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

coming of Mr. Stephens it was to him that Mrs. Dampier had instinctively turned in her distress and suspense; now she naturally consulted, and deferred to the advice of, the older man and older friend.

But Mr. Stephens was not able to do more than had already been done. He listened to what all those about him had to say concerning John Dampier’s disappearance, and he carefully went over the ground already covered by Senator Burton and his son. He, too, saw the British Consul; he, too, was granted a short but cordial interview with the Prefect of Police; but not even to the Senator did he advance any personal theory as to what could account for the extraordinary occurrence.

Members of the legal profession are the same all the world over. If they are wise men and good lawyers, they keep their own counsel.

Perhaps because he himself had a son who was Gerald’s age, the English solicitor took, from the first, a very special interest in the young American architect. Soon they were on excellent terms with one another—indeed, it was with Gerald Burton that he found he had most to do. The young man naturally accompanied him to all those places where the presence of a first-rate interpreter was likely to be useful, and Gerald Burton also pursued a number of independent enquiries on his own account.

But nothing was of any avail; they were baffled at every turn, and soon this search for a vanished man became, to one of the two now so strenuously engaged in it, the most sinister and disturbing of the many problems with which he had had to deal as a trusted family lawyer.

The screen of memory bears many blurred and hazy impressions on its surface, but now and again some special dramatic happening remains fixed there in a series of sharply-etched pictures in which every line has its retrospective meaning and value.

Such was to be the case with Mr. Stephens and the curious days he spent in Paris seeking for John Dampier. He was there a whole week, and every succeeding day was packed with anxious, exciting interviews and expeditions, each of which it was hoped might yield some sort of clue. But what remained indelibly fixed on the English lawyer’s screen of memory were three or four at the time apparently insignificant conversations which in no case could have done much to solve the problem he had set himself to solve.

The first of these was a short conversation, in the middle of that busy week, with Nancy Dampier.

After the first interview in which she had told him her version of what had happened the night of her own and her husband’s arrival in Paris, he had had very little talk with her, and at no time had he expressed any opinion as to what could have happened to John Dampier. But at last he felt it his duty to try and probe a little more than he had felt it at first possible to do into the question of a possible motive or motives.

“I’m afraid,” he began, “that there’s very little more to do than has been already done. I mean, of course, for the present. And in your place, Nancy, I should come back to England, and wait there for any news that may reach you.”

As she shook her head very decidedly, he went on gravely:—“I know it is open to you to remain in Paris; but, my dear, I cannot believe that your husband is in Paris. If he were, we must by now, with the help of the French police—the most expert in the world, remember—have come across traces of him, and that whether he be dead or alive.”

But Nancy did not take the meaning he had hoped to convey by that last word. On the contrary:—

“Do you think,” she asked, and though her lips quivered she spoke very quietly, “that Jack is dead, Mr. Stephens? I know that Senator Burton’s son has come to believe that he is.”

“No,” said the English lawyer very seriously, “no, Nancy, I do not believe that your husband is dead. It is clear that had he been killed or injured that first morning in the Paris streets we should know it by now. The police assert, and I have no reason to doubt them, that they have made every kind of enquiry. No, they, like me, believe that your husband has left Paris.”

“Left Paris?” repeated Nancy in a bewildered tone.

“Yes, my dear. As to his motive in doing so—I suppose—forgive me for asking you such a question—I suppose that you and he were on quite comfortable and—well, happy terms together?”

Nancy looked at him amazed—and a look of great pain and indignation flashed into her face.

“Why of course we were!” she faltered. “Absolutely—ideally happy! You didn’t know Jack, Mr. Stephens; you were always prejudiced against him. Why, he’s never said—I won’t say an unkind word, but a cold or indifferent word since our first meeting. We never even had what is called”—again her lips quivered—‘“a lovers’ quarrel.’”

“Forgive me,” he said earnestly. “I had to ask you. The question as to what kind of relations you and he were on when you arrived in Paris has been raised by almost every human being whom I have seen in the last few days.”

“How horrible! How horrible!” murmured Nancy, hiding her face in her hands.

Then she raised her head, and looked straight at the lawyer:—“Tell anyone that asks you that,” she exclaimed, “that no woman was ever made happier by a man than my Jack made me. We were too happy. He said so that last evening—he said,” she ended her sentence with a sob, “that his happiness made him afraid—”

“Did he?” questioned Mr. Stephens thoughtfully. “That was an odd thing for him to say, Nancy.”

But she took no notice of the remark. Instead she, in her turn, asked a question:—“Do the police think that Jack may have left me of his own free will?”

