"Look here, Sammy!" I exclaimed, when we were together in our little
den a few minutes later, "what's the good of beating about the bush?
Why don't you tell me straight out what you have against her?"
"My dear fellow! surely it isn't for me to cast a slur upon any lady's
character. I merely warn you that she has a very queer reputation--
that's all." And he stretched out his legs and blew a cloud of smoke
from his lips.
"Every woman seems to enjoy a reputation more or less queer nowadays," I
declared. "Have you ever come across a woman about whom something
detrimental was not whispered by her enemies? I haven't."
"Perhaps you're right there, Godfrey," was my friend's reply. "You
discovered the truth concerning Ina Hardwick, and that was a hard blow
for you, eh? But didn't I give you a hint long before which you refused
to take?"
"And now you give me a hint regarding Lucie Miller. Well, tell me
straight out--who and what she is."
"First tell me why she came to see you."
"She certainly didn't come to see me," I protested. "She came to see
the stranger--she's a friend of the dead man's."
He turned, knit his brows, and stared straight into my face.
"A friend of Massari's! Who told you so?"
"She did."
Sammy smiled incredulously. He was a man who had passed through life
having singularly escaped all the shadows that lie on it for most men;
and he had far more than most what may be termed the faculty for
happiness.
"H'm. Depend upon it she came here more on your account than to visit
the mysterious Italian."
"But she saw Miss Gilbert and asked for Massari!" I exclaimed. "It was
Miss Gilbert who called me and introduced me. I took her up to the dead
man's room, and the sight of him was a terrible shock to her. She's not
exactly his friend; more his enemy, I think."
"How could she know Massari was here, pray?"
"Ah! I don't know that. The Italian was probably followed here after
his arrival at Charing Cross."
"Did she explain why the fellow came here?"
"Yes, she told me various things that have utterly stupefied me," I
answered. "She hints that the Italian and the woman Ina Hardwick were
in league to take my life."
"Your life?" he cried. "What absurd romance has she been telling you?
Why you didn't know Massari until yesterday!"
"That's just it. But nevertheless there's some truth in what she
alleges. Of that I'm quite convinced."
"Why?"
"For several reasons. One is because she is aware of one curious
incident in my life, one of which even you, Sammy, are in ignorance. It
is my secret, and I thought none knew it. Yet Massari was aware of it,
and she also knows something about it, although, fortunately, not the
whole of the details."
Sammy twisted his small, fair moustache, and was puzzled.
"She actually knows a secret of yours, eh? Then depend upon it she
intends to profit by it. Be careful of her, that's all, Godfrey. She
may have known Massari, for she's mixed up with a very queer lot. But
it's quite evident that she came really to see you. Did she enlist your
sympathies in any way; did she ask you to do anything for her--any
service, I mean?"
For a few moments I hesitated; then, in order to further convince him, I
told him all that had occurred, and repeated her strange story of how
the man we knew as Massari had refused to tell the truth and liberate
her.
"He probably had sufficient reason," declared Sammy, in a hard voice,
quite unusual to him. "The truth, however, is quite plain. She has
spread out her net for you, and you bid fair to fall an easy prey, old
fellow."
"But, my dear chap, I'm pretty wary. Remember I'm thirty-two and am
past the adolescence of youth."
"She's uncommonly good-looking. You've told me so yourself. Admiration
is the first stage always," he sneered.
"But tell me what you know of her," I urged. "Where did you first come
across her?"
"At Enghien, just outside Paris, nearly three years ago. They lived in
a rather fine villa, the grounds of which went down to the lake. You
know Enghien--a gay little place, with pretty villas and a casino on the
lake. Brunet, the dramatic critic of the _Temps_, introduced her father
to me in the American bar at the Grand, and he invited me to go down to
his place and dine. I did so, and found several other male guests, men
of the smartest sporting set in Paris--mostly Frenchmen. At first I
believed Mr Miller was a person of means, but one day a man who said he
had known him, told me that he was a `crook'. I admit I could not
discover what was the source of his income. I only knew that his
friends were mostly rich racing men and _chevaliers d'industrie_, and
that he frequently gave very delightful dinners. Though she never dined
with her father's friends, Lucie was often to be seen. She seemed then
to be a mere slip of a girl of nineteen or so, extremely pretty, with
her dark hair dressed low and tied with a broad bow of black ribbon.
