CHAPTER V DEALS WITH A MILLIONAIRE

One evening, about ten days later, we dined at old Benjamin Keppel's invitation at the Villa Fabron.

Visitors to Nice know the great white mansion well. High up above the sea, beyond the Magnan, it stands in the midst of extensive grounds, shaded by date palms, olives and oranges, approached by a fine eucalyptus avenue, and rendered light with flowers, its dazzlingly white walls relieved by the green persiennes, a residence magnificent even for Nice—the town of princes. Along the whole front of the great place there runs a broad marble terrace, from which are obtained marvellous views of Nice, with the gilt-domed Jetée Promenade jutting out into the azure bay, the old Château, Mont Boron, and the snow-capped Alps on the left, while on the right lies the valley of the Var, and that romantic chain of dark purple mountains which lie far away beyond Cannes, a panorama almost as magnificent as that from the higher Corniche.

The interior was, we found, the acme of luxury and comfort. Everywhere was displayed the fact that its owner was wealthy; none on entering so splendid a home would have believed him to be so simple in taste and so curiously eccentric in manner. Each winter he came to Nice in his splendid steam-yacht, the Vispera, which was now anchored as usual in Villefranche Harbour, and with his sister, a small, wizen-faced old lady, and Mr. Barnes, his secretary, he lived there from December until the end of April.

Ulrica had met him several times in London, and he greeted us both very affably. He was, I found, a queer old fellow. Report had certainly not lied about him, and I could hardly believe that this absent-minded, rather ordinary-looking old fellow, with disordered grey hair and beard and dark, deep-set eyes, was Gerald's father, the great Benjamin Keppel, late of Johannesburg.

Dinner, even though rather a stately affair, was quite a pleasant function, for the old millionaire was most unassuming and affable. One of his eccentricities displayed itself in his dress. His dining-jacket was old, and quite glossy about the back and elbows; he wore a paper collar, his white tie showed unmistakable signs of having done duty on at least a dozen previous occasions, and across his vest was suspended an albert chain, not of gold, but of rusty steel. There had never been any pretence about Ben Keppel in his earlier days, as all the world knew, and there was certainly none in these days of his affluence. He had amassed his fabulous fortune by shrewdness and sheer hard work, and he despised the whole of that chattering little ring which calls itself Society.

Before I had been an hour in this man's society I grew to like him for his honest plain-spokenness. He possessed none of that sarcastic arrogance which generally characterises those whose fortunes are noteworthy, but in conversation spoke softly, with a carefully cultivated air of refinement. Not that he was refined in the least. He had gone to the Transvaal as an emigrant from a little village in Norfolk, and had succeeded in amassing the third largest fortune in the United Kingdom.

He sat at the head of the table in his great dining-room, while Ulrica and myself sat on either hand. As a matter of course our conversation turned upon the mysterious death of poor Reggie, and we both gave him the exact version of the story.

"Most extraordinary!" he ejaculated. "Gerald has already explained the painful facts to me. There seems no doubt whatever that the poor fellow was murdered for the money. Yet, to me, the strangest part of the whole affair is why he should have left you so suddenly at the Hermitage. If he changed the money for large notes, as we may suppose he did, why didn't he return to you?"

"Because he must in the meantime have met someone," I suggested.

"That's just it," he said. "If the police could but discover the identity of this friend, then I feel convinced that all the rest would be plain sailing."

"But, my dear guv'nor, the police hold the theory that he didn't meet anyone until he arrived at Nice," Gerald observed.

"The police here are a confounded set of idiots!" cried the old millionaire. "If it had occurred in London, or Chicago, or even in Glasgow, they would have arrested the murderer long before this. Here, in France, there's too much confounded contrôle."

"I expect if the truth were known," observed Miss Keppel, in her thin, squeaky voice, "the authorities of Monaco don't relish the idea that a man may be followed and murdered after successful play, and they won't help the Nice police at all."

"Most likely," her brother said. "The police of the Prince of Monaco are elegant blue and silver persons, who look as though they would hesitate to capture a prisoner for fear of soiling their white kid gloves. But surely, Miss Rosselli," he added, turning to me, "the Nice police haven't let the affair drop, have they?"

"I cannot say," I responded. "The last I saw of any of the detectives was a week ago. The man who called upon me then admitted that no clue had, so far, been obtained."

