Mademoiselle was in the garden, the concierge of the Bristol told me; therefore I went out and found her seated alone before the sea, reading a book. Her appearance was the reverse of that of a religious “Sister.” Dressed in a smart gown of cream cloth,—one of those gowns that are so peculiarly the mode at Monte Carlo,—white shoes, and a white hat, she looked delightfully fresh and chic beneath her pale-blue sunshade.
“Ah, M’sieur Ewart!” she cried, in her broken English, as I approached,“I am so glad you have come. I have been waiting ever so long. I want to go to Monte Carlo.”
“Then I’ll be delighted to take you,” I answered, raising my hat. “Mr. Bellingham has left already, and will be absent, I believe, a day or two. Meanwhile, if you will accept my escort, mademoiselle, I shall be only too willing to be yours to obey.”
“Bien! What a pretty speech!” she laughed. “I wonder whether you will say that to Madame.”
“Has Madame arrived?”
“She came this morning, just before noon. But,” she added, “look, here she comes.”
I glanced in the direction she indicated, and saw approaching us the short, queer figure of a little old woman in stiff dark-green silk skirts of the style a decade ago.
“Madame, here is M’sieur Ewart!” cried the pretty Pierrette, as the old lady advanced, and I bowed.
She proved to be about the ugliest specimen of the gentler sex that I had ever met. Her face was wrinkled and puckered, wizened and brown; her eyes were close set, and beyond her thin lips protruded three or four yellow fangs, rendering her perfectly hideous. Moreover, on her upper lip was quite a respectable moustache, while from her chin long white hairs straggled at intervals.
“Where is Mr. Bellingham?” she asked snappishly, in a shrill, rasping voice, like the sharpening of a file.
“He has left, and will be absent a few days, I believe. He has placed this car and myself at your disposal, and ordered me to present his regrets that pressing business calls him away.”
“Regrets!” she exclaimed, with a slight toss of her head. “He need not have sent any. I know that he is a very busy man.”
“M’sieur Ewart is going to take me to Monte Carlo,” Pierrette said. “You will be too fatigued to go, won’t you? I will return quite early.”
“Yes, my dear,” the old woman replied, speaking most excellent English, although I gathered that she was either German or Austrian. “I am too tired. But do be back early, won’t you? I know how anxious you are to see the Casino.”
So my dainty little charge obtained her fur motor-coat, and ten minutes later we were leaving a trail of dust along the road that leads to the Principality, or—alas!—too often to ruin.
When at Monty I never wore chauffeur’s clothes, for the Count treated me as his personal friend, and besides only by posing as a gentleman of means could I obtain the entrée to the Casino. So we put up the car at the garage, and together ascended the red-carpeted steps of the Temple of Fortune.
At the bureau she had no trouble to obtain her ticket, and a few moments later we passed through the big swing-doors into the Rooms.
For a moment she stood in the great gilded salon as one stupefied. I have noticed this effect often on young girls who see the roulette tables and their crowds for the first time. Above the clink of coin, the rustle of bank-notes, the click-click of the ivory ball upon the disc, and the low hum of voices, there rose the monotonous voices of the croupiers: “Rien n’va plus!” “Quatre premier deux pièces!” “Zéro! un louis!” “Dernier douzaine un pièce!” “Messieurs, faites vos jeux!”
The atmosphere was, as usual, stifling, and the combined odours of perspiring humanity and Parisian perfumes nauseating, as it always is after the fresh, flower-scented air outside.
My little companion passed from one table to another, regarding the players and the play with keenest interest. Then she passed into thetrente-et-quarante rooms, where at one of the tables she stood behind a pretty, beautifully-attired Parisienne, watching her play and lose the handful of golden coins her elderly cavalier had handed to her.
While we halted there an incident occurred which caused me considerable thought.
In front of us, on the opposite side of the table, stood a tall, thin-faced, elderly, clean-shaven man of sallow complexion, and very smartly dressed. In his black cravat he wore a splendid diamond pin, and on his finger, as he tossed a louis on the “noir,” another fine gem glistened. That man, though so essentially a gentleman from his exterior appearance, was known to me as one of “us,” as shrewd and clever an adventurer as ever trod those polished boards. He was Henri Regnier, known to his intimates as “Monsieur le President,” because he had once, by personating the President of the Chamber of Deputies, robbed the Crédit Lyonnais of one hundred thousand francs, and served five years at Toulon for it.
And across at him the pretty Pierrette shot a quick look of recognition and laughed. “The President” nodded slightly, and laughed back in return. He glanced at me. Our eyes met, but we neither of us acknowledged the other. It is the rule with men of our class. We are always strangers, except when it is to the interests of either party to appear friends.
But what did this nod to Pierrette mean? How could she be acquainted with Henri Regnier?
“Do you know that man?” I asked her, as presently we moved away from the table.
“What man?” she inquired, her eyes opening widely in assumed ignorance.
“I thought you nodded recognition to a man across the table,” I remarked, disappointed at her attempt to deceive me.
“No,” she replied; “I didn’t recognise anyone. You were mistaken. He perhaps nodded to somebody else.”
