Читать книгу Under Cover - Martyn Wyndham - Страница 3

THERE are still restaurants in Paris where a well chosen dinner delights the chef who is called upon to cook it and the waiters who serve. And although it is true that most of the diners of to-day know little of that art which is now disappearing, it happened that Steven Denby was one who delighted the heart of the Ambassadeurs’ chef.

Monty was a happy soul who had never been compelled to consult his pocketbook in a choice of restaurants, and Mrs. Michael Harrington was married to a gourmand who well distinguished the difference between that and the indefensible fault of gluttony. Thus both of Denby’s guests were in a sense critical. They admitted that they had dined with one who agreed with Dumas’ dictum that a dinner is a daily and capital action that can only worthily be accomplished by gens d’esprit.

There are few places in Paris where a dinner in summer can be more pleasantly eaten than the balcony at the Ambassadeurs, among slim pillars of palest green and banks of pink roses. In the distance – not too near to be disturbed by the performers unless they chose – the three Americans saw that idol of the place, the great Polin at his best. French waiters do not bring courses on quickly with the idea of using the table a second time during the dining-hour. The financial genius who calculates l’addition knows a trick worth two of that.

Still a little anxious that Denby might not be able to stand the expense, Monty fell to thinking of the charges that Parisian restaurateurs can make. “They soaked me six francs for a peach here once,” he said for the second time that day.

“That’s nothing to what Bignon used to charge,” Alice Harrington returned. “Once when Michael’s father was dining there he was charged fifteen francs. When he said they must be very scarce in Paris, Bignon said it wasn’t the peaches that were scarce, it was the Harringtons.”

“Good old Michael,” said Monty, “I wish he were here. Why isn’t he?”

“Something is being reorganized and the other people want his advice.” She laughed. “I suppose he is really good at that sort of thing, but he gets so hopelessly muddled over small accounts that I can’t believe it. He was fearfully sorry not to have seen his colt run at Deauville. I shall have to tell him all about it.”

“I read the account,” said Denby. “St. Mervyn was the name, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “He won by a short head. Michael always likes to beat French horses. I’m afraid he isn’t as fond of the country as I am. The only thing he really likes here is the heure de l’aperitif. He declares it lasts from four-thirty till seven.” She laughed. “He has carried the habit home with him.”

“Did you win anything?” Denby asked.

“Enough to buy some presents at Cartier’s,” she returned. “I’ve bought something very sweet for Nora Rutledge,” she said, turning to Monty. “Aren’t you curious to know what? It’s a pearl la vallière.”

“Then for Heaven’s sake, declare it!” Monty cried.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I’ll pay if it’s found, but it’s a sporting risk to take and you can’t make me believe smuggling’s wrong. Michael says it’s a Democratic device to rob Republican women.”

“Ask Mr. Denby,” Monty retorted. “He knows.”

“And what do you know, Mr. Denby?” she demanded.

“That the customs people and the state department see no humor in that sort of a joke any longer. You read surely that society women even have been imprisoned for taking sporting risks?”

“Milliners who make a practice of getting things through on their annual trip,” she said lightly. “Of course one wouldn’t make a business of it, but I’ve always smuggled little things through and I always shall.”

“Well, I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Monty. “Mr. Denby has frightened me.”

Alice Harrington looked at him curiously.

“Have you been caught?” she asked with a smile.

“I’ve seen others caught,” he returned, “and if any sister of mine had to suffer as they did by the publicity and the investigation the customs people are empowered and required to make, I should feel rather uncomfortable.”

“What a depressing person you are,” she laughed. “I had already decided where to hide the things. I think I shall do it after all. It’s been all right before, so why not now?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It may be the new brooms are sweeping clean or it may be the state department has said smuggling shall no longer be condoned. I only know that things are done very differently now.”

Monty looked at him in amazement. His expression plainly meant that he considered his friend the proprietor of an unusually large supply of sheer gall.

