Читать книгу Down Under Donovan - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

Table of Contents

IT was a warm night in March, such a night as only the Riviera knows, and Monte Carlo was filled with a restless, happy crowd.

It was the day of the big race meeting, and the town, largely congested with visitors, had received a large contingent from Nice, Mentone, and as far eastward as San Remo. The beautiful promenades were thronged with a leisurely moving crowd, the terraces presented something of the appearance of a favourite English seaside resort in the height of the season, and the little tables of the Café Americain were fully occupied by a chattering, laughing crowd of diners.

Monte Carlo was at its best, a crescent moon overhung the still waters of the Mediterranean, and sent little wriggling reflections of light along the unruffled surface of the sea. Ever and anon, the slow-moving crowd upon the terraces would stop and gaze upward as the whirring of a monoplane engine sounded above the babble of talk, and the dark shape of the aeroplane went gliding through the velvet darkness of the heavens.

Two men came slowly through the swing-doors of the Monaco Palace Hotel, and stood for a moment upon the broad, marble pavement, looking down at the throng below. They were both in the first flush of manhood, and obviously British, by the correct cut of their evening clothes.

Evidently they were in no great hurry, for they stood for some moments silently contemplating the animated scene. The taller of the two was a cleanshaven man of twenty-nine. He stood upright, and conveyed the impression that he was a soldier, though Milton Sands had known no other service than that which his patriotism had imposed upon him during the Boer war, when he had accepted a commission in the first Bushmen contingent of the Victorian Mounted Infantry.

In the golden-brown light of the arc-lamp which swung above, the lean, sunburnt face took on a deeper tan. His big, grey eyes were set wide apart, the lines of his eyebrows were heavy and black and straight, and there was a strength and a resolution in the mouth and the determined jaw which revealed something of his character even to the amateur physiognomist. Yet the laughing lines about his eyes, and the merest twitch of a line at the comers of his mouth, told of a man who was possessed of that rare quality, a large and generous sense of humour.

His companion, though well built, and tall by average standard, was half a head shorter than his fellow. He was of the sturdy soldier type too, but the outlines of his face were softer than the other's.

Seeing him, you might describe him as a clean, well-set up Englishman, and find some difficulty in improving upon that description. Like his companion, he was clean-shaven, and bore evidence of a life largely spent in the open air. He flicked the ash of his cigarette, and turning suddenly to the man at his side, he asked: "Quo vadis?"

Milton Sands looked round with a smile.

"To the home of sin and affluence," he said.

"In other words, the Casino?" smiled the other. "Well, I hope you have better luck than my—" he was going to say "friend," but changed his mind—"than Wilton has had. How have you done lately?"

Milton Sands blew a succession of smoke rings into the still air before he replied. He might well have employed the interval of silence in the enjoyment of the knowledge that Toady Wilton had lost money, for he did not like him. "I hardly know," he answered cautiously. "From certain points of view I have done well, from others I have done badly. You see, I started on this trip with next to nothing, and I have still my capital."

Eric Stanton laughed, and eyed the big man admiringly.

"You have an inexhaustible capital of good spirits, at any rate," he said. "I have often wondered whether men make money at the tables. You see, I never gamble—not that way," he amended his statement, "I like to put my money on a horse, for I know that I shall get a run for it. I have not yet succumbed to the fascination of rouge et noir or trente et quarante, but you find it very occupying."

"I don't know," drawled the other. "I am not here to pass my time, I am here to make money. That is a frank confession, isn't it? I came to Monte Carlo with a system and two hundred pounds. I have still got the system," he said grimly.

Again Eric laughed. "It does not seem to worry you very much." The other shook his head.

"Why should it? I am a philosopher, a gentleman of fortune—an adventurer, if you like. There is a certain fierce joy in dragging money from a reluctant world, and when the representative of the world happens to be a short, fat French croupier with cobweb whiskers, the joy is intensified. I have done one wise thing "—he turned to the other with that mouth of his twitching—"I have deposited a sum equal to what my hotel bill is likely to be with the cashier of this excellent establishment, and I have a return ticket to London. For the rest"—he waved his hand airily at the distant Casino, alluring with its blaze of light—"my fate is on the wheel of chance. Allons!"

