Frenchman spying round the place. You know all about him, I suppose?”
“You mean the man who calls himself M. Chelles? Staying at the Cricketers? A traveller in silk.”
“That’s it, is it? What about him? What does Scotland Yard think?”
“His actions have been suspicious,” said Superintendent Battle expressionlessly.
“Very suspicious, I should say. Well, I put two and two together. French governess in the house, French stranger outside. I decided that they were in league together, and I hurried off to interview the lady with whom Mademoiselle Brun had lived for the last ten years. I was fully prepared to find that she had never heard of any such person as Mademoiselle Brun, but I was wrong, Battle. Mademoiselle is the genuine article.”
Battle nodded.
“I must admit,” said Anthony, “that as soon as I spoke to her I had an uneasy conviction that I was barking up the wrong tree. She seemed so absolutely the governess.”
Again Battle nodded.
“All the same, Mr. Cade, you can’t always go by that. Women especially can do a lot with make up. I’ve seen quite a pretty girl with the color of her hair altered, a sallow complexion stain, slightly reddened eyelids and, most efficacious of all, dowdy clothes, who would fail to be identified by nine people out of ten who had seen her in her former character. Men haven’t got quite the same pull. You can do something with the eyebrows, and of course different sets of false teeth alter the whole expression. But there are always the ears—there’s an extraordinary lot of character in ears, Mr. Cade.”
“Don’t look so hard at mine, Battle,” complained Anthony. “You make me quite nervous.”
“I’m not talking of false beard and grease paint,” continued the superintendent. “That’s only for books. No, there are very few men who can escape identification and put it over on you. In fact there’s only one man I know who has a positive genius for impersonation. King Victor. Ever heard of King Victor, Mr. Cade?”
There was something so sharp and sudden about the way the detective put the question that Anthony half checked the words that were rising to his lips.
136
