“Suspicions may land a man in the most unpleasant position. I invite you to excuse me.”
“And I invite you not to waste my time,” Hanaud suddenly bellowed across the table. “What? Here is a crime committed and we are to be held up by the scruples of a jeweller!”
“A crime?” Pouchette exclaimed, quite taken aback.
“Well? You have read of it in your morning’s paper. You heard me speak the name of the owner of this necklace a minute ago—Madame Devenish.”
“Monsieur must pardon me—I did not connect the name with the crime of Suvlac,” stammered Pouchette the jeweller.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Will you too try to play the fox with me? Let us have no more scrupulosities, my friend. Come, who was this woman?”
No doubt Pouchette might have declined to answer to anyone but a judge; and Hanaud’s blusterings suggested certainly to one listener in that room that he was aware of the doubtful ground on which he stood. But Domenique Pouchette, since now he must be brought into the affair, was shrewd enough to realise that his inconvenience would be the less, the more wholeheartedly he was on the side of the police.
“It was the widow Chicholle who brought the necklace to me.”
“The widow Chicholle,” Hanaud repeated slowly, like a man searching amongst his memories. He shook his head. “She is unknown to me.”
“It is true that she has never, so far as I know, taken her seat on the bench of the accused,” Pouchette continued. “But it does not follow that she has therefore a good name. And I tell you frankly, Monsieur Hanaud, that the name of the widow Chicholle is scabrous. She is of the bad quarters of this town. You will hear of her only very deep down in the underworld.”
“Yet you know of her, Monsieur Pouchette.”
“I shall explain that to you,” Pouchette returned, eagerly stretching out his arms towards Hanaud, so that the sleeves of his coat shrank back, and the cuffs of his shirt shot out. “There is no difficulty. A little moment! Once or twice she has come to me and always very privately and always with something of value to sell. I knew nothing about her. I said after examining her wares: ‘I do not know whether I can dispose of this. Take it away and come back to me in three days’ time.’ From time to time, as no one knows better than you, Monsieur Hanaud, we receive our little lists from the police of jewellery which has been stolen or lost. Always I looked through my list very carefully. Never did I find any description corresponding to the pieces offered to me by the widow Chicholle. Even then I had my scruples. I made it my business to find out who was this widow Chicholle. Yes—I admit it to you—her name stank like an onion. Her house had a dark and evil name. No, she was not reputable. So when after three days she came again I asked her sternly how she had come into possession of these valuable things. She had her explanation. Certain ladies wished from time to time to dispose of part of their jewellery without publicity. She received a little commission on the sale for meeting their wishes. There it was—an explanation feasible enough. These fine ladies have their little affairs. I for my part had my business.”
Monsieur Domenique Pouchette smiled. Nothing could have been more frank and loyal than his demeanour. He was the honest business man keeping within the law, and bearing his share of the enormous burden of the national taxation by assiduously pushing along with his business.
“So I put my delicate shades of feeling into my pocket and these fine little pieces of jewellery too. But there came an occasion—perhaps I took the instructions of the police too much at the foot of the letter. I don’t know. Perhaps I should have given to them a wider connotation. You shall tell me,” and he directed a dazzling smile at Hanaud’s immobile face. He was a conscientious tradesman anxious to be corrected if he had construed in too literal a spirit the recommendations of the authorities.
“I will tell you,” said Hanaud stonily.
“That will be kind,” the grateful Pouchette remarked. “Well, the widow Chicholle brought to me a ring in which was set, amongst some brilliants of no particular value, a very beautiful big emerald. It was, so far as I could see, quite flawless, and you gentlemen will know how very difficult it is to find an emerald without a flaw. It was of the deepest, purest green, and a flame burnt within it. It was a stone for a rajah. It was, I think, a present from a rajah.”
And suddenly Hanaud, who had been sitting still as a mummy, with his hands upon the arms of his chair, heaved himself out of his seat and stood erect, staring at the jeweller.
“To Jeanne Corisot?” he said in a strangled voice.
“I imagined so. That little lady was, I believe, in Bordeaux during the early summer.”
Jeanne Corisot was one of those golden-haired comets which flame very prettily for a season in midnight skies. At Bordeaux you may perhaps catch a glimpse of them if you are fortunate, but the line of totality where you can see them at their brightest runs from Deauville across Paris to Monte Carlo. Stationed at one of those famous viewpoints you will see them, annexing fresh satellites as they curve and blaze and riot and cause a good deal of disturbance amongst the sedater comets. In the end they crash into the moon they have always been asking for, or the earth or Mars, and go whirling away into darkness, dropping into this or that pawnbroker’s shop their bits of fire as they go. Jeanne Corisot had ceased to reign over her Eastern prince some six months back. She had dropped out of the firmament—to what
