in the bosom of her dress with her eye upon the door. She did
not see a drop of blood gather on the lobe of Celia's ear and fall into
the cushion on which her face was pressed. She had hardly hidden them
away before the door opened and Adele Rossignol burst into the room.

"What is the matter?" asked Vauquier.

"The safe's empty. We have searched the room. We have found nothing,"
she cried.

"Everything is in the safe," Helene insisted.

"No."

The two women ran out of the room and up the stairs. Celia, lying on
the settee, heard all the quiet of the house change to noise and
confusion. It was as though a tornado raged in the room overhead.
Furniture was tossed about and over the room, feet stamped and ran,
locks were smashed in with heavy blows. For many minutes the storm
raged. Then it ceased, and she heard the accomplices clattering down
the stairs without a thought of the noise they made. They burst into
the room. Harry Wethermill was laughing hysterically, like a man off
his head. He had been wearing a long dark overcoat when he entered the
house; now he carried the coat over his arm. He was in a dinner-jacket,
and his black clothes were dusty and disordered.

"It's all for nothing!" he screamed rather than cried. "Nothing but the
one necklace and a handful of rings!"

In a frenzy he actually stooped over the dead woman and questioned her.

"Tell us--where did you hide them?" he cried.

"The girl will know," said Helene.

Wethermill rose up and looked wildly at Celia.

"Yes, yes," he said.

He had no scruple, no pity any longer for the girl. There was no gain
from the crime unless she spoke. He would have placed his head in the
guillotine for nothing. He ran to the writing-table, tore off half a
sheet of paper, and brought it over with a pencil to the sofa. He gave
them to Vauquier to hold, and drawing out the sofa from the wall
slipped in behind. He lifted up Celia with Rossignol's help, and made
her sit in the middle of the sofa with her feet upon the ground. He
unbound her wrists and fingers, and Vauquier placed the writing-pad and
the paper on the girl's knees. Her arms were still pinioned above the
elbows; she could not raise her hands high enough to snatch the scarf
from her lips. But with the pad held up to her she could write.

"Where did she keep her jewels! Quick! Take the pencil and write," said
Wethermill, holding her left wrist.

Vauquier thrust the pencil into her right hand, and awkw