Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Chink in the Armour

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More seriously he added, "But I see that you are dreadfully anxious about
Madame Wolsky, and I myself will communicate with the Paris police about
the matter. It is, as you say, possible, though not probable, that she
met with an accident after leaving you."

CHAPTER XVII

A long week went by, and still no news, no explanation of her abrupt
departure from Lacville, was received from Anna Wolsky; and the owners
of the Pension Malfait were still waiting for instructions as to what
was to be done with Madame Wolsky's luggage, and with the various little
personal possessions she had left scattered about her room.

As for Sylvia, it sometimes seemed to her as if her Polish friend had
been obliterated, suddenly blotted out of existence.

But as time went on she felt more and more pained and discomfited by
Anna's strange and heartless behaviour to herself. Whatever the reason
for Madame Wolsky's abrupt departure, it would not have taken her a
moment to have sent Sylvia Bailey a line--if only to say that she could
give no explanation of her extraordinary conduct.

Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia's thoughts from
Anna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours' ride with Paul
de Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a
little practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her into
a really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.

Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make their
way into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, which
is so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.

The Duchesse d'Eglemont had sent her maid to Lacville with the riding
habit she was lending Sylvia, and by a word M. Polperro let fall, the
Englishwoman realised, with mingled confusion and amusement, that the
hotel-keeper supposed her to be an old and intimate friend of Count
Paul's sister.

The other people in the hotel began to treat her with marked cordiality.

And so it came to pass that outwardly the Polish lady's disappearance
came to be regarded even by Sylvia as having only been a ripple on the
pleasant, lazy, agreeable life she, Count Paul, and last, not least, the
Wachners, were all leading at Lacville.

In fact, as the days went on, only Mrs. Bailey herself and that kindly
couple, Madame Wachner and her silent husband, seemed to remember that
Anna had ever been there. During the first days, when Sylvia had been
really very anxious and troubled, she had had cause to be grateful to
the Wachners for their sympathy; for whereas Paul de Virieu seemed only
interested in Anna Wolsky because she, Sylvia, herself was interested,
both Madame Wachner and her morose, silent husband showed real concern
and distress at the mysterious lack of news.

Whenever Sylvia saw them, and she saw them daily at the Casino, either
Madame Wachner or L'Ami Fritz would ask her in an eager, sympathetic
voice, "Have you had news of Madame Wolsky?"

And then, when she shook her head sadly, they would express--and
especially Madame Wachner would express--increasing concern and surprise
at Anna's extraordinary silence.

"If only she had come to us as she arranged to do!" the older woman
exclaimed more than once in a regretful tone. "Then, at any rate, we
should know something; she would not have concealed her plans from us
entirely; we were, if new friends, yet on such kind, intimate terms with
the dear soul!"

And now, as had been the case exactly a week ago, Sylvia was resting in
her room. She was sitting just as she had then sat, in a chair drawn up
close to the window. There had been no ride that morning, for Paul de
Virieu had been obliged to go into Paris for the day.

Sylvia felt dull and listless. She had never before experienced that
aching longing for the presence of another human being which in our
civilised life is disguised under many names, but which in this case,
Sylvia herself called by that of "friendship."

Moreover, she had received that morning a letter which had greatly
disturbed her. It now lay open on her lap, for she had just read it
through again. This letter was quite short, and simply contained the news
that Bill Chester, her good friend, sometime lover, and trustee, was
going to Switzerland after all, and that he would stop a couple of days
in Paris in order to see her.

It was really very nice of Bill to do this, and a month ago Sylvia would
have looked forward to seeing him. But now everything was changed, and
Sylvia could well have dispensed with Bill Chester's presence.

The thought of Chester at Lacville filled her with unease. When she had
left her English home two months ago--it seemed more like two years than
two months--she had felt well disposed to the young lawyer, and deep in
her inmost heart she had almost brought herself to acknowledge that she
might very probably in time become his wife.

She suspected that Chester had been fond of her when she was a girl, at
a time when his means would not have justified him in proposing to her,
for he was one of those unusual men who think it dishonourable to ask
girls to marry them unless they are in a position to keep a wife. She
remembered how he had looked--how set and stern his face had become when
someone had suddenly told him in her presence of her engagement to George
Bailey, the middle-aged man who had been so kind to her, and yet who had
counted for so little in her life, though she had given him all she could
of love and duty.

