He moved aside, indicating the doorway to the entrance hall, beyond which Mr. Phinuit was to be seen, standing with cap in hand, tiny rivulets running from the folds of his motor-coat and forming pools on the polished flooring. As in concerted movement Madame de Sévénié, Eve de Montalais, the curé and Duchemin approached, his cool, intelligent, good-humoured glance surveyed them swiftly, each in turn, and with unerring instinct settled on the first as the one to whom he must address himself.
But the bow with which he also acknowledged the presence of Eve was hardly less profound; Duchemin himself, at his best, could hardly have bettered it. His manner, in fact, left nothing to be desired; and the French in which immediately he begged a thousand pardons for the intrusion was so admirable that it seemed hard to believe he was the same man who had, only a few hours earlier, composedly traded the slang of the States with a chauffeur in front of the Café de l’Univers.
Mr. Phinuit was desolated to think he might be imposing on madame’s good nature, but the accident was positive, the night truly inclement, madame la comtesse was already suffering from the cold, and if one might beg shelter for her and the gentlemen of the party while one telephoned or sent to Nant for another automobile.…
But monsieur might feel very sure Madame de Sévénié would never forgive herself if the hospitality of the Château de Montalais failed at such a time. She would send servants to the car at once with lights, wraps, umbrellas.…
There was no necessity for that. The remainder of the party had, it seemed, presumed upon her courtesy in anticipation, and was not far from the heels of its ambassador. Even while madame was speaking, Jean was opening the great front doors to those who proved—formal introductions being duly effect by Mr. Phinuit—to be Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes, monsieur le comte, her husband (this was the well-fed body in tweeds) and Mr. Whitaker Monk, of New York.
These personages were really not at all in a bad way. Their wraps were well peppered with rain, they were chilly, the footgear of madame la comtesse was wet and needed changing. But that was the worst of their plight. And when Mr. Phinuit, learning that there was no telephone, had accepted an offer of the Montalais motor car to tow the other under cover and so enable Jules to make repairs, and Eve de Montalais had carried madame la comtesse off to her own apartment to change her shoes and stockings, the gentlemen trooped to the drawing-room fire, at the instance of Madame de Sévénié, and grew quite cheerful under the combined influence of warmth and wine and biscuits; Duchemin standing by with a half-rejected doubt to preoccupy him, vaguely disturbed by the oddness of this rencontre considered in relation to that injudicious stop for dinner at Nant in the face of the impending storm, and with Mr. Phinuit’s declaration that he didn’t give a tupenny damn if they did all get soaked to their skins.
It seemed far-fetched and ridiculous to imagine that people of their intelligence—and they were most of them unusually intelligent and alert, if demeanour and utterances might be taken as criterion—should adopt any such elaborate machinery of mystification and duplicity in order to gain an introduction to the Château de Montalais. With what possible motive…?
But there was the devil of having a mind like Duchemin’s: once it conceived a notion like that, it was all but impossible for him to dislodge it unless or until something happened to persuade him of his stupidity.
Now to make his suspicions seem at all reasonable, a motive was lacking. And that worried the man hugely. He desired most earnestly to justify his captiousness; and to this end exercised a power of conscientious observation on his new acquaintances.
Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes he was disposed to pass at face value, as an innocuous being, good natured enough but none too brilliant, with much of the disposition of an overgrown boy and a rather boyish tendency to admire and imitate in others qualities which he did not himself possess.
Mr. Phinuit had not returned, so there was no present opportunity to take further note of him; though Duchemin first inferred from Mr. Monk’s manner, and later learned through a chance remark of his, that Phinuit was his secretary.
Upon this Mr. Monk Duchemin concentrated close attention, satisfied that he had here to do with an extraordinary personality, if not one unique.
Mr. Whitaker Monk might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty-five, so non-committal was that lantern-jawed countenance of a droll, with its heavy, black, eloquent eyebrows, its high and narrow forehead merging into an extensive bald spot fringed with greyish hair, its rather small, blue, illegible eyes, its high-bridged nose and prominent nostrils, its wide and thin-lipped mouth, its rather startling pallor. Taller by a head than anybody in the room except Duchemin, his figure was remarkably thin, yet not ill-proportioned. Neither was Mr. Monk ill at ease or ungraceful in his actions. Clothed in that extravagantly correct costume—correct, at least, for a drawing-room, if never for motoring—he had all the appearance of a comedian fresh from the hands of his dresser. One naturally expected of him mere grotesqueries—and found simply the courteous demeanour of a gentleman of the world. So much for externals. But what more? Nature herself had cast Mr. Monk in the very mould of a masquerader. What manner of man was hidden behind the mask? His words and deeds alone would tell; Duchemin could only weigh the one and await the other.
In the meantime Mr. Monk was sketching rapidly for the benefit of Madame de Sévénié the excuse for his present plight.
A chance meeting at Monte Carlo, he said, with his old friends, the Comte et Comtesse de Lorgnes, had resulted in their yielding to his insistence that they tour with him back to Paris by this roundabout way.
