CHAPTER X MAKES ONE POINT PLAIN

"Extraordinary!" ejaculated the detective, whose habitual coolness seemed utterly upset by the unexpected discovery. "This adds an entirely new feature to the case!"

"What, I wonder, could have been the motive in giving the notes to mademoiselle?" queried his companion.

"How can we tell?" said the other. "It at least proves one thing, namely, that the man in the owl's dress is the person we suspected him to be."

"Do you believe him to be the actual assassin?" I gasped.

But the detectives, with the aid of the Director of the Theatre, were busy counting the stolen notes. There were sixty, each for one thousand francs.

They examined the leather jewellery case, but found no mark upon it, nor upon the paper wrappings. The box was such as might have once contained a bracelet, but the raised velvet-covered spring in the interior had been removed in order to admit of the introduction of the notes, which, even when folded, formed a rather large packet.

"They are undoubtedly those stolen from Monsieur Thorne," the detective said. "In these circumstances, it is our duty to take possession of them as evidence against the criminal. I shall lodge them with the Prefect of Police until we have completed the inquiry."

"Certainly," I answered. "I have no desire to keep them in my possession. The history connected with them is far too gruesome. But whatever motive could there be in handing them over to me?"

"Ah! that we hope to discover later," the detective responded, carefully folding them, replacing them in the case, and taking charge of the wrappings, which it was believed might form some clue. "At present it would seem very much as though the assassin handed you the proceeds of the crime in order to convince you that robbery was not the motive."

"Then you do believe that the man in the owl's dress was the real culprit?" I cried eagerly. "If so, I have actually danced to-night with poor Reggie's murderer!" I gasped.

"It is more than likely that we shall be able to establish that fact," the subordinate observed, in a rather uncertain tone.

"How unfortunate," ejaculated his superior, "that we allowed him to slip through our fingers thus—and with the money actually upon him, too!"

"Yes," observed the Director of the Casino. "You have certainly to-night lost an excellent opportunity, messieurs. It is curious that neither of you noticed mademoiselle in the box talking with this mysterious individual."

"That was, I think, impossible," I remarked. "We sat quite back in the small alcove."

"What number was your box?" the Director asked.

"Fifteen."

"Ah, of course!" he said quickly. "There is, I remember, a kind of alcove at the back. You sat in there."

"Well," observed the chief detective, "no good can be done by remaining here any longer, I suppose, so we had better endeavour to trace this interesting person by other means. The fact that he has given up the proceeds of the crime is sufficient to show that he means to leave Nice. Therefore we must lose no time," and he glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes to two," he said. Then turning to his assistant, he ordered him to drive to the station to see whether the man who had worn the disguise of the night-bird was among the travellers leaving for Marseilles at 2.30. "Remain on duty at the station until I send and relieve you," he said. "There are several special trains to Cannes and to Monte Carlo about three o'clock, on account of the ball. Be careful to watch them all. It's my opinion he may be going to cross the frontier at Ventimiglia. I'll telephone there as soon as I get down to the bureau."

"Bien, monsieur!" answered the other.

As they went out, after wishing me good-night, I followed them, asking of the senior of the pair:

"Tell me, monsieur, what is my best course of action? Do you think the threats are serious?"

"Not at all," he said reassuringly. "My dear mademoiselle, don't distress yourself in the very least regarding what this man has said. He has only endeavoured to frighten you into rendering him assistance. Act just as you think proper. Your experience to-night has certainly been a strange one; but if I were in your place, I would return to the hotel, sleep soundly, and forget it all until—well, until we make our arrest."

"You expect to do so, then?"

"We, of course, hope so. In my profession, you know, everything is uncertain. So much depends upon chance," and he smiled pleasantly.

"Then I presume you will communicate with me later as to the further result of your investigations?" I suggested.

"Most certainly. Mademoiselle shall be kept well informed of our operations, never fear."

We were at the door of the Casino, where a great crowd had assembled to watch the maskers emerging.

"Shall I call you a fiacre?" he asked quite gallantly.

"No, thank you," I responded. "I'll walk. It is only a few steps to the 'Grand.'"

"Ah, of course," he laughed. "I had forgotten. Bon soir, mademoiselle."

I wished him good-night, and the next moment he was lost in the crowd, while, with my mind full of my extraordinary adventure, I walked along the Quai St. Jean Baptiste to the hotel.

The incidents had been so strange that they seemed beyond belief.

I found the faithful Felicita dozing, but Ulrica had not returned. When she entered, however, a quarter of an hour later, she was in the highest of spirits, declaring that she had experienced a most delightful time.

"My opinion of the Carnival ball, my dear, is that it's by far the jolliest function on the Riviera," she declared. Then in the same breath she proceeded to give me an outline of her movements from the time we were lost to one another in the crowd. She had, it appeared, had supper with Gerald and several friends, and the fun had been fast and furious. Her dress was badly torn in places, and certainly her dishevelled appearance showed that she had entered very thoroughly into the boisterous amusement of Carnival.

