came to call upon her, and she received me.”
“Why did you call at this hour? Could you not have called in the
daytime?”
“Mademoiselle was in the Rooms until late,” he said.
“Ah! Then you followed her home--eh?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
The police officer pursed his lips and raised his eyes significantly at
his colleague.
“And what was actually happening when the shot was fired? Describe it to
me, please,” he demanded.
“I was standing just here”--and he crossed the room and stood upon the
spot where he had been--“Mademoiselle was over there beside the window.
I had my back to the window. She was about to tell me something--to
answer a question I had put to her--when someone from outside shot her
through the open glass door.”
“And you did not see her assailant?”
“I saw nothing. The shot startled me, and, seeing her staggering,
I rushed to her. In the meantime the assailant--whoever he
was--disappeared!”
The brown-bearded man smiled dubiously. As he stood beneath the electric
light Hugh saw doubt written largely upon his countenance. He instantly
realized that Ogier disbelieved his story.
After all it was a very lame one. He would not fully admit the reason of
his visit.
“But tell me, m’sieur,” exclaimed the police officer. “It seems
extraordinary that any person should creep along this veranda.” And he
walked out and looked about in the moonlight. “If the culprit wished to
shoot Mademoiselle in secret, then he would surely not have done so in
your presence. He might easily have shot her as she was on her way home.
The road is lonely up here.”
“I agree, monsieur,” replied the Englishman. “The whole affair is, to
me, a complete mystery. I saw nobody. But it was plain to me that when
I called Mademoiselle was seated out upon the veranda. Look at her
chair--and the cushions! It was very hot and close in the Rooms
to-night, and probably she was enjoying the moonlight before retiring to
bed.”
“Quite possibly,” he agreed. “But that does not alter the fact that the
assassin ran considerable risk in coming along the veranda in the full
moonlight and firing through the open door. Are you quite certain that
Mademoiselle’s assailant was outside--and not inside?” he asked, with a
queer expression upon his aquiline face.
Hugh saw that he was hinting at his suspicion that he himself had shot
her!
“Quite certain,” he assured him. “Why do you ask?”
“I have my own reasons,” replied the police officer with a hard laugh.
“Now, tell me what do you know about Mademoiselle Ferad?”
“Practically nothing.”
“Then why did you call upon her?”
“I have told you. I desired some information, and she was about to give
it to me when the weapon was fired by an unknown hand.”
“Unknown--eh?”
“Yes. Unknown to me. It might be known to Mademoiselle.”
“And what was this information you so urgently desired?”
“Some important information. I travelled from London to Monte Carlo in
order to obtain it.”
“Ah! Then you had a motive in coming here--some strong motive, I take
it?”
“Yes. A very strong motive. I wanted her to clear up certain mysterious
happenings in England.”
Ogier was instantly alert.
“What happenings?” he asked, for he recollected the big dossier and
the suspicions extending over four or five years concerning the real
identity and mode of life of the handsome, sphinx-like woman Yvonne
Ferad.
Hugh Henfrey was silent for a few moments. Then he said:
“Happenings in London that--well, that I do not wish to recall.”
Ogier again looked him straight in the face.
“I suggest, M’sieur Henfrey”--for Hugh had given him his name--“I
suggest that you have been attracted by Mademoiselle as so many other
men have been. She seems to exercise a fatal influence upon some
people.”
“I know,” Hugh said. “I have heard lots of things about her. Her success
at the tables is constant and uncanny. Even the Administration are
interested in her winnings, and are often filled with wonder.”
“True, m’sieur. She keeps herself apart. She is a mysterious person--the
most remarkable in all the Principality. We, at the Bureau, have heard
all sorts of curious stories concerning her--once it was rumoured that
she was the daughter of a reigning European sovereign. Then we take all
the reports with the proverbial grain of salt. That Mademoiselle is a
woman of outstanding intellect and courage, as well as of great beauty,
cannot be denied. Therefore I tell you that I am intensely interested in
this attempt upon her life.”
“And so am I,” Hugh said. “I have a strong reason to be.”
“Cannot you tell me that reason?” inquired the officer of the Surete,
still looking at him very shrewdly. “Why fence with me?”
Henfrey hesitated. Then he replied:
“It is a purely personal matter.”
“And yet, you have said that you were not acquainted with Mademoiselle!”
remarked Ogier suspiciously.
“That is quite true. The first time I have spoken to her was this
evening, a few minutes before the attempt was made upon her life.”
