Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Chink in the Armour

M >> Marie Belloc Lowndes >> The Chink in the Armour

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A change came over Paul de Virieu's face. There was unmistakable
relief--nay, more--even joy in the voice with which the Frenchman
answered,

"That is excellent! That is quite right! That is first-rate! Yes, yes,
Mr. Chester, you go back to Lacville and bring her away. It is not right
that Mrs. Bailey should be by herself there. It may seem absurd to you,
but, believe me, Lacville is not a safe spot in which to leave an
unprotected woman. She has not one single friend, not a person to whom
she could turn to for advice,--excepting, of course, the excellent
Polperro himself, and he naturally desires to keep his profitable
client."

"There's that funny old couple--I mean the man called Fritz
Something-or-other and his wife. Surely they're all right?" observed
Chester.

Paul de Virieu shook his head decidedly.

"The Wachners are not nice people," he said slowly. "They appear to be
very fond of Mrs. Bailey, I know, but they are only fond of themselves.
They are adventurers; 'out for the stuff,' as Americans say. Old Fritz
is the worst type of gambler--the type that believes he is going to get
rich, rich beyond dreams of avarice, by a 'system.' Such a man will do
anything for money. I believe they knew far more of the disappearance of
Madame Wolsky than anyone else did."

The Count lowered his voice, and leant over the table.

"I have suspected," he went on--"nay, I have felt sure from the very
first, Mr. Chester, that the Wachners are _blackmailers_. I am convinced
that they discovered something to that poor lady's discredit, and--after
making her pay--drove her away! Just before she left Lacville they were
trying to raise money at the Casino money-changer's on some worthless
shares. But after Madame Wolsky's disappearance they had plenty of gold
and notes."

Chester looked across at his companion. At last he was really impressed.
Blackmailing is a word which has a very ugly sound in an English lawyer's
ears.

"If that is really true," he said suddenly, "I almost feel as if I ought
to go back to Lacville to-night. I suppose there are heaps of trains?"

"You might, at all events, wait till to-morrow morning," said Paul de
Virieu, drily.

He also had suddenly experienced a thrill of that primitive passion,
jealousy, which had surprised Chester but a few moments before. But the
Count was a Frenchman. He was familiar with the sensation--nay, he
welcomed it. It showed that he was still young--still worthy to be one
of the great company of lovers.

Sylvia, his "petite amie Anglaise," seemed to have come very near to
him in the last few moments. He saw her blue eyes brim with tears at
his harsh words--he thrilled as he had thrilled with the overmastering
impulse which had made him take her into his arms--her hand lay once more
in his hand, as it had lain, for a moment this morning.

Had he grasped and retained that kind, firm little hand in his, an
entirely new life had been within his reach.

A vision rose before Paul de Virieu--a vision of Sylvia and himself
living heart to heart in one of those small, stately manor-houses which
are scattered throughout Brittany. And it was no vague house of dreams.
He knew the little chateau very well. Had not his sister driven him there
only the other day? And had she not conveyed to him in delicate, generous
words how gladly she would see his sweet English friend established there
as chatelaine?

A sense of immeasurable loss came over Paul de Virieu--But, no, he had
been right! Quite right! He loved Sylvia far too well to risk making her
as unhappy as he would almost certainly be tempted to make her, if she
became his wife.

He took off his hat and remained silent for what seemed to his companion
quite a long time.

"By the way, what is Mrs. Bailey doing to-night?" he asked at last.

"To-night?" replied Chester. "Let me see? Why, to-night she is spending
the evening with those very people--the Wachners, of whom you were
speaking just now. I heard her arranging it with them this afternoon."
He added, stiffly, "But I doubt if your impression as to these people is
a right one. They seem to me a very respectable couple."

Paul de Virieu shrugged his shoulders. He felt suddenly uneasy--afraid he
hardly knew of what.

There was no risk that Sylvia Bailey would fall a victim to
blackmailers--she had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to conceal. But
still he hated to think that she was, even now, alone with a man and
woman of whom he had formed such a bad impression.

He took his watch out of his pocket. "There's a train for Lacville at
a quarter to ten," he said slowly. "That would be an excellent train
for--for _us_--to take--"

"Then are you thinking of going back to Lacville too?" There was that
sarcastic inflection in the Englishman's voice which the Count had
learned to look for and to resent.

"Yes."

Count Paul looked at Bill Chester significantly, and his look said, "Take
care, my friend! We do not allow a man to sneer at another man in this
country unless he is willing to stand certain unpleasant consequences.
Our duels are not always _pour rire_!"

