Interlude in a Dining-Room
The dining-room had not been designed for brightness. Hazeldean chose a table by the one window, but the view was disappointing. He looked out through heavy lace curtains on a small deep yard, closed in by walls that gave it the appearance of a pit. “I wonder if anything really happy has ever happened in this spot?” came the thought. If gloom could be stored and passed on through the generations, the spot on which Madame Paula’s pension had grown had certainly preserved it. Perhaps, at some period in the history of Boulogne—when the high walls had been stormed with battering rams and scaling ladders, and the attackers had been repelled with burning oil—some particularly terrible incident had happened here to leave an indelible mark. He contrasted the room with his cosy cabin, the delight of which had withstood the menace of wind and storm and mountainous seas. Places were sometimes like people, shaping incidents to their moods.
Yet, in spite of its brooding atmosphere, the dining-room had a queer attraction. So had the bovine maid, with her heavy, dormant beauty. After accompanying him to his table, she had departed for the tea, and now she was returning with a tray. Well, the contents of the tray looked good enough, and would help to while away a rather anxious quarter of an hour.
Part of the anxiety was due to the persistence of his self-doubts. “Should I be sitting here?” he wondered uneasily. “Isn’t there something else I could be doing?” Yet, for the life of him, he could not think what it was. His problem was becoming more and more centralised in the safety of Dora Fenner, imprisoned—that seemed the right word—amid these grim surroundings and unsatisfactory people. If any other duty called him, it would probably lie outside the pension, and for the time being he was refusing to go outside—unless Dora Fenner came with him…
The maid put the tray down on the table.
“Do you speak English?” asked Hazeldean.
“Leetle, mais not mooch,” she answered.
“Et mois, je parle not mooch French,” he smiled. “Vous avez charmonte place ici.”
She smiled back, seeming rather surprised, either at the compliment to the place or to herself. Possibly she was not accustomed to polite conversation with strangers, although in a pension she should have been.
“Avez vous telephone ici?” asked Hazeldean.
“Non, m’sieur,” she said. “Eet is—” She could not find the word. “Long way.”
The news did not surprise him, for it confirmed the impression he had received from Mr. Fenner. If there had been a telephone, he need not have waited to get through to Benwick from the police station. And there would have presumably been some advance telephonic communication about the tragedy of Dr. Jones… Yes… Dr. Jones… How were others reacting to the tragedy of Dr. Jones?
“Monsieur Fenner, il me dit de Dr. Jones,” he said. “C’est tragique.”
“Oui, c’est terrible,” answered the maid.
Her rather thick eyebrows descended in a frown, but she did not display any personal grief. It was bad news, as one might read in a newspaper.
“J’espère que Madame n’est pas—trop—qu’est-ce que c’est upset? Malade?”
“Malade! Domage, elle est très malade! Zey tell me, but I’ave not see ’er.”
“Dans sa chambre, n’est-ce pas?”
His questions were aimless, but he wanted to keep her talking. The desire was frustrated by the sudden appearance in the dark doorway of a very old man.
“Marie, venez ici!” he cried. “Vite!”
“Pardon,” murmured the maid, and vanished.
Hazeldean kept his eyes on the door, now closed, while their footsteps faded away; Marie’s quick and heavy, the old man’s shuffling. “Assuming that was Pierre,” reflected Hazeldean, “now I’ve seen the lot. Pierre and Marie. I don’t mind Marie, though I could quite easily live without her, but I don’t like Pierre. Why don’t I like Pierre? Just the nasty, suspicious nature I’m developing? Why on earth does Mr. Fenner bring his niece to this very unpleasant place?”
Feeling more and more disturbed, he began his meal. The tea was as good as he would have expected in England, and he could not complain of the rolls and the toast and the gateaux, but they gave him no enjoyment. Somewhere in a cobbled street outside, distant but distinct, a piano-organ tinkled. The intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana. It gave him a sense that nothing moved here save primitive, unseen things.
“And I’m not moving, either!” he exclaimed aloud.
Abruptly he jumped up, following an instinct that reversed his previous policy, but as he neared the dining-room door he heard the sound of shuffling. Recognising it, he returned quickly to the table and rang a little hand-bell. He was seated again when Pierre materialised once more in the doorway.
The old man stopped, blinking at Hazeldean like an ancient, furrowed owl.
“Do you speak English?” Hazeldean called.
“Non, m’sieur,” answered Pierre.
“Then how the devil do you know what I’ve just asked?” demanded Hazeldean.
The ancient owl became a trifle more furrowed, and then repeated:
“Non, m’sieur.”
“Meaning, exactly?”
“Non, m’sieur.”
Hazeldean mistrusted his attitude. There was no perplexity in the old man’s vaguely apologetic smile.
“Then if I were to offer you a hundred pounds to direct me at once to the nearest telephone, you would not be able to earn it?”
“Pardon?”
“All right, have it your own way. Ou est Monsieur Fenner?”
“Il est parti, m’sieur.”
“Already?”
“Pardon?”
“Et Madame?”
“Aussi.”
If this were true, the reversed policy would have to be reconsidered, for it meant that Dora Fenner was already alone with her unsatisfactory bodyguard.
“Ou est Mademoiselle Fenner?”
“Ma’m’selle Fenner? Mais—dans sa chambre, m’sieur.”
Pierre’s raised eyebrows added mutely, “Where else should she be?”
“I see.” Hazeldean paused, then went on, in an audible mutter, as though to himself: “Nuisance, the others have gone. How am I going to get this news to ’em about Dr. Jones? It’s vital to them, too!”
Watching closely, Hazeldean noted Pierre’s expression change at the name “Dr. Jones.”
“Ah, le pauvre homme!” murmured Pierre. “Tragique—tragique!”
Hazeldean thought, “This damn rascal’s beating me! He’s cleverer than his fellow-domestic—he had the sense to realise that, even if he couldn’t speak English, he’d recognise the name of his late master when I mentioned it!”
But perhaps, after all, he couldn’t speak English?
Giving it up, Hazeldean rose. Pierre, still standing in the doorway, glanced at the table.
“Finis, m’sieur?”
“Yes, thanks. Oui, merci.”
“Mais non!” The tone was deprecating. Too many cakes remained on the dish. “Vous n’etes pas content?”
“Oui, everything was delightful,” answered Hazeldean. “Charmonte.”
“Merci. Numero Quatre, m’sieur. S’il vous plait?”
He turned as Hazeldean reached him, and hobbled ahead. Hazeldean followed till he found himself in a spot he recognised, and knew that the direction he wanted was not Pierre’s.
“Pas numero Quatre,” he said.
“Mais oui, Quatre,” insisted Pierre.
“Non. Pas encore. Je vais voir Mademoiselle Fenner.”
The old man stopped abruptly, peered at Hazeldean as though to make sure that he meant what he said, and then smiled.
“Un moment, m’sieur. Je vais voir—”
In that moment he had vanished.
“Confound the fellow!” muttered Hazeldean.
He darted after him. He was not going to let Pierre win all along the line. Round a bend he nearly ran into the maid.
“Oh, m’sieur!” gasped the maid.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Hazeldean.
Marie put her hand to her heart. She was breathless. A belief that she was purposely obstructing his progress lasted only an instant. Her distracted condition was genuine.
“She is faint,” panted Marie.
“Who? Miss Fenner?”
Marie nodded as Hazeldean dashed past her. He caught Pierre up at the door of Dora’s room.
Pierre was staring into the room. His eyes were as startled as the maid’s. Dora lay, a crumpled heap, in the middle of the floor.