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The Closing Net by Henry C. Rowland
PART ONE
CHAPTERS
I Tide Water Clam
II The Tide Turns
III Léontine Digs in the Sand
IV A Back Eddy
V Léontine Shows Her Teeth
VI "Will You Walk Into My Parlour?"
VII American Methods
VIII Hawk And Raven
IX The Falcon Strikes
X Rosenthal
XI An Heroic Lie
PART TWO
I Under Cover
II The Countess Rosalie
III The First Round
IV Sanctuary
V Quicksands
VI Temptation
VII Back Into the World
VIII The Passing of Ivan
IX The Net Closes
X Into the Light
CHAPTER VI
TEMPTATION
It was good to be out again, and I couldn't remember when I had felt so fit. The night was soft, very dark, and the air heavy and oppressive, with a sort of tension to it that made me think there would be a thunderstorm before morning. Everybody seemed to be out, and the sidewalks in front of the cafés were crowded.
It was different, however, when I got over in the neighbourhood of the Parc Monceau, for this was a rich quarter, and the residents were off touring or at the springs and beaches. Most of the houses were tightly shuttered and there was scarcely a cat on the streets. I began to be afraid that Ivan might be out of town himself, though it was not often he left headquarters.
When I got to his house, sure enough, it was closed up as tight as a box, with never a sign of life. It was a pretty little Renaissance building, with a small garden in front and a larger one behind it, this running down to a high wall which was on a small street that cut at an angle the street on which the house faced. Another house, with a garden of its own, occupied the sharp corner plot. There was a small door in the back wall of Ivan's garden, so that the house could be left or entered from front or rear. The arrangement was the same in Léontine's house—and is, in fact, a very popular one in Paris.
I approached the house from the front and, after a quick glance up and down the street, stopped in front of the grilled iron gate and looked in. The little path seemed to be littered with leaves and twigs, and looked as if it had not been cleaned for some time. This fact struck me as suspicious, for it looked as if Ivan were trying to give the impression that the house was closed. I did not believe that he would leave it empty, even if he went away. Still, it was possible; and feeling rather disappointed, I slipped round the corner to see if I could discover any evidence that the back entrance was being used.
The street was dark and silent. I walked noiselessly to the little door and, after a quick look round, dropped on my knees and examined the sill. Sure enough, somebody had crossed it, and that recently, for there were light dustmarks on the darker stone.
For a moment I hesitated, not knowing exactly what to do. It was mighty important that I should see Ivan, as I had promised Sœur Anne Marie to let up on Chu-Chu until I had made the effort to fix up a peace treaty. Chu-Chu hadn't promised anybody to let up on me, however; so, for the time being, the odds were all with him, and that's bad business when you're out to do a man up.
Well, there was only one way to find out if Ivan was in the house, and that was to go in and see. Naturally enough, he wouldn't want me hammering at the door when he was trying to give out the idea that the shop was closed; so I reached up and fumbled round in the ivy until my fingers got a grip on the edge of the wall, then hove myself up and lay for a moment stretched out at full length on the top, well hidden by the heavy growth of ivy, listening and watching.
My friend, if you want to find out something, let me tell you there is nothing like quiet watching. No matter where you watch, you always see something. Animals understand this principle better than humans, and the wilder an animal is, the more patient he is about this watching game. I'd learned the lesson already; so now I just lay there with every sense alert, waiting for something to turn up—and pretty soon it did.
The garden was perhaps about thirty metres long by twenty wide, and was a sort of little terrace, completely shaded by closely trimmed marronniers. I had been perhaps ten minutes on the top of the wall when I heard a door open softly and the sound of light footfalls on the gravel. The trees were trimmed a little higher than the wall, and, looking under their low branches, I saw two figures coming toward the door. As they drew near I was able to make them out, even in the gloom, as Ivan and Chu-Chu.
Straight up to where I lay they marched and halted directly underneath. I could have reached down and touched Chu-Chu's straw hat. He was in the costume of an artisan—a plumber or painter—and wore a long cotton blouse buttoned round his wrists, and a black straw hat.
Apparently he and the Chief had disagreed about something, for Ivan said sharply, though in a very soft voice:
"Then you will not undertake it? That is final?"
"It is not worth my while," growled Chu-Chu. After all, I am the one to risk my liberty—not you."
"You risk nothing if you carry out my directions to the very foot of the letter," snapped Ivan.
Chu-Chu shrugged. "Perhaps," said he, "but you must remember that I am the only man who could do the job."
"It is very plain," said Ivan, in about as nasty a tone as a man could use, "that you are suffering from the malady of egoism, Monsieur Maxeville—though why, I cannot imagine. One would have thought that your recent misfortunes might have taught you a little modesty. I could name a man who could do this piece of work in a way to make you look like a tyro!"
"And who is that?" growled Chu-Chu. And I wondered at Ivan's daring. I had sized him up as the least bit afraid of his operator; but either he was very angry, or else had more nerve than I had given him credit for.
"That, my friend," Ivan answered, in a catty voice, "is our American friend, Monsieur Clamart, alias the 'Tidewater Clam,' alias 'The Swell,' alias 'Sir Frank.' Did you ever hear of him, you Basque apprentice?" There was a snarl of rage in his voice, and I began to think that Ivan was a more dangerous man than I had thought. "He stood you in a corner of my study while he took away from you the Baron Rosenthal's gems; he ditched you on the road to Calais and would have made you pay your dominoes then and there if your sponsor the devil had not taken care of you; he cut you up the other day and spoiled a job worth a good sixty thousand francs—and, for all you know, he might land on your fat neck this moment. And yet you have the toupet to tell me that you are the only man in Europe who can do this job which I have more than three-quarters done already!"
Chu-Chu seemed actually a little cowed. As for me, I could feel myself beginning to puff up until I was afraid the bushy ivy might fail to hide me. You can say what you like, a sincere worker is bound to take a certain pride in the thing he's been trained to—honest or dishonest. I'd chucked "graft" and asked nothing better than to live and work on the level; but somehow those words of Ivan's cheered me up inside and gave me a sort of homesick feeling. It was plain enough that he had a deal on, and Chu-Chu was standing out for the first squeeze of the press.
From the tone of Ivan's voice I could almost have hoped that he was trying to pick a quarrel, and that, with a little luck, my work might be done for me, as I doubted that Ivan would have dared to take that tone unless he had his mines of defence all laid. No doubt his hand cuddled a pistol as he spoke, and perhaps Chu-Chu may have known it. At any rate, he probably thought that one feud on his hands at a time was enough; nor do I believe that he wanted to quarrel with the Chief, for he said, in a surly sort of way:
"You need to remember that you were making a stork-leg at the same time, my dear Count; also that both of the times this cursed American attacked me I was at work on one of your jobs and giving my whole attention to that. If I've got to attend to our joint business it seems to me that you might at least give orders that this rôdeur be put out of business. If you will do that I will agree to take up this job on your own terms."
Ivan shook his head. "No," says he, "that is strictly your own affair. I don't want anything to do with it."
Chu-Chu hesitated a minute, then he said: "Chief, I will tell you what I'll do. If you will rid me of the American I will consider that as my share of the transaction and do the job gratuitously. I can't do my work when I don't know what minute I may get a knife under the shoulder-blade."
Here was high praise, let me tell you; Chu-Chu asking for help. That was more than I had hoped for; and, if it hadn't been for my promise to Sœur Anne Marie, let me tell you that his cry for help would have come too late. Did you ever see a bull-terrier crouching in front of a badger's cage watching, as silent and as still as a tombstone, barring only the fine shiver rippling through him every few minutes? That's the way I was watching Chu-Chu. Maybe I was more like a cat, for there was no shiver going through me—only a sort of quiet, deadly patience, for I knew that he was not for me just yet. Perhaps the very fact of my not intending to kill him was what kept him from sensing me up there on the wall, though I was screened by the heavy foliage of the marronniers, to say nothing of the ivy, while a street lamp at some distance lighted the leaves overhead and put me in the shadow. Just the same, nothing could persuade me that Chu-Chu would have stayed long within my reach if I had been meaning to kill him. That extra sense would have made him restless.
If Ivan was tempted by this offer he failed to show it. Perhaps, like myself, he was a man of his word; or maybe he considered it beneath his dignity as Chief to bargain. At any rate, he answered:
"As I told you before, I want nothing to do with that affair. Never mind my motive—that is my own business. If you had dealt fairly with me in the matter of the Rosenthal stones you would never have got yourself in such an embarrassing position."
"But how many times have I got to say that I was waiting only for the opportunity to tell you of that job?" Chu-Chu snarled.
"It seems to me there was plenty of time," snapped Ivan. "At any rate, you must admit that you got us both made fools of. However, all this is not what interests us now. About this other affair? Do you want to undertake it or not? You may have until to-morrow forenoon to decide. Come and tell me your decision at eleven. I am going to lunch with Léontine at twelve-thirty. And now I must wish you good-night, as it is indiscreet for us to stand here talking."
Chu-Chu muttered something under his breath. Ivan opened the door. Chu-Chu slipped and I watched him hungrily; but there was my promise to Sœur Anne Marie!
Ivan closed the door softly and stood for a moment as if in thought. Once he laid his hand on the bolt, and I thought he was going to open the door and call Chu-Chu back; but apparently he thought better of it, for his hand dropped to his side again while he twisted his black, wiry moustache with the other. I guessed that he was hard put to it, that he had a big job going and that Chu-Chu was the only person he dared trust with it. If Chu-Chu failed to come to terms the whole thing was going begging.
Chu-Chu's heavy footsteps died away in the distance, and still Ivan stood there twisting his moustache and thinking. Suddenly he swung on his heel and started for the house, and as he did so I moved my arm, rustling the ivy.
"Who is there?" asked Ivan in a low voice, and I saw his hand slip into the side-pocket of his coat.
