“No babies to be ushered in, no viellards to be erased out of the world,” he agreed with a chuckle. “I think you have right, my old one. Let us lose our troubles in our dreams.”
NEXT MORNING AS, PRECEDED by two bellboys with our traps, we were about to leave the hotel, I stepped aside to make way for two women headed for the beach. The first was middle-aged, with long, sharp nose and small, sharp eyes, dark-haired, swarthy-skinned, with little strands of gray in her black hair and the white linen cap of a maid on her head. Her uniform was stiff, black bombazine and set off by a white apron and cuffs. Across her arm draped a huge, fluffy bath towel. She looked formidable to me, the sort of person who had seen much better days and had at last retired from a world that used her shabbily to commune secretly with ineffectual devils.
Behind her, muffled like an Arab woman in a hooded robe of white terry cloth, a smaller figure shuffled in wooden beach clogs. The fingers of one hand protruded from a fold of the robe as she clutched it about her, and I noted they were red-tipped, with long, sharp-pointed nails, and thin almost to the point of desiccation. Beneath the muffling hood of the robe we caught a glimpse of her face. It was Madelon Leroy’s, but so altered that it bore hardly any semblance to that of the radiant being of the night before. She was pale as Mardi moonlight, and the delicate, small hollows underneath her cheekbones were accentuated till her countenance seemed positively ghastly. Her narrow lips, a little parted, seemed almost withered, and about her nose there was a pinched, drawn look, while her large sky-hued eyes seemed even larger, yet seemed to have receded in her head. Her whole face seemed instinct with longing, yet a longing that was impersonal. The only thing unchanged about her was her grace of movement, for she walked with an effortless, gliding step, turning her flat hips only slightly.
“Grand Dieu!” I heard de Grandin murmur, then, as she passed he bowed and raised his hand to his hat brim in salute. “Mademoiselle!”
She passed as if he had not been there, her deep-set, cavernous eyes fixed on the sunlit beach where little wavelets wove a line of lacy ruffles on the sand.
“Good heavens,” I exclaimed as we proceeded to our waiting car, “she looks ten—twenty—years older. What do you make of it?”
He faced me somberly. “I do not quite know, Friend Trowbridge. List night I entertained suspicion. Today I have the almost-certainty. Tomorrow I may know exactly, but by tomorrow it may be too late.”
“What are you driving at?” I demanded. “All this mystery about—”
“Do you remember this quotation?” he countered: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?”
I thought a moment. “Isn’t that what Voltaire said about history—‘the more it changes, the more it is the same’?”
“It is,” he agreed with another sober nod, “and never did he state a greater truth. Once more I damn think history is about to repeat, and with what tragic consequences none can say.”
“Tragic consequences? To whom?”
“On ne sait pas?” he raised his narrow shoulders in a shrug. “Who can say where lightning designs to strike, my old?”
WE HAD BEEN HOME from the shore a week or so, and I was just preparing to call it a day when the office telephone began to stutter. “Sam, this is Jane Schaeffer,” came the troubled hail across the wire. “Can you come over right away?”
“What’s wrong?” I temporized. The day had been a hot and tiring one, and Nora McGinnis had prepared veal with sweet and sour sauce. I was in no mood to drive two miles, miss my evening cocktail and sit down to a spoiled dinner.
