The Sign of the Seven Sins
hope to gain? It is impossible.”
I stood watching the play. As far as I could see it was perfectly fair,
but some of the players, keen-faced men, were evidently practised
card-sharpers, swindlers, or men who lived on their wits. The amount
of money constantly changing hands surprised me. As I stood there one
young man, scarcely more than a lad, lost five thousand francs with the
most perfect sang-froid. The women present were none of them young, but
were mostly elderly and ugly, of that stamp so eternally prominent in
the Principality of Monaco. The woman, when she turns gambler, always
loses her personal beauty. It may be the vitiated atmosphere in which
she exists, it may be the constant tension of the nerves, or it may,
perchance, be the unceasing, all-consuming avarice, which I know not.
All I am certain of is that no woman can play and at the same time
remain fresh, youthful, and interesting.
Until that moment I had remained there unnoticed in the excited crowd,
for I had turned my back upon Madame Fournereau, lest she should
recognize in me the woman whom Ernest had undoubtedly pointed out to
her either in the Rooms, in Ciro’s, or elsewhere.
But as I advanced to pass back to the adjoining room, where I
considered there would be less risk of recognition, the long green
curtains suddenly opened and Ernest Cameron stood before me.
CHAPTER XIX
PIECES TOGETHER THE PUZZLE....
I stepped back quickly, while he, with eyes fixed upon that fair-haired
woman, who seemed the centre of a miniature court, failed to notice me.
Upon his face was a dark, anxious look, an expression such as I had
never seen there before. Perhaps he was jealous of the attentions shown
by the dozen or so of men who were chatting and laughing with her.
Her appearance was scarcely that of the keeper of an illicit
gambling-house. One would have expected to find some fine, dashing,
handsome woman in a striking gown and profuse display of jewelry.
On the contrary, she was quietly dressed in a pretty, graceful gown
of dove-gray cashmere, the bodice cut low and trimmed with silver
passementerie, a frock which certainly well became her rather tame
style of beauty. Her only ornament was a small half-moon of diamonds in
her hair.
Ernest, on entering, appeared to recognize the situation at a glance,
and with his back turned to her stood watching the baccarat just as
I had feigned to watch. Through the great mirror before him, however,
he could note all her actions. She was laughing immoderately at some
remark made by one of her companions, and I noticed how Ernest’s
face went pale with suppressed anger. How haggard, how thin, how
blanched, nervous, and ill he looked! Usually so smart in attire, his
dress-clothes seemed to hang upon him, his cravat was carelessly tied,
and in place of the diamond solitaire I had bought at Tiffany’s for him
in the early days of our acquaintance,--which he had still worn when we
met at Monte Carlo,--there was only a common, plain pearl stud, costing
perhaps ten centimes. Alas! he had sadly changed. His was, indeed, the
figure of a man haunted by the ever-present shadow of his crime.
Curious, I thought, that he did not approach her, but the reason for
this became plain ere long. I had returned to the adjoining room and
was again watching the roulette, when she brushed past me on her way
out into the corridor, from which led off several other rooms, and
suddenly I heard his well-known voice utter her name in a hoarse
whisper,--
“Julie!”
She stopped, and recognizing him for the first time, gasped,--
“Ernest! You here?”
“Yes,” he responded. “I told you that we should meet, and I have found
you, you see. I must speak to you alone.”
“Impossible,” she responded. “To-morrow.”
“No--to-night--now. What I have to say admits of no delay,” and
he strode resolutely at her side, while she, her face betraying
displeasure at the encounter, unwillingly went forth into the corridor.
“Well?” I heard her exclaim in impatience. “And what is it you have to
say to me? I thought when we parted it was not to meet again.”
“You hoped so, you mean,” he answered hardly. “Come into one of these
rooms where we may be alone. Someone may overhear if we remain here.”
“And is it so strictly confidential, then?”
“Yes,” he answered, “it is.” Then, with great reluctance and
impatience, she opened a door behind them and they passed into what
appeared to be her own petit-salon.
Again the fire of jealousy consumed me, and without thought of the
consequences of my act, I went straightway to the door and entering
faced them.
As I entered Ernest turned quickly, then stood rigid and amazed.
“Carmela!” he gasped. “How came you here--to this place?”
“How I came here matters not,” I answered in a hard tone. “It is
sufficient for you to know that I have entered here to demand an
explanation from you and this woman, your accomplice.”
“What do you mean?” cried his companion in her broken English. “What do
you mean by accomplice?”
“I refer to the murder of Reginald Thorne,” I said, as quietly as I was
able.
“The murder of Monsieur Thorne,” repeated the woman. “And what have I
to do, pray, with the death of that gentleman, whoever he may be?”
Ernest glanced at me strangely, then addressing her in a firm voice
said,--
“The woman who murdered him was yourself--Julie Fournereau.”
I stood dumfounded. Was it possible that he intended to endeavor to fix
the guilt upon her, even though I knew the truth by the admission I
had overheard?
“What!” she shrieked in fierce anger, speaking in French. “You have
sought me here to charge me with the murder?--to bring against me a
false accusation? It is a lie! You know that I am innocent.”
