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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of At the Villa Rose, by A.E.W. Mason
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+Title: At the Villa Rose
+
+Author: A.E.W. Mason
+
+Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4745]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 12, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT AT THE VILLA ROSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE VILLA ROSE
+
+A.E.W. Mason
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER PAGE
+
+    I. SUMMER LIGHTNING
+   II. A CRY FOR HELP
+  III. PERRICHET'S STORY
+   IV. AT THE VILLA
+    V. IN THE SALON
+   VI. HELENE VAUQUIER'S EVIDENCE
+  VII. A STARTLING DISCOVERY
+ VIII. THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP
+   IX. MME. DAUVRAY'S MOTOR-CAR
+    X. NEWS FROM GENEVA
+   XI. THE UNOPENED LETTER
+  XII. THE ALUMINIUM FLASK
+ XIII. IN THE HOUSE AT GENEVA
+  XIV. MR. RICARDO IS BEWILDERED
+   XV. CELIA'S STORY
+  XVI. THE FIRST MOVE
+ XVII. THE AFTERNOON OF TUESDAY
+XVIII. THE SEANCE
+  XIX. HELENS EXPLAINS
+   XX. THE GENEVA ROAD
+  XXI. HANAUD EXPLAINS
+
+
+
+
+AT THE VILLA ROSE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+SUMMER LIGHTNING
+
+
+It was Mr. Ricardo's habit as soon as the second week of August
+came round to travel to Aix-les-Bains, in Savoy, where for five or
+six weeks he lived pleasantly. He pretended to take the waters in
+the morning, he went for a ride in his motor-car in the afternoon,
+he dined at the Cercle in the evening, and spent an hour or two
+afterwards in the baccarat-rooms at the Villa des Fleurs. An
+enviable, smooth life without a doubt, and it is certain that his
+acquaintances envied him. At the same time, however, they laughed
+at him and, alas with some justice; for he was an exaggerated
+person. He was to be construed in the comparative. Everything in
+his life was a trifle overdone, from the fastidious arrangement of
+his neckties to the feminine nicety of his little dinner-parties.
+In age Mr. Ricardo was approaching the fifties; in condition he
+was a widower--a state greatly to his liking, for he avoided at
+once the irksomeness of marriage and the reproaches justly
+levelled at the bachelor; finally, he was rich, having amassed a
+fortune in Mincing Lane, which he had invested in profitable
+securities.
+
+Ten years of ease, however, had not altogether obliterated in him
+the business look. Though he lounged from January to December, he
+lounged with the air of a financier taking a holiday; and when he
+visited, as he frequently did, the studio of a painter, a stranger
+would have hesitated to decide whether he had been drawn thither
+by a love of art or by the possibility of an investment. His
+"acquaintances" have been mentioned, and the word is suitable. For
+while he mingled in many circles, he stood aloof from all. He
+affected the company of artists, by whom he was regarded as one
+ambitious to become a connoisseur; and amongst the younger
+business men, who had never dealt with him, he earned the
+disrespect reserved for the dilettante. If he had a grief, it was
+that he had discovered no great man who in return for practical
+favours would engrave his memory in brass. He was a Maecenas
+without a Horace, an Earl of Southampton without a Shakespeare. In
+a word, Aix-les-Bains in the season was the very place for him;
+and never for a moment did it occur to him that he was here to be
+dipped in agitations, and hurried from excitement to excitement.
+The beauty of the little town, the crowd of well-dressed and
+agreeable people, the rose-coloured life of the place, all made
+their appeal to him. But it was the Villa des Fleurs which brought
+him to Aix. Not that he played for anything more than an
+occasional louis; nor, on the other hand, was he merely a cold
+looker-on. He had a bank-note or two in his pocket on most
+evenings at the service of the victims of the tables. But the
+pleasure to his curious and dilettante mind lay in the spectacle
+of the battle which was waged night after night between raw nature
+and good manners. It was extraordinary to him how constantly
+manners prevailed. There were, however, exceptions.
+
+For instance. On the first evening of this particular visit he
+found the rooms hot, and sauntered out into the little
+semicircular garden at the back. He sat there for half an hour
+under a flawless sky of stars watching the people come and go in
+the light of the electric lamps, and appreciating the gowns and
+jewels of the women with the eye of a connoisseur; and then into
+this starlit quiet there came suddenly a flash of vivid life. A
+girl in a soft, clinging frock of white satin darted swiftly from
+the rooms and flung herself nervously upon a bench. She could not,
+to Ricardo's thinking, be more than twenty years of age. She was
+certainly quite young. The supple slenderness of her figure proved
+it, and he had moreover caught a glimpse, as she rushed out, of a
+fresh and very pretty face; but he had lost sight of it now. For
+the girl wore a big black satin hat with a broad brim, from which
+a couple of white ostrich feathers curved over at the back, and in
+the shadow of that hat her face was masked. All that he could see
+was a pair of long diamond eardrops, which sparkled and trembled
+as she moved her head--and that she did constantly. Now she stared
+moodily at the ground; now she flung herself back; then she
+twisted nervously to the right, and then a moment afterwards to
+the left; and then again she stared in front of her, swinging a
+satin slipper backwards and forwards against the pavement with the
+petulance of a child. All her movements were spasmodic; she was on
+the verge of hysteria. Ricardo was expecting her to burst into
+tears, when she sprang up and as swiftly as she had come she
+hurried back into the rooms. "Summer lightning," thought Mr.
+Ricardo.
+
+Near to him a woman sneered, and a man said, pityingly: "She was
+pretty, that little one. It is regrettable that she has lost."
+
+A few minutes afterwards Ricardo finished his cigar and strolled
+back into the rooms, making his way to the big table just on the
+right hand of the entrance, where the play as a rule runs high. It
+was clearly running high tonight. For so deep a crowd thronged
+about the table that Ricardo could only by standing on tiptoe see
+the faces of the players. Of the banker he could not catch a
+glimpse. But though the crowd remained, its units were constantly
+changing, and it was not long before Ricardo found himself
+standing in the front rank of the spectators, just behind the
+players seated in the chairs. The oval green table was spread out
+beneath him littered with bank-notes. Ricardo turned his eyes to
+the left, and saw seated at the middle of the table the man who
+was holding the bank. Ricardo recognised him with a start of
+surprise. He was a young Englishman, Harry Wethermill, who, after
+a brilliant career at Oxford and at Munich, had so turned his
+scientific genius to account that he had made a fortune for
+himself at the age of twenty-eight.
+
+He sat at the table with the indifferent look of the habitual
+player upon his cleanly chiselled face. But it was plain that his
+good fortune stayed at his elbow tonight, for opposite to him the
+croupier was arranging with extraordinary deftness piles of bank-
+notes in the order of their value. The bank was winning heavily.
+Even as Ricardo looked Wethermill turned up "a natural," and the
+croupier swept in the stakes from either side.
+
+"Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Le jeu est fait?" the croupier cried,
+all in a breath, and repeated the words. Wethermill waited with
+his hand upon the wooden frame in which the cards were stacked. He
+glanced round the table while the stakes were being laid upon the
+cloth, and suddenly his face flashed from languor into interest.
+Almost opposite to him a small, white-gloved hand holding a five-
+louis note was thrust forward between the shoulders of two men
+seated at the table. Wethermill leaned forward and shook his head
+with a smile. With a gesture he refused the stake. But he was too
+late. The fingers of the hand had opened, the note fluttered down
+on to the cloth, the money was staked.
+
+At once he leaned back in his chair.
+
+"Il y a une suite," he said quietly. He relinquished the bank
+rather than play against that five-louis note. The stakes were
+taken up by their owners.
+
+The croupier began to count Wethermill's winnings, and Ricardo,
+curious to know whose small, delicately gloved hand it was which
+had brought the game to so abrupt a termination, leaned forward.
+He recognised the young girl in the white satin dress and the big
+black hat whose nerves had got the better of her a few minutes
+since in the garden. He saw her now clearly, and thought her of an
+entrancing loveliness. She was moderately tall, fair of skin, with
+a fresh colouring upon her cheeks which she owed to nothing but
+her youth. Her hair was of a light brown with a sheen upon it, her
+forehead broad, her eyes dark and wonderfully clear. But there was
+something more than her beauty to attract him. He had a strong
+belief that somewhere, some while ago, he had already seen her.
+And this belief grew and haunted him. He was still vaguely
+puzzling his brains to fix the place when the croupier finished
+his reckoning.
+
+"There are two thousand louis in the bank," he cried. "Who will
+take on the bank for two thousand louis?"
+
+No one, however, was willing. A fresh bank was put up for sale,
+and Wethermill, still sitting in the dealer's chair, bought it. He
+spoke at once to an attendant, and the man slipped round the
+table, and, forcing his way through the crowd, carried a message
+to the girl in the black hat. She looked towards Wethermill and
+smiled; and the smile made her face a miracle of tenderness. Then
+she disappeared, and in a few moments Ricardo saw a way open in
+the throng behind the banker, and she appeared again only a yard
+or two away, just behind Wethermill. He turned, and taking her
+hand into his, shook it chidingly.
+
+"I couldn't let you play against me, Celia," he said, in English;
+"my luck's too good tonight. So you shall be my partner instead.
+I'll put in the capital and we'll share the winnings."
+
+The girl's face flushed rosily. Her hand still lay clasped in his.
+She made no effort to withdraw it.
+
+"I couldn't do that," she exclaimed.
+
+"Why not?" said he. "See!" and loosening her fingers he took from
+them the five-louis note and tossed it over to the croupier to be
+added to his bank. "Now you can't help yourself. We're partners."
+
+The girl laughed, and the company at the table smiled, half in
+sympathy, half with amusement. A chair was brought for her, and
+she sat down behind Wethermill, her lips parted, her face joyous
+with excitement. But all at once Wethermill's luck deserted him.
+He renewed his bank three times, and had lost the greater part of
+his winnings when he had dealt the cards through. He took a fourth
+bank, and rose from that, too, a loser.
+
+"That's enough, Celia," he said. "Let us go out into the garden;
+it will be cooler there,"
+
+"I have taken your good luck away," said the girl remorsefully.
+Wethermill put his arm through hers.
+
+"You'll have to take yourself away before you can do that," he
+answered, and the couple walked together out of Ricardo's hearing.
+
+Ricardo was left to wonder about Celia. She was just one of those
+problems which made Aix-les-Bains so unfailingly attractive to
+him. She dwelt in some street of Bohemia; so much was clear. The
+frankness of her pleasure, of her excitement, and even of her
+distress proved it. She passed from one to the other while you
+could deal a pack of cards. She was at no pains to wear a mask.
+Moreover, she was a young girl of nineteen or twenty, running
+about those rooms alone, as unembarrassed as if she had been at
+home. There was the free use, too, of Christian names. Certainly
+she dwelt in Bohemia. But it seemed to Ricardo that she could pass
+in any company and yet not be overpassed. She would look a little
+more picturesque than most girls of her age, and she was certainly
+a good deal more soignee than many, and she had the Frenchwoman's
+knack of putting on her clothes. But those would be all the
+differences, leaving out the frankness. Ricardo wondered in what
+street of Bohemia she dwelt. He wondered still more when he saw
+her again half an hour afterwards at the entrance to the Villa des
+Fleurs. She came down the long hall with Harry Wethermill at her
+side. The couple were walking slowly, and talking as they walked
+with so complete an absorption in each other that they were
+unaware of their surroundings. At the bottom of the steps a stout
+woman of fifty-five over-jewelled, and over-dressed and raddled
+with paint, watched their approach with a smile of good-humoured
+amusement. When they came near enough to hear she said in French:
+
+"Well, Celie, are you ready to go home?"
+
+The girl looked up with a start.
+
+"Of course, madame," she said, with a certain submissiveness which
+surprised Ricardo. "I hope I have not kept you waiting."
+
+She ran to the cloak-room, and came back again with her cloak.
+
+"Good-bye, Harry," she said, dwelling upon his name and looking
+out upon him with soft and smiling eyes.
+
+"I shall see you tomorrow evening," he said, holding her hand.
+Again she let it stay within his keeping, but she frowned, and a
+sudden gravity settled like a cloud upon her face. She turned to
+the elder woman with a sort of appeal.
+
+"No, I do not think we shall be here, tomorrow, shall we, madame?"
+she said reluctantly.
+
+"Of course not," said madame briskly. "You have not forgotten what
+we have planned? No, we shall not be here tomorrow; but the night
+after--yes."
+
+Celia turned back again to Wethermill.
+
+"Yes, we have plans for tomorrow," she said, with a very wistful
+note of regret in her voice; and seeing that madame was already at
+the door, she bent forward and said timidly, "But the night after
+I shall want you."
+
+"I shall thank you for wanting me," Wethermill rejoined; and the
+girl tore her hand away and ran up the steps.
+
+Harry Wethermill returned to the rooms. Mr. Ricardo did not follow
+him. He was too busy with the little problem which had been
+presented to him that night. What could that girl, he asked
+himself, have in common with the raddled woman she addressed so
+respectfully? Indeed, there had been a note of more than respect
+in her voice. There had been something of affection. Again Mr.
+Ricardo found himself wondering in what street in Bohemia Celia
+dwelt--and as he walked up to the hotel there came yet other
+questions to amuse him.
+
+"Why," he asked, "could neither Celia nor madame come to the Villa
+des Fleurs tomorrow night? What are the plans they have made? And
+what was it in those plans which had brought the sudden gravity
+and reluctance into Celia's face?"
+
+Ricardo had reason to remember those questions during the next few
+days, though he only idled with them now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A CRY FOR HELP
+
+
+It was on a Monday evening that Ricardo saw Harry Wethermill and
+the girl Celia together. On the Tuesday he saw Wethermill in the
+rooms alone and had some talk with him.
+
+Wethermill was not playing that night, and about ten o'clock the
+two men left the Villa des Fleurs together.
+
+"Which way do you go?" asked Wethermill.
+
+"Up the hill to the Hotel Majestic," said Ricardo.
+
+"We go together, then. I, too, am staying there," said the young
+man, and they climbed the steep streets together. Ricardo was
+dying to put some questions about Wethermill's young friend of the
+night before, but discretion kept him reluctantly silent. They
+chatted for a few moments in the hall upon indifferent topics and
+so separated for the night. Mr. Ricardo, however, was to learn
+something more of Celia the next morning; for while he was fixing
+his tie before the mirror Wethermill burst into his dressing-room.
+Mr. Ricardo forgot his curiosity in the surge of his indignation.
+Such an invasion was an unprecedented outrage upon the gentle
+tenor of his life. The business of the morning toilette was
+sacred. To interrupt it carried a subtle suggestion of anarchy.
+Where was his valet? Where was Charles, who should have guarded
+the door like the custodian of a chapel?
+
+"I cannot speak to you for at least another half-hour," said Mr.
+Ricardo, sternly.
+
+But Harry Wethermill was out of breath and shaking with agitation.
+
+"I can't wait," he cried, with a passionate appeal. "I have got to
+see you. You must help me, Mr. Ricardo--you must, indeed!"
+
+Ricardo spun round upon his heel. At first he had thought that the
+help wanted was the help usually wanted at Aix-les-Bains. A glance
+at Wethermills face, however, and the ringing note of anguish in
+his voice, told him that the thought was wrong. Mr. Ricardo
+slipped out of his affectations as out of a loose coat. "What has
+happened?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Something terrible." With shaking fingers Wethermill held out a
+newspaper. "Read it," he said.
+
+It was a special edition of a local newspaper, Le Journal de
+Savoie, and it bore the date of that morning.
+
+"They are crying it in the streets," said Wethermill. "Read!"
+
+A short paragraph was printed in large black letters on the first
+page, and leaped to the eyes.
+
+"Late last night," it ran, "an appalling murder was committed at
+the Villa Rose, on the road to Lac Bourget. Mme. Camille Dauvray,
+an elderly, rich woman who was well known at Aix, and had occupied
+the villa every summer for the last few years, was discovered on
+the floor of her salon, fully dressed and brutally strangled,
+while upstairs, her maid, Helene Vauquier, was found in bed,
+chloroformed, with her hands tied securely behind her back. At the
+time of going to press she had not recovered consciousness, but
+the doctor, Emile Peytin, is in attendance upon her, and it is
+hoped that she will be able shortly to throw some light on this
+dastardly affair. The police are properly reticent as to the
+details of the crime, but the following statement may be accepted
+without hesitation:
+
+"The murder was discovered at twelve o'clock at night by the
+sergent-de-ville Perrichet, to whose intelligence more than a word
+of praise is due, and it is obvious from the absence of all marks
+upon the door and windows that the murderer was admitted from
+within the villa. Meanwhile Mme. Dauvray's motor-car has
+disappeared, and with it a young Englishwoman who came to Aix with
+her as her companion. The motive of the crime leaps to the eyes.
+Mme. Dauvray was famous in Aix for her jewels, which she wore with
+too little prudence. The condition of the house shows that a
+careful search was made for them, and they have disappeared. It is
+anticipated that a description of the young Englishwoman, with a
+reward for her apprehension, will be issued immediately. And it is
+not too much to hope that the citizens of Aix, and indeed of
+Prance, will be cleared of all participation in so cruel and
+sinister a crime."
+
+Ricardo read through the paragraph with a growing consternation,
+and laid the paper upon his dressing-table.
+
+"It is infamous," cried Wethermill passionately.
+
+"The young Englishwoman is, I suppose, your friend Miss Celia?"
+said Ricardo slowly.
+
+Wethermill started forward.
+
+"You know her, then?" he cried in amazement.
+
+"No; but I saw her with you in the rooms. I heard you call her by
+that name."
+
+"You saw us together?" exclaimed Wethermill. "Then you can
+understand how infamous the suggestion is."
+
+But Ricardo had seen the girl half an hour before he had seen her
+with Harry Wethermill. He could not but vividly remember the
+picture of her as she flung herself on to the bench in the garden
+in a moment of hysteria, and petulantly kicked a satin slipper
+backwards and forwards against the stones. She was young, she was
+pretty, she had a charm of freshness, but--but--strive against it
+as he would, this picture in the recollection began more and more
+to wear a sinister aspect. He remembered some words spoken by a
+stranger. "She is pretty, that little one. It is regrettable that
+she has lost."
+
+Mr. Ricardo arranged his tie with even a greater deliberation than
+he usually employed.
+
+"And Mme. Dauvray?" he asked. "She was the stout woman with whom
+your young friend went away?"
+
+"Yes," said Wethermill.
+
+Ricardo turned round from the mirror.
+
+"What do you want me to do?"
+
+"Hanaud is at Aix. He is the cleverest of the French detectives.
+You know him. He dined with you once."
+
+It was Mr. Ricardo's practice to collect celebrities round his
+dinner-table, and at one such gathering Hanaud and Wethermill had
+been present together.
+
+"You wish me to approach him?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"It is a delicate position," said Ricardo. "Here is a man in
+charge of a case of murder, and we are quietly to go to him--"
+
+To his relief Wethermill interrupted him.
+
+"No, no," he cried; "he is not in charge of the case. He is on his
+holiday. I read of his arrival two days ago in the newspaper. It
+was stated that he came for rest. What I want is that he should
+take charge of the case."
+
+The superb confidence of Wethermill shook Mr. Ricardo for a
+moment, but his recollections were too clear.
+
+"You are going out of your way to launch the acutest of French
+detectives in search of this girl. Are you wise, Wethermill?"
+
+Wethermill sprang up from his chair in desperation.
+
+"You, too, think her guilty! You have seen her. You think her
+guilty--like this detestable newspaper, like the police."
+
+"Like the police?" asked Ricardo sharply.
+
+"Yes," said Harry Wethermill sullenly. "As soon as I saw that rag
+I ran down to the villa. The police are in possession. They would
+not let me into the garden. But I talked with one of them. They,
+too, think that she let in the murderers."
+
+Ricardo took a turn across the room. Then he came to a stop in
+front of Wethermill.
+
+"Listen to me," he said solemnly. "I saw this girl half an hour
+before I saw you. She rushed out into the garden. She flung
+herself on to a bench. She could not sit still. She was
+hysterical. You know what that means. She had been losing. That's
+point number one."
+
+Mr. Ricardo ticked it off upon his finger.
+
+"She ran back into the rooms. You asked her to share the winnings
+of your bank. She consented eagerly. And you lost. That's point
+number two. A little later, as she was going away, you asked her
+whether she would be in the rooms the next night--yesterday night-
+-the night when the murder was committed. Her face clouded over.
+She hesitated. She became more than grave. There was a distinct
+impression as though she shrank from the contemplation of what it
+was proposed she should do on the next night. And then she
+answered you, 'No, we have other plans.' That's number three." And
+Mr. Ricardo ticked off his third point.
+
+"Now," he asked, "do you still ask me to launch Hanaud upon the
+case?"
+
+"Yes, and at once," cried Wethermill.
+
+Ricardo called for his hat and his stick.
+
+"You know where Hanaud is staying?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Wethermill, and he led Ricardo to an unpretentious
+little hotel in the centre of the town. Ricardo sent in his name,
+and the two visitors were immediately shown into a small sitting-
+room, where M. Hanaud was enjoying his morning chocolate. He was
+stout and broad-shouldered, with a full and almost heavy face. In
+his morning suit at his breakfast-table he looked like a
+prosperous comedian.
+
+He came forward with a smile of welcome, extending both his hands
+to Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"Ah, my good friend," he said, "it is pleasant to see you. And Mr.
+Wethermill," he exclaimed, holding a hand out to the young
+inventor.
+
+"You remember me, then?" said Wethermill gladly.
+
+"It is my profession to remember people," said Hanaud, with a
+laugh. "You were at that amusing dinner-party of Mr. Ricardo's in
+Grosvenor Square."
+
+"Monsieur," said Wethermill, "I have come to ask your help."
+
+The note of appeal in his voice was loud. M. Hanaud drew up a
+chair by the window and motioned to Wethermill to take it. He
+pointed to another, with a bow of invitation to Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"Let me hear," he said gravely.
+
+"It is the murder of Mme. Dauvray," said Wethermill.
+
+Hanaud started.
+
+"And in what way, monsieur," he asked, "are you interested in the
+murder of Mme. Dauvray?"
+
+"Her companion," said Wethermill, "the young English girl--she is
+a great friend of mine."
+
+Hanaud's face grew stern. Then came a sparkle of anger in his
+eyes.
+
+"And what do you wish me to do, monsieur?" he asked coldly.
+
+"You are upon your holiday, M. Hanaud. I wish you--no, I implore
+you," Wethermill cried, his voice ringing with passion, "to take
+up this case, to discover the truth, to find out what has become
+of Celia."
+
+Hanaud leaned back in his chair with his hands upon the arms. He
+did not take his eyes from Harry Wethermill, but the anger died
+out of them.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I do not know what your procedure is in
+England. But in France a detective does not take up a case or
+leave it alone according to his pleasure. We are only servants.
+This affair is in the hands of M. Fleuriot, the Juge d'lnstruction
+of Aix."
+
+"But if you offered him your help it would be welcomed," cried
+Wethermill. "And to me that would mean so much. There would be no
+bungling. There would be no waste of time. Of that one would be
+sure."
+
+Hanaud shook his head gently. His eyes were softened now by a look
+of pity. Suddenly he stretched out a forefinger.
+
+"You have, perhaps, a photograph of the young lady in that card-
+case in your breast-pocket."
+
+Wethermill flushed red, and, drawing out the card-case, handed the
+portrait to Hanaud. Hanaud looked at it carefully for a few
+moments.
+
+"It was taken lately, here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; for me," replied Wethermill quietly.
+
+"And it is a good likeness?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"How long have you known this Mlle. Celie?" he asked.
+
+Wethermill looked at Hanaud with a certain defiance.
+
+"For a fortnight."
+
+Hanaud raised his eyebrows.
+
+"You met her here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In the rooms, I suppose? Not at the house of one of your
+friends?"
+
+"That is so," said Wethermill quietly. "A friend of mine who had
+met her in Paris introduced me to her at my request."
+
+Hanaud handed back the portrait and drew forward his chair nearer
+to Wethermill. His face had grown friendly. He spoke with a tone
+of respect.
+
+"Monsieur, I know something of you. Our friend, Mr. Ricardo, told
+me your history; I asked him for it when I saw you at his dinner.
+You are of those about whom one does ask questions, and I know
+that you are not a romantic boy, but who shall say that he is safe
+from the appeal of beauty? I have seen women, monsieur, for whose
+purity of soul I would myself have stood security, condemned for
+complicity in brutal crimes on evidence that could not be
+gainsaid; and I have known them turn foul-mouthed, and hideous to
+look upon, the moment after their just sentence has been
+pronounced." "No doubt, monsieur," said Wethermill, with perfect
+quietude. "But Celia Harland is not one of those women."
+
+"I do not now say that she is," said Hanaud. "But the Juge
+d'lnstruction here has already sent to me to ask for my
+assistance, and I refused. I replied that I was just a good
+bourgeois enjoying his holiday. Still it is difficult quite to
+forget one's profession. It was the Commissaire of Police who came
+to me, and naturally I talked with him for a little while. The
+case is dark, monsieur, I warn you."
+
+"How dark?" asked Harry Wethermill.
+
+"I will tell you," said Hanaud, drawing his chair still closer to
+the young man. "Understand this in the first place. There was an
+accomplice within the villa. Some one let the murderers in. There
+is no sign of an entrance being forced; no lock was picked, there
+is no mark of a thumb on any panel, no sign of a bolt being
+forced. There was an accomplice within the house. We start from
+that."
+
+Wethermill nodded his head sullenly. Ricardo drew his chair up
+towards the others. But Hanaud was not at that moment interested
+in Ricardo.
+
+"Well, then, let us see who there are in Mme. Dauvray's household.
+The list is not a long one. It was Mme. Dauvray's habit to take
+her luncheon and her dinner at the restaurants, and her maid was
+all that she required to get ready her 'petit dejeuner' in the
+morning and her 'sirop' at night. Let us take the members of the
+household one by one. There is first the chauffeur, Henri
+Servettaz. He was not at the villa last night. He came back to it
+early this morning."
+
+"Ah!" said Ricardo, in a significant exclamation. Wethermill did
+not stir. He sat still as a stone, with a face deadly white and
+eyes burning upon Hanaud's face.
+
+"But wait," said Hanaud, holding up a warning hand to Ricardo.
+"Servettaz was in Chambery, where his parents live. He travelled
+to Chambery by the two o'clock train yesterday. He was with them
+in the afternoon. He went with them to a cafe in the evening.
+Moreover, early this morning the maid, Helene Vauquier, was able
+to speak a few words in answer to a question. She said Servettaz
+was in Chambery. She gave his address. A telephone message was
+sent to the police in that town, and Servettaz was found in bed. I
+do not say that it is impossible that Servettaz was concerned in
+the crime. That we shall see. But it is quite clear, I think, that
+it was not he who opened the house to the murderers, for he was at
+Chambery in the evening, and the murder was already discovered
+here by midnight. Moreover--it is a small point--he lives, not in
+the house, but over the garage in a corner of the garden. Then
+besides the chauffeur there was a charwoman, a woman of Aix, who
+came each morning at seven and left in the evening at seven or
+eight. Sometimes she would stay later if the maid was alone in the
+house, for the maid is nervous. But she left last night before
+nine--there is evidence of that--and the murder did not take place
+until afterwards. That is also a fact, not a conjecture. We can
+leave the charwoman, who for the rest has the best of characters,
+out of our calculations. There remain then, the maid, Helene
+Vauquier, and"--he shrugged his shoulders--"Mlle. Celie."
+
+Hanaud reached out for the matches and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Let us take first the maid, Helene Vauquier. Forty years old, a
+Normandy peasant woman--they are not bad people, the Normandy
+peasants, monsieur--avaricious, no doubt, but on the whole honest
+and most respectable. We know something of Helene Vauquier,
+monsieur. See!" and he took up a sheet of paper from the table.
+The paper was folded lengthwise, written upon only on the inside.
+"I have some details here. Our police system is, I think, a little
+more complete than yours in England. Helene Vauquier has served
+Mme. Dauvray for seven years. She has been the confidential friend
+rather than the maid. And mark this, M. Wethermill! During those
+seven years how many opportunities has she had of conniving at
+last night's crime? She was found chloroformed and bound. There is
+no doubt that she was chloroformed. Upon that point Dr. Peytin is
+quite, quite certain. He saw her before she recovered
+consciousness. She was violently sick on awakening. She sank again
+into unconsciousness. She is only now in a natural sleep. Besides
+those people, there is Mlle. Celie. Of her, monsieur, nothing is
+known. You yourself know nothing of her. She comes suddenly to Aix
+as the companion of Mme. Dauvray--a young and pretty English girl.
+How did she become the companion of Mme. Dauvray?"
+
+Wethermill stirred uneasily in his seat. His face flushed. To Mr.
+Ricardo that had been from the beginning the most interesting
+problem of the case. Was he to have the answer now?
+
+"I do not know," answered Wethermill, with some hesitation, and
+then it seemed that he was at once ashamed of his hesitation. His
+accent gathered strength, and in a low but ringing voice, he
+added: "But I say this. You have told me, M. Hanaud, of women who
+looked innocent and were guilty. But you know also of women and
+girls who can live untainted and unspoilt amidst surroundings
+which are suspicious."
+
+Hanaud listened, but he neither agreed nor denied. He took up a
+second slip of paper.
+
+"I shall tell you something now of Mme. Dauvray," he said. "We
+will not take up her early history. It might not be edifying and,
+poor woman, she is dead. Let us not go back beyond her marriage
+seventeen years ago to a wealthy manufacturer of Nancy, whom she
+had met in Paris. Seven years ago M. Dauvray died, leaving his
+widow a very rich woman. She had a passion for jewellery, which
+she was now able to gratify. She collected jewels. A famous
+necklace, a well-known stone--she was not, as you say, happy till
+she got it. She had a fortune in precious stones--oh, but a large
+fortune! By the ostentation of her jewels she paraded her wealth
+here, at Monte Carlo, in Paris. Besides that, she was kind-hearted
+and most impressionable. Finally, she was, like so many of her
+class, superstitious to the degree of folly."
+
+Suddenly Mr. Ricardo started in his chair. Superstitious! The word
+was a sudden light upon his darkness. Now he knew what had
+perplexed him during the last two days. Clearly--too clearly--he
+remembered where he had seen Celia Harland, and when. A picture
+rose before his eyes, and it seemed to strengthen like a film in a
+developing-dish as Hanaud continued:
+
+"Very well! take Mme. Dauvray as we find her--rich, ostentatious,
+easily taken by a new face, generous, and foolishly superstitious-
+-and you have in her a living provocation to every rogue. By a
+hundred instances she proclaimed herself a dupe. She threw down a
+challenge to every criminal to come and rob her. For seven years
+Helene Vauquier stands at her elbow and protects her from serious
+trouble. Suddenly there is added to her--your young friend, and
+she is robbed and murdered. And, follow this, M. Wethermill, our
+thieves are, I think, more brutal to their victims than is the
+case with you."
+
+Wethermill shut his eyes in a spasm of pain and the pallor of his
+face increased.
+
+"Suppose that Celia were one of the victims?" he cried in a
+stifled voice.
+
+Hanaud glanced at him with a look of commiseration.
+
+"That perhaps we shall see," he said. "But what I meant was this.
+A stranger like Mlle. Celie might be the accomplice in such a
+crime as the crime of the Villa Rose, meaning only robbery. A
+stranger might only have discovered too late that murder would be
+added to the theft."
+
+Meanwhile, in strong, clear colours, Ricardo's picture stood out
+before his eyes. He was startled by hearing Wethermill say, in a
+firm voice:
+
+"My friend Ricardo has something to add to what you have said."
+
+"I!" exclaimed Ricardo. How in the world could Wethermill know of
+that clear picture in his mind?
+
+"Yes. You saw Celia Harland on the evening before the murder."
+
+Ricardo stared at his friend. It seemed to him that Harry
+Wethermill had gone out of his mind. Here he was corroborating the
+suspicions of the police by facts--damning and incontrovertible
+facts.
+
+"On the night before the murder," continued Wethermill quietly,
+"Celia Harland lost money at the baccarat-table. Ricardo saw her
+in the garden behind the rooms, and she was hysterical. Later on
+that same night he saw her again with me, and he heard what she
+said. I asked her to come to the rooms on the next evening--
+yesterday, the night of the crime--and her face changed, and she
+said, 'No, we have other plans for tomorrow. But the night after I
+shall want you.'"
+
+Hanaud sprang up from his chair.
+
+"And YOU tell me these two things!" he cried.
+
+"Yes," said Wethermill. "You were kind enough to say to me I was
+not a romantic boy. I am not. I can face facts."
+
+Hanaud stared at his companion for a few moments. Then, with a
+remarkable air of consideration, he bowed.
+
+"You have won, monsieur," he said. "I will take up this case.
+But," and his face grew stern and he brought his fist down upon
+the table with a bang, "I shall follow it to the end now, be the
+consequences bitter as death to you."
+
+"That is what I wish, monsieur," said Wethermill.
+
+Hanaud locked up the slips of paper in his lettercase. Then he
+went out of the room and returned in a few minutes.
+
+"We will begin at the beginning," he said briskly. "I have
+telephoned to the Depot. Perrichet, the sergent-de-ville who
+discovered the crime, will be here at once. We will walk down to
+the villa with him, and on the way he shall tell us exactly what
+he discovered and how he discovered it. At the villa we shall find
+Monsieur Fleuriot, the Juge d'lnstruction, who has already begun
+his examination, and the Commissaire of Police. In company with
+them we will inspect the villa. Except for the removal of Mme.
+Dauvray's body from the salon to her bedroom and the opening of
+the windows, the house remains exactly as it was."
+
+"We may come with you?" cried Harry Wethermill eagerly.
+
+"Yes, on one condition--that you ask no questions, and answer none
+unless I put them to you. Listen, watch, examine--but no
+interruptions!"
+
+Hanaud's manner had altogether changed. It was now authoritative
+and alert. He turned to Ricardo.
+
+"You will swear to what you saw in the garden and to the words you
+heard?" he asked. "They are important."
+
+"Yes," said Ricardo.
+
+But he kept silence about that clear picture in his mind which to
+him seemed no less important, no less suggestive.
+
+The Assembly Hall at Leamington, a crowded audience chiefly of
+ladies, a platform at one end on which a black cabinet stood. A
+man, erect and with something of the soldier in his bearing, led
+forward a girl, pretty and fair-haired, who wore a black velvet
+dress with a long, sweeping train. She moved like one in a dream.
+Some half-dozen people from the audience climbed on to the
+platform, tied thy girl's hands with tape behind her back, and
+sealed the tape. She was led to the cabinet, and in full view of
+the audience fastened to a bench. Then the door of the cabinet was
+closed, the people upon the platform descended into the body of
+the hall, and the lights were turned very low. The audience sat in
+suspense, and then abruptly in the silence and the darkness there
+came the rattle of a tambourine from the empty platform. Rappings
+and knockings seemed to flicker round the panels of the hall, and
+in the place where the door of the cabinet should be there
+appeared a splash of misty whiteness. The whiteness shaped itself
+dimly into the figure of a woman, a face dark and Eastern became
+visible, and a deep voice spoke in a chant of the Nile and Antony.
+Then the vision faded, the tambourines and cymbals rattled again.
+The lights were turned up, the door of the cabinet thrown open,
+and the girl in the black velvet dress was seen fastened upon the
+bench within.
+
+It was a spiritualistic performance at which Julius Ricardo had
+been present two years ago. The young, fair-haired girl in black
+velvet, the medium, was Celia Harland.
+
+That was the picture which was in Ricardo's mind, and Hanaud's
+description of Mme. Dauvray made a terrible commentary upon it.
+"Easily taken by a new face, generous, and foolishly
+superstitious, a living provocation to every rogue." Those were
+the words, and here was a beautiful girl of twenty versed in those
+very tricks of imposture which would make Mme. Dauvray her natural
+prey!
+
+Ricardo looked at Wethermill, doubtful whether he should tell what
+he knew of Celia Harland or not. But before he had decided a knock
+came upon the door.
+
+"Here is Perrichet," said Hanaud, taking up his hat. "We will go
+down to the Villa Rose."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PERRICHET'S STORY
+
+
+Perrichet was a young, thick-set man, with, a red, fair face, and
+a moustache and hair so pale in colour that they were almost
+silver. He came into the room with an air of importance.
+
+"Aha!" said Hanaud, with a malicious smile. "You went to bed late
+last night, my friend. Yet you were up early enough to read the
+newspaper. Well, I am to have the honour of being associated with
+you in this case."
+
+Perrichet twirled his cap awkwardly and blushed.
+
+"Monsieur is pleased to laugh at me," he said. "But it was not I
+who called myself intelligent. Though indeed I would like to be
+so, for the good God knows I do not look it."
+
+Hanaud clapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"Then congratulate yourself! It is a great advantage to be
+intelligent and not to look it. We shall get on famously. Come!"
+
+The four men descended the stairs, and as they walked towards the
+villa Perrichet related, concisely and clearly, his experience of
+the night.
+
+"I passed the gate of the villa about half-past nine," he said.
+"The gate was dosed. Above the wall and bushes of the garden I saw
+a bright light in the room upon the first floor which faces the
+road at the south-western comer of the villa. The lower windows I
+could not see. More than an hour afterwards I came back, and as I
+passed the villa again I noticed that there was now no light in
+the room upon the first floor, but that the gate was open. I
+thereupon went into the garden, and, pulling the gate, let it
+swing to and latch. But it occurred to me as I did so that there
+might be visitors at the villa who had not yet left, and for whom
+the gate had been set open. I accordingly followed the drive which
+winds round to the front door. The front door is not on the side
+of the villa which faces the road, but at the back. When I came to
+the open space where the carriages turn, I saw that the house was
+in complete darkness. There were wooden latticed doors to the long
+windows on the ground floor, and these were closed. I tried one to
+make certain, and found the fastenings secure. The other windows
+upon that floor were shuttered. No light gleamed anywhere. I then
+left the garden, closing the gate behind me. I heard a clock
+strike the hour a few minutes afterwards, so that I can be sure of
+the time. It was now eleven o'clock. I came round a third time an
+hour after, and to my astonishment I found the gate once more
+open. I had left it closed and the house shut up and dark. Now it
+stood open! I looked up to the windows and I saw that in a room on
+the second floor, close beneath the roof, a light was burning
+brightly. That room had been dark an hour before. I stood and
+watched the light for a few minutes, thinking that I should see it
+suddenly go out. But it did not: it burned quite steadily. This
+light and the gate opened and reopened aroused my suspicions. I
+went again into the garden, but this time with greater caution. It
+was a clear night, and, although there was no moon, I could see
+without the aid of my lantern. I stole quietly along the drive.
+When I came round to the front door, I noticed immediately that
+the shutters of one of the ground-floor windows were swung back,
+and that the inside glass window which descended to the ground
+stood open. The sight gave me a shock. Within the house those
+shutters had been opened. I felt the blood turn to ice in my veins
+and a chill crept along my spine. I thought of that solitary light
+burning steadily under the roof. I was convinced that something
+terrible had happened."
+
+"Yes, yes. Quite so," said Hanaud. "Go on, my friend."
+
+"The interior of the room gaped black," Perrichet resumed. "I
+crept up to the window at the side of the wall and dashed my
+lantern into the room. The window, however, was in a recess which
+opened into the room through an arch, and at each side of the arch
+curtains were draped. The curtains were not closed, but between
+them I could see nothing but a strip of the room. I stepped
+carefully in, taking heed not to walk on the patch of grass before
+the window. The light of my lantern showed me a chair overturned
+upon the floor, and to my right, below the middle one of the three
+windows in the right-hand side wall, a woman lying huddled upon
+the floor. It was Mme. Dauvray. She was dressed. There was a
+little mud upon her shoes, as though she had walked after the rain
+had ceased. Monsieur will remember that two heavy showers fell
+last evening between six and eight."
+
+"Yes," said Hanaud, nodding his approval.
+
+"She was quite dead. Her face was terribly swollen and black, and
+a piece of thin strong cord was knotted so tightly about her neck
+and had sunk so deeply into her flesh that at first I did not see
+it. For Mme. Dauvray was stout."
+
+"Then what did you do?" asked Hanaud.
+
+"I went to the telephone which was in the hall and rang up the
+police. Then I crept upstairs very cautiously, trying the doors. I
+came upon no one until I reached the room under the roof where the
+light was burning; there I found Helene Vauquier, the maid,
+snoring in bed in a terrible fashion."
+
+The four men turned a bend in the road. A few paces away a knot of
+people stood before a gate which a sergent-de-ville guarded.
+
+"But here we are at the villa," said Hanaud.
+
+They all looked up and, from a window at the corner upon the first
+floor a man looked out and drew in his head.
+
+"That is M. Besnard, the Commissaire of our police in Aix," said
+Perrichet.
+
+"And the window from which he looked," said Hanaud, "must be the
+window of that room in which you saw the bright light at half-past
+nine on your first round?"
+
+"Yes, m'sieur," said Perrichet; "that is the window."
+
+They stopped at the gate. Perrichet spoke to the sergent-de-ville,
+who at once held the gate open. The party passed into the garden
+of the villa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AT THE VILLA
+
+
+The drive curved between trees and high bushes towards the back of
+the house, and as the party advanced along it a small, trim,
+soldier-like man, with a pointed beard, came to meet them. It was
+the man who had looked out from the window, Louis Besnard, the
+Commissaire of Police.
+
+"You are coming, then, to help us, M. Hanaud!" he cried, extending
+his hands. "You will find no jealousy here; no spirit amongst us
+of anything but good will; no desire except one to carry out your
+suggestions. All we wish is that the murderers should be
+discovered. Mon Dieu, what a crime! And so young a girl to be
+involved in it! But what will you?"
+
+"So you have already made your mind up on that point!" said Hanaud
+sharply.
+
+The Commissaire shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Examine the villa and then judge for yourself whether any other
+explanation is conceivable," he said; and turning, he waved his
+hand towards the house. Then he cried, "Ah!" and drew himself into
+an attitude of attention. A tall, thin man of about forty-five
+years, dressed in a frock coat and a high silk hat, had just come
+round an angle of the drive and was moving slowly towards them. He
+wore the soft, curling brown beard of one who has never used a
+razor on his chin, and had a narrow face with eyes of a very light
+grey, and a round bulging forehead.
+
+"This is the Juge d'Instruction?" asked Hanaud.
+
+"Yes; M. Fleuriot," replied Louis Besnard in a whisper.
+
+M. Fleuriot was occupied with his own thoughts, and it was not
+until Besnard stepped forward noisily on the gravel that he became
+aware of the group in the garden.
+
+"This is M. Hanaud, of the Surete in Paris," said Louis Besnard.
+
+M. Fleuriot bowed with cordiality.
+
+"You are very welcome, M. Hanaud. You will find that nothing at
+the villa has been disturbed. The moment the message arrived over
+the telephone that you were willing to assist us I gave
+instructions that all should be left as we found it. I trust that
+you, with your experience, will see a way where our eyes find
+none."
+
+Hanaud bowed in reply.
+
+"I shall do my best, M. Fleuriot. I can say no more," he said.
+
+"But who are these gentlemen?" asked Fleuriot, waking, it seemed,
+now for the first time to the presence of Harry Wethermill and Mr.
+Ricardo.
+
+"They are both friends of mine," replied Hanaud. "If you do not
+object I think their assistance may be useful. Mr. Wethermill, for
+instance, was acquainted with Celia Harland."
+
+"Ah!" cried the judge; and his face took on suddenly a keen and
+eager look. "You can tell me about her perhaps?"
+
+"All that I know I will tell readily," said Harry Wethermill.
+
+Into the light eyes of M. Fleuriot there came a cold, bright
+gleam. He took a step forward. His face seemed to narrow to a
+greater sharpness. In a moment, to Mr. Ricardo's thought, he
+ceased to be the judge; he dropped from his high office; he
+dwindled into a fanatic.
+
+"She is a Jewess, this Celia Harland?" he cried.
+
+"No, M. Fleuriot, she is not," replied Wethermill. "I do not speak
+in disparagement of that race, for I count many friends amongst
+its members. But Celia Harland is not one of them."
+
+"Ah!" said Fleuriot; and there was something of disappointment,
+something, too, of incredulity, in his voice. "Well, you will come
+and report to me when you have made your investigation." And he
+passed on without another question or remark.
+
+The group of men watched him go, and it was not until he was out
+of earshot that Besnard turned with a deprecating gesture to
+Hanaud.
+
+"Yes, yes, he is a good judge, M. Hanaud--quick, discriminating,
+sympathetic; but he has that bee in his bonnet, like so many
+others. Everywhere he must see l'affaire Dreyfus. He cannot get it
+out of his head. No matter how insignificant a woman is murdered,
+she must have letters in her possession which would convict
+Dreyfus. But you know! There are thousands like that--good,
+kindly, just people in the ordinary ways of life, but behind every
+crime they see the Jew."
+
+Hanaud nodded his head.
+
+"I know; and in a Juge d'Instruction it is very embarrassing. Let
+us walk on."
+
+Half-way between the gate and the villa a second carriage-road
+struck off to the left, and at the entrance to it stood a young,
+stout man in black leggings.
+
+"The chauffeur?" asked Hanaud. "I will speak to him."
+
+The Commissaire called the chauffeur forward.
+
+"Servettaz," he said, "you will answer any questions which
+monsieur may put to you."
+
+"Certainly, M. le Commissaire," said the chauffeur. His manner was
+serious, but he answered readily. There was no sign of fear upon
+his face.
+
+"How long have you been with Mme. Dauvray?" Hanaud asked.
+
+"Four months, monsieur. I drove her to Aix from Paris."
+
+"And since your parents live at Chambery you wished to seize the
+opportunity of spending a day with them while you were so near?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"When did you ask for permission?"
+
+"On Saturday, monsieur."
+
+"Did you ask particularly that you should have yesterday, the
+Tuesday?"
+
+"No, monsieur; I asked only for a day whenever it should be
+convenient to madame."
+
+"Quite so," said Hanaud. "Now, when did Mme. Dauvray tell you that
+you might have Tuesday?"
+
+Servettaz hesitated. His face became troubled. When he spoke, he
+spoke reluctantly.
