The Lost Lady

by Melville Davisson Post

It was a remark of old Major Carrington that incited thisadventure."It is some distance through the wood - is she quite safe?"It was a mere reflection as he went out. It was very late. I donot know how the dinner, or rather the after-hours of it, hadlengthened. It must have been the incomparable charm of thewoman. She had come, this night, luminously, it seemed to us,through the haze that had been on her - the smoke haze of astrange, blighting fortune. The three of us had been carriedalong in it with no sense of time; my sister, the ancient MajorCarrington and I.He turned back in the road, his decayed voice whipped by thestimulus of her into a higher note"Suppose the village coachman should think her as lovely as we do- what!"He laughed and turned heavily up the road a hundred yards or soto his cottage set in the pine wood. I stood in the roadwatching the wheels of the absurd village vehicle, the yellowcut-under, disappear. The old Major called back to me; his voiceseemed detached, eerie with the thin laugh in it."I thought him a particularly villainous-looking creature!"It was an absurd remark. The man was one of the natives of theisland, and besides, the innkeeper was a person of sound sense;he would know precisely about his driver.I should not have gone on this adventure but for a furtherincident.When I entered the house my sister was going up the stair, thebutler was beyond in the drawing-room, and there was no otherservant visible. She was on the first step and the elevationgave precisely the height that my sister ought to have receivedin the accident of birth. She would have been wonderful withthose four inches added - lacking beauty, she had every othergrace!She spoke to me as I approached."Winthrop," she said, "what was in the package that Madame Barrascarried away with her tonight?"The query very greatly surprised me. I thought Madame Barras hadcarried this package away with her several evenings before when Ihad put her English bank-notes in my box at the local bank. Mysister added the explanation which I should have been embarrassedto seek, at the moment."She asked me to put it somewhere, on Tuesday afternoon . . . .It was forgotten, I suppose . . . . I laid it in a drawer of thelibrary table . . . . What did it contain?"I managed an evasive reply, for the discovery openedpossibilities that disturbed me."Some certificates, I believe," I said.My sister made a little pretended gesture of dismay."I should have been more careful; such things are of value."Of value indeed! The certificates in Madame Barras' package,that had lain about on the library table, were gold certificatesof the United States Treasury - ninety odd of them, each of avalue of one thousand dollars! My sister went:"How oddly life has tossed her about . . . . She must have beena mere infant at Miss Page's. The attachment of incoming tots tothe older girls was a custom . . . . I do not recall her . . . .There was always a string of mites with shiny pigtails andbig-eyed wistful faces. The older girls never thought very muchabout them. One has a swarm-memory, but individuals escape one.The older girl, in these schools, fancied herself immensely. Thelittle satellite that attached itself, with its adoration, had noidentity. It had a nickname, I think, or a number . . . . I haveforgotten. We minimized these midges out of everything thatcould distinguish them . . . . Fancy one of these turning up inMadame Barras and coming to me on the memory of it.""It was extremely lucky for her," I said. "Imagine arriving fromthe interior of Brazil on the invitation of Mrs. Jordan to findthat lady dead and buried; with no friend, until, by chance, onehappened on your name in the social register, and ventured on aschool attachment of which there might remain, perhaps a memoryonly on the infant's side."My sister went on up the stair."I am glad we happened to be here, and, especially, Winthrop, ifyou have been able to assist her . . . . She is charming."Charming was the word descriptive of my sister, for it is a thingof manner from a nature elevated and noble, but it was not theword for Madame Barras. The woman was a lure. I mean the termin its large and catholic sense. I mean the bait of a greatcosmic impulse - the most subtle and the most persistent of whichone has any sense.The cunning intelligences of that impulse had decked her out withevery attractiveness as though they had taken thought to confoundall masculine resistance; to sweep into their service thoserefractory units that withheld themselves from the commonpurpose. She was lovely, as the aged Major Carrington haduttered it - great violet eyes in a delicate skin sown with goldflecks, a skin so delicate that one felt that a kiss would tearit!I do not know from what source I have that expression but itattaches itself, out of my memory of descriptive phrases, toMadame Barras. And it extends itself as wholly descriptive ofher. You will say that the long and short of this is that I wasin