A Maker of History - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best books to read for students TXT) 📗

"Disappearance of Mademoiselle Poynton, from England.—We regret to state no trace has been discovered of the missing young lady.

"(Signed) Jules Legarde, Superintendent."

"That was only issued a few hours ago," the manager said.

"And I thought," Duncombe said bitterly, "that the French police were the best in the world!"

The manager said nothing. Duncombe rose from his chair.

"I shall go myself to the Café Montmartre," he said. The manager bowed.

"I shall be glad," he said, "to divest myself of any further responsibility in this matter. It has been a source of much anxiety to the directors as well as myself."

Duncombe walked out of the room, and putting on his coat again called for a petite voiture. He gave the man the address in the Rue St. Honoré and was driven to a block of flats there over some shops.

"Is Monsieur Spencer in?" he asked the concierge. He was directed to the first floor. An English man-servant admitted him, and a few moments later he was shaking hands with a man who was seated before a table covered with loose sheets of paper.

"Duncombe, by all that's wonderful!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand. "Why, I thought that you had shaken the dust of the city from your feet forever, and turned country squire. Sit down! What will you have?"

"First of all, am I disturbing you?"

Spencer shook his head.

"I've no Press work to-night," he answered. "I've a clear hour to give you at any rate. When did you come?"

"Two-twenty from Charing Cross," Duncombe answered. "I can't tell you how thankful I am to find you in, Spencer. I'm over on a very serious matter, and I want your advice."

Spencer touched the bell. Cigars and cigarettes, whisky and soda, appeared as though by magic.

"Now help yourself and go ahead, old chap," his host declared. "I'm a good listener."

He proved himself so, sitting with half-closed eyes and an air of close attention until he had heard the whole story. He did not once interrupt, but when Duncombe had finished he asked a question.

"What did you say was the name of this café where the boy had disappeared?"

"Café Montmartre."

Spencer sat up in his chair. His expression had changed.

"The devil!" he murmured softly.

"You know the place?"

"Very well. It has an extraordinary reputation. I am sorry to say it, Duncombe, but it is a very bad place for your friend to have disappeared from."

"Why?"

"In the first place it is the resort of a good many of the most dangerous people in Europe—people who play the game through to the end. It is a perfect hot-bed of political intrigue, and it is under police protection."

"Police protection! A place like that!" Duncombe exclaimed.

"Not as you and I understand it, perhaps," Spencer explained. "There is no Scotland Yard extending a protecting arm over the place, and that sort of thing. But the place is haunted by spies, and there are intrigues carried on there in which the secret service police often take a hand. In return it is generally very hard to get to the bottom of any disappearance or even robbery there through the usual channels. To the casual visitor, and of course it attracts thousands from its reputation, it presents no more dangers perhaps than the ordinary night café of its sort. But I could think of a dozen men in Paris to-day, who, if they entered it, I honestly believe would never be seen again."

Spencer was exaggerating, Duncombe murmured to himself. He was a newspaper correspondent, and he saw these things with the halo of melodrama around them. And yet—four nights ago. His face was white and haggard.

"The boy," he said, "could have been no more than an ordinary visitor. He had no great sum of money with him, he had no secrets, he did not even speak the language. Surely he would have been too small fry for the intriguers of such a place!"

"One would think so," Spencer answered musingly. "You are sure that he was only what you say?"

"He was barely twenty-one," Duncombe answered, "and he had never been out of England before."

"What about the girl?"

"She is two years older. It was her first visit to Paris." Spencer nodded.

"The disappearance of the boy is of course the riddle," he remarked. "If you solve that you arrive also at his sister's whereabouts. Upon my word, it is a poser. If it had been the boy alone—well, one could understand. The most beautiful ladies in Paris are at the Montmartre. No one is admitted who is not what they consider—chic! The great dancers and actresses are given handsome presents to show themselves there. On a representative evening it is probably the most brilliant little roomful in Europe. The boy of course might have lost his head easily enough, and then been ashamed to face his sister. But when you tell me of her disappearance, too, you confound me utterly. Is she good-looking?"

"Very!"

"She would go there, of course, asking for her brother," Spencer continued thoughtfully. "An utterly absurd thing to do, but no doubt she did, and—look here, Duncombe, I tell you what I'll do. I have my own two news-grabbers at hand, and nothing particular for them to do this evening. I'll send them up to the Café Montmartre."

"It's awfully good of you, Spencer. I was going myself," Duncombe said, a little doubtfully.

"You idiot!" his friend said cheerfully, yet with a certain emphasis. "English from your hair to your boots, you'd go in there and attempt to pump people who have been playing the game all their lives, and who would give you exactly what information suited their books. They'd know what you were there for, the moment you opened your mouth. Honestly, what manner of good do you think that you could do? You'd learn what they chose to tell you. If there's really anything serious behind all this, do you suppose it would be the truth?"

"You're quite right, I suppose," Duncombe admitted, "but it seems beastly to be doing nothing."

"Better be doing nothing than doing harm!" Spencer declared. "Look round the other cafés and the boulevards. And come here at eleven to-morrow morning. We'll breakfast together at Paillard's."

Spencer wrote out his luncheon with the extreme care of the man to whom eating has passed to its proper place amongst the arts, and left to Duncombe the momentous question of red wine or white. Finally, he leaned back in his chair, and looked thoughtfully across at his companion.

"Sir George," he said, "you have placed me in a very painful position."

Duncombe glanced up from his hors d'œuvre.

"What do you mean?"

"I will explain," Spencer continued. "You came to me last night with a story in which I hope that I showed a reasonable amount of interest, but in which, as a matter of fact, I was not interested at all. Girls and boys who come to Paris for the first time in their lives unattended, and find their way to the Café Montmartre, and such places, generally end up in the same place. It would have sounded brutal if I had added to your distress last night by talking like this, so I determined to put you in the way of finding out for yourself. I sent two of my most successful news-scouts to that place last night, and I had not the slightest doubt as to the nature of the information which they would bring back. It turns out that I was mistaken."

"What did they discover?" Duncombe asked eagerly.

"Nothing!"

Duncombe's face fell, but he looked a little puzzled.

"Nothing? I don't understand. They must have heard that they had been there anyhow."

"They discovered nothing. You do not understand the significance of this. I do! It means that I was mistaken for one thing. Their disappearance has more in it than the usual significance. Evil may have come to them, but not the ordinary sort of evil. Listen! You say that the police have disappointed you in having discovered nothing. That is no longer extraordinary to me. The police, or those who stand behind them, are interested in this case, and in the withholding of information concerning it."

"You are talking riddles to me, Spencer," Duncombe declared. "Do you mean that the police in Paris may become the hired tools of malefactors?"

"Not altogether that," Spencer said, waving aside a dish presented before him by the head waiter himself with a gesture of approval. "Not necessarily malefactors. But there are other powers to be taken into consideration, and most unaccountably your two friends are in deeper water than your story led me to expect. Now, not another question, please, until you have tried that sauce.