At the Villa Rose (25 page)

But he came at once straight towards her. He stood in front of her,
looking into her eyes. But he uttered no cry. He made no movement of
surprise. Celia did not understand it. His face was in the shadow now
and she could not see it. Of course, he was stunned, amazed.
But—but—he stood almost as if he had expected to find her there and
just in that helpless attitude. It was absurd, of course, but he seemed
to look upon her helplessness as nothing out of the ordinary way. And
he raised no hand to set her free. A chill struck through her. But the
next moment he did raise his hand and the blood flowed again, at her
heart. Of course, she was in the darkness. He had not seen her plight.
Even now he was only beginning to be aware of it. For his hand touched
the bandage over her mouth—tentatively. He felt for the knot under the
broad brim of her hat at the back of her head. He found it. In a moment
she would be free. She kept her head quite still, and then—why was he
so long? she asked herself. Oh, it was not possible! But her heart
seemed to stop, and she knew that it was not only possible—it was
true: he was tightening the scarf, not loosening it. The folds bound
her lips more surely. She felt the ends drawn close at the back of her
head. In a frenzy she tried to shake her head free. But he held her
face firmly and finished his work. He was wearing gloves, she noticed
with horror, just as thieves do. Then his hands slid down her trembling
arms and tested the cord about her wrists. There was something horribly
deliberate about his movements. Celia, even at that moment, even with
him, had the sensation which had possessed her in the salon. It was the
personal equation on which she was used to rely. But neither Adele nor
this—this STRANGER was considering her as even a human being. She was
a pawn in their game, and they used her, careless of her terror, her
beauty, her pain. Then he freed from her waist the long cord which ran
beneath the curtain to Adele Rossignol's foot. Celia's first thought
was one of relief. He would jerk the cord unwittingly. They would come
into the recess and see him. And then the real truth flashed in upon
her blindingly. He had jerked the cord, but he had jerked it
deliberately. He was already winding it up in a coil as it slid
noiselessly across the polished floor beneath the curtains towards him.
He had given a signal to Adele Rossignol. All that woman's scepticism
and precaution against trickery had been a mere blind, under cover of
which she had been able to pack the girl away securely without arousing
her suspicions. Helene Vauquier was in the plot, too. The scarf at
Celia's mouth was proof of that. As if to add proof to proof, she heard
Adele Rossignol speak in answer to the signal.

"Are we all ready? Have you got Mme. Dauvray's left hand, Helene?"

"Yes, madame," answered the maid.

"And I have her right hand. Now give me yours, and thus we are in a
circle about the table."

Celia, in her mind, could see them sitting about the round table in the
darkness, Mme. Dauvray between the two women, securely held by them.
And she herself could not utter a cry—could not move a muscle to help
her.

Wethermill crept back on noiseless feet to the window, closed the
wooden doors, and slid the bolts into their sockets. Yes, Helene
Vauquier was in the plot. The bolts and the hinges would not have
worked so smoothly but for her. Darkness again filled the recess
instead of the grey twilight. But in a moment a faint breath of wind
played upon Celia's forehead, and she knew that the man had parted the
curtains and slipped into the room. Celia let her head fall towards her
shoulder. She was sick and faint with terror. Her lover was in this
plot—the lover in whom she had felt so much pride, for whose sake she
had taken herself so bitterly to task. He was the associate of Adele
Rossignol, of Helene Vauquier. He had used her, Celia, as an instrument
for his crime. All their hours together at the Villa des Fleurs—here
to-night was their culmination. The blood buzzed in her ears and
hammered in the veins of her temples. In front of her eyes the darkness
whirled, flecked with fire. She would have fallen, but she could not
fall. Then, in the silence, a tambourine jangled. There was to be a
seance to-night, then, and the seance had begun. In a dreadful suspense
she heard Mme. Dauvray speak.

And what she heard made her blood run cold.

Mme Dauvray spoke in a hushed, awestruck voice.

"There is a presence in the room."

It was horrible to Celia that the poor woman was speaking the jargon
which she herself had taught to her.

"I will speak to it," said Mme. Dauvray, and raising her voice a
little, she asked: "Who are you that come to us from the spirit-world?"