love with Madame Barras, but I point you a witness in MajorCarrington.He had the same impressions, and he had but one passion in hislife, a distant worship of my sister that burned steadily evenhere at the end of life. During the few evenings that MadameBarras had been in to dinner with us, he sat in his chair beyondmy sister in the drawing-room, perfect in his early-Victorianmanner, while Madame Barras and I walked on the great terrace, orsat outside.One had a magnificent sweep of the world, at night, from thatterrace. It looked out over the forest of pines to the open sea.Madame Barras confessed to the pull of this vista. She asked meat what direction the Atlantic entered, and when she knew, shekept it always in her sight.It had a persisting fascination for her. At all times and innearly any position, she was somehow sensible of this vista; sheknew the lights almost immediately, and the common small craftblinking about. To-night she had sat for a long time in nearlyutter silence here. There was a faint light on the open sea asshe got up to take her leave of us; what would it be shewondered.I replied that it was some small craft coming in."A fishing-boat?""Hardly that," I said, "from its lights and position it will besome swifter power-boat and, I should say, not precisely certainabout the channel."I have been drawn here into reminiscence that did not, at thetime, detain me in the hall. What my sister had discovered tome, following Major Carrington's remark, left me distinctlyuneasy. It was very nearly two miles to the village, the roadwas wholly forest and there would be no house on the way; for myfather, with an utter disregard for cost, had sought theseclusion of a large acreage when he had built this absurdlyelaborate villa on Mount Desert Island.Besides I was in no mood for sleep.And, over all probability, there might be some not entirelyimaginary danger to Madame Barras. Not precisely the dangerpresented in Major Carrington's pleasantry, but the alwayspossible danger to one who is carrying a sum of money about. Itwould be considered, in the world of criminal activities, a verylarge sum of money; and it had been lying here, as of no value,in a drawer of the library table since the day on which the goldcertificates had arrived on my check from the Boston bank.Madame Barras had not taken the currency away as I imagined. Itwas extremely careless of her, but was it not an act incharacter?What would such a woman know of practical concern?I spoke to the butler. He should not wait up, I would let myselfin; and I went out.I remember that I got a cap and a stick out of the rack; therewas no element of selection in the cap, but there was a decidedsubconscious direction about the selection of the stick. It wasa heavy blackthorn, with an iron ferrule and a silver weight setin the head; picked up - by my father at some Irish fair - aweapon in fact.It was not dark. It was one of those clear hard nights that arenot uncommon on this island in midsummer; with a full moon, theroad was visible even in the wood. I swung along it with noparticular precaution; I was not expecting anything to happen,and in fact, nothing did happen on the way into the village.But in this attitude of confidence I failed to discover an eventof this night that might have given the whole adventure adifferent ending.There is a point near the village where a road enters our privateone; skirts the border of the mountain, and, making a great turn,enters the village from the south. At this division of the roadI heard distinctly a sound in the wood.It was not a sound to incite inquiry. It was the sound of someconsiderable animal moving in the leaves, a few steps beyond theroad. It did not impress me at the time; estrays were constantlyat large in our forests in summer, and not infrequently a roamingbuck from the near preserves. There was also here in addition tothe other roads, an abandoned winter wood-road that ran westwardacross the island to a small farming settlement. DoubtlessI took a slighter notice of the sound because estrays from thefarmers' fields usually trespassed on us from this road.At any rate I went on. I fear that I was very much engrossedwith the memory of Madame Barras. Not wholly with the femininelure of her, although as I have written she was the perfection ofthat lure. One passed women, at all milestones, on the way toage, and kept before them one's sound estimates of life, butbefore this woman one lost one's head, as though Nature, evadedheretofore, would not be denied. But the weird fortune that hadattended her was in my mind.Married to Senor Barras out of the door of a convent, carried toRio de Janeiro to an unbearable life, escaping with a remnant ofher inheritance in English bank-notes, she arrives here to visitthe one, old, persisting friend, Mrs. Jordan, and finds her dead!And what seemed strange, incredible beyond belief, was that thiscreature Barras had thought only of her fortune which he haddepleted in two years to the something less than twenty