"What medical examination has been made?" I demanded.
"None," responded the Countess. "My poor child is dead, and no doctor
can render her assistance. Medical aid is unavailing."
"But do you mean to say that on making this discovery you did not think
it necessary to send for a doctor?" I cried incredulously.
"I did not send for one--I sent for you," was her response.
"But we must call a doctor at once," I urged. "If you have suspicion of
foul play we should surely know if there is any wound, or any injury to
account for death."
"I did not consider it necessary. No doctor can return her to me," she
wailed. "I sent for you because I believed that you would render me
assistance in this terrible affair."
"Most certainly I will," I replied. "But in our own interests we must
send for a medical man, and if it is found to be actually a case of foul
play, for the police. I'll send a line to Doctor Deane, an Englishman
whom I know, who is generally called in to see anybody at the Embassy
who chances to be ill. He is a good fellow, and his discretion may be
relied upon."
So saying, I scribbled a line on the back of a card, and told the man to
take a cab down to the Rue du Havre, where the doctor occupied rooms
over a hosier's shop a stone's throw from the bustling Gare St. Lazare.
A very curious mystery was evidently connected with this startling
discovery, and I was anxious that my friend, Dick Deane, one of my old
chums of Rugby days, should assist me in clearing it up.
The Countess de Foville, whose calmness had been so remarkable while
speaking with me before we entered the death-chamber, had now given way
to a flood of emotion. She sank back into her chair, and, burying her
face in her hands, cried bitterly.
I tried to obtain some further information from her, but all that
escaped her was:
"My poor Yolande! My poor daughter!" Finding that my endeavours to
console her were futile, I went forth and made inquiries of the three
frightened maidservants regarding what had occurred.
One of them, a dark-eyed Frenchwoman in frilled cap, whom I had seen on
my previous visit, said, in answer to my questions:
"Jean discovered the poor mademoiselle in the petit salon about a
quarter of an hour after m'sieur had left. She was lying upon her face
near the window, quite rigid. He shouted; we all rushed in, and on
examining her found that she was already dead."
"But was there no sign of a struggle?" I inquired, leading the way to
the room indicated.
"The room was just as m'sieur sees it now," she answered, with a wave of
her hand.
I glanced around, but as far as I could distinguish it was exactly as I
had left it.
"There was no mark of violence--nothing to show that mademoiselle had
been the victim of foul play?"
"Nothing, m'sieur."
Could it have been a case of suicide? I wondered. Yolande's words
before I had taken leave of her were desponding, and almost led me to
believe that she had taken her life rather than face the man Wolf who
had so suddenly arrived in Paris--the man who exercised upon her some
mysterious influence, the nature of which I could not guess.
"It was not more than fifteen minutes after I had left, you say?" I
inquired.
"No, m'sieur, not more."
"Mademoiselle had no other visitor?"
"No, m'sieur. Of that we are all certain."
"And the Countess, where was she during the time I was here?"
"She was out driving. She did not return till about five minutes after
we had made the terrible discovery."
"And how did madame act?"
"She ordered us to carry poor mademoiselle to her room. Poor madame!
She bore the blow with wonderful fortitude."
That remark caused me to prick up my ears.
"I don't quite understand," I said. "Did she not give way to tears?"
"No, m'sieur; she shed no tears, but sat erect, motionless as a statue.
She appeared unable to realise that poor mademoiselle was actually dead.
At last she rang, and sent Jean to you."
"You are absolutely certain that mademoiselle had no visit or after I
left?"
"Absolutely."
"It would, moreover, not be possible for anyone to enter or leave
without your knowledge?" I suggested.
"M'sieur understands me perfectly. Mademoiselle must have fallen to the
floor lifeless immediately after I had let you out. She made no sound,
and had Jean not entered with her letters, which the concierge had
brought, my poor young mistress might be lying there now."
The average Frenchwoman of the lower class is always dramatic wherever a
domestic calamity is concerned, and this worthy bonne was no exception.
She punctuated all her remarks with references to the sacred personages
of the Roman Catholic religion.
"You haven't searched the room, I suppose?"
"No, m'sieur. Madame gave orders that nothing was to be touched."
This reply was eminently satisfactory. I glanced again around the
place, now dim in the falling twilight, and ordered her to throw back
the sun-shutters.
The woman went to the window and opened them, admitting a flood of
mellow light, the last crimson of the glorious afterglow. Up from the
boulevard came the dull roar of the traffic, mingling with the sound of
distant bells ringing the Ave Maria. The bonne--an Alsatian, from her
accent--crossed herself from force of habit, and retreated towards the
door.
"You may go," I said. "I will remain here until the doctor arrives."
"Bien, m'sieur," answered the woman, disappearing and closing the door
after her.
My object in dismissing her was to make a thorough search of the
apartment, in order to discover whether any of Yolande's private
possessions were there. She had been denounced by Kaye and Anderson as
a spy, and it occurred to me that I might possibly discover the truth.
But she was dead. The painful fact seemed absolutely incredible.
The room was not a large one, but well furnished, with considerable
taste and elegance. There was the broad, silk-covered couch, upon which
Yolande had sat in the full possession of health and spirits only a
couple of hours before; the skin rug, upon which her tiny foot had been
stretched so coquettishly; the small table, by which she had stood
supporting herself after I had made the fatal announcement that Wolf was
in Paris.
As I stood there the whole of that strangely dramatic scene occurred to
me. Yet she was dead--dead! She had died with her secret in her heart.
