"How did you get here yourself?"
"M. Dixon"s motor-car."
"And who tracked you?"
"Why--no one."
"No one?" jeered the ruffian. "Then what was Juve doing in the taxi which was rolling after you?"
Josephine uttered an exclamation of surprise. Loupart went on, greatly satisfied with himself:
"And what was Loupart up to? That crafty gentleman was cosily ensconced on the springs behind the taxi in which the worthy inspector was riding."
The ruffian was teasing, and that showed he was in good humour again.
Josephine put her arms round his neck and hugged him.
"It"s you that I love and you alone--let"s go, take me away, won"t you?"
Loupart freed himself from the embrace.
"Since you are at home here--the American said as much--I must see to profiting by it. You will stay here till this evening: at five you will be at the markets, and so shall I. You won"t recognise me, but I shall speak to you, and then you will tell me exactly where this pugilist locks up his swag. I want a full plan of the house, the print of the keys, all the usual truck. This evening I shall have something new for Juve and his crew, an affair in which you will serve me."
Josephine, panting, did not pay heed to this last sentence. She flushed crimson, perspiration broke out on her forehead, a great agony tightened her heart. She, so docile till then, so devoted, suddenly felt an immense scruple, an awful shame at the thought of being guilty of what her lover demanded. Against any other man, she would have obeyed, but to act in that way toward Dixon, who had treated her so considerately, she felt was beyond her powers. Here Josephine showed herself truly a woman.
While determined not to be false to Loupart, she would not leave the pugilist with an evil memory of her. She hesitated to betray him and unwittingly proved the truth of the philosopher"s dictum: "The most honest of women, though unwilling to give hope, is never sorry to leave behind her a regret!"
But Loupart was not going to stay discussing such subtleties with his mistress. He never gave his orders twice. To seal the reconciliation he imprinted a hasty kiss on Josephine"s cheek and vanished. A sound of crackling marked his pa.s.sage through the thickets. Josephine was once more alone in the great park around the villa.
Fandor and Dixon were taking tea in the drawing-room. The journalist came, he alleged, to interview Dixon about his fight with Joe Sans, the negro champion of the Soudan, which was to come off next day. After getting various details as to weight, diet and other trifles, Fandor inquired with a smile:
"But to keep in good form, Dixon, you must be as sober as a camel, as chaste as a monk, eh?"
The American smiled. Fandor had told him a few moments before that he had seen him supping at the "Crocodile" with a pretty woman.
At Juve"s instigation Fandor had alleged a sporting interview, in order to get into the American"s house and discover if Josephine was still there. He meant to ascertain what the relations were between the pugilist and the girl.
The allusion to that evening loosened the American"s tongue. Absorbed by the pleasing impression which his pretty partner had made on him, Dixon began talking on the subject. He belonged to that cla.s.s of men who, when they are in love, want the whole world to know it.
The American set the young woman on such a pedestal of innocence and purity--that Fandor wondered if the pugilist were not laughing at him.
But Dixon, quite unconscious, did not conceal his intention to elope with Josephine and shortly take her to America. Suddenly he rose.
"Come," he said, "I will introduce you to her."
Fandor was about to protest, but the American was already scouring the house and searching the park, calling:
"Finette, Mlle. Finette, Josephine!"
Presently he returned, his face distorted, unnerved, dejected, and in a toneless voice he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed painfully:
"The pretty little woman has made off without a word to me. I am very much grieved!"
Five minutes later, Fandor jumped into a train which took him back to Paris.
XXIII
"STATES EVIDENCE"
"Juve, I"ve been fooled." The journalist was resting on the great couch in his friend"s study, Rue Bonaparte, and wound up with this a.s.sertion the long account of the fruitless inquiry he had made at Dixon"s.
"I"m played out! For two days I haven"t stopped a minute. After the night at the "Crocodile," which I spent for the most part, as I told you, in search of Loupart, yesterday my day went in fruitless trips; my mind is made up; to-night I shall do no more!"
"A cigarette, Fandor?"
"Thanks."
From the crystal vase where Juve, an inveterate smoker, always kept an ample stock of tobacco, he chose an Egyptian cigarette.
"My dear Juve, it is absolutely necessary to go again to Sevres and draw a close net round Dixon. He needs watching. Isn"t that your opinion?"
"I"m not sure."
Juve thought for a few moments, then:
"After all, what grounds have you for thinking that Dixon should be watched?"
"Why, any number of reasons."
"What are they?"
It was Fandor"s turn to be surprised. He had given Juve the account of his visit, supposing that would bring him to his way of thinking, and now Juve doubted Dixon being a suspect.
"You ask me for particulars. I am going to reply with generalisations.
Taking it all in all, what do we know of Dixon? That he was in a certain place and carried off Josephine under our very eyes. Hence he is a friend of Josephine"s, which in itself looks compromising."
"Oh!" protested Juve. "You arrive at your conclusions very quickly, Fandor. Josephine is not an honest woman. She may know the type of people that haunt the night resorts, yet who, for all that, need not be murderers."
"Then, Juve, how do you account for it that during my visit Dixon tricked me and kept me from meeting Josephine while making believe to look for her? Is not that again a sign of complicity? Does not that show clearly that Josephine, realising that she is suspected in our eyes, has decided to evade us?"
Juve smiled.
"Fandor, my lad, you are endowed with a prodigious imagination. You impute to Dixon the worst intentions without any proof. He got Josephine away, you say? What makes you think so? If you did not see her it was due to collusion between them both. Why? As far as I can see, Josephine simply picked up an old lover of hers at the "Crocodile" and went off with him as naturally as possible, preferring not to see the arrest of Loupart or of Chaleck. I admit that next day she simply took French leave of the worthy American, and you may be sure he knew nothing about her going."
Fandor was silent and Juve resumed: