Produced by Dagny; John Bickers
MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO
By William Le Queux
1921
MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO
FIRST CHAPTER
THE SUICIDE’S CHAIR
“Yes! I’m not mistaken at all! _It’s the same woman!_” whispered the
tall, good-looking young Englishman in a well-cut navy suit as he stood
with his friend, a man some ten years older than himself, at one of the
roulette tables at Monte Carlo, the first on the right on entering the
room--that one known to habitual gamblers as “The Suicide’s Table.”
“Are you quite certain?” asked his friend.
“Positive. I should know her again anywhere.”
“She’s very handsome. And look, too, by Jove!--how she is winning!”
“Yes. But let’s get away. She might recognize me,” exclaimed the younger
man anxiously. “Ah! If I could only induce her to disclose what she
knows about my poor father’s mysterious end then we might clear up the
mystery.”
“I’m afraid, if all we hear is true about her, Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo will never do that,” was the other’s reply as they moved away
together down the long saloon towards the trente-et-quarante room.
“_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux_,” the croupiers were crying in their
strident, monotonous voices, inviting players to stake their counters
of cent-sous, their louis, or their hundred or five hundred franc notes
upon the spin of the red and black wheel. It was the month of March, the
height of the Riviera season, the fetes of Mi-Careme were in full swing.
That afternoon the rooms were overcrowded, and the tense atmosphere of
gambling was laden with the combined odours of perspiration and perfume.
Around each table were crowds four or five deep behind those fortunate
enough to obtain seats, all eager and anxious to try their fortune upon
the rouge or noir, or upon one of the thirty-six numbers, the columns,
or the transversales. There was but little chatter. The hundreds of
well-dressed idlers escaping the winter were too intent upon the game.
But above the click of the plaques, blue and red of different sizes,
as they were raked into the bank by the croupiers, and the clatter of
counters as the lucky players were paid with deft hands, there rose ever
and anon:
“_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux!_”
Here English duchesses rubbed shoulders with the most notorious women in
Europe, and men who at home in England were good churchmen and exemplary
fathers of families, laughed merrily with the most gorgeously attired
cocottes from Paris, or the stars of the film world or the variety
stage. Upon that wide polished floor of the splendidly decorated Rooms,
with their beautiful mural paintings and heavy gilt ornamentation, the
world and the half-world were upon equal footing.
Into that stifling atmosphere--for the Administration of the Bains de
Mer of Monaco seem as afraid of fresh air as of purity propaganda--the
glorious afternoon sunlight struggled through the curtained windows,
while over each table, in addition to the electric light, oil-lamps
shaded green with a billiard-table effect cast a dull, ghastly
illumination upon the eager countenances of the players. Most of those
who go to Monte Carlo wonder at the antiquated mode of illumination.
It is, however, in consequence of an attempted raid upon the tables one
night, when some adventurers cut the electric-light main, and in the
darkness grabbed all they could get from the bank.
The two English visitors, both men of refinement and culture, who had
watched the tall, very handsome woman in black, to whom the older
man had referred as Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, wandered through
the trente-et-quarante rooms where all was silence, and counters,
representing gold, were being staked with a twelve-thousand franc
maximum.
Those rooms beyond are the haunt of the professional gambler, the man
or woman who has been seized by the demon of speculation, just as others
have been seized by that of drugs or drink. Curiously enough women
are more prone to gamble than men, and the Administration of the
Etablissement will tell you that when a woman of any nationality starts
to gamble she will become reckless until her last throw with the devil.
Those who know Monte Carlo, those who have been habitues for twenty
years--as the present writer has been--know too well, and have seen
too often, the deadly influence of the tables upon the lighter side of
woman’s nature. The smart woman from Paris, Vienna, or Rome never loses
her head. She gambles always discreetly. The fashionable cocottes seldom
lose much. They gamble at the tables discreetly and make eyes at men if
they win, or if they lose. If the latter they generally obtain a “loan”
from somebody. What matter? When one is at “Monty” one is not in a
Wesleyan chapel. English men and women when they go to the Riviera leave
their morals at home with their silk hats and Sunday gowns. And it is
strange to see the perfectly respectable Englishwoman admiring the same
daring costumes of the French pseudo-“countesses” at which they have
held up their hands in horror when they have seen them pictured in the
papers wearing those latest “creations” of the Place Vendome.
Yes. It is a hypocritical world, and nowhere is canting hypocrisy more
apparent than inside the Casino at Monte Carlo.
While the two Englishmen were strolling over the polished parquet of the
elegant world-famous _salles-de-jeu_ “Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo” was
experiencing quite an extraordinary run of luck.
But “Mademoiselle,” as the croupiers always called her, was usually
lucky. She was an experienced, and therefore a careful player. When she
staked a maximum it was not without very careful calculation upon the
chances. Mademoiselle was well known to the Administration. Often her
winnings were sensational, hence she served as an advertisement to the
Casino, for her success always induced the uninitiated and unwary to
stake heavily, and usually with disastrous results.
The green-covered gaming table, at which she was sitting next to the end
croupier on the left-hand side, was crowded. She sat in what is known at
Monte as “the Suicide’s Chair,” for during the past eight years ten men
and women had sat in that fatal chair and had afterwards ended their
lives abruptly, and been buried in secret in the Suicide’s Cemetery.
