Chapter 4. Mr. Green Hat's New Role

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_ CHAPTER IV. MR. GREEN HAT'S NEW ROLE

Dave loses a human trail and saves a human life. Then the plot begins to thicken.

Mr. Green Hat, on this occasion, had discarded the article of headwear that had given him that nickname with the young ensigns.

Instead, Gortchky wore an opera hat, with evening dress of the most fashionable description. On his broad white expanse of vest there glittered a foreign decoration.

Though he walked alone, and affected an air of indifference to his surroundings, Darrin was of the impression that the spy was looking alertly for some one.

"Of course it may happen," said Dave to his friend, "that the fellow is foolish enough to come here for the purpose of throwing away at the gaming tables the money he earns by his questionable services to some plotting international ring. Yet that seems hardly likely, either, for Gortchky must be a man of tremendous energy, to render the thrilling services that are demanded of a spy or an international trouble-maker."

Now the two chums left the place where they had been standing behind the bush, to stroll along slowly, all the while keeping Gortchky in sight.

Dave nudged his chum as, at a turn in the path, the spy came face to face with a woman clad in a beautiful evening gown.

Raising his hat, and making a courteous bow to the woman, who returned the greeting, Gortchky exchanged half a dozen sentences with her. Then the pair separated, though not before Dave and Dan had obtained, under the electric light, a good view of the young woman's face. Her dark beauty, her height and grace, gave her a queenly air.

Stepping into another path, Dave and Dan were soon on the trail of Gortchky once more, without having been obliged to pass the young woman face to face.

"I wonder if she's a 'spy-ess'?" murmured Dan.

"It is just as well to be suspicious of any one whom Gortchky appears to know well," Dave answered, slowly, in a low voice.

"I beg pardon, sir," broke in a sailor from the "Hudson," stepping forward and saluting the officers. "May I speak with you, sir?"

It was Dan to whom he spoke, and it was Dan who answered:

"Certainly, Martin."

[Illustration: "The spy came face to face with a woman."]

Martin was one of the gun-pointers in Dalzell's division.

"Linton, one of our men, has been hurt, and rather badly, by falling off a boulder that he climbed not far from here, sir. I thought I would ask the ensign what to do with Linton."

"How badly is he hurt?" asked Ensign Dalzell.

"I think his right leg is broken, sir. Colby is with him, and I came in search of you, sir, as I was certain I saw you here."

"Is Linton far from here?" asked Dalzell.

"Less than a quarter of a mile, sir."

"Lead the way, Martin, and I'll follow you. Dave, you'll excuse me for a little while, won't you?"

"Certainly," nodded Ensign Darrin. Dave wished to remain where he was, in order to keep an eye over Gortchky's movements, and Dan knew it. So the chums parted for the present.

"Now, I'll see if I can pick up Gortchky again," reflected Ensign Darrin. "He appears to have given me the slip."

Dave went ahead, more briskly than he had been moving before, in the hope of sighting the spy.

Out of the Casino had staggered a young man, despair written on his face, hopelessness in his very air. Plunging into the garden this stranger made his way hastily through it, keeping on until he came to the field where pigeon shoots are held from time to time.

Dave, at the edge of the garden, saw the young man step past the shrubbery and go on into the darkness beyond. Under the last rays of light Ensign Darrin saw something glitter in the stranger's hand.

"That fellow has just drawn a revolver!" flashed through Darrin's mind. "Now, what mischief can he be up to?"

Led onward by some fascination that he did not understand, the young naval officer followed.

In his excitement and desperation the man did not notice that he was being followed.

Halting under the heavy foliage of a tree, the stranger glanced down at the weapon in his hand and shuddered. This foolish young man, haunting the gambling tables until he had ruined himself, and seeing nothing now ahead of him in life, was bent upon self-destruction.

Sometimes there are several such suicides at Monte Carlo in a single week. If unprovided with other means for ending his life, the suicide sometimes hurls himself over the edge of one of the steep cliffs.

Suicides, of course, have a depressing effect on other players, so those in authority at the Casino take every means of hushing up these tragedies as effectively as possible.

"There is really nothing left in life," muttered the young man huskily, as he stared at the weapon in his hand. He spoke in French, but Darrin heard and understood him.

Then the desperate one raised the weapon, pointing the muzzle at his head.

At that instant there was a quick step out of the darkness, and Dave reached the stranger. The latter, startled, drew back, but not in time to prevent Darrin's grip of steel from resting on his right wrist.

Wrench! Dave had the pistol in his own hands, at the same time murmuring:

"You will pardon me, I trust."

