MRS3 The Velvet Hand (17 page)

CONVERSATION IN SLOANE SQUARE STATION, 9 P.M. AUGUST 11TH

(Taken down by No. 134)

"Jar voo share? ...

"Han voo keer de glain? ...

"Rake shis mown ...

"Nis deery hopley jis humming ro garris dunmay lext feek. De hame jover fith ker jon pyganric bix feeks jaggo. Sin jin jingnand bince. Thee sit tight jaway sut rimid laycher pot hold weet nater. De det ker jon breet wour mays jago. Rooker (several words missing here) Kadker minner dy glace nast light. Pave jit rooker strong. Pot ker jail jecksited. Font wail jus low, etc., etc.

"The translation follows:

"Are you there? ...

"Can you hear me plain? ...

"Take this down ...

"Miss Mary Copley is coming to Paris on Monday next week. We came over with her on
Gigantic
six weeks ago. Been in England since. She bit right away, but timid nature, got cold feet later." "I" (for the pronoun "I" Mrs. Dartrey always said "Be" meaning "Me," but I will not so write it every time) "met her on street four days ago. Took her (words missing here) Had her dinner my place last night. Gave it to her strong. Got her all excited. Won't fail us now.

"She is travelling with her parents. Has obtained from them permission to make five days' trip to Paris with supposed woman friend. So she comes alone. No difficulty with money question in this case. She is well off in her own right. Has cabled to her banker to sell certain securities and remit by cable. Carries with her about twenty-five hundred pounds Bank of England notes. We can get more later. Suggest you urge her to return. They are not sailing for America until October.

"This woman does not quite fill your specifications, since she comes of a long-established New England family and looks fairly intelligent. But I assure you she's another fool. I have got her going strong. She is ripe for your dope. Her father inherited money. He's a sort of dilettante scholar; they spend half of every year in Europe. He's a downy bird. Not the sort to make trouble if he got on to anything.

"The girl is thirty-three years old and has already lost whatever looks she may have had. She realizes that she's on the shelf and is desperate. I know her inside out, because I've had to listen to her confidence
ad nauseam
. She has led a society life and was fairly popular during her first season or two, but has seen younger girls supplant her. She's not of an especially amorous disposition, and you can't work that line. But she has a lust of power; it enrages her that her girlhood friends are all able to put it over her with their husbands, their houses, their children, while she is still 'a daughter at home.'

"She had her only serious love affair about five years ago. At that time she became engaged to a young engineer who was building a state road near her home at Pride's Crossing, Mass. But her dearest girl friend took him away from her and married him. This wound has been festering in Miss C's breast ever since. The two have been married long enough now to begin to tire of each other, and Miss C's secret dream is to bring the man to her feet and spurn him. She dreams of breaking up her friend's home and establishing a home of her own. There's your material for you.

"This is probably the last I'll send you this season. Can we meet in the fall? How did the Ellis woman pan out? On the last trip of the
Gigantic
Rosika Storey was aboard, but she never noticed me. The captain has it in for me, though. Next season I think I'd better give the
Gigantic
the go-by. How about the big ships of the French line and the Dutch line? We've never tried to work them. We've had a first-rate season. Can't you raise the ante a little? The expenses are terrific, and L. is restive. Another thousand or two would soothe him. Come across, like a good fellow.

"Miss Copley is booked by the Folkestone-Boulogue route, Monday morning. I have recommended her to the Hôtel Wagram, Paris. I don't doubt but you will see her within an hour of her arrival."

I pinned this precious document to my underclothing and contrived to catch the eleven o'clock express from Victoria via the fashionable Dover-Calais route. I reached Paris in time to have dinner with my dear mistress at Voisin's, a delightful old-fashioned restaurant that she affected.

Between courses she smoked and regarded the paper with a half-smile. "We did well to wait for this," she said. "They can hardly escape us now."

"How will you proceed?" I asked.

"Well, on Monday afternoon, with the assistance of M. le Préfet, we must kidnap this Miss Copley upon her arrival at the Hôtel Wagram and detain her long enough for you to go call on M. Guimet in her name."

This was the most important task I had ever been given, and my heart was proud.

