THE DOWNWARD PATH.
A year had gone by.
Since that memorable night when Ansell and Carlier had so narrowly
escaped capture in Bond Street, and had been compelled to fly and leave
their booty behind, things had gone badly with both of them.
With Bonnemain executed, and their other companions in penal servitude
at Cayenne, a cloud of misfortune seemed to have settled upon them.
Of the tragedy on the Norwich road no more had been heard. The police
had relinquished their inquiries, the affair had been placed upon the
long list of unsolved mysteries, and it had passed out of the public
mind. Only to the British Cabinet had the matter caused great suspense
and serious consideration, while it had cost the Earl of Bracondale, as
Foreign Minister, the greatest efforts of the most delicate diplomacy
to hold his own in defiance to the German intentions. For two whole
months the Foreign Office had lived in daily expectation of sudden
hostilities. In the Wilhelmstrasse the advisability of a raid upon our
shores had been seriously discussed, and the War Council were nearly
unanimous in favour of crossing swords with England.
Only by the clever and ingenious efforts of British secret agents in
Berlin, who kept Darnborough informed of all in progress, was Lord
Bracondale able to stem the tide and guide the ship of state into the
smooth waters of peace.
And of all this the British public had remained in blissful ignorance.
The reader of the morning paper was assured that never in this decade
had the European outlook been so peaceful, and that our relations with
our friends in Berlin were of the most cordial nature. Indeed, there was
some talk of an _entente_.
The reader was, however, in ignorance that for weeks on end the British
fleet had been kept in the vicinity of the North Sea, and that the
destroyer flotillas were lying in the East Coast harbours with steam up,
ready to proceed to sea at a moment's notice.
Nevertheless, the peril had passed once again, thanks to the firm,
fearless attitude adopted by Lord Bracondale, and though the secret of
England's weakness was known and freely commented upon in Government
circles in Berlin, yet the clamorous demands of the war party were not
acceded to. The British lion had shown his teeth, and Germany had again
hesitated.
Ralph Ansell and Adolphe Carlier, after the failure of their plot to rob
Matheson and Wilson's, in Bond Street, had fled next day to Belgium, and
thence had returned to France.
Ralph had seen Jean for a few moments before his flight, explaining that
his sudden departure was due to the death of his uncle, a landowner near
Valence, in whose estate he was interested, and she, of course, believed
him.
So cleverly, indeed, did he deceive her that it was not surprising that
old Libert and his daughter should meet the young adventurer at the
Hotel Terminus at Lyons one day in November, and that three days later
Ralph and Jean were married at the Mairie. Then while the old
_restaurateur_ returned to London, the happy pair went South to Nice for
their honeymoon.
While there Adolphe Carlier called one day at their hotel--a modest one
near the station--and was introduced to Jean.
From the first moment they met, Adolphe's heart went forth to her in
pity and sympathy. Though a thief bred and born, and the son of a man
who had spent the greater part of his life in prison, Carlier was ever
chivalrous, even considerate, towards a woman. He was coarser, and
outwardly more brutal than Ralph Ansell, whose veneer of polish she, in
her ignorance of life, found so attractive, yet at heart, though an
expert burglar, and utterly unscrupulous towards his fellows, he was,
nevertheless, always honourable towards a woman.
When their hands clasped and their eyes met upon their introduction,
she instantly lowered hers, for, with a woman's intuition, she knew that
in this companion of her husband's she had a true friend. And he, on his
part, became filled with admiration of her great beauty, her wonderful
eyes, and her soft, musical voice.
And he turned away, affecting unconcern, although in secret he sighed
for her and for her future. She was far too good to be the wife of such
a man as Ralph Ansell.
Months went on, and to Jean the mystery surrounding Ralph became more
and more obscure.
At first they had lived quietly near Bordeaux, now and then receiving
visits from Adolphe. On such occasions the two men would be closeted
together for hours, talking confidentially in undertones. Then, two
months after their marriage, came a telegram one day, stating that her
father had died suddenly. Both went at once to London, only to find that
poor old Libert had died deeply in debt. Indeed, there remained
insufficient money to pay for the funeral.
Therefore, having seen her father buried at Highgate, Jean returned with
Ralph to Paris, where they first took a small, cosy apartment of five
rooms in the Austerlitz quarter; but as funds decreased, they were
forced to economise and sink lower in the social scale--to the
Montmartre.
To Jean, who had believed Ralph to be possessed of ample means, all this
came as a gradual disillusionment. Her husband began quickly to neglect
her, to spend his days in the _cafes_, often in Adolphe's company, while
the men he brought to their rooms were, though well-dressed, of a very
different class to those with whom she had been in the habit of
associating in London.
But the girl never complained. She loved Ralph with a fond, silent
passion, and even the poor circumstances in which already, after ten
months of married life, she now found herself, did not trouble her so
long as her husband treated her with consideration.
As regards Adolphe, she rather avoided than encouraged him. Her woman's
keenness of observation showed her that he sympathised with her and
admired her--in fact, that he was deeply in love with her, though he
strenuously endeavoured not to betray his affection.
Thus, within a year of the tragic end of Dick Harborne, Jean found
herself living in a second-floor flat in a secluded house in the
Boulogne quarter, not far from the Seine, a poor, working-class
neighbourhood. The rooms, four in number, were furnished in the usual
cheap and gaudy French style, the floor of bare, varnished boards, save
where strips of Japanese matting were placed.
