It was now nearly eight o’clock; the rain still held off.

“We must go,” said Mme. Dauvray, who for the last half-hour had been continually looking at her watch.

They drove to the station and took the train.  Once more the rain came down, but it had stopped again before the train steamed into Aix at nine o’clock.

“We will take a cab,” said Mme. Dauvray:  “it will save time.”

“It will do us good to walk, madame,” pleaded Adele.  The train was full.  Adele passed quickly out from the lights of the station in the throng of passengers and waited in the dark square for the others to join her.  “It is barely nine.  A friend has promised to call at the Villa Rose for me after eleven and drive me back in a motor-car to Geneva, so we have plenty of time.”

They walked accordingly up the hill, Mme. Dauvray slowly, since she was stout, and Celia keeping pace with her.  Thus it seemed natural that Adele Tace should walk ahead, though a passer-by would not have thought she was of their company.  At the corner of the Rue du Casino Adele waited for them and said quickly: 

“Mademoiselle, you can get some cord, I think, at the shop there,” and she pointed to the shop of M. Corval.  “Madame and I will go slowly on; you, who are the youngest, will easily catch us up.”  Celia went into the shop, bought the cord, and caught Mme. Dauvray up before she reached the villa.

“Where is Mme. Rossignol?” she asked.

“She went on,” said Camille Dauvray.  “She walks faster than I do.”

They passed no one whom they knew, although they did pass one who recognised them, as Perrichet had discovered.  They came upon Adele, waiting for them at the corner of the road, where it turns down toward the villa.

“It is near here—­the Villa Rose?” she asked.

“A minute more and we are there.”

They turned in at the drive, closed the gate behind them, and walked up to the villa.

The windows and the glass doors were closed, the latticed shutters fastened.  A light burned in the hall.

“Helene is expecting us,” said Mme. Dauvray, for as they approached she saw the front door open to admit them, and Helene Vauquier in the doorway.  The three women went straight into the little salon, which was ready with the lights up and a small fire burning.  Celia noticed the fire with a trifle of dismay.  She moved a fire-screen in front of it.

“I can understand why you do that, mademoiselle,” said Adele Rossignol, with a satirical smile.  But Mme. Dauvray came to the girl’s help.

“She is right, Adele.  Light is the great barrier between us and the spirit-world,” she said solemnly.

Meanwhile, in the hall Helene Vauquier locked and bolted the front door.  Then she stood motionless, with a smile upon her face and a heart beating high.  All through that afternoon she had been afraid that some accident at the last moment would spoil her plan, that Adele Tace had not learned her lesson, that Celie would take fright, that she would not return.  Now all those fears were over.  She had her victims safe within the villa.  The charwoman had been sent home.  She had them to herself.  She was still standing in the hall when Mme. Dauvray called aloud impatiently: