The Powers and Maxine

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

DIANA FORREST’S PART

CHAPTER XIV
DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE

Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it were a kind of fine art. I don’t. It seems too bad to be true that I should be unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a bad dream.

I suppose I’ve been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been kind to me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for them; and I have taken things for granted—except, of course, with Lisa. But Lisa is different—different from everyone else in the world. I have never expected anything from her, as I have from others. All I’ve wanted was to make her as happy as such a poor, little, piteous creature could be, and to teach myself never to mind anything that she might say or do.

But Ivor—to be disappointed in him, to be made miserable by him! I didn’t know it was possible to suffer as I suffered that day he went off and left me standing in the railway-station. I didn’t dream then of going to Paris. If anybody had told me I would go, I should have said, “No, no, I will not.” And yet I did. I allowed myself to be persuaded. I tried to make myself think that it was to please Aunt Lilian; but down underneath I knew all the time it wasn’t that, really. It was because I couldn’t bear to do the things I’m accustomed to doing every day. I felt as if I should cry, or scream, or do something ridiculous and awful unless there were a change of some sort—any change, but if possible some novelty and excitement, with people talking to me every minute.

Perhaps, too, there was an attraction for me in the thought that I would be in Paris while Ivor was there. I kept reminding myself on the boat and the train that nothing good could happen; that Ivor and I could never be as we had been before; that it was all over between us for ever and ever, and through his fault. But, there at the bottom was the thought that I might have done him an injustice, because he had begged me to trust him, and I wouldn’t. Just suppose—something in myself kept on saying—that we should by mere chance meet in Paris, and he should be able to prove that he hadn’t come for Maxine de Renzie’s sake! It would be too glorious. I should begin to live again—for already I’d found out that life without loving and trusting Ivor wasn’t life at all.

He couldn’t think I had followed him, even if he did see me in Paris, because I would be with my Aunt and Uncle, and Lord Robert West; and I made up my mind to be very nice to Lord Bob, much nicer than I ever had been, if Ivor happened to run across us anywhere.

Then that very thing did happen, in the strangest and most unexpected way, but instead of being happier for seeing him, I was ten times more unhappy than before—for now the misery had no gleam of hope shining through its blackness.

That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall of the hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn’t give up his mysterious engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and he must have known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had put upon me. Instead of being angry with him, I was afraid for him, I couldn’t have explained why, unless it was the look on his face when he turned away from me.

No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a woman with whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in my ear. Instead of feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately angry with him, it was Ivor I felt sorry for.

I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord Robert West as if I’d forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was like that of the man in Millais’ picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn’t let her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him.

It is strange how one’s mood can change in a moment—but perhaps it is like that only with women. A minute before I’d been trying to despise Ivor, and to argue, just as if I’d been a match-making mamma, to myself that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was engaged to somebody else.

But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and would trust him in spite of all.

“You look as pale as if you were going to faint,” said Lisa, in her little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn’t speak loudly, always reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms.

I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone’s attention to me just then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as they passed.

“It must be the light,” I said, “for I don’t feel in the least faint.” That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. “I’m a little tired, though,” I went on. “None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don’t mind, Aunt Lil, I’ll go straight to my room when we get upstairs.”

We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric’s suite.

“Shan’t I come with you?” asked Lisa, but I said “no.” It was something new for her to offer to help me, for she isn’t very strong, and has always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she’s a few years older than I am.

Aunt Lilian had brought her maid, without whom she can’t get on even for a single night, but Lisa and I had left ours at home, and Aunt Lil had offered to let Morton help us as much as we liked. I hadn’t been shut up in my room for two minutes, therefore, when Morton knocked to ask if she could do anything. But I thanked her, and sent her away.

I had not yet begun to undress, but was standing in the window, looking along the Champs Élysées, brilliant still with electric lights, and full of carriages and motor-cars bringing people home from theatres and dinner-parties, or taking them to restaurants for supper.

Down there somewhere was Ivor, going farther away from me every moment, though last night at about this time he had been telling me how he loved me, how I was the One Girl in the world for him, and always, always would be. Here was I, remembering in spite of myself every word he had said, hearing again the sound of his voice and seeing the look in his eyes as he said it. There was he, going to the woman for whose sake he had been willing to break with me.

But was he going to her? I asked myself. If not, when they had chaffed him he might easily have mentioned what his engagement really was, knowing, as he must have known, exactly how he made me suffer.

Still—why had he looked so miserable, if he didn’t care what I thought, and was really ready to throw me over at a call from her? The whole thing began to appear more complicated, more mysterious than I had felt it to be at first, when I was smarting with my disappointment in Ivor, and tingling all over with the humiliation he seemed to have put upon me.

“Oh, to know, to know, what he’s doing at this minute!” I whispered, half aloud, because it was comforting in my loneliness to hear the sound of my own voice. “To know whether I’m doing him the most awful injustice—or not!”

Just then, at the door between my room and Lisa’s, next to mine, came a tapping, and instantly after the handle was tried. But I had turned the key, thinking that perhaps this very thing might happen—that Lisa might wish to come, and not wait till I’d given her permission. She does that sort of thing sometimes, for she is rather curious and impish (Ivor calls her “Imp”), and if she thinks people don’t want her that is the very time when she most wants them.

“Oh, Di, do let me in!” she exclaimed.

For a second or two I didn’t answer. Never in my life had I liked poor Lisa less than I’d liked her for the last four and twenty hours, though I’d told myself over and over again that she meant well, that she was acting for my good, and that some day I would be grateful instead of longing to slap her, as I couldn’t help doing now. But always before, when she has irritated me until I’ve nearly forgotten my promise to her father (my step-father) always to be gentle with her in thought and deed, I have felt such pangs of remorse that I’ve tried to atone, even when there wasn’t really anything to atone for, except in my mind. I was afraid that, if I refused to let her come in, she would go to bed angry with me. And when Lisa is angry she generally has a heart attack and is ill next day. “Di, are you there?” she called again.

