The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
calling; and when I brought the car round to the front steps, quite a crowd of visitors gathered to see her climb to the seat beside me, wrap the rug around her skirts, and start away.
With a deep blast on the electric horn I swept out of the hotel grounds to the left, and a few moments later we were heading away along the broad sea-road through the pretty villages of Ardenza and Antignano, out into that wild open country that lies between Leghorn and the wide deadly marshes of the fever-stricken Maremma. The road we were travelling was the old road to Rome, for two hundred miles along it—a desolate, dreary, and uninhabited way—lay the Eternal City. Over that self-same road on the top of the brown rocks the conquering Roman legions marched to Gaul, and war-chariots once ran where now sped motor-cars. Out there in those great solitudes through which we were passing nothing has changed since the days of Nero and of the Cæsars.
Twenty-five miles into the country we ran, and then pulled up to smoke and chat. She was fond of a cigarette, and joined me, laughing merrily at the manner in which we were so completely deceiving the gay world of Leghorn. The local papers that morning had announced that Her Highness the Princess Helen of Dornbach-Laxenburg, one of the most beautiful women in Europe, had “descended” at the Palace Hotel, and had been seen at Pancaldi’s later in the afternoon.
“As soon as I came down this morning I was pounced upon for information,” I explained. “A young Italian marquis, who has hitherto snubbed me, begged that I would tell him something concerning Her Highness. He is deeply smitten with your beauty, that’s very evident,” I laughed.
“My beauty! You are really incorrigible, M’sieur Ewart,” she answered reprovingly, as she blew the tobacco-smoke from her lips. “And what, pray, is the name of this admirer?”
“The Marquis of Rapallo—the usual hard-up but well-dressed elegant, you know. He wears two fresh suits of white linen a day, with socks to match his ties. Last night he sat at the table next to us, and couldn’t keep his eyes off you—a rather short fellow, with a little black moustache turned upwards.”
“Ah yes, I recollect,” she replied, and then I thought that her countenance changed. “And so he’s been inquiring about me? Well, let’s run back to déjeuner—or collazione, as they call it here in Italy, I believe.”
An hour later we drew up again at the hotel, and Her Highness disappeared within. Then, after I had taken the car to the garage in the rear, and entered the hotel myself, I quickly became surrounded by people who wanted introductions to my charming acquaintance, and to whom I romanced about her wealth, her position, and her home surroundings.
On the following day, Valentine allowed me to introduce her to four persons—an Italian marchioness who moved in the most exclusive Roman set, the wife of a Sicilian duke, the wife of Jacobi, the wealthy Jew banker of Turin, and a Captain of Bersaglieri.
One night a lonely but well-dressed stranger entered the restaurant and seated himself in a corner almost unnoticed, save by Valentine and myself. The new-comer was the audacious Bindo, passing as Mr. Bellingham, an Englishman, but he gave us no sign of recognition. Indeed, the days went on, but he never approached either of us. He simply idled about the hotel, or across at Pancaldi’s, having picked up one or two acquaintances, kindred spirits in the art of graceful idling. He never even wrote me a note.
Some deep game was in progress, but its nature I was entirely unable to gather.
Now, truth to tell, I experienced a growing uneasiness concerning Rosalie. To me she was always the modest maid devoted to Her Highness, and yet I thought I once detected a glance of mischief in her dark eyes. Determined to discover all I could, I at once commenced a violent flirtation with her, unknown, of course, to Valentine.
Mademoiselle seemed flattered by the attentions of one whom she believed to be an English gentleman. Therefore I met her out one evening and took her for a long walk, pretending to be deeply smitten by her charms. From the first moment I began to talk with her I saw that she was not the shallow giddy girl I had believed her to be. She, no doubt, appreciated my attentions, for I took her to a café on the opposite side of the town, where we should not be recognised, and there we sat a long time chatting. She seemed extremely curious to know who I really was, yet the queries she put to me were just a trifle blundering. They betrayed an earnest desire to know more than I intended that she should know.
“I wish Her Highness would go back to Aix-les-Bains, or to Vichy, or to Luchon. I’m tired of this wretched hole, where I know nobody,” she complained presently. “I had quite sufficient of Italy when I was with the Duchess of Pandolfini. I did not know we were coming here, otherwise I should not have accepted the engagement, and yet—well, the Princess is very kind and considerate.”
“She certainly is to her friends, and I hope the same to her servants,” I said; and then we rose to walk back, for it was nearly eleven, and Her Highness, who had gone to the Opera with two of the ladies to whom I had introduced her, would soon be due back, and the dainty Rosalie must be there to receive her.
Upon our walk across the town I flattered her, pretending to be her devoted admirer, but when I left her I felt more convinced than ever upon three points—namely, that she was much older than twenty-two, as she had declared; that she was unduly inquisitive; and that she certainly was no fool.
That night I sent my master a note to his room warning him to be wary of her, and on the following morning I told Her Highness my suspicions.
From that moment I made it my object in life to keep a watchful eye upon the new French maid. Each evening, after her services were no longer required, she went forth alone and wandered idly up and down the esplanade. Sometimes she walked out to Ardenza, a village a mile and a half distant, halted always at the same stone seat in the little public garden, and then strolled back again, in blissful ignorance of being so closely watched.
If Rosalie had any suspicion that Valentine was not the Princess Helen, then there was, I foresaw, a grave and constant danger. And I, for one, did not intend to run any further risk.
Her Highness had been in Leghorn just over three weeks, and had become intensely popular everywhere, being invited to the houses of many of the principal residents, when one night an incident occurred which afforded me grave food for reflection.
Just after ten o’clock at night I had followed Rosalie along by the sea to Ardenza, where she was sitting alone upon her usual seat in a secluded spot, at the edge of the public garden, on a kind of small promontory that ran in a semicircle out to the sea. Behind her was a dark thicket of azaleas, and in front the calm moonlit Mediterranean.
I was standing back in the shadow at a spot where I had often stood before, when, after about five minutes, I saw the tall dark figure of a man in a grey deer-stalker hat join her, and sit down unceremoniously at her side.
As soon as they met she began to tell him some long story, to which the stranger listened without comment. Then he seemed to question her closely, and they remained together fully a quarter of an hour, until at last they rose and parted, she walking calmly back to the hotel.
Was it possible that the dainty Rosalie was a spy?
When I got half-way back to the Palace I regretted deeply that I had not followed the stranger and ascertained whom he might be. Next day I told Valentine, but she merely smiled, saying that Rosalie could know nothing, and the fellow was probably some secret lover. The next night, and the next, I watched, until, on the third evening, they met again at the same time and place, and on that occasion I followed the mysterious stranger. He was a thin, cadaverous-looking Frenchman, hollow-cheeked, rather shabbily dressed, and wore pince-nez. I watched him back into the town, and lingered near him in a café until nearly one o’clock, when he entered his quarters at an uninviting, unfashionable hotel, the “Falcon,” in the Via Vittorio. From the manner he had treated her I judged him to be a relation, probably her uncle. Yet why she should meet him clandestinely was an utter mystery.
In order still to keep watch upon the maid I made a fervent protest of affection, and frequently met her between the dinner-hour and midnight. Through all this time, however, Bindo never gave a sign, even in secret, that he was acquainted with Valentine or myself, and