This fact was unknown to the girl, therefore at first all went smoothly, until the wife discovered the truth and left him. She then joined the chorus of a revue at the Jardin de Paris, where she met a well-to-do Englishman named Bryant. The pair went to England, where she married him, and they resided in the county of Northampton. Six months later Bryant died, leaving her a large sum of money. In the meantime Leullier had been arrested by the Italian police for a daring robbery with violence in a train traveling between Milan and Turin and been sentenced to ten years on the penal island of Gorgona. His wife, hearing of this from an Englishman named Houghton, who, though she was unaware of it, was following the same profession as her husband, returned to France. She rented an apartment in Paris, and afterwards played at Monte Carlo, where she won a considerable sum, with the proceeds of which she purchased the Villa Amette, which she now occupies each season.
Extracts of reports concerning Marie Leullier, alias Yvonne Ferad, are herewith appended:
Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard, Londonto the Prefecture of Police, Paris.
Mademoiselle Yvonne Ferad rented a furnished house at Hove, near Brighton, in June, 1918. Afterwards moved to Worthing and to Exeter, and later took a house in the Cromwell Road, London, in 1919. She was accompanied by an Italian manservant named Cataldi. Her conduct was suspicious, though she was undoubtedly possessed of considerable means. She was often seen at the best restaurants with various male acquaintances, more especially with a man named Kenworthy. Her association with this person, and with another man named Percy Stendall, was curious, as both men were habitual criminals and had served several terms of penal servitude each. Certain suspicions were aroused, and observation was kept, but nothing tangible was discovered. It is agreed, however, that some mystery surrounds this woman in question. She left London quite suddenly, but left no debts behind.
Information from the Borough Police Office, Worthing, to the Prefecture of Police, Department of Herault.
Mademoiselle Yvonne Ferad has been identified by the photograph sent as having lived in Worthing in December, 1918. She rented a small furnished house facing the sea, and was accompanied by an Italian manservant and a French maid. Her movements were distinctly mysterious. A serious fracas occurred at the house on the evening of December 18th, 1918. A middle-aged gentleman, whose name is unknown, called there about seven oclock and a violent quarrel ensued between the lady and her visitor, the latter being very seriously assaulted by the Italian. The constable on duty was called in, but the visitor refused to prosecute, and after having his injuries attended to by a doctor left for London. Three days later Mademoiselle disappeared from Worthing. It is believed by the Chief Constable that the woman is of the criminal class.
Then Charles Ogier, inspector of the detective police of Monaco, smiled, laid down his cigar, and took up another and even more interesting document.
FIFTH CHAPTER
ON THE HOGS BACK
Three days later. On a cold afternoon just as the wintry light was fading a tall, dark, middle-aged, rather handsome man with black hair and moustache, and wearing a well-cut, dark-grey overcoat and green velour hat, alighted from the train at the wayside station of Wanborough, in Surrey, and inquired of the porter the way to Shapley Manor.
Shapley, sir? Why, take the road there yonder up the hill till you get to the main road which runs along the Hogs Back from Guildford to Farnborough. When you get on the main road, turn sharp to the left past the old toll-gate, and youll find the Manor on the left in among a big clump of trees.
How far?
About a mile, sir.
The stranger, the only passenger who had alighted, slipped sixpence into the mans hand, buttoned his coat, and started out to walk in the direction indicated, breasting the keen east wind.
He was well-set-up, and of athletic bearing. He took long strides as with swinging gait he went up the hill. As he did so, he muttered to himself:
I was an infernal fool not to have come down in a car! I hate these beastly muddy country roads. But Molly has the telephoneso I can ring up for a car to fetch mewhich is a consolation, after all.
And with his keen eyes set before him, he pressed forward up the steep incline to where, for ten miles, ran the straight broad highway over the high ridge known as the Hogs Back. The road is very popular with motorists, for so high is it that on either side there stretches a wide panorama of country, the view on the north being towards the Thames Valley and London, while on the south Hindhead with the South Downs in the blue distance show beyond.
Having reached the high road the stranger paused to take breath, and incidentally to admire the magnificent view. Indeed, an expression of admiration fell involuntarily from his lips. Then he went along for another half-mile in the teeth of the cutting wind with the twilight rapidly coming on, until he came to the clump of dark firs and presently walked up a gravelled drive to a large, but somewhat inartistic, Georgian house of red brick with long square windows. In parts the ivy was trying to hide its terribly ugly architecture for around the deep porch it grew thickly and spread around one corner of the building.
