“On the night before the murder,” continued Wethermill quietly, “Celia Harland lost money at the baccarat-table.  Ricardo saw her in the garden behind the rooms, and she was hysterical.  Later on that same night he saw her again with me, and he heard what she said.  I asked her to come to the rooms on the next evening—­ yesterday, the night of the crime—­and her face changed, and she said, ’No, we have other plans for tomorrow.  But the night after I shall want you.’”

Hanaud sprang up from his chair.

“And you tell me these two things!” he cried.

“Yes,” said Wethermill.  “You were kind enough to say to me I was not a romantic boy.  I am not.  I can face facts.”

Hanaud stared at his companion for a few moments.  Then, with a remarkable air of consideration, he bowed.

“You have won, monsieur,” he said.  “I will take up this case.  But,” and his face grew stern and he brought his fist down upon the table with a bang, “I shall follow it to the end now, be the consequences bitter as death to you.”

“That is what I wish, monsieur,” said Wethermill.

Hanaud locked up the slips of paper in his lettercase.  Then he went out of the room and returned in a few minutes.

“We will begin at the beginning,” he said briskly.  “I have telephoned to the Depot.  Perrichet, the sergent-de-ville who discovered the crime, will be here at once.  We will walk down to the villa with him, and on the way he shall tell us exactly what he discovered and how he discovered it.  At the villa we shall find Monsieur Fleuriot, the Juge d’lnstruction, who has already begun his examination, and the Commissaire of Police.  In company with them we will inspect the villa.  Except for the removal of Mme. Dauvray’s body from the salon to her bedroom and the opening of the windows, the house remains exactly as it was.”

“We may come with you?” cried Harry Wethermill eagerly.

“Yes, on one condition—­that you ask no questions, and answer none unless I put them to you.  Listen, watch, examine—­but no interruptions!”

Hanaud’s manner had altogether changed.  It was now authoritative and alert.  He turned to Ricardo.

“You will swear to what you saw in the garden and to the words you heard?” he asked.  “They are important.”

“Yes,” said Ricardo.

But he kept silence about that clear picture in his mind which to him seemed no less important, no less suggestive.

The Assembly Hall at Leamington, a crowded audience chiefly of ladies, a platform at one end on which a black cabinet stood.  A man, erect and with something of the soldier in his bearing, led forward a girl, pretty and fair-haired, who wore a black velvet dress with a long, sweeping train.  She moved like one in a dream.  Some half-dozen people from the audience climbed on to the platform, tied thy girl’s hands with tape behind her back, and sealed the tape.