"Have you solved the mystery of the submerged bed?" smiled Jean.
Lydia laughed.
"I'm not probing too deeply into the matter," she said. "Poor Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was terribly upset."
"She would be," said Jean. "It was her own eiderdown!"
This was the first hint Lydia had received that the house was rented furnished.
They drove into Nice that morning, and Lydia, remembering Jack Glover's remarks, looked closely at the chauffeur, and was startled to see a resemblance between him and the man who had driven the taxicab on the night she had been carried off from the theatre. It is true that the taxi-driver had a moustache and that this man was clean-shaven, and moreover, had tiny side whiskers, but there was a resemblance.
"Have you had your driver long?" she asked as they were running through Monte Carlo, along the sea road.
"Mordon? Yes, we have had him six orseven years," said Jean carelessly. "He drives us when we are on the continent, you know. He speaks French perfectly and is an excellent driver. Father has tried to persuade him to come to England, but he hates London—he was telling me the other day that he hadn't been there for ten years."
That disposed of the resemblance, thought Lydia, and yet—she could remember his voice, she thought, and when they alighted on the Promenade des Anglaise she spoke to him. He replied in French, and it is impossible to detect points of resemblance in a voice that speaks one language and the same voice when it speaks another.
The promenade was crowded with saunterers. A band was playing by the jetty and although the wind was colder than it had been at Cap Martin the sun was warm enough to necessitate the opening of a parasol.
It was a race week, and the two girls lunched at the Negrito. They were in the midst of their meal when a man came toward them and Lydia recognised Mr. Marcus Stepney. This dark, suave man was no favourite of hers, though why she could not have explained. His manners were always perfect and, towards her, deferential.
As usual, he was dressed with the precision of a fashion-plate. Mr. Marcus Stepney was a man, a considerable portion of whose time wastaken up every morning by the choice of cravats and socks and shirts. Though Lydia did not know this, his smartness, plus a certain dexterity with cards, was his stock in trade. No breath of scandal had touched him, he moved in a good set and was always at the right place at the proper season.
When Aix was full he was certain to be found at the Palace, in the Deauville week you would find him at the Casino punting mildly at the baccarat table. And after the rooms were closed, and even the Sports Club at Monte Carlo had shut its doors, there was always a little game to be had in the hotels and in Marcus Stepney's private sitting-room.
And it cannot be denied that Mr. Stepney was lucky. He won sufficient at these out-of-hour games to support him nobly through the trials and vicissitudes which the public tables inflict upon their votaries.
"Going to the races," he said, "how very fortunate! Will you come along with me? I can give you three good winners."
"I have no money to gamble," said Jean, "I am a poor woman. Lydia, who is rolling in wealth, can afford to take your tips, Marcus."
Marcus looked at Lydia with a speculative eye.
"If you haven't any money with you, don't worry. I have plenty and you can pay meafterwards. I could make you a million francs to-day."
"Thank you," said Jean coolly, "but Mrs. Meredith does not bet so heavily."
Her tone was a clear intimation to the man of wits that he was impinging upon somebody else's preserves and he grinned amiably.
Nevertheless, it was a profitable afternoon for Lydia. She came back to Cap Martin twenty thousand francs richer than she had been when she started off.
"Lydia's had a lot of luck she tells me," said Mr. Briggerland.
"Yes. She won about five hundred pounds," said his daughter. "Marcus was laying ground bait. She did not know what horses he had backed until after the race was run, when he invariably appeared with a fewmillenotes and Lydia's pleasure was pathetic. Of course she didn't win anything. The twenty thousand francs was a sprat—he's coming to-night to see how the whales are blowing!"
Mr. Marcus Stepney arrived punctually, and, to Mr. Briggerland's disgust, was dressed for dinner, a fact which necessitated the older man's hurried retreat and reappearance in conventional evening wear.
Marcus Stepney's behaviour at dinner was faultless. He devoted himself in the main to Mrs. Cole-Mortimer and Jean, who apparently never looked at him and yet observed his everymovement, knew that he was merely waiting his opportunity.
It came when the dinner was over and the party adjourned to the big stoep facing the sea. The night was chilly and Mr. Stepney found wraps and furs for the ladies, and so manoeuvred the arrangement of the chairs that Lydia and he were detached from the remainder of the party, not by any great distance, but sufficient, as the experienced Marcus knew, to remove a murmured conversation from the sharpest eavesdropper.
Jean, who was carrying on a three-cornered conversation with her father and Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, did not stir, until she saw, by the light of a shaded lamp in the roof, the dark head of Mr. Marcus Stepney droop more confidently towards his companion. Then she rose and strolled across.
Marcus did not curse her because he did not express his inmost thoughts aloud.
He gave her his chair and pulled another forward.
"Does Miss Briggerland know?" asked Lydia.
"No," said Mr. Stepney pleasantly.
"May I tell her?"
"Of course."
"Mr. Stepney has been telling me about a wonderful racing coup to be made to-morrow. Isn't it rather thrilling, Jean? He says it willbe quite possible for me to make five million francs without any risk at all."
"Except the risk of a million, I suppose," smiled Jean. "Well, are you going to do it?" Lydia shook her head.
"I haven't a million francs in France, for one thing," she said, "and I wouldn't risk it if I had."
And Jean smiled again at the discomfiture which Mr. Marcus Stepney strove manfully to hide.
Later she took his arm and led him into the garden.
"Marcus," she said when they were out of range of the house, "I think you are several kinds of a fool."
"Why?" asked the other, who was not in the best humour.
"It was so crude," she said scornfully, "so cheap and confidence-trickish. A miserable million francs—twenty thousand pounds. Apart from the fact that your name would be mud in London if it were known that you had robbed a girl——"
"There's no question of robbery," he said hotly, "I tell you Valdau is a certainty for the Prix."
"It would not be a certainty if her money were on," said Jean dryly. "It would finish an artistic second and you would be full of apologies, and poor Lydia would be a millionfrancs to the bad. No, Marcus, that is cheap."
