"As to horrible—well, it depends, monsieur, on what is thought horrible! A good many of my pensioners have been dangerous customers in their time—but now? Fortunately, monsieur, the dead cannot bite!" and he smiled at his own grim joke.
Gerald Burton shuddered involuntarily, but as he and Nancy followed the man from the engine-room he gave a sigh of relief, for they had emerged into a wide, airy shed.
The place looked like a workshop of sorts, for it was lined, on one side, with what looked like gigantic chests of drawers, painted black; while standing about on the stone pavement were long white deal packing cases. Over in a corner was a black box, of which the lid was loose.
"You said Number 4, monsieur?" said the man in a business-like tone. "Well, I will get you out Number 4. Kindly stand just over there—not in the sunlight, that might prevent your seeing clearly." He added, speaking far more gently and kindly than he had yet done, "Madame must not be frightened. It will be all over in a moment."
Gerald looked down at his companion. Her face seemed to have become quite small, like that of a child, but the pupils of her eyes had dilated: as she stared up at him fearfully he likened them, in his heart, to deep unfathomable pools.
She came close up to him, and then, without stopping to think, simply following a natural instinct, he put his arm round her shoulder; so would he have done to his sister in a moment of similar distress.
"Don't be too frightened," he whispered, "it will all be over very, very soon, Mrs. Dampier. Somehow I don't think you have anything to fear."
"Please stand over in that corner," said the janitor, pointing towards the black box Gerald Burton had noticed when they had first come into the yard. "We have a poor lady in that box who was only brought in an hour ago! She was run over, killed by an omnibus—such a pity, for she is such a nice fresh-looking lady: not more than about thirty years of age. We expect her family any moment; they will know her by her wedding ring, and by a little locket with a child's hair in it."
Even as he was speaking the man was opening a small, inconspicuous door, situated close to that which gave into the refrigerating-engine room.
Gerald's arm slipped down from Nancy's shoulder. She had put out her hand gropingly, as a blind child might have done, and he was now holding the poor little hand tightly clasped in his firm grasp.
There came a harsh rumbling sound, and then there was wheeled out into the open yard an inclined plane hitched up on huge iron wheels. To the inclined plane was bound a swathed, rigid figure.
"Here is Number 4," said the man in a subdued tone. "I will uncover his face so that madame and monsieur may see if it is the gentleman for whom they are seeking."
A strange tremor shot through Gerald Burton. He was shaken with a variety of sensations of which the predominant feeling was that of repulsion. Was he at last about to gaze at the dead face of the man who, with the one paramount exception of that same man's wife, had filled his mind and thoughts to the exclusion of all else since he had first heard the name of John Dampier? Was he now to make acquaintance with the stranger who had yet in so curious and sinister a way become his familiar?
Nancy gently withdrew her hand from his: leaning slightly forward, she gazed at the swathed stark form which might possibly—so much she had told herself at once—be that of John Dampier.
Very slowly the man drew off that portion of the sheet which covered the upper part of the body, and, as he did so, Gerald Burton heard the woman standing by his side utter a long, fluttering sigh of relief.
Thank God it was not Jack—not her Jack!
The fine, well-cut face was that of a man about Gerald Burton's own age. The features were stilled in the awful immobility of death: but for that immobility, the dead man lying there before them might have been asleep.
"An Englishman," said the janitor thoughtfully, "or perchance an American?A finely built fellow, monsieur. A true athlete. Not a wound, not a touch!Just dropped dead yesterday afternoon in a public gymnasium."
"How extraordinary it is," observed Gerald Burton in a low voice, "that he has not yet been claimed by his friends—"
"Oh no, monsieur, not extraordinary at all! We in this country write to our children every day when we are separated from them—that is if we can afford the stamps. Not so English or American people. They think their children are sure to be all right. In about a fortnight we shall have enquiries for Number 4, hardly before then."
"And by that time," said Gerald slowly, "I suppose the poor fellow will have been buried."
"Oh no, monsieur—" the man laughed, as if the other's remark struck him as being really very funny. "Why, we keep some of them as long as fifteen months! Those drawers are full of them—" he pointed to the long black chests which lined one side of the shed. "Would monsieur like to see some of my pensioners? I have men, women, ay, and children too, cosily tucked away in there."
A low exclamation of horror escaped from Nancy Dampier's lips. She turned ashily pale. At last she understood what it was the janitor was saying….
The man looked at her with kindly concern. "Tiens!" he said, "isn't that strange? It happens again and again! People like madame come here—quite quiet, quite brave; and then, though overjoyed at not finding the person they came to seek—they suddenly shudder and turn pale; sometimes I have known them faint!"
"Kindly let us out by the shortest and quickest way," said Gerald quickly.
"Pardon, monsieur, the law exacts that Number 4 must remain in your presence for a quarter of an hour." The man shrugged his shoulders. "You see some people, especially ladies, are apt to think afterwards that they may have made a mistake: that their sight was at fault, and so on. That is why this tiresome regulation is now in force. I should like to oblige monsieur, but to do so would get me into trouble."
He stopped speaking, and stood waiting, at attention.
And then, as they stood there in silence, Gerald, looking beyond the still, swathed figure stretched out before him, allowed his eyes to rest on these black boxes, each containing one poor tenantless shell of humanity, from which the unquenchable spirit of man had been suddenly, violently expelled: and as he looked, he missed something that should have been there—the sign, the symbol, of the cross.
A flood of memories came surging through his mind—memories of childish prayers learnt at his mother's knee, of certain revisions which time had brought to his first innocent, unquestioning faith. And with those memories came anger and a sense of humiliation. For there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to show that these boxes before him held what had once been the dwelling-place of that daily miracle, the sentient soul of man. These defenceless dead had been subjected to a last, continuous, intolerable insult; in their flesh he felt that his own humanity was degraded. Here was nothing to separate the human dead from the beasts of the field; these boxes would have looked the same had they held merely the bodies of animals prepared for the inquisitive, probing research of science.
His young imagination, strung to the highest pitch, penetrated those shuttered receptacles and showed him on the face of each occupant that strange ironic smile with which the dead husk of man seems often to betray the full knowledge now possessed by the spirit which has fled. That riddle of existence, of which through the ages philosophers and kings had sought the key, was now an open book to all those who lay here in the still majesty of death. Yes, they could well afford to smile—to smile at the littleness which denied to their tenements of flesh the smallest symbol of belief that death was not the end of all.
His companion had also marked the absence of any sign of the Christian's hope in this house of death, and through her mind there ran the confused recollection of holy words:—
"It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory.
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep….
