The Waxworks Murder

'Naturally. My father has - fancies.'

'Your father, yes. There is one little point in connexion with that I should like to mention. Your father spoke of his name; he is a proud man. ... Is the running of this works a profitable business?'

She was wary now, feeling for the trap. She countered slowly. 'I see no connexion.'

'And yet there is. He has mentioned his poverty. I dare say you attend to the financial arrangements?'

'Yes.'

Bencolin took the cigar out of his mouth. 'Does lie know, then, that at various banks in Paris you have on deposit sums totalling nearly a million francs ?'

She did not reply, but a pallor crept up under her cheek bones, and her eyes grew big.

'Now, then,' Bencolin said in his conversational tone, 'have you anything to tell me?'

'Nothing.' She spoke huskily, with an effort at flinging the word. 'Except - you are a clever man, O my God ! but you are a clever man! I suppose you will tell him.'

Bencolin shrugged. 'Not necessarily. Ah! I think I hear my men.'

Along the street outside swept the clangour of a bell on a Surete car. It ground to a stop outside and we heard the murmur of voices. Bencolin hurried out to the front door. Another car drew in beside the first. I glanced at Chaumont's puzzled face.

'What the devil,' Chaumont suddenly groaned, 'is all this about? I can't understand any of it. What are we doing? What .. . ' He seemed to remember that he was speaking before Marie Augustin, and subsided with a confused smile.

I turned to her. 'Mademoiselle,’ I said, 'the police are here, and they are likely to turn things upside down. If you want to retire, I am sure Bencolin will offer no objection.'

She examined me gravely. With something of a shock I realized that, in the proper environment, she would be almost beautiful. If she relaxed her rigid carriage, her strong and supple body would be graceful; clothes and colour would set off her features and enhance the moody brilliance of her eyes. This I saw as a sort of spectre behind the girl in dowdy black. She saw it reflected in my face, so that for a moment we spoke together without a word being uttered. I did not know then how well that communion was to stand me in the near future, at a time of deadly danger. She nodded as though answering.

'You are a very ingenious young man.' It was the spectre speaking! A little smile twisted round the tight lips. I felt a sudden compression in my chest, as though the spectre were really taking form; our unspoken words echoed and replied. She went on: 'I am inclined to like you. But I do not care to retire. I am interested in seeing what the police do.'

Through the door we could see them tramping in; a sergeant in uniform, two quick-eyed men in felt hats, the attendants with boxes and spindly camera-legs slung over their shoulders. I heard Bencolin giving directions. He came back into the room, accompanied by one of the felt hats.

'Inspector Durrand,' he said, 'is taking charge. I leave everything in his hands. You understand, Inspector, what I have told you - about the passage?'

'We will be careful,' the other assented, briefly.

And no photographs?'

'No photographs there. I understand.'

'Now, about these things.' Bencolin approached the table. On it lay the handbag with contents arranged in a line, together with the black domino mask we had seen on the floor of the passage. 'You will want to look at them. As I told you, they were in the passage. ..."

The inspector's shrewd, clean-shaven face bent over the table. His fingers ran over the articles rapidly. He said: 'The handbag belonged to the dead woman, I take it?'

'Yes. Her initials are on the clasp. I find nothing significant in the contents of the bag, except this.'

Bencolin held out a small slip of paper, apparently torn hastily from the sheet of a writing-tablet. On it had been written a name and address. The inspector whistled.

'My God!' he muttered. 'Is he concerned in this? Ah, I see! The house next door. . .. Shall I round him up?’

'Under no circumstances! I am going to interview him personally.'

I heard a slight noise behind me. Marie Augustin had seized the back of the rocking-chair, which creaked suddenly.

'May I ask,' she said in a clear voice, 'whose name that is?'

'You may, mademoiselle.' The inspector looked up sharply from under the brim of his hat. 'The paper reads: "Etienne Galant. 645 Avenue Montaigne. Telephone Elysee 11-73." Is it familiar to you?'

'No’

Durrand seemed about to question her further, but Bencolin touched his arm. 'The address-book contains nothing significant. Here is the key of a car, and her driver's licence. Also the car number. You might give the patrolman on his beat the number and see whether the car has been left in this neighbourhood... .'

