 Story 1 The Lute of Cities, Chapter 4 A Solution of the Algiers Mystery And the launch? I am unaware of the precise technical term, sir, but the launch awaits you. Perhaps I should have said it as alongside. The reliable Lecky hated the sea, and when his master's excursions became marine, he always squinted more formatively and suddenly than usual and added to his reliability a certain quality of ironic bitterness. My overcoat, please, said Cecil Therrold, who was in evening dress. The apartment, large and low, was paneled with birds-eye maple. The lanterns ran along the walls, and above the devans orange curtains were drawn. The floor was hidden by the skins of wild African animals. In one corner was a Steinway piano with the score of the orchid open on the music stand. In another lay a large flat bowl filled with blossoms that do not bloom in England. The illumination, soft and yellow, came from behind the cornice of the room, being reflected there from downwards by the green-coloured ceiling. Only by a faintly heard tremor of some gigantic but repressed force, and by a very slight unsteadiness on the part of the floor, could you have guessed that you were aboard a steamy yacht and not in a large, luxurious house. Lecky, having arrayed the millionaire in overcoat, muffler, crush hat, and white gloves, drew aside a portiere and followed him up a flight of stairs. They stood on deck, surrounded by the mild but treacherous Algerian night. From the white double funnels, a thin smoke oozed. On the white bridge, the second mate, a spectral figure, was testing the engine room signals, and the sharp noise of the bell seemed to desecrate the mysterious silence of the bay. But there was no other sign of life. The waiting launch was completely hidden under the high boughs of the carabell. In distant regions of the deck, glimmering beams came oddly up from below, throwing into relief some part of a boat on its davits or a section of a mast. Ciso looked about him at the serrated lights of the Boulevard Carnot, and the riding lanterns of the vessels in the harbor. Away to the left on the hill, a few gleams showed a Mustapha Supérieure, where the great English hotels are, and ten miles further east, the lighthouse on Cape Matifou flashed its eternal message to the Mediterranean. He was on the verge of feeling poetic. Suppose anything happens while you are at this dancer, like he jerked his thumb in the direction of a small steamer which lay moored scarcely a cable's length away under the eastern jetty. Suppose he jerked his thumb again in exactly the same direction. His tone was still pessimistic and cynical. You'd better fire our beautiful brass cannon, Ciso replied, have it fired three times. I shall hear it well enough up at Mustapha. He descended carefully into the launch, and was quizzed puffingly over the dark surface of the bay to the landing stage where he summoned a fiatkra. Hotel Saint James, he instructed the driver, and the driver smiled joyously. One who went to the Hotel Saint James was rich and lordly, and paid well, because the hill was long and steep, and so hard on the poor Algerian horses. Two. Every hotel up at Mustapha Supérieure was the finest view, the finest hygienic installation, and the finest cooking in Algeria. In other words, each is better than all the others. Since the Hotel Saint James could not be called first among equals, since there are no equals, and one must be content to describe it as first among the unequaled. First it undoubtedly was, and perhaps will be again. Although it was new, it had what one visitor termed that indefinable thing cachet. It was frequented by the best people, namely the richest people, the idlest people, the most arrogant people, the most bored people, the most titled people, that came to the southern shores of the Mediterranean in search of what they would never find, an escape from themselves. It was a vast building, planned on a scale of spaciousness, only possible in a district where commercial crises have depressed the value of land, and it stood in the midst of a vast garden of oranges, lemons, and medlars. Every room, and there were three stories and two hundred rooms, faced south. This was charged for in the bill. The public rooms, oriental and character, were immense and complete. They included a dining room, a drawing room, a reading room, a smoking room, a billiard room, a bridge room, a ping pong room, a concert room, with resident orchestra, and a room where asuais and negroes and other curiosities from the native town might perform before select parties. Thus it was entirely self-sufficient and lacked nothing which is necessary to the proper assistance of the best people. On Thursday night throughout the season there was a five-frank dance in the concert hall. You paid five francs and ate and drank as much as you could, while standing up at the supper tables arrayed in the dining room. On a certain Thursday night in early January, this Anglo-Saxon microcosm, set so heartily in a French colony between the Mediterranean and the Jura Jura mountains with the Sahara behind, was at its most brilliant. The hotel was crammed, the prices were high, and everybody was supremely conscious of doing the correct thing. The dance had begun somewhat earlier than usual because the eagerness of the younger guests could not be restrained. And the orchestra seemed gayer and the electric lights brighter, and the toilets more resplendent that night. Of course, guests came in from the other hotels. Indeed, they came in to such an extent that to dance in the ballroom was an affair of compromise and ingenuity. And the other rooms were occupied too. The bridge players wrecked nod of Terpsichor, the cheerful sound of ping-pong came regularly from the ping-pong room. The retired Indian judge was giving points as usual in the billiard room, and in the reading room the steadfast intellectuals were studying the world and the Paris New York Herald. And all was English and American pure Anglo-Saxon in thought and speech and gesture save the manager of the hotel who was Italian, the waiters who were anything, and the wonderful concierge who was everything. As Cecil passed through the imposing suite of public rooms he saw in the reading room, posted so that no arrival could escape her eye, the elegant form of Mrs. McAllister, and by way of a wild, impulsive freak, he stopped and talked to her and ultimately sat down by her side. Mrs. McAllister was one of those English women that are to be found only in large and fashionable hotels. Nothing about her was mysterious except the fact that she was in search of a second husband. She was tall, pretty, dashing, daring, well-dressed, well-informed, and perhaps thirty-four. But no one had known her husband or her family, and no one knew her country or the origin of her income, or how she got herself into the best cliques in the hotel. She had the air of being the merriest person in Algiers. She was one of the saddest, for the reason that every day left her older and harder and less likely to hook, well, to hook a millionaire. She had met Cecil Thurold at the dance of the previous week, and had clung to him so artfully that the coateries talked of it for three days, as Cecil well knew. And tonight he thought he might, as well as not, give Mrs. McAllister an hour's excitement of the chase and the coateries another three days' employment. So he sat down beside her, and they talked. First she asked him whether he slept on his yacht or in the hotel, and he replied, sometimes in the hotel and sometimes on the yacht. Then she asked him where his bedroom was, and he said it was on the second floor, and she settled that it must be three doors from her own. Then they discussed bridge, the fiscal inquiry, the weather, dancing, food, the responsibilities of great wealth, Algerian railway traveling, Ka, gambling, Mr. Morley's Life of Gladstone, and the extraordinary success of the hotel. Thus quite inevitably they reached the subject of the Algiers' mystery. During the season, at any rate, no two guests in the hotel ever talked small talk for more than ten minutes without reaching the subject of the Algiers' mystery. For the hotel had itself been the scene of the Algiers' mystery, and the Algiers' mystery was at once the simplest, the most charming, and the most perplexing mystery in the world. One morning, the first of April in the previous year, an honest John Bull of a guest had come down to the hotel office, and laying a five-pound note before the head clerk had exclaimed, I found that lying on my dressing table. It isn't mine. It looks good enough, but I expected someone's joke. Seven other people that day confessed that they had found five-pound notes in their rooms, or pieces of paper that resembled five-pound notes. They compared these notes, and then the eight went off in a body down to an agency on the Boulevard de la République, and without the least a mirror the notes were changed for gold. The second of April, twelve more people found five-pound notes in their rooms, now prominent on the bed, now secreted, as, for instance, under a candlestick. Cecil himself had been a recipient. Watches were set, but with no result, whatever. In a week nearly seven hundred pounds had been distributed amongst the guest by the generous invisible ghosts. It was magnificent, and it was very soon in every newspaper in England and America. Some of the guests did not care for it, thought it queer and uncanny and not nice, and these left, but the majority cared for it very much indeed, and remained till the utmost limit of the season. The rainfall of notes had not recommenced so far in the present season. Nevertheless, the hotel had been thoroughly well patronized from November onwards, and there was scarcely a guest, but who went to sleep at night, hoping to describe a fiver in the morning. A verticement said some purpose-gacious individuals. Of course, the explanation was an obvious one, but the manager had indignantly and honestly denied all knowledge of the business, and, moreover, not a single guest had caught a single note in the act of settling down. Further, the hotel changed hands, and that manager left. The mystery, therefore, remained a delightful topic always at hand for discussion. After having chatted Cecil Thurall and Mrs. McAllister danced, two dances, and the hotel began audibly to wonder that Cecil could be such a fool when, at midnight, he retired to bed, many mothers of daughters and daughters of mothers were justifiably angry and consoled themselves by saying that he had disappeared in order to hide the shame which must have suddenly overtaken him. As for Mrs. McAllister, she was radiant. Safely in his room, Cecil locked and wedged the door and opened the window and looked out from the balcony at the starry night. He could hear cats playing on the roof. He smiled when he thought of the things Mrs. McAllister had said and of the ardor of her glances. Then he felt sorry for her. Perhaps it was the whiskey and soda which he had just drunk that momentarily warned his heart towards the lonely creature. Only one item of her artless gossip had interested him, a statement that the new Italian manager had been ill in bed all day. He emptied his pockets and, standing on a chair, he put his pocketbook on the top of the wardrobe where no Algerian malrader would think of looking for it. His revolver he tucked under his pillow. In three minutes he was asleep. 