thousandpounds which I had exchanged for her into our money; a merefragment of her great inheritance.I had listened to the story entranced with the alluring teller ofit; wondering as I now wondered, on the road to the village, howanything pretending to be man could think of money when she wasbefore his eye.What could he buy with money that equaled her! Ant yet thiscurious jackal had seen in her only the key to a strong-box.There was behind it, in explanation, shadowed out, the glamor ofan empire that Senor Barras would set up with the millions in hiscountry of revolutions, and the enthusiasms of a foolish mother.And yet the jackal and this wreckage had not touched her. Therewas no stain, no crumpled leaf. She was a fresh wonder, evenafter this, out of a chrysalis. It was this amazing newness,this virginity of blossom from which one could not escape.The word in my reflection brought me up. How had she escapedfrom Barras?I had more than once in my reflections pivoted on the word.The great hotel was very nearly deserted when I entered.There was the glow of a cigar where some one smoked, at the endof the long porch. Within, there was only a sleepy clerk.Madame Barras had not arrived . . . he was quite sure; she hadgone out to dinner somewhere and had not come in!I was profoundly concerned. But I took a moment to reflectbefore deciding what to do.I stepped outside and there, coming up from the shadow of theporch, I met Sir Henry Marquis.It was chance at its extreme of favor. If I had been given theselection, in all the world, I should have asked for Sir HenryMarquis at that decisive moment.The relief I felt made my words extravagant."Marquis!" I cried. "You here!""Ah, Winthrop," he said, in his drawling Oxford voice, "what haveyou done with Madame Barras; I was waiting for her?"I told him, in a word, how she had set out from my house - myconcern - the walk down here and this result. I did not ask himat the moment how he happened to be here, or with a knowledge ofour guest. I thought that Marquis was in Canada. But one doesnot, with success, inquire of a C.I.D. official even in his owncountry. One met him in the most unexpected places, unconcerned,and one would have said at leisure.But he was concerned to-night. What I told brought him up. Hestood for a moment silent. Then he said, softly, in order dratthe clerk behind us might not overhear."Don't speak of it. I will get a light and go with you!"He returned in a moment and we went out. He asked me about theroad, was there only one way down; and I told him precisely.There was only the one road into the village and no way to missit unless one turned into the public road at the point where itentered our private one along the mountain.He pitched at once upon this point and we hurried back.We had hardly a further word on the way. I was decidedly uneasyabout Madame Barras by now, and Marquis' concern was hardly lessevident. He raced along in his immense stride, and I had all Icould manage to keep up.It may seem strange that I should have brought such a man as SirHenry Marquis into the search of this adventure with so littleexplanation of my guest or the affair. But, one must remember,Marquis was an old acquaintance frequently seen about in theworld. To thus, on the spot so to speak, draft into my servicethe first gentleman I found, was precisely what any one wouldhave done. It was probable, after all, that there had been somereason why the cut-under had taken the other road, and MadameBarras quite all right.It was better to make sure before one raised the village - andMarquis, markedly, was beyond any aid the village could havefurnished. This course was strikingly justified by everyafter-event.I have said that the night was not dark. The sky was hard withstars, like a mosaic. This white moonlight entered through thetree-tops and in a measure illumined the road. We were easilyable to see, when we reached the point, that the cut-under hadturned out into the road circling the mountain to the west of thevillage. The track was so clearly visible in the light, that Imust have observed it had I been thinking of the road instead ofthe one who had set out upon it.I was going on quickly, when Marquis stopped. He was stoopingover the track of the vehicle. He did not come on and I wentback."What is it?" I said.He answered, still stooping above the track."The cut-under stopped here.""How do you know that?" I asked, for it seemed hardly possible todetermine where a wheeled vehicle had stopped."It's quite clear," he replied. "The horse has moved aboutwithout going on."I now saw it. The hoof-marks of the horse had displaced the dustwhere it had several times changed position."And that's not all," Marquis continued. "Something has happenedto the cut-under here!"I was now closely beside him."It was broken down, perhaps, or some accident to the harness?""No," he replied. "The wheel tracks are here broadened, asthough they had skidded on a turn. This would mean little if thecut-under had been moving at the time. But