 Chapter 6 of The House of the Arrow by A. E. W. Mason This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 6. Jim Changes His Lodging The library was a big oblong room with two tall windows looking into the court and the observation window thrown out at the end over the footway of the street. A door in the inner wall close to this window led to a room behind and a big open fireplace faced the windows on the court. For the rest the walls were lined with high bookshelves filled with books, except for a vacant space here and there where a volume had been removed. A note put back in its place the book which he had been holding in his hand. One can easily see that this is the library of Simon Harlow, the collector, he said. I have always thought that if one only had the time to study and compare the books which a man buys and reads, one would more surely get the truth of him than in any other way. But alas, one never has the time. He turned towards Jim Frobisher regretfully. Come and stand with me, Mr. Frobisher, for even a glance at the backs of them tells one something. Jim took his place by Hinoe's side. Look, here is a book on Old English Gold Plate, and another pronounce that title for me, if you please. Jim read the title of the book on which Hinoe's finger was placed, marks and monograms on pottery and porcelain. Hinoe repeated the inscription and moved along. From a shelf at the level of his breast and just to the left of the window in which Betty was sitting he took a large, thinnish volume in a paper cover and turned over the plates. It was a brochure upon Battersea and Amel. There should be a second volume, said Jim Frobisher with a glance at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of remarks. He was not paying any attention to the paper covered book upon Battersea and Amel, for he was really engaged in speculating why Hinoe had called him to his side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some swift look of understanding as it was exchanged by the two girls some sign that they were in collusion? If so, he was to be disappointed, for though Betty and Anne were now free from Hinoe's vigilant eye, neither of them moved, neither of them signaled to the other. Hinoe, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. He answered Jim's suggestion. Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume, but this is complete, he said, and he put back the book in its place. There was room next to it for another quartile volume, so long as it was no thicker, and Hinoe rested his finger in the vacant place on the shelf with his thoughts clearly far away. Betty recalled him to his surroundings. Mr. Hinoe, she said in her quiet voice from her seat in the window, there was a second point you said, on which you would like to ask me a question. Yes, mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it. He turned with a curiously swift motion, and stood so that he had both girls in front of him. Betty, on his left in the window, Anne, up caught, standing a little apart upon his right, gazing at him with a look of awe. Have you, mademoiselle? He asked, been pestered, since Boris Wabersky brought his accusation, with any of these anonymous letters which seemed to be flying about Dijon. I have received one, answered Betty, and Anne up caught, raised her eyebrows in surprise. It came on Sunday morning. It was very slanderous, of course, and I could have taken no notice of it, but for one thing, it told me that you, Mr. Hinoe, were coming from Paris to take up the case. Oh, said Hinoe softly, and you received this letter on the Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, mademoiselle? Betty shook her head. No, monsieur. Hinoe smiled. Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should be destroyed. No, I didn't. Betty answered. I kept it. I put it away in a drawer of my writing table in my own sitting-room, but that room is sealed up, monsieur Hinoe. The letter is in the drawer still. Hinoe received the statement with a frank satisfaction. It cannot run away, then, mademoiselle, he said contentedly, but the contentment passed. So the commissaire police actually sealed up your private sitting-room. That, to be sure, was going a little far. Betty shrugged her shoulders. It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. And, after all, I was accused, she said bitterly. But Anne-upcott was not satisfied to leave the matter there. She drew a step nearer to Betty, and then looked at Hinoe. But that is not all the truth, she said. Betty's room belongs to that suite of rooms in which Madame Arlo's bedroom was arranged. It is the last room of the suite opening onto the hall. And for that reason, as the commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to seal it up with the others. Oh, I thank you, mademoiselle, said Hinoe with a smile. Yes, that, of course, softens his action. He looked whimsically at Betty in the window-seat. It has been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend mademoiselle Arlo. Will you help me to get all these troublesome dates now clear? Madame Arlo was buried, I understand, on the Saturday morning twelve days ago. Yes, monsieur, said Anne-upcott, and after the funeral, on your return to this house, the notary opened and read the will. Yes, monsieur? And in Boris Wabersky's presence? Yes. Then, exactly a week later, on Saturday the seventh of May, he goes off quickly to the prefecture of police. Yes. And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous letter. Hinoe turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in answer. And a little later on the same morning comes the commissaire, who seals the doors. At eleven o'clock, to be exact, replied Anne-upcott. Hinoe, bowed low. You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the precise hour at which things happen. It is a rare gift and very useful to people like myself. Anne-upcott had been growing easier and easier in her manner, with each answer that she gave. Now she could laugh outright. I do at all events, monsieur, I know, she said, but alas, I was born to be an old maid, a chair out of place, a book disarranged, a clock not keeping time, or even a pen on the carpet. I cannot bear these things. I notice them at once, and I must put them straight. Yes, it was precisely eleven o'clock when the commissaire of police rang the bell. Did he search the rooms before he sealed them? Hinoe asked. No, we both of us thought his negligence strange, Anne replied, until he informed us that the examining magistrate wanted everything left just as it was. Hinoe laughed genially, and that was on my account. He explained who could tell what wonderful things Hinoe might not discover with his magnifying glass when he arrived from Paris. What fatal fingerprints! Oh, what scraps of burnt letter! Aha! But I tell you, mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, even Hinoe would not expect to make any startling discoveries in rooms which had been open to the whole household for a fortnight since the crime. However, and he moved towards the door, since I am here now, Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning, and Hinoe stopped and swung round upon her swiftly with his eyes very challenging and hard. You are going to break those seals now, she asked, with a curious breathlessness. Then may I come with you. Please, please, it is I who am accused. I have a right to be present, and her voice rose into an earnest cry. Calm yourself, mademoiselle, and know return gently. No advantage will be taken of you. I'm going to break no seals, that, as I have told you, is the right of the commissaire, who is a magistrate, and he will not move until the medical analysis is ready. No, what I was going to propose was that mademoiselle here, and he pointed to Anne, should show me the outside of those reception rooms and the rest of the house. Of course, said Betty, and she sat down again in the window-seat. Thank you, said Hinoe. He turned back to Anne, up got. Shall we go? And as we go, will you tell me what you think of Boris Wabeski? He has some nerve, I can tell you that, Monsieur Hinoe, Anne cried. He actually came back to this house after he had lodged his charge, and asked me to support him. And she passed out the room in front of Hinoe. Jim Frobyshire followed the couple to the door and closed it behind them. The last few minutes had set his mind altogether at rest. The author of the anonymous letters was the detective's real quarry. His manner had quite changed when putting his questions about them. The flamboyancies and the indifference, even his amusement at Betty's ill humor, had quite disappeared. He had got to business, watchfully, quietly. Jim came back into the room. He took his cigarette case from his pocket and opened it. May I smoke? he asked. As he turned to Betty for permission, a fresh shock brought his thoughts and words alike to a standstill. She was staring at him, with panic naked in her eyes, and her face set like a tragic mask. He believes me guilty! she whispered. No, said Jim, and he went to her side. But she would not listen. He does, I am sure of it. Don't you see that he was bound to? He was sent from Paris. He has his reputation to think up. He must have his victim before he returns. Jim was sorely tempted to break his word. He had only to tell the real cause, which had fetched a no out of Paris, and Betty's distress was gone. But he could not. Every tradition of his life strove to keep him silent. He dared not even tell her that this charge against her was only an excuse. She must live in anxiety for a little while longer. He laid his hand gently upon her shoulder. Betty, don't believe that! he said, with a consciousness of how weak that phrase was, compared with the statement he could have made. I was watching Hanoe, listening to him. I am sure that he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking you. Why, he even knew that Simon Harlow had a passion for collecting, though not a word had been said of it. He was asking questions to see how you would answer them, setting now and then a little trap, as he admitted. Yes, said Betty in a trembling voice, all the time he was setting traps. And every answer you gave, even your manner, and giving them, Jim continued stoutly, more and more made clear your innocence. To him, asked Betty, yes, to him I am sure of it. Betty Harlow caught at his arms and held it in both her hands. She leaned her head against it, through the sleeve of his coat. He felt the velvet of her cheek. Oh, thank you! she whispered. Thank you, Jim! and, as she pronounced the name, she smiled. She was thanking him, and not so much for the stout confidence of his words, as for the comfort which the touch of him gave to her. Very likely I am making too much of little things, she went on. Very likely I am ungenerous, too, to Monsieur Harlow. But he lives amidst crimes and criminals. He must be so used to seeing people condemned, and passing out of sight into blackness and horrors, that one more or less, whether innocent or guilty, going that way, wouldn't seem to matter very much. Yes, Betty, I think that is a little unjust, Jim Frobischer remarked gently. Very well, I take it back, she said, and she let his arm go. All the same, Jim, I am looking to you, not to him. And she laughed with an appealing drummer in the laugh, which took his heart by storm. Luckily, said he, you don't have to look to anyone, and he had hardly finished the sentence before an up-caught came back alone into the room. She was about Betty's height and Betty's age, and had the same sort of boyish tenderness and carriage, which marks the girls of this generation. But in other respects, even to the color of her clothes, she was as dissimilar as one girl can be from another. She was dressed in white from her coat to her shoes, and she wore a big gold hat, so that one was almost at a loss to know where her hat ended and her hair began. And Mr. Hano, Betty asked. He's prowling about by himself, she replied. I showed him all the rooms and who used them, and he said that he would have a look at them, and it sent me back to you. Did he break the seals on the reception rooms, Betty Arlow asked? Oh, no, said