Once a year the newspapers of each great capital publish, among other
statistics, a record of the disappearances which have occurred in their
midst during the preceding twelve months. These disappearances are not
counted by tens or by hundreds, but by thousands; and what is true of
every great city is in a very special sense true of Paris, the human
Cloaca Maxima of the world. There, the sudden vanishing, the
obliteration as it were, of a human being--especially of a
foreigner--arouses comparatively little surprise or interest among those
whose weary duty it is to try and find what has become of the lost one.
To Madame de Léra,--even to Tom Pargeter,--the beginning of what was to
be so singular and perplexing a quest had about it something
awe-inspiring and absorbing. So it was that during the few minutes which
elapsed between their leaving the Avenue du Bois de Bologne and their
reaching the ancient building where the Paris Police still has its
headquarters, not a word was spoken by either of the two ill-assorted
companions who sat together in the rear of the car, for Vanderlyn, the
only one of the three who knew where the Prefecture of Police is
situated, had been placed next to the chauffeur in order that he might
direct him as to the way thither.
By such men as Tom Pargeter and their like, the possibility of material
misfortune attacking themselves and those who form what may be called
their appanage, is never envisaged; and therefore, when such misfortune
comes to them, as it does sooner or later to all human beings, the grim
guest's presence is never accepted without an amazed sense of struggle
and revolt.
The news of the accident to his little son had angered Pargeter, and
made him feel ill-used, but that it should have been followed by this
mystery concerning his wife's whereabouts seemed to add insult to
injury. So it was an ill-tempered, rather than an anxious man who joined
Vanderlyn on the worn steps of the huge frowning building wherein is
housed that which remains the most permanent and the most awe-inspiring
of Parisian institutions.
As they passed through the great portals Tom Pargeter smiled, for the
first time; "We shall soon have news of her, Grid," he murmured,
confidently.
Vanderlyn winced as he nodded a dubious assent.
But at first everything went ill with them. Pargeter insisted on sending
for the police interpreter and stating his business in English; then,
irritated at the man's lack of comprehension, he broke out--to
Vanderlyn's surprise--into voluble French. But as the two foreigners
were sent from room to room in the old-fashioned, evil-smelling
building, as endless forms were placed before them to be filled up, it
became increasingly clear that the disappearance of a human being,
especially of an Englishwoman, did not strike the listless employees as
being particularly remarkable.
The more angry Pargeter grew and the more violent in his language, the
more politely, listlessly, indifferent became those to whom he addressed
his questions and indignant complaints.
The cosmopolitan millionaire-sportsman, accustomed to receive a constant
stream of adulation and consideration from all those with whom life
brought him in contact, was first amazed, and then angered, by the lack
of interest shown in him and in his affairs at the Prefecture of Police.
Then, to his surprise and only half-concealed mortification, a reference
made by Laurence Vanderlyn to an incident which had taken place the year
before--that is, to the disappearance of an American citizen--followed
by the production of the diplomatist's card, brought about a magic
change.
Immediately the two friends were introduced into the presence of an
important official; and a moment later Tom Pargeter's outraged dignity
and sense of importance were soothed by an outpouring of respectful
sympathy, while in an incredibly short time the full particulars of
every accident which had occurred in the streets of Paris during the
last twenty-four hours were laid before the anxious husband. But it soon
became clear that in none of these had Mrs. Pargeter been concerned.
The official left the room a moment; then he returned with a colleague.
This man, the chief of the detective force, proceeded with considerable
tact to examine and cross-examine both Pargeter and Vanderlyn concerning
the way in which Mrs. Pargeter had spent the earlier part of the
previous day--that is, the day on which she had disappeared.
The man's manner--that of scenting a secret, of suspecting that more lay
behind the matter than was admitted by the husband and friend of the
woman they were seeking--produced a disagreeable impression on
Vanderlyn. For the first time he felt himself faced by a vague, but none
the less real, danger, and the feeling braced him.
"Then Monsieur did not see this lady yesterday at all?"
"No," said Vanderlyn, shortly; "the last time I saw Mrs. Pargeter in her
house was the day before yesterday, when I called on her about five
o'clock."
"Monsieur is not related to the lady," asked the detective quietly.
"No," said Vanderlyn again. "But I am an old friend of both Mr. and Mrs.
Pargeter, and that is why he asked me to accompany him here to-day."
"Then when and how did you yourself first learn of Madame Pargeter's
disappearance?" asked the other suddenly.
Vanderlyn hesitated; for a moment his tired brain refused to act--when
was he supposed to have heard of Peggy's disappearance? He looked
helplessly at Pargeter, then said suddenly, "I met my friend at L'Union
last night."
"Then you already knew of Madame's disappearance last night?" said the
official eagerly.
"No! no!" exclaimed Pargeter crossly. "Of course we didn't know then! We
didn't know till just now--that is, till this morning, when Mr.
