The American abroad has a touching faith, first, in the might and power of
his country to redress all wrongs, and secondly, in the personal prestige
of his Ambassador.
As a rule this faith is justified by works, but in the special and very
peculiar case of John Dampier, Senator Burton was destined to meet with
disappointment.
With keen vexation he learnt that the distinguished and genial individual
who just then represented the great sister Republic in Paris, and on whom
he himself had absolutely counted for advice and help, for they were old
friends and allies, had taken sick leave for three months.
Paris, during an Exhibition Year, seems mysteriously to lose the wonderful
climate which a certain British Minister for Foreign Affairs once declared
to be the only one that suited every diplomat's constitution!
The Senator and his daughter drove on from the American Embassy to the
American Consulate, and it was with a feeling of considerable satisfaction
that they were shown by a courteous janitor into the pleasant, airy
waiting-room where a large engraving of Christopher Columbus, and a huge
photograph of the Washington Monument, welcome the wandering American.
Even in this waiting-room there was an air of cheerful activity, a constant
coming and going, which showed that whatever might be the case with the
Embassy, the Consulate, at any rate, was very much alive.
"Mr. Senator Burton? Glad to see you, sir! What can we do for you?" The
words fell with a cheering, refreshing sound on the Senator's ears, though
the speaker went on a trifle less cordially, "We are simply overwhelmed
with business just now! You can imagine--but no, no one could imagine, the
length, the breadth, the scope of what people think to be our duties in an
Exhibition Year!"
The distinguished visitor and his daughter were being shown into the
Consul's own pleasant study. Now this spacious, comfortable apartment is
hung with fine engravings of the White House and of the Capitol, and
Senator Burton felt a thrill of yearning as well as of pride when he gazed
at these familiar, stately buildings which looked so homelike and dear when
seen amid alien surroundings.
And as he sat down, and prepared to state his business, there suddenly came
over this kindly American a curious feeling of misgiving, of self-rebuke.
Had he remained at home in Washington, content with all his familiar duties
and pleasures, he would never have been brought into this association with
a strange, unpleasant life-story.
But he soon shook off this feeling of misgiving, and as the curious tale he
had to tell was being listened to, kindly and patiently, he felt glad
indeed that he had at last found a fellow-countryman in whom to confide,
and on whose advice he could rely.
But when Senator Burton had finished speaking, the American Consul shook
his head. "I only wish we could help you!" he exclaimed. "But we can do
nothing where a British subject is concerned. We've quite enough to do
looking after those of our own people who disappear in Paris! Would you be
surprised to learn, Mr. Senator, that four of our countrymen have
completely vanished within the last two days?" And as Daisy uttered a
little exclamation of incredulous dismay, "Don't feel so badly about it, my
dear young lady, I quite expect all four of them to turn up again, after
having given us and their friends a great deal of useless,
expensive worry."
"What I really want," said the Senator earnestly, "is not your official
assistance, but a word of practical advice. What is it this unfortunate
young lady, Mrs. Dampier, ought to do? We've tried the Commissaire de
Police of the quarter, and he's perfectly useless: in fact my son, who's
seen him twice, doesn't believe a word he says."
The Consul gave what Senator Burton felt to be a very French shrug of the
shoulders.
"That don't surprise me! As regards the lower branch of the service the
police here is very understaffed. The only thing for you to do is to take
this poor lady to the British Consulate. They are driven to death there,
just as we are here, and they'll naturally snatch at any excuse to avoid an
extra job. But of course if this Mrs. Dampier is, as you say, a British
subject--well, they're bound to do something for her. But you may believe
me when I say, Mr. Senator, that there's probably nothing really mysterious
about the case. You may find this Mr. Dampier at the hotel when you return
there. It may interest you to learn"--he hesitated, and glanced at his
young countrywoman--"that among our countrymen who vanish, I mean in a
temporary way, there are more married men than bachelors."
And with that enigmatic pronouncement the genial Consul courteously and
smilingly dismissed Senator Burton and his daughter.
