The Silent Barrier Part 33

Millicent's blue eyes snapped. "Did Helen Wynton dine in public yesterday evening?" she demanded.

"Rather! Quite a lively crowd they were too."

"Indeed. Who were the others?"

"Oh, the Badminton-Smythes, and the Bower man, and that American--what's his name?"

Then Millicent laughed shrilly. She saw her chance of delivering a deadly stroke, and took it without mercy. "The American? Spencer? What a delightful mixture! Why, he is the very man who is paying Miss Wynton's expenses."

"So you said last night. A somewhat--er--dangerous statement," coughed the General.

"Rather stiff, you know--Eh, what?" put in Georgie.

His mother silenced him with a frosty glance. "Of course you have good reasons for saying that?" she interposed.

Spencer pa.s.sed at that instant, and there was a thrilling pause.

Millicent was well aware that every ear was alert to catch each syllable. When she spoke, her words were clear and precise.

"Naturally, one would not say such a thing about any girl without the utmost certainty," she purred. "Even then, there are circ.u.mstances under which one ought to try and forget it. But, if it is a question as to my veracity in the matter, I can only a.s.sure you that Miss Wynton's mission to Switzerland on behalf of 'The Firefly' is a mere blind for Mr. Spencer's extraordinary generosity. He is acting through the paper, it is true. But some of you must have seen 'The Firefly.'

How could such a poor journal afford to pay a young lady one hundred pounds and give her a return ticket by the Engadine express for four silly articles on life in the High Alps? Why, it is ludicrous!"

"Pretty hot, I must admit," sn.i.g.g.e.red Georgie, thinking to make peace with Beryl Wragg; but she seemed to find his humor not to her taste.

"It is the kind of arrangement from which one draws one's own conclusions," said Mrs. Vavasour blandly.

"But, I say, does Bower know this?" asked Wragg, swinging his eyegla.s.ses nervously. Though he dearly loved these carpet battles, he was chary of figuring in them, having been caught badly more than once between the upper and nether millstones of opposing facts.

"You heard me tell him," was Millicent's confident answer. "If he requires further information, I am here to give it to him. Indeed, I have delayed my departure for that very reason. By the way, General, do you know Switzerland well?"

"Every hotel in the country," he boasted proudly.

"I don't quite mean in that sense. Who are the authorities? For instance, if I had a friend buried in the cemetery here, to whom should I apply for identification of the grave?"

The General screwed up his features into a judicial frown.

"Well--er--I should go to the communal office in the village, if I were you," said he.

Braving his mother's possible displeasure, George de Courcy Vavasour a.s.serted his manliness for Beryl's benefit.

"I know the right Johnny," he said. "Let me take you to him, Miss Jaques--Eh, what?"

Millicent affected to consider the proposal. She saw that Mrs.

Vavasour was content. "It is very kind of you," she said, with her most charming smile. "Have we time to go there before lunch?"

"Oh, loads."

"I am walking toward the village. May I come with you?" asked Beryl Wragg.

"That will be too delightful," said Millicent.

Georgie, feeling the claws beneath the velvet of Miss Wragg's voice, could only suffer in silence. The three went out together. The two women did the talking, and Millicent soon discovered that Bower had unquestionably paid court to Helen from the first hour of his arrival in the Maloja, whereas Spencer seemed to be an utter stranger to her and to every other person in the place. This statement offered a curious discrepancy to the story retailed by Mackenzie's a.s.sistant.

But it strengthened her case against Helen. She grew more determined than ever to go on to the bitter end.

A communal official raised no difficulty about giving the name of the occupant of the grave marked by the seventh cross from the tomb she described. A child was buried there, a boy who died three years ago.

With Beryl Wragg's a.s.sistance, she cross examined the man, but could not shake his faith in the register.

The parents still lived in the village. The official knew them, and remembered the boy quite well. He had contracted a fever, and died suddenly.

This was disappointing. Millicent, prepared to hear of a tragedy, was confronted by the commonplace. But the special imp that attends all mischief makers prompted her next question.

"Do you know Christian Stampa, the guide?" she asked.

The man grinned. "Yes, _signora_. He has been on the road for years, ever since he lost his daughter."

"Was he any relation to the boy? What interest would he have in this particular grave?"

The custodian of parish records stroked his chin. He took thought, and reached for another ledger. He ran a finger through an index and turned up a page.

"A strange thing!" he cried. "Why, that is the very place where Etta Stampa is buried. You see, _signora_," he explained, "it is a small cemetery, and our people are poor."

Etta Stampa! Was this the clew? Millicent's heart throbbed. How stupid that she had not thought of a woman earlier!

"How old was Etta Stampa?" she inquired.

"Her age is given here as nineteen, _signora_; but that is a guess. It was a sad case. She killed herself. She came from Zermatt. I have lived nearly all my life in this valley, and hers is the only suicide I can recall."

"Why did she kill herself, and when?"

The official supplied the date; but he had no knowledge of the affair beyond a village rumor that she had been crossed in love. As for poor old Stampa, who met with an accident about the same time, he never mentioned her.

"Stampa is the lame Johnny who went up the Forno yesterday,"

volunteered Georgie, when they quitted the office. "But, I say, Miss Jaques, his daughter couldn't be a friend of yours?"

Millicent did not answer. She was thinking deeply. Then she realized that Beryl Wragg was watching her intently.

"No," she said, "I did not mean to convey that she was my friend; only that one whom I know well was interested in her. Can you tell me how I can find out more of her history?"

"Some of the villagers may help," said Miss Wragg. "Shall we make inquiries? It is marvelous how one comes across things in the most unlikely quarters."

Vavasour, whose stroll with a pretty actress had resolved itself into a depressing quest into the records of the local cemetery, looked at his watch. "Time's up," he announced firmly. "The luncheon gong will go in a minute or two, and this keen air makes one peckish--Eh, what?"

So Millicent returned to the hotel, and when she entered the dining room she saw Helen and Spencer sitting with the de la Veres. Edith de la Vere stared at her in a particularly irritating way. Cynical contempt, bored amus.e.m.e.nt, even a quizzical surprise that such a vulgar person could be so well dressed, were carried by wireless telegraphy from the one woman to the other. Millicent countered with a studied indifference. She gave her whole attention to the efforts of the head waiter to find a seat to her liking. He offered her the choice between two. With fine self control, she selected that which turned her back on Helen and her friends.

She had just taken her place when Bower came in. He stopped near the door, and spoke to an under manager; but his glance swept the crowded room. Spencer and Helen happened to be almost facing him, and the girl was listening with a smile to something the American was saying. But there was a conscious shyness in her eyes, a touch of color on her sun browned face, that revealed more than she imagined.

Bower, who looked ill and old, hesitated perceptibly. Then he seemed to reach some decision. He walked to Helen's side, and bent over her with courteous solicitude. "I hope that I am forgiven," he said.

She started. She was so absorbed in Spencer's talk, which dealt with nothing more noteworthy than the excursion down the Vale of Bregaglia, which he secretly hoped would be postponed, that she had not observed Bower's approach.

"Forgiven, Mr. Bower? For what?" she asked, blus.h.i.+ng now for no a.s.signable reason.