they called the Inseparables, they were such good friends: Odette, and - and - Claudine Martel....'
'Go on.'
'And Gina Prevost. That was when they were in the convent. Nowadays, they're not so close as they used to be. But - I don't know. I'm in Paris so seldom, and Odette never wrote much about where she went or whom she saw. She just - just talked. Do you see?'
'Then you don't know much about Mademoiselle Martel ?'
'N-no. I never liked her much.' He lifted his shoulders. 'She had a quick, sarcastic way of talking, and she laughed at you. But she's dead, and Odette was fond of her. I don't know. I am so seldom here.'
'I see. And this Mademoiselle Prevost, who is she ?'
He was taking up his glass again, but he put it down in surprise. 'Gina? Oh, just - well, a friend. She's about. She wanted to go on the stage, I understand, but her family wouldn't let her. She's good-looking, very, if you like the sort. Blonde, rather tall.'
There was a silence. Bencolin drummed with his fingers on the table; once he nodded obscurely and his eyes were half-closed.
'No,' he said at length, 'I suppose you are not the person to give us the most complete account of those two. Eh, well! If you are ready' - he tapped on his saucer with a coin to summon the waiter - 'we can start.'
Paris is unjustly blamed. Paris goes to bed early. The boulevards were grey and shuttered, deserted under a few mournful lights. Bencolin's big Voisin swept down into the centre of the town, where the pale lamps of the Place de l'Opera drowsed under electric signs; buildings were washed with bluish-grey under the sharp stars, and muffled auto horns sounded faintly. The trees of the Boulevard des Capucines looked ragged and sinister. We were all crowded into the front seat, where Bencolin drove in his usual detached manner, at his usual speed of fifty miles an hour, never seeming to be aware that he was driving at all. The cry of our horn caught up echoes along the rue Royale, and through an open windscreen the chill breeze against our faces smelt of wet pavements, of chestnut trees, and the turf of autumn. Threading that forest of white lamps which is the Place de la Concorde, we turned up the Champs Elysees. The brief, violent ride flung us out of the dinginess round Saint-Martin's Gate; we were in an atmosphere of sedate window-grills, of ordered trees and the decorum of the Avenue Montaigne.
Nearly every day I had passed number 645, for I lived only a few doors away. It was a high old house with a grey wall fronting the street, but those big brown-painted doors in the wall, with their polished brass knobs, never stood open. Bencolin pulled at the door-bell. Presently one of the doors was opened. I heard Bencolin exchanging swift words with somebody, and we entered, past a protesting voice, into a damp-smelling courtyard. The protesting voice, whose owner I could not see in the dark, followed us up the path. Light shone from the open door of the house. Then it was blocked by the protesting voice's owner, who was backing before us in the hallway. ' — but I tell you,' said the man, 'monsieur is not at home!'
'He will be,' Bencolin said, pleasantly. 'Stand out here, my friend; let me see if I know you.'
A cut-glass globe of light hung from the ceiling, which was very lofty. It showed a very correct, very pale face, close-cut hair, and injured eyes. 'Ah, yes,' Bencolin continued, after a moment's study. 'I do know you. You are in my files. We will wait for Monsieur Galant.'
The pale face squeezed its eyes almost shut. It said: 'Very well, monsieur.'
We were ushered into a room at the front of the house. It was also very lofty and of an ancient pattern, with gilded cornices worn almost black. The glow of a shaded lamp did not penetrate far into its depths, but I could see that the steel shutters were closed on the long windows. Though there was a bright wood fire burning, the place looked bleak; the very elaborateness of its grey-and-gilt carvings, its marble-and-gilt tables, its spindly chairs, made you feel that you would as soon try to be comfortable in a museum. Grotesquely, in one corner stood an enormous harp. Every piece of furniture was valuable, just as every piece of furniture was alien to use. I wondered what sort of man lived here.
'Sit down by the fire, messieurs,' Bencolin suggested. 'I do not think wc shall have long to wait.'
