MRS3 The Velvet Hand (2 page)

"Tell me," said Mme Storey.

The old lady lowered her head as if overcome by a painful recollection. "A few days before I lost my husband," she murmured, "he said one night, jestingly—he said that if he died that night he would cut up—such were his words, about ten million clear. Yet when everything was settled up there was only about nine million. It seems strange he should have made so great an error."

"I agree with you," said Mme Storey.

"Then you think—you really think my story is worth investigating?" Mrs. Greenfield asked with a rather piteous eagerness.

"I do," said Mme Storey simply.

The old lady partly broke down. She put a hand over her eyes. "Ah, it is sweet to find honest sympathy, understanding," she murmured. "Until now I often wondered if I was indeed mad."

"Tell me," said Mme Storey, "what did the lawyers have to start from in order to prove and trace and check up his property?"

"Nothing but a little red notebook," said Mrs. Greenfield. "What they call a loose-leaf notebook. It was kept in his own handwriting. It was a sort of statement of his assets on one side and his liabilities on the other. Whenever the statement got too much marked up to be legible, he would start fresh pages and destroy the old ones. Although he was so well off, he always owed a great deal of money here and there. Why, I never quite understood. Making other people's money work for him, he would say with his laugh."

"Was there any other writing in the little book?" asked Mme Storey.

"He used to make random notes in the back and destroy them when the occasion had passed."

"Where was the little red book found?"

"In the breast pocket of the coat he was wearing."

"Was it always kept there?"

"I think so. He would often pull it out and read to me what securities he had bought or sold. It pleased us both to talk over such matters, though I am afraid I had but a very imperfect understanding of the transactions."

"That little red book is still in existence?"

"Oh, yes. Furthermore, I insisted that all his business papers, the contents of his letter files, everything must be saved."

"Excellent!" said Mme Storey. "One obvious question. Was Miss Gowan remembered in your husband's will?"

"No. Several years ago he proposed to make her a legacy, but upon speaking of it to her she evinced such distress—even anger, he said—that he changed his mind. He was much pleased by the spirit in which she received the proposal. He raised her salary instead."

"Ah!" said Mme Storey drily. "Her unwillingness to receive a legacy might have had another motive."

"I understand you," said Mrs. Greenfield, very low. "Do you think for years past she had been plotting...?"

"Oh, I think nothing yet," said Mme Storey. "I am merely suggesting possibilities.... You say you read that I was sailing to-day. What was there in that announcement to bring you to see me?"

All during the old lady's story my mind had been running ahead, speculating on what effect it would have on Mme Storey's plans. It seemed too much to hope that she would cancel her vacation. I listened now with avid ears.

"I have been hesitating for a long while about consulting you," said Mrs. Greenfield. "The reference to your vacation in Paris decided me in a hurry. There seemed to be something providential in it. Miss Gowan is in Paris. At least, that was her ostensible destination when she sailed away two months ago."

My hopes went down. Nothing in this for me.

"Ah, gone abroad," said Mme Storey.

"She took care that it had nothing of the look of a flight," said the old lady. "All during the months while the estate was being settled, she remained here in New York holding herself at the disposal of the lawyers and accountants.... She came to bid me good-bye before she left." Mrs. Greenfield's lip curled in bitter scorn. "I managed to conceal my feelings. She said that she felt she owed it to herself to take a long vacation before she looked for another position. That made me very angry, but I said nothing. Because it was not my husband's fault that she had had no vacation. He was always urging her to take one, and she refused."

"She had never taken a vacation?" asked Mme Storey.

"Well, not in a good many years. But when we travelled she went with us; when we went to the country she accompanied us. And when my husband was away from his office she had almost nothing to do. Just looked after his mail."

"So she went to Paris?"

"Yes. She said she had ten thousand dollars that she had saved out of her salary, and she meant to live in Paris until it was spent."

"And you want me to...?"

"To find her," said Mrs. Greenfield beseechingly. "They say you can read souls. Open the book of her soul and tell me what is written there."

"I'm afraid I am scarcely the magician you credit me with being," said Mme Storey soberly. "But I will do what I can."