"I'm nearly broke," he said shortly.
He made no disguise of his profession, nor of his nefarious plan.
Between the two there was a queer kind of camaraderie. Though he may not have been privy to the more tremendous of her crimes, yet he seemed to accept her as one of those who lived on the frontiers of illegality.
"I was thinking about you, as you sat there telling her the story," said Jean thoughtfully. "Marcus, why don't you marry her?"
He stopped in his stride and looked down at the girl.
"Marry her, Jean; are you mad? She wouldn't marry me."
"Why not?" she asked. "Of course she'd marry you, you silly fool, if you went the right way about it."
He was silent.
"She is worth six hundred thousand pounds, and I happen to know that she has nearly two hundred thousand pounds in cash on deposit at the bank," said Jean.
"Why do you want me to marry her?" he asked significantly. "Is there a rake-off for you?"
"A big rake-off," she said. "The two hundred thousand on deposit should be easily get-at-able, Marcus, and she'd even give you more——"
"Why?" he asked.
"To agree to a separation," she said coolly. "I know you. No woman could live very long with you and preserve her reason."
He chuckled.
"And I'm to hand it all over to you?"
"Oh no," she corrected. "I'm not greedy. It is my experience that the greedy people get into bad trouble. The man or woman who 'wants it all' usually gets the dressing-case the 'all' was kept in. No, I'd like to take a half."
He sat down on a garden seat and she followed his example.
"What is there to be?" he asked. "An agreement between you and me? Something signed and sealed and delivered, eh?"
Her sad eyes caught his and held them.
"I trust you, Marcus," she said softly. "If I help you in this—and I will if you will do all that I tell you to do—I will trust you to give me my share."
Mr. Marcus Stepney fingered his collar a little importantly.
"I've never let a pal down in my life," he said with a cough. "I'm as straight as they make 'em, to people who play the game with me."
"And you are wise, so far as I am concerned," said the gentle Jean. "For if you double-crossed me, I should hand the police the nameand address of your other wife who is still living."
His jaw dropped.
"Wha—what?" he stammered.
"Let us join the ladies," mocked Jean, as she rose and put her arm in his.
It pleased her immensely to feel this big man trembling.
It seemed to Lydia that she had been abroad for years, though in reality she had been three days in Cap Martin, when Mr. Marcus Stepney became a regular caller.
Even the most objectionable people improve on acquaintance, and give the lie to first impressions.
Mr. Stepney never bored her. He had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes and reminiscences, none of which was in the slightest degree offensive. He was something of a sportsman, too, and he called by arrangement the next morning, after his introduction to the Cap Martin household, and conducting her to a sheltered cove, containing two bathing huts, he introduced her to the exhilarating Mediterranean.
Sea bathing is not permitted in Monte Carlo until May, and the water was much colder than Lydia had expected. They swam out to a floating platform when Mr. Briggerland and Jean put in an appearance. Jean had come straight from the house in her bathing-gown, over which she wore a light wrap. Lydiawatched her with amazement, for the girl was an expert swimmer. She could dive from almost any height and could remain under water an alarming time.
"I never thought you had so much energy and strength in your little body," said Lydia, as Jean, with a shriek of enjoyment, drew herself on the raft and wiped the water from her eyes.
"There's a man up there looking at us through glasses," said Briggerland suddenly. "I saw the flash of the sun on them."
He pointed to the rising ground beyond the seashore, but they could see nothing.
Presently there was a glitter of light amongst the green, and Lydia pointed.
"I thought that sort of thing was never done except in comic newspapers," she said, but Jean did not smile. Her eyes were focused on the point where the unseen observer lay or sat, and she shaded her eyes.
"Some visitor from Monte Carlo, I expect. People at Cap Martin are much too respectable to do anything so vulgar."
Mr. Briggerland, at a glance from his daughter, slipped into the water, and with strong heavy strokes, made his way to the shore.
"Father is going to investigate," said Jean, "and the water really is the warmest place," and with that she fell sideways into the blue sea like a seal, dived down into its depths, andpresently Lydia saw her walking along the white floor of the ocean, her little hands keeping up an almost imperceptible motion. Presently she shot up again, shook her head and looked round, only to dive again.
In the meantime, though Lydia, who was fascinated by the manœuvre of the girl, did not notice the fact, Mr. Briggerland had reached the shore, pulled on a pair of rubber shoes, and with his mackintosh buttoned over his bathing dress, had begun to climb through the underbrush towards the spot where the glasses had glistened. When Lydia looked up he had disappeared.
"Where is your father?" she asked the girl.
"He went into the bushes." Mr. Stepney volunteered the information. "I suppose he's looking for the Paul Pry."
Mr. Stepney had been unusually glum and silent, for he was piqued by the tactless appearance of the Briggerlands.
"Come into the water, Marcus," said Jean peremptorily, as she put her foot against the edge of the raft, and pushed herself backward, "I want to see Mrs. Meredith dive."
"Me?" said Lydia in surprise. "Good heavens, no! After watching you I don't intend making an exhibition of myself."
"I want to show you the proper way to dive," said Jean. "Stand up on the edge of the raft."
Lydia obeyed.
"Straight up," said Jean. "Now put both your arms out wide. Now——"
There was a sharp crack from the shore; something whistled past Lydia's head, struck an upright post, splintering the edge, and with a whine went ricochetting into the sea.
Lydia's face went white.
"What—what was that?" she gasped. She had hardly spoken before there was another shot. This time the bullet must have gone very high, and immediately afterwards came a yell of pain from the shore.
Jean did not wait. She struck out for the beach, swimming furiously. It was not the shot, but the cry which had alarmed her, and without waiting to put on coat or sandals, she ran up the little road where her father had gone, following the path through the undergrowth. Presently she came to a grassy plot, in the centre of which two tall pines grew side by side, and lying against one of the trees was the huddled figure of Briggerland. She turned him over. He was breathing heavily and was unconscious. An ugly wound gaped at the back of his head, and his mackintosh and bathing dress were smothered with blood.
