The next objection was more difficult to meet, yet it did not seem impossible that, having killed the man, Argot should, with his wife’s connivance, have secreted him in one of the closets which his master never opened, and then (having procured a duplicate key) have carried the body, in the wee small hours of the morning, up the three flights of stairs, and laid it in the empty apartment.
Thoroughly satisfied with this theory, I went off to lunch.
CHAPTER X
THE MISSING HAT
That very evening, as I was sitting quietly in my office, trying to divert my mind from the murder by reading, my boy came in and told me that there was a lady in the waiting-room who wanted to see me. There was something so peculiar about the way he imparted this very commonplace information that my curiosity was aroused; but I refrained from questioning him, and curtly bade him show the lady in.
When she appeared I was no longer surprised at his manner, for a more strange and melodramatic figure I have seldom seen, even on the stage. The woman was tall and draped, or rather shrouded, in a long, black cloak, and a thick black veil was drawn down over her face. Her costume, especially considering the excessive heat, and that the clock pointed to 9.15, was alone enough to excite comment; but to a singularity in dress she added an even greater singularity of manner. She entered the room hesitatingly, and paused near the threshold to glance apprehensively about her, as if fearing the presence of some hidden enemy. The woman must be mad, I thought, as I motioned her to a chair and sat down opposite to her.
With a theatrical gesture, she threw back her veil, and to my astonishment I recognised the handsome, rotund features of—Madame Argot! She smiled, evidently enjoying my bewilderment.