Читать книгу Floating Peril - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

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Royalty was giving a dinner party at the rendezvous which on that superb night seemed to be the centre of the universe—the Summer Casino at Monte Carlo. Royalty was giving it because the invitation said so, but a humble admirer of Court life was providing the cheque. Curtsies had been duly made and introductions effected. His Majesty was talking to the reigning favourite amongst his lady friends. His foreign minister was engaged in earnest conversation with Monsieur Edouard Mermillon, the famous French statesman. The member of the suite who was acting as Master of Ceremonies and was carrying about a list in his hand made urgent approach.

“Monsieur Mermillon,” he begged, “the lady whom you are to have the honour of conducting in to dinner is close by. You will permit me this opportunity of presenting you?”

Mermillon, with a friendly little nod, ended his conversation and turned away. He was almost immediately face to face with a woman who, for looks, was certainly the star of the evening. She was standing momentarily alone, having detached herself from a little crowd of acquaintances as the Master of Ceremonies made his approach.

“Madame la Princesse,” the latter said, “you permit me to present to you your neighbour at this evening’s 49 ceremony—Monsieur Mermillon—whom you tell me that you have never met but whom you know, of course, by reputation. Monsieur Edouard Mermillon—the Princesse de Fantany.”

Mermillon bowed low over her fingers and raised them to his lips.

“Chance has hitherto been unkind to me,” he said. “I am forced to live a somewhat enclosed life but I know very well that there is no Parisian who would not esteem the honour I receive to-night.”

The Master of Ceremonies faded away. The Princess murmured a polite acknowledgment of her companion’s words.

“It is a great pleasure, Princess,” the latter continued, “to find you in these parts. It is a great pleasure, too, to think that I bring you good news.”

“How is that possible, Monsieur?” she asked. “It sounds intriguing. Do explain.”

“It was my great good fortune,” he confided, “to discover in a remote corner of a small pleasure yacht, only a few hours ago, one of those jewels which Madame wears with such distinction.”

She was silent for a moment. The eyes whose colour no one had been able to determine absolutely, which seemed sometimes the softest of grey and sometimes the palest blue, for the moment lost their lustre. She looked at him stonily.

“Jewels of mine,” she repeated, “in a small yacht here? Ah, Monsieur, you are mistaken—or have I perhaps a thieving maid?”

“I might believe myself mistaken,” he answered, “but for the fact that the jewels were purchased on your behalf, I was told, at Christie’s one disappointing day, and 50 I was one of those who were left behind in the bidding. It was the famous Marie Antoinette necklace composed of entirely flawless emeralds.”

“It is true that I own that treasure,” the Princess replied, “but you will observe that I am wearing it this evening.”

He bowed. There was a faintly amused smile upon his lips. Mermillon was far too clever a man to have been a mere Cabinet Minister.

“You are wearing it indeed, Princess,” he assented. “But the pendant emerald—the joy of the whole collection—is missing.”

“You are going to be like one of the magicians of old and produce it from your waistcoat pocket?” she asked.

“Alas, I cannot do that,” he regretted. “I, with all my family, have been cursed with the inconvenient gift of honesty. I restored it to the owner of the boat. Pardon me if I point out that my excited friend, the good administrator of the feast, has given the signal. It follows that we should join the procession.”

The woman swept her gown into place and laid her fingers upon his arm. They passed through an admiring throng of spectators to their chairs. They sat with the stars and the blue dome of the cloudless sky above them and the sea, motionless since the dying away of the evening breeze, stretching away before them. The tables were plenteously and elaborately decorated with the flowers of the day. From the moment of taking her place, the Princess seemed to have fully recovered her composure. She became once more the unafraid beauty whom all Parisians adored.

“To leave for a moment, Monsieur, the subject of my possible indiscretion, which I can assure you was nothing 51 of the sort,” she said, “I find it strange to meet you in this somewhat unfamiliar entourage. In Paris, for the last twelve months, I have scarcely been to the reception or dinner where your name has not been the engrossing topic. Yet we have never met.”

“I make no pretence, Madame, of taking part in any form of social life while I am in harness.”

