Мэри Элизабет Брэддон
Wyllard's Weird
"And now, Mademoiselle, tell me all you can about your deceased friend and her granddaughter. You had known Madame Lemarque for some time, I conclude?"
"I had lived with her for nearly ten years."
"For nearly ten years? Then you must have joined your fortunes with hers very soon after the murder of her daughter, Marie Prévol?"
"You have heard of that terrible event, then, Monsieur?" asked the dressmaker. "It is so long since it happened that I thought it had been forgotten by all the world except me."
"No, Mademoiselle; a tragedy so terrible as that can never be forgotten by those who study the physiology of crime. I am keenly interested in tracing the murderer of Marie Prévol."
"After ten years!" exclaimed Mademoiselle Beauville, with an incredulous smile. "Only a dreamer could think of such a thing, Monsieur."
"Then I am such a dreamer, Mademoiselle, and I hope you will help me to realise my dream."
"Does Monsieur know that Monsieur Mardoche, one of the most distinguished of our Juges d'Instruction, took up this case with enthusiasm; that the police were never more earnest than in their endeavour to find poor Marie Prévol's murderer? Does Monsieur know that it was a double murder, and that the Baron de Maucroix, a young man of high family and large fortune, was also a victim? Does Monsieur suppose that the Baron's friends were idle – that no inducement was offered to the police?"
"I am aware of all this, Mademoiselle, and I know that the cleverest police in the world – "
"Except Russia. We must always bow to the superior genius of the north," interjected Drubarde.
"I am aware that the police failed. But you must consider, Mademoiselle, that when the police of Paris were keenest in their pursuit of the assassin, the assassin was most upon his guard. The consciousness of his crime, the horror of his position, intensified his intelligence. He had but one thought – to escape detection. Every act, every movement, every word was planned with that purpose. But now ten years have gone by – ten years of security. The murderer may be less guarded, more open to detection. He will have grown careless – foolhardy even – believing that after such an interval detection must be impossible. If Mademoiselle will do me the honour to touch glasses, we will discuss this question at our leisure."
He had filled the three glasses, but he had perceived that the dressmaker had a delicacy in drinking the wine he had provided, so he took up his glass and offered the edge of it to hers; and, emboldened by this friendly movement, the spinster clinked her glass against the rim of his, then against that of the patriarchal Drubarde, while the cockatoo, wondering at this unwonted revelry, screeched his loudest.
"To your good health, gentlemen," faltered the dressmaker, before she sipped her wine.
"To the speedy discovery of Marie Prévol's murderer," said Heathcote.
"Did you know our poor Marie, Monsieur, that you are thus interested in her dark fate?"
"No, Mademoiselle."
"O, if you had but known her, I should understand your desire to avenge her death. She was so lovely. To know her was to adore her. Even a soured old maid such as I could but yield to her charm. She was as loving as she was lovable; a clinging disposition, a poetical nature. Her life was not blameless, perhaps – who knows? We will not scrutinise too closely. She was as different from those harpies whom one hears of in Paris as a wild rose in the hedge is different from a jewel that has gone the round of every Mont-de-Piété in the city. Her heart was pure as the heart of a child. She had no ambition but to love and to be loved. The man who absorbed her life for a long time, whose hand perhaps slew her, was rich, lavish. He would have loaded her with gifts if she had let him, he would have taken her off the stage and allowed her to play the fine lady; but to the last she preserved the same modest ideas – generous to others, careless of herself."
"Did you ever see the man who called himself Georges?"
"Never. He was a man of curious habits. He loved the night better than the day. Nothing delighted him more than a moonlight drive in the Bois after midnight, a supper at the Cascade. He patronised the restaurants that keep open half the night. Marie and he used to sup together at the Café de Paris, sometimes with one or two chosen friends, but much more often alone. I was not Madame Lemarque's partner at that time; but I occupied a room in the roof of this house, and I used to work by the day for Madame and for Marie. I have spent many days working for her in the Rue de Lafitte. I made all her gowns, and I was proud that she should challenge comparison with actresses who squandered their thousands upon such impostors as Spricht and Van Klopen. Imagine, Monsieur, a man – a stern rugged nature which can have no true feeling for the beauty of woman's dress – a being of angles and hard lines – a creature without grace or flou. No wonder that square shoulders and pointed elbows have come into fashion since men have dictated the dress of women!"