No answer came, but all the while Celia knew that Wethermill was
stealing noiselessly across the floor towards that voice which spoke
this professional patter with so simple a solemnity.

"Answer!" she said. And the next moment she uttered a little shrill
cry—a cry of enthusiasm. "Fingers touch my forehead—now they touch my
cheek—now they touch my throat!"

And upon that the voice ceased. But a dry, choking sound was heard, and
a horrible scuffling and tapping of feet upon the polished floor, a
sound most dreadful. They were murdering her—murdering an old, kind
woman silently and methodically in the darkness. The girl strained and
twisted against the pillar furiously, like an animal in a trap. But the
coils of rope held her; the scarf suffocated her. The scuffling became
a spasmodic sound, with intervals between, and then ceased altogether.
A voice spoke—a man's voice—Wethermill's. But Celia would never have
recognised it—it had so shrill and fearful an intonation.

"That's horrible," he said, and his voice suddenly rose to a scream.

"Hush!" Helene Vauquier whispered sharply. "What's the matter?"

"She fell against me—her whole weight. Oh!"

"You are afraid of her!"

"Yes, yes!" And in the darkness Wethermill's voice came querulously
between long breaths. "Yes, NOW I am afraid of her!"

Helene Vauquier replied again contemptuously. She spoke aloud and quite
indifferently. Nothing of any importance whatever, one would have
gathered, had occurred.

"I will turn on the light," she said. And through the chinks in the
curtain the bright light shone. Celia heard a loud rattle upon the
table, and then fainter sounds of the same kind. And as a kind of
horrible accompaniment there ran the laboured breathing of the man,
which broke now and then with a sobbing sound. They were stripping Mme.
Dauvray of her pearl necklace, her bracelets, and her rings. Celia had
a sudden importunate vision of the old woman's fat, podgy hands loaded
with brilliants. A jingle of keys followed.

"That's all," Helene Vauquier said. She might have just turned out the
pocket of an old dress.

There was the sound of something heavy and inert falling with a dull
crash upon the floor. A woman laughed, and again it was Helene Vauquier.

"Which is the key of the safe?" asked Adele.

And Helene Vauquier replied:—

"That one."

Celia heard some one drop heavily into a chair. It was Wethermill, and
he buried his face in his hands. Helene went over to him and laid her
hand upon his shoulder and shook him.

"Do you go and get her jewels out of the safe," she said, and she spoke
with a rough friendliness.

"You promised you would blindfold the girl," he cried hoarsely.

Helene Vauquier laughed.

"Did I?" she said. "Well, what does it matter?" "There would have been
no need to—" And his voice broke off shudderingly.

"Wouldn't there? And what of us—Adele and me? She knows certainly that
we are here. Come, go and get the jewels. The key of the door's on the
mantelshelf. While you are away we two will arrange the pretty baby in
there."

She pointed to the recess; her voice rang with contempt. Wethermill
staggered across the room like a drunkard, and picked up the key in
trembling fingers. Celia heard it turn in the lock, and the door bang.
Wethermill had gone upstairs.

Celia leaned back, her heart fainting within her. Arrange! It was her
turn now. She was to be "arranged." She had no doubt what sinister
meaning that innocent word concealed. The dry, choking sound, the
horrid scuffling of feet upon the floor, were in her ears. And it had
taken so long—so terribly long!

She heard the door open again and shut again. Then steps approached the
recess. The curtains were flung back, and the two women stood in front
of her—the tall Adele Rossignol with her red hair and her coarse good
looks and her sapphire dress, and the hard-featured, sallow maid. The
maid was carrying Celia's white coat. They did not mean to murder her,
then. They meant to take her away, and even then a spark of hope lit up
in the girl's bosom. For even with her illusions crushed she still
clung to life with all the passion of her young soul.

The two women stood and looked at her; and then Adele Rossignol burst
out laughing. Vauquier approached the girl, and Celia had a moment's
hope that she meant to free her altogether, but she only loosed the
cords which fixed her to the pillar and the high stool.

"Mademoiselle will pardon me for laughing," said Adele Rossignol
politely; "but it was mademoiselle who invited me to try my hand. And
really, for so smart a young lady, mademoiselle looks too ridiculous."

