The End of Her Honeymoon by Marie Belloc Lowndes

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The American Senator nodded, rather shamefacedly.

"I might advise you to go to the Prefecture de Police, nay, I might
communicate with them myself, but I feel that in the interests of this
young lady it would be better to go slow. Mr. Dampier may return as
suddenly, as unexpectedly, as he went. And then he would not thank us, my
dear sir, for having done anything to turn the Paris Police searchlight on
his private life."

The Consul got up and held out his hand. "For your sake, as well as for
that of my countrywoman, I hope most sincerely that you will find Mr.
Dampier safe and sound when you get back to the Hotel Saint Ange. But if
the mystery still endures to-morrow, then you really must persuade this
poor young lady to send for one of her relatives--preferably, I need hardly
say, a man."

"At what time shall I expect your clerk?" asked Senator Burton. "I think I
ought to prepare the Poulains."

"No, there I think you're wrong! Far better let him go back with you now,
and hear what they have to say. Let him also get a properly signed
statement from Mrs. Dampier. Then he can come back here and type out his
report and her statement for reference. That can do no harm, and may in the
future be of value."

He accompanied the American Senator to the door. "I wish I could help you
more," he said cordially. "Believe me, I appreciate more than I can say
your extraordinary kindness to my 'subject.' I shall, of course, be glad to
know how you get on. But oh, if you knew how busy we are just now! When I
think of how we are regarded--of how I read, only the other day, that a
Consul is the sort of good fellow one likes to make comfortable in a nice
little place--I wish the man who wrote that could have my 'nice little
place' for a week, during an Exhibition Year! I think he would soon change
his mind."

Mrs. Dampier was not present at the, to Senator Burton, odious half-hour
which followed their return to the Hotel Saint Ange.

At first the French hotel-keeper and his wife refused to say anything to
the Consular official. Then, when they were finally persuaded to answer his
questions, they did so as curtly and disagreeably as possible. Madame
Poulain also made a great effort to prevent her nephew, young Jules, from
being brought into the matter. But to her wrath and bitter consternation,
he, as well as her husband and herself, was made to submit to a regular
examination and cross-examination as to what had followed Mrs. Dampier's
arrival at the Hotel Saint Ange.

"Why don't you send for the police?" she cried at last. "We should be only
too glad to lay all the facts before them!"

And as the young Frenchman, after his further interview with Nancy, was
being speeded on his way by the Senator, "I'm blessed if I know what to
believe!" he observed with a wink. "It's the queerest story I've ever come
across; and as for the Poulains, it's the first time I've ever known French
people to say they would like to see the police brought into their private
affairs! One would swear that all the parties concerned were telling the
truth, but I thought that boy, those people's nephew, did know something
more than he said."

CHAPTER VIII

The third morning brought no news of the missing man, and Senator Burton,
noting Gerald's and Daisy's preoccupied, anxious faces, began to wonder if
his life would ever flow in pleasant, normal channels again.

The son and daughter whom he held so dear, whose habitual companionship was
so agreeable to him, were now wholly absorbed in Mrs. Dampier and her
affairs. They could think of nothing else, and, when they were alone with
their father, they talked of nothing else.

The Senator remembered with special soreness what had happened the
afternoon before, just after he had dismissed the clerk of the British
Consul. Feeling an eager wish to forget, as far as might be for a little
while, the mysterious business in which they were all so untowardly
concerned, he had suggested to Daisy that they might go and spend a quiet
hour in the Art section of the Exhibition. But to his great discomfiture,
his daughter had turned on him with a look of scorn, almost of contempt:

"Father! Do you mean me to go out and leave poor little Nancy alone in her
dreadful suspense and grief--just that I may enjoy myself?"

And the Senator had felt ashamed of his selfishness. Yes, it had been most
unfeeling of him to want to go and gaze on some of the few masterpieces
American connoisseurs have left in Europe, while this tragedy--for he
realised that whatever the truth might be it was a tragedy--was still
in being.

It was good to know that thanks to the British Consul's word of advice his
way, to-day, was now clear. The time had come when he must advise Mrs.
Dampier to send for some member of her family. Without giving his children
an inkling of what he was about to say to their new friend, Senator Burton
requested Nancy, in the presence of the two others, to come down into the
garden of the Hotel Saint Ange in order that they might discuss the
situation.