The men who frequented the place always addressed her as `_Bebe_,' and
would sometimes take her boxes of chocolate. One evening after dinner
somebody suggested a hand at cards, when suddenly I caught Miller doing
a trick, and I stood up and openly denounced him. It may have been
foolish of me, but I spoke without reflecting. He denied my accusation
fiercely, and was supported by his friends. Therefore I took my hat and
left the house, now convinced that the fellow was a `crook'. After that
I made inquiries about him of a man who had been in the Paris _surete_
whom I know very well, with the result that I found the Englishman
enjoyed half a dozen aliases and was undoubtedly a queer character. His
associates were mostly persons known to the police. Even his butler at
the villa was a man who had `done' five years for burglary. The theory
of my friend, the ex-detective, was that he was allied with a gang of
international thieves, those clever gentry of means who operate in the
principal cities throughout Europe, and who are so ingenious that they
in most cases outwit the police. Though there was not sufficient
evidence to justify any direct allegation it was strongly suspected that
the source of Mr Miller's wealth at that moment was the proceeds of a
very cleverly planned robbery at the Commercial Bank in Bordeaux. When
I told my friend how I had denounced Miller's trick, he looked grave and
said: `That was very injudicious. Those people might seek revenge.' I
laughed in derision, but he was so serious, and so strongly urged me to
be careful, that I began to repent my boldness in making the charge.
Miller and his friends were, so my friend told me, a dangerous lot."
"But if Lucie has the misfortune to have a father who is a scoundrel, it
surely is no reason why she herself should be bad?" I remarked.
"You can't touch pitch without being soiled, my dear fellow. Think of
the life of a young girl among such a crowd as that! Ah! you've never
seen them--you can have no idea what they're like."
"But what direct charge do you allege against her?" I asked. "Speak
quite plainly, for I'm neither her friend nor her enemy. She has to-day
told me certain things that have held me bewildered, and naturally I'm
all curiosity to ascertain something concerning her."
"Well," he said, casting himself again into the big chair and smoking
vigorously, "it was like this. One day about a month afterwards there
came to stay with me at the Continental a wealthy young Chilian, Manuel
Carrera by name, whom I had first met when, two years before, we had
fought side by side in the streets of Valparaiso during the revolution.
He and I were partisans of the Government, of which his father was
Minister of the Interior. Now that the Government had been restored he
occupied a very important post in the Treasury, and had come to Paris to
transact some business with the Banque de France. At first we were
together every evening, and very often the greater part of the day, but
of a sudden he seemed to prefer to go about Paris alone, for he had, he
told me, met some other friends. For a fortnight or so I had very
little of his company; but one afternoon he surprised me by saying that
he was going down to Enghien to make a call. I offered to accompany
him, saying that I could amuse myself at a cafe while he was calling,
and that we might afterwards dine together at the Casino. Truth to
tell, I had not been to Enghien since that well-remembered night, and I
wanted to see whether the Villa du Lac was still occupied. To my
surprise, his destination proved to be that very villa. He left me and
entered the big gates before I had time to warn him of Miller, therefore
I turned on my heel and took a cab to the cafe of the Casino situated on
the opposite shore of the lake. Where I sat, at one of the little `tin'
tables beneath the trees, the water stretched before me, and beyond a
green, well-kept lawn and the big white villa were shining through the
trees. I lit a cigar and sat wondering. Suddenly across the lawn I saw
two figures strolling slowly. One was a slim young girl in a white
muslin dress girdled with pale blue, her companion a man in grey
flannels and a panama. Then the truth was plain. My friend had fallen
in love with Lucie Miller. His frequent absences were thus accounted
for. I watched them as they sat together upon the garden seat facing
the lake, and saw that he was telling her something to which she was
listening very attentively, her head bowed as though in deep emotion.
Was he declaring his love, I wondered? For fully half an hour they sat
there, when at last he rose, threw off his coat, and then both stepping
into the boat at the bottom of the lawn he slowly rowed her away up the
lake until behind the island they passed from my sight."
Sammy was silent, thinking deeply. A sigh escaped him.
"And then?"
"What happened immediately afterwards will probably never be known," he
said, in a hard, hoarse voice. "I only know that somewhere about nine
o'clock that same evening Carrera's despatch-box in his room at the
Continental was opened with its proper key, and Chilian Government
securities which he had only that day redeemed from the bank and
intended to carry back to Valparaiso as well as a lot of negotiable
bonds were all abstracted, together with a large sum in French
bank-notes--the value altogether being about eighty thousand pounds. At
midnight the poor fellow lay in the same room with a bullet in his
brain. He realised how he had been tricked; how the key had been taken
from his jacket pocket while he had taken the fair Lucie out upon the
lake, and in a fit of chagrin and despair he took his revolver and ended
his life."
"He committed suicide!" I gasped. "Didn't you see him after he went
out upon the lake; didn't you warn him?"
"No. I meant to. But, alas! I was too late. I waited an hour at the
Casino; then returned to Paris; and imagine my horror when I discovered
next morning what had happened."
"What did you do?"
"I went at once to the Prefecture of Police and gave information. With
three detectives I went down to Enghien, but we found the Villa du Lac
uninhabited. The mysterious Mr Miller and his pretty daughter had
already flown. That was three years ago, and from that afternoon until
half an hour ago I have never set eyes upon the dark-eyed girl who so
cleverly assisted her father in his ingenious schemes."
"But are you sure she is the same?" I asked. "You admit that she has
changed."
"She has. She's grown more beautiful, but she is the same, my dear
fellow--the same. Is it any wonder that I hate her?"