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
Comfortable words! They seemed, merely by their flight through the tense ganglia of her brain, to break into the awful loneliness of these recent tabernacles of the spirit, and bestow on them the benison denied them in its pride by the human family from whose bosom they had been torn.
Then swiftly her mind turned to the thought of those who were still watching and waiting, in that misery of suspense of which she now knew each pang. Every one—surely every one—of these dead who now surrounded her,—silent, solitary, had been loved—for love comes in some guise to all poor human creatures. Those mouths, cheeks, eyes, those rippling waves of woman's hair, had been kissed—ah, how often. The perishing flesh had been clasped heart to heart….
There came over her soul a great rush of pity for those others, the vast and scattered company, mourning, mourning, and yet reaching out in wild hope and desire for their loved ones, whose bodies were all the while here. They did not know, yet hither came winging unerringly, like flights of homing doves, their myriad prayers, their passionate loving thoughts and wistful thirsty longing for one word, one kiss, one touch of the hand…. Surely such thoughts and prayers sanctified this charnel-house.
She herself was of that company—that company who were not sure. Some, doubtless, obstinate, refused to believe that death in any form had overtaken the missing; others feared to come here and look. She had not feared….
The janitor spoke to her, and she started violently.
"You are quite convinced, madame, that Number 4 is not he whom you seek?"
These words, that question, evidently embodied a formula the man was bound to use.
Mrs. Dampier bent her head.
"You, monsieur, also have no doubt?"
"None at all," said Gerald briefly.
With a sudden movement the man put the sinister carriage in motion, but when he had got it close to the door of the mortuary, he stopped a moment:—"We have many compliments on our brancard," he said cheerfully. "It is very ingenious, is it not? You see the wheels are so large that a mere touch pushes it backwards and forwards. It is quite easy to wheel back into place again."
Gerald Burton took out a five-franc piece. He left Nancy Dampier standing, an infinitely pathetic, forlorn little figure, in the sunlit portion of the yard, and approached the man.
"We must go now," he said hurriedly. "I suppose it is quite easy to leave by the way we came in—through the engine-room?"
"One moment, monsieur, one moment! Before showing you out I must put Number 4 back with his other companions. There is no fear of his being lonely, poor man! We had five brought in this morning."
They had not long to wait before the concierge joined them again.
"Won't monsieur and madame stay and just see everything else there is to be seen?" he asked eagerly. "We have the most interesting relics of great criminals, notably of Troppman. Troppman was before my time, monsieur, but the day that his seven victims were publicly exposed there—" he pointed with his thumb to the inconspicuous door through which he had just wheeled Number 4—"ah, that was a red-letter day for the Morgue! Eighteen thousand people came to gaze on those seven bodies. And it was lucky, monsieur, that in those days we were open to the public, for it was the landlord of their hotel who recognised the poor creatures."
He was now preceding his two visitors through the operating theatre where are held the post-mortems. From thence he led them into the hall where they had first gained admission. "Well, monsieur, if you really do not care to see our relics—?" He opened the great door through which so few living men and women ever pass.
Gerald Burton and Nancy Dampier walked out into the sunlight, and the last thing they saw of the Morgue was the smiling face of the concierge—it was not often that he received ten francs for doing his simple duty.
"Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!" he said gaily. And as the courteous old French mode of adieu fell upon their ears, Gerald Burton felt an awful sensation of horror, of oppression, yes and of dread, steal over him.
Nancy Dampier, looking up at her companion, suddenly forgot herself. "Mr. Burton," she exclaimed, her voice full of concern, "I'm afraid this has made you feel ill? I oughtn't to have let you come here!" And it was she who in her clear, low voice told the cabman the address of the Hôtel Saint Ange.
Gerald Burton muttered a word of half-angry excuse. He was keenly ashamed of what he took to be his lack of manliness.
But during the weeks, aye and the months that followed he found himself constantly haunted by the gentle, ironic words of farewell uttered by the concierge of the Morgue: "Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!"
The American abroad has a touching faith, first, in the might and power of his country to redress all wrongs, and secondly, in the personal prestige of his Ambassador.
As a rule this faith is justified by works, but in the special and very peculiar case of John Dampier, Senator Burton was destined to meet with disappointment.
With keen vexation he learnt that the distinguished and genial individual who just then represented the great sister Republic in Paris, and on whom he himself had absolutely counted for advice and help, for they were old friends and allies, had taken sick leave for three months.
Paris, during an Exhibition Year, seems mysteriously to lose the wonderful climate which a certain British Minister for Foreign Affairs once declared to be the only one that suited every diplomat's constitution!
The Senator and his daughter drove on from the American Embassy to the American Consulate, and it was with a feeling of considerable satisfaction that they were shown by a courteous janitor into the pleasant, airy waiting-room where a large engraving of Christopher Columbus, and a huge photograph of the Washington Monument, welcome the wandering American.
Even in this waiting-room there was an air of cheerful activity, a constant coming and going, which showed that whatever might be the case with the Embassy, the Consulate, at any rate, was very much alive.
"Mr. Senator Burton? Glad to see you, sir! What can we do for you?" The words fell with a cheering, refreshing sound on the Senator's ears, though the speaker went on a trifle less cordially, "We are simply overwhelmed with business just now! You can imagine—but no, no one could imagine, the length, the breadth, the scope of what people think to be our duties in an Exhibition Year!"
The distinguished visitor and his daughter were being shown into the Consul's own pleasant study. Now this spacious, comfortable apartment is hung with fine engravings of the White House and of the Capitol, and Senator Burton felt a thrill of yearning as well as of pride when he gazed at these familiar, stately buildings which looked so homelike and dear when seen amid alien surroundings.
And as he sat down, and prepared to state his business, there suddenly came over this kindly American a curious feeling of misgiving, of self-rebuke. Had he remained at home in Washington, content with all his familiar duties and pleasures, he would never have been brought into this association with a strange, unpleasant life-story.
But he soon shook off this feeling of misgiving, and as the curious tale he had to tell was being listened to, kindly and patiently, he felt glad indeed that he had at last found a fellow-countryman in whom to confide, and on whose advice he could rely.
But when Senator Burton had finished speaking, the American Consul shook his head. "I only wish we could help you!" he exclaimed. "But we can do nothing where a British subject is concerned. We've quite enough to do looking after those of our own people who disappear in Paris! Would you be surprised to learn, Mr. Senator, that four of our countrymen have completely vanished within the last two days?" And as Daisy uttered a little exclamation of incredulous dismay, "Don't feel so badly about it, my dear young lady, I quite expect all four of them to turn up again, after having given us and their friends a great deal of useless, expensive worry."
