The Chink in the Armour Part 30

"The truth is, we handed it to a lady who was also a friend of Madame Wolsky, and she evidently forgot to give it back to us. We will find out whether she has kept it."

On the way back the Commissioner of Police said gaily,

"It is quite clear that Madame"--he turned and bowed courteously to Sylvia--"knows very little of Lacville, Monsieur le Comte! Why, people are always disappearing from Lacville! My time would indeed be full were I to follow all those who go away in a hurry--not but what I have been only too delighted to do this for Madame and for Monsieur le Comte."

He then bowed to the Count and stared smilingly at Sylvia.

"I am pleased to think," he went on playfully, "that Madame herself is not likely to meet with any unpleasant adventure here, for the Villa du Lac is a most excellent and well-conducted house. Be a.s.sured, Madame, that I will find out in the next few hours if your friend has met with an accident in the Paris streets."

He left them at the gate of the Villa.

When the Commissioner had quite disappeared, the Count observed, "Well, we have done what you wished. But it has not had much result, has it?"

Sylvia shook her head disconsolately.

"No, Count Paul. I am afraid I made a mistake in going to the police. The Malfaits are evidently very angry with me! And yet--and yet, you know in England it's the first thing that people do."

Count Paul laughed kindly.

"It is a matter of absolutely no consequence. But you see, you never quite understand, my dear friend, that Lacville is a queer place, and that here, at any rate, the hotel-keepers are rather afraid of the police. I was even glad that the Commissioner did not ask to look over _your_ boxes, and did not exact a pa.s.sport from you!"

More seriously he added, "But I see that you are dreadfully anxious about Madame Wolsky, and I myself will communicate with the Paris police about the matter. It is, as you say, possible, though not probable, that she met with an accident after leaving you."

CHAPTER XVII

A long week went by, and still no news, no explanation of her abrupt departure from Lacville, was received from Anna Wolsky; and the owners of the Pension Malfait were still waiting for instructions as to what was to be done with Madame Wolsky's luggage, and with the various little personal possessions she had left scattered about her room.

As for Sylvia, it sometimes seemed to her as if her Polish friend had been obliterated, suddenly blotted out of existence.

But as time went on she felt more and more pained and discomfited by Anna's strange and heartless behaviour to herself. Whatever the reason for Madame Wolsky's abrupt departure, it would not have taken her a moment to have sent Sylvia Bailey a line--if only to say that she could give no explanation of her extraordinary conduct.

Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia's thoughts from Anna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours' ride with Paul de Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a little practice, so the Count a.s.sured her, was needed to make her into a really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.

Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make their way into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, which is so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.

The d.u.c.h.esse d'Eglemont had sent her maid to Lacville with the riding habit she was lending Sylvia, and by a word M. Polperro let fall, the Englishwoman realised, with mingled confusion and amus.e.m.e.nt, that the hotel-keeper supposed her to be an old and intimate friend of Count Paul's sister.

The other people in the hotel began to treat her with marked cordiality.

And so it came to pa.s.s that outwardly the Polish lady's disappearance came to be regarded even by Sylvia as having only been a ripple on the pleasant, lazy, agreeable life she, Count Paul, and last, not least, the Wachners, were all leading at Lacville.

In fact, as the days went on, only Mrs. Bailey herself and that kindly couple, Madame Wachner and her silent husband, seemed to remember that Anna had ever been there. During the first days, when Sylvia had been really very anxious and troubled, she had had cause to be grateful to the Wachners for their sympathy; for whereas Paul de Virieu seemed only interested in Anna Wolsky because she, Sylvia, herself was interested, both Madame Wachner and her morose, silent husband showed real concern and distress at the mysterious lack of news.

Whenever Sylvia saw them, and she saw them daily at the Casino, either Madame Wachner or L'Ami Fritz would ask her in an eager, sympathetic voice, "Have you had news of Madame Wolsky?"

And then, when she shook her head sadly, they would express--and especially Madame Wachner would express--increasing concern and surprise at Anna's extraordinary silence.

"If only she had come to us as she arranged to do!" the older woman exclaimed more than once in a regretful tone. "Then, at any rate, we should know something; she would not have concealed her plans from us entirely; we were, if new friends, yet on such kind, intimate terms with the dear soul!"

And now, as had been the case exactly a week ago, Sylvia was resting in her room. She was sitting just as she had then sat, in a chair drawn up close to the window. There had been no ride that morning, for Paul de Virieu had been obliged to go into Paris for the day.

Sylvia felt dull and listless. She had never before experienced that aching longing for the presence of another human being which in our civilised life is disguised under many names, but which in this case, Sylvia herself called by that of "friends.h.i.+p."

