"Your doctor, monsieur, is in the house?"
"At this hour? No."
"Ah. That is a pity."
The young man lifted his head from his pillow and looked me over from
head to foot with a stare of disdain.
"I do not quite understand. You doubt my word, monsieur?"
"Why not?" I asked sharply.
It was quite possible that the cradle, this rug across his legs, the
pillow, were all pretences. Many a soldier in those days was pale and
worn and had sunken eyes, and yet was sound of limb and could do a
day's work of twenty-four hours if there were need. I had my theory
and as yet I had come upon nothing to disprove it. This young officer
might very well have brought in a cipher message to the Chateau
Villetaneuse. Mademoiselle Sophie might very well have waved her
lantern at the door to summon a fresh messenger.
"No; why should I not doubt your word?" I repeated.
He turned his face to the old lady. "It is your move, Baronne," he
said, and she placed the piece she held upon a square of the board.
Mademoiselle Sophie took her stand by the table between the players,
and the game went on just as though there were no intruder in the
room. It was uncomfortable for me. I shifted my feet. I tried to
appear at my ease; finally I sat down in a chair. They took no notice
of me whatever. But that I felt hot upon a discovery, but that I knew
if I could bring back to Noisy-le-Grand proof of where the leakage
through our lines occurred, I should earn approval and perhaps
promotion, I should very deeply have regretted my entrance into the
Chateau Villetaneuse. And I was extremely glad when at last the
corporal opened the door. He had searched the house--he had found no
one but Madame de Villetaneuse and an old servant who was watching by
her bed.
"Very well," said I, and the corporal returned to the hall.
Mademoiselle Sophie moved away from the chess-table. She came and
stood opposite to me, and though her face was still, her eyes were
hard with anger.
"And now perhaps you will tell me to what I owe your visit?" she said.
"Certainly," I returned. I fixed my eyes on her, and I said slowly, "I
have come to ask for more news of M. Bonnet's black sow."
Mademoiselle Sophie stared as if she were not sure whether I was mad
or drunk, but was very sure I was one or the other. The young
Frenchman started upon his couch, with the veins swelling upon his
forehead and a flushed face.
"This is an insult," he cried savagely, and no less savagely I
answered him.
"Hold your tongue!" I cried. "You forget too often that though you are
on parole you are still a prisoner."
He fell back upon the sofa with a groan of pain, and the girl hurried
to his side.
"Your leg hurts you. You should not have moved," she cried.
"It is nothing," he said, faintly.
Meanwhile I had been looking about the room for a box or a case where
the cipher messages might be hid. I saw nothing of the kind. Of course
they might be hidden between the pages of a book. I went from table to
table, taking them by the boards and shaking the leaves. Not a scrap
of paper tumbled out. There was another door in the room besides that
which led on to the landing.
"Mademoiselle, what room is that?" I asked.
"My bedroom," she answered, simply, and with a gesture full of dignity
she threw open the door.
I carried the mud and snow and the grime of a camp without a scruple
of remorse into that neat and pretty chamber. Mademoiselle Sophie
followed me as I searched wardrobe and drawer and box. At last I came
to one drawer in her dressing-table which was locked. I tried the
handle again to make sure. Yes, it was locked. I looked suddenly at
the young lady. She was watching me out of the corners of her eyes
with a peculiar intentness. I felt at once that I was hot.
"Open that drawer, mademoiselle," I said.
"It contains only some private things."
"Open that drawer or I burst it open."
"No," she cried, as I jerked the handle. "I will open it."
She fetched the key out of another drawer which was unlocked, and
fitted it into the lock of the dressing-table. And all the while I saw
that she was watching me. She meant to play me some trick, I was
certain. So I watched too, and I did well to watch. She turned the
key, opened the drawer, and then snatched out something with
extraordinary rapidity and ran as hard as she could to the door--not
the door through which we had entered, but a second door which gave on
to the passage. She ran very fast and she ran very lightly, and she
did not stumble over a chair as I did in pursuit of her. But she had
to unlatch the door and pull it open. I caught her up and closed my
arms about her. It was a little, carved, ebony box which she held, the
very thing for which I searched.
"I thought so," I cried with a laugh. "Drop the box, mademoiselle.
Drop it on the floor!"
The noise of our struggle had been heard in the next room. The
Baroness rushed through the doorway.
"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!"
"Drop the box, mademoiselle!"
And as I spoke she threw it away. She threw it through the doorway;
she tried to throw it over the banisters of the stairs, but my arms
were about hers, and it fell into the passage just beyond the door. I
darted from her and picked it up. When I returned with it she was
taking a gold chain from her neck. At the end of the chain hung a
little golden key. This she held out to me.
"Open it here," she said in a low, eager voice.
The sudden change only increased my suspicions, or rather my
conviction that I had now the proof which I needed. A minute ago she
was trying as hard as she could to escape with the box, now she was
imploring me to open it.
"Why, if you are so eager to show me the contents, did you try to
throw it away?" I asked.
"I tried to throw it down into the hall," she answered.
"My corporal would have picked it up."
"Oh, what would that matter?" she exclaimed, impatiently. "You would
have opened it in the hall. That was what I wanted. Open it here! At
all events open it here!"
The very urgency of her pleading made me determined to refuse the
plea.