The croupiers at that table are ever watchful of the visitor who, all
unawares, occupies that fatal chair. But Mademoiselle, who knew of it,
always laughed the superstition to scorn. She habitually sat in that
chair--and won.
Indeed, that afternoon she was winning--and very considerably too. She
had won four maximums _en plein_ within the last half-hour, and the
crowd around the table noting her good fortune were now following her.
It was easy for any novice in the Rooms to see that the handsome,
dark-eyed woman was a practised player. Time after time she let the
coups pass. The croupiers’ invitation to play did not interest her. She
simply toyed with her big gold-chain purse, or fingered her dozen piles
or so of plaques in a manner quite disinterested.
She heard the croupier announce the winning number and saw the rakes at
work dragging in the stakes to swell the bank. But she only smiled, and
now and then shrugged her shoulders.
Whether she won or lost, or whether she did not risk a stake, she simply
smiled and elevated her shoulders, muttering something to herself.
Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo was, truth to tell, a sphinx to the staff
of the Casino. She looked about thirty, but probably she was older.
For five years she had been there each season and gambled heavily with
unvarying success. Always well but quietly dressed, her nationality
was as obscure as her past. To the staff she was always polite, and she
pressed hundred-franc notes into many a palm in the Rooms. But who she
was or what were her antecedents nobody in the Principality of Monaco
could ever tell.
The whole Cote d’Azur from Hyeres to Ventimiglia knew of her. She was
one of the famous characters of Monte Carlo, just as famous, indeed, as
old Mr. Drewett, the Englishman who lost his big fortune at the tables,
and who was pensioned off by the Administration on condition that he
never gamble at the Casino again. For fifteen years he lived in Nice
upon the meagre pittance until suddenly another fortune was left him,
whereupon he promptly paid up the whole of his pension and started at
the tables again. In a month, however, he had lost his second
fortune. Such is gambling in the little country ruled over by Prince
Rouge-et-Noir.
As the two Englishmen slipped past the end table unseen on their way out
into the big atrium with its many columns--the hall in which players
go out to cool themselves, or collect their determination for a final
flutter--Mademoiselle had just won the maximum upon the number four, as
well as the column, and the croupier was in the act of pushing towards
her a big pile of counters each representing a thousand francs.
The eager excited throng around the table looked across at her with
envy. But her handsome countenance was quite expressionless. She simply
thrust the counters into the big gold-chain purse at her side, glanced
at the white-gloved fingers which were soiled by handling the counters,
and then counting out twenty-five, each representing a louis, gave them
to the croupier, exclaiming:
“_Zero-trois!_”
Next moment a dozen persons followed her play, staking their cent-sous
and louis upon the spot where she had asked the croupier at the end of
the table to place her stake.
“_Messieurs! Faites vos jeux!_” came the strident cry again.
Then a few seconds later the croupier cried:
“_Rien ne vas plus!_”
The red and black wheel was already spinning, and the little ivory
ball sent by the croupier’s hand in the opposite direction was clicking
quickly over the numbered spaces.
Six hundred or more eyes of men and women, fevered by the gambling
mania, watched the result. Slowly it lost its impetus, and after
spinning about unevenly it made a final jump and fell with a loud click.
“_Zer-r-o!_” cried the croupier.
And a moment later Mademoiselle had pushed before her at the end of
the croupier’s rake another pile of counters, while all those who had
followed the remarkable woman’s play were also paid.
“Mademoiselle is in good form to-day,” remarked one ugly old Frenchwoman
who had been a well-known figure at the tables for the past ten years,
and who played carefully and lived by gambling. She was one of those
queer, mysterious old creatures who enter the Rooms each morning as soon
as they are open, secure the best seats, occupy them all the luncheon
hour pretending to play, and then sell them to wealthy gamblers for a
consideration--two or three louis--perhaps--and then at once go to their
ease in their own obscure abode.
The public who go to Monte know little of its strange mysteries, or of
the odd people who pick up livings there in all sorts of queer ways.
“Ah!” exclaimed a man who overheard her. “Mademoiselle has wonderful
luck! She won seventy-five thousand francs at the _Cercle Prive_ last
night. She won _en plein_ five times running. _Dieu!_ Such luck! And it
never causes her the slightest excitement.”
“The lady must be very rich!” remarked an American woman sitting next to
the old Frenchwoman, and who knew French well.
“Rich! Of course! She must have won several million francs from the
Administration. They don’t like to see her here. But I suppose her
success attracts others to play. The gambling fever is as infectious
as the influenza,” declared the old Frenchwoman. “Everyone tries to
discover who she is, and where she came from five years ago. But nobody
has yet found out. Even Monsieur Bernard, the chief of the Surveillance,
does not know,” she went on in a whisper. “He is a friend of mine, and I
asked him one day. She came from Paris, he told me. She may be American,
she may be Belgian, or she may be English. She speaks English and French
so well that nobody can tell her true nationality.”
“And she makes money at the tables,” said the American woman in the
well-cut coat and skirt and small hat. She came from Chelsea, Mass., and
it was her first visit to what her pious father had always referred to
as the plague spot of Europe.
“Money!” exclaimed the old woman. “Money! _Dieu!_ She has losses, it is
true, but oh!--what she wins! I only wish I had ten per cent of it. I
should then be rich. Mine is a poor game, madame--waiting for someone to
buy my seat instead of standing the whole afternoon. You see, there is
only one row of chairs all around. So if a smart woman wants to play,
some man always buys her a chair--and that is how I live. Ah! madame,
life is a great game here in the Principality.”
