"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 his cheeks, 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 to make sure."
There was one point, and only one, of which he had made every one in that room sure. He had started confident. Here was a sordid crime, easily understood. But in that room he had read something which had troubled him, which had raised the sordid crime on to some higher and perplexing level.
"Then M. Fleuriot after all might be right?" asked the Commissaire timidly.
Hanaud stared at him for a second, then smiled.
"L’affaire Dreyfus?" he cried. "Oh la, la, la! No, but there is something else."
What was that something? Ricardo asked himself. He looked once more about the room. He did not find his answer, but he caught sight of an ornament upon the wall which drove the question from his mind. The ornament, if so it could be called, was a painted tambourine with a bunch of bright ribbons tied to the rim; and it was hung upon the wall between the settee and the fireplace at about the height of a man’s head. Of course it might be no more than it seemed to be-a rather gaudy and vulgar toy, such as a woman like Mme. Dauvray would be very likely to choose in order to dress her walls. But it swept Ricardo’s thoughts back of a sudden to the concert-hall at Leamington and the apparatus of a spiritualistic show. After all, he reflected triumphantly, Hanaud had not noticed everything, and as he made the reflection Hanaud’s voice broke in to corroborate him.
"We have seen everything here; let us go upstairs," he said. "We will first 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 the hall and mounted the stairs. Celia’s room was in the southwest angle of the villa, a bright and airy room, of which one window overlooked the road, and two others, between which stood the dressing-table, the garden. Behind the room a door led into a little white-tiled bathroom. Some towels were tumbled upon the floor beside the bath. In the bedroom a dark-grey frock of tussore and a petticoat were flung carelessly on the bed; a big grey hat of Ottoman silk was lying upon a chest of drawers in the recess of a window; and upon a chair a little pile of fine linen and a pair of grey silk stockings, which matched in shade the 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 that time."
Besnard was looking about him, opening a drawer here, a wardrobe there.
"Mlle. Celie," he said, with a laugh, "was a particular young lady, and fond of her fine clothes, if one may judge from the room and the order of the cupboards. She must have changed her dress last night in an unusual hurry."
There was about the whole room a certain daintiness, almost, it seemed to Mr. Ricardo, a fragrance, as though the girl had impressed something of her own delicate self upon it. Wethermill stood upon the threshold watching with a sullen face the violation of this chamber by the officers of the police.
No such feelings, however, troubled Hanaud. He went over to the dressing-room and opened a few small leather cases which held Celia’s ornaments. In one or two of them a trinket was visible; others were empty. One of these latter Hanaud held open in his hand, and for so long that Besnard moved impatiently.
"You see it is empty, monsieur," he said, and suddenly Wethermill moved forward into the room.
"Yes, I see that," said Hanaud dryly.
It was a case made to hold a couple of long ear-drops-those diamond ear-drops, doubtless, which Mr. Ricardo had seen twinkling in the garden.
"Will monsieur let me see?" asked Wethermill, and he took the case in his hands. "Yes," he said. "Mlle. Celie’s ear-drops," and he handed the case back with a thoughtful air.
It was the first time he had taken a definite part in the investigation. To Ricardo the reason was clear. Harry Wethermill had himself given those ear-drops to Celia. Hanaud replaced the case and turned round.
"There is nothing more for us to see here," he said. "I suppose that no one 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. Even Wethermill 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 was necessary that we should obtain at once a description of what Celie Harland wore when she left the house. I spoke to M. Fleuriot about it, and he gave me permission to bring Helene Vauquier here, who alone could tell us. I brought her here myself just before you came. She looked 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, we are 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 to the open window which overlooked the road and, leaning out of it, looked up the road to the corner round which he and his friends had come, precisely as the Commissaire had done. Then he turned back into the 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 which stood in the embrasure of the window. A light-coloured dress was lying at the bottom.
"I told her to be quick," said Besnard, "since I had seen that you were coming. She lifted this dress out and said that nothing was missing there. 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 of the window, twirled it round, snatched up a corner of it and held it to his eyes, and then, folding it quickly, replaced it in the drawer.
