At the Villa Rose

A.E.W. Mason
AT THE VILLA ROSE
A.E.W. Mason

CONTENTS
I. SUMMER LIGHTNING
II. A CRY FOR HELP
III. PERRICHET'S STORY
IV. AT THE VILLA
V. IN THE SALON
VI. HELENE VAUQUIER'S EVIDENCE
VII. A STARTLING DISCOVERY
VIII. THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP
IX. MME. DAUVRAY'S MOTOR-CAR
X. NEWS FROM GENEVA
XI. THE UNOPENED LETTER
XII. THE ALUMINIUM FLASK
XIII. IN THE HOUSE AT GENEVA
XIV. MR. RICARDO IS BEWILDERED
XV. CELIA'S STORY

XVI. THE FIRST MOVE
XVII. THE AFTERNOON OF TUESDAY
XVIII. THE SEANCE
XIX. HELENS EXPLAINS
XX. THE GENEVA ROAD
XXI. HANAUD EXPLAINS

AT THE VILLA ROSE
CHAPTER I
SUMMER LIGHTNING
It was Mr. Ricardo's habit as soon as the second week of August came
round to travel to Aix-les-Bains, in Savoy, where for five or six weeks
he lived pleasantly. He pretended to take the waters in the morning, he
went for a ride in his motor-car in the afternoon, he dined at the Cercle
in the evening, and spent an hour or two afterwards in the
baccarat-rooms at the Villa des Fleurs. An enviable, smooth life
without a doubt, and it is certain that his acquaintances envied him. At
the same time, however, they laughed at him and, alas with some
justice; for he was an exaggerated person. He was to be construed in
the comparative. Everything in his life was a trifle overdone, from the
fastidious arrangement of his neckties to the feminine nicety of his little
dinner-parties. In age Mr. Ricardo was approaching the fifties; in
condition he was a widower--a state greatly to his liking, for he avoided
at once the irksomeness of marriage and the reproaches justly levelled
at the bachelor; finally, he was rich, having amassed a fortune in
Mincing Lane, which he had invested in profitable securities.
Ten years of ease, however, had not altogether obliterated in him the
business look. Though he lounged from January to December, he

lounged with the air of a financier taking a holiday; and when he
visited, as he frequently did, the studio of a painter, a stranger would
have hesitated to decide whether he had been drawn thither by a love of
art or by the possibility of an investment. His "acquaintances" have
been mentioned, and the word is suitable. For while he mingled in
many circles, he stood aloof from all. He affected the company of
artists, by whom he was regarded as one ambitious to become a
connoisseur; and amongst the younger business men, who had never
dealt with him, he earned the disrespect reserved for the dilettante. If he
had a grief, it was that he had discovered no great man who in return
for practical favours would engrave his memory in brass. He was a
Maecenas without a Horace, an Earl of Southampton without a
Shakespeare. In a word, Aix-les-Bains in the season was the very place
for him; and never for a moment did it occur to him that he was here to
be dipped in agitations, and hurried from excitement to excitement. The
beauty of the little town, the crowd of well-dressed and agreeable
people, the rose-coloured life of the place, all made their appeal to him.
But it was the Villa des Fleurs which brought him to Aix. Not that he
played for anything more than an occasional louis; nor, on the other
hand, was he merely a cold looker-on. He had a bank-note or two in his
pocket on most evenings at the service of the victims of the tables. But
the pleasure to his curious and dilettante mind lay in the spectacle of
the battle which was waged night after night between raw nature and
good manners. It was extraordinary to him how constantly manners
prevailed. There were, however, exceptions.
For instance. On the first evening of this particular visit he found the
rooms hot, and sauntered out into the little semicircular garden at the
back. He sat there for half an hour under a flawless sky of stars
watching the people come and go in the light of the electric lamps, and
appreciating the gowns and jewels of the women with the eye of a
connoisseur; and then into this starlit quiet there came suddenly a flash
of vivid life. A girl in a soft, clinging frock of white satin darted swiftly
from the rooms and flung herself nervously upon a bench. She could
not, to Ricardo's thinking, be more than twenty years of age. She was
certainly quite young. The supple slenderness of her figure proved it,
and he had moreover caught a glimpse, as she rushed out, of a fresh and

very pretty face; but he had lost sight of it now. For the girl wore a big
black satin hat with a broad brim, from which a couple of white ostrich
feathers curved over
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