The Waxworks Murder

home on a furlough. We became engaged a year ago, and I have not seen her since then. There has been a great change.

'That does not concern you. Yesterday Mademoiselle Duchene was to have tea at the Pavilion Dauphine with Mademoiselle Martel, a friend of hers, and myself. She had been behaving - oddly. At four o'clock she phoned me to say that she must break the appointment, giving no reason. I phoned Mademoiselle Martel, and found that she had received the same message. I felt that something was wrong. So I went immediately to Mademoiselle Duchene's home.

'She was just driving away in a taxi when I arrived. I took another cab - and followed.'

'You followed her... ?'

Chaumont drew himself up stiffly. Rigid muscles had tightened down his cheek bones. 'I see no reason to defend my actions, A fiance has his rights. ... I grew particularly interested when I saw her coming to this district. It is not good for young girls to be here, daytime or not. She dismissed the taxi in front of the Musee Augustin. It puzzled me because I had never known her to be interested in waxworks. I debated with myself whether to follow her in; I have my pride.'

Here was a man who never exploded. Here was a man who was growing into that austere mould which France had fashioned for her soldiers who were also gentlemen. He looked at us with a stare which defied comment.

'I saw on the signboard that the place closed at five. It was only half an hour. I waited. When the museum closed, and she had not come out, I supposed she had gone by another entrance. Besides, I was — angry - at having been made to stand in the street all that time - without result.' His head bent forward, and he looked up at Augustin with brooding steadiness, 'I learned to-day, when she had not come home, and I went to investigate, that the museum had no other entrance. Well?'

Augustin edged his chair back.

'But there is!' he insisted. 'There is another entrance.’

'Not for the public, I think,' Bencolin put in.

'No ,,. no, of course not! It goes out on a side-street; it communicates with the back walls of the museum, behind the figures, where I go to arrange the lights. It is private. But monsieur said — !'

'And it is always kept locked,' Bencolin went on, musingly.

The old man threw out his arms with a cry. 'Well? What do you want of me? Say something! Are you trying to arrest me for murder?'

'No,' said Bencolin. 'We want a look at your museum, for one thing. And we still want to know whether you have ever seen that girl.'

Rising shakily, Augustin put his withered hands on the table and leaned almost in Bencolin's face. His eyes were enlarging and shrinking in that queer, almost horrible illusion.

'Then,' he said, 'the answer is yes. Yes! Because there have been things going on in that museum, and I do not understand them. I have wondered whether I am going mad.' His head sank.

'Sit down,' suggested Bencolin, 'Sit down and tell us about it.'

Chaumont reached across and pushed the old man gently into his chair. The latter sat there nodding for a moment, tapping with his ringers against a bearded lip.

'I do not know whether you can appreciate what I mean,' he told us presently. The voice was eager and shrill. You felt he had long wished for a confidant. 'The purpose, the illusion, the spirit of a waxworks. It is an atmosphere of death. It is soundless and motionless. It is walled off by stone grottos, like a dream, from the light of day; its noises are echoes, and it is filled with a dull green illumination, as though it were in the depths under the sea. Do you see? All things are turned dead, in attitudes of horror, of sublimity. In my caverns are real scenes from the past. Marat is stabbed in his bath. Louis XVI lies with his head under the guillotine knife. Bonaparte dies, white- faced, in the bed of his little brown room at Saint Helena, with the storm outside and the servant drowsing in the chair. . . .'

The little man was speaking as though to himself, but he plucked at Bencolin's sleeve.

'And - do you see? - this silence, this motionless host in the twilight, is my world. I think it is like death, exactly, because death may consist of people frozen for ever in the positions they had when they died. But this is the only fancy I permit myself. I do not fancy that they live. Many a night I have walked among my figures, and stepped across the railings, and stood in the midst of them. I have watched Bonaparte's dead face, imagining that I was standing actually in the room of his death; and so strong was my fancy that I could see the night light quivering, and hear the wind, and the rattle in his throat....'

'That is damned nonsense!' Chaumont snapped,

'No ... let me go on!' Augustin insisted, piteously, in his queer far-away voice. 'Messieurs, I would feel weak after a thing like that; I would bathe my eyes and shiver. But, you understand, I never believed that my figures really lived. If one of them ever moved' - his voice rose shrilly - 'if one of them ever moved under my eyes, I think I should go mad.'

That was the thing he feared. Chaumont made an impatient gesture once more, but Bencolin silenced him. The detective, bearded chin in his hand and eyes heavy-lidded, wached Augustin with growing interest.

'You have laughed at people in the waxworks,' the old man rushed on, 'when they accosted wax figures and thought they were real?’ He looked at Bencolin, who nodded. 'You have also seen them when they thought some real person, standing about motionless, was made of wax; and you have seen them jump and cry out when the real person moved ? -Well, in my Gallery of Horrors there is a figure of Madame Louchard, the axe-killer. You have heard of her?'

'I sent her to the guillotine,' Bencolin answered briefly.

'Ah! You understand, monsieur,' Augustin said, with some anxiety, 'some of my figures are old friends. I can talk to them. I love them. But that Madame Louchard ... I could do nothing with her, even when I was modelling her. I saw devilry shape itself into the wax under my fingers. It was a masterpiece. But she scared me.' He shuddered. 'She stands in the Gallery, very demure, very pretty, with her hands folded. Almost she seems a bride, with her fur neckpiece and her little brown hat.

'And one night, months ago, when I was closing up, I could have sworn I saw Madame Louchard, in her fur neckpiece and her little brown hat, walking along the green-lit Gallery.

Chaumont struck the table a blow with his fist. He said, despairingly:

'Let us go. The man's mad.'

'But, no; it was an illusion. .. . There she stood, in her usual place. Monsieur,' Augustin told Chaumont, looking at him steadily, 'you had better listen, because this concerns you. Mademoiselle who disappeared, you say, was your fiancee. Good! ... You ask me why I remember this fiancee of yours. I will tell you.

'She came in yesterday, about half an hour before closing-time. There were only two or three people in the main hall, and I noticed her. I was standing over near the doorway which leads down into the cellars - where I have the Gallery of Horrors - and at first she seemed to think I was made of wax, and looked at me curiously. A beautiful girl. Chic. Then she asked me, 'Where is the satyr ?' '

'What the devil,' rasped Chaumont, 'did she mean by that?'

'One of the figures in the Gallery. But listen !' Augustin leaned forward again. His white moustache and whiskers, his shining bony face, his pale-blue eyes, all quivered with earnestness. 'She thanked me. When she had started downstairs, I thought I would go up to the front and see how near it was to closing-time. Just as I went, I looked behind me. I looked down the stairs. .. .

'The greenish, very dim light was shining on the rough stones of the walls on either side the staircase. Mademoiselle was almost at the turn; I could hear her footsteps and see her picking her way carefully. And then I could have sworn I saw another figure on the staircase, following her down in silence. I thought it was the figure of Madame Louchard, the dead axe-killer from my Gallery, for I could see her fur neckpiece and her little brown hat,

 The dry, shrill, sing-song voice stopped. Chaumont folded his arms.

'You are either a thorough rascal,' he said, crisply, 'or else you are really mad.'

'Softly!’ interposed Bencolin. 'It is more likely, Monsieur Augustin, that you saw a real woman. Did you investigate?'

'I was – frightened’ the old man answered. He looked miserable and on the point of tears. 'But I knew nobody like that had been in the museum all day. I was too terrified to go and look that figure in the face; I thought I might