At the Villa Rose

  CHAPTER XIV

  MR. RICARDO IS BEWILDERED

  Ricardo passed a most tempestuous night. He was tossed amongst darkproblems. Now it was Harry Wethermill who beset him. He repeated andrepeated the name, trying to grasp the new and sinister suggestionwhich, if Hanaud were right, its sound must henceforth bear. Of courseHanaud might be wrong. Only, if he were wrong, how had he come tosuspect Harry Wethermill? What had first directed his thoughts to thatseemingly heart-broken man? And when? Certain recollections becamevivid in Mr. Ricardo's mind--the luncheon at the Villa Rose, forinstance. Hanaud had been so insistent that the woman with the red hairwas 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 hishands upon the murderer in Aix. He was isolating the house in Genevaeven so early in the history of his investigations, even so soon hesuspected Harry Wethermill. Brains and audacity--yes, these twoqualities he had stipulated in the criminal. Ricardo now for the firsttime understood the trend of all Hanaud's talk at that luncheon. He wasputting Harry Wethermill upon his guard, he was immobilising him, hewas fettering him in precautions; with a subtle skill he was forcinghim to isolate himself. And he was doing it deliberately to save thelife of Celia Harland in Geneva. Once Ricardo lifted himself up withthe hair stirring on his scalp. He himself had been with Wethermill inthe baccarat-rooms on the very night of the murder. They had walkedtogether up the hill to the hotel. It could not be that HarryWethermill was guilty. And yet, he suddenly remembered, they hadtogether left the rooms at an early hour. It was only ten o'clock whenthey had separated in the hall, when they had gone, each to his ownroom. There would have been time for Wethermill to reach the Villa Roseand do his dreadful work upon that night before twelve, if all had beenarranged beforehand, if all went as it had been arranged. And as hethought upon the careful planning of that crime, and rememberedWethermill's easy chatter as they had strolled from table to table inthe Villa des Fleurs, Ricardo shuddered. Though he encouraged a tastefor the bizarre, it was with an effort. He was naturally of an orderlymind, and to touch the eerie or inhuman caused him a physicaldiscomfort. So now he marvelled in a great uneasiness at the calmplacidity with which Wethermill had talked, his arm in his, while theload of so dark a crime to be committed within the hour lay upon hismind. Each minute he must have been thinking, with a swift spasm of theheart, "Should such a precaution fail--should such or such anunforeseen thing intervene," yet there had been never a sign ofdisturbance, never a hint of any disquietude.

  Then Ricardo's thoughts turned as he tossed upon his bed to CeliaHarland, a tragic and a lonely figure. He recalled the look oftenderness upon her face when her eyes had met Harry Wethermill'sacross the baccarat-table in the Villa des Fleurs. He gained someinsight into the reason why she had clung so desperately to Hanaud'scoat-sleeve yesterday. Not merely had he saved her life. She was lyingwith all her world of trust and illusion broken about her, and Hanaudhad raised her up. She had found some one whom she trusted--the bigNewfoundland dog, as she expressed it. Mr. Ricardo was still thinkingof Celia Harland when the morning came. He fell asleep, and awoke tofind Hanaud by his bed.

  "You will be wanted to-day," said Hanaud.

  Ricardo got up and walked down from the hotel with the detective. Thefront door faces the hillside of Mont Revard, and on this side Mr.Ricardo's rooms looked out. The drive from the front door curves roundthe end of the long building and joins the road, which then winds downtowards the town past the garden at the back of the hotel. Down thisroad the two men walked, while the supporting wall of the garden upontheir right hand grew higher and higher above their heads. They came toa steep flight of steps which makes a short cut from the hotel to theroad, and at the steps Hanaud stopped.

