Chapter TEN

A moment later Catherine was listening to a jumbled discourse, as full of irrelevant detail as the room about her. She could not take her eyes from the overblown spinster, who, having contrived in some astonishing manner to tuck one foot beneath her, was imbibing countless cups of tea as though to provide her system with the moisture which constantly suffused her pale eyes and occasionally spilled over the edge of her scanty lashes.

Unless she had remarkable histrionic powers, which Catherine was inclined to doubt, she was certainly much moved; yet, watching her, the girl was not convinced that all this easy emotion did not cover a grasping nature and a singular lack of tact. In short, she was not at all sure that Jeanne was entirely wrong in assuming that Miss Cushing had somehow or other precipitated those violent fits of depression which had so nearly ended in their victim’s death. Yet she was even more sure that Miss Cushing had meant no harm, and was quite unaware that any blame could attach itself to her actions. Her own account of things, told with a ring of sincerity, bore this out.

Apparently Hermione had been in Germany at the time that Mme. Bender returned from America. It was only last October that she first called to see her old friend, on which occasion she was refused admittance on the plea that the poor lady was too ill to receive visitors. The same thing happened several times, not only to herself, but to other callers as well.

“Although there is no one here but me who was ever at all intimate with Germaine. She had so few close friends, you know: only myself and the Comtesse de Bréart, and the comtesse is in _Afrique_, shooting lions.”

At last she felt there was something wrong about these refusals. Afraid lest the invalid might not be receiving proper care and suspecting that her messages were not delivered, she resolved to be put off no longer.

“What did you do?” asked Catherine curiously.

“I informed Jeanne that I intended to see madame, whether she liked it or not, and when she tried to keep me out I simply put my full weight against hers and forced my way into the room!”

Catherine could not repress a gasp of admiration. The picture of the redoubtable maid overborne on the threshold of her fortress by sheer avoirdupois was almost too much for her gravity.

“_Figurez-vous_,” continued the singer, her eyes widening to circles of swimming earnestness. “_Figurez-vous_ the shock I received when at last I beheld my _pauvre amie_, so terribly shattered, only a ghost of the woman I had known! Never shall I forget the look in her eyes. It was like some frightened bird caught in a snare.”

So she had noticed that, too! Catherine felt more and more mystified. She watched her hostess dab at her tears with a sodden handkerchief and pause long enough to swallow another cup of tea.

“Forgive me, my dear, for being so stupid. You see, I am very fond of Germaine. _Elle a toujours été si gentille pour moi!_” The tears dripped down.

“Was she glad to see you?” inquired Catherine, mainly to stem the tide of emotion.

“Glad! Her joy was pathetic. Why had I not come before? Why, at least, had I not written? She had been so alone, was beginning to think that no one cared whether she lived or died. You see how it was? That woman Jeanne had never told her of my visits, never delivered a message or a flower!”

“But are you sure of this?” demanded the girl incredulously.

A scornful shrug answered her question.

“She swore, naturally, that she always informed her mistress, but that Mme. Bender’s mind was so affected that she promptly forgot what was told her.”

“And you think that may not be true?”

Miss Cushing made an indignant gesture which nearly capsized the teapot.

“Lies--lies, every word of it! Nothing will make me alter my opinion. She simply wants to keep me and everyone else away from that poor ill creature.”

This on the face of it struck Catherine as manifestly absurd.

“But why? What possible reason could she have?” she objected argumentatively.

“There you have me. What reason can there be?” Miss Cushing stared helplessly in front of her. “She is, of course, frightfully jealous; one has always known that; she resents anyone having the least claim on her mistress’s affections. Still, I can’t help thinking there is more in it than jealousy. Sometimes I believe”--and she brought her face close to Catherine’s before whispering mysteriously--“that she is afraid for strangers to see what is going on in that apartment!”

“Going on?” repeated the girl rather startled. “What do you mean?”

“Why, my dear, isn’t it pretty evident that those servants are fleecing poor Germaine at every turn? Cutting down expenses and putting the difference in their pockets?”

Catherine was silent, recalling her own reception and the efforts, still continuing, to dislodge her. There might be something in it, though to suspect the hitherto upright Jeanne of such conduct was against all her previous conceptions of the latter’s character.

“It’s true,” she admitted, “they are not the least anxious to have me there.”

“Naturally not!” cried her hostess in triumph. “That clever Jeanne doesn’t want you looking on while she is busy feathering her nest!”

The identical phrase Jeanne herself had employed in regard to Miss Cushing! The listener bit her lip.

