Doctor Malvano, in a stout shooting-suit of dark tweed, his gun over his
shoulder, his golf-cap pulled over his eyes to shade them, was tramping
jauntily along, across the rich meadow-land, cigar in mouth, chatting
merrily with his host, a company promoter of the most pronounced Broad
Street type named Mabie, who had taken Aldworth Court, in Berkshire, on
a long lease, and who, like many of his class, considered it the best of
form to shoot. The ideal of most men who make money and spend it in
London city is to have "a place in the country;" and in this case the
"place" was a great, old, time-mellowed, red-brick mansion, inartistic
as was architecture in the early Georgian days, but nevertheless roomy,
comfortable, and picturesque in its ivy mantle, and surrounded by its
spacious park.
The party with whom he was shooting was a decidedly mixed one. At a
country house, Malvano was always a welcome guest on account of his good
humour, his easy temperament, and his happy knack of being able to
entertain all and sundry. Ladies liked him because of his exquisite
Italian courtesy, and perhaps also because he was a merry, careless
bachelor; while among the men of a house-party, he was voted good
company, and the excellence of his billiard-playing and shooting always
excited envy and admiration. In the hours between breakfast and
luncheon, few birds had that day escaped his gun. To his credit he had
placed a good many brace of partridges and pheasants, half a dozen
snipe, a hare or two, and held the honours of the morning by bringing
down the single woodcock which the beaters had sent up.
They had lunched well at an old farmhouse on his host's estate, a table
being well spread in the great oak-beamed living-room, with its tiny
windows and a fire on the wide hearth, and, in the enjoyment of an
unusually good cigar, the Doctor felt disinclined to continue his feats
of marksmanship. Indeed, he would have much preferred the single hour's
rest in an easy chair, to which he had always been accustomed in Italy,
than to be compelled to tramp along those high hedgerows. Yet he was a
guest, and could make no complaint.
Malvano possessed a very curious personality. Keen-eyed and
far-sighted, nothing escaped him. He had a deep, profound knowledge of
human nature, and could gauge a man accurately at a glance. His merry,
careless manner, thoughtless, humorous, and given to laughing
immoderately, caused those about him to consider him rather too
frivolous for one of his profession, and too much given to pleasure and
enjoyment. The popular mind demands the doctor to be a person who,
grave-faced and care-lined, should study the _Lancet_ weekly, and
carefully note every new-fangled idea therein propounded; should be able
to diagnose any disease by looking into a patient's mouth; and who
should take no pleasure outside that morbid one derived from watching
the growth or decline of the maladies in persons he attended. Malvano,
however, was not of that type. Without doubt he was an exceedingly
clever doctor, well acquainted with all the most recent Continental
treatments, and whose experience had been a long and varied one. He
could chatter upon abstruse pathological subjects as easily as he could
relate a story in the smoking-room, and could dance attendance upon the
ladies, and amuse them by his light brilliant chatter with that graceful
manner which is born in every Italian, be he peasant or prince. Within
twenty miles or so of Lyddington, no house-party was complete without
the jovial doctor, who delighted the younger men with his marvellous
collection of humorous tales, and whom even the elder and grumpy admired
on account of his perfect play at Bridge.
But Filippo Malvano was not in the best spirits this autumn afternoon,
tramping across the meadows from Manstone Farm, at the Pangbourne and
Hampstead Norris cross-roads, towards Clack's Copse, where good sport
had been promised by the keeper. He was careful enough not to betray to
his host the fact that he was bored, but as he strode along, his heavy
boots clogged with mud, he was thinking deeply of a curious incident
that had occurred half an hour before, while they had been lunching up
at the farm.
The remainder of the party, half a dozen guns, were on ahead, piloted by
the keeper, the beaters were before them on either side of the tall
hazel hedge, but beyond one or two rabbits, the spot seemed utterly
destitute of game.
"What kind of sport have you this season up in Rutland?" the City
merchant was asking with the air of wide experience which the Cockney
sportsman is so fond of assuming.
