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Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo

by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #4694 · 479,291 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo

Author: William Le Queux


        
Release date: April 13, 2006 [eBook #4694]
                Most recently updated: November 18, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4694

Credits: Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO ***




Produced by Dagny; John Bickers





MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO

By William Le Queux

1921




MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO





FIRST CHAPTER

THE SUICIDE’S CHAIR

“Yes! I’m not mistaken at all! _It’s the same woman!_” whispered the
tall, good-looking young Englishman in a well-cut navy suit as he stood
with his friend, a man some ten years older than himself, at one of the
roulette tables at Monte Carlo, the first on the right on entering the
room--that one known to habitual gamblers as “The Suicide’s Table.”

“Are you quite certain?” asked his friend.

“Positive. I should know her again anywhere.”

“She’s very handsome. And look, too, by Jove!--how she is winning!”

“Yes. But let’s get away. She might recognize me,” exclaimed the younger
man anxiously. “Ah! If I could only induce her to disclose what she
knows about my poor father’s mysterious end then we might clear up the
mystery.”

“I’m afraid, if all we hear is true about her, Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo will never do that,” was the other’s reply as they moved away
together down the long saloon towards the trente-et-quarante room.

“_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux_,” the croupiers were crying in their
strident, monotonous voices, inviting players to stake their counters
of cent-sous, their louis, or their hundred or five hundred franc notes
upon the spin of the red and black wheel. It was the month of March, the
height of the Riviera season, the fetes of Mi-Careme were in full swing.
That afternoon the rooms were overcrowded, and the tense atmosphere of
gambling was laden with the combined odours of perspiration and perfume.

Around each table were crowds four or five deep behind those fortunate
enough to obtain seats, all eager and anxious to try their fortune upon
the rouge or noir, or upon one of the thirty-six numbers, the columns,
or the transversales. There was but little chatter. The hundreds of
well-dressed idlers escaping the winter were too intent upon the game.
But above the click of the plaques, blue and red of different sizes,
as they were raked into the bank by the croupiers, and the clatter of
counters as the lucky players were paid with deft hands, there rose ever
and anon:

“_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux!_”

Here English duchesses rubbed shoulders with the most notorious women in
Europe, and men who at home in England were good churchmen and exemplary
fathers of families, laughed merrily with the most gorgeously attired
cocottes from Paris, or the stars of the film world or the variety
stage. Upon that wide polished floor of the splendidly decorated Rooms,
with their beautiful mural paintings and heavy gilt ornamentation, the
world and the half-world were upon equal footing.

Into that stifling atmosphere--for the Administration of the Bains de
Mer of Monaco seem as afraid of fresh air as of purity propaganda--the
glorious afternoon sunlight struggled through the curtained windows,
while over each table, in addition to the electric light, oil-lamps
shaded green with a billiard-table effect cast a dull, ghastly
illumination upon the eager countenances of the players. Most of those
who go to Monte Carlo wonder at the antiquated mode of illumination.
It is, however, in consequence of an attempted raid upon the tables one
night, when some adventurers cut the electric-light main, and in the
darkness grabbed all they could get from the bank.

The two English visitors, both men of refinement and culture, who had
watched the tall, very handsome woman in black, to whom the older
man had referred as Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, wandered through
the trente-et-quarante rooms where all was silence, and counters,
representing gold, were being staked with a twelve-thousand franc
maximum.

Those rooms beyond are the haunt of the professional gambler, the man
or woman who has been seized by the demon of speculation, just as others
have been seized by that of drugs or drink. Curiously enough women
are more prone to gamble than men, and the Administration of the
Etablissement will tell you that when a woman of any nationality starts
to gamble she will become reckless until her last throw with the devil.

Those who know Monte Carlo, those who have been habitues for twenty
years--as the present writer has been--know too well, and have seen
too often, the deadly influence of the tables upon the lighter side of
woman’s nature. The smart woman from Paris, Vienna, or Rome never loses
her head. She gambles always discreetly. The fashionable cocottes seldom
lose much. They gamble at the tables discreetly and make eyes at men if
they win, or if they lose. If the latter they generally obtain a “loan”
 from somebody. What matter? When one is at “Monty” one is not in a
Wesleyan chapel. English men and women when they go to the Riviera leave
their morals at home with their silk hats and Sunday gowns. And it is
strange to see the perfectly respectable Englishwoman admiring the same
daring costumes of the French pseudo-“countesses” at which they have
held up their hands in horror when they have seen them pictured in the
papers wearing those latest “creations” of the Place Vendome.

Yes. It is a hypocritical world, and nowhere is canting hypocrisy more
apparent than inside the Casino at Monte Carlo.

While the two Englishmen were strolling over the polished parquet of the
elegant world-famous _salles-de-jeu_ “Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo” was
experiencing quite an extraordinary run of luck.

But “Mademoiselle,” as the croupiers always called her, was usually
lucky. She was an experienced, and therefore a careful player. When she
staked a maximum it was not without very careful calculation upon the
chances. Mademoiselle was well known to the Administration. Often her
winnings were sensational, hence she served as an advertisement to the
Casino, for her success always induced the uninitiated and unwary to
stake heavily, and usually with disastrous results.

The green-covered gaming table, at which she was sitting next to the end
croupier on the left-hand side, was crowded. She sat in what is known at
Monte as “the Suicide’s Chair,” for during the past eight years ten men
and women had sat in that fatal chair and had afterwards ended their
lives abruptly, and been buried in secret in the Suicide’s Cemetery.

The croupiers at that table are ever watchful of the visitor who, all
unawares, occupies that fatal chair. But Mademoiselle, who knew of it,
always laughed the superstition to scorn. She habitually sat in that
chair--and won.

Indeed, that afternoon she was winning--and very considerably too. She
had won four maximums _en plein_ within the last half-hour, and the
crowd around the table noting her good fortune were now following her.

It was easy for any novice in the Rooms to see that the handsome,
dark-eyed woman was a practised player. Time after time she let the
coups pass. The croupiers’ invitation to play did not interest her. She
simply toyed with her big gold-chain purse, or fingered her dozen piles
or so of plaques in a manner quite disinterested.

She heard the croupier announce the winning number and saw the rakes at
work dragging in the stakes to swell the bank. But she only smiled, and
now and then shrugged her shoulders.

Whether she won or lost, or whether she did not risk a stake, she simply
smiled and elevated her shoulders, muttering something to herself.

Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo was, truth to tell, a sphinx to the staff
of the Casino. She looked about thirty, but probably she was older.
For five years she had been there each season and gambled heavily with
unvarying success. Always well but quietly dressed, her nationality
was as obscure as her past. To the staff she was always polite, and she
pressed hundred-franc notes into many a palm in the Rooms. But who she
was or what were her antecedents nobody in the Principality of Monaco
could ever tell.

The whole Cote d’Azur from Hyeres to Ventimiglia knew of her. She was
one of the famous characters of Monte Carlo, just as famous, indeed, as
old Mr. Drewett, the Englishman who lost his big fortune at the tables,
and who was pensioned off by the Administration on condition that he
never gamble at the Casino again. For fifteen years he lived in Nice
upon the meagre pittance until suddenly another fortune was left him,
whereupon he promptly paid up the whole of his pension and started at
the tables again. In a month, however, he had lost his second
fortune. Such is gambling in the little country ruled over by Prince
Rouge-et-Noir.

As the two Englishmen slipped past the end table unseen on their way out
into the big atrium with its many columns--the hall in which players
go out to cool themselves, or collect their determination for a final
flutter--Mademoiselle had just won the maximum upon the number four, as
well as the column, and the croupier was in the act of pushing towards
her a big pile of counters each representing a thousand francs.

The eager excited throng around the table looked across at her with
envy. But her handsome countenance was quite expressionless. She simply
thrust the counters into the big gold-chain purse at her side, glanced
at the white-gloved fingers which were soiled by handling the counters,
and then counting out twenty-five, each representing a louis, gave them
to the croupier, exclaiming:

“_Zero-trois!_”

Next moment a dozen persons followed her play, staking their cent-sous
and louis upon the spot where she had asked the croupier at the end of
the table to place her stake.

“_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux!_” came the strident cry again.

Then a few seconds later the croupier cried:

“_Rien ne vas plus!_”

The red and black wheel was already spinning, and the little ivory
ball sent by the croupier’s hand in the opposite direction was clicking
quickly over the numbered spaces.

Six hundred or more eyes of men and women, fevered by the gambling
mania, watched the result. Slowly it lost its impetus, and after
spinning about unevenly it made a final jump and fell with a loud click.

“_Zer-r-o!_” cried the croupier.

And a moment later Mademoiselle had pushed before her at the end of
the croupier’s rake another pile of counters, while all those who had
followed the remarkable woman’s play were also paid.

“Mademoiselle is in good form to-day,” remarked one ugly old Frenchwoman
who had been a well-known figure at the tables for the past ten years,
and who played carefully and lived by gambling. She was one of those
queer, mysterious old creatures who enter the Rooms each morning as soon
as they are open, secure the best seats, occupy them all the luncheon
hour pretending to play, and then sell them to wealthy gamblers for a
consideration--two or three louis--perhaps--and then at once go to their
ease in their own obscure abode.

The public who go to Monte know little of its strange mysteries, or of
the odd people who pick up livings there in all sorts of queer ways.

“Ah!” exclaimed a man who overheard her. “Mademoiselle has wonderful
luck! She won seventy-five thousand francs at the _Cercle Prive_ last
night. She won _en plein_ five times running. _Dieu!_ Such luck! And it
never causes her the slightest excitement.”

“The lady must be very rich!” remarked an American woman sitting next to
the old Frenchwoman, and who knew French well.

“Rich! Of course! She must have won several million francs from the
Administration. They don’t like to see her here. But I suppose her
success attracts others to play. The gambling fever is as infectious
as the influenza,” declared the old Frenchwoman. “Everyone tries to
discover who she is, and where she came from five years ago. But nobody
has yet found out. Even Monsieur Bernard, the chief of the Surveillance,
does not know,” she went on in a whisper. “He is a friend of mine, and I
asked him one day. She came from Paris, he told me. She may be American,
she may be Belgian, or she may be English. She speaks English and French
so well that nobody can tell her true nationality.”

“And she makes money at the tables,” said the American woman in the
well-cut coat and skirt and small hat. She came from Chelsea, Mass., and
it was her first visit to what her pious father had always referred to
as the plague spot of Europe.

“Money!” exclaimed the old woman. “Money! _Dieu!_ She has losses, it is
true, but oh!--what she wins! I only wish I had ten per cent of it. I
should then be rich. Mine is a poor game, madame--waiting for someone to
buy my seat instead of standing the whole afternoon. You see, there is
only one row of chairs all around. So if a smart woman wants to play,
some man always buys her a chair--and that is how I live. Ah! madame,
life is a great game here in the Principality.”

Meanwhile young Hugh Henfrey, who had travelled from London to the
Riviera and identified the mysterious mademoiselle, had passed with
his friend, Walter Brock, through the atrium and out into the afternoon
sunshine.

As they turned upon the broad gravelled terrace in front of the great
white facade of the Casino amid the palms, the giant geraniums and
mimosa, the sapphire Mediterranean stretched before them. Below, beyond
the railway line which is the one blemish to the picturesque scene,
out upon the point in the sea the constant pop-pop showed that the
tir-aux-pigeons was in progress; while up and down the terrace, enjoying
the quiet silence of the warm winter sunshine with the blue hills of
the Italian coast to the left, strolled a gay, irresponsible crowd--the
cosmopolitans of the world: politicians, financiers, merchants, princes,
authors, and artists--the crowd which puts off its morals as easily as
it discards its fur coats and its silk hats, and which lives only for
gaiety and without thought of the morrow.

“Let’s sit down,” suggested Hugh wearily. “I’m sure that she’s the same
woman--absolutely certain!”

“You are quite confident you have made no mistake--eh?”

“Quite, my dear Walter. I’d know that woman among ten thousand. I only
know that her surname is Ferad. Her Christian name I do not know.”

“And you suspect that she knows the secret of your father’s death?”

“I’m confident that she does,” replied the good-looking young
Englishman. “But it is a secret she will, I fear, never reveal,
unless--unless I compel her.”

“And how can you compel her?” asked the elder of the two men, whose dark
hair was slightly tinged with grey. “It is difficult to compel a woman
to do anything,” he added.

“I mean to know the truth!” cried Hugh Henfrey fiercely, a look of
determination in his eyes. “That woman knows the true story of my
father’s death, and I’ll make her reveal it. By gad--I will! I mean it!”

“Don’t be rash, Hugh,” urged the other.

“Rash!” he cried. “It’s true that when my father died so suddenly I had
an amazing surprise. My father was a very curious man. I always thought
him to be on the verge of bankruptcy and that the Manor and the land
might be sold up any day. When old Charman, the solicitor, read the
will, I found that my father had a quarter of a million lying at the
bank, and that he had left it all to me--provided I married Louise!”

“Well, why not marry her?” queried Brock lazily. “You’re always so
mysterious, my dear Hugh.”

“Why!--because I love Dorise Ranscomb. But Louise interests me, and I’m
worried on her account because of that infernal fellow Charles
Benton. Louise poses as his adopted daughter. Benton is a bachelor of
forty-five, and, according to his story, he adopted Louise when she was
a child and put her to school. Her parentage is a mystery. After leaving
school she at first went to live with a Mrs. Sheldon, a young widow, in
an expensive suite in Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster. After that she
has travelled about with friends and has, I believe, been abroad quite
a lot. I’ve nothing against Louise, except--well, except for the
strange uncanny influence which that man Benton has over her. I hate the
fellow!”

“I see! And as you cannot yet reach Woodthorpe and your father’s
fortune, except by marrying Louise--which you don’t intend to do--what
are you going to do now?”

“First, I intend that this woman they call ‘Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo,’ the lucky woman who is a decoy of the Administration of the
Bains de Mer, shall tell me the true circumstance of my father’s death.
If I know them--then my hand will be strengthened.”

“Meanwhile you love Lady Ranscomb’s daughter, you say?”

“Yes. I love Dorise with all my heart. She, of course, knows nothing of
the conditions of the will.”

There was a silence of some moments, interrupted only by the pop-pop of
the pigeon-shots below.

Away across the white balustrade of the broad magnificent terrace the
calm sapphire sea was deepening as the winter afternoon drew in. An
engine whistled--that of the flower train which daily travels express
from Cannes to Boulogne faster than the passenger train-deluxe, and
bearing mimosa, carnations, and violets from the Cote d’Azur to Covent
Garden, and to the florists’ shops in England.

“You’ve never told me the exact circumstances of your father’s death,
Hugh,” remarked Brock at last.

“Exact circumstances? Ah! That’s what I want to know. Only that woman
knows the secret,” answered the young man. “All I know is that the
poor old guv’-nor was called up to London by an urgent letter. We had
a shooting party at Woodthorpe and he left me in charge, saying that he
had some business in London and might return on the following night--or
he might be away a week. Days passed and he did not return. Several
letters came for him which I kept in the library. I was surprised that
he neither wrote nor returned, when, suddenly, ten days later, we had a
telegram from the London police informing me that my father was lying in
St. George’s Hospital. I dashed up to town, but when I arrived I found
him dead. At the inquest, evidence was given to show that at half-past
two in the morning a constable going along Albemarle Street found him in
evening dress lying huddled up in a doorway. Thinking him intoxicated,
he tried to rouse him, but could not. A doctor who was called pronounced
that he was suffering from some sort of poisoning. He was taken to
St. George’s Hospital in an ambulance, but he never recovered. The
post-mortem investigation showed a small scratch on the palm of the
hand. That scratch had been produced by a pin or a needle which had
been infected by one of the newly discovered poisons which, administered
secretly, give a post-mortem appearance of death from heart disease.”

“Then your father was murdered--eh?” exclaimed the elder man.

“Most certainly he was. And that woman is aware of the whole
circumstances and of the identity of the assassin.”

“How do you know that?”

“By a letter I afterwards opened--one that had been addressed to him at
Woodthorpe in his absence. It was anonymous, written in bad English,
in an illiterate hand, warning him to ‘beware of that woman you
know--Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo.’ It bore the French stamp and the
postmark of Tours.”

“I never knew all this,” Brock said. “You are quite right, Hugh! The
whole affair is a tangled mystery. But the first point we must establish
before we commence to investigate is--who is Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo?”




SECOND CHAPTER

CONCERNS A GUILTY SECRET

Just after seven o’clock that same evening young Henfrey and his friend
Brock met in the small lounge of the Hotel des Palmiers, a rather
obscure little establishment in the Avenue de la Costa, behind the
Gardens, much frequented by the habitues of the Rooms who know Monte
Carlo and prefer the little place to life at the Paris, the Hermitage,
and the Riviera Palace, or the Gallia, up at Beausoleil.

The Palmiers was a place where one met a merry cosmopolitan crowd, but
where the cocotte in her bright plumage was absent--an advantage which
only the male habitue of Monte Carlo can fully realize. The eternal
feminine is always so very much in evidence around the Casino, and the
most smartly dressed woman whom one might easily take for the wife of an
eminent politician or financier will deplore her bad luck and beg for “a
little loan.”

“Well,” said Hugh as his friend came down from his room to the lounge,
“I suppose we ought to be going--eh? Dorise said half-past seven, and
we’ll just get across to the Metropole in time. Lady Ranscomb is always
awfully punctual at home, and I expect she carries out her time-table
here.”

The two men put on light overcoats over their dinner-jackets and
strolled in the warm dusk across the Gardens and up the Galerie, with
its expensive little shops, past the original Ciro’s to the Metropole.

In the big hall they were greeted by a well-preserved, grey-haired
Englishwoman, Lady Ranscomb, the widow of old Sir Richard Ranscomb, who
had been one of the greatest engineers and contractors of modern times.
He had begun life as a small jerry-builder at Golder’s Green, and had
ended it a millionaire and a knight. Lady Ranscomb was seated at a
little wicker table with her daughter Dorise, a dainty, fair-haired girl
with intense blue eyes, who was wearing a rather daring jazzing gown of
pale-blue, the scantiness of which a year or two before would have been
voted quite beyond the pale for a lady, and yet in our broad-minded
to-day, the day of undressing on the stage and in the home, it was
nothing more than “smart.”

Mother and daughter greeted the two men enthusiastically, and at Lady
Ranscomb’s orders the waiter brought them small glasses of an aperitif.

“We’ve been all day motoring up to the Col di Tenda. Sospel is lovely!”
 declared Dorise’s mother. “Have you ever been there?” she asked of
Brock, who was an habitue of the Riviera.

“Once and only once. I motored from Nice across to Turin,” was his
reply. “Yes. It is truly a lovely run there. The Alps are gorgeous. I
like San Dalmazzo and the chestnut groves there,” he added. “But the
frontiers are annoying. All those restrictions. Nevertheless, the run to
Turin is one of the finest I know.”

Presently they rose, and all four walked into the crowded
_salle-a-manger_, where the chatter was in every European language, and
the gay crowd were gossiping mostly of their luck or their bad fortune
at the _tapis vert_. At Monte Carlo the talk is always of the run of
sequences, the many times the zero-trois has turned up, and of how
little one ever wins _en plein_ on thirty-six.

To those who visit “Charley’s Mount” for the first time all this is as
Yiddish, but soon he or she, when initiated into the games of roulette
and trente-et-quarante, quickly gets bitten by the fever and enters into
the spirit of the discussions. They produce their “records”--printed
cards in red and black numbers with which they have carefully pricked
off the winning numbers with a pin as they have turned up.

The quartette enjoyed a costly but exquisite dinner, chatting and
laughing the while.

Both men were friends of Lady Ranscomb and frequent visitors to her fine
house in Mount Street. Hugh’s father, a country landowner, had known Sir
Richard for many years, while Walter Brock had made the acquaintance of
Lady Ranscomb a couple of years ago in connexion with some charity in
which she had been interested.

Both were also good friends of Dorise. Both were excellent dancers, and
Lady Ranscomb often allowed them to take her daughter to the Grafton,
Ciro’s, or the Embassy. Lady Ranscomb was Hugh’s old friend, and he
and Dorise having been thrown together a good deal ever since the girl
returned from Versailles after finishing her education, it was hardly
surprising that the pair should have fallen in love with each other.

As they sat opposite each other that night, the young fellow gazed into
her wonderful blue eyes, yet, alas! with a sinking heart. How could they
ever marry?

He had about six hundred a year--only just sufficient to live upon
in these days. His father had never put him to anything since he left
Brasenose, and now on his death he had found that, in order to recover
the estate, it was necessary for him to marry Louise Lambert, a girl for
whom he had never had a spark of affection. Louise was good-looking,
it was true, but could he sacrifice his happiness; could he ever cut
himself adrift from Dorise for mercenary motives--in order to get back
what was surely by right his inheritance?

Yet, after all, as he again met Dorise’s calm, wide-open eyes, the grim
truth arose in his mind, as it ever did, that Lady Ranscomb, even though
she had been so kind to him, would never allow her only daughter to
marry a man who was not rich. Had not Dorise told him of the sly hints
her mother had recently given her regarding a certain very wealthy man
named George Sherrard, an eligible bachelor who lived in one of the most
expensive flats in Park Lane, and who was being generally sought after
by mothers with marriageable daughters. In many cases mothers--and
especially young, good-looking widows with daughters “on their
hands”--are too prone to try and get rid of them “because my daughter
makes me look so old,” as they whisper to their intimates of their own
age.

After dinner all four strolled across to the Casino, presenting their
yellow cards of admission--the monthly cards granted to those who are
approved by the smug-looking, black-coated committee of inspection, who
judge by one’s appearance whether one had money to lose.

Dorise soon detached herself from her mother and strolled up the Rooms
with Hugh, Lady Ranscomb and Brock following.

