The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel

friend, we willfinish our evening like gallant gentlemen. Come! Let us not think ofthe morning." And boisterously he slapped Ricardo in the small of theback.

  In spite of his boast, however, Hanaud hardly touched his supper, andhe played with, rather than drank, his brandy and soda. He had alittle table to which he was accustomed beside a glass screen in thedepths of the room, and he sat with his back to the wall watching thegroups which poured in. Suddenly his face lighted up.

  "Here is Carmen Valeri!" he cried. "Once more we are in luck. Is itnot that she is beautiful?"

  Mr. Ricardo turned languidly about in his chair and put up hiseyeglass.

  "So, so," he said.

  "Ah!" returned Hanaud. "Then her companion will interest you stillmore. For he is the man who murdered Mrs. Blumenstein."

  Mr. Ricardo jumped so that his eyeglass fell down and tinkled on itscord against the buttons of his waistcoat.

  "What!" he exclaimed. "It's impossible!" He looked again. "Certainlythe man fits Joan Carew's description. But--" He turned back to Hanaudutterly astounded. And as he looked at the Frenchman all his earlierrecollections of him, of his swift deductions, of the subtleimagination which his heavy body so well concealed, crowded in uponRicardo and convinced him.

  "How long have you known?" he asked in a whisper of awe.

  "Since ten o'clock to-night."

  "But you will have to find the necklace before you can prove it."

  "The necklace!" said Hanaud carelessly. "That is already found."

  Mr. Ricardo had been longing for a thrill. He had it now. He felt itin his very spine.

  "It's found?" he said in a startled whisper.

  "Yes."

  Ricardo turned again, with as much indifference as he could assume,towards the couple who were settling down at their table, the man witha surly indifference, Carmen Valeri with the radiance of a woman whohas just achieved a triumph and is now free to enjoy the fruits of it.Confusedly, recollections returned to Ricardo of questions put thatafternoon by Hanaud to Joan Carew--subtle questions into which thename of Carmen Valeri was continually entering. She was a woman ofthirty, certainly beautiful, with a clear, pale face and eyes like thenight.

  "Then she is implicated too!" he said. What a change for her, hethought, from the stage of Covent Garden to the felon's cell, from thegay supper-room of the Semiramis, with its bright frocks and its babelof laughter, to the silence and the ignominious garb of the workroomsin Aylesbury Prison!

  "She!" exclaimed Hanaud; and in his passion for the contrasts of dramaRicardo was almost disappointed. "She has nothing whatever to do withit. She knows nothing. Andre Favart there--yes. But Carmen Valeri!She's as stupid as an owl, and loves him beyond words. Do you want toknow how stupid she is? You shall know. I asked Mr. Clements, thedirector of the opera house, to take supper with us, and here he is."

  Hanaud stood up and shook hands with the director. He was of the worldof business rather than of art, and long experience of the ways oftenors and prima-donnas had given him a good-humoured cynicism.

  "They are spoilt children, all tantrums and vanity," he said, "andthey would ruin you to keep a rival out of the theatre."

  He told them anecdote upon anecdote.

  "And Carmen Valeri," Hanaud asked in a pause; "is she troublesome thisseason?"

  "Has been," replied Clements dryly. "At present she is playing atbeing good. But she gave me a turn some weeks ago." He turned toRicardo. "Superstition's her trouble, and Andre Favart knows it. Sheleft him behind in America this spring."

  "America!" suddenly cried Ricardo; so suddenly that Clements looked athim in surprise.

  "She was singing in New York, of course, during the winter," hereturned. "Well, she left him behind, and I was shaking hands withmyself when he began to deal the cards over there. She came to me in apanic. She had just had a cable. She couldn't sing on Friday night.There was a black knave next to the nine of diamonds. She wouldn'tsing for worlds. And it was the first night of _The Jewels of theMadonna!_ Imagine the fix I was in!"

  "What did you do?" asked Ricardo.

  "The only thing there was to do," replied Clements with a shrug of theshoulders. "I cabled Favart some money and he dealt the cards again.She came to me beaming. Oh, she had been so distressed to put me inthe cart! But what could she do? Now there was a red queen next to theace of hearts, so she could sing without a scruple so long, of course,as she didn't pass a funeral on the way down to the opera house.Luckily she didn't. But my money brought Favart over here, and now I'mliving on a volcano. For he's the greatest scoundrel unhung. He neverhas a farthing, however much she gives him; he's a blackmailer, he's aswindler, he has no manners and no graces, he looks like a butcher andtreats her as if she were dirt, he never goes near the opera exceptwhen she is singing in this part, and she worships the ground he walkson. Well, I suppose it's time to go."

  The lights had been turned off, the great room was emptying. Mr.Ricardo and his friends rose to go, but at the door Hanaud detainedMr. Clements, and they talked together alone for some little while,greatly to Mr. Ricardo's annoyance. Hanaud's good humour, however,when he rejoined his friend, was enough for two.

  "I apologise, my friend, with my hand on my heart. But it was for yoursake that I stayed behind. You have a meretricious taste for melodramawhich I deeply deplore, but which I mean to gratify. I ought to leavefor Paris to-morrow, but I shall not. I shall stay until Thursday."And he skipped upon the pavement as they walked home to GrosvenorSquare.

  Mr. Ricardo bubbled with questions, but he knew his man. He would getno answer to any one of them to-night. So he worked out the problemfor himself as he lay awake in his bed, and he came down to breakfastnext morning fatigued but triumphant. Hanaud was already chipping offthe top of his egg at the table.

  "So I see you have found it all out, my friend," he said.

  "Not all," replied Ricardo modestly, "and you will not mind, I amsure, if I follow the usual custom and wish you a good morning."

  "Not at all," said Hanaud. "I am all for good manners myself."

  He dipped his spoon into his egg.

  "But I am longing to hear the line of your reasoning."

  Mr. Ricardo did not need much pressing.

  "Joan Carew saw Andre Favart at Mrs. Starlingshield's party, and sawhim with Carmen Valeri. For Carmen Valeri was there. I remember thatyou asked Joan for the names of the artists who sang, and CarmenValeri was amongst them."

  Hanaud nodded his head.

  "Exactly."

  "No doubt Joan Carew noticed Carmen Valeri particularly, and so tookunconsciously 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 hermind--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 ofthe night.

  "Then came the tragic night at the Semiramis. She does not consciouslyrecognise her assailant, but she dreams the scene again and again, andby a process of unconscious cerebration the figure of the man becomesfamiliar. Finally she makes her debut, is entertained at supperafterwards, and meets once more Carmen Valeri."

  "Yes, for the first time since Mrs. Starlingshield's party,"interjected Hanaud.

  "She dreams again, she remembers asleep more than she remembers whenawake. The presence of Carmen Valeri at her supper-party has itseffect. By a process of association, she recalls Favart, and the maskslips on the face of her assailant. Some days later she goes to theopera. She hears Carmen Valeri sing in _The Jewels of the Madonna_. Nodoubt the passion of her acting, which I am more prepared toacknowledge this morning than I was last night, affects Joan Carewpowerfully, emotionally. She goes to bed with her head full of CarmenValeri, and she dreams not of Carmen Valeri, but of the man who isunconsciously associated with Carmen Valeri in her thoughts. The maskvanishes altogether. She sees her assa
ilant now, has his portraitlimned 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 bodysleeps, 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 butfor 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 thecosmopolitan blackguards of Europe." His laughter ceased