“The most brilliant politician France has had for years,” a famous banker declared.
“Almost the only one who has come through all these terrible scandals scatheless,” someone else remarked.
“Scatheless personally, but they may yet prove his ruin,” a woman of great consequence observed. “There is calm just now, but the people of France will never forgive if they are kept in ignorance as to what has become of all those other missing millions. They will always have the idea that they have been swindled.”
The signal to leave came at last, and a somewhat turgid babble of small talk came to an end. Everyone hoped that they would catch another glimpse of the great French statesman in the Sporting Club. Edouard Mermillon, however, was no gambler with jetons.
CHAPTER V
Table of Contents
Rumours of an unlimited baccarat bank presided over by the fabulously wealthy Belgian banker, Baron de Brett, filled the Sporting Club that evening. With rolls of notes in front of him and stacks of the famous hundred thousand franc plaques, making the small space immediately around him at the end of the table look rather like a remote comer of Aladdin’s cave, the Baron himself—bland unruffled, with a large cigar in his mouth and a gleam of pleasure in his eyes—won and lost millions on the turn of a card. There were many very distinguished people amongst the crowd, but the great French statesman, of whom everyone had hoped to catch a glimpse, and who had been a guest at the Royal dinner party, was absent, as was also another visitor to the rooms, who was always a great attraction, the Princess de Fantany.
“Most disappointing,” an English Cabinet Minister complained to his host. “I don’t care a fig about this spectacular gambling—it may be a put-up job for all anyone knows—but if there was one man in this world with whom I wished for five minutes’ conversation before I leave for Italy to-morrow it was Edouard Mermillon.”
His host for the evening—a well-known American resident of the place, who had long ago shaken himself free from the trammels of international finance and politics—expressed his polite regrets.
“Mermillon very seldom comes this way,” he confided, “and when he does he is almost as difficult to get hold of as royalty itself. I know for certain that he left directly after dinner. His hat and coat are gone, and the concierge called his car.”
The Englishman sighed.
“A private word with him might have been immensely useful,” he grumbled. “You do not interest yourself in our troubles nowadays, Mason, but I can tell you that they are real enough.”
“I have had plenty of worry in my time,” the American replied. “My stuff now is invested where neither the mice nor the tigers can get at it, and I’ve quit worrying.”
“It is not altogether a matter of finance,” the Englishman remarked.
“I had a kind of idea,” Mr. Seth Mason observed, rolling round his cigar between his fingers, “that affairs in France were looking pretty good these days. She is the quaintest country on the face of the map. She has done everything in the most illogical fashion, she ought to be in trouble in half a dozen different quarters, and she isn’t. It has all panned out right for her, somehow. A good many people say that it is mostly due to this chap you wanted to get hold of—Mermillon.”
“He is the man with the brains,” the Englishman admitted. “In my opinion, if he had the chance, he could be a greater man and a greater figure in Europe than any of these opportunist dictators.”
“The only question about him in my mind,” the American put in, “is whether he is dead square.”
“What makes you suspect him?” the other asked curiously.
“There is no doubt that he is the man who saved France from revolution after those governmental scandals. It was just dawning upon the people that the Tositi affair was nothing but a pimple on a huge body of corruption. They were just beginning to seethe with fury, to demand something more than these sham investigations, when Mermillon takes the matter into his hands. There is no doubt that with his eloquence and his cleverness he has calmed things down for the moment. The other fellows were all for putting taxes on to make up the deficiency. He took ‘em off. If you want to put a Frenchman in a good humour you take off a tax in which he is interested. Some day or other, however, one or two pretty awkward questions will have to be answered, especially if an honest budget is presented. When that time comes Mermillon will have to declare himself.”
The Englishman rose gloomily to his feet.
“I would be quite content to let the future look after itself if I could have had that five minutes’ talk with Edouard Mermillon tonight,” he declared. “See you later, Mason, I’m going to watch the baccarat and get a word with de Brett if I can. He is a great friend of Mermillon’s and if he’s coming back he would be sure to know.”
The French Minister was not the only one who had hurried away from the Royal dinner party. Mermillon’s car had scarcely reached Villefranche when the famous car of the Princess de Fantany flashed past him. It was not for nothing that she had earned her reputation as a lover of speed. She possessed the fastest motor boat upon the coast, and the car into which she stepped on leaving the Sporting Club climbed the lighthouse hill at Antibes in something like 40 minutes after her departure. The iron gate before which it paused was opened by one of its three guardians, who appeared from some mysterious obscurity, without question. The car climbed the steep unlit avenue and drew up in front of what seemed like a deserted villa. A single touch of the bell, however, and the door was thrown open. Lights flashed out in every direction, and several shadowy figures approached towards Louise from the background. A young man hurried out to meet her.
“Monsieur le General is on the terrace, Princess.”
She passed across the hall and out through a side door, which the young man had opened for her, with the air of an habitue, and was received almost at once by another of the famous men of the day. He strode across the terrace to greet her from the small table at which he had been working with his secretary—a tall, brown-bearded man of powerful physique and quick, impulsive movements. He had the frame of a Hercules, and the iron jaw of a man of deeds, but his voice was unexpectedly gentle and restrained. The fixed eyeglass in his left eye somehow softened his expression.
