The End of Her Honeymoon by Marie Belloc Lowndes

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But nothing was of any avail; they were baffled at every turn, and soon
this search for a vanished man became, to one of the two now so strenuously
engaged in it, the most sinister and disturbing of the many problems with
which he had had to deal as a trusted family lawyer.

The screen of memory bears many blurred and hazy impressions on its
surface, but now and again some special dramatic happening remains fixed
there in a series of sharply-etched pictures in which every line has its
retrospective meaning and value.

Such was to be the case with Mr. Stephens and the curious days he spent in
Paris seeking for John Dampier. He was there a whole week, and every
succeeding day was packed with anxious, exciting interviews and
expeditions, each of which it was hoped might yield some sort of clue. But
what remained indelibly fixed on the English lawyer's screen of memory were
three or four at the time apparently insignificant conversations which in
no case could have done much to solve the problem he had set himself
to solve.

The first of these was a short conversation, in the middle of that busy
week, with Nancy Dampier.

After the first interview in which she had told him her version of what had
happened the night of her own and her husband's arrival in Paris, he had
had very little talk with her, and at no time had he expressed any opinion
as to what could have happened to John Dampier. But at last he felt it his
duty to try and probe a little more than he had felt it at first possible
to do into the question of a possible motive or motives.

"I'm afraid," he began, "that there's very little more to do than has been
already done. I mean, of course, for the present. And in your place, Nancy,
I should come back to England, and wait there for any news that may
reach you."

As she shook her head very decidedly, he went on gravely:--"I know it is
open to you to remain in Paris; but, my dear, I cannot believe that your
husband is in Paris. If he were, we must by now, with the help of the
French police--the most expert in the world, remember--have come across
traces of him, and that whether he be dead or alive."

But Nancy did not take the meaning he had hoped to convey by that last
word. On the contrary:--

"Do you think," she asked, and though her lips quivered she spoke very
quietly, "that Jack is dead, Mr. Stephens? I know that Senator Burton's son
has come to believe that he is."

"No," said the English lawyer very seriously, "no, Nancy, I do not believe
that your husband is dead. It is clear that had he been killed or injured
that first morning in the Paris streets we should know it by now. The
police assert, and I have no reason to doubt them, that they have made
every kind of enquiry. No, they, like me, believe that your husband has
left Paris."

"Left Paris?" repeated Nancy in a bewildered tone.

"Yes, my dear. As to his motive in doing so--I suppose--forgive me for
asking you such a question--I suppose that you and he were on quite
comfortable and--well, happy terms together?"

Nancy looked at him amazed--and a look of great pain and indignation
flashed into her face.

"Why of course we were!" she faltered. "Absolutely--ideally happy! You
didn't know Jack, Mr. Stephens; you were always prejudiced against him.
Why, he's never said--I won't say an unkind word, but a cold or indifferent
word since our first meeting. We never even had what is called"--again her
lips quivered--'"a lovers' quarrel.'"

"Forgive me," he said earnestly. "I had to ask you. The question as to what
kind of relations you and he were on when you arrived in Paris has been
raised by almost every human being whom I have seen in the last few days."

"How horrible! How horrible!" murmured Nancy, hiding her face in her hands.

Then she raised her head, and looked straight at the lawyer:--"Tell anyone
that asks you that," she exclaimed, "that no woman was ever made happier by
a man than my Jack made me. We were too happy. He said so that last
evening--he said," she ended her sentence with a sob, "that his happiness
made him afraid--"

"Did he?" questioned Mr. Stephens thoughtfully. "That was an odd thing for
him to say, Nancy."

But she took no notice of the remark. Instead she, in her turn, asked a
question:--"Do the police think that Jack may have left me of his own
free will?"

Mr. Stephens looked extremely uncomfortable. "Well, some of them have
thought that it is a possibility which should be kept in view."

"But you do not think so?" She looked at him searchingly.

The lawyer's courage failed him.

"No, of course not," he said hastily, and poor little Nancy believed him.

"And now," he went on quickly, relieved indeed to escape from a painful and
difficult subject, "I, myself, must go home on Saturday. Cannot I persuade
you to come back to England with me? My wife would be delighted if you
would come to us--and for as long as you like."

She hesitated--"No, Mr. Stephens, you are very, very kind, but I would
rather remain on in Paris for a while. Miss Burton has asked me to stay
with them till they leave for America. Once they are gone, if I still have
no news, I will do what you wish. I will come back to England."

