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At the Villa Rose

A >> A.E.W. Mason >> At the Villa Rose



Produced by Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




AT THE VILLA ROSE

A.E.W. Mason



CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. SUMMER LIGHTNING
II. A CRY FOR HELP
III. PERRICHET'S STORY
IV. AT THE VILLA
V. IN THE SALON
VI. HELENE VAUQUIER'S EVIDENCE
VII. A STARTLING DISCOVERY
VIII. THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP
IX. MME. DAUVRAY'S MOTOR-CAR
X. NEWS FROM GENEVA
XI. THE UNOPENED LETTER
XII. THE ALUMINIUM FLASK
XIII. IN THE HOUSE AT GENEVA
XIV. MR. RICARDO IS BEWILDERED
XV. CELIA'S STORY
XVI. THE FIRST MOVE
XVII. THE AFTERNOON OF TUESDAY
XVIII. THE SEANCE
XIX. HELENS EXPLAINS
XX. THE GENEVA ROAD
XXI. HANAUD EXPLAINS




AT THE VILLA ROSE




CHAPTER I

SUMMER LIGHTNING


It was Mr. Ricardo's habit as soon as the second week of August
came round to travel to Aix-les-Bains, in Savoy, where for five or
six weeks he lived pleasantly. He pretended to take the waters in
the morning, he went for a ride in his motor-car in the afternoon,
he dined at the Cercle in the evening, and spent an hour or two
afterwards in the baccarat-rooms at the Villa des Fleurs. An
enviable, smooth life without a doubt, and it is certain that his
acquaintances envied him. At the same time, however, they laughed
at him and, alas with some justice; for he was an exaggerated
person. He was to be construed in the comparative. Everything in
his life was a trifle overdone, from the fastidious arrangement of
his neckties to the feminine nicety of his little dinner-parties.
In age Mr. Ricardo was approaching the fifties; in condition he
was a widower--a state greatly to his liking, for he avoided at
once the irksomeness of marriage and the reproaches justly
levelled at the bachelor; finally, he was rich, having amassed a
fortune in Mincing Lane, which he had invested in profitable
securities.

Ten years of ease, however, had not altogether obliterated in him
the business look. Though he lounged from January to December, he
lounged with the air of a financier taking a holiday; and when he
visited, as he frequently did, the studio of a painter, a stranger
would have hesitated to decide whether he had been drawn thither
by a love of art or by the possibility of an investment. His
"acquaintances" have been mentioned, and the word is suitable. For
while he mingled in many circles, he stood aloof from all. He
affected the company of artists, by whom he was regarded as one
ambitious to become a connoisseur; and amongst the younger
business men, who had never dealt with him, he earned the
disrespect reserved for the dilettante. If he had a grief, it was
that he had discovered no great man who in return for practical
favours would engrave his memory in brass. He was a Maecenas
without a Horace, an Earl of Southampton without a Shakespeare. In
a word, Aix-les-Bains in the season was the very place for him;
and never for a moment did it occur to him that he was here to be
dipped in agitations, and hurried from excitement to excitement.
The beauty of the little town, the crowd of well-dressed and
agreeable people, the rose-coloured life of the place, all made
their appeal to him. But it was the Villa des Fleurs which brought
him to Aix. Not that he played for anything more than an
occasional louis; nor, on the other hand, was he merely a cold
looker-on. He had a bank-note or two in his pocket on most
evenings at the service of the victims of the tables. But the
pleasure to his curious and dilettante mind lay in the spectacle
of the battle which was waged night after night between raw nature
and good manners. It was extraordinary to him how constantly
manners prevailed. There were, however, exceptions.

For instance. On the first evening of this particular visit he
found the rooms hot, and sauntered out into the little
semicircular garden at the back. He sat there for half an hour
under a flawless sky of stars watching the people come and go in
the light of the electric lamps, and appreciating the gowns and
jewels of the women with the eye of a connoisseur; and then into
this starlit quiet there came suddenly a flash of vivid life. A
girl in a soft, clinging frock of white satin darted swiftly from
the rooms and flung herself nervously upon a bench. She could not,
to Ricardo's thinking, be more than twenty years of age. She was
certainly quite young. The supple slenderness of her figure proved
it, and he had moreover caught a glimpse, as she rushed out, of a
fresh and very pretty face; but he had lost sight of it now. For
the girl wore a big black satin hat with a broad brim, from which
a couple of white ostrich feathers curved over at the back, and in
the shadow of that hat her face was masked. All that he could see
was a pair of long diamond eardrops, which sparkled and trembled
as she moved her head--and that she did constantly. Now she stared
moodily at the ground; now she flung herself back; then she
twisted nervously to the right, and then a moment afterwards to
the left; and then again she stared in front of her, swinging a
satin slipper backwards and forwards against the pavement with the
petulance of a child. All her movements were spasmodic; she was on
the verge of hysteria. Ricardo was expecting her to burst into
tears, when she sprang up and as swiftly as she had come she
hurried back into the rooms. "Summer lightning," thought Mr.
Ricardo.

