CHAPTER XVIII
CHELWYN left Timothy with something to think about. Who was Madame Serpilot, this old lady who had such an interest in Mary travelling alone? And why, oh! why had she left Paris for Monte Carlo at the fag end of the season? For he and Mary had privately decided between them that London and Paris should only be stopping places on the route to the Riviera. Why should Madame Serpilot have changed her plans at the same time? There was something more than a coincidence in this. At lunch-time he had Mary to herself, her chaperon having a headache.
“Mary,” he said, “can you tell me why we changed our plans on the boat and decided to go straight on to Monte Carlo instead of staying in Paris?”
“Yes,” she said readily. “Don’t you remember my telling you about those beautiful books of views that I saw on the ship?”
“Where did you see them?” asked Timothy.
“I found them in my cabin one day. I think the steward must have left them,” she said. “They were most wonderful productions, full of coloured prints and photographs—didn’t I tell you about them?”
“I remember,” said Timothy slowly. “Found them in your cabin, eh? Well, nobody left any beautiful or attractive pictures of Monte Carlo in my berth, but I think that won’t stop me going on to Monte Carlo.”
It was an opportunity she had been seeking for a week and she seized it.
“I want to ask you something, Timothy,” she said. “Mrs. Renfrew told me the other day that they call you ‘Take A Chance’ Anderson. Why is that, Timothy?”
“Because I take a chance, I suppose,” he smiled. “I’ve been taking chances all my life.”
“You’re not a gambler, Timothy, are you?” she asked gravely. “I know you bet and play cards, but men do that for amusement, and somehow it is all right. But when men start out to make a living, and actually make a living, by games of chance, they somehow belong to another life and another people.”
He was silent.
“You’re just too good to go that way, Timothy,” she went on. “There are lots of chances that a man can take in this world, in matching his brains, his strength and his skill against other men, and when he wins his stake is safe. He doesn’t lose it the next day or the next month, and he’s picking winners all the time, Timothy.”
His first inclination was to be nettled. She was wounding the tender skin of his vanity, and he was startled to discover how tender a skin that was. All that she said was true and less than true. She could not guess how far his mind and inclination were from commonplace labour and how very little work came into the calculations of his future. He looked upon a job as a thing not to be held and developed into something better, but as a stopgap between two successful chances. He was almost shocked when this truth came home to him. The girl was nervous, and painfully anxious not to hurt him, and yet well aware that she was rubbing a sore place.
“Timothy, for your sake, as well as for mine, for you’re a friend of mine, I want to be proud of you, to see you past this present phase of life. Mrs. Renfrew speaks of you as a gambler, and says your name, even at your age, is well known as one who would rather bet than buy. That isn’t true, Timothy, is it?”
She put her hand on his and looked into his face. He did not meet her eyes.
“I think that is true, Mary,” he said steadily. “How it comes to be true, I don’t quite know. I suppose I have drifted a little over the line, and I’m grateful to you for pulling me up. Oh, no, I don’t regret the past—it has all been useful—and I have made good on chances, but I see there are other chances that a man can take than putting his money on the pace of a horse or backing against zero. Maybe, when I get back to London I’ll settle down into a respectable citizen and keep hens or something.”
He was speaking seriously, though at first she thought he was being sarcastic.
“And you won’t gamble again?” she asked.
He hesitated to reply.
“That isn’t fair,” she said quickly. “I mean it isn’t fair of me to ask you. It is almost cruel,” she smiled, “to let you go to Monte Carlo and ask you not to put money on the tables. But promise me, Timothy, that when I tell you to stop playing, you will stop.”
“Here’s my hand on it,” said Timothy, brightening up already at the prospect of being allowed to gamble at all. “Hereafter——” He raised his hand solemnly. “By the way,” he asked, “do you know a lady named Madame Serpilot?”
She shook her head.
“No, I do not,” she said. “I have never heard the name.”
“You have no relations or friends in France?”
“None,” she replied immediately.
“What made you go to France at all?” he asked. “When I heard from you, Mary, you talked about taking a holiday in Madeira before setting up house in Bath, and the first thing I knew of your intention to go abroad again was the letter you sent me just before I started for Madeira.”
“I wanted to go a year ago, after Sir John’s death,” she said; “then Mrs. Renfrew couldn’t take the trip—one of her younger children had measles.”
