Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo

E >> E. Phillips Oppenheim >> Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

"I think that she lost," Hunterleys replied indifferently. "Her
gambling, however, is like mine, I imagine, on a fairly negligible
scale."

Richard whistled softly.

"Well, I don't know," he observed. "I saw her going for maximums
yesterday pretty steadily. A few thousands doesn't last very long at
that little game."

Hunterleys smiled.

"A few thousands!" he repeated. "I don't suppose Violet has ever lost or
won a hundred pounds in her life."

Richard abandoned the subject quickly. He was obliged to tell himself
that it was not his business to interfere between husband and wife.

"Say, Hunterleys," he suggested, "do you think I could do something for
the crowd on my little boat--a luncheon party or a cruise, eh?"

"I should think every one would enjoy it immensely," Hunterleys
answered.

"I can count on you, of course, if I arrange anything?"

"I am afraid not," Hunterleys regretted. "I am too much engrossed now to
make any arrangements."

"I'm hanged if you don't get more mysterious every moment!" Richard
exclaimed vigorously. "What's it all about? Can't you even be safe in
your room for five minutes without keeping one of those little articles
under your newspaper while you read your letters?" he added, lifting
with his stick the sheet which Hunterleys had hastily thrown over a
small revolver. "What's it all about, eh? Are you plotting to dethrone
the Prince of Monaco and take his place?"

"Not exactly that," Hunterleys replied, a little wearily. "Lane, old
fellow, you're much better off not to know too much. I have told you
that there's a kind of international conference going on about here and
I've sort of been pitchforked into the affair. Over in your country you
don't know much about this sort of thing, but since I've been out of
harness I've done a good deal of what really amounts to Secret Service
work. One must serve one's country somehow or other, you know, if one
gets the chance."

Richard was impressed.

"Gee!" he exclaimed. "The sort of thing that one reads about, eh, and
only half believes. Who's the French Johnny who arrived last night?"

"Douaille. He's the coming President, they say. I'm thinking of paying
him a visit of ceremony this afternoon."

There was a knock at the door. A waiter entered with a note upon a
salver.

"From Madame, monsieur," he announced, presenting it to Hunterleys.

The latter tore it open and read the few lines hastily:

_Dear Henry_,

If you could spare a few minutes, I should be glad if you would
come round to my apartment.

Yours,
VIOLET.

Hunterleys twisted the note up in his fingers.

"Tell Lady Hunterleys that I will be round in a few moments," he
instructed the servant.

Richard took up his stick and hat.

"If you have an opportunity," he said, "ask Lady Hunterleys what she
thinks about a little party on the yacht. If one could get the proper
people together--"

"I'll tell her," Hunterleys promised. "You'd better wait till I get
back."

He made his way to the other wing of the hotel. For the first time since
he had been staying there, he knocked at the door of his wife's
apartments. Her maid admitted him with a smile. He found Violet sitting
in the little salon before a writing-table. The apartment was
luxuriously furnished and filled with roses. Somehow or other, their
odour irritated him. She rose from her place and hastened towards him.

"How nice of you to come so promptly!" she exclaimed. "You're sure it
didn't inconvenience you?"

"Not in the least," he replied. "I was only talking to Richard Lane."

"You seem to have taken a great fancy to that young man all at once,"
she remarked.

Hunterleys was sitting upon the arm of an easy-chair. He had picked up
one of Violet's slippers and was balancing it in his hand.

"Oh, I don't know. He is rather refreshing after some of these people.
He still has enthusiasms, and his love affair is quite a poem. Aren't
you up rather early this morning?"

"I couldn't sleep," she sighed. "I think it has come to me in the night
that I am sick of this place. I wondered--"

She hesitated. He bent the slipper slowly back, waiting for her to
proceed.

"The Draconmeyers don't want to go," she went on. "They are here for
another month, at least. Linda would miss me terribly, I suppose, but I
have really given her a lot of my time. I have spent several hours with
her every day since we arrived, and I don't know what it is--perhaps my
bad luck, for one thing--but I have suddenly taken a dislike to the
place. I wondered--"

She had picked up one of the roses from a vase close at hand, and was
twirling it between her fingers. For some reason or other she seemed ill
at ease. Hunterleys watched her silently. She was very pale, but since
his coming a slight tinge of pink colour had stolen into her cheeks. She
had received him in a very fascinating garment of blue silk, which was
really only a dressing-gown. It seemed to him a long time since he had
seen her in so intimate a fashion.