“A whim of my age, madame.” Somehow the nasal intonation of the American suited singularly well his fluent French; he seemed to have less trouble with his R’s than most Anglo-Saxons. “As a young man—a younger man—ah, well, in Ninety-four, then—I explored this country on a walking tour, inspired by Stevenson. You know, perhaps, his diverting Travels with a Donkey? But I daresay its spirit would hardly have survived translation.… At all events, I had the whim to revisit some of those well-remembered scenes. I say some, for naturally it would be impossible, even with the vastly improved roads of today, for my automobile to penetrate everywhere I wandered afoot. Nor would I wish it to; a few disappointments, a few failures to recapture something of that first fine careless rapture, would instill a lyric melancholy; but too many would make one morbid.… Well, then: at Nant, in those old days, I once had a famous dinner; and naturally, returning, I must try to duplicate it, even though it meant going on to Millau in the rain. But alas! the Café de l’Univers is no more what it was—or I am grown over critical.”
What now of Duchemin’s doubts? To tell the sad truth, they were just as strong as ever. The man was somehow prejudiced: he found Monk’s story entirely too glib, and knew a mean sense of gratification when the curé interposed a gentle correction.
“But in Ninety-four, monsieur, there was no Café de l’Univers in Nant.”
Astonished eyebrows climbed the forehead of Mr. Monk.
“No, monsieur le curé? Truly not? Then it must have been another. How one’s memory will play one false!”
“How strange, then, is coincidence,” Madame de Sévénié suggested. “You who made a walking tour of this country so long ago, monsieur, regard there that good Monsieur Duchemin, himself engaged upon just such an undertaking.”
Duchemin acknowledged with a humorous little nod Mr. Monk’s look of moderate amazement at this so strange coincidence.
“A whim of my age, monsieur,” he said—“a project I have entertained since youth but always, till of late, lacked leisure to put into execution.”
“But is there anything more wonderful than the workings of the good God?” madame pursued. “Observe that, if Monsieur Duchemin had been suffered to indulge his inclination in youth, we should all, I, my daughter, my grand-daughter, even poor Georges d’Aubrac,
would quite probably be lying dead at the bottom of a cirque at Montpellier-le-Vieux.”
Naturally the strangers required to know about that, and Madame de Sévénié would talk, in fact doted on telling the tale of that great adventure. Duchemin made a face of resignation, and heard himself extolled as a paladin for strength, address and valour; the truth being that he was not at all resigned and would infinitely liefer have been left out of the limelight. The more he was represented as a person of consequence, the less fair his chance to study these others at his leisure, in the comfortable obscurity of their indifference.
Now the enigmatic eyes of Monk were boring into him, seeking to search his soul, with a question in their stare which he could not read and, quite likely, would have declined to answer if he could. Also the eyes of Monsieur le Comte de Lorgnes were very round and constant to him. And before Madame de Sévénié was finished, Phinuit strolled in and heard enough to make him subject Duchemin to a not unfriendly, steady and open inspection.
And when the trumpets had been flourished finally for Duchemin, and he had dutifully assured madame that she was too generous and had acknowledged congratulations on his exploit, Phinuit strolled over and offered a hand.
“Good work,” he said in English. “Seen you before, haven’t I, somewhere, Mr. Duchemin?”
Under other circumstances Duchemin, not at all hoodwinked by this too obvious stratagem, would have taken mean pleasure in looking blank and begging monsieur to interpret himself in French. But, with or without cunning, Phinuit’s question was well-timed: Eve de Montalais was at that moment entering the drawing-room with Madame la Comtesse de Lorgnes, and she knew very well that Duchemin’s English was quite as good as his French.
“At the Café de l’Univers, this afternoon,” he replied frankly.
“I remember. You drove away, just before the storm broke, in a ramshackle rig that must have come out of the Ark.”
“To come here, Mr. Phinuit.”
“Funny,” said Phinuit, with hesitation, “your being there, and then our turning up here.”
Duchemin thought he knew what was on the other’s mind. “I was immensely entertained—do you mind my saying so?—to hear the way your chauffeur talked to you, monsieur. Tell me: Is it the custom in your country—?”
“Oh, Jules!” said Phinuit, and laughed. “Jules is my younger brother. When he was demobilised his job was gone, back home, and I wished him on Mr. Monk as a chauffeur. We’re always kidding each other like that.”
Now what could be more reasonable? Duchemin wondered, and concluded that, if anything, it would be the truth. But he did not pretend to himself that he wasn’t, quite illogically and with no provocation whatsoever, most vilely prejudiced against the lot of them.
“But you must know America, to speak the language as well as you do.”
Duchemin nodded: “But very slightly, monsieur.”
“I was wondering… Somehow I can’t get it out of my head I’ve seen you somewhere before today.”
“It is quite possible: when one moves about the world, one is visible—n’est-ce pas, monsieur? But my home,” Duchemin added, “is Paris.”
“I guess,” said Phinuit in a tone of singular disappointment, “it must have been there I saw you.”
Duchemin’s bow signified that he was content to let it go at that. Moreover, Monk was signalling to Phinuit with his expressive eyebrows.
“What about the car, Phin?”
Examining his wrist watch, Phinuit drew near his employer. “Jules should not need more than half an hour now, monsieur.”
