The House of the Arrow

by A. E. W. Mason

"Yes! The arrow-poison! The poison which leaves no trace! Monsieur, that poison has been my nightmare. Who would be the first poisoner to use it? How should I cope with him and prove that it brought no more security than arsenic or prussic-acid? These are questions which have terrified me. And suddenly, unexpectedly, in a house where a death from heart failure has just occurred, I find a dry-as-dust treatise upon the poison tucked away under a pile of magazines in a young lady's sitting-room. I tell you I was staggered. What was it doing there? How did it come there? I see a note upon the cover, indicating a page. I turn to the page and there, staring at me, is an account of Simon Harlowe's perfect specimen of a poison-arrow. The anonymous letters? They are at once forgotten. What if that animal Waberski, without knowing it, were right, and Madame Harlowe was murdered in the Maison Crenelle? I must find that out. I tuck the treatise up my back beneath my waistcoat and I go downstairs again, asking myself some questions. Is Mademoiselle Ann interested in such matters as Sporanthus Hispidus? Or had she anything to hope for from Madame Harlowe's death? Or did she perhaps not know at all that the treatise was under that pile of magazines upon the table at the side? I do not know, and my head is rather in a whirl. Then I catch that wicked look of Betty Harlowe at her friend—Monsieur, a revealing look! I have not the demure and simple young lady of convention to deal with at all. No. I go away from the Maison Crenelle, still more curious about Betty Harlowe."

Jim Frobisher sat quickly down at Hanaud's side.

"Are you sure of that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Quite," Hanaud replied in wonder.

"You have forgotten, haven't you, that immediately after you left the Maison Crenelle that day you had the sergent-de-ville removed from its gates?"

"No, I don't forget that at all," Hanaud answered imperturbably. "The sergent-de-ville in his white trousers was an absurdity—worse than that, an actual hindrance. There is little use in watching people who know that they are being watched. So I remove the sergent-de-ville and now I can begin really to watch those young ladies of the Maison Crenelle. And that afternoon, whilst Monsieur Frobisher is removing his luggage from his hotel, Betty Harlowe goes out for a walk, is discreetly followed by Nicolas Moreau—and vanishes. I don't blame Nicolas. He must not press too close upon her heels. She was in that place of small lanes about the Hôtel de Brebizart. No doubt it was through the little postern in the wall which we ourselves used a few days afterwards that she vanished. There was the anonymous letter to be written, ready for me to receive when the seals of the treasure-room were broken. But I don't know that yet. No! All that I know is that Betty Harlowe goes out for a walk and is lost, and after an hour reappears in another street. Meanwhile I pass my afternoon examining so far as I can how these young ladies pass their lives and who are their friends. An examination not very productive, and not altogether futile. For I find some curious friends in Betty Harlowe's circle. Now, observe this, Monsieur! Young girls with advanced ideas, social, political, literary, what you will—in their case curious friends mean nothing! They are to be expected. But with a young girl who is to all appearance leading the normal life of her class, the case is different. In her case curious friends are—curious. The Espinosas, Maurice Thevenet, Jeanne Leclerc—flashy cheap people of that type—how shall we account for them as friends of that delicate piece of china, Betty Harlowe?"

Jim Frobisher nodded his head. He, too, had been a trifle disconcerted by the familiarity between Espinosa and Betty Harlowe.

"The evening," Hanaud continued, "which you spent so pleasantly in the cool of the garden with the young ladies, I spent with the Edinburgh Professor. And I prepared a little trap. Yes, and the next morning I came early to the Maison Crenelle and I set my little trap. I replace the book about the arrows on the bookshelf in its obvious place."

Hanaud paused in his explanation to take another black cigarette from his eternal blue bundle, and to offer one to Jim.

"Then comes our interview with the animal Waberski; and he tells me that queer story about Betty Harlowe in the street of Gambetta close to the shop of Jean Cladel. He may be lying. He may be speaking the truth and what he saw might be an accident. Yes! But also it fits in with this theory of Madame Harlowe's murder which is now taking hold of me. For if that poison was used, then some one who understood the composition of drugs must have made the solution from the paste upon the arrow. I am more curious than ever about Betty Harlowe! And the moment that animal has left me, I spring my trap; and I have a success beyond all my expectations. I point to the treatise of the Edinburgh Professor. It was not in its place yesterday. It is to-day. Who then replaced it? I ask that question and Mademoiselle Ann is utterly at sea. She knows nothing about that book. That is evident as Mont Blanc over there in the sky. On the other hand Betty Harlowe knows at once who has replaced that book; and in a most unwise moment of sarcasm, she allows me to see that she knows. She knows that I found it yesterday, that I have studied it since and replaced it. And she is not surprised. No, for she knows where I found it. I am at once like Waberski. I know it in my heart that she put it under those magazines in Ann Upcott's room, although I do not yet know it in my head. Betty Harlowe had prepared to divert suspicion from herself upon Ann Upcott, should suspicion arise. But innocent people do not do that, Monsieur.