“You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman whose romance and tragedy were to be exploited blurting out her fury in front of Francine Rollard. It wasn’t Waberski who was to be stripped to the skin—no, but the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver slippers. You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison to destroy herself when she can save everything—fortune, liberty, position—by murder? Only she must be quick. Madame’s voice is rising in gusts of violence. Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne Baudin, someone, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a moment the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is flung back upon her bed. Her mouth is covered and held by Francine Rollard. The needle does its work. ‘That will do now,’ whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the door of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, unable to identify the voice which whispered, just as you and I were unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice which whispered to us from the window of Jean Cladel’s house, but taking deep into her memory the terrible words. And neither of the murderesses knew it.
“They go calmly about their search for the letters. They cannot find them, because Madame had pushed them into the coffer of old bills and papers. They rearrange the bed, they compose their victim in it as if she were asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the arrow-poison and the needle to put in some safe place, and where else is safe? In the end when every care has been taken that not a scrap of incriminating evidence is left to shout ‘Murder’ the next morning, Betty creeps up the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and Ann Upcott waking, stretches up her hands and touches her face.
“That, Monsieur,” and Hanaud rose to his feet, “is what you would call the case for the Crown. It is the case which you and Monsieur Bex have to meet.”
Jim Frobisher made up his mind to say the things which he had almost said at the beginning of this interview.
“I shall tell Monsieur Bex exactly what you have told me. I shall give him every assistance that I personally or my firm can give. But I have no longer any formal connection with the defence.”
Hanaud looked at Frobisher in perplexity.
“I don’t understand, Monsieur. This is not the moment to renounce a client.”
“Nor do I,” rejoined Frobisher. “It is the other way about. Monsieur Bex put it to me very—how shall I say?”
Hanaud supplied the missing word with a twitch of his lips.
“Very correctly.”
“He told me that Mademoiselle did not wish to see me again.”
Hanaud walked over to the window. The humiliation evident in Frobisher’s voice and face moved him. He said very gently, “I can understand that, can’t you? She has fought for a great stake all this last week, her liberty, her fortune, her good name—and you. Oh, yes,” he continued, as Jim stirred at the table. “Let us be frank! And you, Monsieur! You were a little different from her friends. From the earliest moment she set her passions upon you. Do you remember the first morning I came to the Maison Grenelle? You promised Ann Upcott to put up there though you had just refused the same invitation from Betty Harlowe. Such a fury of jealousy blazed in her eyes, that I had to drop my stick with a clatter in the hall lest she should recognise that I could not but have discovered her secret. Well, having fought for this stake and lost, she would not wish to see you. You had seen her, too, in her handcuffs and tied by the legs like a sheep. I understand her very well.”
Jim Frobisher remembered that from the moment Hanaud burst into the room at the Hôtel de Brebizart, Betty had never once even looked at him. He got up from his chair and took up his hat and stick.
“I must go back to my partner in London with this story as soon as I have told it to Monsieur Bex,” he said. “I should like it complete. When did you first suspect Betty Harlowe?”
Hanaud nodded.
“That, too, I shall tell you. Oh, don’t thank me! I am not so sure that I should be so ready with all these confidences, if I was not certain what the verdict in the Assize Court must be. I shall gather up for you the threads which are still loose, but not here.”
He looked at his watch.
“See, it is past noon! We shall once more have Philippe Le Bon’s Terrace Tower to ourselves. It may be, too, that we shall see Mont Blanc across all the leagues of France. Come! Let us take your memorandum and go there.”
XXVI
The Façade of Notre Dame
For a second time they were fortunate. It was a day without mist or clouds, and the towering silver ridge hung in the blue sky distinct and magical. Hanaud lit one of his black cigarettes and reluctantly turned away from it.
“There were two great mistakes made,” he said. “One at the very beginning by Betty Harlowe. One at the very end by me, and of the two mine was the least excusable. Let us begin, therefore, at the beginning. Madame Harlowe has died a natural death. She is buried; Betty Harlowe inherits the Harlowe fortune. Boris Waberski asks her for money and she snaps her the fingers. Why should she not? Ah, but she must have been very sorry a week