None of them intended to play, but they were strolling prior to going to
the opera which was beneath the same roof, and for which Lady Ranscomb
had tickets.

Suddenly Dorise exclaimed:

“Look over there--at that table in the corner. There’s that remarkable
woman they call ‘Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo’!”

Hugh started, and glancing in the direction she indicated saw
the handsome woman seated at the table staking her counters quite
unconcernedly and entirely absorbed in the game. She was wearing a dead
black dress cut slightly low in the neck, but half-bare shoulders, with
a string of magnificent Chinese jade beads of that pale apple green so
prized by connoisseurs.

Her eyes were fixed upon the revolving wheel, for upon the number
sixteen she had just thrown a couple of thousand franc counters. The
ball dropped with a sudden click, the croupier announced that number
five had won, and at once raked in the two thousand francs among others.

Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders and smiled faintly. Yvonne Ferad
was a born gambler. To her losses came as easily as gains. The
Administration knew that--and they also knew how at the little
pigeon-hole where counters were exchanged for cheques she came often and
handed over big sums in exchange for drafts upon certain banks, both in
Paris and in London.

Yet they never worried. Her lucky play attracted others who usually
lost. Once, a year before, a Frenchman who occupied a seat next to her
daily for a month lost over a quarter of a million sterling, and one
night threw himself under the Paris _rapide_ at the long bridge over
the Var. But on hearing of it the next day from a croupier Mademoiselle
merely shrugged her shoulders, and said:

“I warned him to return to Paris. The fool! It is only what I expected.”

Hugh looked only once across at the mysterious woman whom Dorise
had indicated, and then drew her away. As a matter of fact he had no
intention that mademoiselle should notice him.

“What do you know of her?” he asked in a casual way when they were on
the other side of the great saloon.

“Well, a Frenchman I met in the hotel the day before yesterday told
me all sorts of queer stories about her,” replied the girl. “She’s
apparently a most weird person, and she has uncanny good luck at the
tables. He said that she had won a large fortune during the last couple
of years or so.”

Hugh made no remark as to the reason of his visit to the Riviera, for,
indeed, he had arrived only the day previously, and she had welcomed him
joyously. Little did she dream that her lover had come out from London
to see that woman who was declared to be so notorious.

“I noticed her playing this afternoon,” Hugh said a moment later in
a quiet reflective tone. “What do the gossips really say about her,
Dorise? All this is interesting. But there are so many interesting
people here.”

“Well, the man who told me about her was sitting with me outside the
Cafe de Paris when she passed across the Place to the Casino. That
caused him to make the remarks. He said that her past was obscure. Some
people say that she was a Danish opera singer, others declare that
she was the daughter of a humble tobacconist in Marseilles, and others
assert that she is English. But all agree that she is a clever and very
dangerous woman.”

“Why dangerous?” inquired Hugh in surprise.

“Ah! That I don’t know. The man who told me merely hinted at her past
career, and added that she was quite a respectable person nowadays in
her affluence. But--well----” added the girl with a laugh, “I suppose
people gossip about everyone in this place.”

“Who was your informant?” asked her lover, much interested.

“His name is Courtin. I believe he is an official of one of the
departments of the Ministry of Justice in Paris. At least somebody said
so yesterday.”

“Ah! Then he probably knew more about her than he told you, I expect.”

“No doubt, for he warned my mother and myself against making her
acquaintance,” said the girl. “He said she was a most undesirable
person.”

At that moment Lady Ranscomb and Walter Brock joined them, whereupon the
former exclaimed to her daughter:

“Did you see that woman over there?--still playing--the woman in black
and the jade beads, against whom Monsieur Courtin warned us?”

“Yes, mother, I noticed her. I’ve just been telling Hugh about her.”

“A mysterious person--eh?” laughed Hugh with well-affected indifference.
“But one never knows who’s who in Monte Carlo.”

“Well, Mademoiselle is apparently something of a mystery,” remarked
Brock. “I’ve seen her here before several times. Once, about two years
ago, I heard that she was mixed up in a very celebrated criminal case,
but exactly what it was the man who told me could not recollect. She is,
however, one of the handsomest women in the Rooms.”

“And one of the wealthiest--if report be true,” said Lady Ranscomb.

“She fascinates me,” Dorise declared. “If Monsieur Courtin had not
warned us I should most probably have spoken to her.”

“Oh, my dear, you must do no such thing!” cried her mother, horrified.
“It was extremely kind of monsieur to give us the hint. He has probably
seen how unconventional you are, Dorise.”

And then, as they strolled on into the farther room, the conversation
dropped.

“So they’ve heard about Mademoiselle, it seems!” remarked Brock to his
friend as they walked back to the Palmiers together in the moonlight
after having seen Lady Ranscomb and her daughter to their hotel.

“Yes,” growled the other. “I wish we could get hold of that Monsieur
Courtin. He might tell us a bit about her.”

“I doubt if he would. These French officials are always close as
oysters.”

“At any rate, I will try and make his acquaintance at the Metropole
to-morrow,” Hugh said. “There’s no harm in trying.”

Next morning he called again at the Metropole before the ladies were
about, but to his chagrin, he learnt from the blue-and-gold concierge
that Monsieur Courtin, of the Ministry of Justice, had left at
ten-fifteen o’clock on the previous night by the _rapide_ for Paris. He
had been recalled urgently, and a special _coupe-lit_ had been reserved
for him from Ventimiglia.

That day Hugh Henfrey wandered about the well-kept palm-lined gardens
with their great beds of geraniums, carnations and roses. Brock had
accepted the invitation of a bald-headed London stock-broker he knew to
motor over to lunch and tennis at the Beau Site, at Cannes, while Dorise
and her mother had gone with some people to lunch at the Reserve at
Beaulieu, one of the best and yet least pretentious restaurants in all
Europe, only equalled perhaps by Capsa’s, in Bucharest.

“Ah! If she would only tell!” Hugh muttered fiercely to himself as he
walked alone and self-absorbed. His footsteps led him out of Monte Carlo
and up the winding road which runs to La Turbie, above the beautiful
bay. Ever and anon powerful cars climbing the hill smothered him in
white dust, yet he heeded them not. He was too full of thought.

“Ah!” he kept on repeating to himself. “If she would only tell the
truth--if she would only tell!”

Hugh Henfrey had not travelled to Monte Carlo without much careful
reflection and many hours of wakefulness. He intended to clear up the
mystery of his father’s death--and more, the reason of that strange
incomprehensible will which was intended to wed him to Louise.

At four o’clock that afternoon he entered the Rooms to gain another
surreptitious look at Mademoiselle. Yes! She was there, still playing
on as imperturbably as ever, with that half-suppressed sinister smile
always upon her full red lips.

Sight of her aroused his fury. Was that smile really intended for
himself? People said she was a sphinx, but he drew his breath, and when
outside the Casino again in the warm sunshine he halted upon the broad
red-carpeted steps and beneath his breath said in a hard, determined
tone:

“Gad! She shall tell me! She shall! I’ll compel her to speak--to tell me
the truth--or--or----!”

That evening he wrote a note to Dorise explaining to her that he was not
feeling very well and excusing himself from going round to the hotel.
This he sent by hand to the Metropole.

Brock did not turn up at dinner. Indeed, he did not expect his friend
back till late. So he ate his meal alone, and then went out to the
Cafe de Paris, where for an hour he sat upon the _terrasse_ smoking and
listening to the weird music of the red-coated orchestra of Roumanian
gipsies.

All the evening, indeed, he idled, chatting with men and women he knew.
_Carmen_ was being given at the Opera opposite, but though he loved
music he had no heart to go. The one thought obsessing him was of the
handsome and fascinating woman who was such a mystery to all.

At eleven o’clock he returned to the cafe and took a seat on the
_terrasse_ in a dark corner, in such a position that he could see anyone
who entered or left the Casino. For half an hour he watched the people
passing to and fro. At last, in a long jade-green coat, Mademoiselle
emerged alone, and, crossing the gardens, made her way leisurely home
on foot, as was her habit. Monte Carlo is not a large place, therefore
there is little use for taxis.

When she was out of sight, he called the waiter to bring him a liqueur
of old cognac, which he sipped, and then lit another cigarette. When he
had finished it he drained the little glass, and rising, strolled in the
direction the woman of mystery had taken.

A walk of ten minutes brought him to the iron gates of a great white
villa, over the high walls of which climbing roses and geraniums and
jasmine ran riot. The night air was heavy with their perfume. He opened
the side gate and walked up the gravelled drive to the terrace
whereon stood the house, commanding a wonderful view of the moon-lit
Mediterranean and the far-off mountains of Italy.

His ring at the door was answered by a staid elderly Italian manservant.

“I believe Mademoiselle is at home,” Hugh said in French. “I desire to
see her, and also to apologize for the lateness of the hour. My visit is
one of urgency.”

“Mademoiselle sees nobody except by appointment,” was the man’s polite
but firm reply.

“I think she will see me if you give her this card,” answered Hugh in a
strained, unusual voice.

The man took it hesitatingly, glanced at it, placed it upon a silver
salver, and, leaving the visitor standing on the mat, passed through the
glass swing-doors into the house.

For some moments the servant did not reappear.

Hugh, standing there, entertained just a faint suspicion that he heard a
woman’s shrill exclamation of surprise. And that sound emboldened him.

At last, after an age it seemed, the man returned, saying:

“Mademoiselle will see you, Monsieur. Please come this way.”

He left his hat and stick and followed the man along a corridor richly
carpeted in red to a door on the opposite side of the house, which the
servant threw open and announced the visitor.

Mademoiselle had risen to receive him. Her countenance was, Hugh saw,
blanched almost to the lips. Her black dress caused her pallor to be
more apparent.

“Well, sir? Pray what do you mean by resorting to this ruse in order to
see me? Who are you?” she demanded.

Hugh was silent for a moment. Then in a hard voice he said:

“I am the son of the dead man whose card is in your hands, Mademoiselle!
And I am here to ask you a few questions!”

The handsome woman smiled sarcastically and shrugged her half-bare
shoulders, her fingers trembling with her jade beads.

“Oh! Your father is dead--is he?” she asked with an air of indifference.

“Yes. _He is dead_,” Hugh said meaningly, as he glanced around the
luxurious little room with its soft rose-shaded lights and pale-blue
and gold decorations. On her right as she stood were long French windows
which opened on to a balcony. One of the windows stood ajar, and it was
apparent that when he had called she had been seated in the long wicker
chair outside enjoying the balmy moonlight after the stifling atmosphere
of the Rooms.

“And, Mademoiselle,” he went on, “I happen to be aware that you knew
my father, and--that you are cognizant of certain facts concerning his
mysterious end.”

“I!” she cried, raising her voice in sudden indignation. “What on earth
do you mean?” She spoke in perfect English, though he had hitherto
spoken in French.

“I mean, Mademoiselle, that I intend to know the truth,” said Hugh,
fixing his eyes determinedly upon hers. “I am here to learn it from your
lips.”

“You must be mad!” cried the woman. “I know nothing of the affair. You
are mistaken!”

“Do you, then, deny that you have ever met a man named Charles Benton?”
 demanded the young fellow, raising his voice. “Perhaps, however, that is
a bitter memory, Mademoiselle--eh?”

The strikingly handsome woman pursed her lips. There was a strange look
in her eyes. For several moments she did not speak. It was clear that
the sudden appearance of the dead man’s son had utterly unnerved her.
What could he know concerning Charles Benton? How much of the affair did
he suspect?

“I have met many people, Mr.--er--Mr. Henfrey,” she replied quietly at
last. “I may have met somebody named Benton.”

“Ah! I see,” the young man said. “It is a memory that you do not wish to
recall any more than that of my dead father.”

“Your father was a good man. Benton was not.”

“Ah! Then you admit knowing both of them, Mademoiselle,” cried Hugh
quickly.

“Yes. I--well--I may as well admit it! Why, indeed, should I seek to
hide the truth--_from you_,” she said in a changed voice. “Pardon me. I
was very upset at receiving the card. Pardon me--will you not?”

“I will not, unless you tell me the truth concerning my father’s death
and his iniquitous will left concerning myself. I am here to ascertain
that, Mademoiselle,” he said in a hard voice.

“And if I tell you--what then?” she asked with knit brows.

“If you tell me, then I am prepared to promise you on oath secrecy
concerning yourself--provided you allow me to punish those who are
responsible. Remember, my father died by foul means. _And you know it!_”

The woman faced him boldly, but she was very pale.

“So that is a promise?” she asked. “You will protect me--you will be
silent regarding me--you swear to be so--if--if I tell you something.
I repeat that your father was a good man. I held him in the highest
esteem, and--and--after all--it is but right that you, his son, should
know the truth.”

“Thank you Mademoiselle. I will protect you if you will only reveal to
me the devilish plot which resulted in his untimely end,” Hugh assured
her.

Again she knit her brows and reflected for a few moments. Then in a low,
intense, unnatural voice she said:

“Listen, Mr. Henfrey. I feel that, after all, my conscience would be
relieved if I revealed to you the truth. First--well, it is no use
denying the fact that your father was not exactly the man you and his
friends believed him to be. He led a strange dual existence, and I will
disclose to you one or two facts concerning his untimely end which will
show you how cleverly devised and how cunning was the plot--how----”

At that instant Hugh was startled by a bright flash outside the
half-open window, a loud report, followed by a woman’s shrill shriek of
pain.

Then, next moment, ere he could rush forward to save her, Mademoiselle,
with the truth upon her lips unuttered, staggered and fell back heavily
upon the carpet!




THIRD CHAPTER

IN THE NIGHT

Hugh Henfrey, startled by the sudden shot, shouted for assistance, and
then threw himself upon his knees beside the prostrate woman.

From a bullet wound over the right ear blood was slowly oozing and
trickling over her white cheek.

“Help! Help!” he shouted loudly. “Mademoiselle has been shot from
outside! _Help!_”

In a few seconds the elderly manservant burst into the room in a state
of intense excitement.

“Quick!” cried Hugh. “Telephone for a doctor at once. I fear your
mistress is dying!”

Henfrey had placed his hand upon Mademoiselle’s heart, but could detect
no movement. While the servant dashed to the telephone, he listened
for her breathing, but could hear nothing. From the wall he tore down
a small circular mirror and held it against her mouth. There was no
clouding.

There was every apparent sign that the small blue wound had proved
fatal.

“Inform the police also!” Hugh shouted to the elderly Italian who was at
the telephone in the adjoining room. “The murderer must be found!”

By this time four female servants had entered the room where their
mistress was lying huddled and motionless. All of them were in
_deshabille_. Then all became excitement and confusion. Hugh left them
to unloosen her clothing and hastened out upon the veranda whereon the
assassin must have stood when firing the shot.

Outside in the brilliant Riviera moonlight the scent of a wealth of
flowers greeted his nostrils. It was almost bright as day. From the
veranda spread a wide, fairy-like view of the many lights of Monte Carlo
and La Condamine, with the sea beyond shimmering in the moonlight.

The veranda, he saw, led by several steps down into the beautiful
garden, while beyond, a distance of a hundred yards, was the main gate
leading to the roadway. The assassin, after taking careful aim and
firing, had, no doubt, slipped along, and out of the gate.

But why had Mademoiselle been shot just at the moment when she was about
to reveal the secret of his lamented father’s death?

He descended to the garden, where he examined the bushes which cast
their dark shadows. But all was silence. The assassin had escaped!

Then he hurried out into the road, but again all was silence. The only
hope of discovering the identity of the criminal was by means of the
police vigilance. Truth to tell, however, the police of Monte Carlo are
never over anxious to arrest a criminal, because Monte Carlo attracts
the higher criminal class of both sexes from all over Europe. If the
police of the Principality were constantly making arrests it would be
bad advertisement for the Rooms. Hence, though the Monte Carlo police
are extremely vigilant and an expert body of officers, they prefer
to watch and to give information to the bureaux of police of other
countries, so that arrests invariably take place beyond the frontiers of
the Principality of Monaco.

It was not long before Doctor Leneveu, a short, stout, bald-headed
little man, well known to habitues of the Rooms, among whom he had a
large practice, entered the house of Mademoiselle and was greeted by
Hugh. The latter briefly explained the tragic circumstances, whereupon
the little doctor at once became fussy and excited.

Having ordered everyone out of the room except Henfrey, he bent and made
an examination of the prostrate woman.

“Ah! m’sieur,” he said, “the unfortunate lady has certainly been shot at
close quarters. The wound is, I tell you at once, extremely dangerous,”
 he added, after a searching investigation. “But she is still alive,” he
declared. “Yes--she is still breathing.”

“Still alive!” gasped Henfrey. “That’s excellent! I--I feared that she
was dead!”

“No. She still breathes,” the doctor replied. “But, tell me exactly what
has occurred. First, however, we will get them to remove her upstairs.
I will telephone to my colleague Duponteil, and we will endeavour to
extract the bullet.”

“But will she recover, doctor?” asked Hugh eagerly in French. “What do
you think?”

The little man became serious and shook his head gravely.

“Ah! m’sieur, that I cannot say,” was his reply. “She is in a very grave
state--very! And the brain may be affected.”

Hugh held his breath. _Surely Yvonne Ferad was not to die with the
secret upon her lips!_

At the doctor’s orders the servants were about to remove their mistress
to her room when two well-dressed men of official aspect entered. They
were officers of the Bureau of Police.

“Stop!” cried the elder, who was the one in authority, a tall,
lantern-jawed man with a dark brown beard and yellow teeth. “Do not
touch that lady! What has happened here?”

Hugh came forward, and in his best French explained the circumstances
of the tragedy--how Mademoiselle had been shot in his presence by an
unknown hand.

“The assassin, whoever he was, stood out yonder--upon the veranda--but
I never saw him,” he added. “It was all over in a second--and he has
escaped!”

“And pray who are you?” demanded the police officer bluntly. “Please
explain.”

Hugh was rather nonplussed. The question required explanation, no doubt.
It would, he saw, appear very curious that he should visit Mademoiselle
of Monte Carlo at that late hour.

“I--well, I called upon Mademoiselle because I wished to obtain some
important information from her.”

“What information? Rather late for a call, surely?”

The young Englishman hesitated. Then, with true British grit, he assumed
an attitude of boldness, and asked:

“Am I compelled to answer that question?”

“I am Charles Ogier, chief inspector of the Surete of Monaco, and I
press for a reply,” answered the other firmly.

“And I, Hugh Henfrey, a British subject, at present decline to satisfy
you,” was the young man’s bold response.

“Is the lady still alive?” inquired the inspector of Doctor Leneveu.

“Yes. I have ordered her to be taken up to her room--of course, when
m’sieur the inspector gives permission.”

Ogier looked at the deathly countenance with the closed eyes, and noted
that the wound in the skull had been bound up with a cotton handkerchief
belonging to one of the maids. Mademoiselle’s dark well-dressed hair had
become unbound and was straying across her face, while her handsome gown
had been torn in the attempt to unloosen her corsets.

“Yes,” said the police officer; “they had better take her upstairs. We
will remain here and make inquiries. This is a very queer affair--to say
the least,” he added, glancing suspiciously at Henfrey.

While the servants carried their unconscious mistress tenderly upstairs,
the fussy little doctor went to the telephone to call Doctor Duponteil,
the principal surgeon of Monaco. He had hesitated whether to take the
victim to the hospital, but had decided that the operation could be done
just as effectively upstairs. So, after speaking to Duponteil, he also
spoke to the sister at the hospital, asking her to send up two nurses
immediately to the Villa Amette.

In the meantime Inspector Ogier was closely questioning the young
Englishman.

Like everyone in Monte Carlo he knew the mysterious Mademoiselle by
sight. More than once the suspicions of the police had been aroused
against her. Indeed, in the archives of the Prefecture there reposed a
bulky dossier containing reports of her doings and those of her friends.
Yet there had never been anything which would warrant the authorities to
forbid her from remaining in the Principality.

This tragedy, therefore, greatly interested Ogier and his colleague.
Both of them had spent many years in the service of the Paris Surete
under the great Goron before being appointed to the responsible
positions in the detective service of Monaco.

“Then you knew the lady?” Ogier asked of the young man who was naturally
much upset over the startling affair, and the more so because the secret
of his father’s mysterious death had been filched from him by the hand
of some unknown assassin.

“No, I did not know her personally,” Henfrey replied somewhat lamely. “I
came to call upon her, and she received me.”

“Why did you call at this hour? Could you not have called in the
daytime?”

“Mademoiselle was in the Rooms until late,” he said.

“Ah! Then you followed her home--eh?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

The police officer pursed his lips and raised his eyes significantly at
his colleague.

“And what was actually happening when the shot was fired? Describe it to
me, please,” he demanded.

“I was standing just here”--and he crossed the room and stood upon the
spot where he had been--“Mademoiselle was over there beside the window.
I had my back to the window. She was about to tell me something--to
answer a question I had put to her--when someone from outside shot her
through the open glass door.”

“And you did not see her assailant?”

“I saw nothing. The shot startled me, and, seeing her staggering,
I rushed to her. In the meantime the assailant--whoever he
was--disappeared!”

The brown-bearded man smiled dubiously. As he stood beneath the electric
light Hugh saw doubt written largely upon his countenance. He instantly
realized that Ogier disbelieved his story.

After all it was a very lame one. He would not fully admit the reason of
his visit.

“But tell me, m’sieur,” exclaimed the police officer. “It seems
extraordinary that any person should creep along this veranda.” And he
walked out and looked about in the moonlight. “If the culprit wished to
shoot Mademoiselle in secret, then he would surely not have done so in
your presence. He might easily have shot her as she was on her way home.
The road is lonely up here.”

