Madame Storey by Hulbert Footner

Author:Hulbert Footner [Footner, Hulbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: classics, detective, mystery, SSC, women sleuths
ISBN: 9781409991335
Google: pYPtRQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1409991334
Publisher: Dodo Press
Published: 2010-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

II

So far, Mme. Storey and I knew no more about the smoke-bandit case than any other newspaper readers. Busy as we were with other matters, we often discussed it. One could not avoid it. It filled the minds of everybody in our part of the world. On one occasion Mme. Storey said frankly:

"A hard nut to crack, my Bella. I'm glad it's not between our white teeth."

One morning while I was taking dictation from her, I heard the buzzer that announced the entrance of somebody into my room outside. It was Barron, a big, red-faced man with an aggressive, cave-man manner. A man of coarse fibre, but with a crude strength of mind, and determined; egregiously vain in the masculine style. Most people cringed a little before him, but he didn't get it in our office. Maybe that was the attraction it had for him. I was no longer impressed by his manner, because I had learned that so far as Mme. Storey was concerned, it concealed a bad inferiority complex.

I was surprised to see him, busy as he must have been; but the reason for his call soon became apparent. As chief of the search for the smoke bandit he had become the man of the hour; his slightest word was good for a box on the front page of all the newspapers. Up to this time he had had the wit to say very little, consequently he had become a man of mystery, as well. It was natural that he should wish to show himself off in this hour of glory before the woman who had always mocked at him.

I followed him into Mme. Storey's room, since it was understood between my mistress and me that I was always to be present when he called. She used me as a buffer against his crude and tempestuous love-making. He scowled at me ferociously when he saw my purpose, but said nothing, since he had long ago discovered that it was useless to object to my presence. Sometimes it had happened that his feelings had carried him away to such an extent he even avowed his passion before me. He did not love me for having been a witness to his discomfiture.

"Well, Walter!" Mme. Storey cried with delicate irony; "we are honoured that the great man could find time to come to see us!"

"Oh, my lines are all out," he said carelessly; "at the moment I have nothing to do but await events."

Mme. Storey's little black ape Giannino had conceived a violent aversion to Barron, which he was apt to express in a very disconcerting manner. I was obliged to carry him into the middle room, and put him in his house. There is no love lost between Giannino and me, but we were at one on this subject. "I sympathise with you, you little black devil," I whispered in his ear.

When I came back Mme. Storey was helping herself to a cigarette. She pushed the big silver box in Barron's direction.

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