My Strangest Case, Guy Boothby [classic literature list TXT] 📗

I have scarcely known what to do. I have lain awake at night, turning it over and over in my mind, and trying to convince myself as to what was best to be done. Then my uncle told me you were coming down here, and I resolved to put the case before you as I have done and to ask your opinion."

She gave me her little hand, and I took it and held it in my own. Then I released it and we strode back along the garden-path together without another word. The afternoon was well advanced by this time, and when we reached the summer-house, where Codd was still reading, we found that a little wicker tea-table had been brought out from the house and that chairs had been placed for us round it. To my thinking there is nothing that becomes a pretty woman more than the mere commonplace act of pouring out tea. It was certainly so in this case. When I looked at the white cloth upon the table, the heavy brass tray, and the silver jugs and teapot, and thought of my own cracked earthenware vessel, then reposing in a cupboard in my office, and in which I brewed my cup of tea every afternoon, I smiled to myself. I felt that I should never use it again without recalling this meal. After that I wondered whether it would ever be my good fortune to sit in this garden again, and to sip my Orange Pekoe from the same dainty service. The thought that I might not do so was, strangely enough, an unpleasant one, and I put it from me with all promptness. During the meal, Kitwater scarcely uttered a word. We had exhausted the probabilities of the case long since, and I soon found that he could think or talk of nothing else. At six o'clock I prepared to make my adieux. My train left Bishopstowe for London at the half-hour, and I should just have time to walk the distance comfortably. To my delight my hostess decided to go to church, and said she would walk with me as far as the lych-gate. She accordingly left us and went into the house to make her toilet. As soon as she had gone Kitwater fumbled his way across to where I was sitting, and having discovered a chair beside me, seated himself in it.

"Mr. Fairfax," said he, "I labour under the fear that you cannot understand my position. Can you realize what it is like to feel shut up in the dark, waiting and longing always for only one thing? Could you not let me come to Paris with you to-morrow?"

"Impossible," I said. "It is out of the question. It could not be thought of for a moment!"

"But why not? I can see no difficulty in it?"

"If for no other reason because it would destroy any chance of my even getting on the scent. I should be hampered at every turn."

He heaved a heavy sigh.

"Blind! blind!" he said with despair in his voice. "But I know that I shall meet him some day, and when I do----"

His ferocity was the more terrible by reason of his affliction.

"Only wait, Mr. Kitwater," I replied. "Wait, and if I can help you, you shall have your treasure back again. Will you then be satisfied?"

"Yes, I'll be satisfied," he answered, but with what struck me as almost reluctance. "Yes, when I have my treasure back again I'll be satisfied, and so will Codd. In the meantime I'll wait here in the dark, the dark in which the days and nights are the same. Yes, I'll wait and wait and wait."

At that moment Miss Kitwater made her reappearance in the garden, and I rose to bid my clients farewell.

"Good-bye, Mr. Kitwater," I said. "I'll write immediately I reach Paris, and let you know how I am getting on."

"You are very kind," Kitwater answered, and Codd nodded his head.

My hostess and I then set off down the drive to the righ road which we followed towards the village. It was a perfect evening, and the sun was setting in the west in a mass of crimson and gold. At first we talked of various commonplace subjects, but it was not very long before we came back, as I knew we should do, to the one absorbing topic.

"There is another thing I want to set right with you, Miss Kitwater," I said, as we paused upon the bridge to which I have elsewhere referred. "It is only a small matter. Somehow, however, I feel that I must settle it, before I can proceed further in the affair with any satisfaction to myself."

She looked at me in surprise.

"What is it?" she asked, "I thought we had settled everything."

"So far as I can see that is the only matter that remains," I answered. "Yet it is sufficiently important to warrant my speaking to you about it. What I want to know is, who I am serving?"

"I don't think I understand," she said, drawing lines with her umbrella upon the stone coping of the bridge as she spoke.

"And yet my meaning is clear," I returned. "What I want to be certain of is, whether I am serving you or your uncle?"

"I don't think you are _serving_ either of us," she answered. "You are helping us to right a great wrong."

"Forgive me, but that is merely trifling with words. I am going to be candid once more. You are paying the money, I believe?"

In some confusion she informed me that this certainly was the case.

