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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.
She carried a lace scarf which she could drape about her head, and in a moment she would be, in the dim light, an old, old woman, with a voice so altered that no one could know it. Indeed, you said rightly, monsieur she was clever." To all who listened Helene Vauquier's story carried its conviction. Mme. Dauvray rose vividly before their minds as a living woman.
He thrust his hands in his pockets. "Helene Vauquier's cab," he said lightly. He drew out his cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette. "Let us see that poor woman safely off. It is a closed cab I hope." It was a closed landau. It drove past the open door of the salon to the front door of the house. In Hanaud's wake they all went out into the hall.
She could see herself as she hung in Helene Vauquier's arms, with her delicate frock ludicrously swathed and swaddled about her legs. But, again, of those who watched her no one smiled. "We have had no such tests as these," Mme. Dauvray explained, half in fear, half in hope. Adele Rossignol looked the girl over and nodded her head with satisfaction.
Of course it is conjecture. I do not as yet hold pigheadedly to it. I am not yet sure that Mlle. Celie is innocent. I am willing at any moment to admit that the facts contradict my theory. But, on the contrary, each fact that I discover helps it to take shape. "Now I come to Helene Vauquier's second mistake. On the evening when you saw Mlle.
The nurse came down alone carrying Helene Vauquier's bag. She placed it in the cab and waited in the doorway. "Perhaps Helene Vauquier has fainted," she said anxiously: "she does not come." And she moved towards the stairs. Hanaud took a singularly swift step forward and stopped her.
But if by any chance she were in the plot and the lie seemed to show she was then the seances showed me new possibilities. For Helene used to help Mlle. Celie. Suppose that the seance had taken place, that this sceptical visitor with the red hair professed herself dissatisfied with Vauquier's method of testing the medium, had suggested another way, Mlle.
That was her explanation of Helene Vauquier's treachery; and believing that error, she believed yet another that she had reached the terrible climax of her troubles. She was only at the beginning of them. "Helene!" cried Mme. Dauvray sharply. "What are you doing?" The maid instantly slid back into the room. "Mademoiselle has not moved," she said.
"Why should you think that?" he asked, with a queer smile upon his face, and as he spoke a door closed gently upstairs. "See," he continued, "you are wrong: she is coming." Ricardo was puzzled. It had seemed to him that the door which had closed so gently was nearer than Helene Vauquier's door. It seemed to him that the door was upon the first, not the second landing.
"We must not yet lose heart, for we know a little more about the woman than we do about the man," said Hanaud consolingly. "True," exclaimed Ricardo. "We have Helene Vauquier's description of her. We must advertise it." Hanaud smiled. "But that is a fine suggestion," he cried. "We must think over that," and he clapped his hand to his forehead with a gesture of self-reproach.
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