THE SACK OF MONTE CARLO
=An Adventure of To-day=
As narrated by Vincent Blacker, Esq.
Lieutenant H.M.’s East ——shire Militia
BY
WALTER FRITH
AUTHOR OF “IN SEARCH OF QUIET”
_Quo timoris minus est, eo minus est Periculi_
LIVY, xii., 5
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1898
BY WALTER FRITH.
* * * * *
IN SEARCH OF QUIET. A Country Journal, May
to July. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1.25.
A very entertaining book, written in a very entertaining
style.—_Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette._
A book which will enchain the attention of the reader
from beginning to end.—_Boston Advertiser._
* * * * *
NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
* * * * *
_All rights reserved._
TO
MRS. F. W. SHARON
IN RECOLLECTION OF MANY HAPPY HOURS IN
NEW YORK, ÉTRETAT, AND PARIS
London, October, 1897
CONTENTS
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
Some Slight Explanation—Objects of the
Expedition—Love the Promoter—Lucy Thatcher—Her
Portrait by Lamplight 1
CHAPTER II
“The French Horn”—Mabel Harker: My Unfortunate
Engagement to Her—Mr. Crage and Wharton Park 7
CHAPTER III
I Continue to Keep Out of Mabel Harker’s Way and
Go to Goring—Return to “The French
Horn”—Wanderings with Lucy—Mr. Crage Rehearses
His Own Funeral 17
CHAPTER IV
I am Free of Mabel Harker—Return to “The French
Horn”—Disastrous Interference of Harold Forsyth
in My Affairs 25
CHAPTER V
Anglesey Lodge—My Interview with Lucy in
Kensington Gardens—Not so Satisfactory as I
could Desire 29
CHAPTER VI
Early Difficulties—I Fail to Persuade the
Honorable Edgar Fanshawe, the Reverend Percy
Blyth, and Mr. Parker White, M.P., to Join our
Monte Carlo Party 37
CHAPTER VII
I Interview Mr. Brentin—His Sympathy and
Interest—Sir Anthony Hipkins and the Yacht
_Amaranth_—We Determine to Look Over It 47
CHAPTER VIII
We Go to Ryde—The _Amaranth_—Accidental Meeting
with Arthur Masters and His Lady Friend—I Enroll
Him Among Us, Provisionally—We Decide to
Purchase the Yacht 60
CHAPTER IX
My Sister’s Suspicions—Heroes of _The Argo_—My
Sister Determines to Come with Us as Chaperon to
Miss Rybot 70
CHAPTER X
Mr. Brentin’s Indiscretion—Lucy and I Make It
Up—Bailey Thompson Appears in Church—On
Christmas Day we Hold a Council of War 77
CHAPTER XI
Mr. Bailey Thompson Gives us His Ingenious
Advice—We are Fools enough to Trust
Him—Misplaced Confidence 87
CHAPTER XII
Monte Carlo—Mr. Van Ginkel’s Yacht _Saratoga_—We
Prospect—Fortunate Discovery of the Point of
Attack—First Visit to the Rooms 95
CHAPTER XIII
Mrs. Wingham and Teddy Parsons—He Foolishly
Confides in Her—I Make a Similar Mistake 103
CHAPTER XIV
Arrival of the _Amaranth_—All Well on Board—Their
First Experience of the Rooms 111
CHAPTER XV
Influence of Climate on Adventure—Unexpected
Arrival of Lucy—Her Revelations—Danger Ahead 118
CHAPTER XVI
Council of War—Captain Evans’s Decision—I Go to
the Rooms and Confide in My Sister 127
CHAPTER XVII
Enter Mr. Bailey Thompson—Van Ginkel Stands by
Us—We Show Thompson Round and Explain
Details—Teddy Parsons’s Alarm 136
CHAPTER XVIII
Exit Mr. Bailey Thompson 146
CHAPTER XIX
The Great Night—Dinner at the “Hôtel de Paris”—A
Last Look Round—The Sack and Its
Incidents—Flight 151
CHAPTER XX
We Discover Teddy Parsons is Left Behind—I Make Up
My Mind—To the Rescue!—Unmanly Conduct of the
Others—I Go Alone—Disguise—The Garde Champêtre 171
CHAPTER XXI
In My Disguise I am Mistaken for Lord B.—A Club
Acquaintance—Teddy at the Law Courts—Mrs.
Wingham—The Defence and The Acquittal—We Bolt 185
CHAPTER XXII
Our Flight to Venice—Thence to Athens—We all Meet
on the Acropolis—Reappearance of Mr. Bailey
Thompson!—Again we Manage to Put Him Off the
Scent 202
CHAPTER XXIII
We Arrive Safe in London and Go to Medworth
Square—Back at “The French Horn”—News at Last of
the _Amaranth_—I Interview Mr. Crage and Find
Him Ill 219
CHAPTER XXIV
Arrival of Brentin—My Wedding-day—We Go to
Wharton—Bailey Thompson and Cochefort Follow
Us—We Finally Defeat Them Both 230
CONCLUSION 243
THE SACK OF MONTE CARLO
“_I don’t say that it is possible; I only affirm it to be true._”
CHAPTER I
SOME SLIGHT EXPLANATION—OBJECTS OF THE EXPEDITION—LOVE THE
PROMOTER—LUCY THATCHER—HER PORTRAIT BY LAMPLIGHT
THE idea occurred to me, quite unexpectedly and unsought for, early one
morning in bed; and, as ideas of such magnitude are valuable and scarce
(at any rate, with me), it was not long before I determined to try and
realize it.
