Читать книгу Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo - Le Queux William - Страница 4

Walter Brock was awakened at four o’clock that morning by Hugh touching him upon the shoulder.

He started up in bed and staring at his friend’s pale, haggard face exclaimed:

“Good Heavens!—why, what’s the matter?”

“Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo has been shot!” the other replied in a hard voice.

“Shot!” gasped Brock, startled. “What do you mean?”

Briefly Hugh who had only just entered the hotel, explained the curious circumstances—how, just at the moment she had been about to reveal the secret of his father’s death she was shot.

“Most extraordinary!” declared his friend. “Surely, we have not been followed here by someone who is determined to prevent you from knowing the truth!”

“It seems much like it, Walter,” replied the younger man very seriously. “There must be some strong motive or no person would dare to shoot her right before my eyes.”

“Agreed. Somebody who is concerned in your father’s death has adopted this desperate measure in order to prevent Mademoiselle from telling you the truth.”

“That’s exactly my opinion, my dear Walter. If it was a crime for gain, or through motives of either jealousy or revenge, Mademoiselle would certainly have been attacked on her way home. The road is quite deserted towards the crest of the hill.”

“What do the police say?”

“They do not appear to trouble to track Mademoiselle’s assailant. They say they will wait until daylight before searching for footprints on the gravel outside.”

“Ah! They are not very fond of making arrests within the Principality. It’s such a bad advertisement for the Rooms. The Administration like to show a clean sheet as regards serious crime. Our friends here leave it to the French or Italian police to deal with the criminals so that the Principality shall prove itself the most honest State in Europe,” Brock said.

“The police, I believe, suspect me of shooting her,” said Hugh bluntly.

“That’s very awkward. Why?”

“Well—they don’t know the true reason I went to see her, or they would never believe me to be guilty of a crime so much against my own interests.”

Brock, who was still sitting up in bed in his pale blue silk pyjamas, reflected a few moments.

“Well, Hugh,” he said at last, “after all it is only natural that they should believe that you had a hand in the matter. Even though she told you the truth, it is quite within reason that you should have suddenly become incensed against her for the part she must have played in your father’s mysterious death, and in a frenzy of anger you shot her.”

Hugh drew a long breath, and his eyebrows narrowed.

“By Jove! I had never regarded it in that light before!” he gasped. “But what about the weapon?”

“You might easily have hidden it before the arrival of the police. You admit that you went out on the veranda. Therefore if they do chance to find the weapon in the garden then their suspicions will, no doubt, be considerably increased. It’s a pity, old man, that you didn’t make a clean breast of the motive of your visit.”

“I now see my horrible mistake,” Henfrey admitted. “I thought myself wise to preserve silence, to know nothing, and now I see quite plainly that I have only brought suspicion unduly upon myself. The police, however, know Yvonne Ferad to be a somewhat mysterious person.”

“Which renders the situation only worse,” Brock said. Then, after a pause, he added: “Now that you have declined to tell the police why you visited the Villa Amette and have, in a way, defied them, it will be best to maintain that attitude. Tell them nothing, no matter what happens.”

“I intend to pursue that course. But the worst of it is, Walter, that the doctors hold out no hope of Mademoiselle’s recovery. I saw Duponteil half an hour ago, and he told me that he could give me no encouraging information. The bullet has been extracted, but she is hovering between life and death. I suppose it will be in the papers to-morrow, and Dorise and her mother will know of my nocturnal visit to the house of a notorious woman.”

“Don’t let that worry you, my dear chap. Here, they keep the news of all tragedies out of the papers, because shooting affairs may be thought by the public to be due to losses at the Rooms. Recollect that of all the suicides here—the dozens upon dozens of poor ruined gamesters who are yearly laid to rest in the Suicides’ Cemetery—not a single report has appeared in any newspaper. So I think you may remain assured that Lady Ranscomb and her daughter will not learn anything.”

“I sincerely hope they won’t, otherwise it will go very hard with me,” Hugh said in a low, intense voice. “Ah! What a night it has been for me!”

“And if Mademoiselle dies the assailant, whoever he was, will be guilty of wilful murder; while you, on your part, will never know the truth concerning your father’s death,” remarked the elder man, running his fingers through his hair.

“Yes. That is the position of this moment. But further, I am suspected of the crime!”

Brock dressed while his friend sat upon the edge of the bed, pale-faced and agitated. Suppose that the assailant had flung his pistol into the bushes, and the police eventually discovered it? Then, no doubt, he would be put across the frontier to be arrested by the police of the Department of the Alpes Maritimes.

Truly, the situation was most serious.

