Ainslee's Magazine/True to Form

by Henry C. Rowland

True to Form

By Henry C. Rowland

Author of “Mile High,” etc.

CHAPTER I.

GEOFFREY SINCLAIR was just back from China, whither he had been on some diplomatic mission, and he had looked me up to ask me to read the manuscript of a book he wished to publish. He asked me to do a show with him and later sup at the Savoy; I accepted, and he was telling me about the famine in China—a good place to talk about famines, the Savoy restaurant when he suddenly stopped speaking and a most peculiar expression spread over his clean-cut, thoroughbred face. Or perhaps the peculiarity was lack of expression, because as a well-trained diplomat of some years of experience in the Orient his first instinct, on being startled or surprised, would be to assume the inscrutable, moon-faced Oriental mask.

Being myself under no particular bond of. discretion, I took the liberty of staring. Everybody in our immediate vicinity appeared to be doing the same and there fell a sudden hush in the clatter of crockery and chatter of conversation. This passed instantly, but in that brief moment I had myself experienced a sort of triple shock; first, from the beauty of the woman who had just passed, preceded by an elderly man of distinguished appearance; second, for the gorgeousness and profusion of her jewels; and third, because I had recognized in her escort a man who had been pointed out to me a few nights before at the opera, one Bayat Pasha, a former high official of the household of the deposed Sultan Abdul Hamid, and, as I now understood, the emir of a large province of Turkey in Asia. This was, of course, before the World War—there have always been famines in China—and the woman was, I thought, American, though from her type of beauty she might equally have been British or Scandinavian, and there was something submissive in her manner as she was seated at a small table with her companion, and a proprietary quality about his own.

Sinclair's face resumed its normal expression and he seemed to breathe freely again, but a startled look lingered in his eyes.

“My word, old chap,” said he. “I've had a shock. I don't know whether to be pleased or displeased, or ashamed or amused.”

“Who is the sultana?” I asked. “She apparently recognized you, and for the moment I didn't know whether she was going to laugh or reach for the fizz bottle and bash your head in.”

“I experienced the same doubt,” sighed Sinclair, “and I was all set and ready for defense or flight. Let's finish our coffee and walk around to the club and I'll tell you all about her. It's quite a tale, and I'm by no means sure but what the end of it may still have to be told.”

“You mean you think she may try to get you?” I asked jokingly.

“Well—that or—something,” he muttered. “You'll have to judge for yourself.”

So we dropped the topic until we were comfortably settled in a corner of the club lounge, when Sinclair, a much better talker than I am writer, unfolded this singular human document. I shall try to tell it without interruption, as though he were writing it himself, and not encumber the compositors with unnecessary quotation marks and things.

 

When I went downstairs, I thought it was probable that I would be the only American guest in the house party, but hearing the click of ivory I looked into the billiard room and decided that I was wrong. The girl knocking the billiard balls about was unquestionably American, I thought, and probably the daughter of some friend or relative of my hostess, Countess Mancini, née Carol Fairfax. But I thought it very odd that Carol had not mentioned her, because we were old friends and compatriots and our families of the same colonial Southern set, so that I was pretty apt to know all of her American friends, at least by reputation.

The Count Mancini was himself American born, his father having been an attaché of the Italian legation before it became an embassy, but he had returned to his own country to take up his position as the head of an old family and to occupy his ancestral home, the Palazzo Mancini, which is way down on the heel of Italy on the Adriatic, not far from Brindisi. Unlike many such international marriages, this one had turned out very happily. The pair were devoted to each other and both adored their little eight-year-old boy, Luigi, to an extent which seemed to invite the jealousy of the high gods. But just at this time their happiness was marred to some extent by Carol's state of health. I had been rather shocked, on arriving there, to find her so pale and nervous, and as there did not seem to be any definite illness to account for this, and knowing something of Luigi's affairs, I more than half suspected that her condition was the result, partly, of worry about them and partly of another cause which I shall mention later.

Just now, as I stood against the heavy, brocaded Florentine curtain, undiscovered by the girl who was practicing cannons on the big English billiard table, my admiration of her beauty was colored by the disapproval which a young American diplomat cannot help but feel at sight of a pretty compatriot, especially a young, unmarried girl, in a décolleté too extreme for one whose position is vouched for by her mere presence as a guest of so exclusive a household as the Mancinis'.

This was all the more pronounced by reason of her full, sweeping figure, and as she turned her profile to me there was something about her face which was displeasing, although the features were lovely. Her profile had none of those pronounced national traits to be found in European aristocracy, such as Anglo-Saxon clearness of chiseling or high Slavic cheeks or French leanness, Italian softness, or Spanish temperamental traits. It would, in fact, have been rather doll-like except for the nose, which, though slightly tilted at the tip, was too straight and high of bridge to be infantile.

But what I objected to was her expression; it was not precisely haughty or petulant, but wore a sort of intolerance which seemed to be stamped there and not the result of a passing mood. There was some spirit within her which appeared to have imprinted on what should have been a charming face a suggestion of selfish, offensive, defensive unfriendliness, almost hostility, and since there did not seem to be anything to irritate her in the obedient behavior of the billiard balls, which moved about in perfect precision under her deft strokes, I came to the conclusion that one of two things must be the case. Either this expression was habitual and had become inseparable from her physiognomy or else something had recently happened to irritate her.

It occurred to me, then, that Carol might have disapproved of the girl's gown—which I was certain she must. Perhaps from recent service in the near East I may have become a bit Oriental myself in my attitude toward the degree of modesty to be observed by women of upper caste. It was one thing for a young woman whose profession was that of public entertainment to exploit her charms, and another for such a girl as this to do so.

These impressions of mine were merely momentary, of course, as I could not stand there spying on her from the ambush of the portières. As no one else had appeared, I stepped out, with a slight bow and what I thought to be a friendly smile, and asked her if she cared to play a string with me until the others came down.

And then I received an unpleasant surprise. This girl turned slowly with a sort of easy swing from the hips, gave me a cool, supercilious looking over, then, as if I had not been there, she directed her attention toward the table again and made an excellent and difficult two-cushioned cannon.

For a moment, I was too astonished to do more than stand there staring at her. It would never have occurred to me that one might make a faux pas in addressing a fellow guest to whom one did not happen to have been introduced in such an exclusive home as the Palazzo Mancini. In an English house of the same sort, the chances are that none of the guests would have been introduced to each other.

In my service and European social experience I had come to look upon presentations as reserved for making known individuals of lesser rank to some personality particularly distinguished, whether for high achievement or royal birth, or possibly age and dignity, as in the case of grandparents of the house. It had often happened to me to pass the best part of an afternoon with some sympathetic fellow guest, either man or woman, without either of us making any attempt to discover the identity of the other, and rather glad not to be bothered by any possible constraint which might arise from knowing it.

Sometimes, I must admit, such pleasant acquaintanceship had been absolutely marred by the discovery of an identity which put a restriction on any exchange of sympathetic views, just as it might if one member of a clan at feud with another were to discover that his new-found friend belonged to the enemy's camp. Perhaps that is the reason that it became the custom not to introduce fellow guests—because the host or hostess felt that they ought by rights to be in sympathy and it seemed a pity to let politics prevent this.

But at this moment I was too astonished at being snubbed in such a raw and violent way to remember that social customs vary a good deal, and that this girl might have had it hammered into her, wherever she grew up, that it was cheeky impertinence for a strange man to speak to her in a more or less familiar manner, and that it would be an admission of cheapness or ill breeding on her part to respond to that sort of advance.

No, it struck me rather that she couldn't quite have understood, or that from the habit of hotels and places of resort where there are always a lot of cads trying to scrape up an acquaintance, she had for the moment lost sight of the fact that we were not in a hotel or casino, but in the Palazzo Mancini.

So I fell back on the proper form to be observed and took it for granted that she had not meant to be rude, but was merely preoccupied with her billiard practice or momentarily vexed about something, and asked her again if we mightn't play until some of the others came down. And I asked her politely enough, but in a way which I thought might convey to her mind the fact that there was absolutely no reason for her aloofness. I was not trying to be importunate, but merely filling a social duty, which is for fellow guests to make themselves agreeable to one another, and that if I had, in her opinion, made a mistake I desired to be told in what way I had been guilty of doing so.

She told me. Turning slowly, she looked me up and down with her cool, intolerant eyes and, resting her cue on the edge of the table, said with that insolence of youth which is so much more irritating than the vexation of an older and well-bred person who desires merely not to be disturbed:

“Thanks, but I don't remember our having been introduced.”

That finished it.

“Quite so,” I answered. “I beg your pardon.” I walked into the music room beyond and helped myself to whisky and soda and lighted a cigarette. I now understood quite fully that my snub was merely the result of her ignorance, and that if I had been the Prince of Monaco or Duke d'Abruzzi I would have received precisely the same treatment.

She continued to practice for a few minutes longer, when Darnley, a young British naval officer on leave from Malta—who evidently had been introduced to her—came into the billiard room and proposed a game. She immediately consented, as I could tell from the continuous clicking of the balls and the length of intervals between scoring.

The entrance of the rest of the party, who came down at the same time, interrupted the game and Darnley stepped into the room where I was sitting to help himself to a drink.

“Awfully pretty girl, that,” said he, “and a jolly good player. I'm not in her class at all.”

“No,” I answered. “I don't believe you are.”

Darnley stared.

“What's her name?” he asked. “Who is she, anyhow?”

“You don't mean to tell me that you haven't been introduced?” I demanded.

“Met her this afternoon—when she arrived,” said Darnley. “The count presented me, but I've forgotten her name. Hold on! 'Taggart'—she's American.”

At that moment the old major-domo announced that dinner was served. I took in the Countess Mancini, this honor due to our being old friends who had not met for some time, and I found the girl who had just given me such a beautiful snubbing on my right—she having been taken in by Darnley.

I suppose that some fellows who had just got the treatment she had given me might have been sore and not laid themselves open to another cold shower. But I've never been revengeful, and, besides, I was curious to see if she would carry her peculiar ideas of good form to the point of snubbing me again at the table with our hostess there to protect me.

So after gossiping a little with Carol Mancini, I turned and asked Miss Taggart how she happened to play such a rattling good game of billiards.

“Lots of English girls do,” I said, “and some few Americans. But the latter usually get lost on a big English table. I remember once taking a young American girl in to play at a house party in England. She'd just arrived on her first visit, and when she'd looked the table over, she said: 'What are we supposed to be playing, anyhow—billiards or golf?'”

Miss Taggart may have discovered her mistake by this time, for she made no further effort at reproof. She was evidently keen enough to realize that she had made rather a bad break, but she did not try to apologize for it.

“My father taught me to play,” she answered. “We had a house in London for about a year, and I used to play with him almost every night.”

This broke the ice and we got on pretty well through the dinner, talking impersonalities, travel and places and things. I was getting more and more puzzled about her and how to account for her being there, and wondered why Carol had not told me anything about her.

Carol seemed rather nervous and preoccupied, I thought, but, as I've said before, I had a pretty good idea why. In fact, from the few vague hints that she had let fall in the little, interrupted talk we had had on my arrival, I had gathered that there might be some particular reason besides old family friendship for her having urged me to spend a fortnight at the Palazzo Mancini while waiting to be officially assigned to my next post, Constantinople. Carol was, I felt sure, terribly worried about Luigi's affairs, but she had hinted also at some danger which shadowed him. He had, I gathered, made some rather bad political enemies, and for all I knew his life might have been threatened, and Carol had found out about it and was very anxious to have me about the place as a sort of bodyguard.

During the course of the dinner, she spoke several times to the girl on my right, addressing her as Miss Taggart, and although Carol's manner was very kind, it had none of the intimacy which it would have shown had this girl been the daughter of some old friend, or even a protégée for whom she had conceived a liking and in whose affairs she had seen fit to take some particular interest.

I managed to look Miss Taggart over a little, and my first impression of her remained unchanged, barring only that it seemed to me I had not given her full credit for a most uncommon degree of beauty. She had a sort of vivid freshness that suggested a wood nymph, one of Diana's court or perhaps the goddess herself—as if she had lived in some sheltered glade surrounded by her court, with never the necessity of giving a thought to anything but her own absolute well-being.

Being young myself and by no means unsusceptible, I might have been very keen about her then and there, if it had not been for that repelling expression of intolerance and selfish disregard for everything but her own pampered interests. She gave me the impression of a girl whose greatest care, up to this time, might have been a disappointing gown or a piece of burned toast.

The gown idea suggested itself because there was something reminiscent about the one she wore, and which had first aroused my disapproval. I could not get it out of my head that I had seen that very gown somewhere, worn by another pretty woman, but for the life of me I could not remember where. In fact, I did not try, because at the moment it was less of a thought than a vague impression.

A little later, when the ladies had gone out, I asked the count who Miss Taggart was, and having made some effort to train myself in observation and deduction, I did not miss his almost imperceptible Latin shrug.

“Miss Taggart is the daughter of my—banker,” he answered.

Now, if the count had said with prompt candor, “Miss Taggart's father has been advancing me considerable sums of money and I feel under obligation to him, and that I ought to discharge a certain amount of the debt in a social way,” I could not have formed a more distinct idea about Miss Taggart's presence there. It fitted in perfectly with Carol's kindly, but rather constrained attitude.

“American?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the count. “He is a promoter and has made a big fortune in railroads and mines and development schemes. I knew him in America, some years ago, and now he has come to Italy, and has asked my assistance in the reorganization of an old line of steamships which formerly plied between Genoa, the West Indies, and the Gulf ports.”

“Rather an odd departure for an American,” I said.

“Well, you see, 'Sep,'” said the count, “his wife's Italian—that is, Sicilian—and her family were shipping people and formerly interested in this line. That's how he happened to take it up.”

“Then Miss Taggart is half Italian?” I said, rather surprised at the utter absence of any physical traits in her which might suggest this mingled parentage. The count raised his eyebrows.

“Sapristi!” he said. “I think she would tell you she was one hundred per cent American. If her mother had been Venetian, one might see the Italian strain cropping out, as she has just missed being a Venetian blonde. But then, Taggart is red-headed, or at least he was before he lost the best part of his thatch.”

“Where are Mr. and Mrs. Taggart?” I asked.

“They were in Genoa last week, but have left there to motor to Trieste and Fiume. When I saw Taggart the other day in Genoa I asked them to come here. I could scarcely do otherwise, considering our business relations, but he had to go to Trieste and it appears that his wife will not be separated from him.” The count laughed. “Perhaps she has her reasons, considering his red hair.”

“Sicilian ladies are apt to be a little jealous,” I said, smiling.

“I believe you,” laughed the count. “Besides, I think she may have felt a little shy, considering the difference of stations. In Italy the old order changeth not, so that you could notice it, and the farther east you go the more that is true.”

“Evidently the daughter does not share in any of this diffidence,” I observed.

“Of course not,” said the count. “Why should she? Is she not American—and therefore the equal of any—except those of whom she is the superior?”

The picture became immediately clear to me. Here was a girl whose father was no doubt a keen, shrewd, American promoter who had amassed great wealth, and most deservedly, no doubt, as the result of distinct abilities. His daughter, having enjoyed the best advantages that money can buy, schools and luxurious travel, and special courses of an educational sort, and no doubt a good many warm, but transient, friends among people of all sorts—the shrewdness of her Italian mother would have eliminated the undesirables—had got a very good opinion of herself. The freshness of her uncommon beauty and her self-confidence, backed by her father's wealth, could scarcely have failed in spoiling her to some extent. And no doubt she found it perfectly natural that she should be entertained at this house which would have proved more difficult of access to the casual plutocrat than Buckingham Palace.

Her mother would have felt constrained and ill at ease because of her Italian traditions. Her father might have felt a little constraint himself, although if he were the sort of man I pictured him he would have preserved a dignity not to be ruffled or disturbed by conventions with which he was unfamiliar; his force and abilities and conscious power would have made him quietly reposeful.

