“There should be a second volume,” said Jim Frobisher with a glance at the bookshelf. It was the idlest of remarks. He was not paying any attention to the paper-covered book upon Battersea Enamel. For he was really engaged in speculating why Hanaud had called him to his side. Was it on the chance that he might detect some swift look of understanding as it was exchanged by the two girls, some sign that they were in a collusion? If so, he was to be disappointed. For though Betty and Ann were now free from Hanaud’s vigilant eye, neither of them moved, neither of them signalled to the other. Hanaud, however, seemed entirely interested in his book. He answered Jim’s suggestion.
“Yes, one would suppose that there were a second volume. But this is complete,” he said, and he put back the book in its place. There was room next to it for another quarto book, so long as it was no thicker, and Hanaud rested his finger in the vacant place on the shelf, with his thoughts clearly far away.
Betty recalled him to his surroundings.
“Monsieur Hanaud,” she said in her quiet voice from her seat in the window, “there was a second point, you said, on which you would like to ask me a question.”
“Yes, Mademoiselle, I had not forgotten it.”
He turned with a curiously swift movement and stood so that he had both girls in front of him, Betty on his left in the window, Ann Upcott standing a little apart upon his right, gazing at him with a look of awe.
“Have you, Mademoiselle,” he asked, “been pestered, since Boris Waberski brought his accusation, with any of these anonymous letters which seem to be flying about Dijon?”
“I have received one,” answered Betty, and Ann Upcott raised her eyebrows in surprise. “It came on Sunday morning. It was very slanderous, of course, and I should have taken no notice of it but for one thing. It told me that you, Monsieur Hanaud, were coming from Paris to take up the case.”
“Oho!” said Hanaud softly. “And you received this letter on the Sunday morning? Can you show it to me, Mademoiselle?”
Betty shook her head.
“No, Monsieur.”
Hanaud smiled.
“Of course not. You destroyed it, as such letter should be destroyed.”
“No, I didn’t,” Betty answered. “I kept it. I put it away in a drawer of my writing-table in my own sitting-room. But that room is sealed up, Monsieur Hanaud. The letter is in the drawer still.”
Hanaud received the statement with a frank satisfaction.
“It cannot run away, then, Mademoiselle,” he said contentedly. But the contentment passed. “So the Commissaire of Police actually sealed up your private sitting-room. That, to be sure, was going a little far.”
Betty shrugged her shoulders.
“It was mine, you see, where I keep my private things. And after all I was accused!” she said bitterly; but Ann Upcott was not satisfied to leave the matter there. She drew a step nearer to Betty and then looked at Hanaud.
“But that is not all the truth,” she said. “Betty’s room belongs to that suite of rooms in which Madame Harlowe’s bedroom was arranged. It is the last room of the suite opening on to the hall, and for that reason, as the Commissaire said with an apology, it was necessary to seal it up with the others.”
“I thank you, Mademoiselle,” said Hanaud with a smile. “Yes, that of course softens his action.” He looked whimsically at Betty in the window-seat. “It has been my misfortune, I am afraid, to offend Mademoiselle Harlowe. Will you help me to get all these troublesome dates now clear? Madame Harlowe was buried, I understand, on the Saturday morning twelve days ago!”
“Yes, Monsieur,” said Ann Upcott.
“And after the funeral, on your return to this house, the notary opened and read the will?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“And in Boris Waberski’s presence?”
“Yes.”
“Then exactly a week later, on Saturday, the seventh of May, he goes off quickly to the Prefecture of Police?”
“Yes.”
“And on Sunday morning by the post comes the anonymous letter?”
Hanaud turned away to Betty, who bowed her head in answer.
“And a little later on the same morning comes the Commissaire, who seals the doors.”
“At eleven o’clock, to be exact,” replied Ann Upcott.
Hanaud bowed low.
“You are both wonderful young ladies. You notice the precise hour at which things happen. It is a rare gift, and very useful to people like myself.”
Ann Upcott had been growing easier and easier in her manner with each answer that she gave. Now she could laugh outright.
“I do, at all events, Monsieur Hanaud,” she said. “But alas! I was born to be an old maid. A chair out of place, a book disarranged, a clock not keeping time, or even a pin on the carpet—I cannot bear these things. I notice them at once and I must put them straight. Yes, it was precisely eleven o’clock when the Commissaire of Police rang the bell.”
“Did he search the rooms before he sealed them?” Hanaud asked.
“No. We both of us thought his negligence strange,” Ann replied, “until he informed us that the Examining Magistrate wanted everything left just as it was.”
Hanaud laughed genially.
“That was on my account,” he explained. “Who could tell what wonderful things Hanaud might not discover with his magnifying glass when he arrived from Paris? What fatal fingerprints! Oh! Ho! ho! What scraps of burnt letter! Ah! Ha! ha! But I tell you, Mademoiselle, that if a crime has been committed in this house, even Hanaud would not expect to make any startling discoveries in rooms which had been open to the whole household for a fortnight since the crime. However,” and he moved towards the door, “since I am here now—”
Betty was upon her feet like a flash of lightning. Hanaud stopped and swung round upon her, swiftly, with his eyes very challenging and hard.
“You are going to break those seals now?” she asked with a curious breathlessness. “Then may I come with you—please, please! It is I who
