chelwyn left timothy with something to think about. who was madame serpilot, this old lady who had such an interest in mary travelling alone? and why, oh! why had she left paris for monte carlo at the fag end of the season? for he and mary had privately decided between them that london and paris should only be stopping places on the route to the riviera. why should madame serpilot have changed her plans at the same time? there was something more than a coincidence in this. at lunch-time he had mary to herself, her chaperon having a headache.
“mary,” he said, “can you tell me why we changed our plans on the boat and decided to go straight on to monte carlo instead of staying in paris?”
“yes,” she said readily. “don’t you remember my telling you about those beautiful books of views that i saw on the ship?”
“where did you see them?” asked timothy.
“i found them in my cabin one day. i think the steward must have left them,” she said. “they were most wonderful productions, full of coloured prints and photographs—didn’t i tell you about them?”
“i remember,” said timothy slowly. “found them in your cabin, eh? well, nobody left any beautiful or attractive pictures of monte carlo in my berth, but i think that won’t stop me going on to monte carlo.”
it was an opportunity she had been seeking for a week and she seized it.
“i want to ask you something, timothy,” she said. “mrs. renfrew told me the other day that they call you ‘take a chance’ anderson. why is that, timothy?”
“because i take a chance, i suppose,” he smiled. “i’ve been taking chances all my life.”
“you’re not a gambler, timothy, are you?” she asked gravely. “i know you bet and play cards, but men do that for amusement, and somehow it is all right. but when men start out to make a living, and actually make a living, by games of chance, they somehow belong to another life and another people.”
he was silent.
“you’re just too good to go that way, timothy,” she went on. “there are lots of chances that a man can take in this world, in matching his brains, his strength and his skill against other men, and when he wins his stake is safe. he doesn’t lose it the next day or the next month, and he’s picking winners all the time, timothy.”
his first inclination was to be nettled. she was wounding the tender skin of his vanity, and he was startled to discover how tender a skin that was. all that she said was true and less than true. she could not guess how far his mind and inclination were from commonplace labour and how very little work came into the calculations of his future. he looked upon a job as a thing not to be held and developed into something better, but as a stopgap between two successful chances. he was almost shocked when this truth came home to him. the girl was nervous, and painfully anxious not to hurt him, and yet well aware that she was rubbing a sore place.
“timothy, for your sake, as well as for mine, for you’re a friend of mine, i want to be proud of you, to see you past this present phase of life. mrs. renfrew speaks of you as a gambler, and says your name, even at your age, is well known as one who would rather bet than buy. that isn’t true, timothy, is it?”
she put her hand on his and looked into his face. he did not meet her eyes.
“i think that is true, mary,” he said steadily. “how it comes to be true, i don’t quite know. i suppose i have drifted a little over the line, and i’m grateful to you for pulling me up. oh, no, i don’t regret the past—it has all been useful—and i have made good on chances, but i see there are other chances that a man can take than putting his money on the pace of a horse or backing against zero. maybe, when i get back to london i’ll settle down into a respectable citizen and keep hens or something.”
he was speaking seriously, though at first she thought he was being sarcastic.
“and you won’t gamble again?” she asked.
he hesitated to reply.
“that isn’t fair,” she said quickly. “i mean it isn’t fair of me to ask you. it is almost cruel,” she smiled, “to let you go to monte carlo and ask you not to put money on the tables. but promise me, timothy, that when i tell you to stop playing, you will stop.”
“here’s my hand on it,” said timothy, brightening up already at the prospect of being allowed to gamble at all. “hereafter——” he raised his hand solemnly. “by the way,” he asked, “do you know a lady named madame serpilot?”
she shook her head.
“no, i do not,” she said. “i have never heard the name.”
“you have no relations or friends in france?”
“none,” she replied immediately.
“what made you go to france at all?” he asked. “when i heard from you, mary, you talked about taking a holiday in madeira before setting up house in bath, and the first thing i knew of your intention to go abroad again was the letter you sent me just before i started for madeira.”
“i wanted to go a year ago, after sir john’s death,” she said; “then mrs. renfrew couldn’t take the trip—one of her younger children had measles.”
“has that woman children?” asked timothy in an awed voice.
“don’t be absurd. of course she has children. it was she who decided on making the trip. she writes little articles in the bath county herald—a local paper—on the care of children and all that sort of thing. she’s not really a journalist, she is literary.”
“i know,” said timothy, “sometimes they write poetry, sometimes recipes for ice cream—‘take three cups of flour, a pint of cream in which an egg has been boiled and a pinch of vanilla’——”
the girl smiled. evidently timothy had hit upon the particular brand of journalism to which mrs. renfrew was addicted.
“well,” said the girl, “there was to have been a sort of mothers’ welfare meeting in paris next week—an international affair—and when we were in madeira she received an invitation to attend with a free return ticket—wasn’t that splendid?”
“splendid,” said timothy absently. “naturally you thought it was an excellent opportunity to go also.”
the girl nodded.
“and now you have arrived here you find that the mothers’ welfare meeting has been postponed for ten years?”
she looked at him, startled.
“how did you know that the meeting had been postponed?” she asked.
“oh, i guessed it,” he said airily, “such things have happened before.”
