Мэри Элизабет Брэддон
Wyllard's Weird
"But you had never heard of any marriage – at the Mairie or elsewhere? And, again, your daughter could not be married without your consent."
"I do not say that she had been married in France. She may have been married abroad – in England, perhaps. He took her to England soon after they became acquainted. It was the first time she left Paris with him; and until then I know she had been as distant to him as if she had been the Empress. In England there are no obstacles to marriage; there is no one's consent to be asked."
"We will admit that a marriage in a foreign country would have been possible. But this Maxime de Maucroix, this second admirer – "
"Was only an admirer. My daughter's life was not a disreputable life. I have nothing to reproach myself with upon that score."
"Can you help us to find this man Georges, whom you suspect as the murderer? Do you know where he is to be found?"
"If I did, the police would have known before now. I tell you I know nothing about him – absolutely nothing. I have seen and heard nothing of him since the murder. He has not been to my daughter's apartment since her death – he was not at her funeral. He who pretended to adore her did not follow her to her grave. All Paris was there; but he who was supposed to be her husband was not there."
"How can you tell that he was not there, since you do not know his appearance?"
"Barbe Girot knows him. It is on her authority that I say he was not there."
"I will trouble you with no further questions to-day, madame. I will take Barbe Girot's evidence next."
Barbe Girot's evidence was to the effect that for nearly four years this Monsieur Georges had been a constant visitor at her mistress's apartment. He had come there after the theatre, and it had been Barbe's duty to leave the supper-table laid, and the candles ready on the chimney-piece and table, before she went to bed. Madame Georges let herself in with a latch-key, and Barbe rarely sat up for her. Madame did not always return to the Rue Lafitte for supper. There were occasions when she supped on the Boulevard, or in the Bois, and returned to her apartment at a very late hour. Barbe saw Monsieur Georges occasionally, but not frequently. He was a handsome man, but not in his first youth. He might have been five or six and thirty. He was generous, and appeared to be rich. Whatever his fortune may have been, he would have given Madame the whole of it if she had asked him. There was never a man more passionately in love with a woman. After the Baron de Maucroix's appearance on the scene there were storms. Barbe had seen Monsieur Georges cry like a child. She had also seen him give way to violent passion. There had been one night when she thought that he would kill Madame. He had his hands upon her throat; he seemed as if he were going to strangle her. And then he fell on his knees, and grovelled at her feet. He implored her to forgive him. It was dreadful.
Did Barbe Girot think that Monsieur Georges was Madame's husband?
She had never presumed to form an opinion upon that subject. Her mistress wore a wedding-ring, and was always known as Madame Georges in the house where she lived. Madame's conduct was altogether irreproachable. Until the Baron de Maucroix began to visit her, no other man than Monsieur Georges had crossed her threshold. And the visits of Monsieur de Maucroix were such visits as any gentleman in Paris might pay to any lady, were she the highest in the land.
"Did your mistress ever go out with Monsieur de Maucroix before that fatal visit to Saint-Germain?"
"Never. And on that occasion Madame took the little girl with her. She refused to go alone with the Baron."
"Is it your opinion that your mistress was inclined to favour Monsieur de Maucroix' suit?"
"Alas, yes! He was so young, so fascinating, so handsome, and he adored her. If she had not been in love with him she would hardly have permitted his visits, for they were the cause of such agony of mind to Monsieur Georges."
"It is your belief, then, that she had transferred her affection from the older to the younger lover?"
"I fear so."
"You have not seen Monsieur Georges since the murder?"
"No."
"Are you sure that he was not at the funeral?"
"Quite sure."
"But there was a great crowd at the cemetery. How can you be sure that he was not in the crowd?"
"I cannot be sure of that; but I am sure that he paid my mistress no honour. He was not among those who stood around her grave, or who threw flowers upon her coffin. I stayed by the grave after all was over and the crowd had dispersed; but Monsieur Georges never came near to cast a look upon the spot where my poor mistress was lying. He has not been at her apartment since her death; he never came to look upon her corpse when it was lying there."
"And he has not written – he has given no orders as to the disposal of your mistress's property?"
"No. Madame Lemarque has taken possession of everything. She is living in my mistress's apartment until the furniture can be sold."
