“If you please,” said Hanaud.
“I gave up my chair at the supper-table before the rocket was fired,” Stallard explained. “I went out into the garden to make sure that it was ready. I then returned to the house. I didn’t re-enter the supper-room. I went into the lounge and up the stairs to the gallery on the first floor. I wanted to be certain that the equilibrist was dressed and sober, and that the projectors were working all right. As soon as I was certain, I gave the signal from the window of the gallery for the rocket to be fired. I stayed for a few moments watching the performance. Then I ran down again. I was a little uneasy about the mast in the garden the tight-rope was fixed to. A pretty heavy strain was being put on it, and I wasn’t too confident that it would stand it. The lounge was empty, but the terrace was crowded. It looked to me as if I should have to push a good deal to get past the orchestra and the guests. So I went out by the front door and round the house by the path through the shrubbery. The courtyard was at that time quite empty. For all the chauffeurs were watching the performance from the servants’ quarters. Furlong, my man of all work, ought to have been on duty then, but I found him down by the mast. I sent him off back to his post. But I don’t think he went back very quickly,” Stallard concluded with a laugh.
It appeared to Ricardo that the story in all its details fitted in with the natural procedure of a host careful of the success of his party and the comfort of his guests. It was in accordance, too, with his own recollections. Lydia Flight and Oliver Ransom had been held up on their way to the supper-room door, which opened upon the lounge, by the crowd of people pushing to the terrace. During that time Stallard was in the gallery. He was in the gallery when Lydia Flight went up to the floor above. He had then descended and passed by the front of the house into the shrubbery, but some time before Ricardo himself had gone out into the courtyard to finish his cigar.
“Was anyone else with you by the mast?” Hanaud asked.
“After I had sent Furlong away I was alone.”
“Whilst you were alone did you hear or notice anything unusual?”
“Well!”
For the first time Guy Stallard began to show a sign or two of discomfort.
“You are asking me a difficult question,” he resumed. “You see, Monsieur Hanaud, all the people here at the time were my guests. Some of them sleeping in the house. I don’t like to think that any of them were thieves.”
“That is always unpleasant,” Hanaud returned gravely. “But a theft was committed that night.”
“Yes, I know.”
Guy Stallard uncrossed his legs and shifted his feet and looked more uncomfortable than ever.
“Well, I did notice,” he said at length, “that a motorcar was coming down the hill on the other side of the park wall. It surprised me. For it must have come from the house. That little side road ends at the gates of the courtyard. After all, the man on the rope was giving a very good show. I had expected that everyone would wait until the end of it.”
“I see,” Hanaud observed. “You heard it descending the side road. Then you couldn’t tell, of course, what direction it took when it reached the main road?”
“Oh, yes, you could,” said Scott Carruthers quickly, and then stopped. “I mean, you surely could get some idea.”
Guy Stallard smiled.
“I could get some, certainly,” he answered. “If the car had gone down the river towards the sea, it would have passed along at the foot of the garden. I shouldn’t have seen its lights, I admit, because of the wall. But the noise would have been louder. As it was, it diminished all the time. It took the direction of Rouen.”
Scott Carruthers took a cigarette from his case and lit it. He was obviously anxious to get the facts out clear and definite for Hanaud’s mind to work upon. Now that this detail was not to be misunderstood, he was satisfied.
“Did you find out whose car it was?” Hanaud asked.
“I didn’t so much find out,” Stallard answered. “I was told. Furlong told me later on, when I was wondering what had become of — well, one of my guests. He was staying in the house, you see, and the other guests had gone. And I couldn’t make out where he had got to.”
“I am afraid that I must press you,” Hanaud pursued.
Guy Stallard nodded his head.
“Sure thing,” he admitted reluctantly. “You’ve got to know, Monsieur Hanaud. The car was Oliver Ransom’s car. Furlong was returning to his post as it dashed off. I should feel more of a sneak if it wasn’t that Mr. Ricardo saw him go, as well as Furlong,” and he looked for corroboration towards Ricardo.