At any moment Dick Deane might arrive, but I desired to be the first to
make an examination of the room, and with that object crossed to the
little escritoire of inlaid olive-wood, one of those rather gimcrack
pieces of furniture manufactured along the Ligurian coast for
unsuspecting winter visitors. It was the only piece of incongruous
furniture in the room, all the rest being genuine Louis Quatorze.
One or two letters bearing conspicuous coats-of-arms were lying there,
but all were notes of a private nature from one or other of her friends.
One was an invitation to Vichy from the Baronne Deland, wife of the
great Paris financier; another, signed "Rose," spoke of the gaiety of
Cairo and the dances at Shepheard's during the past winter; while a
third, also in French, and bearing no signature, made an appointment to
meet her in the English tea-shop in the Rue Royale on the following day
at five o'clock.
That note, written upon plain paper of business appearance, had
apparently been left by hand. Who, I wondered, was the person who had
made that appointment? To me the writing seemed disguised, and
probably, owing to the thickness of the up-strokes, had been penned by a
male hand. There was a mistake in the orthography, too, the word
"plaisir" being written "plasir." This showed plainly that no Frenchman
had written it.
I placed the letter in my pocket, and, encouraged by it, continued my
investigations.
In the tiny letter-rack was a note which the unfortunate girl had
written immediately before being struck down. It was addressed to
"Baronne Maillac, Chateau des Grands Sablons, Seine et Marne." The
little escritoire contained four small drawers; the contents of each I
carefully scrutinised. They were, however, mostly private letters of a
social character--some from persons whom I knew well in Society.
Suddenly, from the bottom of one of the smaller drawers, I drew forth
several sheets of plain octavo paper of a pale yellow shade. There
were, perhaps, half-a-dozen sheets, carefully wrapped in a sheet of
plain blue foolscap. I opened them, and, holding one up to the light,
examined the water-mark.
Next instant the truth was plain. That paper was the official paper
used in French Government offices for written reports. How came it in
her possession, if the accusation against her were untrue?
I held it in my hand, glaring at it in bewilderment. Sheet by sheet I
examined it, but there was no writing upon it. Apparently it was her
reserve store of paper, to be used as wanted. In the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs everything is methodical, especially the preparation of
the dossiers. A certain dossier had once fallen into Kaye's hands, and
it contained sheets of exactly similar paper to that which I held in my
hand.
Eagerly I continued my search, striving to discover some writing which
might lead me to a knowledge of the truth, but I found nothing. I had
completed an examination of the whole of the contents of the drawers,
when it occurred to me that there might be some other drawer concealed
there. Years ago I had been offered an escritoire of this pattern in
Genoa, and the sun-tanned fellow who endeavoured to induce me to
purchase it had shown behind the centre drawer in the table a cunningly
contrived cavity where private correspondence might be concealed.
Therefore I drew out the drawer, sounded the interior at the back, and,
finding it hollow, searched about for the spring by which it might be
opened. At last I found it, and next moment drew forth a bundle of
letters. They were bound with a blue ribbon that time had faded. I
glanced at the superscription of the uppermost, and a thrill of sympathy
went through me.
Those carefully preserved letters were my own--letters full of love and
tenderness, which I had written in the days that were dead. I stood
holding them in my hand, my heart full of the past.
In this narrative, my reader, it is my intention to conceal nothing, but
to relate to you the whole, undisguised truth, even though this chapter
of England's secret history presents a seemingly improbable combination
of strange facts and circumstances. Therefore I will not hide from you
the truth that in those moments, as I drew forth one of the letters I
had written long ago and read it through, sweet and tender memories
crowded upon me, and in my eyes stood blinding tears. I may be forgiven
for this, I think, when it is remembered how fondly I had once loved
Yolande, before that fatal day when jealousy had consumed me, and I had
turned my back upon her as a woman false and worthless.
Letter after letter I read, each bringing back to me sad memories of
those days, when in the calm sunset hour we had wandered by the
riverside hand in hand like children, each supremely content in each
other's love, fondly believing that our mad passion would last always.
In all the world she had been, to me, incomparable. The centre of
admiration at those brilliant balls at the Royal Palace at Brussels, the
most admired of all the trim and comely girls who rode at morning in the
Bois, the merriest of those who picnicked in the forest round about the
ancient chateau, the sweetest, the most tender, and the most pure of all
the women I knew--Yolande in those days had been mine. There, in my
hand, I held the letter which I had written from Scotland when on leave
for the shooting, asking if she loved me sufficiently to become my wife.
To that letter I well remembered her reply--indeed, I knew it verbatim;
a tender letter, full of honest love and straightforward admission--a
letter such as only a pure and good woman could have penned. Yes, she
wrote that she loved me dearly, and would be my wife.
And yet it was all of the past. All had ended.
I sighed bitterly--how bitterly, mere words cannot describe. You,
reader, be you man or woman, can you fully realise how deeply I felt at
that moment, how utterly desolate the world then seemed to me?
Those letters I slowly replaced in the cavity and closed it. Then, as I
turned away, my eyes fell upon the photographs standing upon a small
whatnot close by the escritoire. They were of persons whom I did not
know--all strangers, save one. This was a cabinet portrait in a heavy
silver frame, and as I took it up to scrutinise it more closely a cry
involuntarily escaped my lips.
The picture was a three-quarter length representation of a
black-bearded, keen-eyed man, standing with his hands thrust idly in his
pockets, and smoking a cigarette. There was no mistaking those
features. It was the photograph of the man the discovery of whose
presence in Paris had produced such an extraordinary effect upon her--
Rodolphe Wolf.