PART I.

Mr. Joseph P. Cray was engaged in the wonderful task of absorbing
sunshine. He sat upon a remote seat of the terrace at Monte Carlo, his
hands folded in front of him, his rakish grey Homburg hat a little on
the back of his head, his eyes half closed, steeped in the pleasant
inertia of the moment. The sky above was cloudless. The sea which spread
itself out at his feet, glittered with a million points of silver. An
oleander and mimosa perfumed air hung lazily about him. He was
extraordinarily well-content with himself and his surroundings.

A vaguely familiar figure amongst the stream of occasional passers-by,
recognised and sought him out. Mr. Cray sat up and began to take notice.

“My friend the Monk!” he exclaimed.

“Johns, at your service,” the other remarked, as they shook hands.

Mr. Johns seated himself, and the two men exchanged the usual
banalities. There was nothing about the newcomer to denote in any way
his profession. He was dressed in neat English tweeds, and his shoes and
gaiters had a touch of the elderly Englishman who spends his spring at
Bath, the summer at Aix, and the winter on the Riviera. Only the sharp,
incisive mouth and keen eyes gave any indications of a more extensive
mentality.

“Business?” Mr. Cray inquired, after a brief pause.

Mr. Johns shook his head slightly.

“This is my annual holiday,” he declared. “Except during the war, I have
spent a month down here for many years. A happy hunting-ground for you,
Mr. Cray, I should imagine.”

Mr. Cray gave vent to a slight grimace.

“Guess I’m on the retired list,” he replied. “They’ve been walking round
me some. A muddling old fool with my mouth open for adventures, was the
last thing I heard of myself, and, by gosh, the woman was right, too!”

“You can’t land a winner every time,” Mr. Johns said consolingly.

“Sure!” Mr. Cray murmured. “By the by, Johns, anything ever come of that
jewel robbery at the Covent Garden Ball?”

“Nothing,” was the terse reply. “I can guess who had the jewels, but we
never had the slightest clue. You seen anything of your military friend
and his wife since?”

“Ran up against them a few months ago,” Mr. Cray assented, a little
vaguely.

The two men exchanged cigars. There was a brief silence. Mr. Johns was
ruminating over the fact that his companion had evidently had another
encounter with his friends of the Covent Garden Ball, and Mr. Cray,
perfectly aware that the other’s story of an annual holiday at Monte
Carlo was a fiction, was speculating as to the real cause for his
presence. Then, as they sat there, a very distinguished-looking trio
came sauntering along the promenade. . . . Mrs. Hartopp, very beautiful,
dressed in the latest _mode_, elegant and gracious; Hartopp, in his
flannels and panama, the prototype of a young English soldier on
holiday, and a third man, of similar appearance but somewhat older. Mrs.
Hartopp waved her hand towards Mr. Cray, who rose to his feet to accept
her salute. They came to a standstill. Major Hartopp introduced his
friend—Colonel Carruthers of his regiment. Mr. Cray begged permission
to present his friend Mr. Johns. Everybody was pleased and happy and
courteous. Before they passed on, Mr. Cray had promised to lunch at
Ciro’s in an hour’s time. Mr. Johns watched their disappearance with a
twinkle in his eyes.

“A little up in the world, our friends,” he remarked. “They’ll never
know how nearly New York got an extradition warrant against them.”

“I guess they’re making things hum a bit,” Mr. Cray acknowledged.
“Homor, the Glasgow shipbuilder, left Mrs. Hartopp fifty thousand
pounds, a few months ago.”

Mr. Johns pursed his lips, but his companion shook his head.

“No scandal,” he continued. “It appears that Mrs. Hartopp is a
marvellous medium, as you may remember. There is a spirit going round
the world called Christine Seboa, who sometimes takes possession of her
body and enables her to perform miracles. Mr. Homor, it appears, was
granted a sight of his late wife, and, unlike some men, was grateful for
it. Hence the fifty thousand pounds. They brought off a wicked bluff on
me,” Mr. Cray continued, “but I’m not squalling.”