Having learned what I wanted to know, I changed the subject.

“Carol does not look as fit as I should like to see her, Luigi,” I ventured to say.

The count threw out his hands.

“I am very anxious about her, Sep,” said he, and lowered his voice a little. “She worries about our affairs and about me. As you're an old friend, I might as well tell you that I'm in rather a tight box. I hope to see my way out of it, and I tell Carol not to bother. But I've got some rather nasty enemies, political rather than personal, and the scoundrels have sent her some threatening letters recently. I've tried to laugh Carol out of being upset by them and I've told her that most Italians in my position must expect a bit of that sort of thing. But it preys upon her mind, and she wants us all to go to America. It can't be done now because of this new deal. I wish you'd try to cheer her up.”

“I'll do my best, Luigi,” I answered, and that was as far as we got, for the moment, because we were interrupted by the major-domo, who asked the count if he could spare a few moments to speak with his dragoman, Mustapha.

I knew Mustapha slightly. He was the count's fidus Achates and the sailing master of his small steam yacht, and a sort of confidential adviser, I thought. Perhaps at this point I might digress a little to give you a picture of the Count Mancini. I knew him, as did most of his intimate friends, for a jovial southern Italian of impulsive and, no doubt, improvident nature; former diplomat himself, infused with charm and magnetism, and no dearth of acumen when he chose to take the trouble to exert it; a kind landlord, a devoted husband—if not too long absent from the domestic hearth—and an adoring father. In his travels he had taken certain plunges, from time to time, in various commercial ventures and had, so far as I knew, met with pretty fair success. But the Tripolitan affair had taxed his resources, and having had some relations with this American promoter, Taggart, he had no doubt readily agreed to aid him in his scheme for the rehabilitation of Italian shipping trade. There could be no doubt at all, 1 thought, but that Taggart might have advanced him certain funds on the strength of his future efforts, and under such circumstances the count would certainly have been in no position to withhold an invitation to his home, even if his Italian hospitality would have permitted.

It occurred to me that as Taggart's wife was Italian—or, what was more important in this connection, Sicilian, the social as well as the business affiliation might prove of more value than was immediately apparent.

As an Italian woman of the middle class she would appreciate fully the honor of having her daughter visit the ancestral home of the Mancinis. It seemed to me a perfectly reasonable arrangement, but I could not help wondering why Carol had not spoken to me about it.

Later in the evening, as we were all variously amusing ourselves, Miss Taggart, with Darnley in tow, came up to where I was sitting on the parapet of the loggia, smoking a cigarette.

“I say, Sinclair,” said Darnley, “Miss Taggart wants a game of billiards and she says that I am not up to her form.”

“I'm afraid I'm not either,” I answered, “but I'll be glad to take her on if she thinks I am worthy of her game. But we haven't been introduced,” I could not keep from adding.

Darnley looked a little puzzled, not seeing much sense or humor in this remark. But if I had expected to disconcert the girl, I had failed to do so. She looked no more embarrassed than might a queen who had chosen to eat with her knife. It was as if she had merely indulged a caprice for rudeness because she happened to feel rude at the time, but, the mood having passed, she was now inclined to be gracious, the more so, I imagine, as no doubt she had learned that I was a budding diplomat and such individuals can be useful at times to their traveling compatriots. But even so, there still lingered—though lingered is not quite the word for an expression which has become a permanent facial trait—that look of almost contemptuous intolerance which made even a chivalrous young man, such as I tried to be, feel like smacking her.

As she selected a light, small-tipped cue and sighted along it, she said indifferently:

“I hate this European custom of not formally introducing people. One likes to know the name of the person one's talking to, whether it happens to be an important one or not. Why does the countess call you 'Sep?'”

“I graduated from West Point,” I answered, “and it is an ancient custom in the military academy to nickname some fellow in the class 'September.'”

“Is that an honor?” she asked.

“Well, call it a distinction. Later I went into the diplomatic service, but the nickname has always stuck. What's yours?”

“Francesca—after my father, whose name is Frank. But mother gave it an Italian twist. However, they call me 'Francey.'”

“How long have you been over here?” I asked.

“I've only been here about a month, this time.”

We began to play, and I followed admiringly the beautiful contour of her shoulders and the flowing curves of her back as it welded into the roundness of her hips. The way she moved was infinitely pleasing and distinctly American, a sort of compromise between the rangy stride of the athletic English girl and the choppy or mincing step of most continental women.

It struck me as a singular and unscientific fact that so often the children of parents who were of distinctly alien races and had emigrated to a foreign country should take their physical and intellectual traits from neither father nor mother, but appeared to be molded by their geographical surroundings.

I had seen this thing in many lands and many families. I had observed that the children of an Englishman who had married a French woman in Cochin China presented a distinctly Chinese aspect. And at this moment, as I watched Francey, it seemed impossible to believe that this willowy, nymphlike girl, almost too finely perfect physically to be real, could be the daughter of an Irish-American prospector and a Sicilian woman. I pictured Taggart, from the count's sketchy description of him, as a short, squat, bull-necked, red-faced, red-headed man with a square jaw and keen, quick, blue eyes. And I thought that the Sicilian wife would probably be, by this time, rather full of bows and broad of beam, with dark, restless eyes.

And here was Francey, who might have stood almost as a symbol of the national conception of the typical American girl, the magazine-cover girl, with her haughty face, insolent eyes, and scornful but sensuous red lips. She had also the combative chin which illustrators seem to consider essential and which really belongs more to a prize fighter than to a pretty girl.

Francey's charm struck me afresh as we played and she leaned over the billiard table with her beautiful arms extended to direct her cue. The shaded table lights appeared to be holding a sort of revel in her hair, which was neither red nor yellow, but of a curious tawny shade like the mane of a lion. And again the flawless perfection of her skin and coloring and strong but delicate modeling attracted me as it would attract a young man who has been thrown a good deal with Levantines or Orientals or other greasy, swarthy folk.

As Francey recovered from her stroke, I said:

“The color of your gown harmonizes charmingly with the flood of light on the green baize of the table. It is really an uncommonly pretty gown, if you don't mind my saying so. A Paris creation, of course?”

“Oh, no,” she answered. “We haven't been to Paris this time. These are New York rags.”

“A French importation, surely?” said I.

“No. All American, like myself.”

I knew that she was not telling the truth. I had been closely examining that gown, and had now managed to identify it by a narrow garland of embroidered roses which I recognized immediately not only as a specialty of Paquin, but because I was convinced that I had seen that very gown displayed by a pretty mannequin in that very house. A month before I had gone with a rather bashful American friend to lend my moral support in the selection of several evening gowns which he desired to take as a present to a sister about to make her début. We had both been hit in the eye by this exquisite chef-d'œuvre; but on seeing it worn had decided against it on account of its being an extreme of the prevailing mode. We had dismissed it with regret as too scanty in all dimensions for a débutante, though doubtless it would have been tremendously to this same débutante's taste.

A moment later, when Francey turned to mark up her score, I became convinced that there could be no mistake. Besides the garlands, I recognized a minute detail which had caught my eye when the gown was displayed. This was no more than a peculiar button which I had remarked at that time.

Francey had said that she had bought the gown in New York before sailing and had stated, also, that she had been in Italy a month. Obviously, for some reason she lied. The model itself must have been made in January or February for the spring showing and would not be sold as shopworn, in the ordinary course of events, until the end of the season. In this case Francey had found it so precisely to her taste as to overlook a slight lack of freshness, or being herself in pressing need of such a gown, she might have prevailed upon the dressmaker to sell it to her. The natural deduction in my mind was that Francey had been to Paris and for some reason saw fit to lie about it, and I wondered why.

There was, in fact, a good deal about Francey that puzzled me. For one thing the count had mentioned her age as eighteen, and I would have given her five years more than that at the very least. Also. it seemed impossible that a girl of eighteen and the daughter of parents who, though rich, were of common origin, should have shown neither diffidence nor becoming modesty of dress and manner, on being entertained by so distinguished a host and hostess, and in the presence of guests whom she could not help but realize were so much her superiors.

We played along fairly evenly, for she was really a rattling good player, and in my case the accomplishment was not the evidence of a misspent youth, as is sometimes claimed, but because my father was very keen about billiards and undertook my education at an early age, making it his especial care that I should fall into no slipshod technique, but should play true to form. And then, when the score stood some forty-odd to fifty in my favor, there was another little incident which still further perplexed me about the personality of this disdainful beauty.

There was among the guests a very distinguished prelate, the Archbishop Mancini, a distant cousin of Luigi's, who was expected shortly to be elevated to the red robe of cardinal and to take up his residence in the Vatican. He was not only a personality of high ecclesiastical importance, but of charming manner, and though not much past middle age, of a type to inspire veneration even in a Protestant. He strolled in casually to watch our play just as Francey, scorning the bridge, was leaning far across the table to attempt a difficult shot. She saw him from the corner of her eye and she must have heard me address him as “Monsignor” just before he said to her in English:

“And are you giving him a good drubbing, signorina?”

Now Francey's back was almost turned to him and any young girl with the slightest claim to good breeding would have straightened up immediately and turned respectfully to answer. Even I, a Protestant, had come to attention, as it were. But Francey, presumably a Catholic—considering that her mother was Italian and her father Irish-American—did nothing of the sort. Bending over the rim of the table in an attitude which, though not ungraceful, was scarcely one of dignity, she answered while still sighting along her cue:

“He's got the edge on me, just now, but I'm not through with him yet.” Then she made her shot, and followed it up with a run of eight or nine, during which time she not only paid no attention to his eminence, but even forced him to step back a little to give her room, and she did this almost as though he had been a marker, or rather some obtrusive spectator who was getting in the way.

I must say I was rather more than shocked—scandalized, in fact—and I could feel my face getting red with embarrassment at her lack of manners. If the cardinal elect was surprised, he did not show it, but after a few genial compliments he went out again into the other room looking rather thoughtful. No doubt he was wondering if this was a fair sample of the bringing up of American girls. I was thoughtful myself, so thoughtful, in fact, that it put me off my game, so that Francey beat me the string by half a dozen points.

I could not understand it. A young girl and a Catholic, with an Italian mother, not only failing to stop playing long enough to respond to the honor of being addressed by such a dignitary, but not even giving him his title and scarcely more than glancing in his direction, with a shade of petulance at the interruption—to judge from the expression of a face which, though fresh and glowing, was utterly lacking in the pleased shyness to be expected of it.

Later in the evening I found opportunity to speak alone with Carol Mancini. Francey seemed to have disappeared mysteriously, as Darnley had been rambling about trying to find her and the other guests were all present and accounted for. He asked Carol jokingly if she had sent the girl to bed, and at this question I caught a look of annoyance on her face.

“No doubt she was tired from her journey and slipped off, not wishing to disturb us when we were listening to the music,” said she.

“That girl could do with a bit of house-breaking, Carol,” I said. “First she snubs me for daring to address her without an introduction and then she snubs the archbishop for interrupting her game, and so numbs my senses with surprise that she beats me out, and now she seems to have flitted off like Cinderella on the stroke of twelve, without bothering to say good night or leaving so much as a slipper to remember her by. If that's the way they drag up American girls nowadays, I shall have my daughter elevated in the old country—that is, if I ever lose my head for long enough to father any.”

Carol gave a tired little smile.

“I could forgive her manners,” said she, “but I find it a little difficult to excuse that gown.”

“She does seem to be bursting out of it like a dryad that's been fitted to a tree a size too small,” I said. “But, whatever else we may not precisely approve, there's no denying the sheer flawless, physical beauty of her.”

“That makes the rest of it rather worse,” sighed Carol. “Considering Luigi's business relations with her father, I should like to do what I can socially for Miss Taggart, but quite apart from her indiscretion in the matter of dress and a self-confidence which is offensive in so young a girl as she must be, I find her utterly unsympathetic. It's dreadful to criticize one's guests, but do you know, Sep, I seem to get from her the intensely disagreeable impression of a hostile force.”

“That's her spoiledness,” I answered.

Carol shook her head.

“One meets a good many spoiled girls,” she said slowly, “but while they may be petulant or saucy, they are still just girls.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “just fool girls!”

“Precisely,” Carol answered. “But this girl is no fool. I can't make her out at all. One doesn't look for any great amount of elegance from the daughter of such a man as I imagine Taggart to be, and his Sicilian wife, especially considering the fact that they have dragged her from continent to continent, and country to country, and lived principally in big hotels and aboard ships and even in mining and lumber camps. I should not object in the least to her being raw or loud or flirtatious—that is to say, I might object, but I could make due allowance for it, and might even feel a liking for her.”

“Quite so,” I agreed. “But she's none of these things, I should say—she's smooth and quiet and cool and a bit contemptuous and, first and last, unfriendly. And yet she's so darned pretty that if you happen to be a man you rather overlook the rest of it.”

“Well,” said Carol, “I don't happen to be a man.”

Darnley came up again at this moment in a demented sort of way. He was an old friend of Carol's, a British relative, in fact, if you went back. far enough, because his family had intermarried with the Fairfaxes and the original Lord Fairfax was, their common ancestor.

“I say, Carol,” said he, “don't you think it rather odd that she should have slipped off this way, without saying good night or by your leave or go to the devil or anything? Where is she billeted? Where's her room?”

Caro! looked at him severely.

“Have you lost your mind, Herbert?” she demanded.

“Not just yet, but my heart is tugging a little on the warps. She's a wonder. I don't think I ever saw one just like her before. She's got me all on the go.”

“Well, then,” said Carol, “don't go in the wrong direction.”

“Oh, I haven't the least intention of knocking at her door to make sure that she's safe. I thought I might yowl a bit under her window if you've got a guitar. I believe it's the thing to do down here, isn't it? I've become a regular Maltese cat since I've been stationed here.”

“Very well,” said Carol. “You'll find a guitar in the music room, silly boy.”

“Thanks, awfully,” said Darnley. “But which is her room?”

“In the northeast tower, next to my little boy's. Luigi and I are just beyond, so don't make too much noise or keep it up too long.”

“Orders read and understood,” said Darnley, and hurried off.

1 asked Carol if she or the count had ever met Miss Taggart before.

“No,” she answered. “I've never met her parents, either, but considering Luigi's affiliations and our pressing necessities, I thought we ought to stretch a point and ask them down. I'm glad they declined as I really don't feel up to much in the way of entertaining people.”

“Did she come alone?” I asked.

“No; she has a maid with her. Luigi met her at the station with the trap. The maid is a pretty Italian girl and not at all the sort I'd care to have for a daughter of mine. She was making so much noise chattering with little Luigi's nurse when I went in after dinner that I sent her out. Luigi hasn't been very well, and I'm afraid of fever at this season. Oh, Sep, dear, I'm so worried about everything. Big Luigi is so anxious about his affairs, and he keeps getting threatening letters from those awful Camorrists.”

“Threatened men live long,” I said, “especially when they are magistrates of the law.” The count occupied such a position by virtue of his rank and importance in the region, where he administered justice as the infrequent occasion arose. “But you really have nothing to be afraid of here, Carol, surrounded by all your faithful henchmen.”

“All the same, I am,” Carol answered. “Mustapha is my tower of strength. He is really a very unusual man, Sep, and he is devoted to Luigi and loves little Luigi with a sort of religious adoration. But Mustapha is a Turk, and that sometimes makes it a little difficult, as Italians don't care much for Turks.”

“I've often wondered about Mustapha,” I answered. “He's got all the earmarks of a prince incognito, as if he'd stepped out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and he seems to speak every language and to have traveled everywhere.”