Mademoiselle had mounted her hobby, and was riding furiously.
"Doubtless it is a mistake in art, and one that must be discovered before long," said Heathcote soothingly. "But tell me, Mademoiselle, in all your visits to the Rue de Lafitte, did you never encounter Georges?"
"Never."
"Strange! And did your friend Mademoiselle Prévol talk much of this Monsieur Georges?"
"Yes, she used to talk to me a great deal about him at one time, poor child: I think she talked even more freely to me than to her mother. Madame Lemarque was just a little too fond of money, too eager for gifts from her child, and that wounded Marie's generous nature. 'You value people only for what they can give you,' she said once to her mother. 'If Georges were Satan, you would like him just as well – provided you got enough of his money.' And then there was a quarrel, as you may suppose, Monsieur. There were excuses to be made for Madame Lemarque, poor soul. She had been rich once – an atelier in the Rue de la Paix – a country house at Asnières – but these man-milliners had spoiled her trade, and at this time she was very poor, living in these rooms which you see, and working for half a dozen shabby customers who ground her to the dust by their meanness. And then when Marie gave her money she spent it recklessly – she ate and drank like a princess – she took a voiture de place, whenever she went out: she thought that Marie could never do too much for her or her son's orphan child Léonie."
"Léonie lived with her grandmother, did she not?"
"Yes, Madame Lemarque had kept her since she was three years old. It was a dull life for a child. She used to sit on a little stool in that corner, and thread needles for her grandmother. When she was eight years old she could work very neatly; she ran errands too. She earned her daily bread, poor child. But her happiest days were those she spent with her aunt in the Rue Lafitte."
"Mademoiselle Prévol was good to her?"
"Good to her? Yes, and to every one who came in her way. I tell you she was a creature made up of sweetness and love."
"And was she devoted to this Monsieur Georges?"
"At one time, yes. It was an adoration on both sides. Marie used to tell me of their journeys in foreign countries, under a southern sky. Of their happy life, far away from the crowd; of his boundless love for her, his generosity, his devotion. She had a fever in Venice, and he nursed her, and watched beside her bed day and night – thirteen days and thirteen nights – till she was out of danger. It was a love such as one reads of in poetry."
"Have you any reason to think that she was his lawful wife?"
"I cannot tell. His constancy and devotion were those of the best of husbands. She wore a wedding-ring, and she was always called by his name when they travelled, as well as in her lodgings. It was almost at the beginning of their attachment that he took her to England. I have sometimes thought that they were married in England."
"Did he introduce her to his friends in Paris?"
"Only a few artists and writers whom she used to meet at supper. They were some of the wildest young men in Paris."
"But he introduced her to no ladies – to no families of good standing?"
"I doubt if he could have had any such friends. He lived too eccentric a life to cultivate what you call respectable acquaintance."
"Was he himself an artist?"
"I think not. He was too rich for a painter or an author."
"And you have never heard of him since Marie Prévol's death?"
"Never."
"What became of the jewels and other property which had belonged to Mademoiselle Prévol?"
"They were sold by her mother, who lived upon the proceeds of the sale for some years. She paid for Léonie's schooling out of the same fund. It was only in the last years of her life that she again became poor. But to the very last she had means of her own – a small income, the source of which was unknown to me. She might have lived very comfortably if she had not been extravagant; but she had no prudence, and there were times when she was almost penniless. She took me into partnership very soon after her daughter's death. She had sent the little girl to a convent, and she felt lonely and nervous in these rooms. Her spirits never recovered from the shock of that terrible murder – the horror of the night in which Léonie was brought home to her by the police from Saint-Germain, who told her the history of the murder. She invited me to share her apartment, and to work for her, taking half the profits of the business. The profits were of the smallest, but she gave me my board and lodging, and I was too fond of Madame Lemarque, and of Jacko," added the spinster, looking fondly at the cockatoo.
"That is Madame Lemarque's parrot, I conclude?"
"Yes. He belonged to poor Marie. Ah, he could tell us a great deal, if he would but talk sense instead of repeating foolish songs. She bought him from a sailor at Marseilles, and brought him home with her after one of her autumn holidays. She used to teach him lines from the songs she sang at the theatre."
