HE smoked silently while I outlined the case, but made no comment until I was through. Then he chuckled.
“Suppose you listen to me—I've been busy. First, Gersault told me a queer yarn. He passed the door of Colette's shop, saw it open, saw a woman come out. He had a back view of her only. Then, glancing into the shop, he saw a pair of feet—and knew something was up. He was sharp enough to slip in. An open safe, a dead or dying man—why resist? He went for the cash, got it, and slipped out and away. He left fingerprints, however.”
“And the woman was the marquise?”
“It was not,” said Clancy, and laughed at my disconcerted expression. “The description doesn't fit her—she's tall, above the average. Well, you ran down the apple-blossom, and I ran down the narrowed trail. All the time, I was wondering about Colette being an Italian, and the thousand-lire notes Gersault had grabbed with the rest. There was one lady unaccounted for, your Madame de Lautenac, presumably gone to the Riviera. I found she had gone last week.”
“So she's out of it too, then?”
“Not at all. She returned to Paris the night before Colette was killed. So I looked her up—yes, my friend, I've been a busy man today! She has an apartment in the Avenue Friedland, not far from here; she is presumably a widow, but little is known about her. I had a chat with her concierge this afternoon.”
Significant enough. To every apartment-block a concierge—a registered person, too, who must be responsible, who must be known to the police as of good character. Male or female, a concierge in Paris does not get the place easily. He knows every detail in the life of his tenants.
“Two minutes after you left me this evening,” went on Clancy, “the concierge telephoned me that Madame de Lautenac was departing shortly to this reception. Also, her bonne à tout faire had departed, and her maid was leaving for the night. So I dressed and went to her place—and searched it. I had some luck, but there are many points I do not understand, so we must wait for her to explain them.”
I was bursting with questions, but just then came out to us the same dignitary who had been talking with Clancy on the steps. The gendarme, at one side, saluted him impressively. He glanced at me, and then spoke to Clancy, with an anxious air.
“You did not say, monsieur, when you would let me know—”
“M. le Ministre is going to the Opéra, I think?” said Clancy reflectively.
“But yes. We are very late now—but it is 'Faust,' which matters nothing until the ballet at the end—”
“Very well,” said Clancy. “When the ballet begins, monsieur, I will come to your loge, with the treaty.”
The minister started. “You—you are certain?”
“I have promised, monsieur,” said Clancy. He enjoyed being theatrical, and laughed softly to himself when the minister departed.
“The treaty?” I demanded. “Clancy, what in the devil's name are you driving at?”
He touched my arm. “You'll learn presently—there she comes, now! Madame de Lautenac, poor woman! Come along.”
I stared. The woman descending the short steps toward us, ordering her car brought up, ordering our taxi out of the way, was the brunette with whom Galtier had made an appointment. Madame de Lautenac! And she was unescorted.

M
Y friend removed his hat and bowed. “Madame, I have a taxicab awaiting you,” he said pleasantly.
She looked at him, with a puzzled frown. “You mistake, monsieur.”
“Not at all, madame,” returned Clancy. “If you will honor us, we will escort you home in our taxicab, instead of in your car. Unless, of course, madame would prefer going direct to the préfecture with a gendarme.”
Possibly a newspaper man sees more singular things than most people, because he is looking for them. However, never have I seen anything more swift and shocking than the change in Madame de Lautenac. One moment proudly beautiful, the next she was shrinking in stark terror.
Clancy offered his arm, and mechanically she accepted. The three of us went to the taxicab, and Clancy directed the driver. None of us spoke a word on the way, and when the short drive was ended, Clancy ordered the chauffeur to wait and the three of us went into the elevator and up to her floor.
There, before her door, she paused and turned on us as though to resist or protest. She lost her nerve again, and produced a key.
“Allow me, madame,” said Clancy, and opened the door. “Into the small salon, madame.”
We followed her inside. She seemed dazed, hopeless, as she led us into a very beautifully fitted salon. Then, throwing aside her wrap, she faced us with returning composure and a hint of defiance.
“What does this mean—”
“It means we had better sit down, if madame will permit,” said Clancy. When she met his gaze, terror flickered again in her eyes. She seated herself abruptly.
“What I would like most to know,” said Clancy reflectively, as though we were engaged in a light conversation over the coffee cups, “is the connection between Madame de Lautenac and the stamp dealer Colette. I refer, of course, to the antecedent connection.”
“I never heard of such a man,” said the woman coldly, her self-possession returning.
“No?” said Clancy softly. He looked at me and smiled, and spoke in English. “Did you notice that Colette's inside coat pocket had the lining pulled out?”
“Perhaps it had,” I said. “It had been disarranged by the surgeon, no doubt.”
“No, not by the surgeon.” Clancy nodded and reverted to French. The woman's eyes showed me she had understood every word perfectly. “I suppose, madame, it is useless to ask for the document you took from Colette's pocket after you stabbed him?”

