"I have to go across the river to theBristolto see some relatives who are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until evening, and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving a word for you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss Benham at Armenonville, where I dined, and in atête-à-têteconversation we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me very important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what he considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part, cut young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share toCaptain S.(Miss Benham learnt this from the old man only yesterday). Also it appears that he did this after talking the matter over with Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will reads now, Miss B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the old man's money, which is several millions (in dols. of course); Miss B.'s mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she lives. Now mark this! Prior to this new arrangement Captain S. was to receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife. (I've heard, by the way, that he has squandered a good share of what he had.)"Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over this injustice to the boy, but she can't protest too much as it only excites old David—she says the old man is much weaker."You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies, as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the money."The second fact I learnt was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them yourself."So that makes two lies for our gentle friend, and serious lies, both of them. To my mind they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way. He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or he has killed him."I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless. Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these confounded people of mine."One word more! Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure. So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned."I shall see you to-night.—R.H."Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he had learnt into this clear concise form. Another man would have scribbled: "Important facts—tell you all about it to-night," or something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour over his writing.Ste. Marie walked up and down the room, with all his strength forcing his brain to quiet reasonable action. Once he said aloud—"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all along." He realised that he had been for some days slowly arriving at that conclusion, and that, since the night before, he had been practically certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it—though that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a strong weapon to strike with.He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens. The lace curtains had been left by thefemme de ménagehanging straight down and not, as usual, looped back at either side, but he could see through them with perfect ease although he could not be seen from outside.He became aware that a man who was walking slowly up and down a path inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to him, and his eyes sharpened. The man was very inconspicuously dressed, and looked like almost any other man whom one might pass in the street without taking any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often, and he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the iron palings just inside, and between the palings and the path, but two of the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this spot he came into plain view; each time also he directed an oblique glance towards the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down upon one of the public benches, where he was almost but not quite hidden by the intervening foliage.Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands together."The fellow's a spy!" he cried aloud. "He's watching the house to see when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the street and in cafés and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once or twice thought it odd but without any second thought of suspicion. So the fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings and report them to—no need of asking to whom!Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path, hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world—labourers, students,bonneswith market baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their arms, nursemaids herding small children, bigger children spinning diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard and a soft hat passed once, and returned to seat himself upon the public bench that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle, holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned and looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he saw the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one spoke or not. Presently the newcomer rose, put on the soft hat again and disappeared down the path, going towards the gate at the head of the Rue de Luxembourg.Five minutes later the door-bell rang.CHAPTER XIIITHE ROAD TO CLAMARTSte. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and asked if he had the honour to address Monsieur Ste. Marie."That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, monsieur!" He waved his visitor to a chair and stood waiting.The man with the beard bowed once more. He said—"I have not the great honour of monsieur's acquaintance, but circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power—have made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word—to place in monsieur's hands a piece of information."Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said—"I listen with pleasure—and anticipation. Pray go on!""I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur Benham." Ste. Marie waved his hand."I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed, monsieur!""And learning," continued, the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this information in his hands.""At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."The man with the beard spread out his hands in a beautiful and eloquent gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais accent."Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances—I am poor, Monsieur. One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest trifle.""Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie."In Marseille, monsieur, I saw him a week ago—six days. And so far as I could learn he had no intention of leaving there immediately—though it is, to be sure, hot."St. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and crossed the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite wall. He fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a pink and blue note of the Banque de France. He said—"Monsieur——Pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name. You have remarked quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore I do not presume to criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot choose. However, I should like to make a little bargain with you, monsieur. I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you here with this story and why you were sent—why also your friend who sits upon the bench in the garden across the street follows me about and spies upon me. I know all this and I laugh at it a little. But, monsieur, to amuse myself further I have a desire to hear from your own lips the name of the gentleman who is your employer. Amusement is almost always expensive, and so I am prepared to pay for this. I have here a note of one hundred francs. It is yours in return for the name—the right name. Remember, I know it already."The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet, quivering with righteous indignation. All southern Frenchmen like all other Latins, are magnificent actors. He shook one clenched hand in the air, his face was pale and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a smiling head in appreciation. He was half a southern Frenchman himself."Monsieur!" cried his visitor in a choked voice. "Monsieur, have a care! You insult me. Have a care, monsieur! I am dangerous. My anger when roused is terrible!""I am cowed!" observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail.""Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseille, "have I received an insult without returning blow for blow. My blood boils.""The hundred francs, monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure I have said that I knew your errand here was not—not altogether sincere; but I protest, monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of honesty—the most delicate and faithful sense of honour. That is understood."The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and leant his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and waited.When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation."Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold. Of gold, monsieur! You understand. Behold us! two men of honour."Monsieur," he said, "I had no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with themisère. What would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of the pig who sent me here to you."Ste. Marie smoothed the pink and blue banknote in his hands, and the other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the banknote food."The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.The gentleman from Marseille tossed up his hands."Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is Ducrot.""What?" cried Ste. Marie sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?""But naturally!" said the other man with some wonder. "Monsieur said he knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little withered man, bald on the top of the head, creases down the cheeks, a moustache like this,"—he made a descriptive gesture—"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M. Ducrot."Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief."Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is yours." The gentleman from Marseille took it with a slightly trembling hand, and began to bow himself towards the door, as if he feared that his host would experience a change of heart, but Ste. Marie checked him, saying—"One moment."I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care to present yourself to your—employer, M. Ducrot, immediately: not for a few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine will show him your mission has—well, miscarried. It would perhaps be well for you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased with you.""Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot—who, I repeat, is a pig.""And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the street?""It is not necessary that I meet that individual either!" said the Marseillais hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement below. He saw his visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly down the street towards the Rue Vavin. He glanced across into the Gardens, and the spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he slept—the sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring, for an incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before him, and watched with the open mouth of astonishment.Ste. Marie turned back into the room and began to tramp up and down, as was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered Hartley to have a judicial mind—a mind to establish, out of confusion, something like logical order, and he was very well aware that he himself had not that sort of mind at all. In action he was sufficiently confident of himself, but to construct a course of action he was afraid, and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical point, might be fatal—turn success into disaster.He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot), and he longed most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at a gallop across the city to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, to fall upon that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him by the withered throat and say—"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head from your miserable body!"Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in the end; for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation of evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible weapon to hold over his head—the threat of exposure to the old man who lay slowly dying in the Rue de l'Université! A few words in old David's ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the son had sold his soul (if he had any left to sell) must pass for ever out of his reach, like gold seen in a dream.This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no defence. To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give up the boy, or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to risk everything on this throw without seeing Richard Hartley first, and Hartley was not to be had until evening.He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day or two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its paroxysms were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that Stewart was far too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe call upon his strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in his arms the night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust went over him as he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and contorted face, felt again the shaking thumping head as it beat against his shoulder. He wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be able to remember, of the events of the evening before, and he was at a loss there because of his unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one thing, however, he was almost certain, and that was that the man could scarcely have been conscious of who were beside him when the fit was over. If he had come at all to his proper senses, before the ensuing slumber of exhaustion, it must have been after Mlle. Nilssen and himself had gone away.Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from Marseille (he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the gentleman from Marseille), but he reflected that the two were, without doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been stalking him for some days before he found him at home.He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to be done, he considered, but wait—get through the day somehow; and so, presently, he went out to lunch. He went up the Rue Vavin to the Boulevard Montparnasse, and down that broad thoroughfare to Lavenue's, on the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in all this quarter, and can indeed hold up its head without shame in the face of those other more widely famous restaurants, across the river, frequented by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh in summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch and thought that he sat a very long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an hour and a half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was depressed. There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through, and Heaven alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have his consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of passing the time, but although he was not usually at a loss, he found his mind empty of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended themselves to him. He knew that whatever he tried to do he would interrupt it with pulling out his watch every half-hour or so and cursing the time because it lagged so slowly. He went out to theterrassefor coffee, very low in his mind.But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table, smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of the big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain-des-Prés and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the Rue de Rennes into the boulevard. He could see the sign-board along theimpériale: "Clamart—St. Germain-des-Prés" with "Issy" and "Vanves" in brackets between.Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table, and made off across the place at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way, fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just in time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on, and caught the tram before it had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered speed for its dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the conductor reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed up to the top and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the façade of the Gare Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where the tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a fool. He knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favourite half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence through the beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and, from Bellevue or Bas-Meudon, take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or thought he knew, just where lay the house, surrounded by garden and half-wild park, of which Olga Nilssen had told him; he had often wondered whose it was as the tram rolled along the length of its high wall. But he knew also that he could do nothing there, single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could not boldly ring the bell, demand speech with Mlle. Coira O'Hara, and ask her if she knew any thing of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a photographer had suspected of being in love with her. He certainly could not do that. And there seemed to be nothing else that—— Ste. Marie broke off this somewhat despondent course of reasoning with a sudden little voiceless cry. For the first time it occurred to him to connect the house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira O'Hara and young Arthur Benham.— It will be remembered that the man had not yet had time to arrange his suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical order and to make deductions from it.—For the first time he began to put two and two together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew: this nephew was known to have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara: Coira O'Hara was said to be living (with her father? probably) in the house on the outskirts of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the inference plain enough—sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt, many puzzling things to be explained?—perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie sat forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with excitement.Was young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman with a live fowl at her feet, and the butcher's boy on his other side, were looking at him curiously. He realised that he was behaving in an excited manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over within him the words said themselves, over and over, until they made a sort of mad foolish refrain—"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud once more, and he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.The tram swung into the Rue de Sevres, and rolled smoothly out the long uninteresting stretch of the Rue Lecourbe, far out to where the houses became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red tiles stood alongside the factory where they had been made, where an acre of little glass hemispheres in long straight rows winked and glistened in the afternoon sun—the forcing beds of some market gardener; out to the Porte de Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers sprawled at ease before their little sentry-box, or loafed over to inspect ah incoming tram.A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and a company ofpiou-pious, red capped, red trousered, shambled through their evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its steep streets and its old grey church, and past the splendid grounds of the Lycée beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down too, so that Ste. Marie was left alone upon theimpérialesave for a snuffy old gentleman in a pot-hat, who sat in a corner buried behind the day'sDroits de l'Homme.Ste. Marie moved forward once more, and laid his arms upon the iron rail before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards, and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in front and an acacia or two at the gate posts. But presently, on the right, the way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long, behind which showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from the wall, beyond a little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a house could be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of a mile in a straight sweep, but halfway the road swung apart from it to the left, dipped under a stone rail way bridge, and so presently ended at the village of Clamart.As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to slacken speed, and there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently it came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw that the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside the car, peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him after a moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion was subject. The driver, without looking up, called his colleague a number of the most surprising and, it is to be hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow under the tram, wriggling his way after the manner of the serpent, until nothing could be seen of him but two unrestful feet. His voice though muffled was still tolerably distinct. It cursed in an unceasing staccato, and with admirable ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the sacred dog of an impediment which had got itself wedged into one of the trucks, and the world in general.Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place almost exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of the park wall which ran beside the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the other wing, which led inward from the road at something like a right angle, but was presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt patch of young trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth, which extended for some distance from the park wall backward along the roadside towards Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had seemingly not thought it worth while to cultivate it, or to build upon it, or even to clear it off.Ste. Marie's first thought as his eye scanned the two long stretches of wall, and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to the place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite to the Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts, but he guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the Route de Clamart and the Fort d'Issy; and he was right. There is a little road between the two: it sweeps round in a long curve, and ends near the tiny public garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barbés.His second thought was that this unkempt patch of trees and brush offered excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour alongside that high stone wall—for any one who might desire to cast a glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of which so little could be seen from the Route de Clamart, to look over the wall's coping into park and garden.The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he realised that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the halted tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and from the platform he beckoned, crying out—"En voiture, monsieur!En voiture!" Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little blasts upon his horn, the tram wheezed and moved forward. In a moment it was on its way, swinging along at full speed towards the curve in the line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway bridge. Ste. Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it until it had disappeared from view.CHAPTER XIVIN THE GARDENSte. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and watching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge, he called himself hard names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before and behind him, and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes again upon that unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once more the thought forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent cover for one who wished to observe a little—to reconnoitre.He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place, to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves, and mount upon a homeward-bound tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness even, to expose himself to possible discovery by some one within the walled enclosure. What though no one there were able to recognise him, still the sight of a man prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over them, might excite an alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirable complications. Dimly Ste. Marie realised all this, and he tried to turn his back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew him with an irresistible fascination. Just a little look along that unknown wall! he said to himself; just the briefest of all brief reconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood growth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie of the place clear in his mind; for without any sound reason for it he was somehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play an important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter of feeling. The rather woman-like intuition which had warned him that O'Hara was concerned in young Benham's disappearance, and that the two were not far from Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it as he had done before.He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill, casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had to climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to be jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and oaks. The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past seasons crackled underfoot, but after a little space he came to somewhat clearer ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid him securely.He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at a very obtuse angle away from him, and once more ran on in a long straight line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door thickly studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the outside there was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large keyhole of the simple old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie observed that the edges of the keyhole were rusty, but scratched a little through the rust with recent marks, so the door, it seemed, was sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was depressed with many wheel marks—broad marks such as are made only by the wheels of a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little distance and they wound in and out among the trees and, beyond the thin fringe of wood, swept away in a curve towards Issy, doubtless to join the road which he had already imagined to lie somewhere beyond the enclosure.Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped now and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within the sound of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight change of direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as to where the house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and from the level of the ground he could of course see nothing over it but tree-tops. He went on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it seemed to him very much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled cedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall. It was half dead but its twisted limbs were thick and strong, and by force of the tree's cramped position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms. One of them stretched across the very top of the stone wall, and, with the wind's action, it had scraped away the coping of tiles and bottle-glass, and had made a little depression there to rest in.Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon the half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable that he would have yielded to the proffered lure. There seems to have been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day. There seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them, as doubtless there is in most things, if one but knew.He left his hat and stick behind him under a shrub, and he began to make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore him well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder made by man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So mounting slowly and with care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He climbed to the next branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The drooping foliage from the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still alive, hung down over him and cloaked him from view, but through its aromatic screen he could see as freely as through the window curtain in the Rue d'Assas.The house lay before him, a little to the left, and perhaps a hundred yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great enclosure, for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was as certainly far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in its day a respectable unpretentious square structure of three stories, entirely without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the ornate hideousness of the modern villas along the Route de Clamart. Now, however, the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls, giving them an unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all decent care had lent the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently the grounds before the house had been laid out in the formal fashion, with a terrace and geometrical lawns, and a pool and a fountain, and a rather fine long vista between clipped larches; but the same neglect which had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to grow over the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon the geometrical turf plots, the long double row of clipped larches to flourish at will or to die, or to fall prostrate and lie where they had fallen.So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an effect that was by no means all disagreeable.An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind, that thus must have looked the garden and park round the castle of the Sleeping Beauty when the Prince came to wake her.But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices. Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic screen. His eyes swept the space below him, from right to left, and could see no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a heart which seemed to him like drum beats when soldiers are marching, and he listened—"all ears" as the phrase goes.The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it came. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared from behind a row of tall shrubs two young people, moving slowly together up the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.[image]"There appeared two young people."The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and upon the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon his free moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reason why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the Rue de l'Université if he chose to—unless indeed his undissembling attitude towards Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of a small dog, humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless of an occasional kind word or pat on the head.The world wheeled multi-coloured and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this poor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the loved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn. Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady—free, free as air (or so he seemed). Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful old man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because his grandson did not return to him: he thought of that timid soul—more shadow than woman—the boy's mother: he thought of Helen Benham's tragic eyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death, in that moment, in the righteous rage that stormed within him.But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.After all was she not one to make any boy—or any man—forget duty, home, friends, everything!Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning, and to the words of the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well as any man man could—"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno before marriage...."Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had spoken well. It could not be more fairly put, though without doubt it could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind, the more detailed description; and again he nodded his head, for this too was true."She was all colour—brown skin with a dull red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly black—except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this garden, judging from their bearing, each to the other."Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess. What would you? A queen among goddesses.... One would not have them laugh and make little jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No indeed!"Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy who followed at her heels this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost anywhere else than where she was, She turned her beautiful face a little towards the wall where Ste Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal, that he had seen in them before—once in the Champs Elysées and again in his dreams.Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance, the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary movement as if he would call them back, and, for the first time, his faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage was already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and, after a moment, he saw the boy slowly come forward, staring. He heard him say—"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under the high wall.Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he called down to the lad below in a loud whisper—"Benham! Benham!"The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her say—"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away. Oh, come away quickly!"Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said—"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come from your family—from Helen!" To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run towards where the girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation Ste. Marie threw himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his hands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his balance he stumbled forward, shouting—"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then from whence the shrill call had come, but afterwards he knew that Coira had blown it. And now, as he ran forward towards the two who stood at a distance staring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.A man came running down amongst the black-boled trees, a strange, squat, gnome-like man, whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw this thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in his odd scrambling run.Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee. He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him, but, as he whirled about, he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a noise, and knew that the gnome-like running man had shot him. He faced about once more towards the two young people. He was very angry, and he wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were some wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he was as if fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of the most ponderous and incredible weight like lead—or like that other metal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal, seemingly, was not only heavy but fiery hot, and his strength was incapable of holding it up any longer. His eyes fixed themselves in a bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara, he had time to observe that she had put up her two hands over her face, then he fell down forward, his head struck upon something very hard, and he knew no more.
