"What do you make of that?" he asked, and Jim drew up a chair and sat down to examine it.
He made first of all a large scale map of Dijon and its environments, the town itself lying at the bottom of the red hoop1 and constituting the top of the handle of the tennis racket. As to the red circle, it seemed to represent a tour which some one had made out from Dijon, round a good tract2 of outlying country and back again to the city. But there was more to it than that. The wavy3 dividing line, for instance, from the top of the circle to the handle, that is to Dijon; and on the left-hand edge of the hoop, as he bent4 over the map, and just outside Dijon, the red mark, a little red square which Hanaud had just made. Against this square an hour was marked.
"Eleven a.m.," he read.
He followed the red curve with his eyes and just where this dividing line touched the rim5 of the hoop, another period was inscribed6. Here Frobisher read:
"Eleven forty."
Frobisher looked up at Hanaud in astonishment7.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, and he bent again over the map. The point where the dividing line branched off was in a valley, as he could see by the contours—yes—he had found the name now—the Val Terzon. Just before eleven o'clock Betty had stopped the car just outside Dijon, opposite a park with a big house standing8 back, and had asked him to tighten9 the strap10 of the tool box. They had started again exactly at eleven. Betty had taken note of the exact time—and they had stopped where the secondary road branched off and doubled back to Dijon, at the top of the hoop, at the injunction of the rim and the dividing line, exactly at eleven forty.
"This is a chart of the expedition we made to-day," he cried. "We were followed then?"
He remembered suddenly the second motor-cyclist who had come up from behind through the screen of their dust and had stopped by the side of their car to join in their conversation with the tourist.
"The motor-cyclist?" he asked, and again he got no answer.
But the motor-cyclist had not followed them all the way round. On their homeward course they had stopped to lunch in the tangled12 garden. There had been no sign of the man. Jim looked at the map again. He followed the red line from the junction11 of the two roads, round the curve of the valley, to the angle where the great National road to Paris cut across and where they had lunched. After luncheon13 they had continued along the National road into Dijon, whereas the red line crossed it and came back by a longer and obviously a less frequented route.
"I can't imagine why you had us followed this morning, Monsieur Hanaud," he exclaimed with some heat. "But I can tell you this. The chase was not very efficiently14 contrived15. We didn't come home that way at all."
"I haven't an idea how you came home," Hanaud answered imperturbably16. "The line on that side of the circle has nothing to do with you at all, as you can see for yourself by looking at the time marked where the line begins."
The red hoop at the bottom was not complete; there was a space where the spliced17 handle of the racket would fit in, the space filled by the town of Dijon, and at the point on the right hand side where the line started Frobisher read in small but quite clear figures:
"Ten twenty-five a.m."
Jim was more bewildered than ever.
"I don't understand one word of it," he cried.
Hanaud reached over and touched the point with the tip of his pen.
"This is where the motor-cyclist started, the cyclist who met you at the branch road at eleven-forty."
"The tourist?" asked Jim. A second ago it had seemed to him impossible that the fog could thicken about his wits any more. And yet it had.
"Let us say the man with the portmanteau on his trailer," Hanaud corrected. "You see that he left his starting point in Dijon thirty-five minutes before you left yours. The whole manoeuvre18 seems to have been admirably planned. For you met precisely19 at the arranged spot at eleven-forty. Neither the car nor the cycle had to wait one moment."
"Manoeuvre! Arranged spot!" Frobisher exclaimed, looking about him in a sort of despair. "Has every one gone crazy? Why in the world should a man start out with a portmanteau in a side-car from Dijon at ten twenty-five, run thirty or forty miles into the country by a roundabout road and then return by a bad straight track? There's no sense in it!"
"No doubt it's perplexing," Hanaud agreed. He nodded to Moreau who went out of the room by a communicating door towards the front of the house. "But I can help you," Hanaud continued. "At the point where you started after tightening20 the strap of the tool-box, on the edge of the town, a big country house stands back in a park?"
"Yes," said Jim.
"That is the house of Madame Le Vay where this fancy dress ball takes place to-night."
"Madame Le Vay's château!" Frobisher repeated. "Where——" he began a question and caught it back. But Hanaud completed it for him.
"Yes, where Ann Upcott now is. You started from it at precisely eleven in the morning." He looked at his watch. "It is not yet quite eleven at night. So she is still there."
