"And men, Monsieur? Are they more disloyal?" Vanderlyn spoke quietly, indifferently, as if the question was of no moment.
"Men," said Monsieur le Préfet, dryly, "are as a rule quite as loyal, especially where they feel their honour is engaged. But with a man it is possible to reason; a woman, especially a good woman, follows the dictates of instinct,—in other words, of her heart."
"I notice, Monsieur le Préfet, that you eliminate the possibility of material accident having occurred to Mrs. Pargeter?"
"Let us distinguish!" exclaimed the older man quickly. "If, by accident, you mean, Mr. Vanderlyn, the type of mishap which might have occurred to this lady when she was walking or driving in our Paris streets, then I certainly eliminate the possibility of accident to Mrs. Pargeter. Within six hours of such a thing having occurred the facts would have been laid before me, and, as you know, two nights and two days have elapsed since her disappearance. If, on the other hand, we envisage the possibility of suicide, then are opened up a new series of possibilities."
The Prefect gave a piercing look at the American's worn and sorrow-laden face, but he did not find written there any involuntary answer to his mute interrogation.
"Some years ago," went on the great official, "a man well known in Paris society made up his mind to take his own life. He hired a cellar, locked the door, and then shot himself. Months went by before his disappearance was accounted for, and then the body was only discovered by an accident. If Mrs. Pargeter has committed suicide, and if she, an intelligent woman, was determined that the fact should never be found out by her friends, then I admit our task becomes a very difficult one! But I do not believe," he continued, after a short silence, "that Mrs. Pargeter did this. I believe she is alive, and well. She was, by each account that has reached me, young, charming, and wealthy. She had a child whom she apparently adored. As for her relations with her husband——" the Prefect shrugged his shoulders, and again looked searchingly at Vanderlyn.
"Mr. Thomas Pargeter," he went on, smiling, "is not perhaps the perfect husband of whom every young girl dreams; but then no one is so foolish as to search for the perfect husband in the world to which your friend belongs! He is not exactly aviveur,—but he is, to use the slang of the day, essentially ajouisseur. Is not that so?" He added, with a rather twisted grin, "If every lady whose husband lives to enjoy himself were to commit suicide, there would be very few women left in our Paris world."
"I agree with you, Monsieur le Préfet, in thinking Mrs. Pargeter was the last woman in the world to commit suicide," said Vanderlyn brusquely, and then he got up.
There had come over him during the last few moments an inexplicable, instinctive feeling of dread,—that panting fear which besets the hunted creature. He was determined to bring to an end the interview. But the Prefect of Police had no intention of being disposed of so easily. He remained sitting where he was; and, placing his two fat hands firmly on his knees, sat looking at the American's tall figure. Slowly his eyes travelled up till they rested on his host's haggard face.
"Then I am to understand, Mr. Vanderlyn, that you are not in a position to give me any help? That is your last word?"
Vanderlyn suddenly determined to carry the war into the enemy's country.
"I can only repeat," he said, harshly, "what I said before, Monsieur le Préfet—namely, that you credit me with a knowledge which I do not possess. Further, that while, of course, I appreciate the kindly motive which has inspired your visit, I think I have a right to resent the suspicions which that visit indicates, I do not say on your part, but on that of your subordinates. I will not disguise from you my knowledge that for the last two days every step I have taken has been dogged; I suspect also, but of that I have no proof, that my servants, and the concierge of this house, have been questioned as to my movements, as to my daily life. I cannot help also suspecting—perhaps in this I am wrong—that the police are inclined to believe that Mrs. Pargeter—a woman, let me remind you, Monsieur le Préfet, of the highest and most unspotted character—is hiding here, in my chambers! You speak of having saved me from a perquisition,—a perquisition in the rooms of a diplomatist is a serious matter, Monsieur le Préfet, and I tell you quite frankly that I should have resisted such an outrage in every way in my power! But now, in the present very peculiar circumstances, I request,—nay, I demand,—that you should search my rooms. Every possible facility shall be afforded you." Vanderlyn's voice was shaking with undisguised anger,—aye, and disgust.
The Prefect of Police rose from his chair.
"I have no wish to subject you to any indignity," he said earnestly, "I absolutely accept your assurance that Mrs. Pargeter is not in hiding here. I am aware, Mr. Vanderlyn, that Americans do not lie,"—an ironic smile wavered for a moment over his large mouth.
Vanderlyn's face remained impassive. "You, on your side, must forgive my heat," he said, quietly. Then he suddenly determined to play for a high stake. "May I ask you to satisfy my curiosity on one point? What made you first suspect such a thing? What led you to—to suppose——"
"——That you knew where this lady was; that she might—say, after a little misunderstanding with her husband—have taken refuge with you? Well, yes, Mr. Vanderlyn, I admit that you have a right to ask me this, and it was because I feared you might lack the exquisite courtesy you have shown me, that I brought with me to-night a document which contains, in what I trust you will consider a discreet form, an answer to your delicate question."
Vanderlyn's visitor again sat down; he laid open on his knee the leather portfolio, and out of it he took a large sheet of foolscap, which, unfolding, he handed to Laurence Vanderlyn.
"This, Monsieur, is yourdossier. If you can prove to me that it is incorrect in any particular, I will see that the error is rectified. We naturally take special care in compiling thedossiersof foreign diplomatists, for experience has shown that these often become of great value, even after the gentlemen in question have left Paris for some other capital."
Vanderlyn reddened. He glanced over the odd-looking document with eager, curious eyes. A few words here and there were printed, but the rest of thedossierwas written in the round copying character which must be mastered by every French Government clerk hoping for promotion.
First came the American diplomatist's Christian name and surname, his place of birth, his probable age—right within two years,—a short epitome of his diplomatic career, a guess at his income, this item considerably under the right figure, and evidently based on his quiet way of living.
Then, under a printed heading "General Remarks," were written a few phrases in a handwriting very different from the rest—that is, in the small clear caligraphy of an educated Frenchman. Staring down at these, Vanderlyn felt shaken with anger and disgust, for these "General Remarks" concerned that part of his private life which every man believes to be hidden from his fellows:—
"Peu d'intimités d'hommes. Pas de femmes: par contre, une amitié amoureuse très suivie avec Madame (Marguerite) Pargeter. Voir dossier Pargeter (Thomas)."
Amitié amoureuse? Friendship akin to love? The English language, so rich in synonyms, owns no exact equivalent for this French phrase, expressive though it be of a phase of human emotion as old as human nature itself.
Vanderlyn looked up. His eyes met squarely those of the other man.
