Mission to Monte Carlo Page 2

  Craig laughed.

  “This time, my Lord, you really have thought out a melodramatic situation which is more suitable to Drury Lane than the Casino in Monte Carlo!

  “I would not be too sure of that,” the Marquis said, “and, quite frankly, Craig, I am perturbed.”

  “Why?”

  “It was only in the last two days that I discovered that in mistaken zeal one of my subordinates informed Neasdon of our concern over Tibet, and that we have undercover agents who attempt to keep us informed of the Russian attitude in that far away, little known country.”

  He paused before he went on,

  “It seems almost too far-fetched to be anything but sheer melodrama, but if Randall Sare is being shadowed by the Russians and, if Neasdon inadvertently reveals to the delectable Countess what information we already have, the two combined would be explosive to the point where the work of years could be undone and a great many lives put in jeopardy.”

  “I understand,” Craig said, his eyes twinkling, “and of course it would be a pleasure to make the acquaintance of the Countess.”

  “They tell me she is very beautiful,” the Marquis said with a slight smile.

  “Then that at least should make my task more pleasant. Is that all you have to tell me?”

  The Marquis rose from his desk.

  “I have here the names of our men in Monte Carlo, but as you know, it would be very unwise to contact them unless it is absolutely necessary. They should not know that you have any connection with us. In fact, I hope there is no one in Monte Carlo who will be aware of it.”

  “That is how I prefer it, my Lord. If there is one thing I dislike, it is working with other people.”

  “I know that and perhaps that is why you are so successful. At the same time be careful!”

  Craig raised his eyebrows as he took the piece of paper from the Marquis’s hand.

  “I don’t remember you ever saying that to me before.”

  “I am saying it this time. I take the Russian menace very very seriously. I also believe they will stop at nothing to gain their objectives.”

  “You mean India!”

  “Yes. They have already shown us how ruthless they can be in Afghanistan and there is no doubt at all that the money, the weapons and the inciting of the tribesmen on the North West Frontier all originate from St. Petersburg.”

  “You have most certainly given me an unusual and intriguing assignment this time,” Craig said. “I only hope I will not fail you.”

  “You have never done so yet,” the Marquis replied, “and because of your unique position in the Social world, there is nobody else who could help me as you can at this particular moment. If you have anything to communicate to me, do it in the usual way. I am certain the code we have used before has not yet been broken.”

  “I hope not!”

  Craig put the piece of paper in his pocket and held out his hand.

  “Thank you, my Lord, and I mean it! This is just what I needed at a moment when life in New York had become monotonous and, for the same reason, I do not wish to stay in London.”

  “What you really mean,” the Marquis said, “is that your heart is unoccupied and that is exactly what I hoped it would be!”

  Craig laughed.

  “I am not even certain I have a heart, but shall I say my eyes find the landscape too familiar and pastures new would be a welcome change.”

  The Marquis knew without his saying any more that Craig was really insinuating that he had finished with one love affair and the lady’s place in his life had not yet been filled.

  He had heard too many women complaining that Craig Vandervelt was cruel, ruthless and heartless, not to know that he was always the one who was bored first, while the woman who had once engaged his attention was left weeping and bewailing her dismissal.

  Because Craig’s affairs were always with sophisticated beauties that were safely married, there was no question of his being forced to the altar by an irate father, although occasionally a jealous husband would threaten to ‘call him out’.

  But in some skilful manner of his own he had managed over the years to avoid any open scandal, though it was impossible to prevent his attractions being whispered about from boudoir to boudoir.

  The Marquis having shaken his visitor by the hand, walked to the door and thought as he did so that he not only wished he was young again, but also regretted that when he was the same age as Craig he had let far too many opportunities pass him by.

  Then he told himself that as a respectable married man those were not the sorts of thoughts he should be having!

  Yet all over the world he was quite sure there were men like himself who were envious and jealous of Craig not only as a millionaire, but also as a man.

  The door of the office opened and, as if Craig understood the importance of the object of the interview being kept a secret, he said in a voice that could be heard down the corridor,

  “Well, goodbye, my Lord. Give my love to all our relatives and say how sorry I am not to see them this trip. Perhaps I will be able to drop in again before I return to New York.”

  “Yes, do that,” the Marquis said affably. “Enjoy yourself in Monte Carlo and I hope you win at the tables.”

  “I doubt it,” Craig laughed as he walked away. “But there are other things to entertain one there besides cards.”

  There was an obvious innuendo in his voice and the gaiety with which he spoke brought a knowing smile to those who were near enough to hear what had been said.

  Then Craig walked jauntily down the corridor to where his carriage was waiting for him in the street outside.

  *

  The next day Craig Vandervelt left Victoria on the boat train to Dover.

  He travelled with a Courier, two valets, a secretary and an entire coach was engaged for him and his staff.

  At Dover two cabins on the boat were reserved for him and his entourage and again there was a private coach reserved for him on the Calais-Mediterranean Express.

