What was that something?  Ricardo asked himself.  He looked once more about the room.  He did not find his answer, but he caught sight of an ornament upon the wall which drove the question from his mind.  The ornament, if so it could be called, was a painted tambourine with a bunch of bright ribbons tied to the rim; and it was hung upon the wall between the settee and the fireplace at about the height of a man’s head.  Of course it might be no more than it seemed to be—­a rather gaudy and vulgar toy, such as a woman like Mme. Dauvray would be very likely to choose in order to dress her walls.  But it swept Ricardo’s thoughts back of a sudden to the concert-hall at Leamington and the apparatus of a spiritualistic show.  After all, he reflected triumphantly, Hanaud had not noticed everything, and as he made the reflection Hanaud’s voice broke in to corroborate him.

“We have seen everything here; let us go upstairs,” he said.  “We will first visit the room of Mlle. Celie.  Then we will question the maid, Helene Vauquier.”

The four men, followed by Perrichet, passed out by the door into the hall and mounted the stairs.  Celia’s room was in the southwest angle of the villa, a bright and airy room, of which one window overlooked the road, and two others, between which stood the dressing-table, the garden.  Behind the room a door led into a little white-tiled bathroom.  Some towels were tumbled upon the floor beside the bath.  In the bedroom a dark-grey frock of tussore and a petticoat were flung carelessly on the bed; a big grey hat of Ottoman silk was lying upon a chest of drawers in the recess of a window; and upon a chair a little pile of fine linen and a pair of grey silk stockings, which matched in shade the grey suede shoes, were tossed in a heap.

“It was here that you saw the light at half-past nine?” Hanaud said, turning to Perrichet.

“Yes, monsieur,” replied Perrichet.

“We may assume, then, that Mlle. Celie was changing her dress at that time.”

Besnard was looking about him, opening a drawer here, a wardrobe there.

“Mlle. Celie,” he said, with a laugh, “was a particular young lady, and fond of her fine clothes, if one may judge from the room and the order of the cupboards.  She must have changed her dress last night in an unusual hurry.”

There was about the whole room a certain daintiness, almost, it seemed to Mr. Ricardo, a fragrance, as though the girl had impressed something of her own delicate self upon it.  Wethermill stood upon the threshold watching with a sullen face the violation of this chamber by the officers of the police.

No such feelings, however, troubled Hanaud.  He went over to the dressing-room and opened a few small leather cases which held Celia’s ornaments.  In one or two of them a trinket was visible; others were empty.  One of these latter Hanaud held open in his hand, and for so long that Besnard moved impatiently.