“I heard about that,” she said, “but one can’t believe it. There’s a mythical being known only by his initials who is investigating for the state department. Even Michael warned me, so he may have some inside tip. Have you heard of him, Mr. Denby?”

“I was thinking of him,” he answered. “I think they call him R. B. or R. D. or some non-committal thing like that.”

“And you believe in him?” she asked sceptically.

“I’m afraid I do,” he returned.

“The deuce you do!” Monty cried, aggrieved. He had been happy for the last few hours in the belief that his friend was too well armed to get detected, and here he was admitting, in a manner that plainly showed apprehension, that this initialed power might be even on his track.

“You never smuggle,” Alice Harrington said, smiling. “You haven’t the nerve, Monty, so you need not take it to heart.”

“But I do nevertheless,” he retorted.

“Monty,” she cried, “I believe you’re planning to smuggle something yourself! We’ll conspire together and defeat that abominable law.”

“If you must,” Denby said, still gravely, “don’t advertise the fact. Paris has many spies who reap the reward of overhearing just such confidences.”

“Spies!” She laughed. “How melodramatic, Mr. Denby.”

“But I mean it,” he insisted. “Not highly paid government agents, but perhaps such people as chambermaids in your hotel, or servants to whom you pay no attention whatsoever. How do you and I know for example that Monty isn’t high up in the secret service?”

“Me?” cried Monty. “Well, I certainly admire your brand of nerve, Steve!”

“That’s no answer,” his friend returned. “You say you have been two years here studying Continental banking systems. I’ll bet you didn’t even know that the Banque de France issued a ten thousand franc note!”

“Of course I did,” Monty cried, a little nettled.

Denby turned to Mrs. Harrington with an air of triumph.

“That settles it, Monty is a spy.”

“I don’t see how that proves it,” she answered.

“The Banque de France has no ten thousand franc note,” he returned; “its highest value is five thousand francs. In two years Montague Vaughan has not found that out. The ordinary tourist who passes a week here and spends nothing to speak of might be excused, but not a serious student like Monty.”

“I will vouch for him,” Mrs. Harrington said. “I’ve known him for years and I don’t think it’s a life suited to him at all, is it, Monty?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said he airily. “I may be leading a double life.” He looked at her not without an expression of triumph. Little did she know in what a conspiracy he was already enlisted. After an excellent repast and a judicious indulgence in some rare wine Monty felt he was extraordinarily well fitted for delicate intrigue, preferably of an international character. He stroked his budding moustache with the air of a gentleman adventurer.

Alice Harrington smiled. She was a good judge of character and Monty was too well known to her to lend color to any such notion.

“It won’t do,” she averred, “but Mr. Denby has every earmark of it. There’s that piercing look of his and the obsequious way waiters attend on him.”

Monty laughed heartily. He was in possession of a secret that made such an idea wholly preposterous. Here was a man with a million-franc pearl necklace in his pocket, a treasure he calmly proposed to smuggle in against the laws of his country, being taken for a spy.

“Alice,” he said still laughing, “I’ll go bail on Steve for any amount you care to name. I am also willing to back him against all comers for brazen nerve and sheer gall.”

Denby interrupted him a little hastily.

“As we two men are free from suspicion, only Mrs. Harrington remains uncleared.”

“This is all crazy talk,” Monty asserted.

“I know one woman, well known in New York, who goes over each year and more than once has made her expenses by tipping off the authorities to things other women were trying to get through without declaration.”

“You speak with feeling,” Mrs. Harrington said, and wondered if this friend of Monty’s had not been betrayed by some such confidence.

“Are you going to take warning?” Denby asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’ve been reading the American papers and are deceived by the annual warnings to intending European tourists. I’m a hardened and successful criminal.” She leaned forward to look at a dancer on the stage below them and Denby knew that his monitions had left her unmoved.

“When were you last at home?” she demanded presently of Denby.

“About six months ago,” he answered. “I shall be there a week from to-morrow if I live.”