"Your staff," he said, very quietly, "have served you well, Monsieur; mydossieris, on the whole, extraordinarily correct. There is but one word which I would have altered, and which, indeed, I venture to beg you to correct without loss of time. The young man—he is evidently a young man—who wrote the summary to which you have drawn my attention, must have literary tastes, otherwise there is one word in this document which would not be there." Vanderlyn put his finger down firmly on the word "amoureuse." "My relations with Mrs. Pargeter were, it is true, those of close friendship, but I must ask you to accept my assurance, Monsieur le Préfet, that they were not what the writer of this passage evidently believed them to have been."
"I will make a note of the correction," said the Prefect, gravely, "and I must offer you my very sincere excuses for having troubled you to-night."
As Vanderlyn's late visitor drove home that night, he said to himself, indeed he said aloud to the walls of the shabby little carriage which had heard so many important secrets, "He knows whatever there is to be known—but, then, what is it that is to be known? Of what mystery am I now seeking the solution?"
As he heard the door shut on the Prefect of Police, Vanderlyn felt his nerve give way. There had come a moment during the conversation, when, as if urged by some malignant power outside himself, he had felt a sudden craving to take the old official into his confidence, and tell him the whole truth—so magnetic were the personality, the compelling will, of the man who had just left him.
He walked over to the corner window of his sitting-room, and stepped onto the stone balcony which overlooked the twinkling lights of the Place de la Concorde.
Then, flung out, merged in the deep roar below, there broke from Laurence Vanderlyn a bitter cry; the keen night air had brought with it a sudden memory of that moment when he had opened the railway carriage door and stepped out into the rushing wind.... He asked himself why he had not followed his first impulse, why he had not allowed himself to die, with Peggy in his arms? Why, above all, had he undertaken a task which it was becoming beyond his strength to carry through?
So wondering, so questioning, he leaned over the balustrade dangerously far; then he drew quickly back, and placing his hands on the parapet, stood for a moment as if holding at bay an invisible, yet to himself most tangible, enemy.
With a sigh which was a groan, he walked back into the room. He had never yet failed Peggy; he would not fail her now——
Vanderlyn sat down; he was determined not to be beaten by his nerves. He took up theNew York Herald; but a moment later he had laid the paper down again on the table. What had been going on in America a week ago could not compel his attention. He took another paper off the table; it was the LondonDaily Telegraph, of which one of the most successful features for many years has been a column entitled "Paris Day by Day,"—anolla podridaof news, grave and gay, domestic and sensational, put together with infinite art, and a full understanding of what is likely to appeal to the British middle-class reader. There, as Vanderlyn knew well, was certain to be some reference to the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter.
Yes—here it was!
"No trace of Mrs. Pargeter, the wife of the well-known sportsman and owner of Absinthe, has yet been found; but the lady's relations think it possible that she went unexpectedly to stay with some friends, and that the letter informing her household of her whereabouts has miscarried."
The Paris correspondent of the great London newspaper had proved himself very discreet.
Vanderlyn's eyes glanced idly down the long column of paragraphs which make up "Paris Day by Day." Again he remembered the look of deep astonishment which had crossed a colleague's face at his ignorance of some new sensation of which at that moment all Paris was apparently talking. So it was that he applied himself to read the trifling items of news with some care, for here would be found everything likely to keep him in touch with the gossip of the day.
At last he came to the final paragraph—
"Yet another railway mystery! The dead body of a woman has been found in a first-class compartment in a train which left Paris at 7 P. M. last Wednesday. As the discovery was not made till the train reached Orange, it is, of course, impossible to know where the unfortunate woman, who, by her dress, belonged to the leisured class, entered the train. Her hand baggage had disappeared, no doubt stolen at some intervening station by someone who, having made the gruesome discovery, thought it wise to make himself scarce. The police do not, however, consider that they are in the presence of a crime. Dr. Fortoul, the well-known physician of Orange, has satisfied himself that the lady died of heart disease."
Vanderlyn went on staring down at the printed words. They seemed to make more true, more inevitable, the fact of Margaret Pargeter's death, and of his own awful loss.
But with the agony of this thought came infinite relief, for this, or so he thought, meant that his own personal ordeal was at last drawing to a close. The fact of so strange and unwonted an occurrence as the finding of a woman's dead body in a train, would surely be at once connected by the trained intellects of the Paris Police with the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter.
He let the paper fall to the ground and began to think intently. When that came to pass, as it certainly must do within the next few hours, it would become his grim business to persuade Tom Pargeter that the clue was one worth following. The mystery solved, the question of how Margaret Pargeter came to be travelling in the demi-rapide would be comparatively unimportant—at any rate not a point which such a man as Tom Pargeter would give himself much trouble to clear up.
Then with some uneasiness he remembered that before such an item of news could have found its way into an English newspaper, the fact must have been known to the French police for at least twelve hours. If that were so, their acumen was not as great as that with which Vanderlyn credited them.
But stay! The Prefect of Police was convinced that Mrs. Pargeter was alive, and that he, Vanderlyn, knew her whereabouts; it was not for Peggy dead, but for Peggy living, that they were still searching so eagerly.
He opened theFigaroand thePetit Journal, and ran a shaking finger down the columns; there, in each paper, hidden away among unimportant items, and told more briefly and in much balder language, he at last found the story of the discovery which theDaily Telegraphhad served up as a tit-bit to thrill the readers of its Paris news columns.
Vanderlyn made up his mind to spend the whole of the next day with Pargeter; he must be at the villa, ready to put in his word of advice,—even, if need be, of suggestion,—when the moment came for him to do so.
For the first time for many nights Vanderlyn's sleep was unbroken; and early the next morning he made his way to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne.
As he walked through the hall of the villa, already peopled with a score of the Pargeters' acquaintances, eager to show their sympathy with the wealthy sportsman in this most untoward and extraordinary occurrence, the American was obliged to shake hands with many men whom he had hitherto only known by sight, and to answer questions some of which impressed him as strangely indiscreet. More than one of those with whom he found himself thus face to face looked at him with cruel, inquisitive eyes, and a scarcely veiled curiosity, for it was of course well known that Laurence Vanderlyn had been an intimate, not only of the husband, but also of the wife.
At last Pargeter's valet threaded his way up to him: "Will you please come upstairs, sir? Mr. Pargeter told me to say that he would be glad if you would go to his dressing-room as soon as you arrived."
"There's no news, Grid,—no news at all! It's getting awful, isn't it?—quite beyond a joke! You know what I mean—I'm sick of answering stupid questions. I was waked this morning at seven—had to see a man in bed! They don't seem to understand that I can tell them nothing beyond the bare fact that she's vanished; they actually sent two women here last night——"
"Two women?" echoed Vanderlyn. "What sort of women?"
"Ugly old hags," said Pargeter, briefly, "from the Prefecture of Police. They brought an impudent letter asking me to allow them to turn out Peggy's room and look over all her things! But I refused——" he looked at his friend for sympathy—and found it.
