The Waxworks Murder

way, Monsieur Bencolin would say that I am lord of the jackals - king of the cockleshells - high priest of demonology. .. . '

Chaumont stared at him, uncertainly still, and the other chuckled.

'Paris,' he continued,' 'the underworld' - what romances are committed in thy name! Monsieur Bencolin is at heart of the bourgeoisie. He has the soul of a three-franc novelist. He looks into a frowsy cafe, full of labourers and tourists, and he sees in these people creatures of the night, full of sin, drugs, and butchery. The underworld. He! - what an idea!'

Behind these words, uttered with many knowing quirks and chuckles, you could see a struggle. These men were old enemies. You could feel the hatred between them, as palpable as the heat of a fire; but also between them was a wall which Galant dared not break to fly at his foe. His words were as small vicious scratchings against that wall, like the claws of a cat....

'Captain Chaumont,' said Bencolin, 'wishes to know who you are. I will tell both of you a little. To begin with, you bore the title of doctor of letters. You were the only Frenchman ever to occupy a chair in English Literature at Oxford.'

'Well, well, that is admitted.'

'But you were anti-social. You hated the world and your fellow men. Also, you found the remuneration too small for a man of really excellent family —’

'That too, is admitted.'

'Without any doubt, then,' Bencolin said, thoughtfully, 'we can trace this man's course by his own peculiar mentality. Here, we shall say, is a man of extreme brilliance, who has read books until his brain bursts with the weight of them; he is brooding, introspective, vicious of temper; he begins to look out upon what he considers a crooked world, wherein all moral values are hypocrisies. If a person has a reputation for honesty, that person must be the lowest of thieves. If a woman is reported virtuous, she must be a harlot. To feed this colossal hate of his - which is merely the hate of a misplaced idealist - he begins to root among the pasts of his friends, for he has the ear of what we call good society....’

All the bones in Galant's face seemed suddenly to have grown hard with wrath; when colour came into his face, it was confined to his nose, and the grotesque thing assumed a monstrous redness. But he sat motionless, his eyes open and fixed, stroking the cat softly.

'So,' continued Bencolin, 'he began, against this good society, a campaign. It was a sort of super-blackmail; let me call it a blackmail without honour. He had his files, his spies, his gigantic cross-indexed system, with every letter, photograph, hotel slip or its photostat copy, all carefully arranged, waiting for the proper moment. He waged war only against the highest names in the land; but he picked each small misstep out of the past, enlarged and touched it up, and then awaited his time. A woman about to be married, a candidate running for public office, a man just entering on a career of promise and honour .. . then he appeared. I do not think it was the money, especially. He drew fantastic sums from these people, but what he liked was to rip open reputations, smash idols, and have the power of saying: 'There, you who have achieved such eminence! This is how I can tear you down! You think you can reach the high places ? Try!' '

Like a man hypnotized, Chaumont drew out a chair and sat down on its edge. He was staring at Galant as Bencolin's low voice went on:

'Do you understand, messieurs? It was the immense mirth of a man who shares his joke with the devil. Look at him now. He will deny what I say, but you can see the secret satisfaction in his face.... ‘

Galant jerked up his head. It was not Bencolin's accusations which had caused this touch on an open nerve, but the fact that he knew this very expression, of hidden delight, to be creeping round his mouth,

'But this was not all,' Bencolin mused, 'I spoke of blackmail without honour; there is such a thing. When he had bled his victim of everything, he stil! did not keep faith. He did not hand over the evidence after it had been paid for. He published it instead, as he had always intended to do. For his real purpose was to ruin somebody, so that the last bit of triumph could be extracted from the jest.... Oh, no! They could not prosecute him afterwards. He had covered himself too well; he never wrote to his victims, or threatened them except when the two were alone together, with no witnesses. But his reputation went round. That is why they do not receive him in the drawing-rooms any more, and why he has a bodyguard night and day.'

'For what you are saying’ Galant told him in a repressed voice. 'I could take you into court and —'

Bencolin laughed, with a sort of tired savagery, and rapped with his knuckles on the mantelpiece. 'But you won't! Don't I know, monsieur, that you are waiting to settle with me in another way ?'

'Perhaps.' Silkily pleasant, even yet!

'Now, why I am really here to-night,' Bencolin resumed, with a slight gesture as though he were discussing a business deal, 'is to inquire about the newest aspect of your business. ...' 'Ah!*

'Oh, yes, I know about it. There has been opened, in a certain part of Paris, an institution unique of its kind. You are pleased to call it the Club of Coloured Masks. The idea, of course, is not new - there are places of the same nature - but this one has an elaborateness to which the others would not aspire. Membership in the club is restricted to those names in the very select Almanach de Gotha, and the fees are enormous. The names of the members are, theoretically, kept with the utmost secrecy.'

Galant blinked a little. He had not suspected Bencolin knew this. But he shrugged.

'Now,' he said, 'I really think you are mad. What is the purpose of this club?'

'A social gathering of men and women. Women unhappy in marriage, women who are old, women looking for a thrill: men whose wives are a bore or a terror, men in search of adventure - these meet and mingle, the woman to find a man who pleases her, the man to seek out a woman who does not remind him of his wife. They cross in your great hall, which is dimly lighted and muffled with thick hangings - and they all wear masks. One may not know that the masked lady he sees, and who appeals to him, and who leads him for private speech into the corridors off your great hall - one may not know that this seductive charmer is the very dignified woman whose sedate dinner he attended the night before. They sit and drink, they listen to your hidden orchestra, then they vanish into the depths of their amour. ... '

'You say 'my' great hall,' Galant snapped, ' 'my' hidden orchestra —'

'I do. You own the place. Oh, not in your own name! It is, I believe, in the name of some woman. But you are the controlling element,'

'Even so - I do not, of course, admit it - the place is perfectly legal. Why should it interest the police?'

'Why, yes, it is legal. It furnishes you with the best blackmail evidence you are ever likely to get, since the members do not know you are the proprietor. But if they insist on going there, I suppose it is their own look-out. ... ' Bencolin bent forward. 'However, I will tell you why it interests the police. In the passage leading to your club - a passage which is directly behind the waxworks known as the Musee Augustin - a woman named Claudine Martel was murdered tonight. Will you tell me, please, what you know about it?'

Mademoiselle Estelle

Gal ant's countenance was blurred before my eyes. I heard Chaumont's sudden gasp, and I saw him jump in the firelight, but his figure was like a ghost's. For I was looking at that narrow stone-flagged passage behind the museum. At its left end I saw that significant door without a knob; at the right, giving on the street, the door with the burglar-proof spring lock, which stood ajar. I remembered the pushbutton in the hall, which controlled soft lights there, and, lying beside bloodstains on the floor, a black mask with a torn elastic.. . .

From a distance, as though it were booming down that very corridor, came Galant's voice.

'I can offer proof,' urbanely, 'that I have no connexion whatever with the club you mention. If I am a member -what then? So are others. I am able to demonstrate that I was nowhere in the neighbourhood to-night.'

'Do you know what this means?' cried Chaumont, who was trembling.

'Sit down, Captain!' Bencolin's voice became sharp. He made a movement forward, as though he feared an outburst from Chaumont.

'But - if that's true - O God ! you are crazy! He's right!

You arc. It can't be. It              ' Looking round desperately,