MR. GREX OF MONTE CARLO

CHAPTER I

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

The eyes of the man who had looked in upon a scene inordinately, fantastically brilliant, underwent, after those first few moments of comparative indifference, a curious transformation. He was contemplating one of the sights of the world. Crowded around the two roulette tables, promenading or lounging on the heavily cushioned divans against the wall, he took note of a conglomeration of people representing, perhaps, every grade of society, every nationality of importance, yet with a curious common likeness by reason of their tribute paid to fashion. He glanced unmoved at a beautiful Englishwoman who was a duchess but looked otherwise; at an equally beautiful Frenchwoman, who looked like a duchess but was—otherwise. On every side of him were women gowned by the great artists of the day, women like flowers, all perfume and softness and colour. His eyes passed them over almost carelessly. A little tired with many weeks' travel in countries where the luxuries of life were few, his senses were dulled to the magnificence of the scene, his pulses as yet had not responded to its charm and wonder. And then the change came. He saw a woman standing almost exactly opposite to him at the nearest roulette table, and he gave a noticeable start. For a moment his pale, expressionless face was transformed, his secret was at any one's mercy. That, however, was the affair of an instant only. He was used to shocks and he survived this one. He moved a little on one side from his prominent place in the centre of the wide-flung doorway. He stood by one of the divans and watched.

She was tall and fair and slight. She wore a high-necked gown of shimmering grey, a black hat, under which her many coils of hair shone like gold, and a necklace of pearls around her throat, pearls on which his eyes had rested with a curious expression. She played, unlike many of her neighbours, with restraint, yet with interest, almost enthusiasm. There was none of the strain of the gambler about her smooth, beautiful face. Her delicately curved lips were free from the grim lines of concentrated acquisitiveness. She was thirty-two years old but she looked much younger as she stood there, her lips a little parted in a pleased smile of anticipation. She was leaning a little over the table and her eyes were fixed with humorous intentness upon the spinning wheel. Even amongst that crowd of beautiful women she possessed a certain individual distinction. She not only looked what she was—an Englishwoman of good birth—but there was a certain delicate aloofness about her expression and bearing which gave an added charm to a personality which seemed to combine the two extremes of provocativeness and reserve. One would have hesitated to address to her even the chance remarks which pass so easily between strangers around the tables.

"Violet here!" the man murmured under his breath. "Violet!"

There was tragedy in the whisper, a gleam of something like tragedy, too, in the look which passed between the man and the woman a few moments later. With her hands full of plaques which she had just won, she raised her eyes at last from the board. The smile upon her lips was the delighted smile of a girl. And then, as she was in the act of sweeping her winnings into her gold bag, she saw the man opposite. The smile seemed to die from her lips; it appeared, indeed, to pass with all else of expression from her face. The plaques dropped one by one through her fingers, into the satchel. Her eyes remained fixed upon him as though she were looking upon a ghost. The seconds seemed drawn out into a grim hiatus of time. The croupier's voice, the muttered imprecation of a loser by her side, the necessity of making some slight movement in order to allow the passage of an arm from some one in search of change—some such trifle at last brought her back from the shadows. Her expression became at once more normal. She did not remove her eyes but she very slightly inclined her head towards the man. He, in return, bowed very gravely and without a smile.

The table in front of her was cleared now. People were beginning to consider their next coup. The voice of the croupier, with his parrot-like cry, travelled down the board.

"Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs."

The woman made no effort to stake. After a moment's hesitation she yielded up her place, and moving backwards, seated herself upon an empty divan. Rapidly the thoughts began to form themselves in her mind. Her delicate eyebrows drew closer together in a distinct frown. After that first shock, that queer turmoil of feeling, beyond analysis, yet having within it some entirely unexpected constituent, she found herself disposed to be angry. The sensation had not subsided when a moment or two later she was conscious that the man whose coming had proved so disturbing was standing before her.

"Good afternoon," he said, a little stiffly.

She raised her eyes. The frown was still upon her forehead, although to a certain extent it was contradicted by a slight tremulousness of the lips.

"Good afternoon, Henry!"

For some reason or other, further speech seemed to him a difficult matter. He moved towards the vacant place.

"If you have no objection," he observed, as he seated himself.

She unfurled her fan—an ancient but wonderful weapon of defence. It gave her a brief respite. Then she looked at him calmly.

"Of all places in the world," she murmured, "to meet you here!"

"Is it so extraordinary?"

"I find it so," she admitted. "You don't at all fit in, you know. A scene like this," she added, glancing around, "would scarcely ever be likely to attract you for its own sake, would it?"

"It doesn't particularly," he admitted.

"Then why have you come?"

He remained silent. The frown upon her forehead deepened.

"Perhaps," she went on coldly, "I can help you with your reply. You have come because you are not satisfied with the reports of the private detective whom you have engaged to watch me. You have come to supplement them by your own investigation."

His frown matched hers. The coldness of his tone was rendered even more bitter by its note of anger.

"I am surprised that you should have thought me capable of such an action," he declared. "All I can say is that it is thoroughly in keeping with your other suspicions of me, and that I find it absolutely unworthy."

She laughed a little incredulously, not altogether naturally.

"My dear Henry," she protested, "I cannot flatter myself that there is any other person in the world sufficiently interested in my movements to have me watched."

"Are you really under the impression that that is the case?" he enquired grimly.

"It isn't a matter of impression at all," she retorted. "It is the truth. I was followed from London, I was watched at Cannes, I am watched here day by day—by a little man in a brown suit and a Homburg hat, and with a habit of lounging. He lounges under my windows, he is probably lounging across the way now. He has lounged within fifty yards of me for the last three weeks, and to tell you the truth I am tired of him. Couldn't I have a week's holiday? I'll keep a diary and tell you all that you want to know."

"Is it sufficient," he asked, "for me to assure you, upon my word of honour, that I know nothing of this?"

She was somewhat startled. She turned and looked at him. His tone was convincing. He had not the face of a man whose word of honour was a negligible thing.

"But, Henry," she protested, "I tell you that there is no doubt about the matter. I am watched day and night—I, an insignificant person whose doings can be of no possible interest save to you and you only."

The man did not at once reply. His thoughts seemed to have wandered off for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone had lost its note of resentment.

"I do not blame you for your suspicion," he said calmly, "although I can assure you that I have never had any idea of having you watched. It is not a course which could possibly have suggested itself to me, even in my most unhappy moments."

She was puzzled—at once puzzled and interested.

"I am so glad to hear this," she said, "and of course I believe you, but there the fact is. I think that you will agree with me that it is curious."

"Isn't it possible," he ventured to suggest, "that it is your companions who are the object of this man's vigilance? You are not, I presume, alone here?"

She eyed him a little defiantly.

"I am here," she announced, "with Mr. and Mrs. Draconmeyer."

He heard her without any change of expression, but somehow or other it was easy to see that her news, although more than half expected, had stung him.

"Mr. and Mrs. Draconmeyer," he repeated, with slight emphasis on the latter portion of the sentence.

"Certainly! I am sorry," she went on, a moment late, "that my companions do not meet with your approval. That, however, I could scarcely expect, considering—"

"Considering what?" he insisted, watching her steadfastly.

"Considering all things," she replied, after a moment's pause.

"Mrs. Draconmeyer is still an invalid?"

"She is still an invalid."

The slightly satirical note in his question seemed to provoke a certain defiance in her manner as she turned a little sideways towards him. She moved her fan slowly backwards and forwards, her head was thrown back, her manner was almost belligerent. He took up the challenge. He asked her in plain words the question which his eyes had already demanded.

"I find myself constrained to ask you," he said, in a studiously measured tone, "by what means you became possessed of the pearls you are wearing? I do not seem to remember them as your property."

Her eyes flashed.

"Don't you think," she returned, "that you are a little outstepping your privileges?"

"Not in the least," he declared. "You are my wife, and although you have defied me in a certain matter, you are still subject to my authority. I see you wearing jewels in public of which you were certainly not possessed a few months ago, and which neither your fortune nor mine—"

"Let me set your mind at rest," she interrupted icily. "The pearls are not mine. They belong to Mrs. Draconmeyer."

"Mrs. Draconmeyer!"

"I am wearing them," she continued, "at Linda's special request. She is too unwell to appear in public and she is very seldom able to wear any of her wonderful jewelry. It gives her pleasure to see them sometimes upon other people."

He remained quite silent for several moments. He was, in reality, passionately angry. Self-restraint, however, had become such a habit of his that there were no indications of his condition save in the slight twitchings of his long fingers and a tightening at the corners of his lips. She, however, recognised the symptoms without difficulty.

"Since you defy my authority," he said, "may I ask whether my wishes have any weight with you?"

"That depends," she replied.

"It is my earnest wish," he went on, "that you do not wear another woman's jewelry, either in public or privately."

She appeared to reflect for a moment. In effect she was struggling against a conviction that his request was reasonable.

"I am sorry," she said at last. "I see no harm whatever in my doing so in this particular instance. It gives great pleasure to poor Mrs. Draconmeyer to see her jewels and admire them, even if she is unable to wear them herself. It gives me an intense joy which even a normal man could scarcely be expected to understand; certainly not you. I am sorry that I cannot humour you."

He leaned towards her.

"Not if I beg you?"

She looked at him fixedly, looked at him as though she searched for something in his face, or was pondering over something in his tone. It was a moment which might have meant much. If she could have seen into his heart and understood the fierce jealousy which prompted his words, it might have meant a very great deal. As it was, her contemplation appeared to be unsatisfactory.

"I am sorry that you should lay so much stress upon so small a thing," she said. "You were always unreasonable. Your present request is another instance of it. I was enjoying myself very much indeed until you came, and now you wish to deprive me of one of my chief pleasures. I cannot humour you."

He turned away. Even then chance might have intervened. The moment her words had been spoken she realised a certain injustice in them, realised a little, perhaps, the point of view of this man who was still her husband. She watched him almost eagerly, hoping to find some sign in his face that it was not only his stubborn pride which spoke. She failed, however. He was one of those men who know too well how to wear the mask.

"May I ask where you are staying here?" he enquired presently.

"At the Hotel de Paris."

"It is unfortunate," he observed. "I will move my quarters to-morrow."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Monte Carlo is full of hotels," she remarked, "but it seems a pity that you should move. The place is large enough for both of us."

"It is not long," he retorted, "since you found London itself too small. I should be very sorry to spoil your holiday."

Her eyes seemed to dwell for a moment upon the Spanish dancer who sat at the table opposite them, a woman whose name had once been a household word, dethroned now, yet still insistent for notice and homage; commanding them, even, with the wreck of her beauty and the splendour of her clothes.

"It seems a queer place, this," she observed, "for domestic disagreements. Let us try to avoid disputable subjects. Shall I be too inquisitive if I ask you once more what in the name of all that is unsuitable brought you to such a place as Monte Carlo?"

He fenced with her question. Perhaps he resented the slightly ironical note in her tone. Perhaps there were other reasons.

"Why should I not come to Monte Carlo?" he enquired. "Parliament is not particularly amusing when one is in opposition, and I do not hunt. The whole world amuses itself here."

"But not you," she replied quickly. "I know you better than that, my dear Henry. There is nothing here or in this atmosphere which could possibly attract you for long. There is no work for you to do—work, the very breath of your body; work, the one thing you live for and were made for; work, you man of sawdust and red tape."

"Am I as bad as all that?" he asked quietly.

She fingered her pearls for a moment.

"Perhaps I haven't the right to complain," she acknowledged. "I have gone my own way always. But if one is permitted to look for a moment into the past, can you tell me a single hour when work was not the prominent thought in your brain, the idol before which you worshipped? Why, even our honeymoon was spent canvassing!"

"The election was an unexpected one," he reminded her.

"It would have been the same thing," she declared. "The only literature which you really understand is a Blue Book, and the only music you hear is the chiming of Big Ben."

"You speak," he remarked, "as though you resented these things. Yet you knew before you married me that I had ambitions, that I did not propose to lead an idle life."

"Oh, yes, I knew!" she assented drily. "But we are wandering from the point. I am still wondering what has brought you here. Have you come direct from England?"

He shook his head.

"I came to-day from Bordighera."

"More and more mysterious," she murmured. "Bordighera, indeed! I thought you once told me that you hated the Riviera."

"So I do," he agreed.

"And yet you are here?"

"Yet I am here."

"And you have not come to look after me," she went on, "and the mystery of the little brown man who watches me is still unexplained."

"I know nothing about that person," he asserted, "and I had no idea that you were here."

"Or you would not have come?" she challenged him.

"Your presence," he retorted, nettled into forgetting himself for a moment, "would not have altered my plans in the slightest."

"Then you have a reason for coming!" she exclaimed quickly.

He gave no sign of annoyance but his lips were firmly closed. She watched him steadfastly.

"I wonder at myself no longer," she continued. "I do not think that any woman in the world could ever live with a man to whom secrecy is as great a necessity as the very air he breathes. No wonder, my dear Henry, the politicians speak so well of you, and so confidently of your brilliant future!"

"I am not aware," he observed calmly, "that I have ever been unduly secretive so far as you are concerned. During the last few months, however, of our life together, you must remember that you chose to receive on terms of friendship a person whom I regard—"

Her eyes suddenly flashed him a warning. He dropped his voice almost to a whisper. A man was approaching them.

"As an enemy," he concluded, under his breath.

CHAPTER II

BY ACCIDENT OR DESIGN

The newcomer, who had presented himself now before Hunterleys and his wife, was a man of somewhat unusual appearance. He was tall, thickly-built, his black beard and closely-cropped hair were streaked with grey, he wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and he carried his head a little thrust forward, as though, even with the aid of his glasses, he was still short-sighted. He had the air of a foreigner, although his tone, when he spoke, was without accent. He held out his hand a little tentatively, an action, however, which Hunterleys appeared to ignore.

"My dear Sir Henry!" he exclaimed. "This is a surprise, indeed! Monte Carlo is absolutely the last place in the world in which I should have expected to come across you. The Sporting Club, too! Well, well, well!"

Hunterleys, standing easily with his hands behind his back, raised his eyebrows. The two men were of curiously contrasting types. Hunterleys, slim and distinguished, had still the frame of an athlete, notwithstanding his colourless cheeks and the worn lines about his eyes. He was dressed with extreme simplicity. His deep-set eyes and sensitive mouth were in marked contrast to the other's coarser mould of features and rather full lips. Yet there was about both men an air of strength, strength developed, perhaps, in a different manner, but still an appreciable quality.

"They say that the whole world is here," Hunterleys remarked. "Why may not I form a harmless unit of it?"

"Why not, indeed?" Draconmeyer assented heartily. "The most serious of us must have our frivolous moments. I hope that you will dine with us to-night? We shall be quite alone."

Hunterleys shook his head.

"Thank you," he said, "I have another engagement pending."

Mr. Draconmeyer was filled with polite regrets, but he did not renew the invitation.

"When did you arrive?" he asked.

"A few hours ago," Hunterleys replied.

"By the Luxe? How strange! I went down to meet it."

"I came from the other side."

"Ah!"

Mr. Draconmeyer's ejaculation was interrogative, Hunterleys hesitated for a moment. Then he continued with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"I have been staying at San Remo and Bordighera."

Mr. Draconmeyer was much interested.

"So that is where you have been burying yourself," he remarked. "I saw from the papers that you had accepted a six months' pair. Surely, though, you don't find the Italian Riviera very amusing?"

"I am abroad for a rest," Hunterleys replied.

Mr. Draconmeyer smiled curiously.

"A rest?" he repeated. "That rather belies your reputation, you know. They say that you are tireless, even when you are out of office."

Hunterleys turned from the speaker towards his wife.

"I have not tempted fortune myself yet," he observed. "I think that I shall have a look into the baccarat room. Do you care to stroll that way?"

Lady Hunterleys rose at once to her feet. Mr. Draconmeyer, however, intervened. He laid his fingers upon Hunterleys' arm.

"Sir Henry," he begged, "our meeting has been quite unexpected, but in a sense it is opportune. Will you be good enough to give me five minutes' conversation?"

"With pleasure," Hunterleys replied. "My time is quite at your disposal, if you have anything to say."

Draconmeyer led the way out of the crowded room, along the passage and into the little bar. They found a quiet corner and two easy-chairs. Draconmeyer gave an order to a waiter. For a few moments their conversation was conventional.

"I trust that you think your wife looking better for the change?" Draconmeyer began. "Her companionship is a source of great pleasure and relief to my poor wife."

"Does the conversation you wish to have with me refer to Lady Hunterleys?" her husband asked quietly. "If so, I should like to say a few preliminary words which would, I hope, place the matter at once beyond the possibility of any misunderstanding."

Draconmeyer moved a little uneasily in his place.

"I have other things to say," he declared, "yet I would gladly hear what is in your mind at the present moment. You do not, I fear, approve of this friendship between my wife and Lady Hunterleys."

Hunterleys was uncompromising, almost curt.

"I do not," he agreed. "It is probably no secret to you that my wife and I are temporarily estranged," he continued. "The chief reason for that estrangement is that I forbade her your house or your acquaintance."

Draconmeyer was a little taken back. Such extreme directness of speech was difficult to deal with.

"My dear Sir Henry," he protested, "you distress me. I do not understand your attitude in this matter at all."

"There is no necessity for you to understand it," Hunterleys retorted coolly. "I claim the right to regulate my wife's visiting list. She denies that right."

"Apart from the question of marital control," Mr. Draconmeyer persisted, "will you tell me why you consider my wife and myself unfit persons to find a place amongst Lady Hunterleys' acquaintances?"

"No man is bound to give the reason for his dislikes," Hunterleys replied. "Of your wife I know nothing. Nobody does. I have every sympathy with her unfortunate condition, and that is all. You personally I dislike. I dislike my wife to be seen with you, I dislike having her name associated with yours in any manner whatsoever. I dislike sitting with you here myself. I only hope that the five minutes' conversation which you have asked for will not be exceeded."

Mr. Draconmeyer had the air of a benevolent person who is deeply pained.

"Sir Henry," he sighed, "it is not possible for me to disregard such plain speaking. Forgive me if I am a little taken aback by it. You are known to be a very skilful diplomatist and you have many weapons in your armoury. One scarcely expected, however—one's breath is a little taken away by such candour."

"I am not aware," Hunterleys said calmly, "that the question of diplomacy need come in when one's only idea is to regulate the personal acquaintances of oneself and one's wife."

Mr. Draconmeyer sat quite still for a moment, stroking his black beard. His eyes were fixed upon the carpet. He seemed to be struggling with a problem.

