Ricardo passed a most tempestuous night. He was tossed amongst
dark problems. Now it was Harry Wethermill who beset him. He
repeated and repeated the name, trying to grasp the new and
sinister suggestion which, if Hanaud were right, its sound must
henceforth bear. Of course Hanaud might be wrong. Only, if he were
wrong, how had he come to suspect Harry Wethermill? What had first
directed his thoughts to that seemingly heart-broken man? And
when? Certain recollections became vivid in Mr. Ricardo's mind--
the luncheon at the Villa Rose, for instance. Hanaud had been so
insistent that the woman with the red hair was to be found in
Geneva, had so clearly laid it down that a message, a telegram, a
letter from Aix to Geneva, would enable him to lay his hands upon
the murderer in Aix.
He was isolating the house in Geneva even so
early in the history of his investigations, even so soon he
suspected Harry Wethermill. Brains and audacity--yes, these two
qualities he had stipulated in the criminal. Ricardo now for the
first time understood the trend of all Hanaud's talk at that
luncheon. He was putting Harry Wethermill upon his guard, he was
immobilising him, he was fettering him in precautions; with a
subtle skill he was forcing him to isolate himself. And he was
doing it deliberately to save the life of Celia Harland in Geneva.
Once Ricardo lifted himself up with the hair stirring on his
scalp. He himself had been with Wethermill in the baccarat-rooms
on the very night of the murder. They had walked together up the
hill to the hotel. It could not be that Harry Wethermill was
guilty. And yet, he suddenly remembered, they had together left
the rooms at an early hour. It was only ten o'clock when they had
separated in the hall, when they had gone, each to his own room.
There would have been time for Wethermill to reach the Villa Rose
and do his dreadful work upon that night before twelve, if all had
been arranged beforehand, if all went as it had been arranged. And
as he thought upon the careful planning of that crime, and
remembered Wethermill's easy chatter as they had strolled from
table to table in the Villa des Fleurs, Ricardo shuddered. Though
he encouraged a taste for the bizarre, it was with an effort. He
was naturally of an orderly mind, and to touch the eerie or
inhuman caused him a physical discomfort. So now he marvelled in a
great uneasiness at the calm placidity with which Wethermill had
talked, his arm in his, while the load of so dark a crime to be
committed within the hour lay upon his mind. Each minute he must
have been thinking, with a swift spasm of the heart, "Should such
a precaution fail--should such or such an unforeseen thing
intervene," yet there had been never a sign of disturbance, never
a hint of any disquietude.