“I agree, monsieur,” replied the Englishman. “The whole affair is, to
me, a complete mystery. I saw nobody. But it was plain to me that when
I called Mademoiselle was seated out upon the veranda. Look at her
chair--and the cushions! It was very hot and close in the Rooms
to-night, and probably she was enjoying the moonlight before retiring to
bed.”

“Quite possibly,” he agreed. “But that does not alter the fact that the
assassin ran considerable risk in coming along the veranda in the full
moonlight and firing through the open door. Are you quite certain that
Mademoiselle’s assailant was outside--and not inside?” he asked, with a
queer expression upon his aquiline face.

Hugh saw that he was hinting at his suspicion that he himself had shot
her!

“Quite certain,” he assured him. “Why do you ask?”

“I have my own reasons,” replied the police officer with a hard laugh.
“Now, tell me what do you know about Mademoiselle Ferad?”

“Practically nothing.”

“Then why did you call upon her?”

“I have told you. I desired some information, and she was about to give
it to me when the weapon was fired by an unknown hand.”

“Unknown--eh?”

“Yes. Unknown to me. It might be known to Mademoiselle.”

“And what was this information you so urgently desired?”

“Some important information. I travelled from London to Monte Carlo in
order to obtain it.”

“Ah! Then you had a motive in coming here--some strong motive, I take
it?”

“Yes. A very strong motive. I wanted her to clear up certain mysterious
happenings in England.”

Ogier was instantly alert.

“What happenings?” he asked, for he recollected the big dossier and
the suspicions extending over four or five years concerning the real
identity and mode of life of the handsome, sphinx-like woman Yvonne
Ferad.

Hugh Henfrey was silent for a few moments. Then he said:

“Happenings in London that--well, that I do not wish to recall.”

Ogier again looked him straight in the face.

“I suggest, M’sieur Henfrey”--for Hugh had given him his name--“I
suggest that you have been attracted by Mademoiselle as so many other
men have been. She seems to exercise a fatal influence upon some
people.”

“I know,” Hugh said. “I have heard lots of things about her. Her success
at the tables is constant and uncanny. Even the Administration are
interested in her winnings, and are often filled with wonder.”

“True, m’sieur. She keeps herself apart. She is a mysterious person--the
most remarkable in all the Principality. We, at the Bureau, have heard
all sorts of curious stories concerning her--once it was rumoured that
she was the daughter of a reigning European sovereign. Then we take all
the reports with the proverbial grain of salt. That Mademoiselle is a
woman of outstanding intellect and courage, as well as of great beauty,
cannot be denied. Therefore I tell you that I am intensely interested in
this attempt upon her life.”

“And so am I,” Hugh said. “I have a strong reason to be.”

“Cannot you tell me that reason?” inquired the officer of the Surete,
still looking at him very shrewdly. “Why fence with me?”

Henfrey hesitated. Then he replied:

“It is a purely personal matter.”

“And yet, you have said that you were not acquainted with Mademoiselle!”
 remarked Ogier suspiciously.

“That is quite true. The first time I have spoken to her was this
evening, a few minutes before the attempt was made upon her life.”

“Then your theory is that while you stood in conversation with her
somebody crept along the veranda and shot her--eh?”

“Yes.”

Ogier smiled sarcastically, and turning to his colleague, ordered him to
search the room. The inspector evidently suspected the young Englishman
of having shot Mademoiselle, and the search was in order to try and
discover the weapon.

Meanwhile the brown-bearded officer called the Italian manservant, who
gave his name as Giulio Cataldi, and who stated that he had been in
Mademoiselle Ferad’s service a little over five years.

“Have you ever seen this Englishman before?” Ogier asked, indicating
Hugh.

“Never, until to-night, m’sieur,” was the reply. “He called about twenty
minutes after Mademoiselle’s return from the Rooms.”

“Has Mademoiselle quarrelled with anybody of late?”

“Not to my knowledge, m’sieur. She is of a very quiet and even
disposition.”

“Is there anyone you know who might possess a motive to shoot her?”
 asked Ogier. “The crime has not been committed with a motive of robbery,
but either out of jealousy or revenge.”

“I know of nobody,” declared the highly respectable Italian, whose
moustache was tinged with grey. He shrugged his shoulders and showed his
palms as he spoke.

“Mademoiselle arrived here two months ago, I believe?” queried the
police official.

“Yes, m’sieur. She spent the autumn in Paris, and during the summer she
was at Deauville. She also went to London for a brief time, I believe.”

“Did she ever live in London?” asked Hugh eagerly, interrupting Ogier’s
interrogation.

“Yes--once. She had a furnished house on the Cromwell Road for about six
months.”

“How long ago?” asked Henfrey.

“Please allow me to make my inquiries, monsieur!” exclaimed the
detective angrily.

“But the question I ask is of greatest importance to me in my own
inquiries,” Hugh persisted.

“I am here to discover the identity of Mademoiselle’s assailant,” Ogier
asserted. “And I will not brook your interference.”

“Mademoiselle has been shot, and it is for you to discover who fired at
her,” snapped the young Englishman. “I consider that I have just as much
right to put a question to this man as you have, that is”--he added with
sarcasm--“that is, of course, if you don’t suspect him of shooting his
mistress.”

“Well, I certainly do not suspect that,” the Frenchman said. “But,
to tell you candidly, your story of the affair strikes me as a very
improbable one.”

“Ah!” laughed Hugh, “I thought so! You suspect me--eh? Very well. Where
is the weapon?”

“Perhaps you have hidden it,” suggested the other meaningly. “We shall,
no doubt, find it somewhere.”

“I hope you will, and that will lead to the arrest of the guilty
person,” Hugh laughed. Then he was about to put further questions to the
man Cataldi when Doctor Leneveu entered the room.

“How is she?” demanded Hugh breathlessly.

The countenance of the fussy little doctor fell.

“Monsieur,” he said in a low earnest voice, “I much fear that
Mademoiselle will not recover. My colleague Duponteil concurs with that
view. We have done our best, but neither of us entertain any hope that
she will live!” Then turning to Ogier, the doctor exclaimed: “This is an
amazing affair--especially in face of what is whispered concerning the
unfortunate lady. What do you make of it?”

The officer of the Surete knit his brows, and with frankness replied:

“At present I am entirely mystified--entirely mystified!”




FOURTH CHAPTER

WHAT THE DOSSIER CONTAINED

Walter Brock was awakened at four o’clock that morning by Hugh touching
him upon the shoulder.

He started up in bed and staring at his friend’s pale, haggard face
exclaimed:

“Good Heavens!--why, what’s the matter?”

“Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo has been shot!” the other replied in a hard
voice.

“Shot!” gasped Brock, startled. “What do you mean?”

Briefly Hugh who had only just entered the hotel, explained the curious
circumstances--how, just at the moment she had been about to reveal the
secret of his father’s death she was shot.

“Most extraordinary!” declared his friend. “Surely, we have not been
followed here by someone who is determined to prevent you from knowing
the truth!”

“It seems much like it, Walter,” replied the younger man very seriously.
“There must be some strong motive or no person would dare to shoot her
right before my eyes.”

“Agreed. Somebody who is concerned in your father’s death has adopted
this desperate measure in order to prevent Mademoiselle from telling you
the truth.”

“That’s exactly my opinion, my dear Walter. If it was a crime for gain,
or through motives of either jealousy or revenge, Mademoiselle would
certainly have been attacked on her way home. The road is quite deserted
towards the crest of the hill.”

“What do the police say?”

“They do not appear to trouble to track Mademoiselle’s assailant. They
say they will wait until daylight before searching for footprints on the
gravel outside.”

“Ah! They are not very fond of making arrests within the Principality.
It’s such a bad advertisement for the Rooms. The Administration like to
show a clean sheet as regards serious crime. Our friends here leave it
to the French or Italian police to deal with the criminals so that the
Principality shall prove itself the most honest State in Europe,” Brock
said.

“The police, I believe, suspect me of shooting her,” said Hugh bluntly.

“That’s very awkward. Why?”

“Well--they don’t know the true reason I went to see her, or they
would never believe me to be guilty of a crime so much against my own
interests.”

Brock, who was still sitting up in bed in his pale blue silk pyjamas,
reflected a few moments.

“Well, Hugh,” he said at last, “after all it is only natural that they
should believe that you had a hand in the matter. Even though she told
you the truth, it is quite within reason that you should have suddenly
become incensed against her for the part she must have played in your
father’s mysterious death, and in a frenzy of anger you shot her.”

Hugh drew a long breath, and his eyebrows narrowed.

“By Jove! I had never regarded it in that light before!” he gasped. “But
what about the weapon?”

“You might easily have hidden it before the arrival of the police. You
admit that you went out on the veranda. Therefore if they do chance to
find the weapon in the garden then their suspicions will, no doubt, be
considerably increased. It’s a pity, old man, that you didn’t make a
clean breast of the motive of your visit.”

“I now see my horrible mistake,” Henfrey admitted. “I thought myself
wise to preserve silence, to know nothing, and now I see quite plainly
that I have only brought suspicion unduly upon myself. The police,
however, know Yvonne Ferad to be a somewhat mysterious person.”

“Which renders the situation only worse,” Brock said. Then, after a
pause, he added: “Now that you have declined to tell the police why you
visited the Villa Amette and have, in a way, defied them, it will
be best to maintain that attitude. Tell them nothing, no matter what
happens.”

“I intend to pursue that course. But the worst of it is, Walter, that
the doctors hold out no hope of Mademoiselle’s recovery. I saw Duponteil
half an hour ago, and he told me that he could give me no encouraging
information. The bullet has been extracted, but she is hovering between
life and death. I suppose it will be in the papers to-morrow, and
Dorise and her mother will know of my nocturnal visit to the house of a
notorious woman.”

“Don’t let that worry you, my dear chap. Here, they keep the news of all
tragedies out of the papers, because shooting affairs may be thought by
the public to be due to losses at the Rooms. Recollect that of all the
suicides here--the dozens upon dozens of poor ruined gamesters who are
yearly laid to rest in the Suicides’ Cemetery--not a single report has
appeared in any newspaper. So I think you may remain assured that Lady
Ranscomb and her daughter will not learn anything.”

“I sincerely hope they won’t, otherwise it will go very hard with me,”
 Hugh said in a low, intense voice. “Ah! What a night it has been for
me!”

“And if Mademoiselle dies the assailant, whoever he was, will be guilty
of wilful murder; while you, on your part, will never know the truth
concerning your father’s death,” remarked the elder man, running his
fingers through his hair.

“Yes. That is the position of this moment. But further, I am suspected
of the crime!”

Brock dressed while his friend sat upon the edge of the bed, pale-faced
and agitated. Suppose that the assailant had flung his pistol into the
bushes, and the police eventually discovered it? Then, no doubt, he
would be put across the frontier to be arrested by the police of the
Department of the Alpes Maritimes.

Truly, the situation was most serious.

Together the two men strolled out into the early morning air and sat
upon a seat on the terrace of the Casino watching the sun as it rose
over the tideless sea.

For nearly an hour they sat discussing the affair; then they ascended
the white, dusty road to the beautiful Villa Amette, the home of the
mysterious Mademoiselle.

Old Giulio Cataldi opened the door.

“Alas! m’sieur, Mademoiselle is just the same,” he replied in response
to Hugh’s eager inquiry. “The police have gone, but Doctor Leneveu is
still upstairs.”

“Have the police searched the garden?” inquired Hugh eagerly.

“Yes, m’sieur. They made a thorough examination, but have discovered no
marks of footprints except those of yourself, myself, and a tradesman’s
lad who brought up a parcel late last night.”

“Then they found no weapon?” asked the young Englishman.

“No, m’sieur. There is no clue whatever to the assailant.”

“Curious that there should be no footmarks,” remarked Brock. “Yet they
found yours, Hugh.”

“Yes. The man must surely have left some trace outside!”

“One would certainly have thought so,” Brock said. “I wonder if we may
go into the room where the tragedy happened?” he asked of the servant.

“Certainly, m’sieur,” was the courteous reply, and he conducted them
both into the apartment wherein Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo had been
shot down.

“Did you accompany Mademoiselle when she went to London, Giulio?”
 asked young Henfrey of the old Italian, after he had described to Brock
exactly what had occurred.

“Yes, m’sieur,” he replied. “I was at Cromwell Road for a short time.
But I do not care for London, so Mademoiselle sent me back here to look
after the Villa because old Jean, the concierge, had been taken to the
hospital.”

“When in London you knew some of Mademoiselle’s friends, I suppose?”

“A few--only a few,” was the Italian’s reply.

“Did you ever know a certain Mr. Benton?”

The old fellow shook his head blankly.

“Not to my knowledge, m’sieur,” he replied. “Mademoiselle had really
very few friends in London. There was a Mrs. Matthews and her husband,
Americans whom she met here in Monte Carlo, and Sir George Cave-Knight,
who died a few weeks ago.”

“Do you remember an elderly gentleman named Henfrey calling?” asked
Hugh.

Old Cataldi reflected for a moment, and then answered:

“The name sounds familiar to me, m’sieur, but in what connexion I cannot
recollect. That is your name, is it not?” he asked, remembering the card
he had taken to his mistress.

“Yes,” Hugh replied. “I have reason to believe that my late father was
acquainted with your mistress, and that he called upon her in London.”

“I believe that a gentleman named Henfrey did call, because when
I glanced at the card you gave me last night the name struck me as
familiar,” the servant said. “But whether he actually called, or whether
someone at table mentioned his name I really cannot recollect.”

“Ah! That’s a pity,” exclaimed Hugh with a sigh. “As a matter of fact it
was in order to make certain inquiries regarding my late father that I
called upon Mademoiselle last night.”

Giulio Cataldi turned in pretence of rearranging a chair, but in reality
to avert his face from the young man’s gaze--a fact which Hugh did not
fail to notice.

Had he really told the truth when he declared that he could not
recollect his father calling?

“How long were you in London with Mademoiselle?” asked Henfrey.

“About six weeks--not longer.”

Was it because of some untoward occurrence that the old Italian did not
like London, Hugh wondered.

“And you are quite sure that you do not recollect my father calling upon
your mistress?”

“As I have said, m’sieur, I do not remember. Yet I recall the name, as
it is a rather unusual one.”

“And you have never heard of Mr. Benton?”

Cataldi shook his head.

“Well,” Hugh went on, “tell me whether you entertain any suspicions
of anyone who might be tempted to kill your mistress. Mademoiselle has
enemies, has she not?”

“Who knows?” exclaimed the man with the grey moustache and small, black
furtive eyes.

“Everyone has enemies of one sort or another,” Walter remarked. “And
no doubt Mademoiselle has. It is for us to discover the enemy who shot
her.”

“Ah! yes, it is, m’sieur,” exclaimed the servant. “The poor Signorina! I
do hope that the police will discover who tried to kill her.”

“For aught we know the attempt upon the lady’s life may prove successful
after all,” said Hugh despairingly. “The doctors hold out no hope of her
recovery.”

“None. A third doctor has been in consultation--Doctor Bazin, from
Beaulieu. He only left a quarter of an hour ago. He told me that the
poor Signorina cannot possibly live! Ah! messieurs, how terrible all
this is--_povera Signorina_! She was always so kind and considerate to
us all.” And the old man’s voice trembled with emotion.

Walter Brock gazed around the luxurious room and at the long open window
through which streamed the bright morning sun, with the perfume of the
flowers outside. What was the mystery concerning Mademoiselle Yvonne?
What foundation had the gossips for those constant whisperings which had
rendered the handsome woman so notorious?

True, the story of the death of Hugh’s father was an unusually strange
one, curious in every particular--and stranger still that the secret was
held by this beautiful, but mysterious, woman who lived in such luxury,
and who gambled so recklessly and with invariable good fortune.

As they walked back to the town Hugh’s heart sank within him.

“She will die,” he muttered bitterly to himself. “She’ll die, and I
shall never learn the truth of the poor guv’nor’s sad end, or the reason
why I am being forced to marry Louise Lambert.”

“It’s an iniquitous will, Hugh!” declared his friend. “And it’s
infernally hard on you that just at the very moment when you could have
learnt the truth that shot was fired.”

“Do you think the woman had any hand in my father’s death?” Hugh asked.
“Do you think that she had repented, and was about to try and atone for
what she had done by confessing the whole affair?”

“Yes. That is just the view I take,” answered Brock. “Of course, we have
no idea what part she played in the business. But my idea is that she
alone knows the reason why this marriage with Louise is being forced
upon you.”

“In that case, then, it seems more than likely that I’ve been followed
here to Monte Carlo, and my movements watched. But why has she been
shot? Why did not her enemies shoot me? They could have done so twenty
times during the past few days. Perhaps the shot which hit her was
really intended for me?”

“I don’t think so. There is a monetary motive behind your marriage with
Louise. If you died, your enemy would gain nothing. That seems clear.”

“But who can be my secret enemy?” asked the young man in dismay.

“Mademoiselle alone knows that, and it was undoubtedly her intention to
warn you.”

“Yes. But if she dies I shall remain in ignorance,” he declared in
a hard voice. “The whole affair is so tangled that I can see nothing
clearly--only that my refusal to marry Louise will mean ruin to me--and
I shall lose Dorise in the bargain!”

Walter Brock, older and more experienced, was equally mystified. The
pessimistic attitude of the three doctors who had attended the injured
woman was, indeed, far from reassuring. The injury to the head caused by
the assailant’s bullet was, they declared, most dangerous. Indeed, the
three medical men marvelled that she still lived.

The two men walked through the palm-lined garden, bright with flowers,
back to their hotel, wondering whether news of the tragedy had yet got
abroad. But they heard nothing of it, and it seemed true, as Walter
Brock had declared, that the police make haste to suppress any tragic
happenings in the Principality.

Though they were unconscious of it, a middle-aged, well-dressed
Frenchman had, during their absence from the hotel, been making diligent
inquiries regarding them of the night concierge and some of the staff.

The concierge had recognized the visitor as Armand Buisson, of the
police bureau at Nice. It seemed as though the French police were unduly
inquisitive concerning the well-conducted young Englishman and his
companion.

Now, as a matter of fact, half an hour after Hugh had left the Villa
Amette, Ogier had telegraphed to Buisson in Nice, and the latter had
come along the Corniche road in a fast car to make his own inquiries
and observations upon the pair of Englishmen. Ogier strongly suspected
Henfrey of firing the shot, but was, nevertheless, determined to remain
inactive and leave the matter to the Prefecture of the Department
of Alpes Maritimes. Hence the reason that the well-dressed Frenchman
lounged in the hall of the hotel pretending to read the “Phare du
Littoral.”

Just before noon Hugh went to the telephone in the hotel and inquired of
Cataldi the progress of his mistress.

“She is just the same, m’sieur,” came the voice in broken English.
“_Santa Madonna!_ How terrible it all is! Doctor Leneveu has left, and
Doctor Duponteil is now here.”

“Have the police been again?”

“No, m’sieur. Nobody has been,” was the reply.

So Hugh rang off and crossed the hall, little dreaming that the
well-dressed Frenchman had been highly interested in his questions.

Half an hour later he went along to the Metropole, where he had an
engagement to lunch with Dorise and her mother.

When they met, however, Lady Ranscomb exclaimed:

“Why, Hugh, you look very pale. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing,” he laughed forcedly. “I’m not very bright to-day. I think
it was the sirocco of yesterday that has upset me a little, that’s all.”

Then, while they were seated at table, Dorise suddenly exclaimed:

“Oh! do you know, mother, that young French lady over yonder, Madame
Jacomet, has just told me something. There’s a whisper that the
mysterious woman, Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, was shot during the night
by a discarded lover!”

“Shot!” exclaimed Lady Ranscomb. “Dear me! How very dreadful. What
really happened?”

“I don’t know. Madame Jacomet was told by her husband, who heard it in
Ciro’s this morning.”

“How terrible!” remarked Hugh, striving to remain calm.

“Yes. But women of her class invariably come to a bad end,” remarked the
widow. “How pleased I am, Dorise, that you never spoke to her. She’s a
most dreadful person, they say.”

“Well, she evidently knows how to win money at the tables, mother,” said
the girl, lifting her clear blue eyes to those of her lover.

“Yes. But I wonder what the scandal is all about?” said the widow of the
great engineer.

“Oh! don’t trouble to inquire Lady Ranscomb,” Hugh hastened to remark.
“One hears scandal on every hand in Monte Carlo.”

“Yes. I suppose so,” replied the elder woman, and then the subject was
dropped.

So the ugly affair was being rumoured. It caused Hugh a good deal of
apprehension, for he feared that his name would be associated with that
of the mysterious Mademoiselle. Evidently one or other of the servants
at the Villa Amette had been indiscreet.

At that moment, in his private room at the bureau of police down
in Monaco, Superintendent Ogier was carefully perusing a dossier of
official papers which had been brought to him by the archivist.

Between his thin lips was a long, thin, Swiss cigar--his favorite
smoke--and with his gold-rimmed pince-nez poised upon his aquiline
nose he was reading a document which would certainly have been of
considerable interest to Hugh Henfrey and his friend Walter Brock could
they have seen it.

Upon the pale yellow paper were many lines of typewriting in French--a
carbon copy evidently.

It was headed: “Republique Francaise. Department of Herault. Prefecture
of Police. Bureau of the Director of Police. Reference Number 20197.B.,”
 and was dated nearly a year before.

It commenced:


“Copy of an ‘information’ in the archives of the Prefecture of the
Department of Herault concerning the woman Marie Mignot, or Leullier,
now passing under the name of Yvonne Ferad and living at the Villa
Amette at Monte Carlo.

“The woman in question was born in 1884 at Number 45 Rue des Etuves,
in Montpellier, and was the daughter of one Doctor Rigaud, a noted
toxicologist of the Faculty of Medicine, and curator of the University
Library. At the age of seventeen, after her father’s death, she became
a school teacher at a small school in the Rue Morceau, and at nineteen
married Charles Leullier, a good-looking young scoundrel who posed
as being well off, but who was afterwards proved to be an expert
international thief, a member of a gang of dangerous thieves who
committed robberies in the European express trains.

