Part 8 (1/2)
Mr. Ricardo could not restrain a movement of indignation. He was being played with. The girl with her fantastic story had worked him up to a real pitch of excitement only to make a fool of him. All his earlier suspicions flowed back into his mind. What if, after all, she was implicated in the murder and the theft? What if, with a perverse cunning, she had told Hanaud and himself just enough of what she knew, just enough of the truth, to persuade them to protect her? What if her frank confession of her own overpowering impulse to steal the necklace was nothing more than a subtle appeal to the sentimental pity of men, an appeal based upon a wider knowledge of men's weaknesses than a girl of nineteen or twenty ought to have? Mr. Ricardo cleared his throat and sat forward in his chair. He was girding himself for a singularly searching interrogatory when Hanaud asked the most irrelevant of questions:
”How did you pa.s.s the evening of that night when you first dreamed complete the face of your a.s.sailant?”
Joan Carew reflected. Then her face cleared.
”I know,” she exclaimed. ”I was at the opera.”
”And what was being given?”
”_The Jewels of the Madonna_.”
Hanaud nodded his head. To Ricardo it seemed that he had expected precisely that answer.
”Now,” he continued, ”you are sure that you have seen this man?”
”Yes.”
”Very well,” said Hanaud. ”There is a game you play at children's parties--is there not?--animal, vegetable, or mineral, and always you get the answer. Let us play that game for a few minutes, you and I.”
Joan Carew drew up her chair to the table and sat with her chin propped upon her hands and her eyes fixed on Hanaud's face. As he put each question she pondered on it and answered. If she answered doubtfully he pressed it.
”You crossed on the _Lucania_ from New York?”
”Yes.”
”Picture to yourself the dining-room, the tables. You have the picture quite clear?”
”Yes.”
”Was it at breakfast that you saw him?”
”No.”
”At luncheon?”
”No.”
”At dinner?”
She paused for a moment, summoning before her eyes the travellers at the tables.
”No.”
”Not in the dining-table at all, then?”
”No.”
”In the library, when you were writing letters, did you not one day lift your head and see him?”
”No.”