Near to him a woman sneered, and a man said, pityingly: "She was
pretty, that little one. It is regrettable that she has lost."

A few minutes afterwards Ricardo finished his cigar and strolled
back into the rooms, making his way to the big table just on the
right hand of the entrance, where the play as a rule runs high. It
was clearly running high tonight. For so deep a crowd thronged
about the table that Ricardo could only by standing on tiptoe see
the faces of the players. Of the banker he could not catch a
glimpse. But though the crowd remained, its units were constantly
changing, and it was not long before Ricardo found himself
standing in the front rank of the spectators, just behind the
players seated in the chairs. The oval green table was spread out
beneath him littered with bank-notes. Ricardo turned his eyes to
the left, and saw seated at the middle of the table the man who
was holding the bank. Ricardo recognised him with a start of
surprise. He was a young Englishman, Harry Wethermill, who, after
a brilliant career at Oxford and at Munich, had so turned his
scientific genius to account that he had made a fortune for
himself at the age of twenty-eight.

He sat at the table with the indifferent look of the habitual
player upon his cleanly chiselled face. But it was plain that his
good fortune stayed at his elbow tonight, for opposite to him the
croupier was arranging with extraordinary deftness piles of bank-
notes in the order of their value. The bank was winning heavily.
Even as Ricardo looked Wethermill turned up "a natural," and the
croupier swept in the stakes from either side.

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Le jeu est fait?" the croupier cried,
all in a breath, and repeated the words. Wethermill waited with
his hand upon the wooden frame in which the cards were stacked. He
glanced round the table while the stakes were being laid upon the
cloth, and suddenly his face flashed from languor into interest.
Almost opposite to him a small, white-gloved hand holding a five-
louis note was thrust forward between the shoulders of two men
seated at the table. Wethermill leaned forward and shook his head
with a smile. With a gesture he refused the stake. But he was too
late. The fingers of the hand had opened, the note fluttered down
on to the cloth, the money was staked.

At once he leaned back in his chair.

"Il y a une suite," he said quietly. He relinquished the bank
rather than play against that five-louis note. The stakes were
taken up by their owners.

The croupier began to count Wethermill's winnings, and Ricardo,
curious to know whose small, delicately gloved hand it was which
had brought the game to so abrupt a termination, leaned forward.
He recognised the young girl in the white satin dress and the big
black hat whose nerves had got the better of her a few minutes
since in the garden. He saw her now clearly, and thought her of an
entrancing loveliness. She was moderately tall, fair of skin, with
a fresh colouring upon her cheeks which she owed to nothing but
her youth. Her hair was of a light brown with a sheen upon it, her
forehead broad, her eyes dark and wonderfully clear. But there was
something more than her beauty to attract him. He had a strong
belief that somewhere, some while ago, he had already seen her.
And this belief grew and haunted him. He was still vaguely
puzzling his brains to fix the place when the croupier finished
his reckoning.

"There are two thousand louis in the bank," he cried. "Who will
take on the bank for two thousand louis?"

No one, however, was willing. A fresh bank was put up for sale,
and Wethermill, still sitting in the dealer's chair, bought it. He
spoke at once to an attendant, and the man slipped round the
table, and, forcing his way through the crowd, carried a message
to the girl in the black hat. She looked towards Wethermill and
smiled; and the smile made her face a miracle of tenderness. Then
she disappeared, and in a few moments Ricardo saw a way open in
the throng behind the banker, and she appeared again only a yard
or two away, just behind Wethermill. He turned, and taking her
hand into his, shook it chidingly.

"I couldn't let you play against me, Celia," he said, in English;
"my luck's too good tonight. So you shall be my partner instead.
I'll put in the capital and we'll share the winnings."

The girl's face flushed rosily. Her hand still lay clasped in his.
She made no effort to withdraw it.

"I couldn't do that," she exclaimed.

"Why not?" said he. "See!" and loosening her fingers he took from
them the five-louis note and tossed it over to the croupier to be
added to his bank. "Now you can't help yourself. We're partners."

