“With great pleasure, Mademoiselle,” the man answered, standing hat in hand. “Mademoiselle will stay at the Hôtel de Paris?”
“Mademoiselle intends to do so,” she told him, handing over a more than adequate pourboire.
She stepped gaily into the voiture, and at the very sight of her happiness the porter smiled as he received his bénéfice with a sweeping bow.
“Welcome to Monte Carlo, Mademoiselle. It is the first visit—yes?” he asked, as he drew on one side.
“The first visit,” she admitted, waving her adieux.
Again the cocher cracked his whip, the vehicle rattled up the hill, and she looked about her with the eager interest of the young woman who has ventured into a new world. She laughed aloud with happiness as the voiture crossed the Place. Everything was as she had fancied it—the fantastic façade of that nightmare of architecture, the Casino, the wide-flung door of the Hôtel de Paris flanked with its huge pots of scarlet geraniums, even the black Senegalese in his marvellous livery. There were the flowers, the music, the sunshine, the soft air, the snow-capped mountains in the distance—everything of which she had dreamed. She almost ran up the steps of the hotel into the arms of the Chief of the Reception, who was waiting to welcome her.
“I wrote from Paris,” she told him. “My name is Haskell—Miss Joan Haskell.”
The man bowed.
“Everything is as you have desired, Mademoiselle,” he declared. “You have one of our best rooms on the second floor. If Mademoiselle will give herself the trouble to come this way—”
Mademoiselle was perfectly content to follow her guide. She passed lightly across the hall into the lift.
“Tell me, does the sun always shine like this in February?” she asked.
“Very nearly always,” her companion assured her. “To-day it is with pleasure to welcome your arrival. Mademoiselle has been long in Europe?”
“Some years,” the girl answered. “In Paris only long enough to do a little shopping.”
“Mademoiselle is alone?”
“Quite alone. American girls are used to travelling alone, you know,” she added as the lift stopped and her guide stood back for her to pass out.
“We have many of your country people here always,” he confided. “We are very pleased to see them. They are good clients. We shall endeavour to make your stay an agreeable one, Mademoiselle. To begin with—this room—it is to your taste—yes?” he asked, throwing open the door of a very delightful apartment.
The girl drew a little breath of pleasure as she looked out of the window towards Mont Agel and down into the gardens bright with colour and bathed in sunshine.
“It is very much to my taste—this apartment,” she laughed; “but what about my pocket?”
“It is one of the best,” the man pointed out. “We will quote a low price to Mademoiselle, though. Shall we say two hundred and fifty francs?”
“There is a bathroom, of course?” she enquired.
“But Mademoiselle!” he expostulated, throwing open the inner door. “A bathroom of the best, with shower. We have rooms at a lower price, of course.”
The girl sighed.
“I shall take this one,” she announced. “It is more than I thought, but it is perfect. When I have lost all my money I shall sit on the balcony and watch the poor idiots streaming in there to do the same.”
“It is not everyone who loses,” he reminded her. “Many of our clients have taken fortunes home with them. One young lady, of about your own age I should think, won a hundred thousand francs last week.”
“Don’t dazzle me,” she smiled. “Send my trunks up, please, when they come.”
“Parfaitement. I hope that Mademoiselle will enjoy her stay.”
With a courteous bow he took his leave. Mademoiselle, as though drawn by a magnet, turned once more to the window. She wheeled an easy chair out on to the balcony, took a cigarette from her case, lit it and began to smoke. The smile had left her lips. She had become a little thoughtful, even though her eyes were still fixed upon the gay scene below.
“Two hundred and fifty francs a day,” she soliloquized. “That is one thousand, seven hundred and fifty francs a week. Eighty-eight dollars. Say I hold out for a month. Something should happen before then.”
She threw aside her abstraction, drew her chair a little closer to the rails of the balcony, watched the people entering the Casino, listened to the music and marvelled at the deep blue of the sea. She was blissfully happy.
