The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective - Catherine Louisa Pirkis (read aloud books .TXT) 📗

“I must go at once; this very minute,” she said. “I promised Charlie I would back soon after six, and now it is past seven. Mr. Cassimi, will you take me down to my carriage?” And with the most hurried of leave-takings to the Princess and her hostess, the lady swept out of the room, followed by Mr. Cassimi.

The butler still standing at the door, drew back to allow the lady to pass, and then, claret-cup and all, followed her out of the room.

Mrs. Druce drew a long breath and bowed formally to Loveday.

“I was a little taken by surprise,” she began—

But here the Princess rose suddenly from the sofa.

“Moi, je suis fatiguée,” she said in excellent French to Mrs. Druce, and she too swept out of the room, throwing, as she passed, what seemed to Loveday a slightly scornful glance towards the Major.

Her two attendants, one carrying her fan, and the other her reclining cushions, followed.

Mrs. Druce again turned to Loveday.

“Yes, I confess I was taken a little by surprise,” she said, her manner thawing slightly. “I am not accustomed to the presence of detectives in my house; but now tell me what do you propose doing: how do you mean to begin your investigations—by going over the house and looking in all the corners, or by cross-questioning the servants? Forgive my asking, but really I am quite at a loss; I haven’t the remotest idea how such investigations are generally conducted.”

“I do not propose to do much in the way of investigation tonight,” answered Loveday as formally as she had been addressed, “for I have very important business to transact before eight o’clock this evening. I shall ask you to allow me to see Mdlle. Cunier’s room—ten minutes there will be sufficient—after that, I do not think I need further trouble you.”

“Certainly; by all means,” answered Mrs. Druce; “you’ll find the room exactly as Lucie left it, nothing has been disturbed.”

She turned to the butler, who had by this time returned and stood presenting the claret-cup, and, in French, desired him to summon her maid, and tell her to show Miss Brooke to Mdlle. Cunier’s room.

The ten minutes that Loveday had said would suffice for her survey of this room extended themselves to fifteen, but the extra five minutes assuredly were not expended by her in the investigation of drawers and boxes. The maid, a pleasant, well-spoken young woman, jingled her keys, and opened every lock, and seemed not at all disinclined to enter into the light gossip that Loveday contrived to set going.

She answered freely a variety of questions that Loveday put to her respecting Mademoiselle and her general habits, and from Mademoiselle, the talk drifted to other members of Mrs. Druce’s household.

If Loveday had, as she had stated, important business to transact that evening, she certainly set about it in a strange fashion.

After she quitted Mademoiselle’s room, she went straight out of the house, without leaving a message of any sort for either Mrs. or Major Druce. She walked the length of Portland Place in leisurely fashion, and then, having first ascertained that her movements were not being watched, she called a hansom, and desired the man to drive her to Madame Celine’s, a fashionable milliner’s in Old Bond Street.

At Madame Celine’s she spent close upon half-an-hour, giving many and minute directions for the making of a hat, which assuredly, when finished, would compare with nothing in the way of millinery that she had ever before put upon her head.

From Madame Celine’s the hansom conveyed her to an undertaker’s shop, at the corner of South Savile Street, and here she spent a brief ten minutes in conversation with the undertaker himself in his little back parlour.

From the undertaker’s she drove home to her rooms in Gower Street, and then, before she divested herself of hat and coat, she wrote a brief note to Major Druce, requesting him to meet her on the following morning at Eglacé‘s, the confectioner’s, in South Savile Street, at nine o’clock punctually.

This note she committed to the charge of the cab-driver, desiring him to deliver it at Portland Place on his way back to his stand.

“They’ve queer ways of doing things—these people!” said the Major, as he opened and read the note. “Suppose I must keep the appointment though, confound it. I can’t see that she can possibly have found out anything by just sitting still in a corner for a couple of hours! And I’m confident she didn’t give that beast Cassimi one quarter the attention she bestowed on other people.”

In spite of his grumbling, however, the Major kept his appointment, and nine o’clock the next morning saw him shaking hands with Miss Brooke on Eglacé‘s doorstep.

“Dismiss your hansom,” she said to him. “I only want you to come a few doors down the street, to the French Protestant church, to which you have sometimes escorted Mdlle. Cunier.”

At the church door Loveday paused a moment.

“Before we enter,” she said, “I want you to promise that whatever you may see going on there—however greatly you may be surprised—you will make no disturbance, not so much as open your lips till we come out.”

The Major, not a little bewildered, gave the required promise; and, side by side, the two entered the church.

It was little more than a big room; at the farther end, in the middle of the nave, stood the pulpit, and immediately behind this was a low platform, enclosed by a brass rail.

Behind this brass rail, in black Geneva gown, stood the pastor of the church, and before him, on cushions, kneeled two persons, a man and a woman.