The girl laughed, and the company at the table smiled, half in
sympathy, half with amusement. A chair was brought for her, and
she sat down behind Wethermill, her lips parted, her face joyous
with excitement. But all at once Wethermill's luck deserted him.
He renewed his bank three times, and had lost the greater part of
his winnings when he had dealt the cards through. He took a fourth
bank, and rose from that, too, a loser.

"That's enough, Celia," he said. "Let us go out into the garden;
it will be cooler there,"

"I have taken your good luck away," said the girl remorsefully.
Wethermill put his arm through hers.

"You'll have to take yourself away before you can do that," he
answered, and the couple walked together out of Ricardo's hearing.

Ricardo was left to wonder about Celia. She was just one of those
problems which made Aix-les-Bains so unfailingly attractive to
him. She dwelt in some street of Bohemia; so much was clear. The
frankness of her pleasure, of her excitement, and even of her
distress proved it. She passed from one to the other while you
could deal a pack of cards. She was at no pains to wear a mask.
Moreover, she was a young girl of nineteen or twenty, running
about those rooms alone, as unembarrassed as if she had been at
home. There was the free use, too, of Christian names. Certainly
she dwelt in Bohemia. But it seemed to Ricardo that she could pass
in any company and yet not be overpassed. She would look a little
more picturesque than most girls of her age, and she was certainly
a good deal more soignee than many, and she had the Frenchwoman's
knack of putting on her clothes. But those would be all the
differences, leaving out the frankness. Ricardo wondered in what
street of Bohemia she dwelt. He wondered still more when he saw
her again half an hour afterwards at the entrance to the Villa des
Fleurs. She came down the long hall with Harry Wethermill at her
side. The couple were walking slowly, and talking as they walked
with so complete an absorption in each other that they were
unaware of their surroundings. At the bottom of the steps a stout
woman of fifty-five over-jewelled, and over-dressed and raddled
with paint, watched their approach with a smile of good-humoured
amusement. When they came near enough to hear she said in French:

"Well, Celie, are you ready to go home?"

The girl looked up with a start.

"Of course, madame," she said, with a certain submissiveness which
surprised Ricardo. "I hope I have not kept you waiting."

She ran to the cloak-room, and came back again with her cloak.

"Good-bye, Harry," she said, dwelling upon his name and looking
out upon him with soft and smiling eyes.

"I shall see you tomorrow evening," he said, holding her hand.
Again she let it stay within his keeping, but she frowned, and a
sudden gravity settled like a cloud upon her face. She turned to
the elder woman with a sort of appeal.

"No, I do not think we shall be here, tomorrow, shall we, madame?"
she said reluctantly.

"Of course not," said madame briskly. "You have not forgotten what
we have planned? No, we shall not be here tomorrow; but the night
after--yes."

Celia turned back again to Wethermill.

"Yes, we have plans for tomorrow," she said, with a very wistful
note of regret in her voice; and seeing that madame was already at
the door, she bent forward and said timidly, "But the night after
I shall want you."

"I shall thank you for wanting me," Wethermill rejoined; and the
girl tore her hand away and ran up the steps.

Harry Wethermill returned to the rooms. Mr. Ricardo did not follow
him. He was too busy with the little problem which had been
presented to him that night. What could that girl, he asked
himself, have in common with the raddled woman she addressed so
respectfully? Indeed, there had been a note of more than respect
in her voice. There had been something of affection. Again Mr.
Ricardo found himself wondering in what street in Bohemia Celia
dwelt--and as he walked up to the hotel there came yet other
questions to amuse him.

"Why," he asked, "could neither Celia nor madame come to the Villa
des Fleurs tomorrow night? What are the plans they have made? And
what was it in those plans which had brought the sudden gravity
and reluctance into Celia's face?"

Ricardo had reason to remember those questions during the next few
days, though he only idled with them now.




CHAPTER II

A CRY FOR HELP


It was on a Monday evening that Ricardo saw Harry Wethermill and
the girl Celia together. On the Tuesday he saw Wethermill in the
rooms alone and had some talk with him.

Wethermill was not playing that night, and about ten o'clock the
two men left the Villa des Fleurs together.

"Which way do you go?" asked Wethermill.

"Up the hill to the Hotel Majestic," said Ricardo.

