The London express rolled with stately deliberation into Brayport station. Mr. Bodery folded up his newspapers, reached down his bag from the netting, and prepared to alight. The editor of theBeaconhad enjoyed a very pleasant journey, despite broiling sun and searching dust. He knew the possibilities of a first-class smoking-carriage—how to regulate the leeward window and chock off the other with a wooden match borrowed from the guard.
He stepped from the carriage with the laboured sprightliness of a man past the forties, and a moment later Sidney Carew was at his side.
“Mr. Bodery?”
“The same. You are no doubt Mr. Carew?”
“Yes. Thanks for coming. Hope it didn't inconvenience you?”
“Not at all,” replied the editor, breaking his return ticket.
“D——n!” said Sidney suddenly.
He was beginning to rise to the occasion. He was one of those men who are usually too slack to burthen their souls with a refreshing expletive.
“What is the matter?” inquired Mr. Bodery gravely.
“There is a man,” explained Sidney hurriedly, “getting out of the train who is coming to stay with us. I had forgotten his existence.Don'tlook round!”
Mr. Bodery was a Londoner. He did not look round. Nine out of ten country-bred people would have indulged in a stare.
“Is this all your luggage?” continued Sidney abruptly. He certainly was rising.
“Yes.”
“Then come along. We'll bolt for it. He'll have to get a fly, and that means ten minutes' start if the porter is not officious and mulls things.”
They hurried out of the station and clambered into the dog-cart. Sidney gathered up the reins.
“Hang it,” he exclaimed. “What bad luck! There is a fly waiting. It is never there when you want it.”
Mr. Bodery looked between the shafts.
“You need not be afraid of that fly,” he said.
“No—come up, you brute!”
Mr. Bodery turned carelessly to put his bag in the back of the cart.
“Let him have it,” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Your friend sees you, but he does not know that you have seen him. He is pointing you out to the station-master.”
As he spoke the cart swung round the gate-post of the station yard, nearly throwing him out, and Sidney's right hand felt for the whip-socket.
“There,” he said, “we are safe. I think I can manage that fly.”
Mr. Bodery settled himself and drew the dust-cloth over his chubby knees.
“Now,” he said, “tell me all about Vellacott.”
Sidney did so.
He gave a full and minute description of events previous to Christian Vellacott's disappearance, omitting nothing. The relation was somewhat disjointed, somewhat vague in parts, and occasionally incoherent. The narrator repeated himself—hesitated—blurted out some totally irrelevant fact, and finished up with a vague supposition (possessing a solid basis of truth) expressed in doubtful English. It suited Mr. Bodery admirably. In telling all about Vellacott, Sidney unconsciously told all about Mrs. Carew, Molly, Hilda, and himself. When he reached the point in his narration telling how Vellacott had been attracted into the garden, he became extremely vague and his style notably colloquial. Tell the story how he would, he felt that he could not prevent Mr. Bodery from drawing his own inferences. Young ladies are not in the habit of whistling for youthful members of the opposite sex. Few of them master the labial art, which perhaps accounts for much. Sidney Carew was conscious that his style lacked grace and finish.
Mr. Bodery did draw his own inferences, but the countenance into which Sidney glanced at intervals was one of intense stolidity.
“Well, I confess I cannot make it out—at present,” he said; “Vellacott has written to us only on business matters. We publish to-morrow a very good article of his purporting to be the dream of an overworkedattaché. It is very cutting and very incriminating. The Government cannot well avoid taking some notice of it. My only hope is that he is in Paris. There is something brewing over there. Our Paris agent wired for Vellacott this morning. By the way, Mr. Carew, is there a monastery somewhere in this part of the country?”
“Down that valley,” replied Sidney, pointing with his whip.
“In Vellacott's article there is mention of a monastery—not too minutely described, however. There are also some remarkable suppositions respecting an old foreigner living in seclusion. Could that be the man you mentioned just now—Signor Bruno?”
“Hardly. Bruno is a harmless old soul,” replied Sidney, pulling up to turn into the narrow gateway.
There was no time to make further inquiries.
Sidney led the way into the drawing-room. The ladies were there.
“My mother, Mr. Bodery—my sister; my sister Hilda,” he blurted out awkwardly.
