The House of the Arrow

it was broad and more of a gallery than a room. But it had been arranged for habitation rather than for occasional visits. For it was furnished with a luxurious comfort and not overcrowded. In the fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures by Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of Chinese Chippendale by the window every appointment, inkstand, pen-tray, candlestick, sand-caster and all were of the pink Battersea enamel and without a flaw. But they were there for use, not for exhibition. Moreover a prominent big fireplace in the middle of the wall on the side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it almost the appearance of two rooms in communication. The one feature of the room, indeed, which at a first glimpse betrayed the collector, was the Sedan chair set in a recess of the wall by the fireplace and opposite to the door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe’s bedroom. Its body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately carved mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions representing fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses daintily painted in the middle of them. It had glass windows at the sides to show off the occupant, and it was lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold to match the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold filigree work, and it had a door in front of which the upper part was glass. Altogether it was as pretty a gleaming piece of work as the art of carriage-building could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected it. Even Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, until Jim began to think that he had quite forgotten the business which had brought him there. However, he brought himself out of his dream with a start.

“A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher,” he said. “What pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts and fine gentlemen in silk stockings! And what splashings of mud for the unhappy devils who had to walk!”

He turned his back to the chair and looked across the room. “That is the clock which marked half-past ten, Mademoiselle, during the moment when you had the light turned up?” he asked of Ann.

“Yes,” she answered quickly. Then she looked at it again. “Yes, that’s it.”

Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change in her intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an inflection of doubt⁠—it was not marked enough for that⁠—but of perplexity. It was clearly, however, fancy upon his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at all. Jim pulled himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. “Take care!” he warned himself. “For once you begin to suspect people, they can say and do nothing which will not provide you with material for suspicion.”

Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was a beautiful small gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, shaped with a waist like a violin; it had a white face, and it stood upon a marquetry Boulle cabinet, a little more than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian mirror. Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with his watch.

“It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle,” he said to Betty, with a smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket.

He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the clock. He faced the fireplace across the narrow neck of the room. It had an Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from the same fawn-coloured wood as the panels, with slender pillars and some beautiful carving upon the board beneath the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should mask it, there were no high ornaments at all upon the shelf itself. One or two small boxes of Battersea enamel and a flat glass case alone decorated it. Hanaud crossed to the mantelshelf and, after a moment’s inspection, lifted, with a low whistle of admiration, the flat glass case.

“You will pardon me, Mademoiselle,” he said to Betty. “But I shall probably never in my life have the luck to see anything so incomparable again. And the mantelshelf is a little high for me to see it properly.”

Without waiting for the girl’s consent he carried it towards the window.

“Do you see this, Monsieur Frobisher?” he called out, and Jim went forward to his side.

The case held a pendant wrought in gold and chalcedony and translucent enamels by Benvenuto Cellini. Jim acknowledged that he had never seen craftsmanship so exquisite and delicate, but he chafed none the less at Hanaud’s diversion from his business.

“One could spend a long day in this room,” the detective exclaimed, “admiring these treasures.”

“No doubt,” Jim replied dryly. “But I had a notion that we were going to spend an afternoon looking for an arrow.”

Hanaud laughed.

“My friend, you recall me to my duty.” He looked at the jewel again and sighed. “Yes, as you say, we are not visitors here to enjoy ourselves.”

He carried the case back again to the mantelshelf and replaced it. Then all at once his manner changed. He was leaning forward with his hands still about the glass case. But he was looking down. The fire-grate was hidden from the room by a low screen of blue lacquer; and Hanaud, from the position in which he stood, could see over the screen into the grate itself.

“What is all this?” he asked.

He lifted the screen from the hearth and put it carefully aside. All now could see what had disturbed him⁠—a heap of white ashes in the grate.

Hanaud went down upon his knees and picking up the shovel from the fender he thrust it between the bars and drew it out again with a little layer of the ashes upon it. They were white and had been pulverised into atoms. There was not