“Well, a dragoman is apt to be like that, and, besides, he was interpreter in Abdul Hamid's household and at one time captain of a steamer running from Odessa and Batum and other Black Sea ports to Brindisi. He seems to have chosen his humble position with us out of sheer devotion to Luigi. But now we're going to charter the yacht to a friend of Luigi's who insists on having Mustapha as sailing master, and when he goes I shall be more anxious than ever.”

This little talk with Carol took place shortly after midnight, and a little later we all went up to bed. I was quartered on the same floor, but at the other end of the house from the Mancinis' suite, and I was just starting to undress when there came a light finger drumming on my door, and in response to che e la the Count Mancini entered.

At sight of his face I sprang to my feet. The count was livid and his dark eyes, at all times slightly prominent, seemed ready to burst from their sockets.

“Great God, Sep,” said he, “my little Luigi is gone!”

Then without waiting for me to speak he began to pace up and down the big, high-ceilinged room, wringing his hands.

“He sleeps in the suite adjoining mine,” said he. “I look in always to kiss him before I go to bed, no matter what the hour, and to see that the windows are properly arranged and that he is sleeping quietly. That little boy is my heart and soul and hope of heaven. To kiss him is my most devout prayer. And no matter how deeply plunged in his baby slumberland, his arms go round my neck and he murmurs 'Good night, papa.' To-night when I went in as usual he was not there!”

“Where's his nurse?” I asked.

“She was snoring like a pig in the room adjoining. When I woke her, she was dazed and stupid, as if she had been drugged, and I had a time of it to make her understand what had happened.”

“Does Carol know?”

“Not yet. She must not be shocked until it becomes inevitable. Her heart is none too strong and in her present nervous state the news might kill her. She also looks in on Luigi before retiring, but she went to bed an hour before myself, so that Luigi must have been taken in that interval. I have locked old Maria in her room and told her to keep quiet if she valued her life.”

“What have you done?” I asked.

“Nothing as yet. I hurried to you because you are so clear-headed and I cannot think. Above all things, Carol must not be roused to learn what has happened.”

“Take me to his room,” I said, “and try to get yourself in hand, Luigi. If the little boy has actually been kidnaped it must be some scheme for ransom, and you will hear about it very soon.”

The count gripped his thick, grizzled hair with both hands.

“I fear worse than that,” he moaned. “I fear revenge—a motive of personal retaliation against some of my efforts directed toward the suppression of a society of devils.”

“The Camorra?”

“Something of that sort, but worse. Italy is overrun—the world is overrun with these soulless fiends.”

“Now, Luigi,” I said, “get a grip on yourself. It may be as you say, but all the anarchists or other scum which the world has ever known have got their eyes on the money side of the business.”

“But I'm impoverished,” groaned Luigi. “I have not told you of the desperate straits we are in. All that you see here is pretense—bluff, as they say in America—to preserve my credit until I am able to get on my feet again. The estate is mortgaged to the ears, Carol's jewels are in pawn. If they asked to-morrow for a hundred thousand lire to ransom Luigi I could no more raise it than I could lift a thousand kilos. I have borrowed from my friends until their patience and their funds are exhausted.”

“You haven't borrowed from me, old chap,” I said, “and when it's a question of little Luigi, all that I have is at your disposal, and it's quite a decent little lump.” I slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, now, let's look the ground over. We'll get back your boy, no fear. About all that anybody wants, these days, is money.”

He flung his arms around my neck, from which embrace I gently but firmly disengaged myself.

“Never mind that, just this minute,” I said. “Let's get started. You've shown your strength and courage in not rushing to Carol. Show me his room.”

The count led me down the long corridor, then up a few steps, and turning at right angles, proceeded in the direction of the northeast tower. Before reaching this, the count stopped in front of a door, turned, and laid his fingers on his lips. We entered softly in order not to disturb the countess, who was in the room adjoining and connected with it by a boudoir and bath. From another room to the left came the sound of moaning, scarcely audible.

“That old fool Maria will wake Carol yet,” said the count. He tiptoed to the door, which was ajar, and hissed a few maledictions which resulted in absolute silence. I glanced about. It was a very big room for a little boy, I thought, being, like most of the others, marble floored and with a very high ceiling, this and the walls being decorated with Pompeian panels and designs. The bed also was a big one for a little boy. It was richly carved and was scarcely disturbed at all.

Going to the long windows, I opened the volets and looked out. Then I stepped out, for there was a tiled terrace, which was the roof of the breakfast room, running straight to where the curve of the northeast tower met the wall. In this angle there was a window which opened, also, on the terrace. There was no light in this window, which I thought a little strange, as Carol had told me that this was Francey's apartment, and if she had slipped off unobtrusively to bed it did not seem as if she would have had time to make her toilet for the night, which, I believe, is a process, in the case of young and rich and beautiful ladies, assisted by the maid. It seemed to me that I had seen Francey not three quarters of an hour ago, but, of course, she might have been very tired from her long railroad journey and gone to bed without bothering with elaborate preparations.

Then I noticed that the long Venetian blind of her window was ajar. This slight detail impressed me, because nobody ever leaves such blinds ajar without securing them. One either bolts them shut or catches them all the way back or hooks them half open. But this one was not secured, for, as I looked in that direction, the faint draft from the sea swung it so that it closed with a little jangle.

“Have you got a pocket torch?” I whispered to the count.

“Yes,” he answered; “on the nurse's dressing table. Wait.”

He went back into the house. I slipped off my pumps, walked to the edge of the terrace, and looked down. I was not surprised to find a long garden ladder leaning against the wall and reaching within a foot or two of the rim. It would scarcely have been noticed among the clustering vines even in the daytime, let alone on a dark night. I stepped back to the window just as the count came out. He handed me the torch, thinking, no doubt, that I wished to examine the tiles for footprints. Instead, I started for the window of Francey's room. The count seized me by the elbow.

“Hold on!” said he. “That is Miss Taggart's room.”

“Quite so!” I answered. “But I wish to learn immediately and without disturbing her, if possible, whether or not Miss Taggart is in it. She disappeared about an hour ago without the courtesy of saying good night to Carol, which struck me as extremely odd.”

The count flung up his arms.

“My God!” he whispered. “You fear she may be kidnaped, too?”

“That or—something,” I muttered, and made my way softly along the wall to the window which, was near the angle of the arc of the tower and the side of the house. Softly putting aside the blind, I looked into the room, a spacious, high-ceilinged one, like all the others in that big house, then flashed the electric torch about. There was a big four-poster bed with a high canopy. The lace cover had been removed and the sheets turned back ready for the night, but, like the pillows, they were undisturbed. Convinced that the room was empty, I entered and stepped across to the door, which was locked, whether from the outside or the inside I could not tell, as the key had been removed. A glimmer of light came through the keyhole from the corridor outside.

On flashing my torch about the room, I saw that it presented the appearance of an apartment that had just been tidied by the maid. On the dressing table the toilet articles were set in order, and there was no sign whatever of any disturbance.

In those few seconds I did some very rapid thinking, then I went out softly and joined the count, who was awaiting quietly, but anxiously, the result of my brief inspection.

“She's gone!” he groaned.

“Yes,” I answered. “Let's go back to my room.”

We did so, and on entering, the count flung himself into an armchair and looked at me with a ghastly face. Small wonder, poor chap!—for he now found himself doubly stricken, not only in the abduction of his little son, but in the sacred laws of hospitality, which demanded the protection of the guest within his gates, and, more than that, this guest was the only daughter of the man upon whom so much depended at this moment.

“My enemies must have learned of my relations with Taggart,” he moaned, “and so they have managed to kidnap this girl, thinking that by so doing the ransom might not only be fixed at a vastly greater amount, but the payment of it assured. The devils were clever enough to realize that I might be so hard pressed for ready money as to make it impossible for me to meet their demands. They have struck at me doubly, trebly—at my heart, my honor, and my fortune. They discovered that Taggart alone stood between me and ruin.”

“I wish that I could think so, Luigi,” I answered.

“Think so!” He shot me a look of tortured surprise. “What else is there to think? It is all most horribly plain. In some way she was decoyed into the garden, where she was seized and gagged and carried down to a waiting boat. Then they crept up and seized Luigi, and they may now be on their way to some desolate spot on the shores of the Adriatic, where there is no lack of desolate spots.”

“You may be right,” I said “and I sincerely hope that you are, for if Miss Taggart has been kidnaped she would be with Luigi and able to comfort him, no doubt, and, as you say, the prompt payment of the ransom would be assured. I hate to blast your hopes, but we must consider the facts of the case and a line of circumstantial evidence which is pouring into my mind.”

“But if she has not been kidnaped, where the devil is she?” The count almost shouted, in the desperation of his grief and dread.

“If my theory is correct,” I answered slowly, “she, is not very far, and she is apt to return to her room at almost any moment.”

“Are you mad, Sep?” cried the count, leaning forward.

“Yes,” I answered. “Mad clear through and cursing myself for a doggoned fool. If my brain had worked a little faster, this might have been prevented.”

“But Miss Taggart——” he began hopelessly.

“Listen, Luigi,” I said. “I have reason to think that this girl is not Miss Taggart at all—and that she is the person who has managed the kidnaping of little Luigi.”

CHAPTER II.

The shock of this, to the count, outrageous statement had a numbing rather than a stimulating action on his tormented brain. He stared at me stupidly, his prominent eyes expressionless, unable to grasp my idea.

“Pull yourself together, Luigi,” I said sharply. “Try to think as clearly as you can about what I am going to say.”

He seemed to revive a little.

“How can I think clearly when you tell me such stuff as this, and, besides, we are losing precious time. If she is not Miss Taggart, then who the devil is she and where is Miss Taggart? I received her telegram from Rome, where she broke her journey, telling me on what train she would arrive, and I met her at the station at Brindisi and brought her here.”

“Carol tells me that neither of you had ever seen Miss Taggart,” I answered. “Have you ever seen a picture of her, or has Taggart or his wife ever given you anything in the nature of a description of her?”

He reflected for a moment.

“Only that she was a pretty girl of eighteen and just out of a convent school,” he answered.

“If this girl is nearer eighteen than twenty-five, then I am nearer forty than my actual age of thirty-three,” I answered, “and there's a lot more difference between eighteen and twenty-five than there is between thirty-three and forty. Now, do you happen to know for certain whether or not the Taggarts have been to Paris since landing at Genoa?”

“Taggart told me when I saw him a week ago that they had not been out of Genoa, except for a run to Naples, and it was chiefly on that account that he would be glad to have his daughter come to us here, as she was getting rather run down and anæmic.”

“That's important,” I said. “Do you think that the fondest parent could discover anything run down or anæmic about this girl? She glows like a sunrise, and it's not artificial coloring, as I had occasion to examine it under the strong reflectors over the billiard table. More than that, when I presumed to admire her gown she told me that she had bought it on Fifth Avenue before sailing, and I happened to remember having seen that particular model, as the dernier cri, on a mannequin at Paquin's, on the Rue de la Paix, about a month ago.”

“Sapristi!” muttered the count. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. I've a bit of an eye for gowns. But to continue. I suppose that Taggart and his wife are both good Catholics.”

“Of course,” answered the count. “They are strong supporters of the church and when in Rome had a private audience with the pope.”

“Very interesting,” I observed. “We are getting warmer. Now, as a Catholic yourself, and knowing something of ecclesiastic discipline, do you think that an eighteen-year-old girl brought up in the church and just out of a convent school and visiting, probably for the first time in her life, in a home of the old nobility, would lie sprawled across a billiard table and continue to play when addressed by an archbishop and prospective cardinal?”

“Good heavens, no!” cried the count. “Do you mean to say that she actually did that?”

“Rather worse,” I answered. “She almost shoved him aside in passing around the table. Although a Protestant myself, I was so embarrassed it put me off my game. And do you think that a young girl of an Italian mother, visiting such a house as this, would be so rude as to snub a fellow guest and tell him they had not been introduced? Don't. you think her mother would carefully impress on her the necessity of being both modest and polite? Do you think she would be permitted to wear a gown which no woman but a frisky young matron or a cocotte would use for the flaunting of her charms? I tell you, Luigi, that this girl is a fraud, an adventuress, a criminal of the upper underworld.”

The count sprang to his feet.

“Then where is the real Miss Taggart?” he cried.

“I don't know,” I answered, “but the chances are that she is motoring toward Trieste with her parents. I think it's probable that the Taggarts received a telegram signed in your name, begging that her visit be deferred owing to Carol's ill health or something of the sort. This would not only keep her from coming, but might have made them a little angry and prevented their writing immediately. But have you noticed any discrepancy yourself? Anything that struck you as slightly peculiar in Taggart's daughter?”

The count dropped into his chair again.

“Tl was surprised at her age and general air of self-possession, but you know that lots of American girls are like that, especially the daughters of the nouveau riche. They seem to grow up very quickly, become eblouissante like your California fruits.”

“How about her Italian?” I asked.

“Well,” said he reluctantly, “I must admit that I was a bit surprised that it was not more colloquial. She speaks it fluently enough and correctly, but it struck me that a girl who must have talked from childhood in her mother's language would be more apt to speak colloquially than grammatically. Still, they soon forget.” He shook his head. “No, my dear chap, your theories are ingenious, but insufficient. They do not stand the acid test. There are plenty of big American girls of eighteen who have gone in for athletics and knocked around a lot and been spoiled and given their own way who impress one as being twenty-five. Their mothers are more ingénue than the daughters. As for her gown, the model might have been sold to some dress-maker in Genoa, and she lied about it because of a snobbery which made her dislike to admit that she had been in such pressing need of a gown as to buy a slightly-worn model.”

“How about her disrespect to the archbishop?” I asked.

“That was very bad,” said the count, “but still it might happen. There are, unfortunately, some Catholics who, growing up in Protestant countries, are not good Catholics and are inclined to associate our church with the working classes, Irish and Italian laborers and Portuguese peasants and the like, the 'Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion' epigram which, when I was attaché in Washington, was used so unfortunately in Blaine's campaign—that is, unfortunately for Blaine.”

“No,” I said. “She is trying to play a definite rôle—that of the ingénue daughter of parents who are nouveau riche—and she is overplaying the part. Her cheek and assurance and bad manners and gown are all details, in her conception of this character. They ring true enough to bamboozle Europeans, or even Carol, who has become European in her attitude toward her compatriots, or Darnley, because the British prefer to think of Americans as crude and aggressive. But she can't fool me, because I've seen too many Americans of the sort she tries to depict, and I never yet ran up against one as bad as that. I tell you, Luigi, this girl is not only a crook, but a very raw and clumsy impersonator.”

The count shook his head.

“You are too melodramatic,” said he. “You leap at a fantastic idea and let it get away with you. I'm afraid that you've been reading Arsène Lupin or Gaboriau or some of your yellow-covered literature.” He sprang up again. “All of this is nonsense,” he cried, “and meanwhile we are losing valuable time.”

“A few minutes more or less can't make much difference,” I said, “and it's vitally important that we should not miss any trick right at the start. We must make sure which of us is right. If I am, then this girl will soon be back in her room, or if not, her maid and accomplice must be missing, too. But if you are right and the girl is actually Miss Taggart and has been kidnaped, then her maid must be here. Where is her room?”

“Upstairs, where the house servants have their quarters,” growled the count.

“Then suppose you find out if she is there,” I suggested. “If she is, then tell her that her mistress has disappeared and ask when she saw her last.”

“But that would not prove anything,” grumbled Luigi. “The maid might have been in the plot. And it would not prove anything if Miss Taggart were to come in. She might have been seized by the whim to stroll about the gardens, or perhaps there is a bit of a flirtation going on.”

“Weren't your guests all there when we broke up for the evening?” I asked.

“How do I know he snapped. “This is the Palazzo Mancini, not a military barracks. I am not in the habit of mustering my guests for roll call before sounding taps.”

“Well,” I retorted, “Darnley was there, and he's the only one beside myself who would have been apt to stroll in the gardens with her. You are not showing much sense, Luigi. If this girl is what I suspect, we must know it right away.”

