Chapter 16

—10—

The Captain got the envelope and examined it carefully under a microscope. There were faint finger imprints on it and it would be photographed and the prints compared with those in the police archives. He said, “If they aren’t the Madame’s—and I doubt if they are, since she hardly touched the envelope—then they may check with someone whom the police already know.”

“How about the chaplain?” I asked him, remembering that I had been with the Madame practically all day and that his operatives were supposed to keep an eye on the place every minute of the day and night.

“Business picks up,” he replied cryptically.

“What do you mean?”

“Well—the maid was shadowed. She met an army chaplain whose name is Keith and who comes from Louisville, Kentucky. We don’t know what passed between them, but it is possible that the money came from that chaplain.... I wasn’t going to tell you the whole story until we finish, but you may as well know it, I suppose.”

I couldn’t help feeling an aching hurt, but I didn’t say anything.

He noticed my change, however, and promptly explained it all away by saying, “We just wanted you to go ahead with the Madame as if nothing had happened and we thought you could do it better if you had no idea of what had happened. However, now that you know it, you’ve just got to act your part in spite of the knowledge. We can’t close in on her yet: we can’t take this chaplain in for questioning just yet, because we want to keep our eyes on him and see what he does with his days and nights. And meantime, you’ve got to go through with your part. You’re doing fine—better than anyone could have done with a woman like her. And sooner or later, we’ll nab her. It’s only a question of time now. So keep up the good work, and don’t let her get suspicious, for that would spoil the whole plan.”

So back to the Madame’s that night. Ben and I went to see the General late in the afternoon and then he dropped me at the Madame’s.

“Want me to call fer ya, General?” he mocked as I stepped out.

“After all, why not?” I replied. “Say, about ten o’clock to-night?”

Ben was surprised but he went through with it gamely. “All right, General, sir—only if I get in trouble fer runnin’ around in this car, you’ll have to take the blame, General, sir!”

I never expected him to show up, but he did just that and in typical Ben-like fashion, opening the door without knocking and walking right into one of the most mixed up lovin’ scenes that ever happened. The Madame and I had finally come to a show-down and I was having the time of my life trying to keep her away from the secret sections of my anatomy. God, how that woman could make love! I learned about women from her all right—but I couldn’t see any fun in it at all and was just about ready to start throwing things when Ben appeared. I mean, I had gone as far as I could, and I couldn’t go any further because if I had the Madame would have found out the truth and then she’d have been suspicious of my motives immediately—and then the Captain’s plans for a coup would be all ruined. And anyone who thinks it isn’t a delicate problem to keep a woman from finding out that you’re a woman and at the same time keep her from getting mad at you—well, a trial will illustrate how I felt.

She didn’t see Ben at first and he was treated to a choice line of endearing terms and brazen invitations. He stood dumfounded for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite get the drift of the situation, but when he started to tiptoe out again I yelled and the Madame saw him. And maybe she wasn’t mad!

She pulled herself together in just one movement and lit on him in a veritable fit of denunciations and deprecatory explosions. She didn’t give him a chance to explain his presence, and when she acted like that I couldn’t say anything because I was afraid she was near the limit as it was.

So I just let Ben take it while I slipped into my slicker and found my cap. When she pushed him out the door, I was right behind her, ready to hop after him.

She calmed down quickly and asked me again if I wouldn’t please her “just this once!”

But I hugged her and rubbed her neck and caressed her and kissed her and told her we’d better make it some other night. By that time I had managed to get around her and as soon as she let me go, I slid through the door and ran down the stairs, where I found Ben waiting in a dilapidated old taxi.

“General,” he saluted me, “your car.” But after we were seated and on our way, he turned to me in disgust. “Now, Leony, I’m gonna break yer head fer ya if ya don’t perk up and act like a man!” he declared earnestly. “What’ya suppose the Lord built ya that way for?... If I ever hear of ya throwin’ away a lovin’ party like that one again, I’m gonna step right in an’ take it away from ya!... Why, she’s the best lookin’ woman I’ve ever seen in my whole damned life! Are ya crazy?... I’d give ten years o’ my life to put my shoes under her bed just once!”

I got mad. “All right,” I told him. “To-morrow I’ll take you over there and you can help yourself. You’re welcome to all of her lovin’ you can get!”

He was quiet for a while then, but he finally burst out with “Here I am workin’ myself skinny tryin’ to satisfy these Parisian women, an’ you, ya little shrimp, actually run away from the best lookin’ and most deservin’ one in the whole pack! Ain’t ya ashamed of yourself?”

