At the Villa Rose (18 page)

"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."

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."