Vanderlyn went out to Madame de Léra's villa to fetch my wife. It was
Madame de Léra who told us that she had never arrived at Marly-le-Roi.
She disappeared yesterday afternoon, but we did not know it till this
morning."
"May I ask you, gentlemen, to wait for a moment while I make certain
enquiries?" observed the detective politely. "You have not yet been
shown our daily report concerning the stations of Paris--is it not
possible that Madame Pargeter may have met with some accident at the
Gare St. Lazare, if, as I understand, she was going to her friend by
train, and not by automobile?"
Pargeter seemed struck by the notion. He turned to Vanderlyn. "I can't
make out," he said in a puzzled tone, "why Peggy thought of going to
Marly-le-Roi by train when she might so easily have gone in her new
motor."
"Peggy gave her man a week's holiday," said Vanderlyn shortly. "You
know, Tom, that he wanted to go to his own home, somewhere in Normandy."
"Yes, yes. Of course! But still she might have gone out in the big
car--I wasn't using it yesterday."
The detective came back at the end of what seemed to both Vanderlyn and
Pargeter a very long quarter of an hour.
"No incident of any sort took place last night at the Gare St. Lazare,"
he said briefly. "We shall now institute a thorough enquiry among our
agents; every police-station in Paris shall be notified of the fact that
Madame Pargeter is missing; and I shall almost certainly be able to send
you some kind of news of her by four o'clock this afternoon. In any case
you can trust us to do our best. Will Monsieur be returning to the
Avenue du Bois"--he addressed Vanderlyn, "or is Monsieur going to his
own flat in the Rue de Rivoli?"
Vanderlyn looked up quickly. His private address was not printed on the
card he had shown; still it was reasonable enough that this man should
have looked up his own as well as Pargeter's address and should have
wished to verify their statements as far as was possible.
"Of course, Grid, you will come home with me!" exclaimed Pargeter
fretfully.
"Then, Messieurs, I will send any news I get straight to the Avenue du
Bois de Boulogne."
As they walked through the long corridors, it became clear that whatever
anxiety Pargeter had suffered had dropped off him, for the moment, like
a cloak. "I shouldn't be surprised if I can get off to-night after all,"
he said cheerfully, "you heard what he said? This afternoon we shall
certainly have news of her."
Then, as they emerged into the hall, and he caught sight of his
motor-car and of its occupant, "For God's sake, Grid," he said frowning,
"let's get rid of that old woman! There she sits, staring like a bird of
prey; it's enough to give one the hump! Ask her if she would like us to
drive her to her Paris house. If she wants to go back to the country,
I'll send her in Peggy's Limousine--oh! I forgot, that's not available,
is it? Never mind, she can go on in this car. Say we'll send her news as
soon as we hear any!"
But Vanderlyn soon ascertained that Madame de Léra had no wish to go
back to Marly-le-Roi. She accepted his brief account of what had
occurred at the Prefecture of Police without comment, and, refusing
Pargeter's offer to drive her to her house in the Faubourg St. Germain,
asked only to be set down at the nearest telegraph-station.
* * * * *
Dreary hours followed--hours later remembered with special horror and
shrinking by Laurence Vanderlyn. They were spent by the two ill-assorted
friends in Tom Pargeter's own room on the ground-floor of the villa.
It was a long, well-lighted room, lined with the huge, splendidly
decorative posters, signed Chéret and Mucha, which were then just being
collected by those who admired that type of flamboyant art. In this
apartment Peggy, as Vanderlyn was well aware, never put her feet, for it
was there that her husband received his trainer and his sporting
friends. Here also was his own private telephone.
Lunch was brought to them on a tray, and at two o'clock the butler came
with the information that several police officials were in the house
interrogating the servants. Far from annoying Pargeter, the fact seemed
to afford him some gratification, for it proved that he was after all
quite as important a personage as he believed himself to be. He gave
orders that the men were to be liberally supplied with drink.
An hour later came a high official from the Préfecture. He was taken
upstairs and shown into the drawing-room, and it was there that Pargeter
joined him, leaving Vanderlyn for the first time alone.
The American lay back in the rocking-chair in which he had been sitting
forward listening to the other's unconnected talk. What a relief, what
an immense sense of sobbing relief--came over his weary senses, aye,
even his weary limbs! He put away the thought, the anguished query, as
to how long this awful ordeal was likely to endure. For the moment it
was everything to be alone. He closed his smarting eyes.
Suddenly the telephone bell rang, violently. Vanderlyn got up slowly;
stumblingly he walked across the room and took up the receiver. A
woman's voice asked in French:
"Has Mr. Pargeter left Paris?"
"No," said Vanderlyn shortly. "Mr. Pargeter is still in Paris."
