Читать книгу What Happened to Forester - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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It was a dark and windy morning, the street was narrow and the houses on each side of many stories, so that away from the street lamp as I was when fear first assailed me, nothing was clearly distinguishable. I saw too clearly for my liking, however, the figure of the man on the opposite pavement who had slipped past me unnoticed and was about to cross the road in front of me with the palpable object of intercepting my progress. I saw, too, another shadowy figure near at hand, who had apparently been walking in the middle of the street and who was obviously preparing to accost me, and from behind I heard the soft pad of rubber-shod feet. In that moment I cursed the weakness which had led me to display myself at the Casino bar after my rather conspicuous good fortune, cursed my fondness for out-of-the-way hotels, as far removed as possible from the broad thoroughfares and the ostentatious caravanserais of the modern, shekel-bearing tourist. I had no time to curse anything else, for the man who had turned from the middle of the street addressed me, the other one loitered in my way, and the breath of the third was already upon my neck.

“Monsieur will be so kind? Fire for the cigarette, if you please.”

It was an evil face, and a rasping, mocking voice. Already I fancied I could feel the fingers of that unseen figure behind stealing towards my throat. It was three o’clock in the morning, and from end to end the street was silent and deserted. One thinks quickly in such moments, and I decided that action was my only hope. I stopped to ask no useless questions. I drove my fist into the face of the man who had addressed me, and I kicked vigorously behind at the shins of my unseen but menacing garotter.... For a moment this unexpected attack seemed likely to have a triumphant issue. The man whom I had struck reeled round, lost his balance, fell into the gutter, and turned over on his side. My opponent in the rear gave a yell of pain which afforded me time to spring away from his threatened embrace, and stand with my back to the shuttered window of a shop. I stood there with clenched fists, a little excited at my first success and full of hope that if these desperadoes of the street were of the ordinary type, they would take to flight in the face of such resistance. My hopes, however, were short-lived. The man in the gutter spat at me, and between his at first futile attempts to stagger to his feet, shouted encouragement to his comrades. The man whom I had kicked, literally threw himself upon me, cleverly dodging my blows so that I almost overbalanced myself. At the same instant, too, I was conscious of worse danger. I saw the ugly gleam of steel only half concealed in the hand of the third man who was drawing towards me warily but inevitably. It was upon him that I concentrated my attention, for the danger of a blow with the fist was, after all, as nothing compared to the danger of the knife. He crept forward, stooping a little, with his hand low down instead of upraised, so that I scarcely knew how to deal with him. I am fortunately long in the arm, however, and I was able for the moment to ward him off, and with my other hand catch hold of the fingers which held the knife. Then the two closed in upon me. There were one or two short blows. I felt already a swimming in the head, and I realised that as I had to occupy myself chiefly with the man whose hand was still gripping that cruel-looking knife, I could hold out only for a few seconds against the vicious attack of my other adversary. Another blow left me still on my feet, fighting automatically but only half conscious.

A light flashed suddenly across the street, but I was engaged in my last desperate effort to keep that wrist from turning, and the point of the knife away from my body, and I was unable to look around to see if indeed succour was at hand. I was not left long in suspense, however, before I heard the screeching of a brake furiously applied, and was conscious of rapidly approaching footsteps and a voice hoarse with passion. I heard what seemed to be the open palm of a man’s hand come crashing against the cheek of my right-hand assailant, and realised with immense relief the sudden weakening of every muscle in the body of the man with whom I was chiefly contending. Events that followed unfolded themselves in a misty sequence, for I was dizzy and faint with struggling. The knife disappeared, its owner crawled away, broke suddenly into a run, and headed for the end of the street, my other adversary on his heels. The man who had been raising himself from the gutter staggered after his comrades, and on the pavement before me, looking after the retreating figures as though uncertain whether to pursue them or not, stood my rescuer.