Anne, why, he told us that he couldn't do that without the commissaire. Yes, he told us that, Betty remarked dryly, but I was wondering whether he meant what he told us. Oh, I don't think Mr. Hano's alarming, said Anne. She gave Jim Frobisher the impression that at any moment she might call him a dear old thing. She had quite got over the first little shock, which the announcement of his presence had caused her. Besides Anne, she sat down by the side of Betty in the window seat and looked with the frankest confidence at Jim. Besides, we can feel safe now, anyway. Jim Frobisher threw up his hands in despair, that queer look of aloofness had to played him false with Anne up-got now, as it had already done with Betty. If these two girls had called on him for help when a sudden squall found them in an open sailing boat, with the sheet of the sail made fast, or on the ice-sope of a mountain, or with a rhinoceros lumbering towards them out of some forest of the Nile, he would not have shrunk from their trust. But this was quite a different matter. They were calmly pitting him against Anneau. You were safe before, he exclaimed. Anneau is not your enemy, and as for me, I have neither experience nor natural gifts for this sort of work. And he broke off with a groan. For both the girls were watching him with a smile of complete disbelief. Good heavens, they think that I am being astute, he reflected, and the more I confess my incapacity, the astuter they'll take me to be. He gave up all arguments. Of course, I am absolutely at your service, he said. Thank you, said Betty. You will bring your luggage from your hotel, and stay here, won't you? Jim was tempted to accept that invitation, but on the one hand he might wish to see Anneau at the Grand Taverna, or Anneau might wish to see him, and secrecy was to be the condition of such meetings. It was better that he should keep his freedom of movement complete. I won't put you to such trouble, Betty, he replied. There's no reason in the world that I should. A call over the telephone, and in five minutes I'm at your side. Betty Harlow seemed in doubt to press her invitation or not. It looks a little inhospitable in me, she began, and the door opened and Anneau entered the room. I left my hat and stick here, he said. He picked them up and bowed to the girls. You have seen everything, Monsieur Anneau? Betty asked. Everything, mademoiselle? I shall not trouble you again, until the report of the analysis is in my hands. I wish you a good morning. Betty slipped off the window-seed and accompanied him out into the hall. It appeared to Jim Frobisher that she was seeking to make some amends for her ill-humour, and when he heard her voice, he thought to detect in it some note of apology. I shall be very glad if you will let me know the sense of that report as soon as possible, she pleaded. You, better than anyone, will understand that this is a difficult hour for me. I understand very well, mademoiselle. Anneau answered gravely. I will see to it that the hour is not prolonged. Jim, watching them through the doorway, as they stood together in the sunlit hall, felt ever so slight a touch upon his arm. He wheeled about quickly. Anne, up-god, was at his side with all the liveliness and even the delicate colour gone from her face and a wild and desperate appeal in her eyes. You will come and stay here. Oh, please, she whispered. I have just refused, he answered. You heard me. I know, she went on, the words stumbling over one another from her lips, but take back your refusal, too. Oh, I am frightened out of my wits. I don't understand anything, I'm terrified. And she clasped her hands together in supplication. Jim had never seen fear so stark, no, not even in Betty's eyes a few minutes ago. It robbed her exquisite face of all its beauty and made it in a second haggard and old. But before he could answer, a stick clattered loudly upon the pavement of the hall and startled them both like the crack of a pistol. Jim looked through the doorway. Hanno was stooping to pick up his cane. Betty made a die for it, but Hanno already had it in his hands. I thank you, mademoiselle, but I can still touch my toes. Every morning I do it five times in my pajamas, and with a laugh he ran down the couple of steps into the courtyard, and with that curiously quick saunter of his was out into the street of Charles Robert in a moment. When Jim turned again to Ann Upcroft, the fear had gone from her face so completely that he could hardly believe his eyes. Betty is going to stay, she cried gaily. So I inferred, replied Betty, with a curious smile as she came back into the room. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Of The House of the Arrow by A. E. W. Mason This liverbox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 7 Exit Wabersky Jim Frogesher neither saw nor heard any more of Hanno that day. He fetched his luggage away from the hotel and spent the evening with Betty Harlow and Ann Upcot at the Maison-Glennel. They took their coffee after dinner in the garden behind the house, descending to it by a short flight of stone steps from a great door at the back of the hall. And by some sort of unspoken compact they avoided all mention of Wabersky's charge. They had nothing to do but to wait now for the analyst report. But the long line of high shuttered windows just above their heads, the windows of the reception rooms, forbade them to forget the subject and their conversation perpetually dwindled down into long silences. It was cool out here in the dark garden, cool and very still, so that the bustle of a bird amongst the leaves of the sycamores startled them, and the rare footsteps of a passerby in the little street of Charles Robert rang out as though they would wake a dreaming city. Jim noticed that once or twice Ann Upcot leaned swiftly forward and stared across the dark lawns and glimmering paths to the great screen of tall trees as if her eyes had detected a movement amongst their stems. But on each occasion she said nothing, and with an almost inaudible sigh, sank back in her chair. Is there a door into the garden from the street? Robusher asked, and Betty answered him, No, there is a passage at the end of the house under the reception rooms from the courtyard which the gardeners use. The only other entrance is through the hall behind us. This old house was built in days when your house really was your castle, and the fewer the entrances, the more safely you slept. The clocks of that city of clocks clashed out the hour of eleven, throwing the sounds of their strokes backwards and forwards above the pinnacles and rooftops in a sort of rivalry. Betty rose to her feet. There's a day gone at all event, she said, and Ann Upcot agreed with a breath of relief. To Jim it seemed a pitiful thing that these two girls, to whom each day should be a succession of sparkling hours, all too short, must be rejoicing quietly, almost gratefully, that another of them had passed. It should be the last of the bad days, he said, and Betty turned swiftly towards him, her great eyes shining in the darkness. Good night, Jim, she said, her voice ever so slightly lingering like a caress upon his name, and she held out her hand. It's terribly dull for you, but we are not unselfish enough to let you go. You see, we are shunned just now. Oh, it's natural to have you with us means a great deal. For one thing, and there came a little wilt in her voice, I shall sleep tonight. She ran up the steps and stood for a moment against the light from the hall. A long-legged slip of a girl and black silk stockings, thus Mr. Haslett had spoken of her as she was five years ago, and the description fitted her still. Good night, Betty, said Jim, and Anne Upcott rampast him up the steps and wave her hand. Good night, said Jim, and with a little twist of her shoulders, Anne followed Betty. She came back, however. She was wearing a little white frock of creptigine with white stockings and satin shoes, and she gleamed at the head of the steps like a slender thing of silver. You'll bolt the door when you come in, won't you? She pleaded with a curious anxiety, considering the height of the strong walls about the garden. I will, said Jim, and he wondered why in all this business Anne Upcott stood out as a note of fear. It was high time indeed that the long line of windows was thrown open and the interdict raised from the house and its inmates. Jim Frobisher paced the quiet garden in the darkness with a prayer at his heart that that time would come tomorrow. In Betty's room above the reception rooms, the light was still burning behind the lattice shutters of the windows in spite of her confidence that she would sleep. Yes, Anne and Anne Upcott's room too at the end of the house towards the street. A fury against Boris Wabersky flamed up in him. It was late before he himself went into the house and barred the door, later still before he fell asleep. But once asleep he slept soundly and when he waked it was to find his shutters thrown wide to the sunlight, his coffee cold by his bedside, and Gaston, the old servant, in the room. Monsieur Hano asked me to tell you he was in the library, he said. Jim was out of bed in an instant. Already! What is the time, Gaston? Nine o'clock. I have prepared Monsieur's bath. He removed the tray from the table by the bed. I will bring some fresh coffee. Oh, thank you, and will you please tell Monsieur Hano that I will not be long? Certainly, Monsieur. Jim took his coffee while he dressed and hurried down to the library, where he found Hano seated at the big writing table in the middle of the room with a newspaper spread out over the blotting-pad and placidly reading the news. He spoke quickly enough, however, the moment Jim appeared. So you left your hotel in the Place d'Asie, after all, my friend, the exquisite Miss Upcott. She had about to sigh out a little prayer and clasped her hands together, and it was done. Yes, I saw it all from the hall. But it is to be young. You have those two letters which Robersky wrote your firm? Yes, said Jim. He did not think it necessary to explain that though the prayer was Ann Upcott's, it was the thought of Betty which had brought him to the Maison-Gonelle. Oh, good, I have sent for him, said Hano. To come to this house? I am expecting him now. That's capital, cried Jim. I shall meet him then. That damned rogue! I shouldn't wonder if I thumped him. And he clenched his fist and shook it in joyous anticipation. I doubt if that would be so helpful as you think. No, I beg of you to place yourself in my hands this morning, Miss Sheerfrobisher, and O, interposed soberly. If you confront Robersky at once with those two letters, at once his accusation breaks down. He will withdraw it. He will excuse himself. He will burst into a torrent of complaints and reproaches, and I shall get nothing out of him. That I do not want. But what is there to be got? Jim asked impatiently. Something, perhaps? Perhaps nothing. The detective returned with a shrug of the shoulders. I have a second mission in Dijon as I told you in Paris. The anonymous letters? Yes, you were present yesterday when Mademoiselle Harlow told me how she learned that I was summoned from Paris upon this case. It was not, after all, any of my colleagues here who spread the news. It is even now unknown that I am here. No, it was the writer of the letters, and in so difficult a matter, I can afford to neglect no clue. Did Obersky know that I was going to be sent for? Did he hear that at the prefecture, when he lodged his charge on the Saturday, or from the examining magistrate on the same day? And if he did, to whom did he talk between the time when he saw the magistrate, and the time when letters must be posted, if there to be delivered on the Sunday morning? These are questions I must have the answer to, and if we at once administer the knockout with your letters, I shall not get them. I must lead him on with friendliness. You see that? Jim very reluctantly did. He had longed to see Hanoe dealing with Obersky in the most outrageous of his moods, pouncing and tearing and trampling, with the jibes of a schoolboy, and the improprieties of the gutter. Hanoe indeed had promised him as much, but he found