+
+"It was not Mme. Dauvray, monsieur, who told me that I might go on
+Tuesday," he said.
+
+"Not Mme. Dauvray! Who was it, then?" Hanaud asked sharply.
+
+Servettaz glanced from one to another of the grave faces which
+confronted him.
+
+"It was Mlle. Celie," he said, "who told me."
+
+"Oh!" said Hanaud, slowly. "It was Mlle. Celie. When did she tell
+you?"
+
+"On Monday morning, monsieur. I was cleaning the car. She came to
+the garage with some flowers in her hand which she had been
+cutting in the garden, and she said: 'I was right, Alphonse.
+Madame has a kind heart. You can go to-morrow by the train which
+leaves Aix at 1.52 and arrives at Chambery at nine minutes after
+two.'"
+
+Hanaud started.
+
+"'I was right, Alphonse.' Were those her words? And 'Madame has a
+kind heart.' Come, come, what is all this?" He lifted a warning
+finger and said gravely, "Be very careful, Servettaz."
+
+"Those were her words, monsieur."
+
+"'I was right, Alphonse. Madame has a kind heart'?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Then Mlle. Celie had spoken to you before about this visit of
+yours to Chambery," said Hanaud, with his eyes fixed steadily upon
+the chauffeur's face. The distress upon Servettaz's face
+increased. Suddenly Hanaud's voice rang sharply. "You hesitate.
+Begin at the beginning. Speak the truth, Servettaz!"
+
+"Monsieur, I am speaking the truth," said the chauffeur. "It is
+true I hesitate ... I have heard this morning what people are
+saying ... I do not know what to think. Mlle. Celie was always
+kind and thoughtful for me ... But it is true"--and with a kind of
+desperation he went on--"yes, it is true that it was Mlle. Celie
+who first suggested to me that I should ask for a day to go to
+Chambery."
+
+"When did she suggest it?"
+
+"On the Saturday."
+
+To Mr. Ricardo the words were startling. He glanced with pity
+towards Wethermill. Wethermill, however, had made up his mind for
+good and all. He stood with a dogged look upon his face, his chin
+thrust forward, his eyes upon the chauffeur. Besnard, the
+Commissaire, had made up his mind, too. He merely shrugged his
+shoulders. Hanaud stepped forward and laid his hand gently on the
+chauffeur's arm.
+
+"Come, my friend," he said, "let us hear exactly how this
+happened!"
+
+"Mlle. Celie," said Servettaz, with genuine compunction in his
+voice, "came to the garage on Saturday morning and ordered the car
+for the afternoon. She stayed and talked to me for a little while,
+as she often did. She said that she had been told that my parents
+lived at Chambery, and since I was so near I ought to ask for a
+holiday. For it would not be kind if I did not go and see them."
+
+"That was all?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Very well." And the detective resumed at once his brisk voice and
+alert manner. He seemed to dismiss Servettaz's admission from his
+mind. Ricardo had the impression of a man tying up an important
+document which for the moment he has done with, and putting it
+away ticketed in some pigeon-hole in his desk. "Let us see the
+garage!"
+
+They followed the road between the bushes until a turn showed them
+the garage with its doors open.
+
+"The doors were found unlocked?"
+
+"Just as you see them."
+
+Hanaud nodded. He spoke again to Servettaz. "What did you do with
+the key on Tuesday?"
+
+"I gave it to Helene Vauquier, monsieur, after I had locked up the
+garage. And she hung it on a nail in the kitchen."
+
+"I see," said Hanaud. "So any one could easily, have found it last
+night?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur--if one knew where to look for it."
+
+At the back of the garage a row of petrol-tins stood against the
+brick wall.
+
+"Was any petrol taken?" asked Hanaud.
+
+"Yes, monsieur; there was very little petrol in the car when I
+went away. More was taken, but it was taken from the middle tins--
+these." And he touched the tins.
+
+"I see," said Hanaud, and he raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. The
+Commissaire moved with impatience.
+
+"From the middle or from the end--what does it matter?" he
+exclaimed. "The petrol was taken."
+
+Hanaud, however, did not dismiss the point so lightly.
+
+"But it is very possible that it does matter," he said gently.
+"For example, if Servettaz had had no reason to examine his tins
+it might have been some while before he found out that the petrol
+had been taken."
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Servettaz. "I might even have forgotten that I
+had not used it myself."
+
+"Quite so," said Hanaud, and he turned to Besnard.
+
+"I think that may be important. I do not know," he said.
+
+"But since the car is gone," cried Besnard, "how could the
+chauffeur not look immediately at his tins?"
+
+The question had occurred to Ricardo, and he wondered in what way
+Hanaud meant to answer it. Hanaud, however, did not mean to answer
+it. He took little notice of it at all. He put it aside with a
+superb indifference to the opinion which his companions might form
+of him.
+
+"Ah, yes," he said, carelessly. "Since the car is gone, as you
+say, that is so." And he turned again to Servettaz.
+
+"It was a powerful car?" he asked.
+
+"Sixty horse-power," said Servettaz.
+
+Hanaud turned to the Commissaire.
+
+"You have the number and description, I suppose? It will be as
+well to advertise for it. It may have been seen; it must be
+somewhere."
+
+The Commissaire replied that the description had already been
+printed, and Hanaud, with a nod of approval, examined the ground.
+In front of the garage there was a small stone courtyard, but on
+its surface there was no trace of a footstep.
+
+"Yet the gravel was wet," he said, shaking his head. "The man who
+fetched that car fetched it carefully."
+
+He turned and walked back with his eyes upon the ground. Then he
+ran to the grass border between the gravel and the bushes.
+
+"Look!" he said to Wethermill; "a foot has pressed the blades of
+grass down here, but very lightly--yes, and there again. Some one
+ran along the border here on his toes. Yes, he was very careful."
+
+They turned again into the main drive, and, following it for a few
+yards, came suddenly upon a space in front of the villa. It was a
+small toy pleasure-house, looking on to a green lawn gay with
+flower-beds. It was built of yellow stone, and was almost square
+in shape. A couple of ornate pillars flanked the door, and a gable
+roof, topped by a gilt vane, surmounted it. To Ricardo it seemed
+impossible that so sordid and sinister a tragedy had taken place
+within its walls during the last twelve hours. It glistened so
+gaudily in the blaze of sunlight. Here and there the green outer
+shutters were closed; here and there the windows stood open to let
+in the air and light. Upon each side of the door there was a
+window lighting the hall, which was large; beyond those windows
+again, on each side, there were glass doors opening to the ground
+and protected by the ordinary green latticed shutters of wood,
+which now stood hooked back against the wall. These glass doors
+opened into rooms oblong in shape, which ran through towards the
+back of the house, and were lighted in addition by side windows.
+The room upon the extreme left, as the party faced the villa, was
+the dining-room, with the kitchen at the back; the room on the
+right was the salon in which the murder had been committed. In
+front of the glass door to this room a strip of what had once been
+grass stretched to the gravel drive. But the grass had been worn
+away by constant use, and the black mould showed through. This
+strip was about three yards wide, and as they approached they saw,
+even at a distance, that since the rain of last night it had been
+trampled down.
+
+"We will go round the house first," said Hanaud, and he turned
+along the side of the villa and walked in the direction of the
+road. There were four windows just above his head, of which three
+lighted the salon, and the fourth a small writing-room behind it.
+Under these windows there was no disturbance of the ground, and a
+careful investigation showed conclusively that the only entrance
+used had been the glass doors of the salon facing the drive. To
+that spot, then, they returned. There were three sets of footmarks
+upon the soil. One set ran in a distinct curve from the drive to
+the side of the door, and did not cross the others.
+
+"Those," said Hanaud, "are the footsteps of my intelligent friend,
+Perrichet, who was careful not to disturb the ground."
+
+Perrichet beamed all over his rosy face, and Besnard nodded at him
+with condescending approval.
+
+"But I wish, M. le Commissaire"--and Hanaud pointed to a blur of
+marks--"that your other officers had been as intelligent. Look!
+These run from the glass door to the drive, and, for all the use
+they are to us, a harrow might have been dragged across them."
+
+Besnard drew himself up.
+
+"Not one of my officers has entered the room by way of this door.
+The strictest orders were given and obeyed. The ground, as you see
+it, is the ground as it was at twelve o'clock last night."
+
+Hanaud's face grew thoughtful.
+
+"Is that so?" he said, and he stooped to examine the second set of
+marks. They were at the righthand side of the door. "A woman and a
+man," he said. "But they are mere hints rather than prints. One
+might almost think--" He rose up without finishing his sentence,
+and he turned to the third set and a look of satisfaction gleamed
+upon his face. "Ah! here is something more interesting," he said.
+
+There were just three impressions; and, whereas the blurred marks
+were at the side, these three pointed straight from the middle of
+the glass doors to the drive. They were quite clearly defined, and
+all three were the impressions made by a woman's small, arched,
+high-heeled shoe. The position of the marks was at first sight a
+little peculiar. There was one a good yard from the window, the
+impression of the right foot, and the pressure of the sole of the
+shoe was more marked than that of the heel. The second, the
+impression of the left foot, was not quite so far from the first
+as the first was from the window, and here again the heel was the
+more lightly defined. But there was this difference--the mark of
+the toe, which was pointed in the first instance, was, in this,
+broader and a trifle blurred. Close beside it the right foot was
+again visible; only now the narrow heel was more clearly defined
+than the ball of the foot. It had, indeed, sunk half an inch into
+the soft ground. There were no further imprints. Indeed, these two
+were not merely close together, they were close to the gravel of
+the drive and on the very border of the grass.
+
+Hanaud looked at the marks thoughtfully. Then he turned to the
+Commissaire.
+
+"Are there any shoes in the house which fit those marks?"
+
+"Yes. We have tried the shoes of all the women--Celie Harland, the
+maid, and even Mme. Dauvray. The only ones which fit at all are
+those taken from Celie Harland's bedroom."
+
+He called to an officer standing in the drive, and a pair of grey
+suede shoes were brought to him from the hall.
+
+"See, M. Hanaud, it is a pretty little foot which made those clear
+impressions," he said, with a smile; "a foot arched and slender.
+Mme. Dauvray's foot is short and square, the maid's broad and
+flat. Neither Mme. Dauvray nor Helene Vauquier could have worn
+these shoes. They were lying, one here, one there, upon the floor
+of Celie Harland's room, as though she had kicked them off in a
+hurry. They are almost new, you see. They have been worn once,
+perhaps, no more, and they fit with absolute precision into those
+footmarks, except just at the toe of that second one."
+
+Hanaud took the shoes and, kneeling down, placed them one after
+the other over the impressions. To Ricardo it was extraordinary
+how exactly they covered up the marks and filled the indentations.
+
+"I should say," said the Commissaire, "that Celie Harland went
+away wearing a new pair of shoes made on the very same last as
+those."
+
+As those she had left carelessly lying on the floor of her room
+for the first person to notice, thought Ricardo! It seemed as if
+the girl had gone out of her way to make the weight of evidence
+against her as heavy as possible. Yet, after all, it was just
+through inattention to the small details, so insignificant at the
+red moment of crime, so terribly instructive the next day, that
+guilt was generally brought home.
+
+Hanaud rose to his feet and handed the shoes back to the officer.
+
+"Yes," he said, "so it seems. The shoemaker can help us here. I
+see the shoes were made in Aix."
+
+Besnard looked at the name stamped in gold letters upon the lining
+of the shoes.
+
+"I will have inquiries made," he said.
+
+Hanaud nodded, took a measure from his pocket and measured the
+ground between the window and the first footstep, and between the
+first footstep and the other two.
+
+"How tall is Mlle. Celie?" he asked, and he addressed the question
+to Wethermill. It struck Ricardo as one of the strangest details
+in all this strange affair that the detective should ask with
+confidence for information which might help to bring Celia Harland
+to the guillotine from the man who had staked his happiness upon
+her innocence.
+
+"About five feet seven," he answered.
+
+Hanaud replaced his measure in his pocket. He turned with a grave
+face to Wethermill.
+
+"I warned you fairly, didn't I?" he said.
+
+Wethermill's white face twitched.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I am not afraid." But there was more of anxiety
+in his voice than there had been before.
+
+Hanaud pointed solemnly to the ground.
+
+"Read the story those footprints write in the mould there. A young
+and active girl of about Mlle. Celie's height, and wearing a new
+pair of Mlle. Celie's shoes, springs from that room where the
+murder was committed, where the body of the murdered woman lies.
+She is running. She is wearing a long gown. At the second step the
+hem of the gown catches beneath the point of her shoe. She
+stumbles. To save herself from falling she brings up the other
+foot sharply and stamps the heel down into the ground. She
+recovers her balance. She steps on to the drive. It is true the
+gravel here is hard and takes no mark, but you will see that some
+of the mould which has clung to her shoes has dropped off. She
+mounts into the motor-car with the man and the other woman and
+drives off--some time between eleven and twelve."
+
+"Between eleven and twelve? Is that sure?" asked Besnard.
+
+"Certainly," replied Hanaud. "The gate is open at eleven, and
+Perrichet closes it. It is open again at twelve. Therefore the
+murderers had not gone before eleven. No; the gate was open for
+them to go, but they had not gone. Else why should the gate again
+be open at midnight?"
+
+Besnard nodded in assent, and suddenly Perrichet started forward,
+with his eyes full of horror.
+
+"Then, when I first closed the gate," he cried, "and came into the
+garden and up to the house they were here--in that room? Oh, my
+God!" He stared at the window, with his mouth open.
+
+"I am afraid, my friend, that is so," said Hanaud gravely.
+
+"But I knocked upon the wooden door, I tried the bolts; and they
+were within--in the darkness within, holding their breath not
+three yards from me."
+
+He stood transfixed.
+
+"That we shall see," said Hanaud.
+
+He stepped in Perrichet's footsteps to the sill of the room. He
+examined the green wooden doors which opened outwards, and the
+glass doors which opened inwards, taking a magnifying-glass from
+his pocket. He called Besnard to his side.
+
+"See!" he said, pointing to the woodwork.
+
+"Finger-marks!" asked Besnard eagerly.
+
+"Yes; of hands in gloves," returned Hanaud. "We shall learn
+nothing from these marks except that the assassins knew their
+trade."
+
+Then he stooped down to the sill, where some traces of steps were
+visible. He rose with a gesture of resignation.
+
+"Rubber shoes," he said, and so stepped into the room, followed by
+Wethermill and the others. They found themselves in a small recess
+which was panelled with wood painted white, and here and there
+delicately carved into festoons of flowers. The recess ended in an
+arch, supported by two slender pillars, and on the inner side of
+the arch thick curtains of pink silk were hung. These were drawn
+back carelessly, and through the opening between them the party
+looked down the length of the room beyond. They passed within.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN THE SALON
+
+
+Julius Ricardo pushed aside the curtains with a thrill of
+excitement. He found himself standing within a small oblong room
+which was prettily, even daintily, furnished. On his left, close
+by the recess, was a small fireplace with the ashes of a burnt-out
+fire in the grate. Beyond the grate a long settee covered in pink
+damask, with a crumpled cushion at each end, stood a foot or two
+away from the wall, and beyond the settee the door of the room
+opened into the hall. At the end a long mirror was let into the
+panelling, and a writing-table stood by the mirror. On the right
+were the three windows, and between the two nearest to Mr. Ricardo
+was the switch of the electric light. A chandelier hung from the
+ceiling, an electric lamp stood upon the writing-table, a couple
+of electric candles on the mantel-shelf. A round satinwood table
+stood under the windows, with three chairs about it, of which one
+was overturned, one was placed with its back to the electric
+switch, and the third on the opposite side facing it.
+
+Ricardo could hardly believe that he stood actually upon the spot
+where, within twelve hours, a cruel and sinister tragedy had taken
+place. There was so little disorder. The three windows on his
+right showed him the blue sunlit sky and a glimpse of flowers and
+trees; behind him the glass doors stood open to the lawn, where
+birds piped cheerfully and the trees murmured of summer. But he
+saw Hanaud stepping quickly from place to place, with an
+extraordinary lightness of step for so big a man, obviously
+engrossed, obviously reading here and there some detail, some
+custom of the inhabitants of that room.
+
+Ricardo leaned with careful artistry against the wall.
+
+"Now, what has this room to say to me?" he asked importantly.
+Nobody paid the slightest attention to his question, and it was
+just as well. For the room had very little information to give
+him. He ran his eye over the white Louis Seize furniture, the
+white panels of the wall, the polished floor, the pink curtains.
+Even the delicate tracery of the ceiling did not escape his
+scrutiny. Yet he saw nothing likely to help him but an overturned
+chair and a couple of crushed cushions on a settee. It was very
+annoying, all the more annoying because M. Hanaud was so
+uncommonly busy. Hanaud looked carefully at the long settee and
+the crumpled cushions, and he took out his measure and measured
+the distance between the cushion at one end and the cushion at the
+other. He examined the table, he measured the distance between the
+chairs. He came to the fireplace and raked in the ashes of the
+burnt-out fire. But Ricardo noticed a singular thing. In the midst
+of his search Hanaud's eyes were always straying back to the
+settee, and always with a look of extreme perplexity, as if he
+read there something, definitely something, but something which he
+could not explain. Finally he went back to it; he drew it farther
+away from the wall, and suddenly with a little cry he stooped and
+went down on his knees. When he rose he was holding some torn
+fragments of paper in his hand. He went over to the writing-table
+and opened the blotting-book. Where it fell open there were some
+sheets of note-paper, and one particular sheet of which half had
+been torn off. He compared the pieces which he held with that torn
+sheet, and seemed satisfied.
+
+There was a rack for note-paper upon the table, and from it he
+took a stiff card.
+
+"Get me some gum or paste, and quickly," he said. His voice had
+become brusque, the politeness had gone from his address. He
+carried the card and the fragments of paper to the round table.
+There he sat down and, with infinite patience, gummed the
+fragments on to the card, fitting them together like the pieces of
+a Chinese puzzle.
+
+The others over his shoulders could see spaced words, written in
+pencil, taking shape as a sentence upon the card. Hanaud turned
+abruptly in his seat toward Wethermill.
+
+"You have, no doubt, a letter written by Mlle. Celie?"
+
+Wethermill took his letter-case from his pocket and a letter out
+of the case. He hesitated for a moment as he glanced over what was
+written. The four sheets were covered. He folded back the letter,
+so that only the two inner sheets were visible, and handed it to
+Hanaud. Hanaud compared it with the handwriting upon the card.
+
+"Look!" he said at length, and the three men gathered behind him.
+On the card the gummed fragments of paper revealed a sentence:
+
+"Je ne sais pas."
+
+"'I do not know,'" said Ricardo; "now this is very important."
+
+Beside the card Celia's letter to Wethermill was laid.
+
+"What do you think?" asked Hanaud.
+
+Besnard, the Commissaire of Police, bent over Hanaud's shoulder.
+
+"There are strong resemblances," he said guardedly.
+
+Ricardo was on the look-out for deep mysteries. Resemblances were
+not enough for him; they were inadequate to the artistic needs of
+the situation.
+
+"Both were written by the same hand," he said definitely; "only in
+the sentence written upon the card the handwriting is carefully
+disguised."
+
+"Ah!" said the Commissaire, bending forward again. "Here is an
+idea! Yes, yes, there are strong differences."
+
+Ricardo looked triumphant.
+
+"Yes, there are differences," said Hanaud. "Look how long the up
+stroke of the 'p' is, how it wavers! See how suddenly this 's'
+straggles off, as though some emotion made the hand shake. Yet
+this," and touching Wethermill's letter he smiled ruefully, "this
+is where the emotion should have affected the pen." He looked up
+at Wethermill's face and then said quietly:
+
+"You have given us no opinion, monsieur. Yet your opinion should
+be the most valuable of all. Were these two papers written by the
+same hand?"
+
+"I do not know," answered Wethermill.
+
+"And I, too," cried Hanaud, in a sudden exasperation, "je ne sais
+pas. I do not know. It may be her hand carelessly counterfeited.
+It may be her hand disguised. It may be simply that she wrote in a
+hurry with her gloves on."
+
+"It may have been written some time ago," said Mr. Ricardo,
+encouraged by his success to another suggestion.
+
+"No; that is the one thing it could not have been," said Hanaud.
+"Look round the room. Was there ever a room better tended? Find me
+a little pile of dust in any one corner if you can! It is all as
+clean as a plate. Every morning, except this one morning, this
+room has been swept and polished. The paper was written and torn
+up yesterday."
+
+He enclosed the card in an envelope as he spoke, and placed it in
+his pocket. Then he rose and crossed again to the settee. He stood
+at the side of it, with his hands clutching the lapels of his coat
+and his face gravely troubled. After a few moments of silence for
+himself, of suspense for all the others who watched him, he
+stooped suddenly. Slowly, and with extraordinary care, he pushed
+his hands under the head-cushion and lifted it up gently, so that
+the indentations of its surface might not be disarranged. He
+carried it over to the light of the open window. The cushion was
+covered with silk, and as he held it to the sunlight all could see
+a small brown stain.
+
+Hanaud took his magnifying-glass from his pocket and bent his head
+over the cushion. But at that moment, careful though he had been,
+the down swelled up within the cushion, the folds and indentations
+disappeared, the silk covering was stretched smooth.
+
+"Oh!" cried Besnard tragically. "What have you done?"
+
+Hanaud's face flushed. He had been guilty of a clumsiness--even
+he.
+
+Mr. Ricardo took up the tale.
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed, "what have you done?"
+
+Hanaud looked at Ricardo in amazement at his audacity.
+
+"Well, what have I done?" he asked. "Come! tell me!"
+
+"You have destroyed a clue," replied Ricardo impressively.
+
+The deepest dejection at once overspread Hanaud's burly face.
+
+"Don't say that, M. Ricardo, I beseech you!" he implored. "A clue!
+and I have destroyed it! But what kind of a clue? And how have I
+destroyed it? And to what mystery would it be a clue if I hadn't
+destroyed it? And what will become of me when I go back to Paris,
+and say in the Rue de Jerusalem, 'Let me sweep the cellars, my
+good friends, for M. Ricardo knows that I destroyed a clue.
+Faithfully he promised me that he would not open his mouth, but I
+destroyed a clue, and his perspicacity forced him into speech.'"
+
+It was the turn of M. Ricardo to grow red.
+
+Hanaud turned with a smile to Besnard.
+
+"It does not really matter whether the creases in this cushion
+remain," he said, "we have all seen them." And he replaced the
+glass in his pocket.
+
+He carried that cushion back and replaced it. Then he took the
+other, which lay at the foot of the settee, and carried it in its
+turn to the window. This was indented too, and ridged up, and just
+at the marks the nap of the silk was worn, and there was a slit
+where it had been cut. The perplexity upon Hanaud's face greatly
+increased. He stood with the cushion in his hands, no longer
+looking at it, but looking out through the doors at the footsteps
+so clearly defined--the foot-steps of a girl who had run from this
+room and sprung into a motor-car and driven away. He shook his
+head, and, carrying back the cushion, laid it carefully down. Then
+he stood erect, gazed about the room as though even yet he might
+force its secrets out from its silence, and cried, with a sudden
+violence:
+
+"There is something here, gentlemen, which I do not understand."
+
+Mr. Ricardo heard some one beside him draw a deep breath, and
+turned. Wethermill stood at his elbow. A faint colour had come
+back to his cheeks, his eyes were fixed intently upon Hanaud's
+face.
+
+"What do you think?" he asked; and Hanaud replied brusquely:
+
+"It's not my business to hold opinions, monsieur; my business is
+to make sure."
+
+There was one point, and only one, of which he had made every one
+in that room sure. He had started confident. Here was a sordid
+crime, easily understood. But in that room he had read something
+which had troubled him, which had raised the sordid crime on to
+some higher and perplexing level.
+
+"Then M. Fleuriot after all might be right?" asked the Commissaire
+timidly.
+
+Hanaud stared at him for a second, then smiled.
+
+"L'affaire Dreyfus?" he cried. "Oh la, la, la! No, but there is
+something else."
+
+What was that something? Ricardo asked himself. He looked once
+more about the room. He did not find his answer, but he caught
+sight of an ornament upon the wall which drove the question from
+his mind. The ornament, if so it could be called, was a painted
+tambourine with a bunch of bright ribbons tied to the rim; and it
+was hung upon the wall between the settee and the fireplace at
+about the height of a man's head. Of course it might be no more
+than it seemed to be--a rather gaudy and vulgar toy, such as a
+woman like Mme. Dauvray would be very likely to choose in order to
+dress her walls. But it swept Ricardo's thoughts back of a sudden
+to the concert-hall at Leamington and the apparatus of a
+spiritualistic show. After all, he reflected triumphantly, Hanaud
+had not noticed everything, and as he made the reflection Hanaud's
+voice broke in to corroborate him.
+
+"We have seen everything here; let us go upstairs," he said. "We
+will first visit the room of Mlle. Celie. Then we will question
+the maid, Helene Vauquier."
+
+The four men, followed by Perrichet, passed out by the door into
+the hall and mounted the stairs. Celia's room was in the southwest
+angle of the villa, a bright and airy room, of which one window
+overlooked the road, and two others, between which stood the
+dressing-table, the garden. Behind the room a door led into a
+little white-tiled bathroom. Some towels were tumbled upon the
+floor beside the bath. In the bedroom a dark-grey frock of tussore
+and a petticoat were flung carelessly on the bed; a big grey hat
+of Ottoman silk was lying upon a chest of drawers in the recess of
+a window; and upon a chair a little pile of fine linen and a pair
+of grey silk stockings, which matched in shade the grey suede
+shoes, were tossed in a heap.
+
+"It was here that you saw the light at half-past nine?" Hanaud
+said, turning to Perrichet.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied Perrichet.
+
+"We may assume, then, that Mlle. Celie was changing her dress at
+that time."
+
+Besnard was looking about him, opening a drawer here, a wardrobe
+there.
+
+"Mlle. Celie," he said, with a laugh, "was a particular young
+lady, and fond of her fine clothes, if one may judge from the room
+and the order of the cupboards. She must have changed her dress
+last night in an unusual hurry."
+
+There was about the whole room a certain daintiness, almost, it
+seemed to Mr. Ricardo, a fragrance, as though the girl had
+impressed something of her own delicate self upon it. Wethermill
+stood upon the threshold watching with a sullen face the violation
+of this chamber by the officers of the police.
+
+No such feelings, however, troubled Hanaud. He went over to the
+dressing-room and opened a few small leather cases which held
+Celia's ornaments. In one or two of them a trinket was visible;
+others were empty. One of these latter Hanaud held open in his
+hand, and for so long that Besnard moved impatiently.
+
+"You see it is empty, monsieur," he said, and suddenly Wethermill
+moved forward into the room.
+
+"Yes, I see that," said Hanaud dryly.
+
+It was a case made to hold a couple of long ear-drops--those
+diamond ear-drops, doubtless, which Mr. Ricardo had seen twinkling
+in the garden.
+
+"Will monsieur let me see?" asked Wethermill, and he took the case
+in his hands. "Yes," he said. "Mlle. Celie's ear-drops," and he
+handed the case back with a thoughtful air.
+
+It was the first time he had taken a definite part in the
+investigation. To Ricardo the reason was clear. Harry Wethermill
+had himself given those ear-drops to Celia. Hanaud replaced the
+case and turned round.
+
+"There is nothing more for us to see here," he said. "I suppose
+that no one has been allowed to enter the room?" And he opened the
+door.
+
+"No one except Helene Vauquier," replied the Commissaire.
+
+Ricardo felt indignant at so obvious a piece of carelessness. Even
+Wethermill looked surprised. Hanaud merely shut the door again.
+
+"Oho, the maid!" he said. "Then she has recovered!"
+
+"She is still weak," said the Commissaire. "But I thought it was
+necessary that we should obtain at once a description of what
+Celie Harland wore when she left the house. I spoke to M. Fleuriot
+about it, and he gave me permission to bring Helene Vauquier here,
+who alone could tell us. I brought her here myself just before you
+came. She looked through the girl's wardrobe to see what was
+missing."
+
+"Was she alone in the room?"
+
+"Not for a moment," said M. Besnard haughtily. "Really, monsieur,
+we are not so ignorant of how an affair of this kind should be
+conducted. I was in the room myself the whole time, with my eye
+upon her."
+
+"That was just before I came," said Hanaud. He crossed carelessly
+to the open window which overlooked the road and, leaning out of
+it, looked up the road to the corner round which he and his
+friends had come, precisely as the Commissaire had done. Then he
+turned back into the room.
+
+"Which was the last cupboard or drawer that Helene Vauquier
+touched?" he asked.
+
+"This one."
+
+Besnard stooped and pulled open the bottom drawer of a chest which
+stood in the embrasure of the window. A light-coloured dress was
+lying at the bottom.
+
+"I told her to be quick," said Besnard, "since I had seen that you
+were coming. She lifted this dress out and said that nothing was
+missing there. So I took her back to her room and left her with
+the nurse."
+
+Hanaud lifted the light dress from the drawer, shook it out in
+front of the window, twirled it round, snatched up a corner of it
+and held it to his eyes, and then, folding it quickly, replaced it
+in the drawer.
+
+"Now show me the first drawer she touched." And this time he
+lifted out a petticoat, and, taking it to the window, examined it
+with a greater care. When he had finished with it he handed it to
+Ricardo to put away, and stood for a moment or two thoughtful and
+absorbed. Ricardo in his turn examined the petticoat. But he could
+see nothing unusual. It was an attractive petticoat, dainty with
+frills and lace, but it was hardly a thing to grow thoughtful
+over. He looked up in perplexity and saw that Hanaud was watching
+his investigations with a smile of amusement.
+
+"When M. Ricardo has put that away," he said, "we will hear what
+Helene Vauquier has to tell us."
+
+He passed out of the door last, and, locking it, placed the key in
+his pocket.
+
+"Helene Vauquier's room is, I think, upstairs," he said. And he
+moved towards the staircase.
+
+But as he did so a man in plain clothes, who had been waiting upon
+the landing, stepped forward. He carried in his hand a piece of
+thin, strong whipcord.
+
+"Ah, Durette!" cried Besnard. "Monsieur Hanaud, I sent Durette
+this morning round the shops of Aix with the cord which was found
+knotted round Mme. Dauvray's neck."
+
+Hanaud advanced quickly to the man.
+
+"Well! Did you discover anything?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur," said Durette. "At the shop of M. Corval, in the
+Rue du Casino, a young lady in a dark-grey frock and hat bought
+some cord of this kind at a few minutes after nine last night. It
+was just as the shop was being closed. I showed Corval the
+photograph of Celie Harland which M. le Commissaire gave me out of
+Mme. Dauvray's room, and he identified it as the portrait of the
+girl who had bought the cord."
+
+Complete silence followed upon Durette's words. The whole party
+stood like men stupefied. No one looked towards Wethermill; even
+Hanaud averted his eyes.
+
+"Yes, that is very important," he said awkwardly. He turned away
+and, followed by the others, went up the stairs to the bedroom of
+Helene Vauquier.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+HELENE VAUQUIER'S EVIDENCE
+
+
+A nurse opened the door. Within the room Helene Vauquier was
+leaning back in a chair. She looked ill, and her face was very
+white. On the appearance of Hanaud, the Commissaire, and the
+others, however, she rose to her feet. Ricardo recognised the
+justice of Hanaud's description. She stood before them a hard-
+featured, tall woman of thirty-five or forty, in a neat black
+stuff dress, strong with the strength of a peasant, respectable,
+reliable. She looked what she had been, the confidential maid of
+an elderly woman. On her face there was now an aspect of eager
+appeal.
+
+"Oh, monsieur!" she began, "let me go from here--anywhere--into
+prison if you like. But to stay here--where in years past we were
+so happy--and with madame lying in the room below. No, it is
+insupportable."
+
+She sank into her chair, and Hanaud came over to her side.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said, in a soothing voice. "I can understand your
+feelings, my poor woman. We will not keep you here. You have,
+perhaps, friends in Aix with whom you could stay?"
+
+"Oh yes, monsieur!" Helene cried gratefully. "Oh, but I thank you!
+That I should have to sleep here tonight! Oh, how the fear of that
+has frightened me!"
+
+"You need have had no such fear. After all, we are not the
+visitors of last night," said Hanaud, drawing a chair close to her
+and patting her hand sympathetically. "Now, I want you to tell
+these gentlemen and myself all that you know of this dreadful
+business. Take your time, mademoiselle! We are human."
+
+"But, monsieur, I know nothing," she cried. "I was told that I
+might go to bed as soon as I had dressed Mlle. Celie for the
+seance."
+
+"Seance!" cried Ricardo, startled into speech. The picture of the
+Assembly Hall at Leamington was again before his mind. But Hanaud
+turned towards him, and, though Hanaud's face retained its
+benevolent expression, there was a glitter in his eyes which sent
+the blood into Ricardo's face.
+
+"Did you speak again, M. Ricardo?" the detective asked. "No? I
+thought it was not possible." He turned back to Helene Vauquier.
+"So Mlle. Celie practised seances. That is very strange. We will
+hear about them. Who knows what thread may lead us to the truth?"
+
+Helene Vauquier shook her head.
+
+"Monsieur, it is not right that you should seek the truth from me.
+For, consider this! I cannot speak with justice of Mlle. Celie.
+No, I cannot! I did not like her. I was jealous--yes, jealous,
+Monsieur, you want the truth--I hated her!" And the woman's face
+flushed and she clenched her hand upon the arm of her chair. "Yes,
+I hated her. How could I help it?" she asked.
+
+"Why?" asked Hanaud gently. "Why could you not help it?"
+
+Helene Vauquier leaned back again, her strength exhausted, and
+smiled languidly.
+
+"I will tell you. But remember it is a woman speaking to you, and
+things which you will count silly and trivial mean very much to
+her. There was one night last June--only last June! To think of
+it! So little while ago there was no Mlle. Celie--" and, as Hanaud
+raised his hand, she said hurriedly, "Yes, yes; I will control
+myself. But to think of Mme. Dauvray now!"
+
+And thereupon she blurted out her story and explained to Mr.
+Ricardo the question which had so perplexed him: how a girl of so
+much distinction as Celia Harland came to be living with a woman
+of so common a type as Mme. Dauvray.
+
+"Well, one night in June," said Helene Vauquier, "madame went with
+a party to supper at the Abbaye Restaurant in Montmartre. And she
+brought home for the first time Mlle. Celie. But you should have
+seen her! She had on a little plaid skirt and a coat which was
+falling to pieces, and she was starving--yes, starving. Madame
+told me the story that night as I undressed her. Mlle. Celie was
+there dancing amidst the tables for a supper with any one who
+would be kind enough to dance with her."
+
+The scorn of her voice rang through the room. She was the rigid,
+respectable peasant woman, speaking out her contempt. And
+Wethermill must needs listen to it. Ricardo dared not glance at
+him.
+
+"But hardly any one would dance with her in her rags, and no one
+would give her supper except madame. Madame did. Madame listened
+to her story of hunger and distress. Madame believed it, and
+brought her home. Madame was so kind, so careless in her kindness.
+And now she lies murdered for a reward!" An hysterical sob checked
+the woman's utterances, her face began to work, her hands to
+twitch.
+
+"Come, come!" said Hanaud gently, "calm yourself, mademoiselle."
+
+Helene Vauquier paused for a moment or two to recover her
+composure. "I beg your pardon, monsieur, but I have been so long
+with madame--oh, the poor woman! Yes, yes, I will calm myself.
+Well, madame brought her home, and in a week there was nothing too
+good for Mlle. Celie. Madame was like a child. Always she was
+being deceived and imposed upon. Never she learnt prudence. But no
+one so quickly made her way to madame's heart as Mlle. Celie.
+Mademoiselle must live with her. Mademoiselle must be dressed by
+the first modistes. Mademoiselle must have lace petticoats and the
+softest linen, long white gloves, and pretty ribbons for her hair,
+and hats from Caroline Reboux at twelve hundred francs. And
+madame's maid must attend upon her and deck her out in all these
+dainty things. Bah!"
+
+Vauquier was sitting erect in her chair, violent, almost rancorous
+with anger. She looked round upon the company and shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+"I told you not to come to me!" she said, "I cannot speak
+impartially, or even gently of mademoiselle. Consider! For years I
+had been more than madame's maid--her friend; yes, so she was kind
+enough to call me. She talked to me about everything, consulted me
+about everything, took me with her everywhere. Then she brings
+home, at two o'clock in the morning, a young girl with a fresh,
+pretty face, from a Montmartre restaurant, and in a week I am
+nothing at all--oh, but nothing--and mademoiselle is queen."
+
+"Yes, it is quite natural," said Hanaud sympathetically. "You
+would not have been human, mademoiselle, if you had not felt some
+anger. But tell us frankly about these seances. How did they
+begin?"
+
+"Oh, monsieur," Vauquier answered, "it was not difficult to begin
+them. Mme. Dauvray had a passion for fortune-tellers and rogues of
+that kind. Any one with a pack of cards and some nonsense about a
+dangerous woman with black hair or a man with a limp--Monsieur
+knows the stories they string together in dimly lighted rooms to
+deceive the credulous--any one could make a harvest out of
+madame's superstitions. But monsieur knows the type."
+
+"Indeed I do," said Hanaud, with a laugh.
+
+"Well, after mademoiselle had been with us three weeks, she said
+to me one morning when I was dressing her hair that it was a pity
+madame was always running round the fortune-tellers, that she
+herself could do something much more striking and impressive, and
+that if only I would help her we could rescue madame from their
+clutches. Sir, I did not think what power I was putting into Mlle.
+Celie's hands, or assuredly I would have refused. And I did not
+wish to quarrel with Mlle. Celie; so for once I consented, and,
+having once consented, I could never afterwards refuse, for, if I
+had, mademoiselle would have made some fine excuse about the
+psychic influence not being en rapport, and meanwhile would have
+had me sent away. While if I had confessed the truth to madame,
+she would have been so angry that I had been a party to tricking
+her that again I would have lost my place. And so the seances went
+on."
+
+"Yes," said Hanaud. "I understand that your position was very
+difficult. We shall not, I think," and he turned to the
+Commissaire confidently for corroboration of his words, "be
+disposed to blame you."
+
+"Certainly not," said the Commissaire. "After all, life is not so
+easy."
+
+"Thus, then, the seances began," said Hanaud, leaning forward with
+a keen interest. "This is a strange and curious story you are
+telling me, Mlle. Vauquier. Now, how were they conducted? How did
+you assist? What did Mlle. Celie do? Rap on the tables in the dark
+and rattle tambourines like that one with the knot of ribbons
+which hangs upon the wall of the salon?"
+
+There was a gentle and inviting irony in Hanaud's tone. M. Ricardo
+was disappointed. Hanaud had after all not overlooked the
+tambourine. Without Ricardo's reason to notice it, he had none the
+less observed it and borne it in his memory.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, monsieur, the tambourines and the rapping on the table!"
+cried Helene. "That was nothing--oh, but nothing at all.
+Mademoiselle Celie would make spirits appear and speak!"
+
+"Really! And she was never caught out! But Mlle. Celie must have
+been a remarkably clever girl."
+
+"Oh, she was of an address which was surprising. Sometimes madame
+and I were alone. Sometimes there were others, whom madame in her
+pride had invited. For she was very proud, monsieur, that her
+companion could introduce her to the spirits of dead people. But
+never was Mlle. Celie caught out. She told me that for many years,
+even when quite a child, she had travelled through England giving
+these exhibitions."
+
+"Oho!" said Hanaud, and he turned to Wethermill. "Did you know
+that?" he asked in English.
+
+"I did not," he said. "I do not now."
+
+Hanaud shook his head.
+
+"To me this story does not seem invented," he replied. And then he
+spoke again in French to Helene Vauquier. "Well, continue,
+mademoiselle! Assume that the company is assembled for our
+seance."
+
+"Then Mlle. Celie, dressed in a long gown of black velvet, which
+set off her white arms and shoulders well--oh, mademoiselle did
+not forget those little trifles," Helene Vauquier interrupted her
+story, with a return of her bitterness, to interpolate--
+"mademoiselle would sail into the room with her velvet train
+flowing behind her, and perhaps for a little while she would say
+there was a force working against her, and she would sit silent in
+a chair while madame gaped at her with open eyes. At last
+mademoiselle would say that the powers were favourable and the
+spirits would manifest themselves to night. Then she would be
+placed in a cabinet, perhaps with a string tied across the door
+outside--you will understand it was my business to see after the
+string--and the lights would be turned down, or perhaps out
+altogether. Or at other times we would sit holding hands round a
+table, Mlle. Celie between Mme. Dauvray and myself. But in that
+case the lights would be turned out first, and it would be really
+my hand which held Mme. Dauvray's. And whether it was the cabinet
+or the chairs, in a moment mademoiselle would be creeping silently
+about the room in a little pair of soft-soled slippers without
+heels, which she wore so that she might not be heard, and
+tambourines would rattle as you say, and fingers touch the
+forehead and the neck, and strange voices would sound from corners
+of the room, and dim apparitions would appear--the spirits of
+great ladies of the past, who would talk with Mme. Dauvray. Such
+ladies as Mme. de Castiglione, Marie Antoinette, Mme. de Medici--I
+do not remember all the names, and very likely I do not pronounce
+them properly. Then the voices would cease and the lights be
+turned up, and Mlle. Celie would be found in a trance just in the
+same place and attitude as she had been when the lights were
+turned out. Imagine, messieurs, the effect of such seances upon a
+woman like Mme. Dauvray. She was made for them. She believed in
+them implicitly. The words of the great ladies from the past--she
+would remember and repeat them, and be very proud that such great
+ladies had come back to the world merely to tell her--Mme.
+Dauvray--about their lives. She would have had seances all day,
+but Mlle. Celie pleaded that she was left exhausted at the end of
+them. But Mlle. Celie was of an address! For instance--it will
+seem very absurd and ridiculous to you, gentlemen, but you must
+remember what Mme. Dauvray was--for instance, madame was
+particularly anxious to speak with the spirit of Mme. de
+Montespan. Yes, yes! She had read all the memoirs about that lady.
+Very likely Mlle. Celie had put the notion into Mme. Dauvray's
+head, for madame was not a scholar. But she was dying to hear that
+famous woman's voice and to catch a dim glimpse of her face. Well,
+she was never gratified. Always she hoped. Always Mlle. Celie
+tantalised her with the hope. But she would not gratify it. She
+would not spoil her fine affairs by making these treats too
+common. And she acquired--how should she not?--a power over Mme.
+Dauvray which was unassailable. The fortune-tellers had no more to
+say to Mme. Dauvray. She did nothing but felicitate herself upon
+the happy chance which had sent her Mlle. Celie. And now she lies
+in her room murdered!"
+
+Once more Helene's voice broke upon the words. But Hanaud poured
+her out a glass of water and held it to her lips. Helene drank it
+eagerly.
+
+"There, that is better, is it not?" he said.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," said Helene Vauquier, recovering herself.
+"Sometimes, too," she resumed, "messages from the spirits would
+flutter down in writing on the table."
+
+"In writing?" exclaimed Hanaud quickly.
+
+"Yes; answers to questions. Mlle. Celie had them ready. Oh, but
+she was of an address altogether surprising.
+
+"I see," said Hanaud slowly; and he added, "But sometimes, I
+suppose, the questions were questions which Mlle. Celie could not
+answer?"
+
+"Sometimes," Helene Vauquier admitted, "when visitors were
+present. When Mme. Dauvray was alone--well, she was an ignorant
+woman, and any answer would serve. But it was not so when there
+were visitors whom Mlle. Celie did not know, or only knew
+slightly. These visitors might be putting questions to test her,
+of which they knew the answers, while Mlle. Celie did not."
+
+"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What happened then?"
+
+All who were listening understood to what point he was leading
+Helene Vauquier. All waited intently for her answer.
+
+She smiled.
+
+"It was all one to Mlle. Celie."
+
+"She was prepared with an escape from the difficulty?"
+
+"Perfectly prepared."
+
+Hanaud looked puzzled.
+
+"I can think of no way out of it except the one," and he looked
+round to the Commissaire and to Ricardo as though he would inquire
+of them how many ways they had discovered. "I can think of no
+escape except that a message in writing should flutter down from
+the spirit appealed to saying frankly," and Hanaud shrugged his
+shoulders, "'I do not know.'"
+
+"Oh no no, monsieur," replied Helene Vauquier in pity for Hanaud's
+misconception, "I see that you are not in the habit of attending
+seances. It would never do for a spirit to admit that it did not
+know. At once its authority would be gone, and with it Mlle.
+Celie's as well. But on the other hand, for inscrutable reasons
+the spirit might not be allowed to answer."
+
+"I understand," said Hanaud, meekly accepting the correction. "The
+spirit might reply that it was forbidden to answer, but never that
+it did not know."
+
+"No, never that," [agreed] Helene. So it seemed that Hanaud must
+look elsewhere for the explanation of that sentence. "I do not
+know." Helene continued: "Oh, Mlle. Celie--it was not easy to
+baffle her, I can tell you. She carried a lace scarf which she
+could drape about her head, and in a moment she would be, in the
+dim light, an old, old woman, with a voice so altered that no one
+could know it. Indeed, you said rightly, monsieur--she was
+clever."
+
+To all who listened Helene Vauquier's story carried its
+conviction. Mme. Dauvray rose vividly before their minds as a
+living woman. Celie's trickeries were so glibly described that
+they could hardly have been invented, and certainly not by this
+poor peasant-woman whose lips so bravely struggled with Medici,
+and Montespan, and the names of the other great ladies. How,
+indeed, should she know of them at all? She could never have had
+the inspiration to concoct the most convincing item of her story--
+the queer craze of Mme. Dauvray for an interview with Mme. de
+Montespan. These details were assuredly the truth.
+
+Ricardo, indeed, knew them to be true. Had he not himself seen the
+girl in her black velvet dress shut up in a cabinet, and a great
+lady of the past dimly appear in the darkness? Moreover, Helene
+Vauquier's jealousy was so natural and inevitable a thing. Her
+confession of it corroborated all her story.
+
+"Well, then," said Hanaud, "we come to last night. There was a
+seance held in the salon last night."
+
+"No, monsieur," said Vauquier, shaking her head; "there was no
+seance last night."