My recollections of that moment have always been cloudy in the extreme, but I believe that I tried in vain to speak, and could do nothing but smile feebly and, gripping at the shutters behind, keep myself on my feet. I carried away with me, however, a curiously distinct impression of the man who had come to my aid. He was certainly of no more than medium height, if anything a little shorter. He was not particularly broad, but in his tense, upright figure he gave one the idea of great personal strength. He was wearing the evening clothes of the Continent—a short dinner jacket and black tie. He was hatless and coatless, and he had evidently been driving himself in a powerful coupé drawn up in the middle of the street. His complexion was pale, and, even in that moment, I remember noticing the unusual combination in a man of deep blue eyes and raven black hair. His expression struck me, both at the time and when I recalled it afterwards, as being most extraordinary. It was one of concentrated and furious anger. His thick eyebrows were drawn together, there was the fire of passion burning in his eyes. The hand which was nearest to me was clenched so that the signet ring seemed to be cutting into his flesh. He still looked down the street at the three disappearing figures, and it seemed to me that it was only with the greatest restraint that he stayed by my side instead of pursuing them.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, suddenly breaking the tension of that silence, long enough in the telling, perhaps, but a matter of seconds only.

I found words, and because I was in good training, in good health, and moderately young, I felt the strength coming back to my limbs with unexpected swiftness.

“Thanks to you, no,” I answered. “Those devils—they meant business too!”

He muttered some word—I think it was in Italian—the meaning of which I did not catch. Then he looked away at last from the end of the street, and his manner, as he turned to me, was the manner of a very polished man of the world.

“You were unwise,” he said, “if the rumours of your great winnings have any foundation, to trust yourself in this quarter. What do you do here, may I ask?”

“I am staying near here, at the Hôtel des Postes,” I told him.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Every one to his taste! You are English, are you not?”

“I am English,” I acknowledged, “but I have no fancy for the hotels which my country-people frequent.”

He laid his hand gently upon my arm, and somehow or other, as he led me across the street, I became more than ever impressed by the fact that here was a man of great physical strength.

“Step inside,” he invited, opening the door of his car. “I will drive you to the Hôtel des Postes.”

I made but a very feeble protest. He let the window down so that the air blew in upon my face as we passed through the almost deserted streets. Within five minutes he drew up opposite the tall, gloomy building where I had my apartment. The concierge was my friend, and as the car stopped a light flared out, and the door was opened.

“You’ll come in,” I begged.

“If you will excuse me, no,” my companion replied, remaining seated at the wheel.

“But I must insist. You must let me offer you a drink. You must tell me whom I have to thank for such wonderful assistance.”

He smiled, and his hand, stretching out towards the door of the car, closed it before I could prevent him.

“It is a matter of no consequence,” he said quietly. “Let it be a lesson to you, Monsieur l’Anglais, especially since you seem to have the habit of winning in such a place as our Casino, to choose a habitation in a different quarter. Permit me to restore your pocketbook which I picked up upon the pavement.”

He pressed the case into my hand, and before I could stop him, before I could say a word, the coupé was gliding down the street—a long, powerful-looking car, with a bent mascot on its bonnet. I turned to the concierge who was studying my disordered appearance a little curiously.

“Do you know who that gentleman was?” I asked.

The man shook his head.

“I did not notice him,” he confided. “Monsieur has met with some misfortune?”

“Nothing of any consequence,” I replied, remembering that a word of what had happened would mean many wasted days in the French Police Courts. “A whisky and soda is what I want, François, and I want it very badly.”

He took me up in the lift to my room, accepted the unusually generous gratuity which I offered him, and bade me a cheerful good-night. I drank a stiffer whisky and soda than was my custom, and, in consequence, dropped off to sleep in my armchair. Through the uneasy hours until the traffic in the streets awoke me, I found myself dozing and dreaming, not of my adventure itself, but of my preserver as he had stood with the fury blazing in his eyes, gazing down the street at the three crawling and hastening figures.

