The Colossus of Arcadia E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

This late novel of E. Phillips Oppenheim begins as the „Train Bleu” pulls into the railroad station in Monaco. It’s a leisurely spy fiction tale set in Monaco as various members of aristocracy from different countries plus one vacationing American woman find themselves involved with international intrigue. The bulk of the book consists of members of the leisure class drinking cocktails, playing baccarat, and generally spending time in Monaco’s elite clubs. Oppenheim’s work often reflected the current political and social events he was living through. In the late 1930’s, Oppenheim was living in the South of France, near Monaco, as that playground of the wealthy slowly emptied out it wealthy and royal clientele in advance of the coming war.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER I

THERE was nothing graceful or sinuous-like in the ponderous wheezing approach of the long train with its enormous engine into Monte Carlo station. It may have been, indeed it was, the famous Blue Train; but it came to its final standstill with a clanking of couplings and a succession of convulsive jerks which threw off their balance most of the passengers, who were standing in the corridors hanging out of the windows eager to attract the notice of porters. Whilst the majority of them were fumbling for their tickets and registered luggage slips, a quiet-looking man of indeterminate age, neatly dressed and showing no signs of the night journey, passed out of the barriers, gave up his ticket, and, followed by a porter carrying two suitcases, stepped into the nearest fiacre.

“Place one of the bags here beneath my feet,” he told the porter. “Give the other to the driver. Tell him to go to the Hôtel de Paris.”

The pourboire was adequate, his client’s accent proved him to be no stranger to the country, the sun was shining and there was plenty of time to get another job from the same train. The porter removed his hat with a broad smile and with a sweeping bow he stepped aside. The little carriage, with much cracking of the whip by the cocher, mounted the first steep grade, proceeded at a more moderate speed up the second, and entered the Place, with its gardens a blaze of flowers, and the white front of the Casino in the background dominating the busy scene. Again the pourboire offered by the new arrival was satisfactory; and the cocher, removing his hat, seasoned his word of thanks with a smile which was an obvious welcome to the Principality. The late occupant of his vehicle, followed at a respectful distance by the hotel bagagist, who had taken his suitcases, presented himself at the reception desk.

“My name,” he announced, producing a card, “is Stephen Ardrossen. I wrote you from the Travellers’ Club in Paris.”

“Quite so, sir,” the clerk replied, with a third smile which exceeded in graciousness and apparent sincerity any welcome which the newcomer had yet received. “We have reserved for you a small suite upon the third floor. If you will be so kind as to come this way . . .”

The newcomer hesitated.

“It occurred to me,” he said, “that since the removal of the Sporting Club, you might perhaps have some difficulty with regard to the rooms in the Nouvel Hôtel.”

The young man shrugged his shoulders.

“Later on,” he confided, “every room in the hotel will be taken. At present they are considered a little out of the way.”

“I am acquainted with the geography of the establishment,” the new arrival said. “I like the quiet, and I imagine they would be less expensive.”

The clerk, after a whispered consultation with a confrère, took down a couple of keys and led the way around the corner along a passage to the row of apartments on the ground floor opening out on the gardens, in the direction of the Nouvel Hôtel. He threw open a door which led into a small semicircular sitting room. The newcomer glanced casually at the bedroom and bathroom beyond, unfastened the French windows, and stepped out on the gravel walk.

“The price for this suite,” the clerk told him, “will be a hundred francs less than the one in the hotel.”

“I shall take it,” Mr. Ardrossen decided. “Will you kindly have my bags sent round?”

“Immediately, sir.”

The young man bowed and withdrew. The newly arrived traveller seated himself upon a bench a few feet away from the window and gazed lazily at the sun-bathed view. In the far distance he could see the train which had brought him from Calais winding its way around the bay towards Menton, below him the picturesque little harbour gay with shipping; and, on the other side, the rock of old Monaco, the Palace, the Cathedral, and the State buildings, strange and yet somehow impressive in their architecture. He looked upward to the hills dotted with red-roofed villas and beyond to the less clearly visible line of the snow-capped Alps. Below there were strains of music from the orchestra playing on the Terrace. Promenaders were crowding the streets, and back and forth an ever-flowing stream of cheerful, lighthearted holidaymakers entered or issued from the Casino.

It was, without a doubt, a place in which one might find amusement.

The suitcases were presently brought in by one of the porters. The traveller rose from his place, dispensed a satisfactory recompense, unlocked his bags and rang for the valet. He ordered a bath and handed the man a large sponge-bag and a peignoir. Then he pushed back the lid of the other suitcase, and lifted from it a heavy metal coffer which he placed upon the writing table.

