"Do you address me?" he asked.
His tone was vastly discouraging but it was too late to draw back.
"I should like to speak to you, if I may," Richard continued.
"I am not aware," Mr. Grex said, "that I have the privilege of your acquaintance."
"You haven't," Richard admitted, "but all the same I want to speak to you, if I may."
"Since you have gone so far," Mr. Grex conceded, "you had better finish, but you must allow me to tell you in advance that I look upon any address from a perfect stranger as an impertinence."
"You'll think worse of me before I've finished, then," Richard declared desperately. "You don't mind if I sit down?"
"These seats," Mr. Grex replied coldly, "are free to all."
The young man took his place upon the divan with a sinking heart. There was something in Mr. Grex's tone which seemed to destroy all his confidence, a note of something almost alien in the measured contempt of his speech.
"I am sorry to give you any offence," Richard began. "I happened to notice that you were watching me. I was looking at your daughter—staring at her. I am afraid you thought me impertinent."
"Your perspicuity," Mr. Grex observed, "seems to be of a higher order than your manners. You are, perhaps, a stranger to civilised society?"
"I don't know about that," Richard went on doggedly. "I have been to college and mixed with the usual sort of people. My birth isn't much to speak of, perhaps, if you count that for anything."
Something which was almost like the ghost of a smile, devoid of any trace of humour, parted Mr. Grex's lips.
"If I count that for anything!" he repeated, half closing his eyes for a moment. "Pray proceed, young man."
"I am an American," Richard continued. "My name is Richard Lane. My father was very wealthy and I am his heir. My sister is Lady Weybourne. I was lunching with her at Ciro's to-day when I saw you and your daughter. I think I can say that I am a respectable person. I have a great many friends to whom I can refer you."
"I am not thinking of engaging anybody, that I know of," Mr. Grex murmured.
"I want to marry your daughter," Richard declared desperately, feeling that any further form of explanation would only lead him into greater trouble.
Mr. Grex knocked the ash from his cigarette.
"Is your keeper anywhere in the vicinity?" he asked.
"I am perfectly sane," Richard assured him. "I know that it sounds foolish but it isn't really. I am twenty-seven years old and I have never asked a girl to marry me yet. I have been waiting until—"
The words died away upon his lips. It was impossible for him to continue, the cold enmity of this man was too chilling.
"I am absolutely in earnest," he insisted. "I have been endeavouring all day to find some mutual friend to introduce me to your daughter. Will you do so? Will you give me a chance?"
"I will not," Mr. Grex replied firmly.
"Why not? Please tell me why not?" Richard begged. "I am not asking for anything more now than just an opportunity to talk with her."
"It is not a matter which admits of discussion," Mr. Grex pronounced. "I have permitted you to say what you wished, notwithstanding the colossal, the unimaginable impertinence of your suggestion. I request you to leave me now and I advise you most heartily to indulge no more in the most preposterous and idiotic idea which ever entered into the head of an apparently sane young man."
Richard rose slowly to his feet.
"Very well, sir," he replied, "I'll go. All the same, what you have said doesn't make any difference."
"Does not make any difference?" Mr. Grex repeated, with arched eyebrows.
"None at all," Richard declared. "I don't know what your objection to me is, but I hope you'll get over it some day. I'd like to make friends with you. Perhaps, later on, you may look at the matter differently."
"Later on?" Mr. Grex murmured.
"When I have married your daughter," Richard concluded, marching defiantly away.
Mr. Grex watched the young man until he had disappeared in the crowd. Then he leaned hack amongst the cushions of the divan with folded arms. Little lines had become visible around his eyes, there was a slight twitching at the corners of his lips. He looked like a man who was inwardly enjoying some huge joke.
Richard, passing the Hotel de Paris that evening in his wicked-looking grey racing car, saw Hunterleys standing on the steps and pulled up.
"Not going up to La Turbie, by any chance?" he enquired.
Hunterleys nodded.
"I'm going up to the dinner," he replied. "The hotel motor is starting from here in a few minutes."
"Come with me," Richard invited.
Hunterleys looked a little doubtfully at the long, low machine.
"Are you going to shoot up?" he asked. "It's rather a dangerous road."
"I'll take care of you," the young man promised. "That hotel 'bus will be crammed."
They glided through the streets on to the broad, hard road, and crept upwards with scarcely a sound, through the blue-black twilight. Around and in front of them little lights shone out from the villas and small houses dotted away in the mountains. Almost imperceptibly they passed into a different atmosphere. The air became cold and exhilarating. The flavour of the mountain snows gave life to the breeze. Hunterleys buttoned up his coat but bared his head.
"My young friend," he said, "this is wonderful."
"It's a great climb," Richard assented, "and doesn't she just eat it up!"
They paused for a moment at La Turbie. Below them was a chain of glittering lights fringing the Bay of Mentone, and at their feet the lights of the Casino and Monte Carlo flared up through the scented darkness. Once more they swung upwards. The road now had become narrower and the turnings more frequent. They were up above the region of villas and farmhouses, in a country which seemed to consist only of bleak hill-side, open to the winds, wrapped in shadows. Now and then they heard the tinkling of a goat bell; far below they saw the twin lights of other ascending cars. They reached the plateau at last and drew up before the club-house, ablaze with cheerful lights.
"I'll just leave the car under the trees," Richard declared. "No one will be staying late."
Hunterleys unwound his scarf and handed his coat and hat to a page-boy. Then he stood suddenly rigid. He bit his lip. His wife had just issued from the cloak-room and was drawing on her gloves. She saw him and hesitated. She, too, turned a little paler. Slowly Hunterleys approached her.
"An unexpected pleasure," he murmured.
"I am here with Mr. Draconmeyer," she told him, almost bluntly.
Hunterleys bowed.
"And a party?" he enquired.
"No," she replied. "I really did not want to come. Mr. Draconmeyer had promised Monsieur Pericot, the director here, to come and bring Mrs. Draconmeyer. At the last moment, however, she was not well enough, and he almost insisted upon my taking her place."
"Is it necessary to explain?" Hunterleys asked quietly. "You know very well how I regard this friendship of yours."
"I am sorry," she said. "If I had known that we were likely to meet—well, I would not have come here to-night."
"You were at least considerate," he remarked bitterly. "May I be permitted to compliment you upon your toilette?"
"As you pay for my frocks," she answered, "there is certainly no reason why you shouldn't admire them."
He bit his lip. There was a certain challenge in her expression which made him, for a moment, feel weak. She was a very beautiful woman and she was looking her best. He spoke quickly on another subject.
"Are you still," he asked, "troubled by the attentions of the person you spoke to me about?"
"I am still watched," she replied drily.
"I have made some enquiries," Hunterleys continued, "and I have come to the conclusion that you are right."
"And you still tell me that you have nothing to do with it?"
