"Listen!" she continued, "I will tell you what I think. It was my
habit to put out some sirop and lemonade and some little cakes in
the dining-room, which, as you know, is at the other side of the
house across the hall. I think it possible, messieurs, that while
Mlle. Celie was changing her dress Mme. Dauvray and the stranger,
Adele, went into the dining-room. I know that Mlle. Celie, as soon
as she was dressed, ran downstairs to the salon. Well, then,
suppose Mlle. Celie had a lover waiting with whom she meant to run
away. She hurries through the empty salon, opens the glass doors,
and is gone, leaving the doors open. And the thief, an accomplice
of Adele, finds the doors open and hides himself in the salon
until Mme. Dauvray returns from the dining-room. You see, that
leaves Mlle. Celie innocent."
Vauquier leaned forward eagerly, her white face flushing. There
was a moment's silence, and then Hanaud said: "That is all very well, Mlle. Vauquier. But it does not account
for the lace coat in which the girl went away. She must have
returned to her room to fetch that after you had gone to bed."
Helene Vauquier leaned back with an air of disappointment.
"That is true. I had forgotten the coat. I did not like Mlle.
Celie, but I am not wicked--"
"Nor for the fact that the sirop and the lemonade had not been
touched in the dining-room," said the Commissaire, interrupting
her.
Again the disappointment overspread Vauquier's face.
"Is that so?" she asked. "I did not know--I have been kept a
prisoner here."
The Commissaire cut her short with a cry of satisfaction.
"Listen! listen!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Here is a theory which
accounts for all, which combines Vauquier's idea with ours, and
Vauquier's idea is, I think, very just, up to a point. Suppose, M.
Hanaud, that the girl was going to meet her lover, but the lover
is the murderer. Then all becomes clear. She does not run away to
him; she opens the door for him and lets him in."
Both Hanaud and Ricardo stole a glance at Wethermill. How did he
take the theory? Wethermill was leaning against the wall, his eyes
closed, his face white and contorted with a spasm of pain. But he
had the air of a man silently enduring an outrage rather than
struck down by the conviction that the woman he loved was
worthless.
"It is not for me to say, monsieur," Helene Vauquier continued. "I
only tell you what I know. I am a woman, and it would be very
difficult for a girl who was eagerly expecting her lover so to act
that another woman would not know it. However uncultivated and
ignorant the other woman was, that at all events she would know.
The knowledge would spread to her of itself, without a word.
Consider, gentlemen!" And suddenly Helene Vauquier smiled. "A
young girl tingling with excitement from head to foot, eager that
her beauty just at this moment should be more fresh, more sweet
than ever it was, careful that her dress should set it exquisitely
off. Imagine it! Her lips ready for the kiss! Oh, how should
another woman not know? I saw Mlle. Celie, her cheeks rosy, her
eyes bright. Never had she looked so lovely. The pale-green hat
upon her fair head heavy with its curls! From head to foot she
looked herself over, and then she sighed--she sighed with pleasure
because she looked so pretty. That was Mlle. Celie last night,
monsieur. She gathered up her train, took her long white gloves in
the other hand, and ran down the stairs, her heels clicking on the
wood, her buckles glittering. At the bottom she turned and said to
me: "'Remember, Helene, you can go to bed.' That was it monsieur."