"Is it a friend of Mr. Pargeter who is speaking?"
There was a long pause,--then, "Yes," said Vanderlyn.
"Will you, Monsieur, kindly inform your friend," said the voice, shaking
with a ripple of light laughter, "that Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle
has something very urgent to say to him?"
"Mr. Pargeter is engaged, but I will give him any message."
"May I ask you, Monsieur, to have the gracious amiability to inform Mr.
Pargeter that Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle will be expecting him at
five o'clock this afternoon. She understood he was leaving Paris
yesterday, but someone told her that he had been seen driving in his
auto on the grand boulevards this morning."
A few moments later Pargeter burst into the room.
"They declare that Peggy must have left Paris!" he exclaimed. "I thought
as much," he went on, angrily. "I felt certain that she was only hiding!
Of course I didn't like to say so--at first," and, as Vanderlyn remained
silent, he came and flung himself in a chair close to the other man.
"You see, Grid,"--his voice unconsciously lowered,--"she played me that
trick once before--years ago! It was a regular bit of bad luck, the sort
of thing that only seems to happen to me; other men escape. A woman came
to our house,--we were living in London then,--an old friend of mine
with whom I'd stupidly mixed up again; she brought a child with her, a
squalling brat two or three months older than Jasper--Of course the
child had nothing to do with me, but she said he had, and Peggy believed
her!" he looked for sympathy to the silent man opposite to whom he was
now sitting.
"Did you ever hear of this before?" he asked suspiciously, "did Peggy
ever tell you about it?"
"No," said Vanderlyn. "This is the first time I have heard anything of
it. How long did she stay away?" he forced himself to add, loathing
himself the while: "Did she disappear like this--I mean, as she has done
this time?"
"Well, not exactly," said Pargeter reluctantly, "for one thing she took
Jasper and his nurse with her, but not her maid. They went off to her
aunt,--the aunt who brought her up, you know,--but for two days I hadn't
a notion where she was! Then one of her brothers came to see me. It was
all made as damned unpleasant for me as possible, but they were of
course determined that she should come back to me, and so she did--after
about a week. But she was never nice to me again," he added, moodily,
"not that she ever was really nice to me before we married. It was the
aunt who hunted me----"
"Is there any special reason why Peggy should have thought of going away
like that--now?" asked Vanderlyn in a strained voice.
"No," exclaimed Pargeter, "of course there isn't! I've always been nice
to her, as you know well, Grid,--much nicer, I mean, than most men would
have been to a wife who was so--so--" he sought intently for a word, "so
superior and--and unsympathetic. But lately I have been specially nice
to her, for my sister, Sophy, you know, had written me a long screed,--I
didn't bother to read it right through, making out that Peggy's heart
was weak, and that I ought to be very careful about her. The very day I
got the letter I went out and bought her that grey Limousine Lady Prynne
was so keen I should take off her hands! Peggy always had everything she
wanted," he repeated; "I didn't have a penny with her, but I've never
grudged her anything. In fact I should be pleased if she spent more on
her clothes than she seems to care to do, for I like to see a woman well
trigged out."
"Tom, I have a message for you," said Vanderlyn slowly, "a lady
telephoned just now to say she's expecting you at five o'clock."
"Eh! what?" said Pargeter, his fair face flushing, "a lady? What lady?
Did she give her name?"
"Mademoiselle de la Tour de Nesle," said Vanderlyn, with curling lip.
"Oh Lord! What a plague women are!" said the other, crossly. "Sometimes
I think it's a pity God ever made Eve! Such impudence, her ringing up
here! Still, she's an amusing little devil."
"Are you going to see her?" asked Vanderlyn, "because if so I think I
had better be getting back to my place. You see, I've rather neglected
my work to-day."
Something in the other's tone impressed Pargeter disagreeably.
"I say, don't be shirty!" he exclaimed, "I know you've had a lot of
bother, and I'm awfully grateful to you, and so will Peggy be when she
knows. I sha'n't make up my mind about going to see Nelly till the last
minute----"
"Nelly?" repeated Vanderlyn, puzzled--"Who's Nelly?"
"You know, Grid,--the--the person who rang me up. I always call her
Nelly. Her name's such a mouthful--still, it's Nelly's Tower, isn't it?
See? Perhaps to-day as there's all this fuss on I'd better not go and
see her, eh, Grid? I wish I was like you," he added, a little
shamefacedly, "you're such a puritan. I suppose that's why Peggy's so
fond of you. Birds of a feather, eh? what?" his manner grew sensibly
more affectionate and confidential.
The two men smoked on in silence. Vanderlyn was trying to choose a form
of words with which he could bid the other farewell; he longed with a
miserable longing to be alone, but that first day's ordeal was not yet
over.
"I can't face dinner here," said Pargeter suddenly, "let's go and dine
at that new place, the Coq d'Or."