The second episode, if episode it can be called, which was to remain
vividly present in the memory of the lawyer, took place on the fifth day of
his stay in Paris.

He and Gerald had exhausted what seemed every possible line of enquiry,
when the latter put in plain words what, in deference to his father's wish,
he had hitherto tried to conceal from Mr. Stephens--his suspicions of
the Poulains.

"I haven't said so to you before," he began abruptly, "but I feel quite
sure that this Mr. John Dampier is dead."

He spoke the serious words in low, impressive tones, and the words, the
positive assertion, queerly disturbed Nancy's lawyer, and that though he
did not in the least share in his companion's view. But still he felt
disturbed, perhaps unreasonably so considering how very little he still
knew of the speaker. He was indeed almost as disturbed as he would have
been had it been his own son who had suddenly put forward a wrong and
indeed an untenable proposition.

He turned and faced Gerald Burton squarely.

"I cannot agree with you," he spoke with considerable energy, "and I am
sorry you have got such a notion in your mind. I am quite sure that John
Dampier is alive. He may be in confinement somewhere, held to
ransom--things of that sort have happened in Paris before now. But be that
as it may, it is my firm conviction that we shall have news of him within a
comparatively short time. Of course I cannot help seeing what you suspect,
namely, that there has been foul play on the part of the Poulains. But no
other human being holds this theory but yourself. Your father--you must
forgive me for saying so--has known these people a great deal longer than
you have, and he tells me he would stake everything on their substantial
integrity. And the police speak very highly of them too. Besides, in this
world one must look for a motive--indeed, one must always look for a
motive. But in this case no one that we know--I repeat, Mr. Burton, no one
that we know of--had any motive for injuring Mr. Dampier."

Gerald Burton looked up quickly:--"You mean by that there may be someone
whom we do not know of who may have had a motive for spiriting him away?"

Mr. Stephens nodded curtly. He had not meant to say even so much as that.

"I want you to tell me," went on the young American earnestly, "exactly
what sort of a man this John Dampier is--or was?"

The lawyer took off his spectacles; he began rubbing the glasses carefully.

"Well," he said at last, "that isn't a question I find it easy to answer. I
made a certain number of enquiries about him when he became engaged to Miss
Tremain, and I am bound to tell you, Mr. Burton, that the answers, as far
as they went, were quite satisfactory. The gentleman in whose house the two
met--I mean poor Nancy and Dampier--had, and has, an extremely high
opinion of him."

"Mrs. Dampier once spoke to me as if she thought you did not like her
husband?" Gerald Burton looked straight before him as he said the words he
felt ashamed of uttering. And yet--and yet he did so want to know the truth
as to John Dampier!

Mr. Stephens looked mildly surprised. "I don't think I ever gave her any
reason to suppose such a thing," he said hesitatingly. "Mr. Dampier was
eager, as all men in love are eager, to hasten on the marriage. You see,
Mr. Burton"--he paused, and Gerald looked up quickly:--

"Yes, Mr. Stephens?"

"Well, to put it plainly, John Dampier was madly in love"--the speaker
thought his companion winced, and, rather sorry than glad at the success of
his little ruse, he hurried on:--"that being so he naturally wished to be
married at once. But an English marriage settlement--especially when the
lady has the money, which was the case with Miss Tremain--cannot be drawn
up in a few days. Nancy herself was willing to assent to everything he
wished; in fact I had to point out to her that it is impossible to get
engaged on Monday and married on Tuesday! I suppose she thought that
because I very properly objected to some such scheme of theirs, I disliked
John Dampier. This was a most unreasonable conclusion, Mr. Burton!"

Gerald Burton felt disappointed. He did not believe that the English lawyer
was answering truly. He did not stay to reflect that Mr. Stephens was not
bound to answer indiscreet questions, and that when a young man asks an
older man whether or no he dislikes someone, and that someone is a client,
the question is certainly indiscreet.

In a small way the painful mystery was further complicated by the attitude
of Mere Bideau. Bribes and threats were alike unavailing to make the old
Breton woman open her mouth. She was full of suspicion; she refused to
answer the simplest questions put to her by either Mr. Stephens or
Gerald Burton.

And the lawyer felt a moment of sharp impatience, as business men are so
often apt to feel in their dealings with women, when, in answer to his
remark that Mere Bideau would be brought to her knees when she found her
supplies cut off, Nancy, with tears running down her cheeks, cried out in
protest:--"Oh, Mr. Stephens, don't say that! I would far rather go on
paying the old woman for ever than that she should be brought, as you say,
to her knees. She was such a good servant to Jack: he is--he was--so
fond of her."