“Then your theory is that while you stood in conversation with her
somebody crept along the veranda and shot her--eh?”
“Yes.”
Ogier smiled sarcastically, and turning to his colleague, ordered him to
search the room. The inspector evidently suspected the young Englishman
of having shot Mademoiselle, and the search was in order to try and
discover the weapon.
Meanwhile the brown-bearded officer called the Italian manservant, who
gave his name as Giulio Cataldi, and who stated that he had been in
Mademoiselle Ferad’s service a little over five years.
“Have you ever seen this Englishman before?” Ogier asked, indicating
Hugh.
“Never, until to-night, m’sieur,” was the reply. “He called about twenty
minutes after Mademoiselle’s return from the Rooms.”
“Has Mademoiselle quarrelled with anybody of late?”
“Not to my knowledge, m’sieur. She is of a very quiet and even
disposition.”
“Is there anyone you know who might possess a motive to shoot her?”
asked Ogier. “The crime has not been committed with a motive of robbery,
but either out of jealousy or revenge.”
“I know of nobody,” declared the highly respectable Italian, whose
moustache was tinged with grey. He shrugged his shoulders and showed his
palms as he spoke.
“Mademoiselle arrived here two months ago, I believe?” queried the
police official.
“Yes, m’sieur. She spent the autumn in Paris, and during the summer she
was at Deauville. She also went to London for a brief time, I believe.”
“Did she ever live in London?” asked Hugh eagerly, interrupting Ogier’s
interrogation.
“Yes--once. She had a furnished house on the Cromwell Road for about six
months.”
“How long ago?” asked Henfrey.
“Please allow me to make my inquiries, monsieur!” exclaimed the
detective angrily.
“But the question I ask is of greatest importance to me in my own
inquiries,” Hugh persisted.
“I am here to discover the identity of Mademoiselle’s assailant,” Ogier
asserted. “And I will not brook your interference.”
“Mademoiselle has been shot, and it is for you to discover who fired at
her,” snapped the young Englishman. “I consider that I have just as much
right to put a question to this man as you have, that is”--he added with
sarcasm--“that is, of course, if you don’t suspect him of shooting his
mistress.”
“Well, I certainly do not suspect that,” the Frenchman said. “But,
to tell you candidly, your story of the affair strikes me as a very
improbable one.”
“Ah!” laughed Hugh, “I thought so! You suspect me--eh? Very well. Where
is the weapon?”
“Perhaps you have hidden it,” suggested the other meaningly. “We shall,
no doubt, find it somewhere.”
“I hope you will, and that will lead to the arrest of the guilty
person,” Hugh laughed. Then he was about to put further questions to the
man Cataldi when Doctor Leneveu entered the room.
“How is she?” demanded Hugh breathlessly.
The countenance of the fussy little doctor fell.
“Monsieur,” he said in a low earnest voice, “I much fear that
Mademoiselle will not recover. My colleague Duponteil concurs with that
view. We have done our best, but neither of us entertain any hope that
she will live!” Then turning to Ogier, the doctor exclaimed: “This is an
amazing affair--especially in face of what is whispered concerning the
unfortunate lady. What do you make of it?”
The officer of the Surete knit his brows, and with frankness replied:
“At present I am entirely mystified--entirely mystified!”
FOURTH CHAPTER
WHAT THE DOSSIER CONTAINED
Walter Brock was awakened at four o’clock that morning by Hugh touching
him upon the shoulder.
He started up in bed and staring at his friend’s pale, haggard face
exclaimed:
“Good Heavens!--why, what’s the matter?”
“Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo has been shot!” the other replied in a hard
voice.
“Shot!” gasped Brock, startled. “What do you mean?”
Briefly Hugh who had only just entered the hotel, explained the curious
circumstances--how, just at the moment she had been about to reveal the
secret of his father’s death she was shot.
“Most extraordinary!” declared his friend. “Surely, we have not been
followed here by someone who is determined to prevent you from knowing
the truth!”
“It seems much like it, Walter,” replied the younger man very seriously.
“There must be some strong motive or no person would dare to shoot her
right before my eyes.”
“Agreed. Somebody who is concerned in your father’s death has adopted
this desperate measure in order to prevent Mademoiselle from telling you
the truth.”
“That’s exactly my opinion, my dear Walter. If it was a crime for gain,
or through motives of either jealousy or revenge, Mademoiselle would
certainly have been attacked on her way home. The road is quite deserted
towards the crest of the hill.”
