“Why are you following me about?”
“Scarcely that,” he protested. “I am keeping you under observation for a time.”
“Like all you Anglo-Saxons, you are a liar and an impudent one,” she spat out…“Wait!”
Her tone had suddenly changed to one of alarm. Instinctively he followed her lead and listened. More and more distinctly he could hear detached voices at the end of the corridor which led into the reception rooms. The curtains must have been drawn to one side, for the hum of conversation became much louder. She caught at his wrist.
“Follow me,” she ordered.
They passed into a darkened entresol. She flung open an inner door and Fawley found himself in a bedroom—a woman’s bedroom—high-ceilinged, austere after the Italian fashion, but with exquisite linen and lace upon the old four-postered bed, and with a shrine in one corner, its old gilt work beautifully fashioned—a representation of the Madonna—a strangely moving work of art. She locked the door with a ponderous key.
“Is that necessary?” Fawley asked.
She scoffed at him. The fury had faded from her face and Fawley, in an impersonal sort of way, was beginning to realise how beautiful she was.
“Do not think that I am afraid,” she said coldly. “I have done that to protect myself. If you refuse to give me what I ask for, I shall shoot you and point to the locked door as my excuse. You followed me in. There can be no denying that.”
She was passionately in earnest, but a sense of humour which had befriended Fawley in many grimmer moments chose inappropriately enough to assert itself just then. With all her determination, it was obvious that her courage was a matter of nerve, that having once keyed herself up to a desperate action she was near enough now to collapse. Probably that made her the more dangerous, but Fawley did not stop to reflect. He leaned against the high-backed chair and laughed quietly…Afterwards he realised that he was in as great danger of his life in those few seconds as at any time during his adventurous career. But after that first flash of renewed fury something responsive, or at any rate sympathetic, seemed to creep into her face and showed itself suddenly in the quivering of her lips. Her fingers, which had been creeping towards the bosom of her dress, retreated empty.
“Tell me what it is that you want from me,” Fawley asked.
“You know,” she answered. “I want my slipper.”
He felt in his pocket and knew at once that his first suspicion had been correct. He shook his head gravely.
“Alas,” he replied, “I am forced to keep this little memento of your expedition for the present. As to what happened a few minutes ago—”
“Well, what are you going to do about that?” she interrupted. “I deny nothing. I tried to kill Berati. But for the fact that you unnerved me—I did not expect to find any one holding the door on the other side—I should have done it. As it is, I fear that he has escaped.”
“What did you want to kill the General for?” Fawley asked curiously. “You are both Italian, are you not, and Berati is at least a patriot?”
“Take my advice,” she answered, “and do not try to interfere in matters of which you know nothing.”
“That seems a little hard on me,” Fawley protested, with a smile. “I have been knocking about Europe for a reasonable number of years and I should say that no man had worked harder for his country than Berati.”
“Nevertheless,” she rejoined, “he is on the point of making a hideous blunder. If you had known as much as I do, you would have stepped back and let me kill him.”
“I am not in favour of murder as an argument,” Fawley objected.
“You think too much of human life, you Americans,” she scoffed.
“In any case, Berati has done a great deal for Italy,” he reminded her.
“There are some who think otherwise,” she answered.
She listened for another moment, then she moved to the door and turned the key. She swung around and faced Fawley. The anger had all gone. Her eyes had softened. There was a note almost of pleading in her tone.
“There shall be no more melodrama,” she promised. “I want what you picked up of mine. It is necessary that I go back to the reception of the Principessa.”
“I am not detaining you,” Fawley ventured to remind her hopefully.
“Do you suggest then,” she asked, with a faint uplifting of her delicate eyebrows, “that I make my appearance in that crowded room with but one shoe on?”
“This being apparently your bedchamber,” Fawley replied, looking around, “it occurs to me as possible that you might find another pair.”
“Nothing that would go with the peculiar shade of my frock and these stockings,” she assured him, lifting her skirt a few inches and showing him her exquisitely sheened ankles.
Fawley sighed.
“Alas,” he regretted, “an hour ago I was a free man. You could have had your slipper with pleasure. At this moment I am under a commitment to Berati. His interests and his safety—if he is still alive—must be my first consideration.”
“Do you think that after all I hit him?” she asked eagerly.
“I fear that it is quite possible. All I know is that he was seated in his chair one moment, you fired, and when I had looked around the chair was empty.”
She smiled doubtfully.
“He is very hard to kill.”
“And it appears to me that you are a very inexperienced assassin!”
“That,” she confided, “is because I never wanted to kill a man before. Please give me my slipper.”
He shook his head.
“If Berati is alive,” he warned her, “it will be my duty to hand it over to him and to describe you according to the best of my ability.”
“And if he is dead?”
“If he is dead, my contract with him is finished and I shall leave Rome within an hour. You, at any rate, would be safe.”
“How shall you describe me if you have to?” she asked, with a bewildering smile.
Insouciance was a quality which Fawley, in common with most people, always admired in criminals and beautiful women. He tried his best with a clumsier tongue to follow her lead.
