Max Pemberton - Murder Mysteries Boxed-Set - 40+ Books in One Edition

He said this quite unconcerned, and not a bit ready to argue the point out with me. It was all very well for him to glide over it in that easy way, but what I wanted to know was, where had Michel Grey first heard talk about us? That the gossip was new to him was evident from the fact that he played billiards with my master the very first night he came to Paris. What chatter he had heard was heard between supper that evening and breakfast two days after. And this was what troubled me, even in the face of Sir Nicolas' tale about him taking drugs and forget- ting. "There's danger moving," I thought, "and if you're married within the month, Nicky, I'm a Chinaman."

This is how the thing looked to me, then and for days after. While, on the one hand, Michel Grey talked no more, either to me or to Sir Nicolas, of his suspicions, on the other hand, I could see that he would have no truck with us, and was doing his best to make his sister think as he did. That he did not succeed in this is to be set down to many things, but above all to the fact that for days together he would hang about the hotel like a man without a mind; and was, as all the world could see, tottering fast to his grave. What drug he drank, or where he learned the habit, no man could say, but a more pitiable spectacle than he made, looking for all the world like a blind thing come out of a coffin, I hope never to see. Luckily for us, there was no affection lost between him and Miss Dora. Talk as he might, the day was rare when she did not plan some excursion with my master. They spent hours together out at Fontainebleau or Versailles—were half their leisure time at the picture-galleries, the other half at the cafés and theatres. I saw them walking arm-in-arm in the gardens, I saw him kiss her when she went to her painting in the morning, I saw him kiss her when she came home again to déjeúner , and I began to think that after all he was right and I was wrong. Then, all of a sudden, the trouble came, and we woke up from our dream.

Michel Grey had disappeared. For the first time since we had been at the hotel, he had exchanged words with my master over the dinner- table. It did not come to blows, but the hands of the people around alone kept the two men apart, and Sir Nicolas was heard by twenty folks to say that he'd beat the life out of the American with his hunting-crop. That night and the next Michel Grey did not sleep in his bed at the Hôtel de Lille. At ten o'clock two mornings later his sister Dora was knocking at my master's door, wanting to know what he had done with him.

I can see her now, with her pretty hair streaming down her back, and her face so flushed that she might have been rubbing her cheeks with a glove. Many women would have thought nothing of a man going off like that; but the quarrel stuck in her head, I suppose, and she was as scared as a rabbit. When

Sir Nicolas came out to her, she was no longer gentle with him as she had been before this, but stamped her foot and spoke angrily, with quick, biting words.

"Well," she cried, "where is he? You know, of course?"

"As God is my witness, I know nothing," said he.

"But you were with him last—you were the last to speak to him."

"Indeed, and I was; and when he'd done with me, he went straight to his bedroom. Dora, it's not lies that I'd tell you at such a time."

"Then where is he? what has happened to him? what shall I tell my father? Oh, they love him at home; indeed they do!"

She began to cry at this, and my master took her hand.

"You poor little thing!" said he, drawing her head down upon his shoulder. "Would I harm him, whatever he was—and your brother, too? Don't ye see, child, that he's just gone off in a bit of a huff, and will be back before your tears are dry. Ye'll be the first to laugh when he walks in here."

"He is not the man to do that," said she, though she was no longer angry. "I am sure of it. I dreamed of him all night. He is dead, Nicolas."

Now what should Sir Nicolas do when she said this but give her a great kiss, and burst out laughing.

"Dead!" said he, "then I'm thinking we should get ready for the waking, and ask him to crack the first bottle. Bedad! he's as dead as I am, little woman, and don't you think any such thing. Whatever put that into your head?"

"I could not tell you," said she. "We do not think these things—we know them."

At this he set off laughing again, and did his best to cheer her up—though it was poor work he made of it at the best. By and by, when he had seen a nice little breakfast sent up to her rooms, he came to me, and I knew then that he took it worse than I thought he would.

"Well," says he, "the fool's gone, right enough. There's no word or sign yet. I'll begin to think by and by that harm has come to him."

"In that case, sir," said I, "it's pity that what was said two nights ago couldn't wait."

"How do you mean?" he asked.

"Why—it's no good disguising it—you threatened to murder him."

"Good God! Would they think that?"

"There's some that might."

He stood stock still when I had said this, and his face was very white.

"It's luck to make one gnash the teeth," said he presently. "I'd have married her within the week!"

"There's no reason why you shouldn't now, sir," said I, "always supposing that it's well with him. But there are things to do."

"You think so?"

"Certainly; and if it was me that was concerned,

I'd be up at the police-station before the clock struck again."

"Do you believe they would find him?"

"They might, or they might not; but it would be cover for you."

"I'll do that," said he shortly. "Is there any thing else?"

"One thing," said I. "This young fellow has a father in America. If three days pass and we hear nothing of him, send a cable out to Boston, and advise that a reward be offered—a big one, say ten thousand dollars. Meanwhile, offer a reward of two thousand francs yourself."

"But I'd have to pay. What's the sense in that?"

"Sir," I said, "if Mr. Grey of Boston will offer a reward of ten thousand dollars for the recovery of his son, there is one man who will find him."

"And who is that, pray?"

"Myself."

He looked at me with blank amazement. Then he said quite simply;

"Ye're a clever man. I'd be sorry for the day when we parted."

"But we must part, sir," said I.

"’Tis no time for nonsense, sure," said he.

"And it's no nonsense I mean, sir. If I'm to find this man and to claim this reward, the work must be done away from here."

"Where would it be done, then?"

"From the house in the Rue Dupin, where we lived two years ago."

He thought over it a little while, and then he said;

"It's the devil of a head ye've got. How did you come to think of it?"

"Common-sense taught me," said I. "There's many a worse friend, sir."

Table of Contents

A week after this talk I left the Hôtel de Lille and took a lodging in a little house in the Rue Dupin. It was the first time in my life that ever I'd set to work to hunt a man, and I knew at the beginning of it that I had a stiff job before me. Notwithstanding the light way we had taken Michel Grey's disappearance, seven days had passed and no living soul had heard a word of him. He had gone like a light in a wind, and had left neither letter nor message. While some were bold enough to say that Nicolas Steele could have told the tale, most people were deceived by the pains my master took to trace the missing man. None the less, it was not hidden from me that the police were watching him, and that any minute he might be face to face with the greatest peril of his life.

My object in moving from the hotel to the Rue Dupin was a simple one. Jonathan Grey, the father of the missing man, had walked into the trap we had set for him like a child into a sweetstuff-shop. His answer to his daughter's cable was immediate. "Offer the reward," he said, and we had offered it. That is to say, we had printed a thousand bills and had burned them.