The Waxworks Murder

'Torn, my friend, by the murderer in his or her frantic search through her handbag. You see? She took the mask with her in her handbag when she left home that night. In all probability, the old-fashioned severity of the Martels prevented her from applying lipstick before she left; and then she forgot it. Definitely she was coming to the club. The final point to prove she was a member .. . Well, let us discuss the whole thing.'

He sat back, his finger-tips together, and stared out of the window.

'From the beginning, we know that the 'lady in the brown hat', Gina Prevost, has been somehow concerned with the disappearance of Odette Duchene. Old Augustin saw her, you remember, following the Duchene girl down the stairs of the waxworks that afternoon, and mistook her for a ghost. We may also say that Claudine Martel was also concerned with this disappearance, for, considering her membership of the club and the facts we have heard about her behaviour on that night, there can be no other interpretation. I do not say that these two are necessarily implicated in the murder. On the contrary, I think I have an idea of how they are implicated. But they are afraid, Jeff - horribly afraid they may be implicated. So they arrange for a meeting, Gina Prevost and Claudine Martel, and on that night Claudine Martel is murdered.

'At twenty-five minutes to twelve, then, we have Mademoiselle Prevost waiting in front of the waxworks, where she is seen by the policeman. She is not only upset, but indecisive. Unquestionably she has arranged to meet her friend either (a) in the waxworks itself or (b) in the passage, for girls of that type would scarcely wait outside the passage door giving on to the Boulevard de Sebastopol - it's not a pleasant neighbourhood to loiter in doorways, you know. But what happens? Something has gone wrong, Jeff, and we do not need to look far in search of it. She reaches the museum at eleven thirty-five, but the museum is closed.

'Sheer chance has upset things. Sheer chance caused me to telephone Monsieur Augustin for an appointment, and sheer chance made him lock up his waxworks half an hour before its usual closing-time. On her arrival, Mademoiselle Prevost finds the gates shut and the museum dark. It has never happened before, and she does not know what to do. She hesitates. Undoubtedly she has accustomed herself to go in by way of the museum, and so she hesitates to enter by the door giving on to the Boulevard de Sebastopol.

'Claudine Martel has arrived before her. Whether or not she arrived also after the museum was closed, or whether she is accustomed to using the Boulevard de Sebastopol entrance, this we do not know. In any case, she clearly entered by the boulevard door. 'Why so?'

'She had no ticket, Jeff!' Bencolin leaned forward and slapped the arm of his chair impatiently. 'Surely you know that (if only for appearance's sake) each member of the club must buy a ticket for the waxworks when entering. But there was no museum ticket among her effects. Surely we can't be so mad as to suppose that the murderer might have stolen it, for why should he? He left her in the museum; he certainly tried to make no mystery of her presence there.'

'I see. Go on.'

'Therefore we have Mademoiselle Martel going in one door, and her friend waiting in the street before the waxworks. While each waits, and each wonders where the other is, we come to the significant points.

'The first significant point is this. Once inside that passage, there are three ways by which the murderer could have approached his victim. First, there is the door with the Bulldog lock, opening on to the street. Second, there is the door into the actual club itself, in the rear of the brick wall. Third, there is the door from the museum. Now this last door is significant; it has a spring lock, and can be opened only from inside the museum. It is used, but by people going one way only - viz., into the club. They never leave that way; they have no keys. And why? Because the club keeps late hours. After twelve, when the museum closes, they couldn't go tramping out through the waxworks, unbolting and unbarring that huge front door, and making it necessary for Mademoiselle Augustin to get up and lock it again every time somebody left! That in itself would be unpractical, to say nothing of the fact that it must surely be discovered by old Augustin, and stopped. You yourself have seen how anxious his daughter was to conceal it from him. ... No, no, Jeff! A person could enter by way of the museum; but that spring lock was always caught on the museum side, and the key thrown away; the exit was the boulevard door.

