by Heron Carvic
A hundred yards away along the Grands Boulevards, Librecksin, now gray-haired and mustached, with credentials as false as his English drawl, was trying to extract a firm promise from the girl behind the counter at the Agence Cook in the Place de la Madeleine that he and his friend would have reserved seats on the first flight to England when the fog dispersed. Once in England, he and Mantoni would be in small danger of a chance identification by Miss Seeton. Besides, when that wretched woman discovered the trick they had played on her last night—the delayed-action bomb that he had planted—as a precaution in case he had failed to put her out of commission, she would find herself too busy with police inquiries over here to give her attention to him. Never, in thirty-five years of resentment against all authority, had he hated anybody as he hated her. She had killed Tolla, disrupted his organization, reduced Mantoni to gibbering idiocy and forced him, Anatole Librecksin, to kill Natalie by mistake and to fly for his life. She would find now—his sudden wolf’s grin disturbed the girl who was attending him—that in him she had met her match. He was ahead of her—always supposing that she recovered from the knife.
Miss Seeton was recovering from surprise. She was surprised to find that Mr. Stemkos seemed actually pleased about that quite dreadful business last night and the fact that Cyril was in hospital.
It was no wonder, Stemkos decided the English police thought highly of this little woman who knew so precisely what she was doing. Within an hour of her arrival in Paris she had traced Anatole—it could only have been he—and this Italian artist to the Casino and had succeeded in enlisting the aid of members of the cast. How?
“Why,” he asked, “did you go to the theater?”
“To make a sketch of this girl, Lilianne,” began Miss Seeton, “because, you see . . .”
“And you did?”
Well, no. It dawned upon her that she hadn’t. So much had happened. Really, there’d been very little time.
“Do so now.”
Obediently she rummaged in her handbag, found crayons, opened her sketchbook and stared helplessly at the paper. Really. She couldn’t remember. After all, one had only glimpsed the young woman twice.
Stemkos watched her for a moment, then turned to the papers on his desk. With Anatole out, the accountants were in and a number of irregularities had come to light. A curious pattern had emerged. On every occasion that the social secretary had been in a position to make a killing he had failed to follow through and no serious loss had been incurred. Whether Librecksin had lost his nerve at the last moment, or whether a fortuitous change in personnel had balked him, it was impossible to judge without more data, but it was a fact that the engagement of a new assistant, the sacking of an employee, the promotion of an executive, or a switch of staff between Paris and Geneva had coincided with each questionable deal. He marked a query beside a paragraph, reached for the telephone and demanded the head accountant.
“Sur ce compte—l’article numéro dix-huit . . .”
With the French flowing smoothly past her understanding, Miss Seeton concentrated, reliving, re-viewing the people and events of the previous night. Of course . . . Now she began to see. . . . Her crayon made a tentative stroke; another. She picked a different color from the carton—another—working quickly, absorbed.
The shipowner finished his conversation, pushed the papers from him and leaned back, drumming his fingers on the desk. So the accountants had not noticed the coincidence; he must discover if there was any connection between Anatole’s failure to do any severe damage and this shift of personnel. Anatole . . . His jaw muscles tightened. Natalie had. paid. Anatole would pay—on that he was determined. In common with all controllers of an empire, Heracles Stemkos could not afford to lose face. To look ridiculous was one thing, but to be made to look ridiculous was another, and years of experience had taught him that the one way to fight publicity was with publicity; never to allow the world to jeer that you had retired to lick your wounds. The ideal course would be to remarry immediately . . . but no; he was cured of beddable beauties not worth their weight in alimony. What he needed . . . what he needed was someone more like himself—someone who understood him—someone like Mousha. He smiles slightly, remembering how angry he had been when his first wife, at the time of their divorce, had refused a settlement, insisting that if he wanted to be free of her she preferred to be equally affranchised. Mousha . . . Raising his eyes he saw Miss Seeton huddled in the tan leather armchair drawing as if her life depended on it—which by all accounts it might. Physical attributes apart, she reminded him of Mousha: something of the same uncompromising spirit; and independence and an honesty. What would Mousha—what would any woman of that type . . .? For instance:
“What would you,” he asked Miss Seeton, “say if I suggested that we married?”
