Wyllard's Weird

And yet, in the maturity of his days, her husband had seemed to her the most generous and high-minded of men, setting but little value upon his wealth, caring nothing for money in the abstract.

"At the least he has known how to use his fortune nobly," she told herself, as she turned to leave that gloomy bedchamber. "I, who was born with good means, can hardly understand the eagerness of a penniless young man to win fortune. It is a foolish idea of mine, after all, that there is anything ignoble in working for riches."

"Well, Mrs. Wyllard, has your hero-worship been satisfied? Have you seen enough of the temple which once enshrined your god?" said Heathcote lightly.

"Yes, I have been very much gratified; and I must thank Mr. Blümenlein for his kindness and consideration."

The merchant protested that he had rarely enjoyed so great a privilege as that which Mrs. Wyllard had afforded him; and with exchange of courtesies they parted, on the threshold of the outer office.

Heathcote and Dora walked to the hotel together. It was not a long walk, and it took them only by crowded streets and busy thoroughfares, where anything like earnest conversation was impossible. And yet Edward Heathcote could but remember that it was the first time they two had walked together since Dora had been his plighted wife. Ah, how cruel a pang it gave him to recall those old days, and to remember all she had been to him, all she might have been, had Fate used him more kindly!

He stole a look at the beautiful face as they walked slowly across the Place Vendôme. Yes, she was no less lovely than of old; her beauty had ripened, not changed. There was a more thoughtful look, there were traces even of care and sorrow; but those indications only heightened the spirituality of the face.

O, what worship, what devotion he could have given her now in the bloom of her womanhood, in the maturity of his manhood – such whole-hearted, thoughtful love as youth can never give! And it was not to be. They were to be apart for ever, they two. They were to be strangers; since this assumption of friendship, to which he had tried to reconcile himself, was, after all, but a mockery. Chivalrous feeling might keep his thoughts pure, his honour unspotted; but in his heart of hearts he loved his first love as passionately as in the days of his youth.

And to-day, for the first time, he had heard her husband address her coldly and curtly, with a touch of anger even.

He was not likely to forget that curt, impatient tone, and the frown that had accentuated it.

"I was very glad to get your letter," she said presently. "Tell me once more with your own lips that you have ceased to suspect my cousin."

"Ceased to suspect would, perhaps, be too strong an expression. But in the discoveries I have made relating to that murdered girl there is certainly nothing that in any way points to Mr. Grahame."

"I wish you would tell me all you have discovered – how near you are to clearing up the mystery."

"I fear I am still very far from that. It is the history of a remote crime which occupies me at the present, and I hope in that history of the past to find the clue to poor Léonie's death. I shall know more in a few days."

"How so?"

"You saw my advertisement in the Times. If that advertisement be not answered within a week, I shall conclude that the man who was to have met Léonie Lemarque on the morning of July 5th has some part in the guilt of her death."

"And then – "

"And then it will be my business or Mr. Distin's business to find that man."

They were at the door of the hotel by this time, and here Heathcote bade Dora adieu.

"We shall meet again before you leave Paris, I daresay," he said. "If Wyllard wants me he will know where to find me."

"You are not going home yet?"

"No; I am likely to stay here some little time."

"And poor Hilda is longing to have you back at The Spaniards. She will not see Bothwell while you are away. She is bound by the promise you exacted from her. Their future home – everything is in abeyance till you return," pleaded Dora.

"The home must remain in abeyance a little longer. It is hard, no doubt; but when I go back I may be able to give Bothwell some substantial help in the matter of that future home."

"He will need only your sympathy and your advice. He can manage everything else for himself."

"I understand. He has been helped already."

"Bothwell has always been to me as a brother and he can never be poor while I am rich," answered Dora, as they shook hands.

Heathcote walked slowly back to the Boulevard, thinking over this unexpected arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Wyllard in Paris. Why had they come? That alleged reason of the picture-sale seemed rather more like an excuse for a journey than a motive. True that Wyllard had been known to go up to London on purpose to attend a sale at Christie & Manson's, and there might, therefore, be nothing extraordinary in his going still further on the same errand. But it was strange that the picture-sale should coincide with Heathcote's presence in Paris. Could it be Dora's eagerness to know the result of his researches that had brought her and her husband to the Hotel Windsor? Was her impatience the motive of the visit?