+
+"But already you have said--" interrupted the Commissaire; and
+Hanaud held up his hand.
+
+"Let her speak, my friend."
+
+"Yes, monsieur shall hear," said Vauquier.
+
+It appeared that at five o'clock in the afternoon Mme. Dauvray and
+Mlle. Celie prepared to leave the house on foot. It was their
+custom to walk down at this hour to the Villa des Fleurs, pass an
+hour or so there, dine in a restaurant, and return to the Rooms to
+spend the evening. On this occasion, however, Mme. Dauvray
+informed Helene that they should be back early and bring with them
+a friend who was interested in, but entirely sceptical of,
+spiritualistic manifestations. "But we shall convince her tonight,
+Celie, "she said confidently; and the two women then went out.
+Shortly before eight Helene closed the shutters both of the
+upstair and the downstair windows and of the glass doors into the
+garden, and returned to the kitchen, which was at the back of the
+house--that is, on the side facing the road. There had been a fall
+of rain at seven which had lasted for the greater part of the
+hour, and soon after she had shut the windows the rain fell again
+in a heavy shower, and Helene, knowing that madame felt the chill,
+lighted a small fire in the salon. The shower lasted until nearly
+nine, when it ceased altogether and the night cleared up.
+
+It was close upon half-past nine when the bell rang from the
+salon. Vauquier was sure of the hour, for the charwoman called her
+attention to the clock.
+
+"I found Mme. Dauvray, Mlle Celie, and another woman in the
+salon," continued Helene Vauquier.
+
+"Madame had let them in with her latchkey."
+
+"Ah, the other woman!" cried Besnard. "Had you seen her before?"
+
+"No, monsieur."
+
+"What was she like?"
+
+"She was sallow, with black hair and bright eyes like beads. She
+was short and about forty-five years old, though it is difficult
+to judge of these things. I noticed her hands, for she was taking
+her gloves off, and they seemed to me to be unusually muscular for
+a woman."
+
+"Ah!" cried Louis Besnard. "That is important."
+
+"Mme. Dauvray was, as she always was before a seance, in a
+feverish flutter. 'You will help Mlle. Celie to dress, Helene, and
+be very quick,' she said; and with an extraordinary longing she
+added, 'Perhaps we shall see her tonight.' Her, you understand,
+was Mme. de Montespan. And she turned to the stranger and said,
+"You will believe, Adele, after tonight."
+
+"Adele!" said the Commissaire wisely. "Then Adele was the strange
+woman's name?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Hanaud dryly.
+
+Helene Vauquier reflected.
+
+"I think Adele was the name," she said in a more doubtful tone.
+"It sounded like Adele."
+
+The irrepressible Mr. Ricardo was impelled to intervene.
+
+"What Monsieur Hanaud means," he explained, with the pleasant air
+of a man happy to illuminate the dark intelligence of a child, "is
+that Adele was probably a pseudonym."
+
+Hanaud turned to him with a savage grin.
+
+"Now that is sure to help her!" he cried. "A pseudonym! Helene
+Vauquier is sure to understand that simple and elementary word.
+How bright this M. Ricardo is! Where shall we find a new pin more
+bright? I ask you," and he spread out his hands in a despairing
+admiration.
+
+Mr. Ricardo flushed red, but he answered never a word. He must
+endure gibes and humiliations like a schoolboy in a class. His one
+constant fear was lest he should be turned out of the room. The
+Commissaire diverted wrath from him however.
+
+"What he means by pseudonym," he said to Helene Vauquier,
+explaining Mr. Ricardo to her as Mr. Ricardo had presumed to
+explain Hanaud, "is a false name. Adele may have been, nay,
+probably was, a false name adopted by this strange woman."
+
+"Adele, I think, was the name used," replied Helene, the doubt in
+her voice diminishing as she searched her memory. "I am almost
+sure."
+
+"Well, we will call her Adele," said Hanaud impatiently. "What
+does it matter? Go on, Mademoiselle Vauquier."
+
+"The lady sat upright and squarely upon the edge of a chair, with
+a sort of defiance, as though she was determined nothing should
+convince her, and she laughed incredulously."
+
+Here, again, all who heard were able vividly to conjure up the
+scene--the defiant sceptic sitting squarely on the edge of her
+chair, removing her gloves from her muscular hands; the excited
+Mme. Dauvray, so absorbed in the determination to convince; and
+Mlle. Celie running from the room to put on the black gown which
+would not be visible in the dim light.
+
+"Whilst I took off mademoiselle's dress," Vauquier continued, "she
+said: 'When I have gone down to the salon you can go to bed,
+Helene. Mme. Adele'--yes, it was Adele--'will be fetched by a
+friend in a motorcar, and I can let her out and fasten the door
+again. So if you hear the car you will know that it has come for
+her.'"
+
+"Oh, she said that!" said Hanaud quickly.
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+Hanaud looked gloomily towards Wethermill. Then he exchanged a
+sharp glance with the Commissaire, and moved his shoulders in an
+almost imperceptible shrug. But Mr. Ricardo saw it, and construed
+it into one word. He imagined a jury uttering the word "Guilty."
+
+Helene Vauquier saw the movement too.
+
+"Do not condemn her too quickly, monsieur," she, said, with an
+impulse of remorse. "And not upon my words. For, as I say, I--
+hated her."
+
+Hanaud nodded reassuringly, and she resumed:
+
+"I was surprised, and I asked mademoiselle what she would do
+without her confederate. But she laughed, and said there would be
+no difficulty. That is partly why I think there was no seance held
+last night. Monsieur, there was a note in her voice that evening
+which I did not as yet understand. Mademoiselle then took her bath
+while I laid out her black dress and the slippers with the soft,
+noiseless soles. And now I tell you why I am sure there was no
+seance last night--why Mlle. Celie never meant there should be
+one."
+
+"Yes, let us hear that," said Hanaud curiously, and leaning
+forward with his hands upon his knees.
+
+"You have here, monsieur, a description of how mademoiselle was
+dressed when she went away." Helene Vauquier picked up a sheet of
+paper from the table at her side. "I wrote it out at the request
+of M. le Commissaire." She handed the paper to Hanaud, who glanced
+through it as she continued. "Well, except for the white lace
+coat, monsieur, I dressed Mlle. Celie just in that way. She would
+have none of her plain black robe. No, Mlle. Celie must wear her
+fine new evening frock of pale reseda-green chiffon over soft
+clinging satin, which set off her fair beauty so prettily. It left
+her white arms and shoulders bare, and it had a long train, and it
+rustled as she moved. And with that she must put on her pale green
+silk stockings, her new little satin slippers to match, with the
+large paste buckles--and a sash of green satin looped through
+another glittering buckle at the side of the waist, with long ends
+loosely knotted together at the knee. I must tie her fair hair
+with a silver ribbon, and pin upon her curls a large hat of reseda
+green with a golden-brown ostrich feather drooping behind. I
+warned mademoiselle that there was a tiny fire burning in the
+salon. Even with the fire-screen in front of it there would still
+be a little light upon the floor, and the glittering buckles on
+her feet would betray her, even if the rustle of her dress did
+not. But she said she would kick her slippers off. Ah, gentlemen,
+it is, after all, not so that one dresses for a seance," she
+cried, shaking her head. "But it is just so--is it not?--that one
+dresses to go to meet a lover."
+
+The suggestion startled every one who heard it. It fairly took Mr.
+Ricardo's breath away. Wethermill stepped forward with a cry of
+revolt. The Commissaire exclaimed, admiringly, "But here is an
+idea!" Even Hanaud sat back in his chair, though his expression
+lost nothing of its impassivity, and his eyes never moved from
+Helene Vauquier's face.
+
+"Listen!" she continued, "I will tell you what I think. It was my
+habit to put out some sirop and lemonade and some little cakes in
+the dining-room, which, as you know, is at the other side of the
+house across the hall. I think it possible, messieurs, that while
+Mlle. Celie was changing her dress Mme. Dauvray and the stranger,
+Adele, went into the dining-room. I know that Mlle. Celie, as soon
+as she was dressed, ran downstairs to the salon. Well, then,
+suppose Mlle. Celie had a lover waiting with whom she meant to run
+away. She hurries through the empty salon, opens the glass doors,
+and is gone, leaving the doors open. And the thief, an accomplice
+of Adele, finds the doors open and hides himself in the salon
+until Mme. Dauvray returns from the dining-room. You see, that
+leaves Mlle. Celie innocent."
+
+Vauquier leaned forward eagerly, her white face flushing. There
+was a moment's silence, and then Hanaud said:
+
+"That is all very well, Mlle. Vauquier. But it does not account
+for the lace coat in which the girl went away. She must have
+returned to her room to fetch that after you had gone to bed."
+
+Helene Vauquier leaned back with an air of disappointment.
+
+"That is true. I had forgotten the coat. I did not like Mlle.
+Celie, but I am not wicked--"
+
+"Nor for the fact that the sirop and the lemonade had not been
+touched in the dining-room," said the Commissaire, interrupting
+her.
+
+Again the disappointment overspread Vauquier's face.
+
+"Is that so?" she asked. "I did not know--I have been kept a
+prisoner here."
+
+The Commissaire cut her short with a cry of satisfaction.
+
+"Listen! listen!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Here is a theory which
+accounts for all, which combines Vauquier's idea with ours, and
+Vauquier's idea is, I think, very just, up to a point. Suppose, M.
+Hanaud, that the girl was going to meet her lover, but the lover
+is the murderer. Then all becomes clear. She does not run away to
+him; she opens the door for him and lets him in."
+
+Both Hanaud and Ricardo stole a glance at Wethermill. How did he
+take the theory? Wethermill was leaning against the wall, his eyes
+closed, his face white and contorted with a spasm of pain. But he
+had the air of a man silently enduring an outrage rather than
+struck down by the conviction that the woman he loved was
+worthless.
+
+"It is not for me to say, monsieur," Helene Vauquier continued. "I
+only tell you what I know. I am a woman, and it would be very
+difficult for a girl who was eagerly expecting her lover so to act
+that another woman would not know it. However uncultivated and
+ignorant the other woman was, that at all events she would know.
+The knowledge would spread to her of itself, without a word.
+Consider, gentlemen!" And suddenly Helene Vauquier smiled. "A
+young girl tingling with excitement from head to foot, eager that
+her beauty just at this moment should be more fresh, more sweet
+than ever it was, careful that her dress should set it exquisitely
+off. Imagine it! Her lips ready for the kiss! Oh, how should
+another woman not know? I saw Mlle. Celie, her cheeks rosy, her
+eyes bright. Never had she looked so lovely. The pale-green hat
+upon her fair head heavy with its curls! From head to foot she
+looked herself over, and then she sighed--she sighed with pleasure
+because she looked so pretty. That was Mlle. Celie last night,
+monsieur. She gathered up her train, took her long white gloves in
+the other hand, and ran down the stairs, her heels clicking on the
+wood, her buckles glittering. At the bottom she turned and said to
+me:
+
+"'Remember, Helene, you can go to bed.' That was it monsieur."
+
+And now violently the rancour of Helene Vauquier's feelings burst
+out once more.
+
+"For her the fine clothes, the pleasure, and the happiness. For
+me--I could go to bed!"
+
+Hanaud looked again at the description which Helene Vauquier had
+written out, and read it through carefully. Then he asked a
+question, of which Ricardo did not quite see the drift.
+
+"So," he said, "when this morning you suggested to Monsieur the
+Commissaire that it would be advisable for you to go through Mlle.
+Celie's wardrobe, you found that nothing more had been taken away
+except the white lace coat?"
+
+"That is so."
+
+"Very well. Now, after Mlle. Celie had gone down the stairs--"
+
+"I put the lights out in her room and, as she had ordered me to
+do, I went to bed. The next thing that I remember--but no! It
+terrifies me too much to think of it."
+
+Helene shuddered and covered her face spasmodically with her
+hands. Hanaud drew her hands gently down.
+
+"Courage! You are safe now, mademoiselle. Calm yourself!"
+
+She lay back with her eyes closed.
+
+"Yes, yes; it is true. I am safe now. But oh! I feel I shall never
+dare to sleep again!" And the tears swam in her eyes. "I woke up
+with a feeling of being suffocated. Mon Dieu! There was the light
+burning in the room, and a woman, the strange woman with the
+strong hands, was holding me down by the shoulders, while a man
+with his cap drawn over his eyes and a little black moustache
+pressed over my lips a pad from which a horribly sweet and sickly
+taste filled my mouth. Oh, I was terrified! I could not scream. I
+struggled. The woman told me roughly to keep quiet. But I could
+not. I must struggle. And then with a brutality unheard of she
+dragged me up on to my knees while the man kept the pad right over
+my mouth. The man, with the arm which was free, held me close to
+him, and she bound my hands with a cord behind me. Look!"
+
+She held out her wrists. They were terribly bruised. Red and angry
+lines showed where the cord had cut deeply into her flesh.
+
+"Then they flung me down again upon my back, and the next thing I
+remember is the doctor standing over me and this kind nurse
+supporting me."
+
+She sank back exhausted in her chair and wiped her forehead with
+her handkerchief. The sweat stood upon it in beads.
+
+"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Hanaud gravely. "This has been a
+trying ordeal for you. I understand that. But we are coming to the
+end. I want you to read this description of Mlle. Celie through
+again to make sure that nothing is omitted." He gave the paper
+into the maid's hands. "It will be advertised, so it is important
+that it should be complete. See that you have left out nothing."
+
+Helene Vauquier bent her head over the paper.
+
+"No," said Helene at last. "I do not think I have omitted
+anything." And she handed the paper back.
+
+"I asked you," Hanaud continued suavely, "because I understand
+that Mlle. Celie usually wore a pair of diamond ear-drops, and
+they are not mentioned here."
+
+A faint colour came into the maid's face.
+
+"That is true, monsieur. I had forgotten. It is quite true."
+
+"Any one might forget," said Hanaud, with a reassuring smile. "But
+you will remember now. Think! think! Did Mlle. Celie wear them
+last night?" He leaned forward, waiting for her reply. Wethermill
+too, made a movement. Both men evidently thought the point of
+great importance. The maid looked at Hanaud for a few moments
+without speaking.
+
+"It is not from me, mademoiselle, that you will get the answer,"
+said Hanaud quietly.
+
+"No, monsieur. I was thinking," said the maid, her face flushing
+at the rebuke.
+
+"Did she wear them when she went down the stairs last night?" he
+insisted.
+
+"I think she wore them," she said doubtfully. Ye-es--yes," and the
+words came now firm and clear. "I remember well. Mlle. Celie had
+taken them off before her bath, and they lay on the dressing-
+table. She put them into her ears while I dressed her hair and
+arranged the bow of ribbon in it."
+
+"Then we will add the earrings to your description," said Hanaud,
+as he rose from his chair with the paper in his hand, "and for the
+moment we need not trouble you any more about Mademoiselle Celie."
+He folded the paper up, slipped it into his letter-case, and put
+it away in his pocket. "Let us consider that poor Madame Dauvray!
+Did she keep much money in the house?"
+
+"No, monsieur; very little. She was well known in Aix and her
+cheques were everywhere accepted without question. It was a high
+pleasure to serve madame, her credit was so good," said Helene
+Vauquier, raising her head as though she herself had a share in
+the pride of that good credit.
+
+"No doubt," Hanaud agreed. "There are many fine households where
+the banking account is overdrawn, and it cannot be pleasant for
+the servants."
+
+"They are put to so many shifts to hide it from the servants of
+their neighbours," said Helene. "Besides," and she made a little
+grimace of contempt, "a fine household and an overdrawn banking
+account--it is like a ragged petticoat under a satin dress. That
+was never the case with Madame Dauvray."
+
+"So that she was under no necessity to have ready money always in
+her pocket," said Hanaud. "I understand that. But at times perhaps
+she won at the Villa des Fleurs?"
+
+Helene Vauquier shook her head.
+
+"She loved the Villa des Fleurs, but she never played for high
+sums and often never played at all. If she won a few louis, she
+was as delighted with her gains and as afraid to lose them again
+at the tables as if she were of the poorest, and she stopped at
+once. No, monsieur; twenty or thirty louis--there was never more
+than that in the house."
+
+"Then it was certainly for her famous collection of jewellery that
+Madame Dauvray was murdered?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur."
+
+"Now, where did she keep her jewellery?"
+
+"In a safe in her bedroom, monsieur. Every night she took off what
+she had been wearing and locked it up with the rest. She was never
+too tired for that."
+
+"And what did she do with the keys?"
+
+"That I cannot tell you. Certainly she locked her rings and
+necklaces away whilst I undressed her. And she laid the keys upon
+the dressing-table or the mantel-shelf--anywhere. But in the
+morning the keys were no longer where she had left them. She had
+put them secretly away."
+
+Hanaud turned to another point.
+
+"I suppose that Mademoiselle Celie knew of the safe and that the
+jewels were kept there?"
+
+"Oh yes! Mademoiselle indeed was often in Madame Dauvray's room
+when she was dressing or undressing. She must often have seen
+madame take them out and lock them up again. But then, monsieur,
+so did I."
+
+Hanaud nodded to her with a friendly smile.
+
+"Thank you once more, mademoiselle," he said. "The torture is
+over. But of course Monsieur Fleuriot will require your presence."
+
+Helene Vauquier looked anxiously towards him.
+
+"But meanwhile I can go from this villa, monsieur?" she pleaded,
+with a trembling voice.
+
+"Certainly; you shall go to your friends at once."
+
+"Oh, monsieur, thank you!" she cried, and suddenly she gave way.
+The tears began to flow from her eyes. She buried her face in her
+hands and sobbed. "It is foolish of me, but what would you?" She
+jerked out the words between her sobs. "It has been too terrible."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Hanaud soothingly. "The nurse will put a few
+things together for you in a bag. You will not leuve Aix, of
+course, and I will send some one with you to your friends."
+
+The maid started violently.
+
+"Oh, not a sergent-de-ville, monsieur, I beg of you. I should be
+disgraced."
+
+"No. It shall be a man in plain clothes, to see that you are not
+hindered by reporters on the way."
+
+Hanaud turned towards the door. On the dressing-table a cord was
+lying. He took it up and spoke to the nurse.
+
+"Was this the cord with which Helene Vauquier's hands were tied?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur," she replied.
+
+Hanaud handed it to the Commissaire.
+
+"It will be necessary to keep that," he said.
+
+It was a thin piece of strong whipcord. It was the same kind of
+cord as that which had been found tied round Mme. Dauvray's
+throat. Hanaud opened the door and turned back to the nurse.
+
+"We will send for a cab for Mlle. Vauquier. You will drive with
+her to her door. I think after that she will need no further help.
+Pack up a few things and bring them down. Mlle. Vauquier can
+follow, no doubt, now without assistance." And, with a friendly
+nod, he left the room.
+
+Ricardo had been wondering, through the examination, in what light
+Hanaud considered Helene Vauquier. He was sympathetic, but the
+sympathy might merely have been assumed to deceive. His questions
+betrayed in no particular the colour of his mind. Now, however, he
+made himself clear. He informed the nurse, in the plainest
+possible way, that she was no longer to act as jailer. She was to
+bring Vauquier's things down; but Vauquier could follow by
+herself. Evidently Helene Vauquier was cleared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A STARTLING DISCOVERY
+
+
+Harry Wethermill, however, was not so easily satisfied.
+
+"Surely, monsieur, it would be well to know whither she is going,"
+he said, "and to make sure that when she has gone there she will
+stay there--until we want her again?"
+
+Hanaud looked at the young man pityingly.
+
+"I can understand, monsieur, that you hold strong views about
+Helene Vauquier. You are human, like the rest of us. And what she
+has said to us just now would not make you more friendly. But--
+but--" and he preferred to shrug his shoulders rather than to
+finish in words his sentence. "However," he said, "we shall take
+care to know where Helene Vauquier is staying. Indeed, if she is
+at all implicated in this affair we shall learn more if we leave
+her free than if we keep her under lock and key. You see that if
+we leave her quite free, but watch her very, very carefully, so as
+to awaken no suspicion, she may be emboldened to do something
+rash--or the others may."
+
+Mr. Ricardo approved of Hanaud's reasoning.
+
+"That is quite true," he said. "She might write a letter."
+
+"Yes, or receive one," added Hanaud, "which would be still more
+satisfactory for us--supposing, of course, that she has anything
+to do with this affair"; and again he shrugged his shoulders. He
+turned towards the Commissaire.
+
+"You have a discreet officer whom you can trust?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly. A dozen."
+
+"I want only one."
+
+"And here he is," said the Commissaire.
+
+They were descending the stairs. On the landing of the first floor
+Durette, the man who had discovered where the cord was bought, was
+still waiting. Hanaud took Durette by the sleeve in the familiar
+way which he so commonly used and led him to the top of the
+stairs, where the two men stood for a few moments apart. It was
+plain that Hanaud was giving, Durette receiving, definite
+instructions. Durette descended the stairs; Hanaud came back to
+the others.
+
+"I have told him to fetch a cab," he said, "and convey Helene
+Vauquier to her friends." Then he looked at Ricardo, and from
+Ricardo to the Commissaire, while he rubbed his hand backwards and
+forwards across his shaven chin.
+
+"I tell you," he said, "I find this sinister little drama very
+interesting to me. The sordid, miserable struggle for mastery in
+this household of Mme. Dauvray--eh? Yes, very interesting. Just as
+much patience, just as much effort, just as much planning for this
+small end as a general uses to defeat an army--and, at the last,
+nothing gained. What else is politics? Yes, very interesting."
+
+His eyes rested upon Wethermill's face for a moment, but they gave
+the young man no hope. He took a key from his pocket
+
+"We need not keep this room locked," he said. "We know all that
+there is to be known." And he inserted the key into the lock of
+Celia's room and turned it.
+
+"But is that wise, monsieur?" said Besnard.
+
+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Why not?" he asked.
+
+"The case is in your hands," said the Commissaire. To Ricardo the
+proceedings seemed singularly irregular. But if the Commissaire
+was content, it was not for him to object.
+
+"And where is my excellent friend Perrichet?" asked Hanaud; and
+leaning over the balustrade he called him up from the hall.
+
+"We will now," said Hanaud, "have a glance into this poor murdered
+woman's room."
+
+The room was opposite to Celia's. Besnard produced the key and
+unlocked the door. Hanaud took off his hat upon the threshold and
+then passed into the room with his companions. Upon the bed,
+outlined under a sheet, lay the rigid form of Mme. Dauvray. Hanaud
+stepped gently to the bedside and reverently uncovered the face.
+For a moment all could see it--livid, swollen, unhuman.
+
+"A brutal business," he said in a low voice, and when he turned
+again to his companions his face was white and sickly. He replaced
+the sheet and gazed about the room.
+
+It was decorated and furnished in the same style as the salon
+downstairs, yet the contrast between the two rooms was remarkable.
+
+Downstairs, in the salon, only a chair had been overturned. Here
+there was every sign of violence and disorder. An empty safe stood
+open in one corner; the rugs upon the polished floor had been
+tossed aside; every drawer had been torn open, every wardrobe
+burst; the very bed had been moved from its position.
+
+"It was in this safe that Madame Dauvray hid her jewels each
+night," said the Commissaire as Hanaud gazed about the room.
+
+"Oh, was it so?" Hanaud asked slowly. It seemed to Ricardo that he
+read something in the aspect of this room too, which troubled his
+mind and increased his perplexity.
+
+"Yes," said Besnard confidently. "Every night Mme. Dauvray locked
+her jewels away in this safe. Vauquier told us so this morning.
+Every night she was never too tired for that. Besides, here"--and
+putting his hand into the safe he drew out a paper--" here is the
+list of Mme. Dauvray's jewellery."
+
+Plainly, however, Hanaud was not satisfied. He took the list and
+glanced through the items. But his thoughts were not concerned
+with it.
+
+"If that is so," he said slowly, "Mme Dauvray kept her jewels in
+this safe, why has every drawer been ransacked, why was the bed
+moved? Perrichet, lock the door--quietly--from the inside. That is
+right. Now lean your back against it."
+
+Hanaud waited until he saw Perrichet's broad back against the
+door. Then he went down upon his knees, and, tossing the rugs here
+and there, examined with the minutest care the inlaid floor. By
+the side of the bed a Persian mat of blue silk was spread. This in
+its turn he moved quickly aside. He bent his eyes to the ground,
+lay prone, moved this way and that to catch the light upon the
+floor, then with a spring he rose upon his knees. He lifted his
+finger to his lips. In a dead silence he drew a pen-knife quickly
+from his pocket and opened it. He bent down again and inserted the
+blade between the cracks of the blocks. The three men in the room
+watched him with an intense excitement. A block of wood rose from
+the floor, he pulled it out, laid it noiselessly down, and
+inserted his hand into the opening.
+
+Wethermill at Ricardo's elbow uttered a stifled cry. "Hush!"
+whispered Hanaud angrily. He drew out his hand again. It was
+holding a green leather jewel-case. He opened it, and a diamond
+necklace flashed its thousand colours in their faces. He thrust in
+his hand again and again and again, and each time that be withdrew
+it, it held a jewel-case. Before the astonished eyes of his
+companions he opened them. Ropes of pearls, collars of diamonds,
+necklaces of emeralds, rings of pigeon-blood rubies, bracelets of
+gold studded with opals-Mme. Dauvray's various jewellery was
+disclosed.
+
+"But that is astounding," said Besnard, in an awe-struck voice.
+
+"Then she was never robbed after all?" cried Ricardo.
+
+Hanaud rose to his feet.
+
+"What a piece of irony!" he whispered. "The poor woman is murdered
+for her jewels, the room's turned upside down, and nothing is
+found. For all the while they lay safe in this cache. Nothing is
+taken except what she wore. Let us see what she wore."
+
+"Only a few rings, Helene Vauquier thought," said Besnard. "But
+she was not sure."
+
+"Ah!" said Hanaud. "Well, let us make sure!" and, taking the list
+from the safe, he compared it with the jewellery in the cases on
+the floor, ticking off the items one by one. When he had finished
+he knelt down again, and, thrusting his hand into the hole, felt
+carefully about.
+
+"There is a pearl necklace missing," he said. "A valuable
+necklace, from the description in the list and some rings. She
+must have been wearing them;" and he sat back upon his heels. "We
+will send the intelligent Perrichet for a bag," he said, "and we
+will counsel the intelligent Perrichet not to breathe a word to
+any living soul of what he has seen in this room. Then we will
+seal up in the bag the jewels, and we will hand it over to M. le
+Commissaire, who will convey it with the greatest secrecy out of
+this villa. For the list--I will keep it," and he placed it
+carefully in his pocket-book.
+
+He unlocked the door and went out himself on to the landing. He
+looked down the stairs and up the stairs; then he beckoned
+Perrichet to him.
+
+"Go!" he whispered. "Be quick, and when you come back hide the bag
+carefully under your coat."
+
+Perrichet went down the stairs with pride written upon his face.
+Was he not assisting the great M. Hanaud from the Surete in Paris?
+Hanaud returned into Mme. Dauvray's room and closed the door. He
+looked into the eyes of his companions.
+
+"Can't you see the scene?" he asked with a queer smile of
+excitement. He had forgotten Wethermill; he had forgotten even the
+dead woman shrouded beneath the sheet. He was absorbed. His eyes
+were bright, his whole face vivid with life. Ricardo saw the real
+man at this moment--and feared for the happiness of Harry
+Wethermill. For nothing would Hanaud now turn aside until he had
+reached the truth and set his hands upon the quarry. Of that
+Ricardo felt sure. He was trying now to make his companions
+visualise just what he saw and understood.
+
+"Can't you see it? The old woman locking up her jewels in this
+safe every night before the eyes of her maid or her companion, and
+then, as soon as she was alone, taking them stealthily out of the
+safe and hiding them in this secret place. But I tell you--this is
+human. Yes, it is interesting just because it is so human. Then
+picture to yourselves last night, the murderers opening this safe
+and finding nothing--oh, but nothing!--and ransacking the room in
+deadly haste, kicking up the rugs, forcing open the drawers, and
+always finding nothing--nothing--nothing. Think of their rage,
+their stupefaction, and finally their fear! They must go, and with
+one pearl necklace, when they had hoped to reap a great fortune.
+Oh, but this is interesting--yes, I tell you--I, who have seen
+many strange things--this is interesting."
+
+Perrichet returned with a canvas bag, into which Hanaud placed the
+jewel-cases. He sealed the bag in the presence of the four men and
+handed it to Besnard. He replaced the block of wood in the floor,
+covered it over again with the rug, and rose to his feet.
+
+"Listen!" he said, in a low voice, and with a gravity which
+impressed them all. "There is something in this house which I do
+not understand. I have told you so. I tell you something more now.
+I am afraid--I am afraid." And the word startled his hearers like
+a thunderclap, though it was breathed no louder than a whisper,
+"Yes, my friends," he repeated, nodding his head, "terribly
+afraid." And upon the others fell a discomfort, an awe, as though
+something sinister and dangerous were present in the room and
+close to them. So vivid was the feeling, instinctively they drew
+nearer together. "Now, I warn you solemnly. There must be no
+whisper that these jewels have been discovered; no newspaper must
+publish a hint of it; no one must suspect that here in this room
+we have found them. Is that understood?"
+
+"Certainly," said the Commissaire.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"To be sure, monsieur," said Perrichet.
+
+As for Harry Wethermill, he made no reply. His burning eyes were
+fixed upon Hanaud's face, and that was all. Hanaud, for his part,
+asked for no reply from him. Indeed, he did not look towards Harry
+Wethermill's face at all. Ricardo understood. Hanaud did not mean
+to be deterred by the suffering written there.
+
+He went down again into the little gay salon lit with flowers and
+August sunlight, and stood beside the couch gazing at it with
+troubled eyes. And, as he gazed, he closed his eyes and shivered.
+He shivered like a man who has taken a sudden chill. Nothing in
+all this morning's investigations, not even the rigid body beneath
+the sheet, nor the strange discovery of the jewels, had so
+impressed Ricardo. For there he had been confronted with facts,
+definite and complete; here was a suggestion of unknown horrors, a
+hint, not a fact, compelling the imagination to dark conjecture.
+Hanaud shivered. That he had no idea why Hanaud shivered made the
+action still more significant, still more alarming. And it was not
+Ricardo alone who was moved by it. A voice of despair rang through
+the room. The voice was Harry Wethermill's, and his face was ashy
+white.
+
+"Monsieur!" he cried, "I do not know what makes you shudder; but I
+am remembering a few words you used this morning."
+
+Hanaud turned upon his heel. His face was drawn and grey and his
+eyes blazed.
+
+"My friend, I also am remembering those words," he said. Thus the
+two men stood confronting one another, eye to eye, with awe and
+fear in both their faces.
+
+Ricardo was wondering to what words they both referred, when the
+sound of wheels broke in upon the silence. The effect upon Hanaud
+was magical. He thrust his hands in his pockets.
+
+"Helene Vauquier's cab," he said lightly. He drew out his
+cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Let us see that poor woman safely off. It is a closed cab I
+hope."
+
+It was a closed landau. It drove past the open door of the salon
+to the front door of the house. In Hanaud's wake they all went out
+into the hall. The nurse came down alone carrying Helene
+Vauquier's bag. She placed it in the cab and waited in the
+doorway.
+
+"Perhaps Helene Vauquier has fainted," she said anxiously: "she
+does not come." And she moved towards the stairs.
+
+Hanaud took a singularly swift step forward and stopped her.
+
+"Why should you think that?" he asked, with a queer smile upon his
+face, and as he spoke a door closed gently upstairs. "See," he
+continued, "you are wrong: she is coming."
+
+Ricardo was puzzled. It had seemed to him that the door which had
+closed so gently was nearer than Helene Vauquier's door. It seemed
+to him that the door was upon the first, not the second landing.
+But Hanaud had noticed nothing strange; so it could not be. He
+greeted Helene Vauquier with a smile as she came down the stairs.
+
+"You are better, mademoiselle," he said politely.
+
+"One can see that. There is more colour in your cheeks. A day or
+two, and you will be yourself again."
+
+He held the door open while she got into the cab. The nurse took
+her seat beside her; Durette mounted on the box. The cab turned
+and went down the drive.
+
+"Goodbye, mademoiselle," cried Hanaud, and he watched until the
+high shrubs hid the cab from his eyes. Then he behaved in an
+extraordinary way. He turned and sprang like lightning up the
+stairs. His agility amazed Ricardo. The others followed upon his
+heels. He flung himself at Celia's door and opened it He burst
+into the room, stood for a second, then ran to the window. He hid
+behind the curtain, looking out. With his hand he waved to his
+companions to keep back. The sound of wheels creaking and rasping
+rose to their ears. The cab had just come out into the road.
+Durette upon the box turned and looked towards the house. Just for
+a moment Hanaud leaned from the window, as Besnard, the
+Commissaire, had done, and, like Besnard again, he waved his hand.
+Then he came back into the room and saw, standing in front of him,
+with his mouth open and his eyes starting out of his head,
+Perrichet--the intelligent Perrichet.
+
+"Monsieur," cried Perrichet, "something has been taken from this
+room."
+
+Hanaud looked round the room and shook his head.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"But yes, monsieur," Perrichet insisted. "Oh, but yes. See! Upon
+this dressing-table there was a small pot of cold cream. It stood
+here, where my finger is, when we were in this room an hour ago.
+Now it is gone."
+
+Hanaud burst into a laugh.
+
+"My friend Perrichet," he said ironically, "I will tell you the
+newspaper did not do you justice. You are more intelligent. The
+truth, my excellent friend, lies at the bottom of a well; but you
+would find it at the bottom of a pot of cold cream. Now let us go.
+For in this house, gentlemen, we have nothing more to do."
+
+He passed out of the room. Perrichet stood aside, his face
+crimson, his attitude one of shame. He had been rebuked by the
+great M. Hanaud, and justly rebuked. He knew it now. He had wished
+to display his intelligence--yes, at all costs he must show how
+intelligent he was. And he had shown himself a fool. He should
+have kept silence about that pot of cream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP
+
+
+Hanaud walked away from the Villa Rose in the company of
+Wethermill and Ricardo.
+
+"We will go and lunch," he said.
+
+"Yes; come to my hotel," said Harry Wethermill. But Hanaud shook
+his head.
+
+"No; come with me to the Villa des Fleurs," he replied. "We may
+learn something there; and in a case like this every minute is of
+importance. We have to be quick."
+
+"I may come too?" cried Mr. Ricardo eagerly.
+
+"By all means," replied Hanaud, with a smile of extreme courtesy.
+"Nothing could be more delicious than monsieur's suggestions"; and
+with that remark he walked on silently.
+
+Mr. Ricardo was in a little doubt as to the exact significance of
+the words. But he was too excited to dwell long upon them.
+Distressed though he sought to be at his friend's grief, he could
+not but assume an air of importance. All the artist in him rose
+joyfully to the occasion. He looked upon himself from the outside.
+He fancied without the slightest justification that people were
+pointing him out. "That man has been present at the investigation
+at the Villa Rose," he seemed to hear people say. "What strange
+things he could tell us if he would!"
+
+And suddenly, Mr. Ricardo began to reflect. What, after all, could
+he have told them?
+
+And that question he turned over in his mind while he ate his
+luncheon. Hanaud wrote a letter between the courses. They were
+sitting at a corner table, and Hanaud was in the corner with his
+back to the wall. He moved his plate, too, over the letter as he
+wrote it. It would have been impossible for either of his guests
+to see what he had written, even if they had wished. Ricardo,
+indeed, did wish. He rather resented the secrecy with which the
+detective, under a show of openness, shrouded his thoughts and
+acts. Hanaud sent the waiter out to fetch an officer in plain
+clothes, who was in attendance at the door, and he handed the
+letter to this man. Then he turned with an apology to his guests.
+
+"It is necessary that we should find out," he explained, "as soon
+as possible, the whole record of Mlle. Celie."
+
+He lighted a cigar, and over the coffee he put a question to
+Ricardo.
+
+"Now tell me what you make of the case. What M. Wethermill thinks-
+-that is clear, is it not? Helene Vauquier is the guilty one. But
+you, M. Ricardo? What is your opinion?"
+
+Ricardo took from his pocket-book a sheet of paper and from his
+pocket a pencil. He was intensely flattered by the request of
+Hanaud, and he proposed to do himself justice. "I will make a note
+here of what I think the salient features of the mystery"; and he
+proceeded to tabulate the points in the following way:
+
+(1) Celia Harland made her entrance into Mme. Dauvray's household
+under very doubtful circumstances.
+
+(2) By methods still more doubtful she accquired an extraordinary
+ascendency over Mme. Dauvray's mind.
+
+(3) If proof were needed how complete that ascendency was, a
+glance at Celia Harland's wardrobe would suffice; for she wore the
+most expensive clothes.
+
+(4) It was Celia Harland who arranged that Servettaz, the
+chauffeur, should be absent at Chambery on the Tuesday night--the
+night of the murder.
+
+(5) It was Celia Harland who bought the cord with which Mme.
+Dauvray was strangled and Helene Vauquier bound.
+
+(6) The footsteps outside the salon show that Celia Harland ran
+from the salon to the motor-car.
+
+(7) Celia Harland pretended that there should be a seance on the
+Tuesday, but she dressed as though she had in view an appointment
+with a lover, instead of a spiritualistic stance.
+
+(8) Celia Harland has disappeared.
+
+These eight points are strongly suggestive of Celia Harland's
+complicity in the murder. But I have no clue which will enable me
+to answer the following questions:
+
+(a) Who was the man who took part in the crime? (b) Who was the
+woman who came to the villa on the evening of the murder with Mme.
+Dauvray and Celia Harland?
+
+(c) What actually happened in the salon? How was the murder
+committed?
+
+(d) Is Helene Vauquier's story true?
+
+(e) What did the torn-up scrap of writing mean? (Probably spirit
+writing in Celia Harland's hand.)
+
+(f) Why has one cushion on the settee a small, fresh, brown stain,
+which is probably blood? Why is the other cushion torn?
+
+Mr. Ricardo had a momentary thought of putting down yet another
+question. He was inclined to ask whether or no a pot of cold cream
+had disappeared from Celia Harland's bedroom; but he remembered
+that Hanaud had set no store upon that incident, and he refrained.
+Moreover, he had come to the end of his sheet of paper. He handed
+it across the table to Hanaud and leaned back in his chair,
+watching the detective with all the eagerness of a young author
+submitting his first effort to a critic.
+
+Hanaud read it through slowly. At the end he nodded his head in
+approval.
+
+"Now we will see what M. Wethermill has to say," he said, and he
+stretched out the paper towards Harry Wethermill, who throughout
+the luncheon had not said a word.
+
+"No, no," cried Ricardo.
+
+But Harry Wethermill already held the written sheet in his hand.
+He smiled rather wistfully at his friend.
+
+"It is best that I should know just what you both think," he said,
+and in his turn he began to read the paper through. He read the
+first eight points, and then beat with his fist upon the table.
+
+"No no," he cried; "it is not possible! I don't blame you,
+Ricardo. These are facts, and, as I said, I can face facts. But
+there will be an explanation--if only we can discover it."
+
+He buried his face for a moment in his hands. Then he took up the
+paper again.
+
+"As for the rest, Helene Vauquier lied," he cried violently, and
+he tossed the paper to Hanaud. "What do you make of it?"
+
+Hanaud smiled and shook his head.
+
+"Did you ever go for a voyage on a ship?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; why?"
+
+"Because every day at noon three officers take an observation to
+determine the ship's position--the captain, the first officer, and
+the second officer. Each writes his observation down, and the
+captain takes the three observations and compares them. If the
+first or second officer is out in his reckoning, the captain tells
+him so, but he does not show his own. For at times, no doubt, he
+is wrong too. So, gentlemen, I critcise your observations, but I
+do not show you mine."
+
+He took up Ricardo's paper and read it through again.
+
+"Yes," he said pleasantly. "But the two questions which are most
+important, which alone can lead us to the truth--how do they come
+to be omitted from your list, Mr. Ricardo?"
+
+Hanaud put the question with his most serious air. But Ricardo was
+none the less sensible of the raillery behind the solemn manner.
+He flushed and made no answer.
+
+"Still," continued Hanaud, "here are undoubtedly some questions.
+Let us consider them! Who was the man who took a part in the
+crime? Ah, if we only knew that, what a lot of trouble we should
+save ourselves! Who was the woman? What a good thing it would be
+to know that too! How clearly, after all, Mr. Ricardo puts his
+finger on the important points! What did actually happen in the
+salon?" And as he quoted that question the raillery died out of
+his voice. He leaned his elbows on the table and bent forward.
+
+"What did actually happen in that little pretty room, just twelve
+hours ago?" he repeated. "When no sunlight blazed upon the lawn,
+and all the birds were still, and all the windows shuttered and
+the world dark, what happened? What dreadful things happened? We
+have not much to go upon. Let us formulate what we know. We start
+with this. The murder was not the work of a moment. It was planned
+with great care and cunning, and carried out to the letter of the
+plan. There must be no noise, no violence. On each side of the
+Villa Rose there are other villas; a few yards away the road runs
+past. A scream, a cry, the noise of a struggle--these sounds, or
+any one of them, might be fatal to success. Thus the crime was
+planned; and there WAS no scream, there WAS no struggle. Not a
+chair was broken, and only a chair upset. Yes, there were brains
+behind that murder. We know that. But what do we know of the plan?
+How far can we build it up? Let us see. First, there was an
+accomplice in the house--perhaps two."
+
+"No!" cried Harry Wethermill.
+
+Hanaud took no notice of the interruption.
+
+"Secondly the woman came to the house with Mme. Dauvray and Mlle.
+Celie between nine and half-past nine. Thirdly, the man came
+afterwards, but before eleven, set open the gate, and was admitted
+into the salon, unperceived by Mme. Dauvray. That also we can
+safely assume. But what happened in the salon? Ah! There is the
+question." Then he shrugged his shoulders and said with the note
+of raillery once more in his voice:
+
+"But why should we trouble our heads to puzzle out this mystery,
+since M. Ricardo knows?"
+
+"I?" cried Ricardo in amazement.
+
+"To be sure," replied Hanaud calmly. "For I look at another of
+your questions. 'WHAT DID THE TORN-UP SCRAP OF WRITING MEAN?' and
+you add: 'Probably spirit-writing.' Then there was a seance held
+last night in the little salon! Is that so?"
+
+Harry Wethermill started. Mr. Ricardo was at a loss.
+
+"I had not followed my suggestion to its conclusion," he admitted
+humbly.
+
+"No," said Hanaud. "But I ask myself in sober earnest, 'Was there
+a seance held in the salon last night?' Did the tambourine rattle
+in the darkness on the wall?"
+
+"But if Helene Vauquier's story is all untrue?" cried Wethermill,
+again in exasperation.
+
+"Patience, my friend. Her story was not all untrue. I say there
+were brains behind this crime; yes, but brains, even the
+cleverest, would not have invented this queer, strange story of
+the seances and of Mme. de Montespan. That is truth. But yet, if
+there were a seance held, if the scrap of paper were spirit-
+writing in answer to some awkward question, why--and here I come
+to my first question, which M. Ricardo has omitted--why did Mlle.
+Celie dress herself with so much elegance last night? What
+Vauquier said is true. Her dress was not suited to a seance. A
+light-coloured, rustling frock, which would be visible in a dim
+light, or even in the dark, which would certainly be heard at
+every movement she made, however lightly she stepped, and a big
+hat--no no! I tell you, gentlemen, we shall not get to the bottom
+of this mystery until we know why Mlle. Celie dressed herself as
+she did last night." "Yes," Ricardo admitted. "I overlooked that
+point." "Did she--" Hanaud broke off and bowed to Wethermill with
+a grace and a respect which condoned his words. "You must bear
+with me, my young friend, while I consider all these points. Did
+she expect to join that night a lover--a man with the brains to
+devise this crime? But if so--and here I come to the second
+question omitted from M. Ricardo's list--why, on the patch of
+grass outside the door of the salon, were the footsteps of the man
+and woman so carefully erased, and the footsteps of Mlle. Celie--
+those little footsteps so easily identified--left for all the
+world to see and recognise?"
+
+Ricardo felt like a child in the presence of his schoolmaster. He
+was convicted of presumption. He had set down his questions with
+the belief that they covered the ground. And here were two of the
+utmost importance, not forgotten, but never even thought of.
+
+"Did she go, before the murder, to join a lover? Or after it? At
+some time, you will remember, according to Vauquier's story, she
+must have run upstairs to fetch her coat. Was the murder committed
+during the interval when she was upstairs? Was the salon dark when
+she came down again? Did she run through it quickly, eagerly,
+noticing nothing amiss? And, indeed, how should she notice
+anything if the salon were dark, and Mme. Dauvray's body lay under
+the windows at the side?"
+
+Ricardo leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"That must be the truth," he cried; and Wethermill's voice broke
+hastily in:
+
+"It is not the truth and I will tell you why. Celia Harland was to
+have married me this week."
+
+There was so much pain and misery in his voice that Ricardo was
+moved as he had seldom been. Wethermill buried his face in his
+hands. Hanaud shook his head and gazed across the table at Ricardo
+with an expression which the latter was at no loss to understand.
+Lovers were impracticable people. But he--Hanaud--he knew the
+world. Women had fooled men before today.
+
+Wethermill snatched his hands away from before his face.
+
+"We talk theories," he cried desperately, "of what may have
+happened at the villa. But we are not by one inch nearer to the
+man and woman who committed the crime. It is for them we have to
+search."
+
+"Yes; but except by asking ourselves questions, how shall we find
+them, M. Wethermill?" said Hanaud. "Take the man! We know nothing
+of him. He has left no trace. Look at this town of Aix, where
+people come and go like a crowd about the baccarat-table! He may
+be at Marseilles today. He may be in this very room where we are
+taking our luncheon. How shall we find him?"
+
+Wethermill nodded his head in a despairing assent.
+
+"I know. But it is so hard to sit still and do nothing," he cried.
+
+"Yes, but we are not sitting still," said Hanaud; and Wethermill
+looked up with a sudden interest. "All the time that we have been
+lunching here the intelligent Perrichet has been making inquiries.
+Mme. Dauvray and Mlle. Celie left the Villa Rose at five, and
+returned on foot soon after nine with the strange woman. And there
+I see Perrichet himself waiting to be summoned."
