*CHAPTER XVII*
*THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND*
That meeting with Richard Hartley of which Captain Stewart, in the smalldrawing-room at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara, took place atStewart's own door in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, and it must havebeen at just about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among thebranches of his cedar, looked over the wall and saw Arthur Benhamwalking with Mlle. Coira O'Hara. Hartley had lunched at Durand's withhis friends, whose name--though it does not at all matter here--wasReeves-Davis, and after lunch the four of them, Major and LadyReeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis' sister Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent anhour at a certain picture dealer's near the Madeleine. After that LadyReeves-Davis wanted to go in search of an antiquary's shop which wassomewhere in the Rue du Faubourg, and she did not know just where. Theywent in from the Rue Royale, and amused themselves by looking at theattractive windows on the way.
During one of their frequent halts, while the two ladies werepassionately absorbed in a display of hats and Reeves-Davis was makingderisive comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much bored to payattention, saw a figure which seemed to him familiar emerge from anadjacent doorway, and start to cross the pavement to a large touring carwith the top up, which stood at the kerb. The man wore a dust-coat anda cap, and he moved as if he were in a hurry, but as he went he cast aquick look about him, and his eye fell upon Richard Hartley. Hartleynodded, and he thought the elder man gave a violent start--but then helooked very white and ill and might have started at anything. For aninstant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on his way without takingnotice, but the seemed to change his mind and turned back. He held outhis hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying--
"Ah, Hartley! It is you, then. I wasn't sure." He glanced over theother's shoulder, and said--
"Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"
"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English friends of mine. I haven'tseen Ste. Marie to-day. I'm to meet him this evening. You've seen himsince I have, as a matter of fact. He came to your party last night,didn't he? Sorry I couldn't come. They must have tired you out, Ishould think. You look ill."
"Yes," said the other man absently. "Yes. I had an attack of--an oldmalady, last night. I am rather stale to-day. You say you haven't seenSte. Marie? No, to be sure. If you see him later on you might say thatI mean to drop in on him to-morrow to make my apologies. He'llunderstand. Good day!" So he turned away to the motor, which waswaiting for him, and Hartley went back to his friends, wondering alittle what it was that Stewart had to apologise for.
As for Captain Stewart he must have gone at once out to La Lierre. Whathe found there has already been set forth.
It was about ten that evening when Hartley, who had left his people,after dinner was over, at the _Marigny_, reached the Rue d'Assas. Thestreet door was already closed for the night, and so he had to ring forthe _cordon_. When the door clicked open and he had closed it behindhim, he called out his name before crossing the court to Ste. Marie'sstair, but as he went on his way the voice of the concierge reached himfrom the little _loge_.
"_M. Ste. Marie n'est pas la._"
Now the Parisian concierge, as every one knows who has lived under hisiron sway, is a being set apart from the rest of mankind. He has, ingeneral no human attributes, and certainly no human sympathy. His handis against all the world and the hand of all the world is against him.Still, here and there amongst this peculiar race are to be found a veryfew beings who are of softer substance--men and women instead of spiesand harpies. The concierge who had charge of the house wherein Ste.Marie dwelt was an old woman, undeniably severe upon occasion, but forthe most part a kindly and even jovial soul. She must have become aconcierge through some unfortunate mistake.
She snapped open her little square window, and stuck out into themoonlit court a dishevelled grey head.
"_Il n'est pas la_," she said again, beaming upon Richard Hartley, whomshe liked, and when he protested that he had a definite and importantappointment with her lodger, went on to explain that Ste. Marie had goneout, doubtless to lunch, before one o'clock and had never returned.
"He may have left word for me upstairs," Hartley said. "I'll go up andwait, if I may." So the woman got him her extra key, and he went up,let himself into the flat and made lights there.
