Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo
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What was the mystery of it all? Ay, what indeed?
He recalled every incident of that fateful night, her indignation at his presence in her house, and her curious softening of manner towards him, as though repentant and ready to make amends.
Then he wondered what Dorise would think when he failed to put in an appearance to go with her to the ball at Nice. He pictured the car waiting outside the hotel, Lady Ranscomb fidgeting and annoyed, the count elegant and all smiles and graces, and Dorise, anxious and eager, going to the telephone and speaking to the concierge at the Palmiers. Then inquiry for Monsieur Henfrey, and the discovery that he had left the hotel unseen.
So far Dorise knew nothing of Hugh’s part in the drama of the Villa Amette, but suddenly he was horrified by the thought that the police, finding he had escaped, would question her. They had been seen together many times in Monte Carlo, and the eyes of the police of Monaco are always very wide open. They know much, but are usually inactive. When one recollects that all the escrocs of Europe gather at the tapis vert in winter and spring, it is not surprising that they close their eyes to such minor crimes as theft, blackmail and false pretences.
In his excited and unnerved state, he pictured Ogier calling upon Lady Ranscomb and questioning her closely concerning her young English friend who was so frequently seen with her daughter. That would, surely, end their friendship! Lady Ranscomb would never allow her daughter to associate further with a man accused of attempting to murder a notorious woman after midnight!
The car presently descended the steep rocky road which wound up over the promontory and back again down to the sea, until they passed through the little frontier town of Ventimiglia.
It was late, and few people were about in the narrow, ill-lit streets.
Suddenly, a couple of Italian carabineers stopped the car.
Hugh’s heart beat quickly. Had they at the dogana discovered the trick and telephoned from the frontier?
Instantly the fugitive reassumed his role of invalid, and no sooner had he settled himself than the second man in a cocked hat and heavy black cloak opened the door and peered within.
Another lamp was flashed upon his face.
The carabineer asked in Italian:
“What is your name, signore?”
But Hugh, pretending that he did not understand the language, asked:
“Eh? What?”
“Here are our papers, signore,” interrupted the ever-ready chauffeur, and he produced the papers for the officer’s inspection.
He looked at them, bending to read them by the light of the torch which his companion held.
Then, after an officious gesture, he handed them back, saying:
“Benissimo! You may pass!”
Again Hugh was free! Yet he wondered if that examination had been consequent upon the hue and cry set up now that he had escaped from Monaco.
They passed out of the straggling town of Ventimiglia, but instead of turning up the valley by that long road which winds up over the Alps until it reaches the snow and then passes through the tunnel on the Col di Tenda and on to Cuneo and Turin, the mysterious driver kept on by the sea-road towards Bordighera.
Hugh realised that his guide’s intention was to go in the direction of Genoa.
About two miles out of Ospedaletti, on the road to San Remo, Henfrey rapped at the window, and the chauffeur, who was travelling at high speed, pulled up.
Hugh got out and said in French:
“Well, so far we’ve been successful. I admire your ingenuity and your pluck.”
The man laughed and thanked him.
“I have done what I was told to do,” he replied simply. “Monsieur is, I understand, in a bit of a scrape, and it is for all of us to assist each other—is it not?”
“Of course. But who told you to do all this?” Hugh inquired, standing in the dark road beside the car. The pair could not see each other’s faces, though the big head-lamps glared far ahead over the white road.
“Well—a friend of yours, m’sieur.”
“What is his name?”
“Pardon, I am not allowed to say.”
“But all this is so very strange—so utterly mysterious!” cried Hugh. “I have not committed any crime, and yet I am hunted by the police! They are anxious to arrest me for an offence of which I am entirely innocent.”
“I know that, m’sieur,” was the fellow’s reply. “At the dogana, however, we had a narrow escape. The man who looked at you was Morain, the chief inspector of the Surete of the Alpes-Maritimes, and he was at the outpost especially to stop you!”
“Again I admire your perfect nonchalance and ingenuity,” Hugh said. “I owe my liberty entirely to you.”
“Not liberty, m’sieur. We are not yet what you say in English ‘out of the wood.’”
“Where are we going now?”
“To Genoa. We ought to be there by early morning,” was the reply. “Morain has, no doubt, telephoned to Mentone and discovered that my story is false. So if later, on, they suspect the American invalid they will be looking out for him on the Col di Tenda, in Cuneo, and in Turin.”
