Continuing still further the road swung into a great curve high above Monaco, disclosing both the Rock and the sweet serenity of the sea. Terrace upon terrace of olive trees rose to the base of the mountain.
Hugh was walking along this road one morning, admiring the beauty that surrounded him, when suddenly he glanced down. In the dust at his feet, fresh and glistening, was a crimson patch. “Curious,” he thought; “those marks look as if a heavy body had fallen here.” He examined the stone-wall and found a slight spatter of blood. A little further on, he picked up something that made him look very thoughtful, a bit of bony fibre, to which adhered a few dark hairs. Strange! He looked downwards, and saw that he stood just above the Cemetery of Monaco. He found the path and slowly descended.
He searched for some time for the suicide’s section of the cemetery which he had been told was cunningly concealed. A great high wall separated the lower from the upper graveyard, and built half the way up the face of it, was another wall, the space between the two forming a narrow shelf. There was no access to this shelf except through a broken place in the balustrade of the stairway just large enough to pass a coffin. As he looked down from the upper wall, Hugh saw that the whole length of the shelf was closely packed with nameless graves. In one place where the earth had been thrown carelessly up a rusty shovel leaned against the wall. The air had the smell of a charnel pit.
He climbed the hill again. The place where he had seen the blood was now quite clean. There was no trace of any disturbance. Some one had come in his absence and tidied things up. The sky had suddenly grown grey, grey too and sinister the mountains. He had an uneasy sense that somewhere in the olive trees unseen eyes were watching him; that he was being spied on and shadowed.
5.
Another day when he took this solitary walk, twilight was gathering and the roofs of the Condamine were softened to a coral mist. The space between the rock of Monaco and the Tête du Chien was filled with sunset after-glow as a cup is filled with wine. The olive trees lately twinkling in the sunshine were now mysteriously still.
When Hugh came to the highest point overlooking the town, he stopped to rest. The rock of Monaco rose like a monster from the sea, and was as dim and silent as a tomb. He could distinguish the courtyard of the Palace, greyly alight, and a black stencilling of windows. A solitary lamp revealed a turret and an ancient archway, all else was gloom. In its austere mediæval strength the rock seemed the abode of mystery and silence.
And Monte Carlo! Looking towards it Hugh could see nothing but light. The mountains were pricked with patterns of light, the great hotels were packed with light. And all seemed to concentrate in one dazzling centre, the source from which this luxury of light flowed,—the Casino.
Then he noticed that on a bench near him was a stooping figure. To his surprise he recognized it as that of Professor Durand. The old man was clutching in his hands a number of the Revue of Monte Carlo with its columns of permanencies.
“What a pity!” thought Hugh. “So fine, so venerable a head bent over those wretched figures. This man who might be taken for a preacher, a prophet,—a slave to this vulgar vice, puzzling over systems, trying to outwit the Goddess Chance. Le calcul peut vaincre le jeu ... that is the lying phrase that lures them. Fools!”