“Thank you very much,” was the not too gracious reply. “Au revoir, then.”
He passed on. Rudolph touched his companion on the arm.
“Who is the stiff little man who seems to watch nobody, and yet watches everybody,” he asked, “on the seat there with a newspaper in his hand?”
Joan walked on for a few paces before she answered.
“I don’t know who he is,” she admitted. “His name is Ardrossen. I have been told that he is a Swedish timber merchant and again that he is an English chartered accountant. He plays Baccarat and he possesses more than anyone I ever knew the gift of silence. There is one thing more. He has the most wonderful double going about, or he is the most marvellous liar in the world.”
“He was pretending not to notice us but he was trying to hear all we said,” Rudolph remarked uneasily.
“You are getting too full of fancies,” she told him. “Wait until you get on the move again before you begin to worry.”
“I shall keep my word, of course, unless the Baron changes his mind,” he said, “but I am not too anxious to make that move. I am pretty certain that those two ruffians who were over at Beaulieu are still hanging around.”
She reflected for a moment. Probably he was right. There was murder in those men’s faces—that eager, lustful desire to kill which most people in the world know only from imagination. She had seen and recognized it.
“But what have you done?” she demanded, “that anyone should want to kill you? To be a banker seems to me a harmless occupation.”
“I am also supposed to be a politician,” he reminded her. “Everyone knew that I found the money for Rothmann’s paper.”
“But nowadays, except in Russia,” she argued, “men are not killed because of their political views.”
“What about Spain?”
“Spain is different. There is a civil war going on there.”
“There is a civil war going on in nearly every country of the world,” he told her. “The only thing is that it has burst through the soil in Spain and come out on the surface. In many other countries the battle is being fought just as furiously, but under the crust of the earth. Some day there may be a simultaneous eruption and then all the nations of the world will be fighting.”
“You must be very unhappy if you believe all this,” she said.
“In my calmer moments,” he replied, “I am a fatalist. I am not at all unhappy. I play polo, I play golf, I keep race horses, I have a flat in Paris for the sake of the theatres. I should keep a mistress there if that sort of thing amused me. I get as much out of life as other people but I know what is coming all the same.”
“I am not going to be frightened out of my life,” she declared, “especially on a glorious morning like this, with the music playing and the sun shining. You know that I came here for a holiday, and I have just had more than one glorious week of it. I am not going to be disturbed.”
“It is not my desire to talk seriously,” he assured her. “I will be as frivolous as you like. Shall I borrow that man’s Tyrolean hat and a monkey and a lute and sing to you of Avalon? You could go round and collect the francs.”
“That is a much better note,” she laughed. “Seriously, where can you lunch?”
“Anywhere in the Principality,” he groaned.
“My dear man,” she scolded him, “why make such a hardship of it? Why don’t you get one of those small tables for two on the terrace of the hotel and invite me to look after you?”
“I should love it,” he declared eagerly.
“But only on condition that you don’t talk politics,” she warned him.
“We will talk of Heine and of the great loves of the world,” he promised. “Nothing of this ugly life.”
“Ugly life, indeed,” she remonstrated. “Look around you!”
“Look inside,” he countered quickly. “But then what should you know of it? You and your kind are the prizes for the survivors.”
She turned away from him a little impatiently. He was a difficult person to talk to in the midst of a gay and fashionable crowd. His fine features, his eyes full of fire, even his somewhat unkempt clothes, gave him an almost Byronic appearance. The soft cadence of his voice, through which rang so often those notes of passion, was unusual. She felt suddenly a little embarrassed and waved her hand to Foxley Brent, a well-known international boulevardier who dressed like a coxcomb but had the voice of a lion, and who was now exercising his favourite mastiff a few yards ahead. He paused at once.
“I am glad to see, young lady,” he said, “that you are not one of those who misuse the morning by staying in bed. You were up as late as I was,—I saw you dancing at four o’clock this morning,—but here we both are—you at twenty and I at seventy, as fresh as paint. Diana, shake hands with the young lady.”
The dog sank on to its haunches and extended its paw, which Joan smoothed gently.
“Famous dog, that,” he confided. “Seven first prizes last year. Two this year already. I’ll show her in Paris next month and get another.”
He glanced curiously at the girl’s companion. She murmured a word of introduction.
“Any relation to the New York bankers?” Foxley Brent enquired.
“The heads of the firm are my cousins.”
“I know one of ’em—Nicholas Sagastrada—quite well. He does a bit of racing in the States. Sent some horses over to Nice one year but never did much good with them. I wish you good-morning, young lady, and you, too, sir. There is little Ninette over there from the night club. I must go and pat her on the back for getting up so early.”
He ambled off. Rudolph laughed softly to himself.
“How he hated my clothes, that old dandy,” he remarked. “He just could not take his eyes off my soft collar. It is a spick-and-span world here, is it not?”
“You can’t blame them,” she replied. “These people who come here just for a month’s holiday are different, of course, but the habitués cannot have very much to think about beside their gambling and their clothes. One seems so cut off,” she went on. “All sorts of things may be happening in the outside world but they seem unreal when we read of them down here.”
