CHAPTER IV
THE NOAH’S ARK
February 16th
Ecoutez! I will tell you another little histoire.
Madame was ultra-chic and très intelligente.
As I stood for inspection before her in her private sitting-room at the Savoy Hotel in London, I noted that she was but little more than thirty, with clean-cut features, wide-open, fearless eyes, dark brows and lashes, pretty bronze hair, a straight nose slightly retroussé at the tip, a firm mouth, but still kissable, and rather prominent rounded chin—une jolie figure, une jolie taille.
She was dressed in a well-cut, tailor-made gown of cinnamon brown, and as she looked at me she struck me as a femme du monde of strong independent spirit, determined to go her own way, and have a good time.
Mrs. Ashley-Bond was her name. Not until after she had seen me and engaged me at the bureau de placement, did I discover, to my joy, that Madame had let her house somewhere in North Devon—and she and her husband lived always in hotels, travelling hither and thither.
“You are used to travelling, you say?” Madame asked, as she concluded her inspection. “We are on the Continent about six months in the year, and spend each season in London.”
“Oui, Madame. I have travelled a great deal. I went to India and Australia with Madame Henshaw, an American lady. I gave you her testimonial.”
“Perfectly satisfactory,” she replied. “But, Mariette, what I want to impress upon you from the very first is that I forbid all flirtations. Constantly moving as we do, I know quite well that a smart French girl like yourself must have many admirers in the housekeeper’s room. You will be proof against all flattery, I sincerely hope.”
“I have had sufficient experience, Madame. I am fully able to take care of myself,” was my rather dignified reply.
“Then I hope I shall never have occasion to utter reproof,” she said. “My husband is just now in Germany. He will join me next week.”
And then I entered upon my duties.
From the first I realised that Madame was a thoroughgoing cosmopolitan. She spoke French and German fairly well, and by the labels with which her luggage was plastered, it was plain that they stopped at only first-class hotels. They had evidently wandered from Lisbon across to Budapest, and from Constantinople up to Stockholm.
Vraiment I had secured just the situation for which I had been longing!
If a mistress never travels and never goes to country-houses, then the life of her femme-de-chambre soon becomes unbearable. My ideal life is Monte Carlo in spring, London in the season, Aix afterwards, a short spell in Paris, Trouville in July, then Scotland, and Paris for Christmas, and this apparently was just the kind of nomad existence led by the Ashley-Bonds.
We occupied one of the most expensive suites in the Savoy, and on the first day I was with Madame I saw a bill of Shepherd’s in Cairo for four thousand francs. Ma foi, there was no lack of money. They practically rolled in it!
Madame had many friends, both in the hotel and out of it. She was very intimate with a lady staying in the hotel, a Madame Courtenay, who had a suite on the same floor. She was rather older, very dark, slightly given to stoutness and of Hebrew type, yet of quite good style. But her husband was a short, podgy, round-faced man with a pair of sharp black eyes and a turned-up moustache.
Each evening I dressed my mistress in a different toilette, and she went out to dine, or to the theatre, usually returning to take supper in the gay restaurant with Monsieur and Madame Courtenay.
As the days went by I realised that between my mistress and Madame Courtenay a very close friendship existed. She was ever closeted in Madame’s room, and often their conversation was in an undertone so that I should not overhear.
Madame usually spoke with me in French. It kept her in practice, she said. She had imbibed all the true chic of the Parisienne, and by living so much on the Continent she knew and used all the most fashionable perfumes and adjuncts to the toilette. Quickly I realised that I could tell her little that she did not know. Her hats were mostly from Lewis, in Monte Carlo, and her demi-toilettes from Sert Migno, in Nice. She knew the Riviera as well as I did, and she wore her gowns perfectly.
No woman in the restaurant of the Savoy had greater success than she, for each evening when after supper she went forth into the lounge to enjoy her cigarette with Madame Courtenay, all eyes were upon her. Her figure was superb; her smartness unequalled.
Unlike most of les Anglaises I have served, she possessed a keen sense of humour, and frequently she made me laugh. Yet somehow her friendship with Madame Courtenay struck me as curious, even suspicious. Tiens! I do not know the reason, but I had a very strong feeling that Madame’s friend and her husband were not exactly what they represented themselves to be.