Nice is a large town—larger than many people realise. It possesses almost as many hotels as London, two enormous Casinos and many restaurants and night haunts. Nevertheless, as in many similar resorts, the haunts of the elect, established by the whim of the moment, are few and universally accepted, and it was a matter of the greatest surprise to me that during the next few days, although I searched assiduously, I failed to see anything of my preserver. I divided my time each night between the two Casinos. I dined at one of the famous restaurants and took my coffee at another. I frequented the better-known bars, I trod the broad ways of the fashionable world as I had never trod them before. All in vain. I moved over to Cannes for a couple of days, and searched there without result. I made many expeditions to Monte Carlo, even went to the length of examining the cars outside the Sporting Club and visiting all places where they might be parked, in the hope of discovering the coupé with its bent mascot. I met with no success whatever. I returned to my old quarters at Nice, with my debt of gratitude unpaid even by so much as a bottle of wine, but on the third day after my return, whilst wandering round the Casino, uncertain whether or not to play, I saw him in the distance, with a packet of mille notes in his hand, calling “Banco” at the high table. I crossed the room impetuously and touched him on the shoulder. He turned quickly round. His hands were empty, and I gathered from the augmented heap in the centre of the table that his bold wager had failed.

“At last!” I exclaimed breathlessly.

He looked at me without the slightest response. I had put him down in my thoughts as a Frenchman, but he answered me in perfect English.

“You are not by chance mistaking me for some one else, sir?” he inquired.

“I certainly am not,” I rejoined firmly. “You saved me the other night from a horrible pummelling and the loss of a good deal of money, if not worse. I was not in a condition just then to insist, or I should never have let you depart without telling me your name.”

“My name is at your service, sir,” he replied, “but of the incident to which you refer I know nothing.”

I looked at him steadily. There could be no possibility of any mistake—the same clean-cut features, the same dark blue eyes, the same firm mouth, curved now in a little smile of mockery.

“Will you do me the favour,” I begged, “of taking a drink with me?”

“As to that,” he assented, “why not? I warn you, though, that you must pay. I have lost my money.”

I led him to a small table within sight of the bar, and ordered champagne, which I seldom drank but which seemed to me in some way appropriate. My companion offered me a cigarette from a gold case upon which I could see, very neatly and unostentatiously emblazoned, a small coronet. He sipped his wine with the air of a connoisseur.

“You choose well,” he commented. “But then, you English do understand champagne—better, as a matter of fact, than you do finance,” he added.

“Will you tell me,” I asked, “why you choose to deny the fact that it was you who rendered me that great service the other night?”

He indulged in one of those deprecating gestures so expressive in men of his race.

“Sir,” he said, “if I have rendered you any service at all, then you are in my debt, and if you are in my debt, I request that once and for all you abandon that subject. My name is at your service,” he continued, passing me a card. “Yours, I think I already know—Major Forester, I believe. I am the Comte de Preuil. Now we are acquaintances of the Casino who have drunk a glass of wine together. Let it go at that.”

There is a manner of speech which carries conviction, and I was powerless to insist further. We finished the greater part of our bottle of wine, and separated. I played no more that night, but wandered restlessly about the Rooms, disappointed and irritated by the strange behaviour of my benefactor. An acquaintance took me by the arm. We chatted for a few minutes upon different matters, and ended up, naturally enough, at the bar. He pointed to the table where I had been seated a short time previously.

“You know De Preuil well?” he asked.

“I met him for the first time this evening,” I answered, bearing in mind my preserver’s injunction.

“A queer fellow!”

“In what way?” I asked. “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

Now I realised even at the time that I was at least on the border line of a dishonourable action in asking questions about a man who desired to remain unknown, but the temptation was too great. In any case, the gossip of the place was any one’s for the asking.

“De Preuil is all right,” my acquaintance acknowledged dubiously, “so far as his position and family go. Of the man himself there have been at times strange stories. He is certainly a great gambler when he has the money.”

“Is he rich?”

My companion shrugged his shoulders.

“In this part of the world,” he answered, “who knows? I have seen De Preuil gamble like a millionaire, and I have known him to disappear for months at a time—according to report, because he was broke. Sometimes he has money; sometimes he has not. Naturally a person like that is the subject of occasional rumours.”

“I should think that there is not the slightest doubt that he is a man of honour,” I ventured.

“He gives one that impression,” my friend admitted. “At the same time, he is a man of peculiar personality. One can imagine him rather the type of the modern marauder. There are people who avoid him here, but then he himself is very reserved and there are a great many people whom he avoids. I have heard habitués of the place warn newcomers against him, but I don’t know why.”

“Nor can I imagine any reason for such a warning,” I declared.