In response to Durrand's summons an agent came in and saluted. When he had received his instructions he hesitated.

‘I have something to report, monsieur,' he said, 'which may bear on this matter.' As both Bencolin and the inspector whirled on him, he grew flustered. 'It may not be of importance, messieurs. But earlier in the evening I noticed a woman outside the door of the museum, I noticed her particularly because I passed her twice within fifteen minutes, and each time she was standing outside the door, as though trying to make up her mind to ring the bell. When she saw me she turned away; she seemed to be trying to make it appear that she was waiting for somebody. ...!

'The museum was closed?' demanded Bencolin.

'Yes, monsieur. I noted that. I was surprised, because ordinarily it stays open until twelve, and when I first passed it was barely twenty minutes of the hour. ... The woman also seemed puzzled.'

'How long did she remain there ?'

'I don't know, monsieur. The next time I passed it was well after twelve, and she had gone.'

'Should you recognize this woman if you saw her again?'

The man frowned doubtfully. 'Well - the light was very dim. But I think I should recognize her. Yes, I am almost positive.'

'Good !' said Bencolin. 'Accompany the rest of them back here and see whether it was the dead woman. Be careful about your identification, now! Wait! Did she seem - nervous ?'

'Very nervous, monsieur.'

Bencolin waved him out. He looked swiftly at Marie Augustin. 'You heard or saw nobody outside here, mademoiselle?'

'Nobody!'

'The bell was not rung?'

‘I have already told you it was not.'

'All right, all right. Now, Inspector' - he picked up the black mask - 'this was found near the bloodstains. As I reconstruct it, the girl must have been standing with her back to the brick wall of the house next door, in the passage, say about a foot and a half away from it. The murderer must have stood directly in front of her; judging by the way the blood spurted, he must have struck over her left shoulder and down beneath the shoulder blade. The direction of the wound will determine that. Now, this mask is very suggestive. You see that the elastic has been ripped out on one side, as though it had been torn off. . ..'

'Torn off the murderer?'

Bencolin grunted. 'Well, how do you explain it?'

Holding the white inside of the mask close under the lamp, Durrand let out an exclamation.

'The mask,' he said, 'was worn by a woman. Its lower edge would just touch the upper lip on a small face, and here is a red smudge of - he scraped with his finger nail -'yes, of lipstick. Faint, but you can see it.'

Bencolin nodded. 'Yes. It was worn by a woman. What else?'

'Wait! Suppose it had been worn by the dead woman?'

'I examined her carefully, Inspector. She wears no lipstick. But look further. The colour of the lipstick, you can see, is very dark. The woman was of fairly dark complexion: probably a brunette. Now examine the elastic.' He snapped it out. 'It is quite long, though, by the fact of an ordinary domino mask's reaching down to the upper lip, we know that the face was small. A small woman, then, wearing a mask with a very long elastic —'

'Yes,' said Durrand, nodding as the other paused interrogatively, 'long and heavy hair, to be confined by that band.'

Bencolin smiled and blew out a cloud of cigar smoke. 'Therefore, Inspector, we get a brunette of small stature, using cosmetics freely, and wearing her hair piled up. That is all, I think, the mask can tell us. It is of a common variety, which may be bought at any shop.'

'Anything else?'

'Only this.' Taking an envelope from his pocket, Bencolin shook out on the table a few small bits of glass. 'On the floor of the passage,' he explained, 'one minute particle clinging to the wall. I leave them for your consideration, Inspector; at present I have nothing to go on. I don't think you will find any footprints out there or fingerprints, either, if I am any judge. ... Now I am taking Jeff and Captain Chaumont along to interview Monsieur Galant. Afterwards, if you want me, I shall be in my rooms; you can telephone at any time. For the present I have no instructions.'

'I want the dead woman's address. We shall have to notify' her relations that we are taking the body for an autopsy.'

'Durrand,' the other said, whimsically, and clapped him on the shoulder, 'your common-sense bluntness is delightful. I am sure Mademoiselle Martel's father would appreciate hearing the news broken to him in that way. No, no. I - or Captain Chaumont here - will attend to that. But be sure to let me know about the surgeon's findings on that wound. I don't think you'll discover a weapon. ... Ah, here we are! Well?'

