He walked over to the corner window of his sitting-room, and stepped onto the stone balcony which overlooked the twinkling lights of the Place de la Concorde.
Then, flung out, merged in the deep roar below, there broke from Laurence Vanderlyn a bitter cry; the keen night air had brought with it a sudden memory of that moment when he had opened the railway carriage door and stepped out into the rushing wind.... He asked himself why he had not followed his first impulse, why he had not allowed himself to die, with Peggy in his arms? Why, above all, had he undertaken a task which it was becoming beyond his strength to carry through?
So wondering, so questioning, he leaned over the bal.u.s.trade dangerously far; then he drew quickly back, and placing his hands on the parapet, stood for a moment as if holding at bay an invisible, yet to himself most tangible, enemy.
With a sigh which was a groan, he walked back into the room. He had never yet failed Peggy; he would not fail her now----
Vanderlyn sat down; he was determined not to be beaten by his nerves. He took up the _New York Herald_; but a moment later he had laid the paper down again on the table. What had been going on in America a week ago could not compel his attention. He took another paper off the table; it was the London _Daily Telegraph_, of which one of the most successful features for many years has been a column ent.i.tled "Paris Day by Day,"--an _olla podrida_ of news, grave and gay, domestic and sensational, put together with infinite art, and a full understanding of what is likely to appeal to the British middle-cla.s.s reader. There, as Vanderlyn knew well, was certain to be some reference to the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter.
Yes--here it was!
"No trace of Mrs. Pargeter, the wife of the well-known sportsman and owner of Absinthe, has yet been found; but the lady"s relations think it possible that she went unexpectedly to stay with some friends, and that the letter informing her household of her whereabouts has miscarried."
The Paris correspondent of the great London newspaper had proved himself very discreet.
Vanderlyn"s eyes glanced idly down the long column of paragraphs which make up "Paris Day by Day." Again he remembered the look of deep astonishment which had crossed a colleague"s face at his ignorance of some new sensation of which at that moment all Paris was apparently talking. So it was that he applied himself to read the trifling items of news with some care, for here would be found everything likely to keep him in touch with the gossip of the day.
At last he came to the final paragraph--
"Yet another railway mystery! The dead body of a woman has been found in a first-cla.s.s compartment in a train which left Paris at 7 P. M. last Wednesday. As the discovery was not made till the train reached Orange, it is, of course, impossible to know where the unfortunate woman, who, by her dress, belonged to the leisured cla.s.s, entered the train. Her hand baggage had disappeared, no doubt stolen at some intervening station by someone who, having made the gruesome discovery, thought it wise to make himself scarce. The police do not, however, consider that they are in the presence of a crime. Dr. Fortoul, the well-known physician of Orange, has satisfied himself that the lady died of heart disease."
Vanderlyn went on staring down at the printed words. They seemed to make more true, more inevitable, the fact of Margaret Pargeter"s death, and of his own awful loss.
But with the agony of this thought came infinite relief, for this, or so he thought, meant that his own personal ordeal was at last drawing to a close. The fact of so strange and unwonted an occurrence as the finding of a woman"s dead body in a train, would surely be at once connected by the trained intellects of the Paris Police with the disappearance of Mrs. Pargeter.
He let the paper fall to the ground and began to think intently. When that came to pa.s.s, as it certainly must do within the next few hours, it would become his grim business to persuade Tom Pargeter that the clue was one worth following. The mystery solved, the question of how Margaret Pargeter came to be travelling in the demi-rapide would be comparatively unimportant--at any rate not a point which such a man as Tom Pargeter would give himself much trouble to clear up.
Then with some uneasiness he remembered that before such an item of news could have found its way into an English newspaper, the fact must have been known to the French police for at least twelve hours. If that were so, their ac.u.men was not as great as that with which Vanderlyn credited them.
But stay! The Prefect of Police was convinced that Mrs. Pargeter was alive, and that he, Vanderlyn, knew her whereabouts; it was not for Peggy dead, but for Peggy living, that they were still searching so eagerly.
He opened the _Figaro_ and the _Pet.i.t Journal_, and ran a shaking finger down the columns; there, in each paper, hidden away among unimportant items, and told more briefly and in much balder language, he at last found the story of the discovery which the _Daily Telegraph_ had served up as a t.i.t-bit to thrill the readers of its Paris news columns.
Vanderlyn made up his mind to spend the whole of the next day with Pargeter; he must be at the villa, ready to put in his word of advice,--even, if need be, of suggestion,--when the moment came for him to do so.
For the first time for many nights Vanderlyn"s sleep was unbroken; and early the next morning he made his way to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne.
As he walked through the hall of the villa, already peopled with a score of the Pargeters" acquaintances, eager to show their sympathy with the wealthy sportsman in this most untoward and extraordinary occurrence, the American was obliged to shake hands with many men whom he had hitherto only known by sight, and to answer questions some of which impressed him as strangely indiscreet. More than one of those with whom he found himself thus face to face looked at him with cruel, inquisitive eyes, and a scarcely veiled curiosity, for it was of course well known that Laurence Vanderlyn had been an intimate, not only of the husband, but also of the wife.