him now all for restraint and sobriety, and more concerned, apparently, with the authorship of the anonymous letters than with the writing of Betty Harlow. Jim felt that he had been defrauded. But I am to meet this man, he said, that must not be forgotten, and it shall not be. Hanoe assured him. He led him over to the door in the inner wall, close to the observation window, and opened it. See, if you were pleased to wait in here, and as the disappointment deepened in Jim's face, he added, Oh, I do not ask you to shut the door. No, bring up a chair to it. So, and keep the door ajar. So, then you will see in here, and yet not be seen. You are content? Not very. You would prefer to be on the stage the whole time, like an actor. Yes, we all do. But at all events, you do not throw up your part. And, with a friendly grin, he turned back to the table. A shuffling step, which merged into the next step, with a curiously slovenly sound, rose from the courtyard. It was time we made our little arrangements, said Hanoe, in an undertone, for here comes our hero from the steps. Jim popped his head through the doorway. Miss sure Hanoe, he whispered excitedly, Miss sure Hanoe, it cannot be wise to leave those windows open on the courtyard, for if we can hear a footsteps so loudly in this room, anything said in this room will be easily overheard in the court. But how true that is, Hanoe replied, in the same voice, and struck his forehead with a fist in anger at his volley. But what are we to do? The day is so hot, this room will be an oven. The ladies and Wabersky will all faint. Besides, I have an officer in plain clothes, already stationed in the court, to see that it is kept empty. Yes, we will risk it. Jim drew back. That man doesn't welcome advice from anyone, he said indignantly, but he said it only to himself, and almost before he had finished, the bell rang. A few seconds afterwards, Agaston entered. Miss sure Boris, he said. Yes, said Hanoe with an odd, and will you tell the ladies that we are ready. Boris Wabersky, a long round shoulder demand, with bent knees and clumsy feet, dressed in black and holding a soft black felt hat in his hand, shambled quickly into the room, and stopped dead at the side of Hanoe. Hanoe bowed, and Wabersky returned to bow, and then the two men stood looking at one another. Hanoe, all geniality, and smiles. Wabersky, a rather grotesque figure of uneasiness, like one of those mini grim caricatures carved by the imagination of the Middle Ages, on the columns of the churches of Dijon. He, blinked in perplexity at the detective, and with his long, tobacco-stained fingers, tortured his gray mustache. We be seated, said Hanoe politely. I think that the ladies will not keep us waiting. He pointed towards a chair in front of the writing-table, but on his left hand and opposite to the door. I don't understand, said Wabersky doubtfully. I received a message. I understood that the examining magistrate had said for me. I am his agent, said Hanoe. I am, and he stopped. Yes, Boris Wabersky stared. I said nothing. I beg your pardon. I am, uh, Hanoe. He shot the name out quickly, but he was answered by no start, nor by any sign of recognition. Hanoe, Wabersky shook his head, that, no doubt, should be sufficient to enlighten me, he said with a smile, but it is better to be frank. It doesn't. And no, of the suité of Paris. And upon Wabersky's face there came slowly a look of utter consternation. Oh, he said, and again, oh, with a lamentable look towards the door, as if he was in two minds whether to make a bolt of it. Hanoe pointed again to the chair, and Wabersky murmured, uh, yes, to be sure, and made a little run to it and sank down. Jim Frobisher, watching from his secret place, was certain of one thing. Boris Wabersky had not written the anonymous letters to Betty, nor had he contributed the information about Hanoe to the writer. He might well have been thought to have been acting ignorance of Hanoe's name up to the moment when Hanoe explained who Hanoe was, but no longer his consternation then was too genuine. You will understand, of course, that an accusation so serious as the one you have brought against Mademoiselle Harlow demands the closest inquiry. Hanoe continued without any trace of irony, and the examining magistrate in charge of the case honored us in Paris with a request for help. Yes, it is very difficult, replied Boris Wabersky, twisting about as if he was a martyr on red-hot plates. But the difficulty was Wabersky's as Jim, with that distressed man in full view, was now able to appreciate. Wabersky had rushed to the prefecture, when no answer came from Measures Frobisher and Aslet to his letter of threats, and had brought his charge in a spirit of disappointment and rancor, with a hope, no doubt, that some offer of cash would be made to him, and that he could withdraw it. Now he found the train detective service of France upon his heels, asking for his proofs and evidence. This was more than he had bargained for. I thought, Hanoe continued easily, that a little informal conversation between you and me and the two young ladies, without shorthand writers or secretaries, might be helpful. Yes, indeed, said Wabersky, hopefully. As a preliminary, of course, Hanoe added dryly, a preliminary to the more serious and now inevitable procedure. Wabersky's gleam of hopefulness was extinguished. To be sure, he murmured, plucking at his lean throat nervously, a case as must proceed. That is what they are there for, said Hanoe sentitiously, and the door of the library was pushed open. Betty came into the room with Ann Upcott immediately behind her. You sent for me, she began to Hanoe, and then she saw Boris Wabersky. Her little head went up with a jerk, her eyes smoldered. Miss your Boris, she said, and again she spoke to Hanoe. Come to take possession, I suppose. Then, as she looked around the room for Jim Frobischer, and exclaimed in a sudden dismay, but I understand that Ann Upcott and Hanoe was just in time to stop her from mentioning any name. All in good time, mademoiselle, he said quickly, let us take things in their order. Betty took her old place in the window-seat, Ann Upcott shut the door and sat down in a chair, a little apart from the others. Hanoe folded up his newspaper and laid it aside. On the big blotting-pad, which was now revealed, lay one of those green files which Jim Frobischer had noticed in the office of the Surrey Day. Hanoe opened it and took up the top paper. He turned briskly to Wabersky. Monsieur, you state that on the night of the 27th of April, this girl here, Betty Harlow, did wilfully give to her adoptive mother and benefactress Jean-Marie Harlow an overdose of a narcotic by which her death was brought about. Yes, said Wabersky, with an air of boldest, I declare that you do not specify the narcotic. It was probably morphine, but I cannot be sure. Ann administered according to you, if this summary, which I hold here is correct, in the glass of lemonade which Madame Harlow had always at her bedside. Yes. Hanoe laid the sheet of fool's cap down again. You do not charge the nurse, Jean Baudin, with complicity in this crime, he asked. Oh, no, Wabersky exclaimed with a sort of horror, with his eyes open wide and his eyebrows running up his forehead towards his hedge of wiry hair. I have not a suspicion of Jean Baudin. I pray you, Monsieur Hanoe, to be clear upon that point. There must be no injustice. No, oh, it is well that I came here today. Jean Baudin, listen, I would engage her to nurse me tomorrow, were my health to fail. One cannot say more than that, replied Hanoe, with a grave sympathy. I only asked you the question, because undoubtedly Jean Baudin was in Madame's bedroom, when Madame Ozil entered it to wish Madame good night, and show off her new dancing frock. Yes, I understand, said Wabersky. He was growing more and more confident, so suave and friendly was this Monsieur Hanoe of the Surité. But the fatal drug was slipped into that glass, without a doubt, when Jean Baudin was not looking. I do not accuse her. No, it is that hard one, and his voice began to shake, and his mouth to work, who slipped it in, and then hurried off to dance till morning, whilst her victim died. It is terrible that, yes, Monsieur Hanoe, it is terrible, my poor sister. Sister-in-law, the correction came, with an acid calm, from an armchair near the door in which Anupkat was reclining. Sister to me, replied Wabersky mournfully, and he turned to Hanoe. Monsieur, I shall never cease to reproach myself. I was away fishing in the forest, if I had stayed at home. Oh, think of it, I ask you to—and his voice broke. Yes, but you did come back, Monsieur Wabersky, Hanoe said, and this is where I am perplexed. You loved your sister, that is clear, since you cannot even think of her without tears. Oh, yes, yes, Wabersky shaded his eyes with his hand. Then why did you, loving her so dearly, wait for so long before you took any action to avenge her death? There will be some good reason, not a doubt, but I have not got it. Hanoe continued, spreading out his hands, listen to the dates. Your dear sister dies on the night of the 27th of April. You return home on the 28th, and you do nothing. You bring no charge. You sit all quiet. She is buried on the 30th, and after that you still do nothing. You sit all quiet. It is not until one week after that you launched your accusation against Madame Ezz. Why? I beg you, Monsieur Wabersky, not to look at me between the fingers, for the answer is not written on my face, and to explain this difficulty to me. The request was made in the same pleasant friendly voice, which Hanoe had used so far, and without any change of intonation. But Wabersky snatched his hand away from his forehead, and sat up with a flush on his face. I answer you at once, he exclaimed, from the first I knew it here, and he thumped his heart with his fist. That murder had been committed, but as yet I did not know it here, and he patted his forehead in my head. So I think, and I think, and I think. I see reasons and motives. They build themselves up. A young girl of beauty and style, but of a strange and secret character, thirsting in her heart for color and laughter and enjoyment, and the power which her beauty offers her, if she will but grasp it, and yet, while thirsting, very able to conceal all signs of thirst, that is the picture I give you of that hard one, Betty Harlow. For the first time since the interview had commenced, Betty herself showed some interest in it. Up till now she had sat without a movement, a figure of disdain in an ice-house of pride. Now she flashed into life. She leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed knee, her chin propped in her hand, her eyes on Wabersky, and a smile of amusement at this analysis of herself, giving life to her face. Jim Frobisher, on the other hand, behind his door, felt that he was listening to blasphemies. Why did Hinoe endure it? There was information he had said, which he wanted to get from Boris Wabersky. The point on which he wanted information was settled long ago at the very beginning of this informal session. It was as clear as daylight that Wabersky had nothing to do with Betty's anonymous letter. Why then should Hinoe give this Montabanc of a fellow a free opportunity to slander Betty Harlow? Why should he question and question as if there were solid weight in the accusation? Why, in a word, didn't he fling open this door, allow Frobisher to produce the blackmailing letters to Mr. Haslet, and then stand aside while Boris Wabersky was put into that condition in which he would call upon the services of Jean Baudin? Jim indeed was furiously annoyed with Mr. Hinoe. He explained to himself that he was disemointed. Meanwhile, Boris Wabersky, after a little nervous check when Betty had leaned forward, continued his description. For such a one, des gens would be tiresome. It is true there was each year a month or so out to Montecarlo, just enough to give one a hint of what might be, like a cigarette to a man who wants to smoke, and then back to des gens. Ah, monsieur, not des gens of the Dukes of Burgundy, but not even the des gens of the Parliament of the States, but the des gens of today