“I beg mademoiselle not to listen to what Adèle is saying,” exclaimed Hélène. And she began to ape in a mincing, extravagant fashion the manner of a saleswoman in a shop. “Mademoiselle has never looked so ravishing. This style is the last word of fashion. It is what there is of most chic. Of course, mademoiselle understands that the costume is not intended for playing the piano. Nor, indeed, for the ballroom. It leaps to one’s eyes that dancing would be difficult. Nor is it intended for much conversation. It is a costume for a mood of quiet reflection. But I assure mademoiselle that for pretty young ladies who are the favourites of rich old women it is the style most recommended by the criminal classes.”
All the woman’s bitter rancour against Celia, hidden for months beneath a mask of humility, burst out and ran riot now. She went to Adèle Rossignol’s help, and they flung the girl face downwards upon the sofa. Her face struck the cushion at one end, her feet the cushion at the other. The breath was struck out of her body. She lay with her bosom heaving.
Hélène Vauquier watched her for a moment with a grin, paying herself now for her respectful speeches and attendance.
“Yes, lie quietly and reflect, little fool!” she said savagely. “Were you wise to come here and interfere with Hélène Vauquier? Hadn’t you better have stayed and danced in your rags at Montmartre? Are the smart frocks and the pretty hats and the good dinners worth the price? Ask yourself these questions, my dainty little friend!”
She drew up a chair to Celia’s side, and sat down upon it comfortably.
“I will tell you what we are going to do with you, Mlle. Célie. Adèle Rossignol and that kind gentleman, M. Wethermill, are going to take you away with them. You will be glad to go, won’t you, dearie? For you love M. Wethermill, don’t you? Oh, they won’t keep you long enough for you to get tired of them. Do not fear! But you will not come back, Mlle. Célie. No; you have seen too much tonight. And everyone will think that Mlle. Célie helped to murder and rob her benefactress. They are certain to suspect someone, so why not you, pretty one?”
Celia made no movement. She lay trying to believe that no crime had been committed, that that lifeless body did not lie against the wall. And then she heard in the room above a bed wheeled roughly from its place.
The two women heard it too, and looked at one another.
“He should look in the safe,” said Vauquier. “Go and see what he is doing.”
And Adèle Rossignol ran from the room.
As soon as she was gone Vauquier followed to the door, listened, closed it gently, and came back. She stooped down.
“Mlle. Célie,” she said, in a smooth, silky voice, which terrified the girl more than her harsh tones, “there is just one little thing wrong in your appearance, one tiny little piece of bad taste, if mademoiselle will pardon a poor servant the expression. I did not mention it before Adèle Rossignol; she is so severe in her criticism, is she not? But since we are alone, I will presume to point out to mademoiselle that those diamond eardrops which I see peeping out under the scarf are a little ostentatious in her present predicament. They are a provocation to thieves. Will mademoiselle permit me to remove them?”
She caught her by the neck and lifted her up. She pushed the lace scarf up at the side of Celia’s head. Celia began to struggle furiously, convulsively. She kicked and writhed, and a little tearing sound was heard. One of her shoe-buckles had caught in the thin silk covering of the cushion and slit it. Hélène Vauquier let her fall. She felt composedly in her pocket, and drew from it an aluminium flask—the same flask which Lemerre was afterward to snatch up in the bedroom in Geneva. Celia stared at her in dread. She saw the flask flashing in the light. She shrank from it. She wondered what new horror was to grip her. Hélène unscrewed the top and laughed pleasantly.
“Mlle. Célie is under control,” she said. “We shall have to teach her that it is not polite in young ladies to kick.” She pressed Celia down with a hand upon her back, and her voice changed. “Lie still,” she commanded savagely. “Do you hear? Do you know what this is, Mlle. Célie?” And she held the flask towards the girl’s face. “This is vitriol, my pretty one. Move, and I’ll spoil these smooth white shoulders for you. How would you like that?”
Celia shuddered from head to foot, and, burying her face in the cushion, lay trembling. She would have begged for death upon her knees rather than suffer this horror. She felt Vauquier’s fingers lingering with a dreadful caressing touch upon her shoulders and about her throat. She was within an ace of the torture, the disfigurement, and she knew it. She could not pray for mercy. She could only lie quite still, as she was bidden, trying to control the shuddering of her limbs and body.
“It would be a good lesson for Mlle. Célie,” Hélène continued slowly. “I think that if Mlle. Célie will forgive the liberty I ought to inflict it. One little tilt of the flask and the satin of these pretty shoulders—”
She broke off suddenly and listened. Some sound heard outside had given Celia a respite, perhaps more than a respite. Hélène set the flask down upon the table. Her avarice had got the better of her hatred. She roughly