  "Do you see?" he said. "On the opposite side there are no houses; thereis only a wall. Behind the wall there are climbing gardens and theground falls steeply to the turn of the road below. There's a flight ofsteps leading down which corresponds with the flight of steps from thegarden. Very often there's a SERJENT-DE-VILLE stationed on the top ofthe steps. But there was not one there yesterday afternoon at three.Behind us is the supporting wall of the hotel garden. Well, look aboutyou. We cannot be seen from the hotel. There's not a soul insight--yes, there's some one coming up the hill, but we have beenstanding here quite long enough for you to stab me and get back to yourcoffee 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 toyour rooms we passed Harry Wethermill sitting upon the verandah overthe garden drinking his coffee. He had the news then that Marthe Gobinwas 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 notcommunicate with his accomplices. That is what you have to remember. Hecould not even let them know that they must not communicate with him.So he received a telegram. It was carefully worded. No doubt he hadarranged the wording of any message with the care which was used in allthe preparations. It ran like this"--and Hanaud took a scrap of paperfrom his pocket and read out from it a copy of the telegram: "'Agentarrives Aix 3.7 to negotiate purchase of your patent.' The telegram washanded in at Geneva station at 12.45, five minutes after the train hadleft which carried Marthe Gobin to Aix. And more, it was handed in by aman 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 knowthat Harry Wethermill was suspected. Harry Wethermill had no idea of ithimself. But, even if they had known, they must take the risk. Putyourself into their place for a moment. They had seen my advertisementabout Celie Harland in the Geneva paper. Marthe Gobin, that busybodywho was always watching her neighbours, was no doubt watched herself.They see her leave the house, an unusual proceeding for her with herhusband ill, as her own letter tells us. Hippolyte follows her to thestation, sees her take her ticket to Aix and mount into the train. Hemust guess at once that she saw Celie Harland enter their house, thatshe is travelling to Aix with the information of her whereabouts. Atall costs she must be prevented from giving that information. At allrisks, therefore, the warning telegram must be sent to HarryWethermill."

  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 toone. It was delivered to Wethermill and a copy was sent to thePrefecture, 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 sittingon the verandah. The telegram was brought to him there. It was broughtby a waiter in the hotel who remembers the incident very well.Wethermill has seven minutes and the time it will take for Marthe Gobinto drive from the station to the Majestic. What does he do? He runs upfirst to your rooms, very likely not yet knowing what he must do. Heruns up to verify his telegram."

  "Are you sure of that?" cried Ricardo. "How can you be? You were at thestation 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 isWethermill's; there are his initials stamped upon the lining--see? Ipicked up that glove in your room, after we had returned from thestation. It was not there before. He went to your rooms. No doubt hesearched for a telegram. Fortunately he did not examine your letters,or Marthe Gobin would never have spoken to us as she did after she wasdead."

  "Then what did he do?" asked Ricardo eagerly; and, though Hanaud hadbeen with him at the entrance to the station all this while, he askedthe question in abso
lute confidence that the true answer would be givento him.

  "He returned to the verandah wondering what he should do. He saw uscome back from the station in the motor-car and go up to your room. Wewere alone. Marthe Gobin, then, was following. There was his chance.Marthe Gobin must not reach us, must not tell her news to us. He randown 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. Acab comes up the hill; there's a woman in it--not quite the kind ofwoman who stays at your hotel, M. Ricardo. Yet she must be going toyour 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 himhurry. His horse is moving at a walk. Wethermill puts his head in atthe window and asks if she has come to see M. Ricardo. Anxious for herfour thousand francs, she answers 'Yes.' Perhaps he steps into the cab,perhaps as he walks by the side he strikes, and strikes hard andstrikes surely. Long before the cab reaches the hotel he is back againon the verandah."

  "Yes," said Ricardo, "it's the daring of which you spoke which made thecrime possible--the same daring which made him seek your help. That wasunexampled."

  "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. Whenpeople ran to answer them, a man was found kneeling by a corpse. It wasthe kneeling man who cried for help, but it was also the kneeling manwho did the murder. I remembered that when I first began to suspectHarry 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." Hisvoice took on a deeper note. "But I prepare you. Listen! Daring andbrains, those were the property of Harry Wethermill--yes. But it is nothe who is the chief actor in the crime. Of that I am sure. He was nomore than one of the instruments."

  "One of the instruments? Used, then, by whom?" asked Ricardo.

  "By my Normandy peasant-woman, M. Ricardo," said Hanaud. "Yes, there'sthe dominating figure--cruel, masterful, relentless--that strangewoman, Helene Vauquier. You are surprised? You will see! It is not theman of intellect and daring; it's my peasant-woman who is at the bottomof it all."

  "But she's free!" exclaimed Ricardo. "You let her go free!"

  "Free!" repeated Ricardo. "She was driven straight from the Villa Roseto the depot. She has been kept AU SECRET ever since."

  Ricardo stared in amazement.

  "Already you knew of her guilt?"

  "Already she had lied to me in her description of Adele Rossignol. Doyou remember what she said--a black-haired woman with beady eyes; and Ionly five minutes before had picked up from the table--this."

  He opened his pocket-book, and took from an envelope a long strand ofred hair.

  "But it was not only because she lied that I had her taken to thedepot. A pot of cold cream had disappeared from the room of Mlle. Celie."

  "Then Perrichet after all was right."

  "Perrichet after all was quite wrong--not to hold his tongue. For inthat pot of cold cream, as I was sure, were hidden those valuablediamond earrings which Mlle. Celie habitually wore."

  The two men had reached the square in front of the Etablissement desBains. Ricardo dropped on to a bench and wiped his forehead.