My friend had something to say about golf, and we spoke no more of the Comte de Preuil.

The next time I saw my mysterious benefactor, he was seated in the easy-chair of my salon when I returned from the Casino at about two o’clock in the morning. At my entrance he laid down the newspaper which he had been reading, and briefly responded to my cordial but astonished greeting. He shook his head, however, when I pressed whisky and soda, wine or cigarettes upon him.

“This,” he announced rather coldly, “is not a call in which the social amenities have any place. It is, as a matter of fact, a business visit.”

“Business visit?” I repeated, somewhat dazed.

He rose to his feet, crossed the room and deliberately locked the door. Afterwards he moved his chair slightly so as to place himself between me and the bell, and resumed his seat.

“I surprise you?” he asked. “I have surprised many people in my time.”

“You have earned the right to surprise me if you wish to,” I replied, mixing myself a whisky and soda. “At the same time some sort of an explanation would be acceptable.”

“You shall have it,” he agreed. “I have come here to rob you, and I intend to carry out my purpose.”

I tasted my whisky and soda, lit a cigarette and crossed over to the chair facing his. All the time he watched my every movement.

“You take the matter very calmly,” he observed. “Possibly you think that if it comes to a struggle you might succeed in balking me. You are a head taller than I am, and I can well imagine that you are not a man easily robbed, and yet, Major Forester, there is one little argument here which destroys the odds, or perhaps, I should say, creates them—a form of argument which I have usually found unanswerable.”

He displayed a small but very vicious-looking revolver, which he drew from the inside pocket of his dinner jacket, and which he handled without ostentation but with an obvious air of familiarity.

“I admit the force of your argument,” I said. “I will confess that I haven’t a weapon of any sort in the place. Under those circumstances, the odds are something like twenty to one in your favour, and you can consider me an unresisting victim. But of what, may I ask, are you proposing to rob me?”

“You have won something like a million the last few weeks. To-night you must have won at least forty milles. I propose to leave you a trifle and take the rest.”

I smiled, and for the first time my visitor looked a little uneasy.

“You have chosen the worst night possible, Monsieur le Comte, for your visit,” I told him. “This afternoon I paid every penny I had—which I admit was something over half a million francs—into the bank, and not only that but I directed them to place it to my credit in England. Of the forty milles I won to-day I lent Vaniados, who called on his way back from Monte Carlo without any idea of playing, twenty milles, and I destroyed an I O U for ten milles which I borrowed last evening and forgot to repay. I took some friends to supper at Maxim’s,” I went on, drawing out my pocketbook, “and the bill there made some slight hole in the remaining ten milles. I seem to have here eight milles, three hundred—unworthy of your notice, I am afraid.”

“As you say—unworthy of my notice,” the Comte de Preuil concurred quietly.

He sat looking for a moment intently upon the ground. Suddenly he rose to his feet. He came and stood within a few paces of me. His revolver had disappeared, but I could see the shape of it gripped in his hand inside his coat pocket.

“Look at me, Major Forester,” he ordered.

I obeyed. There was something terribly magnetic about his eyes. I am perfectly certain that there are few men in the world who could have told him a lie.

“Have you spoken the truth?” he asked. “Is that all the money you have in this apartment? Remember, Major Forester, you’re on your honour.”

I met his gaze.

“That,” I assured him, “is every penny I have at my disposal. I am greatly in your debt, Monsieur le Comte. If you are in need of money, and will give me a few days, I will lend you any reasonable sum.”

“Thank you,” he declined coldly, “I do not borrow; I take. I regret the inopportuneness of my visit. It is clear that my luck is failing me.”

“Our matter of business being concluded,” I suggested, as I saw him move towards his hat, “might I propose that you accept that whisky and soda?”

He suddenly smiled, and there was something about the smile which made me long to pass my arm through his and beg him to sit down and tell me anything in the world that I could do for him. But the smile passed, and he was suddenly hard as steel.

“I will drink with you with pleasure,” he conceded. “Perhaps it is as well that the night is not yet finished for me.”

