Once more Hélène’s voice broke upon the words. But Hanaud poured her out a glass of water and held it to her lips. Hélène drank it eagerly.
“There, that is better, is it not?” he said.
“Yes, monsieur,” said Hélène Vauquier, recovering herself. “Sometimes, too,” she resumed, “messages from the spirits would flutter down in writing on the table.”
“In writing?” exclaimed Hanaud quickly.
“Yes; answers to questions. Mlle. Célie had them ready. Oh, but she was of an address altogether surprising.
“I see,” said Hanaud slowly; and he added, “But sometimes, I suppose, the questions were questions which Mlle. Célie could not answer?”
“Sometimes,” Hélène Vauquier admitted, “when visitors were present. When Mme. Dauvray was alone—well, she was an ignorant woman, and any answer would serve. But it was not so when there were visitors whom Mlle. Célie did not know, or only knew slightly. These visitors might be putting questions to test her, of which they knew the answers, while Mlle. Célie did not.”
“Exactly,” said Hanaud. “What happened then?”
All who were listening understood to what point he was leading Hélène Vauquier. All waited intently for her answer.
She smiled.
“It was all one to Mlle. Célie.”
“She was prepared with an escape from the difficulty?”
“Perfectly prepared.”
Hanaud looked puzzled.
“I can think of no way out of it except the one,” and he looked round to the Commissaire and to Ricardo as though he would inquire of them how many ways they had discovered. “I can think of no escape except that a message in writing should flutter down from the spirit appealed to saying frankly,” and Hanaud shrugged his shoulders, “ ‘I do not know.’ ”
“Oh no no, monsieur,” replied Hélène Vauquier in pity for Hanaud’s misconception, “I see that you are not in the habit of attending séances. It would never do for a spirit to admit that it did not know. At once its authority would be gone, and with it Mlle. Célie’s as well. But on the other hand, for inscrutable reasons the spirit might not be allowed to answer.”
“I understand,” said Hanaud, meekly accepting the correction. “The spirit might reply that it was forbidden to answer, but never that it did not know.”
“No, never that,” said Hélène. So it seemed that Hanaud must look elsewhere for the explanation of that sentence. “I do not know,” Hélène continued: “Oh, Mlle. Célie—it was not easy to baffle her, I can tell you. She carried a lace scarf which she could drape about her head, and in a moment she would be, in the dim light, an old, old woman, with a voice so altered that no one could know it. Indeed, you said rightly, monsieur—she was clever.”
To all who listened Hélène Vauquier’s story carried its conviction. Mme. Dauvray rose vividly before their minds as a living woman. Célie’s trickeries were so glibly described that they could hardly have been invented, and certainly not by this poor peasant-woman whose lips so bravely struggled with Medici, and Montespan, and the names of the other great ladies. How, indeed, should she know of them at all? She could never have had the inspiration to concoct the most convincing item of her story—the queer craze of Mme. Dauvray for an interview with Mme. de Montespan. These details were assuredly the truth.
Ricardo, indeed, knew them to be true. Had he not himself seen the girl in her black velvet dress shut up in a cabinet, and a great lady of the past dimly appear in the darkness? Moreover, Hélène Vauquier’s jealousy was so natural and inevitable a thing. Her confession of it corroborated all her story.
“Well, then,” said Hanaud, “we come to last night. There was a séance held in the salon last night.”
“No, monsieur,” said Vauquier, shaking her head; “there was no séance last night.”
“But already you have said—” interrupted the Commissaire; and Hanaud held up his hand.
“Let her speak, my friend.”
“Yes, monsieur shall hear,” said Vauquier.
It appeared that at five o’clock in the afternoon Mme. Dauvray and Mlle. Célie prepared to leave the house on foot. It was their custom to walk down at this hour to the Villa des Fleurs, pass an hour or so there, dine in a restaurant, and return to the Rooms to spend the evening. On this occasion, however, Mme. Dauvray informed Hélène that they should be back early and bring with them a friend who was interested in, but entirely sceptical of, spiritualistic manifestations. “But we shall convince her tonight, Célie,” she said confidently; and the two women then went out. Shortly before eight Hélène closed the shutters both of the upstair and the downstair windows and of the glass doors into the garden, and returned to the kitchen, which was at the back of the house—that is, on the side facing the road. There had been a fall of rain at seven which had lasted for the greater part of the hour, and soon after she had shut the windows the rain fell again in a heavy shower, and Hélène, knowing that madame felt the chill, lighted a small fire in the salon. The shower lasted until nearly nine, when it ceased altogether and the night cleared up.
It was close upon half-past nine when the bell rang from the salon. Vauquier was sure of the hour, for the charwoman called her attention to the clock.
“I found Mme. Dauvray, Mlle. Célie, and another woman in the salon,” continued Hélène Vauquier.
“Madame had let them in with her latchkey.”
“Ah, the other woman!” cried Besnard. “Had you seen her before?”
“No, monsieur.”
“What was she like?”
“She was sallow, with black hair and bright eyes like beads. She was short
