The Big Book of Female Detectives

by The Big Book of Female Detectives (retail) (epub)

  Yet, or so thought Raymond, when first he met him on this second visit, De Tourville did not look a happy man. There was a haunted expression in his deep-set eyes, a queer watchfulness about his manner, a brooding there had never been before about his eagle face. Perhaps, as Solange suggested, this was because his young bride—as adoring and far more charming than before, as the new-opened rose surpasses the tightly folded bud—was ailing in health. The air of the mountains seemed too keen for her, or the fates envied her her transparent happiness—no cloud upon that! If she, too, were involved in that which Raymond could hardly bear even in his thoughts to bring against the man, then was she the most perfect example of the man-moulded woman of whom Solange had spoken, who had ever existed.

  There were days on which she seemed almost her old self, though her husband always watched to see she did not tire herself, but again there were other days, increasing in number, when it seemed that she lost strength with every breath she drew, and then nothing but her husband’s ministrations would satisfy her, no hand but his was allowed so much as to alter her cushions or give her a glass of water. And, watching the man as he waited on her, and detecting that haunted something in his face, Raymond thought what a bitter irony it was, if indeed he had unlawfully hurried his wife out of this world, that now this more dearly loved woman for whom he had sinned should also be drawing nearer to the brink, and, most poignant irony of all, if his hand had indeed given, in the much-paraded medicine, poison to the first wife, how every time the second refused to accept anything save at that same hand it must seem to him, in his conscience-ridden mind, as though nothing which his hand poured out could bring anything but death.

  Yet all that was sheer trickery of the mind, and a man strong enough to carry through a crime would perhaps be beyond such promptings of the nerves? But De Tourville did not seem so immune, Raymond thought, and Solange was forced to agree with him. She, too, was beginning to look worried, to his practised eyes, and he could not but feel a shade of triumph. What if it were he, after all, who had detected what those acute senses of hers had passed over? Yet when he examined himself, Raymond was not sure what he wanted. If De Tourville had indeed hurried his wife away—as he had undeniably hurried with indecent haste into his second marriage—did he still want him to be found out and tried for the crime? What then of the fragile Monique, with her big eyes where happiness fought with physical discomfort, and won every time they rested on her husband? A murderer was a dreadful thing, a secret poisoner the basest of murderers, yet what had the first Madame De Tourville to recommend her, to put it with brutal frankness? Nothing compared with this ardent, gracious girl. And, as though the gods themselves were of Raymond’s mind, Monique De Tourville’s health began to mend, and with that mending the shadow seemed to pass from the face of her husband. He seemed as a man who has taken a new lease of life, as though in his veins also the blood flowed more strongly, and in his heart resurgent life beat higher. On one thing he was determined—to remove his young wife from the place that had seemed to agree with her so ill. Never again, so he declared, should her life be risked in the château, even though it had been in his family for a thousand years, and, to the horror of the town, the historical old place was put up for sale, and bought by an American millionaire. Raymond’s good offices were called in over the deal; indeed it was he, triumphing over scruples, who had first led the wealthy personage down to St. Lys to see the castle. The sale had been concluded, all was ready for the departure of Monique and her husband for South America—a climate M. De Tourville had persuaded himself was just what she needed—when the most terrible yet most thrilling day St. Lys had ever known was upon it.

  Solange had announced that she was going up to the château to see if she could help the still delicate Monique with her final arrangements—the De Tourvilles were leaving in an automobile to catch the Paris express at midday. Solange had seemed to Raymond’s observant eyes oddly watchful of late; he marked well-known symptoms in her, but could not fathom their cause.

  Did she, like himself, suspect the picturesque Edmund De Tourville, and even if so, had she, after her individualistic fashion, which often made her take the law into her own hands when she judged fit, decided that Monique’s happiness was the important thing, and that Edmund must be allowed to go free for the sake of the girl who hung upon him? It would not be unlike Solange. If, according to her classification of criminals into the congenital and the occasional, De Tourville merely came into the latter, and had only committed the one crime that almost any of us may, if hard enough pressed, and would be safe never to commit another, then it was more than possible she would think he should be allowed to work out his own salvation. If, on the other hand, she had cause to consider him one of those born killers to whom their own desires are sufficient warrant to prey upon society, then, he knew, she would not sacrifice the community to one girl—even apart from the fact that the girl herself might be the next victim. Human tigers, such as are the born killers, are creatures who tire quickly, and who have violent reactions.

  Or was he, Raymond, perhaps conjuring up out of a few unfortunately suspicious circumstances a crime that had never been committed, and had the death of Thérèse De Tourville, after all, been merely a convenient but purely natural happening? But against that hope was his knowledge that Solange was aware of something odd in the affaire De Tourville, though she had never admitted so much to him.

  He walked by her side up to the château on this May morning with a strange quickening of the heart. There seemed a hush as of expectation in the crisp, still air; on the quiet lips of Solange; above all, in the watchful look of De Tourville, whose eyes bore the look of one who is calculating time as though every minute were precious.

