Chapter TWENTY-NINE

Geoffrey remained with the Baxters only long enough to smoke a cigarette and swallow a whisky and soda. Even this he consented to do with an unwilling air, elbows on his knees and an expression moodily abstracted. Then with a curt good night he vanished into the darkness.

When the doors had closed his brother-in-law raised humorous eyebrows after his departing figure and rose with a stretch.

“What’s his trouble?” he lazily inquired.

“Catherine, evidently. He’s hurt because she ran off without letting him know.”

“A rift in the lute, I fancy. Looked as though he had something on his mind he didn’t want us to know.”

“That’s what I thought. Did you see how he almost bit my head off when I told him she had gone?”

Her husband nodded, yawning.

“Oh, well, he can see her to-morrow and put things right. My God, the agonies these lovers go through! I never pictured the old blighter losing his self-control like that, though,”--and he knocked his pipe against the side of the fireplace.

Meanwhile, with jaw set and a feeling of indignation seething in his breast, the object of these remarks was making full speed along the Paris road. Somehow Catherine’s abrupt departure wounded him like a personal affront. Was she really so anxious to meet these precious friends of hers, or had she taken the sudden decision in order to avoid the drive back with him to-morrow? Unreasonably he inclined towards the latter opinion, recalling how reserved and standoffish she had been when he last saw her.

“Yet she liked me well enough two weeks ago,” he argued resentfully. “No one could fool me on that subject.”

Once again he smelled the fragrance of her skin mingling with the crushed lilies of the valley as she had pressed against him, felt the warmth of her lips upon his. Yes, for a moment at least the same sensation had surged up in them both, binding them together. Yet how little that physical _rapprochement_ must have meant to her if she did not desire to repeat it! He felt strangely humiliated.

Oh, well, she had warned him not to expect too much. If he had been living in a fool’s paradise, it was his own fault. Only he must know exactly how he stood with her and end this maddening suspense. He would ask her to dine with him to-morrow and have the whole thing out.

So absorbed was he in his sense of grievance that he had come to the Porte d’Italie before he thought of the girl at home in the hated apartment. She must have reached there half an hour ago. Was everything all right with her? He could not define the vague uneasiness which prompted him to cross the city and make straight for the Avenue Henri Martin.

A little later he stopped his car in the turning outside the Bender apartment, and peered up towards the darkened _entresol_. The fourth window along was Catherine’s. His eyes could just detect a faint glow of light through the closed curtains, and a thin line of radiance along the edge. Watching he saw a shadow cross the window, pause an instant, then pass on.

She was there, safe and sound, so close to him, too, only a dozen yards away. Probably she was just about to get into bed, little dreaming who was beneath her window. He longed to throw a stone at the pane, but thought better of it as he realized the lateness of the hour. He struck a match and looked at his watch. A quarter past one. No, he must not disturb her now. When he raised his eyes again the glow was extinguished.

Geoffrey slept but little. His personal chagrin over Catherine’s abrupt departure gave place after a time to uneasy conjectures over Adolph Blom’s mysterious movements, and all during the night he devised first one theory then another, only to reject the lot. Finally, when it was almost time to rise, a new idea struck him, turning him cold all over. He leaped out of bed.

Why in God’s name had he not thought of this before?

As soon as he heard the maid go into his father’s room with coffee he followed to set before the older man his recent information. The senior partner groped for his glasses, put them on, and stared.

“Hunting for Dieulefits? Why the devil should a stranger do that?”

“In case of an heir, to collar the commission,” replied Geoffrey. “What other reason can there be? The point that bothers me is, is he working alone, or in conjunction with another person?”

“What person do you suspect?”

“There are two possibilities. First the maid, and second”--he paused, then brought the name out resolutely--“Miss Cushing.”

“Miss Cushing!”

His father set down his coffee-cup with a jerk.

“Well, what of it?” he remarked dryly. “It is not a criminal offence to make inquiries. At all events it is a waiting game.”

Geoffrey paused before replying.

“Are you sure it is a waiting game?” he inquired pointedly. “Has it occurred to you that in all this there is one feature we have overlooked? I refer to Mme. Bender’s attempts at suicide.”

The old eyes narrowed.

“Exactly what do you mean?”

“What if the person to benefit by her decease is impatient for the event to happen? What if those reputed attempts weren’t suicide at all but something much worse? Remember we have only the maid’s statement for them.”

“Good God!” The solicitor started, all but capsizing his breakfast tray. For the first time the Bender muddle had assumed a grave aspect. “But who would profit? Not these servants, that is unless----”

“Unless they are in collusion with the unknown heir. The _notaire_ may be banking on a fat commission which he proposes to share with them.”

“The commission on the Bender estate will amount to a pretty penny.… Geoffrey, this looks bad!”

“I thought you’d say that. What is our best move?”

The old man was making for the bathroom, but paused and thought for a moment.

