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In the one woman's mind was the queer longing that "she" should appear and speak to-night; in the girl's there was a wish passionate as a cry. "This shall be the last time," she said to herself again and again "the very last." Meanwhile, Helene Vauquier, it must be held, burnt carefully Adele Taces letter. She was left in the Villa Rose with the charwoman to keep her company.
We can leave the charwoman, who for the rest has the best of characters, out of our calculations. There remain then, the maid, Helene Vauquier, and" he shrugged his shoulders "Mlle. Celie." Hanaud reached out for the matches and lit a cigarette. "Let us take first the maid, Helene Vauquier.
Now I carried in my pocket-book proof that that woman's hair was red. Why did she lie, except to make impossible the identification of that strange visitor? That was the first false step taken by Helene Vauquier. "Now let us take the second. I thought nothing of her rancour against Mlle. Celie. To me it was all very natural.
It was natural, then, to infer that she was wearing them when she came down to the seance." "Yes." "Well, I read a description a carefully written description of the missing girl, made by Helene Vauquier after an examination of the girl's wardrobe. There is no mention of the earrings. So I asked her 'Was she not wearing them? Helene Vauquier was taken by surprise.
Celie, dressed in a long gown of black velvet, which set off her white arms and shoulders well oh, mademoiselle did not forget those little trifles," Helene Vauquier interrupted her story, with a return of her bitterness, to interpolate "mademoiselle would sail into the room with her velvet train flowing behind her, and perhaps for a little while she would say there was a force working against her, and she would sit silent in a chair while madame gaped at her with open eyes.
"Certainly not," said the Commissaire. "After all, life is not so easy." "Thus, then, the seances began," said Hanaud, leaning forward with a keen interest. "This is a strange and curious story you are telling me, Mlle. Vauquier. Now, how were they conducted? How did you assist? What did Mlle. Celie do?
Meanwhile, in the hall Helene Vauquier locked and bolted the front door. Then she stood motionless, with a smile upon her face and a heart beating high. All through that afternoon she had been afraid that some accident at the last moment would spoil her plan, that Adele Tace had not learned her lesson, that Celie would take fright, that she would not return. Now all those fears were over.
"Yes, it is quite natural," said Hanaud sympathetically. "You would not have been human, mademoiselle, if you had not felt some anger. But tell us frankly about these seances. How did they begin?" "Oh, monsieur," Vauquier answered, "it was not difficult to begin them. Mme. Dauvray had a passion for fortune-tellers and rogues of that kind.
So they made their little mistake, and in their hurry they left the light burning in the room of Helene Vauquier, and the murder was discovered seven hours too soon for them." "Seven hours!" said Mr. Ricardo. "Yes. The household did not rise early. It was not until seven that the charwoman came. It was she who was meant to discover the crime.
And as a kind of horrible accompaniment there ran the laboured breathing of the man, which broke now and then with a sobbing sound. They were stripping Mme. Dauvray of her pearl necklace, her bracelets, and her rings. Celia had a sudden importunate vision of the old woman's fat, podgy hands loaded with brilliants. A jingle of keys followed. "That's all," Helene Vauquier said.
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