Mrs. Carew shook hands, and the two young ladies bowed. They were all disappointed in Mr. Bodery. He was too calm and comfortable—also there was a suggestion of cigar smoke in his presence, which jarred.
“I am sorry,” said the Londoner, with genial self-possession, “to owe the pleasure of this visit to such an unfortunate incident.”
Molly felt that she hated him.
“Then you have heard nothing of Christian?” said Mrs. Carew.
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Bodery, removing his tight gloves. “But it is too soon to think of getting anxious yet. Vellacott is eminently capable of taking care of himself—he is, above all things, a journalist. Things are disturbed in Paris, and it is possible that he has run across there.”
Mrs. Carew smiled somewhat incredulously.
“It was a singular time to start,” observed Hilda quietly.
Mr. Bodery turned and looked at her.
“Master mind inthishouse,” he reflected.
“Yes,” he admitted aloud.
He folded his gloves and placed them in the pocket of his coat. The others watched him in silence.
“Do you take sugar and cream?” inquired Hilda sweetly, speaking for the second time.
“Please—both. In moderation.”
“I say,” interrupted Sidney at this moment, “the Vicomte d'Audierne is following us in a fly. He will be here in five minutes.”
Mrs. Carew nodded. She had not forgotten this guest.
“The Vicomte d'Audierne,” said Mr. Bodery, with considerable interest, turning away from the tea-table, cup in hand. “Is that the man who got out of my train?”
“Yes,” replied Sidney; “do you know him?”
“I have heard of him.” Mr. Bodery turned and took a slice of bread and butter from a plate which Hilda held.
At this moment there was a rumble of carriage wheels.
“By the way,” said the editor of theBeacon, raising his voice so as to command universal attention, “do not tell the Vicomte d'Audierne about Vellacott. Do not let him know that Vellacott has been here. Do not tell him of my connection with theBeacon.”
The ladies barely had time to reconsider their first impression of Mr. Bodery when the door was thrown open, and a servant announced M. d'Audierne.
He who entered immediately afterwards—with an almost indecent haste—was of middle height, with a certain intrepid carriage of the head which appeals to such as take pleasure in the strength and endurance of men. His face, which was clean shaven, was the face of a hawk, with the contracted myope vision characteristic of that bird. It is probable that from the threshold he took in every occupant of the room.
“Mrs. Carew,” he said in a pleasant voice, speaking almost faultless English, “after all these years. What a pleasure!”
He shook hands, turning at the same time to the others.
“And Sid,” he said, “and Molly—wicked little Molly. Never mind—your antecedents are safe. I am silent as the grave.”
This was not strictly true. He was as deep, and deeper than the resting-place mentioned, but his method was superior to silence.
“And Hilda,” he continued, “thoughtful little Hilda, who was always too busy to be naughty. Not like Molly, eh?”
“Heavens! How old it makes one feel!” he exclaimed, turning to Mrs. Carew.
The lady laughed.
“You are not changed, at all events,” she said. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Bodery—the Vicomte d'Audierne.”
The two men bowed.
“Much pleasure,” said the Frenchman.
Mr. Bodery bowed again in an insular manner, which just escaped awkwardness, and said nothing.
Then Molly offered the new-comer some tea, and the party broke up into groups. But the Vicomte's personality in some subtle manner pervaded the room. Mr. Bodery lapsed into monosyllables and felt ponderous. Monsieur d'Audierne had it in his power to make most men feel ponderous when the spirit moved him in that direction.
As soon as tea was finally disposed of Mrs. Carew proposed an adjournment to the garden. She was desirous of getting Mr. Bodery to herself.
It fell to Hilda's lot to undertake the Frenchman. They had been great friends once, and she was quite ready to renew the pleasant relationship. She led her guest to the prettiest part of the garden—the old overgrown footpath around the moat.
As soon as they had passed under the nut-trees into the open space at the edge of the water, the Vicomte d'Audierne stopped short and looked round him curiously. At the same time he gave a strange little laugh.
