Monsieur Monde Vanishes Read Free

good … Right … Will you tell me what were your husband’s movements that day, January 13?”
    â€œHe got up at seven as usual. He has always gone to bed and risen early.”
    â€œExcuse me; do you share the same bedroom?”
    A curt, unfriendly “Yes.”
    â€œHe got up at seven and went to his bathroom, where in spite of … never mind … where he smoked his first cigarette. Then he went downstairs.”
    â€œYou were still in bed?”
    The same stony “Yes.”
    â€œDid he speak to you?”
    â€œHe said good-by as he always does.”
    â€œDid you remember then that it was his birthday?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe went downstairs, you said …”
    â€œAnd had breakfast in his study. It’s a room that he never uses for work, but which he’s fond of. The big bay window has stained glass in it. The furniture is more or less Gothic.”
    She must have disliked stained-glass windows and Gothic furniture, or perhaps she’d had other plans for the use of that room which her husband had insisted on keeping as a study.
    â€œHave you many servants?”
    â€œA concierge and his wife; she does the rough work and he acts as butler. We have a cook and a housemaid as well. I don’t include Joseph the chauffeur, who is married and lives out. I usually get up at nine, after I have given Rosalie the orders for the day.… Rosalie is my maid … She was with me before my marriage.… I mean before my second marriage.…”
    â€œSo Monsieur Monde was your second husband?”
    â€œI was first married to Lucien Grandpré, who was killed fourteen years ago in a motor accident.… Every year he used to compete, as an amateur, in the twenty-four-hour race at Le Mans.…”
    In the waiting room, the people sitting on the greasy bench moved up one place from time to time, and others slipped out humbly, barely opening the door.
    â€œIn short, everything was just as usual that morning?”
    â€œJust as usual. I heard the car start off about half past eight to drive my husband to Rue Montorgueil. He liked to read his mail himself and that’s why he went to the office so early. His son left a quarter of an hour after him.”
    â€œYour husband had a son by a first marriage?”
    â€œWe each had one. He has a married daughter, too. She and her husband lived with us for a while, but now they’re living on Quai de Passy.”
    â€œGood … very good … Did your husband actually go to his office?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid he come home for lunch?”
    â€œHe nearly always lunched in a restaurant close to Les Halles, not far from his office.”
    â€œWhen did you begin to feel anxious?”
    â€œThat evening, about eight o’clock.”
    â€œIn short, you’ve not seen him again since the morning of January 13?”
    â€œI called him up soon after three to ask him to send Joseph along with the car, as I had to go out.”
    â€œDid he sound his usual self when he spoke to you over the telephone?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œHe didn’t tell you he would be late, or mention the possibility of a journey?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe just failed to come home to dinner at eight o’clock? Is that right?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œAnd since then he’s given no sign of life. I suppose they’ve seen nothing of him in the office either?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd what time did he leave Rue Montorgueil?”
    â€œAbout six. He never told me, but I knew that instead of coming straight home he used to stop at the Cintra, a café on Rue Montmartre, for a drink.”
    â€œDid he go there that evening?”
    With dignity: “I have no idea.”
    â€œMay I ask you, madame, why you have waited three whole days before coming to inform us of Monsieur Monde’s disappearance?”
    â€œI kept hoping he would come