The orange-shaded candelabra poured their mellow light upon snowy napery and engraved crystal. In the centre of the board was a dish heaped high with fruit—the only food provided for the Barmecide’s feast, if one excepted a plate of biscuits set ready on the serving-table. No wine was to be served. Benedetto put the chairs in their places, and stood aside, awaiting commands.
In a corner of the room the inspector and the juge d’instruction were holding a whispered conference. They had just received a statement signed by two eminent physicians to the effect that Ronald Cleeves was quite unfit to be present. Already three police supernumeraries had been commandeered to replace those of the fourteen who were missing—the victim, Mowbray, and Rostetter. Now another gap must be filled—but by whom? The inspector, following a message telephoned from the neighbouring commissariat, was disinclined to borrow either of the two sergeants now stationed outside the entrance.
“I warn you, monsieur,” he said in a low voice, “if that American fellow gets in, we shall have trouble with him. He’s tried once to—”
“Have it your own way,” broke in the judge testily. “I’ll find some one, only let’s get on with it.”
He signalled to the butler, and withdrew towards the window curtains, his swarthy face and powerful shoulders melting into obscurity. His companion joined him, and the two, with concentrated gaze and nostrils dilating with suppressed excitement, watched the guests file into the dining-room. All wore the same clothes as on the original occasion. All looked conscious and uncomfortable, a little like convicts under guard, but on each face was written a certain degree of relief. Peter Hummock had recovered some of his usual perkiness, while Ramon da Costa, no longer cowed and furtive, showed a distinct tendency to swagger. This was understandable, for the gigolo, having emerged without a stain on his character, had in the past ten days seen his drawing value enormously enhanced. Ladies rich and mighty bombarded him for private lessons; already he had two rival night clubs outbidding each other for his services.
A voice whispered that they were bringing the prisoner in.
Dead silence, as Dinah appeared, her eyes staring straight before her out of a white face framed in mahogany red hair, the flounces of her green tulle frock billowing about her small figure. Behind her hovered a wardress while from the archway to the hall a group of privileged onlookers, chief among them Helen Roderick and Basil Jethro, watched with stilled attention. She advanced in the space cleared for her, the centre of morbid interest, but not for long. The inspector, in the manner of a film director shepherding a crowd of walk-ons, assigned the others their places, and steered her to one of the end chairs.
“Mesdames, messieurs, be seated, please!” rapped the inspector’s voice with business-like abruptness.
As the order was obeyed, the vacancy beside the prisoner became apparent. A murmur ran round. Thirteen again. One or two seemed to think there was some fatality about it. The three sergeants who were deputising for the hostess, Bannister Mowbray and Cleeves, glanced curiously at their superior officer, who was whispering to some one in the other room. Presently a tall figure detached himself from the distant group, came forward, and with a matter-of-fact air slipped unobtrusively into Rostetter’s seat. It was Basil Jethro.
The presence of the philosopher in their midst had a curiously steadying effect on those emotionally inclined, who all at once saw the utter childishness of this effort to re-create the past. What could be gained by the careful copying of externals when the inner, psychological content of the former situation was gone beyond recall? No one here was in the same mood as before. All but one of the persons who mattered were absent. Incidentally, how incongruous it seemed for a man of Jethro’s logical stamp to be drawn into the theatricalities he must with his whole nature despise!
Out of the shadows the judge’s voice instructed them to converse naturally, choosing, if possible, the topics discussed on the evening of September 30th. The nine free persons sat dubious, tongue-tied, till Cicely Gault’s derisive laugh drew shocked attention towards her, but broke the paralysing spell. Sporadic chatter flared up, died down, now and then leaving vast deserts of silence. The trio of substitutes stared at their empty wine glasses and twiddled their thumbs, taking no part. Against the curtains the pair of lynx-eyed Frenchmen studied the faces sharply. Gramont held a watch in his hand, and from time to time referred to a notebook.
Dinah heard nothing. From early morning she had passed through a succession of such crushing experiences that her brain had almost ceased to function. The deep-lying horror within her had little to do with the fact that those surrounding her believed her guilty of murder. They did not count. What did matter was that she who all her life had seen human beings separated, shut as it were into water-tight compartments, no longer knew which compartment she belonged in. Things had happened to her which in her worst nightmare she would not have thought possible. To be locked in a prison cell was something which would not, because it simply could not, occur . . . yet it had occurred. She would be tried before a jury and a full court-room, and even then, whatever the verdict, she would still know no more than she knew at this moment.
Was she a murderess? With Tommy to lean upon she had managed to shut her ears to this persistent question, but now that support was taken from her—how, why was another stupefying puzzle which increased her mental confusion—she wondered why she did not rise up, declare she had stabbed Dorinda in a fit of jealous rage, and have done with the mockery. As they were sure to get her in the end, it would save a great deal of trouble, but she lacked energy to take any active step. She was like a rock sunk at the bottom of a stream, waiting for some current strong enough to dislodge it. Meanwhile she must continue to endure. . . .