“Has that woman children?” asked Timothy in an awed voice.
“Don’t be absurd. Of course she has children. It was she who decided on making the trip. She writes little articles in theBath County Herald—a local paper—on the care of children and all that sort of thing. She’s not really a journalist, she is literary.”
“I know,” said Timothy, “sometimes they write poetry, sometimes recipes for ice cream—‘take three cups of flour, a pint of cream in which an egg has been boiled and a pinch of vanilla’——”
The girl smiled. Evidently Timothy had hit upon the particular brand of journalism to which Mrs. Renfrew was addicted.
“Well,” said the girl, “there was to have been a sort of Mothers’ Welfare Meeting in Paris next week—an International affair—and when we were in Madeira she received an invitation to attend with a free return ticket—wasn’t that splendid?”
“Splendid,” said Timothy absently. “Naturally you thought it was an excellent opportunity to go also.”
The girl nodded.
“And now you have arrived here you find that the Mothers’ Welfare Meeting has been postponed for ten years?”
She looked at him, startled.
“How did you know that the meeting had been postponed?” she asked.
“Oh, I guessed it,” he said airily, “such things have happened before.”
“The truth is,” said the girl, “nobody knows anything about this meeting, and the letter which Mrs. Renfrew sent to the Mothers’ Welfare Society in Paris was waiting for us when we arrived at the Carlton. It had been returned—‘Addressee Unknown.’ Mrs. Renfrew had put the Carlton address inside.”
Here was ample excuse for speculation of an innocuous kind. Mrs. Renfrew had been approached because it was known by this mysterious somebody that she would take the girl with her, and this sinister somebody had hired two thugs to shepherd her from Madeira and to put Timothy out of action, should he decide to accompany the party to France. The situation was distinctly interesting.
Three days later the party crossed the Channel. Timothy had high hopes of adventure, which were fated to be more than fulfilled. They stayed three days in Paris and he had the time of his life. He went to the races at Maisons Lafitte, and came back glowing with a sense of his virtue, for he had not made a bet. He drifted in to the baccara rooms at Enghien, watched tens of thousands of francs change hands, and returned to Paris that night with a halo fitted by Mary’s own hands.
“I think you’re really wonderful, Timothy,” she said. “You know you are allowed one final flutter.”
“I’m saving that up for Monte Carlo,” said Timothy.
Since his arrival in Paris he had lost the right to his name, for he was taking no chances. If he went abroad at night he kept to the brilliantly illuminated boulevards or the crowded cafés. He kept clear of the crowds—especially crowds which formed quickly and for no apparent reason.
He was taking no chances because he felt it was not fair upon the particular genius who presided over his destinies that he should squander his luck in a miraculous escape from death or disablement. Only once, when dining at the Scribe, did he think he saw the familiar face of Mr. Brown. With an apology he left the two ladies and made his way with difficulty through the crowded restaurant, only to find that his man had disappeared.
“These cafés have as many doors as a trick-scene,” he grumbled when he came back.
“Did you see a friend of yours?” asked the girl.
“Not so much a friend as one who has a financial interest in me,” replied Timothy.
Mrs. Renfrew had thawed a little under the beneficent influences of Paris. She was busy sending off picture-postcards and had written to Bath her first impression of the French capital to the extent of three columns. She had also written a poem which began: “Oh, city of light that shines so bright,” and went on rhyming “vain” with “Seine,” “gay” with “play,” “joy” with “alloy,” through twenty-three stanzas.
“I rather pride myself,” said Mrs. Renfrew, “upon that description of Paris—‘the city of light.’ Don’t you think it is very original, Mr. Anderson?”
“It was,” said Timothy diplomatically. “Parisians have called it the ‘Ville Lumière’ for about two hundred years.”
“That’s almost the same, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Renfrew. “How clever the French are!”
Mrs. Renfrew did not speak French and took a more generous view of the young man when she discovered that he did. It fell to Timothy’s lot to order tickets, arrange cabs, pay bills and act as unofficial courier to the party. He was anxious to be gone from Paris, impatient for the big game to begin. For some reason, he did not anticipate that any harm would come to the girl. This struck him as strange later, but at the moment all his thoughts were centred upon the match between himself and this old French lady who had set herself out to separate him from Mary Maxell.
