The Waxworks Murder

'Gina, I don't know who killed Claudine. But you are going to tell me.'

This time he did not sit down on the lounge beside her. He drew up a chair opposite, where the lamplight painted his nose in grotesque shades. He slapped his knees, and out from the shadow bounded the white cat to climb up. For a time he was silent, stroking its fur, smiling obscurely at the champagne-glass.

'Now, my dear, if your emotions are quieted, let me continue. I will tell you precisely what I want of you. In planting this evidence against you I was only covering myself in case I came under any suspicion. I must never come under any suspicion, Gina dear; they must never be able to prove one single thing against me. ... Now, at the end of a long and useful career, I am going to leave Paris.'

'Leave - Paris ?'

He chuckled. 'In short, my dear, to retire. Why not? I am a fairly wealthy man, and I was never greedy of money. For a while I did not want to depart before I had settled matters with a certain man, your friend Bencolin,' he touched his nose, 'who gave me this. It has been my ambition to keep it as - a spur. And then my success with the ladies (oh, yes, my dear; with yourself also) has been due, curiously enough, in no small degree to this disfigurement. Why is it? A blotch on a handsome face invariably attracts them.' He shrugged. 'But as for my good friend Bencolin . .. well, my dear, that prudence which you seem not to like (ah, but it's saved my hide, darling, when others are at Devil's Island), that prudence' - he had a loathsome, chuckling way of accentuating the word - 'tells me to keep away from conflict with him.'

Galant took a delight in building up intricate sentences now. Each time he said 'prudence' he would smile and glance sideways at her.

'So I am going. To England, I think. I have always fancied the life of a country gentleman. I shall write fine books by a river, in a garden full of laurels. And my nose shall be reshaped by a surgeon, and I shall become handsome again, and, alas! no woman will look at me.'

'In God's name, what are you trying to say ?'

'As you may know,' he continued, comfortably, 'I own a large - a very large - interest in this establishment. Yes. Now, I have a partner, whose identity you would probably not suspect. Of course you have seen that I have no connexion with this 'manager's office? Prudence again! It is run by my partner. . . . Well, my dear, I have sold out.'

'How docs it concern me? Please — !'

'Patience.' He waved his hand gently. Then his voice changed. It became alive with a kind of weak hatred. 'I want you to know this because it concerns your whole silly, rotten tribe! Do you know what I mean? I have owned this place for a number of years. I know every member; his and her innermost affairs; every scandal, every crookedness. .. . Ah, well. And did I use this information for what you call blackmail ? Only a little. I had a bigger purpose. To publish it, Gina. To publish it, with a purely altruistic purpose. To show' - his voice rose horribly - 'to show what a lot of thieving, crawling maggots masquerade as human beings, and - -'

The man was mad. Staring at his face through the crack, I could not doubt it. Brooding? Solicitude? Snubs? An idealist unhinged, a sensitive man and brilliant man beating at a cage in his own brain? His yellow eyes seemed to be fixed exactly on my own, burning with a light behind the eyeballs, and for a moment I fancied he had seen me. The cat let out a squeal as he pinched its neck, and streaked down from his lap. That seemed to rouse him. He recovered himself, and was looking at the girl now. She had shrunk back on the lounge....

'I entertained you,’ he said slowly, 'for a year. I could get you back now, if I wanted you. Because I had travelled and because I had read, and because I knew fine phrases, you were caught. You learned a glory your poor brainless head wouldn't have dreamed of; you learned it in a cheap secondhand way. I put Catullus in a primer for you. I dragged down Petrarch to your understanding; and De Musset, and Coleridge, and the others. Do you hear ? I taught you what songs to sing, and how to sing them; I set the 'Donec gratus eram tibi' to music, and put it into better French than Ronsard's, for you to act out. Great emotions, pale loves, fidelity; and now we both know what a damned sham it is, don't we? And you know what I think of - people.'

He drew a deep breath.

'Down in my safe,' he said, resuming his sardonic manner, 'there are a number of manuscripts. Sealed in envelopes, ready to be sent out to every newspaper in Paris. They are the stories of the - the People, the true stories. And they are to go out soon, after I depart.' He grinned. 'They ought to pay me for it. It will be the news of the decade, if they dare to use it. And they'll use enough.. . .'

'You're mad,' she said flatly. 'My God! I don't know what to say to you. I knew what you were. But I didn't think you were stark — '

'I regret, of course,⁵ he told her, 'that it will blow this club sky-high and nobody will dare come near it. But I am no longer interested in it financially, and I fear that it will have to be my partner's look-out. ... Now, my dear, let us be practical. There could be much news about you in that packet. On the other hand, your name need not figure at all - Gina the spotless! - if ...'

She whirled towards him. She had recovered her cool manner.

'I thought, Etienne,' she said, 'that sooner or later it would be something like this.'

' ... if you tell me who killed Claudine Martel.⁵

'A nice recital, Etienne.^’ The husky voice became tantalizing. 'Do you really think I would tell you? And, Etienne, my dear, why do you want to know? If you are going to become a respectable country gentleman —‘

'Because I think I know.'

'Well?5

'Remember that delicious word prudence. I was always cautious, my dear. Sometime in the future I may need money. And the parents of the person who I think committed the murder, they are not only proud, but immensely rich. Now tell me.. ..'

She was taking a cigarette from her handbag, coolly, and I could imagine her raised eyebrows. His big hand shot out. 'Confirm my belief, dear Gina, that the murderer is Captain Robert Chaumont.'

My knees grew weak, and I saw Galant's face as in a distorted mirror. Chaumont! Chaumont! The name could not conceivably have surprised her as much as it surprised me. But I heard her give a little gasp. During the long silence, the orchestra downstairs began to play again. I heard it muffled by the windows, faintly.

'Etienne,’ she said, laughing in a choked way, 'now I am convinced you are mad. What on earth - why — ?’

'Surely you must be aware, Gina,' he pointed out, 'knowing what you do, that this is a crime of vengeance? Vengeance for Odette Duchene. Vengeance on the young lady who caused her to fall to her death. Who would be the most likely person to inflict that vengeance? Come, now! Am I right?'

Already it had grown very hot in here. I strained against the crack in the screen, my brain lit by flashes and glimpses out of the past, where Chaumont's queer behaviour stood out. I was afraid Gina Prevost would whisper something, and I should not catch it; for the orchestra had swelled into another tango which pounded dimly against the windows. Galant stood before her, looking down.. ..

Then, almost at my feet, I became aware of a snarl. Something with fur shot brushing past my legs and whirled. Its cry rose again, inhumanly, and I saw yellow eyes.

The cat....

All motion was frozen in my body. I could not take my eye from that crack; I had first become stiff, and then limp as jelly. Galant straightened up. He stared straight across at the screen. Mariette, the cat, ran back and forth, still snarling.

'There's - somebody - behind - that screen,' Galant said. His voice was unnaturally loud.

Another pause. The room seemed to have acquired sinister creakings. Gina Prevost did not move, but her hand was lifted towards her mouth with the cigarette, and it trembled. 'There's - somebody - behind - that screen'; it still echoed, dull and hollow. On Galant's face the lamplight lay in a spangled pattern; his eyes grew large in a dead cold stare, and the lips were drawn back slowly from his teeth.

His hand suddenly flew to the inside of his coat.

'It's a damned police spy!'

'Don't move’ I said. I did not recognize my own voice. I had spoken instinctively, and the words snapped. 'Don't move, or I'll drop you. You're in the light.'

Ghastly seconds hammered in my ears. Bluff him! Bluff him, or I was through. He stared at the shadows