Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Frank Swinnerton Soho Night’s Entertainment

The famous British novelist, author of nocturne and friend of Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells to whose interest and praise he attributes his first literary success, goes sleuthing (not slumming) in Soho. Meet Inspector Calloway, the solid and stolid manhunter, and Rouben, the purveyor of forgetfulness, and the enchanting “princess” — in a New Arabian Nights melodrama...

Rouben’s, I found, was a dark little restaurant. Its rich red walls were obscured by dingy paintings, and only one small crimson-shaded lamp lighted each of the tables. At first glance it seemed the ideal trysting place for secret lovers rather than for such steely-hearted fellows as Calloway and myself. Yet for some reason Calloway had asked me to meet him here.

After passing through the doorway I would have been as blind as a man entering a cave from sunshine if Calloway, standing just within the door, had not touched my arm.

“Hullo,” said I. “Are you a ghost?”

“Your dead conscience,” replied Calloway. “I’ve got a table.” He guided me through the gloom.

An old bent waiter hovered near us, a despairing character who must have been sick of the smell of food and hated the very thought of customers. I pictured him as feeling sure they would demand impossible dishes and ignore all his aged recommendations. Nevertheless, carrying a soiled and battered wine list, he plodded after us toward the back of the restaurant, where everything but the tables seemed even gloomier.

“You drink cocktail?” the antique waiter disgustedly supposed.

“Two Pernods, please.” Calloway’s tone, polite but authoritative, sent the old chap hastening off, flat-footed, at dangerous speed. Dim-witted though he might be, the waiter knew a man of character by his voice.

Calloway must have been in the place before, as he knew its ways; but the waiter had given no sign of recognition. That is because Calloway’s face is just like the face of every third man one does not notice in the street. Since Calloway is an extremely quickwitted Detective-Inspector, this unremarked face has immense advantages. Many a criminal has cursed “the invisible man” who brought him to justice.

I did not ask why we were at Rouben’s. Nor, if I had done so, would Calloway have told me. He is secretive — it is a mark of his calling. All the same, he has a nose for good food, and when off duty he likes to take his ease in Soho; and it might be that we were merely dining well to celebrate a little triumph of his. But is Calloway ever off duty? I have often wondered.

“A discreet place,” I remarked under my breath. “A place for great Civil Servants to bring their mistresses.”

“You must use it again,” answered Calloway, carelessly passing the menu. He smiled.

The menu looked good; but I played safe by choosing smoked trout and a tournedos, which I like. I then hoped to drink a cosy Pichon-Longueville with the tournedos. Calloway, knowing my relish for this grand wine, favored me by suggesting it.

“They have some twenty-six,” he observed, “in excellent condition.”

“Nothing could be better. But do you come here so often,” I asked, “that you know the cellar? If I used the place, should I embarrass you?”

“I can rely on your—” Calloway changed the tenor of his speech, while continuing to use the same smiling tone. I became aware of somebody standing beside us — somebody in black with small white cuffs and a delicately-flowered white apron. She had come to the table soundlessly, and I looked up into the young, serious, very dark face of one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen.

She listened gravely while Calloway ordered our food; and then, with a regal inclination of the head, went quickly away. I breathed deep. The effect she had upon me was astonishing; it was an effect, not of attraction or repulsion, but of awe.

A moment elapsed before I recovered enough to say, “Rouben employs waitresses, I observe. Or are they, as they seem, princesses?”

“One,” replied Calloway. “Waitress, not a princess.”

“A beauty. Is she Rouben’s daughter?”

“No,” said Calloway.

That was all. It made me eager to see the princess again — and, in fact, to observe the effect she had on Calloway. He obviously knew Rouben’s cellar. Did he rate Rouben’s beautiful waitress above the cellar? I did not dare to ask.

Rouben himself — or so I judged — now came from somewhere near the front door straight toward us. He was slightly above middle height, broad, swarthy, black-haired and black-eyed, very genial and very smiling, and he had small white plump hands like those of Queen Victoria in her late photographs. The tips of his fingers, which rested upon our table under the light, were excessively delicate. I saw from the slight movement of Calloway’s eyes that they had attracted his attention.

“You order, gentlemen?” he said in a smooth voice. “You happy, that’s so?”

What a smile! Rouben’s lids dropped; his full lips spread; within his geniality I read insatiable appetite. Was the beautiful waitress thus explained? I looked at Calloway, admiring his mask, which was that of as typically beefy an Englishman as ever appeared in Continental fiction.

