The Man Without A Face

by The Man Without a Face (retail) (epub)

“I joke,” said Madame. “And Madame Cross she laughs with me. For Sunday is the great day for visitors. All day, when Mr. Cross is there, they come. But it is not for religion.”

  “Then what else, Madame?” asked Harrison, quickly.

  “I do not know,” answered Madame, sorrowfully. “Madame Cross, she laughs but she does not explain, Monsieur.”

  Harrison smiled and was about to speak when a figure came out of the door of No. 15 and walked quickly past the shop.

  “Mr. Cross,” said Madame.

  “The man I am looking for,” said Harrison.

  Chapter XX

  The House At Havre

  “It would be wise, Madame, do you not think?” asked Harrison, “to call on Madame Cross first of all.”

  Madame looked troubled. “You will bring no harm to her, Monsieur?” she said, anxiously.

  “Of course not, Madame,” answered Harrison. “She may explain things to me so that I do not have to worry Mr. Cross at all.”

  “Very well, Monsieur,” said Madame. “She will be pleased to see a compatriot. That I know. Shall I come with you?”

  “It is kind of you,” said Harrison, a grateful note in his voice, “but I think it would be wiser to be alone.”

  “Monsieur knows best his business,” answered Madame, not a whit offended at the reply. “But you will be tender with her?”

  “I promise,” said Harrison, “and a thousand thanks to you.”

  He knocked on the door of No. 15 and the door was opened to him by a woman answering to the description given by Madame. She was slender and somewhat over average height, as Madame had said, not particularly attractive of feature, but with very warm and large brown eyes with a depth of trustfulness in them. Harrison guessed her age at about thirty.

  “Mrs. Cross, I think?” he said in English.

  The woman looked surprised, and then a shadow of fear seemed to cross her face as she answered almost inaudibly.

  “I know your husband,” said Harrison.

  “I am so sorry, but he has just gone out,” she replied, her voice growing stronger.

  “May I wait?”

  The woman looked at him doubtfully. She seemed to be trying to make up her mind as to something.

  “I understand,” he continued, “Mr. Cross does not like his visitors to wait when he is not here, and perhaps talk to you.”

  She smiled gratefully at him.

  “You will come back again?” she asked, making no effort to go indoors.

  “I think not,” said Harrison, making a bold plunge. “I have come to talk to you.”

  “You can’t do that,” said the woman fearfully, but still seeming rooted to the spot and unable to retreat indoors.

  “Certainly not on the doorstep,” answered Harrison.

  “You had better go away,” said the woman. “You can’t do any good by talking to me.”

  “Don’t you think you can trust me?” asked Harrison, looking straight into her brown eyes.

  The woman did not answer.

  “Don’t you think you can trust me?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” said the woman, lowering her eyes, “I think I can.”

  “Then let me come in and talk to you,” persisted Harrison.

  “I am not thinking of myself,” she answered. “I do not matter. Should he come back and find you here you will suffer.”

  “I doubt it,” answered Harrison. “I know your husband too well.”

  “Too well?” asked the woman.

  “So well,” said Harrison, “that I have come to you as a friend, not to him.”

  The woman looked at him again and seemed reassured, for the glimmer of an answering smile appeared on her face.

  “Very well,” she said. “Heaven knows I have nothing much to lose now. You may as well come in.”

  Harrison followed her into the house and was shown into a sitting-room which showed the rather pathetic attempts of its mistress to make it an ordinary British room. The furniture was French, the hangings and light fittings were French, but there was an air of English middle-class life about it which must have meant Herculean efforts on the part of Mrs. Cross.

  He sat down and Mrs. Cross shut the door carefully and then did the same.

  “It is good to hear an English voice again,” she said.

  “A friendly English voice,” he corrected.

  “I can hardly believe there is such a thing,” she answered. “But you could not be one of his spies. An Englishman like you could never go so low.”

  “His spies?”

  “What does it matter?” she answered. “You say you are a friend.”

  “Of course I am,” answered Harrison. “I want to help you. My name is Harrison—Clay Harrison, and I have rather a big account to settle with your husband.”

  “My husband,” said the woman, her voice vibrating, not with passionate emotion but with a cold fury which made Harrison shiver. “He is not my husband. I loathe him.”

  “I am not surprised,” he said.

  “He is the devil himself, and as clever too,” she said, and again a look of fear came into her face. “You cannot settle accounts with the devil. Take my advice and go away before it is too late.”

  “And leave you here?”

  “I believe you are trying to help me,” she said, turning her brown eyes fully towards him again. “But you don’t know Cross.”

  “I do know Cross,” answered Harrison, “and that is why I intend to help you.”

  “What’s the use?” she said in despair.

  “I’m going to beat Cross,” he replied, “and get you out of here.”

  “You’re a brave man,” said the woman, with a little more confidence. “But you don’t know what you are up against. And why should you take the risk for me?”

  “I have any number of good reasons,” Harrison answered, feeling certain that he had won the woman’s confidence. “But I’m not going to tell you them at the moment. I’m going to get even with Cross, you can he sure of that.”