"You have taken the ground from beneath my feet," he declared. "Your opinion of me is such that I hesitate to proceed at all in the matter which I desired to discuss with you."

"That," Hunterleys replied, "is entirely for you to decide. I am perfectly willing to listen to anything you have to say—all the more ready because now there can be no possibility of any misunderstanding between us."

"Very well," Mr. Draconmeyer assented, "I will proceed. After all, I am not sure that the personal element enters into what I was about to say. I was going to propose not exactly an alliance—that, of course, would not be possible—but I was certainly going to suggest that you and I might be of some service to one another."

"In what way?"

"I call myself an Englishman," Mr. Draconmeyer went on. "I have made large sums of money in England, I have grown to love England and English ways. Yet I came, as you know, from Berlin. The position which I hold in your city is still the position of president of the greatest German bank in the world. It is German finance which I have directed, and with German money I have made my fortune. To be frank with you, however, after these many years in London I have grown to feel myself very much of an Englishman."

Hunterleys was sitting perfectly still. His face was rigid but expressionless. He was listening intently.

"On the other hand," Mr. Draconmeyer proceeded slowly, "I wish to be wholly frank with you. At heart I must remain always a German. The interests of my country must always be paramount. But listen. In Germany there are, as you know, two parties, and year by year they are drawing further apart. I will not allude to factions. I will speak broadly. There is the war party and there is the peace party. I belong to the peace party. I belong to it as a German, and I belong to it as a devoted friend of England, and if the threatened conflict between the two should come, I should take my stand as a peace-loving German-cum-Englishman against the war party even of my own country."

Hunterleys still made no sign. Yet for one who knew him it was easy to realise that he was listening and thinking with absorbed interest.

"So far," Draconmeyer pointed out, "I have laid my cards on the table. I have told you the solemn truth. I regret that it did not occur to me to do so many months ago in London. Now to proceed. I ask you to emulate my frankness, and in return I will give you information which should enable us to work hand in hand for the peace which we both desire."

"You ask me," Hunterleys said thoughtfully, "to be perfectly frank with you. In what respect? What is it that you wish from me?"

"Not political information," Mr. Draconmeyer declared, his eyes blinking behind his glasses. "For that I certainly should not come to you. I only wish to ask you a question, and I must ask it so that we may meet on a common ground of confidence. Are you here in Monte Carlo to look after your wife, or in search of change of air and scene? Is that your honest motive for being here? Or is there any other reason in the world which has prompted you to come to Monte Carlo during this particular month—I might almost say this particular week?"

Hunterleys' attitude was that of a man who holds in his hand a puzzle and is doubtful where to commence in his efforts to solve it.

"Are you not a little mysterious this afternoon, Mr. Draconmeyer?" he asked coldly. "Or are you trying to incite a supposititious curiosity? I really cannot see the drift of your question."

"Answer it," Mr. Draconmeyer insisted.

Hunterleys took a cigarette from his case, tapped it upon the table and lit it in leisurely fashion.

"If you have any idea," he said, "that I came here to confront my wife, or to interfere in any way with her movements, let me assure you that you are mistaken. I had no idea that Lady Hunterleys was in Monte Carlo. I am here because I have a six months' holiday, and a holiday for the average Englishman between January and April generally means, as you must be aware, the Riviera. I have tried Bordighera and San Remo. I have found them, as I no doubt shall find this place, wearisome. In the end I suppose I shall drift back to London."

Mr. Draconmeyer frowned.

"You left London," he remarked tersely, "on December first. It is to-day February twentieth. Do you wish me to understand that you have been at Bordighera and San Remo all that time?"

"How did you know when I left London?" Hunterleys demanded.

Mr. Draconmeyer pursed his lips.

"I heard of your departure from London entirely by accident," he said. "Your wife, for some reason or other, declined to discuss your movements. I imagine that she was acting in accordance with your wishes."

"I see," Hunterleys observed coolly. "And your present anxiety is to know where I spent the intervening time, and why I am here in Monte Carlo? Frankly, Mr. Draconmeyer, I look upon this close interest in my movements as an impertinence. My travels have been of no importance, but they concern myself only. I have no confidence to offer respecting them. If I had, it would not be to you that I should unburden myself."

"You suspect me, then? You doubt my integrity?"

"Not at all," Hunterleys assured his questioner. "For anything I know to the contrary, you are, outside the world of finance, one of the dullest and most harmless men existing. My own position is simply as I explained it during the first few sentences we exchanged. I do not like you, I detest my wife's name being associated with yours, and for that reason, the less I see of you the better I am pleased."

Mr. Draconmeyer nodded thoughtfully. He was, to all appearance, studying the pattern of the carpet. For once in his life he was genuinely puzzled. Was this man by his side merely a jealous husband, or had he any idea of the greater game which was being played around them? Had he, by any chance, arrived to take part in it? Was it wise, in any case, to pursue the subject further? Yet if he abandoned it at this juncture, it must be with a sense of failure, and failure was a thing to which he was not accustomed.

"Your frankness," he admitted grimly, "is almost exhilarating. Our personal relations being so clearly defined, I am inclined to go further even than I had intended. We cannot now possibly misunderstand one another. Supposing I were to tell you that your arrival in Monte Carlo, accidental though it may be, is in a sense opportune; that you may, in a short time meet here one or two politicians, friends of mine, with whom an interchange of views might be agreeable? Supposing I were to offer my services as an intermediary? You would like to bring about better relations with my country, would you not, Sir Henry? You are admittedly a statesman and an influential man in your Party. I am only a banker, it is true, but I have been taken into the confidence of those who direct the destinies of my country."

Hunterleys' face reflected none of the other's earnestness. He seemed, indeed, a little bored, and he answered almost irritably.

"I am much obliged to you," he said, "but Monte Carlo seems scarcely the place to me for political discussions, added to which I have no official position. I could not receive or exchange confidences. While my Party is out of power, there is nothing left for us but to mark time. I dare say you mean well, Mr. Draconmeyer," he added, rising to his feet, "but I am here to forget politics altogether, if I can. If you will excuse me, I think I will look in at the baccarat rooms."

He was on the point of departure when through the open doorway which communicated with the baccarat rooms beyond came a man of sufficiently arresting personality, a man remarkably fat, with close-cropped grey hair which stuck up like bristles all over his head; a huge, clean-shaven face which seemed concentrated at that moment in one tremendous smile of overwhelming good-humour. He held by the hand a little French girl, dark, small, looking almost like a marionette in her slim tailor-made costume. He recognised Draconmeyer with enthusiasm.

"My friend Draconmeyer," he exclaimed, in stentorian tones, "baccarat is the greatest game in the world. I have won—I, who know nothing about it, have won a hundred louis. It is amazing! There is no place like this in the world. We are here to drink a bottle of wine together, mademoiselle and I, mademoiselle who was at once my instructress and my mascot. Afterwards we go to the jeweler's. Why not? A fair division of the spoils—fifty louis for myself, fifty louis for a bracelet for mademoiselle. And then—"

He broke off suddenly. His gesture was almost dramatic.

"I am forgotten!" he cried, holding out his hand to Hunterleys,—"forgotten already! Sir Henry, there are many who forget me as a humble Minister of my master, but there are few who forget me physically. I am Selingman. We met in Berlin, six years ago. You came with your great Foreign Secretary."

"I remember you perfectly," Hunterleys assured him, as he submitted to the newcomer's vigorous handshake. "We shall meet again, I trust."

Selingman thrust his arm through Hunterleys' as though to prevent his departure.

"You shall not run away!" he declared. "I introduce both of you—Mr. Draconmeyer, the great Anglo-German banker; Sir Henry Hunterleys, the English politician—to Mademoiselle Estelle Nipon, of the Opera House. Now we all know one another. We shall be good friends. We will share that bottle of champagne."

"One bottle between four!" mademoiselle laughed, poutingly. "And I am parched! I have taught monsieur baccarat. I am exhausted."

"A magnum!" Selingman ordered in a voice of thunder, shaking his fist at the startled waiter. "We seat ourselves here at the round table. Mademoiselle, we will drink champagne together until the eyes of all of us sparkle as yours do. We will drink champagne until we do not believe that there is such a thing as losing at games or in life. We will drink champagne until we all four believe that we have been brought up together, that we are bosom friends of a lifetime. See, this is how we will place ourselves. Mademoiselle, if the others make love to you, take no notice. It is I who have put fifty louis in one pocket for that bracelet. Do not trust Sir Henry there; he has a reputation."

As usual, the overpowering Selingman had his way. Neither Draconmeyer nor Hunterleys attempted to escape. They took their places at the table. They drank champagne and they listened to Selingman. All the time he talked, save when mademoiselle interrupted him. Seated upon a chair which seemed absurdly inadequate, his great stomach with its vast expanse of white waistcoat in full view, his short legs doubled up beneath him, he beamed upon them all with a smile which never failed.

"It is a wonderful place," he declared, as he lifted his glass for the fifth time. "We will drink to it, this Monte Carlo. It is here that they come from all quarters of the world—the ladies who charm away our hearts," he added, bowing to mademoiselle, "the financiers whose word can shake the money-markets of the world, and the politicians who unbend, perhaps, just a little in the sunshine here, however cold and inflexible they may be under their own austere skies. For the last time, then—to Monte Carlo! To Monte Carlo, dear mademoiselle!—messieurs!"

"For the last time, then—to Monte Carlo!"

They drank the toast and a few minutes later Hunterleys slipped away. The two men looked after him. The smile seemed gradually to leave Selingman's lips, his face was large and impressive.

"Run and fetch your cloak, dear," he said to the girl.

She obeyed at once. Selingman leaned across the table towards his companion.

"What does Hunterleys do here?" he asked.

Draconmeyer shook his head.

"Who knows?" he answered. "Perhaps he has come to look after his wife. He has been to Bordighera and San Remo."

"Is that all he told you of his movements?"

"That is all," Draconmeyer admitted. "He was suspicious. I made no progress."

"Bordighera and San Remo!" Selingman muttered under his breath. "For a day, perhaps, or two."

"What do you know about him?" Draconmeyer asked, his eyes suddenly bright beneath his spectacles. "I have been suspicious ever since I met him, an hour ago. He left England on December first."

"It is true," Selingman assented. "He crossed to Paris, and—mark the cunning of it—he returned to England. That same night he travelled to Germany. We lost him in Vienna and found him again in Sofia. What does it mean, I wonder? What does it mean?"

"I have been talking to him for twenty minutes in here before you came," Draconmeyer said. "I tried to gain his confidence. He told me nothing. He never even mentioned that journey of his."

Selingman was sitting drumming upon the table with his broad fingertips.

"Sofia!" he murmured. "And now—here! Draconmeyer, there is work before us. I know men, I tell you. I know Hunterleys. I watched him, I listened to him in Berlin six years ago. He was with his master then but he had nothing to learn from him. He is of the stuff diplomats are fashioned of. He has it in his blood. There is work before us, Draconmeyer."

"If monsieur is ready!" mademoiselle interposed, a little petulantly, letting the tip of her boa play for a moment on his cheek.

Selingman finished his wine and rose to his feet. Once more the smile encompassed his face. Of what account, after all, were the wanderings of this melancholy Englishman! There was mademoiselle's bracelet to be bought, and perhaps a few flowers. Selingman pulled down his waistcoat and accepted his grey Homburg hat from the vestiaire. He held mademoiselle's fingers as they descended the stairs. He looked like a school-boy of enormous proportions on his way to a feast.

"We drank to Monte Carlo in champagne," he declared, as they turned on to the terrace and descended the stone steps, "but, dear Estelle, we drink to it from our hearts with every breath we draw of this wonderful air, every time our feet touch the buoyant ground. Believe me, little one, the other things are of no account. The true philosophy of life and living is here in Monte Carlo. You and I will solve it."

CHAPTER III

A WARNING

Hunterleys dined alone at a small round table, set in a remote corner of the great restaurant attached to the Hotel de Paris. The scene around him was full of colour and interest. A scarlet-coated band made wonderful music. The toilettes of the women who kept passing backwards and forwards, on their way to the various tables, were marvellous; in their way unique. The lights and flowers of the room, its appointments and adornments, all represented the last word in luxury. Everywhere was colour, everywhere an almost strained attempt to impress upon the passerby the fact that this was no ordinary holiday resort but the giant pleasure-ground of all in the world who had money to throw away and the capacity for enjoyment. Only once a more somber note seemed struck when Mrs. Draconmeyer, leaning on her husband's arm and accompanied by a nurse and Lady Hunterleys, passed to their table. Hunterleys' eyes followed the little party until they had reached their destination and taken their places. His wife was wearing black and she had discarded the pearls which had hung around her neck during the afternoon. She wore only a collar of diamonds, his gift. Her hair was far less elaborately coiffured and her toilette less magnificent than the toilettes of the women by whom she was surrounded. Yet as he looked from his corner across the room at her, Hunterleys realised as he had realised instantly twelve years ago when he had first met her, that she was incomparable. There was no other woman in the whole of that great restaurant with her air of quiet elegance; no other woman so faultless in the smaller details of her toilette and person. Hunterleys watched with expressionless face but with anger growing in his heart, as he saw Draconmeyer bending towards her, accepting her suggestions about the dinner, laughing when she laughed, watching almost humbly for her pleasure or displeasure. It was a cursed mischance which had brought him to Monte Carlo!

Hunterleys hurried over his dinner, and without even going to his room for a hat or coat, walked across the square in the soft twilight of an unusually warm February evening and took a table outside the Café de Paris, where he ordered coffee. Around him was a far more cosmopolitan crowd, increasing every moment in volume. Every language was being spoken, mostly German. As a rule, such a gathering of people was, in its way, interesting to Hunterleys. To-night his thoughts were truant. He forgot his strenuous life of the last three months, the dangers and discomforts through which he had passed, the curious sequence of events which had brought him, full of anticipation, nerved for a crisis, to Monte Carlo of all places in the world. He forgot that he was in the midst of great events, himself likely to take a hand in them. His thoughts took, rarely enough for him, a purely personal and sentimental turn. He thought of the earliest days of his marriage, when he and his wife had wandered about the gardens of his old home in Wiltshire on spring evenings such as these, and had talked sometimes lightly, sometimes seriously, of the future. Almost as he sat there in the midst of that noisy crowd, he could catch the faint perfume of hyacinths from the borders along which they had passed and the trimly-cut flower-beds which fringed the deep green lawn. Almost he could hear the chiming of the old stable clock, the clear note of a thrush singing. A puff of wind brought them a waft of fainter odour from the wild violets which carpeted the woods. Then the darkness crept around them, a star came out. Hand in hand they turned towards the house and into the library, where a wood fire was burning on the grate. His thoughts travelled on. A wave of tenderness had assailed him. Then he was awakened by the waiter's voice at his elbow.

"Le café, monsieur."

He sat up in his chair. His dreaming moments were few and this one had passed. He set his heel upon that tide of weakening memories, sipped his coffee and looked out upon the crowd. Three or four times he glanced at his watch impatiently. Precisely at nine o'clock, a man moved from somewhere in the throng behind and took the vacant chair by his side.

"If one could trouble monsieur for a match!"

Hunterleys turned towards the newcomer as he handed his matchbox. He was a young man of medium height, with sandy complexion, a little freckled, and with a straggling fair moustache. He had keen grey eyes and the faintest trace of a Scotch accent. He edged his chair a little nearer to Hunterleys.

"Much obliged," he said. "Wonderful evening, isn't it?"

Hunterleys nodded.

"Have you anything to tell me, David?" he asked.

"We are right in the thick of it," the other replied, his tone a little lowered. "There is more to tell than I like."

"Shall we stroll along the Terrace?" Hunterleys suggested.

"Don't move from your seat," the young man enjoined. "You are watched here, and so am I, in a way, although it's more my news they want to censor than anything personal. This crowd of Germans around us, without a single vacant chair, is the best barrier we can have. Listen. Selingman is here."

"I saw him this afternoon at the Sporting Club," Hunterleys murmured.

"Douaille will be here the day after to-morrow, if he has not already arrived," the newcomer continued. "It was given out in Paris that he was going down to Marseilles and from there to Toulon, to spend three days with the fleet. They sent a paragraph into our office there. As a matter of fact, he's coming straight on here. I can't learn how, exactly, but I fancy by motor-car."

"You're sure that Douaille is coming himself?" Hunterleys asked anxiously.

"Absolutely! His wife and family have been bustled down to Mentone, so as to afford a pretext for his presence here if the papers get hold of it. I have found out for certain that they came at a moment's notice and were not expecting to leave home at all. Douaille will have full powers, and the conference will take place at the Villa Mimosa. That will be the headquarters of the whole thing.... Look out, Sir Henry. They've got their eyes on us. The little fellow in brown, close behind, is hand in glove with the police. They tried to get me into a row last night. It's only my journalism they suspect, but they'd shove me over the frontier at the least excuse. They're certain to try something of the sort with you, if they get any idea that we are on the scent. Sit tight, sir, and watch. I'm off. You know where to find me."

The young man raised his hat and left Hunterleys with the polite farewell of a stranger. His seat was almost immediately seized by a small man dressed in brown, a man with a black imperial and moustache curled upwards. As Hunterleys glanced towards him, he raised his Hamburg hat politely and smiled.

"Monsieur's friend has departed?" he enquired. "This seat is disengaged?"

"As you see," Hunterleys replied.

The little man smiled his thanks, seated himself with a sigh of content and ordered coffee from a passing waiter.

"Monsieur is doubtless a stranger to Monte Carlo?"

"It is my second visit only," Hunterleys admitted.

"For myself I am an habitué," the little man continued, "I might almost say a resident. Therefore, all faces soon become familiar to me. Directly I saw monsieur, I knew that he was not a frequenter."

Hunterleys turned a little in his chair and surveyed his neighbour curiously. The man was neatly dressed and he spoke English with scarcely any accent. His shoulders and upturned moustache gave him a military appearance.

"There is nothing I envy any one so much in life," he proceeded, "as coming to Monte Carlo for the first or second time. There is so much to know, to see, to understand."

Hunterleys made no effort to discourage his companion's obvious attempts to be friendly. The latter talked with spirit for some time.

"If it would not be regarded as a liberty," he said at last, as Hunterleys rose to move off, "may I be permitted to present myself? My name is Hugot? I am half English, half French. Years ago my health broke down and I accepted a position in a bank here. Since then I have come in to money. If I have a hobby in life, it is to show my beloved Monte Carlo to strangers. If monsieur would do me the honour to spare me a few hours to-night, later on, I would endeavour to see that he was amused."

Hunterleys shook his head. He remained, however, perfectly courteous. He had a conviction that this was the man who had been watching his wife.