Meanwhile young Hugh Henfrey, who had travelled from London to the
Riviera and identified the mysterious mademoiselle, had passed with
his friend, Walter Brock, through the atrium and out into the afternoon
sunshine.
As they turned upon the broad gravelled terrace in front of the great
white facade of the Casino amid the palms, the giant geraniums and
mimosa, the sapphire Mediterranean stretched before them. Below, beyond
the railway line which is the one blemish to the picturesque scene,
out upon the point in the sea the constant pop-pop showed that the
tir-aux-pigeons was in progress; while up and down the terrace, enjoying
the quiet silence of the warm winter sunshine with the blue hills of
the Italian coast to the left, strolled a gay, irresponsible crowd--the
cosmopolitans of the world: politicians, financiers, merchants, princes,
authors, and artists--the crowd which puts off its morals as easily as
it discards its fur coats and its silk hats, and which lives only for
gaiety and without thought of the morrow.
“Let’s sit down,” suggested Hugh wearily. “I’m sure that she’s the same
woman--absolutely certain!”
“You are quite confident you have made no mistake--eh?”
“Quite, my dear Walter. I’d know that woman among ten thousand. I only
know that her surname is Ferad. Her Christian name I do not know.”
“And you suspect that she knows the secret of your father’s death?”
“I’m confident that she does,” replied the good-looking young
Englishman. “But it is a secret she will, I fear, never reveal,
unless--unless I compel her.”
“And how can you compel her?” asked the elder of the two men, whose dark
hair was slightly tinged with grey. “It is difficult to compel a woman
to do anything,” he added.
“I mean to know the truth!” cried Hugh Henfrey fiercely, a look of
determination in his eyes. “That woman knows the true story of my
father’s death, and I’ll make her reveal it. By gad--I will! I mean it!”
“Don’t be rash, Hugh,” urged the other.
“Rash!” he cried. “It’s true that when my father died so suddenly I had
an amazing surprise. My father was a very curious man. I always thought
him to be on the verge of bankruptcy and that the Manor and the land
might be sold up any day. When old Charman, the solicitor, read the
will, I found that my father had a quarter of a million lying at the
bank, and that he had left it all to me--provided I married Louise!”
“Well, why not marry her?” queried Brock lazily. “You’re always so
mysterious, my dear Hugh.”
“Why!--because I love Dorise Ranscomb. But Louise interests me, and I’m
worried on her account because of that infernal fellow Charles
Benton. Louise poses as his adopted daughter. Benton is a bachelor of
forty-five, and, according to his story, he adopted Louise when she was
a child and put her to school. Her parentage is a mystery. After leaving
school she at first went to live with a Mrs. Sheldon, a young widow, in
an expensive suite in Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster. After that she
has travelled about with friends and has, I believe, been abroad quite
a lot. I’ve nothing against Louise, except--well, except for the
strange uncanny influence which that man Benton has over her. I hate the
fellow!”
“I see! And as you cannot yet reach Woodthorpe and your father’s
fortune, except by marrying Louise--which you don’t intend to do--what
are you going to do now?”
“First, I intend that this woman they call ‘Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo,’ the lucky woman who is a decoy of the Administration of the
Bains de Mer, shall tell me the true circumstance of my father’s death.
If I know them--then my hand will be strengthened.”
“Meanwhile you love Lady Ranscomb’s daughter, you say?”
“Yes. I love Dorise with all my heart. She, of course, knows nothing of
the conditions of the will.”
There was a silence of some moments, interrupted only by the pop-pop of
the pigeon-shots below.
Away across the white balustrade of the broad magnificent terrace the
calm sapphire sea was deepening as the winter afternoon drew in. An
engine whistled--that of the flower train which daily travels express
from Cannes to Boulogne faster than the passenger train-deluxe, and
bearing mimosa, carnations, and violets from the Cote d’Azur to Covent
Garden, and to the florists’ shops in England.
“You’ve never told me the exact circumstances of your father’s death,
Hugh,” remarked Brock at last.
“Exact circumstances? Ah! That’s what I want to know. Only that woman
knows the secret,” answered the young man. “All I know is that the
poor old guv’-nor was called up to London by an urgent letter. We had
a shooting party at Woodthorpe and he left me in charge, saying that he
had some business in London and might return on the following night--or
he might be away a week. Days passed and he did not return. Several
letters came for him which I kept in the library. I was surprised that
he neither wrote nor returned, when, suddenly, ten days later, we had a
telegram from the London police informing me that my father was lying in
St. George’s Hospital. I dashed up to town, but when I arrived I found
him dead. At the inquest, evidence was given to show that at half-past
two in the morning a constable going along Albemarle Street found him in
evening dress lying huddled up in a doorway. Thinking him intoxicated,
he tried to rouse him, but could not. A doctor who was called pronounced
that he was suffering from some sort of poisoning. He was taken to
St. George’s Hospital in an ambulance, but he never recovered. The
post-mortem investigation showed a small scratch on the palm of the
hand. That scratch had been produced by a pin or a needle which had
been infected by one of the newly discovered poisons which, administered
secretly, give a post-mortem appearance of death from heart disease.”
“Then your father was murdered--eh?” exclaimed the elder man.
“Most certainly he was. And that woman is aware of the whole
circumstances and of the identity of the assassin.”
