CHAPTER IX

THE HOTEL OF THE THREE CROWNS

Marie, the pretty chambermaid of the Hotel of the Three Crowns, was visibly nervous one misty day in April. She could not be kept away from the front door, which opened on a dingy street a few minutes' walk from the railway station.

Not that there was any particular reason why she should not be there. The guests of the Hotel of the Three Crowns were late risers as a rule. It was too early to set about her duties, and in the meantime the proprietor would rather have had her at the front door than anywhere else, for we have mentioned the fact that she was pretty, and that made her the only attractive feature about the front of the down-at-heel little inn. Transients of the commercial traveler type were seldom known to walk past the door if they caught a glimpse of Marie.

It was for one of these gentlemen that Marie was so anxiously waiting, and her nervousness was due to the fact that her husband, Victor, the "boots" of the hotel, was roaming around in the background. He was as simple-minded and unattractive as a husband ought to be. Whenever his intellect tried to grasp anything beyond the mysteries of cleaning shoes and carrying trunks it ran into heavy opaque obstructions.

Marie might have carried on a dozen flirtation under his very chin and he would have been none the wiser. But she had never done it, because of her naturally clean morals. So now, that she was preparing to inflict on him the greatest wrong that she had in her power to commit, she felt the trepidation that always precedes the first plunge into crime.

In spite of the wrought-up condition of her mind she could not help observing curiously a queer-looking pair that alighted from a cab in front of the door. The man was a tall, rather slender but muscular man of thirty-five or past with sandy hair, a bold chin and sparkling pale gray eyes that ran over her trim figure and pretty face with undisguised pleasure. It was his dress that most attracted her attention. He wore a long, check traveling coat of rough English cloth and soft gray hat, patent-leather shoes with singularly high heels, brown and very baggy "peg-top" trousers. His open coat and overcoat disclosed a gray silk shirt and loose black tie. But the really bizarre feature of the costume was a broad red sash about the waist in place of the conventional belt or braces.

The woman, his companion, was rather flashily dressed in clothes that bore the marks of travel and long wear. She was small and might once have been pretty. She was now plainly past forty and looked all of it. Her figure still retained suggestions of a departed grace. Her hair was dark and wavy but it was cut short, and she had dark, unnaturally bright eyes. Even Marie knew enough of the world to place her at once in a calling that is older than the profession of arms. In her face, glance and walk she bore the brand that Nature places on those who "eat the bread of infamy and take the wage of shame." But what Marie did not understand was the unearthly, almost translucent, pallor of her face and the peculiar delicacy of the pouches under the eyes--the hall-marks of the drug slave.

The man dropped a large traveling bag on the sidewalk and then helped the driver of the cab unship a small and much battered trunk. The woman eyed the proceedings listlessly. Then he turned to Marie with a breezy smile.

"Well, my dear, have you a room to spare and some strong and willing young man to help me carry this trunk up to it?" he asked. On being addressed, the maid started and then smiled sweetly.

"Oh, yes, monsieur! I think there is still a vacant room. Victor! Victor!" she called, turning her head to the doorway. In a few moments her husband shambled out. He had a placid, gently inquiring expression that made his face resemble nothing so much as that of a good-natured horse.

"Just give me a lift with this trunk, my man," commanded the guest, briskly, as Victor came down the steps. The procession streamed into the house, leaving Marie still on guard at the door, much to the gentleman's regret. Victor showed the way up two flights of stairs to a rather large room under the roof. It contained one big bed, two small tables, a dressing-case and several chairs. The porter, in a slow drawl, pointed out that one of the most stylish features of the apartment was a small dressing-room that opened off it. The walls and low ceiling were kalsomined. The floor was stained with cheap paint and a few cheaper rugs were scattered about.

A step or two inside the door the man stopped, looked around and laughed.

"H'm! I've seen better!" he remarked.

"It's the only one we've got left, monsieur," drawled Victor.

"Not a palace, is it?" he went on, turning to his companion. She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"Oh, what does it matter? This room or any other!" she replied, and the indifference of tone and words matched the weariness of her manner and the carelessness of her tawdry attire.

"Well, I don't suppose we shall be here long," said her companion.

He and Victor carried the luggage into the dressing-room.

The woman took off her hat and cloak, put the former on the dresser, threw the latter carelessly across a chair and dropped wearily into another.

"Oh, I'm tired!" she sighed.

"Has anyone inquired for M. Laroque--Frederic Laroque?" the man was asking as he came back with Victor. The porter handed him a card.

"This gentleman called about an hour ago," he replied. Laroque glanced at it.

"Perissard," he nodded, half to himself.

"He said he'd come back in about an hour," he drawled.

"All right! Show him up when he does," he ordered briskly, taking off his coat and overcoat.

"Can I get you anything, monsieur?"

"A bottle of absinthe!" was the prompt reply.

"Yes, monsieur."

"And some cigarettes."

"Yes, monsieur." And, the guest adding nothing further to the order, he shuffled out and slowly closed the door. Laroque looked again at the card that he still held in his hand.

"I wonder what that old devil is up to now!" he murmured, thoughtfully. He had been wondering ever since he received the letter and the thousand francs. The woman did not hear him; or, if she did, paid no attention.

"This is better than the ship, anyhow, isn't it?" she remarked from the depths of the big armchair. Laroque was busily emptying his pockets on to the top of the dresser. As he took out the pistol he thought of Senor Silvas and smiled.

"Yes!" he declared emphatically, "I've had enough of the sea for a long time. You ought to be glad to be back again; you were certainly anxious to see 'la belle France,' weren't you?"

"I've been away from it for twenty--twenty years!" said the woman in a low voice.

