The Waxworks Murder

The figure he indicated was squirming through the ranks of tables, clearly bewildered at the surroundings. It was a little man with a big head and limp white whiskers. When the green light shone in his eyes he shut them, and tripped over one of the parties at a table. He was growing panicky and his eyes besought Bencolin. The detective motioned to me; we rose, and the little man followed us towards the back of the room. I shot a glance at the man with the crooked nose. He had dragged the head of one of the girls to his breast; he was rumpling her hair with one hand, absently, while he stared unwinkingly after us. , .. Close by the orchestra platform, where the blare was deafening, Bencolin found a door.

We were in a low whitewashed passage, with an electric bulb burning dimly over our heads. The little man stood before us, his head on one side, his back bent, blinking up nervously. His red-rimmed eyes had an uncanny habit of seeming to grow round and then shrink, as with the beat of a pulse. His scraggly moustache and fan of white whiskers were much too large for the bony face; his cheek bones were shiny, but his bald head looked as though it had been covered with dust. Two tufts of white hair stuck up behind the ears. He wore a suit of rusty black, much too large for him, and he seemed nervous.

'I do not know what monsieur wants,' he said, in a shrill voice. 'But I am here. I have shut up my museum.'

'This, Jeff,' Bencolin told me, 'is Monsieur Augustin. He is the owner of the oldest waxworks in Paris.'

'The Musee Augustin,' explained the little man. He tilted his head and stiffened unconsciously, as though he were posing before a camera. 'I make all the figures myself. What! You have not heard of the Musee Augustin?'

He blinked at me anxiously, and I nodded, though I certainly had not. The Grevin, yes, but the Musee Augustin was a new one.

'Not so many people come as in the old days,' said Augustin, shaking his head. 'That is because I will not move down on the boulevards, and put up electric lights, and serve drinks. Pah!' He twisted his hat savagely. 'What do they think? It is not Luna Park. It is a museum. It is art. I work as my father worked, for art. Great men complimented my father on his work —'

He was addressing me half defiantly, half beseechingly, with earnest gestures, and twisting his hat again. Bencolin cut him short by leading the way down the corridor, where he opened another door.

At the table in the middle of a gaudy room, whose windows were muffled with shabby red draperies, and which was obviously used for assignation purposes, a young man jumped up as we entered. Such places have a sickly atmosphere of small lusts and cheap perfume, and there comes to die mind a picture of endless meetings under a light with a dusty pink shade. The young man, who had been smoking cigarettes until the stale air was almost choking, looked incongruous here. He was tanned and wiry, with short dark hair, an eye which saw distances, and a military carriage. Even his short moustache had the curtness of a military command. During the time he had to wait, you felt he was nervous and at a loss; but now that something concrete had presented itself, his eyes narrowed ; he became at ease.

'I must apologize,' Bencolin was saying, 'for using this place for a conference. Nevertheless, we shall have privacy. ... Let me present, Captain Chaumont, Monsieur Marie -an associate of mine - and Monsieur Augustin.'

The young man bowed, unsmiling. He was apparently not quite accustomed to civilian clothes, and his hands moved up and down the sides of his coat. As he studied Augustin he nodded, with a grim expression.

'Good,' he said. This is the man, then ?'

'I do not understand,' Augustin announced. His moustache bristled; he drew himself up. 'You act, monsieur, as though I had been accused of some crime. I have a right to an explanation.'

'Sit down, please,' said Bencolin. We drew up chairs round the table over which burned the pink-shaded lamp, but Captain Chaumont remained standing, feeling along the left side of his coat as though for a sabre.

'Now, then,' Bencolin continued, 'I only wish to ask a few questions. You do not mind, M. Augustin?'

'Naturally not,' the other answered, with dignity.

'You have been owner of the waxworks for a long time, I understand?'

'Forty-two years. This is the first time,' said Augustin, his red-rimmed eye wandering to Chaumont and his voice growing quavery, 'that the police have ever seen fit to - - '

'But the number of people who visit your museum is not large?'

'I have told you why. I do not care. I work for my art alone.'

'How many attendants do you have there ?'

'Attendants?' Augustin's thoughts were jerked back on another tack; he blinked again. 'Why, only my daughter. She sells tickets. I take them. All the work I do myself.'

Bencolin was negligent, almost kindly, but the other man was staring straight at Augustin, and I thought I detected in those eyes which saw distances a quiet hatred, Chaumont sat down.

'Aren't you going to ask him . . . ?' the young man said, gripping his hands together fiercely.

'Yes,' Bencolin answered. He took from his pocket a photograph. 'M. Augustin, have you ever before seen this young lady?'

Bending over, I saw a remarkably pretty, rather vapid face looking out coquettishly from the picture: a girl of nineteen or twenty, with vivacity in the dark eyes, soft full lips, and a weak chin. In one corner was the imprint of Paris's most fashionable photographer. This was no midinette. Chaumont looked at the soft greys and blacks of the photograph as though they hurt his eyes. When Augustin had finished studying the picture, Chaumont reached out and turned it face down. He leaned into the yellow pool of light; the brown face bitten and polished as though by sandstorms, was impassive, but a glow burnt behind his eyeballs.

'You will please think well,' he said. 'She was my fiancee.'

'I do not know,' said Augustin. His eyes were pinched. 'I - you cannot expect me to ...'

'Did you ever see her before ?' Bencolin insisted.

'Monsieur, what is this?' demanded Augustin. 'You all

look at me as though I             What do you want? You ask

me about that picture. The face is familiar. I have seen it somewhere, because I never forget. People who come into my museum I always study, to catch' - he spread out delicate hands - 'to catch the expression - the shade - in living people - for my wax. Do you understand ?'

He hesitated.

Earnestly he regarded each of us, his fingers still moving as though the wax were under his hand. 'But I do not know! Why am I here? What have I done? I harm nobody. I only want to be left alone.'

'The girl in this photograph,' Bencolin said, 'is Mademoiselle Odette Duchene. She was the daughter of the late Cabinet Minister. And now she is dead. She was last seen alive going into the Musee Augustin, and she did not come out.'

After a long silence, during which he ran a shaky hand over his face and pressed his eyeballs heavily, the old man said in a piteous tone:

'Monsieur, I have been a good man all my life. I do not know what you mean.'

'She was murdered,' Bencolin responded. 'Her body was found floating in the Seine this afternoon.'

Chaumont, looking fixedly across the room, supplemented: 'Bruised. Beaten. And - she died of stab wounds.'

Augustin regarded those two faces as though they were driving 1dm back against a stone wall, slowly, with the prods of bayonets.

'You don't think,' he muttered at last, 'that ‘             ?'

'If I did,' said Chaumont, smiling suddenly, 'I would strangle you. That is what we want to find out. But I understand that this is not the first time such a thing has occurred. Monsieur Bencolin tells me that six months ago another girl went into the Musee Augustin, and — '

'I was never questioned on that!'

'No,' said Bencolin. 'The place was only one of the spots she was known to have visited. We thought you, monsieur, above suspicion. Besides, that girl was never found again. She may only have disappeared voluntarily. So many of these cases are like that.'

In spite of his fear, Augustin forced himself to meet the detective's gaze calmly. 'Why,' he asked - 'why is monsieur so certain she went into my museum and never came out?'

'I will answer that,' Chaumont interposed. ‘I was engaged to Mademoiselle Duchene. At present I am at