Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo
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“Oh! life is a bit dull, certainly,” he replied cheerfully. “But I have papers and books—and I can look out of the window on to the houses opposite.”
“But you go out for a ramble at night?”
“Oh! yes,” he replied. “Last night I set out at one o’clock and walked up to Hampstead Heath, as far as Jack Straw’s Castle and back. The night was perfect. Really, Londoners who sleep heavily all night lose the best part of their lives. London is only beautiful in the night hours and at early dawn. I often watch the sun rise from the Thames Embankment. I have a favourite seat—just beyond Scotland Yard. I’ve become quite a night-bird these days. I sleep when the sun shines, and with a sandwich box and a flask I go long tramps at night, just as others do who, like myself, are concealing their identity.”
“But when will all this end?” queried the girl, as together they strolled in the direction of Bayswater, passing many whispering couples sitting on seats. London lovers enjoy the park at all hours of the twenty-four.
“It will only end when I am able to discover the truth,” he said vaguely. “Meanwhile I am not disheartened, darling, because—because I know that you believe in me—that you still trust me.”
“That man whom I saw in Nice dressed as a cavalier, and who again came to me in Scotland, is a mystery,” she said. “Do you really believe he is the person you suspect?”
“I do. I still believe he is the notorious and defiant criminal ‘Il Passero’—the most daring and ingenious thief of the present century.”
“But he is evidently your friend.”
“Yes. That is the great mystery of it all. I cannot discern his motive.”
“Is it a sinister one, do you think?”
“No. I do not believe so. I have heard of The Sparrow’s fame from the lips of many criminals, but none has uttered a single word against him. He is, I hear, fierce, bitter, and relentless towards those who are his enemies. To his friends, however, he is staunchly loyal. That is what is said of him.”
“But, Hugh, I wish you would be more frank with me,” the girl said. “There are several things you are hiding from me.”
“I admit it, darling,” he blurted forth, holding her hand in the darkness as they walked. The ecstasy and the bliss of that moment held him almost without words. She was as life to him. He pursued that soul-deadening evasion, and lived that grey, sordid life among men and women escaping from justice solely for her sake. If he married Louise Lambert and then cast off the matrimonial shackles he would recover his patrimony and be well-off.
To many men the temptation would have proved too great. The inheritance of his father’s fortune was so very easy. Louise was a pretty girl, well educated, bright, vivacious, and thoroughly up to date. Yet somehow, he always mistrusted Benton, though his father, perhaps blinded in his years, had reckoned him his best and most sincere friend. There are many unscrupulous men who pose as dear, devoted friends of those who they know are doomed by disease to die—men who hope to be left executors with attaching emoluments, and men who have some deep game to play either by swindling the orphans, or by advancing one of their own kith and kin in the social scale.
Old Mr. Henfrey, a genuine country landowner of the good old school, a man who lived in tweeds and leggings, and who rode regularly to hounds and enjoyed his days across the stubble, was one of the unsuspicious. Charles Benton he had first met long ago in the Hotel de Russie in Rome while he was wintering there. Benton was merry, and, apparently, a gentleman. He talked of his days at Harrow, and afterwards at Cambridge, of being sent down because of a big “rag” in the Gladstonian days, and of his life since as a fairly well-off bachelor with rooms in London.
Thus a close intimacy had sprung up between them, and Hugh had naturally regarded his father’s friend with entire confidence.
“You admit that you are not telling me the whole truth, Hugh,” remarked the girl after a long pause. “It is hardly fair of you, is it?”
“Ah! darling, you do not know my position,” he hastened to explain as he gripped her little hand more tightly in his own. “I only wish I could learn the truth myself so as to make complete explanation. But at present all is doubt and uncertainty. Won’t you trust me, Dorise?”
“Trust you!” she echoed. “Why, of course I will! You surely know that, Hugh.”
The young man was again silent for some moments. Then he exclaimed:
“Yet, after all, I can see no ray of hope.”
“Why?”
“Hope of our marriage, Dorise,” he said hoarsely. “How can I, without money, ever hope to make you my wife?”
“But you will have your father’s estate in due course, won’t you?” she asked quite innocently. “You always plead poverty. You are so like a man.”
“Ah! Dorise, I am really poor. You don’t understand—you can’t!”
