The Waxworks Murder

if her father knew - ' ' The whole scene was coming back now. 'You were talking about Mademoiselle Augustin, it seemed to me.'

He nodded. A film was over his eyes. 'So I was, Jeff. And that was what made me think of Mademoiselle Martel. Also to think what an incredible, gigantic, unpardonable dunce I had been for not seeing it before! I tell you again I bungled the whole case. Last night Mademoiselle Augustin could have told us who the murderer was, for she must have seen him come in. But I - great God! I was stupid enough to think the killer was a member of the club, whom she would protect! My own insufferable conceit (and that is all) prevented me from asking the obvious question and getting descriptions! The most ignorant patrolman in the service would have done better.'

He was sitting slumped in the chair, spasmodically opening and shutting one hand, staring at it as though some lost magic had been there. His eyes were weary and bitter.

'Intricate plans - avoid the obvious - bah! I am running on in senile decay. Well, mademoiselle! I tried to be so damned clever and circuitous, and ended by making a fool of myself; but I ask you the question now.'

Sitting up with abrupt energy, he glanced at her.

'The Comte de Martel is about five feet ten inches tall, and very stockily built. He has a big bald skull, a thick moustache of a sandy colour, very penetrating eyes with overhanging eyebrows, and carries himself almost unnaturally straight. He wears an old-fashioned stock, eyeglasses on a black ribbon, a box-pleated cape of large dimensions, and a rather wide-brimmed hat. You would not likely notice the absence of one arm, on account of the cloak . . . but he is a man of such distinguished appearance that you could not fail to remember him.'

Marie Augustin's eyes narrowed, and then flashed.

‘I remember him perfectly, monsieur,' she said mockingly. 'He bought a ticket last night about - oh, I don't know! some time after eleven. I didn't see him go out of the museum, but then that is not a matter for wonder; I shouldn't have noticed. ... Why, this is delightful! I could have told you long ago. But, as you say, monsieur - I am afraid you suffer from too much subtlety.'

Bencolin inclined his head.

'At least,' he said, 'I can tell you about it now.'

'Monsieur,' Chaumont interposed earnestly, 'I tell you, you don't know that man ! He is - why he is the proudest, the most fierce and unyielding aristocrat who ever — '

'I know it. That,' Bencolin said grimly, 'is why he killed his daughter. You would have to go back to the history of Rome to find a parallel motive. Virginius stabbing his daughter; Brutus condemning his own son to the block ... it's morbid and mad and damnable. No rational father would do it. I used to think that those tales of Roman fathers and Spartan mothers were sheer fables. But here. ... Will you shade that lamp a little, mademoiselle? My eyes. .. . '

As though hypnotized, the girl rose and spread an open newspaper across the lamp. The room was dimmed with weird glowing blotches, where white faces were motionless round the detective's chair. The fire crackled drowsily.

' ... And by the living God,' Bencolin suddenly snapped, 'he is going to be judged by the standards he applied to his daughter.

'You know the Martels, Captain. Jeff has met them. A lonely man and a deaf woman, with pride buttoned up around them. They live in a great gloomy house, with few-friends except old men who remember the Third Empire, and no diversions. Dominoes for a gambler!

'They have a daughter who grows up hating all this. She is far from their generation; she loathes their stuffy dining-rooms, their formal meals, their stiff receptions, their whole embalmed world. It is not enough for her that Disraeli took tea on that lawn with Napoleon the Third when her father was a boy. It is not enough for her that not the slightest scandal was ever breathed in connexion with any member of her family. She wants to dance all night at the Chateau de Madrid, and see the dawn come up over the Bois. She wants to drink queer concoctions in bars decorated like a plumber's nightmare; to drive fast cars, experiment with lovers, and have a flat of her own. And - she discovers that they do not watch her. Once outside her own home, she may do as she likes so long as they never discover it.'

He paused. His eyes moved slowly over towards Mademoiselle Augustin, and he seemed to be keeping back a smile. He shrugged.

'Well - we can understand it, can we not? She seizes at anything new which comes her way. They do not guard her allowance. They do not supervise her friends, except in her own home. She is obliged to live two separate lives. And, gradually, as she contrasts this glittering outside world with her own home, she grows even more dissatisfied. Where before she had merely hated restraint, now she comes to hate everything for which her family stands. She rages within herself. They are so placid, so stodgy, so maddeningly strait-laced ; and she hates them for this.

'She has a friend, Mademoiselle Prevost, who shares her ideas. Say, rather, that these ideas were first nourished by Mademoiselle Martel. Together they see a friend of theirs, Mademoiselle Duchene, growing up much in the tradition they were supposed to have followed.. ..'

He made a slight gesture.

'Do I need to explain further events which led up to the tragedy? For Monsieur Chaumont's information, we need only say that Odette Duchene was lured here - never mind how! - and that she died. But Colonel Martel! Ah, that's different. How did he learn about what his daughter was doing and had done ? ... I will tell you, because the colonel told me.

'Her activities were good blackmail material for Etienne Galant. Galant waited until he had much to tell, for which a family might readily pay hush money. Then he went to her father.

'Of course, all this happened some time before the Odette Duchene episode - even before Claudine Martel conceived the idea of making game of her. I can imagine Galant sitting in Monsieur Martel's library, and telling, in that deprecating way, certain things....

'What happened ? What sudden black horror took hold of his host then? For many years he has sat there alone with his ghosts. He remembers the day when men fought duels because of the slightest slur on a woman's name. He looks round at those rows of books, he feels solidly under him his ancient house, and he tries to understand what his red-nosed guest is telling him. And he cannot understand. This daughter .. .

'His only thought is - blankness. Did he have Galant thrown out of the house? Did he want to batter the smug face and smash that red nose to a bloody sponge? Did his whole universe come down with a crash and roar? I don't think so. I think he only rose, possibly pale and a little more rigid, and told his butler to show Galant to the door. And then I can imagine him sitting alone at his table, patiently building up houses of dominoes, while the clock went on chiming through the night.

'It cannot be believed. It buzzes in his brain like a mosquito; he slaps at it, tells himself it means nothing, and yet that insane whir keeps on in his ears. And such thoughts would be dangerous, even deadly, to a man who spends all his time alone. The ghosts come round again. They prod him with the reminiscence of each Martel. He cannot speak to his wife; he cannot speak to anybody - least of all, Claudine.

'Oh, he does not yet think of murder! But I fancy him walking in his melancholy gardens as autumn comes on and the leaves fall, with his gold-headed stick biting into the ground; and this poisonous droning keeps on in his ears. ... And what happens?³

The crackle of a coal in the grate made me jump slightly. Bencolin was gripping the arms of his chair.

'Why, I should have guessed it long ago! Claudine Martel prepares her trap for Odette Duchene. We know what happened. We know that Galant actually stabbed the girl, when she had tripped and fallen from the window. But Claudine Martel thought that it was the fall, with a fractured skull -perhaps rightly! - which had killed her friend, and she knew that she was responsible.

'Her poor little vicious cosmos is wrenched apart. She no longer feels that she is the gay, cynical adventuress who can seize at any pleasure because pleasure is the chief end of life. She goes home that night sick and frozen with terror. She goes home - as children do.

'She creeps up that great staircase in the moonlight. She can think of nothing but that the police, big men with insignia on their caps, and harsh hands, are after her. She has defiled her household gods. She has emitted a last puerile screech at the things she hates; and, in uttering it, she has caused the death of an inoffensive girl who never did anybody the least harm. Did she see Odette Duchene's face in the moonlight? I don't know. But her mother was awake. Her mother came into the room and tried in a clumsy way to find out what was the