Without answering, I went to the door and unlocked it. She came in with a rush. “I feel perfectly wild, as if I must do something desperate,” she said.

So did I, but I didn’t mean to let her know that.

“I’m going out,” she went on. “If I don’t, I shall have a fit.”

“Out!” I repeated. “You can’t. It’s midnight.”

“Can’t? There’s no such word for me as ‘can’t,’ when I want to do anything, and you ought to know that,” said she. “It’s only being ill that ever stops me, and I’m not ill to-night. I feel as if electricity were flowing all through me, making my nerves jump, and I believe you feel exactly the same way. Your eyes are as big as half-crowns, and as black as ink.”

“I am a little nervous,” I confessed. And I couldn’t help thinking it odd that Lisa and I should both be feeling that electrical sensation at the same time. “Perhaps it’s in the air. Maybe there’s going to be a thunder-storm. There are clouds over the stars, and a wind coming up.”

“Maybe it’s partly that, maybe not,” said she. “But there’s one thing I’m sure of. Something’s going to happen.”

“Do you feel that, too?” I broke out before I’d stopped to think. Then I wished I hadn’t. But it was too late to wish. Lisa caught me up quickly.

“Ah, I knew you did!” she cried, looking as eerie and almost as haggard as a witch. “Something is going to happen. Come. Go with me and be in it, whatever it is.”

“No,” I said. “And you mustn’t go either.” But she was weird. She seemed to lure me, like a strange little siren, with all a siren’s witchery, though without her beauty. My voice sounded undecided, and I knew it.

“Of course I’m not asking you to wander with me in the night, hand in hand through the streets of Paris, like the Two Orphans,” said Lisa. “I’m going to have a closed carriage—a motor-brougham, one belonging to the hotel, so it’s quite safe. It’s ordered already, and I shall first drive and drive until my nerves stop jerking and my head throbbing. If you won’t drive with me I shall drive alone. But there’ll be no harm in it, either way. I didn’t know you were so conventional as to think there could be. Where’s your brave, independent American spirit?”

“I’m not conventional,” I said.

“Yes, you are. Living in England has spoiled you. You’re afraid of things you never used to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid of things, and I’m not a bit changed,” I said. “You only want to ‘dare’ me.”

“I want you to go with me. It would be so much nicer than going alone,” she begged. “Supposing I got ill in a hired cab? I might, you know; but I can’t stay indoors, whatever happens. If we were together it would be an adventure worth remembering.”

“Very well,” I said, “I’ll go with you, not for the adventure, but rather than have you make a fuss because I try to keep you in, and rather than you should go alone.”

“Good girl!” exclaimed Lisa, quite pleasant and purring, now that she had got her way; though if I’d refused she would probably have cried. She is terrifying when she cries. Great, deep sobs seem almost to tear her frail little body to pieces. She goes deadly white, and sometimes ends up by a fit of trembling as if she were in an ague.

“Have you really ordered a motor cab?” I asked.

“Yes,” said she. “I rang for a waiter, and sent him down to tell the big porter at the front door to get me one. Then I gave him five francs, and said I did not want anybody to know, because I must visit a poor, sick friend who had written to say she was in great trouble, but wished to tell no one except me that she’d come to Paris.”

“I shouldn’t have thought such an elaborate story necessary to a waiter,” I remarked, tossing up my chin a little, for I don’t like Lisa’s subterranean ways. But this time she didn’t even try to defend herself.

“Let’s get ready at once,” she said. “I’m going to put on my long travelling cloak, to cover up this dress, and wear my black toque, with a veil. I suppose you’ll do the same? Then we can slip out, and down the ‘service’ stairs. The carriage is to wait for us at the side entrance.”

I looked at her, trying to read her secretive little face. “Lisa, are you planning to go somewhere in particular, do something you want to ‘spring’ on me when it’s too late for me to get out of it?”

“How horrid of you to be so suspicious of me! You do hurt my feelings! I haven’t had an inspiration yet, so I can’t make a plan. But it will come; I know it will. I shall feel where we ought to go, to be in the midst of an adventure—oh, without being mixed up in it, so don’t look horrified! I told you that something was going to happen, and that I wanted to be in it. Well, I mean to be, when the inspiration comes.”

We put on our dark hats and long travelling cloaks. I pinned on Lisa’s veil, and my own. Then she peeped to see if anyone were about; but there was nobody in the corridor. We hurried out, and as Lisa already knew where to find the ‘service’ stairs, we were soon on the way down. At the side entrance of the hotel the motor-cab was waiting, and when we were both seated inside, Lisa spoke in French to the driver, who waited for orders.

“I think you might take us to the Rue d’Hollande. Drive fast, please. After that, I’ll tell you where to go next.”

“Is this your ‘inspiration’?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet. Why?” and her voice was rather sharp.

“For no particular reason. I’m a little curious, that’s all.”

We drove on for some minutes in silence. I was sure now that Lisa had been playing with me, that all along she had had some special destination in her mind, and that she had her own reasons for wanting to bring me to it. But what use to ask more questions? She did not mean me to find out until she was ready for me to know.

She had told the man to go quickly, and he obeyed. He rushed us round corners and through street after street which I had never seen before—quiet streets, where there were no cabs, and no gay people coming home from theatres and dinners. At last we turned into a particularly dull little street, and stopped.

“Is this the Rue d’Hollande?” Lisa enquired of the driver, jumping quickly up and putting her head out of the window.

“Mais oui, Mademoiselle,” I heard the man answer.

“Then stop where you are, please, until I give you new orders.”

“I should have thought this was the sort of street where nothing could possibly happen,” said I.

“Wait a little, and maybe you’ll find out you’re mistaken. If nothing does, and we aren’t amused, we can go on somewhere else.”