Since her widowhood, so she now reminded herself remorsefully, Chester
had been extraordinarily good to her, and his devotion had touched her
because it was expressed in actions rather than in words, for he was also
the unusual type of man, seldom a romantic type, who scorns, however much
in love, to take advantage of a fiduciary position to strengthen his own.

The fact that he was her trustee brought them into frequent conflict. Too
often Bill was the candid friend instead of the devoted lover. Their only
real quarrel--if quarrel it could be called--had been, as we know, over
the purchase of her string of pearls. But time, or so Sylvia confidently
believed, had proved her to have been right, for her "investment," as she
always called it to Bill Chester, had improved in value.

But though she had been right in that comparatively trifling matter, she
knew that Chester would certainly disapprove of the kind of life--the
idle, purposeless, frivolous life--she was now leading.

Looking out over the lake, which, as it was an exceedingly hot, fine day,
was already crowded with boats, Sylvia almost made up her mind to go back
into Paris for two or three days.

Bill would think it a very strange thing that she was staying here in
Lacville all by herself. But the thought of leaving Lacville just now
was very disagreeable to Sylvia.... She wondered uncomfortably what her
trustee would think of her friendship with Count Paul de Virieu--with
this Frenchman who, when he was not gambling at the Casino, spent every
moment of his time with her.

But deep in her heart Sylvia knew well that when Bill Chester was there
Paul de Virieu would draw back; only when they were really alone together
did he talk eagerly, naturally.

In the dining-room of the Villa he hardly ever spoke to her, and when
they were both in the Baccarat-room of the Club he seldom came and stood
by her side, though when she looked up she often found his eyes fixed on
her with that ardent, absorbed gaze which made her heart beat, and her
cheeks flush with mingled joy and pain.

Suddenly, as if her thoughts had brought him there, she saw Count Paul's
straight, slim figure turn in from the road through the gates of the
Villa.

He glanced up at her window and took off his hat. He looked cool,
unruffled, and self-possessed, but her eager eyes saw a change in his
face. He looked very grave, and yet oddly happy. Was it possible that he
had news at last of Anna Wolsky?

He mounted the stone-steps and disappeared into the house; and Sylvia,
getting up, began moving restlessly about her room. She longed to go
downstairs, and yet a feminine feeling of delicacy restrained her from
doing so.

A great stillness brooded over everything. The heat had sent everyone
indoors. M. Polperro, perhaps because of his Southern up-bringing, always
took an early afternoon siesta. It looked as if his servants followed his
example. The Villa du Lac seemed asleep.

Sylvia went across to the other window, the window overlooking the large,
shady garden, and there, glancing down, she saw Count Paul.

"Come into the garden--," he said softly in English; and Sylvia, leaning
over the bar of her window, thought he added the word "Maud"--but of
course that could not have been so, for her name, as the Count knew well,
was Sylvia! And equally of course he always addressed her as "Madame."

"It's so nice and cool up here," she whispered back. "I don't believe it
is half so cool in the garden!"

She gazed down into his upturned face with innocent coquetry,
pretending--only pretending--to hesitate as to what she would do in
answer to his invitation.

But Sylvia Bailey was but an amateur at the Great Game, the game at which
only two--only a man and a woman--can play, and yet which is capable of
such infinite, such bewilderingly protean variations. So her next move,
one which Paul de Virieu, smiling behind his moustache, foresaw--was to
turn away from the window.

She ran down the broad shallow staircase very quickly, for it had
occurred to her that the Count, taking her at her word, might leave the
garden, and, sauntering off to the Casino, lose his money--for whatever
he might be in love, Count Paul was exceedingly unlucky at cards! And
lately she had begun to think that she was gradually weaning her friend
from what she knew to be in his case, whatever it was in hers, and in
that of many of the people about them, the terrible vice of gambling.

When, a little breathless, she joined him in the garden, she found that
he had already taken two rocking-chairs into a shady corner which was out
of sight of the white villa and of its inquisitive windows.

"Something very serious has happened," said Count Paul slowly.

He took both her hands in his and looked down into her face. With
surprise and concern she saw that his eyelids were red. Was it possible
that Count Paul had been crying? He almost looked as if he had.