"It is I—Clamart," I answered softly.
Ivan stepped to the little door, opened it softly and took a quick look up and down the street, then closed the door again.
"Will you come down?" said he in a low voice.
I reached for the branch of a tree, swung silently clear of the wall and dropped to the ground. Even through the murk I could see the gleam of Ivan's white teeth as he looked at me with his thin-lipped smile.
"Let us go inside," said he. "I would like to talk with you."
I followed him up the path and into the house, and as we entered I heard a rustle from an adjoining room.
"It is all right, Pierre," said Ivan.
"Merci, m'sieu."
Ivan touched a button and the light streamed out.
"Let us go up to my bureau," said he. We can be more comfortable there, and I have quite a good deal to say to you."
So up we went to the handsome room, with its stately Empire furniture, Oriental rugs and valuable paintings, for Ivan was a connoisseur and collector. He seated himself behind his desk and motioned me to a big fauteuil opposite.
"Let me compliment you upon your quick recovery of health," said Ivan, eying me keenly. "Chu-Chu told me he shot you through the body and ripped a hole through your arm with his knife. He was unable to understand how you made your escape, and has been cursing modern high-velocity pistols with small-calibre, steel-jacketed bullets ever since. He is also inclined to suspect Léontine."
"He drilled me through the shoulder," I answered, "and the knife wound was nothing much. For my part, I've been cursing my own clumsiness."
Ivan gave that peculiar smile which might have stood for amusement or malice.
"I wonder you didn't drop on his back just now," said he.
There was no use in telling him of my promise to Sœur Anne Marie, so I answered:
"I might have done so if it had been anywhere else. Naturally I would not make a row on your premises. Besides, I gathered from your talk that you had need of him, and I did not want to run against your interests."
His eyes bored into me like gimlets. "You are getting very considerate of my interests all at once, Monsieur Clamart. You were less thoughtful the other day at Baron von Hertzfeld's. That little interference of yours cost me a good many thousand francs; a sum of which I stand in considerable need just at this moment."
"I am very sorry, Count," I answered; "but how was I to know? When we last met you told me that you were finished with Chu-Chu, and that I might do what I liked to him for all you cared. I supposed, of course, he was working on his own hook."
Ivan leaned back in his chair twisting the waxed end of his thin, black moustache, his pale, handsome face clouded. For several moments he did not speak, but his luminous eyes shot up at me from time to time from under the long, black lashes.
"Why have you come to see me to-night?" he asked suddenly.
"Because," I answered, "it occurred to me that perhaps I might be running counter to your interests, after all, in hunting Chu-Chu, and I wanted to make sure that it was all right. A man may carry on a feud with another man, but there's no use trying to fight a whole organisation."
"But what made you think that I might be employing Chu-Chu when, as you just said, you believed that I had done with him? Whom have you been talking to? Léontine?"
His eyes were snapping now, and his delicate features as hard as steel.
"No," I answered. "Léontine has told me nothing. Nobody has told me anything. It was merely a surmise on my part—and it appears that I was right."
Ivan stared a second, then nodded. "Yes," said he, "you were right—confound it! I did not expect to use Chu-Chu again, nor did I intend to, but I was driven to it. I have recently lost two of my best men, and there was nobody else to do the work. There were two or three big jobs I wanted to finish up, then leave France for a while. I do not quite like the way things are going. To tell the truth, I have a vague instinct that I am under observation"—he gave me another of those ocular dagger thrusts—"and that the Prefecture is beginning to smell a rat. That is the reason why I closed up the house and went to Trouville for a fortnight. I wanted the secret-service men to make a search in my absence, and I find they have done so. I left everything prepared for them—a few letters to indicate that I am somewhat involved in a Balkan conspiracy, and so on. Balkan conspiracies don't interest them much, but they had to find something. I just returned to-night, having got hold of a good proposition, and wishing to see Chu-Chu. There is no one else. You heard the conclusion of my conversation?"
"Yes," I answered; "and it made me feel ashamed of myself for the trouble I've made you. I'd never counted on your squareness to me resulting in your own loss."
Ivan gave his thin smile. "It has, though," he answered. "First it was Miss Dalghren's rope of pearls, which I gave back to you; then you came within an ace of doing me out of that big Calais boat haul; then you broke up the Hertzfeld job, and now it looks as if you might spoil the best thing yet. I won't say anything about the Rosenthal stones that you took away from Chu-Chu, though he swears that he would have turned them over and was waiting only until the other business should have been disposed of. Now, Monsieur Clamart, I am, like yourself, a man of my word; but, after all, there are limits to one's patience." He smiled again.
Was he starting to threaten me? I could feel the muscles of my jaw harden. It was one thing to try to keep Ivan's good will and another to be cowed. The blood started up my neck, and I think that Ivan saw that he'd taken the wrong tack, for he went on smoothly:
"Don't misunderstand me. What I mean is that keeping my word to you is proving more expensive than I can afford, and it seems to me there exists some little obligation on your part. Don't you agree with me?"
"I certainly do," I muttered.
"I have stretched some points for you," Ivan went on; "and I don't mind telling you that, all money loss aside, it has hurt my authority with the association of which I am the head. Chu-Chu has been intriguing." His face darkened and grew sinister. "He is accusing me of favouring a renegade and traitor who has great influence at the Prefecture. The mob knows your story; it knows that you got caught while working the Cuttynge house, and that for some miraculous reason you got off scot free. It's been hinted that you belong to the police, and it's also been hinted that I am too well disposed to you. Do you understand? Now one good job on your part would remove that impression and restore confidence in myself and enable me to put Chu-Chu where he belongs."
"But, my dear Count—" I began, almost stammering; for now I saw what Ivan was after. He interrupted me.
"Listen, Monsieur Clamart: It is true that you passed your word to Mrs. Cuttynge never to steal again; but I understand that she believes you to have broken your faith, and that the circumstances are such that she can never be undeceived. What you wish most of all is that she should continue to believe you guilty and her husband, the real thief, innocent? Is that not so?"
"Yes," I stuttered; "but——"
"Let me finish." Ivan leaned toward me across the desk and projected the whole weight of his powerful magnetism. "Mrs. Cuttynge, I take it, is the only person whose faith in you you value, and hers is irrevocably lost. She believes you have dropped back into the underworld—back to your old trade; but if you were to re-emerge you could resume your former position in your half-brother's motor business, and his wife would gradually regain her faith in you, and at the end of a certain time it would be absolutely restored. Now what keeps you from going back? Chu-Chu le Tondeur? I do not wish to tempt you, Monsieur Clamart, nor shall I offer you a cent of money as inducement; but I am going to appeal to your sense of obligation to me and offer you the means of extricating yourself from your difficult position. I have a job on hand which would be practically impossible to a bungler, but presents no difficulties to the expert. Moreover, the loss will fall upon a rich and dishonest organisation. If you will undertake this one bit of work and are able to carry it off successfully, I will promise never to call upon you again, and I will give you my assurance"—his face grew hard as flint—"that you need have no further cause to be on your guard against Chu-Chu le Tondeur. And that part of my compact would be a real pleasure to carry out."
The cold, deadly hate streamed out of Ivan's burning eyes as he said these last words; and, let me tell you, my friend, I had no fear of his not "making good" on that part of the contract. For the first time I realised how Ivan loathed and hated the Shearer; but it showed me, also, how badly the chief must be crowded, hating Chu-Chu as he did, to put up with him.
Well, here was the proposition, as cold and square as a flagstone in a prison yard. I could take it or I could leave it. If I took it I broke my word to Edith—and what did that matter, when she would live and die thinking that I had broken it anyway? If I left it there was Chu-Chu—and the thought of him didn't bother me any, because, after all, he wasn't much more than a bloodthirsty animal, with an animal's cunning—and Ivan.
And let me tell you, my friend, that Ivan was a very different sort of type to tackle. It was within the range of human possibility that I could be afraid of Ivan. He was a man of cool thought, acted on impulsively. Ivan, I felt, could be swift and cruel and terrible; and his acts would not be governed by any principle, but purely by the emotion of the moment. Personally he could never have frightened me; but a braver man than I might easily dread that swift, cruel intelligence, directing such ferrets as you catch sight of slipping in and out of the shadows about the barrières. Ivan had a pack of these slinking, stealthy apaches at his disposal; and, though he had probably never so much as laid eyes on one of them to recognise him, they were nevertheless ready and waiting to do his will as transmitted through one of his sub-lieutenants. Once this cheerful horde was loosed on a victim, he might as well try to fight a swarm of mosquitoes, of which the sting of any might easily prove fatal. They represented a disease rather than an enemy.
So here, on one side, was the promise of freedom from the underworld and life in the open again, all for a few hours exercise of the skill that had taken me years and years to perfect. Just one theft added to the many which I had done and gloried in the doing of! It may seem strange to you that the odd chance of making a fluke of it and getting nabbed never entered into my head, except in a vague sort of way, just as the thought of being taken with cramp might occur to the strong, long-distance swimmer.
No, I had no fear of getting caught; in fact, I had and have still a supreme contempt for the Continental police, and you can take it as a great truth that the reason there are no more big robberies in Europe is because people take better care of their dust. When a Frenchman gets a bone he buries it; he doesn't give it to some big dog to guard for him, the way we do at home. And as for jewels—well, if folks knew how few of the sparklers they see are the real thing they d stare at the moon in stead. There's plenty of petty graft in Europe, because the people are naturally suspicious and therefore suckers, but there's never such an awful lot of money in any one place; and when there is you're apt to find a couple of dozen people guarding it.
I took so long to answer that Ivan must have thought it was all fixed, for presently he said:
"I am glad to see that, though you are a straight man in your dealings—just as I am when personal questions are involved—you are not, nevertheless, pigheaded. You kept your word at great sacrifice; and now, when this sacrifice has proved futile, you are quite at liberty to——"
"To break my word?" I asked quietly.
