The doctor, after his encounter with Herrion, hastily ascended the main
staircase and made his way to his room. Gilda was in the foyer talking
to Sir Raife Remington. With a surprising agility, the doctor flung his
belongings into his valises and then scribbled a note. Ringing the bell
he called for his bill, at the same time instructing the waiter to hand
the note to Miss Tempest, whom he would find in the foyer. "Call Miss
Tempest," he added, "by saying that I wish to speak to her. Don't hand
her the note in the presence of Sir Raife."
The waiter, with a profound bow, withdrew to obey the instructions,
slightly elevating his eyebrows.
A few more instructions and Doctor Malsano left the hotel, ostensibly
for a stroll along the Promenade des Anglais. He soon doubled his
tracks and secured a motor-car. Seated in this he donned motor goggles
of the mask type, attached to a jaunty looking cap. A gaily-coloured
silk muffler from his overcoat pocket, with the other alterations he had
effected in his room, completed a transformation that had converted the
sombre personality into a somewhat flashy-looking tourist. The modest
luggage was easily negotiated, and a trail of white dust was all that
remained of the courtly old doctor.
Gilda's conversation with Raife was interrupted by the arrival of the
discreet waiter, who invited Miss Tempest to meet Doctor Malsano
upstairs. Raife looked lovingly at her retreating figure. As she
disappeared behind a marble pillar he saw the waiter hand her a note,
which she hastily secreted in her bodice.
His heart gave a desponding throb. What was this fresh mystery? Why
was the progress of their strange courtship to be jarred by a series of
uncanny surprises?
He rose from his seat and crossing the foyer glanced up as her
transcendingly beautiful but fragile form swept with a stately grace
along the landing. She stood for a moment and started to read the note.
Then, catching sight of Raife, she lowered it to her side and continued
her journey upwards. More torture. Why did she disguise the note?
What can have been the cryptic contents? Raife was enthralled with the
subtle charms of this wonderful woman creature. Yet all his judgment
kept telling him that their course could only lead to tragedy. A score
of times a day he tore his soul in shreds by asking himself fatuous
questions, to which he could find no answer. He was impelled with the
fascination of a will-o'-the-wisp, and Gilda was the spirit that danced
before him night and day.
Gilda reached the retirement of her room, and then read the note, which
said:
"H of S Y is here. I have gone. Join me as soon as you can at C--. If
we fail to meet there or at B--, meet L in a week or two."
Haunted and hunted, deprived of all real companionship save that of this
conspirator criminal who called himself her uncle, Gilda's courage
failed for a brief while.
Falling on to the lounge, covered with dainty dimity, which was at the
foot of the bed she must soon vacate, this fragile girl, whose nerves
had stood her in good stead so many times, sobbed.
Yes! hunted from place to place. Hunted by fear of a Nemesis that
pursued unrelentingly. When the entrance hall was practically deserted
and the dining halls were crowded, a tall figure, cloaked and shrouded
in a motor veil, crept down the stairs and entered a car in waiting.
Into the mysterious night, quite slowly and silently, the car forged its
way. Gilda did not know where she was going and had merely said to the
chauffeur: "Drive on slowly until I tell you to turn."
The fiendish malignity of an accomplished criminal has formed the
subject of much moralising. Criminals of the type of Doctor Danilo
Malsano are, fortunately, rare. Their astounding gifts, which they use
in a distorted form, make detection difficult, and escape easy.
To his mind it did not appear brutal to involve a beautiful young girl
in a nest of criminal intrigue. A day or two after the sudden
disappearance of uncle and niece, the quiet little town of Bordighera
was made more attractive by the figure of a wistful-looking girl, who
gazed across the deep-blue sea. Bordighera does not possess the
fashionable and extravagantly gowned appearance of Nice. There is less
of glitter, less of glare than in most of the towns of the Riviera.
Gilda had come here hoping to attract no attention by reason of the
comparative obscurity of the place. Instead of staying at an hotel, she
had found lodgings in an obscure street.
For the first time she felt a sense of peace in her life and, away from
her uncle's baneful influence, a restored freshness was entering her
very being. She sat gazing across that beautiful sea with its blue
surface flecked by rippling streaks of turquoise, or purple, or deep
emerald, as its wondrous depths were affected by a brilliant sun.
Distant smoke trailed in the wake of some steamer that may have
"tramped" the world around, or of an Orient liner that was conveying
white rulers to the far-away portions of our Eastern Empire.
