The Waxworks Murder

'What arc you hinting at?' Chaumont demanded.

'A trap,' said Bencolin. 'I don't know. My wits are fuddled. And yet I would stake my reputation that I have not misread the signs. ... I want information. Talk, Captain ! - tell me about these girls, about your fiancée and Claudine Martel.'

'But what do you want to know ?'

'Anything, everything! I'll pick out the important parts. Just talk.'

Chaumont stared straight ahead. 'Odette,' he said, in a low, thick, tense voice, 'was the loveliest..."

'Oh, damn it, I don't want that!' Bencolin so rarely lost his easy suavity, as he had lost it several times tonight, that I looked at him in surprise. He was almost biting his nails. 'Spare me the lover's point of view, please. Tell me something about her. What was she like? Who were her friends?'

Faced with the necessity for a definite answer, Chaumont groped after words. He looked at the lights in the awning, at his glass, at the leaves; he seemed to be trying to call back images, and he was slightly bewildered.

'Why ... why, she has the sweetest...' That, he decided, wouldn't do; and he checked himself, flushing. 'She lives with her mother. Her mother's a widow. She liked the house, and the gardens, and singing - yes, she was very fond of singing! And she was afraid of spiders ; she nearly had a fit when she saw them. And she reads a lot...,'

He went on in bold and clumsy outline, mixing his past and present tenses, hurrying back into his memory with jumbled, pathetic eagerness. Little incidents - Odette cutting flowers in a bright garden, Odette sliding down a hayrick, laughing - emerged to show a good-humoured, simple, and very happy girl. Behind his account of the solemn, earnest love-affair, I saw the girl in the photograph: the lovely face, the cloudy, dark hair, the small chin, the eyes which had looked at nothing save coloured picture-books. Oh, yes! All monstrously earnest, these two; their plans, their letters, under the supervision of a mother who (I gathered from Chaumont's description) was quite a woman of the world.

'She liked my being a soldier,' Chaumont told us eagerly. 'Though I'm not - much. After Saint-Cyr I was sent out, and I saw some fighting against the Riffs; but then my family got uneasy. Pah! They had me transferred to the post at Morocco. White-flannel stuff! I'm not like that. But Odette was pleased, and so —'

'I see,' Bencolin interposed, gently. 'And her friends?'

'Well, she didn't go out much. She didn't like it,' Chaumont asserted, with pride. 'There used to be three girls they called the Inseparables, they were such good friends: Odette, and - and - Claudine Martel....'

'Go on.'

'And Gina Prevost. That was when they were in the convent. Nowadays, they're not so close as they used to be. But - I don't know. I'm in Paris so seldom, and Odette never wrote much about where she went or whom she saw. She just - just talked. Do you see?'

'Then you don't know much about Mademoiselle Martel ?'

'N-no. I never liked her much.' He lifted his shoulders. 'She had a quick, sarcastic way of talking, and she laughed at you. But she's dead, and Odette was fond of her. I don't know. I am so seldom here.'

'I see. And this Mademoiselle Prevost, who is she ?'

He was taking up his glass again, but he put it down in surprise. 'Gina? Oh, just - well, a friend. She's about. She wanted to go on the stage, I understand, but her family wouldn't let her. She's good-looking, very, if you like the sort. Blonde, rather tall.'

There was a silence. Bencolin drummed with his fingers on the table; once he nodded obscurely and his eyes were half-closed.

'No,' he said at length, 'I suppose you are not the person to give us the most complete account of those two. Eh, well! If you are ready' - he tapped on his saucer with a coin to summon the waiter - 'we can start.'

Paris is unjustly blamed. Paris goes to bed early. The boulevards were grey and shuttered, deserted under a few mournful lights. Bencolin's big Voisin swept down into the centre of the town, where the pale lamps of the Place de l'Opera drowsed under electric signs; buildings were washed with bluish-grey under the sharp stars, and muffled auto horns sounded faintly. The trees of the Boulevard des Capucines looked ragged and sinister. We were all crowded into the front seat, where Bencolin drove in his usual detached manner, at his usual speed of fifty miles an hour, never seeming to be aware that he was driving at all. The cry of our horn caught up echoes along the rue Royale, and through an open windscreen the chill breeze against our faces smelt of wet pavements, of chestnut trees, and the turf of autumn. Threading that forest of white lamps which is the Place de la Concorde, we turned up the Champs Elysees. The brief, violent ride flung us out of the dinginess round Saint-Martin's Gate; we were in an atmosphere of sedate window-grills, of ordered trees and the decorum of the Avenue Montaigne.

Nearly every day I had passed number 645, for I lived only a few doors away. It was a high old house with a grey wall fronting the street, but those big brown-painted doors in the wall, with their polished brass knobs, never stood open. Bencolin pulled at the door-bell. Presently one of the doors was opened. I heard Bencolin exchanging swift words with somebody, and we entered, past a protesting voice, into a damp-smelling courtyard. The protesting voice, whose owner I could not see in the dark, followed us up the path. Light shone from the open door of the house. Then it was blocked by the protesting voice's owner, who was backing before us in the hallway. ' — but I tell you,' said the man, 'monsieur is not at home!'