an ordinary, dull, provincial town of France, which keeps nothing of its former gayities and glory, but some old, rare buildings, and a little spirit of mockery. Imagine the monsieur, this hard one with a fortune and freedom within her grasp, if only she has the boldness on some night when the monsieur Boris is out of the way to seize them. Nor is that all, for there is an invalid in the house to whom attentions are owed. Yes, and must be given. Wabersky, in a flight of excitement, checked himself, and half-closed his eyes with a little cunning nod. For the invalid was a knot so easy. No, even that dear one had her failings. Oh, yes, and we will not forget them when the moment comes for the extenuating pleas. No, indeed, and he flung his arm out nobly, I myself will be the first to urge them to the judge of the ascises when the verdict is given. Betty Harlow leaned back once more indifferent, from an arm-chair near the door a little gurgle of laughter broke from the lips of an up-got, even Heno smiled. Yes, yes, he said, but we have not got quite as far as the court of ascises, Monsieur Wabersky. We are still at the point where you know it in your heart, but not in your head. That is so, Wabersky returned briskly. On the seventh of May, Saturday, I bring my accusation to the prefecture. Why? For on the morning of that day I am certain, I know it at last here too. And up went his hand to his forehead, and he hitched himself forward onto the edge of his chair. I am in the street of Campetta, one of the small popular new streets, a street with some little shops and a reputation not of the best. At ten o'clock I am passing quickly through that street, when from a little shop a few yards in front of me out pops that hard one, my niece. Suddenly the whole character of that session had changed. Jim Frobischer, though he sat apart from it, felt the new tension and was aware of the new expectancy. A moment ago Boris Wabersky, as he sat talking and gesticulating, had been a thing for ridicule, almost for outright laughter. Now, though, his voice still jumped hysterically from high notes to low notes, and his body jerked like a marionette, he kept the eyes of everyone, everyone that is except Betty Harlow. He was no longer vague, he was speaking of a definite hour and a place, and of a definite incident which happened there. Yes, in that bad little street I see here, I do not believe my senses, I step into a little narrow alley and I peep round the corner, I peep with my eyes, and Wabersky pointed to them, with two of his fingers, as though there was something peculiarly convincing in the fact that he peeped with them and not with his elbows, and I am sure, then I wait until she is out of sight, and I creep forward to see what shop it is she visited in that little street of squalor. Once more I do not believe my eyes, for over the door I read the name Jean-Claudelle Herbalest. He pronounced the name in a voice of triumph, and sat back in his chair, nodding his head violently at intervals of a second. There was not a sound in the room, until Hano's voice broke the silence. I don't understand, he said softly, who is this Jean-Claudelle, and why should a young lady not visit his shop? I beg your pardon, Wabersky replied, you are not of Dijon, no, or you would not have asked that question. Jean-Claudelle has no better name than the street he very suitably lives in. Ask a Dijonné about Jean-Claudelle, and you will see how he becomes silent, and it shrugs his shoulders, as if here was a topic on which it was becoming to be silent. Better still, monsieur Hano, ask at the préfecture, Jean-Claudelle, twice he has been tried for selling prohibited drugs. Hano was stung at last out of his comb. What is that? he cried in a sharp voice. Yes, twice, monsieur, each time he has scraped through, that is true, he has powerful friends, and witnesses have been spirited away. But he is known Jean-Claudelle, yes Jean-Claudelle. Jean-Claudelle, herbalist of the street, comme betta, Hano repeated slowly, but, and he leaned back in an easier attitude, you will see my difficulty, monsieur Wabersky, ten o'clock is a public hour, it is not a likely hour for anyone to choose for so imprudent a visit, even if that one were stupid. Yes, and so I reasoned too, Wabersky, interposed quickly, as I told you I could not believe my eyes, but I made sure, oh, there was no doubt, monsieur Hano, and I thought to myself this, crimes are discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner or later, some foolish thing, isn't it so? Sometimes they are too careful, they make their proofs too perfect for an imperfect world, sometimes they are too careless, or are driven by necessity to a rash thing, but somehow a mistake is made, and justice wins the game. Hano smiled, ah, student of crime, monsieur, he turned to Betty and struck upon Jim Frobischer with a curious discomfort, that this was the first time Hano had looked directly at Betty since the interview had begun. And what do you say to this story, mademoiselle? It is a lie, she answered quietly. You did not visit Jean-Gladeau in the street of Gambetta at 10 o'clock on the morning of the 7th of May? I did not, monsieur, Wabersky smiled and twisted his moustache. Of course, of course, we could not expect mademoiselle to admit it. One fights for one's skin, eh? But after all, Hano interrupted with enough savagery in his voice to check all Wabersky's complacency. Let us not forget that on the 7th of May Madame Harlow had been dead for 10 days. Why should mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean-Gladeau? To pay, said Wabersky, oh, no doubt Jean-Gladeau's wares are expensive, and have to be paid for more than once, monsieur. By wares, you mean poison, said Hano. Let us be specific. Yes, poison, which was used to murder mademoiselle. I say so, Wabersky declared, folding his arms across his breast. Very well, said Hano. He took from his green file a second paper written over in a fine hand and emphasized by an official stamp. Then what will you say, monsieur, if I tell you that the body of Madame Harlow has been exhumed? Hano continued, and Wabersky's face lost what little color it had. He stared at Hano, his jaw working up and down nervously, and he did not say a word. And what will you say if I tell you, Hano continued, that no more morphia was discovered in it than one sleeping dose would explain and no trace at all of any other poison. In a complete silence, Wabersky took his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The game was up. He had hoped to make his terms, but his bluff was called. He had not one atom of faith in his own accusation. There was but one course for him to take, and that was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection for his sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. But Boris Wabersky was never the man for that. He had that extra share of cunning, which shipwrecks always the minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine that Hano might be bluffing too. He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He tittered and nodded at Hano confidentially, You say if I tell you, he said smoothly. Yes, but you do not tell me, Mr. Hano. No, not at all. On the contrary, what you say is this. My friend Wabersky here is a difficult matter, which if exposed means a great scandal, and of which the issue is doubtful. There is no good in stirring the mud. Oh, I say that, Hano asked, smiling pleasantly. Wabersky felt sure of his ground now. Yes, and more than that, you say, we have been badly treated, my friend Wabersky, and if you will now have a little talk with that hard one your knees, and his chair slid back against the bookcase, and he sat gaping stupidly like a man who has been shot. Hano had sprung to his feet. He stood towering above the table, and his face suddenly dark with passion. Oh, I say all that, do I? He thundered. I came all the way from Paris to Dijon to preside over a little bargain in a murder case. I, and no, I'll teach you a lesson for that. Read this. And bending forward, he thrust out the paper with the official seal. It is the report of the analyst. Take it, I tell you, and read it. Wabersky reached out a trembling arm, afraid to venture nearer, even when he had the paper in his hand, they shook so he could not read it. But since he had never believed in his charge, that did not matter. Yes, he muttered, no doubt. I've made a mistake. Hano caught the word up mistake. There's a fine word. I'll show you what sort of mistake you have made. Drop your chair to this table in front of me. Though, and take a pen. So, and a sheet of paper. So, and now you write for me a letter. Yes, yes, Wabersky agreed. All the bravado had gone from his bearing, all the insinuating slainess. He was in a quiver from head to foot. I will write that I am sorry. That is not necessary, roared Hano. I will see to it that you are sorry. No, you write for me what I dictate to you, and in English. You are ready? Yes. Then you begin. Dear sirs, you have that? Yes, yes, said Wabersky, scribbling hurriedly. His head was in a whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the towering bulk of the detective. He had as yet no comprehension of the gold to which he was being led. Good. Dear sirs, Hano repeated, but we want a date for that letter. April 30th. That will do. The day Madame Harlow's will was read, and you found you were left no money. April 30th. Put it in. So. Now we go on. Dear sirs, send me at once one thousand pounds by the recommended post, or I will make some awkwardnesses. Wabersky dropped his pen and sprang back out of his chair. I don't understand. I can't write that. There's an error. I never meant. He stammered. His hands raised as if to ward off an attack. Ah, you never meant the blackmail. And oh, cried savagely, it's good for you that I now know that. For when, as you put it so delicately to mademoiselle, the moment comes for the extenuating pleas I can raise up in the court and urge it. Yes, I will say, oh, Mr. Brilapresitant, though he did the blackmail poor fellow, he never meant it. So please to give him five years more. And with that, Hanoe swept across the room like a tornado and Flung opened the door behind which Frobisher was waiting. Come, he said, and he led Jim into the room. You produced the two letters he wrote to your firm, Mr. Frobisher? Good. But it was not necessary to produce them. Boris Wabersky had dropped into a chair and burst into tears. There was a little movement of discomfort made by everyone in that room, except Hanoe, and even his anger dropped. He looked at Wabersky in silence. You make us all ashamed. You can go back to your hotel, he said shortly, but you will not leave Dijon, Mr. Wabersky, until it is decided what steps we shall take with you. Wabersky rose to his feet and stumbled blindly to the door. I make my apologies. He stammered. It is all a mistake. I'm very poor. I am in no harm. And without looking at anyone, he got himself out of the room. That type. He, at all events, cannot anymore think that Dijon is dull, said Hanoe, and once more he adventured on the dangerous seas of the English language. Do you know what my friend Mr. Ricardo would have said? No, I tell you, he would have said, that fellow, my God, what a sauce. Those left in the room, Betty, Anne Upcott, and Jim Frobisher, were in a mood to welcome any excuse for laughter. The interdict upon the house was raised. The charge against Betty proved of no account. The whole bad affair was at an end. Or so it seemed. But Hanoe went quickly to the door and closed it, and when he turned back there was no laughter at all upon his face. Now that that man is gone, he said gravely, I have something to tell you three which is very serious. I believe that, though Wabersky does not know it, Madame Harlow was murdered by poison in this house on the night of April the 27th. The statement was received in a dreadful silence. Jim Frobisher stood like a man whom some calamity has stunned. Betty leaned forward in her seat with a face of horror and incredulity, and then, from the armchair by the door where Anne Upcott was sitting, there burst a loud, wild cry. There was someone in the house that