“Perfectly.”
“And you, Baron?”
Domiloff shrugged his shoulders. He knew already a great deal more about the affair than Monsieur Regnier was likely to learn in many times forty-eight hours.
“May heaven guide you, my friend,” he observed.
Then he rang the bell. Monsieur Regnier shook hands with everyone. He turned and made a comprehensive salute of farewell. At the last moment, he paused and whispered in Domiloff’s ear, a whisper to which the latter inclined his head. A final smile and Monsieur Regnier followed Henri from the room.
CHAPTER XXV
Table of Contents
ABSOLUTELY unrecognizable in his linen coat, his disfiguring cap and his extra large-sized motoring glasses, Ardrossen drove his car that morning out through the back streets of the Principality up into the hills behind. Arrived on the Corniche, his foot pressed a little more insistently upon the accelerator. He glanced at the dial. Fifty—sixty—seventy—eighty. In twenty minutes he was in Nice. Five minutes later he turned off one of the main boulevards into a quiet tree-bordered street of well-kept and prosperous appearance. He pulled up in the shade of the lime trees, descended, locked the car, pushed back the fine oak door opposite to him, made his way to an automatic lift and mounted to the fourth floor. Here he stepped out, despatched the ascenseur on its downward journey, walked quietly to the end of the thickly carpeted corridor and entered a small salon in the centre of which was a table laid for luncheon. The French windows were open and the woman who had been leaning over the balcony turned round with a little exclamation at his entrance.
“I watched you come,” she cried, as she stepped swiftly back into the room. “How well you drive. Take off those horrible things and let me see you.”
He accepted her embrace very much in the way he had accepted her embrace in the dark mysterious-looking hall of the house at Monaco.
“I have had a great deal of practice in my life,” he said calmly, as he drew off his gloves, abandoned his linen coat and removed the disfiguring glasses. “I am not late?”
Her eyebrows were slightly lifted. There was a faint note of exasperation in her tone.
“Mon cher,” she protested, “have you ever in your life been late for anything? Have you ever broken an appointment? Have you ever failed in anything you set out to do?”
“Not often,” he admitted.
She rang the bell. A maid, who was the picture of neatness in white cap and apron, hurried in. Her mistress ordered luncheon.
“Tout de suite, Madame,” the woman assented, curtseying to the newcomer. “Monsieur va bien?”
He nodded gravely.
“Et vous, Marie?”
“Toujours la même chose, Monsieur,” she replied. “Monsieur désire l’apéritif?”
“Comme d’habitude, Marie.”
She prepared the drinks at the sideboard—mixed vermouths, apparently, with a little curl of lemon hanging on the glass and insinuating itself downwards. She handed them on a silver salver. Madame took hers and blew a kiss to Monsieur. Monsieur gravely acknowledged the salute and drank his own. They seated themselves at the table. Almost immediately Marie reappeared. She removed the cover from a beautiful china dish and revealed the omelette below—perfect in colour and texture and with the steam curling gently upwards. Madame divided it and Marie passed the plate. She waited anxiously.
“Exquise,” Mr. Ardrossen pronounced with a grave movement of the head.
Marie was satisfied. She poured out white wine from a dust-covered bottle. There were cutlets which followed, trimly shaped and perfectly cooked with new peas and a fresh salad. Deep yellow Gruyère cheese, apples and coffee steaming hot concluded the meal. Madame rose to her feet with a smile. She stood over her guest, holding a match for his cigarette, a little full in the figure but a beautiful woman, neat from the single line of rare lace around her neck to the tips of her patent shoes. Her hands were well but not over manicured. Her brown eyes, which were fixed upon her companion, were full of worship.
“Your cuisine, as always, is perfect, Hortense,” he said.
He raised to his lips the hand which was held out to him. She accepted his salute with a little blush of pleasure.
“I was afraid you would not be able to leave,” she remarked. “Pierre told me that the situation in Monaco was still critical.”
“Nothing untoward is likely to happen,” he assured her calmly. “This morning your husband has broken through all precedent. He announced his intention of lunching to-day in his rooms with the Baron and some of the frequenters of the place.”
She seemed indifferent.
“A year ago,” she confessed, “that would have made me furious, that he should go there without me. Now I do not care. I ask myself sometimes about you, Stephen. Is it that you have mesmerized me? What is it that seems to have sapped away my own will—that has made me a slave? I was a woman who lived as other women, a year ago.”
“And again, when the moment comes,” he told her, “you will be a woman living as other women.”
“All the time,” she confessed, sinking into an easy chair, “I ache to throw myself into your arms and I never do. It is just because I dare not. How do you hold me in such a grasp, Stephen? I have to wait and wait, and when you give sometimes it is grudgingly, but I seem to have fallen into the habit of restraint. I offer nothing—I wait. When I die, I think sometimes that I shall be found all scorched up inside or frozen—frozen perhaps would be a better word. It is you who do that.”
“I have no power that other men do not possess,” he assured her calmly. “You are imaginative, wildly imaginative, Hortense. Perhaps that is why I am the man for you, because I am the man who lives by laws.”