"Then all I have to say is that it's a public scandal!" Benjamin Keppel cried angrily. "The authorities here seem to entertain absolutely no regard for the personal safety of their visitors. It appears to me that in Nice year by year prices have gone up until hotel charges have become unbearable, and people are being driven away to Algiers and Cairo. And I don't blame them. During these past two years absolutely no regard has been paid by the Nice authorities to the comfort of the visitors who bring them their wherewithal to live. Look at the state of the streets this season! They're all up for new trams, new paving, new watermains and things, until they are absolutely impassable. Even the Promenade des Anglais has been up! Why they can't do it in summer, when there are no visitors here, is a mystery. Again, within the last eight or ten years the price of everything has doubled, while the sanitary defects have become a disgrace. Why, down at Beaumettes there were, until quite recently, houses which actually drained into a cave! And then they are surprised at an outbreak of typhoid! The whole thing's preposterous!"

"An English newspaper correspondent who had the courage to tell the truth about Nice was served with a notice threatening his expulsion from France!" observed Gerald. "A nice way to suppress facts!"

"Oh! that's the French way," observed Ulrica, with a laugh. "It is, however, certain that if Nice is to remain healthy and popular, there must be some very radical changes."

"If there are not, I shall sell this place," said the old millionaire decisively. "I shall take the newspaper correspondent's advice and pitch my quarters in Cairo, where English-speaking visitors are protected, properly treated, and have their comfort looked after."

"Why not try San Remo?" I suggested.

"San Remo!" he cried, with an air of disgust. "Why, it's the most snobbish place on the whole Riviera. The persons who have villas there are mostly those whom we taboo in society at home. One interesting person has had the audacity to name his villa after a royal palace. It's like a fellow putting up 'Buckingham Palace' upon his ten-roomed house at Streatham Hill. No, Miss Rosselli, save me from San Remo! The hotels there are ruinous, and mostly of the fourth class, while the tradespeople are as rapacious a set of sharks as can be found outside Genoa. And the visitors are of that angular, sailor-hatted type of tea and lawn-tennis Englishwoman who talks largely at home of what she calls 'wintering abroad,' and hopes by reason of a six-weeks' stay in a cheap pension, shivering over an impossible fire, to improve her social status on her return to her own local surroundings. San Remo, dull, dear, and dreary, has ever been a ghastly failure, and ever will be, as long as it is frequented by its present clientele of sharks and spongers. What the newspaper correspondent said about Nice was the truth—the whole truth," he went on. "I know Nice as well as most people, and I bear out every charge put forward. The Riviera has declined terribly these past five years. Why, the people here actually hissed the Union Jack at the last Battle of Flowers!"

"Disgraceful!" said Ulrica, rather amused at the old fellow's warmth. "If Nice declines in the popular favour, then the Niçois have only themselves to blame."

"Exactly. Foreigners are looked upon here as necessary evils, while in Italy, except on the Riviera, they are welcomed. I built this place and spent a fairish sum upon it, but if things don't improve, I'll sell it at auction and cart my traps down to Sicily, or over to Cairo. Upon that I'm determined."

"The guv'nor's disgusted," Gerald laughed across to me. "He's taken like this sometimes."

"Yes, my boy, I am disgusted. All I want in winter is quiet, sunshine, and good air. That's what I come here for. And I can get all that at Palermo or Algiers, for in those places the air is even better than here."

"But it isn't so fashionable," I observed.

"To an old man like me it doesn't matter whether a place is fashionable or not, my dear Miss Rosselli," he said, with a serious look. "I leave all that sort of thing to Gerald. He has his clubs, his horses, his fine friends and all the rest of it. But all the people know Ben Keppel of Johannesburg. Even if I belonged to the most swagger of the clubs and mixed in good society—among lords and ladies of the aristocracy, I mean—I'd still be the same. I couldn't alter myself as some of 'em try to do."

We laughed. The old man was so blunt that one could not help admiring him. He had the reputation of being niggardly in certain matters, especially regarding Gerald's allowance; but, as Ulrica had remarked, there were no doubt plenty of people who would be anxious to lend money to the millionaire's heir upon post-obits, so that, after all, it didn't much matter.

If inclined to be economical in one or two directions, he certainly kept a remarkably good table; but although there were choice wines for us, he drank only water.

When, with Gerald, he joined us in the great drawing-room, he seated himself near me and suddenly said:

"I don't know, Miss Rosselli, whether you'd like to remain here and gossip, or whether you'd like to stroll round the place. You are a woman, and there may be something to interest you in it."

"I shall be delighted, I'm sure," I said, and together we went forth to wander about the great mansion, which all the world on the Riviera knows as the home of the renowned Ben Keppel.

He showed me his library, the boudoirs which were never occupied, the gallery of modern French paintings, the Indian tea-room, and the great conservatory whence we walked out upon the terrace and looked down upon the lights of the gay winter city lying at our feet, and at the flash of white brilliance that ever and anon shot across the tranquil sea, marking the dangerous headland at Antibes.