  As was usual, his secretary provided him with every newspaper and magazine that was published and there was also a hamper consisting of his favourite drinks and several dishes prepared by his cousin’s chef at Newcastle House.

  Craig sat alone thinking out what he had learned from the Marquis and finding the prospect in front of him intriguing and stimulating.

  It was nearly a year since he had last undertaken a mission at the request of the Marquis and, although he had known it would be a great mistake to become involved again too soon in Foreign Affairs, and that it was wise that people should forget his existence in that sphere before he appeared again in a world that was very different from his own, he had begun to find that time lay heavy on his hand.

  He was growing ever more cynical about the Society which welcomed him in London, Paris and New York.

  He knew he owed his entrée into every Capital to his father’s wealth, but at the same time his cosmopolitan education ensured that the Social world opened their arms to him and considered him as one of them wherever he went.

  Even the most disdainful French aristocrats offered him their hospitality, and although it might originate from the fact that the French respected the reality that his grandfather was a Duke, they soon found that his charm, his almost perfect knowledge of their language, and the fact that he was extremely proficient at their sports all combined to make him a real friend.

  He was invited not only to balls and receptions in Paris, which were normally exclusively French, but also to go boar hunting, shooting and sailing with the young French aristocrats who usually preferred to bar outsiders from their pastimes.

  Where women were concerned, the French were no different from the English or the Americans. They had only to see Craig to behave as if he was the Pied Piper, who must be followed.

  Sometimes he told himself it was the golden coins that attracted them, but he would have been very obtuse if he had not realised that they also found him fascinating as a
man – and unique as an ardent lover.

  “Je t’adore!” the French women murmured against his lips, and it was a refrain that was repeated in almost every language from the North to the South Pole.

  And yet it was something that Craig himself had never said to a woman.

  He could not remember when he had first told himself that he would never say those three words that every woman craved, until they could be spoken not only with his lips, but also with his heart and perhaps, although he was not sure if he had one, his soul.

  It was his mother who, because she was so beautiful and he loved her so overwhelmingly, had ingrained in him when he was a child the ideals of chivalry, that love between a man and a woman at its best and its highest was sacred.

  Lady Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, had fallen in love with Cornelius Vandervelt when he came to England as a young man, ambitious, positive, rather aggressively American and determined to be a millionaire.

  He was already rich by European standards, but as far as he himself was concerned, this was only the beginning of the ladder he intended to climb – and no one should stop him from doing so.

  He had met Lady Elizabeth in London at a party and had fallen madly, head-over-heels in love with her.

  Like everything else he coveted, he had swept her off her feet and by sheer drive and determination persuaded her to marry him.

  It had not been easy, for her father the Duke had been violently opposed to the marriage, but Elizabeth had loved Cornelius in the manner of Romeo and Juliet, Dante and Beatrice, and the Troubadours in the Courts of Love.

  Theirs had been a blissfully happy marriage until she died when her son was only sixteen.

  By that time she had implanted in him her own ideals, her own desire for perfection and he knew that until he could find a woman as beautiful, as sweet and with the same nobility of character as his mother, he would never be in love.

  It was this reserve within him which, because they could not reach the standards he demanded of them, drove women wild.

  They had only to meet Craig to fall in love and almost before he was aware of them would throw themselves and their hearts at his feet.

  He would not have been human if he had not accepted the favours that were offered him ever since he had grown up.

  At the same time, he became over the years more and more fastidious and had grown used to hearing even those he accepted asking,

  “What is wrong, Craig? Where have I failed you? What do you expect that I have not given you already?”

  It was impossible to explain, impossible to put into words where they did fail him.

  Sometimes he would think, when some exquisitely beautiful creature held out her arms to him and her eyes lit up at his approach, that he had found what he was seeking.

  But always in a short while he was disappointed and disillusioned and was back seeking again for what he sensed was just over the horizon and yet could never reach.

  Of course he had not put all this into words, not even to himself, but sometimes he thought his life was a pilgrimage and he would never reach the end except in death.

  Journeying to Monte Carlo, he was thinking not so much about the Countess Aloya Zladamir as of Randall Sare.

  Nobody knew better than he did the importance of his research in Tibet for the British Government.

  The son of an explorer, who was also an Asiatic scholar, Sare had grown up partly in India and Nepal and then had been sent to school in England and to Oxford University.

  He had done brilliantly in both, then returned to the land where he had been born and which he loved, to become of inestimable value to the British in what was known as The Great Game.

  All over India there was a secret espionage organisation that recruited men who were trained and initiated in working and at the same time taking their lives in their hands for the protection of India and the peace of the Eastern world.

  The Great Game had a network that extended all over India and involved not only Europeans but a great many Indians as well.

  In a locked book in the Indian Survey Department was a list of numbers which represented a variety of secret agents by whom the Russians and enemies of the country were often rendered powerless or exposed when they least expected it.