"And you?" she inquired presently. "What in the world became of you? We searched everywhere before supper, but couldn't find you."

"I met a rather entertaining partner," I responded briefly.

"A stranger?"

"Yes," and I gave her a look by which she understood that I intended to say nothing before Felicita.

Therefore the subject dropped, and as I had promised to tell her of my strange adventure later, she left me for the night.

I am seldom troubled by insomnia, but that night little sleep came to my eyes. Lying awake has no attraction for anyone; yet it is an experience which many have to suffer constantly, though not gladly. That night my brain was troubled by a thousand conflicting thoughts. I turned on to the side on which I usually sleep, and closed my eyes. But immediately ideas and suggestions of all kinds rushed at me. It was then that I recalled the mistakes of that night. I noted the opportunities missed, thought of the right things that I had left unsaid, and groaned at the thought of what really found utterance. Round and round went my mental machinery, and I knew well that sleep was not to be expected.

A terrible restlessness set in upon me, and turn succeeded turn, till I wished myself a polygon, so that the sides to which I could change might be more numerous. Some people have recourse to a small shelf of bedside books to lull them to rest. I think it was Thackeray who said, "'Montaigne' and 'Howell's Letters' are my bedside books. If I wake at night I have one or other of them to prattle me off to sleep again." Montaigne seems to have been a favourite author with many people for this purpose. The cheerful, companionable garrulity of the Gascon is the ideal pabulum for those suffering from wakeful hours at night, for both Pope and Wycherley used to lull themselves to sleep by his aid.

Alas! I had no Montaigne—nothing, indeed, more literary or prattling than a couple of the local newspapers of Nice. Therefore I was compelled to lie and endure the thoughts which fled through my brain in a noisy whirr, and prevented me falling off into slumber. The hotel seemed full of noise. Strange sounds came from the staircase, and stealthy footfalls seemed to make themselves audible. From the outer world came other sounds, some familiar, others inexplicable—all jarring upon the delicate nerves of hearing.

I lay there thinking it all over. I had now not the slightest doubt that the man in the owl's dress was the actual assassin of poor Reggie. And I had chatted amiably with him. I had actually danced with him! The very thought held me horrified.

What marvellous self-confidence the fellow had displayed; what cool audacity, what unwarrantable interference in my private affairs, and what a terrible counter-stroke he had effected in presenting me with the actual notes filched from the dead man's pocket! The incident was rendered the more bewildering on account of the entire absence of motive. I lay awake reflecting upon it the whole night long.

When we took our morning coffee together I related to Ulrica all that had passed. She sat, a pretty and dainty figure in her lace-trimmed and beribboned robe de chambre, leaning her bare elbows upon the table, and listening open-mouthed.

"And the police actually allowed him to escape scot-free?" she cried indignantly.

"Yes."

"The thing is monstrous. I begin to think that their failure to trace the murderer is because they are in league with him. Here abroad, one never knows."

"No, I think not," I responded. "He was clever enough to evade observation, and took care to make the most of the little alcove in the box."

"But the stolen notes!" she cried. "He evidently wished to get rid of them in order to avoid being found with the money in his possession. So he presented you with them. A grim present, certainly. The fellow apparently has a sense of humour."

"I tell you, my dear Ulrica, I'm terribly upset. I haven't slept at all."

"Enough to upset anyone," she declared. "We must tell Gerald, and ask his advice."

"No, we must not tell him all. I beg of you to say nothing regarding myself and old Mr. Keppel."

"Certainly not. I shall be discreet, rely upon me. Gerald will advise us how to act."

"Or the old gentleman might give us some advice," I suggested; for Gerald was given to fits of frivolity, and this was a matter extremely serious.

"You intend to say nothing of the appointment in London?" she inquired, looking at me sharply.

"Nothing," I responded. "That is a secret between us."

"Do you intend to keep it?"

"I scarcely know. My actions will, of course, be controlled by the discoveries of the police."

"The police!" she ejaculated. "I don't believe in them at all. They make a great pretence, but do nothing."

"They evidently know the individual who came to me last night."

"Certainly. But why didn't they arrest him when he was under their very noses. No, my dear Carmela, depend upon it, here, in this world of Monte Carlo, the police are bribed, just as the Press, the railwaymen, and postmen are bribed, by these rulers of the Riviera, the Administration of the Société des Bains de Mer de Monaco."

"That may be so," I observed wonderingly. "But the fact still remains that last night I danced with Reggie's assassin."

"Did he dance well?"

"Oh, Ulrica! Don't treat the thing humorously!" I protested.

"I'm not humorous. The worst of Carnival balls is that they're such mixed affairs. One meets millionaires and murderers, and rubs shoulders with the most notorious women in Europe. Your adventure, however, is absolutely unique. If it got into the papers, what a nice little story it would make, wouldn't it?"

"For Heaven's sake no!" I cried.