Mr. Johns glanced at his watch.

“If you’re lunching at half-past twelve——” he observed.

“Quite right,” Mr. Cray assented, jumping to his feet. “We’ll try Ciro’s
bar. Charles is a perfect wizard on a dry martini.”

They strolled off together, mingling with the gay throng of promenaders,
greeting a few acquaintances, enjoying to the full the spectacle of this
conglomeration of pleasure-seekers from every part of the world. After
their cocktail, they sat for a few minutes at a small, round table on
the terrace. By chance, there was no one else within hearing.

“Mr. Cray,” his companion said, dropping his voice to that smooth yet
perfectly distinct undertone which indicated the discussion of an
important subject, “I should like, if I might, to take you a little into
my confidence.”

“Go right ahead,” Mr. Cray replied.

“It is true that I come to Monte Carlo every year,” Mr. Johns went on,
“but there has always been a certain method in my coming. Do you
remember the Holdsworth murder case?”

“I guess so. The girl was found dead in the man’s room, but he got
away.”

“That is as much as came out in the press,” Mr. Johns assented, “but as
a matter of fact, in the course of our investigations we came across
some very startling and sensational facts. No less than five women who
had been seen at different times in Holdsworth’s company, had
disappeared and have never been heard of since.”

“Gee!” Mr. Cray murmured. “As bad as that French chap.”

“I sometimes wonder,” Mr. Johns went on reflectively, as he lit and
smoked a cigarette, “whether the members of our profession are getting
more stupid, or the criminal classes are getting more astute, but it is
certainly a fact that during the last two years three of the greatest
criminals of the day have slipped through our fingers and escaped. Mind
you, the public doesn’t know this. No need to publish our information
when we can’t catch the man. But confidentially I might tell you that
there are at present eleven undiscovered crimes of a hideous character,
the particulars of which have never been published because we have been
unable to trace the criminal.”

“My theory is,” Mr. Cray declared, “that crime has been taken up to a
greater extent by a more highly educated type of person. Given
exceptional intelligence, above all—nerve, and the odds seem to me
three to one on the criminal every time. You see, he can lay his plans
beforehand, and the detective can’t.”

“Holdsworth seems to have proved your theory,” Johns pronounced. “The
man is a gentleman by birth; public school and university, and educated
for the Bar. Then he went out to the East, dabbled in drugs, came back a
strange, misanthropic sort of creature, and commenced his terrible life.
I spent six solid months on the case, and at the present moment I have
only two clues, neither of which have been of the slightest use to me.
Yet,” Mr. Johns went on slowly, looking down on the white, dusty road,
“I would be willing to retire from the profession and count my life’s
work done—if I could lay my hands upon this one man.”

Mr. Cray felt a vastly increased interest in the subject. Johns was an
unemotional person, hard-lipped and slow of speech, yet at this moment
he was moved, and moved deeply. His eyes were shining like points of
steel. His lips were a little parted, showing his firm, white teeth. He
looked like a man possessed of an overmastering desire.

“Tell me,” Mr. Cray asked, “did you ever cross this man’s path
personally?”

“Not personally,” was the stern reply. “One of his victims, though, was
my niece, my sister’s only child. She was found dead in an empty flat in
Mayfair, dead and worse.”

“Brute!” Mr. Cray muttered.

“The man is a fiend,” Johns declared. “Most of our lot prefer to look
upon him as dead. It saves our dignity. Personally I don’t believe it. I
have a feeling that somewhere on the earth he still lives, biding his
time, hoping that the years will bring forgetfulness.”

The hour for luncheon was now approaching, and little groups of people
came strolling along the arcade, the sound of their light laughter and
pleasant murmur of conversation filling the sunlit air. Johns drew a
sigh and became himself again.

“I have not yet told you,” he said, “what my two clues are. Dine with me
to-night at the Café de Paris. Who knows—you may have more luck than
I.”

