“But when he found you weren’t?”
“The boat had started—like the train. You see, he wasted most of the time looking for me at the station… And that’s all,” she concluded. “And now it’s your turn.”
“No, not just for a moment,” answered Hazeldean. “Have you had any trouble since you arrived here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well—Dr. Jones—”
“I’ve not seen him yet. He was away when I arrived.”
“Yes, I remember, you told me. And your uncle went out after lunch. Hallo, perhaps this is him back again.”
Someone had knocked at the front door. The sound echoed eerily to them through dim passages. In response to his raised eyebrows, Dora Fenner shook her head.
“He wouldn’t knock,” she murmured nervously.
“Nor would Dr. Jones,” he replied, “so it must be somebody else. Probably someone inquiring for rooms, eh?”
A sound came from the passage. It was a soft sound, and it began too near the parlour door for Hazeldean’s comfort. A vaguely rustling sound, that conjured the vision of Madame Paula—he visualised her, large-bosomed, voluptuous and over-complexioned—moving away to answer the knock.
He turned to the window and glanced out cautiously. He got a glimpse of the visitor. It was the dark-skinned vendor of silks.
Chapter IX
Madame Paula
Turning his head and glancing back into the room, he saw Dora’s eyes, big, round, startled. He knew by her expression that he had not sufficiently guarded his own.
“Who is it?” she whispered.
“Just one of those street merchants,” he replied. “I suppose you often get them here?”
“I’ve never known one call before,” she answered.
They waited, and heard, faintly, a door open. Then voices conversing, but sliced by the acoustics. One—low, suave—came to them sideways along an outside wall; the other—quick and sharp—reached them via interior passages. The words of neither were audible in the parlour. They formed an incoherent, ill-matched duet.
The duet ended abruptly. The door slammed, making the parlour door tremble for a moment through the impact. Silence followed.
“Madame Paula hasn’t moved,” reflected Hazeldean. “She’s still standing just inside the front door. I’d give a fortune to know what she’s feeling!”
Suddenly he gave the window curtain a little jerk, to pull it farther across the glass, and retreated into the middle of the parlour. A figure went by the window slowly, making a vague smudge. The footsteps died away.
“Aren’t you ever going to tell me!”
Something inside the girl was snapping.
“Yes—I must now,” he answered.
A draught, or feeling of space, made him swing round towards the door. It was open, and a woman stood in the passage, looking in upon them. He knew it was Madame Paula at once. She was so exactly as he had pictured her. Her large bosom almost filled the width of the doorway, and her high complexion and too-gold hair loomed unnaturally, almost garishly, in the dimness. The air became heavily scented. Perhaps the scent, also, had made him turn. The one thing that had not made him turn was sound. Madame Paula had reached the door and opened it noiselessly.
“I was wrong,” thought Hazeldean. “She wasn’t standing just inside the front door. She was on her way here!”
“Oh, a visitor!” said the unpleasant woman, with feigned surprise.
Dora broke in quickly.
“Yes, he came to inquire the way,” she exclaimed, “and I’m letting him see a map.”
Her voice sounded breathless. Hazeldean got an uneasy impression that she was losing her head, and that she not merely disliked Madame Paula, but dreaded her.
“She’s been very kind,” he added to the girl’s statement. “I was utterly lost.”
“Well, have you found your way now?” asked Madame Paula.
She spoke English well, with only a slight accent.
“Sufficiently, for the moment,” he answered. “But Boulogne takes some knowing. It’s a delightful place.”
“So people say who don’t live in it.”
“Not having lived in it myself, I stick to my opinion. By the way, am I right? Is this a pension?”
“Mais oui!”
“Avez vous un chambre, si je le desire? Now, you see that my French isn’t as good as your English. I like this spot so much, I thought I might perhaps spend a night here.”
Madame Paula did not respond at once. She gave a quick glance at Dora, who was unable to conceal her sudden pleasure in the suggestion. He would not have made it if he had not divined her approval in advance.
“A room,” repeated Madame Paula. “Why—yes—it might be managed.”
He had expected a refusal.
“You’re not quite full up, then?”
“I think I have one room vacant, m’sieur. Perhaps I could show it to you?”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
He could think of no reason why not, yet he discovered a queer reluctance within himself to leave the room, and he attributed it to over-anxiety regarding the girl’s safety during his absence.
“You’ll come back?” said Dora. “I want to talk to you about the Notre Dame—you must see that!”
“Thank you, I’ll be back,” he answered. “All this is most fortune—I’m in luck.”
He followed Madame Paula out into the passage. He wished she had not been so particular to close the door. They walked for a moment or two in silence. In the narrow passage he found the woman’s scent almost nauseating. “But if I were another sort of a man,” he told himself, “I would find it delicious. Does Mr. Fenner find it delicious?” Suddenly Madame Paula spoke.
“I am not sure about the luck,” she said, with a kind of hard directness. “Did you notice she is a little—as you say—not all there?”
“I certainly did not notice it,” responded Hazeldean.
“Well, it is true.”