Who was this seated beside her? Oh, yes—Basil Jethro. She had never seen him, nor did she feel the slightest curiosity to glance in his direction. She had almost forgotten how, ages ago, Tommy Rostetter had made her repeat the grotesque nonsense Dodo had babbled against her hated stepfather. Tommy had probably done that to distract her thoughts from herself. He had always been like that, diverting her, actually making her laugh and take a sane view of things. Only maybe that view wasn’t sane. . . . The car found in the river! Did that mean Tommy was drowned too, like that horrible Mowbray man? But why? Why?
A dish of fruit prodded her arm. She roused to see, directly under her eyes, a long, bone-handled dirk—a new knife which caused her no emotion.
“Mademoiselle,” said a voice at her elbow, “the witnesses state that you examined this knife very closely. Show us exactly what you did.”
She picked up the dirk and turned it about dully in her hands. From the right a man’s slender hand reached out and took it from her. She heard as from afar off Soukine’s gentle voice murmuring, “Be careful, it is very sharp.” No one, least of all herself, realised that this was not what the painter had said on the former occasion, nor did she notice the flat disappointment of the guests as they sat back in their chairs. She sank again into a blurred reverie.
Biscuits? What were they for?
“If I were you, I would not take any of this. It may have a bad effect on you.”
She had not heard the whispered promptings from behind which had led to this formal, parrot-like repetition. She did, however, start at the sound of a man’s totally unfamiliar voice, and turn to gaze straight into the eyes of her left-hand neighbour, Basil Jethro. A gasp of astonishment escaped her.
“So it was you I saw!” she exclaimed, as though speaking her thoughts aloud. “I passed by you as I went out the door.” Why this electric tension, eyes, eyes protruding at her out of tense faces? The judge had drawn near to bend down and examine her expression. She caught Jethro’s politely puzzled interrogation of “I beg your pardon?” followed by a suggestion thrown over his shoulder, “Perhaps it might be as well to ask the lady what she means.”
“Mademoiselle,” hissed the judge sharply. “When did you see this gentleman? What door was it? Where?”
“At the Baroness Waldheim’s reception,” she answered simply. “I looked up and saw him standing by the cloakroom door. I didn’t know who he was then.”
A woman giggled. The atmosphere, an instant ago charged with breathless expectancy, broke up into stirrings and comprehensive nods. Gramont gave a brusque grunt, and pointed to the plate of biscuits placed in front of the prisoner.
“That,” he said, “represents the drug. Take one. Pretend it is your allotted portion. Now! What did you do with it? Don’t fumble, answer quickly. Did you eat it, or—” His eyes bored into her. “Did you drop it into your companion’s pocket?”
The idea that she had eaten none of the drug but concealed it had been so driven into her brain that morning that now she almost believed what this bully had told her was fact. She wavered, on the brink of falling in with the suggestion—and then something odd happened. Out of the air beside her she heard a voice—Tommy’s voice—saying quite distinctly, “Dinah, don’t be a fool!” It was queer. She had not known she was psychic. Possibly she was a little unbalanced, which all along had been her haunting fear. Anyhow, within her she felt faint stirrings of her old spirit.
“I ate it,” she replied, and helped herself to a round, dry biscuit.
“All of it?”
“Yes, all. Why do you want me to tell a lie about it?”
“Well, well, assume you did eat it. In that case, you were sick after you left the table. That is so, hein?”
“No, it isn’t so.”
She had reached the point where recollection ceased. Presently, with the wardress in close attendance, she was herded upstairs to Dorinda Quarles’ bedroom, where she was surrounded by the other women. Surrounded, yet alone. No one spoke to her, though curious glances rested on her and moved away. Some one brushed against her and without turning spoke words, apparently in another direction, yet pitched in such a way as to penetrate her consciousness.
“Keep it up,” said the voice, an English one. “No, don’t worry—that female’s got her eye on you, but she can’t understand what I’m saying. We aren’t all of us down on you. Get that? You’ve had a rotten deal, but you can beat them yet, if you don’t weaken.”
Cicely Gault? She was nonchalantly manipulating her lipstick before the mirror, but it was she who had spoken. Cissy Gault, whom she scarcely knew, but who possessed about as odd a reputation as any woman in Paris. What did she mean? That among these people a few believed her innocent, or that, disbelieving, they still did not condemn her? With Cissy one could not say—yet Dinah was moved at the thought of anyone’s championing her cause. She realised now that Soukine, another black sheep, had shown in mute ways he did not belong to the enemies’ camp. Tolerance—but among the unmoral. Or no, Tommy had a conscience and code like her own. The very lies he had told were pure white ones. . . . Dear Tommy!
