The End of Her Honeymoon by Marie Belloc Lowndes (literature books to read .TXT) 📖

in his card and the note from the President of the French Senate, he was taken rapidly down a long corridor, and ushered into a splendid apartment, of which the walls were hung with red velvet, and which might have been a reception room in an Italian Palace rather than the study of a French police official.

“Monsieur le Préfet will be back from déjeuner in a few minutes,” said the man, softly closing the door.

The Senator looked round him with a feeling of keen interest and curiosity. After the weary, baffling hours of fruitless effort in which he had spent the last three days, it was more than pleasant to find himself at the fountainhead of reliable information.

Since the far-off days when, as a boy, he had been thrilled by the brilliant detective stories of which French writers, with the one outstanding exception of Poe, then had a monopoly, there had never faded from Senator Burton’s mind that first vivid impression of the power, the might, the keen intelligence, and yes, of the unscrupulousness, of the Paris police.

But now, having penetrated into the inner shrine of this awe-inspiring organism, he naturally preferred to think of the secret autocratic powers, and of the almost uncanny insight of those to whom he was about to make appeal. Surely they would soon probe the mystery of John Dampier’s disappearance.

The door opened suddenly, and the Paris Prefect of Police walked into the room. He was holding Senator Burton’s card, and the letter of introduction with which that card had been accompanied, in his sinewy nervous looking hand.

Bowing, smiling, apologising with more earnestness than was necessary for the few moments the American Senator had had to await his presence, the Prefect motioned his guest to a chair.

“I am very pleased,” he said in courtly tones, “to put myself at the disposal of a member of the American Senate. Ah, sir, your country is a wonderful country! In a sense, the parent of France—for was not America the first great nation to become a Republic?”

Senator Burton bowed, a little awkwardly, in response to this flowery sentiment.

He was telling himself that Monsieur Beaucourt was quite unlike the picture he had mentally formed, from youth upwards, of the Paris Prefect of Police.

There was nothing formidable, nothing for the matter of that in the least awe-inspiring, about this tired, amiable-looking man. The Prefect was also lacking in the alert, authoritative manner which the layman all the world over is apt to associate with the word “police.”

Monsieur Beaucourt sat down behind his ornate buhl writing-table, and shooting out his right hand he pressed an electric bell.

With startling suddenness, a panel disappeared noiselessly into the red velvet draped wall, and in the aperture so formed a good-looking young man stood smiling.

“My secretary, Monsieur le Sénateur—my secretary, who is also my nephew.”

The Senator rose and bowed.

“André? Please say that I am not to be disturbed till this gentleman’s visit is concluded.” The young man nodded: and then he withdrew as quickly, as silently, as he had appeared; and the panel slipped noiselessly back behind him.

“And now tell me exactly what it is that you wish me to do for you,” said the Prefect, with a weary sigh, which was, however, softened by a pleasant smile. “We are not as omnipotent as our enemies make us out to be, but still we can do a good deal, and we could do a good deal more were it not for the Press! Ah, Monsieur le Sénateur, that is the only thing I do not like about your great country. Your American Press sets so bad, so very bad, an example to our poor old world!”

A thin streak of colour came into Monsieur Beaucourt’s cheek, a gleam of anger sparkled in his grey eyes.

“Yes, greatly owing to the bad example set in America, and of late in England too, quite a number of misguided people nowadays go to the Press before they come to us for redress! All too soon,” he shook a warning finger, “they find they have entered a mouse-trap from which escape is impossible. They rattle at the bars—but no, they are caught fast! Once they have brought those indefatigable, those indiscreet reporters on the scene, it is too late to draw back. They find all their most private affairs dragged into the light of day, and even we can do very little for them then!”

Senator Burton nodded gravely. He wished his son were there to hear these words.

“And now let us return to our muttons,” said the Prefect leaning forward. “I understand from the President of the Senate that you require my help in a rather delicate and mysterious matter.”

“I do not know that the matter is particularly delicate, though it is certainly mysterious,” and then Senator Burton explained, in as few and clear words as possible, the business which had brought him there—the disappearance, three days before, of the English artist, John Dampier, and of the present sad plight of Dampier’s wife.

Monsieur Beaucourt threw himself back in his chair. His face lit up, it lost its expression of apathetic fatigue; and his first quick questions showed him a keen and clever cross-examiner.

At once he seized on the real mystery, and that though the Senator had not made more of it than he could help. That was the discrepancy in the account given by the Poulains and by Mrs. Dampier respectively as to the lady’s arrival at the hotel.

But even Monsieur Beaucourt failed to elicit the fact that Senator Burton’s acquaintance with Mrs. Dampier was of such short standing. He assumed that she was a friend of the Burton family, and the Senator allowed the assumption to go by default.

