The Chink in the Armour Part 39

Quite suddenly he was awakened by the sensation, nay, the knowledge, that there was someone in the room! So vivid was this feeling of unwished-for companions.h.i.+p that he got up and looked in the shadowed recess of the alcove in which stood his bed; but, of course, there was no one there.

In fact there would not have been s.p.a.ce there for any grown-up person to squeeze into.

He told himself that what he had heard--if he had heard anything--was someone bringing him his coffee and rolls, and that the servant had probably been trying to attract his attention, for, following his prudent custom, he had locked his door the night before.

He unlocked the door and looked out, staring this way and that along the empty pa.s.sage. But no, in spite of the now-risen sun, it was still early morning; the Pension Malfait was sunk in sleep.

Chester went back to bed. He felt tired, disturbed, uneasy; sleep was out of the question; so he lay back, and with widely-open eyes, began to think of Sylvia Bailey and of the strange events of the night before.

He lived again the long hour he had spent at the Casino. He could almost smell the odd, sweet, stuffy smell of the Baccarat Room, and there rose before him its queer, varied inmates. He visioned distinctly Sylvia Bailey as he had suddenly seen her, sitting before the green cloth, with her money piled up before her, and a look of eager interest and absorption on her face.

There had always been in Sylvia something a little rebellious, a touch of individuality which made her unlike the other women he knew, and which fascinated and attracted him. She was a woman who generally knew her own mind, and who had her own ideas of right and wrong. Lying there, he remembered how determined she had been about those pearls....

Chester's thoughts took a softer turn. How very, very pretty she had looked last evening--more than pretty--lovelier than he had ever seen her. There seemed to be new depths in her blue eyes.

But Chester was shrewd enough to know that Sylvia had felt ashamed to be caught by him gambling--gambling, too, in such very mixed company. Well, she would soon be leaving Lacville! What a pity those friends of hers had given up their Swiss holiday! It would have been so jolly if they could have gone on there together.

He got tired of lying in bed. What a long night, as well as a very short night, it had been! He rose and made his way down to the primitive bath-room. It would be delightful to have any sort of bath, and the huge zinc basin had its points--

As Chester went quickly back to his room, instead of feeling refreshed after his bath, he again experienced the disagreeable sensation that he was not alone. This time he felt as if he were being accompanied by an invisible presence. It was a very extraordinary and a most unpleasant feeling, one which Chester had never experienced before, and it made him afraid--afraid he knew not of what.

Being the manner of man he was, he began to think that he must be ill--that there must be something the matter with his nerves. Had he been at home, in Market Dalling, he would have gone to a doctor without loss of time.

Long afterwards, when people used to speak before him of haunted houses, Bill Chester would remember the Pension Malfait and the extraordinary sensations he had experienced there--sensations the more extraordinary that there was nothing to account for them.

But Chester never told anyone of his experiences, and indeed there was nothing to tell. He never saw anything, he never even heard anything, but now and again, especially when he was lying awake at night and in the early morning, the lawyer felt as if some other ent.i.ty was struggling to communicate with him and could not do so....

The whole time he was there--and he stayed on at Lacville, as we shall see, rather longer than he at first intended--Chester never felt, when in his room at the Pension Malfait really alone, and sometimes the impression became almost intolerably vivid.

CHAPTER XXI

But the longest night, the most haunted night, and Chester's night had indeed been haunted, comes to an end at last. After he had had another bath and a good breakfast he felt a very different man to what he had done three of four hours ago, lying awake in the sinister, companioned atmosphere of his bed-room at the Pension Malfait.

Telling his courteous landlord that he would not be in to luncheon, Chester left the house, and as it was still far too early to seek out Sylvia, he struck out, with the aid of the little pocket-map of the environs of Paris with which he had been careful to provide himself, towards the open country.

And as he swung quickly along, feeling once more tired and depressed, the Englishman wondered more and more why Sylvia Bailey cared to stay in such a place as Lacville. It struck him as neither town nor country--more like an unfinished suburb than anything else, with almost every piece of spare land up for sale.

He walked on and on till at last he came to the edge of a great stretch of what looked like primeval woodland. This surely must be part of the famous Forest of Montmorency, which his guide-book mentioned as being the great attraction of Lacville? He wondered cynically whether Sylvia had ever been so far, and then he plunged into the wood, along one of the ordered alleys which to his English eyes looked so little forest-like, and yet which made walking there very pleasant.

Suddenly there fell on his ear the sound of horses trotting quickly. He looked round, and some hundred yards or so to his right, at a place where four roads met under high arching trees, he saw two riders, a man and a woman, pa.s.s by. They had checked their horses to a walk, and as their voices floated over to him, the woman's voice seemed extraordinarily, almost absurdly, familiar--in fact, he could have sworn it was Sylvia Bailey's voice.

Chester stopped in his walk and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. She must indeed be dwelling in his thoughts if he thus involuntarily evoked her presence where she could by no stretch of possibility be.

But that wandering echo brought Sylvia Bailey very near to Chester, and once more he recalled her as he had seen her sitting at the gambling table the night before.