'He will be,' Bencolin said, pleasantly. 'Stand out here, my friend; let me see if I know you.'

A cut-glass globe of light hung from the ceiling, which was very lofty. It showed a very correct, very pale face, close-cut hair, and injured eyes. 'Ah, yes,' Bencolin continued, after a moment's study. 'I do know you. You are in my files. We will wait for Monsieur Galant.'

The pale face squeezed its eyes almost shut. It said: 'Very well, monsieur.'

We were ushered into a room at the front of the house. It was also very lofty and of an ancient pattern, with gilded cornices worn almost black. The glow of a shaded lamp did not penetrate far into its depths, but I could see that the steel shutters were closed on the long windows. Though there was a bright wood fire burning, the place looked bleak; the very elaborateness of its grey-and-gilt carvings, its marble-and-gilt tables, its spindly chairs, made you feel that you would as soon try to be comfortable in a museum. Grotesquely, in one corner stood an enormous harp. Every piece of furniture was valuable, just as every piece of furniture was alien to use. I wondered what sort of man lived here.

'Sit down by the fire, messieurs,' Bencolin suggested. 'I do not think wc shall have long to wait.'

The servant had vanished. But he had left open the double-doors to the hallway, and I could see a dim glow beyond. I lowered myself gingerly on to a brocaded chair near the fire, where I could look at that glow in the hall, and wonder what sort of footsteps we should hear. Somehow, I did not want to face the fire; I wanted to keep my eye on that door. But Bencolin had seated himself facing the blaze, fallen into a study, with his gaunt figure slumped and his chin in his hand. To the accompaniment of a stirring and crackling, with the occasional flaring of an ember, the red light flickered weirdly on his face. I heard Chaumont's restless footfalls up and down the parquet floor. Rustling, brushing, a wind swished past the house, and I heard dimly the bell at the Invalides striking two....

There was no warning of it. I was watching through the gloom the dimly-lit rectangle marking the doors to the hall, and a part of the outer door; I saw nobody enter the outer one, though I heard the faintest of clicks from a closing latch. Suddenly a great white cat darted into the room. It whisked round and into the firelight, where it stopped, with a kind of inhuman squeal and snarl....

A man's shadow moved across the rectangle; a huge shadow, removing a top-hat and swinging a cloak from its shoulder. Footsteps, slow and jaunty, sounded on the parquet.

'Good evening. Monsieur Galant,' said Bencolin, without altering his position or taking his eyes from the fire, 'I have been expecting you.'

I rose as the man approached us, and Bencolin turned also. The new-comer was tall, very nearly as tall as Bencolin, and of a thickness of muscle which he moved with a curious fluid grace. That was your first impression of him; a grace like that of the white cat, whose unwinking yellow eyes stared up at me. In a swarthy manner he was very handsome; or he would have been handsome but for one thing. His nose was bent with an ahnost horrible crookedness, and it was of a slightly reddish tinge. Against the fine features, the strong line of the jaw, the high forehead, the thick black hair, the long, yellow-grey eyes — against these, the crooked nose had grown like the proboscis of an animal. He smiled at all of us; the smile lit up his face affably, and the nose made it hideous.

But before speaking to us he leaned over and spoke to the cat. His eyes widened affectionately.

'Here, Mariette!' he said in a soft voice. 'You must not spit at my guests. Here!'

His voice was cultured, with deep rollings; he could play on it, you felt, as with the stops of an organ. Taking up the cat in his arms, folding it in the long cloak he had not yet removed, he sat down within range of the firelight. The eyelids drooped over his yellow-grey eyes, luminous, almost mesmeric. His fingers, which continued to stroke the head of the cat, were short, spatulate, and immensely strong. And the force of the man was intellectual as well as physical; you felt its power, you felt that he "was coiling his muscles for a deadly spring, and you braced yourself as though to meet a charge with a knife.

'I am sorry,' he said in his soft, deep voice, 'to have kept you waiting. It has been a long time, Monsieur Bencolin, since we have met. These are,' he nodded towards us, 'your associates?'

Bencolin introduced us. He was standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece, negligently. Galant turned first towards Chaumont and then towards me, nodding briefly. Afterwards he continued his scrutiny of the detective. Gradually an expression of smugness and complacence spread itself over his face like thin oil; he wrinkled the red, grotesque nose and smiled.

'I saw you to-night,' he went on, thoughtfully, 'for the first time in several years. My friend Bencolin grows old; there is much grey in his hair. Nowadays I could break you in pieces....'

He settled his vast shoulders under a very correct dinner jacket. His fingers tightened, playing softly with the neck of the cat, which continued to regard us with glassy yellow eyes. Suddenly he turned to me. 'You are wondering, monsieur, about this.' With the utmost delicacy he touched his nose. 'Ah, yes, you were! Ask Monsieur Bencolin about it. He is responsible.'

'We fought once, with knives,' Bencolin said, studying a design in the carpet. He did look old then; thin and drawn and leathery of skin, a tired Mephistopheles. 'Monsieur Galant was pleased to think himself a master of the apache's art. I struck with the handle of the knife, instead of using its blade. ...'