During the short train journey back to Lacville they hardly spoke. Each
thought that the other was doing a strange and unreasonable thing--a
thing which the thinker could have done much better if left to himself.

At Lacville station they jumped into a victoria.

"I suppose we had better drive straight to the Villa du Lac," said
Chester, hesitatingly.

"Yes, we had better go first to the Villa du Lac, for Mrs. Bailey should
be home by now. By the way, Mr. Chester, you had better ask to have my
room to-night; we know that it is disengaged. As for me, I will go on
somewhere else as soon as I know you have seen our friend. Please do not
tell Mrs. Bailey that I came with you. Where would be the use? I may go
back to Paris to-night." Paul de Virieu spoke in a constrained,
preoccupied voice.

"But aren't you coming in? Won't you stay at Lacville at least till
to-morrow?"

Chester's voice unwittingly became far more cordial; if the Frenchman did
not wish to see Sylvia, why had he insisted on coming back, too, to
Lacville.

The hall of the Villa du Lac was brightly lit up, and as the victoria
swept up the short drive to the stone horseshoe stairway, the Comte de
Virieu suddenly grasped the other's hand.

"Good luck!" he exclaimed, "Good luck, fortunate man! As the Abbot at my
English school used to say to me when he met me, as a little boy, running
about the cloisters, 'God bless you!'"

Chester was rather touched, as well as surprised. But what queer,
emotional fellows Frenchmen are to be sure! Although Count Paul, as
Sylvia used to call him, had evidently been a little bit in love with her
himself, he was quite willing to think of her as married to another man!

But--but there was the rub! Chester was no longer so sure that he wanted
to marry Sylvia. She had become a different woman--she seemed to be
another Sylvia to the one he had always known.

"I'll just come out and tell you that it's all right," he said a little
awkwardly. "But I wish you'd come in--if only for a minute. Mrs. Bailey
would be so pleased to see you."

"No, no," muttered the other. "Believe me, she would not!"

Chester jumped out of the carriage and ran quickly up the stone steps,
and rang the bell.

The door was opened by M. Polperro himself. Even busier than usual was
the merry, capable little chef, for as it happened Madame Polperro had
had to go away for two or three days.

"I want to know," said Chester abruptly, "if you can let me have a room
for to-night? The room the Comte de Virieu occupied is, I suppose,
disengaged?"

"I will see, M'sieur--I will inquire!"

M. Polperro did not know what to make of this big Englishman who had come
in out of the night, bringing no luggage with him but one little bag.

Then he suddenly remembered! Why, of course, this was the friend of the
pretty, charming, wealthy Madame Bailey; the English gentleman who had
been staying during the past few days at the Pension Malfait! A gentleman
who was called after a well-known cheese--yes, Chester was his name.

Then this Mr. Chester's departure from Lacville had been a _fausse
sortie_--a _ruse_ to get rid of the Comte de Virieu, who was also in love
with the lovely young English widow?

Ah! Ah! M. Polperro felt very much amused. Never had he heard of anything
so droll! But the Englishman's tale of love was not to run smooth after
all, for now another complication had arisen, and the very last one any
sensible man would have expected!

"Yes, M'sieur," said M. Polperro demurely, "it is all right! I had
forgotten! As you say, the Comte de Virieu's room is now empty, but"--he
hesitated, and with a sly look added, "indeed we have another room empty
to-night--a far finer room, with a view over the lake--the room Madame
Bailey occupied."

"The room Mrs. Bailey occupied?" echoed Chester. "Has Mrs. Bailey changed
her room to-day?"

"Oh, no, M'sieur! She left Lacville this very evening. I have but just
now received a letter from her."

The little man could hardly keep serious. Oh! those Englishmen, who are
said to be so cold! When in love they behave just like other people.

For Chester was staring at him with puzzled, wrathful eyes.

"Ah! what a charming lady, M'sieur; Madame Polperro and I shall miss her
greatly. We hoped to keep Madame Bailey all the summer. But perhaps she
will come back--now that M'sieur has returned." He really could not
resist that last thrust.

"Left Lacville!" repeated Chester incredulously. "But that's impossible!
It isn't more than three hours since we said good-bye to her at the
station. She had no intention of leaving Lacville _then_. Do you say
you've received a letter from her?"

"Yes, M'sieur."

"Will you please show it me?"

"Certainly, M'sieur."