Suddenly, with the rustle of women’s dresses in her ears and the lights beating down on her, an idea wholly terrible struck her full force. Tommy, too, felt certain she had committed this crime. He had gone away because he had tried to save her and failed. Of course he had known she was guilty. Of course, of course! Why hadn’t she seen through it before? He had been awake and watched her as she took up the knife and drove it into Dorinda’s breast. That was why he dared not come forward now. He was afraid he would do her more harm than good.
The last prop splintered. Why fight any longer, if this were so? Yet she continued to stand upright and motionless, every hair in place, her eyes fixed with a glassy stare.
“Keep him out, send him away! If he makes trouble, why take him in charge . . .”
Who was to be kept out? Dinah, descending the stairs, got a dull impression of some disturbance going on amongst the sergeants, whom the inspector was haranguing in angry tones; but it meant nothing to her. A reporter, probably, bent on getting into the apartment. The salon already was slightly foggy with cigarette smoke. The gramophone was playing Miss Virginia. A new record, bought for the occasion. She had broken the other one—or so Gramont told her. The tune left her strangely indifferent. Had it once hurt her? How long ago it must have been! She sighed wearily, ready to sink with exhaustion. . . .
“Mademoiselle, come with me.”
Gramont clutched her bare arm and dragged her into the dining-room, where it was nearly dark. Time had ceased to exist. She only knew that for endless hours she had been repeating monotonously, “I can’t say. I don’t remember.”
She felt herself pushed and pulled about like a mechanical doll. Gramont consulted a little book, frowned, gauged distances, swore under his breath and moved her again. Now he was satisfied. The window was open, the cool damp breeze blowing in. Was that big arm-chair intended for her to sit in? Apparently so. She sat down facing the table. A cloak—her cloak, which had done service for three years and which she would never wear again—lay over her knees.
“There! Is that the position, mademoiselle?”
“I don’t know. Is it?”
“Where was your friend, M. Rostetter?”
Rostettaire. It sounded so silly, the way he said it.
“I don’t know. Wherever he said he was.”
The judge gave a furious snort and turned away.
Directly in front of her was the dish of grapes. On it lay the new knife. How close it was! She could stretch out her hand and grasp it. She shuddered, thinking that this was what she must have done, and averting her eyes gazed with faint wonderment at the altered salon. Was this how it had looked, one flame-tinted lamp shining down on figures sprawled anyhow? About ten feet away she saw something which made her want to laugh hysterically. It was the thickset sergeant who had taken Dorinda’s place, lying now full length on the big divan, with his clumsy boots sticking up and one arm dangling downward.
Over her shoulder Gramont spoke with slow venom.
“So, the knife displeases you, does it? Never mind, you must look at it. Keep looking at it, till I tell you to stop.”
Very well, she didn’t mind. She fixed her eyes on the steel, till the sight of it seemed to hypnotise her. It swam in a dark haze. She yawned. Minutes passed. In another moment she would be dropping asleep.
The lights were all extinguished now, though flames from the hearth in the other room cast great shadows on the wall opposite. The voice in her ear brought her to herself with a jerk.
“Mademoiselle! Look back. Tell me what you see.”
She was on her feet, shrieking. In full view, where only a few moments ago she had seen the uniformed sergeant, lay the body of Dorinda Quarles—yes, in her apricot dress, with damp hair clinging to her forehead, and in her bared breast a crimson gaping wound! She had seen her—seen Dorinda herself. It could mean but one thing. She had gone quite mad.
Screams, words incoherently mingled, and then a crumpled heap of green flounces on the floor. It was over.
“Mesdames, messieurs, this room must be cleared. At once! Go home. I have no further need of you. Lights, please. Everyone out. I want only the wardress and the doctor.”
The judge’s tone was satisfied, excited. With widespread arms he bundled the curious company out the doors, spied the owner of the apartment, and signalled to him with triumph.
“Don’t distress yourself, monsieur. Try to calm the lady who is with you. We have got what we were after—not a confession in so many words, but that will come later.”
He buttonholed Jethro, whispered in his ear, and shook him warmly by the hand. Then he closed the doors.
Helen Roderick was sobbing, her broad face convulsed with emotion.
“Oh, what was it? What did they do? Did she see something?” she gasped, clutching Jethro’s arm.
“A wax figure,” he replied quietly. “Yes, it was a horrible trick to play. I had no idea myself. The French use these methods and occasionally they get results.” He detached himself from her hold and consulted his watch. “I am going to take you home,” he announced. “Don’t be alarmed, she is in safe hands, and besides they will not allow us to go in there. This is your coat, I think?”
“No, no, Basil. You must not stir out. This has been as terrible a shock to you as to me. Benedetto will get me a taxi.”
“Certainly I intend to go with you. Come, it is late.”
He helped her on with her fur coat and escorted her down the stairs to the street.