“All are happy at Rouben’s,” said Calloway, with the air of a dull man being gallant. “Rouben makes them so.”

It seemed acceptable.

“I like much to think that. Oh, I like to think that!” murmured Rouben, devoutly. He looked toward the ceiling; and one’s heart hardened at the sight of the coarse lips and fleshy under-chin. This was a cruel man. “It is my prayer! You know, gentlemen—” He lowered his head confidentially. Piety was succeeded by gentle unction like the flow of thick oil from a tap. “So much unhappiness in the world; so many lonely, disappointed, frustrated... If I can, you understand...” He made the maître d’hôtel’s small gesture in which thumb and forefinger touched. “If I can bring a little cheer... forgetfulness...”

He struggled for still better words.

Calloway nodded. “Oblivion, yes. You’re a benefactor, Mr. Rouben.”

The man laughed. The chuckle shook his body. How genial! And at the same time how not genial! He ought to have offered us each a small white packet of oblivion.

Instead of doing this, he gave a smiling little bow, looked closely at Calloway from under his heavy lids, and turned to another table by the opposite wall. There he greeted newly-arrived guests, bowing low to the woman, shaking hands lingeringly with the man as if they were intimate friends.

At that moment the princess returned. She placed our dishes before us with lovely hands, and when she withdrew it was as if the restaurant had grown dark; yet I had hardly looked at her face. I had been so much engrossed in her exquisite hands that I had forgotten, after all, to peep at Calloway.

Two minutes later, a woman, dark as Rouben himself, came quickly into the restaurant. She wore a crimson cloak, was tall, and although still smart in appearance, she had lost the first confident freshness of youth. I supposed her just on the wrong side of thirty-five, and troubled because there were so many attractive girls in the world.

She smiled, nevertheless, at the princess, without jealousy, nodded to the bent old waiter, and went past us to a table across the restaurant. Calloway, facing that way, showed interest both in the woman and in her position. Rouben turned his shoulder to her as she passed. A hush fell upon the place.

Presently Rouben went away.

“Is it narcotics?” I murmured to Calloway; but Calloway made no reply. I should have to be more discreet! We settled to our meal.

We had been eating for five minutes, and were ready for the second course, when I saw Rouben returning. He came very slowly and carefully, bearing in steady hands two glasses full of some apertif which he seemed to regard as the elixir of life. His lips were pressed together, his face was set. All geniality had left it during that journey. Then he was past us, and I saw the princess close upon his heels.

She, too, was tragically intent, although she carried nothing more precious than a tray of hors d’oeuvres. She moved behind me, to the table in the corner. I lost sight of her. The ancient waiter, still grimacing with disgust, but showing increased pace which I attributed to Rouben’s intimidating presence, toddled over to serve the people across the room, carrying glasses and a big bottle poised on a colossal white-metal salver. His eyes were fixed on either Rouben or the princess.

“By Jove!” thought I. “If he doesn’t look where he’s going—”

I was right. The salver tipped, slid. The whole thing must have fallen like an avalanche upon Rouben’s back, for the crash was terrific. It was followed by rattling, tinkling cascades like thunder and lightning. You never heard such a row.

I turned in dismay, in time to see Rouben leaping to his feet like a man at whom a bomb has been thrown. He was a dirty gray, terrified, screaming in frenzy at the culprit, who was bent double. Not being a linguist, I could understand only parts of his abuse; but the words I heard were the foulest in the world.

Beyond Rouben was the princess, her pearly face in the shadow, her body rigid as a statue of black marble. Her back was to the wall, as if she were supporting herself by its aid. The other woman sat smiling. A gleam of light from the red-shaded lamp shone only upon her chin and bosom, but I thought her eyes glittered in the semidarkness.

All was over in a moment. The old waiter first cringed, his lips moving in obsequious apology, then backed unsteadily away to fetch a dustpan and swab. The princess might have been his shadow. She passed and disappeared. Rouben recovered himself, sat down again, said something polite to his table companion, raised his glass of the apertif, and with an air of radiant good humor motioned to her to do the same.

Apparently he forgave and forgot. He watched the lady drain her glass, and then he quaffed his own with an air almost of bravado. I saw him nod three or four times, watching the woman as if to be sure the drink had been to her taste.

