“Look!”
There were five white tablets in the box.
“We know where the sixth is. Or, rather, we know where it was. For I had it analysed today. Cyanide of potassium, my friend! Crunch one of them between your teeth and—fifteen minutes? Not a bit of it! A fraction of a second! That’s all!”
Frobisher leaned forward and whispered in Hanaud’s ear. “Leave them within her reach!”
His first instinctive thought had been to hinder Betty from destroying herself. Now he prayed that she might, and with so desperate a longing that a deep pity softened Hanaud’s eyes.
“I must not, Monsieur,” he said gently. He turned to Moreau. “There is a cab waiting at the corner of the Maison Grenelle,” and Moreau went in search of it. Hanaud went over to Ann Upcott, who was sitting upon the divan her head bowed, her body shivering. Every now and then she handled and eased one of her tortured wrists.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, standing in front of her, “I owe you an explanation and an apology. I never from the beginning—no, not for one moment—believed that you were guilty of the murder of Madame Harlowe. I was sure that you had never touched the necklace of pink pearls—oh, at once I was sure, long before I found it. I believed every word of the story you told us in the garden. But none of this dared I show you. For only by pretending that I was convinced of your guilt, could I protect you during this last week in the Maison Grenelle.”
“Thank you, Monsieur,” she replied with a wan effort at a smile.
“But, for tonight, I owe you an apology,” he continued. “I make it with shame. That you were to be brought back here to the tender mercies of Mademoiselle Betty, I hadn’t a doubt. And I was here to make sure you should be spared them. But I have never in my life had a more difficult case to deal with, so clear a conviction in my own mind, so little proof to put before a court. I had to have the evidence which I was certain to find in this room tonight. But I ask you to believe me that if I had imagined for a moment the cruelty with which you were to be handled, I should have sacrificed this evidence. I beg you to forgive me.”
Ann Upcott held out her hand.
“Monsieur Hanaud,” she replied simply, “but for you I should not be now alive. I should be lying here in the dark and alone, as it was promised to me, waiting for Espinosa—and his spade.” Her voice broke and she shuddered violently so that the divan shook on which she sat.
“You must forget these miseries,” he said gently. “You have youth, as I told you once before. A little time and—”
The return of Nicolas Moreau interrupted him; and with Moreau came a couple of gendarmes and Girardot the Commissary.
“You have Francine Rollard?” Hanaud asked.
“You can hear her,” Moreau returned dryly.
In the corridor a commotion arose, the scuffling of feet and a woman’s voice screaming abuse. It died away.
“Mademoiselle here will not give you so much trouble,” said Hanaud.
Betty was sitting huddled in her chair, her face averted and sullen, her lips muttering inaudible words. She had not once looked at Jim Frobisher since he had entered the room; nor did she now.
Moreau stooped and untied her ankles and a big gendarme raised her up. But her knees failed beneath her; she could not stand; her strength and her spirit had left her. The gendarme picked her up as if she had been a child; and as he moved to the door, Jim Frobisher planted himself in front of him.
“Stop!” he cried, and his voice was strong and resonant. “Monsieur Hanaud, you have said just now that you believed every word of Mademoiselle Ann’s story.”
“It is true.”
“You believe then that Madame Harlowe was murdered at half-past ten on the night of the 27th of April. And at half-past ten Mademoiselle here was at Monsieur de Pouillac’s ball! You will set her free.”
Hanaud did not argue the point.
“And what of tonight?” he asked. “Stand aside, if you please!”
Jim held his ground for a moment or two, and then drew aside. He stood with his eyes closed, and such a look of misery upon his face as Betty was carried out that Hanaud attempted some clumsy word of condolence:
“This has been a bitter experience for you, Monsieur Frobisher,” he began.
“Would that you had taken me into your confidence at the first!” Jim cried volubly.
“Would you have believed me if I had?” asked Hanaud, and Jim was silent. “As it was, Monsieur Frobisher, I took a grave risk which I know now I had not the right to take and I told you more than you think.”
He turned away towards Moreau.
“Lock the courtyard doors and the door of the house after they have gone and bring the keys here to me.”
Girardot had made a bundle of the solution, the hypodermic syringe, the tablets of cyanide, and the pieces of cord.
“There is something here of importance,” Hanaud observed and, stooping at the writing-table, he picked up a square, flat-topped black case. “You will recognise this,” he remarked to Jim as he handed it to Girardot. It was the case of a Corona typewriting machine; and from its weight, the machine itself was clearly within the case.
“Yes,” Hanaud explained, as the door closed upon the Commissary. “This pretty room is the factory where all those abominable letters were prepared. Here the information was filed away for use; here the letters were typed; from here they were issued.”
“Blackmailing letters!” cried Jim. “Letters demanding money!”
“Some of them,” answered Hanaud.
“But Betty Harlowe had money. All that she needed, and more if she chose to ask for it.”
“All that she needed? No,” answered Hanaud with a shake of the head. “The blackmailer never has enough money. For no one is so blackmailed.”
A