“Louise, my dear friend,” he exclaimed as he took her into his arms. “This is indeed a beautiful surprise. I had no idea you would have been able to get away from the party so early.”
“There was nothing more I could do there,” she confided, sinking into the chair to which he led her. “Besides, I have news for you.”
He waved his secretary away. They were alone in the shadow of the pine trees.
“Something which happened at the dinner?” he inquired.
“Let me tell you,” she begged. “I was placed next to Edouard Mermillon. Lily arranged that for me, it was quite easy. You were right, of course, in all your information. He and de Brett are both on board the ‘Aigle Noir.’ But there is something else.”
“Well?”
“Events are moving quickly. They have only just arrived, but he has already been on board the ‘Bird of Paradise.’ He has tried to buy it—he offered even an absurd price. This young man, Hamer Wildburn, who owns the boat must know.”
“Mon Dieu! But how did you arrive at this information?”
“From Lily Montelimar. She, too, was dining. Lucienne, her daughter, has made friends with Hamer Wildburn, the young man who owns the boat. She told her mother of my foolish little enterprise and of their visit. Fortunately the young man doesn’t know me by sight.”
“Wildburn’s dossier is harmless enough,” General Perissol reflected.
“There is more to tell you, Armand. I fear that it means complications. He knows of your presence here.”
“Ah!”
“For your sake beloved,” she went on, “I have sacrificed my reputation. He believes that you come here secretly to be near me—as indeed you did before this thing happened. It is so, is it not,
Armand?”
“For no other reason,” he assured her. “It seems to me then that no great harm is done.”
She clung to his arm.
“Alas, there is worse to be told,” she went on anxiously. “You must not be angry, my lover. It was all the result of that foolish hope of mine that I might be of use to you. He knows that I, too, have visited the ‘Bird of Paradise.’”
“That is without doubt awkward,” ha admitted.
“You remember the Marie Antoinette necklace that I bought in London?” she continued. “He also was at the sale. As a matter of fact he was bidding against me. I am wearing it—as you see. He recognised it and he saw that the pendant was missing. I dropped that pendant on the ‘Bird of Paradise.’ He saw it there.”
Perissol’s expression was for a moment grim. He remained silent, however.
“My dear,” she went on, clinging to his arm, “I was so ashamed of my ridiculous failure—the attempt, I think, came from reading these foolish English detective stories, in which the woman always seems to be able to do anything—that I never made any inquiries even about my emerald. I was willing to consider it lost, although it is invaluable, if the young man didn’t find out to whom it belonged and return it. But there you are. He saw it, and he knows of my visit. You are not angry, Armand?”
“Not I,” he answered fondly. “What you don’t realise, my dear Louise, is this. You bring more valuable information than you have given away. Edouard Mermillon should never have let you know of his visit to that young man. It is the first mistake I have ever detected in him. You tell me that he has actually been on board the Bird of Paradise?”
“I know it for a fact,” she replied. “Not only that, but I know that he tried to buy the boat. That, of course, he would not have told me, but he knows nothing about the girl and her friendship with the young man. Two boats in the same harbour—it was nothing that he should have paid a visit. It is just chance that I found out the real object of the visit.”
“After all,” he assured her with a smile, “you have been much cleverer than you had any idea of. Lily Montelimar is your cousin, isn’t she? The young man is, of course, a friend of the family. Your visit to him might easily be explained. Louise, I thank you. With the whole of my staff, who can be trusted watching, you are the first one who has brought me anything definite.”
She leaned a little forward, and she gave him what his eyes demanded. He held her tightly in his arms for several minutes, then he released her, sat back in his chair and tapped thoughtfully upon the table.
“The owner of the Bird of Paradise, this young man, Hamer Wildburn, refused to sell,” he reflected. “What, then, will be Mermillon’s next step? It must be something rapid beyond a doubt, something he must have already decided upon when he was so naive with you.”
He looked away into the darkness for a few moments, then he rose suddenly to his feet. It was as though he had received some disturbing inspiration. He called for his secretary, who appeared almost at once.
“Raymond,” he inquired, “can you tell me who is the Admiral in charge at Toulon?”
“Bien sûr, Monsieur. He is Admiral Montreux, and his flagship is the Revanche.”
“The private line is in order?”
“Without a doubt, sir.”
“An all night service, of course?”
“Parfaitement, mon General.”
“Get through to the Admiral. An official message of importance. I will speak myself.”
The young man faded away.
“You are in no hurry, Louise?” Perissol asked, resuming his seat.
“Am I ever in a hurry when I come to see you?” she protested, with a faint smile.
“You spoil me,” he answered tenderly. “But then you know how much your presence soothes me, how I love having you here.”
He touched a bell. A maître d’hotel appeared a moment or so later.
“Jean,” his master announced, “I said no dinner, but I will eat something—cold things. Don’t forget my favourite cheese, some fruit and wine—you know the champagne Madame la Princesse prefers. Serve out here on this table. In the meantime an aperitif. You serve for two, of course.”