My flash of temper seemed to steady him a little.

“Well, then,” he asked sullenly, “what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go and find out if her maid is in the room assigned her,” said I. “Then I want you to come back and wait for me here. Wait quietly until I come back.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I am going back to Miss Taggart's window on the terrace,” I said. “If she is in her room, or enters it shortly, I may see fit to question her a little.”

This statement sent him up into the air again.

“You shall do nothing of the sort!” he cried. “Do you want to bring disgrace upon my house? A host is responsible for the comfort of his guests—especially for the privacy of the women.” He mopped his forehead. “My God, Sep, you must be drunk or crazy!”

“Oh, dry up, Luigi,” I said. “I shall watch her movements a little before accusing her of anything.”

“What!” he exclaimed. “You sit there and propose to me that I permit you to spy on this girl in the privacy of her apartment in my house?” He glared at me as if he had more than half a mind to strike me.

“Luigi,” I said patiently, “do calm down and bring your brain to bear on this. Your little boy has been kidnaped. You come to me first and ask my advice and I tell you that I am convinced that this supposed Miss Taggart is an impostor and a criminal who has engineered it. Besides the circumstantial evidence, I now propose to put the matter to the proof. This is no time for squeamishness. I feel quite sure that the girl will soon be in her room, if she is not there already, and I want to watch her a little in the hope of picking up some clew. It sounds like a rotten thing to do, but it seems to me the circumstances justify it.”

“And what if you see nothing suspicious? What if she were to discover you there?” the count demanded. “She is very apt to go to the window, and you would not be able to retreat.”

“In such a case,” I answered, “you may count upon my taking full responsibility for my action and standing the consequences of it without a murmur.”

“But do you realize what that would mean, Sep?” Luigi protested. “She would raise a row and charge you with trying to enter her room by the window, and there would be a scandal, and your resignation would be requested from the service and from every club to which you belong, and you'd be ostracized by society and cut by your best friends, and for the honor of my own house, my lips would have to be sealed.”

“I know all that,” I answered. “In fact, I recall the cases of certain men of my acquaintance who were caught at that sort of thing; they had taken too much for granted with a certain woman at a house party, and flushed with wine, attempted to act on the 'faint heart ne'er won fair lady' motto and do a Romeo balcony act. Screams and scandal! One of them shot himself.”

The count leaned forward and laid his hand upon my arm.

“Your intentions are most loyal, Sep, but your theory about this girl is absurd. This is my house, and I should not permit what you suggest, even with good ground for suspicion, any more than I should permit the searching of my guests if valuable jewels were to disappear at a ball or banquet here.”

I swore.

“Damn you, Luigi,” said I. “Can't you stop focusing on your noblesse oblige and the honor of your moldy old dump long enough to realize that it's all no use when the only one left to carry on the name and race has been stolen out of it? Besides, I'm thinking of Carol. If she knows that we've got something to go on, she may be able to bear up under the shock, but otherwise it's apt to kill her outright or drive her mad.”

He flung up his arms with a gesture of despair.

“Do what you like,” he cried. “No doubt you are right. I am past the power of thought or action. I leave it all to you. I shall not interfere.”

“All right!” I answered shortly. “Then go up and see if the girl's maid is in her room, then come back and wait for me here. I shall not be very long and you ought to know that I am not the sort to play peeping Tom any longer than seems necessary to justify my suspicions.”

“Of course,” muttered the count.

I returned to little Luigi's vacant room, passed through it to the terrace, and slipped off my pumps as before. There was more light on the terrace, as a late, eroded moon had just risen over the rim of the steep hills with their irregular steps of terraces planted in olive orchards, and this dull, golden light, spread over the mottled walls of the palace, was enough to make any object distinguishable.

And then, just as I was about to steal up to the tower window the crevices between the blinds glinted from a light suddenly turned on inside the room, and. at sight of this my heart pumped in a fashion which sometimes makes one think its beat must be audible. I stood in the embrasure of the window, waited two or three minutes, perhaps, then took a chance and slipped up to the girl's window, of which the blind had not been secured.

At my first glance I saw that something unusual was afoot.

Francey, in her evening gown and with no suggestion of preparation for bed, was seated at a writing table not far from the window, her bare, beautiful right shoulder presented toward me and her hands apparently engaged in sorting some papers. On the other side of the room, her maid was occupied in placing some gowns in a small wardrobe trunk.

The significance of these plans for immediate departure seemed to me the last link needed in my chain of circumstantial evidence. The following morning, with the house in a turmoil over little Luigi's disappearance, it would be natural for the guests to leave.

Then, although scarcely anything more was necessary to convince me of the truth of my suspicions, I discovered through a rent in the lace curtain that Francey's occupation was not the sorting of papers, but the counting of money—big five-hundred-lira notes, and from the voluminous heap of them I thought their amount must run somewhere about twenty or thirty thousand dollars. Not even the daughter of an American millionaire would carry such a sum when going to visit friends. In fact, as her father was a business man, she would be more apt to have with her only cash enough for tips and minor expenses and a book of traveler's checks.

This girl was apparently a crooked young woman who knew quite well what she was about and took no chances. The kidnaping of little Luigi had been a C. O. D. and F. O. B. transaction. The collecting of the ransom was up to the holders of the child; Francey's part of it was finished when he was delivered to them.

Francey, having counted the notes and thrust them into a beaded bag, said something to the maid, who answered without looking back over her shoulder, then moved to the door and, with a careless and by no means respectful good night, departed. There was nothing disagreeable about her manner, which was merely that of a confederate upon an equal footing. Francey rose and, walking to her dressing table, seemed about to get ready for bed.

I swung open the shutter and stepped inside. Francey turned quickly, but instead of the look of terror and the screams to be expected from an innocent girl at an intrusion of this sort, her expression was merely that of extreme annoyance and angry questioning, until she discovered my identity, when it appeared suddenly to freeze.

“So this is the sort of man you are,” said she. “Get out at once, or I shall open the door and scream.”

“Go ahead,” I answered. “That will only get you in jail a little sooner.”

This statement drove the angry color from her face.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded in a tone which she tried to make haughty and contemptuous, but which was marred in its effect by a tremor.

“You know very well,” I answered. “I have no time to waste in quibbling or listening to your talk of outraged innocence. I want you to tell me immediately what has been done with little Luigi.”

She made another effort at bluffing, demanding to know if I was drunk or crazy and what I was driving at. But I cut this short.

“Drop all that!” I said sternly. “I don't intend that you shall gain any time for your accomplices. You must tell me immediately what has been done with the boy, or I shall turn you over to the police and let them do the questioning, and 1 warn you that the 'third degree' is very well understood here in Italy. I might say, in fact, it was invented in the doge's palace.”

“I tell you I don't know what in the world you are talking about,” she answered furiously. But it struck me as a significant fact that, instead of raising her voice, she lowered it.

“One more denial on your part,” I said, “and I shall hand you over to people who will know how to deal with you. You might get some mercy from me, as a compatriot, but let me tell you that once your case goes out of my hands there is no telling what might happen right here in the Palazzo Mancini. I saw through you from the very start and wondered what your game might be. I knew that you were not Miss Taggart, but I kept it to myself until the count came in just now and told me that his little boy had been kidnaped. I am going to make you a very liberal offer merely because the Countess Mancini is in such ill health that the shock of this thing might drive her insane or kill her. But I warn you that I have no time to waste on your denials.”

She stared at me in a way that made me feel that I had to do with either a very hardened, or else a very stupid, criminal person.

“I see you're not entirely the fool I took you for,” said she, “unless somebody has double crossed us.”

“Nobody has double crossed you,” I answered. “You gave yourself away by your wrong impersonation of Miss Taggart. Everybody was astonished at you, and I guessed the truth on learning that the child had been kidnaped. Now you'll have to do a little double crossing yourself if you want to save yourself a good many years of prison.”

“What is your price?” she asked.

“I haven't any price,” I answered.

She picked up the beaded bag and took out the roll of notes.

“Would this be any inducement?” she demanded.

“No, nor anything else you might have to offer,” I answered. “But if you'll give me information which will lead to the recovery of the boy, you may keep your blood money and go free.”

She appeared to consider this offer for a moment, then asked:

“How do I know that you would keep your promise?”

“You'll have to take your chance on that,” I said. “If you don't know enough about men to size up one like myself, then so much the worse for you.”

She gave me a cool, intolerant look.

“Very well,” she answered. “I'll accept your offer, but only on condition that these people shall not find out that I gave them away.”

“I agree to that,” I answered. “Now, first of all, where are they taking the boy.”

“To a place in the Gulf of Smyrna. I don't know the name.”

I stared at her in astonishment.

“What is their object in taking him so far?” I asked.

“I don't know. That's their affair. I only learned it by accident from something that I overheard.”

“Is this a ransom job or is it for revenge?” I asked.

“Ransom,” she answered. “Though there may be revenge behind it, too.”

I did not question her further because it occurred to me that the count must be waiting in a state of horrible suspense, and that the interrogation might as well go on in his presence. So I told her curtly to come with me, and took her back to my room, where, as we entered, the count raised his haggard face from his hands and stared at us in a bewildered way. I motioned the girl to a chair, into which she sank coolly enough.

“It's just as I thought, Luigi,” I said. “This girl managed the kidnaping of your little boy and, according to her, they are taking him to some place in the Gulf of Smyrna, though God knows why they should want to go six or seven hundred miles away, with Albania just across the strait.” I looked at the girl. “Why do they?” I asked. “You must have some idea and you'd better let us know it.”

She shrugged.

“I suppose they think that Asia Minor would be safer,” she answered.

I turned to Luigi.

“No doubt they have some affiliations there. I promised the girl that she may go free and keep the money she has been paid if she gives us information which shall lead to little Luigi's immediate recovery, ransom or no ransom.” I turned to the girl. “What is your real name?” I asked. “I mean the one you used last.”

“Estelle Dunbarton,” she answered sullenly.

“Well, then, Estelle, is it possible for you to get word to them?”

She shrugged again.

“It's possible,” said she, “but I'd rather go to prison than have them know I've double crossed them. My life wouldn't be worth that”—she snapped her thumb and finger—“but I'll do what I can to help you get the child, if you will promise not to let them know that any information came from me.”

“What became of Miss Taggart?” I asked.

“They've got her, too. We traveled in the same compartment. She and her maid were met at the train by a man who told her he was the count's chauffeur. I recognized the count immediately and went up to him.”

“Then,” I said, glancing at the count, “we were both right, Luigi—it's a double job. How soon may we expect the demand for ransom?” I turned again to Estelle.

“I don't know,” she answered. “That's their affair.”

“Is your maid one of their gang?” I asked.

“No,” she answered sullenly. “She is only my maid.”

“She worked with you on this job?” I asked. “Are you a professional criminal?”

This question brought another haughty, scornful look.

“I don't think that enters into our agreement.”

“Very well,” I answered. “We will let it pass. Now, tell us as much as you can about this job, and bear in mind that your only hope of liberty depends upon our recovery of the boy.”

“You can get back the boy unhurt if you follow the directions in a letter which you will probably get to-morrow morning,” she said. “All that you have to do is to go to the place designated and pay over the ransom money. The letter should explain all that.”

“How did they manage to get the child?” I asked.

“I met them in the sunken garden under the terrace, while you were all listening to the music. My maid had put a powder in some wine she gave to the nurse. They put a ladder against the wall of the terrace and climbed up. I took the boy out of his bed and gave him to them. He is not hurt in any way at all, as the gag was not tight.”

“I am surprised that you did not have sense enough to come back and say good night,” said I.

“That is what I intended to do,” she answered coldly, “but that fool caterwauling under my window delayed us so long that most of you had gone up before we were able to get the boy.”

“What sort of boat did they have?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she answered sullenly. “I had nothing to do with that.”

I turned to the count.

“There isn't much for us to go on, Luigi,” said I. “All we know is that this girl has delivered your little boy to a gang in a boat, which is probably a fast cruising launch of some sort, and that they are making for the Gulf of Smyrna. It seems to me that our only course is to send out a general alarm to police and naval headquarters and request that all small boats in these waters be stopped and searched.”

“You had better not do that,” said Estelle.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because, as you will be informed, any attempt to rescue the boy and Miss Taggart would be almost sure to result in their being done away with. These men hate the count. They may be willing to revenge themselves by making him suffer, but if they find themselves in danger of capture their first act would be to get rid of the evidence against them.”

The count leaned forward and stared at her fixedly, and there was an expression in his eyes which drove the color from her face.

“I understand,” said he. “If they were to find themselves in danger of capture they would be apt to tie a piece of ballast to their prisoners and drop them overboard.” His eyes remained fixed upon her with a sort of dreamy thoughtfulness, as though he might be a judge of the Inquisition devising for some hopelessly incorrigible heretic, as the means of cleansing his soul, some torture so fearful that the possessing devil would make all haste to abandon it.

“If my dear friend had not given you his promise, young woman,” said he, “I would hand you over to my faithful Mustapha, who was my dragoman when I was attaché at Constantinople. Mustapha adores the very ground my little son treads upon. I recall that once when Luigi was stricken with Roman fever and his life despaired of, Mustapha went out into the garden where Luigi had been running barefoot and found one of his footprints in the soft mold. He built a little temple of bricks around it and cemented them strongly together. When I asked him his purpose he told me that if Luigi should die that would be the shrine where, henceforth, he would go to pray.”

The count leaned back in his chair and stared thoughtfully at Estelle. She looked at him, then clapped her hands upon her mouth to repress a shriek.

“As I have just remarked,” the count continued, “were I to have my way with you, I would explain to Mustapha what you have done and hand you over to him. He would know what to do with you. The chances are he would take you quietly into the cellars of this house, which are very large, some parts of them only to be reached by passages which lead out in various directions. There having gagged you—as you tell me you gagged my little boy—he might fasten your dainty wrists to iron rings, then strip you and flog your pretty body to death, or he might merely place you in one of the dungeons, for which my ancestors occasionally found need, and there wall you up.”

He turned languidly to me.

“Look at her, Sep,” said he. “Is she not wonderful? She has youth and extraordinary beauty and no small intelligence, and she might go far on the road to happiness, by virtue of the gifts with which God has blessed or the devil cursed her. Her naked body would be a creation of delight, but if we could see her naked soul it would be a thing so horrible that we would recoil in terror and loathing. Not content with the honest and kindly employment of the riches with which she's endowed, she must take a little boy from his bed next those who so adore him and deliver him, dewy and drowsy in the deep and innocent sleep of childhood, to a gang of devilish bandits who warn us that, at our first efforts for his rescue, he shall be tied to a pig of ballast and slid into the sea.

“And she does this in order that she may obtain a few thousand lire for the purchase of silken lingerie and other not even considerable vanities. She has not done it for a cause or for revenge or even because she has been led to such a deed through an infatuation for some scoundrel who has forced her to assist him.”

His luminous eyes played over the cowering, shrinking figure of the girl.

“I would make you a large wager, Sep,” said he, “that up to this time her physical body has remained inviolate; that, in that respect, she is as chaste as Diana, and would not willingly permit the lips of any man to brush her own.” He leaned forward, gripped the carved griffin heads on the arms of his chair, and his burning eyes scorched into the fascinated ones of the girl. “Is not that the truth?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” she murmured faintly. “Don't—for the love of God—don't——”

The count leaned back and his lips writhed in a terrible smile. I felt myself growing cold.

“I believe her, Sep,” said the count. “I have had sad reason to know something of her type—the lovely body incasing a diabolic soul.”

He rose briskly from his chair and stepped to the head of the bed, where he reached for the heavy, braided cord with its huge tassel, and glanced back at the girl, who was watching him in a sort of spellbound terror.

“I think,” said the count softly, “that I shall send for Mustapha.”