A ring at the door brought a young manservant whom the caller addressed as Arthur, and, wishing him good afternoon, asked if Mrs. Bond were at home.
Yes, sir, was the reply.
Oh! good, said the caller. Just tell her Im here. And he proceeded to remove his coat and to hang it up in the great flagged hall with the air of one used to the house.
The Manor was a spacious, well-furnished place, full of good pictures and much old oak furniture.
The servant passed along the corridor, and entering the drawing-room, announced:
Mr. Benton is here, maam.
Oh! Mr. Benton! Show him in, cried his mistress enthusiastically. Show him in at once!
Next moment the caller entered the fine, old-fashioned room, where a well-preserved, fair-haired woman of about forty was taking her tea alone and petting her Pekinese.
Well, Charles? So youve discovered me here, eh? she exclaimed, jumping up and taking his hand.
Yes, Molly. And you seem to have very comfortable quarters, laughed Benton as he threw himself unceremoniously into a chintz-covered armchair.
They are, I assure you.
And I suppose youre quite a great lady in these partseh?now that you live at Shapley Manor. Wheres Louise?
She went up to town this morning. She wont be back till after dinner. Shes with her old school-fellowthat girl Bertha Trench.
Good. Then we can have a chat. Ive several things to consult you about and ask your opinion.
Have some tea first, urged his good-looking hostess, pouring him some into a Crown Derby cup.
Well, he commenced. I think youve done quite well to take this place, as youve done, for three years. You are now safely out of the way. The Paris Surete are making very diligent inquiries, but the Surrey Constabulary will never identify you with the lady of the Rue Racine. So you are quite safe here.
Are you sure of that, Charles? she asked, fixing her big grey eyes upon him.
Certain. It was the wisest course to get back here to England, although you had to take a very round-about journey.
Yes. I got to Switzerland, then to Italy, and from Genoa took an Anchor Line steamer across to New York. After that I came over to Liverpool, and in the meantime I had become Mrs. Bond. Louise, of course, thought we were travelling for pleasure. I had to explain my change of name by telling her that I did not wish my divorced husband to know that I was back in England.
And the girl believed it, of course, he laughed.
Of course. She believes anything I tell her, said the clever, unscrupulous woman for whom the Paris police were in active search, whose real name was Molly Maxwell, and whose amazing career was well known to the French police.
Only recently a sum of a quarter of a million francs had fallen into her hands, and with it she now rented Shapley Manor and had set up as a country lady. Benton gazed around the fine old room with its Adams ceiling and its Georgian furniture, and reflected how different were Mollys present surroundings from that stuffy little flat au troisieme in the Rue Racine.
Yes, he said. You had a very narrow escape, Molly. I dared not come near you, but I knew that youd look after the girl.
Of course. I always look after her as though she were my own child.
Bentons lip curled as he sipped his China tea, and said:
Because so much depends upon hereh? Im glad you view the situation from a fair and proper stand-point. Were now out for a big thing, therefore we must not allow any little hitch to prevent us from bringing it off successfully.
I quite agree, Charles. Our great asset is Louise. But she must be innocent of it all. She must know absolutely nothing.
True. If she had an inkling that we were forcing her to marry Hugh she would fiercely resent it. Shes a girl of spirit, after all.
My dear Charles, I know that, laughed the woman. Ever since she came home from school Ive noticed how independent she is. She certainly has a will of her own. But she likes Hugh, and we must encourage it. Recollect that a fortune is at stake.
I have not overlooked that, the man said. But of late Ive come to fear that we are treading upon thin ice. I dont like the look of affairs at the present moment. Young Henfrey is head over ears in love with that girl Dorise Ranscomb, and
Bah! Its only a flirtation, my dear Charles, laughed the woman. When just a little pressure is put upon the boy, and a sly hint to Lady Ranscomb, then the affair will soon be off, and hell fall into Louises arms. Shes really very fond of him.
She may be, but he takes no notice of her. She told me so the other day. Hes gone to the Rivierafollowed Dorise, I suppose, Benton said.
Yvonne wrote me a few days ago to say that he was there with a friend of his named Walter Brock. Whos he?
Oh! a naval lieutenant-commander who served in the war and was invalided out after the Battle of Jutland. He got the D.S.O. over the Falklands affair, and has now some post at the Admiralty. He was in command of a torpedo boat which sank a German cruiser, and was afterwards blown up.