“Signorina,” he said, “or Mademoiselle—heaven help me if I can make up my mind as to your nationality—I am afraid that my description would be of very little real utility because I cannot imagine myself inventing phrases to describe you adequately.”
“That is quite good,” she approved, “for a man in conference with a would-be murderess. But after all I must look like something or other.”
“I will turn myself into a police proclamation,” he announced. “You have unusual eyes which are more normal now but which a few minutes ago were shooting lightnings of hate at me. They are a very beautiful colour—a kind of hazel, I suppose. You have an Italian skin, the ivory pallor of perfect health which belongs only to your country-people. Your hair I should rather like to feel but it looks like silk and it reminds one of dull gold. You have the figure of a child but it is obvious that you have the tongue, the brain, the experience of a woman who has seen something of life…With that description published, would you dare to walk the streets of Rome to-morrow?”
“A proud woman but, alas, I fear in perfect safety,” she sighed. “Too many people have failed with Berati and you distracted my attention. I saw his still, terrible face but when I looked and hoped for that transforming cloud of horror, I saw only you. You frightened me and I fled.”
Fawley moved slightly towards the door.
“It is plainly my duty,” he said, “to find out whether Berati is alive or dead.”
“I agree with you.”
“And when I have discovered?”
“Listen,” she begged, moving a little nearer towards him. “There is a tiny café in a fashionable but not too reputable corner of Rome in the arcade leading from the Plaza Vittoria. Its name is the Café of the Shining Star. You will find me there at ten o’clock. May I have my shoe so that I can make a digni
fied departure?”
Fawley shook his head. He pointed to an antique Italian armoire which looked as if it might be used as a boot cupboard.
“You can help yourself, Signorina. The slipper I have in my pocket I keep until I know whether Berati is alive or dead.”
“You keep it as evidence—yes? You would hand me over as the assassin? As though any one would believe your story!”
“All the same,” Fawley reminded her, “for the moment Berati is my master.”
He turned the handle of the door. She kissed the tips of her fingers to him lightly.
“I can see,” she sighed, “that you are one of those who do not change their minds. All the same, I warn you there is danger in what you are doing.”
“A slipper,” Fawley protested, “a delicate satin slipper with a slightly raised inner sole could never bring me ill luck.”
She shook her head and there was no ghost of a smile upon her lips just then.
“Medici buckles,” she confided. “They are very nearly priceless. Men and women in the old days paid with their lives for what you are doing.”
Fawley smiled.
“You shall have the buckle back,” he promised. “For the rest, I will use my penknife carefully.”
CHAPTER IV
Table of Contents
Once more Fawley entered Berati’s palatial bureau with a certain trepidation. His heart sank still further after his first glance towards the desk. The chair behind it was occupied by Prince Patoni.
“What about the Chief?” Fawley asked eagerly. “Was he hurt?”
The young man remained silent for a moment, his jet-black eyes fixed upon his visitor’s, his fingers toying with the watch-chain which was suspended from a high button of his waistcoat. He seemed, in his ravenlike black clothes, with his hooked nose, his thin aristocratic face and bloodless lips, like some bird of prey.
“Our Chief,” he announced calmly, “is unhurt. A modern assassin seldom succeeds in checking a really great career. He has left a message for you. Will you be pleased to receive it.”
Fawley drew a sigh of relief. Life seemed suddenly to become less complicated.
“Let me hear what it is, if you please,” he begged.
“The Chief has been summoned to his wife’s, the Principessa’s, reception at the palazzo. Some royalties, I believe, have made their appearance. It is his wish that you should repair there immediately. Here,” he added, pushing a highly glazed and beautifully engraved card across the table towards him, “is your invitation, as you are probably unknown to the servants and ushers of the household.”
Fawley glanced at the card and thrust it into his pocket.
“I will go, of course,” he replied, “but please explain to me how it is that Berati’s wife is Principessa? He himself, I understood, had no other rank than his military one of General.”
“That is quite true,” Patoni admitted, “but our illustrious Chief married some time ago the Principessa de Morenato…You will leave the bureau as you entered it. When you reach the street, turn to the right twice and the entrance to the palazzo courtyard confronts you. I must beg you not to delay.”
“Tell me before I leave,” Fawley begged, “if any orders have been issued for the arrest of the person who fired that shot?”
“The matter does not come, sir, within the scope of your activities,” was the icy reply.
Fawley took his departure and made his way according to directions to where, under a scarlet awning, guests were coming and going from the great grey stone palazzo. A very courtly seneschal received his card with enthusiasm and conducted him into a magnificent room still filled with men and women, talking together in animated groups, dancing in a further apartment, or listening to soft music in a still more distant one. He led Fawley towards a slightly raised floor, and, in a tone which he contrived to make almost reverential, announced the visitor. The Principessa, a handsome woman of the best Roman type, gave him her lifted fingers and listened agreeably to his few words.
“My husband has told me of your coming,” she confided. “It will give him pleasure before you leave to have a further word with you. He is showing one of the Royal Princes who have honoured us with their presence a famous Murillo which came into our family a short time ago…Elida, do not tell me you are going to leave us so soon?”
