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Updated: June 13, 2025
Lemerre nodded his head, and going into the room took them away. They went out again into the garden. Celia Harland threw back her head to the stars and drew in a deep breath of the cool night air. "I did not think," she said in a low voice, "to see the stars again." They walked slowly down the length of the garden, and Hanaud lifted her into the launch. She turned and caught his coat.
The party came to the back door of the house. Lemerre tried the handle of the door, and to his surprise it yielded. They crept into the passage. The last man closed the door noiselessly, locked it, and removed the key. A panel of light shone upon the wall a few paces ahead. The door of the lighted room was open. As Ricardo stepped silently past it, he looked in. It was a parlour meanly furnished.
They were hiding in the garden." "So I thought," said Hanaud, "when I saw the door open downstairs, and the morphia-needle on the table." Lemerre turned to one of the officers. "Let them be taken with old Jeanne in cabs to the depot." And when the man had gone upon his errand Lemerre spoke to Hanaud. "You will stay here tonight to arrange for their transfer to Aix?"
The action was significant enough. This room, at all events, was not empty. But of what Lemerre saw in the room his face gave no hint. He opened the door wider, and now Hanaud saw. Ricardo, trembling with excitement, watched him. But again there was no expression of surprise, consternation, or delight. He stood stolidly and watched.
But in the shutters there were diamond-shaped holes, and from these holes two yellow beams of light, like glowing eyes upon the watch, streamed out and melted in the air. "You are sure that the front of the house is guarded?" asked Hanaud anxiously. "Yes," replied Lemerre. Ricardo shivered with excitement. The launch slid noiselessly into the bank and lay hidden under its shadow.
She was watching Lemerre, and she was watching him fascinated with terror. He was holding in his hand the large, bright aluminium flask. He poured a little of the contents very carefully on to a piece of the sack; and then with an exclamation of anger he turned towards Hanaud.
"I have telephoned to Lemerre, the Chef de la Surete at Geneva," said Hanaud, as the car sped out of Aix along the road to Annecy. "He will have the house watched. We shall be in time. They will do nothing until dark." But though he spoke confidently there was a note of anxiety in his voice, and he sat forward in the car, as though he were already straining his eyes to see Geneva.
For Lemerre said, as though it was no more than a matter of ordinary comment: "So Mme. Dauvray's jewels were, after all, never stolen?" Hanaud started. "You know that? How did you know it?" "It was in this evening's paper. I bought one on the way here. They were found under the floor of the bedroom." And even as he spoke a newsboy's voice rang out in the street below them.
Lemerre and the three who followed him stepped into it, and it backed away from the stage and, turning, sped swiftly outwards from Geneva.
But not a sound came from behind the door. Was this room empty, too? In each one's mind was the fear that the birds had flown. Lemerre carefully took the handle of the door and turned it. Very slowly and cautiously he opened the door. A strong light beat out through the widening gap upon his face. And then, though his feet did not move, his shoulders and his face drew back.
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