Perhaps it was because one afternoon, when out for a walk in Oxford Street, I came across Madame Courtenay talking earnestly with a low type of foreigner, who looked suspiciously like a second-class hotel servant out of employment. She did not see me, and I was careful to escape observation. Yet when she returned to the hotel she rushed in at once to Madame, and for some time conversed with her in whispers. Extraordinaire? Ah! oui.
Monsieur returned from Berlin next day.
Un bel type, about forty—of military appearance, alert, well-set-up, smart, with a heavy fair moustache.
Among the men in the hotel, and especially with the cosmopolitan crowd in the American bar, he was highly popular. Without doubt he was a gentleman, full of genuine bonhomie. Yet, though a week passed, he never once went out with Madame.
She always went forth alone, or with her friend Madame Courtenay.
My master and Monsieur Courtenay seemed bosom friends. They went about together, often out to Hounslow, in the suburbs, and each day lunching or dining with men whose acquaintance they formed casually. What Monsieur’s business was, if he had one, I failed to discover.
One afternoon, however, Madame gave me a surprise. She had been out to luncheon, and on returning met Monsieur in the hall. He had been awaiting her. They had a hurried conversation, and then Madame and I ascended together in the lift. On gaining her room Madame Courtenay was there. They spoke together quickly and excitedly. Then I was called in, and Madame said—
“Mariette, we are going abroad. To-night you must leave Liverpool Street by the Harwich route for Basle, and go on to Milan. You will take my two big trunks—go to the Hôtel de Milan and await us there.”
“Oui, Madame.”
And then she set about her packing in frantic haste, being assisted by Madame Courtenay.
Bon Dieu! Had something happened? In a quarter of an hour Monsieur burst into the room and swallowed a glass of brandy. Then he gave me two ten-pound notes for my expenses, saying—
“Look here, Mariette, I’m doing some very important financial business, and I don’t want the people in Italy to know who I really am. So when we arrive, I shall be Captain Hugh Atherton, and my wife will be Lady Hylda Atherton, daughter of the Earl of Ilfracombe. You understand—eh? You’re a good girl, and you know how to keep a still tongue, I believe. You can take one of your mistress’s trunks with you, and one of my kit-bags.”
“I am in Madame’s service. Is it not my duty to be silent?” I said.
Mystère! Why did I not travel with Madame? I was her maid. Why was I sent by a roundabout route? Did they intend to escape from the hotel in secret?
And yet it is not the duty of a femme-de-chambre to question the motives of master or mistress. So I simply packed, and soon after eight o’clock that evening left for Liverpool Street Station in a cab.
The North Sea was at its worst, and the crossing from Harwich was affreux. Heureusement, I never suffer from mal-de-mer, nevertheless, I was glad to enter the Basle express at Brussels, and throughout the next day and night travelled by Strasburg into Switzerland. From Basle I went on to Lucerne, and after dinner at the big buffet proceeded, by the winding Gotthard, down to noisy Milan.
Milano! Ugh! Abominable! Tramways, dust, and ogling young men with six sous in their pockets. The city is the most vulgar in all Europe.
According to instructions I engaged an expensive suite of rooms, and four days after my arrival Monsieur and Madame came in great style. Their personal appearance was so much altered that I stood aghast. Monsieur was now clean-shaven, and wore gold-rimmed pince-nez, while Madame had lost her chic, and presented the usual appearance of the blouse-and-skirt tourist.
Tourists! Bon Dieu! Have we not all met them! They carry two blouses only, and wash their linen in the bath-rooms. En pension by coupon!
The title of my mistress, combined with the remarks I had let drop in the housekeeper’s room, caused the management to treat them with greatest deference.
This sudden transformation of my master and mistress greatly puzzled me. Had I met them in the street I probably should not have recognised them. One thing, however, seemed clear, that they had for some very urgent reason escaped from England.