Naturally he found no word, but his own note of that morning lay spreadout upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it, and so he knew that hisfriend was in possession of the two facts he had learnt about Stewart.He made himself comfortable with a book and some cigarettes, and settleddown to wait. Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet hole in hisleg, was deep in a drugged sleep just then, but Hartley waited for him,looking up now and then from his book with a scowl of impatience, untilthe little clock on the mantle said that it was one o'clock. Then hewent home in a very bad temper, after writing another note, and leavingit on the table, to say that he would return early in the morning.
But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the conciergevery closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but shecould tell him little (save to mention the brief visit of a man with anaccent of Toulouse or Marseille), and there seemed to be no one else towhom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat and returnedthere after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at thecorner of the Gardens and drove to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore.
Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown and still lookedfagged and unwell. He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of hisvisitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once, and insisted upon havingcigars and things to drink brought out for him. On the whole hepresented an astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he must havebeen cold with fear, and in his ears a question must have rung andshouted and rung again unceasingly.--
"What does this fellow know? What does he know?"
Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.
The younger man shook his head at the servant who asked him what hewished to drink.
"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain Stewart, and thatgentleman eyed him silently. "I can't stay but a moment. I just droppedin to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of Ste. Marie."
"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart. "What do you mean--'become ofhim'?" He moistened his lips to speak, but he said the words without atremor.
"Well, what I meant, was," said Hartley, "that you'd seen him last. Hewas here Thursday evening. Did he say anything to you about goinganywhere in particular the next day--yesterday? He left his rooms aboutnoon and hasn't turned up since."
Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat down abruptly in a near-bychair, for all at once his knees had begun to tremble under him. He wasconscious of a great and blissful wave of relief and well-being, and hewanted to laugh. He wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture tokeep his face in repose.
So Ste Marie had left no word behind him, and the danger was past!
With a great effort he looked up from where he sat to Richard Hartley,who stood anxious and frowning before him.
"Forgive me for sitting down!" he said, "and sit down yourself, I beg!I'm still very shaky from my attack of illness. Ste. Marie? Ste. Mariehas disappeared? How very extraordinary! It's like poor Arthur.Still--a single day! He might be anywhere for a single day, might henot? For all that, though, it's very odd. Why no! No, I don't thinkhe said anything about going away! At least I remember nothing aboutit." The relief and triumph within him burst out in a sudden littlechuckle of malicious fun.
"'Ste. Marie has disappeared? How very extraordinary!'"]
"I can think of only one thing," said he, "that might be of use to you.Ste. Marie seemed to take a very great fancy to one of the ladies herethe other evening. And, I must confess, the lady seemed to return it.It had all the look of a desperate flirtation--a most desperateflirtation. They spent the evening in
a corner together.
"You don't suppose," he said, still chuckling gently, "that Ste. Marieis taking a little holiday, do you? You don't suppose that lady couldaccount for him?"
"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't. And if you knew Ste. Marie alittle better you wouldn't suppose it either." But after a pause hesaid--
"Could you give me the--lady's name, by any chance? Of course I don'twant to leave any stone unturned." And once more the other man emittedhis pleased little chuckle that was so like a cat's mew.
"I can give you her name," said he. "The name isMademoiselle----Bertrand. Elise Bertrand. But I regret to say I haven'tthe address by me. She came with some friends. I will try to get it andsend it you. Will that be all right?"
"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley. "You're very good. And now I mustbe going on. I'm rather in a hurry."
Captain Stewart protested against this great haste, and pressed theyounger man to sit down and tell him more about his friend'sdisappearance, but Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in agreat hurry, and went off.
When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed untilhe was weak and ached from it, the furious helpless laughter which comesafter the sudden release from a terrible strain. He was not, as a rule,a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would like to dance andsing, and probably he would have done both if it had not been for theservant in the next room.