They walked down the steps together, passed slowly through the holiday-making throng, and were swallowed up in the night. Three men had watched them with some interest. They were in evening dress, sitting over their coffee and cigars at a little marble table upon the broad veranda of the hotel.

"Why aren't you with your pal, Toady?" asked one languidly.

The man addressed scowled at the question, and his swarthy face puckered in angry creases as he muttered something sulkily.

"Oh, don't get rattled!" said the first speaker, "it is no insult to be called the friend of a millionaire."

"You are always chaffing me, Sir George," growled the other man. "I am tired of having my leg pulled. If you are particularly anxious to know why I did not join him, I am willing to tell you," he went on viciously. "I did not want him to see me in your company."

Sir George laughed easily. He was not thin-skinned, and the implied insult in the words left him unmoved. He stroked his long, flaxen moustache and gazed benevolently through his single eyeglass at his victim. Sir George Frodmere was a handsome man, with a remarkably fine complexion, the type which French comic artists invariably draw in an exaggerated way as being typical of the English race.

"My dear Toady," he said patronisingly, "a man who spends all his life sidling up to dukes and any other branch of the aristocracy which has the disadvantage of having a handle to its name, should extend a little of his courtesy to one of Britain's baronets. I am well aware that your friend has constitutional objections to me, but for all he knows I may be a model of all that a baronet should be. A fine boy," he went on reflectively, "he rather favours his mother as I remember her."

He shot a keen glance at Toady Wilton, and the dark man shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"She was a handsome woman," mused Sir George, gazing at the other through his half-closed lids. "What a pity she came such a cropper! She ran away from her husband, didn't she?"

"I believe she did," growled Wilton, and sought to change the subject by suggesting a move.

"Your disingenuous attempt to baulk the subject and to avoid discussion on this matter is either evidence of innate modesty or a guilty conscience," said Sir George, "and I have never discovered the former quality in your curious composition. Yes," he went on, "she ran away from old Stanton, because—"

"You know all about it," said Wilton shortly. "She ran away because she was falsely accused of carrying on a clandestine friendship with Lord Chanderson."

"She went, taking her baby daughter with her, I understand," said Sir George. "It was quite a romantic affair. And she was never seen again, was she?"

Wilton shook his head.

"My friend Stanton spent a small fortune in trying to discover her," he said. "It is a painful subject, I wish you would change it."

"And she was never seen again, eh!" mused Sir George, taking no notice of the other's discomfort, "neither she nor her daughter; and when old Stanton discovered what a fool he had been and how he had been tricked into believing his wife's guilt by some double-faced scoundrel who probably manufactured all the evidence against her out of sheer malice—did you speak, Toady?"

"No," said the other, in a low voice.

"As I was saying," the baronet went on carelessly, "when he found out that he was wrong (for in all probability he never discovered that he had been tricked into believing that Lord Chanderson was in love with his wife) he spent large sums of money to trace her whereabouts, and in the end left half his fortune to the woman and to the child he had so deeply wronged."

"It was a mistake," muttered Toady Wilton indistinctly. "He thought she was in love with Chanderson; he saw the letters which Chanderson was supposed to have written to her, and which proved to be forgeries."

"I see," said Sir George.

He drank up his small glass of liqueur and wiped his lips with a silk handkerchief.

"And you were his best friend up to the day of his death, and you benefited under his will."

"What's the good of going into this?" burst forth the other impatiently. "You know as well as I that he didn't leave a penny to me, although on his death-bed he made reference to me which was interpreted by his son as meaning that he intended leaving me something."

"Which the obliging Eric did, I understand," said Sir George. "Really, Toady, you are a lucky devil, because if Eric Stanton knew as much about you as I, you would not have touched a penny of that ten thousand pounds which I understand fie so obligingly handed over to you."

