Once more Helene's voice broke upon the words. But Hanaud poured
her out a glass of water and held it to her lips. Helene drank it
eagerly.
"There, that is better, is it not?" he said.
"Yes, monsieur," said Helene Vauquier, recovering herself.
"Sometimes, too," she resumed, "messages from the spirits would
flutter down in writing on the table."
"In writing?" exclaimed Hanaud quickly.
"Yes; answers to questions. Mlle. Celie had them ready. Oh, but
she was of an address altogether surprising.
"I see," said Hanaud slowly; and he added, "But sometimes, I
suppose, the questions were questions which Mlle. Celie could not
answer?"
"Sometimes," Helene Vauquier admitted, "when visitors were
present. When Mme. Dauvray was alone--well, she was an ignorant
woman, and any answer would serve. But it was not so when there
were visitors whom Mlle. Celie did not know, or only knew
slightly. These visitors might be putting questions to test her,
of which they knew the answers, while Mlle. Celie did not."
"Exactly," said Hanaud. "What happened then?"
All who were listening understood to what point he was leading
Helene Vauquier. All waited intently for her answer.
She smiled.
"It was all one to Mlle. Celie."
"She was prepared with an escape from the difficulty?"
"Perfectly prepared."
Hanaud looked puzzled.
"I can think of no way out of it except the one," and he looked
round to the Commissaire and to Ricardo as though he would inquire
of them how many ways they had discovered. "I can think of no
escape except that a message in writing should flutter down from
the spirit appealed to saying frankly," and Hanaud shrugged his
shoulders, "'I do not know.'"
"Oh no no, monsieur," replied Helene Vauquier in pity for Hanaud's
misconception, "I see that you are not in the habit of attending
seances. It would never do for a spirit to admit that it did not
know. At once its authority would be gone, and with it Mlle.
Celie's as well. But on the other hand, for inscrutable reasons
the spirit might not be allowed to answer."
"I understand," said Hanaud, meekly accepting the correction. "The
spirit might reply that it was forbidden to answer, but never that
it did not know."
"No, never that," [agreed] Helene. So it seemed that Hanaud must
look elsewhere for the explanation of that sentence. "I do not
know." Helene continued: "Oh, Mlle. Celie--it was not easy to
baffle her, I can tell you. She carried a lace scarf which she
could drape about her head, and in a moment she would be, in the
dim light, an old, old woman, with a voice so altered that no one
could know it. Indeed, you said rightly, monsieur--she was
clever."
To all who listened Helene Vauquier's story carried its
conviction. Mme. Dauvray rose vividly before their minds as a
living woman. Celie's trickeries were so glibly described that
they could hardly have been invented, and certainly not by this
poor peasant-woman whose lips so bravely struggled with Medici,
and Montespan, and the names of the other great ladies. How,
indeed, should she know of them at all? She could never have had
the inspiration to concoct the most convincing item of her story--
the queer craze of Mme. Dauvray for an interview with Mme. de
Montespan. These details were assuredly the truth.