Hanaud curled his hands into a mimicry of opera-glasses and held them to his eyes.
“I do see that,” he said earnestly. “It is very extraordinary.”
“There, just opposite to us, is the window of Evelyn Devenish.”
Hanaud collapsed into a chair. “Oh!” he cried. “To be sure it is! Well, then! Oh, speak!”
“Well, then! I told you of the murderous look which Evelyn Devenish shot at Joyce Whipple when Robin Webster was leaning over her chair.”
“You did! You did!”
“Don’t you see, then? It was to this chalet that Evelyn Devenish fled of her own accord when she left her room last night. It was to her lover Robin Webster.”
All the enthusiasm faded out of Hanaud’s big face. Discouragement became visible in the limpness of his attitude. He shook his head at Mr. Ricardo with the tenderest of reproach, and pressed a large hand upon his bosom to still the disappointment at his heart.
“My friend,” he said in a voice of pathos, “you work me up to a pitch of excitement most dangerous to the aged, and then you fling me down with the thud of Lucifer falling from the skies! How could you! How could you!”
Even the Commissaire Herbesthal, who could make neither head nor tail of Hanaud’s varied moods, glared at Mr. Ricardo indignantly. Mr. Ricardo, however, stood his ground.
“Evelyn Devenish fled to this chalet and to Robin Webster,” said he hotly.
“But Robin Webster wasn’t here,” said Hanaud.
“Not here!”
Mr. Ricardo stared sympathetically at the inspector of the Surete. Yes, the great detective’s day was done. This case with its subtleties and confusions had been too much for his once great bright mind. Mr. Ricardo could not, however, have him put to shame before his colleague. He must let him down easily and smoothly.
“You forget, Monsieur Hanaud. I saw Webster’s light in this window. I saw him turn it out.”
And at once Hanaud leaped to his feet.
“No, no, no! I recall your words. You saw the light flicker and go out. Yes, at the time when you used them, I thought the words were strange. Let us see now. If I turn out an electric light, it is out and at once I am in the dark. If a wire fuses, it is the same. But when an electric lamp nickers and goes out, it is because the bulb is exhausted. Let us see now!”
He switched on all the lights of the room one after another, and all of them burned brightly. He switched them off again, and in each case the light disappeared cleanly and sharply and instantaneously.
“You see!” he said.
He went back to the third cupboard and from the third shelf he took the saucer and brought it back to the table.
“This is what you saw flicker and go out.”
Herbesthal and Mr. Ricardo jostled each other in their haste to examine the saucer. At the bottom of it they saw a fragment of black wick and a little patch of wax which had melted and congealed again.
“I don’t understand,” Mr. Ricardo stammered.
“Yet it is clear. My young friend Webster lights this candle and leaves it burning in the room, so that Mr. Ricardo, or anyone who looks this way, may say to himself: ‘Oh, that industrious young man! What a treasure!’ But the candle is of a certain length, so that at a moment which experience has fixed, it will go out, and Mr. Ricardo, if he is still awake, will say: ‘It is high time he went to sleep. Treasures must not ruin their health. We do not pick them up in every hedge.’”
Now Mr. Ricardo had, indeed, argued in just that way, and he grew very red as he listened to this exposition.
“But, meanwhile, he is away. Yes, all very fine, but he forgets the nicker when the flame fades and leaps up, and so goes out. Aha! This Monsieur Webster is an interesting person. Where does he go when he leaves the candle burning? What does he do?”
Hanaud carefully replaced the saucer in its old position upon the shelf of the cupboard and closed the door. In a small recess in the wall at the head of the bed some books were standing. Hanaud walked across to them and read the titles aloud. It was the queerest collection of books for a man to keep at his bedside, and in Mr. Ricardo’s opinion some of them were not at all likely to foster those nice thoughts which should attend upon falling asleep.
“‘The Diary of Casanova,’” Hanaud read out. “‘The Ornaments of Ruysbroek, the Mystic,’ ‘Mademoiselle de Maupin,’ ‘The Imitatio Christi,’ ‘Urn Burial’ and ‘La Fille aux Yeux d’Or.’ A very interesting person, this Monsieur Webster! What a collection!”
