S they walked along the broad road which leads steeply down from Monte Carlo to the quaintly named Condamine, M. Popeau began talking almost as much to himself as to his young companion.
“The man we're going to see,” he said, “is an autocrat, Miss Fairfield—one of the last real autocrats left in Europe. He has absolute power in this little country—I mean in Monaco. From his ruling there is no appeal. I remember he once caused an Englishman to be what would now be called deported. A fearful fuss was made about it! The man—his name was Johnson—was a nasty, cantankerous fellow, and it seemed that he had some relation in your Foreign Office. The affair dragged on for months—frightful threats were uttered. The British Ambassador in Paris was brought in—in fact it is not too much to say that had Monaco been a real country, with a fleet and an army, war might have resulted. But friend Bouton stuck to his guns, as the British so cleverly and truly say, and poor Johnson never came back!”
They were now turning into a very quiet, shadowed street composed of small but prosperous-looking houses.
“Just one word, Miss Fairfield!” Lily's companion, guide, and mentor, stopped walking.
“Please do not volunteer any information unless you are asked a direct question,” he said gravely. “Even then it is not necessary for you to answer a question unless you wish to do so. I will tell the Commissioner of Police what happened, and I hope—I am not sure, but I think I may say that that will be the end of the matter as far as you are concerned.”
“I suppose I shall have to show the police where I found the body?” asked Lily in a low voice.
“I trust that will not be necessary.”
A few moments later they were standing in a formal-looking sitting-room, on the ground floor of the house to which they had been admitted by a pleasant-looking bonne à tout faire.
After they had waited some minutes the door opened and a tall, thin man, with a napkin tucked in his collar, entered with hand outstretched.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, dear friend! What can I do for you?” he exclaimed. “You have come just too late to share our Sunday lunch. My married daughter, her husband, and her two children have come over from Nice and we have been having something of a festival. Sit down—sit down!”
As he spoke he was measuring Lily with what she felt to be a pair of very sharp eyes.
“I am ashamed to have come on a Sunday,” began M. Popeau.
“Not at all—not at all! I am delighted to see you,” said M. Bouton, “and there are certain things that will not wait. I hope Mademoiselle is not a new victim of the gang of thieves I mentioned to you yesterday? So far they have spared the Hôtel de Paris. But I have a clue—and it will not be long before they are laid by the heels.”
“I am here,” said M. Popeau quietly, “because a sad thing befell this lady, Miss Fairfield, to-day on her way to the English Church service. She is staying in a villa called La Solitude, some way above Monte Carlo, and, wandering a little way off the path, she suddenly came across a dead body! Of course, it gave her a terrible shock.”
To Lily's astonishment, M. Bouton did not look surprised.
“Very sad,” he murmured. “The matter will have my very earnest attention. If Mademoiselle will give me a few particulars as to the locality where she made this painful discovery I will see to the matter at once. Would you kindly come this way?”
He opened the door, and passed on, in front of them, into a room built out at the back of the house. It was obviously his own study.
“Here is the plan of our Principality,” he observed, and Lily, glancing up, saw that a huge map covered one entire side of the room.
“Will you point our the exact spot where you made your sad discovery?” went on M. Bouton, handing her a long, light stick.
Lily stared anxiously up at the map, but she had no bump of locality on her pretty head.
M. Popeau took the thin stick from her hand. He laid the point lightly on the map, and pushed it up and up and up!
“Here is La Solitude,” he said at last, “so now we shall be able to find the exact place.”
“Ah, yes,” said M. Bouton. “ Solitude belongs to Count Antonio Polda. He and the Countess are nice, quiet people, almost the only people in Monaco with whom I have never had any trouble! It is my impression that somewhere about the fourteenth century a Grimaldi married a Polda—so the Count is distantly related to our sovereign.”
“Mademoiselle is a niece of the Countess Polda,” said M. Popeau quietly. “She is staying at La Solitude for the winter.
M. Bouton looked at Lily with enhanced respect.