Then we heard the tinkle of glass as the wretched ancient, upon his knees, with dingy tails draggling over his boots, swept up the debris. He was an abject sight, arousing pity and contempt. We averted our gaze, and I felt my neck aching from its prolonged twist during the post-crash scene. The princess stood at our table, serving the tournedos as if nothing whatever had happened.

Nothing whatever? Her hands, her arms, her whole body trembled violently. Her mouth was closed as if she were forcibly keeping her teeth from chattering. I saw Calloway look deliberately up into her face. I saw that she refused to meet his glance. I saw that as she turned away she shuddered.

Consumed with curiosity, I wondered what was really going on behind the scenes at Rouben’s.

To my surprise, as soon as we had left the place and crossed the street, a man coming from the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue spoke to Calloway. I had not seen the man until that instant, and he may either have stepped from a doorway or turned the corner of a side street; but I did not doubt that he had been waiting, for Calloway said to me with unusual abruptness:

“Sorry, old chap. I’m wanted. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

So I had no chance to tease him about the princess, or give my opinions of Rouben and the dark woman of the aperitif, or ask further about drugs, or demand a translation of Rouben’s address to the dodderer. I was forced to go back to my flat, speculating over a pipe on all that I had seen, thought, and guessed. It was quite a lot for one evening.

More was to follow. I didn’t hear from Calloway, but at the Club the following afternoon I picked up an early edition of The Planet. There, in big capitals, were the words:

The restaurateur was Rouben.

Rouben! That was a shock. When I had absorbed it I found my head buzzing with surmises. How had he died? Sixteen hours ago I had endured his unction, heard his fury, seen his soft hands and his ceremonial toast to the strange woman in crimson. Now all that power for evil — as I had believed — was gone. How? Why? I was only restrained from telephoning Calloway by knowledge that if anything was “on” he would be in it up to his neck.

He was in it up to his neck.

A later edition of the paper bellowed:

The last words did not surprise me. Detectives always maintain reticence — until they have something to say. The press was forced back upon its own resources; and The Planet and other evening papers did some hasty research into Rouben’s past life.

Their discoveries did not amount to much.

These were some of the headlines. One saw wild, knowing references to Bucharest, Hong Kong, Lima, and Chinatown, those godsent gifts for the writer-up of untaped corpses. Then, having decided upon murder, the press was bent upon romanticizing that lecherous creature, the man who wanted to make people happy through forgetfulness — or oblivion, as Calloway had called it.

Had Rouben taken fright at Calloway’s word? The restaurateur was probably a blackmailer, and subject to blackmail. He bullied. He raged. But he was a coward, too. Remembrance of the crash, and the gloomy old waiter — bent, shuffling, crouching abjectly over his dustpan — flew into my mind. He was only one of the people who must have hated Rouben. Murder or suicide: which was it?

I felt considerable relief at the sound of Calloway’s voice on the telephone.

“Care to come round?” he asked. “I’ve got most of it sorted out.”

In the small crowd outside Rouben’s were the cameramen, of course, hungry for something to waste their films on — one or two nondescripts who might have been racing touts — a few genuine sightseers. I recognized two or three familiar policemen; one, named Coxon, was in uniform at the door — he saluted and passed me within.

There sat Calloway at a table in the restaurant. But since last night something had happened to the restaurant. No carpet lay on the bare floor: probably the floor had been sounded and raised in a search for whatever was thought to be stored under it. The tables no longer bore tablecloths and discreet little red-shaded lamps. They were drawn close to one side, piled top to top, half of them with their legs in the air; and from the previously dim ceiling hung a biggish electric light which floodlit the place and drove away all shadows.

“Oh, come in, Frank,” Calloway said in his usual quiet tone. “Sorry not to have called you earlier.”

“I guessed you were busy.”

“Frightfully busy. The news only reached us at 10 o’clock yesterday morning; and there’s been the devil’s own confusion.”

He began to load his pipe, looking like the sort of businessman one sees in a teashop playing dominoes.

“But you’re through with that?” I asked.

“Pretty well.”

“The papers have been full of his lurid history.”

Calloway grimaced. He is not partial to newspaper stories. I think he’d write psychological novels if he were not a policeman with a full-time job.

“They’ve got to fake up something,” he said.

“I guessed narcotics, last night,” I modestly claimed. “That’s the only solid item in the papers. I suppose it was simple as ABC to you.”

