The Waxworks Murder

She had begun to tremble. Robiquet was so pale that his face resembled wax; he dug his chin into his coat collar and said, in a muffled voice:

'Aunt Beatrice, I told you - you shouldn't have come out. It's useless. The gentlemen are doing all they can. And - - '

'Then, this morning,' she rushed on, 'when you sent your friend down to listen to Gina talking to that man, I should have known. Of course. Gina is concerned. Her behaviour! Her horrible behaviour. My little Odette. They were all concerned in it. ...'

'Madame, surely you are overwrought,' the detective observed, gently. 'The mere formality of a man calling at the house, and Mademoiselle Prevost's seeing him . . .'

'Now I will tell you something. I got a shock then, and it made me think. It was the voice of that man.'

'Yes?' prompted Bencolin. His fingers began to tap softly on the desk.

'As I say, it started me thinking. I have heard it before.' 'Ah ! You are acquainted with this Monsieur Galant?' 'I have never seen him. But I have heard his voice four times.'

'Robiquet stared, hypnotized, at the gleaming silver key as madame went on steadily:

'The second time was ten years ago. I was upstairs, and Odette - she was a little girl - was with me, learning how to do fancy-work. My husband was reading down in the library; I could smell the smoke of his cigar. The door- bell rang, the maid admitted a visitor, and I heard a voice in the hall. It was pleasant. My husband received him. I could hear them talking, though not what was said. But several times the visitor laughed. Later the maid let him out. . .. I remember that his shoes squeaked and he was still laughing. A few hours after that I noticed powder fumes instead of cigar smoke, and I went downstairs. My husband used a silencer on his pistol when he shot himself, because - because he didn't want to wake Odette. ...’

'Then I remembered when I had heard that voice for the first time. In the Club of Masks, where I had been - oh, before I was married, I swear it! I heard it from a masked man, who was laughing. That must have been twenty-three or four years ago. I remembered it only because the man had a hole cut in the mask for his nose, which was a horrible red thing, all twisted; and to see him was like a nightmare; so I never forgot it, or the voice... .'

She bowed her head.

'And the third time, madame?' said Bencolin.

'The third time,' she replied, swallowing, 'was less than six months ago, in early summer. It was at the home of Gina Prevost's parents, at Neuilly. It was in the garden. Towards evening. There was a yellow sky, and I could see a summer-house down at the end of the garden walk, dark against it. I heard somebody's voice talking inside the summer-house. It had a spell in it, as though the man were making love; but all the high trees seemed to get cold, and the sun turned dark, because I recognized it. I ran away. Ran, I tell you! But I saw Gina Prevost come out of the summer-house, smiling to herself. Then I said to myself I was mistaken, and hysterical. . ..

'But to-day, when I heard it again, all this rushed back over me. And I knew. Don't deny it! My little Odette. ...

I didn't pay any attention to your glib explanations. When I read this paper, about Claudine ... !'

She glared at him. He remained motionless, his elbow on the chair arm and his fingers at his temple, watching her out of bright unwinking eyes. Presently, when the emotional tension had spent itself, she said, eagerly,

'You have nothing to tell me?'

'Nothing, madame.'

Another silence. I heard somebody's watch tick.

'Oh ... I see,' she said. 'I - h-had hoped you would deny it, monsieur. Somehow, I still hoped. But I see now.' Smiling faintly, she shrugged her shoulders, snapped the clasps on her handbag in an aimless manner, and glanced round with something of wildness. 'Do you know, monsieur, I read in the paper that Claudine had been found in the arms of a wax figure called the Satyr of the Seine. That is the way this man had impressed me. I don't know about the Seine . .. but a satyr, a ghoulish ...'

Robiquet interposed hurriedly. He said: 'Aunt Beatrice, we had better go. We are taking up monsieur's time. We can do no good here.'

They both rose as the woman did. She continued aimlessly to smile. Bencolin took her hand as she extended it; he made a brief courtly bow.

'I fear I can give you no comfort, madame,' he murmured. 'But this at least I promise you' - he raised his voice slightly and pressed her hand - 'that before many hours are out I will have this man where I want him. And, by the living God, he will not trouble you, or anyone else, ever again! - good afternoon, and ... take courage.'

His head was still bowed when the door closed after them. The light shone on the thick grey patches in his hair. He walked slowly behind his desk again and sat down.

'I grow old, Jeff,' he observed, suddenly. 'Not very many years ago I would have permitted myself a secret smile at that woman.'

'Smile? Good God!'

'And I would be saved from hating all human beings, as Galant does, only because I could laugh at them. That has always been the essential difference between us.'

'You're comparing yourself to that — ?'

'Yes. He saw a world mismanaged, and loathed it; he thought, by striking into poor squashy faces, that he was battering down a little of an iron world. And what about me, Jeff? I continued to chuckle, like a broken street- organ, and I turned the crank, like the blind man, and I threw my thin little dissonances against the passion and pity and heart-break that jostled me in the street. - Pass me that brandy like a good fellow, and let me talk foolishness for a minute! I get little enough chance to do it. Yes. So I laughed, because I feared people, feared their opinion or their scorn....'

'Permit me,' I said, 'to laugh myself at that idea.'

'Oh, yes, I did! So, because they might take me for less than I was, I tried to be more than I am; like many others. Only my brain was strong, and damn me! I forced myself to become more than I am. There walked Henri Bencolin - feared, respected, admired (oh, yes!) - and behind him now begins to appear a brittle ghost, wondering about it.'

'Wondering what ?'

'Wondering, Jeff, why they ever took as a wise man that fiendish idiot who said, 'Know thyself.' To examine one's own mind and heart, and explore them fully, is a poisonous doctrine; it drives men crazy. The man who thinks too much about himself is padding his own cell. For the brain is a greater liar than any man; it lies to its own possessor. Introspection is the origin of fear, and fear builds these walls of hate or mirth, and makes me dreaded; and I am paid back, many times over, by dreading myself.. . . Never mind.'

It was a curious mood. He had rattled off his words in jumbled fashion. I did not understand, but I knew that of late these fits of black depression had been more frequent.

He seemed to be casting about for something to take his mind off it, and he picked up the silver key. With a bewildering change of mood he fired a new statement at me.

'Jeff, I've told you that we are going to plant somebody, to-night, in the Mask Club, to get the conversation between Galant and Gina Prevost. Do you think you could do it?'

'Why not? Will you do it?'

'Why,' I said, 'as a matter of fact, there's nothing I'd like better. But of all the trained men you have here, why bank on my abilities?'

He looked at me whimsically. 'Oh, I don't know. For one thing, because you're the same height and build as Robiquet, and you'll have to use his key and pass inspection, under a mask, when you enter. For another - maybe to see how you, who haven't my fluctuating moods, and don't seem to be given to nerves, will act under fire. It will be dangerous, I warn you.'

'That's the real reason, isn't it?'

‘I suppose so. What do you say?'