him, “why all these questions about Félice?”
“You promised before dinner to tell me the story of your marriage, that is all. I should like to hear it. I suppose I am curious, like the rest of the world.”
Andrew refilled his own glass with steady hand.
“There is no reason why the whole world should not know every little detail of it,” he said, “except that I think both Félice and I are shy of talking about what might be counted a romance. This is just what happened, though. I was motoring through the Dauphine country on my way to Grenoble when, just as I was nearing a small village—well, never mind the name—an old-fashioned carriage turned out of the gates of a tumble-down château, and crash— went into it. It was a perfectly absurd equipage. The coachman appears to have been deaf and half blind, and nearly eighty years of age; the gate itself was concealed, and he came out at a trot. It was a narrow road, and nothing that I could have done would have averted an accident. Of the two passengers in the carriage, one was a Madame de Sandillac, the other was Félice. Madame de Sandillac was killed outright; Félice I had to take to a hospital.”
“I remember reading something about your having been in a motor accident,” Sir Richard remarked thoughtfully. “I had no idea, though, it was so serious.”
“They’d have put me in prison all right, without a doubt,” Andrew continued, “but for the fact that there were half a dozen witnesses who were able to swear that the carriage came out on to the high road at an unreasonable pace, and the whole district, including the local magistrate, seemed to know that the coachman was stone deaf. I got off lightly enough, but Félice was in the hospital a month. As soon as she recovered, I married her.”
“Not, I imagine, wholly out of a sense of responsibility,” Cotton observed, with a smile which was almost human.
“Not in the least,” was the frank acknowledgment. “I married her simply because I fell in love with her the moment I picked her up. I have remained in love with her ever since, and I always shall be in love with her. The one sentimental episode of my life, Dick. Knowing the sort of man I am, you can imagine it doesn’t amuse me to talk about it very much. Think of the slosh they put in the papers nowadays!”
Sir Richard nodded sympathetically.
“And now—who was Madame de Sandillac?”
“An elderly lady of decayed fortune,” Glenlitten replied, “highly respectable and respected. Incidentally, she was almost as old as her coachman, and very feeble.”
“And what relationship was there between her and your wife?”
Glenlitten sipped his wine meditatively.
“None at all.”
“Just a ward?”
“Something of the sort,” Glenlitten replied. “She appears to have lived with the old lady since she was four or five years old. Some one brought her from Russia at the very commencement of the trouble there. Madame de Sandillac had at one time been French governess to a branch of the family and had continued friendly relations with some of them ever since.”
“And her own people?” Sir Richard queried.
“I really don’t think she remembers much about them, and she certainly has at times shown a curious aversion to talking about them. I have always humoured her willingly. I daresay you can understand,” Glenlitten went on, after a moment’s pause) “that although no one in the world could call me if snob or anything of that sort, I am not altogether anxious to have a crowd of relatives-in-law of whom I know nothing. I am satisfied with Félice, and she is happy and satisfied with me. I did gather once, in an earlier conversation, that her people were very poor and were continually obtaining, or trying to obtain, money deposited with Madame de Sandillac on Félice’s behalf. Since they found that useless, or perhaps got all the money, they have taken very little further notice of her. She seems to prefer not to talk about them. I have grown into the same habitude.”
“This Madame de Sandillac, was she by any chance wealthy?” Sir Richard asked.
“If she was,” Glenlitten told him with a smile, “she had a whole crowd of nephews and nieces, who descended like a nest of hornets upon the place on the day of her funeral. There was certainly nothing left for Félice. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether in France it isn’t rather difficult to leave anything to a foreigner when you have a crowd of relatives.”
Sir Richard nodded.
“I believe that is so,” he agreed. “So that is the story of your marriage, which has puzzled all London!”
“That is the story,” Glenlitten assented, a little stiffly, “and you are about the only man to whom I would tell it. If it got about, the first thing that would happen would be a picture of my wife in one of these confounded society papers, with a little digest of the story underneath. Keep a still tongue in your head about it, Dick, there’s a good fellow.”
“Oh, I’m not a gossip. Still, Andrew, for a man in your position—and after all, even in these days that has to count for something—weren’t you taking rather a risk in marrying a young girl—I had almost said a child—of whose people you knew nothing whatever?”
Andrew Glenlitten snapped his fingers.
“I care exactly that,” he said, “for any relative my wife may have, however disreputable they may be. The only thing I regret is the difference in our ages, and she is teaching me all the time to forget that. She has given me happiness such as few men could even understand. She has never occasioned me a moment’s anxiety.”
“I have certainly never seen you look so well and contented in your life,” Sir Richard admitted.
“She is, perhaps, from some points of view, a little childish,” Glenlitten went on, “but to me her childishness, which is perfectly natural, is one of the sweetest things on earth. Now let’s drop the subject, or I shall begin to make an ass of myself. Supposing you tell me, Dick, what made you decide you wanted I to come down and spend a week-end with us. We are I delighted to see you, of course, but you are always such a difficult man to stir, and I am relying upon you for later on.”
Sir Richard looked at his host. The long, bony fingers of his left hand were tapping the lace doily by his side.
“You haven’t heard, then?”
“Heard what? For heaven’s sake, don’t be mysterious.”
“Your burglar was arrested last night at Harwich, just as he was boarding the steamer for Holland. They’re bringing him back to London to-day. It will be in to-morrow morning’s papers.”
“Damned good news!” Andrew declared with enthusiasm. “I haven’t said much about it for fear of worrying Félice, but one doesn’t exactly like a necklace worth thirty thousand pounds to slip out of the family.”
“This burglar,” Sir Richard continued, looking hard into his glass, “will also be charged with the murder of the Comte de Besset.”
“Why not? You aren’t turning sentimentalist, are you, Dick? He killed him, all right.”
“Did he?” was the calm rejoinder. “I am not sure that I agree with you.”
There was a moment’s silence. Andrew Glenlitten, with his hands in his trousers’ pockets, leaned back in his chair, looking incredulously at his guest.
“If the burglar didn’t kill him, who did?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Sir Richard answered. “You, perhaps.”
Andrew laughed scornfully.
“Don’t be an ass!” he enjoined. “You know perfectly well that I was downstairs playing bridge. You took my place. Besides, why should I want to kill poor De Besset?”
“I don’t know,” the lawyer acknowledged. “I don’t know why any one should have wanted to kill De Besset.