The Mysterious Three

by William Le Queux

during theafternoon at one of my usual haunts, Tattersall's sale yard. I thoughtit probable I should there run across somebody or other I knew, and Iwas not mistaken. At the entrance I overtook a little man whose figureI could not mistake. The little sporting parson from a village outsideOakham was a great friend of mine, and he had told me that, whenever intown for a week-end he invariably went to Tattersall's on the Sundayafternoon to see what horses were to be sold there next day.

  "Not that I can afford to buy a horse, oh dear no!" I remembered himsaying to me in the drawing-room at Houghton. "You know what parson'sfamilies are. Mine is no exception to the rule!"

  I had upbraided him for his lack of forethought, and he had chuckled,adding seriously that in his opinion the falling birth rate spelt thedownfall of the Nation, a point upon which I had differed from him morethan once.

  "Hullo, Rowan!" I exclaimed, as I overtook him, and quietly slipped myarm into his from behind, making him start. "I see you spoke the truththat day."

  He was frankly delighted to see me. I knew he would be, for he is oneof the few Rutlanders I have met who are wholly devoid of what someAmericans term "frills." I believe that if I were in rags and carryinga sandwich-board and I met little Rowan in the streets of Londonto-morrow, he would come up to me and grasp me by the hand. There arenot many men of whom one can say that. I don't suppose more than tenper cent, of my acquaintances, if as many, would look at me again ifnext week I became a pauper.

  "What truth, and when?" he asked, in answer to my remark.

  "Don't you remember telling me," I said, "I believe it was the last timewe hunted together, that when in London you always do two things? Yousaid: `I always attend service on Sunday morning, and Tattersall's onSunday afternoon.' How is the old cob?"

  "Getting old, Dick, getting old, like his master," Rowan said with atouch of pathos. "I hear the Hunt talk of buying me another mount. Itis good of them; very good. I am not supposed to know, of course."

  "And so you have come to find something up to your weight, eh?" I wenton. He does not, I suppose, ride more than eight stone twelve in hishunting kit. He is the wiriest little man I have ever seen.

  "No," he answered. "I have come to have a last look at Sir CharlesThorold's stud. It comes under the hammer to-morrow, as, of course, youknow."

  "Thorold's horses to be sold!" I exclaimed. "I had no idea. Then hehas said good-bye to Rutland for good and all. I am sorry."

  "So am I, very. He is a man I have always liked. Naturally his name isin rather bad odour in the county just at present, but that does not inthe least affect my own regard for him."

  "It wouldn't," I said to him. "You are not that sort, Rowan. It is apity there are not more like you about."

  He changed the subject by asking if I had seen Sir Charles and LadyThorold lately.

  "I have not seen Lady Thorold since the Houghton affair," I answered."I have seen Sir Charles, but not to speak to."

  I recollected how I had caught a glimpse of him in that house inBelgrave Street.

  "You have heard the latest about Miss Thorold, of course?" he said, aswe passed into the Yard, which at this hour--about four o'clock--wascrowded with well-dressed men and women.

  "The latest? What do you mean?"

  "Dear me," he exclaimed, smiling. "Why, we country cousins know morethan you men about town after all, sometimes. She's at Monte Carlo."

  "At Monte? Vera Thorold!"

  "Yes."

  "What is she doing there? Who is with her?"

  "I don't know who's with her, or if any one is with her. She is prettyindependent, as you know, and well able to take care of herself--atypical twentieth century girl."

  "But who told you she was at Monte?"

  "Several people. Ah! there's Lord Logan! He'll tell us. He wasspeaking of her yesterday. He returned from the Riviera only a coupleof days ago."

  CHAPTER TWELVE.

  GOSSIP FROM THE SUNSHINE.

  "Oh, yes, that's right enough," Lord Logan said, when we questioned him."I saw her the night before I left. She was playingtrente-et-quarante--and winning a bit, too, by Gad!"

  He was an ordinary type of the modern young peer--well-set-up,unemotional, faultlessly groomed. He produced a gold cigarette case ashe spoke, and held it out to me. I noticed that the cigarettes itcontained bore his coat of arms.

