While Hugh Henfrey was travelling along that winding road over high headlands and down steep gradients to the sea which stretched the whole length of the Italian Riviera, Dorise Ranscomb in a white silk domino and black velvet mask was pretending to enjoy herself amid the mad gaiety at the Casino in Nice.
The great bal blanc is always one of the most important events of the Nice season, and everyone of note wintering on the Riviera was there, yet all carefully masked, both men and women.
“I wonder what prevented Hugh from coming with us, mother?” the girl remarked as she sat with Lady Ranscomb watching the merriment and the throwing of serpentines and confetti.
“I don’t know. He certainly ought to have let me know, and not have kept me waiting nearly half an hour, as he did,” her mother snapped.
The girl did not reply. The truth was that while her mother and the Count had been waiting for Hugh’s appearance, she had gone to the telephone and inquired for Mr. Henfrey. Walter Brock had spoken to her.
“I’m awfully sorry, Miss Ranscomb,” he had replied. “But I don’t know where Hugh can be. I’ve just been up to his room, but his fancy dress is there, flung down as though he had suddenly discarded it and gone out. Nobody noticed him leave. The page at the door is certain that he did not go out. So he must have left by the staff entrance.”
“That’s very curious, isn’t it?” Dorise remarked.
“Very. I can’t understand it.”
“But he promised to go with us to the ball at Nice to-night!”
“Well, Miss Ranscomb, all I can think is that something—something very important must have detained him somewhere.”
Walter knew that his friend was suspected by the police, but dared not tell her the truth. Hugh’s disappearance had caused him considerable anxiety because, for aught he knew, he might already be arrested.
So Dorise, much perplexed, but resolving not to say to her mother that she had telephoned to the Palmiers, rejoined the Count in the hotel lounge, where they waited a further ten minutes. Then they entered the car and drove along to Nice.
There are few merrier gatherings in all Europe than the bal blanc. The Municipal Casino, at all times the center of revelry, of mild gambling, smart dresses and gay suppers, is on that night an amazing spectacle of black and white. The carnival colours—the two shades of colour chosen yearly by the International Fetes Committee—are abandoned, and only white is worn.
When the trio entered the fun was already in full swing. The gay crowd disguised by their masks and fancy costumes were revelling as happily as school children. A party of girls dressed as clowns were playing leap-frog. Another party were dancing in a great and ever-widening ring. Girls armed with jesters’ bladders were being carried high on the shoulders of their male acquaintances, and striking all and sundry as they passed, staid, elderly folk were performing grotesque antics for persons of their age. The very air of the Riviera seems to be exhilarating to both old and young, and the constant church-goers at home quickly become infected by the spirit of gaiety, and conduct themselves on the Continental Sabbath in a manner which would horribly disgust their particular vicar.
“Hugh must have been detained by something very unexpected, mother,” Dorise said. “He never disappoints us.”
“Oh, yes, he does. One night we were going to the Embassy Club—don’t you recollect it—and he never turned up.”
“Oh, well, mother. It was really excusable. His cousin arrived from New York quite unexpectedly upon some family business. He phoned to you and explained,” said the girl.
“Well, what about that night when I asked him to dinner at the Ritz to meet the Courtenays and he rang up to say he was not well? Yet I saw him hale and hearty next day at a matinee at the Comedy.”
“He may have been indisposed, mother,” Dorise said. “Really I think you judge him just a little too harshly.”
“I don’t. I take people as I find them. Your father always said that, and he was no fool, my dear. He made a fortune by his cleverness, and we now enjoy it. Never associate with unsuccessful persons. It’s fatal!”
“That’s just what old Sir Dudley Ash, the steel millionaire, told me the other day when we were over at Cannes, mother. Never associate with the unlucky. Bad luck, he says, is a contagious malady.”
“And I believe it—I firmly believe it,” declared Lady Ranscomb. “Your poor father pointed it out to me long ago, and I find that what he said is too true.”
“But we can’t all be lucky, mother,” said the girl, watching the revelry before her blankly as she reflected upon the mystery of Hugh’s absence.
“No. But we can, nevertheless, be rich, if we look always to the main chance and make the best of our opportunities,” her mother said meaningly.
At that moment the Count d’Autun approached them. He was dressed as a pierrot, but being masked was only recognizable by the fine ruby ring upon his finger.
“Will mademoiselle do me the honour?” he said in French, bowing elegantly. “They are dancing in the theatre. Will you come, Mademoiselle Dorise?”
“Delighted,” she said, with an inward sigh, for the dressed-up Parisian always bored her. She rose quickly, and promising her mother to be back soon, she linked her arm to that of the notorious gambler and passed through the great palm-court into the theatre.
