Part 19 (1/2)

”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 kilometres 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 sc.r.a.p 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.”