3. He was awakened by a vigorous pulling and shaking of his arm, and he, who usually woke wide at the least noise, came to his senses with difficulty. He looked up. The electric light had been turned on. There's a ghost in my room, Mr. Thurold. You'll forgive me, but I'm so... It was Mrs. McAllister, disheveled and in white, who stood over him. This is really a bit too thick, he thought, vaguely and sleepily, regretting his impulsive flirtation of the previous evening. Then he collected himself and said sternly, severely, that if Mrs. McAllister would retire to the corridor he would follow in a moment. He added that she might leave the door open if she felt afraid. Mrs. McAllister retired, sobbing, and Cecil arose. He went first to consult his watch. It was gone a chronometer worth a couple of hundred pounds. He whistled, climbed onto a chair, and discovered that his pocketbook was no longer in a place of safety on the top of the wardrobe. It had contained something over five hundred pounds in a highly negotiable form. Waking up his overcoat, which lay on the floor, he found that the fur lining, a millionaire's fancy which had cost him nearly a hundred and fifty pounds, had been cut away and was no more to be seen. Even the revolver had departed from under his pillow. Well, he murmured, this is decidedly the grand manner. Quite suddenly it occurred to him, as he noticed a peculiar taste in his mouth, that the whisky and soda had contained more than whisky and soda he had been drugged. He tried to recall the face of the waiter who had served him. Eyeing the window and the door, he argued that the thief had entered by the former and departed by the latter. But the pocketbook he mused, I must have been watched. Mrs. McAllister, stripped now of all dash and all daring, could be heard in the corridor. And she, he speculated for a moment, and then decided positively in the negative. Mrs. McAllister could have no design on anything but a bachelor's freedom. He assumed his dressing gown and slippers and went to her. The corridor was in darkness, but she stood in the light of his doorway. Now, he said, this ghost of yours, dear lady, you must go first, she whimpered. I dare it. It was white, but with a black face, it was at the window. Cecil, getting a candle, obeyed, and, having penetrated alone into the lady's chamber, he perceived, to begin with, that a pain had been pushed out of the window by the old, noiseless device of a sheet of tree-cold paper. And then, examining the window more closely, he saw that outside a silk ladder depended from the roof entrailed in the balcony. Come in without fear, he said to the trembling widow. It must have been someone with more appetite than a ghost, that you saw, perhaps an Arab. She came in, femininely trusting to him, and between them they ascertained that she had lost a watch, sixteen rings, an opal necklace, and some money. Mrs. McAllister would not say how much money. My resources are slight, she remarked, I was expecting remittances. Cecil thought, this is not merely in the grand manner. If it fulfills its promise, it will prove to be one of the greatest things of the age. He asked her to keep cool, not to be afraid, and to dress herself. Then he returned to his room, and dressed as quickly as he could. The hotel was absolutely quiet, but out of the depths below came the sound of a clock striking four. Then adequately, but not aesthetically attired, he opened his door again. Another door, nearby, also opened, and Cecil saw a man's head. I say, grawled the man's head, excuse me, but have you noticed anything? Why, what? Well, I had been robbed. The Englishman laughed awkwardly, apologetically, as though ashamed to have to confess that he had been victimized. Much? Cecil inquired. Two hundred or so? No joke, you know. So have I been robbed, said Cecil. Let us go downstairs. Got a candle? These corridors are usually lighted all night. Perhaps our thief has been at the switches, said the Englishman. Say our thieves, Cecil corrected. You think that there was more than one? I think there were more than half a dozen, Cecil replied. The Englishman was dressed, and the two descended together, candles in hand, forgetting the lone lady. But the lone lady had no intention of being forgotten, and she came after them, almost screaming. They had not reached the ground floor before three other doors had opened, and three other victims proclaimed themselves. Cecil led the way through the splendid saloons, now so ghostly in their elegance, which only three hours before had been the illuminated scene of such polite revelry. Before he reached the entrance hall, where a solitary jet was burning, the assistant concierge, one of those officials who seemed never to sleep, advanced towards him, demanding in his broken English what was the matter. There have been thieves in the hotel, said Cecil, wakened the concierge. From that point, events succeeded each other in a sort of complex rapidity. Mrs. McAllister fainted at the door of the billiard room, and was laid out on a billiard table with a white ball between her shoulders. The head concierge was not in his narrow bed in the alcove by the main entrance, and he could not be found. Nor could the Italian manager be found, though he was supposed to be ill in bed, nor the Italian manager's wife. Two stablemen were searched out from somewhere, and also a cook, and then the Englishman, who had lost two hundred or so, went forth into the Algerian night to bring a chanton from the post at the Rue des Dix. Cecil Thurold contented himself with talking to people, as in ones and twos, and in various stages of incorrectness, they came into the public rooms, now brilliantly lighted. All who came had been robbed. What surprised him was the slowness of the hotel to wake up. There were two hundred and twenty guests in the place. Of these, in a quarter of an hour, perhaps fifteen had arisen. The remainder were apparently oblivious of the fact that something very extraordinary, and something probably very interesting to them personally, had occurred, and was occurring. Why, it's a conspiracy, sir. It's a conspiracy. That's what it is, decided the Indian judge. Gang is a shorter word Cecil observed, and a young girl in a Macintosh giggled. The employees now began to appear, and the rumor ran that six waiters and a chambermaid were missing. Mrs. McAllister rallied from the billiard table, and came into the drawing room where most of the company had gathered. Cecil yawned, and the influence of the drug was still upon him, as she approached him and weakly spoke. He answered absently. He was engaged in watching the demeanor of these idlers on the face of the earth. How incapable they seemed of any initiative, and yet with what magnificent Britannic phlegm they endured the strange situation. The talking was neither loud nor impassioned. Then the low distant sound of a cannon was heard, once, twice, thrice. Silence ensued. Heavens, sighed Mrs. McAllister, swaying towards Cecil. What can that be? He avoided her, hurried out of the room, and snatched somebody else's hat from the hat-racks in the hall. But just as he was turning the handle of the main door of the hotel, the Englishman, who had lost two hundred or so, returned out of the Algerian night with an inspector of police. The latter courteously requested Cecil not to leave the building, as he must open the inquiry. Cecil was obliged, regretfully, to comply. The inspector of police then commenced his labors. He telephoned, no one had thought of the telephone, for assistance, and asked the central bureau to watch the railway station, the port, and the stagecoaches. He acquired the names and addresses of Tulemonda. He made catalogs of articles. He locked all the servants in the ping-pong room. He took down narratives, beginning with Cecil's, and, while the functionary was engaged with Mrs. McAllister, Cecil, quietly, but firmly, disappeared. After his departure, the affair loomed larger and larger in mere magnitude, but nothing that came to light altered its leading characteristics. A wholesale robbery had been planned with the most minute care and knowledge, and executed with the most daring skill. From ten persons, the manager and his wife, a chambermaid, six waiters, and the concierge seemed to have been concerned in the enterprise, excluding Mrs. McAllister's Arab and, no doubt, other assistance. The guests suddenly remembered how superior the concierge and the waiters had been to the ordinary concierge and waiter. At a quarter past five o'clock, the police had ascertained that a hundred rooms had been entered, and horrified guests were still descending. The occupants of many rooms, however, made no response to a summons to awake. These it was discovered afterwards had, either like Cecil, received a sedative unawares, or they had been neatly gagged and bound. In the result, the list of missing valuables comprised nearly two hundred watches, eight hundred rings, a hundred and fifty other articles of jewelry, several thousand pounds worth of furs, three thousand pounds in coin, and twenty-one thousand pounds in bank notes and other forms of currency. One lady, a doctor's wife, said she had been robbed of eight hundred pounds in bank of England notes, but her story obtained a little credit. Other tales of enormous loss, chiefly by women, were also taken with salt. When the dawn began, at about six o'clock, an official examination of the facade of the hotel indicated that nearly every room had been invaded by the balcony to window, either from the roof or from the ground. But the flagstones of the terrace and the beautifully asphalted pathways of the garden disclosed no trace of the plunderers. I guess your British habit of sleeping with the window open don't cut much eyes today, anyhow, said an American from Indianapolis to the company. That morning no omnibus from the hotel arrived at the station to catch the six-thirty train, which takes two days to ramble to Tunis and to Biscara, and all the liveried porters talk together in excited Swiss German. Four. My compliments to Captain Black, said Cecil Thurrod, and repeat