"I have to go across the river to theBristolto see some relatives who are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until evening, and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving a word for you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss Benham at Armenonville, where I dined, and in atête-à-têteconversation we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me very important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what he considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part, cut young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share toCaptain S.(Miss Benham learnt this from the old man only yesterday). Also it appears that he did this after talking the matter over with Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will reads now, Miss B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the old man's money, which is several millions (in dols. of course); Miss B.'s mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she lives. Now mark this! Prior to this new arrangement Captain S. was to receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife. (I've heard, by the way, that he has squandered a good share of what he had.)
"Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over this injustice to the boy, but she can't protest too much as it only excites old David—she says the old man is much weaker.
"You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies, as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the money.
"The second fact I learnt was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them yourself.
"So that makes two lies for our gentle friend, and serious lies, both of them. To my mind they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way. He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or he has killed him.
"I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless. Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these confounded people of mine.
"One word more! Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure. So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned.
"I shall see you to-night.—R.H."
Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he had learnt into this clear concise form. Another man would have scribbled: "Important facts—tell you all about it to-night," or something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour over his writing.
Ste. Marie walked up and down the room, with all his strength forcing his brain to quiet reasonable action. Once he said aloud—
"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all along." He realised that he had been for some days slowly arriving at that conclusion, and that, since the night before, he had been practically certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it—though that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a strong weapon to strike with.
He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens. The lace curtains had been left by thefemme de ménagehanging straight down and not, as usual, looped back at either side, but he could see through them with perfect ease although he could not be seen from outside.
He became aware that a man who was walking slowly up and down a path inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to him, and his eyes sharpened. The man was very inconspicuously dressed, and looked like almost any other man whom one might pass in the street without taking any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often, and he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the iron palings just inside, and between the palings and the path, but two of the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this spot he came into plain view; each time also he directed an oblique glance towards the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down upon one of the public benches, where he was almost but not quite hidden by the intervening foliage.
Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands together.
"The fellow's a spy!" he cried aloud. "He's watching the house to see when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the street and in cafés and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once or twice thought it odd but without any second thought of suspicion. So the fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings and report them to—no need of asking to whom!
Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path, hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world—labourers, students,bonneswith market baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their arms, nursemaids herding small children, bigger children spinning diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard and a soft hat passed once, and returned to seat himself upon the public bench that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle, holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned and looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he saw the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one spoke or not. Presently the newcomer rose, put on the soft hat again and disappeared down the path, going towards the gate at the head of the Rue de Luxembourg.
Five minutes later the door-bell rang.
CHAPTER XIII
THE ROAD TO CLAMART
Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and asked if he had the honour to address Monsieur Ste. Marie.
"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, monsieur!" He waved his visitor to a chair and stood waiting.
The man with the beard bowed once more. He said—
"I have not the great honour of monsieur's acquaintance, but circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power—have made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word—to place in monsieur's hands a piece of information."
Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said—
"I listen with pleasure—and anticipation. Pray go on!"
"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur Benham." Ste. Marie waved his hand.
"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed, monsieur!"
"And learning," continued, the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this information in his hands."
"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."
The man with the beard spread out his hands in a beautiful and eloquent gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais accent.
"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances—I am poor, Monsieur. One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest trifle."
"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.
"In Marseille, monsieur, I saw him a week ago—six days. And so far as I could learn he had no intention of leaving there immediately—though it is, to be sure, hot."
St. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and crossed the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite wall. He fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a pink and blue note of the Banque de France. He said—
"Monsieur——Pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name. You have remarked quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore I do not presume to criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot choose. However, I should like to make a little bargain with you, monsieur. I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you here with this story and why you were sent—why also your friend who sits upon the bench in the garden across the street follows me about and spies upon me. I know all this and I laugh at it a little. But, monsieur, to amuse myself further I have a desire to hear from your own lips the name of the gentleman who is your employer. Amusement is almost always expensive, and so I am prepared to pay for this. I have here a note of one hundred francs. It is yours in return for the name—the right name. Remember, I know it already."
The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet, quivering with righteous indignation. All southern Frenchmen like all other Latins, are magnificent actors. He shook one clenched hand in the air, his face was pale and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a smiling head in appreciation. He was half a southern Frenchman himself.
"Monsieur!" cried his visitor in a choked voice. "Monsieur, have a care! You insult me. Have a care, monsieur! I am dangerous. My anger when roused is terrible!"
"I am cowed!" observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."
"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseille, "have I received an insult without returning blow for blow. My blood boils."
"The hundred francs, monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure I have said that I knew your errand here was not—not altogether sincere; but I protest, monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of honesty—the most delicate and faithful sense of honour. That is understood."
The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and leant his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and waited.
When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.