He took the copy of “Mademoiselle de Maupin” into his hands and opened it at the fly-leaf.
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. ‘“Robin Webster.’”
He replaced the book and took at random one of the volumes of Casanova. That, too, bore the name of Robin Webster upon the fly-leaf. The binding of the third book which he removed from its shelf was more used than the other bindings; at which Mr. Ricardo was surprised. For it was “The Ornaments of Ruysbroek, the Mystic,” and it seemed an unlikely book to find in frequent use in the bedroom of the manager of a vineyard. Hanaud opened it. The sewing of the leaves even was loose, and the fly-leaf had disappeared altogether.
But Mr. Ricardo was now at Hanaud’s side, not looking over his shoulder — for that his stature prevented him from doing — but peeping round his elbow; and as Hanaud was closing the book he exclaimed in remonstrance at the detective’s carelessness: “But, my friend, you don’t notice things any more! How is this?”
“Tell me! Tell me quick!” cried Hanaud in a voice of anguish at all the mistakes which he was committing.
“The fly-leaf of that book was not lost because it was loose. Not at all. It was folded back and creased and then neatly and deliberately cut out.”
Hanaud’s voice grew strong again.
“I did notice that. Yes, yes. Some remnants of Hanaud’s once terrific acumen are still alive. The fly-leaf has been cut out.”
“But why?” Mr. Ricardo cried triumphantly. “It is obvious. Robin Webster has changed his name.”
“I wonder,” Hanaud replied. He took down the “Imitatio Christi.” From that book, too, the fly-leaf had been neatly removed. He stood and stared at it for an appreciable time. Then he slowly replaced it and as slowly observed: “There is another explanation. I like it the better of the two. For it explains to me something about Robin Webster which has been puzzling me all this day.”
He resumed his searching, running through the drawers with the light touch of a woman and a swiftness which was all his own. An old chest remained, on the closed lid of which lay heaped a pipe or two, a tennis racket, a telephone book, a map, an American magazine, the miscellanies which a man collects. Hanaud swept them aside and burrowed in the chest. A travelling-rug and a heavy overcoat were tossed upon the floor and then Hanaud stood up, holding in his hands a little cheap oblong box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He shook the box and something within it rattled faintly. He tried the lid but it was locked down, and he seated himself at the table. The lock was as cheap as the box. Hanaud took from his pocket a bunch of tiny steel implements on a ring. He selected a forceps and in a trice the box was open.
“Oho!” he said, and he shook out on to the table some eight or ten letters — if letters they could be called. For even to the eyes of Mr. Ricardo, on the other side of the table, they had the appearance of notes, most of them in pencil and all scribbled off in a hurry. Hanaud read them quickly, and his face changed.
“Aha!” he said slowly, and looking up he nodded at Mr. Ricardo in confirmation of some suggestion which he had made.
“Yes, yes!” said Hanaud, which was pleasant for Mr. Ricardo as far as it went. But since Mr. Ricardo was not allowed to see even the signature to the letters, it did not go very far. Hanaud replaced the letters in the box and turned to Moreau.
“These must be photographed — now. It will be a matter of a few minutes for you.”
“I’ll fetch my camera and the little board to keep them flat,” said Moreau, making
for the door.
But he was recalled. “No. Our friend the—” and Hanaud pulled himself up short. “Our friend, Mr. Robin, might hop in and make us leave the work unfinished. Better take them to our room, photograph them as quickly as you can and bring them back, if you’re in time. If you’re not, so much the worse for you. We keep the box and hope that its disappearance will not be discovered too soon.”
He spoke confidently enough, but he was certainly on the “tent-hook” during Moreau’s absence. He walked backwards and forwards between the table and the window, peering up the avenue, searching again some corner which he had already searched and betraying every sign of impatience. Finally he sat down again at the table and folded his hands.
“Why does a man keep letters from a woman in a locked box?” he asked suddenly. “Can you tell me that?”
Julius Ricardo smiled. The answer was obvious. “Because he is in love,” he replied. “You will remember that I saw him leaning forward over the back of a chair. And my observation was confirmed by his outburst this morning when we discovered that Joyce Whipple had vanished.”