Together the two men strolled out into the early morning air and sat upon a seat on the terrace of the Casino watching the sun as it rose over the tideless sea.

For nearly an hour they sat discussing the affair; then they ascended the white, dusty road to the beautiful Villa Amette, the home of the mysterious Mademoiselle.

Old Giulio Cataldi opened the door.

“Alas! m’sieur, Mademoiselle is just the same,” he replied in response to Hugh’s eager inquiry. “The police have gone, but Doctor Leneveu is still upstairs.”

“Have the police searched the garden?” inquired Hugh eagerly.

“Yes, m’sieur. They made a thorough examination, but have discovered no marks of footprints except those of yourself, myself, and a tradesman’s lad who brought up a parcel late last night.”

“Then they found no weapon?” asked the young Englishman.

“No, m’sieur. There is no clue whatever to the assailant.”

“Curious that there should be no footmarks,” remarked Brock. “Yet they found yours, Hugh.”

“Yes. The man must surely have left some trace outside!”

“One would certainly have thought so,” Brock said. “I wonder if we may go into the room where the tragedy happened?” he asked of the servant.

“Certainly, m’sieur,” was the courteous reply, and he conducted them both into the apartment wherein Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo had been shot down.

“Did you accompany Mademoiselle when she went to London, Giulio?” asked young Henfrey of the old Italian, after he had described to Brock exactly what had occurred.

“Yes, m’sieur,” he replied. “I was at Cromwell Road for a short time. But I do not care for London, so Mademoiselle sent me back here to look after the Villa because old Jean, the concierge, had been taken to the hospital.”

“When in London you knew some of Mademoiselle’s friends, I suppose?”

“A few—only a few,” was the Italian’s reply.

“Did you ever know a certain Mr. Benton?”

The old fellow shook his head blankly.

“Not to my knowledge, m’sieur,” he replied. “Mademoiselle had really very few friends in London. There was a Mrs. Matthews and her husband, Americans whom she met here in Monte Carlo, and Sir George Cave-Knight, who died a few weeks ago.”

“Do you remember an elderly gentleman named Henfrey calling?” asked Hugh.

Old Cataldi reflected for a moment, and then answered:

“The name sounds familiar to me, m’sieur, but in what connexion I cannot recollect. That is your name, is it not?” he asked, remembering the card he had taken to his mistress.

“Yes,” Hugh replied. “I have reason to believe that my late father was acquainted with your mistress, and that he called upon her in London.”

“I believe that a gentleman named Henfrey did call, because when I glanced at the card you gave me last night the name struck me as familiar,” the servant said. “But whether he actually called, or whether someone at table mentioned his name I really cannot recollect.”

“Ah! That’s a pity,” exclaimed Hugh with a sigh. “As a matter of fact it was in order to make certain inquiries regarding my late father that I called upon Mademoiselle last night.”

Giulio Cataldi turned in pretence of rearranging a chair, but in reality to avert his face from the young man’s gaze—a fact which Hugh did not fail to notice.

Had he really told the truth when he declared that he could not recollect his father calling?

“How long were you in London with Mademoiselle?” asked Henfrey.

“About six weeks—not longer.”

Was it because of some untoward occurrence that the old Italian did not like London, Hugh wondered.

“And you are quite sure that you do not recollect my father calling upon your mistress?”

“As I have said, m’sieur, I do not remember. Yet I recall the name, as it is a rather unusual one.”

“And you have never heard of Mr. Benton?”

Cataldi shook his head.

“Well,” Hugh went on, “tell me whether you entertain any suspicions of anyone who might be tempted to kill your mistress. Mademoiselle has enemies, has she not?”

“Who knows?” exclaimed the man with the grey moustache and small, black furtive eyes.

“Everyone has enemies of one sort or another,” Walter remarked. “And no doubt Mademoiselle has. It is for us to discover the enemy who shot her.”

“Ah! yes, it is, m’sieur,” exclaimed the servant. “The poor Signorina! I do hope that the police will discover who tried to kill her.”

“For aught we know the attempt upon the lady’s life may prove successful after all,” said Hugh despairingly. “The doctors hold out no hope of her recovery.”

“None. A third doctor has been in consultation—Doctor Bazin, from Beaulieu. He only left a quarter of an hour ago. He told me that the poor Signorina cannot possibly live! Ah! messieurs, how terrible all this is—povera Signorina! She was always so kind and considerate to us all.” And the old man’s voice trembled with emotion.

Walter Brock gazed around the luxurious room and at the long open window through which streamed the bright morning sun, with the perfume of the flowers outside. What was the mystery concerning Mademoiselle Yvonne? What foundation had the gossips for those constant whisperings which had rendered the handsome woman so notorious?