"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold. Of gold, monsieur! You understand. Behold us! two men of honour.
"Monsieur," he said, "I had no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with themisère. What would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of the pig who sent me here to you."
Ste. Marie smoothed the pink and blue banknote in his hands, and the other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the banknote food.
"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.
The gentleman from Marseille tossed up his hands.
"Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is Ducrot."
"What?" cried Ste. Marie sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?"
"But naturally!" said the other man with some wonder. "Monsieur said he knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little withered man, bald on the top of the head, creases down the cheeks, a moustache like this,"—he made a descriptive gesture—"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M. Ducrot."
Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.
"Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is yours." The gentleman from Marseille took it with a slightly trembling hand, and began to bow himself towards the door, as if he feared that his host would experience a change of heart, but Ste. Marie checked him, saying—
"One moment.
"I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care to present yourself to your—employer, M. Ducrot, immediately: not for a few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine will show him your mission has—well, miscarried. It would perhaps be well for you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased with you."
"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot—who, I repeat, is a pig."
"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the street?"
"It is not necessary that I meet that individual either!" said the Marseillais hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.
Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement below. He saw his visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly down the street towards the Rue Vavin. He glanced across into the Gardens, and the spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he slept—the sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring, for an incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before him, and watched with the open mouth of astonishment.
Ste. Marie turned back into the room and began to tramp up and down, as was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered Hartley to have a judicial mind—a mind to establish, out of confusion, something like logical order, and he was very well aware that he himself had not that sort of mind at all. In action he was sufficiently confident of himself, but to construct a course of action he was afraid, and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical point, might be fatal—turn success into disaster.
He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot), and he longed most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at a gallop across the city to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, to fall upon that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him by the withered throat and say—
"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head from your miserable body!"
Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in the end; for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation of evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible weapon to hold over his head—the threat of exposure to the old man who lay slowly dying in the Rue de l'Université! A few words in old David's ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the son had sold his soul (if he had any left to sell) must pass for ever out of his reach, like gold seen in a dream.
This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no defence. To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give up the boy, or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to risk everything on this throw without seeing Richard Hartley first, and Hartley was not to be had until evening.
He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day or two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its paroxysms were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that Stewart was far too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe call upon his strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in his arms the night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust went over him as he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and contorted face, felt again the shaking thumping head as it beat against his shoulder. He wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be able to remember, of the events of the evening before, and he was at a loss there because of his unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one thing, however, he was almost certain, and that was that the man could scarcely have been conscious of who were beside him when the fit was over. If he had come at all to his proper senses, before the ensuing slumber of exhaustion, it must have been after Mlle. Nilssen and himself had gone away.
Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from Marseille (he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the gentleman from Marseille), but he reflected that the two were, without doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been stalking him for some days before he found him at home.
He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to be done, he considered, but wait—get through the day somehow; and so, presently, he went out to lunch. He went up the Rue Vavin to the Boulevard Montparnasse, and down that broad thoroughfare to Lavenue's, on the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in all this quarter, and can indeed hold up its head without shame in the face of those other more widely famous restaurants, across the river, frequented by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.
He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh in summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch and thought that he sat a very long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an hour and a half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was depressed. There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through, and Heaven alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have his consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of passing the time, but although he was not usually at a loss, he found his mind empty of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended themselves to him. He knew that whatever he tried to do he would interrupt it with pulling out his watch every half-hour or so and cursing the time because it lagged so slowly. He went out to theterrassefor coffee, very low in his mind.
But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table, smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of the big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain-des-Prés and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the Rue de Rennes into the boulevard. He could see the sign-board along theimpériale: "Clamart—St. Germain-des-Prés" with "Issy" and "Vanves" in brackets between.
Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table, and made off across the place at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way, fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just in time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on, and caught the tram before it had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered speed for its dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the conductor reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed up to the top and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the façade of the Gare Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.
He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where the tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a fool. He knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favourite half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence through the beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and, from Bellevue or Bas-Meudon, take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or thought he knew, just where lay the house, surrounded by garden and half-wild park, of which Olga Nilssen had told him; he had often wondered whose it was as the tram rolled along the length of its high wall. But he knew also that he could do nothing there, single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could not boldly ring the bell, demand speech with Mlle. Coira O'Hara, and ask her if she knew any thing of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a photographer had suspected of being in love with her. He certainly could not do that. And there seemed to be nothing else that—— Ste. Marie broke off this somewhat despondent course of reasoning with a sudden little voiceless cry. For the first time it occurred to him to connect the house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira O'Hara and young Arthur Benham.— It will be remembered that the man had not yet had time to arrange his suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical order and to make deductions from it.—For the first time he began to put two and two together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew: this nephew was known to have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara: Coira O'Hara was said to be living (with her father? probably) in the house on the outskirts of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the inference plain enough—sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt, many puzzling things to be explained?—perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie sat forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with excitement.