"Ah, thank you, my dear!" said the old lady with tears in her eyes.

Mme Storey glanced at her watch. "I wish I had another day," she said, "But I can't change my ship. It's simply impossible to get berths at this season. We'll contrive somehow. After I have gone, one of my assistants, Mr. Crider, will call upon you. You will please give him the notebook, also the report you received on Miss Gowan, and any other evidence he may call for from time to time. His job will be to make a further investigation of her antecedents; to discover if she is corresponding with her acquaintances in this country, and to obtain a photograph of her to send me."

"Please do not take it amiss if I speak of money," said Mrs. Greenfield diffidently. "I am sure you understand that it is nothing to me what this girl may have stolen. It is the other thing: to clear
that
up I will gladly spend every penny I have. As for yourself..."

"There will be no difficulty about that," said Mme Storey carelessly. "I have my living to make, and I shall send you a bill, of course. But I am taking this case on its merits. Make your mind easy. I promise you, before we are through, we will either lay your doubts or prove them."

"Ah, you have taken a load off me already!" said Mrs. Greenfield. "The loneliness of mind was the worst. If everyone believes you mad, you might as well
be
mad. I feel that I have found a friend. That is an event in one's life!"

After she had gone Mme Storey sat for a few moments in a deep study, stabbing her desk blotter with a pencil. Then she lighted a fresh cigarette and smiled at me in the way that invites comment. I felt obliged to speak up for prudence.

"Are you sure that this conviction of hers may not after all be the product of a mind disordered by grief?"

"I am sure of nothing, Bella," she said, smiling.

"According to her own story, everything is against it," I pointed out.

"That is just what appeals to me. It brings up the old and never-to-be-settled controversy between reason and intuition. You know what side I fight on, Bella. I'm for intuition."

"How are you going to find her?" I said. "Paris is a city of how many millions of souls?"

"But the American colony is like a gossipy village. If she's spending money I shall hear of her at once."

We both glanced involuntarily at our watches. It lacked just fifty minutes of sailing time.

"Bella," drawled Mme Storey in that tone she adopts when she wishes to plague me, "if I've got to work in Paris, you must come along with me."

My heart at the same time began to pound and flutter. My breath was taken away. I suppose I looked at my mistress like one moonstruck, for she laughed merrily.

"Why not? You're a free and unattached female like myself. Just telephone your landlady that you'll mail her a check in advance for your rent. We'll write out Crider's instructions on the ship and send it ashore by the pilot."

"But—but my things?" I stammered.

"You'll have to share mine. My maid will make the necessary alterations. In Paris we'll get you a new outfit. I've always wanted a chance to dress you, Bella."

"Every berth on the ship is sold."

"Yes, but I'm doing myself the luxury of a sitting room this trip. You shall bunk there. Fortunately, you have a passport. We'll have it visaed on the way to the pier. We can just make it. Leave everything as it stands."

I was silenced. I flew about locking things. I felt like a woman in a dream. Paris! Paris! Paris! was ringing in my ears like a chime. Sober, matter-of-fact me going to
Paris
! And with my beloved mistress! Well as I knew her, and many as had been our shared adventures, I guessed that there was a Rosika Storey in Paris that I did not know, and the most delightful of all, perhaps. I don't suppose I shall ever recapture the bliss of that moment. Oh, well, once was something!

The next six days passed in a dream of delight: the sunny sea, the spaces of the mighty liner, the amusing human show, the luxury that lapped us—Mme Storey and I actually had our own tiny private veranda on deck; one felt one's self translated to an urbaner sphere. Mme Storey condescended to fascinate the captain, and our voyage was made
very
pleasant. Nowadays one must go to sea for real undisturbed luxury; on shore life is full of discomforts even for the affluent.

And then Paris! Paris in June! Out-of-doors Paris! Paris under the night sky! Déjeuner at the Pavilion d'Armenonville in the Bois: dinner on Montmartre: ices, and
such
ices, any time of the day or night, at the Café de la Paix, the centre of the world! Paris, where you may ride in taxicabs as much as ever you want for the price of trolley rides at home! Oh, Paris was more than ever a heaven for Americans at this time, with francs at seventeen to the dollar! It was really a sin not to drink champagne with every meal. But I must not say anything more about its effect on me. I am telling another story now.

