 Chapter 10. The Clock Upon the Cabinet Anupka's story was in the light of this new disclosure intelligible enough. Standing in the darkness, she had heard, as she thought, Mrs. Harlow in one of her violent outbreaks. Then, with a sense of relief, she had understood that Jean Boudin, the nurse, was with Mrs. Harlow, controlling and restraining her, and finally administering some sedative. She had heard the outcries diminish and cease, and a final whisper from the nurse to her patient, or even perhaps to herself, that will do now. Then she had turned and fled, taking care to attract no attention to herself. Real cowardice had nothing to do with her flight. The crisis was over. Her intervention, which before would only have been a provocation to a wilder outburst on the part of Mrs. Harlow, was now altogether without excuse. It would once more have aroused the invalid, and next day would have added to the discomfort and awkwardness of life in the Maison Grinnell. For Mrs. Harlow sober would have known that Anne had been a witness of one more of her dreadful exhibitions. The best thing which Anne could do, she did, given that her interpretation of the scene was the true one. She ran noiselessly back in the darkness to her room. Yes, said Hanno, but you believe now that your interpretation was not correct. You believe now that whilst you stood in the darkness with the door open and the light beyond, Madame Harlow was being murdered, coldly and cruelly murdered, a few feet away from you. Anne upcaught, shivered from head to foot. I don't want to believe it, she cried. It's too horrible. You believe now that the one who whispered that will do now was not Jean Baudin, Hanno insisted, but some unknown person, and that the whisper was uttered after murder had been done by a third person in that room. Anne twisted her body from this side to that. She wrung her hands. I am afraid of it, she moaned. And what is torturing you now, mademoiselle, is remorse that you did not step silently forward and from the darkness of the treasure room look through that lighted doorway. He spoke with a great consideration and his insight into her distress was in its way a solace to her. Yes, she exclaimed eagerly. I told you this morning I could have hindered it. I didn't understand until this morning. You see, that night something else happened, and now indeed stark fear drew the color from her cheeks and shone in her eyes. Something else? Betty asked with a quick in draw of her breath, and she shifted her chair a little so that she might face Anne. She was wearing a black coat over a white silk shirt open at the throat, and she took her handkerchief from a side pocket of the coat and drew it across her forehead. Yes, mademoiselle, Hanno explained, it is clear that something else happened that night to your friend, something which taken together with our talk this morning over the Book of Arrows had made her believe that murder was done. He looked at Anne. You went then to your room and resumed her story. I went to bed. I was very, what shall I say, disturbed by Madame's outburst, as I thought it. One never knew what was going to happen in this house. It was on my nerves. For a time I tumbled from side to side in my bed. I was in a fever. Then suddenly I was asleep, sound asleep, but only for a time. I woke up and it was still pitch dark in my room. There was not a thread of light from the shutters. I turned over from my side onto my back, and I stretched out my arms above my head. As God is my judge, I touched a face. And even after all these days the terror of that moment was so vivid and fresh to her that she shuddered and a little sob broke from her lips. A face quite close to me, bending over me in silence. I drew my hands away with a gasp. My heart was in my throat. I lay just for a second or two, dumb, paralyzed. Then my voice came back to me, and I screamed. It was the look of the girl as she told her story, perhaps more than the words she used, but something of her terror spread like a contagion among her hearers. Jim Frobischer's shoulders worked uneasily. Betty, with her big eyes wide open, her breath suspended, hung upon Anne's narrative. Hanoe himself said, you screamed? I do not wonder. I knew that no one could hear me, and lying down I was helpless, and continued. I sprang out of bed in a panic, and now I touch no one. I was so scared out of my wits that I had lost all sense of direction. I couldn't find the switch of the electric light. I stumbled along a wall, feeling with my hands. I heard myself sobbing as though I was a stranger. At last I knocked against a chest of drawers, and came a little to myself. I found my way then to the switch and turned on the light. The room was empty. I tried to tell myself that I had been dreaming, but I knew that the tale wasn't true. Someone had been stealthily bending down close, oh so close, over me in the darkness. My hand that had touched the face seemed to tingle. I asked myself with a shiver what would have happened to me if, just at that moment, I had not waked up. I stood and listened, but the beating of my heart filled the whole room with noise. I stole to the door and laid my ear against the panel. Oh, I could easily have believed that one after another an army was creeping on tiptoe past my door. At last I made up my mind. I flung the door open wide. For a moment I stood back from it, but once the door was open I heard nothing. I stole out to the head of the great staircase. Below me the hall was as silent as an empty church. I thought that I should have heard of spider stir. I suddenly realized that the light was streaming from my room, and that some of it must reach me. I cried at once, who's there? And then I ran back to my room and locked myself in. I knew that I should sleep no more that night. I ran to the windows and threw open the shutters. The night had cleared, the stars were bright in a clean black sky, and there was a freshness of daylight in the air. I had been, I should think, about five minutes at the window when, you know, perhaps, Monsieur, how the clocks in Dijon clash out and take up the hour from one another and pass it on to the hills. All of them struck three. I stayed by the window until the morning came. After she had finished, no one spoke for a little while, then Hanot slowly lit another cigarette, looking now upon the ground, now into the air, anywhere except at the faces of his companions. So this alarming thing happened just before three o'clock in the morning, he asked gravely. You're very sure of that, I suppose, for you see it may be of the utmost importance. I am quite sure, Monsieur, she said, and you have told this story to no one until this moment? To no one in the world, replied Anne. The next morning Madame Harlow was found dead. There were the arrangements for the funeral. Then came Monsieur Borus' accusation. There were troubles enough in the house without my adding to them. Besides, no one would have believed my story of the face and the darkness, and I didn't, of course, associated then with the death of Mrs. Harlow. No, Hanot agreed, for you believed that death do have been natural. Yes, and I'm not sure that it wasn't natural now, Anne protested, but today I had to tell you this story, Monsieur Hanot, and she leaned forward in her chair and claimed his attention with her eyes, her face, every tense muscle of her body. Because if you are right and murder was done in this house on the 27th, I know the exact hour when it was done. Hanot nodded his head once or twice slowly. He gathered up his feet beneath him. His eyes glittered very brightly as he looked at Anne. He gave for sure the queer impression of an animal crouching to spring. The clock upon the marquetry cabinet, he said, against the middle of the wall in the treasure room, the white face of it and the hour which leapt at you during that fraction of a second when your fingers were on the switch. Yes, said Anne, with a slow and quiet emphasis, the hour was half past ten. With that statement, the tension was relaxed. Betty's tightly clenched hand opened, and her trifle of a handkerchief fluttered down on the grass. Hanot changed from that queer attitude of a crouching animal. Jim Frobisher drew a great breath of relief. Yes, that is very important, said Hanot. Important, I should think it was, cried Jim. For this was clear and to prove unto him, if murder had been done on the night of the 27th of April, there was just one person belonging to the household of the Maison Grinnell, who could have no share in it, and that one person was his client, Betty Harlow. Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when Hanot spoke to her, and she drew herself erect again with a little jerk. Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good time, mademoiselle? He asked. Very good, she answered. Monsieur Sabine, the watchmaker in the rue de la Libéte, has had it more than once to clean. It is an eight-day clock. It will be going when the seals are broken this afternoon. You will see for yourself. Hanot, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. He rose to his feet and bowed to her with a certain formality, but with a smile, which redeemed it. At half-past 10, mademoiselle Harlow was dancing in the house of Monsieur de Pouillac. On the boulevardier, he said, of that there is no doubt. Inquiries have been made. Mademoiselle did not leave that house until after one in the morning. There is evidence enough of that to convince her worst enemy from her chauffeur and her dancing partners to Monsieur de Pouillac's coachman, who stood at the bottom of the steps with a lantern during that evening, and remembers to have held open from mademoiselle the door of her car when she went away. So that's that, said Jim to himself. Betty, at all events, was out of the net for good. And with that certainty there came a revolution in his thoughts. Why shouldn't Hanot's search go on? It was interesting to watch the building up of this case against an unknown criminal, a case so difficult to bring to its proper conclusion in the court of Assisi. A case of poison where there was no trace of poison. A case where out of a mass of conjectures here and there, and more and more definite facts were coming into view. Just as more and more masses of ships stand out of a troubled sea, the nearer one approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanot to go on, delving astutely, letting in his own phrase things disclose themselves in their due sequence. But there was one point which Hanot had missed and which should be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he thought, with all a man's vanity in his modesty, would come to the help of the netted lion. He cleared his throat. Miss Anne, there is one question I would like to ask you. He began, and Hanot turned upon him to his surprise with a face of thunder. You wish to ask a question? He said. Well, miss sure, ask it if you wish it as you're right. His manner added what his voice left unsaid and your responsibility. Jim hesitated. He could see no harm in the question he proposed to ask. It was of vital importance, yet Hanot stood in front of him with a lowering face, daring him to put it. Jim did not doubt any longer that Hanot was quite aware of his point, and yet, for some unknown reason, objected to his disclosure. Jim yielded, but not with a very good grace. It is nothing, he said, surly, and Hanot at once was all cheerfulness again. Then we will adjourn, he said, looking at his watch. It is nearly one o'clock. Shall we say three for the Commissar of Police? Yes. Then I shall inform him, and we will meet in the library at three, and, with a little doubt to Betty, the interdict shall be raised. At three, then, she said gaily. She sprang up from her chair. Stoop picked up her handkerchief with a swift and supple movement. Twirled upon her heel and cried, Come along, Anne. The four people moved off towards the house. Betty looked back. You have left your gloves behind you on your chair, she said suddenly to Hanot. Hanot looked back. So I have, he said, and then, in a voice of protest, Oh, mademoiselle. For Betty had already darted back, and now returned, dangling the gloves in her hand. Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you? He asked, as he took them from her. Then he cocked his head at Frobisher, who was looking a little stiff. Aha, my young friend, he said with a grin. You do not like that so much kindness should be shown me. No, you are looking very proper. You have the poker in the back. But ask yourself this. What are youth and good looks compared with Hanot? No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanot at all when the Urchin got the upper hand in him, and the worst of it was that he had no rejoinder. He flushed very red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in silence to the house, and Hanot, picking up his hat and stick, took his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. Anne drifted into the library. Jim felt a touch upon his arm. Betty was standing beside him with a smile of amusement upon her face. You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, did you, she asked? Say, you didn't, Jim? And the amusement softened into tenderness. I wouldn't have done it for worlds if I had thought you'd have minded. Jim's ill humor vanished like mist on a summer morning. Mind, he cried, you shall pin a rose in his buttonhole if it pleases you, and all I'll say will be, you might do the same for me. Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze. We are friends again, then, she said, and the next moment she was out on the steps under the glass face of the porch. Lunch at two, Anne, she cried, I must walk all the grime of this morning out of my brain. She was too quick and elusive for Jim Frobischer. She had something of aerial in her conception, a delicate creature of fire and spirit and air. She was across the courtyard and out of sight in the street of Charles-Barre before he had quite realized what she was doing. He turned doubtfully towards the library when Anne Upcott stood in the doorway. I better follow her, he said, reaching for his hat, and smiled and shook her head wisely. I shouldn't. I know, Betty. She wants to be alone. Do you think so? I am sure. Jim twiddled his hat in his hands, not half as sure upon the point as she was, and watched him with a rather rueful smile for a little while. Then she shrugged her shoulders and a sudden exasperation. There is something you ought to do, she said. You ought to let me sure back, Betty's notary here. Know that the seals are to be broken this afternoon. He ought to be here. He was here when they were affixed. Besides, he has all the keys of Mrs. Harlow's drawers and cupboards. That's true, Jim exclaimed. I'll go at once. Anne gave him a surebox's address in the Place etienne d'Olé, and from the window of the library watched him go upon his errand. She stood at the window for a long while after he had disappeared. End of Chapter 10 Mr. Pax, the notary, came out into the hall of his house when Frobisher sent his card into him. He was a small brisk man with a neat pointed beard, his hair cut engross, and the corner of his napkin tucked into his neck between the flaps of his collar. Jim explained that the seals were to be removed from the rooms of the Maison Grannel, but said nothing at all of the new developments which had begun with the discovery of the Book of the Arrows. I have had communications with Mrs. Frobisher and Aslet, the little man explained. Everything has been as correct as it could possibly be. I am happy to meet a partner so distinguished a firm. Yes, I will certainly present myself at three with my keys and see the end of this miserable scandal. It has been a disgrace, that young lady so delicious and so correct, and that animal of a Wabersky, but we can deal with him. We have laws in France. He gave Jim the impression that there were in his opinion no laws anywhere else, and he bowed his visitor into the street. Jim returned by Theroux de Gaulle, and the main thoroughfare of the town, the Street of Liberty. As he passed the semi-circle of the Place D'Homme in front of the Hotel de Villa, he almost ran into Hanoe smoking a cigar. You have lunched already, he cried. An affair of a quarter of an hour said Hanoe with a wave on the hand, and you, not until two, Miss Harlow wanted a walk. And oh, smiled, how I understand that, the first walk after an ordeal, the first walk of a convalescent after an operation, the first walk of a defendant found innocent of a grave charge. It must be worth taking that walk, but console yourself, my friend, for the post-moment of your luncheon. You have met me, and he struck something of an attitude. Now, Jim had the gravest objection to anything theatrical, especially when displayed in public places, and he answered stiffly, that is a pleasure, to be sure. An au-grand to make Jim look proper was becoming to him an unfailing entertainment. Now, I reward you, he said, though for what Jim could not imagine, you shall come with me. At this hour, on the top of the old Philippe de Bonne's terrace tower, we shall have the world to ourselves. He led the way into the great courtyard of the Hotel de Villa, behind the long wing, which faced them, a square solid tower, rose 150 feet high above the ground. With frobisher at his heels, Anau climbed the 316 steps, and emerged upon the roof, into the blue and gold of a cloudless May in France. They looked eastwards, and the beauty of the steam took frobisher's breath away. Just in front, the slender abs of Notre Dame, fine as a lady's ornament, set him wondering how in the world, through all these centuries, it had endured. And beyond, rich and green and wonderful, stretched the level plain with its shining streams and nestling villages. Anau sat down upon a stone bench and stretched out his arm across the parapet. Look, he cried eagerly, proudly, there is what I brought you here to see. Look! Jim looked and saw, and his face lit up, far away on the horizon's edge, unearthly in its beauty, hung the great mass of Mont Blanc. White as silver, soft as velvet, and here and there sparkling with gold, as though the flame of a fire leaped and sank. Oh, said Anau, as he watched Jim's face, so we have that in common. You perhaps have stood on the top of that mountain? Five times, Jim answered, with a smile made up of many memories. I hope to do so again. You are fortunate, said Anau, a little enviously. For me, I see him only at the distance, but even so, if I am troubled, it is like sitting silent in the company of a friend. Jim Frobischer's mind strayed back over memories of snow, slope, and rock ledge. It was a true phrase which Anau had used. It expressed one of the many elusive, almost incommunicable emotions which mountains did mean to the people who had that, the passion for mountains, in common. Jim glanced curiously at Anau. You are troubled about this case then, he said sympathetically. The distant and exquisite vision of that soaring arc of silver and velvet set in the blue air had brought the two men into, at all events, a momentary brotherhood. Very Anau returned slowly, without turning his eyes from the horizon, and for more reasons than one. What do you yourself think of it? I think, Mr. Anau said to Jim, dryly, that you do not like anyone to ask any questions, except yourself. Anau laughed with an appreciation of the thrust. Yes, you wish to ask a question of the beautiful mademoiselle Upkott. Tell me if I have guessed a right, the question you meant to ask. It was whether the face she touched in the darkness was the smooth face of a woman, or the face of a man. Yes, that was it. It was now for Anau to glance curiously and quickly at Jim. There could be no doubt of the thought which was passing through his mind. I must begin to give you a little special attention, my friend. But he was careful not to put his thoughts into words. I did not want that question asked, he said. Why? Because it was unnecessary, and unnecessary questions are confusing things which have best be avoided altogether. Jim did not believe one word of that explanation. He had too clear a recollection of the swift movement and the look with which Anau had checked him. Both had been unmistakably signs of alarm. Anau would not have been alarmed at the prospect of a question being asked merely because the question was superfluous. There was another, and Jim was sure, a very compelling reason in Anau's mind. Only he could not discover it. Besides, was the question superfluous. Surely, Anau replied, suppose that that young lady's hand had touched in the darkness the face of a man with its stubble, its tough skin and the short hair of his head around it bending down so low over hers. Would not that have been the most vivid, terrifying thing to her in all the terrifying incident? Stretching out her hands carelessly above her head, she touches suddenly, unexpectedly, the face of a man. She could not have told her story at all without telling that. It would have been the unforgettable detail the very heart of her terror. She touched the face of a man. Jim recognized that the reasoning was sound, but he was no nearer to the solution of his problem, why, Anau so wholeheartedly objected to the question being asked. And then, Anau made a quiet remark which drove it for a long time altogether out of Jim's speculations. The name is Elan that touched the face of a woman in the darkness that night. If that night in the darkness, she touched a face at all. Jim was utterly startled. You believed that she was lying to us? He cried. Anau shook a protesting hand in the air. I believe nothing. He said, I am looking for a criminal. And up caught, Jim spoke the name in amazement, and up caught. Then he remembered the look of her as she had told her story. Her face convulsed with terror, her shaking tones. Oh, it's impossible that she was lying. Surely no one could have so mimicked fear. Anau laughed. You may take this from me, my friend. All women who are great criminals are also very artful actresses. I never knew one who wasn't. And up caught, Jim Froescher once more exclaimed, but now with a trifle less of amazement. He was growing slowly and gradually accustomed to the idea. Still that girl with the radiant look of young spring. Oh no. And up caught was left nothing in Mrs. Harlow's will, he argued. What could she have to gain by murder? Wait, my friend. Look carefully at her story. Analyze it. You will see what. That it falls into two