He nodded.
“The brain does not act normally,” he observed. “Moonshine instead of sunshine. The whole sonata of life written in a minor key. Tell me which table I am to engage for luncheon, please.”
They had reached the far end of the Terrace. They mounted the steps and crossed the road.
“That one in the corner,” she pointed out.
“I shall have to go up to the bank again for a few moments,” he said.
“Then I will order the table,” she told him. “Why do you draw any more money? Much better get drafts on the place you are going to when you leave here.”
He smiled rather thinly.
“I would if I knew where it was,” he replied as he waved his hat and started up the hill. . . .
Joan met Monsieur Mollinet, the hotel manager, in the lounge. He paused for a moment to pay his respects.
“Mademoiselle is finding Monte Carlo all that she expected?” he asked.
“A great deal more,” she assured him. “I think it is the most wonderful place in the universe. Everyone has been so kind to me, too. One makes friends here more easily than anywhere else in the world.”
The smile faded from his lips. He was watching Mr. Ardrossen crossing the foyer.
“Nevertheless,” he ventured, “one should have perhaps a little care. There are strange people who come here, you know, as well as charming ones. Mademoiselle is content with her room? There is nothing one can do for her?”
“You can tell the maître d’hôtel to keep that small table for two in the corner of the terrace there,” she pointed out, “at about half-past one.”
“It shall be done,” Monsieur Mollinet promised, making his bow and turning towards the restaurant. “It is perhaps fortunate that Mademoiselle addressed herself to me. The table was engaged bu
t given up by the Duc d’Orvieto only a quarter of an hour ago, and it happened to be I who received the telephone message. You would like to order lunch, Mademoiselle?”
“I think,” she told him, “we will wait for inspiration.”
The first inspiration of Joan and her luncheon companion took them to the famous cocktail bar. The back row of easy chairs was filled and the rest of the place was rather a scrimmage, so they seated themselves upon high stools and indulged in light conversation with Louis while he mixed their cocktails. Louis, as he concluded that last delicate operation of hanging the twisted lemon rind over the side of the frosted glasses, leaned forward.
“Mademoiselle on her first morning here,” he said in a low tone, “begged me to point out any notabilities.”
“Quite right, Louis,” she assented eagerly. “Has anyone fresh arrived?”
Louis looked around for a moment with well assumed carelessness. Then he leaned forward once more.
“The stout gentleman with the grey moustache—he looks like a soldier—with his hair cut short—”
“Yes, yes,” she interrupted. “Who is he?”
“His name is General Müller. He flew to Marseilles from somewhere in the north of Europe, and came on by the Blue Train.”
There was a very grim look upon Rudolph’s face. Joan was still all eagerness.
“But who is he?” she asked. “I never heard of him.”
The barman smiled.
“I shall take the pleasure of mixing you another cocktail,” he said, commencing the task. “This time I can see I must be very careful with the vermouth. So. Just one drop of Italian, I think. Mademoiselle, the gentleman I pointed out is the head of a new international police force.”
“What on earth is he doing down here?”
Louis smiled cryptically.
“I do not suppose any one of us is likely to know that. He arrived with a secretary and an attendant who looks as though for the first time in his life he is out of uniform. The secretary is out somewhere now. One does not know their business. And Mademoiselle,” Louis concluded as he prepared to obey an urgent call elsewhere, “it is perhaps wiser not to wish to know.”
She turned to Rudolph. His face was expressionless, but his eyes were half-closed and she fancied that those long, delicate fingers of his were trembling.
“Courage, mon ami,” she whispered. “He is not likely to have come all this way, and so quickly, after you.”
Rudolph made no reply. His fingers strayed out towards his glass, held it firmly for a moment as though for a test, and then, raising it to his lips, he drained its contents. At that moment the swing doors were thrown open. Baron Domiloff, bareheaded and with his hands in his pockets, strolled in. He glanced round the room quickly, nodded to a few intimates, but, somewhat to Joan’s surprise, passed her and her companion without any greeting. He gave his left hand to Foxley Brent, who had just entered, and patted the mastiff. Then, as though recognizing him for the first time, he crossed to where General Müller was seated. He drew a chair from a small empty table.
“You permit?” he asked smiling as he seated himself.
The big man half-rose and made a courteous bow. His voice when he spoke was unexpectedly low.
“It is without a doubt the Baron Domiloff?” he said.
The Baron nodded, tapped a cigarette on the table and looked for a moment out of the window.
“I have just received a visit from your secretary,” he said. “If you would step up to my office with me we could converse more agreeably.”
The General nodded acquiescence and rose to his feet.
“I am at your disposition, Baron,” he agreed. “You understand that the business is urgent.”
“My dear General, yes,” was the quiet reply. “All I shall ask you to remember is,” he went on, as they threaded their way through the tables, “that business is a word we do not often hear in Monte Carlo, and haste is unknown. I will do what I can to meet the situation which your secretary has explained to me, but it is not an easy matter.”
The General laid his hand upon the other’s shoulder.
