Chapter XI: The Peril of Pierrette (3)

"Well," exclaimed the debonnair Bindo, "I met her in London, as you know. Our acquaintance was quite a casual one, in the big hall of the Cecil--where I afterwards discovered she was staying with Madame. She was an adventurous little person, and met me at the lions, in Trafalgar Square, next morning, and I took her for a walk across St. James's Park. From what she told me of herself, I gathered that she was the daughter of a wealthy Frenchman. Our conversation naturally turned upon her mother, as I wanted to find out if the latter possessed any jewels worth looking after. She told me a lot--how that her mother, an old marquise, had a quantity of splendid jewellery. Madame Vernet, who was with her at the Cecil, was her companion, and her father had, I understood, a fine chateau near Troyes. Her parents, religious bigots, were, however, sending her, very much against her will, to the seclusion of a convent close to Fontainebleau--not as a scholastic pupil--but to be actually trained for the Sisterhood! She seemed greatly perturbed about this, and I could see that the poor girl did not know how to act, and had no outside friend to assist her. To me, it at once occurred that by aiding her I could obtain her confidence, and so get to know this mother with the valuable sparklers. Therefore I arranged that you should, on a certain morning, travel to Fontainebleau, and that she should manage to escape from the good Sisters and travel down to Beaulieu. Madame Vernet was to be in the secret, and should join her later."

"Yes," I said, "I understood all that. She misled you regarding her mother."

"And she was still more artful, for she never told me the truth as to who her father really was, or the reason why they were there in London--in search of him," he remarked. "I learnt the truth for the first time from you--the truth that she was the daughter of old Dumont, of the Rue de la Paix, and that he and his clerk were missing with jewels of great value."

"Then another idea struck you, I presume?"

"Of course," he answered, laughing. "I wondered for what reason Mademoiselle was to be placed in a convent; why she had misled me regarding her parentage; and, above all, why she was so very desirous of coming to the Riviera. So I returned, first to Paris--where I found that Dumont and Martin were actually both missing. I managed to get photographs of both men, and then crossed to London, and there commenced active inquiries. Within a week I had the whole of the mysterious affair at my fingers' ends, and moreover I knew who had taken the sparklers, and in fact the complete story. The skein was a very tangled one, but gradually I drew out the threads. When I had done so, however, I heard, to my dismay, that certain of our enemies had got to know the direction in which I was working, and had warned the Paris Surete. I was therefore bound to travel back to Monte Carlo, if I intended to be successful, so I had to come by the roundabout route through Italy and by the Tenda."

"I suspected that," I said.

"Yes. But the truth was stranger than I had ever imagined. As you know, things do not surprise me very often, but in this affair I confess I'd been taken completely aback."

"How?"

"Because when I returned to Monty I made some absolutely surprising discoveries. Among them was that Mademoiselle was in the habit of secretly meeting a long-nosed man."

"A long-nosed man!" I exclaimed. "You mean the police-agent?"

"I mean Monsieur Martin, the clerk. Don't you recognise him?" he asked, taking the photograph out of his pocket and handing it to me.

It was the same!

"To be away from Martin's influence, my dear Ewart, the good jeweller Dumont had arranged for Mademoiselle to go into the convent. The father had, no doubt, discovered his daughter's secret love affair. Martin knew this, and with the connivance of Pierrette and Madame had decamped with the gems from the Charing Cross Hotel, in order to feather his nest."

"And the missing Dumont?"

"Dumont, when he realised his enormous loss, saw that if he complained to the police it would get into the papers, and his creditors--who had lately been very pressing--would lose confidence in the stability of the business in the Rue de la Paix. So he resolved to disappear, get away to Norway, and, if possible, follow Martin and regain possession of the jewels. In this he very nearly succeeded, but fortunately for us, Martin was no fool."

"How?"

