"What sort of sport was it?" he hazarded.
"It had to do with the secret of a torpedo controlled by wireless,"
Denby said. "A number of governments were after it and there collected in Buenos Ayres the choicest collection of high-grade adventurers that I have ever seen. Some day when I"m through with this pearl trouble I"ll tell you about it."
But what Denby had carelessly termed "pearl trouble" was quite sufficient for the less experienced man. He had a vivid imagination, more vivid now than at any period of his career. Paris was full of Apaches, he knew, and not all spent their days lying in the sun outside the barriers. Supposing one sprang from behind a tree and fell upon Denby and seized the precious package whose outline was discernible through the breast pocket of his coat. Monty suddenly took upon himself the role of an adviser.
"It"s no use taking unnecessary risks," he said. "I saw you put those pearls in your breast pocket, and there were at least six people who had the same opportunity as I. It"s just putting temptation in the way of a thief."
"I welcome this outbreak of caution on your part," said Denby, laughing at his expression of anxiety, "but you"ll need it on board ship most.
The greatest danger is that a couple of crooks may rob me and then pitch me overboard. Monty, for the sake of our boyhood recollections, don"t let them throw me overboard."
"Now you are laughing at me," Monty said a trifle sulkily.
"What do you want me to do?" Denby demanded.
"Put those pearls in some other place," he returned stubbornly.
Denby made a pa.s.s or two in the air as conjurers do when they perform their marvels.
"It"s done," he cried. "From what part of my anatomy or yours shall I produce them?"
"There you go," Monty exclaimed helplessly, "you won"t be serious. I"m getting all on the jump."
"A cigarette will soothe you," Denby told him, taking a flat leathern pouch from his pocket and offering it to the other.
"I can"t roll "em," Monty protested.
"Then a look at my tobacco has a soothing effect," the elder man insisted. "I grow it in my private vineyard in Ruritania."
Monty turned back the leather flap to look at his friend"s private brand and saw nestling in a place where once tobacco might have reposed a necklace of pearls for which a million of francs had been paid.
"Good Lord!" Monty gasped. "How did you do it?"
"A correspondence school course in legerdemain," Steven explained. "It comes in handy at times."
"But I didn"t see you do it and I was watching."
"An unconscious tribute to my art," Denby replied. "Monty, I thank you."
Monty grew less anxious. If Steven had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve there was no reason to suppose he must fail.
"I don"t think you need my advice," he admitted. "It doesn"t seem I can help you."
"You may be able to help a great deal," Denby said more seriously, "but I don"t want you to act as if you were a criminal. Pa.s.s it off easily.
Of course,"--he hesitated,--"I"ve had more experience in this sort of thing than you, and am more used to being up against it, but it will never do if you look as anxiously at everybody on the Mauretania as you do at the pa.s.sers-by here. You can help me particularly by observing if I am the subject of special scrutiny."
"That will be a cinch," Monty a.s.serted.
"Then start right away," his mentor commanded. "We have been under observation for the last five minutes by someone I"ve never laid eyes on before."
"Good Lord!" Monty cried. "It was that old priest who stared at us. I knew he was a fake. That was a wig he had on!"
"Try again," Denby suggested. "It happens to be a woman and a very handsome one. As we went into Cartier"s she pa.s.sed in a taxi. I only thought then that she was a particularly charming American or English woman out on a shopping expedition. When we came out she was in one of those expensive _couturier"s_ opposite, standing at an upper window which commands a view of Cartier"s door. They may have been coincidences, but at the present moment, although we are sauntering along the Champs Elysees, she is pursuing us in another taxi. She has pa.s.sed us once. When she went by she told the chauffeur to turn, but he was going at such a pace that he couldn"t pull up in time. He has just turned and is now bearing down on us. Take a look at the lady, Monty, so you will know her again."
A sense of dreadful responsibility settled on Montague Vaughan. He was now entering upon his role of Denby"s aid and must in a few seconds be brought face to face with what was unquestionably an adventuress of the highest cla.s.s. He knew all about them from fiction. She would have the faintest foreign accent, be wholly charming and free from vulgarity, and yet like Keats" creation be a _belle dame sans merci_. But, he wondered uneasily, what would be his role if his friend fell victim to her charms?
