Count Bindo, the nonchalant, audacious cosmopolitan, who spent money so freely, was a veritable marvel of cleverness and cunning in all matters of chicanery and fraud. He was evidently a man who, though still young, had a pretty dark record. But what it really was he carefully concealed from me. I can only admit that I had now become an adventurer like the others, for in each case I had received a certain portion of the profits of the coups which we had assisted each other in effecting. True, we lived a life full of excitement and change, but it was a life I liked, for at heart I was nothing if not a wanderer and adventurer. I liked adventure for adventure’s sake, and cared nothing for the constant peril of detection. Strange how easily one can be enticed from a life of honesty into one of fraud, especially if the inducements [Pg 93]held out are an adequate recompense for any qualm of conscience.

[Pg 93]

The actions of our friend, Sir Charles Blythe, were also rather puzzling. He seemed to be taking no part in whatever scheme was in progress. If I met him in public on the Esplanade, or elsewhere, I saluted him as a chauffeur should, but when we met unobserved I was his equal, and on several occasions I made inquiries which he refused to satisfy.

We had been nearly three weeks in Scarborough when, after dinner one evening in the big hall of the hotel I saw the audacious Bindo seated drinking coffee with a little, queer, wizen-faced, but rather over-dressed old lady, towards whom he seemed to be particularly polite. She was evidently one of those wrinkled, yellow-toothed old tabbies who still believe themselves to be attractive, for, as I watched covertly, I saw how she assumed various poses for the benefit of those seated in her vicinity. Though so strikingly dressed, in a gown trimmed with beautiful old lace, she wore no jewellery, save her wedding ring. Her airs and mannerisms were, however, amusing, and quickly made it apparent that she moved in a good set.

From the hall-porter I presently learned that she was a Mrs. Clayton, of St. Mellions Hall, near Peterborough, the widow of a wealthy Oldham cotton-spinner, who generally spent a month at that hotel each year.

“She’s a quaint old girl,” he informed me in [Pg 94]confidence. “Thinks no end of herself, and always trying to hang on to some woman with a title, even if she’s only a baronet’s wife. Some ill-natured woman has nicknamed her the Chameleon—because she changes her dresses so often and is so fond of bright colours. But she’s a good old sort,” he added. “Always 

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