"No, you have some other ruse, mademoiselle," said I. "Perhaps you
wish to gain time for your friend in the next room. No, we will return
here and open it comfortably by the fire."
I kept a tight hold upon the box. I shook it. To my delight I felt
that there were papers within it. I carried it back to the fireside
and sat down on a chair. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me close, and as
I fixed the little gold key into the lock she laid her hand very
gently upon my arm.
"I beg you not to unlock that box," she said; "if you do you will
bring upon me a great humiliation and upon yourself much remorse.
There is nothing there which concerns you. There are just my little
secrets. A girl may have secrets, monsieur, which are sacred to her."
She was standing quite close to me, and her back was towards the
French officer and her aunt. They could not see her face and they
could hardly have heard more than a word here and there of what she
said. For always she spoke in a low voice, and at times that low voice
dropped to a whisper, so that I myself had to watch her lips. I
answered her only by turning the key in the lock. She took her hand
from my arm and laid it on the lid to hinder me from opening it.
"I wore the key on a chain about my neck, monsieur," she whispered.
"Does that teach you nothing? Even though you are young, does it teach
you nothing? I said that if you unlocked that box you would cause me
great humiliation, thinking that would be enough to stop you. But I
see I must tell you more. Read the letters, monsieur, question me
about them, and you will make my life a very lonely one. I think so. I
think you will destroy my chance of happiness. You would not wish
that, monsieur? It is true that we are enemies, but some day this war
will end, and you would not wish to prolong its sufferings beyond the
end. Yet you will be doing that, monsieur, if you open that box. You
would be sorry afterwards when you were back at home to know that a
girl in France was suffering from a needless act of yours. Yes, you
will be sorry if you open that box."
It seems now almost impossible to me that I could have doubted her
sincerity; she spoke with so much simplicity, and so desperate an
appeal looked out from her dark eyes. Ever since that Christmas night
I can see her quite clearly at will, standing as she stood then--all
the sincerity of her which I would not acknowledge, all the appeal
which I would not hear; and I see her many times when for my peace I
would rather not. Much remorse, she said very wisely, would be the
consequence for me. She was pleading for her pride, and to do that the
better she laid her pride aside; yet she never lost her dignity. She
was pleading for her chance of happiness, foreseeing that it was
likely to be destroyed, without any reason or any profit to a living
being, by a stranger who would the next moment pass out of her life.
Yet there was no outcry, and there were no tears. Had it been a
trick--I ask the ladies--would there not have been tears?
But I thought it was a trick and a cheap one. She was trying to make
me believe that there were love-letters in the box--compromising
love-letters. Now, I _know_ that there were no love-letters in the
box. I had seen the Frenchman's pretty way of saying thanks. I had
noticed how the caress hurt her just through what it lacked. He was
the friend, you see, and nothing more; she was the lover and the only
lover of the pair. There could be no love-letters in the box unless
she had written them herself and kept them. But I did not think she
was the girl to do that. There was a dignity about her which would
have stopped her pen.
I opened the box accordingly. Mademoiselle Sophie turned away
abruptly, and sitting down in a chair shaded her eyes with her hand. I
emptied the letters out on to a table, turning the box upside down,
and thus the first which I took up and read was the one which lay at
the very bottom. As I read it it seemed that every suspicion I had
formed was established. She had hinted at love-letters, she had spoken
of secrets sacred to a girl; and the letter was not even addressed to
her. It was addressed to Madame de Villetaneuse; it was a letter
which, if it meant no more than what was implied upon the surface,
would have long since found destruction in the waste-paper basket. For
it purported to be merely the acceptance of an invitation to dinner at
the town house of Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain.
It was signed only by a Christian name, "Armand," and the few
sentences which composed the letter explained that M. Armand was a
distant kinsman of Madame de Villetaneuse who had just come to Paris
to pursue his studies, and who, up till now, had no acquaintance with
the family.
I looked at Mademoiselle Sophie sternly. "So all this pother was about
a mere invitation to dinner! Once let it be known that M. Armand will
dine with Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain, and you
are humiliated, you lose your chance of happiness, and I, too, shall
find myself in good time suffering the pangs of remorse," and I read
the letter slowly aloud to her, word by word.
She returned no answer. She sat with her hand shading her face, and
she rocked her head backwards and forwards continually and rather
quickly, like a child with a racking headache. Of course, to my mind
all that was part of the game. The letter was dated two years back,
but the month was December, and, of course, to antedate would be the
first precaution.
"Come, mademoiselle," I said, changing my tone, "I invite you very
seriously to make a clean breast of it. I wish to take no harsh
measures with you if I can avoid them. Tell me frankly what news this
letter plainly translated gives to General Trochu in Paris."
"None," she answered.
"Very well," said I, and I took up the next letter. Ah, M. Armand
writes again a week later. It was evidently a good dinner and M.
Armand is properly grateful.
The gratitude, indeed, was rather excessive, rather provincial.
It was just the effusion which a young man who had not yet learned
self-possession might have written on his first introduction to the
highest social life of Paris. Certainly the correspondence was very
artfully designed. But what did it hide? I puzzled over the question;
I took the words and the dates, and it seemed to me that I began to
see light. So much stress was laid upon the dinner, that the word must
signify some event of importance. The first letter spoke of a dinner
in the future. I imagined that it had not been possible to pass this
warning into Paris. The second letter mentioned with gratitude that
the dinner had been successful. Well, suppose "dinner" stood for
"engagement"! The letter would refer to the sortie from Paris which
pushed back our lines and captured Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche.
