But Harry Wethermill was out of breath and shaking with agitation.
“I can’t wait,” he cried, with a passionate appeal. “I have got to see you. You must help me, Mr. Ricardo—you must, indeed!”
Ricardo spun round upon his heel. At first he had thought that the help wanted was the help usually wanted at Aix-les-Bains. A glance at Wethermill’s face, however, and the ringing note of anguish in his voice, told him that the thought was wrong. Mr. Ricardo slipped out of his affectations as out of a loose coat. “What has happened?” he asked quietly.
“Something terrible.” With shaking fingers Wethermill held out a newspaper. “Read it,” he said.
It was a special edition of a local newspaper, Le Journal de Savoie, and it bore the date of that morning.
“They are crying it in the streets,” said Wethermill. “Read!”
A short paragraph was printed in large black letters on the first page, and leaped to the eyes.
“Late last night,” it ran, “an appalling murder was committed at the Villa Rose, on the road to Lac Bourget. Mme. Camille Dauvray, an elderly, rich woman who was well known at Aix, and had occupied the villa every summer for the last few years, was discovered on the floor of her salon, fully dressed and brutally strangled, while upstairs, her maid, Hélène Vauquier, was found in bed, chloroformed, with her hands tied securely behind her back. At the time of going to press she had not recovered consciousness, but the doctor, Emile Peytin, is in attendance upon her, and it is hoped that she will be able shortly to throw some light on this dastardly affair. The police are properly reticent as to the details of the crime, but the following statement may be accepted without hesitation:
“The murder was discovered at twelve o’clock at night by the sergent-de-ville Perrichet, to whose intelligence more than a word of praise is due, and it is obvious from the absence of all marks upon the door and windows that the murderer was admitted from within the villa. Meanwhile Mme. Dauvray’s motorcar has disappeared, and with it a young Englishwoman who came to Aix with her as her companion. The motive of the crime leaps to the eyes. Mme. Dauvray was famous in Aix for her jewels, which she wore with too little prudence. The condition of the house shows that a careful search was made for them, and they have disappeared. It is anticipated that a description of the young Englishwoman, with a reward for her apprehension, will be issued immediately. And it is not too much to hope that the citizens of Aix, and indeed of France, will be cleared of all participation in so cruel and sinister a crime.”
Ricardo read through the paragraph with a growing consternation, and laid the paper upon his dressing-table.
“It is infamous,” cried Wethermill passionately.
“The young Englishwoman is, I suppose, your friend Miss Celia?” said Ricardo slowly.
Wethermill started forward.
“You know her, then?” he cried in amazement.
“No; but I saw her with you in the rooms. I heard you call her by that name.”
“You saw us together?” exclaimed Wethermill. “Then you can understand how infamous the suggestion is.”
But Ricardo had seen the girl half an hour before he had seen her with Harry Wethermill. He could not but vividly remember the picture of her as she flung herself on to the bench in the garden in a moment of hysteria, and petulantly kicked a satin slipper backwards and forwards against the stones. She was young, she was pretty, she had a charm of freshness, but—but—strive against it as he would, this picture in the recollection began more and more to wear a sinister aspect. He remembered some words spoken by a stranger. “She is pretty, that little one. It is regrettable that she has lost.”
Mr. Ricardo arranged his tie with even a greater deliberation than he usually employed.
“And Mme. Dauvray?” he asked. “She was the stout woman with whom your young friend went away?”
“Yes,” said Wethermill.
Ricardo turned round from the mirror.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Hanaud is at Aix. He is the cleverest of the French detectives. You know him. He dined with you once.”
It was Mr. Ricardo’s practice to collect celebrities round his dinner-table, and at one such gathering Hanaud and Wethermill had been present together.
“You wish me to approach him?”
“At once.”
“It is a delicate position,” said Ricardo. “Here is a man in charge of a case of murder, and we are quietly to go to him—”
To his relief Wethermill interrupted him.
“No, no,” he cried; “he is not in charge of the case. He is on his holiday. I read of his arrival two days ago in the newspaper. It was stated that he came for rest. What I want is that he should take charge of the case.”
The superb confidence of Wethermill shook Mr. Ricardo for a moment, but his recollections were too clear.
“You are going out of your way to launch the acutest of French detectives in search of this girl. Are you wise, Wethermill?”
Wethermill sprang up from his chair in desperation.
“You, too, think her guilty! You have seen her. You think her guilty—like this detestable newspaper, like the police.”
“Like the police?” asked Ricardo sharply.
“Yes,” said Harry Wethermill sullenly. “As soon as I saw that rag I ran down to the villa. The police are in possession. They would not let me into the garden. But I talked with one of them. They, too, think that she let in the murderers.”
Ricardo took a turn across the room. Then he came to a stop in front of Wethermill.
“Listen to me,” he said solemnly. “I saw this girl half an hour before I saw you. She rushed out into the garden. She flung herself on to a bench. She could not sit still. She was hysterical. You know what that means. She had been losing. That’s point number one.”
Mr. Ricardo ticked it off upon his finger.
“She ran back into the rooms. You
