The mysterious Mr. Quin
"Pray tell it to us, monsieur," said Mr. Satterthwaite courteously.
Pierre Vaucher leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
"It is in Paris that the story begins. There was a man there, a
working jeweler. He was young and lighthearted and industrious in his
profession. They said there was a future before him. A good marriage
was already arranged for him, the bride not too bad-looking, the dowry
most satisfactory. And then, what would you think? One morning he sees
a girl. Such a miserable little wisp of a girl, Messieurs. Beautiful?
Yes, perhaps, if she were not half-starved. But anyway, for this young
man, she has a magic that he cannot resist. She has been struggling to
find work, she is virtuous--or at least that is what she tells him. I
do not know if it was true."
The Countess's voice came suddenly out of the semi-darkness. "Why
should it not be true? There are many like that."
"Well, as I say, the young man believed her. And he married her--an act
of folly! His family would have no more to say to him. He had outraged
their feelings. He married--I will call her Jeanne--it was a good
action. He told her so. He felt that she should be very grateful to
him. He had sacrificed much for her sake."
"A charming beginning for the poor girl," observed the Countess
sarcastically.
"He loved her, yes, but from the beginning she maddened him. She had
moods--tantrums--she would be cold to him one day, passionate the next.
At last he saw the truth. She had never loved him. She had married him
so as to keep body and soul together. That truth hurt him, it hurt him
horribly, but he tried his utmost to let nothing appear on the surface.
And he still felt he deserved gratitude and obedience to his wishes.
They quarreled. She reproached him--Mon Dieu, what did she not reproach
him with?
"You can see the next step, can you not? The thing that was bound to
come. She left him. For two years he was alone, working in his little
shop with no news of her. He had one friend--absinthe. The business did
not prosper so well.
"And then one day he came into the shop to find her sitting there.
She was beautifully dressed. She had rings on her hands. He stood
considering her. His heart was beating--but beating! He was at a loss
what to do. He would have liked to have beaten her, to have clasped
her in his arms, to have thrown her down on the floor and trampled on
her, to have thrown himself at her feet. He did none of these things.
He took up his pincers and went on with his work. 'Madame desires?' he
asked formally.
"That upset her. She did not look for that, see you. 'Pierre,' she
said, 'I have come back.' He laid aside his pincers and looked at her.
'You wish to be forgiven?' he said. 'You want me to take you back? You
are sincerely repentant?' 'Do you want me back?' she murmured. Oh! very
softly she said it.
"He knew she was laying a trap for him. He longed to seize her in his
arms, but he was too clever for that. He pretended indifference.
"'I am a Christian man,' he said. 'I try to do what the Church
directs.' 'Ah!' he thought, 'I will humble her, humble her to her
knees.'
"But Jeanne, that is what I will call her, flung back her head and
laughed. Evil laughter it was. 'I mock myself at you, little Pierre,'
she said. 'Look at these rich clothes, these rings and bracelets. I
came to show myself to you. I thought I would make you take me in your
arms and when you did so, then--_then_ I would spit in your face and
tell you how I hated you!'
"And on that she went out of the shop. Can you believe, Messieurs, that
a woman could be as evil as all that--to come back only to torment him?"
"No," said the Countess. "I would not believe it, and any man who was
not a fool would not believe it either. But all men are blind fools."
Pierre Vaucher took no notice of her. He went on: "And so that young
man of whom I tell you sank lower and lower. He drank more absinthe.
The little shop was sold over his head. He became of the dregs, of
the gutter. Then came the war. Ah! it was good, the war. It took that
man out of the gutter and taught him to be a brute beast no longer. It
drilled him--and sobered him. He endured cold and pain and the fear of
death--but he did not die, and when the war ended, he was a man again.
"It was then, Messieurs, that he came South. His lungs had been
affected; they said he must find work in the South. I will not weary
you with all the things he did. Suffice it to say that he ended up as a
croupier, and there--there in the Casino one evening, he saw again--the
woman who had ruined his life. She did not recognize him, but he
recognized her. She appeared to be rich and to lack for nothing--but,
Messieurs, the eyes of a croupier are sharp. There came an evening when
she placed her last stake in the world on the table. Ask me not how I
know--I do know--one feels these things. Others might not believe. She
still had rich clothes--why not pawn them, one would say? But to do
that--pah! your credit is gone at once. Her jewels? Ah, no! Was I not
a jeweler in my time? Long ago the real jewels have gone. The pearls
of a King sold one by one, and replaced with false. And meantime one
must eat and pay one's hotel bill. Yes, and the rich men--well, they
have seen one about for many years. Bah! they say--she is over fifty! A
younger chicken for my money."
A long shuddering sigh came out of the windows where the Countess
leaned back.
"Yes. It was a great moment, that. Two nights I have watched her. Lose,
lose, and lose again. And now the end. She puts all on one number.
Beside her, an English milord stakes the maximum also--on the next
number. The ball rolls; the moment has come; she has lost.
"Her eyes meet mine. What do I do? I jeopardize my place in the Casino.
I rob the English milord. '_A Madame_,' I say, and pay over the money."
"Ah!" There was a crash as the Countess sprang to her feet and leaned
across the table, sweeping her glass onto the floor. "Why?" she cried.
