The Count's Chauffeur

III

IN WHICH THE COUNT IS PUZZLED

My sweet-faced little charge had returned into the back of the car, and was sound asleep nestling beneath her rugs when, about three o’clock in the morning, we dashed through the little village of Cagnes, and ran out upon the long bridge that crosses the broad, rock-strewn river Var, a mile or two from Nice.

My great search-light was shining far ahead, and the echoes of the silent, glorious night were awakened by the roar of the exhaust as we tore along, raising a perfect wall of dust behind us.

Suddenly, on reaching the opposite bank, I saw a man in the shadow waving his arms, and heard a shout. My first impression was that it was one of the gendarmes, who are always on duty at that spot, but next instant, owing to the bend of the road, my search-light fell full upon the person in question, and I was amazed to find it to be none other than the audacious Bindo himself – Bindo in a light dust-coat and a soft white felt hat of that type which is de rigueur each season at Monty among smartly-groomed men.

“Ewart!” he shouted frantically. “Ewart, it’s me! Stop! stop!”

I put the brakes down as hard as I could without skidding, and brought the car up suddenly, while he ran up breathlessly.

“You’re through in good time. I was prepared to wait till daylight,” he said. “Everything all right?”

“Everything. The young lady’s asleep, I think.”

“No, she is not,” came a voice in French from beneath the rugs. “What’s the matter? Who’s that?”

“It’s me, Pierrette,” replied the handsome young adventurer, mounting upon the step and looking within.

“You! Ah! Why – it’s M’sieur Bellingham!” she cried excitedly, raising herself and putting out her hand encased in one of my greasy old fur gloves. “Were you waiting for us?”

“Of course I was. Didn’t I tell you I would?” replied Bindo in French – a language which he spoke with great fluency. “You got my telegram to say that Ewart had started – eh? Well, how has the car been running – and how has Ewart treated you?”

“He has treated me – well, as you say in your English, ‘like a father’!” she laughed merrily; “and, oh! I’ve had such a delightful ride.”

“But you must be cold, little one,” he said, patting her upon the shoulder. “It’s a long run from Paris to Nice, you know.”

“I’m not tired,” she assured him. “I’ve slept quite a lot. And M’sieur Ewart has looked after me, and given me hot bouillon, coffee, eggs, and all sorts of things – even to chocolates!”

“Ah! Ewart is a sad dog with the ladies, I’m afraid,” he said in a reproving tone, glancing at me. “But if you’ll make room for me, and give me a bit of your rug, I’ll go on with you.”

“Of course, my dear friend,” she exclaimed, rising, throwing off the rugs, and settling herself into the opposite corner, “you will come along with us to Monte Carlo. Are those lights over there, on the right, Nice?”

“They are, and beyond that lighthouse there, is Villefranche. Right behind it lies Beaulieu.”

And then, the pair having wrapped themselves up, we moved off again.

“Run along the Promenade des Anglais, and not through the Rue de France, Ewart,” ordered the Count. “Mademoiselle would like to see it, I daresay, even at this hour.”

So ten minutes later we turned out upon that broad, beautiful esplanade which is one of the most noted in all the world, which is always flower-bordered, and where feathery palms flourish even when the rest of Europe is under snow.

“When did you arrive?” I heard the girl ask.

“At eight o’clock last night. I haven’t been to Monte Carlo yet. I went over to Beaulieu, but unfortunately Madame is not yet at the Bristol. I have, however, taken a room for you, and we will drop you there as we pass. Your baggage arrived by rail this afternoon.”

“But where is Madame, I wonder?” inquired the girl in a tone of dismay. “She would surely never disappoint us?”

“Certainly she would not. She told me once that she had stayed at the Métropole at Monty on several occasions. She may be there. I’ll inquire in the morning. For the next couple of days I may be away, as perhaps I’ll have to go on to Genoa on some business; but Ewart and the car will be at your disposal. I’ll place you in his hands again, and he will in a couple of days show you the whole Riviera from the Var to San Remo, with the Tenda, the upper Corniche, and Grasse thrown in. He knows this neighbourhood like a Niçois.”

