Frank Danby

“ A year or so ago Georges Carpenter, who, by the way, has already had two wives, both of whom divorced him, falls passionately in love with the notorious 'La Vallière,' and makes himself the laughing-stock of Paris by marrying her. There are scenes, quarrels, jealousy. All Paris watches, and Blanchette, 'La Vallière's' dearest friend and companion, is hard put to keep the peace between them. Peace is patched up, and the three of them agree to spend the summer in a houseboat or yacht. ”

“ Harpy-like, Blanchette sat or stood beside him, sullen, enraged, or voluble; he could neither evade nor elude her.
Keightley Wilbur, who had to talk, and to talk of what interested him, had only one topic—the Vallière pearls. His mother was his unwilling confidante. She thought she was to have had a holiday from horrors when she came abroad, but he scarcely left her time for her afternoon rubber.
"A millionaire might afford to let three hundred thousand pounds lie in a grave. A half-ruined gambler with an expensive mistress had to devise some other course." ”

“ The name of La Vallière conjured up remembrances, curiosity. He leaned forward.
"La Vallière! Of course. And Blanchette, I knew her friend Blanchette."
"Pfui! Pfui for Blanchette!" The "pfui" represents more unprintable matter. The Grand Duke flicked the cigar ash with his over-jewelled finger. It was only then it flashed upon Keightley that this was the donor of the famous pearls. He grew excited. How was he to bring the conversation to the jewels, to the mystery of their fate, to Georges Carpenter, and the sequel of the story he once ached to hear, that he again ached to hear? ”

“ Carpenter has been growing poorer and poorer all this year; Blanchette is little less extravagant than La Vallière. It was she who suggested the scheme—a woman's scheme, surely. The pearls must be recovered! The pickaxe, the attempted ravishment of the grave was necessary to the plot."
"But he was here," she said again.
"Even reputed millionaires need not do their own dirty work. And there was so little to be done. Not even to rifle a grave, only to make a few strokes with a pickaxe; to drop some tools."
"Keightley, you are really uncanny: you are spoiling my appetite." ”

“ Oh! yes, there were a good many suggestions that everybody heard except the coroner's jury. Boyes omitted to mention them to you, but he has been much less reticent with me. When La Vallière's will was opened, it was found she had left everything to Georges Carpenter, except the pearls. And the 'everything' proved to be debts, obligations. Thousands had passed through her hands, even hundreds of thousands. But these women grudge themselves nothing. The pearls were really La Vallière's fortune, and they were to be buried with her. ”

“ He sat on the right hand of his hostess, and the exquisitely pretty woman on his other side bore with the practised equanimity of a Frenchwoman the jokes that were more coarse than humorous, the compliments, familiarities and methods to which many winters at Cannes had used her. For Cannes is almost a preserve of the Grand Duke, and he is suffered there, if not gladly, at least with toleration. ”

“ It was by the purest accident Keightley Wilbur heard Blanchette, in the confusion of a buzz of good-nights, say softly to Georges Carpenter:
"Everything is en train. You will telegraph in the morning."
"It seems there is no help for it." He shrugged his great shoulders. "I have done my best. Kismet; it is fate."
It will be remembered Georges Carpenter had insisted that he should be host to the Wilburs in revenge for the dinner at the Hôtel de Paris. Keightley had a letter early in the morning reminding him of this promise. ”

“ Keightley, after he had seen her back to the lift, returned to continue his observations. He heard that Georges Carpenter had had the same ill-luck at the trente-et-quarante table as at the roulette.
"Not that it matters to him; he's as rich as Crœsus. He must draw at least forty thousand pounds a year from L'Après Midi." L'Après Midi was the title of the newspaper Carpenter ran in Paris.
"No one is ever as rich as poorer men suppose," Keightley answered sententiously to his informant, a young diplomat with a foxy face and receding chin, who went on:
"He has gone into the baccarat room now. ”

“ It came upon him suddenly that she did not wish to listen, to hear any more of Georges Carpenter or La Vallière, of Blanchette or the pearls. He had never prided himself upon being a good son. With such a mother, who could be otherwise? ”

“ She isn't dead—surely she isn't dead?"
"Yes. Mr. Boyes said the story was in all the London papers, but I suppose we missed it. They were spending their honeymoon in a motor-houseboat on the Seine. One incredibly hot night, so Georges Carpenter told the jury, unable to sleep, his wife went on deck, dressed only in a crêpe-de-chine nightgown, but wearing the famous necklace of pearls, from which she was never parted. No one ever saw her again alive. When the houseboat servants woke in the morning she had mysteriously disappeared. ”

“ His passionate curiosity about crime and criminals had disturbed, distracted both their lives—lives that should have been calm and serene, devoted to literature and art.
His mother's face reproached him. She had not enjoyed her lunch; and last night at dinner had been the same. ”