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de Bercy Affair

<h2>CHAPTER VII AT TORMOUTH</h2> Furneaux reached Tormouth about three in the afternoon, and went boldly to the Swan Hotel, since he was unknown by sight to Osborne. It was an old-fashioned place, with a bar opening out of the vestibule, and the first person that met his eye was of interest to him—a man sitting in the bar-parlor, who had "Neapolitan" written all over him—a face that Furneaux had already marked in Soho. He did not know the stranger's name, but he would have wagered a large sum that this queer visitor to Tormouth was a bird of the Janoc flock. "What is he doing here?" Furneaux asked himself; and the only answer that suggested itself was: "Keeping an eye on Osborne. Perhaps that explains how Janoc got hold of the name 'Glyn.'" When he was left alone in the bedroom which he took, he sat with his two hands between his knees, his head bent low, giving ten minutes' thought by the clock to the subject of Anarchists. Presently his lips muttered: "Clarke is investigating the murder on his own account; he suspects that Anarchists were at the [pg 108] bottom of it; he has let them see that he suspects; and they have taken alarm, knowing that their ill repute can't bear any added load of suspicion. Probably she was more mixed up with them than is known; probably there was some quarrel between them and her; and so, seeing themselves suspected, they are uneasy. Hence Janoc wrote to Osborne in Clarke's name, asking how much Osborne knew of her connection with Anarchists. He must have managed somehow to have Osborne shadowed down here—must be eager to have Osborne proved guilty. Hence, perhaps, for some reason, the presence of that fellow below there in the parlor. But I, for my part, mustn't allow myself to be drawn off into proving them guilty. Another, another, is my prey!" He stood up sharply, crept to his door, and listened. All the upper part of the house was as still as the tomb at that hour. Mr. Glyn—Osborne's name on the hotel register—was, Furneaux had been told, out of doors. He passed out into a corridor, and, though he did not know which was Osborne's room, after peering through two doorways discovered it at the third, seeing in it a cane with a stag's head which Osborne often carried. He slipped within, and in a moment was everywhere at once in the room, filling it with his presence, ransacking it with a hundred eyes. In one corner was an antiquated round table in [pg 109] mahogany, with a few books on it, and under the books a copper-covered writing-pad. In the writing-pad he found a letter—a long one, not yet finished, in Osborne's hand, written to "My dear Isadore." The first words on which Furneaux's eyes fell were "her unstudied grace...." <blockquote> ... her walk has the undulating smoothness that one looks for in some untamed creature of the wild.... You are a painter, and a poet, and a student of the laws of Beauty. Well, knowing all that, I still feel sure that you would be conscious of a certain astonishment on seeing her move, she moves so well. I confess I did not know, till I knew her, that our human flesh could express such music. Her waist is small, yet so willowy and sinuous that it cannot be trammeled in those unyielding ribs of steel and bone in which women love to girdle themselves. For her slimness she is tall, perhaps, what you might think a little too tall until you stood by her side and saw that her freedom of movement had deceived you. Nor is she what you would call a girl: her age can't be a day under twenty-three. But she does not make a motion of the foot that her waist does not answer to it in as exact a proportion as though the Angel of Grace was there with measuring-tape and rod. If her left foot moves, her waist sways by so much to the left; if her right, she sways to the right, as surely as a lily on a long stalk swings to the will of every wanton wind. But, after all, words cannot express the poetry of her being. With her every step, I am confident her toe in gliding forward touches the ground steadily, but so zephyr-lightly, that only a megaphone could report it to the ear. And not only is there a distinct forward bend of the body in walking, but with every step her whole being and soul walks—the mere physical movements are the least of it! And her walk, I repeat, has the security, the lissome elegance of a leopard's—her eyes, her mouth, her hair, her neck, those of a Naiad balanced on the