Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo

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"Oh! That stout, red-faced man. I don't know him."

"Neither do I. He was, however, very pleasant, and seems to have
travelled a lot," replied her mother. "He told me that your precious
friend, Henfrey, is back, and is staying down in Surrey as guest of some
woman named Bond."

Dorise sat staggered. Then her lover's secret was out! If his
whereabouts were known in Society, then the police would quickly get
upon his track! She felt she must warn him instantly of his peril.

"How did he know, I wonder?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh! I suppose he's heard. He seemed to know all about the fellow. It
appears that at last he's become engaged."

"Engaged? Hugh engaged?"

"Yes, to a girl named Louise Lambert. She's the adopted daughter of
a man named Benton, who was, by the way, a great friend of old Mr.
Henfrey."

Hugh engaged to Louise Lambert! Dorise sat bewildered.

"I--I don't believe it!" she blurted forth at last.

"Ah, my dear. You mean you don't want to believe it--because you are in
love with him!" said her mother as the car rushed homeward. "Now put all
this silly girlish nonsense aside. The fellow is under a cloud, and no
good. I tell you frankly I will never have him as my son-in-law. How he
has escaped the police is a marvel; but if the man Bowden knows where he
is, Scotland Yard will, no doubt, soon hear."

The girl remained silent. Could it be possible that, after all, Hugh had
asked Louise Lambert to be his wife? She had known of her, and had
met her with Hugh, but he had always assured her that they were merely
friends. Yet it appeared that he was now living in concealment under the
same roof as she!

Lady Ranscomb, clever woman of the world as she was, watched her
daughter's face in the fleeting lights as they sped homeward, and saw
what a crushing blow the announcement had dealt her.

"I don't believe it," the girl cried.

She had received word in secret--presumably from the White Cavalier--to
meet Hugh at the Bush Hotel at Farnham on the following afternoon, but
this secret news held her in doubt and despair.

Lady Ranscomb dropped the subject, and began to speak of other
things--of a visit to the flying-ground at Hendon on the following day,
and of an invitation they had received to spend the following week with
a friend at Cowes.

On arrival home Dorise went at once to her room, where her maid awaited
her.

After the distracted girl had thrown off her cloak, her maid unhooked
her dress, whereupon Dorise dismissed her to bed.

"I want to read, so go to bed," she said in a petulant voice which
rather surprised the neat muslin-aproned maid.

"Very well, miss. Good-night," the latter replied meekly.

But as soon as the door was closed Dorise flung herself upon the
chintz-covered couch and wept bitterly as though her heart would break.

She had met Louise Lambert--it was Hugh who had introduced them. George
Sherrard had several times told her of the friendship between the pair,
and one night at the Haymarket Theatre she had seen them together in a
box. On another occasion she had met them at Ciro's, and they had been
together at the Embassy, at Ranelagh, and yet again she had seen them
lunching together one Sunday at the Metropole at Brighton.

All this had aroused suspicion and jealousy in her mind. It was all very
well for Hugh to disclaim anything further than pure friendship, but now
that Gossip was casting her hydra-headed venom upon their affairs, it
was surely time to act.

Hugh would be awaiting her at Farnham next afternoon.

She crossed to the window and looked at the bright stars. In war time
she used to see the long beams of searchlights playing to and fro. But
now all was peace in London, and the world-war half forgotten.

Within herself arose a great struggle. Hugh was accused of a crime--an
accusation of which he could not clear himself. He had been hunted
across Europe by the police and had, up to the present, been successful
in slipping through their fingers.

But why did he visit that notorious woman at that hour of the night?
What could have been the secret bond between them?

The woman had narrowly escaped death presumably on account of his
murderous attack upon her, while he had cleverly evaded arrest, until,
at the present moment, his whereabouts was known only to a dinner-table
gossip, and he was staying in the same house as the girl, love for whom
he had always so vehemently disclaimed.

Poor Dorise spent a sleepless night. She lay awake thinking--and yet
thinking!

At breakfast her mother looked at her and, with satisfaction, saw that
she had gained a point nearer her object.

Dorise went into Bond Street shopping at eleven o'clock, still undecided
whether to face Hugh or not. The shopping was a fiasco. She bought only
a bunch of flowers.

But in her walk she made a resolve not to make further excuse. She would
not ask her mother for the car, and Hugh, by waiting alone, should be
left guessing.

On returning home, her mother told her of George's acceptance of an
invitation to lunch.