Moreover, she had received that morning a letter which had greatly disturbed her. It now lay open on her lap, for she had just read it through again. This letter was quite short, and simply contained the news that Bill Chester, her good friend, sometime lover, and trustee, was going to Switzerland after all, and that he would stop a couple of days in Paris in order to see her.

It was really very nice of Bill to do this, and a month ago Sylvia would have looked forward to seeing him. But now everything was changed, and Sylvia could well have dispensed with Bill Chester's presence.

The thought of Chester at Lacville filled her with unease. When she had left her English home two months ago--it seemed more like two years than two months--she had felt well disposed to the young lawyer, and deep in her inmost heart she had almost brought herself to acknowledge that she might very probably in time become his wife.

She suspected that Chester had been fond of her when she was a girl, at a time when his means would not have justified him in proposing to her, for he was one of those unusual men who think it dishonourable to ask girls to marry them unless they are in a position to keep a wife. She remembered how he had looked--how set and stern his face had become when someone had suddenly told him in her presence of her engagement to George Bailey, the middle-aged man who had been so kind to her, and yet who had counted for so little in her life, though she had given him all she could of love and duty.

Since her widowhood, so she now reminded herself remorsefully, Chester had been extraordinarily good to her, and his devotion had touched her because it was expressed in actions rather than in words, for he was also the unusual type of man, seldom a romantic type, who scorns, however much in love, to take advantage of a fiduciary position to strengthen his own.

The fact that he was her trustee brought them into frequent conflict. Too often Bill was the candid friend instead of the devoted lover. Their only real quarrel--if quarrel it could be called--had been, as we know, over the purchase of her string of pearls. But time, or so Sylvia confidently believed, had proved her to have been right, for her "investment," as she always called it to Bill Chester, had improved in value.

But though she had been right in that comparatively trifling matter, she knew that Chester would certainly disapprove of the kind of life--the idle, purposeless, frivolous life--she was now leading.

Looking out over the lake, which, as it was an exceedingly hot, fine day, was already crowded with boats, Sylvia almost made up her mind to go back into Paris for two or three days.

Bill would think it a very strange thing that she was staying here in Lacville all by herself. But the thought of leaving Lacville just now was very disagreeable to Sylvia.... She wondered uncomfortably what her trustee would think of her friends.h.i.+p with Count Paul de Virieu--with this Frenchman who, when he was not gambling at the Casino, spent every moment of his time with her.

But deep in her heart Sylvia knew well that when Bill Chester was there Paul de Virieu would draw back; only when they were really alone together did he talk eagerly, naturally.

In the dining-room of the Villa he hardly ever spoke to her, and when they were both in the Baccarat-room of the Club he seldom came and stood by her side, though when she looked up she often found his eyes fixed on her with that ardent, absorbed gaze which made her heart beat, and her cheeks flush with mingled joy and pain.

Suddenly, as if her thoughts had brought him there, she saw Count Paul's straight, slim figure turn in from the road through the gates of the Villa.

He glanced up at her window and took off his hat. He looked cool, unruffled, and self-possessed, but her eager eyes saw a change in his face. He looked very grave, and yet oddly happy. Was it possible that he had news at last of Anna Wolsky?

He mounted the stone-steps and disappeared into the house; and Sylvia, getting up, began moving restlessly about her room. She longed to go downstairs, and yet a feminine feeling of delicacy restrained her from doing so.

A great stillness brooded over everything. The heat had sent everyone indoors. M. Polperro, perhaps because of his Southern up-bringing, always took an early afternoon siesta. It looked as if his servants followed his example. The Villa du Lac seemed asleep.

Sylvia went across to the other window, the window overlooking the large, shady garden, and there, glancing down, she saw Count Paul.

"Come into the garden--," he said softly in English; and Sylvia, leaning over the bar of her window, thought he added the word "Maud"--but of course that could not have been so, for her name, as the Count knew well, was Sylvia! And equally of course he always addressed her as "Madame."

"It's so nice and cool up here," she whispered back. "I don't believe it is half so cool in the garden!"

She gazed down into his upturned face with innocent coquetry, pretending--only pretending--to hesitate as to what she would do in answer to his invitation.

But Sylvia Bailey was but an amateur at the Great Game, the game at which only two--only a man and a woman--can play, and yet which is capable of such infinite, such bewilderingly protean variations. So her next move, one which Paul de Virieu, smiling behind his moustache, foresaw--was to turn away from the window.

She ran down the broad shallow staircase very quickly, for it had occurred to her that the Count, taking her at her word, might leave the garden, and, sauntering off to the Casino, lose his money--for whatever he might be in love, Count Paul was exceedingly unlucky at cards! And lately she had begun to think that she was gradually weaning her friend from what she knew to be in his case, whatever it was in hers, and in that of many of the people about them, the terrible vice of gambling.