At last Pargeter"s valet threaded his way up to him: "Will you please come upstairs, sir? Mr. Pargeter told me to say that he would be glad if you would go to his dressing-room as soon as you arrived."
"There"s no news, Grid,--no news at all! It"s getting awful, isn"t it?--quite beyond a joke! You know what I mean--I"m sick of answering stupid questions. I was waked this morning at seven--had to see a man in bed! They don"t seem to understand that I can tell them nothing beyond the bare fact that she"s vanished; they actually sent two women here last night----"
"Two women?" echoed Vanderlyn. "What sort of women?"
"Ugly old hags," said Pargeter, briefly, "from the Prefecture of Police.
They brought an impudent letter asking me to allow them to turn out Peggy"s room and look over all her things! But I refused----" he looked at his friend for sympathy--and found it.
"You were quite right," said Vanderlyn quickly. His face became rigid with anger and disgust. "Quite right, Tom! Whatever made them think of suggesting such a thing? Where would be the use of it?"
"Oh! well, of course they had a reason. The police are particularly keen that we should look over any old letters of hers; they think that we might find some kind of clue. But I don"t believe she kept her letters--why should she? I don"t keep mine. However, I"ve promised to do the job myself----" he looked uncertainly at Vanderlyn. "Would you mind, Grid, coming with me into Peggy"s room? Of course Plimmer, that"s her maid, you know, will help us. She knows where Peggy keeps all her things."
"Why not ask Madame de Lera to do it?" said Vanderlyn, in a low voice.
He turned away and stared at a sporting print which hung just on the level of his eyes. Had he ever written imprudent letters to Peggy? Not lately, but in the early days,--in that brief time of uncertain ecstasy, and, on his part, of pa.s.sionate expression, which had preceded their long successful pretence at friendship? He himself had preserved later letters of hers--not love-letters a.s.suredly, but letters which proved clearly enough the strange closeness of their intimacy.
But what was this that Pargeter was saying? "Madame de Lera? Why should I ask her to interfere? I don"t want to mix her up in this business more than I can help! If it hadn"t been for her--and that ridiculous invitation of hers, Peggy would be here now! Peggy wouldn"t mind your looking over her things, Grid. She"s really fond of you--as fond of you as she can be of anyone, that is."
He got up, and, preceding Vanderlyn down a connecting pa.s.sage, flung open the door giving access to a s.p.a.cious airy bedchamber of which the pale mauve and grey furnishings reminded both men of Peggy"s favourite flower and scent. The sun-blinds were down and the maid was standing, as if waiting for them, by the dressing-table.
They both instinctively hesitated on the threshold. "Tom," said Vanderlyn, hoa.r.s.ely, "I don"t think I ought to come in here----"
"Don"t be a fool! I tell you she wouldn"t mind a bit. Surely you"re not going to cut--now?"
Pargeter took a step forward; then he stood for a moment looking round him, evidently perplexed, and ill at ease at finding himself thus suddenly introduced into his wife"s intimate atmosphere.
"I don"t believe she kept any letters," he repeated, then glanced uncertainly at the lady"s-maid who stood primly by.
"Mrs. Pargeter kept some letters in that writing-desk over there, sir,--at least I think she did."
Close to the small tent-bed stood an old-fashioned rosewood davenport, a relic of Margaret Pargeter"s childhood and girlhood, brought from her distant English home.
The maid waited for a moment, and then added, "The desk is locked, sir."
"Locked? Then did Mrs. Pargeter take her keys with her?"
"I suppose she did, sir."
"Then it"s no use," said Pargeter, with a certain relief, "I don"t want to force the thing open."
Vanderlyn looked across, coldly and steadily, at the woman. Her expression struck him as oddly enigmatical; meeting his glance, Plimmer reddened, her eyes dropped. "I expect any simple key would open it," he said, briefly.
"Well, sir, I did ask the housekeeper to lend me a bunch of keys. Here they are," she opened one of the dressing-table drawers. "Perhaps one of the smaller ones would fit the lock."
It was Vanderlyn who took the keys from her strangely reluctant hand, and it was he who at last felt the old-fashioned lock yield.
"Now, Pargeter," he said, sharply, "will you please come over here?"
The whole of the inside of the desk was filled with neat packets, each carefully tied up and docketed; on several had been written, "In the case of my death, to be burnt;" on other packets, "To be returned to Madame de Lera in case of my death."
Vanderlyn saw that here at least were none of his letters, and none from Peggy"s child.
"It"s no use bothering about any of these," said Pargeter, crossly, "they can"t tell us anything. Why anyone should trouble to keep old letters is quite beyond me!"
"That little k.n.o.b that you see there, sir," said Plimmer, in her diffident, well-trained voice, "is the head of a bra.s.s pin; if you draw it out, sir, it releases the side drawer. I think you will find more letters there,--at least that is where Master Jasper"s letters are, I know."
She looked furtively at Vanderlyn, and her look said, "If you want to have the truth you shall have it!"
"I say, how queer!" exclaimed Pargeter. "A secret drawer! eh, Grid?"