The Waxworks Murder

my life. The idea that anybody would — '

He was pressing his fingers together hard, attempting to be the level-headed young man who saw to all arrangements, but, for all his newly-acquired British reserve, he could not keep the quaver out of his voice. Bencolin interposed :

'I think so, monsieur. Is anybody with Madame Duchene now?'

'Only Gina Prevost. Chaumont phoned her this morning, and said Madame Duchene wanted her here. That was a piece of imposition; Madame Duchene expressed no such wish.' His lips tightened. 'I think I am capable of all that is necessary. Still, she can help, if she pulis herself together. She is almost as bad as Madame Duchene.'

'Gina Prevost?' Bencolin repeated, inquiringly, as though he heard the name for the first time.

'Oh, I forgot! ... One of our old crowd, before we broke up. She was a great friend of Odette's and — 'He paused, his pale eyes widening. 'That reminds me. I must phone Claudine Martel. She will want to be here. Zut! What an oversight!'

Bencolin hesitated. 'I take it,' he murmured, 'you did not talk to Captain Chaumont when he was here this morning? You did not hear — ?'

'Hear? What? No, monsieur. There are developments?'

'A few. But no matter. Will you take us to Madame Duchene?'

'I suppose it is all right for you' the young man admitted, eyeing us as though he were receiving people in the ambassador's anteroom. 'She will want to hear. But no others. This way, please.'

He led us out, towards the back of the hall, and up a carpeted staircase. Through a window on a dusky landing I could see the scarlet of maples in the yard. Robiquet paused abruptly when we were almost at the top. From above came a murmur of voices, then a few chords struck on a piano and a noise as though the hands were dragged away. One of the voices rose in a shrill and hysterical cry.. ..

'They're mad !' snapped the young man. 'They're both mad, and Gina's being here makes it worse. Do you see, messieurs - Madame Duchene walks about and walks about; she won't sit down; and she tortures herself by looking at Odette's things and trying to play the piano Odette played. Will you please see if you can quiet her?'

When he knocked on a door in the darkened upper hallway, there was a sudden silence. Presently an unsteady voice said, 'Come in.'

It was a girl's sitting-room, with three wide windows overlooking a ruined garden, and beyond, the yellow raiment of the trees. Dull light through the windows turned the ivory furniture to grey. Swung round on a piano stool before a grey baby grand, staring at us with dry sharp eyes, sat a little woman in black. Her black hair, which she wore loosely coiled about her head, was streaked with grey, but her face, though very pale and pinched about the eyes, was unlined. Yet there were sagging muscles in her throat. The eyes, hot and fierce, lost their sharpness gradually as she saw strangers.

'Paul,' she said, quietly - 'Paul, you did not tell me - we had visitors. Please come in, messieurs.'

She did not apologize. She was not conscious of her careless, almost shabby dress, or her tousled hair; you saw in her a deep indifference to all surrounding things, and her poise was that of a hostess as she rose to greet us. ... But it was not Mme Duchene who attracted my attention. Standing beside her, hand still half lifted, was Gina Prevost. I should have recognized her anywhere, despite the fact that she was taller than I had imagined. Her eyelids were red and swollen and she wore no cosmetics. The pink full lips, the gold-lighted hair, the firm chin; but the lips were open, the upper partly raised in fright, and she had flung back the hair from her forehead. Now she seemed almost on the edge of a collapse.

' — My name is Bencolin,' the detective was saying, 'and this is my colleague, Monsieur Marie. I come to bring you the assurance that we will find the person - you are interested in.'

His voice, deep and quiet, soothed the tense atmosphere of the room. I could hear the faint noise as Gina Prevost, who had been holding down one of the piano keys, released it. She moved out against the grey light of the windows with a supple, almost masculine, stride; then she hesitated.

'I have heard of you,' said Mme Duchene, nodding. 'And you, monsieur,' - she looked at me - 'are very welcome. This is Mademoiselle Prevost, an old friend of ours. She is staying with me to-day.'

Gina Prevost tried to smile. The older woman continued:

'Please sit down. I shall be happy to tell you anything, anything at all, you want to know. Paul, will you put on the lights?'

Then Mile Prevost cried, rather breathlessly: 'No! Please!

-               No lights, I feel...'

Her voice was husky, with a caressing note which, in a song, must make one's heart beat fast. Mme Duchene -who, a moment before, had seemed the more brittle and high-strung of the two - looked at her with a tired smile.

'Why, of course not, Gina!'

'Don't - please! - don't look at me like that!'

Again madame smiled. She sat back against a chaise- longue.

'Gina has to put up with me, messieurs. And I am a crazy old woman.' Momentarily there were wrinkles in her forehead; her eyes stared at futility. 'It comes on me in gusts, like a physical pain. For a while I am quiet, and then

there! but I will try to be sensible. You see, what makes it so bad, I am responsible.'

Mile Prevost had seated herself nervously on a divan, in shadow, and so Bencolin and I drew out chairs. Robiquet remained standing, stiffly.

'We have all known the grief of death, madame,' the detective told her, as though musing. 'And we always feel responsible, if only because - we did not smile often enough. I should not worry on that account.'

A cheerful little enamel clock ticked in the heavy grey silence. The lines in madame's forehead deepened. She opened her mouth as for a fierce denial; she appeared to be fighting, trying to speak with her eyes.

'You don't understand,' she said at last, quietly. 'I was a fool. I brought Odette up wrongly. I thought I ought to keep her a child all her life, and I did, all her life. ...' She looked down at her hands, and after a pause she went on: 'I myself - well - I have seen things. I have been hurt. I was willing to do these things; they were all right for me; but Odette - you wouldn't understand - you wouldn't understand-- !'

She seemed very small, for all the passionate emotion behind that pale, strong face.

'My husband,' she said, as though something were forcing the words from her, 'shot himself - you knew that - ten years ago, when Odette was twelve. He was a fine man - he didn't deserve ... he was in the Cabinet, and being - blackmailed. . .. ' She had grown incoherent, but with an effort she steadied her voice; 'I resolved to devote myself to Odette. This is what I have done. I was amused at her, as though she were a little toy shepherdess. And now I haven't got anything - but her trinkets. At least I can play the piano a little; songs she liked, 'Clair de Lune,' 'Au pres de ma blonde,' 'Ce n'est que votre main,' 'Auld Lang Syne,'

‘I think, madame, you are trying to help us,' Bencolin interposed gently, 'and I am sure you would help Odette if you will just answer me some questions....'

'Of course. I - I am sorry. Continue.'

He waited until she sat back composedly, her chin up.

'Captain Chaumont has told me that he noticed, since his return from Africa, a change in Odette. He could not be more specific than to say that her behaviour seemed 'odd'. Have you noticed any change recently?'

She meditated. 'I have thought of that. In the last two weeks, ever since Robert - Captain Chaumont - has been back in Paris, she has seemed different. More moody, and nervous. Once I found her crying. But I have seen her that way before, because the slightest thing upsets her, and it worried her terribly until she forgot it. Generally, she confided in me. So I did not question her. I waited, and supposed she would tell me....'

'You could assign no cause for this?'

'None whatever. ... Especially as — ' She hesitated.

'Please go on.'

'Especially as it seemed directed towards Captain Chaumont. It was just after his arrival that she changed.