The Cask, Freeman Wills Crofts [snow like ashes series .txt] 📗

tell me anything of his friends?”

“Nothing. I think only twice in all the years I have known him have I met acquaintances of his, in each case artists who were looking at the paintings in his studio, and who I know did not stay the night. Whom he met during the day I can’t tell.”

The lawyer sat silent for some minutes.

“Well,” he said at length, “I think that is all we can do today. I’ll let you know how things go on, but, as I warned you before, the business will be slow.”

With a hearty handshake and a word of thanks the doctor took his leave, while Clifford sat down to write to Heppenstall, K.C., to know if he would take up the case.

XXII Felix Tells a Second Story

The next day Mr. Clifford was occupied with various technical formalities, and in obtaining from the authorities such information as was then available about the case, and it was not till the following morning he set out to make the acquaintance of his client. He found him seated in his cell, his head on his hands, and an expression of deep gloom upon his face. The two men talked generalities for some time, and then the lawyer came to business.

“Now, Mr. Felix,” he said, “I want you please to tell me everything you know of this unhappy affair⁠—everything, no matter how seemingly minute or unimportant. Remember⁠—I cannot impress it on you too strongly⁠—for a man in your position it is suicidal to withhold information. Keep nothing back. Your confidence will be as safe as the confessional. If you have made mistakes, done foolish things, or criminal things, or even⁠—forgive me⁠—if you have committed the crime you are charged with, tell me the whole truth. Else I shall be a blind man leading the blind, and we shall both have our fall.”

Felix rose to his feet.

“I will do so, Mr. Clifford. I will keep nothing back. And first, before we go on to the details, one point must be settled.” He raised his hand. “I swear to you, in the presence of Almighty God, in whom I believe, that I am innocent of this crime.” He sat down and then continued: “I don’t ask you if you believe me; I am willing to leave that till afterwards, but I want now, at the commencement of our intercourse, to put that fact as it were on record. I absolutely and categorically deny all knowledge of this hateful and ghastly crime. Now let us get on.”

“I am glad you have made this statement and in this way, Mr. Felix,” said the lawyer, who was impressed by his client’s manner and earnestness. “Now, please, begin at the beginning and tell me with all the detail you can, what you know of the matter.”

Felix had the gift of narration, and, apart from the appeal to Clifford’s professional instincts, he held the lawyer enthralled as he related the strange story of his experiences.

“I hardly know where to begin,” he said. “The first thing directly bearing on the affair was a meeting between myself and some friends at the Café Toisson d’Or in Paris, but before I come to that I think I ought to explain just who I am and how I, a Frenchman, come to be living in London. I think this is necessary, as the question of my previous knowledge of poor Annette Boirac is certain to come up. What do you say, Mr. Clifford?”

“Necessary to tell this?” thought the lawyer, to whom the fact that Felix had had knowledge of the dead woman came as an ugly discovery. “Why, my good fellow, no other point in the whole case is likely to be more important for you.” But aloud he only said:⁠—

“Yes, I consider it most necessary.”

“Very good, then. As I said, I am a Frenchman, and I was born in Avignon in 1884. I was always keen on drawing, and, as my teachers thought there was promise in my work, I early moved to Paris and entered the atelier of M. Dauphin. I studied there for several years, living in a small hotel off the Boule Miche. My parents were both dead, and I had inherited a little money⁠—not much, but enough to live on.

“Amongst those working at the art school was a young fellow called Pierre Bonchose. He was some four years my junior, and was an attractive and thoroughly decent chap. We became close friends, eventually sharing the same room. But he was not much good at his work. He lacked perseverance, and was too fond of supper parties and cards to settle down seriously to paint. I was not, therefore, surprised when one day he told me he was fed up with art, and was going into business. It seemed he had applied to an old friend of his father’s, the senior partner of Messrs. Rôget, the wine exporters of Narbonne, and had been offered a position in that firm, which he had decided to accept.

“But a month or two before he left Paris he had introduced to the atelier a new pupil, his cousin, Mlle. Annette Humbert. They seemed more like brother and sister than cousins, and Bonchose told me that they had been brought up together, and had always been what you English call ‘pals.’ This, Mr. Clifford, was none other than the unfortunate young lady who afterwards became Mme. Boirac.

“She was one of the loveliest girls that ever breathed. From the first moment I saw her I admired her as I had never before admired anyone. As Fate would have it we were both making certain pastel studies and, being thus thrown together, we became interested in each other’s work. The inevitable happened, and I fell deeply in love with her. She did not discourage me, but, as she was kind and gracious to everyone, I hardly dared to hope she could care for me. At last, to make a long story short, I took my courage in both hands and proposed,