“How do you know that?”
“By a letter I afterwards opened--one that had been addressed to him at
Woodthorpe in his absence. It was anonymous, written in bad English,
in an illiterate hand, warning him to ‘beware of that woman you
know--Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo.’ It bore the French stamp and the
postmark of Tours.”
“I never knew all this,” Brock said. “You are quite right, Hugh! The
whole affair is a tangled mystery. But the first point we must establish
before we commence to investigate is--who is Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo?”
SECOND CHAPTER
CONCERNS A GUILTY SECRET
Just after seven o’clock that same evening young Henfrey and his friend
Brock met in the small lounge of the Hotel des Palmiers, a rather
obscure little establishment in the Avenue de la Costa, behind the
Gardens, much frequented by the habitues of the Rooms who know Monte
Carlo and prefer the little place to life at the Paris, the Hermitage,
and the Riviera Palace, or the Gallia, up at Beausoleil.
The Palmiers was a place where one met a merry cosmopolitan crowd, but
where the cocotte in her bright plumage was absent--an advantage which
only the male habitue of Monte Carlo can fully realize. The eternal
feminine is always so very much in evidence around the Casino, and the
most smartly dressed woman whom one might easily take for the wife of an
eminent politician or financier will deplore her bad luck and beg for “a
little loan.”
“Well,” said Hugh as his friend came down from his room to the lounge,
“I suppose we ought to be going--eh? Dorise said half-past seven, and
we’ll just get across to the Metropole in time. Lady Ranscomb is always
awfully punctual at home, and I expect she carries out her time-table
here.”
The two men put on light overcoats over their dinner-jackets and
strolled in the warm dusk across the Gardens and up the Galerie, with
its expensive little shops, past the original Ciro’s to the Metropole.
In the big hall they were greeted by a well-preserved, grey-haired
Englishwoman, Lady Ranscomb, the widow of old Sir Richard Ranscomb, who
had been one of the greatest engineers and contractors of modern times.
He had begun life as a small jerry-builder at Golder’s Green, and had
ended it a millionaire and a knight. Lady Ranscomb was seated at a
little wicker table with her daughter Dorise, a dainty, fair-haired girl
with intense blue eyes, who was wearing a rather daring jazzing gown of
pale-blue, the scantiness of which a year or two before would have been
voted quite beyond the pale for a lady, and yet in our broad-minded
to-day, the day of undressing on the stage and in the home, it was
nothing more than “smart.”
Mother and daughter greeted the two men enthusiastically, and at Lady
Ranscomb’s orders the waiter brought them small glasses of an aperitif.
“We’ve been all day motoring up to the Col di Tenda. Sospel is lovely!”
declared Dorise’s mother. “Have you ever been there?” she asked of
Brock, who was an habitue of the Riviera.
“Once and only once. I motored from Nice across to Turin,” was his
reply. “Yes. It is truly a lovely run there. The Alps are gorgeous. I
like San Dalmazzo and the chestnut groves there,” he added. “But the
frontiers are annoying. All those restrictions. Nevertheless, the run to
Turin is one of the finest I know.”
Presently they rose, and all four walked into the crowded
_salle-a-manger_, where the chatter was in every European language, and
the gay crowd were gossiping mostly of their luck or their bad fortune
at the _tapis vert_. At Monte Carlo the talk is always of the run of
sequences, the many times the zero-trois has turned up, and of how
little one ever wins _en plein_ on thirty-six.
To those who visit “Charley’s Mount” for the first time all this is as
Yiddish, but soon he or she, when initiated into the games of roulette
and trente-et-quarante, quickly gets bitten by the fever and enters into
the spirit of the discussions. They produce their “records”--printed
cards in red and black numbers with which they have carefully pricked
off the winning numbers with a pin as they have turned up.
The quartette enjoyed a costly but exquisite dinner, chatting and
laughing the while.
Both men were friends of Lady Ranscomb and frequent visitors to her fine
house in Mount Street. Hugh’s father, a country landowner, had known Sir
Richard for many years, while Walter Brock had made the acquaintance of
Lady Ranscomb a couple of years ago in connexion with some charity in
which she had been interested.
Both were also good friends of Dorise. Both were excellent dancers, and
Lady Ranscomb often allowed them to take her daughter to the Grafton,
Ciro’s, or the Embassy. Lady Ranscomb was Hugh’s old friend, and he
and Dorise having been thrown together a good deal ever since the girl
returned from Versailles after finishing her education, it was hardly
surprising that the pair should have fallen in love with each other.
As they sat opposite each other that night, the young fellow gazed into
her wonderful blue eyes, yet, alas! with a sinking heart. How could they
ever marry?
He had about six hundred a year--only just sufficient to live upon
in these days. His father had never put him to anything since he left
Brasenose, and now on his death he had found that, in order to recover
the estate, it was necessary for him to marry Louise Lambert, a girl for
whom he had never had a spark of affection. Louise was good-looking,
it was true, but could he sacrifice his happiness; could he ever cut
himself adrift from Dorise for mercenary motives--in order to get back
what was surely by right his inheritance?