"Moi, je suis le radis noir!" shrieked the parrot.
"You were living with Madame Lemarque when her granddaughter returned from Dinan, I suppose?" said Heathcote.
"Ah, you seem to know all about it. Yes, I was with Madame when she went to Saint-Lazare to meet the child. Such a bright, pretty girl she had grown – so amiable, and clever, and industrious. I never thought she would act towards me as she has done."
"In what way has she acted badly?"
"She went to England directly after her grandmother's death – that is more than two months ago – and she has not written to me once since then. No doubt she has found powerful friends – rich friends – and has no need of a poor old woman like me."
"There may be some other reason for her silence," said Heathcote gravely.
"What other reason?"
"Some misfortune; an accident, perhaps. She had to travel by steamer and by railway. Might not something have happened?"
"I have thought of that sometimes," said the dressmaker, with a distressed look, "and if I had had a friend in England – one single friend – I should have written to ask that friend to make inquiries. But I have so few friends – hardly any one in Paris, no one outside Paris," she concluded dejectedly.
"But surely you knew Léonie's errand? You knew to whom she was going? You might have written to that person."
"I know nothing. The girl's errand was a secret from me. On her death-bed Madame Lemarque gave her granddaughter some commission. There were letters or papers of some kind, I think, which she was to take to somebody in England, and that person was expected to befriend her. The grandmother was very secret about it. She would not speak to Léonie on the subject while I was in the room, but on reëntering rather suddenly I saw some papers on the bed. I overheard a few words – something about a friend of Monsieur Georges, rich, powerful."
"And it was to this friend of Georges, the murderer, that Léonie was to appeal for protection and help?"
"Remember we are not certain that Georges was the murderer. It is only a supposition."
"But a supposition so well grounded as to be almost certainty. An adoring lover, who disappears immediately after the murder of his mistress – a lover who had good ground for jealousy, and is known to have been madly jealous, mark you; a murder that could only have been inspired by madness or by jealousy. If these facts are not strong enough to condemn Monsieur Georges, what does circumstantial evidence mean?"
"Don't talk to me about it," muttered Drubarde impatiently. "Georges was the murderer. The police were at fault in their search for him, but they were never in doubt as to his guilt."
"And it was to a friend of her daughter's murderer that Madame Lemarque sent her granddaughter?"
"What other resources had she, do you think?" exclaimed the dressmaker. "She was dying, penniless, friendless, leaving her grandchild to the mercy of strangers. She knew that Monsieur Georges was a rich man, and that any friend of Monsieur Georges was likely to be well off. I daresay she knew no more than the name of this friend."
"Did you hear the name?"
"Never. I heard her tell Léonie that the gentleman was in London. He was living at some hotel, the name of which I forget."
"Would you recognise it if you heard it?" asked Heathcote.
"Perhaps. I am not sure."
He went over the names of the principal hotels, without success. Mademoiselle Beauville could not remember to have heard any one of them.
"You are sure that Mademoiselle Lemarque was to go to London," inquired Heathcote, "and no further than London? You heard no mention of Cornwall or Plymouth?"
He repeated the names of county and town – giving each the true Gallic intonation – but they suggested nothing to Mademoiselle Beauville.
"She was to go to London – nowhere else. But why do you ask?"
"I will tell you that presently. Did Léonie Lemarque leave Paris immediately after her grandmother's death?"
"She left the evening after the funeral. She did not even wait to get a mourning-gown made. She had worn a black gown belonging to me at the funeral, and she changed it for her gray alpaca gown before she left."
"Did she take no luggage?"
"Only a change of linen in a handbag."
"How did she travel?"
"She went from the Station du Nord at eight o'clock. I walked to the station with her, poor child. We were both very sad, and very tired. She was to cross from Calais to Dover in the night, and she would arrive in London early next morning. She promised me to write on the day of her arrival. I told her that I thought it was a dangerous thing for a young girl to go alone to meet a stranger, a man whose face she had never seen. She said her grandmother had told her that he was a good and honourable man, who had befriended her in her poverty, and she (Léonie) was to trust him. She begged me not to ask her any questions. Her grandmother had warned her to say nothing until after she had arrived in England, when she was to write to me and tell me of her new home. When I pressed her to give me her confidence, she began to cry; but I managed to find out that she was going to London with the idea of being placed in some rich and aristocratic family, where she would be a companion to the children and teach them her own language. She was not accomplished enough to be a governess of a superior kind."