Ivan gave me a startled look, then his eyes narrowed.
"So far as that goes," said he, "the person to whom you gave it considers that you have already broken it. To all practical purposes, Monsieur Clamart, you have broken your word to Mrs. Cuttynge."
"Perhaps," I answered; "but I have not yet broken my word to myself."
Ivan smiled. "Perhaps when you come to try yourself before the tribunal of your own conscience," said he, "the court might find extenuating circumstances——"
I interrupted him impatiently.
"Count," said I, leaning forward, "there is no use in our saying any more. Nothing would please me more than to be able to pay my obligation to you, while my own position is not one that I am in any way keen about. If I could do what you suggest I would in a second; but I can't. I don't pretend to be a reformed character or anything of the sort. It's simply that I've passed my word and can't go back on it without losing all my self-respect and going all to pot generally. If I were to do this one job do you suppose I'd stop there. Not for a second. I'd pitch in again and make Chu-Chu think he was the apprentice that you called him a little while ago. It's not as though I'd given my word in a fit of uplifted ideas, or to please a woman, or because I happened to feel noble for the moment and wasn't in any particular want. I did it to square a debt—and, by God, I'm going to stick to it!"
Ivan started at me gloomily. I'd rather expected he would threaten or sneer—or possibly, because there were some fine streaks in his complex nature, approve my stand. Instead, he sat and tugged at his moustache and stared at me from time to time in a sort of bored, despondent way, just as a man might at being turned down in some business proposition.
"Eh? Well," said he, suddenly arousing himself, "I was afraid I might hear something of that sort. I know your sort, and I won't say you're not right. Only it's apt to be a bit unfortunate for both of us."
"You mean that I can no longer count on your friendship?" I asked.
"No more than I can count on your help!" he snapped. "Mind you, I'm not going to order your assassination or anything of that sort; but, if you decline to take up the work and Chu-Chu decides to come to terms, I can't have him interfered with. Naturally I've got to protect my own man."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Just this, Monsieur Clamart," said Ivan, looking me squarely in the eyes. "If you want to prolong your life you will have to leave the country. So long as you leave Chu-Chu alone all right and good. I need him for my business."
"Then order Chu-Chu to leave me alone," I answered.
"He wouldn't obey. Chu-Chu means to kill you or have you killed; but, as for your killing him"—he lowered his head and looked at me fixedly—"take my advice, Monsieur Clamart," says he, wagging his slender index finger at me, "and leave Chu-Chu alone. That is all."
Well, it was enough. At least, he'd put the case plainly. So long as Chu-Chu was working for Ivan I could hunt his scalp only at the risk of my own, though Chu-Chu was perfectly free to murder me. On the other hand, I had nothing to fear from Ivan so long as I left Chu-Chu alone. It was all logical enough. If I didn't like the situation I could always get out of the country; but there was my business and the desire to make good, and—oh, there were many reasons why I did not want to clear out!
Ivan reached over rather wearily and touched a bell. His servant, Pierre, who looked rather like a mink, came to the door.
"Get a bottle of champagne and some sandwiches," said Ivan; then looked at me, and his thin smile parted his lips again. "You'll join me in some refreshment, won't you?"
So we drank a bottle of champagne between us and ate some sandwiches, and talked about different things. Ivan asked me no questions about my stalk of Chu-Chu. The business seemed to bore him. It was plain enough he was bothered by troubles of his own; and once or twice, when there came a step outside on the pavement, he stiffened like a bird-dog that scents game. It was after two when I got up to go, and Ivan went down with me through the garden and let me out through the little door in the wall.
"Some day, when we've both retired and are living in the world where we belong, we may be good friends, Monsieur Clamart," says he in a tired voice. "But, meantime, business is business. Take my advice and clear out for a while. If you don't, Chu-Chu will surely get you, because, as I said before, I need the man and can't have him interfered with. I've offered you your chance, and if you haven't chosen to profit by it you have only yourself to blame if anything unpleasant happens."
"Is that a polite way of saying that if I scrag Chu-Chu I'll have the association down on my back?" I asked.
"I'm afraid that's about what it amounts to," said Ivan; and he wished me good-night.
CHAPTER VII
BACK INTO THE WORLD
The night seemed darker than ever when I went into the street; but, let me tell you, it wasn't any blacker than my own feelings. There seemed mighty little left but to skip the country and to go somewhere else and make a fresh start, this time on the level; but the very thought of that was hateful. To begin with, I couldn't stomach the idea of being chased out by Chu-Chu with a gang of Ivan's apaches at his heels. Then, there was the business that I'd got so well started. And then there was the biggest thing of all—the wish to win back what I'd lost in Edith's eyes! Don't make the mistake of thinking for a second that I was in love with Edith—my feeling toward her was the sort a child might have for an angel. The distance between us was too great to admit of anything else.
There were other reasons, too. I had an awful warm spot inside me for Rosalie, and I wanted to see her often and be free to be with her. The remembrance of her bare arms round my neck and her tear-stained face against mine set me all aglow. I realised that I was on the verge of falling in love with Rosalie. And there was my life in town, and the clubs and theatres and cafés and spins over the road—no, sir; to tell the truth, I almost regretted for an instant that I hadn't taken Ivan up on his offer. I knew, however, that things would never have been quite the same for me afterwards if I had. It would have cost me my self-respect even more than getting out of the country would; and when a man of my stamp loses his self-respect there ain't much left of him but his clothes.
So here I was, forbidden to hunt Chu-Chu under pain of being exterminated by Ivan's rat-terriers, and Chu-Chu free to slip a knife into me the first chance he got! It was a pretty exasperating state of affairs, and the more I thought it over the less good I was able to see in it—until suddenly I had an inspiration.
In the very beginning of my feud with Chu-Chu I had asked Ivan if he had any objection to my killing him, and Ivan had answered "No." He had told me that, so long as I did not furnish any information which might be dangerous to the mob, I could go ahead; and he had even given me a tip as to Chu-Chu's familiar. At that time Ivan had decided to break off all relations with Chu-Chu. Since then, however, he had come to need him again, and, as a result, he had now forbidden me to interfere.
When I had given Ivan my promise not to furnish information to the police it had been with the understanding that he was not to interfere with my feud with Chu-Chu. And now he had done it—and his doing so let me out. Mind you, the last thing in my mind was to turn State's evidence and actually lay information against the mob. That's a thing I've always despised; and besides, there were too many old, extraditable accounts against me to make such a move healthy. As the girl said when her young man wanted to kiss her: "I'm not that kind of a girl—and besides, mamma would hear!"
At any rate, I could make the bluff and put Ivan in a position of my guardian angel. And the minute that idea struck me I laid a course for an all-night café on the Avenue Wagram, where I called for writing material and scratched off a letter something like this:
My Dear Count,—I am preparing to-night a full statement which, by the time this has reached you, will be in the custody of a trustee with instructions to place it at once in the hands of the prefect of police should I happen to be the victim of any accident of a violent character.
I would, therefore, advise that our mutual acquaintance be issued instructions similar to my own.
In acting as I have, I am actuated solely by a sense of fair play. As to my good faith, you may remember that when I passed my word to make no revelations which might incriminate your associates or yourself it was done on your assurance that I should not be interfered with in the carrying out of my personal affairs.
To-morrow morning I shall return to my place of business and resume the administration of my affairs as formerly, trusting to your discretion to prevent aught of an unpleasant character.
Please accept, monsieur, my most distinguished consideration.
Frank Clamart.
This note finished, I sealed and addressed it and took it straight to Ivan's house. There I yanked at the bell until finally Pierre came to answer it. I handed him the note.
"Take this to your master," said I, "and tell him it was brought by Monsieur Clamart himself."
Then I turned on my heel and went back to my little hotel in Passy, with the feeling of a man who has come to the surface after a deep dive.
It doesn't take long to step from the underworld into the upper when you happen to be at home in both. I paid my little hotel bill, walked out into the Bois with my old black valise, found a thicket over by the bicycle path and did a lightning-change act from a goggled predicatéur into a young man of fashion, then walked over to the Pré Catelan, picked up a taxi and went to my garconnière over by the Ternes.
The concierge seemed glad to see me. I told him I had been working up the car in England and had run over for a few days to see if there was anything new. Naturally I'd left the black valise in the Bois, and my being without luggage meant nothing, as he might have thought that I had left it at the Cuttynges or the Automobile or Travellers clubs. Your Paris concierge is a past-master in the art of never being surprised at anything; and if you happen to be a foreigner the only thing that could possibly surprise him would be the lack of things to be surprised about.
I read a few letters and then walked over to the office on the Avenue de la Grande Armée; and, let me tell you, the luxury of that walk in the open was greater than any I'd ever enjoyed. Chu-Chu might have walked up and shoved a knife into my solar plexus and I'd scarcely have tried to stop him. I was enjoying my respectability just as a respectable person might enjoy a little dip into vice—not because it was vice, but because he was a bit fed up on the other.
Gustave, our little mécanicien, was the only person at the office. He seemed very glad to see me back, and said there had been practically no business at all since I had been away. He had taken several people out to show the car, but did not know that anything had come of it. He believed there had been two sales from the Basle office and one from the Geneva.
I next called up the Cuttynges and learned from the butler that monsieur and madame were expected home the following night, but only to stop over twenty-four hours en route for Baden, as monsieur had been suffering from his stomach. Gustave told me that he had been forwarding all letters to Monsieur Cuttynge.
There was really nothing for me to do, and I was about to lock up my desk and stroll down to the Automobile Club, when Gustave brought in a note that he said had just been left by a man who looked like a valet de chambre. One glance at the envelope showed me that it was from Léontine. It read:
"Dear Frank,—Ivan has just called and showed me your note. We both think that you have gone mad or else that you must have a wild and exaggerated idea of Ivan's authority over our mutual friend.