“I’ll take you over there to-morrow,” I promised.

All he would say after that was “Seems damned funny to me ... damned funny....”

Which was just two damns funnier than it seemed to me.

—11—

Well, I took Ben to the Madame’s on the pretext that he wanted to apologize for breaking in so unceremoniously last night. She accepted the apology graciously and I think she expected him to leave.

But Ben had no intention of leaving and, as I had told him I would leave them alone, I began to wonder how I could manage to get out without taking him with me. As a starter I turned on the phonograph and put on a peppy record. As the Madame likes to dance, I was not surprised when she submitted to Ben’s invitation to dance with him.

However, Ben wasn’t much when it came to tripping the light fantastic and the Madame could not be blamed for suggesting that they call it enough after but a few steps.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Ben, naturally suspicious and belligerent.

The Madame laughed and told him that she “never could dance very well with big men.... I don’t like such tremendously big men half as much as I do little fellows like the sergeant.”

If she had said anything but that, the evening might have gone along without any exceptional disturbances, but the declaration of preference was to Ben like the proverbial red flag to the bull, and he arose to the occasion promptly to demand, “What the devil’s the matter with these Parisian dames?... Don’t like beeg men!... Huh! When a woman says that to me I just make up my mind that if she an’ I ever get alone together, I’ll make her like me or mangle her!”

“Ou la la!” laughed the Madame. “A genuine cave man, eh?... Such a droll friend for Sergeant Canwick!” And she laughed again.

Well, I knew Ben was going to get rough, regardless of my presence, and I was wondering how in the devil I could get him out of there, because I’d be in a pretty pickle if the Madame got all torn up, and with me standing right there. I mean, she’d naturally expect me to act like a man and crown Ben or something—but I could just see myself trying to crown that big blister.

Ben was starting to amble across to the divan on which she was sitting when we were all startled and relieved by a knock on the door.

“Berta!” the Madame called, and the maid promptly appeared, answered the knock and announced that Major Fergus and a friend were there.

Just the mention of a major was enough to quiet my bulldozing friend. He retired to a secluded corner where he would not have to face the officer and I took advantage of the moment to tell the Madame I had to step out for ten or fifteen minutes.

“Is your battling friend staying?” she inquired with a very wise smile.

“Oh—he’ll be all right,” I told her. “And I’ll be right back anyway.” She laughed and I hurried past the major and his mademoiselle and went out for the air.

I thought I walked around for at least a half hour, but when I came back to the house I realized that I hadn’t been gone more than fifteen or twenty minutes. I made as little noise as possible ascending the stairs and when I stopped in front of her door, unmistakable sounds of a struggle and argument came to my ears. It sounded desperate and I was on the point of knocking, when I heard the Madame suddenly laugh. Then she said, “All right, you wild man—but let’s have a little champagne first to help matters along.”

Well, if that’s the way she felt about it, it was none of my business, so I removed myself to the air again. I don’t know why, but I actually felt disappointed. I never really believed the Madame would give in like that to just any man who fought hard enough to overpower her. I was disgusted with her, I guess.

Fifteen minutes later I returned again—and all was so very quiet that I concluded my presence would be rather superfluous. So out to the air again.

When I returned the next time, about twenty minutes later, I walked boldly up to the door and knocked. The Madame herself let me in. She smiled queerly at me, and I could not meet her eyes. I glanced around the room and spotted Ben stretched out on the divan, apparently sleeping the sleep of the righteous.... I couldn’t figure it out.

When she noted my bewilderment, she laughed lightly and said, “Your friend, the giant, is like all giants, little one: he met his Jack.”

“Meaning?”

“He can’t stand his liquor.”

That seemed funny, but I didn’t say anything and when she said, “Come in the other room and we’ll have some wine,” I followed her dumbly and drank the wine she offered me.

Aside from the fact that her hair was somewhat mussed and her neck showed several red streaks and unnatural marks, she didn’t look as if she had undergone any titanic struggle—or anything else titanic. I was beginning to wonder just what the devil had happened. I mean, I couldn’t quite figure out what Ben had taken while I was taking the air.

But the Madame interrupted my wonderings to suggest that I take my friend out for a little walk and come back later. “He’s in a stupor now and I don’t feel comfortable with a man like that around. He’ll be all right in a little while.”

