Mademoiselle seemed flattered by the attentions of one whom she believed to be an English gentleman. Therefore I met her out one evening and took her for a long walk, pretending to be deeply smitten by her charms. From the first moment I began to talk with her I saw that she was not the shallow giddy girl I had believed her to be. She, no doubt, appreciated my attentions, for I took her to a café on the opposite side of the town, where we should not be recognised, and there we sat a long time chatting. She seemed extremely curious to know who I really was, yet the queries she put to me were just a trifle blundering. They betrayed an earnest desire to know more than I intended that she should know.
“I wish Her Highness would go back to Aix-les-Bains, or to Vichy, or to Luchon. I’m tired of this wretched hole, where I know nobody,” she complained presently. “I had quite sufficient of Italy when I was with the Duchess of Pandolfini. I did not know we were coming here, otherwise I should not have accepted the engagement, and yet—well, the Princess is very kind and considerate.”
“She certainly is to her friends, and I hope the same to her servants,” I said; and then we rose to walk back, for it was nearly eleven, and Her Highness, who had gone to the Opera with two of the ladies to whom I had introduced her, would soon be due back, and the dainty Rosalie must be there to receive her.
Upon our walk across the town I flattered her, pretending to be her devoted admirer, but when I left her I felt more convinced than ever upon three points—namely, that she was much older than twenty-two, as she had declared; that she was unduly inquisitive; and that she certainly was no fool.
That night I sent my master a note to his room warning him to be wary of her, and on the following morning I told Her Highness my suspicions.
From that moment I made it my object in life to keep a watchful eye upon the new French maid. Each evening, after her services were no longer required, she went forth alone and wandered idly up and down the esplanade. Sometimes she walked out to Ardenza, a village a mile and a half distant, halted always at the same stone seat in the little public garden, and then strolled back again, in blissful ignorance of being so closely watched.
If Rosalie had any suspicion that Valentine was not the Princess Helen, then there was, I foresaw, a grave and constant danger. And I, for one, did not intend to run any further risk.
Her Highness had been in Leghorn just over three weeks, and had become intensely popular everywhere, being invited to the houses of many of the principal residents, when one night an incident occurred which afforded me grave food for reflection.
Just after ten o’clock at night I had followed Rosalie along by the sea to Ardenza, where she was sitting alone upon her usual seat in a secluded spot, at the edge of the public garden, on a kind of small promontory that ran in a semicircle out to the sea. Behind her was a dark thicket of azaleas, and in front the calm moonlit Mediterranean.
I was standing back in the shadow at a spot where I had often stood before, when, after about five minutes, I saw the tall dark figure of a man in a grey deer-stalker hat join her, and sit down unceremoniously at her side.
As soon as they met she began to tell him some long story, to which the stranger listened without comment. Then he seemed to question her closely, and they remained together fully a quarter of an hour, until at last they rose and parted, she walking calmly back to the hotel.
Was it possible that the dainty Rosalie was a spy?
When I got half-way back to the Palace I regretted deeply that I had not followed the stranger and ascertained whom he might be. Next day I told Valentine, but she merely smiled, saying that Rosalie could know nothing, and the fellow was probably some secret lover. The next night, and the next, I watched, until, on the third evening, they met again at the same time and place, and on that occasion I followed the mysterious stranger. He was a thin, cadaverous-looking Frenchman, hollow-cheeked, rather shabbily dressed, and wore pince-nez. I watched him back into the town, and lingered near him in a café until nearly one o’clock, when he entered his quarters at an uninviting, unfashionable hotel, the “Falcon,” in the Via Vittorio. From the manner he had treated her I judged him to be a relation, probably her uncle. Yet why she should meet him clandestinely was an utter mystery.
In order still to keep watch upon the maid I made a fervent protest of affection, and frequently met her between the dinner-hour and midnight. Through all this time, however, Bindo never gave a sign, even in secret, that he was acquainted with Valentine or myself, and this very fact in itself aroused my suspicions that he knew our movements were being closely watched.
