Wyllard's Weird: A NovelBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Wyllard's Weird: A Novel
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Murder -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
A week passed. Julian Wyllard attended the sale at the Hôtel Drouot,
bought three of the smaller gems of the Rochejaquelin gallery, and
allowed the Raffaelle to pass into a national collection. His wife and
he had gone about Paris and its environs in the mean while; Dora very
happy in revisiting the spots she had admired in her youth.
The week had gone, and there had been no reply to Heathcote's
advertisement. But there had been a letter from Joseph Distin.
"The last few days have not been entirely barren in results," he wrote.
"Léonie Lemarque's handbag has been found at the Charing Cross Station;
it was left in the waiting-room on the morning of the 5th July,
immediately after the arrival of the mail train from Dover. The bag
is now in my office. It contains some linen, marked L. L., slippers,
brush, and comb; but not a document of any kind. Nothing to afford
the slightest clue to the girl's business in London. The police have
found a hansom-cabman who drove a tall, gentlemanlike man and a French
girl from Charing Cross to Paddington Station on the morning of the
5th of July, in time for the Penzance train. They had no luggage. The
cabman believes that he should recognise the man if he saw him again,
but can give no clear description of his appearance, except that he
was a fine-looking man in the prime of life. He talked French to the
girl, and the cabman supposes him to have been a Frenchman. He and the
girl appeared to be on very good terms. The cabman saw them go into the
Paddington Station together, about five minutes before the starting
of the train. The photograph of the dead girl has been shown to this
cabman, and he has identified it as the likeness of the little French
girl he drove in his cab."
This was all the progress that Joseph Distin's agents had made at
present. The facts looked dark against the man who had taken Léonie
Lemarque from station to station. If he had been innocent of all wrong
in relation to that helpless stranger, surely he would have replied to
the advertisement; he would have come forward to say what part he had
taken in the history of Léonie Lemarque.
Heathcote stopped the first advertisement, and inserted a second worded
thus:
"Monsieur Georges, who resided in Paris in the year '71, and for some
years previously, or any friend of Monsieur Georges now residing in
England, is earnestly requested to communicate with Messrs. Distin &
Son, Solicitors, Furnival's Inn."
He had not much hope of getting a reply to this advertisement, after
the failure of the previous appeal, but he thought it was well to
advertise this name of Georges. Some insignificant person, some
busybody who had known the man Georges at some period of his existence,
might reply; and any information so obtained might form a link in the
chain of that strange story of Marie Prévol and her mysterious lover.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account