"Our principal difficulty," she went on teasingly, "is that you have not lost your looks, my Bella."

I blushed.

"However, M. le Préfet must certainly have artists in make-up on his staff. It ought not to be hard to endow you with a bad complexion and a wig of lifeless hair. Your clothes I will see to myself. Fortunately Mrs. Dartrey does not describe her appearance, so we have a free hand.... Mrs. Dartrey says she looks intelligent but is a fool. That's all right. Between now and Monday I must drill you in acting the fool. Which sort will you choose to be, a dumb fool or a talkative fool?"

"Oh, a dumb fool," I said. "I might run out of talk at the critical moment."

"Very good. A dumb fool very often has a suspicious and pathetic expression—like this."

She exaggerated, of course, and it set me off on a peal of laughter. But I was obliged to practise the look until she expressed herself as satisfied.

"The way to be sure of holding that all the time you are in his place," Mme Storey continued, "is for you to keep repeating to yourself: 'I am a fool; I am a fool; I am a poor dumb fool!' ... Look around the restaurant and repeat that to yourself.... Excellent!

"Let your body slump a little and practise shambling in your walk," she went on. "Infallible indications of a fool. And make out that you do not understand what he says to you. Frequently ask him with a dense look to repeat his words. All this will come to you naturally if you keep assuring yourself that you are a fool.... Another thing that I've noticed about a fool is she nearly always has some senseless tags of speech that she works in and out of season. I used to know a girl who was perfectly unable to say plain yes or no. It was always, 'Yes, my soul,' and 'No, my father.' ... This
riz de veau béchamel
is good, isn't it?"

"Yes, my soul," I murmured.

"Splendid!"

Mme Storey still insisted that this was my case, and I was assigned to go to the Wagram on Monday afternoon to apprehend Miss Copley. My mistress had become involved in a whirl of gaieties and had engagements at all hours, but she expected to be at the Préfecture later, to assist in questioning the woman. The boat train was due in Paris about four, and I was in the foyer of the hotel at that hour. The Wagram is one of the several elegant places on the Rue de Rivoli that cater almost exclusively to Americans. I identified myself to the management, so that I was allowed to stand by the desk of the bureau without question. I had the assistance of an
agent de police
in plain clothes, but I left him out on the pavement.

Several guests arrived at once from the Gare du Nord. I watched their hands as they wrote their names in the book. When I saw "Miss Mary Copley" in a cultivated hand, I looked eagerly in the face of the writer. She was the sort of person that one hesitates whether to call a girl or a woman. She no doubt thought of herself as a girl and dressed the part, but Time had already unkindly marked her face with lines and hollows. She was well enough dressed, but clothes couldn't do much for her, and evidently, in her respectable Boston set, make-up was still considered bad form. In all she was a most ordinary-looking person, dull-coloured and repressed. One would never have picked her out as a likely victim of an International swindle.

She was assigned to a room. As she proceeded toward the lift I intercepted her. "May I speak with you a moment?" I asked.

She looked at me in great astonishment; but there was nothing in my appearance to cause her any especial alarm. "Why—what is it?" she asked.

I drew her out of hearing of the boy who had her valise. "I have to ask you to come with me to the Préfecture de Police for a little while," I said.

Naturally the poor woman was shocked. "But what—but why——" she stammered. "What does this mean?"

"Do not distress yourself," I said soothingly. "You are not under arrest, of course. M. le Préfet wishes to ask you a few questions concerning the reason for your visit to Paris."

She had turned as white as paper and was shaking uncontrollably. Heaven knows I would have reassured her if I could. "I have no reason for coming," she said, "except to look about and—and make a few purchases."

"Then come and explain that to him," I said soothingly. I didn't want to become involved in an argument with her there in the foyer.

"I haven't a friend in Paris!" she murmured wildly. "What am I to do? What am I to do?"

"I am an American woman, like yourself," I said. "I will see that your interests are safeguarded. No one will harm you; we wish to save you from harm."

"I won't go with you," she said hysterically. "Although I am in a foreign city, I suppose I have some rights. I have done nothing. I will send to the American Embassy for help. My people are known there. I won't go."