No unpleasant incident—the crowded condition of the dining-car excepted—marred the journey to Monte Carlo. There was the inevitable night spent in a stuffy sleeping-berth in a car that rocked and swayed to such an extent that Timothy expected it to jump the line, as thousands of other passengers have expected it to do; and they came with the morning to the Valley of the Rhone, a wide, blue, white-flecked stream flowing between gaunt hills, past solitary châteaux and strange walled towns, which looked as if they had been kept under glass cases for centuries, that the modern world should be reminded of the dangers under which our forefathers lived. So to Marseilles, and a long, hot and slow journey to Nice.
To the girl it was a pilgrimage of joy. She would not have missed a single moment of that ride. The blue sea, the white villas with their green jalousies, the banked roses over wall and pergola and the warm-scented breeze, and above all the semi-tropical sun, placed her in a new world, a wonder world more beautiful than imagination had painted.
There is something about Monte Carlo which is very satisfying. It is so orderly, so clean, so white and bright, that you have the impression that it is carefully dusted every morning and that the villas on the hills are taken down weekly by tender hands, polished and replaced.
There is nothing garish about Monte Carlo, for all its stucco and plaster. Some of the buildings, and particularly the Casino, were compared by the irreverent Timothy to the White City, but it was a refined White City and the Casino itself, with its glass-roofed porch, its great, solemn hanging lamps and its decorous uniformed attendants, had something of the air of a National Bank.
Timothy took a room at the Hôtel de Paris, where the girl was staying, and lost no time in seeking information.
“Madame Serpilot?” said the concierge. “There is a madame who bears that name, I think, but she is not staying here, monsieur.”
“Of whom should I inquire, I pray you?” asked Timothy in the vernacular.
“Of the Municipal Council, monsieur,” said the concierge, “or, if the madame is a wealthy madame, of the manager of the Credit Lyonnais, who will perhaps inform monsieur.”
“Thanks many times,” said Timothy.
He went first to the Credit Lyonnais, and found the manager extremely polite but uncommunicative. It was not the practice of the bank, he said, to disclose the addresses of their clients. He would not say that Madame Serpilot was his client, but if she were, he could certainly not give her address to any unauthorised person. From this Timothy gathered that Madame Serpilot was a client. He went on to the Mairie and met with better fortune. The Mairie had no respect for persons. It was there to supply information and what the Mairie of Monte Carlo does not know about Monaco, the cleverest detective force in the world would be wasting its time trying to discover.
Madame Serpilot lived at the Villa Condamine. The Villa Condamine was not, as the name suggested, in the poorer part of Monte Carlo but in that most exclusive territory, the tiny peninsula of Cap Martin.
“Has madam been a resident long?”
“For one hundred and twenty-nine days,” replied the official promptly. “Madame hired the villa furnished from the agent, of the Grand Duchess Eleana who, alas! was destroyed in that terrible revolution.”
He gave Timothy some details of the family from which the Grand Duchess had sprung, the amount of her income in pre-war days, and was passing to her eccentricities when Timothy took his departure. He was not interested in the Grand Duchess Eleana, alive or dead.
CHAPTER XIX
HE went to the house agent on the main street and from him procured the exact position of Madame Serpilot’s residence.
“An old madame?” said the agent. “No, monsieur, I cannot say that she is old. And I cannot say that she is young.”
He thought a moment, as though endeavouring to find some reason for this reticence on the subject of her age, and then added:
“I have not seen her. Madame is a widow,” he went on. “Alas! there are so many in France as the result of the terrible war.”
“Then she is young,” said Timothy. “They didn’t send old men to the front.”
“She may be young,” replied the agent, “or she may be old. One does not know.”
He called the assistant who had shown the lady the house and had taken the documents for her to sign. The assistant was aged sixteen, and at the age of sixteen most people above twenty are listed amongst the aged. He was certain she was a widow and very feeble, because she walked with a stick. She always wore a heavy black veil, even when she was in the garden.
“Is it not natural,” said the house agent romantically, “that the madame who has lost all that makes life worth living should no longer desire the world to look upon her face?”
“It may be natural in Monte Carlo,” said Timothy, “but it is not natural in London.”