“It’s Mazie. She seems so much worse—”
“Worse?” I echoed. “She seemed all right when I saw her down at the shore. Lively as a cricket—”
“That’s just it. She was well and healthy as a pony when she came home, but she’s been acting so queerly, and getting weaker every day. I’m afraid it’s consumption or leukemia, or something—”
“Now, take it easy,” I advised. “Mazie can’t dance every night till three o’clock and I play tennis every afternoon without something giving way. Give her some toast and tea for dinner, put her to bed, and see she stays there all night, then bring her round to see me in the morning—”
“Sam Trowbridge, listen to me! My child is dying—and not dying on her feet, either, and you tell me to give her toast and tea! You get right in your car this minute and come over, or—”
“All right,” I placated. “Put her to bed, and I’ll—”
“She’s in bed now, you great booby. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. She hasn’t been up all day. She’s too weak—”
“Why didn’t you say so at first?” I interrupted rather unreasonably. “Hold everything. I’ll be right over—”
“What presents itself, mon vieux?” de Grandin appeared at the office door, a beaded cocktail shaker in his hand. “Do not say that you must leave. The martinis are at the perfect state of chilliness—”
“Not now,” I refused sadly. “Jane Schaeffer just called to say Mazie’s in a bad way. So weak she couldn’t rise this morning—”
“Feu noir du diable—black fire of Satan! Is it that small happy one who is selected as the victim? Morbleu, I should have apprehended it—”
“What’s that?” I interrupted sharply. “What d’ye know—”
“Hélas, I know nothing. Not a thing, by blue! But if what I have good reason to damn suspect is true—come, let us hasten, let us fly, let us rush with all celerity to attend her! Dinner? Fie upon dinner! We have other things to think of, us.”
HER MOTHER HAD NOT overstated Mazie’s condition. We found her in a state of semi-coma, with sharp concavities beneath her cheekbones and violet crescents underneath her eyes. The eyes themselves were bright as if with fever, but the hand I took in mine was cold as a dead thing, and when I read my clinical thermometer I saw it registered a scant eighty, while her pulse was thin and reedy, beating less than seventy slow, feeble strokes a minute. She rolled her head listlessly as I dropped into a chair beside the bed, and the smile she offered me was a thin ghost of her infectious grin which did no more than move her lips a little and never reached her eyes.
“What’s going on here?” I demanded, noting how the epidermis of her hand seemed dry and roughened, almost as if it were chapped. “What have they been doing to my girl?”
The lids drooped sleepily above the feverishly bright eyes and she murmured in a voice so weak that I could not catch her reply. “What?” I asked.
“Le—let me go—I must—I have to—” she begged in a feeble whisper. “She’ll be expecting me—she needs me—”
“Delirium?” I whispered, but de Grandin shook his head in negation.
“I do not think so, my friend. She is weak, yes; very weak, but not irrational. No, I would not say it. Cannot you read the symptoms?”
“If it weren’t that we saw her horse-strong and well fed as an alderman less than two weeks ago, I’d say she is the victim of primary starvation. I saw cases showing all these symptoms after World War I when I was with the Belgian Relief—”
“Your wisdom and experience have not deserted you, my old one. It is that she starves—at least she is undernourished, and we would be advised to prescribe nux vomica for her, but first to see that she has strong beef tea with sherry in it, and after that some egg and milk with a little brandy—”
“But how could she possibly have developed such an advanced case of malnutrition in these few days—”
“Ha, yes, by damn it! That is for us to find out.”
“What is it?” asked Jane Schaeffer as we came down the stairs. “Do you think she could have picked up an infection at the shore?”
De Grandin pursed his lips and took his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Pas possible, Madame. How long has she been thus?”
“Almost since the day she came back. She met Madelon Leroy the actress at the shore, and developed one of those desperate girl-crushes on her. She’s spent practically ever
y waking moment with Miss Leroy, and—let’s see, was it the second or the third day?—I think it was the third day she called on her since she came home almost exhausted and went right to bed. Next morning she seemed weak and listless, rose about noon, ate a big brunch, and went right back to Miss Leroy’s. That night she came home almost in collapse and every day she’s seemed to grow weaker.”
He eyed her sharply. “You say her appetite is excellent?”
“Excellent? It’s stupendous. You don’t think she could have a malignant tapeworm, do you, or some such parasite—”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I think she might, indeed, Madame.” Then, with what seemed to me like irrelevance: “This Miss Leroy, where is it that she lives, if you please?”
“She took a suite at the Zachary Taylor. Why she chose to stay here rather than New York I can’t imagine—”
“Perhaps there are those who can, Madame Schaeffer. So. Very good. She took up quarters at the Hotel Taylor, and—”
“And Mazie’s been to see her every day.”
