A Mysterious Disappearance by Louis Tracy (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

each time with a five louis stake on the board, Mensmore backed the red, but still black won.

Next to him, an Italian, betting in notes of a thousand francs each, had quadrupled his first bet by backing the black.

Both men rose simultaneously, the Italian grinning delightedly at a smart Parisienne, who joyously nodded her congratulations, the Englishman quiet, utterly unmoved, but slightly pallid.

He passed out into the foyer and stopped to light a cigarette. Bruce noticed that his hand was steady, and that all the air of excitement had gone.

These were ill signs. There is no man so calm as he who has deliberately resolved to take his own life. That Mensmore was ruined, that he was hopelessly in love with a woman whom he could not marry, and that he was about to commit suicide, Bruce was as certain as though the facts had been proved by a coroner.

But this thing should not happen if he could prevent it.

The band was now playing one of Waldteufel’s waltzes. Mensmore listened to the fascinating melody for a moment. He hesitated at the door of the writing-room; but he went out, puffing furiously at his cigarette. A guard looked at him as he turned to the right of the entrance, and made for the shaded terraces overlooking the sea.

“A silent Englishman,” thought the man; and he caught sight of Bruce, also smoking, preoccupied, and solitary.

“Another silent Englishman. Mon Dieu! What miserable lives these English lead!”

And so the two vanished into the blackness of the foliage, while, within the brilliantly lighted building, the frou-frou of silk mingled with soft laughter and the sweet strains of music.

If it be true that extremes meet, then this was a night for a tragedy.

CHAPTER IX BREAKING THE BANK

There were not many people in this part of the Casino gardens. A few love-making couples and a handful of others who preferred the chilly quietude of Nature to the throng of the interior promenade, made up the occupants of the winding paths that cover the seaward slope.

At last Mensmore halted. There was no one in front, and he turned to look if the terrace were clear behind him. He caught sight of Bruce, but did not recognize him, and leant against a low wall, ostensibly to gaze at the sea until the other had passed.

Claude came up to him and cried cheerily:

“Hello! Is that you, Mr. Mensmore? Isn’t it a lovely night?”

Mensmore, startled at being thus unexpectedly addressed by name, wheeled about, stared at the new-comer, and said, very stiffly:

“Yes; but I felt rather seedy in the Casino, so I came here to be alone.”

“Of course,” answered the barrister. “You look a little out of sorts. Perhaps got a chill, eh? It is dangerous weather here, particularly on these heavenly evenings. Come back with me to the hotel, and have a stiff brandy and soda. It will brace you up.”

Mensmore flushed a little at this persistence.

“I tell you,” he growled, “that I only require to be left in peace, and I shall soon recover from my indisposition. I am awfully obliged to you, but—”

“But you wish me to walk on and mind my own business?”

“Not exactly that, old chap. Please don’t think me rude. I am very sorry, but I can’t talk much to-night.”

“So I understand. That is why I think it is best for you to have company, even such disagreeable companionship as my own.”

“Confound it, man,” cried the other, now thoroughly irritated; “tell me which way you are going and I will take the other. Why on earth cannot you take a polite hint, and leave me to myself?”

“It is precisely because I am good at taking a hint that I positively refuse to leave you until you are safely landed at your hotel. Indeed, I may stick to you then for some hours.”

“The devil take you! What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I say.”

“If you don’t quit this instant I will punch your head for you.”

“Ah! You are recovering already. But before you start active exercise take your overcoat off. That revolver in the breast pocket might go off accidentally, you know. Besides, as I shall hit back, I might fetch my knuckles against it, and that would be hardly fair. Otherwise, I can do as much in the punching line as you can, any day.”

This reply utterly disconcerted Mensmore.

“Look here,” he said, avoiding Bruce’s steadfast gaze, “what are you talking about? What has it got to do with you, anyhow?”

“Oh, a great deal. My business principally consists in looking after other people’s affairs. Just now it is my definite intention to prevent you from blowing out your brains, or what passes for them.”

“Then all I can say is that I wish you were in Jericho. It is your own fault if you get into trouble over this matter. Had you gone about your business I would have waited. As it is—”

It so happened that the guard, having nothing better to do, strolled along the terraces by the same path that Mensmore and Bruce had followed. The first sight that met his astonished eyes, when in the flood of moonlight he discovered their identity, was the spectacle of these two springing at each other like a pair of wild cats.

“Parbleu,” he shouted, “the solitary ones are fighting!”

He ran forward, drawing his short sword, ready to stick the weapon into either of the combatants if the majesty of the law in his own person were not at once respected.

In reality, the affair was simple enough. Mensmore made an ineffectual attempt to draw his revolver, and Bruce pinioned him before he could get his hand up to his pocket. Both men were equally matched, and it was difficult to say how the struggle might have ended had not the sword-brandishing guard appeared on the scene.

