At the Villa Rose (14 page)

At three o'clock Ricardo called in his car, which was an open car of
high power, at Hanaud's hotel, and the two men went to the station.
They waited outside the exit while the passengers gave up their
tickets. Amongst them a middle-aged, short woman, of a plethoric
tendency, attracted their notice. She was neatly but shabbily dressed
in black; her gloves were darned, and she was obviously in a hurry. As
she came out she asked a commissionaire:

"How far is it to the Hotel Majestic?"

The man told her the hotel was at the very top of the town, and the way
was steep.

"But madame can go up in the omnibus of the hotel," he suggested.
Madame, however, was in too much of a hurry. The omnibus would have to
wait for luggage. She hailed a closed cab and drove off inside it.

"Now, if we go back in the car, we shall be all ready for her when she
arrives," said Hanaud.

They passed the cab, indeed, a few yards up the steep hill which leads
from the station. The cab was moving at a walk.

"She looks honest," said Hanaud, with a sigh of relief. "She is some
good bourgeoise anxious to earn four thousand francs."

They reached the hotel in a few minutes.

"We may need your car again the moment Marthe Gobin has gone," said
Hanaud.

"It shall wait here," said Ricardo.

"No," said Hanaud; "let it wait in the little street at the back of my
hotel. It will not be so noticeable there. You have petrol for a long
journey?"

Ricardo gave the order quietly to his chauffeur, and followed Hanaud
into the hotel. Through a glass window they could see Wethermill
smoking a cigar over his coffee.

"He looks as if he had not slept," said Ricardo.

Hanaud nodded sympathetically, and beckoned Ricardo past the window.

"But we are nearing the end. These two days have been for him days of
great trouble; one can see that very clearly. And he has done nothing
to embarrass us. Men in distress are apt to be a nuisance. I am
grateful to M. Wethermill. But we are nearing the end. Who knows?
Within an hour or two we may have news for him."

He spoke with great feeling, and the two men ascended the stairs to
Ricardo's rooms. For the second time that day Hanaud's professional
calm deserted him. The window overlooked the main entrance to the
hotel. Hanaud arranged the room, and, even while he arranged it, ran
every other second and leaned from the window to watch for the coming
of the cab.

"Put the bank-notes upon the table," he said hurriedly. "They will
persuade her to tell us all that she has to tell. Yes, that will do.
She is not in sight yet? No."

"She could not be. It is a long way from the station," said Ricardo,
"and the whole distance is uphill."

"Yes, that is true," Hanaud replied. "We will not embarrass her by
sitting round the table like a tribunal. You will sit in that
arm-chair."

Ricardo took his seat, crossed his knees, and joined the tips of his
fingers.

"So! not too judicial!" said Hanaud; "I will sit here at the table.
Whatever you do, do not frighten her." Hanaud sat down in the chair
which he had placed for himself. "Marthe Gobin shall sit opposite, with
the light upon her face. So!" And, springing up, he arranged a chair
for her. "Whatever you do, do not frighten her," he repeated. "I am
nervous. So much depends upon this interview." And in a second he was
back at the window.

Ricardo did not move. He arranged in his mind the interrogatory which
was to take place. He was to conduct it. He was the master of the
situation. All the limelight was to be his. Startling facts would come
to light elicited by his deft questions. Hanaud need not fear. He would
not frighten her. He would be gentle, he would be cunning. Softly and
delicately he would turn this good woman inside out, like a glove.
Every artistic fibre in his body vibrated to the dramatic situation.

Suddenly Hanaud leaned out of the window.

"It comes! it comes!" he said in a quick, feverish whisper. "I can see
the cab between the shrubs of the drive."

"Let it come!" said Mr. Ricardo superbly.

Even as he sat he could hear the grating of wheels upon the drive. He
saw Hanaud lean farther from the window and stamp impatiently upon the
floor.

"There it is at the door," he said; and for a few seconds he spoke no
more. He stood looking downwards, craning his head, with his back
towards Ricardo.

Then, with a wild and startled cry, he staggered back into the room.
His face was white as wax, his eyes full of horror, his mouth open.

"What is the matter?" exclaimed Ricardo, springing to his feet.

"They are lifting her out! She doesn't move! They are lifting her out!"

