"Can you see her now?" asked Vanderlyn. "For G.o.d"s sake tell me where she is! Can I hope to see her again--once more?"
Madame d"Elphis withdrew her hand from that of Vanderlyn.
"You will only see her face," she answered, slowly, "through the coffin-lid. That you will see. As to where she is now--I see her clearly, and yet,"--she went on, as if to herself, "nay, but that"s impossible! I see her," she went on, raising her voice, "laid out for burial under a shed in a beautiful garden. The garden is that of Dr.
Fortoul"s house at Orange. At the head of the pallet on which she lies there are two blessed candles; a nun kneels on the ground. Stay,--who is that coming in from the garden? It is the wife of the doctor, it is Madame Fortoul,"--again there came a note of wavering doubt into the voice of the crystal-gazer. "She is whispering to the nun, and I hear her words; she says, "Poor child, she is young, too young to have died like this, alone. I am having a ma.s.s said for her soul to-morrow morning.""
Madame d"Elphis looked up. Her large eyes, of which the lids were slightly reddened, rested on Vanderlyn"s pale, drawn face.
"Monsieur," she said, in a low, reluctant voice, "to be honest with you, I fear I have been leading you astray. During the last few moments it is my own past life that has been rising before me, not the present of this poor dead woman. When I am tired--and I am very tired to-night--some such trick is sometimes played me. I was born at Orange; as a child I spent many hours in the beautiful garden which just now rose up before me; I once saw a dead body in that shed--Madame Fortoul, who is devout, often has ma.s.ses said for those who meet with sudden deaths and whose bodies are brought to her husband."
The soothsayer rose from her chair.
"If you will come to me to-morrow," she said, "bringing with you something which belonged to this lady, I am sure I shall be able to tell you all you wish to know. For that second seance," she added hurriedly, "I shall of course ask no further fee."
Vanderlyn, waking as from a dream, heard sounds in the other room, the coming and going of a man"s footsteps. He also got up.
"Madame," he said, quietly, "I thank you from my heart. I recognise the truth of all you have told me, _with one paramount exception_. It is true that the woman whom you saw lying dead is now in the house of Dr.
Fortoul at Orange; the fact that you once knew the place is an accident--and nothing but an accident. You have, however, Madame, made one strange mistake."
He took out of his pocket and held in his hand the large open envelope containing, in addition to the remainder of the notes he had brought, the slip he had cut from the newspaper. "Here is the proof that all you have seen is true," he repeated, "with one exception--_This lady was alone in the train_. It is important that this should be thoroughly understood by you, for to-morrow you will be called upon to testify to the fact."
Madame d"Elphis stiffened into deep attention.
"To-morrow morning," continued Vanderlyn, very deliberately, "one of your regular clients is coming to ask you to a.s.sist him to solve a terrible mystery. I will tell you his name--it is Mr. Pargeter, the well-known sportsman. He is coming to ask you to help him to find Mrs. Pargeter, who some days ago mysteriously disappeared. This lady"s death, but he does not yet know it, took place while she was travelling--travelling alone. I repeat, Madame, that she was _alone--quite alone--on her fatal journey_."
Vanderlyn stopped speaking a moment; then his voice lowered, became troubled and beseeching.
"Once you have revealed the truth to Mr. Pargeter,--and he will believe implicitly all you say,--then, Madame, you will not only have accomplished a good action, but a sum, bringing the fee for the seance which is just concluded up to ten thousand francs, will be placed at your disposal by me."
Madame d"Elphis looked long and searchingly at the man standing before her.
"Monsieur," she said, "will you give me your word that the death of Mrs.
Pargeter was as this paper declares it to have been--that is to say, a natural death?"
"Yes," answered Vanderlyn, "she knew that she would die in this way--suddenly."
"Then," said the fortune-teller, coldly, "I will do as you desire."
Vanderlyn, following a sudden impulse, put the envelope he held in his hand on the table. "Here is the fee," he said, briefly. "I know that I can trust in your discretion, your loyalty,--may I add, Madame, in your kindness?"
"I am ashamed," she whispered, "ashamed to take this money." She clasped her hands together in an unconscious gesture of supplication, and then asked, with a curious childish directness, "It is a great deal--can you afford it, Monsieur?"
"Yes," he said, hastily; the suffering, shamed expression on her face moved him strangely.
"When you next see Mr. Pargeter," she murmured, "you shall have written proof that I have carried out your wish."
