As he walked away from the Prefecture of Police, Senator Burton told
himself that the French were certainly a curiously casual people.
How strange that the Prefect should have asked him to break the news of
what was to happen at eleven o'clock the next morning to the Poulains! In
America--and he supposed in England also--the hotel-keeper would have
received a formal notification of the fact that his house was about to be
searched, or, in the case that foul play was suspected, no warning at all.
But here, in Paris, it was thought enough to entrust a stranger with a
message concerning so serious a matter.
Of everything that had happened in connection with this extraordinary
Dampier affair, perhaps this having to tell the Poulains that their hotel
was to be searched was the most disagreeable and painful thing of all to
their American friend and kindly client.
The Senator was now very sorry, that, in deference to his son's wish, he
had made such a suggestion.
On his return to the hotel he was surprised to find a woman he had never
seen before installed in Madame Poulain's kitchen. Still, the presence of
the stranger brought a sense of reprieve.
He, Senator Angus Burton, the distinguished politician whom most of those
of his fellow-countrymen whose opinion mattered would have said to be a
particularly fearless man, dreaded the task of telling Madame Poulain that
a Perquisition was about to take place in her house.
He lifted his hat. "Is Madame Poulain out?"
"She won't be long, monsieur; she and her husband have had to absent
themselves for a little hour."
"Are they both out?" asked the Senator. He had never in his long knowledge
of the Hôtel Saint Ange known such a thing to happen--that both the
Poulains should be out together.
"Yes, monsieur. They have had to take that nephew of theirs, young Jules,
off to the station. They are sending him to the country. He's in a sad
state--he does nothing but cry, poor lad! I suppose he's in love--I've
known it take young men that way." The woman smiled, smiled as a certain
type of person usually does smile when giving disagreeable or unpleasant
news. "It is very awkward for the Poulains to lose the lad just now, for
they are very busy. I have no doubt--" she tossed her head--"that Jules has
been working too hard; the Poulains are foolish not to have more help from
outside. I came in just to oblige Madame Poulain while she and her husband
accompanied Jules to the station. But I also am busy. I have my own work to
attend to just as much as anybody else; and my three children are all
working at the Exhibition."
The Senator left the eager gossip, and began walking round the courtyard.
He felt quite wretched. Jules, at no time a very intelligent lad, had
evidently been terrified out of his wits by the questionings and the
cross-questionings to which he had been subjected.
And then--and then--no doubt Gerald was in a measure also responsible for
the lad's state! Senator Burton had been very much annoyed when his son had
told him of what had happened the night before--of how he had accused the
Poulains' nephew of lying--of knowing something of the Dampier affair....
He was just about to go upstairs when he saw Monsieur and Madame Poulain
emerging from the porte cochère. They both looked tired, hot, and
dispirited.
He walked forward to meet them.
"I am very sorry to hear this news about Jules," he began quickly. "I hope
you are not really anxious about him?"
Madame Poulain stared at him fixedly, reproachfully. "It is all this
affair," she said with a heavy sigh. "If it had only been the police, our
own police, we should not have minded, Monsieur le Sénateur--we are honest
people--we have nothing to fear from the police," she lifted her head
proudly. "But when it came to that impudent young man--"
For a moment the Senator was at a loss--then he suddenly remembered:--"You
mean the gentleman attached to the British Consulate?" he said
uncomfortably. And as she nodded her head, "But surely it was quite
reasonable that he should come and ask those questions. You must remember
that both Mr. and Mrs. Dampier are English people. They have a right to the
protection and help of their Consulate."
"I do not say to the contrary, monsieur. I am only telling you the truth,
namely that that English lawyer--for lawyer I suppose he was--terrified
Jules. And had it not been that I and my husband are conscious of--of our
innocence, Monsieur le Sénateur, he would have terrified us also. Then your
son attacked Jules too. Surely the matter might have been left to the
police--our own excellent police."
"I am glad you feel as you do about the police," said the Senator
earnestly, "for as a matter of fact the Prefect of Police, whom I have just
been consulting about Mr. Dampier's disappearance, suggests that the Hôtel
Saint Ange be searched."
"Searched?" exclaimed Monsieur Poulain, staring at the Senator.
"Searched?" shrieked Madame Poulain indignantly.
"Yes," said Senator Burton quietly, and trying to speak as if a police
Perquisition of a respectable hotel was the most ordinary thing in the
world. "They are sending their men at eleven to-morrow morning. Let me add
that they and Mrs. Dampier are most eager to study your convenience in
every way. They would doubtless choose another time should eleven o'clock
be inconvenient to you."
Madame Poulain was now speechless with indignation, and yes, with surprise.
When at last she did speak, her voice trembled with pain and anger.
