Spinsters in Jeopardy

“My dear M. l’Inspecteur-en-Chef,” said M. Dupont, coming in from the passage, “do forgive me if I am a little unpunctual.”

“On the contrary, my dear M. le Commissaire, you come most punctually upon your cue.”

M. Dupont shook hands with Alleyn. He was in tremendous form, shining with leather and wax and metal: gloved, holstered and batoned. Three lesser officers appeared inside the door.

“And these,” said M. Dupont, touching his moustache and glancing round the room, “are the personages. You charge them?”

“For the moment, with conspiracy.”

“I am a naturalized British subject. I offer myself as Queen’s evidence. I charge Dr. Ali Baradi with murder.”

Baradi turned his head and in his own language shot a stream of very raw-sounding phrases at his late partner.

“All these matters,” said M. Dupont, “will be dealt with in an appropriate ma

A

“M. le Commissaire, do you recognize me?”

“Perfectly, Madame. Madame is the actress A

“Monsieur, you are a man of the world. You will understand that I find myself in a predicament.”

“It is not necessary to be a man of the world to discover your predicament, Madame. It is enough to be a policeman. If Madame would care to make some adjustment to her toilette — a walking costume, perhaps — I shall be delighted to arrange the facilities. There is a femme-agent de police in attendance.”

She looked at him fora moment, seemed to hesitate, and then turned on Alleyn.

“What are you going to do with me?” she said. “You’ve trapped me finely, haven’t you? What a fool I was! Yesterday morning I might have guessed. And I kept faith! I didn’t tell them what you were. God, what a fool!”

“It’s probably the only really sensible thing you’ve done since you came here. Don’t regret it.”

“Is it wishful thinking or do I seem to catch the suggestion that I may be given a chance?”

“Give yourself a chance, why not?”

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head. “That’ll be the day, won’t it?”

She gri

“What a charmer!” she said in English. “Aren’t you?”

“Madame?”

“Quel charmeur vous êtes!”

“Madame!”

She asked him how old he was and if he had seen many of her films. He said he believed he had seen them all. Was he a cinéphile, then? “Madame,” Raoul said, “Je suis un fervent — de vous!”

“When they let me out of gaol,” A

The wreckage of her beauty spoke through the ruin of her make-up. She made a good exit.

“Ah, Monsieur,” said Raoul. “What a tragedy! And yet it is the art that counts and she is still an artist.”

This observation went unregarded. They could hear A

“My dear Dupont,” Alleyn murmured, “may I suggest that in respect of this woman we make no arrest. I feel certain that she will be of much greater value as a free informant. Keep her under observation, of course, but for the moment, at least—”

“But, of course, my dear Alleyn,” M. Dupont rejoined, taking the final plunge into intimacy. “I understand perfectly, but perfectly.”

Alleyn was not quite sure what Dupont understood so perfectly but thought it better merely to thank him. He said: “There is a great deal to be explained. May we get rid of the men first?”

Dupont’s policemen had taken charge of the four men. Oberon, still wrapped in crimson satin, was huddled on his bed. His floss-like hair hung in strands over his face. Above the silky divided beard the naked mouth was partly open. The eyes stared, apparently without curiosity, at Alleyn.

Dupont’s men had lifted Baradi from the floor, seated him on the divan and pulled his white robe about him. His legs had been unbound, but he was now handcuffed. He, too, watched Alleyn, but sombrely, with attentiveness and speculation.

Carbury Glande stood nearby, biting his nails. The Egyptian servant flashed wi

Dupont glanced at the men. “You will proceed under detention to the Commissariat de Police at Roqueville. M. l’Inspecteur and I will later conduct an interrogation. The matter of your nationalities and the possibility of extradition will be considered. And now — forward.”

Oberon said: “A robe. I demand a robe.”

“Look here, Alleyn,” Glande said, “what’s going to be done about me? I’m harmless, I tell you. For God’s sake tell him to let me get some clothes on.”

“Your clothes’ll be sent after you and you’ll get no more and no less than was coming to you,” Alleyn said. “In the interest of decency, my dear Dupont, Mr. Oberon should, perhaps, be given a garment of some sort.”

Dupont spoke to one of his men, who opened a cupboard-door and brought out a white robe.

“If,” Miss Garbel said delicately, “I might be excused. Of course, I don’t know—?” She looked enquiringly from Alleyn to Dupont.

“This is Miss Garbel, Dupont, of whom I have told you.”

“Truly? Not, as I supposed, the Honourable Locke?”

“Miss Locke has been murdered. She was stabbed through the heart at five thirty-eight yesterday morning in this room. Her body is in a coffin in a room on the other side of the passage-of-entry. Dr. Baradi was good enough to show it to me.”

Baradi clasped his manacled hands together and brought them down savagely on his knees. The steel must have cut and bruised him, but he gave no sign.

Glande cried out: “Murdered! My God, they told us she’d given herself an overdose.”

“Then the — pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I express it a little crudely — the third English spinster, my dear Inspecteur-en-Chef? The Miss Truebody?”

“Is to the best of my belief recovering from her operation in a room beyond a bridge across the passage-of-entry.”

Baradi got clumsily to his feet. He faced the great cheval-glass. He said something in his own language. As he spoke, through the broken window, came the effeminate shriek of a train whistle followed by the labouring up-hill clank of the train itself. Alleyn held up his hand and they were all still and looked through the broken window. Alleyn himself stood beside Baradi, facing the looking-glass, which was at an angle to the window. Baradi made to move but Alleyn put his hand on him and he stood still, as if transfixed. In the great glass they both saw the reflection of the engine pass by and then the carriages, some of them lit and some in darkness. The train dragged to a standstill. In the last carriage a lighted window, which was opposite their own window, was unshuttered. They could see two men playing cards. The men looked up. Their faces were startled.

Alleyn said: “Look, Baradi. Look in the glass. The angle of incidence is always equal to the angle of refraction, isn’t it? We see their reflexion and they see ours. They see you in your white robe. They see your handcuffs. Look, Baradi!”

He had taken a paper-knife from the desk. He raised it in his left hand as if to stab Baradi.

The men in the carriage were agitated. Their images in the glass talked excitedly and gestured. Then, suddenly, they were jerked sideways and in the glass was only the reflexion of the wall and the broken window and the night outside.