“But you have,” cried Hanaud. “That pen! It was not there in the pen-tray on the day before, when I found the book. There was just one pen—the foolish thing young ladies use, a great goose-quill dyed red—and nothing else. The arrow shaft had been placed there since. When? Why, just now. It is clear, that. Where was that shaft of the poison-arrow before? In one of two places. Either in the treasure-room or in the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has fetched it away during that hour of freedom; she carries it in her dress; she seizes her moment when we are all in Madame Harlowe’s bedroom and—pau, pau!—there it is in the pen-tray of Mademoiselle Ann, to make suspicion still more convincing! Monsieur, I walk away with Monsieur Bex, who has some admirable scheme that I should search the gutters for a matchbox full of pearls. I agree—oh yes, that is the only way. Monsieur Bex has found it! On the other hand I get some useful information about the Maison Grenelle and the Hôtel de Brebizart. I carry that information to a very erudite gentleman in the Palace of the Departmental Archives, and the next morning I know all about the severe Etienne de Grenelle and the joyous Madame de Brebizart. So when you and Betty Harlowe are rehearsing in the Val Terzon, Nicolas Moreau and I are very busy in the Hôtel de Brebizart—with the results which now are clear to you, and one of which I have not told you. For the pearl necklace was in the drawer of the writing-table.”
Jim Frobisher took a turn across the terrace. Yes, the story was clear to him now—a story of dark passions and vanity, and greed of power with cruelties for its methods. Was there no spark of hope and cheer in all this desolation? He turned abruptly upon Hanaud. He wished to know the last hidden detail.
“You said that you had made the inexcusable mistake. What was it?”
“I bade you read my estimate of Ann Upcott on the façade of the Church of Notre Dame.”
“And I did,” cried Jim Frobisher. He was still looking towards the Maison Grenelle, and his arm swept to the left of the house. His fingers pointed at the Renaissance church with its cupolas and its loggia, to which Betty Harlowe had driven him.
“There it is and under its porch is that terrible relief of the Last Judgment.”
“Yes,” said Hanaud quietly. “But that is the Church of St. Michel, Monsieur.”
He turned Frobisher about. Between him and Mont Blanc, close at his feet, rose the slender apse of a Gothic church, delicate in its structure like a jewel.
“That is the Church of Notre Dame. Let us go down and look at the façade.”
Hanaud led Frobisher to the wonderful church and pointed to the frieze. There Frobisher saw such images of devils half beast, half human, such grinning hog-men, such tortured creatures with heads twisted round so that they looked backwards, such old and drunken and vicious horrors as imagination could hardly conceive; and amongst them one girl praying, her sweet face tormented, her hands tightly clasped, an image of terror and faith, a prisoner amongst all these monsters imploring the passersby for their pity and their help.
“That, Monsieur Frobisher, is what I sent you out to see,” said Hanaud gravely. “But you did not see it.”
His face changed as he spoke. It shone with kindness. He lifted his hat.
Jim Frobisher, with his eyes fixed in wonder upon that frieze, heard Ann Upcott’s voice behind him.
“And how do you interpret that strange work, Monsieur Hanaud?” She stopped beside the two men.
“That, Mademoiselle, I shall leave Monsieur Frobisher to explain to you.”
Both Ann Upcott and Jim Frobisher turned hurriedly towards Hanaud. But already he was gone.
Colophon
The House of the Arrow
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A. E. W. Mason.
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