THE MAN IN BLUE GLASSES.
The nocturnal adventure caused quite an excitement in the house, and
very little else was talked of at lunch-time. Aunt Anne had asked
Mademoiselle Belvoir if she would rather nothing was said about the
affair; but the girl said it was impossible to keep it quiet, as
several people had heard the bustle in the night, and were anxious to
know all about it. So Miss Britton found that she and her niece were
objects of general interest, and they both struggled nobly to describe
the adventure intelligibly to the others, though Barbara knew that she
got horribly mixed in her French tenses, and was not quite sure whether
she understood all the questions the French people put to her. The
solicitor annoyed her most--he was so superior.
"Why did you not rush upon the fellow and scream for help?" he said.
"I was far too frightened to do anything of the kind," Barbara answered
indignantly. "I would never have dared to fling myself upon a dark
figure like that. If I had seen him, I shouldn't have minded so much."
"So you did not see his face?" said the solicitor.
"Of course I didn't," and Barbara spoke rather crossly. "If I had, I
should have gone and described him to the police the first thing this
morning."
She felt inclined to add that it was a pity he could not inculcate his
own children with some of his apparent courage, for they both seemed
far more frightened than interested in the story, and the son's eyes
looked as if they would jump out of his head. Perhaps the poor youth
was scolded for his timidity afterwards, for when Barbara passed their
room in going upstairs to get ready to go out, she heard the father
speaking in very stern tones, and the boy murmuring piteously, "Oh,
father! oh, father!"
Miss Britton was in a hurry to get out; but, as often happens, it
proved a case of "more haste, less speed," for they had just got into
the street when Barbara remembered she had left her purse behind, and
had to run back for it.
What was her astonishment on opening the bedroom door to see the
solicitor's son standing near the window. She had come upstairs very
softly, and he had not heard her till she was in the room; then he
turned round suddenly, and sprang back with a face filled with terror.
"What _are_ you doing here?" she exclaimed in astonishment, and at
first he could not answer for fright.
"I--I--came to look at the place where the man was last night," he
gasped at last, "and to see how he could get out of the window."
"Well, I think your curiosity has run away with your politeness,"
Barbara said. "You might have seen from the garden that the balcony is
quite close enough to the tree for any one to get out easily. Is there
anything else you would like to examine?"
She need hardly have asked, for he had hurried round to the door before
she had half finished speaking, and, only murmuring, "I'm sorry," fled
precipitately. She was really rather sorry for him; he looked so
abjectly miserable. Nevertheless, she took the precaution of locking
the door and putting the key under the mat. She went downstairs more
slowly than she had come up, for the boy's visit had made her feel
rather queer.
The way he shrank back into the window when she came in had reminded
her so much of the manner in which the black figure had acted in the
night, and she felt there was something uncanny about the whole thing.
However, she made up her mind to say nothing to her aunt just then in
case of spoiling her afternoon's pleasure, but she was quite determined
to make some rather pointed remarks to the solicitor that evening when
no one else was listening, and see how he took them.
Unfortunately, however, she had no opportunity of doing so, for when
they went down to dinner, none of the solicitor's family were visible,
and Mademoiselle Belvoir remarked that they had all gone out to the
theatre, and would not be back till late. The remarks, Barbara
supposed, must be postponed till the morrow; but, alas! she never had a
chance of making them, for early on the morrow the whole house learned
that the solicitor, with his son and daughter, had gone, with
apparently no intention of returning.
Mademoiselle Belvoir and her brother had waited up till long after the
time they should have returned, and then the brother had hurried to the
_préfecture_ to report the matter. He had been growing very suspicious
of late, as the solicitor had not paid anything for three weeks:
"Waiting for his cheque-book, which had been mislaid," he had said.
But the suspicions had been acted on too late, and his mother was
cheated out of ever so much money. Every one was highly indignant, and
Miss Britton and her niece really felt very grieved that they should
have been _British_ subjects who had behaved so badly.
Aunt Anne said she almost felt as if she ought to pay for them and save
the honour of their country, but Barbara thought that would be too
quixotic. At first Mademoiselle Belvoir thought there might be
something inside the man's trunks that would repay them a little for
the money lost; but, on being opened, there proved to be nothing but a
few old clothes, and Mademoiselle and her brothers remembered that the
boy had often gone out carrying parcels, which they used to laugh at.
When all this was being discussed, Barbara thought she might as well
tell about finding the boy in her room, and she mentioned her
suspicions that he and the nocturnal visitor were one and the same
person, and found to her surprise that the Belvoirs had thought the
same. Poor things! Barbara was heartily sorry for them, for it was an
unpleasant occurrence to happen in a _pension_, and might make a
difference to them in future, apart from the fact that they could hear
nothing of the lost money, nor yet of the runaways.
Barbara felt that hitherto her adventures in France had been quite like
a story-book, and knew that when her brother Donald heard of them he
would be making all kind of wonderful plans for the discovery of the
miscreants.
"He would fancy himself an amateur detective at once," she said to her
aunt. Whereupon that lady returned grimly she would gladly become a
detective for the time being if she thought there was any chance of
finding the wretches, but that such people usually hid their tracks too
well. Nevertheless, Barbara noticed that she eyed her fellow-men with
great suspicion, and one day she persisted in pursuing a stout
gentleman with blue glasses, whom she declared was the solicitor in
disguise, till he noticed them and began to be nervously agitated.
"I'm sure it isn't he, aunt," Barbara whispered, after they had
followed him successfully from Notre Dame to St. Etienne, and from
there to Napoleon's Tomb. "He speaks French--I heard him. Besides, he
is too stout for the solicitor."
"He may be padded," Aunt Anne said wisely. "People of that kind can do
anything. There is something in his walk that assures me it _is_ he,
and I _must_ see him without his spectacles."
Barbara followed rather unwillingly, though she could not help thinking
with amusement how the family would laugh when she wrote and described
her aunt in the role of a detective. She was not to be very
successful, however, for, as they were sauntering after him down one of
the galleries of the Museum, the blue-spectacled gentleman suddenly
turned round, and in a torrent of French asked to what pleasure he owed
Madame's close interest, which, if continued, would cause him to call
up a _gendarme_. "If you think to steal from me, I am far too well
prepared for that," he concluded.
"Steal!" Aunt Anne echoed indignantly. "_We_ are certainly not
thieves, sir, whatever _you_ may be." Barbara was thankful that
apparently his knowledge of English was so slight that he did not
understand the remark. It was not without difficulty that she
prevailed upon her aunt to pass on and cease the wordy argument, which,
she pointed out, was not of much good, as neither understood the
other's language sufficiently well to answer to the point.
"We shall have all the visitors in the Museum round us soon," she
urged, with an apprehensive glance at the people who were curiously
drawing near, "and shall perhaps be turned out for making a
disturbance."
"Then I should go at once to the English ambassador," Aunt Anne said
with dignity. "But, as I have now seen his eyes and am assured he is
_not_ the man we want, we can pass on," and with a stately bow, and the
remark that if he annoyed her in future she would feel compelled to
complain, she moved away, Barbara following, crimson with mingled
amusement and vexation.