  Randall Sare became an anonymous number in The Great Game in which his brilliance brought him to the top of the list for those who understood the spider’s web that hid such vital secrets.

  To Craig it seemed incredible that Sare should first of all have returned from Tibet without anyone in the Foreign Office knowing of it, and secondly that he should have stopped at Monte Carlo and again not communicated with the English agents there, who should have been known to him.

  He began to suspect, as the Marquis had, that he had a good reason for keeping out of sight, which suggested he was being followed and his life was in danger.

  Because he not only admired Randall Sare but also liked him as a man, he could only pray that he would be successful where the others had failed and find him as quickly as possible.

  He did not underestimate how difficult it would be and the risk that, if he blundered into something that did not concern him, he might endanger both Randall Sare’s life and his own.

  It was only when he had thought for a long time about a man who knew Tibet perhaps better than any other white man and whose secrets would be a prize beyond price if they fell into the hands of the Russians, that he allowed himself to consider the second mission he had been given – the Countess Aloya Zladamir.

  Here again he suspected, as the Marquis did, that if she was pursuing Lord Neasdon there was a good reason for it. Equally he could not believe that Neasdon would be so stupid as not to realise in his position how careful he should be in choosing those with whom he associated.

  ‘Russians! Always Russians!’ Craig thought to himself.

  At the same time he remembered with satisfaction that there were a number in Monte Carlo with whom he was friendly.

  The Arch-Dukes, who were enormously wealthy, and most of them extremely attractive, had made Monte Carlo a special haven when they became bored with the pomp of their own country and the troubles that seemed to increase in the reign of every Czar.

  Once a year they would gravitate like migrating birds towards Monte Carlo where they built themselves magnificently ornate villas, pursued the most beautiful women, whom they hung with emeralds and pearls, and gambled with astronomical sums in the Casino to the immense satisfaction of the authorities.

  There was no race of men who could be more extravagant, more flamboyant and at the same time more attractive.

  Craig looked forward to renewing his acquaintance with the Grand Duke Boris and the Grand Duke Michael, besides being certain that in their circle there would be the most alluring and exotic women to be found anywhere in Europe.

  He wondered if the Countess Aloya would be amongst them and then some instinct, he was not certain why, told him it was unlikely.

  *

  As the train puffed early in the morning into Nice, Craig wondered for a moment if he should leave it there and seek his yacht that he had ordered to come from Marseilles to Monte Carlo.

  He was certain it would only just have had time to reach Villefranche and it might be more enjoyable to go by sea to the harbour in Monte Carlo, rather than undertake the rest of the journey by train.

  Then he told himself that would take time and as it was he could be in Monte Carlo in another hour.

  He therefore stayed on the train and, although his secretary came to his compartment to ask if there was anything he wanted, he merely told him to buy the French morning newspapers and perused them until the line came to an end at the station of Monte Carlo.

  From there he walked outside to where an open carriage was waiting for him, leaving his servants to cope with the luggage and follow in another carriage.

  He drove off alone, taking off his hat as he did so to feel the sea breeze and the warmt
h of the sun on his forehead after the heat and stuffiness of the train.

  As the horses went down a small incline towards the harbour, he saw a large number of yachts at anchor, some large, some small, all flying the flags of their own countries.

  Craig’s eyes went from a large number of French flags of red, white and blue, to the White Ensign of the British ships.

  Then he was aware that there were two Russian yachts, side by side, both of them carrying the Imperial Eagle on their flags.

  Noting it with interest, he decided that one of the first things to do was to find out who they belonged to.

  As the horses started to climb the steep hill towards the gold-domed Casino ahead, he looked back almost as if the Russian ships drew him like a magnet and they held the secrets that he was seeking to solve.

  *

  When Craig Vandervelt stayed in Monte Carlo, being a bachelor he did not rent a villa, which would have been quite easy for him to do, but preferred to stay at the Hotel de Paris and also to have his own yacht in the harbour.

  This meant that he was not restricted in any way from leaving at a moment’s notice, or, if he wished to be alone or with some attractive siren, he could steam along the coast of Italy for a day or two and return when it suited him.

  At the Hotel de Paris he was greeted with great respect and the manager personally took him up to his suite.

  It was palatial. Not only was it the best in the whole building, but also because he liked quiet and privacy Craig usually engaged several rooms on each side of it.

  His sitting room was filled with flowers, which might seem unusual for a man, but he not only liked their fragrance but also disliked the unlived-in look of hotel rooms.

  There were flowers also in his bedroom and, as he looked out of the window, he saw his yacht arrive in the harbour below him. Its lines not only looked beautiful, but the inside of the vessel incorporated every comfort known to those who sailed the seas.

  Craig’s mind was never still and he had invented a number of gadgets, some of which had already been adopted by other yacht-owners, whilst some were so new that no one else had as yet become aware of them.