CHAPTER IV:  A BREATH OF SUSPICION

As Francois Valois trudged along the night streets toward his rooming house his heart was plunged in sorrow and suspicion.  To be discharged from a comfortable position for no apparent reason when one contemplated no sweet alliance was bad enough, but to be discharged when one planned marriage to so charming a creature as Josette La Baum was nothing short of a blow.  Josette herself had admitted that and promptly turned Francois’s hazards as to young Cavendish’s motives into smouldering suspicion, which he dared not voice.  Now, as he paused before a delicatessen window realising that unless he soon obtained another position its dainties would be denied him, these same suspicions assailed him again.

Disheartened, he turned from the pane and was about to move away, when he came face to face with a trim young woman in a smart blue serge.  “Oh, hello!” she cried pleasantly, bringing up short.  Then seeing the puzzled look upon the valet’s face, she said:  “Don’t you remember me?  I’m Miss Donovan of the Star.  I came up to the apartments the morning of the Cavendish murder with one of the boys.”

Valois smiled warmly; men usually did for Miss Donovan.  “I remember,” he said dolorously.

The girl sensed some underlying sorrow in his voice and with professional skill learned the cause within a minute.  Then, because she believed that there might be more to be told, and because she was big-hearted and interested in every one’s troubles, she urged him to accompany her to a near-by restaurant and pour out his heart while she supped.  Lonely and disheartened, Valois accepted gladly and within half an hour they were seated at a tiny table in an Italian cafe.

“About your discharge?” she queried after a time.

“I was not even asked to accompany Mr. Frederick’s body,” he burst out, “even though I had been with him a year.  So I stayed in the apartment to straighten things, expecting to be retained in John Cavendish’s service.  I even did the work in his apartments, but when he returned and saw me there he seemed to lose his temper, wanted to know why I was hanging around, and ordered me out of the place.”

“The ingrate!” exclaimed the girl, laying a warm, consoling hand on the other’s arm.  “You’re sure he wasn’t drinking?”

“I don’t think so, miss.  Just the sight of me seemed to drive him mad.  Flung money at me, he did, told me to get out, that he never wanted to see me again.  Since then I have tried for three weeks to find work, but it has been useless.”

While she gave him a word of sympathy, Miss Donovan was busily thinking.  She remembered Willis’s remark in the apartments, “Are you sure of the dead man’s identity?  His face is badly mutilated, you know”; and her alert mind sensed a possibility of a newspaper story back of young Cavendish’s unwarranted and strange act.  How far could she question the man before her?  That she had established herself in his good grace she was sure, and to be direct with him she decided would be the best course to adopt.