Chapter Twenty Two. “The Thrush.”

On the night following Pucci’s visit to Hubert Waldron, Her Royal Highness sat before the fire in her handsome bedroom curled up in a soft chair, thinking.

The little leather-framed travelling-clock upon her big dressing-table with its gold and tortoiseshell brushes and toilet accessories showed that midnight was past. She had been to a dinner at the Palazzo Riparbella, where Her Majesty had honoured the Duchess of Riparbella with her presence, and an hour ago they had returned.

She had dismissed her maid-of-honour, and when Renata, her personal maid, had entered to attend her she had sent her to bed. Renata was devoted to her mistress. She was used to the vagaries of Her Highness—who so often wore her dresses in her escapades—so she bowed and retired.

For half an hour, still attired in her handsome, pale blue evening gown, with her dark hair well-dressed, and a beautiful diamond necklet upon her white throat, she had sat staring into the dancing flames, thinking—ever thinking.

At last she stirred herself, rising suddenly to her feet, and then, crossing to her bed, she threw herself upon her knees wildly and bent her head within her white hands.

Her pale lips moved, but no sound came from them.

She was fervent in prayer.

Her countenance, her movements, her attitude showed her to be in a veritable tumult of agony and despair. But she was alone, with none to witness her terrible anxiety, and the blank hopelessness of it all.

She had been wondering ever since she had regained consciousness on the previous night what had really occurred in the room of the Minister of the Royal Household—whether the British diplomat, her friend, had also been discovered there in her company. She had questioned the maids, but they had been instructed by Ghelardi and refused to satisfy her curiosity.

Therefore she was in ignorance of what had happened after the receipt of that fatal message from Brussels.

How she had passed that day of feverish anxiety she knew not. Every second had to her seemed an hour.

At last, after crossing herself devoutly, she rose from her knees wearily, when her eyes fell upon the clock.

Instantly she began to take off her splendid evening gown. Her diamonds she unclasped and tossed them unheeded into a velvet-lined casket on the big dressing-table, together with her bracelets and the ornament from her corsage.

Then, kicking off her evening slippers, she exchanged her pale blue silk stockings for stout ones of black cashmere, and putting on a pair of serviceable country boots, she afterwards opened her wardrobe and took out a dingy costume of blue serge—one of Renata’s.

This she hastily donned, and taking down her hair, deftly arranged it so that when she put on the little black bonnet she produced from a locked box, she was in a quarter of an hour transformed from a princess to a demure, neatly-dressed lady’s maid.

From a drawer in her dressing-table she took out a shabby hand-bag—Renata’s bag—and, after ascertaining that there was a small sum of money in it, she put it upon her arm, and finally examined herself in the glass.

She was an adept at disguising herself as Renata, and, after patting her hair and altering the angle of her neat bonnet, she switched off the light and left the room.

Boldly she passed along the corridor of the private apartments until she at length opened a door at the end, whereupon she passed a sentry unchallenged, and away into the servants’ quarters.

Across the courtyard, now only dimly lit, she passed, and then out by the servants’ entrance to the Via del Quirinale.

Having left the Palace she hurried through a number of dark side-streets until she reached a small garage in a narrow thoroughfare—almost a lane—called the Via della Muratte, beyond the Trevi fountain.

A sleepy, white-haired old man roused himself as she entered, while she gave him a cheery good evening, and then went up to her car, a powerful grey one of open type, and switched on the head-lamps. From a locker in the garage the old man brought her a big, fur-lined motor coat and a close-fitting hat, and these she quickly assumed. Then a few minutes later, seated at the wheel, she passed out of the garage exclaiming gaily:

“I shall be back before it is light, Paolo. Buona motte.”

Gaining the Corso, silent and dark at that hour, she drove rapidly away, out by the Popolo Gate, and with her cut-out roaring went straight along the Via Flaminia, the ancient way through the mountains to Civita Castellana and the wilds of Umbria.

The night was dark and bitterly cold, for a strong east wind was blowing from the snowcapped mountains causing Lola to draw up and take her big fur mitts from the inside pocket of the car. Then she turned up the wide fur collar of her coat, mounted to the wheel again, and was soon negotiating the winding road—the surface of which at that season was shockingly loose and bad.

