At the Villa Rose (26 page)

Celia shuddered from head to foot, and, burying her face in the
cushion, lay trembling. She would have begged for death upon her knees
rather than suffer this horror. She felt Vauquier's fingers lingering
with a dreadful caressing touch upon her shoulders and about her
throat. She was within an ace of the torture, the disfigurement, and
she knew it. She could not pray for mercy. She could only lie quite
still, as she was bidden, trying to control the shuddering of her limbs
and body.

"It would be a good lesson for Mlle. Celie," Helene continued slowly.
"I think that if Mlle. Celie will forgive the liberty I ought to
inflict it. One little tilt of the flask and the satin of these pretty
shoulders—"

She broke off suddenly and listened. Some sound heard outside had given
Celia a respite, perhaps more than a respite. Helene set the flask down
upon the table. Her avarice had got the better of her hatred. She
roughly plucked the earrings out of the girl's ears. She hid them
quickly in the bosom of her dress with her eye upon the door. She did
not see a drop of blood gather on the lobe of Celia's ear and fall into
the cushion on which her face was pressed. She had hardly hidden them
away before the door opened and Adele Rossignol burst into the room.

"What is the matter?" asked Vauquier.

"The safe's empty. We have searched the room. We have found nothing,"
she cried.

"Everything is in the safe," Helene insisted.

"No."

The two women ran out of the room and up the stairs. Celia, lying on
the settee, heard all the quiet of the house change to noise and
confusion. It was as though a tornado raged in the room overhead.
Furniture was tossed about and over the room, feet stamped and ran,
locks were smashed in with heavy blows. For many minutes the storm
raged. Then it ceased, and she heard the accomplices clattering down
the stairs without a thought of the noise they made. They burst into
the room. Harry Wethermill was laughing hysterically, like a man off
his head. He had been wearing a long dark overcoat when he entered the
house; now he carried the coat over his arm. He was in a dinner-jacket,
and his black clothes were dusty and disordered.

"It's all for nothing!" he screamed rather than cried. "Nothing but the
one necklace and a handful of rings!"

In a frenzy he actually stooped over the dead woman and questioned her.

"Tell us—where did you hide them?" he cried.

"The girl will know," said Helene.

Wethermill rose up and looked wildly at Celia.

"Yes, yes," he said.

He had no scruple, no pity any longer for the girl. There was no gain
from the crime unless she spoke. He would have placed his head in the
guillotine for nothing. He ran to the writing-table, tore off half a
sheet of paper, and brought it over with a pencil to the sofa. He gave
them to Vauquier to hold, and drawing out the sofa from the wall
slipped in behind. He lifted up Celia with Rossignol's help, and made
her sit in the middle of the sofa with her feet upon the ground. He
unbound her wrists and fingers, and Vauquier placed the writing-pad and
the paper on the girl's knees. Her arms were still pinioned above the
elbows; she could not raise her hands high enough to snatch the scarf
from her lips. But with the pad held up to her she could write.

"Where did she keep her jewels! Quick! Take the pencil and write," said
Wethermill, holding her left wrist.

Vauquier thrust the pencil into her right hand, and awkwardly and
slowly her gloved fingers moved across the page.

"I do not know," she wrote; and, with an oath, Wethermill snatched the
paper up, tore it into pieces, and threw it down.

"You have got to know," he said, his face purple with passion, and he
flung out his arm as though he would dash his fist into her face. But
as he stood with his arm poised there came a singular change upon his
face.

"Did you hear anything?" he asked in a whisper.

All listened, and all heard in the quiet of the night a faint click,
and after an interval they heard it again, and after another but
shorter interval yet once more.

"That's the gate," said Wethermill in a whisper of fear, and a pulse of
hope stirred within Celia.

He seized her wrists, crushed them together behind her, and swiftly
fastened them once more. Adele Rossignol sat down upon the floor, took
the girl's feet upon her lap, and quietly wrenched off her shoes.

"The light," cried Wethermill in an agonised voice, and Helena Vauquier
flew across the room and turned it off.

