“Yes. But women of her class invariably come to a bad end,” remarked the widow. “How pleased I am, Dorise, that you never spoke to her. She’s a most dreadful person, they say.”
“Well, she evidently knows how to win money at the tables, mother,” said the girl, lifting her clear blue eyes to those of her lover.
“Yes. But I wonder what the scandal is all about?” said the widow of the great engineer.
“Oh! don’t trouble to inquire Lady Ranscomb,” Hugh hastened to remark. “One hears scandal on every hand in Monte Carlo.”
“Yes. I suppose so,” replied the elder woman, and then the subject was dropped.
So the ugly affair was being rumoured. It caused Hugh a good deal of apprehension, for he feared that his name would be associated with that of the mysterious Mademoiselle. Evidently one or other of the servants at the Villa Amette had been indiscreet.
At that moment, in his private room at the bureau of police down in Monaco, Superintendent Ogier was carefully perusing a dossier of official papers which had been brought to him by the archivist.
Between his thin lips was a long, thin, Swiss cigar—his favorite smoke—and with his gold-rimmed pince-nez poised upon his aquiline nose he was reading a document which would certainly have been of considerable interest to Hugh Henfrey and his friend Walter Brock could they have seen it.
Upon the pale yellow paper were many lines of typewriting in French—a carbon copy evidently.
It was headed: “Republique Francaise. Department of Herault. Prefecture of Police. Bureau of the Director of Police. Reference Number 20197.B.,” and was dated nearly a year before.