+
+Hanaud beckoned towards the sergent-de-ville.
+
+"Perrichet will make an excellent detective," he said; "for he
+looks more bovine and foolish in plain clothes than he does in
+uniform."
+
+Perrichet advanced in his mufti to the table.
+
+"Speak, my friend," said Hanaud.
+
+"I went to the shop of M. Corval. Mlle. Celie was quite alone when
+she bought the cord. But a few minutes later, in the Rue du
+Casino, she and Mme. Dauvray were seen together, walking slowly in
+the direction of the villa. No other woman was with them."
+
+"That is a pity," said Hanaud quietly, and with a gesture he
+dismissed Perrichet.
+
+"You see, we shall find out nothing--nothing," said Wethermill,
+with a groan.
+
+"We must not yet lose heart, for we know a little more about the
+woman than we do about the man," said Hanaud consolingly.
+
+"True," exclaimed Ricardo. "We have Helene Vauquier's description
+of her. We must advertise it."
+
+Hanaud smiled.
+
+"But that is a fine suggestion," he cried. "We must think over
+that," and he clapped his hand to his forehead with a gesture of
+self-reproach. "Why did not such a fine idea occur to me, fool
+that I am! However, we will call the head waiter."
+
+The head waiter was sent for and appeared before them.
+
+"You knew Mme. Dauvray?" Hanaud asked.
+
+"Yes, monsieur--oh, the poor woman! And he flung up his hands.
+
+"And you knew her young companion?"
+
+"Oh yes, monsieur. They generally had their meals here. See, at
+that little table over there! I kept it for them. But monsieur
+knows well"--and the waiter looked towards Harry Wethermill--"for
+monsieur was often with them."
+
+"Yes," said Hanaud. "Did Mme. Dauvray dine at that little table
+last night?"
+
+"No, monsieur. She was not here last night."
+
+"Nor Mlle. Celie?"
+
+"No, monsieur! I do not think they were in the Villa des Fleurs at
+all."
+
+"We know they were not," exclaimed Ricardo. "Wethermill and I were
+in the rooms and we did not see them."
+
+"But perhaps you left early," objected Hanaud.
+
+"No," said Ricardo. "It was just ten o'clock when we reached the
+Majestic."
+
+"You reached your hotel at ten," Hanaud repeated. "Did you walk
+straight from here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you left here about a quarter to ten. And we know that Mme.
+Dauvray was back at the villa soon after nine. Yes--they could not
+have been here last night," Hanaud agreed, and sat for a moment
+silent. Then he turned to the head waiter.
+
+"Have you noticed any woman with Mme. Dauvray and her companion
+lately?"
+
+"No, monsieur. I do not think so."
+
+"Think! A woman, for instance, with red hair."
+
+Harry Wethermill started forward. Mr. Ricardo stared at Hanaud in
+amazement. The waiter reflected.
+
+"No, monsieur. I have seen no woman with red hair."
+
+"Thank you," said Hanaud, and the waiter moved away.
+
+"A woman with red hair!" cried Wethermill. "But Helene Vauquier
+described her. She was sallow; her eyes, her hair, were dark."
+
+Hanaud turned with a smile to Harry Wethermill.
+
+"Did Helene Vauquier, then, speak the truth?" he asked. "No; the
+woman who was in the salon last night, who returned home with Mme.
+Dauvray and Mlle. Celie, was not a woman with black hair and
+bright black eyes. Look!" And, fetching his pocket-book from his
+pocket, he unfolded a sheet of paper and showed them, lying upon
+its white surface a long red hair.
+
+"I picked that up on the table-the round satinwood table in the
+salon. It was easy not to see it, but I did see it. Now, that is
+not Mlle. Celie's hair, which is fair; nor Mme. Dauvray's, which
+is dyed brown; nor Helene Vauquier's, which is black; nor the
+charwoman's, which, as I have taken the trouble to find out, is
+grey. It is therefore from the head of our unknown woman. And I
+will tell you more. This woman with the red hair--she is in
+Geneva."
+
+A startled exclamation burst from Ricardo. Harry Wethermill sat
+slowly down. For the first time that day there had come some
+colour into his cheeks, a sparkle into his eye.
+
+"But that is wonderful!" he cried. "How did you find that out?"
+
+Hanaud leaned back in his chair and took a pull at his cigar. He
+was obviously pleased with Wethermill's admiration.
+
+"Yes, how did you find it out?" Ricardo repeated.
+
+Hanaud smiled.
+
+"As to that," he said, "remember I am the captain of the ship, and
+I do not show you my observation." Ricardo was disappointed. Harry
+Wethermill, however, started to his feet.
+
+"We must search Geneva, then," he cried. "It is there that we
+should be, not here drinking our coffee at the Villa des Fleurs."
+
+Hanaud raised his hand.
+
+"The search is not being overlooked. But Geneva is a big city. It
+is not easy to search Geneva and find, when we know nothing about
+the woman for whom we are searching, except that her hair is red,
+and that probably a young girl last night was with her. It is
+rather here, I think--in Aix--that we must keep our eyes wide
+open."
+
+"Here!" cried Wethermill in exasperation. He stared at Hanaud as
+though he were mad.
+
+"Yes, here; at the post office--at the telephone exchange. Suppose
+that the man is in Aix, as he may well be; some time he will wish
+to send a letter, or a telegram, or a message over the telephone.
+That, I tell you, is our chance. But here is news for us."
+
+Hanaud pointed to a messenger who was walking towards them. The
+man handed Hanaud an envelope.
+
+"From M. le Commissaire," he said; and he saluted and retired.
+"From M. le Commissaire?" cried Ricardo excitedly.
+
+But before Hanaud could open the envelope Harry Wethermill laid a
+hand upon his sleeve.
+
+"Before we pass to something new, M. Hanaud," he said, "I should
+be very glad if you would tell me what made you shiver in the
+salon this morning. It has distressed me ever since. What was it
+that those two cushions had to tell you?"
+
+There was a note of anguish in his voice difficult to resist. But
+Hanaud resisted it. He shook his head.
+
+"Again," he said gravely, "I am to remind you that I am captain of
+the ship and do not show my observation."
+
+He tore open the envelope and sprang up from his seat.
+
+"Mme. Dauvray's motor-car has been found," he cried. "Let us go!"
+
+Hanaud called for the bill and paid it. The three men left the
+Villa des Fleurs together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MME. DAUVRAY'S MOTOR-CAR
+
+
+They got into a cab outside the door. Perrichet mounted the box,
+and the cab was driven along the upward-winding road past the
+Hotel Bernascon. A hundred yards beyond the hotel the cab stopped
+opposite to a villa. A hedge separated the garden of the villa
+from the road, and above the hedge rose a board with the words "To
+Let" upon it. At the gate a gendarme was standing, and just within
+the gate Ricardo saw Louis Besnard, the Commissaire, and
+Servettaz, Mme. Dauvray's chauffeur.
+
+"It is here," said Besnard, as the party descended from the cab,
+"in the coach-house of this empty villa."
+
+"Here?" cried Ricardo in amazement.
+
+The discovery upset all his theories. He had expected to hear that
+it had been found fifty leagues away; but here, within a couple of
+miles of the Villa Rose itself--the idea seemed absurd! Why take
+it away at all--unless it was taken away as a blind? That
+supposition found its way into Ricardo's mind, and gathered
+strength as he thought upon it; for Hanaud had seemed to lean to
+the belief that one of the murderers might be still in Aix.
+Indeed, a glance at him showed that he was not discomposed by
+their discovery.
+
+"When was it found?" Hanaud asked.
+
+"This morning. A gardener comes to the villa on two days a week to
+keep the grounds in order. Fortunately Wednesday is one of his
+days. Fortunately, too, there was rain yesterday evening. He
+noticed the tracks of the wheels which you can see on the gravel,
+and since the villa is empty he was surprised. He found the coach-
+house door forced and the motor-car inside it. When he went to his
+luncheon he brought the news of his discovery to the depot."
+
+The party followed the Commissaire along the drive to the coach-
+house.
+
+"We will have the car brought out," said Hanaud to Servettaz.
+
+It was a big and powerful machine with a limousine body,
+luxuriously fitted and cushioned in the shade of light grey. The
+outside panels of the car were painted a dark grey. The car had
+hardly been brought out into the sunlight before a cry of
+stupefaction burst from the lips of Perrichet.
+
+"Oh!" he cried, in utter abasement. "I shall never forgive myself-
+-never, never!"
+
+"Why?" Hanaud asked, turning sharply as he spoke.
+
+Perrichet was standing with his round eyes staring and his mouth
+agape.
+
+"Because, monsieur, I saw that car--at four o'clock this morning--
+at the corner of the road--not fifty yards from the Villa Rose."
+
+"What!" cried Ricardo.
+
+"You saw it!" exclaimed Wethermill.
+
+Upon their faces was reflected now the stupefaction of Perrichet.
+
+"But you must have made a mistake," said the Commissaire.
+
+"No, no, monsieur," Perrichet insisted. "It was that car. It was
+that number. It was just after daylight. I was standing outside
+the gate of the villa on duty where M. le Commissaire had placed
+me. The car appeared at the corner and slackened speed. It seemed
+to me that it was going to turn into the road and come down past
+me. But instead the driver, as if he were now sure of his way, put
+the car at its top speed and went on into Aix."
+
+"Was any one inside the car?" asked Hanaud.
+
+"No, monsieur; it was empty."
+
+"But you saw the driver!" exclaimed Wethermill.
+
+"Yes; what was he like?" cried the Commissaire.
+
+Perrichet shook his head mournfully.
+
+"He wore a talc mask over the upper part of his face, and had a
+little black moustache, and was dressed in a heavy great-coat of
+blue with a white collar."
+
+"That is my coat, monsieur," said Servettaz, and as he spoke he
+lifted it up from the chauffeur's seat. "It is Mme. Dauvray's
+livery."
+
+Harry Wethermill groaned aloud.
+
+"We have lost him. He was within our grasp--he, the murderer!--and
+he was allowed to go!"
+
+Perrichet's grief was pitiable.
+
+"Monsieur," he pleaded, "a car slackens its speed and goes on
+again--it is not so unusual a thing. I did not know the number of
+Mme. Dauvray's car. I did not even know that it had disappeared";
+and suddenly tears of mortification filled his eyes. "But why do I
+make these excuses?" he cried. "It is better, M. Hanaud, that I go
+back to my uniform and stand at the street corner. I am as foolish
+as I look."
+
+"Nonsense, my friend," said Hanaud, clapping the disconsolate man
+upon the shoulder. "You remembered the car and its number. That is
+something--and perhaps a great deal," he added gravely. "As for
+the talc mask and the black moustache, that is not much to help
+us, it is true." He looked at Ricardo's crestfallen face and
+smiled. "We might arrest our good friend M. Ricardo upon that
+evidence, but no one else that I know."
+
+Hanaud laughed immoderately at his joke. He alone seemed to feel
+no disappointment at Perrichet's oversight. Ricardo was a little
+touchy on the subject of his personal appearance, and bridled
+visibly. Hanaud turned towards Servettaz.
+
+"Now," he said, "you know how much petrol was taken from the
+garage?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Can you tell me, by the amount which has been used, how far that
+car was driven last night?" Hanaud asked.
+
+Servettaz examined the tank.
+
+"A long way, monsieur. From a hundred and thirty to a hundred and
+fifty kilometers, I should say."
+
+"Yes, just about that distance, I should say," cried Hanaud.
+
+His eyes brightened, and a smile, a rather fierce smile, came to
+his lips. He opened the door, and examined with a minute scrutiny
+the floor of the carriage, and as he looked, the smile faded from
+his face. Perplexity returned to it. He took the cushions, looked
+them over and shook them out.
+
+"I see no sign--" he began, and then he uttered a little shrill
+cry of satisfaction. From the crack of the door by the hinge he
+picked off a tiny piece of pale green stuff, which he spread out
+upon the back of his hand.
+
+"Tell me, what is this?" he said to Ricardo.
+
+"It is a green fabric," said Ricardo very wisely.
+
+"It is green chiffon," said Hanaud. "And the frock in which Mlle.
+Celie went away was of green chiffon over satin. Yes, Mlle. Celie
+travelled in this car."
+
+He hurried to the driver's seat. Upon the floor there was some
+dark mould. Hanaud cleaned it off with his knife and held some of
+it in the palm of his hand. He turned to Servettaz.
+
+"You drove the car on Tuesday morning before you went to
+Chambery?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Where did you take up Mme. Dauvray and Mlle. Celie?"
+
+"At the front door of the Villa Rose."
+
+"Did you get down from the seat at all?"
+
+"No, monsieur; not after I left the garage."
+
+Hanaud returned to his companions.
+
+"See!" And he opened his hand. "This is black soil--moist from
+last night's rain--soil like the soil in front of Mme. Dauvray's
+salon. Look, here is even a blade or two of the grass"; and he
+turned the mould over in the palm of his hand. Then he took an
+empty envelope from his pocket and poured the soil into it and
+gummed the flap down. He stood and frowned at the motor-car.
+
+"Listen," he said, "how I am puzzled! There was a man last night
+at the Villa Rose. There were a man's blurred footmarks in the
+mould before the glass door. That man drove madame's car for a
+hundred and fifty kilometers, and he leaves the mould which clung
+to his boots upon the floor of his seat. Mlle. Celie and another
+woman drove away inside the car. Mlle. Celie leaves a fragment of
+the chiffon tunic of her frock which caught in the hinge. But
+Mlle. Celie made much clearer impressions in the mould than the
+man. Yet on the floor of the carriage there is no trace of her
+shoes. Again I say there is something here which I do not
+understand." And he spread out his hands with an impulsive gesture
+of despair
+
+"It looks as if they had been careful and he careless," said Mr.
+Ricardo, with the air of a man solving a very difficult problem.
+
+"What a mind!" cried Hanaud, now clasping his hands together in
+admiration. "How quick and how profound!"
+
+There was at times something elphantinely elfish in M. Hanaud's
+demeanour, which left Mr. Ricardo at a loss. But he had come to
+notice that these undignified manifestations usually took place
+when Hanaud had reached a definite opinion upon some point which
+had perplexed him.
+
+"Yet there is perhaps, another explanation," Hanaud continued.
+"For observe, M. Ricardo. We have other evidence to show that the
+careless one was Mlle. Celie. It was she who left her footsteps so
+plainly visible upon the grass, not the man. However, we will go
+back to M. Wethermill's room at the Hotel Majestic and talk this
+matter over. We know something now. Yes, we know--what do we know,
+monsieur?" he asked, suddenly turning with a smile to Ricardo,
+and, as Ricardo paused: "Think it over while we walk down to M.
+Wethermill's apartment in the Hotel Majestic."
+
+"We know that the murderer has escaped," replied Ricardo hotly.
+
+"The murderer is not now the most important object of our search.
+He is very likely at Marseilles by now. We shall lay our hands on
+him, never fear," replied Hanaud, with a superb gesture of
+disdain. "But it was thoughtful of you to remind me of him. I
+might so easily have clean forgotten him, and then indeed my
+reputation would have suffered an eclipse." He made a low,
+ironical bow to Ricardo and walked quickly down the road.
+
+"For a cumbersome man he is extraordinarily active," said Mr.
+Ricardo to Harry Wethermill, trying to laugh, without much
+success. "A heavy, clever, middle-aged man, liable to become a
+little gutter-boy at a moment's notice."
+
+Thus he described the great detective, and the description is
+quoted. For it was Ricardo's best effort in the whole of this
+business.
+
+The three men went straight to Harry Wethermill's apartment, which
+consisted of a sitting-room and a bedroom on the first floor. A
+balcony ran along outside. Hanaud stepped out on to it, looked
+about him, and returned.
+
+"It is as well to know that we cannot be overheard," he said.
+
+Harry Wethermill meanwhile had thrown himself into a chair. The
+mask he had worn had slipped from its fastenings for a moment.
+There was a look of infinite suffering upon his face. It was the
+face of a man tortured by misery to the snapping-point.
+
+Hanaud, on the other hand, was particularly alert. The discovery
+of the motor-car had raised his spirits. He sat at the table.
+
+"I will tell you what we have learnt," he said, "and it is of
+importance. The three of them--the man, the woman with the red
+hair, and Mlle. Celie--all drove yesterday night to Geneva. That
+is only one thing we have learnt."
+
+"Then you still cling to Geneva?" said Ricardo.
+
+"More than ever," said Hanaud.
+
+He turned in his chair towards Wethermill.
+
+"Ah, my poor friend!" he said, when he saw the young man's
+distress.
+
+Harry Wethermill sprang up with a gesture as though to sweep the
+need of sympathy away.
+
+"What can I do for you?" he asked.
+
+"You have a road map, perhaps?" said Hanaud.
+
+"Yes," said Wethermill, "mine is here. There it is"; and crossing
+the room he brought it from a sidetable and placed it in front of
+Hanaud. Hanaud took a pencil from his pocket.
+
+"One hundred and fifty kilometers was about the distance which the
+car had travelled. Measure the distances here, and you will see
+that Geneva is the likely place. It is a good city to hide in.
+Moreover the car appears at the corner at daylight. How does it
+appear, there? What road is it which comes out at that corner? The
+road from Geneva. I am not sorry that it is Geneva, for the Chef
+de la Surete is a friend of mine."
+
+"And what else do we know?" asked Ricardo.
+
+"This," said Hanaud. He paused impressively. "Bring up your chair
+to the table, M. Wethermill, and consider whether I am right or
+wrong"; and he waited until Harry Wethermill had obeyed. Then he
+laughed in a friendly way at himself.
+
+"I cannot help it," he said; "I have an eye for dramatic effects.
+I must prepare for them when I know they are coming. And one, I
+tell you, is coming now."
+
+He shook his finger at his companions. Ricardo shifted and
+shuffled in his chair. Harry Wethermill kept his eyes fixed on
+Hanaud's face, but he was quiet, as he had been throughout the
+long inquiry.
+
+Hanaud lit a cigarette and took his time.
+
+"What I think is this. The man who drove the car into Geneva drove
+it back, because--he meant to leave it again in the garage of the
+Villa Rose."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Ricardo, flinging himself back. The theory
+so calmly enunciated took his breath away.
+
+"Would he have dared?" asked Harry Wethermill.
+
+Hanaud leaned across and tapped his fingers on the table to
+emphasise his answer.
+
+"All through this crime there are two things visible--brains and
+daring; clever brains and extraordinary daring. Would he have
+dared? He dared to be at the corner close to the Villa Rose at
+daylight. Why else should he have returned except to put back the
+car? Consider! The petrol is taken from tins which Servettaz might
+never have touched for a fortnight, and by that time he might, as
+he said, have forgotten whether he had not used them himself. I
+had this possibility in my mind when I put the questions to
+Servettaz about the petrol which the Commissaire thought so
+stupid. The utmost care is taken that there shall be no mould left
+on the floor of the carriage. The scrap of chiffon was torn off,
+no doubt, when the women finally left the car, and therefore not
+noticed, or that, too, would have been removed. That the exterior
+of the car was dirty betrayed nothing, for Servettaz had left it
+uncleaned."
+
+Hanaud leaned back and, step by step, related the journey of the
+car.
+
+"The man leaves the gate open; he drives into Geneva the two
+women, who are careful that their shoes shall leave no marks upon
+the floor. At Geneva they get out. The man returns. If he can only
+leave the car in the garage he covers all traces of the course he
+and his friends have taken. No one would suspect that the car had
+ever left the garage. At the corner of the road, just as he is
+turning down to the villa, he sees a sergent-de-ville at the gate.
+He knows that the murder is discovered. He puts on full speed and
+goes straight out of the town. What is he to do? He is driving a
+car for which the police in an hour or two, if not now already,
+will be surely watching. He is driving it in broad daylight. He
+must get rid of it, and at once, before people are about to see
+it, and to see him in it. Imagine his feelings! It is almost
+enough to make one pity him. Here he is in a car which convicts
+him as a murderer, and he has nowhere to leave it. He drives
+through Aix. Then on the outskirts of the town he finds an empty
+villa. He drives in at the gate, forces the door of the coach-
+house, and leaves his car there. Now, observe! It is no longer any
+use for him to pretend that he and his friends did not disappear
+in that car. The murder is already discovered, and with the murder
+the disappearance of the car. So he no longer troubles his head
+about it. He does not remove the traces of mould from the place
+where his feet rested, which otherwise, no doubt, he would have
+done. It no longer matters. He has to run to earth now before he
+is seen. That is all his business. And so the state of the car is
+explained. It was a bold step to bring that car back--yes, a bold
+and desperate step. But a clever one. For, if it had succeeded, we
+should have known nothing of their movements--oh, but nothing--
+nothing. Ah! I tell you this is no ordinary blundering affair.
+They are clever people who devised this crime--clever, and of an
+audacity which is surprising."
+
+Then Hanaud lit another cigarette.
+
+Mr. Ricardo, on the other hand, could hardly continue to smoke for
+excitement.
+
+"I cannot understand your calmness," he exclaimed.
+
+"No?" said Hanaud. "Yet it is so obvious. You are the amateur, I
+am the professional--that is all."
+
+He looked at his watch and rose to his feet.
+
+"I must go" he said and as he turned towards the door a cry sprang
+from Mr. Ricardo's lips "It is true. I am the amateur. Yet I have
+knowledge, Monsieur Hanaud which the professional would do well to
+obtain."
+
+Hanaud turned a guarded face towards Ricardo. There was no longer
+any raillery in his manner. He spoke slowly, coldly.
+
+"Let me have it then!"
+
+"I have driven in my motor-car from Geneva to Aix," Ricardo cried
+excitedly. "A bridge crosses a ravine high up amongst the
+mountains. At the bridge there is a Custom House. There--at the
+Pont de la Caille--your car is stopped. It is searched. You must
+sign your name in a book. And there is no way round. You would
+find sure and certain proof whether or no Madame Dauvray's car
+travelled last night to Geneva. Not so many travellers pass along
+that road at night. You would find certain proof too of how many
+people were in the car. For they search carefully at the Pont de
+la Caille."
+
+A dark flush overspread Hanaud's face. Ricardo was in the seventh
+Heaven. He had at last contributed something to the history of
+this crime. He had repaired an omission. He had supplied knowledge
+to the omniscient. Wethermill looked up drearily like one who has
+lost heart.
+
+"Yes, you must not neglect that clue," he said.
+
+Hanaud replied testily:
+
+"It is not a clue. M. Ricardo tells that he travelled from Geneva
+into France and that his car was searched. Well, we know already
+that the officers are particular at the Custom Houses of France.
+But travelling from France into Switzerland is a very different
+affair. In Switzerland, hardly a glance, hardly a word." That was
+true. M. Ricardo crestfallen recognized the truth. But his spirits
+rose again at once. "But the car came back from Geneva into
+France!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, but when the car came back, the man was alone in it," Hanaud
+answered. "I have more important things to attend to. For instance
+I must know whether by any chance they have caught our man at
+Marseilles." He laid his hand on Wethermill's shoulder. "And you,
+my friend, I should counsel you to get some sleep. We may need all
+our strength tomorrow. I hope so." He was speaking very bravely.
+"Yes, I hope so."
+
+Wethermill nodded.
+
+"I shall try," he said.
+
+"That's better," said Hanaud cheerfully. "You will both stay here
+this evening; for if I have news, I can then ring you up."
+
+Both men agreed, and Hanaud went away. He left Mr. Ricardo
+profoundly disturbed. "That man will take advice from no one," he
+declared. "His vanity is colossal. It is true they are not
+particular at the Swiss Frontier. Still the car would have to stop
+there. At the Custom House they would know something. Hanaud ought
+to make inquiries." But neither Ricardo nor Harry Wethermill heard
+a word more from Hanaud that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+NEWS FROM GENEVA
+
+
+The next morning, however, before Mr. Ricardo was out of his bed,
+M. Hanaud was announced. He came stepping gaily into the room,
+more elephantinely elfish than ever.
+
+"Send your valet away," he said. And as soon as they were alone he
+produced a newspaper, which he flourished in Mr. Ricardo's face
+and then dropped into his hands.
+
+Ricardo saw staring him in the face a full description of Celia
+Harland, of her appearance and her dress, of everything except her
+name, coupled with an intimation that a reward of four thousand
+francs would be paid to any one who could give information leading
+to the discovery of her whereabouts to Mr. Ricardo, the Hotel
+Majestic, Aix-les-Bains!
+
+Mr. Ricardo sat up in his bed with a sense of outrage.
+
+"You have done this?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why have you done it?" Mr. Ricardo cried.
+
+Hanaud advanced to the bed mysteriously on the tips of his toes.
+
+"I will tell you," he said, in his most confidential tones. "Only
+it must remain a secret between you and me. I did it--because I
+have a sense of humour."
+
+"I hate publicity," said Mr. Ricardo acidly.
+
+"On the other hand you have four thousand francs," protested the
+detective. "Besides, what else should I do? If I name myself, the
+very people we are seeking to catch--who, you may be sure, will be
+the first to read this advertisement--will know that I, the great,
+the incomparable Hanaud, am after them; and I do not want them to
+know that. Besides"--and he spoke now in a gentle and most serious
+voice--"why should we make life more difficult for Mlle. Celie by
+telling the world that the police want her? It will be time enough
+for that when she appears before the Juge d'Instruction."
+
+Mr. Ricardo grumbled inarticulately, and read through the
+advertisement again.
+
+"Besides, your description is incomplete," he said. "There is no
+mention of the diamond earrings which Celia Harland was wearing
+when she went away."
+
+"Ah! so you noticed that!" exclaimed Hanaud. "A little more
+experience and I should be looking very closely to my laurels. But
+as for the earrings--I will tell you, Mlle. Celie was not wearing
+them when she went away from the Villa Rose."
+
+"But--but," stammered Ricardo, "the case upon the dressing-room
+table was empty."
+
+"Still, she was not wearing them, I know," said Hanaud decisively.
+
+"How do you know?" cried Ricardo, gazing at Hanaud with awe in his
+eyes. "How could you know?"
+
+"Because"--and Hanaud struck a majestic attitude, like a king in a
+play--"because I am the captain of the ship."
+
+Upon that Mr. Ricardo suffered a return of his ill-humour.
+
+"I do not like to be trifled with," he remarked, with as much
+dignity as his ruffled hair and the bed-clothes allowed him. He
+looked sternly at the newspaper, turning it over, and then he
+uttered a cry of surprise.
+
+"But this is yesterday's paper!" he said.
+
+"Yesterday evening's paper," Hanaud corrected.
+
+"Printed at Geneva!"
+
+"Printed, and published and sold at Geneva," said Hanaud.
+
+"When did you send the advertisement in, then?"
+
+"I wrote a letter while we were taking our luncheon," Hanaud
+explained. "The letter was to Besnard, asking him to telegraph the
+advertisement at once."
+
+"But you never said a word about it to us," Ricardo grumbled.
+
+"No. And was I not wise?" said Hanaud, with complacency. "For you
+would have forbidden me to use your name."
+
+"Oh, I don't go so far as that," said Ricardo reluctantly. His
+indignation was rapidly evaporating. For there was growing up in
+his mind a pleasant perception that the advertisement placed him
+in the limelight.
+
+He rose from his bed.
+
+"You will make yourself comfortable in the sitting-room while I
+have my bath."
+
+"I will, indeed," replied Hanaud cheerily. "I have already ordered
+my morning chocolate. I have hopes that you may have a telegram
+very soon. This paper was cried last night through the streets of
+Geneva."
+
+Ricardo dressed for once in a way with some approach to ordinary
+celerity, and joined Hanaud.
+
+"Has nothing come?" he asked.
+
+"No. This chocolate is very good; it is better than that which I
+get in my hotel."
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Ricardo, who was fairly twittering with
+excitement. "You sit there talking about chocolate while my cup
+shakes in my fingers."
+
+"Again I must remind you that you are the amateur, I the
+professional, my friend."
+
+As the morning drew on, however, Hanaud's professional quietude
+deserted him. He began to start at the sound of footsteps in the
+corridor, to glance every other moment from the window, to eat his
+cigarettes rather than to smoke them. At eleven o'clock Ricardo's
+valet brought a telegram into the room. Ricardo seized it.
+
+"Calmly, my friend," said Hanaud.
+
+With trembling fingers Ricardo tore it open. He jumped in his
+chair. Speechless, he handed the telegram to Hanaud. It had been
+sent from Geneva, and it ran thus:
+
+"Expect me soon after three.--MARTHE GOBIN."
+
+Hanaud nodded his head.
+
+"I told you I had hopes." All his levity had gone in an instant
+from his manner. He spoke very quietly.
+
+"I had better send for Wethermill?" asked Ricardo.
+
+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"As you like. But why raise hopes in that poor man's breast which
+an hour or two may dash for ever to the ground? Consider! Marthe
+Gobin has something to tell us. Think over those eight points of
+evidence which you drew up yesterday in the Villa des Fleurs, and
+say whether what she has to tell us is more likely to prove Mlle.
+Celie's innocence than her guilt. Think well, for I will be guided
+by you, M. Ricardo," said Hanaud solemnly. "If you think it better
+that your friend should live in torture until Marthe Gobin comes,
+and then perhaps suffer worse torture from the news she brings, be
+it so. You shall decide. If, on the other hand, you think it will
+be best to leave M. Wethermill in peace until we know her story,
+be it so. You shall decide."
+
+Ricardo moved uneasily. The solemnity of Hanaud's manner impressed
+him. He had no wish to take the responsibility of the decision
+upon himself. But Hanaud sat with his eyes strangely fixed upon
+Ricardo, waiting for his answer.
+
+"Well," said Ricardo, at length, "good news will be none the worse
+for waiting a few hours. Bad news will be a little the better."
+
+"Yes," said Hanaud; "so I thought you would decide." He took up a
+Continental Bradshaw from a bookshelf in the room. "From Geneva
+she will come through Culoz. Let us see!" He turned over the
+pages. "There is a train from Culoz which reaches Aix at seven
+minutes past three. It is by that train she will come. You have a
+motor-car?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. Will you pick me up in it at three at my hotel? We
+will drive down to the station and see the arrivals by that train.
+It may help us to get some idea of the person with whom we have to
+deal. That is always an advantage. Now I will leave you, for I
+have much to do. But I will look in upon M. Wethermill as I go
+down and tell him that there is as yet no news."
+
+He took up his hat and stick, and stood for a moment staring out
+of the window. Then he roused himself from his reverie with a
+start.
+
+"You look out upon Mont Revard, I see. I think M. Wethermill's
+view over the garden and the town is the better one," he said, and
+went out of the room.
+
+At three o'clock Ricardo called in his car, which was an open car
+of high power, at Hanaud's hotel, and the two men went to the
+station. They waited outside the exit while the passengers gave up
+their tickets. Amongst them a middle-aged, short woman, of a
+plethoric tendency, attracted their notice. She was neatly but
+shabbily dressed in black; her gloves were darned, and she was
+obviously in a hurry. As she came out she asked a commissionaire:
+
+"How far is it to the Hotel Majestic?"
+
+The man told her the hotel was at the very top of the town, and
+the way was steep.
+
+"But madame can go up in the omnibus of the hotel," he suggested.
+Madame, however, was in too much of a hurry. The omnibus would
+have to wait for luggage. She hailed a closed cab and drove off
+inside it.
+
+"Now, if we go back in the car, we shall be all ready for her when
+she arrives," said Hanaud.
+
+They passed the cab, indeed, a few yards up the steep hill which
+leads from the station. The cab was moving at a walk.
+
+"She looks honest," said Hanaud, with a sigh of relief. "She is
+some good bourgeoise anxious to earn four thousand francs."
+
+They reached the hotel in a few minutes.
+
+"We may need your car again the moment Marthe Gobin has gone,"
+said Hanaud.
+
+"It shall wait here," said Ricardo.
+
+"No," said Hanaud; "let it wait in the little street at the back
+of my hotel. It will not be so noticeable there. You have petrol
+for a long journey?"
+
+Ricardo gave the order quietly to his chauffeur, and followed
+Hanaud into the hotel. Through a glass window they could see
+Wethermill smoking a cigar over his coffee.
+
+"He looks as if he had not slept," said Ricardo.
+
+Hanaud nodded sympathetically, and beckoned Ricardo past the
+window.
+
+"But we are nearing the end. These two days have been for him days
+of great trouble; one can see that very clearly. And he has done
+nothing to embarrass us. Men in distress are apt to be a nuisance.
+I am grateful to M. Wethermill. But we are nearing the end. Who
+knows? Within an hour or two we may have news for him."
+
+He spoke with great feeling, and the two men ascended the stairs
+to Ricardo's rooms. For the second time that day Hanaud's
+professional calm deserted him. The window overlooked the main
+entrance to the hotel. Hanaud arranged the room, and, even while
+he arranged it, ran every other second and leaned from the window
+to watch for the coming of the cab.
+
+"Put the bank-notes upon the table," he said hurriedly. "They will
+persuade her to tell us all that she has to tell. Yes, that will
+do. She is not in sight yet? No."
+
+"She could not be. It is a long way from the station," said
+Ricardo, "and the whole distance is uphill."
+
+"Yes, that is true," Hanaud replied. "We will not embarrass her by
+sitting round the table like a tribunal. You will sit in that arm-
+chair."
+
+Ricardo took his seat, crossed his knees, and joined the tips of
+his fingers.
+
+"So! not too judicial!" said Hanaud; "I will sit here at the
+table. Whatever you do, do not frighten her." Hanaud sat down in
+the chair which he had placed for himself. "Marthe Gobin shall sit
+opposite, with the light upon her face. So!" And, springing up, he
+arranged a chair for her. "Whatever you do, do not frighten her,"
+he repeated. "I am nervous. So much depends upon this interview."
+And in a second he was back at the window.
+
+Ricardo did not move. He arranged in his mind the interrogatory
+which was to take place. He was to conduct it. He was the master
+of the situation. All the limelight was to be his. Startling facts
+would come to light elicited by his deft questions. Hanaud need
+not fear. He would not frighten her. He would be gentle, he would
+be cunning. Softly and delicately he would turn this good woman
+inside out, like a glove. Every artistic fibre in his body
+vibrated to the dramatic situation.
+
+Suddenly Hanaud leaned out of the window.
+
+"It comes! it comes!" he said in a quick, feverish whisper. "I can
+see the cab between the shrubs of the drive."
+
+"Let it come!" said Mr. Ricardo superbly.
+
+Even as he sat he could hear the grating of wheels upon the drive.
+He saw Hanaud lean farther from the window and stamp impatiently
+upon the floor.
+
+"There it is at the door," he said; and for a few seconds he spoke
+no more. He stood looking downwards, craning his head, with his
+back towards Ricardo.
+
+Then, with a wild and startled cry, he staggered back into the
+room. His face was white as wax, his eyes full of horror, his
+mouth open.
+
+"What is the matter?" exclaimed Ricardo, springing to his feet.
+
+"They are lifting her out! She doesn't move! They are lifting her
+out!"
+
+For a moment he stared into Ricardo's face--paralysed by fear.
+Then he sprang down the stairs. Ricardo followed him.
+
+There was confusion in the corridor. Men were running, voices were
+crying questions. As they passed the window they saw Wethermill
+start up, aroused from his lethargy. They knew the truth before
+they reached the entrance of the hotel. A cab had driven up to the
+door from the station; in the cab was an unknown woman stabbed to
+the heart.
+
+"She should have come by the omnibus," Hanaud repeated and
+repeated stupidly. For the moment he was off his balance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE UNOPENED LETTER
+
+
+The hall of the hotel had been cleared of people. At the entrance
+from the corridor a porter barred the way.
+
+"No one can pass," said he.
+
+"I think that I can," said Hanaud, and he produced his card. "From
+the Surete at Paris."
+
+He was allowed to enter, with Ricardo at his heels. On the ground
+lay Marthe Gobin; the manager of the hotel stood at her side; a
+doctor was on his knees. Hanaud gave his card to the manager.
+
+"You have sent word to the police?"
+
+"Yes," said the manager.
+
+"And the wound?" asked Hanaud, kneeling on the ground beside the
+doctor. It was a very small wound, round and neat and clean, and
+there was very little blood. "It was made by a bullet," said
+Hanaud--"some tiny bullet from an air-pistol."
+
+"No," answered the doctor.
+
+"No knife made it," Hanaud asserted.
+
+"That is true," said the doctor. "Look!" and he took up from the
+floor by his knee the weapon which had caused Marthe Gobin's
+death. It was nothing but an ordinary skewer with a ring at one
+end and a sharp point at the other, and a piece of common white
+firewood for a handle. The wood had been split, the ring inserted
+and spliced in position with strong twine. It was a rough enough
+weapon, but an effective one. The proof of its effectiveness lay
+stretched upon the floor beside them.
+
+Hanaud gave it to the manager of the hotel.
+
+"You must be very careful of this, and give it as it is to the
+police."
+
+Then he bent once more over Marthe Gobin.
+
+"Did she suffer?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+"No; death must have been instantaneous," said the doctor.
+
+"I am glad of that," said Hanaud, as he rose again to his feet.
+
+In the doorway the driver of the cab was standing.
+
+"What has he to say?" Hanaud asked.
+
+The man stepped forward instantly. He was an old, red-faced, stout
+man, with a shiny white tall hat, like a thousand drivers of cabs.
+
+"What have I to say, monsieur?" he grumbled in a husky voice. "I
+take up the poor woman at the station and I drive her where she
+bids me, and I find her dead, and my day is lost. Who will pay my
+fare, monsieur?"
+
+"I will," said Hanaud. "There it is," and he handed the man a
+five-franc piece. "Now, answer me! Do you tell me that this woman
+was murdered in your cab and that you knew nothing about it?"
+
+"But what should I know? I take her up at the station, and all the
+way up the hill her head is every moment out of the window,
+crying, 'Faster, faster!' Oh, the good woman was in a hurry! But
+for me I take no notice. The more she shouts, the less I hear; I
+bury my head between my shoulders, and I look ahead of me and I
+take no notice. One cannot expect cab-horses to run up these
+hills; it is not reasonable." "So you went at a walk," said
+Hanaud. He beckoned to Ricardo, and said to the manager: "M.
+Besnard will, no doubt, be here in a few minutes, and he will send
+for the Juge d'Instruction. There is nothing that we can do."
+
+He went back to Ricardo's sitting-room and flung himself into a
+chair. He had been calm enough downstairs in the presence of the
+doctor and the body of the victim. Now, with only Ricardo for a
+witness, he gave way to distress.
+
+"It is terrible," he said. "The poor woman! It was I who brought
+her to Aix. It was through my carelessness. But who would have
+thought--?" He snatched his hands from his face and stood up. "I
+should have thought," he said solemnly. "Extraordinary daring--
+that was one of the qualities of my criminal. I knew it, and I
+disregarded it. Now we have a second crime."
+
+"The skewer may lead you to the criminal," said Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"The skewer!" cried Hanaud. "How will that help us? A knife, yes--
+perhaps. But a skewer!"
+
+"At the shops--there will not be so many in Aix at which you can
+buy skewers--they may remember to whom they sold one within the
+last day or so."
+
+"How do we know it was bought in the last day or so?" cried Hanaud
+scornfully. "We have not to do with a man who walks into a shop
+and buys a single skewer to commit a murder with, and so hands
+himself over to the police. How often must I say it!"
+
+The violence of his contempt nettled Ricardo.
+
+"If the murderer did not buy it, how did he obtain it?" he asked
+obstinately.
+
+"Oh, my friend, could he not have stolen it? From this or from any
+hotel in Aix? Would the loss of a skewer be noticed, do you think?
+How many people in Aix today have had rognons a la brochette for
+their luncheon! Besides, it is not merely the death of this poor
+woman which troubles me. We have lost the evidence which she was
+going to bring to us. She had something to tell us about Celie
+Harland which now we shall never hear. We have to begin all over
+again, and I tell you we have not the time to begin all over
+again. No, we have not the time. Time will be lost, and we have no
+time to lose." He buried his face again in his hands and groaned
+aloud. His grief was so violent and so sincere that Ricardo,
+shocked as he was by the murder of Marthe Gobin, set himself to
+console him.
+
+"But you could not have foreseen that at three o'clock in the
+afternoon at Aix--"
+
+Hanaud brushed the excuse aside.
+
+"It is no extenuation. I OUGHT to have foreseen. Oh, but I will
+have no pity now," he cried, and as he ended the words abruptly
+his face changed. He lifted a trembling forefinger and pointed.
+There came a sudden look of life into his dull and despairing
+eyes.
+
+He was pointing to a side-table on which were piled Mr. Ricardo's
+letters.
+
+"You have not opened them this morning?" he asked.
+
+"No. You came while I was still in bed. I have not thought of them
+till now."
+
+Hanaud crossed to the table, and, looking down at the letters,
+uttered a cry.
+
+"There's one, the big envelope," he said, his voice shaking like
+his hand. "It has a Swiss stamp."
+
+He swallowed to moisten his throat. Ricardo sprang across the room
+and tore open the envelope. There was a long letter enclosed in a
+handwriting unknown to him. He read aloud the first lines of the
+letter:
+
+"I write what I saw and post it tonight, so that no one may be
+before me with the news. I will come over tomorrow for the money."
+
+A low exclamation from Hanaud interrupted the words.
+
+"The signature! Quick!"
+
+Ricardo turned to the end of the letter.
+
+"Marthe Gobin."
+
+"She speaks, then! After all she speaks!" Hanaud whispered in a
+voice of awe. He ran to the door of the room, opened it suddenly,
+and, shutting it again, locked it. "Quick! We cannot bring that
+poor woman back to life; but we may still--" He did not finish his
+sentence. He took the letter unceremoniously from Ricardo's hand
+and seated himself at the table. Over his shoulder Mr. Ricardo,
+too, read Marthe Gobin's letter.
+
+It was just the sort of letter, which in Ricardo's view, Marthe
+Gobin would have written--a long, straggling letter which never
+kept to the point, which exasperated them one moment by its folly
+and fired them to excitement the next.
+
+It was dated from a small suburb of Geneva, on the western side of
+the lake, and it ran as follows:
+
+"The suburb is but a street close to the lake-side, and a tram
+runs into the city. It is quite respectable, you understand,
+monsieur, with a hotel at the end of it, and really some very good
+houses. But I do not wish to deceive you about the social position
+of myself or my husband. Our house is on the wrong side of the
+street--definitely--yes. It is a small house, and we do not see
+the water from any of the windows because of the better houses
+opposite. M. Gobin, my husband, who was a clerk in one of the
+great banks in Geneva, broke down in health in the spring, and for
+the last three months has been compelled to keep indoors. Of
+course, money has not been plentiful, and I could not afford a
+nurse. Consequently I myself have been compelled to nurse him.
+Monsieur, if you were a woman, you would know what men are when
+they are ill--how fretful, how difficult. There is not much
+distraction for the woman who nurses them. So, as I am in the
+house most of the day, I find what amusement I can in watching the
+doings of my neighbours. You will not blame me.
+
+"A month ago the house almost directly opposite to us was taken
+furnished for the summer by a Mme. Rossignol. She is a widow, but
+during the last fortnight a young gentleman has come several times
+in the afternoon to see her, and it is said in the street that he
+is going to marry her. But I cannot believe it myself. Monsieur is
+a young man of perhaps thirty, with smooth, black hair. He wears a
+moustache, a little black moustache, and is altogether
+captivating. Mme. Rossignol is five or six years older, I should
+think--a tall woman, with red hair and a bold sort of coarse
+beauty. I was not attracted by her. She seemed not quite of the
+same world as that charming monsieur who was said to be going to
+marry her. No; I was not attracted by Adele Rossignol."
+
+And when he had come to that point Hanaud looked up with a start.
+
+"So the name was Adele," he whispered.
+
+"Yes," said Ricardo. "Helene Vauquier spoke the truth."
+
+Hanaud nodded with a queer smile upon his lips.
+
+"Yes, there she spoke the truth. I thought she did."
+
+"But she said Adele's hair was black," interposed Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"Yes, there she didn't," said Hanaud drily, and his eyes dropped
+again to the paper.
+
+"I knew her name was Adele, for often I have heard her servant
+calling her so, and without any 'Madame' in front of the name.
+That is strange, is it not, to hear an elderly servant-woman
+calling after her mistress, 'Adele,' just simple 'Adele'? It was
+that which made me think monsieur and madame were not of the same
+world. But I do not believe that they are going to be married. I
+have an instinct about it. Of course, one never knows with what
+extraordinary women the nicest men will fall in love. So that
+after all these two may get married. But if they do, I do not
+think they will be happy.
+
+"Besides the old woman there was another servant, a man,
+Hippolyte, who served in the house and drove the carriage when it
+was wanted--a respectable man. He always touched his hat when Mme.
+Rossignol came out of the house. He slept in the house at night,
+although the stable was at the end of the street. I thought he was
+probably the son of Jeanne, the servant-woman. He was young, and
+his hair was plastered down upon his forehead, and he was
+altogether satisfied with himself and a great favorite amongst the
+servants in the street. The carriage and the horse were hired from
+Geneva. That is the household of Mme. Rossignol."
+
+So far, Mr. Ricardo read in silence. Then he broke out again.
+
+"But we have them! The red-haired woman called Adele; the man with
+the little black moustache. It was he who drove the motor-car!"
+
+Hanaud held up his hand to check the flow of words, and both read
+on again:
+
+"At three o'clock on Tuesday afternoon madame was driven away in
+the carriage, and I did not see it return all that evening. Of
+course, it may have returned to the stables by another road. But
+it was not unusual for the carriage to take her into Geneva and
+wait a long time. I went to bed at eleven, but in the night M.
+Gobin was restless, and I rose to get him some medicine. We slept
+in the front of the house, monsieur, and while I was searching for
+the matches upon the table in the middle of the room I heard the
+sound of carriage wheels in the silent street. I went to the
+window, and, raising a corner of the curtains, looked out. M.
+Gobin called to me fretfully from the bed to know why I did not
+light the candle and get him what he wanted. I have already told
+you how fretful sick men can be, always complaining if just for a
+minute one distracts oneself by looking out of the window. But
+there! One can do nothing to please them. Yet how right I was to
+raise the blind and look out of the window! For if I had obeyed my
+husband I might have lost four thousand francs. And four thousand
+francs are not to be sneezed at by a poor woman whose husband lies
+in bed.