He located the house on a large plan which the obliging agent produced, and went back to the hotel, firmly resolved to take the first opportunity of calling on Madame Serpilot and discovering what object she had in view when she arranged to endanger his young life.
Mary was waiting for him, a little impatiently for one who had such a horror of gambling.
“We have to get tickets at the Bureau,” she said, “and the concierge says we must have special membership cards for the Cercle Privée.”
The tickets were easy to procure, and they passed into the great saloon where, around five tables, stood silent ovals of humanity. The scene was a weird one to Timothy and fascinating too. Besides this, all the other gambling games in the world, all the roulette tables and baccara outfits, were crude and amateurish. The eight croupiers who sat at each table in their black frock coats and their black ties, solemn visaged, unemotional, might have been deacons in committee. The click of rakes against chips, the whirr of the twirling ball, the monotonous sing-song announcement of the chief croupier—it was a ritual and a business at one and the same time.
It was amazing to reflect that, year in and year out, from ten o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night (until midnight in the Cercle Privée) these black-coated men sat at their tables, twirling their rakes, watching without error every note or counter that fell on the table, separating notes from chips with a deftness that was amazing, doing this in such an atmosphere of respectability that the most rabid anti-gambler watching the scene must come in time to believe that roulette was a legitimate business exercise.
Through the years this fringe of people about the table would remain, though units would go out, and as units went out new units would replace them, and everlastingly would sit shabby old men and women with their cryptic notebooks, making their tableaux with red and black pencils, religiously recording the result of every coup, staking now and again their five-franc pieces, and watching them raked to the croupier with stony despair or drawing with trembling hands the few poor francs which fortune had sent them.
Timothy was very silent when they passed the portals of the Cercle Privée, into that wonderful interior which, viewed from the entrance room, had the appearance of some rich cathedral.
“What do you think of them?” asked Mary.
He did not answer at once.
“What did you think of the people?” she demanded again. “Did you see that quaint old woman—taking a chance? I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I really didn’t mean to be——”
“I know you didn’t,” said Timothy, and sighed.
The roulette table did not attract him. He strolled off to watch the players attrente et quarante. Here the procedure was more complicated. One of the officials dealt two lines of cards, ending each when the pips added to something over thirty. The top line stood for black, the lower line for red, and that which was nearest to thirty won. After mastering this, the process was simple; you could either back the red or the black, or you could bet that the first card that was dealt was identical with the colour that won, or was the reverse.
The game interested him. It had certain features which in a way were fascinating. He noticed that the croupier never spoke of the black. The black might have had no existence at thetrente et quarantetable; either “red won” or “red lost.” He staked a louis and won twice. He staked another and lost it. Then he won three coups of a louis and looked around uncertainly, almost guiltily, for Mary.
She was watching the roulette players, and Timothy took a wad of bills from his pocket and counted out six milles. That was another thing he was to discover: there were three classes of players—those who punted in one or five louis pieces, those who bet handsomely in milles (a thousand-franc note is a “mille” and has no other name), and those who went the maximum of twelve thousand francs on each coup.
Money had no value. He threw six thousand down to the croupier and received in exchange six oblong plaques like thin cakes of blue soap. He put a thousand francs on the black and lost it. He looked round apprehensively for Mary, but she was still intent upon the roulette players. He ventured another thousand, and lost that too. A young Englishman sitting at the table looked up with a smile.
“You’re betting against the tableau,” he said. “The table is running red to-night. Look!” He showed a little notebook ruled into divisions, and long lines of dots, one under the other. “You see,” he said, “all these are reds. The table has only swung across to black twice for any run, and then it was only a run of four. If you bet against the table you’ll go broke.”
At any other place than at the tables at Monte Carlo advice of this character, and intimate references to financial possibilities, would be resented. But the Rooms, like the grave, level all the players, who are a great family banded together in an unrecognised brotherhood for the destruction of a common enemy.
“I’ll take a chance against the table,” said Timothy, “and I shall go broke, anyway.”
The Englishman laughed.
The four thousand francs he had left went the same way as their friends and Timothy changed another six thousand and threw two on the black. Then, acting on the impulse of the moment, he threw down the remaining four.
“Timothy!”
He turned at the shocked voice and Mary was standing behind him.
“Do you gamble like that?” she asked.
