Outside in the brilliant Riviera moonlight the scent of a wealth of flowers greeted his nostrils. It was almost bright as day. From the veranda spread a wide, fairy-like view of the many lights of Monte Carlo and La Condamine, with the sea beyond shimmering in the moonlight.
The veranda, he saw, led by several steps down into the beautiful garden, while beyond, a distance of a hundred yards, was the main gate leading to the roadway. The a.s.sa.s.sin, after taking careful aim and firing, had, no doubt, slipped along, and out of the gate.
But why had Mademoiselle been shot just at the moment when she was about to reveal the secret of his lamented father"s death?
He descended to the garden, where he examined the bushes which cast their dark shadows. But all was silence. The a.s.sa.s.sin had escaped!
Then he hurried out into the road, but again all was silence. The only hope of discovering the ident.i.ty of the criminal was by means of the police vigilance. Truth to tell, however, the police of Monte Carlo are never over anxious to arrest a criminal, because Monte Carlo attracts the higher criminal cla.s.s of both s.e.xes from all over Europe. If the police of the Princ.i.p.ality were constantly making arrests it would be bad advertis.e.m.e.nt for the Rooms. Hence, though the Monte Carlo police are extremely vigilant and an expert body of officers, they prefer to watch and to give information to the bureaux of police of other countries, so that arrests invariably take place beyond the frontiers of the Princ.i.p.ality of Monaco.
It was not long before Doctor Leneveu, a short, stout, bald-headed little man, well known to habitues of the Rooms, among whom he had a large practice, entered the house of Mademoiselle and was greeted by Hugh. The latter briefly explained the tragic circ.u.mstances, whereupon the little doctor at once became fussy and excited.
Having ordered everyone out of the room except Henfrey, he bent and made an examination of the prostrate woman.
"Ah! m"sieur," he said, "the unfortunate lady has certainly been shot at close quarters. The wound is, I tell you at once, extremely dangerous,"
he added, after a searching investigation. "But she is still alive," he declared. "Yes--she is still breathing."
"Still alive!" gasped Henfrey. "That"s excellent! I--I feared that she was dead!"
"No. She still breathes," the doctor replied. "But, tell me exactly what has occurred. First, however, we will get them to remove her upstairs.
I will telephone to my colleague Duponteil, and we will endeavour to extract the bullet."
"But will she recover, doctor?" asked Hugh eagerly in French. "What do you think?"
The little man became serious and shook his head gravely.
"Ah! m"sieur, that I cannot say," was his reply. "She is in a very grave state--very! And the brain may be affected."
Hugh held his breath. _Surely Yvonne Ferad was not to die with the secret upon her lips!_
At the doctor"s orders the servants were about to remove their mistress to her room when two well-dressed men of official aspect entered. They were officers of the Bureau of Police.
"Stop!" cried the elder, who was the one in authority, a tall, lantern-jawed man with a dark brown beard and yellow teeth. "Do not touch that lady! What has happened here?"
Hugh came forward, and in his best French explained the circ.u.mstances of the tragedy--how Mademoiselle had been shot in his presence by an unknown hand.
"The a.s.sa.s.sin, whoever he was, stood out yonder--upon the veranda--but I never saw him," he added. "It was all over in a second--and he has escaped!"
"And pray who are you?" demanded the police officer bluntly. "Please explain."
Hugh was rather nonplussed. The question required explanation, no doubt.
It would, he saw, appear very curious that he should visit Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo at that late hour.
"I--well, I called upon Mademoiselle because I wished to obtain some important information from her."
"What information? Rather late for a call, surely?"
The young Englishman hesitated. Then, with true British grit, he a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of boldness, and asked:
"Am I compelled to answer that question?"
"I am Charles Ogier, chief inspector of the Surete of Monaco, and I press for a reply," answered the other firmly.
"And I, Hugh Henfrey, a British subject, at present decline to satisfy you," was the young man"s bold response.
"Is the lady still alive?" inquired the inspector of Doctor Leneveu.
"Yes. I have ordered her to be taken up to her room--of course, when m"sieur the inspector gives permission."
Ogier looked at the deathly countenance with the closed eyes, and noted that the wound in the skull had been bound up with a cotton handkerchief belonging to one of the maids. Mademoiselle"s dark well-dressed hair had become unbound and was straying across her face, while her handsome gown had been torn in the attempt to unloosen her corsets.
"Yes," said the police officer; "they had better take her upstairs. We will remain here and make inquiries. This is a very queer affair--to say the least," he added, glancing suspiciously at Henfrey.
While the servants carried their unconscious mistress tenderly upstairs, the fussy little doctor went to the telephone to call Doctor Duponteil, the princ.i.p.al surgeon of Monaco. He had hesitated whether to take the victim to the hospital, but had decided that the operation could be done just as effectively upstairs. So, after speaking to Duponteil, he also spoke to the sister at the hospital, asking her to send up two nurses immediately to the Villa Amette.
In the meantime Inspector Ogier was closely questioning the young Englishman.
Like everyone in Monte Carlo he knew the mysterious Mademoiselle by sight. More than once the suspicions of the police had been aroused against her. Indeed, in the archives of the Prefecture there reposed a bulky dossier containing reports of her doings and those of her friends.
Yet there had never been anything which would warrant the authorities to forbid her from remaining in the Princ.i.p.ality.
This tragedy, therefore, greatly interested Ogier and his colleague.
Both of them had spent many years in the service of the Paris Surete under the great Goron before being appointed to the responsible positions in the detective service of Monaco.
"Then you knew the lady?" Ogier asked of the young man who was naturally much upset over the startling affair, and the more so because the secret of his father"s mysterious death had been filched from him by the hand of some unknown a.s.sa.s.sin.
"No, I did not know her personally," Henfrey replied somewhat lamely. "I came to call upon her, and she received me."
"Why did you call at this hour? Could you not have called in the daytime?"
"Mademoiselle was in the Rooms until late," he said.
"Ah! Then you followed her home--eh?"
"Yes," he admitted.
The police officer pursed his lips and raised his eyes significantly at his colleague.
"And what was actually happening when the shot was fired? Describe it to me, please," he demanded.
"I was standing just here"--and he crossed the room and stood upon the spot where he had been--"Mademoiselle was over there beside the window.
I had my back to the window. She was about to tell me something--to answer a question I had put to her--when someone from outside shot her through the open gla.s.s door."
"And you did not see her a.s.sailant?"
"I saw nothing. The shot startled me, and, seeing her staggering, I rushed to her. In the meantime the a.s.sailant--whoever he was--disappeared!"
The brown-bearded man smiled dubiously. As he stood beneath the electric light Hugh saw doubt written largely upon his countenance. He instantly realized that Ogier disbelieved his story.
After all it was a very lame one. He would not fully admit the reason of his visit.