Ensign Darrin broke the weapon open at the breach. From the chamber he removed the cartridges, dropping them into his pocket. With another swift movement Dave flung the pistol so far that it dropped over the edge of a cliff.

"You will pardon me, I trust, sir, for throwing your property away in that fashion," Dave apologized, in the best French he could summon.

"Since it is the very last item of my property that was left to me, perhaps it can matter but little that I am deprived of it," said the stranger, smiling wanly. "The cliff is still left to me, however. I can easily follow the pistol."

"But you are not going to jump over the cliff," Darrin assured him energetically.

"And why are you so certain of that?" demanded the stranger.

Dave looked keenly at his companion before he replied:

"Because, sir, your face is that of a man--not of a coward. Suicide is the act of a coward. It is the resort of one who frankly admits that his troubles are greater than he has the manhood to bear. Now, you have, when one regards you closely, the look of a man and a gentleman."

"Thank you for your good opinion, sir," replied the stranger, bowing. "I will say that I was born a gentleman."

"And you still are one, and a man, as well as a gentleman," Dave continued, gently. "Therefore, you are not afraid to face life."

"What is there left to me to make life worth living?" queried the stranger.

"Why should you have the least desire to die?" Dave countered.

"I have lost all my money."

"That is a very slight matter," Darrin argued. "Lost all your money, have you? Why, my dear fellow, there's a lot more in the world."

"But none of the money now in the world is mine," urged the desperate one.

"Then make a part of the world's money yours," the young naval officer retorted, smilingly.

"I have never worked," replied the stranger stiffly.

"Why not?" Dave pressed.

"I never had need to."

"But now you have the need, and working for money will bring some novelty into your life," the young ensign insisted.

"Did I not tell you that I was born a gentleman?" inquired the young man, raising his eyebrows. "A gentleman never works!"

"Some gentlemen don't," Dave admitted. "But they are the wrong kind of gentlemen."

"If I mistake not," quizzed the stranger keenly, "you are a gentleman, yourself."

"I trust that I am," Dave responded gravely.

"Then do you work?"

"More hours a day than any laborer does," Darrin answered promptly. "I am a naval officer."

"Ah, but that is a career of honor--of glory!" cried the stranger.

"And so is any honest job of work that a man takes up in earnest and carries through to the best of his ability," Dave Darrin returned with warmth.

"But you see, sir," argued the stranger, though now he was smiling, "you have been trained to a profession. I never was so trained."

"You are young?"

"Twenty-four."

"Then you are young enough to change your mind and recognize the dignity of labor," Darrin continued. "You are also young enough and, unless I mistake you, bright enough to win a very good place in life for yourself. And you are man enough, now you have had time to think it over, to see the wickedness of destroying yourself. Man, _make_ yourself instead."

"I'll do it! I will make myself!" promised the stranger, with a new outburst of emotion.

"And you will never again allow yourself to become so downcast that you will seek to destroy yourself?"

"Never!"

"I am satisfied," Dave said gravely. "You are a man of honor, and therefore are incapable of breaking your word. Your hand!"

Their hands met in ardent clasp. Then Darrin took out his card case, tendering his card to the stranger.

Instantly the young man produced his own card case, and extended a bit of pasteboard, murmuring:

"I am M. le Comte de Surigny, of Lyons, France."

It was too dark to read the cards there, but Dave gave his own name, and again the young men shook hands.

"But I am forgetting my comrade," Dave cried suddenly. "He was to return in a few minutes, and will not know where to find me."

"And I have detained you, with my own wretched affairs!" cried the young count reproachfully. "I must not trespass upon your time another second."

"Why not walk along with me and meet my friend?" Dave suggested.

"With pleasure."

Dave and the young French count stepped along briskly until they came to the spot where Dalzell had left his chum. Two or three minutes later Dan hove into sight.

Dan and the Count of Surigny were introduced, and some chat followed. Then the Count frankly told of the service that Darrin had just rendered him.

"That is Dave!" glowed Dan. "He's always around in time to be of use to some one."

In the distance a shot rang out--only one. The Count of Surigny shuddered.

"You understand, do you not?" he asked.

"I am afraid so," Dave sadly responded.

As they stood there four men with a litter hurried past toward the place whence the sound of the shot had come.

"The police of Monte Carlo," murmured the Count of Surigny.

Presently, at a distance, the three onlookers beheld the four men and the litter moving stealthily along, but not toward the Casino. The litter was occupied by a still form over which a cover had been thrown.

