"A bit of paper I picked up on Lady Beltham"s desk while the porter"s back was turned. It will serve for a little experiment. If it is not long since a hand rested on it, we shall find the print."
"On this blank paper?"
"Yes, Fandor. Look!"
Juve drew a pencil from his pocket and scratched off a fine dust of graphite which he shook over the paper. Gradually the outline of a hand appeared, faint, but quite visible.
"That is how," resumed Juve, "with this very simple process, you can decipher the finger prints of persons who have written or rested their hands on anything--paper, gla.s.s, even wood. According to the clearness of this outline which is thrown up by the coagulation of the plumbago--thanks to the ordinary moisture of the hand--which was laid on the paper, I can a.s.sure you that some one wrote on Lady Beltham"s desk about ten days ago."
"It is wonderful," said Fandor. "Here, then, is proof positive that her Ladyship visits her house from time to time."
"Correct--or at least that some one goes there, for that is a man"s hand."
"Well, what are you going to do now, Juve?"
"Now? I"m off to the Prefecture to get rid of my false embonpoint, which bothers me no end. I have never been so glad that I am not naturally stout."
Fandor laughed.
"And I own to you that I shan"t be sorry to get rid of my false moustache. All the while I was inspecting that cursed house, this moustache kept tickling my nose and making me want to sneeze."
"You should have done so."
"But suppose my moustache had come off?"
x.x.xI
LOVERS AND ACCOMPLICES
"Oh! who is that?"
From the shadow issued some one who calmly replied:
"It is I."
"Ah!--I know you now, but why this disguise?"
"Madame the Superior--I present myself--Doctor Chaleck. Isn"t my disguise as good as yours?"
"What do you want of me? Speak quickly, I am frightened."
"To begin with, I thank you for coming to the tryst at your house--at ours. For five Tuesdays I have waited in vain. But first, madame, explain your sudden conversion, the reason of your sudden entry into Orders. That is a strange device for the mistress of Gurn."
Doctor Chaleck held under the lash of his irony the unhappy woman who seemed overcome by anxiety. The two were facing each other in the large room that formed the middle of the first floor of the house in Boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly. It was, in fact, the only room fit to use: they had left to neglect and inclement weather the other rooms in the elegant mansion which some years before was considered in the Parisian world as one of the most comfortable and luxurious in the foreign colony.
It was in truth here that in days gone by the tragic drama had been played: death had laid its cold hand upon the gilded trappings of the great apartment and laughter and joy had taken flight. However, time pa.s.ses so quickly and evil memories so soon grow dim that many had forgotten the grim happenings which three years before had beset the mansion on the Boulevard.
It was at first the deep mourning of Lady Beltham whose husband had been mysteriously done to death at Belleville. Then, some weeks later, occurred the awful scene of the arrest of Lord Beltham"s murderer, just as he was leaving the house, an arrest due to Juve, who, though he succeeded in laying hands on the a.s.sa.s.sin, the infamous Gurn, was not able to prove--sure though he might be of it--that the slayer of the husband was the lover of the wife.
After these shocking events Lady Beltham left France, dismissing the many attendants with whom she loved to surround herself like a true queen of beauty, luxury and wealth.
At rare intervals the Lady, whose existence grew more and more mysterious, went back for a few days to her house at Neuilly. She would vanish, would reappear, living like a recluse, almost in entire solitude, receiving none of her old acquaintances.
About a year ago she seemed to want to settle finally at Boulevard Inkermann. Workmen began to put the house in order again, the lodge was opened and a family of caretakers came; then suddenly the work had been broken off; some weeks went by while Lady Beltham lived alone with her companion; then both disappeared.
Lady Beltham shivered, and, gathering about her shoulders the cloak which covered her religious habit, muttered: "I"m cold."
"Beastly weather, and to think this is July."
Chaleck crossed to a register in the corner of the room.
"No good to leave that open! An icy wind comes through the pa.s.sage to the cellar."
Lady Beltham turned in alarm toward her enigmatic companion.
"Why did you let it be supposed I was dead?"
"Why did you yourself leave here two days before the crime at the Cite Frochot?"
Lady Beltham hung her head and with a sob in her voice:
"I was deserted and jealous. Besides, I was enduring frightful remorse.
The idea had come to me to write down the terrible secret which haunted my spirit, to give the story to some one I could trust, an attorney, and then----"
"Go on, pray!"
"And, then, what I had written suddenly vanished. It was after that I lost my head and fled. I had long been meaning to withdraw from the world. The Sisters of St. Clotilde offered to receive me in their house at Nogent."
Chaleck added brutally:
"That isn"t all. You forgot to say you were afraid. Come, be frank, afraid of Gurn, of me!"
"Well, yes, I was afraid, not so much of you, but of our crimes. I am also afraid of dying."
"That confession you wrote became known to some one who confided it to me."
"Heavens," murmured the unhappy woman. "Who mentioned it?"
Chaleck had again crossed to the register, which, although closed by him some moments before, was open again, letting into the room a blast of icy air from the bas.e.m.e.nt.
"This can"t stay shut, it must be seen to," he muttered.
Lady Beltham, shaken by a nervous tremour, insisted: