“You see the difference on a summer night between this room and the library,” said the Vicomte de Mirandol. “It is cool and airy. I sit at my place at this table here. If I raise my eyes, I look through the open windows across Suvlac and the Gironde. I see the lights of the ships upon the river. I lave myself in the peace and the open spaces of the night. Thoughts come, the mind receives.”
Oh, the Vicomte did not make the mistake of Diana Tasborough and admit a knowledge that Mr. Ricardo had seen the lights blazing at two o’clock in the morning. He was content to explain the blaze. He sat himself down in his chair at the long table, facing the window, and waved his hand to demonstrate the width and spaciousness of the dark open country of land and river and stars within his view.
“Wonderful!” he murmured. “Wonderful!”
“And from this table you deliver your lectures?” Hanaud asked from the dais.
“We pull the table forward from the wall and set a chair behind it,” said the Vicomte. A smile spread over his face. “I shall make a confession to you, Monsieur Hanaud. I begin to live when I take my place at that table and see all those poor people at my mercy for an hour.”
Hanaud shot the oddest quick glance at de Mirandol.
“You begin to live then? Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte, you have said nothing truer, I think, in all your life. I understand you very well,” he said with a great solemnity, dropping the words one by one and very clearly. Mr. Ricardo was conscious of a thrill of excitement. A scene of a very different kind rose before his eyes. He was seated again on one of the benches of the City Lands in the principal court of the Old Bailey. Standing in front of him was a celebrated King’s Counsel, and addressing the jury over against him on the opposite side of the court he wound up the case for the prosecution in a murder trial with just that clear deliberation and just that deadly use of simple words.
Hanaud raised his hands to the cupboard doors, of which there were two, meeting in the middle and rounded at the tops. Before he could try them, de Mirandol said:
“There is a drawer in the table and in the drawer the key.”
Hanaud lifted the edge of the baize which overhung the sides and disclosed the drawer. But he suddenly stood erect again, holding the baize in his hands and staring at it.
“The old cloth was so ink-stained and shabby that I was really ashamed of it,” the Vicomte explained before he was asked for any explanation.
“So we put a brand new one on the table—yesterday?” Hanaud remarked.
“Yesterday—or the day before—or a month ago. My servant will know,” de Mirandol replied, and ever so slightly his voice shook.
“Yesterday, I think,” Hanaud insisted quietly, and now the Vicomte did not contradict him.
He took the key out of the drawer and unlocked the cupboard doors and swung them back against the wall. He disclosed a shallow recess, quite empty, without a shelf, and glistening with white paint. Hanaud delicately pressed the tip of his finger against the paint and drew it back again whitened.
“Aha! It is not only our gate we paint, I see.”
“One idea leads to another,” said de Mirandol with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Yes, yes, white paint to green paint, and perhaps green paint to red paint, eh? I think red is the colour we give to our guillotines.”
The Vicomte smiled in a sickly fashion. He glanced at Mr. Ricardo, deigning some community with him of breeding and good manners. Jests of this raw kind were to be expected from the police, and wise men would ignore them.
“You have seen all that you want to see?” he asked of Hanaud.
“I have seen at all events more than I expected to see,” Hanaud replied, locking the cupboard door and putting the key in his pocket. “Besides, we are keeping the examining magistrate waiting and that is not at all seemly.”
He opened the door of the room as if he were the host and invited his companions to pass out.
“Monsieur Tidon has without doubt already gone,” said de Mirandol.
“I think not,” Hanaud retorted, smiling politely, and locking the door of the conference chamber; and he was right. For after they had descended the stairs they saw upon the wall of the main corridor the distorted shadow of the judge flung through the open doorway by the library lights. Moreau was still on guard in the hall, and Hanaud spoke to him.
“Could you find the inspector for me? I will wait here. It is important.”
Moreau saluted and went out of the house. The shadow upon the wall moved abruptly and then was still again. It seemed that the judge had an impulse to interfere and thought the better of it, and decided to wait. Nobody, indeed, spoke at all whilst Moreau was away. He had left the door open, and the soughing of the boughs in a very light wind filled the corridor with the sound of the sea rippling over a beach of pebbles. It was drowned by a tramping of feet, and Moreau and the inspector appeared at the door.
“You wanted me, Monsieur Hanaud?”
“Yes. In the room upstairs there is a cupboard above a table on a dais. I shall be obliged if it is
