She raised her veil—and I gasped. For, though as like her as two peas, this girl was not Cinderella! On the other hand, now that I saw her without the fair wig she had worn on the stage, I recognized her as the girl of the photograph in Jack Renauld’s room.
‘You are the Juge d’Instruction, Monsieur Hautet?’ she queried.
‘Yes, but I forbid—’
‘My name is Bella Duveen. I wish to give myself up for the murder of Mr. Renauld.’
CHAPTER 26
I RECEIVE A LETTER
‘MY friend,’
‘You will know all when you get this. Nothing that I can say will move Bella. She has gone out to give herself up. I am tired out with struggling. You will know now that I deceived you, that where you gave me trust I repaid you with lies. It will seem, perhaps, indefensible to you, but I should like, before I go out of your life for ever to show you just how it all came about. If I knew that you forgave me it would make life easier for me. It wasn’t for myself I did it—that’s the only thing I can put forward to say for myself.’
‘I’ll begin from the day I met you in the boat train from Paris. I was uneasy then about Bella. She was just desperate about Jack Renauld she’d have lain down on the ground for him to walk on, and when he began to change, and to stop writing so often she began getting in a state. She got it into her head that he was keen on another girl—and of course as it turned out afterwards, she was quite right there.’
‘She’d made up her mind to go to their villa at Merlinville, and try and see Jack. She knew I was against it and tried to give me the slip. I found she was not on the train at Calais, and determined I would not go on to England without her. I’d an uneasy feeling that something awful was going to happen if I couldn’t prevent it.’
‘I met the next train from Paris. She was on it, and set upon going out then and there to Merlinville. I argued with her for all I was worth, but it wasn’t any good. She was all strung up and set upon having her own way. Well I washed my hands of it. I’d done all I could. It was getting late. I went to an hotel and Bella started for Merlinville. I still couldn’t shake off my feeling of what the books call “impending disaster”.’
‘The next day came—but no Bella. She’d made a date with me to meet at the hotel, but she didn’t keep it. No sign of her all day. I got more and more anxious. Then came an evening paper with the news.’
‘It was awful! I couldn’t be sure, of course, but I was terribly afraid. I figured it out that Bella had met Papa Renauld and told him about her and Jack and that he’d insulted her or something like that. We’ve both got terribly quick tempers.’
‘Then all the masked foreigner business came out, and I began to feel more at ease. But it still worried me that Bella hadn’t kept her date with me.’
‘By the next morning I was so rattled that I’d just got to go and see what I could. First thing, I ran up against you. You know all that . . . . When I saw the dead man, looking so like Jack, and wearing Jack’s fancy overcoat, I knew!’
‘And there was the identical paper knife—wicked little thing!—that Jack had given Bella! Ten to one it had her finger-marks on it. I can’t hope to explain to you the sort of helpless horror of that moment. I only saw one thing clearly—I must get hold of that dagger, and get right away with it before they found out it was gone. I pretended to faint, and while you were away getting water I took the thing and hid it away in my dress.’
‘I told you that I was staying at the Hotel du Phare, but of course really I made a beeline back to Calais, and then on to England by the first boat. When we were in mid-Channel I dropped that little devil of a dagger into the sea. Then I felt I could breathe again.’