That seemed likely. Madame de Villetaneuse gave the dinner; General
Trochu made the sortie. Then "Madame de Villetaneuse" stood for
"General Trochu." Who would be Armand? Why, the French people outside
Paris--the provincials! I had the explanation of that provincial
expression of gratitude. Ah, no doubt it all seems far-fetched now
that we sit quietly about this table. But put yourselves in the thick
of war and take twenty years off your lives! Suppose yourselves young
and green, eager for advancement, and just off your balance for want
of sleep, want of food, want of rest, want of everything, and brutal
from the facts of war. There are very few things which would seem
far-fetched. It seemed to me that I was deciphering these letters with
absolute accuracy. I saw myself promoted to captain, seconded to the
General Staff. M. Armand represented the French people in the
provinces. No doubt they would be grateful for that sortie. The only
point which troubled me arose from M. Armand's presence at that
dinner-party. Now, the one defect from the French point of view in
that sortie on Ville Evrart was that the French outside Paris did not
come to General Trochu's help. They were expected, but they did not
take part in that dinner-party.
I went on with the letters, hoping to find an explanation there. The
third letter was addressed to Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse, who had
evidently written to M. Armand on behalf of her mother, inviting him
to her box at the opera. M. Armand regretted that he had not been
fortunate enough to call at a time when mademoiselle was at home, and
would look forward to the pleasure of seeing her at the opera. Was
that an apology? I asked myself. An apology for absence at Ville
Evrart and a pledge to be present at the next engagement!
"Mademoiselle," I cried, "what does the opera stand for?"
Mademoiselle Sophie laughed disdainfully.
"For music, monsieur, for art, for refinement, for many things you do
not understand."
I sprang up in excitement. What did it matter what she said? M. Armand
stood for the Army of the Loire. It was that army which had been
expected at Ville Evrart. Here was a pledge that it would be reformed,
that it would come to the help of Paris at the next sortie. That was
valuable news--it could not but bring recognition to the man who
brought evidence of it into the Prussian lines. I hurriedly read
through the other letters, quoting a passage here and there, trying to
startle Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse into a confession. But she never
changed her attitude, she did not answer a word.
Her conduct was the more aggravating, for I began to get lost among
these letters. They were all in the same handwriting; they were all
signed "Armand," and they seemed to give a picture of the life of a
young man in Paris during the two years which preceded the war. They
recorded dinner-parties, visits to the theatres, examinations passed,
prizes won and lost, receptions, rides in the Bois, and Sunday
excursions into the country. All these phrases, these appointments,
these meetings, might have particular meanings. But if so, how
stupendous a cipher! Besides, how was it that none of these messages
had been passed into Paris? Very reluctantly I began to doubt my own
conjecture. I read some more letters, and then I suddenly turned back
to the earlier ones. I compared them with the later notes. I began to
be afraid the correspondence after all was genuine, for the tone of
the letters changed and changed so gradually, and yet so clearly, that
the greatest literary art could hardly have deliberately composed
them. I seemed to witness the actual progress of M. Armand, a
hobbledehoy from the provinces losing his awkwardness, acquiring ease
and polish in his contact with the refinement of Paris. Gratitude was
now expressed without effusion, he was no longer gaping with
admiration at the elegance of the women, a knowledge of the world
began to show itself in his comments. M. Armand was growing master of
himself, he had gained a facility of style and a felicity of phrase.
The last letters had the postmark of Paris, the first that of
Auvergne.
They were genuine, then. And they were not love-letters. I looked at
Mademoiselle Sophie with an increased perplexity. Why did she now sit
rocking her head like a child in pain? Why had she so struggled to
hinder me from opening them? They recorded a beginning of
acquaintanceship and the growth of that into friendship between a
young man and a young girl--nothing more. The friendship might
eventually end in marriage no doubt if left to itself, but there was
not a word of that in the letters. I was still wondering, when the
French officer raised himself from his sofa and dragged himself across
the room to Mademoiselle Sophie's chair. His left trouser leg had been
slit down the side from the knee to the foot and laced lightly so as
to make room for a bandage. He supported himself from chair to chair
with evident pain, and I could not doubt that his wound was as genuine
as the letters.
He bent down and gently took her hand away from her face.
"Sophie," he said, "I did not dare to think that you kept this place
for me in your thoughts. A little more courage and I should long since
have said to you what I say now. I beg your permission to ask Madame
de Villetaneuse to-morrow for your hand in marriage."
My house of cards tumbled down in a second. The French officer was M.
Armand. With the habit women have of treasuring tokens of the things
which have happened, Mademoiselle Sophie had kept all these trifling
notes and messages, and had even gathered to them the letters written
by him to her mother, so that the story might be complete. But without
M. Armand's knowledge; he was not to know; her pride must guard her
secret from him. For she was the lover and he only the friend, and she
knew it. Even in the little speech which he had just made, there was
just too much formality, just too little sincerity of voice. I
understood why she had tried to throw the ebony box down into the hall
so that I might open it there--I understood that I had caused her
great humiliation. But that was not all there was for me to
understand.
