"simon harlow," he began, "was the owner of the famous clos du prince vineyards on the côte-d'or to the east of dijon. he had an estate in norfolk, this big house, the maison crenelle in dijon, and a villa at monte carlo. but he spent most of his time in dijon, where at the age of forty-five he married a french lady, jeanne-marie raviart. there was, i believe, quite a little romance about the affair. jeanne-marie was married and separated from her husband, and simon harlowe waited, i think, for ten years until the husband raviart died."
jim frobisher moved quickly and mr. haslitt, who seemed to be reading off this history in the pattern of the carpet, looked up.
"yes, i see what you mean," he said, replying to jim's movement. "yes, there might have been some sort of affair between those two before they were free to marry. but nowadays, my dear jim! opinion takes a more human view than it did in my youth. besides, don't you see, this little secret, to be of any value to boris waberski, must be near enough to betty harlowe—i don't say to affect her if published, but to make waberski think that she would hate to have it published. now betty harlowe doesn't come into the picture at all until two years after simon and jeanne-marie were married, when it became clear that they were not likely to have any children. no, the love-affairs of simon harlowe are sufficiently remote for us to leave them aside."
jim frobisher accepted the demolition of his idea with a flush of shame.
"i was a fool to think of it," he said.
"not a bit," replied mr. haslitt cheerfully. "let us look at every possibility. that's the only way which will help us to get a glimpse of the truth. i resume, then. simon harlowe was a collector. yes, he had a passion for collecting and a very catholic one. his one sitting-room at the maison crenelle was a perfect treasure-house, not only of beautiful things, but of out-of-the-way things too. he liked to live amongst them and do his work amongst them. his married life did not last long. for he died five years ago at the age of fifty-one."
mr. haslitt's eyes once more searched for recollections amongst the convolutions of the carpet.
"that's really about all i know of him. he was a pleasant fellow enough, but not very sociable. no, there's nothing to light a candle for us there, i am afraid."
mr. haslitt turned his thoughts to the widow.
"jeanne-marie harlowe," he said. "it's extraordinary how little i know about her, now i come to count it up. natural too, though. for she sold the norfolk estate and has since passed her whole time between monte carlo and dijon and—oh, yes—a little summer-house on the côte-d'or amongst her vineyards."
"she was left rich, i suppose?" frobisher asked.
"very well off, at all events," mr. haslitt replied. "the clos du prince burgundy has a fine reputation, but there's not a great deal of it."
"did she come to england ever?"
"never," said mr. haslitt. "she was content, it seems, with dijon, though to my mind the smaller provincial towns of france are dull enough to make one scream. however, she was used to it, and then her heart began to trouble her, and for the last two years she has been an invalid. there's nothing to help us there." and mr. haslitt looked across to jim for confirmation.
"nothing," said jim.
"then we are only left the child betty harlowe and—oh, yes, your correspondent, your voluminous correspondent, ann upcott. who is she, jim? where did she spring from? how does she find herself in the maison crenelle? come, confess, young man," and mr. haslitt archly looked at his junior partner. "why should boris waberski expect her support?"
jim frobisher threw his arms wide.
"i haven't an idea," he said. "i have never seen her. i have never heard of her. i never knew of her existence until that letter came this morning with her name signed at the end of it."
mr. haslitt started up. he crossed the room to his table and, fixing his folding glasses on the bridge of his nose, he bent over the letter.
"but she writes to you, jim," he objected. "'dear mr. frobisher,' she writes. she doesn't address the firm at all"; and he waited, looking at jim, expecting him to withdraw this denial.
jim, however, only shook his head.
"it's the most bewildering thing," he replied. "i can't make head or tail of it"; and mr. haslitt could not doubt now that he spoke the truth, so utterly and frankly baffled the young man was. "why should ann upcott write to me? i have been asking myself that question for the last half-hour. and why didn't betty harlowe write to you, who have had her affairs in your care?"
"ah!"
that last question helped mr. haslitt to an explanation. his face took a livelier expression.
