The Waxworks Murder

He stumbled into a chair, where he kept running his hat round his fingers. Slowly and carefully Bencolin proceeded to tell him everything I had learned that night. ' ... So you see, my friend,' he continued, 'Galant believed you were the murderer. Are you ?'

He asked the question carelessly. Chaumont was stricken dumb. Long ago he had dropped his hat and gripped the arms of the chair, but he was merely incoherent. He tried to stammer something; his brown face grew even more pale ... Abruptly his words tumbled out:

'They suspect me? Me? O my God! Look here, do you think I'd do a thing like that? Stab a girl in the back, and..  !'

'Softly,' murmured Bencolin. 'I know you didn't.'

A coal dropped with a rattle from the grate. The stupor of my nerves had begun to wear off; Chaumont's protests jabbed like lancets. I felt that the coffee was burning my throat. .. .

'You seem to think,' Marie Augustin snapped, 'that you do know who is guilty. And you've overlooked - everything of importance.'

There was a wrinkle between Bencolin's brows. He said, deprecatingly :

'Well ... not exactly everything, mademoiselle. No, I should hardly say that.'

Something was going to happen. You sensed it, though you did not know what direction it would take. But I could see the small vein beating on Bencolin's forehead as though in time to the tick of the tin clock.

'There is just one flaw, mademoiselle, in your theory that the killer stole Mademoiselle Martel's key in order to get into the club.' The detective mused. 'Well, well - let us say two flaws.'

The girl shrugged.

'First, mademoiselle, you can give no earthly reason why the killer should have wanted to go into the club after the stabbing. . . . The second point is simply that I know your theory is wrong.'

He rose to his feet slowly. All of us immediately tried to move backwards, though he was still very quiet and his look was almost absent. The clock ticked loudly. . . .

'Say whatever you like about my stupidity, mademoiselle. I grant it! I came very close to bungling this case altogether. Oh, yes. It was only this afternoon, very late, that the whole truth came to me. I take no credit for it. The killer deliberately gave me clues; the killer gave me an even chance to guess. That is why this is the strangest crime in my experience. ...

'Fool!' His eyes suddenly glittered. He straightened his shoulders. I shot an uneasy look round the circle. ...

Chaumont sat hunched back in his chair. Marie Augustin leaned forward into the lamp-light; her underlip was turned down, her eyes were as ebony in the light, and her grip tightened on old Augustin's arm.. . .

'Fool!' Bencolin repeated. His eyes again became vacant. 'You remember, Jeff, my telling you this afternoon that I should have to find the jeweller? Well, I have done so. That was where he got the watch repaired.'

'What watch?'

He seemed surprised at the question I flung at him.

'Why ... you know those particles of glass, tiny ones, we found in the passage? There was one sticking to the bricks of the wall. . . .'

Nobody spoke. The pounding of my heart choked me. ...

'You see, it was almost inevitable that the murderer had that happen, particularly in such a cramped space. He smashed the crystal of his wrist watch when he stabbed Claudine. . . . Yes, it was almost inevitable, because . . . '

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Because,' Bencolin told me thoughtfully, 'Colonel Martel has only one arm.'

Stabbing as a Sporting Proposition

Bencolin went on in an ordinary tone: 'Yes, that was how he killed his daughter. And I shall never forgive myself for being so stupid as not to see it. I knew she was standing with her back to the wall; I knew that in such a narrow space the murderer must have hit his hand there when he withdrew the dagger, and broken his watch crystal. ... What I couldn't understand was how he came to be wearing the watch on the same hand as that winch held the knife.'

I heard his voice from a distance. My brain was still repeating the words, 'that was how he killed his daughter'. I stared at the blaze in the fireplace. The statement was so unreal, the import so incredible, that at first I had not even a sensation of shock. All I could think of was a dim library with the rain splashing down the windows, in a garden of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And there I saw an old stocky man, with a heavy moustache and a bald head, standing rigid in his fine broadcloth, his hard eyes fixed on us. Colonel Martel.

A voice cried out sharply. It broke the illusion into little pieces.

'Do you know what you're saying?' Chaumont demanded.

Bencolin went on, still musingly: 'You see, a man invariably wears a wrist watch on his left hand, unless he is left-handed. If left-handed, it is on the right one - that is, always the hand opposite the one with which he writes, throws, or ... strikes with a knife. So I couldn't understand that watch being on the same wrist as that with which he stabbed the girl, whether he was right- or left-handed. But, of course, a man who has only one arm .. .'

For some weird reason, the very thought of Colonel Martel seemed to lend dignity to Bencolin's words, even though you thought of him as a murderer. It was no longer (as it had seemed during those mad antics in the club) a sort of meaningless bad dream. But Chaumont, who had a rather witless expression on his face, yanked Bencolin's arm.

'I demand,' he said, shrilly — 'I demand some excuse or apology for saying— !'

Bencolin woke from his abstraction.

'Yes,' he said, nodding — 'yes, you have a right to know all about it. I told you it was a queer crime. Queer, not alone in motive, but because that magnificent old gambler actually gave us a sporting chance to guess it. He was not willing to give himself up voluntarily. But he threw clues in our faces, and if we did guess, he was prepared to admit his guilt.' Quietly Bencolin disengaged his arm from the young man's grip. 'Softly, Captain! You needn't act like that. He has already admitted it.'

'He ... what?'

'I talked to him on the telephone not fifteen minutes ago. Listen! Calm yourself and let me tell you exactly how the whole thing happened.'

Bencolin sat down. Chaumont, still with his eyes fixed, walked backwards until he stumbled down into a chair.

'You are quite a showman, monsieur!' Marie Augustin said. Her face was still white; she had not relaxed her grip on her father's sleeve, and she exhaled her breath with a sort of shudder of relief. 'Was all this necessary? I thought you were going to accuse papa.'

The voice sounded shrill and vicious, and her father's red eyes blinked at her uncomprehendingly as he clucked his tongue. ...

'So did I,' I observed. 'All that talk awhile ago — ' 'I was only wondering how a rational father would behave. Tiens! it's still incredible! But this afternoon - I realized then that it must be true.'

'Wait a minute!' I said. 'This whole thing is crazy. I still don't understand it. But this afternoon, when you had that brainstorm and suddenly burst out with 'If her father knew,