“I can well understand that,” she said sympathetically. “Men who take the burdens of a struggling country upon their shoulders can find little time for the distractions of Paris.”

She was addressed by the neighbour on her left. For a few minutes she talked to him lightly of a recent meeting, a dinner party at the Armenonville. The exigencies of the situation having been complied with, she turned once more to Mermillon.

“You are passing your vacation in this neighborhood?” she asked.

“So far as one can call it a vacation,” he replied. “I am on my yacht in company with a great financier, who tries night and day to convert me to his own ideas as to the gold standard, and I receive portfolios from Paris twice a day. The true vacation which rested the minds and souls of men came to an end with the telegraph, telephone and wireless. These are the tentacles thrown out to keep us slaves for ever.”

“Science takes a hand too, on the other side,” she reminded him. “She can transport you now with incredible speed from the scene of your labours.”

He shook his head gently.

“The scene of our labours is wherever we may happen to be,” he told her.

“I find that a little enigmatic,” she complained.

“Who speaks in plain words nowadays?” he rejoined. “The age of being natural is past. We are all playing some game or other and we must veil our words, conceal our thoughts.”

“Surely the great Monsieur Mermillon is not obliged to play a part,” she laughed mockingly. “The emperors of the world are supposed, are they not, to be monuments of truth?”

“The only one whom I have met,” he replied lightly, “was a shocking liar.”

“The fault was probably not with him,” she ventured. “It was in the soil of his country.”

Mermillon glanced round the table.

“By-the-by,” he remarked, “I am somewhat disappointed to-night.”

“I am not flattered.”

“Madame requires no reassurance from me in that respect,” he smiled. “I was thinking of my old friend, General Perissol. I thought that he might be here.”

“You have given him too much work to do,” she said.

“His activities are at least distributed,” Mermillon reminded her. “He has a bureau in every great city of France.”

“Is it necessary for him to visit them individually?” she asked. “It seems to me that one reads reports signed by him issued from Paris most days.”

“I have heard,” he confided, “that sometimes those reports are issued with the sole purpose of confusing the world as to his actual whereabouts. Par exemple, this morning there is issued a decree from him dated from Paris, dealing with the activities of the communists in Marseilles, yet Perissol is not in Paris. He is very much nearer to us than that.”

“You speak,” she observed, “as though the movements of General Perissol were my chief interest in life.”

“Are they not?” he enquired, with purposeful daring.

She continued her dinner as though she had not heard his question. He took the opportunity to address a few remarks to his neighbour on the other side—a very distinguished personage who had been eagerly awaiting his attention. At their close he was aware of a change in the Princess’ attitude towards him. Her beautiful shoulder was turned an inch or two away. She was talking to a friend across the table. It was some time before she even gave him the opportunity of addressing her again. When he did so, his tone was as courteous as ever, but she realised that his thrust had been an intentional one. There was a suggestion that the buttons had been removed from the foils.

“If my questions gave offence, Princess,” he said, “I am sorry. As I dare say you know, I am responsible for the department which General Perissol administers so excellently, and it is permitted to me to have sometimes a slight curiosity as to his movements. I have, of course, the means for satisfying myself as to these matters, but I thought perhaps I might have learnt from you without effort whether our friend had arrived in these parts.”

“Cher Monsieur Mermillon,” she protested, with a faint gesture of reproach, “you credit me with too intimate a knowledge of the General’s movements. He is, without doubt, a friend of mine but I have never even heard of him in these parts. Why should he come here?”

“Why, indeed?” Mermillon agreed sympathetically. “It is without doubt as you say one has never heard of him here. Yet one has heard of a Monsieur Benoit who 54 lives in great seclusion in a villa amongst the pines on the lighthouse hill at Garoupe.”

She turned and looked at him. His face was inscrutable. He seemed to be studying the contents of his wineglass. When he returned her glance he knew, however, that the risk he had taken had been worth while.

“Do you,” she asked, “keep a private army of spies?”

“One must make oneself secure,” he answered.

“You do not trust General Perissol—the greatest patriot France ever had?”