“Yes. I’ve wanted an excuse to ransack this place.”

“So you killed him?”

“Somebody did.”

“The old waiter?” I asked. “After that wigging?”

Calloway smiled.

“Poor old Jacques! He’s not the type. Did you see him when he dropped the tray?”

“I guessed it was going to happen. The actual event was behind me. Don’t forget you were facing that way. I suppose you saw everything?”

Calloway’s face darkened. Perhaps it was the horrible light that sharpened his cheekbones.

“Several things,” he said reluctantly, as if he had not relished what he saw.

“Was the princess in the way? A minute before the crash I heard you say, ‘Damn that girl!’ ”

“Did I?” Calloway looked as nearly startled as I have ever seen him. He then became silent. I didn’t interrupt his reverie. It was because I had tact that he liked to have me with him.

At last he said, “I didn’t know I’d said anything. I’m glad — rather, sorry — you reminded me. As to Jacques, he’s the one who found Rouben. Went down into the wine cellar this morning, and there was our friend, looking nasty. The lights were on. It wasn’t only a wine cellar, of course. He’d got the other stuff — the drugs — hidden in casks, even in cobwebbed bottles. All very obvious. He wasn’t a clever man, not really.”

“I thought he looked more sensual than clever.”

“Yes, it was women. Plenty of them.”

“You’d say he was attractive to them?”

“Who knows what attracts them?” he demanded. It sounded as if the fellow had lately suffered a blow.

I thought I’d move him away from that, so I said, “What’s the princess doing here?”

He took me up very sharply, exclaiming, “Don’t be a damned fool!”

“I only wondered why she was here.” Calloway was evidently rattled, for he walked about restlessly. I called after him, “Do you know anything about the woman who dined with him? Just one of them? Past or present?”

The restless pacing stopped. He was normal again.

“Passing, I gather. I’ve had a lot of talk with Jacques. She came into it.”

“If passing, perhaps superseded. Could she have done it?”

Calloway smiled as if he thought me an old stupid. He said, “They all call her Hortense. She’s been about as long as they remember — latterly not so often. They didn’t expect her last night.”

“There you are! She stayed behind and put something in his coffee. How’s that?”

“Rotten. She’s coming in a few minutes. You’ll see her.”

I tried something new.

“What was he doing in the cellar? Had he been taken there?”

“No,” said Calloway, drily. “He went there by himself”

“For dope?”

“He didn’t take the stuff himself. No, he kept everything there. Some rare wines. Cupboard full of cigars. Also, he was a bit of a chemist. We’ve found a lot of interesting things, including letters and a book of addresses. All useful I expect there’ll be a general skedaddle, which won’t come off. The narcotics boys are checking everything. No, from our point of view he’s better dead; but of course I’ve got to find out what happened.”

“I thought you knew?”

“I hope to God I don’t.”

I sat digesting this information...

I was still sitting there with my arms folded and my head down, when I was startled by a whispering or rustling noise. It came from the far end of the restaurant, beyond what I thought of as Rouben’s table; and it was caused by the old waiter’s shuffling footsteps on the bare boards. Quite uncanny. The old chap looked odd in a short blue and white cotton jacket; but in addition to this he was a strange sight, his cheeks like a badly-laundered bath towel, and his chin covered as if with mold by a revolting white stubble. He did not raise his eyes, but plodded on towards us. Behind him was a woman whom I recognized as Rouben’s guest two nights ago.

Jacques squeezed his way to the kitchen. Calloway went forward.

“Good afternoon, Madame Kimel. Won’t you sit down?”

His tone was not unkind; but she stared at him as a doe might stare at a butcher. Sitting at an angle to her, I could see the rise and fall of her breast and the throbbing of her throat. Calloway, as if to ease her fears, sat down again at his table. He glanced at a page of notes.

“You know why I’ve asked you to come, don’t you? I’m questioning everybody who may be able to help me. Now, you dined here two nights ago with Mr. Rouben. Would you mind telling me what time you left him?”

She was in terror. That was clear. All the same, she held herself haughtily erect, as Marie Antoinette did on her way to the guillotine.

“I don’t know. I can’t think. It’s all so horrifying.”

“I quite understand. Take your time and try to remember.”

“I think 10... 11 o’clock. I don’t know.”

“Had everybody else gone?”