“Très bon. One understands, in part, at least. Your daughter’s illness is not hopeless, but it is far more serious than we had at first suspected. We shall send her to the Sidewell Sanitorium at once, and there she is to have complete bed rest with a nurse constantly beside her. On no account are you to say where she has gone, Madame, and she must have no visitors. None. You comprehend?”
“Yes, sir. But—”
“Yes? But—”
“Miss Leroy has called her twice today, and seemed concerned when she heard Mazie could not get up. If she should call to see—”
“I said no visitors, Madame. It is an order, if you please.”
“I HOPE YOU KNOW what you’re doing,” I grumbled as we left the Schaeffer house. “I can’t find fault with your diagnosis or treatment, but why be so mysterious about it? If you know something—”
“Alas, my friend, that is just what I do not,” he admitted. “It is not that I make the mystery purposely; it is that I am ignorant. Me, I am like a blind man teased by naughty little boys. I reach this way and that for my tormentors, but nothing can my reaching fingers grasp. You recall that we were speaking of the way that history repeats itself?”
“Yes, the morning we left the shore.”
“Quite yes. Now, listen carefully, my friend. What I shall say may not make sense, but then, again, it may. Consider:
“More years ago than I like to remember I went to the Théâtre Français to see one called Madelon Larue. She was the toast of Paris, that one, for in an age when we were prim and prosy by today’s standards she made bold to dance au naturelle. Parbleu, I thought myself a sad dog when I went to see her!” He nodded gravely. “She was very beautiful, her; not beautiful like Venus or Minerva, but like Hebe or Clytie, with a dainty, almost childlike loveliness, and an artlessness that made her nudity a thing of beauty rather than of passion. Eh bien, my gran’père—may the sod lie lightly on him!—had been a gay dog in his day, also. He was summering near Narbonne that year, and when I went to visit him and partake of his excellent Chateau Neuf and told him I had seen Larue he was amazed.
“For why? Because, parbleu, it seems that in the days of the Second Empire there had been an actress who was also the toast of Paris, one Madelon Larose. She, too, had danced à découvert before the gilded youth who flocked about the Third Napoleon. He had seen her, worshiped her from afar, been willing to lay down his life for her. He told me of her fragile, childlike beauty that set men’s hearts and brains ablaze and when he finished telling I knew Madelon Larose and Madelon Larue were either one and the same or mother and daughter. Ha, but he told me something else, my gran’père. Yes. He was a lawyer physician, that one, and as such connected with the préfecture de police.
“This Madelon Larose, her of the fragile, childlike beauty, began to age all suddenly. Within the space of one small month she grew ten—twenty—years older. In sixty days she was so old and feeble she could no longer appear on the stage. Then, I ask you, what happened?”
“She retired,” I suggested ironically.
“Not she, by blue! She engaged a secretary and companion, a fine upstanding Breton girl and—attend me carefully, if you please—within two months the girl was dead, apparently of starvation, and Madelon Larose was once more dancing sans chemise to the infinite delight of the young men of Paris. Yes.
“There was a scandal, naturally. The police and the Sûreté made investigations. Of course. But when all had been pried into they were no wiser than before. The girl had been a strong and healthy wench. The girl was dead, apparently of inanition; Larose had seemed upon the point of dissolution from old age; now she was young and strong and lovelier than ever. That was all. One does not base a criminal prosecution on such evidence. Enfin, the girl was buried decently in Père Lachaise, and Larose—at the suggestion of the police—betook herself to Italy. What she did there is anybody’s guess.
“Now, let us match my story with my gran’père’s: It was in 1905 I saw Larue perform. Five years later, when I had become a member of la faculté de médicine légale, I learned she had been smitten with a strange disease, an illness that caused her to age a decade in a week; in two weeks she was no more able to appear upon the stage. Then, I ask to know, what happened? Parbleu, I shall tell you, me!
“She hired a masseuse, a strong and healthy young woman of robust physique. In two weeks that one died—apparently from starvation—and Larue, mordieu, she bloomed again, if not quite like the rose, at least like the lily.
