The Chink in the Armour/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
As Sylvia drove away alone from the station, she felt exceedingly troubled and unhappy.
It was all very well for Madame Wachner to take the matter of Anna Wolsky's disappearance from Lacville so philosophically. The Wachners' acquaintance with Madame Wolsky had been really very slight, and they naturally knew nothing of the Polish woman's inner nature and temperament.
Sylvia told herself that Anna must have been in great trouble, and that something very serious must have happened to her, before she could have gone away like this, without saying anything about it.
If poor Anna had changed her mind, and gone to the Casino the day before, she might, of course, have lost all her winnings and more. Sylvia reminded herself that it stood to reason that if one could make hundreds of pounds in an hour or two, then one might equally lose hundreds of pounds in the same time. But somehow she could hardly believe that her friend had been so foolish.
Still, how else to account for Anna's disappearance, her sudden exit from Lacville? Anna Wolsky was a proud woman, and Sylvia suspected that if she had come unexpectedly to the end of her resources, she would have preferred to go away rather than confide her trouble to a new friend.
Tears slowly filled Sylvia Bailey's blue eyes. She felt deeply hurt by Anna's strange conduct.
Madame Wachner's warning as to saying as little as possible of the other's departure from Lacville had made very little impression on Sylvia, yet it so far affected her that, instead of telling Monsieur Polperro of the fact the moment she was back at the Villa du Lac, she went straight up to her own room. But when there she found that she could settle down to nothing—neither to a book nor to letters.
Since her husband's death Sylvia Bailey's social circle had become much larger, and there were a number of people who enjoyed inviting and meeting the pretty, wealthy young widow. But just now all these friends of hers in far-away England seemed quite unreal and, above all, quite uninteresting.
Sylvia told herself with bitter pain, and again the tears sprang to her eyes, that no one in the wide world really cared for her. Those people who had been going to Switzerland had thrown her over without a thought. Anna Wolsky, who had spoken as if she really loved her only a day or two ago, and who had made that love her excuse for a somewhat impertinent interference in Sylvia's private affairs, had left Lacville without even sending her word that she was leaving!
True, she had a new and a delightful friend in Count Paul de Virieu. But what if Anna had been right? What if Count Paul were a dangerous friend, or, worse still, only amusing himself at her expense? True, he had taken her to see his sister; but that, after all, might not mean very much.
Sylvia Bailey went through a very mournful hour. She felt terribly depressed and unhappy, and at last, though there was still a considerable time to dinner, she went downstairs and out into the garden with a book.
And then, in a moment, everything was changed. From sad, she became happy; from mournful and self-pitying, full of exquisite content.
Looking up, Sylvia had seen the now familiar figure of Count Paul de Virieu hurrying towards her.
How early he had left Paris! She had understood that he meant to come back by the last train, or more probably to-morrow morning.
"Paris was so hot, and my sister found that friends of hers were passing through, so I came back earlier than I meant to do," he said a little lamely; and then, "Is anything the matter?"
He looked with quick, anxious concern into her pale face and red-lidded eyes. "Did you have a bad night at the tables?"
Sylvia shook her head.
"Something so strange—so unexpected—has happened." Her mouth quivered. "Anna Wolsky has left Lacville!"
"Left Lacville?" Count Paul repeated, in almost as incredulous a tone as that in which Sylvia herself had said the words when the news had been first brought her. "Have you and she quarrelled, Mrs. Bailey? You permit?" He waited till she looked up and said listlessly, "Yes, please do," before lighting his cigarette.
"Quarrelled? Oh, no! She has simply gone away without telling me!"
The Comte de Virieu looked surprised, but not particularly sorry.
"That's very strange," he said. "I should have thought your friend was not likely to leave Lacville for many weeks to come."
His acute French mind had already glanced at all the sides of the situation, and he was surprised at the mixed feelings which filled his heart. With the Polish woman gone, his young English friend was not likely to stay on at such a place as Lacville alone.
"But where has Madame Wolsky gone?" he asked quickly. "And why has she left? Surely she is coming back?" (Sylvia could certainly stay on a few days alone at Lacville, if her friend was coming back.)
But what was this that Mrs. Bailey was saying in so plaintive a tone?
"That's the extraordinary thing about it! I haven't the slightest idea where Anna is, or why she has left Lacville." In spite of herself her voice trembled. "She did not give me the slightest warning of what she was thinking of doing; in fact, only a few days ago, when we were talking of our future plans, I tried to persuade her to come back to England with me on a long visit."
"Tell me all that happened," he said, sitting down and speaking in the eager, kindly way he seemed to keep for Sylvia alone.
And then Sylvia told him. She described the coming of the messenger, her journey to the Pension Malfait, and she repeated, as far as was possible, the exact words of her friend's curiously-worded, abrupt letter to Madame Malfait.
"They all think," she said at last, "that Anna went to the Casino and lost all her money—both the money she made, and the money she brought here; and that then, not liking to tell even me anything about it, she made up her mind to go away."
"They all think this?" repeated Count Paul, meaningly. "Whom do you mean by all, Mrs. Bailey?"
"I mean the people at the Pension Malfait, and the Wachners"
"Then you saw the Wachners to-day?"