“That will be awfully jolly,” she responded. “But – ”

“Well?”

“Well, I’m sorry you are going away,” declared Pierrette, with regret so undisguised that though she had admitted her engagement to her father’s missing clerk, showed me only too plainly that she had fallen very violently in love with the handsome, good-for-nothing owner of the splendid car upon which they were travelling.

I could see that curious developments were, ere long, within the bounds of probability, and I felt sorry for the pretty, innocent little girl; for her journey there was, I felt assured, connected in some way or other with her father’s mysterious disappearance from the Charing Cross Hotel.

Why had Bindo taken the trouble to await me there at the foot of the Var bridge, when he had given me instructions where to go at Monte Carlo?

As I drove out of Nice and up the hill to Villefranche, I turned over the whole of the queer facts in my mind, but could discern no motive for Pierrette’s secret journey South. Why was she, so young, a nun? Why had she left her convent, if not at the instigation of the merry-eyed, devil-may-care Bindo?

Around Mont Boron and down into Villefranche we went, until around the sudden bend, close to the sea-shore, showed the great white façade of the Bristol at Beaulieu, that fine hotel so largely patronised by kings, princes, and other notabilities.

The gate was open, and I swung the car into the well-kept gravelled drive which led through the beautiful flower-garden up to the principal entrance. The noise we created awoke the night-porter, and after some brief explanation, Pierrette got out, wished us a merry “Bon jour!” and disappeared. Then, with the Count mounted at my side, I backed out into the roadway, and we were soon speeding along that switchback of a road with dozens of dangerous turns and irritating tram-lines that leads past Eze into the tiny Principality of His Royal Highness Prince Rouge et Noir – the paradise of gamblers, thieves, and fools.

“Well, Ewart,” he said, almost before we got past Mr. Gordon Bennett’s villa, “I suppose the girl’s been chattering to you – eh? What has she said?”

“Well, she hasn’t said much,” was my reply, as I bent my head to the mistral that was springing up. “Told me who she is, and that her father and his jewels have disappeared in London.”

“What!” he cried in a voice of amazement. “What’s that about jewels? What jewels?”

“Why, you surely know,” I said, surprised at his demeanour.

“I assure you, Ewart, this is the first I know about any jewels,” he declared. “You say her father and some shiners have disappeared in London. Tell me quickly, under what circumstances. What has she been telling you?”

“Well, first tell me – are you aware of who she really is?”

“No, I don’t, and that’s a fact. I believe she’s the daughter of an old broken-down Catholic marquise – one of the weedy sort – who lives at Troyes, or some such dead-alive hole as that. Her mother tried to make her take the veil, and hasn’t succeeded.”

“She prefers the motor-veil, it appears,” I laughed. “But that isn’t the story she’s told me.”

The red light of a level-crossing gave warning, and I pulled up, and let out a long blast on the electric horn, until the gates swung open.

“Her real name is, I believe, Pierrette Dumont, only daughter of that big jeweller in the Rue de la Paix.”

“What!” cried Bindo, in such a manner that I knew he was not joking. “Old Dumont’s daughter? If that’s so, we are in luck’s way.”

“Yes, Dumont went to London, and took his clerk, a certain Martin, with him, and a bagful of jewels worth the respectable sum of half a million francs. They stayed at the Charing Cross Hotel, but five days later both men and the jewels disappeared.”

Bindo sank back in his seat utterly dumbfounded.

“But, Ewart,” he gasped, “do you really think it is true? Do you believe that she is actually Dumont’s daughter, and that the shiners have really been stolen?”

“The former question is more difficult to answer than the latter. A wire to London will clear up the truth. In all probability the police are keeping the affair out of the papers. The girl went over to London to try and find her father, and met you, she says.”

“She met me, certainly. But the little fool told me nothing about her father’s disappearance or the missing jewels.”