She looked round quickly for his assailant, but there was nobody in sight, and nothing to indicate the presence of a third person but two shining brass cartridges which lay on the grass.
Lydia Meredith only remembered swooning twice in her life, and both these occasions had happened within a few weeks.
She never felt quite so unprepared to carry on as she did when, with an effort she threw herself into the water at Marcus Stepney's side and swam slowly toward the shore.
She dare not let her mind dwell upon the narrowness of her escape. Whoever had fired that shot had done so deliberately, and with the intention of killing her. She had felt the wind of the bullet in her face.
"What do you suppose it was?" asked Marcus Stepney as he assisted her up the beach. "Do you think it was soldiers practising?"
She shook her head.
"Oh," said Mr. Stepney thoughtfully, and then: "If you don't mind, I'll run up and see what has happened."
He wrapped himself in the dressing gown he had brought with him, and followed Jean's trail, coming up with her as Mr. Briggerland opened his eyes and stared round.
"Help me to hold him, Marcus," said Jean.
"Wait a moment," said Mr. Stepney, feeling in his pocket and producing a silk handkerchief, "bandage him with that."
She shook her head.
"He's lost all the blood he's going to lose," she said quietly, "and I don't think there's a fracture. I felt the skull very carefully with my finger."
Mr. Stepney shivered.
"Hullo," said Briggerland drowsily, "Gee, he gave me a whack!"
"Who did it?" asked the girl.
Mr. Briggerland shook his head and winced with the pain of it.
"I don't know," he moaned. "Help me up, Stepney."
With the man's assistance he rose unsteadily to his feet.
"What happened?" asked Stepney.
"Don't ask him any questions now," said the girl sharply. "Help him back to the house."
A doctor was summoned and stitched the wound. He gave an encouraging report, and was not too inquisitive as to how the injury had occurred. Foreign visitors get extraordinary things in the regions of Monte Carlo, and medical men lose nothing by their discretion.
It was not until that afternoon, propped upwith pillows in a chair, the centre of a sympathetic audience, that Mr. Briggerland told his story.
"I had a feeling that something was wrong," he said, "and I went up to investigate. I heard a shot fired, almost within a few yards of me, and dashing through the bushes, I saw the fellow taking aim for the second time, and seized him. You remember the second shot went high."
"What sort of a man was he?" asked Stepney.
"He was an Italian, I should think," answered Mr. Briggerland. "At any rate, he caught me an awful whack with the back of his rifle, and I knew no more until Jean found me."
"Do you think he was firing at me?" asked Lydia in horror.
"I am certain of it," said Briggerland. "I realised it the moment I saw the fellow."
"How am I to thank you?" said the girl impulsively. "Really, it was wonderful of you to tackle an armed man with your bare hands."
Mr. Briggerland closed his eyes and sighed.
"It was nothing," he said modestly.
Before dinner he and his daughter were left alone for the first time since the accident.
"What happened?" she asked.
"It was going to be a little surprise for you," he said. "A little scheme of my own,my dear; you're always calling me a funk, and I wanted to prove——"
"What happened?" she asked tersely.
"Well, I went out yesterday morning and fixed it all. I bought the rifle, an old English rifle, at Amiens from a peasant. I thought it might come in handy, especially as the man threw in a packet of ammunition. Yesterday morning, lying awake before daybreak, I thought it out. I went up to the hill—the land belongs to an empty house, by the way—and I located the spot, put the rifle where I could find it easily, and fixed a pair of glass goggles on to one of the bushes, where the sun would catch it. The whole scheme was not without its merit as a piece of strategy, my dear," he said complacently.
"And then——?" she said.
"I thought we'd go bathing yesterday, but we didn't, but to-day—it was a long time before anybody spotted the glasses, but once I had the excuse for going ashore and investigating, the rest was easy."
She nodded.
"So that was why you asked me to keep her on the raft, and make her stand up?"
He nodded.
"Well——?" she demanded.
"I went up to the spot, got the rifle and took aim. I've always been a pretty good shot——"
"You didn't advertise it to-day," she said sardonically. "Then I suppose somebody hit you on the head?"
He nodded and made a grimace, but any movement of his injured cranium was excessively painful.
"Who was it?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't ask fool questions," he said petulantly. "I know nothing. I didn't even feel the blow. I just remember taking aim, and then everything went dark."
"And how would you have explained it all, supposing you had succeeded?"
"That was easy," he said. "I should have said that I went in search of the man we had seen, I heard a shot and rushed forward and found nothing but the rifle."
She was silent, pinching her lips absently.
"And you took the risk of some peasant or visitor seeing you—took the risk of bringing the police to the spot and turning what might have easily been a case of accidental death into an obvious case of wilful murder. I think you called yourself a strategist," she asked politely.
"I did my best," he growled.
"Well, don't do it again, father," she said. "Your foolhardiness appals me, and heaven knows, I never expected that I should be in a position to call you foolhardy."
And with this she left him to bask in the hero-worship which the approaching Mrs. Cole-Mortimer would lavish upon him.
The "accident" kept them at home that night, and Lydia was not sorry. A settee is not a very comfortable sleeping place, and she was ready for a real bed that night. Mr. Stepney found her yawning surreptitiously, and went home early in disgust.
The night was warmer than the morning had been. TheFöhnwind was blowing and she found her room with its radiator a little oppressive. She opened the long French windows, and stepped out on to the balcony. The last quarter of the moon was high in the sky, and though the light was faint, it gave shadows to trees and an eerie illumination to the lawn.
She leant her arms on the rail and looked across the sea to the lights of Monte Carlo glistening in the purple night. Her eyes wandered idly to the grounds and she started. She could have sworn she had seen a figure moving in the shadow of the tree, nor was she mistaken.