“At seven-thirty?” Mr. Cray asked eagerly.

“At eight o’clock,” Johns replied. “I like to stay in the rooms till
seven-thirty. . . . Here come your friends. Satan and the Spirit, I
remember you called Hartopp and his wife. The other man, I don’t know.”

“His name is Pomfrey,” Mr. Cray announced. “I tell you, Johns, the nerve
of these people passes belief. That fellow Pomfrey put it over on me the
other day that he was an officer from Scotland Yard.”

“A serious offence,” Johns observed, “but he looks the part. I know you
can take care of yourself, Mr. Cray,” he went on, “but don’t let these
people draw you in too far. Sometimes when one has the craving for
adventures that you have, one is tempted to wander across the
border-line just a little distance. Your friends live upon the
tight-rope. You might not be able to keep your balance as well.”

Mr. Cray smiled.

“I guess there’ll be nothing doing that way with them for some time,” he
opined. “Fifty thousand pounds in hard cash is a nice little windfall,
to say nothing of the jewels. So far as I can see, too, they are not
extravagant. They just like the best of everything and that’s all there
is to it.”

“No need to let them know who I am,” Johns remarked, picking up his hat
and preparing to depart. “These things get about fast enough as it
is. . . .”

* * * * *

Mrs. Hartopp received her luncheon guest with a wonderful smile.

“Colonel Carruthers you met this morning, did you not, Mr. Cray?” she
said. “Mr. Pomfrey you met, I believe, on the night of your arrival in
Monte Carlo, and before that at Hyères.”

Mr. Cray smiled. The situation appealed to him.

“I certainly did,” he acknowledged. “Mr. Pomfrey can claim to be one up
on me, I think.”

“I held the cards,” the latter conceded magnanimously. “That little
affair is finished, however. You bear me no malice, Mr. Cray?”

“Not the slightest,” that gentleman declared. “We finished all that on
the night of my arrival here.”

An obsequious _maître d’hôtel_ conducted them to their table. A very
excellent lunch was served, which every one thoroughly enjoyed. Mina
Hartopp was in the highest spirits. Hartopp himself seemed a little
weary.

“Poor George,” she exclaimed, calling attention to his air of fatigue.
“He’s playing the Labouchère system with minimum stakes. You know what
that means? He plods along for two hours for a maximum win of thirteen
pounds, fifteen.”

“The winning’s a certainty, any way,” Major Hartopp reminded her.

“That’s what makes it dull from my point of view,” she observed
carelessly. “However, George would never make a gambler.”

“Not at the roulette table,” Mr. Cray remarked drily. “I’ve known him
take his chances elsewhere.”

“I wonder who this is,” Mina Hartopp remarked a little abruptly, raising
her lorgnettes. “Rather a distinguished-looking man.”

The newcomer was advancing towards an empty but zealously-guarded table
within a few yards of them. He was a man apparently of between fifty and
sixty years of age, dressed in dark brown clothes, a little shiny with
wear, with a black satin stock, fastened with a diamond pin. His patent
leather boots were cracked in places, but shone like mirrors. His
black-grey hair was brushed back from an impressive forehead, his
horn-rimmed monocle seemed permanently fastened in his eye. His manner
was gracious, but the manner of one accustomed to command. His features
were heavy, his complexion curiously pallid, almost waxlike. He had not
the air of a man in good health.

“I’ve seen him about a good many times,” Major Hartopp remarked.

“So have I,” his wife assented, “but never anywhere else but here.”

He ordered his luncheon with the air of one issuing a Royal command,
writing the dishes down with a heavy gold pencil, and aided in his
choice by the head-waiter himself and two other _maîtres d’hôtel_. A
small carafe of red wine was on his table as soon as he sat down. His
habits were evidently known and appreciated. Mina Hartopp took the
opportunity, a few minutes later, of calling the head-waiter to her
side.

“Tell me the name of that gentleman?” she whispered.

“He is known as Mr. Senn,” the man replied.