“Because the Paris police had warned her not to, in all probability.”

“Well – ” he gasped. “If that story is really true, it is the grandest slice of luck we’ve ever had, Ewart,” he declared.

“How? What do you mean?”

“What I say,” was his brief answer. “I shall go back to London after breakfast. You’ll remain here, look after the girl and Madame Vernet. I don’t envy you the latter. She’s got yellow teeth, and is ugly enough to break a mirror,” he laughed.

“But why go to London?” I queried.

“For reasons best known to myself, Ewart,” he snapped; for he never approved of inquisitiveness when forming any plans.

Then for a long time he was silent, his resourceful brain active, plunged in thought.

“Well!” he exclaimed, “this is about the queerest affair that I’ve ever had on hand. I came out here to-day from London on one big thing, and in an hour or two I’m going back on another!”

Presently, just as we were ascending the hill from La Condamine, and within a few hundred yards of the big Hôtel de Paris garage, which was our destination, he turned to me and said —

“Look here, Ewart! we’ve got a big thing on here – bigger than either of us imagine. I wonder what the fellows will think when they hear of it? Now all you have to do is to be pleasant to the little girl – make her believe that you’re a bit gone on her, if you like.”

“But she’s over head and ears in love with you,” I observed.

“Love be hanged!” he laughed carelessly. “We’re out for money, my dear Ewart – and we’ll have a lot of it out of this, never fear!”

A moment later I swung into the great garage, where hundreds of cars were standing – that garage with the female directress which every motorist knows so well.

And I stopped the engines, and literally fell out, utterly done up and exhausted after that mad drive from the Thames to the Mediterranean.

The circumstances seemed even more complicated and mysterious than I had imagined them to be.

But the main question was whether the dainty little Pierrette had told me the truth.

IV

IS STILL MORE MYSTERIOUS

At ten o’clock that same morning I saw Bindo off by the Paris rapide.

Though he did not get to his room at the Hôtel de Paris till nearly six, he was about again at eight. He was a man full of activity when the occasion warranted, and yet, like many men of brains, he usually gave one the appearance of an idler. He could get through an enormous amount of work and scheming, and yet appear entirely unoccupied. Had he put his talents to legitimate and honest business, he would have no doubt risen to the position of a Napoleon of finance.

As it was, he made a call at the Métropole at nine, not to inquire for Madame Vernet, but no doubt to consult or give instructions to one of his friends, who, like himself, was a “crook.”

Bindo had a passing acquaintance with many men who followed the same profession as himself, and often, I know, lent a helping hand to any in distress. There is a close fraternity among the class to which he belonged, known to the European police as “the internationals.”

The identity of the man in whose bedroom he had an interview that morning I was unaware. I only know that, as the rapide moved off from Monte Carlo Station on its way back to Paris, he waved his hand, saying —

“Remain here, and if anything happens wire me to Clifford Street. At all costs keep Pierrette at Beaulieu. Au revoir!”

And he withdrew his head into the first-class compartment.

Then I turned away, wondering how next to act.

After a stroll around Monty, a cigarette on the terrace before the Casino, where the gay world was sunning itself beside the sapphire sea, prior to the opening of the Rooms, and a cocktail at my friend Ciro’s, I took my déjeuner at the Palmiers, a small and unpretentious hotel in the back of the town, where I was well known, and where one gets a very good lunch vin compris for three francs.

In order to allow Pierrette time to rest after her journey, I waited till three o’clock before I got out the car and ran over to Beaulieu. The day was glorious, one of those bright, cloudless, sunny Riviera days in early spring, when the Mediterranean lay without a ripple and the flowers sent forth their perfume everywhere.

Mademoiselle was in the garden, the concierge of the Bristol told me; therefore I went out and found her seated alone before the sea, reading a book. Her appearance was the reverse of that of a religious “Sister.” Dressed in a smart gown of cream cloth, – one of those gowns that are so peculiarly the mode at Monte Carlo, – white shoes, and a white hat, she looked delightfully fresh and chic beneath her pale-blue sunshade.