"Why, he took the jewels to Nice with him when he went to meet Pierrette, and, having acquaintance with Regnier through his friend Raoul, gave them over to 'The President' to sell for him, well knowing that Regnier had, like we ourselves, a secret market for such things. I've proved, by the way, that this fellow Martin has had one or two previous dealings with Regnier while in various situations in Paris."

"Well?" I asked, astounded at all this. "That's the reason they warned me against her. What else?"

"What else?" he asked. "You may well ask what else? Well, I acted boldly."

"How do you mean?"

"I simply told the dainty Mademoiselle, Raoul, Martin, and the rest of them, of my intention--to explain to the police the whole queer story. I knew quite well that Regnier had the jewels intact in a bag in his room at the Hermitage, and rather feared lest he might pitch the whole lot into the sea, and so get rid of them. That there were grave suspicions against him regarding the mysterious death of a banker at Aix six months before--you recollect the case--I knew quite well, and I was equally certain that he dare not risk any police inquiries. I had a tremendously difficult fight for it, I can assure you; but I stood quite firm, and notwithstanding their threats and vows of vengeance--Mademoiselle was, by the way, more full of venomous vituperation than them all--I won."

"You won?" I echoed. "In what manner?"

"I compelled Regnier to disgorge the booty in exchange for my silence."

"You got the jewels!" I gasped.

"Certainly. What do you think we are here for--on our way to Amsterdam--if not on business?" he answered, with a smile.

"But where are they? I haven't seen them when our luggage has been overhauled at the frontiers," I said.

"Stop the car, and get down."

I did so. He went along the road till he found a long piece of stick. Then, unscrewing the cap of the petrol-tank, he stuck in the stick and moved it about.

"Feel anything?" he asked, giving me the stick.

I felt, and surely enough in the bottom of the tank was a quantity of small loose stones! I could hear them rattle as I stirred them up.

"The settings were no use, and would tell tales, so I flung them away," he explained; "and I put the stones in there while you were in Nice, the night before we left. Come, let's get on again;" and he re-screwed the cap over one of the finest hauls of jewels ever made in modern criminal history.

"Well--I'm hanged!" I cried, utterly dumbfounded. "But what of Mademoiselle's father?"

Bindo merely raised his shoulders and laughed. "Mademoiselle may be left to tell him the truth--if she thinks it desirable," he said. "Martin has already cleared out--to Buenos Ayres, minus everything; Regnier is completely sold, for no doubt the too confiding Martin would have got nothing out of 'The President'; while Mademoiselle and Madame are now wondering how best to return to Paris and face the music. Old Dumont will probably have to close his doors in the Rue de la Paix, for we have here a selection of his very best. But, after all, Mademoiselle--whose plan to go to London in search of her father was a rather ingenious one--certainly has me to thank that she is not under arrest for criminal conspiracy with her long-nosed lover!"

I laughed at Bindo's final remark, and put another "move" on the car.

At ten o'clock that same night we took out the petrol-tank and emptied from it its precious contents, which half an hour later had been washed and were safely reposing from the eyes of the curious between tissue paper in the safe in the old Jew's dark den in the Kerk Straat, in Amsterdam.

That was a year ago, and old Dumont still carries on business in the Rue de la Paix. Sir Charles Blythe, who is our informant, as always, tells us that although the pretty Pierrette is back in her convent, the jeweller is still in ignorance of Martin's whereabouts, of how his property passed from hand to hand, or of any of the real facts concerning its disappearance.

One thing is quite certain: he will never see any of it again, for every single stone has been re-cut, and so effectually disguised as to be beyond identification.

Honesty spells poverty, Bindo always declares to me.

But some day very soon I intend, if possible, to cut my audacious friends and reform.

And yet how hard it is--how very hard! One can never, alas! retract one's downward steps. I am "The Count's Chauffeur," and shall, I suppose, continue to remain so until the black day when we all fall into the hands of the police.

Therefore the story of my further adventures will, in all probability, be recounted in the Central Criminal Court at a date not very far distant.

For the present, therefore, I must write

THE END.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Count's Chauffeur, by William Le Queux