Galant pinched his nose. 'That,' he said, 'was twelve years ago. Since then I have perfected myself. There is no one in France who could . But we will let that go. Why are you here?' He laughed, loudly and not pleasantly. 'Do you fancy that you have anything against me ?'

It was, surprisingly enough, Chaumont who broke the long silence after this. He walked round a table into the firelight; he stood for a moment uncertainly, as though revolving suspicions, and then he said, with sudden vehemence:

'Look here .. . who the devil are you ?'

'Well, that depends,' said Galant. He was not astonished or irritated; he seemed to be musing. 'In his poetic way, Monsieur Bencolin would say that I am lord of the jackals - king of the cockleshells - high priest of demonology. .. . '

Chaumont stared at him, uncertainly still, and the other chuckled.

'Paris,' he continued,' "the underworld" - what romances are committed in thy name! Monsieur Bencolin is at heart of the bourgeoisie. He has the soul of a three-franc novelist. He looks into a frowsy cafe, full of labourers and tourists, and he sees in these people creatures of the night, full of sin, drugs, and butchery. The underworld. He! - what an idea!'

Behind these words, uttered with many knowing quirks and chuckles, you could see a struggle. These men were old enemies. You could feel the hatred between them, as palpable as the heat of a fire; but also between them was a wall which Galant dared not break to fly at his foe. His words were as small vicious scratchings against that wall, like the claws of a cat....

'Captain Chaumont,' said Bencolin, 'wishes to know who you are. I will tell both of you a little. To begin with, you bore the title of doctor of letters. You were the only Frenchman ever to occupy a chair in English Literature at Oxford.'

'Well, well, that is admitted.'

'But you were anti-social. You hated the world and your fellow men. Also, you found the remuneration too small for a man of really excellent family —’

'That too, is admitted.'

'Without any doubt, then,' Bencolin said, thoughtfully, 'we can trace this man's course by his own peculiar mentality. Here, we shall say, is a man of extreme brilliance, who has read books until his brain bursts with the weight of them; he is brooding, introspective, vicious of temper; he begins to look out upon what he considers a crooked world, wherein all moral values are hypocrisies. If a person has a reputation for honesty, that person must be the lowest of thieves. If a woman is reported virtuous, she must be a harlot. To feed this colossal hate of his - which is merely the hate of a misplaced idealist - he begins to root among the pasts of his friends, for he has the ear of what we call good society....’

All the bones in Galant's face seemed suddenly to have grown hard with wrath; when colour came into his face, it was confined to his nose, and the grotesque thing assumed a monstrous redness. But he sat motionless, his eyes open and fixed, stroking the cat softly.

'So,' continued Bencolin, 'he began, against this good society, a campaign. It was a sort of super-blackmail; let me call it a blackmail without honour. He had his files, his spies, his gigantic cross-indexed system, with every letter, photograph, hotel slip or its photostat copy, all carefully arranged, waiting for the proper moment. He waged war only against the highest names in the land; but he picked each small misstep out of the past, enlarged and touched it up, and then awaited his time. A woman about to be married, a candidate running for public office, a man just entering on a career of promise and honour .. . then he appeared. I do not think it was the money, especially. He drew fantastic sums from these people, but what he liked was to rip open reputations, smash idols, and have the power of saying: "There, you who have achieved such eminence! This is how I can tear you down! You think you can reach the high places ? Try!" '

Like a man hypnotized, Chaumont drew out a chair and sat down on its edge. He was staring at Galant as Bencolin's low voice went on:

'Do you understand, messieurs? It was the immense mirth of a man who shares his joke with the devil. Look at him now. He will deny what I say, but you can see the secret satisfaction in his face.... ‘

Galant jerked up his head. It was not Bencolin's accusations which had caused this touch on an open nerve, but the fact that he knew this very expression, of hidden delight, to be creeping round his mouth,

'But this was not all,' Bencolin mused, 'I spoke of blackmail without honour; there is such a thing. When he had bled his victim of everything, he stil! did not keep faith. He did not hand over the evidence after it had been paid for. He published it instead, as he had always intended to do. For his real purpose was to ruin somebody, so that the last bit of triumph could be extracted from the jest.... Oh, no! They could not prosecute him afterwards. He had covered himself too well; he never wrote to his victims, or threatened them except when the two were alone together, with no witnesses. But his reputation went round. That is why they do not receive him in the drawing-rooms any more, and why he has a bodyguard night and day.'

'For what you are saying’ Galant told him in a repressed voice. 'I could take you into court and —'

Bencolin laughed, with a sort of tired savagery, and rapped with his knuckles on the mantelpiece. 'But you won't! Don't I know, monsieur, that you are waiting to settle with me in another way ?'

'Perhaps.' Silkily pleasant, even yet!