So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors of the nightpast--he shivered a little to think of them--had been after all uselessterrors! As for the prisoner out at La Lierre nothing was to be fearedfrom him so long as a careful watch was kept. Later on he might have tobe disposed of, since both bullet and poison had failed (he scowled overthat, remembering a bad quarter of an hour with O'Hara early thismorning), but that matter could wait. Some way would present itself.He thought of the wholly gratuitous lie he had told Hartley, a thingborn of a moment's malice, and he laughed again. It struck him that itwould be very humorous if Hartley should come to suspect his friend ofturning aside from his great endeavours to enter upon an affair with alady. He dimly remembered that Ste. Marie's name had, from time totime, been a good deal involved in romantic histories, and he said tohimself that his lie had been very well chosen indeed, and might beexpected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish of spirit.
After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as big as a cigar,and he lay back in his low comfortable chair, and began to think of theoutcome of all this plotting and planning. As is very apt to be thecase when a great danger has been escaped, he was in a mood of extremehopefulness and confidence. Vaguely he felt as if the recent happeningshad set him ahead a pace towards his goal, though, of course, they haddone nothing of the kind. The danger that would exist so long as Ste.Marie, who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some miraculous fashionto have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from fear anddespair, difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The man'smind leapt to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran overhim. Once that goal gained he could defy the world. Let eyes lookaskance, let tongues wag, he would be safe then--safe for all the restof his life, and rich, rich, rich!
For he was playing against a feeble old man's life. Day by day hewatched the low flame sink lower, as the flame of an exhausted lampsinks and flickers. It was slow, for the old man had still a littlestrength left, but the will to live--which was the oil in the lamp--wasalmost gone and the waiting could not be long now. One day, quitesuddenly, the flame would sink down to almost nothing, as at last itdoes in the spent lamp. It would flicker up and down rapidly for a fewmoments, and all at once there would be no flame there. Old David wouldbe dead, and a servant would be sent across the river in haste to theRue du Faubourg St. Honore. Stewart lay back in his chair and tried toimagine that it was true, that it had already happened, as happen itmust before long, and once more the little shiver which was like ashiver of voluptuous delight ran up and down his limbs, and his breathbegan to come fast and hard.
But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the Rue d'Assas. He was notvery much disappointed in having learnt nothing from Stewart, though hewas thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about Ste. Marie and theunknown lady. He had gone to the Rue du Faubourg because, as he hadsaid, he wished to leave no stone unturned, and, after all, he hadthought it quite possible that Stewart could give him some informationwhich would be of value. Hartley firmly believed the elder man to be arascal, but, of course, he knew nothing definite save the two factswhich he had accidentally learnt from Helen Benham, and it had occurredto him that Captain Stewart might have sent Ste. Marie off upon anotherwild-goose chase such as the expedition to Dinard had been. He wouldhave been sure that the elder man had had something do to with Ste.Marie's disappearance if the latter had not been seen since Stewart'sparty, but instead of that Ste. Marie had come home, slept, gone out thenext morning, returned again, received a visitor, and gone out to lunch.It was all very puzzling and mysterious.
His mind went back to the brief interview with Stewart and dwelt uponit. Little things which had at the time made no impression upon himbegan to recur and to take on significance. He remembered the elderman's odd and strained manner at the beginning, his sudden and causelesschange to ease and a something that was almost like a triumphantexcitement, and then his absurd story about Ste. Marie's flirtation witha lady. Hartley thought of these things, he thought also of the factthat Ste. Marie had disappeared immediately after hearing graveaccusations against Stewart. Could he have lost his head, rushed acrossthe city at once to confront the middle-aged villain, andthen--disappeared from human ken? It would have been very like him todo something rashly impulsive upon reading that note.
Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer amusement when he realised towhat a wild and improbable flight his fancy was soaring. He could notquite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was, in some mysteriousfashion, responsible for his friend's vanishing. But he was unlike Ste.Marie; he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad, unless theywere backed by excellent evidence, and he had to admit that there wasnot a single scrap of evidence, in this instance, against Miss Benham'suncle.
