“Yes, that is very important,” said Hanaud.
“Important. I should think it was!” cried Jim.
For this was clear and proven to him. If murder had been done on the night of the 27th of April, there was just one person belonging to the household of the Maison Grenelle who could have no share in it; and that one person was his client, Betty Harlowe.
Betty was stooping to pick up her handkerchief when Hanaud spoke to her; and she drew herself erect again with a little jerk.
“Does that clock on the marquetry cabinet keep good time, Mademoiselle?” he asked.
“Very good,” she answered. “Monsieur Sabin the watchmaker in the Rue de la Liberté has had it more than once to clean. It is an eight-day clock. It will be going when the seals are broken this afternoon. You will see for yourself.”
Hanaud, however, accepted her declaration on the spot. He rose to his feet and bowed to her with a certain formality but with a smile which redeemed it.
“At half-past ten Mademoiselle Harlowe was dancing at the house of M. de Pouillac on the Boulevard Thiers,” he said. “Of that there is no doubt. Inquiries have been made. Mademoiselle did not leave that house until after one in the morning. There is evidence enough of that to convince her worst enemy, from her chauffeur and her dancing partners to M. de Pouillac’s coachman, who stood at the bottom of the steps with a lantern during that evening and remembers to have held open for Mademoiselle the door of her car when she went away.”
“So that’s that,” said Jim to himself. Betty at all events was out of the net for good. And with that certainty there came a revolution in his thoughts. Why shouldn’t Hanaud’s search go on? It was interesting to watch the building up of this case against an unknown criminal—a case so difficult to bring to its proper conclusion in the Court of Assize, a case of poison where there was no trace of poison, a case where out of a mass of conjectures, here and there and more and more definite facts were coming into view; just as more and more masts of ships stand up out of a tumbled sea, the nearer one approaches land. Yes, now he wanted Hanaud to go on, delving astutely, letting, in his own phrase, things disclose themselves in their due sequence. But there was one point which Hanaud had missed, which should be brought to his notice. The mouse once more, he thought with all a man’s vanity in his modesty, would come to the help of the netted lion. He cleared his throat.
“Miss Ann, there is one little question I would like to ask you,” he began, and Hanaud turned upon him, to his surprise, with a face of thunder.
“You wish to ask a question?” he said. “Well, Monsieur, ask it if you wish. It is your right.”
His manner added, what his voice left unsaid, “and your responsibility.” Jim hesitated. He could see no harm in the question he proposed to ask. It was of vital importance. Yet Hanaud stood in front of him with a lowering face, daring him to put it. Jim did not doubt any longer that Hanaud was quite aware of his point and yet for some unknown reason objected to its disclosure. Jim yielded, but not with a very good grace.
“It is nothing,” he said surlily, and Hanaud at once was all cheerfulness again.
“Then we will adjourn,” he said, looking at his watch. “It is nearly one o’clock. Shall we say three for the Commissary of Police? Yes? Then I shall inform him and we will meet in the library at three and”—with a little bow to Betty—“the interdict shall be raised.”
“At three, then,” she said gaily. She sprang up from her chair, stooped, picked up her handkerchief with a swift and supple movement, twirled upon her heel and cried, “Come along, Ann!”
The four people moved off towards the house. Betty looked back.
“You have left your gloves behind you on your chair,” she said suddenly to Hanaud. Hanaud looked back.
“So I have,” he said, and then in a voice of protest, “Oh, Mademoiselle!”
For Betty had already darted back and now returned dangling the gloves in her hand.
“Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?” he asked as he took them from her. Then he cocked his head at Frobisher, who was looking a little stiff.
“Ha! ha! my young friend,” he said with a grin. “You do not like that so much kindness should be shown me. No! You are looking very proper. You have the poker in the back. But ask yourself this: ‘What are youth and good looks compared with Hanaud?’ ”
No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when the urchin got the upper hand in him. And the worst of it was that he had no rejoinder. He flushed very red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and stick, took his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. Ann drifted into the library. Jim felt a touch upon his arm. Betty was standing beside him with a smile of amusement upon her face.
“You didn’t really mind my going back for his gloves, did you?” she asked. “Say you didn’t, Jim!” and the amusement softened into tenderness. “I wouldn’t have done it for worlds if I had thought you’d have minded.”
Jim’s ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning.
“Mind?” he cried. “You shall pin a rose in his buttonhole if it pleases you, and all I’ll say will be, ‘You might do the same for me’!”
Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze.
“We are friends again, then,” she said, and the next moment she was out on the steps under the glass face of the porch. “Lunch at two, Ann!” she cried. “I must walk all the grime of this morning out of my brain.”
She was