“But how can she do this? I don’t quite see----”

“Where are your eyes? Think for a moment. Until recently there were six servants kept. What has become of them? What has become of the chauffeur?”

“Oh, he has been dismissed. I happen to know about that,” put in Catherine.

“Then you may take it from me it was Jeanne who dismissed him, for Germaine knows no more of it than the babe unborn. It was Jeanne who got rid of the housekeeper and maids and replaced the cook with that slattern of a Berthe, who is asleep or gallivanting two-thirds of the time. Oh, it’s quite clear what she’s up to! She is taking the usual weekly cheque for the housekeeping, and keeping most of it for herself.”

Disagreeable though it was, the theory was certainly plausible.

“And Mme. Bender doesn’t suspect?”

“Ah, she is too trusting and too utterly absorbed in herself to give the matter a thought. Besides, she never was good at money matters. But Jeanne is afraid that you or I might open her eyes to the truth. Tell me--has she left you alone, really alone, with her mistress for a single moment?”

Catherine was forced to admit she had not.

“_Eh bien--vous voyez?_ She doesn’t trust you. She is afraid also that you will discover what I have discovered--that all this talk about madame’s insanity is untrue. That will give you something to think about,” she added, nodding vigorously.

However, on this point Catherine was unconvinced. It was unfortunately so easy to see why Miss Cushing wanted to believe her friend sane, since evidently she was hoping to obtain a will in her own favour.

“Don’t you think,” she contented herself with saying, “it would be much better for Mme. Bender if she could be persuaded to go out?”

Her hostess raised a plump hand excitedly.

“Ah, now you shall hear something!” she cried. “I, too, knew that it was bad for her to remain always a prisoner, in that tiny room with scarcely any air----”

“Why does she use that room?” interrupted the girl curiously. “I’ve been wondering.”

“It is simply one of the poor dear’s peculiar notions. She grew up in a convent, and all her girlhood was accustomed to a little bedroom like a cell. Since Harry’s death she has gone back to the time before she met him. _Voilà tout!_ She told me so herself.… But to continue.…”

It seemed she had been cooped up there for months, dreading the daylight, shrinking from the idea of strange faces. No wonder she was as white as a sheet of paper and trembling from weakness. At last, in January, by dint of great diplomacy and opposed every step of the way, Hermione had persuaded her to go for a drive. The car was brought round from the garage where presumably it was standing idle, the invalid was assisted downstairs.

“I went with her, my dear, so I can describe what happened. When we were out in the avenue she was astonished to find the chestnuts bare. You see, she had lost all count of time. Everything went well until she caught sight of the car, then suddenly I saw her tremble and turn the colour of chalk. Can you guess why?”

Catherine could not.

“Nor could I, at first. Then I saw that it was newly done up. It had been pale beige before, but now it was black outside and in--paint, upholstery, all. _Chic, mais un peu funeste._ Jeanne’s idea, for it had been left to her. Now I want to tell you something strange. I had already noticed, on several occasions, that Germaine, since Harry’s death, has had a horror of black. I dare not even wear a black dress when I go there. Not that she admits it--she is far too sensitive about showing her peculiarities--but I know what I am saying is true. Well, to return. All during that drive the poor thing sat huddled in her sable coat, shaking like a leaf, her eyes staring ahead of her. When we got her home again, she tottered to her room and fell across the bed in a dead faint! That was three months ago. Since then the very mention of going out throws her into a panic. Nothing will induce her to stir foot outside the apartment.”

Catherine listened in distress. She had often heard how almost impossible it is to uproot the fixed ideas of a neurasthenic.

“You can see,” went on Miss Cushing shrewdly, “how that incident played into Jeanne’s hand. She blamed me for what had happened, and has redoubled her efforts to prevent my visits. Oh, she’s a deep one! Believe me or not, she is wholly determined to keep Germaine under her thumb.”

“You don’t mean to suggest,” ventured the girl in helpless amazement, “that she had the car painted black on purpose to keep Mme. Bender from using it?”

“That, my dear, is exactly what I do believe. Everything points to it.”

The idea seemed ludicrously improbable. Catherine concluded that her companion was a woman of incurably romantic mind. Moreover, she remembered what Geoffrey Macadam had said last night about the warfare between Miss Cushing and Jeanne, and the likelihood of there being a good deal of reciprocal jealousy mixed up in it. Perhaps, indeed, the pot was taking a venomous delight in denouncing the kettle’s complexion.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Yvonne at the door.

