CHAPTER V
IN THE SALON
Julius Ricardo pushed aside the curtains with a thrill of excitement.He found himself standing within a small oblong room which wasprettily, even daintily, furnished. On his left, close by the recess,was a small fireplace with the ashes of a burnt-out fire in the grate.Beyond the grate a long settee covered in pink damask, with a crumpledcushion at each end, stood a foot or two away from the wall, and beyondthe settee the door of the room opened into the hall. At the end a longmirror was let into the panelling, and a writing-table stood by themirror. On the right were the three windows, and between the twonearest to Mr. Ricardo was the switch of the electric light. Achandelier hung from the ceiling, an electric lamp stood upon thewriting-table, a couple of electric candles on the mantel-shelf. Around satinwood table stood under the windows, with three chairs aboutit, of which one was overturned, one was placed with its back to theelectric switch, and the third on the opposite side facing it.
Ricardo could hardly believe that he stood actually upon the spotwhere, within twelve hours, a cruel and sinister tragedy had takenplace. There was so little disorder. The three windows on his rightshowed him the blue sunlit sky and a glimpse of flowers and trees;behind him the glass doors stood open to the lawn, where birds pipedcheerfully and the trees murmured of summer. But he saw Hanaud steppingquickly from place to place, with an extraordinary lightness of stepfor so big a man, obviously engrossed, obviously reading here and theresome detail, some custom of the inhabitants of that room.
Ricardo leaned with careful artistry against the wall.
"Now, what has this room to say to me?" he asked importantly. Nobodypaid the slightest attention to his question, and it was just as well.For the room had very little information to give him. He ran his eyeover the white Louis Seize furniture, the white panels of the wall, thepolished floor, the pink curtains. Even the delicate tracery of theceiling did not escape his scrutiny. Yet he saw nothing likely to helphim but an overturned chair and a couple of crushed cushions on asettee. It was very annoying, all the more annoying because M. Hanaudwas so uncommonly busy. Hanaud looked carefully at the long settee andthe crumpled cushions, and he took out his measure and measured thedistance between the cushion at one end and the cushion at the other.He examined the table, he measured the distance between the chairs. Hecame to the fireplace and raked in the ashes of the burnt-out fire. ButRicardo noticed a singular thing. In the midst of his search Hanaud'seyes were always straying back to the settee, and always with a look ofextreme perplexity, as if he read there something, definitelysomething, but something which he could not explain. Finally he wentback to it; he drew it farther away from the wall, and suddenly with alittle cry he stooped and went down on his knees. When he rose he washolding some torn fragments of paper in his hand. He went over to thewriting-table and opened the blotting-book. Where it fell open therewere some sheets of note-paper, and one particular sheet of which halfhad been torn off. He compared the pieces which he held with that tornsheet, and seemed satisfied.
There was a rack for note-paper upon the table, and from it he took astiff card.
"Get me some gum or paste, and quickly," he said. His voice had becomebrusque, the politeness had gone from his address. He carried the cardand the fragments of paper to the round table. There he sat down and,with infinite patience, gummed the fragments on to the card, fittingthem together like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle.
The others over his shoulders could see spaced words, written inpencil, taking shape as a sentence upon the card. Hanaud turnedabruptly in his seat toward Wethermill.
"You have, no doubt, a letter written by Mlle. Celie?"
Wethermill took his letter-case from his pocket and a letter out of thecase. He hesitated for a moment as he glanced over what was written.The four sheets were covered. He folded back the letter, so that onlythe two inner sheets were visible, and handed it to Hanaud. Hanaudcompared it with the handwriting upon the card.
"Look!" he said at length, and the three men gathered behind him. Onthe card the gummed fragments of paper revealed a sentence:
"Je ne sais pas."
"'I do not know,'" said Ricardo; "now this is very important."
Beside the card Celia's letter to Wethermill was laid.
"What do you think?" asked Hanaud.
