“By the way, where is the letter which she left?” said the Commissioner in a businesslike voice. “I should like to see that letter.”
“Where is the letter?” repeated Monsieur Malfait vaguely. Then in a loud voice, he said, “I will ask my wife for the letter. She looks after the correspondence.”
Madame Malfait came forward. She looked even more annoyed than her husband had looked when he had seen by whom Sylvia was accompanied.
“The letter?” she repeated shortly. “Mon Dieu! I do not know where I have put it. But by this time I almost know it by heart. It was a pleasing letter, for it spoke very warmly of our establishment. But where is the letter?” she looked round her, as if she expected to find it suddenly appear.
“Ah! I remember to whom I showed it last! It was to that agreeable friend of Madame Wolsky”—she put an emphasis on the word “agreeable,” and stared hard at Sylvia as she did so. “It was to that Madame Wachner I last showed it. Perhaps she put it in her pocket, and forgot to give it me back. I know she said she would like her husband to see it. Monsieur and Madame Wachner often take their meals here. I will ask them if they have the letter.”
“Well, at any rate, we had better open Madame Wolsky’s trunks; that may give us some clue,” said the Commissioner in a weary voice.
And, to Sylvia’s confusion and distress, they all then proceeded to the bedroom where she had last seen her friend, and there Monsieur Malfait broke the locks of Anna Wolsky’s two large trunks.
But the contents of Anna’s trunks taught them nothing. They were only the kind of objects and clothes that a woman who travelled about the world a great deal would naturally take with her. Everything, however, was taken out, turned over, and looked at.
“If your friend possessed a passport,” said the police official in a dissatisfied tone, “she has evidently taken it with her. There is nothing of any consequence at all in those boxes. We had better shut them up again, and leave them.”
But when they came down again into the hall, he suddenly asked Monsieur Malfait, “Well, where is the letter?” He had evidently forgotten Madame Malfait’s involved explanation.
“I will send you the letter tomorrow,” said Monsieur Malfait smoothly. “The truth is, we handed it to a lady who was also a friend of Madame Wolsky, and she evidently forgot to give it back to us. We will find out whether she has kept it.”
On the way back the Commissioner of Police said gaily,
“It is quite clear that Madame”—he turned and bowed courteously to Sylvia—“knows very little of Lacville, Monsieur le Comte! Why, people are always disappearing from Lacville! My time would indeed be full were I to follow all those who go away in a hurry—not but what I have been only too delighted to do this for Madame and for Monsieur le Comte.”
He then bowed to the Count and stared smilingly at Sylvia.
“I am pleased to think,” he went on playfully, “that Madame herself is not likely to meet with any unpleasant adventure here, for the Villa du Lac is a most excellent and well-conducted house. Be assured, Madame, that I will find out in the next few hours if your friend has met with an accident in the Paris streets.”
He left them at the gate of the Villa.
When the Commissioner had quite disappeared, the Count observed, “Well, we have done what you wished. But it has not had much result, has it?”
Sylvia shook her head disconsolately.
“No, Count Paul. I am afraid I made a mistake in going to the police. The Malfaits are evidently very angry with me! And yet—and yet, you know in England it’s the first thing that people do.”
Count Paul laughed kindly.
“It is a matter of absolutely no consequence. But you see, you never quite understand, my dear friend, that Lacville is a queer place, and that here, at any rate, the hotelkeepers are rather afraid of the police. I was even glad that the Commissioner did not ask to look over your boxes, and did not exact a passport from you!”
More seriously he added, “But I see that you are dreadfully anxious about Madame Wolsky, and I myself will communicate with the Paris police about the matter. It is, as you say, possible, though not probable, that she met with an accident after leaving you.”
XVII
A long week went by, and still no news, no explanation of her abrupt departure from Lacville, was received from Anna Wolsky; and the owners of the Pension Malfait were still waiting for instructions as to what was to be done with Madame Wolsky’s luggage, and with the various little personal possessions she had left scattered about her room.
As for Sylvia, it sometimes seemed to her as if her Polish friend had been obliterated, suddenly blotted out of existence.
But as time went on she felt more and more pained and discomfited by Anna’s strange and heartless behaviour to herself. Whatever the reason for Madame Wolsky’s abrupt departure, it would not have taken her a moment to have sent Sylvia Bailey a line—if only to say that she could give no explanation of her extraordinary conduct.
Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia’s thoughts from Anna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours’ ride with Paul de Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a little practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her into a really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.
Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make their way into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, which is so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.
The Duchesse