He tried to smile, but produced a grimace.
“Why, it is nothing,” he said, “it is only francs, and francs aren’t real money, anyway.”
She turned and walked away and he followed. The Englishman, twisting round in his chair, said something. Timothy thought he was asking whether he should look after his money and answered “Certainly.”
The girl walked to one of the padded benches by the wall and sat down. There was such real trouble in her face that Timothy’s heart sank.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” he said, “but this is my last fling and you told me I could have it. After to-night I cut out everything that doesn’t qualify for the ‘earned income’ column of the tax-surveyor.”
“You frighten me,” she said. “It isn’t the amount of money you were venturing, but there was something in your face which made me feel—why! I just felt sick,” she said.
“Mary!” he said in surprise.
“I know I’m being unreasonable,” she interrupted, “but Timothy, I—I just don’t want to think of you like this.”
She looked into his dejected face and the softest light that ever shone in woman’s eyes was in hers.
“Poor Timothy!” she said, half in jest, “you’re paying the penalty for having a girl friend.”
“I’m paying the penalty for being a loafer,” he said huskily. “I think there must be some bad blood in us. Mary, I know what I’m losing,” he said, and took one of her hands. “I’m losing the right to love you, dearest.”
It was a queer place for such a confession, and in her wildest dreams the girl never imagined that the first word of love spoken to her by any man would come in a gambling saloon at Monte Carlo. Above her where she sat was the great canvas of the Florentine Graces; half nude reliefs on the ceiling dangled glittering chains of light and over all sounded the monotonous voice of the croupier:
“Rouge perd—et couleur.”
The young Englishman at the table turned round with an inquiring lift of his eyebrows, and Timothy nodded.
“He wants to know if I’m finished, I suppose,” he said, “and honestly Mary, I am. I’m going back to London when this trip’s over, and I’m going to start at the bottom and work up.”
“Poor Timothy!” she said again.
“I’m not going to lie to you, or pretend any longer. I just love you, Mary, and if you’ll wait for me, I’ll make good. I have been a gambler,” he said, “a poor, low gambler, and all the time I’ve thought I’ve been clever! I’ve been going round puffed up with my own self-importance, and my head’s been so much in the air that I haven’t seen just where my feet were leading me,” he laughed. “This sounds like the sort of thing you get at the Salvation Army penitent form,” he said, “but I’m straight and sincere.”
“I know you are, Timothy, but you needn’t start at the bottom. I have my money——”
“Stop where you are, Mary,” he said quietly. “Not a penny would I take from you, darling.”
“What did they ring that bell for?” she asked.
It was the second time the tinkle of sound had come from the croupier at thetrente et quarantetable.
“Heaven knows!” said Timothy. “Maybe it is to call the other worshippers.”
Again the young Englishman looked round and said something.
“What did he say?” asked Timothy.
“He said seventeen,” said the girl. “Was that the number you backed?”
Timothy smiled.
“There are no numbers on that table except No. 1—and No. 1 is the fat man with the rake—he gets it coming and going. Mary, I’m going to ask you one question: If I make good will you marry me?”
She was silent and again the voice of the croupier came:
“Rouge perd—couleur gagne.”
“What does ‘rouge perd’ mean?” she asked. “He has said that ever so many times.”
“It means ‘black wins,’ ” said Timothy.
“Does black always win?” she asked.
“Not always,” said Timothy gently. “Maybe he’s only saying that to lure me back to the table. Mary, what do you say?”
“I say yes,” she said, and to the scandal of the one attendant who was watching them he bent forward and kissed her.
A terrible act this, for the gold-laced and liveried footman, who came with slow, majestic steps to where they sat.
“Monsieur,” he said, “this is not done.”
Timothy looked up at him.
“Chassez-vous,” he said firmly.
It was startling French, but it was the nearest he could get at the moment to “chase yourself.”
Again the bell tinkled, and the young Englishman rose, thrust a small packet of money into his pocket and came toward them, bearing what looked to be a large book without covers. His face was a little haggard and the perspiration stood upon his forehead.
“This is getting on my nerves, old man. You had better play yourself,” he said, and he handed the book to Timothy, and Timothy looked vaguely from his hands to the hot Englishman.
“What’s this?” he croaked.