M. Polperro, followed closely by the Englishman, trotted off into his
office, a funny little hole of a place which had been contrived under the
staircase. It was here that Madame Polperro was supposed to spend her
busy days.

M. Polperro felt quite lost without his wife. Slowly, methodically, he
began to turn over the papers on the writing-table, which, with one
chair, filled up all the place.

There had evidently been a lovers' quarrel between these two peculiar
English people. What a pity that the gentleman, who had very properly
returned to beg the lady's pardon, had found his little bird flown--in
such poetic terms did the landlord in his own mind refer to Sylvia
Bailey.

The pretty Englishwoman's presence in the Villa du Lac had delighted M.
Polperro's southern, sentimental mind; he felt her to be so decorative,
as well as so lucrative, a guest for his beloved hotel. Mrs. Bailey had
never questioned any of the extras Madame Polperro put in her weekly
bills, and she had never become haggard and cross as other ladies did who
lost money at the Casino.

As he turned over the papers--bills, catalogues, and letters with which
the table was covered, these thoughts flitted regretfully through M.
Polperro's mind.

But he had an optimistic nature, and though he was very sorry Madame
Bailey had left the Villa du Lac so abruptly, he was gratified by the
fact that she had lived up to the ideal he had formed of his English
guest. Though Madame Bailey had paid her weekly bill only two days
before--she was en pension by the day--she had actually sent him a
hundred francs to pay for the two days' board; the balance to be
distributed among the servants....

There could surely be no harm in giving this big Englishman the lady's
letter? Still, M. Polperro was sorry that he had not Madame Polperro at
his elbow to make the decision for him.

"Here it is," he said at last, taking a piece of paper out of the drawer.
"I must have put it there for my wife to read on her return. It is a very
gratifying letter--M'sieur will see that for himself!"

Chester took the folded-up piece of notepaper out of the little
Frenchman's hand with a strange feeling of misgiving.

He came out into the hall and stood under the cut-glass chandelier--

"You have made a mistake," he exclaimed quickly; "this is not Mrs.
Bailey's handwriting!"

"Oh, yes, M'sieur, it is certainly Mrs. Bailey's letter. You see there is
the lady's signature written as plainly as possible!"

Chester looked down to where the man's fat finger pointed.

In the strange, the alien handwriting, were written two words which for
a moment conveyed nothing to Chester, "Silvea" and "Baylee"; as for the
writing, stiff, angular, large, it resembled Sylvia's sloping English
caligraphy as little as did the two words purporting to be her signature
resemble the right spelling of her name.

A thrill of fear, of terrifying suspicion, flooded Bill Chester's shrewd
but commonplace mind.

Slowly he read the strange letter through:

"Monsieur Polperro (so ran the missive in French)--

"I am leaving Lacville this evening in order to join my friend Madame
Wolsky. I request you therefore to send on my luggage to the cloak room
at the Gare du Nord. I enclose a hundred-franc note to pay you what I
owe. Please distribute the rest of the money among the servants. I beg
to inform you that I have been exceedingly comfortable at the Villa du
Lac, and I will recommend your hotel to all my friends.

"Yours very cordially,

"Sylvea Baylee."

Turning on his heel, and without even throwing a word of apology to the
astonished, and by now indignant, M. Polperro, Chester rushed out of the
hall and down the stone steps, below which stood the victoria.

"Well?" cried out Paul de Virieu.

"Come into the house--now, at once!" cried Chester, roughly. "Something
extraordinary has happened!"--

The Count jumped out of the carriage, and a moment later the two men
stood together in the hall, careless of the fact that M. Polperro was
staring at them with affrighted eyes.

"This letter purports to be from Sylvia Bailey," exclaimed Chester
hoarsely, "but of course it is nothing of the sort! She never wrote a
line of it. It's entirely unlike her handwriting--and then look at the
absurd signature! What does it mean, Virieu? Can you give me any clue to
what it means?"

The Comte de Virieu raised his head from over the thin sheet of
notepaper, and even Chester, frightened and angry as he now was, could
not help noticing how the other man's face had changed in the last few
moments. From being of a usual healthy sunburn, it had turned so white as
to look almost green under the bright electric light.

"Yes, I think I know what it means," said Count Paul between his teeth.
"A letter like this purported to come from Madame Wolsky when she
disappeared. But do not let us make a scene here. Let us go at once where
I believe she is, for if what I fear is true every moment is of value."

He plucked the Englishman by the sleeve, and hurried him out into the
grateful darkness.

"Get into the carriage," he said, imperiously. "I will see to
everything."

