At the Villa Rose (13 page)

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.

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.