MRS3 The Velvet Hand (20 page)

But presently the two of them came tumbling back across the bedroom, and into the room where I was. Gone was her cool, assured air, and the grin wiped off his lips. They were no more then than any two white-faced, hunted creatures. At the same moment we heard the entrance door smash in, and they hung in the middle of the room, their eyes darting wildly this way and that, like those of trapped animals. There were the sounds of many people in the foyer, and they ran out in the other direction through the book room. The old servant continued to stand stolidly by the window.

Then, sauntering through the bedroom with her most elegant air and into the cabinet came Mme Storey; smiling and beautifully dressed; taking everything in with her amused eyes. A gendarme followed at her heels. She seemed like a beautiful apparition to me. I simply could not believe my eyes. It was the greatest surprise she has ever given me; and she has given me many.

At the sight of my plight, her face filled with concern. "Ah, my poor Bella!" she murmured, and motioned quickly to the gendarme.

He made haste to cut me free.

It seemed by this time as if the house was filled with police. They came in by every door. Guimet and Mrs. Dartrey were thrust back into the room from the book room.

"Ah!" cried Mme Storey gaily: "Mr. Smoke Lassen, after all these years! What an unexpected pleasure! ... And Miss Breese, I believe. We have never met, but I have often heard of you. I hardly expected to have the luck of finding you in Paris!"

The man looked at Mme Storey with a face of unspeakable disgust. "Damn it all!" he cried fervently. "Is there no place on earth where I can escape the woman!"

Mrs. Dartrey said never a word.

They were led away by the police, and that about finishes my story.

I was keen to hear the explanation of Mme Storey's magical appearance on the scene.

"No magic in it, my Bella," said she. "I dined last night with some French friends. Among the guests was a famous archaeologist, whose hobby is old Paris. I asked him about Mademoiselle Ninon de l'Enclos, and I immediately got what we would call at home an earful. In France the memory of the fair, frail Ninon is still cherished by every
homme d'esprit
. It appeared that among the treasures of my friend's collection were the memoirs in manuscript of a certain gallant of that day, who signed himself merely: Le Chevalier Sansregret. There's a pseudonym for you!

"My friend insisted, seeing how interested I was, upon driving around by his rooms on my way home. There he got the precious manuscript, which has never been published, and gave it to me to read. I read it in bed this morning while I was having coffee. A highly diverting tale. It appeared that Monsieur Sansregret was a very dear friend of Mademoiselle Ninon's, but for some reason or another he could not be acknowledged by her. Perhaps he was poor but charming. So he visited her by means of a secret passage which opened on a tiny street behind her house, called the Rue de Beausire. It is still there, and it is still called the street of the Fine Gentleman, though it is only a few hundred feet long.

"It instantly occurred to me that the passage might be there too, and that indeed it might have had something to do with the so-called M. Guimet's taking this house. It was then just about the time that you were due to arrive here. So I jumped out of bed, flung on a few clothes, telephoned to M. le Préfet for a gendarme, and hustled across Paris in a taxi.

"The passage had been particularly described in the manuscript, and after a bit of a search we found it. And indeed we met Smoke Lassen and Breezy Tricks coming out of it. So there you are."

The man and the woman were subsequently tried and convicted under the French laws and sentenced to prison for long terms. I understand that in France there is less chance than with us of their being released before the expiration of their sentences. Well, I was genuinely sorry to see them go. They were a clever and amusing pair, and those qualities are not so abundant in a dull world that we can afford to lock them up. But as Mme Storey said, what is one to do when we have such a plenitude of fools?

Lionel Dartrey was arrested in England; but nothing could be proved against him. However, he was punished too, even more severely perhaps than the others, for he was immediately cast out of the fashionable world which was everything to him.

The source of the Dartreys' munificent income was revealed. Lassen purchased the American securities in Mrs. Dartrey's name and forced her to endorse the certificates in blank. As long as she played the game he allowed the dividends to be paid to her, but he held the endorsed certificate, and if she had ever kicked over the traces, all he had to do was to have the stock transferred.

