At the Villa RoseMason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
General
At the Villa Rose
Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
"I told you so," replied Hanaud calmly; "but it is not my glove. It is
Wethermill's; there are his initials stamped upon the lining--see? I
picked up that glove in your room, after we had returned from the
station. It was not there before. He went to your rooms. No doubt he
searched for a telegram. Fortunately he did not examine your letters,
or Marthe Gobin would never have spoken to us as she did after she was
dead."
"Then what did he do?" asked Ricardo eagerly; and, though Hanaud had
been with him at the entrance to the station all this while, he asked
the question in absolute confidence that the true answer would be given
to him.
"He returned to the verandah wondering what he should do. He saw us
come back from the station in the motor-car and go up to your room. We
were alone. Marthe Gobin, then, was following. There was his chance.
Marthe Gobin must not reach us, must not tell her news to us. He ran
down the garden steps to the gate. No one could see him from the hotel.
Very likely he hid behind the trees, whence he could watch the road. A
cab comes up the hill; there's a woman in it--not quite the kind of
woman who stays at your hotel, M. Ricardo. Yet she must be going to
your hotel, for the road ends. The driver is nodding on his box,
refusing to pay any heed to his fare lest again she should bid him
hurry. His horse is moving at a walk. Wethermill puts his head in at
the window and asks if she has come to see M. Ricardo. Anxious for her
four thousand francs, she answers 'Yes.' Perhaps he steps into the cab,
perhaps as he walks by the side he strikes, and strikes hard and
strikes surely. Long before the cab reaches the hotel he is back again
on the verandah."
"Yes," said Ricardo, "it's the daring of which you spoke which made the
crime possible--the same daring which made him seek your help. That was
unexampled."
"No," replied Hanaud. "There's an historic crime in your own country,
monsieur. Cries for help were heard in a by-street of a town. When
people ran to answer them, a man was found kneeling by a corpse. It was
the kneeling man who cried for help, but it was also the kneeling man
who did the murder. I remembered that when I first began to suspect
Harry Wethermill."
Ricardo turned eagerly.
"And when--when did you first begin to suspect Harry Wethermill?"
Hanaud smiled and shook his head.
"That you shall know in good time. I am the captain of the ship." His
voice took on a deeper note. "But I prepare you. Listen! Daring and
brains, those were the property of Harry Wethermill--yes. But it is not
he who is the chief actor in the crime. Of that I am sure. He was no
more than one of the instruments."
"One of the instruments? Used, then, by whom?" asked Ricardo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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