Once, long before the world knew of her, she had returned home from Italy unexpectedly. "Molly, here"s Nora, from Tuscany!" her delighted father had cried: who at that time had a nebulous idea that Tuscany was somewhere in Ireland because it had a Celtic ring to it. Being filled with love of Italy, its tongue, its history, its physical beauty, she navely translated "Nora from Tuscany" into Italian, and declared that when she went upon the stage she would be known by that name. There had been some smiling over the pseudonym; but Nora was Irish enough to cling to it. By and by the great music-loving public ceased to concern itself about her name; it was her fresh beauty and her wonderful voice they craved to see and hear. Kings and queens, emperors and empresses, princes and princesses,--what is called royalty and n.o.bility in the newspapers freely gave her homage. Quite a rise in the world for a little girl who had once lived in a shabby apartment in New York and run barefooted on the wet asphalts, summer nights!
But Nora was not recalling the happy scenes of her childhood; indeed, no; she was still threatening Paris. Once there, she would not lack for reprisals. To have played on her pity! To have made a lure of her tender concern for the unfortunate! Never would she forgive such baseness. And only a little while ago she had been as happy as the nightingale to which they compared her. Never had she wronged any one; she had been kindness and thoughtfulness to all with whom she had come in contact. But from now on!... Her fingers tightened round the bars. She might have posed as Dido when she learned that the n.o.ble aeneas was dead. War, war; woe to the moths who fluttered about her head hereafter!
Ah, but had she been happy? Her hands slid down the bars. Her expression changed. The mouth drooped, the eagle-light in her eyes dimmed. From out the bright morning, somewhere, had come weariness, and with this came weakness, and finally, tears.
She heard the key turn in the lock. They had never come so early before.
She was astonished to see that her jailer did not close the door as usual.
He put down the breakfast tray on the table. There was tea and toast and fruit.
"Mademoiselle, there has been a terrible mistake," said the man humbly.
"Ah! So you have found that out?" she cried.
"Yes. You are not the person for whom this room was intended." Which was half a truth and perfectly true, paradoxical as it may seem. "Eat your breakfast in peace. You are free, Mademoiselle."
"Free? You will not hinder me if I walk through that door?"
"No, Mademoiselle. On the contrary, I shall be very glad, and so will my brother, who guards you at night. I repeat, there has been a frightful mistake. Monsieur Champeaux ..."
"Monsieur Champeaux!" Nora was bewildered. She had never heard this name before.
"He calls himself that," was the diplomatic answer.
All Nora"s suspicions took firm ground again. "Will you describe this Monsieur Champeaux to me?" asked the actress coming into life.
"He is short, dark, and old, Mademoiselle."
"Rather is he not tall, blond, and young?" ironically.
The jailer concealed what annoyance he felt. In his way he was just as capable an actor as she was. The accuracy of her description startled him; for the affair had been carried out so adroitly that he had been positive that until her real captor appeared she would be totally in the dark regarding his ident.i.ty. And here she had hit it off in less than a dozen words. Oh, well; it did not matter now. She might try to make it unpleasant for his employer, but he doubted the ultimate success of her attempts. However, the matter was at an end as far as he was concerned.
"Have you thought what this means? It is abduction. It is a crime you have committed, punishable by long imprisonment."
"I have been Mademoiselle"s jailer, not her abductor. And when one is poor and in need of money!" He shrugged.
"I will give you a thousand francs for the name and address of the man who instigated this outrage."
Ah, he thought: then she wasn"t so sure? "I told you the name, Mademoiselle. As for his address, I dare not give it, not for ten thousand francs. Besides, I have said that there has been a mistake."
"For whom have I been mistaken?"
"Who but Monsieur Champeaux"s wife, Mademoiselle, who is not in her right mind?" with inimitable sadness.
"Very well," said Nora. "You say that I am free. That is all I want, freedom."
"In twenty minutes the electric tram leaves for Paris. You will recall, Mademoiselle," humbly, "that we have taken nothing belonging to you. You have your purse and hat and cloak. The struggle was most unfortunate. But, think, Mademoiselle, think; we thought you to be insane!"
"Permit me to doubt that! And you are not afraid to let me go?"
"Not in the least, Mademoiselle. A mistake has been made, and in telling you to go at once, we do our best to rectify this mistake. It is only five minutes to the tram. A carriage is at the door. Will Mademoiselle be pleased to remember that we have treated her with the utmost courtesy?"
"I shall remember everything," ominously.
"Very good, Mademoiselle. You will be in Paris before nine." With this he bowed and backed out of the room as though Nora had suddenly made a distinct ascension in the scale of importance.
"Wait!" she called.
His face appeared in the doorway again.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Since this morning, Mademoiselle."
"That is all."
Free! Her veins tingled with strange exultation. He had lost his courage and had become afraid of the consequences. Free! Monsieur Champeaux indeed! Cowardice was a new development in his character. He had been afraid to come. She drank the tea, but did not touch the toast or fruit.
There would be time enough for breakfast when she arrived in Paris. Her hands trembled violently as she pinned on her hat, and she was not greatly concerned as to the angle. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up her purse and cloak, and sped out into the street. A phaeton awaited her.
"The tram," she said.
"Yes, Mademoiselle."
"And go quickly." She would not feel safe until she was in the tram.
A face appeared at one of the windows. As the vehicle turned the corner, the face vanished; and perhaps that particular visage disappeared forever.
A gray wig came off, the little gray side-whiskers, the bushy grey eyebrows, revealing a clever face, not more than thirty, cunning, but humorously cunning and anything but scoundrelly. The painted scar aslant the nose was also obliterated. With haste the man thrust the evidences of disguise into a traveling-bag, ran here and there through the rooms, all bare and unfurnished save the one with the bars and the kitchen, which contained two cots and some cooking utensils. Nothing of importance had been left behind. He locked the door and ran all the way to the Place d"Armes, catching the tram to Paris by a fraction of a minute.
All very well done. She would be in Paris before the police made any definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. He knew positively nothing.
The man laughed softly. A thousand francs apiece for him and Antoine, and no possible chance of being discovered. Let the police find the house in Versailles; let them trace whatever paths they found; the agent would tell them, and honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn"t the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer"s motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger had been done away with. True, the singer herself would move heaven and earth to find out who had been back of the abduction. Let her make her accusations. He was out of it.
He glanced toward the forward part of the tram. There she sat, staring at the white road ahead. A young Frenchman sat near her, curling his mustache desperately. So beautiful and all alone! At length he spoke to her. She whirled upon him so suddenly that his hat fell off his head and rolled at the feet of the onlooker.
"Your hat, Monsieur?" he said gravely, returning it.
Nora laughed maliciously. The author of the abortive flirtation fled down to the body of the tram.
And now there was no one on top but Nora and her erstwhile jailer, whom she did not recognize in the least.
"Mademoiselle," said the great policeman soberly, "this is a grave accusation to make."
"I make it, nevertheless," replied Nora. She sat stiffly in her chair, her face colorless, dark circles under her eyes. She never looked toward Courtlandt.
"But Monsieur Courtlandt has offered an alibi such as we can not ignore.
More than that, his integrity is vouched for by the gentleman at his side, whom doubtless Mademoiselle recognizes."
Nora eyed the great man doubtfully.