“You don’t think they followed us up to the golf?” she asked anxiously.
“I should not think so,” he replied. “Still, they started off just before us in a large car and I meant to suggest to Lord Henry, to tell you the truth, that he accepted me as a passenger and let you two women drive off together.”
“You don’t think they would try to stop us on the road?” she asked.
“If they do, nothing shall happen to you,” he promised.
A slowly mounting flush burned in her cheeks.
“Why do you imagine I am thinking about myself?” she protested indignantly. “I am not such a coward as all that.”
“And I am not quite such a coward,” he rejoined, “as to wish to have a couple of women who have nothing to do with my troubles become involved in them. However, I do not suppose anything will happen. You see, we are almost at La Turbie now.”
They were descending the last steep drop into the Italian end of the hill town. At the bottom, the turn back is so acute that it is necessary for almost any car to stop and reverse if on the way to Monte Carlo. Their driver was already slackening up when Joan, who was leaning out of the window, gave a little exclamation.
“Look!” she pointed out. “Rudolph, what does that mean?”
A large grey car came stealing up from the approach to the hotel in La Turbie, shot out into the main road and turned towards Menton, passing in front of them. The men—there were four or five of them—were all wearing thick overcoats but there was no mistaking Prince Anselm, who was sitting in front by the chauffeur.
“A tough-looking lot,” Rudolph observed. “I suppose we are in for it. I wonder what they mean to do.”
He soon found out. About a hundred yards down the road and just before the bend for Monte Carlo, the car was brought to a standstill. A moment later it crawled in reverse right across the road, blocking the passage, and remained stationary. The driver of the hired car shouted as he drew near. Nothing happened. They were compelled to draw up. Rudolph held Joan for a moment by the arm.
“Do as I tell you, please,” he begged. “It is the only way that you can help. Sit still.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“Sit still,” he repeated. “Please!”
“I will—but where are you going?”
He sprang out of the car and stood in the middle of the road, a clear and easy mark for anything in the nature of assassination. The young man who had visited the opera box also descended and came to meet him.
“Prince,” Rudolph said, “there is a lady in my car. If you and your friends there are thinking about shooting me, will you see that they are careful?”
“Yes, yes,” the other answered gruffly. “Very gallant, as usual, Mr. Banker. We have no quarrel with your friend except that she keeps bad company.”
“Why are you stopping us?” Rudolph asked.
A triumphant smile parted the lips of Prince Anselm. His small eyes seemed almost to disappear into his head.
“Can you not guess?” he rejoined.
He was carrying what appeared to be a flat dispatch box in his hand. He opened it out.
“It is against my creed to shoot even the most dangerous of enemies at sight,” he went on. “The little affair we spoke of can now take place. You will walk with me into that wood—yes?”
“Do the gentlemen in the car act as our seconds?” Rudolph enquired.
“You could have chosen your own second if you had accepted my challenge last night,” was the stiff reply. “As it is, Hebbisturm is not with me and these men are not qualified for such a position. They are members of a small corps we have established in Nice for other purposes. They are of the lower orders. They are here for my protection, and if the worst comes to the worst, Sagastrada, they are here to shoot you down if you run away from my pistol.”
Rudolph laughed with a note of real gaiety in his tone. He looked very far from being afraid as he stood there bareheaded, as tall as the other man, perfectly at his ease and infinitely better-looking.
“One moment,” he begged, stepping back towards the car. “Do not move from where you are,” he instructed the chauffeur. “Do not allow Mademoiselle to descend.”
He put his head in at the open window of the limousine.
“Joan,” he confided, “the Prince has a message for me. I must hear it. He has us in rather a tight corner, you see, but he is not unreasonable.”
Her mind jumped to the one conclusion.
“You are going to fight him!” she exclaimed.
“We may exchange a shot in the wood there,” he pointed out. “You must please, my dear Joan, be reasonable. There are five men in that car—all armed. There is no escaping them. If I decline this stupid melodramatic walk with Anselm into the wood, they will assassinate me. It comes to the same thing. You stay where you are. Promise?”
“No,” she answered rebelliously. “I want to get out. I want to talk to that young man. Someone may be coming along at any moment.”
He barred her progress from the car.
“Please do not be foolish,” he implored her. “You can do no good, Joan. If you do as I ask, I shall be perfectly calm and perfectly happy. There is no logical action you could take which would help us. Please remember that. It is an old-fashioned stunt, this,” he went on after a moment’s pause, “but at any rate it is better than a dagger in one’s back. Please help me, Joan. Promise to stay where you are.”
“I promise,” she answered dully.
She gave him her hand. He bent and kissed it. As he turned back to where Anselm was waiting, she sat fiercely thinking, ready at a second’s inspiration to break her promise, wondering what could be done. She looked up and down the road. It was still empty both ways.
“What do you propose?” Rudolph asked the young man who was waiting in the road.
The other pressed a knob and opened the case which he was carrying. Two beautifully inlaid duelling pistols lay side by side on a satin foundation.