"I wondered," she concluded at last, almost abruptly, "whether you would
care to take me away."

He was, for a moment, bereft of words. Somehow or other, he had been so
certain that she had sent to him to ask for more money, that he had
never even considered any other eventuality.

"Take you away," he repeated. "Do you really mean take you back to
London, Violet?"

"Just anywhere you like," she replied. "I am sick of this place and of
everything. I am weary to death of trying to keep Linda cheerful--you
don't realise how depressing it is to be with her; and--and every one
seems to have got a little on my nerves. Mr. Draconmeyer," she added, a
little defiantly, raising her eyes to his, "has been most kind and
delightful, but--somehow I want to get away."

He sat down on the edge of a couch. She seated herself at the further
end of it.

"Violet," he said, "you have taken me rather by surprise."

"Well, you don't mind being taken by surprise once in a while, do you?"
she asked, a little petulantly. "You know I am capricious--you have told
me so often enough. Here is a proof of it. Take me back to London or to
Paris, or wherever you like."

He was almost overwhelmed. It was unfortunate that she had chosen that
moment to look away and could not see, therefore, the light which glowed
in his eyes.

"Violet," he assured her earnestly, "there is nothing in the world I
should like so much. I would beg you to have your trunks packed this
morning, but unfortunately I cannot leave Monte Carlo just now."

"Cannot leave Monte Carlo?" she repeated derisively. "Why, my dear man,
you are a fish out of water here! You don't gamble, you do nothing but
moon about and go to the Opera and worry about your silly politics. What
on earth do you mean when you say that you cannot leave Monte Carlo?"

"I mean just what I say," he replied. "I cannot leave Monte Carlo for
several days, at any rate."

She looked at him blankly, a little incredulously.

"You have talked like this before, Henry," she said, "and it is all too
absurd. You must tell me the truth now. You can have no business here.
You are travelling for pleasure. You can surely leave a place or not at
your own will?"

"It happens," he sighed, "that I cannot. Will you please be very kind,
Violet, and not ask me too much about this? If there is anything else I
can do," he went on, hesitatingly, "if you will give me a little more of
your time, if you will wait with me for a few days longer--"

"Can't you understand," she interrupted impatiently, "that it is just
this very moment, this instant, that I want to get away? Something has
gone wrong. I want to leave Monte Carlo. I am not sure that I ever want
to see it again. And I want you to take me.... Please!"

She held out her hands, swaying a little towards him. He gripped them in
his. She yielded to their pressure until their lips almost met.

"You'll take me away this morning?" she whispered.

"I cannot do that," he replied, "but, Violet--"

She snatched herself away from him. An ungovernable fit of fury seemed
to have seized her. She stood in the centre of the room and stamped her
foot.

"You cannot!" she repeated. "And you will not give me a reason? Very
well, I have done my best, I have made my appeal. I will stay in Monte
Carlo, then. I will--"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," she cried. "Who is it?"

The door was softly opened. Draconmeyer stood upon the threshold. He
looked from one to the other in some surprise.

"I am sorry," he murmured. "Please excuse me."

"Come in, Mr. Draconmeyer," she called out to his retreating figure.
"Come in, please. How is Linda this morning?"

Draconmeyer smiled a little ruefully as he returned.

"Complaining," he replied, "as usual. I am afraid that she has had
rather a bad night. She is going to try and sleep for an hour or two. I
came to see if you felt disposed for a motor ride this morning?"

"I should love it," she assented. "I should like to start as soon as
possible. Henry was just going, weren't you?" she added, turning to her
husband.

He stood his ground.

"There was something else I wished to say," he declared, glancing at
Draconmeyer.

The latter moved at once towards the door but Violet stopped him.

"Not now," she begged. "If there is really anything else, Henry, you can
send up a note, or I dare say we shall meet at the Club to-night. Now,
please, both of you go away. I must change my clothes for motoring. In
half an hour, Mr. Draconmeyer."

"The car will be ready," he answered.

Hunterleys hesitated. He looked for a moment at Violet. She returned his
glance of appeal with a hard, fixed stare. Then she turned away.

"Susanne," she called to her maid, who was in the inner room, "I am
dressing at once. I will show you what to put out."

She disappeared, closing the connecting door behind her. The two men
walked out to the lift in silence. Draconmeyer rang the bell.

"You are not leaving Monte Carlo at present, then, Sir Henry?" he
remarked.

