Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo

His marriage with Dorise, indeed his whole future, depended upon the disclosure of the clever plot whereby Louise Lambert was to become his wife.

His friend Brock was not in the hotel, so he went to his room to dress for dinner. Ten minutes later a page brought a message from Lady Ranscomb inviting him to go over to Nice to the ball.

He drew a long breath. He was in no mood for dancing that night, for he was far too perturbed regarding the critical condition of the notorious woman who had turned his friend.

On every hand there were whispers and wild reports concerning the tragedy at the Villa Amette. He had heard about it from a dozen people, though not a word was in the papers. Yet nobody dreamed that he, of all men, had been present when the mysterious shot was fired, or that he was, indeed, the cause of the secret attack.

He dressed slowly, and having done so, descended to the salle a manger. The big white room was filled with a gay, reckless cosmopolitan crowd—the crowd of well-dressed moths of both sexes which eternally flutters at night at Monte Carlo, attracted by the candle held by the great god Hazard.

Brock was not there, and he seated himself alone at their table near the long-curtained window. He was surprised at his friend’s absence. Perhaps, however, he had met friends and gone over to Beaulieu, Nice, or Mentone with them.

He had but little appetite. He ate a small portion of langouste with an exquisite salad, and drank a single glass of chablis. Then he rose and quitted the chattering, laughing crowd of diners, whose gossip was mainly upon a sensational run on the red at five o’clock that evening. One woman, stout and of Hebrew type, sitting with three men, was wildly merry, for she had won the equivalent to sixty thousand pounds.

All that recklessness jarred upon the young man’s nerves. He tried to close his ears to it all, and ascended again to his room, where he sat in silent despondency till it was time for him to go round to the Metropole to join Lady Ranscomb and Dorise.

He had brushed his hair and rearranged his tie, and was about to put on the pierrot’s costume of white satin with big buttons of black velvet which he had worn at the bal blanc at Mentone about a week before, when the page handed him another note.

Written in a distinctly foreign hand, it read:

“Instantly you receive this get into a travelling-suit and put what money and valuables you have into your pockets. Then go to a dark-green car which will await you by the reservoir in the Boulevard du Midi. Trust the driver. You must get over the frontier into Italy at the earliest moment. Every second’s delay is dangerous to you. Do not trouble to find out who sends you this warning! Bon voyage!”

Hugh Henfrey read it and re-read it. The truth was plain. The police of Monaco suspected him, and intended that he should be arrested on suspicion of having committed the crime.

But who was his unknown friend?

He stood at the window reflecting. If he did not keep his appointment with Dorise she would reproach him for breaking his word to her. On the other hand, if he motored to Nice he would no doubt be arrested on the French frontier a few miles along the Corniche road.

Inspector Ogier suspected him, hence discretion was the better part of valour. So, after brief consideration, he threw off his dress clothes and assumed a suit of dark tweed. He put his money and a few articles of jewellry in his pockets, and getting into his overcoat he slipped out of the hotel by the back entrance used by the staff.

Outside, he walked in the darkness along the Boulevard du Nord, past the Turbie station, until he came to the long blank wall behind which lay the reservoir.

At the kerb he saw the dim red rear-light of a car, and almost at the same moment a rough-looking Italian chauffeur approached him.

“Quick, signore!” he whispered excitedly. “Every moment is full of danger. There is a warrant out for your arrest! The police know that you intended to go to Nice and they are watching for you on the Corniche road. But we will try to get into Italy. You are an invalid, remember! You’ll find in the car a few things with which you can make up to look the part. You are an American subject and a cripple, who cannot leave the car when the customs officers search it. Now, signore, let’s be off and trust to our good fortune in getting away. I will tell the officers of the dogana at Ventimiglia a good story—trust me! I haven’t been smuggling backwards and forwards for ten years without knowing the ropes!”

“But where are we going?” asked Hugh bewildered.

“You, signore, are going to prison if we fail on this venture, I fear,” was the rough-looking driver’s reply.

