THE band was playing one of de Courville’s new revue tunes, and the
Café de Paris was crowded out. There had been a big influx of visitors
from Nice, and Monte Carlo presented an appearance comparable with the
height of the season. Mrs. Renfrew had motored up to La Turbie, and a
bank of cloud having descended upon the mountain made the road
dangerous. (Those who have journeyed from the Corniche to Monte Carlo by
night will appreciate just how dangerous is that road.) She had,
therefore, elected to spend the night at the hotel on the top of the
hill.
This information she had telephoned to the girl on the night following
Timothy’s great win, and had added that she could see “the twinkling
lights of Monte Carlo” and that “the misty spaces of ocean filled her
with strange unrest,” which observation had been repeated to the
unsympathetic Timothy.
“It must be awful to have a mind like that,” he said, and then, “Mary,
I’ve been a long time waiting to exchange confidences about cousins.”
“I have no confidences to give you about Mrs. Renfrew,” said Mary with a
smile, “but you have been on the point of telling me about your cousin
so often that I feel a little curious.”
The story he had to tell was not a nice one. It meant opening old wounds
and reviving sad memories, but it had to be done. She was not so shocked
as he had expected.
“You have not told me anything new,” she said quietly. “You see, all
along I have known that the ‘A.C.’ in your name stood for ‘Alfred
Cartwright,’ and once uncle told me that he had known a relative of
yours, and I guessed.”
Suddenly she demanded:
“Do you think Cartwright is in Europe?”
Timothy nodded.
“I am certain. That is, if Morocco is in Europe,” he said. “I have had
it in the back of my mind ever since the crime was committed that that
is the place he would make for. You see, in the few minutes I had with
him he told me, perhaps not the whole of the story, but at any rate his
version. He knows Morocco and has been there before. He spoke about a
Moorish chief named El Mograb, who wanted him to stay with the tribe,
and he told me he was sorry he had not followed the Moor’s advice.”
“Did you tell the police that?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I did not tell the police very much about that visit. Cartwright
revived his accusations against Sir John. It meant digging up these
charges, and that is what I did not wish to do, for—for——”
“For my sake?” she said quietly.
“That’s about the size of it,” replied Timothy.
A little stream of diners were leaving the restaurant, moving slowly
down the narrow aisle between the tables, and Timothy stopped talking as
they passed and eyed them with a bored interest usual to the
circumstances.
It was after the interruption had ended, and the last of the little
stream had departed, that he saw the card on the table. It was near his
place and it had not been there before. He picked it up and on the
uppermost side was written: “Do not let your friend see this.”
“Well, I’m——” he began, and turned the card over.
It was not written but printed in capital letters:
“IF YOU DO NOT HEAR FROM ME BY THE TWENTY-NINTH, I BEG OF YOU
THAT YOU WILL GO TO TANGIER AND ENQUIRE AT THE CONTINENTAL HOTEL
FOR A MAN CALLED RAHBAT—A MOOR, WHO WILL LEAD YOU TO ME. I BEG
YOU FOR THE SAKE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP TO COME. DID YOU GET THE
MONEY?”
Timothy laid the card down and stared at the girl.
“What is it?” she asked and reached out her hand.
“I—it is nothing,” he said hurriedly.
“Nonsense, Timothy. What is it? Let me see it, please.”
Without a word he handed the card to the girl, who read it through in
silence.
“Who is that from?” she asked, “Cartwright?”
He nodded.
“Obviously,” he said, “the reference to the money and the appeal to our
relationship—but how did it get there?”
He called the head waiter.
“Who were those people who went out just now?” he asked.
“They are very well known,” explained the head waiter. “There was a
monsieur, a London theatrical manager, and a madame who was his wife.
There was another monsieur, an American writer, and an English monsieur
who was in the employment as secretary to a madame who lives at Cap
Martin.”
“Madame Serpilot?” asked Timothy quickly.
“Yes, that is the name. She is a widow, _hélas_! but immensely rich!”
Timothy put the card into his pocket. He had said nothing to the girl
about Madame Serpilot since they had left London, and for the first time
he had some misgivings as to her safety. Yet in truth that sixth sense
of his, which had hitherto worked so to his advantage, offered him no
warning that the girl’s happiness was threatened. He was sure that
whatever danger the situation held was danger to him personally. He had
not seen the English monsieur who was secretary to Madame Serpilot, but
then his back had been toward the far end of the room from whence the
man came and he had presented no other view than the back of his head.
“It is a message from Cartwright,” he said, “and I am going to get to
the bottom of this story if I stay in Monte Carlo for the rest of my
life.”
He saw Mary back to her hotel, went to his room and changed, and just as
the Casino was disgorging its tired clients, he walked through the
palm-shaded avenue that led to the main road and began his tramp to Cap
Martin. To discover a house in this area by daylight, with the aid of a
plan, might have been a simple matter—by night it presented almost
insuperable difficulties.
Cap Martin is a promontory of hill and pine and wild flower. Its roads
run at the will of its wealthy residents, and there are lanes and paths
and broad roads which are not really broad roads at all, but the private
entrances to the wonderful villas in which the district abounds, and the
grey light was in the eastern sky when Timothy finally located the Villa
Condamine.
It stood on the edge of the sea, surrounded on the land side by a high
wall, though if its owner sought seclusion the woods which surrounded
the villa were sufficient.