Presently it left the tree belt, and stepped cautiously across the lawn, halting now and again to look around. She thought at first that it was Marcus Stepney who had returned, but something about the walk of the man seemed familiar. Presently he stopped directly under the balcony and looked up and she utteredan exclamation, as the faint light revealed the iron-grey hair and the grisly eyebrows of the intruder.
"All right, miss," he said in a hoarse whisper, "it's only old Jaggs."
"What are you doing?" she answered in the same tone.
"Just lookin' round," he said, "just lookin' round," and limped again into the darkness.
So old Jaggs was in Monte Carlo! Whatever was he doing, and how was he getting on with these people who spoke nothing but French, she wondered! She had something to think about before she went to sleep.
She opened her eyes singularly awake as the dawn was coming up over the grey sea. She looked at her watch; it was a quarter to six. Why she had wakened so thoroughly she could not tell, but remembered with a little shiver another occasion she had wakened, this time before the dawn, to face death in a most terrifying shape.
She got up out of bed, put on a heavy coat and opened the wire doors that led to the balcony. The morning was colder than she imagined, and she was glad to retreat to the neighbourhood of the warm radiator.
The fresh clean hours of the dawn, when the mind is clear, and there is neither sound nor movement to distract the thoughts, are favourable to sane thinking.
Lydia reviewed the past few weeks in her life, and realised, for the first time, the miraclewhich had happened. It was like a legend of old—the slave had been lifted from the king's anteroom—the struggling artist was now a rich woman. She twiddled the gold ring on her hand absent-mindedly—and she was married ... and a widow! She had an uncomfortable feeling that, in spite of her riches, she had not yet found her niche. She was an odd quantity, as yet. The Cole-Mortimers and the Briggerlands did not belong to her ideal world, and she could find no place where she fitted.
She tried, in this state of mind so favourable to the consideration of such a problem, to analyse Jack Glover's antagonism toward Jean Briggerland and her father.
It seemed unnatural that a healthy young man should maintain so bitter a feud with a girl whose beauty was almost of a transcendant quality and all because she had rejected him.
Jack Glover was a public school boy, a man with a keen sense of honour. She could not imagine him being guilty of a mean action. And such men did not pursue vendettas without good reason. If they were rejected by a woman, they accepted theircongéwith a good grace, and it was almost unthinkable that Jack should have no other reason for his hatred. Yet she could not bring herself even to consider the possibility that the reason was the one he had advanced. She came again to the deadend of conjecture. She could believe in Jack's judgment up to a point—beyond that she could not go.
She had her bath, dressed, and was in the garden when the eastern horizon was golden with the light of the rising sun. Nobody was about, the most energetic of the servants had not yet risen, and she strolled through the avenue to the main road. As she stood there looking up and down a man came out from the trees that fringed the road and began walking rapidly in the direction of Monte Carlo.
"Mr. Jaggs!" she called.
He took no notice, but seemed to increase his limping pace, and after a moment's hesitation, she went flying down the road after him. He turned at the sound of her footsteps and in his furtive way drew into the shadow of a bush. He looked more than usually grimy; on his hands were an odd pair of gloves and a soft slouch hat that had seen better days, covered his head.
"Good-morning, miss," he wheezed.
"Why were you running away, Mr. Jaggs?" she asked, a little out of breath.
"Not runnin' away, miss," he said, glancing at her sharply from under his heavy white eyebrows. "Just havin' a look round!"
"Do you spend all your nights looking round?" she smiled at him.
"Yes, miss."
At that moment a cyclist gendarme came into view. He slowed down as he approached the two and dismounted.
"Good morning, madame," he said politely, and then looking at the man, "is this man in your employ? I have seen him coming out of your house every morning?"
"Oh, yes," said Lydia hastily, "he's my——"
She was at a loss to describe him, but old Jaggs saved her the trouble.
"I'm madame's courier," he said, and to Lydia's amazement he spoke in perfect French, "I am also the watchman of the house."
"Yes, yes," said Lydia, after she had recovered from her surprise. "M'sieur is the watchman, also."
"Bien, madame," said the gendarme. "Forgive my asking, but we have so many strangers here."
They watched the gendarme out of sight. Then old Jaggs chuckled.
"Pretty good French, miss, wasn't it?" he said, and without another word, turned and limped in the trail of the police.
She looked after him in bewilderment. So he spent every night in the grounds, or somewhere about the house? The knowledge gave her a queer sense of comfort and safety.
When she went back to the villa she found the servants were up. Jean did not put in anappearance until breakfast, and Lydia had an opportunity of talking to the French housekeeper whom Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had engaged when she took the villa. From her she learnt a bit of news, which she passed on to Jean almost as soon as she put in an appearance.
"The gardener's little boy is going to get well, Jean."
Jean nodded.
"I know," she said. "I telephoned to the hospital yesterday."
It was so unlike her conception of the girl, that Lydia stared.
"The mother is in isolation," Lydia went on, "and Madame Souviet says that the poor woman has no money and no friends. I thought of going down to the hospital to-day to see if I could do anything for her."
"You'd better not, my dear," warned Mrs. Cole-Mortimer nervously. "Let us be thankful we've got the little brat out of the neighbourhood without our catching the disease. One doesn't want to seek trouble. Keep away from the hospital."
"Rubbish!" said Jean briskly. "If Lydia wants to go, there is no reason why she shouldn't. The isolation people are never allowed to come into contact with visitors, so there is really no danger."
"I agree with Mrs. Cole-Mortimer," grumbled Briggerland. "It is very foolish to ask fortrouble. You take my advice, my dear, and keep away."
"I had a talk with a gendarme this morning," said Lydia to change the subject. "When he stopped and got off his bicycle I thought he was going to speak about the shooting. I suppose it was reported to the police?"
"Er—yes," said Mr. Briggerland, not looking up from his plate, "of course. Have you been into Monte Carlo?"
Lydia shook her head.
"No, I couldn't sleep, and I was taking a walk along the road when he passed." She said nothing about Mr. Jaggs. "The police at Monaco are very sociable."