On that warm August evening, Jean, in a plain, neatly-made black dress,
with a little white collar of Swiss embroidery, and wearing a little
apron of spotted print--for their circumstances did not permit the
keeping of a "bonne"--was seated in her small living-room, sewing, and
awaiting the return of her husband.
She had, alas! met with sad disillusionment. Instead of the happy,
affluent circumstances which she had fondly imagined would be hers, she
had found herself sinking lower and lower. Her parents were now both
dead, and she had no one in whom to confide her suspicions or fears.
Besides, day after day, Ralph went out in the morning after his
_cafe-au-lait_, and only returned at eight o'clock to eat the dinner
which she prepared--alas! often to grumble at it. Slowly--ah! so very
slowly--the hideousness and mockery of her marriage was being forced
upon her.
Gradually, as she sat at the open window waiting his coming, and annoyed
because the evening meal which she had so carefully cooked was spoilt by
his tardiness, the dusk faded and darkness crept on.
She felt stifled, and longed again for the fresh air of the country.
Before her, as she sat with her hands idle in her lap, there arose
memories of that warm afternoon when, in that charming little fishing
village in England, she had met her good friend Richard Harborne, the
man who that very same evening fell beneath an assassin's knife.
Her thoughts were stirred from the fact that, while out that morning,
Mme. Garnier, from whom she purchased her vegetables daily, had given
her a marguerite. This she wore in the breast of her gown, and its sight
caused her to reflect that on that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon at
Mundesley, when she had walked with Harborne, he, too, had given her a
similar flower. Perfumes and flowers always stir our memories of the
past!
She sat gazing out into the little moss-grown courtyard below, watching
for Ralph's coming. That quarter of Paris was a poor one, inhabited
mainly by artisans, yet the house was somewhat secluded, situated as it
was in a big square courtyard away from the main thoroughfare. Because
it was quiet, Ralph had taken it, and further, because Mme. Brouet, the
_concierge_, a sharp-faced, middle-aged woman, wife of a cobbler, who
habitually wore a small black knitted shawl, happened to be an
acquaintance of his.
But, alas! the place was dismal enough. The outlook was upon a high,
blank, dirty wall, while below, among the stones, grass and rank weeds
grew everywhere.
The living room in which the girl sat was poor and comfortless, though
she industriously kept the place clean. It was papered gaudily with
broad stripes, while the furniture consisted of a cheap little walnut
sideboard, upon which stood a photograph in a frame, a decanter, a china
sugar-bowl, and some plates, while near it was a painted, movable
cupboard on which stood a paraffin lamp with green cardboard shade, and
a small fancy timepiece, which was out of order and had stopped.
In the centre of the room was a round table, upon which was a white
cloth with blue border and places laid for two, and four rush-bottomed
chairs placed upon the square of Japanese matting covering the centre
of the room completed the picture.
Jean laid aside her needlework--mending one of Ralph's shirts--and
sighed over the might-have-been.
"I wonder what it all means?" she asked herself aloud. "I wonder what
mysterious business Ralph has so constantly with Adolphe? And why does
Mme. Brouet inquire so anxiously after Ralph every day?"
For the past fortnight her husband, whose clothes had now become very
shabby, had given her only a few francs each day, just sufficient with
which to buy food. Hitherto he had taken her out for walks after dusk,
and sometimes they had gone to a cinema or to one of the cheaper
music-halls. But, alas! nowadays he never invited her to go with him.
Usually he rose at noon, after smoking many cigarettes in bed, ate his
luncheon, and went out, returning at any time between six and eight, ate
his dinner, often sulkily, and then at nine Carlier would call for him,
and the pair would be out till midnight.
She little guessed in what a queer, disreputable set the pair moved, and
that her husband was known in the Montmartre as "The American." She was
in ignorance, too, how Ralph, finding himself without funds, had gone to
the Belgian Baron--the secret agent of Germany--and offered him further
services, which had, however, been declined.
At first Ansell had been defiant and threatening, declaring that he
would expose the Baron to the police as a foreign spy. But the stout,
fair-moustached man who lived in the fine house standing in its own
spacious grounds out at Neuilly, on the other side of the Bois de
Boulogne, had merely smiled and invited him to carry out his threat.
"Do so, my friend," he laughed, "and you will quickly find yourself
arrested and extradited to England charged with murder. So if you value
your neck, it will, I think, be best for you to keep a still tongue.
There is the door. _Bon soir._"
And he had shown his visitor out.
At first Ansell, who took a walk alone in the Bois, vowed vengeance, but
a few hours later, after reflecting upon the whole of the grim
circumstances, had come to the conclusion that silence would be best.
Though he had endeavoured not to show it, he was already regretting
deeply that he had married. Had he been in better circumstances, Jean
might, he thought, have been induced to assist him in some of his
swindling operations, just as the wives of other men he knew had done. A
woman can so often succeed where a man fails. But as he was almost
without a sou, what could he do?
Truth to tell, both he and Carlier were in desperate straits.
Jean had been quick to notice the change in both men, but she had
remained in patience, making no remark, though the whole circumstances
puzzled her, and often she recollected how happy she had been at the
Maison Collette when she had lived at home, and Ralph, so smart and
gentlemanly, had called to see her each evening.
These and similar thoughts were passing through her mind, when suddenly
she was recalled to her present surroundings by Ralph's sudden entrance.
"Halloa!" he cried roughly. "Dinner ready?"
"It has been ready more than an hour, dear," she replied, in French,
jumping to her feet and passing at once into the tiny kitchen beyond.