Jennie Baxter, Journalist - Robert Barr (novels in english .TXT) 📗

"You see the man is head over ears in love. Please sit down again, Miss Baxter, and listen. I know this sentimental kind of writing must be irksome to a practical woman like yourself, but in our business we cannot neglect even the slightest detail. Let's see, where was I?--'tenderness,' oh, yes. 'Her hair is of midnight darkness, inclined to ripple, with little whiffs of curls imperiously defying restraint about her temples. Her complexion is as pure as the dawn, touched now and then with a blush as delicate as the petal of a rose.'"

"Absurd!" cried Jennie impatiently. "The complexion of a woman at a ball! Of course, she put it on for the occasion."

"Of course," agreed the detective. "But that merely shows you how deeply in love he is. Lord Donal is quite a young man. He came up to this room to consult with me, and certainly he doesn't know the difference between a complexion developed in a Surrey lane and one purchased in New Bond Street."

"Still, the blushing would seem to indicate that the complexion was genuine," retorted Jennie, apparently quite unflattered by Mr. Taylor's agreement with the theory she herself had put forward.

"Oh, I don't know about that. I believe modern science enables an enamelled woman to blush at will; I wouldn't be sure of it, because it is outside of my own line of investigation, but I have understood such is the case."

"Very likely," assented Jennie. "What is that you have at the bottom of your packet?"

"That," said the detective, drawing it forth and handing it to the girl, "is her glove."

Jennie picked up the glove--which, alas! she had paid for and only worn on one occasion--and smoothed it out between her fingers. It was docketed "G; made by Gaunt et Cie, Boulevard Hausmann; purchased in Paris by one alleging herself to be the Princess von Steinheimer."

"You have found out all about it," said Jennie, as she finished reading the label.

"Yes, it is our business to do so; but the glove has not been of much assistance to us."

"How did he say he became possessed of the glove?" asked the girl innocently. "Did she give it to him?"

"No; he tore it from her hand as she was leaving him in the carriage. It seemed to me a most ungentlemanly thing to do, but of course it was not my business to tell Lord Donal that."

"So the glove has not been of much assistance to you. Tell me, then, what you have done, and perhaps I shall be the better able to advise you."

"We have done everything that suggested itself. We traced the alleged Princess from the Hotel Bristol in Pans to Claridge's in London. I have a very clever woman in Paris who assisted me, and she found where the gloves were bought and where the dress was made. Did I read you Lord Donal's description of the lady's costume?"

"No, never mind that; go on with your story."

"Well, Claridge's provided carriage, coachman and footman to take her to the ball, and this returned with her sometime about midnight. Now, here a curious thing happened. The lady ordered a hansom as she passed the night-porter and shortly after packed off her maid in the cab."

"Her maid!" echoed Jennie.

"Yes. The maid came down in ordinary street dress shortly after, deeply veiled, and drove away in the hansom; the lady paid her bill next morning and went to the eight o'clock Paris express, with carriage and pair, coachman and footman. Of course it struck me that it might be the lady herself who had gone off in the cab, but a moment's reflection showed me that she was not likely to leave the hotel in a cab at midnight, and allow her maid to take the carriage in state next morning."

"That doesn't appear reasonable," murmured Jennie. "You made no attempt, then, to trace the maid?"

"Oh yes, we did. We found the cabman who took her from Claridge's, and he left her at Charing Cross Station, but there all trace of her vanishes. She probably left on one of the late trains--there are only a few after midnight--to some place out in the country. The lady took a first-class ticket to Paris, and departed alone next morning by the eight o'clock Continental express. My assistant discovered her and took a snapshot of her as she was walking down the boulevard; here is the picture."

The detective handed Miss Baxter an instantaneous view of one of the boulevards taken in bright sunshine. The principal figure in the foreground Jennie had no difficulty in recognizing as her own maid, dressed in that _chic_ fashion which Parisian women affect.

"She seems to answer the description," said Jennie.

"So I thought," admitted the detective, "and I sent the portrait to Lord Donal. See what he has written on the back."

Jennie turned the picture over, and there under the inscription, "H. Supposed photo of the missing woman," was written in a bold hand, "Bosh! Read my description of the girl; this is evidently some Paris lady's maid."

"Well, what did you do when you got this picture back?" asked Jennie.

"I remembered you, and went to the office of the _Daily Bugle_. This brings us to the present moment. You have now the whole story, and I shall be very pleased to listen to any suggestions you are good enough to offer."