“What do the police say?”
“They do not appear to trouble to track Mademoiselle’s assailant. They
say they will wait until daylight before searching for footprints on the
gravel outside.”
“Ah! They are not very fond of making arrests within the Principality.
It’s such a bad advertisement for the Rooms. The Administration like to
show a clean sheet as regards serious crime. Our friends here leave it
to the French or Italian police to deal with the criminals so that the
Principality shall prove itself the most honest State in Europe,” Brock
said.
“The police, I believe, suspect me of shooting her,” said Hugh bluntly.
“That’s very awkward. Why?”
“Well--they don’t know the true reason I went to see her, or they
would never believe me to be guilty of a crime so much against my own
interests.”
Brock, who was still sitting up in bed in his pale blue silk pyjamas,
reflected a few moments.
“Well, Hugh,” he said at last, “after all it is only natural that they
should believe that you had a hand in the matter. Even though she told
you the truth, it is quite within reason that you should have suddenly
become incensed against her for the part she must have played in your
father’s mysterious death, and in a frenzy of anger you shot her.”
Hugh drew a long breath, and his eyebrows narrowed.
“By Jove! I had never regarded it in that light before!” he gasped. “But
what about the weapon?”
“You might easily have hidden it before the arrival of the police. You
admit that you went out on the veranda. Therefore if they do chance to
find the weapon in the garden then their suspicions will, no doubt, be
considerably increased. It’s a pity, old man, that you didn’t make a
clean breast of the motive of your visit.”
“I now see my horrible mistake,” Henfrey admitted. “I thought myself
wise to preserve silence, to know nothing, and now I see quite plainly
that I have only brought suspicion unduly upon myself. The police,
however, know Yvonne Ferad to be a somewhat mysterious person.”
“Which renders the situation only worse,” Brock said. Then, after a
pause, he added: “Now that you have declined to tell the police why you
visited the Villa Amette and have, in a way, defied them, it will
be best to maintain that attitude. Tell them nothing, no matter what
happens.”
“I intend to pursue that course. But the worst of it is, Walter, that
the doctors hold out no hope of Mademoiselle’s recovery. I saw Duponteil
half an hour ago, and he told me that he could give me no encouraging
information. The bullet has been extracted, but she is hovering between
life and death. I suppose it will be in the papers to-morrow, and
Dorise and her mother will know of my nocturnal visit to the house of a
notorious woman.”
“Don’t let that worry you, my dear chap. Here, they keep the news of all
tragedies out of the papers, because shooting affairs may be thought by
the public to be due to losses at the Rooms. Recollect that of all the
suicides here--the dozens upon dozens of poor ruined gamesters who are
yearly laid to rest in the Suicides’ Cemetery--not a single report has
appeared in any newspaper. So I think you may remain assured that Lady
Ranscomb and her daughter will not learn anything.”
“I sincerely hope they won’t, otherwise it will go very hard with me,”
Hugh said in a low, intense voice. “Ah! What a night it has been for
me!”
“And if Mademoiselle dies the assailant, whoever he was, will be guilty
of wilful murder; while you, on your part, will never know the truth
concerning your father’s death,” remarked the elder man, running his
fingers through his hair.
“Yes. That is the position of this moment. But further, I am suspected
of the crime!”
Brock dressed while his friend sat upon the edge of the bed, pale-faced
and agitated. Suppose that the assailant had flung his pistol into the
bushes, and the police eventually discovered it? Then, no doubt, he
would be put across the frontier to be arrested by the police of the
Department of the Alpes Maritimes.
Truly, the situation was most serious.
Together the two men strolled out into the early morning air and sat
upon a seat on the terrace of the Casino watching the sun as it rose
over the tideless sea.
For nearly an hour they sat discussing the affair; then they ascended
the white, dusty road to the beautiful Villa Amette, the home of the
mysterious Mademoiselle.
Old Giulio Cataldi opened the door.
“Alas! m’sieur, Mademoiselle is just the same,” he replied in response
to Hugh’s eager inquiry. “The police have gone, but Doctor Leneveu is
still upstairs.”
“Have the police searched the garden?” inquired Hugh eagerly.
“Yes, m’sieur. They made a thorough examination, but have discovered no
marks of footprints except those of yourself, myself, and a tradesman’s
lad who brought up a parcel late last night.”
“Then they found no weapon?” asked the young Englishman.
“No, m’sieur. There is no clue whatever to the assailant.”
