It was small, encircled by a white marble wall and the centrepiece was a fountain erected on six steps that had been sculpted by Ammanati.
He looked at it, noting the beautifully portrayed cupids at the foot of the bowl and the sculpture rising high about it.
He then realised that at the top there were two figures depicting The Rape of Proserpina.
For a moment, as he remembered who the garden belonged to, everything seemed to swim in front of his eyes.
Then in a voice that did not sound like his own, he heard himself say,
“A very fine sculpture! No wonder you are proud of it!”
“Very proud,” the Prince replied, “and you must agree it is his best work.”
Because he could not bear to look at the figure of Proserpina struggling against her captor, Lord Mere turned his back on it and examined some of the other sculptures on the other side of the small garden.
It was obvious that the Contessa was anxious to leave and have him on her own and, although it took a little time, they gradually wended their way back to the Reception room.
But not before Lord Mere had had a good look at the West Tower.
He thought he knew, although he could not be sure, where the most important rooms were and jutting out from the tower inside the garden itself was a crenelated rampart where in times past defenders must have waited for their approaching enemies.
The battlements on the top of the Palazzo were the same and he thought how much simpler it would be if today, instead of scheming how he could rescue Florencia, he could declare war against her enemies.
However, he was far too diplomatic and self-controlled not to be able to say ‘goodbye’ to the Prince with what sounded like a sincere appreciation of his hospitality.
Then he assured him that he was greatly looking forward to dining with him that evening.
“It will not be such a large party as our dear friend the Contessa had the other evening,” the Prince said, “but we shall be about twenty for dinner and I am sure that Vincente will ask some of his young friends to come in afterwards and dance.”
“It sounds most enjoyable,” Lord Mere replied, following the Contessa, who had already stepped into her carriage.
They drove off and, as soon as they were out of earshot, the Contessa cried,
“I could not be more mortified! If I had known that you were alone this evening, I would have invited you to dine with me.”
She paused before she added,
“For you, my Lord, I would certainly have put off my friends.”
“How can I have been so foolish as not to mention it?” Lord Mere asked. “I ought to have told you that Sir Julius was indisposed, but, if I leave the Prince early, perhaps your party will not yet have come to an end.”
That, he knew, was what the Contessa was expecting him to say.
She put her hand through his arm as she replied,
“I shall be hoping the lovely ladies from Rome will not prevent you from coming to me.”
She was far too experienced in the ways of enticing a man to say anything more or to emphasise how much she wanted him.
She merely contrived to make him laugh and, as she drove him back to Sir Julius’s villa, they talked of everything except what would happen later in the evening.
Only when, as the horses drew up outside Sir Julius’s front door and Lord Mere alighted and kissed the Contessa’s hand in farewell, did she say,
“My party and it will be quite a large one, will certainly not break up until dawn!”
Lord Mere did not reply. He merely smiled and, as the Contessa drove off, he knew that she was not disappointed with the time they had spent together.
Inside the villa he learned that Sir Julius was sleeping and, going into one of the cool quiet rooms, he sat down at a desk and started to draw a plan of the Gorizia Palazzo.
He knew that luck was on his side in that he had been invited to dinner and would not have to face what would have been a very hazardous task of entering the building by stealth.
He thought that the high wall completely enclosed the Prince’s garden and he had noticed that the gates were opened for them when they arrived and closed when they left.
The walls on the outside of the Palazzo, although more roughly constructed, had not the footholds there had been for his climb of the previous evening.
There was also no balcony leading into what he imagined was Prince Vincente’s private rooms.
To be inside the Palazzo as a guest would certainly make things easier, or perhaps more difficult, he was not sure.
He could only trust in his Fate and his instinct, which so far had never failed him.
And when he thought of Ammanati’s Rape of Proserpina and of Florencia he told himself that he must save her, even if he died in the attempt.
Everything he had been told about Prince Vincente seemed to haunt his mind for the rest of the evening.
He thought of the excesses to which he knew no decent man would stoop and how, from all that he had heard, the Prince revelled in the filth of the gutter and was vicious to the point of sadism.
The more he thought of it, the more it seemed to him unspeakable that the Soginos could agree to the match between Florencia and Vincente di Gorizia.
At the same time he could understand that for Prince di Sogino to be accused of disloyalty to the King, to be treated as a common criminal and perhaps shot, would be a disgrace and humiliation to everybody who bore his name.
‘I must save her! I must save her!’ Lord Mere told himself.
Because his heart as well as his mind cried out that it was imperative, he felt for the first time in his life not entirely confident that he would succeed.
He rose from the desk where he had been sitting and, moving across the room, went out through a French window into the garden.
He stood looking down at the panorama of Florence beneath him and he thought how much beauty its painters, its sculptors and its craftsmen had contributed to the world.
