"Are you certain she was a Bretonne?" he asked. His nervousness
surprised me.
"Does she not say so?" I replied.
"I know--I know--but that message--there is only one woman who could
have sent it--" He hesitated, red as a pippin.
He was so young, so manly, so unspoiled, and so red, that on an
impulse I said: "Kelly, it was Mademoiselle Elven who sent you the
message."
His face expressed troubled astonishment.
"Is that her name?" he asked.
"Well--it's one of them, anyway," I replied, beginning to feel
troubled in my turn. "See here, Kelly, it's not my business, but you
won't mind if I speak plainly, will you? The times are queer--you
understand. Everybody is suspicious; everybody is under suspicion in
these days. And I want to say that the young lady who sent that
curious message to you is as clever as twenty men like you and me."
He was silent.
"If it is a love affair, I'll stop now--not a question, you
understand. If it is not--well, as an older and more battered and
world-worn man, I'm going to make a suggestion to you--with your
permission."
"Make it," he said, quietly.
"Then I will. Don't talk to Mademoiselle Elven. You, Speed, and I
know something about a certain conspiracy; we are going to know more
before we inform the captain of that cruiser out there beyond Point
Paradise. I know Mademoiselle Elven--slightly. I am afraid of her--and
I have not yet decided why. Don't talk to her."
"But--I don't know her," he said; "or, at least I don't know her by
that name."
After a moment I said: "Is the person in question the companion of
the Countess de Vassart?"
"If she is I do not know it," he replied.
"Was she once an actress?"
"It would astonish me to believe it!" he said.
"Then who do you believe sent you that message, Kelly?"
His cheeks began to burn again, and he gave me an uncomfortable look.
A silence, and he sat down in my dressing-room, his boyish head buried
in his hands. After a glance at him I began changing my training-suit
for riding-clothes, whistling the while softly to myself. As I
buttoned a fresh collar he looked up.
"Mr. Scarlett, you are well-born and--you are here in the circus with
the rest of us. You know what we are--you know that two or three of us
have seen better days,... that something has gone wrong with us to
bring us here,... but we never speak of it,... and never ask
questions.... But I should like to tell you about myself;... you are a
gentleman, you know,... and I was not born to anything in
particular.... I was a clerk in the consul's office in Paris when
Monsieur Tissandier took a fancy to me, and I entered his balloon
ateliers to learn to assist him."
He hesitated. I tied my necktie very carefully before a bit of broken
mirror.
"Then the government began to make much of us,... you remember? We
started experiments for the army.... I was intensely interested, and
... there was not much talk about secrecy then,... and my salary was
large, and I was received at the Tuileries. My head was turned;...
life was easy, brilliant. I made an invention--a little electric screw
which steered a balloon ... sometimes..." He laughed, a mirthless
laugh, and looked at me. All the color had gone from his face.
"There was a woman--" I turned partly towards him.
"We met first at the British Embassy,... then elsewhere,...
everywhere.... We skated together at the club in the Bois at that
celebrated fête,... you know?--the Emperor was there--"
"I know," I said.
He looked at me dreamily, passed his hand over his face, and went on:
"Somehow we always talked about military balloons. And that evening
... she was so interested in my work ... I brought some little
sketches I had made--"
"I understand," I said.
He looked at me miserably. "She was to return the sketches to me at
Calman's--the fashionable book-store,... next day.... I never thought
that the next day was to be Sunday.... The book-stores of Paris are
not open on Sunday--_but the War Office is_."