'Now, why I am really here to-night,' Bencolin resumed, with a slight gesture as though he were discussing a business deal, 'is to inquire about the newest aspect of your business. ...' 'Ah!*

'Oh, yes, I know about it. There has been opened, in a certain part of Paris, an institution unique of its kind. You are pleased to call it the Club of Coloured Masks. The idea, of course, is not new - there are places of the same nature - but this one has an elaborateness to which the others would not aspire. Membership in the club is restricted to those names in the very select Almanach de Gotha, and the fees are enormous. The names of the members are, theoretically, kept with the utmost secrecy.'

Galant blinked a little. He had not suspected Bencolin knew this. But he shrugged.

'Now,' he said, 'I really think you are mad. What is the purpose of this club?'

'A social gathering of men and women. Women unhappy in marriage, women who are old, women looking for a thrill: men whose wives are a bore or a terror, men in search of adventure - these meet and mingle, the woman to find a man who pleases her, the man to seek out a woman who does not remind him of his wife. They cross in your great hall, which is dimly lighted and muffled with thick hangings - and they all wear masks. One may not know that the masked lady he sees, and who appeals to him, and who leads him for private speech into the corridors off your great hall - one may not know that this seductive charmer is the very dignified woman whose sedate dinner he attended the night before. They sit and drink, they listen to your hidden orchestra, then they vanish into the depths of their amour. ... '

'You say "my" great hall,' Galant snapped, ' "my" hidden orchestra —'

'I do. You own the place. Oh, not in your own name! It is, I believe, in the name of some woman. But you are the controlling element,'

'Even so - I do not, of course, admit it - the place is perfectly legal. Why should it interest the police?'

'Why, yes, it is legal. It furnishes you with the best blackmail evidence you are ever likely to get, since the members do not know you are the proprietor. But if they insist on going there, I suppose it is their own look-out. ... ' Bencolin bent forward. 'However, I will tell you why it interests the police. In the passage leading to your club - a passage which is directly behind the waxworks known as the Musee Augustin - a woman named Claudine Martel was murdered tonight. Will you tell me, please, what you know about it?'

Mademoiselle Estelle

Gal ant's countenance was blurred before my eyes. I heard Chaumont's sudden gasp, and I saw him jump in the firelight, but his figure was like a ghost's. For I was looking at that narrow stone-flagged passage behind the museum. At its left end I saw that significant door without a knob; at the right, giving on the street, the door with the burglar-proof spring lock, which stood ajar. I remembered the pushbutton in the hall, which controlled soft lights there, and, lying beside bloodstains on the floor, a black mask with a torn elastic.. . .

From a distance, as though it were booming down that very corridor, came Galant's voice.

'I can offer proof,' urbanely, 'that I have no connexion whatever with the club you mention. If I am a member -what then? So are others. I am able to demonstrate that I was nowhere in the neighbourhood to-night.'

'Do you know what this means?' cried Chaumont, who was trembling.

'Sit down, Captain!' Bencolin's voice became sharp. He made a movement forward, as though he feared an outburst from Chaumont.

'But - if that's true - O God ! you are crazy! He's right!

You arc. It can't be. It ' Looking round desperately,

Chaumont caught Bencolin's eye. Then he sank down in his chair. He seemed now to be wearing uniform and holster, a puzzled soldier with sunken eyes, seated on a foolish gilt chair in a foolish, over-decorated room.

A long silence. Odette Duchene, Claudine Martel, the Club of Coloured Masks. ...

'Let me tell you a little more of what I know, Monsieur Galant,' Bencolin was saying, 'before you make any more comments. As I have pointed out, the club is apparently owned and operated by some woman; the name does not matter, for it is obviously assumed. Further: contacts with the upper world — that is to say, the securing of new members for the club - is also done by a woman. At the prefecture we do not know the name of this woman; she clearly belongs to the upper circles and approaches trustworthy people who might be interested. Let that part of it pass. You run an expensive, high-strung, dangerous menage (if relatives should find out!), and I dare say your own large bodyguard is forever on hand to prevent trouble, A tragedy there, with the newspapers publishing the whole story and the members afraid to go again lest their dear ones discover - why, you are undone.'

With steady fingers Galant took out a cigarette-case.

'Being myself only a member,' he said, 'I cannot, of course, understand all this. Nevertheless, I think you said a murder was committed in the passage outside the entrance. That need not involve the club.'

'Ah, but it does. For, do you see, this passage is actually a part of the club-rooms. You enter it from the street through a door with a special lock, which is always fastened. Members are provided with a special key for this door. It is a silver key, stamped with the name of the member. Therefore — ?' Bencolin shrugged.

'I see.' Galant lighted a cigarette, still impassive, and blew out the match. He seemed again to admire the absolute steadiness of his hand. 'In that case, I suppose, the newspapers will get the story, and the full account of the club.'

'They will get nothing of the kind.'

'I - I beg your pardon ?'

'I said,' Bencolin repeated complacently, 'they will get nothing of the kind. That is what I came here to tel! you.'

After another long pause, Galant murmured: 'I do not understand you, monsieur. Therefore I admire you,'

'Not a word of this whole affair will leak into the .newspapers. The club will continue on its usual cheerful course.