All three stood holding their breath, straining their ears in the dark
room. On the hard gravel of the drive outside footsteps became faintly
audible, and grew louder and came near. Adele whispered to Vauquier:

"Has the girl a lover?"

And Helene Vauquier, even at that moment, laughed quietly.

All Celia's heart and youth rose in revolt against her extremity. If
she could only free her lips! The footsteps came round the corner of
the house, they sounded on the drive outside the very window of this
room. One cry, and she would be saved. She tossed back her head and
tried to force the handkerchief out from between her teeth. But
Wethermill's hand covered her mouth and held it closed. The footsteps
stopped, a light shone for a moment outside. The very handle of the
door was tried. Within a few yards help was there—help and life. Just
a frail latticed wooden door stood between her and them. She tried to
rise to her feet. Adele Rossignol held her legs firmly. She was
powerless. She sat with one desperate hope that, whoever it was who was
in the garden, he would break in. Were it even another murderer, he
might have more pity than the callous brutes who held her now; he could
have no less. But the footsteps moved away. It was the withdrawal of
all hope. Celia heard Wethermill behind her draw a long breath of
relief. That seemed to Celia almost the cruellest part of the whole
tragedy. They waited in the darkness until the faint click of the gate
was heard once more. Then the light was turned up again.

"We must go," said Wethermill. All the three of them were shaken. They
stood looking at one another, white and trembling. They spoke in
whispers. To get out of the room, to have done with the business—that
had suddenly become their chief necessity.

Adele picked up the necklace and the rings from the satin-wood table
and put them into a pocket-bag which was slung at her waist.

"Hippolyte shall turn these things into money," she said. "He shall set
about it to-morrow. We shall have to keep the girl now—until she tells
us where the rest is hidden."

"Yes, keep her," said Helene. "We will come over to Geneva in a few
days, as soon as we can. We will persuade her to tell." She glanced
darkly at the girl. Celia shivered.

"Yes, that's it," said Wethermill. "But don't harm her. She will tell
of her own will. You will see. The delay won't hurt now. We can't come
back and search for a little while."

He was speaking in a quick, agitated voice. And Adele agreed. The
desire to be gone had killed even their fury at the loss of their
prize. Some time they would come back, but they would not search
now—they were too unnerved.

"Helene," said Wethermill, "get to bed. I'll come up with the
chloroform and put you to sleep."

Helene Vauquier hurried upstairs. It was part of her plan that she
should be left alone in the villa chloroformed. Thus only could
suspicion be averted from herself. She did not shrink from the
completion of the plan now. She went, the strange woman, without a
tremor to her ordeal. Wethermill took the length of rope which had
fixed Celia to the pillar.

"I'll follow," he said, and as he turned he stumbled over the body of
Mme. Dauvray. With a shrill cry he kicked it out of his way and crept
up the stairs. Adele Rossignol quickly set the room in order. She
removed the stool from its position in the recess, and carried it to
its place in the hall. She put Celia's shoes upon her feet, loosening
the cord from her ankles. Then she looked about the floor and picked up
here and there a scrap of cord. In the silence the clock upon the
mantelshelf chimed the quarter past eleven. She screwed the stopper on
the flask of vitriol very carefully, and put the flask away in her
pocket. She went into the kitchen and fetched the key of the garage.
She put her hat on her head. She even picked up and drew on her gloves,
afraid lest she should leave them behind; and then Wethermill came down
again. Adele looked at him inquiringly.

"It is all done," he said, with a nod of the head. "I will bring the
car down to the door. Then I'll drive you to Geneva and come back with
the car here."

He cautiously opened the latticed door of the window, listened for a
moment, and ran silently down the drive. Adele closed the door again,
but she did not bolt it. She came back into the room; she looked at
Celia, as she lay back upon the settee, with a long glance of
indecision. And then, to Celia's surprise—for she had given up all
hope—the indecision in her eyes became pity. She suddenly ran across
the room and knelt down before Celia. With quick and feverish hands she
untied the cord which fastened the train of her skirt about her knees.

At first Celia shrank away, fearing some new cruelty. But Adele's voice
came to her ears, speaking—and speaking with remorse.

