I waited--oh, you'll never

believe me!"

"Let us hear!" said Hanaud patiently.

"I began to dream of that room, the two men disguised and masked, the

still figure in the bed. Night after night! I was terrified to go to

sleep. I felt the hand upon my mouth. I used to catch myself falling

asleep, and walk about the room with all the lights up to keep myself

awake."

"But you couldn't," said Hanaud with a smile. "Only the old can do

that."

"No, I couldn't," she admitted; "and--oh, my nights were horrible

until"--she paused and looked at her companions doubtfully--"until one

night the mask slipped."

"What--?" cried Hanaud, and a note of sternness rang suddenly in his

voice. "What are you saying?"

With a desperate rush of words, and the colour staining her forehead

and cheeks, Joan Carew continued:

"It is true. The mask slipped on the face of one of the men--of

the man who held me. Only a little way; it just left his forehead

visible--no more."

"Well?" asked Hanaud, and Mr. Ricardo leaned forward, swaying between

the austerity of criticism and the desire to believe so thrilling a

revelation.

"I waked up," the girl continued, "in the darkness, and for a moment

the whole scene remained vividly with me--for just long enough for me

to fix clearly in my mind the figure of the apache with the white

forehead showing above the mask."

"When was that?" asked Ricardo.

"A fortnight ago."

"Why didn't you come with your story then?"

"I waited," said Joan. "What I had to tell wasn't yet helpful. I

thought that another night the mask might slip lower still. Besides,

I--it is difficult to describe just what I felt. I felt it important

just to keep that photograph in my mind, not to think about it, not to

talk about it, not even to look at it too often lest I should begin to

imagine the rest of the face and find something familiar in the man's

carriage and shape when there was nothing really familiar to me at

all. Do you understand that?" she asked, with her eyes fixed in appeal

on Hanaud's face.

"Yes," replied Hanaud. "I follow your thought."

"I thought there was a chance now--the strangest chance--that the

truth might be reached. I did not wish to spoil it," and she turned

eagerly to Ricardo, as if, having persuaded Hanaud, she would now turn

her batteries on his companion. "My whole point of view was changed. I

was no longer afraid of falling asleep lest I should dream. I wished

to dream, but----"

"But you could not," suggested Hanaud.

"No, that is the truth," replied Joan Carew. "Whereas before I was

anxious to keep awake and yet must sleep from sheer fatigue, now that

I tried consciously to put myself to sleep I remained awake all

through the night, and only towards morning, when the light was coming

through the blinds, dropped off into a heavy, dreamless slumber."

Hanaud nodded.

"It is a very perverse world, Miss Carew, and things go by

contraries."

Ricardo listened for some note of irony in Hanaud's voice, some look

of disbelief in his face. But there was neither the one nor the other.

Hanaud was listening patiently.

"Then came my rehearsals," Joan Carew continued, "and that wonderful

opera drove everything else out of my head. I had such a chance, if

only I could make use of it! When I went to bed now, I went with that

haunting music in my ears--the call of Paris--oh, you must remember

it. But can you realise what it must mean to a girl who is going to

sing it for the first time in Covent Garden?"

Mr. Ricardo saw his opportunity. He, the connoisseur, to whom the

psychology of the green room was as an open book, could answer that

question.

"It is true, my friend," he informed Hanaud with quiet authority. "The

great march of events leaves the artist cold. He lives aloof. While

the tumbrils thunder in the streets he adds a delicate tint to the

picture he is engaged upon or recalls his triumph in his last great

part."

"Thank you," said Hanaud gravely. "And now Miss Carew may perhaps

resume her story."

"It was the very night of my debut," she continued. "I had supper with

some friends. A great artist. Carmen Valeri, honoured me with her

presence. I went home excited, and that night I dreamed again."

"Yes?"

"This time the chin, the lips, the eyes were visible. There was only a

black strip across the middle of the face. And I thought--nay, I was

sure--that if that strip vanished I should know the man."

"And it did vanish?"

"Three nights afterwards."

"And you did know the man?"

The girl's face became troubled. She frowned.

"I knew the face, that was all," she answered. "I was disappointed. I

had never spoken to the man. I am sure of that still. But somewhere I

have seen him."

"You don't even remember when?" asked Hanaud.