"Fair--very fair," Malvano replied mechanically. "Just now I'm shooting
somewhere or other two or three days each week, and everywhere pheasants
seem plentiful."
His dark eyes were fixed upon the moving figures before him, and
especially upon one--that of a lithe athletic man in a suit of grey
homespun, who walked upright notwithstanding the uneven nature of the
ground, and who carried his gun with that apparent carelessness which
showed him to be a practised sportsman.
It was this man who was occupying all the Doctor's attention. To his
host he chatted on merrily, joking and laughing from time to time, but,
truth to tell, he was sorely puzzled. While sitting around the farmer's
table, Mabie, turning to him, had made some observation regarding the
autumn climate in Tuscany, whereupon, the young man now striding on
before him, had looked up quickly, asking--
"Do you know Tuscany?"
"Quite well," the Doctor had answered, explaining how for some years he
had practised in Florence.
"I know Florence well," his fellow-guest had said. "While there I made
many friends." Then, after a second's hesitation, he gazed full into
the Doctor's face, and asked, "Do you happen to know any people named
Fanetti there?"
This unexpected inquiry had caused the Doctor to start; but he had been
sufficiently self-possessed to repeat the name and calmly reply that he
had never heard of it. He made some blind inquiry as to who and what
the family were, and in which quarter they resided; and then, with that
tactful ingenuity which was one of his most remarkable characteristics,
he turned the conversation into an entirely different channel.
This incident, however, caused the jovial, careless Malvano considerable
anxiety; for here, in the heart of rural England, across the homely
board of the simple, broad-faced farmer, a direct question of the most
extraordinary kind had been put to him. He did not fail to recollect
the keen, earnest look upon the man's face as he uttered the name of
Fanetti--a name he had cause to well remember--and when he recalled it,
he became seized with fear that this man, his fellow-guest, knew the
truth. Having for the past half-hour debated within himself what course
was the best to pursue, he had at last decided upon acting with
discretion, and endeavouring to ascertain how far this stranger's
knowledge extended.
Turning to his host as they walked on side by side, he removed his
cigar, and said, in his habitual tone of carelessness--
"I, unfortunately, didn't catch the name of the young man to whom you
introduced me this morning--the one in the light suit yonder."
"Oh, my nephew, you mean," Mabie answered. "A good fellow--very good
fellow. His name's Armytage--Charles Armytage."
"Armytage!" gasped the Doctor. In an instant he remembered his
conversation with Lady Marshfield. She had said that she knew a certain
Charles Armytage. But Malvano betrayed no sign, and remained quite
calm. "Yes," he continued; "he seems a very decent fellow. He's a good
shot, too. Several times this morning I've--"
At that instant a partridge rose before them, and Malvano raised his gun
swift as lightning, and brought it down almost before the others had
noticed it.
"Several times to-day I've admired his shooting," continued the Doctor,
at the same time reloading.
"He's only just back from the Continent," his host explained, "and I
asked him to run down from town to-day, thinking a little English sport
would be pleasant after the idleness of a summer in Italy."
"A summer in Italy!" Malvano exclaimed in surprise. "He was rather
ill-advised to go there during the hot weather. Every one strives to
get away during summer. Where has he been?"
"In Florence, and afterwards at Leghorn, I believe. He's been away all
this year."
"He has no profession?"
"None," Mabie answered. "His father died and left him comfortably off.
For a couple of years he led a rather wild life in Brussels and Paris,
sowed the usual wild oats, and afterwards took to travelling. On the
average, he's in England about a couple of months in the year. He says
he only comes home to buy his clothes, as he can't find a decent tailor
on the Continent."
"I well understand that," Malvano laughed. "Is he making a long stay at
home this time?"
"I believe so. He told me this morning that he was tired of travelling,
and had come back to remain."
Malvano smiled a trifle sarcastically. It was evident that his host did
not know the true story of his nephew's fascination, or he would have
mentioned it, and perhaps sought the Doctor's opinion. Therefore, after
tome further ingenious questions regarding his nephew's past and his
present address dropped the subject.
