Reclining there upon her pillows, she looked like some grande dame of that France which was swept away by the Revolution. Immediately above the dressing-table I observed a large portrait of Colonel Menendez dressed as I had imagined he should be dressed when I had first set eyes on him, in tropical riding kit, and holding a broad-brimmed hat in his hand. A strikingly handsome, arrogant figure he made, uncannily like the Velasquez in the library.
At the face of Madame de Stämer I looked long and searchingly. She had not neglected the art of the toilette. Blinds tempered the sunlight which flooded her room; but that, failing the service of rouge, Madame had been pale this morning, I perceived immediately. In some subtle way the night had changed her. Something was gone out of her face, and something come into it. I thought, and lived to remember the thought, that it was thus Marie Antoinette might have looked when they told her how the drums had rolled in the Place de la Revolution on that morning of the twenty-first of January.
“Oh, M. Knox,” she said, sadly, “you are there, I see. Come and sit here beside me, my friend. Val, dear, remain. Is this Inspector Aylesbury who wishes to speak to me?”
The Inspector, who had entered with all the confidence in the world, seemed to lose some of it in the presence of this grand lady, who was so little impressed by the dignity of his office.
She waved one slender hand in the direction of a violet brocaded chair.
“Sit down, Monsieur l’inspecteur,” she commanded, for it was rather a command than an invitation.
Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat and sat down.
“Ah, M. Knox!” exclaimed Madame, turning to me with one of her rapid movements, “is your friend afraid to face me, then? Does he think that he has failed? Does he think that I condemn him?”
“He knows that he has failed, Madame de Stämer,” I replied, “but his absence is due to the fact that at this hour he is hot upon the trail of the assassin.”
“What!” she exclaimed, “what!”—and bending forward touched my arm. “Tell me again! Tell me again!”
“He is following a clue, Madame de Stämer, which he hopes will lead to the truth.”
“Ah! if I could believe it would lead to the truth,” she said. “If I dared to believe this.”
“Why should it not?”
She shook her head, smiling with such a resigned sadness that I averted my gaze and glanced across at Val Beverley who was seated on the opposite side of the bed.
“If you knew—if you knew.”
I looked again into the tragic face, and realized that this was an older woman than the brilliant hostess I had known. She sighed, shrugged, and:
“Tell me, M. Knox,” she continued, “it was swift and merciful, eh?”
“Instantaneous,” I replied, in a low voice.
“A good shot?” she asked, strangely.
“A wonderful shot,” I answered, thinking that she imposed unnecessary torture upon herself.
“They say he must be taken away, M. Knox, but I reply: not until I have seen him.”
“Madame,” began Val Beverley, gently.
“Ah, my dear!” Madame de Stämer, without looking at the speaker, extended one hand in her direction, the fingers characteristically curled. “You do not know me. Perhaps it is a good job. You are a man, Mr. Knox, and men, especially men who write, know more of women than they know of themselves, is it not so? You will understand that I must see him again?”
“Madame de Stämer,” I said, “your courage is almost terrible.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I am not proud to be brave, my friend. The animals are brave, but many cowards are proud. Listen again. He suffered no pain, you think?”
“None, Madame de Stämer.”
“So Dr. Rolleston assures me. He died in his sleep? You do not think he was awake, eh?”
“Most certainly he was not awake.”
“It is the best way to die,” she said, simply. “Yet he, who was brave and had faced death many times, would have counted it”——she snapped her white fingers, glancing across the room to where Inspector Aylesbury, very subdued, sat upon the brocaded chair twirling his cap between his hands. “And now, Inspector Aylesbury,” she asked, “what is it you wish me to tell you?”
“Well, Madame,” began the Inspector, and stood up, evidently in an endeavour to recover his dignity, but:
“Sit down, Mr. Inspector! I beg of you be seated,” cried Madame. “I will not be questioned by one who stands. And if you were to walk about I should shriek.”
He resumed his seat, clearing his throat nervously.
“Very well, Madame,” he continued, “I have come to you particularly for information respecting a certain Mr. Camber.”
“Oh, yes,” said Madame.
Her vibrant voice was very low.
“You know him, no doubt?”
“I have never met him.”
“What?” exclaimed the Inspector.
Madame shrugged and glanced at me eloquently.
“Well,” he continued, “this gets more and more funny. I am told by Pedro, the butler, that Colonel Menendez looked upon Mr. Camber as an enemy, and Miss Beverley, here, admitted that it was true. Yet although he was an enemy, nobody ever seems to have spoken to him, and he swears that he had never spoken to Colonel Menendez.”
“Yes?” said Madame, listlessly, “is that so?”
“It is so, Madame, and now you tell me that you have never met him.”
“I did tell you so, yes.”
“His wife, then?”
“I never met his wife,” said Madame, rapidly.
“But it is a fact that Colonel Menendez regarded him as an enemy?”
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