The valet reappeared. Behind him was the pleasing sound of running water.

“Your bath is ready, sir,” he announced.

Ardrossen pointed to the first valise.

“You will find a suit of flannels there,” he said, “with linen and a change of underclothes. Put them out in the bedroom.”

The man disappeared with the case. As soon as he had left the room, but without undue haste, Ardrossen took off his coat, turned back the cuff and, rolling up the left sleeve of his shirt, disclosed a small band of gold fashioned like the modern bracelets in vogue amongst a certain type of young Frenchman. Touching apparently a spring from underneath, he drew from the interior a small key of curious design with which he unlocked the coffer. The latter contained several bundles of documents, all neatly secured by rubber bands. There were also two small books bound in Morocco leather, each having a lock after the style of a private ledger. Ardrossen, having checked its contents with great care, closed the coffer, relocked it, replaced the key in the aperture of the bracelet; and, sniffing up the warm steam with an air of content, he made his way into the bathroom.

The second person to pass the barrier leading from the station platform to the paradise beyond was of a very different type from her predecessor. She was a girl–slim, with a healthy, intelligent face, brown eyes dancing with happiness, soignée in her neat travelling suit, and with the air of one already feverishly anxious to drink in the unusualness of her surroundings. She, too, scorned the bus but handed to the porter a crumpled-up registration ticket.

“For myself,” she declared, speaking French fluently and with a tolerable accent, “I take a little carriage. I drive to the Hôtel de Paris. You will get my luggage and bring it right along–yes?”

“With great pleasure, Mademoiselle,” the man answered, standing hat in hand. “Mademoiselle will stay at the Hôtel de Paris?”

“Mademoiselle intends to do so,” she told him, handing over a more than adequate pourboire.

She stepped gaily into the voiture, and at the very sight of her happiness the porter smiled as he received his bénéfice with a sweeping bow.

“Welcome to Monte Carlo, Mademoiselle. It is the first visit–yes?” he asked, as he drew on one side.

“The first visit,” she admitted, waving her adieux.

Again the cocher cracked his whip, the vehicle rattled up the hill, and she looked about her with the eager interest of the young woman who has ventured into a new world. She laughed aloud with happiness as the voiture crossed the Place. Everything was as she had fancied it–the fantastic façade of that nightmare of architecture, the Casino, the wide-flung door of the Hôtel de Paris flanked with its huge pots of scarlet geraniums, even the black Senegalese in his marvellous livery. There were the flowers, the music, the sunshine, the soft air, the snow-capped mountains in the distance–everything of which she had dreamed. She almost ran up the steps of the hotel into the arms of the Chief of the Reception, who was waiting to welcome her.

“I wrote from Paris,” she told him. “My name is Haskell–Miss Joan Haskell.”

The man bowed.

“Everything is as you have desired, Mademoiselle,” he declared. “You have one of our best rooms on the second floor. If Mademoiselle will give herself the trouble to come this way–”

Mademoiselle was perfectly content to follow her guide. She passed lightly across the hall into the lift.

“Tell me, does the sun always shine like this in February?” she asked.

“Very nearly always,” her companion assured her. “To-day it is with pleasure to welcome your arrival. Mademoiselle has been long in Europe?”

“Some years,” the girl answered. “In Paris only long enough to do a little shopping.”

“Mademoiselle is alone?”

“Quite alone. American girls are used to travelling alone, you know,” she added as the lift stopped and her guide stood back for her to pass out.

“We have many of your country people here always,” he confided. “We are very pleased to see them. They are good clients. We shall endeavour to make your stay an agreeable one, Mademoiselle. To begin with–this room–it is to your taste–yes?” he asked, throwing open the door of a very delightful apartment.

The girl drew a little breath of pleasure as she looked out of the window towards Mont Agel and down into the gardens bright with colour and bathed in sunshine.

“It is very much to my taste–this apartment,” she laughed; “but what about my pocket?”

“It is one of the best,” the man pointed out. “We will quote a low price to Mademoiselle, though. Shall we say two hundred and fifty francs?”

“There is a bathroom, of course?” she enquired.

“But Mademoiselle!” he expostulated, throwing open the inner door. “A bathroom of the best, with shower. We have rooms at a lower price, of course.”

The girl sighed.

“I shall take this one,” she announced. “It is more than I thought, but it is perfect. When I have lost all my money I shall sit on the balcony and watch the poor idiots streaming in there to do the same.”

“It is not everyone who loses,” he reminded her. “Many of our clients have taken fortunes home with them. One young lady, of about your own age I should think, won a hundred thousand francs last week.”

