The Chink in the Armour/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
There is something very bewildering and distressing in the sudden disappearance or even the absence of a human being to whose affectionate and constant presence one has become accustomed. And as the hours went by, and no letter or message arrived from Anna Wolsky, Sylvia became seriously troubled, and spent much of her time walking to and from the Pension Malfait.
Surely Anna could not have left Paris, still less France, without her luggage? All sorts of dreadful possibilities crowded on Sylvia's mind; Anna Wolsky might have met with an accident: she might now be lying unidentified in a Paris hospital. …
At last she grew so uneasy about her friend that she felt she must do something!
Mine host of the Villa du Lac was kind and sympathetic, but even he could suggest no way of finding out where Anna had gone.
And then Sylvia suddenly bethought herself that there was one thing she could do which she had not done: she could surely go to the police of Lacville and ask them to make inquiries in Paris as to whether there had been an accident of which the victim in any way recalled Anna Wolsky.
To her surprise, M. Polperro shook his head very decidedly.
"Oh no, do not go to the police!" he said in an anxious tone. "No, no, I do not advise you to do that! Heaven knows I would do anything in reason to help you, Madame, to find your friend. But I beg of you not to ask me to go for you to the police!"
Sylvia was very much puzzled. Why should M. Polperro be so unwilling to seek the help of the law in so simple a matter as this?
"I will go myself," she said.
And just then—they were standing in the hall together—the Comte de Virieu came up.
"What is it you will do yourself, Madame?" he asked, smiling.
Sylvia turned to him eagerly.
"I feel that I should like to speak to the police about Anna Wolsky," she exclaimed. "It is the first thing one would do in England if a friend suddenly disappeared—in fact, the police are always looking for people who have gone away in a mysterious manner. You see, I can't help being afraid, Count Paul"—she lowered her voice—"that Anna has met with some dreadful accident. She hasn't a friend in Paris! Suppose she is lying now in some hospital, unable to make herself understood? I only wish that I had a photograph of Anna that I could take to them."
"Well, there is a possibility that this may be so. But remember it is even more probable that Madame Wolsky is quite well, and that she will be annoyed at your taking any such step to find her."
"Yes," said Sylvia, slowly. "I know that is quite possible. And yet—and yet it is so very unlike Anna not to send me a word of explanation! And then, you know in that letter she left in her room at the Pension Malfait she positively promised to send a telegram about her luggage. Surely it is very strange that she has not done that?"
"Well, if you really wish the police communicated with," said the Comte de Virieu, "I will go to the police-station here, with pleasure."
"Why should we not go together?" asked Sylvia, hesitatingly.
"By all means. But think over what we are to say when we get there. If your friend had not left the letter behind her, then, of course it would be our positive duty to communicate with the police. But I cannot help being afraid" He stopped abruptly.
"Of what are you afraid?" asked Sylvia eagerly.
"I am afraid that Madame Wolsky may be very much offended by your interference in the matter."
"Oh, no!" cried Sylvia. "Indeed, in that you are quite mistaken! I know Anna would never be offended by anything I could do. She was very fond of me, and so am I of her. But in any case I am willing to risk it. You see"—her voice broke, quivered—"I am really very unhappy about Anna"
"When would you like to go to the Commissioner of Police?" asked the Count.
"Is there any reason why we should not go now?"
"No. Let us go at once. I only had the feeling that you might hear from her any moment."
Together they walked up into the little town of Lacville. To each any expedition in which the other took part had become delightful. They were together now more than they had ever been before. No, Count Paul could not be sorry that Sylvia's friend had left Lacville. He had no wish for her return.
At last they came to a rather mean-looking white house; out of one of the windows hung a tricolour flag.
"Here we are!" he said briefly.
"It doesn't look a very imposing place," said Sylvia smiling.
But all the same, as the Count rang the bell Sylvia suddenly felt as if she would like to run away! After all, what should she say to the Commissioner of Police? Would he think her interference in Anna's affairs strange and uncalled for? But she kept her thoughts to herself.