"You were quite right," said Vanderlyn quickly. His face became rigid with anger and disgust. "Quite right, Tom! Whatever made them think of suggesting such a thing? Where would be the use of it?"
"Oh! well, of course they had a reason. The police are particularly keen that we should look over any old letters of hers; they think that we might find some kind of clue. But I don't believe she kept her letters—why should she? I don't keep mine. However, I've promised to do the job myself——" he looked uncertainly at Vanderlyn. "Would you mind, Grid, coming with me into Peggy's room? Of course Plimmer, that's her maid, you know, will help us. She knows where Peggy keeps all her things."
"Why not ask Madame de Léra to do it?" said Vanderlyn, in a low voice.
He turned away and stared at a sporting print which hung just on the level of his eyes. Had he ever written imprudent letters to Peggy? Not lately, but in the early days,—in that brief time of uncertain ecstasy, and, on his part, of passionate expression, which had preceded their long successful pretence at friendship? He himself had preserved later letters of hers—not love-letters assuredly, but letters which proved clearly enough the strange closeness of their intimacy.
But what was this that Pargeter was saying? "Madame de Léra? Why should I ask her to interfere? I don't want to mix her up in this business more than I can help! If it hadn't been for her—and that ridiculous invitation of hers, Peggy would be here now! Peggy wouldn't mind your looking over her things, Grid. She's really fond of you—as fond of you as she can be of anyone, that is."
He got up, and, preceding Vanderlyn down a connecting passage, flung open the door giving access to a spacious airy bedchamber of which the pale mauve and grey furnishings reminded both men of Peggy's favourite flower and scent. The sun-blinds were down and the maid was standing, as if waiting for them, by the dressing-table.
They both instinctively hesitated on the threshold. "Tom," said Vanderlyn, hoarsely, "I don't think I ought to come in here——"
"Don't be a fool! I tell you she wouldn't mind a bit. Surely you're not going to cut—now?"
Pargeter took a step forward; then he stood for a moment looking round him, evidently perplexed, and ill at ease at finding himself thus suddenly introduced into his wife's intimate atmosphere.
"I don't believe she kept any letters," he repeated, then glanced uncertainly at the lady's-maid who stood primly by.
"Mrs. Pargeter kept some letters in that writing-desk over there, sir,—at least I think she did."
Close to the small tent-bed stood an old-fashioned rosewood davenport, a relic of Margaret Pargeter's childhood and girlhood, brought from her distant English home.
The maid waited for a moment, and then added, "The desk is locked, sir."
"Locked? Then did Mrs. Pargeter take her keys with her?"
"I suppose she did, sir."
"Then it's no use," said Pargeter, with a certain relief, "I don't want to force the thing open."
Vanderlyn looked across, coldly and steadily, at the woman. Her expression struck him as oddly enigmatical; meeting his glance, Plimmer reddened, her eyes dropped. "I expect any simple key would open it," he said, briefly.
"Well, sir, I did ask the housekeeper to lend me a bunch of keys. Here they are," she opened one of the dressing-table drawers. "Perhaps one of the smaller ones would fit the lock."
It was Vanderlyn who took the keys from her strangely reluctant hand, and it was he who at last felt the old-fashioned lock yield.
"Now, Pargeter," he said, sharply, "will you please come over here?"
The whole of the inside of the desk was filled with neat packets, each carefully tied up and docketed; on several had been written, "In the case of my death, to be burnt;" on other packets, "To be returned to Madame de Léra in case of my death."
Vanderlyn saw that here at least were none of his letters, and none from Peggy's child.
"It's no use bothering about any of these," said Pargeter, crossly, "they can't tell us anything. Why anyone should trouble to keep old letters is quite beyond me!"
"That little knob that you see there, sir," said Plimmer, in her diffident, well-trained voice, "is the head of a brass pin; if you draw it out, sir, it releases the side drawer. I think you will find more letters there,—at least that is where Master Jasper's letters are, I know."
She looked furtively at Vanderlyn, and her look said, "If you want to have the truth you shall have it!"
"I say, how queer!" exclaimed Pargeter. "A secret drawer! eh, Grid?"
"All old pieces of furniture have that kind of thing," said Vanderlyn, "there isn't any secret about it."
Pargeter fumbled at the brass-headed pin; he pulled it out, and a drawer which filled up the side of the davenport shot out. Yes, here were more packets inscribed with the words, "Jasper's letters, written at school," and then others, "To be returned to Laurence Vanderlyn in case of my death;" and two or three loose letters.
"Well, these won't tell us anything, eh, Grid?" Pargeter opened the first envelope under his hand:—
Dear Mammy, (he read slowly),Please send me ten shillings. I have finished the French cherry-jam. I should like some more. Also some horses made of gingerbread. I have laid 3 to 1 on Absinthe. Betting is forbidden, but as it was Dad's horse I thought I might. My bat is the best in the school.Your lovingJasper.
Dear Mammy, (he read slowly),
Please send me ten shillings. I have finished the French cherry-jam. I should like some more. Also some horses made of gingerbread. I have laid 3 to 1 on Absinthe. Betting is forbidden, but as it was Dad's horse I thought I might. My bat is the best in the school.
Your lovingJasper.
Your lovingJasper.
"He's a fine little chap, isn't he, Grid?" Pargeter was fingering absently a yellowing packet of Vanderlyn's letters: "Fancy keeping your old letters! What a queer thing to do!"
Vanderlyn said nothing. The maid stared at him stealthily.
At last Pargeter put the packet down, and deliberately opened yet another envelope which lay loose. "I suppose this is the last note you wrote to her?" he said, then, opening it, murmured its contents over to himself:—
Dear Peggy,I hear the show at the Gardinets is worth seeing. I'll call for you at two to-morrow.Yours sincerely,L. V.
Dear Peggy,
I hear the show at the Gardinets is worth seeing. I'll call for you at two to-morrow.
Yours sincerely,L. V.
Yours sincerely,L. V.
"Well, it's no use our wasting any more time here, is it? We'd better go downstairs and have a smoke. Why—why, Grid!—what's the matter?"
"It's nothing," said Vanderlyn, roughly, "I'll be all right in a minute or two——"
"I don't wonder you're upset," said the other, moodily. "But just think what it must be forme. I can't stand much more of it. It's been simply awful since Peggy's brother and that cousin of hers arrived. They treat me as if I were a murderer! They're at the Prefecture of Police now, making what they're pleased to call their own enquiries."
They had left Peggy's room, and as he spoke Pargeter was leading the way down a staircase which led into his smoking-room.
Once there, he shut the door and came and stood close by Vanderlyn.