So I roused Ben as best I could—which was not very much. He didn’t pay any attention to my shaking and pulling and commanding. But when the Madame began slapping his face and jerking his head back and forth, he opened his eyes and began to come to life. The Madame dropped out of sight and I had no difficulty in getting him out of the place. We walked around for ten or fifteen minutes, Ben’s head clearing a little with every step, and I finally decided that he was presentable again, so we returned to the apartment ... and found the door locked, and there was no answer to my knocking. Ben was all for breaking down the heavy old door, but I dissuaded him and finally got him out and into a rat-trap of a taxi that must have been one of those that helped save Paris a couple of years before.

As we bounced away toward the barracks, I asked him what had happened and “Are you satisfied now?”

For answer he called me seven different kinds of an unmentionable progeny.

So I asked him again, and added, “What became of the major and where did the maid go to?”

“The maple leaf only stayed a few minutes, him an’ his broad.”

“And the maid?”

“She came in and said she was supposed to meet some guy named Keith an’ the boss told her to bring us some champagne before she went.”

“And then what happened?” For an innocent girl my curiosity about such situations was unspeakable.

“Why—she gave me a big goblet o’ champagne an’ I downs it at a gulp.... It tasted damn funny but she had me all worked up so I couldn’t think straight anyway, the little b——!”

“What you kicking about?” I asked in surprise. It didn’t seem to me that a man should talk that way about a woman after she’s been good to him.

“Kickin’ about?” he demanded. “An’ you bouncin’ in about two minutes later! That’s what I’m kickin’ about!”

“You’re crazy,” I told him. “I stayed away almost an hour. What were you doing all that time?”

“Oh—fer Christ’s sake!” He was mad—at me, I assumed, but I was wrong. “What a dumb b—— I am!”

So I didn’t know yet what had happened.

—12—

This affair was ended, in so far as I was concerned. The General came out of the hospital finally, full of pep and ambition and said he wanted to leave Paris next morning. “We’ve had a good rest and now we’ll get back to the business of winning the war,” he told me. “There’s much to do right around here, but I want to get away from the city for a while, so we’ll drop down to Le Mans and Orléans and then come back here in a week or so.”

I reported this to the Captain at once. He was keenly disappointed. Also confessed about taking Ben over, and about the maid and the man named Keith. He blamed me for taking Ben, and also for not hanging around so I could follow the maid when she went out to meet the chaplain.... “However,” he said, “you’ve helped a lot, and I’m going to see about having you transferred, after the General has cleaned up some of his work.” He made me promise to look him up as soon as I got back to Paris.

Upon his suggestion I called upon the Madame to say good-by. She welcomed me as usual but rebuked me for bringing “that woman-eating animal to see me.”

I told her I was sorry. That I didn’t think he would act like that.

“Don’t worry, youngster,” she informed me. “Ada doesn’t give in to any man unless she wants to—and, to be frank with you, there’s only one man in Paris whom I would favor in that way....”

“Yes?”

“... and he is here at this minute,” she finished, ending with that funny little laugh.

“You’re a good joker,” I replied with a smile.

“No, I’m not joking, little one,” she insisted. “I know what you think—or, at least, I assume I know. But you have the wrong conception entirely.... I believe in being free and generous and in having a good time with my friends ... but of all the men whom you have met here, there’s not one who can boast of a real conquest here.... You see ... oh, there are many things you can’t understand, youngster.... And now you’re leaving.” She caressed my cheeks with her lips and fingers, and continued, pleasantly and sincerely, “I’ll miss you, cher enfant.... It’s been so nice, having you around.... Promise grandma you’ll be a good boy and stay away from the mademoiselles until you come back to me?”

“I promise faithfully,” I told her.

She kissed me with a smothering fervor, and as she closed the door behind me, murmured, “Hurry back, youngster, like a good boy!”

I forgot to ask her why she wouldn’t let us in last night, when we came back; but I assumed it was on account of Ben.... Well, I did feel sorry for her. She was perfectly able to take care of herself, but sooner or later she’d be caught and then—well, they shot Mata Hari. It didn’t seem that any good could come from killing a woman who was as game, as clever, as altogether interesting as she was.... You see, I loathed having to put up with her caresses and her kisses, but I could understand how a man must feel, if she liked him ... and I couldn’t help liking her and feeling sorry for her.... However, there was a war on: at least, so I’d heard, and to-morrow it was back to the grind for us.

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