In the fall Mme Storey and I returned to America on the
Gigantic
, and I may say the ship was ours!

THE END

The Streerers
 was originally published in 
The Argosy All-Story Weekly
, 2 Aug 1924

In March one year, Madame Storey was forced to undertake a hasty trip to England in connection with some business at our embassy; and she took me with her. I am not permitted to state the nature of our business, but that has nothing to do with this story. In order to avoid observation we travelled under assumed names by one of the slower and unfashionable ships to Liverpool. There was a gentleman on board who became very attentive to my mistress. Possibly it was her beautiful eyes; but as his antecedents were somewhat mysterious we did not wish to take any chances; so we left the boat express at a junction called Crewe, and made our way to Shrewsbury. Our self-constituted friend could not follow us without betraying himself, and so we got rid of him.

We spent an hour or two in Shrewsbury viewing the sights, and went on to another old town in the west of England called Banchester. Here we learned that we could get an ordinary train to London at eight o'clock. It is a three hours' ride. We spent the interim in looking at the cathedral, and in dining at a quaint place called the New Inn, which it appeared was five hundred years old. But that is just like England. "Broad" Street was about as wide as an alley at home. On the way to the station Mme Storey telegraphed to the Embassy to have a car without any official insignia waiting for us at a suburban station in London called Westbourne Park (I think). This was in case our enemies should have the terminus watched.

In England there are two classes of cars on the railways: first and third. Nearly everybody travels third, which is clean and comfortable and corresponds to our ordinary coaches. In order not to be conspicuous we took third-class tickets and travelled with the crowd. On the continent of Europe nearly all the cars nowadays have corridors, but in England, except for a few trains which carry restaurant cars, they stick to the old system of separate compartments; and the ordinary train from Banchester to London was of that sort.

We were a little early, and Mme Storey secured a corner facing the engine. Instead of taking another corner, I sat next to her so that we could while away the time with a little conversation. Railway journeys after dark are very tiresome. Gradually the other corners were preëmpted. A third-class compartment is supposed to hold ten people, but it is well filled when six or eight get in it. The next to arrive was one of those appallingly respectable British matrons with her hair piled up on top of her head and an absurd hat perched on top of her bun. She glared at us as she sat down. English people always glare at each other in railway carriages, but it doesn't mean anything.

A few minutes later she was followed by a young man who excited a strong interest in us because of his extreme good looks and his expression of sullen recklessness. Something had gone very wrong with that poor lad; his eyes were desperate. He looked like an animal backed into a corner and prepared to do as much damage as he could before they got him. His clothes, while of good material, looked as if they had been slept in; he had not shaved in several days. He had no baggage. Without a look at the other passengers, he plumped into the seat cater-cornered from us, and jerked his hat over his eyes. Mme Storey whispered to me:

"It must break a parent's heart when he sees that look in the face of a son."

A comical old gentleman poked his head in the carriage door and surveyed us suspiciously one by one. Nothing more English could be imagined. He wore a great cape that was continually impeding his movements and a shapeless tweed hat that had slipped over one ear. His face was very red, and his eyes seemed about to pop out of his head behind the thick glasses he wore. He had a bristly white beard that seemed to grow in a dozen different directions at once. In short, a caricature out of Punch. Without any preamble he barked at Mme Storey:

"Where are you going?"

"To London," she answered, smiling.

"And you?" he demanded of me.

I answered similarly.

"And you?" to the lady along the seat from me.

"London," she said with a toss of the head, as much as to say: "It's none of your business."

He paid no attention to the young man, who appeared to be asleep.

"Well, that's all right," he grumbled, climbing in. "I am sure to fall asleep, and I don't want to be left alone in the carriage. Always expected to get my throat cut."