He drank a whisky and soda slowly and set down the glass. Then he made his way towards the door, unlocked it and, turning around, bade me good-night. Save that he refused to see my outstretched hand, his was the ordinary farewell of one acquaintance taking leave of another. I heard him descend the stairs, and presently heard the concierge let him out, thanking him volubly for what was no doubt a more than adequate tip. He had come without his car, and from my window I watched him walk to the top of the street and disappear. I watched him with a curious, inexplicable foreboding. I had the feeling that he was on his way to trouble.

For over a month I saw nothing of De Preuil. It is a curious fact that in my mind I thought of him always as my preserver, as the man who had sent those three murderous rogues flying by the very sound of his voice, who had saved my pocketbook—perhaps my life. There seemed to me always something visionary, something not altogether real, in that early morning visit to my rooms when he too had attempted the rôle of highwayman. I was even sometimes half inclined to persuade myself that he had been masquerading, that he had been amusing himself with some grim jest at my expense. I certainly bore him no malice, and when day after day, and even weeks passed without my seeing anything of him, I found myself disturbed on his behalf, recalling that curious premonition which I had felt when he had turned the corner of the street. Then, one day, standing outside a small shop in a not too fashionable quarter, I recognised the coupé with the bent mascot. For a solid three-quarters of an hour I paced that little strip of pavement, smoking cigarette after cigarette. At last I had my reward. The shop door opened and there appeared not De Preuil but a woman. She crossed the pavement swiftly, and stepped into the coupé. I hurried up, and laid my hand upon the window ledge. She was already seated at the wheel when she turned and looked at me with a little start of surprise, in which I fancied was mingled some fear. She was quite young, apparently about thirty years of age, and like many Frenchwomen of her type she gave one the impression even in that first hurried glimpse of a certain elegance, a charm quite independent of the good looks which she undoubtedly possessed.

“What is it Monsieur desires?” she asked, a little haughtily.

“A word with Madame,” I begged, standing still at the window, my hat in my hand. “This, I believe, is the coupé of Monsieur le Comte de Preuil. I should be so glad to have news of him.”

“What do you want with Monsieur le Comte?” she demanded.

“An opportunity which I have sought for a long time,” I replied, “to repay in some measure a debt I owe him.”

She looked at me with growing interest.

“Are you, by chance,” she inquired, “the Englishman on whose behalf he interfered in the Rue de Grasse one night?”

“I am he,” I acknowledged.

She sat for a moment deep in thought.

“I return now to my apartment,” she announced. “If Monsieur will accompany me——”

I took the place by her side. Whatever further adventure might be in store for me, I knew at once that it was not one which depended upon the favour of Madame, for her attitude towards me, if not unkindly, was in some way stonily resentful. She drove to a small street opening off one of the principal boulevards, unlocked the door of a delightful-looking house, adorned with sun blinds and window boxes, and led me past the bowing manservant into a charmingly furnished sitting room on the ground floor. She closed the door carefully and motioned me to a seat.

“Monsieur le Comte de Preuil, news of whom you seek,” she began, “is lying perdu in fear of his life, and it is you who are the cause.”

“But, Madame!” I protested.

“It is you who are the cause,” she repeated. “The truth about Armand is known now. I shall not enter upon his defence although I might find much to say. It is known now to the Chief of the Police that he was the head of a small band of robbers who have made Nice their headquarters for some years.”

“It seems incredible,” I murmured.

“He was their head,” she went on, “but they grumbled often at his methods. No one possesses a stricter sense of honour than Armand. He will not permit violence, except in self-defence. He insists always that the person robbed should have his chance of retaliation and that it should be a match of brains and courage rather than of brute strength. You understand?”

“Perfectly, Madame,” I replied. “I find what you say easily believable.”

“There came a night,” she continued, “when on his way homeward he found three of his men engaged in the attempt to rob a single Englishman.”

“Myself!” I exclaimed.

“Precisely. He interfered and rescued you.”

I remained silent. I was thinking of that look which had always puzzled me, that look of fury as he had watched his flying subordinates.

“They never forgave him,” she went on sadly. “There came another night, a little over a month ago, when Armand attempted, single-handed, a great coup. Monsieur reads the papers?”

“The French papers, alas, never,” I admitted.

She looked at me in surprise.

“You have not read of l’affaire Gasseros? It is incredible!”