"Grid," he said, lowering his voice, "I've been wondering—don't you think it would be a good plan if I were to go and see that fortune-teller of mine, Madame d'Elphis? I don't mind telling you that I'd a shot at her yesterday evening, but she was away. She does sometimes make mistakes, but still, she's a kind of Providence to me. I never do anything important—I mean at the stables—without consulting her."
Vanderlyn looked at the eager face, the odd twinkling green and blue eyes, with scarcely concealed surprise and contempt.
"Surely you don't think she could tell you where—what's happened to Peggy?" he said incredulously.
"If I could have seen her last night," went on Pargeter, "I'd have got away to England to-day. There's no object in my staying here;Ican't help them to find Peggy. But La d'Elphis won't see me before to-morrow morning. If she can't clear up the mystery nobody can. I'm beginning to think, Grid"—he came close up to the other man,—"that something must have happened to her. I'm beginning to feel—worried!"
An hour later Vanderlyn had escaped from Pargeter, and was standing alone in Madame de Léra's drawing-room.
He was scarcely conscious of how many hours he had spent during the last terrible three days, with the middle-aged Frenchwoman who had been so true and sure a friend of Margaret Pargeter. In Madame de Léra's presence alone was he able, to a certain extent, to drop the mask which he was compelled to wear in the presence of all others, and especially in that of the man who, as time went on, seemed more and more to lean on him and find comfort in his companionship.
Vanderlyn had walked the considerable distance from the Avenue du Bois to the quiet street near the Luxembourg where Adèle de Léra lived, and all the way he had felt as if pursued by a mocking demon.
How much longer, so he asked himself, was his awful ordeal to endure? The moments spent by him and Pargeter in Peggy's room had racked heart and memory. He now fled to Madame de Léra as to a refuge from himself.
And yet? Yet he never looked round her pretty sitting-room, with its faded, rather austere furnishings, without being vividly reminded of the woman he had loved and whom he had now lost, for it was there that Peggy had spent the most peaceful hours of her life since Pargeter had first decided that henceforth they should live in Paris.
At last Madame de Léra came into the room; she gave her visitor a quick questioning look. "Have you nothing new to tell?" she asked.
And, after a moment of scarcely perceptible hesitation, Vanderlyn answered, "I have nothing new to tell," but as they both sat down, as he saw how sad and worn the kind face had become in the last three days, there came over him a strong wish to confide in her—to tell her the whole truth. He longed, with morbid longing, to share his knowledge. She, after all, was the only human being who knew the story of his tragic, incomplete love. It would be an infinite comfort and relief to tell her, if not everything, then at least of the irony, the uselessness, of their present search.
Since last night the secret no longer seemed to be his alone.
But Vanderlyn resisted the temptation. He had no right to cast even half his burden on another. Any moment the odious experience which had, it seemed, already befallen Madame de Léra might be repeated. She might again be cross-questioned by the police. In that event it was essential that she should be still able truthfully to declare that she knew nothing.
"I have just come from Tom Pargeter," he observed quietly. "I can't help being sorry for him. The police have been worrying him, and—and at their suggestion we have been seeking among her things—among her correspondence—for some clue. But of course we found nothing. Pargeter is longing to go away—to England. How I wish he would go,—God! how I wish he would go! After all, as he says himself, he can do no good by staying here. He would receive any news within an hour."
Madame de Léra leant forward. "Ah! but if Mr. Pargeter leaves Paris before—before something is discovered, his conduct would be regarded as very cruel—very heartless."
"Did you know," said Vanderlyn, in a low voice, "that Peggy once before disappeared for three days? Pargeter keeps harking back to that. He thinks that she found out something which made her leave him again."
"Yes," said Madame de Léra, "I knew of that episode in their early married life—but on that occasion, Mr. Vanderlyn, our poor friend cannot be said to have disappeared—she only returned to her own family."
"Why, having once escaped, did she ever go back to him?" asked Vanderlyn, sombrely.
"You forget," said Madame de Léra, gently, "that even then there was her son."
Her son? Nay, Vanderlyn at no moment ever forgot Peggy's child. To himself, he seemed to be the only human being who ever thought of the poor little boy lying ill in far-away England.
"Well, you need not be afraid," he said quickly, "that Pargeter will go away to-day. He intends to stay in Paris at least till to-morrow night, for he is convinced, it seems, that the fortune-teller, Madame d'Elphis,—the woman who by some incredible stroke of luck stumbled on the right name of that horse of his which won the Oaks,—will be able to tell him what has happened to—to Margaret Pargeter."
And, meeting Madame de Léra's troubled gaze, he added in a low bitter tone, "How entirely that gives one the measure of the man,—the absurd notion, I mean, that a fortune-teller can solve the mystery! Fortunately or unfortunately, this Madame d'Elphis has been away for two or three days, but she will be back, it seems, in time to give Pargeter, who is a favoured client, an appointment to-morrow morning."
Adèle de Léra suddenly rose from her chair; with a nervous movement she clasped her hands together.
"Ah, but that must not happen!" she exclaimed. "We must think of a way by which we can prevent an interview between Mr. Pargeter and La d'Elphis! Unless," she concluded slowly, "there is no serious reason why he should not know the truth—now?"
Vanderlyn also got up. A look of profound astonishment came over his face.
"The truth?" he repeated. "But surely, Madame de Léra, it is impossible that this woman whom Pargeter is going to consult to-morrow morning can have any clue to the truth! Surely you do not seriously believe——" he did not conclude his sentence. That this broad-minded and religious Frenchwoman could possibly cherish any belief in the type of charlatan to which the American diplomatist supposed the famous Paris fortune-teller to belong was incredible to him.
"I beg of you most earnestly," she repeated, in a deeply troubled voice, "to prevent any meeting between Mr. Pargeter and Madame d'Elphis! Believe me, I do not speak without reason; I know more of this soothsayer and her mysterious powers than you can possibly know——"
"Do you mean me to understand that you yourself would ever consult such an oracle?" Vanderlyn could not keep a certain contemptuous incredulity out of his voice.
"No, indeed! But then I, unlike you, believe this woman's traffic to be of the devil. Listen, Mr. Vanderlyn, and I will tell you of a case in which La d'Elphis was closely concerned—a case of which I have absolute knowledge."
Madame de Léra went back to her chair; she sank into it, and, with Vanderlyn standing before her, she told him the story.
"If you cast back your mind to the time when you were first in Paris, you will probably recall my husband's niece, a beautiful girl named Jeanne de Léra?" Vanderlyn bent his head without speaking; nay more, a look of pain came over his tired face, and sunken eyes, for, strangely enough, there was a certain sinister parallel between the fate which had befallen the charming girl whose image was thus suddenly brought up before him, and that of the beloved woman who seemed to be now even more present to his emotional memory than she had been in life.
