“But you must have practised somewhere,” he protested.
“Sometimes in the cutting rooms,” she confided, “the girls hum music and we get up. That is all I know of dancing…. Do not forget, will you, Monsieur Roger, it must be eight o’clock for me or much disgrace. Monsieur is kind but he likes punctuality. My dresses are not yet chosen. Monsieur Prétat has whims. He insists that he must see me five minutes before he makes his selection that he may decide what sort of humour I am in!”
They danced several more times and later, strolling into the baccarat rooms, watched the gambling. Afterwards they wandered in and out of the shops, loitered on the Promenade des Anglais and finally started homeward.
As they neared Monte Carlo, Jeannine drew off her gloves. Roger looked at her hands—shapely, slim, a good colour now with well-cared-for nails, but ringless.
“No ornament yet,” he remarked.
She shook her head.
“They make me ‘march’ with the fashion and wear the jewellery that goes with the frocks,” she explained. “I have begged, though, that I do not have to wear a ring and they have let me have my way. I have never worn a ring. I have never had one on my finger.”
“Why not?” he asked.
She looked at him and for a single moment Jeannine of the orange tree seemed to be seated by his side instead of Jeannine the mannequin. He felt a little stab.
“Must one have a reason for everything?” she murmured.
“I am a man and I like reasons,” Roger told her.
“I am a girl and it is permitted to me to prefer sentiment!” she retorted.
It was twenty minutes past seven when Roger and Jeannine left the Casino at Nice. The ex-Mayor of La Bastide was still seated at the bar, talking to an increasing crowd of strangely and elaborately attired young men, all with smoothly brushed hair and covetous eyes. His ugly lilac-coloured car, too, was prominent amongst the waiting automobiles, so whether Jeannine was right or wrong in her estimate of the man it could not have been he who was concerned in the strange happenings of that evening in Monte Carlo.
Roger dropped Jeannine at the futuristic-looking building—long and low, with deep cement front and blue framed windows—which was the scene of her daily labours, after which he mounted the broad steps a few yards away and entered the Sporting Club. He had no idea of playing, but from seven to eight the place was rather a rallying ground and he was hoping to plan some tennis for the next morning. Directly he entered the bar, he realised that something had happened. There was a perfect commotion of voices—every one talking eagerly, a hubbub of exclamations, everybody more or less incoherent. Savonarilda, for once without his customary lazy grin, stretched out his hand and gripped Roger’s as he passed.
“You have heard?”
“I’ve heard nothing at all,” Roger replied. “I’ve just got in from Nice. Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“Erskine, your friend Pips Erskine—shot in the Casino this afternoon!”
“Pips!” Roger exclaimed. “Pips Erskine! Why, it’s not possible.”
Savonarilda nodded. Roger had never seen him look so grave.
“He had one of those accursed letters last night. He showed it to Thornton and myself in here. You were not about or of course you would have seen it too. I didn’t like it, neither did Major Thornton. Erskine, however, persisted in treating it as a joke. You know how obstinate he could be when he was in the humour? Not a penny would he pay! This afternoon in the ‘kitchen’ of the Casino, if you please, he was shot through the shoulder blade and the heart by some one who must have been almost leaning against him.”
Roger felt suddenly sick. The other tragedies had seemed terrible enough, but Erskine, Pips Erskine, who had only just come into his inheritance, steeped to the finger tips in the enjoyment of life, spending money with both hands, flirting with every woman he came across, almost savagely eager to make up for his years of privation! It was not possible!
“He is dead?” Roger faltered.
“He was dead when they picked him up,” was the grave reply. “He must have been dead a few seconds after that unseen finger pulled the trigger of the pistol, or whatever fiendish weapon was used.”
Roger was feeling a little giddy. He pushed on one side the drink which Savonarilda would have forced upon him. An official of the place hurried up and touched him on the shoulder.
“Monsieur the Major Thornton,” he announced, “waits for you, sir, at the Casino. He is engaged with the police there.”
CHAPTER XIII
Roger followed the man along that dreary carpeted way which he was beginning to loathe, mounted in the lift by the side of which Luke Cheyne had been murdered, crossed the lounge of the Hôtel de Paris, left by the swing doors and went up the steps into the Casino. Here his guide led him by a devious way to an underground floor and paused before a door guarded by a gendarme. They were allowed to pass in, however, and found Thornton engaged with one of the Monaco officials, a solemn-visaged doctor and an undertaker. Upon a mattress, raised a little from the floor and covered over with a sheet, was the victim of the tragedy. Thornton disengaged himself from the others and came over at once to Roger. It was obvious that he had received a shock, for his eyes seemed to have receded farther into his head than ever. He was very pale and had lost something of his cold equanimity of manner.
“Sloane,” he exclaimed, “this is damnable!”
“I have only just heard about it,” Roger groaned.
“We have been looking everywhere for you. Where the mischief have you been?”
“I dined at Cannes last night and came back late,” he explained. “This morning I lunched with my aunt. Afterwards I went over to Nice and I only got back a quarter of an hour ago.”
“We must have just missed you everywhere. I thought you might have been able to do something with Erskine. I don’t know why, but we all had nerves. They only asked him for a hundred and eighty thousand of his winnings. I wanted him to pay and Prince Savonarilda offered to go halves. I’m afraid that rather set his back up, though.”
“Where’s the letter?” Roger asked.
“In my pocket. We can’t do any good here. Come outside somewhere and I’ll show it to you.”
Roger paused for a moment, looking out of the window with his back to the room, its ghostly occupant and the little group of whispering officials. Outside were the crowds at the Café de Paris. The music was dimly audible, although the windows were closely fastened. There was something pitiless and ghastly about the gay antics of the conductor in his brilliant uniform. Roger turned back into the room and moved reverently towards the improvised bed.
“Where are you going?” Thornton asked.
“A morbid idea,” Roger confessed. “I just wanted to have a look at him. Poor old Pips.”
Thornton gripped the other by the arm.
“They won’t let you,” he warned him. “I wanted to have a last look myself. I was here when they brought him in.”
“That’s absurd,” Roger scoffed. “He was a great friend of mine.”
He moved another step towards the couch. The doctor of the Casino and a functionary with whom he had been talking blocked the way.
“The