In answer to Armand she raised her eyes quietly, and shook her head.
"You wish to spare me shame," she said, "and I thank you very much.
But it is because of these letters that you spoke. I must think that.
I must always think it."
"No!" he exclaimed.
"But yes," she replied firmly. "If monsieur had not unlocked that
box--I don't know--but some day perhaps--oh, not yet, no, not yet--but
some day perhaps you might have come of your own accord and said what
you have just said. And I should have been very happy. But now you
never must. For you see I shall always think that the letters are
prompting you."
And M. Armand bowed.
I had taken from her her chance of happiness. The friendship between
them might have ended in marriage if left to itself. But I had not
left it to itself.
"Mademoiselle," I said, "I am very sorry."
She turned her dark eyes on me.
"Monsieur, I warned you. It is too late to be sorry," and as I stood
shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other, she added, gently,
"Will you not go, monsieur?"
I went out of the room, called together my escort, mounted and rode
off. It was past midnight now, and the night was clear. But I thought
neither of the little beds under the slope of the roof nor of any
danger on the road. There might have been a _franc-tireur_ behind
every tree. I would never have noticed it until one of them had
brought me down. Remorse was heavy upon me. I had behaved without
consideration, without chivalry, without any manners at all. I had not
been able to distinguish truth when it stared me in the face, or to
recognise honesty when it looked out from a young girl's dark eyes. I
had behaved, in a word, like the brute six months of war had made of
me. I wondered with a vague hope whether after all time might not set
matters right between M. Armand and Mademoiselle Sophie. And I wonder
now whether it has. But even if I knew that it had, I should always
remember that Christmas night of 1870 with acute regret. The only
incident, indeed, which I can mention with the slightest satisfaction
is this: On the way back to Noisy-le-Grand I came to a point where the
road from Chelles crossed the road from Montfermeil. I halted at a
little cabin which stood upon a grass-plot within the angle of the
roads, and tying up all the money I had on me in a pocket-handkerchief
I dropped the handkerchief through a broken window-pane.
The Colonel let the end of his cigar fall upon his plate, and pushed
back his chair from the table. "But I see we shall be late for the
opera," he said, as he glanced at the clock.
_November_, 1905.
THE AFFAIR
AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL
THE AFFAIR
AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL
I
Mr. Ricardo, when the excitements of the Villa Rose were done with,
returned to Grosvenor Square and resumed the busy, unnecessary life of
an amateur. But the studios had lost their savour, artists their
attractiveness, and even the Russian opera seemed a trifle flat. Life
was altogether a disappointment; Fate, like an actress at a
restaurant, had taken the wooden pestle in her hand and stirred all
the sparkle out of the champagne; Mr. Ricardo languished--until one
unforgettable morning.
He was sitting disconsolately at his breakfast-table when the door was
burst open and a square, stout man, with the blue, shaven face of a
French comedian, flung himself into the room. Ricardo sprang towards
the new-comer with a cry of delight.
"My dear Hanaud!"
He seized his visitor by the arm, feeling it to make sure that here,
in flesh and blood, stood the man who had introduced him to the
acutest sensations of his life. He turned towards his butler, who was
still bleating expostulations in the doorway at the unceremonious
irruption of the French detective.
"Another place, Burton, at once," he cried, and as soon as he and
Hanaud were alone: "What good wind blows you to London?"
"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the
line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a
holiday."
"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the
line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a
holiday."
A light had suddenly flashed in Mr. Ricardo's eyes, and was now no
less suddenly extinguished. Hanaud paid no attention whatever to his
friend's disappointment. He pounced upon a piece of silver which
adorned the tablecloth and took it over to the window.
"Everything is as it should be, my friend," he exclaimed, with a grin.
"Grosvenor Square, the _Times_ open at the money column, and a false
antique upon the table. Thus I have dreamed of you. All Mr. Ricardo is
in that sentence."
Ricardo laughed nervously. Recollection made him wary of Hanaud's
sarcasms. He was shy even to protest the genuineness of his silver.
But, indeed, he had not the time. For the door opened again and once
more the butler appeared. On this occasion, however, he was alone.
"Mr. Calladine would like to speak to you, sir," he said.
"Calladine!" cried Ricardo in an extreme surprise. "That is the most
extraordinary thing." He looked at the clock upon his mantelpiece. It
was barely half-past eight. "At this hour, too?"
"Mr. Calladine is still wearing evening dress," the butler remarked.
Ricardo started in his chair. He began to dream of possibilities; and
here was Hanaud miraculously at his side.
"Where is Mr. Calladine?" he asked.
"I have shown him into the library."
"Good," said Mr. Ricardo. "I will come to him."
But he was in no hurry. He sat and let his thoughts play with this
incident of Calladine's early visit.
"It is very odd," he said. "I have not seen Calladine for months--no,
nor has anyone. Yet, a little while ago, no one was more often seen."
He fell apparently into a muse, but he was merely seeking to provoke
Hanaud's curiosity. In this attempt, however, he failed. Hanaud
continued placidly to eat his breakfast, so that Mr. Ricardo was
compelled to volunteer the story which he was burning to tell.
"Drink your coffee, Hanaud, and you shall hear about Calladine."
