Mademoiselle Louise Aubin possessed all the attributes of her Gallic blood. She was vain of her voluptuous charms, susceptible to flattery, and prone to blurt out on the least provocation the scanty ideas in her empty little head as soon as and whenever they entered it. She was further endowed with a fiery temper and an eager impetuosity, which often led her to act without thought of consequences.

In the last-named characteristics was to be found the reason why in the cool of the evening she set out to walk from the Manor House to Ottermouth in order to lay information with the police against the man she believed to be the slayer of Levi Levison. For once in a way she had said nothing of her purpose in the servants' hall, expecting to score a greater dramatic effect by announcing on her return that she had been the means of causing the murderer's arrest.

Long before the afternoon party had dispersed the reason for the hurried adjournment from the marsh back to the house had become known—first among the guests, from whom there was no longer any necessity to keep secret what was bound to be noised abroad in an hour or two, and then among the members of the domestic staff, to whom the news spread like wildfire.

The earliest intelligence had been quickly supplemented by further details of description and identification which left no doubt in the mind of Louise that the dead man was the hero of her three weeks' flirtation. Equally sure was she that he had come by his death at the hands of that older lover, the Breton peasant and sailor who had adored her in her native village long before she had dreamed of becoming femme de chambre to the daughter of an English millionaire.

Yes, she told herself, assuredly Pierre Legros, the French huckster of onions, had killed her latest admirer out of insensate jealousy, and he should suffer for it if there was any power in a woman's tongue. Mr. Levison had held out glittering prospects, which it was galling to have destroyed by a persistent boor such as Pierre. Travers Nugent's human tool had described himself as "a financial agent"—a phrase which to the French girl's ears sounded the brazen tocsin of untold wealth, and which she could not know covered as many iniquities as that other comprehensive term—"a resting actress." Pierre Legros must certainly pay the penalty for shattering her dreams of riches and luxury, and to secure that laudable vengeance she started for Ottermouth as soon as she had dressed her young mistress for dinner.

The path skirting the marshes was her nearest way, but she dared not pass the spot where the crime had been committed, and where there would probably be a crowd of sightseers attracted to the scene. She chose the longer route along the high road, and by the time she had walked a mile between the leafy hedgerows she began to ask herself questions.

Coming of thrifty French parents, her first was: What was she to gain by making the disclosure and putting a noose round the neck of Pierre? Nothing at all, and, on the other hand, there was the chance that she might lose a situation in which she was extremely comfortable. Miss Sarah Dymmock, who was her virtual if not nominal mistress, would not be likely to tolerate lightly the scandal which she would bring upon Mr. Maynard's establishment. The old lady had shown her teeth the other day, when she had caught the onion-seller abusing her and had driven him out of the grounds at the point of her sunshade. Miss Dymmock's vituperations had not been all for the male delinquent. The rough side of Aunt Sarah's tongue was like a nutmeg-grater, and she had rasped out several rugged threats about not keeping a maid who was a bone of contention to violent "followers."

Again she was conscious, deep down in her fickle heart, of a soft spot for the faithful compatriot with whom she had scrambled about the rocks of her native village when he had been a sunburnt fisher-lad and she a bare-legged hoyden of fifteen. For Levi Levison she had cared not one jot. If it had not been for the overthrow of the brilliant prospect which she fondly believed a marriage with him would have implied she would have borne Pierre Legros no ill-will for hacking his rival to death. It would indeed have been a delicate compliment.

So it was that as she walked the deserted country road she wavered, and as she wavered there came into view round a bend some way ahead a pedestrian sauntering so leisurely that he had more the appearance of keeping a tryst than of making for a destination. And, though the lady for whom he was waiting knew it not, Mr. Travers Nugent was, in a sense, keeping a tryst, and she was no less a personage than the damsel advancing to meet him—Mademoiselle Louise Aubin herself.

As they met Louise was surprised to see the English gentleman stop and raise his hat to her. She had never before exchanged a word with him, or so much as given him a thought, though she knew him by sight as an occasional caller at the Maynards' house in London, and had since learned that he had a summer retreat at Ottermouth.

"Pardon me for addressing you without formal introduction," said Nugent with the deference he would have used to a duchess, "but interest in this terrible murder must be my excuse. I recognize you, of course, as Miss Maynard's confidential companion. Can you inform me if any later intelligence has been received at the Manor House? There was nothing but vague rumour in the air when I left after the afternoon party."

He had to a nicety struck the correct note for "drawing" Mademoiselle Louise. The winning smile, the doffed hat would have gone far; but the promotion from lady's maid to "companion" made her conquest an easy matter. Yet, coquette as she was, she delayed the intended surrender which in her folly she regarded as a victory. She promised herself the pleasure of looking important in this affable gentleman's eyes, but it was a situation that must be prolonged for proper enjoyment.

"But no, M'sieu," she replied. "It is not at the Manor House that you should inquire for news. They know nothing there, nor do they greatly care. How should they be distracted, my so kind friends, by a cr-rime which is to them but a bagatelle that has disturbed the pleasure of a summerre day? It is to the police in the town that you should apply."

Nugent's shoulders shrugged with Parisian eloquence. "I have already pursued inquiries in that quarter, but the police appear to be completely in the dark, except that they have verified the fact that the deceased had been staying at the Plume Hotel," he said, never forgetting for an instant to qualify the baldness of his statement with a respectfully admiring glance.

Mademoiselle's opportunity for dramatic effect had come. It would be far more interesting to startle this so polite "Milor" than to scarify the servants' hall at the Manor House, and she could do that later as well. To the winds with all caution! She must brave Aunt Sarah's wrath if the old lady took a harsh view of her conduct. The chance to pose was irresistible and she took the stage there and then.