"I assure you, upon my honour, that I have nothing whatever to do with it."
It was obvious that she was puzzled, but at that moment Mr. Draconmeyer presented himself. The newcomer simply bowed to Hunterleys and addressed some remark about the room to Violet. Then Richard came up and they all passed on into the reception room, where two or three very fussy but very suave and charming Frenchmen were receiving the guests. A few minutes afterwards dinner was announced. A black frown was upon Richard's forehead.
"She isn't coming!" he muttered. "I say, Sir Henry, you won't mind if we leave early?"
"I shall be jolly glad to get away," Hunterleys assented heartily.
Then he suddenly felt a grip of iron upon his arm.
"She's come!" Richard murmured ecstatically. "Look at her, all in white! Just look at the colour of her hair! There she is, going into the reception room. Jove! I'm glad we are here, after all!"
Hunterleys smiled a little wearily. They passed on into thesalle à manger. The seats at the long dining-tables were not reserved, and they found a little table for two in a corner, which they annexed. Hunterleys was in a grim humour, but his companion was in the wildest spirits. Considering that he was placed where he could see Mr. Grex and his daughter nearly the whole of the time, he really did contrive to keep his eyes away from them to a wonderful extent, but he talked of her unceasingly.
"Say, I'm sorry for you, Sir Henry!" he declared. "It's just your bad luck, being here with me while I've got this fit on, but I've got to talk to some one, so you may as well make up your mind to it. There never was anything like that girl upon the earth. There never was anything like the feeling you get," he went on, "when you're absolutely and entirely convinced, when you know—that there's just one girl who counts for you in the whole universe. Gee whiz! It does get hold of you! I suppose you've been through it all, though."
"Yes, I've been through it!" Hunterleys admitted, with a sigh.
The young man bit his lip. The story of Hunterleys' matrimonial differences was already being whispered about. Richard talked polo vigorously for the next quarter of an hour. It was not until the coffee and liqueurs arrived that they returned to the subject of Miss Grex. Then it was Hunterleys himself who introduced it. He was beginning to rather like this big, self-confident young man, so full of his simple love affair, so absolutely honest in his purpose, in his outlook upon life.
"Lane," he said, "I have given you several hints during the day, haven't I?"
"That's so," Richard agreed. "You've done your best to head me off. So did my future father-in-law. Sort of hopeless task, I can assure you."
Hunterleys shook his head.
"Honestly," he continued, "I wouldn't let myself think too much about her, Lane. I don't want to explain exactly what I mean. There's no real reason why I shouldn't tell you what I know about Mr. Grex, but for a good many people's sakes, it's just as well that those few of us who know keep quiet. I am sure you trust me, and it's just the same, therefore, if I tell you straight, as man to man, that you're only laying up for yourself a store of unhappiness by fixing your thoughts so entirely upon that young woman."
Richard, for all his sublime confidence, was a little staggered by the other's earnestness.
"Look here," he said, "the girl isn't married, to start with?"
"Not that I know of," Hunterleys confessed.
"And she's not engaged because I've seen her left hand," Richard proceeded. "I'm not one of those Americans who go shouting all over the world that because I've got a few million dollars I am the equal of anybody, but honestly, Sir Henry, there are a good many prejudices over this side that you fellows lay too much store by. Grex may be a nobleman in disguise. I don't care. I am a man. I can give her everything she needs in life and I am not going to admit, even if she is an aristocrat, that you croakers are right when you shake your heads and advise me to give her up. I don't care who she is, Hunterleys. I am going to marry her."
Hunterleys helped himself to a liqueur.
"Young man," he said, "in a sense I admire your independence. In another, I think you've got all the conceit a man needs for this world. Let us presume, for a moment, that she is, as you surmise, the daughter of a nobleman. When it suits her father to throw off his incognito, she is probably in touch with young men in the highest circles of many countries. Why should you suppose that you can come along and cut them all out?"
"Because I love her," the young man answered simply. "They don't."
"You must remember," Hunterleys resumed, "that all foreign noblemen are not what they are represented to be in your comic papers. Austrian and Russian men of high rank are most of them very highly cultivated, very accomplished, and very good-looking. You don't know much of the world, do you? It's a pretty formidable enterprise to come from a New York office, with only Harvard behind you, and a year or so's travel as a tourist, and enter the list against men who have had twice your opportunities. I am talking to you like this, young fellow, for your good. I hope you realise that. You're used to getting what you want. That's because you've been brought up in a country where money can do almost anything. I am behind the scenes here and I can assure you that your money won't count for much with Mr. Grex."
"I never thought it would," Richard admitted. "I think when I talk to her she'll understand that I care more than any of the others. If you want to know the reason, that's why I'm so hopeful."
Monsieur le Directeur had risen to his feet. Some one had proposed his health and he made a graceful little speech of acknowledgment. He remained standing for a few minutes after the cheers which had greeted his neat oratorical display had died away. The conclusion of his remarks came as rather a surprise to his guests.
"I have to ask you, ladies and gentlemen," he announced, "with many, many regrets, and begging you to forgive my apparent inhospitality, to make your arrangements for leaving us as speedily as may be possible. Our magnificent situation, with which I believe that most of you are familiar, has but one drawback. We are subject to very dense mountain mists, and alas! I have to tell you that one of these has come on most unexpectedly and the descent must be made with the utmost care. Believe me, there is no risk or any danger," he went on earnestly, "so long as you instruct your chauffeurs to proceed with all possible caution. At the same time, as there is very little chance of the mist becoming absolutely dispelled before daylight, in your own interests I would suggest that a start be made as soon as possible."
Every one rose at once, Richard and Hunterleys amongst them.
"This will test your skill to-night, young man," Hunterleys remarked. "How's the nerve, eh?"
Richard smiled almost beatifically. For once he had allowed his eyes to wander and he was watching the girl with golden hair who was at that moment receiving the respectful homage of the director.
"Lunatics, and men who are head over heels in love," he declared, "never come to any harm. You'll be perfectly safe with me."
Their first glimpse of the night, as Hunterleys and Lane passed out through the grudgingly opened door, was sufficiently disconcerting. A little murmur of dismay broke from the assembled crowd. Nothing was to be seen but a dense bank of white mist, through which shone the brilliant lights of the automobiles waiting at the door. Monsieur le Directeur hastened about, doing his best to reassure everybody.
"If I thought it was of the slightest use," he declared, "I would ask you all to stay, but when the clouds once stoop like this, there is not likely to be any change for twenty-four hours, and we have not, alas! sleeping accommodation. If the cars are slowly driven and kept to the inside, it is only a matter of a mile or two before you will drop below the level of the clouds."