By no word will you intimate what has occurred to-night. . .. There is another interesting feature of the club also. ''Coloured masks'' is no idle term. I am informed of the signs by which members may be guided. Those who have no lover, but are merely looking at random for someone who pleases them, wear black masks. Those who are seeking out a definite person wear green. Finally, those who are there by assignation with some definite person, and will speak to no other, wear - as a hands-off signal - scarlet. The mask found in the passage to-night was black.... I ask you again, by the way, what you know of the murder.'

Now Galant was again in his element. He relaxed. Letting smoke drift out of his weird nose, he sat back and eyed Bencolin whimsically.

'My dear fellow, I know nothing. You tell me a crime has been committed there. It is sad. Oh, most tragic. Nevertheless, I don't know who was murdered, or how, or why. Will you enlighten me ?'

'Are you acquainted with Mademoiselle Claudine Martel?'

Galant frowned at his cigarette. Then he looked up, startled. I would have defied anybody to tell when this man was lying and when he was evading answers by telling the simple truth. Now I was at a loss; he seemed to be genuinely astonished.

'So?' he muttered. 'Eh, but this is odd! Why, yes. The Martels are a very good family. I used to have some slight acquaintance with the girl. Claudine Martel!' He chuckled. 'A member of the club! Well, well!'

'That's a lie,' Chaumont said, swiftly and coldly. 'Look here! And as for Mademoiselle Duchene —'

I heard Bencolin swear under his breath. He interposed: 'Captain, will you be so good as to keep out of this?'

' "Duchene",' Galant was repeating. ' "Duchene" ? I never heard that name. Besides, it's too common. What about her?'

'She does not concern us. ... Let me continue with Mademoiselle Martel,' said Bencolin. 'She was found tonight, stabbed through the back, in the waxworks whose rear door communicates with the passage.'

'In the waxworks? - Oh! Oh, yes, I know the place you mean. Tiens! that is too bad! But I thought you said she was killed in the passage?'

'She was. Her body was later carried in, through an open door, to the museum.'

'For what purpose?'

Bencolin shrugged. But there was a twinkle in his eye; he was enjoying himself. These two had a subtle way of communicating, so that you fancied Galant heard Bencolin's unspoken words: 'Why, that is our solution,' Aloud the detective asked:

'Are you acquainted with Monsieur Augustin or his daughter?'

'Augustin? No. I never heard. . .. Wait, yes, of course! That is the owner of the waxworks. No, monsieur, I have not the pleasure.'

A falling log dropped with a rattle in the fireplace, and a shower of sparks flickered yellow lights on Galant's face. He was all thoughtful concern - an admirable witness, choosing his words carefully. Under it lay an edge of satire. Now that it had come merely to fencing, he felt that he was in no danger. The quiet was jarred by Bencolin's laugh.

'Oh, come now!' he suggested. 'Think, my friend! Don't you want to consider?'

'What do you mean?' Elaborate casualness!

'Why, only this. For the information about your place I have previously given, I take no credit. It was supplied me long ago by our own agents. But when I visited the waxworks to-night, certain facts were manifest.'

Bencolin examined the palm of his hand, as though he were consulting notes. His face puckered, he went on :

'The street entrance to the passage, we know, is carefully guarded by a burglar-proof lock, for which special silver keys are given to members. The club wishes its outer entrance to be impregnable. But there is another entrance to this passage! - the back of the museum. Now, with all these precautions, is it reasonable to suppose that the club-owners would have neglected this back way? Is it reasonable to suppose that they would have left unnoticed a door with an ordinary spring lock, opening from the inside of the museum, through which any casual prowler could step into the passage? Of course not. Then I noticed that this museum door had a very new lock, freshly oiled and in excellent working order. Yet Monsieur Augustin assured me, with evident sincerity, that the door was never used and that he had lost the key. His daughter's attitude, however, intrigued my interest. ...

'Well, well, it is rather obvious, isn't it? Monsieur Augustin's daughter, who takes care of everything for a rather doddering father, has seen a way to capitalize the Musee Augustin aside from its waxworks display. Going into the museum would make an excellent blind for those of its members who were afraid of being caught! They could go to the rear and step in without the need of a key - though, of course, they must be club members —'

'One moment!' Galant interposed, raising his hand. 'This Mademoiselle Augustin could not refuse to admit everybody to the museum except club members, could she? The general public —'

Bencolin laughed again. 'My friend, I am not so ingenuous as to suppose that those two entrances - i.e., from the street through the bulldog-locked door, and from the back of the museum through the door that can be opened from inside - are the sole barriers to be overcome. No, no! The door into the actual club has yet to be passed. This also must be opened with the silver key, I am told, and subsequently the key must be shown to a man on guard inside. So, whichever way a member entered, he must have his key.'

Galant nodded. He seemed to be examining the matter as an abstract problem.

'Some inkling of this situation in the museum,' said Bencolin, 'had come to me before I visited it. At the prefecture of police, my friend, we are thorough. We have a department which is in communication with the Ministry of State, and with the three leading banking institutions of France. We receive monthly lists of the citizens of Paris whose incomes or bank balances are larger than their occupations warrant. Very often, in that way, we are able to pick up evidence which will be useful - later. When, this afternoon, we recovered the body of a woman who was last seen going into the Musee Augustin - (Oh, yes, don't look surprised! Two murders have been committed) - when we did that, I looked over the bank balance of Mademoiselle Augustin as a matter of routine. She was credited with nearly a million francs. Incredible! Then, to-night, the source of it became plain.