night, she cried. Hanoe swung round to her, his eyes blazing. And it is you who tell me that, Madame Iselle? He asked in a curious, steady voice. Yes, it is true, she cried with a sort of relief in her voice that at last a secret was out which had grown past endurance. I am sure now there was a stranger in the house, and though her face was white as paper, her eyes met Hanoes without fear. Consternation and bewilderment were all jumbled together. He had no time to ask how, for he was already asking what next. His first clear thought was for Betty, and as he looked at her, a sharp anger against both Hanoe and Anne Upcott seized and shook him. Why hadn't they both spoken before? Why must they speak now? Why couldn't they leave well enough alone? For Betty had fallen back in the window seat, her hands idle at her sides, and her face utterly weary and distressed. Jem thought of some stricken patient who wakes in the morning to believe for a few moments that the melody was a bad dream. And then comes the stab, and the cloud of pain settles down for another day. A moment ago Betty's ordeal seemed over. Now it was beginning a new phase. I am sorry, he said to her. The report of the analyst was lying on the writing-table just beneath his eyes. He took it up idly. It was a trick, of course, with its seals and its signatures, a trick of Hanoes to force Wabersky to a retraction. He glanced at it, and with an exclamation, began carefully to read it through from the beginning to the end. When he had finished, he raised his head and stared at Hanoe. But this report is genuine, he cried. Here are the details of the tests applied and the result. There was no trace discovered of any poison. No trace at all, Hanoe replied. He was not in the least disturbed by the question. Then I don't understand why you bring the accusation, or whom you accuse, Frobisher exclaimed. I have accused no one, said Hanoe steadily. Let us be clear about that, as to your other question, look. He took Frobisher by the elbow, and led him to that bookshelf by the window before which they had stood together yesterday. There was an empty space here yesterday. You yourself drew my attention to it. You see that the space is filled today. Yes, said Jim. Hanoe took down the volume which occupied the space. It was of quarto size, fairly thick, and bound in a paper cover. Look at that, he said, and Jim Frobisher, as he took it, noticed with a queer little start, that although Hanoe's eyes were on his face, they were blank of all expression. They did not see him. Hanoe's senses were concentrated on the two girls, and neither of whom, he so much as glanced. He was alert to them. To any movement they might make of surprise or terror. Jim threw up his head in a sudden revolt. He was being used for another trick, as some conjurer might use a fool of a fellow, whom he has persuaded out of his audience onto his platform. Jim looked at the cover of the book, and cried with enough violence to recall Hanoe's attention. I see nothing here to the point. It is a treatise printed by some learned society in Edinburgh. It is, and if you will look again, you will see that it was written by a professor of medicine in that university. And if you will look a third time, you will see from a small inscription in ink that the copy was presented with the professor's compliments to Mr. Simon Harlow. Hanoe, whilst he was speaking, went to the second of the two windows, which looked upon the court, and putting his head out, spoke for a little while in a low voice. We shall not need our sentry here any more, he said, as he turned back into the room. I have sent him upon an errand. He went back to Jim Frobischer, who was turning over a page of the treatise here and there, and was never a scrap the wiser. Well, yes, Stefanus has bid us. Jim read aloud the title of the treatise. I can't make a head or tail of it. Let me try, said Hanoe, and he took the book out of Frobischer's hands. I will show you all how I spent the half hour whilst I was waiting for you this morning. He sat down at the writing table, placed the treatise on the blotting pad in front of him, and laid it open at a coloured plate. This is the fruit of the plant, Strophanthus Hespidus, when it is ripening, he said. The plate showed two long tapering follicles joined together at their stems, and then separating, like a pair of compasses, set at an acute angle. The backs of these follicles were rounded, dark in colour, and speckled. The inner surfaces, however, were flat, and the curious feature of them was that from longitudinal crevices a number of silky white feathers protruded. Each of these feathers, Hanoe continued, and he looked up to find that Ann Upcott had drawn close to the table, and that Betty Harlow herself was leaning forward with a look of curiosity upon her face. Each of these feathers is attached by a fine stalk to an elliptical pod, which is the seed, and when the fruit is quite ripe and these follicles have opened so that they make a straight line, the feathers are released and the wind spreads the seed. It is wonderful, eh? See? Hanoe turned the pages until he came to another plate. Here a feather was represented in complete detachment from the follicle. It was outspread like a fan, and was extraordinarily pretty and delicate in its texture, and from it, by a stem as fine as a hair, the seed hum like a jewel. What would you say of it, mademoiselle? Hanoe asked, looking up into the face of Ann Upcott with a smile, an ornament wrought for a fine lady by a dainty artist, eh? And he turned the book round so that she, on the opposite side of the table, might the better admire the engraving. Betty Harlow, it seemed, was now mastered by her curiosity. Jim Frobisher, gazing down over Hanoe's shoulder at the plate, and wondering uneasily whether he was being led, saw a shadow fall across the book, and there was Betty, standing by the side of her friend, with the palms of her hands upon the edge of the table, and her face bent over the book. One could wish it was an ornament, this seed of the Strophanthus Hespidus, Hanoe continued with a shake of the head, but alas, it is not so harmless. He turned the book round again to himself, and once more turned the pages. The smile had disappeared altogether from his face. He stopped at a third plate, and this third plate showed a roll of crudely fashioned arrows with barbed heads. Hanoe glanced up over his shoulder at Jim. Do you understand now the importance of this book, Mr. Frobisher? He asked, no. The seeds of this plant make the famous arrow poison of Africa, the deadliest of all the poisons, since there is no antidote for it. His voice grew somber, the wickedest of all the poisons, since it leaves no trace. Jim Frobisher was startled. Is that true, he cried? Yes, said Hanoe, and Betty suddenly leaned forward and pointed to the bottom of the plate. There is a mark there below the hills of that arrow, she said curiously. Yes, and a tiny note in ink. For a moment a little gift of vision was about safe to Jim Frobisher, born no doubt of his perplexities and trouble. A curtain was rung up in his brain. He saw no more than what was before him the pretty group with the table in the gold of the main morning, but it was all made grim and terrible, and the gold had withered to a light that was gray and deathly and cold as the grave. There were the two girls, in the grace of their beauty and their youth, daintily tended, fastidiously dressed, bending their shining curls over that plate of the poison arrows like pupils at a lecture. And the man delivering the lecture, so close to them, with speech so gentle, was implacably on the trail of murder, and maybe even now looked upon one of these two girls as his quarry, was even now perhaps planning to set her in the dock of an Assisi's court, and sent her out afterwards, carried screaming and sobbing with terror in the first gray of the morning to the hideous red engine erected during the night before the prison gates. Jim saw Heno, the genial and friendly, as in some flawed mirror, twisted into a sinister and terrifying figure. How could he sit so close with them at the table, talk to them, point them out this and that diagram in the plates, he being human, and knowing what he purposed. Jim broke in upon the lecture with a cry of exasperation, but this isn't a poison, this is a book about a poison, the book can't kill. At once Heno replied to him, can't it, he cried sharply, listen to what mademoiselle said a minute ago, below the hilt of this arrow marked figure F, the professor has written a tiny note. This particular arrow was a little different from the others in the shape of its shaft, just below the triangular iron head the shaft expanded. It was as though the head had been fitted into a bulb, as one sees sometimes wooden pin holders fine enough and tapering at the upper end, and quite thick just above the nib. See page 37, said Heno, reading the professor's note, and he turned back the pages. Page 37, here we are. Heno ran a finger halfway down the page and stopped at a word in capitals, figure F. Heno hitched his chair a little closer to the table, and up got moved round the end of the table that she might see the better. Even Jim Frobisher found himself stooping above Heno's shoulder. They were all conscious of a queer tension. They were expectant like explorers on the brink of a discovery. Whilst Heno read the paragraph aloud, it seemed that no one breathed, and this is what he read. Figure F is the representation of a poison arrow which was lent to me by Simon Harlow Esquire of Blackman's Norfolk and the Maison-Granelle à Dijon. It was given to him by a Mr. John Carlyle, a trader on the Shire River in the Combe country, and is the most perfect example of a poison arrow which I have seen. The Strophanthe seed has been pounded up in water and mixed with the reddish clay used by the Combe natives, and the compound is thickly smeared over the head of the arrow shaft and over the actual iron dart, except at the point and the edges. The arrow is quite new and the compound fresh. Heno leaned back in his chair when he had come to the end of this paragraph. You see, Mr. Frobisher, the question we have to answer. Where is today Simon Harlow's arrow? Betty looked up into Heno's face. If it is anywhere in this house, I'm sure it should be in the locked cabinet in my sitting room. Your sitting room, Heno exclaimed sharply? Yes, it is what we call the treasure room, half museum, half living room. My Uncle Simon used it, madame too. It was their favorite room, full of curios and beautiful things. But after Simon Harlow died, madame would never enter it. She locked the door which communicated with her dressing room so that she might never, even in a moment of forgetfulness, enter it. The room has a door into the hall. She gave the room to me. Heno's forehead cleared of its wrinkles. I understand, he said. And that room is sealed? Yes. Have you ever seen the arrow, mademoiselle? Not that I remember. I only looked into the cabinet once. There are some horrible things hidden away there. And Betty shivered and shook the recollection of them from her shoulders. The chances are that it's not in the house at all, that it never came back to the house. Robichir argued stubbornly. The professor in all probability would have kept it. If he could, Heno rejoined. But it's out of all probability that a collector of rare things would have allowed him to keep it. No. And he sat for a little time and amused. Do you know what I'm wondering? He asked at length and then answered his own question. I am wondering whether, after all, Boris Wabersky was not in the street of Gambetta on the 7th of May and close, very close, to the shop of Jean Claudele, the herbalist. Boris? Boris Wabersky? cried Jim. Was he in Heno's eyes the criminal? After all, why not? After all, whom are likely, if criminal there was, since Boris Wabersky thought himself an inheritor under Mrs Harlow's will. I am wondering whether he was not doing that very thing, which he attributed to you, mademoiselle Betty. Heno continued. Paying? Betty cried. Paying? Or making excuses for not paying, which is more probable, or recovering the poison arrow, now clean