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 flatau troisiemein 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 theSurrey 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.
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 theterrassethe 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 coupsen 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 famouscouturierein 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 thebal blancat 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. Thebal blancis 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 thesalle 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 thebal blancat 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 thedoganaat 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.