"There's a matinee at the Lyric, and he's taking us there," she added.
"But, dear," she went on, "you look ever so pale! What is worrying you?
I hope you are not fretting over that good-for-nothing waster, Henfrey!
Personally, I'm glad to be rid of a fellow who is wanted by the police
for a very serious crime. Do brighten up, dear. This is not like you!"

"I--well, mother, I--I don't know what to do," the girl confessed.

"Do! Take my advice, darling. Think no more of the fellow. He's no use
to you--or to me."

"But, mother dear--"

"No, Dorise, no more need be said!" interrupted Lady Ranscomb severely.
"You surely would not be so idiotic as to throw in your lot with a man
who is certainly a criminal."

"A criminal! Why do you denounce him, mother?"

"Well, he stands self-condemned. He has been in hiding ever since that
night at Monte Carlo. If he were innocent, he would surely, for your
sake, come forward and clear himself. Are you mad, Dorise--or are you
blind?"

The girl remained silent. Her mother's argument was certainly a very
sound one. Had Hugh deceived her?

Her lover's attitude was certainly that of a guilty man. She could not
disguise from herself the fact that he was fleeing from justice, and
that he was unable to give an explanation why he went to the house of
Mademoiselle at all.

Yvonne Ferad, the only person who could tell the truth, was a hopeless
idiot because of the murderous attack. Hence, the onus of clearing
himself rested upon Hugh.

She loved him, but could she really trust him in face of the fact that
he was concealed comfortably beneath the same roof as Louise Lambert?

She recalled that once, when they had met at Newquay in Cornwall over a
tete-a-tete lunch, he had said, in reply to her banter, that Louise
was a darling! That he was awfully fond of her, that she had the most
wonderful eyes, and that she was always alert and full of a keen sense
of humour.

Such a compliment Hugh had never paid to her. The recollection of it
stung her.

She wondered what sort of woman was the person named Bond. Then she
decided that she had acted wisely in not going to Farnham. Why should
she? If Hugh was with the girl he admired, then he might return with
her.

Her only fear was lest he should be arrested. If his place of
concealment were spoken of over a West End dinner-table, then it could
not be long before detectives arrested him for the affair at the Villa
Amette.

On that afternoon Hugh had borrowed Mrs. Bond's car upon a rather lame
pretext, and had pulled up in the square, inartistic yard before the
Bush--the old coaching house, popular before the new road over the Hog's
Back was made, and when the coaches had to ascend that steep hill out
of Guildford, now known as The Mount. For miles the old road is now
grass-grown and forms a most delightful walk, with magnificent views
from the Thames Valley to the South Downs. The days of the coaches have,
alas! passed, and the new road, with its tangle of telegraph wires,
is beloved by every motorist and motor-cyclist who spins westward in
Surrey.

Hugh waited anxiously in the little lounge which overlooks the
courtyard. He went into the garden, and afterwards stood in impatience
beneath the archway from which the street is approached. Later, he
strolled along the road over which he knew Dorise must come. But all to
no avail.

There was no sign of her.

Until six o'clock he waited, when, in blank despair, he mounted beside
Mead again and drove back to Shapley Manor. It was curious that
Dorise had not come to meet him, but he attributed it to The Sparrow's
inability to convey a message to her. She might have gone out of town
with her mother, he thought. Or, perhaps, at the last moment, she had
been unable to get away.

On his return to Shapley he found Louise and Mrs. Bond sitting together
in the charming, old-world drawing-room. A log fire was burning
brightly.

"Did you have a nice run, Hugh?" asked the girl, clasping her hands
behind her head and looking up at him as he stood upon the pale-blue
hearthrug.

"Quite," he replied. "I went around Hindhead down to Frensham Ponds and
back through Farnham--quite a pleasant run."

"Mr. Benton has had to go to town," said his hostess. "Almost as soon
as you had gone he was rung up, and he had to get a taxi out from
Guildford. He'll be back to-morrow."

"Oh, yes--and, by the way, Hugh," exclaimed Louise, "there was a call
for you about a quarter of an hour afterwards. I thought nobody knew you
were down here."

"For me!" gasped Henfrey, instantly alarmed.

"Yes, I answered the 'phone. It was a girl's voice!"

"A girl! Who?"

"I don't know who she was. She wouldn't give her name," Louise replied.
"She asked if we were Shapley, and I replied. Then she asked for you. I
told her that you were out in the car and asked her name. But she said
it didn't matter at all, and rang off."

"I wonder who she was?" remarked Hugh, much puzzled and, at the same
time, greatly alarmed. He scented danger. The fact in itself showed that
somebody knew the secret of his hiding-place, and, if they did, then the
police were bound to discover him sooner or later.