The idea of a grown-up man allowing himself to give way to emotion of
that sort would have seemed absurd to Sylvia a short time ago, but
somehow the thought that Paul de Virieu had shed tears made her feel
extraordinarily moved.

"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything happened to your
sister?"

"Thank God--no!" he answered hastily. "But something else, something
which was to be expected, but which I did not expect, has happened--"

And then, very gravely, and at last releasing her hands, he added, "My
kind godmother, the little Marquise you met last week, died last night."

Sylvia felt the sudden sense of surprise, almost of discomfiture, the
young always feel in the neighbourhood of death.

"How dreadful! She seemed quite well when we saw her that day--"

She could still hear echoing in her ears the old lady's half-mocking but
kindly compliments.

"Ah! but she was very, very old--over ninety! Why, she was supposed to
be aged when she became my godmother thirty odd years ago!"

He waited a moment, and then added, quietly, "She has left me in her will
two hundred thousand francs."

"Oh, I _am_ glad!"

Sylvia stretched out both hands impulsively, and the Comte de Virieu took
first one and then the other and raised them to his lips.

"Eight thousand pounds? Does it seem a fortune to you, Madame?"

"Of course it does!" exclaimed Sylvia.

"It frees me from the necessity of being a pensioner on my
brother-in-law," he said slowly, and Sylvia felt a little chill
of disappointment. Was that his only pleasure in his legacy?

"You will not play with _this_ money?" she said, in a low voice.

"It is no use my making a promise, especially to you, that I might not be
able to keep--"

He got up, and stood looking down at her.

"But I promise that I will not waste or risk this money if I can resist
the temptation to do so."

Sylvia smiled, though she felt more inclined to cry.

He seemed stung by her look.

"Do you wish me to give you my word of honour that I will not risk any of
this money at the tables?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

Sylvia's heart began to beat. Count Paul had become very pale. There was
a curious expression on his face--an expression of revolt, almost of
anger.

"Do you exact it?" he repeated, almost violently.

And Sylvia faltered out, "Could you keep your word if I did exact it?"

"Ah, you have learnt to know me too well!"

He walked away, leaving her full of perplexity and pain.

A few moments passed. They seemed very long moments to Sylvia Bailey.
Then Count Paul turned and came back.

He sat down, and made a great effort to behave as if nothing unusual or
memorable had passed between them.

"And has anything happened here?" he asked. "Is there any news of your
vanished friend?"

Sylvia shook her head gravely. The Polish woman's odd, and, to her,
inexplicable, conduct still hurt her almost as much as it had done at
first.

The Count leant forward, and speaking this time very seriously indeed, he
said, in a low voice:--

"I wish to say something to you, and I am now going to speak as frankly
as if you were--my sister. You are wrong to waste a moment of your time
in regretting Madame Wolsky. She is an unhappy woman, held tightly in the
paws of the tiger--Play. That is the truth, my friend! It is a pity you
ever met her, and I am glad she went away without doing you any further
mischief. It was bad enough of her to have brought you to Lacville, and
taught you to gamble. Had she stayed on, she would have tried in time to
make you go on with her to Monte Carlo."

He shook his head expressively

Sylvia looked at him with surprise. He had never spoken to her of Anna in
this way before. She hesitated, then said a little nervously,

"Tell me, did you ask Madame Wolsky to go away? Please don't mind my
asking you this?"

"_I_ ask Madame Wolsky to go away?" he repeated, genuinely surprised.
"Such a thought never even crossed my mind. It would have been very
impertinent--what English people would call 'cheeky'--of me to do such
a thing! You must indeed think me a hypocrite! Have I not shared your
surprise and concern at her extraordinary disappearance? And her luggage?
If I had wished her to go away, I should not have encouraged her to leave
all her luggage behind her!" he spoke with the sarcastic emphasis of
which the French are masters.

Sylvia grew very red.

As a matter of fact, it had been Madame Wachner who had suggested that
idea to her. Only the day before, when Sylvia had been wondering for
the thousandth time where Anna could be, the older woman had exclaimed
meaningly, "I should not be surprised if that Count de Virieu persuaded
your friend to go away. He wants the field clear for himself."

And then she had seemed to regret her imprudent words, and she had begged
Sylvia not to give the Count any hint of her suspicion. Even now Sylvia
did not mention Madame Wachner.