to him that all I want him to do is to keep her in sight. He needn't overhaul her too much. Precisely, sir, lucky about, he was pale. And you had better lie down. I thank you, sir, but I find a recumbent position inconvenient. Perpetual motion seems more agreeable. Cecil was back in the large, low room, paneled with birds-eye maple. Below him the power of two thousand horses drove through the nocturnal Mediterranean swell, his claribel of a thousand tons. Thirty men were awake and active on board her, and twenty slept in the vast clean focusle with electric lights blazing six inches above their noses. He lit a cigarette and, going to the piano, struck a few cords from the orchid, but since the music would not remain on the stand he abandoned that attempt and lay down on a divan to think. He had reached the harbour from the hotel in twenty minutes, partly on foot at racing speed, and partly in an Arab cart, also at racing speed. The claribel's launch awaited him, and in another five minutes the launch was slung to her rabbits and the claribel under way. He learned that the small and sinister vessel, the Parakeh bear of Oran, which he and his men had been watching for several days, had slipped un-ostentatiously between the southern and eastern jetties, had stopped for a few minutes to hold converse with a boat that had put off from the neighbourhood of Lower Mustafa, and had then pointed her head north-west as though for some port in the province of Oran or in Morocco. And in the rings of cigarette smoke which he made, Cecil seemed now to see clearly the whole business. He had never relaxed his interest in the affair of the five-pound notes. He had vaguely suspected it to be part of some large scheme. He had presumed, on slight grounds, a connection between the Parakeh bear and the Italian manager of the hotel. Nay more he had felt sure that some great stroke was about to be accomplished, but of precise knowledge of satisfactory theory of definite expectation he had had none, until Mrs. McAllister, that unconscious and manhunting agent of destiny, had fortunately awakened him in the nick of time. Had it not been for his flirtation of the previous evening he might still be asleep in his bed at the hotel. He perceived the entire plan. The five-pound notes had been mysteriously scattered, certainly to advertise the hotel, but only to advertise it for a particular and colossal end, to fill it full and overflowing with fat victims. The situation had been thoroughly studied in all its details, and the task had been divided and allotted to various brains. Every room must have been examined, watched and separately plotted against. The habits and idiosyncrasy of every victim must have been individually weighed and considered. Nothing no trifle could have been forgotten, and then some supreme intelligence had drawn the threads together and woven them swiftly into the pattern of a single night. Almost a single hour. And the loot, Cecil could estimate it pretty accurately, had been transported down the hill to Mostafa, Inferia, tossed into a boat, and so to the Perique Ver, and the Perique Ver, with loot and looters on board, was bound, probably, for one of those obscure and infamous ports of Oran, or Morocco, Tenei, Mostaganum, Benir-Sar, Malia, or the city of Oran, or Tangier itself. He knew something of the Spanish and Maltese dens of Oran and Tangier, the clearing houses for stolen goods of two continents, and the impregnable refuge of scores of ingenious villains. And when he reflected upon the grandeur and immensity of the scheme, so simple in its essence, and so leisurely in its achievement, like most grand schemes, when he reflected upon the imagination which had been necessary even to conceive it, the generalship which had been necessary to its successful conclusion, he murmured admiringly, the man who thought of that and did it may be a scoundrel, but he's also an artist and a great one. And just because he, Cecil Thurold, was a millionaire and possessed a hundred thousand pound toy, which could do nineteen knots an hour and cost fifteen hundred pounds a month to run, he was about to defeat that great artist and nullify that great scheme and incidentally to retrieve his watch, his revolver, his fur, and his five hundred pounds. He had only to follow and to warn one of the French torpedo boats which are always patrolling the coast between Algiers and Oran and the bubble would burst. He sighed for the doomed artist and he wondered what that victimized crowd of European loungers who lounged sadly round the Mediterranean in winter and sadly round Northern Europe in summer had done in their languid and luxurious lives that they should be saved, after all, from the pillage to which the great artist and theft had subjected them. Then Leckie re-entered the state room. We shall have a difficulty in keeping the parot cave there in sight, sir. What? exclaimed Cecil. That tub? That coffin? You don't mean she can do twenty knots. Exactly, sir. Coffin. It, I mean she, is sinking. Cecil ran on deck. Dawn was breaking over Matafou and a faint cold gray light touched here and there the heaving sea. His captain spoke and pointed. Ahead, right ahead, less than a mile away, the parot cave there was sinking by the stern, and even as they gazed at her, a little boat detached itself from her side in the haze of the morning mist, and she sank, disappeared, vanished amid a cloud of escaping steam. They were four miles northeast of Cape Caxin. Two miles further westward, a big dominion liner, bound direct for Algiers from the New World, was approaching and had observed the catastrophe, for she altered her course. In a few minutes, the Clarabel picked up the boat of the parot cave there. It contained three Arabs. Five. The tale, told by the Arabs, two of them were brothers, and all three came from Oran, fully sustained Cecil Thurall's theory of the spoiltiation of the hotel. Naturally, they pretended at first to an entire innocence concerning the schemes of those who had charge of the parot cave there. The two brothers, who were black with cold dust when rescued, swore that they had been physically forced to work in the stokehold. But ultimately, all three had to admit a knowledge of things which was decidedly incriminating, and all three got three years imprisonment. The only part of the Algiers mystery, which remained a mystery, was the cause of the sinking of the parot cave there. Whether she was thoroughly unseeworthy, she had been picked up cheap at Malilla, or whether someone not on board had deliberately arranged her destruction, perhaps to satisfy a Moorish vengeance, was not ascertained. The three Arabs could only be persuaded to say that there had been eleven Europeans and seven natives on the ship, and that they alone, by the mercy of Allah, had escaped from the swift catastrophe. The hotel underwent an acute crisis from which, however, it is emerging. For over a week, a number of the pillaged guests discussed a diving enterprise of salvage, but the estimates were too high, and it came to nothing. So they all, Cecil included, began to get used to the idea of possessing irrecoverable property to the value of 40,000 pounds in the Mediterranean. A superb business and telegraph remittances was done for several days. The fifteen beings who had accompanied the parot cave there to the bottom were scarcely thought of, for it was almost universally agreed that the way of transgressors is and ought to be hard. As for Cecil Thurold, the adventure, at first so full of the promise of joy, left him melancholy, until an unexpected sequel diverted the channel of his thoughts. in the capital of the Sahara. Mrs. McAllister turned with sudden eagerness and alarm towards Cecil Thurold, the crowd on the lawn in front of the railings was so dense that only heads could be moved, and she said excitedly, I'm sure I can see my ghost across there. She indicated with her agreeable snub nose the opposite side of the course. Your ghost, Cecil questioned, puzzled for a moment by this extraordinary remark. Then the Arab horsemen swept by in a cloud of dust and of thunder and monopolized the attention of the lawn and the grandstand and the elite of Biskra crammed there on and there in. They had one more lap to accomplish for the pre-Dilavia. Biskra is an oasis in the desert and the capital of the Algerian Sahara. Two days journey by train from Algiers over the Giorgiora ranges, it is the last outpost of the Algerian state railways. It has 160,000 palm trees, but the first symptom of Biskra to be observed from the approaching first glass carriage is the chimney of the electric light plant. Besides the 160,000 palm trees, it possesses half a dozen large hotels, five native villages, a fort, a huge barracks, a very ornamental town hall, shops for photographic materials, a whole street of dancing girls, the finest winter climate in all Africa, and a gambling casino. It is a unique thing in oases. It completely upsets the conventional idea of an oasis as a pool of water bordered with a few date palms and the limitless desert all around. Nevertheless, though Biskra as much resembles Paris as it resembles the conventional idea of an oasis, it is genuine enough and the limitless desert is in fact all around. You may walk out into the desert and meet a motor car maneuvering in the sand, but the sand remains the sand and the desert remains the desert and the Sahara, more majestic than the sea itself, refuses to be cheapened by the pneumatic tires of a Mercedes or the blue rays of the electric light or the feet of English, French, and Germans wandering in search of novelty. It persists in being August. Once a year in February, Biskra becomes really and excessively excited, and the occasion is its annual two-day race meeting. Then the tribes and their chieftains and their horses and their camels arrive magically out of the four corners of the desert and fill the oasis. And the English, French, and Germans arrive from the Mediterranean coast with their trunks and their civilization and crowd the hotels till beds in Biskra are precious beyond rubies. And under the tropical sun, east and west meet magnificently in the afternoon on the racecourse to the north of the European reserve. And the tribesmen, their scraggy steed trailing superb horse claws, are arranged in hundreds behind the motor cars and land dows with the party mutual in full swing 20 yards away. And the dancing girls, the renowned Oolah Niles, covered with gold coins and with Muslim in high crude violent purples, greens, vermilions, shriek and whinny on their benches, just opposite the grandstand where the Western women arrayed in the toilets of Worth, Dusset, and Redfern quiz them through their glasses. And fringing all is a crowd of the adventurers and rascals