parts. Anau ground the stump of this cigar beneath his heel, offered one of his black cigarettes to Jim Froescher and lighted one for himself. He lit it with a sulfur match which Jim thought would never stop fizzling, would never burst into flame. One part when she was alone in her bedroom, a little story of terror and acted very effectively. But after all, anyone could invent it. The other part was not so easy to invent. The communicating door open for no reason, the light beyond the voice that whispered that will do the sound of the struggle. No, my friend. I don't believe that was invented. There were too many little details which seem to have been lived through the white face of the clock and the hour leaping at her. No, I think all that must stand. But adapted a little. See, this morning, Wabersky told us a story of the street of Gambetta and her Jean Claudel. Yes, said Jim, and I asked you afterwards whether Wabersky might not be telling a true story of himself and attributing it to Mademoiselle Harlow. Yes? Well, then interpret an up-cut story in the same way, continued Anau. Suppose that sometime that day she had unlocked the communicating door. What more easy. Madame Harlow was up during the daytime, her room was empty, and that communicating door opened not into Madame's bedroom, where perhaps it might have been discovered whether it was locked or not, but into a dressing room. Yes, Jim agreed. Well, then continue. An up-cut is left alone after Madame Estelle Harlow's departure to Monsieur de Boillac's ball. She sends Gaston to bed. The house is all dark and asleep. Suppose then that she is joined by someone. With the arrow poison already in the hypodermic needle, that they enter the treasure room just as an up-cut described. Then she turns on the light for a second, while someone crosses the treasure room and opens the door. Suppose that the voice which whispered that will do now was the voice of an up-cut herself, and that she whispered it across Madame Harlow's body to the third person in that room. The someone exclaimed, Jim, but who then? Who? And I shrugged his shoulders. Well, why not, Wabersky? Wabersky cried, Jim, with a new excitement in his voice. You asked me what had an up-cut to gain by this murder, and you answered your own question. Nothing, you said, Monsieur Frobisher, but did your quick answer cover the ground? Wabersky at all events expected a fine fat legacy, but if he in return for help proposed to share that fine fat legacy with the exquisite mademoiselle Anne. Has she no motive now? In the end, what do we know of her at all? Except that she is the paid companion, and therefore poor mademoiselle Anne. And he threw up his hands. Where does she spring from? How did she come into that house? Was she perhaps Wabersky's friend? And a cry from Jim brought an ode to a stop. Jim had thought of Wabersky as the possible murderer, if murder had been done. A murderer who, disappointed of his legacy, the profits of his murder had carried on his villainy to blackmail and a false accusation. But he had not associated an up-cut with him until those moments on the terrace tower. Yet now, memories began to crowd upon him. The letter to him, for instance, she had said that Wabersky had claimed her support and ridiculed his claim. Might that letter not have been a blind and a rather cunning blind? Above all, there was a scene passing vividly through his mind, which was very different from the scene spread out before his eyes. A scene of lighted rooms and a crowd upon a long green table, and a fair, slender girl seated at the table, who lost and lost until the whole of her little pile of bank notes was swept in by the groupier's rake, and then turned away with a high carriage, but a quivering lip. Aha! said Anno Keenley. You know something after all of an up-cut, my friend? What do you know? Jim hesitated. At one moment it did not seem fair to her that he should relate a story. Explained it might wear so different, a complexion. At another moment that it would be fairer to let her explain it, and there was Betty to consider. Yes, above all, there was Betty to consider. He was in Dijon on her behalf. I will tell you, he said to Anno, when I saw you in Paris, I told you that I had never seen Anno cut in all my life. I believed it. It wasn't until she danced into the library yesterday morning that I realized I had misled you. I saw Anno cut at the Tron-Ecan table at the sporting club in Monte Carlo in January of this year. I sat next to her. She was quite alone and losing her money. Nothing would go right for her. She bore herself proudly and well. The only sign I saw of distress was the tightening of her fingers about her little handbag, and a look of defiance thrown at the other players when she rose after her last coup, as though she dared them to pity her. I was, on the other hand, winning and I slipped a thousand franc note off the table onto the floor, keeping my heel firmly upon it as you can understand. And as the girl turned to move out from the crowd, I stopped her. I said in English, for she was obviously of my race, this is yours. You have dropped it on the floor. She gave me a smile and a little shake of the head. I think that for the moment, she dared not trust her lips to speak. And in a second, of course, she was swallowed up in the crowd. I played for a little while longer. Then I rose too, and as I passed the entrance to the bar, on my way to get my coat, this girl rose up from one of the many little tables and spoke to me. She called me by my name. She thanked me very prettily and said that although she had lost that evening, she was not really in any trouble. I doubted the truth of what she said, for she had not one ring upon any finger, not the tiniest necklace about her throat, not one ornament upon her dress or in her hair. She turned away from me at once and went back to the little table where she sat down again in the company of a man. The girl, of course, was an up-caught, the man Wabersky. It was from him, no doubt, that she had got my name. Did this little episode happen before an up-caught became a member of the household? Hano asked. Yes, replied Jim. I think she joined Mrs. Harlow and Betty at Monte Carlo. I think that she came with them back to Dijon. No doubt, said Hano. He sat for a little while in silence, and then he said softly, that does not look so very well for Madame Azalane. Jim had to admit that it did not. But consider this, Mr. Hano. He urged if an up-caught, which I will not believe, is mixed up in this affair, why should she, of her own free will, volunteer this story of what she heard upon the night of the 27th and invent that face which bent down over her in the darkness? Well, I have an idea about that, Hano replied. She told us this story when, after I had said that we must have the seals broken this afternoon and the rooms thrown open. It is possible that we may come upon something in those rooms which makes it wise for her to divert suspicion upon some other woman in the house. Jean Baudin or even Madame Azal Harlow's maid, Francine Riyad. But not Madame Azal Betty. Jim interposed quickly. Oh no, no. Hano returned with a wave of his hand. The clock upon the marketry cabinet settled that. Madame Azal Betty is out of the affair. Well, this afternoon we shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, you will be late for your luncheon. Hano rose from the bench and with a last look at the magical mountain that outposts of France they turned towards the city. Jim Frobisher looked down upon tiny squares, green with limes, and the steep gaily patterned roofs of ancient houses. About him, the fine tapering spires leapt high like lances from the slates of its many churches. A little to the south and a quarter of a mile away across the rooftops, he saw the long ridge of a big house and the smoke rising from a chimney stack or two. And behind it, the tops of tall trees which rippled and shook the sunlight from their leaves. The Maison Cronelle, he said. There was no answer, not even the slightest movement at his side. Isn't it, yes, and he turned. Hano had not even heard him. He was gazing also towards the Maison Cronelle with the queerest look upon his face, a look with which Jim was familiar in some sort of association, but which for a moment or two he could not define. It was not an expression of amazement. On the other hand, interest was too weak a word. Suddenly Jim Frobisher understood and comprehension brought with it a sense of discomfort. Hano's look, very bright and watchful and more than a little inhuman, was just the look of a good retriever dog when his master brings out a gun. Jim looked again at the high ridge of the house. The slates were broken at intervals by little gabled windows, but at none of them could he see a figure. From none of them a signal was waved. What is it that you were looking at, asked Jim in perplexity, and then with a touch of impatience, you see something unsure. Hano heard his companion at last. His face changed in a moment, lost his rather savage vigilance, and became the face of a buffoon. Of course I see something, always I see something. Am I not Hano? My friend, the responsibility of being Hano, aren't you fortunate to be without it? Pity me, for the Hano's must see something everywhere, even when there is nothing to see, come. He bustled out of the sunlight on that high platform into the dark turret of the staircase. The two men descended the steps and came out again into the semicircle of the blast arm. Well said Hano, and then yes, as though he had some little thing to say, and was not quite sure whether he would say it. Then he compromised. You shall take a vermouth with me before you go to your luncheon. He said. I should be late if I did, for obituary replied. Hano waved the objection aside with a shake of his outstretched forefinger. You have plenty of time, is sure. You shall take a vermouth with me, and you will still reach the Maison Gnelle before mademoiselle Arlo. I say that. Hano, he said superbly, and Jim laughed and consented. I shall plead your vanity as my excuse when I find her and Anne upcaught half through their meal. A café stands at the corner of the street of liberty and the blast arm with two or three little tables set out on the pavement beneath an awning. They sat down at one of them and over the vermouth, Hano was once more upon the brink of some recommendation or statement. You see, he began, and then once more ran away. So you have been five times upon the top of Mont Blanc, he said, from Chamonix. Once, Jim replied, once from the Col du Gélan by the Bramva Blastier, once by the Dom Rout, once from the Brillard Blastier, and the last time by the Mont Montdix. Hano listened with genuine friendliness and said, You tell me things which are interesting and very new to me, he said warmly. I am grateful, miss sure. On the other hand, Jim answered, dryly, you must sure tell me very little, even what you brought me to this cafe to say, you are going to keep to yourself. But for my part, I shall not be so churlish. I am going to tell you what I think. Yes, I think we have missed the way. Oh, Hano selected a cigarette from his bundle and it's bright blue wrapping. You will perhaps think me presumptuous and saying so. Not the least little bit in the world, Hano replied seriously. We of the police are liable in searching widely to overlook the truth under our noses. That is our danger. Another angle of view, there is nothing more precious. I am all attention. Jim Frobischer drew his chair closer to the round table of iron and leaned his elbows upon it. I think there is one question in particular which we must answer if we are to discover whether Mrs. Harlow was murdered and if so, by whom? Hano nodded, I agree, he said slowly, but I wonder whether we have the same question in our minds. It is a question which we have neglected. It is this, who put back the professor's treatise on Strophanthus in its place upon the bookshelf in the library between midday yesterday and this morning. Hano struck another of his abominable matches and held it in the shelter of his palm until the flame shone. He lit his cigarette and took a few puffs at it. No doubt that question is important, he admitted, although in rather an offhand way, but it is not mine. No, I think there is another more important still. I think if we could know why the door of the treasure room which had been locked since Simon Harlow's death was unlocked on the night of the 27th of April, we should be very near to the whole truth of this dark affair. But, and he flung out his hands, that baffles me. Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily upon the pavement as if he hoped to read the answer there. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of The House of the Arrow by A. E. W. Mason This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 12, The Breaking of the Seals A few minutes later, Jim Fruguscher had to admit that Hanot guessed very luckily. He would not allow that it was more than a guess. Monsieur Hanot might be a thorough little Mr. Nooh, but no insight, however brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a circumstance. But there the fact was, Fruguscher did arrive at the Maison-Grenel to his great discomfort before Betty Harlow. He had loitered with Hanot at the café just so that this might not take place. He shrank from being alone with Anne up-caught now that he suspected her. The most he could hope to do was to conceal the reason of his trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could not conceal. She made his case the more difficult, perhaps, by a rather wistful expression of sympathy. You are distressed, she said, gently, but surely you need not be any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half past ten when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her friends in a ballroom. Nothing can shake that. It is not on her account that I am troubled, he cried, and Anne looked at him with startled eyes. Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall before Anne could ask a question. And throughout their luncheon he made a conversation upon indifferent subjects with rapidity, if without entertainment. Fortunately, there was no time to spare. They were still, indeed, smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when Gaston informed them that the commissaire of police with his secretary was waiting in the library. This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London, said Betty as she presented Jim. The commissaire, Monsieur Giraudot, was a stout, bald, middle-aged man with a pair of folding glasses sitting upon a prominent fat nose. His secretary, Maurice Thévenet, was a tall, good-looking novice in the police administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance and in his own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror amongst the fair. I have asked Monsieur Bax, mademoiselle's notary in Dijon, to be present, said Jim. That is quite an order, replied the commissaire, and the Monsieur Bax was at that moment announced. He came on the very moment of three. The clock was striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was just as it should be. Monsieur Bax was pleased. With Monsieur Le Commissaire's consent, he said, smiling, we can now proceed with the final ceremonies of this affair. We wait for Monsieur Hanot, said the commissaire. Hanot. Hanot of the Surité of Paris, who has been invited by the examining magistrate to take charge of this case, the commissaire explained. Case, cried Monsieur Bax in perplexity, but there is no case for Hanot to take charge of, and Betty Harlow drew him a little aside. Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary of the incidents of the morning, Jim went out of the room into the hall in search of Hanot. He saw him at once, but to his surprise, Hanot came forward from the back of the hall as if he had entered the house from the garden. I sought you in the dining room, he said, pointing to the door of that room, which certainly was at the back of the house behind the library, with its entrance behind the staircase. We will join the others. Hanot was presented to Monsieur Bax, and this gentleman asked Hanot, bowing slightly to Thevenet. My secretary Maurice Thevenet, said the commissaire, and in a loud undertone, a charming youth of an intelligence, which is surprising. He will go far. Hanot looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. The young recruit gazed at the great man with kindling eyes. This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanot, by which, if I do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence at all, he said, with a formal modesty, which quite went to the heart of Monsieur Bax. That is very correct, said he. Hanot, for his part, was never averse to flattery. He cocked an eye at Jim Frobisher. He shook the secretary warmly by the hand. Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young friend, he answered. I am Hanot now, yes, but I was once young Maurice Thevenet, without alas his good looks. Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming diffidence. That is very kind, said Monsieur Bax. This looks like growing into a friendly little family party, Jim Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a home and a ha from the commissaire. He moved to the center of the room. We, a Giroudot commissaire of police, will now remove the seals, he said pompously. He led the way from the library across the hall and along the corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Arlo's bedroom. He broke the seals and removed the bands. Then he took a key from the hand of his secretary and opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little company of people surged forward, Hanot stretched out his arms and barred the way. Just for a moment please, he ordered, and over his shoulder, Jim Frobisher had a glimpse of the room, which made him shiver. This morning in the garden, some thrill of the chase had made him for a moment, eager that Hanot should press on, that development should follow upon development until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. Since the hour, however, which he had spent upon the tower of the terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and he waited for developments in fear. This bedroom, mistily lit by a few stray threads of daylight, which pierced through the chinks of the shutters, cold and silent and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in the shadows. Then Hanot and the commissaire, crossed to the windows opposite, opened them and flung back the shutters. The clear bright light flooded every corner and an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher relief. The room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread. Everywhere there was order, it was as empty of suggestion as a vacant bedroom in an hotel. Hanot looked about him. Yes, he said this room stood open for a week after madam's funeral. It would have been a miracle if we discovered anything which could help us. He went to the bed, which stood with its head against the wall, midway between the door and the windows. A small flat stand with a button of enamel lay upon the round table by the bedside, and from the stand a cord ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the carpet. This is the bell and to what was the maid's bedroom, I suppose, he said, turning towards Betty. Yes, Hanot stooped and minutely examined the cord, but there was no sign that it had ever been tampered with. He stood up again. Madam Azelle, will you take a mischievous dough into Jean Baudin's room and close the door? I shall press this button, and you will know whether the bell rings, whilst we here shall be able to assure ourselves whether sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in the other. Oh, certainly! Betty took the commissaire of police away, and a few seconds later, those in Mrs. Harlow's room heard a door close in the corridor. Will you shut our door now, if you please? Hanot requested. Becks the notary closed it. Now, silence, if you please. Hanot pressed the button, and not a sound answered him. He pressed it again and again, with the same result. The commissaire returned to the room. Well, Hanot asked. It rang twice, said the commissaire. Hanot shrugged his shoulders with a laugh, and an electric bell has a shrill penetrating sound, he cried. Name of a name, but they built good houses when the Maison Grinnell was built. Are the cupboards and drawers open? He tried one, and found it locked. Monsieur Becks came forward. All the drawers were locked on the morning when Madame Harlow's death was discovered. Mademoiselle Harlow herself locked them in my presence, and handed to me the keys for the purpose of making an inventory. Mademoiselle was altogether corrected in so-doing, for until the funeral had taken place, the terms of the will were not disclosed. But afterwards, when you took the inventory, you must have unlocked them. I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanot. There were the arrangements for the funeral, a list of the properties to be made for valuation, and the vineyards to be administered. Oh, cried Hanot alertly. Then these wardrobe and cupboards and drawers should hold exactly what they held on the night of the 27th of April. He ran quickly about the room trying a drawer here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a cupboard fashioned in the thickness of the wall. The trouble is that a child with a bent wire could unlock any one of them. Do you know what Madame Harlow kept in this, Monsieur Beck, and Hanot wrapped with his knuckles upon the cupboard door? No, I have no idea. Shall I open it? And Beck's produced a bunch of keys from his pocket. Oh, not for the moment, I think, said Hanot. He had been dawdling over the locks and the drawers as though time meant nothing to him at all. He now swung briskly back into the center of the room, making notes, it seemed ferocious, of its geography. The door opening from the corridor faced across the length of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If one stood in the doorway facing these windows, the bed was on the left hand. On the corridor side of the bed, a second smaller door, which was half open, led to a white tiled bathroom. On the window side of the bed was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a woman's shoulders. A dressing table stood between the windows. A great fireplace broke the right hand wall, and in that same wall close to the right hand window, there was yet another door. Hanot moved to it. This is the door of the dressing room, he asked of Anne Upgaunt, and without waiting for an answer, pushed it open. Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his skis rattling. Everything here has been locked up too, he said. Hanot paid not the slightest attention. He opened the shutters. It was a narrow room without any fireplace at all, and with a door exactly opposite to the door by which Hanot had entered. He went at once to this door, and this must be the communicating door which leads into what is called the treasure room, he said, and he paused with his hand upon the knob, and his eyes ranging alertly over the faces of the company. Yes, said Anne Upgaunt, Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of the opening of some newly discovered tomb of a pharaoh in a hillside of the Valley of Kings. Suspense passed from one to the other as they waited, but Hanot did not move. He stood there impassive and still, like some guardian image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that he was never going to move, and in a voice of exasperation he cried, Is the door locked? Hanot replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No doubt he too felt that strange current of emotion and expectancy which bound all in the room under a spell and even gave to their diverse faces for a moment a kind of family similitude. I don't know yet whether it's locked or not, he said, but since this room is now the private sitting room of Madame Iselle Harlow, I think that we ought to wait until she rejoins us. Monsieur Bax just had time to remark with approval, that is very correct, before Betty's fresh clear voice rang out from the doorway, leading to Mrs. Harlow's bedroom. I'm here. Hanot turned the handle. The door was not locked. It opened at a touch, inwards towards the group of people, and upwards towards the corridor. The treasure room was before them, shrouded in dim light, but here and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held out a promise of wonders. Hanot picked his way daintily to the windows and fastened the shutters back against the outside wall. I beg that nothing shall be touched, he said, as the others filed into the room. End of chapter 12 Chapter 13 of the House of the Arrow by A.E.W. Mason This liver box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 13, Simon Harlow's Treasure Room Like the rest of the reception rooms along the corridor, it was longer than it was broad and more of a gallery than a room. But it had been arranged for habitation rather than for occasional visits, for it was furnished with a luxurious comfort and not overcrowded. In the fond colored panels of the walls, a few exquisite pictures by Fragonard had to be framed. On the writing table of Chinese Chippendale by the window, every appointment, ink stand, pen tray, candlestick, sand caster, and all were of the pink Battersea enamel and without a flaw. But they were there for use, not for exhibition. Moreover, a prominent big fireplace in the middle of the wall on the side of the hall judded out into the room and gave it almost the appearance of two rooms in communication. The one feature of the room indeed, which at a first glance betrayed the collector, was the sedan chair set in a recess of the wall by the fireplace and opposite to the door communicating with Mrs. Harlow's bedroom. Its body was of a pale French gray in color with elaborately carved moldings in gold round the panels and medallions representing fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses painted daydily in the middle of them. It had glass windows at the sides to show off the occupant and it was lined with pale gray satin embroidered in gold to match the color of the panels. The roof, which could be raised upon the hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold filigree work and it had a door in front of which the upper part was glass. Altogether, it was as pretty a gleaming piece of work as the art of garage building could achieve and a gilt rail very fitly protected it. Even Hanoe was taken by his daintiness. He stood with his hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure until Jim began to think that he quite forgotten the business which had brought him there. However, he brought himself out of his dream with the start, pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Vrobacher, he said. What pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts and fine gentlemen in silk stockings and what splashings of mud for the unhappy devils who had to walk. He turned his back to the chair and looked across the room. That is the clock which marked half-pastin mademoiselle during the moment when you had the light turned up, he asked a man. Yes, she answered quickly. Then she looked at it again. Yes, that's it. Jim detected or fancy that he detected a tiny change in her intonation as she repeated her assurance. Not an inflection of doubt, it was not marked enough for that, but of perplexity. It was clearly however fancy upon his part for Hanoe noticed nothing at all. Jim pulled himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. Take care, he warned himself, for once she began to suspect people they can say and do nothing which will not provide you with material for suspicion. Hanoe was without doubt satisfied. The clock was a beautiful small guilt clock of the Louis Keynes period, shaped with a waist like a violin. It had a white face and it stood upon a marketry bull cabinet a little more than waist high in front of a tall Venetian mirror. Hanoe stood directly in front of it and compared it with his watch. It is exact to the minute, mademoiselle, he said to Betty with a smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket. He turned about so that he stood with his back to the clock. He faced the fireplace across the narrow neck of the room. It had an adam mantle piece fashioned from the same fawn-colored wood as the panels with slender pillars and some beautiful carvings upon the board beneath the shelf. Above the shelf, one of the fraganaz was framed in the wall and apparently, so that nothing should mask it, there were no high ornaments at all upon the shelf itself. One or two small boxes of batter sea enamel and a flat glass case alone decorated it. Hanoe crossed to the mantle shelf and after a moment's inspection lifted with a low whistle of admiration the flat glass case. You will pardon me mademoiselle, he said to Betty, but I shall probably never in my life have the luck to see anything so incomparable again. And the mantle shelves a little high for me to see it properly. Without waiting for the girl's consent, he carried it towards the window. Do you see this, Mr. Frobisher, he called out and Jim went forward to his side. The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedoni and the translucent enamels by Benevenuto Gelini. Jim acknowledged that he had never seen craftsmanship so exquisite and delicate, but he chafed nonetheless at Hanoe's diversion from his business. One could spend a long day in this room, the detective exclaimed, admiring these treasures. No doubt Jim replied drily, but I had a notion that we were going to spend an afternoon looking for an arrow. Hanoe laughed, my friend, you recall me to my duty. He looked at the jewel again and sighed, yes, as you say, we are not visitors here to enjoy ourselves. He carried the case back again to the mantle shelf and replaced it. Then all at once his manner changed. He was leaning forward with his hands still about the glass case, but he was looking down. The fire grate was hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer and Hanoe from the position and which he stood could see over the screen and into the grate itself. What is all this? he asked. He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully aside. All now could see what had disturbed him, a heap of white ash in the grate. Hanoe went down upon his knees and picking up the shovel from the fender. He thrust it between the bars and drew it out again with a little layer of the ashes upon it. They were white and had been pulverized into atoms. There was not one flake which would cover a fingernail. Hanoe touched them gingerly as though he had expected to find them hot. This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and today is Thursday afternoon, said Jim Frobitcher, with heavy sarcasm. Ashes do not as a rule. He caught more than three days. Mishir Hanoe, Maurice Devonnet looked at Frobitcher with indignation. He was daring to make fun of Hanoe. He treated the Suri day with no more respect than one might treat. Well, say Scotland Yard. Even Mishir Bex had an air of disapproval. For a partner of the firm of Frobitcher and Haslett, this gentleman was certainly not very correct. Hanoe, on the contrary, was milk and water. I have observed it, he said mildly, and he sat back upon his heels with the shovel still poised in his hands. Madame Hizzeu, he called, and Betty moved forward and leaned against the mantle shelf out his side. Who burnt these papers so very carefully? He asked. I did, Betty replied. And when? On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday morning, before Mishir Lecomastère arrived. And what were they, Madame Hizzeu? Letters, Mishir? Hanoe looked up into her face quickly. Oh, he said softly, letters. Yes, and what kind of letters, if you please? Jim Frobitcher was for throwing up his hands in despair. What in the world had happened to Hanoe? One moment he forgot altogether the business upon which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon Harlow's collection. The next, he was off on his wild goose chase after anonymous letters. Jim had to not a doubt that he was thinking of them now. One had only to say letters and he was sidetracked at once, apparently ready to accuse anyone of their authorship. They were quite private letters, Betty replied, whilst the colors slowly stained her cheeks. They will not help you. So I see Hanoe returned with just a touch of a snarl in his voice as he shook the shovel and flung the ashes back into the grate. But I am asking you, Madame Hizzeu, what kind of letters these were? Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at the floor and then from the floor to the windows and Jim saw with a stab of pain that her eyes were glistening with tears. I think, Monsieur Hanoe, that we have come to a point when the Madame Hizzeu and I should consult together, he interposed. Madame Hizzeu would certainly be within her rights, said Monsieur Bex. But Madame Hizzeu waved her rights with a little petulant movement of her shoulders. Very well. She showed her face now to them all with the tears of brim in her big eyes and gave Jim a little nod of thanks and recognition. You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanoe, she said, with a catch in her voice. It seems that nothing, however sacred, but must be dragged out into the light. But I say again, those letters will not help you. She looked across the group to her notary. Monsieur Bex, she said, and he moved forward to the other side of Hanoe. In Madame's bedroom between her bed and the door of the bathroom, there stood a small chest in which she kept good many unimportant papers, such as old receded bills, which it was not yet wise to destroy. This chest I took to my office after Madame's death, of course, with Madame Estelle's consent, meaning to go through the papers at my leisure and recommend that all, which were not important, should be destroyed. My time, however, was occupied, as I have already explained to you, and it was not until the Friday of the 6th of May that I opened the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my surprise, a bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to assure me that they were very private and sacred things with which Madame Estelle's notary had nothing whatever to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday morning, I brought them back myself to Madame Estelle Betty. With a bow, Mr. Beck's retired, and Betty continued the story. I put the letters aside so that I might read them quietly after dinner. As it happened, I could not in any case have given them attention before. For on that morning, Mr. Boris formulated his charge against me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the office of the examining magistrate. As you can understand, I was, I don't say frightened, but distressed by this accusation, and it was not until quite late in the evening, and then, rather to distract my thoughts than for any other reason, that I looked at the letters, but as soon as I did look at them, I understood that they must be destroyed. There were reasons which, and her voice faltered, and with an effort again grew steady, which I feel it rather a sacrilege to explain. They were letters which passed between my Uncle Simon and Mrs. Harlow during the time when she was very unhappily married to Meshur Rabia, and living apart from him. Sometimes long letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled off, without reserve, during a moment of freedom. They were letters of, and again her voice broke and died away into a whisper, so that none could misunderstand her meaning of lovers, lovers speaking very intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there was no doubt that they ought to be destroyed, but I made up my mind that I ought to read them every one, first of all, lest there should be something in them which I ought to know. I read a good many that night and burnt them, but it grew late. I left the rest until the Sunday morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning and what I had left over, I burnt them. It was soon after I had finished burning them that Monsieur Lecombe-Acerre came to affix his seals. The ashes, which you see there, Monsieur Hanoe, are the ashes of the letters which I burnt upon the Sunday morning. Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple dignity, which touched her audience to a warm sympathy. Hanoe gently tilted the ashes back into the grape. Madame Iselle, I'm always in the wrong with you, he said, with an accent of remorse, for I am always forcing you to statements which make me ashamed and do you honor. Jim acknowledged that Hanoe, when he wished, could do the handsome thing with a very good grace. Unfortunately, a grace seemed never to be an enduring quality in him, as, for instance, now. He was still upon his knees in front of the hearth. While making his apology, he had been raking amongst the ashes with the shovel without giving to all appearance any thought to what he was doing. But his attention was now arrested. The shovel had disclosed an unburnt fragment of bluish-white paper. Hanoe's body stiffened. He bent forward and picked the scrap of paper out from the grape, whilst Betty, too, stooped with a little movement of curiosity. Hanoe sat back again upon his heels. Oh, you burnt more than letters last Sunday morning, he said. Betty was puzzled, and Hanoe held out to her the fragment of paper. Bills, too, mademoiselle. Betty took the fragment in her hand and shook her head over it. It was obviously the right-hand top corner of a bill. For an intriguing scrap of a printed address was visible and below a figure or two in a column. There must have been a bill or two mixed up with the letters, said Betty. I don't remember it. She handed the fragment of paper back to Hanoe, who sat and looked at it. Jim Frobischer, standing just behind him, read the printed ends of names and words and the figures beneath and happened to remember the very look of them. Hanoe held them so long in his hand. The top bit of name in large capital letters, the words below echelon in smaller capitals, then the figures in the columns, and all enclosed in a rough sort of triangle with the diagonal line browned and made ragged by the fire. Thus, erron, structsion, les, is 375.05. Well, it is of no importance, luckily, said Hanoe, and he tossed the scrap of paper back into the grate. Did you notice these ashes, Mr. Giraudot, on Sunday morning? He turned any slur, the question might seem to cast upon Betty's truthfulness with an explanation. It is always good when it is possible to get a co-operation, mademoiselle. Betty nodded, but Giraudot was at a loss. He managed to look extremely important, but importance was not required. I don't remember, he said. However, co-operation of a kind at all events did come, though from another source. If I may speak, Mr. Hanoe, said Maurice Devonnet eagerly, but by all means, Hanoe replied, I came into this room just behind Mr. Giraudot on the Sunday morning. I did not see any ashes in the hearth, that is true, but mademoiselle Harlow was in the act of arranging that screen of blue lacquer in front of the fireplace, just as we saw it today. She arranged it, and when she saw who her visitors were, she stood up with a start of surprise. Aha, said Hanoe Gorgely. He smiled at Betty. This evidence is just as valuable as if he had told us that he had seen the ashes themselves. He rose to his feet and went close to her. But there is another letter which you were good enough to promise to me, he said. The ah, she began, and Hanoe stopped her hurriedly. It is better that we hold our tongues, he said, with a nod and a grin, which recognized that in this matter they were accomplices. This is to be our exclusive little secret, which, if he is very good, we will share with Monsieur Le Commissaire. He laughed hugely at his joke, whilst Betty unlocked a drawer in the Chippendale secretary. Gérardot, the commissaire, tittered, not quite sure that he thought very highly of it. Monsieur Bax, on the other hand, by a certain extra primness of his face, made it perfectly clear that in his opinion such a jade was a very, very far from correct. Betty produced a folded sheet of common paper and handed it to Hanoe, who took it aside to the window and read it carefully. Then, with a look, he beckoned Gérardot to his side. Monsieur Fraubisher can come too, for he is in the secret, he added, and the three men stood apart at the window looking at the sheet of paper. It was stated, the 7th of May, signed the scourge, like the others of this hideous brood, and it began without any preface. There were only a few words typed upon it, and some of them were epithets not to be reproduced, which made Jim's blood boil that a girl like Betty should ever have had to read them. Your time is coming now, you, and here followed the string of abominable obscenities. You are for it, Betty Harlow, and know the detective from Paris is coming to look after you with his handcuffs in his pocket. You will look pretty in handcuffs, won't you, Betty? It's your white neck, we want. Three cheers for Wabewski, the scourge. Girodot stared at the brutal words and settled his glasses on his nose and stared again. But, but, he stammered and he pointed to the date. A warning gesture made by Hanoe brought him to a sudden stop, but Wabwisher had little doubt as to the purport of that unfinished exclamation. Girodot was astonished as Hanoe himself had been that this item of news had so quickly leaked abroad. Hanoe folded the letter and turned back into the room. Thank you, Madame Azale, he said to Betty and Thevenet, the secretary, took his notebook from his pocket. Shall I make a copy of the letter, Mishir Hanoe? He said, sitting down and holding out his hand. I wasn't going to give it back, Hanoe answered, and a copy at the present stage isn't necessary. A little later on, I may ask for your assistance. He put the letter away in his lettercase and his lettercase away in his breast pocket. When he looked up again, he saw that Betty was holding out to him a key. This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room, she said. Yes, let us look now for the famous arrow or we shall have Mishir Frobisher displeased with us again, said Hanoe. The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the room opposite to the windows and close to the door which opened onto the hall. Hanoe took the key, unlocked the door of the cabinet and started back with a wow. He was really startled for facing him upon a shelf were two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in eyes, but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the heads of Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the Amazon and preserved and reduced by their conquerors by the process common amongst those forests. If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that we should find it, he said, but though he found many curious oddities in that cabinet of the perfect specimen of a poison arrow, there was never a trace. He turned away with an air of disappointment. Well, then, mademoiselle, there's nothing else for it, he said, regretfully, and for an hour he searched that room, turning back the carpet, examining the upholstery of the chairs and the curtains, shaking out every vase and finally giving his attention to Betty's secretary. He probed every cranny of it. He discovered the simple mechanism of its secret drawers. He turned out every pigeon hole, working with extraordinary swiftness and replacing everything in its proper place. At the end of the hour, the room was as orderly as when he had entered it, yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb. No, it is not here, he said, and he seated himself in a chair and drew a breath. But on the other hand, as the two ladies and Mishir Frobisher are aware, I was prepared not to find it here. We have finished, then, said Betty, but Hanoe did not stir. For a moment, he replied, I shall be glad, Mishir Giroudot, if you will remove the seals in the hall from the door at the end of the room. The commissaire went out by the way of Mrs. Hargo's bedroom, accompanied by his secretary. After a minute had passed, a key grated in the lock and the door was opened. The commissaire and his secretary returned into the room from the hall. Good, said Hanoe, he rose from this chair and, looking around at the little group, now groan puzzled and anxious, he said very gravely, in the interest of justice I now ask that none of you shall interrupt me by either word or gesture, for I have an experiment to make. In a complete silence, he walked to the fireplace and rang the bell. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of The House of the Arrow by A. E. W. Mason This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 14 An experiment and a discovery Gaston answered the bell, will you please send Francine Royard here? said Hanoe. Gaston, however, stood his ground. He looked beyond Hanoe to Betty. If Madame Attelle gives me the order, he said respectfully. At once then Gaston, Betty replied, and she sat down in a chair. Francine Royard was apparently difficult to persuade. For the minutes passed and when at last she did come into the treasure room, she was scared and reluctant. She was a girl hardly over 20, very neat and trim and pretty and rather like some wild, shy creature out of the woods. She looked round the group which awaited her with restless eyes and a sullen air of suspicion. But it was the suspicion of wild people for townsfolk. Royard said, Hanoe, gently, I sent for you, for I want another woman to help me in acting a little scene. He turned towards Ann Upcott. Now, mademoiselle, will you please repeat exactly your movements here on the night when Madame Harlow died? You came into the room, so you stood by the electric light switch there, you turned it on, you noticed at the time and you turned it off quickly. For this communicating door stood wide open, so and a strong light poured out of Madame Harlow's bedroom through the doorway. Hanoe was very busy placing himself first by the side of Ann to make sure that she stood in the exact place which she had described and then running across the room to set wide open the communicating door. You could just see the light gleaming on the ornaments and panels of the sedan chair on the other side of the fireplace on your right. So, and there mademoiselle, you stood in the darkness and his words lengthened out now with tiny intervals between each one. You heard the sound of the struggle in the bedroom and caught some words spoken in a clear whisper. Yes, Ann replied with a shiver, the solemn manner of authority with which he spoke obviously alarmed her. She looked at him with troubled eyes. Then will you stand there once more, he continued, and once more listen as you listened on that night. I thank you. He went away to Betty. Now mademoiselle and you, Francine Royaud, will you both please come with me? He walked towards the communicating door but Betty did not even attempt to rise from her chair. Monsieur Hano, she said, with her cheeks very white and her voice shaking, I can guess what you propose to do, but it is horrible and rather cruel to us, and I cannot see how it will help. Ann Upcott broke in before Hano could reply. She was more troubled even than Betty, though without doubt hers was to be the easier part. It cannot help at all, she said. Why must we pretend now the dreadful thing which was lived then? Hano turned about in the doorway. Ladies, I beg you to let me have my way. I think that when I have finished, you will yourselves understand that my experiment has not been without its use. I understand, of course, that moments like these bring their distress, but you will pardon me. I am not thinking of you. And there was so much quietude and gravity in the detective's voice that his words, harsh though they were, carried with them no offense. No, I am thinking of a woman more than double the age of either of you, whose unhappy life came to an end here on the night of the 27th of April. I am remembering two photographs which you, Mademoiselle Harlow, showed me this morning. I am moved by them. Yes, that is the truth. He closed his eyes, as if he saw those two portraits with their dreadful contrast impressed upon his eyelids. I am her advocate, he cried aloud in a stirring voice. The tragic woman, I stand for her. If she was done to death, I mean to know and I mean to punish. Never had Frobisher believed that a no could have been so transfigured, could have felt or spoken with so much passion. He stood before them, an erect and menacing figure. All his grossness melted out of him, a man with a flaming sword. As for you two ladies, you are young. What does a little distress matter to you? A few shivers of discomfort? How long will they last? I beg you not to ender me. Betty rose up from her chair without another word, but she did not rise without an effort, and when she stood up at last, she swayed upon her feet and her face was as wide as chalk. Confrancing, she said, to pronouncing her words like a person with an impediment of speech, we must show Monsieur Hanot that we are not the cowards he takes us for. But Francine still held back. I don't understand at all. I am only a poor girl, and this frightens me. The police, they set traps. The police! Hanot laughed. And how often do they catch the innocent in them? Tell me that, Madam Mazzal Francine. He turned almost contemptuously towards Mrs. Arlo's bedroom. Betty and Francine followed upon his heels, the others trooped in behind, with Frobisher last of all. He indeed was as reluctant to witness Hanot's experiment as the girls were to take a part in it. It savored of the theatrical. There was to be some sort of imagined reproduction of the scene which an upcrot had described, no doubt with the object of testing her sincerity. It would really be a test of nerves more than a test of honesty, and to Jim was therefore neither reliable nor fair play. He paused in the doorway to say a word of encouragement to Han, but she was gazing again with that curious air of perplexity at the clock upon the marketry cabinet. There is nothing to fear, Han, he said, and she withdrew her eyes from the clock. They were dancing now as she turned them upon Frobisher. I wondered whether I should ever hear you call me by my name, she said with a smile. Thank you, Jim. She hesitated, and then the blood suddenly mounted into her face. I'll tell you, I was a little jealous, she added, and a low voice, and with a little laugh at herself, as though she was a trifle ashamed of the confession. Jim was luckily spared the awkwardness of an answer by the appearance of Hanot in the doorway. I hate to interrupt, Mr. Frobisher, he said with a smile, but it is of a real importance that Mademoiselle should listen without anything to distract her. Jim followed Hanot into the bedroom and was startled. The commissaire and his secretary and Mr. Beck were in a group apart near to one of the windows. Petty Harlow was stretched upon Mrs. Harlow's bed. Francine Rolard stood against the wall, near to the door, clearly frightened out of her wits, and glancing from side to side with the furtive restless eyes of the half-damed. But it was not this curious spectacle, which so surprised Jim Frobisher, but something strange, something which almost shocked in the aspect of Betty herself. She was leaning upon an elbow with her eyes fixed upon the doorway and the queerest, most inscrutable, fierce look in them that he had ever seen. She was quite lost to her environment. The experiment from which Francine Schrank had no meaning for her. She was possessed. The old phrase leapt into Jim's thoughts, though her face was as still as a mask, a mask of frozen passion. It was only for a second, however, that the strange seizure lasted. Betty's face relaxed. She dropped back upon the bed with her eyes upon Hanot like one waiting for instructions. Hanot, by pointing a finger, directed Jim to take his place amongst the group at the window. He placed himself upon one side of the bed and beckoned to Francine. Very slowly, she approached the end of the bed. Hanot directed her in the same silent way to come opposite to him on the other side of the bed. For a little while, Francine refused. She stood stubbornly, shaking her head at the very foot of the bed. She was terrified of some trick, and when at last, at a sign from Betty, she took up the position assigned to her. She minced to it, gingerly, as though she feared the floor would open beneath her feet. Hanot made her another sign, and she looked at a scrap of paper on which Hanot had written some words. The paper and her orders had obviously been given to her, whilst Jim was talking to Anne Upcott. Francine knew what she was supposed to do, but her suspicious peasant nature utterly rebelled against it. Hanot beckoned to her with his eyes riveted upon her, compelling her, and against her will, she bent forwards over the bed and across Betty Harlow's body. Hanot from Hanot now, and she spoke in a low, clear whisper, that will do now. And hardly had she spoken of those few words which Anne Upcott said she had heard on the night of Mrs. Harlow's death, but Hanot himself must repeat them and also in a whisper. Having whispered, he cried aloud towards the doorway in his natural voice, did you hear, mademoiselle, was that the whisper which reached your ears on the night when madame died? All those in the bedroom waited for the answer in suspense. Francine the Roloid, indeed, with her eyes fixed upon Hanot in a very agony of doubt. And the answer came, yes, but whoever whispered, whispered twice this afternoon. On the night when I came down in the dark to the treasure room, the words were only whispered once. It was the same voice which whispered them twice, mademoiselle. Yes, I think so. I noticed no difference, yes. And Hanot flung out his arms with a comic gesture of despair and addressed the room. You understand now, my little experiment, a voice that whispers how shall one tell it from another voice that whispers? There is no intonation, no depth, no lightness. There is not even sex in a voice which whispers. We have no clue, no, not the slightest, to the identity of the person who whispered, that will do now. On the night when mademolo died, he waved his hand towards monsieur Bex. I will be glad if you will open now those cupboards and mademoiselle Harlow will tell us to the best of her knowledge whether anything has been taken or anything disturbed. Hanot returned to the treasure room, leaving monsieur Bex and Bette at their work with the commissaire and his secretary to supervise them. Jim Frobisher followed him. He was very far from believing that Hanot had truthfully explained the intention of his experiment, the impossibility of identifying a voice which whispers. Here was something with which Hanot must have been familiar from a hundred cases. No, that interpretation would certainly not work. There was quite another true reason for this melodramatic little scene which he had staged. He was following Hanot in the hope of finding out that reason when he heard him speaking in a low voice and he stopped inside the dressing room close to the communicating door where he could hear every word and yet not be seen himself. Mademoiselle Hanot was saying to Ann Upcott there is something about this clock here which troubles you. Yes, of course it's nonsense. I must be wrong. For here is the cabinet and on it stands the clock. Jim could gather from the two voices that they were both standing together close to the marketry cabinet. Yes, yes, and hours, still you are troubled. There was a moment silence. Jim could imagine the girl looking from the clock to the door by which she had stood and back again from the door to the clock. Surely that scene in the bedroom had been staged to extort some admission from Ann Upcott or the falsity of her story. Was he now, since the experiment had failed, resorting to another trick, setting a fresh trap? Well, he asked insistently, why are you