The night was lovely—one of those bright and perfect nights which occur so often on the Riviera in January. At sundown the air is always damp and treacherous, but when darkness falls it is no longer dangerous, even to those with extremely delicate constitutions.

"How beautiful!" I ejaculated, standing at his side and watching the great white moon slowly rising from the sea. "What a fairyland!"

"Yes. It is beautiful. The Riviera is, I believe, the fairest spot that God has created on this earth," and then he sighed, as though world-weary.

Presently, when we had been chatting a few minutes, he suggested that we should re-enter the house, as he feared that I, being décolletée, might catch a chill.

"I have a hobby," he said; "the only thing which prevents me from becoming absolutely melancholy. Would you care to see it?"

"Oh, do show it me!" I said, at once interested.

"Then come with me," he exclaimed. He led me through two long passages to a door which he unlocked with a tiny master-key upon his chain. "This is my private domain," he laughed. "No one is allowed in here, so you must consider yourself very highly privileged."

"That I certainly do," I responded.

As he entered he switched on the electric light, displaying to my astonished gaze a large place fitted as a workshop with lathes, tools, wheels, straps and all sorts of mechanical contrivances.

"This room is secret," he said, with a smile. "If the fine people who sometimes patronise me with visits thought that I actually worked here they'd be horrified."

"Then do you actually work?" I inquired, surprised.

"Certainly. Having nothing to occupy my leisure moments after I had severed myself from the works, I took to turning. I was a turner by trade years ago, you know."

I looked at him in wonderment. People had said he was eccentric, and this was evidently one of his eccentricities. He had secretly established a great workshop within that princely mansion:

"Would you like to see how I can work?" he asked, noticing my look of wonder. "Well, watch—excuse me."

Thereupon he threw off his jacket, and having raised a lever which set one of the lathes at work, he seated himself at it, selected a piece of ivory, and placed it in position.

"Now," he laughed, looking towards me, "what shall I make you? Ah, I know, an object useful to all you ladies—a box for your powder-puff, eh?"

"You seem to be fully aware of feminine mysteries, Mr. Keppel," I laughed.

"Well, you see, I was married once," he answered. "But in them days my poor Mary didn't want face-powder, bless her!"

And that instant his keen chisel cut deeply into the revolving ivory with a harsh sawing sound that rendered further conversation impossible.

I stood behind and watched him. His grand old head was bent keenly over his work as he hollowed out the box to the desired depth, carefully gauged it, finished it, and quickly turned the lid until it fitted with precision and exactness. Then he rubbed it down, polished it in several ways, and at last handed it to me complete.

"This is a little souvenir, Miss Rosselli, of your first visit to me."

"Thank you ever so much," I answered, taking it and examining it curiously.

Truly he was a skilled workman, this man whose colossal wealth was remarkable, even among England's many millionaires.

"I only ask one favour," he said, as we passed out and he locked the door of his workshop behind us. "That you will tell no one of my hobby—that I have returned to my own trade. For Gerald's sake I am compelled to keep up an appearance, and some of his friends would sneer if they knew that his father still worked and earned money in his odd moments."

"Do you earn money?" I inquired, amazed.

"Certainly. A firm in Bond Street buy all my ivory work, only they're not, of course, aware that it comes from me. It wouldn't do, you know. My work, you see, provides me with a little pocket-money. It has done so ever since I left the factory," he added simply.

"I promise you, Mr. Keppel, that I'll tell no one, if you wish it to remain a secret. I had no idea that you actually sold your turnings."

"You don't blame me, surely?" he said.

"Certainly not," I answered.

It seemed, however, ludicrous that this multi-millionaire, with his great house in Park Lane, his shooting-box in Scotland, his yacht, which was acknowledged to be one of the finest afloat, and his villa there on the Riviera, should toil at turning, in order to make a pound or two a week as pocket-money.

"When I worked as a turner in the old days, I earned sixteen shillings a week, by making butter dishes and bread plates, wooden bowls, salad spoons, and such like, and I earn about the same to-day when I've paid for the ivory, and the necessary things for the 'shop,'" he explained. Then he added: "You seem to think it strange, Miss Rosselli. If you place yourself for a moment in my position, that of a man without further aim or ambition, you will not be surprised that I have, after nearly forty years, returned to the old trade to which I served my apprenticeship."

"I quite understand," I responded, "and I only admire you that you do not, like so many other rich men, lead a life of easy indolence."

"I can't do that," he said; "it isn't in me to be still. I must be at work, or I'm never happy. Only I have to be discreet for Gerald's sake," and the old millionaire smiled, though rather sadly, I thought.