The inspector called in a man from the garden and placed him at the head of the stairs, and himself took charge of the key.
“I shall see to it,” he said, and Tidon’s voice was heard summoning Hanaud into the library. Mr. Ricardo followed him as far as the door, and there hesitated, decorum and curiosity once more battling within him. But the examining magistrate, who was sitting in an armchair, gloved, his hat upon his knee, his stick in his left hand, invited him in.
“Yes, I have nothing secret to say. De Mirandol, you too, my friend! Will you close the door? So!”
The magistrate was very civil, but his face was white, and at times twitched as with some spasm of bodily pain.
“Monsieur Hanaud,” he began in a quiet, formal voice, “whilst you were upstairs, I have been reflecting upon an idea which I have had in mind the whole day. I am anxious, of course, in an affair of this importance not to be premature, and not to be unjust. But the time has come, I am convinced, for me to exercise my authority. I relieve you from now on from all duties in connection with this case.”
Mr. Ricardo was dumbfounded! Hanaud relieved of his functions, disgraced, Stellenbosched, by a little magistrate of the provinces! Such an announcement bordered upon blasphemy, such an action upon sacrilege. It was an absurdity, too. Mr. Ricardo certainly had been forced once or twice to correct the famous detective and to put him on the better road. But the corrections had been made and Hanaud had triumphed. And here was a little Mr. Tidon taking it upon himself, in the plenitude of his ignorance, to snap at the great man’s tail, like a Pekingese with a Labrador. One little sentence—that was all that it was necessary to speak—and the Pekingese would be scurrying under the nearest sofa for shelter. Mr. Ricardo, too, was the man to speak it. He seethed with indignation and chivalry. He would have spoken it but for the extraordinary grin of appreciation which broadened over Hanaud’s face. Hanaud was delighted.
“I am not, of course, unaware of Monsieur Hanaud’s well-justified reputation,” continued the examining magistrate, who was himself a little taken aback by Hanaud’s reception of his dismissal; “nor must he regard my action as in any way a slur upon his abilities. Certainly not! I shall make that quite clear in my final report. But this particular crime is of an unusual complexity and removed from those more obvious affairs with which the Sûreté of Paris is as a rule called upon to deal. This is not a case of apaches in a cabaret, or a burglary in the Champs Élysées. The social position of all the parties concerned makes it a case where the utmost delicacy must be observed. It must be sifted here on the spot at Suvlac. It was”—and the magistrate shifted in his chair. His voice grew stronger and took on a stern note of disapproval. His own words were wine to him, and gave him confidence. “It was a grave disappointment to me when Monsieur Hanaud removed himself to Bordeaux. I know perfectly well that he has a troublesome investigation there which requires all his time and energies—”
Hanaud nodded his head.
“The case of the widow Chicholle,” he interrupted.
To Mr. Ricardo it was quite extraordinary how that old harridan’s name created a perturbation whenever it was mentioned. The Vicomte de Mirandol had bent under it like a stalk in a wind. Monsieur Tidon had heard it once and had kept his head; now, upon its second utterance he was shaken out of his wits. He sat staring open-mouthed like a natural, all his eloquence frozen upon his lips, and his hands twitching on the arms of his chair. The widow Chicholle was the testing phrase, the litmus-paper of the experiment. But as Hanaud had recognised from the beginning, Arthur Tidon was a man of a great force.
“Whatever the case may be,” he resumed steadily, “it no doubt demands your concentration and your presence. That being so, I shall ask de Mirandol’s permission to use his telephone.”
“But certainly, my friend,” de Mirandol exclaimed, rubbing the palms of his hands together. “My house is yours.”
The examining magistrate hoisted himself with one hand out of his chair. His words were firm enough, but his legs were shaky. He stood balancing himself upon his feet, and took a step forward. But the telephone instrument was at the inner end of the room, and between it and the magistrate stood Hanaud; and Hanaud did not move.
“Monsieur le Juge, with all respect,” he said, with a deference which quite surprised his friend, “I beg you to tell me now the message you propose to send. I am asking a favour.”
“I shall do you no harm,” Tidon replied with kindliness. “I am going to telephone to the Commissaire of Police that your invaluable services are required at Bordeaux, and that I therefore with the utmost regret dispense with your services at Suvlac”—and he paused—“from this instant.”
And still Hanaud did not move.
“That means—I ask the question without impertinence—that the orders which I have just given for the official seals to be placed on the conference room are not to be carried out?”
“It means that I shall decide that matter, with all others connected with the case, for myself, and by myself. I invite you to stand aside.”
Mr. Ricardo was looking now for something heroic and of ancient times—the examining magistrate defied, if necessary dashed with a single blow to the ground. But he was in a country where the grades of authority are sacred. Hanaud stood aside.
“I regret, Monsieur le Juge,” he said meekly. “I had a