"As you know, for it was no secret, Jeanne had what English and American people call 'flirted' with Henri Delavigne, and he had sworn that he would kill himself on her wedding-day. Well, the poor foolish girl took this threat very seriously; it shadowed her happy betrothal, and on the very day before her marriage was to take place, she persuaded her married sister to go with her to a fortune-teller. It was not her own future, which stretched cloudless and radiant before her, that tempted Jeanne to peer into these mysteries; she only wished to be reassured as to Delavigne and his absurd threat——"
Madame de Léra stopped speaking a moment, and then she went on—
"Madame d'Elphis had just then become the rage, and so Jeanne decided to consult her, although the woman charged a higher fee than, I understand, the other fortune-tellers were then doing. When the two sisters found themselves there, my married niece bargained that the séance should be half-price, as Jeanne only wished to stay a very few minutes, and to ask but one question. After the bargain was concluded, Jeanne, it seems, observed—the story of the interview has been told to me, and before me, many many times—that she hoped the fortune-teller would take as much trouble as if she had paid the full fee. On this the woman replied, with a rather malignant smile, 'I can assure Mademoiselle that she will have plenty for her money!'
"Then began the séance. La d'Elphis gave, as those sorts of people always do, a marvellously accurate account of the poor child's past,—the simple, virginal past of a very young girl,—but when it came to the future, she declared that her vision had become blurred, and that she could see nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Both the sisters pressed her to say more, to predict something of the future; and at last, speaking very reluctantly, she admitted that she saw Jeanne, pale, deathly pale, clad in a wedding-dress, and she also evoked a wonderful vision of white flowers...."
Madame de Léra looked up at her visitor, but Vanderlyn made no comment; and so she went on:—
"Then, with some confusion, Jeanne summoned up courage to ask the one question she had come there to ask. The answer came at once, and was more than reassuring: 'As to the man concerning whom you are so anxious,' said Madame d'Elphis, 'you may count on his fidelity. The years will go on and others who loved you will forget you—but he will ever remember.' 'Then nothing will happen to him to-morrow?' asked Jeanne eagerly. 'To-morrow?' replied the woman, mysteriously, 'To-morrow I see him plunged in deep grief, and yet that which has brought him this awful sorrow will not perhaps be wholly regretted by him.'
"My poor little niece, if rather piqued, was yet much relieved, and the two sisters left the presence of this horrible, sinister creature."
Madame de Léra passed her hand with a nervous movement over her mouth—"It was while they were actually driving home from this séance with La d'Elphis that the terrible accident, which you of course remember, occurred,—an accident which resulted in the younger sister's death, while the elder miraculously escaped unhurt. Jeanne was buried in her wedding-dress—and the flowers—you recall the wonderful flowers? The woman's predictions as to Delavigne's constancy came strangely true; who now remembers Jeanne, save her poor mother—and Delavigne?"
"Yes, it's a very curious, striking story," said Vanderlyn, slowly, "but—forgive me for saying so—if your niece's marriage had taken place on the morrow, would anything of all this have been remembered by either herself or her sister? The predictions of Madame d'Elphis were of a kind which it would be safe to make of any French girl, belonging to your world, on the eve of her marriage——"
He stopped abruptly. In his wearied and yet morbidly active mind, an idea, a suggestion, of which he was half-ashamed, was beginning to germinate.
"I should be grateful," he said, slowly, "if you can tell me something more about La d'Elphis. I am quite sure that I shall not be able to prevent an interview between her and Pargeter,—but still something might be done—Is she respectable? Can she, for example,"—his eyes dropped,—"be bribed?"
Madame de Léra looked at Vanderlyn keenly. Perhaps she saw farther into his mind than an American or an Englishwoman would have done.
"All these sorts of people can be bribed," she said, quietly. "As to her private life, I know nothing of it, but either of my nephews would be able to tell you whatever is known of her, for since that tragic affair our family have always taken a morbid interest in La d'Elphis. Would you like to know something about her now, at once? Shall I send for my nephew?"
In answer to Vanderlyn's look, rather than to his muttered assent, Madame de Léra left the room.
During the few moments of her absence, a plan began to elaborate itself with insistent clearness in Vanderlyn's mind; he saw, or thought he saw, that here might be an issue out of his terrible dilemma. And yet, even while so seeing the way become clear before him, he felt a deep, instinctive repugnance from the method which would have to be employed....
There came the sound of footsteps, and, turning his back to the window, he prepared himself for the inevitable question with which, during the last three days, almost everyone he met had greeted him.
But the youth who came into the room with Madame de Léra, if a typical Parisian in the matter of his careful, rather foppish, dress, and in his bored expression, yet showed that he was possessed of the old-fashioned good breeding which is still to be found in France, if only in that peculiar section of French society known collectively as "the faubourg." Jacques de Léra, alone among the many men whom Vanderlyn had come across since the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter had become the talk of the town, made no allusion to the mystery, and asked no puerile question of the man who was known to be her friend.
"Mr. Vanderlyn has been asking me what I knew of the fortune-teller, Madame d'Elphis. But, beyond the story concerning your poor cousin Jeanne, I know nothing. You, Jacques, will doubtless be able to tell us something of her. Is it true, for instance, that she is sometimes employed by the police? I seem to have heard so—not lately, but long ago?"
"They say so," said Jacques de Léra, casting a quick glance at Vanderlyn. "They say she helped to catch Pranzini. Extraordinary stories are told of her gifts. But none of us have ever been at all anxious to consult her—after poor Jeanne's affair. You may have seen her,"—he turned to Vanderlyn,—"for she's sometimes at first nights and at private views. She's by way of being artistic and cultivated; and though she's strikingly handsome, she dresses oddly—poses as a Muse."
"She must make a great deal of money," said Madame de Léra, thoughtfully; with a half smile she asked her nephew the question: "Is there a Monsieur d'Elphis? Are there infant oracles?"
Jacques burst out laughing, and both Vanderlyn and Madame de Léra started. It was the first time for many days that they had heard the sound of simple human laughter.
"My dear aunt," said the young man, chuckling, "the husband—quahusband—is, I assure you, an unknown animal in that strange underworld of which our beautiful city is the chosen Mecca. No, no, Madame d'Elphis does not waste her time in producing little oracles! If you wish to hear the truth, I mean the whole truth, I will tell it you."
And then, as Madame de Léra nodded her head, he added, more seriously, "La d'Elphis is one of two sisters, the daughters of a very respectable notary at Orange. Both threw their caps over the windmill, the one to become an unsuccessful actress, the other a successful soothsayer. La d'Elphis has one virtue—she is a devoted sister, and lives with the other'ssmalah. As to her own private life, she has been for many years the friend of Achille de Florac. She became acquainted with him not long before his final crash; who knows, perhaps she helped to precipitate it! It is to be hoped she did, for since then he has practically lived on her. And so, my dear aunt, she is in a sense our cousinde la main gauche!"