  "But I am in a maze," he cried. "My head turns round. I don't knowwhere I am."

  Hanaud stood in front of Ricardo, smiling. He was not displeased withhis companion's bewilderment; it was all so much of tribute to himself.

  "I am the captain of the ship," he said.

  His smile irritated Ricardo, who spoke impatiently.

  "I should be very glad," he said, "if you would tell me how youdiscovered all these things. And what it was that the little salon onthe first morning had to tell to you? And why Celia Harland ran fromthe glass doors across the grass to the motor-car and again from thecarriage into the house on the lake? Why she did not resist yesterdayevening? Why she did not cry for help? How much of Helene Vauquier'sevidence was true and how much false? For what reason Wethermillconcerned himself in this affair? Oh! and a thousand things which Idon't understand."

  "Ah, the cushions, and the scrap of paper, and the aluminium flask,"said Hanaud; and the triumph faded from his face. He spoke now toRicardo with a genuine friendliness. "You must not be angry with me ifI keep you in the dark for a little while. I, too, Mr. Ricardo, haveartistic inclinations. I will not spoil the remarkable story which Ithink Mlle. Celie will be ready to tell us. Afterwards I will willinglyexplain to you what I read in the evidences of the room, and what sogreatly puzzled me then. But it is not the puzzle or its solution," hesaid modestly, "which is most interesting here. Consider the people.Mme. Dauvray, the old, rich, ignorant woman, with her superstitions andher generosity, her desire to converse with Mme. de Montespan and thegreat ladies of the past, and her love of a young, fresh face abouther; Helene Vauquier, the maid with her six years of confidentialservice, who finds herself suddenly supplanted and made to tend anddress in dainty frocks the girl who has supplanted her; the young girlherself, that poor child, with her love of fine clothes, the Bohemianwho, brought up amidst trickeries and practising them as a profession,looking upon them and upon misery and starvation and despair as thecommonplaces of life, keeps a simplicity and a delicacy and a freshnesswhich would have withered in a day had she been brought up otherwise;Harry Wethermill, the courted and successful man of genius.

  "Just imagine if you can what his feelings must have been, when in Mme.Dauvray's bedroom, with the woman he had uselessly murdered lying rigidbeneath the sheet, he saw me raise the block of wood from the inlaidfloor and take out one by one those jewel cases for which less thantwelve hours before he had been ransacking that very room. But what hemust have felt! And to give no sign! Oh, these people are theinteresting problems in this story. Let us hear what happened on thatterrible night. The puzzle--that can wait." In Mr. Ricardo's viewHanaud was proved right. The extraordinary and appalling story whichwas gradually unrolled of what had happened on that night of Tuesday inthe Villa Rose exceeded in its grim interest all the mystery of thepuzzle. But it was not told at once.

  The trouble at first with Mlle. Celie was a fear of sleep. She darednot sleep--even with a light in the room and a nurse at her bedside.When her eyes were actually closing she would force herself desperatelyback into the living world. For when she slept she dreamed throughagain that dark and dreadful night of Tuesday and the two days whichfollowed it, until at some moment endurance snapped and she woke upscreaming. But youth, a good constitution, and a healthy appetite hadtheir way with her in the end.

  She told her share of the story--she told what happened. There wasapparently one terrible scene when she was confronted with HarryWethermill in the office of Monsieur Fleuriot, the Juge d'instruction,and on her knees, with the tears streaming down her face, besought himto confess the truth. For a long while he held out. And then there camea strange and human turn to the affair. Adele Rossignol--or, to giveher real name, Adele Tace, the wife of Hippolyte--had conceived averitable passion for Harry Wethermill. He was of a not uncommon type,cold and callous in himself, yet with the power to provoke passion inwomen. And Adele Tace, as the story was told of how Harry Wethermillhad paid his court to Celia Harland, was seized with a vindictivejealousy. Hanaud was not surprised. He knew the woman-criminal of hiscountry--brutal, passionate, treacherous. The anonymous letters in awoman's handwriting which descend upon the Rue de Jerusalem, and betraythe men who have committed thefts, had left him no illusions upon thatfigure in the history of crime. Adele Rossignol ran forward to confess,so that Harry Wethermill might suffer to the last possible point ofsuffering. Then at last Wethermill gave in and, broken down by theceaseless interrogations of the magistrate, confessed in his turn too.The one, and the only one, who stood firmly throughout and denied thecrime was Helene Vauquier. Her thin lips were kept contemptuouslyclosed, whatever the other
s might admit. With a white, hard face,quietly and respectfully she faced the magistrate week after week. Shewas the perfect picture of a servant who knew her place. And nothingwas wrung from her. But without her help the story became complete. AndRicardo was at pains to write it out.