“Don’t dazzle me,” she smiled. “Send my trunks up, please, when they come.”

“Parfaitement. I hope that Mademoiselle will enjoy her stay.”

With a courteous bow he took his leave. Mademoiselle, as though drawn by a magnet, turned once more to the window. She wheeled an easy chair out on to the balcony, took a cigarette from her case, lit it and began to smoke. The smile had left her lips. She had become a little thoughtful, even though her eyes were still fixed upon the gay scene below.

“Two hundred and fifty francs a day,” she soliloquized. “That is one thousand, seven hundred and fifty francs a week. Eighty-eight dollars. Say I hold out for a month. Something should happen before then.”

She threw aside her abstraction, drew her chair a little closer to the rails of the balcony, watched the people entering the Casino, listened to the music and marvelled at the deep blue of the sea. She was blissfully happy.

The third person to pass through the barricade, to deliver over his ticket with a little gesture of relief and to pass his slip for registered luggage on to the porter, once more differed entirely from either of his two predecessors. He was a tall, good-looking man of early middle age, fresh-complexioned, broad-shouldered and with a general air of prosperity, happiness and well-being. There was a touch of distinction, too, in his tweed clothes, well-cut overcoat and the tilt of his smart Homburg hat. He welcomed the beaming concierge with a slap on the back.

“How are you, François?” he enquired. “Looking as miserable as ever, I see! Is there room for a small person like me in the bus or shall I take a petite voiture?”

The man was obviously flattered by this greeting from an old patron.

“If I were your lordship,” he suggested, “I should take a little carriage. We have a great deal of luggage to collect yet.”

A hopeful-looking cocher who had been watching the proceedings brought his horse up at a gallop. The tall man scrambled in, paused to light a cigarette and leaned back with an air of supreme content.

“If it isn’t my old friend,” he exclaimed, smiling at the driver. “Here, Jacko!”

Without a moment’s hesitation the little dog perched upon the front seat jumped on to the knee of the passenger and commenced to lick his hand furiously.

“Jacko is like that,” his master confided, as he cracked his whip. “Never does he forget an old friend and a good patron.”

“Jacko without his fleas,” the occupant of the voiture declared, “would be a marvellous companion. Why don’t you wash him sometimes, my friend?”

The cocher shrugged his shoulders. It was one of those questions which one does not answer. He drove his distinguished passenger up the hill and swung round, surmounted the lesser gradient and passed into the full beauty of the Place. His lordship drew in a long breath of supreme satisfaction. He smiled at the Casino, waved his hand to one or two acquaintances who were sitting outside the Café de Paris, moved his forefinger to the time of the music which the Hungarian orchestra was playing, overpaid Jacko’s master, shook hands with the Senegalese door porter, and disappeared into the comparative gloom of the hotel. He passed through the large entrance hall, where again he was greeted on every side with vociferous welcomes. The manager himself came hastening forward.

“This is a great pleasure, your lordship,” the latter declared. “Your old suite is prepared, the servants already await your arrival there. If your lordship would be so good as to follow me . . .”

The newcomer, Lord Henry Maitland Lancaster, who was the third son of a genuine duke, followed the manager to the second floor, inspected the suite, demanded a few extra pieces of furniture and approved.

“Capital, mon ami,” he declared. “I stay here for two months. Everything as usual–the same newspapers, the same hours for calling, and mark you, Monsieur Mollinet, the same discretion if it pleases me to entertain a little lady for dinner at any time.”

Monsieur Mollinet coughed.

“I quite understand, your lordship,” he said. “By-the-by, Madame Céline occupies the suite above this. She is to sing in ‘Louise’ within the next three weeks.”

“Intriguing,” the other observed. “In any case, I shall love to hear her sing. A great opera–‘Louise.’ And now, Monsieur Mollinet, I shall trouble you to give orders that your servants await the arrival of the faithful William, that more flowers be put in my room and my trunks suitably bestowed. But first a small apéritif in the bar with you.”

“I am deeply honoured, your lordship,” the manager replied.

The two men walked down the passage and Monsieur Mollinet, with a bow, pushed open the swing door and ushered his old client into the bar.

Perhaps, of all the newcomers to Monte Carlo on that sunny February morning, the person who had not travelled by the Blue Train was feeling the most complete satisfaction at his safe arrival in the Principality. A slim, fair man, with lean, sunburnt face, dressed in nautical clothes, wearing a rimless monocle and a cap with a Squadron badge pushed a little far back on his head, he stood on the deck of the newly arrived motor cruiser, the Silver Shadow, smoking a cigarette, directing the final efforts of the pilot to whom he had just relinquished the wheel, and the seaman who had already stepped on to the quay and was busy attaching a rope to one of the fixed iron rings.