Toady Wilton made no reply, but conceived an excuse to open a conversation with a silent man who had sat between them. But Kitson was a little out of place in that galley. The ill-fitting dress clothes, and his large, awkward hands, and his disinclination to join in the general conversation showed him to be a little outside the social sphere which these two men represented, however unworthily. From time to time he would jerk his head impatiently, as though his high standing collar was a source of irritation, as indeed it was, for Bud Kitson was no dude, and resented bitterly the necessity for appearing in public in his present guise.

"When is that feller comin' along?" he asked. "You must be patient, Bud," said Sir George. "Our friend, M. Soltykoff, is an erratic gentleman who takes a little too much to drink. When gentlemen take too much to drink they have no regard for time, and they are apt to be a little unpunctual."

"I wish he would come," said Toady, fretfully. "The man is a lunatic to go wandering about Monte Carlo with a hundred thousand pounds in his pocket—with all the bad characters of Europe in the streets."

"Not all," said Sir George, cheerfully. "I know three at any rate who are sitting in comfort on the piazza of the Monaco Palace Hotel. At the same time," he went on, "I share your apprehension; it would be a sin if after all our planning, and all our scheming, this good money, which rightly should come to us, falls into the hands of some low and commonplace thief who would not appreciate its value and would not put it to proper use."

"I don't understand this," broke in Bud Kitson roughly. "I thought this guy was a pal, was one of us, that he was standing in, what's the idea?"

Sir George looked at him amusedly. "The idea is very simple," he said gently. "M. Soltykoff is immensely rich, he is a manufacturer of Moscow who is financing us in some of our interesting schemes, some of the schemes," he said, nodding his head, "in which you are interested personally. But the fact that he is our partner does not hide the greater fact that he is a mug. Yes, a mug," he repeated, "in spite of his being one of the most prominent business men of Russia, in spite of his having been behind some of the most crooked operations in Europe, and the most interesting fact of all that he is buying an invention to-night or to-morrow which may easily make him one of the richest men in the world. I don't suppose you have explained this to Bud?" he asked, and Wilton shook his head. He had not thought it worth while offering any explanation to the man whom he regarded as little better than a brute. There, however, he was wrong. Bud Kitson, bank robber and "strong-arm man—" as he was, and a scoundrel who had seen the interior of almost every variety of prison to boot, was no fool.

"I will explain," said Sir George, leaning across the table and speaking quickly. He was talking business now, and the old lazy bantering manner was put aside. "Soltykoff is a glass manufacturer, the biggest in Russia, I suppose. For years he has been trying to manufacture malleable glass. Malleable glass," he explained, "is a glass which will bend just as cloth will bend, without fracture. All the scientific chemists of the world have been seeking for that this last hundred years, but without success, but so confident was Soltykoff that it could be made that he has had a standing offer of twenty-five thousand pounds and a royalty to the inventor who can produce for him a glass answering all the tests which he would apply, and at last he has found the man. Who he is, I don't know "—Sir George shrugged his shoulders—"but he is living here or at Nice in comparative poverty. Negotiations have been opened, samples of the glass have been produced, and now Soltykoff has come down here to the Riviera in order to complete the sale. Is that clear to you?"

Bud Kitson nodded.

"He is one of those prodigal Russians who never move about without large sums of money." Sir George resumed. "He has probably got a hundred thousand pounds in his possession at this moment, his object being to pay whatever price this inventor demands. He is more likely than not to get it for a reasonable figure and have a decent surplus left. Now," he said slowly, emphasising his point by tapping his finger on the marble-topped table, "it is not everyday that Providence sends to impecunious people like ourselves, with no ideas as to the sanctity of property, a man in possession of a hundred thousand pounds in sheer hard cash or in French bank-notes, which is the same, since they never take the numbers of them. It doesn't matter to me whether he is a pal or a confederate, or what title he considers himself in relation to me, that money is good money. We might know him for years, for twenty years, for fifty years, perhaps, and never make so much out of him; besides," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "he is always half drunk, and there is no real reason why we should not make' a double profit."

