Murder in Paris

“Now, if only we’d met you sooner, dear, we could have had your place reserved along with ours. Such a pity! It’s just too dreadful to think of you travelling all this way by your little lonesome! Still it can’t be helped now, the train’s so jammed. Is this your seat? So it is. At any rate it’s a corner one. Porter! Mettay le grand sac de Mademerselle ploos au coin, il y a un carton aussi. These foreigners don’t give a hoot for your convenience, you have to show ’em everything.”

It was at this precise moment that, clogging the aisle with her immense mink coat and treading on one pair of toes after another, she had spied the retiring male in the opposite corner and shrilled with recognition.

“Why, if it isn’t Mr. Macadam! Now, what do you know about that? Been up to Havre on business? Well, well! Catherine, my dear--I want you to meet the very nicest man in all Paris, Englishman. Mr. Macadam, let me present a little friend of mine I’ve met on the boat, Miss West, from Boston. She’s on her way to visit a relative in the Avenoo Henri Martin--you know, Mrs. Harry Belmont Bender, whose husband was killed last year in that awful motor accident in Massachoosetts. So sad!”

Extremely painful, nor was this the end. Not content with entrusting her young friend to the Englishman’s care (“As though I were a congenital idiot,” thought Catherine bitterly), she had dragged her victim back into the corridor and confided a parting message at the top of her lungs.

“Now wasn’t that luck? Such a nice man for you to know. Macadam and Langtree. Lawyers. Everybody knows them. This one’s the son, quiet, you understand, but such perfect manners. Be nice to him… Well, au revoir, dear! Don’t forget to ring me up, and come to my very next At Home.”

So saying Mrs. Hugh Tyler Pope careened up the swaying corridor and out of Catherine’s life. Her part was played, nor did Catherine, inwardly cursing her, suspect what an important part it was.

Self-consciously, now, she sank into her seat. To her relief the Englishman had retired behind his magazine, so that she was able to settle herself calmly and collect her scattered thoughts.

To tell the truth, they needed collecting. Various uneasy qualms, hitherto stifled at birth, rose anew to trouble her, growing more insistent with each repetition.

Had she done right to come?

A guilty voice whispered that she had been unwisely precipitate over the whole affair, and might live to regret it.

“Yet why?” she argued crossly. “Germaine certainly wants me with her. There’s no doubt about that.”

Yes, Mme. Bender’s letter, for all its characteristic vagueness, had expressed an earnest wish for her company. She would have bothered no more about it if it had not been for this other, rather odd epistle now hidden in her bag, a communication she had shown to no one.

Ah, there she had been wrong, there was no blinking the fact. She ought to have confided in her married sister Barbara and her sober brother-in-law, John. Catherine made her home with these two, and usually asked their advice on matters. Only sometimes, when she foresaw the result, she omitted the formality.

To be frank, she had been feverishly eager to leave Boston behind and with it the irksome associations of an engagement just terminated. She felt she could not walk down Boylston Street or across the Common without encountering a certain injured young man or some member of his family, in bitter league against her. Yes, she had dashed off instantly to secure her passage, and when later this curious missive penned by a complete stranger had arrived she had kept silent about it for fear of shipwrecking her plans.

Oh, well, it was done now, there was no looking back. Besides there was nothing definite in the letter, no fact that one could get hold of, in spite of its emotional tone. Who was this woman, anyhow? Probably some excitable friend of Germaine’s, prone to exaggeration. The hysterical note spoke for itself. Naturally that accident last year had dealt poor Mme. Bender’s nerves a shattering blow, but there could be nothing worse. She would put the whole thing out of her mind.…

Why did her vis-à-vis keep stealing those furtive glances in her direction? The covert survey, always quickly withdrawn, disturbed her like the prickings of her own conscience. There was a queer look of interest in his face, the same expression she had noticed a little while ago.

Discreetly she took stock of him. He was of slender build, wiry and muscular, his skin ruddy with health, features unremarkable, and eyes grey and keen, beneath strong bushy brows. His whole appearance had an air of restraint, extending to his clothing, which was well-cut, not too new, and by no detail claimed attention. Altogether he looked a man who would do nothing rash. Like John, she decided. John, too, was a lawyer. No, in a situation like her present one, he would undoubtedly have weighed the pros and cons carefully, and then--she was sure of it!--stayed at home…

“I beg your pardon?”

She started out of her reverie.

“Yes?”

He coloured in confusion.

“Nothing. I fancied you spoke.”

“No, I was only thinking.” Then she added with a little laugh, “You didn’t overhear my thoughts, did you?”

A glint of humour was her only answer. Still, a thaw had set in, and from now on the glances became more frequent and less furtive. Soon she was sure he had something to say, but that his reticence was fighting against it. Twice he cleared his throat, then at last the question came forth.

“I beg your pardon, but did I understand Mrs. Pope to say you are a relation of Mme. Belmont Bender?”

He had leaned forward, voice lowered, as though the matter were a private one.

“Mr. Bender was my cousin,” she replied in surprise. “Mme. Bender is French.”

“Yes. Oh, yes, of course!”

“Perhaps you know Mme. Bender?” she suggested.

“I have met her,” he said cautiously. “Not in a social way. You see,” he went on after a pause, “my firm--we happen to be solicitors--has had the handling of the Benders’ affairs for a very long time. Your cousin was one of our oldest clients.”

“Oh! So that’s it!”

Catherine’s eyes lit up, transforming her entire appearance miraculously. Her eyes were her most striking feature. Rather sombre in repose, with a brooding melancholy recalling the famous portrait of Beatrice Cenci, they had a trick of flaming up with the rise of any sudden emotion and becoming twin lakes of liquid fire.

“That’s extremely interesting,” she exclaimed, and bent towards him, flecks of red straining her cheeks. “I--I wonder if you’d mind telling me just how she seemed to you when you last saw her? I’d rather like to know.”

He was gazing straight into her eyes now, as though fascinated, half against his will, by their molten glory. He took a moment to reply.

“It was some time ago,” he answered slowly. “Before Mr. Bender’s death, in fact. Few people have seen her recently, and I am told that she’s by way of being a complete--” he hesitated, choosing the right word--“invalid. Probably you know more of her than I do.”

Her face fell.

“I know very little indeed,” she said uncertainly. “Except for one short note, I’ve had no news for almost a year.… You see, I have never known her well. She and Cousin Harry were seldom in America, and it wasn’t till after the accident, when she was ill in a sanatorium----”

“Sanatorium?” he repeated quickly.

“She was injured, you know--a bad concussion.”

She thought he looked a trifle embarrassed.