Full of natural curiosity I wrote to a chauffeur at the Savoy whose acquaintance I had made, and from him received a reply saying that as far as he could discover, there was nothing wrong. Mr. Ashley-Bond had simply come down one evening, paid his bill, and within a quarter of an hour had, with his wife, left the hotel.
Our rooms overlooked the busy Via Alessandro Manzoni, close to the shabby but renowned La Scala, and Madame spent many hours reading at the window, while Monsieur was absent the greater part of each day.
“I expect you regard it as strange why my husband and I have so altered our appearance, Mariette,” Madame exclaimed one evening, while I was brushing out her hair. “The fact is, a year ago I married without my father’s consent. He does not know I am married, for he believes me still to be in America with my aunt. But we fear that a detective he has employed is now searching for us, and if he finds us, then he will, no doubt, cut me out of his will. He is an invalid, and the doctors have only given him six months longer to live.”
“But your aunt, will she not say that you are missing?” I suggested.
“Of course she will not. I have arranged with her. I left her in New York, and crossed to California. Thence I went to Japan, and in Hong Kong joined my husband. We were married there in assumed names, and for over a year have been hunted from place to place. My aunt pretends that I am down in Mexico, travelling with some friends, but we have reason to believe that my father suspects the truth. If it is confirmed by this private inquiry agent, then it means that the fortune I should inherit will go to charity.”
I nodded, in pretence of believing the romantic story. It hardly coincided with what she had told me regarding the house in Devonshire.
If you know Milan, you of course know Biffi’s great café in the Galleria Mazzini, that huge glass-roofed arcade which is one of the finest in the world. It was at Biffi’s where Monsieur seemed to spend his days idling over cigarettes and vermouth in company with several rather elegant young Italians.
More than once when out on errands for Madame to Bocconi’s, the great emporium in the Piazza, I had passed the café and seen him seated there with his newly-found friends.
Three weeks passed, and I noticed that Madame was daily becoming more anxious. She went sometimes with Monsieur to the Lirico, the Manzoni, or the Teatro dal Verme, but in the day-time she had her meals in private and scarcely ever went out. She seemed to grow strangely nervous and apprehensive, and consumed innumerable cigarettes. Tant pis.
One afternoon, while I sat tacking in some lace in Madame’s gown, there came a knock at the door, and to my surprise there entered an elderly, rather shabbily-dressed, woman, who, next moment, I recognised as Madame Courtenay.
Her appearance, too, had been completely altered!
The two ladies greeted each other with great enthusiasm, and then I was sent from the room. I crept back and listened outside.
All I heard was much excited whispering.
And presently I learnt that Madame Courtenay, without her husband, had taken up her abode at the Métropole, in the Piazza del Duomo.
Extraordinaire! There was something in the wind, but what I could not discover.
Madame and her friend became inseparable. Once, when I entered the room suddenly, Madame Courtenay had a large, square, official-looking envelope in her hand, which she quickly hid from my gaze. Pourquoi?
Two evenings each week I was allowed out, and upon one occasion after we had been there nearly three weeks, an exciting incident occurred.
I was alighting from a tram in front of the cathedral, when a man snatched my little bag-purse. In a moment a rather well-dressed man, who had been my fellow-passenger, dashed after the thief, who dropped the bag and managed to escape. The gentleman picked up my bag, and returned it to me, when, to my surprise, I found he was French.
He began to chat, and as he was going in the same direction, walked at my side.
He was a pleasant man, about forty-five, with a dark, pointed beard, and of distinctly commercial appearance. Indeed, he told me that his name was Pégard, and that he was traveller for a Lyons firm of silk-manufacturers and that he came to Milan once each year. In reply, I explained my position, and what had brought me to Italy. After a pleasant walk up the broad Corso Venezia, we suddenly encountered Monsieur, who passed without recognising me. I said nothing, for I was glad to have thus escaped. Presently, it being time for my return, we retraced our steps to a snug little café behind the Arcade, and there Monsieur Pégard would insist upon me taking a grenadine.
While we sat together he asked me many questions concerning Monsieur and Madame, how long I had been in their service, by what route did I come to Italy, and why we were there in Milan. He seemed strangely inquisitive, but I replied to the best of my knowledge, although somehow he hesitated to believe me.