"Of course, I don't think you a hypocrite," she said awkwardly, "but you
never did like poor Anna, and you were always telling me that Lacville
isn't a place where a nice woman ought to stay long. I thought you might
have said something of the same kind to Madame Wolsky."

"And do you really suppose," Count Paul spoke with a touch of sharp irony
in his voice, "that your friend would have taken my advice? Do you think
that Madame Wolsky would look either to the right or the left when the
Goddess of Chance beckoned?"--and he waved his hand in the direction
where the white Casino lay.

"But the Goddess of Chance did not beckon to her to leave Lacville!"
Sylvia exclaimed. "Why, she meant to stay on here till the middle of
September--"

"You asked me a very indiscreet question just now"--the Count leant
forward, and looked straight into Mrs. Bailey's eyes.

His manner had again altered. He spoke far more authoritatively than
he had ever spoken before, and Sylvia, far from resenting this new,
possessive attitude, felt thrilled and glad. When Bill Chester spoke as
if he had authority over her, it always made her indignant, even angry.

"Did I?" she said nervously.

"Yes! You asked me if I had persuaded Madame Wolsky to leave Lacville.
Well, now I ask you, in my turn, whether it has ever occurred to you that
the Wachners know more of your Polish friend's departure than they admit?
I gathered that impression the only time I talked to your Madame Wachner
about the matter. I felt sure she knew more than she would say! Of
course, it was only an impression."

Sylvia hesitated.

"At first Madame Wachner seemed annoyed that I made a fuss about it," she
said thoughtfully. "But later she seemed as surprised and sorry as I am
myself. Oh, no, Count, I am sure you are wrong--why you forget that
Madame Wachner walked up to the Pension Malfait that same evening--I mean
the evening of the day Anna left Lacville. In fact, it was Madame Wachner
who first found out that Anna had not come home. She went up to her
bed-room to look for her."

"Then it was Madame Wachner who found the letter?" observed the Count
interrogatively.

"Oh, no, it was not Madame Wachner who found it. Anna's letter was
discovered the next morning by the chambermaid in a blotting-book on the
writing table. No one had thought of looking there. You see they were all
expecting her back that night. Madame Malfait still thinks that poor Anna
went to the Casino in the afternoon, and after having lost her money came
back to the pension, wrote the letter, and then went out and left for
Paris without saying anything about it to anyone!"

"I suppose something of that sort did happen," observed the Comte de
Virieu thoughtfully.

"And now," he said, getting up from his chair, "I think I will take a
turn at the Casino after all!"

Sylvia's lip quivered, but she was too proud to appeal to him to stay.
Still, she felt horribly hurt.

"You see what I am like," he said, in a low, shamed voice. "I wish you
had made me give you my word of honour."

She got up. It was cruel, very cruel, of him to say that to her. How
amazingly their relation to one another had altered in the last
half-hour!

For the moment they were enemies, and it was the enemy in Sylvia that
next spoke. "I think I shall go and have tea with the Wachners. They
never go to the Casino on Saturday afternoons."

A heavy cloud came over Count Paul's face.

"I can't think what you see to like in that vulgar old couple," he
exclaimed irritably. "To me there is something"--he hesitated, seeking
for an English word which should exactly express the French word
"_louche_"--"sinister--that is the word I am looking for--there is
to me something sinister about the Wachners."

"Sinister?" echoed Sylvia, really surprised. "Why, they seem to me to be
the most good-natured, commonplace people in the world, and then they're
so fond of one another!"

"I grant you that," he said. "I quite agree that that ugly old woman is
very fond of her 'Ami Fritz'--but I do not know if he returns the
compliment!"

Sylvia looked pained, nay more, shocked.

"I suppose French husbands only like their wives when they are young and
pretty," she said slowly.

"Another of the many injustices you are always heaping on my poor
country," the Count protested lightly. "But I confess I deserved it this
time! Joking apart, I think 'L'Ami Fritz' is very fond of his"--he
hesitated, then ended his sentence with "Old Dutch!"

Sylvia could not help smiling.

"It is too bad of you," she exclaimed, "to talk like that! The Wachners
are very nice people, and I won't allow you to say anything against
them!"

Somehow they were friends again. His next words proved it.

"I will not say anything against the Wachners this afternoon. In fact,
if you will allow me to do so, I will escort you part of the way."

And he was even better than his word, for he went on with Sylvia till
they were actually within sight of the little, isolated villa where the
Wachners lived.