"Let me warn you to get under cover at once. Ivan is practically powerless, and you are doing him a great injustice in the action you are taking. He has now gone to keep a rendezvous with our friend. There are many urgent things I wish to say to you, and I want you to lunch with me to-day at noon, chez moi. It will be quite safe.
"L."
This note caused me no surprise. I had expected something of the sort—but from Ivan. However, as Léontine might expect to be entangled in the net of any general revelations and had no idea how much I might have told in my statement, she was naturally uneasy, and no doubt wanted the chance to convince me that I was behaving foolishly and meanly.
There seemed no special reason for not complying with her request, as, now that I had broken cover, I was in no more danger in one place than another. If Ivan dared he could have me assassinated—when he liked and so might Chu-Chu. Mind you, I wasn't feeling so dead safe, by any means; what I was doing was simply the best of several poor choices—leaving the country, killing Chu-Chu, and then taking a chance on Ivan's carrying out his threat, or skulking around in disguise and waiting for something to turn up. I don't count the possibility of going back to graft as a choice, because I never for a second considered it.
A little after eleven a man whom I knew came in, and the clocks were striking twelve when I jumped into a taxi and started up to Léontine's. It seemed nice to be going about the city openly and well groomed again. After all, I thought, maybe it's better to take a chance of being scragged like a gentleman than to go slinking about like a street cat. I'll keep my eyes open, and if he can get me let him go ahead and do it. As for Ivan and his mob, they can go to the devil too.
It was in this frame of mind that I arrived at Léontine's; and then, as I got out and turned to pay the driver, I got a jolt that knocked all the newborn impudence out of me—for there on the terrace, sitting at a table on the edge of the cleared space leading up to the door, was Rosalie, watching me intently; and at a table just abreast of her on the other side of the opening was a man in an artisan's blouse and a black straw hat, with one of the little round carpetbags in which plumbers, locksmiths and others carry their tools, on the pavement at his feet.
Bearded though he was, I knew him at a glance for Chu-Chu. Even if I had not seen him vaguely in the dark the night before, I think I would have known him. Some instinct seemed to label him with his true self, and the same instinct warned me to let my eyes move absently past and to turn slowly on my heel and reach for the bell of Léontine's little door.
"Was it a trap?" I thought like a flash. Did they mean to put me quickly and silently away and take a chance on such revelations as might or might not be produced? Was I a fool to go into the spider's web like an innocent little fly? The butler's steps were coming down the path. Had I better leave a verbal message and go away? I could say that I had just got back to the office and found the note and was sorry that I was engaged to lunch in the Bois, and had stopped on my way to make my excuses. All this went through my head like a single thought. Then the door opened and I entered in the most natural way in the world and followed the maître d'hôtel up the path into the house.
Why did I do so? Was I fascinated by the danger? Hypnotised? Hardly that. I'd got too used to danger to act like a silly song-sparrow confronted by a blacksnake. My reason was one which any American can understand in a second, but which would be absolutely incomprehensible to many older and more subtle nations. I was out of patience. I wanted action, even in the smoke. I was sick of dodging about and pined for a showdown. My morning as a free and independent member of the upper class had soured me on stealth, and the middle of the Champs-Elysées had spoiled me for a niche in the wall of a back alley. I slipped my hand into the side pocket of my coat, cuddled the butt of my little automatic heavenly ticket-punch, and walked into that house a sort of living murder-machine. Thought I: "They'll think they've got mixed on their natural history and caught a hot-ended hornet instead of a harmless fly in their blooming net." Chu-Chu would come slipping over directly—to mend a lock or wipe the joint of a waterpipe—and there'd be some quick curtain work. Catch 'im alive-oh! would be the password, as fireworks were the last things on the programme; then deflate him without noise and put him away.
I followed the sleek rascal ahead, with the sparks fairly sizzling out of me; and when he stepped aside to usher me into the darkened little boudoir, which overlooked the garden in the rear, my eyes were boring through the portières, shining into shaded corners, and the tail of one of them watching to see that the servant kept both his hands in sight. The room was empty, however, and the man bowed himself out, saying that mademoiselle would be down immediately.
The picture of Rosalie s face was the next thing that flashed through my mind—the shock, astonishment, then the deep, burning flush that overspread it as she realised that I was going into the house of Léontine! Poor girl, she little guessed the fond, loverlike emotions which I did not have as I stood there with my hackles on end, my teeth bared, lips twitching ready to hand out wholesale slaughter with gun and knife. I wondered if Rosalie had recognised Chu-Chu, and decided that she could not have done so. His disguise was too cleverly done. Only a blood enemy could have pierced it—and perhaps not even he unless forewarned.
I was pining to get to the front of the house to have a look at the Bon Cocher, but there was no time. There was the peculiar swish which seemed so characteristic of Léontine when she moved, for she had a way of switching her skirt as she walked; and she stood in the doorway, ravishingly lovely in a summer costume of old embroidered linen and lace, pale cream in tint, over satin of a deeper and luscious yellow. The colour was in perfect harmony with her rich ivory skin and clear, dark amber eyes. Her short, heavy curls were held as usual by the golden fillet, with its great emerald.
It did not look like a costume that a woman would be apt to put on to assist at the murder of a man; nor did anything in her expression or the warmth of her greeting suggest this idea. Her eyes fastened on me with the avid look that I had seen there before and her breath came quickly as she spoke.
"Oh, Frank! Frank!" she murmured, as I bent over her hand. "What a lot of trouble you do make us!"
"I'm not altogether free from it myself," I answered. "But you must remember that you began it all."
"And we are apt to end it unless you show a little sense," she retorted, smiling.
There was a sound in the corridor, and I felt myself harden up. Léontine noticed it and laughed.
"For shame, Frank! It's only Victor to announce déjeuner. Surely you don't think I'd set traps for you in my own house?"
"The idea never entered my head," I answered, "until I saw Chu-Chu sitting in front of the café opposite. Considering that you had told me——"
"Chu-Chu!" she whispered; then was silent. Victor announced that she was served and I followed her into the charming little dining-room. There were places for three.
"Ivan said he would try to get in for an ice and coffee," said Léontine.
Victor served us, then went out.
"Help yourself to wine, Frank," said Léontine. "That is Chablis by you and Chambertin in the other decanter. Now tell me what you mean by saying that Chu-Chu was in the café opposite. He had a rendezvous with Ivan at this hour."
"Then he failed to keep it," I answered.
"How was he dressed?"
"Workman's blouse, black straw hat, grizzled beard."
Léontine knit her brows. I grew suspicious.
"May I help you to wine?" I asked.
"No, thanks. I never take it with déjeuner. But help yourself, please."
Thanks. I also am abstemious," I answered.
Léontine shot me a swift look, then leaned over and laid her hand on my sleeve. Her eyes were positively melting and it seemed to me there was the slightest quiver in her voice.
"Frank," she whispered, "is it possible that you do not trust me?" The swift colour rose and spread over her high, Slavic cheekbones, which were soft and rounded, yet high and of a Cossack prominence that lent character and intensity to her passionate face, though in no way diminishing its sensuous beauty. "Don't you think me loyal, Frank?" she pleaded.
"It's your loyalty that keeps my hand in my pocket," I answered, with a sort of dry grin. "I don't mind giving it to you straight, my girl, that when I spotted Chu-Chu in front of Le Bon Cocher I made up my mind that you and Ivan and a few others had set a little trap for me over here."
Léontine's fresh caviar stopped halfway to her expectant mouth and she looked at me with her amber eyes wide open. Usually you got only an impression of them between a double fringe of long, curved lashes black as ink.
"Then what made you come in here," she cried, "if you thought me capable of treachery of that sort to the man I—I love?" she whispered hotly, and leaned toward me, so that her bosom was crushed against the polished table.
"I came in to bust up the trap," I answered, and took a big bite of caviar and toast. Now that the ice was broken, I was beginning to have a good time; and I must say that, after living round in punky little restaurants, that fresh Orsova caviar, with eggs a pearly grey and as big as buckshot, wasn't the least of it. "Yes, my dear," said I, "when I walked in here I was like a Fourth of July pinwheel, just waiting for the match. And, though I'm having a splendid lunch, and admiring you more than ever, I'm none the less all organised for war. Only, if there's to be rough-house, I wish you'd hold it off until I finish this caviar. Remember, Léontine dear, I've been acting and living up to the rôle of a wandering preacher—and I'm hungry."
Léontine's eyes sparkled. "Do you know what I really wish?" she cried.
"What?" I asked.
"I wish that I actually had about half a dozen bravos hidden round the house—just to see the fun."
"And Chu-Chu——"
She shook her head with a little shudder. "No," she answered—"not Chu-Chu. I am too fond of you, Frank!" And she laid her cheek on my sleeve. A queer girl, Léontine.
Presently she looked up with a sad sort of smile.
"Drink your wine if you like it, my dear," says she. "I will take some with you if it will make you feel any easier."
The blood poured into my face and without waiting to serve her I dashed my glass half full of Chablis and drank to her happiness. Her colour deepened and she was about to say something, when Victor came into the room.
"There is a workman downstairs, m'amselle," said he. "I asked him what he wanted and he tells me he has been sent by the proprietor of the house to look over the plumbing."
Leontine threw me a swift look. "What sort of a man is he in appearance?" she asked.
"He is a respectable-looking person, m'amselle—middle-aged, with an intelligent face and a beard streaked with grey."
"And his costume?" Leontine interrupted.
"He wears a blouse and a black straw hat."
"I know that man," she interrupted fiercely. "He is an impostor. You may go down and tell him that mademoiselle knows all about him, and that he has come to the wrong house and at the wrong time. Tell him that I say he had better go to the Parc Monceau, where he belongs. See that he leaves the premises, Victor."
