"Come along! We shall be late, you know. You can finish your little
concert another time."
"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie. "_Quoi, donc?_" He turned with a start.
"Oh yes!" said he. "Yes, come along! I was mooning. _Allons_!
_Allons_, my old!" He took Hartley's arm and began to shove him along
at a rapid walk.
"I will moon no more," he said. "Instead, you shall tell me about the
wonderful Miss Benham whom everybody is talking of. Isn't there
something odd connected with the family? I vaguely recall something
unusual, some mystery or misfortune or something.
"But first a moment! One small moment, my old. Regard me that!" They
had come to the end of the bridge and the great Place de la Concorde lay
before them.
"In all the world," said Ste. Marie--and he spoke the truth--"there is
not another such square. Regard it, _mon brave_! Bow yourself before
it! It is a miracle."
The great bronze lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the
still damp pavement about them. To either side the trees of the
Tuileries gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs Elysees lay
in a solid black mass. In the middle the obelisk rose slender and
straight, its pointed top black against the sky, and beneath the water
of the Nereid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay
lights of the Rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster and, beyond these
still, the tall columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista.
Pedestrians and cabs crept across that vast space, and seemed curiously
little, like black insects, and round about it all the eight cities of
France sat atop their stone pedestals and looked on. Ste. Marie gave a
little sigh of pleasure, and the two moved forward, bearing to the left,
towards the Champs Elysees.
"And now," said he, "about these Benhams. What is the thing I cannot
quite recall? What has happened to them?"
"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean the disappearance of Miss
Benham's young brother, a month ago, before you returned to Paris. Yes,
that was certainly very odd. That is, it was either very odd or very
commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut up about it.
The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young fool but not
downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all well, but I
know he spent his time chiefly at the Cafe de Paris and at the Olympia
and at Longchamps and at _Henry's Bar_. Well, he just disappeared, that
is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though
the family has had a small army of detectives on his trail, they've not
discovered the smallest clue. It's deuced odd altogether. You might
think it easy to disappear like that but it's not."
"No--no," said Ste. Marie thoughtfully. "No, I should fancy not.
"This boy," he said after a pause, "I think I had seen him--had him
pointed out to me--before I went away. I think it was at _Henry's Bar_
where all the young Americans go to drink strange beverages. I am quite
sure I remember his face. A weak face but not quite bad."