"No." Joan Carew reflected for a moment with her eyes upon the carpet,

and then flung up her head with a gesture of despair. "No. I try all

the time to remember. But it is no good."

Mr. Ricardo could not restrain a movement of indignation. He was being

played with. The girl with her fantastic story had worked him up to a

real pitch of excitement only to make a fool of him. All his earlier

suspicions flowed back into his mind. What if, after all, she was

implicated in the murder and the theft? What if, with a perverse

cunning, she had told Hanaud and himself just enough of what she knew,

just enough of the truth, to persuade them to protect her? What if her

frank confession of her own overpowering impulse to steal the necklace

was nothing more than a subtle appeal to the sentimental pity of men,

an appeal based upon a wider knowledge of men's weaknesses than a girl

of nineteen or twenty ought to have? Mr. Ricardo cleared his throat

and sat forward in his chair. He was girding himself for a singularly

searching interrogatory when Hanaud asked the most irrelevant of

questions:

"How did you pass the evening of that night when you first dreamed

complete the face of your assailant?"

Joan Carew reflected. Then her face cleared.

"I know," she exclaimed. "I was at the opera."

"And what was being given?"

"_The Jewels of the Madonna_."

Hanaud nodded his head. To Ricardo it seemed that he had expected

precisely that answer.

"Now," he continued, "you are sure that you have seen this man?"

"Yes."

"Very well," said Hanaud. "There is a game you play at children's

parties--is there not?--animal, vegetable, or mineral, and always you

get the answer. Let us play that game for a few minutes, you and I."

Joan Carew drew up her chair to the table and sat with her chin

propped upon her hands and her eyes fixed on Hanaud's face. As he put

each question she pondered on it and answered. If she answered

doubtfully he pressed it.

"You crossed on the _Lucania_ from New York?"

"Yes."

"Picture to yourself the dining-room, the tables. You have the picture

quite clear?"

"Yes."

"Was it at breakfast that you saw him?"

"No."

"At luncheon?"

"No."

"At dinner?"

She paused for a moment, summoning before her eyes the travellers at

the tables.

"No."

"Not in the dining-table at all, then?"

"No."

"In the library, when you were writing letters, did you not one day

lift your head and see him?"

"No."

"On the promenade deck? Did he pass you when you sat in your

deck-chair, or did you pass him when he sat in his chair?"

"No."

Step by step Hanaud took her back to New York to her hotel, to

journeys in the train. Then he carried her to Milan where she had

studied. It was extraordinary to Ricardo to realise how much Hanaud

knew of the curriculum of a student aspiring to grand opera. From

Milan he brought her again to New York, and at the last, with a start

of joy, she cried: "Yes, it was there."

Hanaud took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead.

"Ouf!" he grunted. "To concentrate the mind on a day like this, it

makes one hot, I can tell you. Now, Miss Carew, let us hear."

It was at a concert at the house of a Mrs. Starlingshield in Fifth

Avenue and in the afternoon. Joan Carew sang. She was a stranger to

New York and very nervous. She saw nothing but a mist of faces whilst

she sang, but when she had finished the mist cleared, and as she left

the improvised stage she saw the man. He was standing against the wall

in a line of men. There was no particular reason why her eyes should

single him out, except that he was paying no attention to her singing,

and, indeed, she forgot him altogether afterwards.

"I just happened to see him clearly and distinctly," she said. "He was

tall, clean-shaven, rather dark, not particularly young--thirty-five

or so, I should say--a man with a heavy face and beginning to grow

stout. He moved away whilst I was bowing to the audience, and I

noticed him afterwards walking about, talking to people."

"Do you remember to whom?"

"No."

"Did he notice you, do you think?"

"I am sure he didn't," the girl replied emphatically. "He never looked

at the stage where I was singing, and he never looked towards me

afterwards."

She gave, so far as she could remember, the names of such guests and

singers as she knew at that party. "And that is all," she said.

"Thank you," said Hanaud. "It is perhaps a good deal. But it is

perhaps nothing at all."

"You will let me hear from you?" she cried, as she rose to her feet.

"Miss Carew, I am at your service," he returned. She gave him her hand

timidly and he took it cordially. For Mr. Ricardo she had merely a

bow, a bow which recognised that he distrusted her and that she had no

right to be offended. Then she went, and Hanaud smiled across the

table at Ricardo.