“I was assigned as assistant to the juge d’instruction in the case. We did investigate most thoroughly. Oh, yes. And what did we discover, I damn ask? This, only this, morbleu: The girl had been a strong and healthy young person. Now she was dead, apparently of inanition. Larue had seemed upon the point of dissolution from some strange and nameless wasting disease. Now she was young and strong and very beautiful again. C’est tout. One does not base a criminal prosecution on such evidence. Enfin, the poor young masseuse was recently interred in Saint Supplice, and Larue—at the suggestion of the police—went to Buenos Aires. What she did there is anybody’s guess.
“Now, let us see what we have. It may not amount to proof, but at least it is evidence: Larose, Larue, Leroy; the names are rather similar, although admittedly not identical. One Madelon Larose who is apparently about to die of some strange wasting malady—perhaps old age—makes contact with a vigorous young woman and regains health and apparent youth while the younger person perishes, sucked dry as an orange. That is in 1867. A generation later a woman called Madelon Larue who fits the description of Larose perfectly is stricken ill with precisely the same sort of sickness, and regains her health as Larose had done, leaving behind her the starved, worn-out remnant of a young, strong, vigorous woman with whom she had been associated. That is in 1910. Now in our time a woman named Madelon Leroy—”
“But this is utterly fantastic!” I objected. “You’re assuming the whole thing. How can you possibly identify Madelon Leroy with those two—”
“Attend me for a little so small moment,” he broke in. “You will recall that when Leroy first came under our notice I appeared interested?”
“You certainly did. You hardly took your eyes off her—”
“Précisément. Because of why? Because, parbleu, the moment I first saw her I said to me, ‘Jules de Grandin, where have you seen that one before?’ And, ‘Jules de Grandin,’ I reply to me, ‘do not try to fool yourself. You know very well where you first saw her. She is Madelon Larue who thrilled you when she danced nu comme la main at the Théâtre Français when you were in your salad days. Again you saw her, and her charm and beauty had not faded, when you made inquiry of the so strange death of her young, healthy masseuse. Do not you remember, Jules de Grandin?’
“‘I do,’ I told me.
“‘Very well, then, Jules de Grandin,’ I continue cross-examining me, ‘what are this so little pretty lady doing here today, apparently no older
than she was in 1910—or 1905? You have grown older, all your friends have aged since then, is she alone in all the world a human evergreen, a creature ageless as the moonlight?’
“‘The devil knows the answer, not I, Jules de Grandin,’ I tell me.
“And so, what happens next, I ask you? There is a grand soirée, and Mademoiselle Leroy gives audience to her public. We meet, we look into each other’s eyes, we recognize each other, pardieu! In me she sees the juge d’instruction who caused her much embarrassment so many years ago. In her I see—what shall I say? At any rate we recognize each other, nor are we happy in the mutual recognition. No. Of course.”
NEXT AFTERNOON WHEN WE went to the sanitorium to see Mazie we found her much improved, but still weak and restless. “Please, when may I leave?” she asked. “I’ve an engagement that I really ought to keep, and I feel so marvelously better—”
“Precisely, Mademoiselle,” de Grandin agreed. “You are much better. Presently you shall be all well if you remain here, soak up nourishment comme une éponge and—”
“But—”
“But?” he repeated, eyebrows raised in mild interrogation. “What is the ‘but’, if you please?”
“It’s Madelon Leroy, sir. I was helping her—”
“One does not doubt it,” he assented grimly. “How?”
“She said my youth and strength renewed her courage to go on—she’s really on the verge of a breakdown, you know—and just having me visit her meant so much—”
The stern look on his face halted her. “Why, what’s the matter?” she faltered.
“Attend me, Mademoiselle. Just what transpired on your visits to this person’s suite at the hotel?”
“Why, nothing, really. Madelon—she lets me call her that—isn’t it wonderful?—is so fatigued she hardly speaks. Just lies on a chaise lounge in the most fascinating negligées and has me hold her hand and read to her. Then we have tea and take a little nap with her cuddled in my arms like a baby. Sometimes she smiles in her sleep, and when she does she’s like an angel having heavenly dreams.”
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