“A run of twenty-eight on the black,” said the Englishman. “It is phenomenal! You wanted me to go on, didn’t you? I asked you whether I should play your thousand francs. The bank bust four times—didn’t you hear them ring for more money?”
Timothy nodded. He had no words.
“Well, your six went to twelve and I left the maximum run,” the Englishman said. “I asked you if that was right and you nodded.”
“Yes, I nodded,” said Timothy mechanically.
“You’ve won twenty-seven and a half maximums.”
Timothy looked at the money in his hand, looked up at the ceiling and gulped something down.
“Thank you,” he gasped. “I am obliged to you.”
It was inadequate, but it was all that he could say.
“Not at all,” said the Englishman. “I won a lot of money myself.”
“I’m not a great hand at arithmetic,” said Timothy, “will you tell me how many pounds twenty-seven and a half maximums make?”
It was a remarkable situation. Somebody should have laughed, but they were all too serious, the girl as serious as Timothy, and the young Englishman scrawling calculations on a loose page of his notebook.
“Thirty-five francs to a pound,” he said, “makes £340 a coup. Twenty-seven and a half is about——”
“Thank you!” said Timothy, and he gripped the other’s hand and wrung it. “Thank you, fairy godmother—I don’t know your other name.”
They stood together watching his lanky figure, as he, wholly unconscious of the providential part he had played, moved down to the roulette table, eyeing the game with the air of superiority which every player oftrente et quarantehas for a game with a paltry maximum of six thousand francs.
“Timothy,” whispered the girl, “isn’t it wonderful?”
He put the money into his pocket and it bulged untidily.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“Give it to the poor,” said Timothy, taking her arm.
“To the poor?”
She was wondering whether his fortune had driven him mad.
“The poor,” he said firmly, “money won by gambling——”
“Nonsense,” she broke in, “to what poor are you giving it?”
“To poor Timothy,” said he. “Let us dash madly to the bar and drink orangeade.”
CHAPTER XX
THE band was playing one of de Courville’s new revue tunes, and the Café de Paris was crowded out. There had been a big influx of visitors from Nice, and Monte Carlo presented an appearance comparable with the height of the season. Mrs. Renfrew had motored up to La Turbie, and a bank of cloud having descended upon the mountain made the road dangerous. (Those who have journeyed from the Corniche to Monte Carlo by night will appreciate just how dangerous is that road.) She had, therefore, elected to spend the night at the hotel on the top of the hill.
This information she had telephoned to the girl on the night following Timothy’s great win, and had added that she could see “the twinkling lights of Monte Carlo” and that “the misty spaces of ocean filled her with strange unrest,” which observation had been repeated to the unsympathetic Timothy.
“It must be awful to have a mind like that,” he said, and then, “Mary, I’ve been a long time waiting to exchange confidences about cousins.”
“I have no confidences to give you about Mrs. Renfrew,” said Mary with a smile, “but you have been on the point of telling me about your cousin so often that I feel a little curious.”
The story he had to tell was not a nice one. It meant opening old wounds and reviving sad memories, but it had to be done. She was not so shocked as he had expected.
“You have not told me anything new,” she said quietly. “You see, all along I have known that the ‘A.C.’ in your name stood for ‘Alfred Cartwright,’ and once uncle told me that he had known a relative of yours, and I guessed.”
Suddenly she demanded:
“Do you think Cartwright is in Europe?”
Timothy nodded.
“I am certain. That is, if Morocco is in Europe,” he said. “I have had it in the back of my mind ever since the crime was committed that that is the place he would make for. You see, in the few minutes I had with him he told me, perhaps not the whole of the story, but at any rate his version. He knows Morocco and has been there before. He spoke about a Moorish chief named El Mograb, who wanted him to stay with the tribe, and he told me he was sorry he had not followed the Moor’s advice.”
“Did you tell the police that?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I did not tell the police very much about that visit. Cartwright revived his accusations against Sir John. It meant digging up these charges, and that is what I did not wish to do, for—for——”
“For my sake?” she said quietly.
“That’s about the size of it,” replied Timothy.
A little stream of diners were leaving the restaurant, moving slowly down the narrow aisle between the tables, and Timothy stopped talking as they passed and eyed them with a bored interest usual to the circumstances.