Mr. Briggerland sniffed.
"Very," he said.
"Have they any theories?" she asked. In her innocence she was persisting in a subject which was wholly distasteful to Mr. Briggerland. "About the shooting I mean?"
"Yes, they have theories, but my dear, I should advise you not to discuss the matter with the police. The fact is," invented Mr. Briggerland, "I told them that you were unaware of the fact that you had been shot at, and if you discussed it with the police, you would make me look rather foolish."
When Lydia and Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had gone, Jean seized an opportunity which the absence of the maid offered.
"I hope you are beginning to see how perfectly insane your scheme was," she said. "You have to support your act with a whole series of bungling lies. Possibly Marcus, like a fool, has mentioned it in Monte Carlo, and we shall have the detectives out here asking why you have not reported the matter."
"If I were as clever as you——" he growled.
"You're not," said Jean, rolling her serviette. "You're the most un-clever man I know."
Lydia went up to her bedroom to put away her clothes and found the maid making the bed.
"Oh, madame," said the girl, "I forgot to speak to you about a matter—I hope madame will not be angry."
"I'm hardly likely to be angry on a morning like this," said Lydia.
"It is because of this matter," said the girl. She groped in her pocket and brought out a small shining object, and Lydia took it from her hand.
"This matter" was a tiny silver cross, so small that a five-franc piece would have covered it easily. It was brightly polished and apparently had seen service.
"When we took your bed, after the atrocious and mysterious happening," said the maid rapidly, "this was found in the sheets. It was not thought that it could possibly be madame's, because it was so poor, until this morning when it was suggested that it might be a souvenir that madame values."
"You found it in the sheets?" asked Lydia in surprise.
"Yes, madame."
"It doesn't belong to me," said Lydia. "Perhaps it belongs to Madame Cole-Mortimer. I will show it to her."
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was a devout Catholic and it might easily be some cherished keep-sake of hers.
The girl carried the cross to the window; an "X" had been scrawled by some sharp-pointed instrument at the junction of the bars. There was no other mark to identify the trinket.
She put the cross in her bag, and when she saw Mrs. Cole-Mortimer again she forgot to ask her about it.
The car drove her into Nice alone. Jean did not feel inclined to make the journey and Lydia rather enjoyed the solitude.
The isolation hospital was at the top of the hill and she found some difficulty in obtaining admission at this hour. The arrival of the chief medical officer, however, saved her from making the journey in vain. The report he gave about the child was very satisfactory; the mother was in the isolation ward.
"Can she be seen?"
"Yes, madame," said the urbane Frenchman in charge. "You understand, you will not be able to get near her? It will be rather like interviewing a prisoner, for she will be behind one set of bars and you behind another."
Lydia was taken to a room which was, she imagined, very much like a room in which prisoners interviewed their distressed relations. There were not exactly bars, but two large mesh nets of steel separated the visitor from the patient under observation. After a time a nun brought in the gardener's wife, a tall, gaunt woman, who was a native of Marseilles, and spoke the confusing patois of that city with great rapidity. It was some time before Lydia could accustom her ear to the queer dialect.
Her boy was getting well, she said, but she herself was in terrible trouble. She had no money for the extra food she required. Her husband who was away in Paris when the child had been taken, had not troubled to write to her. It was terrible being in a place amongst other fever cases, and she was certain that her days were numbered....
Lydia pushed a five-hundred franc note through the grating to the nun, to settle her material needs.
"And, oh, madame," wailed the gardener's wife, "my poor little boy has lost the gift of the Reverend Mother of San Surplice! His own cross which has been blessed by his holiness the Pope! It is because I left his cross in his little shirt that he is getting better, but now it is lost and I am sure these thieving doctors have taken it."
"A cross?" said Lydia. "What sort of a cross?"
"It was a silver cross, madame; the value in money was nothing—it was priceless. Little Xavier——"
"Xavier?" repeated Lydia, remembering the "X" on the trinket that had been found in her bed. "Wait a moment, madame." She opened her bag and took out the tiny silver symbol, and at the sight of it the woman burst into a volley of joyful thanks.
"It is the same, the same, madame! It has a small 'X' which the Reverend Mother scratched with her own blessed scissors!"
Lydia pushed the cross through the net and the nun handed it to the woman.
"It is the same, it is the same!" she cried. "Oh, thank you, madame! Now my heart is glad...."
Lydia came out of the hospital and walked through the gardens by the doctor's side. But she was not listening to what he was saying—her mind was fully occupied with the mystery of the silver cross.
It was little Xavier's ... it had been tucked inside his bed when he lay, as his mother thought, dying ... and it had been found in her bed! Then little Xavier had been in her bed! Her foot was on the step of the car when it came to her—the meaning of that drenched couch and the empty bottle of peroxide. Xavierhad been put there, and somebody who knew that the bed was infected had so soaked it with water that she could not sleep in it. But who? Old Jaggs!
She got into the car slowly, and went back to Cap Martin along the Grande Corniche.
Who had put the child there? He could not have walked from the cottage; that was impossible.
She was half-way home when she noticed a parcel lying on the floor of the car, and she let down the front window and spoke to the chauffeur. It was not Mordon, but a man whom she had hired with the car.
"It came from the hospital, madame," he said. "The porter asked me if I came from Villa Casa. It was something sent to the hospital to be disinfected. There was a charge of seven francs for the service, madame, and this I paid."
She nodded.
She picked up the parcel—it was addressed to "Mademoiselle Jean Briggerland" and bore the label of the hospital.
Lydia sat back in the car with her eyes closed, tired of turning over this problem, yet determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Jean was out when she got back and she carried the parcel to her own room. She was trying to keep out of her mind the verypossibility that such a hideous crime could have been conceived as that which all the evidence indicated had been attempted. Very resolutely she refused to believe that such a thing could have happened. There must be some explanation for the presence of the cross in her bed. Possibly it had been found after the wet sheets had been taken to the servants' part of the house.