Bencolin spread out his hands. He was not watching Galant, but I was. I thought I saw again the expression of smugness, of Fierce secret triumph, creeping behind Galant's eyes, as though he laughed in his brain, as though he said, 'Still you don't know. ... !' But Galant lazily tossed his cigarette into the fire.

'So you are convinced, then, that I do know this charming lady?'

'You still deny it?'

'Oh, yes. I have already told you I am only a member.'

"I wonder, then,' Bencolin said musingly, 'why she expressed such agitation at the mention of your name.'

Galant's fingers descended softly on the neck of the cat. ...

'There were other things, too,' said the detective. 'We had quite a talk, mademoiselle and I; we questioned and answered without saying what we meant, though each of us understood. Several things are clear. Her father does not know that she is using the museum for that particular purpose, and she does not want him to know. She is afraid; the old man is proud of his place, and if he knew .. . well, we can't speculate on that. Also, my friend, she definitely had seen Mademoiselle Martel before.'

'What makes you think that?' Galant's voice has risen slightly.

'Oh, I am convinced of it. Yet you - you never saw Mademoiselle Martel before, I think you said? Also you do not know Mademoiselle Augustin. A tangled affair, I am afraid.' He sighed.

'Look here,' Galant returned, a little hoarsely. 'I am getting tired of this. You break in on my house to-night. You make stupid accusations, for which you could pay in court. My God ! I am tired!'

He rose slowly from his chair, dropping the cat; his big face looked ugly and dangerous.

'It is time to end this. You will go, or I will have you thrown out of the house. As for murder, I can prove that I had nothing to do with it. I do not know at what time it was supposed to be committed —'

'I do,' said Bencolin placidly.

'Is there any reason to bluff me ?'

'My friend, I would not take the trouble to bluff you or anybody else. I say that I know almost to the very second when the murder was committed. There is a piece of evidence which tells me.'

Bencolin spoke in a level, almost indifferent voice. There was a line between his brows and he scarcely looked at Galant. 'Evidence!' - so far as I knew, there was no evidence as to just when, during a period of over an hour. Claudine Martel had been stabbed. But we all knew that he was telling the truth.

'Very well, then,' agreed Galant. He nodded, but his eyes were glazed. ‘I dined, about eight o'clock, at Prunier's in the rue Duphot. You can verify it there, and also that I left there about nine-fifteen. As I was leaving there, I met a friend - a certain Monsieur Defarge, whose address I will give you - and we stopped at the Cafe de la Madeleine for a drink. He left me about ten o'clock, and I got in my car and was driven to the Moulin Rouge. Since it has become a dance-hall, you can easily get corroboration from the attendants; I am well known there. I sat in one of the boxes off the dance-floor, where I stayed for the eleven o'clock stage-show. It was over by half past eleven. I then went in my car in the direction of the Porte Saint-Martin, with die intention - you perceive that I do not conceal it - of going to the Club of Masks. When I reached the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Denis, I changed my mind. That must have been ... well, in the vicinity of eleven forty-five, I judge. So I went to the night club called "The Grey Goose", where I sat down to drink with two girls. You, monsieur, entered there not many minutes afterwards, and I dare say you saw me. Certainly I saw you. I trust that accounts for my movements. Now - when was the murder committed?'

'Between eleven-forty and eleven forty-five, exactly.'

All Galant's wrath seemed to evaporate. His tensity relaxed and he looked past Bencolin's shoulder to smooth his hair by his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Then he shrugged.

'I don't know how you can be so sure. But it helps me. I think the car-starter at the Moulin Rouge will tell you that it was shortly after eleven-thirty when I left. There is, I recall, an illuminated clock in a shop almost immediately across the street. So then, allowing for a ten-minute drive -it is some little distance - the parking of the car, and my arrival at "The Grey Goose" about eleven forty-five ... is it conceivable that I could have killed Mademoiselle Martel, carried her body into the waxworks, and returned to the night club, without any blood on me, at that time? Of course, you can question my chauffeur. But I don't suppose you will believe him.'

'I thank you,' said Bencolin, smoothly, 'for your story. It was not necessary. You have not been accused, or even -so far as I am concerned - suspected.'

'You admit, then, the impossibility of my guilt?'

'Oh, no.'

Galant's lips pressed together in an unpleasant fashion. He thrust his head forward. 'Frankly, why are you here?'

'Why, merely to tell you that you need fear no ugly publicity for your club. A friendly gesture, you see.'

'Now please listen to me. I am a quiet man.' Galant's slight gesture indicated the bleak room. 'I have only hobbies. My books. My music' - his eye travelled to the great harp in the corner - 'and my little pet, Mariette here. .. . But, my dear fellow, if any police spies are discovered in that club you speak of —'

He allowed his voice to trail away and he smiled. 'So good-evening, messieurs. My house has been honoured by your visit.'