She was a beautiful woman, but because she was no longer young the great light was merciless to her. She was revealed as haggard, with dry lips, and cheeks which had begun to grow hollow. Her fingers were tightly intertwined, and she often touched her lips with a pale tongue. At times she looked beseechingly at Calloway, as if entreating him to spare her. You could follow the struggle she was having to remember — or to invent.

“I think... you mean the others who dined here?”

“My friend and I were among them.”

“Oh?” She was quite vague. “I don’t remember you.”

“All gone, the place empty — is that so? Not the staff — Jacques, Emilie the cashier?” Only after a pause did he add, as if he had just thought of her, “Adrienne?”

That name produced its reaction. The lady became even more secretive.

“I think... I am sure... yes, all were gone.”

“Jacques?”

“Oh, I forgot. He’s always here.”

“You didn’t notice him. You saw nobody but Rouben? What happened? Did you quarrel?”

Hortense’s movement exceeded a start; it was almost a leap. She saw the danger in that question and breathed even more quickly. But danger loosened her tongue. It made her almost voluble.

“Yes, yes. We quarreled. He was vindictive. He tortured me — saying I was old, displeasing, that I should not live long—” Her hands were now free of each other. They were clenched. She struck the air with them. “It was hideous!”

“You said you wished he was dead?”

“No! I don’t remember. I was in pain.”

“Did you, in fact, wish he was dead?”

The lady shuddered.

“Perhaps. Perhaps. In anger. I don’t think so. It would have satisfied him too much. Yes, I did wish him dead! But I did not kill him. I don’t know who killed him. I don’t know. I have no idea. It might be — anybody.” Her voice suggested the approach of hysteria.

“Madame Kimel, I ask these questions as a duty. I know you had a bitter quarrel and that it was not the first. It was one of many. Isn’t that so? Over a long period of time?”

“A long time, yes.”

“You hadn’t seen him for several weeks. Why did you come here two nights ago?”

“He telephoned to me. He asked me to come.”

“To dine?”

“Yes.”

“Why to dine? As a friend?” She was consumed by memory of wrong and hatred. Calloway had to speak more loudly in order to obtain an answer. “Nothing more? I said, nothing more?”

I expected her to scream a denial. She did not do so. Indeed, when she spoke it was almost as if she sighed.

“Not only to dine, Mr. Calloway.”

“I see. You were to spend the night with him. You did not spend the night? Or did you? You were his mistress?”

“I was not his mistress.”

“Please!”

“Do not offend me by such a disgraceful suggestion!”

“I don’t understand you, Madame Kimel.”

“I was his wife, Mr. Calloway. I had been his wife for fifteen years.”

Calloway showed no surprise. He merely wrote a word upon one of his sheets of paper, considered his further questions for a moment or two, and then embarked upon a series of them.

Having been married to Rouben for so long, she must know something of his affairs? Nothing, nothing at all. Hadn’t she guessed anything? Nothing! Not about drugs? Nothing! How could she? Was she sure? No drugs; nothing!

She was not to be shaken.

Calloway retreated, and chose another topic.

Did she know anything about other women?

Ah, that was different! Her eyes glittered as I had seen them glitter before. Animation came into her haggard face. Rouben had been unfaithful to her throughout their married life. Again and again and again. Evidently he was incorrigible. She had left him twenty times — and returned as often. He had begged her to do so — entreated — until a little while ago.

That was different, was it? It was different. He had told her something. It had made her jealous? She was past jealousy. It had nothing to do with his death. Nothing.

Six months ago he had fallen in love — with a beautiful girl. His love was driving him mad, he said. He had asked her to divorce him, so that he could marry this girl. She had refused. She had refused — to save a lovely child from the hell she had known. Refused, refused! She had sworn she would always refuse.

She had seen him since then; she had dined with him. On friendly terms — not quarreling — without love or kindness, but on account of their daughter, who was at school, and whose future was in question.

But last night was different? It was different. He had telephoned. It was the anniversary of their wedding day. To celebrate and forgive, he said. But she knew the lovely girl had died three months ago.

“You forgave him? Yet you quarreled.”

Her face grew as dark as a thundery sky. Only under pressure did she reveal that Rouben still wanted a divorce.

“Though the girl was dead?”

“Yes.”

“Could there have been another beautiful girl?”

No answer.

“Do you know the girl’s name?”

It was clear to me, as it must have been clear to Calloway, that Hortense knew the girl’s name. She pretended not to. She pretended never to have heard it. She sobbed. No, she could not remember the name.