crest of a curling wave.... </blockquote> [pg 110] "Ah-h-h!..." murmured Furneaux on a long-drawn breath, "'A Naiad'! Something more fairy-like than Rose de Bercy!" He read on. <blockquote> Soon I shall see her dance—dance with her! and then you shall hear. There's a certain Lord Spelding a little way from here whom I know through a local doctor, and he is giving a dance at his Abbey two evenings hence—she and her mother are to be there. She has promised me that she will dance, and I shall tell you how. But I expect nothing one whit more consummate in the way of charm from her dancing than from her ordinary motions. I know beforehand that her dancing will be to her walking what the singing of a lovely voice is to its talking—beauty moved to enthusiasm, but no increase of beauty; the moon in a halo, but still the moon. What, though, do you think of me in all this, my dear Isadore? I have asked myself whether words like "fickle," "flighty," "forgetful," will not be in your mind as you read. And if you are not tolerant, who will be? She, the other, is hardly cold yet in her untimely tomb, and here am I ... shall I say in love? say, at any rate, enraptured, down, down, on my two bended knees. Certainly, the other was bitter to me—she deceived, she pitilessly deceived; and I see now with the clearest eyes that love was never the name of what I felt for her, even if she had not deceived. But, oh, such a fountain of pity is in me for her—untimely gone, cut off, the cup of life in her hand, her lips purple with its wine—that I cannot help reproaching this wandering of my eye from her. It is rather shocking, rather horrible. And yet—I appeal to your sympathy—I am no more master of myself in this than of something that is now happening to the Emperor of China, or that once happened to his grandfather. </blockquote> The corners of Furneaux's lips turned downward, and a lambent fire flamed in his eyes. He clutched the paper in his hand as if he would strangle its [pg 111] dumb eloquence. Still he glowered at the letter, and read. <blockquote> But imagine, meanwhile, my false position here! I am known to her and to her mother as Mr. Glyn; and thrice has Osborne, the millionaire, the probable murderer of Rose de Bercy, been discussed between us. Think of it!—the misery, the falseness of it. If something were once to whisper to Mrs. Marsh, "this Mr. Glyn, to whom you are speaking in a tone of chilly censure of such men as Osborne, is Osborne himself; that translucent porcelain of your teacup has been made impure by his lips; you should smash your Venetian vases and Satsuma bowl of hollyhocks, since his not-too-immaculate hands have touched them: beware! a snake has stolen into your dainty and Puritan nest"—if some imp of unhappiness whispered that, what would she do? I can't exactly imagine those still lips uttering a scream, but I can see her lily fingers—like lilies just getting withered—lifted an instant in mild horror of the sacrilege! As it is, her admittance of me into the nest has been an unbending on her part, an unbending touched with informality, for it was only brought about through Richards, the doctor here, to whom I got Smythe, one of my bankers, who is likewise Richards' banker, to speak of a "Mr. Glyn." And if she now finds that being gracious to the stranger smirches her, compromises her in the slightest, she will put her thin dry lips together a little, and say "I am punished for my laxity in circumspection." And then, ah! no more Rosalind for Osborne forever, if he were ten times ten millionaires.... </blockquote> "'Rosalind,'" murmured Furneaux, "Rosalind Marsh. That explains the scribble on the back of the Janoc letter. He calls her Rosalind—breathes her name to the moon—writes it! We shall see, though." At that moment he heard a step outside, and stood [pg 112] alert, ready to hide behind a curtain; but it was only some hurrying housemaid who passed away. He then put back the letter where he had found it; and instantly tackled Osborne's portmanteaux. The larger he found locked, the smaller, lying half under the bed, was fastened with straps, but unlocked. He quickly ransacked the knicknacks that it contained; and was soon holding up to the light between thumb and finger a singular object taken from the bottom of the bag—a scrap of lace about six inches long, half of it stained with a brown smear that was obviously the smear of—blood. It was a peculiar lace, Spanish hand-made, and Furneaux knew well, none