“I have a letter in my pocket,” he confided, “which will perhaps change your attitude, Monsieur le Baron.”
Domiloff held open the swing door with a little bow.
“A year ago, most certainly, mon général,” he said. “Six months ago—perhaps. To-day—”
“Well—to-day?” the General repeated.
“It is the period of doubt,” was Domiloff’s cryptic reply as the door swung to after them.
CHAPTER XIV
Table of Contents
RUDOLPH recovered his spirits in amazing fashion as soon as the two were seated at their pleasantly placed luncheon table in the angle of the terrace.
“I suppose you think I am a terrible coward,” he reflected, as they played with the hors d’œuvres and sipped some wonderful White Hermitage which he had found listed in a corner of the wine card. “I think sometimes that I am a coward. I think that all intellectuals must now and then feel fear because their apprehensions are more sensitive and vital.”
“I don’t blame you,” Joan assured him. “The only thing is that I don’t quite see what it’s all about.”
“If you did,” he said grimly, “you would not be sitting there quite so calmly. You have never heard, I suppose, of General Müller?”
She glanced vaguely across towards the glimpses of blue sea visible through the swaying boughs of the trees.
“General Müller . . .” she repeated. “You mean the man Louis pointed out just now? I never heard of him before.”
“In the innermost official circles of my country,” he said, “General Müller has been the man of blood. How on earth they have been able to spare him to come down here I cannot imagine. If it is really to make sure of taking my head back on a charger—I am flattered. Those other two butchers are hanging about still, I see. Look at them! One actually on the steps of the hotel talking to the Senegalese, the other on the seat with his back to the gardens.”
“Heavens!” Joan exclaimed. “How dare they come here? Why don’t you send word to the Baron?”
Rudolph laughed at his companion’s gesture of consternation.
“Do not let them worry you, my dear friend,” he said quietly. “I think they are better left alone. They are simply butchers. They would think nothing of killing me in the way of business but they are not out to risk their own skins. So long as there are plenty of people around, I am safe from them.”
“What did they want you for up at the bank?” she asked a moment or two later.
He smiled.
“Nothing to do with money,” he told her. “Just a word or two of warning. That is all. . . . Now advise me, Miss Joan. I have an unlimited credit. What shall I do with it? Shall I take the bank at Baccarat or shall I buy the Casino?”
“Wouldn’t that be rather amusing?”
He shook his head doubtfully.
“A plaything one would soon tire of.”
“It must seem strange,” she reflected, “to be so overpoweringly wealthy. Tell me what you would rather do than anything else in the world.”
“Bargain with the Almighty,” he answered quickly. “Hand in my life to-day and be born again in a hundred years.”
“What an odd idea!”
“It seems so, but think. There is no hope, no possible chance of any world settlement in any lesser space of time. The men who live to-day will have to toil for the sake of posterity. What is the good of that? Fifty—seventy years of blundering progress. We can only prepare the way. We can give our passions and our energies and our wealth, what we have of genius—and we die like everyone else before our task is accomplished. Two generations later may reap the benefit. We ourselves shall see nothing of the new world. A man needs to have a will of iron to stick at it. Sometimes I feel terribly weak. I would like to give it all up, just give myself to music and to love and to sunshine, to sailing my boat and racing my horses
, drinking the fine wines of France and Germany and having with me always the one person who made life for me. Why not? Why do any of us sacrifice our lives, I wonder?”
“Fortunately for posterity,” Joan confessed, “I am not called upon to make any of those sacrifices. It seems to me that one would have to have a very strong moral or religious urge to deliberately sacrifice so much for the coming generation.”
“Well, perhaps I will not do a thing about it,” he decided, sipping the fine Burgundy which the sommelier had just brought them reverently in a cradle. “Smell it, my dear companion. It is like violets, violets happy to be released from that dull bottle—asking for the sunshine. Tell me about yourself. Have you ever been engaged? Have you had lovers? Have you had ambitions?”
“I have been engaged once at College in America,” she answered. “It only lasted a term or two. We had no future, either of us, and flirtations did not amuse me.”
“You could never be like some of these great women of history,” he meditated. “Take a lover for a week, a month, a year, to help you drink more deeply of the wine of life, then finish at a second’s notice, with a crop of memories like flowers that never fade—memories to bring out and dwell upon when life went ill. I had a dear friend, I remember, who fashioned her life in that way. She needed love and she took it. Then when the time came that she had to make a great alliance, she put it all away. She had her memories. They were all that she wanted out of that side of life. She is still doing her duty—a great lady in a great place.”
“Wild sort of talk—all this to me—a humble secretarial journalist, with two maiden aunts in Washington!” Joan declared. “I would have you know, Mr. Rudolph Sagastrada, that I am a well-brought-up American and you are talking of life in a manner which we do not understand.”
“You are not plastic enough yet,” he told her. “You have not soul enough. It may come to you some day.”
“Not to me,” she answered. “I have not the slightest objection to hearing you talk in this wild fashion and it doesn’t matter to me how many lovers the Princess, for instance, or any of our friends, might have. I have a limitless toleration for everyone except myself.”
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