But Mere Bideau's attitude greatly disconcerted and annoyed the Englishman.
He wondered if the old woman knew more than she would admit; he even
suspected her of knowing the whereabouts of her master; the more
impenetrable became the mystery, the less Mr. Stephens believed Dampier
to be dead.

And then, finally, on the last day of his stay in Paris something happened
which, to the lawyer's mind, confirmed his view that John Dampier, having
vanished of his own free will, was living and well--though he hoped not
happy--away from the great city which had been searched, or so the police
assured the Englishman, with a thoroughness which had never been surpassed
if indeed it had ever been equalled.

CHAPTER XIII

With Mr. Stephens' morning coffee there appeared an envelope bearing his
name and a French stamp, as well of course as the address of the obscure
little hotel where the Burtons had found him a room.

The lawyer looked down at the envelope with great surprise. The address was
written in a round, copybook hand, and it was clear his name must have been
copied out of an English law list.

Who in Paris could be writing to him--who, for the matter of that, knew
where he was staying, apart from his own family and his London office?

He broke the seal and saw that the sheet of notepaper he took from the
envelope was headed "Prefecture de Police." Hitherto the police had
addressed all their communications to the Hotel Saint Ange.

The letter ran as follows:

Dear Sir,
I am requested by the official who has the Dampier affair in hand to
ask you if you will come here this afternoon at three o'clock. As I
shall be present and can act as interpreter, it will not be necessary
for you to be accompanied as you were before.

Yours faithfully,
Ivan Baroff.

What an extraordinary thing! Up to the present time Mr. Stephens had not
communicated with a single police official able to speak colloquial
English; it was that fact which had made him find Gerald Burton so
invaluable an auxiliary. But this letter might have been written by an
Englishman, though the signature showed it to be from a foreigner, and from
a Pole, or possibly a Russian.

Were the police at last on the trail of the missing man? Mr. Stephens'
well-regulated heart began to beat quicker at the thought. But if so, how
strange that the Prefect of Police had not communicated with the Hotel
Saint Ange last night! Monsieur Beaucourt had promised that the smallest
scrap of news should be at once transmitted to John Dampier's wife.

Well, there was evidently nothing for it but to wait with what patience he
could muster till the afternoon; and it was characteristic of Nancy's legal
friend that he said nothing of his mysterious appointment to either the
Burtons or to Mrs. Dampier. It was useless to raise hopes which might so
easily be disappointed.

Three o'clock found Mr. Stephens at the Prefecture of Police.

"Ivan Baroff" turned out to be a polished and agreeable person who at once
frankly explained that he belonged to the International Police. Indeed
while shaking hands with his visitor he observed pleasantly, "This is not
the kind of work with which I have, as a rule, anything to do, but my
colleagues have asked me to see you, Mr. Stephens, because I have lived in
England, and am familiar with your difficult language. I wish to entertain
you on a rather delicate matter. I am sure I may count on your discretion,
and, may I add, your sympathy?"

The English lawyer looked straight at the suave-spoken detective. What the
devil did the man mean? "Certainly," said he, "certainly you can count on
my discretion, Monsieur Baroff, and--and my sympathy. I hope I am not
unreasonable in hoping that at last the police have obtained some kind of
due to Mr. Dampier's whereabouts."

"No," said the other indifferently. "That I regret to tell you is not the
case; they are, however, prosecuting their enquiries with the greatest
zeal--of hat you may rest assured."

"So I have been told again and again," Mr. Stephens spoke rather
impatiently. "It seems strange--I think I may say so to you who are, like
myself, a foreigner--it seems strange, I say, that the French police, who
are supposed to be so extraordinarily clever, should have failed to find
even a trace of this missing man. Mr. John Dampier can't have vanished from
the face of the earth: dead or alive, he must be somewhere!"

"There is of course no proof at all that Mr. Dampier ever arrived in
Paris," observed the detective significantly.

"No, there is no actual proof that he did so," replied the English
solicitor frankly. "There I agree! But there is ample proof that he was
coming to Paris. And, as I suppose you know, the Paris police have
satisfied themselves that Mr. and Mrs. Dampier stayed both in Marseilles
and in Lyons."

