Dross Part 18

"No--but I do. How is Mademoiselle this morning? Sit down; have a cup of coffee, and tell me all about her."

I sat down, and related to him the events of the past night. Turner's face was grave enough when I had finished, and I saw him note with some surprise that he had allowed his coffee to get cold.

"I don't like the sound of it," he said. "One never knows with a Frenchman--he is never too old to talk of his mother, or make an a.s.s of himself."

The English banker was of the greatest a.s.sistance to me during that most anxious day. But we found no clew, nor discovered any reason for the Vicomte's disappearance. I went back in the evening to the Hotel Clericy, and there found Madame de Clericy and Lucille awaiting me, with that calmness which is admirable when there is nothing else but waiting to be done.

It was at eight o'clock in the evening that the explanation came, from a source as natural as it was unexpected. A letter was delivered by the postman for Madame de Clericy, who at once recognized her husband's unsteady handwriting. She crossed the room, and stood beside me while she opened the envelope. Lucille, seeing the action, frowned, as I thought. I was still under displeasure--still learning that the better sort of woman will not forgive deception so long as she herself is its motive, as cheap cynics would have us believe.

Madame read the letter with that self-repression which was habitual to her, and made me ever wonder what her youth had been. Lucille and I watched her in silence.

"There," she said, and gave me the letter to pa.s.s to Lucille, who received it from my hand without taking her eyes from her mother's face. Then I quitted the room, leaving the two women alone. Madame followed me presently to the study, and there gave me the Vicomte's last letter to read. It was short and breathed of affection.

"Do not seek for me," it ran. "I cannot bear my great misfortunes, and the world will, perhaps, be less cruel to two women who have no protector."

Madame handed me the envelope, which bore the Pa.s.sy postmark, and I read her thoughts easily enough.

I saw John Turner again that evening, also Alphonse Giraud, who had called at the Hotel Clericy during the day. With these gentlemen I set off the next morning for Pa.s.sy, taking pa.s.sage in one of those little river steamers which we had all seen a thousand times, without thinking of a nearer acquaintance.

"This is gay," cried Alphonse, on whom the sunshine had always an enlivening effect, as we sped along. "This is what you call sport--_n'est ce pas_? For you are a maritime race, is it not so, Howard?"

"Yes," answered I, "we are a maritime race."

"And figure to yourself this is the first time that I am afloat on anything larger than a ferry-boat."

During our short trip Alphonse fully decided that if his fortune should be recovered he would buy a yacht.

"Do you think you can recover it?" he asked quite wistfully, his mind full of this new scheme, and oblivious to the mournful object of our journey.

At Pa.s.sy we were received with shrugging shoulders and outspread hands.

No, such an old gentleman had not been seen--but the river was large and deep. If one wanted--mon Dieu!--one could do such a thing easily enough. To drag the river--yes--but that cost money. Ten francs a day for each man. It was hard work out there in the stream. And if one found something--name of a dog--it turned on the stomach.

We arranged that two men should drag the river, and, after a weary day, went back to Paris no wiser than we came.

In this suspense a week pa.s.sed, while I, unwilling to touch my patron's papers until we had certain news of his death, could render little a.s.sistance to Madame de Clericy and Lucille. That the latter resented anything in the nature of advice or suggestion was soon made clear enough to me. Nay! she left no doubt of her distrust, and showed this feeling whenever we exchanged words.

"It is a small thing upon which to condemn a man, Mademoiselle," I said to her one morning when chance left us together. "I told you what I thought to be the truth. Fate ruled that I was after all a poor man--but I have not been proved a liar."

"I do not understand you," she answered, with hard eyes. "You are such a strange mixture of good and bad."

An hour afterwards I received a telegram advising me that the body of the Vicomte de Clericy had been found in the river at Pa.s.sy.

Chapter XIV

A Little Cloud

"Rien ne nous rend si grand qu'une grande douleur."

Alphonse Giraud and I--between whom had sprung up that friendship of contrasts which Madame de Clericy had foreseen--were in constant communication. My summons brought him to the Hotel Clericy at once, where he found the ladies already apprised of their bereavement. He and I set off again for Pa.s.sy, by train this time, as our need was more urgent. I despatched instructions to the Vicomte's lawyer to follow by the next train--bringing the undertaker with him. There was no heir to my patron's t.i.tles, but it seemed necessary to observe every formality at this the dramatic extinction of a long and n.o.ble line.

As we drove through the streets, the newsboys were shrieking some tidings which we had neither time nor inclination to inquire into at that moment. It was a hot July day, and Paris should have been half empty, but the pavements were crowded.

"What is the matter?" I said to Alphonse Giraud, who was too busy with his horse to look about. "See the faces of the men at the cafes--they are wild with excitement and some look scared. There is news afoot."

"My good friend," returned Giraud, "I was in bed when your note reached me. Besides, I only read the sporting columns of the papers."

So we took train to Pa.s.sy, without learning what it was that seemed to be stirring Paris as a squall stirs the sea.

At Pa.s.sy there was indeed grim work awaiting us. The Prefet himself was kind enough to busy himself in a matter which was scarcely within his province. He had instructed the police to conduct us to his house, where he received us most hospitably.

"Neither of you is related to the Vicomte?" he said, interrogatively; and we stated our case at once.

"It is well that you did not bring Madame with you," he said. "You forbade her to come?"

And he looked at me with a keenness which, I trust, impressed the police official for whose benefit it was a.s.sumed.

"I begged her to remain in Paris."

"Ah!" and he gave a significant laugh. "However--so long as she is not here."

He was a white-faced man, who looked as if he had been dried up by some blanching process. One could imagine that the heart inside him was white also. In his own eyes it was evident that he was a vastly clever man. I thought him rather an a.s.s.

"You know, gentlemen," he said, as he prepared his papers, "the recognition of the body is a mere formality."

"Then let us omit it, Monsieur le Prefet," exclaimed Alphonse, with characteristic cheerfulness; but the remark was treated with contempt.

"In July, gentlemen," went on the Prefet, "the Seine is warm--there are eels--a hundred animalculae--a score of decomposing elements.

However, there are the clothes--the contents of Monsieur le Vicomte's pockets--a signet ring. Shall we go? But first take another gla.s.s of wine. If the nerves are sensitive--a few drops of Benedictine?"

"If I may have it in a claret gla.s.s," said Alphonse, and he launched into a voluble explanation, to which the Prefet listened with a thin, transparent smile. I thought that he would have been better pleased had some of the Vicomte's t.i.tled friends come to observe this formality. But one's grand friends are better kept for fine weather only, and the official had to content himself with the company of a private secretary and the son of a ruined financier.

Alphonse and I had no difficulty in recognizing the small belongings which had been extracted from my old patron's sodden clothing. In the letter case was a letter from myself on some small matter of business.

I pointed this out, and signed my name a second time on the yellow and crinkled paper for the further satisfaction of the lawyer. Then we pa.s.sed into an inner room and stood in the presence of the dead man.

The recognition was, as the Prefet had said, a painful formality.

Alphonse Giraud and I swore to the clothing--indeed, the linen was marked plainly enough--and we left the undertaker to his work.

Giraud looked at me with a dry smile when we stood in the fresh air again.

"You and I, Howard," he said, "seem to have got on the seamy side of life lately."

And during the journey I saw him shiver once or twice at the recollection of what we had seen. His carriage was awaiting us at the railway station. Alphonse had been brought up in a school where horses and servants are treated as machines. The man who stood at the horse's head was, however, anything but mechanical, for he ran up to us as soon as we emerged from the crowded exit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "a BERLIN--a BERLIN."]