Several days out from New York found the weather fine and Lord
Saxondale's party enjoying life thoroughly. Dickey and the
capricious Lady Jane were bright or squally with charming
uncertainty. Lady Jane, Lord Bob's sister, certainly was not in love
with Mr. Savage, and he was too indolent to give his side of the
case continuous thought. Dimly he realized, and once lugubriously
admitted, that he was not quite heartwhole, but he had not reached a
positive understanding with himself.
“How do they steer the ship at night when it is so cloudy they can't
see the north star?” she asked, as they leaned over the rail one
afternoon. Her pretty face was very serious, and there was a
philosophical pucker on her brow.
“With a rudder,” he answered, laconically.
“How very odd!” she said, with a malicious gleam in her eyes. “You
are as wonderfully well-informed concerning the sea as you are
on all other subjects. How good it must seem to be so awfully
intelligent.”
“It isn't often that I find anyone who asks really intelligent
questions, you know, Lady Jane. Your profound quest for knowledge
forced my dormant intellect into action, and I remembered that a
ship invariably has a rudder or something like that.”
“I see it requires the weightiest of questions to arouse your
intellect.” The wind was blowing the stray hairs ruthlessly across
her face and she looked very, very pretty.
“Intellects are so very common nowadays that 'most anything will
arouse them. Quentin says his man Turk has a brain, and if Turk has
a brain I don't see how the rest of us can escape. I'd like to be a
porpoise.”
“What an ambition! Why not a whale or a shark?”
“If I were a shark you'd be afraid of me, and if I were a whale I
could not begin to get into your heart.”
“That's the best thing you've said since you were seasick,” she
said, sweetly.
“I'm glad you didn't hear what I said when I was seasick.”
“Oh! I've heard brother Bob say things,” loftily.
“But nobody can say things quite so impressively as an American.”
“Pooh! You boasting Americans think you can do everything better
than others. Now you claim that you can swear better. I won't listen
to you,” and off she went toward the companionway. Dickey looked
mildly surprised, but did not follow. Instead, he joined Lady
Saxondale and Quentin in a stroll.
Four days later they were comfortably established with Saxondale in
London. That night Quentin met, for the first time, the reigning
society sensation, Prince Ugo Ravorelli, and his countrymen, Count
Sallaconi and the Duke of Laselli. All London had gone mad over the
prince.
There was something oddly familiar in the face and voice of the
Italian. Quentin sat with him for an hour, listening with puzzled
ears to the conversation that went on between him and Saxondale. On
several occasions he detected a curious, searching look in the
Italian's dark eyes, and was convinced that the prince also had the
impression that they had met before. At last Quentin, unable to curb
his curiosity, expressed his doubt. Ravorelli's gaze was penetrating
as he replied, but it was perfectly frank.
“I have the feeling that your face is not strange to me, yet I
cannot recall when or where I have seen you. Have you been in Paris
of late?” he asked, his English almost perfect. It seemed to Quentin
that there was a look of relief in his dark eyes, and there was a
trace of satisfaction in the long breath that followed the question.
“No,” he replied; “I seem in some way to associate you with Brazil
and the South American cities. Were you ever in Rio Janeiro?”
“I have never visited either of the Americas. We are doubtless
misled by a strange resemblance to persons we know quite well, but
who do not come to mind.”
“But isn't it rather odd that we should have the same feeling? And
you have not been in New York?” persisted Phil.
“I have not been in America at all, you must remember,” replied the
prince, coldly.
“I'd stake my soul on it,” thought Quentin to himself, more fully
convinced than ever. “I've seen him before and more than once, too.
He remembers me, even though I can't place him. It's devilish
aggravating, but his face is as familiar as if I saw him yesterday.”
When they parted for the night Ravorelli's glance again impressed
the American with a certainty that he, at least, was not in doubt as
to where and when they had met.
