"Then we go into the garden and Mademoiselle Ann tells us her story. Monsieur Frobisher, I said to you immediately afterwards that all great criminals who are women are great actresses. But never in my life have I seen one who acted so superbly as Betty Harlowe while that story was being unfolded. Imagine it! A cruel murder has been secretly committed and suddenly the murderess has to listen to a true account of that murder in the presence of the detective who is there to fix the guilt! There was some one at hand all the time—almost an eye-witness—perhaps an actual eye-witness. For she cannot know that she is safe until the last word of the story is told. Picture to yourself Betty Harlowe's feelings during that hour in the pleasant garden, if you can! The questions which must have been racing through her mind! Did Ann Upcott in the end creep forward and peer through the lighted doorway? Does she know the truth—and has she kept it hidden until this moment when Hanaud and Frobisher are present and she can speak it safely? Will her next words be 'And here at my side sits the murderess'? Those must have been terrible moments for Betty Harlowe!"
"Yet she gave no sign of any distress," Frobisher added.
"But she took a precaution," Hanaud remarked. "She ran suddenly and very swiftly into the house."
"Yes. You seemed to me on the point of stopping her."
"And I was," continued Hanaud. "But I let her go and she returned——"
"With the photographs of Mrs. Harlowe," Frobisher interrupted.
"Oh, with more than those photographs," Hanaud exclaimed. "She turned her chair towards Mademoiselle Ann. She sat with her handkerchief in her hand and her face against her handkerchief, listening—the tender, sympathetic friend. But when Mademoiselle Ann told us that the hour of the murder was half-past ten, a weakness overtook her—could not but overtake her. And in that moment of weakness she dropped her handkerchief. Oh, she picked it up again at once. Yes, but where the handkerchief had fallen her foot now rested, and when the story was all ended, and we got up from our chairs, she spun round upon her heel with a certain violence so that there was left a hole in that well-watered turf. I was anxious to discover what it was that she had brought out from the house in her handkerchief, and had dropped with her handkerchief and had driven with all the weight of her body into the turf so that no one might see it. In fact I left my gloves behind in order that I might come back and discover it. But she was too quick for me. She fetched my gloves herself, much to my shame that I, Hanaud, should be waited on by so exquisite a young lady. However, I found it afterwards when you and Girardot and the others were all waiting for me in the library. It was that tablet of cyanide of potassium which I showed to you in the Prefecture. She did not know how much Ann Upcott was going to reveal. The arrow-poison had been hidden away in the Hôtel de Brebizart. But she had something else at hand—more rapid—death like a thunderbolt. So she ran into the house for it. I tell you, Monsieur, it wanted nerve to sit there with that tablet close to her mouth. She grew very pale. I do not wonder. What I do wonder is that she did not topple straight off her chair in a dead faint before us all. But no! She sat ready to swallow that tablet at once if there were need, before my hand could stop her. Once more I say to you, people who are innocent do not do that."
Jim had no argument wherewith to answer.
"Yes," he was forced to admit. "She could have got the tablets no doubt from Jean Cladel."
"Very well, then," Hanaud resumed. "We have separated for luncheon and in the afternoon the seals are to be removed. Before that takes place, certain things must be done. The clock must be moved from the mantelshelf in the treasure-room on to the marquetry cabinet. Some letters too must be burnt."