The Cask - Freeman Wills Crofts (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📗

which he had wished to treat me. I felt wakeful, and began to walk home, but when I had gone about halfway, rain began to fall. I looked for a taxi, but could not see one, and therefore continued my journey on foot, arriving home about one o’clock.

“François, the butler, met me in the hall. He seemed uneasy.

“ ‘I heard the front door bang not ten minutes ago, monsieur,’ he said, as I took off my wet coat. ‘I got up to see if anything was wrong.’

“ ‘Got up?’ I said. ‘How had you come to go to bed before I returned?’

“ ‘Madame told me to, monsieur, about half-past eleven. She said you would be very late and that she would be sitting up.’

“ ‘All right,’ I said, ‘where is Madame?’

“He hesitated.

“ ‘I don’t know, monsieur,’ he said at length.

“ ‘Don’t know?’ I said. I was growing angry. ‘Has she gone to bed?’

“ ‘She has not gone to bed, monsieur,’ he answered.

“I am not, M. de Chef, an imaginative man, but suddenly a feeling of foreboding swept over me. I hurried into the drawing-room and from that to my wife’s small sitting-room. They were both empty. I ran to her bedroom. There was no one there. Then I recollected she had frequently waited for me in my study. I went there to find it also untenanted, and I was just about to withdraw when I saw on my desk a letter which had not been there earlier in the evening. It was addressed to me in my wife’s handwriting, and, with a terrible sinking of the heart, I opened it. Here, M. le Chef, it is.”

It was a short note, written on a sheet of cream-laid notepaper and without date or address. It read:⁠—

“I do not ask you to forgive me for what I am doing tonight, Raoul, for I feel it would be quite too much to expect, but I do ask you to believe that the thought of the pain and annoyance it will be bound to give you cuts me to the heart. You have always been just and kind according to your lights, but you know, Raoul, as well as I do, that we have never loved each other. You have loved your business and your art collection, and I have loved⁠—Léon Felix, and now I am going to him. I shall just disappear, and you will never hear of me again. You, I hope, will get your divorce, and be happy with some more worthy woman.

“Goodbye, Raoul, and do not think worse of me than you can help.

“Annette.”

M. Boirac bowed his head while the others read this unhappy note. He seemed overcome with emotion, and there was silence in the Chief’s room for a few seconds. The sun shone gaily in with never a hint of tragedy, lighting up that bent figure in the armchair, and bringing into pitiless prominence details that should have been cloaked decently in shadow, from the drops of moisture on the drawn brow to the hands clenched white beneath the edge of the desk. Then, as they waited, he pulled himself together with an effort and continued:⁠—

“I was almost beside myself from the blow, and yet I instinctively felt I must act as if nothing had happened. I steadied myself and called to François, who was still in the hall:⁠—

“ ‘It’s all right, François. I’ve had a note from Madame. She was obliged to go out at a moment’s notice to catch the Swiss train. She had a message that her mother is dying.’

“He replied in his ordinary tone, but I could see that he did not believe one word. The understanding and the pity in his eyes almost drove me frantic. I spoke again as carelessly as I could⁠—

“ ‘I wonder had she time to call Suzanne and get properly dressed. You might send her here and then you can get back to bed.’

“Suzanne was my wife’s maid, and when she came into the study I saw from her startled and embarrassed air that she knew.

“ ‘Suzanne,’ I said, ‘Madame has had to go to Switzerland suddenly and unexpectedly. She had to rush off to catch the train without proper time for packing, still, I hope she was able to take enough for the journey?’

“The girl answered at once in a nervous, frightened tone. ‘I have just been to her room, monsieur. She has taken her fur coat and hat and a pair of walking shoes. The evening shoes she was wearing tonight are there where she changed them. She did not ring for me and I did not hear her go to her room.’

“I had become somewhat calmer by this time, and I was thinking rapidly while she spoke.

“ ‘Ah, well,’ I answered, ‘you had better pack some of her things tomorrow so that I can send them after her. She will be staying with her mother, and will no doubt be able to borrow what she wants till her own things arrive.’

“François was still hanging about the corridor. I sent them both to bed and sat down to try and realise what had taken place.

“I need hardly trouble you with my thoughts. For some days I was half crazed, then I pulled myself together. Suzanne I sent home, saying I had heard from Madame that she was employing one of her mother’s maids.”

M. Boirac paused.

“That,” he said at length, “I think is all I have to tell you, M. le Chef. From that awful evening until I saw your advertisement in the Figaro a couple of hours ago, I have not heard a syllable from either my wife or Felix.”

M. Boirac had told his story simply and directly, and his manner seemed to bear the impress of truth. The statement carried conviction to his hearers, who felt their sympathy going out to this man who had acted so loyally to the wife who had betrayed him. M. Chauvet spoke⁠—

“Permit me to express to you, M. Boirac, our deep regret for what has happened and particularly for your having had to come here and