FRANK AMBERLEY’S MISSION.
The next morning Mr. Amberley went to his office as usual.
As he passed the door on which appeared the name of Mr. Willis
Joyner--the back room on the first floor--the dapper figure and
pleasant face of that gentleman appeared on the threshold. In spite of
his age and his gray whiskers, Mr. Willis Joyner was preferred by many
moneyed spinsters and richly jointured widows even before the grave,
handsome Mr. Amberley, who never paid any compliments, and apparently
regarded business as business, and never sweetened the sourness and
dryness of the law with the acceptable honey of soft words and smiling
glances.
“Ah! thought ’twas you, Amberley,” said Mr. Willis. “Thought I knew
your step. Want to see you when you’ve looked over your letters.”
“All right,” was Mr. Amberley’s very simple rejoinder, as he pursued
his upward course.
In ten minutes or a quarter of an hour he came back.
Mr. Willis Joyner wanted to see him about “that affair of Frampton’s,”
Frampton being a wealthy commoner who was going to marry a rich
baron’s sister, and the “affair” being one of very complicated
marriage-settlements.
Some lively talk from the said Mr. Willis Joyner of the one part,
and some quiet listening from the said Mr. Frank Amberley of the
other part, resulted in the agreement that the younger gentleman
should repair at once to Brompton, to have an interview with somebody
concerned on some knotty and disputed point.
Frank Amberley went off. About half an hour after his departure, a
youth came into the office with a telegram marked “Immediate.”
“Is there any answer wanted, do you know?” inquired the melancholy
clerk to whom he delivered it.
“No, I don’t. I’d better wait and see,” answered the messenger.
“Mr. Amberley ain’t in. I’ll ask Mr. Willis,” said the clerk.
Mr. Willis turned it over in his dainty white fingers, and said it must
be left for Mr. Amberley, who might be away for a couple of hours. It
was uncertain when he might be back.
The telegram was accordingly stuck in the rack, and the bearer went
away. It was from Captain Desfrayne, informing Frank Amberley of the
sudden death of Gilardoni, the valet.
Unconscious of the tragical revolution which had taken place in Paul
Desfrayne’s affairs, the young lawyer pursued his way, planning to
return as soon as his immediate business should have been disposed of.
It was not until he was some distance from the office, rattling
westward in a hansom, that he remembered he had left no message in case
Gilardoni should call early in the afternoon.
It would certainly be desirable to see Madam Guiscardini before fixing
any plan with the Italian valet; but could such a thing be hoped for as
obtaining an interview with this beautiful tigress, and even granting
that she condescended to let herself be spoken with, it was impossible
to hope that she would betray a scrap of evidence against herself.
After some trouble, Frank Amberley succeeded in concluding his business
with the irascible old gentleman at Blythe Villas, Brompton, to whom he
had been despatched.
Coming out from the house, he stood for several minutes on the pavement
before he reentered his waiting hansom. He consulted his watch, and
found it was yet early--only half-past twelve.
“I can but be refused,” he said to himself. “She must be at home at
this hour, I should imagine, and, by the time I reach the place, will
have about dressed, I suppose. We can do nothing until she has had the
chance of speaking, and she might give me a clue as to the place where
her brother may be found.”
Stepping into the hansom, he said:
“Porchester Square.”
On the way he laid out the sketch of one of those imaginary dialogues
which never by any possibility take place. He started by fancying
himself, after some delay, perhaps, admitted to the drawing-room of the
famous prima donna. She might or might not be there. At all events,
he would politely introduce himself by name; and then he went on to
picture the succeeding talk, ending in two ways, one conceiving her
to make fatal admissions against herself, the other supposing her to
contemptuously defy him, and laugh all his crafty advances to scorn.
The driver of the hansom shot round the angle of the square. But when
he was within a few doors of the house where Madam Guiscardini resided,
he perceived that there was already drawn up in front of the curb
facing the portico another and far more important vehicle than his
own--a splendidly appointed brougham, the gray horses attached to which
were handsomely caparisoned in gleaming silver harness. The graceful
animals stood perfectly still, except when they half-impatiently threw
up their heads, jingling their elegant appointments, or pawed the
ground, as if anxious to start off.