Hanaud grunted with resignation, and Mr. Ricardo flowed on:
"Calladine was one of England's young men. Everybody said so. He was
going to do very wonderful things as soon as he had made up his mind
exactly what sort of wonderful things he was going to do. Meanwhile,
you met him in Scotland, at Newmarket, at Ascot, at Cowes, in the box
of some great lady at the Opera--not before half-past ten in the
evening _there_--in any fine house where the candles that night
happened to be lit. He went everywhere, and then a day came and he
went nowhere. There was no scandal, no trouble, not a whisper against
his good name. He simply vanished. For a little while a few people
asked: 'What has become of Calladine?' But there never was any answer,
and London has no time for unanswered questions. Other promising young
men dined in his place. Calladine had joined the huge legion of the
Come-to-nothings. No one even seemed to pass him in the street. Now
unexpectedly, at half-past eight in the morning, and in evening dress,
he calls upon me. 'Why?' I ask myself."
Mr. Ricardo sank once more into a reverie. Hanaud watched him with a
broadening smile of pure enjoyment.
"And in time, I suppose," he remarked casually, "you will perhaps ask
him?"
Mr. Ricardo sprang out of his pose to his feet.
"Before I discuss serious things with an acquaintance," he said with a
scathing dignity, "I make it a rule to revive my impressions of his
personality. The cigarettes are in the crystal box."
"They would be," said Hanaud, unabashed, as Ricardo stalked from the
room. But in five minutes Mr. Ricardo came running back, all his
composure gone.
"It is the greatest good fortune that you, my friend, should have
chosen this morning to visit me," he cried, and Hanaud nodded with a
little grimace of resignation.
"There goes my holiday. You shall command me now and always. I will
make the acquaintance of your young friend."
He rose up and followed Ricardo into his study, where a young man was
nervously pacing the floor.
"Mr. Calladine," said Ricardo. "This is Mr. Hanaud."
The young man turned eagerly. He was tall, with a noticeable elegance
and distinction, and the face which he showed to Hanaud was, in spite
of its agitation, remarkably handsome.
"I am very glad," he said. "You are not an official of this country.
You can advise--without yourself taking action, if you'll be so good."
Hanaud frowned. He bent his eyes uncompromisingly upon Calladine.
"What does that mean?" he asked, with a note of sternness in his
voice.
"It means that I must tell someone," Calladine burst out in quivering
tones. "That I don't know what to do. I am in a difficulty too big for
me. That's the truth."
Hanaud looked at the young man keenly. It seemed to Ricardo that he
took in every excited gesture, every twitching feature, in one
comprehensive glance. Then he said in a friendlier voice:
"Sit down and tell me"--and he himself drew up a chair to the table.
"I was at the Semiramis last night," said Calladine, naming one of the
great hotels upon the Embankment. "There was a fancy-dress ball."
All this happened, by the way, in those far-off days before the
war--nearly, in fact, three years ago today--when London, flinging
aside its reticence, its shy self-consciousness, had become a city of
carnivals and masquerades, rivalling its neighbours on the Continent
in the spirit of its gaiety, and exceeding them by its stupendous
luxury. "I went by the merest chance. My rooms are in the Adelphi
Terrace."
"There!" cried Mr. Ricardo in surprise, and Hanaud lifted a hand to
check his interruptions.
"Yes," continued Calladine. "The night was warm, the music floated
through my open windows and stirred old memories. I happened to have a
ticket. I went."
Calladine drew up a chair opposite to Hanaud and, seating himself,
told, with many nervous starts and in troubled tones, a story which,
to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was as fabulous as any out of the "Arabian
Nights."
"I had a ticket," he began, "but no domino. I was consequently stopped
by an attendant in the lounge at the top of the staircase leading down
to the ballroom.
"'You can hire a domino in the cloakroom, Mr. Calladine,' he said to
me. I had already begun to regret the impulse which had brought me,
and I welcomed the excuse with which the absence of a costume provided
me. I was, indeed, turning back to the door, when a girl who had at
that moment run down from the stairs of the hotel into the lounge,
cried gaily: 'That's not necessary'; and at the same moment she flung
to me a long scarlet cloak which she had been wearing over her own
dress. She was young, fair, rather tall, slim, and very pretty; her
hair was drawn back from her face with a ribbon, and rippled down her
shoulders in heavy curls; and she was dressed in a satin coat and
knee-breeches of pale green and gold, with a white waistcoat and
silk stockings and scarlet heels to her satin shoes. She was as
straight-limbed as a boy, and exquisite like a figure in Dresden
china. I caught the cloak and turned to thank her. But she did not
wait. With a laugh she ran down the stairs a supple and shining
figure, and was lost in the throng at the doorway of the ballroom. I
was stirred by the prospect of an adventure. I ran down after her. She
was standing just inside the room alone, and she was gazing at the
scene with parted lips and dancing eyes. She laughed again as she saw
the cloak about my shoulders, a delicious gurgle of amusement, and I
said to her:
"'May I dance with you?'
"'Oh, do!' she cried, with a little jump, and clasping her hands. She
was of a high and joyous spirit and not difficult in the matter of an
introduction. 'This gentleman will do very well to present us,' she
said, leading me in front of a bust of the God Pan which stood in a
niche of the wall. 'I am, as you see, straight out of an opera. My
name is Celymene or anything with an eighteenth century sound to it.