of its poison, which is most probable of all. At last Heno had made an end of his secrecies and reticence, his suspicion, winged like the arrow in the plate, was flying straight to this evident mark. Jim drew a breath like a man waking from a nightmare. In all that small company a relaxation was visible. An upcott drew away from the table. Betty said softly as though speaking to herself, Mr Boris, Mr Boris, oh, I never thought of that. And to Jim's admiration there was actually a note of regret in her voice. It was audible too to Heno since he answered with a smile, but you must bring yourself to think of it, mademoiselle. After all he was not so gentle with you that you need to show him so much good. A slight rush of color tinged Betty's cheeks. Jim was not quite sure that a tiny accent of irony had not pointed Heno's words. I saw him sitting here, she replied quickly half an hour ago, abject in tears, a man, she shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of distaste. I wish him nothing worse, I was satisfied. Heno smiled again with a curious amusement and appreciation which Frosier was quite at a loss to understand. But he had from time to time received an uneasy impression that a queer little secret duel was all this while being fought by Betty Harlow and Heno underneath the smooth surface of questions and answers, a duel in which now one, now the other of the combatants, got some trifling scratch. This time it seemed Betty was hurt. You are satisfied, mademoiselle? But the law is not. Heno returned. Boris Wabersky expected a legacy. Boris Wabersky needed money immediately, as the first of the two letters which he wrote to Mr. Frosiers Fern clearly shows. Boris Wabersky had a motive. He looked from one to the other of his audience with a nod to drive the point home. Motives, no doubt, are a signpost rather difficult to read, and if one reads them amiss they lead one very wide astray. Granted, but you must look for your signpost all the same and try to read them a right. Listen again to the professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh. He is as precise as a man can be. The arrow was the best specimen of a poison arrow which he had ever come across. The poison paste was thickly and smoothly spread over the arrowhead and some inches of the shaft. The arrow was unused and the poison fresh, and these poisons retained their energy for many, many years. I tell you that if this book and this arrow were handed over to Jean Cladel, herbalist, Jean Cladel could with ease make a solution in alcohol, which injected from a hypodermic needle would cause death within 15 minutes and leave not one trace. Within 15 minutes, petty ask incredulously, and from the armchair against the wall where Anne Upcott had once more seated herself, there broke a startled exclamation. Oh, she cried, but no one took any notice of her at all. Both Jim and Betty had their eyes fixed upon Anne Upcott, and he was altogether occupied in driving his argument home. Within 15 minutes, how do you know? cried Jim. It is written here in the book. And where would Jean Cladel have learned to handle the paste with safety? How to prepare the solution? Jim went on. Here, here, here, answer to no, tapping with his knuckles under the treatise. It is all written out here, experiment after experiment made upon living animals and the action of the poison measured and registered by minutes. Oh, given a man with a working knowledge of chemicals such as Jean Cladel must possess, and the result is certain. Betty Harlow leaned forward again over the book, and Hanoe turned it half-round between them, so that both, by craning their heads, could read. He turned the page back to the beginning and passed them quickly in review. See, mademoiselle, the timetables, Strophanthus constricts the muscles of the heart by digitalis, only much more violently, much more swiftly. See, the contractions of the heart noted down, minute after minute, until the moment of death. And all, here is the irony, so that by means of these experiments the poison may be transformed into a medicine, and the weapon of death become an agent of life, as in good hands it has happened. Hanoe leaned back and contemplated Betty Harlow between his half-closed eyes. That is wonderful, mademoiselle, what do you think? Betty slowly closed the book. I think, Monsieur Hanoe, she said, it is no less wonderful that you should have studied this book so thoroughly during the half-hour you waited for us here this morning. It was Hanoe's turn to change color. The blood mounted into his face. He was, for a second or two, quite disconcerted. Jim once more had a glimpse of the secret duel, and rejoiced that this time it was Hanoe, the great Hanoe, who was scratched. The study of poison is particularly my work, he answered shortly. Even at the certain day we have to specialize nowadays, and he turned rather quickly towards Frobisher. You are thoughtful, Monsieur. Jim was following out his own train of thought. Yes, he answered, and then he spoke to Betty. Boris Wabersky had a latchkey, I suppose. Yes, she replied. He took it away with him. Well, I think so. When are the iron gates locked? It is the last thing Gaston does before he goes to bed. Jim's satisfaction increased with every answer he received. You see, Monsieur Hanoe, he cried. All this while we have been leaving out a question of importance. Who put this book back upon its shelf? And when? Yesterday at noon the space was empty. This morning it is filled. Who filled it? Last night we sat in the garden after dinner behind the house. What could have been easier than for Wabersky to slip in with his latchkey at some moment when the court was empty? Replace the book and slip out again unnoticed why a gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt. Unnoticed? Impossible, she said bitterly. The police have a sergeant de Villa at our gate night and day. Hanoe shook his head. He is there no longer. After you were good enough to answer me so frankly yesterday morning the questions it was my duty to put to you I had him removed at once. Why, that's true, Jim exclaimed joyfully. He remembered now that when he had driven up with his luggage from the hotel in the afternoon the street of Chareau Bayer had been quite empty. Betty Harlow stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made her face friendly. Her eyes danced to the smile and she dipped to the detective a little mock curtsy but her voice was warm with gratitude. I thank you, Miss Sure. I did not notice yesterday that the man had been removed or I should have thanked you before. Indeed I was not looking for so much consideration at your hands. As I told my friend Jim I believe that you went away thinking me guilty. Hanoe raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the flourish of the sword with which the duelist saluted at the end of the bout. The little secret combat between these two was over. Hanoe, by removing the sergeant from before the gates, had given a sign, surely not only to Betty but to Walt Dijon, that he found nothing to justify any surveillance of her going out and coming in or any limitations upon her freedom. Then you see, Jim insisted, he was still worrying at his solution of the case like a dog with a bone. You see, Wabersky had the road clear for him last night. Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head vigorously. I won't believe that Miss Sure Boris is guilty of so horrible a murder. More, and she turned her great eyes pleadingly upon Hanoe, I don't believe that any murder was committed here at all. I don't want to believe it. And for a moment her voice faltered. After all, Miss Sure Hanoe, what are you building this dreadful theory upon, that a book of my uncle Simon was not in his library yesterday and is there today? We know nothing more. We don't know even whether Jean-Claudeville exists at all. We shall know that, mademoiselle, very soon, said Hanoe, staring down at the book upon the table. We don't know whether the arrow was in the house, whether it ever was. We must make sure, mademoiselle, said Hanoe stubbornly. And even if you had it now here with the poison clinging in shreds to the shaft, you still couldn't be sure that the rest of it had been used. Here is a report Miss Sure from the doctors. Because it says that no trace of the poison can be discovered, you can't infer that a poison was administered which leaves no trace. You never can prove it. You have nothing to go upon. It's all guesswork, and guesswork which will keep us living in a nightmare. Oh, if I thought for a moment that murder had been committed at, I'd say go on, go on. But it hasn't. Oh, it hasn't. Betty's voice rang with so evident a sincerity, there was so strong a passion of appeal, for peace, for an end of suspicion, for a right to forget and be forgotten, that Jim fancied no man could resist it. Indeed, Hanoe sat for a long while, with his eyes bent upon the table before he answered her. But when at last he did, gently though his voice began, Jim knew at once that she had lost. You argued and pleaded very well, mademoiselle Betty, he said. But we have each of us our little grieves, by which we live, for better or for worse. Here is mine, a very humble one. I can discover extinuations in most crimes, even crimes of violence, passion, anger, even greed. What are they but good qualities developed beyond the bounds? Things at the beginning good, and sense, grown monstrous. So too in the execution. This or that habit of life makes natural this or that weapon, which to us is hideous and abnormal, and its mere use a sign of a dreadful depravity. Yes, I recognize these palliations, but there is one crime I never will forgive, murder, by poison, and one criminal in whose pursuit I will never tire nor slacken, the Poisoner. Through the words there ran a real thrill of hatred, and though Hanoe's voice was low, and he never once raised his eyes from the table, he held the three who listened to him in a dreadful spell. Cowardly and secret, the Poisoner has his little world at his mercy, and a fine sort of mercy he shows to be sure. He continued bitterly, his hideous work is so easy, it just becomes a vice like drink, no more than that to the Poisoner, but with a thousand times the pleasure drink can give, like the practice of some abominable art. I tell you the truth now, show me one victim today and the Poisoner scot-free, and I'll show you another victim before the year's out. Make no mistake, make no mistake. His voice rang out and died away, but the words seemed still to vibrate in the air of that room to strike the walls and rebound from them and still be audible. Jim Frobischer, for all his slow imagination, felt that had a Poisoner been present and heard them, some cry of guilt must have rent the silence and betrayed him. His heart stopped in its beats listening for a cry, though his reason told him there was no mouth in that room from which the cry could come. Hano looked up at Betty when he had finished. He begged her pardon with a little flutter of his hands and a regretful smile. You must take me therefore as God made me, mademoiselle, and not blame me more than you can help, for the distress I still must cause you. There was never a case more difficult, therefore never one about which one way or the other I must be more sure. Before Betty could reply there came a knock upon the door. Come in, Hano cried out, and a small, dark, alert man in plain clothes entered the room. This is Nicholas Moreau who was keeping watch in the courtyard. I sent him some while ago upon an errand, he explained, and turned again to Moreau. Well, Nicholas stood at attention with his hands at the seams of his trousers in spite of his plain clothes, and he recited rather than spoke in a perfectly expressionless official voice. In accordance with instructions I went to the shop of Jean-Claudeau. It is number seven. From the rue Gambata I went to the prefecture. I verified your statement. Jean-Claudeau has twice appeared before the police correctional for selling forbidden drugs and has twice been acquitted owing to the absence of necessary witnesses. Thank you, Nicholas. Moreau saluted, it turned on his heel, and went out of