This reply of hers increased the mystery. Had she deceived me when she told me that she was the daughter of old Dumont the jeweller? If so, then I had sent Bindo back to London on a wild goose-chase.
We passed back into the roulette rooms, and for quite a long time she stood at the first table at the left of the entrance, watching the game intently.
A man I knew passed, and I crossed to chat with him. In ten minutes or so I returned to her side, and as I did so she bent and took from the end of the croupier’s rake three one-thousand-franc notes, while all eyes at the table were fixed upon her.
One of the notes she tossed upon the “rouge,” and the other two she crushed into her pocket.
“What!” I gasped, “are you playing? And with such stakes?”
“Why not?” she laughed, perfectly cool, and watching the ball, which had already begun to spin.
With a final click it fell into one of the red squares, and two notes were handed to her.
The one she had won she passed across to the “noir,” and there won again, and again a second time, until people at the table began to follow her lead. Gamblers are always superstitious when they see a young girl playing. It is amazing and curious how often youth will win where middle-age will lose.
Five times in succession she played upon the colours with a thousand francs each time, and won on each occasion.
I tried to remonstrate, and urged her to leave with her winnings; but her cheeks were flushed, and she was now excited. One of the notes she exchanged with the croupier for nine hundreds, and five louis. The latter she distributed à cheval, with one en plein on the number eighteen.
It won. She left her stake on the table, and again the same number turned up. Three louis placed on zero she lost, and again on the middle dozen.
But she won with two louis on thirty-six. Then what she did showed me that, if a novice at a convent, she was, at any rate, no novice at roulette, for she shifted her stake to the “first four”—a favourite habit of gamblers—and won again.
Then, growing suddenly calm again, she exchanged her gold for notes, and crushing the bundle into her pocket, turned with me
from the table.
I was amazed. I could not make her out in the least. Had all her ingenuousness been assumed? If it had, then I had been sadly taken in over her.
Together we went out, crossed the Place, and sat on the terrace of the Café de Paris, where we took tea—with orange-flower water, of course. While there she took out her money and counted it—eleven thousand two hundred francs, or in English money the respectable sum of four hundred and forty-eight pounds.
“What luck you’ve had, mademoiselle!” I exclaimed.
“Yes; I only had two hundred francs to commence, so I won exactly eleven thousand.”
“Then take my advice, and don’t play again as long as you are in this place, for you’re sure to lose it. Go away a winner. I once won five hundred francs, and made a vow never to play again. That’s a year ago, and I have never staked a single piece since. The game over there, mademoiselle, is a fool’s game,” I added, pointing to the façade of the Casino opposite.
“I know,” she answered; “I don’t think I shall risk anything more. I wonder what Madame will say!”
“Well, she can only congratulate you and tell you not to risk anything further.”
“Isn’t she quaint?” she asked. “And yet she’s such a dear old thing—although so very old-fashioned.”
I was extremely anxious to get to the bottom of her acquaintance with that veritable prince of adventurers, Regnier, yet I dare not broach the subject, lest I should arouse suspicion. Who was that ugly old woman at the Bristol? I wondered. She was Madame Vernet, it was true, but what relation they were to each other Pierrette never informed me.
At half-past six, after I had taken her along the Galerie to look at the shops, and through the Casino gardens to see the pigeon-shooting, I ran her back to Beaulieu on the car, promising to return for her in the morning at eleven.
Madame seemed a strange chaperon, for she never signified her intention of coming also.
About ten o’clock that night, when in dinner-jacket and black tie I re-entered the Rooms again, I encountered Regnier. He was on his way out, and I followed him.
In the shadow of the trees in the Place I overtook him and spoke.
“Hulloa, Ewart!” he exclaimed, “I saw you this afternoon. Is Bindo here?”
“He’s been, but has returned to London on business.”
“Coming back, I suppose?” he asked. “I haven’t seen anything of any of you of late. All safe, I hope?”
“Up to now, yes,” I laughed. “We’ve been in England a good deal recently. But what I wanted to know was this: You saw me with a little French girl this afternoon. Who is she?”
“Pierrette.”
“Yes, I know her name, but who is she?”
“Oh, a little friend of mine—a very charming little friend.”
And that was all he would tell me, even though I pressed him to let me into the secret.
V
WHAT THE REVELLERS REVEALED
After luncheon on the following day I called at Beaulieu and picked up both ladies, who expressed a wish for a run along the coast as far as San Remo.
Therefore I took them across the frontier at Ventimiglia into Italy. We had tea at the Savoy at San Remo, and ran home in the glorious sundown.
Like all other old ladies who have never ridden in a car, she was fidgety about her bonnet, and clung on to it, much to Pierrette’s amusement. Nevertheless, Madame seemed to enjoy her ride, for just as we slipped down the hill into Beaulieu she suggested that we should go on to Nice and there dine.
“Oh yes!” cried Pierrette, with delight. “That will be lovely. I’ll pay for a nice dinner out of my winnings of yesterday. I’ve heard that the London House is the place to dine.”