"Now show me the first drawer she touched." And this time he lifted out a petticoat, and, taking it to the window, examined it with a greater care. 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 his turn examined the petticoat. But he could see nothing unusual. It was an attractive petticoat, dainty with frills and lace, but it was hardly a thing to grow thoughtful over. He looked up in perplexity and saw that Hanaud was watching his investigations with a smile of amusement.
"When M. Ricardo has put that away," he said, "we will hear what Helene Vauquier has to tell us."
He passed out of the door last, and, locking it, placed the key in his pocket.
"Helene Vauquier’s room is, I think, upstairs," he said. And he moved towards the staircase.
But as he did so a man in plain clothes, who had been waiting upon the landing, stepped forward. He carried in his hand a piece of thin, strong whipcord.
"Ah, Durette!" cried Besnard. "Monsieur Hanaud, I sent Durette this morning round the shops of Aix with the cord which was found knotted round 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 du Casino, a young lady in a dark-grey frock and hat bought some cord of this kind at a few minutes after nine last night. It was just as the shop was being closed. I showed Corval the photograph of Celie Harland which M. le Commissaire gave me out of Mme. Dauvray’s room, and he identified it as the portrait of the girl who had bought the cord."
Complete silence followed upon Durette’s words. The whole party st
ood like men stupefied. No one looked towards Wethermill; even Hanaud averted 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 Helene Vauquier.
CHAPTER VI
HELENE VAUQUIER’S EVIDENCE
A nurse opened the door. Within the room Helene Vauquier was leaning back in a chair. She looked ill, and her face was very white. On the appearance of Hanaud, the Commissaire, and the others, however, she rose to her feet. Ricardo recognised the justice of Hanaud’s description. She stood before them a hard-featured, tall woman of thirty-five or forty, in a neat black stuff dress, strong with the strength of a peasant, respectable, reliable. She looked what she had been, the confidential maid of an elderly woman. On her face there was now an aspect of eager appeal.
"Oh, monsieur!" she began, "let me go from here-anywhere-into prison if you like. But to stay here-where in years past we were so happy-and with madame lying in the room below. No, it is insupportable."
She sank into her chair, and Hanaud came over to her side.
"Yes, yes," he said, in a soothing voice. "I can understand your feelings, my poor woman. We will not keep you here. You have, perhaps, friends in Aix with whom you could stay?"
"Oh yes, monsieur!" Helene cried gratefully. "Oh, but I thank you! That I should have to sleep here tonight! Oh, how the fear of that has frightened me!"
"You need have had no such fear. After all, we are not the visitors of last night," said Hanaud, drawing a chair close to her and patting her hand sympathetically. "Now, I want you to tell these gentlemen and myself all that you know of this dreadful business. Take your time, mademoiselle! We are human."
"But, monsieur, I know nothing," she cried. "I was told that I might go to bed as soon as I had dressed Mlle. Celie for the seance."
"Seance!" cried Ricardo, startled into speech. The picture of the Assembly Hall at Leamington was again before his mind. But Hanaud turned towards him, and, though Hanaud’s face retained its benevolent expression, there was a glitter in his eyes which sent the blood into Ricardo’s face.
"Did you speak again, M. Ricardo?" the detective asked. "No? I thought it was not possible." He turned back to Helene Vauquier. "So Mlle. Celie practised seances. That is very strange. We will hear about them. Who knows what thread may lead us to the truth?"
Helene Vauquier shook her head.
"Monsieur, it is not right that you should seek the truth from me. For, consider this! I cannot speak with justice of Mlle. Celie. No, I cannot! I did not like her. I was jealous-yes, jealous, Monsieur, you want the truth-I hated her!" And the woman’s face flushed and she clenched her hand upon the arm of her chair. "Yes, I hated her. How could I help it?" she asked.
"Why?" asked Hanaud gently. "Why could you not help it?"
Helene Vauquier leaned back again, her strength exhausted, and smiled languidly.
"I will tell you. But remember it is a woman speaking to you, and things which you will count silly and trivial mean very much to her. There was one night last June-only last June! To think of it! So little while ago there was no Mlle. Celie-" and, as Hanaud raised his hand, she said hurriedly, "Yes, yes; I will control myself. But to think of Mme. Dauvray now!"