She rang the bell, and the maid who had given her the trinket came.
"Tell me," said Lydia, "where was this cross found?"
"In your bed, mademoiselle."
"But where? Was it before the clothing was removed from this room or after?"
"It was before, madame," said the maid. "When the sheets were turned back we found it lying exactly in the middle of the bed."
Lydia's heart sank.
"Thank you, that will do," she said. "I have found the owner of the cross and have restored it."
Should she tell Jean? Her first impulse was to take the girl into her confidence, and reveal the state of her mind. Her second thought was to seek out old Jaggs, but where could he be found? He evidently lived somewhere in Monte Carlo, but his name was hardly likely to be in the visitors' list. She was still undecided when Marcus Stepney called to take her to lunch at the Café de Paris.
The whole thing was so amazingly improbable. It belonged to a world of unreality, but then, she told herself, she also was living in an unreal world, and had been so for weeks.
Mr. Stepney had become more bearable. A week ago she would have shrunk from taking luncheon with him, but now such a prospect had no terrors. His views of things and people were more generous than she had expected. She had anticipated his attitude would be a little cynical, but to her surprise he oozed loving-kindness. Had she known Mr. Marcus Stepney as well as Jean knew him, she would have realised that he adapted his mental attitude to his audience. He was a man whose stock-in-trade was a knowledge of human nature, and the ability to please. He would no more have attempted to shock or frighten her, than a first-class salesman would shock or annoy a possible customer.
He had goods to sell, and it was his business to see that they satisfied the buyer. In this case the goods were represented by sixty-nine inches of good-looking, well-dressed man, and it was rather important that he should present the best face of the article to the purchaser. It was almost as important that the sale should be a quick one. Mr. Stepney lived from weekto week. What might happen next year seldom interested him, therefore his courting must be rapid.
He told the story of his life at lunch, a story liable to move a tender-hearted woman to at least a sympathetic interest. The story of his life varied also with the audience. In this case, it was designed for one whom he knew had had a hard struggle, whose father had been heavily in debt, and who had tasted some of the bitterness of defeat. Jean had given him a very precise story of the girl's career, and Mr. Marcus Stepney adapted it for his own purpose.
"Why, your life has almost run parallel with mine," said Lydia.
"I hope it may continue," said Mr. Stepney not without a touch of sadness in his voice. "I am a very lonely man—I have no friends except the acquaintances one can pick up at night clubs, and the places where the smart people go in the season, and there is an artificiality about society friends which rather depresses me."
"I feel that, too," said the sympathetic Lydia.
"If I could only settle down!" he said, shaking his head. "A little house in the country, a few horses, a few cows, a woman who understood me...."
A false move this.
"And a few pet chickens to follow youabout?" she laughed. "No, it doesn't sound quite like you, Mr. Stepney."
He lowered his eyes.
"I am sorry you think that," he said. "All the world thinks that I'm a gadabout, an idler, with no interest in existence, except the pleasure I can extract."
"And a jolly good existence, too," said Lydia briskly. She had detected a note of sentiment creeping into the conversation, and had slain it with the most effective weapon in woman's armoury.
"And now tell me all about the great Moorish Pretender who is staying at your hotel—I caught a glimpse of him on the promenade—and there was a lot about him in the paper."
Mr. Stepney sighed and related all that he knew of the redoubtable Muley Hafiz on the way to the rooms. Muley Hafiz was being lionised in France just then, to the annoyance of the Spanish authorities, who had put a price on his head.
Lydia showed much more interest in the Moorish Pretender than she did in the pretender who walked by her side.
He was not in the best of tempers when he brought her back to the Villa Casa, and Jean, who entertained him whilst Lydia was changing, saw that his first advances had not met with a very encouraging result.
"There will be no wedding bells, Jean," he said.
"You take a rebuff very easily," said the girl, but he shook his head.
"My dear Jean, I know women as well as I know the back of my hand, and I tell you that there's nothing doing with this girl. I'm not a fool."
She looked at him earnestly.
"No, you're not a fool," she said at last. "You're hardly likely to make a mistake about that sort of thing. I'm afraid you'll have to do something more romantic."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"You'll have to run away with her; and like the knights of old carry off the lady of your choice."
"The knights of old didn't have to go before a judge and jury and serve seven years at Dartmoor for their sins," he said unpleasantly.
She was sitting on a low chair overlooking the sea, whittling a twig with a silver-handled knife she had taken from her bag—a favourite occupation of hers in moments of cogitation.
"All the ladies of old didn't go to the police," she said. "Some of them were quite happy with their powerful lords, especially delicate-minded ladies who shrank from advertising their misfortune to the readers of the Sunday press. I think most women like to be wooed in the cave-man fashion, Marcus."
"Is that the kind of treatment you'd like, Jean?"
There was a new note in his voice. Had she looked at him she would have seen a strange light in his eyes.
"I'm merely advancing a theory," she said, "a theory which has been supported throughout the ages."
"I'd let her go and her money, too," he said. He was speaking quickly, almost incoherently. "There's only one woman in the world for me, Jean, and I've told you that before. I'd give my life and soul for her."
He bent over, and caught her arm in his big hand.
"You believe in the cave-man method, do you?" he breathed. "It is the kind of treatment you'd like, eh, Jean?"
She did not attempt to release her arm.
"Keep your hand to yourself, Marcus, please," she said quietly.
"You'd like it, wouldn't you, Jean? My God, I'd sacrifice my soul for you, you little devil!"
"Be sensible," she said. It was not her words or her firm tone that made him draw back. Twice and deliberately she drew the edge of her little knife across the back of his hand, and he leapt away with a howl of pain.
"You—you beast," he stammered, and she looked at him with her sly smile.
"There must have been cave women, too, Marcus," she said coolly, as she rose. "Theyhad their methods—give me your handkerchief, I want to wipe this knife."
His face was grey now. He was looking at her like a man bereft of his senses.