"Yes," he said, "all that you are thinking is true enough. A man who

slips out of society to indulge a passion for a drug in greater peace,

a girl who, on her own confession, tried to steal, and, to crown all,

this fantastic story. It is natural to disbelieve every word of it.

But we disbelieved before, when we left Calladine's lodging in the

Adelphi, and we were wrong. Let us be warned."

"You have an idea?" exclaimed Ricardo.

"Perhaps!" said Hanaud. And he looked down the theatre column of the

_Times_. "Let us distract ourselves by going to the theatre."

"You are the most irritating man!" Mr. Ricardo broke out impulsively.

"If I had to paint your portrait, I should paint you with your finger

against the side of your nose, saying mysteriously: '_I_ know,' when

you know nothing at all."

Hanaud made a schoolboy's grimace. "We will go and sit in your box at

the opera to-night," he said, "and you shall explain to me all through

the beautiful music the theory of the tonic sol-fa."

They reached Covent Garden before the curtain rose. Mr. Ricardo's box

was on the lowest tier and next to the omnibus box.

"We are near the stage," said Hanaud, as he took his seat in the

corner and so arranged the curtain that he could see and yet was

hidden from view. "I like that."

The theatre was full; stalls and boxes shimmered with jewels and

satin, and all that was famous that season for beauty and distinction

had made its tryst there that night.

"Yes, this is wonderful," said Hanaud. "What opera do they play?" He

glanced at his programme and cried, with a little start of surprise:

"We are in luck. It is _The Jewels of the Madonna_."

"Do you believe in omens?" Mr. Ricardo asked coldly. He had not yet

recovered from his rebuff of the afternoon.

"No, but I believe that Carmen Valeri is at her best in this part,"

said Hanaud.

Mr. Ricardo belonged to that body of critics which must needs spoil

your enjoyment by comparisons and recollections of other great

artists. He was at a disadvantage certainly to-night, for the opera

was new. But he did his best. He imagined others in the part, and when

the great scene came at the end of the second act, and Carmen Valeri,

on obtaining from her lover the jewels stolen from the sacred image,

gave such a display of passion as fairly enthralled that audience, Mr.

Ricardo sighed quietly and patiently.

"How Calve would have brought out the psychological value of that

scene!" he murmured; and he was quite vexed with Hanaud, who sat with

his opera glasses held to his eyes, and every sense apparently

concentrated on the stage. The curtains rose and rose again when the

act was concluded, and still Hanaud sat motionless as the Sphynx,

staring through his glasses.

"That is all," said Ricardo when the curtains fell for the fifth time.

"They will come out," said Hanaud. "Wait!" And from between the

curtains Carmen Valeri was led out into the full glare of the

footlights with the panoply of jewels flashing on her breast. Then at

last Hanaud put down his glasses and turned to Ricardo with a look of

exultation and genuine delight upon his face which filled that

season-worn dilettante with envy.

"What a night!" said Hanaud. "What a wonderful night!" And he

applauded until he split his gloves. At the end of the opera he cried:

"We will go and take supper at the Semiramis. Yes, my friend, we will

finish our evening like gallant gentlemen. Come! Let us not think of

the morning." And boisterously he slapped Ricardo in the small of the

back.

In spite of his boast, however, Hanaud hardly touched his supper, and

he played with, rather than drank, his brandy and soda. He had a

little table to which he was accustomed beside a glass screen in the

depths of the room, and he sat with his back to the wall watching the

groups which poured in. Suddenly his face lighted up.

"Here is Carmen Valeri!" he cried. "Once more we are in luck. Is it

not that she is beautiful?"

Mr. Ricardo turned languidly about in his chair and put up his

eyeglass.

"So, so," he said.

"Ah!" returned Hanaud. "Then her companion will interest you still

more. For he is the man who murdered Mrs. Blumenstein."

Mr. Ricardo jumped so that his eyeglass fell down and tinkled on its

cord against the buttons of his waistcoat.

"What!" he exclaimed. "It's impossible!" He looked again. "Certainly

the man fits Joan Carew's description. But--" He turned back to Hanaud

utterly astounded. And as he looked at the Frenchman all his earlier

recollections of him, of his swift deductions, of the subtle

imagination which his heavy body so well concealed, crowded in upon

Ricardo and convinced him.

"How long have you known?" he asked in a whisper of awe.

"Since ten o'clock to-night."