She had not finished speaking when a handsome electric carriage spun almost noiselessly round the corner. It slowed down before a gate set in a high wall, almost covered with creepers, and though the street was dimly lighted and we had stopped at a little distance, I could see that the house behind the wall, though not large, was very quaint and pretty, an unusual sort of house for Paris, it seemed to me.

Scarcely had the electric carriage come to a halt when the chauffeur, in neat, dark livery, jumped down to open the door; and quickly a tall, slim woman sprang out, followed by another, elderly and stout, who looked like a lady’s maid.

I could not see the face of either, but the light of the lamp on our side of the way shone on the hair of the slim young woman in black, who got down first. It was gorgeous hair, the colour of burnished copper. I had heard a man say once that only two women in the world had hair of that exact shade: Jane Hading and Maxine de Renzie.

My heart gave a great bound, and I guessed in an instant why Lisa had brought me here, though how she could have learned where to find the house, I didn’t know.

“Oh, Lisa!” I reproached her. “How could you?”

“It really was an inspiration. I’m sure of that now,” she said quietly, though I could tell by her tone that she was trying to hide excitement. “You never saw that woman before, except once on the stage, yet you know who she is. You jumped as if she had fired a shot at you.”

“I know by the hair,” I answered. “I might have foreseen this would be the kind of thing you would think of—it’s like you.”

“You ought to be grateful to me for thinking of it,” said Lisa. “It’s entirely for your sake; and it’s quite true, it was an inspiration to come here. This afternoon in the train I read an interview in ‘Femina’ with Maxine de Renzie, about the new play she’s produced to-night. There was a picture of her, and a description of her house in the Rue d’Hollande.”

“Now you have satisfied your curiosity. You’ve seen her back, and her maid’s back, and the garden wall,” I said, more sharply than I often speak to Lisa. “I shall tell the driver to take us to the hotel at once. I know why you want to wait here, but you shan’t—I won’t. I’m going away as quickly as I can.”

She caught my dress as I would have leaned out to speak to the driver. Her manner had suddenly changed, and she was all softness and sweetness, and persuasiveness.

“Di, dearest girl, don’t be cross with me; please don’t misunderstand,” she implored. “I love you, you know, even if you sometimes think I don’t; I want you to be happy—oh, wait a moment, and listen. I’ve been so miserable all day, knowing you were miserable; and I’ve felt horribly guilty for fear, after all, I’d said too much. Of course if you’d guessed where I meant to come, you wouldn’t have stirred out of the hotel, and it was better for you to see for yourself. Unless Ivor Dundas came here with a motor-cab, as we did, he could hardly have arrived yet, so if he does come, we shall know. If he doesn’t come, we shall know, too. Think how happy you’ll feel if he doesn’t! I’ll apologise to you then, frankly and freely; and I suppose you would not mind apologising to him, if necessary?”

“He may be in the house now,” I said, more to myself than to Lisa.

“If he is, he’ll come out and meet her when he hears the gate open. There, it’s open now. The maid’s unlocked it. No, there’s nobody in the garden.”

“I can’t stop here and watch for him, like a spy,” I said.

“Not like a spy, but like a girl who thinks she may have done a man an injustice. It’s for his sake I ask you to stay. And if you won’t, I must stay alone. If you insist on going away, I’ll get out and stand in the street, either until Ivor Dundas has come, or until I’m sure he isn’t coming. But how much better to wait and see for yourself.”

“You know I can’t go off and leave you standing here,” I answered. “And I can’t leave you sitting in the carriage, and walk through the streets alone. I might meet—” I would not finish my sentence, but Lisa must nave guessed the name on my lips.

“The only thing to do, then, is for us to stop where we are, together,” said Lisa, “for stop I must and shall, in justice to myself, to Ivor Dundas and to you. You couldn’t force me away, even if you wanted to use force.”

“Which you know is out of the question,” I said, desperately. “But why has your conscience begun to reproach you for trying to put me against Ivor? You seemed to have no scruples whatever, last night and this morning.”

“I’ve been thinking hard since then. I want my warning to you either to be justified, or else I want to apologise humbly. For if Ivor doesn’t come to this house to-night, in spite of his embarrassment when he spoke about an engagement, I shall believe that he doesn’t care a rap about Maxine de Renzie.”

I said no more, but leaned back against the cushions, my heart beating as if it were in my throat, and my brain throbbing in time with it. I could not think, or argue with myself what was really right and wise to do. I could only give myself up, and drift with circumstances.

“A man has just come round the far corner,” whispered Lisa. “Is it Ivor? I can’t make out. He doesn’t look our way.”

“Thank Heaven we’re too far off for him to see our faces! I would rather die than have Ivor know we’re here,” I broke out.

“I don’t think it is Ivor,” Lisa went on. “He’s hidden himself in the shadow, as if he were watching. It’s that house he’s interested in. Who can he be, if not Ivor? A detective, perhaps.”

“Why should a detective watch Mademoiselle de Renzie’s house?” I asked, in spite of myself.

Lisa seemed a little confused, as if she had said something she regretted.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she answered hastily. “Why, indeed? It was just a thought. The man seems so anxious not to be seen. Oh—keep back, Di, don’t look out for an instant, till he’s passed. Ivor is coming now. He’s walking in a great hurry. There! he can’t see you. He’s far enough away for you to peep, and see for yourself. He’s at Maxine de Renzie’s gate.”

It was all over, then, and no more hope. His eyes when they gave me that tragic look had lied, even as his lips had lied last night, when he told me there was no other woman in his world but me.

“I won’t look,” I stammered, almost choking.

“Someone, I can’t see who, is letting him in. The gate’s shut behind him.”

“Let us go now,” I begged.

“No, no, not yet!” cried Lisa. “I must know what happens next. We are in the midst of it, indeed.”

I hardly cared what she did, now. Ivor had come to see Maxine de Renzie, and nothing else mattered very much. I had no strength to insist that we should go.