Yet, after all, as he again met Dorise’s calm, wide-open eyes, the grim
truth arose in his mind, as it ever did, that Lady Ranscomb, even though
she had been so kind to him, would never allow her only daughter to
marry a man who was not rich. Had not Dorise told him of the sly hints
her mother had recently given her regarding a certain very wealthy man
named George Sherrard, an eligible bachelor who lived in one of the most
expensive flats in Park Lane, and who was being generally sought after
by mothers with marriageable daughters. In many cases mothers--and
especially young, good-looking widows with daughters “on their
hands”--are too prone to try and get rid of them “because my daughter
makes me look so old,” as they whisper to their intimates of their own
age.
After dinner all four strolled across to the Casino, presenting their
yellow cards of admission--the monthly cards granted to those who are
approved by the smug-looking, black-coated committee of inspection, who
judge by one’s appearance whether one had money to lose.
Dorise soon detached herself from her mother and strolled up the Rooms
with Hugh, Lady Ranscomb and Brock following.
None of them intended to play, but they were strolling prior to going to
the opera which was beneath the same roof, and for which Lady Ranscomb
had tickets.
Suddenly Dorise exclaimed:
“Look over there--at that table in the corner. There’s that remarkable
woman they call ‘Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo’!”
Hugh started, and glancing in the direction she indicated saw
the handsome woman seated at the table staking her counters quite
unconcernedly and entirely absorbed in the game. She was wearing a dead
black dress cut slightly low in the neck, but half-bare shoulders, with
a string of magnificent Chinese jade beads of that pale apple green so
prized by connoisseurs.
Her eyes were fixed upon the revolving wheel, for upon the number
sixteen she had just thrown a couple of thousand franc counters. The
ball dropped with a sudden click, the croupier announced that number
five had won, and at once raked in the two thousand francs among others.
Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders and smiled faintly. Yvonne Ferad
was a born gambler. To her losses came as easily as gains. The
Administration knew that--and they also knew how at the little
pigeon-hole where counters were exchanged for cheques she came often and
handed over big sums in exchange for drafts upon certain banks, both in
Paris and in London.
Yet they never worried. Her lucky play attracted others who usually
lost. Once, a year before, a Frenchman who occupied a seat next to her
daily for a month lost over a quarter of a million sterling, and one
night threw himself under the Paris _rapide_ at the long bridge over
the Var. But on hearing of it the next day from a croupier Mademoiselle
merely shrugged her shoulders, and said:
“I warned him to return to Paris. The fool! It is only what I expected.”
Hugh looked only once across at the mysterious woman whom Dorise
had indicated, and then drew her away. As a matter of fact he had no
intention that mademoiselle should notice him.
“What do you know of her?” he asked in a casual way when they were on
the other side of the great saloon.
“Well, a Frenchman I met in the hotel the day before yesterday told
me all sorts of queer stories about her,” replied the girl. “She’s
apparently a most weird person, and she has uncanny good luck at the
tables. He said that she had won a large fortune during the last couple
of years or so.”
Hugh made no remark as to the reason of his visit to the Riviera, for,
indeed, he had arrived only the day previously, and she had welcomed him
joyously. Little did she dream that her lover had come out from London
to see that woman who was declared to be so notorious.
“I noticed her playing this afternoon,” Hugh said a moment later in
a quiet reflective tone. “What do the gossips really say about her,
Dorise? All this is interesting. But there are so many interesting
people here.”
“Well, the man who told me about her was sitting with me outside the
Cafe de Paris when she passed across the Place to the Casino. That
caused him to make the remarks. He said that her past was obscure. Some
people say that she was a Danish opera singer, others declare that
she was the daughter of a humble tobacconist in Marseilles, and others
assert that she is English. But all agree that she is a clever and very
dangerous woman.”
“Why dangerous?” inquired Hugh in surprise.
“Ah! That I don’t know. The man who told me merely hinted at her past
career, and added that she was quite a respectable person nowadays in
her affluence. But--well----” added the girl with a laugh, “I suppose
people gossip about everyone in this place.”
“Who was your informant?” asked her lover, much interested.
“His name is Courtin. I believe he is an official of one of the
departments of the Ministry of Justice in Paris. At least somebody said
so yesterday.”
“Ah! Then he probably knew more about her than he told you, I expect.”
“No doubt, for he warned my mother and myself against making her
acquaintance,” said the girl. “He said she was a most undesirable
person.”
At that moment Lady Ranscomb and Walter Brock joined them, whereupon the
former exclaimed to her daughter:
“Did you see that woman over there?--still playing--the woman in black
and the jade beads, against whom Monsieur Courtin warned us?”
“Yes, mother, I noticed her. I’ve just been telling Hugh about her.”
“A mysterious person--eh?” laughed Hugh with well-affected indifference.
“But one never knows who’s who in Monte Carlo.”
“Well, Mademoiselle is apparently something of a mystery,” remarked
Brock. “I’ve seen her here before several times. Once, about two years
ago, I heard that she was mixed up in a very celebrated criminal case,
but exactly what it was the man who told me could not recollect. She is,
however, one of the handsomest women in the Rooms.”
“And one of the wealthiest--if report be true,” said Lady Ranscomb.
“She fascinates me,” Dorise declared. “If Monsieur Courtin had not
warned us I should most probably have spoken to her.”
“Oh, my dear, you must do no such thing!” cried her mother, horrified.
“It was extremely kind of monsieur to give us the hint. He has probably
seen how unconventional you are, Dorise.”
And then, as they strolled on into the farther room, the conversation
dropped.
“So they’ve heard about Mademoiselle, it seems!” remarked Brock to his
friend as they walked back to the Palmiers together in the moonlight
after having seen Lady Ranscomb and her daughter to their hotel.
