by Tony Medawar
‘Geoffrey!’ Archie remonstrated in a pained voice. ‘You are too modest. And she still doesn’t know who you are?’ he added maliciously.
‘No, she doesn’t. And don’t you go telling her.’
‘I must exercise my own judgment,’ Archie returned smugly. ‘I never was one to stand by and watch poor innocent girls being deceived, I wasn’t.’
The opening of the door checked Geoffrey’s reply, but from the look on his face it would have been a forcible one.
‘You can come in now,’ Veronica invited. She had slipped on a frock in place of the wrapper and the room behind her certainly looked tidier than it had.
Nevertheless Geoffrey hesitated. ‘Had we better, do you think? Isn’t there somewhere else handy? I mean …’
‘Geoffrey, don’t be old-maidish,’ Veronica laughed and stood aside to allow them to enter. ‘We’re in Monte Carlo, not Surbiton.’
They entered.
‘Now then, you’d better have the armchair, Lord Bramber, as the guest of honour. As a mere secretary, Geoffrey, and an ex-one at that, you have the trunk. I’ll sit on the bed. Oh and please give me a cigarette, somebody. My nerves aren’t used to this kind of thing.’
One of Archie’s despised cigarettes found an appreciative home and Veronica embarked on her story.
‘Well, I came straight up here after you left me, Geoffrey,’ she began, hugging her knees, ‘and it wasn’t two minutes before I found out that you’d taken the wrong bag back to the Casino. I still had the Spanish woman’s, you bright person. Did you know that?’
Geoffrey nodded. ‘Yes, I’d guessed as much. Go on.’
‘Of course, I’d looked inside before I realised it wasn’t mine and even then I didn’t tumble to it at once. There was a powder-puff, you see and a handkerchief and all that sort of thing and in the inside pocket was a piece of paper. I was feeling rather limp and sleepy and still not realising that it wasn’t my bag at all, I opened the paper and looked at it, wondering what it was. It was covered with a jumble of letters and figures; and then, of course, I knew I’d got hold of the wrong bag.’
‘Letters and figures,’ Geoffrey repeated thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if that was why they’ve been so remarkably anxious to get it back in such a hurry. Was there much money in the bag, or anything that looked valuable?’
‘No, not a thing. That’s the extraordinary part. And only a single ten-franc note. It couldn’t have been for anything of that sort that they wanted it back so urgently.’
‘It’s funny,’ Geoffrey mused. ‘And they wanted it even more urgently than you know. I found a man in my room at the Hermitage calmly searching for it, if you please. He seemed to think I’d lodged the wrong bag at the Casino on purpose.’
‘They told each other off most politely, Miss Steyning,’ Archie put in irrepressibly. ‘I stood between ’em and egged ’em on, but Fritz wouldn’t fight. Well, what happened next?’
‘Well, of course I thought I should have to go to the Casino first thing tomorrow, explain the mistake and change the bags. But I was saved the trouble. I went to bed and got off to sleep almost at once; it can’t have been more than a few minutes later before I was wakened by somebody moving about the room. I switched on the light by the bed and saw a man standing by the dressing-table. I recognised him at once. It was the man who had spoken to me in the gardens when you’d gone back to the Casino, Geoffrey.’
‘Not the husband—or Fritz, as Archie calls him?’
‘No, no; not a bit like him. The one who I told you frightened me so much, like a snake. Well, of course I was petrified—far too petrified even to scream. He began to speak at once, quite calmly, something about having made a mistake in the room-number, thought it was his own room and all that; apologised stiffly but politely in perfect English for having disturbed me and marched out, leaving me gasping like a hooked fish. When I came to my senses I noticed that the bag, which had been on the dressing-table, had gone too.’
‘Ah,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Aha,’ said Archie.
‘He may have been the rightful owner,’ resumed Veronica, with some indignation, ‘but there are ways and ways of doing that sort of thing and to break into my bedroom while I was asleep seemed to me decidedly a wrong way. I was so angry that I quite forgot how frightened I was of him. I jumped out of bed, jumped into my dressing-gown and ran after him.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Geoffrey agreed with enthusiasm.