“All fast, sir,” the latter reported, as the yacht finally came into position.

The owner nodded.

“Let down the gangway,” he ordered. “And you, John,” he added, turning to the white-coated steward who stood by his side, “fetch me one of those little carriages from the top there.”

The youth hurried off, pausing only for a moment to secure the light wooden gangway.

A man stepped out of the wheelhouse. Something about him seemed out of character with the trim appearance of the yacht. He wore a nautical blue shirt open at the throat and a pair of soiled mariner’s trousers. His jet black hair was tousled and unbrushed. He was olive-skinned, with narrow eyes, black as his hair, almost unnaturally bright. His mouth was bitter and unpleasing. The slight tinge of respect with which he addressed his master seemed infused into his speech with difficulty. He spoke in French with a Niçois accent, obviously that of his native tongue.

“I want twenty-four hours’ leave, sir. The other two they remain on board. They have no friends in the port.”

“Have you?” his employer asked.

“In Nice,” the man replied. “I am a Niçois. Monsieur would be pleased to grant me a portion of my pay?”

Townleyes drew out a wallet from the inside pocket of his double-breasted coat and held out a five-hundred-franc note. The man stowed it away in a battered cigar case.

“Report in twenty-four hours,” Townleyes told him.

“Monsieur will not be leaving port?” the man asked.

“I shall be here for twenty-four hours, anyhow,” was the curt reply.

The little carriage came rattling along the quay and drew up opposite the gangway. The cocher touched his hat with his whip and Jacko for the second time that morning emitted shrill barks of welcome. Townleyes stepped lightly down the gangway, greeted the driver with a pleasant nod and patted the dog. He leaned back amongst the frowsy cushions with a sigh of content.

“The Hôtel de Paris,” he ordered. “Bar entrance.”

“Parfaitement, Monsieur.”

The cocher cracked his whip; Jacko, with his colony of fleas, leaped down on the passenger’s knee. Townleyes’ air, as he looked around him, was one of complete satisfaction. The leather seat of the voiturewas hard and its upholstery soiled, the driver had recently had a meal containing garlic and Jacko needed a bath. Nevertheless, he had arrived. He was in Monte Carlo. Above him the sun was shining and a soft breeze swept in his face as they swung round into the main road. The white villas with their red roofs stretching like an amphitheatre around the bay, the crazy Casino, the smooth pleasant curving front of the Hôtel de Paris, the blaze of colour in the gardens–all was exactly as he had hoped to find it. Pleasure, distraction, rest–they were all here. He drew a little sigh of relief. He had really had rather a strenuous time during the last few weeks.

Suddenly the blow fell. The sigh of relief was choked in his throat. Standing on the gravel path, the French windows of the small suite from which he had just issued open behind him, was a quiet-looking gentleman wearing dark spectacles, his hands behind his back, gazing seawards, apparently enjoying the view. A more harmless-looking individual to all appearance it would have been impossible to find in the whole Principality, but Townleyes, the Right Honourable Sir Julian Townleyes, Bart., knew very well that from that moment his days of tranquillity were numbered.

CHAPTER II

THE entrance of Mollinet, the manager of the Hôtel de Paris, into the bar, accompanied by his distinguished patron, created something in the nature of a sensation. One or two men rose from their places and came over to shake hands with the new arrival. Several women waved their hands. Phyllis Mallory, the famous tennis player, even threw him a kiss. Nina de Broussoire, the French danseuse, who was seated by herself on one of the high stools, triumphed now in the isolation which a moment or two before had made her peevish, and was the first to offer her greetings to this popular visitor.

“Where are the De Hochepierres?” Lord Henry asked Colonel Brinlinton, the secretary of the Tennis Club, who had hurried up to pay his respects.

The latter glanced at the clock.

“They will be along in a few minutes,” he replied. “We have made a sort of a club of the round table in the window at the bottom. Just the old gang–Phyllis Mallory, Maurice Donnithorne and Foxley Brent, who has just turned up from Deauville, and of course the Domiloffs.”

“What about Dolly Parker?”

“Oh, she’s one of ’em, naturally. She’s playing tennis this morning. I left her in the middle of a set.”

Lord Henry smiled happily.

“Jove, it’s good to be here, Brinlinton,” he declared. “If you had had a month of our fogs! Why, we had to break up the last shooting party I was at in Norfolk. To think that I can push open my windows and look out on that sea in the mornings and let the sunlight into my room makes me feel young again!”

