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Updated: May 26, 2025
They were spent by the two ill-assorted friends in Tom Pargeter's own room on the ground-floor of the villa. It was a long, well-lighted room, lined with the huge, splendidly decorative posters, signed Chéret and Mucha, which were then just being collected by those who admired that type of flamboyant art.
The three days and nights which had carved indelible lines on the American's already seamed face, had left Pargeter's untouched; just now he looked grave, subdued, but his face had lost the expression of perplexed anger and anxiety which had alone betrayed the varying emotions he had experienced since the disappearance of his wife.
He heard the door open and shut, and, turning round, found himself face to face with the Frenchwoman whom he knew to have been Margaret Pargeter's devoted friend. Although he was well aware that Madame de Léra had never liked or trusted him, he, on his side, had always admired and appreciated her serenity and simple dignity of demeanour.
His private address was not printed on the card he had shown; still it was reasonable enough that this man should have looked up his own as well as Pargeter's address and should have wished to verify their statements as far as was possible. "Of course, Grid, you will come home with me!" exclaimed Pargeter fretfully.
Pargeter, on her way to the station, might have stopped to see some friend, and, finding that friend ill, have remained to nurse her, the suggestion so seized hold of Pargeter's imagination that he insisted on spending the afternoon in making a tour of his own and his wife's acquaintances. To Vanderlyn's anger and pain, the only result of this action on his part was that Mrs.
Madame de Léra had taken only one servant to the country, and this servant, an old woman whom she has had with her many years, and whom she can entirely trust, had no idea that her mistress was expecting a visitor! I repeat that no preparations for Mrs. Pargeter's arrival had been made at Marly-le-Roi.
Pargeter's disappearance became known to a large circle, and that more than one of the evening papers contained a garbled reference to the matter. Meanwhile, or so Pargeter complained, the officials of the Prefecture of Police remained curiously inactive.
Madame de Léra was not perhaps quite so shocked, either by Pargeter's appearance or by his one exclamation apparently addressed to herself, as the punctilious American supposed her to be. She knew no word of the English language, and in her heart regarded all foreigners as barbarians.
"Ah!" she said, softly, "would that I had died when I was still young, still beautiful, still loved! The bright May sun was pouring into Tom Pargeter's large smoking-room, making more alive and vivid the fantastic and brilliantly-coloured posters lining the walls.
He left the room, and a moment later they heard him shouting to his butler. Vanderlyn turned to Madame de Léra. "He doesn't believe that Mrs. Pargeter has had an accident," he said, quietly, "you must not judge him too harshly." He added, after a moment, "I think you must know, Madame de Léra, that Mrs. Pargeter's husband has always been lacking in imagination."
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