Frobisher started back in his chair. Hanaud's words were like the blade of silver light cutting through the darkness of the cinema hall and breaking into a sheet of radiance upon the screen. The meaning of the red diagram upon Hanaud's map, the unsuspected motive23 of Betty's expedition this morning were revealed to him.
"It was a rehearsal," he cried.
Hanaud nodded.
"A time-rehearsal."
"Yes, the sort of thing which takes place in theatres, without the principal members of the company," thought Frobisher. But a moment later he was dissatisfied with that explanation.
"Wait a moment!" he said. "That won't do, I fancy."
The motor-cyclist with the side-car had brought his arguments to a standstill. His times were marked upon the map; they were therefore of importance. What had he to do with Ann Upcott's escape? But he visualised the motor-cyclist and his side-car and his connection with the affair became evident. The big portmanteau gave Frobisher the clue. Ann Upcott would be leaving Madame Le Vay's house in her ball-dress, just as if she was returning to the Maison Crenelle—and without any luggage at all. She could not arrive in Paris in the morning like that if she were to avoid probably suspicion and certainly remark. The motor-cyclist was to meet her in the Val Terzon, transfer her luggage rapidly to her car, and then return to Dijon by the straight quick road whilst Ann turned off at the end of the valley to Paris. He remembered now that seven minutes had elapsed between the meeting of the cycle and the motor-car and their separation. Seven minutes then were allowed for the transference of the luggage. Another argument flashed into his thoughts. Betty had told him nothing of this plan. It had been presented to him as a mere24 excursion on a summer day, her first hours of liberty naturally employed. Her silence was all of a piece with the determination of Betty and Ann Upcott to keep him altogether out of the conspiracy25. Every detail fitted like the blocks in a picture puzzle. Yes, there had been a time-rehearsal. And Hanaud knew all about it!
That was the disturbing certainty which first overwhelmed Frobisher when he had got the better of his surprise at the scheme itself. Hanaud knew! and Betty had so set her heart on Ann's escape.
"Let her go!" he pleaded earnestly. "Let Ann Upcott get away to Paris and to England!" and Hanaud leaned back in his chair with a little gasp26. The queerest smile broke over his face.
"I see," he said.
"Oh, I know," Frobisher exclaimed, hotly appealing. "You are of the Sûrété and I am a lawyer, an officer of the High Court in my country and I have no right to make such a petition. But I do without a scruple27. You can't get a conviction against Ann Upcott. You haven't a chance of it. But you can throw such a net of suspicion about her that she'll never get out of it. You can ruin her—yes—but that's all you can do."
"You speak very eagerly, my friend," Hanaud interposed.
Jim could not explain that it was Betty's anxiety to save her friend which inspired his plea. He fell back upon the scandal which such a trial would cause.
"There has been enough publicity28 already owing to Boris Waberski," he continued. "Surely Miss Harlowe has had distress29 enough. Why must she stand in the witness-box and give evidence against her friend in a trial which can have no result? That's what I want you to realise, Monsieur Hanaud. I have had some experience of criminal trials"—O shade of Mr. Haslitt! Why was that punctilious30 man not there in the flesh to wipe out with an indignant word the slur31 upon the firm of Frobisher and Haslitt?—"And I assure you that no jury could convict upon such evidence. Why, even the pearl necklace has not been traced—and it never will be. You can take that from me, Monsieur Hanaud! It never will be!"
Hanaud opened a drawer in the table and took out one of those little cedar-wood boxes made to hold a hundred cigarettes, which the better class of manufacturers use in England for their wares32. He pushed this across the table towards Jim. Something which was more substantial than cigarettes rattled33 inside of it. Jim seized upon it in a panic. He had not a doubt that Betty would far sooner lose her necklace altogether than that her friend Ann Upcott should be destroyed by it. He opened the lid of the box. It was filled with cotton-wool. From the cotton-wool he took a string of pearls perfectly34 graded in size, and gleaming softly with a pink lustre35 which, even to his untutored eyes, was indescribably lovely.
"It would have been more correct if I had found them in a matchbox," said Hanaud. "But I shall point out to Monsieur Bex that after all matches and cigarettes are akin22."
Jim was still staring at the necklace in utter disappointment when Moreau knocked upon the other side of the communicating door. Hanaud looked again at his watch.
"Yes, it is eleven o'clock. We must go. The car has started from the house of Madame Le Vay."