Was there, in this employment of French to respond to a question couched in English, the suggestion of a subtle correction? From employé to employer? If not, why must Duchemin have thought so? If so, why did Monk, without betraying a sign of feeling the reproof, continue in French?
“Did Jules say half an hour?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“My God!” Monk addressed the company: “If I were pressed for time, I would rather have one of Jules’ half-hours than anybody else’s hour and a half.”
“Let us hope, however,” the Comtesse de Lorgnes interposed sweetly, “by that time this so dreadful tempest will have moderated.”
“One has that hope,” her husband uttered in a sepulchral voice.
“But, if the storm continue,” Madame de Sévénié said, “you must not think of travelling farther—on such a night. The château is large, there is ample accommodation for all…”
There was a negligible pause, during which Duchemin saw the long lashes of the Comtesse de Lorgnes curtain momentarily her disastrous violet eyes: it was a sign of assent. Immediately it was followed by the least of negative movements of her head. She was looking directly at Phinuit, who, so far as Duchemin could see, made no sign of any sort, who neither spoke nor acted on the signals which, indubitably, he had received. On the other hand, it was Monk who acknowledged the proffered courtesy.
“Madame de Sévénié is too good, but we could not dream of imposing… No, but truly, madame, I am obliged to ask my guests to proceed with me to Millau tonight regardless of the weather. Important despatches concerning my business await me there; I must consider them and reply by cable tonight without fail. It is really of the most pressing necessity. Otherwise we should be honoured…”
Madame de Sévénié inclined her head. “It must be as monsieur thinks best.”
“But Monsieur Monk!” madame la comtesse exclaimed with vivacity: “do you know what I have just discovered? You and Madame de Montalais are compatriots. She is of your New York. You must know each other.”
“I have been wondering,” Monk admitted, bowing to Eve, “if it were possible I could be misled by a strong resemblance.”
Eve turned to him with a look of surprise. “Yes, monsieur?”
“It is many years ago, you were a young girl then, if it was truly you, madame; but I have a keen eye for beauty, I do not soon forget it… I was in the private office of my friend, Edmund Anstruther, of Cottier’s, one afternoon, selecting a trinket with his advice, and—”
“That was my father, monsieur.”
“Then it was you, madame; I felt sure of it. You came in unannounced, to see your father. He made me known to you as a friend of his, and requested you to wait in an adjoining office. But that was not necessary, I had already made up my mind, I left almost immediately. Do you by any chance remember?”
The effort of the memory knitted Eve’s brows; but in the end she shook her head. “I am sorry, monsieur—”
“But why should you be? Why should you have remembered me? You were a young girl, then, as I say, and I already a man of middle age. You saw me once, for perhaps two minutes. It would have been a miracle had I remained in your memory for as long as a single day. Nevertheless, I remembered.”
“I am so glad to meet a friend of my father’s, monsieur.”
“And I to recall myself to his daughter. I have often wondered… Would you mind telling me something, Madame de Montalais?”
“If I can…”
“Your father and I entertained one passion in common, one which he was better able than I to gratify, for good diamonds and emeralds. I have often wondered what became of his collection. He had some superb stones.”
“I inherited them, monsieur.”
“They did not find their way into Cottier’s stock, then?”
The Comtesse de Lorgnes gave a gesture of excitement. “But what a fortunate woman! You truly have those magnificent emeralds, those almost matchless diamonds, of which one has heard—the Anstruther collection?”
“I have them, Madame la Comtesse,” said Eve with a smiling nod—“yes.”
“But, one presumes, in Paris, in some impregnable strong-box.”
“No, madame, here.”
“Of what, madame? That they will be stolen? No. They have been in my possession for years—indeed, I should be unhappy otherwise, for I have inherited my father’s fondness for them—and nobody has ever even attempted to steal them.”
“But what of the affair at Montpellier the other night?” enquired the Comte de Lorgnes—“that terrible attack upon you of which Madame de Sévénié has just told us? Surely you would call that an attempt to steal.”
“Simple highway robbery, if you like, monsieur le comte. But even had it proved successful, I had very few jewels with me. All that mattered, all that I would have minded losing, were here, in a safe place.”
“Nevertheless,” said Monk—“if you will permit me to offer a word of advice—I think you are very unwise.”
“It may be, monsieur.”
“Nonsense!” Madame de Sévénié declared. “Who would dare attempt to burglarise the Château de Montalais? Such a thing was never heard of.”
“There is always the first time for everything, Madame,” Monk suggested gently. “I fancy it was your first experience of the sort, at Montpellier.”
“A rascally chauffeur from Paris, a few low characters of the department. Since the war things are not as they were.”
“That is the very reason why I suggest, madame—”
“But, monsieur, I assure you all my life I have lived at Montalais. Monsieur le curé will tell you I know every face hereabouts. And I know that these poor country-folk, these good-natured dolts of peasants have not the imagination, much less the courage—”
“But what of criminals from outside, from the great cities, from London and Paris and Berlin? They have the imagination, the courage, the skill; and if they ever get wind of the fortune Madame de Montalais keeps locked up here…”
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 117