“But I do,” she said. “You may have debts. Every man has them—tailor’s bills, restaurant bills, betting debts, jewellery debts. Oh! I know. I’ve heard all about these things from another. Well, if you have them, you’ll be able to settle them out of your father’s estate all in due course.”
“And if he has left me nothing?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed the handsome girl at his side. “What do you mean?”
“Well–” he said very slowly. “At present I have nothing—that’s all. That is why at Monte Carlo I suggested that—that–”
He did not conclude the sentence.
“I remember. You said that I had better marry George Sherrard—that thick-lipped ass. You said that because you are hard-up?”
“Yes. I am hard-up. Very hard-up. At present I am existing in an obscure lodging practically upon the charity of a man upon whom, so far as I can ascertain, I have no claim whatsoever.”
“The notorious thief?”
Hugh nodded, and said:
“That fact in itself mystifies me. I can see no motive. I am entirely innocent of the crime attributed to me, and if Mademoiselle were in her right mind she would instantly clear me of this terrible charge.”
“But why did you go to her home that night, Hugh?”
“As I have already told you, I went to demand a reply to a single question I put to her,” he said. “But please do no let us discuss the affair further. The whole circumstances are painful to me—more painful than you can possibly imagine. One day—and I hope it will be soon—you will fully realize what all this has cost me.”
The girl drew a long breath.
“I know, Hugh,” she said. “I know, dear—and I do trust you.”
They halted, and he bent and impressed upon her lips a fierce caress.
So entirely absorbed in each other were the pair that they failed to notice the slim figure of a man who had followed the girl at some distance. Indeed, the individual in question had been lurking outside the house in Grosvenor Gardens, and had watched Dorise leave. At the end of the street a taxi was drawn up at the kerb awaiting him. Dorise had hailed the man, but his reply was a surly “Engaged.”
Then, walking about a couple of hundred yards, she had found another, and entering it, had driven to the Marble Arch. But the first taxi had followed the second one, and in it was the well-set-up man who was silently watching her in the park as she walked with her lover towards the Victoria Gate.
“What can I say to you in reply to your words of hope, darling?” exclaimed Hugh as he walked beside her. “I know full well how much all this must puzzle you. Have you seen Brock?”
“Oh! yes. I saw him two days ago. He called upon mother and had tea. I managed to get five minutes alone with him, and I asked if he had heard from you. He replied that he had not. He’s much worried about you.”
“Is he, dear old chap? I only wish I dared write to him, and give him my address.”
“I told him that you were back in London. But I did not give him your address. You told me to disclose nothing.”
“Quite right, Dorise,” he said. “If, as I hope one day to do, I can ever clear myself and combat my secret enemies, then there will be revealed to you a state of things of which you little dream. To-day I confess I am under a cloud. In the to-morrow I hope and pray that I may be able to expose the guilty and throw a new light upon those who have conspired to secure my downfall.”
They had halted in the dark path, and again their lips met in fond caress. Behind them was the silent watcher, the tall man who had followed Dorise when she had made her secret exit from the house wherein the gay dance was till in progress.
An empty seat was near, and with one accord the lovers sank upon it, Hugh still holding the girl’s soft hand.
“I must really go,” she said. “Mother will miss me, no doubt.”
“And George Sherrard, too?” asked her companion bitterly.
“He may, of course.”
“Ah! Then he is with you to-night?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, he is. Ah! Hugh! How I hate his exquisite and superior manners. But he is such a close friend of mother’s that I can never escape him.”
“And he still pesters you with his attentions, of course,” remarked Hugh in a hard voice.
“Oh! yes, he is always pretending to be in love with me.”
“Love!” echoed Hugh. “Can such a man ever love a woman? Never, Dorise. He does not love you as I love you—with my whole heart and my whole soul.”
“Of course the fellow cannot,” she replied. “But, for mother’s sake, I have to suffer his presence.”
“At least you are frank, darling,” he laughed.
“I only tell you the truth, dear. Mother thinks she can induce me to marry him because he is so rich, but I repeat that I have no intention whatever of doing so. I love you, Hugh—and only you.”
Again he took her in his strong arms and pressed her to him, still being watched by the mysterious individual who had followed Dorise.
“Ah! my darling, these are, indeed, moments of supreme happiness,” Hugh exclaimed as he held her tightly in his arms. “I wonder when we dare meet again?”