That story recommences on the seventh day, when I found myself lunching beside a window at Meurice's between Mme Storey and Mrs. Wynn Charlton: the latter a name to conjure with among Americans in Paris. I should say in the beginning that Mme Storey passed as a lady of leisure in Paris. Nothing was known of her professional activities. I was regarded as her friend. Mme Storey was at my right, Mrs. Charlton at my left, and I, facing the window, looked out on the Rue de Rivoli under the arcade, with the Jardins des Tuileries across the street. The world was full of sunshine, and I felt like pinching myself to see if this was really I. What is, I suppose, the best-dressed crowd in the world, streamed by under the arcade. Mostly Americans. The Rue de Rivoli in June is theirs. I couldn't tell you what we ate. It was brought, and it was taken away as in a dream.

This Mrs. Wynn Charlton was a remarkable woman. By sheer force of determination she got herself accepted as beautiful and clever. She had a lot of money, though, that helped. At the moment the most remarkable thing about her was her hat. A tall-crowned hat set at a rakish angle with three upright feathers in contrasting shades. Everybody turned around to look at that hat. A stroke of genius—but not Mrs. Charlton's genius. From under the brim of it her little eyes peered at you in a way that was intended to be languorous and alluring. The exotic was her note; but when she became excited she forgot and talked like a buzzing aëroplane. In a word, Paris engrafted upon Waterbury, Conn.

My dear mistress created a sensation of another sort. Whoso liked to be astonished stared at Mrs. Charlton's hat; whoso loved beauty offered the tribute of his glances to Mme Storey. I understood at once why she loved Paris so: it was her natural element; she seemed to expand and to glow in that air. With a sure instinct she dressed more plainly in Paris than in New York. We are all beauty lovers, but the French are less tender minded than we; less apt to accept the pretentious at its own valuation. Masters of dress, they see through it. Mme Storey, in her sand-coloured turban and straight brown dress, was beauty, and in Paris she received her due.

She had desired to hear the latest gossip of the American colony, and Mrs. Charlton was giving her an earful. It would require pages to set it all down, even if I could remember it all. I shall give you only that part which has to do with the story.

"There's a newcomer," said Mrs. Charlton, "a sensation, not only in our set, but
tout
Paris. A Mrs. J. Eben Smith of Ypsilanti, Mich. Mysterious. Entirely alone; antecedents unknown. But as far as that goes the antecedents of most everybody over here is—or should I say are? That's what makes Paris so fascinating. You never know. I suppose Smith must be her real name, because nobody would ever
choose
such an alias."

"A clever woman might," murmured Mme Storey, "just for that reason."

"Well, anyway, Gertie de Vimoutier wrote to the postmaster at Ypsilanti asking about her, and got an answer back saying he had never heard of such a person. Gertie is always doing things like that, and then telling about them. She has no sense of fitness. Anyway, Mrs. Smith should worry. Her money is real."

"Money?" said Mme Storey, cocking an eyebrow.

"Lashings, my dear. And no encumbrances, apparently. Some women have all the luck.... A strange woman! None of us can make her out. She's something to talk about. Nobody can understand why such a woman was ever attracted to Paris."

"Why not her as well as another woman?" asked Mme Storey. With her chin on her palm my mistress mused smilingly, just dropping a question now and then to keep Mrs. Charlton keyed up.

"Well, my dear, sexless. Fancy that in this age of sex. A married woman (at least, she says she is) well over thirty years old, who still sports a virginal, remote air. Why, that sort of thing went out in the 'nineties. What does she want to come to Paris for? A Frenchman wouldn't know what to do with her. And our men are more French than the French, if you know what I mean."

"Well, she had to go somewhere," said Mme Storey, smiling.

"A strange woman, I tell you," insisted Mrs. Charlton; "she's not pretty, she has no allure, she's dumb as an oyster, yet in two months already she's a success."

"Two months?" said Mme Storey, glancing at me. Of course we couldn't know as yet that we were on the track of our quarry, but it was amusing to listen to Mrs. Charlton.