"Well, if you don't want it to reach the Petit Niçois or the Eclaireur, you'd better be pretty close about it. Poor Reggie's murder is a mystery and the public fondly delight to read anything about a mystery."

"But we can trust Gerald and Mr. Keppel," I suggested.

"Of course," she answered. "But what a strange thing it is that this man, whoever he is, noticed exactly what I also had noticed, namely, that the old gentleman is among your admirers."

"Yes. It almost seems as though he were actually in our circle of friends, doesn't it?"

"My dear Carmela," she said, "the affair of poor Reggie's death was curious enough, but its motive is absolutely inscrutable. This man who met you last night was, as the police properly described him, a veritable artist. He disguised himself as an owl because the dress of a bird would conceal his real height or any personal deformity, while the face was, of course, entirely hidden by the beaked mask. Had he gone as a pierrot, or in the more ordinary guises, he might have betrayed himself."

"But the return of the stolen money," I observed. "Can you imagine why he ran such a risk? He condemned himself."

"No, I really can't. It is an absolute enigma."

We discussed it for a long time, until the entrance of Felicita caused us to drop the subject. Yes, it was, as Ulrica had declared, an absolute enigma.

About four o'clock in the afternoon, when we had both dressed ready to go out—for we had accepted an invitation to go on an excursion in an automobile up to Tourette—the waiter entered with a card, which Ulrica took and read.

"Oh!" she sighed. "Here's another detective. Don't let him keep us, dear. You know the Allens won't wait for us. They said four o'clock sharp, opposite Vogarde's."

"But we can't refuse to see him," I said.

"Of course not," she replied, and turning to the waiter, ordered him to show the caller up.

"There are two gentlemen," he explained.

"Then show them both up," answered Ulrica. "Be sharp, please, as we are in a hurry."

"Yes, madame," responded the waiter, a young Swiss, and went below.

"I suppose they are the pair I saw last night," I said. "The police on the Continent seem always to hunt in couples. One never sees a single gendarme, either in France or in Italy."

"One goes to keep the other cheerful, I believe," Ulrica remarked.

A few moments later the two callers were shown in.

They were not the same as I had seen in the Director's room at the Casino.

"I regret this intrusion," said the elder, a dark-bearded, rather unwholesome-looking individual with lank black hair. "I have, I believe, the honour of addressing Mademoiselle Rosselli."

"That is my name," I responded briefly, for I did not intend them to cause me to lose a most enjoyable trip in that most chic of latter-day conveyances, an automobile.

"We are police agents, as you have possibly seen from my card, and have called merely to ask whether you can identify either of these photographs." And he took two cabinet pictures from his pocket and handed them to me.

One was a prison photograph of an elderly, sad-eyed convict, with a rather bald head and a scraggy beard, while the other was a well-taken likeness of a foppishly-dressed young man of about twenty-eight, the upward trend of his moustache denoting him to be a foreigner.

Both were strangers to me. I had never seen either of them in the flesh, at least to my knowledge, and Ulrica was also agreed that she had never seen anyone bearing the slightest resemblance to either.

"Mademoiselle is absolutely certain?" the detective asked of me.

"Absolutely," I responded.

"Will mademoiselle have the kindness to allow her memory to go back for one moment to the day of the unfortunate gentleman's death?" asked the detective, with an amiable air. "At the time Monsieur Thorne was at the table at Monte Carlo and playing with success, there were, I believe, many persons around him?"

"Yes, a crowd."

"And near him, almost at his elbow, you did not see this man?" he inquired, indicating the bearded convict.

I shook my head.

"I really do not recollect the face of any member of that excited crowd," I responded. "He may have been there, but I certainly did not see him."

"Nor did I," chimed in Ulrica.

"Then I much regret troubling you," he said, bowing politely. "In this affair we are, as you of course know, making very searching inquiries on account of representations made by the British Ambassador in Paris. We intend, if possible, to solve the mystery."

"And the man who accosted me at the ball last night," I said. "Do you suspect him to be the original of that photograph?"

"At the ball last night? I do not follow mademoiselle."

"But I made a statement of the whole facts to two agents of your department at an early hour this morning—before I left the Casino."

He looked puzzled, and his dark face broadened into a smile.

"Pardon! But I think mademoiselle must be under some misapprehension. What occurred at the ball? Anything to arouse your suspicion?"

"To arouse my suspicion?" I echoed. "Why, a man attired in the garb of an owl accosted me, gave me a strange warning, and actually placed in my hands the sixty thousand francs in notes stolen from the dead man!"

"Impossible!" gasped the detective, amazed. "Where are the notes? You should have given us information instantly."

"I handed the notes to two police agents who were in waiting in the Director's room, and to whom I made a statement of the whole affair."

"What!" he cried loudly. "You have parted with the money?"

"Certainly."

"Then mademoiselle has been most cleverly tricked, for the men to whom you handed the proceeds of the robbery were certainly not agents of police! They were impostors!"