MRS3 The Velvet Hand (15 page)

Mme Storey was not available at the moment. I felt that the first thing to do was to obtain further information about this M. Guimet. I so told Mlle Monge, and said I would immediately come to the Majestic to relieve her.

When I entered the Majestic for the second time, the first person I beheld was Mrs. Ellis, who was walking back and forth in the foyer in an uncertain way. She saw me at the same moment and came hastening toward me.

"What a surprise!" she cried. "How are you! It's so nice to see a friendly face!"

This was rather disconcerting. I was still more astonished by the change in her appearance. She was openly and feverishly excited now; a bright red spot burned in either of her sallow cheeks, and the pupils of her eyes were as much distended as if she had atropine in them. A dangerous excitement.

"Are you very busy?" she went on breathlessly. "I'm dying to go shopping and I don't know where to go or what to ask for."

I saw that I need have no anxiety about explaining my presence in the Majestic. "Just a minute until I make an inquiry at the bureau," I said. "Then I'll be happy to go with you."

In a shadowy corner of the foyer I saw Mlle Monge taking us in. It was not necessary for me to communicate with her then, as she had her instructions. I inquired for a mythical person at the bureau and then returned to Mrs. Ellis.

"My friend has not arrived," I said.

She was not in the least interested. As we stood on the sidewalk waiting for a taxi, her head kept turning from side to side.

"That man stared at me," she said with a simper. "I mean the young man in the shepherd's plaid suit who just went in. Oh, Paris! Paris! Paris!"

"You are happier than you were yesterday," I ventured.

With a lunatic change of mood she whispered dully: "Is it happiness? ... I don't know.... I'm terrified."

I wondered if she were a secret drinker. I had seen no signs of it on shipboard.

A taxi came up. I told the driver to take us to the Place de l'Opéra as a good point to radiate from. We hustled down the Champs-Élysées. Mrs. Ellis stared with an unwholesome eagerness into the faces of the people in the passing motors.

"It's more fun walking," she said. "More chance of an adventure. And yet, not an hour ago, when I was coming home in a taxi, a man in another cab raised his hat to me and smiled. Such a gentlemanly looking fellow with a gray Fedora and a monocle. I was quite flustered. And, my dear, he ordered his chauffeur to turn around and follow. But I lost him in the traffic.... I must tell you, I had taken the taxi in order to escape a young fellow in the street who brushed against me and smiled.... Isn't this a dreadful city? How it makes one's heart beat! ... It will seem very dull in Minneapolis. Our men are such stick-in-the-muds. No verve, no romance, no abandon."

"What is it particularly that you want to buy?" I asked.

"An evening gown. Something I can wear at dinner to-night. I want to charm my husband. My dear, I've gradually allowed myself to dress in as dull a style as if I were over forty!"

Which of course she was!

It is not so easy to buy good ready-made dresses in Paris, but Mme Storey had told me of a little shop in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré to which the great dressmakers sent their model dresses to be sold, and thither we had ourselves carried. I soon perceived that Mrs. Ellis had no intention of listening to any advice from me and ceased to offer it. She chose a snaky sheath gown covered with green sequins. It was a gorgeous affair, but most unsuitable for her; made her skin look as yellow as saffron.

Nevertheless, she stood clad in it before a long mirror, and raising her arms above her head, like a girl, murmured dreamily: "I am charming!"

She refused to leave the shop until she had seen the dress dispatched to the Hôtel Majestic by a midinette.

Out in the street again, she said with a sidelong look: "Let us go to a café. One of those places where we can sit out on the street and watch everybody. Which is the most famous rendezvous of them all?"

"The Café de la Paix, undoubtedly," I said. "They call it the centre of civilization. If you sit there long enough, everybody in the world will pass by, they say."

"In such a place we are sure to be spoken to," she said with a secret smile. "Would you be afraid?"

"Not at all," I said.

"What would you do?"

"Speak back again—if I liked the looks of the speaker."

"Oh, you're so matter-of-fact," she said impatiently. "That will never get you anywhere."

"Where do you want to get to?" I asked, smiling.