of two continents, the dark and the light. And in the background, the palms wave eternally in the breeze. And to the east, the Aure's mountains, no capped, rise in the hues of saffron and pale rose, like stage mountains against the sapphire sky. And to the south, a line of telegraph poles, lessons and disappears over the verge into the inmost heart of the mysterious and unchangeable Sahara. It was amid this singular scene that Mrs. McAllister made to see so thorough her bizarre remark about a ghost. What ghost? The millionaire repeated when the horsemen had passed. Then he remembered that on the famous night, now nearly a month ago, when the hotels and gems at Algiers was literally sacked by an organized band of depredators and valuables to the tune of £40,000 disappeared, Mrs. McAllister had given the first alarm by crying out that there was a ghost in her room. Ah, he smiled easily, condescendingly, to this pertinacious widow who had been pursuing him so fruitlessly for four mortal weeks from Algiers to Tunis, from Tunis back to Constantine, and from Constantine here to Biscara. All Arabs look more or less alike, you know. But, yes, he said again, they all look alike to us like Chinaman. Considering that he himself, from his own yacht, had witnessed the total loss in the Mediterranean of the vessel which contained the plunder and the fleeing band of thieves, considering that his own yacht had rescued the only three survivors of that shipwreck, and that these survivors had made a full confession and had only two days since been duly sentenced by the criminal court at Algiers. He did not feel inclined to minister to Mrs. McAllister's feminine fancies. Did you ever see an Arab with a mole on his chin, asked Mrs. McAllister? No, I never did. Well, my Arab had a mole on his chin, and that is why I am sure it was he that I saw a minute ago over there. Now he's gone now. The competing horsemen appeared round the bend for the last time. The dancing girls winnied in their high treble. The crowd roared and the pre-de-l'aville was won and lost. It was the final race on the card, and in the melee, which followed, Cecil became separated from his adorer. She was to depart on the morrow by the 6am train. Urgent business, she said, she had given up the chase of the millionaire. Perhaps she's out of funds for a thing, he reflected. Anyhow, I hope I may never see her again. As a matter of fact he never did see her again. She passed out of his life as casually as she had come into it. He strolled slowly towards the hotel through the perturbed crowd of Arabs, Europeans, carriages, camels, horses, and motorcars. The mounted tribesmen were in a state of intense excitement, and were continually burning powder in that mad fashion which seems to afford a peculiar joy to the Arab soul. From time to time a tribesman would break out of the ranks of his clan, and sparing his horse and dropping the reins on the animal's neck, would fire revolvers from both hands as he flew over the rough ground. It was unrivaled horsemanship, and Cecil admired immensely the manner in which, at the end of the frenzied performance, these men, drunk with powder, would wheel their horses sharply while at full gallop and stop dead. And then as one man who had passed him like a hurricane, turned, paused, and jogged back to his tribe, Cecil saw that he had a mole on his chin. He stood still to watch the splendid fellow, and he noticed something far more important than the mole. He perceived that the revolver in the man's right hand had a chaste butt. I can't swear to it, Cecil mused, but if that isn't my revolver stolen from under my pillow at the Autos and Jean-Zalges on the 10th of January last, my name is Norval and not Thurold. And the whole edifice of his ideas concerning the robbery at the Autel de Paris began to shake. That revolver ought to be at the bottom of the Mediterranean, he said to himself, and so ought Mrs. McAllister's man with the mole, according to the accepted theory of the crime, and the story of the survivors of the shipwreck of the paracet there. He walked on keeping the man in sight. Suppose, he murmured, suppose all that stuff isn't at the bottom of the Mediterranean after all. A hundred yards further on he happened to meet one of the white-clad native guides attached to the Royal Hotel where he had lunched. The guide saluted and offered service, as all the Biscara guides do on all occasions. Cecil's reply was to point out the man with the mole. You see him, Mahatmaid, said Cecil, make no mistake, find out what tribe he belongs to, where he comes from, and where he sleeps in Biscara, and I will give you a sovereign. Meet me at the casino tonight at ten. Mahatma grinned an honest grin and promised to earn the sovereign. Cecil stopped an empty landow and drove hurriedly to the station to meet the afternoon train from civilization. He had arrived in Biscara that morning by road from El Cantara, and Lakhi was coming by the afternoon train with the luggage. On seeing him, he gave that invaluable factotum some surprising orders. In addition to Lakhi, the millionaire observed among the passengers descending from the train two other people who were known to him, but he carefully hid himself from these ladies. In three minutes he had disappeared into the nocturnal twirl and uproar of Biscara, solely bent on proving or disproving the truth of a brand new theory concerning the historic sack of the hotels and james. But that night he waited in vain for Mahatma at the packed casino, where the Arab chieftains and the English gentlemen alike in their tremendous calm were losing money at Petit Chavot with all the impoturbability of stone statues. Two. Nor did Cecil see anything of Mahatma during the next day, and he had reasons for not making inquiries about him at the Royal Hotel. But at night, as he was crossing the deserted market, Mahatma came up to him suddenly out of nowhere and grinning the eternal, honest, foolish grin, said in his odd English, I have found him. Where? Come, said Mahatma mysteriously. The eastern guide loves to be mysterious. Cecil followed him far down the Carnivalesque street of the Ullad Niles, where tom-toms and nameless instruments of music sounded from every other house, and the Primera Dancerses of the Sahara showed themselves gorgeously behind grills, like beautiful animals and cages. Then Mahatma entered a crowded cafe, passed through it, and pushing aside a suspended mad at the other end, bad Cecil proceed further. Cecil touched his revolver, his new revolver, to make sure of its company, and proceeded further. He found himself in a low oriental room lighted by an odorous English lamp, with a circular wick, and furnished with a fine carpet and two bedroom chairs, certainly made in Curtin Road, Shortitch, a room characteristic of Bistra. On one chair sat a man, but this person was not Mrs. McAllister's man with the mole. He was obviously a Frenchman, by his dress, gestures, and speech. He greeted the millionaire in French, and then dropped into English, excellently grammatical, and often idiomatic English, spoken with a strong French accent. He was rather a little man, thin, gray, and vivacious. Give yourself the pain of sitting down, said the Frenchman. I'm glad to see you. You may be able to help us. You have the advantage of me, Cecil replied, smiling. Perhaps, said the Frenchman, you came to Bistra yesterday, Mr. Thurold, with the intention of staying at the Royal Hotel, where rooms were engaged for you. But yesterday afternoon you went to the station to meet your servant, and you ordered him to return to Constantine with your luggage and to await your instructions there. Then you took a handbag and went to the Casino Hotel, and you managed, by means of diplomacy and of money, to get a bed in the Salamanger. It was all they could do for you. You gave the name of Collins. Bistra, therefore, is not officially aware of the presence of Mr. Cecil Thurold, the millionaire, while Mr. Collins is free to carry on his researches to appear and to disappear as it pleases him. Yes, Cecil remarked, you have got that fairly right, but may I ask, oh, let us come to business at once, said the Frenchman, politely interrupting him. Is this your watch? He dramatically pulled a watch and chain from his pocket. It is, said Cecil quietly. He refrained from embroidering the affirmative with exclamations. It was stolen from my bedroom at the Hotel Saint-Gemmes with my revolver, some fur and a quantity of money, on the 10th of January. You are surprised if find it is not sunk in the Mediterranean? Thirty hours ago I should have been surprised, said Cecil. Now I am not. And why not now? Because I have formed a new theory, but have the goodness to give me the watch. I cannot, said the Frenchman graciously, not at present. There was a pause. The sound of music was heard from the café. But, my dear sir, I insist, Cecil spoke positively. The Frenchman laughed. I will be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Thurold. Your cleverness in forming a new theory of the Great Robbery merits all my candor. My name is Sylvain, and I am head of the Detective Force of Algiers, Chef de la Cité. You will perceive that I cannot part with the watch without proper formalities. Mr. Thurold, the robbery at the Hotel Saint-Gemmes was a work of the highest criminal art. Possibly I had better tell you the nature of our recent discoveries. I always thought well of the robbery Cecil observed, and my opinion of it is rising. Pray continue. According to your new theory, Mr. Thurold, how many persons were on board the Père K. Verre when she began to sink? Three, said Cecil promptly, as though answering a conundrum. The Frenchman beamed. You are admirable, he exclaimed. Yes, instead of eighteen, there were three. The wreck of the Père K. Verre was carefully pre-arranged. The visit of the boat to the Père K. Verre off Mustapha in Eferia was, what you call, I believe, a plant. The stolen goods never left dry land. There were three Arabs only on the Père K. Verre, one to steer her and the other two in the engine room. And these three were very careful to get themselves saved. They scuttled their ship inside of your yacht and of another vessel. There is no doubt, Mr. Thurold, the Frenchman smiled with a hand of irony, that the thieves were fully au courant of your doings on the Clair-of-El. The shipwreck was done deliberately with you and your yacht for an audience. It was a masterly stroke. He proceeded almost enthusiastically, for it had the effect not merely of drawing away suspicion from the true direction, but of putting an end to all further inquiries. Were not the goods at the bottom of the sea and the thieves drowned? What motive could the police have for further activity? In six months, made, three