“Hein—hein—c'est drôle,” he muttered, and the girl remembered that in the old friendship between the brilliant, middle-aged diplomatist and the little child they had always spoken French. She liked to hear him speak his own language, for in his lips it received full justice: it was the finest tongue spoken on this earth. But she did not feel disposed just then to humour him. She looked at him wonderingly as his deep eyes wandered over the scene.
While they stood there, something—probably a kestrel—disturbed the rooks dwelling in the summits of the still elms across the moat, and they rose simultaneously in the air with long-drawn cries.
“Ah! Ah—h!” said the Vicomte, with a singular smile.
And then Hilda forgot her shyness.
“What is it?” she inquired in the language she had always spoken to this man.
He turned and walked beside her, suiting his steps to hers, for some moments before replying.
“I was not here at all,” he said at length, apologetically; “I was far away from you. It was impolite. I am sorry.”
He intended that she should laugh, and she did so softly. “Where were you?” she inquired, glancing at him beneath her golden lashes.
Again he paused.
“There is,” he said at length, “an oldchâteauin Morbihan—many miles from a railway—in the heart of a peaceful country. It has a moat like this—there are elms—there are rooks that swing up into the air like that and call—and one does not know why they do it, and what they are calling. Listen, little girl—they are calling something. What is it? I think I wasthere. It was impolite—I am sorry, Miss Carew.”
She laughed again sympathetically and without mirth; for she was meant to laugh.
He looked back over his shoulder at times as if the calling of the rooks jarred upon his nerves.
“I do not think I like them—” he said, “now.”
He was not apparently disposed to be loquacious as he had been at first. Possibly the rooks had brought about this change. Hilda also had her thoughts. At times she glanced at the water with a certain shrinking in her heart. She had not yet forgotten the moments she had passed at the edge of the moat the night before. They walked right round the moat and down a little pathway through the elm wood without speaking. The rooks had returned to their nests and only called to each other querulously at intervals.
“Has it ever occurred to you, little girl,” said the Vicomte d'Audierne suddenly, “to doubt the wisdom of the Creator's arrangements for our comfort, or otherwise, here below?”
“I suppose not,” he went on, without waiting for an answer, which she remembered as an old trick of his. “You are a woman—it is different for you.”
The girl said nothing. She may have thought differently; one cannot always read a maiden's thoughts.
They walked on together. Suddenly the Vicomte d'Audierne spoke.
“Who is this?” he said.
Hilda followed the direction of his eyes.
“That,” she answered, “is Signor Bruno. An old Italian exile. A friend of ours.”
Bruno came forward, hat in hand, bowing and smiling in his charming way.
Hilda introduced the two men, speaking in French.
“I did not know,” said Signor Bruno, with outspread hands, “that you spoke French like a Frenchwoman.”
Hilda laughed.
“Had it,” she said, with a sudden inspiration, “been Italian, I should have told you.”
There was a singular smile visible, for a moment only, in the eyes of the Vicomte d'Audierne, and then he spoke.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “learnt most of it from me. We are old friends.”
Signor Bruno bowed. He did not look too well pleased.
“Ah—but is that so?” he murmured conversationally.
“Yes; I hope she learnt nothing else from me,” replied the Vicomte carelessly.
Hilda turned upon him with a questioning smile.
“Why?”
“I do not imagine, little girl,” replied d'Audierne, “that you could learn very much that is good from me.”
Hilda gave a non-committing little laugh, and led the way through the nut-trees towards the house. The Vicomte d'Audierne followed, and Signor Bruno came last. When they emerged upon the lawn in view of Mrs. Carew and Mr. Bodery, who were walking together, the Vicomte dropped his handkerchief. Signor Bruno attempted to pick it up, and there was a slight delay caused by the interchange of some Gallic politeness.
Before the two foreigners came up with Hilda, who had walked on, Signor Bruno found time to say:
“I must see you to-night, without fail; I am in a very difficult position. I have had to resort to strong measures.”
“Where?” inquired the Vicomte d'Audierne, with that pleasant nonchalance which is so aggravating to the People.
“In the village, any time after nine; a yellow cottage near the well.”
“Good!”
And they joined Hilda Carew.