“Yes, it was a small yellow open car and a man in a chauffeur’s uniform was driving it.”
“And Ransom,” Scott Carruthers broke in excitedly— “yes, you told me that, Guy, this afternoon when I got here — was wearing a chauffeur’s dress.”
“Yes, I did tell you so,” Stallard agreed with a glance of annoyance at Scott Carruthers. “But, of course, for all I know, the car may have been stolen. Furlong should have been on the watch in the courtyard, and the damned little fellow wasn’t there. Anybody in a pair of gaiters and a jacket might have bolted with any car.”
That, to Ricardo’s thinking, was a suggestion worth considering, but Hanaud was not prepared to consider it.
“I want at this moment just the facts,” he said, and he turned again to Guy Stallard. “You went out after the performance from the lounge with Miss Flight to find, if you could, this Mr. Ransom. You went into the garden?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“We searched the rose garden as well as we could in the dark. We called out his name. We found no one. We came back to the house, which by this time was empty again except for the few who were staying here. Miss Flight was obviously in great distress, and I knew nothing at that time about the Chitipur pearls, and I was inclined to think that she was exaggerating a lovers’ quarrel. Madame Bouchette was going to bed. I wanted to go, and I advised Miss Flight to do the same.”
Lydia Flight had refused. She declared that she must get to Trouville, she must see Major Scott Carruthers, she must send off some telegrams.
“I assured her that I would send her off in a car first thing in the morning. She said she couldn’t sleep, and she ran upstairs to change her clothes. When she came down again, changed, I had some tea ready for her, and said that she wouldn’t find any telegraph offices open and that she had better wait till daylight anyway. I was rather nervous about her. She was distraught. I left her in the lounge, whilst I pretended to get a car ready for her. I took as much time as I could, and when I got back to the lounge, I was very glad to see that she had fallen asleep on the sofa. I covered her with a wrap and left her there. She did not wake until seven in the morning. I hadn’t dared to go to bed myself, though I had changed my clothes. I offered to drive her in to Trouville. It’s only an hour’s run. But she wouldn’t have that. I lent her a small Citroen car we had.”
“A purple car?” said Hanaud. “With the number 7964 R.F. 6?”
“Yes, that’s it. She had packed a suit-case and she took it with her. I asked her whether I should have her fancy dress sent to the Marie-Popette. But she said that she would let me know, and she drove off.”
“Thank you,” said Hanaud. He sat in silence for a moment or two, and then said: “And that’s all you have to tell me, Mr. Stallard?”
“Not quite,” said Stallard.
He rose to his feet and going into the lounge went upstairs. He came down again with a door key.
“By the time Miss Flight drove away my small household was stirring. I went to my housekeeper and asked her to lock up the little suite of rooms which Miss Flight occupied, and to bring the key to me. I thought that in her state of distress she might have left money and whatever jewellery she had lying about anywhere.”
“And this is the key?”
Guy Stallard pushed it across the iron table to Hanaud.
“Yes. So far as I know, the d
oor has not been opened since.”
Hanaud took up the key and looked at the wards.
“And that’s all?” he asked.
Stallard tilted back his chair and plunged his hands into his pockets. He looked at Hanaud, his forehead puckered in a frown, his eyes discontented: in fact, a well-bred gentleman torn between consideration for his guests and respect for the Law.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There was something a little odd...It might mean nothing at all...Wait!”
He brought the front legs of his chair down on the stone flags with a bang, and went through the long dining-room behind them, and out of it by the service door. Those left upon the terrace heard him calling:
“Gavroche! Gavroche!” and then “Heléne! Heléne!”
He came back with a good-looking woman of middle age in a black dress. Monsieur Parcolet, the Commissaire, waved a friendly hand to her.
“This is Heléne Gavroche, my housekeeper,” said Stallard, and Hanaud with a polite bow to her spoke to Parcolet.
“You know Madame Gavroche?”
“But of course I know her,” cried Parcolet. “Heléne is the daughter of old Gavroche the farmer at La Jacquerie, a mile or two down the river. Ah! There was a time” — he slapped the spot where he imagined his heart to be— “we were all in love with Heléne Gavroche. But she would have none of us. To bear a lot of children, and work like a slave without pay, and grow old when she was still young. No, Heléne was a philosopher. She went into one of the big houses, and there she is with a face as smooth as a girl’s and a good many nice bank-notes tucked away in a stocking.”
Heléne Gavroche broke into an honest laugh and showed a set of strong white teeth.
“Oh, monsieur, you will have your joke,” she cried.
“Heléne, when you were seven and I was nine,” answered Parcolet, “there was no joke, I can tell you.”
“Very well,” said Hanaud. He accepted the Commissaire’s testimonial, and got straight along with his enquiry. “It was you, madame, who locked the door of the rooms occupied by Mademoiselle Flight?”
“Yes, monsieur. Yesterday morning.”
“Did you go into the rooms before you locked the door?”
“No.”
“Did any of the housemaids?”
“No, monsieur. I was up on that floor before anyone.”
“And do you know whether any other keys fit that lock?”
“The doors have separate locks, monsieur, but I can’t be sure that some other key wouldn’t open it.”
“I understand that,” said Hanaud. “Now, madame, what was the odd little thing you noticed when you locked this door?”
“Monsieur, the floor of the corridor on to which the doors open is of black wood without a carpet over it, and leading from the door of the suite there were some footmarks. They were pinkish. They were the marks of small women’s shoes. It was as though a girl had got some pink powder on the soles of her shoes and had come out from that suite of rooms. The traces were quite unmistakable close to the door, then they became less easy to recognise, and towards the top of the stairs at the other end of the corridor there was just a grain or two of the powder.”
“And you reported those footmarks to Monsieur Stallard?”
“Not at the time, monsieur. I didn’t think them of any importance,” returned Heléne Gavroche. “And, indeed, why should I?”
“Indeed, why should you? We don’t know now that they are of any importance,” Hanaud answered with a smile. “I am wondering what made you report them at all.”
“Monsieur Stallard at the luncheon hour told us that a valuable necklace had been lost and that the reception-rooms and the garden and the corridors must be searched. The footmarks had been cleaned away by then, and I told Monsieur Stallard that the necklace could not have been dropped on the upper corridor, otherwise it would certainly have been found when the powder was being cleared away. Monsieur Stallard was annoyed when I told him, but after all, monsieur, it is a reflection on the housekeeper when the passages are untidy.”
“Thank you,” said Hanaud. “I understand that perfectly.”
But Heléne Gavroche had a plea to make.
“Monsieur — we have talked this over in the servants quarters. The loss of a valuable necklace — we do not like it at all. Monsieur Stallard’s tenancy ends with the month. In four days from now we are all scattered with perhaps a little suspicion against each one of us. Monsieur knows the harm which the bad tongue can do. We wish our boxes to be searched as well as the reception-rooms and the garden and the corridors.”
Hanaud spread out his hands.
“Madame, it is a reasonable wish. I am very sure that it is not in the house at all. But before we leave the search shall be made.”
He dismissed her with a smile of benevolence, and then swinging the key between his thumb and his forefinger: “Meanwhile, Monsieur Stallard, I should like to open the locked door.”
“By all means,” said Stallard, and at the same moment Scott Carruthers jumped up.
“I must come too!” he exclaimed. “I must!” and as Stallard laid a hand upon his arm he drew himself together. “You must understand, monsieur,” he explained on a note of apology, “that my future life depends upon the recovery of that great jewel. I have made my home in Chitipur. I don’t know what I shall do — how I could get along at all, if I couldn’t go back there.”
“Yes,” said Stallard sympathetically, and he passed his hand under Carruthers’s arm. “Harvey stands to lose as much almost as Nahendra Nao if the theft is not solved.”
Hanaud beamed upon Scott Carruthers.