They are both out at Monte Carlo, Yvonne says. And Henfrey is with Dorise daily, remarked the woman.
Yvonne is always apprehensive lest young Henfrey should learn the secret of the old fellows end, said Benton. But I dont see how the truth of thewell, rather ugly affair can ever come out, except by an indiscretion by one or other of us.
And that is scarcely likely, Charles, is it? his hostess laughed as she pushed across to him a big silver box of cigarettes and then reclined lazily among her cushions.
No. It would certainly be a very sensational affair if the newspapers got hold of the facts, my dear Molly. But dont let us anticipate such a thing. Fortunately Louise, in her girlish innocence, knows nothing. Old Henfrey left his money to his son upon certain conditions, one of which is that Hugh shall marry Louise. And that marriage must, at all hazards, take place. After that, we care for nothing.
The handsome woman who was rolling a cigarette between her well-manicured fingers hesitated. Her countenance assumed a strange look as she reflected. She was far too clever to express any off-hand opinion. She had outwitted the police of Paris, Brussels, and Rome in turn. Her whole career had been a criminal one, punctuated by periods of pretended high respectabilitywhile the funds to support it had lasted. And upon her hands had been placed Louise Lambert, the child Charles Benton had adopted ten years before.
We shall have to exercise a good deal of discretion and caution in regard to Louise, she declared. The affair is not at all so plain sailing as I at first believed.
No. It is a serious contretemps that you had to leave Paris, Molly, agreed her well-dressed visitor. The young American was a fool, of course, but I think
Paris was flooded by rich young men from the United States who came over to fight the Boche and to spend their money like water when on leave in Paris. Frank was only one of them.
Benton was silent. The affair was a distinctly unsavoury one. Frank van Geen, the son of the Dutch-American millionaire cocoa manufacturer of Chicago, had, by reason of his association with Molly, found himself the poorer by nearly a quarter of a million francs, and his body had been found in the Seine between the Pont dAuteuil and the Ile St. Germain. At the inquiry some ugly disclosures were made, but already the lady of the Rue Racine and her supposed niece had left Paris; and though the affair was one of suicide, the police raised a hue and cry, and the frontiers had been watched, but the pair had disappeared.
That was several months ago. And now Molly Maxwell the adventuress in Paris had been transformed into the wealthy and highly respectable widow Mrs. Bond, who having presented such excellent references had become tenant of that well-furnished mansion, Shapley Manor, and the beautiful grounds adjoining. For nearly two centuries it had been the home of the Puttenhams, but Sir George Puttenham, Baronet, the present owner, had found himself ruined by war-taxation, and as one of the new poor he had been glad to let the place and live upon the rent obtained for it. His case, indeed, was only one of thousands of others in England, where adventurers and war-profiteers were ousting the landed gentry.
Yvonne is evidently keeping a good watch upon young Hugh, remarked Benton presently, as he blew a ring of cigarette smoke towards the ceiling.
Yes, replied the woman, her eyes fixed out of the big window which commanded a glorious view of Gibbet Hill, at Hindhead, and the blue South Downs towards the English Channel. But all was dark and lowering in the winter twilight, now fast darkening into night.
In old-world Guildford, the county town of Surrey, with its steep High Street containing many seventeenth-century houses, its old inns, and its balconied Guildhallthe scene of so many unseemly wrangles among the robed and cocked-hatted borough councillors who are, par excellence, outstanding illustrations of the provincial petty jealousies of bumbledomMrs. Bond was welcomed by the trades-people who vied with each other to serve her. Almost daily she went up and down the High Street in her fine Rolls-Royce driven by Mead, an ex-soldier and a worthy fellow whom she had engaged through an advertisement in the Surrey Advertiser. He had been in the Queens West Surrey, and his home being in Guildford, Molly knew that he would serve as a testimonial to her high respectability. Molly Maxwell was an outstandingly clever woman. She never let a chance slip by that might be taken advantageously.
Mead, who went on his push-bike every evening along the Hogs Back to Guildford, was never tired of singing the praises of his generous mistress.
Shes a real good sort, he would tell his friends in the bar of the Lion or the Angel. She knows how to treat a man. Shes a widow, and good-looking. I suppose shell marry again. Nearly all the best people about here have called on her within the last week or two. Magistrates and their wives, retired generals, and lots of the gentry. Yes, my job isnt to be sneezed at, I can tell you. Its better than driving a lorry outside Ypres!