“That point, madame, must be decided by a judge,” he answered with
marvellous coolness.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand!” she exclaimed with a slight
quiver in her voice which betrayed a sudden fear.
“I mean that during the months which have elapsed since the murder
of my friend Thorne at Nice I have been engaged in tracing the
assassin--or, to put it plainly, in tracing you.”
I stood there utterly astounded. If his words were true, why had he
been concealed on board the Vispera in order to avoid arrest?
She laughed, instantly assuming an attitude of defiance.
“Bah!” she said. “You bring me here into this room to make this absurd
and unfounded charge. You dare not say it before my friends. They would
beat you like the hound you are.”
His cheeks were pale, but there was a fierce, determined expression
upon his countenance. The woman whom I had believed he loved was, it
seemed, his bitterest enemy.
“I have no wish whatever to bring upon you any greater exposure or
disgrace than that which must inevitably come,” he said coolly. “For
months I have been awaiting this opportunity, and by the cipher
fortunately discovered your return. I was then enabled to give the
police some highly interesting information.”
“The police!” she gasped, her face instantly blanched to the lips. “You
have told them?”
“Yes,” he responded, gazing steadily upon her, “I have told them.”
“Then let me pass,” she said hoarsely, making towards the door. But in
a moment he had barred her passage, and raising a small whistle quickly
to his lips blew it shrilly.
“So this is your revenge!” cried the miserable woman, turning upon him
with a fierce, murderous light in her eyes. Yet ere the words had left
her mouth there were sounds of scuffling and shouting, a smashing of
glass, and loud imprecations. The whistle had raised the alarm, and the
police had entered the place, barring the egress of the players.
Outside in the corridor there were several fierce scrimmages, but next
instant the door opened and there entered three detectives, of whom
one was the wizen-faced little man who had betrayed such an interest
in myself when at the Grand Café, accompanied by old Mr. Keppel and
the woman who had been my travelling-companion in the wagon-lit.
Certainly the arrangements made by the police to raid the place had
been elaborately prepared, for at the signal given by Ernest the coup
was complete, and the players, nearly all of whom were persons known as
criminals, fell back entrapped and dismayed.
The old millionaire and his companion were as astounded at finding me
present as Ernest had been. But there was no time at that exciting
moment for explanations. The plan had apparently been arranged for the
arrest of the pale, white-faced woman now trembling before us.
“I tell you it’s a lie!” she cried hoarsely. “I did not kill him!”
But Ernest, turning to the shabby little man, said,--
“I demand the arrest of that woman, Julie Fournereau, for the murder of
Reginald Thorne at the Grand Hotel in Nice.”
“You know her,” inquired the detective, “and you have evidence to
justify the arrest?”
“I have evidence that she committed the murder--that the sixty thousand
francs stolen from the dead man’s pockets were in her possession on the
following morning, and, further, that on the night on which the murder
was committed she was staying under another name at the same hotel
wherein Mr. Thorne was found dead.”
“And the witnesses?”
“They are already in Paris, awaiting to be called to give evidence.”
A dead silence fell, and we looked at one another.
The wretched woman who had so suddenly been denounced by the man with
whom she had been so friendly at Monte Carlo was standing in the centre
of the room, swaying to and fro, supporting herself by clutching
the edge of the small table. Her white lips trembled, but no word
escaped them. She seemed rendered speechless by the suddenness of the
overwhelming charge.
The detective’s hard voice broke the silence.
“Julie Fournereau,” he said, advancing a few steps towards her, “in the
name of the law I arrest you for the murder of Reginald Thorne at Nice.”
“I am innocent!” she cried hoarsely, her haggard eyes glaring at us
with a hunted look in them. “I tell you I am innocent!”
“Listen,” said Ernest in a firm tone, although there was a slight catch
in his voice which told how excited he was. “The reasons which have led
me to this step are briefly these. Last December I crossed from New
York to Havre, and went south to spend the winter at Monte Carlo. I
stayed at the Métropole, and amid the cosmopolitan crowd staying there
met the woman before you. One day there arrived at the same hotel from
Paris my friend, Reginald Thorne, whom I knew well in New York, but
who had lived here in Paris for the past year. We were about together
during the day, and in the Rooms that evening he encountered me walking
beside this woman Fournereau. That same night he came to my room,
and in confidence related me a story which at the moment I regarded
as somewhat exaggerated, namely, how he had been induced to frequent
a certain gaming-house in Paris where he had lost almost everything
he possessed, and how he had ultimately discovered that an elaborate
system of sharping had been practised upon him by this woman and a male
accomplice. That woman, he told me, had left Paris suddenly just at the
moment when he discovered the truth, and he had encountered her in the
Rooms with me--her name was Julie Fournereau.”
I glanced at the wretched woman before us. Her wild eyes were fixed
upon the carpet, her fingers were twitching with intense agitation, her
breath came and went in short, quick gasps. Ernest in his exposure was,
indeed, merciless.
“Had she seen him in the Rooms?” I inquired.
“Yes,” he answered. “We had come face to face. He told me that,
having been robbed of nearly all he possessed, he was determined to
give information against her. She was, he told me, an associate of
bad characters in Paris, and urged me to cut her acquaintance. His