Her strained face showed no answering smile. "I want—I want—" she said incoherently—"I want everything life has to offer. After this I mean to take it as my right. I am no common woman. Colour! perfume! happiness! I will lavish my treasures! ... Will you agree this afternoon to follow wherever adventure may lead us?" she demanded breathlessly.

"Yes," I said. I felt safe in promising.

"I am utterly reckless!" she cried. "The spirit of a bacchante has entered into me. I mean to drain the cup of life to the dregs!"

You would have had to see the aging, sallow woman to appreciate how tragi-comic this sounded.

It suddenly occurred to her that it was hardly in line with her moral protestations on shipboard. "I expect you disapprove," she said with another sidelong look. "But I can't help it. Something within me is released. I don't care what happens."

"I am no moralist," I said. "I would like to cut loose myself."

"Then stick to me," she said with an insane archness. "Wherever I go, things are bound to happen!"

In a few minutes we were seated at the famous corner where all the streams of Paris converge. It was crowded, as it always is, by night or day, and we had to hang about until one of the little tables in the front rank was vacated and we could pounce on it. The passing throng all but trod on our feet. I could have been perfectly happy just watching. I suggested coffee, tea, or an ice to Mrs. Ellis, but she would have none of it.

"What are those people drinking?" she asked, indicating a particularly rakish-looking couple at the next table.

"
Fine à l'eau
," I said. "That is Parisian for brandy and soda."

"I'll have one of those," she said.

I did not expect to obtain any information from her by direct questioning; still, I thought it was worth trying. "What have you been doing since we got here?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing in particular," she said inattentively. "Just looking around."

"What did you do this morning?"

The secret look on her face intensified. "My husband and I drove around town in a taxicab," she said with a calculated vagueness.

"What I would like to see is a bit of old Paris," I hazarded. "If I only had somebody to take me."

"I am not interested in anything old," she said. ".... The Englishman with the blue collar is staring at me."

I saw that it was useless to pursue my questions.

The woman beside me was obsessed. Her head kept turning restlessly this way and that, her distended eyes searching in the faces of the men who sat near. Fattish, complacent creatures, most of them; settled in their chairs as if somebody had squashed them down on the seats rather hard. I got no suggestion of the rampant male that Mrs. Ellis affected to perceive everywhere. A good many of them were staring at her naturally, her actions were so peculiar; but it was not at all in the manner that she fondly supposed. It made me rather uncomfortable, but it was all in the way of my job. Of course, nobody spoke to us.

For more than an hour she kept up the pretence that she was the cynosure of every eye. "I hope you'll forgive me for making you so conspicuous," she said archly. "I suppose you are not accustomed to it."

I assured her that was all right.

She ordered cigarettes and attempted to smoke one with airy grace, but choked over it. One noticed, notwithstanding her confidence, that she was excessively bitter in her censures upon such women who passed as had annexed a man.

And then, suddenly, the game seemed to be up. She rose abruptly. She had had several ponies of cognac and was slightly affected by it.

"I congratulate you on your success as a chaperon," she said, crassly ill-natured. "I will have to give you a testimonial: Warranted to keep men at arm's length! I don't know why I came out with you, I'm sure. I wish Mrs. Dartrey was here."

I consoled myself for her rudeness by thinking: "If she were here, my lady, no man would look at you!"

I put her in a cab and sent her to the Majestic. I knew she was expecting to meet her husband there and would be safe with him during the evening. And that liberated me. I returned to the Crillon with a light heart.

Mlle Monge reported that she had made further inquiries in the Rue des Tournelles but with small results. It appeared that none of his neighbours had a speaking acquaintance with M. Guimet, who was described as a studious and absent-minded scientist. He had been living in his present quarters for two years. Nothing was known of his antecedents. An elderly
femme de ménage
cared for his wants. She was well liked by the tradespeople chiefly because she was a liberal spender. A certain éclat attached to M. Guimet's establishment because of the handsomely dressed ladies who occasionally called upon him. Mlle Monge had then inquired at the Institut de France, and of the other learned societies, but had been unable to learn anything whatever concerning a scientific man by the name of Aristide Guimet. He was not known to the police.