Hardly, he thought, for he knew the candour of her nature, and he told himself that she would not have misrepresented the reason of her journey. She had told him that the visit was a sudden whim of her husband's, arising out of his passion for art.

Could it be that Julian Wyllard was so deeply interested in the question of Bothwell's guilt or innocence as to make an excuse for being on the scene of the investigation? He had seemed indifferent almost to unkindness. He had wounded his wife's feelings by his coldness upon this question. And now it seemed to Edward Heathcote that his real motive in coming across the Channel must be to watch the case with his own eyes. His manner to-day, when he inquired about Heathcote's progress, had been seemingly careless: but beneath that apparent indifference the lawyer had noted a keen expectancy, an intent watchfulness. Yes, it was something of deeper moment than a picture-sale which had brought Julian Wyllard to Paris, posthaste, at a day's notice. His angry manner to his wife an hour ago had indicated nervous irritation, a mind on the rack.

Yet, looking at the question from a worldly point of view – and Heathcote considered Wyllard essentially a man of the world – there seemed but little reason why he should be deeply concerned as to whether Bothwell was or was not suspected of foul play in the matter of the French girl's death. The evidence against the young man was of far too slight and vague a character to endanger his life or liberty. It was only just enough to cast a cloud upon his reputation; and that his cousin's husband should put himself out of the way on this account seemed to the last degree unlikely. Julian Wyllard's life, judged as Heathcote judged it, was that of a man who had lived exclusively for himself and his own happiness. An excellent husband to a wife whom he adored, a good master, a liberal landlord; yet a man with whom self had ever been paramount.

CHAPTER V.

A FACE FROM THE GRAVE

A week passed. Julian Wyllard attended the sale at the Hôtel Drouot, bought three of the smaller gems of the Rochejaquelin gallery, and allowed the Raffaelle to pass into a national collection. His wife and he had gone about Paris and its environs in the mean while; Dora very happy in revisiting the spots she had admired in her youth.

The week had gone, and there had been no reply to Heathcote's advertisement. But there had been a letter from Joseph Distin.

"The last few days have not been entirely barren in results," he wrote. "Léonie Lemarque's handbag has been found at the Charing Cross Station; it was left in the waiting-room on the morning of the 5th July, immediately after the arrival of the mail train from Dover. The bag is now in my office. It contains some linen, marked L. L., slippers, brush, and comb; but not a document of any kind. Nothing to afford the slightest clue to the girl's business in London. The police have found a hansom-cabman who drove a tall, gentlemanlike man and a French girl from Charing Cross to Paddington Station on the morning of the 5th of July, in time for the Penzance train. They had no luggage. The cabman believes that he should recognise the man if he saw him again, but can give no clear description of his appearance, except that he was a fine-looking man in the prime of life. He talked French to the girl, and the cabman supposes him to have been a Frenchman. He and the girl appeared to be on very good terms. The cabman saw them go into the Paddington Station together, about five minutes before the starting of the train. The photograph of the dead girl has been shown to this cabman, and he has identified it as the likeness of the little French girl he drove in his cab."

This was all the progress that Joseph Distin's agents had made at present. The facts looked dark against the man who had taken Léonie Lemarque from station to station. If he had been innocent of all wrong in relation to that helpless stranger, surely he would have replied to the advertisement; he would have come forward to say what part he had taken in the history of Léonie Lemarque.

Heathcote stopped the first advertisement, and inserted a second worded thus:

"Monsieur Georges, who resided in Paris in the year '71, and for some years previously, or any friend of Monsieur Georges now residing in England, is earnestly requested to communicate with Messrs. Distin & Son, Solicitors, Furnival's Inn."

