At The Villa Rose

"But you had already guessed 'Geneva,'" said Ricardo. "At

luncheon, before the news came that the car was found, you had

guessed it."

"It was a shot," said Hanaud. "The absence of the car helped me to

make it. It is a large city and not very far away, a likely place

for people with the police at their heels to run to earth in. But

if the car had been discovered in the garage I should not have

made that shot. Even then I had no particular conviction about

Geneva. I really wished to see how Wethermill would take it. He

was wonderful."

"He sprang up."

"He betrayed nothing but surprise. You showed no less surprise

than he did, my good friend. What I was looking for was one glance

of fear. I did not get it."

"Yet you suspected him--even then you spoke of brains and

audacity. You told him enough to hinder him from communicating

with the red-haired woman in Geneva. You isolated him. Yes, you

suspected him."

"Let us take the case from the beginning. When you first came to

me, as I told you, the Commissaire had already been with me. There

was an interesting piece of evidence already in his possession.

Adolphe Ruel--who saw Wethermill and Vauquier together close by

the Casino and overheard that cry of Wethermill's, 'It is true: I

must have money!'--had already been with his story to the

Commissaire. I knew it when Harry Wethermill came into the room to

ask me to take up the case. That was a bold stroke, my friend. The

chances were a hundred to one that I should not interrupt my

holiday to take up a case because of your little dinner-party in

London. Indeed, I should not have interrupted it had I not known

Adolphe Ruel's story. As it was I could not resist. Wethermill's

very audacity charmed me. Oh yes, I felt that I must pit myself

against him. So few criminals have spirit, M. Ricardo. It is

deplorable how few. But Wethermill! See in what a fine position he

would have been if only I had refused. He himself had been the

first to call upon the first detective in France. And his

argument! He loved Mlle. Celie. Therefore she must be innocent!

How he stuck to it! People would have said, 'Love is blind,' and

all the more they would have suspected Mile. Celie. Yes, but they

love the blind lover. Therefore all the more would it have been

impossible for them to believe Harry Wethermill had any share in

that grim crime."

Mr. Ricardo drew his chair closer in to the table.

"I will confess to you," he said, "that I thought Mlle. Celie was

an accomplice."

"It is not surprising," said Hanaud. "Some one within the house

was an accomplice--we start with that fact. The house had not been

broken into. There was Mlle. Celie's record as Helene Vauquier

gave it to us, and a record obviously true. There was the fact

that she had got rid of Servettaz. There was the maid upstairs

very ill from the chloroform. What more likely than that Mlle.

Celie had arranged a seance, and then when the lights were out had

admitted the murderer through that convenient glass door?"