Part 10 (1/2)

”Exactly.”

”No doubt Joan Carew noticed Carmen Valeri particularly, and so took unconsciously into her mind an impression of the man who was with her, Andre Favart--of his build, of his walk, of his type.”

Again Hanaud agreed.

”She forgets the man altogether, but the picture remains latent in her mind--an undeveloped film.”

Hanaud looked up in surprise, and the surprise flattered Mr. Ricardo.

Not for nothing had he tossed about in his bed for the greater part of the night.

”Then came the tragic night at the Semiramis. She does not consciously recognise her a.s.sailant, but she dreams the scene again and again, and by a process of unconscious cerebration the figure of the man becomes familiar. Finally she makes her debut, is entertained at supper afterwards, and meets once more Carmen Valeri.”

”Yes, for the first time since Mrs. Starlings.h.i.+eld's party,”

interjected Hanaud.

”She dreams again, she remembers asleep more than she remembers when awake. The presence of Carmen Valeri at her supper-party has its effect. By a process of a.s.sociation, she recalls Favart, and the mask slips on the face of her a.s.sailant. Some days later she goes to the opera. She hears Carmen Valeri sing in _The Jewels of the Madonna_. No doubt the pa.s.sion of her acting, which I am more prepared to acknowledge this morning than I was last night, affects Joan Carew powerfully, emotionally. She goes to bed with her head full of Carmen Valeri, and she dreams not of Carmen Valeri, but of the man who is unconsciously a.s.sociated with Carmen Valeri in her thoughts. The mask vanishes altogether. She sees her a.s.sailant now, has his portrait limned in her mind, would know him if she met him in the street, though she does not know by what means she identified him.”

”Yes,” said Hanaud. ”It is curious the brain working while the body sleeps, the dream revealing what thought cannot recall.”

Mr. Ricardo was delighted. He was taken seriously.

”But of course,” he said, ”I could not have worked the problem out but for you. You knew of Andre Favart and the kind of man he was.”

Hanaud laughed.

”Yes. That is always my one little advantage. I know all the cosmopolitan blackguards of Europe.” His laughter ceased suddenly, and he brought his clenched fist heavily down upon the table. ”Here is one of them who will be very well out of the world, my friend,” he said very quietly, but there was a look of force in his face and a hard light in his eyes which made Mr. Ricardo s.h.i.+ver.

For a few moments there was silence. Then Ricardo asked: ”But have you evidence enough?”

”Yes.”

”Your two chief witnesses, Calladine and Joan Carew--you said it yourself--there are facts to discredit them. Will they be believed?”

”But they won't appear in the case at all,” Hanaud said. ”Wait, wait!”

and once more he smiled. ”By the way, what is the number of Calladine's house?”

Ricardo gave it, and Hanaud therefore wrote a letter. ”It is all for your sake, my friend,” he said with a chuckle.

”Nonsense,” said Ricardo. ”You have the spirit of the theatre in your bones.”

”Well, I shall not deny it,” said Hanaud, and he sent out the letter to the nearest pillar-box.

Mr. Ricardo waited in a fever of impatience until Thursday came. At breakfast Hanaud would talk of nothing but the news of the day. At luncheon he was no better. The affair of the Semiramis Hotel seemed a thousand miles from any of his thoughts. But at five o'clock he said as he drank his tea:

”You know, of course, that we go to the opera to-night?”

”Yes. Do we?”

”Yes. Your young friend Calladine, by the way, will join us in your box.”

”That is very kind of him, I am sure,” said Mr. Ricardo.