"Yes, I am aware of that; as also--" he checked himself. "But what I have
to say to you to-day, my dear sir, is only indirectly concerned with Mr.
Dampier's disappearance. I am really here to ask if you cannot exert your
influence with the Burton family, with the American Senator, that is, and
more particularly with his son, to behave in a reasonable manner."

"I don't quite understand what you mean."

"Well, it is not so very easy to explain! All I can say is that young Mr.
Burton is making himself very officious, and very disagreeable. He has
adopted a profession which here, at the Prefecture of Police, we naturally
detest"--the Russian smiled, but not at all pleasantly--"I mean that of the
amateur detective! He is determined to find Mr. Dampier--or perhaps it
would be more true to say"--he shrugged his shoulders--"that he wishes--the
wish perhaps being, as you so cleverly say in England, father to the
thought--to be quite convinced of that unfortunate gentleman's obliteration
from life. He has brought himself to believe--but perhaps he has already
told you what he thinks--?"

He waited a moment.

But the English lawyer made no sign of having understood what the other
wished to imply. "They have all talked to me," he said mildly, "Senator
Burton, Mr. Burton, Miss Burton; every conceivable possibility has been
discussed by us."

"Indeed? Well, with so many clever people all trying together it would be
strange if not one hit upon the truth!" The detective spoke with
good-natured sarcasm.

"Perhaps we have hit upon it," said Mr. Stephens suddenly. "What do you
think, Monsieur Baroff?"

"I do not think at all!" he said pettishly. "I am far too absorbed in my
own tiresome job--that of keeping my young Princes and Grand Dukes out of
scrapes--to trouble about this peculiar affair. But to return to what I was
saying. You are of course aware that Mr. Gerald Burton is convinced, and
very foolishly convinced (for there is not an atom of proof, or of anything
likely to lead to proof), that this Mr. Dampier was murdered, if not by the
Poulains, then by some friend of theirs in the Hotel Saint Ange. The
foolish fellow has as good as said so to more than one of our officials."

"I know such is Mr. Burton's theory," answered Mr. Stephens frankly, "and
it is one very difficult to shake. In fact I may tell you that I have
already tried to make him see the folly of the notion, and how it is almost
certainly far from the truth."

"It is not only far from the truth, it is absolutely untrue," said the
Russian impressively. "But what I now wish to convey to the young man is
that should he be so ill-advised as to do what he is thinking of doing he
will make it very disagreeable for the lady in whom he takes so strangely
violent an interest--"

"What exactly do you mean, Monsieur Baroff?"

"This Mr. Gerald Burton is thinking of enlisting the help of the American
newspaper men in Paris. He wishes them to raise the question in their
journals."

"I do not think he would do that without consulting his father or me," said
Mr. Stephens quickly. He felt dismayed by the other's manner. Monsieur
Baroff's tone had become menacing, almost discourteous.

"Should this headstrong young man do anything of that kind," went on the
detective, "he will put an end to the efforts we are making to find Mrs.
Dampier's husband. In fact I think I may say that if the mystery is never
solved, it will be thanks to his headstrong folly and belief in himself."

With this the disagreeable interview came to an end, and though the English
lawyer never confided the details of this curious conversation to any
living soul, he did make an opportunity of conveying Ivan Baroff's warning
to Gerald Burton.

"Before leaving Paris," he said earnestly, "there is one thing I want to
impress upon you, Mr. Burton. Do not let any newspaper people get hold of
this story; I can imagine nothing that would more distress poor Mrs.
Dampier. She would be exposed to very odious happenings if this
disappearance of her husband were made, in any wide sense of the word,
public. And then I need not tell you that the Paris Police have a very
great dislike to press publicity; they are doing their very best--of that I
am convinced--to probe the mystery."

Gerald Burton hesitated. "I should have thought," he said, "that it would
at least be worth while to offer a reward in all the Paris papers. I find
that such rewards are often offered in England, Mr. Stephens."

"Yes--they are. And very, very seldom with any good result," answered the
lawyer drily. "In fact all the best minds concerned with the question of
crime have a great dislike to the reward system. Not once in a hundred
cases is it of any use. In fact it is only valuable when it may induce a
criminal to turn 'King's evidence.' But in this case I pray you to believe
me when I say that we are not seeking to discover the track of any
criminal--" in his own mind he added the words, "unless we take John
Dampier to be one!"