“Monsieur is always young and always gay,” the little lady on the stool observed.

Her neighbour patted her back gently.

“Meet me, my child,” he groaned, “on Blakeney Marshes towards dusk when the keeper’s whistle has sounded and we are bending forward trying to peer into the mist, not a thing to be seen and our trigger fingers pretty well numbed. Then there is a sudden rustle and the birds we have been trying to get a shot at, standing in the biting cold for over an hour, go swooping by–not one of them visible! You won’t find me gay then, I can promise you! . . . Any chance of a knock-up at tennis this afternoon, Brinlinton?”

“Rather,” was the prompt reply. “I’ll get it up for you. Ah, here’s Domiloff at last. I thought he would have been here to greet you.”

A man of apparently early middle age, notable even in that crowded place for his air of distinction, entered the bar from the Place du Casino and came swiftly through the room to the farther end of the counter.

“My dear Henry!” he exclaimed, holding out both hands. “This is delightful! I meant to get down to the station to meet you but at the last moment there was a rush and I found it difficult to get away. Now at last Monte Carlo is itself again. Pretty fit, I hope?”

“I’m all right now I’m here,” was the hearty response. “Who would not be? And you? But you never vary.”

Domiloff smiled a little cryptically. His eyes were bright, his mouth firm and steady and there were as yet only thin streaks of grey in his hair. Nevertheless, there were deep lines in his face. He possessed the easy, gracious manners of a diplomatist. His voice was pleasant, his carriage still full of vitality. He seemed to bring with him the atmosphere of great places, reminiscent of the Court of St. Petersburg, at which he had been a famous figure.

“Life has been a little strenuous lately,” he confessed, “but one survives.”

Louis, the head barman, who had hurried up to pay his respects to the unofficial ruler of the Principality, produced as though by magic a cocktail shaker, poured out its contents and handed the result to the man he worshipped. The latter poised the glass for a moment delicately between his thumb and first finger, then he threw his head back and drank. He set down the glass empty.

“You choose always the right moment, Louis,” he said quietly. “Two more of those. His lordship will join me, I am sure.”

The latter nodded. The little girl by his side had slipped away for a moment and the two men were alone.

“In town one has been hearing curious rumours about this place, Baron,” Lord Henry confided. “Is there any truth in them?”

Domiloff’s features were a study of impassivity. He was gazing out of the opened door through which one caught a glimpse of the gardens and the Café de Paris beyond. He looked through the lacework of the swaying boughs to the splash of colour created by the gay uniforms of the Hungarian orchestra. He listened for a moment to the throb of the music pleasantly blended with the murmuring voices of the crowd who were taking their morning apéritifs in the gardens. He looked away and answered his companion’s question indifferently, almost casually.

“There is always gossip about this place,” he remarked. “More fools the people who talk about what they do not understand. This time, however, there is some foundation for the rumours which you may have heard and which you will know more about in a few days. We have had to make some changes in the Constitution.”

Lord Henry leaned forward and glanced out of the window across the harbour towards the Palace. He looked back at his companion, who smiled faintly and shook his head.

“No one there,” he confided. “Between ourselves, I do not think there will be just yet. That particular trouble comes not from us but from the people down in Monaco. We have had to take sides, of course. For the first time in my life I find myself on the side of democracy.”

“It is not going to affect you personally, I hope?” the other asked bluntly.

Domiloff shook his head.

“No fear of that,” he replied. “I have done more real honest work in this place than I ever did before in my life and I believe the fact has been appreciated. We will talk of this again later. Here come Lydia and our friends. Lucille is prettier than ever and breaking more hearts. We must go over and join them.”

The two men walked the length of the bar and presented themselves before the little company who were eagerly awaiting them. There was Lydia, Domiloff’s wife, a beautiful woman of supreme elegance, with sombre, passionate eyes, silent usually, with little gaiety of manner but with subtle charm of speech and expression. By her side was Lucille, Princesse de Hochepierre de Martelle, who, notwithstanding the magnificence of her title, was a daughter of one of the industrial multi-millionaires of a far Western state in America. Her husband, Prince Léon de Hochepierre de Martelle, pallid of complexion, flaxen-haired, dressed with almost indecorous and flamboyant perfection, chubby-cheeked but languid, lounged in the background, a curious contrast to his attractive wife–petite, with hair the colour of red gold, deep-set soft eyes of an indescribable shade, the shade of falling leaves–a Watteau-like figure in her grace of movement and expression. With them were Phyllis Mallory, the international lawn-tennis player, athletic, good-natured but a little noisy, and Dolly Parker, witty, elegant and reckless, good-looking in a well-bred restrained sort of way, but approaching the forties and, as the Princess used to say in one of her spiteful moments, desperately unmarried. They all welcomed Lord Henry effusively. He was given the place of honour at the round table. The Prince called for caviar sandwiches and Louis brought over a trayful of champagne cocktails. The Princess, who was seated by Lord Henry’s side, devoted herself to the new arrival.

