“You remember?” he cried. “It was at the Tower of St. Michel that I saw Evelyn Devenish that afternoon. She had handed over her necklace to the widow Chicholle in the street Grégoire. She was on her way back—”
And Hanaud interrupted him with a nod of the head.
“She was on her way back,” he repeated, “the price paid, eh? She visits the Cave of the Mummies. She sighs that long-drawn sigh of longing that the days of such cruel punishment might come again—eh? Is that the truth at the end of it all?”—and he looked across the table, his eyes burning in his massive head, his face white with horror. “Was the price paid just that those days might return? … But then … Yes, but then … !”
Mr. Ricardo could fill up these broken sentences. But then … it was Evelyn Devenish who was destroyed. Did she plan and pay for the punishment of Joyce Whipple? Did that murderous glance in the drawing-room at Suvlac mean that fulfilment was near? But then—it was Evelyn Devenish of the severed hand who was the victim—of a sadic vengeance.
All this while Domenique Pouchette was stroking his brown beard nervously and glancing from one to another of his companions at the table. There were questions being asked here with which he wished from the bottom of his heart to have nothing to do. He rose from his chair.
“If I may go now? There are some small matters of business waiting for me. And I have my office to close.”
Hanaud looked at him with more good-nature than Ricardo had expected. There was even a trace of a smile upon his lips.
“Yes. After all, you have made no difficulties for me. You might have protested that you would say nothing except before the Juge d’Instruction and in the presence of your legal adviser. I shall remember that in your favour. You should, of course, have notified the police the moment that fine emerald was offered to you. But yes, life is difficult and taxes are high. Run along with you!”
No schoolboy at the hour of release could have disappeared from his classroom with the celerity now displayed by Domenique Pouchette.
“That poor devil! We give him the shock! He will go by the foot of the letter,” Hanaud said with a grin. “Now we turn to our small matters of business,” and he raised his voice. “Moreau!”
Moreau, who had been standing sentry outside the door, was on the inside of it like a genius in an Arabian tale.
“The widow Chicholle in the Rue Grégoire,” Hanaud recited as he wrote hurriedly. “You have a gendarme with you? Yes. You will send him at the gymnastic step to Monsieur le Préfet with this letter. Very quietly and carefully the house of the widow Chicholle must be watched from now on—a man at the end of the street or the quay, another in the little square at the head of the street, and the house itself. A good man in control. No action to be taken—except under necessity. But word to come to me of any visitors.”
He sealed up his note and handed it to Moreau. Then he turned to Dennis Blackett.
“To you, monsieur, all my thanks. We shall do what we can. Meanwhile you will stay in Bordeaux?”
“Yes, here,” said Dennis Blackett.
“Good! For you, Mr. Ricardo, I shall ask you to dine with me and now. At my little hotel. It is not so magnificent as this, but one eats well, and when there is much work to be done it is wise to eat well before we begin it.”
There was a note of excitement in his voice, his eyes had the curiously bright and rather cruel look of a retriever’s when a gun is brought into its view. He was as Mr. Ricardo had seen him twenty times when the bits of the puzzle were falling into their places and the whole picture was there for a shrewd eye to anticipate. Hanaud, in a word, was in a mood which imposed upon any true friend of his the duty of steadying him, and Mr. Ricardo was not the man to flinch from the task.
“There is something to be done, my good friend, before we dine,” he said. “I do not charge you with carelessness. No, you have so much to think of. It is inevitable that from time to time some important precaution should be neglected.”
A subtle change came over Hanaud. His confidence vanished. His voice proceeded to shake with anxiety.
“A precaution which I omit?” he cried despairingly. It seemed that he would tear his hair out by the roots. “Tell me! I am in the dust at your feet!”
Mr. Ricardo smiled graciously.
“There is no need for any heroics. The omission can tonight no doubt be repaired. The moment of forgetfulness might have happened to anyone. I am, of course, speaking of the patron and the crew of the gabare which left the tiny dock at Suvlac against the tide hours before the appropriate time of casting off.”
The liveliest disappointment chased from Hanaud’s face the eager desire to repair a fault. He shook his head reproachfully. He spoke dejectedly.
“My dear friend—the gabare—and is that all? But, of course—of course—the patron and his two sons have been locked up in separate cells ever since their arrival in Bordeaux yesterday evening. They will not even be able to drive Le Petit Mousse in the Municipal Gardens on Sunday afternoon. You will come with me?”
Mr. Ricardo, considerably abashed, answered with humility.
“Yes. A little moment”—he was rather taken with Domenique Pouchette’s favourite phrase—“a little moment to wash the hands.”
“Two little moments,” replied Hanaud, “and you will order perhaps your car. I am a snob. Yes. I prefer to ride in a Rolls-Royce. Besides,
