Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/27

Mrs. Comstock looked like one on the verge of fainting as she almost whispered: "No, no; he left me with a terrible threat. I remember his very words—can I ever forget them? He said, 'I go from you; but I shall return. Nothing but death can cheat me. I shall bring on you and yours a horror such as no man has known since the days before Adam.'"

De Grandin almost danced as she finished speaking. "Ah, ha," he exclaimed, "the explanation is ours! The mystery is almost solved. Thank you, Madam. If you will tell me one more little thing, I shall retire and trouble you no more:

"Your daughter, she is betrothed to one Monsieur Manly. Tell me, I beg, when and where did she meet this young man?"

"I introduced them," the lady replied with a return of something of her frigid manner. "Mr. Manly came to my husband with letters of introduction from an old schoolmate of his—a fellow student at the university—in Capetown."

"Eh?" de Grandin almost shrieked. "Capetown, do you say? Capetown, South Africa? Nom d'un petit bonhomme! From Capetown! When was this, Madam, please?"

"A year ago. Why—"

"And Monsieur Manly, he has lived with you how long?" the question shut off her offended protest half uttered.

"Mr. Manly is stopping with us," she answered icily. "He is to marry my daughter, Millicent, next month. Really, sir, I fail to see what interest the Republic of France, which you represent, and humanity, which you also claim to represent, can have in my private affairs. If—"

"And this Capetown friend," de Grandin interrupted feverishly. "Tell me, his name was what, and his business?"

"I—"

"Tell me!" he cried impatiently, extending his slender hands as though to choke the answer from her. "Nom d'un fusil! I must know. At once!"

"We do not know his street and number," Mrs. Comstock replied. "His name is Alexander Findlay, and he is a diamond factor."

"Ah, ah! Bien. Thank you, Madam. You have been most kind, said de Grandin, and he struck his heels together and bowed as though hinged at the hips.

It was past midnight when the 'phone rang insistently. "Western Union speaking," a girl's voice announced over the wire. "Cablegram for Dr. de Grandin. Ready?"

"Yes," I answered, seizing the pencil and pad beside the instrument. "Read it, please."

"No person by name Alexander Findlay diamond factor known here no record of such person in last five years. Signed, Burlingame, Inspector of Police.'

"The cable is from Capetown, South Africa," she added as I finished jotting down her dictation.

"Very good," I replied. "Forward a typed confirmation in the morning, please."

Then I went to de Grandin's room with the message.

"Mille tonnerres!" he shouted, flinging the covers back, as I read him the cablegram: de Grandin, he is a fool, hein? Listen—" he leaped from the bed and raced across the room to where his coat hung over a chair. Extracting a black-leather notebook, almost as large as a desk dictionary, he thumbed its pages rapidly, finally found the entry he sought. "Behold! This Monsieur Kalmar, whom no one knows about, he have lived here ten months and twenty-six days. I have it from that so stupid real estate broker who think I ask information for a directory of scientists.