The de Bercy Affair

"Did you write to Mr. Osborne, asking that question?" asked Furneaux.

"No," said Clarke – "never. I didn't even know where Osborne was."

"So Janoc must have written to him in your name?" said Furneaux. "Janoc, then, wishes to know how much information Osborne can give you as to Mademoiselle de Bercy's association with Anarchists. That seems clear. But why should Janoc think that you particularly are interested in knowing?

Clarke flushed hotly under the paint, being conscious that he was investigating the case on his own private account and in a secret way. As a matter of fact, he was by this time fully convinced that Rose de Bercy's murder was the work of Anarchist hands, but he was so vexed with Furneaux's tricking him, and so fearful of official reprimand from Winter that he only answered:

"Why Janoc should think that I am interested, I can't imagine. It beats me."

"And how can Janoc know where Osborne is, or his assumed name, to write to him?" muttered Furneaux. "I thought that that was a secret between Osborne, Winter, and myself."

Clarke, equally puzzled, scratched his head under his wig, which had been insufferably hot in that stifling room.

"Janoc and his crew must be keeping an eye on Osborne, it seems – for some reason," he exclaimed. "Heaven knows why – I don't. I am out of the de Bercy case, of course. My interest in the Janoc crowd is – political."

"Let me see the letter again," said Furneaux; and he read it carefully once more. Then he opened the sheet, as if seeking additional information from the blank pages, turned it over, looked at the back – and there at the back he saw something else that was astounding, for, written backwards, near the bottom of the page, in Osborne's handwriting, was the word "Rosalind."

"Who is 'Rosalind'?" asked Furneaux – "see here, an impression from some other letter written at the same time."

"Don't know, I'm sure," said Clarke. "A sister, perhaps."

"A sister. Why, though, should his sister's name appear at the back of a note written to Janoc, or to Inspector Clarke, as he thought?" said Furneaux to himself, deep in meditation. He suddenly added brightly: "Now, Clarke, there's a puzzle for you!"

"I don't see it, see any puzzle, I mean. It might have appeared on any other letter, say to his bankers, or to a friend. It was a mere accident. There is nothing in that."

"Quite right," grinned Furneaux. "And it was a sister's name, of course. 'Rosalind.' A pretty name. Poor girl, she will be anxious about her fond and doting brother."

"It may be another woman's name," said Clarke sagely – "though, for that matter, he'd hardly be on with a new love before the other one is cold in her grave, as the saying is."

Furneaux laughed a low, mysterious laugh in his throat. It had a peculiar sound, and rang hard and bitter in the ears of the other.

"I'll keep this, if you don't mind," he said, lapsing into the detective again.

Meantime, Furneaux knew that there were other papers of Janoc's in Clarke's pocket, and he lingered a little to give his colleague a chance of exhibiting them. Clarke made no move, however, so he put out his hand, saying, "Well, good luck," and disappeared southward, while Clarke walked northward toward his residence, Hampstead way. But in Southampton Row an overwhelming impatience to see the other Janoc papers overcame him, and he commenced to examine them as he went.

Two were bills. A third was a newspaper cutting from the Matin commenting on the murder in Feldisham Mansions. The fourth had power to arrest Clarke's steps. It was a letter of three closely-written pages – in French; and though Clarke's French, self-taught, was not fluent, it could walk, if it could not fly. In ten minutes he had read and understood…

St. Petersburg says that since the secret meeting, a steady growth of courage in the rank-and-file is observable. As for the Nevski funds, an individual highly placed, whose name is in three syllables, is said to be willing to come to the rescue. Lastly, as to the traitress, you will see to it that she to whose hands vengeance has been intrusted shall fail on the 3rd.

This was in the letter; and as Inspector Clarke's eyes fell on the date, "the 3d," his clenched hand rose triumphantly in air. It was on July the 3d that Rose de Bercy had been done to death!

When Clarke again walked onward his eyes were alight with a wild exultation. He was thinking:

"Now, Allah be praised, that I didn't show Furneaux this thing, as I nearly was doing!"

He reached his house with a sense of surprise – he had covered so much ground unconsciously, and the dominant thought in his mind was that the race was not always to the swift.

