"And what else do we know?" asked Ricardo.
"This," said Hanaud. He paused impressively. "Bring up your chair
to the table, M. Wethermill, and consider whether I am right or
wrong"; and he waited until Harry Wethermill had obeyed. Then he
laughed in a friendly way at himself.
"I cannot help it," he said; "I have an eye for dramatic effects.
I must prepare for them when I know they are coming. And one, I
tell you, is coming now."
He shook his finger at his companions. Ricardo shifted and
shuffled in his chair. Harry Wethermill kept his eyes fixed on
Hanaud's face, but he was quiet, as he had been throughout the
long inquiry.
Hanaud lit a cigarette and took his time.
"What I think is this. The man who drove the car into Geneva drove
it back, because--he meant to leave it again in the garage of the
Villa Rose."
"Good heavens!" cried Ricardo, flinging himself back. The theory
so calmly enunciated took his breath away.
"Would he have dared?" asked Harry Wethermill.
Hanaud leaned across and tapped his fingers on the table to
emphasise his answer.
"All through this crime there are two things visible--brains and
daring; clever brains and extraordinary daring. Would he have
dared? He dared to be at the corner close to the Villa Rose at
daylight. Why else should he have returned except to put back the
car? Consider! The petrol is taken from tins which Servettaz might
never have touched for a fortnight, and by that time he might, as
he said, have forgotten whether he had not used them himself. I
had this possibility in my mind when I put the questions to
Servettaz about the petrol which the Commissaire thought so
stupid. The utmost care is taken that there shall be no mould left
on the floor of the carriage. The scrap of chiffon was torn off,
no doubt, when the women finally left the car, and therefore not
noticed, or that, too, would have been removed. That the exterior
of the car was dirty betrayed nothing, for Servettaz had left it
uncleaned."
Hanaud leaned back and, step by step, related the journey of the
car.
"The man leaves the gate open; he drives into Geneva the two
women, who are careful that their shoes shall leave no marks upon
the floor. At Geneva they get out. The man returns. If he can only
leave the car in the garage he covers all traces of the course he
and his friends have taken. No one would suspect that the car had
ever left the garage. At the corner of the road, just as he is
turning down to the villa, he sees a sergent-de-ville at the gate.
He knows that the murder is discovered. He puts on full speed and
goes straight out of the town. What is he to do? He is driving a
car for which the police in an hour or two, if not now already,
will be surely watching. He is driving it in broad daylight. He
must get rid of it, and at once, before people are about to see
it, and to see him in it. Imagine his feelings! It is almost
enough to make one pity him. Here he is in a car which convicts
him as a murderer, and he has nowhere to leave it. He drives
through Aix. Then on the outskirts of the town he finds an empty
villa. He drives in at the gate, forces the door of the coach-
house, and leaves his car there. Now, observe! It is no longer any
use for him to pretend that he and his friends did not disappear
in that car. The murder is already discovered, and with the murder
the disappearance of the car. So he no longer troubles his head
about it. He does not remove the traces of mould from the place
where his feet rested, which otherwise, no doubt, he would have
done. It no longer matters. He has to run to earth now before he
is seen. That is all his business. And so the state of the car is
explained. It was a bold step to bring that car back--yes, a bold
and desperate step. But a clever one. For, if it had succeeded, we
should have known nothing of their movements--oh, but nothing--
nothing. Ah! I tell you this is no ordinary blundering affair.
They are clever people who devised this crime--clever, and of an
audacity which is surprising."