"Not at present," Hunterleys replied calmly.

They parted without further speech. Hunterleys returned to his room,
where Richard was still waiting.

"Say, have you got a valet here with you?" the young man enquired.

Hunterleys shook his head.

"Never possessed such a luxury in my life," he declared.

"Chap came in here directly you were gone--mumbled something about doing
something for you. I didn't altogether like the look of him, so I sat on
the table and watched. He hung around for a moment, and then, when he
saw that I was sticking it out, he went off."

"Was he wearing the hotel livery?" Hunterleys asked quickly.

"Plain black clothes," Richard replied. "He looked the valet, right
enough."

Hunterleys rang the bell. It was answered by a servant in grey livery.

"Are you the valet on this floor?" Hunterleys enquired.

"Yes, sir!"

"There was a man in here just now, said he was my valet or something of
the sort, hung around for a minute or two and then went away. Who was
he?"

The servant shook his head. He was apparently a German, and stupid.

"There are no valets on this floor except myself," he declared.

"Then who could this person have been?" Hunterleys demanded.

"A tailor, perhaps," the man suggested, "but he would not come unless
you had ordered him. I have been on duty all the time. I have seen no
one about."

"Very well," Hunterleys said, "I'll report the matter in the office."

"Some hotel thief, I suppose," Lane remarked, as soon as the door was
closed. "He didn't look like it exactly, though."

Hunterleys frowned.

"Not much here to satisfy any one's curiosity," he observed. "Just as
well you were in the room, though."

"Surrounded by mysteries, aren't you, old chap?" Richard yawned,
lighting a cigarette.

"I don't know exactly about that," Hunterleys replied, "but I'll tell
you one thing, Lane. There are things going on in Monte Carlo at the
present moment which would bring out the black headlines on the
halfpenny papers if they had an inkling of them. There are people here
who are trying to draw up a new map of Europe, a new map of the world."

Richard shook his head.

"I can't get interested in anything, Hunterleys," he declared. "You
could tell me the most amazing things in the world and they'd pass in at
one ear and out at the other. Kind of a blithering idiot, eh? You know
what I did last night after dinner. If you'll believe me, when I got to
the villa, I found the place patrolled as though they were afraid of
dynamiters. I skulked round to the back, got on the beach, and climbed a
little way up towards the rock garden. I hid there and waited to see if
she'd come out on the terrace. She never came, but I caught a glimpse of
her passing from one room to another, and I tell you I'm such a poor
sort of an idiot that I felt repaid for waiting there all that time. I
shall go there again to-night. The boys wanted me to dine--Eddy
Lanchester and Montressor and that lot--a jolly party, too. I sha'n't do
it. I shall have a mouthful alone somewhere and spend the rest of the
evening on those rocks. Something's got to come of this, Hunterleys."

"Let's go into the lounge for a few moments," Hunterleys suggested. "I
may as well hear all about it."

They made their way downstairs, and sat there talking, or rather
Hunterleys listened while Richard talked. Then Draconmeyer strolled
across the hall and waited by the lift. Presently he returned with
Violet by his side, followed by her maid, carrying rugs. As they
approached, Hunterleys rose slowly to his feet. Violet was looking up
into her companion's face, talking and laughing. She either did not see
Hunterleys, or affected not to. He stood, for a moment, irresolute.
Then, as she passed, she glanced at him quite blankly and waved her hand
to Richard. The two disappeared. Hunterleys resumed his seat. He had,
somehow or other, the depressing feeling of a man who has lost a great
opportunity.

"Lady Hunterleys looks well this morning," Lane remarked, absolutely
unconscious of anything unusual.

Hunterleys watched the car drive off before he answered.

"She looks very well," he assented gloomily.

CHAPTER XX

WILY MR. DRACONMEYER

They had skirted the wonderful bay and climbed the mountainous hill to
the frontier before Violet spoke. All the time Draconmeyer leaned back
by her side, perfectly content. A man of varied subtleties, he
understood and fully appreciated the intrinsic value of silence. Whilst
the Customs officer, however, was making out the deposit note for the
car, she turned to him.

"Will you tell me something, Mr. Draconmeyer?"

"Of course!"