"You are very kind, sir," he replied. "I am here only for a few days and for the benefit of my health. I dare not risk late hours. We shall meet again, I trust."

He strolled off and as he hesitated upon the steps of the Casino he glanced across towards the Hotel de Paris. At that moment a woman came out, a light cloak over her evening gown. She was followed by an attendant. Hunterleys recognised his wife and watched them with a curious little thrill. They turned towards the Terrace. Very slowly he, too, moved in the same direction. They passed through the gardens of the Hotel de Paris, and Hunterleys, keeping to the left, met them upon the Terrace as they emerged. As they came near he accosted them.

"Violet," he began.

She started.

"I beg your pardon," she said. "I did not recognise you."

"Haven't you been told," he asked stiffly, "that the Terrace is unsafe for women after twilight?"

"Very often," she assented, with that little smile at the corners of her lips which once he had found so charming and which now half maddened him. "Unfortunately, I have a propensity for doing things which are dangerous. Besides, I have my maid."

"Another woman is no protection," he declared.

"Susanne can shriek," Lady Hunterleys assured him. "She has wonderful lungs and she loves to use them. She would shriek at the least provocation."

"And meanwhile," Hunterleys observed drily, "while she is indulging in her vocal exercises, things happen. If you wish to promenade here, permit me to be your escort."

She hesitated for a moment, frowning. Then she continued her walk.

"You are very kind," she assented. "Perhaps you are like me, though, and feel the restfulness of a quiet place after these throngs and throngs of people."

They passed slowly down the broad promenade, deserted now save for one or two loungers like themselves, and a few other furtive, hurrying figures. In front of them stretched an arc of glittering lights—the wonderful Bay of Mentone, with Bordighera on the distant sea-board; higher up, the twinkling lights from the villas built on the rocky hills. And at their feet the sea, calm, deep, blue, lapping the narrow belt of hard sand, scintillating with the reflection of a thousand lights; on the horizon a blood-red moon, only half emerged from the sea.

"Since we have met, Henry," Lady Hunterleys said at last, "there is something which I should like to say to you."

"Certainly!"

She glanced behind. Susanne had fallen discreetly into the rear. She was a new importation and she had no idea as to the identity of the tall, severe-looking Englishman who walked by her mistress's side.

"There is something going on in Monte Carlo," Lady Hunterleys went on, "which I cannot understand. Mr. Draconmeyer knows about it, I believe, although he is not personally concerned in it. But he will tell me nothing. I only know that for some reason or other your presence here seems to be an annoyance to certain people. Why it should be I don't know, but I want to ask you about it. Will you tell me the truth? Are you sure that you did not come here to spy upon me?"

"I certainly did not," Hunterleys answered firmly. "I had no idea that you were near the place. If I had—"

She turned her head. The smile was there once more and a queer, soft light in her eyes.

"If you had?" she murmured.

"My visit here, under the present circumstances, would have been more distasteful than it is," Hunterleys replied stiffly.

She bit her lip and turned away. When she resumed the conversation, her tone was completely changed.

"I speak to you now," she said, "in your own interests. Mr. Draconmeyer is, of course, not personally connected with this affair, whatever it may be, but he is a wonderful man and he hears many things. To-night, before dinner, he gave me a few words of warning. He did not tell me to pass them on to you but I feel sure that he hoped I would. You would not listen to them from him because you do not like him. I am afraid that you will take very little more heed of what I say, but at least you will believe that I speak in your own interests. Mr. Draconmeyer believes that your presence here is misunderstood. A person whom he describes as being utterly without principle and of great power is incensed by it. To speak plainly, you are in danger."

"I am flattered," Hunterleys remarked, "by this interest on my behalf."

She turned her head and looked at him. His face, in this cold light before the moon came up, was almost like the face of some marble statue, lifeless, set, of almost stonelike severity. She knew the look so well and she sighed.

"You need not be," she replied bitterly. "Mine is merely the ordinary feeling of one human creature for another. In a sense it seems absurd, I suppose, to speak to you as I am doing. Yet I do know that this place which looks so beautiful has strange undercurrents. People pass away here in the most orthodox fashion in the world, outwardly, but their real ending is often never known at all. Everything is possible here, and Mr. Draconmeyer honestly believes that you are in danger."

They had reached the end of the Terrace and they turned back.

"I thank you very much, Violet," Hunterleys said earnestly. "In return, may I say something to you? If there is any danger threatening me or those interests which I guard, the man whom you have chosen to make your intimate friend is more deeply concerned in it than you think. I told you once before that Draconmeyer was something more than the great banker, the king of commerce, as he calls himself. He is ambitious beyond your imaginings, a schemer in ways you know nothing of, and his residence in London during the last fifteen years has been the worst thing that ever happened for England. To me it is a bitter thing that you should have ignored my warning and accepted his friendship—"

"It is not Mr. Draconmeyer who is my friend, Henry," she interrupted. "You continually ignore that fact. It is Mrs. Draconmeyer whom I cannot desert. I knew her long before I did her husband. We were at school together, and there was a time before her last illness when we were inseparable."

"That may have been so at first," Hunterleys agreed, "but how about since then? You cannot deny, Violet, that this man Draconmeyer has in some way impressed or fascinated you. You admire him. You find great pleasure in his society. Isn't that the truth, now, honestly?"

Her face was a little troubled.

"I do certainly find pleasure in his society," she admitted. "I cannot conceive any one who would not. He is a brilliant, a wonderful musician, a delightful talker, a generous host and companion. He has treated me always with the most scrupulous regard, and I feel that I am entirely reasonable in resenting your mistrust of him."

"You do resent it still, then?"

"I do," she asserted emphatically.

"And if I told you," Hunterleys went on, "that the man was in love with you. What then?"

"I should say that you were a fool!"

Hunterleys shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no more to be said," he declared, "only, for a clever woman, Violet, you are sometimes woefully or wilfully blind. I tell you that I know the type. Sooner or later—before very long, I should think—you will have the usual scene. I warn you of it now. If you are wise, you will go back to England."

"Absurd!" she scoffed. "Why, we have only just come! I want to win some money—not that your allowance isn't liberal enough," she added hastily, "but there is a fascination in winning, you know. And besides, I could not possibly desert Mrs. Draconmeyer. She would not have come at all if I had not joined them."

"You are the mistress of your own ways," Hunterleys said. "According to my promise, I shall attempt to exercise no authority over you in any way, but I tell you that Draconmeyer is my enemy, and the enemy of all the things I represent, and I tell you, too, that he is in love with you. When you realise that these things are firmly established in my brain, you can perhaps understand how thoroughly distasteful I find your association with him here. It is all very well to talk about Mrs. Draconmeyer, but she goes nowhere. The consequence is that he is your escort on every occasion. I am quite aware that a great many people in society accept him. I personally am not disposed to. I look upon him as an unfit companion for my wife and I resent your appearance with him in public."

"We will discuss this subject no further," she decided. "From the moment of our first disagreement, it has been your object to break off my friendship with the Draconmeyers. Until I have something more than words to go by, I shall continue to give him my confidence."

They crossed the stone flags in front of the Opera together, and turned up towards the Rooms.

"I think, perhaps, then," he said, "that we may consider the subject closed. Only," he added, "you will forgive me if I still—"

He hesitated. She turned her head quickly. Her eyes sought his but unfortunately he was looking straight ahead and seeing gloomy things. If he had happened to turn at that moment, he might have concluded his speech differently.

"If I still exhibit some interest in your doings."

"I shall always think it most kind of you," she replied, her face suddenly hardening. "Have I not done my best to reciprocate? I have even passed on to you a word of warning, which I think you are very unwise to ignore."

They were outside the hotel. Hunterleys paused.

"I have nothing to fear from the mysterious source you have spoken of," he assured her. "The only enemy I have in Monte Carlo is Draconmeyer himself."

"Enemy!" she repeated scornfully. "Mr. Draconmeyer is much too wrapped up in his finance, and too big a man, in his way, to have enemies. Oh, Henry, if only you could get rid of a few of your prejudices, how much more civilised a human being you would be!"

He raised his hat. His expression was a little grim.

"The man without prejudices, my dear Violet," he retorted, "is a man without instincts.... I wish you luck."

She ran lightly up the steps and waved her hand. He watched her pass through the doors into the hotel.

CHAPTER IV

ENTER THE AMERICAN

Lady Weybourne was lunching on the terrace of Ciro's restaurant with her brother. She was small, dark, vivacious. Her friends, of whom she had thousands, all called her Flossie, and she was probably the most popular American woman who had ever married into the English peerage. Her brother, Richard Lane, on the other hand, was tall, very broad-shouldered, with a strong, clean-shaven face, inclined by disposition to be taciturn. On this particular morning he had less even than usual to say, and although Lady Weybourne, who was a great chatterbox, was content as a rule to do most of the talking for herself, his inattention became at last a little too obvious. He glanced up eagerly as every newcomer appeared, and his answers to his sister's criticisms were sometimes almost at random.

"Dicky, I'm not at all sure that I'm liking you this morning," she observed finally, looking across at him with a critically questioning smile. "A certain amount of non-responsiveness to my advances I can put up with—from a brother—but this morning you are positively inattentive. Tell me your troubles at once. Has Harris been bothering you, or did you lose a lot of money last night?"

Considering that the young man's income was derived from an exceedingly well-invested capital of nine million dollars, and that Harris was the all too perfect captain of his yacht lying then in the harbour, whose worst complaint was that he had never enough work to do, Lady Weybourne's enquiries might have been considered as merely tentative. Richard shook his head a little gloomily.

"Those things aren't likely to trouble me," he remarked. "Harris is all right, and I've promised him we'll make up a little party and go over to Cannes in a day or two."

"What a ripping idea!" Lady Weybourne declared, breaking up her thin toast between her fingers. "I'd love it, and so would Harry. We could easily get together a delightful party. The Pelhams are here and simply dying for a change, and there's Captain Gardner and Frank Clowes, and lots of nice girls. Couldn't we fix a date, Dick?"

"Not just yet," her brother replied.

"And why not?"

"I am waiting," he told her, "until I can ask the girl I want to go."

"And why can't you now?" she demanded, with upraised eyebrows. "I'll be hostess and chaperone all in one."

"I can't ask her because I don't know her yet," the young man explained doggedly.

Lady Weybourne leaned back in her chair and laughed.

"So that's it!" she exclaimed. "Now I know why you're sitting there like an owl this morning! In love with a fair unknown, are you, Dick? Be careful. Monte Carlo is full of young ladies whom it would be just as well to know a little about before you thought of taking them yachting."

"This one isn't that sort," the young man said.

"How do you know that?" she asked, leaning across the table, her head resting on her clasped hands.

He looked at her almost contemptuously.

"How do I know!" he repeated. "There are just one or two things that happen in this world which a man can be utterly and entirely sure of. She is one of them. Say, Flossie," he added, the enthusiasm creeping at last into his tone, "you never saw any one quite like her in all your life!"

"Do I know her, I wonder?" Lady Weybourne enquired.

"That's just what I've asked you here to find out," her brother replied ingenuously. "I heard her tell the man she was with this morning—her father, I believe—about an hour ago, that she would be at Ciro's at half-past one. It's twenty minutes to two now."

Lady Weybourne laughed heartily.

"So that's why you dragged me out of bed and made me come to lunch with you! Dick, what a fraud you are! I was thinking what a dear, affectionate brother you were, and all the time you were just making use of me."

"Sorry," the young man said briskly, "but, after all, we needn't stand on ceremony, need we? I've always been your pal; gave you a leg up with the old man, you know, when he wasn't keen on the British alliance."

She nodded.

"Oh, I'll do what I can for you," she promised. "If she is any one in particular I expect I shall know her. What's happening, Dick?"

The young man's face was almost transformed. His eyes were bright and very fixed. His lips had come together in a firm, straight line, as though he were renewing some promise to himself. Lady Weybourne followed the direction of his gaze. A man and a girl had reached the entrance to the restaurant and were looking around them as though to select a table. The chief maître d'hôtel had hastened out to receive them. They were, without doubt, people of importance. The man was of medium height, with iron-grey hair and moustache, and a small imperial. He wore light clothes of perfect cut; patent shoes with white linen gaiters; a black tie fastened with a pin of opals. He carried himself with an air which was unmistakable and convincing. The girl by his side was beautiful. She was simply dressed in a tailor-made gown of white serge. Her black hat was a miracle of smartness. Her hair was of a very light shade of golden-brown, her complexion wonderfully fair. Lady Weybourne glanced at her shoes and gloves, at the bag which she was carrying, and the handle of her parasol. Then she nodded approvingly.

"You don't know her?" Richard asked, in a disappointed whisper.

She shook her head.

"Sorry," she admitted, "but I don't. They've probably only just arrived."

With great ceremony the newcomers were conducted to the best table upon the terrace. The man was evidently an habitué. He had scarcely taken his seat before, with a very low bow, the sommelier brought him a small wine-glass filled with what seemed to be vermouth. While he sipped it he smoked a Russian cigarette and with a gold pencil wrote out the menu of his luncheon. In a few minutes the manager himself came hurrying out from the restaurant. His salute was almost reverential. When, after a few moments' conversation, he departed, he did so with the air of one taking leave of royalty. Lady Weybourne, who was an inquisitive little person, was puzzled.

"I don't know who they are, Dick," she confessed, "but I know the ways of this place well, and I can tell you one thing—they are people of importance. You can tell that by the way they are received. These restaurant people don't make mistakes."

"Of course they are people of importance," the young man declared. "Any one can see that by a glance at the girl. I am sorry you don't know them," he went on, "but you've got to find out who they are, and pretty quickly, too. Look here, Flossie. I am a bit useful to you now and then, aren't I?"

"Without you, my dear Dick," she murmured, "I should never be able to manage those awful trustees. You are invaluable, a perfect jewel of a brother."

"Well, I'll give you that little electric coupé you were so keen on last time we were in London, if you'll get me an introduction to that girl within twenty-four hours."

Lady Weybourne gasped.

"What a whirlwind!" she exclaimed. "Dicky, are you, by any chance, in earnest?"

"In earnest for the first time in my life," he assured her. "Something has got hold of me which I'm not going to part with."

She considered him reflectively. He was twenty-seven years of age, and notwithstanding the boundless opportunities of his youth and great wealth he had so far shown an almost singular indifference to the whole of the opposite sex, from the fascinating chorus girls of London and New York to the no less enterprising young women of his own order. As she sat there studying his features, she felt a sensation almost of awe. There was something entirely different, something stronger in his face. She thought for a moment of their father as she had known him in her childhood, the founder of their fortunes, a man who had risen from a moderate position to immense wealth through sheer force of will, of pertinacity. For the first time she saw the same look upon her brother's face.

"Well," she sighed, "I shall do my best to earn it. I only hope, Dick, that she is—"

"She is what?" he demanded, looking at her steadfastly.

"Oh! not engaged or anything, I mean," Lady Weybourne explained hastily. "I must admit, Dick, although I don't suppose any sister is particularly keen upon her brother's young women, that I think you've shown excellent taste. She is absolutely the best style of any one I've seen in Monte Carlo."

"How are you going to manage that introduction?" he asked bluntly. "Have you made any plans?"

"I don't suppose it will be difficult," she assured him, lighting a cigarette and shaking her head at the tray of liqueurs which the sommelier was offering. "Get me some cream for my coffee, Dick. Now I'll tell you," she continued, as the waiter disappeared. "You will have to call that under-maître d'hôtel. You had better give him a substantial tip and ask him quietly for their names. Then I'll see about the rest."

"That seems sensible enough," he admitted.

"And look here, Dick," she went on, "I know how impetuous you are. Don't do anything foolish. Remember this isn't an ordinary adventure. If you go rushing in upon it you'll come to grief."

"I know," he answered shortly. "I was fool enough to hang about the flower shops and that milliner's this morning. I couldn't help it. I don't know whether she noticed. I believe she did. Once our eyes did meet, and although I'll swear she never changed her expression, I felt that the whole world didn't hold so small a creature as I. Here comes Charles. I'll ask him."

He beckoned to the maître d'hôtel and talked for a moment about the luncheon. Then he ordered a table for the next day, and slipping a louis into the man's hand, leaned over and whispered in his ear.

"I want you to tell me the name of the gentleman and young lady who are sitting over there at the corner table?"

The maître d'hôtel glanced covertly in the direction indicated. He did not at once reply. His face was perplexed, almost troubled.

"I am very sorry, sir," he said hesitatingly, "but our orders are very strict. Monsieur Ciro does not like anything in the way of gossip about our clients, and the gentleman is a very honoured patron. The young lady is his daughter."

"Quite right," the young man agreed bluntly. "This isn't an ordinary case, Charles. You go over to the desk there, write me down the name and bring it, and there's a hundred franc note waiting here for you. No need for the name to pass your lips."

The man bowed and retreated. In a few minutes he came back again and laid a small card upon the table.

"Monsieur will pardon my reminding him," he begged earnestly, "but if he will be so good as to never mention this little matter—"

Richard nodded and waved him away.

"Sure!" he promised.

He drew the card towards him and looked at it in a puzzled manner. Then he passed it to his sister. Her expression, too, was blank.

"Who in the name of mischief," he exclaimed softly, "is Mr. Grex!"

CHAPTER V

"WHO IS MR. GREX?"

Lady Weybourne insisted, after a reasonable amount of time spent over their coffee, that her brother should pay the bill and leave the restaurant. They walked slowly across the square.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"There is only one thing to be done," she replied. "I shall speak to every one I meet this afternoon—I shall be, in fact, most sociable—and sooner or later in our conversation I shall ask every one if they know Mr. Grex and his daughter. When I arrive at some one who does, that will be the first step, won't it?"

"I wonder whether we shall see some one soon!" he grumbled, looking around. "Where are all the people to-day!"

She laughed softly.

"Just a little impetuous, aren't you?"

"I should say so," he admitted. "I'd like to be introduced to her before four o'clock, propose to her this evening, and—and—"

"And what?"

"Never mind," he concluded, marching on with his head turned towards the clouds. "Let's go and sit down upon the Terrace and talk about her."

"But, my dear Dicky," his sister protested, "I don't want to sit upon the Terrace. I am going to my dressmaker's across the way there, and afterwards to Lucie's to try on some hats. Then I am going back to the hotel for an hour's rest and to prink, and afterwards into the Sporting Club at four o'clock. That's my programme. I shall be doing what I can the whole of the time. I shall make discreet enquiries of my dressmaker, who knows everybody, and I sha'n't let a single acquaintance go by. You will have to amuse yourself till four o'clock, at any rate. There's Sir Henry Hunterleys over there, having coffee. Go and talk to him. He may put you out of your misery. Thanks ever so much for my luncheon, and au revoir!"