“And what shall we do in Genoa?”
“Let us get there first—and see.”
“But I wish you would tell me who you are—and why you take such a keen interest in my welfare,” Hugh said.
The man gave vent to an irritating laugh.
“I am not permitted to disclose the identity of your friend,” he answered. “All I know is that you are innocent.”
“Then perhaps you know the guilty person?” Hugh suggested.
“Ah! Let us talk of something else, signore,” was the mysterious chauffeur’s reply.
“But I confess to you that I am bent upon solving the mystery of Mademoiselle’s assailant. It means a very great deal to me.”
“How?” asked the man.
Hugh hesitated.
“Well,” he replied. “If the culprit is found, then there would no longer be any suspicion against myself.”
“Probably he never will be found,” the man said.
“But tell me, how did you know about the affair, and why are you risking arrest by driving me to-night?”
“I have reasons,” was all he would say. “I obey the demands of those who are your friends.”
“Who are they?”
“They desire to conceal their identity. There is a strong reason why this should be done.”
“Why?”
“Are they not protecting one who is suspected of a serious crime? If discovered they would be punished,” was the quiet response.
“Ah! There is some hidden motive behind all this!” declared the young Englishman. “I rather regret that I did not remain and face the music.”
“It would have been far too dangerous, signore. Your enemies would have contrived to convict you of the crime.”
“My enemies—but who are they?”
“Of that, signore, I am ignorant. Only I have been told that you have enemies, and very bitter ones.”
“But I have committed no crime, and yet I am a fugitive from justice!” Hugh cried.
“You escaped in the very nick of time,” the man replied. “But had we not better be moving again? We must be in Genoa by daybreak.”
“But do, I beg of you, tell me more,” the young man implored. “To whom do I owe my liberty?”
“As I have already told you, signore, you owe it to those who intend to protect you from a false charge.”
“Yes. But there is a lady in the case,” Hugh said. “I fear that if she hears that I am a fugitive she will misjudge me and believe me to be guilty.”
“Probably so. That is, I admit, unfortunate—but, alas! it cannot be avoided. It was, however, better for you to get out of France.”
“But the French police, when they know that I have escaped, will probably ask the Italian police to arrest me, and then apply for my extradition.”
“If they did, I doubt whether you would be surrendered. The police of my country are not too fond of assisting those of other countries. Thus if an Italian commits murder in a foreign country and gets back to Italy, our Government will refuse to give him up. There have been many such cases, and the murderer goes scot free.”
“Then you think I am safe in Italy?”
“Oh, no, not by any means. You are not an Italian subject. No, you must not be very long in Italy.”
“But what am I to do when we get to Genoa?” Hugh asked.
“The signore had better wait until we arrive there,” was the driver’s enigmatical reply.
Then the supposed invalid re-entered the car and they continued on their way along the bleak, storm-swept road beside the sea towards that favourite resort of the English, San Remo.
The night had grown pitch dark, and rain had commenced to fall. Before the car the great head-lamps threw long beams of white light against which Hugh saw the silhouette of the muffled-up mysterious driver, with his keen eyes fixed straight before him, and driving at such a pace that it was apparent that he knew every inch of the dangerous road.
What could it all mean? What, indeed?
EIGHTH CHAPTER
THE WHITE CAVALIER
While Hugh Henfrey was travelling along that winding road over high headlands and down steep gradients to the sea which stretched the whole length of the Italian Riviera, Dorise Ranscomb in a white silk domino and black velvet mask was pretending to enjoy herself amid the mad gaiety at the Casino in Nice.
The great bal blanc is always one of the most important events of the Nice season, and everyone of note wintering on the Riviera was there, yet all carefully masked, both men and women.
“I wonder what prevented Hugh from coming with us, mother?” the girl remarked as she sat with Lady Ranscomb watching the merriment and the throwing of serpentines and confetti.
“I don’t know. He certainly ought to have let me know, and not have kept me waiting nearly half an hour, as he did,” her mother snapped.
The girl did not reply. The truth was that while her mother and the Count had been waiting for Hugh’s appearance, she had gone to the telephone and inquired for Mr. Henfrey. Walter Brock had spoken to her.