He had not much hope of getting a reply to this advertisement, after the failure of the previous appeal, but he thought it was well to advertise this name of Georges. Some insignificant person, some busybody who had known the man Georges at some period of his existence, might reply; and any information so obtained might form a link in the chain of that strange story of Marie Prévol and her mysterious lover.

Mysterious, Heathcote felt this man to have been, despite Trottier's idea that he was only a rich American who lived a Bohemian life as a matter of choice. It seemed to Heathcote as if there must have been some stronger ground than mere whim for an existence so secluded, so exceptional, spent in such a city as Paris, where the delight of the rich and the idle is to spend their days and nights before the eyes of an admiring crowd, and to have every movement and every caprice chronicled in the newspapers.

And this man had been in the prime of his manhood, good-looking, clever, brilliant, the lover of a beautiful actress. Hardly the kind of person to hide his light under a bushel, unless there was some strong motive for concealment.

What could that motive be? Heathcote wondered, as he brooded over the imperfect story of Marie Prévol and her niece. Was this Georges a swindler, who had come by his wealth in a criminal manner, and dared not show himself in the light of day? Was he one of the many tricksters and schemers of Paris, the birds of prey who live upon carrion, and who know themselves the scorn of their fellow-men? or had he a wife from whose jealous eye he was obliged to hide his devotion to Marie Prévol? Heathcote believed that there must have been some guilty reason for the life which shrank from the light of day.

He had been in Paris a fortnight, and he began to ask himself how long this investigation to which he had pledged himself was likely to last. At the beginning his progress had seemed rapid – triumphant almost. Starting from utter ignorance of the name and position of the dead girl, he had arrived in a few days at an exact knowledge of her name, surroundings, and past history. Yet he was constrained to confess to himself that, armed with all these facts, he was not one whit nearer to finding the man who had murdered her. Given this history of Léonie Lemarque's childhood and youth, it was still possible that Bothwell Grahame had thrown her out of the railway-carriage.

The man who took her in a hansom from Charing Cross to Paddington might have left her at the latter station. She might have gone alone upon her way towards Penzance, to encounter a villain on the road, and that villain might have been Bothwell Grahame. The thing was within the limits of possibility; though in Heathcote's present mood it seemed to him altogether unlikely. Yet firmly to establish the fact of Bothwell's innocence, he must find the man who was guilty.

It seemed to him that the man who met Léonie Lemarque at the station, who was known to have conducted her to another station, had in a measure condemned himself by his silence. If he had not been guiltily concerned in the girl's death, he would assuredly have replied to the advertisement. He would have been apprised by that advertisement that some evil had befallen Léonie Lemarque, and he would have been prompt to come forward and tell all he knew of the girl who had been sent to him for aid, a friendless orphan, a stranger in a strange land.

It seemed clear to Heathcote that Georges, the murderer, was still living, still in dread of the gallows; and that the girl who went to meet the friend of the murderer had fallen into a trap. The papers she carried were doubtless of a compromising character; the girl herself was the sole witness of the crime, the only living being who could recognise the murderer. Papers and witness had disappeared together.

Heathcote was fond of Paris. It was not irksome to him to stay there even in the dead season. He had the theatres for his evening amusement; he had two or three friends who had not fled to the mountain or the sea, and in whose drawing-rooms he was welcome. He had the National Library in the Rue Richelieu for his club; and he had the ever-varying life of the Boulevard for his recreation. Time therefore did not hang heavily on his hands; and he knew that while he watched and waited in Paris, Joseph Distin would not be idle in London. Every clue, were it the slightest, would be patiently followed by that expert investigator.

In his saunterings in the Rue de Rivoli and on the Boulevards Mr. Heathcote had hunted assiduously for a photograph of Marie Prévol; but so fleeting is the fame of beauty, which leaves nothing behind it save a tender memory, that for some time he had failed utterly in his quest. Her name was hardly remembered by the people who sold photographs. And yet twelve or thirteen years ago the portrait of Marie Prévol was in every shop-window. It had been sold by thousands, had adorned every album in Paris and Brussels, and had been hung over many a bachelor's mantelpiece, worshipped by half the beardless boys in France and Belgium.