But there had also been cruelty and treachery and that too had left its mark on its people, so that history lived again in them, in their emotions, their aspirations and their ambitions.
He found himself thinking of Florencia’s beauty and knew that it was also part of the beauty of all the Madonnas that Raphael had painted.
Because it was a beauty and a purity that was in itself Divine, Lord Mere knew that he was not alone in his crusade to save her.
He was aware of a Power greater than himself and ready to help him, whom he now called upon for the first time since he had left school.
His prayer, as he uttered it, came from the very depths of his soul.
*
Looking round the Banqueting Hall where the Prince’s dinner was taking place, Lord Mere thought it was difficult to detach himself from what appeared to be an ordinary though luxurious dinner party given in an aristocrat’s house.
The silver ornaments on the table were magnificent, the candles with which the room was lit shone on the glittering jewels of the Prince’s guests and made even him seem to have a distinction that was missing in the daytime.
The food was excellent, the wine, which the Prince boasted came from his own vineyards, certainly very palatable.
There was a footman behind every chair, wearing an elaborate, almost Medieval livery of claret and purple, gorgeously ornamented with a profusion of gold braid.
It was only when he looked at Prince Vincente that Lord Mere knew that the young man seemed to be even more loathsome than he had appeared to be the first night he had met him.
When he touched his hand in greeting, he felt as though he was a reptile, a venomous cobra that any man would shrink in horror from.
The Prince was, however, being extremely effusive to one of his very attractive cousins who, as his father had said, had just arrived from Rome.
She seemed more experienced than she appeared to be and was parrying his flattery with an expertise that might hav
e been admired in an older woman.
On the other side of the Prince was another cousin, a young girl of about fifteen years of age who was obviously thrilled at attending what was probably her first large dinner party.
She was looking round her with curious eyes and was a pretty child with long hair nearly to her waist. She might, Lord Mere thought, have sat as a model for one of Botticelli’s spring-like figures.
He had on one side of him an extremely charming Florentine who had spent a great deal of time in Paris and on the other one of their host’s cousins who had arrived from Rome.
The conversation was witty and amusing and he knew, if he had not been concentrating on something far more important and fundamental, he would have enjoyed the evening.
When dinner came to an end, they all moved to a delightful room on the ground floor with windows that opened onto a terrace and where already an orchestra was playing softly.
The room was fashioned rather in the style of a Roman hall with pillars, statues and a well painted mural at one end of it.
Because Lord Mere had no desire to dance, he studied the mural and then found the lady from Rome, who had sat next to him at dinner, and suggested that they look at some of the pictures in the other rooms.
“I would love to do that,” she said. “Although I am a relative, this is my first visit to the Palazzo and I have not yet had an opportunity of seeing all the beautiful treasures it contains.”
“Then let me be your guide,” Lord Mere replied, “although a rather inadequate one, as I only came here for the first time today myself!”
She laughed.
“I heard that you visited the Soginos yesterday. You are certainly an ardent sightseer!”
“I prefer to be thought of as an appreciator of beauty!” Lord Mere answered.
He managed to make the words a compliment and she looked at him coyly.
Then, just as they were moving up the stairs to the next floor, somebody from behind them called out,
“Marsalla! My father insists that we start the dancing and you promised you would dance with me!”
“But, of course!” Marsalla replied. “Forgive me, my Lord, and let me join you as soon as I am free.”
“I shall be waiting,” Lord Mere promised.
Marsalla ran down the stairs to where Vincente was waiting and Lord Mere realised that this was his opportunity.
He was standing half-hidden by an arrangement of flowers and he thought that the Prince had not seen who Marsalla was talking to.
Taking a chance he hurried up the staircase and, remembering the rough plan he had drawn of the layout of the Palazzo, found his way without much difficulty to the West Tower.
He did not forget, however, Giovanni’s warning that Prince Vincente had a bodyguard, which was why he had deliberately brought Hicks with him this evening in the front of the carriage.
He has told him to introduce himself to the other household servants and, if it was possible, to keep the Prince’s bodyguard out of the way.
Because he knew what was expected of him, Hicks had risen to the occasion.
“I think it’d be a good idea, my Lord,” he said, as he helped Lord Mere to dress, “if I takes with me that flask you carries in your pocket when your Lordship goes out shootin’.”
“Yes, of course,” Lord Mere had agreed.
“You can drink half-a-dozen bottles of their wine,” Hicks went on, “without it goin’ to your head, but brandy’s a different kettle of fish!”
“I will leave it to you to do what you think is best,” Lord Mere said.
“Be careful, my Lord,” Hicks warned. “They’re nasty customers, that lot, from all I hears! And that’s an understatement!”
Lord Mere was certain that Hicks was right.
Moving quickly, he found first the Prince’s bedroom and then saw that next to I was a large and impressive sitting room.
He knew now that the banquet had finished it was likely that the Prince’s valet and the rest of his servants would be enjoying a meal in the kitchen quarters.