It is only when our feelings are imaginary that we analyse them. When the real thing comes—the thing that only does come to a few of us—we can only feel it, and there is no thought of analysis. Moreover, the action is purely involuntary. We feel strange things—such things as murder—and we cannot help feeling it. We may cringe and shrink; we may toss in our beds when we wake up with such thoughts living, moving, having their being in our brains—but we cannot toss them off. The very attempt to do so is a realisation, and from consciousness we spring to knowledge. We know that in our hearts we are thieves, murderers, slanderers; we know that if we read of such thoughts in a novel we should hold the thinker in all horror; but we are distinctly conscious all the time that these thoughts are our own. This is just the difference existing between artificial feelings and real: the one bears analysis, the other cannot.
Hilda Carew could not have defined her feelings on the evening of the arrival of Mr. Bodery and the Vicomte d'Audierne. She was conscious of the little facts of everyday existence. She dressed for dinner with singular care; during that repast she talked and laughed much as usual, but all the while she felt like any one in all the world but Hilda Carew. At certain moments she wondered with a throb of apprehension whether the difference which was so glaringly patent to herself could possibly be hidden from others. She caught strange inflections in her own voice which she knew had never been there before—her own laughter was a new thing to her. And yet she went on through dinner and until bedtime, acting this strange part without break, without fault—a part which had never been rehearsed and never learnt: a part which was utterly artificial and yet totally without art, for it came naturally.
And through it all she feared the Vicomte d'Audierne. Mr. Bodery counted for nothing. He made a very good dinner, was genial and even witty in a manner befitting his years and station. Mrs. Carew was fully engaged with her guests, and Molly was on lively terms with the Vicomte; while Sidney, old Sidney—no one counted him. It was only the Vicomte who paused at intervals during his frugal meal, and looked across the table towards the young girl with those deep, impenetrable eyes—shadowless, gleamless, like velvet.
When bedtime at length arrived, she was quite glad to get away from that kind, unobtrusive scrutiny of which she alone was aware. She went to her room, and sitting wearily on the bed she realised for the first time in her life the incapacity to think. It is a realisation which usually comes but once or twice in a lifetime, and we are therefore unable to get accustomed to it. She was conscious of intense pressure within her brain, of a hopeless weight upon her heart, but she could define neither. She rose at length, and mechanically went to bed like one in a trance. In the same way she fell asleep.
In the meantime Mr. Bodery, Sidney Carew, and the Vicomte d'Audierne were smoking in the little room at the side of the porch. A single lamp with a red shade hung from the ceiling in the centre of this room, hardly giving enough light to read by. There were half-a-dozen deep armchairs, a divan, and two or three small tables—beyond that nothing. Sidney's father had furnished it thus, with a knowledge and appreciation of Oriental ways. It was not a study, nor a library, nor a den; but merely a smoking-room. Mr. Bodery had lighted an excellent cigar, and through the thin smoke he glanced persistently at the Vicomte d'Audierne. The Vicomte did not return this attention; he glanced at the clock instead. He was thinking of Signor Bruno, but he was too polite and too diplomatic to give way to restlessness.
At last Mr. Bodery opened fire from, as it were, a masked battery; for he knew that the Frenchman was ignorant of his connection with one of the leading political papers of the day. It was a duel between sheer skill and confident foreknowledge. When Mr. Bodery spoke, Sidney Carew leant back in his chair and puffed vigorously at his briar pipe.
“Things,” said the Englishman, “seem to be very unsettled in France just now.”
The Vicomte was engaged in rolling a cigarette, and he finished the delicate operation before looking up with a grave smile.
“Yes,” he said. “In Paris. But Paris is not France. That fact is hardly realised in England, I think.”
“What,” inquired Mr. Bodery, with that conversational heaviness of touch which is essentially British, “is the meaning of this disturbance?”
Sidney Carew was enveloped in a perfect cloud of smoke.
For a moment—and a moment only—the Vicomte's profound gaze rested on the Englishman's face. Mr. Bodery was evidently absorbed in the enjoyment of his cigar. The smile that lay on his genial face like a mask was the smile of a consciousness that he was making himself intensely pleasant, and adapting his conversation to his company in a quite phenomenal way.
“Ah!” replied the Frenchman, with a neat little shrug of bewilderment. “Who can tell? Probably there is no meaning in it. There is so often no meaning in the action of a Parisian mob.”