‘Unfortunately he’d got too much of a start. I’d heard him turn to the right outside my door, so I went that way. There’s another smaller staircase at the end and I could have sworn I heard him running up it. I fled up goodness knows how many flights and explored about fifty corridors, but couldn’t see a trace of him anywhere. Then I came back and found you here.’
Geoffrey lit another cigarette. ‘It’s all very queer,’ he ruminated. ‘There’s obviously something very important, or something that these people consider very important, at stake. What do you think, Archie?’
‘Oh, not a doubt of it. For an hour or so you two have evidently been a spoke in a rather nasty-looking wheel. No doubt you’re well out of it; because of course that’s the end, so far as you’re concerned, now they’ve got their paper back. That’s obviously what they were after. Well, it’s been good fun while it lasted; but do you know, I can’t help feeling it’s rather a pity that Miss Steyning couldn’t have managed somehow to give the bag back without the paper, just so that we could have seen what would have happened.’
‘But I did!’ Veronica exclaimed excitedly. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you, but you would keep on talking. It looked so important that I took it out of the bag before I went to bed and hid it under my pillow. Here it is!’
VII
Veronica delved under her pillow, extracted a sheet of paper and handed it across to Geoffrey.
‘Now that,’ commented Archie, with a good deal more alertness than he had yet displayed, ‘is what I call a piece of genius. I congratulate you, Miss Steyning. If the gods are with us, we’re going to have some fun yet with that bit of paper.’
Geoffrey was busy examining the cabalistic signs with which the paper was covered and Veronica turned to the last speaker with a smile. She liked this languidly exquisite young man, who yet gave a hint that there might be something quite firm underneath his polished exterior. With him and Geoffrey between them she felt quite safe, even if, as Archie surmised, her abstraction of the document from the Spanish-looking lady’s handbag led to ‘fun’. And if she had felt any surprise in the ex-secretary of a millionaire introducing to her a full-blown lord as his friend and apparently an intimate friend at that, she had certainly not shown it. Perhaps since eleven o’clock that same evening surprises had ceased to exist for Veronica.
‘I do believe you’re hoping that it really does mean something exciting, Lord Bramber.’
‘Am I not! Life is pretty dull in this hole, don’t you think? I believe some people at home think Monte Carlo is wicked. I find it more respectable than Hull on a wet Sunday. If you’ve had the luck to project us into the middle of a real non-stop thriller, Miss Steyning, I shall be duly grateful. And so,’ added Archie, with a completely innocent face, ‘I’m sure, will Geoffrey.’
‘Here, Archie,’ observed Geoffrey, passing the paper across, ‘stop talking for once and see what you can make of this. I’m blessed if I can make anything out of it.’
‘Geoffrey,’ Veronica remarked irrelevantly, as Archie studied the paper in his turn, ‘I’m not usually nervous, but I do think that—’
‘It’s all right, Veronica,’ Geoffrey interrupted soothingly, ‘there won’t be any danger, you know.’
‘I wasn’t meaning that,’ Veronica retorted with dignity. ‘And I hope there is, for Lord Bramber’s sake. What I was going to say was that I’m not usually nervous, but I really do think you’d better not go on sitting on my trunk any more after all. It’s the only one I’ve got and you’re larger than I thought. Do yo
u mind trying the floor?’
Geoffrey obediently transferred his muscular bulk to a more solid resting-place and Archie looked up from the paper.
‘I can tell you what we must do with this,’ he said, with unwonted seriousness. ‘Of course it may be nothing, but on the other hand it may be rather important. As it happens there’s one man in Monte Carlo at this moment who can tell us, my cousin, Bobbie Carruthers. I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard, but he’s one of the lads in the Secret Service, I believe, though naturally he doesn’t want that generally known. I’m quite sure we ought to take this round to him at once.’
‘Seems a pity to let it pass out of our hands,’ Geoffrey murmured with regret. ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t tackle it ourselves.’
‘Because we don’t know what it is,’ Archie pointed out, ‘and if it is of importance to Bobbie, we oughtn’t to take any risks with it. Though if you ask me, I think he’ll probably pass it up, in which case we can tackle it ourselves. Well?’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Geoffrey conceded.