"How did she get the money for her journey?"
"Her grandmother gave it her on her death-bed; but as there had been hardly any money in the house for the last week of Madame Lemarque's illness, I concluded that this money had been sent from the person in England in reply to an application from Madame Lemarque."
"Did you post any letter addressed to England during your friend's illness?"
"I did not; but Léonie may have done so. She went out every day upon some errand or other. And now, Monsieur, pray tell me how you came to know all about Léonie, and if you have any bad news for me."
"Alas, Mademoiselle, I have the worst possible news. Your young friend is dead."
"Dead! And there was no one to tell me. The gentleman who was to befriend her, to whom she went as to a protector and benefactor, he did not even take the trouble to tell me her fate."
"She may never have found him, poor child. She may have been lured away from her destination and from London by a villain. She met her death more than two hundred miles from London. She fell from a railway-bridge, and was killed instantly; but whether that death was an accident or a murder, no one yet knows, except the Great Judge of all human actions."
"You believe it was – "
"Murder. I am here to discover the motive of that crime."
CHAPTER II.
A STUDENT OF MEN AND WOMEN
There was a silence of some minutes, during which Mademoiselle Beauville wept quietly. And then Heathcote and the ex-police-officer rose to take leave.
"I thank you sincerely, Mademoiselle, for having given me all the information in your power to give, and I must beg you to accept some small compensation for the time I have wasted," said Mr. Heathcote, slipping a couple of twenty-franc pieces into the dressmaker's hand.
The lonely spinster's eyes shone with a feverish light as her skinny fingers closed upon the gold. It was like manna dropped from heaven. Long and weary weeks had passed since her robes et modes had brought her so much money. Her chief customers of late had been the grisettes of the quarter, who had dribbled out their payments by two or three francs at a time, and who had exacted the maximum of labour for the minimum of pay. Mademoiselle's hollow cheeks were flushed with the warm red wine, her heart glowed with the thought that she could now pay her last term to the Harpagon landlord – not much worse, perhaps, than the rest of his species, but all landlords seem Harpagons when they claim their due from the needy.
"Monsieur is too good, too generous," murmured the seamstress; "I should refuse all remuneration, only work has been so slack of late – "
"Not one word, Mademoiselle. Stay, I have one more question, and that an important one, to ask before I take my leave. Can you give me the exact date upon which Léonie Lemarque left Paris for Dover?"
"Assuredly, Monsieur. It was on the 4th of July."
"The 4th! And it was on the evening of the 5th she met with her death. You say she carried a small handbag containing linen."
"Yes. Her clothes were of the fewest, dear child; but everything she had was neat and nice of its kind. She had a change of linen with her."
"Had she nothing else in the bag?"
"Nothing. I went into the room while she was packing, and I saw her take a small sealed packet from under her pillow, and put it in her bosom. I had seen the same packet under her grandmother's pillow before she died. It looked like a parcel of letters or papers of some kind."
"Do you know what station Léonie was to arrive at?"
"Yes. It was the terminus of Charing."
"Charing Cross?"
"Precisely. It was a double name like that."
"Good. Adieu, Mademoiselle. My friend and I may come to you again perhaps to make further inquiries."
"You shall be very welcome, Monsieur. And if you discover the secret of my poor young friend's fate, you will tell me – "
"Assuredly."
"One word, Monsieur. Where is our little Léonie buried? Has she a decent grave in your English land?"
"She lies in a rustic churchyard under a great yew-tree. There is a stone upon her grave, with a brief record of when and how she met her death. Her name and age shall now be added to the inscription."
"Indeed, Monsieur! But what kind friend was it who placed a stone over the grave of a nameless stranger?"
"That was my care. It was a very small thing to do."
"Ah, Monsieur, it is in doing these small things that a great heart shows itself."
Mr. Heathcote and his companion made their adieux, accompanied to the landing by the spinster, who felt as if she had entertained angels unawares; but when the sound of their footsteps had died away upon the stairs she went back to her room, and wept over the fate of her young friend.