“Many things without meaning are not without result.”
Again the Vicomte looked at Mr. Bodery, and again he was baffled.
“You only asked me the meaning,” he said lightly. “I am glad you did not inquire after the result; because there I should indeed have been at fault. I always argue to myself that it is useless to trouble one's brain about results. I leave such matters to the good God. He will probably do just as well without my assistance.”
“You are a philosopher,” said Mr. Bodery, with a pleasant and friendly laugh.
“Thank Heaven—yes! Look at my position. Fancy carrying in France to-day a name that is to be found in the most abridged history. One needs to be a philosopher, Mr. Bodery.”
“But,” suggested the Englishman, “there may be changes. It may all come right.”
The Vicomte sipped his whisky and water with vicious emphasis.
“If it began at once,” he said, “it would never be right in my time. Not as it used to be. And in the meantime we are in the present—in the present France is governed by newspaper men.”
Sidney drew in his feet and coughed. Some of his smoke had gone astray.
Mr. Bodery looked sympathetic.
“Yes,” he said calmly, “that really seems to be the case.”
“And newspaper men,” pursued the Vicomte, “what are they? Men of no education, no position, no sense of honour. The great aim of politicians in France to-day is the aggrandisement of themselves.”
Mr. Bodery yawned.
“Ah!” he said, with a glance towards Sidney.
Perhaps the Frenchman saw the glance, perhaps he was deceived by the yawn. At all events, he rose and expressed a desire to retire to his room. He was tired, he said, having been travelling all the previous night.
Mr. Bodery had not yet finished his cigar, so he rose and shook hands without displaying any intention of following the Vicomte's example.
Sidney lighted a candle, one of many standing on a side table, and led the way upstairs. They walked through the long, dimly lighted corridors in silence, and it was only when they had arrived in the room set apart for the Vicomte d'Audierne that this gentleman spoke.
“By the way,” he said, “who is this person—this Mr. Bodery? He was not a friend of your father's.” Sidney was lighting the tall candles that stood upon the dressing-table, and the combined illumination showed with remarkable distinctness the reflection of his face in the mirror. From whence he stood the Frenchman could see this reflection.
“He is the friend of a great friend of mine; that is how we know him,” replied Sidney, prizing up the wick of a candle. He was still rising to the occasion—this dull young Briton. Then he turned. “Christian Vellacott,” he said; “you knew his father?”
“Ah, yes: I knew his father.”
Sidney was moving to the door without any hurry, and also without any intention of being deterred.
“His father,” continued the Vicomte, winding his watch meditatively, “was brilliant. Has the son inherited any brain?”
“I think so. Good night.”
“Good night.”
When the door was closed the Vicomte looked at his watch. It was almost midnight.
“The Reverend Father Talma will have to wait till to-morrow morning,” he said to himself. “I cannot go to him to-night. It would be too theatrical. That old gentleman is getting too old for his work.”
In the meantime, Sidney returned to the little smoking-room at the side of the porch. There he found Mr. Bodery smoking with his usual composure. The younger man forbore asking any questions. He poured out for himself some whisky, and opened a bottle of soda-water with deliberate care and noiselessness.
“That man,” said Mr. Bodery at length, “knows nothing about Vellacott.”
“You think so?”
“I am convinced of it. By the way, who is the old gentleman who came to tea this afternoon?”
“Signor Bruno, do you mean?”
“I suppose so—that super-innocent old man with the white hair who wears window-glass spectacles.”
“Are they window-glass?” asked Sidney, with a little laugh.
“They struck me as window-glass—quite flat. Who is he—beyond his name, I mean?”
“He is an Italian refugee—lives in the village.”
Mr. Bodery had taken his silver pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and was rolling it backwards and forwards on the table. This was indicative of the fact that the editor of theBeaconwas thinking deeply.
“Ah! And how long has he been here?”
“Only a few weeks.”
Mr. Bodery looked up sharply.
“Isthatall?” he inquired, with an eager little laugh.
“Yes.”
“Then, my dear sir, Vellacott is right. That old man is at the bottom of it. This Vicomte d'Audierne, what do you know of him?”
“Personally?”
“Yes.”