H
ER pale face became yet paler, but her composure was perfect. Even her fingers, which had been nervously playing big a handkerchief in her lap, became still.
“I know nothing of what you refer to,” she said calmly, her eyes fastened on Clancy.
He nodded and turned to me.
“Will you be good enough to invert the Dresden china vase at the left of the mantel?”
I rose, went to the mantel, took the vase from it, and inverted it. Something heavy fell to the carpet, and I picked up one of those tiny miniature swords which can be found everywhere in Paris. This one was a rapier, perhaps six inches long, beautifully made and inlaid with gold. It might have served as a cabinet curio, as a hair ornament, or as anything. Halfway up the blade, toward the golden hilt, was a brownish stain.
“Now, perhaps,” said Clancy quietly, to the woman, “you will tell me the antecedent connection between yourself and Colette?”
“He was my husband,” she said, half whispering the words.
There was a moment of silence—a moment can be a long time. Only the ticking of the clock on the mantel disturbed us, and I saw the woman's eyes go to it with a sudden flash. She had remembered her appointment with Galtier—there was still hope!
“The document,” said Clancy gravely, “is for the present immaterial. I wonder why you stopped to abstract a rare stamp from Colette's safe, madame? There was your mistake.”
“It is nothing to you,” she answered, calm again. A good antagonist, this woman! “I admit nothing. I know nothing.”
“But,” said Clancy inexorably, “you expect to give that stamp to Jean Galtier in an hour or less.”
She sagged a little, and her steady gaze flickered. Clancy saw it, and drove home at once. “Perhaps you'd better give me the stamp, instead.”
“Very well,” she said, to my surprise.
On the table lay a card-case. She reached out and took it, opened it, and extracted a tiny bit of paper. For a moment, it felt to me to see one of the world's rarest stamps. Clancy held out his hand to take it.
Instead, with a swift movement she shot it into her mouth and swallowed it.

C
LANCY uttered an exclamation of dismay. So rapid was her action, neither of us had a chance to stop it, and Cleopatra's vinegar destroyed no greater value than this little meal. Madame de Lautenac smiled slightly.
“I do not know what stamp you are talking about,” she said calmly. “One cannot have committed a crime without evidence—”
Clancy recovered, and pointed to the little rapier, which I had laid on the table.
“The principal evidence, madame.”
“Planted here by you, evidently during my absence.”
Well shot. But Clancy only smiled.
“And then, madame, have we also planted the text of the Franco-Italian treaty, which you removed from Colette's pocket?”
In a moment, her defiant beauty became haggard, she became an old woman. The glitter of her eyes swept into a frightful despair. Somehow, Clancy had nailed her this time.
“How long is it since you left Colette?” demanded Clancy.
“Six years,” she whispered. “Because—because he was a spy for Germany—in the war—”
“And you,” said Clancy, pitiless, “take money from Moscow. Where is the difference? This treaty was signed three days ago in Paris. You were told at Cannes that Colette had it, for Germany. You were told to get it. You came and got it. Then—the stamp! Why the stamp?”
“For—for Jean,” she whispered, her face terrible to see.
“And he will be here for his stamp presently,” said Clancy. “Good. Then he, too, will become implicated in the murder—”
She half came to her feet.
“Stop, stop!” she cried out horribly. “He is innocent of it—he knows nothing of it—you must not drag him into it!” She thrust a hand into her low corsage and dragged out a paper packet, and flung it to the floor. “There is the treaty—take it, but do not bring Jean into it—spare him, spare him!”
She sank back, put her handkerchief to her face, and huddled down in her chair.
Clancy picked up the paper packet and broke it open. He nodded slightly, and put it in his pocket. Then he got out a cigarette and lighted it, and handed me one.
“Well, Logan,” he said in English, “I think we'd better be getting along. We must not miss the ballet, you know. It wouldn't do to be late.”
“But—”
I motioned toward the woman, who had not moved. Clancy sniffed slightly, and I started. In place of apple-blossom, a thin odor of bitter almonds was quivering on the air.
“A prussic-acid capsule in her handkerchief,” said Clancy, with only a glance at her huddled, motionless figure. “No need to verify it. Shall we go?”
We went. Phil Brady did not get much of a story out of it, after all.
(The end).