Vanderlyn looked away from Madame de Léra. He was sorry the young man had been so frank, for the Marquis de Florac was not only by birth a member of her circle, but he was, as Jacques rather cruelly pointed out, a connection of the de Léra family.
"Poor creature!" exclaimed Adèle de Léra; her voice was filled with involuntary pity.
"Yes," continued Jacques, in answer to her look, "you may well say 'poor creature!' For it's from La d'Elphis that our disreputable cousin draws the major part of his uncertain revenues. When Paris is credulous, his credit goes up, and he has plenty of money to play with. I'm told that the other night he lost ten thousand francs at 'Monaco Junior'!"
Vanderlyn made a slight movement. "Yes," he said, "that is true,—I was there."
"In the lean months," continued Jacques, who did not often find his conversation listened to with such respect and attention as was now the case, "I mean, of course, in the summer—poor Florac has to retrench, but La d'Elphis does not remain idle. She goes to Aix, to Vichy, to Dieppe for the Grande Semaine,—in fact, wherever rich foreigners gather; and wherever she goes she finds plenty eager to consult her!"
"Is that all you wanted to know?" said Madame de Léra to Vanderlyn.
"Yes," he said, slowly, "that is all. I did not know—I had no idea—that our poor old world was still so credulous!"
As Vanderlyn walked away from Madame de Léra's door, the plan, of which the first outline had come to him while she was telling the strange story concerning the fortune-teller and her niece, had taken final shape; and it now impressed itself upon him as the only way out of his terrible dilemma.
Vanderlyn was by nature a truthful man, and in spite of the ambiguous nature of his relations with Margaret Pargeter, he had never been compelled to lie in defence of their friendship. Even during these last few days, he had as far as was possible avoided untruth, and only to one person, that is, to the Prefect of Police, had he lied—lied desperately, and lied successfully. This was why, even while telling himself that he had at last found a way in which to convey the truth to Pargeter, he felt a deep repugnance from the methods which he saw he would be compelled to employ.
More than once the American diplomatist had had occasion to take part in delicate negotiations with one of those nameless, countryless individuals, whose ideal it is to be in the pay of a foreign Embassy, and who always set on their ignoble services a far higher value than those services generally deserve. But Vanderlyn belonged to the type of man who finds it far easier to fight for others, and especially for his country, than for himself. Still, in this case, was he not fighting for Margaret Pargeter? For what he knew she valued far more than life itself—her honour. What he was about to do was hateful to him—he was aware how severely he would have judged such conduct in another—but it seemed the only way, a way made miraculously possible by the superstitious folly of Tom Pargeter.
The offer Vanderlyn was about to convey to Madame d'Elphis was quite simple; in exchange for saying a very few words to Tom Pargeter,—words which would add greatly to the belief the millionaire already possessed in what he took to be her extraordinary gifts of divination,—the soothsayer would receive ten thousand francs.
There need be no difficulty even as to the words she should use to reveal the truth; Vanderlyn had cut out from thePetit Journalthe paragraph which told of the strange discovery made three nights before at Orange. He would inform her that Mr. Pargeter's friends, having assured themselves that the unknown woman in question was Mrs. Pargeter, desired to break the sad news through her, instead of in a more commonplace fashion.
Vanderlyn knew enough of that curious underworld of Paris which preys on wealthy foreigners, to feel sure that this would not be the first time that Madame d'Elphis had been persuaded, in her own interest, to add the agreeable ingredient of certainty to one of her predictions. The diplomatist also believed he could carry through the negotiation without either revealing his identity, or giving the soothsayer any clue to his reason for making her so strange a proposal.
Having made his plan, Vanderlyn found it remarkably easy to carry out.
In London, such a man as himself would have found it difficult to have ascertained at a moment's notice the address of even a famous palmist or fortune-teller. But in everything to do with social life Paris is highly organised, London singularly chaotic.
On reaching home, he at once discovered, with a certain bitter amusement, that Madame d'Elphis disdained the artifices with which she might reasonably have surrounded her mysterious craft. Not only were her name, address, and even hours of consultation, to be found in the "Tout Paris," but there also was inscribed her telephone number.
Vanderlyn hated the telephone. He never used it unless he was compelled to do so; but now he went through the weary, odious preliminaries with a certain eagerness—"Alo! Alo! Alo!"
At last a woman's voice answered, "Yes—yes. Who is it?"
"Can Madame d'Elphis receive a client this evening?"
There was a pause. Then he heard a question asked, a murmured answer of which the sense evaded him, and then a refusal,—not, he fancied, a very decided refusal,—followed by a discreet attempt to discover his name, his nationality, his address, with a suggestion that Madame d'Elphis would be at his disposal the next morning.
A touch of doubt in the quick, hesitating accents of the unseen woman emboldened Vanderlyn. He conveyed, civilly and clearly, that he was quite prepared to offer a very special fee for the favour he was asking; and he indicated that, though he had been told the usual price of a séance was fifty francs, he—the mysterious stranger who was speaking to Madame d'Elphis through the telephone—was so exceedingly anxious to be received by her that evening that he would pay a fancy fee,—in fact as much as a thousand francs,—for the privilege of consulting the famous fortune-teller.
To Vanderlyn's vexation and surprise, there followed a long pause.
At last came the answer, the expected assent; but it was couched in words which surprised and vaguely disquieted him.
"Very well, sir, my sister will be ready to receive you at eight o'clock to-night; but she is going out, so she will not be able to give you a prolonged séance."
Then he had not been speaking to the soothsayer herself? Vanderlyn felt vaguely disquieted and discomfited. He had counted on having to take but one person into his half-confidence; and then—well, he had told himself while at the telephone that he would not find it difficult to conclude the bargain he desired to make with the woman whose highly-pitched, affected voice had given him, or so he had thought, the clue to a venal personality.
It was with a feeling of considerable excitement and curiosity that the diplomatist, that same evening, walked up the quiet, now deserted, streets where dwelt the most famous of Parisian fortune-tellers.
Madame d'Elphis had chosen a prosaic setting for the scene of her mysteries, for the large white house looked very new, a huge wedge of modern ugliness in the pretty old street, its ugliness made the more apparent by its proximity to one of those leafy gardens which form oases of fragrant stillness in the more ancient quarters of the town.
A curt answer was given by the concierge in reply to Vanderlyn's enquiry for Madame d'Elphis. "Walk through the courtyard; the person you seek occupies the entresol of the house you will see there."