+
+"I saw the carriage stop at Mme. Rossignol's house. Almost at once
+the house door was opened by the old servant, although the hall of
+the house and all the windows in the front were dark. That was the
+first thing that surprised me. For when madame came home late and
+the house was dark, she used to let herself in with a latchkey.
+Now, in the dark house, in the early morning, a servant was
+watching for them. It was strange.
+
+"As soon as the door of the house was opened the door of the
+carriage opened too, and a young lady stepped quickly out on to
+the pavement. The train of her dress caught in the door, and she
+turned round, stooped, freed it with her hand, and held it up off
+the ground. The night was clear, and there was a lamp in the
+street close by the door of Mme. Rossignol's house. As she turned
+I saw her face under the big green hat. It was very pretty and
+young, and the hair was fair. She wore a white coat, but it was
+open in front and showed her evening frock of pale green. When she
+lifted her skirt I saw the buckles sparkling on her satin shoes.
+It was the young lady for whom you are advertising, I am sure. She
+remained standing just for a moment without moving, while Mme.
+Rossignol got out. I was surprised to see a young lady of such
+distinction in Mme. Rossignol's company. Then, still holding her
+skirt up, she ran very lightly and quickly across the pavement
+into the dark house. I thought, monsieur, that she was very
+anxious not to be seen. So when I saw your advertisement I was
+certain that this was the young lady for whom you are searching.
+"I waited for a few moments and saw the carriage drive off towards
+the stable at the end of the street. But no light went up in any
+of the rooms in front of the house. And M. Gobin was so fretful
+that I dropped the corner of the blind, lit the candle, and gave
+him his cooling drink. His watch was on the table at the bedside,
+and I saw that it was five minutes to three. I will send you a
+telegram tomorrow, as soon as I am sure at what hour I can leave
+my husband. Accept, monsieur, I beg you, my most distinguished
+salutations.
+
+"MARTHE GOBIN."
+
+Hanaud leant back with an extraordinary look of perplexity upon
+his face. But to Ricardo the whole story was now clear. Here was
+an independent witness, without the jealousy or rancours of Helene
+Vauquier. Nothing could be more damning than her statement; it
+corroborated those footmarks upon the soil in front of the glass
+door of the salon. There was nothing to be done except to set
+about arresting Mlle. Celie at once.
+
+"The facts work with your theory, M. Hanaud. The young man with
+the black moustache did not return to the house at Geneva. For
+somewhere upon the road close to Geneva he met the carriage. He
+was driving back the car to Aix--" And then another thought struck
+him: "But no!" he cried. "We are altogether wrong. See! They did
+not reach home until five minutes to three."
+
+Five minutes to three! But this demolished the whole of Hanaud's
+theory about the motor-car. The murderers had left the villa
+between eleven and twelve, probably before half-past eleven. The
+car was a machine of sixty horse-power, and the roads were certain
+to be clear. Yet the travellers only reached their home at three.
+Moreover, the car was back in Aix at four. It was evident they did
+not travel by the car.
+
+"Geneva time is an hour later than French time," said Hanaud
+shortly. It seemed as if the corroboration of this letter
+disappointed him. "A quarter to three in Mme. Gobin's house would
+be a quarter to two by our watches here."
+
+Hanaud folded up the letter, and rose to his feet.
+
+"We will go now, and we will take this letter with us." Hanaud
+looked about the room, and picked up a glove lying upon a table.
+"I left this behind me," he said, putting it into his pocket. "By
+the way, where is the telegram from Marthe Gobin?"
+
+"You put it in your letter-case."
+
+"Oh, did I?"
+
+Hanaud took out his letter-case and found the telegram within it.
+His face lightened.
+
+"Good!" he said emphatically. "For, since we have this telegram,
+there must have been another message sent from Adele Rossignol to
+Aix saying that Marthe Gobin, that busybody, that inquisitive
+neighbour, who had no doubt seen M. Ricardo's advertisement, was
+on her way hither. Oh it will not be put as crudely as that, but
+that is what the message will mean. We shall have him." And
+suddenly his face grew very stern. "I MUST catch him, for Marthe
+Gobin's death I cannot forgive. A poor woman meaning no harm, and
+murdered like a sheep under our noses. No, that I cannot forgive."
+
+Ricardo wondered whether it was the actual murder of Marthe Gobin
+or the fact that he had been beaten and outwitted which Hanaud
+could not forgive. But discretion kept him silent.
+
+"Let us go," said Hanaud. "By the lift, if you please; it will
+save time."
+
+They descended into the hall close by the main door. The body of
+Marthe Gobin had been removed to the mortuary of the town. The
+life of the hotel had resumed its course.
+
+"M. Besnard has gone, I suppose?" Hanaud asked of the porter; and,
+receiving an assent, he walked quickly out of the front door.
+
+"But there is a shorter way," said Ricardo, running after him:
+"across the garden at the back and down the steps."
+
+"It will make no difference now," said Hanaud.
+
+They hurried along the drive and down the road which circled round
+the hotel and dipped to the town.
+
+Behind Hanaud's hotel Ricardo's car was waiting.
+
+"We must go first to Besnard's office. The poor man will be at his
+wits' end to know who was Mme. Gobin and what brought her to Aix.
+Besides, I wish to send a message over the telephone."
+
+Hanaud descended and spent a quarter of an hour with the
+Commissaire. As he came out he looked at his watch.
+
+"We shall be in time, I think," he said. He climbed into the car.
+"The murder of Marthe Gobin on her way from the station will put
+our friends at their ease. It will be published, no doubt, in the
+evening papers, and those good people over there in Geneva will
+read it with amusement. They do not know that Marthe Gobin wrote a
+letter yesterday night. Come, let us go!"
+
+"Where to?" asked Ricardo.
+
+"Where to?" exclaimed Hanaud. "Why, of course, to Geneva."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE ALUMINIUM FLASK
+
+
+"I have telephoned to Lemerre, the Chef de la Surete at Geneva,"
+said Hanaud, as the car sped out of Aix along the road to Annecy.
+"He will have the house watched. We shall be in time. They will do
+nothing until dark."
+
+But though he spoke confidently there was a note of anxiety in his
+voice, and he sat forward in the car, as though he were already
+straining his eyes to see Geneva.
+
+Ricardo was a trifle disappointed. They were on the great journey
+to Geneva. They were going to arrest Mlle. Celie and her
+accomplices. And Hanaud had not come disguised. Hanaud, in
+Ricardo's eyes, was hardly living up to the dramatic expedition on
+which they had set out. It seemed to him that there was something
+incorrect in the great detective coming out on the chase without a
+false beard.
+
+"But, my dear friend, why shouldn't I?" pleaded Hanaud. "We are
+going to dine together at the Restaurant du Nord, over the lake,
+until it grows dark. It is not pleasant to eat one's soup in a
+false beard. Have you tried it? Besides, everybody stares so,
+seeing perfectly well that it is false. Now, I do not want tonight
+that people should know me for a detective; so I do not go
+disguised."
+
+"Humorist!" said Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"There! you have found me out!" cried Hanaud, in mock alarm.
+"Besides, I told you this morning that that is precisely what I
+am."
+
+Beyond Annecy, they came to the bridge over the ravine. At the far
+end of it, the car stopped. A question, a hurried glance into the
+body of the car, and the officers of the Customs stood aside.
+
+"You see how perfunctory it is," said Hanaud and with a jerk the
+car moved on. The jerk threw Hanaud against Mr. Ricardo. Something
+hard in the detective's pocket knocked against his companion.
+
+"You have got them?" he whispered.
+
+"What?"
+
+"The handcuffs."
+
+Another disappointment awaited Ricardo. A detective without a
+false beard was bad enough, but that was nothing to a detective
+without handcuffs. The paraphernalia of justice were sadly
+lacking. However, Hanaud consoled Mr. Ricardo by showing him the
+hard thing; it was almost as thrilling as the handcuffs, for it
+was a loaded revolver.
+
+"There will be danger, then?" said Ricardo, with a tremor of
+excitement. "I should have brought mine."
+
+"There would have been danger, my friend," Hanaud objected
+gravely, "if you had brought yours."
+
+They reached Geneva as the dusk was falling, and drove straight to
+the restaurant by the side of the lake and mounted to the balcony
+on the first floor. A small, stout man sat at a table alone in a
+corner of the balcony. He rose and held out his hands.
+
+"My friend, M. Lemerre, the Chef de la Surete of Geneva," said
+Hanaud, presenting the little man to his companion.
+
+There were as yet only two couples dining in the restaurant, and
+Hanaud spoke so that neither could overhear him. He sat down at
+the table.
+
+"What news?" he asked.
+
+"None," said Lemerre. "No one has come out of the house, no one
+has gone in."
+
+"And if anything happens while we dine?"
+
+"We shall know," said Lemerre. "Look, there is a man loitering
+under the trees there. He will strike a match to light his pipe."
+
+The hurried conversation was ended.
+
+"Good," said Hanaud. "We will dine, then, and be gay."
+
+He called to the waiter and ordered dinner. It was after seven
+when they sat down to dinner, and they dined while the dusk
+deepened. In the street below the lights flashed out, throwing a
+sheen on the foliage of the trees at the water's side. Upon the
+dark lake the reflections of lamps rippled and shook. A boat in
+which musicians sang to music, passed by with a cool splash of
+oars. The green and red lights of the launches glided backwards
+and forwards. Hanaud alone of the party on the balcony tried to
+keep the conversation upon a light and general level. But it was
+plain that even he was overdoing his gaiety. There were moments
+when a sudden contraction of the muscles would clench his hands
+and give a spasmodic jerk to his shoulders. He was waiting
+uneasily, uncomfortably, until darkness should come.
+
+"Eat," he cried--"eat, my friends," playing with his own barely
+tasted food.
+
+And then, at a sentence from Lemerre, his knife and fork clattered
+on his plate, and he sat with a face suddenly grown white.
+
+For Lemerre said, as though it was no more than a matter of
+ordinary comment:
+
+"So Mme. Dauvray's jewels were, after all, never stolen?"
+
+Hanaud started.
+
+"You know that? How did you know it?"
+
+"It was in this evening's paper. I bought one on the way here.
+They were found under the floor of the bedroom."
+
+And even as he spoke a newsboy's voice rang out in the street
+below them. Lemerre was alarmed by the look upon his friend's
+face.
+
+"Does it matter, Hanaud?" he asked, with some solicitude.
+
+"It matters--" and Hanaud rose up abruptly.
+
+The boy's voice sounded louder in the street below. The words
+became distinct to all upon that balcony.
+
+"The Aix murder! Discovery of the jewels!"
+
+"We must go," Hanaud whispered hoarsely. "Here are life and death
+in the balance, as I believe, and there"--he pointed down to the
+little group gathering about the newsboy under the trees--"there
+is the command which way to tip the scales."
+
+"It was not I who sent it," said Ricardo eagerly.
+
+He had no precise idea what Hanaud meant by his words; but he
+realised that the sooner he exculpated himself from the charge the
+better.
+
+"Of course it was not you. I know that very well," said Hanaud. He
+called for the bill. "When is that paper published?"
+
+"At seven," said Lemerre.
+
+"They have been crying it in the streets of Geneva, then, for more
+than half an hour."
+
+He sat drumming impatiently upon the table until the bill should
+be brought.
+
+"By Heaven, that's clever!" he muttered savagely. "There's a man
+who gets ahead of me at every turn. See, Lemerre, I take every
+care, every precaution, that no message shall be sent. I let it be
+known, I take careful pains to let it be known, that no message
+can be sent without detection following, and here's the message
+sent by the one channel I never thought to guard against and stop.
+Look!"
+
+The murder at the Villa Rose and the mystery which hid its
+perpetration had aroused interest. This new development had
+quickened it. From the balcony Hanaud could see the groups
+thickening about the boy and the white sheets of the newspapers in
+the hands of passers-by.
+
+"Every one in Geneva or near Geneva will know of this message by
+now."
+
+"Who could have told?" asked Ricardo blankly, and Hanaud laughed
+in his face, but laughed without any merriment.
+
+"At last!" he cried, as the waiter brought the bill, and just as
+he had paid it the light of a match flared up under the trees.
+
+"The signal!" said Lemerre.
+
+"Not too quickly," whispered Hanaud.
+
+With as much unconcern as each could counterfeit, the three men
+descended the stairs and crossed the road. Under the trees a
+fourth man joined them--he who had lighted his pipe.
+
+"The coachman, Hippolyte," he whispered, "bought an evening paper
+at the front door of the house from a boy who came down the street
+shouting the news. The coachman ran back into the house."
+
+"When was this?" asked Lemerre.
+
+The man pointed to a lad who leaned against the balustrade above
+the lake, hot and panting for breath.
+
+"He came on his bicycle. He has just arrived."
+
+"Follow me," said Lemerre.
+
+Six yards from where they stood a couple of steps led down from
+the embankment on to a wooden landing-stage, where boats were
+moored. Lemerre, followed by the others, walked briskly down on to
+the landing-stage. An electric launch was waiting. It had an
+awning and was of the usual type which one hires at Geneva. There
+were two sergeants in plain clothes on board, and a third man,
+whom Ricardo recognised.
+
+"That is the man who found out in whose shop the cord was bought,"
+he said to Hanaud.
+
+"Yes, it is Durette. He has been here since yesterday."
+
+Lemerre and the three who followed him stepped into it, and it
+backed away from the stage and, turning, sped swiftly outwards
+from Geneva. The gay lights of the shops and the restaurants were
+left behind, the cool darkness enveloped them; a light breeze blew
+over the lake, a trail of white and tumbled water lengthened out
+behind and overhead, in a sky of deepest blue, the bright stars
+shone like gold.
+
+"If only we are in time!" said Hanaud, catching his breath.
+
+"Yes," answered Lemerre; and in both their voices there was a
+strange note of gravity.
+
+Lemerre gave a signal after a while, and the boat turned to the
+shore and reduced its speed. They had passed the big villas. On
+the bank the gardens of houses--narrow, long gardens of a street
+of small houses--reached down to the lake, and to almost each
+garden there was a rickety landing-stage of wood projecting into
+the lake. Again Lemerre gave a signal, and the boat's speed was so
+much reduced that not a sound of its coming could be heard. It
+moved over the water like a shadow, with not so much as a curl of
+white at its bows.
+
+Lemerre touched Hanaud on the shoulder and pointed to a house in a
+row of houses. All the windows except two upon the second floor
+and one upon the ground floor were in absolute darkness, and over
+those upper two the wooden shutters were closed. But in the
+shutters there were diamond-shaped holes, and from these holes two
+yellow beams of light, like glowing eyes upon the watch, streamed
+out and melted in the air.
+
+"You are sure that the front of the house is guarded?" asked
+Hanaud anxiously.
+
+"Yes," replied Lemerre.
+
+Ricardo shivered with excitement. The launch slid noiselessly into
+the bank and lay hidden under its shadow. Hanaud turned to his
+associates with his finger to his lips. Something gleamed darkly
+in his hand. It was the barrel of his revolver. Cautiously the men
+disembarked and crept up the bank. First came Lemerre, then
+Hanaud; Ricardo followed him, and the fourth man, who had struck
+the match under the trees, brought up the rear. The other three
+officers remained in the boat.
+
+Stooping under the shadow of the side wall of the garden, the
+invaders stole towards the house. When a bush rustled or a tree
+whispered in the light wind, Ricardo's heart jumped to his throat.
+Once Lemerre stopped, as though his ears heard a sound which
+warned him of danger. Then cautiously he crept on again. The
+garden was a ragged place of unmown lawn and straggling bushes.
+Behind each one Mr. Ricardo seemed to feel an enemy. Never had he
+been in so strait a predicament. He, the cultured host of
+Grosvenor Square, was creeping along under a wall with Continental
+policemen; he was going to raid a sinister house by the Lake of
+Geneva. It was thrilling. Fear and excitement gripped him in turn
+and let him go, but always he was sustained by the pride of the
+man doing an out-of-the-way thing. "If only my friends could see
+me now!" The ancient vanity was loud in his bosom. Poor fellows,
+they were upon yachts in the Solent or on grouse-moors in
+Scotland, or on golf-links at North Berwick. He alone of them all
+was tracking malefactors to their doom by Leman's Lake.
+
+From these agreeable reflections Ricardo was shaken. Lemerre
+stopped. The raiders had reached the angle made by the side wall
+of the garden and the house. A whisper was exchanged, and the
+party turned and moved along the house wall towards the lighted
+window on the ground floor. As Lemerre reached it he stooped. Then
+slowly his forehead and his eyes rose above the sill and glanced
+this way and that into the room. Mr. Ricardo could see his eyes
+gleaming as the light from the window caught them. His face rose
+completely over the sill. He stared into the room without care or
+apprehension, and then dropped again out of the reach of the
+light. He turned to Hanaud.
+
+"The room is empty," he whispered. Hanaud turned to Ricardo.
+
+"Pass under the sill, or the light from the window will throw your
+shadow upon the lawn."
+
+The party came to the back door of the house. Lemerre tried the
+handle of the door, and to his surprise it yielded. They crept
+into the passage. The last man closed the door noiselessly, locked
+it, and removed the key. A panel of light shone upon the wall a
+few paces ahead. The door of the lighted room was open. As Ricardo
+stepped silently past it, he looked in. It was a parlour meanly
+furnished. Hanaud touched him on the arm and pointed to the table.
+
+Ricardo had seen the objects at which Hanaud pointed often enough
+without uneasiness; but now, in this silent house of crime, they
+had the most sinister and appalling aspect. There was a tiny phial
+half full of a dark-brown liquid, beside it a little leather case
+lay open, and across the case, ready for use or waiting to be
+filled, was a bright morphia needle. Ricardo felt the cold creep
+along his spine, and shivered.
+
+"Come," whispered Hanaud.
+
+They reached the foot of a flight of stairs, and cautiously
+mounted it. They came out in a passage which ran along the side of
+the house from the back to the front. It was unlighted, but they
+were now on the level of the street, and a fan-shaped glass window
+over the front door admitted a pale light. There was a street lamp
+near to the door, Ricardo remembered. For by the light of it
+Marthe Gobin had seen Celia Harland run so nimbly into this house.
+
+For a moment the men in the passage held their breath. Some one
+strode heavily by on the pavement outside--to Mr. Ricardo's ear a
+most companionable sound. Then a clock upon a church struck the
+half-hour musically, distantly. It was half-past eight. And a
+second afterwards a tiny bright light shone. Hanaud was directing
+the light of a pocket electric torch to the next flight of stairs.
+
+Here the steps were carpeted, and once more the men crept up. One
+after another they came out upon the next landing. It ran, like
+those below it, along the side of the house from the back to the
+front, and the doors were all upon their left hand. From beneath
+the door nearest to them a yellow line of light streamed out.
+
+They stood in the darkness listening. But not a sound came from
+behind the door. Was this room empty, too? In each one's mind was
+the fear that the birds had flown. Lemerre carefully took the
+handle of the door and turned it. Very slowly and cautiously he
+opened the door. A strong light beat out through the widening gap
+upon his face. And then, though his feet did not move, his
+shoulders and his face drew back. The action was significant
+enough. This room, at all events, was not empty. But of what
+Lemerre saw in the room his face gave no hint. He opened the door
+wider, and now Hanaud saw. Ricardo, trembling with excitement,
+watched him. But again there was no expression of surprise,
+consternation, or delight. He stood stolidly and watched. Then he
+turned to Ricardo, placed a finger on his lips, and made room.
+Ricardo crept on tiptoe to his side. And now he too could look in.
+He saw a brightly lit bedroom with a made bed. On his left were
+the shuttered windows overlooking the lake. On his right in the
+partition wall a door stood open. Through the door he could see a
+dark, windowless closet, with a small bed from which the
+bedclothes hung and trailed upon the floor, as though some one had
+been but now roughly dragged from it. On a table, close by the
+door, lay a big green hat with a brown ostrich feather, and a
+white cloak. But the amazing spectacle which kept him riveted was
+just in front of him. An old hag of a woman was sitting in a chair
+with her back towards them. She was mending with a big needle the
+holes in an old sack, and while she bent over her work she crooned
+to herself some French song. Every now and then she raised her
+eyes, for in front of her, under her charge, Mlle. Celie, the girl
+of whom Hanaud was in search, lay helpless upon a sofa. The train
+of her delicate green frock swept the floor. She was dressed as
+Helene Vauquier had described. Her gloved hands were tightly bound
+behind her back, her feet were crossed so that she could not have
+stood, and her ankles were cruelly strapped together. Over her
+face and eyes a piece of coarse sacking was stretched like a mask,
+and the ends were roughly sewn together at the back of her head.
+She lay so still that, but for the labouring of her bosom and a
+tremor which now and again shook her limbs, the watchers would
+have thought her dead. She made no struggle of resistance; she lay
+quiet and still. Once she writhed, but it was with the uneasiness
+of one in pain, and the moment she stirred the old woman's hand
+went out to a bright aluminium flask which stood on a little table
+at her side.
+
+"Keep quiet, little one!" she ordered in a careless, chiding
+voice, and she rapped with the flask peremptorily upon the table.
+Immediately, as though the tapping had some strange message of
+terror for the girl's ear, she stiffened her whole body and lay
+rigid.
+
+"I am not ready for you yet, little fool," said the old woman, and
+she bent again to her work.
+
+Ricardo's brain whirled. Here was the girl whom they had come to
+arrest, who had sprung from the salon with so much activity of
+youth across the stretch of grass, who had run so quickly and
+lightly across the pavement into this very house, so that she
+should not be seen. And now she was lying in her fine and delicate
+attire a captive, at the mercy of the very people who were her
+accomplices.
+
+Suddenly a scream rang out in the garden--a shrill, loud scream,
+close beneath the windows. The old woman sprang to her feet. The
+girl on the sofa raised her head. The old woman took a step
+towards the window, and then she swiftly turned towards the door.
+She saw the men upon the threshold. She uttered a bellow of rage.
+There is no other word to describe the sound. It was not a human
+cry; it was the bellow of an angry animal. She reached out her
+hand towards the flask, but before she could grasp it Hanaud
+seized her. She burst into a torrent of foul oaths. Hanaud flung
+her across to Lemerre's officer, who dragged her from the room.
+
+"Quick!" said Hanaud, pointing to the girl, who was now struggling
+helplessly upon the sofa. "Mlle. Celie!"
+
+Ricardo cut the stitches of the sacking. Hanaud unstrapped her
+hands and feet. They helped her to sit up. She shook her hands in
+the air as though they tortured her, and then, in a piteous,
+whimpering voice, like a child's, she babbled incoherently and
+whispered prayers. Suddenly the prayers ceased. She sat stiff,
+with eyes fixed and staring. She was watching Lemerre, and she was
+watching him fascinated with terror. He was holding in his hand
+the large, bright aluminium flask. He poured a little of the
+contents very carefully on to a piece of the sack; and then with
+an exclamation of anger he turned towards Hanaud. But Hanaud was
+supporting Celia; and so, as Lemerre turned abruptly towards him
+with the flask in his hand, he turned abruptly towards Celia too.
+She wrenched herself from Hanaud's arms, she shrank violently
+away. Her white face flushed scarlet and grew white again. She
+screamed loudly, terribly; and after the scream she uttered a
+strange, weak sigh, and so fell sideways in a swoon. Hanaud caught
+her as she fell. A light broke over his face.
+
+"Now I understand!" he cried. "Good God! That's horrible."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+IN THE HOUSE AT GENEVA
+
+
+It was well, Mr. Ricardo thought, that some one understood. For
+himself, he frankly admitted that he did not. Indeed, in his view
+the first principles of reasoning seemed to be set at naught. It
+was obvious from the solicitude with which Celia Harland was
+surrounded that every one except himself was convinced of her
+innocence. Yet it was equally obvious that any one who bore in
+mind the eight points he had tabulated against her must be
+convinced of her guilt. Yet again, if she were guilty, how did it
+happen that she had been so mishandled by her accomplices? He was
+not allowed however, to reflect upon these remarkable problems. He
+had too busy a time of it. At one moment he was running to fetch
+water wherewith to bathe Celia's forehead. At another, when he had
+returned with the water, he was distracted by the appearance of
+Durette, the inspector from Aix, in the doorway.
+
+"We have them both," he said--"Hippolyte and the woman. They were
+hiding in the garden."
+
+"So I thought," said Hanaud, "when I saw the door open downstairs,
+and the morphia-needle on the table."
+
+Lemerre turned to one of the officers.
+
+"Let them be taken with old Jeanne in cabs to the depot."
+
+And when the man had gone upon his errand Lemerre spoke to Hanaud.
+
+"You will stay here tonight to arrange for their transfer to Aix?"
+
+"I will leave Durette behind," said Hanaud. "I am needed at Aix.
+We will make a formal application for the prisoners." He was
+kneeling by Celia's side and awkwardly dabbing her forehead with a
+wet handkerchief. He raised a warning hand. Celia Harland moved
+and opened her eyes. She sat up on the sofa, shivering, and looked
+with dazed and wondering eyes from one to another of the strangers
+who surrounded her. She searched in vain for a familiar face.
+
+"You are amongst good friends. Mlle. Celie," said Hanaud with
+great gentleness.
+
+"Oh, I wonder! I wonder!" she cried piteously.
+
+"Be very sure of it," he said heartily, and she clung to the
+sleeve of his coat with desperate hands.
+
+"I suppose you are friends," she said; "else why--?" and she moved
+her numbed limbs to make certain that she was free. She looked
+about the room. Her eyes fell upon the sack and widened with
+terror.
+
+"They came to me a little while ago in that cupboard there--Adele
+and the old woman Jeanne. They made me get up. They told me they
+were going to take me away. They brought my clothes and dressed me
+in everything I wore when I came, so that no single trace of me
+might be left behind. Then they tied me." She tore off her gloves
+and showed them her lacerated wrists. "I think they meant to kill
+me--horribly." And she caught her breath and whimpered like a
+child. Her spirit was broken.
+
+"My poor girl, all that is over," said Hanaud. And he stood up.
+
+But at the first movement he made she cried incisively, "No," and
+tightened the clutch of her fingers upon his sleeve.
+
+"But, mademoiselle, you are safe," he said, with a smile. She
+stared at him stupidly. It seemed the words had no meaning for
+her. She would not let him go. It was only the feel of his coat
+within the clutch of her fingers which gave her any comfort.
+
+"I want to be sure that I am safe," she said, with a wan little
+smile.
+
+"Tell me, mademoiselle, what have you had to eat and drink during
+the last two days?"
+
+"Is it two days?" she asked. "I was in the dark there. I did not
+know. A little bread, a little water."
+
+"That's what is wrong," said Hanaud. "Come, let us go from here!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" Celia cried eagerly. She rose to her feet, and
+tottered. Hanaud put his arm about her. "You are very kind," she
+said in a low voice, and again doubt looked out from her face and
+disappeared. "I am sure that I can trust you."
+
+Ricardo fetched her cloak and slipped it on her shoulders. Then he
+brought her hat, and she pinned it on. She turned to Hanaud;
+unconsciously familiar words rose to her lips.
+
+"Is it straight?" she asked. And Hanaud laughed outright, and in a
+moment Celia smiled herself.
+
+Supported by Hanaud she stumbled down the stairs to the garden. As
+they passed the open door of the lighted parlour at the back of
+the house Hanaud turned back to Lemerre and pointed silently to
+the morphia-needle and the phial. Lemerre nodded his head, and
+going into the room took them away. They went out again into the
+garden. Celia Harland threw back her head to the stars and drew in
+a deep breath of the cool night air.
+
+"I did not think," she said in a low voice, "to see the stars
+again."
+
+They walked slowly down the length of the garden, and Hanaud
+lifted her into the launch. She turned and caught his coat.
+
+"You must come too," she said stubbornly.
+
+Hanaud sprang in beside her.
+
+"For tonight," he said gaily, "I am your papa!"
+
+Ricardo and the others followed, and the launch moved out over the
+lake under the stars. The bow was turned towards Geneva, the water
+tumbled behind them like white fire, the night breeze blew fresh
+upon their faces. They disembarked at the landing-stage, and then
+Lemerre bowed to Celia and took his leave. Hanaud led Celia up on
+to the balcony of the restaurant and ordered supper. There were
+people still dining at the tables.
+
+One party indeed sitting late over their coffee Ricardo recognised
+with a kind of shock. They had taken their places, the very places
+in which they now sat, before he and Hanaud and Lemerre had left
+the restaurant upon their expedition of rescue. Into that short
+interval of time so much that was eventful had been crowded.
+
+Hanaud leaned across the table to Celia and said in a low voice:
+
+"Mademoiselle, if I may suggest it, it would be as well if you put
+on your gloves; otherwise they may notice your wrists."
+
+Celia followed his advice. She ate some food and drank a glass of
+champagne. A little colour returned to her cheeks.
+
+"You are very kind to me, you and monsieur your friend," she said,
+with a smile towards Ricardo. "But for you--" and her voice shook.
+
+"Hush!" said Hanaud--"all that is over; we will not speak of it."
+
+Celia looked out across the road on to the trees, of which the
+dark foliage was brightened and made pale by the lights of the
+restaurant. Out on the water some one was singing.
+
+"It seems impossible to me," she said in a low voice, "that I am
+here, in the open air, and free."
+
+Hanaud looked at his watch.
+
+"Mlle. Celie, it is past ten o'clock. M. Ricardo's car is waiting
+there under the trees. I want you to drive back to Aix. I have
+taken rooms for you at an hotel, and there will be a nurse from
+the hospital to look after you."
+
+"Thank you, monsieur," she said; "you have thought of everything.
+But I shall not need a nurse."
+
+"But you will have a nurse," said Hanaud firmly. "You feel
+stronger now--yes, but when you lay your head upon your pillow,
+mademoiselle, it will be a comfort to you to know that you have
+her within call. And in a day or two," he added gently, "you will
+perhaps be able to tell us what happened on Tuesday night at the
+Villa Rose?"
+
+Celia covered her face with her hands for a few moments. Then she
+drew them away and said simply:
+
+"Yes, monsieur, I will tell you."
+
+Hanaud bowed to her with a genuine deference.
+
+"Thank you, mademoiselle," he said, and in his voice there was a
+strong ring of sympathy.
+
+They went downstairs and entered Ricardo's motor car.
+
+"I want to send a telephone message," said Hanaud, "if you will
+wait here."
+
+"No!" cried Celia decisively, and she again laid hold of his coat,
+with a pretty imperiousness, as though he belonged to her.
+
+"But I must," said Hanaud with a laugh.
+
+"Then I will come too," said Celia, and she opened the door and
+set a foot upon the step.
+
+"You will not, mademoiselle," said Hanaud, with a laugh. "Will you
+take your foot back into that car? That is better. Now you will
+sit with your friend, M. Ricardo, whom, by the way, I have not yet
+introduced to you. He is a very good friend of yours,
+mademoiselle, and will in the future be a still better one."
+
+Ricardo felt his conscience rather heavy within him, for he had
+come out to Geneva with the fixed intention of arresting her as a
+most dangerous criminal. Even now he could not understand how she
+could be innocent of a share in Mme. Dauvray's murder. But Hanaud
+evidently thought she was. And since Hanaud thought so, why, it
+was better to say nothing if one was sensitive to gibes. So
+Ricardo sat and talked with her while Hanaud ran back into the
+restaurant. It mattered very little, however, what he said, for
+Celia's eyes were fixed upon the doorway through which Hanaud had
+disappeared. And when he came back she was quick to turn the
+handle of the door.
+
+"Now, mademoiselle, we will wrap you up in M. Ricardo's spare
+motor-coat and cover your knees with a rug and put you between us,
+and then you can go to sleep."
+
+The car sped through the streets of Geneva. Celia Harland, with a
+little sigh of relief, nestled down between the two men.
+
+"If I knew you better," she said to Hanaud, "I should tell you--
+what, of course, I do not tell you now--that I feel as if I had a
+big Newfoundland dog with me."
+
+"Mlle. Celie," said Hanaud, and his voice told her that he was
+moved, "that is a very pretty thing which you have said to me."
+
+The lights of the city fell away behind them. Now only a glow in
+the sky spoke of Geneva; now even that was gone and with a smooth
+continuous purr the car raced through the cool darkness. The great
+head lamps threw a bright circle of light before them and the road
+slipped away beneath the wheels like a running tide. Celia fell
+asleep. Even when the car stopped at the Pont de La Caille she did
+not waken. The door was opened, a search for contrabrand was made,
+the book was signed, still she did not wake. The car sped on.
+
+"You see, coming into France is a different affair," said Hanaud.
+
+"Yes," replied Ricardo.
+
+"Still, I will own it, you caught me napping yesterday.
+
+"I did?" exclaimed Ricardo joyfully.
+
+"You did," returned Hanaud. "I had never heard of the Pont de La
+Caille. But you will not mention it? You will not ruin me?"
+
+"I will not," answered. M. Ricardo, superb in his magnanimity.
+"You are a good detective."
+
+"Oh, thank you! thank you!" cried Hanaud in a voice which shook--
+surely with emotion. He wrung Ricardo's hand. He wiped an
+imaginary tear from his eye.
+
+And still Celia slept. M. Ricardo looked at her. He said to Hanaud
+in a whisper:
+
+"Yet I do not understand. The car, though no serious search was
+made, must still have stopped at the Pont de La Caille on the
+Swiss side. Why did she not cry for help then? One cry and she was
+safe. A movement even was enough. Do you understand?"
+
+Hanaud nodded his head.
+
+"I think so," he answered, with a very gentle look at Celia. "Yes,
+I think so."
+
+When Celia was aroused she found that the car had stopped before
+the door of an hotel, and that a woman in the dress of a nurse was
+standing in the doorway.
+
+"You can trust Marie," said Hanaud. And Celia turned as she stood
+upon the ground and gave her hands to the two men.
+
+"Thank you! Thank you both!" she said in a trembling voice. She
+looked at Hanaud and nodded her head. "You understand why I thank
+you so very much?"
+
+"Yes," said Hanaud. "But, mademoiselle"--and he bent over the car
+and spoke to her quietly, holding her hand--"there is ALWAYS a big
+Newfoundland dog in the worst of troubles--if only you will look
+for him. I tell you so--I, who belong to the Surete in Paris. Do
+not lose heart!" And in his mind he added: "God forgive me for the
+lie." He shook her hand and let it go; and gathering up her skirt
+she went into the hall of the hotel.
+
+Hanaud watched her as she went. She was to him a lonely and
+pathetic creature, in spite of the nurse who bore her company.
+
+"You must be a good friend to that young girl, M. Ricardo," he
+said. "Let us drive to your hotel."
+
+"Yes," said Ricardo. And as they went the curiosity which all the
+way from Geneva had been smouldering within him burst into flame.
+
+"Will you explain to me one thing?" he asked. "When the scream
+came from the garden you were not surprised. Indeed, you said that
+when you saw the open door and the morphia-needle on the table of
+the little room downstairs you thought Adele and the man Hippolyte
+were hiding in the garden."
+
+"Yes, I did think so."
+
+"Why? And why did the publication that the jewels had been
+discovered so alarm you?"
+
+"Ah!" said Hanaud. "Did not you understand that? Yet it is surely
+clear and obvious, if you once grant that the girl was innocent,
+was a witness of the crime, and was now in the hands of the
+criminals. Grant me those premisses, M. Ricardo, for a moment, and
+you will see that we had just one chance of finding the girl alive
+in Geneva. From the first I was sure of that. What was the one
+chance? Why, this! She might be kept alive on the chance that she
+could be forced to tell what, by the way, she did not know,
+namely, the place where Mme. Dauvray's valuable jewels were
+secreted. Now, follow this. We, the police, find the jewels and
+take charge of them. Let that news reach the house in Geneva, and
+on the same night Mlle. Celie loses her life, and not--very
+pleasantly. They have no further use for her. She is merely a
+danger to them. So I take my precautions--never mind for the
+moment what they were. I take care that if the murderer is in Aix
+and gets wind of our discovery he shall not be able to communicate
+his news."
+
+"The Post Office would have stopped letters or telegrams," said
+Ricardo. "I understand."
+
+"On the contrary," replied Hanaud. "No, I took my precautions,
+which were of quite a different kind, before I knew the house in
+Geneva or the name of Rossignol. But one way of communication I
+did not think of. I did not think of the possibility that the news
+might be sent to a newspaper, which of course would publish it and
+cry it through the streets of Geneva. The moment I heard the news
+I knew we must hurry. The garden of the house ran down to the
+lake. A means of disposing of Mlle. Celie was close at hand. And
+the night had fallen. As it was, we arrived just in time, and no
+earlier than just in time. The paper had been bought, the message
+had reached the house, Mlle. Celie was no longer of any use, and
+every hour she stayed in that house was of course an hour of
+danger to her captors."
+
+"What were they going to do?" asked Ricardo.
+
+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It is not pretty--what they were going to do. We reach the garden
+in our launch. At that moment Hippolyte and Adele, who is most
+likely Hippolyte's wife, are in the lighted parlour on the
+basement floor. Adele is preparing her morphia-needle. Hippolyte
+is going to get ready the rowing-boat which was tied at the end of
+the landing-stage. Quietly as we came into the bank, they heard or
+saw us. They ran out and hid in the garden, having no time to lock
+the garden door, or perhaps not daring to lock it lest the sound
+of the key should reach our ears. We find that door upon the
+latch, the door of the room open; on the table lies the morphia-
+needle. Upstairs lies Mlle. Celie--she is helpless, she cannot see
+what they are meaning to do."
+
+"But she could cry out," exclaimed Ricardo. "She did not even do
+that!"
+
+"No, my friend, she could not cry out," replied Hanaud very
+seriously. "I know why. She could not. No living man or woman
+could. Rest assured of that!"
+
+Ricardo was mystified; but since the captain of the ship would not
+show his observation, he knew it would be in vain to press him.
+
+"Well, while Adele was preparing her morphia-needle and Hippolyte
+was about to prepare the boat, Jeanne upstairs was making her
+preparation too. She was mending a sack. Did you see Mlle. Celie's
+eyes and face when first she saw that sack? Ah! she understood!
+They meant to give her a dose of morphia, and, as soon as she
+became unconscious, they were going perhaps to take some terrible
+precaution--" Hanaud paused for a second. "I only say perhaps as
+to that. But certainly they were going to sew her up in that sack,
+row her well out across the lake, fix a weight to her feet, and
+drop her quietly overboard. She was to wear everything which she
+had brought with her to the house. Mlle. Celie would have
+disappeared for ever, and left not even a ripple upon the water to
+trace her by!"
+
+Ricardo clenched his hands.
+
+"But that's horrible!" he cried; and as he uttered the words the
+car swerved into the drive and stopped before the door of the
+Hotel Majestic.
+
+Ricardo sprang out. A feeling of remorse seized hold of him. All
+through that evening he had not given one thought to Harry
+Wethermill, so utterly had the excitement of each moment engrossed
+his mind.
+
+"He will be glad to know!" cried Ricardo. "Tonight, at all events,
+he shall sleep. I ought to have telegraphed to him from Geneva
+that we and Miss Celia were coming back." He ran up the steps into
+the hotel.
+
+"I took care that he should know," said Hanaud, as he followed in
+Ricardo's steps.
+
+"Then the message could not have reached him, else he would have
+been expecting us," replied Ricardo, as he hurried into the
+office, where a clerk sat at his books.
+
+"Is Mr. Wethermill in?" he asked.
+
+The clerk eyed him strangely.
+
+"Mr. Wethermill was arrested this evening," he said.
+
+Ricardo stepped back.
+
+"Arrested! When?"
+
+"At twenty-five minutes past ten," replied the clerk shortly.
+
+"Ah," said Hanaud quietly. "That was my telephone message."
+
+Ricardo stared in stupefaction at his companion.
+
+"Arrested!" he cried. "Arrested! But what for?"
+
+"For the murders of Marthe Gobin and Mme. Dauvray," said Hanaud.
+"Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. RICARDO IS BEWILDERED
+
+
+Ricardo passed a most tempestuous night. He was tossed amongst
+dark problems. Now it was Harry Wethermill who beset him. He
+repeated and repeated the name, trying to grasp the new and
+sinister suggestion which, if Hanaud were right, its sound must
+henceforth bear. Of course Hanaud might be wrong. Only, if he were
+wrong, how had he come to suspect Harry Wethermill? What had first
+directed his thoughts to that seemingly heart-broken man? And
+when? Certain recollections became vivid in Mr. Ricardo's mind--
+the luncheon at the Villa Rose, for instance. Hanaud had been so
+insistent that the woman with the red hair was to be found in
+Geneva, had so clearly laid it down that a message, a telegram, a
+letter from Aix to Geneva, would enable him to lay his hands upon
+the murderer in Aix. He was isolating the house in Geneva even so
+early in the history of his investigations, even so soon he
+suspected Harry Wethermill. Brains and audacity--yes, these two
+qualities he had stipulated in the criminal. Ricardo now for the
+first time understood the trend of all Hanaud's talk at that
+luncheon. He was putting Harry Wethermill upon his guard, he was
+immobilising him, he was fettering him in precautions; with a
+subtle skill he was forcing him to isolate himself. And he was
+doing it deliberately to save the life of Celia Harland in Geneva.
+Once Ricardo lifted himself up with the hair stirring on his
+scalp. He himself had been with Wethermill in the baccarat-rooms
+on the very night of the murder. They had walked together up the
+hill to the hotel. It could not be that Harry Wethermill was
+guilty. And yet, he suddenly remembered, they had together left
+the rooms at an early hour. It was only ten o'clock when they had
+separated in the hall, when they had gone, each to his own room.
+There would have been time for Wethermill to reach the Villa Rose
+and do his dreadful work upon that night before twelve, if all had
+been arranged beforehand, if all went as it had been arranged. And
+as he thought upon the careful planning of that crime, and
+remembered Wethermill's easy chatter as they had strolled from
+table to table in the Villa des Fleurs, Ricardo shuddered. Though
+he encouraged a taste for the bizarre, it was with an effort. He
+was naturally of an orderly mind, and to touch the eerie or
+inhuman caused him a physical discomfort. So now he marvelled in a
+great uneasiness at the calm placidity with which Wethermill had
+talked, his arm in his, while the load of so dark a crime to be
+committed within the hour lay upon his mind. Each minute he must
+have been thinking, with a swift spasm of the heart, "Should such
+a precaution fail--should such or such an unforeseen thing
+intervene," yet there had been never a sign of disturbance, never
+a hint of any disquietude.
+
+Then Ricardo's thoughts turned as he tossed upon his bed to Celia
+Harland, a tragic and a lonely figure. He recalled the look of
+tenderness upon her face when her eyes had met Harry Wethermill's
+across the baccarat-table in the Villa des Fleurs. He gained some
+insight into the reason why she had clung so desperately to
+Hanaud's coat-sleeve yesterday. Not merely had he saved her life.
+She was lying with all her world of trust and illusion broken
+about her, and Hanaud had raised her up. She had found some one
+whom she trusted--the big Newfoundland dog, as she expressed it.
+Mr. Ricardo was still thinking of Celia Harland when the morning
+came. He fell asleep, and awoke to find Hanaud by his bed.
+
+"You will be wanted today," said Hanaud.
+
+Ricardo got up and walked down from the hotel with the detective.
+The front door faces the hillside of Mont Revard, and on this side
+Mr. Ricardo's rooms looked out. The drive from the front door
+curves round the end of the long building and joins the road,
+which then winds down towards the town past the garden at the back
+of the hotel. Down this road the two men walked, while the
+supporting wall of the garden upon their right hand grew higher
+and higher above their heads. They came to a steep flight of steps
+which makes a short cut from the hotel to the road, and at the
+steps Hanaud stopped.
+
+"Do you see?" he said. "On the opposite side there are no houses;
+there is only a wall. Behind the wall there are climbing gardens
+and the ground falls steeply to the turn of the road below.
+There's a flight of steps leading down which corresponds with the
+flight of steps from the garden. Very often there's a serjent-de-
+ville stationed on the top of the steps. But there was not one
+there yesterday afternoon at three. Behind us is the supporting
+wall of the hotel garden. Well, look about you. We cannot be seen
+from the hotel. There's not a soul in sight--yes, there's some one
+coming up the hill, but we have been standing here quite long
+enough for you to stab me and get back to your coffee on the
+verandah of the hotel."
+
+Ricardo started back.
+
+"Marthe Gobin!" he cried. "It was here, then?"
+
+Hanaud nodded.
+
+"When we returned from the station in your motor-car and went up
+to your rooms we passed Harry Wethermill sitting upon the verandah
+over the garden drinking his coffee. He had the news then that
+Marthe Gobin was on her way."
+
+"But you had isolated the house in Geneva. How could he have the
+news?" exclaimed Ricardo, whose brain was whirling.
+
+"I had isolated the house from him, in the sense that he dared not
+communicate with his accomplices. That is what you have to
+remember. He could not even let them know that they must not
+communicate with him. So he received a telegram. It was carefully
+worded. No doubt he had arranged the wording of any message with
+the care which was used in all the preparations. It ran like
+this"--and Hanaud took a scrap of paper from his pocket and read
+out from it a copy of the telegram: "'Agent arrives Aix 3.7 to
+negotiate purchase of your patent.' The telegram was handed in at
+Geneva station at 12.45, five minutes after the train had left
+which carried Marthe Gobin to Aix. And more, it was handed in by a
+man strongly resembling Hippolyte Tace"--that we know."
+
+"That was madness," said Ricardo.
+
+"But what else could they do over there in Geneva? They did not
+know that Harry Wethermill was suspected. Harry Wethermill had no
+idea of it himself. But, even if they had known, they must take
+the risk. Put yourself into their place for a moment. They had
+seen my advertisement about Celie Harland in the Geneva paper.
+Marthe Gobin, that busybody who was always watching her
+neighbours, was no doubt watched herself. They see her leave the
+house, an unusual proceeding for her with her husband ill, as her
+own letter tells us. Hippolyte follows her to the station, sees
+her take her ticket to Aix and mount into the train. He must guess
+at once that she saw Celie Harland enter their house, that she is
+travelling to Aix with the information of her whereabouts. At all
+costs she must be prevented from giving that information. At all
+risks, therefore, the warning telegram must be sent to Harry
+Wethermill."
