To all who listened Helene Vauquier’s story carried its conviction.  Mme. Dauvray rose vividly before their minds as a living woman.  Celie’s trickeries were so glibly described that they could hardly have been invented, and certainly not by this poor peasant-woman whose lips so bravely struggled with Medici, and Montespan, and the names of the other great ladies.  How, indeed, should she know of them at all?  She could never have had the inspiration to concoct the most convincing item of her story—­ the queer craze of Mme. Dauvray for an interview with Mme. de Montespan.  These details were assuredly the truth.

Ricardo, indeed, knew them to be true.  Had he not himself seen the girl in her black velvet dress shut up in a cabinet, and a great lady of the past dimly appear in the darkness?  Moreover, Helene Vauquier’s jealousy was so natural and inevitable a thing.  Her confession of it corroborated all her story.

“Well, then,” said Hanaud, “we come to last night.  There was a seance held in the salon last night.”

“No, monsieur,” said Vauquier, shaking her head; “there was no seance last night.”

“But already you have said—­” interrupted the Commissaire; and Hanaud held up his hand.

“Let her speak, my friend.”

“Yes, monsieur shall hear,” said Vauquier.

It appeared that at five o’clock in the afternoon Mme. Dauvray and Mlle. Celie prepared to leave the house on foot.  It was their custom to walk down at this hour to the Villa des Fleurs, pass an hour or so there, dine in a restaurant, and return to the Rooms to spend the evening.  On this occasion, however, Mme. Dauvray informed Helene that they should be back early and bring with them a friend who was interested in, but entirely sceptical of, spiritualistic manifestations.  “But we shall convince her tonight, Celie, “she said confidently; and the two women then went out.  Shortly before eight Helene closed the shutters both of the upstair and the downstair windows and of the glass doors into the garden, and returned to the kitchen, which was at the back of the house—­that is, on the side facing the road.  There had been a fall of rain at seven which had lasted for the greater part of the hour, and soon after she had shut the windows the rain fell again in a heavy shower, and Helene, knowing that madame felt the chill, lighted a small fire in the salon.  The shower lasted until nearly nine, when it ceased altogether and the night cleared up.

It was close upon half-past nine when the bell rang from the salon.  Vauquier was sure of the hour, for the charwoman called her attention to the clock.

“I found Mme. Dauvray, Mlle Celie, and another woman in the salon,” continued Helene Vauquier.

“Madame had let them in with her latchkey.”

“Ah, the other woman!” cried Besnard.  “Had you seen her before?”

“No, monsieur.”