Meanwhile, Princess Helen, who had become the most popular figure in Leghorn, and had given her patronage to several functions in the cause of charity, went out a great deal, and I accompanied her very frequently to the best houses.
“Poor Bindo is having a pretty quiet time, I fear,” she laughed to me one day in her easy, irresponsible way. “He is lying low.”
“Waiting for the coup—eh?”
She smiled, but would, even then, tell me nothing.
Among the most devoted of her admirers was the Jew banker of Turin, Jacobi, and his wife, a stout, vulgar, over-dressed person, who was constantly dancing attendance upon her “dear Princess,” as she called her. Valentine rather liked her, or pretended to, for on several occasions she lent her Rosalie to dress her hair. Jacobi himself was, it seemed, on friendly terms with Bindo. Sometimes I saw the pair strolling together at Pancaldi’s, and once the young Marquis of Rapallo was with them.
One hot, stifling night, a brilliant ball was held, arranged at the Princess’s instigation, in the cause of charity. All the smart world attended, and dancing was almost at an end when Bindo met me alone out upon one of the balconies.
“Go, and change at once,” he whispered. “Take the car out of the town beyond the railway station, a little way on the Pisa road. There wait, but attract no attention.” And the next instant he had re-entered the ballroom and was making his most elegant bow over a lady’s hand.
Wondering what was the nature of the coup, I presently slipped away to my room, but as I walked along the corridor I felt almost certain that I saw Rosalie’s black skirts flouncing round the corner. It was as though I had discovered her on the wrong floor, and that she had tried to escape me. The movements of that girl were so constantly suspicious.
I threw off my evening clothes, and putting on a rough suit, an overcoat, and motor-cap, went down the back staircase and along to the garage, where, amid the coming and going of the cars of departing guests, I was able to run out without being noticed.
Ten minutes later I was outside the town, and drawing up in the dark lonely road that leads across the plain for fifteen miles to quaint old Pisa, I got down and examined my tyres, pretending I had a puncture should anyone become too inquisitive. Glancing at my watch, I found it was already twenty minutes to two. The moon was overcast, and the atmosphere stifling and oppressive, precursory of a thunderstorm.
Each minute seemed an hour. Indeed, I grew so nervous that I felt half inclined to escape upon the car. Yet if I left that spot I might leave my audacious friend in the lurch, and in peril of arrest most likely.
It was close upon half-past two, as nearly as I could judge, when I heard a quick footstep in the road. I took off one of the acetylene head-lamps of the car and turned it in that direction, in order to ascertain who was coming along.
A woman in a dark stuff dress, and wearing a veil, approached quickly. A moment later, to my mingled surprise and dismay, I saw it was none other than the dainty Rosalie herself, in a very admirable disguise, which gave her an appearance of being double her age.
“Ah! monsieur!” she gasped, quite out of breath from walking so rapidly.“Drive me at once to Pisa. Don’t lose a single instant. The Paris express passes at four minutes past three, and I must catch it. The last train left here three hours ago.”
> “You—alone?”
“Yes. I go alone.”
“But—well, let us speak quite frankly. Is no one else coming?” I inquired.
“Non, m’sieur. You will take me to Pisa at once, please,” she said impatiently.
So perforce I had to mount into the car, and when she had settled herself beside me, I drew off upon the dark and execrable road to the city she had indicated, in order to catch the Rome-Paris express.
Was it all a trap? I wondered. What had occurred? I dared not ask her anything, while she, on her part, preserved an absolute silence. Her only fear seemed lest she lost her train. That something had occurred was very evident, but of its nature I still remained in entire ignorance, even when, a short distance from the great echoing station, I dropped the chic little maid with whom I had for the past three weeks pretended to be so violently in love.
On getting down she told me to await her. She would be only a few minutes. This surprised me, as I thought she was leaving for Paris.
