CHAPTER XX.

THE SHADOW

François Lebeau, the apathetic man in grey, stepped into a powerful limousine at the end of the long range of flower-beds in front of the Casino, and gave orders to the chauffeur to drive with all speed to Nice.

Prior to doing this he gave a secret signal, by blowing his nose, to a slim, dark-haired young man who had also been following him along the Terrace. The man, who was one of his most astute assistants, realized his orders, and obeyed by dropping back into obscurity in the crowd.

Along the winding Corniche, in a cloud of white dust, the powerful police-car sped with its shrieking horn with the green disc which the chauffeur had suddenly put up by means of a switch, a sign to the police patrols to allow it to proceed at whatever pace.

Meanwhile Lebeau removed his hat, revealing his domed bald head which he was always at such trouble to conceal. As chief inspector of the Paris Sûreté he was one of the most famous detectives of modern France. As a young man he had worked as a humble police-agent of the Eighth Arrondissement under the great Goron, and afterwards under Harnard, and now he was chief of the department of surveillance upon the person of the President of the Republic, and any notable foreigners, princes or others, who came to France.

Whenever the Prince of Wales put his foot upon French soil, for example, Monsieur Lebeau was always near him as his personal protector.

He sat in the corner of the roomy car as it whirled through Beaulieu, with its wealth of flowers, handsome villas, and big hotels facing the blue bay, and thought deeply.

It was indeed a strange, unheard-of mystery which, related on many sheets of pale-yellow official paper, had been placed upon his table at the headquarters of the Sûreté in Paris.

The translation in French was from the report of the Metropolitan Police in London, and the story so attracted him that he had taken it home on the night of its arrival and thoroughly examined every point it contained. Indeed, as he went along, he selected a tiny key from a bunch upon his watch-chain, opened a small, cupboard-like recess in the upholstery before him, and from some files of papers there he took out the copy of the reports from London.

As the car approached Villefranche he became once more absorbed in the story, one so amazing and incredible that even he, practised police-agent that he was, felt half inclined to dismiss it as a mere fantasy, a chimera of somebody’s imagination.

Yet the Criminal Investigation Department of London never made a report without careful and thorough investigation, and, though the local subdivision of police at Hampton were unaware of it, the famous council of the C.I.D. were bent upon investigating and probing the strange secret of the long-closed Guest House.

As the car entered Nice, the chauffeur pressed a button and the green disc disappeared, while the car, to all appearances a private one, pulled up beside the chief post office, and its occupant alighted and walked to the Préfecture of Police, so as to pass unnoticed by those in the street.

He ran alertly up the stone stairs to the first floor, and, passing through an anteroom, the door of which was guarded by a detective, who saluted him, entered the private room of the Sous-Préfet.

Taking up the telephone, he asked in sharp, quick tones for conversation with Monsieur Feydit at the Sûreté in Paris.

Then, while awaiting the connection, he sat down and began to write rapidly a long report in an almost copper-plate and microscopic hand. The through express from Nice to Calais and London would leave at half-past two, and he was anxious that his message should reach Scotland Yard on the following evening. Hence his frantic hurry, for if he caught the train his message would be at Victoria soon after five o’clock on the following day.

Time was pressing. He glanced at the clock, and his pen flew rapidly over the paper. The inquiry was doubtless one of highest importance, or he would not have taken it up personally.

He had finished it and sealed it with black wax in a large blue envelope, when the telephone bell rang sharply.

“Hulloa! Monsieur Feydit, is that you?” he asked in French, in clear, calm tones.

Then, receiving an answer in the affirmative, he went on:

“Please listen, and take down the following.”

And from a slip of paper upon which he had pencilled them, he read off about fifteen words of the French police telegraphic code, all of which were repeated over the wire back from Paris.

“_Très bien!_” said Lebeau. “And listen further. On the train Nice-Paris-Calais reaching the Gare de Lyon at 8.40 to-morrow morning, there will be an urgent train-letter for London. Get it from the controller, and send Richaud through to London with it. He will await a reply and leave London again the same night. Advise me here of the reply by code.”

“I understand, monsieur,” came his trusty assistant’s voice across France, and then the famous detective hung up the receiver.

Afterwards he rang a bell, and, handing the sealed letter to the clerk who entered, gave him instructions to hand it to the controller of the Paris express.

Then, replacing the file of yellow papers in his pocket, he sauntered in the sunshine round to the Hôtel Negresco, where he was staying as Monsieur Ducret, _rentier_ of Lyons, and ate a lonely and belated _déjeuner_.

Meanwhile the lovers had lunched at the gay Café de Paris, and Brinsley had paid a bill that was amazing for the omelette and cutlets, with _petits-pois_, which they had. The big, garish restaurant was crowded and noisy, as it is every day during the season, filled to overflowing with that same mixed throng which had, an hour before, disported itself along the Terrace in the sunshine.

