Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

Rénine continued. “Next point. This evening I shall lodge an information with the public prosecutor. Evidence: the confessions in the account book. Consequences: action by the police, search of the premises and the rest.”

Pancaldi was silent. The others had a feeling that all these threats did not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees at Rénine’s feet and stammered, “No, no... I entreat you!... It would mean going to prison and I don’t want to go!... And then my son!... Oh, I entreat you!...”

Hortense, seized with compassion, took Rénine to one side.

“Poor woman! Let me intercede for her.”

“Set your mind at rest,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen to her son.”

“But your two friends?”

“Sheer bluff.”

“Your application to the public prosecutor?”

“A mere threat.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

“To frighten them out of their wits in the hope of making them drop a remark, a word, which will tell us what we want to know. We’ve tried every other means. This is the last, and it is a method which, I find, nearly always succeeds. Remember our adventures.”

“But if the word which you expect to hear is not spoken?”

“It must be spoken,” said Rénine in a low voice. “We must finish the matter. The hour is at hand.”

His eyes met hers, and she blushed crimson at the thought that the hour to which he was alluding was the eighth and that he had no other object than to finish the matter before that eighth hour struck.

“So you see, on the one hand, what you are risking,” he said to the Pancaldi pair. “The disappearance of your child... and prison, prison for certain, since there is the book with its confessions. And now, on the other hand, here’s my offer: twenty thousand francs if you hand over the clasp immediately, this minute. Remember, it isn’t worth three louis.”

No reply. Madame Pancaldi was crying.

Rénine resumed, pausing between each proposal.

“I’ll double my offer... I’ll treble it... Hang it all, Pancaldi, you’re unreasonable!... I suppose you want me to make it a round sum? All right: a hundred thousand francs.”

He held out his hand as if there was no doubt that they would give him the clasp.

Madame Pancaldi was the first to yield and did so with a sudden outburst of rage against her husband.

“Well, confess, can’t you? Speak up! Where have you hidden it?... Look here, you aren’t going to be obstinate, what? If you are, it means ruin and poverty. And then there’s our boy! Speak out, do!”

Hortense whispered, “Rénine, this is madness; the clasp has no value.”

“Never fear,” said Rénine, “he’s not going to accept. But look at him... How excited he is! Exactly what I wanted... Ah, this, you know, is really exciting!... To make people lose their heads! To rob them of all control over what they are thinking and saying!... And, in the midst of this confusion, in the storm that tosses them to and fit), to catch sight of the tiny spark which will flash forth somewhere or other!... Look at him! Look at the fellow! A hundred thousand francs for a valueless pebble... if not, prison: it’s enough to turn any man’s head!”

Pancaldi, in fact, was grey in the face; his lips were trembling, and a drop of saliva was trickling from their corners. It was easy to guess the seething turmoil of his whole being, shaken by conflicting emotions, by the clash between greed and fear. Suddenly he burst out, and it was obvious that his words were pouring forth at random, without his knowing in the least what he was saying.

“A hundred thousand francs! Two hundred thousand! Five hundred thousand! A million! A two fig for your millions! What’s the use of millions? One loses them. They disappear... they go... there’s only one thing that counts: luck. It’s on your side or else against you. And luck has been on my side these last nine years. It has never betrayed me, and you expect me to betray it? Why? Out of fear? Prison? My son? Bosh!... No harm will come to me so long as I compel luck to work on my behalf. It’s my servant, it’s my friend. It clings to the clasp. How? How can I tell? It’s the cornelian, no doubt... There are magic stones which hold happiness as others hold fire or sulphur, or gold.”

Rénine kept his eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity dealer was now laughing with a nervous laugh while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself, and he walked up to Rénine with jerky movements that revealed an increasing resolution.