“This fact was unknown to the girl, therefore at first all went
smoothly, until the wife discovered the truth and left him. She then
joined the chorus of a revue at the Jardin de Paris, where she met a
well-to-do Englishman named Bryant. The pair went to England, where she
married him, and they resided in the county of Northampton. Six months
later Bryant died, leaving her a large sum of money. In the meantime
Leullier had been arrested by the Italian police for a daring robbery
with violence in a train traveling between Milan and Turin and been
sentenced to ten years on the penal island of Gorgona. His wife, hearing
of this from an Englishman named Houghton, who, though she was unaware
of it, was following the same profession as her husband, returned to
France. She rented an apartment in Paris, and afterwards played at Monte
Carlo, where she won a considerable sum, with the proceeds of which she
purchased the Villa Amette, which she now occupies each season.”


“Extracts of reports concerning Marie Leullier, alias Yvonne Ferad, are
herewith appended:

“Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, London--to the
Prefecture of Police, Paris.

“Mademoiselle Yvonne Ferad rented a furnished house at Hove, near
Brighton, in June, 1918. Afterwards moved to Worthing and to Exeter,
and later took a house in the Cromwell Road, London, in 1919. She was
accompanied by an Italian manservant named Cataldi. Her conduct was
suspicious, though she was undoubtedly possessed of considerable
means. She was often seen at the best restaurants with various
male acquaintances, more especially with a man named Kenworthy. Her
association with this person, and with another man named Percy Stendall,
was curious, as both men were habitual criminals and had served several
terms of penal servitude each. Certain suspicions were aroused, and
observation was kept, but nothing tangible was discovered. It is agreed,
however, that some mystery surrounds this woman in question. She left
London quite suddenly, but left no debts behind.”


“Information from the Borough Police Office, Worthing, to the Prefecture
of Police, Department of Herault.

“Mademoiselle Yvonne Ferad has been identified by the photograph sent as
having lived in Worthing in December, 1918. She rented a small furnished
house facing the sea, and was accompanied by an Italian manservant and a
French maid. Her movements were distinctly mysterious. A serious
fracas occurred at the house on the evening of December 18th, 1918. A
middle-aged gentleman, whose name is unknown, called there about seven
o’clock and a violent quarrel ensued between the lady and her visitor,
the latter being very seriously assaulted by the Italian. The constable
on duty was called in, but the visitor refused to prosecute, and after
having his injuries attended to by a doctor left for London. Three days
later Mademoiselle disappeared from Worthing. It is believed by the
Chief Constable that the woman is of the criminal class.”


Then Charles Ogier, inspector of the detective police of Monaco, smiled,
laid down his cigar, and took up another and even more interesting
document.




FIFTH CHAPTER

ON THE HOG’S BACK

Three days later. On a cold afternoon just as the wintry light was
fading a tall, dark, middle-aged, rather handsome man with black hair
and moustache, and wearing a well-cut, dark-grey overcoat and
green velour hat, alighted from the train at the wayside station of
Wanborough, in Surrey, and inquired of the porter the way to Shapley
Manor.

“Shapley, sir? Why, take the road there yonder up the hill till you
get to the main road which runs along the Hog’s Back from Guildford to
Farnborough. When you get on the main road, turn sharp to the left past
the old toll-gate, and you’ll find the Manor on the left in among a big
clump of trees.”

“How far?”

“About a mile, sir.”

The stranger, the only passenger who had alighted, slipped sixpence
into the man’s hand, buttoned his coat, and started out to walk in the
direction indicated, breasting the keen east wind.

He was well-set-up, and of athletic bearing. He took long strides as
with swinging gait he went up the hill. As he did so, he muttered to
himself:

“I was an infernal fool not to have come down in a car! I hate these
beastly muddy country roads. But Molly has the telephone--so I can ring
up for a car to fetch me--which is a consolation, after all.”

And with his keen eyes set before him, he pressed forward up the steep
incline to where, for ten miles, ran the straight broad highway over
the high ridge known as the Hog’s Back. The road is very popular with
motorists, for so high is it that on either side there stretches a wide
panorama of country, the view on the north being towards the Thames
Valley and London, while on the south Hindhead with the South Downs in
the blue distance show beyond.

Having reached the high road the stranger paused to take breath, and
incidentally to admire the magnificent view. Indeed, an expression of
admiration fell involuntarily from his lips. Then he went along for
another half-mile in the teeth of the cutting wind with the twilight
rapidly coming on, until he came to the clump of dark firs and presently
walked up a gravelled drive to a large, but somewhat inartistic,
Georgian house of red brick with long square windows. In parts the ivy
was trying to hide its terribly ugly architecture for around the deep
porch it grew thickly and spread around one corner of the building.

A ring at the door brought a young manservant whom the caller addressed
as Arthur, and, wishing him good afternoon, asked if Mrs. Bond were at
home.

“Yes, sir,” was the reply.

“Oh! good,” said the caller. “Just tell her I’m here.” And he proceeded
to remove his coat and to hang it up in the great flagged hall with the
air of one used to the house.

The Manor was a spacious, well-furnished place, full of good pictures
and much old oak furniture.

The servant passed along the corridor, and entering the drawing-room,
announced:

“Mr. Benton is here, ma’am.”

“Oh! Mr. Benton! Show him in,” cried his mistress enthusiastically.
“Show him in at once!”

Next moment the caller entered the fine, old-fashioned room, where a
well-preserved, fair-haired woman of about forty was taking her tea
alone and petting her Pekinese.

“Well, Charles? So you’ve discovered me here, eh?” she exclaimed,
jumping up and taking his hand.

“Yes, Molly. And you seem to have very comfortable quarters,” laughed
Benton as he threw himself unceremoniously into a chintz-covered
armchair.

“They are, I assure you.”

“And I suppose you’re quite a great lady in these parts--eh?--now that
you live at Shapley Manor. Where’s Louise?”

“She went up to town this morning. She won’t be back till after dinner.
She’s with her old school-fellow--that girl Bertha Trench.”

“Good. Then we can have a chat. I’ve several things to consult you about
and ask your opinion.”

“Have some tea first,” urged his good-looking hostess, pouring him some
into a Crown Derby cup.

“Well,” he commenced. “I think you’ve done quite well to take this
place, as you’ve done, for three years. You are now safely out of the
way. The Paris Surete are making very diligent inquiries, but the Surrey
Constabulary will never identify you with the lady of the Rue Racine. So
you are quite safe here.”

“Are you sure of that, Charles?” she asked, fixing her big grey eyes
upon him.

“Certain. It was the wisest course to get back here to England, although
you had to take a very round-about journey.”

“Yes. I got to Switzerland, then to Italy, and from Genoa took an Anchor
Line steamer across to New York. After that I came over to Liverpool,
and in the meantime I had become Mrs. Bond. Louise, of course, thought
we were travelling for pleasure. I had to explain my change of name by
telling her that I did not wish my divorced husband to know that I was
back in England.”

“And the girl believed it, of course,” he laughed.

“Of course. She believes anything I tell her,” said the clever,
unscrupulous woman for whom the Paris police were in active search,
whose real name was Molly Maxwell, and whose amazing career was well
known to the French police.

Only recently a sum of a quarter of a million francs had fallen into
her hands, and with it she now rented Shapley Manor and had set up as
a country lady. Benton gazed around the fine old room with its Adams
ceiling and its Georgian furniture, and reflected how different were
Molly’s present surroundings from that stuffy little flat _au troisieme_
in the Rue Racine.

“Yes,” he said. “You had a very narrow escape, Molly. I dared not come
near you, but I knew that you’d look after the girl.”

“Of course. I always look after her as though she were my own child.”

Benton’s lip curled as he sipped his China tea, and said:

“Because so much depends upon her--eh? I’m glad you view the situation
from a fair and proper stand-point. We’re now out for a big thing,
therefore we must not allow any little hitch to prevent us from bringing
it off successfully.”

“I quite agree, Charles. Our great asset is Louise. But she must be
innocent of it all. She must know absolutely nothing.”

“True. If she had an inkling that we were forcing her to marry Hugh she
would fiercely resent it. She’s a girl of spirit, after all.”

“My dear Charles, I know that,” laughed the woman. “Ever since she came
home from school I’ve noticed how independent she is. She certainly
has a will of her own. But she likes Hugh, and we must encourage it.
Recollect that a fortune is at stake.”

“I have not overlooked that,” the man said. “But of late I’ve come
to fear that we are treading upon thin ice. I don’t like the look of
affairs at the present moment. Young Henfrey is head over ears in love
with that girl Dorise Ranscomb, and--”

“Bah! It’s only a flirtation, my dear Charles,” laughed the woman.
“When just a little pressure is put upon the boy, and a sly hint to Lady
Ranscomb, then the affair will soon be off, and he’ll fall into Louise’s
arms. She’s really very fond of him.”

“She may be, but he takes no notice of her. She told me so the other
day. He’s gone to the Riviera--followed Dorise, I suppose,” Benton said.

“Yvonne wrote me a few days ago to say that he was there with a friend
of his named Walter Brock. Who’s he?”

“Oh! a naval lieutenant-commander who served in the war and was
invalided out after the Battle of Jutland. He got the D.S.O. over the
Falklands affair, and has now some post at the Admiralty. He was
in command of a torpedo boat which sank a German cruiser, and was
afterwards blown up.”

“They are both out at Monte Carlo, Yvonne says. And Henfrey is with
Dorise daily,” remarked the woman.

“Yvonne is always apprehensive lest young Henfrey should learn the
secret of the old fellow’s end,” said Benton. “But I don’t see how the
truth of the--well, rather ugly affair can ever come out, except by an
indiscretion by one or other of us.”

“And that is scarcely likely, Charles, is it?” his hostess laughed
as she pushed across to him a big silver box of cigarettes and then
reclined lazily among her cushions.

“No. It would certainly be a very sensational affair if the newspapers
got hold of the facts, my dear Molly. But don’t let us anticipate such a
thing. Fortunately Louise, in her girlish innocence, knows nothing. Old
Henfrey left his money to his son upon certain conditions, one of which
is that Hugh shall marry Louise. And that marriage must, at all hazards,
take place. After that, we care for nothing.”

The handsome woman who was rolling a cigarette between her
well-manicured fingers hesitated. Her countenance assumed a strange
look as she reflected. She was far too clever to express any off-hand
opinion. She had outwitted the police of Paris, Brussels, and Rome in
turn. Her whole career had been a criminal one, punctuated by periods of
pretended high respectability--while the funds to support it had lasted.
And upon her hands had been placed Louise Lambert, the child Charles
Benton had adopted ten years before.

“We shall have to exercise a good deal of discretion and caution in
regard to Louise,” she declared. “The affair is not at all so plain
sailing as I at first believed.”

“No. It is a serious contretemps that you had to leave Paris, Molly,”
 agreed her well-dressed visitor. “The young American was a fool, of
course, but I think--”

“Paris was flooded by rich young men from the United States who came
over to fight the Boche and to spend their money like water when on
leave in Paris. Frank was only one of them.”

Benton was silent. The affair was a distinctly unsavoury one. Frank van
Geen, the son of the Dutch-American millionaire cocoa manufacturer of
Chicago, had, by reason of his association with Molly, found himself the
poorer by nearly a quarter of a million francs, and his body had been
found in the Seine between the Pont d’Auteuil and the Ile St. Germain.
At the inquiry some ugly disclosures were made, but already the lady
of the Rue Racine and her supposed niece had left Paris; and though
the affair was one of suicide, the police raised a hue and cry, and the
frontiers had been watched, but the pair had disappeared.

That was several months ago. And now Molly Maxwell the adventuress in
Paris had been transformed into the wealthy and highly respectable widow
Mrs. Bond, who having presented such excellent references had become
tenant of that well-furnished mansion, Shapley Manor, and the beautiful
grounds adjoining. For nearly two centuries it had been the home of the
Puttenhams, but Sir George Puttenham, Baronet, the present owner, had
found himself ruined by war-taxation, and as one of the new poor he had
been glad to let the place and live upon the rent obtained for it. His
case, indeed, was only one of thousands of others in England, where
adventurers and war-profiteers were ousting the landed gentry.

“Yvonne is evidently keeping a good watch upon young Hugh,” remarked
Benton presently, as he blew a ring of cigarette smoke towards the
ceiling.

“Yes,” replied the woman, her eyes fixed out of the big window which
commanded a glorious view of Gibbet Hill, at Hindhead, and the blue
South Downs towards the English Channel. But all was dark and lowering
in the winter twilight, now fast darkening into night.

In old-world Guildford, the county town of Surrey, with its steep High
Street containing many seventeenth-century houses, its old inns, and its
balconied Guildhall--the scene of so many unseemly wrangles among the
robed and cocked-hatted borough councillors who are, _par excellence_,
outstanding illustrations of the provincial petty jealousies of
bumbledom--Mrs. Bond was welcomed by the trades-people who vied with
each other to “serve her.” Almost daily she went up and down the High
Street in her fine Rolls-Royce driven by Mead, an ex-soldier and a
worthy fellow whom she had engaged through an advertisement in the
_Surrey Advertiser_. He had been in the Queen’s West Surrey, and his
home being in Guildford, Molly knew that he would serve as a testimonial
to her high respectability. Molly Maxwell was an outstandingly
clever woman. She never let a chance slip by that might be taken
advantageously.

Mead, who went on his “push-bike” every evening along the Hog’s Back
to Guildford, was never tired of singing the praises of his generous
mistress.

“She’s a real good sort,” he would tell his friends in the bar of the
Lion or the Angel. “She knows how to treat a man. She’s a widow, and
good-looking. I suppose she’ll marry again. Nearly all the best people
about here have called on her within the last week or two. Magistrates
and their wives, retired generals, and lots of the gentry. Yes, my job
isn’t to be sneezed at, I can tell you. It’s better than driving a lorry
outside Ypres!”

Mrs. Bond treated Mead extremely well, and paid him well. She knew
that by so doing she would secure a good advertisement. She had done so
before, when four or five years ago she had lived at Keswick.

“Do you know, Charles,” she said presently, “I’m really very
apprehensive regarding the present situation. Yvonne is, no doubt,
keeping a watchful eye upon the young fellow. But what can she do if
he has followed the Ranscomb girl and is with her each day? Each day,
indeed, must bring the pair closer together, and--”

“That’s what we must prevent, my dear Molly!” exclaimed the lady’s
visitor. “Think of all it means to us. You are quite safe here--as safe
as I am to-day. But we can’t last out without money--either of us. We
must have cash-money--and cash-money always.”

“Yes. That’s so. But Yvonne is wonderful--amazing.”

“She hasn’t the same stake in the affair as we have.”

“Why not?” asked the woman for whom the European police were in search.

“Well, because she is rich--she’s won pots of money at the tables--and
we--well, both of us have only limited means. Yours, Molly, are larger
than mine--thanks to Frank. But I must have money soon. My expenses in
town are mounting up daily.”

“But your rooms don’t cost you very much! Old Mrs. Evans looks after
things as she has always done.”

“Yes. But everything is going up in price, and remember, I dare not
cross the Channel just now. At Calais, Boulogne, Cherbourg, and other
places, they have my photograph, and they are waiting for me to fall
into the trap. But the rat, once encaged, is shy! And I am very shy just
now,” he added with a light laugh.

“You’ll stay and have dinner, won’t you?” urged his hostess.

Benton hesitated.

“If I do Louise may return, and just now I don’t want to meet her. It is
better not.”

“But she won’t be back till the last train to Guildford. Mead is meeting
her. Yes--stay.”

“I must get a car to take me back to town. I have to go to Glasgow by
the early train in the morning.”

“Well, we’re order one from one of the garages in Guildford. You really
must stay, Charles. There’s lots we have to talk over--a lot of things
that are of vital consequence to us both.”

At that moment there came a rap at the door and the young manservant
entered, saying:

“You’re wanted on the telephone, ma’am.”

Mrs. Bond rose from the settee and went to the telephone in the library,
where she heard the voice of a female telephone operator.

“Is that Shapley Manor?” she asked. “I have a telegram for Mrs.
Bond. Handed in at Nice at two twenty-five, received here at four
twenty-eight. ‘To Bond, Shapley Manor, near Guildford. Yvonne shot by
some unknown person while with Hugh. In grave danger.--S.’ That is the
message. Have you got it please?”

Mrs. Bond held her breath.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Anything else?”

“No, madam,” replied the telephone operator at the Guildford Post
Office. “Nothing else. I will forward the duplicate by post.”

And she switched off.




SIXTH CHAPTER

FACING THE UNKNOWN

That the police were convinced that Hugh Henfrey had shot Mademoiselle
was plain.

Wherever he went an agent of detective police followed him. At the Cafe
de Paris as he took his aperitif on the _terrasse_ the man sat at a
table near, idly smoking a cigarette and glancing at an illustrated
paper on a wooden holder. In the gardens, in the Rooms, in the Galerie,
everywhere the same insignificant little man haunted him.

Soon after luncheon he met Dorise and her mother in the Rooms. With them
were the Comte d’Autun, an elegant young Frenchman, well known at the
tables, and Madame Tavera, a very chic person who was one of the most
admired visitors of that season. They were only idling and watching the
players at the end table, where a stout, bearded Russian was making some
sensational coups _en plein_.

Presently Hugh succeeded in getting Dorise alone.

“It’s awfully stuffy here,” he said. “Let’s go outside--eh?”

Together they descended the red-carpeted steps and out into the
palm-lined Place, at that hour thronged by the smartest crowd in Europe.
Indeed, the war seemed to have led to increased extravagance and daring
in the dress of those gay Parisiennes, those butterflies of fashion who
were everywhere along the Cote d’Azur.

They turned the corner by the Palais des Beaux Arts into the Boulevard
Peirara.

“Let’s walk out of the town,” he suggested to the girl. “I’m tired of
the place.”

“So am I, Hugh,” Dorise admitted. “For the first fortnight the unceasing
round of gaiety and the novelty of the Rooms are most fascinating, but,
after that, one seems cooped up in an atmosphere of vicious unreality.
One longs for the open air and open country after this enervating,
exotic life.”

So when they arrived at the little church of Ste. Devote, the patron
saint of Monaco, that little building which everyone knows standing at
the entrance to that deep gorge the Vallon des Gaumates, they descended
the steep, narrow path which runs beside the mountain torrent and were
soon alone in the beautiful little valley where the grey-green olives
overhang the rippling stream. The little valley was delightfully quiet
and rural after the garish scenes in Monte Carlo, the cosmopolitan
chatter, and the vulgar display of the war-rich. The old habitue of
pre-war days lifts his hands as he watches the post-war life around the
Casino and listens to the loud uneducated chatter of the profiteer’s
womenfolk.

As the pair went along in the welcome shadows, for the sun fell strong
upon the tumbling stream, Hugh was remarking upon it.

He had been at Monte Carlo with his father before the war, and realized
the change.

“I only wish mother would move on,” Dorise exclaimed as they strolled
slowly together.

She presented a dainty figure in cream gabardine and a broad-brimmed
straw hat which suited her admirably. Her clothes were made by a certain
famous _couturiere_ in Hanover Square, for Lady Ranscomb had the art of
dressing her daughter as well as she did herself. Gowns make the lady
nowadays, or the fashionable dressmakers dare not make their exorbitant
charges.

“Then you also are tired of the place?” asked Hugh, as he strolled
slowly at her side in a dark-blue suit and straw hat. They made a
handsome pair, and were indeed well suited to each other. Lady Ranscomb
liked Hugh, but she had no idea that the young people had fallen so
violently in love with each other.

“Yes,” said the girl. “Mother promised to spend Easter in Florence.
I’ve never been there and am looking forward to it so much. The Marchesa
Ruggeri, whom we met at Harrogate last summer, has a villa there,
and has invited us for Easter. But mother said this morning that she
preferred to remain here.”

“Why?”

“Oh! Somebody in the hotel has put her off. An old Englishwoman who
lives in Florence told her that there’s nothing to see beyond the
Galleries, and that the place is very catty.”

Hugh laughed and replied:

“All British colonies in Continental cities are catty, my dear Dorise.
They say that for scandal Florence takes the palm. I went there for two
seasons in succession before the war, and found the place delightful.”

“The Marchesa is a charming woman. Her husband was an attache at the
Italian Embassy in Paris. But he has been transferred to Washington, so
she has gone back to Florence. I like her immensely, and I do so want to
visit her.”

“Oh, you must persuade your mother to take you,” he said. “She’ll be
easily persuaded.”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t like travelling in Italy. She once had her
dressing-case stolen from the train between Milan and Genoa, so she’s
always horribly bitter against all Italians.”

“There are thieves also on English railways, Dorise,” Hugh remarked.
“People are far too prone to exaggerate the shortcomings of foreigners,
and close their eyes to the faults of the British.”

“But everybody is not so cosmopolitan as you are, Hugh,” the girl
laughed, raising her eyes to those of her lover.

“No,” he replied with a sigh.

“Why do you sigh?” asked the girl, having noticed a change in her
companion ever since they had met in the Rooms. He seemed strangely
thoughtful and preoccupied.

“Did I?” he asked, suddenly pulling himself together. “I didn’t know,”
 he added with a forced laugh.

“You don’t look yourself to-day, Hugh,” she said.

“I’ve been told that once before,” he replied. “The weather--I think!
Are you going over to the _bal blanc_ at Nice to-night?”

“Of course. And you are coming also. Hasn’t mother asked you?” she
inquired in surprise.

“No.”

“How silly! She must have forgotten. She told me she intended to ask you
to have a seat in the car. The Comte d’Autun is coming with us.”