"the answer to that is in waberski's, the second letter. betty—she snap her fingers at his awkwardnesses. she doesn't take the charge seriously. she will have left it to the french notary to dispose of it. yes—i think that makes ann upcott's letter to you intelligible, too. the ceremonies of the law in a foreign country would frighten a stranger, as this girl is apparently, more than they would betty harlowe, who has lived for four years in the midst of them. so she writes to the first name in the title of the firm, and writes to him as a man. that's it, jim," and the old man rubbed his hands together in his satisfaction.
"a girl in terror wouldn't get any comfort out of writing to an abstraction. she wants to know that she's in touch with a real person. so she writes, 'dear mr. frobisher.' that's it! you can take my word for it."
mr. haslitt walked back to his chair. but he did not sit down in it; he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window over frobisher's head.
"but that doesn't bring us any nearer to finding out what is boris waberski's strong suit, does it? we haven't a clue to it," he said ruefully.
to both of the men, indeed, mr. haslitt's flat, unillumined narrative of facts, without a glimpse into the characters of any of the participants in the little drama, seemed the most unhelpful thing. yet the whole truth was written there—the truth not only of waberski's move, but of all the strange terrors and mysteries into which the younger of the two men was now to be plunged. jim frobisher was to recognise that, when, shaken to the soul, he resumed his work in the office. for it was interrupted now.
mr. haslitt, looking out of the window over his partner's head, saw a telegraph-boy come swinging across the square and hesitate in the roadway below.
"i expect that's a telegram for us," he said, with the hopeful anticipation people in trouble have that something from outside will happen and set them right.
jim turned round quickly. the boy was still upon the pavement examining the numbers of the houses.
"we ought to have a brass plate upon the door," said jim with a touch of impatience; and mr. haslitt's eyebrows rose half the height of his forehead towards his thick white hair. he was really distressed by the waberski incident, but this suggestion, and from a partner in the firm, shocked him like a sacrilege.
"my dear boy, what are you thinking of?" he expostulated. "i hope i am not one of those obstinate old fogies who refuse to march with the times. we have had, as you know, a telephone instrument recently installed in the junior clerks' office. i believe that i myself proposed it. but a brass plate upon the door! my dear jim! let us leave that to harley street and southampton row! but i see that telegram is for us."
the tiny mercury with the shako and red cord to his uniform made up his mind and disappeared into the hall below. the telegram was brought upstairs and mr. haslitt tore it open. he stared at it blankly for a few seconds, then without a word, but with a very anxious look in his eyes, he handed it to jim frobisher.
jim frobisher read:
please, please, send some one to help me at once. the prefect of police has called in hanaud, a great detective of the sûrété in paris. they must think me guilty.—betty harlowe.
the telegram fluttered from jim's fingers to the floor. it was like a cry for help at night coming from a great distance.
"i must go, sir, by the night boat," he said.
"to be sure!" said mr. haslitt a little absently.
jim, however, had enthusiasm enough for both. his chivalry was fired, as is the way with lonely men, by the picture his imagination drew. the little girl, betty harlowe! what age was she? twenty-one! not a day more. she had been wandering with all the proud indifference of her sex and youth, until suddenly she found her feet caught in some trap set by a traitor, and looked about her; and terror came and with it a wild cry for help.
"girls never notice danger signals," he said. "no, they walk blindly into the very heart of catastrophe." who could tell what links of false and cunning evidence boris waberski had been hammering away at in the dark, to slip swiftly at the right moment over her wrist and ankle? and with that question he was seized with a great discouragement.
"we know very little of criminal procedure, even in our own country, in this office," he said regretfully.
"happily," said mr. haslitt with some tartness. with him it was the firm first and last. messrs. frobisher & haslitt never went in to the criminal courts. litigation, indeed, even of the purest kind was frowned upon. it is true there was a small special staff, under the leadership of an old managing clerk, tucked away upon an upper floor, like an unpresentable relation in a great house, which did a little of that kind of work. but it only did it for hereditary clients, and then as a favour.