Vanderlyn lacked the energy to say him nay, and they went out, leaving
word where they were to be found.
Le Coq d'Or was a reconstitution of what had been, in a now deserted
suburban resort, a famous restaurant dedicated to the memory and cult of
Rabelais. Vanderlyn had already been there with American friends, but to
Pargeter the big room, with its quaint mediæval furnishings and large
panels embodying adventures of Gargantua, was new, and for a moment
distracted his mind from what was still more of a grievance than an
anxiety.
But they had not long been seated at one of the narrow oak tables which
were supposed to be exact copies of those used in a mediæval tavern,
when Pargeter began to turn sulky. The maître d'hôtel of the Coq d'Or
was not aware of how important a guest was honouring him that night, and
for a few moments no attention was paid to the two friends.
"I say, this is no good!" exclaimed Pargeter angrily, "let's go
somewhere else--to the Café de Paris."
"For God's sake, Tom," exclaimed Vanderlyn harshly, "sit down! Can't you
see I'm tired out? Let's stay where we are."
"All right. But I can tell you that at this rate we sha'n't get anything
till midnight!" Still Pargeter sat down again, and fortunately there
soon came up a waiter who had known the great sportsman elsewhere; and a
moment later he was absorbed in the amusing occupation of making out a
careful menu from a new bill of fare.
During the long course of the meal, Vanderlyn listened silently to
Pargeter's conjectures concerning Peggy's disappearance--conjectures
broken by lamentations over the contretemps which had made it impossible
for him to leave Paris that day. Absorbed as he was in himself and his
own grievances, Pargeter was yet keenly aware when his companion's
attention seemed in any way to wander, and at last there came a moment
when, leaving his cup of black coffee half full, he pushed his chair
away with a gesture of ill-temper.
"I'm afraid, Grid, all this must be an infernal bore for you!" he said;
"after all, Peggy's not your wife--no woman has the right to lead you
such a dance as she has led me to-day. Let's try to forget her for a
bit; let's go along to 'The Wash'?"
Vanderlyn shook his head; he felt spent, worn out. He muttered that he
had work to do, that it was time for him to turn in.
Each man paid his portion of the bill, and, as they went through the
glass doors giving onto the Boulevard, Vanderlyn noticed that on each
side of the entrance to the Coq d'Or a man was standing, sentinel-wise,
as if waiting for someone to go in or come out.
For a moment the two friends stood on the pavement.
"Let's take a fiacre," said Pargeter suddenly, "and I'll drive you to
your place." The warm spring weather had brought out a number of open
cabs. They hailed one of these, and, as they did so, Vanderlyn noticed
that the two men who had been standing at the door of the restaurant
entered another just behind them.
* * * * *
When at last he found himself in his own flat, and at last alone,
Vanderlyn stood for a few moments in his empty sitting-room. Terrible as
had been the companioned hours of the day, he now feared to be alone. It
was too early to go to bed--and he looked back with horror to the
wakeful hours which had been his the night before. So standing there he
told himself that an hour's walk--he had not walked at all that
day--would quiet his nerves, prepare him for the next day's ordeal.
As he made his way down the broad shallow stairs, his mind seemed to
regain its elasticity. He realised that it must be his business to keep
fit. A greater ordeal than anything which had yet befallen him lay
there--in front of him. Soon, perhaps to-morrow, the Prefecture of
Police would connect the finding of a woman's dead body in the train
which had left Paris for Orange the night before, with Mrs. Pargeter's
disappearance.
It would be then that he would need all his strength and self-control.
He remembered with a thrill of anger the curious measuring glance the
head of the Paris detective force had cast on him that morning. He
wondered uneasily how far he had betrayed himself.
Passing through the porte cochère, he noticed that the concierge was
talking to a neat, stout little Frenchman with whose appearance he felt
himself familiar. Vanderlyn looked straight at the man; yes, this was
undoubtedly one of the two watchers who had been standing outside the
door of the Coq d'Or.
Then he was being followed, tracked? The Paris police evidently already
connected him in some way with the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter?
Instead of crossing the road to the deserted pavement which bounds the
gardens of the Tuileries, the American turned to the left, and became
merged in the slowly moving stream of men and women under the arcades of
the Rue de Rivoli. As he walked along he became conscious, and that
without once turning round, that his pursuer was close behind; when he
walked slowly, the other, as far as possible, did the same, and when he
hurried on, he could hear the tap-tap dogging his footsteps through the
crowd.
At last, finding himself opposite the Hotel Continental, Vanderlyn
stopped and deliberately read over the bill of fare attached to the door
of the restaurant. As he did so, the light of a large réverbère beat
down on his face; from the human current sweeping slowly on behind him a
man quietly detached himself, and, standing for a moment by the side of
the American diplomatist, looked up into his face with a long deliberate
stare.