“Ah! He admires you, Dorise, hence I don’t like him,” Hugh blurted
forth.

“But, surely, you’re not jealous, you dear old thing!” laughed the girl,
tantalizing him. Perhaps she would not have uttered those words which
cut deeply into his heart had she known the truth concerning the tragedy
at the Villa Amette.

“I don’t like him because he seems to live by gambling,” Hugh declared.
“I know your mother likes him very much--of course!”

“And she likes you, too, dear.”

“She may like me, but I fear she begins to suspect that we love each
other, dearest,” he said in a hard tone. “If she does, she will take
care in future to keep us apart, and I--I shall lose you, Dorise!”

“No--no, you won’t.”

“Ah! But I shall! Your mother will never allow you to marry a man who
has only just sufficient to rub along with, and who is already in debt
to his tailor. What hope is there that we can ever marry?”

“My dear Hugh, you are awfully pessimistic to-day,” the girl cried.
“What is up with you? Have you lost heavily at the tables--or what?”

“No. I have been thinking of the future,” he said in a hard voice so
very unusual to him. “I am thinking of your mother’s choice of a husband
for you--George Sherrard.”

“I hate him--the egotistical puppy!” exclaimed the girl, her fine eyes
flashing with anger. “I’ll never marry him--_never_!”

But Hugh Henfrey made no reply, and they went on together in silence.

“Cannot you trust me, Hugh?” asked the girl at last in a low earnest
tone.

“Yes, dearest. I trust you, of course. But I feel certain that your
mother, when she knows our secret, will forbid your seeing me, and press
on your marriage with Sherrard. Remember, he’s a rich man, and your
mother adores the Golden Calf.”

“I know she does. If people have money she wants to know them. Her first
inquiry is whether they have money.”

It was on the tip of Hugh’s tongue to remark with sarcasm that such
ideals might well be expected of the wife of a jerry-builder in Golder’s
green. But he hesitated. Lady Ranscomb was always well disposed towards
him, and he had had many good times at her house and on the grouse
moor she rented in Scotland each year for the benefit of her intimate
friends. Though she had been the wife of a small builder and had
commenced her married life in an eight-roomed house on the fringe of
Hampstead Heath, yet she had picked up society manners marvellously
well, being a woman of quick intelligence and considerable wit.
Nevertheless, she had no soul above money, and gaiety was as life to
her. She could not live without it. Dorise had been given an excellent
education, and after three years at Versailles was now voted one of the
prettiest and most charming girls in London society. Hence mother and
daughter were sought after everywhere, and their doings were constantly
being chronicled in the newspapers.

“Yes,” he said. “Your mother has not asked me over to Nice to-night
because she believes you and I have been too much together of late.”

“No,” declared Dorise. “I’m sure it’s not that, Hugh--I’m quite sure!
It’s simply an oversight. I’ll see about it when we get back. We leave
the hotel at half-past nine. It is the great White Ball of the Nice
season.”

“Please don’t mention it to her on any account, Dorise,” Hugh urged. “If
you did it would at once show her that you preferred my company to that
of the Count. Go with him. I shan’t be jealous! Besides, in view of
my financial circumstances, what right have I to be jealous? You can’t
marry a fellow like myself, Dorise. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

The girl halted. In her eyes shone the light of unshed tears.

“Hugh! What do you mean? What are you saying?” she asked in a low,
faltering voice. “Have I not told you that whatever happens I shall
never love another man but yourself?”

He drew a long breath, and without replying placed his strong arms
around her and, drawing her to him, kissed her passionately upon the
lips.

“Thank you, my darling,” he murmured. “Thank you for those words. They
put into me a fresh hope, a fresh determination, and a fearlessness--oh!
you--you don’t know!” he added in a low, earnest voice.

“All I know, Hugh, is that you love me,” was the simple response as she
reciprocated his fierce caress.

“Love you, darling!” he cried. “Yes. You are mine--mine!”

“True, Hugh. I love no other man. I hate that tailor’s dummy, George
Sherrard, and as for the Count--well, he’s an idiotic Frenchman--the
‘hardy annual of Monte Carlo’ I heard him called the other day. No,
Hugh, I assure you that you have no cause for jealousy.”

And she smiled sweetly into his eyes.

They were standing together beneath a twisted old olive tree through the
dark foliage of which the sun shone in patches, while by their feet the
mountain torrent from the high, snow-clad Alps rippled and splashed over
the great grey boulders towards the sea.

“I know it, darling! I know it,” Hugh said in a stifled voice. He was
thinking of the tragedy of that night, but dare not disclose to her his
connexion with it, because he knew the police suspected him of making
that murderous attack upon the famous “Mademoiselle.”

“Forgive me, Hugh,” exclaimed the girl, still clasped in her lover’s
arms. “But somehow you don’t seem your old self to-day. What is the
matter? Can’t you tell me?”

He drew a long breath.

“No, darling. Excuse me. I--I’m a bit upset that’s all.”

“Why?”

“I’m upset because for the last day or two I have begun to realize that
our secret must very soon come out, and then--well, your mother will
forbid me the house because I have no money. You know that she worships
Mammon always--just as your father did--forgive me for my words.”

“I do forgive you because you speak the truth,” Dorise replied. “I know
that mother wants me to marry a rich man, and--”

“And she will compel you to do so, darling. I am convinced of that.”

“She won’t!” cried the girl. “I will never marry a man I do not love!”

“Your mother, if she doesn’t suspect our compact, will soon do so,” he
said. “She’s a clever woman. She is on the alert, because she intends
you to marry soon, and to marry a rich man.”

“Mother is far too fond of society, I admit. She lives only for her gay
friends now that father is dead. She spends lavishly upon luncheons and
dinners at the Ritz, the Carlton, and Claridge’s; and by doing so we get
to know all the best people. But what does it matter to me? I hate it
all because----”

And she looked straight into his eyes as she broke off.

“Because,” she whispered, “because--because I love you, Hugh!”

“Ah! darling! You have never been so frank with me before,” he said
softly. “You do not know how much those words of yours mean to me! You
do not know how all my life, all my hopes, all my future, is centred
in your own dear self!” and clasping her again tightly in his arms he
pressed his lips fondly to hers in a long passionate embrace.

Yet within the stout heart of Hugh Henfrey, who was so straight, honest
and upright a young fellow as ever trod the Broad at Oxford, lay that
ghastly secret--indeed, a double secret--that of his revered father’s
mysterious end and the inexplicable attack upon Yvonne Ferad at the very
moment when he had been about to learn the truth.

They lingered there beside the mountain stream for a long time, until
the sun sank and the light began to fail. Again and again he told her of
his great love for her, but he said nothing of the strange clause in his
father’s will. She knew Louise Lambert, having met her once walking in
the park with her lover. Hugh had introduced them, and had afterwards
explained that the girl was the adopted daughter of a great friend of
his father.

Dorise little dreamed that if her lover married her he would inherit the
remainder of old Mr. Henfrey’s fortune.

“Do come over to the ball at Nice to-night,” the girl urged presently as
they stood with hands clasped gazing into each other’s eyes. “It will be
nothing without you.”

“Ah! darling, that’s very nice of you to say so, but I think we ought to
be discreet. Your mother has invited the Count to go with you.”

“I hate him!” Dorise declared. “He’s all elegance, bows and flattery. He
bores me to death.”

“I can quite understand that. But your mother is fond of his society.
She declares that he is so amusing, and in Paris he knows everyone worth
knowing.”

“Oh, yes. He gave us an awfully good time in Paris last season--took us
to Longchamps, and we afterwards went to Deauville with him. He wins and
loses big sums on the turf.”

“A born gambler. Everyone knows that. I heard a lot about him in the
Travellers’ Club, in Paris.”

“But if mother telephones to you, you’ll come with us--won’t you?”
 entreated the girl again.

The young man hesitated. His mind was full of the tragic affair of
the previous night. He was wondering whether the end had come--whether
Mademoiselle’s lips were already sealed by Death.

He gave an evasive reply, whereupon Dorise, taking his hand in hers,
said:

“What is your objection to going out with us to-night, Hugh? Do tell me.
If you don’t wish me to go, I’ll make an excuse to mother and she can
take the Count.”

“I have not the slightest objection,” he declared at once. “Go,
dearest--only leave me out of it. The _bal blanc_ is always good fun.”

“I shall not go if you refuse to go,” she said with a pout.

Therefore in order to please her he consented--providing Lady Ranscomb
invited him.

They had wandered a long way up the narrow, secluded valley, but had met
not a soul. All was delightful and picturesque, the profusion of wild
flowers, the huge grey moss-grown boulders, the overhanging ilexes and
olives, and the music of the tumbling current through a crooked course
worn deep by the waters of primeval ages.

It was seldom that in the whirl of society the pair could get a couple
of hours together without interruption. And under the blue Riviera sky
they were indeed fraught with bliss to both.

When they returned to the town the dusk was already falling, and the
great arc lamps along the terrace in front of the Casino were already
lit. Hugh took her as far as the entrance to the Metropole and then,
after wishing her au revoir and promising to go with her to Nice if
invited, he hastily retraced his steps to the Palmiers. Five minutes
later he was speaking to the old Italian at the Villa Amette.

“Mademoiselle is still unconscious, m’sieur,” was the servant’s reply to
his eager inquiry. “The doctors have been several times this afternoon,
but they hold out no hope.”

“I wonder if I can be of any assistance?” Hugh asked in French.

“I think not, m’sieur. What assistance can any of us give poor
Mademoiselle?”

Ah, what indeed, Hugh thought as he put down the receiver.

Yet while she lived, there was still a faint hope that he would be
able to learn the secret which he anticipated would place him in such a
position that he might defy those who had raised their hands against his
father and himself.

His marriage with Dorise, indeed his whole future, depended upon the
disclosure of the clever plot whereby Louise Lambert was to become his
wife.

His friend Brock was not in the hotel, so he went to his room to
dress for dinner. Ten minutes later a page brought a message from Lady
Ranscomb inviting him to go over to Nice to the ball.

He drew a long breath. He was in no mood for dancing that night, for he
was far too perturbed regarding the critical condition of the notorious
woman who had turned his friend.

On every hand there were whispers and wild reports concerning the
tragedy at the Villa Amette. He had heard about it from a dozen people,
though not a word was in the papers. Yet nobody dreamed that he, of all
men, had been present when the mysterious shot was fired, or that he
was, indeed, the cause of the secret attack.

He dressed slowly, and having done so, descended to the _salle a
manger_. The big white room was filled with a gay, reckless cosmopolitan
crowd--the crowd of well-dressed moths of both sexes which eternally
flutters at night at Monte Carlo, attracted by the candle held by the
great god Hazard.

Brock was not there, and he seated himself alone at their table near
the long-curtained window. He was surprised at his friend’s absence.
Perhaps, however, he had met friends and gone over to Beaulieu, Nice, or
Mentone with them.

He had but little appetite. He ate a small portion of langouste with an
exquisite salad, and drank a single glass of chablis. Then he rose
and quitted the chattering, laughing crowd of diners, whose gossip was
mainly upon a sensational run on the red at five o’clock that evening.
One woman, stout and of Hebrew type, sitting with three men, was wildly
merry, for she had won the equivalent to sixty thousand pounds.

All that recklessness jarred upon the young man’s nerves. He tried to
close his ears to it all, and ascended again to his room, where he
sat in silent despondency till it was time for him to go round to the
Metropole to join Lady Ranscomb and Dorise.

He had brushed his hair and rearranged his tie, and was about to put on
the pierrot’s costume of white satin with big buttons of black velvet
which he had worn at the _bal blanc_ at Mentone about a week before,
when the page handed him another note.

Written in a distinctly foreign hand, it read:


“Instantly you receive this get into a travelling-suit and put what
money and valuables you have into your pockets. Then go to a dark-green
car which will await you by the reservoir in the Boulevard du Midi.
Trust the driver. You must get over the frontier into Italy at the
earliest moment. Every second’s delay is dangerous to you. Do not
trouble to find out who sends you this warning! _Bon voyage!_”


Hugh Henfrey read it and re-read it. The truth was plain. The police
of Monaco suspected him, and intended that he should be arrested on
suspicion of having committed the crime.

But who was his unknown friend?

He stood at the window reflecting. If he did not keep his appointment
with Dorise she would reproach him for breaking his word to her. On the
other hand, if he motored to Nice he would no doubt be arrested on the
French frontier a few miles along the Corniche road.

Inspector Ogier suspected him, hence discretion was the better part of
valour. So, after brief consideration, he threw off his dress clothes
and assumed a suit of dark tweed. He put his money and a few articles of
jewellry in his pockets, and getting into his overcoat he slipped out of
the hotel by the back entrance used by the staff.

Outside, he walked in the darkness along the Boulevard du Nord, past the
Turbie station, until he came to the long blank wall behind which lay
the reservoir.

At the kerb he saw the dim red rear-light of a car, and almost at the
same moment a rough-looking Italian chauffeur approached him.

“Quick, signore!” he whispered excitedly. “Every moment is full of
danger. There is a warrant out for your arrest! The police know that
you intended to go to Nice and they are watching for you on the Corniche
road. But we will try to get into Italy. You are an invalid, remember!
You’ll find in the car a few things with which you can make up to look
the part. You are an American subject and a cripple, who cannot leave
the car when the customs officers search it. Now, signore, let’s be off
and trust to our good fortune in getting away. I will tell the officers
of the _dogana_ at Ventimiglia a good story--trust me! I haven’t been
smuggling backwards and forwards for ten years without knowing the
ropes!”

“But where are we going?” asked Hugh bewildered.

“You, signore, are going to prison if we fail on this venture, I fear,”
 was the rough-looking driver’s reply.

So urged by him Hugh got into the car, and then they drove swiftly along
the sea-road of the littoral towards the rugged Italian frontier.

Hugh Henfrey was going forth to face the unknown.




SEVENTH CHAPTER

FROM DARK TO DAWN

In the darkness the car went swiftly through Mentone and along the steep
winding road which leads around the rugged coast close to the sea--the
road over the yellow rocks which Napoleon made into Italy.

Presently they began to ascend a hill, a lonely, wind-swept highway with
the sea plashing deep below, when, after a sudden bend, some lights came
into view. It was the wayside Italian Customs House.

They had arrived at the frontier.

Hugh, by the aid of a flash-lamp, had put on a grey moustache and
changed his clothes, putting his own into the suit case wherein he had
found the suit already prepared for him. He had wrapped himself up in
a heavy travelling-rug, and by his side reposed a pair of crutches, so
that when they drew up before the little roadside office of the Italian
_dogana_ he was reclining upon a cushion presenting quite a pathetic
figure.

But who had made all these preparations for his flight?

He held his breath as the chauffeur sounded his horn to announce his
arrival. Then the door opened, shedding a long ray of light across the
white dusty road.

“_Buona sera, signore_!” cried the chauffeur merrily, as a Customs
officer in uniform came forward. “Here’s my driving licence and papers
for the car. And our two passports.”

The man took them, examined them by the light of his electric torch, and
told the chauffeur to go into the office for the visas.

“Have you anything to declare?” he added in Italian.

“Half a dozen very bad cigarettes,” replied the other, laughing.
“They’re French! And also I’ve got a very bad cold! No duty on that, I
suppose?”

The officer laughed, and then turned his attention to the petrol tank,
into which he put his measuring iron to see how much it contained, while
the facetious chauffeur stood by.

During this operation two other men came out of the building, one an
Italian carabineer in epaulettes and cocked hat, while the other, tall
and shrewd-faced, was in mufti. The latter was the agent of French
police who inspects all travellers leaving France by road.

The chauffeur realized that the moment was a critical one.

He was rolling a cigarette unconcernedly, but bending to the Customs
officer, he said in a low voice:

“My _padrone_ is an _Americano_. An invalid, and a bit eccentric. Lots
of money. A long time ago he injured his spine and can hardly move.
He fell down a few days ago, and now I’ve got to take him to Professor
Landrini, in Turin. He’s pretty bad. We’ve come from Hyeres. His doctor
ordered me to take him to Turin at once. We don’t want any delay. He
told me to give you this,” and he slipped a note for a hundred lire into
the man’s hand.

The officer expressed surprise, but the merry chauffeur of the rich
American exclaimed:

“Don’t worry. The _Americano_ is very rich; I only wish there were more
of his sort about. He’s the great Headon, the meat-canner of Chicago.
You see his name on the tins.”

The man recognized the name, and at once desisted in his examination.

Then to the two police officers who came to his side, he explained:

“The American gentleman inside is an invalid, going to Turin to
Professor Landrini. He wants to get off at once, for he has a long
journey over the Alps.”

The French agent of police grunted suspiciously. Both the French and
Italian police are very astute, but money always talks. It is the same
at a far-remote frontier station as in any circle of society.

Here was a well-known American--the Customs officer had mentioned the
name of Headon, which both police officers recognized--an invalid sent
with all haste to the famous surgeon in Turin. It was not likely that he
would be carrying contraband, or be an escaping criminal.

Besides, the chauffeur, in full view of the two police agents, slipped a
second note into the hand of the Customs officer, and said:

“So all is well, isn’t it, signori? Just visa my papers, and we’ll get
along. It looks as though we’re to have a bad thunderstorm, and, if so,
we shall catch it up on the Col di Tenda!”

Thus impelled, the quartette went back to the well-lit little building,
where the beetle-browed driver again chaffed the police-agents, while
the Customs officer placed his rubber stamp upon the paper, scribbled
his initials and charged three-lire-twenty as fee.

All this was being watched with breathless anxiety by the supposed
invalid reclining against the cushion with his crutches at his side.

Again the mysterious chauffeur reappeared, and with him the French
police officer in plain clothes.

“We are keeping watch for a young Englishman from Monte Carlo who has
shot a woman,” remarked the latter.

“Oh! But they arrested him to-night in Mentone,” replied the driver. “I
heard it half an hour ago as I came through.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, they told me so at the Garage Grimaldi. He shot a woman known as
Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo--didn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s the man! But they have not informed us yet. I’ll telephone
to Mentone.” Then he added: “As a formality I’ll just have a peep at
your master.”

The chauffeur held his breath.

“He’s pretty bad, I think. I hope we shall be in Turin early in the
morning.”

Advancing to the car, the police officer opened the door and flashed his
torch upon the occupant.

He saw a pale, elderly man, with a grey moustache, wearing a golf cape
and reclining uneasily upon the pillow, with his leg propped up and
wrapped with a heavy travelling-rug. Upon the white countenance was an
expression of pain as he turned wearily, his eyes dazzled by the sudden
light.

“Where are we?” he asked faintly in English.

“At the Italian _douane_, m’sieur,” was the police officer’s reply, as
for a few seconds he gazed upon the invalid’s face, seconds that seemed
hours to Hugh. He was, of course, unaware of the cock-and-bull story
which his strange chauffeur had told, and feared that at any moment he
might find himself under arrest.

While the door remained open there was danger. At last, however, the man
reclosed it.

Hugh’s heart gave a great bound. The chauffeur had restarted the engine,
and mounting to the wheel shouted a merry:

“_Buona notte, signori_!”

Then the car moved away along the winding road and Hugh knew that he was
on Italian soil--that he had happily escaped from France.

But why had he escaped, he reflected? He was innocent. Would not his
flight lend colour to the theory that Yvonne Ferad had been shot by his
hand?

Again, who was his unknown friend who had warned him of his peril and
made those elaborate arrangements for his escape? Besides, where was
Walter?

His brain was awhirl. As they tore along in the darkness ever beside
the sea over that steep and dangerous road along the rock coast, Hugh
Henfrey fell to wondering what the motive of it all could be. Why had
Yvonne been shot just at that critical moment? It was evident that she
had been closely watched by someone to whom her silence meant a very
great deal.

She had told him that his father had been a good man, and she was on
the point of disclosing to him the great secret when she had been struck
down.

What was the mystery of it all? Ay, what indeed?

He recalled every incident of that fateful night, her indignation at his
presence in her house, and her curious softening of manner towards him,
as though repentant and ready to make amends.

Then he wondered what Dorise would think when he failed to put in an
appearance to go with her to the ball at Nice. He pictured the car
waiting outside the hotel, Lady Ranscomb fidgeting and annoyed, the
count elegant and all smiles and graces, and Dorise, anxious and eager,
going to the telephone and speaking to the concierge at the Palmiers.
Then inquiry for Monsieur Henfrey, and the discovery that he had left
the hotel unseen.

So far Dorise knew nothing of Hugh’s part in the drama of the Villa
Amette, but suddenly he was horrified by the thought that the police,
finding he had escaped, would question her. They had been seen together
many times in Monte Carlo, and the eyes of the police of Monaco are
always very wide open. They know much, but are usually inactive. When
one recollects that all the _escrocs_ of Europe gather at the _tapis
vert_ in winter and spring, it is not surprising that they close their
eyes to such minor crimes as theft, blackmail and false pretences.

In his excited and unnerved state, he pictured Ogier calling upon Lady
Ranscomb and questioning her closely concerning her young English friend
who was so frequently seen with her daughter. That would, surely,
end their friendship! Lady Ranscomb would never allow her daughter to
associate further with a man accused of attempting to murder a notorious
woman after midnight!

The car presently descended the steep rocky road which wound up over the
promontory and back again down to the sea, until they passed through the
little frontier town of Ventimiglia.

It was late, and few people were about in the narrow, ill-lit streets.

Suddenly, a couple of Italian carabineers stopped the car.

Hugh’s heart beat quickly. Had they at the _dogana_ discovered the trick
and telephoned from the frontier?

Instantly the fugitive reassumed his role of invalid, and no sooner had
he settled himself than the second man in a cocked hat and heavy black
cloak opened the door and peered within.

Another lamp was flashed upon his face.

The carabineer asked in Italian:

“What is your name, signore?”

But Hugh, pretending that he did not understand the language, asked:

“Eh? What?”