Half an hour afterwards he took Mrs. Bond aside, and pointed out the
peril in which he was placed. His hostess, on her part, grew alarmed,
for though Hugh was unaware of it, she had no desire to meet the police.
That little affair in Paris was by no means forgotten.

"It is certainly rather curious," the woman admitted. "Evidently it is
known by somebody that you are staying with me. Don't you think it would
be wiser to leave?"

Hugh hesitated. He wished to take Benton's advice, and told his hostess
so. With this she agreed, yet she was inwardly highly nervous at
the situation. Any police inquiry at Shapley would certainly be most
unwelcome to her, and she blamed herself for agreeing to Benton's
proposal that Hugh should stay there.

"Benton will be back to-morrow," Hugh said. "Do you think it safe for me
to remain here till then?" he added anxiously.

"I hardly know what to think," replied the woman. She herself had a
haunting dread of recognition as Molly Maxwell. She had crossed and
recrossed the Atlantic, carefully covering her tracks, and she did not
intend to be cornered at last.

After dinner, Hugh, still greatly perturbed at the mysterious telephone
call, played billiards with Louise. About a quarter to eleven, however,
Mrs. Bond was called to the telephone and, closing the door, listened to
an urgent message.

It was from Benton, who spoke from London--a few quick, cryptic, but
reassuring words--and when the woman left the room three minutes later
all her anxiety as to the police had apparently passed.

She joined the young couple and watched their game. Louise handled her
cue well, and very nearly beat her opponent. Afterwards, when Louise
went out, Mrs. Bond closed the door swiftly, and said:

"I've been thinking over that little matter, Mr. Henfrey. I really don't
think there is much cause for alarm. Charles will be back to-morrow, and
we can consult him."

Hugh shrugged his shoulders. He was much puzzled.

"The fact is, Mrs. Bond, I'm tired of being hunted like this!" he said.
"This eternal fear of arrest has got upon my nerves to such an extent
that I feel if they want to bring me for trial--well, they can. I'm
innocent--therefore, how can they prove me guilty?"

"Oh! you mustn't let it obsess you," the woman urged. "Mr. Benton has
told me all about the unfortunate affair, and I greatly sympathize with
you. Of course, to court the publicity of a trial would be fatal. What
would your poor father think, I wonder, if he were still alive?"

"He's dead," said the young man in a low, hoarse voice; "but
Mademoiselle Ferad knows the secret of his death."

"He died suddenly--did he not?"

"Yes. He was murdered, Mrs. Bond. I'm certain of it. My father was
murdered!"

"Murdered?" she echoed. "What did the doctors say?"

"They arrived at no definite conclusion," was Hugh's response. "He left
home and went up to London on some secret and mysterious errand. Later,
he was found lying upon the pavement in a dying condition. He never
recovered consciousness, but sank a few hours afterwards. His death is
one of the many unsolved mysteries of London."

"The police believe that you went to the Villa Amette and murdered
Mademoiselle out of revenge."

"Let them prove it!" said the young fellow defiantly. "Let them prove
it!"

"Prove what?" asked Louise, as she suddenly reopened the door, greatly
to the woman's consternation.

"Oh! Only somebody--that Spicer woman over at Godalming--has been saying
some wicked and nasty things about Mr. Henfrey," replied Mrs. Bond.
"Personally, I should be annoyed. Really those gossiping people are
simply intolerable."

"What have they been saying, Hugh?" asked the girl.

"Oh, it's really nothing," laughed Henfrey. "I apologize. I was put out
a moment ago, but I now see the absurdity of it. Forgive me, Louise."

The girl looked from Mrs. Bond to her guest in amazement.

"What is there to forgive?" she asked.

"The fact that I was in the very act of losing my temper. That's all."

Presently, when Louise was ascending the stairs with Mrs. Bond, the girl
asked:

"Why was Hugh so put out? What has Mrs. Spicer been saying about him?"

"Only that he was a shirker during the war. And, naturally, he is highly
indignant."

"He has a right to be. He did splendidly. His record shows that,"
declared the girl.

"I urged him to take no notice of the insults. The Spicer woman has a
very venomous tongue, my dear! She is a vicar's widow!"

And then they separated to their respective rooms.

Half an hour later Hugh Henfrey retired, but he found sleep impossible;
so he got up and sat at the open window, gazing across to the dim
outlines of the Surrey hills, picturesque and undulating beneath the
stars.

Who could have called him on the telephone? It was a woman, but the
voice might have been that of a female telephone operator. Or yet--it
might have been that of Dorise! She knew that he was at Shapley and
looked it up in the telephone directory. If that were the explanation,
then she certainly would not give away the secret of his hiding-place.