“He is perhaps a person of consequence?”

“He is the head of a noble French family,” the man told her, “who
escaped to Russia at the time of the Revolution. They bought estates on
the Black Sea, and lived there until the war. He was on the staff of the
Grand Duke until the disintegration of Russia, and narrowly escaped with
his life.”

“He is still wealthy?”

The waiter shrugged his shoulders.

“One fears not. He has a little flat at the back of the town, he denies
himself little, but he seldom plays now, he who was once a great
gambler. He comes here but once a week. Madame will excuse me.”

He hastened away to greet some new arrivals. Mrs. Hartopp was intrigued.

“He is a figure of romance,” she declared. “One often wonders what has
become of many of these noble French families.”

“Queer sort of life to spend four months in Monte Carlo and not to
gamble,” her husband reflected. “He hasn’t the air of a poor man,
either.”

The meal drew pleasantly to an end. It was not until they were all
strolling down the arcade together, and on the point of separating, that
Hartopp asked the question which his guest had been expecting all the
time.

“Your friend Johns’ face was familiar. Where have I seen him before?”

“In the disguise of a monk at the Covent Garden Ball,” Mr. Cray replied,
“and afterwards in the Bank at South Audley Street.”

Major Hartopp appeared pleasantly interested.

“Of course,” he murmured. “Really, it’s wonderful how some of these
Scotland Yard men turn out, nowadays. Looks quite like a retired Service
man, or something of that sort. Is he still worrying about the
unfortunate loss of that jewellery?”

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Cray replied. “I am quite sure, at any rate,
that that is not what brought him to Monte Carlo.”

“For his own sake, I am glad,” Major Hartopp declared carelessly. “The
jewellery is now unrecognisable, and the links of evidence can never be
fitted together. Besides, after all, it was a small affair for a man
like Johns.”

They stood talking for a few minutes opposite the Jardin des Plantes.
Mr. Senn, leaning rather heavily upon his ivory-topped stick, came
slowly down the arcade. In the bright sunlight, one realised more
completely the cracks in his shoes through frequent varnishing, the
distinct shininess about the seams of his coat. His Homburg hat,
although of the best make, was last year’s shape. The cuffs of his
shirt, though spotlessly clean, were frayed. At the corner he hesitated.
For several moments he stood looking across towards the Casino. Mr.
Cray, watching him more closely than the others, saw perhaps what they
failed to see, appreciated the wistful intentness of his gaze, the sad,
restless longing which eventually made him turn abruptly away and climb
the hill into the little town. Mr. Cray bade adieu to his friends and
walked thoughtfully back to his hotel. He found something curiously
absorbing in his thoughts of the man who gazed towards the Casino.

* * * * *

Neither Mr. Cray nor his host seemed greatly disposed towards
conversation at their dinner that evening. The latter was in travelling
clothes, and was leaving an hour or so later by the Rapide for Paris.

“Guess you’re sorry to quit, eh?” Mr. Cray remarked sympathetically.
“It’s a great place for a vacation, this.”

His companion smiled.

“You’ll think I am an obstinate man,” he said, “but I never leave Monte
Carlo without a deep sense of disappointment. For years I’ve fancied
that some day or other I should lay my hand upon the man I want in this
place, and year after year goes by and ends in failure.”

“You haven’t a lot to go on, have you?”

“I have very little to go on indeed, but on the other hand it is always
easy to work backwards, and I have a very valuable fact to start upon.
These things come to one’s knowledge in a curious way. Holdsworth could
not have the slightest idea that any one in the world knew of his
partiality for backing number fourteen. If he were here and had the
money to play with, I am perfectly certain that he would back it and
nothing else. That is why I have spent the greater part of my afternoon
and evening, this year and for many preceding years, watching for a man
who is backing number fourteen. Once or twice I have fancied that I have
been on the track. I have followed several men’s antecedents quite
hopefully up to a certain point. The end, however, is always the same.”

“Have you any description of him?” Mr. Cray inquired.

