“Listen!” she continued, “I will tell you what I think. It was my habit to put out some sirop and lemonade and some little cakes in the dining-room, which, as you know, is at the other side of the house across the hall. I think it possible, messieurs, that while Mlle. Célie was changing her dress Mme. Dauvray and the stranger, Adèle, went into the dining-room. I know that Mlle. Célie, as soon as she was dressed, ran downstairs to the salon. Well, then, suppose Mlle. Célie had a lover waiting with whom she meant to run away. She hurries through the empty salon, opens the glass doors, and is gone, leaving the doors open. And the thief, an accomplice of Adèle, finds the doors open and hides himself in the salon until Mme. Dauvray returns from the dining-room. You see, that leaves Mlle. Célie innocent.”
Vauquier leaned forward eagerly, her white face flushing. There was a moment’s silence, and then Hanaud said:
“That is all very well, Mlle. Vauquier. But it does not account for the lace coat in which the girl went away. She must have returned to her room to fetch that after you had gone to bed.”
Hélène Vauquier leaned back with an air of disappointment.
“That is true. I had forgotten the coat. I did not like Mlle. Célie, but I am not wicked—”
“Nor for the fact that the sirop and the lemonade had not been touched in the dining-room,” said the Commissaire, interrupting her.
Again the disappointment overspread Vauquier’s face.
“Is that so?” she asked. “I did not know—I have been kept a prisoner here.”
The Commissaire cut her short with a cry of satisfaction.
“Listen! listen!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Here is a theory which accounts for all, which combines Vauquier’s idea with ours, and Vauquier’s idea is, I think, very just, up to a point. Suppose, M. Hanaud, that the girl was going to meet her lover, but the lover is the murderer. Then all becomes clear. She does not run away to him; she opens the door for him and lets him in.”
Both Hanaud and Ricardo stole a glance at Wethermill. How did he take the theory? Wethermill was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, his face white and contorted with a spasm of pain. But he had the air of a man silently enduring an outrage rather than struck down by the conviction that the woman he loved was worthless.
“It is not for me to say, monsieur,” Hélène Vauquier continued. “I only tell you what I know. I am a woman, and it would be very difficult for a girl who was eagerly expecting her lover so to act that another woman would not know it. However uncultivated and ignorant the other woman was, that at all events she would know. The knowledge would spread to her of itself, without a word. Consider, gentlemen!” And suddenly Hélène Vauquier smiled. “A young girl tingling with excitement from head to foot, eager that her beauty just at this moment should be more fresh, more sweet than ever it was, careful that her dress should set it exquisitely off. Imagine it! Her lips ready for the kiss! Oh, how should another woman not know? I saw Mlle. Célie, her cheeks rosy, her eyes bright. Never had she looked so lovely. The pale-green hat upon her fair head heavy with its curls! From head to foot she looked herself over, and then she sighed—she sighed with pleasure because she looked so pretty. That was Mlle. Célie last night, monsieur. She gathered up her train, took her long white gloves in the other hand, and ran down the stairs, her heels clicking on the wood, her buckles glittering. At the bottom she turned and said to me:
“ ‘Remember, Hélène, you can go to bed.’ That was it monsieur.”
And now violently the rancour of Hélène Vauquier’s feelings burst out once more.
“For her the fine clothes, the pleasure, and the happiness. For me—I could go to bed!”
Hanaud looked again at the description which Hélène Vauquier had written out, and read it through carefully. Then he asked a question, of which Ricardo did not quite see the drift.
“So,” he said, “when this morning you suggested to Monsieur the Commissaire that it would be advisable for you to go through Mlle. Célie’s wardrobe, you found that nothing more had been taken away except the white lace coat?”
“That is so.”
“Very well. Now, after Mlle. Célie had gone down the stairs—”
“I put the lights out in her room and, as she had ordered me to do, I went to bed. The next thing that I remember—but no! It terrifies me too much to think of it.”
Hélène shuddered and covered her face spasmodically with her hands. Hanaud drew her hands gently down.
“Courage! You are safe now, mademoiselle. Calm yourself!”
She lay back with her eyes closed.
“Yes, yes; it is true. I am safe now. But oh! I feel I shall never dare to sleep again!” And the tears swam in her eyes. “I woke up with a feeling of being suffocated. Mon Dieu! There was the light burning in the room, and a woman, the strange woman with the strong hands, was holding me down by the shoulders, while a man with his cap drawn over his eyes and a little black moustache pressed over my lips a pad from which a horribly sweet and sickly taste filled my mouth. Oh, I was terrified! I could not scream. I struggled. The woman told me roughly to keep quiet. But I could not. I must struggle. And then with a brutality unheard of she dragged me up on to my knees while the man kept the pad right over my mouth. The