So deep was she in the throes of composition, the question barely impinged upon her consciousness. “I should say no,” replied Miss Seeton and continued working.
The mere hint of opposition automatically aroused the fighter in him. “Then you would be the first woman who hasn’t jumped at the chance.”
She did wish Mr. Stemkos wouldn’t keep interrupting just when she’d nearly finished. “It says little for the women you have known. Or, perhaps, for your choice of them,” she answered abstractedly. There—she drew a final line—that was done. She held the sketch from her and examined it. Oh, dear. How very vulgar.
His smile broadened. He’d been right; she was like Mousha. “Well?” He held out his hand.
She gave him the sketchbook apologetically. “It looks—well, rather vulgar, I’m afraid.”
“And marriage?”
Marriage? Well—yes, that, too. Really, the foreign sense of humor. She laughed dutifully.
“You find the idea amusing?”
Well, no, frankly she didn’t. But naturally one couldn’t say so. “Well, no, frankly I don’t,” said Miss Seeton. She hastened to make amends. “That is to say, I’m sure it’s very funny, but these things are really a question of taste.” Not, perhaps, she decided, quite the happiest choice of word. She tried to soften the effect. “Or, of course, lack of it,” she added.
His smile faded and his jaw set. What had started as a trivial remark was developing into a contest of wills. He was beginning to visualize a partnership with this woman as a sound business proposition. The other side of marriage could be kept—on the side. His expression struck Miss Seeton as that of a spoiled boy in class who on being told he could not have his way was hardening in determination to be intractable. To keep control one must deflect his thoughts.
“What,” she demanded, “put this ridiculous idea into your head?”
It might have been Mousha speaking. “You happen to remind me of my first wife.”
“Then I suggest,” said Miss Seeton briskly—knowing nothing of the original Mme Stemkos, she saw no compliment—“you’d better remarry her. If, that is to say, she happens to be free. Or would consider you.”
He glowered, then throwing back his head, he laughed and pressed the button of the intercom.
“Yes, sir?”
“Find my first wife.”
“Your . . .? Yes, sir.”
He gazed at Miss Seeton with respect. “So, you undertake to solve all problems. Then come, let us pursue your problem in vulgarity.” He placed the sketchbook under the desk lamp.
There was a knock upon the door. Stemkos growled unintelligibly and his secretary entered, pert, trim and with a secret smile.
“The director of personnel to see you, sir.”
“Not now,” snapped the financier. He bounced to his feet, strode across the thick-pile carpet to the window, where he stood staring into the obscurity. “Wait,” he barked. This must mean that the accountants had uncovered the connection concerning Anatole that he’d been looking for. “I’ll see him for a minute, but after that I’m not to be disturbed—for any reason.”
“Very good, sir.” With her secret smile trembling toward giggles, the secretary fled.
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There was a feeling—an atmosphere. Miss Seeton was intrigued. A dumpy yet attractive woman, severe in black, her gray hair drawn to a neat bun, closed the door behind the secretary and stood waiting.
Stemkos flung away from the window toward his desk. “Well?”
“You desired to see me, sir?”
The woman’s voice halted him in midstride. He stood, lowering, his head slung from one to the other of the two women like a bull uncertain at which target to charge. A plot? No, it was clear they did not know each other. He ignored Miss Seeton and concentrated upon the figure by the door.
“What brought you here?”
“Your secretary. She has telephoned my office—it is but a few steps.”
“You, then—you are the director of personnel?”
“Yes, sir.”
He returned to his desk and waved her to the upright chair opposite him. “For how long?”
She sat, feet together, lips pursed, calculating on her fingers. “Let us see. It is fifteen years that I have worked here and—yes, there are ten years that I am director of personnel—sir.”
He banged the desk with his fist. “Don’t call me ‘sir.’”
Her eyelids dropped demurely. “No—Hero.”