"But you will have to find the necklace before you can prove it."

"The necklace!" said Hanaud carelessly. "That is already found."

Mr. Ricardo had been longing for a thrill. He had it now. He felt it

in his very spine.

"It's found?" he said in a startled whisper.

"Yes."

Ricardo turned again, with as much indifference as he could assume,

towards the couple who were settling down at their table, the man with

a surly indifference, Carmen Valeri with the radiance of a woman who

has just achieved a triumph and is now free to enjoy the fruits of it.

Confusedly, recollections returned to Ricardo of questions put that

afternoon by Hanaud to Joan Carew--subtle questions into which the

name of Carmen Valeri was continually entering. She was a woman of

thirty, certainly beautiful, with a clear, pale face and eyes like the

night.

"Then she is implicated too!" he said. What a change for her, he

thought, from the stage of Covent Garden to the felon's cell, from the

gay supper-room of the Semiramis, with its bright frocks and its babel

of laughter, to the silence and the ignominious garb of the workrooms

in Aylesbury Prison!

"She!" exclaimed Hanaud; and in his passion for the contrasts of drama

Ricardo was almost disappointed. "She has nothing whatever to do with

it. She knows nothing. Andre Favart there--yes. But Carmen Valeri!

She's as stupid as an owl, and loves him beyond words. Do you want to

know how stupid she is? You shall know. I asked Mr. Clements, the

director of the opera house, to take supper with us, and here he is."

Hanaud stood up and shook hands with the director. He was of the world

of business rather than of art, and long experience of the ways of

tenors and prima-donnas had given him a good-humoured cynicism.

"They are spoilt children, all tantrums and vanity," he said, "and

they would ruin you to keep a rival out of the theatre."

He told them anecdote upon anecdote.

"And Carmen Valeri," Hanaud asked in a pause; "is she troublesome this

season?"

"Has been," replied Clements dryly. "At present she is playing at

being good. But she gave me a turn some weeks ago." He turned to

Ricardo. "Superstition's her trouble, and Andre Favart knows it. She

left him behind in America this spring."

"America!" suddenly cried Ricardo; so suddenly that Clements looked at

him in surprise.

"She was singing in New York, of course, during the winter," he

returned. "Well, she left him behind, and I was shaking hands with

myself when he began to deal the cards over there. She came to me in a

panic. She had just had a cable. She couldn't sing on Friday night.

There was a black knave next to the nine of diamonds. She wouldn't

sing for worlds. And it was the first night of _The Jewels of the

Madonna!_ Imagine the fix I was in!"

"What did you do?" asked Ricardo.

"The only thing there was to do," replied Clements with a shrug of the

shoulders. "I cabled Favart some money and he dealt the cards again.

She came to me beaming. Oh, she had been so distressed to put me in

the cart! But what could she do? Now there was a red queen next to the

ace of hearts, so she could sing without a scruple so long, of course,

as she didn't pass a funeral on the way down to the opera house.

Luckily she didn't. But my money brought Favart over here, and now I'm

living on a volcano. For he's the greatest scoundrel unhung. He never

has a farthing, however much she gives him; he's a blackmailer, he's a

swindler, he has no manners and no graces, he looks like a butcher and

treats her as if she were dirt, he never goes near the opera except

when she is singing in this part, and she worships the ground he walks

on. Well, I suppose it's time to go."

The lights had been turned off, the great room was emptying. Mr.

Ricardo and his friends rose to go, but at the door Hanaud detained

Mr. Clements, and they talked together alone for some little while,

greatly to Mr. Ricardo's annoyance. Hanaud's good humour, however,

when he rejoined his friend, was enough for two.

"I apologise, my friend, with my hand on my heart. But it was for your

sake that I stayed behind. You have a meretricious taste for melodrama

which I deeply deplore, but which I mean to gratify. I ought to leave

for Paris to-morrow, but I shall not. I shall stay until Thursday."

And he skipped upon the pavement as they walked home to Grosvenor

Square.

Mr. Ricardo bubbled with questions, but he knew his man. He would get

no answer to any one of them to-night. So he worked out the problem

for himself as he lay awake in his bed, and he came down to breakfast

next morning fatigued but triumphant. Hanaud was already chipping off

the top of his egg at the table.

"So I see you have found it all out, my friend," he said.

