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 eardrops—those diamond eardrops, 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. Célie’s eardrops,” 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 eardrops 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 Hélène 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 Célie Harland wore when she left the house. I spoke to M. Fleuriot about it, and he gave me permission to bring Hélène 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 Hélène 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 Hélène Vauquier has to tell us.”
He passed out of the door last, and, locking it, placed the key in his pocket.
“Hélène 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 Célie 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 stood 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 Hélène Vauquier.
VI
Hélène Vauquier’s Evidence
A nurse opened the door. Within the room Hélène 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
