Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo

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

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"There isn't a Grand Duke or a Prince or an Imperial Majesty alive," he
said, "who could rob me of Fedora!"

CHAPTER XXX

"SUPPOSING I TAKE THIS MONEY"

There was a momentary commotion in the Club. A woman had fainted at one
of the roulette tables. Her chair was quickly drawn back. She was helped
out to the open space at the top of the stairs and placed in an
easy-chair there. Lady Weybourne, who was on the point of leaving with
her husband, hastened back. She stood there while the usual restoratives
were being administered, fanning the unconscious woman with a white
ostrich fan which hung from her waist. Presently Violet opened her eyes.
She recognised Lady Weybourne and smiled weakly.

"I am so sorry," she murmured. "It was silly of me to stay in here so
long. I went without my dinner, too, which was rather idiotic."

A man who had announced himself a doctor, bent over her pulse and turned
away.

"The lady will be quite all right now," he said. "You can give her
brandy and soda if she feels like it. Pardon!"

He hastened back to his place at the baccarat table. Lady Hunterleys sat
up.

"It was quite absurd of me," she declared. "I don't know what--"

She stopped suddenly. The weight was once more upon her heart, the
blankness before her eyes. She remembered!

"I am quite able to go home now," she added.

Her gold bag lay upon her lap. It was almost empty. She looked at it
vacantly and then closed the snap.

"We'll see you back to the hotel," Lady Weybourne said soothingly. "Here
comes Harry with the brandy and soda."

Lord Weybourne came hurrying from the bar, a tumbler in his hand.

"How nice of you!" Violet exclaimed gratefully. "Really, I feel that
this is just what I need. I wonder what time it is?"

"Half past four," Lord Weybourne announced, glancing at his watch.

She laughed weakly.

"How stupid of me! I have been between here and the Casino for nearly
twelve hours, and had nothing to eat. No, I won't have anything here,
thanks," she added, as Lord Weybourne started back again for the bar,
muttering something about a sandwich. "I'll have something in my room.
If you are going back to the hotel, perhaps I could come with you."

They all three left the place together, passing along the private way.

"I haven't seen your brother all day," Violet remarked to Lady
Weybourne.

"Richard's gone off somewhere in the car to-night, a most mysterious
expedition," his sister declared. "I began to think that it must be an
elopement, but I see the yacht's there still, and he would surely choose
the yacht in preference to a motor-car, if he were running off with
anybody! Your husband doesn't come into the rooms much?"

Violet shook her head.

"He hasn't the gambling instinct," she said quietly. "Perhaps he is just
as well without it. One gets a lot of amusement out of this playing for
small stakes, but it is irritating to lose. Thank you so much for
looking after me," she added, as they reached the hall of the hotel. "I
am quite all right now and my woman will be sitting up for me."

She passed into the lift. Lady Weybourne looked after her admiringly.

"Say, she's got some pluck, Harry!" she murmured. "They say she lost
nearly a hundred mille to-night and she never even mentioned her
losings. Irritating, indeed! I wonder what Sir Henry thinks of it. They
are only moderately well off."

Her husband shrugged his shoulders, after the fashion of his sex.

"Let us hope," he said, "that it is Sir Henry who suffers."

* * * * *

Violet slipped out of her gown and dismissed her maid. In her
dressing-gown she sat before the open window. Everywhere the place
seemed steeped in the faint violet and purple light preceding the dawn.
Away eastwards she could catch a glimpse of the mountains, their peaks
cut sharply against the soft, deep sky; a crystalline glow, the first
herald of the hidden sunrise, hanging about their summits. The gentle
breeze from the Mediterranean was cool and sweet. There were many lights
still gleaming upon the sea, but their effect now seemed tawdry. She sat
there, her head resting upon her hands. She had the feeling of being
somehow detached from the whole world of visible objects, as though,
indeed, she were on her death-bed. Surely it was not possible to pass
any further through life than this! In her thoughts she went back to the
first days of estrangement between her husband and herself. Almost
before she realised it, she found herself struggling against the
tenderness which still survived, which seemed at that moment to be
tearing at her heart-strings. He had ceased to care, she told herself.
It was all too apparent that he had ceased to care. He was amusing
himself elsewhere. Her little impulsive note had not won even a kind
word from him. Her appeals, on one excuse or another, had been
disregarded. She had lost her place in his life, thrown it away, she
told herself bitterly. And in its stead--what! A new fear of Draconmeyer
was stealing over her. He presented himself suddenly as an evil genius.
She went back through the last few days. Her brain seemed unexpectedly
clear, her perceptions unerring. She saw with hateful distinctness how
he had forced this money upon her, how he had encouraged her all the
time to play beyond her means. She realised the cunning with which he
had left that last bundle of notes in her keeping. Well, there the facts
were. She owed him now four thousand pounds. She had no money of her
own, she was already overdrawn with her allowance. There was no chance
of paying him. She realised, with a little shudder, that he did not want
payment, a realisation which had come to her dimly from the first, but
which she had pushed away simply because she had felt sure of winning.
Now there was the price to be paid! She leaned further out of the
window. Away to her left the glow over the mountains was becoming
stained with the faintest of pinks. She looked at it long, with mute and
critical appreciation. She swept with her eyes the line of violet
shadows from the mountain-tops to the sea-board, where the pale lights
of Bordighera still flickered. She looked up again from the dark blue
sea to the paling stars. It was all wonderful--theatrical, perhaps, but
wonderful--and how she hated it! She stood up before the window and with
her clenched fists she beat against the sills. Those long days and
feverish nights through which she had passed slowly unfolded themselves.
In those few moments she seemed to taste again the dull pain of constant
disappointment, the hectic thrills of occasional winnings, the strange,
dull inertia which had taken the place of resignation. She looked into
the street below. How long would she live afterwards, she wondered, if
she threw herself down! She began even to realise the state of mind
which breeds suicides, the brooding over a morrow too hateful to be
faced.

As she still stood there, the silence of the street below was broken. A
motor-car swung round the corner and swept past the side of the hotel.
She caught at the curtain as she recognised its occupants. Richard Lane
was driving, and by his side sat her husband. The car was covered with
dust, both men seemed weary as though they had been out all night. She
gazed after them with fast-beating heart. She had pictured her husband
at the villa on the hill! Where had he been with Richard Lane? Perhaps,
after all, the things which she had imagined were not true. The car had
stopped now at the front door. It returned a moment later on its way to
the garage, with only Lane driving. She opened her door and stood there
silently. Hunterleys would have to pass the end of the corridor if he
came up by the main lift. She waited with fast beating heart. The
seconds passed. Then she heard the rattle of the lift ascending, its
click as it stopped, and soon afterwards the footsteps of a man. He was
coming--coming past the corner! At that moment she felt that the sound
of his footsteps was like the beating of fate. They came nearer and she
shrank a little back. There was something unfamiliar about them. Whoever
it might be, it was not Henry! And then suddenly Draconmeyer came into
sight. He saw her standing there and stopped short. Then he came rapidly
near.

"Lady Hunterleys!" he exclaimed softly. "You still up?"

She hesitated. Then she stood on one side, still grasping the handle of
the door.

"Do you want to come in?" she asked. "You may. I have something to say
to you. Perhaps I shall sleep better if I say it now."

He stepped quickly past her.

"Close the door," he whispered cautiously.

She obeyed him deliberately.

"There is no hurry," she said. "This is my sitting-room. I receive whom
I choose here."

"But it is nearly six o'clock!" he exclaimed.

"That does not affect me," she answered, shrugging her shoulders. "Sit
down."

He obeyed. There was something changed about her, something which he did
not recognise. She thrust her hands into a box of cigarettes, took one
out and lit it. She leaned against the table, facing him.

"Listen," she continued, "I have borrowed from you three thousand
pounds. You left with me to-night--I don't know whether you meant to
lend it to me or whether I had it on trust, but you left it in my
charge--another thousand pounds. I have lost it all--all, you
understand--the four thousand pounds and every penny I have of my own."

He sat quite still. He was watching her through his gold-rimmed
spectacles. There was the slightest possible frown upon his forehead.
The time for talking of money as though it were a trifle had passed.

"That is a great deal," he said.

"It is a great deal," she admitted. "I owe it to you and I cannot pay.
What are you going to do?"

He watched her eagerly. There was a new note in her voice. He paused to
consider what it might mean. A single false step now and he might lose
all that he had striven for.

"How am I to answer that?" he asked softly. "I will answer it first in
the way that seems most natural. I will beg you to accept your losings
as a little gift from me--as a proof, if you will, of my friendship."

He had saved the situation. If he had obeyed his first impulse, the
affair would have been finished. He realised it as he watched her face,
and he shuddered at the thought of his escape. His words obviously
disturbed her.