"Very good, mam'selle." And the man slipped out.
Leontine looked at me. I had dropped my hand into my side pocket and was watching the door.
"Frank," said she, "I swear to you that I knew nothing of this. It only goes to show that Ivan and I were right. Chu-Chu is not to be controlled. No doubt he has been watching this house ever since he left the maison de santé, which was five days ago."
I was on my feet, slipping toward the door, for I had heard a step on the stair and had no intention of being potted from behind the door-jamb. It proved to be Victor, however, and he looked surprised and rather startled, I thought, to find me confronting him.
"Has that man gone?" I asked sharply.
"Oui, m'sieu."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing, m'sieu, except that he thought it probable that mam'selle would regret not having allowed him to do his work."
Léontine had risen from her chair and gone to the window. I followed her and saw something which puzzled and disturbed me. Directly opposite stood Rosalie's taxicab and inside it was Chu-Chu. Rosalie herself was in the act of cranking the motor, and as we looked it started off and she stepped up to take her seat.
The car started ahead and Rosalie made a turn which brought her for a moment head on to the house. Léontine had drawn aside the curtains and we were standing side by side, looking out over the top of the ivy-covered iron fence, for the dining-room was in the entresol. As she turned, Rosalie looked up and saw us standing there in the open window; and, whether because she suspected something and acted out of malice or whether from a sort of bravado before Chu-Chu I don't know, but Léontine flung her arm carelessly round my shoulder—almost round my neck.
I saw Rosalie's teeth come together and she threw out her chin with a sort of contemptuous air; but Chu-Chu smiled wickedly and looked the other way.
Léontine and I went back to the table, both of us rather pensive. Presently she said:
"That was the Countess Rosalie, who took you out to Hertzfeld's the other day, then waited to bring you back—afterward."
"Quite so," I answered.
Léontine raised her eyebrows. "A conquest?" she asked.
"Rather more than that—a good, disinterested friend."
"Really?" Léontine toyed with her poulet-au-riz. Her colour faded slightly. "Comparisons are not polite, mon ami," she said.
"I wasn't making them. I never considered you in the light of a conquest."
"What then?"
"Oh, merely a woman of uncommon beauty and attainments, balked of a passing whim for the first time in her life."
She laughed and seemed pleased. The cleverest of women—Léontine was scarcely that, being more a creature of instinct than intellectuality—are seldom immune from flattery.
"Does Chu-Chu know that she was driving me that day?" I asked.
"Of course not." Léontine poured out a little red wine and tasted it critically "Ugh!"—she gave a little shudder—"the stuff has a blood flavour!"
"Léontine!" My voice was sharp, I think, because she looked up in surprise and the high cheeks began to grow dusky.
"What?"
"Does Chu-Chu know that Countess Rosalie is a friend of mine?"
She dropped her eyes. "How should I know?" she asked suddenly, and looked as sulky as a lioness that refuses to perform.
I could feel that ugly, venomous, wild-beast anger that I have been told is peculiar to the criminal starting to ferment inside me. There was something going on here that I couldn't get the feel of, and the strangeness and danger of it made me bristle like a dog that smells the scent of a timber wolf for the first time. What was up, anyway? Why should Chu-Chu have come into the basement on a faked errand, then go out, get into Rosalie's taxi and drive off? Why should Victor have announced him and Léontine have sent him about his business? What the deuce was behind it all?—and was Rosalie in danger? That was the main thing. I chucked all thought of my own position at the bare idea. Chu-Chu, Ivan, Léontine—blight 'em all, so far as I was concerned; but where had Chu-Chu gone with Rosalie?
The devils began to dance and I looked across at Léontine through lids that were half shut and things showing red between. She saw what was going on and her eyes began to blaze. We were a nice young pair of savages; and the Lord knows what might have come of it if at that moment the bell had not rung.
"Ivan," said Léontine quietly; and a moment later Victor showed him in.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PASSING OF IVAN
Ivan greeted Léontine in his usual polite and formal manner, then bowed to me. He looked very badly; with black shadows under his eyes, and the red-rimmed, swollen lids told of lack of sleep. Yet the eyes themselves were brighter than ever—too bright, I thought, as they rested on me.
The salad was being served when Ivan came in. He declined to eat anything, but took a glass of the Chablis, and directly the wine began to make itself apparent in his face, for he seldom touched anything alcoholic.
"You look badly," said Léontine, and shot a glance at me. "Did your conference with Chu-Chu go wrong?"
"Worse than that," said Ivan. "He failed to keep the rendezvous. You can guess what that means."
"Yes," she answered—"especially as he was sitting in front of the café opposite when Frank arrived. That is what has been puzzling us, because afterward he came into the house on the silly pretext of having been sent by the proprietor to look over the plumbing. Frank sounded general quarters and proceeded to 'cast loose and provide.'" (I wondered where she had picked up that man-o'-war expression.) "I told Victor to tell him he was wanted on the Rue Monceau."
"What did he say to that?" Ivan asked.
"Nothing, except that he was afraid I would regret having refused his services. He went out and we saw him drive off in the Countess Rosalie's taxi."
Ivan's head turned slowly in the high collar which he invariably wore, and he gave me an owlish look.
"Is the Countess Rosalie a friend of Frank's?" he asked; and I stiffened up a little at his free use of my name. Ivan was always markedly formal. There was something, however, in the tired, finished look of the handsome face that prevented my taking offence.
"Léontine asked me that question a while ago," I answered. "I told her that Rosalie was merely a good, disinterested friend of mine. I got acquainted with her when I was hanging about the restaurant opposite and watching the house for a glimpse of Chu-Chu. I told her I was an Alsatian predicatéur."
Ivan laughed softly. "As a matter of fact," said he, "she is a compatriot of yours, though I never would have guessed it if I hadn't heard her turn loose a torrent of American slang on some rather cheap clients in front of the Abbaye. But if she's a friend it seems to me that in your case I'd feel a bit uneasy about her."
"Why?" I asked. "Do you think that Chu-Chu suspected her of having worked with me?"
Ivan shrugged. "Who can tell?" he answered. "If he did, however, he would be very apt to pay off his score with her. He is a consistent man—not an ineffective like we three."
He reached for the Chablis and refilled his tumbler, drank it and gave a little shudder. Léontine's amber eyes flashed across to mine, carrying a double question: "What is the matter with Ivan? What is the matter with you?"
"Have you any idea of where Chu-Chu has gone?" I asked Ivan.
"I could make a good guess," he answered; "in fact, I wouldn't hesitate to trace Chu-Chu's manœuvres from the time you discovered him in the café across the street."
"Would you mind doing so?" I asked.
"Not in the least," he answered indifferently—"the more so as we three have so much in common."
"In what way? " Léontine interrupted.
Ivan's lips parted in his thin smile. "We are all three of us of the type incomplete criminal," he answered. We have been master thieves and have risen high in our profession despite our defects; but not one of us could ever attain a real success in crime because we are all of us cursed with that peculiar hampering quality which is known as heart. We have our decencies, our kindlinesses, our petty nobilities, and no successful thief can permit himself to wear such clogs as these. Léontine, for example"—he glanced at me—"has the infirmity of following only the dictates of her heart without reference to her profit. You, Monsieur Clamart, have the worm in your criminal core in your obsession for keeping your promised word. As for me, I have the weakness of abhorring physical pain, whether for myself or others. My ancestors were, perhaps, impaled by Hmelnitski, and no doubt I inherited the awful reflection of their tortures. I could not bring myself to thrust a knife into a man. I support a charity at Berck for children whose spines and hips are full of pain. I have watched these little doomed children—one was my own—and the tears have been wrung from my eyes; so you see I am really very weak. As criminals, as thieves, we are crass failures, simply because we are often kind; and, let me tell you, my fellow-failures, there is no such silly thing as a kind-hearted thief. Call it what you will—theft, brigandage, graft—whatever is dishonest is cruel and selfish and has no place with generous traits. To steal, to trick a man, to take what belongs to another person, is mean just mean, and there is no getting round it. From the mythical Robin Hood to our modern Arsene Lupin, the thief and his jackal, the swindler, have been glorified and admired; but there is no getting round the fact that they are mean. A dog that behaved in a similar way would be shot; and, though romance often surrounds the thief with a false glamour, it will be found that where he steals a thousand francs he gives about five in charity, and the giving of that five writes him as a failure."
Ivan sipped his Chablis. "We are failures, the three of us," said he. "There is no good in us. We are not even good thieves. Chu-Chu has us beaten. He is a consistent criminal—ruthless, selfish, cruel. If he could murder all the world and be left alone to enjoy their goods and lick his lips in fat plenty, his success would be complete. He is a tearer-down, a destroyer of the established social balance. A man like myself, on the contrary, who vainly attempts to combine theft with a vague, misshapen sense of honour, is a fool. I am a fool and a failure. Léontine is a failure because she thinks to combine the wanton and the mother. Clamart is a fool whom chance may see fit to save." He looked at me with a bitter smile.
Léontine's maid came in with the ice: a luscious, melting creation of peaches and cream, its spicy odour permeating the room.
"Where is Victor?" asked Léontine sharply.
"He has not returned, mam'selle," replied the pretty maid, and her eyes drifted to Ivan, then to me.
"That ice looks delicious," said Ivan. "I shall change my mind and ask for some. My throat is parched to-day."
Léontine smiled, helped herself and the dish was passed to me; but I declined, disliking sweets. Ivan helped himself abundantly. A yellow-striped wasp, lured by the sweet, entangled himself in Léontine's ice, and she watched its gluttonous struggles in a curious, fascinated way, then rang for the maid to serve her afresh. Ivan offered her his plate and, when she smilingly declined, waited until she should be served. Léontine rang again and when the maid did not appear her face clouded with irritation.
