“This room was sealed up on Sunday morning and today is Thursday afternoon,” said Jim Frobisher with heavy sarcasm. “Ashes do not as a rule keep hot more than three days, Monsieur Hanaud.”
Maurice Thevenet looked at Frobisher with indignation. He was daring to make fun of Hanaud! He treated the Sûrété with no more respect than one might treat—well, say Scotland Yard.
Even Monsieur Bex had an air of disapproval. For a partner of the firm of Frobisher & Haslitt this gentleman was certainly not very correct. Hanaud on the contrary was milk and water.
“I have observed it,” he replied mildly, and he sat back upon his heels with the shovel still poised in his hands.
“Mademoiselle!” he called; and Betty moved forward and leaned against the mantelshelf at his side. “Who burnt these papers so very carefully?” he asked.
“I did,” Betty replied.
“And when?”
“On Saturday night, a few, and the rest on Sunday morning, before Monsieur le Commissaire arrived.”
“And what were they, Mademoiselle?”
“Letters, Monsieur.”
Hanaud looked up into her face quickly.
“Oho!” he said softly. “Letters! Yes! And what kind of letters, if you please?”
Jim Frobisher was for throwing up his hands in despair. What in the world had happened to Hanaud? One moment he forgot altogether the business upon which he was engaged in his enjoyment of Simon Harlowe’s collection. The next he was off on his wild-goose chase after anonymous letters. Jim had not a doubt that he was thinking of them now. One had only to say “letters,” and he was sidetracked at once, apparently ready to accuse anyone of their authorship.
“They were quite private letters,” Betty replied, whilst the colour slowly stained her cheeks. “They will not help you.”
“So I see,” Hanaud returned, with just a touch of a snarl in his voice as he shook the shovel and flung the ashes back into the grate. “But I am asking you, Mademoiselle, what kind of letters these were.”
Betty did not answer. She looked sullenly down at the floor, and then from the floor to the windows; and Jim saw with a stab of pain that her eyes were glistening with tears.
“I think, Monsieur Hanaud, that we have come to a point when Mademoiselle and I should consult together,” he interposed.
“Mademoiselle would certainly be within her rights,” said Monsieur Bex.
But Mademoiselle waived her rights with a little petulant movement of her shoulders.
“Very well.”
She showed her face now to them all, with the tears abrim in her big eyes, and gave Jim a little nod of thanks and recognition.
“You shall be answered, Monsieur Hanaud,” she said with a catch in her voice. “It seems that nothing, however sacred, but must be dragged out into the light. But I say again those letters will not help you.”
She looked across the group to her notary.
“Monsieur Bex,” she said, and he moved forward to the other side of Hanaud.
“In Madame’s bedroom between her bed and the door of the bathroom there stood a small chest in which she kept a good many unimportant papers, such as old receipted bills, which it was not yet wise to destroy. This chest I took to my office after Madame’s death, of course with Mademoiselle’s consent, meaning to go through the papers at my leisure and recommend that all which were not important should be destroyed. My time, however, was occupied, as I have already explained to you, and it was not until the Friday of the sixth of May that I opened the chest at all. On the very top I saw, to my surprise, a bundle of letters in which the writing had already faded, tied together with a ribbon. One glance was enough to assure me that they were very private and sacred things with which Mademoiselle’s notary had nothing whatever to do. Accordingly, on the Saturday morning, I brought them back myself to Mademoiselle Betty.”
With a bow Monsieur Bex retired and Betty continued the story.
“I put the letters aside so that I might read them quietly after dinner. As it happened I could not in any case have given them attention before. For on that morning Monsieur Boris formulated his charge against me, and in the afternoon I was summoned to the Office of the Examining Magistrate. As you can understand, I was—I don’t say frightened—but distressed by this accusation; and it was not until quite late in the evening, and then rather to distract my thoughts than for any other reason, that I looked at the letters. But as soon as I did look at them I understood that they must be destroyed. There were reasons, which”—and her voice faltered, and with an effort again grew steady—“which I feel it rather a sacrilege to explain. They were letters which passed between my uncle Simon and Mrs. Harlowe during the time when she was very unhappily married to Monsieur Raviart and living apart from him—sometimes long letters, sometimes little scraps of notes scribbled off—without reserve—during a moment of freedom. They were the letters of,” and again her voice broke and died away into a whisper, so that none could misunderstand her meaning—“of lovers—lovers speaking very intimate things, and glorying in their love. Oh, there was no doubt that they ought to be destroyed! But I made up my mind that I ought to read them, every one, first of all lest there should be something in them which I ought to know. I read a good many that night and burnt them. But it grew late—I left the rest until the Sunday morning. I finished them on the Sunday morning, and what I had left over I burnt then. It was soon after I had finished burning them that Monsieur le Commissaire came to affix his seals. The ashes which you see there, Monsieur Hanaud, are the ashes of the letters which I burnt upon the Sunday morning.”
Betty spoke with a very pretty and simple