Besnard, the Commissaire of Police, bent over Hanaud's shoulder.
"There are strong resemblances," he said guardedly.
Ricardo was on the look-out for deep mysteries. Resemblances were notenough for him; they were inadequate to the artistic needs of thesituation.
"Both were written by the same hand," he said definitely; "only in thesentence written upon the card the handwriting is carefully disguised."
"Ah!" said the Commissaire, bending forward again. "Here is an idea!Yes, yes, there are strong differences."
Ricardo looked triumphant.
"Yes, there are differences," said Hanaud. "Look how long the up strokeof the 'p' is, how it wavers! See how suddenly this 's' straggles off,as though some emotion made the hand shake. Yet this," and touchingWethermill's letter he smiled ruefully, "this is where the emotionshould have affected the pen." He looked up at Wethermill's face andthen said quietly:
"You have given us no opinion, monsieur. Yet your opinion should be themost valuable of all. Were these two papers written by the same hand?"
"I do not know," answered Wethermill.
"And I, too," cried Hanaud, in a sudden exasperation, "je ne sais pas.I do not know. It may be her hand carelessly counterfeited. It may beher hand disguised. It may be simply that she wrote in a hurry with hergloves on."
"It may have been written some time ago," said Mr. Ricardo, encouragedby his success to another suggestion.
"No; that is the one thing it could not have been," said Hanaud. "Lookround the room. Was there ever a room better tended? Find me a littlepile of dust in any one corner if you can! It is all as clean as aplate. Every morning, except this one morning, this room has been sweptand polished. The paper was written and torn up yesterday."
He enclosed the card in an envelope as he spoke, and placed it in hispocket. Then he rose and crossed again to the settee. He stood at theside of it, with his hands clutching the lapels of his coat and hisface gravely troubled. After a few moments of silence for himself, ofsuspense for all the others who watched him, he stooped suddenly.Slowly, and with extraordinary care, he pushed his hands under thehead-cushion and lifted it up gently, so that the indentations of itssurface might not be disarranged. He carried it over to the light ofthe open window. The cushion was covered with silk, and as he held itto the sunlight all could see a small brown stain.
Hanaud took his magnifying-glass from his pocket and bent his head overthe cushion. But at that moment, careful though he had been, the downswelled up within the cushion, the folds and indentations disappeared,the silk covering was stretched smooth.
"Oh!" cried Besnard tragically. "What have you done?"
Hanaud's face flushed. He had been guilty of a clumsiness--even he.
Mr. Ricardo took up the tale.
"Yes," he exclaimed, "what have you done?"
Hanaud looked at Ricardo in amazement at his audacity.
"Well, what have I done?" he asked. "Come! tell me!"
"You have destroyed a clue," replied Ricardo impressively.
The deepest dejection at once overspread Hanaud's burly face.
"Don't say that, M. Ricardo, I beseech you!" he implored. "A clue! andI have destroyed it! But what kind of a clue? And how have I destroyedit? And to what mystery would it be a clue if I hadn't destroyed it?And what will become of me when I go back to Paris, and say in the Ruede Jerusalem, 'Let me sweep the cellars, my good friends, for M.Ricardo knows that I destroyed a clue. Faithfully he promised me thathe would not open his mouth, but I destroyed a clue, and hisperspicacity forced him into speech.'"
It was the turn of M. Ricardo to grow red.
Hanaud turned with a smile to Besnard.
"It does not really matter whether the creases in this cushion remain,"he said, "we have all seen them." And he replaced the glass in hispocket.
He carried that cushion back and replaced it. Then he took the other,which lay at the foot of the settee, and carried it in its turn to thewindow. This was indented too, and ridged up, and just at the marks thenap of the silk was worn, and there was a slit where it had been cut.The perplexity upon Hanaud's face greatly increased. He stood with thecushion in his hands, no longer looking at it, but looking out throughthe doors at the footsteps so clearly defined--the foot-steps of a girlwho had run from this room and sprung into a motor-car and driven away.He shook his head, and, carrying back the cushion, laid it carefullydown. Then he stood erect, gazed about the room as though even yet hemight force its secrets out from its silence, and cried, with a suddenviolence:
"There is something here, gentlemen, which I do not understand."