"Do you know of any photograph or portrait of Monsieur Georges among your late mistress's possessions?"
"I never saw any such portrait."
"You would know Monsieur Georges wherever you might happen to see him?"
"Yes. I do not think I could fail to recognise him."
"Even if he had disguised himself?"
"Even then. I think I should know his voice anywhere, even if I could not see his face."
"Will you describe him?"
"He is a tall man, broad-shouldered, powerful-looking. He has fine features, blue eyes, light-auburn hair, thick and flowing, and worn much longer than most people wear their hair. He is not so handsome or so elegant as Monsieur de Maucroix, but he has a more commanding look."
"That description would apply to hundreds of men. Can you mention any peculiarity of feature, expression, gait, manner?"
"No, I can recall nothing peculiar."
"And in moments of confidence did your mistress never tell you anything about this Monsieur Georges, his profession, his belongings, his place of residence?"
"Nothing."
"He did not live at your mistress's apartments, I conclude?"
"No, he did not live there."
"Did you never hear how he was occupied during the day, since you say he was never at your mistress's apartment in the daytime?"
"Never. I was told nothing about him except that he was rich and a gentleman. I asked no questions. My place was comfortable, my wages were paid regularly, and Madame was kind to me."
"Where did Léonie Lemarque sleep when she stayed in the Rue Lafitte?"
"She occupied a little bed in my room, which is inside the kitchen."
"Were you long in Madame's service?"
"Nearly four years. From the beginning of her engagement at the Porte-Saint-Martin, when she took the apartment in the Rue Lafitte. Her salary at the theatre justified her in taking such an apartment. Before that time she had been living with her mother on the other side of the Seine."
"Is it your opinion that Monsieur Georges was the murderer?"
"That is my fixed opinion."
This concluded the examination of Barbe Girot. The little girl's examination was not resumed until ten days later. She had been very ill in the mean time, and seemed altogether weak and broken down when she was brought before the Juge d'Instruction. She burst out crying in the midst of her evidence, and the grandmother had great difficulty in calming her.
"We had a nice dinner, and Monsieur de Maucroix was very kind, and gave me grapes and a big peach, and he promised to buy me a doll next day in the Passage Jouffroy. My aunt was sad, and Monsieur de Maucroix begged her to be gay, and he talked about taking her to Italy with him, just as he had talked in the train. And then we went out in a carriage and drove along a terrace, where there was a beautiful view over a river and a great green valley. My aunt seemed much gayer, and she and Monsieur de Maucroix were talking and laughing all the time; and afterwards, when we all got out of the carriage and walked in the forest, they both seemed very happy, and my aunt rested her head on Monsieur de Maucroix's shoulder as they walked along, and said it was like being in heaven to be in that moonlit forest with him; and then, just at that moment, a man rushed out from the darkness under the trees, like a wild beast out of a cave, and shot, and shot, and shot, again and again and again. And first Monsieur de Maucroix fell, and then my aunt, and she was all over blood. I could see it streaming over her light-blue gown, first one stream and then another. I can see it now. I am seeing it always. It wakes me out of my sleep. O, take it away; take away the dark forest; take away the blood!"
At this point, said the report, the child again became hysterical, and had to be carried away. After this she had an attack of brain-fever, and could not again be interrogated formally.
END OF VOL. I
WYLLARD'S WEIRD
CHAPTER I.
LÉONIE'S MISSION
The report of the interrogatory before the Juge d'Instruction was followed by a page of notes written by the police-officer Drubarde.
The child Léonie Lemarque was not again in a condition to give her evidence. A violent attack of brain-fever succeeded her second appearance before the Juge d'Instruction, and on her recovery from the fever it was found that her mind had suffered seriously from the shock she had undergone. Memory was a blank. The Juge d'Instruction visited her in her own home when she was convalescent, and tried to recall the impressions made upon her at the time of the murder, in the hope of identifying the murderer; but she had forgotten the whole circumstances of her aunt's death, and yet she suffered agonies from a vague terror associated in her enfeebled mind with the very name of that aunt.
As soon as she was well enough to travel she was taken to the Ursuline convent at Dinan by a good priest who had befriended her grandmother for many years. After this transference to the convent the police lost sight of the child Lemarque.
