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She turned to Hanaud; unconsciously familiar words rose to her lips. "Is it straight?" she asked. And Hanaud laughed outright, and in a moment Celia smiled herself. Supported by Hanaud she stumbled down the stairs to the garden. As they passed the open door of the lighted parlour at the back of the house Hanaud turned back to Lemerre and pointed silently to the morphia-needle and the phial.
But Hanaud was supporting Celia; and so, as Lemerre turned abruptly towards him with the flask in his hand, he turned abruptly towards Celia too. She wrenched herself from Hanaud's arms, she shrank violently away. Her white face flushed scarlet and grew white again. She screamed loudly, terribly; and after the scream she uttered a strange, weak sigh, and so fell sideways in a swoon.
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. Helene 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.
Stooping under the shadow of the side wall of the garden, the invaders stole towards the house. When a bush rustled or a tree whispered in the light wind, Ricardo's heart jumped to his throat. Once Lemerre stopped, as though his ears heard a sound which warned him of danger. Then cautiously he crept on again. The garden was a ragged place of unmown lawn and straggling bushes. Behind each one Mr.
The man pointed to a lad who leaned against the balustrade above the lake, hot and panting for breath. "He came on his bicycle. He has just arrived." "Follow me," said Lemerre. Six yards from where they stood a couple of steps led down from the embankment on to a wooden landing-stage, where boats were moored. Lemerre, followed by the others, walked briskly down on to the landing-stage.
"If only my friends could see me now!" The ancient vanity was loud in his bosom. Poor fellows, they were upon yachts in the Solent or on grouse-moors in Scotland, or on golf-links at North Berwick. He alone of them all was tracking malefactors to their doom by Leman's Lake. From these agreeable reflections Ricardo was shaken. Lemerre stopped.
"Yes," answered Lemerre; and in both their voices there was a strange note of gravity. Lemerre gave a signal after a while, and the boat turned to the shore and reduced its speed. They had passed the big villas.
"Of course it was not you. I know that very well," said Hanaud. He called for the bill. "When is that paper published?" "At seven," said Lemerre. "They have been crying it in the streets of Geneva, then, for more than half an hour." He sat drumming impatiently upon the table until the bill should be brought. "By Heaven, that's clever!" he muttered savagely.
He almost saw it print itself before his very eyes, like a page from one of those beautiful little volumes made by Hachette or by Lemerre those sprightly, broken pages, where a paragraph consists of a line or even a word, where brief exclamatory phrases abound, and where short rows of dots leave the reader to complete the meaning at his own pleasure.
"There's a man who gets ahead of me at every turn. See, Lemerre, I take every care, every precaution, that no message shall be sent. I let it be known, I take careful pains to let it be known, that no message can be sent without detection following, and here's the message sent by the one channel I never thought to guard against and stop. Look!"
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