They sat there, these two, hand locked in hand, saying little,
satisfied now to be with each other and their new-found love. The time
flew by far too fast, till at last Sir Charles, with a half-laugh,
suggested:
“Do you know, dearest Countess—”
She corrected him in a soft, low voice.
“My name is Sabine—Charles.”
“Sabine, darling. It is very prosaic of me, perhaps, but do you know
that I am nearly starved? I came on here at once. I have had no
breakfast.”
“Nor have I,” she answered, smiling. “I was thinking of it when—when
you appeared like a whirlwind, and since then, events have moved so
fast.”
“Are you sorry, Sabine? Would you rather go back to—to—before?” She
made a pretty gesture of closing his traitor lips with her small hand.
“Not for worlds. But you soldiers—you are terrible men! Who can resist
you?”
“Bah! It is you who are irresistible. But there, why not put on your
jacket and let us go out to lunch somewhere—Durand’s, Voisin’s, the
Café de le Paix? Which do you prefer?”
“I suppose they will not try to stop us?”
“Who should try?” he asked.
“The people of the hotel—the police—I cannot exactly say whom; but I
dread something of the sort. I don’t quite understand that manager. He
has been up to see me several times, and he spoke rather oddly, rather
rudely.”
“Then he shall answer for it,” snorted Sir Charles, hotly. “It is the
fault of that brute of a detective, I suppose. Still they would hardly
dare—”
“A detective? What? Here? Are you sure?”
“Perfectly sure. It is one of those from the Lyons Station. I knew him
again directly, and he was inclined to be interfering. Why, I caught
him trying—but that reminds me—I rescued this telegram from his
clutches.”
He took the little blue envelope from his breast pocket and handed it
to her, kissing the tips of her fingers as she took it from him.
“Ah!”
A sudden ejaculation of dismay escaped her, when, after rather
carelessly tearing the message open, she had glanced at it.
“What is the matter?” he asked in eager solicitude. “May I not know?”
She made no offer to give him the telegram, and said in a faltering
voice, and with much hesitation of manner, “I do not know. I hardly
think—of course I do not like to withhold anything, not now. And yet,
this is a business which concerns me only, I am afraid. I ought not to
drag you into it.”
“What concerns you is very much my business, too. I do not wish to
force your confidence, still—”
She gave him the telegram quite obediently, with a little sigh of
relief, glad to realize now, for the first time after many years, that
there was some one to give her orders and take the burden of trouble
off her shoulders.
He read it, but did not understand it in the least. It ran: “I must see
you immediately, and beg you will come. You will find Hortense here.
She is giving trouble. You only can deal with her. Do not delay. Come
at once, or we must go to you.—Ripaldi, Hôtel Ivoire, Rue Bellechasse.”
“What does this mean? Who sends it? Who is Ripaldi?” asked Sir Charles,
rather brusquely.
“He—he—oh, Charles, I shall have to go. Anything would be better than
his coming here.”
“Ripaldi? Haven’t I heard the name? He was one of those in the
sleeping-car, I think? The Chief of the Detective Police called it out
once or twice. Am I not right? Please tell me—am I not right?”
“Yes, yes; this man was there with the rest of us. A dark man, who sat
near the door—”
“Ah, to be sure. But what—what in Heaven’s name has he to do with you?
How does he dare to send you such an impudent message as this? Surely,
Sabine, you will tell me? You will admit that I have a right to ask?”
“Yes, of course. I will tell you, Charles, everything; but not here—not
now. It must be on the way. I have been very wrong, very foolish—but
oh, come, come, do let us be going. I am so afraid he might—”
“Then I may go with you? You do not object to that?”
“I much prefer it—much. Do let us make haste!”
She snatched up her sealskin jacket, and held it to him prettily, that
he might help her into it, which he did neatly and cleverly, smoothing
her great puffed-out sleeves under each shoulder of the coat, still
talking eagerly and taking no toll for his trouble as she stood
patiently, passively before him.
“And this Hortense? It is your maid, is it not—the woman who had taken
herself off? How comes it that she is with that Italian fellow? Upon my
soul, I don’t understand—not a little bit.”
“I cannot explain that, either. It is most strange, most
incomprehensible, but we shall soon know. Please, Charles, please do
not get impatient.”
They passed together down into the hotel courtyard and across it, under
the archway which led past the clerk’s desk into the street.
On seeing them, he came out hastily and placed himself in front, quite
plainly barring their egress.
“Oh, madame, one moment,” he said in a tone that was by no means
conciliatory. “The manager wants to speak to you; he told me to tell
you, and stop you if you went out.”
“The manager can speak to madame when she returns,” interposed the
General angrily, answering for the Countess.
“I have had my orders, and I cannot allow her—”
“Stand aside, you scoundrel!” cried the General, blazing up; “or upon
my soul I shall give you such a lesson you will be sorry you were ever
born.”
At this moment the manager himself appeared in reinforcement, and the
clerk turned to him for protection and support.
“I was merely giving madame your message, M. Auguste, when this
gentleman interposed, threatened me, maltreated me—”
“Oh, surely not; it is some mistake;” the manager spoke most suavely.
“But certainly I did wish to speak to madame. I wished to ask her
whether she was satisfied with her apartment. I find that the rooms she
has generally occupied have fallen vacant, in the nick of time. Perhaps
madame would like to look at them, and move?”