“You are trying to recall where we have seen one another,” said the
prince, smiling easily, his white teeth showing clearly between
smooth lips. “My cousin visited America some years ago, and there is
a strong family resemblance. Possibly you have our faces confused.”
“That may be the solution,” admitted Phil, but he was by no means
satisfied by the hypothesis.
In the cab, later on, Lord Bob was startled from a bit of doze by
hearing his thoughtful, abstracted companion exclaim:
“By thunder!”
“What's up? Forgot your hat, or left something at the club?” he
demanded, sleepily.
“No; I remember something, that's all. Bob, I know where I've seen
that Italian prince. He was in Rio Janeiro with a big Italian opera
company just before I left there for New York.”
“What! But he said he'd never been in America,” exclaimed Saxondale,
wide awake.
“Well, he lied, that's all. I am positive he's the man, and the best
proof in the world is the certainty that he remembers me. Of course
he denies it, but you know what he said when I first asked him if we
had met. He was the tenor in Pagani's opera company, and he sang in
several of the big South American cities. They were in Rio Janeiro
for weeks, and we lived in the same hotel. There's no mistake about
it, old man. This howling swell of to-day was Pagani's tenor, and he
was a good one, too. Gad, what a Romeo he was! Imagine him in the
part, Bob. Lord, how the women raved about him!”
“I say, Phil, don't be ass enough to tell anybody else about this,
even if you're cocksure he's the man. He was doubtless driven to the
stage for financial reasons, you know, and it wouldn't be quite
right to bring it up now if he has a desire to suppress the truth.
Since he has come into the title and estates it might be deuced
awkward to have that sort of a past raked up.”
“I should say it would be awkward if that part of his past were
raked up. He wasn't a Puritan, Bob.”
“They are a bit scarce at best.”
“He was known in those days as Giovanni Pavesi, and he wasn't in
such dire financial straits, either. It was his money that backed
the enterprise, and it was common property, undenied by him or
anyone else, that the chief object in the speculation was the love
of the prima donna, Carmenita Malban. And, Bob, she was the most
beautiful woman I ever saw. The story was that she was a countess or
something of the sort. Poverty forced her to make use of a glorious
voice, and the devil sent Pagani to young Pavesi, who was then a
student with some ripping big master, in the hope that he would
interest the young man in a scheme to tour South America. It seems
that Signorita Malban's beauty set his heart on fire, and he
promptly produced the coin to back the enterprise, the only
condition being that he was to sing the tenor roles. All this came
out in the trial, you know.”
“The trial! What trial?”
“Giovanni's. Let me think a minute. She was killed on the 29th of
March, and he was not arrested until they had virtually convicted
one of the chorus men of the murder. Pagani and Pavesi quarrelled,
and the former openly accused his 'angel' of the crime. This led to
an arrest just as the tenor was getting away on a ship bound for
Spain.”
“Arrested him for the murder of the woman? On my life, Quentin, you
make a serious blunder unless you can prove all this. When did it
all happen?”
“Two years ago. Oh, I'm not mistaken about it; it is as clear as
sunlight to me now. They took him back and tried him. Members of the
troupe swore he had threatened on numerous occasions to kill her if
she continued to repulse him. On the night of the murder--it was
after the opera--he was heard to threaten her. She defied him, and
one of the women in the company testified that he sought to
intimidate Malban by placing the point of his stiletto against her
white neck. But, in spite of all this, he was acquitted. I was in
New York when the trial ended, but I read of the verdict in the
press dispatches. Some one killed her, that is certain, and the
nasty job was done in her room at the hotel. I heard some of the
evidence, and I'll say that I believed he was the guilty man, but I
considered him insane when he committed the crime. He loved her to
the point of madness, and she would not yield to his passion. It was
shown that she loved the chorus singer who was first charged with
her murder.”
“Ravorelli doesn't look like a murderer,” said Lord Bob, stoutly.
“But he remembers seeing me in that courtroom, Bob.”