Chester heard him direct the driver to the police-station. "We may need
two or three gendarmes," muttered Count Paul. "It's worth the three
minutes delay."

The carriage drew up before a shabby little house across which was
painted in large black letters the word "Gendarmerie."

The Count rushed into the guard-room, hurriedly explained his errand to
the superintendent, and came out, but a moment later, with three men.

"We must make room for these good fellows somehow," he said briefly, and
room was made. Chester noticed with surprise that each man was armed, not
only with a stave, but with a revolver. The French police do not stand on
ceremony even with potential criminals.

"And now," said the Count to the coachman, "five louis, my friend, if you
can get us to the Chalet des Muguets in seven minutes--"

They began driving at a breakneck pace, the driver whipping up his horse,
lashing it in a way that horrified Chester. The light little carriage
rocked from side to side.

"If the man doesn't drive more carefully," cried out the Englishman, "we
shall be spilt--and that won't do us any good, will it?"

The Count called out, "If there's an accident you get nothing, my friend!
Drive as quickly as you like, but drive carefully."

They swept on through the town, and so along the dimly-lighted shady
avenues with which even Chester had become so familiar during the last
few days.

Paul de Virieu sat with clenched hands, staring in front of him. Remorse
filled his soul--remorse and anguish. If Sylvia had been done to death,
as he now had very little doubt Anna Wolsky had been done to death, then
he would die too. What was the vice which had meant all to him for so
many years compared to his love for Sylvia?

The gendarmes murmured together in quick, excited tones. They scented
that something really exciting, something that would perhaps lead to
promotion, was going to happen.

At last, as the carriage turned into a dark road, Count Paul suddenly
began to talk, at the very top of his voice.

"Speak, Mr. Chester, speak as loud as you can! Shout! Say anything that
you like! They may as well hear that we are coming--"

But Chester could not do what the other man so urgently asked him to do.
Not to save his life could he have opened his mouth and shouted as the
other was now doing.

"We are going to pay an evening call--what you in England call an evening
call! We are going to fetch our friend--our friend, Mrs. Bailey; she is
so charming, so delightful! We are going to fetch her because she has
been spending the evening with her friends, the Wachners. That old
she-devil--you remember her, surely? The woman who asked you concerning
your plans? It is she I fear--"

"_Je crois que c'est ici, Monsieur?_" the man turned round on his seat.
"I have done it in six minutes!"

The horse was suddenly brought up short opposite the white gate. Was this
where the Wachners lived? Chester stooped down. The place looked very
different now from what it had looked in the daylight.

The windows of the small, low house were closely shuttered, but where the
shutters met in one of the rooms glinted a straight line of light.

"We are in time. Thank God we are in time," said the Count, with a queer
break in his voice. "If we were not in time, there would be no light. The
house of the wicked ones would be in darkness."

And then, in French, he added, turning to the gendarmes:

"You had better all three stay in the garden, while my friend and I go up
to the house. If we are gone more than five minutes, then you follow us
up to the house and get in somehow!"

In varying accents were returned the composed answers, "_Oui, M'sieur._"

There came a check, for the little gate was locked. Each man helped
another over very quietly, and then the three gendarmes dispersed with
swift, noiseless steps, each seeking a point of vantage commanding the
house.

Chester and Paul de Virieu walked quickly up the path.

Suddenly a shaft of bright light pierced the moonlit darkness. The
shutters of the dining-room of the Chalet des Muguets had been unbarred,
and the window was thrown wide open.

"_Qui va la?_" the old military watchword, as the Frenchman remembered
with a sense of terrible irony, was flung out into the night in the
harsh, determined voice of Madame Wachner.

They saw her stout figure, filling up most of the window, outlined
against the lighted room. She was leaning out, peering into the garden
with angry, fear-filled eyes.

Both men stopped simultaneously, but neither answered her.

"Who goes there?" she repeated; and then, "I fear, Messieurs, that you
have made a mistake. You have taken this villa for someone else's house!"
But there was alarm as well as anger in her voice.

"It is I, Paul de Virieu, Madame Wachner."

The Count spoke quite courteously, his agreeable voice thickened, made
hoarse by the strain to which he had just subjected it.

"I have brought Mr. Chester with me, for we have come to fetch Mrs.
Bailey. In Paris Mr. Chester found news making her return home to England
to-morrow a matter of imperative necessity."

He waited a moment, then added, raising his voice as he spoke: "We have
proof that she is spending the evening with you," and he walked on
quickly to where he supposed the front door to be.