"It is about my husband," she went on. "Henry isn't your friend--you
dislike one another, I know. You men seem to have a sort of freemasonry
which compels you to tell falsehoods about one another, but in this case
I am going to remind you that I have the greater claim, and I am going
to ask you for the sober truth. Henry has once or twice, during the last
few days, hinted to me that his presence in Monte Carlo just now has
some sort of political significance. He is very vague about it all, but
he evidently wants me to believe that he is staying here against his own
inclinations. Now I want to ask you a plain question. Is it likely that
he could have any business whatever to transact for the Government in
Monte Carlo? What I mean is, could there possibly be anything to keep
him in this place which for political reasons he couldn't tell me
about?"

"I can answer your question finally so far as regards any Government
business," Mr. Draconmeyer assured her. "Your husband's Party is in
Opposition. As a keen politician, he would not be likely to interest
himself in the work of his rival."

"You are quite sure," she persisted, "you are quite sure that he could
not have a mission of any sort?--that there isn't any meeting of
diplomatists here in which he might be interested?"

Mr. Draconmeyer smiled with the air of one listening to a child's
prattle.

"If I were not sure that you are in earnest--!" he began. "However, I
will just answer your question. Nothing of the sort is possible.
Besides, people don't come to Monte Carlo for serious affairs, you
know."

Her face hardened a little.

"I suppose," she said, "that you are quite sure of what you told me the
other evening about this young singer--Felicia Roche?"

"I should not allude to a matter of that sort," he declared, "unless I
had satisfied myself as to the facts. It is true that I owe nothing to
your husband and everything to you, or I should have probably remained
silent. As it is, all that I know is at your service. Felicia Roche is
to make her debut at the Opera House to-night. Your husband has been
seen with her repeatedly. He was at her villa at one o'clock this
morning. I have heard it said that he is a little infatuated."

"Thank you," she murmured, "that is quite enough."

The formalities were concluded and the car drove on. They paused at the
last turn to gaze downward at the wonderful view--the gorgeous Bay of
Mentone, a thousand feet below, with its wealth of mimosa-embosomed
villas; Monte Carlo glittering on the sea-board; the sweep of Monaco,
red-roofed, picturesque. And behind, the mountains, further away still,
the dim, snow-capped heights. Violet looked, as she was bidden, but her
eyes seemed incapable of appreciation. When the car moved on, she leaned
back in her seat and dropped her veil. She was paler even than when they
had started.

"I am going to talk to you very little," he said gravely. "I want you
just to rest and breathe this wonderful air. If my reply to your
question troubles you, I am sorry, but you had to know it some day. It
is a wrench, of course, but you must have guessed it. Your husband is a
man of peculiar temperament, but no man could have refused such an offer
as you made him, unless there had been some special reason for it--no
man in the world."

There was a little tremble in his tone, artistic and not overdone.
Somehow, she felt that his admiration ministered to her self-respect.
She permitted his hand to remain upon hers. The touch of her fingers
very nearly brought the torrent from his lips. He crushed the words
down, however. It was too great a risk. Very soon things would be
different; he could afford to wait.

They drove on to San Remo and turned into the hotel.

"You are better away from Monte Carlo for a few hours," he decided. "We
will lunch here and drive back afterwards. You will feel greatly
refreshed."

She accepted his suggestion without enthusiasm and with very little show
of pleasure. They found a table on the terrace in a retired corner,
surrounded with flowering cactus plants and drooping mimosa, and
overhung by a giant oleander tree. He talked to her easily but in
gossiping fashion only, and always with the greatest respect. It was not
until the arrival of their coffee that he ventured to become at all
personal.

"Will you forgive me if I talk without reserve for a few moments?" he
began, leaning a little towards her. "You have your troubles, I know.
May I not remind you that you are not alone in your sorrows? Linda, as
you know, has no companionship whatever to offer. She does nothing but
indulge in fretful regrets over her broken health. When I remember, too,
how lonely your days are, and think of your husband and what he might
make of them, then I cannot help realising with absolute vividness the
supreme irony of fate. Here am I, craving for nothing so much on earth
as the sympathy, the affection of--shall I say such a woman as you? And
your husband, who might have the best, remains utterly indifferent,
content with something far below the second best. And there is so much
in life, too," he went on, regretfully. "I cannot tell you how difficult
it is for me to sit still and see you worried about such a trifle as
money. Fancy the joy of giving you money!"

She awoke a little from her lethargy. She looked at him, startled.

"You haven't told me yet," he added, "how the game went last night?"

"I lost every penny of that thousand pounds," she declared. "That is why
I sent for my husband this morning and asked him to take me back to
England. I am getting afraid of the place. My luck seems to have gone
for ever."