No one but Mousha had ever called him that. It was—the shock jolted him—nearly twenty years. His effort to suppress a grin resulted in a scowl.
“The staff know who you are?”
“But naturally.”
“And they have helped to conceal your presence from me. It has been a conspiracy.”
“But yes,” she granted, “a conspiracy—of kindness.”
He regarded her shrewdly. “So then it has been you who were responsible for thwarting Anatole?”
“Twortin?” Her mind fumbled the translation. Traverser? Bloquer? She beamed in triumph. “Ah, yes, for blocking Anatole. There is a type that I have never trusted from the first time I have seen him. And from some while I have suspected . . . So—a little movement of personnel here—a change there—and he is become nervous. One did what one could.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Her limpid gaze questioned his sanity. “But is it not the obligation of a wife to guard her husband’s interests?”
Despite himself the grin broke through; his shoulders shook. “No one but you, Mousha, could take that attitude.”
“Attitude?” She rounded on him in indignation. “It is not an attitude. It is what I believe.”
For the first time in all those nearly twenty years the wing of a genuine emotion brushed him: how had he ever come to throw away the substance for the shadow? He leaned across the desk and touched her arm. “That was what I meant.” The gesture rather than the words mollified her. “It is the opinion of Miss Seeton”—a pass of the hand served for an introduction—“and it would appear that she is always right—that you and I should remarry. That is”—he searched his memory for the exact words—“if you should happen to be free—or would consider me.”
Mousha Stemkos was off her chair and clasping both Miss Seeton’s hands. “This gives me great pleasure. I have read of you—the Umbrella of the English police.” The practical woman of affairs was yielding to natural ebullience. “What is it that you do for Hero? You trace Anatole? You recover the diamonds he has stole?”
Miss Seeton, fascinated—it was like watching two iron filings flashed together by a magnetic current—had no time to reply before Stemoks intervened.
“Miss Seeton has set us a vulgar puzzle.”
“Puzzle? Une énigme?” Delighted, Mousha hurried back to the desk and studied Miss Seeton’s drawing. An over-made-up, sandal-shod, but otherwise naked girl, her knees crossed the better to display remarkable legs, sat on a suitcase with other cases round her. Below, on her left, was water; behind her, the light tracing of a bridge; on her right, railway lines in steep perspective showed the rear end of a disappearing train. With joy Mousha raised her eyes, shoulders, hands and crowed. “Feelthy peectures. My poor Hero,” she commiserated. “You find that the virility escapes you—that the hour has arrived for pornography?”
They discussed Miss Seeton’s experiences at the theater in relation to her impression of Lilianne and decided that the inference to be drawn from the sketch was palpable: Librecksin and the girl had left Paris and intended to cross the Channel.
Stemkos glanced toward the window with satisfaction. “In this fog they will not have gone far.”
For Mousha an outstanding and, as yet, unremedied feature of the story was: “But this poor Miss Seeton—she has lost her clothes. They must be replaced.”
Overriding the ex-schoolteacher’s protests, Stemkos unlocked a drawer. Miss Seeton without clothes was not an image that he wished to contemplate. He tossed a thick wad of notes to his ex-wife. “Arrange it.”
Mousha clapped her hands in delight and caught Miss Seeton’s arm. “Come, we will go at once and have a shopping bombe.”
“Mousha.”
She looked back. “Hein?”
“You have not answered.”
“Not . . .? Ah, that . . .” Shoulders began to lift and hands to spread until a shyness arrested them. “If you desire it.”
“Your English has improved.”
“It was necessary for business.” The long years in Paris had made French come more easily than her native Greek. “I have worked with an English dictionary, but the idiom—that still escapes me. I—” Her whole personality had become muted. “I will lose my position here?”
“It would not be fitting for my wife to be the director of personnel.”
Despondent, she agreed. “Non, ça ce voit—pas convenable.”
“But I would be grateful, if you wish it, that you should continue to run the Paris office—but officially and as a partner.”