+
+Ricardo recognised the force of the argument.
+
+"If only you had heard of the telegram yesterday in time!" he
+cried.
+
+"Ah, yes!" Hanaud agreed. "But it was only sent off at a quarter
+to one. It was delivered to Wethermill and a copy was sent to the
+Prefecture, but the telegram was delivered first."
+
+"When was it delivered to Wethermill?" asked Ricardo.
+
+"At three. We had already left for the station. Wethermill was
+sitting on the verandah. The telegram was brought to him there. It
+was brought by a waiter in the hotel who remembers the incident
+very well. Wethermill has seven minutes and the time it will take
+for Marthe Gobin to drive from the station to the Majestic. What
+does he do? He runs up first to your rooms, very likely not yet
+knowing what he must do. He runs up to verify his telegram."
+
+"Are you sure of that?" cried Ricardo. "How can you be? You were
+at the station with me. What makes you sure?"
+
+Hanaud produced a brown kid glove from his pocket.
+
+"This."
+
+"That is your glove; you told me so yesterday."
+
+"I told you so," replied Hanaud calmly; "but it is not my glove.
+It is Wethermill's; there are his initials stamped upon the
+lining--see? I picked up that glove in your room, after we had
+returned from the station. It was not there before. He went to
+your rooms. No doubt he searched for a telegram. Fortunately he
+did not examine your letters, or Marthe Gobin would never have
+spoken to us as she did after she was dead,"
+
+"Then what did he do?" asked Ricardo eagerly; and, though Hanaud
+had been with him at the entrance to the station all this while,
+he asked the question in absolute confidence that the true answer
+would be given to him.
+
+"He returned to the verandah wondering what he should do. He saw
+us come back from the station in the motor-car and go up to your
+room. We were alone. Marthe Gobin, then, was following. There was
+his chance. Marthe Gobin must not reach us, must not tell her news
+to us. He ran down the garden steps to the gate. No one could see
+him from the hotel. Very likely he hid behind the trees, whence he
+could watch the road. A cab comes up the hill; there's a woman in
+it--not quite the kind of woman who stays at your hotel, M.
+Ricardo. Yet she must be going to your hotel, for the road ends.
+The driver is nodding on his box, refusing to pay any heed to his
+fare lest again she should bid him hurry. His horse is moving at a
+walk. Wethermill puts his head in at the window and asks if she
+has come to see M. Ricardo. Anxious for her four thousand francs,
+she answers 'Yes.' Perhaps he steps into the cab, perhaps as he
+walks by the side he strikes, and strikes hard and strikes surely.
+Long before the cab reaches the hotel he is back again on the
+verandah."
+
+"Yes," said Ricardo, "it's the daring of which you spoke which
+made the crime possible--the same daring which made him seek your
+help. That was unexampled."
+
+"No," replied Hanaud. "There's an historic crime in your own
+country, monsieur. Cries for help were heard in a by-street of a
+town. When people ran to answer them, a man was found kneeling by
+a corpse. It was the kneeling man who cried for help, but it was
+also the kneeling man who did the murder. I remembered that when I
+first began to suspect Harry Wethermill."
+
+Ricardo turned eagerly.
+
+"And when--when did you first begin to suspect Harry Wethermill?"
+
+Hanaud smiled and shook his head.
+
+"That you shall know in good time. I am the captain of the ship."
+His voice took on a deeper note. "But I prepare you. Listen!
+Daring and brains, those were the property of Harry Wethermill--
+yes. But it is not he who is the chief actor in the crime. Of that
+I am sure. He was no more than one of the instruments."
+
+"One of the instruments? Used, then, by whom?" asked Ricardo.
+
+"By my Normandy peasant-woman, M. Ricardo," said Hanaud. "Yes,
+there's the dominating figure--cruel, masterful, relentless--that
+strange woman, Helene Vauquier. You are surprised? You will see!
+It is not the man of intellect and daring; it's my peasant-woman
+who is at the bottom of it all."
+
+"But she's free!" exclaimed Ricardo. "You let her go free!"
+
+"Free!" repeated Ricardo. "She was driven straight from the Villa
+Rose to the depot. She has been kept au secret ever since."
+
+Ricardo stared in amazement.
+
+"Already you knew of her guilt?"
+
+"Already she had lied to me in her description of Adele Rossignol.
+Do you remember what she said--a black-haired woman with beady
+eyes; and I only five minutes before had picked up from the table-
+-this."
+
+He opened his pocket-book, and took from an envelope a long strand
+of red hair.
+
+"But it was not only because she lied that I had her taken to the
+depot. A pot of cold cream had disappeared from the room of Mlle
+Celie."
+
+"Then Perrichet after all was right."
+
+"Perrichet after all was quite wrong--not to hold his tongue. For
+in that pot of cold cream, as I was sure, were hidden those
+valuable diamond earrings which Mlle. Celie habitually wore."
+
+The two men had reached the square in front of the Etablissement
+des Bains. Ricardo dropped on to a bench and wiped his forehead.
+
+"But I am in a maze," he cried. "My head turns round. I don't know
+where I am."
+
+Hanaud stood in front of Ricardo, smiling. He was not displeased
+with his companion's bewilderment; it was all so much of tribute
+to himself.
+
+"I am the captain of the ship," he said.
+
+His smile irritated Ricardo, who spoke impatiently.
+
+"I should be very glad," he said, "if you would tell me how you
+discovered all these things. And what it was that the little salon
+on the first morning had to tell to you? And why Celia Harland ran
+from the glass doors across the grass to the motor-car and again
+from the carriage into the house on the lake? Why she did not
+resist yesterday evening? Why she did not cry for help? How much
+of Helene Vauquier's evidence was true and how much false? For
+what reason Wethermill concerned himself in this affair? Oh! and a
+thousand things which I don't understand."
+
+"Ah, the cushions, and the scrap of paper, and the aluminium
+flask," said Hanaud; and the triumph faded from his face. He spoke
+now to Ricardo with a genuine friendliness. "You must not be angry
+with me if I keep you in the dark for a little while. I, too, Mr.
+Ricardo, have artistic inclinations. I will not spoil the
+remarkable story which I think Mlle. Celie will be ready to tell
+us. Afterwards I will willingly explain to you what I read in the
+evidences of the room, and what so greatly puzzled me then. But it
+is not the puzzle or its solution," he said modestly, "which is
+most interesting here. Consider the people. Mme. Dauvray, the old,
+rich, ignorant woman, with her superstitions and her generosity,
+her desire to converse with Mme. de Montespan and the great ladies
+of the past, and her love of a young, fresh face about her; Helene
+Vauquier, the maid with her six years of confidential service, who
+finds herself suddenly supplanted and made to tend and dress in
+dainty frocks the girl who has supplanted her; the young girl
+herself, that poor child, with her love of fine clothes, the
+Bohemian who, brought up amidst trickeries and practising them as
+a profession, looking upon them and upon misery and starvation and
+despair as the commonplaces of life, keeps a simplicity and a
+delicacy and a freshness which would have withered in a day had
+she been brought up otherwise; Harry Wethermill, the courted and
+successful man of genius.
+
+"Just imagine if you can what his feelings must have been, when in
+Mme. Dauvray's bedroom, with the woman he had uselessly murdered
+lying rigid beneath the sheet, he saw me raise the block of wood
+from the inlaid floor and take out one by one those jewel cases
+for which less than twelve hours before he had been ransacking
+that very room. But what he must have felt! And to give no sign!
+Oh, these people are the interesting problems in this story. Let
+us hear what happened on that terrible night. The puzzle--that can
+wait." In Mr. Ricardo's view Hanaud was proved right. The
+extraordinary and appalling story which was gradually unrolled of
+what had happened on that night of Tuesday in the Villa Rose
+exceeded in its grim interest all the mystery of the puzzle. But
+it was not told at once.
+
+The trouble at first with Mlle. Celie was a fear of sleep. She
+dared not sleep--even with a light in the room and a nurse at her
+bedside. When her eyes were actually closing she would force
+herself desperately back into the living world. For when she slept
+she dreamed through again that dark and dreadful night of Tuesday
+and the two days which followed it, until at some moment endurance
+snapped and she woke up screaming. But youth, a good constitution,
+and a healthy appetite had their way with her in the end.
+
+She told her share of the story--she told what happened. There was
+apparently one terrible scene when she was confronted with Harry
+Wethermill in the office of Monsieur Fleuriot, the Juge
+d'lnstruction, and on her knees, with the tears streaming down her
+face, besought him to confess the truth. For a long while he held
+out. And then there came a strange and human turn to the affair.
+Adele Rossignol--or, to give her real name, Adele Tace, the wife
+of Hippolyte--had conceived a veritable passion for Harry
+Wethermill. He was of a not uncommon type, cold and callous in
+himself, yet with the power to provoke passion in women. And Adele
+Tace, as the story was told of how Harry Wethermill had paid his
+court to Celia Harland, was seized with a vindictive jealousy.
+Hanaud was not surprised. He knew the woman-criminal of his
+country--brutal, passionate, treacherous. The anonymous letters in
+a woman's handwriting which descend upon the Rue de Jerusalem, and
+betray the men who have committed thefts, had left him no
+illusions upon that figure in the history of crime. Adele
+Rossignol ran forward to confess, so that Harry Wethermill might
+suffer to the last possible point of suffering. Then at last
+Wethermill gave in and, broken down by the ceaseless
+interrogations of the magistrate, confessed in his turn too. The
+one, and the only one, who stood firmly throughout and denied the
+crime was Helene Vauquier. Her thin lips were kept contemptuously
+closed, whatever the others might admit. With a white, hard face,
+quietly and respectfully she faced the magistrate week after week.
+She was the perfect picture of a servant who knew her place. And
+nothing was wrung from her. But without her help the story became
+complete. And Ricardo was at pains to write it out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CELIA'S STORY
+
+
+The story begins with the explanation of that circumstance which
+had greatly puzzled Mr. Ricardo--Celia's entry into the household
+of Mme. Dauvray.
+
+Celia's father was a Captain Harland, of a marching regiment, who
+had little beyond good looks and excellent manners wherewith to
+support his position. He was extravagant in his tastes, and of an
+easy mind in the presence of embarrassments. To his other
+disadvantages he added that of falling in love with a pretty girl
+no better off than himself. They married, and Celia was born. For
+nine years they managed, through the wife's constant devotion, to
+struggle along and to give their daughter an education. Then,
+however, Celia's mother broke down under the strain and died.
+Captain Harland, a couple of years later, went out of the service
+with discredit, passed through the bankruptcy court, and turned
+showman. His line was thought-reading; he enlisted the services of
+his daughter, taught her the tricks of his trade, and became "The
+Great Fortinbras" of the music-halls. Captain Harland would move
+amongst the audience, asking the spectators in a whisper to think
+of a number or of an article in their pockets, after the usual
+fashion, while the child, in her short frock, with her long fair
+hair tied back with a ribbon, would stand blind-folded upon the
+platform and reel off the answers with astonishing rapidity. She
+was singularly quick, singularly receptive.
+
+The undoubted cleverness of the performance, and the beauty of the
+child, brought to them a temporary prosperity. The Great
+Fortinbras rose from the music-halls to the assembly rooms of
+provincial towns. The performance became genteel, and ladies
+flocked to the matinees.
+
+The Great Fortinbras dropped his pseudonym and became once more
+Captain Harland.
+
+As Celia grew up, he tried a yet higher flight--he became a
+spiritualist, with Celia for his medium. The thought-reading
+entertainments became thrilling seances, and the beautiful child,
+now grown into a beautiful girl of seventeen, created a greater
+sensation as a medium in a trance than she had done as a lightning
+thought-reader.
+
+"I saw no harm in it," Celia explained to M. Fleuriot, without any
+attempt at extenuation. "I never understood that we might be doing
+any hurt to any one. People were interested. They were to find us
+out if they could, and they tried to and they couldn't. I looked
+upon it quite simply in that way. It was just my profession. I
+accepted it without any question. I was not troubled about it
+until I came to Aix."
+
+A startling exposure, however, at Cambridge discredited the craze
+for spiritualism, and Captain Harland's fortunes declined. He
+crossed with his daughter to France and made a disastrous tour in
+that country, wasted the last of his resources in the Casino at
+Dieppe, and died in that town, leaving Celia just enough money to
+bury him and to pay her third-class fare to Paris.
+
+There she lived honestly but miserably. The slimness of her figure
+and a grace of movement which was particularly hers obtained her
+at last a situation as a mannequin in the show-rooms of a modiste.
+She took a room on the top floor of a house in the Rue St. Honore
+and settled down to a hard and penurious life.
+
+"I was not happy or contented--no," said Celia frankly and
+decisively. "The long hours in the close rooms gave me headaches
+and made me nervous. I had not the temperament. And I was very
+lonely--my life had been so different. I had had fresh air, good
+clothes, and freedom. Now all was changed. I used to cry myself to
+sleep up in my little room, wondering whether I would ever have
+friends. You see, I was quite young--only eighteen--and I wanted
+to live."
+
+A change came in a few months, but a disastrous change. The
+modiste failed. Celia was thrown out of work, and could get
+nothing to do. Gradually she pawned what clothes she could spare;
+and then there came a morning when she had a single five-franc
+piece in the world and owed a month's rent for her room. She kept
+the five-franc piece all day and went hungry, seeking for work. In
+the evening she went to a provision shop to buy food, and the man
+behind the counter took the five-franc piece. He looked at it,
+rung it on the counter, and, with a laugh, bent it easily in half.
+
+"See here, my little one," he said, tossing the coin back to her,
+"one does not buy good food with lead."
+
+Celia dragged herself out of the shop in despair. She was
+starving. She dared not go back to her room. The thought of the
+concierge at the bottom of the stairs, insistent for the rent,
+frightened her. She stood on the pavement and burst into tears. A
+few people stopped and watched her curiously, and went on again.
+Finally a sergent-de-ville told her to go away.
+
+The girl moved on with the tears running down her cheeks. She was
+desperate, she was lonely.
+
+"I thought of throwing myself into the Seine," said Celia simply,
+in telling her story to the Juge d'Instruction. "Indeed, I went to
+the river. But the water looked so cold, so terrible, and I was
+young. I wanted so much to live. And then--the night came, and the
+lights made the city bright, and I was very tired and--and--"
+
+And, in a word, the young girl went up to Montmartre in
+desperation, as quickly as her tired legs would carry her. She
+walked once or twice timidly past the restaurants, and, finally,
+entered one of them, hoping that some one would take pity on her
+and give her some supper. She stood just within the door of the
+supper-room. People pushed past her--men in evening dress, women
+in bright frocks and jewels. No one noticed her. She had shrunk
+into a corner, rather hoping not to be noticed, now that she had
+come. But the novelty of her surroundings wore off. She knew that
+for want of food she was almost fainting. There were two girls
+engaged by the management to dance amongst the tables while people
+had supper--one dressed as a page in blue satin, and the other as
+a Spanish dancer. Both girls were kind. They spoke to Celia
+between their dances. They let her waltz with them. Still no one
+noticed her. She had no jewels, no fine clothes, no chic--the
+three indispensable things. She had only youth and a pretty face.
+
+"But," said Celia, "without jewels and fine clothes and chic these
+go for nothing in Paris. At last, however, Mme. Dauvray came in
+with a party of friends from a theatre, and saw how unhappy I was,
+and gave me some supper. She asked me about myself, and I told
+her. She was very kind, and took me home with her, and I cried all
+the way in the carriage. She kept me a few days, and then she told
+me that I was to live with her, for often she was lonely too, and
+that if I would she would some day find me a nice, comfortable
+husband and give me a marriage portion. So all my troubles seemed
+to be at an end," said Celia, with a smile.
+
+Within a fortnight Mme. Dauvray confided to Celia that there was a
+new fortune-teller come to Paris, who, by looking into a crystal,
+could tell the most wonderful things about the future. The old
+woman's eyes kindled as she spoke. She took Celia to the fortune-
+teller's rooms next day, and the girl quickly understood the
+ruling passion of the woman who had befriended her. It took very
+little time then for Celia to notice how easily Mme. Dauvray was
+duped, how perpetually she was robbed. Celia turned the problem
+over in her mind.
+
+"Madame had been very good to me. She was kind and simple," said
+Celia, with a very genuine affection in her voice. "The people
+whom we knew laughed at her, and were ungenerous. But there are
+many women whom the world respects who are worse than ever was
+poor Mme. Dauvray. I was very fond of her, so I proposed to her
+that we should hold a seance, and I would bring people from the
+spirit world I knew that I could amuse her with something much
+more clever and more interesting than the fortune-tellers. And at
+the same time I could save her from being plundered. That was all
+I thought about."
+
+That was all she thought about, yes. She left Helene Vauquier out
+of her calculations, and she did not foresee the effect of her
+stances upon Mme. Dauvray. Celia had no suspicions of Helene
+Vauquier. She would have laughed if any one had told her that this
+respectable and respectful middle-aged woman, who was so
+attentive, so neat, so grateful for any kindness, was really
+nursing a rancorous hatred against her. Celia had sprung from
+Montmartre suddenly; therefore Helene Vauquier despised her. Celia
+had taken her place in Mme. Dauvray's confidence, had deposed her
+unwittingly, had turned the confidential friend into a mere
+servant; therefore Helene Vauquier hated her. And her hatred
+reached out beyond the girl, and embraced the old, superstitious,
+foolish woman, whom a young and pretty face could so easily
+beguile. Helene Vauquier despised them both, hated them both, and
+yet must nurse her rancour in silence and futility. Then came the
+seances, and at once, to add fuel to her hatred, she found herself
+stripped of those gifts and commissions which she had exacted from
+the herd of common tricksters who had been wont to make their
+harvest out of Mme. Dauvray. Helene Vauquier was avaricious and
+greedy, like so many of her class. Her hatred of Celia, her
+contempt for Mme. Dauvray, grew into a very delirium. But it was a
+delirium she had the cunning to conceal. She lived at white heat,
+but to all the world she had lost nothing of her calm.
+
+Celia did not foresee the hatred she was arousing; nor, on the
+other hand, did she foresee the overwhelming effect of these
+spiritualistic seances on Mme. Dauvray. Celia had never been
+brought quite close to the credulous before.
+
+"There had always been the row of footlights," she said. "I was on
+the platform; the audience was in the hall; or, if it was at a
+house, my father made the arrangements. I only came in at the last
+moment, played my part, and went away. It was never brought home
+to me that some amongst these people really and truly believed. I
+did not think about it. Now, however, when I saw Mme. Dauvray so
+feverish, so excited, so firmly convinced that great ladies from
+the spirit world came and spoke to her, I became terrified. I had
+aroused a passion which I had not suspected. I tried to stop the
+seances, but I was not allowed. I had aroused a passion which I
+could not control. I was afraid that Mme. Dauvray's whole life--it
+seems absurd to those who did not know her, but those who did will
+understand--yes, her whole life and happiness would be spoilt if
+she discovered that what she believed in was all a trick."
+
+She spoke with a simplicity and a remorse which it was difficult
+to disbelieve. M. Fleuriot, the judge, now at last convinced that
+the Dreyfus affair was for nothing in the history of this crime,
+listened to her with sympathy.
+
+"That is your explanation, mademoiselle," he said gently. "But I
+must tell you that we have another."
+
+"Yes, monsieur?" Celia asked.
+
+"Given by Helene Vauquier," said Fleuriot.
+
+Even after these days Celia could not hear that woman's name
+without a shudder of fear and a flinching of her whole body. Her
+face grew white, her lips dry.
+
+"I know, monsieur, that Helene Vauquier is not my friend," she
+said. "I was taught that very cruelly."
+
+"Listen, mademoiselle, to what she says," said the judge, and he
+read out to Celia an extract or two from Hanaud's report of his
+first interview with Helene Vauquier in her bedroom at the Villa
+Rose.
+
+"You hear what she says. 'Mme. Dauvray would have had seances all
+day, but Mlle. Celie pleaded that she was left exhausted at the
+end of them. But Mlle. Celie was of an address.' And again,
+speaking of Mme. Dauvray's queer craze that the spirit of Mme. de
+Montespan should be called up, Helene Vauquier says: 'She was
+never gratified. Always she hoped. Always Mlle. Celie tantalised
+her with the hope. She would not spoil her fine affairs by making
+these treats too common.' Thus she attributes your reluctance to
+multiply your experiments to a desire to make the most profit
+possible out of your wares, like a good business woman."
+
+"It is not true, monsieur," cried Celia earnestly. "I tried to
+stop the seances because now for the first time I recognised that
+I had been playing with a dangerous thing. It was a revelation to
+me. I did not know what to do. Mme. Dauvray would promise me
+everything, give me everything, if only I would consent when I
+refused. I was terribly frightened of what would happen. I did not
+want power over people. I knew it was not good for her that she
+should suffer so much excitement. No, I did not know what to do.
+And so we all moved to Aix."
+
+And there she met Harry Wethermill on the second day after her
+arrival, and proceeded straightway for the first time to fall in
+love. To Celia it seemed that at last that had happened for which
+she had so longed. She began really to live as she understood life
+at this time. The day, until she met Harry Wethermill, was one
+flash of joyous expectation; the hours when they were together a
+time of contentment which thrilled with some chance meeting of the
+hands into an exquisite happiness. Mme. Dauvray understood quickly
+what was the matter, and laughed at her affectionately.
+
+"Celie, my dear," she said, "your friend, M. Wethermill--'Arry, is
+it not? See, I pronounce your tongue--will not be as comfortable
+as the nice, fat, bourgeois gentleman I meant to find for you.
+But, since you are young, naturally you want storms. And there
+will be storms, Celie," she concluded, with a laugh.
+
+Celia blushed.
+
+"I suppose there will," she said regretfully. There were, indeed,
+moments when she was frightened of Harry Wethermill, but
+frightened with a delicious thrill of knowledge that he was only
+stern because he cared so much.
+
+But in a day or two there began to intrude upon her happiness a
+stinging dissatisfaction with her past life. At times she fell
+into melancholy, comparing her career with that of the man who
+loved her. At times she came near to an extreme irritation with
+Helene Vauquier. Her lover was in her thoughts. As she put it
+herself:
+
+"I wanted always to look my best, and always to be very good."
+
+Good in the essentials of life, that is to be understood. She had
+lived in a lax world. She was not particularly troubled by the
+character of her associates; she was untouched by them; she liked
+her fling at the baccarat-tables. These were details, and did not
+distress her. Love had not turned her into a Puritan. But certain
+recollections plagued her soul. The visit to the restaurant at
+Montmartre, for instance, and the seances. Of these, indeed, she
+thought to have made an end. There were the baccarat-rooms, the
+beauty of the town and the neighbourhood to distract Mme. Dauvray.
+Celia kept her thoughts away from seances. There was no seance as
+yet held in the Villa Rose. And there would have been none but for
+Helene Vauquier.
+
+One evening, however, as Harry Wethermill walked down from the
+Cercle to the Villa des Fleurs, a woman's voice spoke to him from
+behind.
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+He turned and saw Mme. Dauvray's maid. He stopped under a street
+lamp, and said:
+
+"Well, what can I do for you?"
+
+The woman hesitated.
+
+"I hope monsieur will pardon me," she said humbly. "I am
+committing a great impertinence. But I think monsieur is not very
+kind to Mlle. Celie."
+
+Wethermill stared at her.
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" he asked angrily.
+
+Helene Vauquier looked him quietly in the face.
+
+"It is plain, monsieur, that Mlle. Celie loves monsieur. Monsieur
+has led her on to love him. But it is also plain to a woman with
+quick eyes that monsieur himself cares no more for mademoiselle
+than for the button on his coat. It is not very kind to spoil the
+happiness of a young and pretty girl, monsieur."
+
+Nothing could have been more respectful than the manner in which
+these words were uttered. Wethermill was taken in by it. He
+protested earnestly, fearing lest the maid should become an enemy.
+
+"Helene, it is not true that I am playing with Mlle. Celie. Why
+should I not care for her?"
+
+Helene Vauquier shrugged her shoulders. The question needed no
+answer.
+
+"Why should I seek her so often if I did not care?"
+
+And to this question Helene Vauquier smiled--a quiet, slow,
+confidential smile.
+
+"What does monsieur want of Mme. Dauvray?" she asked. And the
+question was her answer.
+
+Wethermill stood silent. Then he said abruptly:
+
+"Nothing, of course; nothing." And he walked away.
+
+But the smile remained on Helene Vauquier's face. What did they
+all want of Mme. Dauvray? She knew very well. It was what she
+herself wanted--with other things. It was money--always money.
+Wethermill was not the first to seek the good graces of Mme.
+Dauvray through her pretty companion. Helene Vauquier went home.
+She was not discontented with her conversation. Wethermill had
+paused long enough before he denied the suggestion of her words.
+She approached him a few days later a second time and more openly.
+She was shopping in, the Rue du Casino when he passed her. He
+stopped of his own accord and spoke to her. Helene Vauquier kept a
+grave and respectful face. But there was a pulse of joy at her
+heart. He was coming to her hand.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, "you do not go the right way." And again her
+strange smile illuminated her face. "Mlle. Celie sets a guard
+about Mme. Dauvray. She will not give to people the opportunity to
+find madame generous."
+
+"Oh," said Wethermill slowly. "Is that so?" And he turned and
+walked by Helene Vauquier's side.
+
+"Never speak of Mme. Dauvray's wealth, monsieur, if you would keep
+the favour of Mlle. Celie. She is young, but she knows her world."
+
+"I have not spoken of money to her," replied Wethermill; and then
+he burst out laughing. "But why should you think that I--I, of all
+men--want money?" he asked.
+
+And Helene answered him again enigmatically.
+
+"If I am wrong, monsieur, I am sorry, but you can help me too,"
+she said, in her submissive voice. And she passed on, leaving
+Wethermill rooted to the ground.
+
+It was a bargain she proposed--the impertinence of it! It was a
+bargain she proposed--the value of it! In that shape ran Harry
+Wethermill's thoughts. He was in desperate straits, though to the
+world's eye he was a man of wealth. A gambler, with no inexpensive
+tastes, he had been always in need of money. The rights in his
+patent he had mortgaged long ago. He was not an idler; he was no
+sham foisted as a great man on an ignorant public. He had really
+some touch of genius, and he cultivated it assiduously. But the
+harder he worked, the greater was his need of gaiety and
+extravagance. Gifted with good looks and a charm of manner, he was
+popular alike in the great world and the world of Bohemia. He kept
+and wanted to keep a foot in each. That he was in desperate
+straits now, probably Helene Vauquier alone in Aix had recognised.
+She had drawn her inference from one simple fact. Wethermill asked
+her at a later time when they were better acquainted how she had
+guessed his need.
+
+"Monsieur," she replied, "you were in Aix without a valet, and it
+seemed to me that you were of that class of men who would never
+move without a valet so long as there was money to pay his wages.
+That was my first thought. Then when I saw you pursue your
+friendship with Mlle. Celie--you, who so clearly to my eyes did
+not love her--I felt sure."
+
+On the next occasion that the two met, it was again Harry
+Wethermill who sought Helene Vauquier. He talked for a minute or
+two upon indifferent subjects, and then he said quickly:
+
+"I suppose Mme. Dauvray is very rich?"
+
+"She has a great fortune in jewels," said Helene Vauquier.
+
+Wethermill started. He was agitated that evening, the woman saw.
+His hands shook, his face twitched. Clearly he was hard put to it.
+For he seldom betrayed himself. She thought it time to strike.
+
+"Jewels which she keeps in the safe in her bedroom," she added.
+
+"Then why don't you---?" he began, and stopped.
+
+"I said that I too needed help," replied Helene, without a ruffle
+of her composure.
+
+It was nine o'clock at night. Helene Vauquier had come down to the
+Casino with a wrap for Mme. Dauvray. The two people were walking
+down the little street of which the Casino blocks the end. And it
+happened that an attendant at the Casino, named Alphonse Ruel,
+passed them, recognised them both, and--smiled to himself with
+some amusement. What was Wethermill doing in company with Mme.
+Dauvray's maid? Ruel had no doubt. Ruel had seen Wethermill often
+enough these recent days with Mme. Dauvray's pretty companion.
+Ruel had all a Frenchman's sympathy with lovers. He wished them
+well, those two young and attractive people, and hoped that the
+maid would help their plans.
+
+But as he passed he caught a sentence spoken suddenly by
+Wethermill.
+
+"Well, it is true; I must have money." And the agitated voice and
+words remained fixed in his memory. He heard, too, a warning
+"Hush!" from the maid. Then they passed out of his hearing. But he
+turned and saw that Wethermill was talking volubly. What Harry
+Wethermill was saying he was saying in a foolish burst of
+confidence.
+
+"You have guessed it, Helene--you alone." He had mortgaged his
+patent twice over--once in France, once in England--and the second
+time had been a month ago. He had received a large sum down, which
+went to pay his pressing creditors. He had hoped to pay the sum
+back from a new invention.
+
+"But Helene, I tell you," he said, "I have a conscience." And when
+she smiled he explained. "Oh, not what the priests would call a
+conscience; that I know. But none the less I have a conscience--a
+conscience about the things which really matter, at all events to
+me. There is a flaw in that new invention. It can be improved; I
+know that. But as yet I do not see how, and--I cannot help it--I
+must get it right; I cannot let it go imperfect when I know that
+it's imperfect, when I know that it can be improved, when I am
+sure that I shall sooner or later hit upon the needed improvement.
+That is what I mean when I say I have a conscience."
+
+Helena Vauquier smiled indulgently. Men were queer fish. Things
+which were really of no account troubled and perplexed them and
+gave them sleepless nights. But it was not for her to object,
+since it was one of these queer anomalies which was giving her her
+chance.
+
+"And the people are finding out that you have sold your rights
+twice over," she said sympathetically. "That is a pity, monsieur."
+
+"They know," he answered; "those in England know."
+
+"And they are very angry?"
+
+"They threaten me," said Wethermill. "They give me a month to
+restore the money. Otherwise there will be disgrace, imprisonment,
+penal servitude."
+
+Helene Vauquier walked calmly on. No sign of the intense joy which
+she felt was visible in her face, and only a trace of it in her
+voice.
+
+"Monsieur will, perhaps, meet me tomorrow in Geneva," she said.
+And she named a small cafe in a back street. "I can get a holiday
+for the afternoon." And as they were near to the villa and the
+lights, she walked on ahead.
+
+Wethermill loitered behind. He had tried his luck at the tables
+and had failed. And--and--he must have the money.
+
+He travelled, accordingly, the next day to Geneva, and was there
+presented to Adele Tace and Hippolyte.
+
+"They are trusted friends of mine," said Helene Vauquier to
+Wethermill, who was not inspired to confidence by the sight of the
+young man with the big ears and the plastered hair. As a matter of
+fact, she had never met them before they came this year to Aix.
+
+The Tace family, which consisted of Adele and her husband and
+Jeanne, her mother, were practised criminals. They had taken the
+house in Geneva deliberately in order to carry out some robberies
+from the great villas on the lake-side. But they had not been
+fortunate; and a description of Mme. Dauvray's jewellery in the
+woman's column of a Geneva newspaper had drawn Adele Tace over to
+Aix. She had set about the task of seducing Mme. Dauvray's maid,
+and found a master, not an instrument.
+
+In the small cafe on that afternoon of July Helene Vauquier
+instructed her accomplices, quietly and methodically, as though
+what she proposed was the most ordinary stroke of business. Once
+or twice subsequently Wethermill, who was the only safe go-
+between, went to the house in Geneva, altering his hair and
+wearing a moustache, to complete the arrangements. He maintained
+firmly at his trial that at none of these meetings was there any
+talk of murder.
+
+"To be sure," said the judge, with a savage sarcasm. "In decent
+conversation there is always a reticence. Something is left to be
+understood."
+
+And it is difficult to understand how murder could not have been
+an essential part of their plan, since---But let us see what
+happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE FIRST MOVE
+
+
+On the Friday before the crime was committed Mme. Dauvray and
+Celia dined at the Villa des Fleurs. While they were drinking
+their coffee Harry Wethermill joined them. He stayed with them
+until Mme. Dauvray was ready to move, and then all three walked
+into the baccarat rooms together. But there, in the throng of
+people, they were separated.
+
+Harry Wethermill was looking carefully after Celia, as a good
+lover should. He had, it seemed, no eyes for any one else; and it
+was not until a minute or two had passed that the girl herself
+noticed that Mme. Dauvray was not with them.
+
+"We will find her easily," said Harry.
+
+"Of course," replied Celia.
+
+"There is, after all, no hurry," said Wethermill, with a laugh;
+"and perhaps she was not unwilling to leave us together."
+
+Celia dimpled to a smile.
+
+"Mme. Dauvray is kind to me," she said, with a very pretty
+timidity.
+
+"And yet more kind to me," said Wethermill in a low voice which
+brought the blood into Celia's cheeks.
+
+But even while he spoke he soon caught sight of Mme. Dauvray
+standing by one of the tables; and near to her was Adele Tace.
+Adele had not yet made Mme. Dauvray's acquaintance; that was
+evident. She was apparently unaware of her; but she was gradually
+edging towards her. Wethermill smiled, and Celia caught the smile.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, and her head began to turn in the
+direction of Mme. Dauvray.
+
+"Why, I like your frock--that's all," said Wethermill at once; and
+Celia's eyes went down to it.
+
+"Do you?" she said, with a pleased smile. It was a dress of dark
+blue which suited her well. "I am glad. I think it is pretty." And
+they passed on.
+
+Wethermill stayed by the girl's side throughout the evening. Once
+again he saw Mme. Dauvray and Adele Tace. But now they were
+together; now they were talking. The first step had been taken.
+Adele Tace had scraped acquaintance with Mme. Dauvray. Celia saw
+them almost at the same moment.
+
+"Oh, there is Mme. Dauvray," she cried, taking a step towards her.
+
+Wethermill detained the girl.
+
+"She seems quite happy," he said; and, indeed, Mme. Dauvray was
+talking volubly and with the utmost interest, the jewels sparkling
+about her neck. She raised her head, saw Celia, nodded to her
+affectionately, and then pointed her out to her companion. Adele
+Tace looked the girl over with interest and smiled contentedly.
+There was nothing to be feared from her. Her youth, her very
+daintiness, seemed to offer her as the easiest of victims.
+
+"You see Mme. Dauvray does not want you," said Harry Wethermill.
+"Let us go and play chemin-de-fer"; and they did, moving off into
+one of the further rooms.
+
+It was not until another hour had passed that Celia rose and went
+in search of Mme. Dauvray. She found her still talking earnestly
+to Adele Tace. Mme. Dauvray got up at once.
+
+"Are you ready to go, dear?" she asked, and she turned to Adele
+Tace. "This is Celie, Mme. Rossignol," she said, and she spoke
+with a marked significance and a note of actual exultation in her
+voice.
+
+Celia, however, was not unused to this tone. Mme. Dauvray was
+proud of her companion, and had a habit of showing her off, to the
+girl's discomfort. The three women spoke a few words, and then
+Mme. Dauvray and Celia left the rooms and walked to the entrance-
+doors. But as they walked Celia became alarmed.
+
+She was by nature extraordinarily sensitive to impressions. It was
+to that quick receptivity that the success of "The Great
+Fortinbras" had been chiefly due. She had a gift of rapid
+comprehension. It was not that she argued, or deducted, or
+inferred. But she felt. To take a metaphor from the work of the
+man she loved, she was a natural receiver. So now, although no
+word was spoken, she was aware that Mme. Dauvray was greatly
+excited--greatly disturbed; and she dreaded the reason of that
+excitement and disturbance.
+
+While they were driving home in the motor-car she said
+apprehensively:
+
+"You met a friend then, to-night, madame?"
+
+"No," said Mme. Dauvray; "I made a friend. I had not met Mme.
+Rossignol before. A bracelet of hers came undone, and I helped her
+to fasten it. We talked afterwards. She lives in Geneva."
+
+Mme. Dauvray was silent for a moment or two. Then she turned
+impulsively and spoke in a voice of appeal.
+
+"Celie, we talked of things"; and the girl moved impatiently. She
+understood very well what were the things of which Mme. Dauvray
+and her new friend had talked. "And she laughed. ... I could not
+bear it."
+
+Celia was silent, and Mme. Dauvray went on in a voice of awe:
+
+"I told her of the wonderful things which happened when I sat with
+Helene in the dark--how the room filled with strange sounds, how
+ghostly fingers touched my forehead and my eyes. She laughed--
+Adele Rossignol laughed, Celie. I told her of the spirits with
+whom we held converse. She would not believe. Do you remember the
+evening, Celie, when Mme. de Castiglione came back an old, old
+woman, and told us how, when she had grown old and had lost her
+beauty and was very lonely, she would no longer live in the great
+house which was so full of torturing memories, but took a small
+appartement near by, where no one knew her; and how she used to
+walk out late at night, and watch, with her eyes full of tears,
+the dark windows which had been once so bright with light? Adele
+Rossignol would not believe. I told her that I had found the story
+afterwards in a volume of memoirs. Adele Rossignol laughed and
+said no doubt you had read that volume yourself before the
+seance."
+
+Celia stirred guiltily.
+
+"She had no faith in you, Celie. It made me angry, dear. She said
+that you invented your own tests. She sneered at them. A string
+across a cupboard! A child, she said, could manage that; much
+more, then, a clever young lady. Oh, she admitted that you were
+clever! Indeed, she urged that you were far too clever to submit
+to the tests of some one you did not know. I replied that you
+would. I was right, Celie, was I not?"
+
+And again the appeal sounded rather piteously in Mme. Dauvray's
+voice.
+
+"Tests!" said Celia, with a contemptous laugh. And, in truth, she
+was not afraid of them. Mme. Dauvray's voice at once took courage.
+
+"There!" she cried triumphantly. "I was sure. I told her so.
+Celie, I arranged with her that next Tuesday--"
+
+And Celia interrupted quickly.
+
+"No! Oh, no!"
+
+Again there was silence; and then Mme. Dauvray said gently, but
+very seriously:
+
+"Celie, you are not kind."
+
+Celia was moved by the reproach.
+
+"Oh, madame!" she cried eagerly. "Please don't think that. How
+could I be anything else to you who are so kind to me?"
+
+"Then prove it, Celie. On Tuesday I have asked Mme. Rossignol to
+come; and--" The old woman's voice became tremulous with
+excitement. "And parhaps--who knows?--perhaps SHE will appear to
+us."
+
+Celia had no doubt who "she" was. She was Mme. de Montespan.
+
+"Oh, no, madame!" she stammered. "Here, at Aix, we are not in the
+spirit for such things,"
+
+And then, in a voice of dread, Mme. Dauvray asked: "Is it true,
+then, what Adele said?"
+
+And Celia started violently. Mme. Dauvray doubted.
+
+"I believe it would break my heart, my dear, if I were to think
+that; if I were to know that you had tricked me," she said, with a
+trembling voice. Celia covered her face with her hands. It would
+be true. She had no doubt of it. Mme. Dauvray would never forgive
+herself--would never forgive Celia. Her infatuation had grown so
+to engross her that the rest of her life would surely be
+embittered. It was not merely a passion--it was a creed as well.
+Celia shrank from the renewal of these seances. Every fibre in her
+was in revolt. They were so unworthy--so unworthy of Harry
+Wethermill, and of herself as she now herself wished to be. But
+she had to pay now; the moment for payment had come.
+
+"Celie," said Mme. Dauvray, "it isn't true! Surely it isn't true?"
+
+Celia drew her hands away from her face.
+
+"Let Mme. Rossignol come on Tuesday!" she cried, and the old woman
+caught the girl's hand and pressed it with affection.
+
+"Oh, thank you! thank you!" she cried. "Adele Rossignol laughs to-
+night; we shall convince her on Tuesday, Celie! Celie, I am so
+glad!" And her voice sank into a solemn whisper, pathetically
+ludicrous. "It is not right that she should laugh! To bring people
+back through the gates of the spirit-world--that is wonderful."
+
+To Celia the sound of the jargon learnt from her own lips, used by
+herself so thoughtlessly in past times, was odious. "For the last
+time," she pleaded to herself. All her life was going to change;
+though no word had yet been spoken by Harry Wethermill, she was
+sure of it. Just for this one last time, then, so that she might
+leave Mme. Dauvray the colours of her belief, she would hold a
+seance at the Villa Rose.
+
+Mme. Dauvray told the news to Helene Vauquier when they reached
+the villa.
+
+"You will be present, Helene," she cried excitedly. "It will be
+Tuesday. There will be the three of us."
+
+"Certainly, if madame wishes," said Helene submissively. She
+looked round the room. "Mlle. Celie can be placed on a chair in
+that recess and the curtains drawn, whilst we--madame and madame's
+friend and I--can sit round this table under the side windows."
+
+"Yes," said Celia, "that will do very well."
+
+It was Madame Dauvray's habit when she was particularly pleased
+with Celia to dismiss her maid quickly, and to send her to brush
+the girl's hair at night; and in a little while on this night
+Helene went to Celia's room. While she brushed Celia's hair she
+told her that Servettaz's parents lived at Chambery, and that he
+would like to see them.
+
+"But the poor man is afraid to ask for a day," she said. "He has
+been so short a time with madame."
+
+"Of course madame will give him a holiday if he asks," replied
+Celia with a smile. "I will speak to her myself to-morrow."
+
+"It would be kind of mademoiselle," said Helene Vauquier. "But
+perhaps--" She stopped.
+
+"Well," said Celia.
+
+"Perhaps mademoiselle would do better still to speak to Servattaz
+himself and encourage him to ask with his own lips. Madame has her
+moods, is it not so? She does not always like it to be forgotten
+that she is the mistress."
+
+On the next day accordingly Celia did speak to Servettaz, and
+Servettaz asked for his holiday.
+
+"But of course," Mme. Dauvray at once replied. "We must decide
+upon a day."
+
+It was then that Helene Vauquier ventured humbly upon a
+suggestion.
+
+"Since madame has a friend coming here on Tuesday, perhaps that
+would be the best day for him to go. Madame would not be likely to
+take a long drive that afternoon."
+
+"No, indeed," replied Mme. Dauvray. "We shall all three dine
+together early in Aix and return here."
+
+"Then I will tell him he may go to-morrow," said Celia.
+
+For this conversation took place on the Monday, and in the evening
+Mme. Dauvray and Celia went as usual to the Villa des Fleurs and
+dined there.
+
+"I was in a bad mind," said Celia, when asked by the Juge
+d'Instruction to explain that attack of nerves in the garden which
+Ricardo had witnessed. "I hated more and more the thought of the
+seance which was to take place on the morrow. I felt that I was
+disloyal to Harry. My nerves were all tingling. I was not nice
+that night at all," she added quaintly. "But at dinner I
+determined that if I met Harry after dinner, as I was sure to do,
+I would tell him the whole truth about myself. However, when I did
+meet him I was frightened. I knew how stern he could suddenly
+look. I dreaded what he would think. I was too afraid that I
+should lose him. No, I could not speak; I had not the courage.
+That made me still more angry with myself, and so I--I quarrelled
+at once with Harry. He was surprised; but it was natural, wasn't
+it? What else should one do under such circumstances. except
+quarrel with the man one loved? Yes, I really quarrelled with him,
+and said things which I thought and hoped would hurt. Then I ran
+away from him lest I should break down and cry. I went to the
+tables and lost at once all the money I had except one note of
+five louis. But that did not console me. And I ran out into the
+garden, very unhappy. There I behaved like a child, and Mr.
+Ricardo saw me. But it was not the little money I had lost which
+troubled me; no, it was the thought of what a coward I was.
+Afterwards Harry and I made it up, and I thought, like the little
+fool I was, that he wanted to ask me to marry him. But I would not
+let him that night. Oh! I wanted him to ask me--I was longing for
+him to ask me--but not that night. Somehow I felt that the seance
+and the tricks must be all over and done with before I could
+listen or answer."
+
+The quiet and simple confession touched the magistrate who
+listened to it with profound pity. He shaded his eyes with his
+hand. The girl's sense of her unworthiness, the love she had given
+so unstintingly to Harry Wethermill, the deep pride she had felt
+in the delusion that he loved her too, had in it an irony too
+bitter. But he was aroused to anger against the man.
+
+"Go on, mademoiselle," he said. But in spite of himself his voice
+trembled.
+
+"So I arranged with him that we should meet on Wednesday, as Mr.
+Ricardo heard."
+
+"You told him that you would 'want him' on Wednesday," said the
+Judge quoting Mr. Ricardo's words.
+
+"Yes," replied Celia. "I meant that the last word of all these
+deceptions would have been spoken. I should be free to hear what
+he had to say to me. You see, monsieur, I was so sure that I knew
+what it was he had to say to me--"and her voice broke upon the
+words. She recovered herself with an effort. "Then I went home
+with Mme. Dauvray."
+
+On the morning of Tuesday, however, there came a letter from Adele
+Tace, of which no trace was afterwards discovered. The letter
+invited Mme. Dauvray and Celia to come out to Annecy and dine with
+her at an hotel there. They could then return together to Aix. The
+proposal fitted well with Mme. Dauvray's inclinations. She was in
+a feverish mood of excitement.
+
+"Yes, it will be better that we dine quietly together in a place
+where there is no noise and no crowd, and where no one knows us,"
+she said; and she looked up the time-table. "There is a train back
+which reaches Aix at nine o'clock," she said, "so we need not
+spoil Servettaz' holiday."
+
+"His parents will be expecting him," Helene Vauquier added.
+
+Accordingly Servettaz left for Chambery by the 1.50 train from
+Aix; and later on in the afternoon Mme. Dauvray and Celia went by
+train to Annecy. In the one woman's mind was the queer longing
+that "she" should appear and speak to-night; in the girl's there
+was a wish passionate as a cry. "This shall be the last time," she
+said to herself again and again--"the very last."
+
+Meanwhile, Helene Vauquier, it must be held, burnt carefully Adele
+Taces letter. She was left in the Villa Rose with the charwoman to
+keep her company. The charwoman bore testimony that Helene
+Vauquier certainly did burn a letter in the kitchen-stove, and
+that after she had burned it she sat for a long time rocking
+herself in a chair, with a smile of great pleasure upon her face,
+and now and then moistening her lips with her tongue. But Helene
+Vauquier kept her mouth sealed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE AFTERNOON OF TUESDAY
+
+
+Mme. Dauvray and Celia found Adele Rossignol, to give Adele Tace
+the name which she assumed, waiting for them impatiently in the
+garden of an hotel at Annecy, on the Promenade du Paquier. She was
+a tall, lithe woman, and she was dressed, by the purse and wish of
+Helene Vauquier, in a robe and a long coat of sapphire velvet,
+which toned down the coarseness of her good looks and lent
+something of elegance to her figure.