“Ah, M’sieur Ewart!” she cried, in her broken English, as I approached, “I am so glad you have come. I have been waiting ever so long. I want to go to Monte Carlo.”

“Then I’ll be delighted to take you,” I answered, raising my hat. “Mr. Bellingham has left already, and will be absent, I believe, a day or two. Meanwhile, if you will accept my escort, mademoiselle, I shall be only too willing to be yours to obey.”

“Bien! What a pretty speech!” she laughed. “I wonder whether you will say that to Madame.”

“Has Madame arrived?”

“She came this morning, just before noon. But,” she added, “look, here she comes.”

I glanced in the direction she indicated, and saw approaching us the short, queer figure of a little old woman in stiff dark-green silk skirts of the style a decade ago.

“Madame, here is M’sieur Ewart!” cried the pretty Pierrette, as the old lady advanced, and I bowed.

She proved to be about the ugliest specimen of the gentler sex that I had ever met. Her face was wrinkled and puckered, wizened and brown; her eyes were close set, and beyond her thin lips protruded three or four yellow fangs, rendering her perfectly hideous. Moreover, on her upper lip was quite a respectable moustache, while from her chin long white hairs straggled at intervals.

“Where is Mr. Bellingham?” she asked snappishly, in a shrill, rasping voice, like the sharpening of a file.

“He has left, and will be absent a few days, I believe. He has placed this car and myself at your disposal, and ordered me to present his regrets that pressing business calls him away.”

“Regrets!” she exclaimed, with a slight toss of her head. “He need not have sent any. I know that he is a very busy man.”

“M’sieur Ewart is going to take me to Monte Carlo,” Pierrette said. “You will be too fatigued to go, won’t you? I will return quite early.”

“Yes, my dear,” the old woman replied, speaking most excellent English, although I gathered that she was either German or Austrian. “I am too tired. But do be back early, won’t you? I know how anxious you are to see the Casino.”

So my dainty little charge obtained her fur motor-coat, and ten minutes later we were leaving a trail of dust along the road that leads to the Principality, or – alas! – too often to ruin.

When at Monty I never wore chauffeur’s clothes, for the Count treated me as his personal friend, and besides only by posing as a gentleman of means could I obtain the entrée to the Casino. So we put up the car at the garage, and together ascended the red-carpeted steps of the Temple of Fortune.

At the bureau she had no trouble to obtain her ticket, and a few moments later we passed through the big swing-doors into the Rooms.

For a moment she stood in the great gilded salon as one stupefied. I have noticed this effect often on young girls who see the roulette tables and their crowds for the first time. Above the clink of coin, the rustle of bank-notes, the click-click of the ivory ball upon the disc, and the low hum of voices, there rose the monotonous voices of the croupiers: “Rien n’va plus!” “Quatre premier deux pièces!” “Zéro! un louis!” “Dernier douzaine un pièce!” “Messieurs, faites vos jeux!”

The atmosphere was, as usual, stifling, and the combined odours of perspiring humanity and Parisian perfumes nauseating, as it always is after the fresh, flower-scented air outside.

My little companion passed from one table to another, regarding the players and the play with keenest interest. Then she passed into the trente-et-quarante rooms, where at one of the tables she stood behind a pretty, beautifully-attired Parisienne, watching her play and lose the handful of golden coins her elderly cavalier had handed to her.

While we halted there an incident occurred which caused me considerable thought.

In front of us, on the opposite side of the table, stood a tall, thin-faced, elderly, clean-shaven man of sallow complexion, and very smartly dressed. In his black cravat he wore a splendid diamond pin, and on his finger, as he tossed a louis on the “noir,” another fine gem glistened. That man, though so essentially a gentleman from his exterior appearance, was known to me as one of “us,” as shrewd and clever an adventurer as ever trod those polished boards. He was Henri Regnier, known to his intimates as “Monsieur le President,” because he had once, by personating the President of the Chamber of Deputies, robbed the Crédit Lyonnais of one hundred thousand francs, and served five years at Toulon for it.

