The small tornado of passion passed. Betty sank back in the corner of the window-seat, her head resting against the side of the sash and her face a little upturned.
“You are really very considerate, Monsieur Hanaud,” she returned. “It is I who should beg your pardon. For I was behaving like a hysterical schoolgirl. Will you go on with your questions?”
“Yes,” Hanaud replied gently. “It is better that we finish with them now. Let us come back to the night of the twenty-seventh!”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“Madame was in her usual health that night—neither better nor worse.”
“If anything a little better,” returned Betty.
“So that you did not hesitate to go on that evening to a dance given by some friends of yours?”
Jim started. So Betty was actually out of the house on that fatal night. Here was a new point in her favour. “A dance!” he cried, and Hanaud lifted his hand.
“If you please, Monsieur Frobisher!” he said. “Let Mademoiselle speak!”
“I did not hesitate,” Betty explained. “The life of the household had to go on normally. It would never have done for me to do unusual things. Madame was quick to notice. I think that although she would not admit that she was dangerously ill, at the bottom of her mind she suspected that she was; and one had to be careful not to alarm her.”
“By such acts, for instance, as staying away from a dance to which she knew that you had meant to go?” said Hanaud. “Yes, Mademoiselle. I quite understand that.”
He cocked his head at Jim Frobisher, and added with a smile, “Ah, you did not know that, Monsieur Frobisher. No, nor our friend Boris Waberski, I think. Or he would hardly have rushed to the Prefect of Police in such a hurry. Yes, Mademoiselle was dancing with her friends on this night when she is supposed to be committing the most monstrous of crimes. By the way, Mademoiselle, where was Boris Waberski on the night of the 27th?”
“He was away,” returned Betty. “He went away on the 25th to fish for trout at a village on the River Ouche, and he did not come back until the morning of the 28th.”
“Exactly,” said Hanaud. “What a type that fellow! Let us hope he had a better landing-net for his trout than the one he prepared so hastily for Mademoiselle Harlowe. Otherwise his three days’ sport cannot have amounted to much.”
His laugh and his words called up a faint smile upon Betty’s face and then he swept back to his questions.
“So you went to a dance, Mademoiselle. Where?”
“At the house of Monsieur de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers.”
“And at what hour did you go?”
“I left this house at five minutes to nine.”
“You are sure of the hour?”
“Quite,” said Betty.
“Did you see Madame Harlowe before you went?”
“Yes,” Betty answered. “I went to her room just before I left. She took her dinner in bed, as she often did. I was wearing for the dance a new frock which I had bought this winter at Monte Carlo, and I went to her room to show her how I looked in it.”
“Was Madame alone?”
“No; the nurse was with her.”
And upon that Hanaud smiled with a great appearance of cunning.
“I knew that, Mademoiselle,” he declared with a friendly grin. “See, I set a little trap for you. For I have here the evidence of the nurse herself, Jeanne Baudin.”
He took out from his pocket a sheet of paper upon which a paragraph was typed. “Yes, the examining magistrate sent for her and took her statement.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Betty. “Jeanne left us the day of the funeral and went home. I have not seen her since.”
She nodded at Hanaud once or twice with a little smile of appreciation.
“I would not like to be a person with a secret to hide from you, Monsieur Hanaud,” she said admiringly. “I do not think that I should be able to hide it for long.”
Hanaud expanded under the flattery like a novice, and, to Jim Frobisher’s thinking, rather like a very vulgar novice.
“You are wise, Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed. “For, after all, I am Hanaud. There is only one,” and he thumped his chest and beamed delightedly. “Heavens, these are politenesses! Let us get on. This is what the nurse declared,” and he read aloud from his sheet of paper:
“Mademoiselle came to the bedroom, so that Madame might admire her in her new frock of silver tissue and her silver slippers. Mademoiselle arranged the pillows and saw that Madame had her favourite books and her drink beside the bed. Then she wished her good night, and with her pretty frock rustling and gleaming, she tripped out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, Madame said to me—” and Hanaud broke off abruptly. “But that does not matter,” he said in a hurry.
Suddenly and sharply Betty leaned forward.
“Does it not, Monsieur?” she asked, her eyes fixed upon his face, and the blood mounting slowly into her pale cheeks.
“No,” said Hanaud, and he began to fold the sheet of paper.
“What does the nurse report that Madame said to her about me, as soon as the door was closed?” Betty asked, measuring out her words with a slow insistence. “Come, Monsieur! I have a right to know,” and she held out her hand for the paper.
“You shall judge for yourself that it was of no importance,” said Hanaud. “Listen!” and once more he read.
“Madame said to me, looking at her clock, ‘It is well that Mademoiselle has gone early. For Dijon is not Paris, and unless you go in time there are no partners for you to dance with.’ It was then ten minutes to nine.”
With a smile Hanaud gave the paper into Betty’s hand; and she bent her head over it swiftly, as though she doubted whether what he had recited was really written on that