The count tugged at the cord, and in the tense stillness we could hear, faintly, the melancholy jangle of a bell somewhere below. Estelle clapped both palms over her mouth to stifle a shriek, then sank back with closed eyes and chalky face. I sprang to my feet.

“For God's sake, Luigi,” I said, “what do you mean to do? We are not living in the Middle Ages. This is no time to indulge in the luxury of revenge. You must think of how we are to get back your little boy. Remember Carol.”

The count smiled.

“I have not forgotten her, Sep,” said he, “or my little son. Don't be alarmed. I have no intention of doing as my ancestors would have done in similar circumstances. But I am sure that Mustapha can be of great service to us in this crisis. He is a man of rather uncommon ability. He was for some years master of a trading felucca and knows the Levant as I know my rose garden. Mustapha is an Osmanli. He was for some years of Abdul Hamid's household and master of the caïque-jee before he became my dragoman. I had occasion to render him a service, and i am sure that he would cheerfully be flayed for my sake and yet feel that he had not settled his account. He was Luigi's servant as well, and, as I have said, his love for my little boy is in the nature of worship.”

“That's all very well, Luigi,” I interrupted, “but I can't quite see where Mustapha comes in at this moment.”

The count raised his eyebrows at my tone, which was of the soothing sort that one might employ to a person either insane or on the point of becoming so.

“Don't be alarmed, my boy,” said he. “I admit that I'm nearly mad, but there's a method in my madness. Since it would be dangerous to Luigi's' life to send out any alarm, it has occurred to me that we had best get my yacht in readiness for any emergency which may arise in connection with the paying of the ransom and proceed to the point where they may see fit to deliver Luigi. Mustapha is my sailing master and will know what to do. It is my duty to communicate with Taggart and inform him what has happened and to act as much as possible in coöperation with him. Also, it would not do for me to leave Carol. As long as I am here she will feel the necessity of bearing up for my sake, but with me absent she might fall into a fatal collapse.”

There came a discreet rapping at the door.

The count crossed the room.

“Send Mustapha to me immediately,” he said to the servant outside, and then continued to pace up and down. He appeared, for some reason, to have regained hope and courage, for there was a certain vigor to his step, and his face, which had been flaccid and mottled, showed now, although still haggard, a new tonicity. His brown, luminous eyes were brooding, but there was a hint of fire in their depths.

I thought it probable that the count was cheered at the knowledge that Miss Taggart was with his little boy; first, because Taggart, with his wealth and energy and resource, would waste no time in ransoming her, and, also, the count knew him for a man of heart who would not leave the child of his associate in the hands of bandits. And in the second place, it was no doubt consoling to learn that the girl was with his little boy to pet and comfort him.

Whatever the cause, there was no doubt that the count's spirits had, if not risen; at least regained a certain hope. But as my eyes fell on Estelle I perceived that she was in a state of terror, admirably controlled up to this point, but threatening at any moment to erupt in a crise de nerfs or some sort of collapse. She had taken my practical arrest of her and my indictment coolly enough, after the first shock, and she had even faced the count with a sort of cold defiance. But his terrible invective of her and his anathema, delivered with such a quiet, concentrated essence of hatred, and his summoning of the Turkish dragoman had all but swept away Estelle's last hold upon her self-control. Glancing at her narrowly, I could see the strain that she was under, like a vessel on a lee shore with but a single hawser left and this snapping, strand by strand. Her white, even teeth were set in her lower lip, and there was a rigidity shown in the long, full, round arms, and a straining of the fingers which gripped the arms of the big chair.

No doubt she realized by this time that here was no criminal case to be tried before a benevolent judge and jury, sympathetic to her youth and beauty, in a courtroom full of people and reporters swayed by sobbing penitence and lovely, tear-stained features. No, it was borne in upon the girl that she was in an ancient feudal castle, in the hands of a nobleman whose traditions would direct that a viperess who had dared to enter in the guise of a guest and lay her wicked, violent hands upon the preserver of the race, should never plead her case in any court. Torture first and then the “oubliette” and the rats to finish her atonement.

She looked at me, but could see no mercy in my face. In fact, there was none behind it, for that matter. If the count had demanded the person of Estelle, the chances are that I should have let him take her. I could feel no mercy for her. Had she been a mere thief I might have pitied her, or even if she had come as the agent of some band of assassins I might have found a possible shred of pity for her. But to snatch a little boy from his bed, and hand him over to the mortal enemies of his house, thus, perhaps, to kill his mother of shock and grief and drive his father to madness, and to do this in no spirit of revenge, but merely for a few billets of five hundred or thousand lire, was a crime for which I could find no particle of mercy. I thought that she ought to be strangled, and as I looked at the face of the count I was not at all sure but that she might yet be.

To relieve the strain upon my own nerves, I lighted a cigarette and sat pondering silently the ways and means of the situation, while the count paced noiselessly up and down and Estelle sat, straight in her chair, white and tense like a Cassandra. Presently there came the sound of swift steps in the corridor outside and a light rapping on the door.

“Come in,” said the count in English.

A striking figure entered, softly closed the door, and drawing himself up before the count, made the graceful Turkish salutation, the hand sweeping downward with a bending of the body then carried to the forehead, the lips, and the breast. The dragoman was a splendid type of the Osmanli Turk of pure race, such as one may see in the fishermen or coast guard on the shore of the Black Sea and which few unfamiliar with the Ottoman race appreciate as being its national type. He was about five feet ten in height with a face serene to melancholy, rather high features, and a broad, intelligent forehead. The breadth and depth of his chest were tremendous, but he was rather small of waist, narrow of hip, though muscular, and his short gaiters, for he wore a Zouave costume; swelled at the junction of his ankle and the huge, bulging calves. His luminous eyes rested tranquilly upon the face of his master, taking no heed of either myself or Estelle.

The count sank back into his chair.

“Mustapha,” said he, “a terrible calamity has befallen this house. Our little Luigi has been stolen this night.”

A spasm passed over the face of the dragoman which, for the moment, resembled a war mask. His nostrils dilated, his dark eyes blazed.

“Do I hear you rightly, excellency?” he cried.

“Yes,” said the count. “Luigi has been stolen and is now in the hands of bandits who are taking him in a boat, we have learned. to some place in the Gulf of Smyrna.”

The Turk's features writhed.

“And you sit here, excellency?”

“There is nothing we can do immediately,” said the count. “We are warned that any attempt to rescue our little boy will result in his being put to death, and you know as well as I do that our enemies are not of the sort to make idle threats.”

Watching the face of the dragoman, I saw a curious change spread over it. I had been struck immediately on Mustapha's entry—as almost every one was on seeing him for the first time—with the peculiar loftiness of expression, such a quality of thoughtful serenity and meditative calm as one might associate with the visage of a philosopher or poet or prelate of the church who is earth-bound only in his physical being. It seemed singular that a man of his lowly origin and occupation should possess this faculty of inspiring folk so far superior in station with an almost instantaneous respect.

But I knew that this was an Ottoman trait, and one that should cause no astonishment, because among the Osmanli Turks there is actually no caste. A slave might one day be sultan or a peasant girl, who happened to be a phenomenon of beauty, might become sultana and the mother of a sultan whom some coup d'état might reduce to the rank of slave. In no other race, perhaps, is the high blood and the low so freely mingled, and the result of this crops out in such men as, Mustapha,

But now, as I watched I saw the curious exfoliation of Mustapha's soul. The cortex of poet, priest, philosopher was peeled from his physiognomy a good deal as one might flay a man's face to show the unlovely structure beneath, and Mustapha became in an instant not the dignified Osmanli Turk, but the raw and savage Turkoman, the bashi-bazouk, one of the horde of marauders from the deserts of Asia Minor which swarmed across the Bosporus to take the city of Constantine and occupy it. The ferocious passions of a fearful race came out, as one develops the picture on a photographic plate, in all its harsh lights and shadows and unmodified, unmodulated delineation.

Estelle glanced at him and choked back a scream. And as if by the intuition of primitive creatures or the instincts of a lower animal, he guessed her fatal part in what had happened, Mustapha turned slowly and fixed her with a glare of such abysmal hatred that I half rose from my seat.

But this passed as quickly as it had come, leaving on the face of the dragoman only a rime of sweat across his forehead.

“And what does your excellency propose?” he asked in his low, sonorous voice.

“For the moment we shall have to wait,” answered the count. “No doubt we shall soon receive an offer to ransom our little one. But, as you may or may not know, I am practically bankrupt. Our dear friend, Mr. Sinclair, has placed his fortune at our disposal.”

Mustapha's luminous eyes turned to me.

“The effendi has a great heart,” said he, and rendered me his salutation.

“In the meantime,” said the count, “you are to get the yacht ready to leave at a moment's notice.” He raised his hands and shook his head in despair. “You and Mustapha must decide on what you think best and do it, Sep,” said he. “I cannot seem to collect my thoughts.”

Mustapha and I exchanged glances.

“What do you think, effendi?” he asked.

“The situation is this,” said I. “We know little Luigi to be on his way to some place in the Gulf of Smyrna and we are warned that any attempt to rescue him would be fatal. We do not know at what sum the ransom may be fixed, but it may be so large that my immediate resources could not meet it. Mr. Taggart is our best chance, and he is on the Dalmatian coast, we don't know precisely where. It may take the count some time to get in touch with him, and there may then be some delay in Taggart's getting a large amount of cash. The Count Mancini must remain with the countess and also await a communication from the kidnapers which will inform him of the amount of the ransom and the conditions of its payment. But it would help the countess if she knew that something was being done immediately, so that our best move would be to take the yacht and run up to Trieste, there to await the count's orders. Meantime, he must try to get in communication with Mr. Taggart and tell him that we will be at Trieste with the yacht.”

The count nodded.

“You have a clear head, Sep. What do you think, Mustapha?”

The dragoman reflected for an instant.

“It seems to me, excellency, that there is a serious drawback to this plan,” said he. “As the effendi has remarked, there may be considerable delay, and these bandits might grow impatient or suspicious. I would suggest that we go aboard the yacht and proceed immediately to Smyrna, calling at Piræus, the port of Athens, for such instructions as you may be able to telegraph us there. If there are none, we shall go on to Smyrna and await them there.”

“But what good are the instructions without the ransom money?” asked the count,

“There is this, excellency,” said Mustapha. “If you can send us directions for communicating with the bandits, we may be able to assure them that their terms are accepted and that the money will be paid as soon as it can be forwarded to us.”

“What do you think of that, Sep?” asked the count.

“I believe Mustapha is right,” I answered. “After all, the main thing is to get in touch with the kidnapers and assure them that the ransom will be paid shortly. There might be some time limit fixed and we could explain the difficulty of raising a large sum on such short notice. The chances are that you will hear from them in a few hours, perhaps by the morning's mail. So far as Taggart is concerned, he will have to join us in the best and quickest way he can. Being a man of wealth and resource and action, he will, no doubt, manage it, even if he has to charter a steamer or get the use of a torpedo boat or something.”

“Your pardon, excellency, perhaps I should not ask such a question, but is your excellency certain that Mr. Taggart's friendship is so great that he will immediately respond to your appeal?”

“Good Lord, man!” said I, before the count could speak. “We've both been so distressed about little Luigi that we've neglected to give you all the facts. Mr. Taggart's daughter, who was on her way to visit here, has also been kidnaped. She was decoyed into a car on leaving the train, and she is probably at this moment with little Luigi.”

Mustapha's thick, black eyebrows drew lower as he fixed his slumbrous eyes on Estelle. Their expression showed less surprise than the confirmation of an instinctive conviction.

“So this lady is not the Signorina Taggart?” said he softly.

“No,” murmured the count. “She came to us impersonating Signorina Taggart, but it appears that she is actually a criminal, one of a gang of. bandits, and it is she who managed the kidnaping of our little boy.”

Again that devastating expression spread over Mustapha's face. He nodded and appeared, for an instant, to reflect.

“Then let us take her with us on the yacht, excellency,” said he. “Perhaps she might be of some service in our mission.”

CHAPTER III.

Now that we had something concrete to act on, it did not take very long for us to get in motion. The count's small steam yacht, Carolina, was in commission and ready to sail for Naples on her charter, which included not only the little vessel, but her running crew, all henchmen of the Mancinis.

Mustapha, with the swift and efficient executive ability of a perfect dragoman, collected our small crew and got them aboard. While he was so occupied I had Estelle summon her maid, Theresa, and saw them and their luggage disposed of in what were the owner's quarters. This was Mustapha's idea, which I thought a little farfetched, considering their character, but it did not seem worth while to object, as I knew that Turks held their own peculiar point of view in regard to women, whether good or bad, and the treatment to be accorded them. It is probable that a harem favorite convicted of the worst crime, whether infidelity or a plot to poison her lord, would be tenderly treated up to the time of being sewn in a sack and thrown into the Bosporus.

I must say I could not help admiring Estelle's cool demeanor, but I thought it probable that she was infinitely relieved at quitting the Palazzo Mancini, with its dungeons and oubliettes, under any circumstances, and that she trusted to my American chivalry to get her out of the scrape. The count left immediately for Brindisi to try to get in communication with Taggart as soon as possible. He hoped to return before Carol should have discovered little Luigi's disappearance. But in the event of this happening, he wrote a note to tell her the details of the kidnaping and to assure her that there was every hope of the captives' immediate recovery.

To pass over a number of uneventful hours, I may say that we called at Piræeus, where we found a telegram from the count in the code we had agreed upon. It read somewhat as follows:

Letter received morning mail. Joint ransom for both half a million lire, this to be paid by single individual in small boat at mouth of Sabat River in Gulf of Smyrna, no vessel to approach within three miles. Captives to be delivered on payment. Warned that any attempt at capture will result in death of both. Payment to be made at eight p. m. any day and no delay strongly advised. Am in touch with Taggart. Await him at Smyrna. Carol bearing up bravely.

In the wheelhouse of the little yacht which was shearing the blue waters of the Ægean, Mustapha and I discussed the situation.

“Mr. Taggart is a rich American financier,” I said hopefully, “and no doubt a man of quick action. And the count, although at odds with the present government, has still a lot of influence. So it ought not be long before Mr. Taggart gets to Smyrna with the ransom money.”

Mustapha nodded.

“Let us hope not, effendi,” said he, “because every added day of suspense would be dangerous for the countess in her poor state of health.”

“The chances are,” I said, “that Mr. Taggart will charter a fast vessel of some sort and drive her at forced draft.”

Mustapha appeared to reflect for a moment.

“The greatest danger lies in arousing the alarm of these animals,” said he. “If they were to get the least suspicion that any effort was being made to trap them, they would be quite capable of carrying out their threat and making off into the desert or along the coast. It is not as though the job was for money alone. Revenge enters very greatly into it, I am afraid. If we do not learn anything definite from his excellency at Smyrna, I think that I had better try to get in touch with them and attempt to convince them that the ransom money is on its way.”

“Would that be wise?” I asked doubtfully. “They might think that you were trying to reconnoiter.”

“I have always enjoyed a certain faculty for persuading people that I speak the truth, effendi,” said Mustapha in his gentle, unassuming voice, “and I believe that I could impress them with two convictions—that we agree to their conditions, and that if any harm should be done the little count and Miss Taggart, then I, Mustapha, shall make it my life's work to hunt them down and punish them in the way that I find them to deserve. I could explain that in this effort I should have the backing of Mr. Taggart's wealth, his excellency's support, and my own considerable experience in such matters.”

I got another fleeting glimpse of the bashi-bazouk looking from Mustapha's slumbrous eyes. It vanished immediately, and he said in his tranquil voice:

“It would not be breaking your faith with this woman, effendi, if I were to tell them that her part in the plot has been discovered, and that we had her aboard the yacht, and that although she stubbornly refused to furnish us with any information, yet I could think of means by which this might be extracted.”