"I can't endure it!" she whispered. "You are so young—too young to be
killed."

The tears were rolling down Celia's cheeks. Her face was pitiful and
beseeching.

"Don't look at me like that, for God's sake, child!" Adele went on, and
she chafed the girl's ankles for a moment.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

Celia nodded her head gratefully. After all, then, she was not to die.
It seemed to her hardly possible. But before she could rise a subdued
whirr of machinery penetrated into the room, and the motor-car came
slowly to the front of the villa.

"Keep still!" said Adele hurriedly, and she placed herself in front of
Celia.

Wethermill opened the wooden door, while Celia's heart raced in her
bosom.

"I will go down and open the gate," he whispered. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

Wethermill disappeared; and this time he left the door open. Adele
helped Celia to her feet. For a moment she tottered; then she stood
firm.

"Now run!" whispered Adele. "Run, child, for your life!"

Celia did not stop to think whither she should run, or how she should
escape from Wethermill's search. She could not ask that her lips and
her hands might be freed. She had but a few seconds. She had one
thought—to hide herself in the darkness of the garden. Celia fled
across the room, sprang wildly over the sill, ran, tripped over her
skirt, steadied herself, and was swung off the ground by the arms of
Harry Wethermill.

"There we are," he said, with his shrill, wavering laugh. "I opened the
gate before." And suddenly Celia hung inert in his arms.

The light went out in the salon. Adele Rossignol, carrying Celia's
cloak, stepped out at the side of the window.

"She has fainted," said Wethermill. "Wipe the mould off her shoes and
off yours too—carefully. I don't want them to think this car has been
out of the garage at all."

Adele stooped and obeyed. Wethermill opened the door of the car and
flung Celia into a seat. Adele followed and took her seat opposite the
girl. Wethermill stepped carefully again on to the grass, and with the
toe of his shoe scraped up and ploughed the impressions which he and
Adele Rossignol had made on the ground, leaving those which Celia had
made. He came back to the window.

"She has left her footmarks clear enough," he whispered. "There will be
no doubt in the morning that she went of her own free will."

Then he took the chauffeur's seat, and the car glided silently down the
drive and out by the gate. As soon as it was on the road it stopped. In
an instant Adele Rossignol's head was out of the window.

"What is it?" she exclaimed in fear.

Wethermill pointed to the roof. He had left the light burning in Helene
Vauquier's room.

"We can't go back now," said Adele in a frantic whisper. "No; it is
over. I daren't go back." And Wethermill jammed down the lever. The car
sprang forward, and humming steadily over the white road devoured the
miles. But they had made their one mistake.

The car had nearly reached Annecy before Celia woke to consciousness.
And even then she was dazed. She was only aware that she was in the
motor-car and travelling at a great speed. She lay back, drinking in
the fresh air. Then she moved, and with the movement came to her
recollection and the sense of pain. Her arms and wrists were still
bound behind her, and the cords hurt her like hot wires. Her mouth,
however, and her feet were free. She started forward, and Adele
Rossignol spoke sternly from the seat opposite.

"Keep still. I am holding the flask in my hand. If you scream, if you
make a movement to escape, I shall fling the vitriol in your face," she
said.

Celia shrank back, shivering.

"I won't! I won't!" she whispered piteously. Her spirit was broken by
the horrors of the night's adventure. She lay back and cried quietly in
the darkness of the carriage. The car dashed through Annecy. It seemed
incredible to Celia that less than six hours ago she had been dining
with Mme. Dauvray and the woman opposite, who was now her jailer. Mme.
Dauvray lay dead in the little salon, and she herself—she dared not
think what lay in front of her. She was to be persuaded—that was the
word—to tell what she did not know. Meanwhile her name would be
execrated through Aix as the murderess of the woman who had saved her.
Then suddenly the car stopped. There were lights outside. Celia heard
voices. A man was speaking to Wethermill. She started and saw Adele
Tace's arm flash upwards. She sank back in terror; and the car rolled
on into the darkness. Adele Tace drew a breath of relief. The one point
of danger had been passed. They had crossed the Pont de la Caille, they
were in Switzerland.