He did not move when she took his handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the knife, closed and slipped it into her bag, before she replaced the handkerchief tidily. And all the time he stood there with his hand streaming with blood, incapable of movement. It was not until she had disappeared round the corner of the house that he pulled out the handkerchief and wrapped it about his hand.
"A devil," he whimpered, almost in tears, "a devil!"
Jean Briggerland discovered a new arrival on her return to the house.
Jack Glover had come unexpectedly from London, so Lydia told her, and Jack himself met her with extraordinary geniality.
"You lucky people to be in this paradise!" he said. "It is raining like the dickens in London, and miserable beyond description. And you're looking brown and beautiful, Miss Briggerland."
"The spirit of the warm south has got into your blood, Mr. Glover," she said sarcastically. "A course at the Riviera would make you almost human."
"And what would make you human?" asked Jack blandly.
"I hope you people aren't going to quarrel as soon as you meet," said Lydia.
Jean was struck by the change in the girl. There was a colour in her cheeks, and a new and a more joyous note in her voice, which was unmistakable to so keen a student as Jean Briggerland.
"I never quarrel with Jack," she said. Sheassumed a proprietorial air toward Jack Glover, which unaccountably annoyed Lydia. "He invents the quarrels and carries them out himself. How long are you staying?"
"Two days," said Jack, "then I'm due back in town."
"Have you brought your Mr. Jaggs with you?" asked Jean innocently.
"Isn't he here?" asked Jack in surprise. "I sent him along a week ago."
"Here?" repeated Jean slowly. "Oh, he's here, is he? Of course." She nodded. Certain things were clear to her now; the unknown drencher of beds, the stranger who had appeared from nowhere and had left her father senseless, were no longer mysteries.
"Oh, Jean," it was Lydia who spoke. "I'm awfully remiss, I didn't give you the parcel I brought back from the hospital."
"From the hospital?" said Jean. "What parcel was that?"
"Something you had sent to be sterilized. I'll get it."
She came back in a minute or two with the parcel which she had found in the car.
"Oh yes," said Jean carelessly, "I remember. It is a rug that I lent to the gardener's wife when her little boy was taken ill."
She handed the packet to the maid.
"Take it to my room," she said.
She waited just long enough to find anexcuse for leaving the party, and went upstairs. The parcel was on her bed. She tore off the wrapping—inside, starched white and clean, was the dust coat she had worn the night she had carried Xavier from the cottage to Lydia's bed. The rubber cap was there, discoloured from the effects of the disinfectant, and the gloves and the silk handkerchief, neatly washed and pressed. She looked at them thoughtfully.
She put the articles away in a drawer, went down the servants' stairs and through a heavy open door into the cellar. Light was admitted by two barred windows, through one of which she had thrust her bundle that night, and she could see every corner of the cellar, which was empty—as she had expected. The clothing she had thrown down had been gathered by some mysterious agent, who had forwarded it to the hospital in her name.
She came slowly up the stairs, fastened the open door behind her, and walked out into the garden to think.
"Jaggs!" she said aloud, and her voice was as soft as silk. "I think, Mr. Jaggs, you ought to be in heaven."
"Who were the haughty individuals interviewing Jean in the saloon?" asked Jack Glover, as Lydia's car panted and groaned on the stiff ascent to La Turbie.
Lydia was concerned, and he had already noted her seriousness.
"Poor Jean is rather worried," she said. "It appears that she had a love affair with a man three or four years ago, and recently he has been bombarding her with threatening letters."
"Poor soul," said Jack dryly, "but I should imagine she could have dealt with that matter without calling in the police. I suppose they were detectives. Has she had a letter recently?"
"She had one this morning—posted in Monte Carlo last night."
"By the way, Jean went into Monte Carlo last night, didn't she?" asked Jack.
She looked at him reproachfully.
"We all went into Monte Carlo," she said severely. "Now, please don't be horrid, Mr. Glover, you aren't suggesting that Jean wrote this awful letter to herself, are you?"
"Was it an awful letter?" asked Jack.
"A terrible letter, threatening to kill her. Do you know that Mr. Briggerland thinks that the person who nearly killed me was really shooting at Jean."
"You don't say," said Jack politely. "I haven't heard about people shooting at you—but it sounds rather alarming."
She told him the story, and he offered no comment.
"Go on with your thrilling story of Jean's mortal enemy. Who is he?"
"She doesn't know his name," said Lydia. "She met him in Egypt—an elderly man who positively dogged her footsteps wherever she went, and made himself a nuisance."
"Doesn't know his name, eh?" said Jack with a sniff. "Well, that's convenient."
"I think you're almost spiteful," said Lydia hotly. "Poor girl, she was so distressed this morning; I have never seen her so upset."
"And are the police going to keep guard and follow her wherever she goes? And is that impossible person, Mr. Marcus Stepney, also in the vendetta? I saw him wandering about this morning like a wounded hero, with his arm in a sling."
"He hurt his hand gathering wild flowers for me on the—"
But Jack's outburst of laughter checked her, and she glared at him.
"I think you're boorish," she snapped angrily. "I'm sorry I came out with you."
"And I'm sorry I've been such a fool," apologised the penitent Jack, "but the vision of the immaculate Mr. Stepney gathering wild flowers in a top hat and a morning suit certainly did appeal to me as being comical!"
"He doesn't wear a top hat or a morning suit in Monte Carlo," she said, furious at his banter. "Let us talk about somebody else than my friends."
"I haven't started to talk about your friends yet," he said. "And please don't try to tell your chauffeur to turn round—the road is too narrow, and he'd have the car over the cliff before you knew where you were, if he were stupid enough to try. I'm sorry, deeply sorry, Mrs. Meredith, but I think that Jean was right when she said that the southern air had got into my blood. I'm a little hysterical—yes, put it down to that. It runs in the family," he babbled on. "I have an aunt who faints at the sight of strawberries, and an uncle who swoons whenever a cat walks into the room."
