"Ah, the cushions, and the scrap of paper, and the aluminium
flask," said Hanaud; and the triumph faded from his face. He spoke
now to Ricardo with a genuine friendliness. "You must not be angry
with me if I keep you in the dark for a little while. I, too, Mr.
Ricardo, have artistic inclinations. I will not spoil the
remarkable story which I think Mlle. Celie will be ready to tell
us. Afterwards I will willingly explain to you what I read in the
evidences of the room, and what so greatly puzzled me then. But it
is not the puzzle or its solution," he said modestly, "which is
most interesting here. Consider the people. Mme. Dauvray, the old,
rich, ignorant woman, with her superstitions and her generosity,
her desire to converse with Mme. de Montespan and the great ladies
of the past, and her love of a young, fresh face about her; Helene
Vauquier, the maid with her six years of confidential service, who
finds herself suddenly supplanted and made to tend and dress in
dainty frocks the girl who has supplanted her; the young girl
herself, that poor child, with her love of fine clothes, the
Bohemian who, brought up amidst trickeries and practising them as
a profession, looking upon them and upon misery and starvation and
despair as the commonplaces of life, keeps a simplicity and a
delicacy and a freshness which would have withered in a day had
she been brought up otherwise; Harry Wethermill, the courted and
successful man of genius.
"Just imagine if you can what his feelings must have been, when in
Mme. Dauvray's bedroom, with the woman he had uselessly murdered
lying rigid beneath the sheet, he saw me raise the block of wood
from the inlaid floor and take out one by one those jewel cases
for which less than twelve hours before he had been ransacking
that very room. But what he must have felt! And to give no sign!
Oh, these people are the interesting problems in this story. Let
us hear what happened on that terrible night. The puzzle--that can
wait." In Mr. Ricardo's view Hanaud was proved right. The
extraordinary and appalling story which was gradually unrolled of
what had happened on that night of Tuesday in the Villa Rose
exceeded in its grim interest all the mystery of the puzzle. But
it was not told at once.
The trouble at first with Mlle. Celie was a fear of sleep. She
dared not sleep--even with a light in the room and a nurse at her
bedside. When her eyes were actually closing she would force
herself desperately back into the living world. For when she slept
she dreamed through again that dark and dreadful night of Tuesday
and the two days which followed it, until at some moment endurance
snapped and she woke up screaming. But youth, a good constitution,
and a healthy appetite had their way with her in the end.