She turned away with a little nod. Her brother, after a moment's hesitation, approached the table where Hunterleys was sitting alone.

"How do you do, Sir Henry?"

Hunterleys returned his greeting, a little blankly at first. Then he remembered the young man and held out his hand.

"Of course! You are Richard Lane, aren't you? Sit down and have some coffee. What are you doing here?"

"I've got a little boat in the harbour," Richard replied, as he drew up a chair. "I've been at Algiers for a time with some friends, and I've brought them on here. Just been lunching with my sister. Are you alone?"

Hunterleys hesitated.

"Yes, I am alone."

"Wonderful place," the young man went on. "Wonderful crowd of people here, too. I suppose you know everybody?" he added, warming up as he approached his subject.

"On the contrary," Hunterleys answered, "I am almost a stranger here. I have been staying further down the coast."

"Happen to know any one of the name of Grex?" Lane asked, with elaborate carelessness.

Hunterleys made no immediate reply. He seemed to be considering the name.

"Grex," he repeated, knocking the ash from his cigarette. "Rather an uncommon name, isn't it? Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I've seen an elderly man and a young lady about once or twice," Lane explained. "Very interesting-looking people. Some one told me that their name was Grex."

"There is a person living under that name, I think," Hunterleys said, "who has taken the Villa Mimosa for the season."

"Do you know him personally?" the young man asked eagerly.

"Personally? No, I can scarcely say that I do."

Richard Lane sighed. It was disappointment number one. For some reason or other, too, Hunterleys seemed disposed to change the conversation.

"The young lady who is always with him," Richard persisted, "would that be his daughter?"

Hunterleys turned a little in his seat and surveyed his questioner. He had met Lane once or twice and rather liked him.

"Look here, young fellow," he said, good humouredly, "let me ask you a question for a change. What is the nature of these enquiries of yours?"

Lane hesitated. Something in Hunterleys' face and manner induced him to tell the truth.

"I have fallen head over heels in love with the young lady," he confessed. "Don't think I am a confounded jackass. I am not in the habit of doing such things. I'm twenty-seven and I have never gone out of my way to meet a girl yet. This is something—different. I want to find out about them and get an introduction."

Hunterleys shook his head regretfully.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I can be of no use to you—no practical use, that is. I can only give you one little piece of advice."

"Well, what is it?" Richard asked eagerly.

"If you are in earnest," Hunterleys continued, "and I will do you the credit to believe that you are, you had better pack up your things, return to your yacht and take a cruise somewhere."

"Take a cruise somewhere!"

Hunterleys nodded.

"Get out of Monte Carlo as quickly as you can, and, above all, don't think anything more of that young lady. Get the idea out of your head as quickly as you can."

The young man was sitting upright in his chair. His manner was half minatory.

"Say, what do you mean by this?" he demanded.

"Exactly what I said just now," Hunterleys rejoined. "If you are in earnest, and I have no doubt that you are, I should clear out."

"What is it you are trying to make me understand?" Richard asked bluntly.

"That you have about as much chance with that young lady," Hunterleys assured him, "as with that very graceful statue in the square yonder."

Richard sat for a moment with knitted brows.

"Then you know who she is, any way?"

"Whether I do or whether I do not," the older man said gravely, "so far as I am concerned, the subject is exhausted. I have given you the best advice you ever had in your life. It's up to you to follow it."

Richard looked at him blankly.

"Well, you've got me puzzled," he confessed.

Hunterleys rose to his feet, and, summoning a waiter, paid his bill.

"You'll excuse me, won't you?" he begged. "I have an appointment in a few minutes. If you are wise, young man," he added, patting him on the shoulder as he turned to go, "you will take my advice."

Left to himself, Richard Lane strolled around the place towards the Terrace. He had no fancy for the Rooms and he found a seat as far removed as possible from the Tir du Pigeons. He sat there with folded arms, looking out across the sun-dappled sea. His matter-of-fact brain offered him but one explanation as to the meaning of Hunterleys' words, and against that explanation his whole being was in passionate revolt. He represented a type of young man who possesses morals by reason of a certain unsuspected idealism, mingled with perfect physical sanity. It seemed to him, as he sat there, that he had been waiting for this day for years. The old nights in New York and Paris and London floated before his memory. He pushed them on one side with a shiver, and yet with a curious feeling of exultation. He recalled a certain sensation which had been drawn through his life like a thin golden thread, a sensation which had a habit of especially asserting itself in the midst of these youthful orgies, a curious sense of waiting for something to happen, a sensation which had been responsible very often for what his friends had looked upon as eccentricity. He knew now that this thing had arrived, and everything else in life seemed to pale by the side of it. Hunterleys' words had thrown him temporarily into a strange turmoil. Solitude for a few moments he had felt to be entirely necessary. Yet directly he was alone, directly he was free to listen to his convictions, he could have laughed at that first mad surging of his blood, the fierce, instinctive rebellion against the conclusion to which Hunterleys' words seemed to point. Now that he was alone, he was not even angry. No one else could possibly understand!

Before long he was once more upon his feet, starting out upon his quest with renewed energy. He had scarcely taken a dozen steps, however, when he came face to face with Lady Hunterleys and Mr. Draconmeyer. Quite oblivious of the fact that they seemed inclined to avoid him, he greeted them both with unusual warmth.

"Saw your husband just now, Lady Hunterleys," he remarked, a little puzzled. "I fancied he said he was alone here."

She smiled.

"We did not come together," she explained; "in fact, our meeting was almost accidental. Henry had been at Bordighera and San Remo and I came out with Mr. and Mrs. Draconmeyer."

The young man nodded and turned towards Draconmeyer, who was standing a little on one side as though anxious to proceed.

"Mr. Draconmeyer doesn't remember me, perhaps. I met him at my sister's, Lady Weybourne's, just before Christmas."

"I remember you perfectly," Mr. Draconmeyer assured him courteously. "We have all been admiring your beautiful yacht in the harbour there."

"I was thinking of getting up a little cruise before long," Richard continued. "If so, I hope you'll all join us. Flossie is going to be hostess, and the Montressors are passengers already."

They murmured something non-committal. Lady Hunterleys seemed as though about to pass on but Lane blocked the way.

"I only arrived the other day from Algiers," he went on, making frantic efforts to continue the conversation. "I brought Freddy Montressor and his sister, and Fothergill."

"Mr. Montressor has come to the Hotel de Paris," Lady Hunterleys remarked. "What sort of weather did you have in Algiers?"

"Ripping!" the young man replied absently, entirely oblivious of the fact that they had been driven away by incessant rain. "This place is much more fun, though," he added, with sudden inspiration. "Crowds of interesting people. I suppose you know every one?"

Lady Hunterleys shook her head.

"Indeed I do not. Mr. Draconmeyer here is my guide. He is as good as a walking directory."

"I wonder if either of you know some people named Grex?" Richard asked, with studious indifference.

Mr. Draconmeyer for the first time showed some signs of interest. He looked at their questioner steadfastly.

"Grex," he repeated. "A very uncommon name."

"Very uncommon-looking people," Richard declared. "The man is elderly, and looks as though he took great care of himself—awfully well turned out and all that. The daughter is—good-looking."

Mr. Draconmeyer took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and rubbed them with his handkerchief.

"Why do you ask?" he enquired. "Is this just curiosity?"

"Rather more than that," Richard said boldly. "It's interest."

Mr. Draconmeyer readjusted his spectacles.

"Mr. Grex," he announced, "is a gentleman of great wealth and illustrious birth, who has taken a very magnificent villa and desires for a time to lead a life of seclusion. That is as much as I or any one else knows."

"What about the young lady?" Richard persisted.

"The young lady," Mr. Draconmeyer answered, "is, as you surmised, his daughter.... Shall we finish our promenade, Lady Hunterleys?"

Richard stood grudgingly a little on one side.

"Mr. Draconmeyer," he said desperately, "do you think there'd be any chance of my getting an introduction to the young lady?"

Mr. Draconmeyer at first smiled and then began to laugh, as though something in the idea tickled him. He looked at the young man and Richard hated him.

"Not the slightest in the world, I should think," he declared. "Good afternoon!"

Lady Hunterleys joined in her companion's amusement as they continued their promenade.

"Is the young man in love, do you suppose?" she enquired lightly.

"If so," her companion replied, "he has made a somewhat unfortunate choice. However, it really doesn't matter. Love at his age is nothing more than a mood. It will pass as all moods pass."

She turned and looked at him.

"Do you mean," she asked incredulously, "that youth is incapable of love?"

They had paused for a moment, looking out across the bay towards the glittering white front of Bordighera. Mr. Draconmeyer took off his hat. Somehow, without it, in that clear light, one realised, notwithstanding his spectacles, his grizzled black beard of unfashionable shape, his over-massive forehead and shaggy eyebrows, that his, too, was the face of one whose feet were not always upon the earth.

"Perhaps," he answered, "it is a matter of degree, yet I am almost tempted to answer your question absolutely. I do not believe that youth can love, because from the first it misapprehends the meaning of the term. I believe that the gift of loving comes only to those who have reached the hills."

She looked at him, a little surprised. Always thoughtful, always sympathetic, generally stimulating, it was very seldom that she had heard him speak with so much real feeling. Suddenly he turned his head from the sea. His eyes seemed to challenge hers.

"Your question," he continued, "touches upon one of the great tragedies of life. Upon those who are free from their youth there is a great tax levied. Nature has decreed that they should feel something which they call love. They marry, and in this small world of ours they give a hostage as heavy as a millstone of their chances of happiness. For it is only in later life, when a man has knowledge as well as passion, when unless he is fortunate it is too late, that he can know what love is."

She moved a little uneasily. She felt that something was coming which she desired to avoid, some confidence, something from which she must escape. The memory of her husband's warning was vividly present with her. She felt the magnetism of her companion's words, his compelling gaze.

"It is so with me," he went on, leaning a little towards her, "only in my case—"

Providence was intervening. Never had the swish of a woman's skirt sounded so sweet to her before.

"Here's Dolly Montressor," she interrupted, "coming up to speak to us."

CHAPTER VI

CAKES AND COUNSELS

The Sporting Club seemed to fill up that afternoon almost as soon as the doors were opened. At half-past four, people were standing two or three deep around the roulette tables. Selingman, very warm, and looking somewhat annoyed, withdrew himself from the front row of the lower table, and taking Mr. Grex and Draconmeyer by the arm, led them towards the tea-room.

"I have lost six louis!" he exclaimed, fretfully. "I have had the devil's own luck. I shall play no more for the present. We will have tea together."

They appropriated a round table in a distant corner of the restaurant.

"History," Selingman continued, heaping his plate with rich cakes, "has been made before now in strange places. Why not here? We sit here in close touch with one of the most interesting phases of modern life. We can even hear the voice of fate, the click of the little ball as it finishes its momentous journey and sinks to rest. Why should we, too, not speak of fateful things?"

Mr. Draconmeyer glanced around.

"For myself," he muttered, "I must say that I prefer a smaller room and a locked door."

Selingman demolished a chocolate éclair and shook his head vigorously.

"The public places for me," he declared. "Now look around. There is no one, as you will admit, within ear-shot. Very well. What will they say, those who suspect us, if they see us drinking tea and eating many cakes together? Certainly not that we conspire, that we make mischief here. On the other hand, they will say 'There are three great men at play, come to Monte Carlo to rest from their labours, to throw aside for a time the burden from their shoulders; to flirt, to play, to eat cakes.' It is a good place to talk, this, and I have something in my mind which must be said."

Mr. Grex sipped his pale, lemon-flavoured tea and toyed with his cigarette-case. He was eating nothing.

"Assuming you to be a man of sense, my dear Selingman," he remarked, "I think that what you have to say is easily surmised. The Englishman!"

Selingman agreed with ponderous emphasis.

"We have before us," he declared, "a task of unusual delicacy. Our friend from Paris may be here at any moment. How we shall fare with him, heaven only knows! But there is one thing very certain. At the sight of Hunterleys he will take alarm. He will be like a frightened bird, all ruffled feathers. He will never settle down to a serious discussion. Hunterleys knows this. That is why he presents himself without reserve in public, why he is surrounded with Secret Service men of his own country, all on the qui vive for the coming of Douaille."

"It appears tolerably certain," Mr. Draconmeyer said calmly, "that we must get rid of Hunterleys."

Mr. Grex looked out of the window for a moment.

"To some extent," he observed, "I am a stranger here. I come as a guest to this conference, as our other friend from Paris comes, too. Any small task which may arise from the necessities of the situation, devolves, I think I may say without unfairness, upon you, my friend."

Selingman assented gloomily.

"That is true," he admitted, "but in Hunterleys we have to do with no ordinary man. He does not gamble. To the ordinary attractions of Monte Carlo he is indifferent. He is one of these thin-blooded men with principles. Cromwell would have made a lay preacher of him."

"You find difficulties?" Mr. Grex queried, with slightly uplifted eyebrows.

"Not difficulties," Selingman continued quickly. "Or if indeed we do call them difficulties, let us say at once that they are very minor ones. Only the thing must be done neatly and without ostentation, for the sake of our friend who comes."

"My own position," Mr. Draconmeyer intervened, "is, in a way, delicate. The unexplained disappearance of Sir Henry Hunterleys might, by some people, be connected with the great friendship which exists between my wife and his."

Mr. Grex polished his horn-rimmed eyeglass. Selingman nodded sympathetically. Neither of them looked at Draconmeyer. Finally Selingman heaved a sigh and brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat.

"If one were assured," he murmured thoughtfully, "that Hunterleys' presence here had a real significance—"

Draconmeyer pushed his chair forward and leaned across the table. The heads of the three men were close together. His tone was stealthily lowered.

"Let me tell you something, my friend Selingman, which I think should strengthen any half-formed intention you may have in your brain. Hunterleys is no ordinary sojourner here. You were quite right when you told me that his stay at Bordighera and San Remo was a matter of days only. Now I will tell you something. Three weeks ago he was at Bukharest. He spent two days with Novisko. From there he went to Sofia. He was heard of in Athens and Constantinople. My own agent wrote me that he was in Belgrade. Hunterleys is the bosom friend of the English Foreign Secretary. That I know for myself. You have your reports. You can read between the lines. I tell you that Hunterleys is the man who has paralysed our action amongst the Balkan States. He has played a neat little game out there. It is he who was the inspiration of Roumania. It is he who drafted the secret understanding with Turkey. The war which we hoped for will not take place. From there Hunterleys came in a gunboat and landed on the Italian coast. He lingered at Bordighera for appearances only. He is here, if he can, to break up our conference. I tell you that you none of you appreciate this man. Hunterleys is the most dangerous Englishman living—"

"One moment," Selingman interrupted. "To some extent I follow you, but when you speak of Hunterleys as a power in the present tense, doesn't it occur to you that his Party is not in office? He is simply a member of the Opposition. If his Party get in again at the next election, I grant you that he will be Foreign Minister and a dangerous one, but to-day he is simply a private person."

"It is not every one," Mr. Draconmeyer said slowly, "who bows his knee to the shibboleth of party politics. Remember that I come to you from London and I have information of which few others are possessed. Hunterleys is of the stuff of which patriots are made. Party is no concern of his. He and the present Foreign Secretary are the greatest of personal friends. I know for a fact that Hunterleys has actually been consulted and has helped in one or two recent crises. The very circumstance that he is not of the ruling Party makes a free lance of him. When his people are in power, he will have to take office and wear the shackles. To-day, with every quality which would make him the greatest Foreign Minister England has ever had since Disraeli, he is nothing more nor less than a roving diplomatist, Emperor of his country's Secret Service, if you like to put it so. Furthermore, look a little into that future of which I have spoken. The present English Government will last, at the most, another two years. I tell you that when they go out of power, whoever comes in, Hunterleys will go to the Foreign Office. We shall have to deal with a man who knows, a man—"

"I am not wholly satisfied with these éclairs," Selingman interrupted, gazing into the dish. "Maître d'hôtel, come and listen to an awful complaint," he went on, and, addressing one of the head-waiters. "Your éclairs are too small, your cream-cakes too irresistible. I eat too much here. How, I ask you in the name of common sense, can a man dine who takes tea here! Bring the bill."

The man, smiling, hastened away. Not a word had passed between the three, yet the other two understood the situation perfectly. Hunterleys and Richard Lane had entered the room together and were seated at an adjoining table. Selingman plunged into a fresh tirade, pointing to the half-demolished plateful of cakes.

"I will eat one more," he declared. "We will bilk the management. The bill is made out. I shall not be observed. Our friend," he continued, under his breath, "has secured a valuable bodyguard, something very large and exceedingly powerful."

Draconmeyer hesitated for a moment. Then he turned to Mr. Grex.

"You have perhaps observed," he said, "the young man who is seated at the next table. It may amuse you to hear of a very extraordinary piece of impertinence of which, only this afternoon, he was guilty. He accosted me upon the Terrace—he is a young American whom I have met in London—and asked me for information respecting a Mr. and Miss Grex."

Mr. Grex looked slowly towards the speaker. There was very little change in his face, yet Draconmeyer seemed in some way confused.

"You will understand, I am sure, sir," he continued, a little hastily, "that I was in no way to blame for the question which the young man addressed to me. He had the presumption to enquire whether I could procure for him an introduction to the young lady whom he knew as Miss Grex. Even at this moment," Draconmeyer went on, lowering his voice, "he is trying to persuade Hunterleys to let him come over to us."

"The young man," Mr. Grex said deliberately, "is ignorant. If necessary, he must be taught his lesson."

Selingman intervened. He breathed a heavy sigh.

"Well," he observed, "I perceive that the task at which we have hinted is to fall upon my shoulders. We must do what we can. I am a tender-hearted man, and if extremes can be avoided, I shall like my task better.... And now I have changed my mind. The loss of that six louis weighs upon me. I shall endeavour to regain it. Let us go."

They rose and passed out into the roulette rooms. Richard Lane, who remained in his seat with an effort, watched them pass with a frown upon his face.

"Say, Sir Henry," he complained, "I don't quite understand this. Why, I'd only got to go over to Draconmeyer there and stand and talk for a moment, and he must have introduced me."

Hunterleys shook his head.

"Let me assure you," he said, "that Draconmeyer would have done nothing of the sort. For one thing, we don't introduce over here as a matter of course, as you do in America. And for another—well, I won't trouble you with the other reason.... Look here, Lane, take my advice, there's a sensible fellow. I am a man of the world, you know, and there are certain situations in which one can make no mistake. If you are as hard hit as you say you are, go for a cruise and get over it. Don't hang around here. No good will come of it."

