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THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR
BY MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
AUTHOR OF "THE END OF HER HONEYMOON," "THE LODGER," Etc.
1912
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
"_But there is one chink in the chain armour of civilized communities.
Society is conducted on the assumption that murder will not be
committed._"--
The Spectator.
THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR
CHAPTER I
A small, shiny, pink card lay on the round table in Sylvia Bailey's
sitting-room at the Hôtel de l'Horloge in Paris.
She had become quite accustomed to finding one or more cards--cards from
dressmakers, cards from corset-makers, cards from hairdressers--lying on
her sitting-room table, but there had never been a card quite like this
card.
Although it was pink, it looked more like a visiting-card than a
tradesman's advertisement, and she took it up with some curiosity. It was
inscribed "Madame Cagliostra," and underneath the name were written the
words "_Diseuse de la Bonne Aventure_," and then, in a corner, in very
small black letters, the address, "5, Rue Jolie, Montmartre."
A fortune-teller's card? What an extraordinary thing!
Like many pretty, prosperous, idle women, Sylvia was rather
superstitious. Not long before this, her first visit to Paris, a London
acquaintance had taken her to see a noted palmist named "Pharaoh," in
Bond Street. She had paid her guinea willingly enough, but the result had
vaguely disappointed her, and she had had the feeling, all the time she
was with him, that the man was not really reading her hand.
True, "Pharaoh" had told her she was going abroad, and at that time she
had no intention of doing so. The palmist had also told her--and this was
really rather curious--that she would meet, when abroad, a foreign woman
who would have a considerable influence on her life. Well, in this very
Hôtel de l'Horloge Mrs. Bailey had come across a Polish lady, named Anna
Wolsky, who was, like Sylvia herself, a young widow, and the two had
taken a great fancy to one another.
It was most unlikely that Madame Wolsky would have the slightest
influence on her, Sylvia Bailey's, life, but at any rate it was very
curious coincidence. "Pharaoh" had proved to be right as to these two
things--she had come abroad, and she had formed a friendship with a
foreign woman.
Mrs. Bailey was still standing by the table, and still holding the pink
card in her hand, when her new friend came into the room.
"Well?" said Anna Wolsky, speaking English with a strong foreign accent,
but still speaking it remarkably well, "Have you yet decided, my dear,
what we shall do this afternoon? There are a dozen things open to us,
and I am absolutely at your service to do any one of them!"
Sylvia Bailey laughingly shook her head.
"I feel lazy," she said. "I've been at the Bon Marché ever since nine
o'clock, and I feel more like having a rest than going out again, though
it does seem a shame to stay in a day like this!"
The windows were wide open, the June sun was streaming in, and on the
light breeze was borne the murmur of the traffic in the Avenue de
l'Opéra, within a few yards of the quiet street where the Hôtel de
l'Horloge is situated.
The other woman--Anna Wolsky was some years older than Sylvia
Bailey--smiled indulgently.
"_Tiens!_" she cried suddenly, "what have you got there?" and she took
the pink card out of Sylvia's hand.
"Madame Cagliostra?" she repeated, musingly. "Now where did I hear that
name? Yes, of course it was from our chambermaid! Cagliostra is a friend
of hers, and, according to her, a marvellous person--one from whom the
devil keeps no secrets! She charges only five francs for a consultation,
and it appears that all sorts of well-known people go to her, even those
whom the Parisians call the _Gratin_, that is, the Upper Crust, from the
Champs Elysées and the Faubourg St. Germain!"
"I don't think much of fortune-tellers," said Sylvia, thoughtfully.
"I went to one last time I was in London and he really didn't tell me
anything of the slightest interest."
Her conscience pricked her a little as she said this, for "Pharaoh" had
certainly predicted a journey which she had then no intention of taking,
and a meeting with a foreign woman. Yet here she was in Paris, and here
was the foreign woman standing close to her!
Nay more, Anna Wolsky had become--it was really rather odd that it should
be so--the first intimate friend of her own sex Sylvia had made since she
was a grown-up woman.
"I do believe in fortune-tellers," said Madame Wolsky deliberately, "and
that being so I shall spend my afternoon in going up to Montmartre, to
the Rue Jolie, to hear what this Cagliostra has to say. It will be what
you in England call 'a lark'! And I do not see why I should not give
myself so cheap a lark as a five-franc lark!"
"Oh, if you really mean to go, I think I will go too!" cried Sylvia,
gaily.
She was beginning to feel less tired, and the thought of a long lonely
afternoon spent indoors and by herself lacked attraction.
Linking her arm through her friend's, she went downstairs and into the
barely furnished dining-room, which was so very unlike an English hotel
dining-room. In this dining-room the wallpaper simulated a vine-covered
trellis, from out of which peeped blue-plumaged birds, and on each little
table, covered by an unbleached table-cloth, stood an oil and vinegar
cruet and a half-bottle of wine.
The Hôtel de l'Horloge was a typical French hotel, and foreigners very
seldom stayed there. Sylvia had been told of the place by the old French
lady who had been her governess, and who had taught her to speak French
exceptionally well.
Several quiet Frenchmen, who had offices in the neighbourhood, were "_en
pension_" at the Hôtel de l'Horloge, and as the two friends came in many
were the steady, speculative glances cast in their direction.
To the average Frenchman every woman is interesting; for every Frenchman
is in love with love, and in each fair stranger he sees the possible
heroine of a romance in which he may play the agreeable part of hero.
So it was that Sylvia Bailey and Anna Wolsky both had their silent
admirers among those who lunched and dined in the narrow green and
white dining-room of the Hôtel de l'Horloge.
Only a Frenchman would have given a second look at the Polish lady while
Sylvia was by, but a Frenchman, being both a philosopher and a logician
by nature, is very apt to content himself with the second-best when he
knows the best is not for him.
The two friends were in entire contrast to one another. Madame Wolsky was
tall, dark, almost swarthy; there was a look of rather haughty pride and
reserve on her strong-featured face. She dressed extremely plainly, the
only ornament ever worn by her being a small gold horseshoe, in the
centre of which was treasured--so, not long ago, she had confided to
Sylvia, who had been at once horrified and thrilled--a piece of the rope
with which a man had hanged himself at Monte Carlo two years before! For
Madame Wolsky--and she made no secret of the fact to her new friend--was
a gambler.
Anna Wolsky was never really happy, she did not feel more than half
alive, when away from the green cloth. She had only left Monte Carlo
when the heat began to make the place unbearable to one of her northern
temperament, and she was soon moving on to one of the French
watering-places, where gambling of sorts can be indulged in all
the summer through.
Different in looks, in temperament, and in tastes were the two young
widows, and this, perhaps, was why they got on so excellently well
together.
Sylvia Bailey was the foreign ideal of a beautiful Englishwoman. Her hair
was fair, and curled naturally. Her eyes were of that blue which looks
violet in the sunlight; and she had a delicate, rose leaf complexion.
Married when only nineteen to a man much older than herself, she was now
at twenty-five a widow, and one without any intimate duties or close ties
to fill her existence. Though she had mourned George Bailey sincerely,
she had soon recovered all her normal interest and pleasure in life.
Mrs. Bailey was fond of dress and able to indulge her taste; but, even
so, good feeling and the standard of propriety of the English country
town of Market Dalling where she had spent most of her life, perhaps
also a subtle instinct that nothing else would ever suit her so well,
made her remain rigidly faithful to white and black, pale grey, and
lavender. She also wore only one ornament, but it was a very becoming
and an exceedingly costly ornament, for it consisted of a string of large
and finely-matched pearls.
As the two friends went upstairs after luncheon Madame Wolsky said
earnestly, "If I were you, Sylvia, I would certainly leave your pearls in
the office this afternoon. Where is the use of wearing them on such an
expedition as that to a fortune-teller?"
"But why shouldn't I wear them?" asked Sylvia, rather surprised.
"Well, in your place I should certainly leave anything as valuable as
your pearls in safe keeping. After all, we know nothing of this Madame
Cagliostra, and Montmartre is what Parisians call an eccentric quarter."
Sylvia Bailey disliked very much taking off her pearls. Though she could
not have put the fact into words, this string of pearls was to her a
symbol of her freedom, almost of her womanhood.
As a child and young girl she had been under the close guardianship
of a stern father, and it was to please him that she had married the
rich, middle-aged man at Market Dalling whose adoration she had endured
rather than reciprocated. George Bailey also had been a determined
man--determined that his young wife should live his way, not hers.
During their brief married life he had heaped on her showy, rather than
beautiful, jewels; nothing of great value, nothing she could wear when in
mourning.
And then, four months after her husband's death, Sylvia's own aunt had
died and left her a thousand pounds. It was this legacy--which her
trustee, a young solicitor named William Chester, who was also a friend
and an admirer of hers, as well as her trustee, had been proposing to
invest in what he called "a remarkably good thing"--Mrs. Bailey had
insisted on squandering on a string of pearls!
Sylvia had become aware, in the subtle way in which Women become aware
of such things, that pearls were the fashion--in fact, in one sense,
"the only wear." She had noticed that most of the great ladies of the
neighbourhood of Market Dalling, those whom she saw on those occasions
when town and county meet, each wore a string of pearls. She had also
come to know that pearls seem to be the only gems which can be worn with
absolute propriety by a widow, and so, suddenly, she had made up her mind
to invest--she called it an "investment," while Chester called it an
"absurd extravagance"--in a string of pearls.
Bill Chester had done his very best to persuade her to give up her silly
notion, but she had held good; she had shown herself, at any rate on this
one occasion, and in spite of her kindly, yielding nature, obstinate.
This was why her beautiful pearls had become to Sylvia Bailey a symbol of
her freedom. The thousand pounds, invested as Bill Chester had meant to
invest it, would have brought her in £55 a year, so he had told her in a
grave, disapproving tone.
In return she had told him, the colour rushing into her pretty face, that
after all she had the right to do what she chose with her legacy, the
more so that this thousand pounds was in a peculiar sense her own money,
as the woman who had left it her was her mother's sister, having nothing
to do either with her father or with the late George Bailey!
And so she had had her way--nay, more; Chester, at the very last, had
gone to great trouble in order that she might not be cheated over her
purchase. Best of all, Bill--Sylvia always called the serious-minded
young lawyer "Bill"--had lived to admit that Mrs. Bailey had made a good
investment after all, for her pearls had increased in value in the two
years she had had them.
Be that as it may, the young widow often reminded herself that nothing
she had ever bought, and nothing that had ever been given her, had caused
her such lasting pleasure as her beloved string of pearls!
But on this pleasant June afternoon, in deference to her determined
friend's advice, she took off her pearls before starting out for
Montmartre, leaving the case in the charge of M. Girard, the genial
proprietor of the Hôtel de l'Horloge.