“Mam’zelle will meet me again to-morrow—eh?” he asked at last. “Come, I will take no refusal.”
“Mais non! I shall not be out to-morrow, m’sieur.”
“Then the day after to-morrow—under Bocconi’s portico at seven o’clock,” he urged.
So with some little reluctance I promised. He was refined, très gentil—so unlike the valets and hotel servants whom I so constantly met.
Yet as I walked alone back to the hotel, I reflected that some of the leading questions he had put to me were rather curious ones. They seemed to betray an even greater knowledge of Monsieur and Madame than I myself possessed!
On entering Madame’s room I found all in disorder. She and Monsieur were busy packing—cramming everything into the trunks, without troubling to fold them.
“Pack your box quickly, Mariette,” Madame said. “We have only forty minutes for the train!”
In surprise I obeyed, and ere long we were all three in a cab on our way to the station.
I was in the train, travelling first-class with them, ere I knew our destination. It was Rome.
Through all that night and greater part of next day we went by way of Bologna to Florence. There, instead of proceeding south to the Eternal City, we alighted, and crossing the city took a slow train across the Apennines to Faenza and old-world Rimini on the Adriatic, where we put up at an ancient and uncomfortable place called the Aquila Nero.
“By Jove, Dolly!” I heard Monsieur say to Madame on the night of our arrival, “we had a narrow squeak. It was fortunate I met Mariette. I wonder what questions he asked her?”
“Better say nothing,” Madame said. “We’re safe. Surely that’s sufficient. Maud got away all right. She’s in Venice long ago. After the little business there she’ll nip over to Trieste, or to Abbazia.”
“Where’s Ted?”
“Oh, he’ll keep away from her. He’s waiting in Bordeaux to hear from us. I’ll wire him in a couple of days.”
Eh bien! I was not mistaken. Evidemment the pleasant Monsieur Pégard was an agent of the sûreté! The little attempt to rob me had, no doubt, been arranged in order that he might make my acquaintance. I recollected with what consummate ingenuity he had questioned me.
We remained in Rimini for two days to rest, then proceeded by that long slow line of railway which runs the whole length of Italy by the Adriatic shore through Ancona to Brindisi. There we remained for another day’s rest, and Monsieur visited the bank; then on across to Reggio. Thence we crossed the beautiful straits to Messina, scene of the recent earthquake, on and on, still beside the sea, until at last we found ourselves established in one of the most delightful hotels in all Europe, the Villa Igiea, the broad terrace of which is lapped by the waves of the bright-blue bay of Palermo.
On the evening of our taking up our quarters there, while Monsieur and Madame were below dining in the restaurant, I found the stout leather kit-bag of Monsieur unlocked—the one I conveyed from London to Milan. So I opened it and peered within.
A suit of pink pyjamas lay on top, with a folded dressing-gown, but when I drew them aside I started and held my breath.
The sight that met my eyes staggered me.
The bag was filled with large neat bundles of English, French and Italian bank-notes. In that unlocked bag were hundreds of thousands of francs—wealth enormous, such as I had never before gazed upon.
Surely it was gross carelessness to leave open in a hotel such a vast fortune.
I took out one packet of English notes. They were fully two hundred, each for ten pounds. Another packet was of French notes of cinq-cent francs. Mon Dieu! It was pleasant to feel them between one’s fingers!
Then, hearing a footstep, I reclosed the bag, and descended to have my dinner, preferring not to remain alone there and court suspicion of having discovered what that precious valise contained.
How foolish Monsieur was! He always allowed it to travel with the other baggage!
When I returned, I found both Madame and Monsieur in the room. He had evidently discovered that the bag had been left unlocked, for as I entered his keys were in his hand.
They had both considerably altered their appearance since we had left Milan, and on the following morning, as I stood at my window gazing out upon the beautiful flower-adorned terrace with its roses and oranges and the bright sunlit sea beyond, I fell to wondering why the Ashley-Bonds carried their wealth about with them in that way instead of depositing it in some bank.
