"About two o"clock this morning."
"And what was this grim joke?"
"That I may not tell you, m"sieur," she replied. "Indeed, I couldn"t tell you--for I don"t know. Miss Thorold knows."
"Who lives here usually?" I asked. "The Baronne?"
"She is rarely here. But that is enough. I cannot answer more questions. Is there anything else that I can get you?"
Nothing else we needed, except tobacco, and she brought us that. Very good tobacco it was, too.
Wearily the day pa.s.sed, for though the room we were in was well-furnished, there were few books in it. We could, of course, have gone out of the room, out of the house probably, but our pretty little wardress had placed us on _parole_.
Whether or not the house was occupied, even whether there were servants in it, we could not tell. And the matter did not interest us much.
What we should have liked to know was, why we had been brought there, still more, how Vera Thorold and Gladys Deroxe were faring in our absence. During the past weeks my life seemed to have been made up of a series of mysteries, each more puzzling than the last. I was distracted.
During the afternoon, while sitting together, very dejected, we suddenly caught the faint sound of a female voice singing.
Both of us listened. It was Vera"s voice, a sweet contralto, and she was singing, as though to herself, Verlaine"s "Manoline," that sweet harmonious song--
"Les donneurs de serenades, Et les belles ecouteuses, Echangent des propos fades Sous les ramures chanteuses.
"C"est Tircis et c"est Aminte Et c"est l"eternel c.l.i.tandre Et c"est Damis qui pour mainte cruelle Fait maint vers tendre."
The girl brought us tea presently, and, late in the evening, a plain dinner. The room was lit by petrol-gas. Each time she stayed with us a little while, and we were glad to have her company. She was, however, exceedingly discreet, refusing to make any statement which might throw light upon the reason of our confinement.
How strange it all was. Vera did not appear. We laughed at our own weakness and our own chivalry.
She showed us the bedroom where we were to sleep. Beautifully and expensively-furnished, it had two comfortable-looking beds, while a log-fire burnt cheerily in the grate--for the evening after the sunshine was singularly chilly in the mountains.
"If Vera does not come by mid-day to-morrow," Faulkner said, as we prepared to get into bed, "I shall break my _parole_ and set out to discover where she is. Our pretty friend is all very well, but my patience is exhausted. I"m not in need of a rest cure just at present."
We had both been asleep, I suppose, for a couple of hours, when I suddenly awoke. The room was in total darkness, but somehow I "felt"
the presence of some stranger in the room. At that instant it flashed in upon me that we had left the door unlocked. Straining my ears to catch the least sound, I held my breath.
Suddenly a noise came to me, not from the room, but from somewhere in the house. It was a cry--A cry for help! Sitting bolt upright in the bed, I remained motionless, listening intently. I heard it again. It was a woman"s cry--but this time fainter--
"Help! _Help_!" sounded in a long drawn-out gasp--a gasp of despair.
Something moved in the darkness. Again I "felt," rather than heard it.
My mouth grew dry, and fear, a deadly fear of the unknown, possessed me.
"Who is there?" I called out loudly.
There was no answer, but the sound of my voice gave me courage. I stretched my arm out in the darkness, meaning to reach over to Faulkner"s bed and prod him into wakefulness, when by chance I touched something alive.
Instantly a cold, damp hand gripped my own, holding it like a vice, and a moment later I was flung down on my back on the bed, and held there firmly by a silent, unseen foe.
In vain I struggled to get free, but the speechless, invisible Thing pressing me down in the darkness, kept me pinned to the bed! I was about to cry out, when a third hand closed about my throat, preventing me. It was a soft hand--a woman"s hand. Also, as it gripped me, a faint perfume struck my nostrils, a perfume familiar to me, curious, rich, pungent.
And then, almost as I stopped struggling, the room was suddenly flooded with light.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
WITHIN AN ACE.
Slowly I realised that Paulton was bending over me, holding me down.
The Baronne de Coudron, upon the opposite side of the bed, had her thin, strong sinewy hands upon my throat. Beside the gas-jet a yard or two away, Faulkner stood with his hand still holding the little chain he had pulled in order to turn on the light.
n.o.body spoke.
The Baronne, removing her hands from me, stood upright, big and strong, gazing down upon me still. She wore an elaborate kimono made of some soft pink Eastern material. Paulton was in evening clothes, one shirt-cuff was turned back.
"You should have taken my advice, m"sieur," the Baronne said in her deep voice, addressing Dago Paulton. She spoke quite calmly.
Instead of answering, and without loosening hold, he half-turned, apparently undecided what to do, until his eyes rested upon Faulkner.
Then suddenly, to my surprise, he released me. I got up.
"Faulkner, come here," he said sharply.
The young man--he was in the blue pyjamas he had found laid out upon the bed when Violet de Coudron had shown us into the bedroom--looked quietly at the speaker for a moment or two, then answered with the utmost sang-froid--
"I"m not your servant, hang you! Don"t speak to me like that."
"You may not be my servant, but I now control your movements," Paulton retorted quickly. "Therefore you will please do what I order. I take it that you know that I brought you and Ashton over here."
"Naturally."
"Have you any idea why?"
"None."
"Then I will tell you. Listen."
He was standing beside the bed. The Baronne, near him, looked with interest at Faulkner and myself as we now stood together a yard or two away from them.
"For some months past," Paulton said, watching me with an unpleasant expression, "you have been on intimate terms with the Thorolds."
"Really," I answered, shortly, "I can"t see what concern that is of yours. I have known the Thorolds intimately for a good many years.
Perhaps you will tell me your reason for the extraordinary liberty you took last night in bringing us here. I consider it a gross impertinence."
"Impertinence!" he laughed. "Let me tell you both," he said, "that you have to thank this lady," he turned slightly to indicate the Baronne, "for being alive to-day. When I brought you here I intended that neither of you should ever again be heard of. Your disappearance would have made a stir, no doubt, but the stir would not have lasted; you would soon have been forgotten here. Dead men tell no tales. But the Baronne interfered."
"I"m sure we feel deeply grateful," I answered ironically. "One would think we were conspirators, or criminals, by the way you talk. So far as I"m aware, I never set eyes on you until last night in the _Hotel de Paris_."
"Quite likely," he replied, "but that is beside the point. You possess information you have no right to possess. You know the Thorolds"
secret, and until your lips are closed I shall not feel safe." Ah! that remarkable secret again! What on earth could it be? That was the thought that flashed across my mind, but I merely answered--"You can"t suppose I shall reveal it?"