The House of the Arrow

by A. E. W. Mason

Like the rest of the reception-rooms along the corridor, it was longer than it was broad and more of a gallery than a room. But it had been arranged for habitation rather than for occasional visits. For it was furnished with a luxurious comfort and not over-crowded. In the fawn-coloured panels of the walls a few exquisite pictures by Fragonard had been framed; on the writing-table of Chinese Chippendale by the window every appointment, ink-stand, pen-tray, candlestick, sand-caster and all were of the pink Battersea enamel and without a flaw. But they were there for use, not for exhibition. Moreover a prominent big fire-place in the middle of the wall on the side of the hall, jutted out into the room and gave it almost the appearance of two rooms in communication, The one feature of the room, indeed, which at a first glimpse betrayed the collector, was the Sedan chair set in a recess of the wall by the fire-place and opposite to the door communicating with Mrs. Harlowe's bedroom. Its body was of a pale French grey in colour, with elaborately carved mouldings in gold round the panels and medallions representing fashionable shepherds and shepherdesses daintily painted in the middle of them. It had glass windows at the sides to show off the occupant, and it was lined with pale grey satin, embroidered in gold to match the colour of the panels. The roof, which could be raised upon a hinge at the back, was ornamented with gold filigree work, and it had a door in front of which the upper part was glass. Altogether it was as pretty a gleaming piece of work as the art of carriage-building could achieve, and a gilt rail very fitly protected it. Even Hanaud was taken by its daintiness. He stood with his hands upon the rail examining it with a smile of pleasure, until Jim began to think that he had quite forgotten the business which had brought him there. However, he brought himself out of his dream with a start.

"A pretty world for rich people, Monsieur Frobisher," he said. "What pictures of fine ladies in billowy skirts and fine gentlemen in silk stockings! And what splashings of mud for the unhappy devils who had to walk!"

He turned his back to the chair and looked across the room. "That is the clock which marked half-past ten, Mademoiselle, during the moment when you had the light turned up?" he asked of Ann.

"Yes," she answered quickly. Then she looked at it again. "Yes, that's it."

Jim detected or fancied that he detected a tiny change in her intonation, as she repeated her assurance, not an inflexion of doubt—it was not marked enough for that—but of perplexity. It was clearly, however, fancy upon his part, for Hanaud noticed nothing at all. Jim pulled himself up with an unspoken remonstrance. "Take care!" he warned himself. "For once you begin to suspect people, they can say and do nothing which will not provide you with material for suspicion."

Hanaud was without doubt satisfied. The clock was a beautiful small gilt clock of the Louis Quinze period, shaped with a waist like a violin; it had a white face, and it stood upon a marquetry Boulle cabinet, a little more than waist high, in front of a tall Venetian mirror. Hanaud stood directly in front of it and compared it with his watch.

"It is exact to the minute, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty, with a smile as he replaced his watch in his pocket.

He turned about, so that he stood with his back to the clock. He faced the fire-place across the narrow neck of the room. It had an Adam mantelpiece, fashioned from the same fawn-coloured wood as the panels, with slender pillars and some beautiful carving upon the board beneath the shelf. Above the shelf one of the Fragonards was framed in the wall and apparently so that nothing should mask it, there were no high ornaments at all upon the shelf itself. One or two small boxes of Battersea enamel and a flat glass case alone decorated it. Hanaud crossed to the mantelshelf and, after a moment's inspection, lifted, with a low whistle of admiration, the flat glass case.

"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle," he said to Betty. "But I shall probably never in my life have the luck to see anything so incomparable again. And the mantel-shelf is a little high for me to see it properly."

Without waiting for the girl's consent he carried it towards the window.