Hunterleys and Lane made their way out to the front, and with their coat collars turned up, groped their way to the turf on the other side of the avenue. From where they stood, looking downwards, the whole world seemed wrapped in mysterious and somber silence. There was nothing to be seen but the grey, driving clouds. In less than a minute their hair and eyebrows were dripping. A slight breeze had sprung up, the cold was intense.
"Cheerful sort of place, this," Lane remarked gloomily. "Shall we make a start?"
Hunterleys hesitated.
"Not just yet. Look!"
He pointed downwards. For a moment the clouds had parted. Thousands of feet below, like little pinpricks of red fire, they saw the lights of Monte Carlo. Almost as they looked, the clouds closed up again. It was as though they had peered into another world.
"Jove, that was queer!" Lane muttered. "Look! What's that?"
A long ray of sickly yellow light shone for a moment and was then suddenly blotted out by a rolling mass of vapour. The clouds had closed in again once more. The obscurity was denser than ever.
"The lighthouse," Hunterleys replied. "Do you think it's any use waiting?"
"We'll go inside and put on our coats," Lane suggested. "My car is by the side of the avenue there. I covered it over and left it."
They found their coats in the hall, wrapped themselves up and lit cigarettes. Already many of the cars had started and vanished cautiously into obscurity. Every now and then one could hear the tooting of their horns from far away below. The chief steward was directing the departures and insisting upon an interval of three minutes between each. The two men stood on one side and watched him. He was holding open the door of a large, exceptionally handsome car. On the other side was a servant in white livery. Lane gripped his companion's arm.
"There she goes!" he exclaimed.
The girl, followed by Mr. Grex, stepped into the landaulette, which was brilliantly illuminated inside with electric light. Almost immediately the car glided noiselessly off. The two men watched it until it disappeared. Then they crossed the road.
"Now then, Sir Henry," Richard observed grimly, as he turned the handle of the car and they took their places in the little well-shaped space, "better say your prayers. I'm going to drive slowly enough but it's an awful job, this, crawling down the side of a mountain in the dark, with nothing between you and eternity but your brakes."
They crept off. As far as the first turn the lights from the club-house helped them. Immediately afterwards, however, the obscurity was enveloping. Their faces were wet and shiny with moisture. Even the fingers of Lane's gloves which gripped the wheel were sodden. He proceeded at a snail's pace, keeping always on the inside of the road and only a few inches from the wall or bank. Once he lost his way and his front wheel struck a small stump, but they were going too slowly for disaster. Another time he failed to follow the turn of the road and found himself in a rough cart track. They backed with difficulty and got right once more. At the fourth turn they came suddenly upon a huge car which had left the road as they had done and was standing amongst the pine trees, its lights flaring through the mist.
"Hullo!" Lane called out, coming to a standstill. "You've missed the turn."
"My master is going to stay here all night," the chauffeur shouted back.
A man put his head from the window and began to talk in rapid French.
"It is inconceivable," he exclaimed, "that any one should attempt the descent! We have rugs, my wife and I. We stay here till the clouds pass."
"Good night, then!" Lane cried cheerfully.
"Not sure that you're not wise," Hunterleys added, with a shiver.
Twice they stopped while Lane rubbed the moisture from his gloves and lit a fresh cigarette.
"This is a test for your nerve, young fellow," Hunterleys remarked. "Are you feeling it?"
"Not in the least," Lane replied. "I can't make out, though, why that steward made us all start at intervals of three minutes. Seems to me we should have been better going together at this pace. Save any one from getting lost, anyhow."
They crawled on for another twenty minutes. The routine was always the same—a hundred yards or perhaps two, an abrupt turn and then a similar distance the other way. They had one or two slight misadventures but they made progress. Once, through a rift, they caught a momentary vision of a carpet of lights at a giddy distance below.
"We'll make it all right," Lane declared, crawling around another corner. "Gee! but this is the toughest thing in driving I've ever known! I can do ninety with this car easier than I can do this three. Hullo, some one else in trouble!"
Before them, in the middle of the road, a light was being slowly swung backwards and forwards. Lane brought the car to a standstill. He had scarcely done so when they were conscious of the sound of footsteps all around them. The arms of both men were seized from behind. They were addressed in guttural French.
"Messieurs will be pleased to descend."
"What the—what's wrong?" Lane demanded.
"Descend at once," was the prompt order.
By the light of the lantern which the speaker was holding, they caught a glimpse of a dozen white faces and the dull gleam of metal from the firearms which his companions were carrying. Hunterleys stepped out. An escort of two men was at once formed on either side of him.
"Tell us what it's all about, anyhow?" he asked coolly.
"Nothing serious," the same guttural voice answered,—"a little affair which will be settled in a few minutes. As for you, monsieur," the man continued, turning to Lane, "you will drive your car slowly to the next turn, and leave it there. Afterwards you will return with me."
Richard set his teeth and leaned over his wheel. Then it suddenly flashed into his mind that Mr. Grex and his daughter were already amongst the captured. He quickly abandoned his first instinct.
"With pleasure, monsieur," he assented. "Tell me when to stop."
He drove the car a few yards round the corner, past a line of others. Their lights were all extinguished and the chauffeurs absent.
"This is a pleasant sort of picnic!" he grumbled, as he brought his car to a standstill. "Now what do I do, monsieur?"
"You return with me, if you please," was the reply.
Richard stood, for a moment, irresolute. The idea of giving in without a struggle was most distasteful to this self-reliant young American. Then he realised that not only was his captor armed but that there were men behind him and one on either side.
"Lead the way," he decided tersely.
They marched him up the hill, a little way across some short turf and round the back of a rock to a long building which he remembered to have noticed on his way up. His guide threw open the door and Richard looked in upon a curious scene. Ranged up against the further wall were about a dozen of the guests who had preceded him in his departure from the Club-house. One man only had his hands tied behind him. The others, apparently, were considered harmless. Mr. Grex was the one man, and there was a little blood dripping from his right hand. The girl stood by his side. She was no paler than usual—she showed, indeed, no signs of terror at all—but her eyes were bright with indignation. One man was busy stripping the jewels from the women and throwing them into a bag. In the far corner the little group of chauffeurs was being watched by two more men, also carrying firearms. Lane looked down the line of faces. Lady Hunterleys was there, and by her side Draconmeyer. Hunterleys was a little apart from the others. Freddy Montressor, who was leaning against the wall, chuckled as Lane came in.
"So they've got you, too, Dicky, have they?" he remarked. "It's a hold-up—a bully one, too. Makes one feel quite homesick, eh? How much have you got on you?"
"Precious little, thank heavens!" Richard muttered.
His eyes were fixed upon the brigand who was collecting the jewels, and who was now approaching Miss Grex. He felt something tingling in his blood. One of the guests began to talk excitedly. The man who was apparently the leader, and who was standing at the door with an electric torch in one hand and a revolver in the other, stepped a little forward.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "once more I beg you not to be alarmed. So long as you part with your valuables peaceably, you will be at liberty to depart as soon as every one has been dealt with. If there is no resistance, there will be no trouble. We do not wish to hurt any one."
