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While the express roared through its first stage to Moret, I chatted with Rudolph and Blumenfeld after the latter's wife had retired, and as we sat in the dim light of the corridor of the sleeping-car smoking cigarettes, all seemed absolutely normal. Suddenly from the end compartment of the car Duperré came forth.
Several times in the corridor I met the financier and his wife with their bony-faced valet, and, of course, I made myself polite and engaging to Mrs. Blumenfeld.
Blumenfeld was much disappointed, but his guest pleaded that he had some very important business to transact with his agent who was over from New York and desired to meet him at once. Therefore to Lola's complete satisfaction the trunks were packed and put into the car, and immediately after luncheon we set forth to Overstow.
"I had no idea that you were going south!" laughed Rayne happily as Lola, warmly dressed in furs, stood on deck chatting with Mrs. Blumenfeld and watching the boat casting off from the quay. "It will be most delightful to travel together," he went on. "Lola stays in Paris and we go on to the Riviera. I suppose you've got your sleeping berths from Paris to-night?"
That Edward Blumenfeld, its owner, was fabulously wealthy everyone in the City of London knew, for his name was one to conjure with in high finance, and though the dingy offices of Blumenfeld and Hannan in Old Broad Street were the reverse of imposing, yet the financial influence of the great house often made itself felt upon the Bourses of Paris, Brussels and Rome.
At Marseilles there was still more excitement and inquiry, but at last we moved off to Toulon and along the beautiful Côte d'Azur, with its grey-green olives and glimpses of sapphire sea. We were passing along by the seashore, when I ventured to slip into Duperré's compartment, old Blumenfeld and his wife being then in the luncheon-car adjoining. I inquired in a whisper what had happened.
When you see the three lights throw out what Vincent gives to you. Understand?" I now saw the plot. They had knowledge that old Blumenfeld was travelling with a quantity of negotiable securities which he intended to hand to his agent at Marseilles on his way to Cannes, and they meant to relieve him of them!
"The fan?" "Precisely the fan. I studied it from tip to tip, as our bird-shooting friends say, and I, at last, discovered more than a picture. You know I am an Orientalist. When I was at Johns Hopkins University I attended the classes of the erudite Blumenfeld, and what you can't learn from him need I say any more?
Yet the thin-faced valet who had brought up my early cup of tea when we had stayed at Bradbourne continually hovered about his master. Later, as the express was tearing on at increased speed, Mr. Blumenfeld retired to his compartment, with his wife sleeping in the adjoining one, and within half an hour Rayne beckoned me into his compartment at the farther end, where we were joined by Duperré.
It was only when we arrived in Marseilles that the bewildered conductor, a most reliable servant of the wagon-lit company, recovered from his lethargy and could not in the least account for his long heavy sleep. He had, it appeared, smelt the same pleasant perfume of roses as Mr. Blumenfeld.
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