“Curious that there should be no footmarks,” remarked Brock. “Yet they
found yours, Hugh.”
“Yes. The man must surely have left some trace outside!”
“One would certainly have thought so,” Brock said. “I wonder if we may
go into the room where the tragedy happened?” he asked of the servant.
“Certainly, m’sieur,” was the courteous reply, and he conducted them
both into the apartment wherein Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo had been
shot down.
“Did you accompany Mademoiselle when she went to London, Giulio?”
asked young Henfrey of the old Italian, after he had described to Brock
exactly what had occurred.
“Yes, m’sieur,” he replied. “I was at Cromwell Road for a short time.
But I do not care for London, so Mademoiselle sent me back here to look
after the Villa because old Jean, the concierge, had been taken to the
hospital.”
“When in London you knew some of Mademoiselle’s friends, I suppose?”
“A few--only a few,” was the Italian’s reply.
“Did you ever know a certain Mr. Benton?”
The old fellow shook his head blankly.
“Not to my knowledge, m’sieur,” he replied. “Mademoiselle had really
very few friends in London. There was a Mrs. Matthews and her husband,
Americans whom she met here in Monte Carlo, and Sir George Cave-Knight,
who died a few weeks ago.”
“Do you remember an elderly gentleman named Henfrey calling?” asked
Hugh.
Old Cataldi reflected for a moment, and then answered:
“The name sounds familiar to me, m’sieur, but in what connexion I cannot
recollect. That is your name, is it not?” he asked, remembering the card
he had taken to his mistress.
“Yes,” Hugh replied. “I have reason to believe that my late father was
acquainted with your mistress, and that he called upon her in London.”
“I believe that a gentleman named Henfrey did call, because when
I glanced at the card you gave me last night the name struck me as
familiar,” the servant said. “But whether he actually called, or whether
someone at table mentioned his name I really cannot recollect.”
“Ah! That’s a pity,” exclaimed Hugh with a sigh. “As a matter of fact it
was in order to make certain inquiries regarding my late father that I
called upon Mademoiselle last night.”
Giulio Cataldi turned in pretence of rearranging a chair, but in reality
to avert his face from the young man’s gaze--a fact which Hugh did not
fail to notice.
Had he really told the truth when he declared that he could not
recollect his father calling?
“How long were you in London with Mademoiselle?” asked Henfrey.
“About six weeks--not longer.”
Was it because of some untoward occurrence that the old Italian did not
like London, Hugh wondered.
“And you are quite sure that you do not recollect my father calling upon
your mistress?”
“As I have said, m’sieur, I do not remember. Yet I recall the name, as
it is a rather unusual one.”
“And you have never heard of Mr. Benton?”
Cataldi shook his head.
“Well,” Hugh went on, “tell me whether you entertain any suspicions
of anyone who might be tempted to kill your mistress. Mademoiselle has
enemies, has she not?”
“Who knows?” exclaimed the man with the grey moustache and small, black
furtive eyes.
“Everyone has enemies of one sort or another,” Walter remarked. “And
no doubt Mademoiselle has. It is for us to discover the enemy who shot
her.”
“Ah! yes, it is, m’sieur,” exclaimed the servant. “The poor Signorina! I
do hope that the police will discover who tried to kill her.”
“For aught we know the attempt upon the lady’s life may prove successful
after all,” said Hugh despairingly. “The doctors hold out no hope of her
recovery.”
“None. A third doctor has been in consultation--Doctor Bazin, from
Beaulieu. He only left a quarter of an hour ago. He told me that the
poor Signorina cannot possibly live! Ah! messieurs, how terrible all
this is--_povera Signorina_! She was always so kind and considerate to
us all.” And the old man’s voice trembled with emotion.
Walter Brock gazed around the luxurious room and at the long open window
through which streamed the bright morning sun, with the perfume of the
flowers outside. What was the mystery concerning Mademoiselle Yvonne?
What foundation had the gossips for those constant whisperings which had
rendered the handsome woman so notorious?
True, the story of the death of Hugh’s father was an unusually strange
one, curious in every particular--and stranger still that the secret was
held by this beautiful, but mysterious, woman who lived in such luxury,
and who gambled so recklessly and with invariable good fortune.
As they walked back to the town Hugh’s heart sank within him.
“She will die,” he muttered bitterly to himself. “She’ll die, and I
shall never learn the truth of the poor guv’nor’s sad end, or the reason
why I am being forced to marry Louise Lambert.”