The collector of jewels had arrived in front of the girl. She unfastened her necklace and handed it to him.
"The little pendant around my neck," she remarked calmly, "is valueless. I desire to keep it."
"Impossible!" the man replied. "Off with it."
"But I insist!" she exclaimed. "It is an heirloom."
The man laughed brutally. His filthy hand was raised to her neck. Even as he touched her, Lane, with a roar of anger, sent one of his guards flying on to the floor of the barn, and, snatching the gun from his hand, sprang forward.
"Come on, you fellows!" he shouted, bringing it down suddenly upon the hand of the robber. "These things aren't loaded. There's only one of these blackguards with a revolver."
"And I've got him!" Hunterleys, who had been watching Lane closely, cried, suddenly swinging his arm around the man's neck and knocking his revolver up.
There was a yell of pain from the man with the jewels, whose wrist Lane had broken, a howl of dismay from the others—pandemonium.
"At 'em, Freddy!" Lane shouted, seizing the nearest of his assailants by the neck and throwing him out into the darkness. "To hell with you!" he added, just escaping a murderous blow and driving his fist into the face of the man who had aimed it. "Good for you, Hunterleys! There isn't one of those old guns of theirs that'll go off. They aren't even loaded."
The barn seemed suddenly to become half empty. Into the darkness the little band of brigands crept away like rats. In less than half a minute they had all fled, excepting the one who lay on the ground unconscious from the effects of Richard's blow, and the leader of the gang, whom Hunterleys still held by the throat. Richard, with a clasp-knife which he had drawn from his pocket, cut the cord which they had tied around Mr. Grex's wrists. His action, however, was altogether mechanical. He scarcely glanced at what he was doing. Somehow or other, he found the girl's hands in his.
"That brute—didn't touch you, did he?" he asked.
She looked at him. Whether the clouds were still outside or not, Lane felt that he had passed into Heaven.
"He did not, thanks to you," she murmured. "But do you mean really that those guns all the time weren't loaded?"
"I don't believe they were," Richard declared stoutly. "That chap kept on playing about with the lock of his old musket and I felt sure that it was of no use, loaded or not. Anyway, when I saw that brute try to handle you—well—"
He stopped, with an awkward little laugh. Mr. Grex tapped a cigarette upon his case and lit it.
"I am sure, my young friend, we are all very much indebted to you. The methods which sometimes are scarcely politic in the ordinary affairs of life," he continued drily, "are admirable enough in a case like this. We will just help Hunterleys tie up the leader of the gang. A very plucky stroke, that of his."
He crossed the barn. One of the women had fainted, others were busy collecting their jewelry. The chauffeurs had hurried off to relight the lamps of the cars.
"I must tell you this," Richard said, drawing a a little nearer to the girl. "Please don't be angry with me. I went to your father this afternoon. I made an idiot of myself—I couldn't help it. I was staring at you and he noticed it. I didn't want him to think that I was such an ill-mannered brute as I seemed. I tried to make him understand but he wouldn't listen to me. I'd like to tell you now—now that I have the opportunity—that I think you're just—"
She smiled very faintly.
"What is it that you wish to tell me?" she asked patiently.
"That I love you," he wound up abruptly.
There was a moment's silence, a silence with a background of strange noises. People were talking, almost shouting to one another with excitement. Newcomers were being told the news. The man whom Hunterleys had captured was shrieking and cursing. From beyond came the tooting of motor-horns as the cars returned. Lane heard nothing. He saw nothing but the white face of the girl as she stood in the shadows of the barn, with its walls of roughly threaded pine trunks.
"But I have scarcely ever spoken to you in my life!" she protested, looking at him in astonishment.
"It doesn't make any difference," he replied. "You know I am speaking the truth. I think, in your heart, that you, too, know that these things don't matter, now and then. Of course, you don't—you couldn't feel anything of what I feel, but with me it's there now and for always, and I want to have a chance, just a chance to make you understand. I'm not really mad. I'm just—in love with you."
She smiled at him, still in a friendly manner, but her face had clouded. There was a look in her eyes almost of trouble, perhaps of regret.
"I am so sorry," she murmured. "It is only a sudden feeling on your part, isn't it? You have been so splendid to-night that I can do no more than thank you very, very much. And as for what you have told me, I think it is an honour, but I wish you to forget it. It is not wise for you to think of me in that way. I fear that I cannot even offer you my friendship."
Again there was a brief silence. The clamour of exclamations from the little groups of people still filled the air outside. They could hear cars coming and going. The man whom Hunterleys and Mr. Grex were tying up was still groaning and cursing.
"Are you married?" Richard asked abruptly.
She shook her head.
"Engaged?"
"No!"
"Do you care very much for any one else?"
"No!" she told him softly.
He drew her away.
"Come outside for one moment," he begged. "I hate to see you in the place where that beast tried to lay hands upon you. Here is your necklace."
He picked it up from her feet and she followed him obediently outside. People were standing about, shadowy figures in little groups. Some of the cars had already left, others were being prepared for a start. Below, once more the clouds had parted and the lights twinkled like fireflies through the trees. This time they could even see the lights from the village of La Turbie, less brilliant but almost at their feet. Richard glanced upwards. There was a star clearly visible.
"The clouds are lifting," he said. "Listen. If there is no one else, tell me, why there shouldn't be the slightest chance for me? I am not clever, I am nobody of any account, but I care for you so wonderfully. I love you, I always shall love you, more than any one else could. I never understood before, but I understand now. Just this caring means so much."
She stood close to his side. Her manner at the same time seemed to depress him and yet to fill him with hope.
"What is your name?" she enquired.
"Richard Lane," he told her. "I am an American."
"Then, Mr. Richard Lane," she continued softly, "I shall always think of you and think of to-night and think of what you have said, and perhaps I shall be a little sorry that what you have asked me cannot be."
"Cannot?" he muttered.
She shook her head almost sadly.
"Some day," she went on, "as soon as our stay in Monte Carlo is finished, if you like, I will write and tell you the real reason, in case you do not find it out before."
He was silent, looking downwards to where the gathering wind was driving the clouds before it, to where the lights grew clearer and clearer at every moment.
"Does it matter," he asked abruptly, "that I am rich—very rich?"
"It does not matter at all," she answered.
"Doesn't it matter," he demanded, turning suddenly upon her and speaking with a new passion, almost a passion of resentment, "doesn't it matter that without you life doesn't exist for me any longer? Doesn't it matter that a man has given you his whole heart, however slight a thing it may seem to you? What am I to do if you send me away? There isn't anything left in life."
"There is what you have always found in it," she reminded him.
"There isn't," he replied fiercely. "That's just what there isn't. I should go back to a world that was like a dead city."