better than he, that the dressing-gown in which Rose de Bercy had been murdered, which she had thrown on preparatory to dressing that night, was trimmed with Spanish hand-made lace. He looked at this amazing bit of evidence with a long interest there in the light from the window, holding it away from him, frowning, thinking his own thoughts behind his brow, as shadow chases shadow. And presently he muttered the peculiar words: "Now, any detective would swear that this was a clew against him." He put it back into the bag, went out softly, walked downstairs, and passed out into the little town. A policeman told him where the house of Mrs. Marsh was to be found, and he hastened half a mile out of Tormouth to it. [pg 113] The house, "St. Briavels," stood on a hillside behind walls and wrought-iron gates and leafage, through which peeped several gables rich in creepers and ivy. Of Osborne, so far, there was no sign. Furneaux retraced his steps, came back to Tormouth, sauntered beyond the town over the cliffs, with the sea spread out in the sunlight, all sparkling with far-flung sprightliness. And all at once he was aware of a murmur of voices sounding out of Nowhere, like the hum of bumble-bees on a slumbrous afternoon. The ear could not catch if they were right or left, above or below. But they became louder; and suddenly there was a laugh, a delicious low cadence of a woman's contralto that seemed to roll up through an oboe in her throat. And now he realized that the speakers were just below him on the sands. He stepped nearer the edge of the cliff, and, craning and peering stealthily through its fringe of grasses, saw Osborne and a lady walking westward over the sands. Osborne was carrying an easel and a Japanese umbrella. He was not looking where he was going, not seeing the sea, or the sands, or the sun, but seeing all things in the lady's face. Furneaux watched them till they were out of sight behind a bend of the coast-line; he saw Osborne once stumble a little over a stone, and right himself without glancing at what he had stumbled on, without taking his gaze from the woman by his side. A bitter groan hissed from Furneaux's lips. [pg 114] "But how about this fair Rosalind?" he muttered half aloud. "Is this well for her? She should at least be told who her suitor is—his name—his true colors—the length and depth of his loves. There is a way of stopping this...." He walked straight back to the hotel, and at once took pen and paper to write: <blockquote> Dear Miss Prout:—It has occurred to me that possibly you may be putting yourself to the pains of discovering for me the identity of the friend of Mr. Osborne, the "Rosalind," as to whom I asked you—in which case, to save you any trouble, I am writing to tell you that I have now discovered who that lady is. I am, you see, at present here in Tormouth, a very agreeable little place. <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> Yours truly, C. E. Furneaux. </div> </div> </blockquote> And, as he directed the envelope, he said to himself with a curious crowing of triumph that Winter would have said was not to be expected from his friend: "This should bring her here; and if it does——!" Whereupon a singular glitter appeared an instant in his eyes. Having posted the letter, he told the young woman in the bar, who also acted as bookkeeper, that, after all, he would not be able to stay the night. He paid, nevertheless, for the room, and walked away with his bag, no one knew whither, out of Tormouth. Two hours later he returned to the hotel, and for the second time that day took the same room, but [pg 115] not a soul suspected for a moment that it was the same Furneaux, since at present he had the look of a meek old civil servant living on a mite of pension, the color all washed out of his flabby cheeks and hanging wrinkles. His very suit-case now had a different physiognomy. He bargained stingily for cheap terms, and then ensconced himself in his apartment with a senile chuckle, rubbing his palms together with satisfaction at having obtained such good quarters so cheaply. The chambermaid, whom he had tipped well on leaving, sniffed at this new visitor. "Not much to be got out of him," she said to her friend, the boots. The next afternoon at three o'clock an elderly lady arrived by the London train at Tormouth, and she, too, came to put up at the Swan. Furneaux, at the moment of her arrival, was strolling to and fro on the pavement in front of the hotel, very