it was not moving;the horse was standing. The cut-under had stopped."He went on as though in a reflection to himself."The vehicle must have been violently thrown about here, bysomething."I had a sudden inspiration."I see it!" I cried. "The horse took fright, stopped, and thenbolted; there has been a run-away. That accounts for the turnout. Let's hurry!"But Marquis detained me with a firm hand on my arm."No," he said, "the horse was not running when it turned out andit did not stop here in fright. The horse was entirely quiethere. The hoof marks would show any alarm in the animal, and,moreover, if it had stopped in fright there would have been aninevitable recoil which would have thrown the wheels of thevehicle backward out of their track. No moving animal, manincluded, stopped by fright fails to register this recoil. Wealways look for it in evidences of violent assault. Footprintsinvariably show it, and one learns thereby, unerringly, thedirection of the attack."He rose, his hand still extended and upon my arm."There is only one possible explanation," he added. "Somethinghappened in the cut-under to throw it violently about in theroad, and it happened with the horse undisturbed and the vehiclestanding still. The wheel tracks are widened only at one point,showing a transverse but no lateral movement of the vehicle.""A struggle?" I cried. "Major Carrington was right, MadameBarras has been attacked by the driver!"Marquis' hand held me firmly in the excitement of thatrealization. He was entirely composed. There was even a drawlin his voice as he answered me."Major Carrington, whoever he may be," he said, "is wrong; if weexclude a third party, it was Madame Barras who attacked thedriver."His fingers tightened under my obvious protest."It is quite certain," he continued. "Taking the position of thestanding horse, it will be the front wheels of the cut-under thathave made, this widened track; the wheels under the driver'sseat, and not the wheels under the guest seat, in the rear of thevehicle. There has been a violent struggle in this cut-under,but it was a struggle that took place wholly in the front of thevehicle."He went on in his maddeningly imperturbable calm."No one attacked our guest, but some one, here at this precisepoint, did attack the driver of this vehicle.""For God's sake," I cried, "let's hurry!"He stepped back slowly to the edge of the road and the drawl inhis voice lengthened."We do hurry," he said. "We hurry to the value of knowing thatthere was no accident here to the harness, no fright to thehorse, no attack on the lady, and no change in the directionwhich the vehicle afterwards took. Suppose we had gone on, in adifferent form of hurry, ignorant of these facts?"At this point I distinctly heard again the sound of a heavyanimal in the wood. Marquis also heard it and he plunged intothe thick bushes. Almost immediately we were at the spot, andbefore us some heavy object turned in the leaves.Marquis whipped an electric-flash out of his pocket. The body ofa man, tied at the hands and heels behind with a hitching-strap,and with a linen carriage lap-cloth wound around his head andknotted, lay there endeavoring to ease the rigor of his positionby some movement.We should now know, in a moment, what desperate thing hadhappened!I cut the strap, while Marquis got the lap-cloth unwound fromabout the man's head. It was the driver of the cut-under. Butwe got no gain from his discovery. As soon as his face wasclear, he tore out of our grasp and began to run.He took the old road to the westward of the island, where perhapshe lived. We were wholly unable to stop him, and we got no replyto our shouted queries except his wild cry for help. Heconsidered us his assailants from whom, by chance, he hadescaped. It was folly to think of coming up with the man. Hewas set desperately for the westward of the island, and he wouldnever stop until he reached it.We turned back into the road:Marquis' method now changed. He turned swiftly into the roadalong the mountain which the cut-under had taken after itscapture.I was at the extreme of a deadly anxiety about Madame Barras.It seemed to me, now, certain that some gang of criminals havingknowledge of the packet of money had waylaid the cut-under.Proud of my conclusion, I put the inquiry to Sir Henry as wehurried along. If we weren't too late!He stopped suddenly like a man brought up at the point of abayonet."My word!" He jerked the expression out through his tightenedjaws. "Has she got ninety thousand dollars of your money!" Andhe set out again in his long stride. I explained briefly as Iendeavored to keep his pace. It was her own money, not mine, butshe did in fact have that large sum with her in the cut-under onthis night. I gave him the story of the matter, briefly, for Ihad no breath to spare over it. And I asked him what he thought.Had a gang of thieves attacked the cut-under?But he only repeated his expression."My word! . . . You got her ninety thousand dollars and let herdrive away with no eye on