"Very well, then, I am certainly your servant," I said. "It is your interests I shall have to study."

"I can trust them implicitly to you, I am sure, Mr. Fairfax," she replied. "And now here we are at the church. If you walk quickly you will be just in time to catch your train. Let me thank you again for coming down to-day."

"It has been a great pleasure to me," I replied. "Perhaps when I return from Paris you will permit me to come down again to report progress?"

"We shall be very pleased to see you," she answered. "Now, good-bye, and a pleasant journey to you!"

We shook hands and parted. As I passed along the road I watched her making her way along the avenue towards the church. There was need for me to shake my head.

"George Fairfax," said I, "it would require very little of that young lady's society to enable you to make a fool of yourself."



CHAPTER VIII

Unlike so many of my countrymen I am prepared to state that I detest the French capital. I always make my visits to it as brief as possible, then, my business completed, off I fly again, seeming to breathe more freely when I am outside its boundaries. I don't know why this should be so, for I have always been treated with the utmost courtesy and consideration by its inhabitants, particularly by those members of the French Detective Force with whom I have been brought in contact.

On this visit I crossed with one of the cleverest Parisian detectives, a man with whom I have had many dealings. He was most anxious to ascertain the reason of my visit to his country. My assurance that I was not in search of any one of his own criminals seemed to afford him no sort of satisfaction. He probably regarded it as an attempt to put him off the scent, and I fancy he resented it. We reached Paris at seven o'clock, whereupon I invited him to dine with me at eight o'clock, at a restaurant we had both patronized on many previous occasions. He accepted my invitation, and promised to meet me at the time and place I named. On the platform awaiting our arrival was my man Dickson, to whom I had telegraphed, ordering him to meet me.

"Well, Dickson," I said, when I had bade the detective _an revoir_, "what about our man?"

"I've had him under my eye, sir," he answered. "I know exactly what he's been doing, and where he's staying."

"That's good news indeed," I replied. "Have you discovered anything else about him?"

"Yes, sir," he returned. "I find that he's struck up a sudden acquaintance with a lady named Mademoiselle Beaumarais, and that they are to dine together at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs to-night. They have been in and out of half the jewellers' shops in the Rue de la Paix to-day, and he's spending a mint of money on her."

"They are dining at the Cafe des Ambassadeurs to-night, did you say? At what time?"

"I cannot tell you that, sir," Dickson replied. "I only know that they are to dine there together to-night."

"And pray how did you find that out?"

"I made inquiries as to who she was, where she lived, and then pumped her maid," he answered.

"You did not do anything that would excite his suspicions, I hope," I put in. "You ought to know by this time what women are."

"Oh, no, sir, you needn't be afraid," he said. "I was too careful for that. The maid and I are on very friendly terms. She believes me to be a Russian, and I've not denied it."

"It would be safest not to do so," I replied. "If she discovers that you are an Englishman, she might chance to mention the fact to her mistress. She would doubtless let it fall in conversation with him, and then all our trouble would be useless. You speak Russian, do you not?"

"Only pretty well, sir," he answered. "I should be soon bowled out if I came in contact with a real one."

"Well, I think I will be somewhere near the Cafe des Ambassadeurs to-night just to make sure of my man. After that I'll tell you what to do next."

"Very good, sir," he returned. "I suppose you will be staying at the same place?"

"Yes, the same place," I replied. "If you have anything to communicate, you can either call, or send word to me there."

I thereupon departed for the quiet house at which I usually take up my abode when in Paris. The big hotels are places I steer clear of, for the simple reason that I often have business in connection with them, and it does not pay me to become too well known. At this little house I can go out and come in just as I please, have my meals at any time of the day or night, and am as well cared for as at my own abode in London. On this occasion the old lady of the house greeted me with flattering enthusiasm. She had received my telegram, she said, and my usual room awaited me. I accordingly ascended to it in order to dress myself for the dinner of the evening, and as I did so, thought of the pretty bedroom I had seen on the previous day, which naturally led me to think of the owner of the house, at that moment my employer. In my mind's eye I could see her just as she had stood on that old stone bridge at Bishopstowe, with the sunset behind her and the church bells sounding across the meadows, calling the villagers to evensong. How much better it was, I argued, to be standing talking to her there in that old world peace, than to be dressing for a dinner at an