“Thank you, M. Auguste, you are very good; but at another time. I am
very much pressed just now. When I return in an hour or two, not now.”
The manager was profuse in his apologies, and made no further
difficulty.
“Oh, as you please, madame. Perfectly. By and by, later, when you
choose.”
The fact was, the desired result had been obtained. For now, on the far
side from where he had been watching, Galipaud appeared, no doubt in
reply to some secret signal, and the detective with a short nod in
acknowledgment had evidently removed his embargo.
A cab was called, and Sir Charles, having put the Countess in, was
turning to give the driver his instructions, when a fresh complication
arose.
Some one coming round the corner had caught a glimpse of the lady
disappearing into the fiacre, and cried out from afar.
“Stay! Stop! I want to speak to that lady; detain her.” It was the
sharp voice of little M. Floçon, whom most of those present, certainly
the Countess and Sir Charles, immediately recognized.
“No, no, no—don’t let them keep me—I cannot wait now,” she whispered in
earnest, urgent appeal. It was not lost on her loyal and devoted
friend.
“Go on!” he shouted to the cabman, with all the peremptory insistence
of one trained to give words of command. “Forward! As fast as you can
drive. I’ll pay you double fare. Tell him where to go, Sabine. I’ll
follow—in less than no time.”
The fiacre rattled off at top speed, and the General turned to confront
M. Floçon.
The little detective was white to the lips with rage and
disappointment; but he also was a man of promptitude, and before
falling foul of this pestilent Englishman, who had again marred his
plans, he shouted to Galipaud—
“Quick! After them! Follow her wherever she goes. Take this,”—he thrust
a paper into his subordinate’s hand. “It is a warrant for her arrest.
Seize her wherever you find her, and bring her to the Quai l’Horloge,”
the euphemistic title of the headquarters of the French police.
The pursuit was started at once, and then the Chief turned upon Sir
Charles. “Now it is between us,” he said, fiercely. “You must account
to me for what you have done.”
“Must I?” answered the General, mockingly and with a little laugh. “It
is perfectly easy. Madame was in a hurry, so I helped her to get away.
That was all.”
“You have traversed and opposed the action of the law. You have impeded
me, the Chief of the Detective Service, in the execution of my duty. It
is not the first time, but now you must answer for it.”
“Dear me!” said the General in the same flippant, irritating tone.
“You will have to accompany me now to the Prefecture.”
“And if it does not suit me to go?”
“I will have you carried there, bound, tied hand and foot, by the
police, like any common rapscallion taken in the act who resists the
authority of an officer.”
“Oho, you talk very big, sir. Perhaps you will be so obliging as to
tell me what I have done.”
“You have connived at the escape of a criminal from justice—”
“That lady? Psha!”
“She is charged with a heinous crime—that in which you yourself were
implicated—the murder of that man on the train.”
“Bah! You must be a stupid goose, to hint at such a thing! A lady of
birth, breeding, the highest respectability—impossible!”
“All that has not prevented her from allying herself with base, common
wretches. I do not say she struck the blow, but I believe she inspired,
concerted, approved it, leaving her confederates to do the actual
deed.”
“Confederates?”
“The man Ripaldi, your Italian fellow traveller; her maid, Hortense
Petitpré, who was missing this morning.”
The General was fairly staggered at this unexpected blow. Half an hour
ago he would have scouted the very thought, indignantly repelled the
spoken words that even hinted a suspicion of Sabine Castagneto. But
that telegram, signed Ripaldi, the introduction of the maid’s name, and
the suggestion that she was troublesome, the threat that if the
Countess did not go, they would come to her, and her marked uneasiness
thereat—all this implied plainly the existence of collusion, of some
secret relations, some secret understanding between her and the others.
He could not entirely conceal the trouble that now overcame him; it
certainly did not escape so shrewd an observer as M. Floçon, who
promptly tried to turn it to good account.
“Come, M. le Général,” he said, with much assumed _bonhomie_. “I can
see how it is with you, and you have my sincere sympathy. We are all of
us liable to be carried away, and there is much excuse for you in this.
But now—believe me, I am justified in saying it—now I tell you that our
case is strong against her, that it is not mere speculation, but
supported by facts. Now surely you will come over to our side?”
“In what way?”
“Tell us frankly all you know—where that lady has gone, help us to lay
our hands on her.”
“Your own people will do that. I heard you order that man to follow
her.”
“Probably; still I would rather have the information from you. It would
satisfy me of your good-will. I need not then proceed to extremities—”
“I certainly shall not give it you,” said the General, hotly. “Anything
I know about or have heard from the Contessa Castagneto is sacred;
besides, I still believe in her—thoroughly. Nothing you have said can
shake me.”
“Then I must ask you to accompany me to the Prefecture. You will come,
I trust, on my _invitation_.” The Chief spoke quietly, but with
considerable dignity, and he laid a slight stress upon the last word.
“Meaning that if I do not, you will have resort to something stronger?”
“That will be quite unnecessary, I am sure,—at least I hope so. Still—”
“I will go where you like, only I will tell you nothing more, not a
single word; and before I start, I must let my friends at the Embassy
know where to find me.”
“Oh, with all my heart,” said the little detective, shrugging his
shoulders. “We will call there on our way, and you can tell the porter.
They will know where to find us.”