They were shown into a room where a tired-looking man bent over a large, ink-stained table littered over with papers.
"Monsieur? Madame?" he glanced up inquiringly, and gave them a searching look. But he did not rise from the table, as Sylvia expected him to do. "What can I do for you?" he said. "I am at your service," and again he stared with insistent curiosity at the couple before him, at the well-dressed young Englishwoman and at her French companion.
The Count explained at some length why they had come.
And then at last the Commissioner of Police got up.
"Madame has now been at Lacville three weeks?"—and he quickly made a note of the fact on a little tablet he held in his hand. "And her friend, a Polish lady named Wolsky, has left Lacville rather suddenly? Madame has, however, received a letter from her friend explaining that she had to leave unexpectedly?"
"No," said Sylvia, quickly, "the letter was not sent to me; it was left by my friend in her bed-room at the Pension Malfait. You see, the strange thing, Monsieur, is that Madame Wolsky left all her luggage. She took absolutely nothing with her, excepting, of course, her money. And as yet nothing has come from her, although she promised to telegraph where her luggage was to be sent on to her! I come to you because I am afraid that she had met with some accident in the Paris streets, and I thought you would be able to telephone for us to the Paris Police."
She looked very piteously at the French official, and his face softened, a kindly look came over it.
"Well, Madame," he said, "I will certainly do everything I can. But I must ask you to provide me first with a few more particulars about your friend."
"I will tell you everything I know. But I really do not know very much."
"Her age?" said the Commissioner.
"I do not know her age, but I suppose she is about thirty."
"The place of her birth?"
Sylvia shook her head.
"What is her permanent address? Surely you know with whom you could communicate the news of an accident having happened to her?"
"I am afraid I don't even know that." Sylvia began to feel rather foolish. But—but was it so strange after all? Who among the people she was now living with knew anything of her far-away English home? If anything happened to herself, for instance? Even Count Paul would not know to whom to write. It was an odd, rather an uncomfortable thought.
The Commissioner went to a drawer and pulled out from it a portfolio filled with loose pieces of paper.
"Malfait? Malfait? Malfait?" he muttered interrogatively to himself. And at last he found what he was looking for. It was a large sheet, on which was inscribed in large round letters "Pension Malfait." There were many close lines of writing under the words. He looked down and read through all that was there.
"The Pension Malfait has a good reputation!" he exclaimed, in a relieved tone. "I gather from what you say, Monsieur,"—he gave a quick shrewd look at the Count—"that Madame and her friend did not play in a serious sense at the Casino—I mean, there was no large sum of money in question?"
Count Paul hesitated—but Sylvia thought that surely it were better to tell the truth.
"Yes," she said, "my friend did play, and she played rather high. She must have had a large sum of money in her possession when she left Lacville, unless she lost it all on the last day. But I was in Paris, and so I don't know what she did."
The Commissioner looked grave.
"Ah, but that alters the case very much!" he said. "I must request you to come with me to the Pension Malfait. We had better pursue our inquiries there. If this Madame Wolsky had a large sum of money in notes and gold, it becomes very important that we should know where she is."
They all three left the shabby little house together, and Sylvia could not help wondering what would happen there while they were gone. But the Commissioner solved her doubts by turning the key in the door.
The Count hailed a cab, and they all got into it. Then followed a curious little drive. The Commissioner made polite conversation with Mrs. Bailey. He spoke of the beauties of Lacville. "And Madame," he said, pleasantly, "is staying at the Villa du Lac? It is a charming house, with historic associations."
Sylvia was surprised. She remembered clearly that she had not told the police official where she was staying.
When they reached the Pension Malfait they were kept waiting a few moments, but at last M. Malfait appeared in the hall. He received them with obsequious amiability.
Still, even Sylvia could not but be aware that he was extremely angry, and she herself felt wretchedly uncomfortable. What if Anna Wolsky were all right after all? Would she not blame her for having made such a fuss?
"Everything is quite en règle," M. Malfait said smoothly when the purport of their presence was explained to him in a few curt words by the Commissioner of Police.
