The Waxworks Murder

we did that, I looked over the bank balance of Mademoiselle Augustin as a matter of routine. She was credited with nearly a million francs. Incredible! Then, to-night, the source of it became plain.

Bencolin spread out his hands. He was not watching Galant, but I was. I thought I saw again the expression of smugness, of Fierce secret triumph, creeping behind Galant's eyes, as though he laughed in his brain, as though he said, 'Still you don't know. ... !' But Galant lazily tossed his cigarette into the fire.

'So you are convinced, then, that I do know this charming lady?'

'You still deny it?'

'Oh, yes. I have already told you I am only a member.'

'I wonder, then,' Bencolin said musingly, 'why she expressed such agitation at the mention of your name.'

Galant's fingers descended softly on the neck of the cat. ...

'There were other things, too,' said the detective. 'We had quite a talk, mademoiselle and I; we questioned and answered without saying what we meant, though each of us understood. Several things are clear. Her father does not know that she is using the museum for that particular purpose, and she does not want him to know. She is afraid; the old man is proud of his place, and if he knew .. . well, we can't speculate on that. Also, my friend, she definitely had seen Mademoiselle Martel before.'

'What makes you think that?' Galant's voice has risen slightly.

'Oh, I am convinced of it. Yet you - you never saw Mademoiselle Martel before, I think you said? Also you do not know Mademoiselle Augustin. A tangled affair, I am afraid.' He sighed.

'Look here,' Galant returned, a little hoarsely. 'I am getting tired of this. You break in on my house to-night. You make stupid accusations, for which you could pay in court. My God ! I am tired!'

He rose slowly from his chair, dropping the cat; his big face looked ugly and dangerous.

'It is time to end this. You will go, or I will have you thrown out of the house. As for murder, I can prove that I had nothing to do with it. I do not know at what time it was supposed to be committed —'

'I do,' said Bencolin placidly.

'Is there any reason to bluff me ?'

'My friend, I would not take the trouble to bluff you or anybody else. I say that I know almost to the very second when the murder was committed. There is a piece of evidence which tells me.'

Bencolin spoke in a level, almost indifferent voice. There was a line between his brows and he scarcely looked at Galant. 'Evidence!' - so far as I knew, there was no evidence as to just when, during a period of over an hour. Claudine Martel had been stabbed. But we all knew that he was telling the truth.

'Very well, then,' agreed Galant. He nodded, but his eyes were glazed. ‘I dined, about eight o'clock, at Prunier's in the rue Duphot. You can verify it there, and also that I left there about nine-fifteen. As I was leaving there, I met a friend - a certain Monsieur Defarge, whose address I will give you - and we stopped at the Cafe de la Madeleine for a drink. He left me about ten o'clock, and I got in my car and was driven to the Moulin Rouge. Since it has become a dance-hall, you can easily get corroboration from the attendants; I am well known there. I sat in one of the boxes off the dance-floor, where I stayed for the eleven o'clock stage-show. It was over by half past eleven. I then went in my car in the direction of the Porte Saint-Martin, with die intention - you perceive that I do not conceal it - of going to the Club of Masks. When I reached the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Denis, I changed my mind. That must have been ... well, in the vicinity of eleven forty-five, I judge. So I went to the night club called 'The Grey Goose', where I sat down to drink with two girls. You, monsieur, entered there not many minutes afterwards, and I dare say you saw me. Certainly I saw you. I trust that accounts for my movements. Now - when was the murder committed?'

'Between eleven-forty and eleven forty-five, exactly.'

All Galant's wrath seemed to evaporate. His tensity relaxed and he looked past Bencolin's shoulder to smooth his hair by his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Then he shrugged.

'I don't know how you can be so sure. But it helps me. I think the car-starter at the Moulin Rouge will tell you that it was shortly after eleven-thirty when I left. There is, I recall, an illuminated clock in a shop almost immediately across the street. So then, allowing for a ten-minute drive -it is some little distance - the parking of the car, and my arrival at 'The Grey Goose' about eleven forty-five ... is it conceivable that I could have killed Mademoiselle Martel, carried her body into the waxworks, and returned to the night club, without any blood on me, at that time? Of course, you can question my chauffeur. But I don't suppose you will believe him.'

'I thank you,' said Bencolin, smoothly, 'for your story. It was not necessary. You have not been accused, or even -so far as I am concerned - suspected.'

'You admit, then, the impossibility of my guilt?'

'Oh, no.'

Galant's lips pressed together in an unpleasant fashion. He thrust his head forward. 'Frankly, why are you here?'

'Why, merely to tell you that you need fear no ugly publicity for your club. A friendly gesture, you see.'

'Now please listen to me. I am a quiet man.' Galant's slight gesture indicated the bleak room. 'I have only hobbies. My books. My music' - his eye travelled to the great harp in the corner - 'and my little pet, Mariette here. .. . But, my dear fellow, if any police spies are discovered in that club you speak of —'

He allowed his voice to trail away and he smiled. 'So good-evening, messieurs. My house has been honoured by your visit.'

We left him standing motionless in the firelight, the white cat beside him. He was fingering his nose musingly as the door closed. The servant let us out into the damp-smelling garden, which was as a well under the cold starlight. When the outer gates had closed behind us, Chaumont seized the detective's arm.

'You told me to keep quiet,' he said heavily, 'and I did. Now I want to know. Odette! Docs this mean that Odette was going - there? Don't stand there like a dummy; tell me! Why, that club, it's only a kind of glorified — '

'Yes.'

The light of a street lamp fell wanly through the trees on Chaumont's face. He did not speak for a long time.

'Well,' he muttered at length, squinting up at the light -'well, anyway, we - we can keep it from her mother.'

It was a sort of eager catching at consolation. Bencolin studied him in the dim light. He put his hand firmly on Chaumont's shoulder.

'You deserve to know the truth. Your Odette was - well, she was entirely too naive, like yourself. Not the army, not anything else, will ever teach you a thing about life. The fact is your Odette was probably enticed there as a joke. Monsieur Galant is fond of jokes like that. . . . Damn you, be still!' His fingers dug into the young man's shoulder and he yanked Chaumont round to face him. 'No, my friend. You are not going back to see Galant. I will attend to that.'

There was a tense silence in the rustling street while Chaumont writhed in the detective's grip.

'Had she wanted to go there,' Bencolin asserted, still calmly, 'she would in all likelihood have come out alive. You don't understand Monsieur Galant's sense of humour.'

'You mean, then,' I said, 'that this Galant is responsible for these - enticements and murders.'

Slowly releasing his grip, Bencolin turned; he looked suddenly bewildered and despondent.

'That's die rub, Jeff. I don't believe he is. Such a course is entirely consistent with him, but - there are too many things against it. The crimes lack smoothness; they are too clumsy; they are not like our friend's technique and they point too directly to him. Besides ... oh, I could name a dozen reasons from the evidence to-night! Wait. We are going to see what he did before he came home.'

He rapped the ferrule of his stick sharply against the pavement. Down the Avenue Montaigne a figure detached itself from the shadows of the trees and sauntered in our direction. Nodding to us to follow, Bencolin walked to meet him.

'To-night,' he explained, 'when I was fairly certain that the waxworks and the club were related to the murder of Mademoiselle Duchene - before even we found Mademoiselle Martel's body - I made a phone call, you may remember. I had seen Monsieur Galant in the night club, and I thought his presence was too .. . well, fortuitous. It is not a usual haunt of his, and he is not generally seen, this fastidious scholar, pretending