"Not all," replied Ricardo modestly, "and you will not mind, I am

sure, if I follow the usual custom and wish you a good morning."

"Not at all," said Hanaud. "I am all for good manners myself."

He dipped his spoon into his egg.

"But I am longing to hear the line of your reasoning."

Mr. Ricardo did not need much pressing.

"Joan Carew saw Andre Favart at Mrs. Starlingshield's party, and saw

him with Carmen Valeri. For Carmen Valeri was there. I remember that

you asked Joan for the names of the artists who sang, and Carmen

Valeri was amongst them."

Hanaud nodded his head.

"Exactly."

"No doubt Joan Carew noticed Carmen Valeri particularly, and so took

unconsciously into her mind an impression of the man who was with her,

Andre Favart--of his build, of his walk, of his type."

Again Hanaud agreed.

"She forgets the man altogether, but the picture remains latent in her

mind--an undeveloped film."

Hanaud looked up in surprise, and the surprise flattered Mr. Ricardo.

Not for nothing had he tossed about in his bed for the greater part of

the night.

"Then came the tragic night at the Semiramis. She does not consciously

recognise her assailant, but she dreams the scene again and again, and

by a process of unconscious cerebration the figure of the man becomes

familiar. Finally she makes her debut, is entertained at supper

afterwards, and meets once more Carmen Valeri."

"Yes, for the first time since Mrs. Starlingshield's party,"

interjected Hanaud.

"She dreams again, she remembers asleep more than she remembers when

awake. The presence of Carmen Valeri at her supper-party has its

effect. By a process of association, she recalls Favart, and the mask

slips on the face of her assailant. Some days later she goes to the

opera. She hears Carmen Valeri sing in _The Jewels of the Madonna_. No

doubt the passion of her acting, which I am more prepared to

acknowledge this morning than I was last night, affects Joan Carew

powerfully, emotionally. She goes to bed with her head full of Carmen

Valeri, and she dreams not of Carmen Valeri, but of the man who is

unconsciously associated with Carmen Valeri in her thoughts. The mask

vanishes altogether. She sees her assailant now, has his portrait

limned in her mind, would know him if she met him in the street,

though she does not know by what means she identified him."

"Yes," said Hanaud. "It is curious the brain working while the body

sleeps, the dream revealing what thought cannot recall."

Mr. Ricardo was delighted. He was taken seriously.

"But of course," he said, "I could not have worked the problem out but

for you. You knew of Andre Favart and the kind of man he was."

Hanaud laughed.

"Yes. That is always my one little advantage. I know all the

cosmopolitan blackguards of Europe." His laughter ceased suddenly, and

he brought his clenched fist heavily down upon the table. "Here is one

of them who will be very well out of the world, my friend," he said

very quietly, but there was a look of force in his face and a hard

light in his eyes which made Mr. Ricardo shiver.

For a few moments there was silence. Then Ricardo asked: "But have you

evidence enough?"

"Yes."

"Your two chief witnesses, Calladine and Joan Carew--you said it

yourself--there are facts to discredit them. Will they be believed?"

"But they won't appear in the case at all," Hanaud said. "Wait, wait!"

and once more he smiled. "By the way, what is the number of

Calladine's house?"

Ricardo gave it, and Hanaud therefore wrote a letter. "It is all for

your sake, my friend," he said with a chuckle.

"Nonsense," said Ricardo. "You have the spirit of the theatre in your

bones."

"Well, I shall not deny it," said Hanaud, and he sent out the letter

to the nearest pillar-box.

Mr. Ricardo waited in a fever of impatience until Thursday came. At

breakfast Hanaud would talk of nothing but the news of the day. At

luncheon he was no better. The affair of the Semiramis Hotel seemed a

thousand miles from any of his thoughts. But at five o'clock he said

as he drank his tea:

"You know, of course, that we go to the opera to-night?"

"Yes. Do we?"

"Yes. Your young friend Calladine, by the way, will join us in your

box."

"That is very kind of him, I am sure," said Mr. Ricardo.

The two men arrived before the rising of the curtain, and in the

crowded lobby a stranger spoke a few words to Hanaud, but what he said

Ricardo could not hear. They took their seats in the box, and Hanaud

looked at his programme.

"Ah! It is _Il Ballo de Maschera_ to-night. We always seem to hit upon

something appropriate, don't we?"

Then he raised his eyebrows.