  "These cigarettes are not likely to be stolen from you," I said lightly,indicating the coat of arms.

  He smiled.

  "You are right. I was the first to start the fashion--get 'em fromCairo every week--and now everybody's doin' it, haw, haw! I've got mycartridges done the same way. At some places where one shoots thebeater fellers rob one right and left--the devils. I said to one of myhosts the other day, I said: `Your cartridge carriers are a lot of ballyrogues.' `What do you mean?' he asked, bristlin' up like a well-bredbull-dog. `Well,' I said, `you make 'em all turn out their pockets, andyou'll see,' I said. And he did!"

  "And what was in them?"

  "In them? Damme, what wasn't in them? My dear feller, every beater whohad carried cartridges had a dozen or two cartridges in his pocketsthen--it's a fact. And we'd done shootin', and the beaters were goin'home, so they couldn't pretend they were just carryin' the ballycartridges in their pockets to have 'em handy. But there wasn't acartridge of mine missing among the lot. They knew only too well theywouldn't be able to sell to the local ironmonger cartridges with a coatof arms on 'em--eh what? And that's why I now have my cigarettestattooed in the same way. I believe my servants used to rob them by thehundred. They don't now, except perhaps a handful to smoke themselves,and of course that's only natural. What was it you were askin' me justnow? Ah, yes, about Vera Thorold. She seems to be a flyer."

  "Did you speak to her?"

  "Oh, yes, I talked to her right enough. She did look well. Simplylovely. White cloth frock, you know. She's all alone at Monte, stayin'at the _Anglais_."

  "Did she say how long she'd be there?"

  "No. I didn't ask her. She was winnin' the night I saw her. I neversaw such devil's luck--never. I lost over a thousand on the week, so Ithought it time to pay my hotel bill--what?"

  The three of us made the tour of Tattersall's together, admiring,criticising, fault-finding. Among Thorold's horses was the mare I hadridden on that last day I had been at Houghton. What a long time agothat seemed! I felt tempted to make a bid for her next day, she hadcarried me so well.

  Then I thought again of my well-beloved. What an extraordinary girl shewas! Ah! how I loved her. Why had she not told me that she meant to goto the Riviera? Why--

  An idea flashed in upon me. I was getting bored with the mad hurry ofLondon. This would be a good excuse for running out to the Cote d'Azur.Indeed, my chief reason for remaining in town had been that I believedVera to be there still, either in hiding for some reason of her own, or,what I had thought far more likely, forced against her will by thatblackguard Paulton to remain in concealment and keep me in ignorance ofher whereabouts.

  Instead of that she was "on her own"--how I hate that slang phrase--atMonte Carlo `winnin' a fortune,' as Lord Logan had put it.

  "A strange world, my masters!" Never were truer words spoken. Thelonger I live the more I realise its strangeness. When I arrived atMonte Carlo by the day rapide from Paris, rain was pelting down intorrents, and a fierce storm was raging. Wind shrieked along thestreets. Out at sea, lightning flashed in the bay, while the thunderrattled like artillery fire. I was glad to find myself in the warm,brilliantly-lit _Hotel de Paris_, and when, after dinner, I strolledinto the fumoir, it was so crowded that I had difficulty in finding anyplace to sit.

  Among the group of men close to whom I presently found myself,conversation had turned upon the pigeon-shooting at Monte. From theirremarks I gathered that an important event had been decided that day,the Prix de--I forget what, but the prize appeared to be a much covetedcup, with a considerable sum in added money. This had been won, itseeme
d, by a Belgian Count, who had killed twenty-seven pigeons withouta miss.

  "_Mais c'est epatant--vraiment epatant_!" declared an excitable littleFrenchman, as he pulled forward his chair. He went on to explain, withgreat volubility and much gesticulation, the difficulties that some ofthe shots had presented. This Frenchman, I gathered further, had backedthe Belgian Count every time from his first shot to the last, and had inconsequence won a lot of money.

  Time was when trap-shooting appealed to me. I have shot pigeons