The de Bercy Affair

No answer.

"I only ask you to promise – to give your simple word – not to say, or hint, to anyone that Pauline had the daggers. What a risk I take! What trust in you! I do not know you – I but trust blindly in the highly-evolved, that divine countenance which is yours; and since it was with the object of saving my sister that you came here with me, my gratitude to you deepens my trust. Give me, then, this promise, Miss Marsh!"

Now her lips opened a little to form the word "No," which he could just catch.

"Sublime!" he cried – "and I am no less sublime. If I was rich, if I had a fair name, and if I could dare to hope to win the love of a lady such as you, how favored of the gods I should be! But that is – a dream. Here, then, you will remain, until the day that Pauline is safely hidden in France: and on that day – since for myself I care little – I will open this door to you: never before. Meanwhile, tell me if you think of anything more that I can do for your comfort."

No answer.

"Good-night." He turned to go.

"You made me a promise," she said at the last moment.

"I have kept it," he said. "This afternoon, at great risk to myself, I wrote to your mother the words: 'Your daughter is alive and safe.' Are you satisfied?"

"Thank you," she said.

"Good-night," he murmured again.

Having locked the door, he waited five minutes outside silently, to hear if she sobbed or wailed in there in the utter dark: but no sound came to him. He went upstairs, put out the light, put down the candlestick in the passage, and was just drawing back the door latch, when he was aware of a strong step marching quickly along an almost deserted pavement.

After a little he peeped out and recognized the heavy figure of Inspector Winter. Even Janoc, the dreamer, whose dreams took such tragic shape, was surprised for an instant.

"How limited is the consciousness of men!" he muttered. "That so-called clever detective little guesses what he has just passed by."

But Winter, too, might have indulged in the same reflection: "How limited the consciousness of Janoc! He doesn't know where I am passing to – to visit and question his sister Pauline!"

Winter, a little further on, took a taxicab to Porchester Gardens, got out at the bottom of the street, and was walking on to Mrs. Marsh's temporary residence, when he saw Furneaux coming the opposite way.

Winter wished to pretend not to see him, but Furneaux spoke.

"Well, Providence throws us together somehow!"

"Ah! Why blame Providence?" said Winter, with rather a snarl.

"Not two hours ago there was our chance meeting by that graveside – "

The "chance" irritated Winter to the quick.

"You have all the faults of the French nature," he said bitterly, "without any of its merits: its levity without its industry, its pettiness without its minuteness – "

"And you the English frankness without its honesty. The chief thing about a Frenchman is his intelligence. At least you do not deny that I am intelligent?"

"I have thought you intelligent. I am damned if I think you so any longer."

"Oh, you will again – soon – when I wish it. We met just now at a grave, and there was more buried in that grave than the grave-diggers know: and we both stood looking at it: but I fancy there were more X-rays in my eye to see what was buried there than in yours!"

Driven beyond the bounds of patience, Winter threw out an arm in angry protest.

"Ha! ha! ha!" tittered Furneaux.

An important official at Scotland Yard must learn early the value of self-control. Consumed with a certain sense of the monstrous in this display of untimely mirth, Winter only gnawed a bristle or two of his mustache. He looked strangely at Furneaux, and they lingered together, loath to part, having still something bitter and rankling to say, but not knowing quite what, since men who have been all in all to each other cannot quarrel without some childish tone of schoolboy spite mingling in the wrangle.

"I believe I know where you are going now!" jeered Furneaux.

"Ah, you were always good at guessing."

"Going to pump the Pauline girl about Miss Marsh."

"True, of course, but not a very profound analysis considering that I am just ten yards from the house."

"Don't you even know where Miss Rosalind Marsh is?" asked Furneaux, producing a broken cigar from a pocket and sniffing it, simply because he was well aware that the trick displeased his superior.

"No. Do you?" Winter jeered back at him.

"I do."

"Oh, the sheerest bluff!"

"No, no bluff. I know."

"Well, let me imagine that it is bluff, anyway: for brute as a man might be, I won't give you credit for being such a brute as to keep that poor old lady undergoing the torments of hell through a deliberate silence of yours."

"Didn't you say that I have all the bad qualities of the Latin temperament?" answered Furneaux. "Now, there is something cat-like in the Latin; a Spaniard, for example, can be infernally cruel at a bullfight; and I'll admit that I can, too. But 'torments of hell' is rather an exaggeration, nor will the 'torments' last mortally long, for to-morrow afternoon at about four – at the hour that I choose – in the hour that I am ready – Miss Marsh will drive up to that door there."

"Evidently you were not born in Jersey, but in Gascony," Winter said sourly.

"Wrong again! A Jersey man will bounce any Gascon off his feet," said Furneaux. "And, just to pile up the agony, here is another sample for you, since you accuse me of bluffing. To-morrow afternoon, at that same hour – about four – I shall have that scoundrel Osborne in custody charged with the murder in Feldisham Mansions."

"Mr. Osborne?" whispered Winter, towering and frowning above his diminutive adversary. "Oh, Furneaux, you drive me to despair by your folly. If you are mad, which I hope you are, that explains, I suppose, your delusion that others are mad, too."

"Genius is closely allied with insanity," said Furneaux carelessly; "yet, you observe that I have never hinted any doubt as to your saneness. Wait, you'll see: my case against Osborne is now complete. A warrant can't be refused, not even by you, and to-morrow, as sure as you stand there, I lay my hand on your protégé's shoulder."

Winter nearly choked in his rage.

"All right! We'll see about that!" he said with a furious nod of menace. Furneaux chuckled; and now by a simultaneous impulse they walked apart, Furneaux whistling, in Winter a whirlwind of passion blowing the last shreds of pity from his soul.

He was soon sitting at the bedside of Pauline Dessaulx, now convalescent, though the coming of this strange man threw her afresh into a tumult of agitation. But Winter comforted her, smoothed her hand, assured her that there was no cause for alarm.

"I know that you took Mademoiselle de Bercy's diary," he said to her, "and it was very wrong of you not to give it up to the police, and to hide yourself as you did when your evidence was wanted. But, don't be frightened – I am here to-night to see if you can throw any light on the sad disappearance of Miss Marsh. The suspense is killing her mother, and I feel sure that it has some connection with the Feldisham Mansions affair. Now, can you help me? Think – tell me."

"Oh, I cannot!" She wrung her hands in a paroxysm of distress – "If I could, I would. I cannot imagine – !"

"Well, then, that part of my inquiry is ended. Only, listen to this attentively. I want to ask you one other question: Why did you leave the Exhibition early on the night of the murder, and where did you go to?"

"I – I – I, sir!" she said, pointing to her guiltless breast with a gaping mouth; "I, poor me, I left– ?"

"Oh, come now, don't delude yourself that the police are fools. You went to the Exhibition with the cook, Hester Se – "