“I have neither read nor heard of it,” I assured her.

She saw that I was telling the truth, but she was still amazed.

“All Nice has talked of nothing else. Gasseros was a strong, burly man who boasted that he had a few million francs always in the house, and was never afraid to let any one know it. Armand doubted his courage, and that night—he was desperate for money—he found his way to the house, into the room of Gasseros. There was a terrible struggle. The details filled columns of the papers for days. Armand secured the money, but Gasseros fought like a maniac. He got one arm loose and shot Armand through the shoulder. He was the first, mind you, to use firearms. There were sounds in the house. It was evident that the report of the revolver had aroused the domestics. Armand knew that to escape he must resort to his own weapon which he had kept concealed. He fired, meaning to wound his captor in the leg. Gasseros sprang at him and received the bullet in the heart.”

“Horrible!” I murmured.

“Even then,” she proceeded, “Armand got clear away. He is not only brave, but he is clever. He left no trace. The police were entirely at fault. They offered a large reward, and those three men from whom, Monsieur, he protected you, put their heads together and determined to have their revenge. They informed against Armand.”

“Devils!” I cried. “He is taken then?”

“Not yet,” she went on, dropping her voice a little. “Alas, he never will be taken alive, Monsieur. It is not death that he fears, but confinement. He lies hidden.”

“But this is terrible!” I exclaimed. “Where is he?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Monsieur,” she protested, “I have shown you great confidence, Armand spoke well of you, but——”

“Forgive me,” I interrupted. “The secret of his whereabouts would be as safe with me as with you, but naturally you do not know that.”

“I will tell you this much,” she conceded. “I have not seen him since the night of the affair. I dare not go to him. I dare not correspond. An indirect word somewhere by the telephone is all that remains. I myself am watched, day and night, as this house is watched, and as the days go on fears grow within me.”

Her eyes which, brilliant though they were, had seemed to me a little hard, suddenly softened, her lips trembled. She leaned forward for a moment, her arms folded upon the table, her head hidden from me. Twice or three times her shoulders twitched. I paced the room, and during those minutes it seemed to me that I was hearing of the peril of a dear friend.

“Listen, Madame,” I begged at last, “I am the Comte de Preuil’s friend. In my younger days I have not myself been always on the side of the law. Can I help?”

She looked up at me, looked at me in silence for several moments. I suppose she was satisfied with what she saw, for she asked no further question as to my fidelity.

“It is a terribly dangerous task,” she warned me, “and the law counts those who would help him equally guilty. Yet without some such assistance as a person in Monsieur’s position could render, escape for Armand is impossible. The charge against him is of murder.”

“I will look after myself,” I promised. “Tell me where he lies, and if there is any plan.”

“Armand is hiding in a small hotel at Monte Carlo—the Hôtel de la Principalité,” she confided. “It is kept by one of his old servants whose fidelity can be relied upon. So far he has avoided suspicion, but that cannot last. He can be saved in one way.”

“And that?”

“If he can be got across the frontier into Italy,” she went on eagerly. “A well-known person there has promised that if he can reach Genoa he shall be sent safely to South America. If Monsieur does not read the papers he is not, perhaps, aware that diplomatic relations between France and Italy are strained, and I do not believe that any Frenchman would be given up by the Italians even if he were discovered. The frontier, as you know, is barely eight kilometres from where Armand is lying. Find some way, Monsieur, of transporting him over those eight kilometres, and you will have saved his life—and the happiness of mine.”

“Has he a passport?” I asked.

“His own,” she answered. “Of what use is that?”

I pondered for several moments, and all the time I felt her eyes fixed anxiously upon me. Very soon I came to a decision.

“Madame,” I announced, “the enterprise commends itself to me. If I fail, I fail; but in a few days I will disclose my plan to you. If it is humanly possible, I will go with De Preuil to Italy. About yourself?”

She shook her head sadly.

“Ah, Monsieur,” she said, “they look to me some day to lead them to their quarry, or else that he will pay me a visit here. They lie and watch like foxes. He must go alone; but afterwards—who knows what may come afterwards! I love Armand dearly, but he must start life again.”