"Oh-o! Do you see that our pretty young friend, Joan Carew, is singing

in the role of the page? It is a showy part. There is a particular

melody with a long-sustained trill in it, as far as I remember."

Mr. Ricardo was not deceived by Hanaud's apparent ignorance of the

opera to be given that night and of the part Joan Carew was to take.

He was, therefore, not surprised when Hanaud added:

"By the way, I should let Calladine find it all out for himself."

Mr. Ricardo nodded sagely.

"Yes. That is wise. I had thought of it myself." But he had

done nothing of the kind. He was only aware that the elaborate

stage-management in which Hanaud delighted was working out to the

desired climax, whatever that climax might be. Calladine entered the

box a few minutes later and shook hands with them awkwardly.

"It was kind of you to invite me," he said and, very ill at ease, he

took a seat between them and concentrated his attention on the house

as it filled up.

"There's the overture," said Hanaud. The curtains divided and were

festooned on either side of the stage. The singers came on in their

turn; the page appeared to a burst of delicate applause (Joan Carew

had made a small name for herself that season), and with a stifled cry

Calladine shot back in the box as if he had been struck. Even then Mr.

Ricardo did not understand. He only realised that Joan Carew was

looking extraordinarily trim and smart in her boy's dress. He had to

look from his programme to the stage and back again several times

before the reason of Calladine's exclamation dawned on him. When it

did, he was horrified. Hanaud, in his craving for dramatic effects,

must have lost his head altogether. Joan Carew was wearing, from the

ribbon in her hair to the scarlet heels of her buckled satin shoes,

the same dress as she had worn on the tragic night at the Semiramis

Hotel. He leaned forward in his agitation to Hanaud.

"You must be mad. Suppose Favart is in the theatre and sees her. He'll

be over on the Continent by one in the morning."

"No, he won't," replied Hanaud. "For one thing, he never comes to

Covent Garden unless one opera, with Carmen Valeri in the chief part,

is being played, as you heard the other night at supper. For a second

thing, he isn't in the house. I know where he is. He is gambling in

Dean Street, Soho. For a third thing, my friend, he couldn't leave by

the nine o'clock train for the Continent if he wanted to. Arrangements

have been made. For a fourth thing, he wouldn't wish to. He has really

remarkable reasons for desiring to stay in London. But he will come to

the theatre later. Clements will send him an urgent message, with the

result that he will go straight to Clements' office. Meanwhile, we can

enjoy ourselves, eh?"

Never was the difference between the amateur dilettante and the

genuine professional more clearly exhibited than by the behaviour of

the two men during the rest of the performance. Mr. Ricardo might have

been sitting on a coal fire from his jumps and twistings; Hanaud

stolidly enjoyed the music, and when Joan Carew sang her famous solo

his hands clamoured for an encore louder than anyone's in the boxes.

Certainly, whether excitement was keeping her up or no, Joan Carew had

never sung better in her life. Her voice was clear and fresh as a

bird's--a bird with a soul inspiring its song. Even Calladine drew his

chair forward again and sat with his eyes fixed upon the stage and

quite carried out of himself. He drew a deep breath at the end.

"She is wonderful," he said, like a man waking up.

"She is very good," replied Mr. Ricardo, correcting Calladine's

transports.

"We will go round to the back of the stage," said Hanaud.

They passed through the iron door and across the stage to a long

corridor with a row of doors on one side. There were two or three men

standing about in evening dress, as if waiting for friends in the

dressing-rooms. At the third door Hanaud stopped and knocked. The door

was opened by Joan Carew, still dressed in her green and gold. Her

face was troubled, her eyes afraid.

"Courage, little one," said Hanaud, and he slipped past her into the

room. "It is as well that my ugly, familiar face should not be seen

too soon."

The door closed and one of the strangers loitered along the corridor

and spoke to a call-boy. The call-boy ran off. For five minutes more

Mr. Ricardo waited with a beating heart. He had the joy of a man in

the centre of things. All those people driving homewards in their

motor-cars along the Strand--how he pitied them! Then, at the end of

the corridor, he saw Clements and Andre Favart. They approached,

discussing the possibility of Carmen Valeri's appearance in London

opera during the next season.