The third person to pass through the barricade, to deliver over his ticket with a little gesture of relief and to pass his slip for registered luggage on to the porter, once more differed entirely from either of his two predecessors. He was a tall, good-looking man of early middle age, fresh-complexioned, broad-shouldered and with a general air of prosperity, happiness and well-being. There was a touch of distinction, too, in his tweed clothes, well-cut overcoat and the tilt of his smart Homburg hat. He welcomed the beaming concierge with a slap on the back.
“How are you, François?” he enquired. “Looking as miserable as ever, I see! Is there room for a small person like me in the bus or shall I take a petite voiture?”
The man was obviously flattered by this greeting from an old patron.
“If I were your lordship,” he suggested, “I should take a little carriage. We have a great deal of luggage to collect yet.”
A hopeful-looking cocher who had been watching the proceedings brought his horse up at a gallop. The tall man scrambled in, paused to light a cigarette and leaned back with an air of supreme content.
“If it isn’t my old friend,” he exclaimed, smiling at the driver. “Here, Jacko!”
Without a moment’s hesitation the little dog perched upon the front seat jumped on to the knee of the passenger and commenced to lick his hand furiously.
“Jacko is like that,” his master confided, as he cracked his whip. “Never does he forget an old friend and a good patron.”
“Jacko without his fleas,” the occupant of the voiture declared, “would be a marvellous companion. Why don’t you wash him sometimes, my friend?”
The cocher shrugged his shoulders. It was one of those questions which one does not answer. He drove his distinguished passenger up the hill and swung round, surmounted the lesser gradient and passed into the full beauty of the Place. His lordship drew in a long breath of supreme satisfaction. He smiled at the Casino, waved his hand to one or two acquaintances who were sitting outside the Café de Paris, moved his forefinger to the time of the music which the Hungarian orchestra was playing, overpaid Jacko’s master, shook hands with the Senegalese door porter, and disappeared into the comparative gloom of the hotel. He passed through the large entrance hall, where again he was greeted on every side with vociferous welcomes. The manager himself came hastening forward.
“This is a great pleasure, your lordship,” the latter declared. “Your old suite is prepared, the servants already await your arrival there. If your lordship would be so good as to follow me . . .”
The newcomer, Lord Henry Maitland Lancaster, who was the third son of a genuine duke, followed the manager to the second floor, inspected the suite, demanded a few extra pieces of furniture and approved.
“Capital, mon ami,” he declared. “I stay here for two months. Everything as usual—the same newspapers, the same hours for calling, and mark you, Monsieur Mollinet, the same discretion if it pleases me to entertain a little lady for dinner at any time.”
Monsieur Mollinet coughed.
“I quite understand, your lordship,” he said. “By-the-by, Madame Céline occupies the suite above this. She is to sing in ‘Louise’ within the next three weeks.”
“Intriguing,” the other observed. “In any case, I shall love to hear her sing. A great opera—‘Louise.’ And now, Monsieur Mollinet, I shall trouble you to give orders that your servants await the arrival of the faithful William, that more flowers be put in my room and my trunks suitably bestowed. But firs
t a small apéritif in the bar with you.”
“I am deeply honoured, your lordship,” the manager replied.
The two men walked down the passage and Monsieur Mollinet, with a bow, pushed open the swing door and ushered his old client into the bar.
Perhaps, of all the newcomers to Monte Carlo on that sunny February morning, the person who had not travelled by the Blue Train was feeling the most complete satisfaction at his safe arrival in the Principality. A slim, fair man, with lean, sunburnt face, dressed in nautical clothes, wearing a rimless monocle and a cap with a Squadron badge pushed a little far back on his head, he stood on the deck of the newly arrived motor cruiser, the Silver Shadow, smoking a cigarette, directing the final efforts of the pilot to whom he had just relinquished the wheel, and the seaman who had already stepped on to the quay and was busy attaching a rope to one of the fixed iron rings.
“All fast, sir,” the latter reported, as the yacht finally came into position.
The owner nodded.