He suddenly felt her hand upon his.
"Dear Mr. Lane," she begged, "wait for a little time before you nurse these sad thoughts, and when you know how impossible what you ask is, it will seem easier. But if you really care to hear something, if it would really please you sometimes to think of it when you are alone and you remember this little foolishness of yours, let me tell you, if I may, that I am sorry—I am very sorry."
His hand was suddenly pressed, and then, before he could stop her, she had glided away. He moved a step to follow her and almost at once he was surrounded. Lady Hunterleys patted him on the shoulder.
"Really," she exclaimed, "you and Henry were our salvation. I haven't felt so thrilled for ages. I only wish," she added, dropping her voice a little, "that it might bring you the luck you deserve."
He answered vaguely. She turned back to Hunterleys. She was busy tearing up her handkerchief.
"I am going to tie up your head," she said. "Please stoop down."
He obeyed at once. The side of his forehead was bleeding where a bullet from the revolver of the man he had captured had grazed his temple.
"Too bad to trouble you," he muttered.
"It's the least we can do," she declared, laughing nervously. "Forgive me if my fingers tremble. It is the excitement of the last few minutes."
Hunterleys stood quite still. Words seemed difficult to him just then.
"You were very brave, Henry," she said quietly. "Whom—whom are you going down with?"
"I am with Richard Lane," he answered, "in his two-seated racer."
She bit her lip.
"I did not mean to come alone with Mr. Draconmeyer, really," she explained. "He thought, up to the last moment, that his wife would be well enough to come."
"Did he really believe so, do you think?" Hunterleys asked.
A voice intervened. Mr. Draconmeyer was standing by their side.
"Well," he said, "we might as well resume our journey. We all look and feel, I think, as though we had been taking part in a scene from some opéra bouffe."
Lady Hunterleys shivered. She had drawn a little closer to her husband. Her coat was unfastened. Hunterleys leaned towards her and buttoned it with strong fingers up to her throat.
"Thank you," she whispered. "You wouldn't—you couldn't drive down with us, could you?"
"Have you plenty of room?" he enquired.
"Plenty," she declared eagerly. "Mr. Draconmeyer and I are alone."
For a moment Hunterleys hesitated. Then he caught the smile upon the face of the man he detested.
"Thank you," he said, "I don't think I can desert Lane."
She stiffened at once. Her good night was almost formal. Hunterleys stepped into the car which Richard had brought up. There was just a slight mist around them, but the whole country below, though chaotic, was visible, and the lights on the hill-side, from La Turbie down to the sea-board, were in plain sight.
"Our troubles," Hunterleys remarked, as they glided off, "seem to be over."
"Maybe," Lane replied grimly. "Mine seem to be only just beginning!"
At ten o'clock the next morning, Hunterleys crossed the sunlit gardens towards the English bank, to receive what was, perhaps, the greatest shock of his life. A few minutes later he stood before the mahogany counter, his eyes fixed upon the half sheet of notepaper which the manager had laid before him. The words were few enough and simple enough, yet they constituted for him a message written in the very ink of tragedy. The notepaper was the notepaper of the Hotel de Paris, the date the night before, the words few and unmistakable:
To the Manager of the English Bank. Please hand my letters to bearer.Henry Hunterleys.
To the Manager of the English Bank. Please hand my letters to bearer.
Henry Hunterleys.
He read it over, letter by letter, word by word. Then at last he looked up. His voice sounded, even to himself, unnatural.
"You were quite right," he said. "This order is a forgery."
The manager was greatly disturbed. He threw open the door of his private office.
"Come and sit down for a moment, will you, Sir Henry?" he invited. "This is a very serious matter, and I should like to discuss it with you."
They passed behind into the comfortable little sitting-room, smelling of morocco leather and roses, with its single high window, its broad writing-table, its carefully placed easy-chairs. Men had pleaded in here with all the eloquence at their command, men of every rank and walk in life, thieves, nobles, ruined men and pseudo-millionaires, always with the same cry—money; money for the great pleasure-mill which day and night drew in its own. Hunterleys sank heavily into a chair. The manager seated himself in an official attitude before his desk.
"I am sorry to have distressed you with this letter, Sir Henry," he said. "However, you must admit that things might have been worse. It is fortunately our invariable custom, when letters are addressed to one of our clients in our care, to deliver them to no one else under any circumstances. If you had been ill, for instance, I should have brought you your correspondence across to the hotel, but I should not have delivered it to your own secretary. That, as I say, is our invariable rule, and we find that it has saved many of our clients from inconvenience. In your case," the manager concluded impressively, "your communications being, in a sense, official, any such attempt as has been made would not stand the slightest chance of success. We should be even more particular than in any ordinary case to see that by no possible chance could any correspondence addressed to you, fall into other hands."
Hunterleys began to recover himself a little. He drew towards himself the heap of letters which the manager had laid by his side.
"Please make yourself quite comfortable here," the latter begged. "Read your letters and answer them, if you like, before you go out. I always call this," he added, with a smile, "the one inviolable sanctuary of Monte Carlo."
"You are very kind," Hunterleys replied. "Are you sure that I am not detaining you?"
"Not in the least. Personally, I am not at all busy. Three-quarters of our business, you see, is merely a matter of routine. I was just going to shut myself up here and read theTimes. Have a cigarette? Here's an envelope opener and a waste-paper basket. Make yourself comfortable."
Hunterleys glanced through his correspondence, rapidly reading and destroying the greater portion of it. He came at last to two parchment envelopes marked "On His Majesty's Service." These he opened and read their contents slowly and with great care. When he had finished, he produced a pair of scissors from his waistcoat pocket and cut the letters into minute fragments. He drew a little sigh of relief when at last their final destruction was assured, and rose shortly afterwards to his feet.
"I shall have to go on to the telegraph office," he said, "to send these few messages. Thank you very much, Mr. Harrison, for your kindness. If you do not mind, I should like to take this forged order away with me."
The manager hesitated.
"I am not sure that I ought to part with it," he observed doubtfully.
"Could you recognise the person who presented it—you or your clerk?"
The manager shook his head.
"Not a chance," he replied. "It was brought in, unfortunately, before I arrived. Young Parsons, who was the only one in the bank, explained that letters were never delivered to an order, and turned away to attend to some one else who was in a hurry. He simply remembers that it was a man, and that is all."
"Then the document is useless to you," Hunterleys pointed out. "You could never do anything in the matter without evidence of identification, and that being so, if you don't mind I should like to have it."
Mr. Harrison yielded it up.
"As you wish," he agreed. "It is interesting, if only as a curiosity. The imitation of your signature is almost perfect."
Hunterleys took up his hat. Then for a moment, with his hand upon the door, he hesitated.
