“These French papers are disgraceful,” she declared, throwing one down. “Here is a whole column devoted to the praise of the commissaire of police and the wonderful gendarmerie service which he has organised. They pat themselves on the back all the time that they have broken up the most dangerous gang of criminals who have ever visited the Principality…. Yes, that’s there, all right. You can read it, if you don’t believe me. They even say that it was a gang who had defied all the police of New York for years. The commissaire is to be decorated.”
“Why not?” Roger demanded lazily. “He played the man at the end, anyhow.”
“But it was you and Prince Savonarilda who broke up the gang,” Jeannine expostulated.
Roger grinned. So, in a subtler fashion, did Savonarilda, who was spending his last day in France before returning to Sicily.
“It’s hard to get these matters straightened out quite clearly sometimes,” Roger observed sententiously.
Lady Julia settled herself in her chair.
“There will be changes now,” she sighed, “and I hate changes. Most of all, I shall miss you, Prince. You may be a very bad man now and then, but you are capable of such splendid gestures.”
The Curé came into sight, trudging up the hill. Bardells appeared, carrying a tray on which was the cocktail shaker, two bottles of champagne and sweet biscuits.
“His Reverence does not drink cocktails, sir,” he confided to Roger, “and he will require a little refreshment after the ceremony. Luncheon will be ready in a quarter of an hour.”
THE END
THE GLENLITTEN MURDER
CHAPTER I
Glenlitten, although a country house of antiquity and tradition, was in these modern days a free and easy place, so far as the entertainment of its guests was concerned. The state drawing-rooms were seldom opened, and the general meeting place for cocktails before dinner and coffee afterwards was the great hall which had been transformed into a lounge, and which led into the old picture gallery, now a ballroom. Andrew Glenlitten, sixth Marquis, sunburnt, blue-eyed, in appearance and speech younger than his thirty-two years, moved cheerfully about amongst his guests, superintending the service of cocktails.
“Sorry my wife’s a few minutes late, Dick,” he apologised, resting his hand for a moment affectionately upon the shoulder of the famous criminal lawyer. “My fault, I am afraid. We went down to see old Heggs about the stands for to-morrow, and he kept us gassing for over an hour.”
“I am looking forward immensely to meeting your wife,” Sir Richard observed, helping himself, after a moment’s hesitation, to a second cocktail. “Are we a large party?”
“A very small one,” his host replied. “There’s yourself, my sister Susan—you haven’t forgotten of course?”
“Scarcely,” Cotton acknowledged, glancing towards a fair-haired, good-natured looking woman, apparently a few years older than her brother, who was curled up upon a sofa, smoking a cigarette and reading the evening paper. “We don’t meet much nowadays, but I was nearly her godfather. Who is the tall, thin man with an eyeglass? I don’t seem to remember him.”
“You probably wouldn’t,” his host remarked. “His name is Haslam—Rodney Haslam. He is a commissioner out in West Africa. Then there’s Jimmy Manfield, talking to De Besset. Jimmy was at Eton with me—no end of a swell in the county now. They’ve just made him Lord Lieutenant. De Besset, you wouldn’t know, I suppose. He is a Frenchman, and a very