She touched her forehead, then gave a little shrug. On the point of expressing incredulity, Hazeldean changed his tactics. It occurred to him that by diplomacy he might add to his knowledge.
“How tragic!” he said. “And how nice of you to look after her. If she is weak-minded, I am sure she cannot be a relative!”
If he hoped Madame Paula would melt under the fatuous compliment, he was disappointed. She continued in her hard voice—he was sure she had another voice more in keeping with her scent:
“Has she been telling you things?”
“Yes.”
“Ah!”
“The way about Boulogne.”
“I do not mean that!” she frowned.
“What other things should she tell me—a stranger?” he replied.
“But that is what I say—she is not normal,” retorted Madame Paula almost impatiently. They had reached the front hall now, and she had stopped. “If she told you any other things, you would not believe them?”
“Madame Paula—” he began.
“Oh, you know my name,” she interrupted.
“It is over your door. How can I say whether I would believe things or not till I know what the things are? All this is very mysterious! May I know what’s in your mind, so I can be warned when I go back to her?”
Madame Paula’s frown grew.
“But—you will see—it would not be wise to go back to her,” she exclaimed.
“Oh, come—”
“Listen! I know! It is best to go.”
“But you are showing me a room—”
“I have no room. That was an excuse. She is tired, excited. Believe me, m’sieur, I know her well, and I know when she needs to be quiet. I will tell her you did not like the room, and that you found it was late—and you asked me to make your ex
cuses.”
She moved towards the front door as she spoke. He did not follow her. When she got to the door she turned, with her hand on the knob.
“Well?” she rasped.
He shook his head good-humouredly.
“I believe you’ve got a room,” he insisted.
“And why should I say I have not, if I have?”
“Because you’re afraid I will excite Miss Fenner—”
“Oh! You know her name, too?”
“We introduced ourselves. But don’t worry. If I take the room there will be no need for me to disturb her—”
Madame Paula stamped her foot.
“Mon Dieu!” she cried. “Are you, too, weak in the head?”
Dora Fenner was not the only person in Madame Paula’s pension, Hazeldean decided, who was suffering from nerves this afternoon.
“If I am weak in the head, it is all the more necessary for me to cover the sensitive headpiece,” he remarked smoothly. “I have left my hat in Miss Fenner’s room.”
She looked at him suspiciously, as though aware that he had not worn a hat.
“Well, wait and I will get it.”
She turned and sped past him quickly, and came back with suspicious speed.
“It is not there,” she said.
“I’ll look myself,” he retorted.
She barred the way. He saw she was growing flustered, and as she lost her assurance he began to show his.
“Madame Paula,” he said, changing his tone, “that hat was an excuse, like your room. You didn’t have a room, and I didn’t have a hat. But if I cannot see Miss Fenner, I shall wait to see her uncle, Mr. Fenner, and you will be wise to raise no more objections. I’ve brought some very terrible news.”
Madame Paula’s too-red mouth opened. He watched her crumple with uncharitable satisfaction.
“What—news?” she stammered.
“You will forgive me,” he answered firmly.
She breathed hard for several seconds. Then, regaining a little of her lost composure, she said:
“Very well, m’sieur. I am a helpless woman, and I can do nothing. Yes, I have a room. It is right, I see now, that you should have it. Please come this way.”
She turned and invited him towards another passage. He followed her along it, and they mounted a twisting flight of stairs. At the top she paused.
“Have you told Miss Fenner yet?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he replied.
“I think that is well, m’sieur. Perhaps she could not stand it. Her uncle should be told first—he will know how to pass it to her. Terrible news? Mon Dieu! You will pardon my rudeness, m’sieur. But how was I to know, when you took so long to—?”
Her voice trailed off. She moved on to a small door.
“This is the best I have,” she muttered, pushing the door open. “I will tell Mr. Fenner as soon as he returns. Any minute now. Such things make one weak. My legs are jelly!”
She stood aside as he went into the room. It was an attic, with a small window in a sloping roof.
“Is this really all you have?” he asked.
He received no answer. She had vanished, and he heard the key turning softly in the lock.
Chapter X
Mr. Fenner
During the moments immediately following Madame Paula’s startlingly swift departure, Tom Hazeldean passed through many equally swift emotions.
The first was self-anger. He was angrier with himself than he was with Madame Paula, for his ego was humiliated by a sense of inefficiency. “Am I as smart as I thought I was?” he asked himself. “Am I a bungler outside my boat? What would Kendall think of me, allowing myself to be locked in a room by a confounded woman?” He had scored one victory over the confounded woman, but she had duped him and prepared the way for a greater victory even while he had been congratulating himself.
Then a new emotion came to his aid. If he had been a fool, she had really been little cleverer, for she had declared her hand by definitely starting a war. There was something exhilarating in that fact. Action was far more to his liking than manœuvring, and the obvious action before him was to escape from the attic and confront Madame Paula again—this time without finesse. For all her momentary triumph, she must be in a fine panic! She could hardly expect him to wait quietly for his release. Probably she was listening now for his ominous banging on the door or his shouts…
Then came a third emotion—fear. Not for himself, but for Dora Fenner. Madame Paula’s desperation might not end at locking a door. Perhaps at this moment she was hurrying to Dora’s parlour, urged by unintelligent terror to some new act. It was the third emotion that ended his inactivity and took him back to the door.