True, the story of the death of Hugh’s father was an unusually strange one, curious in every particular—and stranger still that the secret was held by this beautiful, but mysterious, woman who lived in such luxury, and who gambled so recklessly and with invariable good fortune.

As they walked back to the town Hugh’s heart sank within him.

“She will die,” he muttered bitterly to himself. “She’ll die, and I shall never learn the truth of the poor guv’nor’s sad end, or the reason why I am being forced to marry Louise Lambert.”

“It’s an iniquitous will, Hugh!” declared his friend. “And it’s infernally hard on you that just at the very moment when you could have learnt the truth that shot was fired.”

“Do you think the woman had any hand in my father’s death?” Hugh asked. “Do you think that she had repented, and was about to try and atone for what she had done by confessing the whole affair?”

“Yes. That is just the view I take,” answered Brock. “Of course, we have no idea what part she played in the business. But my idea is that she alone knows the reason why this marriage with Louise is being forced upon you.”

“In that case, then, it seems more than likely that I’ve been followed here to Monte Carlo, and my movements watched. But why has she been shot? Why did not her enemies shoot me? They could have done so twenty times during the past few days. Perhaps the shot which hit her was really intended for me?”

“I don’t think so. There is a monetary motive behind your marriage with Louise. If you died, your enemy would gain nothing. That seems clear.”

“But who can be my secret enemy?” asked the young man in dismay.

“Mademoiselle alone knows that, and it was undoubtedly her intention to warn you.”

“Yes. But if she dies I shall remain in ignorance,” he declared in a hard voice. “The whole affair is so tangled that I can see nothing clearly—only that my refusal to marry Louise will mean ruin to me—and I shall lose Dorise in the bargain!”

Walter Brock, older and more experienced, was equally mystified. The pessimistic attitude of the three doctors who had attended the injured woman was, indeed, far from reassuring. The injury to the head caused by the assailant’s bullet was, they declared, most dangerous. Indeed, the three medical men marvelled that she still lived.

The two men walked through the palm-lined garden, bright with flowers, back to their hotel, wondering whether news of the tragedy had yet got abroad. But they heard nothing of it, and it seemed true, as Walter Brock had declared, that the police make haste to suppress any tragic happenings in the Principality.

Though they were unconscious of it, a middle-aged, well-dressed Frenchman had, during their absence from the hotel, been making diligent inquiries regarding them of the night concierge and some of the staff.

The concierge had recognized the visitor as Armand Buisson, of the police bureau at Nice. It seemed as though the French police were unduly inquisitive concerning the well-conducted young Englishman and his companion.

Now, as a matter of fact, half an hour after Hugh had left the Villa Amette, Ogier had telegraphed to Buisson in Nice, and the latter had come along the Corniche road in a fast car to make his own inquiries and observations upon the pair of Englishmen. Ogier strongly suspected Henfrey of firing the shot, but was, nevertheless, determined to remain inactive and leave the matter to the Prefecture of the Department of Alpes Maritimes. Hence the reason that the well-dressed Frenchman lounged in the hall of the hotel pretending to read the “Phare du Littoral.”

Just before noon Hugh went to the telephone in the hotel and inquired of Cataldi the progress of his mistress.

“She is just the same, m’sieur,” came the voice in broken English. “Santa Madonna! How terrible it all is! Doctor Leneveu has left, and Doctor Duponteil is now here.”

“Have the police been again?”

“No, m’sieur. Nobody has been,” was the reply.

So Hugh rang off and crossed the hall, little dreaming that the well-dressed Frenchman had been highly interested in his questions.

Half an hour later he went along to the Metropole, where he had an engagement to lunch with Dorise and her mother.

When they met, however, Lady Ranscomb exclaimed:

“Why, Hugh, you look very pale. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing,” he laughed forcedly. “I’m not very bright to-day. I think it was the sirocco of yesterday that has upset me a little, that’s all.”

Then, while they were seated at table, Dorise suddenly exclaimed:

“Oh! do you know, mother, that young French lady over yonder, Madame Jacomet, has just told me something. There’s a whisper that the mysterious woman, Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, was shot during the night by a discarded lover!”

“Shot!” exclaimed Lady Ranscomb. “Dear me! How very dreadful. What really happened?”

“I don’t know. Madame Jacomet was told by her husband, who heard it in Ciro’s this morning.”

“How terrible!” remarked Hugh, striving to remain calm.

“Yes. But women of her class invariably come to a bad end,” remarked the widow. “How pleased I am, Dorise, that you never spoke to her. She’s a most dreadful person, they say.”