Ah! ma foi! Life in Palermo La Felice, so called on account of its delightful climate, was very agreeable. It was the height of the winter season in Sicily, and as the Villa Igiea is the centre of gaiety the days passed pleasantly enough.
Madame had resumed her smartness, and wore some of her most chic toilettes at the evening concerts and dances, which were constantly being given at one or other of the best hotels.
In the housekeeper’s room we were also a gay crowd, for few second-rate servants find themselves at the Villa Igiea.
Each afternoon I was allowed out for a couple of hours, and generally spent the time walking about the handsome streets with one or other of the maids.
About ten days after our arrival I chanced to be passing along the busy Corso Vittorio, when I saw Madame seated in an open cab outside the Banca d’Italia. She was extremely well dressed, and was in the act of acknowledging the salutes of two cavalry officers who were passing, and whose acquaintance she had made at the dance on the previous evening.
Being accompanied by a young English chauffeur from the hotel, I drew back and looked into a shop window in order not to pass her.
A few seconds later Monsieur emerged from the bank, entered the cab, and the vehicle drove on. The incident would have passed at once from my mind had not I, an hour later, seen Madame, still seated in the cab, before the door of the Banca Commerciale in the Via Materassi. Again Monsieur came forth, smiling happily, and again the cab drove on, stopping again at a small private bank close to the busy cross-ways known as the Quattro Canti.
It appeared as though Monsieur must be experiencing some difficulty with his banking business.
Indeed, on the following afternoon, they visited the Bank of Sicily, for I overheard Madame refer to it on their return about four o’clock.
No further word had been spoken regarding the flight from Milan, yet apprehensions of the mysterious Pégard often arose within me. Monsieur had now, I believed, deposited all his money in one or other of the banks, for the kit-bag lay open and empty.
That evening Madame took great trouble with her hair and put on her turquoise gown, one of Doeuillet’s latest creations, for there was a smart dance at the Prefecture, and she and Monsieur had been invited. She took a nip of eau de Carmes, and was in excellent spirits, laughing and chatting the whole time I had been putting the ribbons in her lingerie. I had been powdering her neck and arms, and after giving a final touch to the laces upon the bodice, it being the first time the gown had been worn, I stepped back to admire the effect.
“C’est ça! Madame will be the best-dressed lady to-night,” I declared. “This model has never yet been seen in Palermo.”
She smiled, being fond of a little flattery.
“Yes, Mariette, I want to be noticed by other women. It pleases me.”
I had noticed with much amusement how, because of her title of “milady,” all the English visitors at the hotel buzzed about her. Indeed, she herself had been laughing over it not half-an-hour before.
“And now, Mariette,” she said, suddenly growing serious, after admiring herself in the glass, “listen. I want you to go on an important message for me. You must leave by to-night’s boat for Naples. It sails at eleven o’clock. You do not object to travelling?”
“To Naples, Madame!” I echoed.
“Yes. You will be there early to-morrow morning,” she said. “You know our friend Mr. Courtenay—you saw him often at the Savoy?”
“Parfaitement, Madame.”
“Then go to Naples, and thence take the train to Genoa. You will find him awaiting you at the Hôtel de Londres, opposite the station. I have a parcel I wish you to deliver to him.”
She passed into the adjoining room, which was occupied by Monsieur, and a few seconds later returned with a brown-paper parcel about half a metre long and a quarter deep. As I took it I found it contained something rather heavy, and by its feel was packed in straw.
“It will not break easily,” she remarked. “But be very careful of it. You can place it in your trunk among your clothes.”
“Then I am to take my trunk?”
“Yes; we shall remain here a few days longer, then we shall come on to Genoa. You will await us there, at the Londres.”
“Bien, Madame.”
At that instant Monsieur entered, and I thought I detected meaning glances exchanged between the pair.
Monsieur handed me three hundred francs in Italian notes to pay my expenses, and then wishing me bon voyage, the pair descended in the lift as they were dining at the Hôtel des Palmes before going on to the Prefecture.
In preference to placing the parcel in my trunk, I found it would just go into my small black bag in which I generally take a few necessaries for the night when travelling. Wherefore, just before ten, having packed all my belongings, I drove down to the pier and went on board the Navagazione Generale steamer which sails nightly for Naples, and as I stood on deck I was soon afterwards watching the myriad lights of Palermo disappearing at the stern.
