Jean Dupont shook his head.
'No, no, they will not have given it up. They work silently -' he made an expressive gesture – 'in the dark.'
'Don't,' said Jane uneasily. 'You give me the creeps.'
'Yes, it is not a very nice feeling – to have been so close when a murder was committed.' He added: 'And I was closer than you were. I was very close indeed. Sometimes I do not like to think of that.'
'Who do you think did it?' asked Jane. 'I've wondered and wondered.'
Jean Dupont shrugged his shoulders.
'It was not I. She was far too ugly!'
'Well,' said Jane, 'I suppose you would rather kill an ugly woman than a good-looking one?'
'Not at all. If a woman is good-looking, you are fond of her; she treats you badly; she makes you jealous, mad with jealousy. 'Good,' you say, 'I will kill her. It will be a satisfaction.''
'And is it a satisfaction?'
'That, mademoiselle, I do not know. Because I have not yet tried.' He laughed, then shook his head. 'But an ugly old woman like Giselle – who would want to bother to kill her?'
'Well, that's one way of looking at it,' said Jane. She frowned. 'It seems rather terrible, somehow, to think that perhaps she was young and pretty once.'
'I know, I know.' He became suddenly grave. 'It is the great tragedy of life – that women grow old.'
'You seem to think a lot about women and their looks,' said Jane.
'Naturally. It is the most interesting subject possible. That seems strange to you because you are English. An Englishman thinks first of his work – his job, he calls it – and then of his sport, and last – a good way last – of his wife. Yes, yes, it is really so. Why, imagine, in a little hotel in Syria was an Englishman whose wife had been taken ill. He himself had to be somewhere in Iraq by a certain date. Eh bien, would you believe it, he left his wife and went on so as to be on duty in time? And both he and his wife thought that quite natural; they thought him noble, unselfish. But the doctor, who was not English, thought him a barbarian. A wife, a human being – that should come first. To do one's job – that is something much less important.'
'I don't know,' said Jane. 'One's work has to come first, I suppose.'
'But why? You see, you, too, have the same point of view. By doing one's work one obtains money; by indulging and looking after a woman one spends it; so the last is much more noble and ideal than the first.'
Jane laughed.
'Oh, well,' she said, 'I think I'd rather be regarded as a mere luxury and self-indulgence than be regarded sternly as a first duty. I'd rather a man felt that he was enjoying himself looking after me than that he should feel I was a duty to be attended to.'
'No one, mademoiselle, would be likely to feel that with you.'
Jane blushed slightly at the earnestness of the young man's tone. He went on talking quickly:
'I have only been in England once before. It was very interesting to me the other day at the – inquest, you call it? – to study three young and charming women, all so different from one another.'
'What did you think of us all?' asked Jane, amused.
'That Lady Horbury – bah, I know her type well. It is very exotic, very, very expensive – you see it sitting round the baccarat table – the soft face, the hard expression – and you know – you know so well what it will be like in, say, fifteen years. She lives for sensation, that one. For high play, perhaps for drugs. Au fond, she is uninteresting!'
'And Miss Kerr?'
'Ah, she is very, very English. She is the kind that any shopkeeper on the Riviera will give credit to – they are very discerning, our shopkeepers. Her clothes are very well cut, but rather like a man's. She walks about as though she owns the earth; she is not conceited about it; she is just an Englishwoman. She knows which department of England different people come from. It is true; I have heard ones like her in Egypt. 'What? The Etceteras are here? The Yorkshire Etceteras? Oh, the Shropshire Etceteras.''
His mimicry was good. Jane laughed at the drawling, well-bred tones.
'And then, me,' she said.
'And then you. And I say to myself, 'How nice, how very nice it would be if I were to see her again one day.' And here I am sitting opposite you. The gods arrange things very well sometimes.'
Jane said: 'You're an archaeologist, aren't you? You dig up things.'
And she listened with keen attention while Jean Dupont talked of his work.
Jane gave a little sigh at last.
'You've been in so many countries. You've seen so much. It all sounds so fascinating. And I shall never go anywhere or see anything.'
'You would like that? To go abroad? To see wild parts of the earth? You would not be able to get your hair waved, remember.'
'It waves by itself,' said Jane, laughing.
She looked up at the clock and hastily summoned the waitress for her bill.
Jean Dupont said with a little embarrassment:
'Mademoiselle, I wonder if you would permit – as I have told you, I return to France tomorrow – if you would dine with me tonight.'
'I'm so sorry. I can't. I'm dining with someone.'
'Ah! I am sorry – very sorry. You will come again to Paris, soon?'
'I don't expect so.'
'And me, I do not know when I shall be in London again! It is sad!'
He stood a moment, holding Jane's hand in his.
'I shall hope to see you again, very much,' he said, and sounded as though he meant it.
Chapter 14
At about the time that Jane was leaving Antoine's, Norman Gale was saying in a hearty professional tone:
'Just a little tender, I'm afraid. Tell me if I hurt you.'
His expert hand guided the electric drill.
'There. That's all over… Miss Ross.'
Miss Ross was immediately at his elbow, stirring a minute white concoction on a slab.
Norman Gale completed his filling and said:
'Let me see, it's next Tuesday you're coming for those others?'
His patient, rinsing her mouth ardently, burst into a fluent explanation: She was going away – so sorry – would have to cancel the next appointment. Yes, she would let him know when she got back.
And she escaped hurriedly from the room.
'Well,' said Gale, 'that's all for today.'
Miss Ross said: 'Lady Higginson rang up to say she must give up her appointment next week. She wouldn't make another. Oh, and Colonel Blunt can't come on Thursday.'
Norman Gale nodded. His face hardened.
Every day was the same. People ringing up. Canceled appointments. All varieties of excuses – going away, going abroad, got a cold, may not be here.
It didn't matter what reason they gave. The real reason Norman had just seen quite unmistakably in his last patient's eye as he reached for the drill. A look of sudden panic.
He could have written down the woman's thoughts on paper:
'Oh, dear. Of course, he was in that aeroplane when that woman was murdered… I wonder… You do hear of people going off their heads and doing the most senseless crimes. It really isn't safe. The man might be a homicidal lunatic. They look the same as other people, I've always heard. I believe I always felt there was rather a peculiar look in his eye.'