"I hope you don't visit him very much," she said coldly.
"Two points to you," said Jack, "but I must warn Jaggs, in case he is mistaken for the elderly Lothario. Obviously Jean is preparing the way for an unpleasant end to poor old Jaggs."
"Why do you think these things about Jean?" she asked, as they were running into La Turbie.
"Because I have a criminal mind," he replied promptly. "I have the same type of mind as Jean Briggerland's, wedded to a wholesome respect for the law, and a healthy sense of right and wrong. Some people couldn't be happy if they owned a cent that had been earned dishonestly; other people are happy so long as they have the money—so long as it is real money. I belong to the former category. Jean—well, I don't know what would make Jean happy."
"And what would make you happy—Jean?" she asked.
He did not answer this question until they were sitting on the stoep of the National, where a light luncheon was awaiting them.
"Jean?" he said, as though the question had just been asked. "No, I don't want Jean. She is wonderful, really, Mrs. Meredith, wonderful! I find myself thinking about her at odd moments, and the more I think the more I am amazed. Lucretia Borgia was a child in arms compared with Jean—poor old Lucretia has been maligned, anyway. There was a woman in the sixteenth century rather like her, and another girl in the early days of New England,who used to denounce witches for the pleasure of seeing them burn, but I can't think of an exact parallel, because Jean gets no pleasure out of hurting people any more than you will get out of cutting that cantaloup. It has just got to be cut, and the fact that you are finally destroying the life of the melon doesn't worry you."
"Have cantaloups life?" She paused, knife in hand, eyeing the fruit with a frown. "No, I don't think I want it. So Jean is a murderess at heart?"
She asked the question in solemn mockery, but Jack was not smiling.
"Oh yes—in intention, at any rate. I don't know whether she has ever killed anybody, but she has certainly planned murders."
Lydia sighed and sat back in her chair patiently.
"Do you still suggest that she harbours designs against my young life?"
"I not only suggest it, but I state positively that there have been four attempts on your life in the past fortnight," he said calmly.
"Let us have this out," she said recklessly. "Number one?"
"The nearly-a-fatal accident in Berkeley Street," said Jack.
"Will you explain by what miracle the car arrived at the psychological moment?" she asked.
"That's easy," he said with a smile. "Old man Briggerland lit his cigar standing on the steps of the house. That light was a brilliant one, Jaggs tells me. It was the signal for the car to come on. The next attempt was made with the assistance of a lunatic doctor who was helped to escape by Briggerland, and brought to your house by him. In some way he got hold of a key—probably Jean manœuvred it. Did she ever talk to you about keys?"
"No," said the girl, "she——" She stopped suddenly, remembering that Jean had discussed keys with her.
"Are you sure she didn't?" asked Jack, watching her.
"I think she may have done," said the girl defiantly; "what was the third attempt?"
"The third attempt," said Jack slowly, "was to infect your bed with a malignant fever."
"Jean did it?" said the girl incredulously. "Oh no, that would be impossible."
"The child was in your bed. Jaggs saw it and threw two buckets of water over the bed, so that you should not sleep in it."
She was silent.
"And I suppose the next attempt was the shooting?"
He nodded.
"Now do you believe?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"No, I don't believe," she said quietly. "I think you have worked up a very strong case against poor Jean, and I am sure you think you're justified."
"You are quite right there," he said.
He lifted a pair of field glasses which he had put on the table, and surveyed the road from the sea. "Mrs. Meredith, I want you to do something and tell Jean Briggerland when you have done it."
"What is that?" she asked.
"I want you to make a will. I don't care where you leave your property, so long as it is not to somebody you love."
She shivered.
"I don't like making wills. It's so gruesome."
"It will be more gruesome for you if you don't," he said significantly. "The Briggerlands are your heirs at law."
She looked at him quickly.
"So that is what you are aiming at? You think that all these plots are designed to put me out of the way so that they can enjoy my money?"
He nodded, and she looked at him wonderingly.
"If you weren't a hard-headed lawyer, I should think you were a writer of romantic fiction," she said. "But if it will please you I will make a will. I haven't the slightestidea who I could leave the money to. I've got rather a lot of money, haven't I?"
"You have exactly £160,000 in hard cash. I want to talk to you about that," said Jack. "It is lying at your bankers in your current account. It represents property which has been sold or was in process of being sold when you inherited the money, and anybody who can get your signature and can satisfy the bankers that they are bona fide payees, can draw every cent you have of ready money. I might say in passing that we are prepared for that contingency, and any large cheque will be referred to me or to my partner."
He raised his field glasses for a second time and looked steadily down along the hill road up which they had come.
"Are you expecting anybody?" she asked.
"I'm expecting Jean," he said grimly.
"But we left her——"
"The fact that we left her talking to the police doesn't mean that she will not be coming up here, to watch us. Jean doesn't like me, you know, and she will be scared to death of thistête-à-tête."
The conversation had been arrested by the arrival of the soup and now there was a further interruption whilst the table was being cleared. When themaître d'hôtelhad gone the girl asked:
"What am I to do with the money? Reinvest it?"
"Exactly," said Jack, "but the most important thing is to make your will."
He looked along the deserted veranda. They were the only guests present who had come early. From the veranda two curtained doors led into thesalonof the hotel and it struck him that one of these had not been ajar when he looked at it before, and it was the door opposite to the table where they were sitting.
He noted this idly without attaching any great importance to the fact.
"Suppose somebody were to present a cheque to the bank in my name?" she asked. "What would happen?"
"If it were for a large sum? The manager would call us up and one of us would probably go round to your bank. It is only a block from our office. If Rennett or I said it was all right the cheque would be honoured. You may be sure that I should make very drastic inquiries as to the origin of the signature."
And then she saw him stiffen and his eyes go to the door. He waited a second, then rising noiselessly, crossed the wooden floor of the veranda quickly and pushed open the door, to find himself face to face with the smiling Jean Briggerland.