“the truth is,” said the girl, “nobody knows anything about this meeting, and the letter which mrs. renfrew sent to the mothers’ welfare society in paris was waiting for us when we arrived at the carlton. it had been returned—‘addressee unknown.’ mrs. renfrew had put the carlton address inside.”
here was ample excuse for speculation of an innocuous kind. mrs. renfrew had been approached because it was known by this mysterious somebody that she would take the girl with her, and this sinister somebody had hired two thugs to shepherd her from madeira and to put timothy out of action, should he decide to accompany the party to france. the situation was distinctly interesting.
three days later the party crossed the channel. timothy had high hopes of adventure, which were fated to be more than fulfilled. they stayed three days in paris and he had the time of his life. he went to the races at maisons lafitte, and came back glowing with a sense of his virtue, for he had not made a bet. he drifted in to the baccara rooms at enghien, watched tens of thousands of francs change hands, and returned to paris that night with a halo fitted by mary’s own hands.
“i think you’re really wonderful, timothy,” she said. “you know you are allowed one final flutter.”
“i’m saving that up for monte carlo,” said timothy.
since his arrival in paris he had lost the right to his name, for he was taking no chances. if he went abroad at night he kept to the brilliantly illuminated boulevards or the crowded cafés. he kept clear of the crowds—especially crowds which formed quickly and for no apparent reason.
he was taking no chances because he felt it was not fair upon the particular genius who presided over his destinies that he should squander his luck in a miraculous escape from death or disablement. only once, when dining at the scribe, did he think he saw the familiar face of mr. brown. with an apology he left the two ladies and made his way with difficulty through the crowded restaurant, only to find that his man had disappeared.
“these cafés have as many doors as a trick-scene,” he grumbled when he came back.
“did you see a friend of yours?” asked the girl.
“not so much a friend as one who has a financial interest in me,” replied timothy.
mrs. renfrew had thawed a little under the beneficent influences of paris. she was busy sending off picture-postcards and had written to bath her first impression of the french capital to the extent of three columns. she had also written a poem which began: “oh, city of light that shines so bright,” and went on rhyming “vain” with “seine,” “gay” with “play,” “joy” with “alloy,” through twenty-three stanzas.
“i rather pride myself,” said mrs. renfrew, “upon that description of paris—‘the city of light.’ don’t you think it is very original, mr. anderson?”
“it was,” said timothy diplomatically. “parisians have called it the ‘ville lumière’ for about two hundred years.”
“that’s almost the same, isn’t it?” said mrs. renfrew. “how clever the french are!”
mrs. renfrew did not speak french and took a more generous view of the young man when she discovered that he did. it fell to timothy’s lot to order tickets, arrange cabs, pay bills and act as unofficial courier to the party. he was anxious to be gone from paris, impatient for the big game to begin. for some reason, he did not anticipate that any harm would come to the girl. this struck him as strange later, but at the moment all his thoughts were centred upon the match between himself and this old french lady who had set herself out to separate him from mary maxell.
no unpleasant incident—the crowded condition of the dining-car excepted—marred the journey to monte carlo. there was the inevitable night spent in a stuffy sleeping-berth in a car that rocked and swayed to such an extent that timothy expected it to jump the line, as thousands of other passengers have expected it to do; and they came with the morning to the valley of the rhone, a wide, blue, white-flecked stream flowing between gaunt hills, past solitary chateaux and strange walled towns, which looked as if they had been kept under glass cases for centuries, that the modern world should be reminded of the dangers under which our forefathers lived. so to marseilles, and a long, hot and slow journey to nice.
to the girl it was a pilgrimage of joy. she would not have missed a single moment of that ride. the blue sea, the white villas with their green jalousies, the banked roses over wall and pergola and the warm-scented breeze, and above all the semi-tropical sun, placed her in a new world, a wonder world more beautiful than imagination had painted.
there is something about monte carlo which is very satisfying. it is so orderly, so clean, so white and bright, that you have the impression that it is carefully dusted every morning and that the villas on the hills are taken down weekly by tender hands, polished and replaced.
there is nothing garish about monte carlo, for all its stucco and plaster. some of the buildings, and particularly the casino, were compared by the irreverent timothy to the white city, but it was a refined white city and the casino itself, with its glass-roofed porch, its great, solemn hanging lamps and its decorous uniformed attendants, had something of the air of a national bank.
timothy took a room at the h?tel de paris, where the girl was staying, and lost no time in seeking information.
“madame serpilot?” said the concierge. “there is a madame who bears that name, i think, but she is not staying here, monsieur.”
“of whom should i inquire, i pray you?” asked timothy in the vernacular.
“of the municipal council, monsieur,” said the concierge, “or, if the madame is a wealthy madame, of the manager of the credit lyonnais, who will perhaps inform monsieur.”
“thanks many times,” said timothy.
he went first to the credit lyonnais, and found the manager extremely polite but uncommunicative. it was not the practice of the bank, he said, to disclose the addresses of their clients. he would not say that madame serpilot was his client, but if she were, he could certainly not give her address to any unauthorised person. from this timothy gathered that madame serpilot was a client. he went on to the mairie and met with better fortune. the mairie had no respect for persons. it was there to supply information and what the mairie of monte carlo does not know about monaco, the cleverest detective force in the world would be wasting its time trying to discover.
madame serpilot lived at the villa condamine. the villa condamine was not, as the name suggested, in the poorer part of monte carlo but in that most exclusive territory, the tiny peninsula of cap martin.
“has madam been a resident long?”
“for one hundred and twenty-nine days,” replied the official promptly. “madame hired the villa furnished from the agent, of the grand duchess eleana who, alas! was destroyed in that terrible revolution.”
he gave timothy some details of the family from which the grand duchess had sprung, the amount of her income in pre-war days, and was passing to her eccentricities when timothy took his departure. he was not interested in the grand duchess eleana, alive or dead.