The expedition was so successful, and we got, on the whole, so clear and
clean away with the swag, or, as Mr. Julius C. Brentin, our esteemed
American _collaborateur_, called it, “the boodle,” that, for my part,
there I should have been perfectly content to let the affair rest; but,
the fact is, so many of my friends have taken upon themselves to doubt
whether we really did it at all, and the Monte Carlo authorities from
the very first so cunningly managed to suppress all details (with their
subsidized press), that I feel it due to us all to try and write the
adventure out; since I know very well how, with most, seeing in print is
believing.
Briefly, then, my idea was to sack or raid the gambling-tables at Monte
Carlo, that highly notorious _cloaca maxima_ for all the scum of Europe,
which there gutters and gushes forth into the sapphire and tideless
Mediterranean. I had worked details out for myself, and believed that,
what with the money on the tables and the reserve in the vaults, there
could not be much short of £200,000 on the Casino premises, a sum as
much worth making a dash for, it seemed to me, as Spanish plate-ships to
Drake or Raleigh. Nor did it seem likely we should have to do much
fighting to secure it; for all the authorities I consulted assured me
the place was by no means a Gibraltar, and, in fact, that half a dozen
resolute gentlemen with revolvers and a swift steam-yacht waiting in the
harbor would be more than enough to do the trick and clean the place
out; which was pretty much what we found.
As for the morality of the affair, I confess _that_ never in the least
troubled me—never once. One puts morality on one side when dealing with
a gaming-establishment, and to raid the place seemed to me just as
reasonable and fair as to go there with a system, besides being likely
to be a good deal more profitable. And since the objects to which we
destined the money were in the main charitable, I soon came to regard
the expedition strictly _in pios usus_ (as lawyers say), and hope and
believe the public will regard it in that light too.
Let me say right here—to quote Mr. Brentin again—that not one of us
touched one single red cent of the large amount we so fortunately
secured, but that it was all expended for the purposes (in the main, as
I say, charitable) for which we had always intended it—with the single
exception of a necklet of napoleons I had made for the fat little neck
of my enchanting niece Mollie, which she always wears at parties, and
keeps to this day in an old French plum-box, along with her beads and
bangles and a small holy ring I once brought her from Rome; being
amazingly fond of all sorts of bedizenments, as most female children
are.
Mollie, therefore, was the only person who really had any of the swag,
or boodle; though, of course, she doesn’t know it, and thinks it was
properly won at play. For as for Bob Hines, who had some for the new
gymnasium and swimming-bath at his boys’ school at Folkestone; and Mr.
Thatcher (my dear wife Lucy’s father), who got his old family estate,
Wharton Park, back; and the hospitals, convalescent homes, and
sanatoriums, which all shared alike; and Teddy Parsons, of my militia,
who had the bill paid off that was worrying him—that was all in the
original scheme, and all went to form the well-understood reasons for
our undertaking the expedition; without which inducements, indeed, it
would never even have started.
So if, after this clear denial in print, the public still choose to
fancy anything has stuck to my fingers, all I can ask them in fairness
to do is to come to our flat in Victoria Street any morning between
twelve and two, when they can see the accounts and receipts for
themselves, all in order and properly audited by Messrs. Fitch & Black,
the eminent accountants of Lothbury, E. C....
Now, they say love is at the bottom of most of the affairs and
enterprises of the world, and so I believe it mostly is. At all events,
I don’t fancy I should have undertaken, or, at any rate, been so
prominent in this Monte Carlo affair, if I hadn’t at the time been so
deeply in love with Lucy, and correspondingly anxious to get her
father’s property back for them at Wharton Park. It is situate near
Nesshaven, on the Essex coast; which, though to many it may not be a
particularly attractive part of the country, is to me forever sacred as
the spot where I first met the dear girl who is now my wife, coming back
so rosily from her morning bath, through the whin and the sand, from the
long, flat shore and the idle sea, carrying her own damp towel back to
her father’s inn, “The French Horn.”
I can see her now as I saw her then, on that warm September morning
eighteen months ago; sea and sky and monotonous Essex land all bathed in
hazy sunshine, the whins still glistening with the morning mist, which
at that time of the year lies heavily till the sun at mid-day warms them
dry and sets the seed-cases exploding like Prince-Rupert drops—I can
see her, I say, come towards me along the coast-guard path, round the
pole that sticks up to mark it, and towards the wooden bridge that
crosses one of the dikes.
If any line of that sweet face were faint in my memory, I have only to
look across at her now, as she sits sewing under the lamp as I write,
for all its charm and perfection to be present as first I saw it. I have
only to put a straw-hat on the pretty, rough, dark hair, which in
sunshine gleams with the bronze of chestnut, give her a freckle or two
on the low, white forehead, color her round cheek a little more
delicately rose-leaf, and there she is—not forgetting to take away the
wedding-ring!—as she passed me on the Nesshaven golf-links that hazy
September morning eighteen months ago. There is the straight nose, the
short upper lip, the pure, fresh mouth, the plump and rounded chin, and
the soft, pink lips that part so readily with a smile and show the
beautiful white teeth, white as the youngest hazel-nuts....
Lucy felt my eyes were upon her, and looked up at me and smiled, with
something of a blush, for she blushes very readily. She saw me still
looking longingly, the invitation in my eyes, and after a moment’s
hesitation (for, though we have been married nearly six months, she
still is shy) she put down her sewing and came to me at my
writing-table. She bent over me and put her arms round my neck, her warm
cheek against mine. Her soft lips kissed me; I felt the tender, loving
palpitation of her bosom as I bent my head back. Our sitting-room seemed
full of silence, happy and melodious silence, while from outside in
Victoria Street I head the jingle of a passing cab....