“They are both loaded,” he said. “They are perfect weapons and exactly a pair. You can choose which you like. I shall take the other. We step over that ditch and walk into the wood. I shall leave you with your back to the first convenient tree and walk parallel with the road twenty paces down. Then I shall turn round and we can both move so that there is nothing intervening. You see this little silver whistle? I shall start with it in my mouth. When I blow it we both fire. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” Rudolph assented. “You are not afraid that I shall shoot you in the back as you walk away?”
The young man looked at him disdainfully.
“No, I have no fear of that,” he said. “I do not like the men of your class but you have always had the name, Sagastrada, of being a good sportsman. I am not afraid of that. When I stop, do not fire until I have turned round, though, and blown the whistle. It may take me a second or two to find a clear space.”
“I will restrain my eagerness,” Rudolph promised him.
They crossed the road. Rudolph took the nearest weapon into his hand. His antagonist helped himself and threw the empty case towards one of the men in the car who sprang to the ground and came hastily up for it.
“Take that back,” the Prince instructed him. “I shall return in two minutes.”
“What are they to do about me if it happens that it is I who return?” Rudolph asked.
His companion smiled at him—an uncomfortable, venomous looking smile, but still a smile.
“There is no possibility of that,” he declared. “You remember my reputation at twenty paces. I have never yet missed my mark.”
Rudolph followed him up the rough path. Arrived at a certain point the Prince turned round.
“I shall now strike to the right,” he said. “You see the way is quite clear, almost an avenue, in fact. You will choose a clear space in the middle of it with your back to that tree. Anyone in the road now is safe. You understand? When I stop, that is not the moment when you fire.
You wait until I have turned facing you, looked at you for a few seconds and then blown my whistle. At the sound of the whistle I shall fire. So will you.”
“Understood,” Rudolph observed, opening the breech of his pistol and closing it again. “Supposing when we have had a shot each we are both standing up?” he asked.
“That would not be possible,” was the brief reply. “Still, you see how the pistol works. They are repeaters. Compose yourself. It will take a minute or perhaps two to walk that distance and give the signal.”
Rudolph nodded, took up his position and looked about him. A feeling of utter unreality seemed to have crept over his senses. His pulse was beating quite steadily. He watched the retreating figure of Prince Anselm almost unconsciously. Nevertheless, everything he should have done he did. He tested the weight of the pistol, brought it to the level, held it steadily towards the distant mark and dropped it a little. Everywhere was silence except for the scream of birds who seemed to be flying around them at times almost in clouds. Then Sagastrada felt his muscles grow tense. Anselm, some twenty yards away, had come to a standstill. He was looking around him. He turned slowly to face his opponent. Sagastrada watched his arm go up, and carefully raised his own at the same moment. There was a second’s pause. Then the whistle shrilled through the wood. Almost as one came the two reports.
Rudolph felt a sudden darkness, a blinding crash in the face, a smothering thud of dark soft feathers. One of the magpies which had been circling round his head fell, a bleeding mass, at his feet. He stared at it like a man in a dream. Then he became conscious that he was breathing normally though his heart had given a great leap in those first few seconds. He looked down the avenue. Anselm was lying on his side, the pistol fallen from his hand, a groan sobbing from his lips, a strange sound against the background of the whole disturbed colony of squawking birds. Rudolph, still gripping his weapon, walked over to where his antagonist was lying. Even as he approached him, the groan died away upon his lips.
“Are you hurt?” Rudolph asked. “Whereabouts?”
The young man touched his chest.
“The bird,” he muttered. “You would have been dead.”
Sagastrada nodded. He was looking down at the little hole in the other’s tunic. Around them they heard the crashing of twigs under the footsteps of eager men. Prince Anselm’s bodyguard of ruffians had surrounded them. One had fallen on his knees by the side of the prostrate man. The Prince raised himself a little and spoke very distinctly.
“I have a slight wound,” he said. “Carry me to the car. We return—to Nice.”
“It is possible that you missed!” the man who was stooping over him gasped.
Anselm shook his head with a painful effort.
“One of those damn’ birds flew down in the line—the whistle,” he said. “As for the man—there—Sagastrada—”
“Yes?”
“He must go. I wish I had left you to assassinate him. I took it on myself. It was a fair fight. He must go. The others must come—and take over my task—not you—not anyone here—”
He closed his eyes. One whose voice was unexpectedly educated turned to Rudolph and pointed to the road.
“You hear?” he said. “Go!”
Rudolph turned and walked through the dark piney wood, the birds still shrieking and calling above, out into the sunlight. Joan was there clinging to the side of the car. She held out her arms as he drew near.
“You are safe?” she cried.
The warm wind was playing against the moisture upon his face. He felt it and drew his fingers away. There was blood there.
“You are wounded!” she exclaimed.
He shook his head as he staggered into the car and threw the pistol which he was still carrying over the wall. Then, probably because many strange things had happened in a very short space of time, he lay back with his head against Joan’s arm and fainted.