“Get hold of that maid at once and put the fear of God into her. Telephone to her now and say that I want to see her at eleven o’clock. Don’t rouse her suspicions--simply tell her to come. She daren’t refuse. I’ll soon put a stop to any nonsense. Once she knows we are on to her schemes she’ll have to clear out.”

The vagaries of the Paris telephone service are perhaps the worst in the world. After repeated attempts to establish a connection, Geoffrey was forced to admit failure.

“Can’t be helped,” grunted his father. “We’ll have another go at the office, and if there’s still no reply I’ll send Henri up there. I don’t mean to delay this a single day.”

A single day! Geoffrey reflected cynically that here they both were, roused at last over something which had happened fully two months ago. At the actual moment the woman they were crediting with villainous intentions was quietly planning to take a holiday. Did that mean someone was going to deputize in her place, or were there suspicions wholly unfounded?

Nothing seemed clear when at the rue Auber he again besieged the telephone, still without success. Finally an angry appeal to the chief operator elicited the information that the line he wanted was out of order.

He slammed down the receiver and rang the bell. After a long wait Ballou stuck his sleek head in at the door.

“Henri’s out, sir--won’t be long. By the way, if you’re not too busy, there’s something I wanted to tell you. You recall that _notaire_ you were inquiring about?”

Geoffrey glanced at him sharply.

“What about him?”

“He’s going to be married within the next few days. I was at the Mairie in the rue de Lisbonne yesterday, and I happened to see the announcement on the _affiche_ board. He’s marrying a widow.”

“I knew that. She’s a Madame Baron.”

“Quite. But it was her other name--what you call in English her maiden name--which caught my eye. I can’t remember it now, but it was rather odd, something beginning with a D.”

When he had gone out Geoffrey sat for some minutes spellbound. An odd name, beginning with a D! But of course it was absurd, it couldn’t be. And yet…

With a sudden movement he crammed his hat upon his head, left the building and hailed a taxi.

“The Mairie, rue de Lisbonne,” he instructed the driver.

He might as well see for himself.

Five minutes later he alighted and strode into the paved courtyard of the Mairie. There, facing him, stood the announcement board, its surface covered by scribbled notices pinned into place and protected by wire netting. Here, according to French custom, the names of every prospective bride and bridegroom resident in the quarter were posted for two weeks previous to the legal ceremony, a formality corresponding to the English banns.

Rapidly his eye ran over the scraps of paper till he hit upon the one he sought. Here it was in crabbed script, for everyone to read:

“Adolph Gustav Blom, _notaire_, of 359, rue d’Amsterdam, and Marie Honorine Baron, née Dieulefit.…”

There was no mistake.

He had come through a long dark tunnel to find himself on the brink of a precipice.

For a moment he was completely staggered. Then he swore aloud, cursing his lack of imagination. Why in the name of all that was damnable had this possibility never occurred to him? Why had he not at once dreamed of questioning the identity of “Honorine,” instead of passing her by as of no importance? She it was who provided the key to the whole mystery, she alone--and a single inquiry would have secured the desired information!

Now in a flash he saw the _notaire’s_ game. Why, the man was not juggling for a paltry commission, he was marrying the heir to the Bender millions!

What a stroke of genius, superbly daring, amazingly simple! Blom had known the milliner for years, was intimately acquainted with her history, but had paid no attention to her till by accident he learned that her former name was identical with that of the wealthy invalid in the Quartier de l’Étoile. Secretly and systematically he had set out to prove that a tie of blood existed between the two women so widely separated by class and fortune; then, assured of the relationship, had with the same calculation severed his connection with his little _grisette_ and begun paying his addresses in a new quarter, calmly certain that sooner or later the whole of Mme. Bender’s property would pass into his control.

As the details rushed through Geoffrey’s mind one supreme fact stood clear. Blom could not possibly intend to wait for his victim to die a natural death. Every day added to the uncertainty of his future wife’s inheritance, since it needed but the stroke of a pen to ruin his scheme. Jeanne, with her diabolical cleverness, might postpone the making of a will for a time, but she could hardly be relied upon to circumvent it altogether. No, whatever occurred must not be long delayed, and must bear the stamp of accident or suicide. Perhaps at this very moment plans were maturing. The fact that Blom’s marriage was scheduled to take place within a few days suggested an imminent _dénouement_.

On tenterhooks to acquaint his father with this latest turn of the wheel, Geoffrey arrived breathless at the office and flung open the door. Then he stopped on the threshold, aware that some unusual disturbance had taken hold of the place.

The entire force was gathered in the outer room, heads together, eyes intently studying the front page of the _Paris Midi_, fresh from the press. All looked up at his approach, while Ballou spoke in a tone of marked excitement.

“Mr. Macadam was asking for you, sir. Have you seen this?”--and he thrust the paper into Geoffrey’s hands.

At that instant the senior solicitor appeared in the opposite doorway, his face an ashen tinge, his eyes narrowed to steel points.

“It’s happened,” he announced in a dry voice. “Accident or not, that poor woman is dead.”

“_Dead_? You don’t mean----”

“Just that. She was burned to death last night in her bedroom.”