Julius Ricardo pushed aside the curtains with a thrill of
excitement. He found himself standing within a small oblong room
which was prettily, even daintily, furnished. On his left, close
by the recess, was a small fireplace with the ashes of a burnt-out
fire in the grate. Beyond the grate a long settee covered in pink
damask, with a crumpled cushion at each end, stood a foot or two
away from the wall, and beyond the settee the door of the room
opened into the hall. At the end a long mirror was let into the
panelling, and a writing-table stood by the mirror. On the right
were the three windows, and between the two nearest to Mr. Ricardo
was the switch of the electric light. A chandelier hung from the
ceiling, an electric lamp stood upon the writing-table, a couple
of electric candles on the mantel-shelf. A round satinwood table
stood under the windows, with three chairs about it, of which one
was overturned, one was placed with its back to the electric
switch, and the third on the opposite side facing it.
Ricardo could hardly believe that he stood actually upon the spot
where, within twelve hours, a cruel and sinister tragedy had taken
place. There was so little disorder. The three windows on his
right showed him the blue sunlit sky and a glimpse of flowers and
trees; behind him the glass doors stood open to the lawn, where
birds piped cheerfully and the trees murmured of summer. But he
saw Hanaud stepping quickly from place to place, with an
extraordinary lightness of step for so big a man, obviously
engrossed, obviously reading here and there some detail, some
custom of the inhabitants of that room.
Ricardo leaned with careful artistry against the wall.
"Now, what has this room to say to me?" he asked importantly.
Nobody paid the slightest attention to his question, and it was
just as well. For the room had very little information to give
him. He ran his eye over the white Louis Seize furniture, the
white panels of the wall, the polished floor, the pink curtains.
Even the delicate tracery of the ceiling did not escape his
scrutiny. Yet he saw nothing likely to help him but an overturned
chair and a couple of crushed cushions on a settee. It was very
annoying, all the more annoying because M. Hanaud was so
uncommonly busy. Hanaud looked carefully at the long settee and
the crumpled cushions, and he took out his measure and measured
the distance between the cushion at one end and the cushion at the
other. He examined the table, he measured the distance between the
chairs. He came to the fireplace and raked in the ashes of the
burnt-out fire. But Ricardo noticed a singular thing. In the midst
of his search Hanaud's eyes were always straying back to the
settee, and always with a look of extreme perplexity, as if he
read there something, definitely something, but something which he
could not explain. Finally he went back to it; he drew it farther
away from the wall, and suddenly with a little cry he stooped and
went down on his knees. When he rose he was holding some torn
fragments of paper in his hand. He went over to the writing-table
and opened the blotting-book. Where it fell open there were some
sheets of note-paper, and one particular sheet of which half had
been torn off. He compared the pieces which he held with that torn
sheet, and seemed satisfied.