The House of the Arrow

by A. E. W. Mason

Hanaud nodded.

"I agree," he said slowly. "But I wonder whether we have the same question in our minds."

"It is a question which we have neglected. It is this—Who put back the Professor's treatise on Sporanthus in its place upon the bookshelf in the library, between mid-day yesterday and this morning."

Hanaud struck another of his abominable matches, and held it in the shelter of his palm until the flame shone. He lit his cigarette and took a few puffs at it.

"No doubt that question is important," he admitted, although in rather an off-hand way. "But it is not mine. No. I think there is another more important still. I think if we could know why the door of the treasure-room, which had been locked since Simon Harlowe's death, was unlocked on the night of the twenty-seventh of April, we should be very near to the whole truth of this dark affair. But," and he flung out his hands, "that baffles me."

Jim left him sitting at the table and staring moodily upon the pavement, as if he hoped to read the answer there.

CHAPTER TWELVE: The Breaking of the Seals

A few minutes later Jim Frobisher had to admit that Hanaud guessed very luckily. He would not allow that it was more than a guess. Monsieur Hanaud might be a thorough little Mr. Know-All; but no insight, however brilliant, could inform him of so accidental a circumstance. But there the fact was. Frobisher did arrive at the Maison Crenelle, to his great discomfort, before Betty Harlowe. He had loitered with Hanaud at the café just so that this might not take place. He shrank from being alone with Ann Upcott now that he suspected her. The most he could hope to do was to conceal the reason of his trouble. The trouble itself in her presence he could not conceal. She made his case the more difficult perhaps by a rather wistful expression of sympathy.

"You are distressed," she said gently. "But surely you need not be any longer. What I said this morning was true. It was half-past ten when that dreadful whisper reached my ears. Betty was a mile away amongst her friends in a ball-room. Nothing can shake that."