"We go together, then. I, too, am staying there," said the young
man, and they climbed the steep streets together. Ricardo was
dying to put some questions about Wethermill's young friend of the
night before, but discretion kept him reluctantly silent. They
chatted for a few moments in the hall upon indifferent topics and
so separated for the night. Mr. Ricardo, however, was to learn
something more of Celia the next morning; for while he was fixing
his tie before the mirror Wethermill burst into his dressing-room.
Mr. Ricardo forgot his curiosity in the surge of his indignation.
Such an invasion was an unprecedented outrage upon the gentle
tenor of his life. The business of the morning toilette was
sacred. To interrupt it carried a subtle suggestion of anarchy.
Where was his valet? Where was Charles, who should have guarded
the door like the custodian of a chapel?

"I cannot speak to you for at least another half-hour," said Mr.
Ricardo, sternly.

But Harry Wethermill was out of breath and shaking with agitation.

"I can't wait," he cried, with a passionate appeal. "I have got to
see you. You must help me, Mr. Ricardo--you must, indeed!"

Ricardo spun round upon his heel. At first he had thought that the
help wanted was the help usually wanted at Aix-les-Bains. A glance
at Wethermills face, however, and the ringing note of anguish in
his voice, told him that the thought was wrong. Mr. Ricardo
slipped out of his affectations as out of a loose coat. "What has
happened?" he asked quietly.

"Something terrible." With shaking fingers Wethermill held out a
newspaper. "Read it," he said.

It was a special edition of a local newspaper, Le Journal de
Savoie, and it bore the date of that morning.

"They are crying it in the streets," said Wethermill. "Read!"

A short paragraph was printed in large black letters on the first
page, and leaped to the eyes.

"Late last night," it ran, "an appalling murder was committed at
the Villa Rose, on the road to Lac Bourget. Mme. Camille Dauvray,
an elderly, rich woman who was well known at Aix, and had occupied
the villa every summer for the last few years, was discovered on
the floor of her salon, fully dressed and brutally strangled,
while upstairs, her maid, Helene Vauquier, was found in bed,
chloroformed, with her hands tied securely behind her back. At the
time of going to press she had not recovered consciousness, but
the doctor, Emile Peytin, is in attendance upon her, and it is
hoped that she will be able shortly to throw some light on this
dastardly affair. The police are properly reticent as to the
details of the crime, but the following statement may be accepted
without hesitation:

"The murder was discovered at twelve o'clock at night by the
sergent-de-ville Perrichet, to whose intelligence more than a word
of praise is due, and it is obvious from the absence of all marks
upon the door and windows that the murderer was admitted from
within the villa. Meanwhile Mme. Dauvray's motor-car has
disappeared, and with it a young Englishwoman who came to Aix with
her as her companion. The motive of the crime leaps to the eyes.
Mme. Dauvray was famous in Aix for her jewels, which she wore with
too little prudence. The condition of the house shows that a
careful search was made for them, and they have disappeared. It is
anticipated that a description of the young Englishwoman, with a
reward for her apprehension, will be issued immediately. And it is
not too much to hope that the citizens of Aix, and indeed of
Prance, will be cleared of all participation in so cruel and
sinister a crime."

Ricardo read through the paragraph with a growing consternation,
and laid the paper upon his dressing-table.

"It is infamous," cried Wethermill passionately.

"The young Englishwoman is, I suppose, your friend Miss Celia?"
said Ricardo slowly.

Wethermill started forward.

"You know her, then?" he cried in amazement.

"No; but I saw her with you in the rooms. I heard you call her by
that name."

"You saw us together?" exclaimed Wethermill. "Then you can
understand how infamous the suggestion is."

But Ricardo had seen the girl half an hour before he had seen her
with Harry Wethermill. He could not but vividly remember the
picture of her as she flung herself on to the bench in the garden
in a moment of hysteria, and petulantly kicked a satin slipper
backwards and forwards against the stones. She was young, she was
pretty, she had a charm of freshness, but--but--strive against it
as he would, this picture in the recollection began more and more
to wear a sinister aspect. He remembered some words spoken by a
stranger. "She is pretty, that little one. It is regrettable that
she has lost."

Mr. Ricardo arranged his tie with even a greater deliberation than
he usually employed.

"And Mme. Dauvray?" he asked. "She was the stout woman with whom
your young friend went away?"

"Yes," said Wethermill.

Ricardo turned round from the mirror.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Hanaud is at Aix. He is the cleverest of the French detectives.
You know him. He dined with you once."

It was Mr. Ricardo's practice to collect celebrities round his
dinner-table, and at one such gathering Hanaud and Wethermill had
been present together.

"You wish me to approach him?"

"At once."