“But certainly the Major has a right to come with us and see what we are doing. The Major is very deeply concerned in the affair — and perhaps all the more deeply,” he added softly, “because he was not here on the night of the ball.”
Major Scott Carruthers seemed in the mood to read an accusation in every inference.
“No, I wasn’t here,” he said with a challenge in his voice. “I couldn’t be here. I had to make sure that everything was in order for His Highness’s arrival at Trouville.”
“Of course,” Hanaud agreed soothingly. “And in consequence you only saw Mademoiselle Flight when she arrived in the purple car in the morning of yesterday.”
“Yes,” said Scott Carruthers, with his eyes on Hanaud. “That’s so.”
“And what account did she give you of the theft?” Hanaud continued.
Scott Carruthers brought his fist down upon the table with a thump that set the glasses jingling.
“The most preposterous which was ever invented,” he cried. “I could hardly hear it out. She ran upstairs, she said, with the fellow Ransom at her heels. She left him at the door of her rooms. And the lights went out. Did you ever hear anything like it? The lights went out all along the corridor.”
“Well, I wonder,” Stallard interposed. “We were putting on a good deal of pressure with our projectors on the floor below. I haven’t heard of fuses going that night. But it might have been possible with all the power we were using, mightn’t it?”
Scott Carruthers looked at his friend with amazement. “Et tu, Brute!”; Mr. Ricardo drew up the quotation from his deep well of appropriate sayings, but had the discretion to keep it to himself.
“Somebody would have had to replace the fuse if it had happened,” said Scott Carruthers. “Lucrece slept on that floor, didn’t she? I haven’t heard that she had to go to bed in the dark.”
“You are quite right,” Stallard answered. “I beg your pardon, old man. Of course I must have heard if a fuse had gone. So the lights went out?”
“Lydia Flight says they went out,” Scott Carruthers corrected. “You can take it or leave it. For me — I left it. She says that she was seized from behind, run along the little passage into her bedroom, and that a thick handkerchief — or a cloth — was tied over her face. The lights apparently came on again. Very handy those lights, what? She cried out, she says, but t
he door of the bedroom and the door of the passage into the corridor were shut, and she couldn’t be heard. It seems that so many people attacked her that she hadn’t a chance of resisting. Someone held her tight, someone else switched the rope of pearls over her head, and someone else knocked her out with a blow to the point. She says that she came to after a while and staggered down the stairs. Meanwhile Ransom had gone off to Rouen. A likely story, eh?”
Guy Stallard shrugged his shoulders.
“I am naturally not very keen to believe that an attack so — what shall I say? — so cowardly could have been made in my house,” he said reluctantly. “But it doesn’t do to wipe out possibilities. Unlikely things do happen, don’t they, Monsieur Hanaud?”
Hanaud nodded his head.
“Undoubtedly they do,” he answered.
“But I’ll tell you an unlikely thing which couldn’t happen,” cried Scott Carruthers, stung to the extreme of exasperation. “You can’t take a punch on the jaw which knocks you out and not show a sign of a bruise afterwards — not unless you’re a prize-fighter.”
“And Mademoiselle Flight had no bruises?” Hanaud asked.
“Not one,” Scott Carruthers exclaimed.
Hanaud looked at the Major calmly.
“Not one on the jaw, at all events,” he said with a frown like a man remembering. “She hadn’t. No — not one on the jaw.”
Mr. Ricardo could not remember any bruises which had marred that eager and radiant figure as she had stood upon the threshold of the restaurant in Havre. But Hanaud’s quiet comment had certainly produced the most extraordinary effect upon the two men to whom he was talking. Even Guy Stallard lost for the moment his easy assurance. Even in his eyes there was a flash of fear, and his face was pale beneath its tan. Scott Carruthers leaned forward over the iron table and shouted — yes, shouted — with a wild violence:
“You mean that you have seen her?”
Guy Stallard put out a hand to restrain him.
“What Monsieur Hanaud probably means, my dear Harvey,” he said suavely, “is that he is here to conduct an investigation, and not to answer our questions.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 134