‘The Secret Service!’ Veronica said raptly. ‘Oh, yes, do let’s. I am glad I came to Monte Carlo.’
And so it was decided.
Veronica insisted on accompanying the men on their mission, which in view of the activity of Fritz and his friends the two agreed would be the safer course and, for the same reason, it was decided that they had better set off at once. The men were thereupon promptly turned out of the room while Veronica made herself ready.
Right in the doorway they collided with the sallow-faced little night-clerk who, his apprehension apparently forgotten, spluttered at them indignantly. One gathered that all this was not only highly irregular, but a nasty smudge on the fair fame of the Magnificent Hotel. Mademoiselle would be requested to take her departure first thing tomorrow morning, while as for Messieurs, the little clerk must really insist that they leave the hotel at once. It was a positive scandal that—
‘Why, Archie,’ observed Geoffrey with the utmost geniality, ‘here’s something for us to play with while we’re waiting.’
He picked the little man up by the seat of his trousers, walked briskly along to the staircase and, slinging him over the marble balustrade, held him suspended above the unpleasant void.
‘Do you think he’d go off pop if I dropped him?’ he asked his companion with interest. ‘Or would he just squash flat, like a starfish?’
‘I don’t know, Geoffrey,’ responded Archie, with no less interest. ‘I should drop him and see.’
In this way the time passed pleasantly for all concerned, except the night-clerk, until at the end of five minutes or so a little man no longer sallow but white and not to say tinged with green, crept hurriedly down a back staircase, pondering no doubt on the maniacal ways of the brutal English.
‘But why this exhibition of cruelty to animals,’ Archie asked, as they strolled back along the corridor, ‘so unlike your usual gentle nature, my dear Geoffrey?’
‘Didn’t you see?’ said Geoffrey. ‘The little blighter was listening outside the door. I’ll bet you a hundred to one Fritz and Co. have got at him. I’m not sure that I ought to have let him go at all. He’s probably scampered off to report what we’re going to do.’
A muffled scream from inside Veronica’s room intercepted Archie’s reply. ‘Geoffrey!’ they heard her cry. ‘Geof—’
As if with one mind both men hurled themselves at the door. It was not locked and opened to their touch. In the middle of the room Veronica was standing, in hat and coat. The French windows on the further side, which opened on to the usual balcony and had before been closed, were now open.
In the aperture stood a man, an automatic pistol in his hand.
VIII
All this Geoffrey took in at a glance, together with the fact that the man with the automatic was a stranger to him. The next instant he hurled himself forward.
There was a scream from Veronica and Geoffrey crashed to the floor. Archie had tackled him round the knees from behind.
‘Idiot,’ observed the latter, holding Geoffrey down by main force. ‘Can’t you see this chap means business?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ observed the stranger courteously. ‘You at any rate appear to have the sense to see when you are beaten. You are quite right, I do mean business. I want that document which was taken out of the handbag by Miss Steyning. If I do not get it I shall shoot all three of you. Miss Steyning first. Kindly shut the door, Miss Steyning.’
With a brave attempt to look as if revolvers pointed in her direction were one of the ordinary things of life to her, Veronica crossed the room and shut the door. The two men had picked themselves up from the floor and stood, looking rather foolish, in the middle of the room.
‘Now then, which of you has the paper?’ remarked the intruder tentatively. ‘You, sir!’ he added without hesitation to Archie, as Veronica’s glance flickered swiftly towards that gentleman and away again.
‘Damn!’ observed Archie with feeling.
‘Don’t give it him, Archie,’ Geoffrey urged. ‘Look here, if we go for him together he can’t—’
‘My dear Geoffrey, as our friend observes, I know when I’m beaten and I’m certainly not going to risk getting plugged for the sake of a piece of paper that means nothing in my young life.’ He put his hand into his breast-pocket and pulled out the document. ‘Here you are, sir. I suppose you won’t gratify our curiosity by telling us what all the fuss is about?’
The man took the document at arm’s length, glanced at it swiftly and put it into his pocket. ‘Thank you. I’m glad that you at any rate have sense. Now back to the door, please, all three.’