At last Heathcote lighted upon an elderly shopman, who was a little more intelligent and had a much better memory than the men he had encountered hitherto. The man perfectly remembered Marie Prévol and her photographs.

"We had a photograph of her by Nadar," he said – "a portrait that was the rage. It was soon after her first appearance at the Porte Saint-Martin, and it was the costume in which she made her début. She was the Genius of Evil, in a black satin bodice and a black tulle skirt starred with gold. The close-fitting black bodice set off her graceful figure, and her superb shoulders, and her hair, which was positively magnificent, fell down her back in a horse's tail. It was like a stream of molten gold. I saw her in that character half a dozen times. All Paris rushed to see her, though she was never much of an actress. Her beauty made her famous all over Europe. We used to send her photographs to St. Petersburg. But there is a fashion in these things; and I daresay almost every one of those photographs has found its way to the rubbish-heap. If you call to-morrow I may be able to supply you with what you want; but I shall have to hunt over a good deal of our old stock to get at it."

"I shall be greatly obliged if you will do so," answered Heathcote. "I suppose Mademoiselle Prévol had the weakness of our lovely ladies in England, and was fond of being photographed."

"In the first year or so, when she began to be celebrated for her beauty, there were a good many different photographs of her – in this costume and in that; and, you know, in those fairy spectacles every handsome actress wears at least half a dozen costumes. But after that first year there were no more of Mademoiselle Prévol's photographs to be had for love or money. Our firm applied to her, offered her a liberal royalty – five sous upon every photograph – if she would sit to Nadar, in all her costumes, and give us the sole privilege of selling her portraits. But she declined. She was never going to sit again. She did not want herself vulgarised by having her portrait sold for a franc to every calicot in France. Our firm felt insulted by her reply, which was given to one of our principals, through an impertinent sempstress, who worked by the day for Mademoiselle Prévol, and who almost shut the door in our principal's nose. Our firm took the trouble to find out why Mademoiselle objected to the fame which photography can alone bestow upon beauty; and we discovered that there was a lover in the case – a mysterious lover; a man who kept himself curiously dark – "

"Stay!" exclaimed Heathcote. "I will give you a thousand francs for a photograph of that lover."

The shopman shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"A liberal offer, Monsieur, and a very safe one. Except that the man's name was Georges, I know nothing about him. The police would have given me twice as much as you offer, for his photograph, if I could have furnished them with one ten years ago, immediately after the murder of Marie Prévol."

And then the man proceeded to relate the story of the actress's death, and the impression which it made in Paris at the time. Heathcote listened, and affected ignorance: for, even in these recollections, there might be some detail to suggest a clue. There was nothing, however. The man told the story as it had been told in the newspapers, and as it was already known to Heathcote.

He went back to the shop on the following day, and the shopman showed him three different photographs of Marie Prévol.

Two were of the carte de visite size, in costume. They had both grown pale with age, and had an old-fashioned look. They were full-length portraits, showing the perfection of an exquisite figure, as displayed in the scanty drapery of a burlesque costume: a graceful girlish form, delicately fashioned, a perfect face, small refined features, a head crowned with masses of platted hair. But, in these small photographs, the soul was wanting. Beyond the one fact, that the original was exquisitely lovely, they revealed nothing.

The third was of cabinet size, and here the woman herself appeared. Here, in the face of the photograph, Edward Heathcote looked back across ten years, and saw the face of the living woman, the smile on the lips, the light in the eyes. It was a head vignetted, the head only, carelessly draped with a cloud of tulle, which framed the oval of the face and veiled the rich masses of hair. It was an exquisite face, eyes large and dark and dreamy, shadowed by long dark lashes, an expression of pensive tenderness about the perfect lips, the nose small and straight, the chin delicately moulded. It was not the bold bright beauty of an actress, accustomed to challenge the admiration of the vulgar crowd; it was a beauty instinct with tender womanly feeling, and serious thought, an essentially feminine loveliness; and its chief characteristic was purity. It would have been impossible to associate such loveliness with an evil life, a dissolute mind.