The young man set his teeth. He was looking very determined indeed.

"There isn't anything in this world, short of a bomb," he declared, "which is going to blow me out of Monte Carlo before I have made the acquaintance of Miss Grex!"

CHAPTER VII

THE EFFRONTERY OF RICHARD

Hunterleys took leave of his companion as soon as they arrived at the roulette rooms.

"Take my advice, Lane," he said seriously. "Find something to occupy your thoughts. Throw a few hundred thousand of your dollars away at the tables, if you must do something foolish. You'll get into far less trouble."

Richard made no direct reply. He watched Hunterleys depart and took up his place opposite the door to await his sister's arrival. It was a quarter to five before she appeared and found him waiting for her in the doorway.

"Say, you're late, Flossie!" he grumbled. "I thought you were going to be here soon after four."

She glanced at the little watch upon her wrist.

"How the time does slip away!" she sighed. "But really, Dicky, I am late in your interests as much as anything. I have been paying a few calls. I went out to the Villa Rosa to see some people who almost live here, and then I met Lady Crawley and she made me go in and have some tea."

"Well?" he asked impatiently. "Well?"

She laid her fingers upon his arm and drew him into a less crowded part of the room.

"Dicky," she confessed, "I don't seem to have had a bit of luck. The Comtesse d'Hausson, who lives at the Villa Rosa, knows them and showed me from the window the Villa Mimosa, where they live, but she would tell me absolutely nothing about them. The villa is the finest in Monte Carlo, and has always been taken before by some one of note. She declares that they do not mix in the society of the place, but she admits that she has heard a rumour that Grex is only an assumed name."

"I begin to believe that myself," he said doggedly. "Hunterleys knows who they are and won't tell me. So does that fellow Draconmeyer."

"Sir Henry and Mr. Draconmeyer!" she repeated, raising her eyes. "My dear Dick, that doesn't sound very reasonable, does it?"

"I tell you that they do," he persisted. "They as good as told me so. Hunterleys, especially, left me here only half-an-hour ago, and his last words were advising me to chuck it. He's a sensible chap enough but he won't even tell me why. I've had enough of it. I've a good mind to take the bull by the horns myself. Mr. Grex is here now, somewhere about. He was sitting with Mr. Draconmeyer and a fat old German a few minutes ago, at the next table to ours. If I had been alone I should have gone up and chanced being introduced, but Hunterleys wouldn't let me."

"Well, so far," Lady Weybourne admitted, "I fear that I haven't done much towards that electric coupé; but," she added, in a changed tone, looking across the tables, "there is just one thing, Dicky. Fate sometimes has a great deal to do with these little affairs. Look over there."

Richard left his sister precipitately, without even a word of farewell. She watched him cross the room, and smiled at the fury of a little Frenchman whom he nearly knocked over in his hurry to get round to the other side of the table. A moment later he was standing a few feet away from the girl who had taken so strange a hold upon his affections. He himself was conscious of a curious and unfamiliar nervousness. Physically he felt as though he had been running hard. He set his teeth and tried to keep cool. He found some plaques in his pocket and began to stake. Then he became aware that the girl was holding in her hand a note and endeavouring to attract the attention of the man who was giving change.

"Petite monnaie, s'il vous plaît," he heard her say, stretching out the note.

The man took no notice. Richard held out his hand.

"Will you allow me to get it changed for you?" he asked.

Her first impulse at the sound of his voice was evidently one of resentment. She seemed, indeed, in the act of returning some chilling reply. Then she glanced half carelessly towards him and her eyes rested upon his face. Richard was good-looking enough, but the chief characteristic of his face was a certain honesty, which seemed accentuated at that moment by his undoubted earnestness. The type was perhaps strange to her. She was almost startled by what she saw. Scarcely knowing what she did, she allowed him to take the note from her fingers.

"Thank you very much," she murmured.

Richard procured the change. He would have lifted every one out of the way if she had been in a hurry. Then he turned round and counted it very slowly into her hands. From the left one she had removed the glove and he saw, to his relief, that there was no engagement ring there. He counted so slowly that towards the end she seemed to become a little impatient.

"That is quite all right," she said. "It was very kind of you to trouble."

She spoke very correct English with the slightest of foreign accents. He looked once more into her eyes.

"It was a pleasure," he declared.

She smiled faintly, an act of graciousness which absolutely turned his head. With her hand full of plaques, she moved away and found a place a little lower down the table. Richard fought with his first instinct and conquered it. He remained where he was, and when he moved it was in another direction. He went into the bar and ordered a whisky and soda. He was as excited as he had been in the old days when he had rowed stroke in a winning race for his college boat. He felt, somehow or other, that the first step had been a success. She had been inclined at first to resent his offer. She had looked at him and changed her mind. Even when she had turned away, she had smiled. It was ridiculous, but he felt as though he had taken a great step. Presently Lady Weybourne, on her way to the baccarat rooms, saw him sitting there and looked in.

"Well, Dicky," she exclaimed, "what luck?"

"Sit down, Flossie," he begged. "I've spoken to her."

"You don't mean,—" she began, horrified.

"Oh, no, no! Nothing of that sort!" he interrupted. "Don't think I'm such a blundering ass. She was trying to get change and couldn't reach. I took the note from her, got the change and gave it to her. She said, 'Thank you.' When she went away, she smiled."

Lady Weybourne flopped down upon the divan and screamed with laughter.

"Dicky," she murmured, wiping her eyes, "tell me, is that why you are sitting there, looking as though you could see right into Heaven? Do you know that your face was one great beam when I came in?"

"Can't help it," he answered contentedly. "I've spoken to her and she smiled."

Lady Weybourne opened her gold bag and produced a card.

"Well," she said, "here is another chance for you. Of course, I don't know that it will come to anything, but you may as well try your luck."

"What is it?" he asked.

She thrust a square of gilt-edged cardboard into his hand.

"It's an invitation," she told him, "from the directors, to attend a dinner at La Turbie Golf Club-house, up in the mountains, to-night. It isn't entirely a joke, I can tell you. It takes at least an hour to get there, climbing all the way, and the place is as likely as not to be wrapped in clouds, but a great many of the important people are going, and as I happened to see Mr. Grex's name amongst the list of members, the other night, there is always a chance that they may be there. If not, you see, you can soon come back."

"I'm on," Richard decided. "Give me the ticket. I am awfully obliged to you, Flossie."

"If she is there," Lady Weybourne declared, rising, "I shall consider that it is equivalent to one wheel of the coupé."

"Have a cocktail instead," he suggested.

She shook her head.

"Too early. If we meet later on, I'll have one. What are you going to do?"

"Same as I've been doing ever since lunch," he answered,—"hang around and see if I can meet any one who knows them."

She laughed and hurried off into the baccarat room, and Richard presently returned to the table at which the girl was still playing. He took particular care not to approach her, but he found a place on the opposite side of the room, from which he could watch her unobserved. She was still standing and apparently she was losing her money. Once, with a little petulant frown, she turned away and moved a few yards lower down the room. The first time she staked in her new position, she won, and a smile which it seemed to him was the most brilliant he had ever seen, parted her lips. He stood there looking at her, and in the midst of a scene where money seemed god of all things, he realised all manner of strange and pleasant sensations. The fact that he had twenty thousand francs in his pocket to play with, scarcely occurred to him. He was watching a little wisp of golden hair by her ear, watching her slightly wrinkled forehead as she leaned over the table, her little grimace as she lost and her stake was swept away. She seemed indifferent to all bystanders. It was obvious that she had very few acquaintances. Where he stood it was not likely that she would notice him, and he abandoned himself wholly to the luxury of gazing at her. Then some instinct caused him to turn his head. He felt that he in his turn was being watched. He glanced towards the divan set against the wall, by the side of which he was standing. Mr. Grex was seated there, only a few feet away, smoking a cigarette. Their eyes met and Richard was conscious of a sudden embarrassment. He felt like a detected thief, and he acted at that moment as he often did—entirely on impulse. He leaned down and resolutely addressed Mr. Grex.

"I should be glad, sir, if you would allow me to speak to you for a moment."

Mr. Grex's expression was one of cold surprise, unmixed with any curiosity.

"Do you address me?" he asked.

His tone was vastly discouraging but it was too late to draw back.

"I should like to speak to you, if I may," Richard continued.

"I am not aware," Mr. Grex said, "that I have the privilege of your acquaintance."

"You haven't," Richard admitted, "but all the same I want to speak to you, if I may."

"Since you have gone so far," Mr. Grex conceded, "you had better finish, but you must allow me to tell you in advance that I look upon any address from a perfect stranger as an impertinence."

"You'll think worse of me before I've finished, then," Richard declared desperately. "You don't mind if I sit down?"

"These seats," Mr. Grex replied coldly, "are free to all."

The young man took his place upon the divan with a sinking heart. There was something in Mr. Grex's tone which seemed to destroy all his confidence, a note of something almost alien in the measured contempt of his speech.

"I am sorry to give you any offence," Richard began. "I happened to notice that you were watching me. I was looking at your daughter—staring at her. I am afraid you thought me impertinent."

"Your perspicuity," Mr. Grex observed, "seems to be of a higher order than your manners. You are, perhaps, a stranger to civilised society?"

"I don't know about that," Richard went on doggedly. "I have been to college and mixed with the usual sort of people. My birth isn't much to speak of, perhaps, if you count that for anything."

Something which was almost like the ghost of a smile, devoid of any trace of humour, parted Mr. Grex's lips.

"If I count that for anything!" he repeated, half closing his eyes for a moment. "Pray proceed, young man."

"I am an American," Richard continued. "My name is Richard Lane. My father was very wealthy and I am his heir. My sister is Lady Weybourne. I was lunching with her at Ciro's to-day when I saw you and your daughter. I think I can say that I am a respectable person. I have a great many friends to whom I can refer you."

"I am not thinking of engaging anybody, that I know of," Mr. Grex murmured.

"I want to marry your daughter," Richard declared desperately, feeling that any further form of explanation would only lead him into greater trouble.

Mr. Grex knocked the ash from his cigarette.

"Is your keeper anywhere in the vicinity?" he asked.

"I am perfectly sane," Richard assured him. "I know that it sounds foolish but it isn't really. I am twenty-seven years old and I have never asked a girl to marry me yet. I have been waiting until—"

The words died away upon his lips. It was impossible for him to continue, the cold enmity of this man was too chilling.

"I am absolutely in earnest," he insisted. "I have been endeavouring all day to find some mutual friend to introduce me to your daughter. Will you do so? Will you give me a chance?"

"I will not," Mr. Grex replied firmly.

"Why not? Please tell me why not?" Richard begged. "I am not asking for anything more now than just an opportunity to talk with her."

"It is not a matter which admits of discussion," Mr. Grex pronounced. "I have permitted you to say what you wished, notwithstanding the colossal, the unimaginable impertinence of your suggestion. I request you to leave me now and I advise you most heartily to indulge no more in the most preposterous and idiotic idea which ever entered into the head of an apparently sane young man."

Richard rose slowly to his feet.

"Very well, sir," he replied, "I'll go. All the same, what you have said doesn't make any difference."

"Does not make any difference?" Mr. Grex repeated, with arched eyebrows.

"None at all," Richard declared. "I don't know what your objection to me is, but I hope you'll get over it some day. I'd like to make friends with you. Perhaps, later on, you may look at the matter differently."

"Later on?" Mr. Grex murmured.

"When I have married your daughter," Richard concluded, marching defiantly away.

Mr. Grex watched the young man until he had disappeared in the crowd. Then he leaned hack amongst the cushions of the divan with folded arms. Little lines had become visible around his eyes, there was a slight twitching at the corners of his lips. He looked like a man who was inwardly enjoying some huge joke.

CHAPTER VIII

UP THE MOUNTAIN

Richard, passing the Hotel de Paris that evening in his wicked-looking grey racing car, saw Hunterleys standing on the steps and pulled up.

"Not going up to La Turbie, by any chance?" he enquired.

Hunterleys nodded.

"I'm going up to the dinner," he replied. "The hotel motor is starting from here in a few minutes."

"Come with me," Richard invited.

Hunterleys looked a little doubtfully at the long, low machine.

"Are you going to shoot up?" he asked. "It's rather a dangerous road."

"I'll take care of you," the young man promised. "That hotel 'bus will be crammed."

They glided through the streets on to the broad, hard road, and crept upwards with scarcely a sound, through the blue-black twilight. Around and in front of them little lights shone out from the villas and small houses dotted away in the mountains. Almost imperceptibly they passed into a different atmosphere. The air became cold and exhilarating. The flavour of the mountain snows gave life to the breeze. Hunterleys buttoned up his coat but bared his head.

"My young friend," he said, "this is wonderful."

"It's a great climb," Richard assented, "and doesn't she just eat it up!"

They paused for a moment at La Turbie. Below them was a chain of glittering lights fringing the Bay of Mentone, and at their feet the lights of the Casino and Monte Carlo flared up through the scented darkness. Once more they swung upwards. The road now had become narrower and the turnings more frequent. They were up above the region of villas and farmhouses, in a country which seemed to consist only of bleak hill-side, open to the winds, wrapped in shadows. Now and then they heard the tinkling of a goat bell; far below they saw the twin lights of other ascending cars. They reached the plateau at last and drew up before the club-house, ablaze with cheerful lights.

"I'll just leave the car under the trees," Richard declared. "No one will be staying late."

Hunterleys unwound his scarf and handed his coat and hat to a page-boy. Then he stood suddenly rigid. He bit his lip. His wife had just issued from the cloak-room and was drawing on her gloves. She saw him and hesitated. She, too, turned a little paler. Slowly Hunterleys approached her.

"An unexpected pleasure," he murmured.

"I am here with Mr. Draconmeyer," she told him, almost bluntly.

Hunterleys bowed.

"And a party?" he enquired.

"No," she replied. "I really did not want to come. Mr. Draconmeyer had promised Monsieur Pericot, the director here, to come and bring Mrs. Draconmeyer. At the last moment, however, she was not well enough, and he almost insisted upon my taking her place."

"Is it necessary to explain?" Hunterleys asked quietly. "You know very well how I regard this friendship of yours."

"I am sorry," she said. "If I had known that we were likely to meet—well, I would not have come here to-night."

"You were at least considerate," he remarked bitterly. "May I be permitted to compliment you upon your toilette?"

"As you pay for my frocks," she answered, "there is certainly no reason why you shouldn't admire them."

He bit his lip. There was a certain challenge in her expression which made him, for a moment, feel weak. She was a very beautiful woman and she was looking her best. He spoke quickly on another subject.

"Are you still," he asked, "troubled by the attentions of the person you spoke to me about?"

"I am still watched," she replied drily.

"I have made some enquiries," Hunterleys continued, "and I have come to the conclusion that you are right."

"And you still tell me that you have nothing to do with it?"

"I assure you, upon my honour, that I have nothing whatever to do with it."

It was obvious that she was puzzled, but at that moment Mr. Draconmeyer presented himself. The newcomer simply bowed to Hunterleys and addressed some remark about the room to Violet. Then Richard came up and they all passed on into the reception room, where two or three very fussy but very suave and charming Frenchmen were receiving the guests. A few minutes afterwards dinner was announced. A black frown was upon Richard's forehead.

"She isn't coming!" he muttered. "I say, Sir Henry, you won't mind if we leave early?"

"I shall be jolly glad to get away," Hunterleys assented heartily.

Then he suddenly felt a grip of iron upon his arm.

"She's come!" Richard murmured ecstatically. "Look at her, all in white! Just look at the colour of her hair! There she is, going into the reception room. Jove! I'm glad we are here, after all!"

Hunterleys smiled a little wearily. They passed on into the salle à manger. The seats at the long dining-tables were not reserved, and they found a little table for two in a corner, which they annexed. Hunterleys was in a grim humour, but his companion was in the wildest spirits. Considering that he was placed where he could see Mr. Grex and his daughter nearly the whole of the time, he really did contrive to keep his eyes away from them to a wonderful extent, but he talked of her unceasingly.

"Say, I'm sorry for you, Sir Henry!" he declared. "It's just your bad luck, being here with me while I've got this fit on, but I've got to talk to some one, so you may as well make up your mind to it. There never was anything like that girl upon the earth. There never was anything like the feeling you get," he went on, "when you're absolutely and entirely convinced, when you know—that there's just one girl who counts for you in the whole universe. Gee whiz! It does get hold of you! I suppose you've been through it all, though."

"Yes, I've been through it!" Hunterleys admitted, with a sigh.

The young man bit his lip. The story of Hunterleys' matrimonial differences was already being whispered about. Richard talked polo vigorously for the next quarter of an hour. It was not until the coffee and liqueurs arrived that they returned to the subject of Miss Grex. Then it was Hunterleys himself who introduced it. He was beginning to rather like this big, self-confident young man, so full of his simple love affair, so absolutely honest in his purpose, in his outlook upon life.

"Lane," he said, "I have given you several hints during the day, haven't I?"

"That's so," Richard agreed. "You've done your best to head me off. So did my future father-in-law. Sort of hopeless task, I can assure you."

Hunterleys shook his head.

"Honestly," he continued, "I wouldn't let myself think too much about her, Lane. I don't want to explain exactly what I mean. There's no real reason why I shouldn't tell you what I know about Mr. Grex, but for a good many people's sakes, it's just as well that those few of us who know keep quiet. I am sure you trust me, and it's just the same, therefore, if I tell you straight, as man to man, that you're only laying up for yourself a store of unhappiness by fixing your thoughts so entirely upon that young woman."

Richard, for all his sublime confidence, was a little staggered by the other's earnestness.

"Look here," he said, "the girl isn't married, to start with?"

"Not that I know of," Hunterleys confessed.

"And she's not engaged because I've seen her left hand," Richard proceeded. "I'm not one of those Americans who go shouting all over the world that because I've got a few million dollars I am the equal of anybody, but honestly, Sir Henry, there are a good many prejudices over this side that you fellows lay too much store by. Grex may be a nobleman in disguise. I don't care. I am a man. I can give her everything she needs in life and I am not going to admit, even if she is an aristocrat, that you croakers are right when you shake your heads and advise me to give her up. I don't care who she is, Hunterleys. I am going to marry her."

Hunterleys helped himself to a liqueur.

"Young man," he said, "in a sense I admire your independence. In another, I think you've got all the conceit a man needs for this world. Let us presume, for a moment, that she is, as you surmise, the daughter of a nobleman. When it suits her father to throw off his incognito, she is probably in touch with young men in the highest circles of many countries. Why should you suppose that you can come along and cut them all out?"