“Yes,” growled the other. “I wish we could get hold of that Monsieur
Courtin. He might tell us a bit about her.”
“I doubt if he would. These French officials are always close as
oysters.”
“At any rate, I will try and make his acquaintance at the Metropole
to-morrow,” Hugh said. “There’s no harm in trying.”
Next morning he called again at the Metropole before the ladies were
about, but to his chagrin, he learnt from the blue-and-gold concierge
that Monsieur Courtin, of the Ministry of Justice, had left at
ten-fifteen o’clock on the previous night by the _rapide_ for Paris. He
had been recalled urgently, and a special _coupe-lit_ had been reserved
for him from Ventimiglia.
That day Hugh Henfrey wandered about the well-kept palm-lined gardens
with their great beds of geraniums, carnations and roses. Brock had
accepted the invitation of a bald-headed London stock-broker he knew to
motor over to lunch and tennis at the Beau Site, at Cannes, while Dorise
and her mother had gone with some people to lunch at the Reserve at
Beaulieu, one of the best and yet least pretentious restaurants in all
Europe, only equalled perhaps by Capsa’s, in Bucharest.
“Ah! If she would only tell!” Hugh muttered fiercely to himself as he
walked alone and self-absorbed. His footsteps led him out of Monte Carlo
and up the winding road which runs to La Turbie, above the beautiful
bay. Ever and anon powerful cars climbing the hill smothered him in
white dust, yet he heeded them not. He was too full of thought.
“Ah!” he kept on repeating to himself. “If she would only tell the
truth--if she would only tell!”
Hugh Henfrey had not travelled to Monte Carlo without much careful
reflection and many hours of wakefulness. He intended to clear up the
mystery of his father’s death--and more, the reason of that strange
incomprehensible will which was intended to wed him to Louise.
At four o’clock that afternoon he entered the Rooms to gain another
surreptitious look at Mademoiselle. Yes! She was there, still playing
on as imperturbably as ever, with that half-suppressed sinister smile
always upon her full red lips.
Sight of her aroused his fury. Was that smile really intended for
himself? People said she was a sphinx, but he drew his breath, and when
outside the Casino again in the warm sunshine he halted upon the broad
red-carpeted steps and beneath his breath said in a hard, determined
tone:
“Gad! She shall tell me! She shall! I’ll compel her to speak--to tell me
the truth--or--or----!”
That evening he wrote a note to Dorise explaining to her that he was not
feeling very well and excusing himself from going round to the hotel.
This he sent by hand to the Metropole.
Brock did not turn up at dinner. Indeed, he did not expect his friend
back till late. So he ate his meal alone, and then went out to the
Cafe de Paris, where for an hour he sat upon the _terrasse_ smoking and
listening to the weird music of the red-coated orchestra of Roumanian
gipsies.
All the evening, indeed, he idled, chatting with men and women he knew.
_Carmen_ was being given at the Opera opposite, but though he loved
music he had no heart to go. The one thought obsessing him was of the
handsome and fascinating woman who was such a mystery to all.
At eleven o’clock he returned to the cafe and took a seat on the
_terrasse_ in a dark corner, in such a position that he could see anyone
who entered or left the Casino. For half an hour he watched the people
passing to and fro. At last, in a long jade-green coat, Mademoiselle
emerged alone, and, crossing the gardens, made her way leisurely home
on foot, as was her habit. Monte Carlo is not a large place, therefore
there is little use for taxis.
When she was out of sight, he called the waiter to bring him a liqueur
of old cognac, which he sipped, and then lit another cigarette. When he
had finished it he drained the little glass, and rising, strolled in the
direction the woman of mystery had taken.
A walk of ten minutes brought him to the iron gates of a great white
villa, over the high walls of which climbing roses and geraniums and
jasmine ran riot. The night air was heavy with their perfume. He opened
the side gate and walked up the gravelled drive to the terrace
whereon stood the house, commanding a wonderful view of the moon-lit
Mediterranean and the far-off mountains of Italy.
His ring at the door was answered by a staid elderly Italian manservant.
“I believe Mademoiselle is at home,” Hugh said in French. “I desire to
see her, and also to apologize for the lateness of the hour. My visit is
one of urgency.”
“Mademoiselle sees nobody except by appointment,” was the man’s polite
but firm reply.
“I think she will see me if you give her this card,” answered Hugh in a
strained, unusual voice.
The man took it hesitatingly, glanced at it, placed it upon a silver
salver, and, leaving the visitor standing on the mat, passed through the
glass swing-doors into the house.
For some moments the servant did not reappear.
Hugh, standing there, entertained just a faint suspicion that he heard a
woman’s shrill exclamation of surprise. And that sound emboldened him.
At last, after an age it seemed, the man returned, saying:
“Mademoiselle will see you, Monsieur. Please come this way.”
He left his hat and stick and followed the man along a corridor richly
carpeted in red to a door on the opposite side of the house, which the
servant threw open and announced the visitor.
Mademoiselle had risen to receive him. Her countenance was, Hugh saw,
blanched almost to the lips. Her black dress caused her pallor to be
more apparent.
“Well, sir? Pray what do you mean by resorting to this ruse in order to
see me? Who are you?” she demanded.
Hugh was silent for a moment. Then in a hard voice he said:
“I am the son of the dead man whose card is in your hands, Mademoiselle!
