'But to-day, when I heard it again, all this rushed back over me. And I knew. Don't deny it! My little Odette. ...
I didn't pay any attention to your glib explanations. When I read this paper, about Claudine ... !'
She glared at him. He remained motionless, his elbow on the chair arm and his fingers at his temple, watching her out of bright unwinking eyes. Presently, when the emotional tension had spent itself, she said, eagerly,
'You have nothing to tell me?'
'Nothing, madame.'
Another silence. I heard somebody's watch tick.
'Oh ... I see,' she said. 'I - h-had hoped you would deny it, monsieur. Somehow, I still hoped. But I see now.' Smiling faintly, she shrugged her shoulders, snapped the clasps on her handbag in an aimless manner, and glanced round with something of wildness. 'Do you know, monsieur, I read in the paper that Claudine had been found in the arms of a wax figure called the Satyr of the Seine. That is the way this man had impressed me. I don't know about the Seine . .. but a satyr, a ghoulish ...'
Robiquet interposed hurriedly. He said: 'Aunt Beatrice, we had better go. We are taking up monsieur's time. We can do no good here.'
They both rose as the woman did. She continued aimlessly to smile. Bencolin took her hand as she extended it; he made a brief courtly bow.
'I fear I can give you no comfort, madame,' he murmured. 'But this at least I promise you' - he raised his voice slightly and pressed her hand - 'that before many hours are out I will have this man where I want him. And, by the living God, he will not trouble you, or anyone else, ever again! - good afternoon, and ... take courage.'
His head was still bowed when the door closed after them. The light shone on the thick grey patches in his hair. He walked slowly behind his desk again and sat down.
'I grow old, Jeff,' he observed, suddenly. 'Not very many years ago I would have permitted myself a secret smile at that woman.'
'Smile? Good God!'
'And I would be saved from hating all human beings, as Galant does, only because I could laugh at them. That has always been the essential difference between us.'
'You're comparing yourself to that — ?'
'Yes. He saw a world mismanaged, and loathed it; he thought, by striking into poor squashy faces, that he was battering down a little of an iron world. And what about me, Jeff? I continued to chuckle, like a broken street-organ, and I turned the crank, like the blind man, and I threw my thin little dissonances against the passion and pity and heart-break that jostled me in the street. - Pass me that brandy like a good fellow, and let me talk foolishness for a minute! I get little enough chance to do it. Yes. So I laughed, because I feared people, feared their opinion or their scorn....'
'Permit me,' I said, 'to laugh myself at that idea.'
'Oh, yes, I did! So, because they might take me for less than I was, I tried to be more than I am; like many others. Only my brain was strong, and damn me! I forced myself to become more than I am. There walked Henri Bencolin - feared, respected, admired (oh, yes!) - and behind him now begins to appear a brittle ghost, wondering about it.'
'Wondering what ?'
'Wondering, Jeff, why they ever took as a wise man that fiendish idiot who said, "Know thyself." To examine one's own mind and heart, and explore them fully, is a poisonous doctrine; it drives men crazy. The man who thinks too much about himself is padding his own cell. For the brain is a greater liar than any man; it lies to its own possessor. Introspection is the origin of fear, and fear builds these walls of hate or mirth, and makes me dreaded; and I am paid back, many times over, by dreading myself.. . . Never mind.'
It was a curious mood. He had rattled off his words in jumbled fashion. I did not understand, but I knew that of late these fits of black depression had been more frequent.
He seemed to be casting about for something to take his mind off it, and he picked up the silver key. With a bewildering change of mood he fired a new statement at me.
'Jeff, I've told you that we are going to plant somebody, to-night, in the Mask Club, to get the conversation between Galant and Gina Prevost. Do you think you could do it?'
'Why not? Will you do it?'
'Why,' I said, 'as a matter of fact, there's nothing I'd like better. But of all the trained men you have here, why bank on my abilities?'
He looked at me whimsically. 'Oh, I don't know. For one thing, because you're the same height and build as Robiquet, and you'll have to use his key and pass inspection, under a mask, when you enter. For another - maybe to see how you, who haven't my fluctuating moods, and don't seem to be given to nerves, will act under fire. It will be dangerous, I warn you.'
'That's the real reason, isn't it?'
‘I suppose so. What do you say?'
'With the greatest of pleasure,' I said, exultantly. A chance to examine that club, the strong drink which is adventure, and the bright eyes of danger . .. He saw my expression, and regarded me sourly.
'Now attend to me ! This is no lark, damn you !'
I sobered appropriately. His agile brain had already darted off along a new vista of speculation,
'I'll give you instructions. . .. First, though, I want to tell you what you may have to expect. Gina Prevost may or may not know who the murderer is; you heard my theory, but it's only a theory. There is nothing in our evidence to support it. But if she does know, Galant will in all likelihood worm it from her much more easily than the whole department of police could do. If we can get a dictograph record ,..'
'Bencolin,' I said, 'who is the murderer?'
It was a direct challenge, on a point which was the sorest of all with his vanity; and I knew that, if he were as puzzled as I fancied, he would tell me; but I also knew that it would anger him beyond measure.
He answered, slowly: 'I don't know. I have no idea.' After a pause, 'I suppose that's what has been so rasping my nerves.'
'And hence the philosophizing?'
He shrugged. 'Probably. Now let me tell you about the sequel to the murder, which I can imagine. There is the irritating part. I can outline the whole scene of the crime, what led up to it and what followed it. But the face of the killer remains a blank. See here....'
Pie hitched his chair round, took another drink, and approached die subject as though he were burrowing under a wall.
'We have carried the story of the murder up to the time when the assassin strikes and Gina Prevost runs away from the passage. From the first time I looked into that passage, I knew that - despite old Augustin's tale of turning off all the lights at eleven-thirty - somebody had turned them on (briefly, at least) in the museum. The bloodstains on the wall, the rifled purse on the floor, all lay in a direct line with the museum door. Light, however dim, had come from there, so that the killer could see his victim and see to loot her purse. So I asked Mademoiselle Augustin, and she admitted having put the lights on for five minutes.
'Now this can lead us to a significant deduction. The killer rifled her purse. What did he want? Not money; it was left untouched. Certainly nothing in the nature of writing, like a letter or card - -'
'Why not?'
'I think you have agreed, have you not, that the light was so very dim that one could with difficulty recognize a face?' he demanded. 'Then how, among all that jumble of envelopes and written matter in her handbag, could he have picked out what he wanted? He couldn't read a word there. But he didn't take the bag or its contents into the museum-landing by the satyr, where the light was fairly good; he tossed them all down. ... No, no! It was some object, Jeff, which he could recognize even in half-darkness. Before determining what this was, and whether or not he found it, let me ask you a question. Why did he carry the body into the museum ?'