"Because I love her," the young man answered simply. "They don't."

"You must remember," Hunterleys resumed, "that all foreign noblemen are not what they are represented to be in your comic papers. Austrian and Russian men of high rank are most of them very highly cultivated, very accomplished, and very good-looking. You don't know much of the world, do you? It's a pretty formidable enterprise to come from a New York office, with only Harvard behind you, and a year or so's travel as a tourist, and enter the list against men who have had twice your opportunities. I am talking to you like this, young fellow, for your good. I hope you realise that. You're used to getting what you want. That's because you've been brought up in a country where money can do almost anything. I am behind the scenes here and I can assure you that your money won't count for much with Mr. Grex."

"I never thought it would," Richard admitted. "I think when I talk to her she'll understand that I care more than any of the others. If you want to know the reason, that's why I'm so hopeful."

Monsieur le Directeur had risen to his feet. Some one had proposed his health and he made a graceful little speech of acknowledgment. He remained standing for a few minutes after the cheers which had greeted his neat oratorical display had died away. The conclusion of his remarks came as rather a surprise to his guests.

"I have to ask you, ladies and gentlemen," he announced, "with many, many regrets, and begging you to forgive my apparent inhospitality, to make your arrangements for leaving us as speedily as may be possible. Our magnificent situation, with which I believe that most of you are familiar, has but one drawback. We are subject to very dense mountain mists, and alas! I have to tell you that one of these has come on most unexpectedly and the descent must be made with the utmost care. Believe me, there is no risk or any danger," he went on earnestly, "so long as you instruct your chauffeurs to proceed with all possible caution. At the same time, as there is very little chance of the mist becoming absolutely dispelled before daylight, in your own interests I would suggest that a start be made as soon as possible."

Every one rose at once, Richard and Hunterleys amongst them.

"This will test your skill to-night, young man," Hunterleys remarked. "How's the nerve, eh?"

Richard smiled almost beatifically. For once he had allowed his eyes to wander and he was watching the girl with golden hair who was at that moment receiving the respectful homage of the director.

"Lunatics, and men who are head over heels in love," he declared, "never come to any harm. You'll be perfectly safe with me."

CHAPTER IX

IN THE MISTS

Their first glimpse of the night, as Hunterleys and Lane passed out through the grudgingly opened door, was sufficiently disconcerting. A little murmur of dismay broke from the assembled crowd. Nothing was to be seen but a dense bank of white mist, through which shone the brilliant lights of the automobiles waiting at the door. Monsieur le Directeur hastened about, doing his best to reassure everybody.

"If I thought it was of the slightest use," he declared, "I would ask you all to stay, but when the clouds once stoop like this, there is not likely to be any change for twenty-four hours, and we have not, alas! sleeping accommodation. If the cars are slowly driven and kept to the inside, it is only a matter of a mile or two before you will drop below the level of the clouds."

Hunterleys and Lane made their way out to the front, and with their coat collars turned up, groped their way to the turf on the other side of the avenue. From where they stood, looking downwards, the whole world seemed wrapped in mysterious and somber silence. There was nothing to be seen but the grey, driving clouds. In less than a minute their hair and eyebrows were dripping. A slight breeze had sprung up, the cold was intense.

"Cheerful sort of place, this," Lane remarked gloomily. "Shall we make a start?"

Hunterleys hesitated.

"Not just yet. Look!"

He pointed downwards. For a moment the clouds had parted. Thousands of feet below, like little pinpricks of red fire, they saw the lights of Monte Carlo. Almost as they looked, the clouds closed up again. It was as though they had peered into another world.

"Jove, that was queer!" Lane muttered. "Look! What's that?"

A long ray of sickly yellow light shone for a moment and was then suddenly blotted out by a rolling mass of vapour. The clouds had closed in again once more. The obscurity was denser than ever.

"The lighthouse," Hunterleys replied. "Do you think it's any use waiting?"

"We'll go inside and put on our coats," Lane suggested. "My car is by the side of the avenue there. I covered it over and left it."

They found their coats in the hall, wrapped themselves up and lit cigarettes. Already many of the cars had started and vanished cautiously into obscurity. Every now and then one could hear the tooting of their horns from far away below. The chief steward was directing the departures and insisting upon an interval of three minutes between each. The two men stood on one side and watched him. He was holding open the door of a large, exceptionally handsome car. On the other side was a servant in white livery. Lane gripped his companion's arm.

"There she goes!" he exclaimed.

The girl, followed by Mr. Grex, stepped into the landaulette, which was brilliantly illuminated inside with electric light. Almost immediately the car glided noiselessly off. The two men watched it until it disappeared. Then they crossed the road.

"Now then, Sir Henry," Richard observed grimly, as he turned the handle of the car and they took their places in the little well-shaped space, "better say your prayers. I'm going to drive slowly enough but it's an awful job, this, crawling down the side of a mountain in the dark, with nothing between you and eternity but your brakes."

They crept off. As far as the first turn the lights from the club-house helped them. Immediately afterwards, however, the obscurity was enveloping. Their faces were wet and shiny with moisture. Even the fingers of Lane's gloves which gripped the wheel were sodden. He proceeded at a snail's pace, keeping always on the inside of the road and only a few inches from the wall or bank. Once he lost his way and his front wheel struck a small stump, but they were going too slowly for disaster. Another time he failed to follow the turn of the road and found himself in a rough cart track. They backed with difficulty and got right once more. At the fourth turn they came suddenly upon a huge car which had left the road as they had done and was standing amongst the pine trees, its lights flaring through the mist.

"Hullo!" Lane called out, coming to a standstill. "You've missed the turn."

"My master is going to stay here all night," the chauffeur shouted back.

A man put his head from the window and began to talk in rapid French.

"It is inconceivable," he exclaimed, "that any one should attempt the descent! We have rugs, my wife and I. We stay here till the clouds pass."

"Good night, then!" Lane cried cheerfully.

"Not sure that you're not wise," Hunterleys added, with a shiver.

Twice they stopped while Lane rubbed the moisture from his gloves and lit a fresh cigarette.

"This is a test for your nerve, young fellow," Hunterleys remarked. "Are you feeling it?"

"Not in the least," Lane replied. "I can't make out, though, why that steward made us all start at intervals of three minutes. Seems to me we should have been better going together at this pace. Save any one from getting lost, anyhow."

They crawled on for another twenty minutes. The routine was always the same—a hundred yards or perhaps two, an abrupt turn and then a similar distance the other way. They had one or two slight misadventures but they made progress. Once, through a rift, they caught a momentary vision of a carpet of lights at a giddy distance below.

"We'll make it all right," Lane declared, crawling around another corner. "Gee! but this is the toughest thing in driving I've ever known! I can do ninety with this car easier than I can do this three. Hullo, some one else in trouble!"

Before them, in the middle of the road, a light was being slowly swung backwards and forwards. Lane brought the car to a standstill. He had scarcely done so when they were conscious of the sound of footsteps all around them. The arms of both men were seized from behind. They were addressed in guttural French.

"Messieurs will be pleased to descend."

"What the—what's wrong?" Lane demanded.

"Descend at once," was the prompt order.

By the light of the lantern which the speaker was holding, they caught a glimpse of a dozen white faces and the dull gleam of metal from the firearms which his companions were carrying. Hunterleys stepped out. An escort of two men was at once formed on either side of him.

"Tell us what it's all about, anyhow?" he asked coolly.

"Nothing serious," the same guttural voice answered,—"a little affair which will be settled in a few minutes. As for you, monsieur," the man continued, turning to Lane, "you will drive your car slowly to the next turn, and leave it there. Afterwards you will return with me."

Richard set his teeth and leaned over his wheel. Then it suddenly flashed into his mind that Mr. Grex and his daughter were already amongst the captured. He quickly abandoned his first instinct.

"With pleasure, monsieur," he assented. "Tell me when to stop."

He drove the car a few yards round the corner, past a line of others. Their lights were all extinguished and the chauffeurs absent.

"This is a pleasant sort of picnic!" he grumbled, as he brought his car to a standstill. "Now what do I do, monsieur?"

"You return with me, if you please," was the reply.

Richard stood, for a moment, irresolute. The idea of giving in without a struggle was most distasteful to this self-reliant young American. Then he realised that not only was his captor armed but that there were men behind him and one on either side.

"Lead the way," he decided tersely.

They marched him up the hill, a little way across some short turf and round the back of a rock to a long building which he remembered to have noticed on his way up. His guide threw open the door and Richard looked in upon a curious scene. Ranged up against the further wall were about a dozen of the guests who had preceded him in his departure from the Club-house. One man only had his hands tied behind him. The others, apparently, were considered harmless. Mr. Grex was the one man, and there was a little blood dripping from his right hand. The girl stood by his side. She was no paler than usual—she showed, indeed, no signs of terror at all—but her eyes were bright with indignation. One man was busy stripping the jewels from the women and throwing them into a bag. In the far corner the little group of chauffeurs was being watched by two more men, also carrying firearms. Lane looked down the line of faces. Lady Hunterleys was there, and by her side Draconmeyer. Hunterleys was a little apart from the others. Freddy Montressor, who was leaning against the wall, chuckled as Lane came in.

"So they've got you, too, Dicky, have they?" he remarked. "It's a hold-up—a bully one, too. Makes one feel quite homesick, eh? How much have you got on you?"

"Precious little, thank heavens!" Richard muttered.

His eyes were fixed upon the brigand who was collecting the jewels, and who was now approaching Miss Grex. He felt something tingling in his blood. One of the guests began to talk excitedly. The man who was apparently the leader, and who was standing at the door with an electric torch in one hand and a revolver in the other, stepped a little forward.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "once more I beg you not to be alarmed. So long as you part with your valuables peaceably, you will be at liberty to depart as soon as every one has been dealt with. If there is no resistance, there will be no trouble. We do not wish to hurt any one."

The collector of jewels had arrived in front of the girl. She unfastened her necklace and handed it to him.

"The little pendant around my neck," she remarked calmly, "is valueless. I desire to keep it."

"Impossible!" the man replied. "Off with it."

"But I insist!" she exclaimed. "It is an heirloom."

The man laughed brutally. His filthy hand was raised to her neck. Even as he touched her, Lane, with a roar of anger, sent one of his guards flying on to the floor of the barn, and, snatching the gun from his hand, sprang forward.

"Come on, you fellows!" he shouted, bringing it down suddenly upon the hand of the robber. "These things aren't loaded. There's only one of these blackguards with a revolver."

"Come on, you fellows!" he shouted.

"And I've got him!" Hunterleys, who had been watching Lane closely, cried, suddenly swinging his arm around the man's neck and knocking his revolver up.

There was a yell of pain from the man with the jewels, whose wrist Lane had broken, a howl of dismay from the others—pandemonium.

"At 'em, Freddy!" Lane shouted, seizing the nearest of his assailants by the neck and throwing him out into the darkness. "To hell with you!" he added, just escaping a murderous blow and driving his fist into the face of the man who had aimed it. "Good for you, Hunterleys! There isn't one of those old guns of theirs that'll go off. They aren't even loaded."

The barn seemed suddenly to become half empty. Into the darkness the little band of brigands crept away like rats. In less than half a minute they had all fled, excepting the one who lay on the ground unconscious from the effects of Richard's blow, and the leader of the gang, whom Hunterleys still held by the throat. Richard, with a clasp-knife which he had drawn from his pocket, cut the cord which they had tied around Mr. Grex's wrists. His action, however, was altogether mechanical. He scarcely glanced at what he was doing. Somehow or other, he found the girl's hands in his.

"That brute—didn't touch you, did he?" he asked.

She looked at him. Whether the clouds were still outside or not, Lane felt that he had passed into Heaven.

"He did not, thanks to you," she murmured. "But do you mean really that those guns all the time weren't loaded?"

"I don't believe they were," Richard declared stoutly. "That chap kept on playing about with the lock of his old musket and I felt sure that it was of no use, loaded or not. Anyway, when I saw that brute try to handle you—well—"

He stopped, with an awkward little laugh. Mr. Grex tapped a cigarette upon his case and lit it.

"I am sure, my young friend, we are all very much indebted to you. The methods which sometimes are scarcely politic in the ordinary affairs of life," he continued drily, "are admirable enough in a case like this. We will just help Hunterleys tie up the leader of the gang. A very plucky stroke, that of his."

He crossed the barn. One of the women had fainted, others were busy collecting their jewelry. The chauffeurs had hurried off to relight the lamps of the cars.

"I must tell you this," Richard said, drawing a a little nearer to the girl. "Please don't be angry with me. I went to your father this afternoon. I made an idiot of myself—I couldn't help it. I was staring at you and he noticed it. I didn't want him to think that I was such an ill-mannered brute as I seemed. I tried to make him understand but he wouldn't listen to me. I'd like to tell you now—now that I have the opportunity—that I think you're just—"

She smiled very faintly.

"What is it that you wish to tell me?" she asked patiently.

"That I love you," he wound up abruptly.

There was a moment's silence, a silence with a background of strange noises. People were talking, almost shouting to one another with excitement. Newcomers were being told the news. The man whom Hunterleys had captured was shrieking and cursing. From beyond came the tooting of motor-horns as the cars returned. Lane heard nothing. He saw nothing but the white face of the girl as she stood in the shadows of the barn, with its walls of roughly threaded pine trunks.

"But I have scarcely ever spoken to you in my life!" she protested, looking at him in astonishment.

"It doesn't make any difference," he replied. "You know I am speaking the truth. I think, in your heart, that you, too, know that these things don't matter, now and then. Of course, you don't—you couldn't feel anything of what I feel, but with me it's there now and for always, and I want to have a chance, just a chance to make you understand. I'm not really mad. I'm just—in love with you."

She smiled at him, still in a friendly manner, but her face had clouded. There was a look in her eyes almost of trouble, perhaps of regret.

"I am so sorry," she murmured. "It is only a sudden feeling on your part, isn't it? You have been so splendid to-night that I can do no more than thank you very, very much. And as for what you have told me, I think it is an honour, but I wish you to forget it. It is not wise for you to think of me in that way. I fear that I cannot even offer you my friendship."

Again there was a brief silence. The clamour of exclamations from the little groups of people still filled the air outside. They could hear cars coming and going. The man whom Hunterleys and Mr. Grex were tying up was still groaning and cursing.

"Are you married?" Richard asked abruptly.

She shook her head.

"Engaged?"

"No!"

"Do you care very much for any one else?"

"No!" she told him softly.

He drew her away.

"Come outside for one moment," he begged. "I hate to see you in the place where that beast tried to lay hands upon you. Here is your necklace."

He picked it up from her feet and she followed him obediently outside. People were standing about, shadowy figures in little groups. Some of the cars had already left, others were being prepared for a start. Below, once more the clouds had parted and the lights twinkled like fireflies through the trees. This time they could even see the lights from the village of La Turbie, less brilliant but almost at their feet. Richard glanced upwards. There was a star clearly visible.

"The clouds are lifting," he said. "Listen. If there is no one else, tell me, why there shouldn't be the slightest chance for me? I am not clever, I am nobody of any account, but I care for you so wonderfully. I love you, I always shall love you, more than any one else could. I never understood before, but I understand now. Just this caring means so much."

She stood close to his side. Her manner at the same time seemed to depress him and yet to fill him with hope.

"What is your name?" she enquired.

"Richard Lane," he told her. "I am an American."

"Then, Mr. Richard Lane," she continued softly, "I shall always think of you and think of to-night and think of what you have said, and perhaps I shall be a little sorry that what you have asked me cannot be."

"Cannot?" he muttered.

She shook her head almost sadly.

"Some day," she went on, "as soon as our stay in Monte Carlo is finished, if you like, I will write and tell you the real reason, in case you do not find it out before."

He was silent, looking downwards to where the gathering wind was driving the clouds before it, to where the lights grew clearer and clearer at every moment.

"Does it matter," he asked abruptly, "that I am rich—very rich?"

"It does not matter at all," she answered.

"Doesn't it matter," he demanded, turning suddenly upon her and speaking with a new passion, almost a passion of resentment, "doesn't it matter that without you life doesn't exist for me any longer? Doesn't it matter that a man has given you his whole heart, however slight a thing it may seem to you? What am I to do if you send me away? There isn't anything left in life."

"There is what you have always found in it," she reminded him.

"There isn't," he replied fiercely. "That's just what there isn't. I should go back to a world that was like a dead city."

He suddenly felt her hand upon his.

"Dear Mr. Lane," she begged, "wait for a little time before you nurse these sad thoughts, and when you know how impossible what you ask is, it will seem easier. But if you really care to hear something, if it would really please you sometimes to think of it when you are alone and you remember this little foolishness of yours, let me tell you, if I may, that I am sorry—I am very sorry."

His hand was suddenly pressed, and then, before he could stop her, she had glided away. He moved a step to follow her and almost at once he was surrounded. Lady Hunterleys patted him on the shoulder.

"Really," she exclaimed, "you and Henry were our salvation. I haven't felt so thrilled for ages. I only wish," she added, dropping her voice a little, "that it might bring you the luck you deserve."

He answered vaguely. She turned back to Hunterleys. She was busy tearing up her handkerchief.

"I am going to tie up your head," she said. "Please stoop down."

He obeyed at once. The side of his forehead was bleeding where a bullet from the revolver of the man he had captured had grazed his temple.

"Too bad to trouble you," he muttered.

"It's the least we can do," she declared, laughing nervously. "Forgive me if my fingers tremble. It is the excitement of the last few minutes."

Hunterleys stood quite still. Words seemed difficult to him just then.

"You were very brave, Henry," she said quietly. "Whom—whom are you going down with?"

"I am with Richard Lane," he answered, "in his two-seated racer."

She bit her lip.

"I did not mean to come alone with Mr. Draconmeyer, really," she explained. "He thought, up to the last moment, that his wife would be well enough to come."

"Did he really believe so, do you think?" Hunterleys asked.

A voice intervened. Mr. Draconmeyer was standing by their side.

"Well," he said, "we might as well resume our journey. We all look and feel, I think, as though we had been taking part in a scene from some opéra bouffe."

Lady Hunterleys shivered. She had drawn a little closer to her husband. Her coat was unfastened. Hunterleys leaned towards her and buttoned it with strong fingers up to her throat.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You wouldn't—you couldn't drive down with us, could you?"

"Have you plenty of room?" he enquired.

"Plenty," she declared eagerly. "Mr. Draconmeyer and I are alone."

For a moment Hunterleys hesitated. Then he caught the smile upon the face of the man he detested.