“He is an old friend of my father's. In fact, he is a friend of the family. He calls the girls by their Christian names, as you have heard to-night.”
“Yes; I noticed that. And he came here to-day merely on a friendly visit?”
“That is all. Why do you ask?” inquired Sidney, who was getting rather puzzled.
“I know nothing of him personally—except what I have learnt to-day. For my own part, I like him,” answered Mr. Bodery. “He is keen and clever. Moreover, he is a thorough gentleman. But, politically speaking, he is one of the most dangerous men in France. He is a Jesuit, an active Royalist, and a staunch worker for the Church party. I don't know much about French politics—that is Vellacott's department. But I know that if he were here, and knew of the Vicomte's presence in England, he would be very much on the alert.”
“Then,” asked Sidney, “do you connect the presence of the Vicomte here with the absence of Vellacott?”
“There can be little question about it, directly or indirectly. Indirectly, I should think, unless the Vicomte d'Audierne is a scoundrel.”
Sidney thought deeply.
“He may be,” he admitted.
“I do not,” pursued Mr. Bodery, with a certain easy deliberation, “think that the Vicomte is aware of Vellacott's existence. That is my opinion.”
“He asked who you were—if you were a friend of my father's.”
“And you said—”
“No! I said that you were a friend of a friend, and mentioned Vellacott's name. He knew his father very well.”
“Were you”—asked Mr. Bodery, throwing away the end of his cigar and rising from his deep chair—“were you looking at the Vicomte when you answered the question?”
“Yes.”
“And there was no sign of discomfort—no flicker of the eyelids, for instance?”
“No; nothing.”
Mr. Bodery nodded his head in a businesslike way, indicative of the fact that he was engaged in assimilating a good deal of useful information.
“There is nothing to be done to-night,” he said presently, as he made a movement towards the door, “but to go to bed. To-morrow theBeaconwill be published, and the result will probably be rather startling. We shall hear something before to-morrow afternoon.”
Sidney lighted Mr. Bodery's candle and shook hands.
“By the way,” said the editor, turning back and speaking more lightly, “if any one should inquire—your mother or one of your sisters—you can say that I am not in the least anxious about Vellacott. Good night.”
It was quite early the next morning when the Vicomte d'Audierne left his room. As he walked along the still corridor and down the stairs it was noticeable that he made absolutely no sound, without, however, indulging in any of those contortions which are peculiar to late arrivals in church. It would seem that Nature had for purposes of her own made his footfall noiseless—if, by the way, Nature can be credited with any purpose whatever in her allotment of human gifts and failings.
In the hall he found a stout cook armed for assault upon the front-door step.
“Good morning,” he said. “Can you tell me the breakfast-hour? I forgot to inquire last night.”
“Nine o'clock, sir,” replied the servant, rather taken aback at the thought of having this visitor dependent upon her for entertainment during the next hour and a half.
“Ah—and it is not yet eight. Never mind. I will go into the garden. I am fond of fruit before breakfast.”
He took his hat and lounged away towards the kitchen-garden which lay near the moat.
“And now,” he said to himself, looking round him in a searching way, “where is this pestilential village?”
The way was not hard to find, and as the church clock struck eight the Vicomte d'Audierne opened the little green gate of the cottage where Signor Bruno was lodging.
The old gentleman must have been watching for him; for he opened the door before the Vicomte reached it.
He turned and led the way into a little room on the right hand of the narrow passage. A little room intensely typical: china dogs, knitted antimacassars of a brilliant tendency, and horse-hair covered furniture. There was even the usual stuffy odour as if the windows, half-hidden behind muslin curtains and scarlet geraniums, were never opened from one year's end to another.
Signor Bruno closed the door before speaking. Then he turned upon his companion with something very like fury glittering in his eyes.
“Why did you not come last night?” he asked. “I am left alone to contend against one difficulty on the top of another. Read that!”
He drew from his pocket a thin and somewhat crumpled sheet of paper, upon which there were two columns of printed matter.
“That,” he said, “cost us two thousand francs.” The Vicomte d'Audierne read the printed matter carefully from beginning to end. He had approached the window because the light was bad, and when he finished he looked up for a few minutes, out of the little casement, upon the quiet village scene.
