Madame is waiting to see you home. I am a stern duenna of my charge, Roger,” she went on. “I allow no young man, not even you, to be her escort.”
“I regret that I have stayed so long,” Jeannine apologised, rising to her feet.
“What has that young nephew of mine been saying to make you so pale?” Lady Julia asked curiously. “He’s a clumsy fellow. He never learnt the art of talking to women. His father knew all about it—more than any American or Englishman I ever met in my life. Say good night to him, my dear. I have an irritable chauffeur and I’m a little later than my usual time.”
Roger escorted them to the steps, then very slowly climbed the stairs into the club once more. A man brushed past him, the pink-cheeked, stout little Frenchman with the malicious eyes whom he had seen seated at the bar. Suddenly Roger remembered. A Niçois who had made money! It might seem to be a miracle, but without a doubt this was the rentier whom he had knocked down in the orange grove on the day when Jeannine had fallen into his arms!
Wandering a little restlessly about the fast-emptying Salles de Jeu, Roger came to the conclusion that except in so far as they had provided him with a certain amount of sport and enjoyment, a slice of his life had been sacrificed. He had scuttled away into safety to escape from what he looked upon as a poisonous thought which was urging him on to a poisonous action. He was back again after a period of many adventures to find the fever still in his blood, even though the danger of yielding to it might have lessened. What a development!… In a certain way he found a measure of justification for his own temporary insanity in Jeannine’s present success. That strange unwashed creature of legs and arms, of mocking lips and laughing eyes, a gamine of the flower fields, had something in her which had proved itself. It was no gross impulse which had assailed him. On the contrary, for a young man whose traffic with women had been of the slightest, he had shown a perfect genius of perception. She was off his hands now. She could have no better protectress than his aunt. She was safe, so far as she desired safety. For the rest she must choose her own life…. What a humbug he was, he reflected angrily, when he knew that the one dominant idea in his mind was when he could see her again.
He threw some plaques upon the roulette table and gathered up his not inconsiderable winnings with indifference. Erskine, who was with a party, tempted him downstairs for half an hour, where he ate sandwiches and danced to the music of an amazing band. When he came back to the gambling rooms they were almost deserted. The bar was empty save for one man—Luke Cheyne—who called to him eagerly.
“Come here, Sloane, there’s a good fellow,” he begged. “Come and sit with me for a moment. I’ve got the jimjams.”
“What about?” Roger asked, accepting the invitation. “Been losing?”
“You bet I haven’t. I’ve half a million of the best in my pocket just cashed in!”
“Too many highballs?”
“The first since we parted. I just came in to get one. You’ll join me?”
“A last one, then,” Roger stipulated. “You’re looking all in, Luke.”
“It’s just nerves,” the latter replied. “I’ve rather played the fool with the crowd I was mixed up with in New York and I’m not quite sure that I’m exactly in their good books.”
“I don’t understand,” Roger confessed. “You’re not under any obligation to any one, are you?”
“Not financially,” was the doubtful reply, “but I gave you a hint before, if you remember, Roger. I was mixed up with rather a roughish crowd in the liquor business there. I came away to get clear of it. They never complained. I’ve never had any message from them, but I’ve always had an idea that they meant getting me.”
There was a crash of breaking glass close at hand. Cheyne swung around on his stool just as the barman stood up from under the counter.
“What the hell are you doing there?” the former demanded.
“I stooped down to pick up the broken glass, sir,” the man replied.
“How long have you been there?”
“Scarcely a moment, sir.”
Cheyne looked at him suspiciously. He was a new employee, a Monegasque who had worked for some time in New York. He had bright, ferretlike eyes and a somewhat furtive manner. He picked up the broken pieces of the tumbler and disappeared.
“I’ll swear that young fellow was listening,” Cheyne muttered.
Roger was inclined to be incredulous.
“You’re all nerves, my friend,” he said. “This crowd you were speaking of in New York—they’ve got nothing definite against you, have they, except that you quit? You didn’t give them away to a competitor or the police?”
The other laughed scornfully.
“I didn’t,” he replied, “or I should never have got to Europe alive! It’s not that exactly, but the boss was a curious sort of fellow. He was as clever as hell but he hated any one to quit. He hated the idea that any one alive who had played for safety himself had the power to squeal. This is all rubbish, of course. It only comes into my head at odd times. But to-night, curiously, I was talking—”
He broke off in his speech. The barman was back, industriously polishing the counter with a serviette. Cheyne scowled at him and dropped from his stool on to the floor.
“Time we were getting along, I think,” he suggested. “Where are you staying, Roger?”
“In the Nouvel Hôtel, just along the passage here…. You weren’t going to tell me that you met one of the gang in here, were you?” he added, lowering his tone.
“Never mind,” Cheyne replied. “There are times when I wonder myself if I don’t talk too much.”
“I should have thought we were far enough away from New York,” Roger remarked. “Where are the others? Maggie and the Prince and the Terence Browns and Thornton?”
“They’ve gone up to the Carlton,” Cheyne replied. “With half a million in my pocket, I thought I’d better get back. The streets of Monte Carlo may be safe enough at night, but I should like to see a policeman about now and then.”
The head barman emerged from his sanctum, lifted the flap of the counter and came over to them. He leaned confidentially over the table at which the two men had seated themselves.
“You will excuse me, Mr. Cheyne,” he said, “but why don’t you let me get you a draft for the money you have won and lock it up here? You can have it at any time after eleven o’clock to-morrow morning and send it up to the bank. You’ll forgive my mentioning it, but it doesn’t seem a very wise thing to carry five or six hundred thousand francs about with you at this hour of the morning.”
“What’s got you talking this way, George?” Cheyne demanded.
The man hesitated.
“Well, the chief here dropped us a hint to warn our good clients, sir,” he confided. “There hasn’t been any trouble to speak of, over here, but one never knows. Just as well to be on the safe side.”
“Has there been any trouble anywhere else on the Riviera?” Roger asked curiously.
The barman hesitated again.
“Well, I believe there was a little unpleasantness at Cannes one night, sir, and there have certainly been some rough doings at Nice. The police seem to have an idea that some crooks from the other side have found their way over here.”
“Well, I’m much obliged, I’m sure, George,” Cheyne said. “If I were going out, I would do as you suggest, but I’m not. I’m going straight back to my room in the Paris along the passage.”
“You will be sleeping with it in your room, sir,” the man reminded him.
Cheyne smiled.
“With