months, all the notes and securities could be safely negotiated, because no measures would have to be taken to stop them. Why take measures to stop notes that are at the bottom of the sea? But the three survivors who are now in prison, as Isil said, their behavior, their lying, needs some accounting for. Oh, quite simple, the Frenchman went on. They are in prison for three years. What is that to an Arab? He will suffer it with stoicism. Say that ten thousand francs are deposited with each of their families. When they come out, they are rich for life. At a cost of thirty thousand francs and the price of the ship, say another thirty thousand, the thieves reasonably expected to obtain absolute security. It was a heroic idea, said Isil. It was, said the Frenchman, but it has failed. Evidently, but why? Can you ask? You know as well as I do. It has failed, partly because there were too many persons in the secret, partly because of the Arab love of display on great occasions, and partly because of a mole on a man's chin. By the way, that was the man I came here to see, seesil remark. He is arrested, said the Frenchman curtly, and then he sighed. The booty was not guarded with sufficient restrictions. It was not kept in bulk. One thief probably said, I cannot do without this lovely watch. And another said, What a revolver I must have it. Ah, the Arab, the Arab. The Europeans ought to have provided for that. That is where they were foolish, the idiots, the idiots, he repeated angrily. You seem annoyed. Mr. Thurold, I am a poet of these things. It annoys me to see a fine composition, ruined by bad construction in the fifth act. However, as chief of the surity I rejoice. You have located the thieves and the plunder? I think I have. Certainly I have captured two of the thieves and several articles. The bulk lies at, he stopped and looked around. Mr. Thurold, may I rely on you? I know perhaps more than you think of your powers. May I rely on you? You may, said seesil. You will hold yourself at my disposition during tomorrow to assist me? With pleasure. Then let us take coffee. In the morning I shall have acquired certain precise information, which at the moment I lack. Let us take coffee. 3. On the following morning, somewhat early, while walking near Messid, one of the tiny outlying villages of the Oasis, seesil met E. Fincastle and Kitty Sartorius, whom he had not spoken with since the affair of the bracelet at Bruges, though he had heard from them and had indeed seen them at the station two days before. E. Fincastle had fallen rather seriously ill at Mentón, and the holiday of the two girls, which should have finished before the end of the year, was prolonged. Financially, the enforced leisure was a matter of trifling importance to Kitty Sartorius, who had insisted on remaining with her friend, much to the disgust of her London manager. But the journalist's resources were less royal, and Eve considered herself fortunate that she had obtained from her newspaper some special descriptive correspondence in Algeria. It was this commission which had brought her and Kitty with her in the natural course of an Algerian tour to Biscara. Cecil was charmed to see his acquaintances, for Eve interested him, and Kitty's beauty, it goes without saying, dazzled him. Nevertheless, he had been, as it were, hiding himself, and in his character as an amateur of the loot of cities, he would have preferred to have met them on some morning other than that particular morning. You will go with us to City Oqba, won't you, today? said Kitty, after they had talked awhile. We've secured a carriage, and I'm dying for a drive in the real, true desert. Sorry, I can't, said Cecil. Oh, but Steve and Castle began and stopped. Of course you can, said Kitty, imperiously. You must. We leave tomorrow. We're only here for two days for Algiers and France, and other two days in Paris and in London, my darling London, and work. So it's understood. It desolates me, said Cecil, but I can't go with you to City Oqba today. They both saw that he meant to refuse them. That settles it then, Eve agreed quietly. You're horrid, Mr. Thurold, said the bewitching actress, and if you imagine for a single moment we haven't seen that you've been keeping out of our way, you're mistaken. You must have noticed us at the station. Eve thinks you've got another of your— No, I don't, Kitty, said Eve quickly. If Miss Fincastle suspects that I've got another of my— He paused humorously. Miss Fincastle is right. I have got another of my— I throw myself on your magnanimity. I am staying in Biscara under the name of Collins, and my time, like my name, is not my own. In that case, Eve remarked, we will pass on. And they shook hands with a certain frigidity on the part of the two girls. During the morning, Mr. Sylvain made a no sign, and Cecil lunged in solitude at the Dar-Yeeve, adjoining the casino. The races being over, streams of natives, with their tents and their quadrupeds, were leaving Biscara for the desert. They made an interminable procession, which could be seen from the window of the Dar-Yeeve coffee room. Cecil was idly watching this procession when a hand touched his shoulder. He turned and saw a gendarm. Mr. Colombe, questioned at the gendarm, Cecil assented, «Voulez-vous avoir l'obligation de mes ouvriers, monsieur?» Cecil obediently followed, and found in the street Mr. Sylvain well wrapped up, and seated in an open carriage. «I have need of you», said Mr. Sylvain. «Can you come at once?» «Certainly». In two minutes they were driving away together into the desert. «Our destination is Sidi-Okba», said the Monsieur Sylvain. A curious place. The road, so called, led across the Biscara River, so called, and then in a straight line eastwards. The river had about the depth of a dinner plate. As for the road, in some parts it not only merely failed to be a road, it was nothing but virgin desert intact. At its best it was a heaving and treacherous mixture of sand and pebbles, through which, and not over which, the two unhappy horses had to drag Monsieur Sylvain's unfortunate open carriage. Monsieur Sylvain himself drove. «I am well acquainted with this part of the desert», he said. «We have strange cases sometimes, and when I am on important business I never trust an Arab. By the way, you have a revolver? I do not anticipate danger, but I have one», said Cecil. And it is loaded. Cecil took the weapon from his hip pocket and examined it. «It is loaded», he said. «Good», exclaimed the Frenchman, and then he turned to the gentongue, who was sitting as impassively as the leaps and bounds of the carriage would allow, on a small seat immediately behind the other two, and demanded of him in French, whether his revolver also was loaded. The man gave a respectful affirmative. «Good», exclaimed Monsieur Sylvain again, and launched into a description of the wondrous gardens of the Contlandon, whose walls on the confines of the Oasis they were just passing. Straight in front could be seen a short line of palm trees waving in the desert breeze under the desert sun, and Cecil asked what they were. «C'est l'aucba», replied Monsieur Sylvain. The 180,000 palms of the desert city of C'est l'aucba. They seem near to you, no doubt, but we shall travel 20 kilometers before we reach them. The effect of nearness is due to the singular quality of the atmosphere. It is a two-hours journey. «Then do we return in the dark», Cecil inquired. «If we are lucky, we may return at once and arrive at Biscara dust. If not, well, we shall spend the night at C'est l'aucba. You object? Not at all. A curious place, observed Monsieur Sylvain. Soon they had left behind all traces of the Oasis and were in the real true desert. They met and passed native Equipage and the strings of camels, and from time to time on either hand at short distances from the road could be seen the encampments of wandering tribes. And after interminable joltings in which Monsieur Sylvain, his guests and his gendarmes were frequently hurled at each other's heads with excessive violence, the short line of palm trees began to seem a little nearer and to occupy a little more of the horizon. And then they could describe the wall of the city, and at last they reached its gate and the beggar squatting within its gate. «Descend, Monsieur Sylvain ordered his subordinate. The man disappeared, and Monsieur Sylvain and the Cecil drove into the city. They met several carriages of Biscara visitors, just setting forth on their return journey. In insisting that city Oqba was a curious place, Monsieur Sylvain did not exaggerate. It was an eastern town of the most antique sort, built solely of mud with the simplicity, the foulness, the smells, and the avowed and the secret horrors which might be expected in a community which has not altered its habits in any particular for a thousand years. During several months of each year it is visited daily by Europeans. Its mosque is the oldest Mohammedan building in Africa, therefore no respectable tourist dares to miss it. And yet it remains absolutely uninfluenced by European notions. The European person must take his food with him. He is allowed to eat it in the garden of a café, which is European as far as its sign and its counter, but no further. He could not eat it in the café itself. This café is the mark which civilization has succeeded in making on city Oqba in ten centuries. As Cecil drove with Monsieur Sylvain through the narrow winding street, he acutely felt the east closing in upon him. And since the sun was getting low over the palm trees, he was glad to have the detective by his side. They arrived at the wretched café. A pair-horse vehicle, with the horse's head towards Vithkara, was waiting at the door. Unspeakable lanes, fetid, winding, sinister, and strangely peopled, led away in several directions. Monsieur Sylvain glanced about him. We shall proceed, eat murmur cheerfully, follow me. And they went into the mark of civilization, and saw the counter and a female creature behind the bar, and through another door a glimpse of the garden beyond. Follow me, murmured Monsieur Sylvain again, opening another door to the left, into a dark passage. Straight on, there is a room at the other end. They vanished. In a few seconds, Monsieur Sylvain returned into the café. Four. Now in the garden were Eve Fincastle and Kitty Sartorius tying up some wraps, preparatory to their departure for Vithkara. They caught sight of Cecil Thurold and his companion entering the café, and they were surprised to find the millionaire in Sidi Oqba after his refusal to accompany them. Through the back door of the café, they saw Cecil's companion reappear out of the passage. They saw the creature behind the counter stoop and produce a revolver, and then offer it to the Frenchman with a furtive