"What I really want," said the Senator earnestly, "is not your official assistance, but a word of practical advice. What is it this unfortunate young lady, Mrs. Dampier, ought to do? We've tried the Commissaire de Police of the quarter, and he's perfectly useless: in fact my son, who's seen him twice, doesn't believe a word he says."
The Consul gave what Senator Burton felt to be a very French shrug of the shoulders.
"That don't surprise me! As regards the lower branch of the service the police here is very understaffed. The only thing for you to do is to take this poor lady to the British Consulate. They are driven to death there, just as we are here, and they'll naturally snatch at any excuse to avoid an extra job. But of course if this Mrs. Dampier is, as you say, a British subject—well, they're bound to do something for her. But you may believe me when I say, Mr. Senator, that there's probably nothing really mysterious about the case. You may find this Mr. Dampier at the hotel when you return there. It may interest you to learn"—he hesitated, and glanced at his young countrywoman—"that among our countrymen who vanish, I mean in a temporary way, there are more married men than bachelors."
And with that enigmatic pronouncement the genial Consul courteously and smilingly dismissed Senator Burton and his daughter.
The same afternoon saw the Senator and Mrs. Dampier on their way to theBritish Consulate.
The day before Nancy had been unwilling to leave the hotel for even the shortest space of time, now she seemed sunk into apathetic despair—and yet, as they drove along together, the Senator still doubted, still wondered in the depths of his heart, whether the lovely young woman now sitting silent by his side, was not making a fool of him, as she had certainly done of his two children.
He caught himself again and again thinking of her as "Nancy;" already his daughter and she were on Christian-name terms with one another; and as for Gerald, he had put everything else aside to devote himself entirely to solving the mystery of John Dampier's disappearance.
At last they reached the British Consulate, and the American could not help feeling a thrill of pride as he mentally compared the Office where he had been that morning and that which represented, in this shabby side street, the commercial might and weight of the British Empire.
The waiting-room into which they were shown was a gloomy apartment looking on to an inner courtyard, and Senator Burton's card did not produce the magic effect it had done at the American Consulate; in fact he and his companion had to take their turn with a crowd of other people, and the time they were kept waiting seemed very long.
At last, however, they were ushered into the study of the courteous Briton whose difficult and sometimes exasperating duty it is to look after the rights and interests of the motley world composed of those Englishmen and Englishwomen who make a short or long sojourn in Paris. Once they were in his presence nothing could have been kinder and more considerate than the British Consul's reception of the American Senator and his companion.
In the Consular branch of the Diplomatic Service the post of Consul in the greater cities of the civilised world is almost invariably given to an ex-member of the Diplomatic Corps—to one, that is, who is a shrewd man of the world rather than a trained business official, and Senator Burton felt it to be a comfort indeed to deal with such a one rather than with an acute but probably conventionally-minded man of commercial experience.
The Consul was moved by Mrs. Dampier's youth, her beauty, her evident, if subdued bewilderment and distress. She told her story very clearly and simply, but to the Senator's excited and yes, it must be admitted, suspicious fancy, she seemed to slur over, as of no importance, the extraordinary discrepancy between her own and the Poulains' account of what had happened on the night of her own and her husband's arrival in Paris.
The Consul asked but few questions, but those were pertinent and to the point.
"I am glad, Mrs. Dampier, that you did not come to me yesterday," he said at last, "for, thanks, as I understand, to this gentleman, you have done everything which I should have had to advise you to do."
He then turned more particularly to his American visitor:—"I suppose you have now quite convinced yourself that no kind of street accident befell Mr. Dampier yesterday morning?"
The Senator shook his head dubiously; there was a look of hesitation, of unease, on his face.
"Perhaps it would be as well," said the Consul suavely, "for Mrs. Dampier to go and wait awhile in the next room. Then you and I, Mr. Senator, might go into the matter more thoroughly?"
Unsuspiciously Nancy Dampier fell in with the plan.
And then, at last, Senator Burton was able to open out his heart, and, as the British Consul listened to the American's version of all that had taken place, when he realised how entirely the story of this young lady, who called herself Mrs. Dampier, was uncorroborated, his face became graver and graver.
"From the little opportunity I have had of judging, she impresses me as being a truthful woman," he said musingly. "Still, what I now know puts a very different complexion on the story as told me just now by her."
"That is exactly what I feel," said the Senator sighing. "From something you said just now I gather that you have heard of this Mr. John Dampier?"
"Why, yes, indeed I have—I know his name as being that of a distinguished English artist living in Paris; but he has never troubled me individually, and I can answer for it that he is very little known to our colony here. He evidently lives only amongst the French painters and their set—which means that to all intents and purposes he has become a Frenchman!" The Consul shrugged his shoulders—racial prejudice dies hard.
He looked doubtfully at his visitor:—"You see, Mr. Senator, if this lady's tale is true, if the poor little woman is a three weeks' bride, Mr. Dampier's disappearance may mean a good many things, any one of which is bound to cause her pain and distress. I do not think it likely that there has been any kind of foul play. If, as Mrs. Dampier asserts, he had neither money nor jewels in his possession, we may dismiss that possibility from our minds."
"If anything of that sort has happened—I mean, if there has been foul play," said Senator Burton firmly, "then I would stake my life that neither of the Poulains are in any way associated with it."
"Quite so. Still, as Mrs. Dampier has appealed to me very properly for help, these hotel people—if they are as worthy as you believe them to be—will not mind consenting to an informal interrogatory from one of my clerks. I have here a sharp young fellow who knows English as well as he does French. I'll send him back with you. He can take down the Poulains' story, even cross-examine them in a friendly manner. Mrs. Dampier might also give him her version of what took place."
Senator Burton uttered a hesitating assent. He knew only too well that thePoulains would greatly resent the proposed interrogatory.
"One word more, Mr. Senator. If there is no news of this Mr. John Dampier by to-morrow, you must persuade Mrs. Dampier to write, or even to telegraph for her friends. For one thing, it isn't at all fair that all this trouble should fall on an entire stranger, on one not even her own countryman! I cannot help seeing, too, that you do not altogether believe in Mrs. Dampier and her story. You can't make up your mind—is not that so?"
The American Senator nodded, rather shamefacedly.
"I might advise you to go to the Préfecture de Police, nay, I might communicate with them myself, but I feel that in the interests of this young lady it would be better to go slow. Mr. Dampier may return as suddenly, as unexpectedly, as he went. And then he would not thank us, my dear sir, for having done anything to turn the Paris Police searchlight on his private life."