"What is the matter with my servants to-day?" she demanded fiercely. "I have never been attended in this haphazard way before."
"There is no hurry," said Ivan dreamily. "Eternity is before us."
"What is the matter with you, Count?" I asked. You talk like a man who has reached the end of his string."
"I have," he answered sombrely.
Léontine looked up quickly. "In what way, Ivan?" she asked. "If it is money don't forget that you have rich and influential friends."
He smiled and let his beautifully shaped hand rest for a moment on hers while he toyed with his spoon.
"Thank you, my dear. It is not altogether money. I have still a bone or two buried under the lilac-bush. But I have failed in my purpose, which was to live ruthlessly and consistently at the expense of a society which I despise. I have failed. I can no longer hold my organisation—the association which I myself created. Chu-Chu has ousted me. He has been working with the patient cunning of a fox or wolf, and he has made himself the leader of the pack." Ivan looked at me with a sardonic smile; and, impatient as I was to learn more of Chu-Chu's present movements, something in the man's face held me an attentive and fascinated listener. His voice, too, had a queer lifelessness, the weary indifference of a man on his death-bed, and his words contained the accent of a valedictory. Léontine was watching him closely, puzzled and disturbed.
"Chu-Chu has made himself the leader of the pack," he answered. "My own life at this moment is no more safe than Frank's; and as for my liberty, that is less so." He looked at me and laughed. "That letter of yours making me the custodian of your safety is a joke, my dear boy. I am about as able to protect you at this moment as you are to protect your little friend, the Countess Rosalie."
I leaned forward, startled. "What's that?" I asked sharply. "What makes you say that? What do you know anyway?"
Leontine interrupted. "Eat your ice, Ivan," said she impatiently—"it is melting," And she pushed her bell viciously.
I glanced at her and was puzzled at the sudden hardening of her face—or, I might better say, at the ferocity of her face; for there was never the least suggestion of either hardness or coarseness about the Polish girl. She could be soft and melting, or hot and fierce and passionate—dangerous as a leopardess, but she hadn't a trace of that female brutality sometimes to be found in the Anglo-Saxon.
It came into my head that they were playing with me, that Ivan's pose was a clever and consummately skilful bit of acting, that he knew nothing of Rosalie and had lied about Chu-Chu, and that the table conversation might wind up in one of two ways—a swift and silent attack, or possibly a request that for the sake of others I should withdraw my statement, since he, Ivan, was a beaten man and powerless to protect me.
What Ivan said next put me off my reckoning again.
"At this moment," said Ivan, "Chu-Chu is probably at a little country house of his, near Meudon. He has called a meeting of my malcontents and they are planning to reorganise, with Chu-Chu as chief. Things are to be run on a more consistent scheme and operators are not to be forbidden to take life as the occasion may arise. If the Countess Rosalie has taken Chu-Chu all the way out there, I would say that she is exposed to some personal danger. It is a lonely place—the house surrounded by a park, hidden from the road; and the whole property is surrounded by a high wall. You may have noticed it in passing; the gates are copied from those of Malmaison. It is the first big place on the road which leads over the hill to enter the forest. Chu-Chu has had it for some years under his name of Monsieur de Maxeville. I have been out there several times. The house is small, but handsomely furnished and full of his hunting trophies—lions from the Masai country and some handsome specimens from the French Congo. When he doesn't hunt men he recreates himself by torturing animals. Just at this moment you would probably find in the house about as select an assortment of human wild beasts as could be gathered together in the whole of Europe." He changed his tone. "How hot it is! I am going to follow your directions, Léontine, and eat my ice. It is delicious." He took a spoonful. Your chef has been liberal with his peach-pits—still, the bitter flavour is rather tonic and refreshing." He took another spoonful of the pink, half-melted cream. "Look, Léontine," said he, "that yellow-striped wasp has made such a glutton of himself that he is dead."
Léontine did not appear to be listening, however. Her bare elbow was on the rim of the table, her chin resting on the knuckles of her half-closed hand, and her amber eyes were brooding and thoughtful.
"What do you think was Chu-Chu's object in coming here? " she asked.
Ivan paused, with his spoon halfway to his lips.
"It is plain enough," said he. "Chu-Chu hoped to get within striking distance of Frank. When he saw that he had been recognised he gave it up in disgust. Chu-Chu has been haunting the café opposite since he recovered from his wound. Do take some of this ice. It is delicious—especially to-day, when the atmosphere is so hot and heavy. One can hardly get one's breath."
I was looking at Léontine and I saw her eyes open wider and the colour fade in her cheeks.
"Ivan! " she cried. "Are you ill?"
"I—I do feel—a little—odd," he answered in a stifled voice. I turned sharply to look at him, and saw that his lips were blue and a curious mottled look was spreading over his face. He glanced from one to the other of us, then stared at his plate. His breath was coming in gasps and his face was tense and wore a startled, frightened expression, but even as I watched him this passed and he smiled.
"Ah!" he said quickly. "I begin to understand. So—that—was—Chu-Chu's—errand here! And Victor?" His head fell forward, but he jerked it back.
Léontine sprang to her feet. Ivan's face was blue and his eyes protruded.
"It's—that ice! Don't—touch it, my—friends! That strong flavour of the peach-pits—I— I—ought to—have known!"
Suddenly he pitched forward across the table. I sprang to my feet and, lifting him in my arms, carried him to the divan, laid him down and tore open his collar. His face was cyanosed, as the face of a person under gas.
"That—dead wasp!" he gasped. "I might have guessed!"
His arm slipped off his chest and fell limply. There were strangling noises in his throat. Then the blue colour faded, leaving the beautifully chiselled features of a marble pallor. I turned and looked at Léontine, who was standing, half crouched, both hands pressed against her temples.
"He is dead!" I told her gently.
CHAPTER IX
THE NET CLOSES
Léontine had risen from her chair and was standing with her body bent forward, her finger tips poised on the table, her eyes wild with horror. When I turned and told her that Ivan was dead she sprang back, overturning her chair; then swept around the table and dropped on her knees at the head of the couch. Here was no acting, as one could plainly see; and, in fact, Ivan himself had solved the mystery in his last words.
Léontine seemed daft with grief and dismay. "Ivan!" she cried. "Oh, Ivan—my dear! Speak to me! Speak to me!" She stared back at me over her shoulder. "Frank! Frank!" she groaned. "Is there nothing we can do?"
"It is too late," I answered. "The man is dead. Chu-Chu poisoned the ice with prussic acid or some of its deadly combinations. He bribed or coerced Victor. You will never see the man again."
She buried her face in her arms, leaning against the body. One might almost have thought that she had loved Ivan, but I knew that was not so. She liked and admired him, and the two had been not only close associates in their criminal enterprises, but staunch friends as well. More than that, I had always suspected Ivan of a hopeless passion for Léontine. I think, still, that he may have been the only man who had ever loved her in a really clean and unselfish way, and I believe that he would have tried to redeem her to a course of right living if the scheme of their lives had been planned differently; but I do not believe that Léontine could ever have cared for Ivan other than as a sympathetic friend. Chu-Chu himself would have stood a better chance. Ivan was too gentle physically, and Léontine had much of the savage in her composition. To win her desire a man would have had first to dominate her, mind and body. Women of the Léontine sort are better wooed with a club and an oath than with flowers and a song.
Yet there was plenty of savage tenderness in her, as I now saw, and there was something beautiful and touching in her grief over the dead criminal. Her sorrow was generous and sincere, and unmindful of the ugly position she was in. She was thinking only of the brilliant, fascinating, and even lovable personality blotted out in two brief minutes as he sat at her hospitable board.
I was thinking of the other, however, if Léontine was not; and it seemed to me there was a lot of trouble ahead. I got up and shut the two doors and locked them, then stepped to Léontine's side and raised her from beside the divan and placed her in a chair.
"We must decide on what steps to take, my dear," I said firmly. "Here we have a dead man and a bowlful of poisoned peach ice-cream, and no very plausible explanation of the circumstances to offer. What's to be done?"
Léontine pulled herself together with some effort.
"I don't know, Frank. I don't seem able to think"—she glanced at the clock—"and Kharkoff is coming at four."
"The police suspected Ivan of something," said I, "but have no positive proof that he belonged to a criminal organisation. Let us see if he's got anything compromising about him now. If so, it would make the statement that he was poisoned by Chu-Chu more plausible."
I stepped to the divan, ran my hand through Ivan's pockets and brought to light, besides the usual small articles, a porte-monnaie and a letter sealed and addressed, but not stamped. Turning it in my hand, I was surprised to see that it was addressed to Léontine.
The tears gushed to her eyes as she took it, broke the seal, and quickly ran it through. Watching her closely, I saw the colour come and go in her face, while the tears flowed faster. The note was brief, and, as she finished reading, Léontine flung the letter toward me on the table, and, dropping her face in her hands, wept silently.
I picked up the note, which was wet and tear-stained, but written in Ivan's clear, regular hand. It was in French, and read as follows:
"Léontine, my dear friend, this is but a word of farewell. My tortuous course is sped—my ill-spent life nearly at its end.
"In this twilight of my soul I see but two bright stars—one whom I dearly loved and who has gone before, and who perhaps may intercede for my mistakes before the Great Tribunal. The other is a dear friend whom I leave behind, and who will mourn me as one less evil than mistaken.
"Léontine, you are my dearest living friend, and I wish to be near you when I slip into the shadows. Will you forgive me, dear?
"Good-night, then, and God bless and keep you!
"Ivan."
I laid the note down and stared at Léontine.
"What does it mean?" I gasped. "Did he commit suicide?"