The same afternoon saw the Senator and Mrs. Dampier on their way to the
British Consulate.
The day before Nancy had been unwilling to leave the hotel for even the
shortest space of time, now she seemed sunk into apathetic despair--and
yet, as they drove along together, the Senator still doubted, still
wondered in the depths of his heart, whether the lovely young woman now
sitting silent by his side, was not making a fool of him, as she had
certainly done of his two children.
He caught himself again and again thinking of her as "Nancy;" already his
daughter and she were on Christian-name terms with one another; and as for
Gerald, he had put everything else aside to devote himself entirely to
solving the mystery of John Dampier's disappearance.
At last they reached the British Consulate, and the American could not help
feeling a thrill of pride as he mentally compared the Office where he had
been that morning and that which represented, in this shabby side street,
the commercial might and weight of the British Empire.
The waiting-room into which they were shown was a gloomy apartment looking
on to an inner courtyard, and Senator Burton's card did not produce the
magic effect it had done at the American Consulate; in fact he and his
companion had to take their turn with a crowd of other people, and the time
they were kept waiting seemed very long.
At last, however, they were ushered into the study of the courteous Briton
whose difficult and sometimes exasperating duty it is to look after the
rights and interests of the motley world composed of those Englishmen and
Englishwomen who make a short or long sojourn in Paris. Once they were in
his presence nothing could have been kinder and more considerate than the
British Consul's reception of the American Senator and his companion.
In the Consular branch of the Diplomatic Service the post of Consul in the
greater cities of the civilised world is almost invariably given to an
ex-member of the Diplomatic Corps--to one, that is, who is a shrewd man of
the world rather than a trained business official, and Senator Burton felt
it to be a comfort indeed to deal with such a one rather than with an acute
but probably conventionally-minded man of commercial experience.
The Consul was moved by Mrs. Dampier's youth, her beauty, her evident, if
subdued bewilderment and distress. She told her story very clearly and
simply, but to the Senator's excited and yes, it must be admitted,
suspicious fancy, she seemed to slur over, as of no importance, the
extraordinary discrepancy between her own and the Poulains' account of what
had happened on the night of her own and her husband's arrival in Paris.
The Consul asked but few questions, but those were pertinent and to the
point.
"I am glad, Mrs. Dampier, that you did not come to me yesterday," he said
at last, "for, thanks, as I understand, to this gentleman, you have done
everything which I should have had to advise you to do."
He then turned more particularly to his American visitor:--"I suppose you
have now quite convinced yourself that no kind of street accident befell
Mr. Dampier yesterday morning?"
The Senator shook his head dubiously; there was a look of hesitation, of
unease, on his face.
"Perhaps it would be as well," said the Consul suavely, "for Mrs. Dampier
to go and wait awhile in the next room. Then you and I, Mr. Senator, might
go into the matter more thoroughly?"
Unsuspiciously Nancy Dampier fell in with the plan.
And then, at last, Senator Burton was able to open out his heart, and, as
the British Consul listened to the American's version of all that had taken
place, when he realised how entirely the story of this young lady, who
called herself Mrs. Dampier, was uncorroborated, his face became graver
and graver.
"From the little opportunity I have had of judging, she impresses me as
being a truthful woman," he said musingly. "Still, what I now know puts a
very different complexion on the story as told me just now by her."
"That is exactly what I feel," said the Senator sighing. "From something
you said just now I gather that you have heard of this Mr. John Dampier?"
"Why, yes, indeed I have--I know his name as being that of a distinguished
English artist living in Paris; but he has never troubled me individually,
and I can answer for it that he is very little known to our colony here. He
evidently lives only amongst the French painters and their set--which means
that to all intents and purposes he has become a Frenchman!" The Consul
shrugged his shoulders--racial prejudice dies hard.
He looked doubtfully at his visitor:--"You see, Mr. Senator, if this lady's
tale is true, if the poor little woman is a three weeks' bride, Mr.
