He had written to Mdme. de Maucroix before leaving Paris, and he hoped that this letter would serve him as an "open sesame."
"Madame,—For particular reasons of my own, I am keenly desirous to trace the murderer of your son; and, believing myself to be already on the right track, I venture to entreat the favour of an interview. I am an Englishman of good birth and education, and I shall know how to respect any confidence with which you may honour me. Accept, Madame, the assurance of my high consideration,
EDWARD HEATHCOTE.
"To the Baroness de Maucroix."
Heathcote was shown into a room leading out of the hall, the first of a suite of rooms opening one into another in a remote perspective. The doors were open, and the visitor could see to the end of the vista. The parquetted floors, with the cold light reflected on their polished surface from the high narrow windows, the sculptured pediments above the doors, the crystal girandoles, the sombre-looking pictures—all had an old-world air, and gave the idea of a house which strangers visited now and then as a monument of the past, but which had long been empty of domestic life and warmth and comfort. The far-off echo of his own footsteps startled Heathcote as he slowly paced the polished floor.
He had not long to wait. The maître d'hôtel appeared after about ten minutes' interval, evidently astonished at the result of his mission, and informed Heathcote that the Baroness would see him.
"Mdme. la Baronne is old and in weak health, Monsieur," said the servant, who had grown gray in the service of his mistress, and who worshipped her. "I hope your business with her is not of an agitating kind. She seemed much troubled by your letter. A violent shock might kill her."
"There will be no violent shock, my friend," replied Heathcote kindly. "I shall be obliged to talk to Mdme. la Baronne of painful memories, but I shall be careful of her feelings."
"I hope Monsieur will pardon me for making the suggestion."
"With all my heart."
The old servant led the way up the wide semicircular staircase to a corridor above, and to a suite of rooms over those which Heathcote had seen below. They passed through an anteroom, and then entered by a curtained doorway which led into Mdme. de Maucroix's sitting-room, the only room which she had occupied for the last ten years. The salons and music-rooms, the library and card-room on the lower floor, had remained empty and desolate since her son's death. Her bedchamber and dressing-room were situated behind this small salon, and another door opened into the suite of apartments which had been occupied by her son. These she visited and inspected daily. They were kept in the order in which he had left them, on his last journey to Paris. Not an object, however trifling, had been changed.
There were logs burning on the hearth, although the first chill winds of autumn had not yet been felt: but the Baroness kept a fire in her room all the year round. The cheery blaze and a large black poodle of almost super-canine intelligence were her only companions. On an exquisite little buhl table by her armchair lay her missal and her Imitation of Christ. These two books were her only literature.