ACT II
The burning-eyed visitor—An old favorite—Amateur theatricals—“Light
the candles!”—In which Julien De Medici reveals himself as an
effective playwright.
They had been sitting for fifteen minutes in silence. De Medici finally
spoke. He had grown nervous and catlike, his eyes furtively caressing
the curtains of the room, his ears strained for sounds.
“She should be here now,” he said. “It’s only fifteen minutes’ walk.”
Dr. Lytton grunted and said nothing. A savage light was in his eyes.
“Are you sure Florence will sleep?” De Medici pursued.
The doctor disdained answering.
“Perhaps it’s been unfair of me,” De Medici smiled tiredly, “but I’ve
been holding something from you. A woman entered my bedroom last night
just about the time you captured your Floria in Rollo—and tried to kill
me. She caught me in the arm with a dagger. I fainted, and when I awoke
I found a crucifix on my chest and a candle burning at my head.”
The scientist’s eyes widened. He nodded as if weighing this evidence and
then remarked curtly:
“I can only say, Julien, that you’ve gone mad. You’ve been the victim of
hallucinations. The Floria image has been in your mind so long and so
vividly that it finally materialized into an optical illusion.”
“There was a wound—and blood,” muttered De Medici.
“A self-inflicted attack,” Dr. Lytton answered curtly. “How long are you
going to wait for this visitor of yours?”
De Medici had given instructions to his man, Harding, to admit any
caller without hesitation. Listening to the doctor, he stiffened. He had
heard an outer door open.
“Sh-h,” he murmured.
There was a long pause. Dr. Lytton followed the fixed gaze of his
friend, and both men sat watching the door that opened into the
curtained room. Slowly De Medici rose. The door was opening.
A tall, burning-eyed creature in a preposterous dress that dropped a
silken train behind her stood on the threshold. Dr. Lytton had moved
excitedly.
“Quiet!” De Medici whispered, seizing his arm. “Here is Floria.”
The woman was advancing slowly into the room. It was Jane, the
housekeeper, in a masquerade. Her eyes were alive with mania. The hollow
cheeks were crazily rouged. The awkward body and the skinny hands had
become curiously graceful. Behind the crazed make-believe of the
creature loomed a startling personality. Pride, terror and strength
mingled in the flashing, charcoaled eyes. She continued to move
gracefully toward the two men. In the center of the room she paused.
Looking about her, she spoke in a vibrant, throaty voice that shot a
thrill through her two intent listeners.
“I conjure you,” she cried, “save him. I have come to you with my heart
in my hand.”
Her eyes slowly focused upon De Medici. He was standing in front of her,
regarding her with a puzzled attentiveness.
“You will save him, Baron. You must. You alone can do that. See how I
have humbled myself and come to you.”
De Medici’s face lighted. He became suddenly alive.
“Quick, doctor. In the kitchen,” he whispered. “Bring some plates and a
bottle. Put them on the table here.”
Dr. Lytton, his previous indignation vanished, slipped from the room. A
vague and exciting understanding had come to him. De Medici cleared the
table hastily and lighted the candlesticks. As he did, his fingers
snapped the electric switch and the room dropped into a yellow shadowed
darkness. Dr. Lytton returned with his arms loaded.
[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
“Set the table as if for a meal,” murmured De Medici, his eyes holding
the stare of the woman, “and bring a knife. A long knife.”
The woman, oblivious to these maneuvers, had begun to talk once more.
“Name your price, then, Baron,” she intoned.
“Hurry,” De Medici whispered to the scientist, “and leave the rest to
me. I’ll take the part. I know it well.”
He turned to the woman, his figure become polite, leering, his hand
extended.
“Ah, Lady Floria,” he smiled at her, “venal my enemies call me. But
remember, I do not sell myself for money. If I must betray my honor”—he
paused to laugh—“I insist upon choosing my payment.”
He advanced toward the woman, his manner becoming unctuous and
caressing.
“You have scorned and braved me, Lady Floria,” he spoke, “yet your
beauty has kept me enslaved. I’ve watched you clinging to your lover
like an amorous tigress and I vowed that you would be mine some day.”
He paused and waited. The woman’s eyes had taken fire. Her head flung
itself back in a superb gesture. Her voice came throatily and
distinctly.
“No. I would rather kill myself.”
For an instant De Medici beamed with delight. Then again the unctuous,
leering manner returned.
“You forget,” he cried, “you forget I hold your Mario’s life in pawn for
yours, Tosca.”
She nodded regally.
“And do you think, Baron Scarpia, that I would contract so hideous a
payment with you?”
De Medici, in search of his lines for a moment, hesitated and then cried
out:
“How you detest me!”
The Tosca facing him laughed.
“I do,” she answered, “with my soul and body I loathe you.”