Dampier's disappearance may mean a good many things, any one of which is
bound to cause her pain and distress. I do not think it likely that there
has been any kind of foul play. If, as Mrs. Dampier asserts, he had neither
money nor jewels in his possession, we may dismiss that possibility from
our minds."
"If anything of that sort has happened--I mean, if there has been foul
play," said Senator Burton firmly, "then I would stake my life that neither
of the Poulains are in any way associated with it."
"Quite so. Still, as Mrs. Dampier has appealed to me very properly for
help, these hotel people--if they are as worthy as you believe them to
be--will not mind consenting to an informal interrogatory from one of my
clerks. I have here a sharp young fellow who knows English as well as he
does French. I'll send him back with you. He can take down the Poulains'
story, even cross-examine them in a friendly manner. Mrs. Dampier might
also give him her version of what took place."
Senator Burton uttered a hesitating assent. He knew only too well that the
Poulains would greatly resent the proposed interrogatory.
"One word more, Mr. Senator. If there is no news of this Mr. John Dampier
by to-morrow, you must persuade Mrs. Dampier to write, or even to telegraph
for her friends. For one thing, it isn't at all fair that all this trouble
should fall on an entire stranger, on one not even her own countryman! I
cannot help seeing, too, that you do not altogether believe in Mrs. Dampier
and her story. You can't make up your mind--is not that so?"
The American Senator nodded, rather shamefacedly.
"I might advise you to go to the Préfecture de Police, nay, I might
communicate with them myself, but I feel that in the interests of this
young lady it would be better to go slow. Mr. Dampier may return as
suddenly, as unexpectedly, as he went. And then he would not thank us, my
dear sir, for having done anything to turn the Paris Police searchlight on
his private life."
The Consul got up and held out his hand. "For your sake, as well as for
that of my countrywoman, I hope most sincerely that you will find Mr.
Dampier safe and sound when you get back to the Hôtel Saint Ange. But if
the mystery still endures to-morrow, then you really must persuade this
poor young lady to send for one of her relatives--preferably, I need hardly
say, a man."
"At what time shall I expect your clerk?" asked Senator Burton. "I think I
ought to prepare the Poulains."
"No, there I think you're wrong! Far better let him go back with you now,
and hear what they have to say. Let him also get a properly signed
statement from Mrs. Dampier. Then he can come back here and type out his
report and her statement for reference. That can do no harm, and may in the
future be of value."
He accompanied the American Senator to the door. "I wish I could help you
more," he said cordially. "Believe me, I appreciate more than I can say
your extraordinary kindness to my 'subject.' I shall, of course, be glad to
know how you get on. But oh, if you knew how busy we are just now! When I
think of how we are regarded--of how I read, only the other day, that a
Consul is the sort of good fellow one likes to make comfortable in a nice
little place--I wish the man who wrote that could have my 'nice little
place' for a week, during an Exhibition Year! I think he would soon change
his mind."
Mrs. Dampier was not present at the, to Senator Burton, odious half-hour
which followed their return to the Hôtel Saint Ange.
At first the French hotel-keeper and his wife refused to say anything to
the Consular official. Then, when they were finally persuaded to answer his
questions, they did so as curtly and disagreeably as possible. Madame
Poulain also made a great effort to prevent her nephew, young Jules, from
being brought into the matter. But to her wrath and bitter consternation,
he, as well as her husband and herself, was made to submit to a regular
examination and cross-examination as to what had followed Mrs. Dampier's
arrival at the Hôtel Saint Ange.
"Why don't you send for the police?" she cried at last. "We should be only
too glad to lay all the facts before them!"
And as the young Frenchman, after his further interview with Nancy, was
being speeded on his way by the Senator, "I'm blessed if I know what to
believe!" he observed with a wink. "It's the queerest story I've ever come
across; and as for the Poulains, it's the first time I've ever known French
people to say they would like to see the police brought into their private
affairs! One would swear that all the parties concerned were telling the
truth, but I thought that boy, those people's nephew, did know something
more than he said."