In grotesque juxtaposition he remembered, together with that picture of Sylvia as he had seen her last night, the case of a respectable old lady, named Mrs. Meeks, the widow of a clergyman who had had a living in the vicinity of Market Dalling.

Not long after her husband's death this old lady--she had about three hundred a year, and Chester had charge of her money matters--went abroad for a few weeks to Mentone. Those few weeks had turned Mrs. Meeks into a confirmed gambler. She now lived entirely at Monte Carlo in one small room.

He could not help remembering now the kind of remarks that were made by the more prosperous inhabitants of Market Dalling, his fellow citizens, when they went off for a short holiday to the South, in January or February. They would see this poor lady, this Mrs. Meeks, wandering round the gaming tables, and the sight would amuse and shock them. Chester knew that one of the first things said to him after the return of such people would be, "Who d'you think I saw at Monte Carlo? Why, Mrs. Meeks, of course! It's enough to make her husband turn in his grave."

And now he told himself ruefully that it would be enough to make honest George Bailey turn in his grave could he see his pretty, sheltered Sylvia sitting in the Casino at Lacville, surrounded by the riffraff collected there last night, and actually taking an active part in the game as well as risking her money with business-like intentness.

He wondered if he could persuade Sylvia to leave Lacville soon. In any case he would himself stay on here three or four days--he had meant only to stay twenty-four hours, for he was on his way to join a friend whose Swiss holiday was limited. The sensible thing for Sylvia to do would be to go back to England.

Chester reached the Villa du Lac at half-past eleven and as he went out into the charming garden where he was told he would find Mrs. Bailey he told himself that Lacville was not without some innocent attractions. But Mrs. Bailey was not alone in this lovely garden. Sitting on the lawn by her was the Frenchman who had been with her when Chester had first caught sight of her at the Casino the night before.

The two were talking so earnestly that they only became aware of his approach when he was close to them, and though Chester was not a particularly observant man, he had an instant and most unpleasant impression that he had come too soon; that Sylvia was not glad to see him; and that the Frenchman was actually annoyed, even angered, by his sudden appearance.

"We might begin lunch a little earlier than twelve o'clock," said Sylvia, getting up. "They serve lunch from half-past eleven, do they not?" she turned to the Comte de Virieu.

"Yes, Madame, that is so," he said; and then he added, bowing, "And now perhaps I should say good-bye. I am going into Paris, as you know, early this afternoon, and then to Brittany. I shall be away two nights."

"You will remember me to your sister, to--to the d.u.c.h.esse," faltered Sylvia.

Chester looked at her sharply. This Frenchman's sister? The d.u.c.h.esse?--how very intimate Sylvia seemed to be with the fellow!

As the Count turned and sauntered back to the house she said rather breathlessly,

"The Comte de Virieu has been very kind to me, Bill. He took me into Paris to see his sister; she is the d.u.c.h.esse d'Eglemont. You will remember that the Duc d'Eglemont won the Derby two years ago?"

And as he made no answer she went on, as if on the defensive.

"The Comte de Virieu has to go away to the funeral of his G.o.dmother. I am sorry, for I should have liked you to have become friends with him. He was at school in England--that is why he speaks English so well."

While they were enjoying the excellent luncheon prepared for them by M.

Polperro, Chester was uncomfortably aware that the Count, sitting at his solitary meal at another table, could, should he care to do so, overhear every word the other two were saying.

But Paul de Virieu did not look across or talk as an Englishman would probably have done had he been on familiar terms with a fellow-guest in an hotel. Instead he devoted himself, in the intervals of the meal, to reading a paper. But now and again Chester, glancing across, could see the other man's eyes fixed on himself with a penetrating, thoughtful look. What did this Frenchman mean by staring at him like that?

As for Sylvia, she was obviously ill at ease. She talked quickly, rather disconnectedly, of the many things appertaining to her life at home, in Market Dalling, which she had in common with the English lawyer. She only touched on the delightful time she had had in Paris, and she said nothing of Lacville.

Long before the others had finished, Count Paul got up; before leaving the dining-room, he turned and bowed ceremoniously to Sylvia and her companion. With his disappearance it seemed to Chester that Sylvia at once became her natural, simple, eager, happy self. She talked less, she listened more, and at last Chester began to enjoy his holiday.

They went out again into the garden, and the wide lawn, with its shaded s.p.a.ces of deep green, was a delicious place in which to spend a quiet, idle hour. They sat down and drank their coffee under one of the cedars of Lebanon.

"This is a very delightful, curious kind of hotel," he said at last. "And I confess that now I understand why you like Lacville. But I do wonder a little, Sylvia"--he looked at her gravely--"that you enjoy going to that Casino."

"You see, there's so very little else to do here!" she exclaimed, deprecatingly. "And then, after all, Bill, I don't see what harm there is in risking one's money if one can afford to do so!"

He shook his head at her--playfully, but seriously too. "Don't you?" he asked dryly.

"Why, there's Madame Wachner," said Sylvia suddenly, and Chester thought there was a little touch of relief in her voice.