Still he was haunted by a great dread the whole of that night. The
Sparrow had told him he had acted foolishly in leaving his place of
concealment in Kensington. The Sparrow was his firm friend, and in
future he intended to obey the little old man's orders implicitly--as so
many others did.

Next morning he came down to breakfast before the ladies, and beside his
plate he found a letter--addressed to him openly. He had not received
one addressed in his real name for many months. Sight of it caused his
heart to bound in anxiety, but when he read it he stood rooted to the
spot.

Those lines which he read staggered him; the room seemed to revolve, and
he re-read them, scarce believing his own eyes.

He realized in that instant that a great blow had fallen upon him, and
that all was now hopeless. The sunshine of his life, had in that single
instant, been blotted out!

TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER

THE MAN WITH MANY NAMES

At the moment he had read the letter Mrs. Bond entered the room.

"Hallo! You're down early," she remarked. "And already had your letters,
I see! They don't generally come so early. The postman has to walk over
from Puttenham."

Then she took up her own and carelessly placed them aside. They
consisted mostly of circulars and the accounts of Guildford tradesmen.

"Yes," he said, "I was down early. Lately I've acquired the habit of
early rising."

"An excellent habit in a young man," she laughed. "All men who achieve
success are early risers--so a Cabinet Minister said the other day. And
really, I believe it."

"An hour in the early morning is worth three after dinner. That is why
Cabinet Ministers entertain people at breakfast nowadays instead of at
dinner. In the morning the brain is fresh and active--a fact recently
discovered in our post-war days," Hugh said.

Then, as his hostess turned to the hot-plate upon the sideboard, lifting
the covers to see what her cook had provided, he re-scanned the letter
which had been openly addressed to him. It was from Dorise:

"I refuse to be deceived any longer, I have discovered that you are now
a fellow-guest with the girl Louise, to whom you introduced me. And yet
you arranged to meet me at Farnham, believing that I was not aware
of your close friendship with her! I have believed in you up to the
present, but the scales have now fallen from my eyes. I thought you
loved me too well to deceive me--as you are doing. Hard things are being
said about you--but you can rest content that I shall reveal nothing
that I happen to know. What I do know, however, has changed my thoughts
concerning you. I believed you to be the victim of circumstance. Now
I know you have deceived me, and that I, myself, am the victim. I need
only add that someone else--whom I know not--knows of your hiding-place,
for, by a roundabout way, I heard of it, and hence, I address this
letter to you.--DORISE."

Hugh Henfrey stood staggered. There was no mistaking the meaning of that
letter now that he had read it a second time.

Dorise doubted him! And what answer could he give her? Any explanation
must, to her, be but a lame excuse.

Hugh ate his breakfast sullenly. To Louise, who put in a late
appearance, and helped herself off the hot-plate, he said cheerfully:

"How lazy you are!"

"It's not laziness, Hugh," replied the girl. "The maid was so late with
my tea--and--well, to tell the truth, I upset a whole new box of powder
on my dressing-table and had to clean up the mess."

"More haste--less speed," laughed Hugh. "It is always the same in the
morning--eh?"

When the girl sat down at the table Hugh had brightened up. Still the
load upon his shoulders was a heavy one. He was ever obsessed by the
mystery of his father's death, combined with that extraordinary will
by which it was decreed that if he married Louise he would acquire his
father's fortune.

Louise was certainly very good-looking, and quite charming. He admitted
that as he gazed across at her fresh figure on the opposite side of the
table. He, of course, was in ignorance of the fact that Benton, who had
adopted her, was a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, whose accomplice
was the handsome woman who was his hostess.

Naturally, he never dreamed that that quiet and respectable house, high
on the beautiful Surrey hills, was the abode of a woman for whom the
police of Europe were everywhere searching.

His thoughts all through breakfast were of The Sparrow--the great
criminal, who was his friend. Hence, after they rose, he strolled into
the morning-room with his hostess, and said:

"I'll have to go to town again this morning. I have an urgent letter.
Can Mead take me?"

"Certainly," was the woman's reply. "I have to make a call at Worplesdon
this afternoon, and Louise is going with me. But Mead can be back before
then to take us."

So half an hour later Hugh was driving up the steep High Street of
Guildford on his way to London.

He alighted in Piccadilly, at the end of Half Moon Street, soon after
eleven, and, dismissing Mead, made his way to Ellerston Street to the
house of Mr. George Peters.

He rang the bell at the old-fashioned mansion, and a few moments later
the door was opened by the manservant he had previously seen.

In an instant the servant recognized the visitor.