An hour later he found himself alone with Armytage. They had passed
through Clack's Copse, and, after some splendid sport, had gained the
road which cuts through the wood from Stanford Dingley to Ashampstead,
where they were waiting for the remainder of the party, who, from the
repeated shots, were in the vicinity finding plenty of birds.
"Your uncle tells me you know Italy well," Malvano observed.
"I don't know it well," Armytage replied, looking the picture of good
health and good humour as he stood astride in his well-worn breeches and
gaiters, and his gun across his arm. "I've been in Tuscany once or
twice at Florence, Pisa, Viareggio, Lucca, Leghorn, and Monte Catini.
I'm very fond of it. The country is lovely, the garden of Italy, and
the people are extremely interesting, and of such diverse types.
Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is there such pride among the lower
classes as in Tuscany."
"And nowhere in the world are the people more ready to charge the
travelling Englishman excessively--if they can," added Malvano,
laughing. "I'm Italian born, you know, but I never hesitate to condemn
the shortcomings of my fellow-countrymen. The honest Italian is the
most devoted friend in the world; the dishonest one is the brother of
the very devil himself. You asked me at lunch whether I knew any one
named Fanetti--was Fanetti the name?--in Florence," said the Doctor,
after a pause, watching the younger man's face narrowly. "At the time I
didn't recollect. Since lunch, I have remembered being called
professionally to a family of that name on one occasion."
"You were?" cried Armytage, immediately interested. He felt that,
perhaps, from this careless, easygoing doctor, he might obtain some clue
which would lead him to the truth regarding Gemma's past.
Malvano recalled Lady Marshfield's words, and with his keen dark eyes
looked gravely into the face of the tall, broad-shouldered young
Englishman.
"Yes," he said. "There was a mother and two daughters, if I remember
aright, and they lived in a small flat in the Via Ricasoli, a few doors
from the Gerini Palace. I was summoned there in the night under
somewhat mysterious circumstances, for I found, on arrival, that one of
the daughters had a deep-incised wound in the neck, evidently inflicted
with a knife. I made inquiry how it occurred, but received no
satisfactory reply. One thing was evident, namely that the wound could
not have been self-inflicted. There had been an attempt to murder the
girl."
"To murder her!" Armytage cried.
"No doubt," the Doctor answered. "The wound had narrowly proved fatal,
therefore the girl was in too collapsed a condition to speak herself. I
dressed the wound, and advising them to call their own doctor, went
away."
"Didn't you see the girl again?" asked Armytage. "No. There was
something exceedingly suspicious about the whole affair, and I had no
desire to imperil my professional reputation by being party at hushing
up an attempted murder. Besides, from what I heard later, I believe
they were decidedly a family to avoid."
"To avoid! What do you mean?" the young man cried, dismayed.
Malvano saw that the words were producing the effect he desired, namely,
to increase suspicion and mistrust in his companion's heart, and
therefore resolved to go even further.
"The family of whom I speak held a very unenviable reputation in
Florence. Some mystery was connected with the father, who was said to
be undergoing a long term of imprisonment. They were altogether beyond
the pale of society. But, of course," he added carelessly, "they cannot
be the same family as those of whom you speak. Where did you say your
friends live?"
"They no longer live in Florence," he answered hoarsely, his brow
darkened, and his eyes downcast in deep thought. All that he learnt
regarding Gemma seemed to be to her detriment. None had ever spoken
generously of her. It was, alas! true, as she had told him, she had
many enemies who sought her disgrace and ruin. Then, after a pause, he
asked, "Do you know the names of the girls?"
"Only that of the one I attended," Malvano answered, his searching eyes
on the face of young Armytage. "Her name was Gemma."
"Gemma!" he gasped. His trembling lips moved, but the words he uttered
were lost in the two rapid barrels which the Doctor discharged at a
couple of pheasants at that instant passing over their heads.