The great hotel was very nearly deserted when I entered.
There was the glow of a cigar where some one smoked, at the end of the
long porch. Within, there was only a sleepy clerk.
Madame Barras had not arrived... he was quite sure; she had gone out to
dinner somewhere and had not come in!
I was profoundly concerned. But I took a moment to reflect before
deciding what to do.
I stepped outside and there, coming up from the shadow of the porch, I
met Sir Henry Marquis.
It was chance at its extreme of favor. If I had been given the
selection, in all the world, I should have asked for Sir Henry Marquis
at that decisive moment.
The relief I felt made my words extravagant.
“Marquis!” I cried. “You here!”
“Ah, Winthrop,” he said, in his drawling Oxford voice, “what have you
done with Madame Barras; I was waiting for her?”
I told him, in a word, how she had set out from my house--my
concern--the walk down here and this result. I did not ask him at the
moment how he happened to be here, or with a knowledge of our guest.
I thought that Marquis was in Canada. But one does not, with success,
inquire of a C.I.D. official even in his own country. One met him in the
most unexpected places, unconcerned, and one would have said at leisure.
But he was concerned to-night. What I told brought him up. He stood for
a moment silent. Then he said, softly, in order drat the clerk behind us
might not overhear.
“Don't speak of it. I will get a light and go with you!”
He returned in a moment and we went out. He asked me about the road, was
there only one way down; and I told him precisely. There was only the
one road into the village and no way to miss it unless one turned into
the public road at the point where it entered our private one along the
mountain.
He pitched at once upon this point and we hurried back.
We had hardly a further word on the way. I was decidedly uneasy about
Madame Barras by now, and Marquis' concern was hardly less evident. He
raced along in his immense stride, and I had all I could manage to keep
up.
It may seem strange that I should have brought such a man as Sir Henry
Marquis into the search of this adventure with so little explanation
of my guest or the affair. But, one must remember, Marquis was an old
acquaintance frequently seen about in the world. To thus, on the spot
so to speak, draft into my service the first gentleman I found, was
precisely what any one would have done. It was probable, after all, that
there had been some reason why the cut-under had taken the other road,
and Madame Barras was quite all right.
It was better to make sure before one raised the village--and Marquis,
markedly, was beyond any aid the village could have furnished. This
course was strikingly justified by every after-event.
I have said that the night was not dark. The sky was hard with stars,
like a mosaic. This white moonlight entered through the tree-tops and
in a measure illumined the road. We were easily able to see, when we
reached the point, that the cut-under had turned out into the road
circling the mountain to the west of the village. The track was so
clearly visible in the light, that I must have observed it had I been
thinking of the road instead of the one who had set out upon it.
I was going on quickly, when Marquis stopped. He was stooping over the
track of the vehicle. He did not come on and I went back.
“What is it?” I said.
He answered, still stooping above the track.
“The cut-under stopped here.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, for it seemed hardly possible to
determine where a wheeled vehicle had stopped.
“It's quite clear,” he replied. “The horse has moved about without going
on.”
I now saw it. The hoof-marks of the horse had displaced the dust where
it had several times changed position.
“And that's not all,” Marquis continued. “Something has happened to the
cut-under here!”