“The very vaguest, and that is twelve years old,” the other
acknowledged. “We know that he was of rather over medium height,
inclined to be thin, and that he spoke always with a curious drawl,
almost like a foreigner. He had a deformity on the third finger of his
left hand, a wart or something of the sort, which he always kept
concealed under a broad gold ring. Here’s his police description,” he
went on, drawing a paper from his pocket and passing it across the
table. “You have to remember, though, that it is twelve years old. Its
only real use might be a negative one.”

“I see,” Mr. Cray murmured. “Any fingerprints?”

“None. You see, the man has never been even under the supervision of the
police.”

“You’ve set yourself rather a hard nut to crack,” Mr. Cray remarked.

“I have indeed,” his host assented. “On the other hand, I have always
looked at it in this way. The man got clear away, his crimes are twelve
years old, and he might reasonably suppose them to have been forgotten.
What is to prevent him, therefore, from beginning them again?”

“I see.”

“I doubt,” Johns continued thoughtfully, “whether I should ever be able
now to get enough evidence to justify a warrant, but if we once got a
hold on him for a new misdemeanour, I think we might possibly be able to
work backwards. However, I confess that I am beginning to lose heart. He
is probably in South America. I think there is no doubt that he went
there some time or other after his escape from London.”

They drank their coffee outside, during what was, perhaps, the most
beautiful half-hour of the day. The whole place seemed alive with the
soft, thrilling call of the coming night. The Casino was a blaze of
illumination. The electric lights shone mystically amidst the green of
the trees and shrubs. The still, warm air was fragrant with perfumes,
the perfumes of flowers and shrubs, the scent from the women’s dresses
and hair. A red-coated orchestra was playing light-hearted music. A few
tables away sat Mr. Senn smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of
absinthe. Every now and then he looked towards the Casino. Mr. Cray
pointed him out to his companion.

“There is a man who rather interests me,” he said, and added the few
scraps of information which he had gleaned from the waiter.

Johns scrutinised the silent figure of the man, and nodded.

“A type,” he admitted. “Monte Carlo is full of them.”

He said no more, neither did Mr. Cray. But an hour later, when the
latter returned from seeing his friend off, the rather melancholy figure
was still seated in his chair, his face a little whiter in the gathering
darkness. He was no longer alone, however. Seated by his side was a
little French girl, who was chattering to him gaily, and whose peals of
laughter rose often above the murmur of voices. Mr. Cray seated himself
near and called for another liqueur. With wonderful patience he remained
there for an hour. The girl apparently began to get bored with her
undemonstrative companion. Once or twice he leaned towards her and said
something, and his eyes gleamed strangely in the blue twilight. The
girl, however, shook her head. Towards eleven o’clock he rose, took a
somewhat abrupt farewell of her, and disappeared, climbing the hill. Mr.
Cray waited until he was out of sight. Then he calmly rose, took the
vacant seat opposite the girl, who seemed on the point of departure, and
raised his hat.

“You will do me the honour, perhaps, mademoiselle,” he invited, “of
taking a liqueur with me?”

Mademoiselle hesitated. She was _petite_, charming, and apparently very
young.

“Monsieur is very kind,” she said. “I do not like to drink so much. I
will take some coffee. I would rather,” she added, laughing up into his
face, “that monsieur gave me a hundred francs for luck to go and play
with.”

Mr. Cray took out his pocket-book and slipped a hundred-franc note into
the little bag which she was carrying. She gave a cry of delight.

“Monsieur is generous!” she exclaimed. “Ah, but I see monsieur is
American. You have all so much money that you cannot spend, eh?”

“I can’t allow that,” Mr. Cray replied, “but some of us are fortunate
enough to have some to spare for a pleasant occasion like this. Tell me
about the man who was talking to you? He is a resident here almost,
isn’t he?”

She nodded carelessly.

“I suppose so. One sees him all the time. The girls call him the
Marquis. He has very beautiful manners and no money.”