troubled? It seems to me, and replied in a voice of doubt, that the clock is lower now than it was. Of course, it can't be, and I had only one swift glance of it. Yet, my recollection is so vivid, the room standing out revealed in the moment of bright light and then vanishing into darkness again. Yes, the clock seemed to me to be placed higher, and suddenly she stopped as if a warning hand had been laid upon her arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering when silently, like a swift animal, a nose in the doorway and confronting him. Yes, M. Frobischer, he said, with an odd note of relief in his voice, we shall have to enlist you in its serenity very soon. That, I can see, come in. He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room. As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the light goes up and goes out. It would have been a marvel if you had, within that flash of vision, seen every detail precisely true. No, there is nothing there. He flung himself into a chair and sat for a little while, silent in an attitude of dejection. You said this morning to me, M. Schuer, that I had nothing to go upon, that I was guessing here and guessing there, stirring up old troubles which had better be left quietly in their graves and, at the end, discovering nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right. My little experiment was there ever a failure more abject. Heno sat up alertly. What is the matter, he asked. Jim Frobischer had had a brainwave. The utter disappointment upon Heno's face and, in his attitude, had enlightened him. Yes, his experiment had failed, for it was aimed at Francine Royard. He had summoned her without warning. He had bitten her upon the instant to act as seen, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the hope that it would work upon her and break her down to a confession of guilt. He suspected and, well then, and must have had an accomplice. To discover the accomplice, there was the object of the experiment and it had failed abjectly, as Heno himself confessed. Francine had shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the reason of the shrinking was manifest. Fear of the police, suspicion of a trap, the furtive helplessness of the ignorant. She had not delivered herself into Heno's toils, but not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal to Heno. To his question, what was the matter, he answered simply, nothing. Heno beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms of his chair. Nothing, eh? Nothing? That's the only answer in this case, to every question, to every search. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And as he ended in a sinking voice, a startled cry rang out in the bedroom. Betty, Anne exclaimed, Heno threw off his dejection like an overcoat. Jim fancied that he was out of his chair and across the dressing room before the sound of the cry had ceased. Certainly, Betty could not have moved. She was standing in front of the dressing table, looking down at a big jewel case of dark blue Morocco leather. And she was lifting up and down the open lid of it with an expression of utter incredulity. Aha, said Heno, it is unlocked. We have something after all, Mr. Frobacher. Here is a jewel case unlocked, and jewel cases do not unlock themselves. It was here. He looked towards the cupboard in the wall of which the door stood open. Yes, said Betty. I opened the door and took the case out by the side handles. The lid came open when I touched it. Will you look through it, please, and see whether anything is missing? While Betty began to examine the contents of the jewel case, Heno went to Francine, who stood apart. He took her by the arm and led her to the door. I am sorry if I frightened you, Francine, he said, But after all, we are not such alarming people, the police. No, so long as good little mates hold their good little tongues, we can be very good friends. Of course, if there is chatter, little Francine, and gossip, little Francine, and that good-looking baker's boy is tomorrow spreading over Dijon the story of Heno's little experiment, Heno will know where to look for the chatterers. Monsieur, I shall not say one word, cried Francine. And how wise that will be, little Francine. Heno rejoined in a horribly smooth and silky voice, for Heno can be the wickedest of wicked uncles to naughty little chatterers. Oh yes, he seizes them tight so, and it will be ever so long before he says to them, That will do now. He rounded off his threats with a quite friendly laugh, and gently pushed Francine Roulard from the room. Then he returned to Betty, who had lifted the tray out of the box, and was opening some smaller cases, which had been lying at the bottom. The light danced upon pendant and bracelet, buckle and ring, but Betty still searched. You miss something, mademoiselle? Yes, it was after all certain that you would, Heno continued. If murders are committed, there will be some reason I will even venture to guess that the jewel which you miss is of great value. It is, Betty admitted, but I expect it has only been mislaid. No doubt we shall find it somewhere, tucked away in a drawer. She spoke with very great eagerness, and a note of supplication, that the matter should rest there. In any case, what has disappeared is mine, isn't it? And I'm not going to imitate, Mr. Bartitz. I make no complaint. Heno shook his head. You are very kind, mademoiselle, but we cannot alas, say here, that we'll do now. It was strange to Jim to notice how he kept harping upon the words of that whisperer. We are not dealing with a case of theft, but with a case of murder. We must go on. What is it that you miss? A pearl necklace, Betty answered reluctantly. A big one. It was noticeable that as Betty's reluctance increased, Heno became more peremptory and abrupt. Oh, not so very. Describe it to me, mademoiselle. Betty hesitated. She stood with a troubled face, looking out upon the garden. Then, with a shrug of resignation, as she obeyed, there were thirty-five pearls. Not so very large, but they were perfectly matched, and of a beautiful pink. My uncle took a great deal of trouble, and some years to collect them. Heno told me herself that they actually cost him nearly a hundred thousand pounds. They would be worth more, even now. A fortune, then, cried Heno. Not a person in that room had any belief that the necklace would be found laid aside somewhere by chance. Here was Heno's case building itself up steadily. Another story was added to it this afternoon. This or that experiment might fail. What did that matter? A motive for the murder came to light now. Jim had an intuition that nothing now could prevent a definite result, that the truth, like a beam of light that travels for millions of years, would, in the end, strike upon a dark spot, and that someone would stand helpless and dazzled and aglare the criminal. Who knew of this necklace of yours, mademoiselle? Besides yourself, Heno asked. Everyone in the house, miss sure. Madame wore it nearly always. She wore it then on the day of her death. Yes, I, Betty began, and she turned towards Anne for confirmation, and then swiftly turned away again. I think so. I am sure of it, said Anne steadily, though her face had grown rather white and her eyes anxious. How long has Francine Roulard been with you? Heno asked of Betty. Three years, oh no, a little more. She is the only maid I have ever had, Betty answered with a laugh. I see, Heno said thoughtfully, and what he saw, it seemed to Jim Frobisher that everyone else in the room saw too. For no one looked at Anne Upcott. Old servants do not steal valuable necklaces. Anne Upcott and Jean Baudin, the nurse, were the only newcomers in the Maison Garnel these many years, and Jean Baudin had the best of characters. Thus the argument seemed to run, though no one expressed it in words. Heno turned his attention to the lock of the cupboard and shook his head over it. Then he crossed to the dressing table and the Morocco case. Aha, he said with a lively interest. This is a different affair, and he bent down closely over it. The case was not locked with the key at all. There were three small guilt knobs in the front of the case, and the lock was set by the number of revolutions given to each knob. These, of course, could be varied with each knob, and all must be known before the case could be opened. Mrs. Harlow's jewels had been guarded by a formula. There has been no violence used here, said Heno standing up again. Of course, my aunt may have forgotten to lock the case, said Betty. Of course, that's possible if Heno agreed, and of course this room was open to anyone between the time of my aunt's funeral and Sunday morning when the doors were sealed. A week, in fact, with Boris Wabersky in the house, said Heno. Yes, yes, said Betty, but I expected just mislaid, and we shall find it. You see, Mr. Boris expected to get some money from my lawyers in London. No doubt he meant to make a bargain with me. Doesn't look as if he'd stolen it. He wouldn't want a thousand pounds if he had. Jim had left Boris out of his speculations. He had recollected him with a thrill of hope that he would be discovered to be the thief when Heno mentioned his name. But the hope died away again before the reluctant and deadly reasoning of Betty Harlow. On the other hand, if Boris and Anne were really accomplices in the murder, because he wanted his legacy, the necklace might well have been Anne's share. More and more, whichever way one looked at it, the facts pointed damningly towards Anne. Well, we will see if it has been mislaid, said Heno. But meanwhile, mademoiselle, it would be well for you to lock that case up and take it sometime this afternoon to your bankers. Betty shut down the lid and spun the knobs one after the other. Three times a swift succession of sharp little clicks was heard in the room. You have not used, I hope, the combination which Madame Harlow used, said Heno. I never knew the combination she used, said Betty. She lifted the jewel case back into the cupboard and the search of the drawers and the cupboards began. But it was as barren of result as had been the search of the treasure room for the arrow. We can do no more, said Heno. Yes, one thing more. The correction came quietly from Anne up, got she was standing by herself, very pale and defiant. She knew now that she was suspected. The very care with which everyone had avoided even looking at her had left her in no doubt. Heno looked about the room. What more can we do, he asked. You can search my rooms. No, cried Betty violently. I won't have it. If you please, said Anne, it is only fair to me. Monsieur Bex nodded violently. Madame Azele could not be more correct, said he. Anne addressed herself to Heno. I shall not go with you. There is nothing locked in my room except a small leather dispatch case. You will find the key to that in the left hand drawer of my dressing table. I will wait for you in the library. Heno bowed and before he could move from his position, Betty did a thing for which Jim could have hugged her there and then before them all. She went straight to Anne and set her arm about her waist. I'll wait with you, Anne, she said. Of course, it's ridiculous. And she led Anne out of the room. End of chapter 14.