At the Villa Rose (9 page)

She held out her wrists. They were terribly bruised. Red and angry
lines showed where the cord had cut deeply into her flesh.

"Then they flung me down again upon my back, and the next thing I
remember is the doctor standing over me and this kind nurse supporting
me."

She sank back exhausted in her chair and wiped her forehead with her
handkerchief. The sweat stood upon it in beads.

"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Hanaud gravely. "This has been a trying
ordeal for you. I understand that. But we are coming to the end. I want
you to read this description of Mlle. Celie through again to make sure
that nothing is omitted." He gave the paper into the maid's hands. "It
will be advertised, so it is important that it should be complete. See
that you have left out nothing."

Helene Vauquier bent her head over the paper.

"No," said Helene at last. "I do not think I have omitted anything."
And she handed the paper back.

"I asked you," Hanaud continued suavely, "because I understand that
Mlle. Celie usually wore a pair of diamond ear-drops, and they are not
mentioned here."

A faint colour came into the maid's face.

"That is true, monsieur. I had forgotten. It is quite true."

"Any one might forget," said Hanaud, with a reassuring smile. "But you
will remember now. Think! think! Did Mlle. Celie wear them last night?"
He leaned forward, waiting for her reply. Wethermill too, made a
movement. Both men evidently thought the point of great importance. The
maid looked at Hanaud for a few moments without speaking.

"It is not from me, mademoiselle, that you will get the answer," said
Hanaud quietly.

"No, monsieur. I was thinking," said the maid, her face flushing at the
rebuke.

"Did she wear them when she went down the stairs last night?" he
insisted.

"I think she wore them," she said doubtfully. "Ye-es—yes," and the
words came now firm and clear. "I remember well. Mlle. Celie had taken
them off before her bath, and they lay on the dressing-table. She put
them into her ears while I dressed her hair and arranged the bow of
ribbon in it."

"Then we will add the earrings to your description," said Hanaud, as he
rose from his chair with the paper in his hand, "and for the moment we
need not trouble you any more about Mademoiselle Celie." He folded the
paper up, slipped it into his letter-case, and put it away in his
pocket. "Let us consider that poor Madame Dauvray! Did she keep much
money in the house?"

"No, monsieur; very little. She was well known in Aix and her cheques
were everywhere accepted without question. It was a high pleasure to
serve madame, her credit was so good," said Helene Vauquier, raising
her head as though she herself had a share in the pride of that good
credit.

"No doubt," Hanaud agreed. "There are many fine households where the
banking account is overdrawn, and it cannot be pleasant for the
servants."

"They are put to so many shifts to hide it from the servants of their
neighbours," said Helene. "Besides," and she made a little grimace of
contempt, "a fine household and an overdrawn banking account—it is
like a ragged petticoat under a satin dress. That was never the case
with Madame Dauvray."

"So that she was under no necessity to have ready money always in her
pocket," said Hanaud. "I understand that. But at times perhaps she won
at the Villa des Fleurs?"

Helene Vauquier shook her head.

"She loved the Villa des Fleurs, but she never played for high sums and
often never played at all. If she won a few louis, she was as delighted
with her gains and as afraid to lose them again at the tables as if she
were of the poorest, and she stopped at once. No, monsieur; twenty or
thirty louis—there was never more than that in the house."

"Then it was certainly for her famous collection of jewellery that
Madame Dauvray was murdered?"

"Certainly, monsieur."

"Now, where did she keep her jewellery?"

"In a safe in her bedroom, monsieur. Every night she took off what she
had been wearing and locked it up with the rest. She was never too
tired for that."

"And what did she do with the keys?"

"That I cannot tell you. Certainly she locked her rings and necklaces
away whilst I undressed her. And she laid the keys upon the
dressing-table or the mantel-shelf—anywhere. But in the morning the
keys were no longer where she had left them. She had put them secretly
away."

Hanaud turned to another point.

"I suppose that Mademoiselle Celie knew of the safe and that the jewels
were kept there?"