The girl sat where she was for a few moments and pondered over the situation. The detective, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, regarded her with eager anticipation. The more Jennie thought over the matter, the more she was amazed at the man before her, who seemed unable to place two and two together. He had already spoken of the account of the ball which had appeared in the _Daily Bugle_; of its accuracy and its excellence; he knew that she was a member of the _Bugle_ staff, yet it had never occurred to him to inquire who wrote that description; he knew also that she had been a guest at the Schloss Steinheimer when the invitation to the ball must have reached the Princess. These facts were so plainly in evidence that the girl was afraid to speak lest some chance word would form the connecting link between the detective's mind and the seemingly palpable facts. At last she looked up, the colour coming and going in her cheeks, as Lord Donal had so accurately described it.

"I don't think I can be of any assistance to you in this crisis, Mr. Taylor. You have already done everything that human ingenuity can suggest."

"Yes, I have--everything that _my_ human ingenuity can suggest. But does nothing occur to you? have you no theory to put forward?"

"None that would be of any practical advantage. Is Lord Donal certain that it was not the Princess herself whom he met? Are you thoroughly convinced that there was really an impersonation?"

"What do you mean, Miss Baxter?"

"Well, you met Prince von Steinheimer; what do you think of him?"

"I thought him an overbearing bully, if you ask me. I can't imagine what English or American girls see in those foreigners to cause them to marry. It is the titles, I suppose. The Prince was very violent--practically ordered me out of the Castle, spoke to his father-in-law in the most peremptory manner, and I could easily see the Princess was frightened out of her wits."

"A very accurate characterization of his Highness, Mr. Taylor. Now, of course, the Princess being a woman--and a young woman--would naturally be very anxious to attend the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball, wouldn't she?"

"One would think so."

"And, as you have just said, she has a bear of a husband, a good deal older than herself, who does not in the least care for such functions as that to which the Princess was invited. Is it not quite possible that the Princess actually attended the ball, but, for reasons of her own, desired to keep the fact of her presence there a secret; and you must remember that Lord Donal Stirling had not seen the Princess for five years."

"For five years?" said the detective sharply. "How did you learn that, Miss Baxter?"

"Well, you know," murmured the girl, with a gasp, "he met her last in Washington, and the Princess has not been in America for five years; so you see--"

"Oh, I was not aware that he had met her in America at all; in fact, Lord Donal said nothing much about the Princess--all his talk had reference to this lady who impersonated her."

Jennie leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes for a moment, and breathed quickly.

"I am afraid," she said at last, "that I do not remember with sufficient minuteness the details you have given me, to be able to advise. I can only suggest that Lord Donal met the Princess herself at the Duchess of Chiselhurst's ball. The Princess, naturally, would wish to mislead him regarding her identity; and so, if he had not met her for some time--say two years, or three years, or five years, or whatever the period may be--it is quite possible that the Princess has changed greatly in the interval, and perhaps she was not reluctant to carry on a flirtation with the young man--your client. Of course, she could not allow it to go further than the outside of the door of the Duke of Chiselhurst's town house, for you must remember there was her husband in the background--a violent man, as you have said; and Lord Donal must have thoroughly angered the Princess by what you term his rudeness in tearing off her glove; and now the Princess will never admit that she was at the ball, so it seems to me that you are wasting your time in a wild goose chase. Why, it is absurd to think, if there had been a real disappearing woman, that you, with all your experience and all your facilities, should not have unearthed her long ago. You said at the beginning that nothing was more difficult than to disappear. Very well, then--why have you been baffled? Simply because the Princess herself attended the ball, and there has been no disappearing lady at all."

The detective, with great vehemence, brought down his fist on the table.

"By Jove!" he cried, "I believe you are right. I have been completely blinded, the more so that I have the clue to the mystery right here under my own eyes."

He fumbled for a moment and brought forth a letter from his pile of documents.

"Here is a note from St. Petersburg, written by Lord Donal himself, saying the Princess had sent him the companion glove to the one you now have in your hand. He says he is sure the Princess knows who her impersonator was, but that she won't tell; and, although I had read this note, it never struck me that the Princess herself was the woman. Miss Baxter, you have solved the puzzle!"

"I should be glad to think so," replied the girl, rising, "and I am very happy if I have enabled you to give up a futile chase."

"It is as plain as daylight," replied the detective. "Lord Donal's description fits the Princess exactly, and yet I never thought of her before."

Jennie hurried away from the detective's office, happy in the belief that she had not betrayed herself, although she was not blind to the fact that her escape was due more