“Soon, dear—very soon, I hope. Let us make another appointment,” she said. “On Friday week mother is going to spend the night with Mrs. Deane down at Ascot. I shall make excuse to stay at home.”
“Right. Friday week at the same place and time,” he said cheerily.
“I’ll have to go now,” she said regretfully. “I only wish I could stay longer, but I must get back at once. If mother misses me she’ll have a fit.”
So he walked with her out of the Victoria Gate into the Bayswater Road and put her into an empty taxi which was passing back to Oxford Street.
Then, when he had pressed her hand and wished her adieu, he continued, towards Notting Hill Gate, and thence returned to Kensington.
But, though he was ignorant of the fact, the rather lank figure which had been waiting outside the house in Grosvenor Gardens now followed him almost as noiselessly as a shadow. Never once did the watcher lose sight of him until he saw him enter the house in Abingdon Road with his latchkey.
Then, when the door had closed, the mysterious watcher passed by and scrutinized the number, after which he hastened back to Kensington High Street, where he found a belated taxi in which he drove away.
SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER
ON THE SURREY HILLS
On the following morning, about twelve o’clock, Emily, Mrs. Mason’s stout maid-of-all-work, showed a tall, well-dressed man into Hugh’s frowsy little sitting-room where he sat reading.
He sprang to his feet when he recognized his visitor to be Charles Benton.
“Well my boy!” cried his visitor cheerily. “So I’ve found you at last! We all thought you were on the Continent, lying low somewhere.”
“So I have been,” replied the young man faintly. “You’ve heard of that affair at Monte Carlo?”
“Of course. And you are suspected—wanted by the police? That’s why I’m here,” Benton replied. “This place isn’t safe for you. You must get away from it at once,” he added, lowering his voice.
“Why isn’t it safe?”
“Because at Scotland Yard they know you are somewhere in Kensington, and they’re hunting high and low for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Harpur, one of the assistant Commissioners of Police, happened to be in the club yesterday, and we chatted. So I pumped him as to the suspected person from Monte Carlo, and he declared that you were known to be in this district, and your arrest was only a matter of time. So you must clear out at once.”
“Where to?” asked Hugh blankly.
“Well, there’s a lady you met once or twice with me, Mrs. Bond. She will be delighted to put you up for a few weeks. She has a charming house down in Surrey—a place called Shapley Manor.”
“She might learn the truth and give me away,” remarked Hugh dubiously.
“She won’t. Recollect, Hugh, that I was your father’s friend, and am yours. What advice I give you is for your own good. You can’t stay here—it’s impossible.”
The name of The Sparrow was upon Hugh’s lips, and he was about to tell Benton of that mysterious person’s efforts on his behalf, but, on reflection, he saw that he had no right to expose The Sparrow’s existence to others. The very house in which they were was one of the bolt-holes of the wonderfully organized gang of crooks which Il Passero controlled.
“How did you know that I was here?” asked Hugh suddenly in curiosity.
“That I’m not at liberty to say. It was not a friend of yours, but rather an enemy who told me—hence I tell you that you run the gravest risk in remaining here a moment longer. As soon as I heard you were here, I telephoned to Mrs. Bond, and she has very generously asked us both to stay with her,” Benton went on. “If you agree, I’ll get a car now, without delay, and we’ll run down into Surrey together,” he added.
Hugh glanced at the tall, well-dressed man of whom his father had thought so highly. Charles Benton, in spite of his hair tuning grey, was a handsome man, and moved in a very good circle of society. Nobody knew his source of income, and nobody cared. In these days clothes make the gentleman, and a knighthood a lady.
Like many others, old Mr. Henfrey had been sadly deceived by Charles Benton, and had taken him into his family as a friend. Other men had done the same. His geniality, his handsome, open face, and his plausible manner, proved the open sesame to many doors of the wealthy, and the latter were robbed in various ways, yet never dreaming that Benton was the instigator of it all. He never committed a theft himself. He gave the information—and others did the dirty work.
“You recollect Mrs. Bond,” said Benton. “But I believe Maxwell, her first husband, was alive then, wasn’t he?”
“I have a faint recollection of meeting a Mrs. Maxwell in Paris—at lunch at the Pre Catalan—was it not?”
