Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

“That’s my affair.”

“He’s not in town at the moment. He’s away on business.”

Radnor wondered whether the father was somehow involved. On closer inspection, however, the man seemed not so much guilty as confused. “Maybe you can tell me if your son has ever mentioned a young woman by the name of Marie Lasourde?”

The man’s face instantly reddened with rage, and he nearly spluttered as he asked, “Is that the name of the harlot who’s seduced him?”

“Then he does know her?”

“To my shame and disgrace. She’s a strumpet. Willful and indecent. What does he see in her? I’ve forbidden him to speak to her. He was such a good boy before he met her. He’ll marry the girl I’ve chosen. Marrying for love! Ridiculous idea!” Keplin fished in his waistcoat pocket and produced a lace handkerchief with which he mopped his perspiring forehead. “Is that what this is about? I knew it.” He squinted at Radnor. “Are you a relation to this Lasourde creature?”

“Hardly,” Radnor answered dryly. “I’m an under-inspector for the police and I believe this woman and your son may have fled the city with stolen jewels. Anything you can tell me about his whereabouts will help.”

The red of the man’s face deepened, becoming an ugly purple. He gasped, gripping his chest as he slumped to the floor, pulling candles off the shelf with groping hands. An apoplexy. Radnor strode to the curtained-off back room where he found apprentices to help.

After they’d helped the gasping man upstairs to his apartment, Radnor asked one of the young men if he knew where Nicholas Keplin was. “Toulouse, I think, monsieur.”

“Merde,” Radnor cursed under his breath. That meant contacting the Marshalsea of Toulouse for help, which meant that the reward for the recovery of the stolen jewels would slip out of his fingers into theirs. “Merde,” he repeated.

The more Vincent thought about the girl’s lie the more his sense of paternal duty toward her strengthened. He hurried to the Hotel du Sonton where he intended to steer the girl away from the evils of mendacity and back onto the path of virtue. A footman at the servants’ entrance in the back informed him that Marie Lasourde no longer worked at the hotel. When he asked for an explanation, the man shrugged his shoulders, and said he didn’t know anything more.

Distressed by the girl’s fate, Vincent walked slowly toward the front of the house. As he was about to turn into the cobblestoned courtyard and head toward the street, he narrowly avoided being run down by a carriage. The carriage, painted an ostentatious shiny green, clattered to a stop in front of the granite steps of the impressive entrance to the hotel. Still thinking about Marie Lasourde, Vincent watched absentmindedly as liveried footmen rushed out of the hotel to open the carriage door and pull down its step.

First a dainty stockinged foot in a white high-heeled slipper with a blue bow on it emerged, then the rest of the carriage’s occupant — a powdered and painted woman cloaked in red velvet. Madame du Sonton no doubt. In a tall, powdered wig that required attention to her balance, she carefully climbed the entrance steps and disappeared inside. The front door clicked shut.

He studied the pale yellow brick facade of the hotel which was tall, wide, and many-windowed, before his eye was drawn to the green carriage again. He noticed its door was painted with a coat of arms — a swan flanked by stars, branches, and such. It seemed somehow familiar. And then it came to him. The wax seal of Marie Lasourde’s love letter had been sealed with a similar emblem, too similar to be a coincidence.

Avoiding the steaming horse dung on the cobblestones, he trotted over to the coachman about to drive the vehicle away, and asked, “Pardon, monsieur, is this the du Sonton coach?”

The coachman surveyed him from deep-socketed black eyes under bushy, black eyebrows, as he considered Vincent and his question, then he jerked his head in assent once.

“And was that Madame du Sonton herself I saw just now?”

Another jerk of the head. The nods must have loosened the man’s tongue. “Back from her country estate,” he said through thick wet lips.

Vincent tipped his tricorne to the man and walked toward the street.

So the wax, the seal, and no doubt the paper had come from the du Sonton household. Marie Lasourde, or her beau, had obtained stationery from the house. That wouldn’t do. Marie lying and stealing for the man, then most likely losing her position over it? Or had it been Marie’s beau who obtained the stationery? Did he in fact live in the house? It made no sense. Why would the young man write to his sweetheart who could not read if they saw each other frequently? Vincent would find Radnor and tell him of his discovery. Radnor would discover the truth.

Radnor thanked Vincent for the information with a coin, then sent his friend away with the promise that he’d tell him how it turned out.