'Because he knows quite well that the best way to hurt me is to strike at you!' Marianne's voice held all the passionate urgency of her need to convince her friend of what was growing every moment clearer to herself. Everything pointed to it, even the strange noises in the house which only she, with her extremely delicate sensitivity and an ear which, perhaps owing to the English side of her nature, seemed unusually attuned to anything connected with the supernatural, had heard.
'Think, Jason! You yourself were struck by the coincidence of all that has happened since last night, when I found that man in my house. This curious mixture of truth and falsehood which keeps recurring…'
'Truth?' the American said with sudden ferocity. 'What truth do you see in that damned anonymous note, apart from the reference to your presence here tonight?'
'Lord Cranmere was the only person who knew that I was coming—'
'That's as may be. But that is as far as it goes. You are not my mistress, are you? While as for this fictitious crime, this wholly imaginary corpse—'
He stopped short, becoming aware of the sudden reappearance of Inspector Pâques, this time through the french window by which Marianne had entered earlier, and looking, if possible, even chillier than at his first entry:
'Will you be good enough to come with me, Monsieur? And you also, Madame.'
'Where to?' Jason said.
'To the billiard-room in the small pavilion in the grounds.'
Marianne's presentiment of some imminent catastrophe had become a certainty. She read disaster in the set face of the policeman and she was sure that his eyes held a threat. Jason, too, had scanned Pâques's uncommunicative features with surprise, but he gave no sign beyond a slight shrug as he held out his hand to Marianne, saying on a note of exasperated resignation: 'Oh, very well! Since you insist.'
They went out into the garden. The heat which had made the earlier part of the evening so unpleasant had given way to a cool freshness and from the drenched earth and dripping trees there came a reviving smell of new-washed leaves and wet grass. But the dark figures of the police were stationed grimly among the roses on the three terraces and Marianne shivered, thinking that there were enough of them to surround a whole village and wondering at the extravagance which could employ so many men to check on a single house. It was possible, of course, that Inspector Pâques had been expecting a gang of criminals and had been determined at all costs to prevent an escape, which must always be reckoned a possibility in a garden of such size. The men stood quite still. One or two held shaded lanterns in their hands to throw a light on the path, but altogether they gave the impression of some ominous guard. Marianne must have trembled perceptibly because she felt Jason's fingers tighten on hers and drew some comfort from the warmth of the contact.
The little pavilion which had once been used as a billiard-room at some time in the past stood slightly to the right of the house. The light inside gave it the air of a big, yellow lantern standing there in the dark. Two men were standing guard at the door, leaning heavily on the knotted cudgels which were formidable weapons in their hands. They stood, silent and ominous, like two black attendants at the mouth of a tomb, and Marianne's hand clutched Jason's nervously. Pâques opened the door and stood aside to allow the couple to enter:
'Go in and see.'
Jason entered first and after a quick start moved instinctively to block his companion's view, and at the same time to keep her from stepping in the blood which covered the room. But it was already too late. She had seen what lay within.
She gave a single horrified shriek, then turned, her knees giving way beneath her, to escape the nightmare vision, only to come full against the inspector's large chest, blocking the doorway.
In the middle of the room, the legs half-hidden under the billiard-table with its torn cloth, lay a gigantic corpse, with gaping throat and eyes wide open on eternity. Yet for all the bloodless pallor of the face, for all the terrifying fixity of the expression, rigid in a look of horrible surprise, there was no mistaking the identity of the man who lay there, in that place which had once been built for amusement and was now so dreadfully transformed into a scene of carnage. It was Nicholas Mallerousse, Marianne's adoptive uncle, alias the seaman Black Fish, the friend of prisoners escaping from the English hulks and the man who had sworn to destroy Francis Cranmere or die in the attempt.
'Who is this man?' Jason asked tonelessly. 'I have never seen him before.'
'Ah! Is that so, indeed?' the inspector said, making vain attempts to disengage himself from Marianne who was clinging to him, sobbing convulsively, in the first stages of hysteria. 'And yet your initials were found on the razor which killed Nicolas Mallerousse.
'Now then, lady, now then, if you please! I've better things to do than stand here supporting you.'
'Leave her alone!' Jason cried fiercely, snatching Marianne away from the inspector who had started to shake her in his efforts to get free. 'No one looks to a policeman for compassion! If this poor fellow is indeed Nicolas Mallerousse, as you claim, then this young woman has just received a terrible shock. Get her out of this slaughterhouse, I implore you, or the Emperor shall hear of it, I swear to you! Come, Marianne, come with me…'
Still talking, he lifted her shuddering form and carried her outside. Piques let them go and merely indicated a stone bench which stood beside the path, backed by a bed of tall white lilies whose heady scent filled all that part of the garden. Jason laid down his burden and asked for someone to be sent to find Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche and tell him to bring the carriage for his mistress. Inspector Pâques, however, had his own views:
'Not so fast. I haven't finished with this lady yet. You told me it came as a shock to her that the body was that of Nicolas Mallerousse? Why should that be, now?'
'Because he was a good friend to her. She was very fond of him.'
'Do you expect me to believe that? The shock was caused by the sight of the blood and maybe because she had not thought to be confronted with your handiwork.'
'My handiwork! Are you accusing me of this disgusting piece of butchery? Simply because you found a razor with my initials on it? Razors can be stolen—'
'But motives can't. And you had two, two very good ones.'
'Two motives? How should I have two motives for murdering a man I'd never even met?'
'At least two,' Pâques amended, 'each better than the last. Mallerousse had been on your tail ever since you came to France, trying to get proof of important smuggling ventures you were involved in. You killed him because he was about to arrest you just as you were leaving France with your holds full of—'
'Champagne and burgundy!' Jason cried exasperatedly. 'You don't kill a man for the sake of a few bottles of wine!'
'If what that letter has to say is true we shall find something else besides that will give us all the proof we need. As for the second motive. The lady herself supplies that. You killed him to save her!'
'To save her? Save her from what? I tell you she—'
'From this! We found it on the body. I don't doubt she knew Mallerousse well enough, or that he, poor devil, knew a good deal more about her than she liked. But I can't imagine her being so very fond of the man who was carrying this paper. Here, Germain, fetch a lantern over here!'
One of the policemen came over to them. The light from his lantern fell on a scrap of yellow paper, the sight of which was enough to rouse Marianne from the depths of horror and grief that had overwhelmed her. Still shaken by sobs, she had heard what was said without being able to gain sufficient control of herself to respond to the inspector's accusations and Jason's angry replies. But this piece of paper, the yellow paper she had seen once before on that day in the Place de la Concorde, in the hands of her worst enemy, acted on her as a counter-irritant because it gave her clear proof; it was the signature added to the nightmare in which she and Jason were caught.