Léontine shook her head. "No, Frank—at least, I do not think so. Chu-Chu saved him that. But Ivan plainly meant to kill himself. That is why his manner was so strange—so weary and final. You know you said something about his talking like a man at the end of his string—and he answered that he was. He meant to kill himself, either here or not far away."
I nodded. "This note will clear you, Léontine. But throw away the rest of that ice and wash out the bowl. Do so at once."
Léontine nodded and removed the ice. When she returned I said to her:
"Wait until I have been gone for about ten minutes, then telephone for the police. The case will appear sufficiently plain. Ivan came here to die near you."
"But where are you going, Frank?" she asked.
"I am going to settle his account with Chu-Chu," I answered—"and my own!"
So I went into the hot street, caught a taxi at the corner, and hurried to the Prefecture of Police. The Prefect knew my early history, of course, just as he knows that of many other former criminals who are now honoured members of society.
"Where have you been?" he asked. "My men had entirely lost sight of you, and I was beginning to be afraid of a relapse."
"Monsieur need not have been anxious," I answered. "My disappearance was not for any criminal purpose. Quite the contrary. Monsieur le Préfet may remember that when he was so lenient as to pardon me, he tried to extract certain information in regard to a suspected criminal organisation?"
"Quite so," answered the Prefect dryly, "and you declined to furnish it on the ground that you had just arrived from the other side of the Atlantic, and knew nothing about our European thieves. Of course, I did not believe you."
"At any rate," said I, "this defective knowledge has since been remedied. I have reason to believe that I can now take monsieur to a rendezvous of the most important malefactors on this side of the ocean. The chief of the band is none other than Chu-Chu le Tondeur."
The Prefect's head shot forward, and he glared at me across his desk.
"What!" he cried "you can lead me to Chu-Chu and his gang?"
"I think so, monsieur."
"Where are they?"
"At Meudon."
He leaned still closer, his eyes like gimlets and his jaw set.
"Is it"—his voice was almost a whisper—"Monsieur de Maxeville?"
"Monsieur de Maxeville and Chu-Chu le Tondeur are the same person."
An unholy light blazed from his fierce old face. "I knew it," he cried softly—"or, at least, I suspected it. For a while my suspicion rested on another man, but I discovered a few days ago that he was merely a political intrigant. So it had to be Maxeville! But the man had disappeared as though the earth had swallowed him up. How many do you think there are at this rendezvous?"
"Six or eight—ten, perhaps. Chu-Chu is the only one of whom I know anything personally or would recognise by sight."
"My men will know the others." He touched a bell, then, as the attendant entered, left the room to make his arrangements for himself. These did not take long and presently he returned.
"We will go out there immediately," said he. "I shall conduct this affair myself. There are reasons why I wish to have it managed as quietly as possible—political reasons, you understand. Even the Press will be instructed to be discreet. As for yourself, Monsieur Clamart, if the business turns out successfully you may be assured of my most distinguished consideration."
I thanked him, then asked how many men he was taking to capture the gang.
"I am taking six," he answered, "and they will go in plain clothes in two taxis. You and I will go in my own private car. You can designate the place, then wait for me in the car."
"Very well, monsieur," I answered, and wondered what he would think if he could guess at my own little scheme.
The Prefect was a good policeman and it didn't take him long to operate. There was no noise or fuss about it, either; and we went down into the court and got into his car and slipped off down the right bank of the Seine as if we were going for a little airing. We took it easily, though, for the six plain-clothes men were following us in taxis driven by special police chauffeurs.
The Prefect was silent for a while, but I could tell he was doing some hard thinking by the number of white bristles he pulled out of his moustache. Presently he said:
"What was your motive in giving me this information—a desire to be of service to the State?"
"A desire to be of service to myself, monsieur," I answered, and the Prefect cackled outright. He himself loved the State about as much as any stiff-necked old royalist could be expected to love a poorly run republic.
"Perhaps Le Tondeur regards you as a renegade and would like to be rid of you," he suggested.
"I doubt if he knows I am alive," I answered, and with perfect truth. As a matter of fact, I think Chu-Chu had been waiting in the Bon Cocher with the idea of poisoning Ivan, who had probably told him that he expected to lunch with Léontine after their conference. My presence he no doubt regarded as a direct act of friendship on the part of his patron, the devil. No doubt he would have been quite pleased to have gathered in the three of us, knowing that Léontine would remain a partisan to Ivan. The poison was not so quick that we might not have gone all together if served at the same time. Chu-Chu was rather adept with poisons.
The Prefect was silent again, and made only one or two remarks until we had almost reached Meudon. Then he said:
"Whatever your motive, my friend, you are not to consider me inappreciative. If I can break up this gang it will be a great triumph not only for me but for my friends. Frankly, this wave of crime which has submerged France for the past year has been used against us and our party."
It was not very plain to me just what he was driving at, but that did not much matter, as I was busy studying out my own end of the business. I was confident that Chu-Chu would never be taken alive, and my greatest fear was that he might get clean away. That was what I was out to prevent, though I said nothing about it to the Prefect.
We sped through Meudon, taking the road which Ivan had described, and presently we came to the corner of the ivy-covered wall that enclosed the entire property—three or four hectares, I should say, running from the road back down the hill to the river—the whole densely wooded, so that the house was not visible from the road. The frontage was rather narrow and I noticed that the ground was fairly open on each side.
I suggested to the Prefect that he hadn't a very big force to capture such a dangerous band, but he shrugged.
"I am an old soldier," said he, "and count the odds as four to one in a surprise. Besides, these are picked men and not to be bluffed by a handful of thieves."
We whirled past the front of the estate and I noticed that the entrance gates were copied, as Ivan had said, from those of Malmaison. At a little distance beyond the farther corner of the wall the Prefect told his driver to stop, and a moment later the two other taxis came up and the men got out. They were a businesslike-looking outfit, two of them old acquaintances of mine; and their eyes lightened a little as we exchanged nods.
The Prefect lost no time about his plans.
"Leclerc, Dumas, Levoisin and Bourdet, go down along the wall for about a hundred metres, then climb over and surround the house. Wagner and De Lefferts, come with me. We will enter by the front as soon as you others are inside. You drivers, stay by your cars. Roux, take a position similar to this on the other corner. Allons!"
"If I can be of service to Monsieur le Préfet——" I began, knowing well enough what the answer would be.
"Merci!" he snapped. "You had better stay with the car. Now then, let's be off."
The four men detailed to surround the house slipped into the bushes that fringed the wall and disappeared. Giving them a few moments start, the Prefect and his two companions walked down to the front gate, where one of them slipped over and opened the small door for the others. The three chauffeurs, agreeing to horn three times as a signal of alarm, took up their positions, one of the taxis going back down the road and the other remaining with the Prefect's limousine.
As soon as the Prefect had disappeared I strolled casually into the thicket, following the direction taken by the first four.
"Where are you going?" called the Prefect's chauffeur, himself a policeman.
"I am going to where I can listen in case they need our help," I answered shortly, and kept on, leaving him dissatisfied but not knowing just what to do about it. Once out of sight I broke into a run, skirting the wall until I came to where it turned at right angles to enclose the lower extremity of the park. This wall I followed along until I came to what I was looking for, and that was a small door in the rear, opening on a path which led down through the woods to the bank of the Seine.
This was the way that Chu-Chu would certainly come if he broke through the slight cordon. I no more believed that the old Prefect and his six men would be able to round up and capture Chu-Chu than that they could have surrounded a wolf in a patch of bruyère and caught him by the tail. Chu-Chu was not the ordinary house-rat—he was big game—a hunter and lion-killer, and his instincts were those of a wild animal. Something told me that when he broke from his lair it would be for the thickest part of the park and toward the river; in fact, there was no other way to go, as the open highway was in front and the ground more or less open on each side of the estate.
If the police managed to stop him, so much the better, as in that case he would be dead. If he broke through, then it was up to me to stop him myself. And that is what I was there for. So, when I came to the little door of oak and iron, I made a jump for the top of the wall and swarmed over, then dropped on the other side and waited—but not for long.
The undergrowth right there was very thick and had that tropical luxuriance which you find in the Valley of the Seine in the late summer, especially when the season has been warm and moist. There was a little path that wound between thickets and heavy masses of laurel, ivy and holly. One could only see a few feet in any direction, but I had scarcely struck the ground when I heard the noise of people hurrying through the under-growth.
"Chu-Chu and his mob," I said to myself—"the whole gang has got past the police!"
Let me tell you, my friend, that for a second I wished I had not been quite so rash. I had counted on tackling Chu-Chu, but had never thought of its being necessary to take on the whole bunch. On the contrary, it seemed more probable that Chu-Chu would have used the others to cover his own retreat. He was no coward, but he was a consistent thief, and Ivan was right when he said that the first requirement for success in any line of graft is absolute selfishness. Many an able thief has gone under due to a flash of decent feeling, but that would never have been the cause of Chu-Chu's finish.
Here came a gang of them, and they were coming fast and as silently as they could through that tangle—a whole band, with Chu-Chu in the lead. I looked over my shoulder at the wall and wished that I were back on the other side. I had an automatic pistol that held eleven cartridges, and there was a handy knife in my belt, but the odds were too heavy.
For the moment I was tempted to skin over that wall like a cat. Then I thought of Ivan; and, as it got hold of my mind that here was the murderous devil who had just tried to poison the three of us—and one a woman—slipping up to me through the bush, something stronger than the love of life blazed up inside me. I whipped out the pistol and waited.
The crashing noise grew louder and I could hear panting breaths. Then out of a tangle of laurel not twenty feet in front of me burst Chu-Chu, and he reminded me of a boar. He was still in his workman's blouse, and he carried the black straw in his hand. The sweat was pouring from his white face and his lips were drawn back and showed the yellow teeth.