We left him standing motionless in the firelight, the white cat beside him. He was fingering his nose musingly as the door closed. The servant let us out into the damp-smelling garden, which was as a well under the cold starlight. When the outer gates had closed behind us, Chaumont seized the detective's arm.

'You told me to keep quiet,' he said heavily, 'and I did. Now I want to know. Odette! Docs this mean that Odette was going - there? Don't stand there like a dummy; tell me! Why, that club, it's only a kind of glorified — '

'Yes.'

The light of a street lamp fell wanly through the trees on Chaumont's face. He did not speak for a long time.

'Well,' he muttered at length, squinting up at the light -'well, anyway, we - we can keep it from her mother.'

It was a sort of eager catching at consolation. Bencolin studied him in the dim light. He put his hand firmly on Chaumont's shoulder.

'You deserve to know the truth. Your Odette was - well, she was entirely too naive, like yourself. Not the army, not anything else, will ever teach you a thing about life. The fact is your Odette was probably enticed there as a joke. Monsieur Galant is fond of jokes like that. . . . Damn you, be still!' His fingers dug into the young man's shoulder and he yanked Chaumont round to face him. 'No, my friend. You are not going back to see Galant. I will attend to that.'

There was a tense silence in the rustling street while Chaumont writhed in the detective's grip.

'Had she wanted to go there,' Bencolin asserted, still calmly, 'she would in all likelihood have come out alive. You don't understand Monsieur Galant's sense of humour.'

'You mean, then,' I said, 'that this Galant is responsible for these - enticements and murders.'

Slowly releasing his grip, Bencolin turned; he looked suddenly bewildered and despondent.

'That's die rub, Jeff. I don't believe he is. Such a course is entirely consistent with him, but - there are too many things against it. The crimes lack smoothness; they are too clumsy; they are not like our friend's technique and they point too directly to him. Besides ... oh, I could name a dozen reasons from the evidence to-night! Wait. We are going to see what he did before he came home.'

He rapped the ferrule of his stick sharply against the pavement. Down the Avenue Montaigne a figure detached itself from the shadows of the trees and sauntered in our direction. Nodding to us to follow, Bencolin walked to meet him.

'To-night,' he explained, 'when I was fairly certain that the waxworks and the club were related to the murder of Mademoiselle Duchene - before even we found Mademoiselle Martel's body - I made a phone call, you may remember. I had seen Monsieur Galant in the night club, and I thought his presence was too .. . well, fortuitous. It is not a usual haunt of his, and he is not generally seen, this fastidious scholar, pretending drunkenness and fondling street-walkers anywhere. So I telephoned from the waxworks for a man to shadow him, provided he was still at "The Grey Goose." Here is the result.'

We had halted in the deep shadow of a tree which retained much of its foliage. The red end of a cigarette pulsed there; then it was tossed away in a glowing arc as a man stepped forward.

'In short, it looked too much as though Monsieur Galant were preparing an alibi for something, before I had the vaguest idea what that something was,' said Bencolin. 'Well, Pregel?'

'I found him at the night club when I arrived,' answered a voice. The faint glow from the street lamps shone on a starched shirt-front, and the voice was commanding; for the Surete does not take chances of having its agents recognized as agents. 'That was at twelve-twenty precisely. He waited fifteen minutes longer, and left. I had thought at first he was drunk; that was a pretence. He left "The Grey Goose" and walked round the corner. His car, a Hispano limousine numbered 2X-1470, was parked two streets away. The chauffeur was waiting and I thought there was a woman in the rear seat. At first I could not be sure. He entered the limousine. I took a taxi and followed. ... '

'Yes?'

'They drove to Number 28, rue Pigalle, Montmartre, a small apartment house. The street was full of people and I got a good look at the limousine's occupants as they left it. There was a woman with him, a very good-looking blonde who wore a fur piece and a brown hat.'

'The lady again,' Bencolin sighed. 'What then?'

'I was almost positive I recognized her, but when they had gone upstairs I showed my credentials to the concierge and asked who the woman was. It is the new singer at the Moulin Rouge - she is supposed to be an American - who goes under the name of Estelle.'

'It may explain why Monsieur Galant is so well known at the Moulin Rouge. H'm, yes. Go on.'

'He stayed upstairs about an hour. Then he came down, entered the limousine, and was driven directly to a garage farther up this street. He walked down here and entered his house. ... ' The voice grew embarrassed; it left its monotonous tone and became hesitant. 'I - er - it happens that I am a great admirer of - the lady's singing. I- I have a magazine photograph from Paris Soir here, if you wish to verify what I say.'

'Ho!' said Bencolin, appreciatively. 'Well done, Pregel! I never saw the lady, to my knowledge. By all means let's look at her.' His voice dropped its bantering. 'Messieurs, do you realize that mis is probably the woman the policeman saw waiting at the door of the museum after it had closed - the mysterious blonde in the brown hat? Strike a light.'