“What was he asking you,” Mr. Cray went on, “when you kept on shaking
your head?”

“Oh, la, la!” she exclaimed. “The same old thing! There is Suzette and
Amie and I. I am called Ninette. He is always asking us to go and take
supper with him at his flat. But why should we go, I ask you?” she went
on, with an expressive shrug of the shoulders. “He has no money—that,
or he is a miser—and he is very serious. . . . Besides, I do not know
why, but I do not think I like him very much. Why should one go and eat
a poor supper in his little flat? I ask you, monsieur?”

“My advice to you,” Mr. Cray said, a little impulsively, “would be never
to go.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“But monsieur knows him, perhaps?”

“I never saw him before this morning. I just had that kind of feeling.
Where did you say his flat was?”

“In the Rue des Marguerites,” the girl replied, “number seventeen. It is
up the hill, a long climb. . . . Now if you, monsieur, were to ask one
to take a little dinner,” she went on, “or even a little supper at the
Carlton, it would be a different thing. Monsieur knows well how to amuse
himself, is it not so?”

Mr. Cray smiled. He realised that, notwithstanding her politeness, which
forbade her to leave so generous an acquaintance, she was longing to be
off to the Casino.

“You go in there and try your luck,” he said, good-naturedly. “We’ll
have that little dinner, sure.”

She slid away into the darkness, waving her hand in a gesture of
farewell.

Mr. Cray ordered another _fin champagne_ and lit a long cigar. Gambling
appealed to him very little, and the thought of the hot, crowded rooms,
with their strange atmosphere of patchouli and sombre hysterics, left
him very well content to remain where he was, listening to the music and
the light chatter of the gay crowd. Suddenly he was aware of a menacing
figure before his chair. Mr. Senn had returned, and apparently in anger.
His eyes were filled with resentment, the pallor of his cheeks seemed
almost ghastly, his eyebrows were drawn together in a threatening frown.

“Sir,” he said, “I have to demand why you choose to make me the subject
of conversation here in a public place with a _fille de joie_?”

“I don’t quite get you,” Mr. Cray replied, taken aback by this man’s
sudden reappearance.

“What I say is simple enough,” the other continued, struggling to
control his voice. “This morning at Ciro’s you, or one of your party,
asked questions concerning me from the head-waiter. That in itself is an
impertinence. To-night I overhear you again discussing me with a chance
acquaintance to whom you gave money. For what purpose did you give her
money?”

“See here,” Mr. Cray declared ingratiatingly, “you are taking this
matter too seriously. As for money, I gave it to the little one to
gamble with. Why not? Sit down and take a _fin champagne_ with me, sir.”

Mr. Senn hesitated and fell. He eyed covetously the old brandy with
which a waiter almost immediately appeared.

“Monsieur,” he said, “I drink to your good health and to a better
understanding between us.”

“Sure!” Mr. Cray replied heartily. “That won’t be difficult.”

Mr. Senn sipped his brandy with the air of a connoisseur. His companion
motioned the waiter to leave the bottle upon the table.

“I plead guilty,” the latter confessed, “to the vice of curiosity. There
is never a day passes when I do not ask a question about someone, as I
asked the head waiter at Ciro’s to-day. Your appearance interested me.”

“May I inquire what information you gathered?” Mr. Senn demanded with
the remnants of a frown still on his forehead.

“That you passed as Mr. Senn,” Mr. Cray replied promptly, “but that you
were really the head of an old French family, settled before the war in
Russia. You served on the staff of the Grand Duke and you have lost your
estates. You live here on slender means, but you have the misfortune to
preserve, naturally enough, the expensive tastes of your upbringing. You
lunch once a week _chez_ Ciro.”

“And the rest of the week nowhere at all,” Mr. Senn remarked bitterly.
“Your information is correct. . . . And now as regards the little
Ninette?”

“Sir,” Mr. Cray acknowledged, “my curiosity here was perhaps less
pardonable. I gathered only that you had invited her to supper, but that
her knowledge of your finances had rendered the invitation
unattractive.”