At last she thought it had been Josephine.

“Josephine what?”

She did not know. No, she really did not know.

“Josephine what?” Calloway kept repeating.

It took fully ten minutes to extract the name — Josephine Arnould.

I could have sworn that the name meant something to Calloway. He sank back in his chair and his eyes closed as if he were exhausted.

That was all. Long after she had gone, he stood deeply considering the interview, sometimes walking up and down the empty restaurant, sometimes staring at the floor until one thought a pit yawned at his feet.

At last he stopped dead. He was a yard away.

“Blast this trade!” he said. It was almost a moan.

The blazing light overhead showed sweat on his brow.

He had pulled himself together again by the time the princess — or Adrienne, as I now knew she was called — joined us; and he placed the chair for her directly opposite to him with no change of manner that I could detect. As soon as he began his examination, however, I saw that he was suffering from unusual strain; he could hardly frame the questions which duty compelled him to ask. How strange that the two women, Hortense and Adrienne, should produce in the same room, in the same situation, such different emotions in a man whom I thought to be without emotion!

This girl fascinated me. She was exquisitely virginal, distinguished, resolute, again inspiring in me, by her pride, a feeling of adoration rather than masculine interest — as if the very blood of Aphrodite ran in her veins. She was very beautiful. Could one imagine her in love? I could hardly do so; yet I was caught by Calloway’s bewildering manner, in which severity was incomprehensibly mingled with the humblest, most indulgent, simplicity.

“I want you to tell me the truth, Adrienne,” he said, like a judge addressing a little girl in the witness box. She bowed. “The exact truth. You understand? How old are you?”

“I am nineteen,” was the reply. Adrienne sat upright in the chair, as she must have once been taught by a good nurse. She had incredible poise.

“How long have you worked in this restaurant?”

“For a month.”

“Did you know Mr. Rouben before you came to work here?”

She calmly consulted her memory. It was not that she hesitated.

“No. But I had heard of him.”

“Why did you come here?”

She could be as unreadable as a mask; and yet she was not a mask, but a living, breathing, enchanting girl. Her lips met; her expression, which hitherto had been one of lovely candor, faded from her eyes. She was about to lie — I was sure of it.

“I thought it would be... interesting.”

Calloway looked gravely at her.

“A sort of game?” he asked.

She said, no, not a game. She had to earn her own living.

“You don’t give that impression.”

“No?” No explanation, no discomposure — only a polite acceptance of the limits of Calloway’s knowledge of her.

“You remember what happened here two nights ago?”

Adrienne drew herself together, as if she felt suddenly cold. In a very low voice, as if they were alone, she said,

“Yes, I remember. You dined here.”

“I dined here. That wasn’t what happened.”

“It was the third time you had been here.”

I caught my breath. Extraordinary! She — alone among all the human beings who were not his friends — had distinguished Calloway from other men!

“It was the third time,” he said. “Do you know why I came?”

I was on tenterhooks. An instant’s coquetry would destroy my belief in her — and probably Calloway’s belief in her too. But it did not come. She said with the direct sincerity of a child:

“I think you wanted to find out something about Mr. Rouben.”

“Was it something you know?”

A pause for thought.

“I think not.”

She was not afraid of him. She did not tremble. She looked serious, but she was not in dread.

“You remember the lady in red, who also dined? Hortense? You know her?”

“I did not know her. I had seen her before.”

“Did you know she was Mr. Rouben’s wife?”

Ah! She took longer, this time, to answer; and when she did, it was with only one word. “Yes.”

“Did Jacques tell you that? What else did Jacques tell you?”

There was no answer to this at all. Calloway repeated the question three times; still there was no answer. To my surprise he did not press her further. Instead, he said,

“Did you arrange with Jacques to drop the tray and startle everybody in the restaurant?”

“Not everybody. Not you.” She was breathless.

Almost archly, Calloway said, “It did startle me, you know.”

One glance; no more. Then a whisper of apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It was so — terribly urgent.”

“Why?”

“To frighten Mr. Rouben.”

“So that—?”

No answer.

Again Calloway desisted. He would return to that question. Meanwhile, he asked, “What is your name?”

“Adrienne l’Ouvreuse.”

“It isn’t a real name, is it?”

“Oh, yes, quite real.”

“Is it the name on your passport?”

The astonishing creature blushed.