“I’m awfully sorry, Miss Ranscomb,” he had replied. “But I don’t know where Hugh can be. I’ve just been up to his room, but his fancy dress is there, flung down as though he had suddenly discarded it and gone out. Nobody noticed him leave. The page at the door is certain that he did not go out. So he must have left by the staff entrance.”
“That’s very curious, isn’t it?” Dorise remarked.
“Very. I can’t understand it.”
“But he promised to go with us to the ball at Nice to-night!”
“Well, Miss Ranscomb, all I can think is that something—something very important must have detained him somewhere.”
Walter knew that his friend was suspected by the police, but dared not tell her the truth. Hugh’s disappearance had caused him considerable anxiety because, for aught he knew, he might already be arrested.
So Dorise, much perplexed, but resolving not to say to her mother that she had telephoned to the Palmiers, rejoined the Count in the hotel lounge, where they waited a further ten minutes. Then they entered the car and drove along to Nice.
There are few merrier gatherings in all Europe than the bal blanc. The Municipal Casino, at all times the center of revelry, of mild gambling, smart dresses and gay suppers, is on that night an amazing spectacle of black and white. The carnival colours—the two shades of colour chosen yearly by the International Fetes Committee—are abandoned, and only white is worn.
When the trio entered the fun was already in full swing. The gay crowd disguised by their masks and fancy costumes were revelling as happily as school children. A party of girls dressed as clowns were playing leap-frog. Another party were dancing in a great and ever-widening ring. Girls armed with jesters’ bladders were being carried high on the shoulders of their male acquaintances, and striking all and sundry as they passed, staid, elderly folk were performing grotesque antics for persons of their age. The very air of the Riviera seems to be exhilarating to both old and young, and the constant church-goers at home quickly become infected by the spirit of gaiety, and conduct themselves on the Continental Sabbath in a manner which would horribly disgust their particular vicar.
“Hugh must have been detained by something very unexpected, mother,” Dorise said. “He never disappoints us.”
“Oh, yes, he does. One night we were going to the Embassy Club—don’t you recollect it—and he never turned up.”
“Oh, well, mother. It was really excusable. His cousin arrived from New York quite unexpectedly upon some family business. He phoned to you and explained,” said the girl.
“Well, what about that night when I asked him to dinner at the Ritz to meet the Courtenays and he rang up to say he was not well? Yet I saw him hale and hearty next day at a matinee at the Comedy.”
“He may have been indisposed, mother,” Dorise said. “Really I think you judge him just a little too harshly.”
“I don’t. I take people as I find them. Your father always said that, and he was no fool, my dear. He made a fortune by his cleverness, and we now enjoy it. Never associate with unsuccessful persons. It’s fatal!”
“That’s just what old Sir Dudley Ash, the steel millionaire, told me the other day when we were over at Cannes, mother. Never associate with the unlucky. Bad luck, he says, is a contagious malady.”
“And I believe it—I firmly believe it,” declared Lady Ranscomb. “Your poor father pointed it out to me long ago, and I find that what he said is too true.”
“But we can’t all be lucky, mother,” said the girl, watching the revelry before her blankly as she reflected upon the mystery of Hugh’s absence.
“No. But we can, nevertheless, be rich, if we look always to the main chance and make the best of our opportunities,” her mother said meaningly.
At that moment the Count d’Autun approached them. He was dressed as a pierrot, but being masked was only recognizable by the fine ruby ring upon his finger.
“Will mademoiselle do me the honour?” he said in French, bowing elegantly. “They are dancing in the theatre. Will you come, Mademoiselle Dorise?”
“Delighted,” she said, with an inward sigh, for the dressed-up Parisian always bored her. She rose quickly, and promising her mother to be back soon, she linked her arm to that of the notorious gambler and passed through the great palm-court into the theatre.
Then, a few moments later, she found herself carried around amid the mad crowd of revellers, who laughed merrily as the coloured serpentines thrown from the boxes fell upon them.
To lift one’s loup was a breach of etiquette. Everyone was closely masked. British members of Parliament, French senators, Italian members of the Camera, Spanish grandees and Russian princes, all with their womenfolk, hob-nobbed with cocottes, escrocs, and the most notorious adventurers and adventuresses in all Europe. Truly, it was a never-to-be-forgotten scene of cosmopolitan fun.