For a moment he stared into Ricardo's face—paralysed by fear. Then he
sprang down the stairs. Ricardo followed him.

There was confusion in the corridor. Men were running, voices were
crying questions. As they passed the window they saw Wethermill start
up, aroused from his lethargy. They knew the truth before they reached
the entrance of the hotel. A cab had driven up to the door from the
station; in the cab was an unknown woman stabbed to the heart.

"She should have come by the omnibus," Hanaud repeated and repeated
stupidly. For the moment he was off his balance.

The hall of the hotel had been cleared of people. At the entrance from
the corridor a porter barred the way.

"No one can pass," said he.

"I think that I can," said Hanaud, and he produced his card. "From the
Surete at Paris."

He was allowed to enter, with Ricardo at his heels. On the ground lay
Marthe Gobin; the manager of the hotel stood at her side; a doctor was
on his knees. Hanaud gave his card to the manager.

"You have sent word to the police?"

"Yes," said the manager.

"And the wound?" asked Hanaud, kneeling on the ground beside the
doctor. It was a very small wound, round and neat and clean, and there
was very little blood. "It was made by a bullet," said Hanaud—"some
tiny bullet from an air-pistol."

"No," answered the doctor.

"No knife made it," Hanaud asserted.

"That is true," said the doctor. "Look!" and he took up from the floor
by his knee the weapon which had caused Marthe Gobin's death. It was
nothing but an ordinary skewer with a ring at one end and a sharp point
at the other, and a piece of common white firewood for a handle. The
wood had been split, the ring inserted and spliced in position with
strong twine. It was a rough enough weapon, but an effective one. The
proof of its effectiveness lay stretched upon the floor beside them.

Hanaud gave it to the manager of the hotel.

"You must be very careful of this, and give it as it is to the police."

Then he bent once more over Marthe Gobin.

"Did she suffer?" he asked in a low voice.

"No; death must have been instantaneous," said the doctor.

"I am glad of that," said Hanaud, as he rose again to his feet.

In the doorway the driver of the cab was standing.

"What has he to say?" Hanaud asked.

The man stepped forward instantly. He was an old, red-faced, stout man,
with a shiny white tall hat, like a thousand drivers of cabs.

"What have I to say, monsieur?" he grumbled in a husky voice. "I take
up the poor woman at the station and I drive her where she bids me, and
I find her dead, and my day is lost. Who will pay my fare, monsieur?"

"I will," said Hanaud. "There it is," and he handed the man a
five-franc piece. "Now, answer me! Do you tell me that this woman was
murdered in your cab and that you knew nothing about it?"

"But what should I know? I take her up at the station, and all the way
up the hill her head is every moment out of the window, crying,
'Faster, faster!' Oh, the good woman was in a hurry! But for me I take
no notice. The more she shouts, the less I hear; I bury my head between
my shoulders, and I look ahead of me and I take no notice. One cannot
expect cab-horses to run up these hills; it is not reasonable." "So you
went at a walk," said Hanaud. He beckoned to Ricardo, and said to the
manager: "M. Besnard will, no doubt, be here in a few minutes, and he
will send for the Juge d'Instruction. There is nothing that we can do."

He went back to Ricardo's sitting-room and flung himself into a chair.
He had been calm enough downstairs in the presence of the doctor and
the body of the victim. Now, with only Ricardo for a witness, he gave
way to distress.

"It is terrible," he said. "The poor woman! It was I who brought her to
Aix. It was through my carelessness. But who would have thought—?" He
snatched his hands from his face and stood up. "I should have thought,"
he said solemnly. "Extraordinary daring—that was one of the qualities
of my criminal. I knew it, and I disregarded it. Now we have a second
crime."

"The skewer may lead you to the criminal," said Mr. Ricardo.

"The skewer!" cried Hanaud. "How will that help us? A knife,
yes—perhaps. But a skewer!"

"At the shops—there will not be so many in Aix at which you can buy
skewers—they may remember to whom they sold one within the last day or
so."

"How do we know it was bought in the last day or so?" cried Hanaud
scornfully. "We have not to do with a man who walks into a shop and
buys a single skewer to commit a murder with, and so hands himself over
to the police. How often must I say it!"

