The House of Whispers by William le Queux

It was February -- not the foggy, muddy February of dear, damp Old England, but winter beside the bright blue Mediterranean, the winter of the Cote d'Azur.

At the Villa Heyburn -- that big, square, white house with the green sun-shutters, surrounded by its great garden full of spreading palms, sweet-smelling mimosa, orange-trees laden with golden fruit, and bright geraniums, up on the Berigo at San Remo -- Lady Heyburn had that afternoon given a big luncheon-party. The smartest people wintering in that most sheltered nook of the Italian Riviera had eaten and gossiped and flirted, and gone back to their villas and hotels. Dull persons found no place in Lady Heyburn's circle. Most of the people were those she knew in London or in Paris, including a sprinkling of cosmopolitans, a Russian prince notorious for his losses over at the new _cercle_ at Cannes, a divorced Austrian Archduchess, and two or three well-known diplomats.