“I wonder what the man in the shadow would do if he saw us?” Lisa said. Then she leaned out, on the side away from the hiding man, and softly told our chauffeur to go very slowly along the street. This he did, but the man did not move.

“Stop before that house behind the wall with the creepers,” directed Lisa, but I would not allow that.

“No, he shall not stop there!” I exclaimed. “Lisa, I forbid it. You’ve had your way in everything so far. I won’t let you have it in this.”

“Very well, we’ll turn the corner into the next street, to please you,” said Lisa; and she gave orders to the chauffeur again. “Now stop,” she cried, when we had gone half way down the street, out of sight and hearing of anyone in the Rue d’Hollande. Then, in another instant, before I had any idea what she meant to do, she was out of the cab, running like a child in the direction whence we had come. I looked after her, hesitating whether or not to follow (for I could not bear to risk meeting Ivor), and saw that she paused at the corner. She was peeping into the Rue d’Hollande, to find out what was happening there.

“She will come back in a moment or two,” I said to myself wearily, and sat waiting. For a little while she stood with her long dress gathered up under her cloak: then she darted round the corner and vanished. If she had not appeared again almost at once, I should have had to tell the driver to follow, though I hated the thought of going again into the street where Maxine de Renzie lived. But she did come, and in her hand was a pretty little brocade bag embroidered with gold or silver that sparkled even in the faint light.

“I saw this lying in the street, and ran to pick it up,” she exclaimed.

“You might better have left it,” I said stiffly. “Perhaps Mademoiselle de Renzie dropped it.”

“No, I don’t think so. It wasn’t in front of her house.”

“It may belong to that man who was watching, then.”

“It doesn’t look much like a thing that a man would carry about with him, does it?”

“No,” I admitted, indifferently. “Now we will go home.”

“Don’t you want to wait and see how long Ivor Dundas stops?”

“Indeed I don’t!” I cried. “I don’t want to know any more about him.” And for the moment I almost believed that what I said was true.

“Very well,” said Lisa, “perhaps we do know enough to prove to us both that I haven’t anything to reproach myself with. And the less you think about him after this, the better.”

“I shan’t think about him at all,” I said. But I knew that was a boast I should never be able to keep, try as I might. I felt now that I could understand how people must feel when they are very old and weary of life. I don’t believe that I shall feel older and more tired if I live to be eighty than I felt then. It was a slight comfort to know that we were on our way back to the hotel, and that soon I should be in my room alone, with the door shut and locked between Lisa and me; but it was only very slight. I couldn’t imagine ever being really pleased about anything again.

“You will marry Lord Robert now, I suppose,” chirped Lisa, “and show Ivor Dundas that he hasn’t spoiled your life.”

As she asked this question she was tugging away at a knot in the ribbons that tied the bag she had found.

“Perhaps I shall,” I answered. “I might do worse.”

“I should think you might!” exclaimed Lisa. “Oh, do accept him soon. I don’t want Ivor Dundas to say to himself that you’re broken-hearted for him. Lord Bob is sure to propose to you to-morrow—even if he hasn’t already: and if he has, he’ll do it again. I saw it in his eye all to-day. He was dying to speak at any minute, if only he’d got a chance with you alone. You will say ‘yes’ when he does, won’t you, and have the engagement announced at once?”

“I’ll see how I feel at the time, if it comes,” I answered, trying to speak gaily, but making a failure of it.

At last Lisa had got the brocade bag open, and was looking in. She seemed surprised by what she saw, and very much interested. She put in her hand, and touched the thing, whatever it was; but she did not tell me what was there. Probably she wanted to excite my curiosity, and make me ask. But I didn’t care enough to humour her. If the bag had been stuffed full of the most gorgeous jewels in the world, at that moment I shouldn’t have been interested in the least. I saw Lisa give a little sidelong peep up at me, to see if I were watching; but when she found me looking entirely indifferent, she tied up the bag again and stowed it away in one of the deep pockets of her travelling cloak.

I was afraid that, when we’d arrived at the hotel and gone up to our rooms Lisa might want to stop with me, and be vexed when I turned her out, as I felt I must do. But she seemed to have lost interest in me and my affairs, now that all doubt was settled. She didn’t even wish to talk over what had happened; but when I bade her good-night, simply said, “good-night” in return, and let me shut the door between the rooms.

“I suppose,” I thought, “that the best thing I shall have to hope for after this, until I grow quite old, is to sleep, and be happy in my dreams.” But though I tried hard to put away thoughts of all kinds, and fall asleep, I couldn’t. My eyes would not stay closed for more than a minute at a time; and always I found myself staring at the window, hour after hour, hoping for the light.

CHAPTER XV
DIANA HEARS NEWS

It seemed as if the night would never end. If I had been vain, and deserved to be punished for my vanity, then I was well punished now; I felt so ashamed and humiliated.

It must have been long after one when I went to bed, yet I was thankful when dawn came, and gave me an excuse to get up. After I had had a cold bath, however, I felt better, and a cup of steaming hot coffee afterwards did me good. I was all dressed when Morton, Aunt Lilian’s maid, knocked at my door to ask if I were up, and if she could help me do my hair. “Her Ladyship” sent me her love, and hoped I had rested nicely. She would be pleased to hear that I was looking well.

Looking well! I was glad to know that, though it surprised me. I stared at myself in the glass, and wondered that so many hours of misery had made so little impression on my face. I was rather paler than usual, perhaps, but my cheeks were faintly pink, and my lips red. I suppose while one is young one can suffer a good deal and one’s face tell no secret.

We were to make a very early start to examine the wonderful motor-car which Lord Robert West had advised Aunt Lil to buy. Afterwards she and Lisa and I had planned to do a little shopping, because it would seem a waste of time to be in Paris and bring nothing away from the shops. But when I tapped at Lisa’s door (dreading, yet wishing, to have our first greeting over), it appeared that she had a bad headache and did not want to go with us to see the Rajah’s automobile. While I was with her Aunt Lil came in, looking very bright and handsome.

