The House of the Arrow

overtook her⁠—could not but overtake her. And in that moment of weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, she picked it up again at once. Yes, but where the handkerchief had fallen her foot now rested, and when the story was all ended, and we got up from our chairs, she spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was anxious to discover what it was that she had brought out from the house in her handkerchief, and had dropped with her handkerchief and had driven with all the weight of her body into the turf so that no one might see it. In fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She fetched my gloves herself, much to my shame that I, Hanaud, should be waited on by so exquisite a young lady. However, I found it afterwards when you and Girardot and the others were all waiting for me in the library. It was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much Ann Upcott was going to reveal. The arrow-poison had been hidden away in the Hôtel de Brebizart. But she had something else at hand⁠—more rapid⁠—death like a thunderbolt. So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, Monsieur, it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close to her mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. What I do wonder is that she did not topple straight off her chair in a dead faint before us all. But no! She sat ready to swallow that tablet at once if there were need, before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to you, people who are innocent do not do that.”

Jim had no argument wherewith to answer.

“Yes,” he was forced to admit. “She could have got the tablets no doubt from Jean Cladel.”

“Very well, then,” Hanaud resumed. “We have separated for luncheon and in the afternoon the seals are to be removed. Before that takes place, certain things must be done. The clock must be moved from the mantelshelf in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some letters too must be burnt.”

“Yes. Why?” Frobisher asked eagerly.

Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.

“The letters were burned. It is difficult to say. For my part I think those old letters between Simon Harlowe and Madame Raviart alluded too often to the secret passage. But here I am guessing. What I learnt for certain during that luncheon hour is that there is a secret passage and that it runs from the treasure-room to the Hôtel de Brebizart. For this time Nicolas Moreau makes no mistake. He follows her to the Hôtel de Brebizart and I from this tower see the smoke rising from the chimney. Look, Monsieur, there it is! But no smoke rises from it today.”

He rose to his feet and turned his back upon Mont Blanc. The trees in the garden, the steep yellow-patterned roof, and the chimneys of the Maison Grenelle stood out above the lesser buildings which surrounded them. Only from one of the chimneys did the smoke rise today, and that one at the extreme end of the building where the kitchens were.

“We are back then in the afternoon. The seals are removed. We are in Madame Harlowe’s bedroom and something I cannot explain occurs.”

“The disappearance of the necklace,” Frobisher exclaimed confidently; and Hanaud grinned joyfully.

“See, I set a trap for you and at once you are caught!” he cried. “The necklace? Oh, no, no! I am prepared for that. The guilt is being transferred to Mademoiselle Ann. Good! But it is not enough to hide the book about the arrow in her room. No, we must provide her also with a motive. Mademoiselle is poor; Mademoiselle inherits nothing. Therefore the necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds vanishes, and you must draw from its vanishing what conclusion you will. No, the little matter I cannot explain is different. Betty Harlowe and our good Girardot pay a visit to Jeanne Baudin’s bedroom to make sure that a cry from Madame’s room could not be heard there.”

“Yes.”

“Our good Girardot comes back.”

“Yes.”

“But he comes alone. That is the little thing I cannot explain. Where is Betty Harlowe? I ask for her before I go into the treasure-room, and lo! very modestly and quietly she has slipped in amongst us again. I am very curious about that, my friend, and I keep my eyes open for an explanation, I assure you.”

“I remember,” said Frobisher. “You stopped with your hand upon the door and asked for Mademoiselle Harlowe. I wondered why you stopped. I attached no importance to her absence.”

Hanaud flourished his hand. He was happy. He was in the artist’s mood. The work was over, the long strain and pain of it. Now let those outside admire!

“Of all that the treasure-room had to tell us, you know, Monsieur Frobisher. But I answer a question in your memorandum. The instant I am in the room, I look for the mouth of that secret passage from the Hôtel de Brebizart. At once I see. There is only one place. The elegant Sedan chair framed so prettily in a recess of the wall. So I am very careful not to pry amongst its cushions for the poison arrow; just as I am very careful not to ask for the envelope with the post mark in which the anonymous letter was sent. If Betty Harlowe thinks that she has overreached the old fox Hanaud⁠—good! Let her think so. So we go upstairs and I find the explanation of that little matter of Betty Harlowe’s absence which has been so troubling me.”

Jim Frobisher stared at him.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t got that. We went into Ann Upcott’s sitting-room. I write my memorandum with the shaft of the poison arrow and