The servant had vanished. But he had left open the double-doors to the hallway, and I could see a dim glow beyond. I lowered myself gingerly on to a brocaded chair near the fire, where I could look at that glow in the hall, and wonder what sort of footsteps we should hear. Somehow, I did not want to face the fire; I wanted to keep my eye on that door. But Bencolin had seated himself facing the blaze, fallen into a study, with his gaunt figure slumped and his chin in his hand. To the accompaniment of a stirring and crackling, with the occasional flaring of an ember, the red light flickered weirdly on his face. I heard Chaumont's restless footfalls up and down the parquet floor. Rustling, brushing, a wind swished past the house, and I heard dimly the bell at the Invalides striking two....
There was no warning of it. I was watching through the gloom the dimly-lit rectangle marking the doors to the hall, and a part of the outer door; I saw nobody enter the outer one, though I heard the faintest of clicks from a closing latch. Suddenly a great white cat darted into the room. It whisked round and into the firelight, where it stopped, with a kind of inhuman squeal and snarl....
A man's shadow moved across the rectangle; a huge shadow, removing a top-hat and swinging a cloak from its shoulder. Footsteps, slow and jaunty, sounded on the parquet.
'Good evening. Monsieur Galant,' said Bencolin, without altering his position or taking his eyes from the fire, 'I have been expecting you.'
I rose as the man approached us, and Bencolin turned also. The new-comer was tall, very nearly as tall as Bencolin, and of a thickness of muscle which he moved with a curious fluid grace. That was your first impression of him; a grace like that of the white cat, whose unwinking yellow eyes stared up at me. In a swarthy manner he was very handsome; or he would have been handsome but for one thing. His nose was bent with an ahnost horrible crookedness, and it was of a slightly reddish tinge. Against the fine features, the strong line of the jaw, the high forehead, the thick black hair, the long, yellow-grey eyes — against these, the crooked nose had grown like the proboscis of an animal. He smiled at all of us; the smile lit up his face affably, and the nose made it hideous.
But before speaking to us he leaned over and spoke to the cat. His eyes widened affectionately.
'Here, Mariette!' he said in a soft voice. 'You must not spit at my guests. Here!'
His voice was cultured, with deep rollings; he could play on it, you felt, as with the stops of an organ. Taking up the cat in his arms, folding it in the long cloak he had not yet removed, he sat down within range of the firelight. The eyelids drooped over his yellow-grey eyes, luminous, almost mesmeric. His fingers, which continued to stroke the head of the cat, were short, spatulate, and immensely strong. And the force of the man was intellectual as well as physical; you felt its power, you felt that he 'was coiling his muscles for a deadly spring, and you braced yourself as though to meet a charge with a knife.
'I am sorry,' he said in his soft, deep voice, 'to have kept you waiting. It has been a long time, Monsieur Bencolin, since we have met. These are,' he nodded towards us, 'your associates?'
Bencolin introduced us. He was standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece, negligently. Galant turned first towards Chaumont and then towards me, nodding briefly. Afterwards he continued his scrutiny of the detective. Gradually an expression of smugness and complacence spread itself over his face like thin oil; he wrinkled the red, grotesque nose and smiled.
'I saw you to-night,' he went on, thoughtfully, 'for the first time in several years. My friend Bencolin grows old; there is much grey in his hair. Nowadays I could break you in pieces....'
He settled his vast shoulders under a very correct dinner jacket. His fingers tightened, playing softly with the neck of the cat, which continued to regard us with glassy yellow eyes. Suddenly he turned to me. 'You are wondering, monsieur, about this.' With the utmost delicacy he touched his nose. 'Ah, yes, you were! Ask Monsieur Bencolin about it. He is responsible.'
'We fought once, with knives,' Bencolin said, studying a design in the carpet. He did look old then; thin and drawn and leathery of skin, a tired Mephistopheles. 'Monsieur Galant was pleased to think himself a master of the
Galant pinched his nose. 'That,' he said, 'was twelve years ago. Since then I have perfected myself. There is no one in France who could . But we will let that go. Why are you here?' He laughed, loudly and not pleasantly. 'Do you fancy that you have anything against me ?'
It was, surprisingly enough, Chaumont who broke the long silence after this. He walked round a table into the firelight; he stood for a moment uncertainly, as though revolving suspicions, and then he said, with sudden vehemence:
'Look here .. . who the devil
'Well, that depends,' said Galant. He was not astonished or irritated; he seemed to be musing. 'In his poetic