She was “so sorry” for Lisa, and not at all sorry for me (how little she guessed!); and before taking me away with her, promised to come back after it was settled about the car, to see whether Lisa were well enough by that time for the shopping expedition.

The automobile really was a “magnificent animal,” as Aunt Lil said, and it took her just two minutes, after examining it from bonnet to tool-boxes, to make up her mind that she could not be happy without it. It was sixty horsepower, and of a world-renowned make; but that was a detail. Any car could be powerful and well made; every car should be, or you would not pay for it; but she had never seen one before with such heavenly little arrangements for luggage and lunch; while as for the gold toilet things, in a pale grey suède case, they were beyond words, and she must have them—the motor also, of course, since it went with them.

So that was decided; and she and I drove back to the hotel, while the two men went to the Automobile Club, of which Lord Bob was an honorary member.

If possible, all formalities were to be got through with the Rajah’s agent and the car paid for. At two o’clock, when we were to meet the men at the Ritz for luncheon, they were to let us know whether everything had been successfully arranged: and, if so, Aunt Lil wanted the party to motor to Calais in her new automobile, instead of going by train. Lord Bob would drive, but he meant to hire a chauffeur recommended by the Club, so that he would not have to stop behind and see to getting the car across the Channel in a cargo boat.

Aunt Lil was very much excited over this idea, as she always is over anything new, and if I was rather quiet and uninterested, she was too much occupied to notice.

Lisa was looking worse when we went back to her at the hotel, but Aunt Lil didn’t notice that either. She is always nice to Lisa, but she doesn’t like her, and it is only when you really care for people that you observe changes in them when you are busy thinking of your own affairs.

I advised Lisa to rest in her own room, instead of shopping, as she would have the long motor run later in the day, and a night journey; but she was dressed and seemed to want to go out. She had things to do, she said, and though she didn’t buy anything when she was with us, while we were at a milliner’s in the Rue de la Paix choosing hats for Aunt Lil, she disappeared on some errand of her own, and only came back just as we were ready to leave the shop. Whatever it was that she had been doing, it had interested her and waked her out of herself, for her eyes looked brighter and she had spots of colour on her cheeks.

Aunt Lil found so much to do, and was sure we could easily carry so many things in the motor-car, that it was a rush to meet Uncle Eric and Lord Bob at the Ritz, by two o’clock. But we did manage it, or nearly. We were not more than ten minutes late, which was wonderful for Aunt Lil: and the short time that we’d kept them waiting wasn’t enough to account for the solemnity of the two men’s faces as they came forward to meet us.

“Something’s gone wrong about the car!” exclaimed Aunt Lil.

“No, the car’s all right,” said Lord Bob. “I’ve got you a chauffeur too, and—”

“Then what has happened? You both look like thunder-clouds, or wet blankets, or something disagreeable. It surely can’t be because you’re hungry that you’re cross about a few minutes.”

“Have you seen a newspaper to-day?” asked Uncle Eric.

“A newspaper? I should think not, indeed; we’ve had too many important things to do to waste time on trifles. Why, has the Government gone out?”

“Ivor Dundas has got into a mess here,” Uncle Eric answered, looking very much worried—so much worried that I thought he must care even more about Ivor than I had fancied.

“Of course it’s the most awful rot,” said Lord Bob, “but he’s accused of murder.”

“It’s in the evening papers: not a word had got into the morning ones,” Uncle Eric went on. “We’ve only just seen the news since we came here to wait for you; otherwise I should have tried to do something for him. As it is, of course I must, as a friend of his, stop in Paris and do what I can to help him through. But that needn’t keep the rest of you from going on to-day as you planned.”

“What an awful thing!” exclaimed Aunt Lil. “I will stay too, if the girls don’t mind. Poor fellow! It may be some comfort to him to feel that he has friends on the spot, standing by him. I’ve got thousands of engagements—we all have—but I shall telegraph to everybody. What about you, Lord Bob?”

“I’ll stand by, with you, Lady Mountstuart,” said he, his nice though not very clever face more anxious-looking than I had ever seen it, his blue, wide-apart eyes watching me rather wistfully. “Dundas and I have never been intimate, but he’s a fine chap, and I’ve always admired him. He’s sure to come out of this all right.”

Poor Lord Robert! I hadn’t much thought to give him then; but dimly I felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in past days.

I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I should have been dumb, unable to answer; but nobody did speak, or seem to think it strange that I had nothing to say.

“I suppose you won’t try to do anything until after lunch, will you, Mountstuart?” Lord Robert went on to ask.

“No, we must eat, and talk things over,” said Uncle Eric.

We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened?

But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions.

For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, of which he didn’t wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been that.

It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who had been his rival.

“There was that engagement of Dundas’ last night, which he was just going to keep when we saw him,” said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily. “I’m afraid there must have been something fishy about that—I mean, some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn’t supposed to be in Paris—though I don’t see what that can have to do with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under another name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There’s nothing sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he’s one. Anyhow, apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn’t find, for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas had made an enemy of him, for he’s been giving evidence pretty freely to the police—lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following up the scent, tracking down the person he’d been hired by Dundas to hunt for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold.”

“What time was all that?” enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first question she had asked.

“Between midnight and one o’clock, I think the papers said,” answered Lord Bob.

“Well, of course it’s all nonsense,” exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently. “French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They ought to know better. They’ll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging England’s pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won’t they, Eric?”

“I’m afraid there’s no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of the authorities, or of eating humble-pie,” Uncle Eric said. “The evidence—entirely circumstantial so far, luckily—is dead against Ivor. And as for his being a British subject, there’s nothing in that. If an Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he’s left to the French law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman.”

“But Ivor hasn’t committed murder!” cried Aunt Lilian, horrified.

