Messengers of Evil Part 36

She looked troubled, and gave an anxious questioning glance at Fandor.

He did not want to frighten the much-tried girl, but he wished to solve the mystery of the unaccountable telephone call.

"Oh, I just wished to know, mademoiselle.... Now, tell me, have you quite recovered from ... your experience of the other day?"

"Ah, monsieur, I owe my life to you!" cried Elizabeth. "For, I am certain that someone wished to get rid of me ... don't you agree with me?... I must have been dosed with some narcotic, just as they dosed my poor brother, for I am now absolutely convinced that he also was sent to sleep and poisoned...."

"And that he is dead! Is that not so?" asked Fandor in a low voice.

Without hesitation, in a tearful voice, Elizabeth repeated:

"And that he is dead. You have given me so many proofs that it is so, that I can no longer doubt it, alas! But I will take courage, as I promised you I would. I ought to live, that I may strive to rehabilitate his memory, and restore to him his reputation as a man of probity, of honour, to which he is ent.i.tled. But directly I begin to think about the horrible mystery in which I am involved, my very reason seems to totter--you can understand that, can you not? I don't understand, I don't know, I can't guess ... oh!..."

"But," interrupted Fandor, "we must seriously consider the situation in all its bearings. It may cause you atrocious suffering, but you must summon all your courage, mademoiselle. We must discuss it."

Fandor and Elizabeth had moved away from the terrace, and were now in the leafy solitudes of the park.

Fandor began:

"There is that paper with its list of names, written in green ink, mademoiselle! It was a mistake on your part not to attach any importance to it until you fancied, and perhaps rightly, that someone had tried to steal it from you. Come now, can you tell me whether this list is still in your possession, or not?"

Elizabeth shook her head sadly.

"I do not know, I cannot tell! My poor head is so bewildered, and I find it all the trouble in the world to collect my thoughts. I told you, the other day, that this list had disappeared from a little red pocket book, that I had put on the chimney piece of my room at Auteuil. But the more I think it over, the more doubtful I am.... It seems to me now, that this list ought to be, must be still--unless it has been stolen since--in the big trunk, into which I threw, pell-mell, the papers and books my brother left scattered about his writing table. To be quite sure about this, we must return to Auteuil.... But perhaps it is useless; because when I wanted to send it to you some forty-eight hours ago, I searched everywhere for the wretched thing, and in vain!... I am not even sure now that I brought it away with me from rue Norvins!"

Fandor gently comforted the distracted girl whose eyes were full of tears.

"Do not be disheartened. Try rather to put together in your memory what was written in this paper! You told me, surely, that there were names in this list of persons you knew, or had heard of? Search your memory a little, mademoiselle."

"I don't know! I cannot remember!" cried Elizabeth nervously.

"Come now," said Fandor encouragingly, "I know an excellent way of a.s.sisting the memory. The eyes are like a sensitive photographic plate: what the brain does not always retain, the mirror of the eye registers: do not try to remember, but try, as it were, to read on white paper what your eyes saw!..."

"Let us sit down a minute and I will help you to do it!" Fandor pointed out a rustic seat, under the trees, in front of which was a garden table. They sat down together and Fandor drew from his pocket a sheet of white paper and his fountain pen.

Elizabeth's arm touched his shoulder.

As though electrified by this contact, the two young people trembled, their eyes met in a glance full of troubled emotion--a feeling new to both--whose immense significance neither understood. Fandor remained speechless, and Elizabeth blushed.

They gazed at each other, embarra.s.sed, not knowing what to say for themselves; and their embarra.s.sment was only relieved by the appearance of the sister who attended to the turning box at the entrance gate. She stood at the top of the steps leading down to the park and called Elizabeth.

"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! There is someone on the telephone who wishes to speak to you!"

Fandor rose.

"Will you allow me to accompany you, mademoiselle? I am very curious to know whether the person now asking for you is identical with the person who asked for you a little while ago?"

The young couple hurried to the big parlour, and Elizabeth went to the telephone.

"Hullo?..."

Elizabeth had handed one of the receivers to Fandor. He heard a voice--an unknown voice, but beyond question masculine--who said, over the wire:

"Hullo!... Is it really Mademoiselle Dollon to whom I have the honour of speaking?"

"Yes, monsieur. Who is speaking to me?"

But just as Elizabeth was about to repeat her question, Fandor thought he heard whoever had called up Elizabeth, hang up the receivers. No reply reached them!...

Elizabeth cried impatiently:

"Hullo!... Hullo!... Who is speaking to me?"

But there was no one at the end of the line!

Fandor swore softly to himself, then seizing the two receivers he called:

"Hullo! Come, monsieur, reply!... Whom do you want? Who are you?"

He could not obtain any reply.

Fandor rang up the central office. When the telephone girl answered, he called:

"Mademoiselle, why have you cut me off?"

"But I have done nothing of the kind, monsieur!"

"But I cannot get any reply!"

"It is because the receivers have been hung up by whoever called you. I a.s.sure you that is so."

"What was my caller's number?"

"I cannot tell you that, monsieur--the rules forbid it."

Fandor knew this quite well, so he did not insist further. But, as he turned away from the telephone, a dull anger smouldered within him.

"Who was this mysterious individual who had called Elizabeth twice over the telephone, and then, no sooner put into communication with her, had refused to talk to her?"

Fandor felt nervous, anxious, exasperated by this incident; but it would never do to trouble his young friend to no good purpose. He led her back to the garden.

"Where were we in our talk, monsieur?" asked Elizabeth.

With a considerable effort, the journalist collected his thoughts.

"We were discussing the mysterious paper found at your brother's, mademoiselle."

In agreement with Elizabeth, Jerome Fandor determined the approximate size of this list of addresses. He tore from his note-book a sheet of white paper.