At sight of me he never so much as paused. His hand went to the V-shaped opening of his blouse, and at the same instant I fired into him. Down he went with a crash, then began to scramble on all fours toward the foot of a chestnut tree a few metres away. I fired again and brought a snarl out of him, but he scrambled all the faster. Then a gun cracked to the left of me and I felt the scorch of a bullet across the chest. I spun round, and there was Chu-Chu's mate, the man with one nostril wider than the other. He was standing by the wall and as I turned he fired again and so did another man who had burst out behind Chu-Chu. Then Chu-Chu himself opened up from the ground and I came down in a heap.
It was only a broken shinbone, and from where I lay I got the Oriental chap and another man who had made a jump for the wall. Yells and orders were ringing out from up by the house and men were crashing down the hill. Chu-Chu was somewhere in the thicket, and I wanted him bad; so I started in on hands and knees. His pistol cracked in front of me, and the blood came pouring down into my eyes, but I caught a glimpse of him huddled behind the chestnut, ten feet in front of me, and I took a snapshot and smashed his hand as it was shoved out, gripping his weapon. He snarled like a cat, then came bounding out from behind his tree; and, though my gun went off against his body, it never stopped him, and the next instant his grip was on my wrist and his teeth in the muscles of my neck. I got my left arm clear, however, and as we rolled over, lashing out like a couple of wild beasts, I got the hilt of my knife with my left hand, and, squirming up on top, I let the life out of him.
CHAPTER X
INTO THE LIGHT
Yes, the whole business was kept mighty quiet. Lots of people never really knew just my part in the affair. The Prefect thought it better to hush up the outside assistance and let it go in as a police job. It was all the same to me, though, as Chu-Chu was dead and his pal was dead and two others of the gang were dead. None got away, and the ones taken were no great shucks, and nothing to be afraid of in the future. Anyway, they'd heard of me and asked nothing better than to try to forget me.
It was no such cinch as a couple of weeks in bed this time. I was shot all to pieces, and was six weeks on my back, and my leg in a box, with a weight swinging from the foot; and the police surgeon says that I'll limp for the rest of my life. The Prefect took me to my own little garconniere and detailed his own doctor to fix me up.
John got back to Paris after his "cure," and came in every day to see me. Edith never came. She still thinks that I broke my word, and my honest hope is that she will keep on thinking so to her dying day; but she kept my room bright with flowers. John knew the whole story, of course. He was a different man, I thought, and a finer one; and he told me that it only needed me on my feet again to make the motor business a big success. And he was right.
Ivan's death made a big stir, but only for its romantic interest and the fact that Ivan himself was so well known and well liked round the town. The case was so evidently one of suicide that not even the most enterprising reporter tried to make a "mystery case" of it. Léontine came to see me several times. Then she went away, and I learned afterward that she had gone to Berck to look after Ivan's charity for the tuberculous children. Ivan was not quite square with Léontine; there was a lot more of the mother in her than of the wanton.
I had been laid up about a fortnight when my nurse came in one day, with a grin, to tell me that the Countess Rosalie had called to see me.
"Show her in," I snapped, "and leave us alone. She is an old friend of mine."
Rosalie looked pale, and her smile as she gave me her hand was forced and tired.
"Sit down," said I in English. "There are a lot of things I want to say to you."
She dropped in the chair at the head of my bed and I took her hand. Rosalie did not try to draw it away.
"Why haven't you been to see me?" I asked. "You got my message?"
"Yes; but I thought you would be well enough looked after without me."
"If you are thinking of La Petrovski," said I, "let me tell you that there has never been anything between us—and never will be. She is not in love with me—nor I with her. The nearest I ever came to being really in love with any woman was in a little studio apartment on the Rue Vaugirard, where it seemed to me that for the first time in my life I had found the real thing without any alloy—but I guess I was wrong."
Rosalie grew rather pale, but did not answer.
"Were you in the house when that man killed himself?" she asked.
"I will tell you all about that," I answered, "and of what happened afterwards—and why it did."
So I gave her the whole yarn, speaking in English, which nobody in the house understood. Rosalie listened, scarcely breathing, and her colour came and went like the draught on a red coal.
"So you see, little girl," I wound up, "you yourself were the immediate and direct cause of Chu-Chu's finish."
"And I never for a moment suspected that it was Chu-Chu!" said she. "He told me when he took me that he was a plumber who had just received a telephone call to drop the job he was on and hurry out to Meudon to stop a leak in a waterpipe that was destroying the ceiling. I took him to the house and he asked me to wait, but I could not do so because I had an engagement with a regular client." She looked at me with shining eyes. "And so you hurried out there on my account?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered. "I meant to put the police on to Chu-Chu in any case, but I wouldn't have acted so quickly if it hadn't been for you. Chu-Chu might easily have served you some ugly trick—throttled you and thrown you into the ditch on the way home, or some such pleasantry. He poisoned Ivan merely because he was in the way. If anything had happened to you, sweetheart, I should have wanted to kill first Chu-Chu and then myself." And I meant it, too. I was really in love with Rosalie.
She said very little after that, and presently wished me good-bye and went away; but she dropped a kiss on my forehead before she went out.
From this time on, both Rosalie and Sœur Anne Marie came often to see me. It took the little Mother Superior some time to get over the effect of the tale, which I had let Rosalie tell her; but Sœur Anne Marie had served through the Franco-Prussian War as a nurse and was no rabbit-heart.
Then one day she said to me: "Mon ami, you must be careful. Our Rosalie is losing her heart."
"She already has mine, ma Mère," I answered, "though it's not much of a bargain for her."
"I am not so sure," she answered. "Though your life has been wrongly lived, I am convinced that your heart is clean. Do you really love the poor child?"
"I love her dearly," I answered, "and I would ask her to marry me if I were sure we might never have to reap some of my early sowing. A man with such a past as mine can never be too confident of the future. I speak only of my sins against the Eighth Commandment, ma Mère."
She was silent and thoughtful for a little while, then answered:
"Rosalie loves you, and I do not think she will ever be happy without you. If, later on, some echo from your past should come to bring pain to you both, she will at least have had her hour and tasted of the fulness of life." She smiled. "We religieuses are sometimes given the power to predicate the lives of those dear to us—and there is also much in prayer. You will both be garmented in my prayers, whether I am here or—elsewhere; and, so far, these prayers have not proved fruitless."
There was no denying this. I could quite imagine the secret-service angel, detailed from divine headquarters in response to the good woman's application, sitting beside Rosalie in her taxi and sending her back from Meudon to Paris when Chu-Chu wanted her to wait. The same angel might also have whispered in my ear not to taste the peach ice-cream for politeness' sake. And I'm sure that he sent me about my business the night I said good-bye to Rosalie in her studio apartment.
My heart grew warm as I thought of Rosalie. I knew that I loved her and wanted her for my wife—Rosalie, sweet and brave and true-hearted, and, so far as that went, as physically perfect as a man could wish. I thought again of the night when I had held her in my arms, kissing and comforting her; and last of all, though it should have been first, I thought of how she had stood by me when, spent and bloodless, I had lurched into her taxi at the gate of the Baron von Hertzfeld.
Then, one day in the autumn, when I was beginning to get round a little, Rosalie came to me and said:
"To-morrow will be Sunday, and we are going for a little picnic—just you and myself and Sœur Anne Marie. We will take the car and run out to the forest of Marly for luncheon in the woods. Sœur Anne Marie is very worn from the heat of the summer and it will do her good. You are strong enough to drive now, and I will take a day off and wear a pretty gown and be grande dame."
So off we went the next day, the three of us in the little car, which I drove down a long forest alley with a Gothic roof of burnished bronze. We spread our napkins in a little glade and had a wonderful déjeuner of hors d'œuvres, all sorts, and poulet froid, with salad and galantine, and game pâtés and pickled truffles and dessert. I looked after the wines myself an old Amontillado and a very dry champagne that was given me by a friend who owned some hectares of vines near Epernay, and an old Beaune with a wonderful bouquet; and afterwards coffee which Rosalie made on a percolator, and some liqueur.
After luncheon, Sœur Anne Marie informed us that age possessed its privileges, and she proposed also to show the bon Dieu her appreciation of the good things she had eaten and drunk by withdrawing a little while from the material world in a peaceful nap. So we made her comfortable with a rug and a cushion from the car, and Rosalie and I strolled off under the ancient trees. We came to the top of a high bank on the edge of the big route, and here we seated ourselves on the edge of a laurel thicket to talk and watch the big cars that kept whizzing by.
It was a perfect day in October, and the old-gold canopy overhead screened a sky as blue as the eyes of a little child. Rosalie looked at me and smiled. Her cheeks were red to-day, and her eyes the colour of the autumn leaves. She wore a tailor suit of dark-blue serge and a pretty hat, and looked altogether the stylish femme du monde. Nobody could ever have recognised her as the pretty, piquant chauffeuse so often to be seen perched behind her wheel in front of the big hotels.
There was no trace of impudence about her this day. Though happy, so far as one could see, she was very quiet, and there was a hint of wistfulness in her eyes. Poor little girl! Life had never brought her much joy, and I wondered, as I often had before, at her bright, brave heart, for the summer had been a hard one and most women would have been worn out and despondent; but Rosalie possessed an elastic strength—or fine mettle, one might better say—and the instant the strain was relaxed she flew back as straight and tireless as before.
Our eyes met—and all at once I realised my want of her and the deep, honest love I had come to feel for her. Rosalie's hand was resting on her knee, and I took it in mine and raised it to my lips.
"Rosalie, dear," I said, "I love you! Will you marry a reformed thief?"
She turned to me slowly, and one could see how delicately the colour faded in her lovely face. Her lips trembled, and the tears gushed into her eyes.
"Oh, Frank—you are sure you want me?" she said. "There is—no one else? You are sure, sure, sure?"
"Nobody else, sweetheart—now or ever!" I answered, and gathered her into my arms.
THE END