'Dominoes?'
'Hour after hour,' said Bencolin, nodding sombrely. 'The old man was a great gambler in his youth. Not so much gambler as what you call "plunger"; the kind who doesn't reason, but bets huge sums on an even chance at anything. Dominoes - he must get a sardonic pleasure in that!' Still the detective hesitated. 'This has got to be handled carefully. When they learn where their daughter was murdered . . . well, Jeff, this "family honour" obsession is devilish difficult.'
'Has Chaumont told them?'
'I most fervently hope so. And I hope he was careful not to mention the club. I think, though, that they would consider the waxworks almost as bad. However — '
Vast spaces are hidden from Paris. The gardens of the Faubourg Saint-Germain come with the suddenness of an illusion when these tall old walls open their gates. You would swear that the avenues of trees stretch away for miles, that pools are enchanted and flower-beds spectral, and that no such spacious countryside can exist in the very centre of Paris traffic. Here are stone houses, gabled and turreted, on phantom estates. In summer, when all the flower hues flame against green, and the trees sparkle with sunlight, these houses still seem proud and forlorn and ghostly. But in autumn their gables against grey-white sky make you feel you have strayed into a countryside which is a thousand leagues from Paris or reality, and which exists only in time. A light in a window startles you. On these gravel walks at twilight you might meet an unlighted coach, with footmen and four white horses, and you would realize, in the wind and thunder of its passing, that the passengers had been dead two hundred years.
I do not exaggerate. When the outer gates of the Martel estate were opened by an old man in a concierge's lodge, and we walked up a gravel drive sprouting with weeds, Paris had entirely ceased to exist. Automobiles were not yet invented. The lawn looked gutted with the brown patterns of dead flower-beds, mingling with yellow, where leaves were plastered in soggy patches under the trees. From the back of the house, which was mournful in iron scrollwork, we heard a rustle, the play and creak of a chain, and then the barking of a dog. It yelped and resounded through die damp twilight in these gardens; it had its echo down rustling vistas behind. As though in reply, a light shone out from a window on the ground floor.
'I hope the brute's not loose,' said Bencolin. 'They call him Tempest. He's the most vicious — Hallo!'
He stopped short. From under a copse of chestnut trees at our right a figure darted out. It ran with a horrible hopping motion, as though it were not human. You could see the rags of an overcoat fluttering from its back as it disappeared into another clump of trees; then only the wind rasped through the gardens and the dog's barking suddenly died.
'We're being watched, Jeff,' said Bencolin, after a pause. 'Shakes you up, eh? It did me. That's one of Galant's men, on your life. The dog scared him out.'
I shivered. A heavy drop of rain spattered on the leaves, then another. We hurried up to the house, past a line of old hitching-posts, into the shelter of the porch. This porch, apparently, was an addition from the last century, for iron link-brackets were still in the walls. It must have been a gloomy enough place for a young girl like Claudine Martel. Behind the dead vines I saw a few wicker chairs covered with bright chintz, and the breeze was fluttering the pages of a magazine which lay open on a padded swing.
The front doors were already being opened at our approach.
'Come in, messieurs,' said a deferential voice. 'Colonel Martel has been expecting you.'
A manservant led us into a dim hall, very spacious, panelled in black walnut. It was not shabby, but it needed an airing: it smelled of old wood, of dusty hangings, of brass-polish and waxed floors. Again I caught that scent of clothes and hair, as at the waxworks; but these, I could not help feeling, were the clothes and hair of dead people; and the walls, dark red stain above their panels, exhaled an indefinable reek of decay. We were ushered into a library at the back of the house.
At a mahogany table, on which burnt a shaded lamp, sat Colonel Martel. At the rear of the room, above tall bookcases, there were diamond-paned windows of blue and white glass. You could see the silver rain thickening, and pale flickers of light were on the face of the woman who sat motionless, her hands clasped, in the shadow of the bookshelves. About them both was an atmosphere of stiff waiting, of tears that would never be shed, and of doom. The old man rose.
'Come in, messieurs,' he said in a deep voice. 'This is my wife.'
He was of medium height, very stocky, but bearing himself with the utmost rigidity. His face, rather sallow of complexion, would have been handsome had it not been so fleshy. The light was reflected on his big bald skulclass="underline" his eyes, sunken under thick brows, had a sort of grim bright glaze. I saw a play of muscles tightening the mouth under a large moustache, sandy-white in colour and drooping at the corners, and I saw the folds of his chin flatten over a high collar with a narrow band of cravat. His dark clothes, though somewhat old-fashioned in cut, were of the finest cloth, and there was an opal stud in his shirt. Now he was bowing towards the shadow.
'Good-day!' sang the woman's voice, high and shrill like that of many deaf people. The eyes in her faded, bony face searched us; her hair was completely white. 'Good-day! Bring chairs for the gentlemen, Andre!'
Not before the servant had brought them out and we were seated near the table did the Comte dc Martel sit down himself. I saw on the table a set of dominoes. They had been built up like blocks for a sort of toy house, and I had a sudden vision of him sitting there for long hours with steady hands, patiently building them up, patiently taking them down, like a solemn child. But now he sat looking at us grimly and fixedly, fingering a piece of blue paper like a part of a telegram.
'We have heard, monsieur,' he said at length.
The atmosphere was getting on my nerves. I saw the woman nodding her head in the background, straining to catch each word; and it seemed to me that shattering forces were gathering round this house, to tear it down.
'That is as well, Colonel Martel,' said Bencolin. 'We are relieved of an unpleasant duty. I speak to you frankly: there now remains only to get all the information we can about your daughter. ..."
The other nodded deliberately. For the first time I noticed that he was fingering that paper with only one hand; his left arm was missing and the sleeve was tucked into his pocket.
'I like your straightforwardness, monsieur,' he assented. 'You will not find either madame or myself weak-kneed at this time. When may we - have her back ?'
Again I shivered, regarding those glazed bright eyes. Bencolin replied:
'Very soon. You know where Mademoiselle Martel was found?'
'In a certain waxworks, I believe' - the rumbling voice rose mercilessly - 'stabbed through the back. Speak out. My wife cannot hear you.'
'Is she really dead?' sang the woman, suddenly. The cry jabbed through all of us. M. Martel turned cold eyes, slowly, to regard her. A big grandfather clock ticked in the silence; seeing his look, madame subsided with blinking eyes, her face pinched, eagerly still.
'Our hope is,' Bencolin went on, 'that her parents can throw some light on her death. When was she last seen alive?'
'I have tried to think of that. I am afraid' - this time the merciless voice was directed against himself - 'I am afraid I have not kept good account of my daughter. All that I left to her mother. A son, now..! But Claudine and I were