“No.” One hardly heard the admission.

“Why did you arrange with Jacques to frighten Mr. Rouben?”

She grew white again. Her face might have been ivory as she said, “I can’t tell you why.”

“Your real name is Arnould, isn’t it? You had a sister Josephine?”

A slow red, quite unlike the former blush, crept into her cheeks. A first doubt of Calloway’s good will must have been born in her. She did not otherwise reply to that question.

Calloway, with the only cruelty he had used to her, continued. “She was two years older than you. She fell in love. She came to England six months ago. She died three months ago. Are those things true?”

“Yes.” It was a melancholy sigh. She shrank. You saw that love for her sister had been devotion.

“Was she Mr. Rouben’s mistress?”

“No!” cried Adrienne, springing up, her voice as sharp as a whip. “It is not true! It is not true! Wicked!”

“You say that because she was your sister. Yet you came to this place. Did you think you could fill her shoes?”

She gave him a look of bitter scorn.

“Such a man? I tell you the truth. He shamed her. He was so infamous that she felt she had been made unclean. She took her own life!”

“Did she tell you that? Did she tell you that to avenge her? Did she tell you to kill his wife?”

“She wrote only, ‘Forgive me. I cannot forgive myself.’ I came here to find out the truth.”

“Which did you plan to do?” insisted Calloway. “Your life may depend on the truth.”

“I did not plan to do anything.”

“Come! You can’t expect me to believe that. You took a position as waitress here at Rouben’s. You watched your opportunity. Last night, when they were together, you gave him poison. I saw you do it. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?”

Calloway, plying her with these charges, was now shouting. He was beside himself. I could not help it; I rose to my feet. He, quite aware of the movement and its significance, waved me aside as if to say, “This is not your business; it is something terribly personal between Adrienne and me.”

She, for her part, leaned back hard in her chair. I thought she was fainting; but she did not faint. She returned Calloway’s stare with an expression of horror.

That curious whispering noise came again. Jacques, who must have been listening, shuffled forward over the bare boards.

“If you would excuse me, sir,” he muttered.

“Go away, old man!” cried Calloway, in a fury.

“But I can tell you something, sir, which you ought to know before you say another word to Miss Adrienne—”

“Say nothing, Jacques,” said Adrienne. “He is determined to hang me.”

“Hang you?” echoed Calloway. His face worked.

“For God’s sake, Calloway,” I shouted, “listen to him!”

He looked at me as if he awakened from a dream.

“But I saw. I saw her change the glasses!”

“Sir!” entreated Jacques.

He told us everything in the next ten minutes.

He had been down in the wine cellar before dinner. Hidden unintentionally behind some racks, he had seen Rouben mixing what he thought was medicine, and had heard his employer say, “This one with the red stem for Hortense. The red stem. God help me, how I tremble!”

Jacques had been alarmed. He had watched Rouben put two glasses — one with a red stem, the other with a yellow stem — into a cupboard, and then go away. Afterward, with a flush of suspicion, Jacques had imagined the meaning of what he had seen and heard. Because he was grateful to Hortense for many kindnesses when Rouben and she were first married, he had grown so troubled that he did not know what to do.

“I am sure,” he told Adrienne, “that my master intends some mischief to Madame Hortense. It is some medicine to make her ill. If we could only break the red-stemmed glass — or substitute another. But I know him. He is bad. He will watch. He will give us no chance. She will be made ill, deathly ill.”

“By no means,” Adrienne answered. “If you will drop your tray on his head, dear Jacques, I will take that instant of confusion to substitute another glass which you shall mix.”

“It was done, sir,” he told Calloway. “I mixed another glass — also with a red stem. You saw me drop my tray. But the dear child was so excited that she could only exchange the contents of the two glasses which were already on the table. The drink Mr. Rouben meant for Madame fell to his share. Miss Adrienne was quite innocent.”

I looked at Adrienne. She seemed unmoved; but I saw her glance swiftly at Calloway...

It occurs to me to remark that Hortense had had a lucky escape. Had Rouben, finding her adamant, and being determined to transfer his love from Josephine to her sister, taken an extreme course?

How innocent was Adrienne? What had she intended to do when she went to Rouben’s?

I cannot tell you. All I know is that she has now been married to Calloway for three years, and that she shows no sign, as yet, of killing him — unless it is with the kindness of a devoted love.

Calloway and I have never again referred to the case.