shaky and old, a man with feeble knees, threadbare coat, and shabby hat—so much so that the manager had told the young person in the bar to be sure and send in an account on Saturday. Giving one near, clear, piercing glance into the newcomer's face, round which trembled a colonnade of iron-gray ringlets, Furneaux was satisfied. "Marvelously well done!" he thought. "She has been on the stage in her time, and to some purpose, too." [pg 116] The lady, without a glance at him, all a rustle of brown silk, passed into the hotel. The same night the old skinflint and the lady of the iron-gray ringlets found themselves alone at a table, eating of the same dishes. It was impossible not to enter into conversation. "Your first visit to Tormouth, I think?" began Furneaux. The lady inclined her head. "My name is Pugh, William Pugh," he told her. "I was in Tormouth some years ago, and know the place rather well. Charming little spot! I shall be most happy—if I may—if you will deign——" "How long have you been here now?" she asked him in a rather mellow and subdued voice. "I only came yesterday," he answered. "Did you by chance meet here a certain Mr. Furneaux?" she asked. "Let me see," said he—"Furneaux. I—stay—I believe I did! He was just departing at the time of my arrival—little man—sharp, unpleasant face—I—I—hope I do not speak of a friend or relative!—but I believe I did hear someone say 'Mr. Furneaux.'" "At any rate, he is not here now?" she demanded, with an air of decision. "No, he is gone." "Ah!" she murmured, and something in the tone of that "Ah!" made Furneaux's eye linger doubtfully upon her an instant. [pg 117] Then the elderly lady wished to know who else was in the hotel, if there was anyone of any interest, and "Mr. Pugh" was apparently eager to gossip. "There is first of all a Mr. Glyn—a young man, an American, I think, of whom I have heard a whisper that he is enormously wealthy." "Is he in the room?" "No." "Why is he—invisible?" "I am told that he has made friends in Tormouth with a lady—a Mrs. Marsh—who resides at 'St. Briavels' some way out of town—not to mention Miss Marsh—Rosalind is her name—upon whom I hear he is more than a little sweet." He bent forward, shading his lips with his palm to conceal the secret as it came out, and it was a strange thing that the newly-arrived visitor could not keep her ringlets from shaking with agitation. "Well," she managed to say, "when young people meet—it is the old story. So he is probably at 'St. Briavels' now?" "Highly probable—if all I hear be true." The ringleted dame put her knife and fork together, rose, bowed with a gracious smile, and walked away. Five minutes later Furneaux followed her, went upstairs with soundless steps to his room, and within it stood some time listening at a crevice he had left between the door and the door-post. Then he crept out, and spurting with swift suddenness, [pg 118] silent as a cat, to Osborne's room, sent the door open with a rush, and instantly was bowing profoundly, saying: "My dear madam! how can you pardon me?" For the lady was also in Osborne's room, as Furneaux had known; and though there was no artificial light, enough moonlight flooded the room to show that even through her elaborate make-up a pallor was suggested in her face, as she stood there suspended, dumb. Mr. Pugh seemed to be in a very pain of regret. "I had no idea that it was your room!" he pleaded. "I—do forgive me—but I took it for my own!" Oddly enough, the lady tittered, almost hysterically, though she was evidently much relieved to find who it was that had burst in so unceremoniously. "The same accident has happened to me!" she cried. "I took it to be my room, but it doesn't seem——" "Ah, then, we both.... By the way," he added, with a magnificent effort to escape an embarrassing situation, "what beautiful moonlight! And the Tormouth country under it is like a fairy place. It is a sin to be indoors. I am going for a stroll. May I hope to have the pleasure——?" He wrung his palms wheedlingly together, and his attitude showed that he was hanging on her answer. "Yes, I should like to take a walk—thank you," she answered. Together they made for the door; [pg 119] he fluttered to his room, she to hers, to prepare. Soon they were outside the hotel, walking slowly under the moon. Apparently without definite directive, they turned up the hill in the direction of "St. Briavels," nor was it many minutes before Mr. Pugh began to prove himself somewhat of a