And then he saw that lying back, quite concealed from the street, was another and very different type of dwelling, and one far more suited to the requirements of even a latter-day soothsayer.
As he made his way over the dimly-lighted, ill-paved court which separated the new building, that giving onto the street, from the seventeenth-century mansion, Vanderlyn realised that his first impression had been quite erroneous. Madame d'Elphis had evidently gauged, and that very closely, the effect she desired to produce on her patrons. Even in the daytime the mansarded house which now gloomed before him must look secret, mysterious. Behind such narrow latticed windows might well have dwelt Cagliostro, or, further back, the more sinister figure of La Voison.
But something of this feeling left him as he passed through the door which gave access to the old house; and, as he began to walk up the shabby gas-lit staircase, he felt that his repugnant task would be an easy one. The woman who, living here, allowed herself the luxury of such a lover as was the Marquis de Florac, would not—nay, could not—hesitate before such an offer as ten thousand francs.
There was but one door on the entresol, and on its panel was inscribed in small gold letters the word "d'Elphis." As Vanderlyn rang the bell, the odd name gleamed at him in the gas-light.
There followed a considerable delay, but at last he saw a face peering at him through the little grating—significantly styled aJudas, and doubtless dating from the Revolution,—still to be found in many an old-fashioned Parisian front-door.
The inspection having apparently proved satisfactory, the door opened, and Vanderlyn was admitted, by a youngbonne à tout faire, into a hall filled with a strong smell of cooking, a smell that made it clear that Madame d'Elphis and her family—hersmalah, as Jacques de Léra had called them—had the true Southern love of garlic.
Without asking his name or business, the servant showed him straight into a square, gold-and-white salon. Standing there, forgetful for a moment of his distasteful errand, Vanderlyn looked about him with mingled contempt and disgust, for his eyes, trained to observe, had at once become aware that the note of this room was showy vulgarity. The furniture was a mixture of imitation Louis XV. and sham Empire. On the woven tapestry sofa lay a child's toy, once costly, but now broken.
How amazing the fact that here, amid these pretentiously ugly and commonplace surroundings, innumerable human beings had stood, and would stand, trembling with fear, suspense, and hope! Vanderlyn reminded himself that here also Tom Pargeter, a man accustomed to measure everything by the money standard, had waited many a time in the sure belief that this was the ante-chamber to august and awe-inspiring mysteries; here, all unknowing of what the future held, he would come to-morrow morning, to learn, for once, the truth—the terrible truth—from the charlatan to whom he, poor fool, pinned his faith.
Suddenly a door opened, and Vanderlyn turned round with eager curiosity, a curiosity which became merged in astonishment. The woman advancing towards him made her vulgar surroundings sink into blurred insignificance; for Madame d'Elphis, with her slight, sinuous figure, draped in a red peplum, her pale face lit by dark tragic eyes, looked the sybil to the life....
Vanderlyn bowed, with voluntary deference. "Monsieur," she said, in a low, deep voice, "I must ask you to follow me; this is my sister'sappartement. I live next door."
She preceding him, they walked through an untidy dining-room of which the furniture—the sham Renaissance chairs and walnut-wood buffet—looked strangely alien to Vanderlyn's guide, into a short, ill-lighted passage, which terminated in a locked, handleless door.
The woman whom he now knew to be Madame d'Elphis turned, and, facing Vanderlyn, for the first time allowed her melancholy eyes to rest full on her unknown visitor.
"You have your stick, your hat?" she asked. "Yes?—that is well; for when our séance is over, you will leave by another way, a way which leads into the garden, and so into the street."
She unlocked the door, and he followed her into a large book-lined study—masculine in its sober colouring and simple furnishings. Above the mantelpiece was arranged a trophy of swords and fencing-sticks; opposite hung a superb painting by Henner. Vanderlyn remembered having seen this picture exhibited in the Salon some five years before. It had been shown under the title "The Crystal-Gazer," and it was even now an admirable portrait of his hostess, for so, unconsciously, had Vanderlyn begun to regard the woman who was so little like what he had expected to find her.
Madame d'Elphis beckoned to him to follow her into yet another, and a much smaller, room. Ah! This was evidently the place where she pursued her strange calling; for here—so Vanderlyn, trying to combat the eerie impression she produced on him, sardonically told himself—were the stage properties of her singular craft.
The high walls were hung with red cloth, against which gleamed innumerable plaster casts of hands. The only furniture consisted of a round, polished table, which took up a good deal of the space in the room; on the table stood an old-fashioned lamp, and in the middle of the circle of light cast by the lamp on its shining surface, a round crystal ball. Two chairs were drawn up to the table.
An extraordinary sensation of awe—of vague disquiet—crept over Laurence Vanderlyn; he suddenly remembered the tragic story of Jeanne de Léra. Was it here that the sinister interview with the doomed girl had taken place?
It was Madame d'Elphis who broke the long silence:—
"I must ask you, Monsieur," she said, stiffly, "to depose the fee on the table. It is the custom."
Vanderlyn's thin nervous hand shot up to his mouth to hide a smile; the eerie feeling which had so curiously possessed him dropped away, leaving him slightly ashamed.
"Poor woman," he said to himself, "she cannot even divine that I am an honest man!"
He bent his head gravely, and took the roll of notes with which he had come provided out of his pocket. He placed a thousand-franc note on the table. "What a fool she must think me!" he mentally exclaimed; then came the consoling reflection, "But she won't think me a fool for long."
Madame d'Elphis scarcely glanced at the thousand-franc note; she left it lying where Vanderlyn had put it. "Will you please sit down, Monsieur?" she said.
Vanderlyn rather reluctantly obeyed her. As she seated herself opposite to him, he was struck by the sad intensity of her face; he told himself that she had once been—nay, that she was still—beautiful, but it was the tortured beauty of a woman who lives by and through her emotions.
He also realised that his task would not be quite as easy as he had hoped it would be; the manner of La d'Elphis was cold, correct, and ladylike—no other word would serve—to the point of severity. He saw that he would have to word his offer of a bribe in as least offensive a fashion as was possible. But while he was trying to find a sentence with which to embark on the delicate negotiation, he suddenly felt his left hand grasped and turned over, with a firm and yet impersonal touch.
The centre of the soothsayer's cool palm rested itself on the ring—his mother's wedding ring—loosely encircling his little finger, and then Madame d'Elphis began speaking in a low, quiet, and yet hesitating, voice,—a voice which suddenly recalled to her listener her Southern birth and breeding; it was strangely unlike the accents in which she had asked him to produce the promised fee.
Surprise, a growing, ever-deepening surprise, kept Vanderlyn silent. He soon forgot completely, for the time being, the business which had brought him there.
"For you the crystal," she whispered, "for others the Grand Jeu. You have not come, as others do, to learn the future; you do not care what happens to you—now."