"I have nothing left in this world to love but you," she said, piteously addressing the cockatoo.
"J'ai bien des chos's au Mont-d'-Piété," replied the bird.
It was one o'clock by the time Mr. Heathcote and Monsieur Drubarde left the dressmaker's apartment, so the Englishman suggested a light luncheon at the Restaurant Lapérouse, within a stone's throw of Drubarde's apartment; and the suggestion being received favourably by the ex-policeman, they were soon afterwards seated at a little table, in a private room with a window overlooking the river, ready to do justice to the plat du jour, a fricandeau aux épinards, and to a bottle of Mouton-Rothschild. The wine-bibbing at the dressmaker's apartment had been merely a benevolent excuse for providing the spinster with a little good Bordeaux.
"Now, Monsieur Drubarde, we are alone and at our ease. You have now all the facts of Léonie Lemarque's death well within your knowledge; and it is for you to give me your opinion."
"A very difficult case in which to come to a decided opinion," answered Drubarde. "At present my conclusions and yours are antagonistic. My niece wrote out a careful translation of your newspaper report. I have her translation in my pocket-book. You can look it over if you like, to see that it is faithfully done. I have read it three or four times, with keenest attention, and I can so far see nothing out of the common in Léonie Lemarque's fate. A pretty girl travelling alone, a common ruffian, a common murder."
"And you see no link between this crime and that former murder?"
"Not a thread – not a hair. A deed done ten years ago – unpunished, the murderer undiscovered."
"Do you forget that Léonie went to London with credentials to a friend of this very murderer? Perhaps a friend so devoted, so bound to the guilty man, that he might not stop at murder to get rid of the one witness of his friend's crime."
"To imagine that is to imagine an impossible friendship. Men do not risk their necks nowadays, whatever they may have done in the time of Damon and Pythias."
"Then you see nothing extraordinary or mysterious in the violent death of this girl, within twenty-four hours of her leaving Paris, carrying with her documents which may, in some manner, have betrayed the secret of the double murder. Perhaps a letter from the lover to his mistress, a letter written by a man maddened by jealousy, threatening to do the deed which was afterwards done. You see no sufficient ground for connecting one crime with the other, for seeking the secret of the second crime in the history of the first."
"Honestly, I do not," replied Drubarde, who had fastened his napkin under his chin, had nibbled a radish or two, and destroyed the symmetry of a dish of prawns, by way of preparation for the fricandeau. "I only wish I could see my way to such an opinion. It would make as pretty a complication as ever I was concerned in. However, there is no knowing what new discoveries we may hit upon, if we go to work patiently. My present view of the case is that Léonie Lemarque, being young, silly, and inexperienced, and not knowing a word of English, altogether a wrong person to attempt such a journey alone, got into bad hands at the very beginning. I believe that, instead of meeting this person who was to have befriended her, and who must have been a man of standing and respectability, or the old grandmother would not have sent her to him, she fell into the hands of a scoundrel, and was lured into your train for Cornwall."
"You must remember that Paddington Station is some miles from Charing Cross," said Heathcote. "The girl could not be smuggled from one train to the other unawares. She must have traversed half London on foot, or in a conveyance of some kind."
"Possibly. But, as likely as not, she was in the companionship of the wrong man. Consider her ignorance, her helplessness. What an easy prey for a villain!"
Heathcote was unconvinced.
"I cannot imagine a crime so motiveless as that which you suggest," he said thoughtfully.
He began to lose faith in the old sleuthhound. He began to think that Félix Drubarde was worn-out; that scent, and pace, and tongue were things of the past. He began to think that the work of finding the link between the two crimes must be done by himself rather than by Drubarde.
"What became of the girl's bag?" asked Drubarde, after he had eaten a liberal portion of veal and spinach. "There is no mention of a bag in your newspaper."
"There was no bag found. If there had been, the victim might have been identified earlier."
"And the sealed packet?"
"There was no packet. There was nothing but a little basket containing a few cherries and a biscuit-bag. There was no clue to identity. The murderer had done his work well."
