ENTER MR. BAILEY THOMPSON—VAN GINKEL STANDS BY US—WE SHOW THOMPSON ROUND AND EXPLAIN DETAILS—TEDDY PARSONS’S ALARM

The Bailey Thompson problem confronted us in propri person that very same afternoon, the Thursday, at about half-past four, when, as we were some of us sitting outside the CafÉ de Paris at tea, I saw him strolling round the central flower-beds in front of the rooms. He wore one of the new soft straw hats, a black frock-coat, tan shoes, and the invariable dog-skin gloves, and over his arm he carried a plaid shawl. In short, he looked like what he was, Scotland Yard en voyage.

I pointed him out to Brentin, who immediately jumped up, crossed the road, and greeted him with effusion. Then he brought him over and introduced him to our party, among whom, luckily enough, was seated Mr. Van Ginkel.

Now I don’t want to say anything uncivil in print about a gentleman who rendered us later a service so undeniable, and, indeed, priceless; but I cannot help observing that Van Ginkel, on the whole, was one of the dreariest personalities I ever came in touch with.

He was about Brentin’s age, fifty-four or so, but he appeared years older; his hair and beard were almost white, and his face was so lined, the flesh appeared folded, almost like linen. He had some digestive troubles that kept him to a milk diet, and he would sit in entire silence looking straight ahead of him, searching, as it were, for the point of time when he should be able to eat meat once more.

Brentin had boarded the Saratoga early that morning on its return, and given a full account of our scheme and its difficulties. Van Ginkel had listened in complete silence; and when Brentin had told him of Bailey Thompson, and our earnest desire to get him out of the way, ending by asking him to be so friendly as to take him on board and keep him there till we had finished, Van Ginkel had just remarked, “Why, certainly!” and relapsed into silence again.

“He has very much altered,” Brentin had whispered, after presenting me; when Van Ginkel shook me by the hand, said “Mr. Vincent Blacker,” in the American manner, and was further entirely dumb. “He was the liveliest freshman of my class and the terror of the Boston young ladies, especially when he was full. As, of course, you know from his name, he is one of the oldest families of Noo York State.”

“Yes,” I replied, “and he looks it.”

Bailey Thompson sat with us for some little time outside the “CafÉ de Paris,” and made himself uncommonly agreeable, according to his Scotland Yard lights. He told us, the hypocrite, he usually came to Monte Carlo at this time of the year, and usually stayed at the “Monte Carlo Hotel,” just where the road begins to descend to the Condamine, once Madame Blanc’s villa.

Where were we? Oh! some of us were at the “MonopÔle” and some on board the yacht. Really? Why, the “MonopÔle” was the hotel he had recommended us, wasn’t it? He hoped we found it fairly quiet and comfortable, and not too dear, did the arch-hypocrite!

When my sister rose to go back to the rooms and look after Miss Rybot, Van Ginkel roused himself to ask her to lunch with him the next day, Friday, on board the Saratoga, and go for a sail afterwards to Bordighera. He managed the affair like an artist, for he didn’t immediately include Bailey Thompson in the invitation, as though he knew too little of him just for the present. It was not till later, as we strolled down to the Condamine—he, Thompson, Brentin, and I—that he asked us to come on board the yacht and see over it, and not till finally as we were leaving that (as though reminding himself he must not be impolite) he begged the detective to be of the party, if he had no other engagement of the kind.

Thompson—simple soul!—was enchanted to accept, and, as we went back on shore in the boat, went off into raptures at the beauty of the yacht and the politeness of the owner in asking him on so short an acquaintance.

As we three strolled up the hill, Brentin, with the most natural air of trust, at once launched out on the subject of our plan.

“Well, here we are, sir, you see,” he said; “everything is in train. We approach the hour.”

“Here am I, too,” smiled the cool little man. “I told you I should most likely be over.”

“We are real glad to see you.”

“And you really mean it, now you’re on the spot and can measure some of the difficulties for yourselves?”

“So much so that we have decided for Saturday night,” was Brentin’s light and untruthful reply. “We have observed the rooms are at their fullest then.”

“Where are the rest of your party—the other gentlemen I saw at ‘The French Horn?’”

“Mr. Hines is gambling, having unfortunately developed tastes in that direction. Mr. Masters is in attendance on a lady friend—”

“The ladies of your party know nothing of your intentions, I presume?” said Thompson.

“Nothing, sir; nothing. For them it is a mere party of pleasure all the time. Then Mr. Forsyth is playing that fool-game, tennis, with his late colonel, behind the “HÔtel de Paris,” and Mr. Parsons is somewhere way off on the Mentone Road, choking himself with dust on ay loaned bicycle.”

“That’s the six of you. But now you have seen everything, do you really think six will be enough?”

“Sir,” said Brentin, “six stalwarts of our crew have been confided in. They will be furnished with linen bags to collect the boodle, directly the tables are cleared of the croupiers and gamblers by us; in fact, acting on your kind hint, longshore suits have been provided them in which they have already rehearsed.”

“Not in the rooms?”

“Sir, they were there mid-day just before you came, and their behavior was as scroopulous as the late Lord Nelson’s.”

“Was there any difficulty made about their cards?”

“Why, none whatever. They went in in pairs, and each told a different lie: one pair were staying at the ‘MetropÔle,’ another at the ‘de Paris,’ and another at the ‘S. James.’ They were well coached and they are brainy fellows. They were informed they must behave like ornaments of high-toned society, and not expectorate on the floor; and they paraded in couples, ejaculating Haw, demmy!”

“Really!” murmured Bailey Thompson, “these people deserve to be raided. And that is your yacht, I suppose, lying off there—the Amaranth, isn’t it?”

