At the Villa Rose

he was. And he had shown himself a fool. He should have kept silence about that pot of cream.

VIII

The Captain of the Ship

Hanaud walked away from the Villa Rose in the company of Wethermill and Ricardo.

“We will go and lunch,” he said.

“Yes; come to my hotel,” said Harry Wethermill. But Hanaud shook his head.

“No; come with me to the Villa des Fleurs,” he replied. “We may learn something there; and in a case like this every minute is of importance. We have to be quick.”

“I may come too?” cried Mr. Ricardo eagerly.

“By all means,” replied Hanaud, with a smile of extreme courtesy. “Nothing could be more delicious than monsieur’s suggestions”; and with that remark he walked on silently.

Mr. Ricardo was in a little doubt as to the exact significance of the words. But he was too excited to dwell long upon them. Distressed though he sought to be at his friend’s grief, he could not but assume an air of importance. All the artist in him rose joyfully to the occasion. He looked upon himself from the outside. He fancied without the slightest justification that people were pointing him out. “That man has been present at the investigation at the Villa Rose,” he seemed to hear people say. “What strange things he could tell us if he would!”

And suddenly, Mr. Ricardo began to reflect. What, after all, could he have told them?

And that question he turned over in his mind while he ate his luncheon. Hanaud wrote a letter between the courses. They were sitting at a corner table, and Hanaud was in the corner with his back to the wall. He moved his plate, too, over the letter as he wrote it. It would have been impossible for either of his guests to see what he had written, even if they had wished. Ricardo, indeed, did wish. He rather resented the secrecy with which the detective, under a show of openness, shrouded his thoughts and acts. Hanaud sent the waiter out to fetch an officer in plain clothes, who was in attendance at the door, and he handed the letter to this man. Then he turned with an apology to his guests.

“It is necessary that we should find out,” he explained, “as soon as possible, the whole record of Mlle. Célie.”

He lighted a cigar, and over the coffee he put a question to Ricardo.

“Now tell me what you make of the case. What M. Wethermill thinks⁠—that is clear, is it not? Hélène Vauquier is the guilty one. But you, M. Ricardo? What is your opinion?”

Ricardo took from his pocketbook a sheet of paper and from his pocket a pencil. He was intensely flattered by the request of Hanaud, and he proposed to do himself justice. “I will make a note here of what I think the salient features of the mystery”; and he proceeded to tabulate the points in the following way:

1. Celia Harland made her entrance into Mme. Dauvray’s household under very doubtful circumstances.

2. By methods still more doubtful she acquired an extraordinary ascendency over Mme. Dauvray’s mind.

3. If proof were needed how complete that ascendency was, a glance at Celia Harland’s wardrobe would suffice; for she wore the most expensive clothes.

4. It was Celia Harland who arranged that Servettaz, the chauffeur, should be absent at Chambéry on the Tuesday night⁠—the night of the murder.

5. It was Celia Harland who bought the cord with which Mme. Dauvray was strangled and Hélène Vauquier bound.

6. The footsteps outside the salon show that Celia Harland ran from the salon to the motorcar.

7. Celia Harland pretended that there should be a séance on the Tuesday, but she dressed as though she had in view an appointment with a lover, instead of a spiritualistic séance.

8. Celia Harland has disappeared.

These eight points are strongly suggestive of Celia Harland’s complicity in the murder. But I have no clue which will enable me to answer the following questions:

1. Who was the man who took part in the crime? Who was the woman who came to the villa on the evening of the murder with Mme. Dauvray and Celia Harland?

2. What actually happened in the salon? How was the murder committed?

3. Is Hélène Vauquier’s story true?

4. What did the torn-up scrap of writing mean? (Probably spirit writing in Celia Harland’s hand.)

5. Why has one cushion on the settee a small, fresh, brown stain, which is probably blood? Why is the other cushion torn?

Mr. Ricardo had a momentary thought of putting down yet another question. He was inclined to ask whether or no a pot of cold cream had disappeared from Celia Harland’s bedroom; but he remembered that Hanaud had set no store upon that incident, and he refrained. Moreover, he had come to the end of his sheet of paper. He handed it across the table to Hanaud and leaned back in his chair, watching the detective with all the eagerness of a young author submitting his first effort to a critic.

Hanaud read it through slowly. At the end he nodded his head in approval.

“Now we will see what M. Wethermill has to say,” he said, and he stretched out the paper towards Harry Wethermill, who throughout the luncheon had not said a word.

“No, no,” cried Ricardo.

But Harry Wethermill already held the written sheet in his hand. He smiled rather wistfully at his friend.

“It is best that I should know just what you both think,” he said, and in his turn he began to read the paper through. He read the first eight points, and then beat with his fist upon the table.

“No no,” he cried; “it is not possible! I don’t blame you, Ricardo. These are facts, and, as I said, I can face facts. But there will be an explanation⁠—if only we can discover it.”

He buried his face for a moment in his hands. Then he took up the paper again.

“As for the rest, Hélène Vauquier lied,” he cried violently, and he tossed the paper to Hanaud. “What do you make of it?”

Hanaud smiled and shook his