And I am here to ask you a few questions!”
The handsome woman smiled sarcastically and shrugged her half-bare
shoulders, her fingers trembling with her jade beads.
“Oh! Your father is dead--is he?” she asked with an air of indifference.
“Yes. _He is dead_,” Hugh said meaningly, as he glanced around the
luxurious little room with its soft rose-shaded lights and pale-blue
and gold decorations. On her right as she stood were long French windows
which opened on to a balcony. One of the windows stood ajar, and it was
apparent that when he had called she had been seated in the long wicker
chair outside enjoying the balmy moonlight after the stifling atmosphere
of the Rooms.
“And, Mademoiselle,” he went on, “I happen to be aware that you knew
my father, and--that you are cognizant of certain facts concerning his
mysterious end.”
“I!” she cried, raising her voice in sudden indignation. “What on earth
do you mean?” She spoke in perfect English, though he had hitherto
spoken in French.
“I mean, Mademoiselle, that I intend to know the truth,” said Hugh,
fixing his eyes determinedly upon hers. “I am here to learn it from your
lips.”
“You must be mad!” cried the woman. “I know nothing of the affair. You
are mistaken!”
“Do you, then, deny that you have ever met a man named Charles Benton?”
demanded the young fellow, raising his voice. “Perhaps, however, that is
a bitter memory, Mademoiselle--eh?”
The strikingly handsome woman pursed her lips. There was a strange look
in her eyes. For several moments she did not speak. It was clear that
the sudden appearance of the dead man’s son had utterly unnerved her.
What could he know concerning Charles Benton? How much of the affair did
he suspect?
“I have met many people, Mr.--er--Mr. Henfrey,” she replied quietly at
last. “I may have met somebody named Benton.”
“Ah! I see,” the young man said. “It is a memory that you do not wish to
recall any more than that of my dead father.”
“Your father was a good man. Benton was not.”
“Ah! Then you admit knowing both of them, Mademoiselle,” cried Hugh
quickly.
“Yes. I--well--I may as well admit it! Why, indeed, should I seek to
hide the truth--_from you_,” she said in a changed voice. “Pardon me. I
was very upset at receiving the card. Pardon me--will you not?”
“I will not, unless you tell me the truth concerning my father’s death
and his iniquitous will left concerning myself. I am here to ascertain
that, Mademoiselle,” he said in a hard voice.
“And if I tell you--what then?” she asked with knit brows.
“If you tell me, then I am prepared to promise you on oath secrecy
concerning yourself--provided you allow me to punish those who are
responsible. Remember, my father died by foul means. _And you know it!_”
The woman faced him boldly, but she was very pale.
“So that is a promise?” she asked. “You will protect me--you will be
silent regarding me--you swear to be so--if--if I tell you something.
I repeat that your father was a good man. I held him in the highest
esteem, and--and--after all--it is but right that you, his son, should
know the truth.”
“Thank you Mademoiselle. I will protect you if you will only reveal to
me the devilish plot which resulted in his untimely end,” Hugh assured
her.
Again she knit her brows and reflected for a few moments. Then in a low,
intense, unnatural voice she said:
“Listen, Mr. Henfrey. I feel that, after all, my conscience would be
relieved if I revealed to you the truth. First--well, it is no use
denying the fact that your father was not exactly the man you and his
friends believed him to be. He led a strange dual existence, and I will
disclose to you one or two facts concerning his untimely end which will
show you how cleverly devised and how cunning was the plot--how----”
At that instant Hugh was startled by a bright flash outside the
half-open window, a loud report, followed by a woman’s shrill shriek of
pain.
Then, next moment, ere he could rush forward to save her, Mademoiselle,
with the truth upon her lips unuttered, staggered and fell back heavily
upon the carpet!
THIRD CHAPTER
IN THE NIGHT
Hugh Henfrey, startled by the sudden shot, shouted for assistance, and
then threw himself upon his knees beside the prostrate woman.
From a bullet wound over the right ear blood was slowly oozing and
trickling over her white cheek.
“Help! Help!” he shouted loudly. “Mademoiselle has been shot from
outside! _Help!_”
In a few seconds the elderly manservant burst into the room in a state
of intense excitement.
“Quick!” cried Hugh. “Telephone for a doctor at once. I fear your
mistress is dying!”
Henfrey had placed his hand upon Mademoiselle’s heart, but could detect
no movement. While the servant dashed to the telephone, he listened
for her breathing, but could hear nothing. From the wall he tore down
a small circular mirror and held it against her mouth. There was no
clouding.
There was every apparent sign that the small blue wound had proved
fatal.
“Inform the police also!” Hugh shouted to the elderly Italian who was at
the telephone in the adjoining room. “The murderer must be found!”
By this time four female servants had entered the room where their
mistress was lying huddled and motionless. All of them were in
_deshabille_. Then all became excitement and confusion. Hugh left them
to unloosen her clothing and hastened out upon the veranda whereon the
assassin must have stood when firing the shot.
Outside in the brilliant Riviera moonlight the scent of a wealth of
flowers greeted his nostrils. It was almost bright as day. From the
veranda spread a wide, fairy-like view of the many lights of Monte Carlo
and La Condamine, with the sea beyond shimmering in the moonlight.