"Luck is the thing in a man's career," he said to himself, "not wit, or mere sharpness to grasp a point. Slow, and steady, and lucky – that's the combination. The British are a race slower of thought than some of the others, just as I may be a slower man than Furneaux, but we Britons rule the world by luck, as we won the battle of Waterloo by luck. Luck and prime beef, they go together somehow, I do believe. And what I am to-day I owe to luck, for it's happened to me too often to doubt that I've got the gift of it in my marrow."

He put his latch-key into the door with something of a smile; and the next morning Mrs. Clarke cried delightedly to him:

"Well, something must have happened to put you in this good temper!"

At that same hour of the morning Furneaux, for his part, was at Osborne's house in Mayfair, where he had an appointment with Mrs. Hester Bates, Osborne's housekeeper. He was just being admitted into the house when the secretary, Miss Prout, walked up to the door – rather to his surprise, for it was somewhat before the hour of a secretary's attendance. They entered together and passed into the library, where Hylda Prout invited him to sit down for a minute.

"I am only here just to collect and answer the morning's letters," she explained pleasantly. "There's a tree which I know in Epping Forest – an old beech – where I'm taking a book to read. See my picnic basket? – tomato and cress sandwiches, half a bottle of Chianti, an aluminum folding cup to drink from. I'll send for Mrs. Bates in a moment, and leave her to your tender inquiries. But wouldn't you prefer Epping Forest on a day like this? Do you like solitude, Inspector Furneaux? Dreams?"

"Yes, I like solitude, as boys like piracy, because unattainable. I can only just find time to sleep, but not time enough to dream."

Hylda lifted her face beatifically.

"I love to dream! – to be with myself – alone: the world in one compartment, I in another, with myself; with silence to hear my heart beat in, and time to fathom a little what its beating is madly trying to say; an old tree overhead, and breezes breathing through it. Oh, they know how to soothe; they alone understand, Inspector Furneaux, and they forgive."

Furneaux said within himself: "Well, I seem to be in for some charming confidences"; and he added aloud: "Quite so; they understand – if it's a lady: for Nature is feminine; and only a lady can fathom a lady."

"Oh, women!" Hylda said, with her pretty pout of disdain, – "they are nothing, mostly shallow shoppers. Give me a man – if he is a man. And there have been a few women, too – in history. But, man or woman, what I believe is that for the greater part, we remain foreigners to ourselves through life – we never reach that depth in ourselves, 'deeper than ever plummet sounded,' where the real I within us lives, the real, bare-faced, rabid, savage, divine I, naked as an ape, contorted, sobbing, bawling what it cannot speak."

Furneaux, who had certainly not suspected this blend of philosopher and poet beneath that mass of red hair, listened in silence. For the second time he saw this strange girl's eyes take fire, glow, rage a moment like a building sweltering in conflagration, and then die down to utter dullness.

Though he knew just when to speak, his reply was rather tame.

"There's something in that, too – you are right."

She suddenly smiled, with a pretty air of confusion.

"Surely," she said. "And now to business: first, Mrs. Bates – "

"One moment," broke in Furneaux. "Something has caused me to wish to ask you – do you know Mr. Osborne's relatives?"

"I know of them. He has only a younger brother, Ralph, who is at Harvard University – and an aunt."

"Aunt's name Rosalind?"

"No – Priscilla – Priscilla Emptage."

"Who, then, may 'Rosalind' be?"

"No connection of his. You must have made some mistake."

Furneaux held out the note of Rupert Osborne to Janoc intended for Clarke, holding it so folded that the name of the hotel was not visible – only the transferred word "Rosalind."

And as Hylda Prout bent over it, perplexed at first by the seeming scrawl, Furneaux's eye was on her face. He was aware of the instant when she recognized the handwriting, the instant when reasoning and the putting of two-and-two together began to work in her mind, the instant when her stare began to widen, and her tight-pressed lips to relax, the rush of color to fade from her face, and the mask of freckles to stand out darkly in strong contrast with her ivory white flesh. When she had stared for a long minute, and had had enough, she did not say anything, but turned away silently to stand at a window, her back to Furneaux.

He looked at her, thinking: "She guesses, and suffers."

Suddenly she whirled round. "May I – see that letter?" she asked in a low voice.

"The whole note?" he said; "I'm afraid that it's private – not my secret – I regret it – an official document, you know."