Hanaud looked curiously at Mr. Ricardo.
“Then those letters, notes, fragments of writing — call them what you will — were from Joyce Whipple?” he asked.
“I did not need to see the signatures you so carefully concealed to be aware of that, my friend,” said Mr. Ricardo in gentle reproach.
Hanaud turned abruptly to Herbesthal.
“And you, Monsieur Le Commissaire? Why does a man keep letters from a lady in a locked box? Do you say the same? Is it because he is in love?”
“Probably,” replied the Commissaire with a shrug of the shoulders.
“Well, it may be,” said Hanaud doubtfully. “But again I say there is another explanation, and I like it the better of the two.”
Moreau returned to the room as he spoke with the inlaid box in his hands. “It is done,” he said.
Hanaud sprang up, relocked the box with his forceps, and stowed it away in its hiding-place. “Good!” he said, his face beaming with relief. “Let us go now! For the motor-car — I give it the permission to return!”
And the three men departed from the chalet and returned to the terrace.
CHAPTER 11
FOOTSTEPS
HANAUD WAS QUITE genuinely relieved to find himself once more upon the open terrace of the Chateau Suvlac. He laughed in a low, quiet rumble of a voice which to Mr. Ricardo sounded peculiarly alarming. He nodded at Ricardo with a gleaming eye.
“You have a poem. I know him. He is a very fine poem. Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is certainly somebody’s goal. Yes, I am of a pleasant humour. For we are nearer to the truth. Now we will see what it is that our excellent gendarme there is guarding for our inspection.”
He descended the steps and crossed the lawn to the circular flower-bed. Mr. Ricardo could now see that the objects which had puzzled him were three dishes of brown earthenware, capsized one upon the grass rim of the circle and the other two upon the mould of the bed itself. The gendarme standing near to the dishes saluted.
“It was you who discovered these marks?” Hanaud asked genially.
“Yes, monsieur. Monsieur Le Commissaire ordered me to look round the garden. When I discovered the marks I ran at once to the kitchen for the dishes to cover them.”
“Yes, that was a good idea,” said Hanaud with a smile of approval.
“But I had some difficulty in collecting them, monsieur.”
Hanaud nodded sympathetically. “Marianne,” he said, and warmed by his approval the gendarme lost something of his rigidity. He puffed out his cheeks.
“She is a prodigious woman, monsieur, if she is a woman at all. She boxed my ears, monsieur. I had the dishes in my hands. She dared me to drop them, and boxed my ears again. You understand, monsieur, that I was helpless. She said — but, pardon me, it would be an impertinence to repeat what she said.”
“You shall certainly repeat what she said,” Hanaud insisted. “There are no ladies present.” The gendarme blushed under his kepi.
“Oh, it wasn’t an impertinence of that kind. No, it was worse.”
“Nevertheless, repeat it.”
“She said: ‘And if you don’t like my boxes on the ear, you rascal, you can pass them on to your precious Monsieur Hanaud, of whom I think nothing at all.”
The Commissaire Herbesthal was shocked, but Hanaud’s face expanded in a grin.
“I have an inclination towards Marianne,” said he. “Well, you got the dish-covers and set them here. Yes?”
“Then I found Monsieur Le Commissaire and he ordered me to keep watch so that nothing should be disturbed.”
“Good! Has anyone come about this flowerbed as if he wanted to disturb it?”
“No, monsieur.”
“That’s not so good,” said Hanaud. “Now you shall tell me your name, so that I may have it to bear in mind. Then you shall uncover one by one those marks on the ground.”
For a second time the gendarme coloured with pleasure.
“For my name, monsieur, it is Corbie — Victor Corbie, at monsieur’s service. For the marks, look!”
He knelt down and removed the dish from the rim of the grass about the flower-bed. Where it had lain the turf was broken, and just by the side of it in the mould but at the very edge was the imprint of a small foot, wearing a pointed shoe with a high heel.
“Yes,” said Mr. Ricardo, agreeing with himself. “At that point a woman’s foot has slipped.”