He considered his reply for a moment.

“I would trust to his patriotism,” he conceded, “but the time might come when I found his judgment at fault. In my position, I cannot afford to be dependent on any one department of the Administration or any one man. I have known men betray their country, not from any lack of patriotism, but from lack of judgment.”

“I see,” she murmured.

“Furthermore,” he went on, “it is to be acknowledged that at the present moment our friend, notwithstanding his many brilliant gifts, is confronted with a nervous depression which many months of failure have induced.”

“How do you know that he has failed?” she asked.

Louise de Fantany was haunted for months afterwards by that sudden swift turn of the head, the light momentarily flashing in the eyes of the man by her side. She felt suddenly helpless, as though indeed he was seeing through all that was at the back of her mind.

“If he has not failed,” Mermillon replied, “he has committed a graver fault still. He has neglected to confide the news of his success, partial or complete, to the Administration from which he holds his post.”

“He may have had his reasons for that,” she ventured.

“Alas, none of them would hold water. Our friend is the servant of his State. A servant who withholds the confidence of his doings from his employers places himself in a somewhat dangerous position.”

Permission to dance had been given to the members of the party. The minister leaned towards his neighbor.

“There is perhaps one last word,” he said, “which could be more safely spoken in the seclusion of a crowd. Will you honour me, Princess?”

She rose to her feet with a mechanical word of gracious assent. It was some few minutes after their leisurely progress had started that they found themselves at last amidst a crowd of completely unfamiliar people. The moment came, however.

“You do not suspect General Perissol of disloyalty?” she asked.

“Towards his country or towards his chief?”

“Towards either.”

“It is my opinion,” he said, “that the people who put him into office and who are responsible to France for their action are the only ones whom he should consider.”

“I see,” she murmured. “The plain truth is that you have mistrusted Perissol, you have had him spied upon and you have made this discovery. Well, I will tell you something, even at the risk of my own reputation. His possession of a secret identity and his possession of the villa on the lighthouse hill have nothing to do with his work for France or with any form of political intrigue or enterprise.”

“Nid d’amour?” he whispered.

“Precisely.”

“And you happen to know that?”

“I am the person concerned.”

Mermillon sighed ruefully. There was no evidence that he found the news specially important, yet both were perhaps aware of a certain change in the atmosphere.

“The man who has had such happiness granted to him,” Mermillon observed, “can scarcely be censured if he does not hesitate to accept it. At the same time, Paris and Antibes are a long way apart.”

“His coming here is not an everyday affair. Besides, there is Marseilles.”

“Marseilles is an important centre,” the minister admitted. . . . “I wonder if, by chance, the General is anywhere in the neighbourhood now.”

“I have told you a good deal,” she said. “To disclose his movements would be an impossibility. You are in a position to ascertain them for yourself.”

“A matter of time only,” Mermillon confessed. “Perhaps, with your permission, we had better return, Princess. My dancing can scarcely compare with the efforts of some of these younger men.”

“Which is to say,” she laughed, “that having succeeded in wringing my secret from me, you want to get away as quickly as possible.”

“Not at all,” he assured her. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to spend the rest of the evening tête-à-tête. There are still many things I should like to ask.”

“There is one, Monsieur,” she said, fingering for a moment the vacant place in her necklace, “which I hope as a man of honour and gallantry you will forget.”

Mermillon was smiling to himself somewhat cryptically as he took leave of his companion and, having made his excuses to his host, left a few minutes later. There was 57 a murmur of interest amongst the other guests as he disappeared.

“The most brilliant politician France has had for years,” a famous banker declared.

“Almost the only one who has come through all these terrible scandals scatheless,” someone else remarked.

“Scatheless personally, but they may yet prove his ruin,” a woman of great consequence observed. “There is calm just now but the people of France will never forgive if they are kept in ignorance as to what has become of all those other missing millions. They will always have the idea that they have been swindled.”

The signal to leave came at last and a somewhat turgid babble of small talk came to an end. Everyone hoped that they would catch another glimpse of the great French statesman in the Sporting Club. Edouard Mermillon, however, was no gambler with jetons.