She lifted the girl up and carried her back writhing and struggling
into the salon. The whole of the pretty room was within view, but in
the embrasure of a window something lay dreadfully still and quiet.
Celia held her head averted. But it was there, and, though it was
there, all the while the women joked and laughed, Adele Rossignol
feverishly, Helene Vauquier with a real glee most horrible to see.

"I beg mademoiselle not to listen to what Adele is saying," exclaimed
Helene. And she began to ape in a mincing, extravagant fashion the
manner of a saleswoman in a shop. "Mademoiselle has never looked so
ravishing. This style is the last word of fashion. It is what there is
of most chic. Of course, mademoiselle understands that the costume is
not intended for playing the piano. Nor, indeed, for the ballroom. It
leaps to one's eyes that dancing would be difficult. Nor is it intended
for much conversation. It is a costume for a mood of quiet reflection.
But I assure mademoiselle that for pretty young ladies who are the
favourites of rich old women it is the style most recommended by the
criminal classes."

All the woman's bitter rancour against Celia, hidden for months beneath
a mask of humility, burst out and ran riot now. She went to Adele
Rossignol's help, and they flung the girl face downwards upon the sofa.
Her face struck the cushion at one end, her feet the cushion at the
other. The breath was struck out of her body. She lay with her bosom
heaving.

Helene Vauquier watched her for a moment with a grin, paying herself
now for her respectful speeches and attendance.

"Yes, lie quietly and reflect, little fool!" she said savagely. "Were
you wise to come here and interfere with Helene Vauquier? Hadn't you
better have stayed and danced in your rags at Montmartre? Are the smart
frocks and the pretty hats and the good dinners worth the price? Ask
yourself these questions, my dainty little friend!"

She drew up a chair to Celia's side, and sat down upon it comfortably.

"I will tell you what we are going to do with you, Mlle. Celie. Adele
Rossignol and that kind gentleman, M. Wethermill, are going to take you
away with them. You will be glad to go, won't you, dearie? For you love
M. Wethermill, don't you? Oh, they won't keep you long enough for you
to get tired of them. Do not fear! But you will not come back, Mile.
Celie. No; you have seen too much to-night. And every one will think
that Mlle. Celie helped to murder and rob her benefactress. They are
certain to suspect some one, so why not you, pretty one?"

Celia made no movement. She lay trying to believe that no crime had
been committed, that that lifeless body did not lie against the wall.
And then she heard in the room above a bed wheeled roughly from its
place.

The two women heard it too, and looked at one another.

"He should look in the safe," said Vauquier. "Go and see what he is
doing."

And Adele Rossignol ran from the room.

As soon as she was gone Vauquier followed to the door, listened, closed
it gently, and came back. She stooped down.

"Mlle. Celie," she said, in a smooth, silky voice, which terrified the
girl more than her harsh tones, "there is just one little thing wrong
in your appearance, one tiny little piece of bad taste, if mademoiselle
will pardon a poor servant the expression. I did not mention it before
Adele Rossignol; she is so severe in her criticism, is she not? But
since we are alone, I will presume to point out to mademoiselle that
those diamond eardrops which I see peeping out under the scarf are a
little ostentatious in her present predicament. They are a provocation
to thieves. Will mademoiselle permit me to remove them?"

She caught her by the neck and lifted her up. She pushed the lace scarf
up at the side of Celia's head. Celia began to struggle furiously,
convulsively. She kicked and writhed, and a little tearing sound was
heard. One of her shoe-buckles had caught in the thin silk covering of
the cushion and slit it. Helene Vauquier let her fall. She felt
composedly in her pocket, and drew from it an aluminium flask—the same
flask which Lemerre was afterward to snatch up in the bedroom in
Geneva. Celia stared at her in dread. She saw the flask flashing in the
light. She shrank from it. She wondered what new horror was to grip
her. Helene unscrewed the top and laughed pleasantly.

"Mlle. Celie is under control," she said. "We shall have to teach her
that it is not polite in young ladies to kick." She pressed Celia down
with a hand upon her back, and her voice changed. "Lie still," she
commanded savagely. "Do you hear? Do you know what this is, Mlle.
Celie?" And she held the flask towards the girl's face. "This is
vitriol, my pretty one. Move, and I'll spoil these smooth white
shoulders for you. How would you like that?"