“Let down the gangway,” he ordered. “And you, John,” he added, turning to the white-coated steward who stood by his side, “fetch me one of those little carriages from the top there.”
The youth hurried off, pausing only for a moment to secure the light wooden gangway.
A man stepped out of the wheelhouse. Something about him seemed out of character with the trim appearance of the yacht. He wore a nautical blue shirt open at the throat and a pair of soiled mariner’s trousers. His jet black hair was tousled and unbrushed. He was olive-skinned, with narrow eyes, black as his hair, almost unnaturally bright. His mouth was bitter and unpleasing. The slight tinge of respect with which he addressed his master seemed infused into his speech with difficulty. He spoke in French with a Niçois accent, obviously that of his native tongue.
“I want twenty-four hours’ leave, sir. The other two they remain on board. They have no friends in the port.”
“Have you?” his employer asked.
“In Nice,” the man replied. “I am a Niçois. Monsieur would be pleased to grant me a portion of my pay?”
Townleyes drew out a wallet from the inside pocket of his double-breasted coat and held out a five-hundred-franc note. The man stowed it away in a battered cigar case.
“Report in twenty-four hours,” Townleyes told him.
“Monsieur will not be leaving port?” the man asked.
“I shall be here for twenty-four hours, anyhow,” was the curt reply.
The little carriage came rattling along the quay and drew up opposite the gangway. The cocher touched his hat with his whip and Jacko for the second time that morning emitted shrill barks of welcome. Townleyes stepped lightly down the gangway, greeted the driver with a pleasant nod and patted the dog. He leaned back amongst the frowsy cushions with a sigh of content.
“The Hôtel de Paris,” he ordered. “Bar entrance.”
“Parfaitement, Monsieur.”
The cocher cracked his whip; Jacko, with his colony of fleas, leaped down on the passenger’s knee. Townleyes’ air, as he looked around him, was one of complete satisfaction. The leather seat of the voiturewas hard and its upholstery soiled, the driver had recently had a meal containing garlic and Jacko needed a bath. Nevertheless, he had arrived. He was in Monte Carlo. Above him the sun was shining and a soft breeze swept in his face as they swung round into the main road. The white villas with their red roofs stretching like an amphitheatre around the bay, the crazy Casino, the smooth pleasant curving front of the Hôtel de Paris, the blaze of colour in the gardens—all was exactly as he had hoped to find it. Pleasure, distraction, rest—they were all here. He drew a little sigh of relief. He had really had rather a strenuous time during the last few weeks.
Suddenly the blow fell. The sigh of relief was choked in his throat. Standing on the gravel path, the French windows of the small suite from which he had just issued open behind him, was a quiet-looking gentleman wearing dark spectacles, his hands behind his back, gazing seawards, apparently enjoying the view. A more harmless-looking individual to all appearance it would have been impossible to find in the whole Principality, but Townleyes, the Right Honourable Sir Julian Townleyes, Bart., knew very well that from that moment his days of tranquillity were numbered.
CHAPTER II
Table of Contents
THE entrance of Mollinet, the manager of the Hôtel de Paris, into the bar, accompanied by his distinguished patron, created something in the nature of a sensation. One or two men rose from their places and came over to shake hands with the new arrival. Several women waved their hands. Phyllis Mallory, the famous tennis player, even threw him a kiss. Nina de Broussoire, the French danseuse, who was seated by herself on one of the high stools, triumphed now in the isolation which a moment or two before had made her peevish, and was the first to offer her greetings to this popular visitor.
“Where are the De Hochepierres?” Lord Henry asked Colonel Brinlinton, the secretary of the Tennis Club, who had hurried up to pay his respects.
The latter glanced at the clock.
“They will be along in a few minutes,” he replied. “We have made a sort of a club of the round table in the window at the bottom. Just the old gang—Phyllis Mallory, Maurice Donnithorne and Foxley Brent, who has just turned up from Deauville, and of course the Domiloffs.”
“What about Dolly Parker?”
“Oh, she’s one of ’em, naturally. She’s playing tennis this morning. I left her in the middle of a set.”