Throughout the evening, even amidst the distractions of a finely acted comedy by Augier, and in the wakeful intervals of a somewhat disturbed night, Edward Heathcote brooded over the details of the evidence which he had read, not once, but several times, before he closed the volume of reports.
The detective instinct, which is a characteristic of every well-trained lawyer's mind, had been suddenly developed into almost a passion. He no longer limited his desire to the unravelling of the web of Léonie Lemarque's fate; he ardently longed to discover the mystery of Marie Prévol's murder – to succeed where one of the most accomplished Parisian detectives had ignominiously failed. His eagerness to hear more about Drubarde's efforts and failures in this particular case led him to the Quai des Grands Augustins at an early hour, in time to surprise the worthy Félix in the act of breakfasting temperately upon café au lait and boiled eggs.
Monsieur Drubarde gave his new friend a cheery welcome. It was a lovely morning, balmy as midsummer, and the little garden on the leads was bright with gaily-coloured asters, nasturtiums, and geraniums, and agreeably perfumed with mignonette.
"Do you perceive the exquisite odours?" asked Drubarde.
"Your mignonette is delicious."
"My mignonette!" cried the police-officer scornfully. "Why, when the wind blows straight from the flower-market, as it does to-day, I can sit in my garden and enjoy all the perfumes of the Riviera. I can revel in orange-blossoms, drink my fill of tube-roses and stephanotis, Maréchal Niel and Jacqueline roses. And look what a view! Not a touch of the sculptor's chisel that I cannot see yonder on the old kings of Notre Dame; not a cornice or a column in the new hospital that does not stand clear in the morning light! And yet Paris is peopled with fools who do not make gardens on their housetops!"
"Perhaps every landlord would not be so complaisant as yours, Monsieur Drubarde, nor every housetop so adapted to horticulture."
"True, your Parisian landlord is a churl and a niggard, and a good many of our housetops are no doubt impracticable. But the inventive mind, the love of the beautiful, is more often wanting. I see you have been good enough to bring back my volume. You have read the report, I suppose?"
"Every line, every syllable, three times over."
"And you are interested?"
"Deeply. I was never more intensely interested in any case that has come within my knowledge: yet as a lawyer I have become acquainted with many strange stories. Yes, I am more interested than I can say in the fate of that unhappy actress, in the character of her mysterious lover: and yet I doubt if this former crime has any bearing upon the murder of Léonie Lemarque."
"It would certainly be going somewhat far to suppose a link between the death of a girl travelling alone in Cornwall – a death which may after all have been accidental – and the murder of her aunt ten years before in the forest of Saint-Germain. However, it is only by the minutest scrutiny of Léonie's past life that you can arrive at the motive which took her to England, and discover whether she had an enemy in that country – that is to say, if she was lured across the Channel in order to be made away with by that enemy. A very wild and far-fetched supposition I think you will admit, Monsieur, and one which our talented friend Mr. Distin would not entertain for five minutes."
"Professional acumen like Mr. Distin's is apt to run in grooves – to be too intent upon following the practical and the possible, to shut out the romantic element, to strangle the imagination, and to forget that it is very often by following the apparently impossible that we arrive at the truth."
"I see you are an enthusiast, Monsieur."
"I have never tried to subjugate my imagination. As a lawyer I found ideality the most useful faculty of my brain. Now, I have been thinking about Léonie Lemarque's fate from every possible point of view, from the standpoint of imagination as well as from the standpoint of common sense; and it has occurred to me that if the murderer of Marie Prévol were living, he would be Léonie's natural enemy."
"Why so?"
"Because she was the only witness of his crime. She alone would have the power to identify him as the murderer."
"You forget that it is just that power which the poor girl lost during her illness. The fever deprived her of memory."
"That effect of the fever may not have been permanent. The agitation which she showed at the mention of her aunt's name – when Sister Gudule questioned her about the silk handkerchief given to her by Marie Prévol – would indicate that memory was not a blank. And again, if she had forgotten the person of the murderer, or even the fact of the murder, he would not know that, and would regard her existence as a source of danger to himself."
Félix Drubarde smiled the superior smile of experience reproving folly.
