At the Villa Rose Part 27

"You did," returned Hanaud. "I had never heard of the Pont de La Caille. But you will not mention it? You will not ruin me?"

"I will not," answered M. Ricardo, superb in his magnanimity. "You are a good detective."

"Oh, thank you! thank you!" cried Hanaud in a voice which shook--surely with emotion. He wrung Ricardo's hand. He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.

And still Celia slept. M. Ricardo looked at her. He said to Hanaud in a whisper:

"Yet I do not understand. The car, though no serious search was made, must still have stopped at the Pont de La Caille on the Swiss side. Why did she not cry for help then? One cry and she was safe. A movement even was enough. Do you understand?"

Hanaud nodded his head.

"I think so," he answered, with a very gentle look at Celia. "Yes, I think so."

When Celia was aroused she found that the car had stopped before the door of an hotel, and that a woman in the dress of a nurse was standing in the doorway.

"You can trust Marie," said Hanaud. And Celia turned as she stood upon the ground and gave her hands to the two men.

"Thank you! Thank you both!" she said in a trembling voice. She looked at Hanaud and nodded her head. "You understand why I thank you so very much?"

"Yes," said Hanaud. "But, mademoiselle"--and he bent over the car and spoke to her quietly, holding her hand--"there is ALWAYS a big Newfoundland dog in the worst of troubles--if only you will look for him. I tell you so--I, who belong to the Surete in Paris. Do not lose heart!" And in his mind he added: "G.o.d forgive me for the lie." He shook her hand and let it go; and gathering up her skirt she went into the hall of the hotel.

Hanaud watched her as she went. She was to him a lonely and pathetic creature, in spite of the nurse who bore her company.

"You must be a good friend to that young girl, M. Ricardo," he said.

"Let us drive to your hotel."

"Yes," said Ricardo. And as they went the curiosity which all the way from Geneva had been smouldering within him burst into flame.

"Will you explain to me one thing?" he asked. "When the scream came from the garden you were not surprised. Indeed, you said that when you saw the open door and the morphia-needle on the table of the little room downstairs you thought Adele and the man Hippolyte were hiding in the garden."

"Yes, I did think so."

"Why? And why did the publication that the jewels had been discovered so alarm you?"

"Ah!" said Hanaud. "Did not you understand that? Yet it is surely clear and obvious, if you once grant that the girl was innocent, was a witness of the crime, and was now in the hands of the criminals. Grant me those premisses, M. Ricardo, for a moment, and you will see that we had just one chance of finding the girl alive in Geneva. From the first I was sure of that. What was the one chance? Why, this! She might be kept alive on the chance that she could be forced to tell what, by the way, she did not know, namely, the place where Mme. Dauvray's valuable jewels were secreted. Now, follow this. We, the police, find the jewels and take charge of them. Let that news reach the house in Geneva, and on the same night Mlle. Celie loses her life, and not--very pleasantly.

They have no further use for her. She is merely a danger to them. So I take my precautions--never mind for the moment what they were. I take care that if the murderer is in Aix and gets wind of our discovery he shall not be able to communicate his news."

"The Post Office would have stopped letters or telegrams," said Ricardo. "I understand."

"On the contrary," replied Hanaud. "No, I took my precautions, which were of quite a different kind, before I knew the house in Geneva or the name of Rossignol. But one way of communication I did not think of.

I did not think of the possibility that the news might be sent to a newspaper, which of course would publish it and cry it through the streets of Geneva. The moment I heard the news I knew we must hurry.

The garden of the house ran down to the lake. A means of disposing of Mlle. Celie was close at hand. And the night had fallen. As it was, we arrived just in time, and no earlier than just in time. The paper had been bought, the message had reached the house, Mlle. Celie was no longer of any use, and every hour she stayed in that house was of course an hour of danger to her captors."

"What were they going to do?" asked Ricardo.

Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.

"It is not pretty--what they were going to do. We reach the garden in our launch. At that moment Hippolyte and Adele, who is most likely Hippolyte's wife, are in the lighted parlour on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

Adele is preparing her morphia-needle. Hippolyte is going to get ready the rowing-boat which was tied at the end of the landing-stage. Quietly as we came into the bank, they heard or saw us. They ran out and hid in the garden, having no time to lock the garden door, or perhaps not daring to lock it lest the sound of the key should reach our ears. We find that door upon the latch, the door of the room open; on the table lies the morphia-needle. Upstairs lies Mlle. Celie--she is helpless, she cannot see what they are meaning to do."

"But she could cry out," exclaimed Ricardo. "She did not even do that!"

"No, my friend, she could not cry out," replied Hanaud very seriously.

"I know why. She could not. No living man or woman could. Rest a.s.sured of that!"

Ricardo was mystified; but since the captain of the s.h.i.+p would not show his observation, he knew it would be in vain to press him.

"Well, while Adele was preparing her morphia-needle and Hippolyte was about to prepare the boat, Jeanne upstairs was making her preparation too. She was mending a sack. Did you see Mlle. Celie's eyes and face when first she saw that sack? Ah! she understood! They meant to give her a dose of morphia, and, as soon as she became unconscious, they were going perhaps to take some terrible precaution--" Hanaud paused for a second. "I only say perhaps as to that. But certainly they were going to sew her up in that sack, row her well out across the lake, fix a weight to her feet, and drop her quietly overboard. She was to wear everything which she had brought with her to the house. Mlle. Celie would have disappeared for ever, and left not even a ripple upon the water to trace her by!"

Ricardo clenched his hands.

"But that's horrible!" he cried; and as he uttered the words the car swerved into the drive and stopped before the door of the Hotel Majestic.

Ricardo sprang out. A feeling of remorse seized hold of him. All through that evening he had not given one thought to Harry Wethermill, so utterly had the excitement of each moment engrossed his mind.

"He will be glad to know!" cried Ricardo. "To-night, at all events, he shall sleep. I ought to have telegraphed to him from Geneva that we and Miss Celia were coming back." He ran up the steps into the hotel.

"I took care that he should know," said Hanaud, as he followed in Ricardo's steps.

"Then the message could not have reached him, else he would have been expecting us," replied Ricardo, as he hurried into the office, where a clerk sat at his books.

"Is Mr. Wethermill in?" he asked.

The clerk eyed him strangely.

"Mr. Wethermill was arrested this evening," he said.

Ricardo stepped back.

"Arrested! When?"

"At twenty-five minutes past ten," replied the clerk shortly.

"Ah," said Hanaud quietly. "That was my telephone message."

Ricardo stared in stupefaction at his companion.

"Arrested!" he cried. "Arrested! But what for?"

"For the murders of Marthe Gobin and Mme. Dauvray," said Hanaud.

"Good-night."

CHAPTER XIV

MR. RICARDO IS BEWILDERED