“The honour of the district, and its safety, both are involved,” the Vicomte pleaded.
“I shall do my best,” Hanaud answered gloomily. There was no confidence in his voice. He seemed bogged to the neck in discouragement. “Where did she go to, Madame Devenish, when she slipped out of her window last night? Who shall tell us? All the country was asleep. There was no guard upon every road and path, as there is now. We lock the door, as Mr. Ricardo would say, after the horse has stolen the oats.”
Mr. Ricardo let the error pass, Hanaud was so disheartened. It would have been cruelty to correct him.
“You will pardon me if I continue my work,” said the Vicomte, and he stooped again to his painting, “I should like to finish the gate before nightfall, but I am not very adept, as you can see for yourselves.” He splashed away with his brush, talking while he worked. “All my men are today amongst the vines. I left this gate until the summer suns had lost their strength. Today I waked up with the thought, ‘Now or never.’ ”
“Monsieur le Vicomte, you set a fine example,” Hanaud said politely.
The Vicomte was holding the gate open by the latch with his left hand encased in a thick gardener’s glove, whilst he painted with his right. Hanaud slipped past him on to the road outside. He was looking straight now across the hollow to the rose-pink Château of Suvlac. The road on which he stood slanted down the hill to his left and at the foot of it joined the broader road which passed the farm buildings and the garage of Suvlac, and rose to the great arch in front of the house. Hanaud stood surveying the scene, which was very peaceful and pretty in the sunset; and then was guilty of a piece of carelessness which Mr. Ricardo found it quite impossible to excuse.
“It is a convenient road,” Hanaud began, making polite conversation and stretching out his arm towards the Château Suvlac. He had released his hold upon the mask beneath his coat. It slipped. The handkerchief in which it was wrapped came into view, and although Mr. Ricardo coughed and hemmed and shuffled his feet and clicked his fingers, before he could attract Hanaud’s attention, it fell to the ground. Worse still, the handkerchief opened. The mask with its red head, its livid countenance and purple lips, lay full in view for all the world to see.
For a moment Hanaud stood aghast. Then he swooped upon the secret thing, covered it up, placed it at his breast and buttoned his coat over it.
“What is the use of that now?” Mr. Ricardo asked himself, troubled and indeed indignant at such laxity. “Indeed, he is locking the stable after the horse has stolen the oats.”
As for the Vicomte Cassandre de Mirandol, he pretended to have noticed nothing. He continued to paint his gate, working lustily.
“I am proud of my work,” he said to Mr. Ricardo, who was standing behind and over him. “For an amateur whose life is in his study, it is not so bad. All this morning I burnt the old and blistered paint off the wood. All this afternoon I paint it fresh.” He laughed as a big blob of the thick oil paint splashed on to his bald head. Another drop or two flew wide on to Mr. Ricardo’s neat grey suit—and with a start Mr. Ricardo understood why. Inexpert no doubt the Vicomte was, but his hands were trembling. The latch rattled under his left hand, the paint brush flickered in his right. He could talk steadily—yes, he could control his voice—and he did talk to hide from his visitors that he could not control his hands.
“It is a convenient road,” said Hanaud, recovering from his confusion. “It makes a visit to your friends or a visit from them the easiest affair, and I can see that both of you make use of it.” He pointed to the tracks on the road. More than one car had stopped beside that gate and turned.
He turned back into the garden and de Mirandol plunged his paint brush into the pot, stood up and, with a grimace of pain, stretched his back.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he said, laughing at his discomfort. “This was, after all, work for younger men. I shall be in bed with the lumbago for a week.”
“A hot bath at once, Monsieur le Vicomte, and you will write a learned paper full of new ideas before bed time,” said Hanaud with a smile. “We shall not delay you.”
The Vicomte made his apologies. He would have liked to have tendered to the famous Hanaud some of the hospitality for which the district was renowned. But they saw his plight. He stripped off the thick leather glove from his left hand and extended it with a laugh.
“This is all of me which is not coated with paint. As for the other”—and he looked ruefully at his right hand, stained and besplattered to the wrist—“will all the essences of all the chemists in Bordeaux ever get it clean?”
They left him standing there, and returning by the way they had come got again into Ricardo’s car. Hanaud waved a hand to the sergeant of police.
“To Bordeaux,” Mr. Ricardo commanded, speaking down the tube; and the car slid smoothly away along the white and dusty road. It passed a château or two famous for its vineyards, swept through a village aligned upon each side, and then Hanaud spoke:
“A great student? Yes. Very learned? Yes. His papers upon philosophy send the young ladies of Bordeaux into ecstasies of admiration. Yes! But, my friend, he was not studying in his library at two o’clock of this morning. No! For his library is on the ground floor of that summerhouse and to the left of the door. I looked in as we passed. Yes, Hanaud looked through the window and saw so many books mounting to
