The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ sat down on a wooden bench, and for awhile neither spoke. "Have you found out anything?" she asked at last in a low voice. "I think by your manner that you have found out something, Mr. Burton--something you don't wish to say to me before the two others?"

      He looked at her, surprised. "No," he said sincerely, "that is not so at all. I have found out nothing, Mrs. Dampier--would that I had! But I feel it only right to tell you that the moment has come when you should communicate with your friends. The British Consul told me that if we were still without news, still in suspense, this morning, he would strongly advise that you send for someone to join you in Paris. Surely you have some near relation who would come to you?"

      Nancy shook her head. "No. I daresay it may seem strange to you, Senator Burton, but I have no near relations at all. I was the only child of a father and mother who, in their turn, were only children. I have some very distant cousins, a tribe of acquaintances, a few very kind friends--" her lips quivered "but no one--no one of whom I feel I could ask that sort of favour."

      Senator Burton glanced at her in dismay. She looked very wan and fragile sitting there; whatever the truth, he could not but feel deeply sorry for her.

      Suddenly she turned to him, and an expression of relief came over her sad eyes and mouth. "There is someone, Mr. Burton, someone I ought to have thought of before! There is a certain Mr. Stephens who was my father's friend as well as his solicitor; and he has always managed all my money matters. I'll write and ask Mr. Stephens if he can come to me. He was more than kind at the time of my marriage, though I'm afraid that he and Jack didn't get on very well together."

      She looked up in Senator Burton's face with a bewildered, pleading look, and he suddenly realised how difficult a task such a letter would be to her, supposing, that is, that the story she told, the story in which even now the Senator only half believed--were true.

      "I'll go up and write the letter now," she said, and together they both went, once more, indoors.

      But Gerald Burton, when he heard of the proposed letter to Mrs. Dampier's lawyer, made an abrupt suggestion which both the Senator and Nancy welcomed with eagerness.

      "Why shouldn't we telephone to this Mr. Stephens?" he asked. "That would save a day, and it would be far easier to explain to him all that has happened by word of mouth than in a letter--" He turned to Nancy, and his voice unconsciously softened: "If you will trust me, I will explain the situation to your friend, Mrs. Dampier."

      The father and son's drive to the Central Paris-London-Telephone office was curiously silent, though both the older and the younger man felt full of unwonted excitement.

      "Now, at last, I am on the track of the truth!" such was the Senator's secret thought. But he would not have been very much surprised had no such name as that of Davies P. Stephens, Solicitor, 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields, appeared in the London Telephone Directory. But yes, there the name was, and Gerald showed it to his father with a gleam of triumph.

      "You will want patience--a good deal of patience," said the attendant mournfully.

      Gerald Burton smiled. He was quite used to long-distance telephoning at home. "All right!" he said cheerily. "I've plenty of patience!"

      But though the young man claimed to have plenty of patience he felt far too excited, far too strung up and full of suspense, for the due exercise of that difficult virtue.

      The real reason why he had suggested this telephone message, instead of a letter or a telegram, was that he longed for his father's suspicions to be set at rest.

      Gerald Burton resented keenly, far more keenly than did his sister, the Senator's lack of belief in Nancy Dampier's story. He himself would have staked his life on the truthfulness of this woman whom he had only known three days.

      At last the sharp, insistent note of the telephone bell rang out, and he stept up into the call-box.

      "Mr. Stephens' office?" He spoke questioningly: and after what seemed a long pause the answer came, muffled but audible. "Yes, yes! This is Mr. Stephens' office. Who is it wants us from Paris?" The question was put in a Cockney voice, and the London twang seemed exaggerated by its transmission over those miles and miles of wire by land, under the sea, and then by land again.

      "I want to speak to Mr. Stephens himself," said Gerald Burton very distinctly.

      "Mr. Stephens? Yes, he's here all right. I'll take a message."

      "Make him come himself."

      "Yes, he's here. Give me your message--" the words were again a little muffled.

      "I can't send a message. You must fetch him." Gerald Burton's stock of patience was giving way. Again there was an irritating pause, but it was broken at last.

      "Who is it? I can't fetch him if you won't say who you are."

      "I am speaking on behalf of Mrs. Dampier," said Gerald reluctantly. Somehow he hated uttering Nancy's name to this tiresome unknown.

      And then began an absurd interchange of words at cross purposes.

      "Mr. Larkspur?"

      "No," said Gerald. "Mrs. Dampier."

      "Yes," said the clerk. "Yes, I quite understand. L. for London--"

      Gerald lost his temper--"D. for damn!" he shouted, "Dampier."

      And then, at last, with a shrill laugh that sounded strange and eerie, the clerk repeated, "Dampier--Mr. John Dampier? Yes, sir. What can we do for you?"

      "Mrs. Dampier!"

      "Mrs. Dampier? Yes, sir. I'll fetch Mr. Stephens." The clerk's voice had altered; it had become respectful, politely enquiring.

      And at last with intense relief, Gerald Burton heard a low clear, incisive voice uttering the words: "Is that Mrs. Dampier herself speaking?"

      Instinctively Gerald's own voice lowered. "No, I am speaking for Mrs. Dampier."

      The English lawyer's voice hardened, or so it seemed to the young American. It became many degrees colder. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Dampier. Yes? What can I do for you?"

      And as Gerald, taken oddly aback by the unseen man's very natural mistake, did not answer for a moment or two:

      "Nothing wrong with Nancy, I hope?"

      The anxious question sounded very, very clear.

      "There is something very wrong with Mrs. Dampier--can you hear me clearly?"

      "Yes, yes What is wrong with her?"

      "Mrs. Dampier is in great trouble. Mr. Dampier has disappeared."

      The strange thing which had happened was told in those four words, but Gerald Burton naturally went on to explain, or rather to try to explain, the extraordinary situation which had arisen, to Nancy's lawyer and friend.

      Mr. Stephens did not waste any time in exclamations of surprise or pity. Once he had grasped the main facts, his words were few and to the point.

      "Tell Mrs. Dampier," he said, speaking very distinctly, "that if she has no news of her husband by Friday I will come myself to Paris. I cannot do so before. Meanwhile, I strongly advise that she, or preferably you for her, СКАЧАТЬ