Lord Henry smiled happily.
“Jove, it’s good to be here, Brinlinton,” he declared. “If you had had a month of our fogs! Why, we had to break up the last shooting party I was at in Norfolk. To think that I can push open my windows and look out on that sea in the mornings and let the sunlight into my room makes me feel young again!”
“Monsieur is always young and always gay,” the little lady on the stool observed.
Her neighbour patted her back gently.
“Meet me, my child,” he groaned, “on Blakeney Marshes towards dusk when the keeper’s whistle has sounded and we are bending forward trying to peer into the mist, not a thing to be seen and our trigger fingers pretty well numbed. Then there is a sudden rustle and the birds we have been trying to get a shot at, standing in the biting cold for over an hour, go swooping by—not one of them visible! You won’t find me gay then, I can promise you! . . . Any chance of a knock-up at tennis this afternoon, Brinlinton?”
“Rather,” was the prompt reply. “I’ll get it up for you. Ah, here’s Domiloff at last. I thought he would have been here to greet you.”
A man of apparently early middle age, notable even in that crowded place for his air of distinction, entered the bar from the Place du Casino and came swiftly through the room to the farther end of the counter.
“My dear Henry!” he exclaimed, holding out both hands. “This is delightful! I meant to get down to the station to meet you but at the last moment there was a rush and I found it difficult to get away. Now at last Monte Carlo is itself again. Pretty fit, I hope?”
“I’m all right now I’m here,” was the hearty response. “Who would not be? And you? But you never vary.”
Domiloff smiled a little cryptically. His eyes were bright, his mouth firm and steady and there were as yet only thin streaks of grey in his hair. Nevertheless, there were deep lines in his face. He possessed the easy, gracious manners of a diplomatist. His voice was pleasant, his carriage still full of vitality. He seemed to bring with him the atmosphere of great places, reminiscent of the Court of St. Petersburg, at which he had been a famous figure.
“Life has been a little strenuous lately,” he confessed, “but one survives.”
Louis, the head barman, who had hurried up to pay his respects to the unofficial ruler of the Principality, produced as though by magic a cocktail shaker, poured out its contents and handed the result to the man he worshipped. The latter poised the glass for a moment delicately between his thumb and first finger, then he
threw his head back and drank. He set down the glass empty.
“You choose always the right moment, Louis,” he said quietly. “Two more of those. His lordship will join me, I am sure.”
The latter nodded. The little girl by his side had slipped away for a moment and the two men were alone.
“In town one has been hearing curious rumours about this place, Baron,” Lord Henry confided. “Is there any truth in them?”
Domiloff’s features were a study of impassivity. He was gazing out of the opened door through which one caught a glimpse of the gardens and the Café de Paris beyond. He looked through the lacework of the swaying boughs to the splash of colour created by the gay uniforms of the Hungarian orchestra. He listened for a moment to the throb of the music pleasantly blended with the murmuring voices of the crowd who were taking their morning apéritifs in the gardens. He looked away and answered his companion’s question indifferently, almost casually.
“There is always gossip about this place,” he remarked. “More fools the people who talk about what they do not understand. This time, however, there is some foundation for the rumours which you may have heard and which you will know more about in a few days. We have had to make some changes in the Constitution.”
Lord Henry leaned forward and glanced out of the window across the harbour towards the Palace. He looked back at his companion, who smiled faintly and shook his head.
“No one there,” he confided. “Between ourselves, I do not think there will be just yet. That particular trouble comes not from us but from the people down in Monaco. We have had to take sides, of course. For the first time in my life I find myself on the side of democracy.”
“It is not going to affect you personally, I hope?” the other asked bluntly.
Domiloff shook his head.
“No fear of that,” he replied. “I have done more real honest work in this place than I ever did before in my life and I believe the fact has been appreciated. We will talk of this again later. Here come Lydia and our friends. Lucille is prettier than ever and breaking more hearts. We must go over and join them.”
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 477