Therefore it was unlikely that he would have a better opportunity than now of finding the safe.
Florencia had told him that the safe was in Vincente’s bedroom, and he thought, although he was not sure, that it would be disguised in some way and there was certainly no sign of it at first glance.
He opened first a beautifully inlaid chest that must have been made by some craftsman in the sixteenth century.
There was a gold key that turned in a gold lock and, as the door opened, he saw not a safe but a collection of whips and chains and other instruments of eroticism.
It made him press his lips together in a hard line and he shut the doors again quickly.
The mere thought of Florencia coming in contact with a man who kept such things in his bedroom made him feel physically sick.
Then he forced himself not to think of Florencia but of the urgency of his search.
It took him only a few minutes to find that the safe was in a far comer of the room disguised as a table.
It was quite a clever idea to put a round piece of wood over it and cover it over with a heavy velvet cloth deeply fringed which made it seem very much part of the other decorations in the room.
The safe was a new one, but Lord Mere had taken a secret course in London in learning how to open any safe that was yet available on the market.
This happened to be one of a make very like one he owned himself and it took him only two or three minutes to work out the combination and open it.
Inside the safe there were a number of shelves and on the top one there were velvet boxes, which he guessed contained jewels.
On the second there were documents and he had the idea that if he had time they would be very revealing and doubtless incriminating to their owner.
But he was at the moment only concerned with saving Florencia’s father and on the bottom shelf he discovered what he was looking for.
Because he owned one of the new Facsimile cameras himself, it was not difficult to find the roll of film.
He was greatly relieved that the negatives were on film, which had not long been introduced, for he had feared they might be on glass plates, which would be far more difficult for him to conceal about his person.
There were three rolls of film, which was rather surprising, and he wondered if they were all of the Prince di Sogino until he found some prints on the same shelf.
A quick glance told him they were the ones he was seeking, but there were also others that he suspected might be used for blackmailing other people in the same way that Vincente was blackmailing the Prince.
He slipped them all quickly into the tails of his evening-coat.
Then, having cleared the shelf, he was just about to close the door of the safe when he saw on the bottom of it something he recognised.
Last month he had had occasion to visit Scotland Yard and the Commissioner of Police had shown him a quantity of drugs they had recently taken from a man who had brought them illegally into England.
The drugs on the bottom of the safe looked exactly similar and Lord Mere was aware that this was another reason why Prince Vincente needed so much money.
He glanced at them and then quickly closed the safe, setting it on the same combination and pulling down the elaborate velvet cloth, which made it once again appear nothing more significant than a round table.
Moving silently across the room, he paused at the door.
He knew it was vital that nobody should see him leaving the Prince’s apartments and to his relief there was nobody about.
He closed the door of the Prince’s bedroom behind him and started to walk swiftly along the passage.
As he did so, he heard a very different sound.
He paused and then realised that what he heard was a woman screaming.
He told himself that it was vitally important for him to get away from the West Tower immediately.
Then the screams came again.
Now he cautiously looked out from a window and saw that just below him there was the rampart he had noticed from the garden when he had been shown the fountain by Ammanati.
It was nearly dark, but he could see a white gown and a woman struggling violently against a man.
‘It’s none of my business!’ Lord Mere thought quickly.
Then, as he would have turned away towards the stairs, he saw a strand of long unbound hair fly out in her struggle and realised that it was the young girl of fifteen who had sat next to Prince Vincente at dinner.
As he recognised her, he saw at the same time that the man who was struggling with her was the Prince.
He was dragging her towards a couch that was arranged with several garden chairs on the rampart.
Lord Mere, looking through the open window, heard her cry,
“No – no! Leave me – alone!”
The Prince did not answer and, from the way he was trying to push her down onto the couch, Lord Mere knew in horror what he was intending to do.
Inflamed through drugs or excited by a lust that made him seek out very young girls who were little more than children, Prince Vincente intended to repeat the story of the statue that stood in the garden below him.
Suddenly, whatever the risk to himself, Lord Mere knew that he could not allow this to happen.
He had not even spoken to the girl, but that she was very young, innocent and untouched had been obvious as he sat opposite her at dinner.
For a moment she became identified in his mind with Florencia.
He ran down the stairs and instead of continuing along the corridor the way he had come, he took a few steps farther down the side of the Tower to where he found a door leading onto the rampart.
It was open and by the time that Lord Mere reached it, Prince Vincente had thrown the young girl down on the couch and had flung himself on top of her.
She was screaming but completely helpless and, as Lord Mere neared them, he could hear her pleading piteously,
“No, no! Please – don’t do this! Oh, God – save – me!”
She gave a shriek of horror as the Prince tore her gown from her breast and, as she did so, Lord Mere seized him by the back of his coat and dragged him off the couch and onto his feet.
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