“The story you have told me,” the Prefect said at last, “is a very curious story, Monsieur le Sénateur. But here we come across stranger things every day. Still, certain details make the disappearance of this English gentleman rather stranger than usual. I gather that the vanished man’s wife is a charming person?”

“Extremely charming!” said the Senator quickly. “And I should say quite truthful—in fact this discrepancy between her account and that of the Poulains has worried and perplexed me very much.”

“Do not let that worry you,” said the other thoughtfully. “If this young lady, your friend, be telling the truth, it is very probable that the Poulains began to lie in the hope of avoiding trouble for themselves: having lied they found themselves obliged to stick to their story. You see just now our hotel-keepers are coining gold, and they do not like this very pleasant occupation of theirs interrupted, for even the best of reasons. If this gentleman left the hotel the same night that he arrived there—as I can see you yourself are inclined to believe, Monsieur le Sénateur—then you may be sure that the hotel people, even if they did see him for a few moments, would not care to admit that they had done so. I therefore advise that we put them and their account of what took place out of our minds. From what you tell me, you have already done what I may call the usual things?”

“Yes,” said Senator Burton frankly. “My son and I have done everything which common sense could suggest to us. Thus we at once gave a description of the missing man to the police station of the quarter where both the Hôtel Saint Ange and Mr. Dampier’s studio are situated. But, owing doubtless to the fact that all your officials are just now very busy and very overworked, we did not get quite as much attention paid to the case as I should have liked. I do not feel quite sure even now that the missing man did not meet with a street accident.”

“I can ascertain that for you in a moment.”

Again the Prefect pressed a pedal. A panel, and this time a different panel from the first, slid back, and again the secretary appeared.

Monsieur Beaucourt said a brief word or two, and a few moments later a tabulated list, written in round-hand, lay before him.

“Here are all the accidents which have occurred in Paris during the last ninety hours.”

He ran his eyes down the list; and then, rising, handed the sheets to Senator Burton.

“I think this disposes of the idea that an accident may have befallen your friend in the streets,” said the Prefect briefly.

And the Senator, handing back the list, acknowledged that this was so.

“May I ask if you know much of the habits and way of life of this vanished bridegroom?” asked the Prefect thoughtfully. “I understand he belongs to the British Colony here.”

“Mr. Dampier was not my friend,” said the Senator hurriedly. “It is Mrs. Dampier—”

“Ah, yes—I understand—the three weeks’ bride? It is she you know. Well, Monsieur le Sénateur, the best thing you and I can do is to look at the artist’s dossier. That is quite likely to provide us with a useful clue.”

The Senator felt a thrill of anticipatory interest. All his life he had heard of the dossiers kept by the Paris police, of how every dweller in the great city, however famous, however obscure, had a record in which the most intimate details of their lives were set down in black and white. Somehow he had never quite believed in these French police dossiers.

“Surely you are not likely to have a dossier of Mr. Dampier?” he exclaimed, “he is a British subject, and, as far as I know, a perfectly respectable man.”

The Prefect smiled. “The mere fact that he is an English subject living in Paris entitles him to a dossier. In fact everybody who is anybody in any kind of society, from that frequented by the Apaches to that of the Faubourg Saint Germain, has a dossier. And from what you tell me this artist, who won a Salon medal, and who has already had a distinguished career as a painter, is certainly ‘somebody.’ Now, please tell me exactly the way to spell his surname and his Christian name. English names are so perplexing.”

Very clearly the Senator spelt out—first the word “John” and then the word “Dampier.”

And as, under his dictation, the Prefect of Police wrote the two distinctive names of the missing man, there came a look of frowning perplexity and indecision over his face.

“It’s an odd thing,” he muttered, “but I seem to have heard that name quite lately, and in some strange connection! Now what could it have been? As you probably know, Monsieur le Sénateur, there is a French form of that name, Dampierre. But no—it is that John which puzzles me—I am quite sure that I have heard the name ‘John Dampier’ quite recently.”

“Isn’t it likely,” suggested the Senator, “that the man’s disappearance has been reported to you? My son and I have done everything in our power to make the fact known, and Mr. Dampier’s name and particulars as to his appearance have been at the Morgue since yesterday.”

“Well, that’s possible, of course. Just now my poor head has to hold far more than it was ever meant to do. The presence of so many royal personages in Paris always means extra trouble for me—especially when they are here ‘incognito.’ By the way, it would amuse, perhaps shock you, to see the dossiers of some of these Princes and Grand Dukes! But these are, of course, kept very secret. Meanwhile, I must not forget Mr. John Dampier.”

This time the Prefect did not ring his bell. Instead he blew down a tube. “You would scarcely believe it,” he said, looking up suddenly, “but these tubes have only just been installed! I had a regular battle over the matter with the Treasury. But now that the battle is won,