“Where on earth have you been to, Roger?” his aunt demanded, fixing him steadily through her lorgnettes. “Where were you all day yesterday?”
He found a chair and lit a cigarette.
“I was fed up with this weather,” he confided. “Two days indoors are my limit. Yesterday I went for a tramp to La Turbie, then I took a bus into Nice, had dinner there quietly—at the Pergola, if you want to know—came back latish and went straight to bed. This morning I had to be in Cannes for the tennis. Anything fresh?”
“Do you mean to say that you have not heard?” his aunt exclaimed.
Thornton’s cold eyes never left Roger’s face. The latter could only guess at the meaning of that steadfast gaze.
“I have heard nothing,” he replied. “No more tragedies, I hope?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Thornton observed, “but our little crowd is out of it this time, for a wonder. A croupier from Nice got away from the Casino yesterday afternoon with one million, four hundred thousand francs!”
“This sounds interesting,” Roger exclaimed. “Have they caught him?”
“What happened was this,” Thornton explained, his eyes once more burrowing into his opposite neighbour’s—“it is the oddest thing in the world that you should be the last person to hear about it—”
“Steady on,” Roger begged. “I read the Eclaireur from beginnng to end this morning and there wasn’t a word about it.”
“You should know better than to be surprised at that,” Thornton remarked calmly. “It appears that there were two croupiers in the affair, or rather one croupier and a person who ranked as a chef, and a girl—that very good-looking cloakroom attendant. It was a wonderfully arranged scheme, of course, and the chef—who was the older man—and the girl got away with the money. It seems that they left in a motor car, made their way to some unknown rendezvous between Nice and Mentone, where they met some one else connected with the affair who had also come up from Nice, and one gathers that there was a grand dispute about the division of the spoils. The croupier was found this morning dying at the bottom of one of the gorges near Eze. He was just able to babble a few words of explanation before he died.”
“Any clues as to his murder?” Roger asked swiftly.
Thornton shook his head.
“Not yet. There are rumours that another croupier from the Casino was concerned, but he was certainly not with them.”
“And what about the money?”
“Well, it seems that the man was terribly incoherent, but in his last few breaths he tried to explain. So far as one can put the story together, it seems that when they realised that the croupier had not got it, they threw him over the precipice and rushed off to find the girl. This is where the humorous side of the story comes in. The girl had become frightened, hearing the quarrel, and had slipped away in the darkness with one million, four hundred thousand francs pinned in her chemise! According to all we can gather, no one has seen or heard of her since!”
“The girl did what?“ Roger gasped.
“She escaped from the meeting place—it was a wild sort of night, as you may remember—made her way up on to the road and must have boarded a bus, or some vehicle or other. Anyway, she has disappeared with the whole of the stolen money, and neither she nor the young croupier have been heard of since.”
Roger knocked the ash from his cigarette into a plate by his side. He thought of his car filled with red roses just back from Marseilles and the two mille in the scented envelope with just a single word of thanks. There was more humour in the story than even Thornton imagined!
CHAPTER XII
Lady Julia beckoned imperiously to her nephew to resume his seat. There had been a small luncheon party on the terrace of her Cap Martin villa and Roger was the last remaining guest.
“I shan’t keep you five minutes,” she promised. “I have a bone to pick with you, young man. What have you been doing to my little protégée?”
Roger was genuinely surprised.
“Why, I scarcely ever see her,” he protested. “She works most of the daytime and, as you know yourself, she never goes out in the evening unless you take her around to show off those silly frocks. What’s the matter with her?”
Lady Julia uttered a sound which could only be described as a snort.
“She’s worrying about something. She always had a queer abstracted expression but lately it’s worse than ever. She’s in trouble of some sort, I’m sure.”
“Well, it’s the first I’ve heard about it,” Roger declared. “It’s rather a coincidence that you should speak about her to-day, though. I’m due to meet her in ten minutes and take her for a drive.”
“If I thought,” Lady Julia said severely, “that you had been playing with that child behind my back, I should have a few words to say to you, young man!”
Roger and his aunt never failed to indulge in plain speaking, and this time he did not hesitate to follow her lead.
“Don’t be a fool,” he enjoined. “Have you ever seen or heard of my doing that sort of thing?”
“That will do,” she stopped him. “I’m quite willing to believe that you know nothing about it, but all the same she has something on her mind. I have no doubt everything is all right, Roger, but remember this. Of course you—like all these other crazy young men—are half in love with her, but if you ever let it go too far—I’m an old woman of the world, you know, but I mean it—I’ll never forgive you.”
“Tell me what you mean in plain words,” Roger begged.
“Have you made her your mistress?”
He laughed bitterly. There was one little chapter of his past life of which his aunt knew nothing.
“I have not nor am I thinking of doing so,” he assured her. “Since we are on the subject, however, what if I married her?”
Lady Julia looked at him keenly.
“Why shouldn’t you?” she demanded. “Men seem to marry anything nowadays. Better Jeannine, even though she is a peasant’s brat, than one of those musical comedy young women whom I can’t bear the sight of. Perhaps the child’s in love with you. That may be what’s the matter with her.”
“I wish she were!” Roger exclaimed. “She’s the queerest kid I ever knew. If I thought that she really cared—”
Lady Julia reached for her novel and rang the bell.
“Well, take her for a drive, anyway,” she enjoined. “Thanks for playing host for me. Dull crowd, I’m afraid, but one has to go through with a duty show now and then. See you at the Club to-night.”
Satan or one of his phantom whelps must have induced Prétat’s artist for the moment to dress Jeannine in that fawn-coloured and deep brown frock which blended so marvellously with her hair and eyes and to have designed for her head the distracting little cap which completed the toilette. At Longchamps, perhaps, at the beginning of the season, or in the Bois de Boulogne on a sunny morning one might have seen the type—not here. No wonder people’s eyes followed her from every direction…. Roger brought the car to a standstill by the side of the curb at the appointed spot. He threw open the door and Jeannine, stepping in, sank down amongst the cushions by his side, a fascinating tout ensemble of silky wool and chiffon, silk stockings, trim patent shoes and Prétat’s own perfume.