She hurried away, and as I watched her going down the road towards the station I saw the dark figure of a man emerge from the shadow and join her. For a moment he became silhouetted against the station lights, and I recognised that it was her mysterious friend.
Five minutes later she rejoined me. Then, on turning back, I was forced to remain at the level crossing until the Paris express, with its longwagon-lit, had roared past, and afterwards I put on a move, and we were soon back in Leghorn. She did not return to the hotel with me, but at her request I dropped her just before we entered the town.
Morning revealed the startling truth. Three women, occupying adjacent rooms, had lost the greater part of their valuable jewels which they had had sent from home on purpose to wear at the ball. The police were ferreting about the hotel, questioning everybody. There was commotion everywhere, and loud among those expressing amazement at the audaciousness of the thief were both Bindo and Her Highness, the latter declaring herself lucky that no attempt had been made to secure any of her own valuable jewels.
At noon I took her for a run on the car, in order to have an opportunity to chat. When we were alone on the road she said—
“You entertained a foolish but quite reasonable suspicion of Rosalie. She and Kampf, the man you saw her with, always work together. They indeed suggested this present little affair, for they knew that Italian women bring lots of jewellery here, in order to show it off. Besides, hotels are their speciality. So there seemed to Bindo no reason why we should not have a little of the best of it. The diamond necklace of the Signora Jacobi is well known to be one of the finest in all Italy; therefore, on several occasions, I lent her Rosalie for hair-dressing, and she, clever girl, very soon discovered where all the best of the stuff was kept. Bindo, in the meantime, was keeping his keen eye open in other quarters. Last night, when the Jewess went up to her room, she found her own maid had gone to bed very unwell, and the faithful Rosalie had, at my orders, taken her place. ‘How kind it was of the dear Princess!’ she said. When Rosalie left the room she carried with her the necklace, together with several other trifles which she had pretended to lock in the jewel-case. Ten minutes later Bindo also slipped into her hands all that he had obtained in a swift raid in two other rooms during the dance, and she left the hotel carrying away gems worth roughly, we believe, about sixteen thousand pounds sterling. Kampf was awaiting her in Pisa, and by this time is already well on his way to the frontier at Modane, with the precious packet in his pocket.”
“And there is really no suspicion of us?” I asked apprehensively.
“Certainly not. Not a soul knows that Rosalie left the hotel last night. She re-entered by a window Bindo left open.”
“But the garage people know that I was out,” I said.
“Well, and what of that? You have had no hand in it, have you, mon cher? No. We shall remain here another week. It is quite pleasant here—and quite safe. To leave might arouse suspicion.”
“Have not the police questioned Rosalie?”
“Certainly. But they have no suspicion of the maid of Princess Helen of Dornbach-Laxenburg. How could they? Especially as the Prefect and his wife were my guests at dinner last night!”
“Well,” I declared, “the way the whole affair has been managed is perfectly artistic.”
“Of course,” she said. “We do not blunder. Only poor people and fools do that.”
CHAPTER V
THE SIX NEW NOVELS
The car had again undergone a transformation.
With a new racing-body, built in Northampton, and painted dead white picked out with gilt, no one would have recognised it as the car which had carried away the clever jewel-thief from Bond Street.
Since the adventure at Leghorn I had seen nothing of La Belle Valentine. With Bindo, however, I had driven the car across from Rome to Calais by way of Ventimiglia and Marseilles, and, after crossing the Channel, I had gone alone to Northampton, and there awaited the making of the smart new racing-body.
Count Bindo di Ferraris, who seemed ever on the move, with an eye open for “a good thing,” wrote me from Ilfracombe, Southampton, Manchester, Perth, Aberdeen, and other places, remitting me the necessary money, and urging me to push on the work, as he wanted the car again immediately.
At last, when it was finished, I drove it to a garage I knew at the back of Regent Street, and that same evening met him at the Royal Automobile Club. At his request, I dressed smartly and gave no outward appearance of the chauffeur; therefore he invited me to dine, and afterwards, while we sat alone in a corner of the smoking-room, he began to unfold a series of plans for the future. They were, however, hazy, and only conveyed to me an idea that we were going on a long tour in England.