"It is not possible for me," she protested, "to accept money from you."

"Not from Linda's husband?"

She threw her cigarette into the grate and stood looking at him.

"Do you offer it to me as Linda's husband?" she demanded.

It was a crisis for which Draconmeyer was scarcely prepared. He was
driven out of his pusillanimous compromise. She was pressing him hard
for the truth. Again the fear of losing her altogether terrified him.

"If I have other feelings of which I have not spoken," he said quietly,
"have I not kept them to myself? Do I obtrude them upon you even now? I
am content to wait."

"To wait for what?" she insisted.

All that had been in his mind seemed suddenly miraged before him--the
removal of Hunterleys, his own wife's failing health. The way had seemed
so clear only a little time ago, and now the clouds were back again.

"Until you appreciate the fact," he told her, "that you have no more
sincere friend, that there is no one who values your happiness more than
I do."

"Supposing I take this money from you," she asked, after a moment's
pause. "Are there any conditions?"

"None whatever," he answered.

She turned away with a little sigh. The tragedy which a few minutes ago
she had seen looming up, eluded her. She had courted a denouement in
vain. He was too clever.

"You are very generous," she said. "We will speak of this to-morrow. I
called you in because I could not bear the uncertainty of it all. Please
go now."

He rose slowly to his feet. She gave him her hand lifelessly. He kept it
for a moment. She drew it away and looked at the place where his lips
had touched it, wonderingly. It was as though her fingers had been
scorched with fire.

"It shall be to-morrow," he whispered, as he passed out.

CHAPTER XXXI

NEARING A CRISIS

From the wilds of Scotland to Monte Carlo, as fast as motor-cars and
train de luxe could bring him, came the right Honourable Meredith
Simpson, a very distinguished member of His Majesty's Government.
Hunterleys, advised of his coming by telegram from Marseilles, met him
at the station, and together the two men made their way at once to
Hunterleys' room across at the Hotel de Paris. Behind locked doors they
spoke for the first time of important matters.

"It's a great find, this of yours, Hunterleys," the Minister
acknowledged, "and it is corroborated, too, by what we know is happening
around us. We have had all the warning in the world just lately. The
Russian Ambassador is in St. Petersburg on leave of absence--in fact for
the last six months he has been taking his duties remarkably lightly.
Tell me how you first heard of the affair?"

"I got wind of it in Sofia," Hunterleys explained. "I travelled from
there quite quietly, loitered about the Italian Riviera, and came on
here as a tourist. The only help I could get hold of here was from
Sidney Roche, who, as you know, is one of our Secret Service men. Roche,
I am sorry to say, was shot last night. He may live but he won't be well
enough to take any further hand in the game here, and I have no one to
take his place."

"Roche shot!" Mr. Simpson exclaimed, in a shocked tone. "How did it
happen?"

"They found him lying on the roof of the Villa Mimosa, just over the
room where the meeting was taking place," Hunterleys replied. "They
chased him round the grounds and we just got him off in a motor-car, but
not before he'd been hit twice. He was just able to tell me a little.
The first meeting was quite informal and very guarded. Douaille was most
cautious--he was there only to listen. The second meeting was last
night. Grex was in the chair, representing Russia."

"You mean the Grand Duke Augustus?" Mr. Simpson interrupted.

Hunterleys nodded.

"Grex is the name he is living under here. He explained Russia's
position. Poor Roche was only able to falter a few words, but what he
said was enough to give us the key-note to the whole thing. The long and
short of it all is that Russia turned her face westward so long as
Constantinople was possible. Now that this war has come about and ended
as it has done, Russia's chance has gone. There is no longer any _quid
pro quo_ for her alliance with France. There is no friendship, of
course, between Russia and Germany, but at any rate Russia has nothing
to fear from Germany, and she knows it. Grex is quite frank. They must
look eastward, he said, and when he says eastward, he means Manchuria,
China, Persia, even India. At the same time, Russia has a conscience,
even though it be a diplomatic conscience. Hence this conference. She
doesn't want France crushed. Germany has a proposition. It has been
enunciated up to a certain point. She confers Alsace and Lorraine and
possibly Egypt upon France, for her neutrality whilst she destroys the
British Fleet. Or failing her neutrality, she wants her to place a weak
army on the frontier, which can fall back without much loss before a
German advance. Germany's objective then will be Calais and not Paris,
and from there she will command the Straits and deal with the British
Fleet at her leisure. Meanwhile, she will conclude peace with France on
highly advantageous terms. Don't you see what it means, Simpson? The
elementary part of the thing is as simple as A B C. Germany has nothing
to gain from Russia, she has nothing to gain from France. England is the
only country who can give her what she wants. That is about as far as
they have got, up to now, but there is something further behind it all.
That, Selingman is to tell them to-night."

