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She looked towards Wethermill and smiled; and the smile made her face a miracle of tenderness. Then she disappeared, and in a few moments Ricardo saw a way open in the throng behind the banker, and she appeared again only a yard or two away, just behind Wethermill. He turned, and taking her hand into his, shook it chidingly.
"Why should I seek her so often if I did not care?" And to this question Helene Vauquier smiled a quiet, slow, confidential smile. "What does monsieur want of Mme. Dauvray?" she asked. And the question was her answer. Wethermill stood silent. Then he said abruptly: "Nothing, of course; nothing." And he walked away. But the smile remained on Helene Vauquier's face. What did they all want of Mme.
Though he encouraged a taste for the bizarre, it was with an effort. He was naturally of an orderly mind, and to touch the eerie or inhuman caused him a physical discomfort. So now he marvelled in a great uneasiness at the calm placidity with which Wethermill had talked, his arm in his, while the load of so dark a crime to be committed within the hour lay upon his mind.
Yes they could not have been here last night," Hanaud agreed, and sat for a moment silent. Then he turned to the head waiter. "Have you noticed any woman with Mme. Dauvray and her companion lately?" "No, monsieur. I do not think so." "Think! A woman, for instance, with red hair." Harry Wethermill started forward. Mr. Ricardo stared at Hanaud in amazement. The waiter reflected. "No, monsieur.
Then the light was turned up again. "We must go," said Wethermill. All the three of them were shaken. They stood looking at one another, white and trembling. They spoke in whispers. To get out of the room, to have done with the business that had suddenly become their chief necessity.
Yet those little ones remained so definite, so easily identified, and I began to wonder why these, too, had not been cut up and stamped over. The murderers had taken, you see, an excess of precaution to throw the presumption of guilt upon Mlle. Celie rather than upon Vauquier. However, there the footsteps were. Mlle. Celie had sprung from the room as I described to Wethermill. But I was puzzled.
"I had not followed my suggestion to its conclusion," he admitted humbly. "No," said Hanaud. "But I ask myself in sober earnest, 'Was there a seance held in the salon last night? Did the tambourine rattle in the darkness on the wall?" "But if Helene Vauquier's story is all untrue?" cried Wethermill, again in exasperation. "Patience, my friend. Her story was not all untrue.
Nothing could have been more respectful than the manner in which these words were uttered. Wethermill was taken in by it. He protested earnestly, fearing lest the maid should become an enemy. "Helene, it is not true that I am playing with Mlle. Celie. Why should I not care for her?" Helene Vauquier shrugged her shoulders. The question needed no answer.
There was so much pain and misery in his voice that Ricardo was moved as he had seldom been. Wethermill buried his face in his hands. Hanaud shook his head and gazed across the table at Ricardo with an expression which the latter was at no loss to understand. Lovers were impracticable people. But he Hanaud he knew the world. Women had fooled men before today.
They were so unworthy so unworthy of Harry Wethermill, and of herself as she now herself wished to be. But she had to pay now; the moment for payment had come. "Celie," said Mme. Dauvray, "it isn't true! Surely it isn't true?" Celia drew her hands away from her face. "Let Mme. Rossignol come on Tuesday!" she cried, and the old woman caught the girl's hand and pressed it with affection.
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