“Well, she evidently knows how to win money at the tables, mother,” said the girl, lifting her clear blue eyes to those of her lover.

“Yes. But I wonder what the scandal is all about?” said the widow of the great engineer.

“Oh! don’t trouble to inquire Lady Ranscomb,” Hugh hastened to remark. “One hears scandal on every hand in Monte Carlo.”

“Yes. I suppose so,” replied the elder woman, and then the subject was dropped.

So the ugly affair was being rumoured. It caused Hugh a good deal of apprehension, for he feared that his name would be associated with that of the mysterious Mademoiselle. Evidently one or other of the servants at the Villa Amette had been indiscreet.

At that moment, in his private room at the bureau of police down in Monaco, Superintendent Ogier was carefully perusing a dossier of official papers which had been brought to him by the archivist.

Between his thin lips was a long, thin, Swiss cigar—his favorite smoke—and with his gold-rimmed pince-nez poised upon his aquiline nose he was reading a document which would certainly have been of considerable interest to Hugh Henfrey and his friend Walter Brock could they have seen it.

Upon the pale yellow paper were many lines of typewriting in French—a carbon copy evidently.

It was headed: “Republique Francaise. Department of Herault. Prefecture of Police. Bureau of the Director of Police. Reference Number 20197.B.,” and was dated nearly a year before.

It commenced:

“Copy of an ‘information’ in the archives of the Prefecture of the Department of Herault concerning the woman Marie Mignot, or Leullier, now passing under the name of Yvonne Ferad and living at the Villa Amette at Monte Carlo.

“The woman in question was born in 1884 at Number 45 Rue des Etuves, in Montpellier, and was the daughter of one Doctor Rigaud, a noted toxicologist of the Faculty of Medicine, and curator of the University Library. At the age of seventeen, after her father’s death, she became a school teacher at a small school in the Rue Morceau, and at nineteen married Charles Leullier, a good-looking young scoundrel who posed as being well off, but who was afterwards proved to be an expert international thief, a member of a gang of dangerous thieves who committed robberies in the European express trains.

“This fact was unknown to the girl, therefore at first all went smoothly, until the wife discovered the truth and left him. She then joined the chorus of a revue at the Jardin de Paris, where she met a well-to-do Englishman named Bryant. The pair went to England, where she married him, and they resided in the county of Northampton. Six months later Bryant died, leaving her a large sum of money. In the meantime Leullier had been arrested by the Italian police for a daring robbery with violence in a train traveling between Milan and Turin and been sentenced to ten years on the penal island of Gorgona. His wife, hearing of this from an Englishman named Houghton, who, though she was unaware of it, was following the same profession as her husband, returned to France. She rented an apartment in Paris, and afterwards played at Monte Carlo, where she won a considerable sum, with the proceeds of which she purchased the Villa Amette, which she now occupies each season.”

“Extracts of reports concerning Marie Leullier, alias Yvonne Ferad, are herewith appended:

“Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, London—to the Prefecture of Police, Paris.

“Mademoiselle Yvonne Ferad rented a furnished house at Hove, near Brighton, in June, 1918. Afterwards moved to Worthing and to Exeter, and later took a house in the Cromwell Road, London, in 1919. She was accompanied by an Italian manservant named Cataldi. Her conduct was suspicious, though she was undoubtedly possessed of considerable means. She was often seen at the best restaurants with various male acquaintances, more especially with a man named Kenworthy. Her association with this person, and with another man named Percy Stendall, was curious, as both men were habitual criminals and had served several terms of penal servitude each. Certain suspicions were aroused, and observation was kept, but nothing tangible was discovered. It is agreed, however, that some mystery surrounds this woman in question. She left London quite suddenly, but left no debts behind.”

“Information from the Borough Police Office, Worthing, to the Prefecture of Police, Department of Herault.

“Mademoiselle Yvonne Ferad has been identified by the photograph sent as having lived in Worthing in December, 1918. She rented a small furnished house facing the sea, and was accompanied by an Italian manservant and a French maid. Her movements were distinctly mysterious. A serious fracas occurred at the house on the evening of December 18th, 1918. A middle-aged gentleman, whose name is unknown, called there about seven o’clock and a violent quarrel ensued between the lady and her visitor, the latter being very seriously assaulted by the Italian. The constable on duty was called in, but the visitor refused to prosecute, and after having his injuries attended to by a doctor left for London. Three days later Mademoiselle disappeared from Worthing. It is believed by the Chief Constable that the woman is of the criminal class.”

Then Charles Ogier, inspector of the detective police of Monaco, smiled, laid down his cigar, and took up another and even more interesting document.