The Waxworks Murder

She said, tensely: 'Good child ! I like you better. Then have you nerve enough to try to get out of the front door in disguise? I'll go with you. You could pass as my - lover.'

'It would be a pleasure,' I said, 'even to adopt the pose.'

She tried not to notice that. She set her lips stonily.

'It will be dangerous. If you are caught. . .'

Again the whole heady excitement of juggling dynamite took possession of me. I said, truthfully : 'Believe me, mademoiselle, I have had more pure fun here to-night than in the last six years of my life. The adventure should end in glory.... Have you got a drink?’

'Be sensible! . .. Bien! You will have to leave your own coat and hat here. I can get you others. You must take off that bandage, and pull the hat down over the sticking-plaster; I don't think it will bleed. Your shirt is a mess also; you must cover it up. Have you a mask?'

'I lost it somewhere. In the court, I think.'

'I'll get you one that will cover your whole face. Finally, there's this. They'll guard the door well, and they'll probably ask everybody to exhibit his key on leaving. And they must have realized by now the key you are using. I'll get another. Wait while I look round. In the meantime, there is Napoleon brandy in that cabinet by the dressing- table.'

She hurried out of the door again. But this time she did not lock it. I got up. Pain darted up from the back of my skull and flowed in dizzy waves across my eyes, and my legs still felt light. But the exhilaration of the whole night steadied me. I leaned against the edge of the chaise-longue until the floor stopped wobbling and the room swam round again into focus. Then I picked my way over to the cabinet she had indicated.

The brandy was a Napoleon cognac, 1811, in a basket of silver filigree. Remembering how I had drunk brandy the night before, under this girl's stern and domestic eye, the whole fantasy became gloriously funny. I tossed down a huge drink, and felt its warmth crawl along my veins. That was better. I poured another. Then I caught sight of myself in a mirror over the dressing-table. . . . Gad! what a spectre! Like the result of a week's spree, pallor and all; bandage round my head, shirt a red-splattered ruin, and - so! That rat's knife had ripped the sleeve of my coat half-way up. He came fairly close, after all. I toasted the image in the mirror, gulping down a second big one. Steady! The image blurred a little. Brandy must have a queer effect when you felt like this.

I did a sort of eccentric dance-step, quite involuntarily, and surprised myself by bursting into laughter. The gilded storks and peacocks on the wall panels acquired a friendly expression. I noted the smoke of incense curling past the bronze bowls which held the lights, and the reek of the place had become intolerably hot.

Presently Marie Augustin came in. She had a soft black hat, rather too large, which she must have stolen from some guest, and a long cloak. When the arrangements had been made, we stood under the gilt cabinet, ready to put on our masks. She had turned out all the lights except the ornate silver one, shaped like a pagoda, which burnt on top of the cabinet....

The absence of light intensified the silence of this room. Now, faintly, I could hear the deep murmur of the orchestra from beyond the walls. Her face looked up, old ivory in the glow of the silver lamp. Her eyebrows were thin arches, her lips painted dark red....

'And,' she was saying, 'if we get past the outer door, what then?'

'Down into the waxworks. I must look at that knife,' I said, all the while conscious that I was not thinking about the knife at all. 'After that, the telephone. You had better give me your revolver.'

She passed it over. It was only a brushing of finger tips, but I could not move for looking at her. You thought of stuffy parlours with horsehair furniture; and behind these, mistily taking form, the weird glitter of the Arabian Nights. Slowly she reached up towards the chain of the lamp.

‘I wear black,' she said, pulling the mask down over her face. 'That is because - I have never had a lover.'

Inscrutable eyes shone for a moment through the holes in the mask. Then the light went out....

When we started for the door, she first motioned me back and glanced into the outer office. Then she nodded, and I followed through a dim room, hung with fantastic rugs, down to the glass-panelled door leading to the passage. In my hand I had the silver key belonging (she had said) to a member who had recently left for America. The murmur of the orchestra grew louder in our ears; it restored that dream-instability of a world peopled with goblins in vari-coloured masks. It was growing late, and the revel would nearly have reached its climax. .. .

Now its noise flowed out to engulf us. Down the dark passage I saw the great arch of the hall. Laughter was mingled with the hum of people; quick speech, breathlessness, and the clinking of glasses. It was subdued, but that only heightened its fierce tensity. A voice would break out, to be instantly repressed. Across it the orchestra rolled music in thick, sickly-sweet waves. We were inside, now; inside tall arches of black marble, with mirrors cunningly arranged so that the parade of arches seemed to extend itself endlessly. I had again that illusion of an undersea twilight, as at the waxworks. But now the dusk swam with goblins. Black masks, green masks, scarlet masks; figures split weirdly by the mirrors. Figures arm in arm, moving, black broadcloth and rustling gowns; or figures seated in corners, multiplied by the mirrors, with cigarette-ends palely glowing.

I glanced at Marie Augustin, whose arm was hooked in mine. She was spectral also. In a mirror near me there appeared a disembodied arm. It tilted a swathed bottle, and somebody laughed. There were alcoves where low round tables with glass tops were lighted from within; these lights shone upon the pale colours of wine in glasses, with bubbles rising; and they shone on the lower faces, smiling or intent, of the people who sat motionless there....

Leaning against one pillar was a white-mask. The figure had its hand in its inside pocket. Another white-mask went slipping along the aisles. By the mirror-trick, it seemed to move miles among the arches. The pound and thunder of the orchestra was almost over our heads now ... and the orchestra, peering goblin-like from behind palms, all wore white masks.. ..

I felt Marie Augustin pressing my arm tightly. Her nervousness steadied me as we walked slowly across the hall., but I seemed to feel the white-masks staring from behind. What would it be like to be shot in the back, with a silencer on the pistol? Under this noise, not even the faint plop could be heard. They could fire, and you could be carried out, quietly and unobserved, as a drunk, after you had fallen.

I tried to move slowly. My heart was pounding heavily, and the brandy I had taken seemed now only to muddle my head. Would a bullet in the back be clean and almost painless, or would it stab like a hot iron ? Would —.

The noise was diminishing. I could smell flowers now, above the heat and perfume, from the passage at the other end. We moved out into the lounge. I stared straight across at the faces of two white-masked apaches who still sat in the alcove, eyes on the door. In the scarlet- and-black flicker of light from the bronze satyrs there, the white-masks rose. ...

I gripped the butt of my pistol in my pocket. They sauntered forward. They peered at us and went on. .. .

Down the lounge towards the foyer, a slow progress. It was not real; it could not be real! The palms of my hands were clammy, and once my companion's step faltered. If they found her assisting me! Knock-knock; it was our footsteps, or my heart, or both.. . .

'Your key, monsieur?' said a low voice at my elbow. 'Monsieur is leaving?'

I was prepared for it, but, even so, that ominous 'Monsieur is leaving?' seemed to be delivered with a delighted leer. 'Monsieur will not leave,' it seemed to say: 'Monsieur, instead, will remain indefinitely.' I held out my key to a white-mask.

'Ah,' it said, 'Monsieur Darzac! Thank you. monsieur!⁵ Then white-mask shrank back as Marie Augustin lifted her own slightly; he recognized her, and hurried across to open the door. A last glimpse of the marble pillars in the foyer, of the heavy blue decorations, of white-mask grinning; then the hum of the orchestra died and we were out. .. .

For a moment I felt weak. I put my head against the bricks of the wall, feeling the coldness of the passage blow deliciously under my cloak.

'Good child !' whispered Marie Augustin.