You are--what you will. For this evening we are friends.'
"'And for to-morrow?' I asked.
"'I will tell you about that later on,' she replied, and she began to
dance with a light step and a passion in her dancing which earned me
many an envious glance from the other men. I was in luck, for Celymene
knew no one, and though, of course, I saw the faces of a great many
people whom I remembered, I kept them all at a distance. We had been
dancing for about half an hour when the first queerish thing happened.
She stopped suddenly in the midst of a sentence with a little gasp. I
spoke to her, but she did not hear. She was gazing past me, her eyes
wide open, and such a rapt look upon her face as I had never seen. She
was lost in a miraculous vision. I followed the direction of her eyes
and, to my astonishment, I saw nothing more than a stout, short,
middle-aged woman, egregiously over-dressed as Marie Antoinette.
"'So you do know someone here?' I said, and I had to repeat the words
sharply before my friend withdrew her eyes. But even then she was not
aware of me. It was as if a voice had spoken to her whilst she was
asleep and had disturbed, but not wakened her. Then she came
to--there's really no other word I can think of which describes her at
that moment--she came to with a deep sigh.
"'No,' she answered. 'She is a Mrs. Blumenstein from Chicago, a widow
with ambitions and a great deal of money. But I don't know her.'
"'Yet you know all about her,' I remarked.
"'She crossed in the same boat with me,' Celymene replied. 'Did I tell
you that I landed at Liverpool this morning? She is staying at the
Semiramis too. Oh, let us dance!'
"She twitched my sleeve impatiently, and danced with a kind of
violence and wildness as if she wished to banish some sinister
thought. And she did undoubtedly banish it. We supped together and
grew confidential, as under such conditions people will. She told me
her real name. It was Joan Carew.
"'I have come over to get an engagement if I can at Covent Garden. I
am supposed to sing all right. But I don't know anyone. I have been
brought up in Italy.'
"'You have some letters of introduction, I suppose?' I asked.
"'Oh, yes. One from my teacher in Milan. One from an American
manager.'
"In my turn I told her my name and where I lived, and I gave her my
card. I thought, you see, that since I used to know a good many
operatic people, I might be able to help her.
"'Thank you,' she said, and at that moment Mrs. Blumenstein, followed
by a party, chiefly those lap-dog young men who always seem to gather
about that kind of person, came into the supper-room and took a table
close to us. There was at once an end of all confidences--indeed, of
all conversation. Joan Carew lost all the lightness of her spirit; she
talked at random, and her eyes were drawn again and again to the
grotesque slander on Marie Antoinette. Finally I became annoyed.
"'Shall we go?' I suggested impatiently, and to my surprise she
whispered passionately:
"'Yes. Please! Let us go.'
"Her voice was actually shaking, her small hands clenched. We went
back to the ballroom, but Joan Carew did not recover her gaiety, and
half-way through a dance, when we were near to the door, she stopped
abruptly--extraordinarily abruptly.
"'I shall go,' she said abruptly. 'I am tired. I have grown dull.'
"I protested, but she made a little grimace.
"'You'll hate me in half an hour. Let's be wise and stop now while we
are friends,' she said, and whilst I removed the domino from my
shoulders she stooped very quickly. It seemed to me that she picked up
something which had lain hidden beneath the sole of her slipper. She
certainly moved her foot, and I certainly saw something small and
bright flash in the palm of her glove as she raised herself again. But
I imagined merely that it was some object which she had dropped.
"'Yes, we'll go,' she said, and we went up the stairs into the lobby.
Certainly all the sparkle had gone out of our adventure. I recognized
her wisdom.
"'But I shall meet you again?' I asked.
"'Yes. I have your address. I'll write and fix a time when you will be
sure to find me in. Good-night, and a thousand thanks. I should have
been bored to tears if you hadn't come without a domino.'
"She was speaking lightly as she held out her hand, but her grip
tightened a little and--clung. Her eyes darkened and grew troubled,
her mouth trembled. The shadow of a great trouble had suddenly closed
about her. She shivered.
"'I am half inclined to ask you to stay, however dull I am; and dance
with me till daylight--the safe daylight,' she said.
"It was an extraordinary phrase for her to use, and it moved me.
"'Let us go back then!' I urged. She gave me an impression suddenly of
someone quite forlorn. But Joan Carew recovered her courage. 'No, no,'
she answered quickly. She snatched her hand away and ran lightly up
the staircase, turning at the corner to wave her hand and smile. It
was then half-past one in the morning."
So far Calladine had spoken without an interruption. Mr. Ricardo, it
is true, was bursting to break in with the most important questions,
but a salutary fear of Hanaud restrained him. Now, however, he had an
opportunity, for Calladine paused.
"Half-past one," he said sagely. "Ah!"
"And when did you go home?" Hanaud asked of Calladine.
"True," said Mr. Ricardo. "It is of the greatest consequence."
Calladine was not sure. His partner had left behind her the strangest
medley of sensations in his breast. He was puzzled, haunted, and
charmed. He had to think about her; he was a trifle uplifted; sleep
was impossible. He wandered for a while about the ballroom. Then he
walked to his chambers along the echoing streets and sat at his
window; and some time afterwards the hoot of a motor-horn broke the
silence and a car stopped and whirred in the street below. A moment
later his bell rang.