movement. They saw that the Frenchman declined it, and drew another revolver from his own pocket and winked. And the character of the wink given by the Frenchman to the woman made them turn pale under the sudden knife-like thrust of an awful suspicion. The Frenchman looked up and perceived the girls in the garden, and one glance at Kitty's beauty was not enough for him. Can you keep him here a minute while I warn Mr. Thurold, said Eve quickly? Kitty Sartorius nodded and began to smile on the Frenchman. She then lifted her finger beckoningly. If millions had depended on his refusal, it is doubtful whether he would have resisted that charming gesture. Not for nothing did Kitty Sartorius receive a hundred a week at the Regency Theatre. In a moment the Frenchman was talking to her, and she had enveloped him in a golden mist of enchantment. Guided by a profound instinct, Eve ran up the passage and into the room where Cecil was awaiting the return of his monsieur Sylvain. Come out, she whispered passionately, as if between violent anger and dreadful alarm you are trapped, you with your schemes. Trapped, he exclaimed, smiling, not at all. I have my revolver. His hand touched his pocket. By Jove, I have not. It's gone. The miraculous change in his face was of the highest interest. Come out, she cried, our carriage is waiting. In the café Kitty Sartorius was talking to the Frenchman. She stroked his sleeve with her gloved hand, and he, the Frenchman, still held the revolver, which he had displayed to the woman of the counter. Inspired by the consummate and swiftly aroused emotion of that moment, Cecil snatched at the revolver. The three friends walked hastily to the street, jumped into the carriage, and drove away. Already, as they approached the city gate, they could see the white tower of the royal hotel at Biscara, shining across the desert like a promise of security. The whole episode had lasted perhaps two minutes, but they were minutes of such intense and blinding revelation as Cecil had never before experienced. He sighed with relief as he lay back in the carriage. And that's the man, he meditated, astounded, who must have planned the robbery of the Hotel St. James, and I never suspected it. I never suspected that his gendarmes was a sham. I wonder whether his murder of me would have been as leisurely and artistic as his method of trapping me. I wonder, well, this time I have certainly enjoyed myself. Then he gazed at Eve Fincastle. The women had said nothing for a long time, and even then the talk was of trifles. Five. Eve Fincastle had gone up onto the vast flat roof of the royal hotel, and Cecil, knowing that she was there, followed. The sun had just set, and Biscara lay spread out below them in the rich evening light, which already eastwards had turned to sapphire. They could still see the line of the palm trees of city Uqba, and in another direction the long lonely road to Figuille, stretching across the desert like a rope which had been flung from heaven on the waist of sand. The RA's mountains were black and jagged. Nearer, immediately under them, was the various life of the great oasis, and the sounds of that life. Human speech, the rattle of carriages, the grunts of camels, and the camel enclosure, the whistling of an engine at the station, the melancholy wails of hawkers ascended softly in the twilight of the Sahara. Cecil approached her, but she did not turn towards him. I want to thank you, he started. She made no movement, and then suddenly she burst out. Why do you continue with these shameful plots and schemes? She demanded, looking always steadily away from him, why do you disgrace yourself? Was this another theft, another blackmailing, another affair like that of both Dand, why, she stopped deeply disturbed, unable to control herself. My dear journalist, he said quietly, you don't understand, let me tell you. He gave her his history from the night summons by Mrs. McAllister to that same afternoon. She faced him. Oh, I'm so glad she murmured. You can't imagine. I want to thank you for saving my life, he said again. She began to cry. Her body shook. She hid her face. But he stammered awkwardly. Oh, it isn't I who saved your life, she said, sobbing passionately. I wasn't beautiful enough. Only Kitty could have done it. Only a beautiful woman could have kept that man. I know all about it, my dear girl. Cecil silenced her disavowal. Something moved him to take her hand. She smiled, sadly, not resisting. You must excuse me, she murmured. I'm not myself tonight. It's because of the excitement. Anyhow, I'm glad you haven't taken any loop this time. But I have, he protested. He was surprised to find his voice trembling. What? This, he pressed her hand tenderly. That, she looked at her hand, lying in his, as though she had never seen it before. Eve, he whispered. About two-thirds of the loot of the Oatels and Gems was ultimately recovered, not at City Oakba, but in the cellars of the Oatels and Gems itself. From first to last that robbery was a masterpiece of audacity. Its originator, the sois de Saint-Michel Sylvain, head of the Algiers Detective Force, is still at large. End of Story 1, Part 5 Story 1 of The Loot of Cities by Arnold Bennett This liver-box recording is in the public domain. Story 1 The Loot of Cities, Chapter 6 Loet was a gala night. Paris, and not merely Paris, but Paris en Fête. Paris decorated, Paris idle, Paris determined to enjoy itself, and succeeding brilliantly. Venetian masts of red and gold lined the gay pavements of the Grand Boulevard and the Avenue de l'Opera, and suspended from these in every direction, transverse and lateral, hung garlands of flowers whose petals were of colored paper, and whose hearts were electric globes that in the evening would burst into flame. The effect of the city's toilette reached the extreme of opulence, for no expense had been spared. Paris was welcoming monarchs, and had spent two million francs in obedience to the maxim, that what is worth doing, at all, is worth doing well. The Grand Hotel, with its 800 rooms full of English and Americans at the upper end of the Avenue de l'Opera, looked down at the Grand Hotel de Louvre with its 400 rooms full of English and Americans at the lower end of the Avenue de l'Opera. These two establishments had the best views in the whole city, and perhaps the finest view of all was that obtainable from a certain second floor window of the Grand Hotel, precisely at the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Rue Aubert. From this window, one could see the Boulevards in both directions, the Opera and the Place de l'Opera, the Avenue de l'Opera, and the Rue de Catra Septembre, and the multitudinous life of the vivid thoroughfares, the glittering cafes, the dazzling shops, the painted kiosks, the lumbering omnibuses, the gliding trams, the hooting automobiles, the swift and careless cabs, the private carriages, the suicidal bicycles, the newsmen, the toy sellers, the touts, the beggars, and all the holiday crowd, somber men and radiant women, chattering, laughing, bustling, staring, drinking, under the innumerable tricolor and garlands of paper flowers. That particular view was a millionaire's view, and it happened to be the temporary property of Cecil Thurold, who was enjoying it, and the afternoon sun at the open window with three companions. Eve Fincastle looked at it with the analytic eye of the journalist, while Kitty Sartorius, as was quite proper for an actress, deemed it a sort of frame for herself as she leaned over the balcony like a Juliet on the stage. The third guest in Cecil's sitting room was Lionel Belmont, the Napoleonic Anglo-American theatrical manager, in whose crown Kitty herself was the chief star. Mr. Belmont, a big, burly, good-humored, eschewed man of something over forty, said he had come to Paris on business, but for two days the business had been solely to look after Kitty Sartorius and minister to her caprices. At the present moment his share of the view consisted mainly of Kitty. In the same way Cecil's share of the view consisted mainly of Eve Fincastle, but this at least was right and decorous for the betrothal of the millionaire and the journalist had been definitely announced. Otherwise Eve would have been back at work in Fleet Street a week ago. The gala performance is tonight, as Ned said, Eve, gazing at the vast and superbly ornamented opera house. Yes, said Cecil. What a pity we can't be there. I should so have liked to see the young queen in evening dress, and they say the interior decorations. Nothing simpler, said Cecil. If you want to go, dear, let us go. Kitty Sartorius looked around quickly. Mr. Belmont has tried to get seats and can't, haven't you, Bel? You know the whole audience is invited. The invitations are issued by the minister of fine arts. Still, in Paris, anything can be got by paying for it, Cecil insisted. My dear young friend, said Lionel Belmont, I guess if seats were to be had, I should have struck one or two yesterday. I put no limit on the price, and I reckon I ought to know what theater prices run to. Over at the Metropolitan in New York, I've seen a box change hands at two thousand dollars for one night. Nevertheless, Cecil began again, and the performance starting in six hours from now, Lionel Belmont exclaimed. Not much. But Cecil persisted. Seen the Herald today? Belmont questioned. No, well listen, this will interest you. He drew a paper from his pocket and read, Seats for the Opera Gala. The traffic and seats for the Gala performance at the Opera during the last royal visit to Paris aroused considerable comment, and not a little dissatisfaction. Nothing, however, was done, and the traffic in seats for tonight's spectacle, at which the President and their Imperial Majesties will be present, as it is said, amounted to a scandal. Of course, the offer so suddenly made, five days ago, by Madame Fadise and Madame Zelle Malva, the two greatest living dramatic sopranos, to take part in the performance immediately and enormously intensified interest in the affair, for never yet have these two supreme artists appeared in the same theatre on the same night. No theatre could afford the luxury. Our readers may remember that in our columns and in the columns of the Figaro, there appeared, four days ago, an advertisement to the following effect. A box, also two orchestra stalls for the Opera Gala, to be disposed of, owing to illness, apply 155 Rue de la Paix. We sent four several reporters to answer that advertisement. The first was offered a stage box for 7,500 francs, and two orchestra stalls in the second row for 1,250 francs. The second was offered a box opposite the stage on the second tier, and two stalls in the seventh row. The third had the chance of four stalls in the back row and a small box