And thereupon she blurted out her story and explained to Mr. Ricardo the question which had so perplexed him: how a girl of so much distinction as Celia Harland came to be living with a woman of so common a type as Mme. Dauvray.
"Well, one night in June," said Helene Vauquier, "madame went with a party to supper at the Abbaye Restaurant in Montmartre. And she brought home for the first time Mlle. Celie. But you should have seen her! She had on a little plaid skirt and a coat which was falling to pieces, and she was starving-yes, starving. Madame told me the story that night as I undressed her. Mlle. Celie was there dancing amidst the tables for a supper with any one who would be kind enough to dance with her."
The scorn of her voice rang through the room. She was the rigid, respectable peasant woman, speaking out her contempt. And Wethermill must needs listen to it. Ricardo dared not glance at him.
"But hardly any one would dance with her in her rags, and no one would give her supper except madame. Madame did. Madame listened to her story of hunger and distress. Madame believed it, and brought her home. Madame was so kind, so careless in her kindness. And now she lies murdered for a reward!" An hysterical sob checked the woman’s utterances, her face began to work, her hands to twitch.
"Come, come!" said Hanaud gently, "calm yourself, mademoiselle."
Helene Vauquier paused for a moment or two to recover her composure. "I beg your pardon, monsieur, but I have been so long with madame-oh, the poor woman! Yes, yes, I will calm myself. Well, madame brought her home, and in a week there was nothing too good for Mlle. Celie. Madame was like a child. Always she was being deceived and imposed upon. Never she learnt prudence. But no one so quickly made her way to madame’s heart as Mlle. Celie. Mademoiselle must live with her. Mademoiselle must be dressed by the first modistes. Mademoiselle must have lace petticoats and the softest linen, long white gloves, and pretty ribbons for her hair, and hats from Caroline Reboux at twelve hundred francs. And madame’s maid must attend upon her and deck her out in all these dainty things. Bah!"
Vauquier was sitting erect in her chair, violent, almost rancorous with anger. She looked round upon the company and shrugged her shoulders.
"I told you not to come to me!" she said, "I cannot speak impartially, or even gently of mademoiselle. Consider! For years I had been more than madame’s maid-her friend; yes, so she was kind enough to call me. She talked to me about everything, consulted me about everything, took me with her everywhere. Then she brings home, at two o’clock in the morning, a young girl with a fresh, pretty face, from a Montmartre restaurant, and in a week I am nothing at all-oh, but nothing-and mademoiselle is queen."
"Yes, it is quite natural," said Hanaud sympathetically. "You would not have been human, mademoiselle, if you had not felt some anger. But tell us frankly about these seances. How did they begin?"
"Oh, monsieur," Vauquier answered, "it was not difficult to begin them. Mme. Dauvray had a passion for fortune-tellers and rogues of that kind. Any one with a pack of cards and some nonsense about a dangerous woman with black hair or a man with a limp-Monsieur knows the stories they string together in dimly lighted rooms to deceive the credulous-any one could make a harvest out of madame’s superstitions. But monsieur knows the type."
"Indeed I do," said Hanaud, with a laugh.
"Well, after mademoiselle had been with us three weeks, she said to me one morning when I was dressing her hair that it was a pity madame was always running round the fortune-tellers, that she herself could do something much more striking and impressive, and that if only I would help her we could rescue madame from their clutches. Sir, I did not think what power I was putting into Mlle. Celie’s hands, or assuredly I would have refused. And I did not wish to quarrel with Mlle. Celie; so for once I consented, and, having once consented, I could never afterwards refuse, for, if I had, mademoiselle would have made some fine excuse about the psychic influence not being en rapport, and meanwhile would have had me sent away. While if I had confessed the truth to madame, she would have been so angry that I had been a party to tricking her that again I would have lost my place. And so the seances went on."
"Yes," said Hanaud. "I understand that your position was very difficult. We shall not, I think," and he turned to the Commissaire confidently for corroboration of his words, "be disposed to blame you."
"Certainly not," said the Commissaire. "After all, life is not so easy."