It was after the interruption had ended, and the last of the little stream had departed, that he saw the card on the table. It was near his place and it had not been there before. He picked it up and on the uppermost side was written: “Do not let your friend see this.”
“Well, I’m——” he began, and turned the card over.
It was not written but printed in capital letters:
“IF YOU DO NOT HEAR FROM ME BY THE TWENTY-NINTH, I BEG OF YOU THAT YOU WILL GO TO TANGIER AND ENQUIRE AT THE CONTINENTAL HOTEL FOR A MAN CALLED RAHBAT—A MOOR, WHO WILL LEAD YOU TO ME. I BEG YOU FOR THE SAKE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP TO COME. DID YOU GET THE MONEY?”
“IF YOU DO NOT HEAR FROM ME BY THE TWENTY-NINTH, I BEG OF YOU THAT YOU WILL GO TO TANGIER AND ENQUIRE AT THE CONTINENTAL HOTEL FOR A MAN CALLED RAHBAT—A MOOR, WHO WILL LEAD YOU TO ME. I BEG YOU FOR THE SAKE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP TO COME. DID YOU GET THE MONEY?”
Timothy laid the card down and stared at the girl.
“What is it?” she asked and reached out her hand.
“I—it is nothing,” he said hurriedly.
“Nonsense, Timothy. What is it? Let me see it, please.”
Without a word he handed the card to the girl, who read it through in silence.
“Who is that from?” she asked, “Cartwright?”
He nodded.
“Obviously,” he said, “the reference to the money and the appeal to our relationship—but how did it get there?”
He called the head waiter.
“Who were those people who went out just now?” he asked.
“They are very well known,” explained the head waiter. “There was a monsieur, a London theatrical manager, and a madame who was his wife. There was another monsieur, an American writer, and an English monsieur who was in the employment as secretary to a madame who lives at Cap Martin.”
“Madame Serpilot?” asked Timothy quickly.
“Yes, that is the name. She is a widow,hélas! but immensely rich!”
Timothy put the card into his pocket. He had said nothing to the girl about Madame Serpilot since they had left London, and for the first time he had some misgivings as to her safety. Yet in truth that sixth sense of his, which had hitherto worked so to his advantage, offered him no warning that the girl’s happiness was threatened. He was sure that whatever danger the situation held was danger to him personally. He had not seen the English monsieur who was secretary to Madame Serpilot, but then his back had been toward the far end of the room from whence the man came and he had presented no other view than the back of his head.
“It is a message from Cartwright,” he said, “and I am going to get to the bottom of this story if I stay in Monte Carlo for the rest of my life.”
He saw Mary back to her hotel, went to his room and changed, and just as the Casino was disgorging its tired clients, he walked through the palm-shaded avenue that led to the main road and began his tramp to Cap Martin. To discover a house in this area by daylight, with the aid of a plan, might have been a simple matter—by night it presented almost insuperable difficulties.
Cap Martin is a promontory of hill and pine and wild flower. Its roads run at the will of its wealthy residents, and there are lanes and paths and broad roads which are not really broad roads at all, but the private entrances to the wonderful villas in which the district abounds, and the grey light was in the eastern sky when Timothy finally located the Villa Condamine.
It stood on the edge of the sea, surrounded on the land side by a high wall, though if its owner sought seclusion the woods which surrounded the villa were sufficient.
Timothy worked round a little bay until he commanded a view of the place from the sea. A zig-zag path led down from the house to the seashore, terminating in a little concrete quay. Presently he heard the sound of footsteps and a Monogasque workman, in blue overalls, came slouching along the shore path, pipe in mouth.
He bade the young man a cheery good morning and stopped, in the friendly way of the Monogasques, to talk. He was a gardener on his way to the villa. He could be on his way to nowhere else, for the rough path on which Timothy stood led straight to a door in the high wall. It was a good job, but he wished he lived nearer. But then, none of madame’s servants slept in the house, and——
“Ah!voilà!It is the Moor!” and he pointed out to sea.
A tiny steam yacht was coming slowly to land—Timothy had seen its lights for an hour—and was steaming now to its anchorage, leaving the line of its wake on the smooth surface of the water.
“The Moor!” said Timothy quickly, and then carelessly, “Has any Moor a villa here?”