The Count, who was a bad dancer, collided with a slim, well-dressed French girl, but did not apologize.
“Oh! la la!” cried the girl to her partner, a stout figure in Mephistophelian garb. “An exquisitely polite gentleman that, mon cher Alphonse! I believe he must really be the Pork King from Chicago—eh?”
The Count heard it, and was furious. Dorise, however, said nothing. She was thinking of Hugh’s strange disappearance, and how he had broken his word to her.
Meanwhile, Lady Ranscomb, secretly very glad that Hugh had been prevented from accompanying them, and centring all her hopes upon her daughter’s marriage with George Sherrard, sat chattering with a Mrs. Down, the fat wife of a war-profiteer, whose acquaintance she had made in Paris six months before.
Dorise made pretense of enjoying the dance though eager to get back again to Monte Carlo in order to learn the reason of her lover’s absence. She was devoted to Hugh. He was all in all to her.
She danced with several partners, having first made a rendezvous with her mother at midnight at a certain spot under one of the great palms in the promenade. At masked balls the chaperon is useless, and everyone, being masked, looks so much alike that mistakes are easy.
About half-past one o’clock a big motor-car drew up in the Place before the Casino, and a tall man in a white fancy dress of a cavalier, with wide-brimmed hat and staggering plume, stepped from it and, presenting his ticket, passed at once into the crowded ball-room. For a full ten minutes he stood watching the crowd of revellers intently, eyeing each of them keenly, though the expression on his countenance was hidden by the strip of black velvet.
His eyes, shining through the slits in the mask, were, however, dark and brilliant. In them could be seen alertness and eagerness, for it was apparent that he had come there hot-foot in search of someone. In any case he had a difficult task, for in the whirling, laughing, chattering crowd each person resembled the other save for their feet and their stature.
It was the feet of the dancers that the tall masked man was watching. He stood in the crowd near the doorway with his hand upon his sword-hilt, a striking figure remarked by many. His large eyes were fixed upon the shoes of the dancers, until, of a sudden, he seemed to discover that for which he was in search, and made his way quickly after a pair who, having finished a dance, were walking in the direction of the great hall.
The stranger never took his eyes off the pair. The man was slightly taller than the woman, and the latter wore upon her white kid shoes a pair of old paste buckles. It was for those buckles that he had been searching.
“Yes,” he muttered in English beneath his breath. “That’s she—without a doubt!”
He drew back to near where the pair had halted and were laughing together. The girl with the glittering buckles upon her shoes was Dorise Ranscomb. The man with her was the Count d’Autun.
The white cavalier pretended to take no interest in them, but was, nevertheless, watching intently. At last he saw the girl’s partner bow, and leaving her, he crossed to greet a stout Frenchwoman in a plain domino. In a moment the cavalier was at the girl’s side.
“Please do not betray surprise, Miss Ranscomb,” he said in a low, refined voice. “We may be watched. But I have a message for you.”
“For me?” she asked, peering through her mask at the man in the plumed hat.
“Yes. But I cannot speak to you here. It is too public. Besides, your mother yonder may notice us.”
“Who are you?” asked the girl, naturally curious.
“Do not let us talk here. See, right over yonder in the corner behind where they are dancing in a ring—under the balcony. Let us meet there at once. Au revoir.”
And he left her.
Three minutes later they met again out of sight of Lady Ranscomb, who was still sitting at one of the little wicker tables talking to three other women.
“Tell me, who are you?” Dorise inquired.
The white cavalier laughed.
“I’m Mr. X,” was his reply.
“Mr. X? Who’s that?”
“Myself. But my name matters nothing, Miss Ranscomb,” he said. “I have come here to give you a confidential message.”
“Why confidential—and from whom?” she asked, standing against the wall and surveying the mysterious masker.
“From a gentleman friend of yours—Mr. Henfrey.”
“From Hugh?” she gasped. “Do you know him?”
“Yes.”
“I expected him to come with us to-night, but he has vanished from his hotel.”
“I know. That is why I am here,” was the reply.
There was a note in the stranger’s voice which struck her as somehow familiar, but she failed to recognize the individual. She was as quick at remembering voices as she was at recollecting faces. Who could he be, she wondered?
