Part 24 (1/2)

”Tell me what it is,” I implored.

”I would not, if it didn't mean more than my life to me.” He hesitated, and then, while I wondered what was to come, he bent forward and spoke a few hurried words in Spanish. He knew that to me Spanish was almost as familiar as English. He had heard me talk of the Spanish customs still existing in the part of California where I was born. He had heard me sing Spanish songs. We had sung them together--one or two I had taught him. But I had not taught him the language. He learned that, and three or four others at least, as a boy, when first he thought of taking up a diplomatic career.

They were so few words, and so quickly spoken, that I--remembering the warder--almost hoped they might pa.s.s unnoticed. But the man in uniform came nearer to us at once, looking angry and suspicious.

”That is forbidden,” he said to Ivor. Then, turning sharply to me. ”What language was that?”

”Spanish,” I answered. ”He only bade me good-bye. We have been--very dear friends, and there was a misunderstanding, but--it's over now. It was natural he shouldn't want you to hear his last words to me.”

”Nevertheless, it is forbidden,” repeated the warder obstinately, ”and though the five minutes you were granted together are not over yet, the prisoner must go with me now. He has forfeited the rest of his time, and must be reported.”

With this, he ordered Ivor to leave the room, in a tone which sounded to me so brutal that I should have liked him to be shot, and the whole French police force exterminated. To hear a little underbred policeman dare to speak like that to my big, brave, handsome Englishman, and to know that it would be childish and undignified of Ivor to resist--oh, I could have killed the creature with my own hands--I think!

As for Ivor, he said not another word, except ”good-bye,” smiling half sadly, half with a twinkle of grim humour. Then he went out, with his head high: and just at the door he threw me back one look. It said as plainly as if he had spoken: ”Remember, I know you won't fail me.”

I did indeed remember, and I prayed that I should have pluck and courage not to fail. But it was a very hard thing that he had asked me to do, and he had said well in saying that he would not ask it of me if it did not mean more than his life.

The words he had whispered so hastily and unexpectedly in Spanish, were these: ”Go to the room of the murder alone, and on the window balcony find in a box under flower-pots a folded doc.u.ment. Take this to Maxine.

Every moment counts.”

So it seemed that it was always of her he thought--of Maxine de Renzie!

And I, of all people in the world, was to help him, with her.

As I thought of this task he'd set me, and of all it meant, it appeared more and more incredible that he should have had the heart to ask such a thing of me. But--it ”meant more than his life.” And I would do the thing, if it could be done, because of my pride.

As I drove away from the prison a kind of fury grew in me and possessed me. I felt as if I had fire instead of blood in my veins. If I had known that death, or worse than death, waited for me in the ghastly house to which Ivor had sent me, I would still have gone there.

My first thought was to go instantly, and get it over--with success or failure. But calmer thoughts prevailed.

I hadn't looked at the papers yet. My only knowledge of last night's dreadful happenings had come from Uncle Eric and Lord Robert West. I had said to myself that I didn't wish to read the newspaper accounts of the murder, and of Ivor's supposed part in it. I remembered now, however, that I did not even know in what part of Paris the house of the murder was. I recalled only the name of the street, because it was a curiously grim one--like the tragedy that had been acted in it.

I couldn't tell the chaffeur to drive me to the street and house. That would be a stupid thing to do. I must search the papers, and find out from them something about the neighbourhood, for there would surely be plenty of details of that sort. And I must do this without first going back to the hotel, as it might be very difficult to get away again, once I was there. Now, n.o.body knew where I was, and I was free to do as I pleased, no matter what the consequences might be afterwards.

Pa.s.sing a Duval restaurant, I suddenly ordered my motor-cab to stop.

Having paid, and sent it away, I went upstairs and asked for a cup of chocolate at one of the little, deadly respectable-looking marble tables. Also I asked to see an evening paper.

It was a shock to find Ivor's photograph, horribly reproduced, gazing at me from the front page. The photograph was an old one, which had been a good deal shown in shop windows, much to Ivor's disgust, at about the time when he returned from his great expedition and published his really wonderful book. I had seen it before I met him, and as it must have been on sale in Paris as well as London, it had been easy enough for the newspaper people to get it. Then there came the story of the murder, built up dramatically. Hating it, sickened by it, I yet read it all. I knew where to go to find the house, and I knew that the murder had been committed in a back room on the top floor. Also I saw the picture of the window with the balcony. Ivor was supposed--according to Girard, the detective--to have tried in vain to escape by way of this high balcony, on hearing sounds outside the door while busy in searching the dead man's room. Girard said that he had seen him first, by the light of a bull's-eye lantern, which he--Girard--carried, standing at bay in the open window. There was a photograph of this window, taken from outside.

There was the balcony: and there was the balcony of another window with another balcony just like it, on the adjoining house. I looked at the picture, and judged that there would not be more than two feet of distance between the railings of those two balconies.

”That would be my way to get there--if I can get there at all,” I said to myself. But there was hardly any ”if” left in my mind now. I meant to get there.

By this time it was after five o'clock. I left the Duval restaurant, and again took a cab. The first thing I did was to send a _pet.i.t bleu_ to Aunt Lilian, saying that she wasn't to worry about me. I'd been hipped and nervous, and had gone out to see a friend who was--I'd just found out--staying in Paris. Perhaps I should stop with the friend to dinner; but at latest I should be back by nine or ten o'clock. That would save a bother at the hotel (for Aunt Lilian knew I had heaps of American friends who came every year to Paris), yet no one would know where to search for me, even if they were inclined.

Next, I drove to a street near the Rue de la Fille Sauvage, and dismissed my cab. I asked for no directions, but after one or two mistakes, found the street I wanted. Instead of going to the house of the murder, I pa.s.sed on to the next house on the left--the house of the balcony almost adjoining the dead man's.

I rang the bell for the concierge, and asked him if there were any rooms to let in the house. I knew already that there were, for I could see the advertis.e.m.e.nt of ”_Chambres a louer_” staring me in the face: but I spoke French as badly as I could, making three mistakes to every sentence, and begged the man to talk slowly in answering me.

There were several rooms to be had, it appeared, but it would have been too good to be true that the one I wanted should be empty. After we had jabbered awhile, I made the concierge understand that I was a young American journalist, employed by a New York paper. I wanted to ”write up” the murder of last night, according to my own ideas, and as of course the police wouldn't let me go into the room where it happened, the next best thing would be to take the room close to it, in the house adjoining. I wanted to be there only long enough to ”get the emotion, the sensation,” I explained, so as to make my article really dramatic.