The cabman drove past the vehicle a few feet, and then drew up, to wait
further orders.
It instantly struck the young lawyer that this might be Madam
Guiscardini’s brougham, and that probably she was going out. He had
heard that she never attended the theater in the morning when she
was to perform in the evening, so she might not be going to the
opera-house; but, at all events, she was in all likelihood on the point
of taking a drive somewhere. He determined to wait for some moments.
“Turn the other way--right round--and then stop for a while,” he said
to the cabman. “If I should jump out very suddenly, and go into that
house, do not take any notice, but wait quietly here until I come back.”
“All right, sir,” said cabby, obeying the first part of his
instructions.
Frank thus faced the brougham, which he had seen in dashing past, and
could see the street-door, at present closed.
Had Lucia Guiscardini happened to be in her dining-room, drawing-room,
or bedroom, all of which looked out on the square, she might possibly
have descried the mysterious waiting vehicle standing opposite, or
nearly opposite, to her house, and, seeing the watchful figure with the
dark-bearded, thoughtful face, might by accident have taken an alarm,
and so countermanding her orders for the drive, and denying herself on
the score of a fit of indisposition to any stranger inquiring for her,
have temporarily escaped a dangerous interview.
But, unfortunately for herself, madam was in her dressing-room, a
dainty apartment behind her bedroom, and only separated from it
by silken and lace curtains. She was occupied in three different
ways--completing her exquisite toilet, scolding and snarling at her
French maid, and cooing over a tangled skein of floss silk, from which
peered forth an infinitesimal black snout and two bright, glittering
brown eyes.
Dress was a reigning passion with Lucia, and this day she was doubly
absorbed, in spite of the racking state of her mind consequent upon the
daring criminal step she had taken the night before.
Madam was going first to the opera-house, to excuse herself to the
manager, armed with a medical certificate to the effect that she was
incapable of singing that evening, from a painful attack of hoarseness.
This excuse was in reality not ill-founded, for she had taken a slight
chill in her hurried journey the previous night.
She felt it would be utterly impossible to sing that evening. As it
was, her hands were trembling from nervous excitement; the faintest
sound, if unexpected, made her start with trepidation; her eyes and
cheeks were aflame. Had it not been that she was remarkably abstemious,
Finette would have suspected madam to be suffering from the effects of
an overdose of champagne.
The second place to which she was bound was a garden-party, where she
had smilingly promised her princely adorer she would show herself for
at least a few minutes.
“If I go on at this rate,” the signora thought at last, “I shall be
ill. Come what may, I must brace up my nerves, and try to compose
myself. It would be ruin to my hopes if I fell ill just now.”
She shuddered as she fancied she might be seized with fever, and lose
her wits, perhaps, and betray in her wanderings the crime of which she
had been guilty within these past twenty-four hours.
At length she was arrayed, all save the right-hand glove; but she
could not stay to put that on now, lest she should be too late at the
opera-house to enable the manager to make other arrangements for the
night. The little white hands were loaded with blazing jewels, that
sparkled and flashed in the light; but she no longer wore the fatal
diamond ring that had scratched Gilardoni, the valet, on the wrist.
As she swept down the richly carpeted stairs, her movements signalized
by the soft frou-frou of her Parisian garments, she meditated chiefly
on the impending storm between herself and the director. She floated
down to the door, followed by Finette, who was carrying the tiny bundle
of floss silk, the denomination of which appeared to be Bébé.
The door was held open by a lackey, in a plain but exceedingly elegant
livery. Madam hated all the male servants in her own and other people’s
houses, for they often reminded her of the position to which had sunk
the man whose legal wife she was.
But there was nothing in the sweetly modulated accents, and in the
absent, preoccupied eyes of the beautiful mistress of the house to
betray any feeling either way toward the domestic as she said:
“I shall be home about six. Dinner at seven.”
The servant bowed, though a lightninglike glance at Finette behind the
signora’s back indicated surprise, for if madam dined at seven, she
evidently did not mean to go to the opera, at all events as a performer.
Madam put out one tiny foot to reach her brougham, but drew back with
a deep breath that narrowly escaped being a cry of alarm.
Standing just within the portico was a tall, gentlemanly-looking man, a
stranger to her, hat in hand, waiting to address her.