So urged by him Hugh got into the car, and then they drove swiftly along the sea-road of the littoral towards the rugged Italian frontier.

Hugh Henfrey was going forth to face the unknown.

SEVENTH CHAPTER

FROM DARK TO DAWN

In the darkness the car went swiftly through Mentone and along the steep winding road which leads around the rugged coast close to the sea—the road over the yellow rocks which Napoleon made into Italy.

Presently they began to ascend a hill, a lonely, wind-swept highway with the sea plashing deep below, when, after a sudden bend, some lights came into view. It was the wayside Italian Customs House.

They had arrived at the frontier.

Hugh, by the aid of a flash-lamp, had put on a grey moustache and changed his clothes, putting his own into the suit case wherein he had found the suit already prepared for him. He had wrapped himself up in a heavy travelling-rug, and by his side reposed a pair of crutches, so that when they drew up before the little roadside office of the Italian dogana he was reclining upon a cushion presenting quite a pathetic figure.

But who had made all these preparations for his flight?

He held his breath as the chauffeur sounded his horn to announce his arrival. Then the door opened, shedding a long ray of light across the white dusty road.

“Buona sera, signore!” cried the chauffeur merrily, as a Customs officer in uniform came forward. “Here’s my driving licence and papers for the car. And our two passports.”

The man took them, examined them by the light of his electric torch, and told the chauffeur to go into the office for the visas.

“Have you anything to declare?” he added in Italian.

“Half a dozen very bad cigarettes,” replied the other, laughing. “They’re French! And also I’ve got a very bad cold! No duty on that, I suppose?”

The officer laughed, and then turned his attention to the petrol tank, into which he put his measuring iron to see how much it contained, while the facetious chauffeur stood by.

During this operation two other men came out of the building, one an Italian carabineer in epaulettes and cocked hat, while the other, tall and shrewd-faced, was in mufti. The latter was the agent of French police who inspects all travellers leaving France by road.

The chauffeur realized that the moment was a critical one.

He was rolling a cigarette unconcernedly, but bending to the Customs officer, he said in a low voice:

“My padrone is an Americano. An invalid, and a bit eccentric. Lots of money. A long time ago he injured his spine and can hardly move. He fell down a few days ago, and now I’ve got to take him to Professor Landrini, in Turin. He’s pretty bad. We’ve come from Hyeres. His doctor ordered me to take him to Turin at once. We don’t want any delay. He told me to give you this,” and he slipped a note for a hundred lire into the man’s hand.

The officer expressed surprise, but the merry chauffeur of the rich American exclaimed:

“Don’t worry. The Americano is very rich; I only wish there were more of his sort about. He’s the great Headon, the meat-canner of Chicago. You see his name on the tins.”

The man recognized the name, and at once desisted in his examination.

Then to the two police officers who came to his side, he explained:

“The American gentleman inside is an invalid, going to Turin to Professor Landrini. He wants to get off at once, for he has a long journey over the Alps.”

The French agent of police grunted suspiciously. Both the French and Italian police are very astute, but money always talks. It is the same at a far-remote frontier station as in any circle of society.

Here was a well-known American—the Customs officer had mentioned the name of Headon, which both police officers recognized—an invalid sent with all haste to the famous surgeon in Turin. It was not likely that he would be carrying contraband, or be an escaping criminal.

Besides, the chauffeur, in full view of the two police agents, slipped a second note into the hand of the Customs officer, and said:

“So all is well, isn’t it, signori? Just visa my papers, and we’ll get along. It looks as though we’re to have a bad thunderstorm, and, if so, we shall catch it up on the Col di Tenda!”

Thus impelled, the quartette went back to the well-lit little building, where the beetle-browed driver again chaffed the police-agents, while the Customs officer placed his rubber stamp upon the paper, scribbled his initials and charged three-lire-twenty as fee.

All this was being watched with breathless anxiety by the supposed invalid reclining against the cushion with his crutches at his side.