gallant, and gifted in the saying of those airy nothings which are supposed to be agreeable to the feminine ear. The lady, for her part, was not so thorny and hard of heart as one might have thought from the staidness of her air, and a good understanding was quickly established between the oddly-assorted pair. "Rather an adventure, this, for people of our age...." she tittered, as they began to climb the winding road. "But, madam, we are not old!" exclaimed the lively Mr. Pugh, who might be seventy from his decrepit semblance. "Look at that moon—are not our hearts still sensible to its seductive influences? You, for your part, may possibly be nearing that charming age of forty——" "Oh, sir! you flatter me...." "Madam, no, on my word!—not a day over forty would be given you by anyone! And if you have the heart of twenty, as I am sure that you have, what matters it if——" "Hush!" she whispered, as a soft sound of the piano from "St. Briavels" reached them. Before them on the roadway they saw several carriages drawn up near the great gates. The tinkle [pg 120] of the piano grew as they approached. Then they saw a few lantern lights in the grounds glimmering under the trees. Such signs spoke of a party in progress. For once, the English climate was gracious to its dupes. The lady, without saying anything to her companion, stepped into the shadow of a yew-tree opposite the manor-close, and stood there, looking into the grounds over the bars of a small gate, beyond which a path ran through a shrubbery. On the path were three couples, ladies with light scarves draped over their décolleté dresses, men, bare-headed and smoking cigarettes. They were very dim to her vision, which must have been well preserved for one of her age, despite Mr. Pugh's gallantry. The overhanging foliage was dense, and only enough moonlight oozed through the canopy of leaves to toss moving patterns on the lawn and paths. But the strange lady's eyes were now like gimlets, with the very fire of youth burning in them, and it was with the sure fleetness of youth that she suddenly ran in a moment of opportunity from the yew to the gate, pushed it a little open, and slipped aside into a footpath that ran parallel with the lawn on which the "St. Briavels" diners were now strolling. With equal suddenness, or equal disregard of appearance, Mr. Pugh, too, became young again, as if both, like Philemon and Baucis, had all at once quaffed the elixir of youth; and he was soon by the young-old lady's side on the footpath. But her [pg 121] eyes, her ears, were so strained toward the lawn before her, that she seemed not to be aware of his presence. "I did not guess that you were interested in the people here," he whispered. "That man now coming nearer is Mr. Glyn himself, and with him is Miss Rosalind Marsh." "Sh-h-h," came from her lips, a murmur long-drawn, absent-minded, her eyes peering keenly forward. He nudged her. "Is it fitting that we should be here? We place ourselves in a difficult position, if seen." "Sh-h-h-h-h...." Still he pestered her. "Really it is a blunder.... We—we become—eavesdroppers—! Let us—I suggest to you——" "Oh, do keep quiet," she whispered irritably; and in that instant the talk of Osborne and Rosalind became audible to her. She heard him say: "Yes, I confess I have known Osborne, and I believe the man perfectly incapable of the act attributed to him by a hasty public opinion." "Intimately known him?" Rosalind turned her eyebrows upward in the moonlight. Seen thus, she was amazingly beautiful. "Do we intimately know anyone? Do we intimately know ourselves?" asked Osborne as he passed within five yards of the two on the path. "I [pg 122] think I may say that I know Osborne about as well as I know anyone, and I am confident that he is horribly misjudged. He is a young man of—yes, I will say that for him—of good intentions; and he is found guilty, without trial, of a wrong which he never could have committed—and the wrong which he has committed he is not found guilty of." "What wrong?" asked Rosalind. "I have heard—I know, in fact—that in the short time that has passed since the murder of Miss de Bercy, Osborne, her acknowledged lover, has allowed himself to love another." Rosalind laughed, with the quiet amusement of well-bred indifference. "What a weird person!" she said. And as their words passed beyond hearing, a hiss, like a snake's in the grass, rose from the shrubbery behind them, a hiss of venom intensely low, and yet loud