"I"ll tell her that myself, miss," said the old man gruffly.
"Well, before you tell her anything, I want to make a confession," she smiled down on old Jaggs, and pulled up a chair so that she faced him.
He was sitting with his back to the light, holding his battered hat on his knees.
"I"ve really brought you up under false pretences," she said, "because Mrs. Meredith isn"t here at all."
"Not here?" he said, half rising.
"No, she"s gone for a ride with our chauffeur. But I wanted to see you, Mr. Jaggs, because--" she paused. "I realise that you"re a dear friend of hers and have her best interests at heart. I don"t know who you are,"
she said, shaking her head, "but I know, of course, that Mr. John Glover has employed you."
"What"s all this about?" he asked gruffly. "What have you to tell me?"
"I don"t know how to begin," she said, biting her lips. "It is such a delicate matter that I hate talking about it at all. But the att.i.tude of Mrs. Meredith to our chauffeur Mordon, is distressing, and I think Mr.
Glover should be told."
He did not speak and she went on.
"These things do happen, I know," she said, "but I am happy to say that nothing of that sort has come into my experience, and, of course, Mordon is a good-looking man and she is young----"
"What are you talking about?" His tone was dictatorial and commanding.
"I mean," she said, "that I fear poor Lydia is in love with Mordon."
He sprang to his feet.
"It"s a d.a.m.ned lie!" he said, and she stared at him. "Now tell me what has happened to Lydia Meredith," he went on, "and let me tell you this, Jean Briggerland, that if one hair of that girl"s head is harmed, I will finish the work I began out there," he pointed to the garden, "and strangle you with my own hands."
She lifted her eyes to his and dropped them again, and began to tremble, then turning suddenly on her heel, she fled to her room, locked the door and stood against it, white and shaking. For the second time in her life Jean Briggerland was afraid.
She heard his quick footsteps in the pa.s.sage outside, and there came a tap on her door.
"Let me in," growled the man, and for a second she almost lost control of herself. She looked wildly round the room for some way of escape, and then as a thought struck her, she ran quickly into the bath-room, which opened from her room. A large sponge was set to dry by an open window, and this she seized; on a shelf by the side of the bath was a big bottle of ammonia, and averting her face, she poured its contents upon the sponge until it was sodden, then with the dripping sponge in her hand, she crept back, turned the key and opened the door.
The old man burst in, then, before he realised what was happening, the sponge was pressed against his face. The pungent drug almost blinded him, its paralysing fumes brought him on to his knees. He gripped her wrist and tried to press away her hand, but now her arm was round his neck, and he could not get the purchase.
With a groan of agony he collapsed on the floor. In that instant she was on him like a cat, her knee between his shoulders.
Half unconscious he felt his hands drawn to his back, and felt something lashing them together. She was using the silk girdle which had been about her waist, and her work was effective.
Presently she turned him over on his back. The ammonia was still in his eyes, and he could not open them. The agony was terrible, almost unendurable. With her hand under his arm he struggled to his feet. He felt her lead him somewhere, and suddenly he was pushed into a chair.
She left him alone for a little while, but presently came back and began to tie his feet together. It was a most amazing single-handed capture--even Jean could never have imagined the ease with which she could gain her victory.
"I"m sorry to hurt an old man." There was a sneer in her voice which he had not heard before. "But if you promise not to shout, I will not gag you."
He heard the sound of running water, and presently with a wet cloth she began wiping his eyes gently.
"You will be able to see in a minute," said Jean"s cool voice. "In the meantime you"ll stay here until I send for the police."
For all his pain he was forced to chuckle.
"Until you send for the police, eh? You know me?"
"I only know you"re a wicked old man who broke into this house whilst I was alone and the servants were out," she said.
"You know why I"ve come?" he insisted. "I"ve come to tell Mrs. Meredith that a hundred thousand pounds have been taken from her bank on a forged signature."
"How absurd," said Jean. She was sitting on the edge of the bath looking at the bedraggled figure. "How could anybody draw money from Mrs.
Meredith"s bank whilst her dear friend and guardian, Jack Glover, is in London to see that she is not robbed."
"Old Jaggs" glared up at her from his inflamed eyes.
"You know very well," he said distinctly, "that I am Jack Glover, and that I have not left Monte Carlo since Lydia Meredith arrived."
Chapter x.x.xVI
Mr. Briggerland did not enthuse over any form of sport or exercise. His hobbies were confined to the handsome motor-cycle, which not only provided him with recreation, but had, on occasion, been of a.s.sistance in the carrying out of important plans, formulated by his daughter.
He stopped at Mentone for breakfast and climbed the hill to Grimaldi after pa.s.sing the frontier station at Pont St. Louis. He had all the morning before him, and there was no great hurry. At Ventimille he had a second breakfast, for the morning was keen and his appet.i.te was good. He loafed through the little town, with a cigar between his teeth, bought some curios at a shop and continued his leisurely journey.
His objective was San Remo. There was a train at one o"clock which would bring him and his machine back to Monte Carlo, where it was his intention to spend the remainder of the afternoon. At Pont St. Louis he had had a talk with the Customs Officer.
"No, m"sieur, there are very few travellers on the road in the morning," said the official. "It is not until late in the afternoon that the traffic begins. Times have changed on the Riviera, and so many people go to Cannes. The old road is almost now deserted."
At eleven o"clock Mr. Briggerland came to a certain part of the road and found a hiding-place for his motor-cycle--a small plantation of olive trees on the hill side. Incidentally it was an admirable resting place, for from here he commanded an extensive view of the western road.
Lydia"s journey had been no less enjoyable. She, too, had stopped at Mentone to explore the town, and had left Pont St. Louis an hour after Mr. Briggerland had pa.s.sed.
The road to San Remo runs under the shadow of steep hills through a bleak stretch of country from which even the industrious peasantry of northern Italy cannot win a livelihood. Save for isolated patches of cultivated land, the hills are bare and menacing.
With these gaunt plateaux on one side and the rock-strewn seash.o.r.e on the other, there was little to hold the eye save an occasional glimpse of the Italian town in the far distance. There was a wild uncouthness about the scenery which awed the girl. Sometimes the car would be running so near the sea level that the spray of the waves. .h.i.t the windows; sometimes it would climb over an out-jutting headland and she would look down upon a bouldered beach a hundred feet below.
It was on the crest of a headland that the car stopped.
Here the road ran out in a semi-circle so that from where she sat she could not see its continuation either before or behind. Ahead it slipped round the shoulder of a high and over-hanging ma.s.s of rock, through which the road must have been cut. Behind it dipped down to a cove, hidden from sight.
"There is the Lovers" Chair, mademoiselle," said Mordon.
Half a dozen feet beneath the road level was a broad shelf of rock. A few stone steps led down and she followed them. The Lovers" Chair was carved in the face of the rock and she sat down to view the beauty of the scene. The solitude, the stillness which only the lazy waves broke, the majesty of the setting, brought a strange peace to her. Beyond the edge of the ledge the cliff fell sheer to the water, and she shivered as she stepped back from her inspection.
Mordon did not see her go. He sat on the running board of his car, his pale face between his hands, a prey to his own gloomy thoughts. There must be a development, he told himself. He was beginning to get uneasy, and for the first time he doubted the sincerity of the woman who had been to him as a G.o.ddess.
He did not hear Mr. Briggerland, for the dark man was light of foot, when he came round the shoulder of the hill. Mordon"s back was toward him. Suddenly the chauffeur looked round.