The last three words vaguely disturbed Monty. Why, he wondered crossly, was Denby always reminding him of danger? There was no doubt that what his friend really should have said was: “If I am not murdered by criminals for the two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of valuables they probably know I carry with me.”

“Have you booked your passage yet?” she asked.

It occurred to her that it would be pleasant to have a second man on the voyage. Like all women of her world, she was used to the attentions of men and found life deplorably dull without them, although she was not a flirt and was still in love with her husband.

“Not yet,” he answered, “but La Provence goes from Havre to-morrow.”

“Come with us,” she insisted. “The Mauretania sails a couple of days later but gets you in on the same morning as the other.” She turned to Monty. “Isn’t that a brilliant idea?”

“It’s so brilliant I’m blinded by it,” he retorted, gazing at his friend with a look of respect. Not many hours ago Steven had asserted that he and Monty must sail together on the fastest of ships, and now he had apparently decided to forsake the Compagnie Transatlantique only on account of Alice Harrington’s invitation.

“I shall be charmed,” was all he had said.

Monty felt that he was a co-conspirator of one who was not likely to be upset by trifles. He sighed. A day or so ago he had imagined himself ill-used by Fate because no unusual excitement had come his way, and now his prayers had been answered too abundantly. The phrase “If I live” remained in his memory with unpleasant insistency.

“We ought to cross the Channel by the afternoon boat to-morrow,” Alice said. “There are one or two things I want to get for Michael in London.”

“It will be a much nicer voyage for me than if I had gone alone on La Provence,” Denby said gratefully, while Monty continued to meditate on the duplicity of his sex.

When they had taken Mrs. Harrington to her hotel Monty burst out with what he had been compelled to keep secret all the evening.

“What in thunder makes you so careful about people smuggling?” he demanded.

“About other people smuggling, you mean,” Denby corrected.

“It’s the same thing,” Monty asserted.

“Far from it,” his friend made answer. “If Mrs. Harrington is suspected and undeclared stuff found on her, you and I as her companions will be more or less under suspicion too. It is not unusual for women to ask their men friends to put some little package in their pockets till the customs have been passed. The inspectors may have an idea that she has done this with us. Personally I don’t relish a very exhaustive search.”

“You bet you don’t,” his friend returned. “I shall probably be the only honest man aboard.”

“Mrs. Harrington may ask you to hold some small parcel till she’s been through the ordeal,” Denby reminded him. “If she does, Monty, you’ll be caught for a certainty.”

“Damn it all!” Monty cried petulantly, “why can’t you people do the right thing and declare what you bring in, just as I do?”

“What is your income?” Denby inquired. “Your father was always liberal with you.”

“You mean I have no temptation?” Monty answered. “I forgot that part of it. I don’t know what I’d do if there wasn’t always a convenient paying teller who passed me out all the currency I wanted.”

He looked at his friend curiously, wondering just what this act of smuggling meant to him. Perhaps Denby sensed this.

“You probably wondered why I wrung that invitation out of Mrs. Harrington instead of being honest and saying I, too, was going by the Cunard line. I can’t tell you now, Monty, old man, but I hope some day if I’m successful that I can. I tell you this much, though, that it seems so much to me that no little conventionalities are going to stand in my way.”

Monty, pondering on this later when he was in his hotel room, called to mind the rumor he had heard years ago that Steven’s father had died deeply in debt. It was for this reason that the boy was suddenly withdrawn from Groton. It might be that his struggles to make a living had driven him into regarding the laws against smuggling as arbitrary and inequitable just as Alice Harrington and dozens of other people he knew did. Denby, he argued, had paid good money for the pearls and they belonged to him absolutely; and if by his skill he could evade the payment of duty upon them and sell them at a profit, why shouldn’t he? Before slumber sealed his eyes, Montague Vaughan had decided that smuggling was as legitimate a sport as fly-fishing. That these views would shock his father he knew. But his father always prided himself upon a traditional conservatism.