The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy Part 28

"You won't go just immediately. I may tell you further that I have a.n.a.lyzed the contents of this gla.s.s, and have found traces of atropine."

I had done no such thing, but that was a detail.

"Also, I have sent for the police."

This, too, was an imaginative statement.

Yvette approached me suddenly, and flung her arms round my neck. I had just time to put the gla.s.s on the seat of a chair and seize her hands.

"No," I said, "you will neither spill that gla.s.s nor break it."

She dropped at my feet weeping.

"Have pity on me, monsieur!" She looked up at me through her tears, and the pose was distinctly effective. "It was Madame Deschamps who asked me to do it. I used to be with her before I came to mademoiselle. She gave me the bottle, but I didn't know it was poison--I swear I didn't!"

"What did you take it to be, then? Jam? Two grains of atropine will cause death."

For answer she clung to my knees. I released myself, and moved away a few steps. She jumped up, and made a dash for the door, but I happened to have locked it.

"Where is Madame Deschamps?" I asked.

"She returns to Paris to-morrow. Monsieur will let me go. I was only a tool."

"I will consider that matter, Yvette," I said. "In my opinion you are a thoroughly wicked girl, and I wouldn't trust you any further than I could see you. For the present, you will have an opportunity to meditate over your misdoings." I left the room, and locked the door on the outside.

Impossible to disguise the fact that I was enormously pleased with myself--with my sharpness, my smartness, my penetration, my success.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PORTRAIT

For the next hour or two I wandered about Rosa's flat like an irresolute and bewildered spirit. I wished to act, yet without Rosa I scarcely liked to do so. That some sort of a plot existed--whether serious or trivial was no matter--there could be little doubt, and there could be little doubt also that Carlotta Deschamps was at the root of it.

Several half-formed schemes flitted through my head, but none of them seemed to be sufficiently clever. I had the idea of going to see Carlotta Deschamps in order to warn her. Then I thought the warning might perhaps be sent through her sister Marie, who was doubtless in Paris, and who would probably be able to control Carlotta. I had not got Carlotta's address, but I might get it by going to the Casino de Paris, and asking Marie for it. Perhaps Marie, suspicious, might refuse the address. Had she not said that she and Carlotta were as thick as thieves? Moreover, a.s.suming that I could see Carlotta, what should I say to her? How should I begin? Then it occurred to me that the shortest way with such an affair was to go directly to the police, as I had already threatened Yvette; but the appearance of the police would mean publicity, scandal, and other things unpleasant for Rosa.

So it fell out that I maintained a discreet inactivity.

Towards nightfall I went into the street to breathe the fresh air. A man was patrolling the pavement in a somewhat peculiar manner. I returned indoors, and after half an hour reconnoitred once more. The man was on the opposite side of the road, with his eyes on the windows of the salon. When he caught sight of me he walked slowly away. He might have been signalling to Yvette, who was still under lock and key, but this possibility did not disturb me, as escape was out of the question for her.

I went back to the flat, and a servant met me in the hall with a message that mademoiselle was now quite recovered, and would like to see me in her boudoir. I hurried to her. A fire was burning on the hearth, and before this were two lounge chairs. Rosa occupied one, and she motioned me to the other. Attired in a peignoir of pure white, and still a little languorous after the attack, she looked the enchanting perfection of beauty and grace. But in her eyes, which were unduly bright, there shone an apprehension, the expectancy of the unknown.

"I am better," she said, with a faint smile. "Feel my pulse."

I held her wrist and took out my watch, but I forgot to count, and I forgot to note the seconds. I was gazing at her. It seemed absurd to contemplate the possibility of ever being able to call her my own.

"Am I not better?"

"Yes, yes," I said; "the pulse is--the pulse is--you are much better."

Then I pushed my chair a little further from the fire, and recollected that there were several things to be said and done.

"I expected the attack would pa.s.s very quickly," I said.

"Then you know what I have been suffering from," she said, turning her chair rapidly half-round towards me.

"I do," I answered, with emphasis.

"What is it?"

I was silent.

"Well," she said, "tell me what it is." She laughed, but her voice was low and anxious.

"I am just wondering whether I shall tell you."

"Stuff!" she exclaimed proudly. "Am I a child?"

"You are a woman, and should be shielded from the sharp edges of life."

"Ah!" she murmured "Not all men have thought so. And I wish you wouldn't talk like that."

"Nevertheless, I think like that," I said. "And I'm really anxious to save you from unnecessary annoyance."

"Then I insist that you shall tell me," she replied inconsequently. "I will not have you adopt that att.i.tude towards me. Do you understand? I won't have it! I'm not a Dresden shepherdess, and I won't be treated like one--at any rate, by you. So there!"

I was in the seventh heaven of felicity.

"If you will have it, you have been poisoned."

I told her of my suspicions, and how they had been confirmed by Yvette's avowal. She shivered, and then stood up and came towards me.

"Do you mean to say that Carlotta Deschamps and my own maid have conspired together to poison me simply because I am going to sing in a certain piece at a certain theatre? It's impossible!"

"But it is true. Deschamps may not have wished to kill you; she merely wanted to prevent you from singing, but she ran a serious risk of murder, and she must have known it."

Rosa began to sob, and I led her back to her chair.

"I ought not to have told you to-night," I said. "But we should communicate with the police, and I wanted your authority before doing so."

She dried her eyes, but her frame still shook.

"I will sing 'Carmen,'" she said pa.s.sionately.

"Of course you will. We must get these two arrested, and you shall have proper protection."