"_En voiture_, m'sieur. The train is just starting."
"Do take me," implored the girl. "Do, m'sieur. Do."
There was no time for further discussion, therefore I did as she requested, and a few moments later, with a dressing-case, which was all the baggage she had, she mounted into the _wagon-lit_, and we moved off to the French capital.
I offered her the sleeping-compartment to herself, but she steadily refused to accept it.
"No, m'sieur, certainly not," was her reply. "I shall sit in the corridor all night, as I have already said."
And so, hour after hour, while all the passengers had retired to rest, we sat at the end of the car and chatted. I asked her if she liked a cigarette, and she gladly accepted. So we smoked together, while she told me something of herself. She was a native of Orleans, where her people had been wealthy landowners, she said, but some unfortunate speculation on her father's part brought ruin to them, and she was now governess in the family of a certain Baron de Moret, of the Chateau de Moret, near Paris.
A governess! I had believed from her dress and manner that she was at least the daughter of some French aristocrat, and I confess I was disappointed to find that she was only a superior servant.
"I have just come from Breslau," she explained. "On very urgent business--business that concerns my own self. If I am not in Paris this morning I shall, in all probability, pay the penalty with my life."
"How? What do you mean?"
In the grey dawn as the express roared on towards Paris I saw that her countenance was that of a woman who held a secret. At first I had been conscious that there was something unusual about her, and suspected her to be an adventuress, but now, on further acquaintance, I became convinced that she held possession of some knowledge that she was yearning to betray, yet feared to do so.
One fact that struck me as curious was that, in the course of our conversation, she showed that she knew my destination was London. At first this puzzled me, but on reflection I saw that the conductor, knowing me, had told her.
At Erquelinnes we had descended and had our early _cafe complet_, and now as we rushed onward to the capital she had suddenly made up her mind to go through to London.
"When we arrive in Paris I must leave you to keep my appointments," she said. "We will meet again at the Gare du Nord--at the Calais train, eh?"
"Most certainly," was the reply.
"Ah!" she sighed, looking straight into my face with those dark eyes that were so luminous. "You do not know--you can never guess what a great service you have rendered me by allowing me to travel here with you. My peril is the gravest that--well, that ever threatened a woman--yet now, by your aid, I shall be able to save myself. Otherwise, to-morrow my body would have been exposed in the Morgue--the corpse of a woman unknown."
"These words of yours interest me."
"Ah, m'sieur! You do not know. And I cannot tell you. It is a secret--ah! if I only dare speak you would help me, I know," and I saw in her face a look full of apprehension and distress.
As she raised her hand to push the dark hair from her brow, as though it oppressed her, my eyes caught sight of something glistening upon her wrist, half concealed by the lace on her sleeve. It was a magnificent diamond bangle.
Surely such an ornament would not be worn by a mere governess! I looked again into her handsome face, and wondered if she were deceiving me.
"If it be in my power to assist you, mademoiselle, I will do so with the greatest pleasure. But, of course, I cannot without knowing the circumstances."
"And I regret that my lips are closed concerning them," she sighed, looking straight before her despairingly.
"Do you fear to go alone?"
"I fear my enemies no longer," was her reply as she glanced at the little gold watch in her belt. "I shall be in Paris before noon--thanks to you, m'sieur."
"Well, when you first made the request I had no idea of the urgency of your journey," I remarked. "But I'm glad, very glad, that I've had an opportunity of rendering you some slight service."
"Slight, m'sieur? Why, you have saved me! I owe you a debt which I can never repay--never." And the laces at her throat rose and fell as she sighed, her wonderful eyes still fixed upon me.
Gradually the wintry sun rose over the bare, frozen wine-lands over which we were speeding, when with a sudden application of the brakes we pulled up at a little station for a change of engine.
Then, after three minutes, we were off again, until at nine o'clock we ran slowly into the huge terminus in Paris.
She had tidied her hair, washed, brushed her dress, and, as I assisted her to alight, she bore no trace of her long journey across Germany and France. Strange how well French women travel! English women are always tousled and tumbled after a night journey, but a French or Italian woman never.