Claude, even in this excited situation, kept his senses. Mensmore, blind with rage and the madness of one who would voluntarily plunge into the Valley of the Shadow, took heed of naught save the effort to rid himself of the restraining clutch.

“Put away your sword. Seize his arms from behind. He is a suicide,” shouted the barrister to the gesticulating and shrieking Frenchman.

Fortunately, Bruce was an excellent linguist. The man caught Mensmore’s arms, put a knee in the small of his back, and doubled him backwards with a force that nearly dislocated his spine. In the same instant Claude secured the revolver, which he promptly pocketed.

“It is well,” he said to the guard. “Here is a louis. Say nothing, but leave us.”

“Monsieur understands that the honor of a French policeman—”

“I understand that if there is any report made of this affair to the authorities you will be dismissed for negligence. Had this lunatic been left to your care he would now have been lying here dead. Do you doubt me?”

The guard hesitated. “Monsieur mentioned a louis,” he said, for Bruce’s finger and thumb had returned the coin to his waistcoat pocket.

This transaction satisfactorily ended, Bruce accosted Mensmore, who was awkwardly twisting himself to see if his backbone were all right.

“You are not hurt, I hope?”

“It is matterless. Why could you not let me finish the business in my own way?”

“Because the world has some use for a man like you. Because you are a moral coward, and require support from a stronger nature. Because I did not want to think of that girl crying her eyes out to-morrow when she read of your death, or heard of it, as she assuredly would have done.”

Mensmore, though still furious at his fellow-countryman’s interference, was visibly amazed at this final reference.

“What do you know about her?” he cried.

“Nothing, save what my eyes tell me.”

“They seem to tell you a remarkable lot about my affairs.”

“Possibly. Meanwhile I want you to give me your word of honor that you will not make any further attempt on your life during the next seven days.”

“The word of honor of a disgraced man! Will you accept it?”

“Most certainly.”

“You are a queer chap, and no mistake. Very well, I give it. At the same time, I cannot help dying of starvation. I lost my last cent to-night at roulette. I am hopelessly involved in debts which I cannot pay. I have no prospects and no friends. You are not doing me a kindness, my dear fellow, in keeping me alive, even for seven days.”

“You might have obtained your fare to London from the authorities of the Casino?”

“Hardly. I lost very little at roulette. I am not such a fool. My losses are nearly all in bets over the pigeon-shooting match which I ought to have won. I was backing myself at a game where I was apparently sure to succeed.”

“Until you were beaten by a woman’s voice.”

“Yes, wizard. I am too dazed to wonder at you sufficiently. Yet I would have lost fifty times for her sake, though it was for her sake that I wanted to win.”

“Come, let us smoke. Sit down, and tell me all about it.”

They took the nearest seat, lighting cigarettes. The guard, watching them from the shade of a huge palm-tree, murmured:

“Holy Virgin, what madmen are these English! They move apart, unknown; they fight; they fraternize; they consume tobacco—all within five minutes.”

And he lovingly felt for the louis to assure himself that he was not dreaming.

“There is not much to tell,” said Mensmore, who had quite recovered his self-control, and was now trying to sum up the man who had so curiously entered his life at the moment when he had decided to do away with it. “I came here, being a poor chap living mostly on my wits, to go in for the pigeon-shooting tournaments. I won several, and was in fair funds. Then I fell in love. The girl is rich, well-connected, and all that sort of thing. She is the first good influence that has crossed my life, so I thought that perhaps my luck was now going to turn. I backed myself for all I was worth, and more, to win the championship. If it came off I should have won over £3,000. As it is, I owe £500, which must be paid on Monday. My total assets, after I settled my hotel bill and sent a cheque to a chum who took some of my bets in his own name, was £16. Now I have nothing. So you see—”

“Yes,” interrupted Bruce, “it is a hard case. But death is no settlement. Nobody gets paid, and everybody is worried.”

“My dear fellow, my life is in your keeping for seven days. After that, I presume, I take myself in charge again.”

The barrister took thought for a while before he inquired:

“Why did you go to the Casino to-night, if you did not patronize the tables as a rule?”

The other colored somewhat and laughed sarcastically.

“Just a final bit of folly. I dreamt that my luck had turned.”

“Dreamt?”

“Yes, last night. Three times did I imagine that I was playing roulette, and that after a certain number—whether thirteen or twenty-three I was uncertain—turned up, there was a run of seventeen on the red. The funny thing is that I had an impression that the number was twenty-three, but with a doubt that it might be thirteen. I remember, during a sub-conscious state in the third dream, resolving to listen and look more carefully to discover the exact number. But again things got blurred. The only clear point was that the run of seventeen on the red commenced at once.”

“Well?”

“Well, I took my remaining cash, went to the Casino, became a bit impatient when neither number turned up for quite a while, and when thirteen appeared I backed the red. But four times it was the black that won.”

“So I saw.”

“Have you been keeping guard over me?”

“Yes, in a sort of way.”

“You are a queer chap.