The policeman appeared again, his cap in his hands.

'I looked at the body, monsieur,' he answered. 'I am positive that the dead woman is not the one I saw outside the museum to-night.'

Durrand and Bencolin exchanged glances. The latter asked:

'Can you give us any description of the one you saw ?'

'It is hard.' The man made gestures. 'Nothing distinctive, you understand. I think she was well dressed. I think she was a blonde, about medium size.. ..'

Durrand gave his hat a pull down on his head. 'Great God!' he said. 'How many women are there around here? We just finish getting a description of one - from the mask - and here we find a blonde! Anything else?'

'Why, yes, monsieur,' the policeman replied, hesitating again. 'I believe she wore a fur neckpiece and a little brown hat.'

After a long pause, during which Chaumont put his hands to his head, Bencolin bowed politely to Mile Augustin.

'The myth,' he said, 'has come to life. I bid you goodnight, mademoiselle.'

Bencolin, Chaumont, and I went out into the cool darkness of the street.

The Club of the Silver Key

Knowing Bencolin of old, I knew, that the mere fact of the time being past one in the morning would not prevent him from routing out any person he wanted to speak with; not out of a desire to hurry, but because night and day were the same to him. He took his sleep where he found it, when he did not forget it altogether. In any case which absorbed him, he neither noticed the hour nor allowed anybody else to notice it. So when we left the museum he said, briskly:

'If you care to accompany us, Captain, Jeff and I are on a most interesting errand. First, though, I suggest a cup of coffee. I want information. So far, Captain, you are the only one who can tell me.. ..'

'Oh, I'll come,' Chaumont assented, gloomily. 'Anything to keep from going home and going to bed. That's what I can't face. I want to stay up all night.' He looked round with vigour. 'Lead on.'

Bencolin's car was parked at the corner of the Boulevard Montmartre. Near it a late cafe yawned with a dingily lit window. The pavement tables had not yet been taken in, though the pale street was deserted and a wind rattled shrewdly at the awning. Bundled into our coats, we sat down at one of the tables. Far down the boulevard was that empty glimmer, that high nimbus which shimmers round Paris by night: distantly you could hear a singing drone of traffic, pierced by the fiat quack of taxis. Dead leaves scurried in ghostly rustlings across the pavement. Nervousness had strung us all to a high pitch. When the waiter brought our glasses of hot coffee, laced with brandy, I gulped at mine greedily.

Chaumont had his coat collar turned up. He shivered.

'I am getting tired,' he said, with a sudden change of mood. 'Whom are we going to see? This weather ... '

'The man we are going to see is called Etienne Galant,' Bencolin replied. 'That is one of his names, anyhow. By the way, Jeff, you saw him to-night; he is the man I pointed out to you first in the night club. What did you think of him?'

I remembered. But the impression was almost lost in the welter of terrors which had swept over us since; I retained only a memory of green lights, horribly like those of the museum, playing over grotesque eyes and a crooked smile. 'Etienne Galant, Avenue Montaigne.' He lived in my own street, which is not occupied by those whose incomes are small. His name was known to Inspector Durrand; he seemed to have lurked over the evening, bogey fashion, from the first. I nodded.

'Who is he?'

Bencolin frowned. 'Etienne Galant, Jeff, is a very, very dangerous man. Beyond that I am not prepared to say anything just yet, except that he is in some fashion connected with to-night's events.' He pushed his coffee-glass back and forth on the table, his eyes a blank. 'I know that both of you are impatient at this working in the dark; but I promise you that if we can find him at home you will understand a great deal about to-night. You may understand it all.

He was silent a moment. A yellow leaf fluttered down under the bright lights of the awning, and trembled on the table. The cold wind crept round my ankles.

'There are Mademoiselle MarteFs parents to be notified,' Bencolin said, slowly.

‘I know. I know. It's the devil. Do you think,' Chaumont hesitated, 'we'd better telephone . .. ?'

'No. Better wait until morning. It's too late a story for to-morrow morning's newspapers, and they won't see it there. I know her father; I can spare you the duty, if you wish. .. . It's incredible!' He spoke with great intensity. 'Both girls of high family. Most people, yes. But those . .'