He was startled out of his vain imaginings when Denby exclaimed: "By all that"s wonderful, she seems to know one of us, and it"s not I! You"re the fortunate man, Monty."
A pretty woman with good features and laughing eyes was certainly looking out of a taxi and smiling right at him. And when he realized this, Monty"s depression was lifted and he sprang forward to meet her.
"It"s Alice," he cried.
Denby, following more leisurely, was introduced to her.
"I came last night," she explained. "Michael"s horse won and there was no more interest in Deauville or Trouville and as I must buy some things I came on here as soon as I could. I thought I saw you in Cartier"s,"
she explained, "and tried to make you see me when you came out, but only Mr. Denby looked my way so I dared not make any signs of welcome."
She seemed exceedingly happy to be in Paris again, and Denby, looking at her with interest, knew he was in the company of one of the most notable and best liked of the smart hostesses among the sporting set on Long Island. The Harringtons were enormously rich and lived at a great estate near Westbury, not far from the Meadow Brook Club. The Directory of Directors showed the name of Michael Harrington in a number of influential companies, but of recent years his interest in business had slackened and he was more interested in the development of his estate and the training of his thoroughbreds than in Wall Street activities.
For her part she took him, although the name was totally unfamiliar, as a friend of Monty"s, and was prepared to like him. Whereas an Englishwoman of her cla.s.s might have been insistent to discover whether any of his immediate ancestors had been engaged in retail trade before she accepted him as an equal, Alice Harrington was willing to take people on their face value and retain them on their merits.
She saw a tall, well-bred man with strong features and that air of _savoir faire_ which is not easy of a.s.sumption. She felt instantly that he was the sort of man Michael would like. He talked about racing as though he knew, and that alone would please her husband.
"I"ve spent so much money," she said presently, "that I shall dismiss this taxi-man and walk. One can walk in Paris with two men, whereas one may be a little pestered alone."
"Fine," Monty cried. "We"ll go and lunch somewhere. What place strikes your fancy?"
"Alas," she said, "I"m booked already. I have an elderly relation in the Boulevard Haussmann who stays here all summer this year on account of alterations in the house which she superintends personally, and I"ve promised."
"I hope she hasn"t sacrificed you at a dinner table, too," Denby said, "because if you are free to-night you"d confer a blessing on a fellow countryman if you"d come with Monty and me to the Amba.s.sadeurs. Polin is funnier than ever."
"I"d love to," she cried. "You have probably delivered me from my aunt"s dismal dinner. I hadn"t an engagement but now I can swear to one truthfully. Men are usually so vain that if you say you"re dreadfully sorry but you"ve another engagement they really believe it. The dear things think no other cause would make a woman refuse. But my aunt would interrogate me till I faltered and contradicted myself."
They left her later at one of those great mansions in the Boulevard Haussmann. The house was enlaced with scaffolding and workmen swarmed over its roof.
"It"s old Miss Woodwarde"s house," Monty explained. "She"s worth millions and will probably leave it to Alice, who doesn"t need any, because she"s the only one of all her relatives who speaks the truth and doesn"t fawn and flatter."
"It takes greater strength of mind than poor relations usually have, to tell rich relatives the truth," Steven reminded him.
Monty had evidently recovered his good spirits. "I knew you"d like her,"
he said later, "and I knew she"d take to you. We"ll have a corking dinner and a jolly good time."
"There"s one thing I want to ask of you," Denby said gravely. "Don"t give any particulars about me. If she"s the sort I think her she won"t ask, but you"ve got a bad habit of wanting people to hear how I fished you out of the river. I want to slip into New York without any advertis.e.m.e.nt of the fact. I"m not the son of a plutocrat as you are.
I"m the hard-up son of a man who was once rich but is now dead and forgotten."
"Do hard-up men hand a million francs across for a string of pearls to put in their tobacco-pouches?" Monty demanded shrewdly.
"You may regard that as an investment if you like," Denby answered. "It may be all my capital is tied up in it."
"You"re gambling for a big stake then," Monty said seriously. "Is it worth it, old man?"