X
CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was unable to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had been seen at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to him, should be a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's appearance was not at all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was very American. Also, he spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very badly, having for the language that scornful contempt peculiar to Anglo-Saxons of a certain type. His speech, it seemed, was, like his appearance, ultra-American--full of strange idioms and oddly pronounced. In short, such a youth would be rather sure to be remembered by any hotel management and staff with which he might have come in contact.
At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were, casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of the various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the cafés and bathing establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had caused great distress to his family. He was not long in discovering that no such young man could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.
The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man who had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that such a person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect that his friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart that his agents were earning their fees too easily.
So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across the city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of unpacking his portmanteau--for he kept no servant; a woman came in once a day to "do" the rooms--the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and Ste. Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey! Detective work?"
Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his belief that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at all; and at that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in a tone of some significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in silence, but presently he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be permitted to offer a word of advice?"
"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the half-empty portmanteau. "Why not?"