“Of course not. But he’s got to prove that he hasn’t. And in that he’s worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a man innocent until he’s been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, presumes that he’s guilty until he’s proved innocent. In face of the evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn’t have done otherwise than they have done.”

For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian’s husband. I do hate that cold, stern “sense of justice” on which men pride themselves so much, whether it’s an affair of a friend or an enemy!

“Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an—an—don’t you call it an alibi?” asked Lisa.

“He didn’t try to,” replied Lord Bob. “He’s simply refused, up to the present, to tell what he was doing between twelve o’clock and the time he was found, except to say that he walked for a good while before going to the house where Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies killing the man: says the fellow had stolen something from him, on the boat crossing from Dover to Calais yesterday, and that after applying to the detective, he got a note from the thief, offering to give the thing back if he would call and name a reward. Says he found the room already ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the address given him; that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared on the scene.”

“Couldn’t he have shown the note sent by the thief?” asked Aunt Lil.

“He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he wouldn’t tell what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except that it was valuable. It does look as if he were determined to make the case as black as possible against himself; but then, as I said before, no doubt he has good reasons.”

“He has no good luck, anyhow!” sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor.

“Rather not—so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him is that the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage swears that though Dundas hadn’t been in the place much above half an hour when the detective arrived, he was there then for the second time, that he admitted it when he came. The first visit he made, according to the concierge, was about an hour before the second: the concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not asleep, when a man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur Gestre. On hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the gentleman who was stopping in Gestre’s room. By and by the Englishman went out, and on being challenged, said he might come back again later. After a while the concierge was waked up once more by a caller for Gestre, who announced that he’d been before; and now he vows that it was the same man both times, though Dundas denies having called twice. If he could prove that he’d been in the house no more than half an hour, it might be all right, for two doctors agree that the murdered man had been dead more than an hour when they were called in. But he can’t or won’t prove it—that’s his luck again!—and nobody can be found who saw him in any of the streets through which he mentions passing. The last moment that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who’d taken him up at the hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not so very far from the Élysée Palace. Then it was only between five and ten minutes past twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage afterwards and killed his man at the time when the doctors say the fellow must have died. It’s a bad scrape. But of course Dundas will get out of it somehow or other, in the end.”

“Do you think he will, Eric?” asked Aunt Lil.

“I hope so with all my heart,” he answered. But his face showed that he was deeply troubled, and my heart sank down—down.

As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my resentment against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had happened to make me feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he cared more for Maxine de Renzie than for me—indeed, on the contrary, everything went to prove his supreme loyalty to her whose name he had refused to speak, even for the sake of clearing himself. Still, now that the world was against him, my soul rushed to stand by his side, to defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all.

Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and I yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on earth, I wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk went on while that terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do it, if Lisa and I should act together.

I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get back to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, nobody wanted to sit long at lunch, so it wasn’t yet three when I called her into my room. The men had gone to make different arrangements about starting, for we were not to leave Paris until they had had time to do something for Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the British Ambassador, and Aunt Lilian had said that she would be busy for at least an hour, writing letters and telegrams to cancel engagements we had had in London. For awhile Lisa and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I spoke out abruptly what was in my mind, not wishing to lose a minute.

“I think the only thing for us to do,” I said, “is to tell what we know, and save Ivor in spite of himself.”

“How can anything you know save him?” she asked, with a queer, faint emphasis which I didn’t understand.

“Don’t you see,” I cried, “that if we come forward and say we saw him in the Rue d’Hollande at a quarter past twelve—going into a house there—he couldn’t have murdered the man in that other house, far away. It all hangs on the time.”

“But you didn’t see him go in,” Lisa contradicted me.

I stared at her. “You did. Isn’t it the same thing?”

“No, not unless I choose to say so.”

“And—but you will choose. You want to save him, of course.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s innocent. Because he’s your friend.”

“No man is the friend of any woman, if he’s in love with another.”

“Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter except saving him?”

“I don’t consider,” she said, in a slow, aggravating way, “that Ivor Dundas has behaved very well to—to our family. But I want you to understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger—no doubt it’s real danger—in any such way as you propose, it’s for me to do it, not you. He’ll have to owe his gratitude to me. And there’s something else I can do for him, perhaps—I, and only I. A thing of value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back at any price—even the price of looking for it on a dead man’s body. Well, I think I know what that thing was—I think I have it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, astonished at her and at her manner—and her words.

“I’m not going to tell you what I mean. Only I’m sure of what I’m saying—at least, that the thing is valuable, worth risking a great deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your aunt were thinking about hats.”

For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange idea sprang into my mind:

“That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d’Hollande last night!”

It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to this—there had been so many other things which seemed more important.

Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and that she had wanted to tantalise me.

“I won’t say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man mixed up in the case—perhaps the real murderer. If I do decide to tell what I know and what I suspect, it won’t be to you—unless for a very particular reason—and it won’t be yet awhile.”

I’m afraid that I almost hated her for a moment, she seemed so cold, so calculating and sly. I couldn’t bear to think that she was my step-sister, and I was glad that, at least, not a drop of the same blood ran in our veins.

“If you choose to keep silent for some purpose of your own,” I broke out, “you can’t prevent me from telling the whole story, as I know it—how I went out with you, and all that.”

“I can’t prevent you from doing it, but I can advise you not to—for Ivor’s sake,” she answered.

“For his sake?”

“Yes, and for your own, too, if you care for his opinion of you at all. For his sake, because neither of us knows when he came out of Maxine de Renzie’s house. You would go away, though I wanted to stay and watch. He may not have been there more than five minutes for all we can tell to the contrary, in which case he would still have had time to go straight off to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage and kill that man, in accordance with the doctors’ statements about the death. For your sake, because if he knows that you tracked him to Maxine de Renzie’s house, he won’t respect you very much; and because he would probably be furious with you, unable to forgive you as long as he lived, for injuring the reputation of the woman he’s risked so much to save. He’d believe you did it out of spiteful jealousy against her.”

