At the Villa Rose | Page 8

Let us not go back beyond her marriage seventeen years
ago to a wealthy manufacturer of Nancy, whom she had met in Paris.
Seven years ago M. Dauvray died, leaving his widow a very rich
woman. She had a passion for jewellery, which she was now able to
gratify. She collected jewels. A famous necklace, a well-known
stone--she was not, as you say, happy till she got it. She had a fortune
in precious stones--oh, but a large fortune! By the ostentation of her
jewels she paraded her wealth here, at Monte Carlo, in Paris. Besides
that, she was kind-hearted and most impressionable. Finally, she was,
like so many of her class, superstitious to the degree of folly."
Suddenly Mr. Ricardo started in his chair. Superstitious! The word was
a sudden light upon his darkness. Now he knew what had perplexed
him during the last two days. Clearly--too clearly--he remembered
where he had seen Celia Harland, and when. A picture rose before his
eyes, and it seemed to strengthen like a film in a developing-dish as
Hanaud continued:
"Very well! take Mme. Dauvray as we find her--rich, ostentatious,
easily taken by a new face, generous, and foolishly superstitious- -and
you have in her a living provocation to every rogue. By a hundred
instances she proclaimed herself a dupe. She threw down a challenge to
every criminal to come and rob her. For seven years Helene Vauquier
stands at her elbow and protects her from serious trouble. Suddenly
there is added to her--your young friend, and she is robbed and
murdered. And, follow this, M. Wethermill, our thieves are, I think,
more brutal to their victims than is the case with you."
Wethermill shut his eyes in a spasm of pain and the pallor of his face
increased.
"Suppose that Celia were one of the victims?" he cried in a stifled
voice.

Hanaud glanced at him with a look of commiseration.
"That perhaps we shall see," he said. "But what I meant was this. A
stranger like Mlle. Celie might be the accomplice in such a crime as the
crime of the Villa Rose, meaning only robbery. A stranger might only
have discovered too late that murder would be added to the theft."
Meanwhile, in strong, clear colours, Ricardo's picture stood out before
his eyes. He was startled by hearing Wethermill say, in a firm voice:
"My friend Ricardo has something to add to what you have said."
"I!" exclaimed Ricardo. How in the world could Wethermill know of
that clear picture in his mind?
"Yes. You saw Celia Harland on the evening before the murder."
Ricardo stared at his friend. It seemed to him that Harry Wethermill
had gone out of his mind. Here he was corroborating the suspicions of
the police by facts--damning and incontrovertible facts.
"On the night before the murder," continued Wethermill quietly, "Celia
Harland lost money at the baccarat-table. Ricardo saw her in the garden
behind the rooms, and she was hysterical. Later on that same night he
saw her again with me, and he heard what she said. I asked her to come
to the rooms on the next evening-- yesterday, the night of the
crime--and her face changed, and she said, 'No, we have other plans for
tomorrow. But the night after I shall want you.'"
Hanaud sprang up from his chair.
"And YOU tell me these two things!" he cried.
"Yes," said Wethermill. "You were kind enough to say to me I was not
a romantic boy. I am not. I can face facts."
Hanaud stared at his companion for a few moments. Then, with a
remarkable air of consideration, he bowed.

"You have won, monsieur," he said. "I will take up this case. But," and
his face grew stern and he brought his fist down upon the table with a
bang, "I shall follow it to the end now, be the consequences bitter as
death to you."
"That is what I wish, monsieur," said Wethermill.
Hanaud locked up the slips of paper in his lettercase. Then he went out
of the room and returned in a few minutes.
"We will begin at the beginning," he said briskly. "I have telephoned to
the Depot. Perrichet, the sergent-de-ville who discovered the crime,
will be here at once. We will walk down to the villa with him, and on
the way he shall tell us exactly what he discovered and how he
discovered it. At the villa we shall find Monsieur Fleuriot, the Juge
d'lnstruction, who has already begun his examination, and the
Commissaire of Police. In company with them we will inspect the villa.
Except for the removal of Mme. Dauvray's body from the salon to her
bedroom and the opening of the windows, the house remains exactly as
it was."
"We may come with you?"