At the Villa Rose · Chapter 13 (2/2)

“Well, while Adèle was preparing her morphia-needle and Hippolyte was about to prepare the boat, Jeanne upstairs was making her preparation too. She was mending a sack. Did you see Mlle. Célie’s eyes and face when first she saw that sack? Ah! she understood! They meant to give her a dose of morphia, and, as soon as she became unconscious, they were going perhaps to take some terrible precaution⁠—” Hanaud paused for a second. “I only say perhaps as to that. But certainly they were going to sew her up in that sack, row her well out across the lake, fix a weight to her feet, and drop her quietly overboard. She was to wear everything which she had brought with her to the house. Mlle. Célie would have disappeared forever, and left not even a ripple upon the water to trace her by!”

Ricardo clenched his hands.

“But that’s horrible!” he cried; and as he uttered the words the car swerved into the drive and stopped before the door of the Hotel Majestic.

Ricardo sprang out. A feeling of remorse seized hold of him. All through that evening he had not given one thought to Harry Wethermill, so utterly had the excitement of each moment engrossed his mind.

“He will be glad to know!” cried Ricardo. “Tonight, at all events, he shall sleep. I ought to have telegraphed to him from Geneva that we and Miss Celia were coming back.” He ran up the steps into the hotel.

“I took care that he should know,” said Hanaud, as he followed in Ricardo’s steps.

“Then the message could not have reached him, else he would have been expecting us,” replied Ricardo, as he hurried into the office, where a clerk sat at his books.

“Is Mr. Wethermill in?” he asked.

The clerk eyed him strangely.

“Mr. Wethermill was arrested this evening,” he said.

Ricardo stepped back.

“Arrested! When?”

“At twenty-five minutes past ten,” replied the clerk shortly.

“Ah,” said Hanaud quietly. “That was my telephone message.”

Ricardo stared in stupefaction at his companion.

“Arrested!” he cried. “Arrested! But what for?”

“For the murders of Marthe Gobin and Mme. Dauvray,” said Hanaud. “Good night.”