“I shall not lose heart,” Webster asserted. But his face was convulsed with a spasm of pain and grief. “But, oh, be quick! Be quick!” he cried in a low voice. “We are all near to breaking point in this house.” He recovered himself in a moment, and coloured as a man will when he is caught in a display of emotion.
“I am afraid too that your wounded hand is giving you a great deal of pain,” said Hanaud gravely.
“It throbs, of course, as such wounds will. But it is only for a day or two. If that were the sum of our troubles here, we should not think much of them,” Robin Webster replied with a shrug of the shoulders and turned to another topic. “You will perhaps speak to Monsieur le Commissaire Herbesthal, so that we may take out the car from the garage.”
Hanaud stepped back in astonishment.
“But certainly I will, although there is no need. Monsieur Herbesthal will not interfere with you. You go of course where you will, and Mademoiselle Tasborough, too.”
He hurried into the house and to the room in the wing where the Commissaire sat making his report. He was back again upon the terrace with an agility which quite belied his lamentations over his age, and found Mr. Ricardo deep in thought.
“I have been reflecting,” he said. “I am obviously unwelcome to Miss Tasborough. It is right that I have my bags packed and return to Bordeaux.”
But Hanaud would not hear a word of any such conduct.
“Listen! This is not a moment for the dignities! No—I detain you, I, Hanaud. I will make myself clear upon that point to Mademoiselle Tasborough. Let the inestimable Thomson put one of your paper collars in your bag, and I arrest you very severely. You shall pack your sensibilities into the bag, but nothing more. That is understood. One paper collar—one arrest. For you are of use to me—do you appreciate that?” He used a tone of wonder which was quite natural and sincere. Yes, he was astonished that Mr. Ricardo could help him. But there it was. He looked his companion over and saw nothing which could explain the remarkable fact.
“Yes,” he repeated, “Hanaud is actually helped by this Mr. Ricardo.”
Mr. Ricardo smiled modestly. He was immensely relieved that he was not to be allowed to retire from this tragic embroglio where every hour brought its new thrill, its new mystification. “Once more,” he said to himself with a lifting heart, “I chase criminals to their doom. They are cubbing in the Midlands. Let them cub!”
“Help you is a big word,” he said with a totally false diffidence. “I have had the good fortune to reveal a few strange facts to you—”
“More than that,” said Hanaud, and he himself fell into a troubled muse.
Mr. Ricardo was buoyant.
“More than that?” he exclaimed. “For instance?”
“For instance—yes,” and Hanaud came out of his muse. He slipped his arm through Ricardo’s and bent his eyes closely upon him. “For instance, what made you mistake just now the unhappy Robin Webster for the Juge d’Instruction? They are both more or less of the same build to be sure. The hair of one is growing a little grey; the hair of the other is white, though, again, it would not look so very white in the shadow of the room. Yes, yes. But you sprang at your conjecture very confidently. You clung to it. You would have it so. There in that room was Monsieur Tidon. Now why were you so sure? Can you tell me? Think well!” and he shook Ricardo’s arm that he might think the better.
Mr. Ricardo went over in his mind this and that detail. Yes, undoubtedly he had been very sure. Clothes? No. Monsieur Tidon had worn a black coat, and Robin Webster a—a—a—brown one. Certainly not a black one. Why then had he been so sure?
“No,” he said at last. “I cannot tell you why.”
“Yet nothing more illuminating to me has happened since this morning than that cry of yours,” Hanaud continued. “For without that cry I should not have seen—”
“What?”
Hanaud wrinkled up his nose in a grimace.
“What I did see. I tell you, my friend. In this case you are the germ-carrier. I get the disease and you give it to me without knowing what you are doing.”
Mr. Ricardo drew his arm sharply away.
“That is a most unseemly metaphor,” he said and stopped. For Hanaud was not listening to him. His hand was raised, his head inclined towards the house. The silence was broken by the throb and whine of a motorcar.
“They have gone,” cried Hanaud. “Let us be quick.”
X
Three Rooms
Hanaud swept through the drawing-room into the hall, where Moreau his assistant was sitting. He spoke an order over his shoulder without pausing in his walk.
“Bring the keys, Moreau,” and with Moreau and Ricardo following behind him, he turned to the left and at the end of the passage again to the right, into the wing where Mr. Ricardo slept. It was in the middle of this wing that the Commissaire Herbesthal had installed himself. Hanaud opened the door.
“Monsieur le Commissaire, I propose now to visit the bedrooms of these two young ladies.”
Monsieur le Commissaire rose at once.
“I am at your disposal.”
Evelyn Devenish had occupied a room in the same wing but nearer to the back of the house. Moreau led the way to it and taking a key from his pocket unlocked the door. Hanaud stood in the doorway blocking the entrance.
“There is little, it seems, to help us here,” he said.
Behind him Mr. Ricardo dodged about, seeking in vain for a clear view. But he got the impression