enough to be heard by Furneaux, who, standing a little behind the lady of the ringlets, rubbed his hands together in silent and almost mischievous self-congratulation. The house end of the lawn was not far, the words of the returning pair were soon again within earshot. The fiery glance of the watching woman, ferreting, peering, dwelt on them—or rather on one of them, for she gave no heed to Osborne at all. Her very soul was centered on Rosalind, whose walk, whose lips, whose eyes, whose hair, whose voice, she ran over and estimated as an expert accountant [pg 123] reckons up a column of figures to ascertain their significance. She missed no item in that calculation. She noted the over-skirt of Chantilly, the wrap of Venetian lace on the girl's head, the white slippers, the roses disposed on her corsage with the harmless vanity of the artist's skill, all these that fixed stare ravenously devoured and digested while Rosalind took half a dozen slow steps. "But seriously," she heard Osborne say, "what is your opinion of a love so apparently fickle and flighty as this of Osborne's?" "Let me alone with your Osborne," Rosalind retorted with another little laugh. "A person of such a mood is merely uninteresting, and below being a topic. Let the dead lady's father or somebody horsewhip him—I cannot care, I'm afraid. Let us talk about——" "Ourselves?" "'Ourselves and our king.'" "I have so much to say about ourselves! Where should I begin? And now that I have a few minutes, I am throwing them away. Do you know, I never seem to secure you free from interruption. Either yourself or someone else intervenes every time, and reduces me to silence and despair——" Their words passed beyond earshot again in the other direction; and, as the lawn was wide between house and screen of shrubbery on the road front, it was some time before they were again heard. At last, though, they came, and then Rosalind's low [pg 124] tone of earnestness showed that this time, at least, Osborne had been listened to. "I will, since you ask, since you wish"—her voice faltered—"to please you. You will be at the Abbey to-morrow evening. And, since you say that you so—desire it, I may then hear what you have to say. Now I'll go." "But when—where——?" "If the night is fine, I will stroll into the gardens during the evening. You will see me when I go. On the south terrace of the Abbey there is a sun-dial in the middle of a paved Italian garden. I'll pass that way, and give you half an hour." "Rosalind!" "Ah, no—not yet." Her lips sighed. She looked at him with a lingering tenderness languishing in her eyes. "Can I help it?" he murmured, and his voice quivered with passion. "Are you glad now?" "Glad!" "Good-by." She left him hurriedly and sped with inimitable grace of motion across the lawn toward the house, and, while he looked after her, with the rapt vision of a man who has communed with a spirit, the two listeners crept to the little gate, slipped out when a laughing couple turned their heads, and walked back to the hotel. The lady said never a word. Mr. Pugh was full [pg 125] of chat and merriment, but no syllable fell from her tight-pressed lips. The next day the lady was reported to have a headache—at any rate she kept to her room, and saw no one save the "boots" of the establishment, with whom during the afternoon she had a lengthy interview upstairs. At about seven in the evening she was writing these words: <blockquote> Miss Marsh:—Are you aware that the "Mr. Glyn" whom you know here is no other than Mr. Rupert Osborne, who is in everyone's mouth in connection with the Feldisham Mansions Murder? You may take this as a positive fact from <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> "One Who Knows." </div> </div> </blockquote> She wrote it in a handwriting that was very different from her own, inclosed and directed it, and then, about half-past seven, sent for "boots" again. Her instructions were quite explicit: "Wait in the paved rose garden at the Abbey, the square sunken place with a sun-dial in the center," she said. "It is on the south terrace, and the lady I have described will surely come. The moment she appears hand the note to her, and be off—above all else, answer no questions." So the youth, with a sovereign in his pocket, hurried away to do Hylda Prout's will—or was it Furneaux's? Who might tell? <hr class="hr2" /> [pg 126] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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