“At this time to-morrow,” I told her, “I shall have certain plans maturing. I shall write to the Hôtel de la Principalité for a room. Meanwhile you must give me a line to the proprietor that he may know I am to be trusted.”

“You will be careful?” she asked anxiously. “Remember that if you fail, if they discover that you are trying to help him escape, you will stand in the dock with him.”

“I will be careful,” I promised.

“And you will not change your mind?” she insisted, as she led me to the door.

“Madame,” I assured her, “we are a stupid race, we English, but we do not often change our minds.”

Upon the whole I may say, I think, that I have had more adventures than fall to the lot of most men. There have been at least four distinct occasions upon which I have stood face to face with death, with the odds fairly level, yet I could search my memory in vain for any twenty minutes of my life in which I suffered, feared and hoped in such agony of spirit as during those twenty minutes outside the douane on the hill beyond Mentone. We had driven from Beau Soleil with scarcely an interchanged word, my companion’s hand upon the wheel, steady and precise, his face set in that rigid expression common to the well-disciplined chauffeur. He brought the car gracefully to a standstill at the first place of call, where my carnet de passages was cursorily examined. No undue interest was shown in us, and we started off again. On the hill came our first real period of probation. We had to wait for nearly ten minutes to take our turn, during which time a French gendarme strolled up and down past the car, and I at least found it hard to persuade myself that he did not now and then throw a curious glance towards myself and my neatly clad chauffeur. The time came, however, when his confrère was free. I took the passports from the pocket of the car and handed them over. My own passport he studied for some moments; the passport of Luigi Nessi, my chauffeur, he glanced at only casually, and returned them both without comment. We touched our hats, and moved on another blessed fifty yards towards safety. There seemed something less menacing about the Italian uniform, yet it was here that our worst moment arrived. Our luggage gave little trouble; it was carefully selected and harmless. My companion’s passport, however, remained in the hands of the examining gendarme for fully a minute. He glanced twice at the photograph, and read the text as though every word of it were of interest. Finally, as though we were not being sufficiently tortured, a tall figure passed the car, and the French gendarme joined his Italian confrère. What they said to one another was inaudible, but without any word to us they turned around and disappeared inside the Italian passport office.

I have courage of a sort, I believe, and I am inclined to fancy myself an optimist, but I admit that at that moment a wave of despair swept over me. The loitering seconds ploughed their way into my heart, although in the midst of my agony I was forced to admire the magnificent imperturbability of my companion. The business of actual living seemed to become suspended. Life was like a remote dream. A woman selling bunches of carnations came and thrust her wares through the window. The perfume of the flowers, and the song of a bird which had risen unexpectedly from the little vineyard on our right, lingered long in my memory, although at the time I was barely conscious of them. The sun beat down upon us fiercely, and the second carabinier withdrew his chair into the shade of the grey stone building. Not a word passed between my companion and myself. His left hand was resting calmly upon the wheel, but his right hand, I noticed with a little shiver, had crept into his coat pocket.

They came out together—the French gendarme and his Italian confrère—and, for no reason that I could gather, to my deep and almost stupefied relief, their interest in us seemed to have evaporated. The carabinier folded up the passport which he had been carrying, and prepared to wave us on. Yet even then came one final shock which plunged me once more into a paroxysm of despair. With his hand resting upon the side of the car, the carabinier leaned over and addressed the pseudo-Luigi Nessi in fluent Italian. The words streamed from his lips, and all the time I found myself in a dazed turmoil of apprehension. Most Frenchmen, especially Southerners, speak Italian, but supposing that De Preuil were an exception. Supposing! ... Then my suspense came to an end. The Italian ceased. De Preuil turned towards him so that I could see the smile which parted his lips. He replied in the latter’s language, which he seemed to speak even more fluently than his interlocutor. His hand stole out in a little gesture. The carabinier smiled, and waved us on. Down went the clutch, in went the gears, a touch of my companion’s foot on the accelerator, and we were gliding rapidly forward, round a corner, and the ordeal was over. Then I admit that I had a fit of weakness. That no one might see me, I put on my dark automobile goggles, and turned my coat up to the neck as though I felt the cold. In truth I sat there shivering. It was half an hour before either of us spoke. Then I noticed that we were slackening speed. My companion addressed me in his ordinary tone.

