The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol Part 32

"And mine shall be two gendarmes," retorted Aristide. "_Nom de Dieu!_"

he cried, after the other had left the room. "We let him take the money!"

"That's of no consequence. He didn't get away with much anyway," said young Miller. "But he would have if you hadn't been here. If ever I can do you a return service, just ask."

Aristide went out to look for the Erringtons. But they were not to be found. It was only late in the afternoon that he met Mrs. Errington in the hall of the hotel. He dragged her into a corner and in his impulsive fas.h.i.+on told her everything. She listened white faced, in great distress.

"My daughter's engaged to him. I've only just learned," she faltered.

"Engaged? _Sacrebleu!_ Ah, _le goujat!_"--for the second he was desperately, furiously, jealously in love with Betty Errington. "_Ah, le sale type! Voyons!_ This engagement must be broken off. At once! You are her mother."

"She will hear of nothing against him."

"You will tell her this. It will be a blow; but----"

Mrs. Errington twisted a handkerchief between helpless fingers. "Betty is infatuated. She won't believe it." She regarded him piteously. "Oh, Monsieur Pujol, what can I do? You see she has an independent fortune and is over twenty-one. I am powerless."

"I will meet his two friends," exclaimed Aristide magnificently--"and I will kill him. _Voila!_"

"Oh, a duel? No! How awful!" cried the mild lady horror-stricken.

He thrust his cane dramatically through a sheet of a newspaper, which he had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like that"--Aristide had never handled a foil in his life--"and when he is dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from such an execrable fellow."

"But you mustn't fight. It would be too dreadful. Is there no other way?"

"You must consult first with your daughter," said Aristide.

He dined in the hotel with Eugene Miller. Neither the Erringtons nor the Comte de Lussigny were anywhere to be seen. After dinner, however, he found the elder lady waiting for him in the hall. They walked out into the quiet of the garden. She had been too upset to dine, she explained, having had a terrible scene with Betty. Nothing but absolute proofs of her lover's iniquity would satisfy her. The world was full of slanderous tongues; the n.o.blest and purest did not escape. For herself, she had never been comfortable with the Comte de Lussigny. She had noticed too that he had always avoided the best French people in hotels. She would give anything to save her daughter. She wept.

"And the unhappy girl has written him compromising letters," she lamented.

"They must be got back."

"But how? Oh, Monsieur Pujol, do you think he would take money for them?"

"A scoundrel like that would take money for his dead mother's shroud,"

said Aristide.

"A thousand pounds?"

She looked very haggard and helpless beneath the blue arc-lights.

Aristide's heart went out to her. He knew her type--the sweet gentlewoman of rural England who comes abroad to give her pretty daughter a sight of life, ingenuously confident that foreign watering-places are as innocent as her own sequestered village.

"That is much money, _chere madame_," said Aristide.

"I am fairly well off," said Mrs. Errington.

Aristide reflected. At the offer of a smaller sum the Count would possibly bluff. But to a Knight of Industry, as he knew the Count to be, a certain thousand pounds would be a great temptation. And after all to a wealthy Englishwoman what was a thousand pounds?

"Madame," said he, "if you offer him a thousand pounds for the letters, and a written confession that he is not the Comte de Lussigny, but a common adventurer, I stake my reputation that he will accept."

They walked along for a few moments in silence; the opera had begun at the adjoining Villa des Fleurs and the strains floated through the still August air. After a while she halted and laid her hand on his sleeve.

"Monsieur Pujol, I have never been faced with such a thing, before. Will you undertake for me this delicate and difficult business?"

"Madame," said he, "my life is at the service of yourself and your most exquisite daughter." She pressed his hand. "Thank G.o.d, I've got a friend in this dreadful place," she said brokenly. "Let me go in." And when they reached the lounge, she said, "Wait for me here."

She entered the lift. Aristide waited. Presently the lift descended and she emerged with a slip of paper in her hand.

"Here is a bearer cheque, Monsieur Pujol, for a thousand pounds. Get the letters and the confession if you can, and a mother's blessing will go with you."

She left him and went upstairs again in the lift. Aristide athirst with love, living drama and unholy hatred of the Comte de Lussigny, c.o.c.ked his black, soft-felt evening hat at an engaging angle on his head and swaggered into the Villa des Fleurs. As he pa.s.sed the plebeian crowd round the pet.i.ts-chevaux table--these were the days of little horses and not the modern equivalent of _la boule_--he threw a louis on the square marked 5, waited for the croupier to push him his winnings, seven louis and his stake on the little white horse, and walked into the baccarat room. A bank was being called for thirty louis at the end table.

"_Quarante_," said Aristide.

"_Ajuge a quarante louis_," cried the croupier, no one bidding higher.

Aristide took the banker's seat and put down his forty louis. Looking round the long table he saw the Comte de Lussigny sitting in the punt.

The two men glared at each other defiantly. Someone went "banco."

Aristide won. The fact of his holding the bank attracted a crowd round the table. The regular game began. Aristide won, lost, won again. Now it must be explained, without going into the details of the game, that the hand against the bank is played by the members of the punt in turn.

Suddenly, before dealing the cards, Aristide asked, "_A qui la main?_"

"_C'est a Monsieur_," said the croupier, indicating Lussigny.

"_Il y a une suite_," said Aristide, signifying, as was his right, that he would retire from the bank with his winnings. "The face of that gentleman does not please me."

There was a hush at the humming table. The Count grew dead white and looked at his fingernails. Aristide superbly gathered up his notes and gold, and tossing a couple of louis to the croupiers, left the table, followed by all eyes. It was one of the thrilling moments of Aristide's life. He had taken the stage, commanded the situation. He had publicly offered the Comte de Lussigny the most deadly insult and the Comte de Lussigny sat down beneath it like a lamb. He swaggered slowly through the crowded room, twirling his moustache, and went into the cool of the moonlit deserted garden beyond, where he waited gleefully. He had a puckish knowledge of human nature. After a decent interval, and during the absorbing interest of the newly const.i.tuted bank, the Comte de Lussigny slipped unnoticed from the table and went in search of Aristide. He found him smoking a large corona and lounging in one wicker chair with his feet on another, beside a very large whisky and soda.

"Ah, it's you," said he without moving.

"Yes," said the Count furiously.

"I haven't yet had the pleasure of kicking your friends over Mont Revard," said Aristide.

"Look here, _mon pet.i.t_, this has got to finish," cried the Count.

"_Parfaitement._ I should like nothing better than to finish. But let us finish like well-bred people," said Aristide suavely. "We don't want the whole Casino as witnesses. You'll find a chair over there. Bring it up."

He was enjoying himself immensely. The Count glared at him, turned and banged a chair over by the side of the table.

"Why do you insult me like this?"

"Because," said Aristide, "I've talked by telephone this evening with my good friend Monsieur Lepine, Prefect of Police of Paris."

"You lie," said the Count.

"_Vous verrez._ In the meantime, perhaps we might have a little conversation. Will you have a whisky and soda? It is one of my English habits."

"No," said the Count emphatically.