“Ah, ’tis thus I love you most,” he spoke.
Dr. Lytton, eyeing the incredible make-believe for a moment, had become
busy. The drift of the strange scene had penetrated his thought. His
hands had cleared the table and arranged the plates and bottles brought
from the kitchen. Carefully he laid the knife on the edge nearest the
woman. De Medici, seizing the swing of the lines he had evidently once
known, fired the antiquated Sardou speech at the woman, remembering and
improvising as he went.
“Spolletta, pay attention.” He was addressing imaginary actors. “I have
changed my mind. The lovely Floria and I have made a bargain. Let
Cavaradossi be shot. Here is the order.”
Turning to the table he scribbled with a pencil on a piece of paper.
“Here, Floria,” he said, “the passport. I have fulfilled my promise.”
“Not entirely,” came the voice behind him. “I must have a safe conduct
enabling me, too, to quit the country. For I go with him.”
“After tonight?” De Medici murmured, “you will leave me?”
The voice behind him answered:
“Yes, forever.”
Dr. Lytton was watching narrowly. He saw the metamorphosed housekeeper
stealthily approaching the apparently unconscious De Medici. With
infinite caution her fingers reached for the knife on the table edge.
She held it behind her as De Medici raised a wineglass in his hand.
“Ah, my lovely one, my beautiful Tosca, at last thou art mine.”
As he spoke the woman appeared to become transfigured. The terror of her
eyes gave way to an exultant light. She stood poised for a moment,
gazing at the man straightening with the wineglass in his hand. Then
with a cry she raised the knife and plunged it toward De Medici.
He had been waiting, his body tensed for the moment. His hand caught the
descending arm and frustrated the attack. But immediately he sank to the
floor, crying hoarsely:
“Help me, help me, I am dying.”
Dr. Lytton, who had followed the grewsome pantomime, stood motionless
against the curtains. The woman approached the figure spread on the
floor and remained looking down into the face of the man she had slain.
Then, without removing her eyes from him, she went through the motions
of washing her fingers in one of the water glasses. She stopped, and her
gaze centered on the two lighted candles. A shudder passed through her.
De Medici, warily alert, watched her lift the two candlesticks from the
table and lean over him. For a moment the face of the madwoman breathed
against him as the candlesticks were placed one at each side of his
head. She had kneeled. Tearing the crucifix that hung from her neck, she
laid it upon his chest and then arose.
Actress and murderess had become merged in her eyes. She glanced wildly
about the darkened and shadow-dancing room and then, with a last look at
the figure on the floor, moved toward the door. She walked like one in a
dreadful dream, her body moving as if impelled by a force.
De Medici, still motionless, waited till she had retreated several
steps. Raising himself, he whispered quickly:
“Don’t let her get away, Hugo.”
But the woman had paused before Dr. Lytton could move. Her figure grew
larger in the shadows. Her gaze had torn itself from the one on the
floor. She was staring straight ahead of her. Standing in the doorway
blocking her path was Florence Ballau.
The girl’s hair was down and a drowsy look was over her eyes. She stood
regarding the woman in the trailing gown and then, raising her arms,
stumbled forward with the cry:
“Mother ... mother.... Oh, my God!”
CHAPTER XV
HEARTS AND FLOWERS
In which Florence takes up the drama—A taxicab, as in the beginning—In
which what is left of the reader’s suspense and curiosity is carefully
removed.
The cab bowled slowly along through the circuitous park roads.
“I’ll tell him to take his time,” De Medici whispered. “The air will do
you good.”
He looked at the girl beside him. Tenderness lighted his face.
“There’s really nothing to worry about any more, Florence. Your mother
will have excellent care where she is. Dr. Lytton wrote me that he’s
taken personal charge of the case and that she’s as happy as anyone
could expect.”
Florence nodded. Her hand took his.
“You’ve been wonderful,” she said. “And more than anything else, I
admire your reticence. It’s a week—and you haven’t asked me any
questions yet.”
“I’ve been waiting,” he said. “And rejoicing in my own way. There’s no
hurry for the epilogue. And anyway ... I prefer this.”
He raised her hand and kissed it.
“I’d like to go somewhere and talk,” she said at length. “The cab’s a
bit inconvenient. And I’m tired.”
De Medici yielded the point with a minor protest.
“I have an obsession in favor of cabs,” he smiled. “I’ve always done
most of my thinking in cabs, and most of my business has been transacted
in them. I fancy it’s because rooms always used to depress and frighten
me.”
He gave directions to the chauffeur.
“We’ll go to my place,” he resumed. “And on the way I’ll tell you about
my end of the mystery.”
As the cab turned back De Medici began his story, confessing for the
first time aloud the strange suspicions that had seized him as he bent
over the body of his friend Ballau.
