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 Italiandoganahe 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:
“Mypadroneis anAmericano. 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. TheAmericanois 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 Italiandouane, 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 theescrocsof Europe gather at thetapis vertin 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 thedoganadiscovered 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 thedogana, 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?
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 greatbal blancis 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 thebal 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’sloupwas 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 afugitive!
“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 headfemme 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.
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 thepersiennesbeing 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 excellentcafe 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 certaindelegatoof 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 thelingua Toscanoperfectly and French and English andTedesco. 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.