As they crossed the sun-flecked cheerful courtyard Nancy pressed
unconsciously nearer her companion, and averted her eyes from the kitchen
window where the hotel-keeper and his wife seemed to spend so much of their
spare time, gazing forth on their domain, watching with uneasy suspicion
all those who came and went from the Burtons' apartments.

As the young Englishwoman passed through into the peaceful garden whose
charm and old-world sweetness had been one of the lures which had drawn
John Dampier to what was now to her a fatal place, she felt a sensation of
terrible desolation come over her, the more so that she was now half
conscious that Senator Burton, great as was his kindness, kept his judgment
in suspense.

They sat down on a wooden bench, and for awhile neither spoke. "Have you
found out anything?" she asked at last in a low voice. "I think by your
manner that you have found out something, Mr. Burton--something you don't
wish to say to me before the two others?"

He looked at her, surprised. "No," he said sincerely, "that is not so at
all. I have found out nothing, Mrs. Dampier--would that I had! But I feel
it only right to tell you that the moment has come when you should
communicate with your friends. The British Consul told me that if we were
still without news, still in suspense, this morning, he would strongly
advise that you send for someone to join you in Paris. Surely you have some
near relation who would come to you?"

Nancy shook her head. "No. I daresay it may seem strange to you, Senator
Burton, but I have no near relations at all. I was the only child of a
father and mother who, in their turn, were only children. I have some very
distant cousins, a tribe of acquaintances, a few very kind friends--" her
lips quivered "but no one--no one of whom I feel I could ask that sort
of favour."

Senator Burton glanced at her in dismay. She looked very wan and fragile
sitting there; whatever the truth, he could not but feel deeply sorry
for her.

Suddenly she turned to him, and an expression of relief came over her sad
eyes and mouth. "There is someone, Mr. Burton, someone I ought to have
thought of before! There is a certain Mr. Stephens who was my father's
friend as well as his solicitor; and he has always managed all my money
matters. I'll write and ask Mr. Stephens if he can come to me. He was more
than kind at the time of my marriage, though I'm afraid that he and Jack
didn't get on very well together."

She looked up in Senator Burton's face with a bewildered, pleading look,
and he suddenly realised how difficult a task such a letter would be to
her, supposing, that is, that the story she told, the story in which even
now the Senator only half believed--were true.

"I'll go up and write the letter now," she said, and together they both
went, once more, indoors.

But Gerald Burton, when he heard of the proposed letter to Mrs. Dampier's
lawyer, made an abrupt suggestion which both the Senator and Nancy welcomed
with eagerness.

"Why shouldn't we telephone to this Mr. Stephens?" he asked. "That would
save a day, and it would be far easier to explain to him all that has
happened by word of mouth than in a letter--" He turned to Nancy, and his
voice unconsciously softened: "If you will trust me, I will explain the
situation to your friend, Mrs. Dampier."

The father and son's drive to the Central Paris-London-Telephone office was
curiously silent, though both the older and the younger man felt full of
unwonted excitement.

"Now, at last, I am on the track of the truth!" such was the Senator's
secret thought. But he would not have been very much surprised had no such
name as that of Davies P. Stephens, Solicitor, 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields,
appeared in the London Telephone Directory. But yes, there the name was,
and Gerald showed it to his father with a gleam of triumph.

"You will want patience--a good deal of patience," said the attendant
mournfully.

Gerald Burton smiled. He was quite used to long-distance telephoning at
home. "All right!" he said cheerily. "I've plenty of patience!"

But though the young man claimed to have plenty of patience he felt far too
excited, far too strung up and full of suspense, for the due exercise of
that difficult virtue.

The real reason why he had suggested this telephone message, instead of a
letter or a telegram, was that he longed for his father's suspicions to be
set at rest.

Gerald Burton resented keenly, far more keenly than did his sister, the
Senator's lack of belief in Nancy Dampier's story. He himself would have
staked his life on the truthfulness of this woman whom he had only known
three days.

At last the sharp, insistent note of the telephone bell rang out, and he
stept up into the call-box.

"Mr. Stephens' office?" He spoke questioningly: and after what seemed a
long pause the answer came, muffled but audible. "Yes, yes! This is Mr.
Stephens' office. Who is it wants us from Paris?" The question was put in a
Cockney voice, and the London twang seemed exaggerated by its transmission
over those miles and miles of wire by land, under the sea, and then by
land again.

"I want to speak to Mr. Stephens himself," said Gerald Burton very
distinctly.