"Thank you," he said, "I don't think I can desert Lane."

She stiffened at once. Her good night was almost formal. Hunterleys stepped into the car which Richard had brought up. There was just a slight mist around them, but the whole country below, though chaotic, was visible, and the lights on the hill-side, from La Turbie down to the sea-board, were in plain sight.

"Our troubles," Hunterleys remarked, as they glided off, "seem to be over."

"Maybe," Lane replied grimly. "Mine seem to be only just beginning!"

CHAPTER X

SIGNS OF TROUBLE

At ten o'clock the next morning, Hunterleys crossed the sunlit gardens towards the English bank, to receive what was, perhaps, the greatest shock of his life. A few minutes later he stood before the mahogany counter, his eyes fixed upon the half sheet of notepaper which the manager had laid before him. The words were few enough and simple enough, yet they constituted for him a message written in the very ink of tragedy. The notepaper was the notepaper of the Hotel de Paris, the date the night before, the words few and unmistakable:

To the Manager of the English Bank. Please hand my letters to bearer.

Henry Hunterleys.

He read it over, letter by letter, word by word. Then at last he looked up. His voice sounded, even to himself, unnatural.

"You were quite right," he said. "This order is a forgery."

The manager was greatly disturbed. He threw open the door of his private office.

"Come and sit down for a moment, will you, Sir Henry?" he invited. "This is a very serious matter, and I should like to discuss it with you."

They passed behind into the comfortable little sitting-room, smelling of morocco leather and roses, with its single high window, its broad writing-table, its carefully placed easy-chairs. Men had pleaded in here with all the eloquence at their command, men of every rank and walk in life, thieves, nobles, ruined men and pseudo-millionaires, always with the same cry—money; money for the great pleasure-mill which day and night drew in its own. Hunterleys sank heavily into a chair. The manager seated himself in an official attitude before his desk.

"I am sorry to have distressed you with this letter, Sir Henry," he said. "However, you must admit that things might have been worse. It is fortunately our invariable custom, when letters are addressed to one of our clients in our care, to deliver them to no one else under any circumstances. If you had been ill, for instance, I should have brought you your correspondence across to the hotel, but I should not have delivered it to your own secretary. That, as I say, is our invariable rule, and we find that it has saved many of our clients from inconvenience. In your case," the manager concluded impressively, "your communications being, in a sense, official, any such attempt as has been made would not stand the slightest chance of success. We should be even more particular than in any ordinary case to see that by no possible chance could any correspondence addressed to you, fall into other hands."

Hunterleys began to recover himself a little. He drew towards himself the heap of letters which the manager had laid by his side.

"Please make yourself quite comfortable here," the latter begged. "Read your letters and answer them, if you like, before you go out. I always call this," he added, with a smile, "the one inviolable sanctuary of Monte Carlo."

"You are very kind," Hunterleys replied. "Are you sure that I am not detaining you?"

"Not in the least. Personally, I am not at all busy. Three-quarters of our business, you see, is merely a matter of routine. I was just going to shut myself up here and read the Times. Have a cigarette? Here's an envelope opener and a waste-paper basket. Make yourself comfortable."

Hunterleys glanced through his correspondence, rapidly reading and destroying the greater portion of it. He came at last to two parchment envelopes marked "On His Majesty's Service." These he opened and read their contents slowly and with great care. When he had finished, he produced a pair of scissors from his waistcoat pocket and cut the letters into minute fragments. He drew a little sigh of relief when at last their final destruction was assured, and rose shortly afterwards to his feet.

"I shall have to go on to the telegraph office," he said, "to send these few messages. Thank you very much, Mr. Harrison, for your kindness. If you do not mind, I should like to take this forged order away with me."

The manager hesitated.

"I am not sure that I ought to part with it," he observed doubtfully.

"Could you recognise the person who presented it—you or your clerk?"

The manager shook his head.

"Not a chance," he replied. "It was brought in, unfortunately, before I arrived. Young Parsons, who was the only one in the bank, explained that letters were never delivered to an order, and turned away to attend to some one else who was in a hurry. He simply remembers that it was a man, and that is all."

"Then the document is useless to you," Hunterleys pointed out. "You could never do anything in the matter without evidence of identification, and that being so, if you don't mind I should like to have it."

Mr. Harrison yielded it up.

"As you wish," he agreed. "It is interesting, if only as a curiosity. The imitation of your signature is almost perfect."

Hunterleys took up his hat. Then for a moment, with his hand upon the door, he hesitated.

"Mr. Harrison," he said, "I am engaged just now, as you have doubtless surmised, in certain investigations on behalf of the usual third party whom we need not name. Those investigations have reached a pitch which might possibly lead me into a position of some—well, I might almost say danger. You and I both know that there are weapons in this place which can be made use of by persons wholly without scruples, which are scarcely available at home. I want you to keep your eyes open. I have very few friends here whom I can wholly trust. It is my purpose to call in here every morning at ten o'clock for my letters, and if I fail to arrive within half-an-hour of that time without having given you verbal notice, something will have happened to me. You understand what I mean?"

"You mean that you are threatened with assassination?" the manager asked gravely.

"Practically it amounts to that," Hunterleys admitted. "I received a warning letter this morning. There is a very important matter on foot here, Mr. Harrison, a matter so important that to bring it to a successful conclusion I fancy that those who are engaged in it would not hesitate to face any risk. I have wired to England for help. If anything happens that it comes too late, I want you, when you find that I have disappeared, even if my disappearance is only a temporary matter, to let them know in London—you know how—at once."

The manager nodded.

"I will do so," he promised. "I trust, however," he went on, "that you are exaggerating the danger. Mr. Billson lived here for many years without any trouble."

Hunterleys smiled slightly.

"I am not a Secret Service man," he explained. "Billson's successor lives here now, of course, and is working with me, under the usual guise of newspaper correspondent. I don't think that he will come to any harm. But I am here in a somewhat different position, and my negotiations in the east, during the last few weeks, have made me exceedingly unpopular with some very powerful people. However, it is only an outside chance, of course, that I wish to guard against. I rely upon you, if I should fail to come to the bank any one morning without giving you notice, to do as I have asked."

Hunterleys left the bank and walked out once more into the sunlight. He first of all made his way down to the Post Office, where he rapidly dispatched several cablegrams which he had coded and written out in Mr. Harrison's private office. Afterwards he went on to the Terrace, and finding a retired seat at the further end, sat down. Then he drew the forged order once more from his pocket. Word by word, line by line, he studied it, and the more he studied it, the more hopeless the whole thing seemed. The handwriting, with the exception of the signature, which was a wonderful imitation of his own, was the handwriting of his wife. She had done this thing at Draconmeyer's instigation, done this thing against her husband, taken sides absolutely with the man whom he had come to look upon as his enemy! What inference was he to draw? He sat there, looking out over the Mediterranean, soft and blue, glittering with sunlight, breaking upon the yellow stretch of sand in little foam-flecked waves no higher than his hand. He watched the sunlight glitter on the white houses which fringed the bay. He looked idly up at the trim little vineyards on the brown hill-side. It was the beauty spot of the world. There was no object upon which his eyes could rest, which was not beautiful. The whole place was like a feast of colour and form and sunshine. Yet for him the light seemed suddenly to have faded from life. Danger had only stimulated him, had helped him to cope with the dull pain which he had carried about with him during the last few months. He was face to face now with something else. It was worse, this, than anything he had dreamed. Somehow or other, notwithstanding the growing estrangement with his wife which had ended in their virtual separation, he had still believed in her, still had faith in her, still had hope of an ultimate reconciliation. And behind it all, he had loved her. It seemed at that moment that a nightmare was being formed around him. A new horror was creeping into his thoughts. He had felt from the first a bitter dislike of Draconmeyer. Now, however, he realised that this feeling had developed into an actual and harrowing jealousy. He realised that the man was no passive agent. It was Draconmeyer who, with subtle purpose, was drawing his wife away! Hunterleys sprang to his feet and walked angrily backwards and forwards along the few yards of Terrace, which happened at that moment to be almost deserted. Vague plans of instant revenge upon Draconmeyer floated into his mind. It was simple enough to take the law into his own hands, to thrash him publicly, to make Monte Carlo impossible for him. And then, suddenly, he remembered his duty. They were trusting him in Downing Street. Chance had put into his hands so many threads of this diabolical plot. It was for him to checkmate it. He was the only person who could checkmate it. This was no time for him to think of personal revenge, no time for him to brood over his own broken life. There was work still to be done—his country's work....

He felt the need of change of scene. The sight of the place with its placid, enervating beauty, its constant appeal to the senses, was beginning to have a curious effect upon his nerves. He turned back upon the Terrace, and by means of the least frequented streets he passed through the town and up towards the hills. He walked steadily, reckless of time or direction. He had lunch at a small inn high above the road from Cannes, and it was past three o'clock when he turned homewards. He had found his way into the main road now and he trudged along heedless of the dust with which the constant procession of automobiles covered him all the while. The exercise had done him good. He was able to keep his thoughts focussed upon his mission. So far, at any rate, he had held his own. His dispatches to London had been clear and vivid. He had told them exactly what he had feared, he had shown them the inside of this scheme as instinct had revealed it to him, and he had begged for aid. One man alone, surrounded by enemies, and in a country where all things were possible, was in a parlous position if once the extent of his knowledge were surmised. So far, the plot had not yet matured. So far, though the clouds had gathered and the thunder was muttering, the storm had not broken. The reason for that he knew—the one person needed, the one person for whose coming all these plans had been made, had not yet arrived. There was no telling, however, how long the respite might last. At any moment might commence this conference, whose avowed purpose was to break at a single blow, a single treacherous but deadly blow, the Empire whose downfall Selingman had once publicly declared was the one great necessity involved by his country's expansion....

Hunterleys quenched his thirst at a roadside café, sitting out upon the pavement and drinking coarse red wine and soda-water. Then he bought a packet of black cigarettes and continued his journey. He was within sight of Monte Carlo when for the twentieth time he had to step to the far side of the pathway to avoid being smothered in dust by an advancing automobile. This time, by some chance, he glanced around, attracted by the piercing character of its long-distance whistle. A high-powered grey touring car came by, travelling at a great pace. Hunterleys stood perfectly rigid, one hand grasping the wall by the side of which he stood. Notwithstanding his spectacles and the thick coating of dust upon his clothes, the solitary passenger of the car was familiar enough to him. It was the man for whom this plot had been prepared. It was Paul Douaille, the great Foreign Minister into whose hands even the most cautious of Premiers had declared himself willing to place the destinies of his country!

Hunterleys pursued the road no longer. He took a ticket at the next station and hurried back to Monte Carlo. He went first to his room, bathed and changed, and, passing along the private passage, made his way into the Sporting Club. The first person whom he saw, seated in her accustomed place at her favourite table, was his wife. She beckoned him to come over to her. There was a vacant chair by her side to which she pointed.

"Thank you," he said, "I won't sit down. I don't think that I care to play just now. You are fortunate this afternoon, I trust?"

Something in his face and tone checked that rush of altered feeling of which she had been more than once passionately conscious since the night before.

"I am hideously out of luck," she confessed slowly. "I have been losing all day. I think that I shall give it up."

She rose wearily to her feet and he felt a sudden compassion for her. She was certainly looking tired. Her eyes were weary, she had the air of an unhappy woman. After all, perhaps she too sometimes knew what loneliness was.

"I should like some tea so much," she added, a little piteously.

He opened his lips to invite her to pass through into the restaurant with him. Then the memory of that forged order still in his pocket, flashed into his mind. He hesitated. A cold, familiar voice at his elbow intervened.

"Are you quite ready for tea, Lady Hunterleys? I have been in and taken a table near the window."

Hunterleys moved at once on one side. Draconmeyer bowed pleasantly.

"Cheerful time we had last night, hadn't we?" he remarked. "Glad to see your knock didn't lay you up."

Hunterleys disregarded his wife's glance. He was suddenly furious.

"All Monte Carlo seems to be gossiping about that little contretemps," Draconmeyer continued. "It was a crude sort of hold-up for a neighbourhood of criminals, but it very nearly came off. Will you have some tea with us?"

"Do, Henry," his wife begged.

Once again he hesitated. Somehow or other, he felt that the moment was critical. Then a hand was laid quietly upon his arm, a man's voice whispered in his ear.

"Monsieur will be so kind as to step this way for a moment—a little matter of business."

"Who are you?" Hunterleys demanded.

"The Commissioner of Police, at monsieur's service."

CHAPTER XI

HINTS TO HUNTERLEYS

Hunterleys, in accordance with his request, followed the Commissioner downstairs into one of the small private rooms on the ground floor. The latter was very polite but very official.

"Now what is it that you want?" Hunterleys asked, a little brusquely, as soon as they were alone.

The representative of the law was distinctly mysterious. He had a brown moustache which he continually twirled, and he was all the time dropping his voice to a whisper.

"My first introduction to you should explain my mission, Sir Henry," he said. "I hold a high position in the police here. My business with you, however, is on behalf of a person whom I will not name, but whose identity you will doubtless guess."

"Very well," Hunterleys replied. "Now what is the nature of this mission, please? In plain words, what do you want with me?"

"I am here with reference to the affair of last night," the other declared.

"The affair of last night?" Hunterleys repeated, frowning. "Well, we all have to appear or be represented before the magistrates to-morrow morning. I shall send a lawyer."

"Quite so! Quite so! But in the meantime, something has transpired. You and the young American, Mr. Richard Lane, were the only two who offered any resistance. It was owing to you two, in fact, that the plot was frustrated. I am quite sure, Sir Henry, that every one agrees with me in appreciating your courage and presence of mind."

"Thank you," Hunterleys replied. "Is that what you came to say?"

The other shook his head.

"Unfortunately, no, monsieur! I am here to bring you certain information. The chief of the gang, Armand Martin, the man whom you attacked, became suddenly worse a few hours ago. The doctors suspect internal injuries, injuries inflicted during his struggle with you."

"I am very sorry to hear it," Hunterleys said coolly. "On the other hand, he asked for anything he got."

"Unfortunately," the Commissioner continued, "the law of the State is curiously framed in such matters. If the man should die, as seems more than likely, your legal position, Sir Henry, would be most uncomfortable. Your arrest would be a necessity, and there is no law granting what I believe you call bail to a person directly or indirectly responsible for the death of another. I am here, therefore, to give you what I may term an official warning. Your absence as a witness to-morrow morning will not be commented upon—events of importance have called you back to England. You will thereby be saved a very large amount of annoyance, and the authorities here will be spared the most regrettable necessity of having to deal with you in a manner unbefitting your rank."

Hunterleys became at once thoughtful. The whole matter was becoming clear to him.

"I see," he observed. "This is a warning to me to take my departure. Is that so?"

The Commissioner beamed and nodded many times.

"You have a quick understanding, Sir Henry," he declared. "Your departure to-night, or early to-morrow morning, would save a good deal of unpleasantness. I have fulfilled my mission, and I trust that you will reflect seriously upon the matter. It is the wish of the high personage whom I represent, that no inconvenience whatever should befall so distinguished a visitor to the Principality. Good day, monsieur!"

The official took his leave with a sweep of the hat and many bows. Hunterleys, after a brief hesitation, walked out into the sun-dappled street. It was the most fashionable hour of the afternoon. Up in the square a band was playing. Outside, two or three smart automobiles were discharging their freight of wonderfully-dressed women and debonair men from the villas outside. Suddenly a hand fell upon his arm. It was Richard Lane who greeted him.

"Say, where are you off to, Sir Henry?" he inquired.

Hunterleys laughed a little shortly.

"Really, I scarcely know," he replied. "Back to London, if I am wise, I suppose."

"Come into the Club," Richard begged.

"I have just left," Hunterleys told him. "Besides, I hate the place."

"Did you happen to notice whether Mr. Grex was in there?" Richard enquired.

"I didn't see him," Hunterleys answered. "Neither," he added significantly, "did I see Miss Grex."

"Well, I am going in to have a look round, anyway," Richard decided. "You might come along. There's nothing else to do in this place until dinner-time."

Hunterleys suffered himself to be persuaded and remounted the steps.

"Tell me, Lane," he asked curiously, "have you heard anything about any of the victims of our little struggle last night—I mean the two men we tackled?"

Richard shook his head.

"I hear that mine has a broken wrist," he said. "Can't say I am feeling very badly about that!"

"I've just been told that mine is going to die," Hunterleys continued.

The young man laughed incredulously.

"Why, I went over the prison this morning," he declared. "I never saw such a healthy lot of ruffians in my life. That chap whom you tackled—the one with the revolver—was smoking cigarettes and using language—well, I couldn't understand it all, but what I did understand was enough to melt the bars of his prison."

"That's odd," Hunterleys remarked drily. "According to the police commissioner who has just left me, the man is on his death-bed, and my only chance of escaping serious trouble is to get out of Monte Carlo to-night."

"Are you going?"

Hunterleys shook his head.

"It would take a great deal more than that to move me just now," he said, "even if I had not suspected from the first that the man was lying."

Richard glanced at his companion a little curiously.

"I shouldn't have said that you were having such a good time, Sir Henry," he observed; "in fact I should have thought you would have been rather glad of an opportunity to slip away."

Hunterleys looked around them. They had reached the top of the staircase and were in sight of the dense crowd in the rooms.

"Come and have a drink," he suggested. "A great many of these people will have cleared off presently."

"I'll have a drink, with pleasure," Richard answered, "but I still can't see why you're stuck on this place."

They strolled into the bar and found two vacant places.

"My dear young friend," Hunterleys said, as he ordered their drinks, "if you were an Englishman instead of an American, I think that I would give you a hint as to the reason why I do not wish to leave Monte Carlo just at present."

"Can't see what difference that makes," Richard declared. "You know I'm all for the old country."

"I wonder whether you are," Hunterleys remarked thoughtfully. "I tell you frankly that if I thought you meant it, I should probably come to you before long for a little help."

"If ever you do, I'm your man," Richard assured him heartily. "Any more scraps going?"

Hunterleys sipped his whisky and soda thoughtfully. There had been an exodus from the room to watch some heavy gambling at Trente et Quarante, and for a moment they were almost alone.

"Lane," he said, "I am going to take you a little into my confidence. In a way I suppose it is foolish, but to tell you the truth, I am almost driven to it. You know that I am a Member of Parliament, and you may have heard that if our Party hadn't gone out a few years ago, I was to have been Foreign Minister."

"I've heard that often enough," Lane assented. "I've heard you quoted, too, as an example of the curse of party politics. Just because you are forced to call yourself a member of one Party you are debarred from serving your country in any capacity until that Party is in power."

