Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

If the letter had not been sent by Nicholas Keplin after all, but by someone in the house, or who had access to the house, then Radnor had work to do. He returned to his original theory. It was far more likely that the M. of the letter was Madame Marie du Sonton herself.

As a rule, Radnor avoided doing any investigating himself, relying on his informers. But sometimes he had no choice. This was just such an occasion.

Upon his arrival at the Hotel du Sonton, he asked for Madame. Instead he was shown to the office of the housekeeper, a small closet of a room furnished with a desk stacked with papers and ledgers, and two hard wooden chairs.

“Madame Vries will be with you in a moment,” the footman told him. “You’re to wait.”

Radnor glanced at the papers on the desk. Receipts and tradesmen’s bills. With a glance at the door, he opened a desk drawer. Quills and ink in the first. The next drawer held stationery, sticks of sealing wax, and a seal. The stationery was the same pale blue of the letter Marie Lasourde had brought to Vincent. Hearing the click of heels approaching along the marble tiles of the corridor outside, he quickly closed the drawer and stepped away from the desk.

The door opened, and the housekeeper entered. She was a statuesque blonde, young and attractive to be a housekeeper, though one look at her hard eyes and strong, capable hands suggested how she had risen to such a position. She took a seat at her desk across from him. She did not invite him to sit.

“What do you want with Madame?” she asked. She had a long, sinewy neck in which Radnor could see the faint pulsing of a vein.

He sat anyway. “I’d like to ask her a few questions in connection with the theft of her necklace and earrings.”

“Madame’s busy. Ask me,” she said, her lips curling slightly with scorn, completely unimpressed by him.

Usually, women were intrigued by him, and he used their reaction to his advantage. “I have reason to believe that Marie Lasourde might be connected with the theft.”

Her eyes turned flinty. “That tart. Good riddance. I sacked her yesterday for returning late from her afternoon off.”

Sacked or disappeared? Very convenient, he thought.

“If she’s responsible for the theft, I should have sacked her long before. What are you doing to find her?” she ended on an accusing note.

Radnor ignored the accusation. “Do you know where she might have gone or where her family lives?”

“No idea. I’ve better things to do than keep track of all the maidservants who come and go in this place.” She gestured at the account books lying open before her on the desk.

They glared at each other. Radnor was accustomed to unhelpful Parisians, but he sensed a wary defensiveness in her that made him suspicious. As if she had something to hide.

“Now if you’ll excuse me.” She stood to dismiss him.

He stood too, and said, making no attempt to keep the threat out of his voice, “I really must insist that I see Madame now.”

Angry resentfulness flared in her face, but she did not argue. Instead, she stood up and flounced toward the door. Out in the corridor, she flagged a young footman and told him to inform Madame she needed to speak with her urgently. She cuffed the boy on the head when he hesitated. “Move!”

She led Radnor down the corridor to a wide, marble staircase with a gilded, curved banister. On the next floor, the young footman found them and led them to Madame in her antechamber, a dressing room of white and pale green, bright with sunlight pouring through two floor-to-ceiling windows.

Though it was noon, he must have interrupted Madame’s levée. She sat in a chair having powder and paint applied to her face by two chambermaids. A sheet covered most of a voluminous blue-striped silk gown. Her hair pulled tightly back in preparation for the wig, her face half-powdered and painted, the bare skin still showing pink in spots, she looked monstrous.

When Madame saw the housekeeper with him, she exclaimed, “Nina!” the familiarity apparently slipping out in her surprise.

“My apologies, Madame,” the housekeeper curtsied. “Monsieur Radnor of the police is here about the theft.”

Madame met the housekeeper’s eyes, and the two of them held each other’s gazes for a long moment, too long, as a wordless message passed between them. Then Madame looked at him and gave him a broad, false smile of challenge. She curtly dismissed the two maids.

M. and N. Marie and Nina. The suspicions that had been growing as Radnor talked to the housekeeper took final form. The two were lovers, writing love letters to each other when they were separated. He smiled wryly, not so much with shock at the lewdness — he’d encountered far worse — but at being caught off guard. It was naiveté worthy of his friend Vincent.

“Well?” Madame said, smiling at the understanding she read in his eyes.

“I believe I’ve discovered the whereabouts of your necklace and earrings. They are nearby.” He looked directly at the housekeeper. “And presumably safe.”

Defiance burned in Nina’s eyes as she moved to Madame’s side.