“What are they, these terrible laws?” she cried. “You speak of them, you hint of them, sometimes I feel their bondage. Tell me about them. Perhaps I shall suffer less.”
He smiled.
“They are the laws of nature. We are born in rebellion and we live in rebellion. If ever the time comes that we submit, then the way is clear. Life becomes a different thing. It is possible then to live hand in hand with success.”
“You play to-day?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.
“Naturally,” he replied. “At three o’clock.”
“One would think you were superstitious,” she said, leaning over, taking his hand in hers and stroking it. “Your life is lived by the calendar, everything you do is done at a certain time in a certain way. Nothing ever goes wrong with the clockwork. How do you manage that, I wonder, mon vieux?”
“I wonder,” he replied. “Did you ever hear of the Rosicrucians, Hortense? There was a translation by one of the French savants somewhere in the seventeenth century.”
“Oh, la la!” she exclaimed. “I am not one of those who read. I love life and nature.”
He glanced at his watch and rose to his feet. She took his arm and moved towards the inner door. He turned the handle for her and waved his hand.
“Not more than five minutes,” he begged. “The programme is fixed.”
She lingered on the threshold of her room.
“Tell it me.”
“At three o’clock,” he said, “we take our places at number three table in the Casino Municipal. At four o’clock I shall have won—let me see—somewhere between one hundred and twenty-one and one hundred and twenty-eight mille. We shall return here. You will make me tea with your own hands. Afterwards I shall lock myself up in the secret chamber for one hour. At six o’clock I shall leave you. At eight o’clock I shall take my cocktail in the bar of the Hôtel de Paris. I shall watch the people in whom I am interested and I shall divine how things have progressed during the day. What I do not see for myself I shall be told.”
“What pleasure is there left for you in life?” she demanded. “It is always the expected which happens.”
“That,” he told her, “means security.”
There was the usual crowd around table number th
ree in the Salle des Jeux of the Nice Casino. The Robot Gambler, as they called the quietly dressed, quiet-mannered man who sat by the side of the croupier, had a great pile of plaques in front of him, a morocco bound notebook open, and a thin gold watch on the table, a watch with a closed face like the old-fashioned hunters but which opened also at the back and disclosed what seemed to be a compass with a strange Zodiaclike design engraven where on the other side the hours appeared. For five spins the man whom they were all watching had done nothing except make calculations in his book and glance languidly at the turning wheel. There were signs that his inaction was coming to an end. He closed the notebook with a little sigh and gathered up handfuls of his plaques. For a moment only he hesitated. He glanced at his watch, turned it over and studied the reverse side.
“Sept, carrés et chevaux pour le maximum,” he announced.
“Parfaitement, Monsieur.”
People leaned over with protruding eyes, gazing at the mammoth stake. Mr. Ardrossen handled some of the larger plaques and passed them to the croupier.
“Première douzaine, première colonne et manque—le maximum.”
There was a little shiver of excitement. The stake was placed.
“Impair—le maximum.”
“Parfaitement, Monsieur,” was the brief reply.
Then there was a lull. Other people pushed on their ordinary stakes. A good many forgot to stake at all. They were gazing at the enormous pile of plaques. In due course the formal announcements were made.
“Faites vos jeux, Messieurs. . . . Rien ne va plus!”
There was an awed silence. Everyone was leaning forward to watch the board. There was little to be heard but the sound of the turning wheel with the faint click of the ball. The end came. The croupier stared for a moment at the table before making his announcement.
“Sept—rouge—impair et manque.”
The silence was broken. There was a hubbub of voices. Amongst it all Mr. Ardrossen sat unmoved. He was once more deep in the study of his book. The croupier turned towards the chef, who nodded. One of the men was despatched to the nearest caisse for a larger supply of ten mille plaques. Madame Hortense glanced upwards at the chef.
“The bank is broken, Monsieur?”
The man smiled a little patronizingly.
“At Roulette, Madame, we do not so often use the grands jetons. They are for the Baccarat. We have sent for a larger supply.”
Ardrossen accepted his payments with an indifferent word of acknowledgement. He opened his book again and glanced at his watch.
“Les mises, s’il vous plaît,” he demanded.
The original stakes were returned to him. The table looked strangely bare with the small ten-franc and louis counters scattered here and there. Once more the wheel turned. Mr. Ardrossen was not interested. Five times the wheel spun and although his book was open before him and the numbers were clearly visible, he puzzled the spectators by taking no note of them. Suddenly, however, without any visible cause, he began on another calculation. He glanced at his watch, touched the spring which opened the reverse side of it and looked at the thin, blue line with an arrow at the end of it. Then once more he showed signs of action.
“Maximum quatorze,” he announced, pushing counters towards the croupier, “carrés et chevaux. Maximum deuxième douzaine et deuxième colonne. Maximum transversale simple. Maximum transversale pleine.”
The huge stake was placed. Again the word went round that Monsieur was playing and the crowd collected. Again there was that profound and yet disturbing silence with only the click of the ball and here and there a muffled whisper to be heard. Then there was silence. Everyone was leaning forward. The croupier’s singsong voice announced the result.