"Mr. Harrison," he said, "I am engaged just now, as you have doubtless surmised, in certain investigations on behalf of the usual third party whom we need not name. Those investigations have reached a pitch which might possibly lead me into a position of some—well, I might almost say danger. You and I both know that there are weapons in this place which can be made use of by persons wholly without scruples, which are scarcely available at home. I want you to keep your eyes open. I have very few friends here whom I can wholly trust. It is my purpose to call in here every morning at ten o'clock for my letters, and if I fail to arrive within half-an-hour of that time without having given you verbal notice, something will have happened to me. You understand what I mean?"
"You mean that you are threatened with assassination?" the manager asked gravely.
"Practically it amounts to that," Hunterleys admitted. "I received a warning letter this morning. There is a very important matter on foot here, Mr. Harrison, a matter so important that to bring it to a successful conclusion I fancy that those who are engaged in it would not hesitate to face any risk. I have wired to England for help. If anything happens that it comes too late, I want you, when you find that I have disappeared, even if my disappearance is only a temporary matter, to let them know in London—you know how—at once."
The manager nodded.
"I will do so," he promised. "I trust, however," he went on, "that you are exaggerating the danger. Mr. Billson lived here for many years without any trouble."
Hunterleys smiled slightly.
"I am not a Secret Service man," he explained. "Billson's successor lives here now, of course, and is working with me, under the usual guise of newspaper correspondent. I don't think that he will come to any harm. But I am here in a somewhat different position, and my negotiations in the east, during the last few weeks, have made me exceedingly unpopular with some very powerful people. However, it is only an outside chance, of course, that I wish to guard against. I rely upon you, if I should fail to come to the bank any one morning without giving you notice, to do as I have asked."
Hunterleys left the bank and walked out once more into the sunlight. He first of all made his way down to the Post Office, where he rapidly dispatched several cablegrams which he had coded and written out in Mr. Harrison's private office. Afterwards he went on to the Terrace, and finding a retired seat at the further end, sat down. Then he drew the forged order once more from his pocket. Word by word, line by line, he studied it, and the more he studied it, the more hopeless the whole thing seemed. The handwriting, with the exception of the signature, which was a wonderful imitation of his own, was the handwriting of his wife. She had done this thing at Draconmeyer's instigation, done this thing against her husband, taken sides absolutely with the man whom he had come to look upon as his enemy! What inference was he to draw? He sat there, looking out over the Mediterranean, soft and blue, glittering with sunlight, breaking upon the yellow stretch of sand in little foam-flecked waves no higher than his hand. He watched the sunlight glitter on the white houses which fringed the bay. He looked idly up at the trim little vineyards on the brown hill-side. It was the beauty spot of the world. There was no object upon which his eyes could rest, which was not beautiful. The whole place was like a feast of colour and form and sunshine. Yet for him the light seemed suddenly to have faded from life. Danger had only stimulated him, had helped him to cope with the dull pain which he had carried about with him during the last few months. He was face to face now with something else. It was worse, this, than anything he had dreamed. Somehow or other, notwithstanding the growing estrangement with his wife which had ended in their virtual separation, he had still believed in her, still had faith in her, still had hope of an ultimate reconciliation. And behind it all, he had loved her. It seemed at that moment that a nightmare was being formed around him. A new horror was creeping into his thoughts. He had felt from the first a bitter dislike of Draconmeyer. Now, however, he realised that this feeling had developed into an actual and harrowing jealousy. He realised that the man was no passive agent. It was Draconmeyer who, with subtle purpose, was drawing his wife away! Hunterleys sprang to his feet and walked angrily backwards and forwards along the few yards of Terrace, which happened at that moment to be almost deserted. Vague plans of instant revenge upon Draconmeyer floated into his mind. It was simple enough to take the law into his own hands, to thrash him publicly, to make Monte Carlo impossible for him. And then, suddenly, he remembered his duty. They were trusting him in Downing Street. Chance had put into his hands so many threads of this diabolical plot. It was for him to checkmate it. He was the only person who could checkmate it. This was no time for him to think of personal revenge, no time for him to brood over his own broken life. There was work still to be done—his country's work....
He felt the need of change of scene. The sight of the place with its placid, enervating beauty, its constant appeal to the senses, was beginning to have a curious effect upon his nerves. He turned back upon the Terrace, and by means of the least frequented streets he passed through the town and up towards the hills. He walked steadily, reckless of time or direction. He had lunch at a small inn high above the road from Cannes, and it was past three o'clock when he turned homewards. He had found his way into the main road now and he trudged along heedless of the dust with which the constant procession of automobiles covered him all the while. The exercise had done him good. He was able to keep his thoughts focussed upon his mission. So far, at any rate, he had held his own. His dispatches to London had been clear and vivid. He had told them exactly what he had feared, he had shown them the inside of this scheme as instinct had revealed it to him, and he had begged for aid. One man alone, surrounded by enemies, and in a country where all things were possible, was in a parlous position if once the extent of his knowledge were surmised. So far, the plot had not yet matured. So far, though the clouds had gathered and the thunder was muttering, the storm had not broken. The reason for that he knew—the one person needed, the one person for whose coming all these plans had been made, had not yet arrived. There was no telling, however, how long the respite might last. At any moment might commence this conference, whose avowed purpose was to break at a single blow, a single treacherous but deadly blow, the Empire whose downfall Selingman had once publicly declared was the one great necessity involved by his country's expansion....
Hunterleys quenched his thirst at a roadside café, sitting out upon the pavement and drinking coarse red wine and soda-water. Then he bought a packet of black cigarettes and continued his journey. He was within sight of Monte Carlo when for the twentieth time he had to step to the far side of the pathway to avoid being smothered in dust by an advancing automobile. This time, by some chance, he glanced around, attracted by the piercing character of its long-distance whistle. A high-powered grey touring car came by, travelling at a great pace. Hunterleys stood perfectly rigid, one hand grasping the wall by the side of which he stood. Notwithstanding his spectacles and the thick coating of dust upon his clothes, the solitary passenger of the car was familiar enough to him. It was the man for whom this plot had been prepared. It was Paul Douaille, the great Foreign Minister into whose hands even the most cautious of Premiers had declared himself willing to place the destinies of his country!
Hunterleys pursued the road no longer. He took a ticket at the next station and hurried back to Monte Carlo. He went first to his room, bathed and changed, and, passing along the private passage, made his way into the Sporting Club. The first person whom he saw, seated in her accustomed place at her favourite table, was his wife. She beckoned him to come over to her. There was a vacant chair by her side to which she pointed.
"Thank you," he said, "I won't sit down. I don't think that I care to play just now. You are fortunate this afternoon, I trust?"
Something in his face and tone checked that rush of altered feeling of which she had been more than once passionately conscious since the night before.
"I am hideously out of luck," she confessed slowly. "I have been losing all day. I think that I shall give it up."