“TheBeacon,” he said, turning round, “what is that?”
“A leading weekly newspaper.”
“Published—?
“To-day,” snapped Signor Bruno.
The Vicomte d'Audierne made a little grimace.
“Who wrote this?” he inquired.
“Christian Vellacott, son oftheVellacott, whom you knew in the old days.”
“Ah!”
There was something in the Vicomte's expressive voice that made Signor Bruno look at him sharply with some apprehension.
“Why do you say that?”
The Vicomte countered with another question.
“Who is this Mr. Bodery?”
He gave a little jerk with his head in the direction of the house he had just left.
“I do not know.”
“I was told last night that he was a friend of this Christian Vellacott—a protector.”
The two Frenchmen looked at each other in silence. Signor Bruno was evidently alarmed—his lips were white and unsteady. There was a smile upon the bird-like face of the younger man, and behind his spectacles his eyes glittered with an excitement in which there was obviously no fear.
“Do you know,” he asked in a disagreeably soft manner, “where Christian Vellacott is?”
Across the benevolent old face of Signor Bruno here came a very evil smile.
“You will do better not to ask me that question,” he replied, “unless you mean to run for it—as I do.”
The Vicomte d'Audierne looked at his companion in a curious way.
“You had,” he said, “at one time no rival as a man of action—”
Signor Bruno shrugged his shoulders.
“I am a man of action still.”
The Vicomte folded the proof-sheet carefully, handed it back to his companion, and said:
“Then I understand that—there will be no more of these very clever articles?”
Bruno nodded his head.
“I ask no questions,” continued the other. “It is better so. I shall stay where I am for a few days, unless it grows too hot—unless I think it expedient to vanish.”
“You have courage?”
“No; I have impertinence—that is all. There will be a storm—a newspaper storm. The embassies will be busy; in the English Parliament some pompous fool will ask a question, and be snubbed for his pains. In theChambrethe newspaper men will rant and challenge each other in the corridors; and it will blow over. In the meantime we have got what we want, and we can hide it till we have need of it. Your Reverence and I have met difficulties together before this one.”
But Signor Bruno was not inclined to fall in with these optimistic views.
“I am not so sure,” he said, “that we have got what we want. There has been no acknowledgment of receipt of the last parcel—in the usual way—the EnglishStandard.”
“What was the last parcel?”
“Fifty thousand cartridges.”
“But they were sent?”
“Yes; they were despatched in the usual way; but, as I say, they have not been acknowledged. There may have been some difficulty on the other side. Our police are not so easy-going as these coastguard gentlemen.”
“Well,” said the aristocrat, with that semi-bantering lightness of manner which sometimes aggravated, and always puzzled, his colleagues, “we will not give ourselves trouble over that: the matter is out of our hands. Let us rather think of ourselves. Have you money?”
“Yes—I have sufficient.”
“It is now eight o'clock—this newspaper—this preciousBeaconis now casting its light into some dark intellects in London. It will take those intellects two hours to assimilate the information, and one more hour to proceed to action. You have, therefore, three hours in which to make yourself scarce.”
“I have arranged that,” replied the old man calmly. “There is a small French potato-ship lying at Exmouth. In two hours I shall be one of her crew.”
“That is well. And the others?”
“The others left yesterday afternoon. They cross by this morning's boat from Southampton to Cherbourg. You see how much I have had to do.”
“I see also, my friend, how well you have done it.”
“And now,” said Signor Bruno, ignoring the compliment, “I must go. We will walk away by the back garden across the fields. You must remember that you may have been seen coming here.”
“I have thought of that. One old man saw me, but he did not look at me twice. He will not know me again. And your landlady—where is she?”
“I have sent her out on a fool's errand.”
As they spoke they left the little cottage by the back door, as Signor Bruno had proposed, through the little garden, and across some low-lying fields. Presently they parted, Signor Bruno turning to the left, while the Vicomte d'Audierne kept to the right.
“We shall meet, I suppose,” were the last words of the younger man, “in the Rue St. Gingolphe?”
“Yes—in the Rue St. Gingolphe.”
