"I!" exclaimed Ricardo, with a start.
"Yes. You told me that you walked up to the hotel with Harry
Wethermill on the night of the murder and separated just before
ten. A glance into his rooms which I had--you will remember that
when we had discovered the motor-car I suggested that we should go
to Harry Wethermill's rooms and talk it over--that glance enabled
me to see that he could very easily have got out of his room on to
the verandah below and escaped from the hotel by the garden quite
unseen. 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. So he did return! My friend, there are some
interesting marks upon the window-sill of Wethermill's room and
upon the pillar just beneath it. Take a look, M. Ricardo, when you
return to your hotel. But that was not all. We talked of Geneva in
Mr. Wethermill's room, and of the distance between Geneva and Aix.
Do you remember that?"
"Yes," replied Ricardo.
"Do you remember too that I asked him for a road-book?"
"Yes; to make sure of the distance. I do."
"Ah, but it was not to make sure of the distance that I asked for
the road-book, my friend. I asked in order to find out whether
Harry Wethermill had a road-book at all which gave a plan of the
roads between here and Geneva. And he had. He handed it to me at
once and quite naturally. I hope that I took it calmly, but I was
not at all calm inside. For it was a new road-book, which, by the
way, he bought a week before, and I was asking myself all the
while--now what was I asking myself, M. Ricardo?"
"No," said Ricardo, with a smile. "I am growing wary. I will not
tell you what you were asking yourself, M. Hanaud. For even were I
right you would make out that I was wrong, and leap upon me with
injuries and gibes. No, you shall drink your coffee and tell me of
your own accord."
"Well," said Hanaud, laughing, "I will tell you. I was asking
myself: 'Why does a man who owns no motor-car, who hires no motor-
car, go out into Aix and buy an automobilist's road-map? With what
object?' And I found it an interesting question. M. Harry
Wethermill was not the man to go upon a walking tour, eh? Oh, I
was obtaining evidence. But then came an overwhelming thing--the
murder of Marthe Gobin. We know now how he did it. He walked
beside the cab, put his head in at the window, asked, 'Have you
come in answer to the advertisement?' and stabbed her straight to
the heart through her dress. The dress and the weapon which he
used would save him from being stained with her blood. He was in
your room that morning, when we were at the station. As I told
you, he left his glove behind. He was searching for a telegram in
answer to your advertisement. Or he came to sound you. He had
already received his telegram from Hippolyte. He was like a fox in
a cage, snapping at every one, twisting vainly this way and that
way, risking everything and every one to save his precious neck.
Marthe Gobin was in the way. She is killed. Mlle. Celie is a
danger. So Mile. Celie must be suppressed. And off goes a telegram
to the Geneva paper, handed in by a waiter from the cafe at the
station of Chambery before five o'clock. Wethermill went to
Chambery that afternoon when we went to Geneva. Once we could get
him on the run, once we could so harry and bustle him that he must
take risks--why, we had him. And that afternoon he had to take
them."