The House of the Arrow

by A. E. W. Mason

"Why Betty Harlowe took to writing anonymous letters, Monsieur—who shall say? The dulness of life for a girl young and beautiful and passionate in a provincial town, as our friend Boris suggests? The craving for excitement? Something bad and vicious and abnormal born in her, part of her, and craving more and more expression as she grew in years? The exacting attendance upon Madame? Probably all of these elements combined to suggest the notion to her. And suddenly it became easy for her. She discovered a bill in that box in Madame Harlowe's bedroom, a receipted bill ten years old from the firm of Chapperon, builders, of the Rue de Batignolles in Paris. You, by the way, saw an unburnt fragment of the bill in the ashes upon the hearth of the treasure-room. This bill disclosed to her the existence of the hidden passage between the treasure-room and the Hôtel de Brebizart. For it was the bill of the builders who had repaired it at the order of Simon Harlowe. An old typewriting machine belonging to Simon Harlowe and the absolute privacy of the Hôtel de Brebizart made the game easy and safe. But as the opportunity grew, so did the desire. Betty Harlowe tasted power. She took one or two people into her confidence—her maid Francine, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc, and Jean Cladel, a very useful personage—and once started the circle grew; blackmail followed. Blackmail of Betty Harlowe, you understand! She, the little queen, became the big slave. She must provide Thevenet with his mistress, Espinosa with his car and his house, Jeanne Leclerc with her luxuries. So the anonymous letters become themselves blackmailing letters. Maurice Thevenet knows the police side of Dijon and the province. Jeanne Leclerc has a—friend, shall we say?—in the Director of an Insurance Company, and, believe me, for a blackmailer nothing is more important than to know accurately the financial resources of one's—let us say, clients. Thus the game went merrily on until money was wanted and it couldn't be raised. Betty Harlowe looked around Dijon. There was no one for the moment to exploit. Yes, one person! Let us do Betty Harlowe the justice to believe that the suggestion came from that promising young novice, Maurice Thevenet! Who was that person, Monsieur Frobisher?"

Even now Jim Frobisher was unable to guess the truth, led up to it though he had been by Hanaud's exposition.

"Why, Madame Harlowe herself," Hanaud explained, and, as Jim Frobisher started back in a horror of disbelief, he continued: "Yes, it is so! Madame Harlowe received a letter at dinner-time, just as Ann Upcott did, on the night of Monsieur de Pouillac's ball. She took her dinner in bed, you may remember, that night. That letter was shown to Jeanne Baudin the nurse, who remembers it very well. It demanded a large sum of money, and something was said about a number of passionate letters which Madame Harlowe might not care to have published—not too much, you understand, but enough to make it clear that the liaison of Madame Raviart and Simon Harlowe was not a secret from the Scourge. I'll tell you something else which will astonish you, Monsieur Frobisher. That letter was shown not only to Jeanne Baudin, but to Betty Harlowe herself when she came to say good night and show herself in her new dance frock of silver tissue and her silver slippers. It was no wonder that Betty Harlowe lost her head a little when I set my little trap for her in the library and pretended that I did not want to read what Madame had said to Jeanne Baudin after Betty Harlowe had gone off to her ball. I hadn't one idea what a very unpleasant little trap it was!"

"But wait a moment!" Frobisher interrupted. "If Madame Harlowe showed this letter first of all to Jeanne Baudin, and afterwards to Betty Harlowe in Jeanne Baudin's presence, why didn't Jeanne Baudin speak of it at once to the examining magistrate when Waberski brought his accusation? She kept silent! Yes, she kept silent!"

"Why shouldn't she?" returned Hanaud. "Jeanne Baudin is a good and decent girl. For her, Madame Harlowe had died a natural death in her sleep, the very form in which death might be expected to come for her. Jeanne Baudin didn't believe a word of Waberski's accusation. Why should she rake up old scandals? She herself proposed to Betty Harlowe to say nothing about the anonymous letter."

Jim Frobisher thought over the argument and accepted it. "Yes, I see her point of view," he admitted, and Hanaud continued his narrative.

"Well, then, Betty Harlowe is off to her ball on the Boulevard Thiers. Ann Upcott is in her sitting-room. Jeanne Baudin has finished her offices for the night. Madame Harlowe is alone. What does she do? Drink? For that night—no! She sits and thinks. Were there any of the letters which passed between her and Simon Harlowe, before she was Simon Harlowe's wife, still existing? She had thought to have destroyed them all. But she was a woman, she might have clutched some back. If there were any, where would they be? Why in that house at the end of the secret passage. Some such thoughts must have passed through her mind. For she rose from her bed, slipped on her dressing-gown and shoes, unlocked the communicating door between her and the treasure-room and passed by the secret way into the empty Hôtel de Brebizart. And what does she find there, Monsieur? A room in daily use, a bundle of her letters ready in the top drawer of her Empire writing-table, and on the writing-table Simon's Corona machine, and the paper and envelopes of the anonymous letters. Monsieur, there is only one person who can have access to that room, the girl whom she has befriended, whom in her exacting way she no doubt loved. And at eleven o'clock that night Francine Rollard is startled by the entrance of Madame Harlowe into her bedroom. For a moment Francine fancied that Madame had been drinking. She was very quickly better informed. She was told to get up, to watch for Betty Harlowe's return and to bring her immediately to Madame Harlowe's bedroom. At one o'clock Francine Rollard is waiting in the dark hall. As Betty comes in from her party, Francine Rollard gives her the message. Neither of these two girls know as yet how much of their villainies has been discovered. But something at all events. Betty Harlowe bade Francine wait and ran upstairs silently to her room. Betty Harlowe was prepared against discovery. She had been playing with fire, and she didn't mean to be burnt. She had the arrow-poison ready—yes, ready for herself. She filled her hypodermic needle, and with that concealed in the palm of her glove she went to confront her benefactress.

"You can imagine that scene, the outraged woman whose romance and tragedy were to be exploited blurting out her fury in front of Francine Rollard. It wasn't Waberski who was to be stripped to the skin—no, but the girl in the pretty silver frock and the silver slippers. You can imagine the girl, too, her purpose changing under the torrent of abuse. Why should she use the arrow-poison to destroy herself when she can save everything—fortune, liberty, position—by murder? Only she must be quick. Madame's voice is rising in gusts of violence. Even in that house of the old thick walls, Jeanne Baudin, some one, might be wakened by the clamour. And in a moment the brutal thing is done. Madame Harlowe is flung back upon her bed. Her mouth is covered and held by Francine Rollard. The needle does its work. 'That will do now,' whispers Betty Harlowe. But at the door of the treasure-room in the darkness Ann Upcott is standing, unable to identify the voice which whispered, just as you and I were unable, Monsieur, to identify a voice which whispered to us from the window of Jean Cladel's house, but taking deep into her memory the terrible words. And neither of the murderesses knew it.

"They go calmly about their search for the letters. They cannot find them, because Madame had pushed them into the coffer of old bills and papers. They rearrange the bed, they compose their victim in it as if she were asleep, they pass into the treasure-room, and they forget to lock the door behind them. Very likely they visit the Hôtel de Brebizart. Betty Harlowe has the rest of the arrow-poison and the needle to put in some safe place, and where else is safe? In the end when every care has been taken that not a scrap of incriminating evidence is left to shout 'Murder' the next morning, Betty creeps up the stairs to make sure that Ann Upcott is asleep; and Ann Upcott waking, stretches up her hands and touches her face.

"That, Monsieur," and Hanaud rose to his feet, "is what you would call the case for the Crown. It is the case which you and Monsieur Bex have to meet."