Half-an-hour later, however, it blew bitterly cold, therefore I went below to my cabin, and took out the parcel in order to get at what I had in my bag.
As it lay upon my narrow berth I became seized by sudden curiosity as to what it might contain. That there was a straw wrapping was plain—and it was rather solid, like earthenware.
At last, however, I could not resist the temptation to look within; therefore I carefully untied the string, and, opening it with great caution, made an amazing discovery.
It was a child’s Noah’s Ark, apparently of tin or sheet-iron. The roof was painted vermilion, the sides white, with one small black window. Yet it was closed in such a manner that I could discover no opening—a puzzle sans doute.
Another mystery! For a full hour I sat examining it closely, but by no means could I find the hidden spring, if one there was. It was, no doubt, of German or Swiss make, for it differed in no other particular from the thousands I had seen in shop windows, save that it was of iron, instead of wood.
Vraiment, a strange present to send to a man!
With great care I replaced it in its straw wrappings, and tied it up just as neatly as it had been when given to me. Then, pondering deeply, I wrapped my head in a shawl and turned in, merely loosening my corsets.
As we went farther out the sea became more rough, until we were rolling heavily, as is always the case on that mail route.
About seven o’clock we passed Capri, rising like a jewel from the soft grey effect of sky and sea, while an hour later I landed at Naples and drove at once to the station, whence the express for Rome was about to start.
In the buffet I swallowed my café-au-lait, and very soon was seated alone in a second-class compartment on my way northward.
A four-day-old copy of the Matin was the only French paper I had been able to buy, and I had very soon read it from end to end. Then, my eyes falling upon my black bag on the seat before me, I sat plunged for a long time in deep reflection.
At dawn on the following day, fagged out and dishevelled, I alighted at the great bustling station at Genoa, and followed my luggage upon a barrow across the piazza, past the great white statue of Christopher Columbus, to the Hôtel de Londres.
Having secured a room, I inquired if Monsieur Courtenay were there, but received a negative reply. No visitor of that name was known.
So I ascended to my room, made myself presentable, and waited. I had been in Genoa twice before, therefore the town possessed no attractions for me. With the exception of those in the Via Roma, there are few shops of interest.
On the afternoon of the second day, however, as I was crossing the pretty garden in the Piazza Corvetto, a man, who presented the appearance of an Italian workman, raised his cap to me and halted.
I started, for next moment, to my surprise, I recognised our friend of the Savoy Hotel, the Monsieur whom I was in Genoa to meet.
“Ah! Mariette,” he laughed. “I see you would have passed me by unnoticed—eh?”
“I certainly would, m’sieur,” was my frank reply. “I have been awaiting you at the Hôtel de Londres. I have a packet which I have brought from Palermo.”
“Good,” he said. “I only arrived here this morning from Turin. I prefer not to go to your hotel in these clothes. How did you leave your master and mistress?”
“They were quite well,” I replied.
“They are in Tunis. I had a telegram from them to-day at the Poste Restante.”
“In Tunis?” I cried, greatly surprised.
“Yes. They are going from there to Algiers, and will cross to Marseilles. In the telegram they say they wish you to go to Marseilles and there await them next week at the Hôtel Louvre et Paix. As for the parcel, you had better bring it out to me. I will wait for you, say under the portico of the church of the Annunziata—you know—at this end of the Via Balbi.”
“Certainement, m’sieur. At what time?”
“In an hour—at five o’clock,” he said. And as I looked at him I could not help expressing admiration of the perfect picture of the average Italian workman he presented. I recollected, however, that he spoke Italian wonderfully well.
But why, I wondered—why all that precaution and mystery? In ordinary life Monsieur Courtenay was most elegant, even dandified.
I inquired after Madame, and he told me she was back in London, staying at the Waldorf Hotel.
“I, too, shall return to London to-night,” he added.
“Not in those clothes!” I said, whereupon he laughed heartily, and we parted.
