The Passenger from Calais | Page 6

justify myself, or at least explain away appearances that are against
me."
"You admit there are such appearances? Remember, I never said so."

"Then on what do you condemn me? You do condemn me, I am certain
of it," she insisted, seeing my gesture of negation. "Are you treating me
fairly, chivalrously, as a gentleman and a man of honour should? How
can you reconcile it to your conscience?"
"Some people talk very lightly of conscience, or use it when it is an
empty meaningless word," I said severely.
"You imply that I have no conscience, or that I should feel the qualms,
the prickings of conscience?"
"After what you've done, yes," I blurted out.
"What have I done? What do you know of it, or what led me to do it?
How dare you judge me without knowing the facts, without a shadow
of proof?" She sprang to her feet and passed to the door, where she
turned, as it were, at bay.
"I have the very best proof, from your own lips. I heard you and your
maid talking together at Calais."
"A listener, Colonel Annesley? Faugh!"
"It was forced on me. You stood under my window there." I defended
myself indignantly. "I wish to heaven I had never heard. I did not want
to know; your secrets are your own affair."
"And my actions, I presume?" she put in with superb indifference.
"And their consequences, madam," but the shot failed rather of effect.
She merely smiled and shook her head recklessly, contemptuously.
Was she so old a hand, so hardened in crime, that the fears of detection,
arrest, reprisals, the law and its penalties had no effect upon her?
Undoubtedly at Calais she was afraid; some misgiving, some haunting
terror possessed her. Now, when standing before me fully confessed for
what she was, and practically at my mercy, she could laugh with cool
and unabashed levity and make little of the whole affair.

If I had hoped that I had done with her now, when the murder was out,
I was very much mistaken. She had some further designs on me, I was
sure. She wanted to make use of me, how or in what way I could not
imagine; but I soon perceived that she was anxious to be friends. The
woman was in the ascendant, and, as I thought, the eternal feminine
ever agog to attract and subjugate the male, she would conquer my
admiration even if she could not secure my esteem.
Suddenly, and quite without my invitation or encouragement, she
reseated herself by my side.
"See, Colonel Annesley, let us come to an understanding." She said it
quite gaily and with no shadow of apprehension left in her, not a sign
of shame or remorse in her voice. Her mood had entirely changed. She
was débonnaire, frolicsome, overflowing with fun.
"What do you mean to do? Give me into custody? Call in the
gendarmes at the next station? Have me taken red-handed with
the--stolen property--the 'swag,' you know the word, perhaps, in my
possession?"
"I am not a police officer; it's not my business," I answered gruffly. I
thought this flippancy very much misplaced.
"Or you might telegraph back to England, to London, to Scotland Yard:
'The woman Blair in the Engadine express. Wire along the line to
authorities, French and Swiss, to look out for her and arrest preparatory
to extradition.'"
"I would much rather not continue this conversation, Mrs. Blair."
"I am not 'Mrs. Blair,'" she cried, laughing merrily as at a tremendous
joke. "It is only one of my aliases. I am better known as Slippery Sue,
and the Countess of Plantagenet, and the Sly American, and dashing
Mrs. Mortimer, and--"
"Oh, please, please spare me. It does not matter, not a row of pins, what
you are called. I would rather not have the whole list," I interrupted her,

but could not check her restless tongue.
"You shall hear, you must know all about me and my famous exploits. I
was the heroine of that robbery at Buckingham Palace. I was at the
State Ball, and made a fine harvest of jewels. I have swept a dozen
country-houses clean; I have picked pockets and lifted old lace from the
shop counters, and embezzled and forged--"
"And turned pirate, and held up trains, and robbed the Bank of
England," I added, falling into her humour and laughing as she rose to
her full height; and again her mood changed, dominating me with
imperious air, her voice icily cold in manner, grave and repellent.
"Why not? I am a thief; you believe me to be a common thief."
CHAPTER IV.
I was too much taken aback to do better than stammer out helplessly,
hopelessly, almost unintelligibly, a few words striving to remind her of