She rose wearily to her feet and he felt a sudden compassion for her. She was certainly looking tired. Her eyes were weary, she had the air of an unhappy woman. After all, perhaps she too sometimes knew what loneliness was.
"I should like some tea so much," she added, a little piteously.
He opened his lips to invite her to pass through into the restaurant with him. Then the memory of that forged order still in his pocket, flashed into his mind. He hesitated. A cold, familiar voice at his elbow intervened.
"Are you quite ready for tea, Lady Hunterleys? I have been in and taken a table near the window."
Hunterleys moved at once on one side. Draconmeyer bowed pleasantly.
"Cheerful time we had last night, hadn't we?" he remarked. "Glad to see your knock didn't lay you up."
Hunterleys disregarded his wife's glance. He was suddenly furious.
"All Monte Carlo seems to be gossiping about that little contretemps," Draconmeyer continued. "It was a crude sort of hold-up for a neighbourhood of criminals, but it very nearly came off. Will you have some tea with us?"
"Do, Henry," his wife begged.
Once again he hesitated. Somehow or other, he felt that the moment was critical. Then a hand was laid quietly upon his arm, a man's voice whispered in his ear.
"Monsieur will be so kind as to step this way for a moment—a little matter of business."
"Who are you?" Hunterleys demanded.
"The Commissioner of Police, at monsieur's service."
Hunterleys, in accordance with his request, followed the Commissioner downstairs into one of the small private rooms on the ground floor. The latter was very polite but very official.
"Now what is it that you want?" Hunterleys asked, a little brusquely, as soon as they were alone.
The representative of the law was distinctly mysterious. He had a brown moustache which he continually twirled, and he was all the time dropping his voice to a whisper.
"My first introduction to you should explain my mission, Sir Henry," he said. "I hold a high position in the police here. My business with you, however, is on behalf of a person whom I will not name, but whose identity you will doubtless guess."
"Very well," Hunterleys replied. "Now what is the nature of this mission, please? In plain words, what do you want with me?"
"I am here with reference to the affair of last night," the other declared.
"The affair of last night?" Hunterleys repeated, frowning. "Well, we all have to appear or be represented before the magistrates to-morrow morning. I shall send a lawyer."
"Quite so! Quite so! But in the meantime, something has transpired. You and the young American, Mr. Richard Lane, were the only two who offered any resistance. It was owing to you two, in fact, that the plot was frustrated. I am quite sure, Sir Henry, that every one agrees with me in appreciating your courage and presence of mind."
"Thank you," Hunterleys replied. "Is that what you came to say?"
The other shook his head.
"Unfortunately, no, monsieur! I am here to bring you certain information. The chief of the gang, Armand Martin, the man whom you attacked, became suddenly worse a few hours ago. The doctors suspect internal injuries, injuries inflicted during his struggle with you."
"I am very sorry to hear it," Hunterleys said coolly. "On the other hand, he asked for anything he got."
"Unfortunately," the Commissioner continued, "the law of the State is curiously framed in such matters. If the man should die, as seems more than likely, your legal position, Sir Henry, would be most uncomfortable. Your arrest would be a necessity, and there is no law granting what I believe you call bail to a person directly or indirectly responsible for the death of another. I am here, therefore, to give you what I may term an official warning. Your absence as a witness to-morrow morning will not be commented upon—events of importance have called you back to England. You will thereby be saved a very large amount of annoyance, and the authorities here will be spared the most regrettable necessity of having to deal with you in a manner unbefitting your rank."
Hunterleys became at once thoughtful. The whole matter was becoming clear to him.
"I see," he observed. "This is a warning to me to take my departure. Is that so?"
The Commissioner beamed and nodded many times.
"You have a quick understanding, Sir Henry," he declared. "Your departure to-night, or early to-morrow morning, would save a good deal of unpleasantness. I have fulfilled my mission, and I trust that you will reflect seriously upon the matter. It is the wish of the high personage whom I represent, that no inconvenience whatever should befall so distinguished a visitor to the Principality. Good day, monsieur!"
The official took his leave with a sweep of the hat and many bows. Hunterleys, after a brief hesitation, walked out into the sun-dappled street. It was the most fashionable hour of the afternoon. Up in the square a band was playing. Outside, two or three smart automobiles were discharging their freight of wonderfully-dressed women and debonair men from the villas outside. Suddenly a hand fell upon his arm. It was Richard Lane who greeted him.
"Say, where are you off to, Sir Henry?" he inquired.
Hunterleys laughed a little shortly.
"Really, I scarcely know," he replied. "Back to London, if I am wise, I suppose."
"Come into the Club," Richard begged.
"I have just left," Hunterleys told him. "Besides, I hate the place."
"Did you happen to notice whether Mr. Grex was in there?" Richard enquired.
"I didn't see him," Hunterleys answered. "Neither," he added significantly, "did I see Miss Grex."
"Well, I am going in to have a look round, anyway," Richard decided. "You might come along. There's nothing else to do in this place until dinner-time."
Hunterleys suffered himself to be persuaded and remounted the steps.
"Tell me, Lane," he asked curiously, "have you heard anything about any of the victims of our little struggle last night—I mean the two men we tackled?"
Richard shook his head.
"I hear that mine has a broken wrist," he said. "Can't say I am feeling very badly about that!"
"I've just been told that mine is going to die," Hunterleys continued.
The young man laughed incredulously.
"Why, I went over the prison this morning," he declared. "I never saw such a healthy lot of ruffians in my life. That chap whom you tackled—the one with the revolver—was smoking cigarettes and using language—well, I couldn't understand it all, but what I did understand was enough to melt the bars of his prison."
"That's odd," Hunterleys remarked drily. "According to the police commissioner who has just left me, the man is on his death-bed, and my only chance of escaping serious trouble is to get out of Monte Carlo to-night."
"Are you going?"
Hunterleys shook his head.
"It would take a great deal more than that to move me just now," he said, "even if I had not suspected from the first that the man was lying."
Richard glanced at his companion a little curiously.
"I shouldn't have said that you were having such a good time, Sir Henry," he observed; "in fact I should have thought you would have been rather glad of an opportunity to slip away."
Hunterleys looked around them. They had reached the top of the staircase and were in sight of the dense crowd in the rooms.
"Come and have a drink," he suggested. "A great many of these people will have cleared off presently."
"I'll have a drink, with pleasure," Richard answered, "but I still can't see why you're stuck on this place."
They strolled into the bar and found two vacant places.
"My dear young friend," Hunterleys said, as he ordered their drinks, "if you were an Englishman instead of an American, I think that I would give you a hint as to the reason why I do not wish to leave Monte Carlo just at present."
"Can't see what difference that makes," Richard declared. "You know I'm all for the old country."