The Consul got up and held out his hand. "For your sake, as well as for that of my countrywoman, I hope most sincerely that you will find Mr. Dampier safe and sound when you get back to the Hôtel Saint Ange. But if the mystery still endures to-morrow, then you really must persuade this poor young lady to send for one of her relatives—preferably, I need hardly say, a man."
"At what time shall I expect your clerk?" asked Senator Burton. "I think I ought to prepare the Poulains."
"No, there I think you're wrong! Far better let him go back with you now, and hear what they have to say. Let him also get a properly signed statement from Mrs. Dampier. Then he can come back here and type out his report and her statement for reference. That can do no harm, and may in the future be of value."
He accompanied the American Senator to the door. "I wish I could help you more," he said cordially. "Believe me, I appreciate more than I can say your extraordinary kindness to my 'subject.' I shall, of course, be glad to know how you get on. But oh, if you knew how busy we are just now! When I think of how we are regarded—of how I read, only the other day, that a Consul is the sort of good fellow one likes to make comfortable in a nice little place—I wish the man who wrote that could have my 'nice little place' for a week, during an Exhibition Year! I think he would soon change his mind."
Mrs. Dampier was not present at the, to Senator Burton, odious half-hour which followed their return to the Hôtel Saint Ange.
At first the French hotel-keeper and his wife refused to say anything to the Consular official. Then, when they were finally persuaded to answer his questions, they did so as curtly and disagreeably as possible. Madame Poulain also made a great effort to prevent her nephew, young Jules, from being brought into the matter. But to her wrath and bitter consternation, he, as well as her husband and herself, was made to submit to a regular examination and cross-examination as to what had followed Mrs. Dampier's arrival at the Hôtel Saint Ange.
"Why don't you send for the police?" she cried at last. "We should be only too glad to lay all the facts before them!"
And as the young Frenchman, after his further interview with Nancy, was being speeded on his way by the Senator, "I'm blessed if I know what to believe!" he observed with a wink. "It's the queerest story I've ever come across; and as for the Poulains, it's the first time I've ever known French people to say they would like to see the police brought into their private affairs! One would swear that all the parties concerned were telling the truth, but I thought that boy, those people's nephew, did know something more than he said."
The third morning brought no news of the missing man, and Senator Burton, noting Gerald's and Daisy's preoccupied, anxious faces, began to wonder if his life would ever flow in pleasant, normal channels again.
The son and daughter whom he held so dear, whose habitual companionship was so agreeable to him, were now wholly absorbed in Mrs. Dampier and her affairs. They could think of nothing else, and, when they were alone with their father, they talked of nothing else.
The Senator remembered with special soreness what had happened the afternoon before, just after he had dismissed the clerk of the British Consul. Feeling an eager wish to forget, as far as might be for a little while, the mysterious business in which they were all so untowardly concerned, he had suggested to Daisy that they might go and spend a quiet hour in the Art section of the Exhibition. But to his great discomfiture, his daughter had turned on him with a look of scorn, almost of contempt:
"Father! Do you mean me to go out and leave poor little Nancy alone in her dreadful suspense and grief—just that I may enjoy myself?"
And the Senator had felt ashamed of his selfishness. Yes, it had been most unfeeling of him to want to go and gaze on some of the few masterpieces American connoisseurs have left in Europe, while this tragedy—for he realised that whatever the truth might be it was a tragedy—was still in being.
It was good to know that thanks to the British Consul's word of advice his way, to-day, was now clear. The time had come when he must advise Mrs. Dampier to send for some member of her family. Without giving his children an inkling of what he was about to say to their new friend, Senator Burton requested Nancy, in the presence of the two others, to come down into the garden of the Hôtel Saint Ange in order that they might discuss the situation.
As they crossed the sun-flecked cheerful courtyard Nancy pressed unconsciously nearer her companion, and averted her eyes from the kitchen window where the hotel-keeper and his wife seemed to spend so much of their spare time, gazing forth on their domain, watching with uneasy suspicion all those who came and went from the Burtons' apartments.
As the young Englishwoman passed through into the peaceful garden whose charm and old-world sweetness had been one of the lures which had drawn John Dampier to what was now to her a fatal place, she felt a sensation of terrible desolation come over her, the more so that she was now half conscious that Senator Burton, great as was his kindness, kept his judgment in suspense.
They sat down on a wooden bench, and for awhile neither spoke. "Have you found out anything?" she asked at last in a low voice. "I think by your manner that you have found out something, Mr. Burton—something you don't wish to say to me before the two others?"
He looked at her, surprised. "No," he said sincerely, "that is not so at all. I have found out nothing, Mrs. Dampier—would that I had! But I feel it only right to tell you that the moment has come when you should communicate with your friends. The British Consul told me that if we were still without news, still in suspense, this morning, he would strongly advise that you send for someone to join you in Paris. Surely you have some near relation who would come to you?"
Nancy shook her head. "No. I daresay it may seem strange to you, Senator Burton, but I have no near relations at all. I was the only child of a father and mother who, in their turn, were only children. I have some very distant cousins, a tribe of acquaintances, a few very kind friends—" her lips quivered "but no one—no one of whom I feel I could ask that sort of favour."
Senator Burton glanced at her in dismay. She looked very wan and fragile sitting there; whatever the truth, he could not but feel deeply sorry for her.
Suddenly she turned to him, and an expression of relief came over her sad eyes and mouth. "There is someone, Mr. Burton, someone I ought to have thought of before! There is a certain Mr. Stephens who was my father's friend as well as his solicitor; and he has always managed all my money matters. I'll write and ask Mr. Stephens if he can come to me. He was more than kind at the time of my marriage, though I'm afraid that he and Jack didn't get on very well together."
She looked up in Senator Burton's face with a bewildered, pleading look, and he suddenly realised how difficult a task such a letter would be to her, supposing, that is, that the story she told, the story in which even now the Senator only half believed—were true.
"I'll go up and write the letter now," she said, and together they both went, once more, indoors.
But Gerald Burton, when he heard of the proposed letter to Mrs. Dampier's lawyer, made an abrupt suggestion which both the Senator and Nancy welcomed with eagerness.
"Why shouldn't we telephone to this Mr. Stephens?" he asked. "That would save a day, and it would be far easier to explain to him all that has happened by word of mouth than in a letter—" He turned to Nancy, and his voice unconsciously softened: "If you will trust me, I will explain the situation to your friend, Mrs. Dampier."
The father and son's drive to the Central Paris-London-Telephone office was curiously silent, though both the older and the younger man felt full of unwonted excitement.
"Now, at last, I am on the track of the truth!" such was the Senator's secret thought. But he would not have been very much surprised had no such name as that of Davies P. Stephens, Solicitor, 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields, appeared in the London Telephone Directory. But yes, there the name was, and Gerald showed it to his father with a gleam of triumph.