"We have to look ahead, my dear friend," said Clements, "and though I

should be extremely sorry----"

At that moment they were exactly opposite Joan Carew's door. It

opened, she came out; with a nervous movement she shut the door behind

her. At the sound Andre Favart turned, and he saw drawn up against the

panels of the door, with a look of terror in her face, the same gay

figure which had interrupted him in Mrs. Blumenstein's bedroom. There

was no need for Joan to act. In the presence of this man her fear was

as real as it had been on the night of the Semiramis ball. She

trembled from head to foot. Her eyes closed; she seemed about to

swoon.

Favart stared and uttered an oath. His face turned white; he staggered

back as if he had seen a ghost. Then he made a wild dash along the

corridor, and was seized and held by two of the men in evening dress.

Favart recovered his wits. He ceased to struggle.

"What does this outrage mean?" he asked, and one of the men drew a

warrant and notebook from his pocket.

"You are arrested for the murder of Mrs. Blumenstein in the Semiramis

Hotel," he said, "and I have to warn you that anything you may say

will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you."

"Preposterous!" exclaimed Favart. "There's a mistake. We will go along

to the police and put it right. Where's your evidence against me?"

Hanaud stepped out of the doorway of the dressing-room.

"In the property-room of the theatre," he said.

At the sight of him Favart uttered a violent cry of rage. "You are

here, too, are you?" he screamed, and he sprang at Hanaud's throat.

Hanaud stepped lightly aside. Favart was borne down to the ground, and

when he stood up again the handcuffs were on his wrists.

Favart was led away, and Hanaud turned to Mr. Ricardo and Clements.

"Let us go to the property-room," he said. They passed along the

corridor, and Ricardo noticed that Calladine was no longer with them.

He turned and saw him standing outside Joan Carew's dressing-room.

"He would like to come, of course," said Ricardo.

"Would he?" asked Hanaud. "Then why doesn't he? He's quite grown up,

you know," and he slipped his arm through Ricardo's and led him back

across the stage. In the property-room there was already a detective

in plain clothes. Mr. Ricardo had still not as yet guessed the truth.

"What is it you really want, sir?" the property-master asked of the

director.

"Only the jewels of the Madonna," Hanaud answered.

The property-master unlocked a cupboard and took from it the sparkling

cuirass. Hanaud pointed to it, and there, lost amongst the huge

glittering stones of paste and false pearls, Mrs. Blumenstein's

necklace was entwined.

"Then that is why Favart came always to Covent Garden when _The Jewels

of the Madonna_ was being performed!" exclaimed Ricardo.

Hanaud nodded.

"He came to watch over his treasure."

Ricardo was piecing together the sections of the puzzle.

"No doubt he knew of the necklace in America. No doubt he followed it

to England."

Hanaud agreed.

"Mrs. Blumenstein's jewels were quite famous in New York."

"But to hide them here!" cried Mr. Clements. "He must have been mad."

"Why?" asked Hanaud. "Can you imagine a safer hiding-place? Who is

going to burgle the property-room of Covent Garden? Who is going to

look for a priceless string of pearls amongst the stage jewels of an

opera house?"

"You did," said Mr. Ricardo.

"I?" replied Hanaud, shrugging his shoulders. "Joan Carew's dreams led

me to Andre Favart. The first time we came here and saw the pearls of

the Madonna, I was on the look-out, naturally. I noticed Favart at the

back of the stalls. But it was a stroke of luck that I noticed those

pearls through my opera glasses."

"At the end of the second act?" cried Ricardo suddenly. "I remember

now."

"Yes," replied Hanaud. "But for that second act the pearls would have

stayed comfortably here all through the season. Carmen Valeri--a fool

as I told you--would have tossed them about in her dressing-room

without a notion of their value, and at the end of July, when the

murder at the Semiramis Hotel had been forgotten, Favart would have

taken them to Amsterdam and made his bargain."

"Shall we go?"

They left the theatre together and walked down to the grill-room of

the Semiramis. But as Hanaud looked through the glass door he drew

back.

"We will not go in, I think, eh?"

"Why?" asked Ricardo.

Hanaud pointed to a table. Calladine and Joan Carew were seated at it

taking their supper.

"Perhaps," said Hanaud with a smile, "perhaps, my friend--what? Who

shall say that the rooms in the Adelphi will not be given up?"

They turned away from the hotel. But Hanaud was right, and before the

season was over Mr. Ricardo had to put his hand in his pocket for a

wedding present.