“You said you had a message for me,” she remarked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I am here to tell you that a serious contretemps has occurred, and that Mr. Henfrey has escaped from France.”
“Escaped!” she echoed. “Why?”
“Because the police suspect him of a crime.”
“Crime! What crime? Surely he is innocent?” she cried.
“He certainly is. His friends know that. Therefore, Miss Ranscomb, I beg of you to betray no undue anxiety even if you do not hear from him for many weeks.”
“But will he write to me?” she asked in despair. “Surely he will not keep me in suspense?”
“He will not if he can avoid it. But as soon as the French police realize that he has got away a watch will be kept upon his correspondence.” Then, lowering his voice, he urged her to move away, as he thought that an idling masker was trying to overhear their conversation.
“You see,” he went on a few moments later, “it might be dangerous if he were to write to you.”
Dorise was thinking of what her mother would say when the truth reached her ears. Hugh was a fugitive!
“Of what crime is he suspected?” asked the girl.
“I—well, I don’t exactly know,” was the stranger’s faltering response. “I was told by a friend of his that it was a serious one, and that he might find it extremely difficult to prove himself innocent. The circumstantial evidence against him is very strong.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“Not in the least. All I know is that he is safely across the frontier into Italy,” was the reply of the tall white cavalier.
“I wish I could see your face,” declared Dorise frankly.
“And I might express a similar desire, Miss Ranscomb. But for the present it is best as it is. I have sought you here to tell you the truth in secret, and to urge you to remain calm and patient.”
“Is that a message from Hugh?”
“No—not exactly. It is a message from one who is his friend.”
“You are very mysterious,” she declared. “If you do not know where he is at the moment, perhaps you know where we can find him later.”
“Yes. He is making his way to Brussels. A letter addressed to Mr. Godfrey Brown, Poste Restante, Brussels, will eventually find him. Recollect the name,” he added. “Disguise your handwriting on the envelope, and when you post it see that you are not observed. Recollect that his safety lies in your hands.”
“Trust me,” she said. “But do let me know your name,” she implored.
“Any old name is good enough for me,” he replied. “Call me Mr. X.”
“Don’t mystify me further, please.”
“Well, call me Smith, Jones, Robinson—whatever you like.”
“Then you refuse to satisfy my curiosity—eh?”
“I regret that I am compelled to do so—for certain reasons.”
“Are you a detective?” Dorise suddenly inquired.
The stranger laughed.
“If I were a police officer I should scarcely act as an intermediary between Mr. Henfrey and yourself, Miss Ranscomb.”
“But you say he is innocent. Are you certain of that? May I set my mind at rest that he never committed this crime of which the police suspect him?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes. I repeat that he is entirely innocent,” was the earnest response. “But I would advise you to affect ignorance. The police may question you. If they do, you know nothing, remember—absolutely nothing. If you write to Mr. Henfrey, take every precaution that nobody sees you post the letter. Give him a secret address in London, or anywhere in England, so that he can write to you there.”
“But how long will it be before I can see him again?”
“Ah! That I cannot tell. There is a mystery underlying it all that even I cannot fathom, Miss Ranscomb.”
“What kind of mystery?”
The white cavalier shrugged his shoulders.
“You must ask Mr. Henfrey. Or perhaps his friend Brock knows. Yet if he does, I do not suppose he would disclose anything his friend may have told him in confidence.”
“I am bewildered!” the girl declared. “It is all so very mysterious—Hugh a fugitive from justice! I—I really cannot believe it! What can the mystery be?”
“Of that I have no means of ascertaining, Miss Ranscomb. I am here merely to tell you what has happened and to give you in secret the name and address to which to send a letter to him,” the masked man said very politely. “And now I think we must part. Perhaps if ever we meet again—which is scarcely probable—you will recognize my voice. And always recollect that should you or Mr. Henfrey ever receive a message from ‘Silverado’ it will be from myself.” And he spelt the name.
“Silverado. Yes, I shall not forget you, my mysterious friend.”
“Au revoir!” he said as, bowing gracefully, he turned and left her.
The sun was rising from the sea when Dorise entered her bedroom at the hotel. Her maid had retired, so she undressed herself, and putting on a dressing-gown, she pulled up the blinds and sat down to write a letter to Hugh.