At five o’clock we met again at the spot appointed. He was then dressed differently, in a dark blue suit and soft grey hat of the approved British tourist pattern.
I gave him the precious parcel containing the mysterious Noah’s Ark, and after thanking me he hurried off down the Via Balbi, in the direction of the railway station. It was also my way, but as he did not invite me to accompany him I sauntered on after him, wondering what that Noah’s Ark could contain. Quel drôle de type!
Next morning, in accordance with my instructions, I left Genoa for Marseilles, there to await Madame.
Oh, mon Dieu! What a railway! One hundred and fifty tunnels between San Pier d’Arena and the frontier at Ventimiglia. Then a glorious run along the Côte d’Azur, past Mentone, Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes, under the Estrelles, and out at last to Marseilles, the Liverpool of France.
On arrival on the Monday I was handed a letter from Madame, telling me to wait there, as she and Monsieur would arrive next Saturday.
Next morning, having been for a stroll up that lively thoroughfare of handsome shops, the Cannebière, I returned to the big Hôtel Louvre et Paix—where half the visitors were English from the arriving mail-boats from India—and ascended in the lift.
Hardly had I entered my room when there came a tap at the door, and on opening it I was confronted by two rather meanly-dressed men, one of whom explained that he was an officer of the brigade mobile of police, and that I must consider myself under arrest.
Diable! Imagine my feelings! I protested in violent indignation; but, nevertheless, I was quietly driven to the dépôt, where, on being ushered into the bureau of the chief of police, I was amazed to find my friend, Monsieur Pégard, the commercial traveller from Lyons.
“Well, mam’zelle!” he laughed, as I was given a seat. “I’m very sorry to have given you a fright like this. I’ve only had you brought here to ask you just a few questions. If you are honest in your replies you may afterwards go.”
“But, m’sieur!” I cried, “why am I brought here?”
“Have patience, and you shall know,” he said. Then he put a great number of questions to me concerning the recent movements of Monsieur and Madame, who, he added, had slipped through his fingers in Milan.
“Where have you been recently?” he inquired.
I told him how I had been sent from Palermo to Genoa in order to meet Monsieur Courtenay, and deliver to him a parcel.
“Did you know what it contained?” asked the agent of the sûreté.
“A curious present—a Noah’s Ark?”
“And what was within?”
I declared my ignorance.
“Well, the fact is,” he said, “I arrested the Englishman at the frontier at Modane two days ago, and he fortunately had the Noah’s Ark in his possession. On opening it I found one hundred and seventy thousand francs in French and Italian bank-notes.”
“Eh, bien?”
“The truth is, mam’zelle,” he said, “we are extremely anxious to find your master and mistress, who are wanted by half the police of Europe.”
“Wanted,” I gasped. “What for?”
“Monsieur Ashley-Bond—or Captain Atherton, as he calls himself—is an expert forger of ten-pound Bank of England notes, one of the most expert we know. The London police have discovered the house in Hounslow, near London, where great quantities of spurious notes have been manufactured by him. Their mode of operating was to print a large number, and distribute them to the Courtenays and two other persons, and then, taking some themselves, they would set out across Europe, visiting various banks and money-changers, exchanging the spurious notes—which are most remarkable imitations—for the smaller paper currency of other countries. This was duly conveyed to London, and there again changed into English gold and banked. Various devices were resorted to in order to conceal the great quantities of bank-notes passing through the Customs, the child’s Noah’s Ark being one of them.”
I related to Monsieur Pégard the ingenious and romantic story told me by Madame, and explained that the pair were due in Marseilles on Saturday.
J’ai trop mal à la tête, et je crois que j’en deviendrais folle.
Though we waited, however, they never came.
Malheureusement, I lost my wages, for I have never since seen or heard of Madame or Monsieur. No doubt that in Milan, Palermo, Algiers and elsewhere they reaped such a rapid and golden harvest that they have sufficient for their wants for a long time to come.
As for Monsieur Courtenay, I afterwards read in my Matin that he was sentenced by the Assize Court of the Seine to fifteen years forced labour, and that in evidence there was produced the child’s Noah’s Ark.
Ah, malheur! Retournons à mes souvenirs.