He ran down the stairs in a queer excitement, unlocked the street door
and opened it. Joan Carew, still in her masquerade dress with her
scarlet cloak about her shoulders, slipped through the opening.
"Shut the door," she whispered, drawing herself apart in a corner.
"Your cab?" asked Calladine.
"It has gone."
Calladine latched the door. Above, in the well of the stairs, the
light spread out from the open door of his flat. Down here all was
dark. He could just see the glimmer of her white face, the glitter of
her dress, but she drew her breath like one who has run far. They
mounted the stairs cautiously. He did not say a word until they were
both safely in his parlour; and even then it was in a low voice.
"What has happened?"
"You remember the woman I stared at? You didn't know why I stared, but
any girl would have understood. She was wearing the loveliest pearls I
ever saw in my life."
Joan was standing by the edge of the table. She was tracing with her
finger a pattern on the cloth as she spoke. Calladine started with a
horrible presentiment.
"Yes," she said. "I worship pearls. I always have done. For one thing,
they improve on me. I haven't got any, of course. I have no money. But
friends of mine who do own pearls have sometimes given theirs to me to
wear when they were going sick, and they have always got back their
lustre. I think that has had a little to do with my love of them. Oh,
I have always longed for them--just a little string. Sometimes I have
felt that I would have given my soul for them."
She was speaking in a dull, monotonous voice. But Calladine recalled
the ecstasy which had shone in her face when her eyes first had fallen
on the pearls, the longing which had swept her quite into another
world, the passion with which she had danced to throw the obsession
off.
"And I never noticed them at all," he said.
"Yet they were wonderful. The colour! The lustre! All the evening they
tempted me. I was furious that a fat, coarse creature like that should
have such exquisite things. Oh, I was mad."
She covered her face suddenly with her hands and swayed. Calladine
sprang towards her. But she held out her hand.
"No, I am all right." And though he asked her to sit down she would
not. "You remember when I stopped dancing suddenly?"
"Yes. You had something hidden under your foot?"
The girl nodded.
"Her key!" And under his breath Calladine uttered a startled cry.
For the first time since she had entered the room Joan Carew raised
her head and looked at him. Her eyes were full of terror, and with the
terror was mixed an incredulity as though she could not possibly
believe that that had happened which she knew had happened.
"A little Yale key," the girl continued. "I saw Mrs. Blumenstein
looking on the floor for something, and then I saw it shining on the
very spot. Mrs. Blumenstein's suite was on the same floor as mine, and
her maid slept above. All the maids do. I knew that. Oh, it seemed to
me as if I had sold my soul and was being paid."
Now Calladine understood what she had meant by her strange
phrase--"the safe daylight."
"I went up to my little suite," Joan Carew continued. "I sat there
with the key burning through my glove until I had given her time
enough to fall asleep"--and though she hesitated before she spoke the
words, she did speak them, not looking at Calladine, and with a
shudder of remorse making her confession complete. "Then I crept out.
The corridor was dimly lit. Far away below the music was throbbing. Up
here it was as silent as the grave. I opened the door--her door. I
found myself in a lobby. The suite, though bigger, was arranged like
mine. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. I listened in the
darkness. I couldn't hear a sound. I crept forward to the door in
front of me. I stood with my fingers on the handle and my heart
beating fast enough to choke me. I had still time to turn back. But I
couldn't. There were those pearls in front of my eyes, lustrous and
wonderful. I opened the door gently an inch or so--and then--it all
happened in a second."
Joan Carew faltered. The night was too near to her, its memory too
poignant with terror. She shut her eyes tightly and cowered down in a
chair. With the movement her cloak slipped from her shoulders and
dropped on to the ground. Calladine leaned forward with an exclamation
of horror; Joan Carew started up.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Nothing. Go on."
"I found myself inside the room with the door shut behind me. I had
shut it myself in a spasm of terror. And I dared not turn round to
open it. I was helpless."
"What do you mean? She was awake?"
Joan Carew shook her head.
"There were others in the room before me, and on the same
errand--men!"
Calladine drew back, his eyes searching the girl's face.
"Yes?" he said slowly.
"I didn't see them at first. I didn't hear them. The room was quite
dark except for one jet of fierce white light which beat upon the door
of a safe. And as I shut the door the jet moved swiftly and the light
reached me and stopped. I was blinded. I stood in the full glare of
it, drawn up against the panels of the door, shivering, sick with
fear. Then I heard a quiet laugh, and someone moved softly towards me.
Oh, it was terrible! I recovered the use of my limbs; in a panic I
turned to the door, but I was too late. Whilst I fumbled with the
handle I was seized; a hand covered my mouth. I was lifted to the
centre of the room. The jet went out, the electric lights were turned
on. There were two men dressed as apaches in velvet trousers and red
scarves, like a hundred others in the ballroom below, and both were
masked. I struggled furiously; but, of course, I was like a child in
their grasp. 'Tie her legs,' the man whispered who was holding me;
'she's making too much noise.' I kicked and fought, but the other man
stooped and tied my ankles, and I fainted."
Calladine nodded his head.
"Yes?" he said.