“Here are our papers, signore,” interrupted the ever-ready chauffeur,
and he produced the papers for the officer’s inspection.

He looked at them, bending to read them by the light of the torch which
his companion held.

Then, after an officious gesture, he handed them back, saying:

“_Benissimo_! You may pass!”

Again Hugh was free! Yet he wondered if that examination had been
consequent upon the hue and cry set up now that he had escaped from
Monaco.

They passed out of the straggling town of Ventimiglia, but instead of
turning up the valley by that long road which winds up over the Alps
until it reaches the snow and then passes through the tunnel on the Col
di Tenda and on to Cuneo and Turin, the mysterious driver kept on by the
sea-road towards Bordighera.

Hugh realised that his guide’s intention was to go in the direction of
Genoa.

About two miles out of Ospedaletti, on the road to San Remo, Henfrey
rapped at the window, and the chauffeur, who was travelling at high
speed, pulled up.

Hugh got out and said in French:

“Well, so far we’ve been successful. I admire your ingenuity and your
pluck.”

The man laughed and thanked him.

“I have done what I was told to do,” he replied simply. “Monsieur is, I
understand, in a bit of a scrape, and it is for all of us to assist each
other--is it not?”

“Of course. But who told you to do all this?” Hugh inquired, standing in
the dark road beside the car. The pair could not see each other’s faces,
though the big head-lamps glared far ahead over the white road.

“Well--a friend of yours, m’sieur.”

“What is his name?”

“Pardon, I am not allowed to say.”

“But all this is so very strange--so utterly mysterious!” cried Hugh.
“I have not committed any crime, and yet I am hunted by the police!
They are anxious to arrest me for an offence of which I am entirely
innocent.”

“I know that, m’sieur,” was the fellow’s reply. “At the _dogana_,
however, we had a narrow escape. The man who looked at you was Morain,
the chief inspector of the Surete of the Alpes-Maritimes, and he was at
the outpost especially to stop you!”

“Again I admire your perfect nonchalance and ingenuity,” Hugh said. “I
owe my liberty entirely to you.”

“Not liberty, m’sieur. We are not yet what you say in English ‘out of
the wood.’”

“Where are we going now?”

“To Genoa. We ought to be there by early morning,” was the reply.
“Morain has, no doubt, telephoned to Mentone and discovered that my
story is false. So if later, on, they suspect the American invalid
they will be looking out for him on the Col di Tenda, in Cuneo, and in
Turin.”

“And what shall we do in Genoa?”

“Let us get there first--and see.”

“But I wish you would tell me who you are--and why you take such a keen
interest in my welfare,” Hugh said.

The man gave vent to an irritating laugh.

“I am not permitted to disclose the identity of your friend,” he
answered. “All I know is that you are innocent.”

“Then perhaps you know the guilty person?” Hugh suggested.

“Ah! Let us talk of something else, signore,” was the mysterious
chauffeur’s reply.

“But I confess to you that I am bent upon solving the mystery of
Mademoiselle’s assailant. It means a very great deal to me.”

“How?” asked the man.

Hugh hesitated.

“Well,” he replied. “If the culprit is found, then there would no longer
be any suspicion against myself.”

“Probably he never will be found,” the man said.

“But tell me, how did you know about the affair, and why are you risking
arrest by driving me to-night?”

“I have reasons,” was all he would say. “I obey the demands of those who
are your friends.”

“Who are they?”

“They desire to conceal their identity. There is a strong reason why
this should be done.”

“Why?”

“Are they not protecting one who is suspected of a serious crime? If
discovered they would be punished,” was the quiet response.

“Ah! There is some hidden motive behind all this!” declared the young
Englishman. “I rather regret that I did not remain and face the music.”

“It would have been far too dangerous, signore. Your enemies would have
contrived to convict you of the crime.”

“My enemies--but who are they?”

“Of that, signore, I am ignorant. Only I have been told that you have
enemies, and very bitter ones.”

“But I have committed no crime, and yet I am a fugitive from justice!”
 Hugh cried.

“You escaped in the very nick of time,” the man replied. “But had we not
better be moving again? We must be in Genoa by daybreak.”

“But do, I beg of you, tell me more,” the young man implored. “To whom
do I owe my liberty?”

“As I have already told you, signore, you owe it to those who intend to
protect you from a false charge.”

“Yes. But there is a lady in the case,” Hugh said. “I fear that if she
hears that I am a fugitive she will misjudge me and believe me to be
guilty.”

“Probably so. That is, I admit, unfortunate--but, alas! it cannot be
avoided. It was, however, better for you to get out of France.”

“But the French police, when they know that I have escaped, will
probably ask the Italian police to arrest me, and then apply for my
extradition.”

“If they did, I doubt whether you would be surrendered. The police of my
country are not too fond of assisting those of other countries. Thus if
an Italian commits murder in a foreign country and gets back to Italy,
our Government will refuse to give him up. There have been many such
cases, and the murderer goes scot free.”

“Then you think I am safe in Italy?”

“Oh, no, not by any means. You are not an Italian subject. No, you must
not be very long in Italy.”

“But what am I to do when we get to Genoa?” Hugh asked.

“The signore had better wait until we arrive there,” was the driver’s
enigmatical reply.

Then the supposed invalid re-entered the car and they continued on
their way along the bleak, storm-swept road beside the sea towards that
favourite resort of the English, San Remo.

The night had grown pitch dark, and rain had commenced to fall. Before
the car the great head-lamps threw long beams of white light against
which Hugh saw the silhouette of the muffled-up mysterious driver, with
his keen eyes fixed straight before him, and driving at such a pace that
it was apparent that he knew every inch of the dangerous road.

What could it all mean? What, indeed?




EIGHTH CHAPTER

THE WHITE CAVALIER

While Hugh Henfrey was travelling along that winding road over high
headlands and down steep gradients to the sea which stretched the whole
length of the Italian Riviera, Dorise Ranscomb in a white silk domino
and black velvet mask was pretending to enjoy herself amid the mad
gaiety at the Casino in Nice.

The great _bal blanc_ is always one of the most important events of the
Nice season, and everyone of note wintering on the Riviera was there,
yet all carefully masked, both men and women.

“I wonder what prevented Hugh from coming with us, mother?” the girl
remarked as she sat with Lady Ranscomb watching the merriment and the
throwing of serpentines and confetti.

“I don’t know. He certainly ought to have let me know, and not have kept
me waiting nearly half an hour, as he did,” her mother snapped.

The girl did not reply. The truth was that while her mother and the
Count had been waiting for Hugh’s appearance, she had gone to the
telephone and inquired for Mr. Henfrey. Walter Brock had spoken to her.

“I’m awfully sorry, Miss Ranscomb,” he had replied. “But I don’t know
where Hugh can be. I’ve just been up to his room, but his fancy dress is
there, flung down as though he had suddenly discarded it and gone out.
Nobody noticed him leave. The page at the door is certain that he did
not go out. So he must have left by the staff entrance.”

“That’s very curious, isn’t it?” Dorise remarked.

“Very. I can’t understand it.”

“But he promised to go with us to the ball at Nice to-night!”

“Well, Miss Ranscomb, all I can think is that something--something very
important must have detained him somewhere.”

Walter knew that his friend was suspected by the police, but dared not
tell her the truth. Hugh’s disappearance had caused him considerable
anxiety because, for aught he knew, he might already be arrested.

So Dorise, much perplexed, but resolving not to say to her mother that
she had telephoned to the Palmiers, rejoined the Count in the hotel
lounge, where they waited a further ten minutes. Then they entered the
car and drove along to Nice.

There are few merrier gatherings in all Europe than the _bal blanc_. The
Municipal Casino, at all times the center of revelry, of mild gambling,
smart dresses and gay suppers, is on that night an amazing spectacle of
black and white. The carnival colours--the two shades of colour chosen
yearly by the International Fetes Committee--are abandoned, and only
white is worn.

When the trio entered the fun was already in full swing. The gay crowd
disguised by their masks and fancy costumes were revelling as happily
as school children. A party of girls dressed as clowns were playing
leap-frog. Another party were dancing in a great and ever-widening
ring. Girls armed with jesters’ bladders were being carried high on the
shoulders of their male acquaintances, and striking all and sundry as
they passed, staid, elderly folk were performing grotesque antics
for persons of their age. The very air of the Riviera seems to be
exhilarating to both old and young, and the constant church-goers
at home quickly become infected by the spirit of gaiety, and conduct
themselves on the Continental Sabbath in a manner which would horribly
disgust their particular vicar.

“Hugh must have been detained by something very unexpected, mother,”
 Dorise said. “He never disappoints us.”

“Oh, yes, he does. One night we were going to the Embassy Club--don’t
you recollect it--and he never turned up.”

“Oh, well, mother. It was really excusable. His cousin arrived from New
York quite unexpectedly upon some family business. He phoned to you and
explained,” said the girl.

“Well, what about that night when I asked him to dinner at the Ritz to
meet the Courtenays and he rang up to say he was not well? Yet I saw him
hale and hearty next day at a matinee at the Comedy.”

“He may have been indisposed, mother,” Dorise said. “Really I think you
judge him just a little too harshly.”

“I don’t. I take people as I find them. Your father always said that,
and he was no fool, my dear. He made a fortune by his cleverness, and we
now enjoy it. Never associate with unsuccessful persons. It’s fatal!”

“That’s just what old Sir Dudley Ash, the steel millionaire, told me the
other day when we were over at Cannes, mother. Never associate with the
unlucky. Bad luck, he says, is a contagious malady.”

“And I believe it--I firmly believe it,” declared Lady Ranscomb. “Your
poor father pointed it out to me long ago, and I find that what he said
is too true.”

“But we can’t all be lucky, mother,” said the girl, watching the revelry
before her blankly as she reflected upon the mystery of Hugh’s absence.

“No. But we can, nevertheless, be rich, if we look always to the
main chance and make the best of our opportunities,” her mother said
meaningly.

At that moment the Count d’Autun approached them. He was dressed as a
pierrot, but being masked was only recognizable by the fine ruby ring
upon his finger.

“Will mademoiselle do me the honour?” he said in French, bowing
elegantly. “They are dancing in the theatre. Will you come, Mademoiselle
Dorise?”

“Delighted,” she said, with an inward sigh, for the dressed-up Parisian
always bored her. She rose quickly, and promising her mother to be back
soon, she linked her arm to that of the notorious gambler and passed
through the great palm-court into the theatre.

Then, a few moments later, she found herself carried around amid the
mad crowd of revellers, who laughed merrily as the coloured serpentines
thrown from the boxes fell upon them.

To lift one’s _loup_ was a breach of etiquette. Everyone was closely
masked. British members of Parliament, French senators, Italian members
of the Camera, Spanish grandees and Russian princes, all with their
womenfolk, hob-nobbed with cocottes, _escrocs_, and the most
notorious adventurers and adventuresses in all Europe. Truly, it was a
never-to-be-forgotten scene of cosmopolitan fun.

The Count, who was a bad dancer, collided with a slim, well-dressed
French girl, but did not apologize.

“Oh! la la!” cried the girl to her partner, a stout figure in
Mephistophelian garb. “An exquisitely polite gentleman that, mon cher
Alphonse! I believe he must really be the Pork King from Chicago--eh?”

The Count heard it, and was furious. Dorise, however, said nothing. She
was thinking of Hugh’s strange disappearance, and how he had broken his
word to her.

Meanwhile, Lady Ranscomb, secretly very glad that Hugh had been
prevented from accompanying them, and centring all her hopes upon her
daughter’s marriage with George Sherrard, sat chattering with a Mrs.
Down, the fat wife of a war-profiteer, whose acquaintance she had made
in Paris six months before.

Dorise made pretense of enjoying the dance though eager to get back
again to Monte Carlo in order to learn the reason of her lover’s
absence. She was devoted to Hugh. He was all in all to her.

She danced with several partners, having first made a rendezvous with
her mother at midnight at a certain spot under one of the great palms
in the promenade. At masked balls the chaperon is useless, and everyone,
being masked, looks so much alike that mistakes are easy.

About half-past one o’clock a big motor-car drew up in the Place before
the Casino, and a tall man in a white fancy dress of a cavalier, with
wide-brimmed hat and staggering plume, stepped from it and, presenting
his ticket, passed at once into the crowded ball-room. For a full ten
minutes he stood watching the crowd of revellers intently, eyeing each
of them keenly, though the expression on his countenance was hidden by
the strip of black velvet.

His eyes, shining through the slits in the mask, were, however, dark
and brilliant. In them could be seen alertness and eagerness, for it was
apparent that he had come there hot-foot in search of someone. In any
case he had a difficult task, for in the whirling, laughing, chattering
crowd each person resembled the other save for their feet and their
stature.

It was the feet of the dancers that the tall masked man was watching. He
stood in the crowd near the doorway with his hand upon his sword-hilt,
a striking figure remarked by many. His large eyes were fixed upon the
shoes of the dancers, until, of a sudden, he seemed to discover that
for which he was in search, and made his way quickly after a pair who,
having finished a dance, were walking in the direction of the great
hall.

The stranger never took his eyes off the pair. The man was slightly
taller than the woman, and the latter wore upon her white kid shoes a
pair of old paste buckles. It was for those buckles that he had been
searching.

“Yes,” he muttered in English beneath his breath. “That’s she--without a
doubt!”

He drew back to near where the pair had halted and were laughing
together. The girl with the glittering buckles upon her shoes was Dorise
Ranscomb. The man with her was the Count d’Autun.

The white cavalier pretended to take no interest in them, but was,
nevertheless, watching intently. At last he saw the girl’s partner bow,
and leaving her, he crossed to greet a stout Frenchwoman in a plain
domino. In a moment the cavalier was at the girl’s side.

“Please do not betray surprise, Miss Ranscomb,” he said in a low,
refined voice. “We may be watched. But I have a message for you.”

“For me?” she asked, peering through her mask at the man in the plumed
hat.

“Yes. But I cannot speak to you here. It is too public. Besides, your
mother yonder may notice us.”

“Who are you?” asked the girl, naturally curious.

“Do not let us talk here. See, right over yonder in the corner behind
where they are dancing in a ring--under the balcony. Let us meet there
at once. _Au revoir_.”

And he left her.

Three minutes later they met again out of sight of Lady Ranscomb, who
was still sitting at one of the little wicker tables talking to three
other women.

“Tell me, who are you?” Dorise inquired.

The white cavalier laughed.

“I’m Mr. X,” was his reply.

“Mr. X? Who’s that?”

“Myself. But my name matters nothing, Miss Ranscomb,” he said. “I have
come here to give you a confidential message.”

“Why confidential--and from whom?” she asked, standing against the wall
and surveying the mysterious masker.

“From a gentleman friend of yours--Mr. Henfrey.”

“From Hugh?” she gasped. “Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“I expected him to come with us to-night, but he has vanished from his
hotel.”

“I know. That is why I am here,” was the reply.

There was a note in the stranger’s voice which struck her as somehow
familiar, but she failed to recognize the individual. She was as quick
at remembering voices as she was at recollecting faces. Who could he be,
she wondered?

“You said you had a message for me,” she remarked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I am here to tell you that a serious contretemps has
occurred, and that Mr. Henfrey has escaped from France.”

“Escaped!” she echoed. “Why?”

“Because the police suspect him of a crime.”

“Crime! What crime? Surely he is innocent?” she cried.

“He certainly is. His friends know that. Therefore, Miss Ranscomb, I beg
of you to betray no undue anxiety even if you do not hear from him for
many weeks.”

“But will he write to me?” she asked in despair. “Surely he will not
keep me in suspense?”

“He will not if he can avoid it. But as soon as the French
police realize that he has got away a watch will be kept upon his
correspondence.” Then, lowering his voice, he urged her to move away,
as he thought that an idling masker was trying to overhear their
conversation.

“You see,” he went on a few moments later, “it might be dangerous if he
were to write to you.”

Dorise was thinking of what her mother would say when the truth reached
her ears. Hugh was a _fugitive_!

“Of what crime is he suspected?” asked the girl.

“I--well, I don’t exactly know,” was the stranger’s faltering response.
“I was told by a friend of his that it was a serious one, and that
he might find it extremely difficult to prove himself innocent. The
circumstantial evidence against him is very strong.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Not in the least. All I know is that he is safely across the frontier
into Italy,” was the reply of the tall white cavalier.

“I wish I could see your face,” declared Dorise frankly.

“And I might express a similar desire, Miss Ranscomb. But for the
present it is best as it is. I have sought you here to tell you the
truth in secret, and to urge you to remain calm and patient.”

“Is that a message from Hugh?”

“No--not exactly. It is a message from one who is his friend.”

“You are very mysterious,” she declared. “If you do not know where he is
at the moment, perhaps you know where we can find him later.”

“Yes. He is making his way to Brussels. A letter addressed to Mr.
Godfrey Brown, Poste Restante, Brussels, will eventually find him.
Recollect the name,” he added. “Disguise your handwriting on the
envelope, and when you post it see that you are not observed. Recollect
that his safety lies in your hands.”

“Trust me,” she said. “But do let me know your name,” she implored.

“Any old name is good enough for me,” he replied. “Call me Mr. X.”

“Don’t mystify me further, please.”

“Well, call me Smith, Jones, Robinson--whatever you like.”

“Then you refuse to satisfy my curiosity--eh?”

“I regret that I am compelled to do so--for certain reasons.”

“Are you a detective?” Dorise suddenly inquired.

The stranger laughed.

“If I were a police officer I should scarcely act as an intermediary
between Mr. Henfrey and yourself, Miss Ranscomb.”

“But you say he is innocent. Are you certain of that? May I set my mind
at rest that he never committed this crime of which the police suspect
him?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes. I repeat that he is entirely innocent,” was the earnest response.
“But I would advise you to affect ignorance. The police may question
you. If they do, you know nothing, remember--absolutely nothing. If you
write to Mr. Henfrey, take every precaution that nobody sees you post
the letter. Give him a secret address in London, or anywhere in England,
so that he can write to you there.”

“But how long will it be before I can see him again?”

“Ah! That I cannot tell. There is a mystery underlying it all that even
I cannot fathom, Miss Ranscomb.”

“What kind of mystery?”

The white cavalier shrugged his shoulders.

“You must ask Mr. Henfrey. Or perhaps his friend Brock knows. Yet if he
does, I do not suppose he would disclose anything his friend may have
told him in confidence.”

“I am bewildered!” the girl declared. “It is all so very
mysterious--Hugh a fugitive from justice! I--I really cannot believe it!
What can the mystery be?”

“Of that I have no means of ascertaining, Miss Ranscomb. I am here
merely to tell you what has happened and to give you in secret the name
and address to which to send a letter to him,” the masked man said
very politely. “And now I think we must part. Perhaps if ever we meet
again--which is scarcely probable--you will recognize my voice. And
always recollect that should you or Mr. Henfrey ever receive a message
from ‘Silverado’ it will be from myself.” And he spelt the name.

“Silverado. Yes, I shall not forget you, my mysterious friend.”

“_Au revoir_!” he said as, bowing gracefully, he turned and left her.

The sun was rising from the sea when Dorise entered her bedroom at the
hotel. Her maid had retired, so she undressed herself, and putting on a
dressing-gown, she pulled up the blinds and sat down to write a letter
to Hugh.

She could not sleep before she had sent him a reassuring message.

In the frenzy of her despair she wrote one letter and addressed it, but
having done so she changed her mind. It was not sufficiently reassuring,
she decided. It contained an element of doubt. Therefore she tore it up
and wrote a second one which she locked safely in her jewel case, and
then pulled the blinds and retired.

It was nearly noon next day before she left her room, yet almost as soon
as she had descended in the lift the head _femme de chambre_, a stout
Frenchwoman in a frilled cap, entered the room, and walking straight to
the waste-paper basket gathered up the contents into her apron and went
back along the corridor with an expression of satisfaction upon her full
round face.




NINTH CHAPTER

CONCERNS THE SPARROW

With the rosy dawn rising behind them the big dusty car tore along
over the white road which led through Pegli and Cornigliano, with their
wealth of olives and palms, into the industrial suburbs of old-world
Genoa. Then, passing around by the port, the driver turned the car up
past Palazzo Doria and along that street of fifteenth-century palaces,
the Via Garibaldi, into the little piazza in front of the Annunziata
Church.

There he pulled up after a run of two hours from the last of the many
railway crossings, most of which they had found closed.

When Hugh got out, the mysterious man, whose face was more forbidding in
the light of day, exclaimed:

“Here I must leave you very shortly, signore. But first I have certain
instructions to give you, namely, that you remain for the present in a
house in the Via della Maddalena to which I shall take you. The man and
the woman there you can trust. It will be as well not to walk about in
the daytime. Remain here for a fortnight, and then by the best means,
without, of course, re-entering France, you must get to Brussels. There
you will receive letters at the Poste Restante in the name of Godfrey
Brown. That, indeed, is the name you will use here.”

“Well, all this is very strange!” remarked Hugh, utterly bewildered as
he glanced at the forbidding-looking chauffeur and the dust-covered car.

“I agree, signore,” the man laughed. “But get in again and I will drive
to the Via della Maddalena.”

Five minutes later the car pulled up at the end of a narrow stuffy
ancient street of high houses with closed wooden shutters. From house
to house across the road household linen was flying in the wind, for the
neighbourhood was certainly a poverty-stricken one.

The place did not appeal to Hugh in the least. He, however, recollected
that he was about to hide from the police. Italians are early risers,
and though it was only just after dawn, Genoa was already agog with life
and movement.

Leaving the car, the mysterious chauffeur conduced the young Englishman
along the street, where women were calling to each other from the
windows of their apartments and exchanging salutations, until they came
to an entrance over which there was an old blue majolica Madonna. The
house had no outer door, but at the end of the passage was a flight of
stone steps leading up to the five storeys above.

