“Yes, that’s it,” said Wethermill. “But don’t harm her. She will tell of her own will. You will see. The delay won’t hurt now. We can’t come back and search for a little while.”
He was speaking in a quick, agitated voice. And Adèle agreed. The desire to be gone had killed even their fury at the loss of their prize. Some time they would come back, but they would not search now—they were too unnerved.
“Hélène,” said Wethermill, “get to bed. I’ll come up with the chloroform and put you to sleep.”
Hélène Vauquier hurried upstairs. It was part of her plan that she should be left alone in the villa chloroformed. Thus only could suspicion be averted from herself. She did not shrink from the completion of the plan now. She went, the strange woman, without a tremor to her ordeal. Wethermill took the length of rope which had fixed Celia to the pillar.
“I’ll follow,” he said, and as he turned he stumbled over the body of Mme. Dauvray. With a shrill cry he kicked it out of his way and crept up the stairs. Adèle Rossignol quickly set the room in order. She removed the stool from its position in the recess, and carried it to its place in the hall. She put Celia’s shoes upon her feet, loosening the cord from her ankles. Then she looked about the floor and picked up here and there a scrap of cord. In the silence the clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the quarter past eleven. She screwed the stopper on the flask of vitriol very carefully, and put the flask away in her pocket. She went into the kitchen and fetched the key of the garage. She put her hat on her head. She even picked up and drew on her gloves, afraid lest she should leave them behind; and then Wethermill came down again. Adèle looked at him inquiringly.
“It is all done,” he said, with a nod of the head. “I will bring the car down to the door. Then I’ll drive you to Geneva and come back with the car here.”
He cautiously opened the latticed door of the window, listened for a moment, and ran silently down the drive. Adèle closed the door again, but she did not bolt it. She came back into the room; she looked at Celia, as she lay back upon the settee, with a long glance of indecision. And then, to Celia’s surprise—for she had given up all hope—the indecision in her eyes became pity. She suddenly ran across the room and knelt down before Celia. With quick and feverish hands she untied the cord which fastened the train of her skirt about her knees.
At first Celia shrank away, fearing some new cruelty. But Adèle’s voice came to her ears, speaking—and speaking with remorse.
“I can’t endure it!” she whispered. “You are so young—too young to be killed.”
The tears were rolling down Celia’s cheeks. Her face was pitiful and beseeching.
“Don’t look at me like that, for God’s sake, child!” Adèle went on, and she chafed the girl’s ankles for a moment.
“Can you stand?” she asked.
Celia nodded her head gratefully. After all, then, she was not to die. It seemed to her hardly possible. But before she could rise a subdued whirr of machinery penetrated into the room, and the motorcar came slowly to the front of the villa.
“Keep still!” said Adèle hurriedly, and she placed herself in front of Celia.
Wethermill opened the wooden door, while Celia’s heart raced in her bosom.
“I will go down and open the gate,” he whispered. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Wethermill disappeared; and this time he left the door open. Adèle helped Celia to her feet. For a moment she tottered; then she stood firm.
“Now run!” whispered Adèle. “Run, child, for your life!”
Celia did not stop to think whither she should run, or how she should escape from Wethermill’s search. She could not ask that her lips and her hands might be freed. She had but a few seconds. She had one thought—to hide herself in the darkness of the garden. Celia fled across the room, sprang wildly over the sill, ran, tripped over her skirt, steadied herself, and was swung off the ground by the arms of Harry Wethermill.
“There we are,” he said, with his shrill, wavering laugh. “I opened the gate before.” And suddenly Celia hung inert in his arms.
The light went out in the salon. Adèle Rossignol, carrying Celia’s cloak, stepped out at the side of the window.
“She has fainted,” said Wethermill. “Wipe the mould off her shoes and off yours too—carefully. I don’t want them to think this car has been out of the garage at all.”
Adèle stooped and obeyed. Wethermill opened the door of the car and flung Celia into a seat. Adèle followed and took her seat opposite the girl. Wethermill stepped carefully again on to the grass, and with the toe of his shoe scraped up and ploughed the impressions which he and Adèle Rossignol had made on the ground, leaving those which Celia had made. He came back to the window.
“She has left her footmarks clear enough,” he whispered. “There will be no doubt in the morning that she went of her own free will.”
Then he took the chauffeur’s seat, and the car glided silently down the drive and out by the gate. As soon as it was on the road it stopped. In an instant Adèle Rossignol’s head was out of the window.
“What is it?” she exclaimed in fear.
Wethermill pointed to the roof. He had left the light burning in Hélène Vauquier’s room.
“We can’t go back now,” said Adèle in a frantic whisper. “No; it is over. I daren’t go back.” And Wethermill jammed down the lever. The car sprang forward, and humming steadily over the white road devoured the miles. But they had made their one