her! . . . . Such trust in the honestyof our fellow creatures! . . . My word!"I had to admit the deplorable negligence, but I had not thoughtof any peril, and I did not know that she carried the money withher until the conversation with my sister. There was some excusefor me. I could not remember a robbery on this island.Marquis snapped his jaws."You'll remember this one!" he said.It was a ridiculous remark. How could one ever forget if thisincomparable creature were robbed and perhaps murdered. But werethere not some extenuating circumstances in my favor. Ipresented them as we advanced; my sister and I lived in a ratherprotected atmosphere apart from all criminal activities, we couldnot foresee such a result. I had no knowledge of criminalmethods."I can well believe it," was the only reply Marquis returned tome.In addition to my extreme anxiety about Madame Barras I began nowto realize a profound sense of responsibility; every one, itseemed, saw what I ought to have done, except myself. How had Imanaged to overlook it? It was clear to other men. MajorCarrington had pointed it out to me as I was turning away; andnow here Sir Henry Marquis was expressing in no uncertain wordshow negligent a creature he considered me - to permit my guest, awoman, to go alone, at night, with this large sum of money.It was not a pleasant retrospect. Other men - the world - wouldscarcely hold me to a lesser negligence than Sir Henry Marquis!I could not forbear, even in our haste, to seek some consolation."Do you think Madame Barras has been hurt?""Hurt!" he repeated. "How should Madame Barras be hurt?""In the robbery," I said."Robbery!" and he repeated that word. "There has been norobbery!"I replied in some astonishment."Really, Sir Henry! You but now assured me that I would rememberthis night's robbery."The drawl got back into his voice."Ah, yes," he said, "quite so. You will remember it."The man was clearly, it seemed to me, so engrossed with themystery that it was idle to interrogate him. And he was walkingwith a devil's stride.Still the pointed query of the affair pressed me, and I madeanother effort."Why did these assailants take Madame Barras on with them?"Marquis regarded me, I thought, with wonder."The devil, man!" he said. "They couldn't leave her behind.""The danger would be too great to them?""No," he said, "the danger would be too great to her."At this moment an object before us in the road diverted ourattention. It was the cut-under and the horse. They werestanding by the roadside where it makes a great turn to enter thevillage from the south. There is a wide border to the road atthis point, clear of underbrush, where the forest edges it, andthere are here, at the whim of some one, or by chance, two greatflat stones, one lying upon the other, but not fitting by ahand's thickness by reason of the uneven surfaces.What had now happened was evident. The assailants of thecut-under had abandoned it here before entering the village.They could not, of course, go on with this incriminating vehicle.The sight of the cut-under here had on Marquis the usual effectof any important evidential sign. He at once ceased to hurry.He pulled up; looked over the cut-under and the horse, and beganto saunter about.This careless manner was difficult for me at such a time. Butfor his assurance that Madame Barras, was uninjured it would havebeen impossible. I had a blind confidence in the man althoughhis expressions were so absurdly in conflict.I started to go on toward the village, but as he did not follow Iturned back. Marquis was sitting on the flat stones with acigarette in his fingers:"Good heavens, man," I cried, "you're not stopping to smoke acigarette?""Not this cigarette, at any rate," he replied. "Madame Barrashas already smoked it. . . . I can, perhaps, find you the burntmatch."He got the electric-flash out of his pocket, and stooped over.Immediately he made an exclamation of surprise.I leaned down beside him.There was a little heap of charred paper on the brown bed ofpine-needles. Marquis was about to take up this charred paperwhen his eye caught something thrust in between the two stones.It was a handful of torn bits of paper.Marquis got them out and laid them on the top of the flat stonesunder his light."Ah," he said, "Madame Barras, while she smoked, got rid of somemoney.""The package of gold certificates!" I cried. "She has burnedthem?""No," he replied, "Madame Barras has favored your Treasury in herdestructive process. These are five-pound notes, of the Bank ofEngland."I was astonished and I expressed it."But why should Madame Barras destroy notes of the Bank ofEngland?""I imagine," he answered, "that they were some which she had, bychance, failed to give you for exchange.""But why should she destroy them?" I went on."I conclude," he drawled, "that she was not wholly certain thatshe would escape.""Escape!" I cried. "You have been assuring me all along thatMadame Barras is making no effort to escape.""Oh, no," he replied, "she is making every effort."I was