"I wonder whether you are," Hunterleys remarked thoughtfully. "I tell you frankly that if I thought you meant it, I should probably come to you before long for a little help."
"If ever you do, I'm your man," Richard assured him heartily. "Any more scraps going?"
Hunterleys sipped his whisky and soda thoughtfully. There had been an exodus from the room to watch some heavy gambling atTrente et Quarante, and for a moment they were almost alone.
"Lane," he said, "I am going to take you a little into my confidence. In a way I suppose it is foolish, but to tell you the truth, I am almost driven to it. You know that I am a Member of Parliament, and you may have heard that if our Party hadn't gone out a few years ago, I was to have been Foreign Minister."
"I've heard that often enough," Lane assented. "I've heard you quoted, too, as an example of the curse of party politics. Just because you are forced to call yourself a member of one Party you are debarred from serving your country in any capacity until that Party is in power."
"That's quite true," Hunterleys admitted, "and to tell you the truth, ridiculous though it seems, I don't see how you're to get away from it in a practical manner. Anyhow, when my people came out I made up my mind that I wasn't going to just sit still in Opposition and find fault all the time, especially as we've a real good man at the Foreign Office. I was quite content to leave things in his hands, but then, you see, politically that meant that there was nothing for me to do. I thought matters over and eventually I paired for six months and was supposed to go off for the benefit of my health. As a matter of fact, I have been in the Balkan States since Christmas," he added, dropping his voice a little.
"What the dickens have you been doing there?"
"I can't tell you that exactly," Hunterleys replied. "Unfortunately, my enemies are suspicious and they have taken to watching me closely. They pretty well know what I am going to tell you—that I have been out there at the urgent request of the Secret Service Department of the present Government. I have been in Greece and Servia and Roumania, and, although I don't think there's a soul in the world knows, I have also been in St. Petersburg."
"But what's it all about?" Richard persisted. "What have you been doing in all these places?"
"I can only answer you broadly," Hunterleys went on. "There is a perfectly devilish scheme afloat, directed against the old country. I have been doing what I can to counteract it. At the last moment, just as I was leaving Sofia for London, by the merest chance I discovered that the scene for the culmination of this little plot was to be Monte Carlo, so I made my way round by Trieste, stayed at Bordighera and San Remo for a few days to put people off, and finally turned up here."
"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lane muttered. "And I thought you were just hanging about for your health or because your wife was here, and were bored to death for want of something to do."
"On the contrary," Hunterleys assured him, "I was up all night sending reports home—very interesting reports, too. I got them away all right, but there's no denying the fact that there are certain people in Monte Carlo at the present moment who suspect my presence here, and who would go to any lengths whatever to get rid of me. It isn't the actual harm I might do, but they have to deal with a very delicate problem and to make a bargain with a very sensitive person, and they are terribly afraid that my presence here, and a meeting between me and that person, might render all their schemes abortive."
Richard's face was a study in astonishment.
"Well," he exclaimed, "this beats everything! I've read of such things, of course, but one only half believes them. Right under our very noses, too! Say, what are you going to do about it, Sir Henry?"
"There is only one thing I can do," Hunterleys replied grimly. "I am bound to keep my place here. They'll drive me out if they can. I am convinced that the polite warning I have received to leave Monaco this afternoon because of last night's affair, is part of the conspiracy. In plain words, I've got to stick it out."
"But what good are you doing here, anyway?"
Hunterleys smiled and glanced carefully around the room. They were still free from any risk of being overheard.
"Well," he said, "perhaps you will understand my meaning more clearly if I tell you that I am the brains of a counterplot. The English Secret Service has a permanent agent here under the guise of a newspaper correspondent, who is in daily touch with me, and he in his turn has several spies at work. I am, however, the dangerous person. The others are only servants. They make their reports, but they don't understand their true significance. If these people could remove me before any one else could arrive to take my place, their chances of bringing off their coup here would be immensely improved."
"I suppose it's useless for me to ask if there's anything I can do to help?" Richard enquired.
"You've helped already," Hunterleys replied. "I have been nearly three months without being able to open my lips to a soul. People call me secretive, but I feel very human sometimes. I know that not a word of what I have said will pass your lips."
"Not a chance of it," Richard promised earnestly. "But look here, can't I do something? If I am not an Englishman, I'm all for the Anglo-Saxons. I hate these foreigners—that is to say the men," he corrected himself hastily.
Hunterleys smiled.
"Well, I was coming to that," he said. "I do feel hideously alone here, and what I would like you to do is just this. I would like you to call at my room at the Hotel de Paris, number 189, every morning at a certain fixed hour—say half-past ten. Just shake hands with me—that's all. Nothing shall prevent my being visible to you at that hour. Under no consideration whatever will I leave any message that I am engaged or have gone out. If I am not to be seen when you make your call, something has happened to me."
"And what am I to do then?"
"That is the point," Hunterleys continued. "I don't want to bring you too deeply into this matter. All that you need do is to make your way to the English Bank, see Mr. Harrison, the manager, and tell him of your fruitless visit to me. He will give you a letter to my wife and will know what other steps to take."
"Is that all?" Richard asked, a little disappointed. "You don't anticipate any scrapping, or anything of that sort?"
"I don't know what to anticipate," Hunterleys confessed, a little wearily. "Things are moving fast now towards the climax. I promise I'll come to you for help if I need it. You can but refuse."
"No fear of my refusing," Richard declared heartily. "Not on your life, sir!"
Hunterleys rose to his feet with an appreciative little nod. It was astonishing how cordially he had come to feel towards this young man, during the last few hours.
"I'll let you off now," he said. "I know you want to look around the tables and see if any of our friends of last night are to be found. I, too, have a little affair which I ought to have treated differently a few minutes ago. We'll meet later."
Hunterleys strolled back into the rooms. He came almost at once face to face with Draconmeyer, whom he was passing with unseeing eyes. Draconmeyer, however, detained him.
"I was looking for you, Sir Henry!" he exclaimed. "Can you spare me one moment?"
They stood a little on one side, out of the way of the moving throng of people. Draconmeyer was fingering nervously his tie of somewhat vivid purple. His manner was important.
"Do you happen, Sir Henry," he asked, "to have had any word from the prison authorities to-day?"
Hunterleys nodded.
"I have just received a message," he replied. "I understand that the man with whom I had a struggle last night has received some internal injuries and is likely to die."
Draconmeyer's manner became more mysterious. He glanced around the room as though to be sure that they were not overheard.
"I trust, Sir Henry," he said, "that you will not think me in any way presumptuous if I speak to you intimately. I have never had the privilege of your friendship, and in this unfortunate disagreement between your wife and yourself I have been compelled to accept your wife's point of view, owing to the friendship between Mrs. Draconmeyer and herself. I trust you will believe, however, that I have no feelings of hostility towards you."
"You are very kind," Hunterleys murmured.