“You will not forget, mademoiselle, that you have an appointment with the modiste,” she announced in her deep voice. “It is almost six o’clock.”

“_Mon Dieu!_ Is it so late?” cried the singer, starting up. “I must go at once. Catherine, my dear, perhaps you would care to come along with me? My milliner lives only a step from here, and you may be glad to know of someone who will do up things cheaply. Oddly enough,” she added confidentially, “it was this same Jeanne who first told me about her, almost ten years ago!”

Although Catherine had little faith that her own ideas of hats would coincide with Miss Cushing’s, she agreed, since there was no reason why she should go home just yet. Accordingly, a few minutes later she followed her hostess down the narrow stairs, it being manifestly impossible to walk abreast of her. The spinster had arrayed her vast form in a coat composed of two quite different kinds of fur, suggesting that it had been fashioned from separate garments donated by wealthy friends--as was indeed the case. This she wore with an indescribable air of elegance, while her step was light, even jaunty. She might have been a débutante, sallying forth, sure of conquests.

Skirting the rear of the Gare St. Lazare, they arrived at the rue d’Amsterdam, then half-way between the rue de Londres and the Place de Clichy they turned into a sombre court and ascended a staircase at the back. At the first floor, before a door bearing the single name “_Honorine_,” blazoned in faded gilt, they paused and rang.

A little apprentice in a black apron admitted them to a square room, whose windows overlooked the court. In the centre was a table heaped with felt hoods of various colours, straw shapes, bits of velvet and ribbon. At a smaller table between the windows two young girls sat, making hats. They glanced at the new-comers without interest, going on with their work.

“If the ladies wouldn’t mind waiting a moment,” the apprentice said, “madame is busy with a client.”

“Client!” murmured the younger of the two assistants with malicious drollery, “that is a new name for monsieur!”

Her companion caught up a huge pair of shears and snipped off the brim she was shaping.

“Such ardour, coming in the afternoon,” she returned, giggling with secret enjoyment. “She’s a lucky woman, if you want my opinion!”

“You’ve said it, at her time of life! It’s a mystery to me how she’s caught an admirer, a serious one, too. All these years living across the way, and all of a sudden he makes up his mind to marry her. I believe she must have put something in his coffee.”

“Beer, you mean!”

They giggled again, secretly savouring their morsel of gossip.

While Miss Cushing rustled the pages of a fashion magazine, Catherine found herself idly listening to the two chatterers, who continued in undertones, probably ignorant that their audience understood French.

“Of course, you forget he’s handled her affairs. That makes me wonder if she’s saved up more than one thinks she has. Anyhow she doesn’t throw it about.”

“Well, all I say is, there’s hope for all.”

The inner door opened and the milliner appeared, following a small man in black, wearing, with disregard of manners, his wide-brimmed felt hat. Catherine saw a drab and tired-looking woman in the forties, who at another time would have appeared worn and spiritless with hard work. Now, however, in spite of her parchment skin and untidy hair, there was a twist to her mouth denoting gratified vanity, a general look of conscious pride. Catherine had seen that expression before and knew what it meant.

The man’s face was hidden, but something oddly familiar in his stiff back caused her to gaze after him with sudden interest. Impossible that she could know by sight this insignificant Frenchman, and yet----

In the doorway he stopped, speaking in a low voice and with a hard, guttural accent--Belgian or Alsatian, she could not tell which. At the same time he flicked across his palm a pair of ugly, black fabric gloves.

Pair? No, strangely enough there was but a single glove. Catherine eyed it, fascinated. How odd to carry one glove! Odder still that it should so closely resemble the one she had picked up the evening before in Mme. Bender’s apartment. However, it could be no more than coincidence.

“_Alors, demain soir_,” said the owner of the glove impassively.

“_Entendu_,” murmured the modiste, closing the door upon him.

Miss Cushing billowed into the other room, where Catherine could hear her haggling over the price of an ancient hat which the milliner gently declared was not worth the trouble of re-making.

Instead of accompanying her, Catherine moved to the window and stood looking down into the court. Almost at once she saw Honorine’s visitor emerge, cross the flags to a door opposite, and fumble in his pocket for a key. Then, just before entering, he turned and looked up in her direction, the fading daylight revealing his features.

She saw an unwholesomely pallid skin, a small, bristling moustache, and eyes pale reddish in hue, staring upward with cold, unwinking fixity.

A queer sensation shot through her. She had seen him again--the pavement lounger, Jeanne’s friend, the midnight caller who had dropped his glove on the stairs!

Who on earth was the man?