agon-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. At Marseilles there was still more
excitement and inquiry, but at last we moved off to Toulon and along
the beautiful Cote 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
Duperre's compartment, old Blumenfeld and his wife being then in the
luncheon-car adjoining.

I inquired in a whisper what had happened.

For answer he crossed to one of the windows and drew down the brown
cloth blind used at night, when upon the inside I saw, to my
astonishment, some bonds spread out and pinned to the fabric!

He touched the spring, the blind rolled up and they disappeared
within.

Each of the four blinds in his compartment contained their valuable
documents which, in due course, he removed and placed in his pockets
before he stepped out upon the platform at Hyeres. He was, of course,
an entire stranger to Rudolph and me, and we continued our journey
with the victimized millionaire to Cannes, where we were compelled to
remain for a week lest our abrupt return should excite anybody's
suspicion. Meanwhile, of course, Duperre was already back in London
with the spoils.

In the whole affair Rayne, whose master-brain was responsible for the
ingenious _coup_, remained with clean hands and ready at any moment to
prove his own innocence.

The original plan of tossing out the sixty thousand pounds' worth of
bonds to Tracy, who was waiting with his three warning lights, failed
because of old Blumenfeld's sleeplessness, but it was substituted by a
far more secretive yet simple plan--one never even dreamed of by the
astute police attached to the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway.
It being daylight at Lyons, the blinds were up!

CHAPTER VII

LITTLE LADY LYDBROOK

From the very first I felt that, owing to my passionate love for Lola,
I was treading upon very thin ice.

As the cat's-paw of her father I was being drawn into such subtle
devilish schemes that I felt to draw back must only bring upon my head
the vengeance, through fear, of a man who was so entirely unscrupulous
and so elusive that the police could never trace him.

Why a few weeks later I had been sent to Biarritz with Vincent was an
enigma I failed to solve. At any rate, at Rayne's sugg