“Well, I fairly asked for it, didn’t I?” he said as he handed the letter back. “I said a wise thing to you, Monsieur, when I held it fortunate that we were not to be on opposite sides.”
Hanaud’s face lost its urchin look.
“Don’t make too much of me, my friend, lest you be disappointed,” he said in all seriousness. “We are the servants of Chance, the very best of us. Our skill is to seize quickly the hem of her skirt, when it flashes for the fraction of a second before our eyes.”
He replaced the two anonymous letters in the green cover and laid it again in the drawer. Then he gathered together the two letters which Boris Waberski had written and gave them back to Jim Frobisher.
“You will want these to produce at Dijon. You will go there today?”
“This afternoon.”
“Good!” said Hanaud. “I shall take the night express.”
“I can wait for that,” said Jim. But Hanaud shook his head.
“It is better that we should not go together, nor stay at the same hotel. It will very quickly be known in Dijon that you are the English lawyer of Miss Harlowe, and those in your company will be marked men too. By the way, how were you informed in London that I, Hanaud, had been put in charge of this case?”
“We had a telegram,” replied Jim.
“Yes? And from whom? I am curious!”
“From Miss Harlowe.”
For a moment Hanaud was for the second time in that interview quite disconcerted. Of that Jim Frobisher could have no doubt. He sat for so long a time, his cigarette halfway to his lips, a man turned into stone. Then he laughed rather bitterly, with his eyes alertly turned on Jim.
“Do you know what I am doing, Monsieur Frobisher?” he asked. “I am putting to myself a riddle. Answer it if you can! What is the strongest passion in the world? Avarice? Love? Hatred? None of these things. It is the passion of one public official to take a great big club and hit his brother official on the back of the head. It is arranged that I shall go secretly to Dijon so that I may have some little chance of success. Good! On Saturday it is so arranged, and already on Monday my colleagues have so spread the news that Miss Harlowe can telegraph it to you on Tuesday morning. But that is kind, eh? May I please see the telegram?”
Frobisher took it from the long envelope and handed it to Hanaud, who received it with a curious eagerness and opened it out on the table in front of them. He read it very slowly, so slowly that Jim wondered whether he too heard through the lines of the telegram, as through the receiver of a telephone, the same piteous cry for help which he himself had heard. Indeed, when Hanaud raised his face all the bitterness had gone from it.
“The poor little girl, she is afraid now, eh? The slender fingers, they do not snap themselves any longer, eh? Well, in a few days we make all right for her.”
“Yes,” said Jim stoutly.
“Meanwhile I tear this, do I not?” and Hanaud held up the telegraph form. “It mentions my name. It will be safe with you, no doubt, but it serves no purpose. Everything which is torn up here is burnt in the evening. It is for you to say,” and he dangled the telegram before Jim Frobisher’s eyes.
“By all means,” said Jim, and Hanaud tore the telegram across. Then he placed the torn pieces together and tore them through once again and dropped them into his wastepaper basket. “So! That is done!” he said. “Now tell me! There is another young English girl in the Maison Grenelle.”
“Ann Upcott,” said Jim with a nod.
“Yes, tell me about her.”
Jim made the same reply to Hanaud which he had made to Mr. Haslitt.
“I have never seen her in my life. I never heard of her until yesterday.”
But whereas Mr. Haslitt had received the answer with amazement, Hanaud accepted it without comment.
“Then we shall both make the acquaintance of that young lady at Dijon,” he said with a smile, and he rose from his chair.
Jim Frobisher had a feeling that the interview which had begun badly and moved on to cordiality was turning back upon itself and ending not too well. He was conscious of a subtle difference in Hanaud’s manner, not a diminution in his friendliness, but—Jim could find nothing but Hanaud’s own phrase to define the change. He seemed to have caught the hem of the skirt of Chance as it flickered for a second within his range of vision. But when it had flickered Jim could not even conjecture.
He picked up his hat and stick. Hanaud was already at the door with his hand upon the knob.
“Goodbye, Monsieur Frobisher, and I thank you sincerely for your visit.”
“I shall see you in Dijon,” said Jim.
“Surely,” Hanaud agreed with a smile. “On many occasions. In the office, perhaps, of the examining magistrate. No doubt in the Maison Grenelle.”
But Jim was not satisfied. It was a real collaboration which Hanaud had appeared a few minutes ago not merely to accept, but even to look forward to. Now, on the contrary, he was evading it.
“But if we are to work together?” Jim suggested.
“You might want to reach me quickly,” Hanaud continued. “Yes. And I might want to reach you, if not so quickly, still very secretly. Yes.” He turned the question over in his mind. “You will stay at the Maison Grenelle, I suppose?”
“No,” said Jim, and he drew a little comfort from Hanaud’s little start of disappointment. “There will be no need for that,” he explained. “Boris Waberski can attempt nothing more. Those