Mr. Ricardo heard some one beside him draw a deep breath, and turned.Wethermill stood at his elbow. A faint colour had come back to hischeeks, his eyes were fixed intently upon Hanaud's face.
"What do you think?" he asked; and Hanaud replied brusquely:
"It's not my business to hold opinions, monsieur; my business is tomake sure."
There was one point, and only one, of which he had made every one inthat room sure. He had started confident. Here was a sordid crime,easily understood. But in that room he had read something which hadtroubled him, which had raised the sordid crime on to some higher andperplexing level.
"Then M. Fleuriot after all might be right?" asked the Commissairetimidly.
Hanaud stared at him for a second, then smiled.
"L'affaire Dreyfus?" he cried. "Oh la, la, la! No, but there issomething else."
What was that something? Ricardo asked himself. He looked once moreabout the room. He did not find his answer, but he caught sight of anornament upon the wall which drove the question from his mind. Theornament, if so it could be called, was a painted tambourine with abunch of bright ribbons tied to the rim; and it was hung upon the wallbetween the settee and the fireplace at about the height of a man'shead. Of course it might be no more than it seemed to be--a rathergaudy and vulgar toy, such as a woman like Mme. Dauvray would be verylikely to choose in order to dress her walls. But it swept Ricardo'sthoughts back of a sudden to the concert-hall at Leamington and theapparatus of a spiritualistic show. After all, he reflectedtriumphantly, Hanaud had not noticed everything, and as he made thereflection Hanaud's voice broke in to corroborate him.
"We have seen everything here; let us go upstairs," he said. "We willfirst visit the room of Mlle. Celie. Then we will question the maid,Helene Vauquier."
The four men, followed by Perrichet, passed out by the door into thehall and mounted the stairs. Celia's room was in the southwest angle ofthe villa, a bright and airy room, of which one window overlooked theroad, and two others, between which stood the dressing-table, thegarden. Behind the room a door led into a little white-tiled bathroom.Some towels were tumbled upon the floor beside the bath. In the bedrooma dark-grey frock of tussore and a petticoat were flung carelessly onthe bed; a big grey hat of Ottoman silk was lying upon a chest ofdrawers in the recess of a window; and upon a chair a little pile offine linen and a pair of grey silk stockings, which matched in shadethe grey suede shoes, were tossed in a heap.
"It was here that you saw the light at half-past nine?" Hanaud said,turning to Perrichet.
"Yes, monsieur," replied Perrichet.
"We may assume, then, that Mlle. Celie was changing her dress at thattime."
Besnard was looking about him, opening a drawer here, a wardrobe there.
"Mlle. Celie," he said, with a laugh, "was a particular young lady, andfond of her fine clothes, if one may judge from the room and the orderof the cupboards. She must have changed her dress last night in anunusual hurry."
There was about the whole room a certain daintiness, almost, it seemedto Mr. Ricardo, a fragrance, as though the girl had impressed somethingof her own delicate self upon it. Wethermill stood upon the thresholdwatching with a sullen face the violation of this chamber by theofficers of the police.
No such feelings, however, troubled Hanaud. He went over to thedressing-room and opened a few small leather cases which held Celia'sornaments. In one or two of them a trinket was visible; others wereempty. One of these latter Hanaud held open in his hand, and for solong that Besnard moved impatiently.
"You see it is empty, monsieur," he said, and suddenly Wethermill movedforward into the room.
"Yes, I see that," said Hanaud dryly.
It was a case made to hold a couple of long ear-drops--those diamondear-drops, doubtless, which Mr. Ricardo had seen twinkling in thegarden.
