"Thank you," said Hanaud gravely. "And now Miss Carew may perhaps resume her story."
"It was the very night of my début," she continued. "I had supper with some friends. A great artist. Carmen Valeri, honoured me with her presence. I went home excited, and that night I dreamed again."
"This time the chin, the lips, the eyes were visible. There was only a black strip across the middle of the face. And I thought--nay, I was sure--that if that strip vanished I should know the man."
The girl's face became troubled. She frowned.
"I knew the face, that was all," she answered. "I was disappointed. I had never spoken to the man. I am sure of that still. But somewhere I have seen him."
"You don't even remember when?" asked Hanaud.
"No." Joan Carew reflected for a moment with her eyes upon the carpet, and then flung up her head with a gesture of despair. "No. I try all the time to remember. But it is no good."
Mr. Ricardo could not restrain a movement of indignation. He was being played with. The girl with her fantastic story had worked him up to a real pitch of excitement only to make a fool of him. All his earlier suspicions flowed back into his mind. What if, after all, she was implicated in the murder and the theft? What if, with a perverse cunning, she had told Hanaud and himself just enough of what she knew, just enough of the truth, to persuade them to protect her? What if her frank confession of her own overpowering impulse to steal the necklace was nothing more than a subtle appeal to the sentimental pity of men, an appeal based upon a wider knowledge of men's weaknesses than a girl of nineteen or twenty ought to have? Mr. Ricardo cleared his throat and sat forward in his chair. He was girding himself for a singularly searching interrogatory when Hanaud asked the most irrelevant of questions:
"How did you pass the evening of that night when you first dreamed complete the face of your assailant?"
Joan Carew reflected. Then her face cleared.
"I know," she exclaimed. "I was at the opera."
Hanaud nodded his head. To Ricardo it seemed that he had expected precisely that answer.
"Now," he continued, "you are sure that you have seen this man?"
"Very well," said Hanaud. "There is a game you play at children's parties--is there not?--animal, vegetable, or mineral, and always you get the answer. Let us play that game for a few minutes, you and I."