Then, a few moments later, she found herself carried around amid the mad crowd of revellers, who laughed merrily as the coloured serpentines thrown from the boxes fell upon them.
To lift one’s loup was a breach of etiquette. Everyone was closely masked. British members of Parliament, French senators, Italian members of the Camera, Spanish grandees and Russian princes, all with their womenfolk, hob-nobbed with cocottes, escrocs, and the most notorious adventurers and adventuresses in all Europe. Truly, it was a never-to-be-forgotten scene of cosmopolitan fun.
The Count, who was a bad dancer, collided with a slim, well-dressed French girl, but did not apologize.
“Oh! la la!” cried the girl to her partner, a stout figure in Mephistophelian garb. “An exquisitely polite gentleman that, mon cher Alphonse! I believe he must really be the Pork King from Chicago—eh?”
The Count heard it, and was furious. Dorise, however, said nothing. She was thinking of Hugh’s strange disappearance, and how he had broken his word to her.
Meanwhile, Lady Ranscomb, secretly very glad that Hugh had been prevented from accompanying them, and centring all her hopes upon her daughter’s marriage with George Sherrard, sat chattering with a Mrs. Down, the fat wife of a war-profiteer, whose acquaintance she had made in Paris six months before.
Dorise made pretense of enjoying the dance though eager to get back again to Monte Carlo in order to learn the reason of her lover’s absence. She was devoted to Hugh. He was all in all to her.
She danced with several partners, having first made a rendezvous with her mother at midnight at a certain spot under one of the great palms in the promenade. At masked balls the chaperon is useless, and everyone, being masked, looks so much alike that mistakes are easy.
About half-past one o’clock a big motor-car drew up in the Place before the Casino, and a tall man in a white fancy dress of a cavalier, with wide-brimmed hat and staggering plume, stepped from it and, presenting his ticket, passed at once into the crowded ball-room. For a full ten minutes he stood watching the crowd of revellers intently, eyeing each of them keenly, though the expression on his countenance was hidden by the strip of black velvet.
His eyes, shining through the slits in the mask, were, however, dark and brilliant. In them could be seen alertness and eagerness, for it was apparent that he had come there hot-foot in search of someone. In any case he had a difficult task, for in the whirling, laughing, chattering crowd each person resembled the other save for their feet and their stature.
It was the feet of the dancers that the tall masked man was watching. He stood in the crowd near the doorway with his hand upon his sword-hilt, a striking figure remarked by many. His large eyes were fixed upon the shoes of the dancers, until, of a sudden, he seemed to discover that for which he was in search, and made his way quickly after a pair who, having finished a dance, were walking in the direction of the great hall.
The stranger never took his eyes off the pair. The man was slightly taller than the woman, and the latter wore upon her white kid shoes a pair of old paste buckles. It was for those buckles that he had been searching.
“Yes,” he muttered in English beneath his breath. “That’s she—without a doubt!”
He drew back to near where the pair had halted and were laughing together. The girl with the glittering buckles upon her shoes was Dorise Ranscomb. The man with her was the Count d’Autun.
The white cavalier pretended to take no interest in them, but was, nevertheless, watching intently. At last he saw the girl’s partner bow, and leaving her, he crossed to greet a stout Frenchwoman in a plain domino. In a moment the cavalier was at the girl’s side.
“Please do not betray surprise, Miss Ranscomb,” he said in a low, refined voice. “We may be watched. But I have a message for you.”
“For me?” she asked, peering through her mask at the man in the plumed hat.
“Yes. But I cannot speak to you here. It is too public. Besides, your mother yonder may notice us.”
“Who are you?” asked the girl, naturally curious.
“Do not let us talk here. See, right over yonder in the corner behind where they are dancing in a ring—under the balcony. Let us meet there at once. Au revoir.”
And he left her.
Three minutes later they met again out of sight of Lady Ranscomb, who was still sitting at one of the little wicker tables talking to three other women.
“Tell me, who are you?” Dorise inquired.
The white cavalier laughed.
“I’m Mr. X,” was his reply.
“Mr. X? Who’s that?”
“Myself. But my name matters nothing, Miss Ranscomb,” he said. “I have come here to give you a confidential message.”
“Why confidential—and from whom?” she asked, standing against the wall and surveying the mysterious masker.
“From a gentleman friend of yours—Mr. Henfrey.”
“From Hugh?” she gasped. “Do you know him?”
“Yes.”
“I expected him to come with us to-night, but he has vanished from his hotel.”
“I know. That is why I am here,” was the reply.
There was a note in the stranger’s voice which struck her as somehow familiar, but she failed to recognize the individual. She was as quick at remembering voices as she was at recollecting faces. Who could he be, she wondered?
“You said you had a message for me,” she remarked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I am here to tell you that a serious contretemps has occurred, and that Mr. Henfrey has escaped from France.”