"And you think that after having allowed this one witness of his crime to exist unmolested for ten years, the assassin all at once took it into his head to murder her; that with this view he carried her to your barbarous province of Cornuailles, and there flung her over an embankment. I am tempted to paraphrase the Scripture, Monsieur, and to exclaim, 'Are there not viaducts and embankments in this vast France of ours, that a man should go to the remote west of your little England in order to commit murder in that particular fashion!'"
Heathcote felt that the police-officer had the best of the argument.
"I grant that it would have been a clumsy method of getting rid of the girl," he said, "but murder has been clumsily done before to-day, and imagination can conceive no crime so improbable as not to be paralleled by fact. However, it is perhaps too soon to speculate that the murderer of Marie Prévol was also the murderer of Léonie Lemarque. What we have to do is to find out the reason of the girl's journey to England. But before we set about that task, I should like you to tell me what steps you took in your endeavour to trace the murderer after the examination before the Juge d'Instruction."
"I looked over the case in my note-book last night, as I was prepared for you to ask for those details," replied Drubarde. "It was a case that interested me profoundly, all the more so, perhaps, because I made so little headway in my investigations. My first endeavour was to trace the murderer's proceedings immediately after the crime. He must have made his escape from Saint-Germain somehow, unless he had killed himself in some obscure corner of the wood. Even then the finding of the body would have been a question of so many days, weeks, or months. Alive, it would have been impossible for him to remain in hiding in the forest for a week, as the wood was searched thoroughly during the three days immediately succeeding the murder. On the third day a hat was found in a boggy bit of ground, ever so far from the scene of the crime. The hat was a gentleman's hat, but it had been lying three days and nights in a bog. It had been rained upon for two days out of the three – there was no maker's name – no indication by which the owner of the hat could be traced. That it had been found so far off seemed to me to prove that the murderer had been roaming the wood in a wild and disordered frame of mind, and walking at a tremendous pace, or he could never have got over the distance between the time when he was seen by the waiter at the Henri Quatre, to turn the corner of the terrace, and the period of the murder."
"You believe, then, that the man seen by the waiter was actually the murderer?"
"I have no doubt of it. That spasmodic walk, that hesitancy, the looking back, and then hurrying on – all these indicated a mind engaged upon some agitating theme. The man was seen watching the window inside which Marie Prévol and her admirer were seated. He moved away when he saw himself observed. He had disguised himself as much as he could by turning up the collar of his coat; and who can doubt that this was the same man who had been seen by Léonie in the railway-station, watching Marie Prévol and her lover from behind the door of the waiting-room? The dark spectacles were part of a disguise. These are all details that point to one conclusion. The finding of the hat induced me to visit every shop in Saint-Germain where a hat could be bought. It was clear that the murderer could not have gone far from the forest bare-headed, without attracting attention. He must have procured a hat somehow; and it was not long before I ascertained that a hat had been bought late on that very evening. At a shop in an out-of-the-way corner of the town I was told that a boy, a gamin, had come in on the night of the murder, and had asked for a cloth travelling-cap. He had chosen one with flaps to protect the ears, a form of cap intended to give the utmost protection from cold. He paid for his purchase with a napoleon, and seemed in a great hurry to be gone, not even stopping to count his change. The shopkeeper had wondered at such a little ragamuffin being intrusted with a purchase of the kind. The man had been on the point of closing his shop, and therefore was quite positive as to the hour. It was his invariable habit to put up his shutters at nine o'clock, and the clock was striking as the boy came to the door of the shop, breathless and heated, as if he had been running for some distance."
"And you conclude that this travelling-cap was bought for the murderer?"