“Yes, of course. About six years ago. That’s quite right!” laughed Benton. “Well, Maxwell died and she married again—a Colonel Bond. He was killed in Mesopotamia, and now she’s living up on the Hog’s Back, beyond Guildford, on the road to Farnham.”
Hugh again reflected. He had come to Abingdon Road at the suggestion of the mysterious White Cavalier. Ought he to leave the place without first consulting him? Yet he had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the man of mystery whom he firmly believed was none other than the elusive Sparrow. Besides, was not Benton, his father’s closest friend, warning him of his peril?
The latter thought decided him.
“I’m sure it’s awfully good of Mrs. Bond whom I know so slightly to invite me to stay with her.”
“Nothing, my dear boy. She’s a very old friend of mine. I once did her a rather good turn when Maxwell was alive, and she’s never forgotten it. She’s one of the best women in the world, I assure you,” Benton declared. “I’ll run along to a garage I know in Knightsbridge and get a car to take us down to Shapley. It’s right out in the country, and as long as you keep clear of the town of Guildford—where the police are unusually wary under one of the shrewdest chief constables in England—then you needn’t have much fear. Pack up your traps, Hugh, and I’ll call for you at the end of the road in half an hour.”
“Yes. But I’ll want a dress suit and lots of other things if I’m going to stay at a country house,” the young man demurred.
“Rot! You can get all you want in Aldershot, Farnham or Portsmouth. Come just as you are. Mrs. Bond will make all allowances.”
“And probably have her suspicions aroused at the same time?”
“No, she won’t. This is a sudden trip into the country. I told her you had been taken unwell—a nervous breakdown—and that the doctor had ordered you complete rest at once.”
“I wish I had stayed in Monte Carlo and faced the charge against me,” declared Hugh fervently. “Being hunted from pillar to post like this is so absolutely nerve-racking.”
“Why did you go to that woman’s house, Hugh?” Benton asked. “What business had you that led you to call at that hour upon such a notorious person?”
Hugh remained silent. He saw that to tell Benton the truth would be to reopen the whole question of the will and of Louise.
So he merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Won’t you tell me what really happened at the Villa Amette, Hugh?” asked the elder man persuasively. “I’ve seen Brock, but he apparently knows nothing.”
“Of course he does not. I was alone,” was Hugh’s answer. “The least said about that night of horror the better, Benton.”
So his father’s friend left the house, while Hugh sought Mrs. Mason, settled his bill with her, packed his meagre wardrobe into a suit-case, and half an hour later entered the heavy old limousine which he found at the end of the road.
They took the main Portsmouth road, by way of Kingston, Cobham and Ripley, until in the cold grey afternoon they descended the steep hill through Guildford High Street, and crossing the bridge, instead of continuing along the road to Portsmouth, bore to the right, past the station, and up the steep wide road over that long hill, the Hog’s Back, whence a great misty panorama was spread out on either side of the long, high-up ridge which in the sunshine gives such a wonderful view to motorists on their way out of London southward.
Presently the car turned into the gravelled drive, and Hugh found himself at Shapley.
In the chintz-hung, old-world morning-room, lit by the last rays of the declining sun, for the sky had suddenly cleared, Mrs. Bond entered, loud-voiced and merry.
“Why, Mr. Henfrey! I’m so awfully pleased to see you. Charles telephoned to me that you were a bit out of sorts. So you must stay with me for a little while—both of you. It’s very healthy up here on the Surrey hills, and you’ll soon be quite right again.”
“I’m sure, Mrs. Bond, it is most hospitable of you,” Hugh said. “London in these after the war days is quite impossible. I always long for the country. Certainly your house is delightful,” he added, looking round.
“It’s one of the nicest houses in the whole county of Surrey, my boy,” Benton declared enthusiastically. “Mrs. Bond was awfully lucky in securing it. The family are unfortunately ruined, as so many others are by excessive taxation and high prices, and she just stepped in at the psychological moment.”
“Well, I really don’t know how to thank you sufficiently, Mrs. Bond,” Hugh declared. “It is really extremely good of you.”
“Remember, Mr. Henfrey, we are not strangers,” exclaimed the handsome woman. “Do you recollect when we met in Paris, and afterwards in Biarritz, and then that night at the Carlton?”
“I recollect perfectly well. We met before the war, when one could really enjoy oneself contentedly.”
“Since then I have been travelling a great deal,” said the woman. “I’ve been in Italy, the South of Spain, the Azores, and over to the States. I got back only a few months ago.”