"The best thing you can do is to put Mr. Distin in possession of the details you heard from Mademoiselle Beauville. He can make inquiries at the Charing Cross Station, where it is just possible the girl may be remembered by some of the porters. A girl travelling alone, and meeting a gentleman on the platform. The meeting may have been observed even there, where hundreds meet and part every hour. Railway officials are observant and keen-witted. It is within the limits of the possible that this poor girl may not have passed altogether unremarked."
"I will write to Distin this afternoon," said Heathcote. "And there is another thing I can do. If your theory is correct, Léonie Lemarque missed the person who was to have met her at the station, and fell into bad hands. If that is so, the fact ought to be arrived at easily by an appeal to the person whom she should have met."
He took out his pencil and pocket-book, and wrote the rough draft of an advertisement:
"The person who was to have met Léonie Lemarque at Charing Cross Station on the morning of July 5th last is earnestly requested to communicate immediately with Messrs. Distin & Son, Solicitors, Furnival's Inn."
He translated this advertisement to Monsieur Drubarde.
"Yes, that is a wise test," said the police-officer. "I see you have the true flair. If the man is innocent, he will answer that advertisement – always supposing that it come to his knowledge."
"I will repeat it so often in the Times that it will not be easy for the appeal to escape him," answered Heathcote.
"Then if there is no sign, we shall say guilty," said Drubarde.
"And in that case we have to find the villain."
"You may add a postscript to your letter to Monsieur Distin, advising him to inquire at the cloak-room of Charing Cross Station for an unclaimed handbag left there on July 5th. Something must have been done with that handbag, and, in our civilised condition, it is not easy to get rid of even a handbag."
After having made this suggestion, Monsieur Drubarde devoted himself entirely to the pleasures of the table. Heathcote ate very little, and was too troubled in mind to know what he ate. He saw himself no nearer a solution of the problem which he had pledged himself to solve. Yet this he felt, that the sky was growing clearer round Bothwell Grahame. The secret of the girl's death seemed to lie between the man whom she was to have met at Charing Cross and the phenomenal villain of Drubarde's imagination, who had lured her into the Cornish train with darkest intent.
He left Félix Drubarde directly after luncheon, and walked back to the Hôtel de Bade, where he devoted the afternoon to his correspondence. He wrote at fullest length to Joseph Distin, enclosing the advertisement for the Times, with a cheque, and an order for its daily appearance until further notice. He wrote a cheery letter to Hilda, telling her to be hopeful; and he wrote to Mrs. Wyllard, telling her that the result of his investigations up to the present hour had gone far to dispel his suspicion of her cousin's guilt.
"I am still groping in the dark," he concluded, "and am very far from having achieved any tangible result; but I am working with all my mind and all my strength, and I hope that Providence will not compel me to abandon my task until I have fathomed the mystery of Léonie Lemarque's death."
He wrote thus, unconsciously forgetting that Dora Wyllard did not know even the name of the victim. The discovery of the girl's identity, made three days ago, at Dinan, seemed, to him an old history, so exclusively had his mind dwelt upon this one subject since his interview with the nuns. The fact that the name must be a new thing to Dora never struck him.
He dined alone in his private sitting-room, he who at any other time would have enjoyed the glitter and life of the Boulevard in all its evening brilliancy. He wanted to be free from all sound and movement, from the sight of strange faces, so that his mind should work undisturbed upon the problem he had set himself to solve.
And now over his solitary cutlet, with his pocket-book open before him, he marshalled his facts, and reflected upon each detail of the story.
The murderer of Marie Prévol and Maxime de Maucroix had escaped, and in all probability was still living. He appeared to have been rich, independent of all ties, a Bohemian in his habits, a man who could live in any country. Hardly possible that such a man would remain within a narrow radius of the scene of his crime. He was not to be looked for assuredly in Paris, or even in France. It was far more likely that he had crossed the Atlantic, and sunk his identity in that wider, freer society of the United States, where money and cleverness outweigh a man's antecedents, where no one asks what a man has been, only what he is, or is worth in the present. Or it might be that such a man as this Georges – a night-bird, a man of fervid temperament, a lover of pleasure rather than work, unambitious, a voluptuary – would turn his face to Southern America, and dream away the after stages of an exhausted life in some romantic city upon the Seaboard of the Pacific. Not in Europe – or not in the accessible quarters of Europe – should he be sought for.
