"TAKE ME AWAY!"
Richard presented himself the next morning at the Hotel de Paris.
"Cheero!" he exclaimed, on being shown into Hunterleys' sitting-room.
"All right up to date, I see."
Hunterleys nodded. He had just come in from the bank and held his
letters in his hand. Richard seated himself on the edge of the table.
"I slept out on the yacht last night," he said. "Got up at six o'clock
and had a swim. What about a round of golf at La Turbie? We can get down
again by luncheon-time, before the people are about."
"Afraid I can't," Hunterleys replied. "I have rather an important letter
to go through carefully, and a reply to think out."
"You're a queer chap, you know," Richard went on. "You always seem to
have something on but I'm hanged if I can see how you pass your time
here in Monte Carlo. This political business, even if you do have to put
in a bit of time at it now and then, can't be going on all the while.
Monte Carlo, too! So far as the women are concerned, they might as well
be off the face of the earth, and I don't think I've ever seen you make
a bet at the tables. How did your wife do last night? I thought she
seemed to be dropping it rather."
"I think that she lost," Hunterleys replied indifferently. "Her
gambling, however, is like mine, I imagine, on a fairly negligible
scale."
Richard whistled softly.
"Well, I don't know," he observed. "I saw her going for maximums
yesterday pretty steadily. A few thousands doesn't last very long at
that little game."
Hunterleys smiled.
"A few thousands!" he repeated. "I don't suppose Violet has ever lost or
won a hundred pounds in her life."
Richard abandoned the subject quickly. He was obliged to tell himself
that it was not his business to interfere between husband and wife.
"Say, Hunterleys," he suggested, "do you think I could do something for
the crowd on my little boat--a luncheon party or a cruise, eh?"
"I should think every one would enjoy it immensely," Hunterleys
answered.
"I can count on you, of course, if I arrange anything?"
"I am afraid not," Hunterleys regretted. "I am too much engrossed now to
make any arrangements."
"I'm hanged if you don't get more mysterious every moment!" Richard
exclaimed vigorously. "What's it all about? Can't you even be safe in
your room for five minutes without keeping one of those little articles
under your newspaper while you read your letters?" he added, lifting
with his stick the sheet which Hunterleys had hastily thrown over a
small revolver. "What's it all about, eh? Are you plotting to dethrone
the Prince of Monaco and take his place?"
"Not exactly that," Hunterleys replied, a little wearily. "Lane, old
fellow, you're much better off not to know too much. I have told you
that there's a kind of international conference going on about here and
I've sort of been pitchforked into the affair. Over in your country you
don't know much about this sort of thing, but since I've been out of
harness I've done a good deal of what really amounts to Secret Service
work. One must serve one's country somehow or other, you know, if one
gets the chance."
Richard was impressed.
"Gee!" he exclaimed. "The sort of thing that one reads about, eh, and
only half believes. Who's the French Johnny who arrived last night?"
"Douaille. He's the coming President, they say. I'm thinking of paying
him a visit of ceremony this afternoon."
There was a knock at the door. A waiter entered with a note upon a
salver.
"From Madame, monsieur," he announced, presenting it to Hunterleys.
The latter tore it open and read the few lines hastily:
_Dear Henry_,
If you could spare a few minutes, I should be glad if you would
come round to my apartment.
Yours,
VIOLET.
Hunterleys twisted the note up in his fingers.
"Tell Lady Hunterleys that I will be round in a few moments," he
instructed the servant.
Richard took up his stick and hat.
"If you have an opportunity," he said, "ask Lady Hunterleys what she
thinks about a little party on the yacht. If one could get the proper
people together--"
"I'll tell her," Hunterleys promised. "You'd better wait till I get
back."
He made his way to the other wing of the hotel. For the first time since
he had been staying there, he knocked at the door of his wife's
apartments. Her maid admitted him with a smile. He found Violet sitting
in the little salon before a writing-table. The apartment was
luxuriously furnished and filled with roses. Somehow or other, their
odour irritated him. She rose from her place and hastened towards him.
"How nice of you to come so promptly!" she exclaimed. "You're sure it
didn't inconvenience you?"
"Not in the least," he replied. "I was only talking to Richard Lane."
"You seem to have taken a great fancy to that young man all at once,"
she remarked.
Hunterleys was sitting upon the arm of an easy-chair. He had picked up
one of Violet's slippers and was balancing it in his hand.
"Oh, I don't know. He is rather refreshing after some of these people.
He still has enthusiasms, and his love affair is quite a poem. Aren't
you up rather early this morning?"