+
+"So it is mademoiselle," Adele began, with a smile of raillery,
+"who is so remarkably clever."
+
+"Clever?" answered Celia, looking straight at Adele, as though
+through her she saw mysteries beyond. She took up her part at
+once. Since for the last time it had got to be played, there must
+be no fault in the playing. For her own sake, for the sake of Mme.
+Dauvray's happiness, she must carry it off to-night with success.
+The suspicions of Adele Rossignol must obtain no verification. She
+spoke in a quiet and most serious voice. "Under spirit-control no
+one is clever. One does the bidding of the spirit which controls."
+
+"Perfectly," said Adele in a malicious tone. "I only hope you will
+see to it, mademoiselle, that some amusing spirits control you
+this evening and appear before us."
+
+"I am only the living gate by which the spirit forms pass from the
+realm of mind into the world of matter," Celia replied.
+
+"Quite so," said Adele comfortably. "Now let us be sensible and
+dine. We can amuse ourselves with mademoiselle's rigmaroles
+afterwards."
+
+Mme. Dauvray was indignant. Celia, for her part, felt humiliated
+and small. They sat down to their dinner in the garden, but the
+rain began to fall and drove them indoors. There were a few people
+dining at the same hour, but none near enough to overhear them.
+Alike in the garden and the dining-room, Adele Tace kept up the
+same note of ridicule and disbelief. She had been carefully
+tutored for her work. She was able to cite the stock cases of
+exposure--"les freres Davenport," as she called them, Eusapia
+Palladino and Dr. Slade. She knew the precautions which had been
+taken to prevent trickery and where those precautions had failed.
+Her whole conversation was carefully planned to one end, and to
+one end alone. She wished to produce in the minds of her
+companions so complete an impression of her scepticism that it
+would seem the most natural thing in the world to both of them
+that she should insist upon subjecting Celia to the severest
+tests. The rain ceased, and they took their coffee on the terrace
+of the hotel. Mme. Dauvray had been really pained by the
+conversation of Adele Tace. She had all the missionary zeal of a
+fanatic.
+
+"I do hope, Adele, that we shall make you believe. But we shall.
+Oh, I am confident we shall." And her voice was feverish.
+
+Adele dropped for the moment her tone of raillery.
+
+"I am not unwilling to believe," she said, "but I cannot. I am
+interested--yes. You see how much I have studied the subject. But
+I cannot believe. I have heard stories of how these manifestations
+are produced--stories which make me laugh. I cannot help it. The
+tricks are so easy. A young girl wearing a black frock which does
+not rustle--it is always a black frock, is it not, because a black
+frock cannot be seen in the dark?--carrying a scarf or veil, with
+which she can make any sort of headdress if only she is a little
+clever, and shod in a pair of felt-soled slippers, is shut up in a
+cabinet or placed behind a screen, and the lights are turned down
+or out--" Adele broke off with a comic shrug of the shoulders.
+"Bah! It ought not to deceive a child."
+
+Celia sat with a face which WOULD grow red. She did not look, but
+none the less she was aware that Mme. Dauvray was gazing at her
+with a perplexed frown and some return of her suspicion showing in
+her eyes. Adele Tace was not content to leave the subject there.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, with a smile, "Mlle. Celie dresses in that
+way for a seance?"
+
+"Madame shall see tonight," Celia stammered, and Camille Dauvray
+rather sternly repeated her words.
+
+"Yes, Adele shall see tonight. I myself will decide what you shall
+wear, Celie."
+
+Adele Tace casually suggested the kind of dress which she would
+prefer.
+
+"Something light in colour with a train, something which will hiss
+and whisper if mademoiselle moves about the room--yes, and I think
+one of mademoiselle's big hats," she said. "We will have
+mademoiselle as modern as possible, so that, when the great ladies
+of the past appear in the coiffure of their day, we may be sure it
+is not Mlle. Celie who represents them."
+
+"I will speak to Helene," said Mme. Dauvray, and Adele Tace was
+content.
+
+There was a particular new dress of which she knew, and it was
+very desirable that Mlle. Celie should wear it tonight. For one
+thing, if Celia wore it, it would help the theory that she had put
+it on because she expected that night a lover; for another, with
+that dress there went a pair of satin slippers which had just come
+home from a shoemaker at Aix, and which would leave upon soft
+mould precisely the same imprints as the grey suede shoes which
+the girl was wearing now.
+
+Celia was not greatly disconcerted by Mme. Rossignol's
+precautions. She would have to be a little more careful, and Mme.
+de Montespan would be a little longer in responding to the call of
+Mme. Dauvray than most of the other dead ladies of the past had
+been. But that was all. She was, however, really troubled in
+another way. All through dinner, at every word of the
+conversation, she had felt her reluctance towards this seance
+swelling into a positive disgust. More than once she had felt
+driven by some uncontrollable power to rise up at the table and
+cry out to Adele:
+
+"You are right! It IS trickery. There is no truth in it."
+
+But she had mastered herself. For opposite to her sat her
+patroness, her good friend, the woman who had saved her. The flush
+upon Mme. Dauvray's cheeks and the agitation of her manner warned
+Celia how much hung upon the success of this last seance. How much
+for both of them!
+
+And in the fullness of that knowledge a great fear assailed her.
+She began to be afraid, so strong was her reluctance, that she
+would not bring her heart into the task. "Suppose I failed tonight
+because I could not force myself to wish not to fail!" she
+thought, and she steeled herself against the thought. Tonight she
+must not fail. For apart altogether from Mme. Dauvray's happiness,
+her own, it seemed, was at stake too.
+
+"It must be from my lips that Harry learns what I have been," she
+said to herself, and with the resolve she strengthened herself.
+
+"I will wear what you please," she said, with a smile. "I only
+wish Mme. Rossignol to be satisfied."
+
+"And I shall be," said Adele, "if--" She leaned forward in
+anxiety. She had come to the real necessity of Helene Vauquier's
+plan. "If we abandon as quite laughable the cupboard door and the
+string across it; if, in a word, mademoiselle consents that we tie
+her hand and foot and fasten her securely in a chair. Such
+restraints are usual in the experiments of which I have read. Was
+there not a medium called Mlle. Cook who was secured in this way,
+and then remarkable things, which I could not believe, were
+supposed to have happened?"
+
+"Certainly I permit it," said Celia, with indifference; and Mme.
+Dauvray cried enthusiastically:
+
+"Ah, you shall believe tonight in those wonderful things!"
+
+Adele Tace leaned back. She drew a breath. It was a breath of
+relief.
+
+"Then we will buy the cord in Aix," she said.
+
+"We have some, no doubt, in the house," said Mme. Dauvray.
+
+Adele shook her head and smiled.
+
+"My dear madame, you are dealing with a sceptic. I should not be
+content."
+
+Celia shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Let us satisfy Mme. Rossignol," she said.
+
+Celia, indeed, was not alarmed by this last precaution. For her it
+was a test less difficult than the light-coloured rustling robe.
+She had appeared upon so many platforms, had experienced too often
+the bungling efforts of spectators called up from the audience, to
+be in any fear. There were very few knots from which her small
+hands and supple fingers had not learnt long since to extricate
+themselves. She was aware how much in all these matters the
+personal equation counted. Men who might, perhaps, have been able
+to tie knots from which she could not get free were always too
+uncomfortable and self-conscious, or too afraid of hurting her
+white arms and wrists, to do it. Women, on the other hand, who had
+no compunctions of that kind, did not know how.
+
+It was now nearly eight o'clock; the rain still held off.
+
+"We must go," said Mme. Dauvray, who for the last half-hour had
+been continually looking at her watch.
+
+They drove to the station and took the train. Once more the rain
+came down, but it had stopped again before the train steamed into
+Aix at nine o'clock.
+
+"We will take a cab," said Mme. Dauvray: "it will save time."
+
+"It will do us good to walk, madame," pleaded Adele. The train was
+full. Adele passed quickly out from the lights of the station in the
+throng of passengers and waited in the dark square for the others
+to join her. "It is barely nine. A friend has promised to call at the Villa
+Rose for me after eleven and drive me back in a motor-car to Geneva,
+so we have plenty of time."
+
+They walked accordingly up the hill, Mme. Dauvray slowly, since
+she was stout, and Celia keeping pace with her. Thus it seemed
+natural that Adele Tace should walk ahead, though a passer-by
+would not have thought she was of their company. At the corner of
+the Rue du Casino Adele waited for them and said quickly:
+
+"Mademoiselle, you can get some cord, I think, at the shop there,"
+and she pointed to the shop of M. Corval. "Madame and I will go
+slowly on; you, who are the youngest, will easily catch us up."
+Celia went into the shop, bought the cord, and caught Mme. Dauvray
+up before she reached the villa.
+
+"Where is Mme. Rossignol?" she asked.
+
+"She went on," said Camille Dauvray. "She walks faster than I do."
+
+They passed no one whom they knew, although they did pass one who
+recognised them, as Perrichet had discovered. They came upon
+Adele, waiting for them at the corner of the road, where it turns
+down toward the villa.
+
+"It is near here--the Villa Rose?" she asked.
+
+"A minute more and we are there."
+
+They turned in at the drive, closed the gate behind them, and
+walked up to the villa.
+
+The windows and the glass doors were closed, the latticed shutters
+fastened. A light burned in the hall.
+
+"Helene is expecting us," said Mme. Dauvray, for as they
+approached she saw the front door open to admit them, and Helene
+Vauquier in the doorway. The three women went straight into the
+little salon, which was ready with the lights up and a small fire
+burning. Celia noticed the fire with a trifle of dismay. She moved
+a fire-screen in front of it.
+
+"I can understand why you do that, mademoiselle," said Adele
+Rossignol, with a satirical smile. But Mme. Dauvray came to the
+girl's help.
+
+"She is right, Adele. Light is the great barrier between us and
+the spirit-world," she said solemnly.
+
+Meanwhile, in the hall Helene Vauquier locked and bolted the front
+door. Then she stood motionless, with a smile upon her face and a
+heart beating high. All through that afternoon she had been afraid
+that some accident at the last moment would spoil her plan, that
+Adele Tace had not learned her lesson, that Celie would take
+fright, that she would not return. Now all those fears were over.
+She had her victims safe within the villa. The charwoman had been
+sent home. She had them to herself. She was still standing in the
+hall when Mme. Dauvray called aloud impatiently:
+
+"Helene! Helene!"
+
+And when she entered the salon there was still, as Celia was able
+to recall, some trace of her smile lingering upon her face.
+
+Adele Rossignol had removed her hat and was taking off her gloves.
+Mme. Dauvray was speaking impatiently to Celia.
+
+"We will arrange the room, dear, while Helene helps you to dress.
+It will be quite easy. We shall use the recess."
+
+And Celia, as she ran up the stairs, heard Mme. Dauvray discussing
+with her maid what frock she should wear. She was hot, and she
+took a hurried bath. When she came from her bathroom she saw with
+dismay that it was her new pale-green evening gown which had been
+laid out. It was the last which she would have chosen. But she
+dared not refuse it. She must still any suspicion. She must
+succeed. She gave herself into Helene's hands. Celia remembered
+afterwards one or two points which passed barely heeded at the
+time. Once while Helene was dressing her hair she looked up at the
+maid in the mirror and noticed a strange and rather horrible grin
+upon her face, which disappeared the moment their eyes met. Then
+again, Helene was extraordinarily slow and extraordinarily
+fastidious that evening. Nothing satisfied her, neither the hang
+of the girl's skirt, the folds of her sash, nor the arrangement of
+her hair.
+
+"Come, Helene, be quick," said Celia. "You know how madame hates
+to be kept waiting at these times. You might be dressing me to go
+to meet my lover," she added, with a blush and a smile at her own
+pretty reflection in the glass; and a queer look came upon Helene
+Vauquier's face. For it was at creating just this very impression
+that she aimed.
+
+"Very well, mademoiselle," said Helene. And even as she spoke Mme.
+Dauvray's voice rang shrill and irritable up the stairs.
+
+"Celie! Celie!"
+
+"Quick, Helene," said Celia. For she herself was now anxious to
+have the seance over and done with.
+
+But Helene did not hurry. The more irritable Mme. Dauvray became,
+the more impatient with Mlle. Celie, the less would Mlle. Celie
+dare to refuse the tests Adele wished to impose upon her. But that
+was not all. She took a subtle and ironic pleasure to-night in
+decking out her victim's natural loveliness. Her face, her slender
+throat, her white shoulders, should look their prettiest, her
+grace of limb and figure should be more alluring than ever before.
+The same words, indeed, were running through both women's minds.
+
+"For the last time," said Celia to herself, thinking of these
+horrible seances, of which to-night should see the end.
+
+"For the last time," said Helene Vauquier too. For the last time
+she laced the girl's dress. There would be no more patient and
+careful service for Mlle. Celie after to-night. But she should
+have it and to spare to-night. She should be conscious that her
+beauty had never made so strong an appeal; that she was never so
+fit for life as at the moment when the end had come. One thing
+Helene regretted. She would have liked Celia--Celia, smiling at
+herself in the glass--to know suddenly what was in store for her!
+She saw in imagination the colour die from the cheeks, the eyes
+stare wide with terror.
+
+"Celie! Celie!"
+
+Again the impatient voice rang up the stairs, as Helene pinned the
+girl's hat upon her fair head. Celie sprang up, took a quick step
+or two towards the door, and stopped in dismay. The swish of her
+long satin train must betray her. She caught up the dress and
+tried again. Even so, the rustle of it was heard.
+
+"I shall have to be very careful. You will help me, Helene?"
+
+"Of course, mademoiselle. I will sit underneath the switch of the
+light in the salon. If madame, your visitor, makes the experiment
+too difficult, I will find a way to help you," said Helene
+Vauquier, and as she spoke she handed Celia a long pair of white
+gloves.
+
+"I shall not want them," said Celia.
+
+"Mme. Dauvray ordered me to give them to you," replied Helene.
+
+Celia took them hurriedly, picked up a white scarf of tulle, and
+ran down the stairs. Helene Vauquier listened at the door and
+heard madame's voice in feverish anger.
+
+"We have been waiting for you, Celie. You have been an age."
+
+Helene Vauquier laughed softly to herself, took out Celia's white
+frock from the wardrobe, turned off the lights, and followed her
+down to the hall. She placed the cloak just outside the door of
+the salon. Then she carefully turned out all the lights in the
+hall and in the kitchen and went into the salon. The rest of the
+house was in darkness. This room was brightly lit; and it had been
+made ready.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SEANCE
+
+
+Helene Vauquier locked the door of the salon upon the inside and
+placed the key upon the mantel-shelf, as she had always done
+whenever a seance had been held. The curtains had been loosened at
+the sides of the arched recess in front of the glass doors, ready
+to be drawn across. Inside the recess, against one of the pillars
+which supported the arch, a high stool without a back, taken from
+the hall, had been placed, and the back legs of the stool had been
+lashed with cord firmly to the pillar, so that it could not be
+moved. The round table had been put in position, with three chairs
+about it. Mme. Dauvray waited impatiently. Celia stood apparently
+unconcerned, apparently lost to all that was going on. Her eyes
+saw no one. Adele looked up at Celia, and laughed maliciously.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I see, is in the very mood to produce the most
+wonderful phenomena. But it will be better, I think, madame," she
+said, turning to Mme. Dauvray, "that Mlle. Celie should put on
+those gloves which I see she has thrown on to a chair. It will be
+a little more difficult for mademoiselle to loosen these cords,
+should she wish to do so."
+
+The argument silenced Celia. If she refused this condition now she
+would excite Mme. Dauvray to a terrible suspicion. She drew on her
+gloves ruefully and slowly, smoothed them over her elbows, and
+buttoned them. To free her hands with her fingers and wrists
+already hampered in gloves would not be so easy a task. But there
+was no escape. Adele Rossignol was watching her with a satiric
+smile. Mme. Dauvray was urging her to be quick. Obeying a second
+order the girl raised her skirt and extended a slim foot in a
+pale-green silk stocking and a satin slipper to match. Adele was
+content. Celia was wearing the shoes she was meant to wear. They
+were made upon the very same last as those which Celia had just
+kicked off upstairs. An almost imperceptible nod from Helene
+Vauquier, moreover, assured her.
+
+She took up a length of the thin cord.
+
+"Now, how are we to begin?" she said awkwardly. "I think I will
+ask you, mademoiselle, to put your hands behind you."
+
+Celia turned her back and crossed her wrists. She stood in her
+satin frock, with her white arms and shoulders bare, her slender
+throat supporting her small head with its heavy curls, her big
+hat--a picture of young grace and beauty. She would have had an
+easy task that night had there been men instead of women to put her
+to the test. But the women were intent upon their own ends: Mme.
+Dauvray eager for her seance, Adele Tace and Helene Vauquier
+for the climax of their plot.
+
+Celia clenched her hands to make the muscles of her wrists rigid
+to resist the pressure of the cord. Adele quietly unclasped them
+and placed them palm to palm. And at once Celia became uneasy. It
+was not merely the action, significant though it was of Adele's
+alertness to thwart her, which troubled Celia. But she was
+extraordinarily receptive of impressions, extraordinarily quick to
+feel, from a touch, some dim sensation of the thought of the one
+who touched her. So now the touch of Adele's swift, strong,
+nervous hands caused her a queer, vague shock of discomfort. It
+was no more than that at the moment, but it was quite definite as
+that.
+
+"Keep your hands so, please, mademoiselle," said Adele; "your
+fingers loose."
+
+And the next moment Celia winced and had to bite her lip to
+prevent a cry. The thin cord was wound twice about her wrists,
+drawn cruelly tight and then cunningly knotted. For one second
+Celia was thankful for her gloves; the next, more than ever she
+regretted that she wore them. It would have been difficult enough
+for her to free her hands now, even without them. And upon that a
+worse thing befell her.
+
+"I beg mademoiselle's pardon if I hurt her," said Adele.
+
+And she tied the girl's thumbs and little fingers. To slacken the
+knots she must have the use of her fingers, even though her gloves
+made them fumble. Now she had lost the use of them altogether. She
+began to feel that she was in master-hands. She was sure of it the
+next instant. For Adele stood up, and, passing a cord round the
+upper part of her arms, drew her elbows back. To bring any
+strength to help her in wriggling her hands free she must be able
+to raise her elbows. With them trussed in the small of her back
+she was robbed entirely of her strength. And all the time her
+strange uneasiness grew. She made a movement of revolt, and at
+once the cord was loosened.
+
+"Mlle. Celie objects to my tests," said Adele, with a laugh, to
+Mme. Dauvray. "And I do not wonder."
+
+Celia saw upon the old woman's foolish and excited face a look of
+veritable consternation.
+
+"Are you afraid, Celie?" she asked.
+
+There was anger, there was menace in the voice, but above all
+these there was fear--fear that her illusions were to tumble about
+her. Celia heard that note and was quelled by it. This folly of
+belief, these seances, were the one touch of colour in Mme.
+Dauvray's life. And it was just that instinctive need of colour
+which had made her so easy to delude. How strong the need is, how
+seductive the proposal to supply it, Celia knew well. She knew it
+from the experience of her life when the Great Fortinbras was at
+the climax of his fortunes. She had travelled much amongst
+monotonous, drab towns without character or amusements. She had
+kept her eyes open. She had seen that it was from the denizens of
+the dull streets in these towns that the quack religions won their
+recruits. Mme. Dauvray's life had been a featureless sort of
+affair until these experiments had come to colour it. Madame
+Dauvray must at any rate preserve the memory of that colour.
+
+"No," she said boldly; "I am not afraid," and after that she moved
+no more.
+
+Her elbows were drawn firmly back and tightly bound. She was sure
+she could not free them. She glanced in despair at Helene
+Vauquier, and then some glimmer of hope sprang up. For Helene
+Vauquier gave her a look, a smile of reassurance. It was as if she
+said, "I will come to your help." Then, to make security still
+more sure, Adele turned the girl about as unceremoniously as if
+she had been a doll, and, passing a cord at the back of her arms,
+drew both ends round in front and knotted them at her waist.
+
+"Now, Celie," said Adele, with a vibration in her voice which
+Celia had not remarked before.
+
+Excitement was gaining upon her, as upon Mme. Dauvray. Her face
+was flushed and shiny, her manner peremptory and quick. Celia's
+uneasiness grew into fear. She could have used the words which
+Hanaud spoke the next day in that very room--"There is something
+here which I do not understand." The touch of Adele Tact's hands
+communicated something to her--something which filled her with a
+vague alarm. She could not have formulated it if she would; she
+dared not if she could. She had but to stand and submit.
+
+"Now," said Adele.
+
+She took the girl by the shoulders and set her in a clear space in
+the middle of the room, her back to the recess, her face to the
+mirror, where all could see her.
+
+"Now, Celie"--she had dropped the "Mlle." and the ironic suavity
+of her manner--"try to free yourself."
+
+For a moment the girl's shoulders worked, her hands fluttered. But
+they remained helplessly bound.
+
+"Ah, you will be content, Adele, to-night," cried Mme. Dauvray
+eagerly.
+
+But even in the midst of her eagerness--so thoroughly had she been
+prepared--there lingered a flavour of doubt, of suspicion. In
+Celia's mind there was still the one desperate resolve.
+
+"I must succeed to-night," she said to herself--"I must!"
+
+Adele Rossignol kneeled on the floor behind her. She gathered in
+carefully the girl's frock. Then she picked up the long train,
+wound it tightly round her limbs, pinioning and swathing them in
+the folds of satin, and secured the folds with a cord about the
+knees.
+
+She stood up again.
+
+"Can you walk, Celie?" she asked. "Try!"
+
+With Helene Vauquier to support her if she fell, Celia took a tiny
+shuffling step forward, feeling supremely ridiculous. No one,
+however, of her audience was inclined to laugh. To Mme. Dauvray
+the whole business was as serious as the most solemn ceremonial.
+Adele was intent upon making her knots secure. Helene Vauquier was
+the well-bred servant who knew her place. It was not for her to
+laugh at her young mistress, in however ludicrous a situation she
+might be.
+
+"Now," said Adele, "we will tie mademoiselle's ankles, and then we
+shall be ready for Mme. de Montespan."
+
+The raillery in her voice had a note of savagery in it now.
+Celia's vague terror grew. She had a feeling that a beast was
+waking in the woman, and with it came a growing premonition of
+failure. Vainly she cried to herself, "I must not fail to-night."
+But she felt instinctively that there was a stronger personality
+than her own in that room, taming her, condemning her to failure,
+influencing the others.
+
+She was placed in a chair. Adele passed a cord round her ankles,
+and the mere touch of it quickened Celia to a spasm of revolt. Her
+last little remnant of liberty was being taken from her. She
+raised herself, or rather would have raised herself. But Helene
+with gentle hands held her in the chair, and whispered under her
+breath:
+
+"Have no fear! Madame is watching."
+
+Adele looked fiercely up into the girl's face.
+
+"Keep still, hein, la petite!" she cried. And the epithet--"little
+one"--was a light to Celia. Till now, upon these occasions, with
+her black ceremonial dress, her air of aloofness, her vague eyes,
+and the dignity of her carriage, she had already produced some
+part of their effect before the seance had begun. She had been
+wont to sail into the room, distant, mystical. She had her
+audience already expectant of mysteries, prepared for marvels. Her
+work was already half done. But now of all that help she was
+deprived. She was no longer a person aloof, a prophetess, a seer
+of visions; she was simply a smartly-dressed girl of today,
+trussed up in a ridiculous and painful position--that was all. The
+dignity was gone. And the more she realised that, the more she was
+hindered from influencing her audience, the less able she was to
+concentrate her mind upon them, to will them to favour her. Mme.
+Dauvray's suspicions, she was sure, were still awake. She could
+not quell them. There was a stronger personality than hers at work
+in the room. The cord bit through her thin stockings into her
+ankles. She dared not complain. It was savagely tied. She made no
+remonstrance. And then Helene Vauquier raised her up from the
+chair and lifted her easily off the ground. For a moment she held
+her so. If Celia had felt ridiculous before, she knew that she was
+ten times more so now. She could see herself as she hung in Helene
+Vauquier's arms, with her delicate frock ludicrously swathed and
+swaddled about her legs. But, again, of those who watched her no
+one smiled.
+
+"We have had no such tests as these," Mme. Dauvray explained, half
+in fear, half in hope.
+
+Adele Rossignol looked the girl over and nodded her head with
+satisfaction. She had no animosity towards Celia; she had really
+no feeling of any kind for her or against her. Fortunately she was
+unaware at this time that Harry Wethermill had been paying his
+court to her or it would have gone worse with Mlle. Celie before
+the night was out. Mlle. Celie was just a pawn in a very dangerous
+game which she happened to be playing, and she had succeeded in
+engineering her pawn into the desired condition of helplessness.
+She was content.
+
+"Mademoiselle," she said, with a smile, "you wish me to believe.
+You have now your opportunity."
+
+Opportunity! And she was helpless. She knew very well that she
+could never free herself from these cords without Helene's help.
+She would fail, miserably and shamefully fail.
+
+"It was madame who wished you to believe," she stammered.
+
+And Adele Rossignol laughed suddenly--a short, loud, harsh laugh,
+which jarred upon the quiet of the room. It turned Celia's vague
+alarm into a definite terror. Some magnetic current brought her
+grave messages of fear. The air about her seemed to tingle with
+strange menaces. She looked at Adele. Did they emanate from her?
+And her terror answered her "Yes." She made her mistake in that.
+The strong personality in the room was not Adele Rossignol, but
+Helene Vauquier, who held her like a child in her arms. But she
+was definitely aware of danger, and too late aware of it. She
+struggled vainly. From her head to her feet she was powerless. She
+cried out hysterically to her patron:
+
+"Madame! Madame! There is something--a presence here--some one who
+means harm! I know it!"
+
+And upon the old woman's face there came a look, not of alarm, but
+of extraordinary relief. The genuine, heartfelt cry restored her
+confidence in Celia.
+
+"Some one--who means harm!" she whispered, trembling with
+excitement.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle is already under control," said Helene, using
+the jargon which she had learnt from Celia's lips.
+
+Adele Rossignol grinned.
+
+"Yes, la petite is under control," she repeated, with a sneer; and
+all the elegance of her velvet gown was unable to hide her any
+longer from Celia's knowledge. Her grin had betrayed her. She was
+of the dregs. But Helene Vauquier whispered:
+
+"Keep still, mademoiselle. I shall help you."
+
+Vauquier carried the girl into the recess and placed her upon the
+stool. With a long cord Adele bound her by the arms and the waist
+to the pillar, and her ankles she fastened to the rung of the
+stool, so that they could not touch the ground.
+
+"Thus we shall be sure that when we hear rapping it will be the
+spirits, and not the heels, which rap," she said. "Yes, I am
+contented now." And she added, with a smile, "Celie may even have
+her scarf," and, picking up a white scarf of tulle which Celia had
+brought down with her, she placed it carelessly round her
+shoulders.
+
+"Wait!" Helene Vauquier whispered in Celia's ear.
+
+To the cord about Celia's waist Adele was fastening a longer line.
+
+"I shall keep my foot on the other end of this," she said, "when
+the lights are out, and I shall know then if our little one frees
+herself."
+
+The three women went out of the recess. And the next moment the
+heavy silk curtains swung across the opening, leaving Celia in
+darkness. Quickly and noiselessly the poor girl began to twist and
+work her hands. But she only bruised her wrists. This was to be
+the last of the seances. But it must succeed! So much of Mme.
+Dauvray's happiness, so much of her own, hung upon its success.
+Let her fail to-night, she would be surely turned from the door.
+The story of her trickery and her exposure would run through Aix.
+And she had not told Harry! It would reach his ears from others.
+He would never forgive her. To face the old, difficult life of
+poverty and perhaps starvation again, and again alone, would be
+hard enough; but to face it with Harry Wethermill's contempt added
+to its burdens--as the poor girl believed she surely would have to
+do--no, that would be impossible! Not this time would she turn
+away from the Seine, because it was so terrible and cold. If she
+had had the courage to tell him yesterday, he would have forgiven,
+surely he would! The tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down
+her cheeks. What would become of her now? She was in pain besides.
+The cords about her arms and ankles tortured her. And she feared--
+yes, desperately she feared the effect of the exposure upon Mme.
+Dauvray. She had been treated as a daughter; now she was in return
+to rob Mme. Dauvray of the belief which had become the passion of
+her life.
+
+"Let us take our seats at the table," she heard Mme. Dauvray say.
+"Helene, you are by the switch of the electric light. Will you
+turn it off?" And upon that Helene whispered, yet so that the
+whisper reached to Celia and awakened hope:
+
+"Wait! I will see what she is doing."
+
+The curtains opened, and Helene Vauquier slipped to the girl's
+side.
+
+Celia checked her tears. She smiled imploringly, gratefully.
+
+"What shall I do?" asked Helene, in a voice so low that the
+movement of her mouth rather than the words made the question
+clear.
+
+Celia raised her head to answer. And then a thing incomprehensible
+to her happened. As she opened her lips Helene Vauquier swiftly
+forced a handkerchief in between the girl's teeth, and lifting the
+scarf from her shoulders wound it tightly twice across her mouth,
+binding her lips, and made it fast under the brim of her hat
+behind her head. Celia tried to scream; she could not utter a
+sound. She stared at Helene with incredulous, horror-stricken
+eyes. Helene nodded at her with a cruel grin of satisfaction, and
+Celia realised, though she did not understand, something of the
+rancour and the hatred which seethed against her in the heart of
+the woman whom she had supplanted. Helene Vauquier meant to expose
+her to-night; Celia had not a doubt of it. That was her
+explanation of Helene Vauquier's treachery; and believing that
+error, she believed yet another--that she had reached the terrible
+climax of her troubles. She was only at the beginning of them.
+
+"Helene!" cried Mme. Dauvray sharply. "What are you doing?"
+
+The maid instantly slid back into the room.
+
+"Mademoiselle has not moved," she said.
+
+Celia heard the women settle in their chairs about the table.
+
+"Is madame ready?" asked Helene; and then there was the sound of
+the snap of a switch. In the salon darkness had come.
+
+If only she had not been wearing her gloves, Celia thought, she
+might possibly have just been able to free her fingers and her
+supple hands from their bonds. But as it was she was helpless. She
+could only sit and wait until the audience in the salon grew tired
+of waiting and came to her. She closed her eyes, pondering if by
+any chance she could excuse her failure. But her heart sank within
+her as she thought of Mme. Rossignol's raillery. No, it was all
+over for her. ...
+
+She opened her eyes, and she wondered. It seemed to her that there
+was more light in the recess than there had been when she closed
+them. Very likely her eyes were growing used to the darkness. Yet-
+-yet--she ought not to be able to distinguish quite so clearly the
+white pillar opposite to her. She looked towards the glass doors
+and understood. The wooden shutters outside the doors were not
+quite closed. They had been carelessly left unbolted. A chink from
+lintel to floor let in a grey thread of light. Celia heard the
+women whispering in the salon, and turned her head to catch the
+words.
+
+"Do you hear any sound?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Was that a hand which touched me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"We must wait."
+
+And so silence came again, and suddenly there was quite a rush of
+light into the recess. Celia was startled. She turned her head
+back again towards the window. The wooden door had swung a little
+more open. There was a wider chink to let the twilight of that
+starlit darkness through. And as she looked, the chink slowly
+broadened and broadened, the door swung slowly back on hinges
+which were strangely silent. Celia stared at the widening panel of
+grey light with a vague terror. It was strange that she could hear
+no whisper of wind in the garden. Why, oh, why was that latticed
+door opening so noiselessly? Almost she believed that the spirits
+after all... And suddenly the recess darkened again, and Celia sat
+with her heart leaping and shivering in her breast. There was
+something black against the glass doors--a man. He had appeared as
+silently, as suddenly, as any apparition. He stood blocking out
+the light, pressing his face against the glass, peering into the
+room. For a moment the shock of horror stunned her. Then she tore
+frantically at the cords. All thought of failure, of exposure, of
+dismissal had fled from her. The three poor women--that was her
+thought--were sitting unwarned, unsuspecting, defenceless in the
+pitch-blackness of the salon. A few feet away a man, a thief, was
+peering in. They were waiting for strange things to happen in the
+darkness. Strange and terrible things would happen unless she
+could free herself, unless she could warn them. And she could not.
+Her struggles were mere efforts to struggle, futile, a shiver from
+head to foot, and noiseless as a shiver. Adele Rossignol had done
+her work well and thoroughly. Celia's arms, her waist, her ankles
+were pinioned; only the bandage over her mouth seemed to be
+loosening. Then upon horror, horror was added. The man touched the
+glass doors, and they swung silently inwards. They, too, had been
+carelessly left unbolted. The man stepped without a sound over the
+sill into the room. And, as he stepped, fear for herself drove out
+for the moment from Celia's thoughts fear for the three women in
+the black room. If only he did not see her! She pressed herself
+against the pillar. He might overlook her, perhaps! His eyes would
+not be so accustomed to the darkness of the recess as hers. He
+might pass her unnoticed--if only he did not touch some fold of
+her dress.
+
+And then, in the midst of her terror, she experienced so great a
+revulsion from despair to joy that a faintness came upon her, and
+she almost swooned. She saw who the intruder was. For when he
+stepped into the recess he turned towards her, and the dim light
+struck upon him and showed her the contour of his face. It was her
+lover, Harry Wethermill. Why he had come at this hour, and in this
+strange way, she did not consider. Now she must attract his eyes,
+now her fear was lest he should not see her.
+
+But he came at once straight towards her. He stood in front of
+her, looking into her eyes. But he uttered no cry. He made no
+movement of surprise. Celia did not understand it. His face was in
+the shadow now and she could not see it. Of course, he was
+stunned, amazed. But--but--he stood almost as if he had expected
+to find her there and just in that helpless attitude. It was
+absurd, of course, but he seemed to look upon her helplessness as
+nothing out of the ordinary way. And he raised no hand to set her
+free. A chill struck through her. But the next moment he did raise
+his hand and the blood flowed again, at her heart. Of course, she
+was in the darkness. He had not seen her plight. Even now he was
+only beginning to be aware of it. For his hand touched the bandage
+over her mouth--tentatively. He felt for the knot under the broad
+brim of her hat at the back of her head. He found it. In a moment
+she would be free. She kept her head quite still, and then--why
+was he so long? she asked herself. Oh, it was not possible! But
+her heart seemed to stop, and she knew that it was not only
+possible--it was true: he was tightening the scarf, not loosening
+it. The folds bound her lips more surely. She felt the ends drawn
+close at the back of her head. In a frenzy she tried to shake her
+head free. But he held her face firmly and finished his work. He
+was wearing gloves, she noticed with horror, just as thieves do.
+Then his hands slid down her trembling arms and tested the cord
+about her wrists. There was something horribly deliberate about
+his movements. Celia, even at that moment, even with him, had the
+sensation which had possessed her in the salon. It was the
+personal equation on which she was used to rely. But neither Adele
+nor this--this STRANGER was considering her as even a human being.
+She was a pawn in their game, and they used her, careless of her
+terror, her beauty, her pain. Then he freed from her waist the
+long cord which ran beneath the curtain to Adele Rossignol's foot.
+Celia's first thought was one of relief. He would jerk the cord
+unwittingly. They would come into the recess and see him. And then
+the real truth flashed in upon her blindingly. He had jerked the
+cord, but he had jerked it deliberately. He was already winding it
+up in a coil as it slid noiselessly across the polished floor
+beneath the curtains towards him. He had given a signal to Adele
+Rossignol. All that woman's scepticism and precaution against
+trickery had been a mere blind, under cover of which she had been
+able to pack the girl away securely without arousing her
+suspicions. Helene Vauquier was in the plot, too. The scarf at
+Celia's mouth was proof of that. As if to add proof to proof, she
+heard Adele Rossignol speak in answer to the signal.
+
+"Are we all ready? Have you got Mme. Dauvray's left hand, Helene?"
+
+"Yes, madame," answered the maid.
+
+"And I have her right hand. Now give me yours, and thus we are in
+a circle about the table."
+
+Celia, in her mind, could see them sitting about the round table
+in the darkness, Mme. Dauvray between the two women, securely held
+by them. And she herself could not utter a cry--could not move a
+muscle to help her.
+
+Wethermill crept back on noiseless feet to the window, closed the
+wooden doors, and slid the bolts into their sockets. Yes, Helene
+Vauquier was in the plot. The bolts and the hinges would not have
+worked so smoothly but for her. Darkness again filled the recess
+instead of the grey twilight. But in a moment a faint breath of
+wind played upon Celia's forehead, and she knew that the man had
+parted the curtains and slipped into the room. Celia let her head
+fall towards her shoulder. She was sick and faint with terror. Her
+lover was in this plot--the lover in whom she had felt so much
+pride, for whose sake she had taken herself so bitterly to task.
+He was the associate of Adele Rossignol, of Helene Vauquier. He
+had used her, Celia, as an instrument for his crime. All their
+hours together at the Villa des Fleurs--here to-night was their
+culmination. The blood buzzed in her ears and hammered in the
+veins of her temples. In front of her eyes the darkness whirled,
+flecked with fire. She would have fallen, but she could not fall.
+Then, in the silence, a tambourine jangled. There was to be a
+seance to-night, then, and the seance had begun. In a dreadful
+suspense she heard Mme. Dauvray speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HELENE EXPLAINS
+
+
+And what she heard made her blood run cold.
+
+Mme Dauvray spoke in a hushed, awestruck voice.
+
+"There is a presence in the room."
+
+It was horrible to Celia that the poor woman was speaking the
+jargon which she herself had taught to her.
+
+"I will speak to it," said Mme. Dauvray, and raising her voice a
+little, she asked: "Who are you that come to us from the spirit-
+world?"
+
+No answer came, but all the while Celia knew that Wethermill was
+stealing noiselessly across the floor towards that voice which
+spoke this professional patter with so simple a solemnity.
+
+"Answer!" she said. And the next moment she uttered a little
+shrill cry--a cry of enthusiasm. "Fingers touch my forehead--now
+they touch my cheek--now they touch my throat!"
+
+And upon that the voice ceased. But a dry, choking sound was
+heard, and a horrible scuffling and tapping of feet upon the
+polished floor, a sound most dreadful. They were murdering her--
+murdering an old, kind woman silently and methodically in the
+darkness. The girl strained and twisted against the pillar
+furiously, like an animal in a trap. But the coils of rope held
+her; the scarf suffocated her. The scuffling became a spasmodic
+sound, with intervals between, and then ceased altogether. A voice
+spoke--a man's voice--Wethermill's. But Celia would never have
+recognised it--it had so shrill and fearful an intonation.
+
+"That's horrible," he said, and his voice suddenly rose to a
+scream.
+
+"Hush!" Helene Vauquier whispered sharply. "What's the matter?"
+
+"She fell against me--her whole weight. Oh!"
+
+"You are afraid of her!"
+
+"Yes, yes!" And in the darkness Wethermill's voice came
+querulously between long breaths. "Yes, NOW I am afraid of her!"
+
+Helene Vauquier replied again contemptuously. She spoke aloud and
+quite indifferently. Nothing of any importance whatever, one would
+have gathered, had occurred.
+
+"I will turn on the light," she said. And through the chinks in
+the curtain the bright light shone. Celia heard a loud rattle upon
+the table, and then fainter sounds of the same kind. And as a kind
+of horrible accompaniment there ran the laboured breathing of the
+man, which broke now and then with a sobbing sound. They were
+stripping Mme. Dauvray of her pearl necklace, her bracelets, and
+her rings. Celia had a sudden importunate vision of the old woman's
+fat, podgy hands loaded with brilliants. A jingle of keys followed.
+
+"That's all," Helene Vauquier said. She might have just turned out
+the pocket of an old dress.
+
+There was the sound of something heavy and inert falling with a
+dull crash upon the floor. A woman laughed, and again it was
+Helene Vauquier.
+
+"Which is the key of the safe?" asked Adele.
+
+And Helene Vauquier replied:-
+
+"That one."
+
+Celia heard some one drop heavily into a chair. It was Wethermill,
+and he buried his face in his hands. Helene went over to him and
+laid her hand upon his shoulder and shook him.
+
+"Do you go and get her jewels out of the safe," she said, and she
+spoke with a rough friendliness.
+
+"You promised you would blindfold the girl," he cried hoarsely.
+
+Helene Vauquier laughed.
+
+"Did I?" she said. "Well, what does it matter?" "There would have
+been no need to--" And his voice broke off shudderingly.
+
+"Wouldn't there? And what of us--Adele and me? She knows certainly
+that we are here. Come, go and get the jewels. The key of the
+door's on the mantelshelf. While you are away we two will arrange
+the pretty baby in there."
+
+She pointed to the recess; her voice rang with contempt.
+Wethermill staggered across the room like a drunkard, and picked
+up the key in trembling fingers. Celia heard it turn in the lock,
+and the door bang. Wethermill had gone upstairs.
+
+Celia leaned back, her heart fainting within her. Arrange! It was
+her turn now. She was to be "arranged." She had no doubt what
+sinister meaning that innocent word concealed. The dry, choking
+sound, the horrid scuffling of feet upon the floor, were in her
+ears. And it had taken so long--so terribly long!
+
+She heard the door open again and shut again. Then steps
+approached the recess. The curtains were flung back, and the two
+women stood in front of her--the tall Adele Rossignol with her red
+hair and her coarse good looks and her sapphire dress, and the
+hard-featured, sallow maid. The maid was carrying Celia's white
+coat. They did not mean to murder her, then. They meant to take
+her away, and even then a spark of hope lit up in the girl's
+bosom. For even with her illusions crushed she still clung to life
+with all the passion of her young soul.
+
+The two women stood and looked at her; and then Adele Rossignol
+burst out laughing. Vauquier approached the girl, and Celia had a
+moment's hope that she meant to free her altogether, but she only
+loosed the cords which fixed her to the pillar and the high stool.
+
+"Mademoiselle will pardon me for laughing," said Adele Rossignol
+politely; "but it was mademoiselle who invited me to try my hand.
+And really, for so smart a young lady, mademoiselle looks too
+ridiculous."
+
+She lifted the girl up and carried her back writhing and
+struggling into the salon. The whole of the pretty room was within
+view, but in the embrasure of a window something lay dreadfully
+still and quiet. Celia held her head averted. But it was there,
+and, though it was there, all the while the women joked and
+laughed, Adele Rossignol feverishly, Helene Vauquier with a real
+glee most horrible to see.
+
+"I beg mademoiselle not to listen to what Adele is saying,"
+exclaimed Helene. And she began to ape in a mincing, extravagant
+fashion the manner of a saleswoman in a shop. "Mademoiselle has
+never looked so ravishing. This style is the last word of fashion.
+It is what there is of most chic. Of course, mademoiselle
+understands that the costume is not intended for playing the
+piano. Nor, indeed, for the ballroom. It leaps to one's eyes that
+dancing would be difficult. Nor is it intended for much
+conversation. It is a costume for a mood of quiet reflection. But
+I assure mademoiselle that for pretty young ladies who are the
+favourites of rich old women it is the style most recommended by
+the criminal classes."
+
+All the woman's bitter rancour against Celia, hidden for months
+beneath a mask of humility, burst out and ran riot now. She went
+to Adele Rossignol's help, and they flung the girl face downwards
+upon the sofa. Her face struck the cushion at one end, her feet
+the cushion at the other. The breath was struck out of her body.
+She lay with her bosom heaving.
+
+Helene Vauquier watched her for a moment with a grin, paying
+herself now for her respectful speeches and attendance.
+
+"Yes, lie quietly and reflect, little fool!" she said savagely.
+"Were you wise to come here and interfere with Helene Vauquier?
+Hadn't you better have stayed and danced in your rags at
+Montmartre? Are the smart frocks and the pretty hats and the good
+dinners worth the price? Ask yourself these questions, my dainty
+little friend!"
+
+She drew up a chair to Celia's side, and sat down upon it
+comfortably.
+
+"I will tell you what we are going to do with you, Mlle. Celie.
+Adele Rossignol and that kind gentleman, M. Wethermill, are going
+to take you away with them. You will be glad to go, won't you,
+dearie? For you love M. Wethermill, don't you? Oh, they won't keep
+you long enough for you to get tired of them. Do not fear! But you
+will not come back, Mile. Celie. No; you have seen too much
+to-night. And every one will think that Mlle. Celie helped to murder
+and rob her benefactress. They are certain to suspect some one,
+so why not you, pretty one?"
+
+Celia made no movement. She lay trying to believe that no crime
+had been committed, that that lifeless body did not lie against
+the wall. And then she heard in the room above a bed wheeled
+roughly from its place.
+
+The two women heard it too, and looked at one another.
+
+"He should look in the safe," said Vauquier. "Go and see what he
+is doing."
+
+And Adele Rossignol ran from the room.
+
+As soon as she was gone Vauquier followed to the door, listened,
+closed it gently, and came back. She stooped down.
+
+"Mlle. Celie," she said, in a smooth, silky voice, which terrified
+the girl more than her harsh tones, "there is just one little
+thing wrong in your appearance, one tiny little piece of bad
+taste, if mademoiselle will pardon a poor servant the expression.
+I did not mention it before Adele Rossignol; she is so severe in
+her criticism, is she not? But since we are alone, I will presume
+to point out to mademoiselle that those diamond eardrops which I
+see peeping out under the scarf are a little ostentatious in her
+present predicament. They are a provocation to thieves. Will
+mademoiselle permit me to remove them?"
+
+She caught her by the neck and lifted her up. She pushed the lace
+scarf up at the side of Celia's head. Celia began to struggle
+furiously, convulsively. She kicked and writhed, and a little
+tearing sound was heard. One of her shoe-buckles had caught in the
+thin silk covering of the cushion and slit it. Helene Vauquier let
+her fall. She felt composedly in her pocket, and drew from it an
+aluminium flask--the same flask which Lemerre was afterward to
+snatch up in the bedroom in Geneva. Celia stared at her in dread.
