At the Villa Rose (8 page)

To all who listened Helene Vauquier's story carried its conviction.
Mme. Dauvray rose vividly before their minds as a living woman. Celie's
trickeries were so glibly described that they could hardly have been
invented, and certainly not by this poor peasant-woman whose lips so
bravely struggled with Medici, and Montespan, and the names of the
other great ladies. How, indeed, should she know of them at all? She
could never have had the inspiration to concoct the most convincing
item of her story—the queer craze of Mme. Dauvray for an interview
with Mme. de Montespan. These details were assuredly the truth.

Ricardo, indeed, knew them to be true. Had he not himself seen the girl
in her black velvet dress shut up in a cabinet, and a great lady of the
past dimly appear in the darkness? Moreover, Helene Vauquier's jealousy
was so natural and inevitable a thing. Her confession of it
corroborated all her story.

"Well, then," said Hanaud, "we come to last night. There was a seance
held in the salon last night."

"No, monsieur," said Vauquier, shaking her head; "there was no seance
last night."

"But already you have said—" interrupted the Commissaire; and Hanaud
held up his hand.

"Let her speak, my friend."

"Yes, monsieur shall hear," said Vauquier.

It appeared that at five o'clock in the afternoon Mme. Dauvray and
Mlle. Celie prepared to leave the house on foot. It was their custom to
walk down at this hour to the Villa des Fleurs, pass an hour or so
there, dine in a restaurant, and return to the Rooms to spend the
evening. On this occasion, however, Mme. Dauvray informed Helene that
they should be back early and bring with them a friend who was
interested in, but entirely sceptical of, spiritualistic
manifestations. "But we shall convince her tonight, Celie," she said
confidently; and the two women then went out. Shortly before eight
Helene closed the shutters both of the upstair and the downstair
windows and of the glass doors into the garden, and returned to the
kitchen, which was at the back of the house—that is, on the side
facing the road. There had been a fall of rain at seven which had
lasted for the greater part of the hour, and soon after she had shut
the windows the rain fell again in a heavy shower, and Helene, knowing
that madame felt the chill, lighted a small fire in the salon. The
shower lasted until nearly nine, when it ceased altogether and the
night cleared up.

It was close upon half-past nine when the bell rang from the salon.
Vauquier was sure of the hour, for the charwoman called her attention
to the clock.

"I found Mme. Dauvray, Mlle Celie, and another woman in the salon,"
continued Helene Vauquier.

"Madame had let them in with her latchkey."

"Ah, the other woman!" cried Besnard. "Had you seen her before?"

"No, monsieur."

"What was she like?"

"She was sallow, with black hair and bright eyes like beads. She was
short and about forty-five years old, though it is difficult to judge
of these things. I noticed her hands, for she was taking her gloves
off, and they seemed to me to be unusually muscular for a woman."

"Ah!" cried Louis Besnard. "That is important."

"Mme. Dauvray was, as she always was before a seance, in a feverish
flutter. 'You will help Mlle. Celie to dress, Helene, and be very
quick,' she said; and with an extraordinary longing she added, 'Perhaps
we shall see her tonight.' Her, you understand, was Mme. de Montespan."
And she turned to the stranger and said, "You will believe, Adele,
after tonight."

"Adele!" said the Commissaire wisely. "Then Adele was the strange
woman's name?"

"Perhaps," said Hanaud dryly.

Helene Vauquier reflected.

"I think Adele was the name," she said in a more doubtful tone. "It
sounded like Adele."

The irrepressible Mr. Ricardo was impelled to intervene.

"What Monsieur Hanaud means," he explained, with the pleasant air of a
man happy to illuminate the dark intelligence of a child, "is that
Adele was probably a pseudonym."

Hanaud turned to him with a savage grin.

"Now that is sure to help her!" he cried. "A pseudonym! Helene Vauquier
is sure to understand that simple and elementary word. How bright this
M. Ricardo is! Where shall we find a new pin more bright? I ask you,"
and he spread out his hands in a despairing admiration.

Mr. Ricardo flushed red, but he answered never a word. He must endure
gibes and humiliations like a schoolboy in a class. His one constant
fear was lest he should be turned out of the room. The Commissaire
diverted wrath from him however.

"What he means by pseudonym," he said to Helene Vauquier, explaining
Mr. Ricardo to her as Mr. Ricardo had presumed to explain Hanaud, "is a
false name. Adele may have been, nay, probably was, a false name
adopted by this strange woman."

"Adele, I think, was the name used," replied Helene, the doubt in her
voice diminishing as she searched her memory. "I am almost sure."