They regarded each other in silence, yet Miss Seeton recognized that they were engrossed in a conversation which had no need of words. She gave a small sigh of pleasure. So romantic. And, of course, so right. The upsurge of feeling sweeping through Mousha shone in her face.
Stemkos grunted. “Arrange that too, then—with my secretary. She will see to the details and inform me of the time and place for the ceremony, and ask her to send in the head accountant.”
Restored, bright-eyed, Mousha gave him a mock salute. “Very good—sir.” She seized Miss Seeton’s shoulders and squeezed them. “Come, ma p’tite, we will carry out our orders and then we will commence our shopping bombe.”
The shopping bombe began modestly on the Boulevard des Italiens, where they bought a hat. Mme de Brillot and Mousha Stemkos were enthusiastic, but Miss Seeton had reservations. However, with an addition here and there, and worn straight, and not at the angle that her two friends and the saleslady insisted on, it would, she felt, eventually do. Through the fog they worked their way carefully down the Avenue de l’Opéra and up the financial échelon to Victor’s, where they bought a coat. Again Miss Seeton was dubious, but was quelled. The large red-and-black wool check seemed so very—flamboyant. But, on the other hand, she had to admit the coat was practical since it reversed, for wet weather, to a fawn-gray gabardine.
Emerging onto the Rue de Rivoli, mousha, with the bit between her teeth, headed for Bamiel’s, where they bought a suit—so suitable, she explained with glee—and, at Mme de Brillot’s suggestion, remembering the black lace, a semi-cocktail-evening in gray with purple, pearl and black embroidery. Neither needed much in the way of alteration—a little arrangement to this; a nothing to that—and both would be delivered to the hotel during the afternoon. Miss Seeton was shocked: quite lovely, of course, but, really, quite wickedly extravagant. She was overruled and, filled with pride in their accomplishment, they repaired round the corner to the Ritz-Palace for lunch.
Lunch was gay. They toasted Mousha’s re-engagements both marital and professional; they celebrated what they insisted on describing as Miss Seeton’s flair for clothes, and Mousha, abubble with happiness, gave an account of the “feelthy peect
ure.” Mme de Brillot held out her hand and Miss Seeton was forced to smile: so like, really so very like, Chief Superintendent Delphick. She produced the sketchbook with the warning:
“I’m afraid it’s rather like one of those holiday postcards at the seaside with the rude punning titles.”
“Punning?” Mousha seized on the new word. “What is that?”
“A sort of play on words,” Miss Seeton clarified.
“Ah, understood—like suit and suitable. And what rude punning”—she pointed to the drawing—“you are going to put on this?”
Miss Seeton thought. “I fear they would call it something like Abandoned Baggage.”
Mme de Brillot was withdrawn, concentrating on the drawing. She looked up. “Abandoned . . .?” she repeated slowly. She went still, her gaze fixed upon a concept developing in her mind. She rose, saying that she must telephone but would be back. The reception clerk approached the table. He was sorry, he apologized, he had not seen the ladies come in—had only just heard. M. Eigord, the manager of the Casino de Paris, had telephoned three times. At last M. Eigord had left a message: with Miss Seeton’s permission he proposed to call upon her after lunch.
Mousha was enchanted. “So,” she chortled, “you too have choices of profession. You can rest a detective, draw feelthy peectures for much money, or go to the Casino to become une grande vedette—a star.”
M. Eigord, his associates, the artistes, the staff, even the musicians at the Casino de Paris were jubilant. They felt that two unremitting days and nights of drudgery were being rewarded, for during the afternoon a light breeze had sprung up, shifting the fog, and by six o’clock, although the conditions still prevailed in the Channel and over England, Paris was comparatively clear and, in festive mood after its incarceration, was besieging the Casino box office.
The altered version of the original finale to the first act had been set forward to scene three as a grand opening for the full ensemble. The gilded coffins, all but Miss England’s, had been scrapped and the girls’ cloaks redesigned to represent the flags of European countries. Cecil, resplendent in white, led the girls down the stairs in turn and relinquished them to two stalwart youths who danced them and maneuvered them into place.