THE band was playing one of de Courville’s new revue tunes, and the Café de Paris was crowded out. There had been a big influx of visitors from Nice, and Monte Carlo presented an appearance comparable with the height of the season. Mrs. Renfrew had motored up to La Turbie, and a bank of cloud having descended upon the mountain made the road dangerous. (Those who have journeyed from the Corniche to Monte Carlo by night will appreciate just how dangerous is that road.) She had, therefore, elected to spend the night at the hotel on the top of the hill. This information she had telephoned to the girl on the night following Timothy’s great win, and had added that she could see “the twinkling lights of Monte Carlo” and that “the misty spaces of ocean filled her with strange unrest,” which observation had been repeated to the unsympathetic Timothy.
“It must be awful to have a mind like that,” he said, and then, “Mary, I’ve been a long time waiting to exchange confidences about cousins.”
“I have no confidences to give you about Mrs. Renfrew,” said Mary with a smile, “but you have been on the point of telling me about your cousin so often that I feel a little curious.”
The story he had to tell was not a nice one. It meant opening old wounds and reviving sad memories, but it had to be done. She was not so shocked as he had expected.
“You have not told me anything new,” she said quietly. “You see, all along I have known that the ‘A.C.’ in your name stood for ‘Alfred Cartwright,’ and once uncle told me that he had known a relative of yours, and I guessed.”
Suddenly she demanded:
“Do you think Cartwright is in Europe?”
Timothy nodded.
“I am certain. That is, if Morocco is in Europe,” he said. “I have had it in the back of my mind ever since the crime was committed that that is the place he would make for. You see, in the few minutes I had with him he told me, perhaps not the whole of the story, but at any rate his version. He knows Morocco and has been there before. He spoke about a Moorish chief named El Mograb, who wanted him to stay with the tribe, and he told me he was sorry he had not followed the Moor’s advice.”
“Did you tell the police that?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I did not tell the police very much about that visit. Cartwright revived his accusations against Sir John. It meant digging up these charges, and that is what I did not wish to do, for—for——”
“For my sake?” she said quietly.
“That’s about the size of it,” replied Timothy.
A little stream of diners were leaving the restaurant, moving slowly down the narrow aisle between the tables, and Timothy stopped talking as they passed and eyed them with a bored interest usual to the circumstances.
It was after the interruption had ended, and the last of the little stream had departed, that he saw the card on the table. It was near his place and it had not been there before. He picked it up and on the uppermost side was written: “Do not let your friend see this.”
“Well, I’m——” he began, and turned the card over.
It was not written but printed in capital letters:
“IF YOU DO NOT HEAR FROM ME BY THE TWENTY-NINTH, I BEG OF YOU THAT YOU WILL GO TO TANGIER AND ENQUIRE AT THE CONTINENTAL HOTEL FOR A MAN CALLED RAHBAT—A MOOR, WHO WILL LEAD YOU TO ME. I BEG YOU FOR THE SAKE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP TO COME. DID YOU GET THE MONEY?”
Timothy laid the card down and stared at the girl.
“What is it?” she asked and reached out her hand.
“I—it is nothing,” he said hurriedly.
“Nonsense, Timothy. What is it? Let me see it, please.”
Without a word he handed the card to the girl, who read it through in silence.
“Who is that from?” she asked, “Cartwright?”
He nodded.
“Obviously,” he said, “the reference to the money and the appeal to our relationship—but how did it get there?”
He called the head waiter.
“Who were those people who went out just now?” he asked.
“They are very well known,” explained the head waiter. “There was a monsieur, a London theatrical manager, and a madame who was his wife. There was another monsieur, an American writer, and an English monsieur who was in the employment as secretary to a madame who lives at Cap Martin.”
“Madame Serpilot?” asked Timothy quickly.
“Yes, that is the name. She is a widow, hélas! but immensely rich!”
Timothy put the card into his pocket. He had said nothing to the girl about Madame Serpilot since they had left London, and for the first time he had some misgivings as to her safety. Yet in truth that sixth sense of his, which had hitherto worked so to his advantage, offered him no warning that the girl’s happiness was threatened. He was sure that whatever danger the situation held was danger to him personally. He had not seen the English monsieur who was secretary to Madame Serpilot, but then his back had been toward the far end of the room from whence the man came and he had presented no other view than the back of his head.
“It is a message from Cartwright,” he said, “and I am going to get to the bottom of this story if I stay in Monte Carlo for the rest of my life.”
He saw Mary back to her hotel, went to his room and changed, and just as the Casino was disgorging its tired clients, he walked through the palm-shaded avenue that led to the main road and began his tramp to Cap Martin. To discover a house in this area by daylight, with the aid of a plan, might have been a simple matter—by night it presented almost insuperable difficulties.
Cap Martin is a promontory of hill and pine and wild flower. Its roads run at the will of its wealthy residents, and there are lanes and paths and broad roads which are not really broad roads at all, but the private entrances to the wonderful villas in which the district abounds, and the grey light was in the eastern sky when Timothy finally located the Villa Condamine.
It stood on the edge of the sea, surrounded on the land side by a high wall, though if its owner sought seclusion the woods which surrounded the villa were sufficient.
Timothy worked round a little bay until he commanded a view of the place from the sea. A zig-zag path............