Агата Кристи: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. No. 75, April 1959, British Edition

“You wish to own it, Henri?”

“It is my purpose to.”

“Ah, yes. And the cost?”

“A mere bagatelle. Thirty-seven thousand dollars.”

Madame Dufour waved jeweled fingers through the air. She said with frigid repression, “A triviality indeed. And in return — it is reasonable, Henri, that you do not rely upon your say-so alone to convince the family of Jeffery Sand?”

“Madame is correct.”

“Your proof, then?”

“Perhaps, in the years long ago, you will recall a frequent patron of your house, a young artist who later was to become well-known for his miniature paintings? And his gift to you for the fifth anniversary of the opening of Madame’s establishment?”

“Ah...”

It was an unavoidable intake of breath. Madame Dufour remembered the small porcelain miniature with its ribald doggerel and (now) baneful painting only too well. But (her mind concentrated on the doggerel’s exact wording and the detail in the painting) would the miniature of itself be sufficient proof? Would it rather not be simply a suggestive confirmation? When used in conjunction with the verbal knowledge now lying in this viper’s poison sac?

Was either one of value without the other? She decided not. Therefore, if one were eliminated, the more dangerous one of the two, the speaking tongue... yes, she had been right. Eliminate Henri, and Seraphine’s security would be assured. Madame Dufour’s philosophy of induced death was medieval.

“So your grandfather was a thief,” she said.

“No, a sentimentalist, Madame. The miniature was a souvenir of sentiment, a tangible memory of his services with you. It shall be yours again when our transaction is completed.

“One understands, dear boy, that there are securities to convert? That the bagatelle, as you so wittily describe it, will take a day or two to procure?”

“Naturally.”

“During the brief delay you will remain, of course, the Chateau’s honored guest. It is arranged that your credit shall rate as unlimited.”

“Madame is too kind.”

“This room is agreeable?”

Henri could not rid himself of the premonition that he was being led into some subtly clever trap. Madame Dufour’s jelly-like submission, her outrageously false anxiety to lull him into a state of vulnerability...

“The room serves admirably, Madame.”

Henri rose and made a casual tour. He opened a door that disclosed a spacious bathroom, another a roomy cupboard. He swung the solid inner door in upon the shuttered outer one, and noted that it had a brass safety chain that would permit, when in place, the door to be opened for the space of only a few inches.

“Is this chain not unusual, Madame?” he asked quietly. “Does one find them throughout the hotel?”

“No, Henri. It is unique. For several seasons this room was the standing reservation of a rich widow, a Mrs. Artemus Blaine. One found her an eccentric old creature with delusions of pursuit. Each knock on the door presented itself to her as a menace to her safety. She died, alas, last spring in Antibes from cirrhosis of the liver.”

With the quiet power of the Queen Mary getting under way Madame Dufour moved toward the hall door, allowing her hypnotic eyes to play directly on Henri’s.

“You have shared this knowledge of my past with no one?”

“Do you take me for a chump, Madame?”

“Some jeune fille whom you love?”

“I have no use for love. Women, I do not have to bother about. I am beset with them.”

Madame Dufour smiled.

“Restez tranquil, cher ami,” she said, and left.

The safety chain.

Henri fingered its brass links with wary bemusement after he had shut and locked the door. Madame Dufour’s choice bit of blague concerning the eccentric Mrs. Blaine could, one must concede, have been true. But why, then, had not the chain been removed after Mrs. Blaine’s unhappy liver had put an end to its need?

He examined each link minutely, searching for some indication that the metal had been secretly weakened by a saw and the cut masked with, say yellow soap. There was nothing. The chain had not been tampered with. He latched it in place. He was now secure.

Secure...

Was that it? Was this very feeling of security the bait with which Madame Dufour could have set her trap? The trap which Henri had by now convinced himself did in truth exist. Any other supposition seemed an absurdity when one considered this formidable woman.

He was being deliberately lulled.

Into precisely what? To sleep in peace? To sleep for — good? Henri’s nature was of a type that entertained elaborate suspicions about every person and thing. Also, as with so many men of trained physical strength, he was both superstitious and afflicted by a fear of the unknown. No personal combat would have bothered him. But a pending combat with secret dangers...

A light sweat began to bead Henri’s brow as Madame Dufour’s imagined plan of attack began to take shape. The Chateau Plage — this particular room with its innocent-looking brass safety chain — was, Henri felt certain, the crux of it. The hotel became transformed in his thoughts into the old tigress’s personal jungle, where she could with utmost familiarity maneuver his defeat. And what could that defeat constitute if not extinction?

Did the menace hinge (Henri stabbed at possibilities) on Room Service? She had given him unlimited credit? A poisoned drink that he might order, or a succulent dish that would eventually simulate a fatal attack of ptomaine? Or was the danger secreted within the room itself? A panorama of scorpions, coral snakes, even water moccasins, paraded across Henri’s imagination — all with deadly effect on his nerves.

He would be a fool not to take every possible precaution. He would be a fool to remain here, where from but a few doors along the corridor Madame’s poisoned claws could reach out and clutch. An overwhelming urge possessed him to change his base of operations to some obscure hotel.

To leave at once. But could he? Would not the possibility of his departure have been foreseen and appropriately guarded against? Would not Madame Dufour have in her employ some muscled, conscienceless, weapon-adept cat’s-paw?

Even though he should encounter no physical barrier on the way out, Henri thought, he would surely be followed. He could be certain that would have been arranged. And any hideout he might select would shortly become known to the tigress.

An unusually strong gust of the storm slashed against the room’s seaward windows, drawing Henri’s eyes toward them and bringing him the perfect solution to his dilemma. In retrospect he saw himself standing by the parted lime draperies of Madame Dufour’s living room and looking down upon the flagged terrace. An insignificant drop for a man of his acrobatic abilities.

Yes — he would leave the hall door locked and chained, secure against any waiting dangers in the corridor, and no watchful eyes would even know that he had left the hotel until morning came. By that time he would be safely incognito and could arrange some rendezvous by telephone to receive Madame’s payment for his silence.

Henri checked the papers and the money in his wallet. He untaped the porcelain miniature from his thigh and put it in an inner pocket of his jacket, where it would be more protected from damage should he slip on the wet flagstones upon landing — a possibility remote, considering his athletic prowess, but one that he must consider nevertheless. His suitcase and overcoat he would leave in the room. He could replace them a thousandfold after he had collected his price for silence.

He opened a window and for an instant was blinded by the sheeting rain and pitch darkness of the harried night. He lowered his body over the sill, clung for a second with strong fingers, and then, relaxing his muscles for an athlete’s safe landing, Henri let go.