It was on the morning of Mr. Stephens' departure from Paris, in fact when
he and Senator Burton, who had gone to see him off, were actually in the
station, walking up and down the Salle des Pas Perdus, that the lawyer
uttered the words which finally made up the American Senator's mind
for him.

"You have been so more than good to Mrs. Dampier," the Englishman said
earnestly, "that I do not feel it would be fair, Mr. Senator, to leave you
in ignorance of my personal conviction concerning this painful affair."

The American turned and looked at his companion. "Yes?" he said with
suppressed eagerness. "Yes, Mr. Stephens, I shall be sincerely grateful for
your honest opinion."

They had all three--he and Daisy and Gerald--tried to make this Englishman
say what he really thought, but with a courtesy that was sometimes grave,
sometimes smiling, Mr. Stephens had eluded their surely legitimate
curiosity.

Even now the lawyer hesitated, but at last he spoke out what he believed to
be the truth.

"It is my honest opinion that this disappearance of Mr. Dampier is painful
rather than mysterious. I believe that poor Nancy Tremain's bridegroom,
actuated by some motive to which we may never have the clue, made up his
mind to disappear. When faced with responsibilities for which they have no
mind men before now have often disappeared, Mr. Senator. Lawyers and
doctors, if their experience extend over a good many years, come across
stories even more extraordinary than that which has been concerning
us now!"

"I take it," said Senator Burton slowly, "that you did not form a good
impression of this Mr. Dampier?"

The lawyer again hesitated, much as he had hesitated when asked the same
question by young Burton, but this time he answered quite truthfully.

"Well, no, I did not! True, he seemed entirely indifferent as to how the
money of his future wife was settled; indeed I could not help feeling that
he was culpably careless about the whole matter. But even so I had one or
two very disagreeable interviews with him. You see, Senator Burton, the man
was madly in love; he had persuaded poor Nancy to be married at once--and
by at once I mean within a fortnight of their engagement. He seemed
strangely afraid of losing her, and I keenly resented this feeling on his
part, for a more loyal little soul doesn't live. She has quite a nice
fortune, you know, and for my part I should have liked her to marry some
honest country gentleman in her own country--not an artist living
in Paris."

"You don't attach much importance to love, Mr. Stephens?"

The lawyer laughed. "Quite enough!" he exclaimed. "Love causes more trouble
in the world than everything else put together--at any rate it does to
members of my profession. But to return to poor Nancy. She's a fascinating
little creature!" He shot a quick glance at Senator Burton, but the latter
only said cordially:--

"Yes, as fascinating as she's pretty!"

"Well, she had plenty of chances of making a good marriage--but no one
touched her heart till this big, ugly fellow came along. So of course I had
to make the best of it!" He waited a moment and then went on. "I ought to
tell you that at my suggestion Dampier took out a large insurance policy on
his own life: I didn't think it right that he should bring, as it were,
nothing into settlement, the more so that Nancy had insisted, on her side,
that all her money should go to him at her death, and that whether they had
any children or not! You know what women are?" he shrugged his shoulders.

"If that be so," observed the Senator, "then money can have had nothing to
do with his disappearance."

"I'm not so sure of that! In fact I've been wondering uneasily during the
last few days whether, owing to his being an artist, and to his having
lived so much abroad, John Dampier could have been foolish enough to
suppose that in the case of his disappearance the insurance money would be
paid over to Mrs. Dampier. That, of course, would be one important reason
why he should wish to obliterate himself as completely as he seems to have
done. I need hardly tell you, Mr. Senator, that the Insurance Office would
laugh in my face if I were to try and make them pay. Why, years will have
to elapse before our courts would even consider the probability of death."

"I now understand your view," said the Senator gravely. "But even if it be
the true solution, it does not explain the inexplicable difference between
Mrs. Dampier's statement and that of the Poulains--I mean, their statements
as to what happened the night Mr. and Mrs. Dampier arrived in Paris."

"No," said the lawyer reluctantly. "I admit that to me this is the one
inexplicable part of the whole story. And I also confess that as to that
one matter I find it impossible to make up my mind. If I had not known poor
little Nancy all her life, I should believe, knowing what women are capable
of doing if urged thereto by pride or pain--I should believe, I say, that
she had made up this strange story to account for her husband's having left
her! I could tell you more than one tale of a woman having deceived not
only her lawyer, but, later, a judge and a jury, as to such a point of
fact. But from what I know of Mrs. Dampier she would be quite incapable of
inventing, or perhaps what is quite as much to the purpose, of keeping up
such a deception."

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