just behind them. The fourth was offered something else. The thing was obviously, therefore, a regular agency. Everybody is asking, how were these seats obtained from the Ministry of Fine Arts or from the Invitées? Echo answers, how? The authorities, however, are stated to have interfered at last and to have put an end to this buying and selling of what should be an honourable distinction. Bravo, said Cecil, and that. So Belmont remarked, brought me the paper. I went to 155 Rue de la Paix myself yesterday and was told that nothing whatever was to be had, not at any price. Perhaps you didn't offer enough, said Cecil. Moreover, I notice the advertisement does not appear today. I guess the authorities have crumpled it up. Still, Cecil went on monotonously. Look here, said Belmont, Graham and a little nettle. Just to cut it short, I'll bet you a $200 dinner at Payaud's that you can't get seats for tonight. Not even two, let alone four. You really want to bet? Well, drove Belmont with a certain irony, slightly imitating Cecil's manner, it means something to eat for these ladies. I accept, said Cecil, and he rang the bell. Two. Lucky, Cecil said to his valet, who had entered the room, I want you to go to 155 Rue de la Paix and find out on which floor they are disposing of seats for the opera tonight. When you have found out, I want you to get me four seats, preferably a box. Understand? The servant stared at his master, squinting violently for a few seconds. Then he replied suddenly, as the light had just dawned on him. Exactly, sir. You intend to be present at the gala performance? You have successfully grasped my intention, said Cecil, present my card. He scribbled a word or two on a card and gave it to the man. And the price, sir? You still have that blank check on the Crédit Lyonnais that I gave you yesterday morning? Use that. Yes, sir. Then there is the question of my French, sir, of my feeble French, a delicate plant. My friend, Belmont put in, I will accompany you as interpreter. I should like to see this thing through. Lucky bowed and gave up, squinting. In three minutes, for they had only to go round the corner, Lionel Belmont and Lucky were in a room on the fourth floor of 155 Rue de la Paix. It had the appearance of an ordinary drawing room, save that it contained an office table. At this table sat a young man, French. You wish, messieurs? Said the young man. Have the goodness to interpret for me, said Lucky to the Napoleon of Anglo-Saxon Theatres, Mr. Cecil Therrold of the Devonshire Mansion London, the Grand Hotel Paris, the Hotel Continental Rome, and the Gissari Palace, Hotel Cairo, presents his compliments and wishes a box for the gala performance at the Operat tonight. Belmont translated, while Lucky handed the card. Owing to the unfortunate indisposition of a minister and his wife, replied the young man gravely, having perused the card, it happens that I have a stage box on the second tier. You told me yesterday? Belmont began. I will take it, said Lucky, in a sort of French, interrupting his interpreter, the price and a pen. The price is twenty-five thousand francs. Gemini, Belmont exclaimed in American, this is Paris and no mistake. Yes, said Lucky, as he filled up the blank check, Paris still succeeds in being Paris. I have noticed it before, Mr. Belmont, if you will pardon the liberty. The young man opened a drawer and handed to Lucky a magnificent gilt card, signed by the Minister of Fine Arts, which Lucky hid behind his breast. That signature of the minister is genuine, Belmont asked the young man. My answer for it, said the young man, smiling imperturbably, that douche you do, Belmont murmured. So the four friends dined at Puyards, at the rate of about a dollar and a half a mouthful, and the mystified Belmont, who was not in the habit of being mystified, and so felt it, had the ecstasy of paying the bill, three. It was nine o'clock when they entered the magnificent precincts of the Opera House. Like everybody else, they went very early. The performance was not to commence until nine thirty, in order to see and to be seen, to the fullest possible extent. A week had elapsed since the two girls had arrived from Algiers in Paris, under the escort of Cecil Thurold, and in that time they had not been idle. Kitty Sartorius had spent tolerable sums at the best modists in the Rue de la Paix, and the establishments at the Rue de la Chaucer d'Antine, while Eve had bought one frock, a dream needless to say, and had also been nearly covered with jewelry by her betrothed. That afternoon, between the bet and the dinner, Cecil had made more than one mysterious disappearance. He finally came back with a diamond tiara for his dear journalist. You ridiculous thing, exclaimed the dear journalist, kissing him. It thus occurred that Eve, usually so severe of aspect, had more jewels than she could wear, while Kitty, accustomed to display, had practically nothing but her famous bracelet. Eve insisted on appalling the lot and dividing equally for the gala. Consequently the party presented a very pretty appearance as it ascended the celebrated grand staircase of the opera, wreathed tonight in flowers. Lionel Belmont, with Kitty on his arm, was in high spirits, uplifted, joyous. But Cecil himself seemed to be a little nervous, and this nervousness communicated itself to Eve Fincastle, or perhaps Eve was rather overpowered by her tiara. At the head of the staircase was a notice requesting everyone to be seated at 925, previous to the arrival of the President and the Imperial Guest of the Republic. The row of officials at the control took the expensive gilt card from Cecil, examined it, returned it, and bowed low with an intimation that he should turn to the right and climb two floors, and the party proceeded further into the interior of the great building. The immense corridors and foyers and stairs were crowded with a collection of the best-known people in Paris. It was a gathering of all the renowns. The garish, gorgeous au pairah seemed to be changed that night into something new and strange. Even those shabby old heredons, the box-openers, the ouvres, wore bows of red, white, and blue, and smiled effusively in expectation of tips inconceivably large. Exclaimed the box-opener who had taken charge of Cecil's party, as she unlocked the door of the box. And well might she exclaim, for the box, number 74, no possible error, was already occupied by a lady and two gentlemen who were talking rather loudly in French. Cecil undoubtedly turned pale, while Lionel Belmont laughed within his moustache. These people have made a mistake, Cecil was saying to the ouvres, when a mail-official in evening dress approached him with an air of importance. Pardon, monsieur, your monsieur, Cecil Thord. I am, said Cecil. Will you kindly follow me, monsieur, the director wishes to see you? You are expected evidently, said Lionel Belmont. The girls kept apart, as girls should in these crises between men. I have a ticket for this box, Cecil remarked to the official, and I wish first to take possession of it. It is precisely that point which, monsieur the director, wishes to discuss with monsieur, rejoined the official ineffably suave. He turned with a wonderful bow to the girls and added with that politeness of which the French alone have the secret. Perhaps in the meantime, these ladies would like to see the view of the Avenue de l'Opera from the balcony. The illuminations have begun, and the effect is suddenly charming. Cecil a bit his lip. Yes, he said, Belmont, take them. So, while Lionel Belmont escorted the girls to the balcony, there to discuss the startling situation, and to watch the imperial party drive up the resplendent, fairy-like and unique avenue, Cecil followed the official. He was guided along various passages and round unnumbered corners to the rear part of the colossal building. There in a sumptuous bureau, the official introduced him to a still higher official, the director, who had a decoration and a long white moustache. Monsieur said this latter, I am desolated to have to inform you that the minister of fine arts has withdrawn his original invitation for box number seventy-four tonight. I have received no intimation of the withdrawal, Cecil replied. No, because the original invitation was not issued to you, said the director, excited and nervous. The minister of fine arts instructs me to inform you that his invitation to meet the president and their imperial majesties cannot be bought and sold. But is it not notorious that many such invitations have been bought and sold? It is, unfortunately, too notorious. Here the director looked at his watch and rang a bell impatiently. Then why am I singled out? The director gazed blindly at Cecil. The reason, perhaps, is best known to yourself, said he, and he rang the bell again. I appear to incommode you. Cecil remarked, permit me to retire. Not at all, I assure you, said the director. On the contrary, I am a little agitated on account of the non-arrival of mademoiselle Malva. A minor functionary entered. She has come. No, monsieur le director. And it is nine-fifteen. Sapolisti, the functionary, departed. The invitation to box number seventy-four, preceded the director, commanding him so, was sold for two thousand francs. Allow me to hand you notes for the amount, dear monsieur. But I paid twenty-five thousand, said the Cecil, smiling. It is conceivable, but the minister can only concern himself with the original figure. You refuse the notes? Oh, by no means, said Cecil, accepting them. But I have brought here tonight three guests, including two ladies. Imagine my position. I imagine it, as the director responded, but will not deny that the minister is always the right to cancel an invitation. Seats ought to be sold as object to the contingency of that right being exercised. At that moment, still another official plunged into the room. She is not here yet, he sighed, as if in extremity. It is unfortunate, Cecil sympathetically put in. It is more than unfortunate, dear monsieur, said the director, gesticulating. It is unthinkable. The performance must begin at nine-thirty, and it must begin with the garden scene from Faust, in which madame Zell Malva takes margarit. Why not change the order? Cecil suggested. Impossible. There are only two other items. The first act of longroom with madame Feliz and the ballet Sylvia. We cannot condense with the ballet. No one ever heard of such a thing. And do you suppose that Feliz will sing before Malva? Not for millions, not for a throne. The etiquette of Sopranos is stricter than that, of course. Besides, tonight, we cannot have a German opera preceding a French one. Then the president and their majesties will have to wait a little till Malva arrives, Cecil said. Their majesties