"Mr. Stephens? Yes, he's here all right. I'll take a message."

"Make him come himself."

"Yes, he's here. Give me your message--" the words were again a little
muffled.

"I can't send a message. You must fetch him." Gerald Burton's stock of
patience was giving way. Again there was an irritating pause, but it was
broken at last.

"Who is it? I can't fetch him if you won't say who you are."

"I am speaking on behalf of Mrs. Dampier," said Gerald reluctantly. Somehow
he hated uttering Nancy's name to this tiresome unknown.

And then began an absurd interchange of words at cross purposes.

"Mr. Larkspur?"

"No," said Gerald. "Mrs. Dampier."

"Yes," said the clerk. "Yes, I quite understand. L. for London--"

Gerald lost his temper--"D. for damn!" he shouted, "Dampier."

And then, at last, with a shrill laugh that sounded strange and eerie, the
clerk repeated, "Dampier--Mr. John Dampier? Yes, sir. What can we do
for you?"

"Mrs. Dampier!"

"Mrs. Dampier? Yes, sir. I'll fetch Mr. Stephens." The clerk's voice had
altered; it had become respectful, politely enquiring.

And at last with intense relief, Gerald Burton heard a low clear, incisive
voice uttering the words: "Is that Mrs. Dampier herself speaking?"

Instinctively Gerald's own voice lowered. "No, I am speaking for Mrs.
Dampier."

The English lawyer's voice hardened, or so it seemed to the young American.
It became many degrees colder. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Dampier. Yes? What
can I do for you?"

And as Gerald, taken oddly aback by the unseen man's very natural mistake,
did not answer for a moment or two:

"Nothing wrong with Nancy, I hope?"

The anxious question sounded very, very clear.

"There is something very wrong with Mrs. Dampier--can you hear me clearly?"

"Yes, yes What is wrong with her?"

"Mrs. Dampier is in great trouble. Mr. Dampier has disappeared."

The strange thing which had happened was told in those four words, but
Gerald Burton naturally went on to explain, or rather to try to explain,
the extraordinary situation which had arisen, to Nancy's lawyer and friend.

Mr. Stephens did not waste any time in exclamations of surprise or pity.
Once he had grasped the main facts, his words were few and to the point.

"Tell Mrs. Dampier," he said, speaking very distinctly, "that if she has no
news of her husband by Friday I will come myself to Paris. I cannot do so
before. Meanwhile, I strongly advise that she, or preferably you for her,
communicate with the police--try and see the Prefect of Police himself. I
myself once obtained much courteous help from the Paris Prefect of Police."

Gerald stept down from the stuffy, dark telephone box. He turned to the
attendant:--"How much do I owe you?" he asked briefly.

"A hundred and twenty francs, Monsieur," said the man suavely.

The Senator drew near. "That was an expensive suggestion of yours, Gerald,"
he observed smiling, as the other put down six gold pieces. And then he
said, "Well?"

"Well, father, there's not much to tell. This Mr. Stephens will come over
on Friday if there's still no news of Mr. Dampier by then. He wants us to
go to the Prefecture of Police. He says we ought to try and get at the
Prefect of Police himself."

There came a long pause: the two were walking along a crowded street.
Suddenly Gerald stopped and turned to the Senator. "Father," he said
impulsively, "I suppose that now, at last, you do believe Mrs.
Dampier's story?"

The young man spoke with a vehemence and depth of feeling which disturbed
his father. What a good thing it was that this English lawyer was coming to
relieve them all from a weight and anxiety which was becoming, to the
Senator himself, if not to the two younger people, quite intolerable.

"Well," he said at last, "I am of course glad to know that everything, so
far, goes to prove that Mrs. Dampier's account of herself is true."

"That being so, don't you think the Hotel Saint Ange ought to be searched?"

"Searched?" repeated Senator Burton slowly. "Searched for what?"

"If I had charge of this business--I mean sole charge--the first thing I
would do would be to have the Hotel Saint Ange searched from top to
bottom!" said Gerald vehemently.

"Is that Mrs. Dampier's suggestion?"

"No, father, it's mine. I had a talk with that boy Jules last night, and
I'm convinced he's lying. There's another thing I should like to do. I
should like to go to the office of the 'New York Herald' and enlist the
editor's help. I would have done it long ago if this man Dampier had been
an American."