"You see, Monsieur le Commissaire, it is quite simple. The lady left us a letter explaining why she was obliged to go away. I do not know why Madame"—he turned to Sylvia—"thought it necessary to go to you? We have been perfectly open about the whole matter. We are respectable people, and have absolutely nothing to hide. Madame Wolsky's boxes are there, in her bed-room; I might have let the room twice over since she left, but no, prefer to wait, hoping that the lady—the very charming lady—will come back."
"By the way, where is the letter which she left?" said the Commissioner in a business-like voice. "I should like to see that letter."
"Where is the letter?" repeated Monsieur Malfait vaguely. Then in a loud voice, he said, "I will ask my wife for the letter. She looks after the correspondence."
Madame Malfait came forward. She looked even more annoyed than her husband had looked when he had seen by whom Sylvia was accompanied.
"The letter?" she repeated shortly. "Mon Dieu! I do not know where I have put it. But by this time I almost know it by heart. It was a pleasing letter, for it spoke very warmly of our establishment. But where is the letter?" she looked round her, as if she expected to find it suddenly appear.
"Ah! I remember to whom I showed it last! It was to that agreeable friend of Madame Wolsky"—she put an emphasis on the word "agreeable," and stared hard at Sylvia as she did so. "It was to that Madame Wachner I last showed it. Perhaps she put it in her pocket, and forgot to give it me back. I know she said she would like her husband to see it. Monsieur and Madame Wachner often take their meals here. I will ask them if they have the letter."
"Well, at any rate, we had better open Madame Wolsky's trunks; that may give us some clue," said the Commissioner in a weary voice.
And, to Sylvia's confusion and distress, they all then proceeded to the bed-room where she had last seen her friend, and there Monsieur Malfait broke the locks of Anna Wolsky's two large trunks.
But the contents of Anna's trunks taught them nothing. They were only the kind of objects and clothes that a woman who travelled about the world a great deal would naturally take with her. Everything, however, was taken out, turned over, and looked at.
"If your friend possessed a passport," said the police official in a dissatisfied tone, "she has evidently taken it with her. There is nothing of any consequence at all in those boxes. We had better shut them up again, and leave them."
But when they came down again into the hall, he suddenly asked Monsieur Malfait, "Well, where is the letter?" He had evidently forgotten Madame Malfait's involved explanation.
"I will send you the letter to-morrow," said Monsieur Malfait smoothly. "The truth is, we handed it to a lady who was also a friend of Madame Wolsky, and she evidently forgot to give it back to us. We will find out whether she has kept it."
On the way back the Commissioner of Police said gaily,
"It is quite clear that Madame"—he turned and bowed courteously to Sylvia—"knows very little of Lacville, Monsieur le Comte! Why, people are always disappearing from Lacville! My time would indeed be full were I to follow all those who go away in a hurry—not but what I have been only too delighted to do this for Madame and for Monsieur le Comte."
He then bowed to the Count and stared smilingly at Sylvia.
"I am pleased to think," he went on playfully, "that Madame herself is not likely to meet with any unpleasant adventure here, for the Villa du Lac is a most excellent and well-conducted house. Be assured, Madame, that I will find out in the next few hours if your friend has met with an accident in the Paris streets."
He left them at the gate of the Villa.
When the Commissioner had quite disappeared, the Count observed, "Well, we have done what you wished. But it has not had much result, has it?"
Sylvia shook her head disconsolately.
"No, Count Paul. I am afraid I made a mistake in going to the police. The Malfaits are evidently very angry with me! And yet—and yet, you know in England it's the first thing that people do."
Count Paul laughed kindly.
"It is a matter of absolutely no consequence. But you see, you never quite understand, my dear friend, that Lacville is a queer place, and that here, at any rate, the hotel-keepers are rather afraid of the police. I was even glad that the Commissioner did not ask to look over your boxes, and did not exact a passport from you!"
More seriously he added, "But I see that you are dreadfully anxious about Madame Wolsky, and I myself will communicate with the Paris police about the matter. It is, as you say, possible, though not probable, that she met with an accident after leaving you."