I turned this point in my mind. It seemed to me that there would be no infraction of my promise if I agreed to what Mustapha proposed. It would not incriminate Estelle up to this time, and if the brigands were made to feel that there was the chance of their identity being discovered and themselves exposed to the future vengeance of such a Nemesis as Mustapha might prove the instrument of, it might have a good effect. So I gave my consent. Mustapha smiled.

“You really need not have promised anything, Sinclair Effendi,” said he softly, “since you knew her to be guilty.”

“Well, do you blame me for that?” I asked sharply. “After all, nothing else matters if only we can get Luigi—and Miss Taggart, of course,” I added.

“Very little, effendi,” Mustapha agreed. “But from what you have told me of the importance of his excellency's business relations with Mr. Taggart, I cannot help fearing they may be strained by the fact that Mr. Taggart's daughter was kidnaped with Luigi.”

“She was not yet under the count's protection,” I said.

“That is true,” Mustapha admitted. “But American business men are apt to be suspicious of foreigners and they are no respecters of persons, whatever their rank or title.”

I saw immediately what was in his mind, and my heart sank.

“Well,” I answered, “if he dares by so much as a look to hint that Count Mancini may have had any hand in this business, he'll get something from me that ought to kill any such suspicion.”

“There will not be any such, effendi, if Mr. Taggart is like many of the Americans whom I have known,” said Mustapha gently. “But you must not think that I intend to let these brigands escape with no attempt to capture them—after we get the little count, of course. Although a simple dragoman, I have been fortunate enough to make some very distinguished and influential friends. It so happens that one of them is now in exile somewhere in the desert beyond Smyrna. He was a man of high rank, on the divan of Abdul Hamid, and he has at this moment a price upon his head. But he has a great deal of support in Smyrna, because of his mother's father, and if I could get in touch with him, I am sure that there is very little that he would refuse me.”

“What do you want to ask him to do?” I said.

“To help me get back the ransom money,” Mustapha answered directly enough. “When we arrive at Smyrna, which should be about eight o'clock to-morrow morning, I shall ask for twenty-four hours' leave.”

“You don't need to ask me for leave,” I said. “We are working together and you are entirely free to do whatever you think best. Far be it from me to interfere with any of your plans.”

Mustapha acknowledged this assurance with a smile and a slight inclination of his head.

“Thank you, effendi,” said he. “This former high official of whom I speak is well known to Count Mancini. They were very friendly when my master was in the diplomatic service at Constantinople, so that there would be a double reason for helping us. I consider it of the greatest importance to his excellency, the count, that this ransom money be restored to Mr. Taggart if it is possible, so I do not think I ought to neglect any opportunity that may offer itself.”

“I quite agree with you,” I answered. “It's hard enough on the count to have his little boy kidnaped. But when the daughter of a business friend as important to him as Mr. Taggart is taken, also, on her arrival at the Mancinis' and Taggart has to foot the bill, it seems as if the limit had been passed. A half million lire is quite a bit of money, when all is said and done.”

“That is the way I look at the business, Sinclair Effendi,” said Mustapha, smiling, “and if there is any chance to get it back I think we would be failing in our duty not to do our best to profit by it.” And then, no doubt satisfied at having gained his point, and possibly to avoid any questioning on my part about his mysterious and powerful friend, he asked me to take the wheel and, with a slight bow, went below. For we were a little short-handed on the yacht, and having had some experience at that sort of thing, I had been doing quartermaster's duty.

I was a good deal puzzled about Mustapha, and had given up all effort to understand his singular personality. Although a servant of sorts—not because he was dragoman, as any peer of the British realm might have filled such a nominal office in an embassy or legation—but because of Mustapha's uncommon attainments. He spoke a number of languages with the fluency of a Russian diplomat. He was well read in English and French literature, and enjoyed quoting Swinburne and Byron and Paul Verlaine. His knowledge of the Mediterranean was equal to that of any French or Italian naval pilot for their coasts, and he never so much as glanced at the chart when laying a course from point to point.

And yet there was about the man some inscrutable quality which was neither sinister nor even aloof—for his talk and manner were always respectfully candid—but which made me feel that the cogs of my mental machinery scarcely engaged those of Mustapha at all. Though I suppose I was nominally in charge of our mission, I had the impression of being a sort of supernumerary or honored guest. More than that, there was some quality about Mustapha which gave me a curious feeling of childishness. There was no more accent of patronage in Mustapha's attitude toward me than there was of comradeship or servility. If it had not been for that one glimpse which I had of Mustapha's face in its passion, I would have enjoyed. the reposeful feeling of a person in a conscious dream when he is being led by his spirit guide.

Looking now into the salon of the little yacht, I saw Estelle curled up very comfortably amongst the cushions, sitting schoolgirl fashion on one leg while the other, quite free of skirt, dangled with calf flattened against the rim of the locker in a way suggestive of an advertisement for hosiery. I had been astonished at the nonchalant way in which this girl accepted her captivity. The count had terrified her and Mustapha transfixed her, for some moments, with such a paralyzing dread as one experiences in nightmares. But the count was now geographically removed, and Mustapha socially, as one might say, for in his capacity of sailing master he was either in his quarters or at the wheel, and Estelle had scarcely laid eyes on him.

It was easy for me to understand the workings of her mind, less because of my astuteness than her mental transparency. I assayed her as an exceedingly clever opportunist, but with scarcely any intellectuality. Somebody has said that the German mind is intellectual but not intelligent, and this girl's was just the reverse, with a sort of animal intelligence which might be scarcely more than animal cunning and no intellectuality at all. In the face of grave danger she might be frightened, but removed from its immediate atmosphere she quickly forgot about it. She was not at all afraid of me, because I was so obviously the present-day American of birth and breeding, or rather, training and correct manners, that she could no more associate me in her mind with physical danger to herself than she could keep from thinking of me as a natural, generic protector. I was precisely the sort of man who, in fiction, invariably protects the lovely heroine or villainess, with no especial reference to his heroism or villainy, but merely to fill the eye as a chivalresque figure, which is the first requisite of romance.

And the joke of it was that she was right. I abominated her, and yet under any stress of danger I would have protected her, in which respect I would have been merely playing true to form. I represented a certain type of young man of my epoch who, without bothering himself over the ethics of the thing, stood not only as the jailer of this wicked girl, but as her guardian. From her point of view I was like a conscientious sheriff who might have laid down his life in defending a detestable criminal in his charge when a mob was clamoring to lynch the wretch. Estelle traded on all this to its full value. She had assayed me as a chivalrous man of honor and, withal, of heart, and seemed quite content to repose her safety in my promised word.

Of course, I realized all of this and was quite aware that if the business turned out as we hoped, Estelle stood to make a very good thing of her heartless villainy. In order to restore Luigi to his stricken parents she had been promised not only immunity from punishment by the law and the revenge of her confederates, but also she was to be permitted to keep her blood money.

I knew that such an arrangement was entirely unmerited, but intended, of course, to keep my agreement to the letter and to see that the count backed me up in my compact.

Turning our relations whimsically in my mind, I rather wished that I could be ruthless and deal out justice as weighed in the scales. But I could not. I was not made that way. I merely played as true to form as might a Saint Bernard dog sent out to rescue travelers lost in the snow. It would make no difference to the dog if the traveler happened to be an individual making his escape after murdering a Swiss family for the sake of the gold in the woolen stocking, and it was the same way with me.

Estelle looked up with her faint, intolerant smile as I entered the cabin. There had been scarcely any conversation between us. I had made no effort to learn anything about her personality or antecedents. I did not desire to know anything about her. I wanted merely to accomplish my mission and see the last of her. I felt what was the truth, that she held me to be rather clever, but a fool, and she considered herself to have fallen on a bit of luck in being apprehended by such a person as myself, and she had no doubt whatever of my agreement with her.

Perhaps I have not sufficiently emphasized the uncommon physical traits of this girl. I may not have done them justice at first, because when a man is intensely irritated with a woman, even if she happens to be his fiancée or his bride, for that matter, her merely physical attractions are apt to suffer a good percentage of discount because of her lack of spiritual ones. Just as a distinctly plain girl may look very beautiful at happy moments, so can a lovely one look like a harpy or virago or termagant or any other intensely disagreeable female creature. And this girl had presented these facets of herself to me.

But from repeated, if sketchy, observation of Estelle I was forced to admit that there was no more sense in trying to deny her sheer physical perfection than there would be in a husband's denying the enhancement of his wife's beauty by a new gown or lingerie or something about the price of which he was excessively disturbed. Beauty is beauty, whether one wants it or approves it or not, and Estelle certainly possessed the doubtful gift from the skin out. She was like a very lovely, if wicked, nymph, or rather stupid sorceress possessed of some accidental charm and power of wreaking mischief, a Circe or Lorelei or something of the sort. She was pink and fresh and glowing and radiant—until one looked into her eyes.

There was never the slightest question in my mind but that the count was absolutely correct in his estimate of her character, especially in what he had said about her depravity being entirely removed from any soft or voluptuous traits. She did not impress me as cold, but rather as being governed by an extreme fastidiousness which would repel any swift, hot-blooded emotion and yield rather to a cool, appreciative tentative, elegantly framed.

Now, as I entered the cabin, she looked up with precisely the expression she might have worn if the yacht had been hers and I a sort of secretary or courier or other upper servant of sorts.

“Anything new?” she asked, and yawned.

“Nothing much,” I answered. “Taggart is to meet us at Smyrna with the money, and if your friends play the game, you all stand to make a very good thing out of it, and if they don't, you may count on going to jail for twenty years at the very least.”

Estelle did not look particularly alarmed.

“I don't think you'd see a girl like me put in prison,” said she. “I never imagined that they were so devoted to the child.”

“Strange as it may seem,” I said, “a good many people of the upper classes are as fond of their children as those of the lower. Perhaps even more so, because the finer one is, the greater the capacity for deep emotions.”

“I suppose you're right,” said Estelle, “but I never thought of it in that way at all. This job was represented to me as being a good deal like the kidnaping of a crown prince or some other person of political importance. They told me the boy was the last of his line and the only hope of its survival and that, although the count was supposed to be hard up, other members of the family would manage to find the ransom price, rather than see the race extinct. It seemed more like stealing a document or something.”

“I'm afraid,” I said, “that you haven't very much imagination, and I may say that the best luck you ever had was to have been captured by me. Otherwise the rats in the dungeon under your tower room might be picking your bones at this moment. In some of these old countries where ancient traditions exist, they don't always bother with a benevolent judge, twelve good men and true, and a full corps of sob sisters.”

Estelle thrust out her chin and her lip curled disdainfully.

“Bluff!” said she. “I was pretty badly scared for the moment, but nobody can do that sort of thing nowadays, even in southern Italy.”

“Don't be too sure,” I said. “They get away with it sometimes right in New York City. In fact, from all I've learned, I should say there was more being got away with right now than ever before. I suppose”—I looked at her with a sort of reflective curiosity—“you might be said to represent the foam on the crest of the wave of crime.”

Estelle smiled in the way which had from the first aroused all of the hostility to be found in the nature of a naturally kind and easy-going fellow like myself. There was something about her smile that every man who has knocked about a little would recognize. It is the facial hall-mark of a spoiled, flattered, pampered feminine nature in which selfishness and cruelty are mingled. It is not precisely the smile of a temperamental woman, but rather of a cunning, shallow one who feels secure in the potency of getting from the world—which is to say, in her case, from men—those things which she desires, because she knows herself to hold what they most desire. Analyzed more carefully, its basis is an overwhelming self-admiration, fostered by the adulation of careless, sometimes riotous, and often admirable, male youth. Older men are less apt to build up the foundation of such a smile because they read a little deeper than its surface and see a little of what Count Mancini saw.

I found myself now sufficiently clairvoyant to perceive much of this, and I was seized with a sudden and overwhelming disgust. It offended my sense of values, of the proportionate relations between worth and worthlessness, that there should be vested in this young woman so profound a power for working infinite harm. I stared at the girl with a face which must have turned suddenly bleak, and the next words that slipped from me, though true to form, perhaps, were not such as I had ever used to any woman before. In themselves they were mild, but there was nothing mild about the rush of outraged justice which lay behind them.

“Do you, know,” I said, “I really think that you are the most horrible female human being whom I have ever met——” And then, ashamed of this slipping of my cogs, or perhaps because my repugnance made me distrust what I might say next, I turned quickly on my heel and went out into the purity of the free air of the Ægean.

We dropped anchor off Smyrna the next morning just as colors were being made on what stood for the flagship of the old Turkish hulks lying there. Mustapha, having assured himself that we were securely moored, came aft to the quarter-deck, where I was being served my coffee and eggs.

“I should like to go ashore, effendi,” said he, “on the errand which I mentioned yesterday.”

“Go ahead,” I answered. “There is no reason why you shouldn't. I doubt if we can look for Mr. Taggart for several days.”

“Should you wish to go ashore yourself,” said Mustapha, “you have only to direct Giuseppe, the engineer, to take charge. He is a trusted servant of the count and understands the situation.”

“Very well,” I answered. “But I have no particular desire to go ashore. When may I expect you back?”

“I cannot say, effendi,” Mustapha answered, “That depends upon my success in locating the pasha of whom I spoke. It may be that he is hereabouts, but, again, he may be far in the desert, where for the time being he is living in some seclusion, after the manner of an outlawed sheik. But he is a very rich and powerful man, with a following which it is impossible to estimate, and I feel that my duty to my master permits me to spare no pains in getting in touch with him. It is possible that I may be gone two days.”

There seemed no reasonable objection to be made to this, the more so as I felt convinced that Mustapha knew absolutely what he was about and, with Oriental conservatism, had told me only enough to prevent my interfering with his plans. My experience had taught me enough of Oriental methods to appreciate the ratiocinations of an individual of power, even after the outward and visible signs of his political importance have ceased. I could imagine, as the result of Mustapha's appeal for aid, a sort of invisible net being impalpably flung out along the shore; the net which might gill our fish after the ransom had been paid and they were making their separate and devious ways out of the region.

So Mustapha went, and when he did not return that night I pictured him racking over the desert on a swift dromedary en route for some desolate vilayet lost in the immensity of that sandy sea. A heap of gray, sun-baked ruins in which might still be found an ancient palace, resembling, from without, a pile of tumbled stones, yet having within its walls a nest of luxury and beauty, with sweet, fresh gardens and canopied terraces spread with richest rugs of Rhodes and Bokhara and vast, cool chambers whose sunken baths were lined with green Persian tiles. A caravan might have brought the furnishings for the rehabilitation of this place; a fleet of desert ships which drifted silently away at night to be lost in the vast, undulating waves and all traces of it covered in an hour or two by the breath of the sighing sirocco.

And my fancy peopled this place with transient visitors. I knew that rich and influential Osmanli officials were not apt to go into exile empty-handed and that, unless seized and summarily dealt with, they were usually able to dig up a number of buried bones. This man had, perhaps, come originally from this region, and on being banished from the Sublime Porte, had returned to it. He would have with him his household, servants and slaves and the ladies of his haremlik and, if he were a very high lord, possibly a guard. His exile would not fall heavily upon him.

Perhaps his retreat might be situated on the banks of a river or even near the shores of the sea or on a lake of the interior, flanked by blue mountains, its waters receiving at sunset a shower of wild fowl—cranes and herons, scarlet ibis, and the like. His pleasures would be, no doubt, partly intellectual, if he happened to be a scholarly Turk, or he would ride out hawking on his light-footed Arabian or shoot gazelle and ibex or indulge in similar sports.

I envied Mustapha his errand, having no particular desire to go ashore and not wishing to enter into any further social intercourse with Estelle. It was very hot, a dry, burning, scorching heat, and very still. I left the awninged quarter-deck to the two women and spent the most of my day in the wheel-house, reading and writing letters.

