“I think so, sir.”
“Except for one thing, Henry,” said Harrison. “Why haven’t you used your eyes?”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“Haven’t you looked around the room since you’ve been in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And noticed nothing?”
“No, sir.”
“What about the blotting pad, Henry?”
Henry looked at the blotting pad and gave a gasp for there, written neatly in pencil on one side of it was the word “Geneva”.
“Well, I’ll be—” started Henry.
“Better not, Henry,” said Harrison. “That’s not my writing.”
Henry looked at it closely and said: “Of course it isn’t.”
“Again we have to hand the prize to Jeanne de Marplay, Henry,” said Harrison. “She has an astonishing sense of artistic completeness. She had told a lie to me about the blotting pad, a lie which she knew was unworthy of her and could easily be spotted. So she came here to substantiate it. It might be after the event but still, she could not allow the clumsiness of the original effort to remain.”
“She’s been here sir?” asked Henry.
“Obviously,” answered Harrison. “It wasn’t there when we left. We all went to Geneva together and she left it somewhat before us. She must have got over her shock pretty well and come straight here. But this won’t be the only sign of her. This could only have been incidental. She wouldn’t have taken such terrific risks for it. She came for some other reason, I’m certain. Look around, Henry, and see if you can find anything else.”
Henry looked carefully round the room and suddenly gave a shout, then he called Harrison to the fireplace. In the bottom left-hand corner of the mirror above the fireplace was pasted a small cutting from a newspaper.
“A gossip paragraph,” said Harrison. “Let’s see what it says.”
The paragraph ran as follows:
“We regret to announce the sudden death of one of the most valued contributors to this column in Mlle. Jeanne H. de Marplay who had an attack of appendicitis while staying in Paris and did not survive the operation. Witty and attractive, she had a flair for knowing what everybody was doing and writing entertainingly about it. She was a remarkable linguist and was familiar with society in every capital in Europe. The world will be a duller place without Jeanne de Marplay and a large circle of friends will deplore her untimely departure.”
“And specially written for me,” said Harrison. “And the circle round the letters ‘H.D.’ Artistic again, Henry.”
“I wonder if we shall ever see her again,” said Henry.
“Not yet, at any rate, Henry,” answered Harrison. “She’s mixing with society in one of the capitals of Europe. A pretty ending, Henry, truly a pretty ending.”
First published in the United Kingdom in 1931 by London Ernest Benn Limited
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © 1931 by Clifton Robbins
The moral right of Clifton Robbins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781911420057
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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