Part 15 (1/2)

How completely this answer undid my purpose I could never set down. The man was my only possible hope. In the haste of my conclusions I had never found time to remember that I might not catch him; that every _flaneur_ was. .h.i.ther and thither like a will-o'-the-wisp on such a night. In vain I asked, nay, implored, for information--they could give me none; and when further importunity was plainly a farce, I had no alternative but to go to the Rue Boissiere, in the ultimate hope that Barre's destination was there, and that he had called upon his _fiancee_ before the hour of the appointment. But upon this I was determined, that until I had found him Mademoiselle Bernier should not wear the bracelet, though I stood at her side from that hour to midnight.

My first attempt culminating unfruitfully, I quitted the pa.s.sage of the hotel, being still bent upon the journey to the Rue Boissiere, and was again upon the pavement before the cafe, when I saw the Italian for the third time. He stood upon the very edge of the curbstone, undisguisedly waiting for me, so that upon a sudden impulse, which had wisdom in it, I walked over to him, and this time he did not turn away.

”Forgive the question,” said I, in my miserable French, ”but you are betraying an interest in my movements which is unusual; in fact, you have followed me from my hotel, I think?”

”Exactly,” he replied, having even less of the tongue than I had, though I make no attempt to reproduce the vagaries of his idiom. ”I followed you here, as you say----”

”For what purpose, may I ask?”

”To warn you!”

”To warn me!”

”Certainly, since you carry in your pocket the topaz bracelet.”

”Oh,” said I, taken aback at his false conclusion, ”it is that, is it? I am much obliged to you, but I don't happen to possess such a thing.”

”_Mon Dieu!_” said he; ”then she did not sell it to you?”

”She certainly did not!”

”And she will wear it at the ball to-night?”

”Of course!”

”Mother of G.o.d! she is a dead woman then.”

It is often possible to tell from the chord of voice a man strikes in conversation whether he be friend or enemy. I knew from the sympathetic note in this earnest exclamation that I had to do with one who wished well to Mademoiselle Bernier; but the very sorrow of the words struck me chill with fear. It was plain that I must shape a bold course if I would learn the whole moment of the mystery, and observing that the stranger was a man of much shabbiness and undoubted poverty--if that might be judged by his dress--I played the only possible card at once.

”Look here,” said I, ”this is no time for words like this. Come into the cafe with me, and I will pay you fifty pounds for what you know. It shall be worth a hundred if you convince me that you have done a substantial kindness to Mademoiselle Bernier.”

He looked at his watch before he made answer. Then he said,--

”The offer is a fair one, but I do not seek your money. We have two hours in which to save her, but before I go with you, you shall swear to me that anything I may tell you will never be used against me here or in any other country.”

”Of course,” said I; ”you don't think I am a policeman, do you? I have no other interest but that of the lady.”

”Nor I,” said he; and he followed me into the cafe, but the place was so intolerably full that I bade him come with me to a little wine-shop in the Rue Lafayette, and there we found a vacant table, and I ordered his absinthe and a gla.s.s of coffee for myself. Scarcely, however, had he lighted his cigarette before he began to talk of the matter we had come upon.

”First,” said he, ”tell me, did Mademoiselle speak of a letter she had received?”

”She not only spoke of it, but she gave it to me to read,” I replied.

”Well,” said he, ”I wrote it.”

”I gathered that from your words,” said I next; ”and of course you wrote it for very good reasons?”

”You shall hear them,” said he, sipping freely of his drink. ”That bracelet was last worn at the _Mi-Careme_ Ball in Ma.r.s.eilles by a girl named Berthe Duval. She was carried from the ball-room stabbed horribly, at one o'clock in the morning. She died in my arms, for in one week she was to have been my wife.”

”And the a.s.sa.s.sin?” I asked.