+She saw the flask flashing in the light. She shrank from it. She
+wondered what new horror was to grip her. Helene unscrewed the top
+and laughed pleasantly.
+
+"Mlle. Celie is under control," she said. "We shall have to teach
+her that it is not polite in young ladies to kick." She pressed
+Celia down with a hand upon her back, and her voice changed. "Lie
+still," she commanded savagely. "Do you hear? Do you know what
+this is, Mlle. Celie?" And she held the flask towards the girl's
+face. "This is vitriol, my pretty one. Move, and I'll spoil these
+smooth white shoulders for you. How would you like that?"
+
+Celia shuddered from head to foot, and, burying her face in the
+cushion, lay trembling. She would have begged for death upon her
+knees rather than suffer this horror. She felt Vauquier's fingers
+lingering with a dreadful caressing touch upon her shoulders and
+about her throat. She was within an ace of the torture, the
+disfigurement, and she knew it. She could not pray for mercy.
+She could only lie quite still, as she was bidden, trying to control
+the shuddering of her limbs and body.
+
+"It would be a good lesson for Mlle. Celie," Helene continued
+slowly. "I think that if Mlle. Celie will forgive the liberty I
+ought to inflict it. One little tilt of the flask and the satin of
+these pretty shoulders--"
+
+She broke off suddenly and listened. Some sound heard outside had
+given Celia a respite, perhaps more than a respite. Helene set the
+flask down upon the table. Her avarice had got the better of her
+hatred. She roughly plucked the earrings out of the girl's ears.
+She hid them quickly in the bosom of her dress with her eye upon
+the door. She did not see a drop of blood gather on the lobe of
+Celia's ear and fall into the cushion on which her face was
+pressed. She had hardly hidden them away before the door opened
+and Adele Rossignol burst into the room.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Vauquier.
+
+"The safe's empty. We have searched the room. We have found
+nothing," she cried.
+
+"Everything is in the safe," Helene insisted.
+
+"No."
+
+The two women ran out of the room and up the stairs. Celia, lying
+on the settee, heard all the quiet of the house change to noise
+and confusion. It was as though a tornado raged in the room
+overhead. Furniture was tossed about and over the room, feet
+stamped and ran, locks were smashed in with heavy blows. For many
+minutes the storm raged. Then it ceased, and she heard the
+accomplices clattering down the stairs without a thought of the
+noise they made. They burst into the room. Harry Wethermill was
+laughing hysterically, like a man off his head. He had been
+wearing a long dark overcoat when he entered the house; now he
+carried the coat over his arm. He was in a dinner-jacket, and his
+black clothes were dusty and disordered.
+
+"It's all for nothing!" he screamed rather than cried. "Nothing
+but the one necklace and a handful of rings!"
+
+In a frenzy he actually stooped over the dead woman and questioned
+her.
+
+"Tell us--where did you hide them?" he cried.
+
+"The girl will know," said Helene.
+
+Wethermill rose up and looked wildly at Celia.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said.
+
+He had no scruple, no pity any longer for the girl. There was no
+gain from the crime unless she spoke. He would have placed his
+head in the guillotine for nothing. He ran to the writing-table,
+tore off half a sheet of paper, and brought it over with a pencil
+to the sofa. He gave them to Vauquier to hold, and drawing out the
+sofa from the wall slipped in behind. He lifted up Celia with
+Rossignol's help, and made her sit in the middle of the sofa with
+her feet upon the ground. He unbound her wrists and fingers, and
+Vauquier placed the writing-pad and the paper on the girl's knees.
+Her arms were still pinioned above the elbows; she could not raise
+her hands high enough to snatch the scarf from her lips. But with
+the pad held up to her she could write.
+
+"Where did she keep her jewels! Quick! Take the pencil and write,"
+said Wethermill, holding her left wrist.
+
+Vauquier thrust the pencil into her right hand, and awkwardly and
+slowly her gloved fingers moved across the page.
+
+"I do not know," she wrote; and, with an oath, Wethermill snatched
+the paper up, tore it into pieces, and threw it down.
+
+"You have got to know," he said, his face purple with passion, and
+he flung out his arm as though he would dash his fist into her
+face. But as he stood with his arm poised there came a singular
+change upon his face.
+
+"Did you hear anything?" he asked in a whisper.
+
+All listened, and all heard in the quiet of the night a faint
+click, and after an interval they heard it again, and after
+another but shorter interval yet once more.
+
+"That's the gate," said Wethermill in a whisper of fear, and a
+pulse of hope stirred within Celia.
+
+He seized her wrists, crushed them together behind her, and
+swiftly fastened them once more. Adele Rossignol sat down upon the
+floor, took the girl's feet upon her lap, and quietly wrenched off
+her shoes.
+
+"The light," cried Wethermill in an agonised voice, and Helena
+Vauquier flew across the room and turned it off.
+
+All three stood holding their breath, straining their ears in the
+dark room. On the hard gravel of the drive outside footsteps
+became faintly audible, and grew louder and came near. Adele
+whispered to Vauquier:
+
+"Has the girl a lover?"
+
+And Helene Vauquier, even at that moment, laughed quietly.
+
+All Celia's heart and youth rose in revolt against her extremity.
+If she could only free her lips! The footsteps came round the
+corner of the house, they sounded on the drive outside the very
+window of this room. One cry, and she would be saved. She tossed
+back her head and tried to force the handkerchief out from between
+her teeth. But Wethermill's hand covered her mouth and held it
+closed. The footsteps stopped, a light shone for a moment outside.
+The very handle of the door was tried. Within a few yards help was
+there--help and life. Just a frail latticed wooden door stood
+between her and them. She tried to rise to her feet. Adele
+Rossignol held her legs firmly. She was powerless. She sat with
+one desperate hope that, whoever it was who was in the garden,
+he would break in. Were it even another murderer, he might have
+more pity than the callous brutes who held her now; he could have
+no less. But the footsteps moved away. It was the withdrawal of all
+hope. Celia heard Wethermill behind her draw a long breath of relief.
+That seemed to Celia almost the cruellest part of the whole tragedy.
+They waited in the darkness until the faint click of the gate was heard
+once more. Then the light was turned up again.
+
+"We must go," said Wethermill. All the three of them were shaken.
+They stood looking at one another, white and trembling. They spoke
+in whispers. To get out of the room, to have done with the
+business--that had suddenly become their chief necessity.
+
+Adele picked up the necklace and the rings from the satin-wood
+table and put them into a pocket-bag which was slung at her waist.
+
+"Hippolyte shall turn these things into money," she said. "He
+shall set about it to-morrow. We shall have to keep the girl now--
+until she tells us where the rest is hidden."
+
+"Yes, keep her," said Helene. "We will come over to Geneva in a
+few days, as soon as we can. We will persuade her to tell." She
+glanced darkly at the girl. Celia shivered.
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Wethermill. "But don't harm her. She will
+tell of her own will. You will see. The delay won't hurt now. We
+can't come back and search for a little while."
+
+He was speaking in a quick, agitated voice. And Adele agreed. The
+desire to be gone had killed even their fury at the loss of their
+prize. Some time they would come back, but they would not search
+now--they were too unnerved.
+
+"Helene," said Wethermill, "get to bed. I'll come up with the
+chloroform and put you to sleep."
+
+Helene Vauquier hurried upstairs. It was part of her plan that she
+should be left alone in the villa chloroformed. Thus only could
+suspicion be averted from herself. She did not shrink from the
+completion of the plan now. She went, the strange woman, without a
+tremor to her ordeal. Wethermill took the length of rope which had
+fixed Celia to the pillar.
+
+"I'll follow," he said, and as he turned he stumbled over the body
+of Mme. Dauvray. With a shrill cry he kicked it out of his way and
+crept up the stairs. Adele Rossignol quickly set the room in
+order. She removed the stool from its position in the recess, and
+carried it to its place in the hall. She put Celia's shoes upon
+her feet, loosening the cord from her ankles. Then she looked
+about the floor and picked up here and there a scrap of cord. In
+the silence the clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the quarter past
+eleven. She screwed the stopper on the flask of vitriol very
+carefully, and put the flask away in her pocket. She went into the
+kitchen and fetched the key of the garage. She put her hat on her
+head. She even picked up and drew on her gloves, afraid lest she
+should leave them behind; and then Wethermill came down again.
+Adele looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"It is all done," he said, with a nod of the head. "I will bring
+the car down to the door. Then I'll drive you to Geneva and come
+back with the car here."
+
+He cautiously opened the latticed door of the window, listened for
+a moment, and ran silently down the drive. Adele closed the door
+again, but she did not bolt it. She came back into the room; she
+looked at Celia, as she lay back upon the settee, with a long
+glance of indecision. And then, to Celia's surprise--for she had
+given up all hope--the indecision in her eyes became pity. She
+suddenly ran across the room and knelt down before Celia. With
+quick and feverish hands she untied the cord which fastened the
+train of her skirt about her knees.
+
+At first Celia shrank away, fearing some new cruelty. But Adele's
+voice came to her ears, speaking--and speaking with remorse.
+
+"I can't endure it!" she whispered. "You are so young--too young
+to be killed."
+
+The tears were rolling down Celia's cheeks. Her face was pitiful
+and beseeching.
+
+"Don't look at me like that, for God's sake, child!" Adele went
+on, and she chafed the girl's ankles for a moment.
+
+"Can you stand?" she asked.
+
+Celia nodded her head gratefully. After all, then, she was not to
+die. It seemed to her hardly possible. But before she could rise a
+subdued whirr of machinery penetrated into the room, and the
+motor-car came slowly to the front of the villa.
+
+"Keep still!" said Adele hurriedly, and she placed herself in
+front of Celia.
+
+Wethermill opened the wooden door, while Celia's heart raced in
+her bosom.
+
+"I will go down and open the gate," he whispered. "Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wethermill disappeared; and this time he left the door open. Adele
+helped Celia to her feet. For a moment she tottered; then she
+stood firm.
+
+"Now run!" whispered Adele. "Run, child, for your life!"
+
+Celia did not stop to think whither she should run, or how she
+should escape from Wethermill's search. She could not ask that her
+lips and her hands might be freed. She had but a few seconds. She
+had one thought--to hide herself in the darkness of the garden.
+Celia fled across the room, sprang wildly over the sill, ran,
+tripped over her skirt, steadied herself, and was swung off the ground
+by the arms of Harry Wethermill.
+
+"There we are," he said, with his shrill, wavering laugh. "I
+opened the gate before." And suddenly Celia hung inert in his
+arms.
+
+The light went out in the salon. Adele Rossignol, carrying Celia's
+cloak, stepped out at the side of the window.
+
+"She has fainted," said Wethermill. "Wipe the mould off her shoes
+and off yours too--carefully. I don't want them to think this car
+has been out of the garage at all."
+
+Adele stooped and obeyed. Wethermill opened the door of the car
+and flung Celia into a seat. Adele followed and took her seat
+opposite the girl. Wethermill stepped carefully again on to the
+grass, and with the toe of his shoe scraped up and ploughed the
+impressions which he and Adele Rossignol had made on the ground,
+leaving those which Celia had made. He came back to the window.
+
+"She has left her footmarks clear enough," he whispered. "There
+will be no doubt in the morning that she went of her own free
+will."
+
+Then he took the chauffeur's seat, and the car glided silently
+down the drive and out by the gate. As soon as it was on the road
+it stopped. In an instant Adele Rossignol's head was out of the
+window.
+
+"What is it?" she exclaimed in fear.
+
+Wethermill pointed to the roof. He had left the light burning in
+Helene Vauquier's room.
+
+"We can't go back now," said Adele in a frantic whisper. "No; it
+is over. I daren't go back." And Wethermill jammed down the lever.
+The car sprang forward, and humming steadily over the white road
+devoured the miles. But they had made their one mistake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE GENEVA ROAD
+
+
+The car had nearly reached Annecy before Celia woke to
+consciousness. And even then she was dazed. She was only aware
+that she was in the motor-car and travelling at a great speed. She
+lay back, drinking in the fresh air. Then she moved, and with the
+movement came to her recollection and the sense of pain. Her arms
+and wrists were still bound behind her, and the cords hurt her
+like hot wires. Her mouth, however, and her feet were free. She
+started forward, and Adele Rossignol spoke sternly from the seat
+opposite.
+
+"Keep still. I am holding the flask in my hand. If you scream, if
+you make a movement to escape, I shall fling the vitriol in your
+face," she said.
+
+Celia shrank back, shivering.
+
+"I won't! I won't!" she whispered piteously. Her spirit was broken
+by the horrors of the night's adventure. She lay back and cried
+quietly in the darkness of the carriage. The car dashed through
+Annecy. It seemed incredible to Celia that less than six hours ago
+she had been dining with Mme. Dauvray and the woman opposite, who
+was now her jailer. Mme. Dauvray lay dead in the little salon, and
+she herself--she dared not think what lay in front of her. She was
+to be persuaded--that was the word--to tell what she did not know.
+Meanwhile her name would be execrated through Aix as the murderess
+of the woman who had saved her. Then suddenly the car stopped.
+There were lights outside. Celia heard voices. A man was speaking
+to Wethermill. She started and saw Adele Tace's arm flash upwards.
+She sank back in terror; and the car rolled on into the darkness.
+Adele Tace drew a breath of relief. The one point of danger had
+been passed. They had crossed the Pont de la Caille, they were in
+Switzerland.
+
+Some long while afterwards the car slackened its speed. By the
+side of it Celia heard the sound of wheels and of the hooves of a
+horse. A single-horsed closed landau had been caught up as it
+jogged along the road. The motor-car stopped; close by the side of
+it the driver of the landau reined in his horse. Wethermill jumped
+down from the chauffeur's seat, opened the door of the landau, and
+then put his head in at the window of the car.
+
+"Are you ready? Be quick!"
+
+Adele turned to Celia.
+
+"Not a word, remember!"
+
+Wethermill flung open the door of the car. Adele took the girl's
+feet and drew them down to the step of the car. Then she pushed
+her out. Wethermill caught her in his arms and carried her to the
+landau. Celia dared not cry out. Her hands were helpless, her face
+at the mercy of that grim flask. Just ahead of them the lights of
+Geneva were visible, and from the lights a silver radiance
+overspread a patch of sky. Wethermill placed her in the landau;
+Adele sprang in behind her and closed the door. The transfer had
+taken no more than a few seconds. The landau jogged into Geneva;
+the motor turned and sped back over the fifty miles of empty road
+to Aix.
+
+As the motor-car rolled away, courage returned for a moment to
+Celia. The man--the murderer--had gone. She was alone with Adele
+Rossignol in a carriage moving no faster than an ordinary trot.
+Her ankles were free, the gag had been taken from her lips. If
+only she could free her hands and choose a moment when Adele was
+off her guard she might open the door and spring out on to the
+road. She saw Adele draw down the blinds of the carriage, and very
+carefully, very secretly, Celia began to work her hands behind
+her. She was an adept; no movement was visible, but, on the other
+hand, no success was obtained. The knots had been too cunningly
+tied. And then Mme. Rossignol touched a button at her side in the
+leather of the carriage.
+
+The touch turned on a tiny lamp in the roof of the carriage, and
+she raised a warning hand to Celia.
+
+"Now keep very quiet."
+
+Right through the empty streets of Geneva the landau was quietly
+driven. Adele had peeped from time to time under the blind. There
+were few people in the streets. Once or twice a sergent-de-ville
+was seen under the light of a lamp. Celia dared not cry out. Over
+against her, persistently watching her, Adele Rossignol sat with
+the open flask clenched in her hand, and from the vitriol Celia
+shrank with an overwhelming terror. The carriage drove out from
+the town along the western edge of the lake.
+
+"Now listen," said Adele. "As soon as the landau stops the door of
+the house opposite to which it stops will open. I shall open the
+carriage door myself and you will get out. You must stand close by
+the carriage door until I have got out. I shall hold this flask
+ready in my hand. As soon as I am out you will run across the
+pavement into the house. You won't speak or scream."
+
+Adele Rossignol turned out the lamp and ten minutes later the
+carriage passed down the little street and attracted Mme. Gobin's
+notice. Marthe Gobin had lit no light in her room. Adele Rossignol
+peered out of the carriage. She saw the houses in darkness. She
+could not see the busybody's face watching the landau from a dark
+window. She cut the cords which fastened the girl's hands. The
+carriage stopped. She opened the door. Celia sprang out on to the
+pavement. She sprang so quickly that Adele Rossignol caught and
+held the train of her dress. But it was the fear of the vitriol
+which had made her spring so nimbly. It was that, too, which made
+her run so lightly and quickly into the house. The old woman who
+acted as servant, Jeanne Tace, received her. Celia offered no
+resistance. The fear of vitriol had made her supple as a glove.
+Jeanne hurried her down the stairs into the little parlour at the
+back of the house, where supper was laid, and pushed her into a
+chair. Celia let her arms fall forward on the table. She had no
+hope now. She was friendless and alone in a den of murderers, who
+meant first to torture, then to kill her. She would be held up to
+execration as a murderess. No one would know how she had died or
+what she had suffered. She was in pain, and her throat burned. She
+buried her face in her arms and sobbed. All her body shook with
+her sobbing. Jeanne Rossignol took no notice. She treated Celie
+just as the others had done. Celia was la petite, against whom she
+had no animosity, by whom she was not to be touched to any
+tenderness. La petite had unconsciously played her useful part in
+their crime. But her use was ended now, and they would deal with
+her accordingly. She removed the girl's hat and cloak and tossed
+them aside.
+
+"Now stay quiet until we are ready for you," she said. And Celia,
+lifting her head, said in a whisper:
+
+"Water!"
+
+The old woman poured some from a jug and held the glass to Celia's
+lips.
+
+"Thank you," whispered Celia gratefully, and Adele came into the
+room. She told the story of the night to Jeanne, and afterwards to
+Hippolyte when he joined them.
+
+"And nothing gained!" cried the older woman furiously. "And we
+have hardly a five-franc piece in the house."
+
+"Yes, something," said Adele. "A necklace--a good one--some good
+rings, and bracelets. And we shall find out where the rest is hid-
+-from her." And she nodded at Celia.
+
+The three people ate their supper, and, while they ate it,
+discussed Celia's fate. She was lying with her head bowed upon her
+arms at the same table, within a foot of them. But they made no
+more of her presence than if she had been an old shoe. Only once
+did one of them speak to her.
+
+"Stop your whimpering," said Hippolyte roughly. "We can hardly
+hear ourselves talk."
+
+He was for finishing with the business altogether to-night.
+
+"It's a mistake," he said. "There's been a bungle, and the sooner
+we are rid of it the better. There's a boat at the bottom of the
+garden."
+
+Celia listened and shuddered. He would have no more compunction
+over drowning her than he would have had over drowning a blind
+kitten.
+
+"It's cursed luck," he said. "But we have got the necklace--that's
+something. That's our share, do you see? The young spark can look
+for the rest."
+
+But Helene Vauquier's wish prevailed. She was the leader. They
+would keep the girl until she came to Geneva.
+
+They took her upstairs into the big bedroom overlooking the lake.
+Adele opened the door of the closet, where a truckle-bed stood,
+and thrust the girl in.
+
+"This is my room," she said warningly, pointing to the bedroom.
+"Take care I hear no noise. You might shout yourself hoarse, my
+pretty one; no one else would hear you. But I should, and
+afterwards--we should no longer be able to call you 'my pretty
+one,' eh?"
+
+And with a horrible playfulness she pinched the girl's cheek.
+
+Then with old Jeanne's help she stripped Celia and told her to get
+into bed.
+
+"I'll give her something to keep her quiet," said Adele, and she
+fetched her morphia-needle and injected a dose into Celia's arm.
+
+Then they took her clothes away and left her in the darkness. She
+heard the key turn in the lock, and a moment after the sound of
+the bedstead being drawn across the doorway. But she heard no
+more, for almost immediately she fell asleep.
+
+She was awakened some time the next day by the door opening. Old
+Jeanne Tace brought her in a jug of water and a roll of bread, and
+locked her up again. And a long time afterwards she brought her
+another supply. Yet another day had gone, but in that dark
+cupboard Celia had no means of judging time. In the afternoon the
+newspaper came out with the announcement that Mme. Dauvray's
+jewellery had been discovered under the boards. Hippolyte brought
+in the newspaper, and, cursing their stupidity, they sat down to
+decide upon Celia's fate. That, however, was soon arranged. They
+would dress her in everything which she wore when she came, so
+that no trace of her might be discovered. They would give her
+another dose of morphia, sew her up in a sack as soon as she was
+unconscious, row her far out on to the lake, and sink her with a
+weight attached. They dragged her out from the cupboard, always
+with the threat of that bright aluminium flask before her eyes.
+She fell upon her knees, imploring their pity with the tears
+running down her cheeks; but they sewed the strip of sacking over
+her face so that she should see nothing of their preparations.
+They flung her on the sofa, secured her as Hanaud had found her,
+and, leaving her in the old woman's charge, sent down Adele for
+her needle and Hippolyte to get ready the boat. As Hippolyte
+opened the door he saw the launch of the Chef de la Surete glide
+along the bank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+HANAUD EXPLAINS
+
+
+This is the story as Mr. Ricardo wrote it out from the statement
+of Celia herself and the confession of Adele Rossignol.
+Obscurities which had puzzled him were made clear. But he was
+still unaware how Hanaud had worked out the solution.
+
+"You promised me that you would explain," he said, when they were
+both together after the trial was over at Aix. The two men had
+just finished luncheon at the Cercle and were sitting over their
+coffee. Hanaud lighted a cigar.
+
+"There were difficulties, of course," he said; "the crime was so
+carefully planned. The little details, such as the footprints, the
+absence of any mud from the girl's shoes in the carriage of the
+motor-car, the dinner at Annecy, the purchase of the cord, the
+want of any sign of a struggle in the little salon, were all
+carefully thought out. Had not one little accident happened, and
+one little mistake been made in consequence, I doubt if we should
+have laid our hands upon one of the gang. We might have suspected
+Wethermill; we should hardly have secured him, and we should very
+likely never have known of the Tace family. That mistake was, as
+you no doubt are fully aware--"
+
+"The failure of Wethermill to discover Mme. Dauvray's jewels,"
+said Ricardo at once.
+
+"No, my friend," answered Hanaud. "That made them keep Mlle. Celie
+alive. It enabled us to save her when we had discovered the
+whereabouts of the gang. It did not help us very much to lay our
+hands upon them. No; the little accident which happened was the
+entrance of our friend Perrichet into the garden while the
+murderers were still in the room. Imagine that scene, M. Ricardo.
+The rage of the murderers at their inability to discover the
+plunder for which they had risked their necks, the old woman
+crumpled up on the floor against the wall, the girl writing
+laboriously with fettered arms 'I do not know' under threats of
+torture, and then in the stillness of the night the clear, tiny
+click of the gate and the measured, relentless footsteps. No
+wonder they were terrified in that dark room. What would be their
+one thought? Why, to get away--to come back perhaps later, when
+Mlle. Celie should have told them what, by the way, she did not
+know, but in any case to get away now. So they made their little
+mistake, and in their hurry they left the light burning in the
+room of Helene Vauquier, and the murder was discovered seven hours
+too soon for them."
+
+"Seven hours!" said Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"Yes. The household did not rise early. It was not until seven
+that the charwoman came. It was she who was meant to discover the
+crime. By that time the motor-car would have been back three hours
+ago in its garage. Servettaz, the chauffeur, would have returned
+from Chambery some time in the morning, he would have cleaned the
+car, he would have noticed that there was very little petrol in
+the tank, as there had been when he had left it on the day before.
+He would not have noticed that some of his many tins which had
+been full yesterday were empty to-day. We should not have
+discovered that about four in the morning the car was close to the
+Villa Rose and that it had travelled, between midnight and five in
+the morning, a hundred and fifty kilometres."
+
+"But you had already guessed 'Geneva,'" said Ricardo. "At
+luncheon, before the news came that the car was found, you had
+guessed it."
+
+"It was a shot," said Hanaud. "The absence of the car helped me to
+make it. It is a large city and not very far away, a likely place
+for people with the police at their heels to run to earth in. But
+if the car had been discovered in the garage I should not have
+made that shot. Even then I had no particular conviction about
+Geneva. I really wished to see how Wethermill would take it. He
+was wonderful."
+
+"He sprang up."
+
+"He betrayed nothing but surprise. You showed no less surprise
+than he did, my good friend. What I was looking for was one glance
+of fear. I did not get it."
+
+"Yet you suspected him--even then you spoke of brains and
+audacity. You told him enough to hinder him from communicating
+with the red-haired woman in Geneva. You isolated him. Yes, you
+suspected him."
+
+"Let us take the case from the beginning. When you first came to
+me, as I told you, the Commissaire had already been with me. There
+was an interesting piece of evidence already in his possession.
+Adolphe Ruel--who saw Wethermill and Vauquier together close by
+the Casino and overheard that cry of Wethermill's, 'It is true: I
+must have money!'--had already been with his story to the
+Commissaire. I knew it when Harry Wethermill came into the room to
+ask me to take up the case. That was a bold stroke, my friend. The
+chances were a hundred to one that I should not interrupt my
+holiday to take up a case because of your little dinner-party in
+London. Indeed, I should not have interrupted it had I not known
+Adolphe Ruel's story. As it was I could not resist. Wethermill's
+very audacity charmed me. Oh yes, I felt that I must pit myself
+against him. So few criminals have spirit, M. Ricardo. It is
+deplorable how few. But Wethermill! See in what a fine position he
+would have been if only I had refused. He himself had been the
+first to call upon the first detective in France. And his
+argument! He loved Mlle. Celie. Therefore she must be innocent!
+How he stuck to it! People would have said, 'Love is blind,' and
+all the more they would have suspected Mile. Celie. Yes, but they
+love the blind lover. Therefore all the more would it have been
+impossible for them to believe Harry Wethermill had any share in
+that grim crime."
+
+Mr. Ricardo drew his chair closer in to the table.
+
+"I will confess to you," he said, "that I thought Mlle. Celie was
+an accomplice."
+
+"It is not surprising," said Hanaud. "Some one within the house
+was an accomplice--we start with that fact. The house had not been
+broken into. There was Mlle. Celie's record as Helene Vauquier
+gave it to us, and a record obviously true. There was the fact
+that she had got rid of Servettaz. There was the maid upstairs
+very ill from the chloroform. What more likely than that Mlle.
+Celie had arranged a seance, and then when the lights were out had
+admitted the murderer through that convenient glass door?"
+
+"There were, besides, the definite imprints of her shoes," said
+Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"Yes, but that is precisely where I began to feel sure that she
+was innocent," replied Hanaud dryly. "All the other footmarks had
+been so carefully scored and ploughed up that nothing could be
+made of them. Yet those little ones remained so definite, so
+easily identified, and I began to wonder why these, too, had not
+been cut up and stamped over. The murderers had taken, you see, an
+excess of precaution to throw the presumption of guilt upon Mlle.
+Celie rather than upon Vauquier. However, there the footsteps
+were. Mlle. Celie had sprung from the room as I described to
+Wethermill. But I was puzzled. Then in the room I found the torn-
+up sheet of notepaper with the words, 'Je ne sais pas,' in
+mademoiselle's handwriting. The words might have been spirit-
+writing, they might have meant anything. I put them away in my
+mind. But in the room the settee puzzled me. And again I was
+troubled--greatly troubled."
+
+"Yes, I saw that."
+
+"And not you alone," said Hanaud, with a smile. "Do you remember
+that loud cry Wethermill gave when we returned to the room and
+once more I stood before the settee? Oh, he turned it off very
+well. I had said that our criminals in France were not very gentle
+with their victims, and he pretended that it was in fear of what
+Mlle. Celie might be suffering which had torn that cry from his
+heart. But it was not so. He was afraid--deadly afraid--not for
+Mlle. Celie, but for himself. He was afraid that I had understood
+what these cushions had to tell me."
+
+"What did they tell you?" asked Ricardo.
+
+"You know now," said Hanaud. "They were two cushions, both
+indented, and indented in different ways. The one at the head was
+irregularly indented--something shaped had pressed upon it. It
+might have been a face--it might not; and there was a little brown
+stain which was fresh and which was blood. The second cushion had
+two separate impressions, and between them the cushion was forced
+up in a thin ridge; and these impressions were more definite. I
+measured the distance between the two cushions, and I found this:
+that supposing--and it was a large supposition--the cushions had
+not been moved since those impressions were made, a girl of Mlle.
+Celie's height lying stretched out upon the sofa would have her
+face pressing down upon one cushion and her feet and insteps upon
+the other. Now, the impressions upon the second cushion and the
+thin ridge between them were just the impressions which might have
+been made by a pair of shoes held close together. But that would
+not be a natural attitude for any one, and the mark upon the head
+cushion was very deep. Supposing that my conjectures were true,
+then a woman would only lie like that because she was helpless,
+because she had been flung there, because she could not lift
+herself--because, in a word, her hands were tied behind her back
+and her feet fastened together. Well, then, follow this train of
+reasoning, my friend! Suppose my conjectures--and we had nothing
+but conjectures to build upon-were true, the woman flung upon the
+sofa could not be Helene Vauquier, for she would have said so; she
+could have had no reason for concealment. But it must be Mlle.
+Celie. There was the slit in the one cushion and the stain on the
+other which, of course, I had not accounted for. There was still,
+too, the puzzle of the footsteps outside the glass doors. If Mlle.
+Celie had been bound upon the sofa, how came she to run with her
+limbs free from the house? There was a question--a question not
+easy to answer."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Ricardo.
+
+"Yes; but there was also another question. Suppose that Mlle.
+Celie was, after all, the victim, not the accomplice; suppose she
+had been flung tied upon the sofa; suppose that somehow the
+imprint of her shoes upon the ground had been made, and that she
+had afterwards been carried away, so that the maid might be
+cleared of all complicity--in that case it became intelligible why
+the other footprints were scored out and hers left. The
+presumption of guilt would fall upon her. There would be proof
+that she ran hurriedly from the room and sprang into a motor-car
+of her own free will. But, again, if that theory were true, then
+Helene Vauquier was the accomplice and not Mlle. Celie."
+
+"I follow that."
+
+"Then I found an interesting piece of evidence with regard to the
+strange woman who came: I picked up a long red hair--a very
+important piece of evidence about which I thought it best to say
+nothing at all. It was not Mlle. Celie's hair, which is fair; nor
+Vauquier's, which is black; nor Mme. Dauvray's, which is dyed
+brown; nor the charwoman's, which is grey. It was, therefore, the
+visitor's. Well, we went upstairs to Mile. Celie's room."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Ricardo eagerly. "We are coming to the pot of
+cream."
+
+"In that room we learnt that Helene Vauquier, at her own request,
+had already paid it a visit. It is true the Commissaire said that
+he had kept his eye on her the whole time. But none the less from
+the window he saw me coming down the road, and that he could not
+have done, as I made sure, unless he had turned his back upon
+Vauquier and leaned out of the window. Now at the time I had an
+open mind about Vauquier. On the whole I was inclined to think she
+had no share in the affair. But either she or Mlle. Celie had, and
+perhaps both. But one of them--yes. That was sure. Therefore I
+asked what drawers she touched after the Commissaire had leaned
+out of the window. For if she had any motive in wishing to visit
+the room she would have satisfied it when the Commissaire's back
+was turned. He pointed to a drawer, and I took out a dress and
+shook it, thinking that she may have wished to hide something. But
+nothing fell out. On the other hand, however, I saw some quite
+fresh grease-marks, made by fingers, and the marks were wet. I
+began to ask myself how it was that Helene Vauquier, who had just
+been helped to dress by the nurse, had grease upon her fingers.
+Then I looked at a drawer which she had examined first of all.
+There were no grease-marks on the clothes she had turned over
+before the Commissaire leaned out of the window. Therefore it
+followed that during the few seconds when he was watching me she
+had touched grease. I looked about the room, and there on the
+dressing-table close by the chest of drawers was a pot of cold
+cream. That was the grease Helene Vauquier had touched. And why--
+if not to hide some small thing in it which, firstly, she dared
+not keep in her own room; which, secondly, she wished to hide in
+the room of Mlle. Celie; and which, thirdly, she had not had an
+opportunity to hide before? Now bear those three conditions in
+mind, and tell me what the small thing was."
+
+Mr. Ricardo nodded his head.
+
+"I know now," he said. "You told me. The earrings of Mlle. Celie.
+But I should not have guessed it at the time."
+
+"Nor could I--at the time," said Hanaud. "I kept my open mind
+about Helene Vauquier; but I locked the door and took the key.
+Then we went and heard Vauquier's story. The story was clever,
+because so much of it was obviously, indisputably true. The
+account of the seances, of Mme. Dauvray's superstitions, her
+desire for an interview with Mme. de Montespan--such details are
+not invented. It was interesting, too, to know that there had been
+a seance planned for that night! The method of the murder began to
+be clear. So far she spoke the truth. But then she lied. Yes, she
+lied, and it was a bad lie, my friend. She told us that the
+strange woman Adele had black hair. Now I carried in my pocket-
+book proof that that woman's hair was red. Why did she lie, except
+to make impossible the identification of that strange visitor?
+That was the first false step taken by Helene Vauquier.
+
+"Now let us take the second. I thought nothing of her rancour
+against Mlle. Celie. To me it was all very natural. She--the hard
+peasant woman no longer young, who had been for years the
+confidential servant of Mme. Dauvray, and no doubt had taken her
+levy from the impostors who preyed upon her credulous mistress--
+certainly she would hate this young and pretty outcast whom she
+has to wait upon, whose hair she has to dress. Vauquier--she would
+hate her. But if by any chance she were in the plot--and the lie
+seemed to show she was--then the seances showed me new
+possibilities. For Helene used to help Mlle. Celie. Suppose that
+the seance had taken place, that this sceptical visitor with the
+red hair professed herself dissatisfied with Vauquier's method of
+testing the medium, had suggested another way, Mlle. Celie could
+not object, and there she would be neatly and securely packed up
+beyond the power of offering any resistance, before she could have
+a suspicion that things were wrong. It would be an easy little
+comedy to play. And if that were true--why, there were my sofa
+cushions partly explained."
+
+"Yes, I see!" cried Ricardo, with enthusiasm. "You are wonderful."
+
+Hanaud was not displeased with his companion's enthusiasm.
+
+"But wait a moment. We have only conjectures so far, and one fact
+that Helene Vauquier lied about the colour of the strange woman's
+hair. Now we get another fact. Mlle. Celie was wearing buckles on
+her shoes. And there is my slit in the sofa cushions. For when she
+is flung on to the sofa, what will she do? She will kick, she will
+struggle. Of course it is conjecture. I do not as yet hold
+pigheadedly to it. I am not yet sure that Mlle. Celie is innocent.
+I am willing at any moment to admit that the facts contradict my
+theory. But, on the contrary, each fact that I discover helps it
+to take shape.
+
+"Now I come to Helene Vauquier's second mistake. On the evening
+when you saw Mlle. Celie in the garden behind the baccarat-rooms
+you noticed that she wore no jewellery except a pair of diamond
+eardrops. In the photograph of her which Wethermill showed me,
+again she was wearing them. Is it not, therefore, probable that
+she usually wore them? When I examined her room I found the case
+for those earrings--the case was empty. It was natural, then, to
+infer that she was wearing them when she came down to the seance."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I read a description--a carefully written description--of
+the missing girl, made by Helene Vauquier after an examination of
+the girl's wardrobe. There is no mention of the earrings. So I
+asked her--'Was she not wearing them?' Helene Vauquier was taken
+by surprise. How should I know anything of Mlle. Celie's earrings?
+She hesitated. She did not quite know what answer to make. Now,
+why? Since she herself dressed Mile. Celie, and remembers so very
+well all she wore, why does she hesitate? Well, there is a reason.
+She does not know how much I know about those diamond eardrops.
+She is not sure whether we have not dipped into that pot of cold
+cream and found them. Yet without knowing she cannot answer. So
+now we come back to our pot of cold cream."
+
+"Yes!" cried Mr. Ricardo. "They were there."
+
+"Wait a bit," said Hanaud. "Let us see how it works out. Remember
+the conditions. Vauquier has some small thing which she must hide,
+and which she wishes to hide in Mlle. Celie's room. For she
+admitted that it was her suggestion that she should look through
+mademoiselle's wardrobe. For what reason does she choose the
+girl's room, except that if the thing were discovered that would
+be the natural place for it? It is, then, something belonging to
+Mlle. Celie. There was a second condition we laid down. It was
+something Vauquier had not been able to hide before. It came,
+then, into her possession last night. Why could she not bide it
+last night? Because she was not alone. There were the man and the
+woman, her accomplices. It was something, then, which she was
+concerned in hiding from them. It is not rash to guess, then, that
+it was some piece of the plunder of which the other two would have
+claimed their share--and a piece of plunder belonging to Mlle.
+Celie. Well, she has nothing but the diamond eardrops. Suppose
+Vauquier is left alone to guard Mlle. Celie while the other two
+ransack Mme. Dauvray's room. She sees her chance. The girl cannot
+stir hand or foot to save herself. Vauquier tears the eardrops in
+a hurry from her ears--and there I have my drop of blood just
+where I should expect it to be. But now follow this! Vauquier
+hides the earrings in her pocket. She goes to bed in order to be
+chloroformed. She knows that it is very possible that her room
+will be searched before she regains consciousness, or before she
+is well enough to move. There is only one place to hide them in,
+only one place where they will be safe. In bed with her. But in
+the morning she must get rid of them, and a nurse is with her.
+Hence the excuse to go to Mlle. Celie's room. If the eardrops are
+found in the pot of cold cream, it would only be thought that
+Mlle. Celie had herself hidden them there for safety. Again it is
+conjecture, and I wish to make sure. So I tell Vauquier she can go
+away, and I leave her unwatched. I have her driven to the depot
+instead of to her friends, and searched. Upon her is found the pot
+of cream, and in the cream Mlle. Celie's eardrops. She has slipped
+into Mlle. Celie's room, as, if my theory was correct, she would
+be sure to do, and put the pot of cream into her pocket. So I am
+now fairly sure that she is concerned in the murder.
+
+"We then went to Mme. Dauvray's room and discovered her brilliants
+and her ornaments. At once the meaning of that agitated piece of
+hand-writing of Mlle. Celie's becomes clear. She is asked where
+the jewels are hidden. She cannot answer, for her mouth, of
+course, is stopped. She has to write. Thus my conjectures get more
+and more support. And, mind this, one of the two women is guilty--
+Celie or Vauquier. My discoveries all fit in with the theory of
+Celie's innocence. But there remain the footprints, for which I
+found no explanation.
+
+"You will remember I made you all promise silence as to the
+finding of Mme. Dauvray's jewellery. For I thought, if they have
+taken the girl away so that suspicion may fall on her and not on
+Vauquier, they mean to dispose of her. But they may keep her so
+long as they have a chance of finding out from her Mme. Dauvray's
+hiding-place. It was a small chance but our only one. The moment
+the discovery of the jewellery was published the girl's fate was
+sealed, were my theory true.
+
+"Then came our advertisement and Mme. Gobin's written testimony.
+There was one small point of interest which I will take first: her
+statement that Adele was the Christian name of the woman with the
+red hair, that the old woman who was the servant in that house in
+the suburb of Geneva called her Adele, just simply Adele. That
+interested me, for Helene Vauquier had called her Adele too when
+she was describing to us the unknown visitor. 'Adele' was what
+Mme. Dauvray called her."
+
+"Yes," said Ricardo. "Helene Vauquier made a slip there. She
+should have given her a false name."
+
+Hanaud nodded.
+
+"It is the one slip she made in the whole of the business. Nor did
+she recover herself very cleverly. For when the Commissaire
+pounced upon the name, she at once modified her words. She only
+thought now that the name was Adele, or something like it. But
+when I went on to suggest that the name in any case would be a
+false one, at once she went back upon her modifications. And now
+she was sure that Adele was the name used. I remembered her
+hesitation when I read Marthe Gobin's letter. They helped to
+confirm me in my theory that she was in the plot; and they made me
+very sure that it was an Adele for whom we had to look. So far
+well. But other statements in the letter puzzled me. For instance,
+'She ran lightly and quickly across the pavement into the house,
+as though she were afraid to be seen.' Those were the words, and
+the woman was obviously honest. What became of my theory then? The
+girl was free to run, free to stoop and pick up the train of her
+gown in her hand, free to shout for help in the open street if she
+wanted help. No; that I could not explain until that afternoon,
+when I saw Mlle. Celie's terror-stricken eyes fixed upon that
+flask, as Lemerre poured a little out and burnt a hole in the
+sack. Then I understood well enough. The fear of vitriol!" Hanaud
+gave an uneasy shudder. "And it is enough to make any one afraid!
+That I can tell you. No wonder she lay still as a mouse upon the
+sofa in the bedroom. No wonder she ran quickly into the house.
+Well, there you have the explanation. I had only my theory to work
+upon even after Mme. Gobin's evidence. But as it happened it was
+the right one. Meanwhile, of course, I made my inquiries into
+Wethermill's circumstances. My good friends in England helped me.
+They were precarious. He owed money in Aix, money at his hotel. We
+knew from the motor-car that the man we were searching for had
+returned to Aix. Things began to look black for Wethermill. Then
+you gave me a little piece of information."
+
+"I!" exclaimed Ricardo, with a start.
+
+"Yes. You told me that you walked up to the hotel with Harry
+Wethermill on the night of the murder and separated just before
+ten. A glance into his rooms which I had--you will remember that
+when we had discovered the motor-car I suggested that we should go
+to Harry Wethermill's rooms and talk it over--that glance enabled
+me to see that he could very easily have got out of his room on to
+the verandah below and escaped from the hotel by the garden quite
+unseen. For you will remember that whereas your rooms look out to
+the front and on to the slope of Mont Revard, Wethermill's look
+out over the garden and the town of Aix. In a quarter of an hour
+or twenty minutes he could have reached the Villa Rose. He could
+have been in the salon before half-past ten, and that is just the
+hour which suited me perfectly. And, as he got out unnoticed, so
+he could return. So he did return! My friend, there are some
+interesting marks upon the window-sill of Wethermill's room and
+upon the pillar just beneath it. Take a look, M. Ricardo, when you
+return to your hotel. But that was not all. We talked of Geneva in
+Mr. Wethermill's room, and of the distance between Geneva and Aix.
+Do you remember that?"
+
+"Yes," replied Ricardo.
+
+"Do you remember too that I asked him for a road-book?"
+
+"Yes; to make sure of the distance. I do."
+
+"Ah, but it was not to make sure of the distance that I asked for
+the road-book, my friend. I asked in order to find out whether
+Harry Wethermill had a road-book at all which gave a plan of the
+roads between here and Geneva. And he had. He handed it to me at
+once and quite naturally. I hope that I took it calmly, but I was
+not at all calm inside. For it was a new road-book, which, by the
+way, he bought a week before, and I was asking myself all the
+while--now what was I asking myself, M. Ricardo?"
+
+"No," said Ricardo, with a smile. "I am growing wary. I will not
+tell you what you were asking yourself, M. Hanaud. For even were I
+right you would make out that I was wrong, and leap upon me with
+injuries and gibes. No, you shall drink your coffee and tell me of
+your own accord."
+
+"Well," said Hanaud, laughing, "I will tell you. I was asking
+myself: 'Why does a man who owns no motor-car, who hires no motor-
+car, go out into Aix and buy an automobilist's road-map? With what
+object?' And I found it an interesting question. M. Harry
+Wethermill was not the man to go upon a walking tour, eh? Oh, I
+was obtaining evidence. But then came an overwhelming thing--the
+murder of Marthe Gobin. We know now how he did it. He walked
+beside the cab, put his head in at the window, asked, 'Have you
+come in answer to the advertisement?' and stabbed her straight to
+the heart through her dress. The dress and the weapon which he
+used would save him from being stained with her blood. He was in
+your room that morning, when we were at the station. As I told
+you, he left his glove behind. He was searching for a telegram in
+answer to your advertisement. Or he came to sound you. He had
+already received his telegram from Hippolyte. He was like a fox in
+a cage, snapping at every one, twisting vainly this way and that
+way, risking everything and every one to save his precious neck.
+Marthe Gobin was in the way. She is killed. Mlle. Celie is a
+danger. So Mile. Celie must be suppressed. And off goes a telegram
+to the Geneva paper, handed in by a waiter from the cafe at the
+station of Chambery before five o'clock. Wethermill went to
+Chambery that afternoon when we went to Geneva. Once we could get
+him on the run, once we could so harry and bustle him that he must
+take risks--why, we had him. And that afternoon he had to take
+them."
+
+"So that even before Marthe Gobin was killed you were sure that
+Wethermill was the murderer?"
+
+Hanaud's face clouded over.
+
+"You put your finger on a sore place, M. Ricardo. I was sure, but
+I still wanted evidence to convict. I left him free, hoping for
+that evidence. I left him free, hoping that he would commit
+himself. He did, but--well, let us talk of some one else. What of
+Mlle. Celie?"
+
+Ricardo drew a letter from his pocket.
+
+"I have a sister in London, a widow," he said. "She is kind. I,
+too, have been thinking of what will become of Mlle. Celie. I
+wrote to my sister, and here is her reply. Mlle. Celie will be
+very welcome."
+
+Hanaud stretched out his hand and shook Ricardo's warmly.
+
+"She will not, I think, be for very long a burden. She is young.
+She will recover from this shock. She is very pretty, very gentle.
+If--if no one comes forward whom she loves and who loves her--I--
+yes, I myself, who was her papa for one night, will be her husband
+forever."
+
+He laughed inordinately at his own joke; it was a habit of M.
+Hanaud's. Then he said gravely:
+
+"But I am glad, M. Ricardo, for Mlle. Celie's sake that I came to
+your amusing dinner-party in London."
+
+Mr. Ricardo was silent for a moment. Then he asked:
+
+"And what will happen to the condemned?"
+
+"To the women? Imprisonment for life."
+
+"And to the man?"
+
+Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Perhaps the guillotine. Perhaps New Caledonia. How can I say? I
+am not the President of the Republic."
+
+END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of At the Villa Rose, by A.E.W. Mason
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT AT THE VILLA ROSE ***
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