After fifteen miles of continual ascent she approached the dead silent old town of Castelnuova, being challenged by the octroi guards who, finding a lady alone, allowed her to proceed without further word. Then through the narrow, ancient street, lit by oil lamps, she went slowly, and out again into a great plain for a further fifteen miles—a lonely drive, indeed, along a difficult and dangerous road. But she was an expert driver and negotiated all the difficult corners with tact and caution.

Through several hamlets she passed, but not a dog was astir, until presently she descended a sharp hill, and below saw a few meagre lights of the half-hidden town of Borghetto—a little place dominated by a great ruined castle situated on the direct railway line between Firenze and Rome.

Half-way down the hill she slackened speed, her great head-lights glaring, until presently she pulled up at the roadside and, slowly descending, extinguished the lights so that they might not attract attention.

Then, leaving the car, she hurried forward along the road, for she was cramped and cold.

But scarcely had she gone fifty yards when a dark figure came out of the shadows to meet her, uttering her name.

“Is it you, Pietro?” she asked quickly.

“Si, signorina,” was the reassuring reply, in a voice which told that its owner was a contadino, and not a gentleman.

Next second they were standing together.

“I received your message, Pietro,” she said, “and I have kept the appointment, as you see.”

The man for a few minutes did not reply. In the half-light, for the moon was now struggling through the clouds, the fact was revealed that the peasant was about forty, one of that pleasant-faced, debonair type so frequently met with in Central Italy—a gay, careless fellow who might possibly be a noted person in the little village of Borghetto.

He had taken off his hat at Lola’s approach and stood bare-headed before her.

“You are silent,” she said. “What has happened?”

“Nothing evil has happened, signorina,” was his reply, for he spoke in the distinctive dialect of Umbria, very different indeed to the polite language of Rome. “Only I am surprised—that is all.”

“Surprised! Why?”

“I feared that the signorina would not be in Rome.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw the Signor Enrico to-night, and he told me you had left.”

“Enrico! He has not been here?”

“I saw him at eleven o’clock. He arrived from Firenze by the north express at half-past eight. He had come from far away—from Milano, I think.”

“He has been at the signora’s then?” asked Her Highness quickly.

“Yes—with the Signorina Velia. I was with him an hour ago.”

“Did you tell him I should be here?”

“No; I feared to tell him, signorina.”

“Good. Where is he now?”

“Still at the signora’s.”

“Then he does not know I am here?”

“No, signorina, he goes to Rome to-morrow.” Lola was silent for a few moments. She was reflecting deeply.

“You say that Velia is here—eh? Then Enrico has come to see her, I suppose?” she asked.

“I believe so. They met before at the house of old Madame Mortara’s and again to-night.”

“Benissimo, Pietro. Now tell me, what have you found out?”

“Not very much, signorina, I regret to say. They are too wary, these people. I know, however, they are watching your friend the Englishman. And they mean mischief, too.”

“Watching Signor Waldron,” she echoed in alarm. “Are you quite certain of that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Who are watching?”

“Beppo and ‘The Thrush.’”

“That is Beppo Fiola and Gino Merlo—eh?” she remarked. “I thought Gino had been arrested in Sarzana.”

“So he was,” replied the man, “but he escaped. He is wanted, but the present moment is not an exactly opportune one for his arrest, signorina.”

“And they mean evil?”

“Decidedly. The Signor Waldron should be warned.”

“How did you discover this, Pietro?” she asked, standing with him in the deep shadow of a disused granary.

“Signorina, a man of my profession has various channels of information,” was his polite but rather ambiguous reply, his voice entirely altered, for he now spoke in an educated manner. Hitherto he had spoken in the dialect peculiar to the valley of the Tiber, but his last sentence was that of an educated man.

“Ah! I know, Signor Olivieri,” she said; “you are a past-master in the art of disguise to come out here and live as a contadino.”

“For the purpose of obtaining information every ruse is admissable, signorina. This is not the first occasion in my career by many when I have posed as a peasant.”

“Curious that Signor Enrico is so friendly with Velia, is it not?” she asked.