"Oh yes! Mademoiselle indeed was often in Madame Dauvray's room when
she was dressing or undressing. She must often have seen madame take
them out and lock them up again. But then, monsieur, so did I."

Hanaud nodded to her with a friendly smile.

"Thank you once more, mademoiselle," he said. "The torture is over. But
of course Monsieur Fleuriot will require your presence."

Helene Vauquier looked anxiously towards him.

"But meanwhile I can go from this villa, monsieur?" she pleaded, with a
trembling voice.

"Certainly; you shall go to your friends at once."

"Oh, monsieur, thank you!" she cried, and suddenly she gave way. The
tears began to flow from her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and
sobbed. "It is foolish of me, but what would you?" She jerked out the
words between her sobs. "It has been too terrible."

"Yes, yes," said Hanaud soothingly. "The nurse will put a few things
together for you in a bag. You will not leave Aix, of course, and I
will send some one with you to your friends."

The maid started violently.

"Oh, not a sergent-de-ville, monsieur, I beg of you. I should be
disgraced."

"No. It shall be a man in plain clothes, to see that you are not
hindered by reporters on the way."

Hanaud turned towards the door. On the dressing-table a cord was lying.
He took it up and spoke to the nurse.

"Was this the cord with which Helene Vauquier's hands were tied?"

"Yes, monsieur," she replied.

Hanaud handed it to the Commissaire.

"It will be necessary to keep that," he said.

It was a thin piece of strong whipcord. It was the same kind of cord as
that which had been found tied round Mme. Dauvray's throat. Hanaud
opened the door and turned back to the nurse.

"We will send for a cab for Mlle. Vauquier. You will drive with her to
her door. I think after that she will need no further help. Pack up a
few things and bring them down. Mlle. Vauquier can follow, no doubt,
now without assistance." And, with a friendly nod, he left the room.

Ricardo had been wondering, through the examination, in what light
Hanaud considered Helene Vauquier. He was sympathetic, but the sympathy
might merely have been assumed to deceive. His questions betrayed in no
particular the colour of his mind. Now, however, he made himself clear.
He informed the nurse, in the plainest possible way, that she was no
longer to act as jailer. She was to bring Vauquier's things down; but
Vauquier could follow by herself. Evidently Helene Vauquier was cleared.

Harry Wethermill, however, was not so easily satisfied.

"Surely, monsieur, it would be well to know whither she is going," he
said, "and to make sure that when she has gone there she will stay
there—until we want her again?"

Hanaud looked at the young man pityingly.

"I can understand, monsieur, that you hold strong views about Helene
Vauquier. You are human, like the rest of us. And what she has said to
us just now would not make you more friendly. But—but—" and he
preferred to shrug his shoulders rather than to finish in words his
sentence. "However," he said, "we shall take care to know where Helene
Vauquier is staying. Indeed, if she is at all implicated in this affair
we shall learn more if we leave her free than if we keep her under lock
and key. You see that if we leave her quite free, but watch her very,
very carefully, so as to awaken no suspicion, she may be emboldened to
do something rash—or the others may."

Mr. Ricardo approved of Hanaud's reasoning.

"That is quite true," he said. "She might write a letter."

"Yes, or receive one," added Hanaud, "which would be still more
satisfactory for us—supposing, of course, that she has anything to do
with this affair"; and again he shrugged his shoulders. He turned
towards the Commissaire.

"You have a discreet officer whom you can trust?" he asked.

"Certainly. A dozen."

"I want only one."

"And here he is," said the Commissaire.

They were descending the stairs. On the landing of the first floor
Durette, the man who had discovered where the cord was bought, was
still waiting. Hanaud took Durette by the sleeve in the familiar way
which he so commonly used and led him to the top of the stairs, where
the two men stood for a few moments apart. It was plain that Hanaud was
giving, Durette receiving, definite instructions. Durette descended the
stairs; Hanaud came back to the others.

"I have told him to fetch a cab," he said, "and convey Helene Vauquier
to her friends." Then he looked at Ricardo, and from Ricardo to the
Commissaire, while he rubbed his hand backwards and forwards across his
shaven chin.