The flame of the large match spurted up, cupped in Pregel's hands. Then he held it carefully before a large coloured picture inscribed: 'Estelle, Grande Chanteuse Americaine du Moulin Rouge.' Blue eyes, set wide apart, looked at us with a sideways quirk which was half allure and half appraisal. The full pink lips were slightly open, the head thrown a little back, with the suggestion of a smile. Her nose was straight, and her chin firm. The hair, secured with a network of pearls, was not so much yellow as that rich brown which gives off flashes of gold under lights. We were silent, looking at it in the match-flame which Pregel was shielding against the wind. Then the match went out.

'Wait a minute!' Chaumont cried, suddenly. 'Strike a light again! I want to look....’

His voice was bewildered. He muttered: 'It can't be — ' and checked himself as Pregel struck another match. A silence. Then Chaumont expelled his breath hard. He said, wryly:

'Monsieur, I seem fated to give you identifications tonight. Do you remember my mentioning that Odette formerly had two great friends who were called the Inseparables? Claudine Martel, and Gina Prevost - who wanted to go on the stage and her family wouldn't permit it? Well, I can't believe it, and yet it's an extraordinary resemblance. I am almost willing to swear that tins "Estelle" is Gina Prevost. Good God! Singing in the Moulin Rouge! She must be...'

We were in darkness again. After a pause Pregel spoke softly:

'Monsieur is quite right. I asked the concierge. Mademoiselle Estelle, as I told you, is supposed to be American, but, under threat, I got the truth from the concierge. She is French, and her name is Prevost.' He drew a deep breath as though to say: 'Another illusion gone!' Afterwards he said: 'Shall I be required further to-night, Monsieur Bencolin ?'

'No,' said Bencolin. ‘I think, messieurs, we have had about enough of this for one night. You had better go home. I want to think.'

He turned, his hands jammed into his pockets, and began to walk slowly in the direction of the Champs Elysees. I saw his tall figure moving through patches of shadow and starlight, chin sunk on his breast, as he would walk until dawn. Distantly, the bell at the Invalides tolled three.

The Second Mask

Grey clouds hung over Paris that next morning. It was one of those autumn days when the wind has an ugly whine, when the sun lies behind those dull clouds and tips them with a cold gleam like steel. Houses look old and sinister, and every span of the Eiffel Tower stands out chill against die sky. When I breakfasted at ten o'clock, my apartment was dismal despite the bright fire in the drawing-room. I could see its reflection on the walls, rising and shrinking, to remind me of Etienne Galant and the white cat. ...

Bencolin had phoned earlier. I was to meet him at the Invalides - a large order, but I knew exactly where I should find him. He was in the habit of haunting the battle-chapel which is directly behind Bonaparte's tomb. I do not know what fascination this place exercised over him, for he took not the slightest interest in any of the great churches; but in this dusky stone chapel, where the old war-flags hang from the rafters, I have known him to sit for hours absorbed, leaning on his cane, staring down at the dim pipes of the organ.

When I drove to the Invalides I was still thinking of Galant. The man obsessed me. While I had had no further opportunity to question Bencolin about him, it occurred to mc at last why his name had been vaguely familiar. A chair in English literature at Oxford, yes. And his book on the Victorian novelists had won the Goncourt prize only a few years ago. No Frenchman, with the possible exception of M. Maurois, had so thoroughly understood the Anglo-Saxon mind. As I remembered the book, it had not been - as so often with Gallic writers - cheaply satirical. Hunting-field, punch-bowl, tall hat, overstuffed parlours, all this robust world of ale and oysters and parasols, was set forth with a sympathetic pleasure which, as I recalled Galant, seemed amazing. And in his chapters on Dickens he had caught an elusive and baffling thread. He had caught the morbidness, the terror, which underlay the mind of Dickens and was the soul of his most vivid effects. More and more the figure of Galant grew distorted, as in crooked mirrors; I saw him sitting in his cold house, with his harp and his white cat, and the nose which seemed to move of its own volition, like a live thing. He smiled.

A wet wind swept across that vast dry-brown open space which marches up to the Invalides, and the gilded eagles on the Pont Alexandre looked murky. I went past the sentinels at the iron gates, up the slope to the great dark building, and into a courtyard that is always murmurous with echoes. A few people moved in the cloisters where the embalmed guns lie; my own footsteps were loud on the stones, and the whole place smelled of decayed uniforms. Here above all you felt the shadow of the Emperor's gilded dome. At the door of the chapel I paused. Inside it was dusky, except for a few pin-point candles burning before shrines; and the organ sent a thin wave of sound rolling under the arches, rising in ghostly triumph round a dead man's battle-flags. .. .

Bencolin was there. He stepped out to join me, his jaunty appearance momentarily neglected, for he wore an old tweed topcoat and a disreputable hat. We walked down the cloister slowly. At last he made an irritable gesture.

'Death’ he said. 'This atmosphere - it's like the case. I have never known an investigation recently in which it seemed so to penetrate everything I touch. I have seen horrifying things, yes, and black fear, but this terrible sombre-ness is worse. It's so meaningless. Ordinary young girls, such as you might meet at any tea, without enemies or grand passions or nightmares; sensible, steady-going, not even especially beautiful. And they die. That's why I think there's a worse horror than any other at the end of it ... ' He broke off. 'Jeff, Galant's alibi checks at every point.'