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Who knows what thread may lead us to the truth?" Helene Vauquier shook her head. "Monsieur, it is not right that you should seek the truth from me. For, consider this! I cannot speak with justice of Mlle. Celie. No, I cannot! I did not like her. I was jealous yes, jealous, Monsieur, you want the truth I hated her!" And the woman's face flushed and she clenched her hand upon the arm of her chair.
There were no grease-marks on the clothes she had turned over before the Commissaire leaned out of the window. Therefore it followed that during the few seconds when he was watching me she had touched grease. I looked about the room, and there on the dressing-table close by the chest of drawers was a pot of cold cream. That was the grease Helene Vauquier had touched.
Vauquier hides the earrings in her pocket. She goes to bed in order to be chloroformed. She knows that it is very possible that her room will be searched before she regains consciousness, or before she is well enough to move. There is only one place to hide them in, only one place where they will be safe. In bed with her. But in the morning she must get rid of them, and a nurse is with her.
"Yes, NOW I am afraid of her!" Helene Vauquier replied again contemptuously. She spoke aloud and quite indifferently. Nothing of any importance whatever, one would have gathered, had occurred. "I will turn on the light," she said. And through the chinks in the curtain the bright light shone. Celia heard a loud rattle upon the table, and then fainter sounds of the same kind.
A nurse opened the door. Within the room Helene Vauquier was leaning back in a chair. She looked ill, and her face was very white. On the appearance of Hanaud, the Commissaire, and the others, however, she rose to her feet. Ricardo recognised the justice of Hanaud's description.
There was one small point of interest which I will take first: her statement that Adele was the Christian name of the woman with the red hair, that the old woman who was the servant in that house in the suburb of Geneva called her Adele, just simply Adele. That interested me, for Helene Vauquier had called her Adele too when she was describing to us the unknown visitor. 'Adele' was what Mme.
With Helene Vauquier to support her if she fell, Celia took a tiny shuffling step forward, feeling supremely ridiculous. No one, however, of her audience was inclined to laugh. To Mme. Dauvray the whole business was as serious as the most solemn ceremonial. Adele was intent upon making her knots secure. Helene Vauquier was the well-bred servant who knew her place.
Helena Vauquier smiled indulgently. Men were queer fish. Things which were really of no account troubled and perplexed them and gave them sleepless nights. But it was not for her to object, since it was one of these queer anomalies which was giving her her chance. "And the people are finding out that you have sold your rights twice over," she said sympathetically. "That is a pity, monsieur."
"What is the matter?" asked Vauquier. "The safe's empty. We have searched the room. We have found nothing," she cried. "Everything is in the safe," Helene insisted. "No." The two women ran out of the room and up the stairs. Celia, lying on the settee, heard all the quiet of the house change to noise and confusion. It was as though a tornado raged in the room overhead.
She was a tall, lithe woman, and she was dressed, by the purse and wish of Helene Vauquier, in a robe and a long coat of sapphire velvet, which toned down the coarseness of her good looks and lent something of elegance to her figure. "So it is mademoiselle," Adele began, with a smile of raillery, "who is so remarkably clever."
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