“You could not do better, mademoiselle,” I said, turning back to her, my eyes still on the road, rendered dangerous by the electric trams and great traffic of cars in both directions. It struck me as curious that I, the Count’s chauffeur, should be treated as one of themselves. I wondered, indeed, if they really intended to invite me to dinner.
But I was not disappointed, for having put the car into that garage opposite the well-known restaurant, Pierrette insisted that I should wash my hands and accompany them.
The ordering of the dinner she left in my hands, and we spent a very merry hour at table, even Madame of the yellow teeth brightening up under the influence of a glass of champagne, though Pierrette only drank Evian.
The Riviera was in Carnival. You who know Nice, know what that means—plenty of fun and frolic in the streets, on the Jetée Promenade, and in the Casino Municipal. Therefore, after dinner, Pierrette decided to walk out upon the pier, or jetée, as it is called, and watch the milk-and-water gambling for francs that is permitted there.
The night was glorious, with a full moon shining upon the calm sea, while the myriad coloured lamps everywhere rendered the scene enchanting. A smart, well-dressed crowd were promenading to and fro, enjoying the magnificent balmy night, and as we walked towards the big Casino at the end of the pier a man in a pierrot’s dress of pale-green and mauve silk, and apparently half intoxicated, for his mauve felt hat was at the back of his head, came reeling in our direction. A Parisian and a boulevardier evidently, for he was singing gaily to himself that song of Aristide Bruant’s, “La Noire,” the well-known song of the 113th Regiment of the Line—
“La Noire est fille du canton
Qui se fout du qu’en dira-t-on.
Nous nous foutons de ses vertus,
Puisqu’elle a les tetons pointus.
Voilà pourquoi nous la chantons:
Vive la Noire et ses tetons!”
The reveller carried in his hand a wand with jingling bells, and was no doubt on his way to the ball that was to take place later that night at the Casino Municipal—the first bal masqué of Carnival.
He almost fell against me, and straightening himself suddenly, I saw that he was about thirty, and rather good-looking—a thin, narrow face, typically Parisian.
“Pardon, m’sieur!” he exclaimed, bowing, then suddenly glancing at Pierrette at my side he stood for a few seconds, glaring at her as though utterly dumbfounded. “Nom d’un chien!” he gasped. “P’tite Pier’tte!—Wouf!”
And next second he placed his hand over his mouth, turned, and was lost in the crowd.
The girl at my side seemed confused, and it struck me that Madame also recognised him.
“Who was he?” I wondered.
The incident was, no doubt, a disconcerting one for them both, because from that moment their manner changed. The gambling within the big rotunda had no interest for either of them, and a quarter of an hour later Madame, with her peculiar rasping voice, said—
“Pierrette, ma chère, it is time we returned,” to which the girl acquiesced without comment.
Therefore I took them along to Beaulieu and deposited them at the door of their hotel.
Having seen them safely inside, I turned the car round and went back to Nice.
It was then about ten o’clock, but on the night of a Carnival ball the shops in the Avenue de la Gare are all open, and the dresses necessary for the ball are still displayed. Therefore, having put the car into the garage again, I purchased a pierrot’s kit similar to that worn by the reveller, a black velvet loup, or mask, put them on in the shop, and then walked along to the Casino.
I need not tell you of the ball, of the wild antics of the revellers of both sexes, of the games of leap-frog played by the men, of the great rings of dancers, joining hand in hand, or of the beautiful effect of the two shades of colour seen everywhere. It has been described a hundred times. Moreover, I had not gone there to dance, I was there to watch, and if possible to speak with the man who had so gaily sung “La Noire” among the smart, aristocratic crowd on the Jetée.
But in that gre
at crowd, with nearly everyone wearing their masks, it was impossible to recognise him. The only part I recollected that was peculiar about him was that he had a white ruffle around his neck, instead of a mauve or green one, and it occurred to me that on entering the masters of the ceremonies would compel him to remove it as being against the rules to wear anything but the colours laid down by the committee.
I was looking for a pierrot without a ruffle, and my search was long and in vain.
Till near midnight I went among that mad crowd, but could not recognise him. He might, I reflected, be by that hour in such a state of intoxication as to be unable to come to the ball at all.
Suddenly, however, as I was brushing past two masked dancers who were standing chatting at one of the doors leading from the Casino into the theatre where the ball was in progress, one of them exclaimed with a French accent—
“Hulloa, Ewart!”
“Hulloa!” I replied, for I had removed my mask for a few moments because of the heat. “Who are you?”
“‘The President,’” he responded in a low voice, and I knew that it was Henri Regnier.
“You’re the very man I want to see. Come over here, and let’s talk.”
Both of us moved away into a corner of the Casino where it was comparatively quiet, and Regnier removed his mask, declaring that the heat was stifling.
“Look here,” he said in a tone of confidence, “I want to know—I’m very interested to know—how you became acquainted with little Pierrette Dumont. I hear you’ve been about with her all day.”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I was told,” he laughed. “I find out things I want to know.”
“Then her name is really Dumont?” I asked quickly.
“I suppose so. That will do as well as any other—eh?” and he laughed.
“But last night you were not open with me, my dear Henri,” I replied;“therefore why should I be open with you?”
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 41