"The most important point about the whole matter, so far as we are
concerned," Mr. Simpson declared, "is Douaille's attitude. You have
received no indication of that, I suppose?"

"None whatever," Hunterleys answered. "I thought of paying my respects,
but after all, you know, I have no official standing, and personally we
are almost strangers."

The Minister nodded.

"It's a difficult position," he confessed. "Have you copies of your
reports to London?"

"I have copies of them, and full notes of everything that has transpired
so far, in a strong box up at the bank," Hunterleys assented. "We can
stroll up there after lunch and I will place all the documents in your
hands. You can look them through then and decide what is best to be
done."

The Minister rose to his feet.

"I shall go round to my rooms, change my clothes," he announced, "and
meet you presently. We'll lunch across at Ciro's, eh? I didn't mean to
come to Monte Carlo this year, but so long as I am here, I may as well
make the best of it. You are not looking as though the change had done
you much good, Hunterleys."

"The last few days," Hunterleys remarked, a little drily, "have not been
exactly in the nature of a holiday."

"Are you here alone?"

"I came alone. I found my wife here by accident. She came through with
the Draconmeyers. They were supposed to stay at Cannes, but altered
their plans. Of course, Draconmeyer meant to come here all the time."

The Minister frowned.

"Draconmeyer's one man I should be glad to see out of London," he
declared. "Under the pretext of fostering good-will, and that sort of
thing, between the mercantile classes of our two countries, I think that
that fellow has done about as much mischief as it is possible for any
single man to have accomplished. We'll meet in an hour, Hunterleys. My
man is putting out some things for me and I must have a bath."

Hunterleys walked up to the hospital, and to his surprise met Selingman
coming away. The latter saluted him with a wave of the hat and a genial
smile.

"Calling to see our poor invalid?" he enquired blandly.

Hunterleys, although he knew his man, was a little taken aback.

"What share in him do you claim?" he asked.

Selingman sighed.

"Alas!" he confessed, "I fear that my claim would sound a little
cold-blooded. I think that I was the only man who held his gun straight.
Yet, after all, Roche would be the last to bear me any grudge. He was
playing the game, taking his risks. Uncommonly bad marksmen Grex's
private police were, or he'd be in the morgue instead of the hospital."

"I gather that our friend is still alive?" Hunterleys remarked.

"Going on as well as could be expected," Selingman replied.

"Conscious?"

Selingman smiled.

"You see through my little visit of sympathy at once!" he exclaimed.
"Unable to converse, I am assured, and unable to share with his friends
any little information he may have picked up last night. By the way,
whom shall you send to report our little conference to-night? You
wouldn't care to come yourself, would you?"

"I should like to exceedingly," Hunterleys assured him, "if you'd give
me a safe conduct."

Selingman withdrew his cigar from his mouth and laid his hand upon the
other's shoulder.

"My dear friend," he said earnestly, "your safe conduct, if ever I
signed it, would be to the other world. Frankly, we find you rather a
nuisance. We would be better pleased if your Party were in office, and
you with your knees tucked under a desk at Downing Street, attending to
your official business in your official place. Who gave you this roving
commission, eh? Who sent you to talk common sense to the Balkan States,
and how the mischief did you get wind of our little meeting here?"

"Ah!" Hunterleys replied, "I expect you really know all these things."

Selingman, with his feet planted firmly upon the pavement, took a fresh
cigar from his waistcoat pocket, bit off the end and lit it.

"My friend Hunterleys," he continued, "I am enjoying this brief
interchange of confidences. Circumstances have made me, as you see, a
politician, a schemer if you like. Nature meant me to be one of the
frankest, the most truthful, the best-hearted of men. I detest the
tortuous ways of the old diplomacy. The spoken word pleases me best.
That is why I like a few minutes' conversation with the enemy, why I
love to stand here and talk to you with the buttons off our foils. We
are scheming against you and your country, and you know it, and we shall
win. We can't help but win--if not to-day, to-morrow. Your country has
had a marvellously long run of good luck, but it can't last for ever."

Hunterleys smiled.