The violence of his contempt nettled Ricardo.

"If the murderer did not buy it, how did he obtain it?" he asked
obstinately.

"Oh, my friend, could he not have stolen it? From this or from any
hotel in Aix? Would the loss of a skewer be noticed, do you think? How
many people in Aix today have had rognons a la brochette for their
luncheon! Besides, it is not merely the death of this poor woman which
troubles me. We have lost the evidence which she was going to bring to
us. She had something to tell us about Celie Harland which now we shall
never hear. We have to begin all over again, and I tell you we have not
the time to begin all over again. No, we have not the time. Time will
be lost, and we have no time to lose." He buried his face again in his
hands and groaned aloud. His grief was so violent and so sincere that
Ricardo, shocked as he was by the murder of Marthe Gobin, set himself
to console him.

"But you could not have foreseen that at three o'clock in the afternoon
at Aix—"

Hanaud brushed the excuse aside.

"It is no extenuation. I OUGHT to have foreseen. Oh, but I will have no
pity now," he cried, and as he ended the words abruptly his face
changed. He lifted a trembling forefinger and pointed. There came a
sudden look of life into his dull and despairing eyes.

He was pointing to a side-table on which were piled Mr. Ricardo's
letters.

"You have not opened them this morning?" he asked.

"No. You came while I was still in bed. I have not thought of them till
now."

Hanaud crossed to the table, and, looking down at the letters, uttered
a cry.

"There's one, the big envelope," he said, his voice shaking like his
hand. "It has a Swiss stamp."

He swallowed to moisten his throat. Ricardo sprang across the room and
tore open the envelope. There was a long letter enclosed in a
handwriting unknown to him. He read aloud the first lines of the letter:

"I write what I saw and post it tonight, so that no one may be before
me with the news. I will come over tomorrow for the money."

A low exclamation from Hanaud interrupted the words.

"The signature! Quick!"

Ricardo turned to the end of the letter.

"Marthe Gobin."

"She speaks, then! After all she speaks!" Hanaud whispered in a voice
of awe. He ran to the door of the room, opened it suddenly, and,
shutting it again, locked it. "Quick! We cannot bring that poor woman
back to life; but we may still—" He did not finish his sentence. He
took the letter unceremoniously from Ricardo's hand and seated himself
at the table. Over his shoulder Mr. Ricardo, too, read Marthe Gobin's
letter.

It was just the sort of letter, which in Ricardo's view, Marthe Gobin
would have written—a long, straggling letter which never kept to the
point, which exasperated them one moment by its folly and fired them to
excitement the next.

It was dated from a small suburb of Geneva, on the western side of the
lake, and it ran as follows:

"The suburb is but a street close to the lake-side, and a tram runs
into the city. It is quite respectable, you understand, monsieur, with
a hotel at the end of it, and really some very good houses. But I do
not wish to deceive you about the social position of myself or my
husband. Our house is on the wrong side of the street—definitely—yes.
It is a small house, and we do not see the water from any of the
windows because of the better houses opposite. M. Gobin, my husband,
who was a clerk in one of the great banks in Geneva, broke down in
health in the spring, and for the last three months has been compelled
to keep indoors. Of course, money has not been plentiful, and I could
not afford a nurse. Consequently I myself have been compelled to nurse
him. Monsieur, if you were a woman, you would know what men are when
they are ill—how fretful, how difficult. There is not much distraction
for the woman who nurses them. So, as I am in the house most of the
day, I find what amusement I can in watching the doings of my
neighbours. You will not blame me.

"A month ago the house almost directly opposite to us was taken
furnished for the summer by a Mme. Rossignol. She is a widow, but
during the last fortnight a young gentleman has come several times in
the afternoon to see her, and it is said in the street that he is going
to marry her. But I cannot believe it myself. Monsieur is a young man
of perhaps thirty, with smooth, black hair. He wears a moustache, a
little black moustache, and is altogether captivating. Mme. Rossignol
is five or six years older, I should think—a tall woman, with red hair
and a bold sort of coarse beauty. I was not attracted by her. She
seemed not quite of the same world as that charming monsieur who was
said to be going to marry her. No; I was not attracted by Adele
Rossignol."