Our host rose as we did. For the first time I noticed how the interview had shaken him; his stocky body was still rigid, but his eyes were blank and baffled with despair. He stood there in his fine clothes and linen, as for a gala day, the lamplight shining on his bald head. . . .
We went out of the house into the rain.
Death in Silhouette
'Room of the juge d'instruction. Bencolin speaking. Connect with central, medical bureau.'
A buzz of wires, a prolonged clicking. 'Medical bureau, desk.'
'Juge d'instruction. Report autopsy of Odette Duchene. File A-forty-two, homicide.’
'File A-forty-two, reported on by commissaire, first arrondissement, two p.m., October nineteenth, nineteen hundred and thirty, to central office. Body of woman, found in river at foot of Pont au Change. Correct ?'
'Correct.'
'Compound fracture of skull, caused by fall from height of not less than twenty feet. Immediate cause of death, stab-wound in third intercostal space, piercing heart, from knife one inch wide by seven inches long. Minor bruises and lacerations. Cut about head, face, neck, and hands, caused by broken glass. Dead, when found, about eighteen hours.'
'That's all.... Central office, department four.'.
'Central office, department four.' A sing-song voice.
'Juge d'instruction. Who is in charge of case A-forty-two, homicide?'
'A-forty-two. Inspector Lutrelle.'
'If he is in the building, let me speak to him.'
The bleak autumn dusk was already setting in. I had not been able to see Bencolin until then; he had been summoned back to his office on routine business shortly before lunch, and it was past four o'clock when I arrived at his office in the Palais de Justice. Even then I did not find him in the great bare room with the green-shaded lights, where he conducts his examinations. He has a private room of his own at the very top of the vast building, a sort of den shut off from its buzz and clamour, but connected by a battery of telephones with every department of the Surete, and with the prefecture of police several blocks away.
The lie de la Cite, which really is an island shaped like a narrow ship, stretches for nearly a mile in the Seine; at the rear end, broadening out, is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, and at the front - tapering out in the fashion of a bowsprit -is a drowsy park bravely called The Square of Gallant Green. Between these two, jutting up over the bustle of the New Bridge, rise the buildings of justice. The windows of Bencolin's room are high up under the roof; they look down on the New Bridge, past this tapering point and up the dark river. From here you have an illusion of keeping watch over all Paris. It is an eerie place, with its brown wails, its easy-chairs, its grisly relics in glass cases, its framed photographs, and an old rug worn threadbare by the ceaseless pacing of Bencolin,
We sat in the dark, except for dim lights over bookcases in an alcove. Their yellow illumination was faint behind Bencolin, silhouetting his head as he sat beside the windows with a telephone in his hand. My chair was opposite his, beside the windows, also, and I wore a headpiece from an extension to the phone. I heard the clicking and buzzing, the ghostly voices which spoke from all parts of the building, and my hands were on all the filaments which stretched from this room, responsive to the slightest pull, wound invisibly about every house in Paris.
There was silence after his last request. I saw his long fingers tap impatiently on the chair arm, and my eyes wandered out of the windows. They rattled dimly, for a cold wind was sweeping down the river. The glass was still blurred with rain, which snapped there in little whips. I could see the smudgy lamps on the New Bridge, far below: it was thick with pedestrians, traffic whistles, the lights and rumble of buses. Then, out farther, there were a few gleams on the tapering point, reflected brokenly in the river. But the rest was lost. Cold lamps, a row of them on each bank of the river, moved away, grew blurred, and then were dimmed in rain.
'Inspector Lutrelle speaking,' sang a voice in my ear. We were far from that prospect in the cold. We were shut in behind glass, with great machinery in motion; with a scent of thick cigar smoke, and a frayed rug where those pacing footfalls followed killers.
'Lutrelle? Bencolin. What have you on the Duchene murder?'
'Routine, so far. I went round to see her mother this afternoon, and was told you had been there. Had a talk with Durrand. He's in charge of the Martel affair, isn't he?'
'Yes.'
'He says you believe the two are connected with the Mask Club in the Boulevard de Sebastopol. I wanted to crash in there, but he told me you'd issued orders to keep off. Is that right?'
'For the present.'
The voice said, querulously: 'Well, if those are instructions, all right. I don't see the idea, though. The body was picked up against the foot of the Pont au Change, against one of the piles of the bridge. The current is swift, and that hadn't been allowed for. It was probably thrown in just about there, where it got wedged in. And that bridge is right at the end of the Boulevard de Sebastopol. It could have been brought down from the club in a direct line.'
'Anybody notice anything suspicious?'
'No. We've questioned that neighbourhood. That's the devil of it.'
'Laboratory reports?'
'Laboratory can't tell anything. She was in the water too long, and it destroyed indications as to the clothes. There's one more lead, if you insist on keeping away from the club. ...' '
'The glass cuts in her face, eh? The glass is probably of an unusual type - opaque, certainly, and probably coloured - and you found pieces of it. Oh, yes, Inspector. She either jumped or was thrown out of a window, and windows of that club would in all likelihood have —'
Over the wire there was a smothered exclamation of annoyance. 'Yes,' the voice admitted grudgingly, 'there were slivers in some of the cuts. It's dark red and very expensive. So you saw that, eh? We're questioning all the glaziers within a mile of the Porte Saint-Martin. If they got that window repaired . .. Any instructions?'
'None for the present. Keep after it; but understand ! No inquiries of any kind at the Mask Club until I give you permission.'
The voice grunted and rang off. Bencolin put down his telephone, shifting his fingers nervously up and down the arms of the chair. We were silent, listening to the distant hum of the building and the spurting rain.
'So,' I said, 'the Duchene girl was killed at the club. That seems to establish it. But Claudine Martel... Bencolin, was she killed because she knew too much about the first death?'
He turned his head slowly. 'What makes you think so?'
'Well, her behaviour at home on the night of Duchene's disappearance. You know — the crying, the agitation, and telling her mother "You can't help me. Nobody can help me." She seems ordinarily to have been a very self-possessed young lady. ... Do you think they were both members?'
He leaned over slightly to draw closer to him a tabouret on which stood a decanter of brandy and a box of cigars. The light from the alcove behind lay along the side of his face, hollowing the cheek bone, and glowed scarlet through the liquid in the decanter.
'Well, we can make a shrewd guess. Odette Duchene, I think, was not. The Martel girl, however, clearly was.'
'Why "clearly" ?'
'Oh, there are any number of indications. First, because she certainly was known to Mademoiselle Augustin, and well known; Mademoiselle Augustin had her freshly in mind, though she may not have known the name. Claudine Martel must have been in the habit of going to the club through the waxworks, by which we may infer she was a constant visitor. ...'