the room. There followed a moment of silence, of discouragement. Hano looked ruefully at Betty. You see, I must go on. We must search in that locked cabinet of Simon Harlow's for the poison arrow, if by chance it should be there. The room is sealed, Robichet reminded him. We must have those seals removed, he replied, and he took his watch from his pocket and screwed up his face in grimace. We need to misure the commissaire, and misure the commissaire will not be in a good humour if we disturb him now. For it is twelve o'clock, the sacred hour of luncheon. You will have observed upon the stage that commissaries of police are never in a good humour. It is because, but Hano's audience was never to hear his explanation of this well-known fact, for he stopped with a queer jerk of his voice, his watch still dangling from his fingers upon its chain. Both Jim and Betty looked at once where he was looking. They saw an upcott standing up against the wall, with her hand upon the top rail of a chair, to prevent herself from falling. Her eyes were closed, her whole face a mask of misery. Hano was at her side in a moment. Mademoiselle, he asked, with a breathless sort of eagerness, what is it you have to tell me? It is true, then, she whispered, Jean-Claudelle exists? Yes, and the poison arrow could have been used, she faltered, and the next words would not be spoken, but were spoken at the last, and death would have followed in fifteen minutes. Upon my oath it is true, Hano insisted. What is it you have to tell me? That I could have hindered it all. I shall never forgive myself. I could have hindered the murder. Hano's eyes narrowed as he watched the girl. Was he disappointed, Frobisher wondered? Did he expect quite another reply? A swift movement by Betty distracted him from these questions. He saw Betty looking across the room at them with the strangest, glittering eyes he had ever seen, and then Anne Upcott drew herself away from Hano and stood up against the wall at her full height with her arms outstretched. She seemed to be setting herself apart as a pariah. Her whole attitude and posture cried, Stone me, I'm waiting! Hano put his watch into his pocket. Mademoiselle, we will let the commissaire eat his lunch and in peace, and we will hear your story first. But not here, in the garden, under the shade of the trees. He took his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Indeed, I too feel the heat. This room is as hot as an oven. When Jim Frobisher looked back in after time upon the incidents of that morning, nothing stood out so vividly in his memories. No, not even the book of arrows and its plates, not Hano's statement of his creed, as the picture of him twirling his watch at the end of his chain, whilst it sparkled in the sunlight, and he wondered whether he should break in now upon the commissaire of police, or let him eat his lunch in in quiet. So much that was then unsuspected by them, all hung upon the exact sequence of events. The garden chairs were already set out upon a lawn towards the farther end of the garden in the shadow of the great trees, and Hano led the way towards them. We shall be in the cool here, and with no one to overhear us, but the birds, he said, and he padded and arranged the cushions in a deep armchair of basket work for Anne Upcott. Jim Frobisher was reminded again of the solicitude of a doctor with an invalid, and again the parallel jarred upon him. But he was getting a clearer insight into the character of this implacable being. The little courtesies and attentions were not assumed. They were natural, but they would not hinder him for a moment in his pursuit. He would arrange the cushions with the swift, deft hands of a nurse. Yes, but he would slip the handcuffs on the wrists of his invalid, a moment afterwards, no less deftly and swiftly, if thus his duty prompted him. There, he said, now, mademoiselle, you are comfortable. For me I am permitted, I shall smoke. He turned round to ask for permission of Betty, who with Jim had followed into the garden, behind him. Of course, she answered, and coming forward she sat down in another of the chairs. Heno pulled out of a pocket a bright blue bundle of thin, black cigarettes and lit one. Then he sat in a chair close to the two girls. Jim Frobisher stood behind Heno, the lawn was dappled with sunlight and cool shadows. The blackbird and the thrush were calling from bow and bush. The garden was riotous with roses and the air sweet with their perfume. It was a strange setting for the eerie story which Anne Upcott had to tell of her adventures in the darkness and silence of a night, but the very contrast seemed to make the story still more vivid. I did not go to Monsieur de Poillac's ball on the night of April the 27th, she began, and Jim started, so that Heno raised his hand to prevent him interrupting. He had not given a thought to where Anne Upcott had been upon that night. To Heno, however, the statement brought no surprise. You were not well, he asked. It wasn't that, Anne replied, but Betty and I had, I won't say a rule, but a sort of working arrangement which I think had been in practice ever since I came to the Maison Grinnell, we didn't encroach upon each other's independence. The girls had recognized from their first coming together that privacy was the very salt of companionship. Each had a sanctuary in her own sitting-room. I don't think Betty has ever been in mine. I only once or twice in hers, said Anne. We had each our own friends. We didn't pester each other with questions as to where we had been and with whom. In a word, we weren't all the time shadows upon each other's heels. A wise rule, mademoiselle, Heno agreed cordially. A good many households are split from roof to cellar by the absence of just such a rule. The Puyaks then were mademoiselle Betty's friends. Yes, as soon as Betty had gone Anne resumed, I told Gaston that he must turn off the lights and go to bed whenever he liked, and I went upstairs to my own sitting-room, which is next to my bedroom. You can see the windows from here, there. They were in a group, facing the back of the only house across the garden. To the right of the hall stretched the line of shuttered windows with Betty's bedroom just above, and pointed to the wing on the left of the hall and towards the road. I see you are above the library, mademoiselle, said Heno. Yes, I had a letter to write, Anne continued, and suddenly faltered. She had come upon some obstacle in the telling of her story, which she had forgotten when she had uttered her cry in the library. She gasped, Oh, she murmured, and again, Oh, in a low voice. She glanced anxiously at Betty, but she got no help from her at all. Betty was leaning forward with her elbows upon her knees and her eyes on the grass at her feet, and apparently miles away in thought. Yes, mademoiselle, Heno asked smoothly. It was an important letter, Anne went on again, choosing her words awareily, much as yesterday, at one moment in her interrogatory, Betty herself had done, concealing something too, just as Betty had done. I had promised faithfully to write it, but the address was downstairs in Betty's room. It was the address of a doctor. And having said that, it seemed that she had cleared her obstacle, for she went on in a more easy and natural tone. You know what it is, Monsieur Heno. I had been playing tennis all the afternoon. I was pleasantly tired. There was a letter to be written with a good deal of care, and the address was all the way downstairs. I said to myself that I would think out the terms of my letter first. And here Jim Frobischer, who had been shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, broke in upon the narrative. But what was this letter about? And to what doctor? He asked. And all swung round, almost angrily. Oh, please! He cried, these things will all come to light of themselves in their due order, if we leave them alone and keep them in our memories. The mademoiselle told her story in her own way, and he was back at Anna, caught again in a flash. Yes, mademoiselle, you determined to think out the tenor of your letter? A hint of a smile glimmered upon the girl's face for a second, but it was an excuse, really, an excuse to sit down in my big arm chair, stretch out my legs, and do nothing at all. You can guess what happened. An old smile then nodded. You fell fast asleep. Conscience does not keep young people who are healthy and tired. Awake, he said. No, but it wakes up with them, and returned, and upraised at once, bitterly. I woke up rather chilly, as people do who have gone to sleep in their chairs. I was wearing a little thin frock of pale blue tall. Oh, a featherweight of a frock. Yes, I was cold, and my conscience was saying, ah, big lazy one, and your letter. Where is it? In a moment I was standing up, and the next I was out of the room on the landing, and I was still half-dazed with sleep. I closed my door behind me. It was just chance that I did it. The lights were all out on the staircase and in the hall below. The curtains were drawn across the windows. There was no moon that night. I was in a darkness so complete that I could not see the glimmer of my hand when I raised it close before my face. An owl at the end of a cigarette dropped at his feet. Betty had raised her face, and was staring at Anne with her mouth parted. For all of them the garden had disappeared with its sunlight and its roses and its singing birds. They were upon that staircase with Anne upcaught in the black night. The swift changes of color in her cheeks and of expression in her eyes, the nervous vividness of her, compelled them to follow with her. Yes, mademoiselle, said her no quietly. The darkness didn't matter to me. She went on with an amazement at her own fearlessness now that she knew the after history of that evening. I am afraid now. I wasn't then. And Jim remembered how the night before in the garden her eyes had shifted from this dark spot to that in search of an intruder. Certainly she was afraid now. Her hands were clenched tight upon the arms of her chair. Her lips shook. I knew every tread of the stairs. My hand was on the balustrade. There was no sound. It never occurred to me that anyone was awake except myself. I did not even turn on the light in the hall by the switch at the bottom of the stairs. I knew that there was a switch just inside the door of Betty's room and that was enough. I think, too, that I didn't want to rouse anybody. At the foot of the stairs I turned right like a soldier. Exactly opposite to me across the hall was the door of Betty's room. I crossed the hall with my hands out in front of me and Betty, as though she herself were crossing the hall, suddenly thrust both her hands out in front of her. Yes, one would have to do that, she said slowly, in the dark, with nothing but space in front of one. Yes. And then she smiled as she saw that Hano's eyes were watching her curiously. Don't you think so, Mr. Hano? No doubt, said he, but let us not interrupt mademoiselle. I touched the wall first and resumed just at the angle of the corridor and the hall. The corridor, with the windows onto the courtyard, on the one side and the doors of the receptions on the other, Hano asked. Yes. Were the curtains drawn across all those windows too, mademoiselle? Yes, there was not a glimmer of light anywhere. I felt my way along the wall to my right, that is, in the hall, of course, not the corridor, until my hands slipped off the surface and touched nothing. I had reached the embrasure of the doorway. I fell for the door knob, turned it, and entered the room. The light switch was in the wall at the side of the door, close to my left hand. I snapped it down. I think that I was still half asleep when I turned the light on in the treasure room, as we called it. But the next moment I was wide awake. Oh, I've never been more wide awake in my life. My fingers, indeed, were hardly off the switch after turning the light on, before they were back again at turning the light off. But this time I eased the switch up very carefully, so that there should be no snap. No, not the tiniest sound to betray me. There was so short an interval between the two movements of my hand, that I had just time