"M'sieu has been premature," she said, heralding her bomb-shell with a flash of her fine eyes. "If he returns and puts his questions to the sergent-de-ville later in the evening he will doubtless be differently informed. For I, Louise Aubin, am now on my way to indicate to the authorities the assassin of that poor gentleman."

Travers Nugent's astonishment seemed to overwhelm him. He took a step back, eyed the girl with something like awe, and touched his lips with his tongue. "You are not serious?" he gasped. "Do you really mean that you witnessed the crime?"

The fair Louise lifted her hands in genuine horror. "Mon Dieu! Not so bad as that," she replied. "But it is all the same as if I had been there. It is the motive that I go to point out, and the name of the murderer that I go to give. I who speak to you was the motive, and the name is Pierre Legros. The scÉlÉrat is a seller of onions from a little French ship that is in the harbour of Exmouth."

And Mademoiselle Aubin proceeded to rattle off the history of her early courtship by Legros in her native village, and of his inopportune arrival while she was accepting the attentions of the "financial agent" from London. She volubly repeated her former lover's heated language to herself, and described the bloodthirsty threats he had used about his successful rival. His guilt was as clear as noonday, she avowed—as clear as if that dreadful thing M'sieu had suggested had been really true and she had seen the deed with her own eyes.

"Pierre killed Monsieur Levison for love of me," she concluded, with a gesture worthy of the great Bernhardt.

Nugent's manner and attitude had almost imperceptibly and very gradually altered during the recital, though the theatrical young Frenchwoman had been so absorbed in herself that it was only when she had sounded the final flourish that she noticed the change. The look of surprise—of almost alarmed surprise—which had come into his face at her first profession of knowledge was gone, and was now replaced by an expression of chivalrous sympathy blended with just a trace of dissent.

"I can well believe in the potency of the motive suggested by Mademoiselle," he said with a grave bow. "Any man might almost have free pardon for homicide committed for the sake of her favours. But it was not so in this case. The man whom I have good cause to suspect of having slain Mr. Levi Levison had never to my knowledge spoken with mademoiselle either in France or in England. That was why I was so astonished when you stated that though you had not witnessed the crime, you were on your way to denounce the criminal."

"Who, then, is it that you suspect, m'sieu?" Louise, all taken aback, demanded in a sibilant whisper. "After all, Pierre was the friend of my youth, and it would be sweeter to take vengeance on other than he."

Travers Nugent appeared to be about to speak, but to check himself as an afterthought. "I do not think that it would be quite in accordance with a spirit of justice if I mentioned the villain's name, even to you, just yet," he said, after a pause. "I am morally convinced of his guilt, but there are one or two points to be cleared up before it can be proved. If it leaked out that he was under suspicion before the police had been furnished with enough evidence to arrest him he might evade us altogether. This much, however, I can promise you, that as soon as I have linked up the chain you shall be the first to be informed of it. Surely you are entitled to be, as the adored of ce pauvre Levison. In the meanwhile, will you favour me with a description of Pierre Legros? I have a reason for asking which will commend itself to you."

Louise launched into an eloquent word-picture of the onion-seller, contriving with many deprecatory shrugs to convey her contempt for his rough appearance and for his humble calling, while taking full credit for having recognized him at all in her present exalted station. His fierce eyebrows, his swarthy skin, his blue jean garments were all in turn catalogued and tossed aside as so much rubbish not worthy of notice if their owner was not to achieve fame as a murderer.

"A thousand thanks! You are an artist in our language, mademoiselle, and have absolutely confirmed the innocence of your worthy fellow-countryman, though I commiserate with you on the reappearance in your life of one so gauche," said Nugent decisively. "You are entitled to my fullest confidence, but discretion confines me to this at present: Pierre Legros, so easily recognizable from your vivid description, could not have committed this crime. It would have been a physical impossibility. At the hour when the medical men say that Levison must have met his death Legros was creating a disturbance at the back door of my house because the cook would not purchase any of his wares. While I happen to know that the man I suspect had an appointment to meet some one on the marsh about the same hour."

One glance at the French girl's face as he made the last assertion told him that he had scored one trick at least in the game he had set out to play. There was no incredulity in the stare with which she drank in his statement, nor was there affectation in the sigh which escaped her, due partly to relief at the established alibi of her former lover, and partly to disappointment that she was not to achieve fame as the heroine of a murder mystery.

"I shall hold you to your promise, M'sieu," she simpered at last. "And as you have rendered my journey into the town unnecessary I will now return to the Manor House. Accept my best thanks for preventing me from committing a bÊtise which would have anguished my soul. It would have desolated me to have accused that poor Pierre under a mistake."

So, after a few courtesies from Nugent, she turned and went back the way she had come, reflecting that, after all, there was compensation for her disappointment. Had she not been treated as an equal by a gentleman of position and fascinating manners? Certainly he was not so young as Levi Levison, but his eyes had rested on her charms with an admiration that seemed sincere. Who knew but what he might, after a little coy manipulation, step into the place in her affections vacated by the defunct Levi? But then she could not see the contemptuously satisfied smile on Mr. Nugent's face as he made his way back to the town, the contempt being for the fickle jade so easily duped, and the satisfaction for the complete success of the self-denial that had led him to postpone his dinner-hour and loiter about the country road on which an unerring instinct had told him that the dupe would be found.

"The treacherous little cat!" he murmured, caressing his long fair moustache. "Bereft of one lover, and on her way to get number two hanged, she was not too busy to make eyes at a possible third. With all your faults, Travers Nugent, you have cause to be thankful that a weakness for women is not among them."