Here was a nice beginning for the journey! I immediately thought of all the stories I had read of unfortunate travellers trapped in a compartment with a madman. It is a favourite subject for shilling shockers. I was thankful there was quite a small crowd of us and all bound for the same destination.

Our old gentleman carried an old-fashioned Gladstone bag, of the sort that splits open in the middle, and a pot of pansies wrapped in paper, open at the top to show the flowers; the enormous purple pansies that grow in English gardens, delicate and velvety in texture. He put his bag and flower pot in the luggage rack and unwound yards of muffler from his neck, grumbling continually. He was a comical old gentleman but a very disagreeable one; an old curmudgeon, in fact; a tartar at home. In America his wife and children would have trained him better, I thought. He closed the door and made sure that all the windows were tightly closed. He sat down opposite Mme Storey saying in an aggrieved voice:

"Always makes my head ache to ride backward."

There was plenty of room for another between me and the British matron, but he wanted a corner seat. There was no reason why Mme Storey should give way to him. She merely smiled sweetly, and he looked in another direction. The British lady snorted audibly. Cheek! she seemed to say, and I heartily agreed with her. The old man subsided in inaudible mumbling. He had the look of one who had been quite a man in his day, but age had not come upon him gracefully.

The train started, and almost immediately, it seemed to me, drowsiness began to steal on me. I can almost never sleep in a train, but I was very grateful for sleep, and you may be sure I did not fight against it. My mistress, I could see by the look of content that settled on her lovely profile, was in the same state. She settled comfortably into her corner, signifying with a smile that I was to lean against her. For a little while I speculated idly about my travelling companions: that awful British matron—was she human under her starch? Had she deceived her parents in her youth and committed delicious naughtinesses like the rest of us? Very likely. Very likely.... That unhappy young man, whose head was sunk on his chest, and whose face was hidden from me now by his hat brim—was it guilt or grief which oppressed him? Had he done a wrong or had he been wronged? You cannot tell in the young. An injury will often cause a proud and generous spirit to snarl as in hatefulness....

And the old man, who was also sinking into sleep, broken by starts of suspicious wakefulness, the absurd round hat he wore ever taking a more ridiculous angle—what an old codger! Such a one was Scrooge; such a one always called up the picture of a broken woman on whom his tyranny had fed. Suppose he were firmly opposed and put in his place, might he not turn into a charming old man? But it was probably too late. A little of this play of the fancy, then everything faded out. My last waking impression was of those exquisite purple pansies nodding in the rack over the old man's head.

I awoke with a start, immediately conscious in some mysterious way that I had slept for several hours—I who never sleep on the train. I knew we were scheduled to make several stops, and I must have slept through them all. How extraordinary! I looked about me. Mme Storey still slept peacefully on one side of me; the British matron on the other. Opposite, the young man sat in the same position with his hat over his eyes; whether he slept or not I could not say. The old man was gone. This surprised me, for I had judged from his questions that he was booked to London; still, he had not said he was going to London.

I had no time to dwell on the matter, for the train was even then grinding to a stop. The lights of a platform appeared outside the windows, and in each lamp was inserted the name of the station, according to the English customs. Westbourne Park? We were there! I hastily awoke my mistress, and we piled out somehow into the dark, bag and baggage, and stood there in a dazed condition while the train moved on. It was as unreal as a dream.

However, there was a porter to bring us back to a state of reality, and outside the station a car was waiting for us. It had no distinguishing marks. Half an hour later we were in one of those massive old-fashioned British bedrooms which, in the winter, express the acme of comfort when there is a good fire blazing in the grate—and the acme of discomfort when there is no fire, which there generally isn't. But the Embassy people had taken care of us; there was a fire, and there was supper in our room. We put on comfortable garments and luxuriated in comfort.

"Funny," said Mme Storey. "I never sleep like that in the train."

"No more do I," I said.

"I feel rather queer," she went on, "as if my head wasn't quite big enough to hold all it had."

"Exactly," said I.

"Bella, do you suppose we could have been drugged?"