He waited till they had obeyed, his pistol still pointing unwaveringly at Veronica, then with a swift movement stepped back, closed the French windows and vanished.
‘Well, I’m hanged!’ said Geoffrey bitterly. ‘Archie, you shouldn’t have given it to him.’
‘We’re all three alive now,’ Archie returned equably. ‘The lad meant business. Besides, it wasn’t our paper after all and fair’s fair. Likewise, honesty is the best policy.’
‘I can’t let him get away with it like this,’ Geoffrey muttered. He ran across the room, threw open the windows again and plunged out on to the balcony.
‘Geoffrey, do be careful,’ Veronica implored.
Archie raised his eyebrows. ‘Geoffrey always was one of the boys of the bulldog breed,’ he murmured; but he too had hurried in the other’s wake.
Veronica joined them and all three leaned over the balcony rail, to watch an agile figure rapidly descending the fire-escape almost directly beneath them.
‘Veronica,’ Geoffrey said softly, ‘just bring me that water jug of yours.’
‘My water jug?’ Veronica repeated in surprise, but brought it nevertheless.
Geoffrey poised it for a moment and then hurled it almost vertically down. The man was actually in the act of stepping down from the last rung of the fire-escape. There was a crash, a tinkle, a thud and a sound as of rushing waters. ‘Oh, pretty!’ Archie exclaimed, craning over the balustrade. ‘Oh, handsome.’
‘That wins the cigar or toothpick, I fancy,’ observed Geoffrey with satisfaction. He pulled off his dressing-gown and ran lightly, for all his size, down the fire-escape.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Veronica, also leaning over the balcony. ‘Surely Geoffrey didn’t—hullo, what’s that thing on the ground?’
‘That’s Hans,’ explained Archie. ‘Geoffrey pipped him rather neatly on the cranium. But I’m afraid he’s dented your water-jug beyond repair.’
Veronica almost danced with excitement. ‘And now he’s gone down to get the paper back. Oh, good for Geoffrey! Isn’t he splendid, Lord Bramber?’
‘Geoffrey’s a good old horse,’ replied Archie, his words more casual than his tone. Archie was being very busy at the moment trying not to do anything so unBritish as show the excitement which was filling him. ‘By the way, was that the cove who int
erviewed you earlier in the evening?’
‘Yes, the one who frightened me so. Am I wrong, or isn’t there something horrible about him? Did you feel it?’
‘I did,’ Archie said candidly. ‘I’ve seldom met a cove I disliked more at first sight. In fact,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘that may have been why I gave in so weakly. I’m not always so feeble as I must have looked tonight. At least, I hope not.’
‘Of course you weren’t feeble,’ Veronica said warmly. ‘It was because I was there. I know that. When there are pistols and things about, the presence of a woman must be most superfluous. As a matter of fact I thought it was very brave of you to give in at once instead of trying to save your face, as most men would.’
‘Oh, come, that’s going a bit too far,’ Archie laughed. ‘Ah, Geoffrey’s got the paper. Good! Now we’re all serene-oh.’
Geoffrey, standing over the body, had waved the document to them to show that he had found it and was now climbing rapidly back up the fire-escape.
‘Geoffrey!’ Veronica called out softly. ‘You—you haven’t killed him, have you?’
‘Not a bit,’ Geoffrey replied from twenty rungs below them. ‘Just dinted him a bit, that’s all. I’m afraid he’ll have a nasty headache in about half-an-hour, but nothing worse.’
He was climbing rapidly up towards them. He had in fact reached within a yard of the floor of the balcony when something happened which Archie, though he had said nothing to Veronica, had all the time been dreading.
From the shadows on the ground came the muffled report of a shot. Geoffrey, who had been in the act of stretching up to pull himself on to the balcony, seemed to collapse on himself. His hand left its grip on the rung above him and he fell.
IX
Veronica uttered a low little cry of horror. Archie only said, abruptly; ‘Get back into the room, Miss Steyning.’ Veronica did not obey. Together they leaned over the balustrade.
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Veronica, hardly believing what she saw.