Читать книгу The Colossus of Arcadia - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 3

Table of Contents

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 voiture was 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.