  “I wonder if you can?” said the woman, still more hopefully.

  “Do you want me to?” he asked.

  “Good heavens, do I want you to?” she answered emphatically. “I’d give my right hand to see anyone do that.”

  “Very well, then,” said Harrison. “You must answer my questions.”

  “Anything,” said the woman, eagerly. “But you swear you’re going to try and help me? I’ve trusted everybody so much and it’s always been wrong. You won’t let me down, will you?”

  There was such a despairing ring in the woman’s voice that Harrison’s sympathy went out to her and made even stronger his intention to win in the battle with Cross.

  “I swear I will help you,” he answered solemnly. “Give me that right hand of yours that you were so ready to give a moment ago.” She held it out wonderingly. He took it firmly in his own and said, “This is my solemn compact,” and pressed her hand firmly.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked, with more of a smile than he had seen up to now.

  “Why you are here,” he replied.

  “Does that help?” she asked.

  “It may do,” was the answer. “I can’t say until I know. You say you are not Mrs. Cross, although you accepted that name when you opened the door to me. I want to know why.”

  “I shall not tell you my real name, because I do not think that matters,” she stated.

  “As you wish,” said Harrison.

  “I am English through and through,” continued the woman. “English in my birth and English in my upbringing. English in my ignorance, too. I come from a small country place—there is no need for you to know where. I was ignorant and a fool, if you like—but, in the end, my mother and father are responsible. The man turned up—he usually does. A beast, but not a bad-natured beast. He had none of the cruelty of Cross. He won. I tell you I knew nothing, It’s incredible in the twentieth century, but it’s true all the same.”

  “I underst
and,” said Harrison sympathetically; “you can spare yourself the details.”

  “My mother and father were frightfully upset when it was a question of a baby,” said the woman, in a low voice. “I suppose it was understandable. The man did his best, but that wasn’t very much. He wouldn’t marry me and, now I come to think it over, I don’t believe I wanted to marry him. But there was the boy and there was myself and something had to be done. I couldn’t stay in the district, you know those country places, although I had a lot of friends.”

  “You mean they stood by you?” asked Harrison.

  “They did stand by me,” was the reply. “I was very lucky but there were difficulties. I had only one asset, as far as I could see, and that was French. I had been very good at school and a fair amount had stuck. I had taken every opportunity of taking it and I wondered what use I could make of it. One of my friends discovered a job going in Nice, half domestic, half lady’s maid, and anything else where one could be useful and some knowledge of French was essential. Another of my friends offered to have the boy—I could pay something when I found my feet. I have had good friends, haven’t I?”

  “There’s no doubt of that,” said Harrison. “So you went to Nice?”

  “I did,” said the woman, “and everything worked out splendidly. I seemed to give satisfaction. It was a well-to-do English family, not sprung from the loins of kings, but very good-hearted. Of course, they knew nothing about the baby—that wouldn’t have done—and my character was a bit shaky. But I settled down to make myself as indispensable as I could and I improved my French all the time. That was very important. None of the other servants seemed to take any trouble about it. Of course, we had some French help, but the English servants, I mean, rather looked down on the French and made no effort at all over the language.”

  “An ideal position for you,” said Harrison.

  “You may well say ideal; that’s a true enough word,” returned the woman. “I sent money home regularly for the boy and he was well looked after. Of course, I ached to see him but I had hopes of getting a holiday in England one day and I had to be content with that.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “About five years. I had been there just over two years when Cross appeared. He was a guest of the family and very popular.”

  “Just a moment,” interrupted Harrison. “Did he call himself Cross then?”

  “Oh yes,” was the answer, a certain amount of surprise showing itself in the woman’s tone. “Does he use any other name?”

  “I have never heard of one,” said Harrison, “but it is worth knowing. Well?”

  “Cross stayed some time. He was popular with the servants as well as the household. I must say I liked him myself. He always acted like a gentleman. Then one day one of the guests—there were usually a few people staying in the house—missed something or other, a piece of jewellery or something like that. There was a lot of talk about it, but they all finally decided it could not have been lost in the house and nothing more was said. Then something more was missing, and in a fortnight four things had been stolen. You can imagine that the atmosphere was getting pretty unpleasant. Then the girl who waited at dinner came out of the room in a state of high indignation. It had been suggested that the servants’ belongings should be searched—to satisfy everybody that things were all right in the house.”

  “Did Cross make the suggestion?”

  “No,” was the answer. “He was dead against it, so the girl said. He said that such a thing was an insult to an English servant: it would be better to lose the things than to behave like that. Of course his popularity went up with us all still more.”

  “Curious.”

  “No, clever; he’d make his plans and that was part of them. A few days later I was doing something in the smoking-room and he was there alone. He said he would like a little talk with me and closed the door. I was not worried. I thought I could look after myself all right. He looked very serious and said his gold cigarette-case was missing. I told him I was very sorry. Then he said, ‘I know who the thief is, too.’ Even then I didn’t realise what he was up to.”

  “He was accusing you?”