"What do you mean?" asked Bud, dropping his voice. "Do we wait for him before he goes to buy this patent?"

"No," said the other, with a smile, "let him buy his patent. There is no reason why we should rob the poor man of the reward of his ingenuity and perseverance, but if it is possible we will take what is left, do you understand?"

"I get you," said Bud Kitson, nodding his head.

"Now," said the baronet—a warning glance from Toady Wilton arrested his speech.

A man was coming up the broad marble steps which led to the piazza. He was a loose-made man of forty-five, with a heavy black beard and a bald head, which was made all the more evident by the fact that he carried his hat in his hand and was wiping his brow with a large and vivid handkerchief. He missed one step—stumbled and nearly fell, and the baronet and Toady Wilton exchanged significant glances; truly Soltykoff had begun his libations early that evening.

"Ah, there you are!" he said. He spoke with scarcely a foreign accent, for he had been educated in England by his father, a wealthy Russian manufacturer. "I am so glad to see you."

He grasped the baronet by both arms effusively, and would have kissed him on the cheek, but that the fastidious Sir George drew back.

"I have kept you waiting, yes, I know," he spoke quickly and jovially, "yet I have had many difficulties; oh, my friend, what difficulties! And this cursed Monte Carlo is filled with people, and I cannot walk along the street, and my motor-car is not here, yet I say to myself, ah, my friends are waiting, and I am desolated that I cannot be with them at the hour I protested!"

He managed to get some of his words a little wrong, for his opportunities for conversing in the language with which he was familiar were very few. Like most rich Russians, he did not come to London for his recreation, preferring the gaieties of Paris to the sombre joys which the metropolis offered.

"And now I have come only for a short time," he said, "because I must go to Nice to-night to see my grand inventor."

"What a man you are," said Sir George admiringly. "Why, you Russians can give English business men points and lose them."

Soltykoff shrugged his shoulders.

"There are many things," he said dryly, "in which the English can give me what you call points with considerable superfluity," he smiled.

That he had been drinking heavily there was no doubt, but he had the capacity which some of his countrymen enjoy of retaining their faculties even under circumstances which would have floored the old three-bottle men of another century.

"We were worrying about you, M. Soltykoff," said Toady Wilton, with what was meant to be an ingratiating smile.

"Of me, you worry, why?" asked the other surprised.

"My friend only means that it is not wise at this season to go round with your pockets filled with money," suggested Sir George playfully.

The other laughed and clapped his hands for a waiter. He ordered a magnum of sweet champagne. It was his favourite drink, but the baronet shuddered at the thought that he would be asked to consume a wine which was particularly distasteful to him.

"My money is here," he said. He opened his heavy cloth frock-coat and showed a big skirt pocket. Sir George had noticed the bulge in the garment and, suspecting its use, had heaved a little sigh of relief.

"It is here," repeated Soltykoff proudly, and drawing forth a great, black leather portfolio he banged it upon the table upsetting glasses and coffee cups with reckless indifference. He was all apologies immediately, but Kitson, a skilled man in these matters, noted that for all his apologies and for all the exhibition of sorrow and agitation the Russian's hand never left the black wallet.

"To-night," he said, "I go to Nice to see my friend, everything is arranged, to-night I shall be in possession of the formula which will wonder the world."

He spread out his hands extravagantly, and his jovial face beamed with the joy of anticipation.

"We will wonder the world, my friend," he went on, "you shall see! It is the most marvellous, it is the most splendid of inventions; glorious, the most significant. You understand? My English is not very good," he apologised, "especially when I have taken just a little more wine than is usual."

"Don't apologise, M. Soltykoff," said the baronet affably, "I should never have suspected that you had had a drink to-night." The other laughed, and replaced the wallet in his pocket.

"Much I have had," he said, "three magnums of champagne, I feel what you would call merry. Now to business."

He squared himself round so that he faced all three.

