"It seems to me," Ann replied in a voice of doubt, "that the clock is lower now than it was. Of course it can't be ... and I had only one swift glimpse of it.... Yet my recollection is so vivid—the room standing out revealed in the moment of bright light, and then vanishing into darkness again.... Yes, the clock seemed to me to be placed higher..." and suddenly she stopped as if a warning hand had been laid upon her arm. Would she resume? Jim was still wondering when silently, like a swift animal, Hanaud was in the doorway and confronting him.
"Yes, Monsieur Frobisher," he said with an odd note of relief in his voice, "we shall have to enlist you in the Sûrété very soon. That I can see. Come in!"
He took Jim by the arm and led him into the room.
"As for that matter of the clock, Mademoiselle, the light goes up and goes out—it would have been a marvel if you had within that flash of vision seen every detail precisely true. No, there is nothing there!" He flung himself into a chair and sat for a little while silent in an attitude of dejection.
"You said this morning to me, Monsieur, that I had nothing to go upon, that I was guessing here, and guessing there, stirring up old troubles which had better be left quietly in their graves, and at the end discovering nothing. Upon my word, I believe you are right! My little experiment! Was there ever a failure more abject?"
Hanaud sat up alertly.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
Jim Frobisher had had a brain wave. The utter disappointment upon Hanaud's face and in his attitude had enlightened him. Yes, his experiment had failed. For it was aimed at Francine Rollard. He had summoned her without warning, he had bidden her upon the instant to act a scene, nay, to take the chief part in it, in the hope that it would work upon her and break her down to a confession of guilt. He suspected Ann. Well, then, Ann must have had an accomplice. To discover the accomplice—there was the object of the experiment. And it had failed abjectedly, as Hanaud himself confessed. Francine had shrunk from the ordeal, no doubt, but the reason of the shrinking was manifest—fear of the police, suspicion of a trap, the furtive helplessness of the ignorant. She had not delivered herself into Hanaud's toils. But not a word of this conjecture did Jim reveal to Hanaud. To his question what was the matter, he answered simply:
"Nothing."
Hanaud beat with the palms of his hands upon the arms of his chair.