hear of anybody—it must have been nearly a hundred years ago—anybody who was your exact double to the life, and even wore a bracelet like that cat’s-head one of yours?”
“Ted, what on earth are you talking about?”
He dropped his light tone. “Listen, Marie. Let’s not make a mystery of it. The thing isn’t important, and it’s not worth it. The point is, somebody might think it was a good joke to have your photograph, in eighteen-fifties costume, put into a book as the authentic portrait of a woman who must have murdered half the neighborhood, to judge by what happened to her. But nobody’s going to swallow it. Cross has been accused by hoaxes already; you remember that fuss Ladbourne kicked up in the World? This will seem too much of a hoax. Frankly, now: who was this Marie D’Aubray? Was she a relation of yours?”
Marie had got up. She did not seem angry, or startled; she looked at him with a sort of breathless half-bewilderment and solicitude. Then she stood back primly. He had never noticed before how oddly she could change color, as though with amusement, or the little wrinkle along the side of her neck.
“Ted,” she said, “I’ll try to be serious, because you seem to be. There is somebody named Marie D’Aubray (the name’s pretty common, you know), who killed people umpty-umph years ago. And you think that I’m her, or she’s me. And so you play the Grand Inquisitor. If I’m that Marie D’Aubray”—she stole a glance at herself, over her shoulder, at a wall mirror behind, and for a second he thought there must be something wrong with the mirror—“if I’m that Marie D’Aubray, you can testify that in the more important respects I’ve worn terribly well, haven’t I?”
“I didn’t say that. I asked whether you might be remotely descended from——”
“Remotely descended from! Give me a cigarette. Pour me out another cocktail. Bosh, darling. Get along with you.”
Stevens drew a deep breath. He sat back and studied her.
“I’ve got to award you the prize,” he admitted, “for your ability to put everybody else in the wrong. All right, my wench, I don’t mind. Have it your own way. The only thing is, a respectable publishing-house can’t lift photographs out of authors’ manuscripts and keep ’em. … Look here now, Marie. Man to man, didn’t you open my briefcase a few minutes ago?”
“No.”
“You didn’t open it and take out a photograph of Marie D’Aubray, who was guillotined for murder in 1861?”
Her own temper was beginning to flare. “I most certainly did not!” Then her voice broke. “Oh, Ted, what is all this nonsense?”
“Well, somebody took it, because it’s not there. There’s no body else in the house except Ellen. Unless a sinister China-man sneaked in and stole it while I was upstairs washing, I don’t see how it can have got away. Cross’s address is on the title page of the manuscript. I’ve been wondering whether I ought to telephone him and ask him if he’d mind suppressing that picture; but we can’t have the damned thing stolen——”
The stolid Ellen poked her head in at the door. “Dinner’s ready, Miz Stevens,” she said, with great cheerfulness. And at the same time, out in the hall, the knocker on the front door rapped sharply.
There is nothing very strange or startling about a rapping on the knocker; it may happen a dozen times a day; but for two or three seconds Stevens could not move. He sat on the sofa, looking out sideways through the arch into the hall, at the porcelain umbrella-stand in one corner. He heard Ellen mutter disgustedly, and then he heard Ellen’s creaking shoes moving towards the front door, and the scrape of the lock.
“Mr. Stevens in?” asked Mark Despard’s voice.
Stevens got up. Marie was standing there expressionless, and as he passed her Stevens (from a cloudy motive he could not analyze) lifted her hand and put it to his lips. Then he was out in the hall, greeting Mark with
“Ted, what on earth are you talking about?”
He dropped his light tone. “Listen, Marie. Let’s not make a mystery of it. The thing isn’t important, and it’s not worth it. The point is, somebody might think it was a good joke to have your photograph, in eighteen-fifties costume, put into a book as the authentic portrait of a woman who must have murdered half the neighborhood, to judge by what happened to her. But nobody’s going to swallow it. Cross has been accused by hoaxes already; you remember that fuss Ladbourne kicked up in the World? This will seem too much of a hoax. Frankly, now: who was this Marie D’Aubray? Was she a relation of yours?”
Marie had got up. She did not seem angry, or startled; she looked at him with a sort of breathless half-bewilderment and solicitude. Then she stood back primly. He had never noticed before how oddly she could change color, as though with amusement, or the little wrinkle along the side of her neck.
“Ted,” she said, “I’ll try to be serious, because you seem to be. There is somebody named Marie D’Aubray (the name’s pretty common, you know), who killed people umpty-umph years ago. And you think that I’m her, or she’s me. And so you play the Grand Inquisitor. If I’m that Marie D’Aubray”—she stole a glance at herself, over her shoulder, at a wall mirror behind, and for a second he thought there must be something wrong with the mirror—“if I’m that Marie D’Aubray, you can testify that in the more important respects I’ve worn terribly well, haven’t I?”
“I didn’t say that. I asked whether you might be remotely descended from——”
“Remotely descended from! Give me a cigarette. Pour me out another cocktail. Bosh, darling. Get along with you.”
Stevens drew a deep breath. He sat back and studied her.
“I’ve got to award you the prize,” he admitted, “for your ability to put everybody else in the wrong. All right, my wench, I don’t mind. Have it your own way. The only thing is, a respectable publishing-house can’t lift photographs out of authors’ manuscripts and keep ’em. … Look here now, Marie. Man to man, didn’t you open my briefcase a few minutes ago?”
“No.”
“You didn’t open it and take out a photograph of Marie D’Aubray, who was guillotined for murder in 1861?”
Her own temper was beginning to flare. “I most certainly did not!” Then her voice broke. “Oh, Ted, what is all this nonsense?”
“Well, somebody took it, because it’s not there. There’s no body else in the house except Ellen. Unless a sinister China-man sneaked in and stole it while I was upstairs washing, I don’t see how it can have got away. Cross’s address is on the title page of the manuscript. I’ve been wondering whether I ought to telephone him and ask him if he’d mind suppressing that picture; but we can’t have the damned thing stolen——”
The stolid Ellen poked her head in at the door. “Dinner’s ready, Miz Stevens,” she said, with great cheerfulness. And at the same time, out in the hall, the knocker on the front door rapped sharply.
There is nothing very strange or startling about a rapping on the knocker; it may happen a dozen times a day; but for two or three seconds Stevens could not move. He sat on the sofa, looking out sideways through the arch into the hall, at the porcelain umbrella-stand in one corner. He heard Ellen mutter disgustedly, and then he heard Ellen’s creaking shoes moving towards the front door, and the scrape of the lock.
“Mr. Stevens in?” asked Mark Despard’s voice.
Stevens got up. Marie was standing there expressionless, and as he passed her Stevens (from a cloudy motive he could not analyze) lifted her hand and put it to his lips. Then he was out in the hall, greeting Mark with
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