  Monique alone was radiant, stronger than she had been for some time past, fired with excitement at the thought of the new life in the new world. Raymond had long persuaded himself that, whatever sinister meaning lay behind the drama of the château, she had had no hand in it. Wax as she was in her husband’s hands, Raymond told himself her glance was too frank and clear for a guilt to lie behind those eyes.

  The big salon at the château was dismantled, the pictures were gone from the walls, and packing-cases, already labelled, stood about the bare floor. Edmund had had to sell his family place, but he was taking the most loved of his possessions with him.

  “Chérie, how sweet of you to come!” cried Monique, springing up from the crate on which she was sitting, already attired in her little close-fitting motor-bonnet that framed her face like a nun’s coif, the soft, white chiffon veil streaming behind her, only her full, passionate lips giving the lie to the conventual aspect of her. She kissed Solange, then held out both hands eagerly to Raymond.

  “Oh, I’m so excited! And I believe Edmund is, too, though he pretends he isn’t. I think he is afraid of something happening to prevent us going!”

  “What should happen?” asked Edmund, more harshly than was his wont in addressing her.

  “Exactly! That’s what I say. What should or could? But I do feel you’re anxious all the same, Edmund.”

  And Monique nodded with an air of womanly wisdom that was new to her.

  At that moment a knocking was heard at the great door—an old wooden structure with a heavy iron knocker. The rapping was insistent, even violent, and to each person there came the sudden feeling that something beyond the usual stood there and made that urgent summons. Of all the people there none seemed so disturbed as Edmund De Tourville. His dark face became very pale, but he did not move.

  They heard old Henri, the butler, shuffle to the door, and the next moment came the sound of confused protests, asseverations, then over all rose a voice they knew, but which seemed to two of the people in the salon to be a voice out of a dream.

  Quick, sharp footsteps came near, the door was flung wide open, and Thérèse De Tourville stood upon the threshold, her head flung back, her eyes blazing in her w
hite face, surveying them all as they stared at her. Then Solange moved swiftly forward to Monique’s side, as though to protect her. The girl had fallen back and was staring at this ghost from the dead year, and Raymond’s face was like hers. Only De Tourville and Solange did not look amazed; for his part he seemed as a man stricken by a blow he has long dreaded.

  “Thérèse—Thérèse,” the unfortunate man stammered, “have you no pity?”

  “Pity!” said Madame De Tourville—the only Madame De Tourville—in a harsh voice. “No, I do not pity. I leave that to you, who cannot even carry out what you begin, who weaken in everything. Pity!”

  Raymond interposed. He never knew—did not dare ask himself—whether his first feeling had not been regret that Thérèse De Tourville still lived, that her husband had not, as she taunted him, finished what he had begun; but he did know that the immediate thing was to try and shield Monique from greater pain than she must inevitably be made to feel.

  “There can be no need for Madame De—for Monique to be here,” he said. “Solange, take her away.”

  “Yes,” said De Tourville, with a groan, “take her away quickly!”

  “Not till she has heard!” cried Thérèse; and planted her tall, thin form against the door.

  Behind her the frightened faces of the servants could be seen peering.

  Then De Tourville broke down.

  “Thérèse, I beg of you—anything but that! I will give you anything you like—the money, all of it; we both will! But do not say anything, I implore you! Thérèse—”

  Then Monique astonished them all. She gently shook off Solange’s detaining hand and went and stood by Edmund, looking at the other woman fiercely.

  “Go on!” she said. “What have you to say that can hurt me? You are here, and I am not his wife! What can anything else matter?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Raymond urgently. “Come away.”

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “Your Edmund,” began Madame De Tourville, “is not only a bigamist! He is a murderer, an assassin, or would be if he had had the heart to finish what he began! What do you say to that, you white-faced bit of sentiment?”

  “Edmund, it isn’t true?” stammered Monique, her eyes fixed on him.

  He could only bow his head in reply; all the fight seemed to have gone out of him.

  Again Monique surprised them. She flung her arms round Edmund and held him fiercely.

  “Edmund—and you were willing to do that for me?”

  Wonder, sorrow, and—yes—triumph rang in her voice. In that moment Raymond Ker learnt more about women than in the whole of his thirty years previously.

  “Take her away quickly, before she learns the truth!” said Solange urgently to Edmund above the girl’s head.

  His eyes met hers with desperation in their haggard depths. He swung Monique’s frail figure up in his arms and made to carry her from the room, but Thérèse only laughed and still barred the way.

  “For you!” she said. “For you! You little fool! Did you think he had tried to poison me? It was all arranged between us! I was to disappear and be given out for dead, and he was to marry you and kill you for the money! It is you he has been poisoning, not me!”

  And she laughed again.

  “It isn’t possible!” cried Raymond. “De Tourville, why don’t you say something? Don’t you see it’s killing Monique?”

  “Tell her—I can’t!” muttered De Tourville to Solange.

  Monique had dropped her hands from him and had taken a step back; in her white, stricken face her eyes looked suddenly dim, like those of a dying bird. Solange took her gently by the arm.