Mr. Stephens looked extremely uncomfortable. “Well, some of them have thought that it is a possibility which should be kept in view.”

“But you do not think so?” She looked at him searchingly.

The lawyer’s courage failed him.

“No, of course not,” he said hastily, and poor little Nancy believed him.

“And now,” he went on quickly, relieved indeed to escape from a painful and difficult subject, “I, myself, must go home on Saturday. Cannot I persuade you to come back to England with me? My wife would be delighted if you would come to us—and for as long as you like.”

She hesitated—“No, Mr. Stephens, you are very, very kind, but I would rather remain on in Paris for a while. Miss Burton has asked me to stay with them till they leave for America. Once they are gone, if I still have no news, I will do what you wish. I will come back to England.”

The second episode, if episode it can be called, which was to remain vividly present in the memory of the lawyer, took place on the fifth day of his stay in Paris.

He and Gerald had exhausted what seemed every possible line of enquiry, when the latter put in plain words what, in deference to his father’s wish, he had hitherto tried to conceal from Mr. Stephens—his suspicions of the Poulains.

“I haven’t said so to you before,” he began abruptly, “but I feel quite sure that this Mr. John Dampier is dead.”

He spoke the serious words in low, impressive tones, and the words, the positive assertion, queerly disturbed Nancy’s lawyer, and that though he did not in the least share in his companion’s view. But still he felt disturbed, perhaps unreasonably so considering how very little he still knew of the speaker. He was indeed almost as disturbed as he would have been had it been his own son who had suddenly put forward a wrong and indeed an untenable proposition.

He turned and faced Gerald Burton squarely.

“I cannot agree with you,” he spoke with considerable energy, “and I am sorry you have got such a notion in your mind. I am quite sure that John Dampier is alive. He may be in confinement somewhere, held to ransom—things of that sort have happened in Paris before now. But be that as it may, it is my firm conviction that we shall have news of him within a comparatively short time. Of course I cannot help seeing what you suspect, namely, that there has been foul play on the part of the Poulains. But no other human being holds this theory but yourself. Your father—you must forgive me for saying so—has known these people a great deal longer than you have, and he tells me he would stake everything on their substantial integrity. And the police speak very highly of them too. Besides, in this world one must look for a motive—indeed, one must always look for a motive. But in this case no one that we know—I repeat, Mr. Burton, no one that we know of—had any motive for injuring Mr. Dampier.”

Gerald Burton looked up quickly:—“You mean by that there may be someone whom we do not know of who may have had a motive for spiriting him away?”

Mr. Stephens nodded curtly. He had not meant to say even so much as that.

“I want you to tell me,” went on the young American earnestly, “exactly what sort of a man this John Dampier is—or was?”

The lawyer took off his spectacles; he began rubbing the glasses carefully.

“Well,” he said at last, “that isn’t a question I find it easy to answer. I made a certain number of enquiries about him when he became engaged to Miss Tremain, and I am bound to tell you, Mr. Burton, that the answers, as far as they went, were quite satisfactory. The gentleman in whose house the two met—I mean poor Nancy and Dampier—had, and has, an extremely high opinion of him.”

“Mrs. Dampier once spoke to me as if she thought you did not like her husband?” Gerald Burton looked straight before him as he said the words he felt ashamed of uttering. And yet—and yet he did so want to know the truth as to John Dampier!

Mr. Stephens looked mildly surprised. “I don’t think I ever gave her any reason to suppose such a thing,” he said hesitatingly. “Mr. Dampier was eager, as all men in love are eager, to hasten on the marriage. You see, Mr. Burton”—he paused, and Gerald looked up quickly:—

“Yes, Mr. Stephens?”

“Well, to put it plainly, John Dampier was madly in love”—the speaker thought his companion winced, and, rather sorry than glad at the success of his little ruse, he hurried on:—“that being so he naturally wished to be married at once. But an English marriage settlement—especially when the lady has the money, which was the case with Miss Tremain—cannot be drawn up in a few days. Nancy herself was willing to assent to everything he wished; in fact I had to point out to her that it is impossible to get engaged on Monday and married on Tuesday! I suppose she thought that because I very properly objected to some such scheme of theirs, I disliked John Dampier. This was a most unreasonable conclusion, Mr. Burton!”

Gerald Burton felt disappointed. He did not believe that the English lawyer was answering truly. He did not stay to reflect that Mr. Stephens was not bound to answer indiscreet questions, and that when a young man asks an older man whether or no he dislikes someone, and that someone is a client, the question is certainly indiscreet.

In a small way the painful mystery was further complicated by the attitude of Mère Bideau. Bribes and threats were alike unavailing to make the old