"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you need not be any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half-past ten when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that."
"It is not on her account that I am troubled," he cried, and Ann looked at him with startled eyes.
Betty crossed the court and joined them in the hall before Ann could ask a question; and throughout their luncheon3 he made conversation upon indifferent subjects with rapidity, if without entertainment.
Fortunately there was no time to spare. They were still indeed smoking their cigarettes over their coffee when Gaston informed them that the Commissary of Police with his secretary was waiting in the library.
The Commissary, Monsieur Girardot, was a stout5, bald, middle-aged6 man with a pair of folding glasses sitting upon a prominent fat nose; his secretary, Maurice Thevenet, was a tall good-looking novice7 in the police administration, a trifle flashy in his appearance, and in his own esteem8, one would gather, rather a conqueror9 amongst the fair.
"That is quite in order," replied the Commissary, and Monsieur Bex was at that moment announced. He came on the very moment of three. The clock was striking as he bowed in the doorway11. Everything was just as it should be. Monsieur Bex was pleased.
"With Monsieur le Commissaire's consent," he said, smiling, "we can now proceed with the final ceremonies of this affair."
"We wait for Monsieur Hanaud," said the Commissary.
"Hanaud?"
"Hanaud of the Sûrété of Paris, who has been invited by the Examining Magistrate12 to take charge of this case," the Commissary explained.
"Case?" cried Monsieur Bex in perplexity. "But there is no case for Hanaud to take charge of;" and Betty Harlowe drew him a little aside.
Whilst she gave the little notary some rapid summary of the incidents of the morning, Jim went out of the room into the hall in search of Hanaud. He saw him at once; but to his surprise Hanaud came forward from the back of the hall as if he had entered the house from the garden.
"I sought you in the dining-room," he said, pointing to the door of that room which certainly was at the back of the house behind the library, with its entrance behind the staircase. "We will join the others."
Hanaud was presented to Monsieur Bex.
"And this gentleman?" asked Hanaud, bowing slightly to Thevenet.
"My secretary, Maurice Thevenet," said the Commissary, and in a loud undertone, "a charming youth, of an intelligence which is surprising. He will go far."
Hanaud looked at Thevenet with a friendly interest. The young recruit gazed at the great man with kindling13 eyes.
"This will be an opportunity for me, Monsieur Hanaud, by which, if I do not profit, I prove myself of no intelligence at all," he said with a formal modesty14 which quite went to the heart of Monsieur Bex.
"That is very correct," said he.
Hanaud for his part was never averse15 to flattery. He cocked an eye at Jim Frobisher; he shook the secretary warmly by the hand.
"Then don't hesitate to ask me questions, my young friend," he answered. "I am Hanaud now, yes. But I was once young Maurice Thevenet without, alas16! his good looks."
Maurice Thevenet blushed with the most becoming diffidence.
"That is very kind," said Monsieur Bex.
"This looks like growing into a friendly little family party," Jim Frobisher thought, and he quite welcomed a "Hum" and a "Ha" from the Commissary.
He moved to the centre of the room.
He led the way from the Library across the hall and along the corridor to the wide door of Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. He broke the seals and removed the bands. Then he took a key from the hand of his secretary and opened the door upon a shuttered room. The little company of people surged forward. Hanaud stretched out his arms and barred the way.
"Just for a moment, please!" he ordered and over his shoulder Jim Frobisher had a glimpse of the room which made him shiver.
This morning in the garden some thrill of the chase had made him for a moment eager that Hanaud should press on, that development should follow upon development until somewhere a criminal stood exposed. Since the hour, however, which he had spent upon the Tower of the Terrace, all thought of the chase appalled18 him and he waited for developments in fear. This bedroom mistily19 lit by a few stray threads of daylight which pierced through the chinks of the shutters20, cold and silent and mysterious, was for him peopled with phantoms21, whose faces no one could see, who struggled dimly in the shadows. Then Hanaud and the Commissary crossed to the windows opposite, opened them and flung back the shutters. The clear bright light flooded every corner in an instant and brought to Jim Frobisher relief. The room was swept and clean, the chairs ranged against the wall, the bed flat and covered with an embroidered22 spread; everywhere there was order; it was as empty of suggestion as a vacant bedroom in an hotel.
Hanaud looked about him.
"Yes," he said. "This room stood open for a week after Madame's funeral. It would have been a miracle if we discovered anything which could help us."
He went to the bed, which stood with its head against the wall midway between the door and the windows. A small flat stand with a button of enamel23 lay upon the round table by the bed-side, and from the stand a cord ran down by the table leg and disappeared under the carpet.
"This is the bell into what was the maid's bedroom, I suppose," he said, turning towards Betty.
"Yes."
Hanaud stooped and minutely examined the cord. But there was no sign that it had ever been tampered24 with. He stood up again.
"Mademoiselle, will you take Monsieur Girardot into Jeanne Baudin's bedroom and close the door. I shall press this button, and you will know whether the bell rings whilst we here shall be able to assure ourselves whether sounds made in one of the rooms would be heard in the other."
"Certainly."
