Ann Upcott gave in, and a second letter was written to Jeanne Leclerc. This second letter asked Jeanne to call at the Maison Grenelle at an early hour in the morning; and Jeanne Leclerc came and was closeted with Betty for an hour between nine and ten. Thus all the arrangements were made.
It was at this point that Frobisher interrupted Hanaud’s explanations.
“No,” he said. “There remain Espinosa and the young brother to be accounted for.”
“Mademoiselle has just told us that she heard a slight noise in the treasure-room and found Betty Harlowe seated in the Sedan chair,” Hanaud replied. “Betty Harlowe had just returned from the Hôtel de Brebizart, whither Espinosa went that night after it had grown dark and about the time when dinner was over in the Maison Grenelle. … From the Hôtel de Brebizart Espinosa went to the Rue Gambetta and waited for Jean Cladel. It was a busy night, that one, my friends. That old wolf, the Law, was sniffing at the bottom of the door. They could hear him. They had no time to waste!”
The next night came. Dinner was very late, Jim remembered. It was because Betty was helping Ann to dress, Francine having been given her holiday. Jim and Betty dined alone, and whilst they dined Ann Upcott stole downstairs, a cloak of white ermine hiding her pretty dress. She held the front door a little open, and the moment Jeanne Leclerc’s car stopped before the gates, she flashed across the courtyard. Jeanne had the door of her car open. It had hardly stopped before it went on again. Jim, as the story was told, remembered vividly Betty’s preoccupation whilst dinner went on, and the immensity of her relief when the hall door so gently closed and the car moved forward out of the street of Charles-Robert. Ann Upcott had gone for good from the Maison Grenelle. She would not interfere with Betty Harlowe any more.
Jeanne Leclerc and Ann Upcott reached Madame Le Vay’s house a few minutes after ten. Michel Le Vay came forward to meet them.
“I am so glad that you came, Mademoiselle,” he said to Ann, “but you are late. Madame my mother has left her place at the door of the ballroom, but we shall find her later.”
He took them to the cloakroom, and coming away they were joined by Espinosa.
“You are going to dance now?” Michel Le Vay asked. “No, not yet! Then Señor Espinosa will take you to the buffet while I look after others of our guests.”
He hurried away towards the ballroom, where a clatter of high voices competed with the music of the band. Espinosa conducted the two ladies to the buffet. There was hardly anybody in the room.
“We are still too early,” said Jeanne Leclerc in a low voice. “We shall take some coffee.”
But Ann would not. Her eyes were on the door, her feet danced, her hands could not keep still. Was the letter a trick? Would she, indeed, within the next few minutes learn the truth? At one moment her heart sank into her shoes, at another it soared.
“Mademoiselle, you neglect your coffee,” said Espinosa urgently. “And it is good.”
“No doubt,” Ann replied. She turned to Jeanne Leclerc. “You will send me home, won’t you? I shall not wait—afterwards.”
“But of course,” Jeanne Leclerc agreed. “All that is arranged. The chauffeur has his orders. You will take your coffee, dear?”
Again Ann would not.
“I want nothing,” she declared. “It is time that I went.” She caught a swift and curious interchange of glances between Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa, but she was in no mood to seek an interpretation. There could be no doubt that the coffee set before her had had some drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it from the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug which would have half stupefied her and made her easy to manage. But she was not to be persuaded, and she rose to her feet.
“I shall get my cloak,” she said, and she fetched it, leaving her two companions together. She did not return to the buffet.
On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor stretched out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding it, stood Michel Le Vay. He made a sign to her, and when she joined him:
“Turn down to the right into the wing,” he said in a low voice. “The small library is in front of you.”
Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the house which was quite deserted and silent. At the end of it a shut door confronted her. She opened it softly. It was all dark within. But enough light entered from the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some dark, heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, to come to the tryst. She closed the door behind her and moved slowly and cautiously forwards with her hands outstretched, until she felt the curtains yield. She passed in between them into the recess of a great bow window opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange, creaking sound, brought her heart into her mouth.
Someone was already in the room, then. Somebody had been quietly watching as she came in from the lighted corridor. The sound grew louder. Ann peered between the curtains, holding them apart with shaking hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near to the door, high up on a tall bookcase, something was clinging—something was climbing down. Whoever it was, had been hiding behind the ornamental top of the heavy mahogany bookcase; was now using the shelves like the rungs of a ladder.
Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her throat. She ran for the door. But she was too late. A black
