The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes - Marie Belloc Lowndes

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as Mrs. Dampier has appealed to me very properly for help, these hotel people--if they are as worthy as you believe them to be--will not mind consenting to an informal interrogatory from one of my clerks. I have here a sharp young fellow who knows English as well as he does French. I'll send him back with you. He can take down the Poulains' story, even cross-examine them in a friendly manner. Mrs. Dampier might also give him her version of what took place."

      Senator Burton uttered a hesitating assent. He knew only too well that the Poulains would greatly resent the proposed interrogatory.

      "One word more, Mr. Senator. If there is no news of this Mr. John Dampier by to-morrow, you must persuade Mrs. Dampier to write, or even to telegraph for her friends. For one thing, it isn't at all fair that all this trouble should fall on an entire stranger, on one not even her own countryman! I cannot help seeing, too, that you do not altogether believe in Mrs. Dampier and her story. You can't make up your mind--is not that so?"

      The American Senator nodded, rather shamefacedly.

      "I might advise you to go to the Préfecture de Police, nay, I might communicate with them myself, but I feel that in the interests of this young lady it would be better to go slow. Mr. Dampier may return as suddenly, as unexpectedly, as he went. And then he would not thank us, my dear sir, for having done anything to turn the Paris Police searchlight on his private life."

      The Consul got up and held out his hand. "For your sake, as well as for that of my countrywoman, I hope most sincerely that you will find Mr. Dampier safe and sound when you get back to the Hôtel Saint Ange. But if the mystery still endures to-morrow, then you really must persuade this poor young lady to send for one of her relatives--preferably, I need hardly say, a man."

      "At what time shall I expect your clerk?" asked Senator Burton. "I think I ought to prepare the Poulains."

      "No, there I think you're wrong! Far better let him go back with you now, and hear what they have to say. Let him also get a properly signed statement from Mrs. Dampier. Then he can come back here and type out his report and her statement for reference. That can do no harm, and may in the future be of value."

      He accompanied the American Senator to the door. "I wish I could help you more," he said cordially. "Believe me, I appreciate more than I can say your extraordinary kindness to my 'subject.' I shall, of course, be glad to know how you get on. But oh, if you knew how busy we are just now! When I think of how we are regarded--of how I read, only the other day, that a Consul is the sort of good fellow one likes to make comfortable in a nice little place--I wish the man who wrote that could have my 'nice little place' for a week, during an Exhibition Year! I think he would soon change his mind."

      Mrs. Dampier was not present at the, to Senator Burton, odious half-hour which followed their return to the Hôtel Saint Ange.

      At first the French hotel-keeper and his wife refused to say anything to the Consular official. Then, when they were finally persuaded to answer his questions, they did so as curtly and disagreeably as possible. Madame Poulain also made a great effort to prevent her nephew, young Jules, from being brought into the matter. But to her wrath and bitter consternation, he, as well as her husband and herself, was made to submit to a regular examination and cross-examination as to what had followed Mrs. Dampier's arrival at the Hôtel Saint Ange.

      "Why don't you send for the police?" she cried at last. "We should be only too glad to lay all the facts before them!"

      And as the young Frenchman, after his further interview with Nancy, was being speeded on his way by the Senator, "I'm blessed if I know what to believe!" he observed with a wink. "It's the queerest story I've ever come across; and as for the Poulains, it's the first time I've ever known French people to say they would like to see the police brought into their private affairs! One would swear that all the parties concerned were telling the truth, but I thought that boy, those people's nephew, did know something more than he said."

      Chapter VIII

       Table of Contents

      The third morning brought no news of the missing man, and Senator Burton, noting Gerald's and Daisy's preoccupied, anxious faces, began to wonder if his life would ever flow in pleasant, normal channels again.

      The son and daughter whom he held so dear, whose habitual companionship was so agreeable to him, were now wholly absorbed in Mrs. Dampier and her affairs. They could think of nothing else, and, when they were alone with their father, they talked of nothing else.

      The Senator remembered with special soreness what had happened the afternoon before, just after he had dismissed the clerk of the British Consul. Feeling an eager wish to forget, as far as might be for a little while, the mysterious business in which they were all so untowardly concerned, he had suggested to Daisy that they might go and spend a quiet hour in the Art section of the Exhibition. But to his great discomfiture, his daughter had turned on him with a look of scorn, almost of contempt:

      "Father! Do you mean me to go out and leave poor little Nancy alone in her dreadful suspense and grief--just that I may enjoy myself?"

      And the Senator had felt ashamed of his selfishness. Yes, it had been most unfeeling of him to want to go and gaze on some of the few masterpieces American connoisseurs have left in Europe, while this tragedy--for he realised that whatever the truth might be it was a tragedy--was still in being.

      It was good to know that thanks to the British Consul's word of advice his way, to-day, was now clear. The time had come when he must advise Mrs. Dampier to send for some member of her family. Without giving his children an inkling of what he was about to say to their new friend, Senator Burton requested Nancy, in the presence of the two others, to come down into the garden of the Hôtel Saint Ange in order that they might discuss the situation.

      As they crossed the sun-flecked cheerful courtyard Nancy pressed unconsciously nearer her companion, and averted her eyes from the kitchen window where the hotel-keeper and his wife seemed to spend so much of their spare time, gazing forth on their domain, watching with uneasy suspicion all those who came and went from the Burtons' apartments.

      As the young Englishwoman passed through into the peaceful garden whose charm and old-world sweetness had been one of the lures which had drawn John Dampier to what was now to her a fatal place, she felt a sensation of terrible desolation come over her, the more so that she was now half conscious that Senator Burton, great as was his kindness, kept his judgment in suspense.

      They sat down on a wooden bench, and for awhile neither spoke. "Have you found out anything?" she asked at last in a low voice. "I think by your manner that you have found out something, Mr. Burton--something you don't wish to say to me before the two others?"

      He looked at her, surprised. "No," he said sincerely, "that is not so at all. I have found out nothing, Mrs. Dampier--would that I had! But I feel it only right to tell you that the moment has come when you should communicate with your friends. The British Consul told me that if we were still without news, still in suspense, this morning, he would strongly advise that you send for someone to join you in Paris. Surely you have some near relation who would come to you?"

      Nancy shook her head. "No. I daresay it may seem strange to you, Senator Burton, but I have no near relations at all. I was the only child of a father and mother who, in their turn, were only children. I have some very distant cousins, a tribe of acquaintances, a few very kind friends--" her lips quivered "but no one--no one of whom I feel I could ask that sort of favour."

      Senator Burton glanced at her in dismay. She looked very wan and fragile sitting there; whatever the truth, he could not but feel deeply sorry for her.

      Suddenly she turned to him, and an expression of relief came over her sad eyes and mouth. "There is someone, Mr. Burton, someone I ought to have thought of before! There is a certain Mr. Stephens who was my father's friend as well as his solicitor; and he has always managed all my money matters. I'll write and ask Mr. Stephens if he can come to me. He was more than kind at the time of my marriage, though I'm afraid that he and Jack didn't get on very well together."

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