"Hear the sequel, and judge for yourself. I went from the hatter's to the railway-station, and there, after having been bandied about from pillar to post, I succeeded in finding a tolerably intelligent official who remembered the night of the murder – now ten days past – and who could recall most of the passengers who had left for Paris by the half-past nine o'clock train upon that particular night. The news of the murder had not been brought to the station before the starting of the train: a most criminal neglect on the part of the local police. No suspicious-looking person had been observed to enter the train; but upon my questioning him closely, the man remembered having noticed a traveller who wore a cloth cap with flaps over the ears – a seemingly needless protection upon a mild September evening. 'There is one who takes care of himself,' the railway official had thought. For the rest, this passenger had looked like a gentleman, tall, erect, well-built, a bigger man than the majority of Frenchmen – what the railway official permitted himself to call un bel homme. Had he appeared agitated, breathless, in a hurry? No, the official had noticed nothing extraordinary in his manner. He wore smoke-coloured spectacles, which concealed the expression of his eyes. He had a return-ticket for Paris. The train was scarcely out of the station when the police came to make inquiries. The murder had been known of at the police-station at a quarter past eight, and it was not until after half-past nine that the police thought of setting a watch upon the railway-station. That is how your rustic police favour the escape of a criminal."
"Did you trace your gentleman in the cloth cap any further?"
"Not an inch. No one had observed him at Saint-Lazare, nor at any intermediate station where the train stopped. I wearied myself during the next six weeks in the endeavour to trace the man called Georges, who must have had some local habitation in Paris besides Marie Prévol's apartment. In vain. In no quarter of Paris could I hear of any apartment occupied by a man answering to the description of this man who called himself Georges – rich, independent, handsome, in the prime of life. I could trace no such man among the prosperous classes of Paris, and my machinery for tracking any individual in the wilderness of this great city had hitherto proved almost infallible. This man baffled me. I 'touched on him' now and again, as you English say of your hunted fox, but I could never get upon a scent strong enough to follow; and in the end I gave up all hope of finding him. He must have sneaked out of France under the very noses of the police; for I had set a watch upon every probable exit from this country."
"No doubt he was clever enough to choose the most improbable point of departure. Did you see much of Madame Lemarque after the murder?"
"No. My interest in her ceased when I gave up the case as hopeless. I had fresh cases – new interests; and the murder of Marie Prévol remained in my mind only as a tradition, until you recalled the story of the crime."
"I telegraphed yesterday to the principal of the Ursuline convent at Dinan," said Mr. Heathcote, "and I have obtained from her the address at which Madame Lemarque was living two years ago, when her niece was sent back to Paris in company with other pupils. After leaving you I shall go to that address, and try to find Madame Lemarque. I may have the painful duty of informing her of her granddaughter's death; and yet I can but think that were the grandmother still living she must have heard of the girl's death, and would have communicated with the Cornish police."
"That is to suppose her more intelligent than the average Frenchwoman," said Drubarde, as if he belonged to another nation. "Suppose I accompany you in your search for Madame Lemarque? That ought to be interesting."
"I shall be delighted to secure your aid."
Monsieur Drubarde and his guest descended the ladder. The detective put on a gray overcoat, which concealed and subjugated the airiness of his summer attire. He put on the hat of sober commonplace existence, and contrived to give himself an almost patriarchal aspect before he left his lodging.
The street in which Madame Lemarque had been living when the nuns of Dinan last heard of her was a narrow and shabby little street between Saint-Sulpice and the Luxembourg. The house was decently kept, and had a respectable air, and was evidently not one of those caravanserais where lodgers come and go with every term. It had a settled sober appearance, and the brass plates upon the door told of permanent residents with reputable avocations. One of these plates informed society that Mesdames Lemarque and Beauville, Robes et Modes, occupied the third floor. The staircase was clean and quiet, and the first sound that saluted Mr. Heathcote's ears as he went up-stairs was the screech of a parrot, which became momentarily louder as the visitors approached the third floor.
On the door on the left of the landing appeared another brass plate – Mesdames Lemarque et Beauville, Robes, Modes, Chapeaux.
Heathcote rang the bell. He felt curiously agitated at the thought that in the next minute he might be face to face with the dead girl's grandmother.
The door was opened by an elderly woman in black, very sallow, very thin, with prominent cheekbones and hungry black eyes. She was neatly clad, her rusty silk gown fitting her fleshless form to perfection, her linen collar and cuffs spotlessly clean, her iron-gray hair carefully arranged; but poverty was stamped upon every fold of her gown, and written in every line upon her forehead.
"Madame Lemarque?" inquired Heathcote, while the ci-devant police-officer looked over his shoulder.
"No, I am not Madame Lemarque, but I am her business representative. Any orders intended for Madame Lemarque can be executed by me. I am Mademoiselle Beauville."
