We had strolled up the long ramp from the Condamine and through the gateway leading to the old bastions, chiefly to see whether they were provided with guns; we were relieved to find they were not—mere peaceable flower-walks, in fact, and already blossoming with geranium.
From the unfinished cathedral behind us in the old town, crushed and huddled together like a Yorkshire fishing village, came the rolling throb of the heavy mid-day bell; up from the harbor far below, the smart bugle-call of a French corvette. Little figures in white ran about the deck, and the tricolor fluttered from the peak. Close alongside her lay an American yacht, the Saratoga, belonging to Mr. Van Ginkel, a former friend of Mr. Brentin’s. Both the vessels caused us a considerable amount of uneasiness; the corvette carried guns, the Saratoga was noted for her speed. It was quite uncertain how long they might continue to grace the harbor. One could easily blow us out of the water; the other could just as easily give us an hour’s start, take fifty men on board, pursue, overhaul, and bring us back, flushed though in other respects we might be with victory.
We had already been three days in Monte Carlo, and so far there had been no sign of their departure. “If the worst comes,” said Mr. Brentin, “we must take Van Ginkel into our confidence and indooce him to take a trip over to San Remo on the night of our attempt. The mischief is, I am so little of his acquaintance now I hesitate to ask so great a favor.”
“What sort of man is he?” I asked.
“Well, sir, we were classmates at Harvard in ’60. Since then, though full of good-will, we have scarcely met. I understand, however, he has some stomach trouble, and is ay considerable invalid.”
“Married?”
“Di-vorced. Mrs. Van Ginkel is now the Princess Danleno, of Rome, a widow of large wealth. She owns the Villa Camellia at Cannes, and is over here constantly, in the season, they tell me. She plays heavily on a highly ingenious and complicated system of her own, which costs her about as much as the Saratoga costs her former husband.”
We had taken up our abode at the “Hôtel Monopôle”—a hotel recommended to us by Mr. Bailey Thompson, by-the-way, for purposes of his own. It is a quiet little house, up the hill, and not far from the “Victoria”; there we had safely arrived three days before—Parsons, Brentin, Bob Hines, and I. Forsyth, Masters, my sister Mrs. Rivers, and Miss Rybot had embarked in the Amaranth from Portsmouth a few days before we left London, and were now about due at Monte Carlo. My brother-in-law, the publisher, had made no difficulty to my sister’s joining the expedition, as to the true object of which he of course knew nothing; in fact, he was delighted she could get a holiday on the Riviera so cheaply. It was understood she was not to play, and not to spend more than £10 en route. I heard afterwards that Paternoster Row simply ran with his brag. “I’m a bachelor just at present. My wife’s yachting in the Mediterranean with some rich Americans. Very hospitable people; they wanted me to come, but really, just now—” etc., etc.
We had spent our first three days, not unprofitably, in prospecting the place. We reached Monte Carlo in the afternoon, and at once drove up to the hotel. Almost the first thing we saw was a large board over a little house on the hillside, close by the Crédit Lyonnais, with “Avances sur bijoux” on it.
Brentin chuckled. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “we sha’n’t play the game quite so low down as that, eh? It will be either neck or nothing with us.”