He did not bang on it. If Madame Paula had shown her hand, there was no need for him to show his until the situation forced it. It would be useful if she believed he had not yet discovered he was a prisoner—she had turned the key softly in the hope of delaying that discovery—and it might postpone her next move. So, with equal softness, he turned the handle and tested the lock’s firmness.
The lock was a depressingly stout one, and the door looked as stout as the lock.
Well, what about the window? He glanced at the sloping roof. He could not quite reach the glass from the floor, but a chair gave him the necessary height, and in a few seconds he had eased the tightness round the little frame and pushed it upwards. He stared up into blue sky. A startled pigeon swooped away as his head came through the aperture in the roof. Now he stared at other roofs, though none near enough for a jump. Turning his head to the right, he saw narrow, sleepy roads below. They were too far below to reach without risking a broken leg. On the left the ground was higher, for the shorter wall on this side began on the ramparts. While he was reckoning his chances, he saw something that made him pause. The dark-skinned silk vendor standing in a shadow. Still hanging around.
“I wish I could place that fellow!” thought Hazeldean, moving his head to the concealment of a chimney-pot. “He’s stalking me, obviously, and he knows I’m somewhere about. If I shout, that will bring him along as well as others. Hell—this isn’t so easy! Thomas Hazeldean, you’re in a jam. I’m beginning to wonder, very seriously, whether the world gained in brain-power when you were born!”
A grey-haired man came round an angle of the ramparts. He wore a large black squash felt, but the grey hair was almost professorially long, and its untidy edges escaped beneath the hat’s rim. The man’s face was also grey, and he walked with a slight stoop.
The silk vendor did not move from his shadow. The grey-haired man did not appear to notice him, although there was something odd in his manner—something almost furtively casual. Unless Hazeldean, in a mood to notice everything, was noticing more than actually existed? The grey-haired man stopped at the door of the pension. He gave a quick glance backwards and forwards along the rampart path. If he now noticed the figure in the shadow, he still gave no sign of it, but felt in his pocket for a key. He brought the key out just before advancing to the door and becoming invisible from the point where Hazeldean was watching. An edge of the roof shut him abruptly from view.
“Key,” thought Hazeldean. “Dr. Jones?”
He heard the door open below. It sounded surprisingly close. As it closed—he did not hear any voices—the silk vendor began to move forward out of the shadow. Impulsively, Hazeldean ducked down on his chair. After a moment’s reflection, he quietly closed the skylight, descended to the floor, replaced the chair in its original position and waited.
“Five minutes,” he decided. “No longer.”
He was obeying instinct now. The new-comer would start a fresh train of events inside the house, and might divert Madame Paula from any immediate rashness. He wanted to give the new events their chance, but his ears were not going to miss anything they could catch, and he stole to the attic door and liste
ned.
The five minutes ticked slowly away. He timed them by his watch. It was something to do during the painful inactivity of waiting. He had to keep his imagination in check, for it had begun to paint exaggerated pictures. He hoped, at least, they were exaggerated; the canvas of reality was grim enough. Neatly, as the fifth minute was ending, steps sounded in the passage. He drew back from the door, keeping his eyes upon it. The footsteps stopped outside the door, a key was turned and the door opened. The grey-haired man stood in the doorway looking at him.
The scrutiny did not last long. The grey-haired man spoke almost at once.
“I have to apologise,” he said. “I am afraid we are all a little upset to-day. But it was—of course—a mistake to lock you in. Unwarrantable!”
“Well, I can’t disagree with that,” answered Hazeldean. “Are you Dr. Jones?”
“Dr. Jones?” repeated the grey-haired man slowly. “No, I am not Dr. Jones. Nor, at this moment, do I particularly want to be. I am Mr. Fenner. I think you have some news for me?”
So this was the owner of Haven House, at last! The uncle of Dora Fenner…
“May I hear what this news is?”
“Yes, of course,” said Hazeldean. “You have no idea what I have come about?”
“How should I? Not the slightest.”
“It is grave news.”
“Indeed? Then it fits the day. I have just brought some grave news myself. You must not expect to see Madame Paula again. She has retired to her room. Her husband—Dr. Jones—is dead.”
While he absorbed this information, Hazeldean murmured, “How shocking. I’m terribly sorry.” But there was no sympathy in his heart. He had only recently heard of Dr. Jones, and what he had heard was not to his liking. Instead of sympathy, he felt a kind of startled curiosity. Was this fresh tragedy a coincidence, merely an example of the axiom: “It never rains but it pours?” Or could it have any connection with other happenings?
“It was an accident,” continued Mr. Fenner. He did not seem to be suffering from much sympathy himself, though this might be self-control, or a concession to a disinterested stranger. “His aeroplane crashed a few miles from here. But there’s no need to worry you with that. Yes? This other news? Has my house burned down?”
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