The following day passed in similar fashion, except that I did go ashore for a little stroll. Then about sunset Mustapha came aboard and approached me with his quiet smile and graceful Turkish salutation.

“Well, what luck?” I asked.

“I do not yet know, effendi,” Mustapha answered. “I was not able to see my friend because at this moment he's obliged to be very cautious, but I succeeded in getting a messenger to him and have received his reply. He wants to see me, but does not care to run the risk of coming to Smyrna. He wishes me to run down the coast a few miles, where he will come aboard. I consider it of the utmost importance to keep this rendezvous, but there is the possibility of Mr. Taggart's arriving while we are gone. In this case he might think it very strange and be disturbed at not finding us here, so I am going to take the liberty of asking you if you will be willing to go ashore and stop at that hotel you see near the landing, which is not bad. I have been there and looked it over and given instructions that everything be done for your comfort if you are willing to consent to this plan.”

There seemed no reason for my refusing to agree to his request. As Mustapha had said, it was very possible that Taggart might charter some small, swift vessel, and if he were to arrive it would be much better for me to receive him personally and explain the situation than merely to leave a note.

“What I fear, effendi,” said Mustapha, “is that the count may come with Mr. Taggart and, in their impatience, they might not wait for us to return, but go themselves immediately to get our little boy and the young lady. Even at the cost of a day or two of delay I must have a little more time in which to attempt the capture of these scoundrels after the captives are ransomed. It might be necessary for you to use all of your persuasion to accomplish this.”

“Very well,” I agreed. “And how about these women?”

“They had better remain aboard, confined in their quarters.”

“And when do you want me to go ashore?” I asked.

“As soon as it suits your convenience, effendi,” said Mustapha. “My friend is no doubt already of his way to our meeting place. I hope to see him some time to-morrow and to get back here the morning after, so that it will be necessary for you to spend two nights at the inn.”

“All right,” I answered. “I leave it all to you, Mustapha.”

His face showed infinite relief. As the count had told me of Mustapha's devotion as well as his uncommon capability, and I had already become convinced of this from my own personal contact with the man, it seemed to me the best thing that I could do was to agree to his request.

So I put a few things in my valise and got into the little launch, which picked its way among the eddies to the landing.

My coming was evidently expected, as a Levantine boy, who told me that his name was Selim, was waiting to receive me. He shouldered my valise and led the way to the inn, where I was shown into a spacious room that had, apparently, undergone a recent and thorough cleansing. It was apparent that Mustapha had impressed the people with a sense of my importance, for I was treated with the deference shown to high officials.

I must say I experienced relief in getting off the yacht and away from the girl, Estelle, for whom I had conceived such a detestation that it irritated me even to hear the sound of her voice. I made an excellent dinner, typically Turkish, well cooked, and clean—youghat with fresh cream and sturgeon steaks en brochette with bay leaves between, roasted quail with boiled onions and tomatoes, ripe olives, and a dessert of rahat lakhoum, the green-fig paste with walnuts. The fruit dish was piled with pomegranates—which were in season—crisp and refreshing. This repast was preceded by an apéritif of mastic, and ended with Turkish coffee skillfully prepared.

A little later Selim proposed a gypsy dance, which I declined, having seen many such in the Chingeni Malhallah at Stamboul. But I heard some good music in a café chantant of sorts and went back to the inn and to bed, by no means discontented with my change of quarters.

I slept well, undisturbed by fleas, and was awakened at sunrise by the shrill, quavering cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer from the minaret of a mosque near by.

Shortly afterward I rang for Selim, who brought my breakfast of smoked fish, resembling kippers, and some goat cheese and eggs and fruit and coffee. They certainly did not intend that I suffer from lack of food in that albergo.

The day passed agreeably enough, if uneventfully. Then late in the afternoon, as I was strolling unchallenged on the ramparts of the old fortress, my eye was caught by a small, lead-colored object far out in the bay, rushing rapidly shoreward behind two great pillows of snowy foam.

My heart gave a sudden throb, for I guessed immediately that here was Taggart, coming as fast as a small Italian torpedo boat could carry him.

I hurried down to the landing, and a few minutes later saw the little vessel slow up and stop, when a gig was dropped into the water, and as it approached I discovered not only a squarely built, ruddy-faced man in flannels and a Panama hat, but, facing him in the stern, the Count Mancini, just as Mustapha had anticipated.

“My dear Sep,” cried the count as the boat glided up to the landing, “what's happened? Where's the yacht?”

“The yacht's all right, Luigi,” I answered, and offered my hand, for he seemed a bit unsteady as he rose to his feet, while his drawn, haggard face showed the ordeal through which he had passed and was still passing.

“Come up to the inn and I'll tell you all about it.”

I helped him out and he introduced me to Taggart, who was the sort of man I had pictured him to be, of medium height, broad and thick of chest, with a square, resolute face and a pair of keen blue eyes. He also showed the strain of anxiety and lack of sleep, but the grip which he gave my hand was firm and vigorous.

Their luggage was handed out and Luigi said a few words to the young Italian officer in command of the boat. I heard the latter reply in Italian.

“My orders were to remain here at your service, gentlemen, until you have no further need of us. But you will, no doubt, be more comfortable ashore for the moment.” Then, with a salute, he gave command to shove off.

The count and Taggart were burning to learn my news, so I briefly explained the situation. Luigi frowned and stamped impatiently and Taggart also looked displeased.

“It is impossible!” cried the count. “They will have made all arrangements for their escape, and we have not the least description of them. We have moved heaven and earth to get here with the money as quickly as possible, and now there is this delay.”

“But there is no delay, Luigi,” I said. “It is too late to get to the appointed place to-night, and Mustapha said that he would be back here to-morrow morning.”

“I can't see what he hopes to accomplish,” growled Taggart. “Even supposing this mysterious pal of his does everything in his power to catch these skunks, how does he propose to go about it?”

“I don't know, sir,” I answered. “But I am convinced of this much, that anything Mustapha may see fit to do will have some good, sound reason for it.”

Luigi nodded a gloomy assent.

“That is true,” said he. “Mustapha is not an ordinary man. But Mr. Taggart and I would rather let these animals escape than go through another terrible twenty-four hours of suspense.”

“You're dead right, count,” said Taggart. “I guess we're both pretty near all in.”

“How is Carol bearing up?” I asked.

“With splendid courage,” said Luigi. “And also Mrs. Taggart, who has gone to join her.”

I motioned to a swarthy Kurd hamal to pick up the luggage and we started for the inn. Luigi told me that he had caught Taggart by wire at Trieste, and Taggart had returned to Genoa to get the ransom money. There Luigi had arranged to have the torpedo boat put at their disposal. Then Luigi had crossed to Naples, where the boat had picked him up.

Accommodations were immediately made for them at the inn, and I surrendered my room, the best in the house, to Luigi, whose condition rather alarmed me. Taggart was like a volcano just before eruption, and I would have found it hard to say which of these fathers, one the parent of an adored only son and the other of a beloved only daughter, was in the state of greatest tension.

When I spoke of Estelle there was something about the bleak aspect of Taggart's face which reminded me of Mustapha.

“I had noticed that girl at our hotel in Genoa,” said he. “She was making a study of Francey, and there is resemblance enough to make a description get by. Francey's a bit spoiled and uppish, but from what the count tells me, this she-devil overplayed her hand. Francey holds herself pretty high, but her mother has brought her up too well for her to be rude. My God! Count, I'm a kind-hearted man, but I could easily take that—never mind the word—in these two hands and wring her neck as you twist the neck of a chicken. And you tell me this young man has given his word for her safety and told her she could keep the money if we get them back?”

“Perhaps I made a mistake,” said I a little stiffly, “but it seemed the quickest way of managing the business, and as I figured it out, we couldn't afford to waste any time on her.”

Taggart nodded.

“I'm not blaming you, Mr. Sinclair,” said he. “On the contrary, if it hadn't been for your sharp detective work the count would have missed me at Trieste and we might have lost a good many hours.”

“When did you get word about the ransom?”

“In the morning mail, as you thought probable,” said the count. “But before that I'd got a wire through to Mr. Taggart. It was delivered to him just as he and Mrs. Taggart were about to leave.”

“Well,” I said, “it's a beastly shame that she should get off scot-free, but there seems no help for it. Of course, in pledging my word I assumed the responsibility for all of us, so I must look to you gentlemen to honor it.”

They nodded gloomily. A little later Taggart left us to go to bed, but I remained to say a few words to Luigi.

“Have you any idea who's behind it all?” I asked.

“I have no assurance,” said he. “Unfortunately, I have a number of dangerous enemies, both political and personal. Taggart has behaved like the splendid, big-hearted fellow that he is. He has even been generous enough to say he does not believe that the act was directed entirely against myself. His wife's family left Sicily and emigrated to America because of a vendetta sworn against them. These brutes do not forget, and Taggart thinks that, on learning of her return as the wife of an American millionaire, they may have had her and his daughter under observation. Then, discovering that the daughter was to visit me, they decided to deal a double blow.”

“But where does this Estelle woman come in?” I asked.

“I do not know,” said the count. “It may be that she was known to some of them as a clever, criminal adventuress and they engaged her services merely as one might hire an assassin or a woman thief to do the inside work of a jewel robbery. or something of the sort.”

“Do you think,” I asked, “that your relations with Taggart have suffered any from this calamity?”

“No,” said the count. “He is too big a man. Almost any European might be ugly or suspicious, but you breed them differently in America. They seem to be able to look straighter and more clearly into the soul of things. We seem, if anything, to be united by a bond of mutual sympathy, and we have each tried to keep up the courage of the other.”

CHAPTER IV.

All three of us rose at the call of the muezzin the next morning:

“Allah—Allah—Akbar Allahu—there is no god but God——” And if we did not face the east and prostrate ourselves, I am sure that each breathed no less fervent a prayer to the God of his fathers—and his children.

There was no particular reason for our rising so early, for, even if the yacht had already returned, there must be another long day's waiting before the time to start for the appointed place.

Taggart had slept in a room adjoining mine, with the door open between, the money under his pillow, and his heavy revolver at hand, while I was similarly armed.

I had passed a restless night, falling into a comfortable doze just before the dawn, and now, as the muezzin's quavering cry called me back to consciousness, I stretched and yawned and was about to swing my legs out of bed and go to the window to see if the yacht was there when there came a peculiar termination to the summons of the faithful.

For just as the last notes of the muezzin's eerie cry were dying away in fading cadences, the whistle of a steam siren took them up. It was as if some blasphemous genie was mocking the devout summons to prayer. And yet, to my astonished ears it seemed as though the clamor held a note of jubilant rejoicing.

“Whoo—who-o-o—whoo-op-p—whee—e—e!” it screeched. And it kept on screeching, just as might the siren of a ship or factory when a fire has suddenly broken out, and yet, for some peculiar reason—divination or telepathy or whatever a psychologist might choose to call it—there was conveyed to my senses a distinct impression of joyous exultation.

I sprang out of bed, and as I did so Taggart's heavy voice boomed from the other room.

“Now, what the blazes has struck that fellow? Is he afire or sprung a leak or what?”

I heard him get out of bed and pad to the window to fling open the shutters. I had already done the same and was staring out at a baffling spectacle.

The Italian torpedo boat was lying quietly enough at her moorings. But the white puffs of steam were spurting from her siren as it blared forth its crescendo blasts. And just astern of her glided the count's little yacht, Carolina, close enough to scale one's hat aboard, and as I looked: her own whistle spouted a snowy jet and another and another, and immediately her shrill pipings blended, or rather clashed, with the joyous shrieks of the torpedo boat, reaching our ears in a sort of discordant ecstasy of noise.

Taggart, in pajamas, his blue eyes red-rimmed, but intense, rushed in to where I was leaning over the window sill.

“What in—hell?” he began, when the door was burst open and the count rushed in. His face was like chalk and his eyes, rather bulging at all times, seemed in danger of falling out upon his cheeks.

“Sep,” he cried, “what is it? What does it mean? Why this infernal racket? What are they trying to do out there? Have you any glasses?”

“No,” I said. “But some darned thing has happened which makes them want to wake us up. Let's go down and see what it's all about.” I made this suggestion in the absolute conviction that there was something worth going down to see, without even stopping to dress.

The other two appeared to be in no need of this admonition, instinct telling them that the commander of the torpedo boat, knowing their stress of mind and need of sleep, would not be making all this row unless he had something important to communicate.

I pulled on my slippers and grabbed Luigi by the arm and made him do likewise. But Taggart had not wasted time on this formality, and as we went out the door and down the path his square, pajamaed figure led us by perhaps a hundred yards.

I saw then, as we sped along, that instead of going up discreetly to her former moorings, the yacht was gliding slowly toward the boat landing. It appeared to be Mustapha's intention to fetch her up alongside, as if she had been a launch. Then, as our two parties approached, I discovered to my astonishment a feminine figure, which at first I took to he Estelle's, beside him on the bridge.

There seemed to be something wrong with my eyes, for I could have sworn that this girlish figure held in her arms a little child who was gesticulating frantically. My vision grew a little dim, as it is inconveniently apt to do under strong emotion, for there appeared to be a small animal, a puppy, romping up and down.

Beside me, Luigi was tottering, and as the truth came flooding over me in a sort of crimson glow, I flung my arm around him and we both stopped.

Luigi burst into a storm of weeping.

“It's my little boy!” he cried. “It's my darling little boy! Oh, Sep—am I going mad?”

“You are not,” I choked. “Mustapha has got them.”

“What are you saying?” demanded Luigi. “How could he get them?”

“I don't know,” I answered, “but he has. That's little Luigi and the girl must be Francey Taggart. Look at Taggart!”

For Taggart, clearer of vision, was already at the landing, and we could hear his jubilant roars. Mustapha, with masterly precision, brought the yacht gently alongside, reversed, then stopped his engines. Taggart made a flying leap, was caught at the rail by a man whom I recognized as Giuseppe, the engineer, and clambered aboard. Luigi was rocking against me, unable to proceed, as his knees seemed to have given way beneath him, but we both saw Taggart, in his brilliant, striped pajamas, run up the ladder to the bridge and clasp his daughter in his arms.

This sight appeared to invigorate Luigi, who broke away from me and rushed down the path in a rapid, if gyrating, course. I followed closely in his wake, ready to catch him if he fell. But he did not fall. He followed Taggart's procedure and leaped aboard, and as I came up on the landing he was already on the bridge and fairly smothering his little son in a rapturous embrace.

Playing true to form, I went aboard myself with a certain dignity, as if I had known about it all along and shared in this surprise party of Mustapha's, and I may say with pride that even in this moment of strong emotion my mind had already grappled with and downed to my own satisfaction the solution of the puzzle. Some answer to it being imperative to a diplomat like myself, I had jumped to the conclusion that Mustapha had persuaded his rich, exiled friend to advance him the ransom money in order that time might be saved, and that he had gone to the river mouth and paid the money and received the captives and brought them here. There seemed really nothing else to think.

Feeling a little embarrassed in my pajamas, especially in the presence of a young and pretty American heiress, I decided not to break in upon this family reunion, but to go back and dress. Perhaps I may as well admit, also, that I was struggling against an unmanly desire to blub. Then I suddenly thought of the money under Taggart's pillow and hurried back to the inn, where I had just finished dressing when a rather noisy party came in. The count fell in my arms, sobbing from the reaction of the strain of the last few days. Little Luigi looked rather the better for his outing, I thought, and seemed more excited over a fuzzy puppy that some one had given him during his captivity than at being restored to us. Taggart, his red face shining and eyes glistening, presented me to his daughter, whom I decided at once was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. And incidentally, I have never changed this opinion.

We all began to talk at once, and in the course of the conversation I glanced through the window and saw the torpedo boat tearing off in a smother of foam, from which I concluded that, the first and most important part of our errand having been transacted, she was losing no time in her efforts to achieve the second—to wit, the capture of the brigands, and in this mission, it seemed to me, she had about as much chance as might an automobile in trying to catch a band of jackals.