Crooks and millionaires sat laughing and eating with cocottes and innocent flappers, while English peeresses drank vintage wines paid for by fat, uncouth food profiteers of Smithfield or Mincing Lane--for there is only one god at Monte Carlo year in and year out, and that god is Mammon.

So loud was the laughter, and so hilarious became a party at the table next to them, that conversation was rendered impossible. Two young Englishmen of the superior, military type were lunching with two over-dressed women twenty years their senior, and when the wine-card was presented to them, it became instantly obvious that the elder of the women, a painted old hag of seventy, was paying for their meal. But such sights are common at Monte--old women of fortune, imagining themselves still young, paying for the pleasures of any handsome young fellow they may meet at the tables.

The luncheons of to-day are but the aftermath of chance meetings in the Rooms on the previous night, for by a discreet loan of five louis a man often makes a female friend in a social circle to which he could never aspire otherwise.

Yes, the world Rouge-et-Noir is indeed a wonderful, mysterious world, which certainly opened the eyes of the upright, steady-going young doctor who plodded at his increasing practice in Golder’s Green.

Amid that crowd of gamblers and adventuresses, honest men and rogues, women of the _haut-monde_ and the _demi-monde_, _escrocs_ and respectable folk, they remained in ignorance of the presence of that unobtrusive little old man in black with the white hair, who had passed and repassed them several times on the Devil’s Parade.

Seated alone at a table in the corner, not far from them, he had ordered his lunch with careful selection, a meal which the _maître-d’hôtel_ admired, for it showed the unusual discriminations of one well-versed in good food.

The old man at once became immersed in an English newspaper which he had brought with him, and apparently took no notice of anyone. Yet a careful observer would have noticed that ever and anon he cast furtive glances at the happy young pair, and that in his eyes shone a peculiar, evil glint.

That same expression in his eyes had showed when, in the big, moth-eaten drawing-room at the Guest House, poor Farmer had discovered him uttering those weird incantations, that same expression when he had plainly told the ex-policeman that he felt sympathy for him because he was doomed to die.

Little did the old man who had given his name as Bettinson dream that he had that morning been watched by one of the greatest criminal investigators in Europe. But, even had he known it, perhaps he would have laughed. He was a man who had never taken life seriously, regarding it always as a huge comedy, just as, at the moment, he regarded Sibell Dare’s affection for the young doctor as a mere passing fancy. Before that day he had never set eyes upon either of them, but now he sat close by, watching them in secret, and inwardly laughing in triumph.

At two o’clock Sibell and her well-set-up lover, whose health, after his strange attack, had been much improved by the fresh mountain air of Switzerland, had their coffee and cigarettes under one of the sun umbrellas at the café opposite, and, after a stroll to inspect the shops, wandered into the Casino.

Already the Rooms were overcrowded, for it was the height of the season, and people stood three and four deep around the roulette-tables, the novices of both sexes putting on wild stakes impossible to win, while the old gamblers stayed their hands, and now and then won a coup. The same crowd was there as in the Hôtel de Paris and on the parade--that hectic, overdressed scum of the world and the half-world, sadists and soubrettes, effeminates and _escrocs_, moralists and _marcheurs_, with well-dressed thieves of both sexes and all nationalities.

At the end table on the left--the one which for years was known as “The Suicides’ Table”--Brinsley Otway put a louis on _zéro-trois_ and won, much to the surprise of them both.

Then he played on the first dozen and lost, and again lost on the _rouge_. But he won on the last dozen and _en plein_ on twenty-two, which satisfied him for the day.

Through it all the little man in black watched the pair narrowly.

Once only he played, throwing ten louis carelessly upon the red, and won the even chance.

This fact attracted Sibell’s attention, but, unaware of his identity with the mysterious Mr. Bettinson, for whom the police were in such active search, she took no further notice of the odd-looking little old gentleman.

Careful not to be seen again by the mistress of the Guest House, he travelled by the same train as they took back to Cannes, and, alighting at Nice, he entered a taxi, which took him down to the Negresco, where he passed a rather handsome bald-headed man in a snuff-colored suit who was idly smoking an excellent cigar, sipping an _apéritif_, and watching the gay crowd entering and leaving the afternoon dance.

Without glancing at the old man, Lebeau allowed him to pass, and then, rising leisurely, strolled towards the concierge’s desk.

The latter handed the little man in black a small registered packet, for which he signed in the name of “George Peterson,” and then, entering the lift, was whirled up to the third floor.

Next moment, at signal from Lebeau, the porter passed to him the book wherein the visitor had signed his name.

The ruse was a good one to obtain a specimen signature, for he took the book to a side-room, and there compared Mr. Peterson’s autograph with one he had on a letter which he took from his pocket-book.

A moment afterwards he put the letter away, and, with a smile of satisfaction, returned the book to the concierge.

The signatures were identical.