"I met Madame Wachner as I was going to the Pension Malfait," said Sylvia, "and she went there with me. You see, the Wachners asked Anna to have supper with them yesterday, and they waited for her ever so long, but she never came. That makes it clear that she must have left Lacville some time in the early afternoon. I wish—I cannot help wishing—that I had not gone into Paris yesterday, Count Paul."
And then suddenly she realised how ungracious her words must sound.
"No, no," she cried, impetuously. "Of course, I do not mean that! I had a very, very happy time, and your sister was very kind and sweet to me. But it makes me unhappy to think that Anna may have been worried and anxious about money with me away"
There was a pause, and then, in a very different voice, Sylvia Bailey asked the Comte de Virieu a question that seemed to him utterly irrelevant.
"Do you believe in fortune-tellers?" she asked abruptly. "Are you superstitious?"
"Like everyone else, I have been to such people," he answered indifferently. "But if you ask my true opinion—well, no; I am quite sceptical! There may be something in what these dealers in hope sometimes say, but more often there is nothing. In fact, you must remember that a witch generally tells her client what she believes her client wishes to hear."
"Madame Wachner is inclined to think that Anna left Lacville because of something which a fortune-teller told her—indeed told both of us—before we came here." Mrs. Bailey was digging the point of her parasol in the grass.
"Tiens! Tiens!" he exclaimed. "That is an odd idea! Pray tell me all about it. Did you and your friend consult a fashionable necromancer, or did you content yourselves with going to a cheap witch?"
"To quite a cheap witch."
Sylvia laughed happily; she was beginning to feel really better now. She rather wondered that she had never told Count Paul about that strange visit to the fortune-teller, but she had been taught, as are so many Englishwomen of her type, to regard everything savouring of superstition as not only silly and weak-minded, but also as rather discreditable.
"The woman called herself Madame Cagliostra," she went on gaily, "and she only charged five francs. In the end we did pay her fifteen. But she gave us plenty for our money, I assure you—in fact, I can't remember half the things she said!"
"And to you was prophesied?" Count Paul leant forward and looked at her fixedly.
Sylvia blushed.
"Oh, she told me all sorts of things! As you say they don't really know anything; they only guess. One of the things that she told me was that it was possible, in fact, quite likely, that I should never go back to England—I mean at all! And that if I did so, I should go as a stranger. Wasn't that absurd?"
"Quite absurd," said Count Paul, quietly. "For even if you married again, Madame; if you married a Frenchman, for instance, you would still wish to go back to your own country sometimes—at least, I suppose so."
"Of course I should." And once more Sylvia reddened violently.
But this time Count Paul felt no pleasure in watching the flood of carmine staining not only the smooth, rounded cheek, but the white forehead and neck of his fair English friend.
Sylvia went on speaking, a little quickly.
"She said almost the same thing to Anna. Wasn't that odd? I mean she said that Anna would probably never go back to her own country. But what was really very strange was that she did not seem to be able to see into Anna's future at all. And then—oh well, she behaved very oddly. After we had gone she called us back" Sylvia stopped for a moment.
"Well?" said Count Paul eagerly. "What happened then?"
He seldom allowed himself the pleasure of looking into Sylvia's blue eyes. Now he asked for nothing better than that she should go on talking while he went on looking at her.
"She made us stand side by side—you must understand, Count, that we had already paid her and gone away—when she called us back. She stared at us in a very queer sort of way, and said that we must not leave Paris, or if we did leave Paris, we must not leave together. She said that if we did so we should run into danger."
"All rather vague," observed the Count. "And, from the little I know of her, I should fancy Madame Wolsky the last woman in the world to be really influenced by that kind of thing."
He hardly knew what he was saying. His only wish was that Sylvia would go on talking to him in the intimate, confiding fashion she was now doing. Heavens! How wretched, how lonely he had felt in Paris after seeing her off the day before!
"Oh, but at the time Anna was very much impressed," said Sylvia, quickly. "Far more than I was—I know it made her nervous when she was first playing at the tables. And when she lost so much money the first week we were here she said to me, 'That woman was right. We ought not to have come to Lacville!' But afterwards, when she began to be so wonderfully lucky, she forgot all about it, or, rather, she only remembered that the woman had said to her that she would have a great run of luck."
"Then the woman said that, too," remarked Count Paul, absently.
(What was it his godmother had said? "I felicitate you on your conquest, naughty Paul!" and he had felt angry, even disgusted, with the old lady's cynical compliment. She had added, meaningly, "Why not turn over a new leaf? Why not marry this pretty creature? We should all be pleased to see you behave like a reasonable human being.")
But Sylvia was answering him.
"Yes, the woman said that Anna would be very lucky."
The Comte de Virieu thought for a moment, and then withdrew his eyes from his friend's face.
"I presume you have already telephoned to the hotel in Paris where you first met Madame Wolsky?"
"Why, it never occurred to me to do that!" cried Sylvia. "What a good idea!"
"Wait," he said. "I will go and do it for you."
But five minutes later he came back, shaking his head. "I am sorry to say the people at the Hôtel de l'Horloge know nothing of Madame Wolsky. They have had no news of her since you and she both left the place. I wonder if the Wachners know more of her disappearance than they have told you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Sylvia, very much surprised.
"They're such odd people," he said, in a dissatisfied voice. "And you know they were always with your friend. When you were not there, they hardly ever left her for a moment."
"But I thought I had told you how distressed they are about it? How they waited for her last evening and how she never came? Oh no, the Wachners know nothing," declared Sylvia confidently.