"You will want patience—a good deal of patience," said the attendant mournfully.
Gerald Burton smiled. He was quite used to long-distance telephoning at home. "All right!" he said cheerily. "I've plenty of patience!"
But though the young man claimed to have plenty of patience he felt far too excited, far too strung up and full of suspense, for the due exercise of that difficult virtue.
The real reason why he had suggested this telephone message, instead of a letter or a telegram, was that he longed for his father's suspicions to be set at rest.
Gerald Burton resented keenly, far more keenly than did his sister, the Senator's lack of belief in Nancy Dampier's story. He himself would have staked his life on the truthfulness of this woman whom he had only known three days.
At last the sharp, insistent note of the telephone bell rang out, and he stept up into the call-box.
"Mr. Stephens' office?" He spoke questioningly: and after what seemed a long pause the answer came, muffled but audible. "Yes, yes! This is Mr. Stephens' office. Who is it wants us from Paris?" The question was put in a Cockney voice, and the London twang seemed exaggerated by its transmission over those miles and miles of wire by land, under the sea, and then by land again.
"I want to speak to Mr. Stephens himself," said Gerald Burton very distinctly.
"Mr. Stephens? Yes, he's here all right. I'll take a message."
"Make him come himself."
"Yes, he's here. Give me your message—" the words were again a little muffled.
"I can't send a message. You must fetch him." Gerald Burton's stock of patience was giving way. Again there was an irritating pause, but it was broken at last.
"Who is it? I can't fetch him if you won't say who you are."
"I am speaking on behalf of Mrs. Dampier," said Gerald reluctantly. Somehow he hated uttering Nancy's name to this tiresome unknown.
And then began an absurd interchange of words at cross purposes.
"Mr. Larkspur?"
"No," said Gerald. "Mrs. Dampier."
"Yes," said the clerk. "Yes, I quite understand. L. for London—"
Gerald lost his temper—"D. for damn!" he shouted, "Dampier."
And then, at last, with a shrill laugh that sounded strange and eerie, the clerk repeated, "Dampier—Mr. John Dampier? Yes, sir. What can we do for you?"
"Mrs. Dampier!"
"Mrs. Dampier? Yes, sir. I'll fetch Mr. Stephens." The clerk's voice had altered; it had become respectful, politely enquiring.
And at last with intense relief, Gerald Burton heard a low clear, incisive voice uttering the words: "Is that Mrs. Dampier herself speaking?"
Instinctively Gerald's own voice lowered. "No, I am speaking for Mrs.Dampier."
The English lawyer's voice hardened, or so it seemed to the young American. It became many degrees colder. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Dampier. Yes? What can I do for you?"
And as Gerald, taken oddly aback by the unseen man's very natural mistake, did not answer for a moment or two:
"Nothing wrong with Nancy, I hope?"
The anxious question sounded very, very clear.
"There is something very wrong with Mrs. Dampier—can you hear me clearly?"
"Yes, yes What is wrong with her?"
"Mrs. Dampier is in great trouble. Mr. Dampier has disappeared."
The strange thing which had happened was told in those four words, but Gerald Burton naturally went on to explain, or rather to try to explain, the extraordinary situation which had arisen, to Nancy's lawyer and friend.
Mr. Stephens did not waste any time in exclamations of surprise or pity.Once he had grasped the main facts, his words were few and to the point.
"Tell Mrs. Dampier," he said, speaking very distinctly, "that if she has no news of her husband by Friday I will come myself to Paris. I cannot do so before. Meanwhile, I strongly advise that she, or preferably you for her, communicate with the police—try and see the Prefect of Police himself. I myself once obtained much courteous help from the Paris Prefect of Police."
Gerald stept down from the stuffy, dark telephone box. He turned to the attendant:—"How much do I owe you?" he asked briefly.
"A hundred and twenty francs, Monsieur," said the man suavely.
The Senator drew near. "That was an expensive suggestion of yours, Gerald," he observed smiling, as the other put down six gold pieces. And then he said, "Well?"
"Well, father, there's not much to tell. This Mr. Stephens will come over on Friday if there's still no news of Mr. Dampier by then. He wants us to go to the Prefecture of Police. He says we ought to try and get at the Prefect of Police himself."
There came a long pause: the two were walking along a crowded street.Suddenly Gerald stopped and turned to the Senator. "Father," he saidimpulsively, "I suppose that now, at last, you do believe Mrs.Dampier's story?"
The young man spoke with a vehemence and depth of feeling which disturbed his father. What a good thing it was that this English lawyer was coming to relieve them all from a weight and anxiety which was becoming, to the Senator himself, if not to the two younger people, quite intolerable.
"Well," he said at last, "I am of course glad to know that everything, so far, goes to prove that Mrs. Dampier's account of herself is true."
"That being so, don't you think the Hôtel Saint Ange ought to be searched?"
"Searched?" repeated Senator Burton slowly. "Searched for what?"
"If I had charge of this business—I mean sole charge—the first thing I would do would be to have the Hôtel Saint Ange searched from top to bottom!" said Gerald vehemently.
"Is that Mrs. Dampier's suggestion?"
"No, father, it's mine. I had a talk with that boy Jules last night, and I'm convinced he's lying. There's another thing I should like to do. I should like to go to the office of the 'New York Herald' and enlist the editor's help. I would have done it long ago if this man Dampier had been an American."
"And you would have done a very foolish thing, my boy." The Senator spoke with more dry decision than was his wont. "Come, come, Gerald, you and I mustn't quarrel over this affair! Let us think of the immediate thing to do." He put his hand on his son's arm.
"Yes, father?"
"I suppose that the first thing to do is to take this Mr. Stephens' advice?"
"Why, of course, father! Will you, or shall I, go to the Prefecture ofPolice?"
"Well, Gerald, I have bethought myself of that courteous President of theFrench Senate who wrote me such a pleasant note when we first arrived inParis this time. No doubt he would give me a personal introduction to thePrefect of Police."
"Why, father, that's a first rate idea! Hadn't you better go right now and get it?"
"Yes, perhaps I had; and meanwhile you can tell the poor little woman that her friend will be here on Friday."
"Yes, I will. And father? May I tell Daisy that now you agree with me aboutMrs. Dampier—that you no longer believe the Poulains' story?"
"No," said Senator Burton a little sternly. "You are to say nothing of the sort, Gerald. I have only known this girl three days—I have known the Poulains nine years. Of course it's a great relief to me to learn that Mrs. Dampier's account of herself is true—so far as you've been able to ascertain such a fact in a few minutes' conversation with an unknown man over the telephone—but that does not affect my good opinion of the Poulains."