He laughed softly.

"That doesn't sound like you," he observed. "Besides, what does it
matter? Write me out some more cheques when we get back. Date them this
year or next, or the year after--it really doesn't matter a bit. My
fortune is at your disposal. If it amuses you to lose a thousand pounds
in the afternoon, and twice as much at night, pray do."

She laughed at him. There was a certain glamour about his words which
appealed to her fancy.

"Why, you talk like a prince," she murmured, "and yet you know how
impossible it is."

"Is it?" he asked quietly.

She rose abruptly from her place. There was something wrong--she felt it
in the atmosphere--something that was almost choking her.

"Let us go back," she insisted.

He ordered the car without another word and they started off homewards.
It was not until they were nearing Monte Carlo that he spoke of anything
save the slightest topics.

"You must have a little more money," he told her, in a matter-of-fact
tone. "That is a necessity. There is no need to worry your husband. I
shall go and bring you a thousand pounds. You can give me the cheques
later."

She sat looking steadfastly ahead of her. She seemed to see her numbers
spread out before her, to hear the click of the ball, the croupier's
voice, the thrill of victory.

"I have taken more money from you than I meant to, already, Mr.
Draconmeyer," she protested. "Does Linda know how much you have lent
me?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"What is the use of telling her? She does not understand. She has never
felt the gambling fever, the joy of it, the excitement. She would not be
strong enough. You and I understand. I have felt it in the money-markets
of the world, where one plays with millions, where a mistake might mean
ruin. That is why the tables seem dull for me, but all the same it comes
home to me."

She felt the fierce stimulus of anxious thought. She knew very well that
notwithstanding his quiet manner, she had reason to fear the man who sat
by her side. She feared his self-restraint, she feared the light which
sometimes gleamed in his eyes when he fancied himself unobserved. He
gave her no cause for complaint. All the time his behaviour had been
irreproachable. And yet she felt, somehow or other, like a bird who is
being hunted by a trapper, a trapper who knows his business, who goes
about it with quiet confidence, with absolute certainty. There was
something like despair in her heart.

"Well, I suppose I shall have to stay here," she said, "and I can't stay
here without playing. I will take a thousand more, if you will lend it
to me."

"You shall have it directly we get to the hotel," he told her. "Don't
hurry with the cheques, and don't date them too soon. Remember that you
must have something to live on when you get back."

"I am going to win," she declared confidently. "I am going to win enough
to pay you back every penny."

"I won't say that I hope not," he observed, "for your sake, but it will
certainly give me no pleasure to have the money back again. You are such
a wonderful person," he added, dropping his voice, "that I rather like
to feel that I can be a little useful to you."

They had neared the end of their journey and Mr. Draconmeyer touched her
arm. A faint smile was playing about his lips. Certainly the fates were
befriending him! He said nothing, but her eyes followed the slight
motion of his head. Coming down the steps from Ciro's were her husband
and Felicia Roche. Violet looked at them for a moment. Then she turned
her head away.

"Most inopportune," she sighed, with a little attempt at gaiety. "Shall
we meet later at the Club?"

"Assuredly," Mr. Draconmeyer replied. "I will send the money to your
room."

"Thank you once more," she said, "and thank you, too, for my drive. I
have enjoyed it very much. I am very glad indeed that I had the courage
to make you tell me the truth."

"I hope," he whispered, as he handed her out, "that you will never lack
the courage to ask me anything."

CHAPTER XXI

ASSASSINATION!

Selingman, a large cigar between his lips and a happy smile upon his
face, stood in the square before the Casino, watching the pigeons. He
had just enjoyed an excellent lunch, he was exceedingly pleased with a
new light grey suit which he was wearing, and his one unsatisfied desire
was for companionship. Draconmeyer was away motoring with Lady
Hunterleys, Mr. Grex was spending the early part of the day in conclave
with their visitor from France, and Mademoiselle Nipon had gone to Nice
for the day. Selingman had been left to his own devices and was
beginning to find time hang upon his hands. Conversation and
companionship were almost as great necessities with him as wine. He
beamed upon the pigeons and looked around at the people dotted about in
chairs outside the Cafe de Paris, hoping to find an acquaintance. It
chanced, however, that he saw nothing but strangers. Then his eyes fell
upon a man who was seated with folded arms a short distance away, a man
of respectable but somewhat gloomy appearance, dressed in dark clothes,
with pale cheeks and cavernous eyes. Selingman strolled towards him.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21