At the third flight Hugh’s conductor paused, and finding a piece of cord
protruding from a hole in a door, pulled it. A slight tinkle was heard
within, and a few moments later the sound of wooden shoes was heard upon
the tiles inside.

The door opened, revealing an ugly old woman whose face was sallow and
wrinkled, and who wore a red kerchief tied over her white hair.

As soon as she saw the chauffeur she welcomed him, addressing him as
Paolo, and invited them in.

“This is the English signore,” explained the man. “He has come to stay
with you.”

“The signore is welcome,” replied the old woman as she clattered into
the narrow, cheaply furnished little sitting-room, which was in half
darkness owing to the _persiennes_ being closed.

Truly, it was an uninviting place, which smelt of garlic and of the
paraffin oil with which the tiled floors had been rubbed.

“You will require another certificate of identity, signore,” said the
man, who admitted that he had been engaged in smuggling contraband
across the Alps. And delving into his pocket he produced an American
passport. It was blank, though the embossed stamp of the United States
Government was upon it. The places were ready for the photograph and
signature. With it the man handed him a large metal disc, saying:

“When you have your picture taken and affixed to it, all you have to do
is to damp the paper slightly and impress this stamp. It will then defy
detection.”

“Where on earth did you get this from?” asked Hugh, noticing that it was
a replica of the United States consular seal.

The man smiled, replying:

“They make passports of all countries in Spain. You pay for them, and
you can get them by the dozen. The embossing stamps are extra. There is
a big trade in them now owing to the passport restrictions. Besides, in
every country there are passport officers who are amenable to a little
baksheesh!” And he grinned.

What he said was true. At no period has it ever been more easy for a
criminal to escape than it is to-day, providing, of course, that he is a
cosmopolitan and has money.

Hugh took the passport and the disc, adding:

“How am I to repay you for all this?”

“I want no payment, signore. All I ask you is to conform to the
suggestions of the worthy Signore Ravecca and his good wife here. You
are not the first guest they have had for whom the police searched in
vain.”

“No,” laughed the old woman. “Do you recollect the syndic of Porticello,
how we had him here for nearly three years, and then he got safely away
to Argentina and took the money, three million lire, with him?”

“Yes,” was the man’s reply. “I recollect it, signora. But the Signore
Inglese must be very careful--very careful. He must never go out in the
daytime. You can buy him English papers and books of Luccoli, in the Via
Bosco. They will serve to while away the time.”

“I shall, no doubt, pass the time very pleasantly,” laughed Hugh,
speaking in French.

Then the old crone left them and returned with two cups of excellent
_cafe nero_, that coffee which, roasted at home one can get only in
Italy.

It was indeed refreshing after that long night drive.

Hugh stood there without luggage, and with only about thirty pounds in
his pocket.

Suddenly the man who had driven him looked him curiously in the face,
and said:

“Ah! I know you are wondering what your lady friend in Monte Carlo
will think. Well, I can tell you this. She already knows that you have
escaped, and she had been told to write to you in secret at the Poste
Restante at Brussels.”

Hugh started.

“Who has told her? Surely she knows nothing of the affair at the Villa
Amette?”

“She will not be told that. But she has been told that you are going to
Brussels, and that in future your name is Monsieur Godfrey Brown.”

“But why have all these elaborate arrangements been made for my
security?” Hugh demanded, more than ever nonplussed.

“It is useless to take one precaution unless the whole are taken,”
 laughed the sphinx-like fellow whose cheerful banter had so successfully
passed them through the customs barrier.

Then, swallowing his coffee, he wished Hugh, “buon viaggio” and was
about to depart, when Hugh said:

“Look here. Is it quite impossible for you to give me any inkling
concerning this astounding affair? I know that some unknown friend, or
friends, are looking after my welfare. But why? To whom am I indebted
for all this? Who has warned Miss Ranscomb and told her of my alias and
my journey to Brussels?”

“A friend of hers and of yourself,” was the chauffeur’s reply. “No,
please do not question me, signore,” he added. “I have done my best for
you. And now my journey is at an end, while yours is only beginning.
Pardon me--but you have money with you, I suppose? If you have not,
these good people here will trust you.”

“But what is this house?”

The man laughed. Then he said:

“Well, really it is a bolt-hole used by those who wish to evade our very
astute police. If one conforms to the rules of Signora Ravecca and her
husband, then one is quite safe and most comfortable.”

Hugh realized that he was in a hiding-place used by thieves. A little
later he knew that the ugly old woman’s husband paid toll to a certain
_delegato_ of police, hence their house was never searched. While the
criminal was in those shabby rooms he was immune from arrest. The place
was, indeed, one of many hundreds scattered over Europe, asylums known
to the international thief as places ever open so long as they can pay
for their board and lodging and their contribution towards the police
bribes.

A few moments later the ugly, uncouth man who had brought him from Monte
Carlo lit a cigarette, and wishing the old woman a merry “addio” left
and descended the stairs.

The signora then showed Hugh to his room, a small, dispiriting and
not overclean little chamber which looked out upon the backs of the
adjoining houses, all of which were high and inartistic. Above, however,
was a narrow strip of brilliantly blue sunlit sky.

A quarter of an hour later he made the acquaintance of the woman’s
husband, a brown-faced, sinister-looking individual whose black bushy
eyebrows met, and who greeted the young Englishman familiarly
in atrocious French, offering him a glass of red wine from a big
rush-covered flask.

“We only had word of your coming late last night,” the man said. “You
had already started from Monte Carlo, and we wondered if you would get
past the frontier all right.”

“Yes,” replied Hugh, sipping the wine out of courtesy. “We got out of
France quite safely. But tell me, who made all these arrangements for
me?”

“Why, Il Passero, of course,” replied the man, whose wife addressed him
affectionately as Beppo.

“Who is Il Passero, pray?”

“Well, you know him surely. Il Passero, or The Sparrow. We call him so
because he is always flitting about Europe, and always elusive.”

“The police want him, I suppose.”

“I should rather think they do. They have been searching for him for
these past five years, but he always dodges them, first in France, then
here, then in Spain, and then in England.”

“But what is this mysterious and unknown friend of mine?”

“Il Passero is the chief of the most daring of all the gangs of
international thieves. We all work at his direction.”

“But how did he know of my danger?” asked Hugh, mystified and dismayed.

“Il Passero knows many strange things,” he replied with a grin. “It
is his business to know them. And besides, he has some friends in the
police--persons who never suspect him.”

“What nationality is he?”

The man Beppo shrugged his shoulders.

“He is not Italian,” he replied. “Yet he speaks the _lingua Toscano_
perfectly and French and English and _Tedesco_. He might be Belgian or
German, or even English. Nobody knows his true nationality.”

“And the man who brought me here?”

“Ah! that was Paolo, Il Passero’s chauffeur--a merry fellow--eh?”

“Remarkable,” laughed Hugh. “But I cannot see why The Sparrow has taken
such a paternal interest in me,” he added.

“He no doubt has, for he has, apparently, arranged for your safe return
to England.”

“You know him, of course. What manner of man is he?”

“A signore--a great signore,” replied Beppo. “He is rich, and is often
on the Riviera in winter. He’s probably there now. Nobody suspects him.
He is often in England, too. I believe he has a house in London. During
the war he worked for the French Secret Service under the name of
Monsieur Franqueville, and the French Government never suspected that
they actually had in their employ the famous Passero for whom the Surete
were looking everywhere.”

“You have no idea where he lives in London?”

“I was once told that he had a big house somewhere in what you call
the West End--somewhere near Piccadilly. I have, however, only seen him
once. About eighteen months ago he was hard pressed by the police and
took refuge here for two nights, till Paolo called for him in his fine
car and he passed out of Italy as a Swiss hotel-proprietor.”

“Then he is head of a gang--is he?”

“Yes,” was the man’s reply. “He is marvellous, and has indeed well
earned his sobriquet ‘Il Passero.’”

A sudden thought flitted through Hugh’s mind.

“I suppose he is a friend of Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo?”

“Ah, signore, I do not know. Il Passero had many friends. He is rich,
prosperous, well-dressed, and has influential friends in France, in
Italy and in England who never suspect him to be the notorious king of
the thieves.”

“Now, tell me,” urged young Henfrey. “What do you know concerning
Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo?”

The Italian looked at him strangely.

“Nothing,” he replied, still speaking bad French.

“You are not speaking the truth.”

“Why should I tell it to you? I do not know you!” was the quick retort.

“But you are harbouring me.”

“At the orders of Il Passero.”

“You surely can tell me what you know of Mademoiselle,” Hugh persisted
after a brief pause. “We are mutually her friends. The attempt to kill
her is outrageous, and I, for one, intend to do all I can to trace and
punish the culprit.”

“They say that you shot her.”

“Well--you know that I did not,” Henfrey said. “Have you yourself ever
met Mademoiselle?”

“I have seen her. She was living for a time at Santa Margherita last
year. I had a friend of hers living here with me and I went to her with
a message. She is a very charming lady.”

“And a friend of Il Passero?”

The Italian shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of ignorance.

Hugh Henfrey had certainly learned much that was curious. He had never
before heard of the interesting cosmopolitan thief known as The Sparrow,
but it seemed evident that the person in question had suddenly become
interested in him for some obscure and quite unaccountable reason.

As day followed day in that humble place of concealment, Beppo told him
many things concerning the famous criminal Il Passero, describing his
exploits in terms of admiration. Hugh learnt that it was The Sparrow who
had planned the great jewel robbery at Binet’s, in the Rue de la Paix,
when some famous diamonds belonging to the Shah of Persia, which had
been sent to Paris to be reset, were stolen. It was The Sparrow, too,
who had planned the burglary at the art gallery of Evans and Davies in
Bond Street and stolen Raphael’s famous Madonna.

During the daytime Hugh, anxious to get away to Brussels, but compelled
to obey the order of the mysterious Passero, spent the time in smoking
and reading books and newspapers with which Beppo’s wife provided him,
while at night he would take long walks through the silent city, with
its gloomy old palaces, the courtyards of which echoed to his footsteps.
At such times he was alone with his thoughts and would walk around the
port and out upon the hills which surrounded the bay, and then sit down
and gaze out to the twinkling lights across the sea and watch the long
beams of the great lighthouse searching in the darkness.

His host and hostess were undoubtedly criminals. Indeed, they did not
hide the fact. Both were paid by The Sparrow to conceal and provide for
anyone whom he sent there.

He had been there four weary, anxious days when one evening a pretty,
well-dressed young French girl called, and after a short chat with
Beppo’s wife became installed there as his fellow-guest. He did not know
her name and she did not tell him.

She was known to them as Lisette, and Hugh found her a most vivacious
and interesting companion. Truly, he had been thrown into very queer
company, and he often wondered what his friends would say if they knew
that he was guest in a hiding-place of thieves.




TENTH CHAPTER

A LESSON IN ARGOT

Late one evening the dainty girl thief, Lisette, went out for a stroll
with Hugh, but in the Via Roma they met an agent of police.

“Look!” whispered the girl in French, “there’s a _pince sans rire_! Be
careful!”

She constantly used the argot of French thieves, which was often
difficult for the young Englishman to understand. And the dark-haired
girl would laugh, apologize, and explain the meaning of her strange
expressions.

Outside the city they were soon upon the high road which wound up the
deep green valley of the Bisagno away into the mountains, ever ascending
to the little hill-town of Molassana. The scene was delightful in the
moonlight as they climbed the steep hill and then descended again
into the valley, Lisette all the time gossiping on in a manner which
interested and amused him.

Her arrival had put an end to his boredom, and, though he was longing to
get away from his surroundings, she certainly cheered him up.

They had walked for nearly an hour, when, declaring she felt tired,
they sat upon a rock to rest and eat the sandwiches with which they had
provided themselves.

Two carabineers in cloaks and cocked hats who met them on the road put
them down as lovers keeping a clandestine tryst. They never dreamed that
for both of them the police were in search.

“Now tell me something concerning yourself, mademoiselle,” Hugh urged
presently.

“Myself! Oh! la la!” she laughed. “What is there to tell? I am just of
_la haute pegre--a truqueuse_. Ah! you will not know the expression.
Well--I am a thief in high society. I give indications where we can
make a coup, and afterwards _bruler le pegriot_--efface the trace of the
affair.”

“And why are you here?”

“_Malheureusement_! I was in Orleans and a _friquet_ nearly captured me.
So Il Passero sent me here for a while.”

“You help Il Passero--eh?”

“Yes. Very often. Ah! m’sieur, he is a most wonderful man--English, I
think. _Girofle_ (genteel and amiable), like yourself.”

“No, no, mademoiselle,” Hugh protested, laughing.

“But I mean it. Il Passero is a real gentleman--but--_maquiller son
truc_, and he is marvellous. When he exercises his wonderful talent and
forms a plan it is always flawless.”

“Everyone seems to hold him in high esteem. I have never met him,” Hugh
remarked.

“He was in Genoa on the day that I arrived. Curious that he did not call
and see Beppo. I lunched with him at the Concordia, and he paid me five
thousand francs, which he owed me. He has gone to London now with his
_ecrache-tarte_.”

“What is that, pray?”

“His false passport. He has always a good supply of them for anyone
in need of one. They are printed secretly in Spain. But m’sieur,” she
added, “you are not of our world. You are in just a little temporary
trouble. Over what?”

In reply he was perfectly frank with her. He told her of the suspicion
against him because of the affair of the Villa Amette.

“Ah!” she replied, her manner changing, “I have heard that Mademoiselle
was shot, but I had no idea that you had any connexion with that ugly
business.”

“Yes. Unfortunately I have. Do you happen to know Yvonne Ferad?”

“Of course. Everyone knows her. She is very charming. Nobody knows the
truth.”

“What truth?” inquired Hugh quickly.

“Well--that she is a _marque de ce_.”

“A _marque de ce_--what is that?” asked Hugh eagerly.

“Ah! _non_, m’sieur. I must not tell you anything against her. You are
her friend.”

“But I am endeavouring to find out something about her. To me she is a
mystery.”

“No doubt. She is to everybody.”

“What did you mean by that expression?” he demanded. “Do tell me. I am
very anxious to know your opinion of her, and something about her. I
have a very earnest motive in trying to discover who and what she really
is.”

“If I told you I should offend Il Passero,” replied the girl simply. “It
is evident that he wishes you should remain in ignorance.”

“But surely, you can tell me in confidence? I will divulge nothing.”

“No,” answered the girl, whose face he could not see in the shadow. “I
am sorry, M’sieur Brown”--she had not been told his Christian name--“but
I am not permitted to tell you anything concerning Mademoiselle Yvonne.”

“She is a very remarkable person--eh?” said Henfrey, again defeated.

“Remarkable! Oh, yes. She is of the _grande monde_.”

“Is that still your argot?” he asked.

“Oh no. Mademoiselle Yvonne is a lady. Some say she is the daughter of a
rich Englishman. Others say she is just a common adventuress.”

“The latter is true, I suppose?”

“I think not. She has _le clou_ for the _eponge d’or_.”

“I do not follow that.”

“Well,” she laughed, “she has the attraction for those who hold the
golden sponge--the Ministers of State. Our argot is difficult for you,
m’sieur--eh?”

“I see! Your expressions are a kind of cipher, unintelligible to the
ordinary person--eh?”

“That is so. If I exclaim, _par exemple, tarte_, it means false; if I
say _gilet de flanelle_, it is lemonade; if I say _frise_, it means a
Jew; or _casserole_, which is in our own tongue a police officer. So
you see it is a little difficult--is it not? To us _tire-jus_ is a
handkerchief, and we call the ville de Paris _Pantruche_.”

Hugh sat in wonder. It was certainly a strange experience to be on
a moonlight ramble with a girl thief who had, according to her own
confession, been born in Paris the daughter of a man who was still one
of Il Passero’s clever and desperate band.

“Yes, m’sieur,” she said a few moments later. “They are all dangerous.
They do not fear to use the knife or automatic pistol when cornered.
For myself, I simply move about Europe and make discoveries as to where
little affairs can be negotiated. I tell Il Passero, and he then works
out the plans. _Dieu_! But I had a narrow escape the other day in
Orleans!”

“Do tell me about Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo. I beg of you to tell me
something, Mademoiselle Lisette,” Hugh urged, turning to the girl of
many adventures who was seated at his side upon the big rock overlooking
the ravine down which the bright moon was shining.

“I would if I were permitted,” she replied. “Mademoiselle Yvonne is
charming. You know her, so I need say nothing, but----”

“Well--what?”

“She is clever--very clever,” said the girl. “As Il Passero is clever,
so is she.”

“Then she is actively associated with him--eh?”

“Yes. She is cognizant of all his movements, and of all his plans. While
she moves in one sphere--often in a lower sphere, like myself--yet in
society she moves in the higher sphere, and she ‘indicates,’ just as I
do.”

“So she is one of The Sparrow’s associates?” Hugh said.

“Yes,” was the reply. “From what you have told me I gather that Il
Passero knew by one of his many secret sources of information that you
were in danger of arrest, and sent Paolo to rescue you--which he did.”

“No doubt that is so. But why should he take all this interest in me? I
don’t know and have never even met him.”

“Il Passero is always courteous. He assists the weak against the strong.
He is like your English bandit Claude Duval of the old days. He always
robs with exquisite courtesy, and impresses the same trait upon all who
are in his service. And I may add that all are well paid and all devoted
to their great master.”

“I have heard that he has a house in London,” Hugh said. “Do you know
where it is situated?”

“Somewhere near Piccadilly. But I do not know exactly where it is. He is
always vague regarding his address. His letters he receives in several
names at a newspaper shop in Hammersmith and at the Poste Restante at
Charing Cross.”

“What names?” asked Hugh, highly interested.

“Oh! a number. They are always being changed,” the French girl replied.

“Where do you write when you want to communicate with him?”

“Generally to the Poste Restante in the Avenue de l’Opera, in Paris.
Letters received there are collected for him and forwarded every day.”

“And so clever is he that nobody suspects him--eh?”

“Exactly, m’sieur. His policy is always ‘_Rengraciez_!’ and he cares not
a single _rotin_ for _La Reniffe_,” she replied, dropping again into the
slang of French thieves.

“Of course he is on friendly terms with Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo?”
 Hugh remarked. “He may have been at Monte Carlo on the night of the
tragic affair.”

“He may have been. He was, no doubt, somewhere on the Riviera, and he
sent Paolo in one of the cars to rescue you from the police.”

“In that case, he at least knows that I am innocent.”

“Yes. And he probably knows the guilty person. That would account for
the interest he takes in you, though you do not know him,” said Lisette.
“I have known Il Passero perform many kindly acts to persons in distress
who have never dreamed that they have received money from a notorious
international thief.”

“Well, in my case he has, no doubt, done me signal service,” young
Henfrey replied. “But,” he added, “why cannot you tell me something
more concerning Mademoiselle? What did you mean by saying that she was
a _marque de ce_? I know it is your slang, but won’t you explain what it
means? You have explained most of your other expressions.”

But the girl thief was obdurate. She was certainly a _chic_ and engaging
little person, apparently well educated and refined, but she was as sly
as her notorious employer, whom she served so faithfully. She was, she
had already told Hugh, the daughter of a man who had made jewel thefts
his speciality and after many convictions was now serving ten years at
the convict prison at Toulon. She had been bred in the Montmartre, and
trained and educated to a criminal life. Il Passero had found her, and,
after several times successfully “indicating” where coups could be made,
she had been taken into his employment as a decoy, frequently travelling
on the international _wagon-lits_ and restaurants, where she succeeded
in attracting the attention of men and holding them in conversation
with a mild flirtation while other members of the gang investigated the
contents of their valises. From one well-known diamond dealer travelling
between Paris and Amsterdam, she and the man working with her had
stolen a packet containing diamonds of the value of two hundred thousand
francs, while from an English business man travelling from Boulogne to
Paris, two days later, she had herself taken a wallet containing nearly
four thousand pounds in English bank-notes. It was her share of the
recent robbery that Il Passero had paid her three days before at the
Concordia Restaurant in the Via Garibaldi, in Genoa.

Hugh pressed her many times to tell him something concerning the
mysterious Mademoiselle, but he failed to elicit any further information
of interest.

“Her fortune at the Rooms is wonderful, they say,” Lisette said. “She
must be very rich.”

“But she is one of Il Passero’s assistants--eh?”

The girl laughed lightly.

“Perhaps,” was her enigmatical reply. “Who knows? It is, however,
evident that Il Passero is seriously concerned at the tragic affair at
the Villa Amette.”

“Have you ever been there?”

She hesitated a few moments, then said: “Yes, once.”

“And you know the old Italian servant Cataldi?”

She replied in the affirmative. Then she added:

“I know him, but I do not like him. She trusts him, but----”

“But what?”

“I would not. I should be afraid, for to my knowledge he is a _saigneur
a musique_.”

“And what is that?”

“An assassin.”

“What?” cried Henfrey. “Is he guilty of murder--and Mademoiselle knows
it?”

“Mademoiselle may not know about it. She is probably in ignorance, or
she would not employ him.”

Her remark was of considerable interest, inasmuch as old Cataldi had
seemed to be most devoted to his mistress, and entirely trusted by her.

“Do you know the circumstances?” asked Hugh.

“Yes. But it is not our habit to speak of another’s--well,
shortcomings,” was her reply.

“Surely, Mademoiselle should have been told the truth! Does not Il
Passero know?” he asked.

There flitted across his mind at that moment the recollection of Dorise.
What could she think of his disappearance? He longed to write to her,
but The Sparrow’s chauffeur had impressed upon him the serious danger he
would be running if he wrote to her while she was at Monte Carlo.

“I question whether he does know. But if he does he would say nothing.”