"It is a delicate position," said Ricardo. "Here is a man in
charge of a case of murder, and we are quietly to go to him--"

To his relief Wethermill interrupted him.

"No, no," he cried; "he is not in charge of the case. He is on his
holiday. I read of his arrival two days ago in the newspaper. It
was stated that he came for rest. What I want is that he should
take charge of the case."

The superb confidence of Wethermill shook Mr. Ricardo for a
moment, but his recollections were too clear.

"You are going out of your way to launch the acutest of French
detectives in search of this girl. Are you wise, Wethermill?"

Wethermill sprang up from his chair in desperation.

"You, too, think her guilty! You have seen her. You think her
guilty--like this detestable newspaper, like the police."

"Like the police?" asked Ricardo sharply.

"Yes," said Harry Wethermill sullenly. "As soon as I saw that rag
I ran down to the villa. The police are in possession. They would
not let me into the garden. But I talked with one of them. They,
too, think that she let in the murderers."

Ricardo took a turn across the room. Then he came to a stop in
front of Wethermill.

"Listen to me," he said solemnly. "I saw this girl half an hour
before I saw you. She rushed out into the garden. She flung
herself on to a bench. She could not sit still. She was
hysterical. You know what that means. She had been losing. That's
point number one."

Mr. Ricardo ticked it off upon his finger.

"She ran back into the rooms. You asked her to share the winnings
of your bank. She consented eagerly. And you lost. That's point
number two. A little later, as she was going away, you asked her
whether she would be in the rooms the next night--yesterday night-
-the night when the murder was committed. Her face clouded over.
She hesitated. She became more than grave. There was a distinct
impression as though she shrank from the contemplation of what it
was proposed she should do on the next night. And then she
answered you, 'No, we have other plans.' That's number three." And
Mr. Ricardo ticked off his third point.

"Now," he asked, "do you still ask me to launch Hanaud upon the
case?"

"Yes, and at once," cried Wethermill.

Ricardo called for his hat and his stick.

"You know where Hanaud is staying?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Wethermill, and he led Ricardo to an unpretentious
little hotel in the centre of the town. Ricardo sent in his name,
and the two visitors were immediately shown into a small sitting-
room, where M. Hanaud was enjoying his morning chocolate. He was
stout and broad-shouldered, with a full and almost heavy face. In
his morning suit at his breakfast-table he looked like a
prosperous comedian.

He came forward with a smile of welcome, extending both his hands
to Mr. Ricardo.

"Ah, my good friend," he said, "it is pleasant to see you. And Mr.
Wethermill," he exclaimed, holding a hand out to the young
inventor.

"You remember me, then?" said Wethermill gladly.

"It is my profession to remember people," said Hanaud, with a
laugh. "You were at that amusing dinner-party of Mr. Ricardo's in
Grosvenor Square."

"Monsieur," said Wethermill, "I have come to ask your help."

The note of appeal in his voice was loud. M. Hanaud drew up a
chair by the window and motioned to Wethermill to take it. He
pointed to another, with a bow of invitation to Mr. Ricardo.

"Let me hear," he said gravely.

"It is the murder of Mme. Dauvray," said Wethermill.

Hanaud started.

"And in what way, monsieur," he asked, "are you interested in the
murder of Mme. Dauvray?"

"Her companion," said Wethermill, "the young English girl--she is
a great friend of mine."

Hanaud's face grew stern. Then came a sparkle of anger in his
eyes.

"And what do you wish me to do, monsieur?" he asked coldly.

"You are upon your holiday, M. Hanaud. I wish you--no, I implore
you," Wethermill cried, his voice ringing with passion, "to take
up this case, to discover the truth, to find out what has become
of Celia."

Hanaud leaned back in his chair with his hands upon the arms. He
did not take his eyes from Harry Wethermill, but the anger died
out of them.

"Monsieur," he said, "I do not know what your procedure is in
England. But in France a detective does not take up a case or
leave it alone according to his pleasure. We are only servants.
This affair is in the hands of M. Fleuriot, the Juge d'lnstruction
of Aix."

"But if you offered him your help it would be welcomed," cried
Wethermill. "And to me that would mean so much. There would be no
bungling. There would be no waste of time. Of that one would be
sure."

Hanaud shook his head gently. His eyes were softened now by a look
of pity. Suddenly he stretched out a forefinger.

"You have, perhaps, a photograph of the young lady in that card-
case in your breast-pocket."

Wethermill flushed red, and, drawing out the card-case, handed the
portrait to Hanaud. Hanaud looked at it carefully for a few
moments.

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