The Place of Honeymoons - Page 37/123

"The tram," she said.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"And go quickly." She would not feel safe until she was in the tram.

A face appeared at one of the windows. As the vehicle turned the corner,

the face vanished; and perhaps that particular visage disappeared forever.

A gray wig came off, the little gray side-whiskers, the bushy grey

eyebrows, revealing a clever face, not more than thirty, cunning, but

humorously cunning and anything but scoundrelly. The painted scar aslant

the nose was also obliterated. With haste the man thrust the evidences of

disguise into a traveling-bag, ran here and there through the rooms, all

bare and unfurnished save the one with the bars and the kitchen, which

contained two cots and some cooking utensils. Nothing of importance had

been left behind. He locked the door and ran all the way to the Place

d'Armes, catching the tram to Paris by a fraction of a minute.

All very well done. She would be in Paris before the police made any

definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the

blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from

Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that

he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. He knew positively

nothing.

The man laughed softly. A thousand francs apiece for him and Antoine, and

no possible chance of being discovered. Let the police find the house in

Versailles; let them trace whatever paths they found; the agent would tell

them, and honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and

had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of

puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth,

and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a

curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the

better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much

as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all

element of danger had been done away with. True, the singer herself would

move heaven and earth to find out who had been back of the abduction. Let

her make her accusations. He was out of it.

He glanced toward the forward part of the tram. There she sat, staring at

the white road ahead. A young Frenchman sat near her, curling his mustache

desperately. So beautiful and all alone! At length he spoke to her. She

whirled upon him so suddenly that his hat fell off his head and rolled at

the feet of the onlooker.