"Well, we will call her Adele," said Hanaud impatiently. "What does it
matter? Go on, Mademoiselle Vauquier."

"The lady sat upright and squarely upon the edge of a chair, with a
sort of defiance, as though she was determined nothing should convince
her, and she laughed incredulously."

Here, again, all who heard were able vividly to conjure up the
scene—the defiant sceptic sitting squarely on the edge of her chair,
removing her gloves from her muscular hands; the excited Mme. Dauvray,
so absorbed in the determination to convince; and Mlle. Celie running
from the room to put on the black gown which would not be visible in
the dim light.

"Whilst I took off mademoiselle's dress," Vauquier continued, "she
said: 'When I have gone down to the salon you can go to bed, Helene.
Mme. Adele'—yes, it was Adele—'will be fetched by a friend in a
motorcar, and I can let her out and fasten the door again. So if you
hear the car you will know that it has come for her.'"

"Oh, she said that!" said Hanaud quickly.

"Yes, monsieur."

Hanaud looked gloomily towards Wethermill. Then he exchanged a sharp
glance with the Commissaire, and moved his shoulders in an almost
imperceptible shrug. But Mr. Ricardo saw it, and construed it into one
word. He imagined a jury uttering the word "Guilty."

Helene Vauquier saw the movement too.

"Do not condemn her too quickly, monsieur," she, said, with an impulse
of remorse. "And not upon my words. For, as I say, I—hated her."

Hanaud nodded reassuringly, and she resumed:

"I was surprised, and I asked mademoiselle what she would do without
her confederate. But she laughed, and said there would be no
difficulty. That is partly why I think there was no seance held last
night. Monsieur, there was a note in her voice that evening which I did
not as yet understand. Mademoiselle then took her bath while I laid out
her black dress and the slippers with the soft, noiseless soles. And
now I tell you why I am sure there was no seance last night—why Mlle.
Celie never meant there should be one."

"Yes, let us hear that," said Hanaud curiously, and leaning forward
with his hands upon his knees.

"You have here, monsieur, a description of how mademoiselle was dressed
when she went away." Helene Vauquier picked up a sheet of paper from
the table at her side. "I wrote it out at the request of M. le
Commissaire." She handed the paper to Hanaud, who glanced through it as
she continued. "Well, except for the white lace coat, monsieur, I
dressed Mlle. Celie just in that way. She would have none of her plain
black robe. No, Mlle. Celie must wear her fine new evening frock of
pale reseda-green chiffon over soft clinging satin, which set off her
fair beauty so prettily. It left her white arms and shoulders bare, and
it had a long train, and it rustled as she moved. And with that she
must put on her pale green silk stockings, her new little satin
slippers to match, with the large paste buckles—and a sash of green
satin looped through another glittering buckle at the side of the
waist, with long ends loosely knotted together at the knee. I must tie
her fair hair with a silver ribbon, and pin upon her curls a large hat
of reseda green with a golden-brown ostrich feather drooping behind. I
warned mademoiselle that there was a tiny fire burning in the salon.
Even with the fire-screen in front of it there would still be a little
light upon the floor, and the glittering buckles on her feet would
betray her, even if the rustle of her dress did not. But she said she
would kick her slippers off. Ah, gentlemen, it is, after all, not so
that one dresses for a seance," she cried, shaking her head. "But it is
just so—is it not?—that one dresses to go to meet a lover."

The suggestion startled every one who heard it. It fairly took Mr.
Ricardo's breath away. Wethermill stepped forward with a cry of revolt.
The Commissaire exclaimed, admiringly, "But here is an idea!" Even
Hanaud sat back in his chair, though his expression lost nothing of its
impassivity, and his eyes never moved from Helene Vauquier's face.

"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. Celie
was changing her dress Mme. Dauvray and the stranger, Adele, went into
the dining-room. I know that Mlle. Celie, as soon as she was dressed,
ran downstairs to the salon. Well, then, suppose Mlle. Celie 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 Adele, finds the doors open and
hides himself in the salon until Mme. Dauvray returns from the
dining-room. You see, that leaves Mlle. Celie 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."

Helene Vauquier leaned back with an air of disappointment.

"That is true. I had forgotten the coat. I did not like Mlle. Celie,
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," Helene 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
Helene 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. Celie, 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. Celie 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, Helene, you can go to bed.' That was it monsieur."

And now violently the rancour of Helene 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 Helene 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.
Celie's wardrobe, you found that nothing more had been taken away
except the white lace coat?"

"That is so."

"Very well. Now, after Mlle. Celie 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."

Helene 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 man, with the arm which was free,
held me close to him, and she bound my hands with a cord behind me.
Look!"