Gilda thought of Raife and his mad passion for her. She wished to tell
him all--at least all she knew. She felt that she could hardly tell how
much she knew, nor did she know how much she could tell. She did
realise that she had treated him badly, but why had he followed and
discovered her? Should she put an end to her perplexities by a short,
sharp road to death? Rousing herself from this reverie, Gilda left the
seat, with the wonderful view, and sauntered along a winding path
embowered with foliage. As she turned the bend of the pathway she saw
in front of her, on a jutting headland, an elderly lady and a young man.
They, in turn, were gazing seaward.
The young man of to-day is more daring in his costume and displays more
individuality than those of a generation ago. It was not hard, even at
this distance of a few hundred yards, for Gilda to recognise Raife
Remington standing on the jutting rock with his mother.
This young man, who had just inherited large estates and a handsome
income, in tragic circumstances, was easy to identify. With a lineage
dating from Henry the Seventh, and the later period when Sir Henry
Reymingtoune was Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth, and men's fashions
rivalled in costliness those of the women, it was natural that Raife
should possess judgment in such matters.
Queen Elizabeth has been counted the most extravagantly dressed woman of
all time, unless it may be believed that the Queen of Sheba affected a
similar extravagance. The pictorial souvenirs of the costumes of
Elizabeth are more reliable than those of the days of Sheba, but it is
not an important point to decide.
The centuries that have elapsed since the brave days of Drake, Frobisher
and Hawkins, and the other bold admirals who founded the British empire,
have induced a comparative drabness in men's clothing, and a severity in
style.
Much of this has been altered in these later years by imaginative young
Americans, who have learnt to deck themselves out more elaborately in
cravaterie, hosiery, and general lingerie, whilst newspapers devote
columns to the cut of suitings, and the latest form of shoe string, or
the brim and feathered tuft that should rule the form of an Alpine hat.
These despised and minor considerations now, concern the youth of
Britain and the continent of Europe.
Sir Raife Remington, Bart., possessed always the correct judgment in
such matters. He allowed his tailor, hatter, hosier, bootmaker, and
what not, just the correct latitude. They should, and did, only supply
him with clothing that conformed sufficiently with the fashion of the
moment, without displaying an _outre_ taste.
If coloured socks were _de rigueur_, and a variety of tints in shirts
and cravats were the order of the day, the general effect should be
conformable to the fiat of his tradesmen, without being conspicuous. In
short, Raife Remington was a well-dressed man, and his fine, athletic
figure, displayed to perfection the clothes he adorned.
Gilda Tempest saw Raife's form in the distance, and the old spirit of
dread and unrest returned to her with an added fury.
Where should she go? How could she leave Bordighera without being
discovered by Raife or his mother? Where also was the dreaded H of S Y?
Turning in the beautiful pathway, she hastened, with drooping form,
back over the cliffs, and sought the seclusion of her obscure lodgings
in the back part of the quaint and quiet old town.
Long she schemed and planned for a way out of the difficulty. All the
soothing reflections of the afternoon had gone, and in place was the
renewal of trouble, unrest and danger.
The darkest hours of night and trouble precede the dawn.
Gilda, in the throes of her anxiety, gazed into space. She was awakened
from her half-dazed thoughts by a discreet tap at the door. Her buxom,
beaming-faced landlady entered and asked the young `mees' the signorina,
"Would she like an automobile ride in the beautiful evening time? The
signorina looked pale and tired and it might do her good. The chauffeur
of the Count Lyonesse had invited her and her husband for a ride, and if
the young `mees' would accompany them all would be well. The Count had
gone away for a week and all was safe."
This was the streak of dawn which rapidly became daylight, as Gilda saw
her chance to escape from Bordighera in the guise of a peasant and
accompanied, nay, safely chaperoned, by these good, simple folk, who saw
no harm in a joy-ride in the automobile of the absent count. She must
persuade them to take the route by the Col di Tenda through the long
tunnel north into Italy, then to Cuneo. If she could induce them to
"fetch" Cuneo, how should she give them the slip? She had left the bulk
of her trunks at Nice. She must dispose of papers; but folks who live
like Doctor Malsano and Gilda Tempest don't preserve incriminating
documents. How could she give them the slip at Cuneo? "H of S Y" would
not follow her. He would follow her uncle--if he could.