"Mr. Peters will not be in for a quarter of an hour," he said. "Would
you care to wait, sir?"

"Yes," Hugh replied. "I want to see him very urgently."

"Will you come in? Mr. Peters has left instructions that you might
probably call; Mr. Henfrey, is it not?"

"Yes," replied Hugh. The man seemed to possess a memory like that of a
club hall-porter.

Young Henfrey was ushered into a small but cosy little room, which, in
the light of day, he saw was well-furnished and upholstered. The door
closed, and he waited.

A few moments after he distinctly heard a man's voice, which he at once
recognized as that of The Sparrow.

The servant had told him that Mr. Peters was absent, yet he recognized
his voice--a rather high-pitched, musical one.

"Mr. Henfrey is waiting," he heard the servant say.

"Right! I hope you told him I was out," The Sparrow replied.

Then there was silence.

Hugh stood there very much puzzled. The room was cosy and
well-furnished, but the light was somewhat dim, while the atmosphere
was decidedly murky, as it is in any house in Mayfair. One cannot obtain
brightness and light in a West End house, where one's vista is bounded
by bricks and mortar. The dukes in their great town mansions are
no better off for light and air than the hard-working and worthy
wage-earners of Walworth, Deptford, or Peckham. The air in the
working-class districts of London is not one whit worse than it is in
Mayfair or in Belgravia.

Hugh stood before an old coloured print representing the hobby-horse
school--the days of the "bone-shakers"--and studied it. He awaited Il
Passero and the advice which he had promised to give.

His ears were strained. That house was curiously quiet and forbidding.
The White Cavalier, whom he had believed to be the notorious Sparrow,
had been proved to be one of his assistants. He had now met the real,
elusive adventurer, who controlled half the criminal adventurers in
Europe, and had found in him a most genial friend. He was there to seek
his advice and to act upon it.

As he reflected, he realized that without the aid of The Sparrow he
would have long ago been in the hands of the police. So widespread was
the organization which The Sparrow controlled that it mattered not in
what capital he might be, the paternal hand of protection was placed
upon him--in Genoa, in Brussels, in London--anywhere.

It seemed that when The Sparrow protected any criminal the fugitive was
safe. He had been sent to Mrs. Mason in Kensington, and he had left her
room against The Sparrow's will.

Hence his peril of arrest. It was that point which he wished to discuss
with the great arch-criminal of Europe.

That house was one of mystery. The servant had told him that he was
expected. Why? What did The Sparrow suspect?

The whole atmosphere of that old-fashioned place was mysterious and
apprehensive. And yet its owner had succeeded in extricating him from
that very perilous position at Monte Carlo!

Suddenly, as he stood there, he heard voices again. They were raised in
discussion.

One voice he recognized as that of The Sparrow.

"Well, I tell you my view is still the same," he exclaimed. "What you
have told me does not alter it, however much you may ridicule me!"

"Then you know the truth--eh?"

"I really didn't say so, my dear Howell. But I have my
suspicions--strong suspicions."

"Which you will, in due course, impart to young Henfrey, I suppose?"

"I shall do nothing of the sort," was The Sparrow's reply. "The lad is
in serious peril. I happen to know that."

"Then why don't you warn him at once?"

"That's my affair!" snapped the gentleman known in Mayfair as Mr.
Peters.

"IF Henfrey is here, then I'd like to meet him," Howell said.

It seemed as though the pair were in a room on the opposite side of the
passage, and yet, though Hugh stood at some distance away, he could hear
the words quite distinctly. At this he was much surprised. He did not,
however, know that in that house in Ellerston Street there had been
constructed a curious system of ventilation of the rooms by which a
conversation taking place in a distant apartment could be heard in
certain other rooms.

The fact was that The Sparrow received a good many queer visitors, and
some of their whispered conversations while they awaited him were often
full of interest.

The house was, in more than one way, a curiosity. It had a secret exit
through a mews at the rear--now converted into a garage--and several
other mysterious contrivances which were unsuspected by visitors.

"It would hardly do for him to know what we know, Mr. Peters--eh?"
Hugh heard Howell say a moment later. It was the habit of The Sparrow's
accomplices to address their great director--the brain of criminal
Europe--by the name under which they inquired for him. The Sparrow had
twenty names--one for every city in which he had a cosy _pied-a-terre_.
In Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, Marseilles, Vienna, Hamburg, Budapest,
Stockholm and on the Riviera, he was, in all the cities, known by a
different name. Yet each was so distinct, and each individuality so well
kept up, that he snapped his fingers at the police and pitied them their
red tape, ignorance, and lack of initiative.

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