“Your father is not in politics, is he?”
Hamer asked.
She shook her head.
“He is interested, of course, but outside it all. That is where I think France is wrong. The old aristocracy are looked upon coldly whenever they make any attempt to serve their country, yet no one cares for France more than we do, Hamer!”
“Dearest.”
“Will you say yes if I ask you a favour?”
“I should think it highly probable, if it’s anything about this dance I’m all for it.”
They gilded off together—a kind of slow blues—the movements of which were so smooth that they formed no hindrances to conversation.
“This is my favour,” she said. “Of course, I have been all over her once, but I want to thoroughly explore the Bird of Paradise.”
“Why, you’re welcome to do that whenever you choose,” he assented promptly. “Any day you like. I don’t mind confessing that after certain events and certain inexplicable happenings lately I have been going round myself with a hammer and divining rod—speaking metaphorically.”
“Did you discover anything?”
“Not a thing. I have done my best, but I can’t see anything about her which makes her worth even a penny more than the eighteen hundred pounds I gave for her. There is no space for hidden treasure of any very large amount, and the people who are chiefly interested in her don’t seem like people who are hungry for money. There’s a woman there,” he added, moving his head slightly in the direction of a couple a little ahead of them, “who could probably give us an idea what to look for.”
“The Princess!” the girl exclaimed. “I don’t think that she knows anything.”
“Why did she turn my cabin inside out, then?” Hamer demanded. “Why did she put stuff in my coffee? What did she come to the boat at all for?”
“She is an impulsive creature,” Lucienne declared. “I never mentioned the drug, of course, but I did ask her why she turned all your things inside out after you had been so kind and pulled her out of the water. She insisted upon it that all she wanted was a scarf! Her neck was cold, and she wanted to hide the jewellery she was wearing! Be careful, Hamer. She is coming to speak to us. That is the Marquis de St. Pierre she is with.”
Louise and her escort came up to the table at which the others had just reseated themselves. Hamer Wildburn was introduced. There was a little family conversation, then Louise turned smilingly to the young American.
“And my beautiful boat,” she asked, “where you made me so comfortable when I was stupid and overturned my canoe? You are taking care of it?”
“I am doing my best,” he assured her. “I never dreamed that I was acquiring so popular a possession when I bought her.”
“She is coming into the family very soon,” Lucienne confided. “I am going to marry Mr. Wildburn, although my people don’t know it yet, and he has promised me the ‘Bird of Paradise‘ for a wedding present.”
Louise was a little startled.
“I congratulate Mr. Wildburn heartily,” she said, “and of course, my dear Lucienne, you know that I wish you every happiness. I regret, though, that he has promised you the ‘Bird of Paradise.’ I want to buy it. I told him so that night. You wouldn’t rather have a pearl necklace, would you, dear? We might make an exchange.”
“You don’t suppose that one could barter the wedding present of a bridegroom to his bride?” Lucienne protested. “When it becomes mine it is mine for ever. I am not sure that I shall keep her where she is. You are all so jealous. I think I shall take her round into our private harbour on the other side…”
“Tell me about dear Armand,” Louise begged. “I haven’t seen him for a whole day. I don’t think he looks in the least rested.”
“We met him on the Aigle Noir this afternoon,” Wildburn remarked. “He seemed all right. Lonely life for him up there, I should think. No distraction and nothing but messengers going backwards and forwards all the time.”
“That’s the worst of French politics, especially if a man is in the Cabinet,” Louise sighed. “A Minister is never left alone even on his vacation. Busy little secretaries with their portfolios follow him about wherever he is. That’s why so many of them go into hiding. Armand, too, is so conscientious. That reminds me—I have invited myself to lunch there to-morrow. I shall try and make him take me out somewhere…Is this a joke of yours, Lucienne, or are you and Mr. Wildburn really engaged?”
“We are waiting for the family sanction,” the girl replied. “I telephone father every day and warn him that terrible things are going on here, but it doesn’t seem to hurry him up. Since he developed this intense interest in politics and finance Paris seems to draw him like a magnet.”
“You will permit me,” the Marquis intervened, “to offer you my heartfelt wishes for your happiness, Lucienne, and to congratulate you, sir,” he added, turning to Wildburn. “If the hour of the night permitted I would suggest that we drink your health, As it is,” glancing towards Louise, “I am afraid that we must be leaving.”
“I am at your disposition, St. Pierre,” she told him.
“Your mention of your father reminds me that I saw him in Paris three days ago,” the Marquis remarked as he shook hands with Lucienne.”
“Enjoying himself?” she asked.
“Very much the reverse, I should say,” the Marquis replied.
“He was with two very well known men lunching at Henry’s and discussing some apparently weighty matter with great vigour.”
“I thought you never left your property here now, Marquis,” Lucienne observed, shaking her finger at him.
“I leave very seldom,” he admitted. “On this occasion I found Paris unbelievably triste. Everyone seems to be moving about as though they were bowed down with woe and expecting a thunderstorm at any moment. Of gaiety there is very little. My heart was light for the first time when I returned to my château here.”