And on this the father and son parted, for the first time in their joint lives, seriously at odds the one with the other.
"Give you an introduction to our Prefect of Police? Why, certainly!"
The white-haired President of the French Senate looked curiously at the American gentleman who had sought him out at the early hour of eleven o'clock.
"You will find Monsieur Beaucourt a charming man," he went on. "I hear nothing but good of the way he does his very difficult work. He is a type to whom you are used in America, my dear Senator, but whom we perhaps too often lack in France among those who govern us. Monsieur Beaucourt is a strong man—a man who takes his own line and sticks to it. I was told only the other day that crime had greatly diminished in our city since he became Prefect. He is thoroughly trusted by his subordinates, and you can imagine what that means when one remembers that our beautiful Paris is the resort of all the international rogues of Europe. And if they tease us by their presence at ordinary times, you can imagine what it is like during an Exhibition Year!"
In all French public offices there is a strange mingling of the sordid and of the magnificent.
The Paris Prefecture of Police is a huge, quadrangular building, containing an infinity of bare, and to tell the truth, shabby, airless rooms; yet when Senator Burton had handed in his card and the note from the President of the French Senate, he was taken rapidly down a long corridor, and ushered into a splendid apartment, of which the walls were hung with red velvet, and which might have been a reception room in an Italian Palace rather than the study of a French police official.
"Monsieur le Préfet will be back from déjeuner in a few minutes," said the man, softly closing the door.
The Senator looked round him with a feeling of keen interest and curiosity. After the weary, baffling hours of fruitless effort in which he had spent the last three days, it was more than pleasant to find himself at the fountainhead of reliable information.
Since the far-off days when, as a boy, he had been thrilled by the brilliant detective stories of which French writers, with the one outstanding exception of Poe, then had a monopoly, there had never faded from Senator Burton's mind that first vivid impression of the power, the might, the keen intelligence, and yes, of the unscrupulousness, of the Paris police.
But now, having penetrated into the inner shrine of this awe-inspiring organism, he naturally preferred to think of the secret autocratic powers, and of the almost uncanny insight of those to whom he was about to make appeal. Surely they would soon probe the mystery of John Dampier's disappearance.
The door opened suddenly, and the Paris Prefect of Police walked into the room. He was holding Senator Burton's card, and the letter of introduction with which that card had been accompanied, in his sinewy nervous looking hand.
Bowing, smiling, apologising with more earnestness than was necessary for the few moments the American Senator had had to await his presence, the Prefect motioned his guest to a chair.
"I am very pleased," he said in courtly tones, "to put myself at the disposal of a member of the American Senate. Ah, sir, your country is a wonderful country! In a sense, the parent of France—for was not America the first great nation to become a Republic?"
Senator Burton bowed, a little awkwardly, in response to this flowery sentiment.
He was telling himself that Monsieur Beaucourt was quite unlike the picture he had mentally formed, from youth upwards, of the Paris Prefect of Police.
There was nothing formidable, nothing for the matter of that in the least awe-inspiring, about this tired, amiable-looking man. The Prefect was also lacking in the alert, authoritative manner which the layman all the world over is apt to associate with the word "police."
Monsieur Beaucourt sat down behind his ornate buhl writing-table, and shooting out his right hand he pressed an electric bell.
With startling suddenness, a panel disappeared noiselessly into the red velvet draped wall, and in the aperture so formed a good-looking young man stood smiling.
"My secretary, Monsieur le Sénateur—my secretary, who is also my nephew."
The Senator rose and bowed.
"André? Please say that I am not to be disturbed till this gentleman's visit is concluded." The young man nodded: and then he withdrew as quickly, as silently, as he had appeared; and the panel slipped noiselessly back behind him.
"And now tell me exactly what it is that you wish me to do for you," said the Prefect, with a weary sigh, which was, however, softened by a pleasant smile. "We are not as omnipotent as our enemies make us out to be, but still we can do a good deal, and we could do a good deal more were it not for the Press! Ah, Monsieur le Sénateur, that is the only thing I do not like about your great country. Your American Press sets so bad, so very bad, an example to our poor old world!"
A thin streak of colour came into Monsieur Beaucourt's cheek, a gleam of anger sparkled in his grey eyes.
"Yes, greatly owing to the bad example set in America, and of late in England too, quite a number of misguided people nowadays go to the Press before they come to us for redress! All too soon," he shook a warning finger, "they find they have entered a mouse-trap from which escape is impossible. They rattle at the bars—but no, they are caught fast! Once they have brought those indefatigable, those indiscreet reporters on the scene, it is too late to draw back. They find all their most private affairs dragged into the light of day, and even we can do very little for them then!"
Senator Burton nodded gravely. He wished his son were there to hear these words.
"And now let us return to our muttons," said the Prefect leaning forward. "I understand from the President of the Senate that you require my help in a rather delicate and mysterious matter."
"I do not know that the matter is particularly delicate, though it is certainly mysterious," and then Senator Burton explained, in as few and clear words as possible, the business which had brought him there—the disappearance, three days before, of the English artist, John Dampier, and of the present sad plight of Dampier's wife.
Monsieur Beaucourt threw himself back in his chair. His face lit up, it lost its expression of apathetic fatigue; and his first quick questions showed him a keen and clever cross-examiner.
At once he seized on the real mystery, and that though the Senator had not made more of it than he could help. That was the discrepancy in the account given by the Poulains and by Mrs. Dampier respectively as to the lady's arrival at the hotel.
But even Monsieur Beaucourt failed to elicit the fact that Senator Burton's acquaintance with Mrs. Dampier was of such short standing. He assumed that she was a friend of the Burton family, and the Senator allowed the assumption to go by default.
"The story you have told me," the Prefect said at last, "is a very curious story, Monsieur le Sénateur. But here we come across stranger things every day. Still, certain details make the disappearance of this English gentleman rather stranger than usual. I gather that the vanished man's wife is a charming person?"
"Extremely charming!" said the Senator quickly. "And I should say quite truthful—in fact this discrepancy between her account and that of the Poulains has worried and perplexed me very much."
"Do not let that worry you," said the other thoughtfully. "If this young lady, your friend, be telling the truth, it is very probable that the Poulains began to lie in the hope of avoiding trouble for themselves: having lied they found themselves obliged to stick to their story. You see just now our hotel-keepers are coining gold, and they do not like this very pleasant occupation of theirs interrupted, for even the best of reasons. If this gentleman left the hotel the same night that he arrived there—as I can see you yourself are inclined to believe, Monsieur le Sénateur—then you may be sure that the hotel people, even if they did see him for a few moments, would not care to admit that they had done so. I therefore advise that we put them and their account of what took place out of our minds. From what you tell me, you have already done what I may call the usual things?"