"If they deny she is there," he whispered to his companion, "we will
shout for the gendarmes and break in. But I doubt if they will dare to
deny she is there unless--unless--"

He had hoped to hear Sylvia's voice, but Madame Wachner had shut the
window, and a deathly silence reigned in the villa.

The two men stood in front of the closed door for what seemed to them a
very long time. It was exactly two minutes; and when at last the door
opened, slowly, and revealed the tall, lanky figure of L'Ami Fritz, they
both heard the soft, shuffling tread of the gendarmes closing in round
the house.

"I pray you to come in," said Monsieur Wachner in English, and then,
addressing Bill Chester,

"I am pleased to see you, sir, the more so that your friend, Mrs. Bailey,
is indisposed. A moment ago, to our deep concern, she found herself quite
faint--no doubt from the heat. I will conduct you, gentlemen, into the
drawing-room; my wife and Mrs. Bailey will join us there in a minute,"
and only then did he move back sufficiently to allow the two men to cross
the threshold.

Paul de Virieu opened his lips--but no sound came from them. The sudden
sense of relief from what had been agonised suspense gripped him by the
throat.

He brushed past Wachner, and made straight for the door behind which he
felt sure of finding the woman whom some instinct told him he had saved
from a terrible fate....

He turned the handle of the dining-room door, and then stopped short, for
he was amazed at the sight which met his eyes.

Sylvia was sitting at a round table; behind her was the buffet, still
laden with the remains of a simple meal. Her face was hidden in her
hands, and she was trembling--shaking as though she had the ague.

But what amazed Paul de Virieu was the sight of Sylvia's hostess. Madame
Wachner was crawling about on her hands and knees on the floor, and she
remained in the same odd position when the dining-room door opened.

At last she looked up, and seeing who stood there, staring down at her,
she raised herself with some difficulty, looking to the Frenchman's
sharpened consciousness, like some monstrous greedy beast, suddenly
baulked of its prey.

"Such a misfortune!" she exclaimed in English. "Such a very great
misfortune! The necklace of our friend 'as broken, and 'er beautiful
pearls are rolling all over the floor! We 'ave been trying, Fritz and
myself, to pick them up for 'er. Is not that so, Sylvia? Mrs. Bailey is
so distressed! It 'as made 'er feel very faint, what English people call
'queer'. But I tell 'er we shall find them all--it is only a matter of a
little time. I asked 'er to take some cognac my 'usband keeps for such
bad moments, but no, she would not! Is not that so, Sylvia?"

She stared down anxiously at the bowed head of her guest.

Sylvia looked up. As if hypnotised by the other woman's voice, she rose
to her feet--a wan, pitiful little smile came over her white face.

"Yes," she said dully, "the string of my pearls broke. I was taken faint.
I felt horribly queer--perhaps it was the heat."

Paul de Virieu took a sudden step forward into the room. He had just
become aware of something which had made him also feel what English
people call "queer."

That something had no business in the dining-room, for it belonged to the
kitchen--in fact it was a large wooden mallet of the kind used by French
cooks to beat meat tender. Just now the club end of the mallet was
sticking out of the drawer of the walnut-wood buffet.

The drawer had evidently been pulled out askew, and had stuck--as is the
way with drawers forming part of ill-made furniture.

Chester came to the door of the dining-room. M. Wachner had detained him
for a moment in the hall, talking volubly, explaining how pleasant had
been their little supper party till Mrs. Bailey had suddenly felt faint.

Chester looked anxiously at Sylvia. She was oddly pale, all the colour
drained from her face, but she seemed on quite good terms with Madame
Wachner! As for that stout, good-natured looking woman, she also was
unlike her placid smiling self, for her face looked red and puffy. But
still she nodded pleasantly to Chester.

It seemed to the lawyer inconceivable that this commonplace couple could
have seriously meant to rob their guest. But there was that letter--that
strange, sinister letter which purported to be from Sylvia! Who had
written that letter, and with what object in view?

Chester began to feel as if he was living through a very disagreeable,
bewildering nightmare. But no scintilla of the horrible truth reached
his cautious, well-balanced brain. The worst he suspected, and that only
because of the inexplicable letter, was that these people meant to
extract money from their guest and frighten her into leaving Lacville
the same night.

"Sylvia," he said rather shortly, "I suppose we ought to be going now. We
have a carriage waiting at the gate, so we shall be able to drive you
back to the Villa du Lac. But, of course, we must first pick up all your
pearls. That won't take long!"

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