"I couldn't sleep," she sighed. "I think it has come to me in the night
that I am sick of this place. I wondered--"
She hesitated. He bent the slipper slowly back, waiting for her to
proceed.
"The Draconmeyers don't want to go," she went on. "They are here for
another month, at least. Linda would miss me terribly, I suppose, but I
have really given her a lot of my time. I have spent several hours with
her every day since we arrived, and I don't know what it is--perhaps my
bad luck, for one thing--but I have suddenly taken a dislike to the
place. I wondered--"
She had picked up one of the roses from a vase close at hand, and was
twirling it between her fingers. For some reason or other she seemed ill
at ease. Hunterleys watched her silently. She was very pale, but since
his coming a slight tinge of pink colour had stolen into her cheeks. She
had received him in a very fascinating garment of blue silk, which was
really only a dressing-gown. It seemed to him a long time since he had
seen her in so intimate a fashion.
"I wondered," she concluded at last, almost abruptly, "whether you would
care to take me away."
He was, for a moment, bereft of words. Somehow or other, he had been so
certain that she had sent to him to ask for more money, that he had
never even considered any other eventuality.
"Take you away," he repeated. "Do you really mean take you back to
London, Violet?"
"Just anywhere you like," she replied. "I am sick of this place and of
everything. I am weary to death of trying to keep Linda cheerful--you
don't realise how depressing it is to be with her; and--and every one
seems to have got a little on my nerves. Mr. Draconmeyer," she added, a
little defiantly, raising her eyes to his, "has been most kind and
delightful, but--somehow I want to get away."
He sat down on the edge of a couch. She seated herself at the further
end of it.
"Violet," he said, "you have taken me rather by surprise."
"Well, you don't mind being taken by surprise once in a while, do you?"
she asked, a little petulantly. "You know I am capricious--you have told
me so often enough. Here is a proof of it. Take me back to London or to
Paris, or wherever you like."
He was almost overwhelmed. It was unfortunate that she had chosen that
moment to look away and could not see, therefore, the light which glowed
in his eyes.
"Violet," he assured her earnestly, "there is nothing in the world I
should like so much. I would beg you to have your trunks packed this
morning, but unfortunately I cannot leave Monte Carlo just now."
"Cannot leave Monte Carlo?" she repeated derisively. "Why, my dear man,
you are a fish out of water here! You don't gamble, you do nothing but
moon about and go to the Opera and worry about your silly politics. What
on earth do you mean when you say that you cannot leave Monte Carlo?"
"I mean just what I say," he replied. "I cannot leave Monte Carlo for
several days, at any rate."
She looked at him blankly, a little incredulously.
"You have talked like this before, Henry," she said, "and it is all too
absurd. You must tell me the truth now. You can have no business here.
You are travelling for pleasure. You can surely leave a place or not at
your own will?"
"It happens," he sighed, "that I cannot. Will you please be very kind,
Violet, and not ask me too much about this? If there is anything else I
can do," he went on, hesitatingly, "if you will give me a little more of
your time, if you will wait with me for a few days longer--"
"Can't you understand," she interrupted impatiently, "that it is just
this very moment, this instant, that I want to get away? Something has
gone wrong. I want to leave Monte Carlo. I am not sure that I ever want
to see it again. And I want you to take me.... Please!"
She held out her hands, swaying a little towards him. He gripped them in
his. She yielded to their pressure until their lips almost met.
"You'll take me away this morning?" she whispered.
"I cannot do that," he replied, "but, Violet--"
She snatched herself away from him. An ungovernable fit of fury seemed
to have seized her. She stood in the centre of the room and stamped her
foot.
"You cannot!" she repeated. "And you will not give me a reason? Very
well, I have done my best, I have made my appeal. I will stay in Monte
Carlo, then. I will--"
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," she cried. "Who is it?"
The door was softly opened. Draconmeyer stood upon the threshold. He
looked from one to the other in some surprise.
"I am sorry," he murmured. "Please excuse me."
"Come in, Mr. Draconmeyer," she called out to his retreating figure.
"Come in, please. How is Linda this morning?"
Draconmeyer smiled a little ruefully as he returned.
"Complaining," he replied, "as usual. I am afraid that she has had
rather a bad night. She is going to try and sleep for an hour or two. I
came to see if you felt disposed for a motor ride this morning?"
"I should love it," she assented. "I should like to start as soon as
possible. Henry was just going, weren't you?" she added, turning to her
husband.
He stood his ground.