CHAPTER XXX
Table of Contents
DOMILOFF was seated at his very handsome Provençal writing desk in a corner of the large room of Assembly which had recently been opened up on the top floor of the Sporting Club. The centre of the apartment was occupied by a long table at which four chairs were placed on either side and two high-backed ones at the top and bottom. Domiloff’s desk was in the far corner of the chamber facing the door and with a fine view of the sea and the distant mountains. He touched one of the bells in front of him and Tashoff, who sat alone in a private bureau outside, presented himself.
“Any further news of those golfers?” Domiloff asked anxiously.
“They left Mont Agel three quarters of an hour ago,” Tashoff replied, glancing at his watch. “They should have been here before now, sir.”
“Were they all in one car?”
“Lord Henry Lancaster was driving the Princess de Hochepierre in his two-seater. They started first. Mr. Sagastrada and Miss Haskell were in the car which was hired for them from the hotel garage this morning.”
Domiloff stood by the window and gazed out towards Beausoleil and the zigzag road which led down from the mountains.
“Three quarters of an hour,” he reflected. “One should be hearing something of them. Lord Henry should be here, at any rate. How are the enrolments going on?”
“Marvellously, sir,” was the enthusiastic reply. “There has not been a single hesitation. We have over seven hundred gardes d’honneur, as Monsieur Regnier wishes to call them, already enrolled, and the others are coming to the bureau as quickly as their places can be taken in the Casino. Everything has gone like clockwork. Soon there will not be a single able-bodied person over seventeen who has not joined up.”
“Capital!” Domiloff exclaimed. “Good for Regnier, too. I believe it was the only feature of our new Administration about which he felt anxious. No need. I always told him that. They are good fellows at heart, these Monégasques. Any news from the Harbour Master?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Sir Julian Townleyes has not been heard of in any other direction?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
Domiloff, who seemed to be suffering from a curious fit of disquietude, leaned back in his chair. His fingers strayed towards an open box of cigarettes. He lit one and smoked—obviously a mechanical gesture. His eyes wandered downwards. He watched the people passing into the Casino and the thinner stream coming out. He could just catch the strains of the orchestra at the Café de Paris and he could see the moving forms of the dancers. Every table in the enclosed space was taken. Waiters with their well laden trays were hurrying about in every direction. Notwithstanding the waning sunlight, an air of lightheartedness seemed to pervade the whole place. From his point of vantage, he could even watch the flannel-clad players on the tennis courts. Monte Carlo was busy amusing itself, happily oblivious to all those grim phases of life which for the first time in history seemed to be threatening its gaiety. . . . There was a tap on the door. Tashoff, who had been waiting for his dismissal, moved across the room and opened it. He conversed for a few minutes with an unseen person. Afterwards, he closed the door firmly and returned to his place by the side of Domiloff’s desk.
“A telephone message has arrived from the Gendarmerie at La Turbie, sir,” he announced gravely. “There has been some sort of a hold-up in the road near the turning from the Corniche down into Monte Carlo. The Commissaire has gone down himself to seek for particulars. In the meantime, they report that a large car with at least five occupants and the blinds on one side closely drawn has passed through towards Nice driven at a furious pace. The Commissaire will make a personal report as soon as he discovers what has happened.”
Domiloff’s face was very white and stern. He sat for a moment speechless and without moving.
“I am afraid there is no doubt as to what has happened,” he said at last with a gesture of despair. “If only that young fool could have waited until this afternoon, we should have had an organized escort always on hand. Tashoff!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Staying in this hotel on the ground floor of the Nouvel is a man who has already visited me. His name is Ardrossen.”
“I remember him perfectly, sir.”
“Will you go personally and see if he is in his rooms. If so, bring him here.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Domiloff spent his brief period of solitude in unaccustomed restlessness. He walked up and down the long apartment with his hands behind his back. Once or twice he stopped to look out of the window by the side of which his desk had been placed, but his eyes seemed to be focussed on vacancy. A rare fit of indecision appeared to have distracted him. When Tashoff returned alone, he indulged in something which was very much like a gesture of relief.
“Mr. Ardrossen is not in his apartment for the moment, sir,” the secretary announced. “I have left a note asking him to communicate by telephone with this room when he returns.”
Even as he finished speaking, the telephone bell rang. He moved towards it and took off the receiver.
“It is Madame la Baronne,” he confided. “Will you speak?”
Domiloff took the receiver. Lydia’s voice, for her, was almost emotional.
“Can you come down, Paul?” she asked.
“At once,” was the brief reply.
Domiloff’s entrance into his wife’s salon was something in the nature of a shock. For long afterwards he remembered the deep sense of relief he felt after that first start. Rudolph, apparently recovered from his nervous attack, was standing with his back to the window, a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of toast in the other. He was still wearing his golf clothes. He had rather the air of an enfant terrible who had committed an indiscretion.
“Hello, Baron!” he cried. “You were quite right. It is a glorious spot and I had a short putt for sixty-eight, but I had no right to go up to Mont Agel. They were waiting for me on the way down at La Turbie.”
“And then?”
“That terrible fellow Anselm was there with a car-load of desperadoes, by the look of them. I had to follow him into a wood and stand and be fired at.”
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