Mustapha had remained aboard the yacht, which had hauled out and come to anchor, but Taggart cleared up the mystery in some measure.

“That highly efficient dragoman of the count's got the money from his friend, then he went last evening and paid it over, and our two kids were given up without any more words,” he informed me. “Mustapha seems to think there is still a sporting chance to catch the skunks.”

“Did you see the two women?” I asked.

“No,” he answered, drawing down the corners of his mouth. “We didn't bother about that. I'm in favor of setting them ashore here, and letting them find their own way out of the place.”

“I'd like to tell her what I think of her,” said the real Francey, who, oddly enough, was, as Taggart had said, not entirely unlike Estelle. “We were in the same compartment coming from Rome, and when we got off at Brindisi she pointed out what she said was the count's carriage.”

“When did you discover that you were kidnaped?” I asked,

“Not until they took me aboard the boat. A young man, who said he was the count's secretary, told me that it was quicker by water.”

This boat, it appeared, was a big, cabined speed launch, and Francey, on being politely informed of her actual position, took it in the sporting way of a high-spirited American girl and was in no way terrified. When, a few hours later, the little boy had been brought aboard, he was turned over to her care, and I gathered that she had comforted him and kept him from being alarmed or distressed. The boat had then proceeded at high speed to the Gulf of Corinth and gone through the canal as a yacht, the kidnapers evidently counting on their threats to prevent any efforts directed toward their capture. It was not very clear to me why they should have wished to take their prisoners so far.

Being now in all haste to get home, the count hustled us aboard the yacht. Mustapha, after his respectful salutation, stood with folded arms and a quiet, inscrutable smile upon) his handsome face.

“Set those two women ashore here and now,” said the count. “That will quite fulfill Mr. Sinclair's promise, and I do not wish to lay eyes upon that woman again. I might lose control of myself.”

“They are not aboard, excellency,” said Mustapha.

“What's that?” I asked sharply. “What have you done with them?”

“I took the liberty of getting rid of them after my friend had advanced the ransom money, effendi,” Mustapha answered.

I stared at him in angry astonishment.

“Do you mean to say,” I asked, “that you did this before you got possession of Miss Taggart and Luigi?”

“Yes, Sinclair Effendi.”

I was too angry to trust myself to speak.

Taggart swore, but aside from that none of us made any protest. For one thing we were all too delighted at the happy ending—and we felt ourselves to be under so great an obligation to Mustapha for the successful way in which he had managed it—to feel that it was the moment for recriminations. But I determined to have it out with him when the opportunity offered.

This came a couple of hours later, when we had got under way and the count, Taggart, Mustapha, and myself were sitting in the wheelhouse.

“The next thing for us to do,” said Taggart, “is to return to Mustapha's mysterious friend the ransom money and tell him just what we think of a man who, to oblige a friend, digs down in his jeans for half a million lire, on no security but his word. By gorry! We've got a few sports in America, but I can't think of any right off the bat who would do a thing like that! I've got to see that man, Mustapha, and take him by the hand. Things are pretty rickety in this played-out country, and I just want to say to your friend that if ever he gets up against it financially or politically or any other way, there's one Frank Taggart that he can count on to the limit.”

Mustapha looked at him with his dreamy, cosmic smile.

“The obligation is not so great as one might think, Taggart Effendi,” said he. “I must tell you that although this man is enormously rich and was, not long ago, an official of perhaps the highest importance on the divan of the deposed sultan, and I but a devoted and humble servant of his excellency, this man and I are united not only by a bond of love, but of blood. We are half brothers.”

“Sapristi!” breathed the count.

“Yes, excellency,” said Mustapha softly. “But the relationship does not of necessity mean a great deal in the Ottoman empire. We were born in the same haremlik, but while Hafiz was the son of the Gul Hanum, my mother was an odalisque, a young girl of Tiflis. Hafiz and I grew up together, and as I was strong and he at that time delicate in health, I became in some measure his protector. He was often mischievous, and more than once I took the blame of his faults and the punishment. Also, I once saved him from assassination.”

I stared at him curiously, then asked, for there was about him at that moment a nobility which not only inspired my respect, but aroused in me a certain suspicion:

“Do you mind my asking where this haremlik was, Mustapha?”

His deep eyes glowed at me, and I thought that his great chest expanded a little.

“There is no reason why that should be any longer a secret, effendi,” said he. “It was in the Yildiz Kiosk.”

The significance of these words were lost on Taggart, but the count and I were conscious of a sudden emotion. Perhaps it hit me the stronger, because, although the citizen of a republic, I was, you must remember, a diplomat, and as such possessed my full quota of veneration for royalty, even though it be, as one might say, of the baton sinistre. But the count voiced our common thought.

“Then, my faithful friend,” said he, “your father was the sultan.”

Mustapha bowed.

“I have that honor at your service, excellency,” said he. “I was, as I have said, born within the walls of the Yildiz Kiosk and grew up and was educated there. Later on I was an officer of the Turkish navy, then a series of unfortunate events made it necessary for me to become, as you say in English, a soldier of fortune.”

He drew himself suddenly erect.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “as a man of dignity and honor, I feel that I should not hold back from you the part which I have played in this affair. There is no great question of gratitude to my half brother, nor any question at all of returning the ransom money.”

“Why not?” asked Taggart sharply.

Because,” said Mustapha, “he did not advance this money as a loan or favor, He paid it for some merchandise I sold him!”

“What's that?” I cried, springing to my feet. For a sudden suspicion had gripped me.

Mustapha turned and looked at me with deep, glowing eyes.

“It was not your fault, Sinclair Effendi,” said he. “You pledged your word for yourself and his excellency and Mr. Taggart. But you could not pledge it for me. I felt that I had the right as a faithful servant to act for the best interests of my master, not only in regard to his father love, but in the matter of his fortune. I sold this girl and her confederate to thy kinsman for the price of the ransom money.”

For a moment we could only stare at him in stupefaction. Then the significance of his statement struck us, and our reactions were distinctly different.

Taggart fell back in a great gust of laughter, his big hand striking his thigh. The count looked aghast, but I must admit that in his face was an expression of infinite satisfaction. But my first emotion was one of bitter rage and shame and anger at this calm violation of my given. word. I must have grown very white, because Luigi laid his hand upon my knee and begged me to control myself.

I leaned back with a groan, and yet, to tell the truth, there was about my very impotency to redeem my pledge a sneaking, shamefaced satisfaction. I felt numb and dazed and powerless. For all I knew, even at this moment she might be lurching over the golden swells of the Arabian desert, bound for that hidden palace which I had pictured some hours before. The desert had swallowed her, perhaps had assimilated her. She had passed out of the plain of Occidental possibilities into the vague, illusive atmosphere of the Orient. I covered my face with my hands.

Being possessed of the power of visualization, I could picture the scene as though gazing into a crystal globe. I could see this cool, contemptuous beauty ushered into the spacious harem, with its Persian tiles and its soft, rich, Oriental hangings, with great blacks guarding the door and slave women fluttering forward to serve her. I knew something of the discipline of harems, stern in the case of a refractory inmate, and even making use of corporal punishment for recalcitrants. And I could imagine the unbending treatment which her new master might accord her.

These visions were interrupted by the practical American millionaire, who, having recovered from the Homeric mirth inspired by Mustapha's act, now desired more detailed information as to the transaction. He wiped his frosty blue eyes.

“But I don't quite get all this, Mustapha,” said he. “Do you mean to tell me that your kinsman would pony up half a million lire for any girl, no matter how good looking?”

“Taggart Effendi,” said Mustapha calmly, “the value of money presents itself to different minds in different ways, especially when there is no lack of it. There are many Europeans and Americans who would cheerfully pay such a sum for an old painting or a bit of porcelain or a jewel or some other beautiful object of no actual intrinsic value, but which they might desire for their collection.”

“That is true,” said the count. “I know a man who paid more that that for a little Tintoretto which was not even signed.”

“My kinsman,” said Mustapha, “is such a collector. I have known him always as a connoisseur of woman's beauty. He has his agents in the Caucasus and even as far as Persia. Circassian gesture dancers and phenomena of beauty from the Ukraine, with hair like the polished copper sheathing of this yacht, and warm, richly tinted damsels from Roumania are in his harem. I knew his weakness, if you wish to call it such, just as an art collector, stumbling by accident on some chef d'œuvre, might know immediately the client who would purchase it. The moment I looked at this girl and saw her for what she was, I was able hot only to appraise her value, but to know where I might find the purchaser.”

Taggart was staring at him, fascinated.

“Holy mackerel!” he breathed.

“She brought it on herself,” said Mustapha in his imperturbable tone. “She committed this act, and as I saw it, there was no reason why she should not be made to pay for it.”

“There was one good reason!” I cried hotly. “Myself!”

“That was sufficient reason for you, effendi,” said Mustapha gently, “but not for me. I asked myself, why should the rescue of these two children be delayed? Why risk another day, or two days, of captivity for them and agonizing suspense for us? Why impoverish my master?—because I knew that his excellency's whole energy would be turned to the payment of his share of the ransom. The girl had the value in her wonderful face and body, and I determined that she should pay the price herself. And she has paid.”

“How did you manage it?” Taggart asked curiously.

“I made a rendezvous with my kinsman and went there in the yacht to meet him. He came aboard and I explained the situation and brought out the merchandise for his inspection, precisely as it might have been done formerly in the market at Tiflis or Batoum.”

Again I could see the picture. The luxurious little cabin of the yacht, with its inlaid paneling and gilded, rococo trimmings and silken cushions and portières. On a divan the half brother of Mustapha, that connoisseur of feminine loveliness. And I could conjure up the image of the prospective purchaser calmly appraising, not at all unworthily and brutally, but with the fine appreciation of a cultured connoisseur of any objet d'art. And then, as if to confirm this last impression, Mustapha gave me a steady look and said:

“You may feel less angry at what I have done, effendi, when I tell you that not only was there nothing rough or violent or cruel in this trade of mine, but that the woman did not for a moment lose her nonchalance. More than that, when the bargain was concluded my kinsman rose and, bowing to her with respect, took from his pocket a magnificent string of pearls and hung them about her neck, with the assurance that they were to be hers and that others would follow, and she thanked him.”

Taggart, watching his face with an intense expression, laid down his cigar and asked:

“What sort of a man is your relative, Mustapha?”

“He is an Osmanli Turk of the highest caste, Taggart Effendi, a man of honor and kind of heart. He is a poet and philosopher and was known for his Persian verses. His age is forty-one, a year older than myself, and physically we bear a strong resemblance, except that he is finer because his mother was a Persian princess and mine a peasant girl of the Trans-Caucasia.”

I sprang to my feet.

“But this is outrageous!” I cried. “I gave this girl my promise that she would go free. Luigi—Mr. Taggart—I pledged, my word of honor for all three of us. Bad as she is, criminal that she is—this girl must be got back. This man has exceeded his authority. He has dishonored me.” I turned to Mustapha. “You shall tell me where to find her,” I said.

Mustapha met my eyes with a sort of melancholy patience.

“I do not know myself where my kinsman is located,” said he. “I was able to communicate with him only through indirect means. For all I know he may be living like a nomad, never long remaining in one spot, Sinclair Effendi.” He reached in his pocket and took out a small copper coin, a medjidie, which» he poised on his thumb nail, then flicked it over the side of the yacht into the still, blue water of the Ægean. “It would be as easy for you to dive over the side and get that coin from the depths as to go into the desert and find this girl.”

 

“And that,” said Sinclair, “is the story up to date. The woman whom we saw to-night was this girl, Estelle, and the man with her I recognized as a former Turkish, minister of finance. For a moment I thought it was Mustapha himself.”

“At least,” I said, “she appeared to be reconciled to her captivity.”

“Why not?” asked Sinclair. “I suppose that every normal woman desires to be married some time, and she has, no doubt, a husband who, besides being enormously rich and indulgent, is a distinguished man, and, as Mustapha told us, Of a high degree of culture. No doubt the woman has sense enough to find it far better to be loaded with jewels and supping at the Savoy than to be living by her wits—and never knowing at what moment she might find her pretty wrists in steel instead of gold and platinum studded with gems.”

He gave a short laugh.

“Upon my word,” said he, “this salves my conscience, which has never been right about the business.”

“Were the kidnapers ever caught?” I asked.

“No,” said Sinclair. “I don't believe that Mustapha ever had the faintest hope of catching them, or that his meeting with his kinsman had any such objective. Although we never discussed the matter, I believe that Mustapha formed his plan that night in my room, when he learned that Estelle was the crook who had managed the inside part of the job and after he had looked her over a bit. As he afterward admitted to us, he was quick to recognize her phenomenal beauty, and on learning where his little master had been taken, his first thought was to find a purchaser in that vicinity. If it had been somewhere else, he might possibly have hunted up another buyer.”

“It was tremendously Oriental in conception,” I observed.

“Which is to say, tremendously practical,” Sinclair pointed out. “We in the West are apt to think of Oriental methods as being devious, but a more profound study of them proves quite the reverse. They are great economizers of effort, and actually pursue their ends with a sort of ruthless, unwavering directness. In this, Mustapha was playing strictly true to form, and so, for that matter, were all the rest of us.”

He reached for his whisky and soda, refreshed. himself, and put down the tumbler.

“There was the count, with his exaggerated sense of noblesse oblige struggling against his bereaved parenthood; Taggart, the practical, American business man similarly bereaved, but clear headed, alert, strong, and swift of action; Mustapha, viewing the situation with Oriental philosophy and directing his efforts not only to the rescue of the little boy whom he loved, but at the same time with an eye to the fortune of the master to whom he had given his allegiance. He knew his kinsman for a collector of feminine beauty whose interest in this lay wholly in its visible aspect with an utter disregard of the soul which might be therein contained—just as a collector of paintings might find delight in the depiction of some subject or figure of base morale, but drawn with master strokes by a recognized genius.”

He laughed and lighted a cigarette.

“I was playing true to form myself,” said he, “so far as my breeding and the conditions were concerned, though perhaps I may have fallen short in not organizing a quest to find and rescue the girl to whom I had given my promise, even though I knew that such an effort must prove fruitless. As it was, I contented myself with having done the best I could, and anyhow, it would have been too late.”

“How about the form to which this Estelle woman played?” I asked.

“Hers was perhaps the most interesting of all,” Sinclair said, “because it was the most complex of the lot, or perhaps because it is the least complex, according to one's point of view. Hers had its basis in absolute selfishness and the desire for money gain, even at a certain personal risk, but without the least consideration of the price which others might be forced to pay in order that she attain her end—and this very end was no more than a comparatively small amount of money, out of all proportion for the human anguish which she was willing to inflict. She was rather like a footpad who would not hesitate to kill the father and sole support of a family on his way home of a Saturday night for the sake of the trifling amount contained in his pay envelope. She went about the business with the calm, savage ruthlessness of an eagle which might steal a precious baby for the sake of making a meal. But she was not quite up to the form of the eagle, because the chances are that the bird would have taken the baby to its nest to feed its mate and young. She played the game with the animal selfishness of a young vixen fox, not yet mated and hunting on its own.”

I asked about the Mancinis' subsequent fortunes.

“The count's association with Taggart turned out most favorably,” Sinclair said, “and enabled the family to redeem its estates. Carol Mancini bore up admirably and the rescue was just in time to avert a collapse.”

He laughed again.

“The person who found it hardest to get over the incident was Mrs. Taggart. You see, she had very strong ideas of propriety, and for some time afterward bewailed the calamity of her daughter's having spent some days in the custody of brigands. She said that Francey's reputation must have been tarnished thereby, and that no man of family pride would want to marry her.”

“And did one?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” said Sinclair, with a chuckle. “This one wanted to and did.”