The Waxworks Murder

'I have thought of that since. I noticed it. She was - upset.'

'She wouldn't eat!' shrilled his wife, so abruptly that Bencolin turned to stare at her. The colonel had spoken in a low voice, and both of us wondered how she had heard.

'She is reading your lips, monsieur,' our host explained. 'You need not shout. ... That is true, Claudine scarcely ate at all.'

'Should you say that her behaviour was due to excitement, or fright, or precisely what?' 'I do not know. Both, perhaps.'

'She wasn't well!' cried madame. Her sharp face, which once must have been beautiful, turned from side to side, and her faded eyes looked at us appealingly. 'She hadn't been well. And the night before that I heard her crying in the middle of the night. Sobbing!'

Every time that queer, high voice, hovering on the edge of tears, trembled from the shadows under the rain- splattered windows, I felt an impulse to grip the edge of my chair. I could see that her husband was fighting to keep his self-control; his mouth was pulled down and the lids fluttered over harsh eyes.

‘I heard her! And I got up, and went into her room just as I did when she was a baby, and she was crying in bed.' After a gulp the woman went on: 'And she didn't snap at me. She was nice to me. And I said, 'What's the matter, dear? Let me help you.' And she said, 'You can't help me, mother; nobody can help me!' She was like that all the next day, and last night she went out. . . .'

Fearing an outburst, Colonel Martel had turned to regard her again; his one big fist clenched and his empty left sleeve trembled. Bencolin took care to fashion his words carefully with his lips when he addressed her:

'She told you what was troubling her, madame?'

'No. No. She refused.'

'Had you any idea?'

'Eh?' A blank look. 'Trouble her? What would trouble a poor little child ? No.'

Her voice had become a whimper. The booming and decisive tones of her husband took up the gap.

'A little more information, monsieur, I learned from speaking to her and to Andre, our butler. In the neighbourhood of nine-thirty o'clock, Claudine received a telephone message. Shortly after that she seems to have left the house. She did not tell her mother where she was going, but promised to return by eleven.'

'A message from a man or a woman ?'

'They do not know.'

'Was any part of the conversation overheard?'

'Not by my wife, naturally. But I questioned Andre closely on that point. The only words he overheard were these : 'But I didn't even know he was back in France !' '

' 'I didn't even know he was back in France,' ' the detective repeated. 'You have no idea to whom these words referred?'

'None. Claudine had many friends.' 'She took a car?'

'She took the car,' asserted the other, 'without my permission. It was returned to us this morning by a man from the police; I understand it had been left close to the waxworks where she was found. Now monsieur!'

His fist pounded slowly on the table, shaking the edifice of dominoes. His eyes had a dry glitter as they fixed Bencolin.

'Now, monsieur!' he said again. 'The case is in your hands. Can you tell me why my daughter, why a Martel, should be found dead in a waxworks in that dingy neighbourhood ? That is what I want most to know.'

'It is a formidable problem, Colonel Martel. At the present moment I am not sure. You say she had never been there before?'

'I do not know. In any event' - he made a heavy gesture - 'it is clearly the work of some thug or sneak-thief. I want him brought to justice. Do you hear, monsieur? If necessary, I will offer a reward large enough to — '

'I hardly think that will be necessary. But it brings me to the chief question I wanted to ask. When you say 'the work of a thug' you perhaps know that your daughter was not robbed - robbed, I mean in the ordinary sense. Her money was untouched. What the murderer took was some object which hung on a slender gold chain round her neck. Do you know what it was ?'

'Round her neck?' The old man shook his head, frowning and biting at his moustache. 'I can't even imagine. It was certainly none of the Martel jewels. I keep them locked up, and they are worn by my wife only on formal occasions. Some trinket, perhaps; it could scarcely be anything of value. I never noticed ...'

He glanced over inquiringly at his wife.

'No!' she cried. 'Why, that's impossible! She never wore anything like a necklace or a locket; she said it was old-fashioned. I'm sure! I would know, monsieur!'

Every lead seemed to end in a blind alley, every clue produced nothing. We were silent for a long time, while the rustle of the rain grew to an uproar and the windows blurred to darkness. But, instead of disappointing Bencolin, this last piece of information appeared to stimulate him. He had an air of repressed exultation; the light of the lamp made long triangles of shadow under his cheek-bones and showed a gleam of teeth in a smile between small moustache and pointed beard. But his long eyes were still sombre as they moved from M. Martel to his wife. With a whir of weights the grandfather clock began to chime twelve. Each hoarse note beat with a slow finality, as of the grave, and intensified the nervous tension. M, Martel looked at his wrist, frowned, and then glanced up at the clock in a polite intimation that it was growing late.

‘I do not think,' Bencolin observed, 'that we need question you any further. The solution does not lie here. Any attempt to go into Mademoiselle Martel's affairs farther than we have done will, I think, be futile. I thank you, madame, and you, monsieur, for your help. Rest assured that I will keep you informed of our progress.'

Our host rose as we did. For the first time I noticed how the interview had shaken him; his stocky body was still rigid, but his eyes were blank and baffled with despair. He stood there in his fine clothes and linen, as for a gala day, the lamplight shining on his bald head. . . .

We went out of the house into the rain.

Death in Silhouette

'Room of the juge d'instruction. Bencolin speaking. Connect with central, medical bureau.'

A buzz of wires, a prolonged clicking. 'Medical bureau, desk.'

'Juge d'instruction. Report autopsy of Odette Duchene. File A-forty-two, homicide.’

'File A-forty-two, reported on by commissaire, first arrondissement, two p.m., October nineteenth, nineteen hundred and thirty, to central office. Body of woman, found in river at foot of Pont au Change. Correct ?'

'Correct.'

'Compound fracture of skull, caused by fall from height of not less than twenty feet. Immediate cause of death, stab-wound in third intercostal space, piercing heart, from knife one inch wide by seven inches long. Minor bruises and lacerations. Cut about head, face, neck, and hands, caused by broken glass. Dead, when found, about eighteen hours.'

'That's all.... Central office, department four.'.

'Central office, department four.' A sing-song voice.

'Juge d'instruction. Who is in charge of case A-forty-two, homicide?'

'A-forty-two. Inspector Lutrelle.'

'If he is in the building, let me speak to him.'

The bleak autumn dusk was already setting in. I had not been able to see Bencolin until then; he had been summoned back to his office on routine business shortly before lunch, and it was past four o'clock when I arrived at his office in the Palais de Justice. Even then I did not find him in the great bare room with the green-shaded lights, where he conducts his examinations. He has a private room of his own at the very top of the vast building, a sort of den shut off from its buzz and clamour, but connected by a battery of telephones with every department of the