I grew cold all over, and trembled so that I could hardly speak.

“Ivor would know that I’m incapable of such baseness.”

“I’m not sure he’d hold you above it. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’—and he has scorned you—for an actress.”

It was as if she had struck me in the face: and I could feel the blood rush up to my cheeks. They burned so hotly that the tears were forced to my eyes.

“You see I’m right, don’t you?” Lisa asked.

“You may be right in thinking I could do him no good in that way—and that he wouldn’t wish it, even if I could. But not about the rest,” I said. “We won’t talk of it any more. I can’t stand it. Please go back to your room now, Lisa, I want to be alone.”

“Very well,” she snapped, “you called me in. I didn’t ask to come.”

Then she went out, with not another word or look, and slammed the door. I could imagine myself compelling her to give up the brocade bag, or offering her some great bribe of money, thousands of pounds, if necessary. Lisa is a strange little creature. She will do a good deal for money.

CHAPTER XVI
DIANA UNDERTAKES A STRANGE ERRAND

If I had not been tingling with anger against Lisa, who had seemed to enjoy saying needlessly cruel things to me, perhaps I would have been utterly discouraged when she pricked the bubble of my hope. She had made me realise that the plan I had was useless, perhaps worse than useless; but in my desperate mood I caught at another. I would try to see Ivor, and find out some other way of helping him. At all events he should know that I was for him, not against him, in this time of trouble.

Perhaps this new idea was a mad one, I told myself. Perhaps I should not be allowed to see him, even in the presence of others. But while there was a “perhaps” I wouldn’t give up. Without waiting for a cooler or more cowardly mood to set in, I almost ran out of my room, and downstairs, for I hadn’t taken off my hat and coat since coming in.

I had no knowledge of French law, or police etiquette, or anything of that sort. But I knew the French as a gallant nation; and I thought that if a girl should go to the right place begging for a short conversation with an accused man, as his friend, an interview—probably with a witness—might possibly be granted. The authorities might think that we were engaged, for all I cared. I did not care about anything now, except seeing Ivor, and helping him if I could.

I hardly knew what I meant to do at the beginning, by way of getting the chance I wanted, until I had asked to have a motor-cab called for me. Then, I suddenly thought of the British Ambassador, a great friend of Uncle Eric’s and Aunt Lilian’s. Uncle Eric had already been to him, but I fancied not with a view of trying to see Ivor. That idea had apparently not been in his mind at all. Anyway, the Ambassador would already understand that the family took a deep interest in the fate of Ivor Dundas, and would not be wholly astonished at receiving a call from me. Besides, hearing of some rather venturesome escapades of mine when I first arrived in London, he had once, while visiting Uncle Eric, laughed a good deal and said that in future he would be “surprised at nothing an American girl might do.”

I told the driver to go to the British Embassy as fast as he could. There, I sent in my name, and the Ambassador received me at once. I didn’t explain much, but came to the point immediately, and said that I wanted—oh, but wanted and needed very much indeed—to see Ivor Dundas. Could he, would he help me to do that?

“Ought I to help you?” he asked. “Would Mountstuart and Lady Mountstuart approve?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “They would approve. You see, it is necessary.”

“Then, if it’s necessary—and I believe you when you say that it is,” he answered, “I’ll do what I can.”

What he could do and did do, was to write a personal letter to the Chief of Police in Paris, asking as a favour that his friend, Miss Forrest, a young lady related through marriage to the British Foreign Secretary, should be allowed five minutes’ conversation with the Englishman accused of murder, Mr. Ivor Dundas.

I took the letter to the Chief of Police myself, to save time, and because I was so restless and excited that I must be doing something every instant—something which I felt might bring me nearer to Ivor.

From the Chief of Police, who proved to be a most courteous person, I received an order to give to the governor of the gaol or prison where they had put Ivor. This, he explained, would procure me the interview I wanted, but unfortunately, I must not hope to see my friend alone. A warder who understood English would have to be present.

So far I had gone into the wild venture without once thinking what it would be to find myself suddenly face to face with Ivor in such terrible circumstances, or what he would think of me for coming in such a way now that we were no longer anything to each other—not even friends. But a kind of ague-terror crept over me while I sat waiting in an ugly little bare, stuffy reception room. My head was going round and round, my heart was pounding so that I could not make up my mind what to say to Ivor when he came.

Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps outside the door; and when it opened, there stood Ivor, between two Frenchmen in blue uniforms. One of them walked into the room with him—I suppose he must have been a warder—but he stopped near the door, and in a second I had forgotten all about him. He simply ceased to exist for me, when my eyes and Ivor’s had met.

I sprang up from my chair and began to talk as quickly as I could, stammering and confused, hardly knowing what I said, but anxious to make him understand in the beginning that I had not come to take back my words of yesterday.

“We’re all so dreadfully sorry, Mr. Dundas,” I said. “I don’t know if Uncle Eric has been here yet—but he is doing all he can, and Aunt Lilian is dreadfully upset. We’re staying on in Paris on account of—on account of this. So you see you’ve got friends near you. And I—we’re such old friends, I couldn’t help trying as hard as I could for a sight of you to—to cheer you up, and—and to help you, if that’s possible.”

I spoke very fast, not daring to look at him after the first, but pretending to smooth out some wrinkles in one of my long gloves. My eyes were full of tears, and I was afraid they’d go splashing down my cheeks, if I even winked my lashes. I loved him more than ever now, and felt capable of forgiving him anything, if only I had the chance to forgive, and if only, only he really loved me and not that other.

“Thank you, a hundred times—more than I can express,” he said, with a faint quiver in his voice—his beautiful voice, which was the first thing that charmed me after knowing him. “It does cheer me to see you. It gives me strength and courage. You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t—trust me, and believe me innocent.”

“Why, of course, I—we—believe you innocent of any crime,” I faltered.