"Yes," said Senator Burton frankly. "My son and I have done everything which common sense could suggest to us. Thus we at once gave a description of the missing man to the police station of the quarter where both the Hôtel Saint Ange and Mr. Dampier's studio are situated. But, owing doubtless to the fact that all your officials are just now very busy and very overworked, we did not get quite as much attention paid to the case as I should have liked. I do not feel quite sure even now that the missing man did not meet with a street accident."
"I can ascertain that for you in a moment."
Again the Prefect pressed a pedal. A panel, and this time a different panel from the first, slid back, and again the secretary appeared.
Monsieur Beaucourt said a brief word or two, and a few moments later a tabulated list, written in round-hand, lay before him.
"Here are all the accidents which have occurred in Paris during the last ninety hours."
He ran his eyes down the list; and then, rising, handed the sheets toSenator Burton.
"I think this disposes of the idea that an accident may have befallen your friend in the streets," said the Prefect briefly.
And the Senator, handing back the list, acknowledged that this was so.
"May I ask if you know much of the habits and way of life of this vanished bridegroom?" asked the Prefect thoughtfully. "I understand he belongs to the British Colony here."
"Mr. Dampier was not my friend," said the Senator hurriedly. "It is Mrs.Dampier—"
"Ah, yes—I understand—the three weeks' bride? It is she you know. Well, Monsieur le Sénateur, the best thing you and I can do is to look at the artist's dossier. That is quite likely to provide us with a useful clue."
The Senator felt a thrill of anticipatory interest. All his life he had heard of the dossiers kept by the Paris police, of how every dweller in the great city, however famous, however obscure, had a record in which the most intimate details of their lives were set down in black and white. Somehow he had never quite believed in these French police dossiers.
"Surely you are not likely to have a dossier of Mr. Dampier?" he exclaimed, "he is a British subject, and, as far as I know, a perfectly respectable man."
The Prefect smiled. "The mere fact that he is an English subject living in Paris entitles him to a dossier. In fact everybody who is anybody in any kind of society, from that frequented by the Apaches to that of the Faubourg Saint Germain, has a dossier. And from what you tell me this artist, who won a Salon medal, and who has already had a distinguished career as a painter, is certainly 'somebody.' Now, please tell me exactly the way to spell his surname and his Christian name. English names are so perplexing."
Very clearly the Senator spelt out—first the word "John" and then the word"Dampier."
And as, under his dictation, the Prefect of Police wrote the two distinctive names of the missing man, there came a look of frowning perplexity and indecision over his face.
"It's an odd thing," he muttered, "but I seem to have heard that name quite lately, and in some strange connection! Now what could it have been? As you probably know, Monsieur le Sénateur, there is a French form of that name, Dampierre. But no—it is that John which puzzles me—I am quite sure that I have heard the name 'John Dampier' quite recently."
"Isn't it likely," suggested the Senator, "that the man's disappearance has been reported to you? My son and I have done everything in our power to make the fact known, and Mr. Dampier's name and particulars as to his appearance have been at the Morgue since yesterday."
"Well, that's possible, of course. Just now my poor head has to hold far more than it was ever meant to do. The presence of so many royal personages in Paris always means extra trouble for me—especially when they are here 'incognito.' By the way, it would amuse, perhaps shock you, to see the dossiers of some of these Princes and Grand Dukes! But these are, of course, kept very secret. Meanwhile, I must not forget Mr. John Dampier."
This time the Prefect did not ring his bell. Instead he blew down a tube. "You would scarcely believe it," he said, looking up suddenly, "but these tubes have only just been installed! I had a regular battle over the matter with the Treasury. But now that the battle is won, I forget half the time that the tube is there! Picot? Please send me the dossier of an artist-painter called John Dampier," he spelt the names. "English subject; living in Impasse des Nonnes. I have an impression that we have had that name before us during the last week or so—Have you any recollection of it?"
He put the tube to his ear.
And then the American Senator, looking at the Paris Prefect of Police, was struck by a sudden change which came over the listener's face. There gathered on Monsieur Beaucourt's features a look of quick surprise, followed—yes, unmistakably—by a frown of dismay.
Putting his free hand over the tube, he withdrew it from his ear and applied it to his lips. "Yes, yes," he said rapidly, "enough, enough! I quite understand. It is, as you say, very natural that I should have forgotten."
And then he looked quickly across at the Senator. "You are right, Monsieur le Sénateur: Mr. Dampier's name was put before me only yesterday as that of an Englishman who had disappeared from his hotel. But I took him to be a passing visitor. You know quite a number of the tourists brought by the Exhibition disappear, sometimes for two or three days—sometimes—well, for ever! That, of course, means they have left Paris suddenly, having got into what the English call a 'scrape.' In such a case a man generally thinks it better to go home—wiser if sadder than when he came."
There followed a pause.
"Well, Monsieur le Sénateur," said the Prefect, rising from his chair. "You may rest assured that I will do everything that is in my power to find your friend."
"But the dossier?" exclaimed Senator Burton. "I thought, Monsieur lePréfet, that I was to see Mr. Dampier's dossier?"
"Oh, to be sure—yes! I beg your pardon."
Again he whistled down the tube. "Picot?" he exclaimed, "I still require that dossier! Why am I kept waiting in this way?"
He listened for a few moments to what his invisible subordinate had to say, and then again he spoke down the funnel, and with a certain pettish impatience. "The last entry is of no importance—understand me—no importance at all! The gentleman for whose benefit I require the dossier already knows of this Mr. Dampier's disappearance."
A moment later a clerk knocked at the door, and appeared with a blue envelope which he laid with a deep bow on the Prefect's table.
It was not a very large envelope, and yet Senator Burton was surprised at its size, and at the number of slips of paper the Prefect of Police withdrew from it.
"I do not suppose, Monsieur le Sénateur, that you have ever seen one of our dossiers—in fact I may tell you that very few people outside this building ever do see one. By the way, a great deal of nonsense is talked about them. Roughly speaking, a dossier is not a history of the individual in question; it simply records what is being said of him. For instance, the day that I became Prefect of Police my dossier was brought to me—"
He smiled wearily.
"Your dossier?" repeated the Senator in amazement.
"Yes, my dossier. I have had it bound, and I keep it as a curiosity. Everything that had ever been written about me in the days when I was a Member of the Chamber of Deputies is there. And what really made me feel angry was the fact that I had been confused with more than one of my namesakes, in fact certain misdeeds that these worthy folk had committed were actually registered in my dossier!"