“You must come to my dinner on Saturday night,” she told him. “I am so glad that you arrived in time. You will meet all your old friends.”

Lord Henry was not enthusiastic. He took, perhaps, advantage of his long acquaintance with his would-be hostess.

“My dear Lucille,” he protested, “don’t ask me. You know how badly I always behave at large dinner parties. There are very few people who are good-natured enough still to invite me, and even then I seldom go. I cannot sit still long enough and apart from that, when I dine I like to choose my own dishes.”

“You are the rudest and greediest man I ever knew,” she told him severely.

“It is not rudeness,” he assured her. “It is sincerity. I suppose you will have your own way with me. If you insist I shall probably come, but, in a general way, why should I accept invitations to gala dinners, which I detest? Dine with me alone, dear Lucille, any night you like–anywhere–preferably when Léon is away,” he added, raising his voice a little.

“You–with your reputation!” she exclaimed in horror. “Dine alone with you, with all the world looking on! My dear Henry! Besides, Léon would not permit it.”

“You needn’t dine with my reputation,” he told her. “I’ll leave that behind, if you like.”

“You are incorrigible! You will have to come to my dinner, though. I am getting tired of the old gang. Dolly was right when she said yesterday that life was too intensive here.”

“There’s a new face for you and an extraordinarily pretty one,” he remarked, leaning forward in his place. “American, too, by the cut of her clothes. She’s sitting in that corner alone.”

The Princess glanced towards Joan Haskell, who had just come in and was seated in a distant corner. She made a little moue.

“I am never overkeen on meeting any of my country-people,” she admitted coolly. “They know too much of one’s antecedents. Tell me, who is the man in the yachting cap who has just come in? He’s talking to Foxley Brent at the other end of the room.”

Lord Henry glanced in the direction she indicated and waved his hand cheerfully to the newcomer.

“By Jove, it’s Julian Townleyes,” he confided. “I heard he was cruising about one of those dangerous Spanish places–Barcelona, I think it was–in a converted barge or something.”

“He looks interesting!”

“He’s the man for your dinner party,” Lord Henry continued. “Used to dine out five nights a week in London, and enjoyed it.”

“Is he anybody in particular?” the Princess, who was a terrible little snob, enquired.

“I always tell you you should give up your flat in Paris and your country house at Les Landes and settle down in London,” he reminded her severely. “You would get to know who we all are, then. Townleyes is the seventh Baronet, has been a notable figure in the Foreign Office, and if he had not got into some slight diplomatic trouble–I don’t remember what it was, but he had to suffer for someone else’s mistake–he would have been a Cabinet Minister before now.”

“You must present him,” Lucille insisted.

Her neighbour held up his hand and the man in the yachting cap, who had just arrived from the port, picked up his cocktail glass from the counter and came across to them. Lord Henry rose to his feet and exchanged greetings.

“Townleyes,” he said, “the Princess has asked me to present you. Sir Julian Townleyes–the Princess de Hochepierre de Martelle.”

Townleyes bowed over Lucille’s extended fingers in the best Continental fashion. He murmured a few words suitable to the occasion.

“The Princess,” her sponsor went on, “is the uncrowned Queen of Monte Carlo, as you would know, my dear fellow, if you visited us a little oftener. Whatever she bids us to do, we do–cheerfully if possible–if not, we still do it. I believe that she is going to ask you to dine.”

“Princess,” Townleyes replied, “I should hate to be considered a rebel at your court, but Lord Henry is being a little unfair to me. He knows that I very seldom dine out and that I am just taking an ex-sailorman’s holiday down in these parts.”

“Nevertheless,” she begged, liking him the more as she realized the smooth charm of his voice, “you will come to my party?”

“You have added a very dull guest to your gathering, Princess, but I will come, of course.”

She smiled with an air of relief. At the moment, she scarcely realized how anxious she had been for him to accept her invitation. Townleyes had a gift of attraction which was quite unanalyzable.

“We are a small party–only about twenty,” she confided. “There are nine other men and I promise you that every one of them is a duller person than you seem to me. At half-past nine on Saturday night at the Sporting Club.”

“I shall be very disappointing,” he warned her.