"Will monsieur let me see?" asked Wethermill, and he took the case inhis hands. "Yes," he said. "Mlle. Celie's ear-drops," and he handed thecase back with a thoughtful air.
It was the first time he had taken a definite part in theinvestigation. To Ricardo the reason was clear. Harry Wethermill hadhimself given those ear-drops to Celia. Hanaud replaced the case andturned round.
"There is nothing more for us to see here," he said. "I suppose that noone has been allowed to enter the room?" And he opened the door.
"No one except Helene Vauquier," replied the Commissaire.
Ricardo felt indignant at so obvious a piece of carelessness. EvenWethermill looked surprised. Hanaud merely shut the door again.
"Oho, the maid!" he said. "Then she has recovered!"
"She is still weak," said the Commissaire. "But I thought it wasnecessary that we should obtain at once a description of what CelieHarland wore when she left the house. I spoke to M. Fleuriot about it,and he gave me permission to bring Helene Vauquier here, who alonecould tell us. I brought her here myself just before you came. Shelooked through the girl's wardrobe to see what was missing."
"Was she alone in the room?"
"Not for a moment," said M. Besnard haughtily. "Really, monsieur, weare not so ignorant of how an affair of this kind should be conducted.I was in the room myself the whole time, with my eye upon her."
"That was just before I came," said Hanaud. He crossed carelessly tothe open window which overlooked the road and, leaning out of it,looked up the road to the corner round which he and his friends hadcome, precisely as the Commissaire had done. Then he turned back intothe room.
"Which was the last cupboard or drawer that Helene Vauquier touched?"he asked.
"This one."
Besnard stooped and pulled open the bottom drawer of a chest whichstood in the embrasure of the window. A light-coloured dress was lyingat the bottom.
"I told her to be quick," said Besnard, "since I had seen that you werecoming. She lifted this dress out and said that nothing was missingthere. So I took her back to her room and left her with the nurse."
Hanaud lifted the light dress from the drawer, shook it out in front ofthe window, twirled it round, snatched up a corner of it and held it tohis eyes, and then, folding it quickly, replaced it in the drawer.
"Now show me the first drawer she touched." And this time he lifted outa petticoat, and, taking it to the window, examined it with a greatercare. When he had finished with it he handed it to Ricardo to put away,and stood for a moment or two thoughtful and absorbed. Ricardo in histurn examined the petticoat. But he could see nothing unusual. It wasan attractive petticoat, dainty with frills and lace, but it was hardlya thing to grow thoughtful over. He looked up in perplexity and sawthat Hanaud was watching his investigations with a smile of amusement.
"When M. Ricardo has put that away," he said, "we will hear what HeleneVauquier has to tell us."
He passed out of the door last, and, locking it, placed the key in hispocket.
"Helene Vauquier's room is, I think, upstairs," he said. And he movedtowards the staircase.
But as he did so a man in plain clothes, who had been waiting upon thelanding, stepped forward. He carried in his han
d a piece of thin,strong whipcord.
"Ah, Durette!" cried Besnard. "Monsieur Hanaud, I sent Durette thismorning round the shops of Aix with the cord which was found knottedround Mme. Dauvray's neck."
Hanaud advanced quickly to the man.
"Well! Did you discover anything?"
"Yes, monsieur," said Durette. "At the shop of M. Corval, in the Rue duCasino, a young lady in a dark-grey frock and hat bought some cord ofthis kind at a few minutes after nine last night. It was just as theshop was being closed. I showed Corval the photograph of Celie Harlandwhich M. le Commissaire gave me out of Mme. Dauvray's room, and heidentified it as the portrait of the girl who had bought the cord."
Complete silence followed upon Durette's words. The whole party stoodlike men stupefied. No one looked towards Wethermill; even Hanaudaverted his eyes.
"Yes, that is very important," he said awkwardly. He turned away and,followed by the others, went up the stairs to the bedroom of HeleneVauquier.