"And you would have done a very foolish thing, my boy." The Senator spoke
with more dry decision than was his wont. "Come, come, Gerald, you and I
mustn't quarrel over this affair! Let us think of the immediate thing to
do." He put his hand on his son's arm.

"Yes, father?"

"I suppose that the first thing to do is to take this Mr. Stephens'
advice?"

"Why, of course, father! Will you, or shall I, go to the Prefecture of
Police?"

"Well, Gerald, I have bethought myself of that courteous President of the
French Senate who wrote me such a pleasant note when we first arrived in
Paris this time. No doubt he would give me a personal introduction to the
Prefect of Police."

"Why, father, that's a first rate idea! Hadn't you better go right now and
get it?"

"Yes, perhaps I had; and meanwhile you can tell the poor little woman that
her friend will be here on Friday."

"Yes, I will. And father? May I tell Daisy that now you agree with me about
Mrs. Dampier--that you no longer believe the Poulains' story?"

"No," said Senator Burton a little sternly. "You are to say nothing of the
sort, Gerald. I have only known this girl three days--I have known the
Poulains nine years. Of course it's a great relief to me to learn that Mrs.
Dampier's account of herself is true--so far as you've been able to
ascertain such a fact in a few minutes' conversation with an unknown man
over the telephone--but that does not affect my good opinion of the
Poulains."

And on this the father and son parted, for the first time in their joint
lives, seriously at odds the one with the other.

"Give you an introduction to our Prefect of Police? Why, certainly!"

The white-haired President of the French Senate looked curiously at the
American gentleman who had sought him out at the early hour of
eleven o'clock.

"You will find Monsieur Beaucourt a charming man," he went on. "I hear
nothing but good of the way he does his very difficult work. He is a type
to whom you are used in America, my dear Senator, but whom we perhaps too
often lack in France among those who govern us. Monsieur Beaucourt is a
strong man--a man who takes his own line and sticks to it. I was told only
the other day that crime had greatly diminished in our city since he became
Prefect. He is thoroughly trusted by his subordinates, and you can imagine
what that means when one remembers that our beautiful Paris is the resort
of all the international rogues of Europe. And if they tease us by their
presence at ordinary times, you can imagine what it is like during an
Exhibition Year!"

CHAPTER IX

In all French public offices there is a strange mingling of the sordid and
of the magnificent.

The Paris Prefecture of Police is a huge, quadrangular building, containing
an infinity of bare, and to tell the truth, shabby, airless rooms; yet when
Senator Burton had handed in his card and the note from the President of
the French Senate, he was taken rapidly down a long corridor, and ushered
into a splendid apartment, of which the walls were hung with red velvet,
and which might have been a reception room in an Italian Palace rather than
the study of a French police official.

"Monsieur le Prefet will be back from dejeuner in a few minutes," said the
man, softly closing the door.

The Senator looked round him with a feeling of keen interest and curiosity.
After the weary, baffling hours of fruitless effort in which he had spent
the last three days, it was more than pleasant to find himself at the
fountainhead of reliable information.

Since the far-off days when, as a boy, he had been thrilled by the
brilliant detective stories of which French writers, with the one
outstanding exception of Poe, then had a monopoly, there had never faded
from Senator Burton's mind that first vivid impression of the power, the
might, the keen intelligence, and yes, of the unscrupulousness, of the
Paris police.

But now, having penetrated into the inner shrine of this awe-inspiring
organism, he naturally preferred to think of the secret autocratic powers,
and of the almost uncanny insight of those to whom he was about to make
appeal. Surely they would soon probe the mystery of John Dampier's
disappearance.

The door opened suddenly, and the Paris Prefect of Police walked into the
room. He was holding Senator Burton's card, and the letter of introduction
with which that card had been accompanied, in his sinewy nervous
looking hand.

Bowing, smiling, apologising with more earnestness than was necessary for
the few moments the American Senator had had to await his presence, the
Prefect motioned his guest to a chair.

"I am very pleased," he said in courtly tones, "to put myself at the
disposal of a member of the American Senate. Ah, sir, your country is a
wonderful country! In a sense, the parent of France--for was not America
the first great nation to become a Republic?"

Senator Burton bowed, a little awkwardly, in response to this flowery
sentiment.

He was telling himself that Monsieur Beaucourt was quite unlike the picture
he had mentally formed, from youth upwards, of the Paris Prefect of Police.

