“Tell me,” she begged, “why you seem to worry no longer about the Bird of Paradise? Is there something which you have not confided to me?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing in the world, my dear Louise,” he assured her. “I have simply tried to look at the matter philosophically. The situation, as it exists down in the bay there, is a kind of stalemate. The young American is obstinate, perhaps not over-intelligent, but he is honest. He will not part with the boat or anything in her to a soul. She is his destined wedding present to Lucienne de Montelimar. There remains Edouard Mermillon, of course, and the Baron de Brett. I should find it hard to believe that Mermillon was personally concerned or incriminated in any records left by Tositi, but I can quite understand that for the sake of the stability of the Government he would loathe their appearance. On the other hand, what can he do about it? There lies the Fidélité with her guns trained upon the Bird of Paradise, and powerful enough to blow her out of the water at any moment, and searchlights to prevent her crawling out at any hour in the dark. What then can happen? You see the situation is still within my reach.”
“Exactly what do you mean by that?”
“It should be within my province,” he explained, “to land a mixed force of gendarmes and marines from the gunboat upon the Bird of Paradise, and with all proper diplomatic excuses to young Wildburn seize her in the name of the French Government.”
“To tell you the truth,” she said, “that is what I thought you would have done before now.”
“Supposing I did so,” he went on. “Supposing, in the course of a search by technical experts, I discovered these reports concealed in her by the cunning of Tositi. Supposing they incriminated Chauvanne, Despard, Montelimar indirectly perhaps, and more important than anyone, Mermillon, would I dare to pass that evidence on to the Commission? Would I dare to attack Mermillon in the Chamber, or even to hint a word concerning the honour of the President? To do so would be to let loose the dogs of war with a vengeance. From the Pyrenees to the Channel France would be in the throes of an earthquake, and what that earthquake might not spell for her heaven only knows.”
The faint shadow of trouble in Louise’s face deepened.
“You seem to have left out one possible contingency, Armand,” she reminded him. “There are men amongst the Communist party who are alive to every move in the game. I have noticed strange-looking people on the plage the last few days, and there is this woman from Marseilles—Tanya—who they say is a very firebrand amongst them. Think what it would mean if these records, or whatever they are, fall into their hands. They would have no scruple in publishing them. To plunge France into a revolution is the only way they could ever come into power. Sometimes I think that that is the greatest danger we have to face. That man Clairemond, who writes for even some of the decent papers, is brilliantly clever, and when he commits himself to print he is almost convincing. They say his speeches are different, but amazingly eloquent.”
“You give me something to reflect upon, Louise,” he admitted thoughtfully. “You put your hand upon the weak point in the situation without a doubt. Somehow or other Communism has failed so utterly wherever it has been put to the trial—Italy and Germany are glaring examples—that one thinks of it all the time as discredited. After all, though, its fundamentals skilfully handled by a person of moderation might be dangerous enough just now. The patriotic Frenchman has had a great deal to forgive during the last twelve months. He will have a great deal more to forgive before we are in smooth waters again.”
“Supposing the Communists get hold of these records?” she persisted bluntly.
“Under the guns of the Fidélité?” he asked incredulously.
“My dear Armand,” she remonstrated, “there is one quality, at least, you must remember that the Communists possess. They possess a desperate fanatical courage. Listen!”
There floated up to them from the plage below the strains of harsh but vivid singing in unison.
“You hear that?” Louise exclaimed. “You know what it is. It is the marching song of the Communists—their battle song. Armand! Only half a mile away from them lies the Bird of Paradise. Supposing they know!”
He rose quickly to his feet. She held his wrist. They both listened. Coming up the winding avenue they could hear the engine throbs of a high-powered car, the scrunching of gravel thrown away at the curves, then they saw the flashing of lights through the shrubs.
“Wait, Armand,” she begged. “Here comes news of some sort.”
The two men who hurried out on to the terrace, ushered there by Raymond with an entire lack of ceremony, were easily recognisable. There was Monsieur Vigon, the Mayor of Antibes, and by his side, a step or two already in front of him—for Monsieur Vigon had eaten of many banquets and was inclined to be obese—came Sarciron, the local head of police.
“We have disturbing news, sir, from below,” Raymond said quickly. “Monsieur Sarciron, please make your report.”
Sarciron wasted no words.
“Mademoiselle Tanya, the danseuse,” he announced, “who is perhaps the most dangerous figure amongst the Communists of the south here, is giving an extraordinary reception and dinner down on the plage. Fifty or sixty leaders of the party have come over from Marseilles in an autobus and all the leaders in this district from Cannes to Menton, and some few even from Lyons, have arrived. There are a hundred of them feasting there below and they seem to have some purpose. A report I have just received, General, declares that everyone of them is armed.”
“A dinner, eh? A feast?” the General exclaimed. “They sing—dance? They seem jovial?”
“They do nothing but sing the Red March,” Sarciron declared. “They mean mischief if ever a hundred men did mean mischief. They have left the scum behind. These are strong men we have to deal with.”
“How many gendarmes can you send down to the plage?” the General asked quickly.