"Well," he observed, "there's nothing like confidence. If you are so
sure of success, why couldn't you choose a cleaner way to it than by
tampering with our ally?"

Selingman patted his companion on the shoulder.

"Listen, my friend," he said, "there are no such things as allies. An
alliance between two countries is a dead letter so soon as their
interests cease to be identical. Now Austria is our ally because she is
practically Germany. We are both mid-Continental Powers. We both need
the same protection. But England and France! Go back only fifty years,
my dear Hunterleys, and ask yourself--would any living person, living
now and alive then, believe in the lasting nature of such an unnatural
alliance? Wherever you look, in every quarter of the globe, your
interests are opposed. You robbed France of Egypt. She can't have wholly
forgotten. You dominate the Mediterranean through Gibraltar, Malta, and
Cyprus. What does she think of that, I wonder? Isn't a humiliation for
her when she does stop to think of it? You've a thousand years of
quarrels, of fighting and rapine behind you. You can't call yourselves
allies because the thing isn't natural. It never could be. It was only
your mutual, hysterical fear of Germany which drove you into one
another's arms. We fought France once to prove ourselves, and for money.
Just now we don't want either money or territory from France. Perhaps we
don't even want, my dear Englishman, what you think we want, but all the
same, don't blame us for trying to dissolve an unnatural alliance. Was
that Simpson who came by the Luxe this morning?"

"It was," Hunterleys admitted.

"The Right Honourable John William Meredith Simpson!" Selingman recited,
waving his cigar. "Well, well, we certainly have made a stir with our
little meetings here. An inspired English Cabinet Minister,
travel-stained and dusty, arrives with his valet and a black
dispatch-box, to foil our schemes. Send him along, my friend. We are not
at all afraid of Mr. Simpson. Perhaps we may even ask him to join us
this evening."

"I fancy," Hunterleys remarked grimly, "that the Englishman who joins
you this evening will find a home up on the hill here."

"Or down in the morgue there," Selingman grunted, pointing down to
Monaco. "Take care, Hunterleys--take care, man. One of us hates you. It
isn't I. You are fighting a brave fight and a losing fight, but you are
good metal. Try and remember, when you find that you are beaten, that
life has many consolations for the philosopher."

He passed on and Hunterleys entered the hospital. Whilst he was waiting
in the little reception-room, Felicia came in. Her face showed signs of
her night's anxiety.

"Sidney is still unconscious," she announced, her voice shaking a
little. "The doctors seem hopeful--but oh! Sir Henry, it is terrible to
see him lying there just as though he were dead!"

"Sidney will pull through all right," Hunterleys declared,
encouragingly. "He has a wonderful constitution and he is the luckiest
fellow born. He always gets out of trouble, somehow or other."

She came slowly up to him.

"Sir Henry," she said piteously, "I know quite well that Sidney was
willing to take his risks. He went into this thing, knowing it was
dangerous. I want to be brave. What happens must be. But listen. You
won't--you won't rob me of everything in life, will you? You won't send
David after him?"

Hunterleys smiled reassuringly.

"I can promise you that," he told her. "This isn't David's job at all.
He has to stick to his post and help out the bluff as a press
correspondent. Don't be afraid, Felicia. You shall have your David."

She seized his hand and kissed it.

"You have been so kind to me always, Sir Henry," she sighed. "I can't
tell you how thankful I am to think that you don't want David to go and
run these horrible risks."

"No fear of that, I promise you," he assured her once more. "David will
be busy enough pulling the strings another way."

The doctor entered the room and shook hands with Hunterleys. There was
no news, he declared, nothing to be done. The patient must continue in
his present condition for several more hours at least. The symptoms
were, in their way, favourable. Beyond that, nothing could be said.
Felicia and Hunterleys left the hospital together.

"I wonder," she began, as they turned out of the white gates, "whether
you would mind very much if I told you something?"

"Of course not!"

"Yesterday," she continued slowly, "I met Lady Hunterleys. You know, I
have seen her twice when I have been to your house to sing for your
guests. She recognised me, I feel sure, but she didn't seem to want to
see me. She looked surprised when I bowed. I worried about it at first
and then I wondered. You are so very, very secretive just now. Whatever
this affair may be in which you three are all concerned, you never open
your lips about it. Lady Hunterleys probably doesn't know that you have
had to come up to the villa at all hours of the night just to see
Sidney. You don't suppose that by any chance she imagined--that you came
to see me?"

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