“The champagne!” said Hanaud. “On the occasion it is right to drink him.”
“And this champagne is wonderful,” said Bryce Carter shamelessly.
“A most nauseating beverage,” said Mr. Ricardo, but he only said it to himself. He had shown heroism enough in drinking the decoction.
“Now,” said Hanaud. “We have heard the story. All that remains is for me to—as you would say”—and he inclined his head towards Bryce Carter—“to dot the T’s.”
“Quite so,” Bryce Carter agreed, but Mr. Ricardo was not so lenient.
“Cross the T’s, my friend!”
Hanaud threw up his hands.
“You hear? He calls me his friend, yet always he makes a mocking of me. But tonight I forbid. No, no! I am an inspector of the Sûreté, I think the best inspector, and I know my way about the English language. One crosses the C’s, it is the habit of the English, but one dots the T’s. Let it be understood, and I keep my biggest dot for the end.”
He challenged Mr. Ricardo with a glare, but confronted with the monstrosity of a man who said the English crossed the C’s, he was without reply.
“Good! I have silenced him. So! In the first place the gabare should have sailed with the tide at six in the morning. Yet when Miss Joyce runs to take refuge upon it, between two and three of the clock, it is gone. It puts out into the river to anchor there, or to drift farther and farther from its destination. There is no sense in the patron’s action, eh? Well, let us hear what he says! He says that shortly after two he was waked by hearing someone step lightly from the dock on to his deck. He pushed his head and shoulders out of his cubby, and at once Robin Webster stooped down to him and said in a whisper:
“ ‘Don’t make any noise but come ashore!’
“Webster led him into the grove of trees and showed him the basket, already corded. He thinks that a little way off two other men were standing, but he cannot be sure. He was not told what was in the basket. But he was offered the gabare with its sails and ropes and furniture, just as it lay in the harbour, if he put out now at once and sank that heavy basket with a weight attached to it in the middle of the Gironde. The patron says that he is a poor man, and that to own that fine gabare, the Belle Simone, was the dream of his life. He roused his two sons, carried on board the basket, which was, after all, not suspiciously heavy, pushed out into the river, and sank it weighted as he had been directed. But he had been told to be very quick, and no doubt, therefore, had tied the weight on carelessly. But that was now seen to be the will of the good God who brings the crimes to the light of day. And for himself he is very glad, for he is naturally of a religious nature, etcetera, etcetera. That is the patron’s story, and it fits in with the facts as we know them. The Belle Simone cannot have left its little harbour more than a few minutes before Miss Joyce came to a sudden stop at the foot of the avenue and left the clear imprints of her shoes in the soft grass.” Hanaud turned towards Joyce with a serious look upon his face. “You had a moment of despair then, yes, mademoiselle, but I am inclined to congratulate you upon missing the gabare, in spite of the patron’s very religious nature. After all, a fine gabare with all its equipment—eh?” and he shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Ricardo, however, was not disposed to accept the patron’s story. It was a defect perhaps pardonable in a character otherwise so white, that whenever that gentleman got a setback from Hanaud, he found it necessary afterwards to doubt his statements, his efficiency, the suitability of his age for his work, his sense of humour and his presentation of his case. So now:
“I have a little difficulty in believing that the basket could have been conveyed to the gabare within so short a time,” he said, stabbing the table delicately with the tips of his fingers and smiling a trifle offensively.
“You would have, my friend,” Hanaud agreed. “Yet, after all, though you merely wish to trip me up, you put a question. Let us consider the time. In the first place, Miss Joyce runs down the hill. It is a kilometre. Then she undresses Mademoiselle Diana and puts her to bed. Ah, ah! Not so easy! Not to be done while you say: ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bedpost!’ No!”
“Only a lunatic would make such a remark,” said Mr. Ricardo acidly.
“After the undressing, Miss Joyce goes up to her room and, already overtired, does the breakdown. Good! Then she feels stifled, and only then does she think of the gabare. Now look at the other side! Tidon, with his ambitions and his wits about him, and as mademoiselle then noted, with his habit of command, Robin Webster, his black beast out of his way—both will hurry, hurry, for the morning—somewhere beyond Bordeaux—comes hurry, hurry too. They have a little preparation to make. They make it. They put the basket on de Mirandol’s car. They come down past the offices and out on to the Bordeaux road. Half a kilometre from the main entrance to Mirandol, a gate leads into the plantation of Suvlac. They drive the car into the plantation. They are now close to the avenue of trees. That basket
