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Wethermill disappeared; and this time he left the door open. Adele helped Celia to her feet. For a moment she tottered; then she stood firm. "Now run!" whispered Adele. "Run, child, for your life!" Celia did not stop to think whither she should run, or how she should escape from Wethermill's search. She could not ask that her lips and her hands might be freed. She had but a few seconds.
"Yes, there are differences," said Hanaud. "Look how long the up stroke of the 'p' is, how it wavers! See how suddenly this 's' straggles off, as though some emotion made the hand shake. Yet this," and touching Wethermill's letter he smiled ruefully, "this is where the emotion should have affected the pen."
And, indeed, how should she notice anything if the salon were dark, and Mme. Dauvray's body lay under the windows at the side?" Ricardo leaned forward eagerly. "That must be the truth," he cried; and Wethermill's voice broke hastily in: "It is not the truth and I will tell you why. Celia Harland was to have married me this week."
"I warned you fairly, didn't I?" he said. Wethermill's white face twitched. "Yes," he said. "I am not afraid." But there was more of anxiety in his voice than there had been before. Hanaud pointed solemnly to the ground. "Read the story those footprints write in the mould there. A young and active girl of about Mlle. Celie's height, and wearing a new pair of Mlle.
There would have been time for Wethermill to reach the Villa Rose and do his dreadful work upon that night before twelve, if all had been arranged beforehand, if all went as it had been arranged. And as he thought upon the careful planning of that crime, and remembered Wethermill's easy chatter as they had strolled from table to table in the Villa des Fleurs, Ricardo shuddered.
Yes, we know what do we know, monsieur?" he asked, suddenly turning with a smile to Ricardo, and, as Ricardo paused: "Think it over while we walk down to M. Wethermill's apartment in the Hotel Majestic." "We know that the murderer has escaped," replied Ricardo hotly. "The murderer is not now the most important object of our search. He is very likely at Marseilles by now.
But Celia would never have recognised it it had so shrill and fearful an intonation. "That's horrible," he said, and his voice suddenly rose to a scream. "Hush!" Helene Vauquier whispered sharply. "What's the matter?" "She fell against me her whole weight. Oh!" "You are afraid of her!" "Yes, yes!" And in the darkness Wethermill's voice came querulously between long breaths.
For you will remember that whereas your rooms look out to the front and on to the slope of Mont Revard, Wethermill's look out over the garden and the town of Aix. In a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes he could have reached the Villa Rose. He could have been in the salon before half-past ten, and that is just the hour which suited me perfectly. And, as he got out unnoticed, so he could return.
To face the old, difficult life of poverty and perhaps starvation again, and again alone, would be hard enough; but to face it with Harry Wethermill's contempt added to its burdens as the poor girl believed she surely would have to do no, that would be impossible! Not this time would she turn away from the Seine, because it was so terrible and cold.
Hanaud shivered. That he had no idea why Hanaud shivered made the action still more significant, still more alarming. And it was not Ricardo alone who was moved by it. A voice of despair rang through the room. The voice was Harry Wethermill's, and his face was ashy white. "Monsieur!" he cried, "I do not know what makes you shudder; but I am remembering a few words you used this morning."
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