And so after a chat Hugh was shown to his room, a pretty apartment, from the diamond-paned windows of which spread out a lovely view across to Godalming and Hindhead, with the South Downs in the blue far away.
“Now you must make yourselves at home, both of you,” the handsome woman urged as they came down into the drawing-room after a wash.
Tea was served, and over it much chatter about people and places. Mrs. Bond was, like her friend Benton, a thorough-going cosmopolitan. Hugh had no idea of her real reputation, or of her remarkable adventures. Neither had he any idea that Molly Maxwell was wanted by the Paris Surete, just as he himself was wanted.
“Isn’t this a charming place?” remarked Benton as, an hour later, they strolled on the long terrace smoking cigarettes before dinner. “Mrs. Bond was indeed fortunate in finding it.”
“Beautiful!” declared Hugh in genuine admiration. Since that memorable night in Monte Carlo he had been living in frowsy surroundings, concealed in thieves’ hiding-places, eating coarse food, and hearing the slang of the underworld of Europe.
It had been exciting, yet he had been drawn into it against his will—just because he had feared for Dorise’s sake, to face the music after that mysterious shot had been fired at the Villa Amette.
Mrs. Bond was most courteous to her guests, and as Hugh and Benton strolled up and down the terrace in the fast growing darkness, the elder man remarked:
“You’ll be quite safe here, you know, Hugh. Don’t worry. I’m truly sorry that you have landed yourself into this hole, but—well, for the life of me I can’t see what led you to seek out that woman, Yvonne Ferad. Why ever did you go there?”
Hugh paused.
“I—I had reasons—private reasons of my own,” he replied.
“That’s vague enough. We all have private reasons for doing silly things, and it seems that you did an exceptionally silly thing. I hear that Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, after the doctors operated upon her brain, has now become a hopeless idiot.”
“So I’ve been told. It is all so very sad—so horrible. Though people have denounced her as an adventuress, yet I know that at heart she is a real good woman.”
“Is she? How do you know?” asked Benton quickly, for instantly he was on the alert.
“I know. And that is all.”
“But tell me, Hugh—tell me in confidence, my boy—what led you to seek her that night. You must have followed her from the Casino and have seen her enter the Villa. Then you rang at the door and asked to see her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“I had my own reasons.”
“Can’t you tell them to me, Hugh?” asked the tall man in a strange, low voice. “Remember, I am an old friend of your father. And I am still your best friend.”
Hugh pursued his walk in silence.
“No,” he said at last, “I prefer not to discuss the affair. That night is one full of painful memories.”
“Very well,” answered Benton shortly. “If you don’t want to tell me, Hugh, I quite understand. That’s enough. Have another cigarette,” and he handed the young fellow his heavy gold case.
A week passed. Hugh Henfrey and Charles Benton greatly enjoyed their stay at Shapley Manor. With their hostess they motored almost daily to many points of interest in the neighbourhood, never, by the way, descending into the town of Guildford, where the police were so unusually alert and shrewd.
More than once when alone with Benton, Hugh felt impelled to refer to the mysterious death of his father, but it was a very painful subject. The last time Hugh had referred to it, about a month before his visit to Monte Carlo, Benton had been greatly upset, and had begged the young man not to mention the tragic affair.
Constantly, however, Benton, on his part, would put cunning questions to him concerning Yvonne Ferad, as to what he knew concerning her, and how he had managed to escape over the frontier into Italy.
Late one night as they sat together in the billiard-room after their final game, Benton, removing the cigar from his lips, exclaimed:
“Oh! I quite forgot to tell you, Mrs. Bond has been awfully good to Louise. She took her from Paris with her and they went quite a long tour, first to Spain and other places, and then to New York and back.”
“Has she?” exclaimed Hugh in surprise. Only once before had Benton mentioned Louise’s name, then he had casually remarked that she was on a visit to some friends in Yorkshire.
“Yes. She’s making her home with Mrs. Bond for the present. She returns here to-morrow.”
As he said this, he watched the young man’s face. It was sphinx-like.
“Oh! That’s jolly!” he replied, with well assumed satisfaction. “It seems such an age since we last met—nearly a year before my father’s death, I believe.”
In his heart he had no great liking for the girl, although she was bright, vivacious and extremely good company.