“Mademoiselle, we shall spare you to the limit of our powers. The rooms of those two ladies must of course be sealed. There will be an agent of the police in the house, and others in the grounds. I trust indeed that they will be even welcome to yourself and your good aunt. For myself, I must return now to Bordeaux and it will, I think, since hospitality is at such a time an embarrassment, be more convenient if Monsieur Ricardo returns with me.”
“You are very kind,” Diana replied gratefully, but her voice hardened perceptibly as she added, “and certainly Mr. Ricardo will sleep better at Bordeaux than he managed to sleep at the Château Suvlac.”
“Then I commend you to the care of Monsieur le Commissaire,” Hanaud continued briskly, “and for you, Monsieur Webster, may the success of your vintage be of a good augury.”
He bowed elaborately. To Ricardo he said, “You will have time to pack, whilst Monsieur le Commissaire and I make our little arrangements,” and he passed into the drawing-room. Ricardo bowed in his turn and followed at his heels. Hanaud crossed the room to the door opening into the hall—the door in the back wall—and as he took the handle in his hand, he half turned about. He was looking back on to the terrace, and even he was startled.
“In the name of God!” he whispered. “Take one look, my friend—no more. You have seen nothing like that in your life!”
He himself slipped through the doorway into the hall. Mr. Ricardo imitated Hanaud’s movements and glanced back at the appropriate moment through the glass window to the terrace with every assumption of indifference. But the arts of the actor were not at that moment needed. He looked straight at Robin Webster, who was standing lost to all the world, and motionless as a piece of stone, on the spot where they had left him. But his face was a white flame of wild fury. He was staring at Diana Tasborough with wide, unwinking eyes. Hanaud was right. Mr. Ricardo had never seen anything so terrifying in his life. Even the mask could not compare with it.
XV
The Vicomte Paints His Gate
Mr. Ricardo sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, whilst his servant packed. His head was in a whirl. All that he had seen and heard that day was jumbled together in his mind—the footprints, the mask, the guttered candle, the tumbled bed, the picture of the Grand Canal which meant nothing at all, the Abbé and his casuistries—oh, and Joyce Whipple’s bracelet—yes, and Hanaud’s astonishing declaration that the murderers of Evelyn Devenish dare not repeat their crime—and what Hanaud had seen in Diana Tasborough’s bedroom and he hadn’t—and what Hanaud had deduced from the books at Robin Webster’s bedside, and he hadn’t—and Robin Webster’s stark, appalling fury on the terrace. His head ached as he enumerated his bewilderments, and he felt very grateful to Hanaud for providing him with so convenient an exit from this tragic house. He would have time in Bordeaux to take out his tables and reduce—if it was only his ignorance—to some sort of order. He would also be relieved of the dislike for him which Diana so obviously felt. Accordingly he lit a cigarette and tried to banish the whole tangle from his thoughts.
But he couldn’t do it. For his memory began to stir. He sat up erect and gasped. Elias Thomson looked up from his portmanteaux and saw his employer staring into vacancy with an open mouth.
“Are you indisposed, sir?” he asked, but Mr. Ricardo heard him not. An idea had sprung alive in his brain, a full-size complete idea, an illuminating idea, an Aurora Borealis of an idea. Elias Thomson took deftly from his fingers the cigarette which was on the point of setting fire to the quilt. Mr. Ricardo did not notice the precaution. Elias Thomson returned to his packing.
“It’s this ’ere crime,” he said. “You always was a oner for crimes, wasn’t you, sir, ever since you made ’istory at Aix?”
Even those flattering words did not reach beyond the porches of Mr. Ricardo’s ears. A more insidious flattery was warming his heart. He too had noticed something which no one else had noticed. Even Hanaud had been deaf to it, and blind to it. Yet it was of an importance which nothing could transcend.
There came a knock upon the door. Jules Amadée had brought word that the motorcars were at the door and that Hanaud was waiting in the hall. Mr. Ricardo sprang to his feet.
“You will put the luggage into Mr. Hanaud’s car and travel with it,” he cried to Elias Thomson. He gave a handsome largesse to Jules Amadée and hurried along the passage. At the hall table Hanaud was carelessly turning over a number of cards which had been left at the house that afternoon. Mr. Ricardo dashed up to him.
“I have something to tell you, my friend,” he exclaimed, excitedly, triumphantly.
“But you are wrong, Mr. Ricardo,” said Hanaud pleasantly, as Elias Thomson and Jules Amadée carried the luggage past them and out to the cars.
“But I haven’t told you what I was going to tell you,” Mr. Ricardo cried indignantly.
“That is so. But what you were going to tell me was going to be wrong,” Hanaud returned. “On the other hand I have something to tell you which is really curious and interesting.”
Mr. Ricardo stepped back a pace and choked. There was a mild phrase about throwing cold water upon a man. Mr. Ricardo felt that Arctic seas could not have drenched him more. Was there ever, he asked himself, a vanity so colossal? Nothing was worth noticing unless Hanaud noticed it. Nothing worth telling unless Hanaud told it. Very well! Now Hanaud should be punished for it. It was high time that he learned a lesson in modesty. Mr. Ricardo would keep his discovery to himself. He