He rose from his chair, buried the necklace again within the layers of cotton-wool, and locked it up once more in the drawer. The room had faded away from Jim Frobisher's eyes. He was looking at a big, brilliantly illuminated36 house, and a girl who slipped from a window and, wrapping a dark cloak about her glistening37 dress, ran down the dark avenue in her dancing slippers38 to where a car waited hidden under trees.
"The car may not have started," Jim said with sudden hopefulness. "There may have been an accident to it. The chauffeur39 may be late. Oh, a hundred things may have happened!"
"With a scheme so carefully devised, so meticulously40 rehearsed? No, my friend."
Hanaud took an automatic pistol from a cabinet against the wall and placed it in his pocket.
"You are going to leave that necklace just like that in a table drawer?" Jim asked. "We ought to take it first to the Prefecture."
"This room is not unwatched," replied Hanaud. "It will be safe."
Jim hopefully tried another line of argument.
"We shall be too late now to intercept41 Ann Upcott at the branch road," he argued. "It is past eleven, as you say—well past eleven. And thirty-five minutes on a motor-cycle in the daytime means fifty minutes in a car at night, especially with a bad road to travel."
"We don't intend to intercept Ann Upcott at the branch road," Hanaud returned. He folded up the map and put it aside upon the mantelshelf.
"I take a big risk, you know," he said softly. "But I must take it! And—no! I can't be wrong!" But he turned from the mantelshelf with a very anxious and troubled face. Then, as he looked at Jim, a fresh idea came into his mind.
Jim nodded.
"The bas-relief of The Last Judgment42. We went to see it. We thought your way of saying what you believed a little brutal43."
Hanaud remained silent with his eyes upon the floor for a few seconds. Then he said quietly: "I am sorry." He tacked44 on a question. "You say 'we'?"
"Mademoiselle Harlowe and I," Jim explained.
"Oh, yes—to be sure. I should have thought of that," and once more his troubled cry broke from him. "It must be that!—No, I can't be wrong.... Anyway, it's too late to change now."
A second time Moreau rapped upon the communicating door. Hanaud sprang to alertness.
"That's it," he said. "Take your hat and stick, Monsieur Frobisher! Good! You are ready?" and the room was at once plunged45 into darkness.
Hanaud opened the communicating door, and they passed into the front room—a bedroom looking out upon the big station square. This room was in darkness too. But the shutters46 were not closed, and there were patches of light upon the walls from the lamps in the square and the Grande Taverne at the corner. The three men could see one another, and to Jim in this dusk the faces of his companions appeared of a ghastly pallor.
"Daunay took his position when I first knocked," said Moreau. "Patinot has just joined him."
He pointed47 across the square to the station buildings. Some cabs were waiting for the Paris train, and in front of them two men dressed like artisans were talking. One of them lit a cigarette from the stump48 of a cigarette held out to him by his companion. The watchers in the room saw the end of the cigarette glow red.
"The way is clear, Monsieur," said Moreau. "We can go." And he turned and went out of the inn to the staircase. Jim started to follow him. Whither they were going Jim had not a notion, not even a conjecture49. But he was gravely troubled. All his hopes and Betty's hopes for the swift and complete suppression of the Waberski affair had seemingly fallen to the ground. He was not reassured50 when Hanaud's hand was laid on his arm and detained him.
"You understand, Monsieur Frobisher," said Hanaud with a quiet authority, his eyes shining very steadily51 in the darkness, his face glimmering52 very white, "that now the Law of France takes charge. There must not be a finger raised or a word spoken to hinder officers upon their duty. On the other hand, I make you in return the promise you desire. No one shall be arrested on suspicion. Your own eyes shall bear me out."
The two men followed Moreau down the stairs and into the street.
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1
hoop
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| n.（篮球）篮圈，篮 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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imperturbably
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| adv.泰然地，镇静地，平静地 | |
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spliced
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| adj.（针织品）加固的n.叠接v.绞接( splice的过去式和过去分词 )；捻接（两段绳子）；胶接；粘接（胶片、磁带等） | |
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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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conspiracy
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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slur
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| v.含糊地说；诋毁；连唱；n.诋毁；含糊的发音 | |
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wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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meticulously
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| adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心 | |
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intercept
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| vt.拦截，截住，截击 | |
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42
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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44
tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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45
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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46
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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48
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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49
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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50
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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51
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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52
glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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