“There is no need to ring,” he said. “What have you there?”
The girl stepped into the hall and looked at Ann.
“It is Mademoiselle’s dress for the Ball tomorrow night. Mademoiselle was to call for a final fitting but did not come. But Madame Grolin thinks that it will be all right.” She laid the box upon a chest at the side of the hall and went out again.
“I had forgotten all about it,” said Ann. “It was ordered just before Madame died and tried on once.”
Hanaud nodded.
“For Madame Le Vay’s masked ball, no doubt,” he said. “I noticed the invitation card on the chimneypiece of Mademoiselle’s sitting-room. And in what character did Mademoiselle propose to go?”
Ann startled them all. She flung up her head, whilst the blood rushed into her cheeks and her eyes shone.
“Not Madame de Brinvilliers, Monsieur, at all events,” she cried.
Even Hanaud was brought up with a start.
“I did not suggest it,” he replied coldly. “But let me see!” and in a moment whilst his face was flushed with anger his hands were busily untying the tapes of the box.
Betty stepped forward.
“We talked over that little dress, together, Monsieur, more than a month ago. It is meant to represent a water-lily.”
“What could be more charming?” Hanaud asked, but his fingers did not pause in their work.
“Could suspicion betray itself more brutally?” Jim Frobisher wondered. What could he expect to find in that box? Did he imagine that this Madame Grolin, the milliner, was an accomplice of Waberski’s too? The episode was ludicrous with a touch of the horrible. Hanaud lifted off the lid and turned back the tissue-paper. Underneath was seen a short crêpe de Chine frock of a tender vivid green with a girdle of gold and a great gold rosette at the side. The skirt was stiffened to stand out at the hips, and it was bordered with a row of white satin rosettes with golden hearts. To complete the dress there were a pair of white silk stockings with fine gold clocks and white satin shoes with single straps across the insteps and little tassels of brilliants where the straps buttoned, and four gold stripes at the back round the heels.
Hanaud felt under the frock and around the sides, replaced the lid, and stood up again. He never looked at Ann Upcott. He went straight across to Betty Harlowe.
“I regret infinitely, Mademoiselle, that I have put you to so much trouble and occupied so many hours of your day,” he said with a good deal of feeling. He made her a courteous bow, took up his hat and stick from the table on which he had laid it, and made straight for the hall door. His business in the Maison Grenelle was to all appearances finished.
But Monsieur Bex was not content. He had been nursing his suggestion for nearly half an hour. Like a poem it demanded utterance.
“Monsieur Hanaud!” he called; “Monsieur Hanaud! I have to tell you about a box of matches.”
“Aha!” Hanaud answered, stopping alertly. “A box of matches! I will walk with you towards your office, and you shall tell me as you go.”
Monsieur Bex secured his hat and his stick in a great hurry. But he had time to throw a glance of pride towards his English colleague. “Your suggestion about the treasure room was of no value, my friend. Let us see what I can do!” The pride and the airy wave of the hand spoke the unspoken words. Monsieur Bex was at Hanaud’s side in a moment, and talked volubly as they passed out of the gates into the street of Charles-Robert.
Betty turned to Jim Frobisher.
“Tomorrow, now that I am once allowed to use my motorcar, I shall take you for a drive and show you something of our neighbourhood. This afternoon—you will understand, I know—I belong to Ann.”
She took Ann Upcott by the arm and the two girls went out into the garden. Jim was left alone in the hall—as at that moment he wanted to be. It was very still here now and very silent. The piping of birds, the drone of bees outside the open doors were rather an accompaniment than an interruption of the silence. Jim placed himself where Hanaud had stood at that moment when he had laughed so strangely—halfway between the foot of the stairs where Monsieur Bex and he himself had been standing and the open porch. But Jim could detect nothing whatever to provoke any laughter, any excitement. “That I should have lived all these years and never noticed it before,” he had exclaimed. Notice what? There was nothing to notice. A table, a chair or two, a barometer hanging upon the wall on one side and a mirror hanging upon the wall on the other—No, there was nothing. Of course, Jim reflected, there was a strain of the mountebank in Hanaud. The whole of that little scene might have been invented by him maliciously, just to annoy and worry and cause discomfort to Monsieur Bex and himself. Hanaud was very capable of a trick like that! A strain of the mountebank indeed! He had a great deal of the mountebank. More than half of him was probably mountebank. Possibly quite two-thirds!
“Oh, damn the fellow! What in the world did he notice?” cried Jim. “What did he notice from the top of the Tower? What did he notice in this hall? Why must he be always noticing something?” and he jammed his hat on in a rage and stalked out of the house.
XVII
At Jean Cladel’s
At nine o’clock that night Jim Frobisher walked past the cashier’s desk and into the hall of the Grande Taverne. High above his head the cinematograph machine whirred and clicked and a blade of