"Alas, Mademoiselle, it is not a question of orders," replied Heathcote, in his most courteous tones. "I have come on a painful errand. I have to impart very sad news to Madame Lemarque."
Madame Beauville sighed and shrugged her thin shoulders.
"Madame Lemarque is taking her rest in a place where all the events of this earth are alike indifferent," she said. "Take the trouble to enter my humble apartment, gentlemen. Madame Lemarque was my partner and my friend."
Heathcote and his companion followed the dressmaker into her little salon, where a dilapidated old gray cockatoo was clambering upon a perch, seemingly in danger of doing himself to death head downwards at every other minute. The salon was like the appearance of Mademoiselle Beauville, scrupulously neat, painfully pinched and spare. A poor little old-fashioned walnut table, polished to desperation, a cheap little china vase of common flowers, a carpet which covered only a small island in an ocean of red tiles, an old mahogany secrétaire with materials for writing, and by way of decoration the fashion-plates of Le Follet neatly pinned against the dingy wall-paper. There was a work-basket on the table, and Mademoiselle Beauville had apparently been busily remaking a very old gown of her own, in order to keep her hand in during the dead season.
Heathcote discovered later that Mademoiselle Beauville cherished one bitter and unappeasable hatred, and that was against Messrs. Spricht, Van Klopen, and the whole confraternity of men-milliners.
"Then Madame Lemarque is dead, I apprehend, Mademoiselle?"
"Madame Lemarque died last June."
"Suddenly?"
"No, she had been ailing for some time. But the end came more quickly than she expected. My poor friend had but a short time in which to arrange her affairs."
"Was her granddaughter Léonie living with her at the time of her death?"
"She was. But what do you know about Léonie?"
The ex-detective laid his hand hastily upon Heathcote's wrist before he could answer.
"Answer nothing until we have heard what she can tell us," he whispered.
"I know very little about her, but I am anxious to know more; and if you should be a loser by the waste of your time in answering my inquiries, I shall be most happy to recompense you for that loss," said Heathcote.
The spinster's hungry eyes sparkled. Decent poverty has depths unknown to the professed pauper. Mademoiselle's larder would have exhibited a touching spectacle to the eye of the philosopher or physiologist. The philosopher would have wondered that woman can endure privation with such patience: the physiologist would have been surprised that humanity can sustain life upon so little. For weeks past Mademoiselle Beauville's most luxurious idea of dinner had been an egg. For the last week her daily ration had been two halfpenny rolls.
"Tell me all you can about your friend and her grandchild," asked Heathcote eagerly. "I am particularly interested in knowing everything; but as it is dry work talking, and as neither my friend nor I have lunched, it might be a good idea to get a bottle of Bordeaux and a few biscuits, if Mademoiselle will permit us to refresh ourselves in her apartment."
His keen glance had noted the hollow cheeks and glittering eyes of the dressmaker, and he wanted an excuse for giving life and warmth to that impoverished form. Drubarde caught at the idea, thinking that his client's design was to loosen the lady's tongue by the agency of Bacchus. It was altogether an amateur's notion, crude, wanting in subtlety; but the genial Drubarde was willing to indulge a beginner who was feeling his way in the elements of a great art.
"I'll fetch a bottle of wine myself," he said cheerily; "I know where I can get one close by, and of the best."
"Bring two," said Heathcote. "Mademoiselle will accept the second bottle by way of souvenir."
"Monsieur, do you wish to make me a drunkard? I have not tasted wine since my poor friend's death," protested Mademoiselle Beauville, but there was a look in her face which told Heathcote that his gift would not be unwelcome.
Drubarde ran down-stairs like a boy, and was back in five minutes, carrying a couple of sealed bottles, labelled St. Estèphe, and a large bag of biscuits.
Mademoiselle had set out a tray in the mean time, with her poor little stock of glasses, three in all, and one of those cracked, and an old china plate for the biscuits. Again her eyes glistened when she saw the ample biscuit-bag.
"Let me look at the name on the bag," said Heathcote.
Strange, it was the very name upon that biscuit-bag which he carried at this moment, neatly folded in his pocket-book, the bag which had been found in the second-class compartment from which the girl fell!
