It was five o’clock before we started to go down to the Casino. We set out in solemn silence, down the steep and glaring white road, past the “Victoria” and the chemist’s. At the head of the gaudy, painted gardens, that look like the supreme effort of a modiste, we came in full view of the rooms. There we paused, choked, the most sensitive of us, by our emotions.
In front there was a long strip of gay flower-beds and white pebble paths, flanked by rows of California palms. To my excited fancy they were the planted feather brooms of valets-de-place—moral valets-de-place who had set out to sweep the place clean but had never had the courage to go further. To the right of us were the hotels—the “St. James’s” and the “De Paris”; to the left, the Casino gardens again, and the shallow pools where the frogs croak so dolorously at nightfall. They are, I believe (for I am a Pythagorean), the souls of ruined gamblers, still croaking out their quatre premier, their dix-quinze, their douze dernier.
“Peace, batrachians!” I cried to them one evening, in the exalted mood that now became common to me. “Be still, hoarse souls! push no more shadowy stakes upon a board of shadows with your webbed fingers. We are here to avenge ye!”
Then we went on down to the front of the rooms. There, unable to find a seat, we leaned against a lamp-post and gloated on the fantastic building that held our future possessions. On our left was the Café de Paris, overflowing with consommateurs at little tables under the awning; from the swirling whirlpool of noise made by the Hungarian band issued a maimed but recognizable English comic air. The sun was just setting in a matchless sky of Eton blue; the breeze had dropped, and the dingy Monaco flag over the Casino hung inert.
“Soldiers!” whispered Teddy, giving me a frightened nudge.
They were, apparently, a couple of officers of the prince’s army, strolling round, smoking cheap cigars; they carried no side arms, and were of no particular physique. “Besides,” I said, “they are not allowed to enter the rooms. Don’t be so nervous, Teddy.”
“Let us go down on to the terrace,” murmured Brentin, “and view the place from the back. We must see how close we can get the yacht up!”
So we went to the right, past the jingling omnibus crawling up from the Condamine, down the steps, and on to the terrace facing the sea. We passed the firemen Bailey Thompson told us we should find there, five or six of them; one at every twenty paces, in uniform, with an odd sort of gymnastic belt on. They were stationed at the back, too, and clearly formed a complete protection against any possible bomb-throwing.
“There are too many of those men,” observed Brentin, irritably. “We shall have to do something to draw them off on our great night or they’ll get in the way.”
Then we went and looked over the balustrade of the terrace. Below us ran the railway from Monaco; on the other side of the line, connected by an iron bridge with the Casino terrace, was the pigeon-shooting club-house and grounds. They formed a sort of bastion, jutting out into the sea; the pale, wintry grass was still marked with the traps of last year.