“What is it all about, anyway?” Wildburn asked. “I have an office in Paris and I hear very much the same reports, but no one seems to know why. France has at least succeeded in getting together a strong and reputable Cabinet. She is the only nation which seems to understand finance—bleeding us poor foreigners to death, as a matter of fact. I should think that everyone ought to be walking on tiptoe.”
“How can one tell where one gets these feelings from?” the Marquis sighed, “So far as I am concerned, it is perhaps because I am growing old. The wines which I used to find so wonderful in my favourite restaurants seem to have lost their flavour. The girls dance with heavy feet. Their eyes call no longer. The little chansons which once amused us so are toneless. Perhaps it is Paris that is growing old.”
“Au revoir,” Louise exclaimed. “I must lake my old friend away or I shall have the migraine.”
“A nice cheerful old bird, that,” Hamer Wildburn observed dolefully, a moment or two later.
“The trouble with St. Pierre,” Lucienne murmured, as she rose to her feet, “is that he has too much courage to admit defeat. He is really seventy-five years old and he thinks that he is sixty-five. He has an income of perhaps a million francs, and he believes that it is three—which I believe it was not long ago. He was too devoted to his wife to ever marry again, and he has too good taste to care about a housekeeper.”
“Pretty good summing up for an ingenue,” Hamer Wildburn acknowledged, as he paid the bill.
CHAPTER XVII
Table of Contents
Soon after midnight Perissol, sitting in his shirt sleeves before his desk, was disturbed by the entrance of Raymond, the chief of his secretaries. The young man was looking grave.
“Mon General,” he announced. “I regret to say that our private wire to Paris has probably been tampered with. I can get no connection.”
“Ring up on the other exchange,” Perissol ordered. “Speak to the night chef. Tell him to report the breakdown to Monsieur Laporte, and if the line is not in order by nine o’clock to-morrow morning L
aporte himself is suspended. You understand that?”
“Parfaitement, monsieur. An important message has just come through very much delayed on the ordinary line.”
“Well?”
“Monsieur Lavandou has just passed through Avignon on his way southward.”
“Coming to see me?”
“That was the message. Monsieur Lavandou is travelling by automobile, and paused only for a moment, leaving the message to be transmitted by the telephone bureau.”
“Lavandou on his way here!” the General repeated. “What does that mean? There is no news of Chauvanne or we should have had it upon the wireless.”
“None whatever. Two or three of the Paris evening papers have commented upon the fact. They have communicated with Lloyd’s in London. The yacht Monsieur Chauvanne is on has not been reported since she left Cherbourg.”
“And Lavandou on his way here,” Perissol meditated. “Pass word down to the lodge, Raymond, that Monsieur Lavandou’s car is to be sent through without delay.”
“That is already done, General,” the secretary replied. “May I suggest, in view of what must be an important interview, that you have an hour’s sleep? Lavandou’s car can scarcely get here before four o’clock.”
The General leaned back in his chair, a little wearily. He dropped his eyeglass and smoothed his eyes.
“On the contrary, Raymond,” he said, “I think I will get into the pool for a quarter of an hour. I certainly could not sleep until I know Lavandou’s mission. What time are you off duty?”
“Another five hours, General. I only came on at eleven o’clock. Andre will relieve me then. He knows already about the telephone.”
“The message to the commandant at Antibes went through on the local line, I suppose?” Perissol inquired.
“Quite early this evening, General. The commandant’s reply was that everything was prepared.”
Perissol dismissed the young man with a nod. Afterwards he passed through the French windows, descended the terrace, and, reaching the swimming pool, slipped off his clothes and plunged in. For a quarter of an hour he swam peacefully. Then, with a sigh of contentment, he dried himself with towels from a hidden grotto, and resumed his clothes. He lit a cigar and paced the terrace which surrounded the villa, his brow furrowed with thought, a new anxiety added to the cares of the moment…Chauvanne was without a doubt the one vulnerable spot in the Cabinet, Lavandou, his understudy, was to be trusted, but here was Lavandou, after only a month of office, on his way down rushing southwards obviously with tidings of great import…Perissol took little notice of the falling moon, which had been flooding the whole bay and the surrounding country with beauty. He watched only the distant road with its many twists and turns, which led from Cannes. It was fruitless watching for the end brought pain rather than relief. A furiously-driven car came tearing up the last few corkscrew bends, lights flashing and horn blowing. A few minutes later a middle-aged man, his possibly official clothes covered by a motoring duster, his hair and face powdered with dust, stumbled out through the hastily-opened door on to the terrace.
“My dear Lavandou,” the General exclaimed, “you are worn out. Don’t tell me that you have come from Paris in the day?”
“I left at six o’clock this morning,” the man replied, sinking on to one of the garden seats. “Of course, I meant to fly, but the aviation ground was watched. The authorities advised me by telephone that no plane was available for me. I suppose if I had ventured there it would have been the end. They say that there are assassins at every corner in Paris.”
“But what is it then that has arrived?” Perissol demanded anxiously. “The last time we met you were exuberant with joy over your new appointment. What is this catastrophe that has brought you here in such a state? For heaven’s sake, explain.”