“Finish your cocktail and have another,” she invited, “or rather don’t finish it. It has lost its chill.”

She signed to the barman who was passing at the moment.

“Bring Sir Julian another cocktail, the same as he is drinking,” she directed. “Lord Henry, too, myself, and heavens!–all this time with you two fascinating people I have forgotten to present my husband. Léon!”

The Prince, who had been talking vociferously to the crowd at the next table, moved back at his wife’s injunction.

“This is Sir Julian Townleyes, Léon,” she said. “My husband–Prince de Hochepierre de Martelle. Sir Julian dines with us on Saturday night.”

“Delighted,” her husband murmured. “I watched you bring your boat in an hour ago, Sir Julian. I put you down as a sailor rather than a politician.”

“I started life in the Navy,” Townleyes explained, “and yachting on a small scale has always been my favourite hobby. You must come down and have a look at my boat, if you are interested.”

“It would give me great pleasure,” the Prince declared. “I myself am fond of the sea. Tell me,” he went on, leaning forward in his chair, “who is the very attractive young lady in the corner?”

The Princess raised her lorgnette. Lord Henry glanced admiringly at his late travelling companion. Townleyes screwed in his eyeglass for a moment, then dropped it quickly.

“I have never seen her before in my life,” he said in his calm, pleasant tone. “I agree with you, though, that she is attractive.”

“She is from my country, without a doubt,” the Princess said. “She wears her clothes with too much chic for an English girl and too little for a French demoiselle.”

“Fortunately,” Lord Henry remarked, “Mollinet rather looks upon me as one of the male chaperons of the place when there are new arrivals. I shall make myself known to the young lady at the first opportunity.”

“Rascal!” the Princess murmured. “I shall tell her of your reputation.”

“Tell her the truth, dear Lucille,” he replied amiably, “and I shall be content. You might put in a word of warning about that scoundrel of a husband of yours.”

The Princess laughed softly. She took her cocktail from the salver which was being extended to her.

“On second thought,” she decided, “I shall not say a word to her about either of you. I have an idea–”

“Share it with me, beloved,” her husband begged.

“Well, I have an idea that you are neither of you exactly what that young lady is looking for.”

CHAPTER III

THE dinner party given by the Princess a few nights later was, as usual, gay and amusing. Townleyes, who was seated on her left, seemed delighted to find as his neighbour on the other side Lydia Domiloff, who entertained him readily with all the gossip of the place. It was not until after the first course had been removed that the Princess was able to engage his attention.

“Tell me,” she begged, “about your adventures in that intriguing-looking yacht of yours. Did you bring it all the way from England?”

“All the way. For the size of the boat we have quite powerful engines.”

“And you were your own navigator, Léon tells me.”

“I have my certificate,” he confided. “Yachting on a small scale has always been my chief recreation.”

“And the name of your boat is the Silver Shadow. Hadn’t you a little trouble somewhere down the coast–was it at Marseilles?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “I had a little trouble. It was my own fault. I took on board at Barcelona a refugee who had been thrown out of his own country and who was hanging about there in danger of his life.”

“And after playing the Good Samaritan,” she observed, “you apparently shot him.”

“Not without reason,” Townleyes assured her calmly. “The man tried to rob me and scuttle the boat. I saw no reason why I should risk a life which is of some value to myself in an uneven fight with a desperado, so I took the advantage of having a revolver in my pocket. The–er–Court at Marseilles, where we put in afterwards, sympathized with me.”

“So do I,” she agreed. “I like to hear of a man who acts quickly in his own self-defence. I was just interested in the affair because I had read about it. My French is not very good so I take the Éclaireur de Nice and read about some of these terrible things that go on around us. You know, Sir Julian, no one has the faintest idea what a country of dramas this really is, unless they read the Éclaireur de Nice. You learn of happenings there which never seem to get into the other papers.”

“Your tastes lead you into the sensational byways of life, Princess,” he murmured.

“How clever of you to find that out! Yes, I like life served up with all its side dishes–perhaps that’s because I am American.”

He drew his chair a trifle nearer to hers. The floating shawl of a dancer as she passed had touched his cheek.

“The trouble of it is,” he observed, “that so many of these seasonings are simply the exaggerations of the journalist. If we could only be sure that they were true, the life of a police agent in this part of the world might seem to be a very exciting one.”

“But isn’t it?” she asked. “Look at Monsieur Bernard over at that table with his fat wife and his two dowdy daughters. Did you ever see a more, to all appearances, typically bourgeois quartette? Yet Bernard could make your hair curl with his reminiscences if he were allowed to write them, which he is not in this country.”

“Who is he?” Townleyes enquired.