And across at him the pretty Pierrette shot a quick look of recognition and laughed. “The President” nodded slightly, and laughed back in return. He glanced at me. Our eyes met, but we neither of us acknowledged the other. It is the rule with men of our class. We are always strangers, except when it is to the interests of either party to appear friends.

But what did this nod to Pierrette mean? How could she be acquainted with Henri Regnier?

“Do you know that man?” I asked her, as presently we moved away from the table.

“What man?” she inquired, her eyes opening widely in assumed ignorance.

“I thought you nodded recognition to a man across the table,” I remarked, disappointed at her attempt to deceive me.

“No,” she replied; “I didn’t recognise anyone. You were mistaken. He perhaps nodded to somebody else.”

This reply of hers increased the mystery. Had she deceived me when she told me that she was the daughter of old Dumont the jeweller? If so, then I had sent Bindo back to London on a wild goose-chase.

We passed back into the roulette rooms, and for quite a long time she stood at the first table at the left of the entrance, watching the game intently.

A man I knew passed, and I crossed to chat with him. In ten minutes or so I returned to her side, and as I did so she bent and took from the end of the croupier’s rake three one-thousand-franc notes, while all eyes at the table were fixed upon her.

One of the notes she tossed upon the “rouge,” and the other two she crushed into her pocket.

“What!” I gasped, “are you playing? And with such stakes?”

“Why not?” she laughed, perfectly cool, and watching the ball, which had already begun to spin.

With a final click it fell into one of the red squares, and two notes were handed to her.

The one she had won she passed across to the “noir,” and there won again, and again a second time, until people at the table began to follow her lead. Gamblers are always superstitious when they see a young girl playing. It is amazing and curious how often youth will win where middle-age will lose.

Five times in succession she played upon the colours with a thousand francs each time, and won on each occasion.

I tried to remonstrate, and urged her to leave with her winnings; but her cheeks were flushed, and she was now excited. One of the notes she exchanged with the croupier for nine hundreds, and five louis. The latter she distributed à cheval, with one en plein on the number eighteen.

It won. She left her stake on the table, and again the same number turned up. Three louis placed on zero she lost, and again on the middle dozen.

But she won with two louis on thirty-six. Then what she did showed me that, if a novice at a convent, she was, at any rate, no novice at roulette, for she shifted her stake to the “first four” – a favourite habit of gamblers – and won again.

Then, growing suddenly calm again, she exchanged her gold for notes, and crushing the bundle into her pocket, turned with me from the table.

I was amazed. I could not make her out in the least. Had all her ingenuousness been assumed? If it had, then I had been sadly taken in over her.

Together we went out, crossed the Place, and sat on the terrace of the Café de Paris, where we took tea – with orange-flower water, of course. While there she took out her money and counted it – eleven thousand two hundred francs, or in English money the respectable sum of four hundred and forty-eight pounds.

“What luck you’ve had, mademoiselle!” I exclaimed.

“Yes; I only had two hundred francs to commence, so I won exactly eleven thousand.”

“Then take my advice, and don’t play again as long as you are in this place, for you’re sure to lose it. Go away a winner. I once won five hundred francs, and made a vow never to play again. That’s a year ago, and I have never staked a single piece since. The game over there, mademoiselle, is a fool’s game,” I added, pointing to the façade of the Casino opposite.

“I know,” she answered; “I don’t think I shall risk anything more. I wonder what Madame will say!”

“Well, she can only congratulate you and tell you not to risk anything further.”

“Isn’t she quaint?” she asked. “And yet she’s such a dear old thing – although so very old-fashioned.”

I was extremely anxious to get to the bottom of her acquaintance with that veritable prince of adventurers, Regnier, yet I dare not broach the subject, lest I should arouse suspicion. Who was that ugly old woman at the Bristol? I wondered. She was Madame Vernet, it was true, but what relation they were to each other Pierrette never informed me.