“Is it fancy, dear friend, or did I hear you demand of Monsieur le Propriétaire a bottle of his best wine?”

I produced it. We drew up by the side of the road, and I filled two tumblers. I drained the contents of mine almost at a gulp. De Preuil drank his with the lingering appreciation of a connoisseur.

“Excellent!” he declared.

We moved on again, bought lunch at a shop in Alassio, having the instinct to avoid hotels, and passed into Genoa with the shades of evening. A few hours later I stood upon the quay watching the great steamer in which De Preuil had embarked back slowly away from the dock, watched her, in fact, until she had emerged from the harbour, until she had turned round and the broadside of her saloon lights flamed up against the dark sea. Then I think that the reaction after my long day of anxiety really set in. I found myself, to the surprise of passers-by, a stolid Englishman, singing fragments of a Neapolitan ballad as I drove the car up the hill to the hotel where I was spending the night.

Mercifully recovered from the attack of influenza which, according to a carefully circulated report, had kept me a prisoner in my rooms during those eventful days, I met Madame, on the evening after my return from Genoa, in the hall of the Negresco, and led her to the corner table in the restaurant, where I had arranged to dine. We delayed any effort at serious conversation, but at the first opportunity I pressed into her hand the few lines written in great haste on the steamship note paper. She read them through twice, and slipped them into her bag. There was a look of ineffable gratitude in her eyes as she turned towards me.

“And now,” she insisted, after I had concluded a discussion with the waiter on the subject of caviare, and the man had retired with our order, “tell me everything.”

“The whole affair really worked out very simply,” I explained. “My Italian chauffeur, Luigi Nessi, happened to be still lying in the Queen Victoria Hospital with a broken leg, after the accident I had on the Corniche Road a month ago. I borrowed his passport, bought another car, engaged a room at the Hôtel de la Principalité, on the same floor as De Preuil’s, went in to see him when I knew the coast was clear, took him some chauffeur’s clothes, and made him up as well as my experience in amateur theatricals enabled me to. Fortunately he was the same height and complexion as Luigi, and though I only touched him up very slightly and cut his hair a little differently, I was able to turn him out quite near enough to the photograph to escape questions. We left the hotel in a perfectly natural manner early on Wednesday morning, Monsieur le Propriétaire keeping carefully out of sight every one likely to be inquisitive. From then on there was never a hitch.... And with you?”

“The telegram from Paris, for which I had arranged, duly arrived,” she confided. “The police got hold of it, as I thought they would, and there were two men watching my apartment from seven in the evening until seven the next morning. When they found that Armand did not come, they appear to have made up their minds that he must be still in Paris. The papers this morning announced that he was there, and already under surveillance. Look,” she went on, gripping my wrist with her slim, white fingers, “you see the man in morning clothes who is taking a table opposite—the man alone?”

“Yes.”

“That is my special watchdog. It is he who has a theory that, because of our passionate devotion to one another, Armand will return to me, if only for a few hours, before he leaves the country. In you he beholds a complication. To see us together, intimately like this, may perhaps weaken his belief in my fidelity, and, who knows, he may leave me alone. Do you believe in fidelity, Monsieur Forester?” she concluded, with a sudden bewildering smile.

“It is sometimes a troublesome quality,” I ventured.

She leaned a little towards me.

“Then, do you think—for safety’s sake—that you could look at me now and then as though you admired—say, my frock, or my eyes, or any part of me that seems worthy of your notice?”

More than ever I was conscious of the witchery of her brown eyes, the magic of her subtly lowered voice, in which seemed to linger the illusion of a caress. Her fingers touched mine as though by accident, and I had no need to feign the rôle at which she hinted.

“For safety’s sake, Madame,” I promised, not altogether steadily, “the remainder of the evening will see me your devoted cavalier.”

She sighed and laughed at me almost in the same instant. She was indeed a woman of mercurial moods.

“You are generous with your time, Monsieur,” she whispered.

“There is that little matter of fidelity,” I reminded her, as the caviare was set before us.

“A quality which has yet to be defined,” she rejoined, helping herself to lemon.