Fawley glanced around. Some instinct had already told him whom he would find standing almost at his elbow. It seemed to him, however, that he had not realised until that moment, in the over-heated, flower-scented room, with its soft odours of femininity, its vague atmosphere of sensuous disturbance, the full subtlety of her attraction. The tension which had somewhat hardened her features a few minutes ago had gone. An air of gentle courtesy had taken its place. She smiled as though the impending introduction would be a pleasure to her.
“It is Major Martin Fawley, an American of many distinctions which for the moment I cannot call to mind,” the Princess said. “My, alas, rather distant relative, the Princess Elida di Rezco di Vasena.”
The formal introduction with its somewhat Italian vagueness gave Fawley no hint as to whether the Princess were married or not, so he contented himself with a ceremonious bow. He murmured some commonplace to which she replied in very much the same fashion. Then a newcomer presented himself to the Princess and the latter turned away to greet him. Fawley found himself involuntarily glancing at his companion’s feet. She was elegantly shod in bronze slippers but the bronze and the lemon colour were not an ideal combination.
“It is your fault,” she reminded him gently. “In a short time I hope that you will see me properly shod. Tell me your news. There seem to be no rumours about.”
Her coolness was almost repelling and Fawley felt himself relieved by the gleam of anxiety in her eyes. The reply, however, which was framing upon his lips became unnecessary. It seemed as though both became aware of a certain fact at the same moment. Within a few feet of them, but so placed that he was not directly in their line of vision, stood the man whom all Italy was beginning to fear. General Berati, very impressive in his sombre uniform, very much alive, was watching the two with steady gaze.
“Princess,” Fawley said, determined to break through the tenseness of those few seconds, “I am wondering whether I have had the happiness to meet one of your family. There was a Di Vasena riding some wonderful horses in the show at San Remo last year. I met him at a friendly game of polo afterwards.”
“My brother,” she exclaimed, with a quick smile of appreciation. “I am glad that you remembered him. He is my favourite in the family. You are like all your country-people, I suppose, and the English too—very fond of games.”
“We have less opportunity nowadays for indulging in them,” Fawley regretted.
“You would say that I speak in—what is the English word?—platitudes, if I suggested that you had been driven to the greater amusements?”
“There is truth in the idea, at any rate,” Fawley admitted.
She turned and touched the arm of a young uniformed soldier who was standing near by.
“You remember Major Fawley, Antonio?” she asked. “He met you—”
“Why, at San Remo. Naturally I do,” the young man interrupted. “We played polo afterwards. The Ortini found us ponies and I remember, sir,” he went on, with a smile, “that you showed us how Americans can ride.”
“I shall leave you two together for a time,” Elida announced. “I have to make my adieux. Rome is suffering just now, as your witty Ambassador remarked the other day,” she observed, “from an epidemic of congested hospitality. Every one is entertaining at the same time.”
She passed on, made her curtsey to royalty and lingered for a moment with her hostess. Fawley exchanged a few commonplaces with Di Vasena and afterwards took his leave. He looked everywhere for his Chief, but Berati was nowhere to be found. It seemed almost as though he had sprung out of the earth to watch the meeting between his would-be assassin and Fawley, and then, having satisfied hims
elf, disappeared.
CHAPTER V
Table of Contents
The Café of the Shining Star could have existed nowhere but in Rome, and nowhere in Rome but in that deserted Plaza Vittoria, with its strange little pool of subdued lights. Its decorations were black, its furniture dingy but reminiscent of past magnificence. A broad staircase ascended from the middle of the sparsely occupied restaurant and from the pillars supporting it were suspended two lights enclosed in antique lanterns. As Fawley entered, a weary-looking maître d’hôtel came forward, bowed and without wasting words pointed to the stairs.
Madame, the patrona, from behind a small counter where, with her head supported between her hands, she studied the pages of her ledger, also glanced up and, with a welcoming smile, pointed upwards. Fawley mounted the stairs to a room in which barely a dozen people were seated at small tables—people of a class which for the moment he found it difficult to place. At the farther end of the room, at a table encircled by a ponderous screen, he found the Princess. A dour-looking woman standing patiently by her side fell back on his arrival.
“Sit down if you please, Major Fawley,” Elida begged him. “I have ordered wine. You see it here. Drink a glass of it or not, as you please. It is very famous—it has been in the cellars of this café for more years than I have lived—or perhaps you.”
Fawley obeyed her gestured invitation, seated himself opposite to her and poured out two glasses of the clear amber wine. She laughed a toast across at him.
“You come in a good humour, I trust,” she said. “You know at least that I am not an ordinary assassin. Perhaps I am sorry already that I raised my hand against my relation-in-law. He is on the point, I fear, of making a great mistake, but to kill—well—perhaps I was wrong.”
“I am very glad to hear you say so,” Fawley murmured.
“You have brought the slipper?”
“I have brought the slipper,” he acknowledged. “It has, in fact, never left my possession.”
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