  “Monique, it’s true,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ve got to know it’s true. But he repented, Monique; he hadn’t the heart to go on with it. He grew to love you too dearly. Monique—”

  “What does all that matter!” said Monique. “He tried to kill me—to kill me! Oh, it’s a joke! You’re making it up, all of you! Say it’s a joke, say it isn’t true! Say it—say it!”

  No one stirred; and her voice, which had sharpened to the wild scream of a child, fell into monotony again.

  “So it’s true? All that time I was ill—that I was so thirsty, that my throat hurt so, and I was so sick—you were doing it, Edmund? When no one but you looked after me, you were doing it all the time?”

  “Not all the time. He could not go on with it,” said Solange. “You remember when you began to get better? That was when he found he cared for you too much.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” repeated Monique.

  “Well, it’s brought me back, anyway,” said Madame De Tourville coarsely. “I wasn’t going to be cheated because a weak fool had succumbed to your pretty face and soft ways. Where did I come in, I should like to know? At first when I wrote and said what a long time it was taking, he always replied that he had to go cautiously, that Dr. Fontaine and this so-clever demoiselle were here, and would suspect if anything happened too soon. And I went on believing him. Then I got suspicious. I kept on picturing them together—my husband and this girl he ought to have killed long ago—and I knew if he wasn’t killing her he must be kissing her. So I made inquiries, and found out they were going to do a flit, with the money that should have been mine by now, mine and his. And here I am.”

  She finished her extraordinary speech, with its astounding egotism, its brutal claims on what could not conceivably be considered hers, and folded her strong arms across her meagre chest, shooting out her hard jaw contemptuously. There could be little doubt which was the stronger willed of the two—she or her husband.

  “The question is,” remarked Solange, in what she purposely made a very matter-of-fact tone, “what is going to be done about it all now? I suppose everyone in the town saw you come here, madame?”

  “Certainly. I am sick of hiding myself.”

  “You do not mind going to prison with your husband, then?”

  “I care for nothing except to get him from that girl. The money is lost, of course. Well and good, but at least he sha’n’t have the girl, either.”

  Solange turned to Monique.

  “Monique, it rests with you,” she said gently. “Are you going to prosecute? To give information against these people? They trapped you into a marriage that was a sham, because it was their only way of making sure of the money, and then they tried to kill you. Are you going to let them go free?”

  Monique had followed the speech carefully, her lips sometimes moving soundlessly as though she were repeating the words that Solange used to herself the better to impress them upon her dazed brain. Slowly she turned her eyes, as with a strong effort of will, from the face of Solange to that of Edmund De Tourville. He had not spoken since his outburst to Solange, but he had not taken his eyes from Monique. Now he made no appeal, he only moistened his lips with his tongue and waited.

  “I won’t hurt you,” said Monique slowly.

  “Oh, the hussy, the wretch!” cried Madame De Tourville. “She is not going to prosecute because she still wants him. She couldn’t be with him if he went to prison, and she still wants him. Shameful hussy, that’s what I call you!”

  And the odd thing was that Madame De Tourville was perfectly genuine in her indignation.

  “Monique, I can’t thank you,” said De Tourville slowly. “Thanks from me to you would be an insult. I can only tell you—”

  “Ah, la la, they will pay each other compliments in a minute!” broke in Madame De Tourville. “It’s as well I made up my mind to what I did before I came here.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Monique quickly.

  “I mean that I called in on monsieur the magistrate on my way, and he and his gendarmes are waiting at the door now for me and my husband. Oh, I wasn’t going to run the risk of your forgiving him!”

  And Thérèse turned, wa
lked across the hall, where the pale-faced servants fell back from her in fear, and opened the door to the police.

  * * *

  —

  “Well,” said Raymond to Solange late that evening—“well, what do you know about that? They’ll get twenty years with hard labour if they get a day, and that woman gave the whole thing away deliberately when she could have got off scot free. Monique would never have brought the charge. It’s jolly hard on her, the whole story’ll have to come out now.”

  “Exactly,” said Solange, “that’s why Thérèse has done it. That woman has two passions—money and her husband. She thought the former was the stronger when she planned to let him marry the girl as a preliminary to poisoning her, and so it might have been if De Tourville had not played her false. Then she could keep quiet no longer, and she thinks a lifetime in prison cheap so long as she is avenged on him. It is all a question of values. After all, murder is the action behind which lies more distortion of value than behind any other in the world, so you must not be surprised that, when you have found someone who can think it worth while to murder, they are abnormal in their other values also.”

  “Perhaps not—but it isn’t only Madame De Tourville who needs explaining. What of him? A weak man who repented, who couldn’t be true even to an infamous contract?”

  “More or less, though in a man of his type there would always be a thousand complications and subtleties that make any sweeping statement rather crude. He is a potential criminal, but in happier circumstances no one—including himself—would have ever found it out. If he could have made his getaway, I don’t believe he would ever have done a criminal act again. In time he would doubtless have persuaded himself that the whole thing was a nightmare, and had never taken place; have believed that he had always been devoted to Monique, and that his only sin was a bigamous marriage, which his great love almost excused. If Thérèse had never turned up to trouble them, he would probably have forgotten even that.”