“Escaped!” she echoed. “Why?”
“Because the police suspect him of a crime.”
“Crime! What crime? Surely he is innocent?” she cried.
“He certainly is. His friends know that. Therefore, Miss Ranscomb, I beg of you to betray no undue anxiety even if you do not hear from him for many weeks.”
“But will he write to me?” she asked in despair. “Surely he will not keep me in suspense?”
“He will not if he can avoid it. But as soon as the French police realize that he has got away a watch will be kept upon his correspondence.” Then, lowering his voice, he urged her to move away, as he thought that an idling masker was trying to overhear their conversation.
“You see,” he went on a few moments later, “it might be dangerous if he were to write to you.”
Dorise was thinking of what her mother would say when the truth reached her ears. Hugh was a fugitive!
“Of what crime is he suspected?” asked the girl.
“I—well, I don’t exactly know,” was the stranger’s faltering response. “I was told by a friend of his that it was a serious one, and that he might find it extremely difficult to prove himself innocent. The circumstantial evidence against him is very strong.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“Not in the least. All I know is that he is safely across the frontier into Italy,” was the reply of the tall white cavalier.
“I wish I could see your face,” declared Dorise frankly.
“And I might express a similar desire, Miss Ranscomb. But for the present it is best as it is. I have sought you here to tell you the truth in secret, and to urge you to remain calm and patient.”
“Is that a message from Hugh?”
“No—not exactly. It is a message from one who is his friend.”
“You are very mysterious,” she declared. “If you do not know where he is at the moment, perhaps you know where we can find him later.”
“Yes. He is making his way to Brussels. A letter addressed to Mr. Godfrey Brown, Poste Restante, Brussels, will eventually find him. Recollect the name,” he added. “Disguise your handwriting on the envelope, and when you post it see that you are not observed. Recollect that his safety lies in your hands.”
“Trust me,” she said. “But do let me know your name,” she implored.
“Any old name is good enough for me,” he replied. “Call me Mr. X.”
“Don’t mystify me further, please.”
“Well, call me Smith, Jones, Robinson—whatever you like.”
“Then you refuse to satisfy my curiosity—eh?”
“I regret that I am compelled to do so—for certain reasons.”
“Are you a detective?” Dorise suddenly inquired.
The stranger laughed.
“If I were a police officer I should scarcely act as an intermediary between Mr. Henfrey and yourself, Miss Ranscomb.”
“But you say he is innocent. Are you certain of that? May I set my mind at rest that he never committed this crime of which the police suspect him?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes. I repeat that he is entirely innocent,” was the earnest response. “But I would advise you to affect ignorance. The police may question you. If they do, you know nothing, remember—absolutely nothing. If you write to Mr. Henfrey, take every precaution that nobody sees you post the letter. Give him a secret address in London, or anywhere in England, so that he can write to you there.”
“But how long will it be before I can see him again?”
“Ah! That I cannot tell. There is a mystery underlying it all that even I cannot fathom, Miss Ranscomb.”
“What kind of mystery?”
The white cavalier shrugged his shoulders.
“You must ask Mr. Henfrey. Or perhaps his friend Brock knows. Yet if he does, I do not suppose he would disclose anything his friend may have told him in confidence.”
“I am bewildered!” the girl declared. “It is all so very mysterious—Hugh a fugitive from justice! I—I really cannot believe it! What can the mystery be?”
“Of that I have no means of ascertaining, Miss Ranscomb. I am here merely to tell you what has happened and to give you in secret the name and address to which to send a letter to him,” the masked man said very politely. “And now I think we must part. Perhaps if ever we meet again—which is scarcely probable—you will recognize my voice. And always recollect that should you or Mr. Henfrey ever receive a message from ‘Silverado’ it will be from myself.” And he spelt the name.
“Silverado. Yes, I shall not forget you, my mysterious friend.”
“Au revoir!” he said as, bowing gracefully, he turned and left her.
The sun was rising from the sea when Dorise entered her bedroom at the hotel. Her maid had retired, so she undressed herself, and putting on a dressing-gown, she pulled up the blinds and sat down to write a letter to Hugh.
She could not sleep before she had sent him a reassuring message.
In the frenzy of her despair she wrote one letter and addressed it, but having done so she changed her mind. It was not sufficiently reassuring, she decided. It contained an element of doubt. Therefore she tore it up and wrote a second one which she locked safely in her jewel case, and then pulled the blinds and retired.
It was nearly noon next day before she left her room, yet almost as soon as she had descended in the lift the head femme de chambre, a stout Frenchwoman in a frilled cap, entered the room, and walking straight to the waste-paper basket gathered up the contents into her apron and went back along the corridor with an expression of satisfaction upon her full round face.
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