“You have certainly not far to go,” said Hanaud; and his words were the stroke of a hammer upon an anvil. The Judge swung round upon his heel, as though a masterful, invisible hand was on his elbow.
“Hardly a step, Monsieur Tidon,” Hanaud continued suavely. “Hardly a step.”
But there was no misreading the glances which those two men exchanged. One asked: “What do you know?” and the other answered: “I shan’t tell you.” And again one asked: “You dare to threaten me?” and the other replied: “I dare to do my duty.” Thus they stood staring at each another, and more than ever Mr. Ricardo was distressed to see how far the examining magistrate fell below his conceptions. Why, the whole hierarchy of the Law was coming down with a crash in a shower of dust like some old house which had stood a century too long. Oh, it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all!
“After all, there are some provincials who turn night into day,” Hanaud continued. “Monsieur le Vicomte, for instance.”
The Vicomte was very unhappy at being dragged into the discussion. He smiled unsteadily.
“Yes, yes. I work late at night.”
“And not in your fine library.” It was rather a question than a statement. “I am a little surprised at that.”
The Vicomte, however, was in no difficulty about the reply. He replied, indeed, a little too quickly and complacently, like a man who has foreseen an awkward inquiry and discovered the perfect explanation.
“In the winter I do my unimportant work here. I am shut off from the wind by the trees. It is quite still here when every window is rattling upstairs, and warm. But in the summer I use my big room on the floor above. It is really, of course, a room for our literary and philosophical conferences. Oh, yes, we have quite a small society in the Médoc and many people do me the honour to come out from Bordeaux to attend them. Women, alas! for the most part. I know that to achieve permanence one must reach the men, but that we minor people cannot hope to do. The ladies, however, yes! It would surprise you to see how many bluestockings we count in this little corner of France—”
Hanaud broke with a savage irony through the smooth, mincing phrases spoken by that too small mouth with the too red lips.
“And amongst those bluestockings you reckon, no doubt, the widow Chicholle?”
Mr. Ricardo had a fancy that the very hearts of those two men were between the anvil and the hammer and received the blow. They stood so stupidly, like dolls or like living people mortally hurt. Then the Vicomte felt the palms of his hands and wiped the perspiration away.
“The widow Chicholle?” he repeated in a faint and curious tone, but his lips trembled and the name was pronounced all awry. Tidon glanced at his friend and his eyebrows went up into his forehead, as much as to say “the man’s mad,” but, nevertheless, his face was deadly white and his eyes burned in it like flames. “The widow Chicholle?” de Mirandol continued. “No, I have never heard of her. It might perhaps interest you, Monsieur Hanaud, to see the room in which I work whilst the weather is warm. You will appreciate, in an instant, my choice of it.”
Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
“Since you invite me, sir, there will be nothing to see,” he replied, but de Mirandol would neither accept nor understand the retort.
“But you are wrong, Monsieur Hanaud. For once only, to be sure. I beg you to come and bring your friend.”
He was all smiles again and civility. He threw open the door and recoiled sharply.
“I had forgotten that there were three of you.”
“Monsieur Nicolas Moreau, my assistant.”
Hanaud stepped forward without the least eagerness. He was merely gratifying the wish of his host, had the air, indeed, of a man a trifle bored. Mr. Ricardo, on the other hand, was all agog. He felt that it was very likely that he would observe some detail of importance which the rest had overlooked. Give him a few minutes in that room to use his eyes and feel its atmosphere and he would pluck its secret out. He was in the very mood for subtle discoveries. The Vicomte led the way. The corridor turned to the left beyond the library and at the side of the house a staircase mounted to a small landing. A big door confronted them. De Mirandol opened it and switched on the lights. Hanaud and Mr. Ricardo entered a long room with a panelled wall upon their left hand and a row of windows upon their right.
Mr. Ricardo would not at first go far. He remained by the doorway. This long, low room had a message; from that row of windows upon his right the lights had blazed till two o’clock in the morning and then had gone out. What was the message? Mr. Ricardo emptied his mind of its preoccupations. He yielded himself to the room. Let the air pulse out its message, he would be the wax cylinder of a dictaphone to receive it. However, he received nothing.
So he looked about the room. There was a row of chairs ranged against the wall, chairs ready to be set in place for a conference or a lecture. There was a long table in the middle on which, at one end, were some books, a blotting pad, ink, a great red quill pen, and a pile of sermon paper by the blotting pad. At the far end opposite to the door was a dais such as you may see in any schoolroom raising the master’s desk and chair above the level of the floor. A table with a baize cloth stood upon the