For so old a man the pace at which Signor Bruno breasted the hill that lay before him was somewhat remarkable. The Vicomte d'Audierne, on the other hand, was evidently blessed with a greater leisure. He looked at his watch and strolled on through the dew-laden meadows, wrapt in thought as in a cloak that hid the sweet freshness of the flowery hedgerows, that muffled the broken song of the busy birds, that killed the scent of ripening hay. Thus these two singular men parted—and it happened that they were never to meet again. These little thingsdohappen. We meet with gravity; we part with a smile; perhaps we make an appointment; possibly we speak of the pleasure that the meeting seems to promise: and the next meeting is put off; it belongs to the great postponement.
Often we part with an indifferent nod, as these two men parted amidst the sylvan peace of English meadow on that summer morning. They belonged to two different stations in life almost as far apart as two social stations could be, even in a republic. They were not, in any sense of the word, friends; they were merely partners, intensely awake, as partners usually are, to each other's shortcomings.
The Vicomte d'Audierne probably thought no more of Signor Bruno from the moment that he raised his hat and turned. A few moments later his thoughts were evidently far away.
“The son of Vellacott,” he muttered, as he took a cigarette from a neat silver case. “How strange! And yet I am sorry. He might have done something in the world. That article was clever—very clever—curse it! He cannot yet be thirty. But one would expect something from the son of a man like Vellacott.”
It was not yet nine o'clock when the Vicomte entered the dining-room by the open window. Only Hilda was there, and she was busy with the old leather post-bag. Among the letters there were several newspapers, and the Vicomte d'Audierne's expression underwent a slight change on perceiving them. His thin, mobile lips were closely pressed, and his chin—a very short one—was thrust forward. Behind the gentle spectacles his eyes assumed for a moment that singular blinking look which cannot be described in English, for it seemed to change their colour. In his country it would have been calledglauque.
“Ah, Hilda!” he said, approaching slowly, “do I see newspapers? I love a newspaper!”
She handed him theTimesenveloped in a yellow wrapper, upon which was printed her brother's name and address.
“Ah,” he said lightly, “theTimes—estimable, but just a trifle opaque. Is that all?”
His eyes were fixed upon two packets she held in her hand.
“These are Mr. Bodery's,” she replied, looking at him with some concentration.
“And what newspaper does Mr. Bodery read?” asked the Frenchman, holding out his hand.
She hesitated for a moment. His position with regard to her was singular, his ascendency over her had never been tried. It was an unknown quantity; but the Vicomte d'Audierne knew his own power.
“Let me look, little girl,” he said quietly in French.
She handed him the newspapers, still watching his face.
“TheBeacon,” he muttered, reading aloud from the ornamented wrapper, “a weekly journal.”
He threw the papers down and returned to theTimes, which he unfolded.
“Tell me, Hilda,” he said, “is Mr. Bodery connected with this weekly journal, theBeacon?”
Her back was turned towards him. She was hanging up the key of the post-bag on a nail beside the fireplace.
“Yes,” she replied, without looking round.
“Is he the editor?”
“Yes.”
The Vicomte d'Audierne turned theTimescarelessly.
“Ah!” he muttered, “the phylloxera has appeared again.”
For some time he appeared to be absorbed in this piece of news, then he spoke again.
“I knew something of a man who writes for that newspaper—theBeacon. I knew his father very well.”
“Yes.”
The Vicomte glanced at her.
“Christian Vellacott,” he said.
“We know him also,” she answered, moving towards the bell. He made a step forward as if about to offer to ring the bell for her, but she was too quick.
When the butler entered the room, Hilda reminded him of some small omission in setting out the breakfast-table. The item required was in the room, and the man set it upon the table with some decision and a slightly aggrieved cast of countenance.
The Vicomte d'Audierne raised his eyes, and then he looked very grave. He was a singular man in many ways, but those who worked with him were aware of one peculiarity which by its prominence cast others into the shade. He possessed a very useful gift rarely given to men—the gift of intuition. It was dangerous tothinkwhen the eyes of the Vicomte d'Audierne were upon one's face. He had a knack of knowing one's thoughts before they were even formulated. He looked grave—almost distressed—on this occasion, because he knew something of which Hilda herself was ignorant. He knew that she was engaged to be married to one man while she loved another.