“It’s an iniquitous will, Hugh!” declared his friend. “And it’s
infernally hard on you that just at the very moment when you could have
learnt the truth that shot was fired.”
“Do you think the woman had any hand in my father’s death?” Hugh asked.
“Do you think that she had repented, and was about to try and atone for
what she had done by confessing the whole affair?”
“Yes. That is just the view I take,” answered Brock. “Of course, we have
no idea what part she played in the business. But my idea is that she
alone knows the reason why this marriage with Louise is being forced
upon you.”
“In that case, then, it seems more than likely that I’ve been followed
here to Monte Carlo, and my movements watched. But why has she been
shot? Why did not her enemies shoot me? They could have done so twenty
times during the past few days. Perhaps the shot which hit her was
really intended for me?”
“I don’t think so. There is a monetary motive behind your marriage with
Louise. If you died, your enemy would gain nothing. That seems clear.”
“But who can be my secret enemy?” asked the young man in dismay.
“Mademoiselle alone knows that, and it was undoubtedly her intention to
warn you.”
“Yes. But if she dies I shall remain in ignorance,” he declared in
a hard voice. “The whole affair is so tangled that I can see nothing
clearly--only that my refusal to marry Louise will mean ruin to me--and
I shall lose Dorise in the bargain!”
Walter Brock, older and more experienced, was equally mystified. The
pessimistic attitude of the three doctors who had attended the injured
woman was, indeed, far from reassuring. The injury to the head caused by
the assailant’s bullet was, they declared, most dangerous. Indeed, the
three medical men marvelled that she still lived.
The two men walked through the palm-lined garden, bright with flowers,
back to their hotel, wondering whether news of the tragedy had yet got
abroad. But they heard nothing of it, and it seemed true, as Walter
Brock had declared, that the police make haste to suppress any tragic
happenings in the Principality.
Though they were unconscious of it, a middle-aged, well-dressed
Frenchman had, during their absence from the hotel, been making diligent
inquiries regarding them of the night concierge and some of the staff.
The concierge had recognized the visitor as Armand Buisson, of the
police bureau at Nice. It seemed as though the French police were unduly
inquisitive concerning the well-conducted young Englishman and his
companion.
Now, as a matter of fact, half an hour after Hugh had left the Villa
Amette, Ogier had telegraphed to Buisson in Nice, and the latter had
come along the Corniche road in a fast car to make his own inquiries
and observations upon the pair of Englishmen. Ogier strongly suspected
Henfrey of firing the shot, but was, nevertheless, determined to remain
inactive and leave the matter to the Prefecture of the Department
of Alpes Maritimes. Hence the reason that the well-dressed Frenchman
lounged in the hall of the hotel pretending to read the “Phare du
Littoral.”
Just before noon Hugh went to the telephone in the hotel and inquired of
Cataldi the progress of his mistress.
“She is just the same, m’sieur,” came the voice in broken English.
“_Santa Madonna!_ How terrible it all is! Doctor Leneveu has left, and
Doctor Duponteil is now here.”
“Have the police been again?”
“No, m’sieur. Nobody has been,” was the reply.
So Hugh rang off and crossed the hall, little dreaming that the
well-dressed Frenchman had been highly interested in his questions.
Half an hour later he went along to the Metropole, where he had an
engagement to lunch with Dorise and her mother.
When they met, however, Lady Ranscomb exclaimed:
“Why, Hugh, you look very pale. What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing,” he laughed forcedly. “I’m not very bright to-day. I think
it was the sirocco of yesterday that has upset me a little, that’s all.”
Then, while they were seated at table, Dorise suddenly exclaimed:
“Oh! do you know, mother, that young French lady over yonder, Madame
Jacomet, has just told me something. There’s a whisper that the
mysterious woman, Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, was shot during the night
by a discarded lover!”
“Shot!” exclaimed Lady Ranscomb. “Dear me! How very dreadful. What
really happened?”
“I don’t know. Madame Jacomet was told by her husband, who heard it in
Ciro’s this morning.”
“How terrible!” remarked Hugh, striving to remain calm.
“Yes. But women of her class invariably come to a bad end,” remarked the
widow. “How pleased I am, Dorise, that you never spoke to her. She’s a
most dreadful person, they say.”
“Well, she evidently knows how to win money at the tables, mother,” said
the girl, lifting her clear blue eyes to those of her lover.
“Yes. But I wonder what the scandal is all about?” said the widow of the
great engineer.