“I have told him to fetch a cab,” he said, “and convey Helene Vauquier to her friends.”  Then he looked at Ricardo, and from Ricardo to the Commissaire, while he rubbed his hand backwards and forwards across his shaven chin.

“I tell you,” he said, “I find this sinister little drama very interesting to me.  The sordid, miserable struggle for mastery in this household of Mme. Dauvray—­eh?  Yes, very interesting.  Just as much patience, just as much effort, just as much planning for this small end as a general uses to defeat an army—­and, at the last, nothing gained.  What else is politics?  Yes, very interesting.”

His eyes rested upon Wethermill’s face for a moment, but they gave the young man no hope.  He took a key from his pocket

“We need not keep this room locked,” he said.  “We know all that there is to be known.”  And he inserted the key into the lock of Celia’s room and turned it.

“But is that wise, monsieur?” said Besnard.

Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.

“Why not?” he asked.

“The case is in your hands,” said the Commissaire.  To Ricardo the proceedings seemed singularly irregular.  But if the Commissaire was content, it was not for him to object.

“And where is my excellent friend Perrichet?” asked Hanaud; and leaning over the balustrade he called him up from the hall.

“We will now,” said Hanaud, “have a glance into this poor murdered woman’s room.”

The room was opposite to Celia’s.  Besnard produced the key and unlocked the door.  Hanaud took off his hat upon the threshold and then passed into the room with his companions.  Upon the bed, outlined under a sheet, lay the rigid form of Mme. Dauvray.  Hanaud stepped gently to the bedside and reverently uncovered the face.  For a moment all could see it—­livid, swollen, unhuman.

“A brutal business,” he said in a low voice, and when he turned again to his companions his face was white and sickly.  He replaced the sheet and gazed about the room.

It was decorated and furnished in the same style as the salon downstairs, yet the contrast between the two rooms was remarkable.

Downstairs, in the salon, only a chair had been overturned.  Here there was every sign of violence and disorder.  An empty safe stood open in one corner; the rugs upon the polished floor had been tossed aside; every drawer had been torn open, every wardrobe burst; the very bed had been moved from its position.

“It was in this safe that Madame Dauvray hid her jewels each night,” said the Commissaire as Hanaud gazed about the room.

“Oh, was it so?” Hanaud asked slowly.  It seemed to Ricardo that he read something in the aspect of this room too, which troubled his mind and increased his perplexity.

“Yes,” said Besnard confidently.  “Every night Mme. Dauvray locked her jewels away in this safe.  Vauquier told us so this morning.  Every night she was never too tired for that.  Besides, here”—­and putting his hand into the safe he drew out a paper—­” here is the list of Mme. Dauvray’s jewellery.”