“He is the under Chef de la Sûreté in Nice,” she confided. “You see him in those ill-fitting clothes and paternal aspect and you will see him dancing presently with one of those lumpy daughters, and you are just as likely as not before the evening is over to see him tapped on the shoulder by one of the officials and hurried off to Nice–a murder or something of that sort! Those things happen to him often.”

“An interesting fellow, I should think,” Townleyes observed carelessly. “All I can say about it, with due respect to his profession, is that he doesn’t look the part.”

“Why is Nice such a centre of crime, I wonder?” Lydia Domiloff speculated.

“Because it is the danger spot of France, as Barcelona was of Spain,” Lord Henry declared, leaning across the table. “There are more Red Flaggers there to the kilometre than there are anywhere else in the country.”

“It is a rotten world,” Oscar Dring, the great Scandinavian agitator, pronounced from the other side of Lydia Domiloff. “To plan for war is barbarous. To hope for peace is imbecile. To find a quiet corner where one can settle down, read philosophy and try to give the world a little food for real and serious thought is becoming an impossibility. The world whose byways we tread is corrupt, poisonous with intrigue and fanaticism.”

Lord Henry rose to his feet.

“Meanwhile we must live,” he ventured with the air of one a little bored with the conversation, “and it is our duty to enjoy ourselves in order that we can pass on the spirit of enjoyment to others. May we dance, Princess, and will you honour me?”

“It is an opportune idea,” she assented. “We can make the world no better, can we, by sitting and gloating over her sad condition? There in the corner is the girl I envy,” she added as they glided into the throng. “She is young, she is beautiful, she is, I imagine, unburdened with over-much intelligence. She sits alone watching the dancing and obviously hoping that someone will find an excuse to present himself. For the moment she is thinking of nothing else. Will heaven send her a partner for this delightful waltz?”

“Heaven has given me one, anyhow,” he declared.

“Heaven is always kinder to you than you deserve,” she told him. “You go through life without a care–without an effort.”

“What would you have me do? Join one of the foreign legions of lost causes?”

“There are many causes not yet lost which are worth supporting.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am never serious,” she assured him. “You ought to know that. I choose for my associates the most frivolous people I can find, and look what happens! That strange man, Oscar Dring, forced himself upon me to-night when we were assembling for dinner in the foyer. Do you know what he had the impertinence to tell me?”

“Dring would say anything to anybody. Fortunately no one ever listens to him.”

“He told me,” the Princess went on, “just before we came in, that Monte Carlo had become the European centre of international intrigue and that I had several well-known international spies amongst my guests to-night!”

“Oscar Dring has one serious fault for a man who is really a brilliant thinker,” her partner commented. “He does enjoy pulling your leg sometimes.”

The Princess, in a diaphanous costume which even a French couturière had regarded with mingled admiration and doubt, laughed quietly.

“I am showing as much of my leg as any woman in this room,” she confided, “but I should hate to have it pulled by Mr. Dring. You think then that I need not put black crosses against the names of any of my guests?”

“I am sure of it,” he answered. “We are all too much occupied in ourselves and in our affairs. Espionage, with all its risks, was never a paying game. Every novelist whose works we have devoured has assured us of that. Fellows like Dring are simply scaremongers–wild asses braying in the wilderness.”

Oscar Dring was dancing with Phyllis Mallory. She was rather afraid of her partner with his almost patriarchal beard, his flashing eyes, his upright presence, so upright that he seemed to be continually pushing her away from him.

“All this talk–talk–talk–” he muttered. “It is maddening!”

“Why?”

“Can you not divine,” he went on, “that there is trouble coming over all the world? You can read it in the faces of the people. It is the logical outcome of all this cynical indifference on the part of the world’s rulers towards the suffering proletariat.”

“I should think we are as safe here as anywhere against anything in the nature of a revolution,” Phyllis Mallory observed hopefully.

“We are safe nowhere,” was the angry retort. “Science has conquered geography.”

“What an unpleasant thought,” she said, wondering how soon she could escape from this man with his fierce awkward movements and cascades of bitter speech.

“And therefore you reject it,” he replied quickly. “That is so always. Dig your head into the ground at the first signs of danger, close your eyes if anything ugly comes along! Let me tell you this,” he continued, breaking into what was almost a run but keeping time so perfectly that she was forced to follow. “Last year I worked ten hours a day. I wrote a hundred and fifty thousand words. I addressed the world in three languages, of all three of which I am a perfect master. I stretched out my right hand and I pointed to the writing on the wall. What do you think I earned?”

“I have not the faintest idea,” she confessed.