"Thus, then, the seances began," said Hanaud, leaning forward with a keen interest. "This is a strange and curious story you are telling me, Mlle. Vauquier. Now, how were they conducted? How did you assist? What did Mlle. Celie do? Rap on the tables in the dark and rattle tambourines like that one with the knot of ribbons which hangs upon the wall of the salon?"
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There was a gentle and inviting irony in Hanaud’s tone. M. Ricardo was disappointed. Hanaud had after all not overlooked the tambourine. Without Ricardo’s reason to notice it, he had none the less observed it and borne it in his memory.
"Well?" he asked.
"Oh, monsieur, the tambourines and the rapping on the table!" cried Helene. "That was nothing-oh, but nothing at all. Mademoiselle Celie would make spirits appear and speak!"
"Really! And she was never caught out! But Mlle. Celie must have been a remarkably clever girl."
"Oh, she was of an address which was surprising. Sometimes madame and I were alone. Sometimes there were others, whom madame in her pride had invited. For she was very proud, monsieur, that her companion could introduce her to the spirits of dead people. But never was Mlle. Celie caught out. She told me that for many years, even when quite a child, she had travelled through England giving these exhibitions."
"Oho!" said Hanaud, and he turned to Wethermill. "Did you know that?" he asked in English.
"I did not," he said. "I do not now."
Hanaud shook his head.
"To me this story does not seem invented," he replied. And then he spoke again in French to Helene Vauquier. "Well, continue, mademoiselle! Assume that the company is assembled for our seance."
"Then Mlle. Celie, dressed in a long gown of black velvet, which set off her white arms and shoulders well-oh, mademoiselle did not forget those little trifles," Helene Vauquier interrupted her story, with a return of her bitterness, to interpolate-"mademoiselle would sail into the room with her velvet train flowing behind her, and perhaps for a little while she would say there was a force working against her, and she would sit silent in a chair while madame gaped at her with open eyes. At last mademoiselle would say that the powers were favourable and the spirits would manifest themselves to night. Then she would be placed in a cabinet, perhaps with a string tied across the door outside-you will understand it was my business to see after the string-and the lights would be turned down, or perhaps out altogether. Or at other times we would sit holding hands round a table, Mlle. Celie between Mme. Dauvray and myself. But in that case the lights would be turned out first, and it would be really my hand which held Mme. Dauvray’s. And whether it was the cabinet or the chairs, in a moment mademoiselle would be creeping silently about the room in a little pair of soft-soled slippers without heels, which she wore so that she might not be heard, and tambourines would rattle as you say, and fingers touch the forehead and the neck, and strange voices would sound from corners of the room, and dim apparitions would appear-the spirits of great ladies of the past, who would talk with Mme. Dauvray. Such ladies as Mme. de Castiglione, Marie Antoinette, Mme. de Medici-I do not remember all the names, and very likely I do not pronounce them properly. Then the voices would cease and the lights be turned up, and Mlle. Celie would be found in a trance just in the same place and attitude as she had been when the lights were turned out. Imagine, messieurs, the effect of such seances upon a woman like Mme. Dauvray. She was made for them. She believed in them implicitly. The words of the great ladies from the past-she would remember and repeat them, and be very proud that such great ladies had come back to the world merely to tell her-Mme. Dauvray-about their lives. She would have had seances all day, but Mlle. Celie pleaded that she was left exhausted at the end of them. But Mlle. Celie was of an address! For instance-it will seem very absurd and ridiculous to you, gentlemen, but you must remember what Mme. Dauvray was-for instance, madame was particularly anxious to speak with the spirit of Mme. de Montespan. Yes, yes! She had read all the memoirs about that lady. Very likely Mlle. Celie had put the notion into Mme. Dauvray’s head, for madame was not a scholar. But she was dying to hear that famous woman’s voice and to catch a dim glimpse of her face. Well, she was never gratified. Always she hoped. Always Mlle. Celie tantalised her with the hope. But she would not gratify it. She would not spoil her fine affairs by making these treats too common. And she acquired-how should she not?-a power over Mme. Dauvray which was unassailable. The fortune-tellers had no more to say to Mme. Dauvray. She did nothing but felicitate herself upon the happy chance which had sent her Mlle. Celie. And now she lies in her room murdered!"
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