There, woman-like, she made an effort to persuade him to go in with her.

"Do come," she said urgently. "Madame Wachner would be so pleased! She
was saying the other day that you had never been to their house."

But Count Paul smilingly shook his head.

"I have no intention of ever going there," he said deliberately. "You see
I do not like them! I suppose--I hope"--he looked again straight into
Sylvia Bailey's ingenuous blue eyes--"that the Wachners have never tried
to borrow money of you?"

"Never!" she cried, blushing violently. "Never, Count Paul! Your dislike
of my poor friends makes you unjust--it really does."

"It does! It does! I beg their pardon and yours. I was foolish, nay, far
worse, indiscreet, to ask you this question. I regret I did so. Accept my
apology."

She looked at him to see if he was sincere. His face was very grave; and
she looked at him with perplexed, unhappy eyes.

"Oh, don't say that!" she said. "Why should you mind saying anything to
me?"

But the Comte de Virieu was both vexed and angry with himself.

"It is always folly to interfere in anyone else's affairs," he muttered.
"But I have this excuse--I happen to know that last week, or rather ten
days ago, the Wachners were in considerable difficulty about money. Then
suddenly they seemed to have found plenty, in fact, to be as we say here,
'_a flot_'; I confess that I foolishly imagined, nay, I almost hoped,
that they owed this temporary prosperity to you! But of course I had no
business to think about it at all--still less any business to speak to
you about the matter. Forgive me, I will not so err again."

And then, with one of his sudden, stiff bows, the Comte de Virieu turned
on his heel, leaving Sylvia to make her way alone to the little wooden
gate on which were painted the words "Chalet des Muguets."

CHAPTER XVIII

Sylvia pushed open the little white gate of the Chalet des Muguets and
began walking up the path which lay through the neglected, untidy garden.

To eyes accustomed to the exquisitely-kept gardens of an English country
town, there was something almost offensive in the sight presented by the
high, coarse grass and luxuriant unkemptness of the place, and once more
Sylvia wondered how the Wachners could bear to leave the land surrounding
their temporary home in such a state.

But the quaint, fantastic-looking, one-storeyed chalet amused and rather
interested her, for it was so entirely unlike any other dwelling with
which she was acquainted.

To-day a deep, hot calm brooded over the silent house and
deserted-looking garden; the chocolate-coloured shutters of the
dining-room and the drawing-room were closed, and Sylvia told herself
that it would be delightful to pass from the steamy heat outside into the
dimly-lighted, sparsely-furnished little "salon," there to have a cup of
tea and a pleasant chat with her friends before accompanying them in the
cool of the early evening to the Casino.

Sylvia always enjoyed talking to Madame Wachner. She was a little bit
ashamed that this was so, for this cosmopolitan woman's conversation was
not always quite refined, but she was good-natured and lively, and her
talk was invariably amusing. Above all, she knew how to flatter, and
after a chat with Madame Wachner Sylvia Bailey always felt pleased both
with herself and with the world about her.

There was very little concerning the young Englishwoman's simple,
uneventful life with which Madame Wachner was not by now acquainted. She
was aware for instance, that Sylvia had no close relations of her own,
and that, like Anna Wolsky, Mrs. Bailey knew nobody--she had not even
an acquaintance--living in Paris.

This fact had enlisted to a special degree Madame Wachner's interest and
liking for the two young widows.

Sylvia rang the primitive bell which hung by the door which alone gave
access, apart from the windows, to the Chalet des Muguets.

After some moments the day-servant employed by Madame Wachner opened the
door with the curt words, "Monsieur and Madame are in Paris." The woman
added, in a rather insolent tone, "They have gone to fetch some money,"
and her manner said plainly enough, "Yes, my master and mistress--silly
fools--have lost their money at the Casino, and now they are gone to get
fresh supplies!"

Sylvia felt vexed and disappointed. After what had been to her a very
exciting, agitating conversation with Count Paul, she had unconsciously
longed for the cheerful, commonplace talk of Madame Wachner.

As she stood there in the bright sunlight the thought of the long,
lonely, hot walk back to the Villa du Lac became odious to her.

Why should she not go into the house and rest awhile? The more so that
the Wachners would almost certainly return home very soon. They disliked
Paris, and never stayed more than a couple of hours on their occasional
visits there.

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