“Exactly my thought,” replied Pietro Olivieri, the renowned private detective of Genoa, for such he was; “there is some devil’s work afoot, but whether it is in connection with the matter we are investigating I cannot yet convince myself. As a field-labourer in madame’s service I have been ever on the alert. Fortunately no one has yet suspected me—for this place is, as you well know, a veritable hot-bed of anarchy and crime; a nest which contains some of the worst and most desperate characters in the whole of Italy. Therefore if I betrayed myself, I fear I should not return to Rome alive.”

“But have you no fear?” she asked anxiously. “Not while I exercise ordinary caution. Here, I am Pietro Bondi, a simple, hard-working contadino. I take my wine like a man. I gossip to the women, and I interfere with nobody. At first when I came here my presence aroused suspicion, but that has, fortunately, now died down.”

“You will watch Enrico?”

“Certainly.”

“I wonder what his object is in returning here to Borghetto?”

“In order to meet Velia.”

“He could have met her more easily in Rome.”

“Not if it chanced to be against his interests to be seen in Rome. Remember he is well-known there.”

“So you think he got off the train here instead of going on to the capital?”

“Yes. To see the girl Velia who came here to-night—to meet him and the others.”

“The others?” she repeated inquiringly.

“Yes—‘The Thrush’ and the others.”

“To form a plot against the Englishman?” she gasped.

“Exactly, signorina. The Signor Waldron should be warned at once. Will you do so—or shall I send him an anonymous letter?”

“I will see him to-morrow; but—but what can I say without exposing the truth. Come, Signor Pietro, you are a good one at inventing stories.”

“Tell him the truth, signorina.”

“No,” she said, “that is impossible. I—I could never do that. I have reasons for concealing it—strong reasons.”

“Then what do you propose doing? If you tell him he is in grave personal danger he will only laugh at you and take no heed of your warning. Englishmen never can understand our people.”

“True, but—but really,” she asked suddenly, “is there any great danger?”

“I tell you, signorina, that some conspiracy is afoot against your friend,” replied the detective who, before entering business on his own account, had been a well-known official at the Prefecture of Police in Genoa. His work lay in the north and he knew very little of Rome, and was therefore unknown. “You requested me to assist you in this curious inquiry, and I am doing so; yet the further I probe, the deeper and more complicated, I confess, becomes the problem.”

“But you do not despair?” she cried anxiously.

“No. I am hoping ere long to see a ray of light through this impenetrable veil of mystery,” he replied. “At present, however, all seems so utterly complicated. There is but one outstanding feature of the affair,” he added, “and that is the attempt which will assuredly be made upon the life of your friend.”

“But why? With what motive?”

“They hold him in fear.”

“For what reason?”

“Ah! that, signorina, I am as yet unable to say,” was his quick reply. “If I knew that then we might soon get upon a path which would undoubtedly lead us to the truth.”

“We must crush the conspiracy at all hazards, Signor Olivieri,” she said quickly. “Remember that Signor Waldron is my friend—my dear friend.”

“Then go to him and tell him the truth.”

“Ah, no, I cannot!” she cried. “That is quite impossible.”

“You know him, I do not,” the detective said. “Could you not induce him to leave Italy, say for a few weeks? It would be safer. These men, I tell you frankly, are desperate characters. They will hesitate at nothing.”

“But why should they attack an Englishman?” she asked.

“Because he knows—or they think he knows—some secret concerning them. That is my theory.”

“And they intend to close his lips?”

The detective nodded.

“S-h-h-h,” he whispered next second. “See yonder”—and he pointed down the hill to where a light had suddenly shone. “Someone is coming across the vineyard. Perhaps it is Signor Enrico—probably it is, I overheard him say something about catching the night mail to Rome. It is due in twenty minutes.”

“Addio, then,” she said hurriedly. “I will manage to warn Signor Waldron if, as you say, it is absolutely necessary,” and, taking the peasant’s hand in farewell, she ran back to where her car was waiting, and was soon on the road again speeding back over the thirty odd miles which lay between that nest of bad characters and the Eternal City.

While she was hurrying away, without waiting to switch on her lamps, Pietro Olivieri leisurely descended the hill. But as he passed on through the grove of dark cypresses a human figure crept stealthily out of the shadows and, looking after him, muttered a fierce imprecation.

The pair who had believed themselves unseen, had been watched by a very sharp pair of eyes!