The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
“No doubt,” he laughed. “No doubt. Perhaps she’ll express a sudden desire to return to Paris to-morrow! I shouldn’t wonder.”
“But tell me, Regnier,” I urged, “why should I drop her?”
“I suppose Bindo has placed her in your hands, eh? He’s left the Riviera, and left you to look after her!”
“Well, and what of that? Do you object? We’re not interfering with any of your plans, are we?”
The pair exchanged glances. In the countenances of both was a curious look, one which aroused my suspicion.
“Oh, my dear fellow, not at all!” laughed Regnier. “I’m only telling you for your own good.”
“Then you imply that she might betray us to the police, eh?”
“No, not that at all.”
“Well, what?”
The pair looked at each other a second time, and then Regnier said—
“Unfortunately, Ewart, you don’t know Pierrette—or her friend.”
“Friend! Is it a male friend?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s a mystery.”
“Well,” I declared, “I don’t fear this Mister Mystery. Why should I?”
“Then I tell you this—if you continue to dance attendance on her as you are doing you’ll one night get a knife in your back. And you wouldn’t be the first fellow who’s received a stab in the dark through acquaintanceship with the pretty Pierrette, I can tell you that!”
“Then this mysterious person is jealous!” I laughed. “Well, let him be. I find Pierrette amusing, and she adores motoring. Your advice, mon cher Regnier, is well meant, but I don’t see any reason to discard my little charge.”
“Then you won’t take my advice?” he asked in an irritated tone.
“Certainly not. I thank you for it, but I repeat that I’m quite well able to look after myself in case of a ‘scrap’—and further, that I don’t fear the jealous lover in the least degree.”
“Then, if you don’t heed,” he said, “you must take the consequences.”
And the pair, turning on their heels, walked off without any further words.
VI
THE MAN WITH THE LONG NOSE
The next day, the next, and three other succeeding days, I spent nearly wholly with Pierrette and Madame.
A telegram I received from Bindo from the Maritime Station at Calais asked if Mademoiselle was still at Beaulieu, and to this I replied in the affirmative to Clifford Street.
I took the pair up the beautiful Var valley to Puget Theniers, to Grasse and Castellane, and through the Tenda tunnel to Cuneo, in Piedmont—runs which, in that clear, cloudless weather, both of them enjoyed. When alone with my dainty little companion, as I sometimes contrived to be, I made inquiry about her missing father.
Mention of him brought to her a great sadness. She suddenly grew thoughtful and apprehensive—so much so, indeed, that I felt convinced her story as told to me was the truth.
Once, when we were seated together outside a little café up at Puget Theniers, I ventured to mention the matter to Madame.
“Ah! M’sieur Ewart,” exclaimed the old lady, holding up both her hands,“it is extraordinary—very extraordinary! The whole affair is a complete mystery.”
“But is there no suspicion of foul play? Do not the police, for instance, suspect Monsieur Martin?”
“Suspect him? Certainly not,” was her quick response. “Why should they?”
“Well, he has disappeared also, I understand. He is missing, as well as the jewels.”
“Depend upon it, m’sieur, both gentlemen are victims of some audacious plot. Your London is full of clever thieves.”
I smiled within myself. Little did Madame dream that she was at that moment talking with a member of the smartest and boldest gang of jewel-thieves who had ever emerged from “the foggy island.”
“Yes,” I said sympathetically, “there are a good many expert jewel-thieves in the metropolis, and it seems very probable that they knew, by some means, that Monsieur Dumont and his clerk were staying at the Charing Cross Hotel and—” I did not finish my sentence.
“And—what?” asked Madame.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“It must be left to the police, I think, to solve the mystery.”
“But they are powerless,” complained Madame. “Monsieur Lepine, in Paris, expressed his utter contempt for your English police methods. And, in the meantime, Monsieur the father of Mademoiselle has disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up.”
“What I fear is that my dear father is dead,” exclaimed the pretty Pierrette, with tears in her fine eyes. “One reads of such terrible things in the journals.”
“No, no,” I hastened to reassure her. “I do not think so. If one man alone lay between the thieves and jewels of that value—well, then we might perhaps apprehend such a catastrophe. But there were two—two able-bodied men, who were neither children nor fools. No,” I went on,“my own opinion is that there may be reasons—reasons of which you are entirely unaware—which have led your father to bury himself and his clerk for the present, to reappear later. Men often have secrets, mademoiselle—secrets that they do not tell others—not even their wives or daughters.”
Mine was a somewhat lame opinion, I knew, but I merely expressed it for want of something better to say.
“But he would never have kept me in this suspense,” she declared. “He would have sent me word in secret of his safety.”
“He may have gone on a long sea-voyage, and if so, would be unable. Suppose he has gone to Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Ayres?”
“But why should he go?” asked the dark-eyed girl. “His affairs are all in order, are they not, madame?”
“Perfectly,” declared the old woman. “As I was saying last evening to the English gentleman whom we have met in the hotel—what was his name, Pierrette?”
“Sir Charles Blythe,” replied the other.
I could not help giving a start at mention of that name.
Blythe was there—at Beaulieu!
I think Pierrette must have noticed the change in my countenance, for she asked—
“Do you happen to know him? He’s a most charming gentleman.”
“I’ve heard of him, but do not know him personally,” was my response.
I had last seen Sir Charles in Brussels, three months before; but his reappearance at Beaulieu showed quite plainly that there was more in progress concerning the pretty Pierrette than even I imagined.
“Then you told Sir Charles Blythe about Monsieur Dumont’s disappearance?” I asked Madame, much interested in this new phase of the affair, and yet at the same time puzzled that Pierrette had apparently not told Bindo about the affair when they met in London.
“Yes,” answered the queer old lady with the rough voice. “He was most sympathetic and interested. He said that he knew one of the chiefs at your Scot-len Yarde, and that he would write to him.”
The idea of an old thief like Blythe writing to Scotland Yard was, to me, distinctly amusing.
Had Bindo sent him to Beaulieu to keep