"I shouldn't wonder if you found a change or two," he suggested pleasantly, marching into the dressing-room to "wash up." She sighed wearily.

"I don't suppose I'll find any changes greater than those in myself."

"Because you have your hair cut short?" came from the dressing-room with a laugh. "People often have their hair cut short for all sorts of reasons. Typhoid fever is better than most. And I rather like your short curly hair. You look like a boy, dressed up!"

"I'm not thinking of my hair," she returned wearily. "I'm thinking of what I was twenty years ago when I left France and what I am to-day."

"If it hurts you to think of it, my girl, don't think of it!" he suggested lightly, appearing at the door with a towel in his hands.

"I suppose you are right--perhaps that is the better way," was the reply in world-weary tones.

"Of course, it is!" he assured her cheerfully. "What's done can't be undone, old girl. There are lots of women more to be pitied than you are."

"I wonder!" she murmured, with a faint bitter smile.

"To begin with," he went on, vigorously polishing his nails on his trouser legs, "you are the only woman I have loved for the last six months! That ought to count for something, oughtn't it?"

"Twenty years ago!" she repeated more to herself than to him. "I was young and pretty then."

"Oh, you look all right by gaslight now!" he assured her.

"I had a husband and child," she went on without heeding. "Now, I am alone--with nothing left!"

"And what about me, pray!" he protested with a laugh. "Don't I count for something?"

"Oh, shut up!" she snapped, pettishly. "I don't want to play the fool to-day!"

"So I see," retorted Laroque, with an ironical bow. "Madame has her nerves, has she?"

"To-day I'm sick of everything," she continued drearily. "Life disgusts me. I'd sell mine for a centime!"

"Oh, it's worth more than that! Now, buck up!" he cried, cheerfully. "I quite understand that you used to be a rich woman and now you are not, but everyone has his ups and downs. Look at me! I used to be a lawyer's clerk--old Perissard's clerk--and look at me now! Take the times as they come, old girl, and money when you can get your hands on it! That's my motto--money's the only thing that matters!"

She turned her head slowly toward him with a contemptuous look.

"Oh, I know you'd do anything for money!"

M. Laroque shrugged his shoulders.

"Better that than do nothing and get nothing for it," he replied with light philosophy, taking a chair at the opposite side of the table.

Victor entered with bottle of absinthe and the cigarettes and deposited them carefully between them. Laroque rubbed his hands together and gazed at the bottle with glistening eyes.

"Good!" he exclaimed, enthusiastically. "Now, mix up the drinks, old girl, and put some power in 'em! You want yours about as badly as I want mine!"

The woman uncorked the bottle and began preparing the absinthe while he lighted a cigarette and turned to Victor, who stood stolidly by the table.

"What's going on in Bordeaux?" he asked pleasantly. "Is there any fun?"

Victor studied the question gravely and then drawled:

"Well, it's amusing sometimes, then sometimes it isn't."

Laroque's clear laugh rang out.

"Now, we know all about it, don't we?"

Victor stared at him with the mild gaze of a surprised cow. He did not see the joke and didn't feel up to the mental effort of looking for it.

"Will you dine at the table d'hôte?" he inquired.

"What's the cooking like?" Again Victor pondered for several moments.

"Well," he drawled at last, "some people say it's good and then--some people say it isn't."

Again Laroque roared with laughter.

"Well, you are a mine of information, aren't you?" he shouted. Victor did not acknowledge the compliment.

"Dinner's at seven," he announced solemnly.

"Right!"

"If you want anything, ring once for me and twice for the chambermaid."

"Thank you, my lord!" bowed Laroque.

"Shall I take away the absinthe?" he asked, as the woman slowly put the bottle down when enough of the milky fluid had dripped slowly into, the tumblers. The other quickly put out a restraining hand.

"Nay, nay, my lord!" he replied, firmly. "Never remove a bottle until it's empty!"

"It makes no difference to me, monsieur."

"Just what I thought!" was the retort. "But it makes a good deal of difference to me!" And as Victor slowly slouched out he picked up one of the tumblers with trembling hands and took a sip.

"Great! Great!" he murmured, closing his eyes in ecstasy.

"Yes, it is good, isn't it?" And the woman took a long drink.

"It's a marvel! A marvel! There's nothing you do better than an absinthe! Light up, old girl and let's be happy!"

She lighted a cigarette, and for several minutes they smoked and sipped in silence.

"Are we going to stay here long?" she asked at last, in a tone that implied that it made no difference to her whether they did or not.

"I don't know," he replied, passing over his empty glass as she began laying the foundations of another drink. "That depends on Perissard. I must have a chat with him before I can say."

"Who is Perissard?" she inquired indifferently.

"I told you I used to be his clerk. He's a lawyer!"

"What sort of a man is he?"

"Oh, he's a clever old devil!" smiled Laroque. "He knows the Code Napoleon backwards! When I wrote to him I thought to myself, 'There's a postage stamp wasted, for Perissard has either retired from business or he's making felt shoes in prison somewhere, unless he's flirting with the dusky native ladies of New Caledonia.' But I was wrong, you see, for he's not in prison, says he's glad to hear from me and sends me a thousand francs to pay my passage. That knocked me edgewise! The old fox certainly needs me for something. He doesn't spend a thousand francs for nothing!"

"Be careful!" she warned him, but the tone was a mockery of the words.

"Don't worry!" he replied jauntily. "I'll keep my eyes open and----" a knock at the door interrupted him. "There he is now, I guess. Come in!" he called, turning his head toward the door. It was opened quickly and with brisk step, M. Perissard, closely followed by his associate in "Confidential missions," bustled in.