Victor Corbie, kneeling upon the ground, was able to reach to the second dish on the slope of the flower-bed. He lifted it and disclosed yet another footprint. Mr. Ricardo examined it from the place where he stood.
“That imprint was made by the same woman,” he declared.
“You will notice, however, that it was made by the left foot, whereas this one on the edge of the bed was made by the right foot,” said Hanaud.
“I quite agree, my dear Hanaud,” said Mr. Ricardo. “Yes, I agree.”
The Commissaire Herbesthal, who from time to time during the last hour had been staring at Mr. Ricardo, and from Mr. Ricardo to Hanaud in a maze of wonder, was now completely at a loss as to which category or department of men he belonged to. Hanaud, on the other hand, was a picture of delight.
“I am so glad that you agree,” he said.
He nodded to Victor Corbie, who hurried round the circle of the flower- bed and removed the third dish. This was nearer to the house, and, since the imprints pointed towards the river and away from the house, it was behind the other two. The mark which it disclosed was the imprint of a foot, too but of a man’s foot shod in a big nailed boot. Yet the imprint was shallower. Mr. Ricardo, however, was not deterred by observations of any subtlety. He declared boldly:
“It is obvious that a woman fled and that a man pursued her.”
Hanaud, however, was not at that moment paying the homage to Mr. Ricardo’s statements which he so often paid. He did not, indeed, seem to hear this one at all. He said:
“I think the first thing to do is to discover which one of the young ladies at the Chateau Suvlac ran across the flower-bed last night, if it was last night and not the night before that she ran across the flower-bed. Victor Corbie, you shall help me.”
He hurried back to the house, disappeared into the turret bedroom of Diana Tasborough, and less than a couple of minutes afterwards reappeared at the window of the drawing-room. Victor Corbie followed him. He ran back to the flower-bed, and Corbie dropped on the grass beside him three pairs of the gay kind of evening slippers which ladies use. There was a pair of brocaded satin shoes belonging to Evelyn Devenish which were a shade too large, another pair belonging to Diana Tasborough which were a shade too broad and short, and a pair of silver ones belonging to Joyce Whipple which fitted exactly.
“It is clear then,” said Hanaud, rising from his knees. “Someone wearing the slippers of Joyce Whipple ran across this lawn, slipped in the dark on t
he edge of the flower-bed, planted her left foot full in the mould and sprang across to the grass upon the other side. Yes — but” — and he turned the shoes over in his hand— “it was not in these delicate trifles that she ran. They have walked upon carpets, perhaps upon the terrace, but they did not plunge across the flower-bed last night.”
There was not, as they could all see, a trace of discoloration upon the fine kid or the heels. Not a shred of the mould clung to them. The arches of the insteps were as they came new from the shoemaker, the flat of the soles hardly tinged.
“These are the shoes which were left kicked here and there by Joyce Whipple in her haste last night, when she flung them off and changed her clothes.”
Hanaud turned to Corbie as he spoke and handed him back the three pairs of shoes.
“Run, my friend, and replace these quickly in the cupboard of Mademoiselle Diana from which we took them. Then do the same with the shoes of that unhappy Madame Devenish. Those of Joyce Whipple we will take along with us.”
Hanaud watched Corbie run off upon his errand with more anxiety than his consideration for the feelings of the young chatelaine of Suvlac would seem to justify. Mr. Ricardo began to tremble for her, for he had seen Hanaud at work before, and remembered that he was never so delicate and kind as just before he pounced. Corbie, indeed, had not traversed more than half of the space between the flower-bed and the house, when at last the whirr of a motor-car grew loud and stopped. Hanaud grumbled out an oath under his breath.
“I didn’t want that,” he muttered, and then, raising his voice: “Run, Corbie, run!”
He waited thus in suspense until Corbie vanished into the turret-room. Nor did he take his eyes from the terrace until he saw the gendarme again running towards them from the direction of the avenue.
“Well?” he asked quickly as Corbie reached his side. “Those two have returned, then?”
“No,” Corbie returned “It is that the news of this disaster has spread. It was the car of some neighbours who have come to leave their cards and condolences.”
Hanaud’s attitude relaxed. A great relief lightened his face.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 98