  “Of course he was, and he said the case was in my trunk. I laughed and said he was telling nonsense. Then he said it didn’t matter who had put it there, but that case was certainly in the trunk. I did not know what to say. I knew I was innocent and asked him if he thought I had stolen it. He said it didn’t matter what he thought; everybody else would believe it. Then he started to talk about me and he seemed to know everything, even about Reggie—my boy, you know. I was absolutely beaten. I saw what kind of man he was but I couldn’t for the life of me see what was behind it all. Of course I begged him to have some mercy, but you can imagine what good that would do with Cross.”

  “I can,” said Harrison, grimly.

  “Then he said there was a way out. He himself needed me badly. I suppose I gave him a look because he told me not to flatter myself. His feelings towards me weren’t like that. He even said something insulting about Reggie, but I couldn’t answer him. No, he told me he had a house in Havre and his English housekeeper had suddenly left him in the lurch. If I was willing to take on the job he would say nothing more about the cigarette case, but only on those conditions. I did not know what to answer. I knew I was in a trap, but if only I could get to my room to see if the case was really there I thought I might get out of it. I said I must have time to think it over. He smiled and at that moment my master came into the room. I seem to remember every detail as if it had happened yesterday.”

  “I can understand that,” said Harrison.

  “‘I think I am in a position to clear up the mystery of the recent thefts,’ he said, or something to that effect, and my master was most surprised. Cross said that it would be only fair if all the servants were called in and as many guests as were in the house so that the whole thing could be cleared up once and for all. My master was delighted and immediately started giving instructions. I thought this might my chance of getting to my room for a moment, but Cross gave me a cruel smile and said, so that my master could hear, that I might as well wait as all the other servants would be assembling in a minute. The result was that we were all lined up on one side of the smoking-room and the master and mistress, Cross, and another guest facing us.”

  “A carefully arranged scene,” said Harrison.

  “I know now,” said the woman, “how carefully Cross arranges things. He started off by saying how relieved all of us would be at the news he had to give us. He said that in his own way he was a bit of a detective.”

  “Oh,” said Harrison.

  “He kept his eyes fixed on me the whole time. He had watched very carefully and he was able to say now who had taken the missing things. Still he kept his eye on me as if asking a question. He said he had been entirely against opening the servants’ boxes. He paused and he looked at me still more intensely as if to say that this was my last chance. What was I to do. He had me in a corner and there was no escape. I gave him a slight nod and that was enough. He went on to say that he knew he had been right in taking that attitude because the thefts had been done by somebody from outside. An errand boy from one of the shops, I think he said. He had watched without being seen and knew who the thief was, but the boy had very worthy parents and so he had taken it on himself to caution the boy and had promised to say nothing more if the stolen property was restored. He would be in a position to give it all back to the rightful owners that night, and he hoped my master and mistress did not think he had behaved in too independent a manner. They said they thought he had been marvellous and everybody felt relieved.”

  “Except yourself?”

  “Of course, except me. I rushed off to look in my box and, right down at the bottom, I found the cigarette case and everything else that had been stolen.”

  “Pretty thorough.”

  “It was,” said the woman. “So I handed it over to Cross, who gave it back to the
people it belonged to and was even more popular than ever. Within a month I had left Nice and had started to look after this house.”

  “You tried to get away, of course?”

  “Of course I did but Cross was too clever for that. First of all I just tried walking out but he seemed to turn up from nowhere whatever I did and I soon gave that up. He told me it was no good; he would always find some way of stopping me and I had to believe him. Then I wrote to my friends and asked them to help me, but he got hold of my letters. I don’t know how he did it, but they never got through—”

  “Did they get to England at all?”

  “I can’t say,” was the reply. “He knew all about the places they were to have gone to, but whether he got them here or at home I really can’t decide. He has a marvellous spy system.”

  “So you gave that up, too?”

  “What else could I do?” said the woman. “It’s hardly worth fighting against a man like that. He can beat you at everything you try.”

  “Can he?” said Harrison, emphatically.

  “He beat me at any rate and then he did his most devilish trick. About three months after I had come here he suddenly arrived with Reggie. He said he thought I might be lonely so he had collected him and brought him over for me. I was frightfully grateful at first but I soon realised he had tricked me again, for now he had got both of us in his power. Whenever I said anything he didn’t like he would look at Reggie and that look was enough for me. If I did anything he would make Reggie pay for it—”

  “The swine,” said Harrison, viciously.

  “But that’s what I came to expect of Cross,” she said, “and so I gave in altogether. I suppose some people wouldn’t think it so bad.”

  “But the odd people who came to this house,” asked Harrison, “couldn’t you have talked to any of them?”

  “Of course, I tried,” she answered. “I tried everything, but he found out soon enough, and he swore at me. He doesn’t lose his temper usually, but that must have upset him. A man who spoke some English came while he was out and I asked him to help me. Cross said he’d kill me if it happened again—that was before Reggie came. I believed he would but now I think he’d kill Reggie instead just to make me feel worse. So now when he isn’t here I send all the callers away; when he is, he answers the door himself.”