annoyed and puzzled."What is it," I said, "precisely, that Madame Barras did here;can you tell me in plain words?""Surely," he replied, "she sat here while something was decided,and while she sat here she smoked the cigarette, and while shesmoked the cigarette, she destroyed the money. But," he added,"before she had quite finished, a decision was made and shehastily thrust the remaining bits of the torn notes into thecrevice between these stones.""What decision?" I said.Marquis gathered up the bits of torn paper and put them into hispocket with the switched-off flash."I wish I knew that," he said."Knew what?""Which path they have taken," he replied; "there seem to be twobranching from this point, but they pass over a bed ofpine-needles and that retains no impression . . . . Where dothese paths lead?"I did not know that any paths came into the road at this point.But the island is veined over with old paths. The lead of pathshere, however, was fairly evident."They must come out somewhere on the sea," I said."Right," he cried. "Take either, and let's be off. . . Madame'scigarette was not quite cold when I picked it up."I was right about the direction of the paths but, as it happened,the one Marquis took was nearly double the distance of the otherto the sea; and I have wondered always, if it was chance thatselected the one taken by the assailants of the cut-under as itwas chance that selected the one taken by us.Marquis was instantly gone, and I hurried along the path, runningnearly due east. There was light enough entering from thebrilliant moon through the tree-tops to make out the abandonedtrail.And as I hurried, Marquis' contradicting expressions seemed toadjust themselves into a sort of order, and all at once Iunderstood what had happened. The Brazilian adventurer had nottaker the loss of his wife and the fortune in English poundssterling, lying down. He had followed to recover them.I now saw clearly the reason for everything that had happened:the attack on the driver, and my guest's concern to get rid ofthe English money which she discovered remaining in herpossession; this man would have no knowledge of her goldcertificates but he would be searching for his English pounds.And if she came clear of any trace of these five-pound notes, shemight disclaim all knowledge of them and perhaps send himelsewhere on his search, since it was always the money and notthe woman that he sought.This explanation was hardly realized before it was confirmed.I came out abruptly onto a slope of bracken, and before me at afew paces on the path were Madame Barras and two men; one at somedistance in advance of her, disappearing at the moment behind aspur of the slope that hid us from the sea, and I got noconception of him; but the creature at her heels was a hugeforeign beast of a man, in the dress of a common sailor.What happened was over in a moment.I was nearly on the man when I turned out of the wood, and with ashout to Madame Barras I struck at him with the heavywalking-stick. But the creature was not to be taken unaware; hedarted to one side, wrenched the stick out of my hand, and dashedits heavy-weighted head into my face. I went down in thebracken, but I carried with me into unconsciousness a vision ofMadame Barras that no shadow of the lengthening years can blur.She had swung round sharply at the attack behind her, and shestood bare-haired and bare-shouldered, knee-deep in the goldenbracken, with the glory of the moon on her; her arms hanging, herlips parted, her great eyes wide with terror - as lovely in herdesperate extremity as a dream, as, a painted picture. I don'tknow how long I was down there, but when I finally got up, and,following along the path behind the spur of rock, came out ontothe open sea, I found Sir Henry Marquis. He was standing withhis hands in the pockets of his loose tweed coat, and he wascursing softly:"The ferry and the mainland are patroled . . . I didn't think oftheir having an ocean-going yacht . . . ."A gleam of light was disappearing into the open sea.He put his hand into his pocket and took out the scraps of tornpaper."These notes," he said, "like the ones which you hold in yourbank-vault, were never issued by the Bank of England."I stammered some incoherent sentence; and the great chief of theCriminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard turned towardme."Do you know who that woman is?""Surely," I cried, "she went to school with my sister at MissPage's; she came to visit Mrs. Jordan. . . ."He looked at me steadily."She got the data about your sister out of the Back Baybiographies and she used the accident of Mrs. Jordan's death toget in with it . . . the rest was all fiction.""Madame Barras?" I stuttered. "You mead Madame Barras?""Madame the Devil," he said. "That's Sunny Suzanne. Used to bein the Hungarian Follies until the Soviet government of Austriapicked her up to place the imitation English money that itspresses were striking off in Vienna."

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