"To think," she said, turning to her husband, and taking for the moment no
notice of her American client--"to think that you and I, Poulain, after
having lived here for twenty-one years and a half, should have our hotel
searched by the police--as if it were the resort of brigands!" She turned
to the Senator, and quietly, not without a measure of dignity, went
on:--"And to think that it is you, Monsieur le Sénateur, who we have always
thought one of our best patrons, who have brought this indignity upon us!"
"I am very, very sorry for all the trouble you are having about this
affair," said Senator Burton earnestly. "And Madame Poulain? I want to
assure you how entirely I have always believed your statement concerning
this strange business."
"If that is so then why all this--this trouble, Monsieur le Sénateur?"
Husband and wife spoke simultaneously.
"I wonder," exclaimed the Senator, "that you can ask me such a question! I
quite admit that the first twenty-four hours I knew nothing of this
unfortunate young woman whose cause I championed. But now, Madame Poulain,
I have learnt that all she told me of herself is true. Remember she has
never faltered in the statement that she came here accompanied by her
husband. I, as you know," he lowered his voice, "suppose that in so
thinking she is suffering from a delusion. But you cannot expect my view to
be shared by those who know her well and who are strangers to you. As I
told you only this morning, we hope that towards the end of this week Mrs.
Dampier's lawyer will arrive from England."
"But what will happen then?" cried Madame Poulain, throwing up her hands
with an excited, passionate gesture. "When will this persecution come to an
end? We have done everything we could; we have submitted to odious
interrogatories, first from one and then from the other--and now our hotel
is to be searched! None of our other clients, and remember the hotel is
full, Monsieur le Sénateur, have a suspicion of what is going on, but any
moment the affair may become public, and then--then our hotel might empty
in a day! Oh, Monsieur le Sénateur"--she clasped her hands together--"If
you refuse to think of us, think of our child, think of poor little
Virginie!"
"Come, come, Madame Poulain!"
The Senator turned to the good woman's husband, but Poulain's usually
placid face bore a look of lowering rage. The mention of his idolised
daughter had roused his distress as well as anger.
"Now, Poulain, do tell your wife that there is really nothing to worry
about. The police speak of you both in the very highest terms! As to the
search that will take place to-morrow, it is the merest formality."
"I hope, monsieur, that you will do us the honour of being present," said
Madame Poulain quickly. "We have nothing to hide, and we should far prefer
you to be there."
"If such is your wish I will certainly be present," said Senator Burton
gravely.
And then, as he walked away to the escalier d'honneur, he told himself that
on the whole the poor Poulains had taken his disagreeable piece of news
very well. Gerald was not showing his usual sense over this business: he
had let his sympathies run away with him. But the Senator loved his son all
the better for his chivalrous interest in poor Mrs. Dampier. It wasn't
every young man who would have put everything aside in the way of interest,
of amusement, and of pleasure in such a city as Paris, for the sake of an
entire stranger.
As to Gerald's view of the Poulains, that again was natural. He didn't know
these people with the same kindly knowledge the Senator and Daisy had of
them. Gerald had been at college, and later working hard in the office of
America's greatest living architect, at the time the Senator and his
daughter had spent a whole winter at the Hôtel Saint Ange.
It was natural that the young man should take Mrs. Dampier's word instead
of the hotel-keepers'. But even so, how extraordinary was the utter
divergence between the two accounts of what had happened!
For the hundredth time Senator Burton asked himself where the truth lay.
A sad change had come over Nancy Dampier in the three long days. She could
not sleep, and they had to force her to eat. The interrogatories to which
she had had to submit, first from one and then from another, had worn her
out. When going over her story with the Consular official, she had suddenly
faltered, and putting her hand to her head with a bewildered gesture, "I
can't remember," she had said, looking round piteously at the Senator, "I
can't remember!"
And he asked himself now whether those three words did not embody more of
the truth than the poor girl would admit. Had she ever really remembered
what had happened on that first evening of her arrival in Paris?
Such were Senator Burton's disconnected and troubled thoughts as, leaving
the perturbed hotel-keepers, he slowly went to join his children and
their guest.
To his relief, neither Daisy nor Nancy were in the salon, and his thoughts
were pleasantly forced into another channel, for on the table lay a cable
from some people called Hamworth, Mr. Hamworth was one of the Senator's
oldest friends: also there was a pretty clever daughter who had always
shown a rather special liking for Gerald....
The Hamworths were arriving in Paris at ten the next morning, and they
asked the Senator and his children to join them at lunch at Bignon's.
Mingling with a natural pleasure at the thought of seeing old friends, and
of getting away from all this painful business for a short time, was added
a secret satisfaction at the thought that he would thus escape being
present at the search of the Hôtel Saint Ange.