“No, monsieur,” said the man, “but this is a great Moor who sometimes comes here from Morocco. A long journey, monsieur. It is five days’ voyage from the Moorish coast——”
“Does he come to the Villa Condamine?” asked Timothy.
“But yes,” said the man. “He is a friend of the madame, and twice has he been there in three months.”
There was a little splash of water under the bow of the yacht, when the anchor was dropped, and presently a boat drew away and in the stern sheets was a figure muffled in a white jellab.
Timothy looked after the retreating figure of the gardener, who was leisurely pursuing his way, and, turning, followed him. It was unlikely that the mysterious madame would allow a humble workman to have the key of the garden gate, yet to his surprise this was the case. The man opened the gate and waited, looking round as if he expected somebody. Timothy guessed that there were two or more workmen and that this particular man had the key and admitted the lot. In this surmise he proved to be right. Presently yet another blue-bloused gardener appeared, and the two stood together waiting for a third. He made no appearance, and the two men passed through the door and pulled it close behind them.
Timothy quickened his pace. As he had thought, the door was left ajar for the third man. He pushed it open gently, but saw nothing but the end of a twisting path, which disappeared between high hedges of lilac.
If ever there was a time to take a chance it was now; and he was through the gate, gingerly treading the path, before he realised what he had done. He heard voices and moved with caution. Then, after about five minutes, he heard the garden gate behind him bang. The third workman had arrived and the exit was closed. He made his way through the pines which served to screen the house from observation. There was nobody in sight, and the voices had died away. He could walk more boldly now and came at last to the edge of the wood in full view of the villa. Between him and the house was about fifty yards of clear space. He took a chance and crossed it, his objective being a ground-floor window which was open.
The entrance was not so easily effected as he had expected. The sill of the window was just above the level of his head, and offered no grip to his hands. He made a tour of reconnaissance, but failed to find any other entrance. Behind the sill, he thought, must be a window frame, and stepping back two paces he made a leap and gripped the frame. Quickly he pulled himself up and dropped into the room.
He was conscious of a sweet, fragrant perfume the moment his head became level with the window, and now he saw the explanation. The bare floor was covered three inches thick with rose petals. Evidently the owner made her own perfumery, and this hobby explained the open window. There was no furniture in the room, which was apparently given up to the purpose of drying the petals. The door was unfastened, and he passed into a stone corridor. The structure of the house puzzled him. He did not expect to find himself in the basement; then he remembered that the villa was built on sloping ground, and that the main entrance must be on a higher floor.
A flight of stone steps led to the upper level, and he went up cautiously, a step at a time, and found his exit barred by a door which was fastened on the other side with padlock and staple. It was a primitive method of locking up a cellar, and Timothy, remembering that he had passed a recess filled with garden tools, went back to find the means to remove this obstruction. A long chisel prised the staples from the door with ridiculous ease.
He heard voices speaking in low, guarded tones and moved along the carpeted hall on tiptoe. He listened at the door of the room from which the voices proceeded, and was in two minds as to what his next step should be. The door was one of two let in the same wall. He stopped and brought his ear to the keyhole of the second and there was no sound. Turning the handle, he looked in.
As he expected, it was separated from the other room by a pair of folding doors which were closed. The voices were more distinct but still indistinguishable. He was now in a small drawing-room, well but not luxuriously furnished. Tall French windows led to a loggia, and, what was more important, on either side of these hung long velvet curtains, which might serve, in case of necessity, as a place of concealment.
He heard the door of the next room open, and the voices proceeded along the passage. Then the handle of his own door turned. He had just time to slip behind the curtains before somebody entered. It was a woman, and at the sound of her voice he nearly jumped. She was speaking to somebody in the passage.
“He has gone to his room,” she said. “Have your breakfast. He will want you to go into Monte Carlo this morning.”
“By daylight?” said the person to whom she spoke, and again Timothy recognised the voice.
“He would not know you with those spectacles. Besides, you had a moustache when you saw him before.”
The man in the passage mumbled something, and Timothy heard the door of the room close. There was a desk, he had noticed, against the blank wall of the room, and it was to this she made her way. He heard the scratching of her pen on paper, then he walked from his place of concealment. Her back was to him and she did not hear him until his shadow fell across the table. Then, with a little cry, she leapt up.
“Good morning, Lady Maxell,” said Timothy.