Was young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?
He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman with a live fowl at her feet, and the butcher's boy on his other side, were looking at him curiously. He realised that he was behaving in an excited manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over within him the words said themselves, over and over, until they made a sort of mad foolish refrain—
"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud once more, and he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.
The tram swung into the Rue de Sevres, and rolled smoothly out the long uninteresting stretch of the Rue Lecourbe, far out to where the houses became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red tiles stood alongside the factory where they had been made, where an acre of little glass hemispheres in long straight rows winked and glistened in the afternoon sun—the forcing beds of some market gardener; out to the Porte de Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers sprawled at ease before their little sentry-box, or loafed over to inspect ah incoming tram.
A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and a company ofpiou-pious, red capped, red trousered, shambled through their evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its steep streets and its old grey church, and past the splendid grounds of the Lycée beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down too, so that Ste. Marie was left alone upon theimpérialesave for a snuffy old gentleman in a pot-hat, who sat in a corner buried behind the day'sDroits de l'Homme.
Ste. Marie moved forward once more, and laid his arms upon the iron rail before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards, and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in front and an acacia or two at the gate posts. But presently, on the right, the way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long, behind which showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from the wall, beyond a little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a house could be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of a mile in a straight sweep, but halfway the road swung apart from it to the left, dipped under a stone rail way bridge, and so presently ended at the village of Clamart.
As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to slacken speed, and there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently it came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw that the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside the car, peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him after a moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion was subject. The driver, without looking up, called his colleague a number of the most surprising and, it is to be hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow under the tram, wriggling his way after the manner of the serpent, until nothing could be seen of him but two unrestful feet. His voice though muffled was still tolerably distinct. It cursed in an unceasing staccato, and with admirable ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the sacred dog of an impediment which had got itself wedged into one of the trucks, and the world in general.
Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place almost exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of the park wall which ran beside the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the other wing, which led inward from the road at something like a right angle, but was presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt patch of young trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth, which extended for some distance from the park wall backward along the roadside towards Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had seemingly not thought it worth while to cultivate it, or to build upon it, or even to clear it off.
Ste. Marie's first thought as his eye scanned the two long stretches of wall, and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to the place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite to the Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts, but he guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the Route de Clamart and the Fort d'Issy; and he was right. There is a little road between the two: it sweeps round in a long curve, and ends near the tiny public garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barbés.
His second thought was that this unkempt patch of trees and brush offered excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour alongside that high stone wall—for any one who might desire to cast a glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of which so little could be seen from the Route de Clamart, to look over the wall's coping into park and garden.
The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he realised that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the halted tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and from the platform he beckoned, crying out—
"En voiture, monsieur!En voiture!" Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little blasts upon his horn, the tram wheezed and moved forward. In a moment it was on its way, swinging along at full speed towards the curve in the line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway bridge. Ste. Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it until it had disappeared from view.
CHAPTER XIV
IN THE GARDEN
Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and watching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge, he called himself hard names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before and behind him, and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes again upon that unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once more the thought forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent cover for one who wished to observe a little—to reconnoitre.
He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place, to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves, and mount upon a homeward-bound tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness even, to expose himself to possible discovery by some one within the walled enclosure. What though no one there were able to recognise him, still the sight of a man prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over them, might excite an alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirable complications. Dimly Ste. Marie realised all this, and he tried to turn his back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew him with an irresistible fascination. Just a little look along that unknown wall! he said to himself; just the briefest of all brief reconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood growth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie of the place clear in his mind; for without any sound reason for it he was somehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play an important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter of feeling. The rather woman-like intuition which had warned him that O'Hara was concerned in young Benham's disappearance, and that the two were not far from Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it as he had done before.
He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill, casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had to climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to be jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and oaks. The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past seasons crackled underfoot, but after a little space he came to somewhat clearer ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid him securely.
He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at a very obtuse angle away from him, and once more ran on in a long straight line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door thickly studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the outside there was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large keyhole of the simple old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie observed that the edges of the keyhole were rusty, but scratched a little through the rust with recent marks, so the door, it seemed, was sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was depressed with many wheel marks—broad marks such as are made only by the wheels of a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little distance and they wound in and out among the trees and, beyond the thin fringe of wood, swept away in a curve towards Issy, doubtless to join the road which he had already imagined to lie somewhere beyond the enclosure.
Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped now and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within the sound of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight change of direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as to where the house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and from the level of the ground he could of course see nothing over it but tree-tops. He went on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it seemed to him very much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled cedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall. It was half dead but its twisted limbs were thick and strong, and by force of the tree's cramped position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms. One of them stretched across the very top of the stone wall, and, with the wind's action, it had scraped away the coping of tiles and bottle-glass, and had made a little depression there to rest in.
Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon the half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable that he would have yielded to the proffered lure. There seems to have been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day. There seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them, as doubtless there is in most things, if one but knew.
He left his hat and stick behind him under a shrub, and he began to make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore him well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder made by man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So mounting slowly and with care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He climbed to the next branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The drooping foliage from the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still alive, hung down over him and cloaked him from view, but through its aromatic screen he could see as freely as through the window curtain in the Rue d'Assas.
The house lay before him, a little to the left, and perhaps a hundred yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great enclosure, for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was as certainly far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in its day a respectable unpretentious square structure of three stories, entirely without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the ornate hideousness of the modern villas along the Route de Clamart. Now, however, the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls, giving them an unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all decent care had lent the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently the grounds before the house had been laid out in the formal fashion, with a terrace and geometrical lawns, and a pool and a fountain, and a rather fine long vista between clipped larches; but the same neglect which had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to grow over the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon the geometrical turf plots, the long double row of clipped larches to flourish at will or to die, or to fall prostrate and lie where they had fallen.
So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an effect that was by no means all disagreeable.
An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind, that thus must have looked the garden and park round the castle of the Sleeping Beauty when the Prince came to wake her.
But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices. Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic screen. His eyes swept the space below him, from right to left, and could see no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a heart which seemed to him like drum beats when soldiers are marching, and he listened—"all ears" as the phrase goes.
The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it came. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared from behind a row of tall shrubs two young people, moving slowly together up the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.
[image]"There appeared two young people."
[image]
[image]
"There appeared two young people."
The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and upon the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon his free moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reason why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the Rue de l'Université if he chose to—unless indeed his undissembling attitude towards Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of a small dog, humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless of an occasional kind word or pat on the head.
The world wheeled multi-coloured and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this poor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the loved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn. Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady—free, free as air (or so he seemed). Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful old man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because his grandson did not return to him: he thought of that timid soul—more shadow than woman—the boy's mother: he thought of Helen Benham's tragic eyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death, in that moment, in the righteous rage that stormed within him.
But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.
After all was she not one to make any boy—or any man—forget duty, home, friends, everything!
Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning, and to the words of the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well as any man man could—
"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno before marriage...."
Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had spoken well. It could not be more fairly put, though without doubt it could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind, the more detailed description; and again he nodded his head, for this too was true.
"She was all colour—brown skin with a dull red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly black—except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."
It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this garden, judging from their bearing, each to the other.
"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess. What would you? A queen among goddesses.... One would not have them laugh and make little jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No indeed!"
Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy who followed at her heels this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost anywhere else than where she was, She turned her beautiful face a little towards the wall where Ste Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal, that he had seen in them before—once in the Champs Elysées and again in his dreams.
Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance, the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary movement as if he would call them back, and, for the first time, his faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage was already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and, after a moment, he saw the boy slowly come forward, staring. He heard him say—
"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under the high wall.
Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he called down to the lad below in a loud whisper—
"Benham! Benham!"
The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her say—
"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away. Oh, come away quickly!"
Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said—
"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come from your family—from Helen!" To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run towards where the girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation Ste. Marie threw himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his hands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his balance he stumbled forward, shouting—
"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"
Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then from whence the shrill call had come, but afterwards he knew that Coira had blown it. And now, as he ran forward towards the two who stood at a distance staring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.
A man came running down amongst the black-boled trees, a strange, squat, gnome-like man, whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw this thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in his odd scrambling run.
Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee. He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him, but, as he whirled about, he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a noise, and knew that the gnome-like running man had shot him. He faced about once more towards the two young people. He was very angry, and he wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were some wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he was as if fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of the most ponderous and incredible weight like lead—or like that other metal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal, seemingly, was not only heavy but fiery hot, and his strength was incapable of holding it up any longer. His eyes fixed themselves in a bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara, he had time to observe that she had put up her two hands over her face, then he fell down forward, his head struck upon something very hard, and he knew no more.