"You desire a great coup, is it not, on the racecourse. You think it can be managed, and that a great deal of money is to be made. I myself will be in England for your Derby race, and it would afford me great pleasure; I do not ask you," he held up his hand with drunken dignity, "I do not ask you to explain lest there should be in this planment (sic) something of dishonesty. I am satisfied that money can be made and grand sport. I am satisfied," he bowed to Sir George, "that you are noble and all-er-right. I offer to make the finances—to how much extent?"

"We shall want five thousand pounds," said Sir George.

"Five thousand pounds," said Soltykoff reflectively, "that is fifty thousand roubles. You offer me security, no?"

"The security of my name," said Sir George impressively.

"That is sufficient," said the Russian, "fifty thousand roubles, you shall have it to-morrow." He frowned, "no, not to-morrow," he said, "I leave to-night for Paris. I will give you a cheque on my bank—the Credit Lyonnaise—I have the account at the head office in Paris."

"Why not cash; to-night?" Sir George asked humorously, "you are carrying about a great deal of money, M. Soltykoff."

"No, no," said the Russian, shaking his head, "all this I may require, you understand? I am on the threshold of a great achievement, a momentous world shaker of interest to International enormous. You follow me?" He addressed Toady Wilton.

"Quite so," murmured the other, who did not comprehend one word the Russian was speaking, for now he talked with such bewildering rapidity and with so little regard for the rules of English syntax, that none but one skilled in the type of English could follow.

"To-night, I leave for Paris, as I have told you, by the twenty-three forty- three from Nice. My address you will know in Paris, it is on the Avenue des Champs Elysées."

He rose unsteadily and embraced Sir George with embarrassing heartiness, taking farewell with equal warmth of the stolid Kitson and the unattractive Mr. Wilton. They watched him going down the stairs.

"He leaves to-night," said Sir George in a low voice, "you heard him? Wilton, get down to the station and book three sleepers from Nice to Paris, and be sure that you find out the berth that Soltykoff has secured."

At ten o'clock that night Milton Sands strolled through the palatial vestibule of the Casino with a three-franc cigar in his mouth and less than three francs in hard cash in his pocket. He had left behind on the table the rest of his fortune, and was not in any way remorseful or regretful at his loss. He accepted the downs as well as the ups of life with the philosophy of one who had found himself bushed in the wildest part of the Australian desert without water or food, and who had yet retained a complete confidence that a miracle would happen which would save his life and bring him to a land, which, if it did not flow with milk and honey; would at least provide for him cool streams, a billy of tea, and a damper. A man who had sold gold claims at Coolgardie for the price of a pipeful of tobacco, and had afterwards seen those same claims resold for half a million, had had exactly the right kind of training which a Monte Carlo gambler requires. He walked back to the hotel, mounted the marble stairs slowly and came into the hall. He saw the porter.

"Send up to my room," he said, "I am leaving by to-night's train for Paris."

The gorgeous official murmured his regrets. He also was possessed of a philosophy of another kind. This was not the first guest of the hotel who had come with the intention of making a long stay, and who had as suddenly expressed his intention of making a hasty departure by the night train. Monte Carlo offered many demonstrations of that phenomena.

Milton went to his room and changed, and watched the porter hastily packing the one modest piece of baggage the gambler possessed.

"François," he said, speaking in French, "will you find out whether Mr. Eric Stanton is in the hotel?"

"Oui, monsieur," replied the man, and went out of the room, and was back again in three or four minutes.

"He is in the vestibule."

Milton Sands nodded.

He strode along the corridor, down the great steps and caught Eric just as he was entering the lift to ascend to his suite.

"I want you for a minute, Stanton," he said.

He led the other away to an unfrequented part of the vestibule.

"You do not know me except as an occasional acquaintance, the sort of man you pick up at Monte Carlo," he said, "but I know you. I want you to do me a great favour. I will tell you before we go any further that I want to borrow money, but I only ask you for five pounds."

"My dear chap," smiled the other, "you can have fifty if you want it."

Milton Sands shook his head.

"No," he said, "I just want enough to get me to London. I have a cheque or two waiting for me there."

