The Garden of Mystery

— I —

— I —THE TWO PLAYERS

Philip Ford watched the comedy with amusement. The gentleman had won again, the lady had lost – and she so obviously did not like losing. She was so young, so pretty, in that place so altogether unusual. Almost a girl, there was an air of freshness about her which many girls might envy. Her dress was simple, inexpensive, in striking contrast to many of those about her. In the casino at Monte Carlo there are so many women to whom their dress is their fortune. Normally, Mr. Ford felt convinced, her mood was sunny. Now she was in a rage. Like a child in a temper which came very near to tears. Indeed it was her childishness which made her seem so out of place in such surroundings.

Ford found himself wondering who she could be. She was apparently alone. So far as he had seen not a soul had spoken to her, and she had spoken to no one. She was her own banker, carrying her money in a little leather satchel which hung about her waist. Philip Ford was beginning to suspect that there was not much left in it. He would have liked to beg of her to cease to play, if for no other reason than that luck was so persistently against her. She had lost continuously – not large sums – though he was pretty sure that they were large to her. She had commenced by staking two or three louis at a time; now she had descended to five-franc pieces; and each piece seemed to linger longer between her fingers before she let it go. At last there was an end of them. He felt sure of it. She glanced inside the satchel. He would have been prepared to bet that it was empty, because she snapped the clasp with such a furious little snap, and because she bit her pretty lips as if trying to keep the angry tears out of her childlike eyes.

And the man won all the time, as he had been doing from the first. Ford doubted if he had lost half a dozen coups. It tickled him to notice that in appearance the fellow was not unlike himself – tall, thin, with a slight stoop; black hair, parted in the centre, short moustache, monocle carried in his right eye – so far the resemblance was almost weird. Yet the differences were sufficiently marked to make it difficult to mistake one for the other. Ford’s peculiarities were written large all over him. To look at him one could easily have believed that he was an anchorite under a vow of fasting. He was thin almost to the point of attenuation. There was an aloofness about his manner which induced strangers to regard him as austere. He was reserved, self-contained, prone, one might say, to speechlessness; a man, one felt, who could be silent in many languages.

The man who was winning handfuls of gold was, equally obviously, of a very different type. No traces of austerity about him, nor of reserve. His were eyes which had looked often upon the wine when it was red, and other liquors also, to say nothing of those various delights which appeal to the carnal mind. His lips were pendulous, the red wine gleamed through his cheeks, his eyes were muddy. This was not the first time this man had played roulette for stakes which counted. Indeed, to judge from his demeanour, the pursuit was such a familiar one that it had ceased to interest him whether he won or lost. He picked up the money which the croupier’s rake continually pushed in his direction with a listless air as though, if anything, it rather bored him to have to put himself to so much exertion.

As the girl came to the conclusion that her little bag was really and truly empty the man had the maximum on fourteen, and the number turned. He had had the maximum on the winning number a few minutes before; since when he had been backing different combinations with nearly unvarying success. A murmur went round the table as he won again. The girl glanced in his direction with envy in her eyes. Ford noticed that desire, for what the fellow was winning, seemed to cause the whole expression of her face to change. He turned away, unwilling to continue any longer to be the witness of a spectacle which did not please him. The thing was familiar there. Men would win, and women would give themselves in exchange for some of their winnings; only Ford did not care to associate that pretty young English girl with such reflections. She was English, undoubtedly; that was, in fact, the pity of it. What was so fair a compatriot doing in such an atmosphere? He did not like to think.

It was perhaps half an hour later when, having had more than enough of the casino, he went out into the night. Moon and stars gleamed from a cloudless sky. It was cool but beautiful. Buttoning his coat about his neck, he walked briskly from terrace to terrace, up and down, to and fro. The moon was almost at the full. The sea was like a silver lake. Only the faintest breeze was stirring. A yacht, blazing with illuminations, stood out like a thing of beauty. It was so still that voices, music, laughter travelled to him from its deck across the water. He knew what the yacht was, and the meaning of the blaze of glory. The boat, the Hoosier, was the property of Mrs. Van Volst, the widow of a notorious rather than famous, American multimillionaire. She was giving a dinner on board, to be followed by a dance. Had he chosen, Philip Ford might have been among the guests. Now as he stood there, solitary, listening, watching, he rather wished that he had consented to join the revels later. He would have at least been free to follow his mood. The sight and the sound seemed to accentuate his feeling of solitude.

He turned to go to his hotel. As he did so he almost knocked over someone who was standing so close behind him that it was almost impossible for him to move without coming into collision. He drew back, with a half-uttered apology.

“I beg your pardon – but—”

Then he stopped to stare. The person whom he had nearly overturned was a woman – to his astonishment, the girl of the casino, who had always lost until at last he had been sure her satchel was empty. She was dressed exactly as he had seen her last, without even a cloak thrown over her shoulders; from her left wrist was still suspended the empty satchel.