"That's what I want to know, _why_ did you do it?"
There was a long pause, a pause that seemed interminable, and still
those two facing each other across the table looked and looked. It was
like a duel.
A mean little smile crept across Pierre Vaucher's face. He raised his
hands. "Madame," he said. "There is such a thing as pity."
"Ah!"
She sank down again. "I see."
She was calm, smiling, herself again.
"An interesting story, Monsieur Vaucher, is it not? Permit me to give
you a light for your cigarette."
She deftly rolled up a spill, lighted it at the candle, and held it
toward him. He leaned forward till the flame caught the tip of the
cigarette he held between his lips.
Then she rose unexpectedly to her feet. "And now I must leave you all.
Please--I need no one to escort me."
Before one could realize it, she was gone. Mr. Satterthwaite would have
hurried out after her, but he was arrested by a startled oath from the
Frenchman.
"_A thousand thunders!_"
He was staring at the half-burned spill which the Countess had dropped
on the table. He unrolled it.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he muttered. "A fifty-thousand-franc banknote. You
understand? Her winnings tonight. All that she has in the world.
And she lighted my cigarette with it! Because she was too proud to
accept--pity. Ah! proud, she was always proud as the Devil. She is
unique--wonderful."
He sprang up from his seat and darted out. Mr. Satterthwaite and Mr.
Quin had also risen. The waiter approached Franklin Rudge.
"_La note, Monsieur_," he observed unemotionally.
Mr. Quin rescued it from him quickly.
"I feel kind of lonesome, Elizabeth," remarked Franklin Rudge. "These
foreigners--they beat the band! I don't understand them. What's it all
mean, anyhow?"
He looked across at her. "Gee, it's good to look at anything so hundred
percent American as you." His voice took on the plaintive note of a
small child. "These foreigners are so _odd_."
They thanked Mr. Quin and went out into the night together. Mr. Quin
picked up his change and smiled across at Mr. Satterthwaite, who was
preening himself like a contented bird.
"Well," said the latter. "That's all gone off splendidly. Our pair of
lovebirds will be all right now."
"Which ones?" asked Mr. Quin.
"Oh," said Mr. Satterthwaite, taken aback, "Oh! yes, well, I suppose
you are right, allowing for the Latin point of view and all that--"
He looked dubious.
Mr. Quin smiled, and a stained-glass panel behind him invested him for
just a moment in a motley garment of colored light.
THE WORLD'S END
Mr. Satterthwaite had come to Corsica because of the Duchess. It was
out of his beat. On the Riviera he was sure of his comforts, and to be
comfortable meant a lot to Mr. Satterthwaite. But though he liked his
comfort, he also liked a Duchess. In his way, a harmless, gentlemanly,
old-fashioned way, Mr. Satterthwaite was a snob. He liked the best
people. And the Duchess of Leith was a very authentic Duchess. She was
the daughter of a duke as well as the wife of one.
For the rest, she was rather a shabby-looking old lady, a good deal
given to black bead trimmings on her clothes. She had quantities of
diamonds in old-fashioned settings, and she wore them as her mother
before her had worn them: pinned all over her indiscriminately.
Someone had suggested once that the Duchess stood in the middle of the
room while her maid flung brooches at her haphazard. She subscribed
generously to charities, and looked well after her tenants and
dependents, but was extremely mean over small sums. She cadged lifts
from her friends, and did her shopping in bargain basements.
The Duchess was seized with a whim for Corsica. Cannes bored her, and
she had had a bitter argument with the hotel proprietor over the price
of her rooms.
"And you shall go with me, Satterthwaite," she said firmly. "We needn't
be afraid of scandal at our time of life."
Mr. Satterthwaite was delicately flattered. No one had ever mentioned
scandal in connection with him before. He was far too insignificant.
Scandal--and a Duchess--delicious.
"Picturesque, you know," said the Duchess. "Brigands--all that sort
of thing. And extremely cheap, so I've heard. Manuelli was positively
impudent this morning. These hotel proprietors need putting in their
place. They can't expect to get the best people if they go on like
this. I told him so plainly."
"I believe," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "that one can fly over quite
comfortably. From Antibes."
"They probably charge you a pretty penny for it," said the Duchess
sharply. "Find out, will you?"
"Certainly, Duchess."
Mr. Satterthwaite was still in a flutter of gratification, despite the
fact that his role was clearly to be that of a glorified courier.
When she learned the price of a passage by _avion_, the Duchess turned
it down promptly. "They needn't think I'm going to pay a ridiculous sum
like that to go in one of their nasty dangerous things."
So they went by boat, and Mr. Satterthwaite endured ten hours of acute
discomfort. To begin with, as the boat sailed at seven, he took it
for granted that there would be dinner on board. But there was no
dinner. The boat was small and the sea was rough. Mr. Satterthwaite was
decanted at Ajaccio in the early hours of the morning more dead than
alive.
The Duchess, on the contrary, was perfectly fresh. She never minded
discomfort, if she could feel she was saving money. She waxed
enthusiastic over the scene on the quay, with the palm trees and the
rising sun. The whole population seemed to have turned out to watch the
arrival of the boat, and the launching of the gangway was attended with
excited cries and directions.
"That maid of mine has been sick all night," said the Duchess. "The