What is your opinion?"

Ricardo took from his pocket-book a sheet of paper and from his pocket
a pencil. He was intensely flattered by the request of Hanaud, and he
proposed to do himself justice. "I will make a note here of what I
think the salient features of the mystery"; and he proceeded to
tabulate the points in the following way:

(1) Celia Harland made her entrance into Mme. Dauvray's household under
very doubtful circumstances.

(2) By methods still more doubtful she acquired an extraordinary
ascendency over Mme. Dauvray's mind.

(3) If proof were needed how complete that ascendency was, a glance at
Celia Harland's wardrobe would suffice; for she wore the most expensive
clothes.

(4) It was Celia Harland who arranged that Servettaz, the chauffeur,
should be absent at Chambery on the Tuesday night--the night of the
murder.

(5) It was Celia Harland who bought the cord with which Mme. Dauvray
was strangled and Helene Vauquier bound.

(6) The footsteps outside the salon show that Celia Harland ran from
the salon to the motor-car.

(7) Celia Harland pretended that there should be a seance on the
Tuesday, but she dressed as though she had in view an appointment with
a lover, instead of a spiritualistic stance.

(8) Celia Harland has disappeared.

These eight points are strongly suggestive of Celia Harland's
complicity in the murder. But I have no clue which will enable me to
answer the following questions:

(a) Who was the man who took part in the crime? (b) Who was the woman
who came to the villa on the evening of the murder with Mme. Dauvray
and Celia Harland?

(c) What actually happened in the salon? How was the murder committed?

(d) Is Helene Vauquier's story true?

(e) What did the torn-up scrap of writing mean? (Probably spirit
writing in Celia Harland's hand.)

(f) Why has one cushion on the settee a small, fresh, brown stain,
which is probably blood? Why is the other cushion torn?

Mr. Ricardo had a momentary thought of putting down yet another
question. He was inclined to ask whether or no a pot of cold cream had
disappeared from Celia Harland's bedroom; but he remembered that Hanaud
had set no store upon that incident, and he refrained. Moreover, he had
come to the end of his sheet of paper. He handed it across the table to
Hanaud and leaned back in his chair, watching the detective with all
the eagerness of a young author submitting his first effort to a critic.

Hanaud read it thro