The bright May sun was pouring into Tom Pargeter's large smoking-room,
making more alive and vivid the fantastic and brilliantly-coloured
posters lining the walls.
Laurence Vanderlyn, standing there in a peopled solitude, caught a
glimpse of his own strained and tired face in a mirror which filled up
the space between two windows, and what he saw startled him, for it
seemed to him that none could look at his countenance and not see
written there the tale of his anguish, remorse, and suspense. And yet he
knew that now his ordeal was drawing to a close; in a few moments
Pargeter was due to return from his interview with Madame d'Elphis.
Walking up and down the sunny room which held for him such agonising
memories of the long hours spent there during the last three days in Tom
Pargeter's company, Vanderlyn lived again every moment of his own
strange interview with the soothsayer. The impression of sincerity which
Madame d'Elphis had produced on him had now had time to fade, and he
asked himself with nervous dread whether she was, after all, likely to
do what she had promised. Nay, was it in her power to lie,--or rather to
tell the half-truth which was all that he had asked her to tell?
At last there came the sound of the front-door of the villa opening,
shutting; and then those made by Pargeter's quick, short footsteps
striking the marble floor of the hall, and echoing through the silent
house.
Vanderlyn stopped short in his restless pacing. He turned and waited.
The door was flung open, and Pargeter came in. Quietly shutting the door
behind him, he walked down the room to where the other man, with his
back to the window, stood waiting for him. The three days and nights
which had carved indelible lines on the American's already seamed face,
had left Pargeter's untouched; just now he looked grave, subdued, but
his face had lost the expression of perplexed anger and anxiety which
had alone betrayed the varying emotions he had experienced since the
disappearance of his wife.
At last, when close to Vanderlyn, he spoke--in a low, gruff whisper.
"Grid!" he exclaimed, "Grid, old man, don't be shocked! La d'Elphis says
that Peggy's dead--that she's been dead three days!"
Vanderlyn could not speak. He stared dumbly at the other, and as he
realised the relief, almost the joy, in Pargeter's voice, there came
over him a horrible impulse to strike--and then to flee.
"There, you can see it for yourself--" Pargeter held out, with fingers
twitching with excitement, a sheet of note-paper. "La d'Elphis wrote it
all down! I didn't see her--she's ill. But this is not the first time
I've had to work her in that way, and it does just as well. Her sister
managed everything,--she took her in one of Peggy's gloves which I'd
brought with me."
Vanderlyn shuddered. He opened his mouth, but no words would come. Then
he looked down at the sheet of paper Pargeter had handed him:--
"The person to whom this glove belonged has been dead three days.
She died on a journey--alone. Think of the bridal flower,--it will
guide you to where she now lies waiting for those who loved her to
claim her."
Pargeter laid one hand on Vanderlyn's arm--with the other he took out of
one of his pockets a sheaf of thin slips of paper. The American knew
them to contain accounts of accidents and untoward occurrences
registered at the Prefecture of Police.
Pargeter detached one of the slips and laid it across the sheet of paper
on which Madame d'Elphis had written her laconic message:--
"Look--look at _this_, Grid! And don't say again I'm a fool for
believing in La d'Elphis! I've had this since the day before yesterday;
but I didn't bother to show it to you, for I didn't think anything of
it--I shouldn't now, but for La d'Elphis! But do look--'the body of a
young, fair woman found in a train at _Orange_,'--'the bridal flower,'
as La d'Elphis says--eh, what?"
But still Vanderlyn did not speak.
"I've thought it all out," Pargeter went on, excitedly. "Peggy was
driven to the wrong station--see? Got into the wrong train--and
then--then, Grid, when she found out what she'd done, she got
upset----" For the first time a note of awe, of horror, came into his
voice--"You see, my sister Sophy was right, after all; the poor girl's
heart was queer!"
"And what are you going to do now?" asked Vanderlyn in a low, dry tone.
"Arrange for a special to Orange, I suppose? What time will you start,
Tom? Would you like me to come with you?"
Pargeter reddened; his green eye blinked as if he felt suddenly blinded
by the bright sun.
"I'm not thinking of going myself," he said, rather ashamedly. "Where
would be the good of it? Her brother and that cousin of hers are sure to
want to go. They can take Plimmer. The truth is--well, old man, I don't
feel up to it! I've always had an awful horror of death. Peggy knew that
well enough----" the colour faded from his face; he looked at the other
with a nervous, dejected expression.
"Tom," said Vanderlyn, slowly, "why shouldn't _I_ go to Orange--with
Madame de Léra? Why say anything to Peggy's people till we really know?"
For the first time Pargeter seemed moved to genuine human feeling.
"Well," he said, "you _are_ a good friend, Grid! I'll never forget how
you've stood by me during this worrying time. I wish I could do
something for you in return----" he looked at the other doubtfully. To
poor Tom Pargeter, "doing something" always meant parting with money,
and Laurence Vanderlyn was, if not rich, then quite well off.
Vanderlyn's hand suddenly shook. He dropped the piece of paper he had
been holding. "Perhaps you'll let me have Jasper sometimes--in the
holidays," he said, huskily.
"Lord, yes! Of course I will! There's nothing would please poor Peggy
more! Then--then when will you start, Grid? I mean for Orange?"
"At once," said Vanderlyn. Then he looked long, hesitatingly at
Pargeter, and the millionaire, with most unusual perspicacity, read and
answered the question contained in that strange, uncertain gaze.
"Don't bring her back, Grid! I couldn't stand a big funeral here. I
don't want to hear any more about it than I can help! Of course, it
isn't much good my going over to England _now_; but I won't stay in
Paris, I'll get away,--right away for a bit, on the yacht,--and take
some of the crowd with me."
* * * * *
No one ever knew the truth. To the Prefect of Police the mystery of the
disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter is still unsolved--unsolvable. When he
meets a pretty woman out at dinner he tells her the story--and asks her
what she thinks.
As for Laurence Vanderlyn, he has gone home--home to the old colonial
house which was built by his great-grandfather, the friend of Franklin,
on the shores of Lake Champlain. He never speaks of Peggy excepting to
Jasper; but to the lad he sometimes talks of her as if she were still
there, still very near to them both, near enough to be grieved if her
boy should ever forget that he had a mother who loved him dearly.