“Not more than a dozen, sir,” Sarciron answered, “and two of them are under suspicion. They were discovered reading Communist literature.”
“Writing materials, Raymond, quickly. No, write yourself. Bring me the paper to sign. Write to Colonel Dupresson, or the Commanding Officer in charge of the Chasseurs Alpins at Antibes. Ask him to despatch one hundred to two hundred fully armed men, properly detailed on motor bicycles or in cars, to the plage here without a moment’s delay. Write a similar letter to General Fausson at Nice, but send the message to Antibes first.”
Raymond shot away into the darkness. Perissol lifted the telephone which stood upon the table and spoke to the house. Presently a young man of disturbed appearance hurried out.
“I am very sorry to report, sir,” he announced, “that the private telephone service which we had established between the Fidélité and this villa has been tampered with.”
“Tampered with?” the General repeated.
“The wire is quite dead,” the young man replied. “It has certainly been cut.”
“Go to the nearest point of the plage,” Perissol ordered. “Swim or row to the Fidélité and report. I shall send another messenger in case of accident. Ask them to fill their pinnace with as many fighting units as the ship can afford—fully armed. Tell the commander, with my compliments, that we are expecting an attack upon the Bird of Paradise by a gang of Communists. Order the car as you go out.”
The General took brusque leave of everybody.
“Louise,” he directed, “you remain here. Monsieur le Maire, if there is any sort of an aimed force you can muster at Antibes send them along, otherwise there is nothing you can do. Sarciron, back like the wind and bring all the gendarmes you can. Have your people telephone the alarm to Juan. Let it be understood that this is no ordinary Communist after-dinner riot. It is a serious affair with a serious object, and every Frenchman who refuses to serve on behalf of the law is asking for trouble. Spread that everywhere. What the mischief’s that?”
From down below in the bay came the dull booming of a gun. Almo
st immediately afterwards a strange sort of darkness seemed to hang over the bay. Louise ran lightly to the end of the terrace and jumped on to the parapet. She turned round—a shrouded, almost indistinguishable figure.
“The searchlights on the Fidélité have stopped!” she cried.
CHAPTER XXVII
Table of Contents
Hamer Wildburn, with the great headlights of his coupe flaming, swung round the last corner into the Garoupe lane which led to the plage and then jammed on his brakes furiously. Twenty or thirty yards in front of him someone was standing in the dusk swinging a lantern or torch. A shower of pebbles flew up. He skidded slightly but recovered. Finally he brought the car to a standstill within a few feet of the man in the road.
“What the devil—” he began.
Then he stopped. The man was well enough known, to him, one of the staff of the bathing beach who waited on him day by day. Something in his expression checked Hamer’s outburst.
“What is it?” the latter demanded, leaning a little wearily over the wheel. “What’s wrong. Pierre?”
The man put a foot upon the step and held on to the dashboard.
“It is impossible to say what is wrong, Monsieur,” he said, “but you should keep away. If you must return to your boat to-night go to the château landing stage and borrow a dinghy from there.”
“Why on earth should I put myself to all that trouble?” Hamer asked in astonishment.
The man tightened his grip upon the car.
“Monsieur,” he confided, “there’s bad business on at the plage, that is my belief, for all the gaiety and the popping of corks and the crowd of people. They have shoved me off, the Crestners have. They do not wish me around to-night. They will not have any of the regular staff. They have driven us out without dinner or excuse.”
Hamer was as tired as any man might be who had driven 500 kilometres without stopping from a ‘plane that lay smashed to pieces in a ditch, and a pilot on his way to hospital with a broken leg. He leaned forward to one of the pockets of the car, drew out a flask and took a drink of whisky.
“Try and explain, Pierre,” he begged. “I shall be better able to ask you questions in a moment.”
“It’s that young dancing woman that’s been creating such a furore at Juan-les-Pins,” Pierre explained. “She’s giving a huge party to-night. Crestners are not receiving any other guests and they’ve had to order 20 or 30 more tables. Nearly all the people have come from a distance and, Monsieur, they’re a wicked crowd or I never saw one. Forty came from Marseilles in one autobus. They looked like cut-throats and the lot from Nice were not much better.”
“Well, I don’t suppose they’ll stop me getting on my boat,” Hamer observed.
“That I know they mean to do,” was the emphatic warning. “There’s four of them standing in that little opening and no four criminals who ever stood together looked worse than they do! They’ve just stopped one young fellow in the darkness. I heard them ask his name and where he was going. They thought it was you.”
“So I am the unpopular person, am I?” Hamer exclaimed.
“I don’t know what they want,” Pierre answered; “but I do know the order is that if you come you are to be stopped. What’s to happen to you I don’t know, but you are not to be allowed on your boat.”
“Have any of them gone on board?” Hamer asked.
“A boatload,” the man replied; “and it seemed to me there was another boatload getting ready when I left. This is not like the other night, sir,” he went on, “when you threw them young gents into the sea. That was more or less of a lark, I expect. There’s no lark about this. You know what sort of people these are?”
“How the devil should I?” Hamer asked wearily.