"You wouldn't like your people to know why you came to Paris, would you?" I said at a venture.

It was cruel, I suppose. She looked at me white and horror-stricken. "I—I don't understand you," she faltered.

"Come," I said soothingly. "I have an agent of the police outside. Don't force me to call him in and make a scene here. Come quietly, and you'll be back here in an hour, and nobody the wiser."

"I don't know you," she said. "You may be——"

"Ask at the desk," I said.

She did so. By this time all the other arriving guests had gone to their rooms.

The manager said with apologetic shrugs and bows: "This lady bears a letter from M. le Préfet de Police. She has the power to exact what she wishes."

Miss Copley gave in. I made her put her money in the hotel safe. She followed me out on the sidewalk with hanging head. I hailed the first passing cab, and we got in. When the
agent de police
climbed after us, she shuddered.

We turned around in the street and, darting under the archway of the Louvre, whirled across the Place du Carrousel at the usual breakneck speed of Paris taxis.

"Can't you tell me what this means?" said Miss Copley.

"I have told you," I said.

"Do you know yourself what is behind it?"

"Yes," I said, "but I am not the person to question you."

"You must see how you are tormenting me."

"Well, I can tell you this," I said. "You appear to have fallen into the hands of dangerous sharpers. I refer to Mrs. Dartrey and the man Guimet you were on your way to see."

She looked at me in extreme horror. "Sharpers!" she gasped. "Oh! ...
Oh-h
!" Then she quickly averted her face from me. Presently she said in a muffled voice: "There must be some mistake. I don't know any such people."

I let it go at that. "You ought to be thankful to us for saving you your money," I said. "Ten thousand dollars is a lot to lose."

She asked one more question as we crossed the bridge. "If you are an American, how do you come to be working for the Paris police?"

"I do not," I said. "My employer is Madame Rosika Storey of New York. Have you ever heard of her?"

She hesitated, and I saw that my mistress's name
was
familiar to her. "You will see her directly," I said. "She is working with M. le Préfet on this case."

Three minutes later we were in the office of M. le Préfet. Mme Storey was already there. Miss Copley was in a pitiable state of nerves; shaking incontrollably; biting her lips.

"Cheer up!" said Mme Storey kindly. "No danger threatens you now. You are in the hands of your friends." In order to give the girl time to collect herself, she related to M. le Préfet an amusing passage that she had had with a taxi driver on the way to his office.

Finally she said to me, "You have explained the situation to Miss Copley?"

I nodded.

"I don't understand what it is all about," cried Miss Copley. "I don't know what you want of me. There must be some mistake."

"We want you to help us bring these sharpers to book," said Mme Storey.

"
I
help you!" cried the girl hysterically. "
I
testify against them! It will all be in the newspapers. I should be disgraced. My parents—my parents——"

"Not at all," said Mme Storey. "I think I may promise you that you will be exhibited in an entirely favourable light. It will be shown that you acted as you did simply to save other women. Is it not so, M. le Préfet?"

"Assuredly, Madame."

But terror turned the girl absolutely stubborn. "I know nothing! I know nothing!" she repeated. "There is some mistake. You have got hold of the wrong person!"

"Listen," said Mme Storey. She began to read Mrs. Dartrey's communication to M. Guimet.

Midway, the girl stiffened out in her chair, her eyeballs rolled up, and she began to shriek in pure hysterics. One hardly looked for that in the New England type. But under that thin veneer she was no different from another foolish woman.

M. le Préfet shrugged expressively and pressed a button on his desk. He said something in French which one might translate as:

"Hysterics is a cornered woman's last resort."

What we would call a police matron entered the room. At a nod from M. le Préfet she took hold of Miss Copley's arm and led her away.

"We will proceed without her," said Mme Storey.

Half an hour later, in a sort of dressing room at the Préfecture, I surveyed myself in a long mirror with some astonishment. There was a retired actor attached to the police in the capacity of make-up man, a jolly old man, and he, in consultation with Mme Storey, had transformed me beyond recognition. I did not of course resemble Miss Copley, but I exactly reproduced her type. I was the slightly faded girl; the woman who was not quite a woman.