"_Au revoir_, m'sieur, till twelve at the Gare du Nord," she exclaimed, with a merry smile and a bow as she drove away in a cab, leaving me upon the kerb gazing after her and wondering.
Was she really a governess, as she pretended?
Her clothes, her manner, her smart chatter, her exquisite _chic_, all revealed good breeding and a high station in life. There was no touch of cheap shabbiness--or at least I could not detect it.
A few moments before twelve she alighted at the Gare du Nord and greeted me merrily. Her face was slightly flushed, and I thought her hand trembled as I took it. But together we walked to the train, wherein I had already secured seats and places in the _wagon-restaurant_.
The railway officials, the controller of the train, the chief of the restaurant, and other officials, recognising me, saluted, whereupon she said:
"You seem very well known in Paris, m'sieur."
"I'm a constant traveller," I replied, with a laugh. "A little too constant, perhaps. One gets wearied with such continual travel as I am forced to undertake. I never know to-morrow where I may be, and I move swiftly from one capital to another, never spending more than a day or two in the same place."
"But it must be very pleasant to travel so much," she declared. "I would love to be able to do so. I'm passionately fond of constant change."
Together we travelled to Calais, crossed to Dover, and that same evening alighted at Victoria.
On our journey to London she gave me an address in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, where, she said, a letter would find her. She refused to tell me her destination, or to allow me to see her into a hansom. This latter fact caused me considerable reflection. Why had she so suddenly made up her mind to come to London, and why should I not know whither she went when she had told me so many details concerning herself?
Of one fact I felt quite convinced, namely, that she had lied to me. She was not a governess, as she pretended. Besides, I had been seized by suspicion that a tall, thin-faced, elderly man, rather shabbily dressed, whom I had noticed on the platform in Paris, had followed us. He had travelled second-class, and, on alighting at Victoria, had quickly made his way through the crowd until he lingered quite close to us as I wished her farewell.
His reappearance there recalled to me that he had watched us as we had walked up and down the platform of the Gare du Nord, and had appeared intensely interested in all our movements. Whether my pretty travelling companion noticed him I do not know. I, however, followed her as she walked out of the station carrying her dressing-bag, and saw the tall man striding after her. Adventurer was written upon the fellow's face.
His grey moustache was upturned, and his keen grey eyes looked out from beneath shaggy brows, while his dark, thread-bare overcoat was tightly buttoned across his chest for greater warmth.
Without approaching her he stood back in the shadow and saw her enter a hansom in the station-yard and drive out into Buckingham Palace Road. It was clear that she was not going to the address she had given me, for she was driving in the opposite direction.
My duty was to drive direct to Bruton Street to see Ray and report what I had discovered, but so interested was I in the thin-faced watcher that I gave over my wraps to a porter who knew me, exchanged my heavy travelling-coat for a lighter one I happened to have, and walked out to keep further observation upon the stranger.
Had not mademoiselle declared herself to be in danger of her life? If so, was it not possible that this fellow, whoever he was, was a secret assassin?
I did not like the aspect of the affair at all. I ought to have warned her against him, and I now became filled with regret. She was a complete mystery, and as I dogged the footsteps of the unknown foreigner--for that he undoubtedly was--I became more deeply interested in what was in progress.
He walked to Trafalgar Square, where he hesitated in such a manner as to show that he was not well acquainted with London. He did not know which of the converging thoroughfares to take. At last he inquired of the constable on point-duty, and then went up St. Martin's Lane.
As soon as he had turned I approached the policeman, and asked what the stranger wanted, explaining that he was a suspicious character whom I was following.
"'E's a Frenchman, sir. 'E wants Burton Crescent."
"Where's that?"
"Why, just off the Euston Road--close to Judd Street. I've told 'im the way."
I entered a hansom and drove to the place in question, a semicircle of dark-looking, old-fashioned houses of the Bloomsbury type--most of them let out in apartments. Then alighting, I loitered for half an hour up and down to await the arrival of the stranger.