He stopped speaking for a moment, and took up the blue envelope.
"But now let us consider this Mr. John Dampier. You will see that he bears the number '16909,' and that his envelope is blue. Had this gentleman ever had anything to do with the police, were he, to put it plainly, of the criminal class, this envelope would be yellow. As for the white envelopes, they, Monsieur le Sénateur, have to deal with a very different sort of individual. We class them briefly under the general word 'Morals.'"
As he spoke the Prefect was looking swiftly through the Dampier dossier, and not till he had glanced at every item did he hand the envelope to his American visitor.
Senator Burton could not but admire the intelligent way the dossier had been prepared, and kept up to date.
On the top sheet were carefully gummed various entries from the biographical dictionaries in which mention was made of John Dampier and his career. There followed a eulogistic newspaper article containing an account of the picture which had won the artist his Médaille d'Honneur at the Salon two years before. Then came a piece of foolscap headed "General remarks," and here were written the following words:—"Lives quietly; is popular with his fellow artists; has few debts; does not frequent the British Colony."
The Senator looked up quickly. "Well, there is not much to learn from this!" he said. And then, "I notice, Monsieur le Préfet, that there was another entry which has been removed."
"Yes," said the Prefect. "That last entry was only added the day before yesterday, and told of Monsieur Dampier's disappearance. It is being written up now, Monsieur le Sénateur, with a note explaining your kind interest in him, and telling of your visit to-day."
Senator Burton rose from his chair. He could not have told exactly why, but he had the impression that his courteous host had suddenly become anxious to get rid of him.
But this impression was evidently erroneous. Even after they had cordially shaken hands, the Prefect of Police seemed in no hurry to let him go.
"One moment, Monsieur le Sénateur?" he looked earnestly into the American's frank face. "I feel bound to tell you that I am convinced there is more in this mysterious disappearance than appears on the surface. I fear—I greatly fear—that this Mr. Dampier has vanished of his own free will," he spoke with evident reluctance, "and that his poor young wife will never see him again. As I think I said before, the public, especially the vulgar, ignorant public, credit us with powers we are far from possessing. It is possible that this gentleman does not care for the trammels of married life, and that his bride, however charming she may be, has disappointed him. Such cases are commoner than you might think possible, especially among English and American people. You, in your country, if you will forgive my saying so, marry with such reckless haste; and that often means repenting at bitter leisure." The Prefect's voice lowered, a look of real distress came over his face. "Ah! what tales I could tell you—what fearful domestic tragedies have been confided to me here, within these four walls! No doubt for an artist this Mr. John Dampier was a very good fellow—what in England they call 'respectable enough.' But still, think what painters are like! Think of how Bohemian, how careless is their life, compared with that of the man who has a regular occupation—" Monsieur de Beaucourt shook his head gloomily—"In most of these stories of sudden disappearance there is no crime, as the relations are so apt to think there is. No, Monsieur le Sénateur, there is simply—a woman! Sometimes it is a new friend—but far oftener it is an old friend."
There was a pause. "God forbid," said the Prefect suddenly, "that I should accuse this unfortunate man of anything heinous! But—but, Monsieur le Sénateur? You must have learnt through our Press, through those of our newspapers which delight in dragging family scandals to light, the amazing story of Count Bréville."
The Senator was impressed, in spite of himself, by the other's manner.
"I don't remember the name," he said thoughtfully.
"Count Bréville," said the Prefect slowly, "was a man of deservedly high reputation, in fact one of the pillars of the Royalist party. He had a wife who adored him, a large family whom he adored, and they all lived an idyllic country life. Well, one day the Count's coat, his hat, his pocket-book (which was known to have been full of bank-notes, but which was now empty) were found on the parapet of a bridge near his château. It was given out—it was believed that a dastardly crime had been committed. And then, by a mere accident, it was brought to my notice—for there was nothing in the Count's dossier which could have led me to suspect such a thing—that a charming governess who had been in the employment of his Countess for some four or five years had suddenly left to join her family in the New World, and that her travelling companion was strangely like her late employer!"
"Yes," said Senator Burton uncomfortably, "I think I do remember something of that story now."
"All the world was let into the secret," said the Prefect regretfully, "for the family had confided, from the first, in the Press. They thought—what did they not think, poor, foolish people? Among other things they actually believed that the Count had been murdered for political reasons. But no, the explanation was far more simple. That high-minded man, that Christian gentleman, this father of charming children whom he apparently adored, had gone off under a false name, leaving everything that was dear to him, including his large fortune, to throw in his lot with the governess!"
The Prefect came closer to Senator Burton. He even lowered his voice. "I had the Countess here, Monsieur le Sénateur, in this room. Oh, what a touching, what a moving interview! The poor woman was only anxious to have back her husband with no questions asked, with no cruel reminders. And now he is back—a broken man. But had he been an artist, Monsieur le Sénateur, would the Count have been traced? Of course not! Would he have returned? No, indeed! The Prefect of Police can do many things, Monsieur le Sénateur, but as I said just now, he cannot force an unwilling husband back to his wife, especially if that husband has already crossed the frontier. Come, Monsieur le Sénateur, confess that some such explanation of Mr. Dampier's disappearance has already occurred to you?"
"Well," said Senator Burton slowly, "I confess that some such thought has crossed my mind. But in that case what a tragic fate for the poor young wife!"
"Bah! Do you know the saying:—'Widowhood is the Marshal's bâton every woman carries in her knapsack!'"
Senator Burton could not help smiling. Then he grew very grave. "But Mrs. Dampier, in the case you suppose, would not be a widow, Monsieur le Préfet: she would be neither maid, wife, nor widow."
The Prefect looked surprised. "Ah yes! The English divorce laws are very conservative. But I suppose in the end such a marriage would be annulled?"
"I suppose so," said Senator Burton indifferently.
"I wish I could help you more," said the Prefect solicitously. He really wished he could, for he liked his kindly visitor. "Can you suggest anything that we could do to help you?"
"Yes," said the Senator frankly. "My son, Monsieur le Préfet, has not the same trust in the hotel-keeper, Poulain, that I feel. Neither, I am bound to tell you, has Mrs. Dampier. I think it would be a relief to the poor young lady, if the hotel could be searched for some trace of Mr. Dampier's sojourn there. You see Mrs. Dampier is convinced—or seems to be—that her husband spent a night there."
"Nothing is easier than to have the place searched," said the Prefectquickly. "I will arrange for it to be done to-morrow morning at eleven.Perhaps you, Monsieur le Sénateur, will inform the hotel people that aPerquisition is about to take place."