The Chink in the Armour Part 28

"And to you was prophesied--?" Count Paul leant forward and looked at her fixedly.

Sylvia blushed.

"Oh, she told me all sorts of things! As you say they don't really know anything; they only guess. One of the things that she told me was that it was possible, in fact, quite likely, that I should never go back to England--I mean at all! And that if I did so, I should go as a stranger.

Wasn't that absurd?"

"Quite absurd," said Count Paul, quietly. "For even if you married again, Madame; if you married a Frenchman, for instance, you would still wish to go back to your own country sometimes--at least, I suppose so."

"Of course I should." And once more Sylvia reddened violently.

But this time Count Paul felt no pleasure in watching the flood of carmine staining not only the smooth, rounded cheek, but the white forehead and neck of his fair English friend.

Sylvia went on speaking, a little quickly.

"She said almost the same thing to Anna. Wasn't that odd? I mean she said that Anna would probably never go back to her own country. But what was really very strange was that she did not seem to be able to see into Anna's future at all. And then--oh well, she behaved very oddly. After we had gone she called us back--" Sylvia stopped for a moment.

"Well?" said Count Paul eagerly. "What happened then?"

He seldom allowed himself the pleasure of looking into Sylvia's blue eyes. Now he asked for nothing better than that she should go on talking while he went on looking at her.

"She made us stand side by side--you must understand, Count, that we had already paid her and gone away--when she called us back. She stared at us in a very queer sort of way, and said that we must not leave Paris, or if we did leave Paris, we must not leave together. She said that if we did so we should run into danger."

"All rather vague," observed the Count. "And, from the little I know of her, I should fancy Madame Wolsky the last woman in the world to be really influenced by that kind of thing."

He hardly knew what he was saying. His only wish was that Sylvia would go on talking to him in the intimate, confiding fas.h.i.+on she was now doing.

Heavens! How wretched, how lonely he had felt in Paris after seeing her off the day before!

"Oh, but at the time Anna was very much impressed," said Sylvia, quickly.

"Far more than I was--I know it made her nervous when she was first playing at the tables. And when she lost so much money the first week we were here she said to me, 'That woman was right. We ought not to have come to Lacville!' But afterwards, when she began to be so wonderfully lucky, she forgot all about it, or, rather, she only remembered that the woman had said to her that she would have a great run of luck."

"Then the woman said that, too," remarked Count Paul, absently.

(What was it his G.o.dmother had said? "I felicitate you on your conquest, naughty Paul!" and he had felt angry, even disgusted, with the old lady's cynical compliment. She had added, meaningly, "Why not turn over a new leaf? Why not marry this pretty creature? We should all be pleased to see you behave like a reasonable human being.")

But Sylvia was answering him.

"Yes, the woman said that Anna would be very lucky."

The Comte de Virieu thought for a moment, and then withdrew his eyes from his friend's face.

"I presume you have already telephoned to the hotel in Paris where you first met Madame Wolsky?"

"Why, it never occurred to me to do that!" cried Sylvia. "What a good idea!"

"Wait," he said. "I will go and do it for you."

But five minutes later he came back, shaking his head. "I am sorry to say the people at the Hotel de l'Horloge know nothing of Madame Wolsky. They have had no news of her since you and she both left the place. I wonder if the Wachners know more of her disappearance than they have told you?"

"What _do_ you mean?" asked Sylvia, very much surprised.

"They're such odd people," he said, in a dissatisfied voice. "And you know they were always with your friend. When you were not there, they hardly ever left her for a moment."

"But I thought I had told you how distressed they are about it? How they waited for her last evening and how she never came? Oh no, the Wachners know nothing," declared Sylvia confidently.

CHAPTER XVI

There is something very bewildering and distressing in the sudden disappearance or even the absence of a human being to whose affectionate and constant presence one has become accustomed. And as the hours went by, and no letter or message arrived from Anna Wolsky, Sylvia became seriously troubled, and spent much of her time walking to and from the Pension Malfait.

Surely Anna could not have left Paris, still less France, without her luggage? All sorts of dreadful possibilities crowded on Sylvia's mind; Anna Wolsky might have met with an accident: she might now be lying unidentified in a Paris hospital....

At last she grew so uneasy about her friend that she felt she must do something!

Mine host of the Villa du Lac was kind and sympathetic, but even he could suggest no way of finding out where Anna had gone.

And then Sylvia suddenly bethought herself that there was one thing she could do which she had not done: she could surely go to the police of Lacville and ask them to make inquiries in Paris as to whether there had been an accident of which the victim in any way recalled Anna Wolsky.

To her surprise, M. Polperro shook his head very decidedly.

"Oh no, do not go to the police!" he said in an anxious tone. "No, no, I do not advise you to do that! Heaven knows I would do anything in reason to help you, Madame, to find your friend. But I beg of you not to ask me to go for you to the police!"

Sylvia was very much puzzled. Why should M. Polperro be so unwilling to seek the help of the law in so simple a matter as this?

"I will go myself," she said.

And just then--they were standing in the hall together--the Comte de Virieu came up.

"What is it you will do yourself, Madame?" he asked, smiling.

Sylvia turned to him eagerly.

"I feel that I should like to speak to the police about Anna Wolsky," she exclaimed. "It is the first thing one would do in England if a friend suddenly disappeared--in fact, the police are always looking for people who have gone away in a mysterious manner. You see, I can't help being afraid, Count Paul"--she lowered her voice--"that Anna has met with some dreadful accident. She hasn't a friend in Paris! Suppose she is lying now in some hospital, unable to make herself understood? I only wish that I had a photograph of Anna that I could take to them."

"Well, there is a possibility that this may be so. But remember it is even more probable that Madame Wolsky is quite well, and that she will be annoyed at your taking any such step to find her."

"Yes," said Sylvia, slowly. "I know that is quite possible. And yet--and yet it is so very unlike Anna not to send me a word of explanation! And then, you know in that letter she left in her room at the Pension Malfait she positively promised to send a telegram about her luggage. Surely it is very strange that she has not done that?"

"Well, if you really wish the police communicated with," said the Comte de Virieu, "I will go to the police-station here, with pleasure."

"Why should we not go together?" asked Sylvia, hesitatingly.

"By all means. But think over what we are to say when we get there. If your friend had not left the letter behind her, then, of course it would be our positive duty to communicate with the police. But I cannot help being afraid--" He stopped abruptly.

"Of what are you afraid?" asked Sylvia eagerly.