was that Helene Vauquier, who had just been helped to dress by the nurse, had grease upon her fingers.  Then I looked at a drawer which she had examined first of all.  There were no grease-marks on the clothes she had turned over before the Commissaire leaned out of the window.  Therefore it followed that during the few seconds when he was watching me she had touched grease.  I looked about the room, and there on the dressing-table close by the chest of drawers was a pot of cold cream.  That was the grease Helene Vauquier had touched.  And why—­ if not to hide some small thing in it which, firstly, she dared not keep in her own room; which, secondly, she wished to hide in the room of Mlle. Celie; and which, thirdly, she had not had an opportunity to hide before?  Now bear those three conditions in mind, and tell me what the small thing was.”

Mr. Ricardo nodded his head.

“I know now,” he said.  “You told me.  The earrings of Mlle. Celie.  But I should not have guessed it at the time.”

“Nor could I—­at the time,” said Hanaud.  “I kept my open mind about Helene Vauquier; but I locked the door and took the key.  Then we went and heard Vauquier’s story.  The story was clever, because so much of it was obviously, indisputably true.  The account of the seances, of Mme. Dauvray’s superstitions, her desire for an interview with Mme. de Montespan—­such details are not invented.  It was interesting, too, to know that there had been a seance planned for that night!  The method of the murder began to be clear.  So far she spoke the truth.  But then she lied.  Yes, she lied, and it was a bad lie, my friend.  She told us that the strange woman Adele had black hair.  Now I carried in my pocket-book proof that that woman’s hair was red.  Why did she lie, except to make impossible the identification of that strange visitor?  That was the first false step taken by Helene Vauquier.

“Now let us take the second.  I thought nothing of her rancour against Mlle. Celie.  To me it was all very natural.  She—­the hard peasant woman no longer young, who had been for years the confidential servant of Mme. Dauvray, and no doubt had taken her levy from the impostors who preyed upon her credulous mistress—­ certainly she would hate this young and pretty outcast whom she has to wait upon, whose hair she has to dress.  Vauquier—­she would hate her.  But if by any chance she were in the plot—­and the lie seemed to show she was—­then the seances showed me new possibilities.  For Helene used to help Mlle. Celie.  Suppose that the seance had taken place, that this sceptical visitor with the red hair professed herself dissatisfied with Vauquier’s method of testing the medium, had suggested another way, Mlle. Celie could not object, and there she would be neatly and securely packed up beyond the power of offering any resistance, before she could have a suspicion that things were wrong.  It would be an easy little comedy to play.  And if that were true—­why, there were my sofa cushions partly explained.”