cardo had seen the girl half an hour before he had seen her with
Harry Wethermill. He could not but vividly remember the picture of her
as she flung herself on to the bench in the garden in a moment of
hysteria, and petulantly kicked a satin slipper backwards and forwards
against the stones. She was young, she was pretty, she had a charm of
freshness, but--but--strive against it as he would, this picture in the
recollection began more and more to wear a sinister aspect. He
remembered some words spoken by a stranger. "She is pretty, that little
one. It is regrettable that she has lost."

Mr. Ricardo arranged his tie with even a greater deliberation than he
usually employed.

"And Mme. Dauvray?" he asked. "She was the stout woman with whom your
young friend went away?"

"Yes," said Wethermill.

Ricardo turned round from the mirror.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Hanaud is at Aix. He is the cleverest of the French detectives. You
know him. He dined with you once."

It was Mr. Ricardo's practice to collect celebrities round his
dinner-table, and at one such gathering Hanaud and Wethermill had been
present together.

"You wish me to approach him?"

"At once."

"It is a delicate position," said Ricardo. "Here is a man in charge of
a case of murder, and we are quietly to go to him--"

To his relief Wethermill interrupted him.

"No, no," he cried; "he is not in charge of the case. He is on his
holiday. I read of his arrival two days ago in the newspaper. It was
stated that he came for rest. What I want is that he should take charge
of the case."

The superb confidence of Wethermill shook Mr. Ricardo for a moment, but
his recollections were too clear.

"You are going out of your way to launch the acutest of French
detectives in search of this girl. Are you wise, Wethermill?"

Wethermill sprang up from his chair in desperation.

"You, too, think her guilty! You have seen her. You think her
guilty--like this detestable newspaper, like the police."

"Like the police?" asked Ricardo sharply.

"Yes," said Harry Wethermill sullenly. "As soon as I saw that rag I ran
down to the villa. The police are in possession. They would not let me
into the garden. But I talked with one of them. They, too, think that
she let in the murderers."

Ricardo took a turn across the room. Then he came to a stop in front of
Wethermill.

"Listen to me," he said solemnly. "I saw this girl half an hour before
I saw you. She rushed