Timothy worked round a little bay until he commanded a view of the place
from the sea. A zig-zag path led down from the house to the seashore,
terminating in a little concrete quay. Presently he heard the sound of
footsteps and a Monogasque workman, in blue overalls, came slouching
along the shore path, pipe in mouth.
He bade the young man a cheery good morning and stopped, in the friendly
way of the Monogasques, to talk. He was a gardener on his way to the
villa. He could be on his way to nowhere else, for the rough path on
which Timothy stood led straight to a door in the high wall. It was a
good job, but he wished he lived nearer. But then, none of madame’s
servants slept in the house, and——
“Ah! _voilà!_ It is the Moor!” and he pointed out to sea.
A tiny steam yacht was coming slowly to land—Timothy had seen its
lights for an hour—and was steaming now to its anchorage, leaving the
line of its wake on the smooth surface of the water.
“The Moor!” said Timothy quickly, and then carelessly, “Has any Moor a
villa here?”
“No, monsieur,” said the man, “but this is a great Moor who sometimes
comes here from Morocco. A long journey, monsieur. It is five days’
voyage from the Moorish coast——”
“Does he come to the Villa Condamine?” asked Timothy.
“But yes,” said the man. “He is a friend of the madame, and twice has he
been there in three months.”
There was a little splash of water under the bow of the yacht, when the
anchor was dropped, and presently a boat drew away and in the stern
sheets was a figure muffled in a white jellab.
Timothy looked after the retreating figure of the gardener, who was
leisurely pursuing his way, and, turning, followed him. It was unlikely
that the mysterious madame would allow a humble workman to have the key
of the garden gate, yet to his surprise this was the case. The man
opened the gate and waited, looking round as if he expected somebody.
Timothy guessed that there were two or more workmen and that this
particular man had the key and admitted the lot. In this surmise he
proved to be right. Presently yet another blue-bloused gardener
appeared, and the two stood together waiting for a third. He made no
appearance, and the two men passed through the door and pulled it close
behind them.
Timothy quickened his pace. As he had thought, the door was left ajar
for the third man. He pushed it open gently, but saw nothing but the end
of a twisting path, which disappeared between high hedges of lilac.
If ever there was a time to take a chance it was now; and he was through
the gate, gingerly treading the path, before he realised what he had
done. He heard voices and moved with caution. Then, after about five
minutes, he heard the garden gate behind him bang. The third workman had
arrived and the exit was closed. He made his way through the pines which
served to screen the house from observation. There was nobody in sight,
and the voices had died away. He could walk more boldly now and came at
last to the edge of the wood in full view of the villa. Between him and
the house was about fifty yards of clear space. He took a chance and
crossed it, his objective being a ground-floor window which was open.
The entrance was not so easily effected as he had expected. The sill of
the window was just above the level of his head, and offered no grip to
his hands. He made a tour of reconnaissance, but failed to find any
other entrance. Behind the sill, he thought, must be a window frame, and
stepping back two paces he made a leap and gripped the frame. Quickly he
pulled himself up and dropped into the room.
He was conscious of a sweet, fragrant perfume the moment his head became
level with the window, and now he saw the explanation. The bare floor
was covered three inches thick with rose petals. Evidently the owner
made her own perfumery, and this hobby explained the open window. There
was no furniture in the room, which was apparently given up to the
purpose of drying the petals. The door was unfastened, and he passed
into a stone corridor. The structure of the house puzzled him. He did
not expect to find himself in the basement; then he remembered that the
villa was built on sloping ground, and that the main entrance must be on
a higher floor.
A flight of stone steps led to the upper level, and he went up
cautiously, a step at a time, and found his exit barred by a door which
was fastened on the other side with padlock and staple. It was a
primitive method of locking up a cellar, and Timothy, remembering that
he had passed a recess filled with garden tools, went back to find the
means to remove this obstruction. A long chisel prised the staples from
the door with ridiculous ease.
He heard voices speaking in low, guarded tones and moved along the
carpeted hall on tiptoe. He listened at the door of the room from which
the voices proceeded, and was in two minds as to what his next step
should be. The door was one of two let in the same wall. He stopped and
brought his ear to the keyhole of the second and there was no sound.
Turning the handle, he looked in.
As he expected, it was separated from the other room by a pair of
folding doors which were closed. The voices were more distinct but still
indistinguishable. He was now in a small drawing-room, well but not
luxuriously furnished. Tall French windows led to a loggia, and, what
was more important, on either side of these hung long velvet curtains,
which might serve, in case of necessity, as a place of concealment.
He heard the door of the next room open, and the voices proceeded along
the passage. Then the handle of his own door turned. He had just time to
slip behind the curtains before somebody entered. It was a woman, and at
the sound of her voice he nearly jumped. She was speaking to somebody in
the passage.
“He has gone to his room,” she said. “Have your breakfast. He will want
you to go into Monte Carlo this morning.”
“By daylight?” said the person to whom she spoke, and again Timothy
recognised the voice.
“He would not know you with those spectacles. Besides, you had a
moustache when you saw him before.”
The man in the passage mumbled something, and Timothy heard the door of
the room close. There was a desk, he had noticed, against the blank wall
of the room, and it was to this she made her way. He heard the
scratching of her pen on paper, then he walked from his place of
concealment. Her back was to him and she did not hear him until his
shadow fell across the table. Then, with a little cry, she leapt up.
“Good morning, Lady Maxell,” said Timothy.