The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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They only knew he was going this morning. But you need not have troubled to write a letter, Monsieur Wachner. I could have given the message when I got back to-night. In any case let me take your letter."
"Ah! but the person in question may arrive before you get back," said Madame Wachner. "No, no, we have arranged to send the letter by a cabman who will call for it."
Monsieur Wachner pushed opened the white gate, and all three began walking up through the garden. The mantle of night now draped every straggling bush, every wilted flower, and the little wilderness was filled with delicious, pungent night scents.
When they reached the front door L'Ami Fritz stooped down, and began looking under the mat.
Sylvia smiled in the darkness; there seemed something so primitive, so simple, in keeping the key of one's front door outside under the mat! And yet foolish, prejudiced people spoke of Lacville as a dangerous spot, as the plague pit of Paris.
Suddenly the door was opened by the day-servant. And both the husband and wife uttered an involuntary exclamation of surprise and displeasure.
"What are you doing here?" asked Madame Wachner harshly. There was a note of dismay, as well as of anger, in her voice.
The woman began to excuse herself volubly. "I thought I might be of some use, Madame. I thought I might help you with all the last details."
"There was no necessity—none at all—for doing anything of the kind," said her mistress, in a low, quick voice. "You had been paid! You had had your present! However, as you are here, you may as well lay a third place in the dining-room, for, as you see, we have brought Madame Bailey back to have a little supper. She will only stay a very few moments, as she has to be at the Villa du Lac by ten o'clock."
The woman turned and threw open the door of the dining-room. Then she struck a match, and lighted a lamp which stood on the table.
Sylvia, as is often the case with those who have been much thrown with French people, could understand French much better than she could speak it, and what Madame Wachner had just hissed out in rapid, mumbling tones, surprised and puzzled her.
It was quite untrue that she, Sylvia, had to be back at the Villa du Lac by ten o'clock—for the matter of that, she could stay out as long and as late as she liked.
Then, again, although the arrangement that she should come to supper at the Châlet des Muguets to-night had been made that afternoon, the Wachners had been home, but they had evidently forgotten to tell their servant that they were expecting a visitor, for only two places were laid in the little dining-room into which they all three walked on entering the house.
Propped up against the now lighted lamp was a letter addressed to Monsieur Polperro in a peculiar, large handwriting. L'Ami Fritz, again uttering that queer guttural exclamation, snatched up the envelope, and hurriedly put it into his breast-pocket.
"I brought that letter out of M'sieur's bed-room," observed the day-servant, cringingly. "I feared M'sieur had forgotten it! Would M'sieur like me to take it to the Villa du Lac on my way home?"
"No," said Monsieur Wachner, shortly. "There is no need for you to do that; Madame Bailey will kindly take it for me."
And again Sylvia felt surprised. Surely he had said—or was it Madame Wachner?—that they had arranged for a man to call for it.
His wife shouted out his name imperiously from the dark passage, "Fritz! Fritz! Come here a moment; I want you."
He hurried out of the room, and Sylvia and the servant were thus left alone together for a few moments in the dining-room.
The woman went to the buffet and took up a plate; she came and placed it noisily on the table, and, under cover of the sound she made, "Do not stay here, Madame," she whispered, thrusting her wrinkled, sharp-featured face close to the Englishwoman's. "Come away with me! Say you want me to wait a bit and conduct you back to the Villa du Lac."
Sylvia stared at her distrustfully. This femme de ménage had a disagreeable face; there was a cunning, avaricious look in her eyes, or so Mrs. Bailey fancied; no doubt she remembered the couple of francs which had been given to her, or rather extorted by her, on the occasion of the English lady's last visit to the Châlet des Muguets.
"I will not say more," the servant went on, speaking very quickly, and under her breath. "But I am an honest woman, and these people frighten me. Still, I am not one to want embarrassments with the police."
And Sylvia suddenly remembered that those were exactly the words which had been uttered by Anna Wolsky's landlady in connection with Anna's disappearance. How frightened French people seemed to be of the police!
There came the sound of steps in the passage, and the Frenchwoman moved away quickly from Sylvia's side. She took up the plate she had just placed on the table, and to Sylvia's mingled disgust and amusement began rubbing it vigorously with her elbow.
Monsieur Wachner entered the room.
"That will do, that will do, Annette," he said patronisingly. "Come here, my good woman! Your mistress and I desire to give you a further little gift as you have shown so much zeal to-day, so here is twenty francs."
"Merci, M'sieur."
Without looking again at Sylvia the woman went out of the room, and a moment later the front door slammed behind her.
"My wife discovered that it is Annette's fête day to-morrow, and gave her a trifle. But she was evidently not satisfied, and no doubt that was why she stayed on to-night," observed Monsieur Wachner solemnly.
Madame Wachner now came in. She had taken off her bonnet and changed her elastic-sided boots for easy slippers.
"Oh, those French people!" she exclaimed. "How greedy they are for money! But—well, Annette has earned her present very fairly—" She shrugged her shoulders.
"May I go and take off my hat?" asked Sylvia; she left the room before Madame Wachner could answer her, and hurried down the short, dark passage.
The door of the moonlit kitchen was ajar, and to her surprise she saw that a large trunk, corded and even labelled, stood in the middle of the floor. Close to the trunk was a large piece of sacking—and by it another coil of thick rope.
Was it possible that the Wachners, too, were leaving Lacville? If so, how very odd of them not to have told her!
As she opened the door of the bed-room Madame Wachner waddled up behind her.
"Wait a moment!" she cried. "Or perhaps, dear friend, you do not want a light? You see, we have been rather upset to-day, for L'Ami Fritz has to go away for two or three days, and that is a great affair! We are so very seldom separated. 'Darby and Joan,' is not that what English people would call us?"
"The moon is so bright I can see quite well," Sylvia was taking off her hat; she put it, together with a little fancy bag in which she kept the loose gold she played with at the gambling tables, on Madame Wachner's bed. She felt vaguely uncomfortable, for even as Madame Wachner had spoken she had become aware that the bed-room was almost entirely cleared of everything belonging to its occupants. However, the Wachners, like Anna Wolsky, had the right to go away without telling anyone of their intention.
As they came back into the dining-room together, Mrs. Bailey's host, who was already sitting down at table, looked up.
"Words! Words! Words!" he exclaimed harshly. "Instead of talking so much why do you not both come here and eat your suppers? I am very hungry."
Sylvia had never heard the odd, silent man speak in such a tone before, but his wife answered quite good-humouredly,
"You forget, Fritz, that the cabman is coming. Till he has come and gone we shall not have peace."
And sure enough, within a moment of her saying those words there came a sound of shuffling footsteps on the garden path.
Monsieur Wachner got up and went out of the room. He opened the front door, and Sylvia overheard a few words of the colloquy between her host and his messenger.