She tapped the table twice, sharply,--then led the way into the larger room. It was empty, but Vanderlyn, even as he entered, saw a door closing quietly.
Madame d"Elphis walked across to an un-curtained window; she opened it and stepped through on to a broad terrace balcony.
"Walk down the iron stairway," she said, in a low voice, "there are not many steps. A little door leads from the garden below straight into the street; the door has been left unlocked to-night."
Vanderlyn held out his hand; she took it and held it for a moment. "Ah!"
she said, softly, "would that _I_ had died when I was still young, still beautiful, still loved!--"
XII.
The bright May sun was pouring into Tom Pargeter"s large smoking-room, making more alive and vivid the fantastic and brilliantly-coloured posters lining the walls.
Laurence Vanderlyn, standing there in a peopled solitude, caught a glimpse of his own strained and tired face in a mirror which filled up the s.p.a.ce between two windows, and what he saw startled him, for it seemed to him that none could look at his countenance and not see written there the tale of his anguish, remorse, and suspense. And yet he knew that now his ordeal was drawing to a close; in a few moments Pargeter was due to return from his interview with Madame d"Elphis.
Walking up and down the sunny room which held for him such agonising memories of the long hours spent there during the last three days in Tom Pargeter"s company, Vanderlyn lived again every moment of his own strange interview with the soothsayer. The impression of sincerity which Madame d"Elphis had produced on him had now had time to fade, and he asked himself with nervous dread whether she was, after all, likely to do what she had promised. Nay, was it in her power to lie,--or rather to tell the half-truth which was all that he had asked her to tell?
At last there came the sound of the front-door of the villa opening, shutting; and then those made by Pargeter"s quick, short footsteps striking the marble floor of the hall, and echoing through the silent house.
Vanderlyn stopped short in his restless pacing. He turned and waited.
The door was flung open, and Pargeter came in. Quietly shutting the door behind him, he walked down the room to where the other man, with his back to the window, stood waiting for him. The three days and nights which had carved indelible lines on the American"s already seamed face, had left Pargeter"s untouched; just now he looked grave, subdued, but his face had lost the expression of perplexed anger and anxiety which had alone betrayed the varying emotions he had experienced since the disappearance of his wife.
At last, when close to Vanderlyn, he spoke--in a low, gruff whisper.
"Grid!" he exclaimed, "Grid, old man, don"t be shocked! La d"Elphis says that Peggy"s dead--that she"s been dead three days!"
Vanderlyn could not speak. He stared dumbly at the other, and as he realised the relief, almost the joy, in Pargeter"s voice, there came over him a horrible impulse to strike--and then to flee.
"There, you can see it for yourself--" Pargeter held out, with fingers twitching with excitement, a sheet of note-paper. "La d"Elphis wrote it all down! I didn"t see her--she"s ill. But this is not the first time I"ve had to work her in that way, and it does just as well. Her sister managed everything,--she took her in one of Peggy"s gloves which I"d brought with me."
Vanderlyn shuddered. He opened his mouth, but no words would come. Then he looked down at the sheet of paper Pargeter had handed him:--
"The person to whom this glove belonged has been dead three days.
She died on a journey--alone. Think of the bridal flower,--it will guide you to where she now lies waiting for those who loved her to claim her."
Pargeter laid one hand on Vanderlyn"s arm--with the other he took out of one of his pockets a sheaf of thin slips of paper. The American knew them to contain accounts of accidents and untoward occurrences registered at the Prefecture of Police.
Pargeter detached one of the slips and laid it across the sheet of paper on which Madame d"Elphis had written her laconic message:--
"Look--look at _this_, Grid! And don"t say again I"m a fool for believing in La d"Elphis! I"ve had this since the day before yesterday; but I didn"t bother to show it to you, for I didn"t think anything of it--I shouldn"t now, but for La d"Elphis! But do look--"the body of a young, fair woman found in a train at _Orange_,"--"the bridal flower,"
as La d"Elphis says--eh, what?"
But still Vanderlyn did not speak.
"I"ve thought it all out," Pargeter went on, excitedly. "Peggy was driven to the wrong station--see? Got into the wrong train--and then--then, Grid, when she found out what she"d done, she got upset----" For the first time a note of awe, of horror, came into his voice--"You see, my sister Sophy was right, after all; the poor girl"s heart was queer!"
"And what are you going to do now?" asked Vanderlyn in a low, dry tone.
"Arrange for a special to Orange, I suppose? What time will you start, Tom? Would you like me to come with you?"