Sant of the Secret Service: Some Revelations of Spies and Spying. Le Queux William

about it all.” But it was evident that even Demetz had not the least inkling of the real truth, and, of course, I did not breathe a syllable of it to him.

      The matter was of extreme urgency, and I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet. I had promised Doris to spend a week with her in Worcestershire, but this was impossible. I knew, however, that she had long wished for a trip to Mentone, so I sent her a wire, asking her to come with her mother and meet me there. A few hours after I got the reply I wished for, and the following afternoon I alighted upon the long platform at Mentone. Two days later I was joined at my hotel by Doris and her mother.

      In Mentone, of course, my objective was the Villa des Fleurs. I particularly wanted to have a good look round the interior of that interesting house. Cauvin, of course, was away, and the house was shut up, but I learned that it was being looked after by an old woman, the wife of the gardener, and accordingly I hired a fiacre and, with Doris as my companion, drove out to the Villa des Fleurs.

      On the Côte d’Azur the weather was stifling. Driving up the white, winding road of Castellar, we found the olives and aloes dry and dusty, and the land parched and brown. The Riviera is not gay in the dog-days. At last we arrived at the Villa, a great, recently built house of the flamboyant, new art style, its green shutters closed, and the whole place silent and deserted in the burning sun. Roses and geraniums ran riot everywhere, but the gardens were kept spick and span, as became the winter pied-à-terre of a wealthy man.

      I posed as an Englishman who wished to view the Villa, with the object of becoming its tenant next winter, having heard from a friend of Monsieur Cauvin that he might wish to let it. Doris, I assured the old gardener, a white-bearded man in a big straw hat and blue apron, was my sister. He took the bait readily enough, and handed me over to the care of his wife, by whom we were conducted over the house.

      The house was most luxuriously furnished, and it was evident that popular rumours, for once, had not exaggerated Cauvin’s wealth. Everything was in splendid taste and bore the unmistakable cachet of a famous Paris firm of experts. Cauvin, evidently, was no fool; he had committed none of the absurdities of the average nouveau riche, but had wisely given experienced men carte blanche. The result was a mingling of luxury and good taste which certainly could not have been expected from the son of a village postman.

      Chapter Five

      The Perfumed Card

      We passed from room to room, chatting freely with the old Frenchwoman, who garrulously told me everything I wanted to know, and showed not the least reluctance to discuss her master and his affairs.