“Quatorze—rouge—pair et manque.”
Monsieur gathered together his jetons. The chef turned his head and beckoned. He made a sign to the valet, who promptly understood. Two of the plain clothes detectives who always promenaded the room, took up their places behind Mr. Ardrossen’s chair. Again there was an interval. Mr. Ardrossen sat calm and apparently uninterested. He made one more set of calculations and without glancing at his watch filled his pockets with the plaques. Then he rose to his feet. With Hortense by his side and followed by the two detectives he made his way to the nearest caisse and cashed his winnings. As they left the room Hortense glanced at the clock. It was exactly four.
“Mon ami,” the woman declared, as she poured out his tea in the little salon a few minutes later, “I am afraid of you.”
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” he assured her. “In a world where people have learnt to think properly, and that will come before long, success like this will become more common. Permit me,” he went on, handing her two of the ten mille packets of notes. “Assure yourself that this is not phantom money! Spend it on clothes or jewellery—what you will.”
Instinct was too strong for her. She handled the notes almost reverently. She pushed them into her bag and closed it with a little snap. The fingers which held the match to his cigarette trembled.
“You are very generous, chéri,” she murmured. “Écoute, I may ask you one thing more?”
“Well?”
“The man who disappeared from outside my door—you are quite sure that you know who he was?”
Ardrossen nodded gravely.
“For me,” he confided, “that was a fortunate happening. By no other means could I have become aware that I was being watched by the officials of the Cercle du Drapeau Rouge. That man was Oscar Dring, one of their leaders. He will not trouble either of us again.”
“His body was never found?”
“It will be found some day but not soon. Spies run that risk.”
There was a faint trembling in her voice, a little shiver as she turned towards the clock.
“It is time that you mount to your chamber,” she pointed out.
He rose to his feet. She took his arm and mounted to the next étage, then she drew a key from her pocket and unlocked the door of a small sitting-room. Save for a high-backed chair, a bare table, three telephone instruments each a little differently shaped, and a strange sheet of metal upon the wall, there was no furniture. She turned on a light and drew the curtains.
“You have tested the communication?” he asked her.
“I spoke to Lyons just before you arrived,” she told him. “It took me exactly sixty seconds.”
“Good.”
“You will save me one hour?”
“Unless there is unexpected trouble on the line,” he assured her.
CHAPTER XXVI
Table of Contents
DOMILOFF glanced at his engagement book and permitted himself a little grimace.
“Nicholas,” he said to his secretary, who had just made his appearance, “the General will be here in a quarter of an hour. I am afraid there will be the devil of a row.”
“He is not an easy one to handle, sir,” Nicholas Tashoff admitted. “He has just come back from Nice and he has the air of a man greatly disturbed. You have also another visitor who has been shown into the private waiting-room.” He lowered his voice rather from instinct than for any other reason, as the two men were alone. “It is Mr. Ardrossen, sir.”
Domiloff’s face darkened.
“Show him in at once,” he ordered. “If the General arrives before he has left, take him out, when I ring, by the private way.”
“Very good, sir.”
Ardrossen was ushered in. He had left Nice only an hour before but he was already wearing his dinner clothes. He did not offer his hand and he ignored the chair to which Domiloff pointed, yet there was nothing about his attitude to which one could reasonably take exception. He waited until the door was closed before he spoke.
“Baron,” he said, “you have an appointment with General Müller in a few minutes, I believe.”
“Now, how the devil did you know that?” Domiloff muttered with knitted brows.
“It does not matter. Here is an item of informa
tion for you, to be considered when he puts his demands before you, if he has demands to make. The General has been sending cables—quite a good many of them—from Nice. He has also sent one to Spain.”
“Go on,” Domiloff invited.
“The cable was addressed to a personage on the staff of General Franco. It orders him to obey at once a mandate he will receive during the day to communicate with the Admiral on board the cruiser Helessen, which is to leave to-morrow morning for Monaco and to await further commands there.”
“I suppose you are human?” Domiloff queried.
“It is my one weakness,” Ardrossen confessed. “Otherwise I should be the most robotlike, the most perfect spy who ever walked the earth. Bear in mind, in your conversation with the General, Baron, that the battle cruiser will be in these waters within four days.”
“A complimentary visit, I presume?” Domiloff enquired with gentle sarcasm.
“On the contrary, a warlike gesture. There is one thing more.”
“Well?”
“Your recently granted charter deals clearly with the matter of foreign relations. Remember this in dealing with your visitor. He may threaten terrible things but it is not likely that a single shot will be fired.”
Domiloff leaned back in his chair. His hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets. He looked at his visitor in amazement, which he took no pains to hide.
“Well, I am damned!” he exclaimed.
“I beg your pardon?”
“How, in the name of all that is miraculous, have you been able to intercept Müller’s cables? How does it come to pass that you know anything about the contents of the charter?”
Ardrossen remained this time stonily mute. Domiloff for once refused to accept his silence. He was looking fixedly at his visitor.
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