"however," said mr. haslitt as he noticed jim's discomfort, "i haven't a doubt, my boy, that you will be equal to whatever is wanted. but remember, there's something at the back of this which we here don't know."
jim shifted his position rather abruptly. this cry of the old man was becoming parrot-like—a phrase, a formula. jim was thinking of the girl in dijon and hearing her piteous cry for help. she was not "snapping her the fingers" now.
"it's a matter of common sense," mr. haslitt insisted. "take a comparison. bath, for instance, would never call in scotland yard over a case of this kind. there would have to be the certainty of a crime first, and then grave doubt as to who was the criminal. this is a case for an autopsy and the doctors. if they call in this man hanaud"—and he stopped.
he picked the telegram up from the floor and read it through again.
"yes—hanaud," he repeated, his face clouding and growing bright and clouding again like a man catching at and just missing a very elusive recollection. he gave up the pursuit in the end. "well, jim, you had better take the two letters of waberski, and ann upcott's three-volume novel, and betty's telegram"—he gathered the papers together and enclosed them in a long envelope—"and i shall expect you back again with a smiling face in a very few days. i should like to see our little boris when he is asked to explain those letters."
mr. haslitt gave the envelope to jim and rang his bell.
"there is some one waiting to see me, i think," he said to the clerk who answered it.
the clerk named a great landowner, who had been kicking his heels during the last half-hour in an undusted waiting-room with a few mouldy old law books in a battered glass case to keep him company.
"you can show him in now," said mr. haslitt as jim retired to his own office; and when the great landowner entered, he merely welcomed him with a reproach.
"you didn't make an appointment, did you?" he said.
but all through that interview, though his advice was just the precise, clear advice for which the firm was quietly famous, mr. haslitt's mind was still playing hide-and-seek with a memory, catching glimpses of the fringes of its skirt as it gleamed and vanished.
"memory is a woman," he said to himself. "if i don't run after her she will come of her own accord."
but he was in the common case of men with women: he could not but run after her. towards the end of the interview, however, his shoulders and head moved with a little jerk, and he wrote a word down on a slip of paper. as soon as his client had gone, he wrote a note and sent it off by a messenger who had orders to wait for an answer. the messenger returned within the hour and mr. haslitt hurried to jim frobisher's office.
jim had just finished handing over his affairs to various clerks and was locking up the drawers of his desk.
"jim, i have remembered where i have heard the name of this man hanaud before. you have met julius ricardo? he's one of our clients."
"yes," said frobisher. "i remember him—a rather finnicking person in grosvenor square."
"that's the man. he's a friend of hanaud and absurdly proud of the friendship. he and hanaud were somehow mixed up in a rather scandalous crime some time ago—at aix-les-bains, i think. well, ricardo will give you a letter of introduction to him, and tell you something about him, if you will go round to grosvenor square at five this afternoon."
"capital!" said jim frobisher.
he kept the appointment, and was told how he must expect to be awed at one moment, leaped upon unpleasantly at the next, ridiculed at a third, and treated with great courtesy and friendship at the fourth. jim discounted mr. ricardo's enthusiasm, but he got the letter and crossed the channel that night. on the journey it occurred to him that if hanaud was a man of such high mark, he would not be free, even at an urgent call, to pack his bags and leave for the provinces in an instant. jim broke his journey, therefore, at paris, and in the course of the morning found his way to the direction of the sûrété on the quai d'horloge just behind the palais de justice.
"monsieur hanaud?" he asked eagerly, and the porter took his card and his letter of introduction. the great man was still in paris, then, he thought with relief. he was taken to a long dark corridor, lit with electric globes even on that bright morning of early summer. there he rubbed elbows with malefactors and gendarmes for half an hour whilst his confidence in himself ebbed away. then a bell rang and a policeman in plain clothes went up to him. one side of the corridor was lined with a row of doors.
"it is for you, sir," said the policeman, and he led frobisher to one of the doors and opened it, and stood aside. frobisher straightened his shoulders and marched in.
