Mr. Ricardo wondered whether the examining magistrate rattled on in this superfluous way to put them at their ease, or in sheer nervousness because he had to cope with a problem of such unwonted gravity. He sat down immediately afterwards in the armchair behind the table, looked from one to the other of his guests and then leaned briskly forward, his hands, in bright yellow gloves of chamois leather, clasped lightly in front of him.
“I disarm myself,” he said with a smile, “by a confession. I am of Paris, you understand, where I have important friends, and in time, no doubt, I shall be able to help those who now help me”—this with a frank glance towards Hanaud. “I want that time to come soon. In adopting the profession of a judge, I knew of course very well that I must pass my probation in the provinces. But this little dusty corner is not my world at all, and here is my chance to escape from it—with your help. This affair will ring through France—the fame of the Château Suvlac, the social position of the victim, the mysterious and sinister nature of the crime—all make that certain as daylight. Well then! I must have a criminal, and such evidence that conviction is certain.” He pressed his hands tightly together, and then with a quick, short gasp of breath hurried on: “Yes, a good conviction! Help me to that, and I pass on to Bordeaux, which is after all a city where one eats well. And from Bordeaux to Paris—a mere step! I see myself there already,” he added gaily, laughing himself at the intensity of his desire. “For Paris is”—and he turned searchingly for a phrase towards Mr. Ricardo—“you have an idiom in your language—”
“Certainly he has,” cried Hanaud, leaping into the conversation long before Mr. Ricardo was ready to supply the phrase. Idioms indeed! Who but Hanaud should supply them?
“Paris!” he exclaimed with a courteous wave of his hand. “It is your spirituous home.”
“Exactly,” replied the magistrate, and the two men bowed at one another with great satisfaction. “Assuredly the English have phrases,” said Monsieur Tidon, and he bowed again politely to Mr. Ricardo.
“So the ground is clear. We work, the three of us, for a good conviction at the Assizes. That is well! Now you, Mr. Ricardo, have seen the body of our young victim?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“And you identify it?”
“Yes. It is that of a Mrs. Evelyn Devenish, a visitor at the Château Suvlac.”
“Good! That is something. Now what do you know of her?”
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Ricardo. “I met her for the first time last night. I never heard her name before. I remarked, however, that though she was introduced to me as ‘Mrs.,’ she wore no wedding-ring.”
Tidon the magistrate looked at his witness cunningly.
“Our first little trace of a clue. So—you assume that this Evelyn Devenish was a woman of an irregular life.”
Mr. Ricardo started back in horror. And then reflection came. After all, could he honestly say that he had not been assuming that? He was a little troubled when he realised what irresponsible conjectures he was being invited to attest.
“I have not the slightest authority to assume anything of the kind,” he replied cautiously. “A woman may leave a ring upon a washstand.”
“A wedding-ring?”
“She may have discarded it long ago and divorced her husband.”
“And yet kept his name?”
“Devenish may be her maiden name. I don’t know. But no doubt Miss Tasborough does.”
Mr. Ricardo was growing restive under these questions, and the shortness of his speech showed it.
“I had a wish to spare that young lady as much annoyance as I could,” the magistrate observed, and Mr. Ricardo coloured at the rebuke. “You are a friend of hers, of course. You shall tell me everything.”
Mr. Ricardo walked warily in his answer to this demand. “Everything” meant a number of little details which were, to use his favourite word, odd. The anxieties, for instance, which Diana’s letters had awakened in Joyce Whipple. An unconscious telepathy there might no doubt have been between the mind of the writer and the reader, the words of the letters acting as a sort of telegraph line. But it would not be fair to presume on such elusive grounds that Diana when she wrote was disturbed by some pressing menace of which she was careful not to let one hint escape. No; he would omit the letters altogether from his reply. Next, Diana had certainly spent the summer at Biarritz instead of in London. Well, that was not worth mentioning. Thirdly, she had sent her lover to the right-about. But any girl may do that. The hero of a week ago is the crashing bore of today. It can’t be helped. It may be gossip for a newspaper but no evidence of crime. Fourthly, Diana had a picture on the wall above her bed which Mr. Ricardo was most anxious to see. But he hadn’t seen it; and in any case it was Hanaud’s business, not his. Fifthly and above all, he, Mr. Ricardo, was Diana’s guest, and not ten thousand Arthur Tidons in a hurry to get to Paris should lure him to disparage her. He spoke accordingly in warm terms of her social position, of her many friends, of her love of sport.
“And last night you noticed no change in this young lady?” the magistrate asked quickly.
Mr. Ricardo was a trifle confused.
“Last night?” he repeated slowly, and he shook his head and plunged into a description of her growing horror and amazement this morning as the disappearance of her friends was revealed. “It struck her down in the end. Monsieur Hanaud had to carry her to her room.”
“Yes, sir,” Hanaud said at once in corroboration. “No one could have been more shocked. I broke the bad news too abruptly. Mademoiselle Diana fainted.”
Monsieur Tidon had been making a note now and again