It was the singularity of her attitude which started him. Her right arm was raised in the manner of one who is about to strike a blow, while in her hand something gleamed. He saw it but an instant, but in the moonlight he saw it clearly – the flash of steel. In less than six seconds after he had turned and they had seen each other her arm fell, her hand went behind her – too late to hide what was in it. Both were silent, and both apparently for the same reason; because she seemed to be as much surprised as he was. If she was not the quicker to regain her presence of mind she was at least the first to speak. Her voice was not only musical, unmistakably a lady’s, but she spoke with a smiling calmness which amazed him more and more.

“Do you know, it was lucky for you, indeed, it was lucky for both of us, you turned. I was almost – as nearly as possible – making a mistake.”

In the moonlight she was prettier than ever, and more of a child.

“Of what nature?”

She pulled a little face.

“It’s very odd, but there’s someone else exactly like you from the back, here in Monte Carlo. I’ve been watching you – oh, for some minutes, and you quite deceived me. When you turned it gave me such a shock. But, as I said, it was lucky for both of us you did turn – just then, very.”

She nodded lightly, gaily, carelessly; then, before he could speak again, flitted along the path at a pace which was half a run. She had vanished before it occurred to him that there were questions which it would perhaps have been better if he had put to her. Her bearing had been so debonair; there was about her such a suggestion of being amused, that it had been difficult to associate her with anything but comedy. And yet why had she stolen up to him so softly that, even in the intense stillness, he had not heard her coming? And his hearing, as a rule, was so acute. Why had she approached so close to him, within touching distance of his back? Why had her arm been raised in so ominous an attitude? What was it she had been holding in her hand? A knife, beyond a doubt.

If such was the case – of which he was convinced – then was it conceivable that she, a mere child, a seemingly innocent girl, had meant to stab him in the back? To the question put so the answer was a negative. She had not meant to stab him. As she herself had explained, she as nearly as possible had made a mistake. He had all but fallen a victim in a case of mistaken identity. The uplifted blade had been meant for the fortunate gambler, by whose likeness to himself Mr. Ford had been struck. If there was a resemblance between them as seen from the front, from the back possibly it was greater still – especially in the moonlight. Seeing him in the glamour of the moon from behind the girl had supposed him to be the lucky gambler, whose pockets were stuffed with the casino spoils, and had proposed to bury her knife in his back. As she had said, it was lucky for both of them that he had turned – just then. In another moment her error might have been beyond undoing.

On the other hand, ought he to have let her go scot-free, suspecting her of such an intention? What did it matter? He was not a policeman. He was not even particularly interested in the preservation of law and order. He distinctly objected to being dragged into the public gaze. There were all sorts of people in Monte Carlo; the whole world knew it; let them all take care of themselves. So, strolling leisurely back to his hotel, Philip Ford slept the sleep of the just.

The following morning as he was thinking vaguely of where he should breakfast, a waiter thrust a telegram into his hand. He tore it open, with the indifference of the man to whom telegrams are common things; but all indifference vanished when he read the contents:

Sir Geoffrey has been seriously injured, and Mr. Geoffrey killed, in accident to motorcar. Doctors say Sir Geoffrey’s condition is very grave. Come at once.

RAWSON.

The words were so startling that he had to read them a second time before he began to apprehend their full meaning. Sir Geoffrey’s condition very grave? His only brother, from whom he had had a letter so recently as yesterday, in which the writer confessed himself to be in the best of health and spirits. Mr Geoffrey – young Geoffrey – killed? His brother’s one child, of whom the father had been so proud, and who had had in him the making of so fine a man What – even in the first moment of the shock the thought would obtrude itself – what a difference thee things might make to him! But the thought was banished as quickly as it came He recalled his brother’s face, and the boy’s, young Geoff’s, flushed with youth and health and happiness; and he wondered, conscious of an unwonted stain somewhere within him, how quickly he could get home.

While he wondered, someone spoke to him – Major Downs, whose acquaintance he had first made in the Punjaub, and who at Monte Carlo had shown the inclination of the solitary but gregarious man to attach himself rather more closely than Philip Ford desired. In spite of his preoccupation, the Major’s words seemed to penetrate his brain with curious distinctness.

“Shocking affair, Ford – eh? I always have said, and I always shall say, that Monte Carlo is the sink of Europe, and that something ought to be done. It is my firm conviction that more crimes take place here than people in general have the faintest notion of. They hush ’em up, that’s what they do, they hush ’em up; devilish clever these fellows here at hushing up.” Apparently something in Philip Ford’s face hinted that his remarks were unintelligible. “What – haven’t you heard? The whole place is talking of it – no wonder! They won’t be able to hush it up this time. That poor chap who was winning at roulette last night – won no end of a lot – I saw you watching him. I don’t know if you noticed it, but it struck me that there was a kind of a likeness between you two – as if he was a sort of half-brother of yours, don’t you know.” The Major laughed, as if he had made a joke.

“What’s happened to him?” He spoke as if in reply to an unuttered question. “The worst, my dear sir, the very worst. He’s been found dead in the casino gardens – without a farthing on him, after all his winnings. He’s been lying there all night, murdered – robbed and murdered” – the Major’s voice dropped to an impressive semitone – “stabbed in the back.”