She waited a moment, then, "the ring brings with it two visions," she said, fixing her eyes on the polished depths before her. "Visions of love and death—of pain and parting; one, if clear, yet recedes far into the past...."
She raised her voice, and began speaking in a monotonous recitative:
"I see you with a woman standing in a garden; behind you both is a great expanse of water. She is so like you that I think she must be your mother. She wears her grey hair in Madonna bands; she puts her arms round your neck; as she does so, I see on her left hand one ring—the ring which you are now wearing, and which I am now touching. She, your mother, is bidding you good-bye, she knows that she will never see you again, but you do not know it, so she smiles, for she is a brave woman——"
Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking. Vanderlyn stared at her with a sense of growing excitement and amazement; he was telling himself that this woman undoubtedly possessed the power of reading not only the minds, but even the emotional memories, of those who came to consult her.... Yes, it was true; his last parting with his mother had been out of doors, in the garden of their own family house on the shores of Lake Champlain.
As he looked fixedly at the crystal-gazer's downcast eyes, his own emotions seemed to become reflected in her countenance. She grasped his hand with a firmer, a more convulsive pressure.
"I see you again," she exclaimed, "and again with a woman! This vision is very clear; it evokes the immediate past—almost the present. The woman is young; her hair is fair, and in a cloud about her head. You are together on a journey. It is night——"
Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking abruptly; she looked up at Vanderlyn, and he saw that her dark eyes were brimming with tears, her mouth quivering.
"Do you wish me to describe what I see?" she asked, in an almost inaudible voice.
"No," said Vanderlyn, hoarsely,—he seemed to feel Peggy's arms about his neck, her soft lips brushing his cheek.
The soothsayer bent down till her face was within a few inches of the polished surface into which she was gazing.
"Now she is lying down," she whispered. "Her face is turned away. Is she asleep? No, she is dead!—dead!"
"Can you see her now?" asked Vanderlyn. "For God's sake tell me where she is! Can I hope to see her again—once more?"
Madame d'Elphis withdrew her hand from that of Vanderlyn.
"You will only see her face," she answered, slowly, "through the coffin-lid. That you will see. As to where she is now—I see her clearly, and yet,"—she went on, as if to herself, "nay, but that's impossible! I see her," she went on, raising her voice, "laid out for burial under a shed in a beautiful garden. The garden is that of Dr. Fortoul's house at Orange. At the head of the pallet on which she lies there are two blessed candles; a nun kneels on the ground. Stay,—who is that coming in from the garden? It is the wife of the doctor, it is Madame Fortoul,"—again there came a note of wavering doubt into the voice of the crystal-gazer. "She is whispering to the nun, and I hear her words; she says, 'Poor child, she is young, too young to have died like this, alone. I am having a mass said for her soul to-morrow morning.'"
Madame d'Elphis looked up. Her large eyes, of which the lids were slightly reddened, rested on Vanderlyn's pale, drawn face.
"Monsieur," she said, in a low, reluctant voice, "to be honest with you, I fear I have been leading you astray. During the last few moments it is my own past life that has been rising before me, not the present of this poor dead woman. When I am tired—and I am very tired to-night—some such trick is sometimes played me. I was born at Orange; as a child I spent many hours in the beautiful garden which just now rose up before me; I once saw a dead body in that shed—Madame Fortoul, who is devout, often has masses said for those who meet with sudden deaths and whose bodies are brought to her husband."
The soothsayer rose from her chair.
"If you will come to me to-morrow," she said, "bringing with you something which belonged to this lady, I am sure I shall be able to tell you all you wish to know. For that second séance," she added hurriedly, "I shall of course ask no further fee."
Vanderlyn, waking as from a dream, heard sounds in the other room, the coming and going of a man's footsteps. He also got up.
"Madame," he said, quietly, "I thank you from my heart. I recognise the truth of all you have told me,with one paramount exception. It is true that the woman whom you saw lying dead is now in the house of Dr. Fortoul at Orange; the fact that you once knew the place is an accident—and nothing but an accident. You have, however, Madame, made one strange mistake."
He took out of his pocket and held in his hand the large open envelope containing, in addition to the remainder of the notes he had brought, the slip he had cut from the newspaper. "Here is the proof that all you have seen is true," he repeated, "with one exception—This lady was alone in the train. It is important that this should be thoroughly understood by you, for to-morrow you will be called upon to testify to the fact."
Madame d'Elphis stiffened into deep attention.
"To-morrow morning," continued Vanderlyn, very deliberately, "one of your regular clients is coming to ask you to assist him to solve a terrible mystery. I will tell you his name—it is Mr. Pargeter, the well-known sportsman. He is coming to ask you to help him to find Mrs. Pargeter, who some days ago mysteriously disappeared. This lady's death, but he does not yet know it, took place while she was travelling—travelling alone. I repeat, Madame, that she wasalone—quite alone—on her fatal journey."
Vanderlyn stopped speaking a moment; then his voice lowered, became troubled and beseeching.
"Once you have revealed the truth to Mr. Pargeter,—and he will believe implicitly all you say,—then, Madame, you will not only have accomplished a good action, but a sum, bringing the fee for the séance which is just concluded up to ten thousand francs, will be placed at your disposal by me."
Madame d'Elphis looked long and searchingly at the man standing before her.
"Monsieur," she said, "will you give me your word that the death of Mrs. Pargeter was as this paper declares it to have been—that is to say, a natural death?"
"Yes," answered Vanderlyn, "she knew that she would die in this way—suddenly."
"Then," said the fortune-teller, coldly, "I will do as you desire."
Vanderlyn, following a sudden impulse, put the envelope he held in his hand on the table. "Here is the fee," he said, briefly. "I know that I can trust in your discretion, your loyalty,—may I add, Madame, in your kindness?"
"I am ashamed," she whispered, "ashamed to take this money." She clasped her hands together in an unconscious gesture of supplication, and then asked, with a curious childish directness, "It is a great deal—can you afford it, Monsieur?"
"Yes," he said, hastily; the suffering, shamed expression on her face moved him strangely.
"When you next see Mr. Pargeter," she murmured, "you shall have written proof that I have carried out your wish."
She tapped the table twice, sharply,—then led the way into the larger room. It was empty, but Vanderlyn, even as he entered, saw a door closing quietly.
Madame d'Elphis walked across to an un-curtained window; she opened it and stepped through on to a broad terrace balcony.
"Walk down the iron stairway," she said, in a low voice, "there are not many steps. A little door leads from the garden below straight into the street; the door has been left unlocked to-night."
Vanderlyn held out his hand; she took it and held it for a moment. "Ah!" she said, softly, "would thatIhad died when I was still young, still beautiful, still loved!—"