There was nothing formidable, nothing for the matter of that in the least
awe-inspiring, about this tired, amiable-looking man. The Prefect was also
lacking in the alert, authoritative manner which the layman all the world
over is apt to associate with the word "police."

Monsieur Beaucourt sat down behind his ornate buhl writing-table, and
shooting out his right hand he pressed an electric bell.

With startling suddenness, a panel disappeared noiselessly into the red
velvet draped wall, and in the aperture so formed a good-looking young man
stood smiling.

"My secretary, Monsieur le Senateur--my secretary, who is also my nephew."

The Senator rose and bowed.

"Andre? Please say that I am not to be disturbed till this gentleman's
visit is concluded." The young man nodded: and then he withdrew as quickly,
as silently, as he had appeared; and the panel slipped noiselessly back
behind him.

"And now tell me exactly what it is that you wish me to do for you," said
the Prefect, with a weary sigh, which was, however, softened by a pleasant
smile. "We are not as omnipotent as our enemies make us out to be, but
still we can do a good deal, and we could do a good deal more were it not
for the Press! Ah, Monsieur le Senateur, that is the only thing I do not
like about your great country. Your American Press sets so bad, so very
bad, an example to our poor old world!"

A thin streak of colour came into Monsieur Beaucourt's cheek, a gleam of
anger sparkled in his grey eyes.

"Yes, greatly owing to the bad example set in America, and of late in
England too, quite a number of misguided people nowadays go to the Press
before they come to us for redress! All too soon," he shook a warning
finger, "they find they have entered a mouse-trap from which escape is
impossible. They rattle at the bars--but no, they are caught fast! Once
they have brought those indefatigable, those indiscreet reporters on the
scene, it is too late to draw back. They find all their most private
affairs dragged into the light of day, and even we can do very little for
them then!"

Senator Burton nodded gravely. He wished his son were there to hear these
words.

"And now let us return to our muttons," said the Prefect leaning forward.
"I understand from the President of the Senate that you require my help in
a rather delicate and mysterious matter."

"I do not know that the matter is particularly delicate, though it is
certainly mysterious," and then Senator Burton explained, in as few and
clear words as possible, the business which had brought him there--the
disappearance, three days before, of the English artist, John Dampier, and
of the present sad plight of Dampier's wife.

Monsieur Beaucourt threw himself back in his chair. His face lit up, it
lost its expression of apathetic fatigue; and his first quick questions
showed him a keen and clever cross-examiner.

At once he seized on the real mystery, and that though the Senator had not
made more of it than he could help. That was the discrepancy in the account
given by the Poulains and by Mrs. Dampier respectively as to the lady's
arrival at the hotel.

But even Monsieur Beaucourt failed to elicit the fact that Senator Burton's
acquaintance with Mrs. Dampier was of such short standing. He assumed that
she was a friend of the Burton family, and the Senator allowed the
assumption to go by default.

"The story you have told me," the Prefect said at last, "is a very curious
story, Monsieur le Senateur. But here we come across stranger things every
day. Still, certain details make the disappearance of this English
gentleman rather stranger than usual. I gather that the vanished man's wife
is a charming person?"

"Extremely charming!" said the Senator quickly. "And I should say quite
truthful--in fact this discrepancy between her account and that of the
Poulains has worried and perplexed me very much."

"Do not let that worry you," said the other thoughtfully. "If this young
lady, your friend, be telling the truth, it is very probable that the
Poulains began to lie in the hope of avoiding trouble for themselves:
having lied they found themselves obliged to stick to their story. You see
just now our hotel-keepers are coining gold, and they do not like this very
pleasant occupation of theirs interrupted, for even the best of reasons. If
this gentleman left the hotel the same night that he arrived there--as I
can see you yourself are inclined to believe, Monsieur le Senateur--then
you may be sure that the hotel people, even if they did see him for a few
moments, would not care to admit that they had done so. I therefore advise
that we put them and their account of what took place out of our minds.
From what you tell me, you have already done what I may call the
usual things?"

"Yes," said Senator Burton frankly. "My son and I have done everything
which common sense could suggest to us. Thus we at once gave a description
of the missing man to the police station of the quarter where both the
Hotel Saint Ange and Mr. Dampier's studio are situated. But, owing
doubtless to the fact that all your officials are just now very busy and
very overworked, we did not get quite as much attention paid to the case as
I should have liked. I do not feel quite sure even now that the missing man
did not meet with a street accident."

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