The girl's name recalled him to another duty. He must tell her aboutSte. Marie. He was by this time halfway up the Boulevard St. Germain,but he gave a new order and the fiacre turned back to the Rue del'Universite. The footman at the door said that mademoiselle was not inthe drawing-room, as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought shewas in the house. So Hartley sent up his name and went in to wait.
Miss Benham came down looking a little pale and anxious.
"I've been with grandfather," she explained. "He had some sort ofsinking spell last night, and we were very much frightened. He's muchbetter, but--well he couldn't have many such spells and live. I'mafraid he grows a good deal weaker, day by day, now. He sees hardly anyone outside the family, except Baron de Vries." She sat down with alittle sigh of fatigue and smiled up at her visitor.
"I'm glad you've come," said she. "You'll cheer me up and I rather needit. What are you looking so solemn about, though? You won't cheer meup if you look like that."
"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this impossible hour to bringyou some bad news. I'm sorry.
"Perhaps," he conditioned, "bad news is putting it with too muchseriousness. Strange news is better. To be brief, Ste. Marie hasdisappeared--vanished into thin air. I thought you ought to know."
"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl. "How? What do you mean--vanished? Whendid he vanish?" She gave a sudden exclamation of relief.
"Oh, he has come upon some clue or other and has rushed off to followit. That's all--How dare you frighten me so?"
"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking his head, "and he leftno word of any kind behind him. He went out to lunch yesterday aboutnoon, and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace whatever behindhim. I've just been to see your uncle, thinking that he migh
t knowsomething, but he doesn't."
The girl looked up quickly.
"My uncle?" she said. "Why my uncle?"
"Well," said Hartley, "you see Ste. Marie went to a little party at youruncle's flat on the night before he disappeared, and I thought youruncle might have heard him say something that would throw light on hismovements the next day." Hartley remembered the unfortunate incident ofthe galloping pigs, and hurried on--
"He went to the party more for the purpose of having a talk with youruncle than for any other reason, I think. I was to have gone myself,but gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cain's dinner atArmenonville.
"Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's party he went out early.I called at his rooms to see him about something important that Ithought he ought to know. I missed him, and so left a note for him,which he got on his return and read. I found it open on his table lateron. At noon he went out again, and that's all. Frankly, I'm worriedabout him."
Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful eyes and, when he hadfinished, she asked--
"Could you tell me what was in this note that you left for Ste. Marie?"
Hartley was by nature a very open and frank young man, and inconsequence an unusually bad liar. He hesitated and looked away and hebegan to turn red.
"Well--no," he said after a moment, "no, I'm afraid I can't. It wassomething you wouldn't understand--wouldn't know about." And the girlsaid, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent.
But at the end she looked up and met his eyes, and the man saw that shewas very grave. She said--
"Richard, there is something that you and I have been avoiding andpretending not to see. It has gone too far now, and we're got to faceit with perfect frankness. I know what was in your note to Ste. Marie.It was what you found out the other evening about--my uncle, the matterof the will and the other matter. He knew about the will, but he toldyou and Ste. Marie that he didn't. He said to you also that I had toldhim about my engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search forArthur, and that was--a lie. I didn't tell him, and grandfather didn'ttell him. He listened in the door yonder and heard it himself. I havea good reason for knowing that.
"And then," she said, "he tried very hard to persuade you and Ste. Marieto take up your search under his direction, and he partly succeeded. Hesent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to Dinard, and he gave him andgave you other clues just as foolish as that one.
"Richard, do you believe that my uncle has hidden poor Arthur awaysomewhere, or--worse than that? Do you? Tell me the truth!"
"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of real evidence against himthat I'm aware of. There's plenty of motive, if you like, but motive isnot evidence."
"I asked you a question," the girl said. "Do you believe my uncle hasbeen responsible for Arthur's disappearance?"
"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."
"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for Ste. Marie'sdisappearance also. Ste. Marie became dangerous to him and so vanished.What can we do, Richard? What can we do?"
"'What can we do, Richard? What can we do?'"]
The Quest: A Romance Page 17