'Now, then. In determining which way the murderer approached his victim, we have these three doors. The murderer, you see, could have come by one of the first two -from the street or from inside the club. But,' said Bencolin, emphasizing each word by a tap on the chair arm - 'but if he came in either of those ways he could not possibly have carried the body into the waxworks. Do you see? The museum door being locked on the inside, he could not have opened it from the passage. Therefore, my friend, we see that the murderer must have crept upon her from inside the museum, by opening that door from the inside. .. . '

I whistled. 'You mean,' I said, 'that when old Augustin locked up the museum at eleven-thirty, he locked the murderer in?'

'Yes. Locked him in - in the dark. Now, clearly, anybody who wanted to get out when Augustin closed up, could have got out; it was no accident. The killer waited there deliberately, knowing that Mademoiselle Martel would enter the passage. It did not matter which way she came - museum or street door - he would have her. And he could hide himself very nicely in that cubbyhole behind the dummy wall where the satyr stands.'

As he paused to light a cigar, eagerly, his hands trembling as he saw the recital unfold, my first ominous thought came back.

'Bencolin,' I said, 'might it necessarily have been somebody from outside who was locked in the museum?'

'What do you mean?' The match flame lit briefly the gleam of his eyes. He was touchy when you questioned any point of his reconstruction, and he spoke irritably,

'The Augustin woman was alone in the museum. There is that queer affair of her turning on the lights on the staircase — you remember? She said she thought somebody was moving about in the museum. ... By the way,' I said, remembering suddenly, 'how the devil did you know she had ? You asked her about it, and she admitted it, but there was no indication. . . . '

'Oh, yes, there was!' he corrected, recovering a little of his good humour. 'Jeff, precisely what are you trying to tell me? That Marie Augustin committed the murder?'

'Well ... no, not exactly. There isn't the shadow of a motive. And I can't see why she would have stabbed the girl and then taken the trouble to lug the body in and dump it right in her own museum, where it pointed directly to her. But her presence alone there - and the lights — '

He gestured with the red end of his cigar. I could sense his satirical grin.

'You are insistent on those lights. Let me explain actually what happened,' suggested Bencolin. He leaned forward again, his voice becoming grave. 'First, we have Mademoiselle Martel in the passage. Second, we have the murderer in the cubbyhole. Third, we have Mademoiselle Prevost waiting outside the museum.... What has happened in the meantime? The Augustin woman is, as you say, alone in their living-quarters. Imagine it! She glances out of the window giving on to the street. In the light of the street lamp she sees - as the policeman saw - the face of Gina Prevost and she sees Gina Prevost pacing up and down nervously. Now, whatever her faults, Mademoiselle Augustin is a conscientious young lady; she earns her money from whoever pays it. And she knows what the other wants. To refuse entrance may mean the loss of a lucrative position. So she switches on the lights .. . the central ones, you recall, and those on the staircase which leads to the door into the passage ... so that the visitor's way may be illuminated. Then she unbolts the big front entrance of the museum.

'And Mademoiselle Prevost is gone! It is nearly twenty minutes to twelve and she has decided to go in by the other way. The street is deserted. Marie Augustin is puzzled, doubtful, and suddenly a bit suspicious. Was this (she might wonder) by any chance a trap of some kind ? I can see this resolute young lady peering up and down the rue Saint-Appoline, thinking. Then she bolts the door again. She walks into the museum, I fancy, as a matter of habit; she stares round in that green gloom....

'In the meantime, what has happened in the passage behind? The murderer has been waiting, since eleven- thirty, in the cubbyhole between the dummy stone wall and the museum door into the passage. At eleven-thirty the lights have been turned out in the museum. The killer is in complete darkness. Shortly afterwards he hears the door to the Boulevard de Sebastopol being unlocked. It opens, and the figure of a woman is outlined, very dimly, against the lights from the boulevard outside....'

In that high room under the rain, I saw the scene take form. Our darkened room; the dull yellow bar of light from the alcove, with Bencolin's satanic face bent forward and his hand half lifted against it; the scurry of rain on