to notice the clock on the top of the marketry cabinet in the middle of the wall opposite to me, and then once more I stood in darkness, but stock still, and holding my breath, a little frightened. Yes, no doubt a little frightened, but more astonished than frightened. For in the inner wall of the room, at the other end, close by the window, there, and as she pointed to the second of those shuttered windows, which stared so blankly on the garden, the door which was always locked since Simon Harlow's death stood open and a bright light burned beyond. Betty Harlow uttered a little cry. That door, she exclaimed, now at last really troubled. It stood open. How can that have been? Harlow shifted his position in his chair and asked her a question. On which side of the door was the key, mademoiselle? On Madame's, if the key was in the lock at all. Oh, you don't remember whether it was? No, said Betty. Of course, both Anne and I were in and out of Madame's bedroom when she was ill, but there was a dressing room between the bedroom and the communicating door of my room so that we should not have noticed. To be sure, Harlow agreed, the dressing room in which the nurse might have slept and did when Madame had a seizure. Do you remember whether the communicating door was still open or unlocked on the next morning? Betty frowned and reflected and shook her head. I cannot remember. We were all in great trouble. There was so much to do. I did not notice. No, indeed. Why should you, said no? He turned back to Anne. Before you go on with this curious story, mademoiselle, tell me this. Was the light beyond the open door a light in the dressing room or in the room beyond the dressing room Madame Harlow's bedroom? Or didn't you notice? In the far room, I think, Anne answered confidently, there would have been more light in the treasure room. Otherwise, the treasure room is long, no doubt. But where I stood, I was completely in darkness. There was only this panel of yellow light in the open doorway. It lay in a band straight across the carpet and it lit up the sedan chair opposite the doorway until it all glistened like silver. Oh, there is a sedan chair in that museum, said no lightly. It will be interesting to see. So the light, mademoiselle, came from the far room. The light and Anne, the voices, said Anne with a quaver in her throat. Voices cried a no. He sat up straight in his chair whilst Betty Harlow went as wide as the ghost. Voices, what is this? Did you recognize those voices? One, madame, there was no mistaking it. It was loud and violent for a moment. Then it went off into a mumble of groans. The other voice only spoke once and very few words and very clearly. But it spoke in a whisper. There was too a sound of movements. Movements said a no sharply and with his voice his face seemed to sharpen too. Here's a word which does not help us much. A procession moves. So does the chair if I push it. So does my hand if I cover a mouth and stop a cry. Is it that sort of movement you mean, mademoiselle? Under the stern insistence of his question Anne upquat suddenly weakened. Oh I am afraid so she said with a loud cry and she clapped her hands to her face. I never understood until this morning when you spoke of how the arrow might be used. Oh I shall never forgive myself. I stood in the darkness a few yards away, no more. I stood quite still and listened and just beyond the lighted doorway madame was being killed. She drew her hands from her face and beat upon her knees with her clenched fists in a frenzy. Yes I believe that now madame cried in the harsh harsh voice we knew, stripped stripped of the skin. And she laughed wildly and then came the sound as though yes it might have been that as though she were forced down and held and madame's voice died to a mumble and then silence and then the other voice in a low clear whisper that will do now. And all the while I stood in the darkness oh what did you do after that clear a whisper reached your ears and uncomended take your hands from your face if you please and let me hear. An up-caught obeyed him. She flung her head back with the tears screaming down her face. I turned she whispered I went out of the room I closed the door behind me oh ever so gently I fled fled fled where to up the stairs to my room and you rang no bell you roused no one you fled to your room you hid your head under the bedclothes like a child come come mademoiselle. And I broke off his savage irony to ask and whose voice did you think it was that whispered so clearly that will do now. The strangers you spoke of in the library this morning no mature and replied I could not tell with a whisper one voice is like another but you must have given that voice an owner to run away and hide no one would do that. I thought it was Jean Baudin and an O sat back in his chair again gazing at the girl with a look in which there was as much horror as in credulity. Jim Frobisher stood behind him ashamed of his very race. Could there be a more transparent subterfuge if she thought that the nurse Jean Baudin was in the bedroom why did she turn and fly come mademoiselle said hello his voice had suddenly become gentle almost pleading you will not make me believe that. An up caught turned with a helpless gesture towards Betty you see she said yes Betty answered she sat in doubt for a second or two and then sprang to her feet wait she said and before anyone could have stopped her she was skimming halfway across the garden to the house. Jim Frobisher wondered whether Hano had meant to stop her and then had given up the idea that's quite out of the question. Certainly he had made some small quick movement and even now he watched Betty's flight across the broad lawn between the roses with an inscrutable queer look to run like that he said to Frobisher with a boy's nimbleness and a girl's grace it is pretty huh. The long slim legs that twinkle the body that floats. And Betty ran up the stone steps into the house. There was a tension in Hano's attitude with which his light words did not agree and he watched the blank windows of the house with expectancy. Betty however was hardly a minute upon her errand. She reappeared upon the steps with the largest envelope in her hand and quickly rejoined the group. Miss sure we have tried to keep this fact from you she said without bitterness but with a deep regret. I yesterday and today just as we have tried for many years to keep it from all Dijon but there is no help for it now. She opened the envelope and taking out a cabinet photograph and added it to Hano. This is the portrait of Madame my aunt at the time of her marriage with my uncle. It was the three-quarter length portrait of a woman at Slender with the straight carriage of youth in whose face a look of character had replaced youth's prettiness. It was a face made spiritual by suffering. The eyes shadowed and a wistful. The mouth tender and conveying even in the hard medium of a photograph some whimsical sense of humor. It made Jim Frobisher gazing over Hano's shoulder exclaim not she was beautiful but I would like to have known her. Yes a companion Hano added. Betty took a second photograph from the envelope but this misure is the same lady a year ago. The second photograph had been taken up Monte Carlo and it was difficult to believe that it was of the same woman. So tragic a change had taken place within those ten years. Hano held the portrait side by side. The grace, the suggestion of humor had all gone. The figure had grown broad. The features coarse and heavy. The cheeks had flattened. The lips were pendulous. And there was nothing but violence in the eyes. It was a dreadful picture of collapse. It is best to be precise Madam Azeal said Hano gently though these photographs tell their unhappy story clearly enough. Madame Harlow during the past years of her life drank. Since my uncle's death Betty explained her life as very likely you know already had been rather miserable and lonely before she married him. But she had a dream then on which to live. After Simon Harlow died however and she ended her explanation with a gesture. Yes Hano replied. Of course Madam Azeal we have known, misure for obisher and I ever since we came into this affair that there was some secret. We knew it before your reticence of yesterday or Madam Azeal upcots of today. Wabersky must have known of something which you would not care to have exposed before he threatened your lawyers in London or brought his charges against you. Yes he knew and the doctors and the servants of course who were very loyal. We did our best to keep our secret but we could never be sure that we had succeeded. A friendly smile broadened Hano's face. Well we can make sure now and here he said and both the girls and Jim stared at him. How they exclaimed in an incredulous voice and obeamed. He held them in suspense. He spread out his hands. The artist as he would have said at the Montevanc as a Jim Frobuchar would have expressed it had got the upper hand in him and prepared his effect. By answering me one simple question he said have either of you two ladies received an anonymous letter upon the subject. The test took them all by surprise yet each one of them recognized immediately that they could hardly have a better. All the secrets of the town have been exploited at one time or another by this unknown person or group of persons. All the secrets that is except this one of Mrs. Harlow's degradation. For Betty answered no I never received one. Nor I added Anne. Then your secret is all your secret still said Hano. For how long now Betty asked quickly and Hano did not answer a word. He could make no promise without being false to what he had called his greed. It is a pity said Betty wistfully. We have striven so hard Anne and I and she gave to the two men a glimpse of the life the two girls had led in the Maison-Gonelle. We could do very little. We had neither of us in the authority. We were both of us dependent upon Madame's generosity and though no one could have been kinder when when Madame was herself she was not easy when she had the attacks. There was too much difference in age between us and her for us really to do anything but keep guard. She would not broke interference. She drank alone in her bedroom. She grew violent and threatening if anyone interfered. She would turn them all into the street. If she needed any help she could ring for the nurse as indeed she sometimes though rarely did. It was a dreadful and wearing life as Betty Harlow described it for the two young sentinels. We were utterly in despair Betty continued for Madame of course was really ill with her heart and we always feared some tragedy would happen. This letter which Anne was to write when I was at Monsieur de Pouillat's ball seemed our one chance. It was to a doctor in England. He called himself a doctor at all events who advertised that he had a certain remedy which could be given without the patient's knowledge in her food and drink. Oh I had no faith in it but we had to try it. Anne looked round at Frobisher triumphantly. What did I say to you Monsieur Frobisher when you wanted to ask a question about this letter? You see these things disclose themselves in their due order if you leave them alone. The triumph went out of his voice. He rose to his feet and bowing to Betty with an unaffected statelyness and respect. He handed her back the photographs. Madame Asel I am very sorry he said. It is clear that you and your friend have lived amongst difficulties which we did not suspect and for the secret I shall do what I can. Jim quite forgave him the snub which had been administered to him for the excellence of his manner towards Betty. He had a hope even that now he would forswear his greed so that the secret might still be kept and the young sentinels receive their reward for their close watch. But Hano sat down again in his chair and once more turned towards Anne upcaught. He meant to go on then. He would not leave well alone. Jim was all the more disappointed because he could not but realize that the case was more and more clearly building itself from something unsubstantial into something solid from a conjecture to an argument. This case against someone. End of chapter 9.