The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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room is now empty, but"—he hesitated, and with a sly look added, "indeed we have another room empty to-night—a far finer room, with a view over the lake—the room Madame Bailey occupied."
"The room Mrs. Bailey occupied?" echoed Chester. "Has Mrs. Bailey changed her room to-day?"
"Oh, no, M'sieur! She left Lacville this very evening. I have but just now received a letter from her."
The little man could hardly keep serious. Oh! those Englishmen, who are said to be so cold! When in love they behave just like other people.
For Chester was staring at him with puzzled, wrathful eyes.
"Ah! what a charming lady, M'sieur; Madame Polperro and I shall miss her greatly. We hoped to keep Madame Bailey all the summer. But perhaps she will come back—now that M'sieur has returned." He really could not resist that last thrust.
"Left Lacville!" repeated Chester incredulously. "But that's impossible! It isn't more than three hours since we said good-bye to her at the station. She had no intention of leaving Lacville then. Do you say you've received a letter from her?"
"Yes, M'sieur."
"Will you please show it me?"
"Certainly, M'sieur."
M. Polperro, followed closely by the Englishman, trotted off into his office, a funny little hole of a place which had been contrived under the staircase. It was here that Madame Polperro was supposed to spend her busy days.
M. Polperro felt quite lost without his wife. Slowly, methodically, he began to turn over the papers on the writing-table, which, with one chair, filled up all the place.
There had evidently been a lovers' quarrel between these two peculiar English people. What a pity that the gentleman, who had very properly returned to beg the lady's pardon, had found his little bird flown—in such poetic terms did the landlord in his own mind refer to Sylvia Bailey.
The pretty Englishwoman's presence in the Villa du Lac had delighted M. Polperro's southern, sentimental mind; he felt her to be so decorative, as well as so lucrative, a guest for his beloved hotel. Mrs. Bailey had never questioned any of the extras Madame Polperro put in her weekly bills, and she had never become haggard and cross as other ladies did who lost money at the Casino.
As he turned over the papers—bills, catalogues, and letters with which the table was covered, these thoughts flitted regretfully through M. Polperro's mind.
But he had an optimistic nature, and though he was very sorry Madame Bailey had left the Villa du Lac so abruptly, he was gratified by the fact that she had lived up to the ideal he had formed of his English guest. Though Madame Bailey had paid her weekly bill only two days before—she was en pension by the day—she had actually sent him a hundred francs to pay for the two days' board; the balance to be distributed among the servants....
There could surely be no harm in giving this big Englishman the lady's letter? Still, M. Polperro was sorry that he had not Madame Polperro at his elbow to make the decision for him.
"Here it is," he said at last, taking a piece of paper out of the drawer. "I must have put it there for my wife to read on her return. It is a very gratifying letter—M'sieur will see that for himself!"
Chester took the folded-up piece of notepaper out of the little Frenchman's hand with a strange feeling of misgiving.
He came out into the hall and stood under the cut-glass chandelier—
"You have made a mistake," he exclaimed quickly; "this is not Mrs. Bailey's handwriting!"
"Oh, yes, M'sieur, it is certainly Mrs. Bailey's letter. You see there is the lady's signature written as plainly as possible!"
Chester looked down to where the man's fat finger pointed.
In the strange, the alien handwriting, were written two words which for a moment conveyed nothing to Chester, "Silvea" and "Baylee"; as for the writing, stiff, angular, large, it resembled Sylvia's sloping English caligraphy as little as did the two words purporting to be her signature resemble the right spelling of her name.
A thrill of fear, of terrifying suspicion, flooded Bill Chester's shrewd but commonplace mind.
Slowly he read the strange letter through:
"Monsieur Polperro (so ran the missive in French)—
"I am leaving Lacville this evening in order to join my friend Madame Wolsky. I request you therefore to send on my luggage to the cloak room at the Gare du Nord. I enclose a hundred-franc note to pay you what I owe. Please distribute the rest of the money among the servants. I beg to inform you that I have been exceedingly comfortable at the Villa du Lac, and I will recommend your hotel to all my friends.
"Yours very cordially,
"Sylvea Baylee."
Turning on his heel, and without even throwing a word of apology to the astonished, and by now indignant, M. Polperro, Chester rushed out of the hall and down the stone steps, below which stood the victoria.
"Well?" cried out Paul de Virieu.
"Come into the house—now, at once!" cried Chester, roughly. "Something extraordinary has happened!"—
The Count jumped out of the carriage, and a moment later the two men stood together in the hall, careless of the fact that M. Polperro was staring at them with affrighted eyes.
"This letter purports to be from Sylvia Bailey," exclaimed Chester hoarsely, "but of course it is nothing of the sort! She never wrote a line of it. It's entirely unlike her handwriting—and then look at the absurd signature! What does it mean, Virieu? Can you give me any clue to what it means?"
The Comte de Virieu raised his head from over the thin sheet of notepaper, and even Chester, frightened and angry as he now was, could not help noticing how the other man's face had changed in the last few moments. From being of a usual healthy sunburn, it had turned so white as to look almost green under the bright electric light.
"Yes, I think I know what it means," said Count Paul between his teeth. "A letter like this purported to come from Madame Wolsky when she disappeared. But do not let us make a scene here. Let us go at once where I believe she is, for if what I fear is true every moment is of value."
He plucked the Englishman by the sleeve, and hurried him out into the grateful darkness.
"Get into the carriage," he said, imperiously. "I will see to everything."
Chester heard him direct the driver to the police-station. "We may need two or three gendarmes," muttered Count Paul. "It's worth the three minutes delay."
The carriage drew up before a shabby little house across which was painted in large black letters the word "Gendarmerie."
The Count rushed into the guard-room, hurriedly explained his errand to the superintendent, and came out, but a moment later, with three men.
"We must make room for these good fellows somehow," he said briefly, and room was made. Chester noticed with surprise that each man was armed, not only with a stave, but with a revolver. The French police do not stand on ceremony even with potential criminals.
"And now," said the Count to the coachman, "five louis, my friend, if you can get us to the Châlet des Muguets in seven minutes—"
They began driving at a breakneck pace, the driver whipping up his horse, lashing it in a way that horrified Chester. The light little carriage rocked from side to side.
"If the man doesn't drive more carefully," cried out the Englishman, "we shall be spilt—and that won't do us any good, will it?"
The Count called out, "If there's an accident you get nothing, my friend! Drive as quickly as you like, but drive carefully."
They swept on through the town, and so along the dimly-lighted shady avenues with which even Chester had become so familiar during the last few days.
Paul de Virieu sat with clenched hands, staring in front of him. Remorse