“You are distressed,” she said gently. “But surely you need not be any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half-past ten when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her friends in a ballroom. Nothing can shake that.”
“It is not on her account that I am troubled,” he cried, and Ann looked at him with startled eyes.
Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall before Ann could ask a question; and throughout their luncheon he made conversation upon indifferent subjects with rapidity, if without entertainment.
Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were still indeed smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when Gaston informed them that the Commissary of Police with his secretary was waiting in the library.
“This is Mr. Frobisher, my solicitor in London,” said Betty as she presented Jim.
The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout, bald, middle-aged man with a pair of folding glasses sitting upon a prominent fat nose; his secretary, Maurice Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice in the police administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in his own esteem, one would gather, rather a conqueror amongst the fair.
“I have asked Monsieur Bex, Mademoiselle’s notary in Dijon, to be present,” said Jim.
“That is quite in order,” replied the Commissary, and Monsieur Bex was at that moment announced. He came on the very moment of three. The clock was striking as he bowed in the doorway. Everything was just as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased.
“With Monsieur le Commissaire’s consent,” he said, smiling, “we can now proceed with the final ceremonies of this affair.”
“We wait for Monsieur Hanaud,” said the Commissary.
“Hanaud?”
“Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited by the Examining Magistrate to take charge of this case,” the Commissary explained.
“Case?” cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. “But there is no case for Hanaud to take charge of;” and Betty Harlowe drew him a little aside.
Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary of the incidents of the morning, Jim went out of the room into the hall in search of Hanaud. He saw him at once; but to his surprise Hanaud came forward from the back of the hall as if he had entered the house from the garden.
“I sought you in the dining-room,” he said, pointing to the door of that room which certainly was at the back of the house behind the library, with its entrance behind the staircase. “We will join the others.”
Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex.
“And this gentleman?” asked Hanaud, bowing slightly to Thevenet.
“My secretary, Maurice Thevenet,” said the Commissary, and in a loud undertone, “a charming youth, of an intelligence which is surprising. He will go far.”
Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. The young recruit gazed at the great man with kindling eyes.
“This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, by which, if I do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence at all,” he said with a formal modesty which quite went to the heart of Monsieur Bex.
“That is very correct,” said he.
Hanaud for his part was never averse to flattery. He cocked an eye at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary warmly by the hand.
“Then don’t hesitate to ask me questions, my young friend,” he answered. “I am Hanaud now, yes. But I was once young Maurice Thevenet without, alas! his good looks.”
Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming diffidence.
“That is very kind,” said Monsieur Bex.
“This looks like growing into a friendly little family party,” Jim Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a “Hum” and a “Ha” from the Commissary.
He moved to the centre of the room.
“We, Girardot, Commissaire of Police, will now remove the seals,” he said pompously.
He led the way from the Library across the hall and along the corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe’s bedroom. He broke the seals and removed the bands. Then he took a key from the hand of his secretary and opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out his arms and barred the way.
“Just for a moment, please!” he ordered and over his shoulder Jim Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which made him shiver.
This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase had made him for a moment eager that Hanaud should press on, that development should follow upon development until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. Since the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower of the Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled him and he waited for developments in fear. This bedroom mistily lit by a few stray threads of daylight which pierced through the chinks of the shutters, cold and silent and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms, whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in the shadows. Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed to the windows opposite, opened them and flung back the shutters. The clear bright light flooded every corner in an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher relief. The room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered spread; everywhere there was order; it was as empty of suggestion as a vacant bedroom in an hotel.
Hanaud looked about him.
“Yes,” he said. “This room stood open for a week after Madame’s funeral. It would have been a miracle if we discovered anything which could help us.”
He went to the bed, which stood with its head against the wall midway between the door and the windows. A small flat stand