"There was something else I wished to say," he declared, glancing at
Draconmeyer.
The latter moved at once towards the door but Violet stopped him.
"Not now," she begged. "If there is really anything else, Henry, you can
send up a note, or I dare say we shall meet at the Club to-night. Now,
please, both of you go away. I must change my clothes for motoring. In
half an hour, Mr. Draconmeyer."
"The car will be ready," he answered.
Hunterleys hesitated. He looked for a moment at Violet. She returned his
glance of appeal with a hard, fixed stare. Then she turned away.
"Susanne," she called to her maid, who was in the inner room, "I am
dressing at once. I will show you what to put out."
She disappeared, closing the connecting door behind her. The two men
walked out to the lift in silence. Draconmeyer rang the bell.
"You are not leaving Monte Carlo at present, then, Sir Henry?" he
remarked.
"Not at present," Hunterleys replied calmly.
They parted without further speech. Hunterleys returned to his room,
where Richard was still waiting.
"Say, have you got a valet here with you?" the young man enquired.
Hunterleys shook his head.
"Never possessed such a luxury in my life," he declared.
"Chap came in here directly you were gone--mumbled something about doing
something for you. I didn't altogether like the look of him, so I sat on
the table and watched. He hung around for a moment, and then, when he
saw that I was sticking it out, he went off."
"Was he wearing the hotel livery?" Hunterleys asked quickly.
"Plain black clothes," Richard replied. "He looked the valet, right
enough."
Hunterleys rang the bell. It was answered by a servant in grey livery.
"Are you the valet on this floor?" Hunterleys enquired.
"Yes, sir!"
"There was a man in here just now, said he was my valet or something of
the sort, hung around for a minute or two and then went away. Who was
he?"
The servant shook his head. He was apparently a German, and stupid.
"There are no valets on this floor except myself," he declared.
"Then who could this person have been?" Hunterleys demanded.
"A tailor, perhaps," the man suggested, "but he would not come unless
you had ordered him. I have been on duty all the time. I have seen no
one about."
"Very well," Hunterleys said, "I'll report the matter in the office."
"Some hotel thief, I suppose," Lane remarked, as soon as the door was
closed. "He didn't look like it exactly, though."
Hunterleys frowned.
"Not much here to satisfy any one's curiosity," he observed. "Just as
well you were in the room, though."
"Surrounded by mysteries, aren't you, old chap?" Richard yawned,
lighting a cigarette.
"I don't know exactly about that," Hunterleys replied, "but I'll tell
you one thing, Lane. There are things going on in Monte Carlo at the
present moment which would bring out the black headlines on the
halfpenny papers if they had an inkling of them. There are people here
who are trying to draw up a new map of Europe, a new map of the world."
Richard shook his head.
"I can't get interested in anything, Hunterleys," he declared. "You
could tell me the most amazing things in the world and they'd pass in at
one ear and out at the other. Kind of a blithering idiot, eh? You know
what I did last night after dinner. If you'll believe me, when I got to
the villa, I found the place patrolled as though they were afraid of
dynamiters. I skulked round to the back, got on the beach, and climbed a
little way up towards the rock garden. I hid there and waited to see if
she'd come out on the terrace. She never came, but I caught a glimpse of
her passing from one room to another, and I tell you I'm such a poor
sort of an idiot that I felt repaid for waiting there all that time. I
shall go there again to-night. The boys wanted me to dine--Eddy
Lanchester and Montressor and that lot--a jolly party, too. I sha'n't do
it. I shall have a mouthful alone somewhere and spend the rest of the
evening on those rocks. Something's got to come of this, Hunterleys."
"Let's go into the lounge for a few moments," Hunterleys suggested. "I
may as well hear all about it."
They made their way downstairs, and sat there talking, or rather
Hunterleys listened while Richard talked. Then Draconmeyer strolled
across the hall and waited by the lift. Presently he returned with
Violet by his side, followed by her maid, carrying rugs. As they
approached, Hunterleys rose slowly to his feet. Violet was looking up
into her companion's face, talking and laughing. She either did not see
Hunterleys, or affected not to. He stood, for a moment, irresolute.
Then, as she passed, she glanced at him quite blankly and waved her hand
to Richard. The two disappeared. Hunterleys resumed his seat. He had,
somehow or other, the depressing feeling of a man who has lost a great
opportunity.
"Lady Hunterleys looks well this morning," Lane remarked, absolutely
unconscious of anything unusual.
Hunterleys watched the car drive off before he answered.
"She looks very well," he assented gloomily.