The Waxworks Murder

group. And I wanted to see the satyr. It's damned good, the whole expression of the satyr, and the woman in his arms — '

Augustin's head jerked on his neck.

'What?' he demanded. 'What did you say?'

‘I said, it's damned good: the satyr, and the woman in —'

Augustin said, like a man hypnotized: 'You must be mad - yourself. There is no woman in the satyr's arms.'

Blood in the Passage

'There is a woman now,' said Bencolin. 'A real woman. And she is dead.'

He held the beam of the big flashlight on the group, while we crowded about him.

The wax figure of the satyr was tilted slightly against the wall, there on its landing at the turn of the stairs. Its arms were curved and cupped in such a way that the small body of the woman had been laid there without overbalancing it. (These figures, I have since learned, are built up on a steel framework and can support a heavier weight.) Most of her weight was distributed on his right arm and against his chest; her head had been pushed inwards, partly under that arm, and the coarse black serge of his cloak had been pulled up to hide her cheek and the upper part of her body. ... Bencolin directed the beam of his light downwards. The satyr's leg, covered with coarse hair, and his cloven hoof, also, were stained. Blood had gathered in a widening pool about the base.

'Lift her out of there,' Bencolin said, briefly. 'Be careful; don't break anything. Now!'

We eased out the light burden and straightened it on the stone landing. The body was still warm. Then Bencolin threw the light on her face. The eyes were brown and wide open, fixed in a stare of pain and horror and shock; the bloodless lips were drawn back; and the tight-fitting blue hat was disarranged. Slowly the light moved along her body.. ..

At my elbow I heard heavy breathing. Chaumont said, in a voice he tried to make calm: 'I know who that is.'

'Well?' demanded Bencolin, not rising from his kneeling position with the flashlight.

'It's Claudine Martel. Odette's best friend. The girl we were to have tea with on the day Odette broke the appointment and ... O, my God!' Chaumont cried, and beat his fist against the wall. 'Another one!'

'Another daughter,' Bencolin said, speculatively of an ex-Cabinet Minister. The Comte de Martel. That's the one, isn't it?'

He glanced up at Chaumont, apparently calm; but a nerve twitched beside his cheek bone, and Bencolin's face was as evil as the satyr's.

'That's the one,' Chaumont nodded. 'How - how did she die?'

'Stabbed through the back.' Bencolin lifted the body sideways, so that we could see the blotch on the left side of the light-blue coat she wore. 'It must have pierced the heart. A bullet wound would not make so much blood.... Ah, but there'll be the devil to pay for this! Let's see. No signs of a struggle. The dress isn't disarranged. Nothing at all - except this.'

He indicated a thin gold chain about the girl's neck. On it she had apparently worn a pendant of some sort, and kept it inside the bosom of her frock; but its ends had been snapped off, and the pendant, whatever it had been, was gone. A part of the chain had been caught under the collar of the coat, so that it had been prevented from falling.

'No ... certainly not a struggle,' the detective was muttering. 'Arms limp, fingers unclenched; a swift, sure blow, straight to the heart. Now, where is her handbag? Damnation! I want her handbag! - they all carry one. Where is it?'

He flashed his light about impatiently, and it chanced to flash across Augustin's face. The old man, who was huddled up in a grotesque way, plucking at the satyr's serge robe, cried out as the beam struck his eyes.

'Now you are going to arrest me!' he shrilled. 'And I had nothing to do with this! I —'

'Oh, shut up!' said Bencolin. 'No, wait. Stand out here.

This girl, my friend, has been dead less than two hours. At what time did you close up here ?'

'Shortly before eleven-thirty, monsieur. Just after I received monsieur's summons.'

'And did you come down here before closing up?'

'I always do, monsieur. Some of the lights are not turned off at the main switches upstairs; I must attend to a number of them.'

'But there was nobody here then ?'

'No! Nothing!'

Bencolin looked at his watch. 'Twelve forty-five. A little over an hour since you were down here, say. I gather that this girl could not have gained admission through the front door?'

'Impossible, monsieur! My daughter would open it to nobody but me. We have a special ring as a signal. But you can ask her.. ..'

The flashlight's beam shifted across the floor of the landing; it moved along the base of the wall and up the wall itself. The figure of the satyr stood with its back to the extreme rear wall of the museum - that is to say, parallel with the front - so that one turning the bend in the staircase saw it sideways. At the junction of this wall with the one which followed the steps downward again, Bencolin's light halted. A dim green bulb was placed in this corner so as to illumine the side of the satyr's hood cunningly; it did not reveal any difference in the stone of the wall, but the bright flashlamp showed that a portion of the wall was wood, painted to resemble stone.

'I see,' muttered the detective. 'And that, I suppose, is the other entrance to the museum?'

'Yes, monsieur! There is a narrow passage which goes down to the Chamber of Horrors behind these walls, where I can get at the hidden lights from the inside. Then there is another door, beyond it....'

Bencolin turned sharply. 'Leading where?'

'Why - why, to a sort of covered passage going to the Boulevard de Sevastopol. But I never open the door to that passage. It is always iocked.'

Slowly the beam moved from the foot of the wooden door to the base of the statue. It was starred in a crooked trail with splashes of blood. Stepping carefully to avoid them, Bencolin approached the wall and pushed it. A section of the dummy stonework swung inwards. I was close beliind him, and I saw that it concealed a stuffy cubbyhole, with a flight of stairs going down towards the Chamber of Horrors, and, parallel with the dummy woodwork, another heavy door. On my sleeve I felt Augustin's trembling fingers while Bencolin examined with his light the lock of this outer door.

'A Yale lock,' he said, 'and the latch isn't caught. This door has been used to-night, anyhow.'

'You mean it's open ?' Augustin cried.

'Stand back!' Bencolin said irritably. 'There may be footprints in this dust.' He whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket, twisted it round his fingers, and turned the knob of the outer door.

We were in a low stone passage, still parallel with the back of the museum. It was apparently a sort of alleyway between this house and the one next door; some forgotten builder had roofed it over with tin and wooden supports, so that it was not more than seven or eight feet high. Of the house next door we could see only a blank brick wall, and, far down to the left, a heavy door without a knob. The left-hand end of the passage terminated also in a brick wall. But towards the right of the dark tunnel we could see a little light filtering in from the street; we could hear a swish of tyres and a dim honking of traffic.

In the middle of the damp flagstones, directly in the path of Bencolin's light, lay a woman's white washleather handbag, its contents scattered. I remember how the figured black design on that bag stood out against the white, and the silver catch glimmered. Over against the brick wall opposite, its elastic band torn from