At the Villa Rose (11 page)

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 criticise 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."