"When I came to, the lights were still burning, the door of the safe
was open, the room empty; I had been flung on to a couch at the foot
of the bed. I was lying there quite free."
"Was the safe empty?" asked Calladine suddenly.
"I didn't look," she answered. "Oh!"--and she covered her face
spasmodically with her hands. "I looked at the bed. Someone was lying
there--under a sheet and quite still. There was a clock ticking in the
room; it was the only sound. I was terrified. I was going mad with
fear. If I didn't get out of the room at once I felt that I should
go mad, that I should scream and bring everyone to find me alone
with--what was under the sheet in the bed. I ran to the door and
looked out through a slit into the corridor. It was still quite empty,
and below the music still throbbed in the ballroom. I crept down the
stairs, meeting no one until I reached the hall. I looked into the
ballroom as if I was searching for someone. I stayed long enough to
show myself. Then I got a cab and came to you."
A short silence followed. Joan Carew looked at her companion in
appeal. "You are the only one I could come to," she added. "I know no
one else."
Calladine sat watching the girl in silence. Then he asked, and his
voice was hard:
"And is that all you have to tell me?"
"Yes."
"You are quite sure?"
Joan Carew looked at him perplexed by the urgency of his question. She
reflected for a moment or two.
"Quite."
Calladine rose to his feet and stood beside her.
"Then how do you come to be wearing this?" he asked, and he lifted a
chain of platinum and diamonds which she was wearing about her
shoulders. "You weren't wearing it when you danced with me."
Joan Carew stared at the chain.
"No. It's not mine. I have never seen it before." Then a light came
into her eyes. "The two men--they must have thrown it over my head
when I was on the couch--before they went." She looked at it more
closely. "That's it. The chain's not very valuable. They could spare
it, and--it would accuse me--of what they did."
"Yes, that's very good reasoning," said Calladine coldly.
Joan Carew looked quickly up into his face.
"Oh, you don't believe me," she cried. "You think--oh, it's
impossible." And, holding him by the edge of his coat, she burst into
a storm of passionate denials.
"But you went to steal, you know," he said gently, and she answered
him at once:
"Yes, I did, but not this." And she held up the necklace. "Should I
have stolen this, should I have come to you wearing it, if I had
stolen the pearls, if I had"--and she stopped--"if my story were not
true?"
Calladine weighed her argument, and it affected him.
"No, I think you wouldn't," he said frankly.
Most crimes, no doubt, were brought home because the criminal had made
some incomprehensibly stupid mistake; incomprehensibly stupid, that
is, by the standards of normal life. Nevertheless, Calladine was
inclined to believe her. He looked at her. That she should have
murdered was absurd. Moreover, she was not making a parade of remorse,
she was not playing the unctuous penitent; she had yielded to a
temptation, had got herself into desperate straits, and was at her
wits' ends how to escape from them. She was frank about herself.
Calladine looked at the clock. It was nearly five o'clock in the
morning, and though the music could still be heard from the ballroom
in the Semiramis, the night had begun to wane upon the river.
"You must go back," he said. "I'll walk with you."
They crept silently down the stairs and into the street. It was only a
step to the Semiramis. They met no one until they reached the Strand.
There many, like Joan Carew in masquerade, were standing about, or
walking hither and thither in search of carriages and cabs. The whole
street was in a bustle, what with drivers shouting and people coming
away.
"You can slip in unnoticed," said Calladine as he looked into the
thronged courtyard. "I'll telephone to you in the morning."
"You will?" she cried eagerly, clinging for a moment to his arm.
"Yes, for certain," he replied. "Wait in until you hear from me. I'll
think it over. I'll do what I can."
"Thank you," she said fervently.
He watched her scarlet cloak flitting here and there in the crowd
until it vanished through the doorway. Then, for the second time, he
walked back to his chambers, while the morning crept up the river from
the sea.
* * * * *
This was the story which Calladine told in Mr. Ricardo's library. Mr.
Ricardo heard it out with varying emotions. He began with a thrill of
expectation like a man on a dark threshold of great excitements. The
setting of the story appealed to him, too, by a sort of brilliant
bizarrerie which he found in it. But, as it went on, he grew puzzled
and a trifle disheartened. There were flaws and chinks; he began to
bubble with unspoken criticisms, then swift and clever thrusts which
he dared not deliver. He looked upon the young man with disfavour, as
upon one who had half opened a door upon a theatre of great promise
and shown him a spectacle not up to the mark. Hanaud, on the other
hand, listened imperturbably, without an expression upon his face,
until the end. Then he pointed a finger at Calladine and asked him
what to Ricardo's mind was a most irrelevant question.
"You got back to your rooms, then, before five, Mr. Calladine, and it
is now nine o'clock less a few minutes."
"Yes."
"Yet you have not changed your clothes. Explain to me that. What did
you do between five and half-past eight?"
Calladine looked down at his rumpled shirt front.
"Upon my word, I never thought of it," he cried. "I was worried out of
my mind. I couldn't decide what to do. Finally, I determined to talk
to Mr. Ricardo, and after I had come to that conclusion I just waited
impatiently until I could come round with decency."
Hanaud rose from his chair. His manner was grave, but conveyed no
single hint of an opinion. He turned to Ricardo.
"Let us go round to your young friend's rooms in the Adelphi," he
said; and the three men drove thither at once.