wait? Impossible. Impossible. The other official aghast. Two more officials entered, and the atmosphere of alarm, of being scotched, of being up a tree of incredible height. The atmosphere, which at that moment permeated the whole of the vast region behind the scenes of the Peret of Vara, seemed to rush with them into the bureau of the director and to concentrate itself there. Nine-twenty, and as she couldn't dress in less than fifteen minutes, you have sent to the Hotel de Louvre the director, questioned despairingly. Yes, Monsieur the director, she left there two hours ago. Cecil coughed. I could have told you as much. He remarked very distinctly. What? cried the director. You know mademoiselle Malva? She is among my intimate friends, said Cecil smoothly. Perhaps you know where she is. I have a most accurate idea, said Cecil. Where? I will tell you, when I am seated in my box with my friends, Cecil answered. Dear Monsieur, panted the director, tell us at once, I give you my word of honour that you shall have your box. Cecil bowed. Certainly, he said, I may remark that I had gathered information, which led me to anticipate this difficulty with the minister of fine arts. But to Malva, Malva, where is she? Be at ease. It is only nine-twenty-three, and mademoiselle Malva is less than three minutes away and ready dressed. I was observing that I had gathered information, which led me to anticipate this difficulty with the minister of fine arts, and accordingly I took measures to protect myself. There is no such thing as absolute arbitrary power did, director, even in a republic, and I have proved it. Mademoiselle Malva is in room number four-two-nine at the Grand Hotel across the road. Stay, she will not come without this note. He handed out a small, folded letter from his waist-skit pocket. Then he added, Dear Monsieur le director, you have just time to reach the state entrance, in order to welcome the presidential and imperial party. At nine-thirty, Cecil and his friends were ushered by a trinity of subservient officials into their box, which had been mysteriously emptied of its previous occupants. And at the same moment, the monarchs, with monarchical punctuality, accompanied by the president, entered the presidential box in the middle of the grand tier of the superb auditorium. The distinguished and dazzling audience rose to its feet, and the band played the National Anthem. Ew, fixed it up then. Belmont whispered under the cover of the National Anthem. He was beaten, after all. Oh, yes, says he so lightly. A trivial misconception. Nothing more. And I have made a little out of it too. Indeed. Much. No, not much. Two thousand francs. But you must remember that I have been less than half an hour in making them. The curtain rose on the garden scene from Faust. Four. My dear, said Eve, when a woman has been definitely linked with a man, either by betrothal or by marriage, there are moments, especially at the commencement, when she assumes an air and a tone of absolute exclusive possession of him. It is a wonderful trick, which no male can successfully imitate. Try how he will. One of these moments had arrived in the history of E. Finn Castle and her millionaire lover. They sat in a large, deserted public room, all gold, of the Grand Hotel. It was midnight, less a quarter, and they had just returned, somewhat excited and flushed, from the glories of the gala performances. During the latter part of the evening, Eve had been absent from Cecil's box for nearly half an hour. Kitty Sartorius and Lionel Belmont were conversing in an adjoining salon. Yes, said Cecil. Are you quite sure that you love me? Only one answer is possible to such a question. Cecil gave it. Oh, that is all very well. Eve pursued with equal gravity and charm. But it was really tremendously sudden, wasn't it? I can't think what you see in me, dearest. My dear Eve, Cecil observed, holding her hand. The best things, the most enduring things, very often occur suddenly. Say you love me? She persisted. So he said it, this time. Then her gravity deepened, though she smiled. You've given up all those schemes and things of yours, haven't you? She questioned. Absolutely, he replied. My dear, I'm so glad. I never could understand why. Listen, he said. What was I to do? I was rich. I was bored. I had no great attainments. I was interested in life and in the arts, but not desperately, not vitally. You may perhaps say I should have taken up philanthropy. Well, I'm not built that way. I can't help it, but I'm not a born philanthropist and the philanthropist without a gift for philanthropy usually does vastly more harm than good. I might have gone into business. Well, I should only have doubled my millions while boring myself all the time. Yet the instinct which I inherited from my father, the great American instinct to be a little cleverer and smarter than someone else, drove me to action. It was part of my character and one can't get away from one's character. So finally, I took to these rather original schemes, as you call them. They had the advantage of being exciting and sometimes dangerous, and though they were often profitable, they were not too profitable. In short, they amused me and gave me joy. They also gave me you. Eve smiled again, but without committing herself. But you have abandoned them now completely? She said. Oh, yes, he answered. Then what about this opera affair tonight? She sprang the question on him sharply. She did her best to look severe, but the endeavor ended with a laugh. I'm meant to tell you, he said, but how, how did you know? How did you guess? You forget that I am still a journalist, she replied, and still on the staff of my paper. I wish to interview Malva tonight for the journal and I did so. It was she who let out things. She thought I knew all about it, and when she saw that I didn't, she stopped and advised me mysteriously to consult you for details. It was the scandal at the Gala performance last autumn that gave me an action for making a corner in seats at the very next Gala performance that should ever occur in the pair as opera. Cecil began his confession. I knew that seats could be got direct from more or less minor officials at the Ministry of Fine Arts, and also that a large proportion of the people invited to these performances were prepared to sell their seats. You can't imagine how venal certain circles are in Paris. It just happened that the details and date of tonight's performance were announced on the day we arrived here. I could not resist the chance. Now you comprehend the sundry strange absences of mine during the week. I went to a reporter on the Echo du Paris whom I knew and who knows everybody, and we got out a list of the people likely to be invited and likely to be willing to sell their seats. We also opened negotiations at the Ministry. How on earth do these ideas occur to you? asked Eve. Now can I tell, Cecil answered, it is because they occur to me that I am I, you see. Well, in twenty-four hours my reporter and two of his friends had interviewed half the interviewable people in Paris, and the Minister of Fine Arts had sent out his invitations, and I had obtained the refusal of over three hundred seats at a total cost of about seventy-five thousand francs. Then I saw that my friend, the incomparable Malva, was staying at the Ritz and the keystone idea of the entire affair presented itself to me. I got her to offer to sing. Of course her rival Feliz could not be behind her in a patriotic desire to cement the friendliness of two great nations. The gala performance have blossomed into a terrific boom. We took a kind of office in the Rue de la Paix. We advertised very discreetly. Every evening, after bidding you good night, I saw my reporter and the lekkie and arranged the development of the campaign. In three days we had sold all our seats except one box which I kept for something like two hundred thousand francs. Then this afternoon you merely bought the box from yourself. Exactly my love! I had meant the surprise of getting a box to come a little later than it did, say, at dinner, but you and Belmont, between you, forced it on. And that is all? Not quite. The minions of the Minister of Fine Arts were extremely cross and they meant to revenge themselves on me by depriving me of my box at the last moment. However, I got wind of that and by the simplest possible arrangement with Malva I protected myself. The scheme, my last bachelor fling, Yves, had been a great success and the official world of Paris has been taught a lesson which may lead to excellent results. And you have cleared 125,000 francs? By no means. The profits of these undertakings are the least part of them. The expenses are heavy. I reckon the expenses will be nearly 40,000 francs. Then I must give Malva a necklace and that necklace must cost 25,000 francs. That leaves 60,000 clear, said Yves. Say, 62,000. Why? I was forgetting an extra 2,000 made this evening. And your other schemes? Yves continued her cross-examination. How much have they yielded? The Devonshire House scheme was a dead loss. My dear, why did you lead me to destroy that 50,000 pounds? Waste not, what not? There may come a day when we shall need that 50,000 pounds and then— Don't be funny, said Yves. I am serious. Very serious. Well, Oastend and Mr. Rainshaw yielded 21,000 pounds net. Bruges and the bracelet yielded 9,500 francs. Algiers and Biscara resulted in a loss of— Never mind the losses, Yves, I've interrupted. Are there any more gains? Yes, a few. At Rome last year I somehow managed to clear 50,000 francs. Then there was an episode at the chancelerie at Berlin and tell me the total gains. My love, said Yves, the gross gains. Cecil consulted a pocketbook. A trifle he answered between 38,000 and 40,000 pounds. My dear Cecil, the girl said, Call it 40,000, a million francs, and give me a check. Do you mind? Shall be charmed, my darling. And when we get to London, Yves finished, I will hand it over to the hospitals anonymously. He paused, gazed at her, and kissed her. Then Kitty Sartorius entered a marvelous vision with Belmod in her wake. Kitty glanced hesitatingly at the massive and good-humoured Lionel. The fact is, said Kitty, and paused. We are engaged, Lionel. You aren't surprised? Our warmest congratulations, Cecil observed. No, we can't truthfully say that we are staggered. It is in the secret nature of things that a leading lady must marry your manager, a universal law that may not be transgressed. Moreover, said Yves, later, in Cecil's private ear, as they were separating for the night, we might have guessed much earlier. The aptical managers don't go scattering five hundred pound bracelets all over the place and merely for business reasons. But he only scattered one, my dear, Cecil murmured. Yes, well, that's what I mean.