So much Mr. Ricardo, the man of the world, knew. He knew that it was in the nature of things that she should begin to sell here and there stray pieces of her jewellery. What he did not understand was why Hanaud should make such a pother of an everyday affair. There he was, startled by a surprising revelation, looking rather terrible, yes, and rather frightened too. Hanaud lowered himself slowly into his chair.
“Well?” he said.
“Well,” Pouchette resumed. “I did not take that emerald. I did not offer a price for it. No. I said to the widow Chicholle: ‘Bring it to me in three days’ time.’ I had an idea that that ring was on my list of jewels which were missing. And it was. Yes, Monsieur Hanaud, I took the list from my safe the moment the widow Chicholle had gone; and there it was.”
“And you didn’t inform the police,” said Hanaud.
“Ah!”
Domenique Pouchette brought his chair a little nearer to Hanaud’s. He turned towards him confidently and innocently smiling.
“It is there that I should welcome your advice. I read the police notices with the greatest care. They were very clear. I was to inform the Prefect of Police the moment that any of these pieces of jewellery came into my possession. Those were the words. But this ring had not come into my possession. Nor did it ever. For of course I refused it three days later. It may be that I should have set a more liberal meaning upon that phrase. I don’t know. I argued to myself: ‘The police know what they want. Who am I that I should know better than they?’ Now you shall tell me whether I was right or wrong,” and Pouchette leaned back, still quite innocent and smiling.
Hanaud, however, brushed the question aside. He asked another instead.
“When exactly did this woman Chicholle offer you this ring?”
“A little moment!”
Pouchette drew from his waistcoat pocket a tiny diary and consulted it.
“It was on the second day of June. I can fix the date. For I had been that morning to an important luncheon of my business associates at the Chapon Fin. The widow Chicholle came that night at ten o’clock.”
Hanaud raised his eyebrows.
“A late hour, Monsieur Pouchette, for you to remain at your office.”
Just for a moment Domenique Pouchette showed signs of discomfort.
“She came to my apartment, not my office.”
The admission was quite enough for Hanaud. He accepted it. It threw perhaps a rather sinister hue upon the relationship between the widow Chicholle and Domenique Pouchette the jeweller. The widow Chicholle brought her wares in the darkness—yes! And Domenique practised a discreet silence when wares were offered to him which it would be imprudent to buy—yes! These little matters might be considered later on. Meanwhile there was the pressing need of Joyce Whipple, who must be found somewhere hidden under all this litter of crime and dishonesty.
“And so you refused the emerald of Jeanne Corisot, Monsieur Pouchette. Yes, I understand that. And you were very careful, henceforth, how you dealt with the widow Chicholle. But you took the necklace of Evelyn Devenish.”
“Yes!” Monsieur Pouchette rose from his disculpations with a gasp of relief like a swimmer from a dive in deep waters. “The police were unconcerned about that necklace. I made sure. It figured in no list. But I knew that a Mr. Dennis Blackett would give a price for it. So I bought it,” he rose from his chair, “and perhaps Mr. Dennis Blackett will do me the honour tomorrow to consider with me the price which should be paid.”
He took up the necklace from the table in front of Dennis Blackett, let it ripple and gleam and vanish into its case, just as a viper will slip into a bush, and was about to restore the case to the bag when Hanaud reached out a hand.
“I will take it into my charge. I shall give you a receipt for it. There are witnesses here who will bear you out that I have taken it.”
He wrote swiftly on a paper at a writing-table, subscribed his name, and brought the paper back to Pouchette.
“Now I shall ask you for the address of the widow Chicholle.”
Monsieur Pouchette considered. No one of those present doubted what he was considering. Would it be prudent to deny all knowledge of that old woman’s address? Could he say “I was careful as a business man to display very little interest in her position and surroundings” and get away with such a defence? On the whole—no, definitely no!
“It is not in one of our best streets that this woman resides,” he replied with a shrug of the shoulders.
“I am sure of that,” said Hanaud.
“She lives in the street Grégoire.”
“And the street Grégoire?” Hanaud asked, writing the name down.
“Lies over there,” said Domenique Pouchette, pointing to the window opening on the Cours de l’Intendance. “To the east of us. It is in the parish of St. Michel. It runs from a little square in that parish, tall and narrow and dark, to the quays.”
And Mr. Ricardo could suppress himself no longer. The parish of St. Michel? Very well then! The street Grégoire was close to the Cave of the Mummies.
“You bought the necklace on the Monday of last week then?” he cried to Pouchette. “Today is Friday. Eleven days ago you bought that necklace?” he cried excitedly.
Domenique Pouchette replied:
“A little moment!” and he consulted his diary once more. To Mr. Ricardo in his excitement the sight of the tiny book manipulated by the jeweller’s big splay fingers was incongruous, absurd.
“I made a note—yes. It was brought to me, first on a Friday. I bought it on the Monday … just eleven days ago,” answered Domenique,