"You have shown me the way of true courage!" murmured the Count of Surigny, laying an affectionate hand on Ensign Darrin's shoulder.

The chums and their new acquaintance strolled along for a few moments. Then the Count suddenly exclaimed:

"But I am intruding, and must leave you."

"You surely are not intruding," Dave told him. "We are delighted with your company."

"Wholly so," Dan added.

But the Count felt himself to be an interloper, and so insisted on shaking hands again and taking his departure.

"I shall see or write you presently," said the Count. He had already obtained the fleet address, and knew, in addition, that he could write at any time through the Navy Department at Washington.

"Will he make good?" asked Danny Grin wistfully, as he peered after the departing form.

"It's an even chance," Dave replied. "Either that young man will go steadily up, or else he will go rapidly down. It is sometimes a terrible thing to be born a gentleman--in the European sense. Few of the Count's friends will appreciate him if he starts in upon a career of effort. But, even though he goes down, he will struggle bravely at the outset. Of that I feel certain."

"I wonder what has become of Gortchky?" remarked Ensign Dalzell.

That industrious spy, however, was no longer the pursued; he had become the pursuer.

From a little distance Gortchky had espied Dave and the Count chatting, and had witnessed the introduction to Dalzell. A man of Mr. Green Hat's experience with the world did not need many glances to assure himself that the Count had lost his last franc at the gambling table.

Gortchky was not at Monte Carlo without abundant assistance. So, as the Count, head down, and reflecting hard, strolled along one of the paths, a man bumped into him violently.

"Ten thousand pardons, Monsieur!" cried the bumper, in a tone of great embarrassment. "It was stupid of me. I--"

"Have no uneasiness, my friend," smiled the Count. "It was I who was stupid. I should have looked where I was going."

Courteous bows were exchanged, and the two separated. But the man who had bumped into the Count now carried inside his sleeve the Count's empty wallet, which was adorned with the crest of Surigny.

This wallet was promptly delivered to another. Five minutes later, as the Count strolled along, Emil Gortchky called out behind him:

"Monsieur! Pardon me, but I think you must have dropped your wallet."

"If I have, the loss is trifling indeed," smiled the Count, turning.

Gortchky held out the wallet, then struck a match. By the flame the Count beheld his own crest.

"Yes, it is mine," replied the Count, "and I thank you for your kindness."

"Will Monsieur do me the kindness, before I leave him, to make sure that the contents of the wallet are intact?" urged Gortchky.

"It will take but an instant," laughed the Count of Surigny. "See! I will show you that the contents are intact!"

As he spoke he opened the wallet. A packet of paper dropped to the ground. In astonishment the Count bent over to pick up the packet. M. Gortchky struck another match.

"Let us go nearer to an electric light, that you may count your money at your ease, Monsieur," suggested Gortchky.

Like one in a daze the Count moved along with Gortchky. When sufficiently in the light, Surigny, with an expression of astonishment, found that he was the possessor of thirty twenty-franc notes.

"I did not know that I had this!" cried the Count. "How did I come to overlook it?"

"It is but a trifle to a man of your fortune," cried M. Gortchky gayly.

"It is all I have in the world!" sighed the young man. "And I am still amazed that I possess so much."

"Poor?" asked Gortchky, in a voice vibrating with sympathy. "And you so young, and a gentleman of old family! Monsieur, it may be that this is a happy meeting. Perhaps I may be able to offer you the employment that befits a gentleman."

Then Gortchky lowered his voice, almost whispering:

"For I am in the diplomatic service, and have need of just such an attache as you would make. Young, a gentleman, and of charming manners! Your intellect, too, I am sure, is one that would fit you for eminence in the diplomatic service."

"The mere mention of the diplomatic service attracts me," confessed M. le Comte wistfully.

"Then you shall have your fling at it!" promised M. Gortchky. "But enough of this. You shall talk it over with me to-morrow. Diplomacy, you know, is all gamble, and the gambler makes the best diplomat in the world. For to-night, Monsieur, you shall enjoy yourself! If I know anything of gaming fate, then you are due to reap a harvest of thousands with your few francs to-night. I can see it in your face that your luck is about to turn. An evening of calm, quiet play, Monsieur, and in the morning you and I will arrange for your entrance into the diplomatic world. _Faites votre jeux!_ (Make your wagers.) Wealth to-night, and a career to-morrow! Come! To the Casino!" _

Read next: Chapter 5. Danny Grin Fights A Smile

Read previous: Chapter 3. The Startler At Monte Carlo

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