Mr. Senn drained the contents of his glass, which his companion promptly
refilled.

“This seems harmless,” the other muttered; “but the money?”

“I simply gave it to the child to gamble with,” Mr. Cray explained. “I
do not play much myself but it gives me pleasure to see others who enjoy
it.”

There was a strange intensity in the gaze of the man, who sat for a
moment as though shivering with emotion. He looked at his companion as
at some unfamiliar thing.

“You do not gamble!” he said in a low voice. “You do not feel the lure
of that strange paradise yonder! The click of the ball, the limitless
wealth to be gained there, mean nothing to you! You have never felt the
thrill of watching with straining eyes, watching while the wheel runs
down and the little ball sits there in your number, your beloved number,
and there comes to you across the table the sheaves of bills, the pile
of golden plaques, the price of a thousand luncheons at Ciro’s, the
price of Ninette’s white arms and pouting lips, the price of all the
elegance and softness and luxury of life. . . .”

Mr. Cray shook his head.

“That don’t cut any ice with me,” he confessed. “I have all the money I
require in life.”

“Ah!”

The monosyllable was electric, amazingly expressive. Mr. Senn let the
old brandy travel slowly down his throat while he looked across at his
host with envious, hating eyes.

“You have already all the money for these things,” he said.

“And then some,” Mr. Cray assented.

“You have the advantage of me,” his companion observed presently. “You
know the name under which I choose to live. And yours?”

Mr. Cray produced a card. His companion read it out in the uncertain
light, peering through his horn-rimmed glass:—

Mr. Joseph P. Cray,
Manufacturer,
Seattle,
U.S.A.

“It sounds opulent,” was his envious comment.

“I am comfortably off,” Mr. Cray told him.

Mr. Senn put the card in his waistcoat pocket. Whatever suspicions he
might have entertained, they had apparently disappeared.

“I once was wealthy,” he confided. “Every penny of which I was possessed
in the world, has been lost to me in Russia. You wonder how I live,
then, eh?”

Mr. Cray watched the ash on his cigar for a moment.

“Sir,” he said, “I have pleaded guilty to an unjustifiable amount of
personal curiosity. I do wonder how you live.”

Mr. Senn drew his chair a little nearer. He leaned over the little
marble-topped table.

“There is an old lady,” he said, “who keeps a café in one of the back
streets up on the hill there. It is a café not as you or I would
understand such a place, but a place for the _cochers_ and chauffeurs.
She does a good business and she is alone in the world. I keep her
books. I get there occasional food and drink. I pay the rent of my
apartment—a simple, ugly room. Once a week I lunch at Ciro’s.”

“It is a tragedy,” Mr. Cray declared.

“My life,” the other assented, “has been a thousand tragedies rolled
into one.”

Mr. Cray gazed across at the Casino.

“And yet,” he murmured, “that attracts you still?”

His companion’s face was suddenly Satanic.

“It tears at my heart-strings,” he confessed. “To-night I turned my back
upon it. At the top of the hill I turned around, and down I came like a
brainless moth. It was thus that I heard my name.”

There was another silence, rather a longer one this time. Mr. Cray threw
away the end of his cigar and lit a fresh one. Then he uncrossed his
legs and leaned over the table.

“Mr. Senn,” he said, “I am in the broadest sense of the word an
adventurer. I go up and down the world, looking for places and people
that interest me. Would you accept from me the loan of five thousand
francs and try your luck behind the lights there?”

There are expressions even of joy which are horrible. Mr. Cray shivered,
and he had a queer fancy that he sat hobnobbing with a wolf, leaping at
its prey.

“You mean it?” his companion demanded raspingly.

“Certainly!”

Mr. Senn’s right hand was upon the table—the hand of an aristocrat, but
lean at the knuckle and talon-like at the finger-tips.

“Give me the money,” he begged fiercely.

IX The Past Life of Mr. Senn