Betty took the Commissary of Police away, and a few seconds later those in Mrs. Harlowe's room heard a door close in the corridor.
"Will you shut our door now, if you please?" Hanaud requested.
Bex, the notary, closed it.
"Now, silence, if you please!"
Hanaud pressed the button, and not a sound answered him. He pressed it again and again with the same result. The Commissary returned to the bedroom.
"Well?" Hanaud asked.
"It rang twice," said the Commissary.
"And an electric bell has a shrill26, penetrating27 sound," he cried. "Name of a name, but they built good houses when the Maison Crenelle was built! Are the cupboards and drawers open?"
He tried one and found it locked. Monsieur Bex came forward.
"All the drawers were locked on the morning when Madame Harlowe's death was discovered. Mademoiselle Harlowe herself locked them in my presence and handed to me the keys for the purpose of making an inventory28. Mademoiselle was altogether correct in so doing. For until the funeral had taken place the terms of the will were not disclosed."
"But afterwards, when you took the inventory you must have unlocked them."
"I have not yet begun the inventory, Monsieur Hanaud. There were the arrangements for the funeral, a list of the properties to be made for valuation, and the vineyards to be administered."
"Oho," cried Hanaud alertly. "Then these wardrobes and cupboards and drawers should hold exactly what they held on the night of the twenty-seventh of April." He ran quickly about the room trying a door here, a drawer there, and came to a stop beside a cupboard fashioned in the thickness of the wall. "The trouble is that a child with a bent29 wire could unlock any one of them. Do you know what Madame Harlowe kept in this, Monsieur Bex?" and Hanaud rapped with his knuckles30 upon the cupboard door.
"No, I have no idea. Shall I open it?" and Bex produced a bunch of keys from his pocket.
"Not for the moment, I think," said Hanaud.
He had been dawdling31 over the locks and the drawers, as though time meant nothing to him at all. He now swung briskly back into the centre of the room, making notes, it seemed to Frobisher, of its geography. The door opening from the corridor faced, across the length of the floor, the two tall windows above the garden. If one stood in the doorway facing these two windows, the bed was on the left hand. On the corridor side of the bed, a second smaller door, which was half open, led to a white-tiled bath-room. On the window side of the bed was the cupboard in the wall about the height of a woman's shoulders. A dressing-table stood between the windows, a great fire-place broke the right-hand wall, and in that same wall, close to the right-hand window, there was yet another door. Hanaud moved to it.
"This is the door of the dressing-room?" he asked of Ann Upcott, and without waiting for an answer pushed it open.
Monsieur Bex followed upon his heels with his keys rattling32. "Everything here has been locked up too," he said.
Hanaud paid not the slightest attention. He opened the shutters.
It was a narrow room without any fire-place at all, and with a door exactly opposite to the door by which Hanaud had entered. He went at once to this door.
"And this must be the communicating door which leads into what is called the treasure-room," he said, and he paused with his hand upon the knob and his eyes ranging alertly over the faces of the company.
"Yes," said Ann Upcott.
Jim was conscious of a queer thrill. He thought of the opening of some newly-discovered tomb of a Pharaoh in a hill-side of the Valley of Kings. Suspense33 passed from one to the other as they waited, but Hanaud did not move. He stood there impassive and still like some guardian34 image at the door of the tomb. Jim felt that he was never going to move, and in a voice of exasperation35 he cried:
"Is the door locked?"
Hanaud replied in a quiet but a singular voice. No doubt he, too, felt that strange current of emotion and expectancy36 which bound all in the room under a spell, and even gave to their diverse faces for a moment a kind of family similitude.
"I don't know yet whether it's locked or not," he said. "But since this room is now the private sitting-room37 of Mademoiselle Harlowe, I think that we ought to wait until she rejoins us."
Monsieur Bex just had time to remark with approval, "That is very correct," before Betty's fresh, clear voice rang out from the doorway leading to Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom:
"I am here."
Hanaud turned the handle. The door was not locked. It opened at a touch—inwards towards the group of people and upwards38 towards the corridor. The treasure-room was before them, shrouded39 in dim light, but here and there a beam of light sparkled upon gold and held out a promise of wonders. Hanaud picked his way daintily to the windows and fastened the shutters back against the outside wall. "I beg that nothing shall be touched," he said as the others filed into the room.
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1
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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3
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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4
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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novice
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| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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8
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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9
conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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10
notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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11
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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12
magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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13
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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14
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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15
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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16
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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17
pompously
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| adv.傲慢地，盛大壮观地；大模大样 | |
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18
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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19
mistily
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| adv.有雾地，朦胧地，不清楚地 | |
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20
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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21
phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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22
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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23
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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24
tampered
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| v.窜改( tamper的过去式 )；篡改；（用不正当手段）影响；瞎摆弄 | |
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25
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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27
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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28
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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29
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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30
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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31
dawdling
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| adj.闲逛的，懒散的v.混（时间）( dawdle的现在分词 ) | |
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32
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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33
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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34
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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35
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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36
expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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37
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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38
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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39
shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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