“I have made a horrible discovery,” the newcomer groaned, throwing his hat away from him and passing his hands through his dust-sprinkled hair.
“Surely it can’t be so horrible as all that,” Perissol remonstrated. “You want food and drink, I can see. Afterwards, perhaps affairs will shape differently.”
“Wine, perhaps,” the other assented. “Food afterwards. Mon General, I think the world is coming to an end!”
“Well, that has to happen some time,” was the philosophical response.
“Then it had better happen now,” Lavandou declared.
A servant brought out wine. The tired man drank feverishly.
“The chauffeur,” he begged. “Please see to his wants. He has driven like one inspired.”
“His wants will be attended to,” his host assured him. “Now, Lavandou,” he added, as soon as the door was closed. “No more of this suspense. Let me have your news if you have any.”
“France lately,” Lavandou faltered, “has lost by death or disgrace some of her finest sons, yet the debacle has not yet begun. One begins to fear for others—others more trusted—more beloved.”
The General looked around. He drew his friend through the French windows into the study and closed the door.
“Spies even here?” Lavandou asked bitterly. “One never knows,” was the even rejoinder. “I have learnt caution in my later days. It appears to me that you are going to speak of serious things.”
“You shall judge. You will remember that my appointment was made only a short time before Chauvanne was to leave for his long delayed vacation, I had several interviews with him and learnt the outline of my work. At the final one he seemed to me a little mysterious.
“‘If you come to anything, Lavandou,’ he instructed, ‘that you do not understand place it on one side until my return. Do not seek the advice of anyone else. You and I and our staff are to run this bureau. You understand?’
“Of course, I assured him that I understood perfectly. I have dealt with big figures all my life, as you know, General, and I had no fears. Nevertheless, I determined to leave nothing to chance. I asked him to give me his destination secretly in case anything of great importance should happen. He shook his head. There was that queer look about his eyes that I had noticed during the last six or seven months.
“‘I am not going to give you the chance of communicating with me, Lavandou,’ he replied. ‘My doctor tells me that unless I get a complete rest I shall become a wreck for life. I am leaving on a yacht in three days’ time, and I am sailing westwards. I shall touch no port until I am obliged to and I have given orders to have the wireless disconnected. Voila. Continue with the routine work and leave anything you don’t understand for my return.’ That was his farewell.”
“It seems reasonable enough.” Perissol commented.
“Wait! The first task which fell to my lot was to tabulate; and master the details of the recently subscribed 5 per cent. National Loan. The papers have announced the subscription of nine hundred millions. The actual amount received was thirteen hundred millions.”
The General smiled.
“My dear Lavandou,” he expostulated. “A mistake of four hundred millions is incredible.”
“That is the curse of it!” Lavandou cried. “There could not be a mistake. There is not a mistake. Do you not understand what I am telling you? Four hundred millions of francs have disappeared from the Treasury books! They have gone into space—into air—whatever you like. But we are not talking now of possible mistakes. They have gone where many another hundred million has gone during the last 12 months.”
Perissol was serious enough now.
“There is no possibility of any blunder, my friend?” he asked hoarsely.
“None whatever, my General,” was the agonised reply. “Four hundred million francs have disappeared and two men, beside myself and Chauvanne, must be aware of this.”
“Who are they?”
“Edouard Mermillon and the Baron de Brett.”
“Mermillon!”
There was a brief silence. Perissol was standing with folded arms looking into space. In the fading light he seemed to have grown in stature. He wa
s like some emblematical figure of past ages standing up to greet the morning.
“The one man who might have saved the country,” he murmured. “The one man concerning whom no word of scandal has ever been spoken.”
“De Brett was without a doubt at the back of it,” Lavandou groaned. “That is easily proved. It is the whole of the subscriptions from Belgium which are unaccounted for.”
“Do they know at the bureau what you have discovered?” Perissol asked.
“They might surmise,” Lavandou acknowledged. “I discovered days ago that I am surrounded by spies. I am convinced that a record has been kept of how many hours I have been at the bureau, where I have lunched and dined and with whom I have conversed. Early this morning I rang up an aerodrome. Within a few minutes afterwards I had word from a friend that I had better not ask for a ‘plane.”
“And you?”
“Of course I asked for one. It was official business and I had a perfect right to. The reply came almost at once. There was no private ‘plane available for at least 48 hours.”
“And Chauvanne is still away on that infernal yachting cruise?”
“Bound for an unknown port without wireless. That is what they believe at the Bureau, at any rate, and what he told me. It was because I could not communicate with him that I tried to solve what seemed to be quite a trifling matter myself. In the course of my attempts I stumbled upon the truth. I take no credit for this thing, General, but I assure you that a super-accountant with the most astute financial brain in Europe might go over these accounts day after day without making the discovery that I did. It was entirely due to my not being able to ask the chief a single question and having to invent a checking system of my own.”
The General buried his face for a moment in his hands.
“Where is this thing going to end?” he groaned.
“In the ruin of France,” Lavandou replied solemnly. “You and I will survive, if we survive at all, to see her in the hands of the Communists. We shall see her a country without soul or living purpose drifting to her ruin.”
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