"I tell you," he said, "I find this sinister little drama very
interesting to me. The sordid, miserable struggle for mastery in this
household of Mme. Dauvray—eh? Yes, very interesting. Just as much
patience, just as much effort, just as much planning for this small end
as a general uses to defeat an army—and, at the last, nothing gained.
What else is politics? Yes, very interesting."

His eyes rested upon Wethermill's face for a moment, but they gave the
young man no hope. He took a key from his pocket.

"We need not keep this room locked," he said. "We know all that there
is to be known." And he inserted the key into the lock of Celia's room
and turned it.

"But is that wise, monsieur?" said Besnard.

Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.

"Why not?" he asked.

"The case is in your hands," said the Commissaire. To Ricardo the
proceedings seemed singularly irregular. But if the Commissaire was
content, it was not for him to object.

"And where is my excellent friend Perrichet?" asked Hanaud; and leaning
over the balustrade he called him up from the hall.

"We will now," said Hanaud, "have a glance into this poor murdered
woman's room."

The room was opposite to Celia's. Besnard produced the key and unlocked
the door. Hanaud took off his hat upon the threshold and then passed
into the room with his companions. Upon the bed, outlined under a
sheet, lay the rigid form of Mme. Dauvray. Hanaud stepped gently to the
bedside and reverently uncovered the face. For a moment all could see
it—livid, swollen, unhuman.

"A brutal business," he said in a low voice, and when he turned again
to his companions his face was white and sickly. He replaced the sheet
and gazed about the room.

It was decorated and furnished in the same style as the salon
downstairs, yet the contrast between the two rooms was remarkable.

Downstairs, in the salon, only a chair had been overturned. Here there
was every sign of violence and disorder. An empty safe stood open in
one corner; the rugs upon the polished floor had been tossed aside;
every drawer had been torn open, every wardrobe burst; the very bed had
been moved from its position.

"It was in this safe that Madame Dauvray hid her jewels each night,"
said the Commissaire as Hanaud gazed about the room.

"Oh, was it so?" Hanaud asked slowly. It seemed to Ricardo that he read
something in the aspect of this room too, which troubled his mind and
increased his perplexity.

"Yes," said Besnard confidently. "Every night Mme. Dauvray locked her
jewels away in this safe. Vauquier told us so this morning. Every night
she was never too tired for that. Besides, here"—and putting his hand
into the safe he drew out a paper—"here is the list of Mme. Dauvray's
jewellery."

Plainly, however, Hanaud was not satisfied. He took the list and
glanced through the items. But his thoughts were not concerned with it.

"If that is so," he said slowly, "Mme Dauvray kept her jewels in this
safe, why has every drawer been ransacked, why was the bed moved?
Perrichet, lock the door—quietly—from the inside. That is right. Now
lean your back against it."

Hanaud waited until he saw Perrichet's broad back against the door.
Then he went down upon his knees, and, tossing the rugs here and there,
examined with the minutest care the inlaid floor. By the side of the
bed a Persian mat of blue silk was spread. This in its turn he moved
quickly aside. He bent his eyes to the ground, lay prone, moved this
way and that to catch the light upon the floor, then with a spring he
rose upon his knees. He lifted his finger to his lips. In a dead
silence he drew a pen-knife quickly from his pocket and opened it. He
bent down again and inserted the blade between the cracks of the
blocks. The three men in the room watched him with an intense
excitement. A block of wood rose from the floor, he pulled it out, laid
it noiselessly down, and inserted his hand into the opening.

Wethermill at Ricardo's elbow uttered a stifled cry. "Hush!" whispered
Hanaud angrily. He drew out his hand again. It was holding a green
leather jewel-case. He opened it, and a diamond necklace flashed its
thousand colours in their faces. He thrust in his hand again and again
and again, and each time that be withdrew it, it held a jewel-case.
Before the astonished eyes of his companions he opened them. Ropes of
pearls, collars of diamonds, necklaces of emeralds, rings of
pigeon-blood rubies, bracelets of gold studded with opals-Mme.
Dauvray's various jewellery was disclosed.