A Traitor's Wooing

by Headon Hill

"Pierre killed Monsieur Levison for love of me," she concluded, with a gesture worthy of the great Bernhardt.

Nugent's manner and attitude had almost imperceptibly and very gradually altered during the recital, though the theatrical young Frenchwoman had been so absorbed in herself that it was only when she had sounded the final flourish that she noticed the change. The look of surprise—of almost alarmed surprise—which had come into his face at her first profession of knowledge was gone, and was now replaced by an expression of chivalrous sympathy blended with just a trace of dissent.

"I can well believe in the potency of the motive suggested by Mademoiselle," he said with a grave bow. "Any man might almost have free pardon for homicide committed for the sake of her favours. But it was not so in this case. The man whom I have good cause to suspect of having slain Mr. Levi Levison had never to my knowledge spoken with mademoiselle either in France or in England. That was why I was so astonished when you stated that though you had not witnessed the crime, you were on your way to denounce the criminal."

"Who, then, is it that you suspect, m'sieu?" Louise, all taken aback, demanded in a sibilant whisper. "After all, Pierre was the friend of my youth, and it would be sweeter to take vengeance on other than he."

Travers Nugent appeared to be about to speak, but to check himself as an afterthought. "I do not think that it would be quite in accordance with a spirit of justice if I mentioned the villain's name, even to you, just yet," he said, after a pause. "I am morally convinced of his guilt, but there are one or two points to be cleared up before it can be proved. If it leaked out that he was under suspicion before the police had been furnished with enough evidence to arrest him he might evade us altogether. This much, however, I can promise you, that as soon as I have linked up the chain you shall be the first to be informed of it. Surely you are entitled to be, as the adored of ce pauvre Levison. In the meanwhile, will you favour me with a description of Pierre Legros? I have a reason for asking which will commend itself to you."

Louise launched into an eloquent word-picture of the onion-seller, contriving with many deprecatory shrugs to convey her contempt for his rough appearance and for his humble calling, while taking full credit for having recognized him at all in her present exalted station. His fierce eyebrows, his swarthy skin, his blue jean garments were all in turn catalogued and tossed aside as so much rubbish not worthy of notice if their owner was not to achieve fame as a murderer.

"A thousand thanks! You are an artist in our language, mademoiselle, and have absolutely confirmed the innocence of your worthy fellow-countryman, though I commiserate with you on the reappearance in your life of one so gauche," said Nugent decisively. "You are entitled to my fullest confidence, but discretion confines me to this at present: Pierre Legros, so easily recognizable from your vivid description, could not have committed this crime. It would have been a physical impossibility. At the hour when the medical men say that Levison must have met his death Legros was creating a disturbance at the back door of my house because the cook would not purchase any of his wares. While I happen to know that the man I suspect had an appointment to meet some one on the marsh about the same hour."

One glance at the French girl's face as he made the last assertion told him that he had scored one trick at least in the game he had set out to play. There was no incredulity in the stare with which she drank in his statement, nor was there affectation in the sigh which escaped her, due partly to relief at the established alibi of her former lover, and partly to disappointment that she was not to achieve fame as the heroine of a murder mystery.

"I shall hold you to your promise, M'sieu," she simpered at last. "And as you have rendered my journey into the town unnecessary I will now return to the Manor House. Accept my best thanks for preventing me from committing a bêtise which would have anguished my soul. It would have desolated me to have accused that poor Pierre under a mistake."

So, after a few courtesies from Nugent, she turned and went back the way she had come, reflecting that, after all, there was compensation for her disappointment. Had she not been treated as an equal by a gentleman of position and fascinating manners? Certainly he was not so young as Levi Levison, but his eyes had rested on her charms with an admiration that seemed sincere. Who knew but what he might, after a little coy manipulation, step into the place in her affections vacated by the defunct Levi? But then she could not see the contemptuously satisfied smile on Mr. Nugent's face as he made his way back to the town, the contempt being for the fickle jade so easily duped, and the satisfaction for the complete success of the self-denial that had led him to postpone his dinner-hour and loiter about the country road on which an unerring instinct had told him that the dupe would be found.