"That's quite true," Hunterleys admitted, "and to tell you the truth, ridiculous though it seems, I don't see how you're to get away from it in a practical manner. Anyhow, when my people came out I made up my mind that I wasn't going to just sit still in Opposition and find fault all the time, especially as we've a real good man at the Foreign Office. I was quite content to leave things in his hands, but then, you see, politically that meant that there was nothing for me to do. I thought matters over and eventually I paired for six months and was supposed to go off for the benefit of my health. As a matter of fact, I have been in the Balkan States since Christmas," he added, dropping his voice a little.

"What the dickens have you been doing there?"

"I can't tell you that exactly," Hunterleys replied. "Unfortunately, my enemies are suspicious and they have taken to watching me closely. They pretty well know what I am going to tell you—that I have been out there at the urgent request of the Secret Service Department of the present Government. I have been in Greece and Servia and Roumania, and, although I don't think there's a soul in the world knows, I have also been in St. Petersburg."

"But what's it all about?" Richard persisted. "What have you been doing in all these places?"

"I can only answer you broadly," Hunterleys went on. "There is a perfectly devilish scheme afloat, directed against the old country. I have been doing what I can to counteract it. At the last moment, just as I was leaving Sofia for London, by the merest chance I discovered that the scene for the culmination of this little plot was to be Monte Carlo, so I made my way round by Trieste, stayed at Bordighera and San Remo for a few days to put people off, and finally turned up here."

"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lane muttered. "And I thought you were just hanging about for your health or because your wife was here, and were bored to death for want of something to do."

"On the contrary," Hunterleys assured him, "I was up all night sending reports home—very interesting reports, too. I got them away all right, but there's no denying the fact that there are certain people in Monte Carlo at the present moment who suspect my presence here, and who would go to any lengths whatever to get rid of me. It isn't the actual harm I might do, but they have to deal with a very delicate problem and to make a bargain with a very sensitive person, and they are terribly afraid that my presence here, and a meeting between me and that person, might render all their schemes abortive."

Richard's face was a study in astonishment.

"Well," he exclaimed, "this beats everything! I've read of such things, of course, but one only half believes them. Right under our very noses, too! Say, what are you going to do about it, Sir Henry?"

"There is only one thing I can do," Hunterleys replied grimly. "I am bound to keep my place here. They'll drive me out if they can. I am convinced that the polite warning I have received to leave Monaco this afternoon because of last night's affair, is part of the conspiracy. In plain words, I've got to stick it out."

"But what good are you doing here, anyway?"

Hunterleys smiled and glanced carefully around the room. They were still free from any risk of being overheard.

"Well," he said, "perhaps you will understand my meaning more clearly if I tell you that I am the brains of a counterplot. The English Secret Service has a permanent agent here under the guise of a newspaper correspondent, who is in daily touch with me, and he in his turn has several spies at work. I am, however, the dangerous person. The others are only servants. They make their reports, but they don't understand their true significance. If these people could remove me before any one else could arrive to take my place, their chances of bringing off their coup here would be immensely improved."

"I suppose it's useless for me to ask if there's anything I can do to help?" Richard enquired.

"You've helped already," Hunterleys replied. "I have been nearly three months without being able to open my lips to a soul. People call me secretive, but I feel very human sometimes. I know that not a word of what I have said will pass your lips."

"Not a chance of it," Richard promised earnestly. "But look here, can't I do something? If I am not an Englishman, I'm all for the Anglo-Saxons. I hate these foreigners—that is to say the men," he corrected himself hastily.

Hunterleys smiled.

"Well, I was coming to that," he said. "I do feel hideously alone here, and what I would like you to do is just this. I would like you to call at my room at the Hotel de Paris, number 189, every morning at a certain fixed hour—say half-past ten. Just shake hands with me—that's all. Nothing shall prevent my being visible to you at that hour. Under no consideration whatever will I leave any message that I am engaged or have gone out. If I am not to be seen when you make your call, something has happened to me."

"And what am I to do then?"

"That is the point," Hunterleys continued. "I don't want to bring you too deeply into this matter. All that you need do is to make your way to the English Bank, see Mr. Harrison, the manager, and tell him of your fruitless visit to me. He will give you a letter to my wife and will know what other steps to take."

"Is that all?" Richard asked, a little disappointed. "You don't anticipate any scrapping, or anything of that sort?"

"I don't know what to anticipate," Hunterleys confessed, a little wearily. "Things are moving fast now towards the climax. I promise I'll come to you for help if I need it. You can but refuse."

"No fear of my refusing," Richard declared heartily. "Not on your life, sir!"

Hunterleys rose to his feet with an appreciative little nod. It was astonishing how cordially he had come to feel towards this young man, during the last few hours.

"I'll let you off now," he said. "I know you want to look around the tables and see if any of our friends of last night are to be found. I, too, have a little affair which I ought to have treated differently a few minutes ago. We'll meet later."

Hunterleys strolled back into the rooms. He came almost at once face to face with Draconmeyer, whom he was passing with unseeing eyes. Draconmeyer, however, detained him.

"I was looking for you, Sir Henry!" he exclaimed. "Can you spare me one moment?"

They stood a little on one side, out of the way of the moving throng of people. Draconmeyer was fingering nervously his tie of somewhat vivid purple. His manner was important.

"Do you happen, Sir Henry," he asked, "to have had any word from the prison authorities to-day?"

Hunterleys nodded.

"I have just received a message," he replied. "I understand that the man with whom I had a struggle last night has received some internal injuries and is likely to die."

Draconmeyer's manner became more mysterious. He glanced around the room as though to be sure that they were not overheard.

"I trust, Sir Henry," he said, "that you will not think me in any way presumptuous if I speak to you intimately. I have never had the privilege of your friendship, and in this unfortunate disagreement between your wife and yourself I have been compelled to accept your wife's point of view, owing to the friendship between Mrs. Draconmeyer and herself. I trust you will believe, however, that I have no feelings of hostility towards you."

"You are very kind," Hunterleys murmured.

His face seemed set in graven lines. For all the effect the other's words had upon him, he might have been wearing a mask.

"The law here in some respects is very curious," Draconmeyer continued. "Some of the statutes have been unaltered for a thousand years. I have been given to understand by a person who knows, that if this man should die, notwithstanding the circumstances of the case, you might find yourself in an exceedingly awkward position. If I might venture, therefore, to give you a word of disinterested advice, I would suggest that you return to England at once, if only for a week or so."

His eyes had narrowed. Through his spectacles he was watching intently for the effect of his words. Hunterleys, however, only nodded thoughtfully, as though to some extent impressed by the advice he had received.

"Very likely you are right," he admitted. "I will discuss the matter with my wife."

"She is playing over there," Draconmeyer pointed out. "And while we are talking in a more or less friendly fashion," he went on earnestly, "might I give you just one more word of counsel? For the sake of the friendship which exists between our wives, I feel sure you will believe that I am disinterested."

He paused. Hunterleys' expression was now one of polite interest. He waited, however, for the other to continue.

"I wish that you could persuade Lady Hunterleys to play for somewhat lower stakes."

Hunterleys was genuinely startled for a moment.

"Do you mean that my wife is gambling beyond her means?" he asked.

Draconmeyer shrugged his shoulders.

"How can I tell that? I don't know what her means are, or yours. I only know that she changes mille notes more often than I change louis, and it seems to me that her luck is invariably bad. I think, perhaps, just a word or two from you, who have the right to speak, might be of service."

"I am very much obliged to you for the hint," Hunterleys said smoothly. "I will certainly mention the matter to her."

"And if I don't see you again," Draconmeyer concluded, watching him closely, "good-bye!"

Hunterleys did not appear to notice the tentative movement of the other's hand. He was already on his way to the spot where his wife was sitting. Draconmeyer watched his progress with inscrutable face. Selingman, who had been sitting near, rose and joined him.

"Will he go?" he whispered. "Will our friend take this very reasonable hint and depart?"

Draconmeyer's eyes were still fixed upon Hunterleys' slim, self-possessed figure. His forehead was contorted into a frown. Somehow or other, he felt that during their brief interview he had failed to score; he had felt a subtle, underlying note of contempt in Hunterleys' manner, in his whole attitude.

"I do not know," he replied grimly. "I only hope that if he stays, we shall find the means to make him regret it!"

CHAPTER XII

"I CANNOT GO!"

Hunterleys stood for several minutes, watching his wife's play from a new point of view. She was certainly playing high and with continued ill-fortune. For the first time, too, he noticed symptoms which disturbed him. She sat quite motionless, but there was an unfamiliar glitter in her eyes and a hardness about her mouth. It was not until he had stood within a few feet of her for nearly a quarter of an hour, that she chanced to see him.

"Did you want me?" she asked, with a little start.

"There is no hurry," he replied. "If you could spare me a few moments later, I should be glad."

She rose at once, thrusting her notes and gold into the satchel which she was carrying, and stood by his side. She was very elegantly dressed in black and white, but she was pale, and, watching her with a new intentness, he discovered faint violet lines under her eyes, as though she had been sleeping ill.

"I am rather glad you came," she said. "I was having an abominable run of bad luck, and yet I hated to give up my seat without an excuse. What did you want, Henry?"

"I should like," he explained, "to talk to you for a quarter of an hour. This place is rather crowded and it is getting on my nerves. We seem to live here, night and day. Would you object to driving with me—say as far as Mentone and back?"

"I will come if you wish it," she answered, looking a little surprised. "Wait while I get my cloak."

Hunterleys hired an automobile below and they drove off. As soon as they were out of the main street, he thrust his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat and smoothed out that half-sheet of notepaper upon his knee.

"Violet," he said, "please read that."

She read the few lines instructing the English Bank to hand over Sir Henry Hunterleys' letters to the bearer. Then she looked up at him with a puzzled frown.

"I don't understand."

"Did you write that?" he enquired.

She looked at him indignantly.

"What an absurd question!" she exclaimed. "Your correspondence has no interest for me."

Her denial, so natural, so obviously truthful, was a surprise to him. He felt a sudden impulse of joy, mingled with shame. Perhaps, after all, he had been altogether too censorious. Once more he directed her attention to the sheet of paper. There was a marked change in his voice and manner.

"Violet," he begged, "please look at it. Accepting without hesitation your word that you did not write it, doesn't it occur to you that the body of the letter is a distinct imitation of your handwriting, and the signature a very clever forgery of mine?"

"It is rather like my handwriting," she admitted, "and as for the signature, do you mean to say really that that is not yours?"

"Certainly not," he assured her. "The whole thing is a forgery."

"But who in the world should want to get your letters?" she asked incredulously. "And why should you have them addressed to the bank?"

He folded up the paper then and put it in his pocket.

"Violet," he said earnestly, "for the disagreements which have resulted in our separation I may myself have been to some extent responsible, but we have promised one another not to refer to them again and I will not break our compact. All I can say is that there is much in my life which you know little of, and for which you do not, therefore, make sufficient allowance."

"Then you might have treated me," she declared, "with more confidence."

"It was not possible," he reminded her, "so long as you chose to make an intimate friend of a man whose every interest in life is in direct antagonism to mine."

"Mr. Draconmeyer?"

"Mr. Draconmeyer," he assented.

She smiled contemptuously.

"You misunderstand Mr. Draconmeyer completely," she insisted. "He is your well-wisher and he is more than half an Englishman. It was he who started the league between English and German commercial men for the propagation of peace. He formed one of the deputation who went over to see the Emperor. He has done more, both by his speeches and letters to the newspaper, to promote a good understanding between Germany and England, than any other person. You are very much mistaken about Mr. Draconmeyer, Henry. Why you cannot realise that he is simply an ordinary commercial man of high intelligence and most agreeable manners, I cannot imagine."

"The fact remains, my dear Violet," Hunterleys said emphatically, "that it is not possible for me to treat you with the confidence I might otherwise have done, on account of your friendship with Mr. Draconmeyer."

"You are incorrigible!" she exclaimed. "Can we change the subject, please? I want to know why you showed me that forged letter?"

"I am coming to that," he told her. "Please be patient. I want to remind you of something else. So far as I remember, my only request, when I gave you your liberty and half my income, was that your friendship with the Draconmeyers should decrease. Almost the first persons I see on my arrival in Monte Carlo are you and Mr. Draconmeyer. I learn that you came out with them and that you are staying at the same hotel."

"Your wish was an unreasonable one," she protested. "Linda and I were school-girls together. She is my dearest friend and she is a hopeless invalid. I think that if I were to desert her she would die."

"I have every sympathy with Mrs. Draconmeyer," he said slowly, "but you are my wife. I am going to make one more effort—please don't be uneasy—not to re-establish any relationship between us, but to open your eyes as to the truth concerning Mr. Draconmeyer. You asked me a moment ago why I had shown you that forged letter. I will tell you now. It was Draconmeyer who was the forger."

She leaned back in her seat. She was looking at him incredulously.

"You mean to say that Mr. Draconmeyer wrote that order—that he wanted to get possession of your letters?"

"Not only that," Hunterleys continued, "but he carried out the business in such a devilish manner as to make me for a moment believe that it was you who had helped him. You are wrong about Draconmeyer. The man is a great schemer, who under the pretence of occupying an important commercial position in the City of London, is all the time a secret agent of Germany. He is there in her interests. He studies the public opinion of the country. He dissects our weaknesses. He is there to point out the best methods and the opportune time for the inevitable struggle. He is the worst enemy to-day England has. You think that he is here in Monte Carlo on a visit of pleasure—for the sake of his wife, perhaps. Nothing of the sort! He is here at this moment associated with an iniquitous scheme, the particulars of which I can tell you nothing of. Furthermore, I repeat what I told you on our first meeting here—that in his still, cold way he is in love with you."

"Henry!" she cried.

"I cannot see how you can remain so wilfully blind," Hunterleys continued. "I know the man inside out. I warned you against him in London, I warn you against him now. This forged letter was designed to draw us further apart. The little brown man who has dogged your footsteps is a spy employed by him to make you believe that I was having you watched. You are free still to act as you will, Violet, but if you have a spark of regard for me or yourself, you will go back to London at once and drop this odious friendship."

She leaned back in the car. They had turned round now and were on the way back to Monte Carlo by the higher road. She sat with her eyes fixed upon the mountains. Her heart, in a way, had been touched, her imagination stirred by her husband's words. She felt a return of that glow of admiration which had thrilled her on the previous night, when he and Richard Lane alone amongst that motley company had played the part of men. A curious, almost pathetic wistfulness crept into her heart. If only he would lean towards her at that moment, if she could see once more the light in his eyes that had shone there during the days of their courtship! If only he could remember that it was still his part to play the lover! If he could be a little less grave, a little less hopelessly correct and fair! Despite her efforts to disbelieve, there was something convincing about his words. At any moment during that brief space of time, a single tremulous word, even a warm clasp of the hand, would have brought her into his arms. But so much of inspiration was denied him. He sat waiting for her decision with an eagerness of which he gave no sign. Nevertheless, the fates were fighting for him. She thought gratefully, even at that moment, yet with less enthusiasm than ever before, of the devout homage, the delightful care for her happiness and comfort, the atmosphere of security with which Draconmeyer seemed always to surround her. Yet all this was cold and unsatisfying, a poor substitute for the other things. Henry had been different once. Perhaps it was jealousy which had altered him. Perhaps his misconception of Draconmeyer's character had affected his whole outlook. She turned towards him, and her voice, when she spoke, was no longer querulous.

"Henry," she said, "I cannot admit the truth of all that you say concerning Mr. Draconmeyer, but tell me this. If I were willing to leave this place to-night—"

She paused. For some reason a sudden embarrassment had seized her. The words seemed to come with difficulty. She turned ever so slightly away from him. There was a tinge of colour at last in her pale cheeks. She seemed to him now, as she leaned a little forward in her seat, completely beautiful.

"If I make my excuses and leave Monte Carlo to-night," she went on, "will you come with me?"

He gave a little start. Something in his eyes flashed an answer into her face. And then the flood of memory came. There was his mission. He was tied hand and foot.

"It is good of you to offer that, Violet," he declared. "If I could—if only I could!"

Already her manner began to change. The fear of his refusal was hateful, her lips were trembling.

"You mean," she faltered, "that you will not come? Listen. Don't misunderstand me. I will order my boxes packed, I will catch the eight o'clock train either through to London or to Paris—anywhere. I will do that if you will come. There is my offer. That is my reply to all that you have said about Mr. Draconmeyer. I shall lose a friend who has been gentleness and kindness and consideration itself. I will risk that. What do you say? Will you come?"

"Violet, I cannot," he replied hoarsely. "No, don't turn away like that!" he begged. "Don't change so quickly, please! It isn't fair. Listen. I am not my own master."

"Not your own master?" she repeated incredulously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I am here in Monte Carlo not for my own pleasure. I mean that I have work, a purpose—"

"Absurd!" she interrupted him, almost harshly. "There is nobody who has any better claim upon you than I have. You are over-conscientious about other things. For once remember your duty as a husband."

He caught her wrist.

"You must trust me a little," he pleaded. "Believe me that I really appreciate your offer. If I were free to go, I should not hesitate for a single second.... Can't you trust me, Violet?" he implored, his voice softening.

The woman within her was fighting on his side. She stifled her wounded feelings, crushed down her disappointment that he had not taken her at once into his arms and answered her upon her lips.

"Trust me, then," she replied. "If you refuse my offer, don't hint at things you have to do. Tell me in plain words why. It is not enough for you to say that you cannot leave Monte Carlo. Tell me why you cannot. I have invited you to escort me anywhere you will—I, your wife.... Shall we go?"

The woman had wholly triumphed. Her voice had dropped, the light was in her eyes. She swayed a little towards him. His brain reeled. She was once more the only woman in the world for him. Once more he fancied that he could feel the clinging of her arms, the touch of her lips. These things were promised in her face.

"I tell you that I cannot go!" he cried sharply. "Believe me—do believe me, Violet!"

She pulled down her veil suddenly. He caught at her hand. It lay passively in his. He pleaded for her confidence, but the moment of inspiration had gone. She heard him with the air of one who listens no longer. Presently she stopped him.

"Don't speak to me for several minutes, please," she begged. "Tell him to put me down at the hotel. I can't go back to the Club just yet."

"You mustn't leave me like this," he insisted.

"Will you tell me why you refuse my offer?" she asked.

Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo

MR. GREX OF MONTE CARLO

BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

AUTHOR OF "THE VANISHED MESSENGER," "A PEOPLE'S MAN," "THE MISCHIEF MAKER"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WILL GREFÉ

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1915

THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.

She leaned across and with trembling fingers backed number fourteen en plein.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS