Part 3 (1/2)

”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 pa.s.sion 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 cla.s.s, superst.i.tious to the degree of folly.”

Suddenly Mr. Ricardo started in his chair. Superst.i.tious! 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 superst.i.tious--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--d.a.m.ning 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 to-morrow. 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.