The colour of this larger photograph was almost as good as if it had been taken yesterday: the portrait had a living look, which struck Heathcote painfully. It was sad to think that lovely face had been lying in the dust for years – that the sweet smile in those eyes was nothing more than a memory.

He was to dine at the Windsor that evening – a farewell dinner, since Julian Wyllard talked of leaving Paris next morning. He wanted to take his wife to Switzerland, perhaps to the Italian lakes. Dora was pleased at the idea of revisiting the scenes in which her honeymoon had been spent. They seemed far away in a dim past, those days of early married life, when all the world was decked in the vivid hues of hope and gladness. Her union with Julian Wyllard had been a happy one, but there had been something wanting. That lonely old house at Penmorval chilled her sometimes, with its silent corridors, its empty rooms. It would have been so sweet to her to hear baby feet pattering along those corridors – baby voices – that glad childish treble, which is like the piping of young birds, in those spacious rooms. There were so many rooms, there was so much vacant space in the old house which only children could have filled. And now she told herself that the dream was past and done with. She felt as if she were growing old, and that somehow, she knew not how, she and her husband were further apart than they had been. It might be that the disappointment of a childless union was preying upon his mind – that he felt the burden of a great fortune for which he had toiled over-much in his youth, renouncing every social pleasure, friendship, love, all things, only to heap up wealth for which there should be no heir.

The dinner at the Windsor was bright and pleasant, albeit Heathcote was the only guest. Julian Wyllard was in excellent spirits, full of plans for making the most of the bright weather in Switzerland. Dora was pleased at his gaiety. She had been going about a good deal with him, revisiting all the places she had seen with her mother – the churches, the galleries, the law-courts, that brand-new Palais de Justice, so splendid, so imposing, so uninteresting. They had been to Versailles.

"Did you go to Saint-Germain?" asked Heathcote. "There is not much to see in the chateau where poor old James Stuart shed the light of exiled royalty; but the old town, and the terrace, and the forest are delightful."

"No; we did not go to Saint-Germain. We had arranged to go yesterday, but Julian mistook the time at which the train started, and we reached the station too late for the only train that would have suited us."

"You have never been to Saint-Germain?" asked Heathcote.

"O yes; I was there with my mother years ago," answered Dora. "We stayed at the Henri Quatre for a week. I have ridden and rambled all over the forest. I was charmed with the place. I should like to have gone there again with Julian."

"There may be time when we return from Switzerland," said her husband.

"Why not delay your journey for a day, and let us all go to Saint-Germain to-morrow?" said Heathcote. "Suppose you dine with me at the Henri Quatre. I have a morbid interest in that hotel, and in the forest."

"Indeed! But why?" asked Dora.

Instead of any verbal answer, Heathcote took from his pocket the photograph of Marie Prévol, and handed it to Mrs. Wyllard. She and her husband looked at it together. She had drawn closer to him after dinner, as they sat at the small round table, and now they were sitting side by side, like lovers.

There was a silence as they looked at the portrait.

"What an exquisite face!" exclaimed Dora at last. "I don't think I ever saw lovelier eyes or a sweeter expression. Who is the original? Do you know her?"

"She has been dead ten years. I never saw her," answered Heathcote gravely.

"But what has this portrait to do with your morbid interest in the forest of Saint-Germain?" asked Dora.

"It is the likeness of a woman who was cruelly murdered there just ten years ago. She was an actress known as Marie Prévol. The murder made a great sensation at the time. You must have heard of it, Mr. Wyllard; for I think you were a resident in Paris in '71?"

"I was a resident in Paris till '73. Yes, I perfectly remember the murder of Marie Prévol and her admirer. But it was one of those crimes which do not excite any deep or lasting interest. The case was too common, the motive too obvious. An outbreak of jealous fury on the part of a jilted lover. Had the murderer and his victims belonged to the working classes, society would scarcely have heard of the crime, certainly would have taken no notice of it. But because she was an actress and her admirer a man of fashion, there was a fuss."

"Then you do not consider such a murder interesting?" asked Heathcote.