“Well, I’ll tell you. Communists—anarchists—the riff-raff of Marseilles and Nice. They have been singing the Red Victory March all through dinner-time. And that Mademoiselle Tanya, she’s been making speeches to them till they nearly roared the awning off. They’re like a lot of madmen. You turn round, sir, and get back to the hotel or somewhere safe. That boat of yours isn’t worth what they say they’re going to do to you if you interfere with them.”
Hamer thought hard for several moments. Gradually the situation became clearer to him.
“The gunboat is still lying there?” he inquired.
“There’s something wrong about her, too,” Pierre declared. “I don’t know anything about it, Monsieur Wildburn, and I don’t want to say anything that leads to trouble, but her communications with the shore are broken and I could have sworn I heard firing on board a few minutes ago…Don’t you try to get back by the plage, Monsieur Wildburn. There’s at least a hundred and twenty men down there—picked men, I should say. They may have had a bottle or two of wine and a drink of brandy; but that’s made them the more dangerous. They’re not going to let you on board. You keep out of it. Your boat isn’t worth it.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Pierre,” Hamer admitted. “I’ll keep out of it. What about you?”
“Oh, my room is just at the corner, sir. I’m like you—I’m going to keep out of it. I don’t understand what it’s all about, but what I do know is that if the marines from the gunboat interfere or the gendarmes come down there’s going to be a bloody fight. It’s not my affair. I’m off to the wife and children.”
“You’re a good fellow, Pierre. Were you up here looking for me?”
“I was, sir,” the man acknowledged. “There’s been a rumour going round that you were on your way here. Then there was another rumour that you had had a smash in an aeroplane. Then someone else thought that you had got a car at Lyons. There’s just one thing, sir, I must mention. That wicked looking young woman who has got them all on fire, she gave her orders, and they were not half orders, either! You were to be stopped going on your boat, but if you came to any harm without her instructions she was going to shoot the man who did it.”
Hamer smiled faintly.
“She’s a great person in the wrong place, Pierre,” he said, slowly commencing to back down the lane with Pierre standing on the step. “She’s the disciple of a dangerous faith—sublime for some, hell for others who have no understanding.”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t understand, monsieur,” he confessed.
Hamer only shook his head. They had reached the corner of the road, and Pierre stepped off the car. Hamer turned round and threw in his clutch.
“You take my advice sir, and clear right away.” Pierre begged. “If you show yourself on the plage—Mademoiselle Tanya or no Mademoiselle Tanya—they mean bloodshed.”
“I’m making for shelter all right, Pierre,” Hamer assured him, with a farewell wave of a hand.
Cautiously, with lights extinguished, Hamer drove through the château woods, past the château itself, and down the steep way that led to the private landing stage. Here he left the car in a sheltered spot, and from behind a clump of trees looked out upon the bay. In a sense it was an amazing sight. The restaurant seemed to be packed with dark figures. Some of the tables were dragged out on to the sands. One heard voices shouting for the waiters, demanding more wine. One man had fallen off his chair and lay on the sands, but on the whole there were few signs of drunkenness—more of ferocious waiting. Little companies of men were walking arm-in-arm along the edge of the water. Many were standing looking out seawards—arguing, talking with one another. Around the bar they were standing three or four deep. Madame’s plump, comely form could be seen leaning over the counter where she was still opening wine, still filling the glasses. Out in the bay there seemed to be a good deal of movement upon the Fidélité, but very little illumination. The searchlights which had been in full swing, were inactive. It was all Hamer could do to make out the dim shape of the Bird of Paradise. There were lights in her galley but some attempt seemed to have been made to shade them. From the rigging there was a single lantern hanging on the starboard side…
Hamer often wondered aft
erwards at the deliberation which marked his actions for the next half-an-hour or so. There were several courses which occurred to him. One was to swim out to the Fidélité and consult Commander Berard as to how to deal with the situation, taking into account the possible invasion of his own boat. He discarded that because it was perfectly obvious that there was something wrong on the Fidélité herself. As to the plage—Pierre’s warning had been quite justified.
Hamer seemed to be developing instincts altogether strange to him. He listened for several moments before he moved and he resisted with an effort an intense desire to light a cigarette. He covered over the engine of his car with a rug, looked round it to be sure that all was in order, although there was in his mind a grave doubt as to whether he should ever use it again, stripped himself of everything but his underclothes and shoes, and made his way carefully down the precipitous slope to the rocky edge of the bay. He kept inside the enclosed part of the wood until he was at the nearest point to the Bird of Paradise, then he scaled the wall, waded out over the happy hunting-grounds of the fishers for sea-urchins, kicked off his shoes and swam very softly and slowly towards the yacht. It seemed lo him that the very fact of his lazy strokes, his disappearance every now and then under water altogether, incited an unnatural activity of his brain. He thought out the possibilities. Tanya would have selected, perhaps, half a dozen of the strongest and most dependable of her adherents to seize the boat. She had probably received from somewhere or other an idea as to where to search. The men were at work now, without a doubt, breaking open the secret parts of the boat very likely endangering her seaworthy qualities. Possibly they were working right down in the hull where sounds would only come to them in a muffled undernote. They would keep a look-out, though.
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