"No!" cried Harry Wethermill.
Hanaud took no notice of the interruption.
"Secondly the woman came to the house with Mme. Dauvray and Mlle.
Celie between nine and half-past nine. Thirdly, the man came
afterwards, but before eleven, set open the gate, and was admitted
into the salon, unperceived by Mme. Dauvray. That also we can
safely assume. But what happened in the salon? Ah! There is the
question." Then he shrugged his shoulders and said with the note
of raillery once more in his voice: "But why should we trouble our heads to puzzle out this mystery,
since M. Ricardo knows?"
"I?" cried Ricardo in amazement.
"To be sure," replied Hanaud calmly. "For I look at another of
your questions. 'WHAT DID THE TORN-UP SCRAP OF WRITING MEAN?' and
you add: 'Probably spirit-writing.' Then there was a seance held
last night in the little salon! Is that so?"
Harry Wethermill started. Mr. Ricardo was at a loss.
"I had not followed my suggestion to its conclusion," he admitted
humbly.
"No," said Hanaud. "But I ask myself in sober earnest, 'Was there
a seance held in the salon last night?' Did the tambourine rattle
in the darkness on the wall?"
"But if Helene Vauquier's story is all untrue?" cried Wethermill,
again in exasperation.
"Patience, my friend. Her story was not all untrue. I say there
were brains behind this crime; yes, but brains, even the
cleverest, would not have invented this queer, strange story of
the seances and of Mme. de Montespan. That is truth. But yet, if
there were a seance held, if the scrap of paper were spirit-
writing in answer to some awkward question, why--and here I come
to my first question, which M. Ricardo has omitted--why did Mlle.
Celie dress herself with so much elegance last night? What
Vauquier said is true. Her dress was not suited to a seance. A
light-coloured, rustling frock, which would be visible in a dim
light, or even in the dark, which would certainly be heard at
every movement she made, however lightly she stepped, and a big
hat--no no! I tell you, gentlemen, we shall not get to the bottom
of this mystery until we know why Mlle. Celie dressed herself as
she did last night." "Yes," Ricardo admitted. "I overlooked that
point." "Did she--" Hanaud broke off and bowed to Wethermill with
a grace and a respect which condoned his words. "You must bear
with me, my young friend, while I consider all these points. Did
she expect to join that night a lover--a man with the brains to
devise this crime? But if so--and here I come to the second
question omitted from M. Ricardo's list--why, on the patch of
grass outside the door of the salon, were the footsteps of the man
and woman so carefully erased, and the footsteps of Mlle. Celie--
those little footsteps so easily identified--left for all the
world to see and recognise?"