'Fool!' Bencolin repeated. His eyes again became vacant. 'You remember, Jeff, my telling you this afternoon that I should have to find the jeweller? Well, I have done so. That was where he got the watch repaired.'
'What watch?'
He seemed surprised at the question I flung at him.
'Why ... you know those particles of glass, tiny ones, we found in the passage? There was one sticking to the bricks of the wall. . . .'
Nobody spoke. The pounding of my heart choked me. ...
'You see, it was almost inevitable that the murderer had that happen, particularly in such a cramped space. He smashed the crystal of his wrist watch when he stabbed Claudine. . . . Yes, it was almost inevitable, because . . . '
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'Because,' Bencolin told me thoughtfully, 'Colonel Martel has only one arm.'
Stabbing as a Sporting Proposition
Bencolin went on in an ordinary tone: 'Yes, that was how he killed his daughter. And I shall never forgive myself for being so stupid as not to see it. I knew she was standing with her back to the wall; I knew that in such a narrow space the murderer must have hit his hand there when he withdrew the dagger, and broken his watch crystal. ... What I couldn't understand was how he came to be wearing the watch on the same hand as that winch held the knife.'
I heard his voice from a distance. My brain was still repeating the words, 'that was how he killed his daughter'. I stared at the blaze in the fireplace. The statement was so unreal, the import so incredible, that at first I had not even a sensation of shock. All I could think of was a dim library with the rain splashing down the windows, in a garden of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And there I saw an old stocky man, with a heavy moustache and a bald head, standing rigid in his fine broadcloth, his hard eyes fixed on us. Colonel Martel.
A voice cried out sharply. It broke the illusion into little pieces.
'Do you know what you're saying?' Chaumont demanded.
Bencolin went on, still musingly: 'You see, a man invariably wears a wrist watch on his left hand, unless he is left-handed. If left-handed, it is on the right one - that is, always the hand opposite the one with which he writes, throws, or ... strikes with a knife. So I couldn't understand that watch being on the same wrist as that with which he stabbed the girl, whether he was right- or left-handed. But, of course, a man who has only one arm .. .'
For some weird reason, the very thought of Colonel Martel seemed to lend dignity to Bencolin's words, even though you thought of him as a murderer. It was no longer (as it had seemed during those mad antics in the club) a sort of meaningless bad dream. But Chaumont, who had a rather witless expression on his face, yanked Bencolin's arm.
'I demand,' he said, shrilly — 'I demand some excuse or apology for saying— !'
Bencolin woke from his abstraction.
'Yes,' he said, nodding — 'yes, you have a right to know all about it. I told you it was a queer crime. Queer, not alone in motive, but because that magnificent old gambler actually gave us a sporting chance to guess it. He was not willing to give himself up voluntarily. But he threw clues in our faces, and if we did guess, he was prepared to admit his guilt.' Quietly Bencolin disengaged his arm from the young man's grip. 'Softly, Captain! You needn't act like that. He has already admitted it.'
'He ... what?'
'I talked to him on the telephone not fifteen minutes ago. Listen! Calm yourself and let me tell you exactly how the whole thing happened.'
Bencolin sat down. Chaumont, still with his eyes fixed, walked backwards until he stumbled down into a chair.
'You are quite a showman, monsieur!' Marie Augustin said. Her face was still white; she had not relaxed her grip on her father's sleeve, and she exhaled her breath with a sort of shudder of relief. 'Was all this necessary? I thought you were going to accuse papa.'
The voice sounded shrill and vicious, and her father's red eyes blinked at her uncomprehendingly as he clucked his tongue. ...
'So did I,' I observed. 'All that talk awhile ago — ' 'I was only wondering how a rational father would behave. Tiens! it's still incredible! But this afternoon - I realized then that it must be true.'
'Wait a minute!' I said. 'This whole thing is crazy. I still don't understand it. But this afternoon, when you had that brainstorm and suddenly burst out with "If her father knew,
if her father knew - " ' The whole scene was coming back now. 'You were talking about Mademoiselle Augustin, it seemed to me.'
He nodded. A film was over his eyes. 'So I was, Jeff. And that was what made me think of Mademoiselle Martel. Also to think what an incredible, gigantic, unpardonable dunce I had been for not seeing it before! I tell you again I bungled the whole case. Last night Mademoiselle Augustin could have told us who the murderer was, for she must have seen him come in. But I - great God! I was stupid enough to think the killer was a member of the club, whom she would protect! My own insufferable conceit (and that is all) prevented me from asking the obvious question and getting descriptions! The most ignorant patrolman in the service would have done better.'
He was sitting slumped in the chair, spasmodically opening and shutting one hand, staring at it as though some lost magic had been there. His eyes were weary and bitter.
'Intricate plans - avoid the obvious - bah! I am running on in senile decay. Well, mademoiselle! I tried to be so damned clever and circuitous, and ended by making a fool of myself; but I ask you the question now.'
Sitting up with abrupt energy, he glanced at her.
'The Comte de Martel is about five feet ten inches tall, and very stockily built. He has a big bald skull, a thick moustache of a sandy colour, very penetrating eyes with overhanging eyebrows, and carries himself almost unnaturally straight. He wears an old-fashioned stock, eyeglasses on a black ribbon, a box-pleated cape of large dimensions, and a rather wide-brimmed hat. You would not likely notice the absence of one arm, on account of the cloak . . . but he is a man of such distinguished appearance that you could not fail to remember him.'
Marie Augustin's eyes narrowed, and then flashed.
‘I remember him perfectly, monsieur,' she said mockingly. 'He bought a ticket last night about - oh, I don't know! some time after eleven. I didn't see him go out of the museum, but then that is not a matter for wonder; I shouldn't have noticed. ... Why, this is delightful! I could have told you long ago. But, as you say, monsieur - I am afraid you suffer from too much subtlety.'
Bencolin inclined his head.
'At least,' he said, 'I can tell you about it now.'
'Monsieur,' Chaumont interposed earnestly, 'I tell you, you don't know that man ! He is - why he is the proudest, the most fierce and unyielding aristocrat who ever — '
'I know it. That,' Bencolin said grimly, 'is why he killed his daughter. You would have to go back to the history of Rome to find a parallel motive. Virginius stabbing his daughter; Brutus condemning his own son to the block ... it's morbid and mad and damnable. No rational father would do it. I used to think that those tales of Roman fathers and Spartan mothers were sheer fables. But here. ... Will you shade that lamp a little, mademoiselle? My eyes. .. . '
As though hypnotized, the girl rose and spread an open newspaper across the lamp. The room was dimmed with weird glowing blotches, where white faces were motionless round the detective's chair. The fire crackled drowsily.