Late in the afternoon of the following day I ran into Mrs. Ellis by accident as I crossed the Place Vendôme. That dependable Mlle Monge had her under observation. Mrs. Ellis looked at me point-blank without a sign of recognition. In order to get her attention I had to run after her and take her arm. A further extraordinary change had taken place in the woman. She seemed to have broken up overnight. Her hair was untidy and her eyes had the dulled look of one suffering from shock; her colour was ghastly.

At first I made believe not to notice anything amiss. "Fancy!" I cried, "of all the millions in Paris, you and I to meet here!"

"Let me alone," she muttered thickly. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Shall we go to Rumpelmayer's to tea?" I said.

She attempted pettishly to free her arm, but I clung to it. "You are ill," I said. "Let me help you."

"I'm all right," she muttered. "Let me go."

She was hardly a sympathetic figure; nevertheless, I was strongly affected on her behalf. After all, she was my countrywoman, and I had reason to believe her the victim of some devilish plot. I summoned the first passing taxi and put her into it. She was too apathetic to resist me. I told the man to drive to the Crillon. Mrs. Ellis's witless aspect scared me. I began to feel that this case was getting beyond me, and I determined to send Mlle Monge after Mme Storey, who was having tea with friends at the Ritz. I saw the Frenchwoman discreetly following in another cab.

I seated Mrs. Ellis in the little salon of our suite while I talked to Mlle Monge out in the corridor. She said:

"Mrs. Ellis made a round of the fashionable jewellery shops on the Rue de la Paix this morning. It was so early the shops were empty, and I couldn't follow her in without attracting attention, so I cannot state what her errand was. As far as I could see from the street, whenever she stated her errand, she was taken into a private room.

"She had déjeuner alone at the Majestic. Immediately afterward she had herself driven to the Rue des Tournelles again. She remained in that house about the same length of time as before. Neither before nor after that visit could I see any change from her usual look. She was always a little wild. She returned to the Majestic and had herself carried up in the lift. In a few minutes her husband descended, his face distorted with anger. I assumed that they had quarrelled. He left the hotel. Mrs. Ellis came down, and she then looked as you see her now. She left the hotel like one walking in her sleep. She walked the entire distance to the spot where you met her, seeing nothing."

I told Mlle Monge to ask Mme Storey to come at once, if she could, and to proceed directly to her bedroom, where I could speak to her before Mrs. Ellis saw her. I then returned to Mrs. Ellis.

"I am your friend," I said frankly. "Can't you tell me what is the matter?"

She struggled for some semblance of self-control. She wished to deceive me. "It is nothing," she said. "I feel a little ill. I am subject to it. I will just rest a little and then go home."

I appeared to be satisfied. "Is there anything I can get you?" I asked.

"Smelling salts," she suggested.

I fetched her the bottle. She sniffed of it gratefully and made out that she felt better. She kept her lids lowered to hide the look of blank agony in her eyes. It was very affecting.

"Shall I have tea brought up here?" I asked.

A nauseated look crossed her face. "No, please," she murmured. "I could not eat. I will go now."

By one expedient and another, I detained her for five minutes. At the end of that time I heard the door of Mme Storey's room close. I went to her and swiftly explained the situation. She returned with me to the salon.

"This is Mme Storey, Mrs. Ellis," I said.

It was too much for the nerves of the shaken woman. She lost her grip again. "What does she want of me?" she said hysterically. "Why was I brought here, anyway? I wish to go!"

There was a comfortable, sunny-tempered quality in Mme Storey's smile. "Let me explain myself first," she said. In a difficult situation, she always deals frankly. She described the nature of her profession and told how, upon boarding the
Gigantic
, Captain Sir Angus McMaster had asked her to do a favour for him.

"He believed that Mr. and Mrs. Dartrey were dangerous swindlers," she said.

Mrs. Ellis's jaw dropped. "The Dartreys,
swindlers
!" she gasped. "That can't be! ... At least they got nothing out of me!"

"Not directly," said Mme Storey. "But we believe they are working with somebody in Paris. Did they not send you to a man in Paris?"