The veranda, he saw, led by several steps down into the beautiful
garden, while beyond, a distance of a hundred yards, was the main gate
leading to the roadway. The assassin, after taking careful aim and
firing, had, no doubt, slipped along, and out of the gate.
But why had Mademoiselle been shot just at the moment when she was about
to reveal the secret of his lamented father’s death?
He descended to the garden, where he examined the bushes which cast
their dark shadows. But all was silence. The assassin had escaped!
Then he hurried out into the road, but again all was silence. The only
hope of discovering the identity of the criminal was by means of the
police vigilance. Truth to tell, however, the police of Monte Carlo are
never over anxious to arrest a criminal, because Monte Carlo attracts
the higher criminal class of both sexes from all over Europe. If the
police of the Principality were constantly making arrests it would be
bad advertisement for the Rooms. Hence, though the Monte Carlo police
are extremely vigilant and an expert body of officers, they prefer
to watch and to give information to the bureaux of police of other
countries, so that arrests invariably take place beyond the frontiers of
the Principality of Monaco.
It was not long before Doctor Leneveu, a short, stout, bald-headed
little man, well known to habitues of the Rooms, among whom he had a
large practice, entered the house of Mademoiselle and was greeted by
Hugh. The latter briefly explained the tragic circumstances, whereupon
the little doctor at once became fussy and excited.
Having ordered everyone out of the room except Henfrey, he bent and made
an examination of the prostrate woman.
“Ah! m’sieur,” he said, “the unfortunate lady has certainly been shot at
close quarters. The wound is, I tell you at once, extremely dangerous,”
he added, after a searching investigation. “But she is still alive,” he
declared. “Yes--she is still breathing.”
“Still alive!” gasped Henfrey. “That’s excellent! I--I feared that she
was dead!”
“No. She still breathes,” the doctor replied. “But, tell me exactly what
has occurred. First, however, we will get them to remove her upstairs.
I will telephone to my colleague Duponteil, and we will endeavour to
extract the bullet.”
“But will she recover, doctor?” asked Hugh eagerly in French. “What do
you think?”
The little man became serious and shook his head gravely.
“Ah! m’sieur, that I cannot say,” was his reply. “She is in a very grave
state--very! And the brain may be affected.”
Hugh held his breath. _Surely Yvonne Ferad was not to die with the
secret upon her lips!_
At the doctor’s orders the servants were about to remove their mistress
to her room when two well-dressed men of official aspect entered. They
were officers of the Bureau of Police.
“Stop!” cried the elder, who was the one in authority, a tall,
lantern-jawed man with a dark brown beard and yellow teeth. “Do not
touch that lady! What has happened here?”
Hugh came forward, and in his best French explained the circumstances
of the tragedy--how Mademoiselle had been shot in his presence by an
unknown hand.
“The assassin, whoever he was, stood out yonder--upon the veranda--but
I never saw him,” he added. “It was all over in a second--and he has
escaped!”
“And pray who are you?” demanded the police officer bluntly. “Please
explain.”
Hugh was rather nonplussed. The question required explanation, no doubt.
It would, he saw, appear very curious that he should visit Mademoiselle
of Monte Carlo at that late hour.
“I--well, I called upon Mademoiselle because I wished to obtain some
important information from her.”
“What information? Rather late for a call, surely?”
The young Englishman hesitated. Then, with true British grit, he assumed
an attitude of boldness, and asked:
“Am I compelled to answer that question?”
“I am Charles Ogier, chief inspector of the Surete of Monaco, and I
press for a reply,” answered the other firmly.
“And I, Hugh Henfrey, a British subject, at present decline to satisfy
you,” was the young man’s bold response.
“Is the lady still alive?” inquired the inspector of Doctor Leneveu.
“Yes. I have ordered her to be taken up to her room--of course, when
m’sieur the inspector gives permission.”
Ogier looked at the deathly countenance with the closed eyes, and noted
that the wound in the skull had been bound up with a cotton handkerchief
belonging to one of the maids. Mademoiselle’s dark well-dressed hair had
become unbound and was straying across her face, while her handsome gown
had been torn in the attempt to unloosen her corsets.
“Yes,” said the police officer; “they had better take her upstairs. We
will remain here and make inquiries. This is a very queer affair--to say
the least,” he added, glancing suspiciously at Henfrey.
While the servants carried their unconscious mistress tenderly upstairs,
the fussy little doctor went to the telephone to call Doctor Duponteil,
the principal surgeon of Monaco. He had hesitated whether to take the
victim to the hospital, but had decided that the operation could be done
just as effectively upstairs. So, after speaking to Duponteil, he also
spoke to the sister at the hospital, asking her to send up two nurses
immediately to the Villa Amette.
In the meantime Inspector Ogier was closely questioning the young
Englishman.
Like everyone in Monte Carlo he knew the mysterious Mademoiselle by
sight. More than once the suspicions of the police had been aroused
against her. Indeed, in the archives of the Prefecture there reposed a
bulky dossier containing reports of her doings and those of her friends.
Yet there had never been anything which would warrant the authorities to
forbid her from remaining in the Principality.
This tragedy, therefore, greatly interested Ogier and his colleague.
Both of them had spent many years in the service of the Paris Surete
under the great Goron before being appointed to the responsible
positions in the detective service of Monaco.
“Then you knew the lady?” Ogier asked of the young man who was naturally
much upset over the startling affair, and the more so because the secret
of his father’s mysterious death had been filched from him by the hand
of some unknown assassin.