The Rough Road Part 34

They entered the vestibule where the great cask gleamed in its polished mahogany and bra.s.s. She bade them be seated.

"Mademoiselle, Captain Willoughby tells me that you had billeted here last week a soldier by the name of Trevor," said the stranger, in excellent French, taking out notebook and pencil.

Jeanne's lips grew white. She had not suspected their errand.

"_Oui, monsieur._"

"Did you have much talk with him?"

"Much, monsieur."

"Pardon my indiscretion, mademoiselle--it is military service, and I am an Intelligence officer--but did you tell him about your private affairs?"

"Very intimately," said Jeanne.

The Intelligence officer made a note or two and smiled pleasantly--but Jeanne could have struck him for daring to smile. "You had every reason for thinking him a man of honour?"

"What's the good of asking her that, Smithers?" Captain Willoughby interrupted in English. "Haven't I given you my word? The man's a mysterious little devil, but any fool can see that he's a gentleman."

"What do you say?" Jeanne asked tensely.

"_Je parle francais tres peu_," replied Captain Willoughby with an air of regret.

Smithers explained. "Monsieur le Capitaine says that he guarantees the honesty of the soldier, Trevor."

Jeanne flashed, rigid. "Who could doubt it, monsieur? He was a gentleman, a _fils de famille_, of the English aristocracy."

"Excuse me for a moment," said Smithers.

He went out. Jeanne, uncomprehending, sat silent. Captain Willoughby, cursing an idiot education, composed in his head a polite French sentence concerning the weather, but before he had finished Smithers reappeared with a strange twisted packet in his hand. He held it out to Jeanne.

"Mademoiselle, do you recognize this?"

She looked at it dully for a moment; then suddenly sprang to her feet and clenched her hands and stared open-mouthed. She nodded. She could not speak. Her brain swam. They had come to her about Doggie, who was dead, and they showed her Pere Grigou's packet. What was the connection between the two?

Willoughby rose impulsively. "For G.o.d's sake, Smithers, let her down easy. She'll be fainting all over the place in a minute."

"If this is your property, mademoiselle," said Smithers, laying the packet on the chenille-covered table, "you have to thank your friend Trevor for restoring it to you."

She put up both hands to her reeling head.

"But he is dead, monsieur!"

"Not a bit of it. He's just as much alive as you or I."

Jeanne swayed, tried to laugh, threw herself half on a chair, half over the great cask, and broke down in a pa.s.sion of tears.

The two men looked at each other uncomfortably.

"For exquisite tact," said Willoughby, "commend me to an Intelligence officer."

"But how the deuce was I to know?" Smithers muttered with an injured air. "My instructions were to find out the truth of a c.o.c.k-and-bull story--for that's what it seemed to come to. And a girl in billets--well--how was I to know what she was like?"

"Anyhow, here we've got hysterics," said Willoughby.

"But who told her the fellow was dead?"

"Why, his pals. I thought so myself. When a man's missing where's one to suppose him to be--having supper at the Savoy?"

"Well, I give women up," said Smithers. "I thought she'd be glad."

"I believe you're a married man?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, I ain't," said Willoughby, and in a couple of strides he stood close to Jeanne. He laid a gentle hand on her heaving shoulders.

"_Pas tue! Soolmong blesse_," he shouted.

She sprang, as it were, to attention, like a frightened recruit.

"He is wounded?"

"Not very seriously, mademoiselle." Smithers, casting an indignant glance at his superior officer's complacent smile, rea.s.sumed mastery of the situation. "A Boche sniper got him in the leg. It will put him out of service for a month or two. But there is no danger."

"_Grace a Dieu!_" said Jeanne.

She leaned for a while against the cask, her hands behind her, looking away from the two men. And the two young men stood, somewhat embarra.s.sed, looking away from her and from each other. At last she said, with an obvious striving for the even note in her voice:

"I ask your pardon, messieurs, but sometimes sudden happiness is more overwhelming than misfortune. I am now quite at your service."

"My G.o.d! she's a wonder," murmured Willoughby, who was fair, unmarried, and impressionable. "Go on with your dirty work."

Smithers, conscious of linguistic superiority--in civil life he had been concerned with the wine trade in Bordeaux--proceeded to carry out his instructions. He turned over a leaf in his notebook and poised a ready pencil.

"I must ask you, mademoiselle, some formal questions."

"Perfectly, monsieur," said Jeanne.

"Where was this packet when last you saw it?"

She made her statement, calmly.

"Can you tell me its contents?"

"Not all, monsieur. I, as a young girl, was not in the full confidence of my parents. But I remember my uncle saying there were about twenty thousand francs in notes, some gold--I know not how much--some jewellery of my mother's--oh, a big handful!--rings--one a hoop of emeralds and diamonds--a brooch with a black pearl belonging to my great-grandmother----"

"It is enough, mademoiselle," said Smithers, jotting down notes.

"Anything else besides money and jewellery?"