The Waxworks Murder

this. Bien! the day is finished. I close up. I see my father to bed. And then I come back here. Each time it is like walking into the Arabian Nights.'

Her low voice trailed away. She crossed her arms over her breast and pressed hard; she seemed to be breathing deeply, like one under an anaesthetic, and to be carried away by it. She seemed also to be savouring the incense, the texture of the satin gown, the deep and gleaming opulence of the room - and her dark-red slipper brushed up and down, slowly, the deep rug. Her head was half thrown back, the eyes gleaming and heavy-lidded. . . .

I crushed out my cigarette. I half rose.

And then suddenly, at my movement, the dreaming vanished. A queer little smile twisted her lips.

'But I play with my emotions,' she said, 'a long time -before taking them. Lie down. Rest your head.'

I applauded, making no sound, and bowed. Again we spoke to each other without words. None the less I said: 'But it would be picturesque. With the bodyguard searching for me out there with knives.. ..'

'Now that we begin to understand each other, will you tell me what you meant about 'saving' me ?'

'Yes. I'm delighted to do the damned prudent lad an ill turn. As a matter of fact, I am going to tell you everything I heard to-night.'

'Is it wise?'

'No. If you have a guilty conscience of either murder — '

She shook me by the shoulder. 'I swear to you that all I know about - about either of them is what I read in the papers! And if you hadn't told me last night that the two were connected, I shouldn't have known it.'

'Yet, my dear girl, you lied last night. You said you had seen Odette Duchene leave the waxworks.'

'That was because of my father. And that was all! Your friend Monsieur Bencolin knows as much. ... I tell you I simply supposed she had gone out by the other door, into the boulevard.'

I blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Once you drove this young lady into a corner, you could keep her there. I pointed out:

'But, being one of the owners here, you must have known she wasn't a member of the club. How, then, did you account for her 'leaving by the other door' ?'

'In time,' she mused, studying me, 'you may be very nearly as good at questioning as Monsieur Bencolin. Oh, a long time. . . . But listen. There are exceptions. If Monsieur Galant gives orders - they can go in. I can definitely prove that I was in the booth all day. I know nothing! Do you believe it?'

I risked everything. I told her all I had heard that night. For, if she believed my story about Galant's intent to wreck the club, then I had an ally of the most powerful sort.

' .. . So,' I concluded, 'if there's a safe in the office, and you know the combination, you might just open it and see whether or not these messages to the newspapers have been prepared.'

She sat quietly while I was talking, but now her face had again assumed that rigidity of last night. She looked dangerous.

'Wait here,' she said.

She left the room by a door at the far end, locking it after her. I lay back on the cushions. Heigho! Everything was topsy-turvy. They were searching the club for me, and here I sat cosily in their midst, with comfortable cushions under me and cigarettes within reach. The situation was almost perfect. No luckier words had ever been spoken than those of Galant when he told of his last joke. If Marie Augustin really found the evidence in the safe, then I fancied I should hear whatever she happened to know about these murders.

She returned in less than five minutes. Closing the door with a snap, she stood with her back to it. Her eyes were dull with anger, and I saw that she had papers in her hands. As though she made a sudden decision, she went to one of the braziers of hammered gold in which the incense was smoking, removed the plate of incense, and threw the papers into it. Then she struck a match.

A flame licked up out of the gold bowl. Against the black-and-gilt background, ornamented with hieroglyphics and storks, she looked like a priestess. Only when the fire had died did she straighten up from staring at it.

She said, 'I am ready to go to Monsieur Bencolin and swear that I saw my friend Galant stab the Duchene girl.'

'And did you?'

'No.' A dull vindictive monosyllable. She walked over slowly; I had again the fancy of a grim-faced priestess. Every muscle in her body seemed to be tight. 'But,' she added, 'I guarantee to make a good story of it.'

'I don't know that it will be necessary. And - this sudden dropping of caution ? You keep insisting that you fear your father will...'

'Not any longer. He knows.'

I swung my legs off the chaise-longue, sat up, and looked at her. The room swam a bit; little hammers began to pound at the base of my eyes, and my head seemed to be rising towards the ceiling in long spiralling motions.

'He knows,' she repeated. 'There's an end to concealment. I can figure in the papers as well as anybody. And I think I shall enjoy it.'

'Who told him?'

'I think he has suspected some time. But I have him' - she pressed her finger and thumb together contemptuously - 'like that. Besides, I am going to see Galant in a condemned cell if it costs everything.'

The suppressed fury in her voice made me wonder whether there had ever been anything between these two. But I kept silent while she went on: 'Then I end my career as a slave. I will travel. I will have jewels, and rooms in a hotel overlooking the sea, and - and gentlemen, like yourself, to pay me compliments. And there will be one of them, like yourself, whom I can't rule. ... But first,' she amended, smiling dangerously, 'I will settle things.'

'You mean,' I said, 'you are willing to help the police with everything you know?'

'Yes. I will swear I saw Galant —'

'And I tell you again it won't be necessary to perjure yourself! With the evidence of Mademoiselle Prevost and myself, we have him. You can help us much more,' I insisted, trying to hold her gaze, 'by telling the truth.'

'About what?'

'By telling everything you know for a fact. Bencolin is convinced that you saw the murderer of Claudine Martel.'

Her eyes opened wide. 'So you still don't believe me! I insist —'

'Oh, not knowing it was the murderer, necessarily! But he believes that the murderer walked into the waxworks last night before your father closed up; that he was hidden there. Moreover, that the murderer was a member of the club, whom you knew. Do you know how you can help us most? Simply by telling what club members came in that way last night.'

She stared at me uncomprehending!)', her eyebrows rising. Then she laughed; she sat down with a swashbuckling air, and shook me by the shoulder.

'Do you mean,' she cried — 'do you mean that the great Bencolin - the infallible, the great lord of logic - do you mean that he has been so thoroughly fooled? Tiens! this is too good!'

'Stop laughing! What do you mean - fooled?'

I twisted her round to face me. Her eyes, still hard and mocking, ran over my face.

'Just that! If the murderer was a member of the club, he didn't come in that night through the waxworks. I saw everybody who did come in all day, and, my dear boy, there were no members among them. Tiens! but your face is funny ! Did you think he was always right? Why, I could have told you all this long ago.'

I hardly heard her laughter. A whole edifice of theory, spires and towers and pinnacles, had been reared on that assumption; now, suddenly, the blocks seemed to come down with a roar. In an instant, if this were true, the whole of it became wreckage.

'Listen,' she said, disengaging her shoulder. 'I think I should make a better detective than any of you. And I can tell you —'

'Wait! The murderer couldn't have come any way except in through that waxworks! The whole arrangement of doors ...'

Again she laughed. 'My dear boy, I am not saying the murderer didn't come that way. Through the waxworks,