“But, mon ami,” Louise laughed as the man hurried away, “you forget that I have been to a Royal dinner party.”
“I know those feasts,” he answered. “Besides, if you were talking to our friend, what time had you to eat. I myself should not have dined, which, after all, is a bad thing. Gastronomically speaking, your arrival is a miracle for me, and your news a tonic. We shall hear a champagne cork pop under these trees.”
She looked around.
“You are well taken care of here?” she asked. “I have twenty night watchmen about the place and ten day ones,” he assured her, “I know there are men who desire my life, and with very good reason. For my country’s sake I do not take risks.”
Aperitifs were served whilst a couple of servants were making rapid preparations at the table. Perissol moved his chair closer to his guest’s and held her hand. They raised their glasses to one another.
“Great news,” he repeated. “All may now go well. Mermillon would never have taken the risk of trying to buy the boat himself if he had not been completely confident. It was a mistake. When a man makes his first mistake it leads easily to others.”
She raised her glass once more.
“I drink to the hope,” she said, “that the day of her deliverance is approaching for our beloved France.”
They set down their glasses empty. The first course of the supper which had been ordered appeared in an incredibly short space of time. As they took their seats the buzzer of the telephone which Raymond had placed upon the table was agitated. Perissol lifted up the receiver. The servant faded away.
“I speak with the battleship Revanche?” he asked. “The Admiral is on board?…Never mind if he is in bed or tired. This is a matter of public service. It is General Perissol speaking.”
There was a pause. Perissol covered the transmitter with his hand and spoke to his guest.
“It is a happy augury,” he declared. “The first step in our enterprise meets with success. Delay might have been fatal. The Admiral is on board.”
He replaced the receiver once more to his ear.
“Allo, allo! It is Admiral Montreux with whom I speak?…Good. I am Perissol—General Perissol. Listen, my confrere, listen!…Yes, I know that it is extraordinary, but the times are extraordinary…I assure you that I am General Perissol, Chef de la Surete Nationale, exercising the privileges of my new post. I can give you, if you wish, the code number of the naval branch of the Intelligence Department. Ah, you recognise my voice now. That is good. Listen, Admiral! I am a suppliant. If you telephoned me in distress and asked me for the sake of La Patrie to send you ten thousand policemen it would be done. I ask you for the loan of any one of your smallest armed craft, one that draws no more than ten metres, if possible, and armed—as lightly as you will, but armed—and with searchlights fitted…Garoupe—yes. Garoupe Bay—près d’Antibes…A thousand thanks, Admiral. Good things may come to both of us out of this, harm can come to neither…Good. A motor boat will be waiting outside the bay, and again a thousand thanks, dear Admiral…Termine.”
Perissol laid down the receiver, tapped on the table, and the servants reappeared. The service of the meal was soon in progress.
“Of course, I remain bewildered,” Louise observed.
Her host pointed through a narrow opening in the pine woods from which it was possible to obtain a view of the bay.
“Mermillon is not a man to be baulked,” he said. “For reasons we know of he wants that ship. For reasons which we do not know of, but which are almost as curious, the owner declines to sell it even at what must be an enormous profit. Common sense suggests the rest. You follow me?”
“My intelligence so far has been equal to the effort,” Louise assured him.
“Mermillon is following the tactics of one of the world’s conqu
erors. It was Caesar, I think, who said: ‘What I cannot possess I destroy.’ The Bird of Paradise is too interesting a yacht for us to stand by and see her destroyed, hence I seek protection for her.”
“Why not seize her boldly in the name of the Government?” Louise suggested.
“Remember, as yet I know nothing,” Perissol reminded her. “Edouard Mermillon is in far too strong a position for me to risk a stroke of that sort. At the present moment I suspect that he knows more than I do. Soon it may be the other way round, then I can assure you that I shall not hesitate.”
Louise meditated for a moment.
“Will the lion,” she asked, with a faint smile at the corners of her Ups, “take advice from the mouse?”
“Accepting your simile.” he replied promptly, “try me.”
“Mermillon knows that you are here. Why not make the first move yourself? After all, what is more natural than that you should pay a visit of ceremony or friendship, whichever you like to call it, upon a fellow Cabinet Minister?”
Perissol reflected for a moment, then he tool, her hand in his.
“The mouse has spoken,” he said. “I will pay that visit to-morrow morning.”
CHAPTER VI
Table of Contents
Mermillon himself received his unexpected caller at the head of the gangway. He had just emerged from the sea and the sting of the salt water had brought a faint glow into the ivory pallor of his cheeks.
“An unexpected pleasure, this, General,” he exclaimed, “until last night I had no idea that you were a visitor in these parts.”
Perissol smiled, accepted a cigarette and a chair.
“You are just from the sea,” he pointed out. “Please change your wet things. I shall remain here with great comfort.”
“I shall enjoy better a cigarette and a cup of coffee if I remain as I am,” Mermillon assured his visitor. “When the sun shines I have adopted the custom of using it instead of a towel. Besides, you are just from Paris, beyond a doubt. I am curious for your news.”
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