“What is that?” he cried in a sharp voice.
“Yes, twice, Monsieur. Each time he has scraped through, that is true. He has powerful friends, and witnesses have been spirited away. But he is known! Jean Cladel! Yes, Jean Cladel!”
“Jean Cladel, Herbalist of the street Gambetta,” Hanaud repeated slowly. “But”—and he leaned back in an easier attitude—“you will see my difficulty, Monsieur Waberski. Ten o’clock is a public hour. It is not a likely hour for anyone to choose for so imprudent a visit, even if that one were stupid.”
“Yes, and so I reasoned too,” Waberski interposed quickly. “As I told you, I could not believe my eyes. But I made sure—oh, there was no doubt, Monsieur Hanaud. And I thought to myself this. Crimes are discovered because criminals, even the acutest, do sooner or later some foolish thing. Isn’t it so? Sometimes they are too careful; they make their proofs too perfect for an imperfect world. Sometimes they are too careless or are driven by necessity to a rash thing. But somehow a mistake is made and justice wins the game.”
Hanaud smiled.
“Aha! a student of crime, Monsieur!” He turned to Betty, and it struck upon Jim Frobisher with a curious discomfort that this was the first time Hanaud had looked directly at Betty since the interview had begun.
“And what do you say to this story, Mademoiselle?”
“It is a lie,” she answered quietly.
“You did not visit Jean Cladel in the street of Gambetta at ten o’clock on the morning of the 7th of May?”
“I did not, Monsieur.”
Waberski smiled and twisted his moustache.
“Of course! Of course! We could not expect Mademoiselle to admit it. One fights for one’s skin, eh?”
“But, after all,” Hanaud interrupted, with enough savagery in his voice to check all Waberski’s complacency, “let us not forget that on the 7th of May, Madame Harlowe had been dead for ten days. Why should Mademoiselle still be going to the shop of Jean Cladel?”
“To pay,” said Waberski. “Oh, no doubt Jean Cladel’s wares are expensive and have to be paid for more than once, Monsieur.”
“By wares you mean poison,” said Hanaud. “Let us be explicit.”
“Yes.”
“Poison which was used to murder Madame Harlowe.”
“I say so,” Waberski declared, folding his arms across his breast.
“Very well,” said Hanaud. He took from his green file a second paper written over in a fine hand and emphasised by an official stamp. “Then what will you say, Monsieur, if I tell you that the body of Madame Harlowe has been exhumed?” Hanaud continued, and Waberski’s face lost what little colour it had. He stared at Hanaud, his jaw working up and down nervously, and he did not say a word.
“And what will you say if I tell you,” Hanaud continued, “that no more morphia was discovered in it than one sleeping-dose would explain and no trace at all of any other poison?”
In a complete silence Waberski took his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The game was up. He had hoped to make his terms, but his bluff was called. He had not one atom of faith in his own accusation. There was but one course for him to take, and that was to withdraw his charge and plead that his affection for his sister-in-law had led him into a gross mistake. But Boris Waberski was never the man for that. He had that extra share of cunning which shipwrecks always the minor rogue. He was unwise enough to imagine that Hanaud might be bluffing too.
He drew his chair a little nearer to the table. He tittered and nodded at Hanaud confidentially.
“You say ‘if I tell you,’ ” he said smoothly. “Yes, but you do not tell me, Monsieur Hanaud—no, not at all. On the contrary, what you say is this: ‘My friend Waberski, here is a difficult matter which, if exposed, means a great scandal, and of which the issue is doubtful. There is no good in stirring the mud.’ ”
“Oh, I say that?” Hanaud asked, smiling pleasantly.
Waberski felt sure of his ground now.
“Yes, and more than that. You say, ‘You have been badly treated, my friend Waberski, and if you will now have a little talk with that hard one your niece—’ ”
And his chair slid back against the bookcase and he sat gaping stupidly like a man who has been shot.
Hanaud had sprung to his feet, he stood towering above the table, his face suddenly dark with passion.
“Oh, I say all that, do I?” he thundered. “I came all the way from Paris to Dijon to preside over a little bargain in a murder case! I—Hanaud! Oh! ho! ho! I’ll teach you a lesson for that! Read this!” and bending forward he thrust out the paper with the official seal. “It is the report of the analysts. Take it, I tell you, and read it!”
Waberski reached out a trembling arm, afraid to venture nearer. Even when he had the paper in his hands, they shook so he could not read it. But since he had never believed in his charge that did not matter.
“Yes,” he muttered, “no doubt I have made a mistake.”
Hanaud caught the word up.
“Mistake! Ah, there’s a fine word! I’ll show you what sort of a mistake you have made. Draw up your chair to this table in front of me! So! And take a pen—so! And a sheet of paper—so! and now you write for me a letter.”
“Yes, yes,” Waberski agreed. All the bravado had gone from his bearing, all the insinuating slyness. He was in a quiver from head to foot. “I will write that I am sorry.”
“That is not necessary,” roared Hanaud. “I will see to it that you are sorry. No! You write for me what I dictate to you and in English. You are ready? Yes? Then you begin. ‘Dear Sirs.’ You have that?”
“Yes, yes,” said Waberski, scribbling hurriedly. His head was in a whirl. He flinched as he wrote under the towering bulk of the detective. He had as yet no comprehension of the goal
