The Albert Gate Mystery Part 30

The narrow entrance was at once lessened to half its width by a staircase. She listened intently, and could hear the other woman ascending the second flight of stairs.

At the next landing mademoiselle paused and knocked three times.

Presumably in reply to a question within, she murmured something which Edith could not catch, and was at once admitted. The shooting of a rusty bolt supplied further evidence that the door was locked behind her.

Edith's next task was to identify the house. She stepped out into the street again and crossed to the opposite pavement. She looked up to the second storey, but, owing to the short distance--barely fourteen feet--that separated her from the house--she could discern nothing, save that the windows on that floor were closely shuttered.

She rapidly noted that the door was the third removed from the lamp.

Whilst wondering what to do next, a couple of girls approached her. They were young and of course inquisitive. Without any dissimulation, they stood in front of her and scrutinized her face, wondering, no doubt, who this tall and graceful newcomer could be.

"What is your name?" said one. "Where do you live? Have you just come here? Are you staying with old Mother Peter?"

With difficulty Edith caught the drift of their questions. But she answered smilingly--

"No, I do not live here, and I do not know Mother Peter. But I want you to tell me who lives in the house opposite?"

Her Parisian French greatly surprised the two girls, who giggled at each other, and one of them cried--

"Oh, here's a lark!"

But they scented an intrigue, and were quite ready to give all the information in their power.

"A lot of people live there," said the elder one, trying, with the ready tact of her nation, to accommodate her words to the understanding of the stranger. "It all depends who you want to know about. On the ground floor is Josef the barber and his wife, with three little ones. It cannot be them, I am sure, and it cannot be Monsieur Ducrot, who is their lodger, for he is seventy years old and a sacristan in the Church of the Sacred Heart. Then on the first floor there are three men, not a woman amongst them. One is a bill-sticker, another a fisherman, and the third a waiter in the Cafe du Midi. I do not know their proper names. We call the bill-sticker 'Paste-pot,' and the fisherman 'Crab.' The waiter is called 'Thomas' in the cafe, but when a letter comes for him it is in another name. Then, on the second floor--by the way, Marie, who is it that lives on the second floor?"

Edith with difficulty restrained her excitement. She felt that if only these youngsters rattled on a little longer she might gain some valuable information.

Marie, thus appealed to, was evidently of a more cautious temperament than her companion.

"If the young lady will tell us why she wants to know, we may be able to help her?" she stipulated.

"Certainly," cried Edith, instantly resolving to pursue the tactics of the penny novelette. "I have been deserted. My lover has been taken away from me by another woman--at least, that is what I am informed. I do not wish to make any trouble about it. There are plenty as good men as he left in the world; but, on the other hand, I must not act unjustly. I have been told that he lives in this house--that he is living with her here at this moment, in fact. If I can make sure of it, I will go away and never set eyes on him again unless by chance, and then you may be sure I will take no notice of him. I am not one of those silly girls who break their hearts over a faithless sweetheart."

Marie was rea.s.sured.

"I should think not," she said, with a sympathetic and defiant sniff. "I had the very same experience last Sunday, when Phillippe--the grocer's boy at the corner, you know--walked along the Corniche Road with a chit of a girl out of a shop. She thinks herself better than we are because she stands behind a counter, and I am sure she made eyes at Phillippe one day when his master sent him there on an errand."

"Phillippe must have bad taste," broke in Edith. "But I am sorry I must hasten away. If you girls will tell me quickly all the other people that live in that house I will give you two francs each. That is all the money I have got."

She produced the coins, which she easily distinguished from the gold in her pocket by their size. She knew that to appear too well supplied with money in that neighbourhood was to court danger, if not disaster, to her undertaking.

Both girls eagerly seized the forty-sous pieces.

"Oh, on the second floor," said Marie, "I am afraid you will find your young man. They are a funny couple that live there. They only came here on Monday. When did your young man leave you?"

"I saw him on Sat.u.r.day."

"Where?"

This was a poser, but Miss Talbot answered desperately:

"At Lyon."

"What is he like?"

Another haphazard shot.

"He is tall and dark, and, oh! so good-looking, with a beautifully white skin and a pink complexion."

"That is he!" cried both girls together.

"The scoundrel! But tell me," went on Edith, whose excitement was readily construed as the pangs of jealousy, "who is the creature that lives with him?"

"We think she is a music-hall artiste," replied Marie. "At least, that is what the people say. I have not heard yet what hall she appears in.

They say she is very pretty. Are you going to throw vitriol over her?"

"Not I," said Edith, with a fine scorn. "Do they live there alone?"

"Yes, quite alone. They rent the place from Pere Didon. He owns most of the houses in this street, you know, and is a regular skinflint. He won't let any one get behind with their rent for an hour. He is old, so old that you would not think that he could live another week, yet he is that keen after his francs you would imagine he was a young man anxious to get money for a gay life. You ought to have heard the row here last Sat.u.r.day when he turned the people out from their rooms where your lover now lives with his mistress. It was terrible. There was a poor woman with two sick children."

How much further the revelations as to Pere Didon's iniquity might have gone, Miss Talbot could not say, but at that moment there came an interruption.

From the opposite doorway appeared the figure of Mlle. Beaucaire, carrying a small bag. She was followed by a man, tall, slight, and closely m.u.f.fled up, who shouldered a larger portmanteau. Edith grabbed both the girls, and pulled them close to her against the closed door behind them.

"It is he!" she whispered tragically. "Silence! Let us watch them!"

The man darted a suspicious glance up and down the street. There was no one whom even the clever Henri Dubois could construe as an enemy--no one save some chattering Ma.r.s.eillais loitering around their doorsteps, and three girls huddled together in close conclave directly opposite.

Thus rea.s.sured, he strode after La Belle Cha.s.seuse, who cried out impatiently:

"Come quick, Henri; what are you waiting for?"

"Is his name Henri?" whispered the awe-stricken Marie.

"Yes. Isn't he a villain? I wonder where they are going now!"

"Let us follow them and see," suggested Marie.

"Yes, let us follow them and see," chimed in the other one, who delighted in this nocturnal romance. It was a veritable page out of one of Paul de k.o.c.k's novels.

The programme suited Miss Talbot exceedingly well.

They strolled off down the street, nestling together, Edith in the centre, and keeping the shrouded couple in front well in sight. This time, when Mademoiselle Beaucaire and her companion reached the point where the street emerged on to the harbour, they did not cross over towards the broad and brilliantly-lighted Cannebiere, but hurried on through the darkness in the direction of a cl.u.s.ter of fishing smacks that lay alongside the Quai de Rive Neuve.

"My faith, Eugenie!" cried Marie, "they must be going on board one of the vessels."

"What a lark!" was the answer. "I suppose they fear you," she added, turning her sharp eyes on Edith. "What is your name?"

"Lucille," came the answer on the spur of the moment.