“That is the Amaranth, sir. At 9.30 to-morrow—I should say Saturday!—Saturday night, she will have orders to get as close up to the shore as quickly as she can. If you will step this way, sir, down on to the terrace here, we will have pleasure in showing you the spot marked out by Nature and Providence for our retreat.”

When we showed him the board with dÉfense d’entrÉe au public on it, the steps leading down on to the railway line, the broken piece of embankment, so few feet above the shore, Bailey Thompson gave a low whistle.

“Lord! how simple it is,” he murmured. “Now you’d think people would take better care than that of property of such enormous value, wouldn’t you?”

“Sir,” said Mr. Brentin, with magisterial emphasis, “in the simplicity of the idea lies its grandeur. It is significant of poor human nature to make difficulties for themselves; they neglect what lies at their feet, ready to be carted away for the trouble. Everybody has heard of the man who stood on your London Bridge offering sovereigns for a penny apiece, and doing no trade in them; while we all know the Boer children played for years with large diamonds, believing them to be white pebbles. Sir, it’s the same thing here precisely, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I need hardly say, of course, that here there’s a good deal of risk,” said Thompson. “You have naturally all of you thought well over that?”

“We have thought well over everything. If you care to attend the rooms on Saturday—Saturday night—at about ten, you will see for yourself how complete in every respect our thought has been. And you will be amused, I fancy, at the little scene you will witness, in which I will undertake, Mr. Bailey Thompson, you shall be neither hurt nor hustled,” added Mr. Brentin, considerately.

As we strolled back with Thompson to his hotel, I could, having some sort of gift that way, see quite well what was passing in his mind.

After all, he said to himself, he was an English detective; why should he interfere to protect a French company who couldn’t look after themselves? Why, too, should he spoil gentlemen’s sport? They didn’t want the money for themselves; they wanted it (as we had always been careful to explain) for hospitals and good works generally. It wasn’t as if we were vulgar cracksmen, long firm swindlers, gentry he had been brought up to struggle with and defeat all his life. Hang it all! we were gentlemen and had treated him well, quite as one of ourselves. We had been frank and above-board, and had told him everything from the first.

I could see it was on the tip of his tongue to blurt out: “Mr. Brentin and Mr. Blacker! you have been quite frank with me, and, at any cost, I will be quite frank with you. I am a detective from Scotland Yard, and unless you promise me to give up this scheme of yours—which, as Heaven shall judge me, will, I believe, be successful!—it will be my unpleasant duty to warn the police here and have you all arrested.”

But there lay the difficulty, eh? We could scarcely be arrested for an idea, without overt act of any kind. Wouldn’t it be a complete answer if we declared the whole thing a practical joke, and turned the tables by laughing at him for being so simple as to believe it? No, if we were to be successfully caught, we must be caught in the act, that was clear.

And then I felt the detective was too strong in him: the desire for the reward, the fame of such a capture; his professional pride, in short, bulked too large before him to be ignored.

No! he said to himself, if we would go on with it, why we must take the consequences. For his part, he would go to the Principality police, arm a couple of dozen of them, and have them ready in the rooms. It would be a simple matter, for hadn’t we always told him our revolvers would not be loaded?

When, after a long silence, he ended by shrugging his shoulders, I was as well aware of his resolve as though he had spoken it out loud.

We left him at the door of his hotel, undertaking to meet him in the rooms at nine and show him every detail of our plan, so that we might have the benefit of his final advice on any possible weak points.

“There is, of course, the chance,” I observed to Brentin, “of his going off at once to the police, and getting them to be present on Friday night as well, ex majori cautelÂ.”

“Oh, he won’t do that! We’ve told him no lies at present.”

“None at any rate that he has discovered.”

“The same thing!—and if we say Saturday, he probably believes we mean it. He won’t go to the police till the very last moment; he wouldn’t go then if only there were any way of managing the business by himself.”

“And our ultimate arrest, now that he knows us all?”

“Why, sir, that will be the affair of the authorities here; that is, of course, the chief risk we have now to run. My own notion, however, always has been that, if only for fear of advertising our success too widely, and suggesting the scheme to others, the Casino Company will put up with their loss, just as though we had legitimately won the boodle at play.”

“Let us hope so!” I said, and parted from him with a warm grasp of the hand.

Then I went down to the Condamine, and signalled for the Amaranth boat. We had left Lucy on board all day, for fear of her running up against Bailey Thompson on shore, and so arousing his suspicions by her presence. As for old Crage’s finding means to let him know what, in a fit of temper, he had blurted out, that I didn’t think altogether likely; in the first place, he would probably be afraid; and in the second, he would believe Lucy had by this time warned us and the whole affair was off. So I spent a very happy hour with dear Lucy on board, finding her sewing in a very bewitching tea-gown of my sister’s, and, going back to the hotel, discovered Teddy outside in a considerable state of alarm and excitement. He had just seen Thompson leaving the hotel, parting from Mrs. Wingham at the door.

“Oh, Vincent!” he cried, “it’s not too late; we’d better hook it, we had really!”—and other terrified absurdities—the fact being, no doubt, that Thompson had merely come up to see the old lady and find out from her whether she knew if Saturday really was the day, or if we were by any chance trying to put him off the scent.

I calmed Teddy with the assurance all was going on perfectly well, and that he had only to keep calm to do himself and his militia training full justice.

“Hang it all!” I said to him, “you are as nearly as possible a British officer; do, for goodness’ sake, try and behave like one.”

But he never did, from first to last; and for that, painful as it is, I feel myself obliged publicly to censure him here, in print.