I ventured to remark that to be in England, after the little affair in Bond Street, might be somewhat dangerous. He replied, however, with his usual nonchalant air—
“My dear Ewart, there’s not the slightest fear. Act as I bid, and trust in me. To-morrow, at eleven, we go North together—into Yorkshire. You will be my servant again after to-night. You understand—eh?”
“Perfectly. Shall we start from here?”
“Yes. But before we set out I can only warn you that you’ll want all your wits about you this time. If we have luck, we shall bring off a big thing—a very big thing.”
“And if we have no luck?”
“Well—well, we shan’t bring it off—that’s all,” he laughed.
“Where are we going?”
“Yorkshire. To spend a week at the seaside. It will do us both good. I’ve decided that the Scarborough air will be extremely beneficial to us. One of our friends is already there—at the Grand.”
“Sir Charles?”
“Exactly. He’s very fond of Scarborough—likes the church parade on Sundays, the music on the Spa, and all that kind of thing. So we’ll join him. I wonder if we shall get through in a day?”
“We ought to—with luck,” was my response; and then, after urging me to leave everything in his hands, he told me that I’d better get early to bed, and thoroughly overhaul the car early next morning, before starting.
So next day at ten he took his seat by my side outside the Club in Piccadilly, and we drove away into the traffic towards Regent’s Park, on our way to that much overrated highway, the Great North Road. The day was warm and dusty, and as it was a Saturday there were police-traps out everywhere. Therefore progress was slow, for I was forced at every few miles to slow down, to escape a ten-pound fine.
Leafy Hatfield, crooked Hitchin, quaint old Stamford, we passed, until we swung into the yard of “The Angel,” that antique and comfortable hotel well known to all motorists at Grantham, where we had a hasty meal.
Then out again in the sunset, we headed through Doncaster to York, and in the darkness, with our big head-lamps shining, we tore th
rough Malton, and slipped down the hill into Scarborough. The run had been a long and dusty one, the last fifty miles in darkness and at a high speed, therefore when we pulled up before the Grand I leaned heavily upon the steering-wheel, weary and fagged.
It was about eleven o’clock at night, and Sir Charles, who had evidently been expecting our arrival in the big hall of the hotel, rushed out and greeted Bindo effusively. Then, directed by a page-boy, who sat in the Count’s seat, I took the car round to Hutton’s garage, close by.
With Sir Charles I noticed another man, young, with very fair hair—a mere boy, he seemed—in evening clothes of the latest cut. When I returned to the hotel I saw them all seated in the big hall over whiskies and sodas, laughing merrily together. It was late, all the other guests having retired.
Next day Bindo took the young man, whose name I discovered to be Paul Clayton, for a run on the car to Bridlington. Bindo drove, and I sat upon the step. The racing-body gave the “forty” a rakish appearance, and each time we went up and down the Esplanade, or across the Valley Bridge, we created considerable interest. After lunch we went on to Hornsea, and returned to Scarborough at tea-time.
That same evening, after dinner, I saw Bindo’s new friend walking on the Esplanade with a fair-haired, well-dressed young girl. They were deep in conversation, and it struck me that she was warning him regarding something.
Days passed—warm, idle August days. Scarborough was full of visitors. The Grand was overrun by a smartly dressed crowd, and the Spa was a picturesque sight during the morning promenade. The beautiful “Belvedere” grounds were a blaze of roses, and, being private property, were regarded with envy by thousands who trod the asphalte of the Esplanade. Almost daily Bindo took Paul for a run on the car. To York, to Castle Howard, to Driffield, and to Whitby we went—the road to the last-named place, by the way, being execrable. Evidently Bindo’s present object was to ingratiate himself with young Clayton, but with what ulterior motive I could not conceive.
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 28