"Are you going by to-night's train, too?" asked Stanton in surprise.

"Why are you going?"

"I have just had a wire calling me home," said the other, "and really Monte Carlo, if it is not getting on my nerves, is boring me."

"Good business! Shall I run down to the station and fix up a sleeper?"

"I wish you would," said Stanton. "By the way," he said, as Milton was moving off, "you will not be able to get your sleeper without money."

With a smile he took out his pocket-book and removed a little wad of notes.

"There are a thousand francs here," he said, "you had better take the lot, at any rate, you will want most of it to pay for the tickets, and if you don't feel inclined to accept more than a fiver, you can give me the change on the train."

"A fiver will be enough," said Milton grimly, "I feel that I ought not to be trusted with any more than will just keep body and soul on nodding terms for the next few days."

He had no difficulty in retaining sleepers on the night train; it was not the season of the year when there was any great exodus from Monte Carlo, the bulk of the traffic was in the other direction. Moreover, the night train was not the most fashionable one, society preferring to travel by the more expensive and rapid Cote de Azur.

He secured the tickets, and returned to find Eric Stanton ready for the journey, waiting at the cashier's desk whilst his bill was being prepared. As it happened, there was some slight balance to come from the deposit which the prudent Milton had made, and he contented himself with a loan of a hundred francs from the other.

They strolled to the railway station together, having plenty of time, when suddenly Eric Stanton asked bluntly:

"Exactly what are your plans?"

"My plans?" asked the other in a shocked tone, "my dear, good chap, I never have plans. What a perfectly ghastly idea!"

"It was impertinence on my part," smiled Eric, "and perhaps I did not make myself clear. I was wondering whether you," he hesitated, "had any settled occupation."

"As I have told you," said the other cheerfully, "I am a gentleman of the world at large. I have no business but the business of earning money in the easiest and most adventurous way. My plans I never make, because the day provides them. That is a feature of my life with which I would not willingly part."

They walked in silence for a little while and then Milton went on:

"I must confess," he said gloomily, "that if ever I was confronted with the necessity for forming some plans or other it is at this particular moment. You see my system, upon which I spent so much time and placed such an extraordinary amount of reliance, is one of those systems which require a capital of a million pounds to work. Yes, it is particularly a million pound system, because if you had that sum there would be no necessity for gambling, and I think that is the best system I know."

Eric Stanton had a genuine liking for this happy-go-lucky young man to whom the knocks and buffets of fortune only seemed to come as a welcome relief from the monotony of life.

"I am associated with several businesses," he said hesitatingly, "and I was wondering whether I could help you in any way."

Milton laughed, and clapped the other on the shoulder good-naturedly.

"My dear, good chap," he said confidentially, "if you placed me in a position of trust I should possibly run away with the till before a week was out. I am dishonest—that is a fact which you must always bear in mind. My object in life—but need I go over the subject again," he laughed in mock despair, "at any rate," he went on in a more serious tone, "I am immensely grateful to you for the kindness which prompted your offer. I am a gambler, and shall remain a gambler, to the end of my days, unless I discover something which offers me greater scope for my undoubted talent."

"I will give you my address, and if I can be of any assistance to you, please let me know," persisted Eric, and the other accepted the card with genuine gratitude.

"You see," he said, "it is so unusual to meet a chap like you, because you very rich people are, as a rule, spoilt by the attention of all sorts of vicious hangers-on who have no other desire in life than to relieve you of your money. I may, perhaps, be able to return your kindness one of these days. In the meantime, you might, perhaps, enliven part of a very monotonous journey by assisting me in choosing a new profession, for a new profession I must have," he said half seriously, "and that by to-morrow at the latest. Whether it will be actor, and I am no bad actor, or whether it will be merely a waiter at one of those excellent Montmartre establishments where, as I understand, the tips are even more generous than they are in the more chic districts of Paris, or whether it will be as a sandwich board man in your beloved London, I do not know, and I should be very grateful if you would assist me in my choice."