“And of any lack of faith?”

“Oh, as for that, how can—but don’t let’s speak of that. What can it matter now?”

“It matters more than anything else in the world. If only you could say that you will have faith!”

“I’ll try to say it then, if it can give you any comfort.”

“Not unless you mean it.”

“Then—I’ll try to mean it. Will that satisfy you?”

“It’s better than nothing. And I thank you again. As for the rest, you’re not to be anxious. Everything will come right for me sooner or later, though I may have to suffer some annoyances first.”

“Annoyances?” I echoed. “If there were nothing worse!”

“There won’t be. I shall be well defended. It will all be shown up as a huge mistake—another warning against trusting to circumstantial evidence.”

“Is there nothing we can do then? Or—that we would urge others to do?” I asked, hoping he would understand that I meant one other—Maxine de Renzie.

I guessed by his look that he did understand. It was a look of gloom; but suddenly a light flashed in his eyes.

“There is one thing you could do for me—you and no one else,” he said. “But I have no right to ask it.”

“Tell me what it is,” I implored.

“I would not, if it didn’t mean more than my life to me.” He hesitated, and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together—one or two I had taught him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a diplomatic career.

They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I—remembering the warder—almost hoped they might pass unnoticed. But the man in uniform came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious.

“That is forbidden,” he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. “What language was that?”

“Spanish,” I answered. “He only bade me good-bye. We have been—very dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but—it’s over now. It was natural he shouldn’t want you to hear his last words to me.”

“Nevertheless, it is forbidden,” repeated the warder obstinately, “and though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and must be reported.”

With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist—oh, I could have killed the creature with my own hands—I think!

As for Ivor, he said not another word, except “good-bye,” smiling half sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as plainly as if he had spoken: “Remember, I know you won’t fail me.”

I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did not mean more than his life.

The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were these: “Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony find in a box under flower-pots a folded document. Take this to Maxine. Every moment counts.”

So it seemed that it was always of her he thought—of Maxine de Renzie! And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her.

As I thought of this task he’d set me, and of all it meant, it appeared more and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a thing of me. But—it “meant more than his life.” And I would do the thing, if it could be done, because of my pride.

As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed me. I felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known that death, or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to which Ivor had sent me, I would still have gone there.

My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over—with success or failure. But calmer thoughts prevailed.

I hadn’t looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night’s dreadful happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had said to myself that I didn’t wish to read the newspaper accounts of the murder, and of Ivor’s supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, that I did not even know in what part of Paris the house of the murder was. I recalled only the name of the street, because it was a curiously grim one—like the tragedy that had been acted in it.

I couldn’t tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That would be a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be plenty of details of that sort. And I must do this without first going back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once I was there. Now, nobody knew where I was, and I was free to do as I pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards.

Passing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop. Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble tables. Also I asked to see an evening paper.

It was a shock to find Ivor’s photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at me from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor’s disgust, at about the time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really wonderful book. I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the newspaper people to get it. Then there came the story of the murder, built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all. I knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the picture of the window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed—according to Girard, the detective—to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead man’s room. Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a bull’s-eye lantern, which he—Girard—carried, standing at bay in the open window. There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside. There was the balcony: and there was the balcony of another window with another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house. I looked at the picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of distance between the railings of those two balconies.

“That would be my way to get there—if I can get there at all,” I said to myself. But there was hardly any “if” left in my mind now. I meant to get there.

By this time it was after five o’clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and again took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a petit bleu to Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn’t to worry about me. I’d been hipped and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was—I’d just found out—staying in Paris. Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o’clock. That would save a bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to search for me, even if they were inclined.

Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and dismissed my cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two mistakes, found the street I wanted. Instead of going to the house of the murder, I passed on to the next house on the left—the house of the balcony almost adjoining the dead man’s.

I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms to let in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the advertisement of “Chambres â louer” staring me in the face: but I spoke French as badly as I could, making three mistakes to every sentence, and begged the man to talk slowly in answering me.

There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been too good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had jabbered awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young American journalist, employed by a New York paper. I wanted to “write up” the murder of last night, according to my own ideas, and as of course the police wouldn’t let me go into the room where it happened, the next best thing would be to take the room close to it, in the house adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to “get the emotion, the sensation,” I explained, so as to make my article really dramatic. Would the people who occupied that room let it to me for a few hours? Long before bedtime they could have it back again, if I got on well with my writing.

The concierge, to whom I gave ten francs as a kind of retaining fee, was almost sure the occupants of the room (an old man and his wife) would willingly agree to such a proposal, if I paid them well enough for their trouble in turning out.

Would three louis be enough? I asked. The concierge—whose eyes brightened—thought that it would. I knew by his look that he would take a large commission for managing the affair, as he quickly offered to do; but that didn’t matter to me.

He confirmed my idea that it would have been hopeless to try and get into the room of the murder itself, even if I could have borne it, saying that the door, and window too, had been sealed by the police, who were also guarding the house from curiosity seekers; but he added that I could see the shut window from the balcony of the room I was going to hire.

I waited for him, and played with his very unattractive baby while he went upstairs to make enquiries. He was gone for some time, explaining to the people; but at last, when my patience was almost too far strained, he came back to say that Monsieur and Madame Nissot had consented to go out of their room for the evening. They were dining at the moment, however, and Mademoiselle must be pleased to wait a few moments until they finished the meal and gathered up a few things which they could carry to a neighbour’s: books, and work for their hours of absence, the concierge politely suggested. But that was to save my feelings, no doubt, for I was sure the husband and wife meant to make a parcel of any valuables which could possibly be carried off by an unscrupulous American journalist. Also, they stipulated that payment must be made in advance. To this I agreed willingly. And then—I waited, waited. It was tedious, but after all, the tediousness didn’t matter much when I came to think of it. It would be impossible to do the thing I had made up my mind to do, till after dark.