Inside the arbor it was almost dark, but chinks and glimmers of light flickered through interlaced vines and showed him an arched tunnel some ten feet high, with a floor of packed sand. There was a stagnant smell of dying blossom; the Judas tree, did they call it? Obscurely, he was relieved to find the gnat-stung arbor empty. He hurried along its length to the arch of light at the end, and emerged on a red-tiled terrace where there were more tables under the windows.
“Good eefening, Mr. Dermot,” said an affable voice.
Dermot checked his rush.
He almost stumbled over Dr. Henrik Vanderver of the Sylvanian Embassy, who was sitting near the arbor, smoking a cigar with relish, and looking at him through thick-lensed spectacles.
“Ha, ha, ha!” said Dr. Vanderver, laughing uproariously and for no apparent reason; as was his custom.
“Good evening, Dr. Vanderver,” said Dermot. His uneasiness had gone; he felt again a nerve-ridden fool. “Sorry to barge into you like that. Is Miss Weatherill down yet?”
Dr. Vanderver was proud of his English.
“Down?” he repeated, drawing down his eyebrows as though to illustrate.
“From her room, I mean.”
“De young lady,” said Vanderver, “iss with you. I have seen her go through dere” — he pointed to the arbor — “fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”
“Yes, I know. But she came back here to get a compact.”
Vanderver was now anxious about his English.
“Please?” he prompted, cupping his hand behind his ear.
“I said she came back here to get a compact. You know. This kind of thing.” Dermot held it up. “She walked back through the arbor—”
“My friend,” said Vanderver with sudden passion, “I do not know if I have understood you. Nobody has come back through this arbor while I am sitting here.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“Please?”
Dermot thought he saw the explanation. “You mean you haven’t been sitting here all the time?”
“My friend,” said Vanderver, taking out a watch and shaking it, “I am sitting here one hour more... more! — where I sit always and smoke my cigar before I dress. Yes?”
“Well, Doctor?”
“I have seen the young lady go through, yes. But I have not seen her come back. I haf not seen nobody. In all dat time the only liffing soul I see on this terrace is the maid which gather up your tea-tray and bring it back here.”
The terrace, always dark in the shadow of the arbor, was growing more dusky.
“Dr. Vanderver, listen to me.” Dermot spoke coldly and sharply; he found Vanderver’s thick-lensed spectacles turning on him with hypnotic effect. “That is not what I mean. I remember the maid going back through the arbor with the tray. But Miss Weatherill was with me then. I mean later. L-a-t-e-r, several minutes later. You saw Miss Weatherill come out through here about ten minutes ago, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“But you must have! I saw her go into the arbor on my side, and I never took my eyes off the entrance. She isn’t in the arbor now; see for yourself. She must have come out here.”
“So!” said Vanderver, tapping the table with magnificent dignity. “Now I tell you something. I do not know what you think has happened to the young lady. Perhaps de goblins ketch her, yes? Perhaps she dissolved to electrons and bust, yes?” Dark blood suffused his face. “Now I will haf no more of this. I settle it. I tell you.” He thrust out his thick neck. “Nobody,” he said flatly, “hass come back through this arbor at all.”
By nine o’clock that night, terror had come to the Hotel Suchard.
Until then Monsieur Gant, the manager, had refrained from summoning the police. At first Monsieur Gant appeared to think that everybody was joking. He only began to gesticulate, and to run from room to room, when it became clear that Betty Weatherill was not to be found either in the hotel or in the grounds. If the testimony were to be believed — and neither Dermot nor Vanderver would retract one word — then Betty Weatherill had simply walked into the arbor, and there had vanished like a puff of smoke.
It was certain that she had not left the arbor by (say) getting out through the vines. The vines grew up from the ground in a matted tangle like a wire cage, so trained round their posts from floor to arch that it would be impossible to penetrate them without cutting. And nowhere were they disturbed in any way. There was not — as one romantic under-porter suggested — an underground passage out of the tunnel. It was equally certain that Betty could not have been hiding in the arbor when Dermot walked through it. There was no place there to hide in.
This became only too clear when the Chinese lanterns were lighted in the greenish tunnel, and Monsieur Gant stood on a stepladder to shake frantically at the vine-walls — with half the domestic staff twittering behind him. This was a family matter, in which everybody took part.
Alys Marchand, in fact, was the backstairs-heroine of the occasion. Alys was the plump waitress who had been sent to fetch fresh tea and sandwiches not fifteen minutes before Betty’s disappearance, but who had not brought them back because of a disagreement with the cook as to what hours constituted feev-o’clock-tay.
Apart from Dermot, Alys had been the last person to see Betty Weatherill in the flesh. Alys had passed unscathed through the arbor. To Monsieur Gant she described, with a wealth of gesture, how she had taken the order for tea and sandwiches from Monsieur Dermot. She showed how she had picked up the big tray, whisking a cloth over its debris like a conjuror. A pink-cheeked brunette, very neat in her black frock and apron, she illustrated how she had walked back through the arbor towards the hotel.
Had she seen Dr. Vanderver on this occasion?
She had.
Where was he?
At the little table on the terrace. He was smoking a cigar, and sharpening a big horn-handled knife on a small whetstone block he carried in his pocket.
“That,” interposed Vanderver, in excellent French, “is a damned lie.”
It was very warm in the arbor, under the line of Chinese lanterns. Vanderver stood against the wall. He seemed less bovine when he spoke French. But a small bead of perspiration had appeared on his forehead, up by the large vein near the temple; and the expression of his eyes behind the thick spectacles turned Andrew Dermot cold.
“It is true as I tell you,” shrieked Alys, turning round her dark eyes. “I told my sister Clothilde, and Gina and Odette too, when I went to the kitchen. He thrusts it into his pocket — quick, so! — when he sees me.”
“There are many uses for knives,” said Monsieur Gant, hastily and nervously. “At the same time, perhaps it would be as well to telephone the police. You are an advocate, Monsieur Dermot. You agree?”
Dermot did agree.
He had been keeping tight hold of his nerves. In fact, he found the cold reason of his profession returning to him; and it was he who directed matters. Instead of bringing back the nightmare, this practical situation steadied him. He saw the issue clearly now. It became even more clear when there arrived, amid a squad of plainclothes men, none other than Monsieur Lespinasse, the juge d’instruction.
After examining the arbor, M. Lespinasse faced them all in the manager’s office. He was a long, lean, melancholy man with hollow cheeks, and the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole. He had hard uncomfortable eyes, which stared down at them.
“You understand,” said Lespinasse, “we appear to have here a miracle. Now I am a realist. I do not believe in miracles.”
“That is good,” said Dermot grimly, in his careful French. “You have perhaps formed a theory?”
“A certainty,” said Lespinasse.
The hard uncomfortable eyes turned on Dermot.
“From our examination,” said Lespinasse, “it is certain that Mlle. Weatherill did not leave the arbor by any secret means. You, monsieur, tell one story.” He looked at Vanderver. “You, monsieur, tell another.” He looked back at Dermot. “It is therefore evident that one of you must be telling a lie.”