“Ah!” sighed Hugh. “Yours is indeed a queer world, mademoiselle. And not
without interest.”

“It is full of adventure and excitement, of ups and downs, of constant
travel and change, and of eternal apprehension of arrest,” replied the
girl, with a laugh.

“I wish you would tell me something about Yvonne Ferad,” he repeated.

“Alas! m’sieur, I am not permitted,” was her obdurate reply. “I am truly
sorry to hear of the dastardly attack upon her. She once did me a
very kind and friendly action at a moment when I was in sore need of a
friend.”

“Who could have fired the shot, do you think?” Henfrey asked. “You know
her friends. Perhaps you know her enemies?”

Mademoiselle Lisette was silent for some moments.

“Yes,” she replied reflectively. “She has enemies, I know. But who has
not?”

“Is there any person who, to your knowledge, would have any motive to
kill her?”

Again she was silent.

“There are several people who hate her. One of them might have done it
out of revenge. You say you saw nobody?”

“Nobody.”

“Why did you go and see her at that hour?” asked the girl.

“Because I wanted her to tell me something--something of greatest
importance to me.”

“And she refused, of course? She keeps her own secrets.”

“No. On the other hand, she was about to disclose to me the information
I sought when someone fired through the open window.”

“The shot might have been intended for you--eh?”

Hugh paused.

“It certainly might,” he admitted. “But with what motive?”

“To prevent you from learning the truth.”

“She was on the point of telling me what I wanted to know.”

“Exactly. And what more likely than someone outside, realizing that
Mademoiselle was about to make a disclosure, fired at you.”

“But you said that Mademoiselle had enemies.”

“So she has. But I think my theory is the correct one,” replied the
girl. “What was it that you asked her to reveal to you?”

“Well,” he replied, after a brief hesitation, “my father died
mysteriously in London some time ago, and I have reason to believe that
she knows the truth concerning the sad affair.”

“Where did it happen?”

“My father was found in the early morning lying in a doorway in
Albemarle Street, close to Piccadilly. The only wound found was a slight
scratch in the palm of the hand. The police constable at first thought
he was intoxicated, but the doctor, on being called, declared that my
father was suffering from poison. He was at once taken to St. George’s
Hospital, but an hour later he died without recovering consciousness.”

“And what was your father’s name?” asked Lisette in a strangely altered
voice.

“Henfrey.”

“Henfrey!” gasped the girl, starting up at mention of the name.
“_Henfrey_! And--and are--you--_his son_?”

“Yes,” replied Hugh. “Why? You know about the affair, mademoiselle! Tell
me all you know,” he cried. “I--the son of the dead man--have a right to
demand the truth.”

“Henfrey!” repeated the girl hoarsely in a state of intense agitation.
“Monsieur Henfrey! And--and to think that I am here--with you--_his
son_! Ah! forgive me!” she gasped. “I--I----Let us return.”

“But you shall tell me the truth!” cried Hugh excitedly. “You know it!
You cannot deny that you know it!”

All, however, he could get from her were the words:

“You--Monsieur Henfrey’s son! _Surely Il Passero does not know this_!”




ELEVENTH CHAPTER

MORE ABOUT THE SPARROW

A month of weary anxiety and nervous tension had gone by.

Yvonne Ferad had slowly struggled back to health, but the injury to the
brain had, alas! seriously upset the balance of her mind. Three of
the greatest French specialists upon mental diseases had seen her and
expressed little hope of her ever regaining her reason.

It was a sad affair which the police of Monaco had, by dint of much
bribery and the telling of many untruths, successfully kept out of the
newspapers.

The evening after Hugh’s disappearance, Monsieur Ogier had called upon
Dorise Ranscomb--her mother happily being away at the Rooms at the time.
In one of the sitting-rooms of the hotel the official of police closely
questioned the girl, but she, of course made pretense of complete
ignorance. Naturally Ogier was annoyed at being unable to obtain the
slightest information, and after being very rude, he told the girl the
charge against her lover and then left the hotel in undisguised anger.

Lady Ranscomb was very much mystified at Hugh’s disappearance, though
secretly she was very glad. She questioned Brock, but he, on his part,
expressed himself very much puzzled. A week later, however, Walter
returned to London, and on the following night Lady Ranscomb and her
daughter took the train-de-luxe for Boulogne, and duly arrived home.

As day followed day, Dorise grew more mystified and still more anxious
concerning Hugh. What was the truth? She had written to Brussels three
times, but her letters had elicited no response. He might be already
under arrest, for aught she knew. Besides, she could not rid herself of
the recollection of the white cavalier, that mysterious masker who had
told her of her lover’s escape.

In this state of keen anxiety and overstrung nerves she was compelled
to meet almost daily, and be civil to, her mother’s friend, the odious
George Sherrard.

Lady Ranscomb was for ever singing the man’s praises, and never weary of
expressing her surprise at Hugh’s unforgivable behaviour.

“He simply disappeared, and nobody has heard a word of him since!” she
remarked one day as they sat at breakfast. “I’m quite certain he’s done
something wrong. I’ve never liked him, Dorise.”

“You don’t like him, mother, because he hasn’t money,” remarked the girl
bitterly. “If he were rich and entertained you, you would call him a
delightful man!”

“Dorise! What are you saying? What’s the good of life without money?”
 queried the widow of the great contractor.

“Everyone can’t be rich,” the girl averred simply. “I think it’s
positively hateful to judge people by their pockets.”

“Well, has Hugh written to you?” snapped her mother.

Dorise replied in the negative, stifling a sigh.

“And he isn’t likely to. He’s probably hiding somewhere. I wonder what
he’s done?”

“Nothing. I’m sure of that!”

“Well, I’m not so sure,” was her mother’s response. “I was chatting
about it to Mr. Sherrard last night, and he’s promised to make inquiry.”

“Let Mr. Sherrard inquire as much as he likes,” cried the girl angrily.
“He’ll find nothing against Hugh, except that he’s poor.”

“H’m! And he’s been far too much in your company of late, Dorise. People
were beginning to talk at Monte Carlo.”

“Oh! Let them talk, mother! I don’t care a scrap. I’m my own mistress!”

“Yes, but I tell you frankly that I’m very glad that we’ve seen the last
of the fellow.”

“Mother! You are really horrid!” cried the girl, rising abruptly and
leaving the table. When out of the room she burst into tears.

Poor girl, her heart was indeed full.

Now it happened that early on that same morning Hugh Henfrey stepped
from a train which had brought him from Aix-la-Chapelle to the Gare du
Nord, in Brussels. He had spent three weeks with the Raveccas, in Genoa,
whence he had travelled to Milan and Bale, and on into Belgium by way of
Germany.

From Lisette he had failed to elicit any further facts concerning his
father’s death, though it was apparent that she knew something about
it--something she dared not tell.

On the day following their midnight stroll, he had done all in his power
to induce her to reveal something at least of the affair, but, alas! to
no avail. Then, two days later, she had suddenly left--at orders of The
Sparrow, she said.

Before Hugh left Ravecca had given him eighty pounds in English notes,
saying that he acted at Il Passero’s orders, for Hugh would no doubt
need the money, and it would be most dangerous for him to write to his
bankers.

At first Henfrey protested, but, as his funds were nearly exhausted, he
had accepted the money.

As he left the station in Brussels on that bright spring morning and
crossed the busy Place, he was wondering to what hotel he should go. He
had left his scanty luggage in the _consigne_, intending to go out on
foot and search for some cheap and obscure hotel, there being many such
in the vicinity of the station. After half an hour he chose a small
and apparently clean little place in a narrow street off the Place de
Brouckere, and there, later on, he carried his handbag. Then, after a
wash, he set out for the Central Post Office in the Place de la Monnaie.

He had not gone far along the busy boulevard when he was startled to
hear his name uttered from behind, and, turning, encountered a short,
thick-set little man wearing a brown overcoat.

The man, noticing the effect his words had upon him, smiled
reassuringly, and said in broken English: “It is all right! I am not
a police officer, Monsieur Henfrey. Cross the road and walk down that
street yonder. I will follow in a few moments.”

And then the man walked on, leaving Hugh alone.

Much surprised, Hugh did as he was bid, and a few minutes later the
Belgian met him again.

“It is very dangerous for us to be seen together,” he said quickly,
scarcely pausing as he walked. “Do not go near the Post Office, but go
straight to 14 Rue Beyaert, first floor. I shall be there awaiting you.
I have a message for you from a friend. You will find the street close
to the Porte de Hal.”

And the man continued on his way, leaving Hugh in wonder. He had been on
the point of turning from the boulevard into the Place de la Monnaie to
obtain Dorise’s long looked for letter. Indeed, he had been hastening
his footsteps full of keen apprehension when the stranger had accosted
him.

But in accordance with the man’s suggestion, he turned back towards the
station, where he entered a taxi and drove across the city to the corner
of Rue Beyaert, a highly respectable thoroughfare. He experienced no
difficulty in finding the house indicated, and on ascending the stairs,
found the stranger awaiting him.

“Ah!” he cried. “Come in! I am glad that I discovered you! I have been
awaiting your arrival from Italy for the past fortnight. It is indeed
fortunate that I found you in time to warn you not to go to the Poste
Restante.” He spoke in French, and had shown his visitor into a small
but well furnished room.

“Why?” asked Hugh. “Is there danger in that quarter?”

“Yes, Monsieur Henfrey. The French police have, by some unknown means,
discovered that you were coming here, and a strict watch is being kept
for anyone calling for letters addressed to Godfrey Brown.”

“But how could they know?” asked Hugh.

“Ah! That is the mystery! Perhaps your lady friend has been indiscreet.
She was told in strict confidence, and was warned that your safety was
in her hands.”

“Surely, Dorise would be most careful not to betray me!” cried the young
Englishman.

“Well, somebody undoubtedly has.”

“I presume you are one of Il Passero’s friends?” Hugh said with a smile.

“Yes. Hence I am your friend,” was the reply.

“Have you heard of late how Mademoiselle Yvonne is progressing?”

The man, who told his visitor his name was Jules Vervoort, shook his
head.

“She is no better. I heard last week that the doctors have said that she
will never recover her mental balance.”

“What! Is she demented?”

“Yes. The report I had was that she recognized nobody, except at
intervals she knows her Italian manservant and calls him by name. I was
ordered to tell you this.”

“Ordered by Il Passero--eh?”

The man Vervoort nodded in the affirmative. Then he went on to warn
his visitor that the Brussels police were on the eager watch for his
arrival. “It is fortunate that you were not recognized when you came
this morning,” he said. “I had secret warning and was at the station,
but I dared not approach you. You passed under the very nose of two
detectives, but luckily for you, their attention had been diverted to a
woman who is a well-known pickpocket. I followed you to your hotel and
then waited for you to go to the Poste Restante.”

“But I want my letters,” said Hugh.

“Naturally, but it is far too dangerous to go near there. You, of
course, want news of your lady friend. That you will have by special
messenger very soon. Therefore remain patient.”

“Why are all these precautions being taken to prevent my arrest?” Hugh
asked. “I confess I don’t understand it.”

“Neither do I. But when Il Passero commands we all obey.”

“You are, I presume, his agent in Brussels?”

“His friend--not his agent,” Vervoort replied with a smile.

“Do you know Mademoiselle Lisette?” Hugh asked. “She was with me in
Genoa.”

“Yes. We have met. A very clever little person. Il Passero thinks very
highly of her. She has been educated in the higher schools, and is
perhaps one of our cleverest decoys.”

Hugh Henfrey paused.

“Now look here, Monsieur Vervoort,” he exclaimed at last, “I’m very
much in the dark about all this curious business. Lisette knows a lot
concerning Mademoiselle Yvonne.”

“Admitted. She acted once as her maid, I believe, in some big affair.
But I don’t know much about it.”

“Well, you know what happened at the Villa Amette that night? Have you
any idea of the identity of the person who shot poor Mademoiselle--the
lady they call Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo?”

“Not in the least,” was the reply. “All I know is that Il Passero has
some very keen and personal interest in the affair. He has sent further
orders to you. It is imperative, he says, that you should get away from
Brussels. The police are too keen here.”

“Where shall I go?”

“I suggest that you go at once to Malines. Go to Madame Maupoil, 208 Rue
de Stassart, opposite the Military Hospital. It is far too dangerous
for you to remain here in Brussels. I have already written that you
are coming. Her house is one of the sanctuaries of the friends of Il
Passero. Remember the name and address.”

“The Sparrow seems to be ubiquitous,” Hugh remarked.

“He is. No really great robbery can be accomplished unless he plans and
finances it.”

“I cannot think why he takes so keen an interest in me.”

“He often does in persons who are quite ignorant of his existence.”

“That is my own case. I never heard of him until I was in Genoa, a
fugitive,” said Hugh. “But you told me I shall receive a message from
Miss Ranscomb by special messenger. When?”

“When you are in Malines.”

“But all this is very strange. Will the mysterious messenger call upon
Miss Ranscomb in London?”

“Of course. Il Passero has several messengers who travel to and fro in
secret. Mademoiselle Lisette was once one of them. She has travelled
many times the length and breadth of Europe. But nowadays she is an
indicator--and a very clever one indeed,” he added with a laugh.

“I suppose I had better get away to Malines without delay?” Hugh
remarked.

“Yes. Go to your hotel, pay them for your room and get your valise. I
shall be waiting for you at noon in a car in the Rue Gretry, close to
the Palais d’Ete. Then we can slip away to Malines. Have you sufficient
money? If not, I can give you some. Il Passero has ordered me to do so.”

“Thanks,” replied Hugh. “I have enough for the present. My only desire
is to be back again in London.”

“Ah! I am afraid that is not possible for some time to come.”

“But I shall hear from Miss Ranscomb?”

“Oh, yes. The messenger will come to you in Malines.”

“Who is the messenger?”

“Of that I have no knowledge,” was Vervoort’s reply. He seemed a very
refined man, and was no doubt an extremely clever crook. He said little
of himself, but sufficient to cause Hugh to realize that his was one of
the master minds of underground Europe.

The young Englishman was naturally eager to further penetrate the veil
of mystery surrounding Mademoiselle Yvonne, but he learned little or
nothing. Vervoort either knew nothing, or else refused to disclose what
he knew. Which, Hugh could not exactly decide.

Therefore, in accordance with the Belgian’s instructions, he left the
house and at noon carried his valise to the Rue Gretry, where he found
his friend awaiting him in a closed car, which quickly moved off out
of the city by the Laeken road. Travelling by way of Vilvorde they
were within an hour in old-world Malines, famous for its magnificent
cathedral and its musical carillon. Crossing the Louvain Canal and
entering by the Porte de Bruxelles, they were soon in an inartistic
cobbled street under the shadow of St. Rombold, and a few minutes later
Hugh was introduced to a short, stout Belgian woman, Madame Maupoil. The
place was meagrely furnished, but scrupulously clean. The floor of the
room to which Hugh was shown shone with beeswax, and the walls were
whitewashed.

“I hope monsieur will make himself quite comfortable,” madame said, a
broad smile of welcome upon her round face.

“You will be comfortable enough under madame’s care,” Vervoort assured
him. “She has had some well-known guests before now.”

“True, monsieur. More than one of them have been world-famous
and--well--believed to be perfectly honest and upright.”

“Yes,” laughed Vervoort. “Do you remember the English ex-member of
Parliament?”

“Ah! He was with me nearly four months when supposed to be in South
America. There was a warrant out for him on account of some great
financial frauds--all of which was, of course, hushed up. But he stayed
here in strict concealment and his friends managed to get the warrant
withdrawn. He was known to Il Passero, and the latter aided him--in
return for certain facilities regarding the English police.”

“What do you think of the English police, madame?” Hugh asked. The fat
woman grinned expressively and shrugged her broad shoulders.

“Since the war they have been effete as regards serious crime. At least,
that is what Il Passero told me when he was here a month ago.”

“Someone is coming here to meet Monsieur Henfrey,” Vervoort said. “Who
is it?”

“I don’t know. I only received word of it the day before yesterday. A
messenger from London, I believe.”

“Well, each day I become more and more mystified,” Hugh declared. “Why
Il Passero, whom I do not know, should take all this interest in me, I
cannot imagine.”

“Il Passero very often assists those against whom a false charge is
laid,” the woman remarked. “There is no better friend when one is in
trouble, for so clever and ubiquitous is he, and so many friends in high
quarters does he possess, that he can usually work his will. His is the
master-mind, and we obey without question.”




TWELFTH CHAPTER

THE STRANGER IN BOND STREET

As Dorise walked up Bond Street, smartly dressed, next afternoon, on her
way to her dressmaker’s, she was followed by a well-dressed young girl
in black, dark-eyed, with well-cut, refined features, and apparently a
lady.

From Piccadilly the stranger had followed Dorise unseen, until at the
corner of Maddox Street she overtook her, and smiling, uttered her name.

“Yes,” responded Doris in surprise. “But I regret--you have the
advantage of me?”

“Probably,” replied the stranger. “Do you recollect the _bal blanc_ at
Nice and a certain white cavalier? I have a message from him to give you
in secret.”

“Why in secret?” Dorise asked rather defiantly.

“Well--for certain reasons which I think you can guess,” answered the
girl in black, as she strolled at Dorise’s side.

“Why did not you call on me at home?”

“Because of your mother. She would probably have been a little
inquisitive. Let us go into some place--a tea-room--where we can talk,”
 she suggested. “I have come to see you concerning Mr. Henfrey.”

“Where is he?” asked Dorise, in an instant anxious.

“Quite safe. He arrived in Malines yesterday--and is with friends.”

“Has he had my letters?”

“Unfortunately, no. But do not let us talk here. Let’s go in yonder,”
 and she indicated the Laurel Tea Rooms, which, the hour being early,
they found, to their satisfaction, practically deserted.

At a table in the far corner they resumed their conversation.

“Why has he not received my letters?” asked Dorise. “It is nearly a
month ago since I first wrote.”

“By some mysterious means the police got to know of your friend’s
intended visit to Brussels to obtain his letters. Therefore, it was too
dangerous for him to go to the Poste Restante, or even to send anyone
there. The Brussels police were watching constantly. How they have
gained their knowledge is a complete mystery.”

“Who sent you to me?”

“A friend of Mr. Henfrey. My instructions are to see you, and to
convey any message you may wish to send to Mr. Henfrey to him direct in
Malines.”

“I’m sure it’s awfully good of you,” Dorise replied. “Does he know you
are here?”

“Yes. But I have not met him. I am simply a messenger. In fact, I travel
far and wide for those who employ me.”

“And who are they?”

“I regret, but they must remain nameless,” said the girl, with a smile.

Dorise was puzzled as to how the French police could have gained any
knowledge of Hugh’s intentions. Then suddenly, she became horrified as
a forgotten fact flashed across her mind. She recollected how, early
in the grey morning, after her return from the ball at Nice, she had
written and addressed a letter to Hugh. On reflection, she had realized
that it was not sufficiently reassuring, so she had torn it up and
thrown it into the waste-paper basket instead of burning it.

She had, she remembered, addressed the envelope to Mr. Godfrey Brown, at
the Poste Restante in Brussels.

Was it possible that the torn fragments had fallen into the hands of the
police? She knew that they had been watching her closely. Her surmise
was, as a matter of fact, the correct one. Ogier had employed the head
chambermaid to give him the contents of Dorise’s waste-paper basket from
time to time, hence the knowledge he had gained.

“Are you actually going to Malines?” asked Dorise of the girl.

“Yes. As your messenger,” the other replied with a smile. “I am leaving
to-night. If you care to write him a letter, I will deliver it.”

“Will you come with me over to the Empress Club, and I will write the
letter there?” Dorise suggested, still entirely mystified.

To this the stranger agreed, and they left the tea-shop and walked
together to the well-known ladies’ club, where, while the mysterious
messenger sipped tea, Dorise sat down and wrote a long and affectionate
letter to her lover, urging him to exercise the greatest caution and to
get back to London as soon as he could.

When she had finished it, she placed it in an envelope.

“I would not address it,” remarked the other girl. “It will be safer
blank, for I shall give it into his hand.”

And ten minute later the mysterious girl departed, leaving Dorise to
reflect over the curious encounter.

So Hugh was in Malines. She went to the telephone, rang up Walter Brock,
and told him the reassuring news.

“In Malines?” he cried over the wire. “I wonder if I dare go there to
see him? What a dead-alive hole!”

Not until then did Dorise recollect that the girl had not given her
Hugh’s address. She had, perhaps, purposely withheld it.

This fact she told Hugh’s friend, who replied over the wire:

“Well, it is highly satisfactory news, in any case. We can only wait,
Miss Ranscomb. But this must relieve your mind, I feel sure.”

“Yes, it does,” admitted Dorise, and a few moments later she rang off.

That evening Il Passero’s _chic_ messenger crossed from Dover to Ostend,
and next morning she called at Madame Maupoil’s, in Malines, where she
delivered Dorise’s note into Hugh’s own hand. She was an expert and
hardened traveller.

Hugh eagerly devoured its contents, for it was the first communication
he had had from her since that fateful night at Monte Carlo. Then,
having thanked the girl again, and again, the latter said:

“If you wish to write back to Miss Ranscomb do so. I will address the
envelope, and as I am going to Cologne to-night I will post it on my
arrival.”

Hugh thanked her cordially, and while she sat chatting with Madame
Maupoil, sipping her _cafe au lait_, he sat down and wrote a long letter
to the girl he loved so deeply--a letter which reached its destination
four days later.

One morning about ten days afterwards, when the sun shone brightly upon
the fresh green of the Surrey hills, Mrs. Bond was sitting before a fire
in the pretty morning room at Shapley Manor, a room filled with antique
furniture and old blue china, reading an illustrated paper. At the long,
leaded window stood a tall, fair-faced girl in a smart navy-suit. She
was decidedly pretty, with large, soft grey eye

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