These two persons and an old man, the verger, formed the whole of the congregation. The position of the church, amid shops and narrow back-yards, had necessitated the filling in of every one of its windows with stained glass; it was, consequently, so dim that, coming in from the outside glare of sunlight, the Major found it difficult to make out what was going on at the farther end.

The verger came forward and offered to show them to a seat. Loveday shook her head—they would be leaving in a minute, she said, and would prefer standing where they were.

The Major began to take in the situation.

“Why they’re being married!” he said in a loud whisper. “What on earth have you brought me in here for?”

Loveday laid her finger on her lips and frowned severely at him.

The marriage service came to an end, the pastor extended his black-gowned arms like the wings of a bat and pronounced the benediction; the man and woman rose from their knees and proceeded to follow him into the vestry.

The woman was neatly dressed in a long dove-coloured travelling cloak. She wore a large hat, from which fell a white gossamer veil that completely hid her face from view. The man was small, dark and slight, and as he passed on to the vestry beside his bride, the Major at once identified him as his mother’s butler.

“Why, that’s Lebrun!” he said in a still louder whisper than before. “Why, in the name of all that’s wonderful, have you brought me here to see that fellow married?”

“You’d better come outside if you can’t keep quiet,” said Loveday severely, and leading the way out of the church as she spoke.

Outside, South Savile Street was busy with early morning traffic.

“Let us go back to Eglacé‘s” said Loveday, “and have some coffee. I will explain to you there all you are wishing to know.”

But before the coffee could be brought to them, the Major had asked at least a dozen questions.

Loveday put them all on one side.

“All in good time” she said. “You are leaving out the most important question of all. Have you no curiosity to know who was the bride that Lebrun has chosen?”

“I don’t suppose it concerns me in the slightest degree,” he answered indifferently; “but since you wish me to ask the question—Who was she?”

“Lucie Cunier, lately your mother’s amanuensis.”

“The —!” cried the Major, jumping to his feet and uttering an exclamation that must be indicated by a blank.

“Take it calmly,” said Loveday; “don’t rave. Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it. No, it is not the doing of your friend Cassimi, so you need not threaten to put a bullet into him; the girl has married Lebrun of her own free will—no one has forced her into it.”

“Lucie has married Lebrun of her own free will!” he echoed, growing very white and taking the chair which faced Loveday at the little table.

“Will you have sugar?” asked Loveday, stirring the coffee, which the waiter at that moment brought.

“Yes, I repeat,” she presently resumed, “Lucie has married Lebrun of her own free will, although I conjecture she might not perhaps have been quite so willing to crown his happiness if the Princess Dullah-Veih had not made it greatly to her interest to do so.”

“Dolly made it to her interest to do so?” again echoed the Major.

“Do not interrupt me with exclamations; let me tell the story my own fashion, and then you may ask as many questions as you please. Now, to begin at the beginning, Lucie became engaged to Lebrun within a month of her coming to your mother’s house, but she carefully kept the secret from everyone, even from the servants, until about a month ago, when she mentioned the fact in confidence to Mrs. Druce in order to defend herself from the charge of having sought to attract your attention. There was nothing surprising in this engagement; they were both lonely and in a foreign land, spoke the same language, and no doubt had many things in common; and, although chance has lifted Lucie somewhat out of her station, she really belongs to the same class in life as Lebrun. Their love-making appears to have run along smoothly enough until you came home on leave, and the girl’s pretty face attracted your attention. Your evident admiration for her disturbed the equanimity of the Princess, who saw your devotion to herself waning; of Lebrun, who fancied Lucie’s manner to him had changed; of your mother, who was anxious that you should make a suitable marriage. Also additional complications arose from the fact that your attentions to the little Swiss girl had drawn Mr. Cassimi’s notice to her numerous attractions, and there was the danger of you two young men posing as rivals. At this juncture Lady Gwynne, as an intimate friend, and one who had herself suffered a twinge of heartache on Mademoiselle’s account, was taken into your mother’s confidence, and the three ladies in council decided that Lucie, in some fashion, must be got out of the way before you, and Mr. Cassimi came to an open breach, or you had spoilt your matrimonial prospects.”

Here the Major made a slightly impatient movement.

Loveday went on: “It was the Princess who solved the question how this was to be done. Fair Rosamonds are no longer put out of the way by ‘a cup of cold poison’—golden guineas do the thing far more easily and innocently. The Princess expressed her willingness to bestow a thousand pounds on Lucie on the day that she married Lebrun, and to set her up afterwards as a fashionable milliner in Paris. After this munificent offer, everything else became mere matter of detail. The main thing was to get the damsel out of the way without your being able to trace her—perhaps work on her feelings, and induce her, at the last moment, to throw over Lebrun. Your absence from home, on a three days’ visit, gave them the wished-for opportunity. Lady Gwynne took her milliner into her confidence.