The Maids of Paradise Part 51

"Are you certain she was a Bretonne?" he asked. His nervousness surprised me.

"Does she not say so?" I replied.

"I know--I know--but that message--there is only one woman who could have sent it--" He hesitated, red as a pippin.

He was so young, so manly, so unspoiled, and so red, that on an impulse I said: "Kelly, it was Mademoiselle Elven who sent you the message."

His face expressed troubled astonishment.

"Is that her name?" he asked.

"Well--it's one of them, anyway," I replied, beginning to feel troubled in my turn. "See here, Kelly, it's not my business, but you won't mind if I speak plainly, will you? The times are queer--you understand. Everybody is suspicious; everybody is under suspicion in these days. And I want to say that the young lady who sent that curious message to you is as clever as twenty men like you and me."

He was silent.

"If it is a love affair, I'll stop now--not a question, you understand. If it is not--well, as an older and more battered and world-worn man, I'm going to make a suggestion to you--with your permission."

"Make it," he said, quietly.

"Then I will. Don't talk to Mademoiselle Elven. You, Speed, and I know something about a certain conspiracy; we are going to know more before we inform the captain of that cruiser out there beyond Point Paradise. I know Mademoiselle Elven--slightly. I am afraid of her--and I have not yet decided why. Don't talk to her."

"But--I don't know her," he said; "or, at least I don't know her by that name."

After a moment I said: "Is the person in question the companion of the Countess de Va.s.sart?"

"If she is I do not know it," he replied.

"Was she once an actress?"

"It would astonish me to believe it!" he said.

"Then who do you believe sent you that message, Kelly?"

His cheeks began to burn again, and he gave me an uncomfortable look.

A silence, and he sat down in my dressing-room, his boyish head buried in his hands. After a glance at him I began changing my training-suit for riding-clothes, whistling the while softly to myself. As I b.u.t.toned a fresh collar he looked up.

"Mr. Scarlett, you are well-born and--you are here in the circus with the rest of us. You know what we are--you know that two or three of us have seen better days,... that something has gone wrong with us to bring us here,... but we never speak of it,... and never ask questions.... But I should like to tell you about myself;... you are a gentleman, you know,... and I was not born to anything in particular.... I was a clerk in the consul's office in Paris when Monsieur Tissandier took a fancy to me, and I entered his balloon ateliers to learn to a.s.sist him."

He hesitated. I tied my necktie very carefully before a bit of broken mirror.

"Then the government began to make much of us,... you remember? We started experiments for the army.... I was intensely interested, and ... there was not much talk about secrecy then,... and my salary was large, and I was received at the Tuileries. My head was turned;...

life was easy, brilliant. I made an invention--a little electric screw which steered a balloon ... sometimes..." He laughed, a mirthless laugh, and looked at me. All the color had gone from his face.

"There was a woman--" I turned partly towards him.

"We met first at the British Emba.s.sy,... then elsewhere,...

everywhere.... We skated together at the club in the Bois at that celebrated fete,... you know?--the Emperor was there--"

"I know," I said.

He looked at me dreamily, pa.s.sed his hand over his face, and went on:

"Somehow we always talked about military balloons. And that evening ... she was so interested in my work ... I brought some little sketches I had made--"

"I understand," I said.

He looked at me miserably. "She was to return the sketches to me at Calman's--the fashionable book-store,... next day.... I never thought that the next day was to be Sunday.... The book-stores of Paris are not open on Sunday--_but the War Office is_."

I began to put on my coat.

"And the sketches were asked for?" I suggested--"and you naturally told what had become of them?"

"I refused to name her."

"Of course; men of our sort can't do that."

"I am not of your sort--you know it."

"Oh yes, you are, my friend--and the same kind of fool, too. There's only one kind of man in this world."

He looked at me listlessly.

"So they sent you to a fortress?" I asked.

"To New Caledonia,... four years.... I was only twenty, Scarlett,...

and ruined.... I joined Byram in Antwerp and risked the tour through France."

After a moment's thought I said: "In your opinion, what nation profited by your sketches? Italy? Spain? Prussia? Bavaria? England?...

Perhaps Russia?"

"Do you mean that this woman was a foreign spy?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps she was only careless, or capricious,... or inconstant.... You never saw her again?"

"I was under arrest on Sunday. I do not know.... I like to believe that she went to the book-store on Monday,... that she made an innocent mistake,... but I never knew, Scarlett,... I never knew."

"Suppose you ask her?" I said.

He reddened furiously.

"I cannot.... If she did me a wrong, I cannot reproach her; if she was innocent--look at me, Scarlett!--a ragged, ruined mountebank in a travelling circus,... and she is--"

"An honest woman that a man might care for?"

"That is ... my belief."

"If she is," I said, "go and ask her about those drawings."

"But if she is not,... I cannot tell _you_!" he flashed out.