“I was convinced at the moment,” he explained, “that, in a fit of mental
aberration during which I took on some of the characteristics of my
ancestors, I killed poor Victor. And the more I thought of that, the
more guilty I seemed to feel.”
He continued relating the fears that had haunted him, the hallucinations
that had accused him during the ensuing weeks. Florence listened
quietly, her large eyes regarding him with emotion.
“I love you so,” she murmured, “and I knew there was something like
this. And I tried to utilize it to save her. It was never clear in my
mind just what I was doing ... or just how it {could work. I must have
been acting on} impulse, determined that whatever happened, she would be
spared. But it’s better this way, I’m sure.”
They left the cab and entered De Medici’s apartment.
“I’ll like living here,” she smiled as they sat down in the room of the
curtains. “Providing, of course, the ghost of Francesca is forever
laid.”
“Forever,” he answered.
She studied him in silence.
“Yes”—at length—“there is a change. Something seems absent from your
face. A nervousness. As if....”
“As if,” he supplied, “the phantoms of De Medici had said good-bye.”
“As if you loved me in a simpler way,” she corrected. “But I’ll tell you
what’s left now. If you wish to hear.”
“Some tea?” he asked.
He gave instructions to his man. Ten minutes later they were sitting
happily over their emptied cups.
“Well,” Florence began, “it goes back to long ago. I remember none of
it. But the story is familiar. Poor father—I still must call him
father—told it to me at least a dozen times. It was in London before I
was born. There was a man named Bandoux, a Frenchman. He and Victor
Ballau were rivals for my mother’s love. Does it sound stilted?”
She smiled sadly.
“A rather old-fashioned melodrama,” she continued. “Bandoux was a
dashing, unscrupulous sort. And she eloped with him. They were gone
about a year and they came back to London with me. Bandoux had refused
to marry her, even after I came. In fact, he mistreated, abused and
reviled her every hour of the day. And poor Victor still loved her.
Mother was young and temperamental and proud, of course. But finally
Victor’s love reached her heart. They were married and lived together
happily for a year.”
“Old Fanny was a little mixed in her dates,” De Medici smiled as she
paused, “but otherwise the story is the same—to that point.”
He told her briefly of his adventure with the wardrobe mistress and the
candlestick.
“I don’t remember her,” Florence went on. “Well, father, that is, Victor
Ballau, was in charge of the Goldsmith Theater at that time and mother
was playing the leads in the repertoire bills they put on. Things were
going nicely, and apparently poor mother had forgotten the hell she’d
been through with Bandoux.
“Then one day father had to leave London on business, and in his absence
the leading man fell ill. I forget his name. The manager in charge
dashed around frantically in search of some experienced repertoire man
to take his place, and found—Bandoux. He’d had a hard time of it and was
willing to join the company for anything he could get. Mother objected
violently at first. But it was either Bandoux or shutting down for the
week, there being no actor available at the price they could pay for a
mid-season employment. And so mother finally agreed. Bandoux played in
the cast that night. Oh, he was a scoundrel! Everything that has
happened, all the tragedy that haunted poor Victor Ballau’s life, came
from him and his rottenness. The play that night was Sardou’s ‘Tosca.’
“Father has told me all these details. I was about three years old at
the time. But I seem to remember the creature, a flamboyant type of
cheap actor. With a grand manner and a nasty temper. Terribly vain of
his looks. An unscrupulous rogue who devoted himself to boasting and to
women.
“Anyway, Bandoux took the part of Baron Scarpia. Mother played Floria La
Tosca. It had always been one of her favorite rôles. The play went
through the first act with nothing unusual happening. Mother was nervous
and excited but managed to restrain herself. Her loathing of this man
Bandoux was almost too much for her. And in the second act the thing
happened. The grief he had caused her, the hatred his perfidy had left
in her heart, flamed out. And when the murder scene arrived, poor mother
went out of her head. She raised the dagger to kill Baron Scarpia as she
had so often done in other performances. But this time she screamed and
hurled herself at Bandoux. He was almost taken by surprise but managed
to defend himself and escaped with a slight wound. Mother fainted. There
was pandemonium and the curtain was rung down.
“Father came back the next morning and found her still raving. She had
been taken to a hospital and was completely out of her mind. She was
Floria La Tosca, screaming the idiotic lines of the play and going
through the pantomime of the stage murder. For a month she lay
completely insane. Her mildest moments were spent in weeping. The rest
of the time she lay crying out that she wanted to kill Scarpia, who had
betrayed her. Poor father was beside himself with grief. Nothing, of
course, could be done with Bandoux. They got rid of him and hushed up
the scandal. The theater was closed and father devoted himself to her.
He was a wonderful man, the finest man that ever lived.”
She paused in her story, her eyes glistening with tears.
“An impression I always had,” whispered De Medici, “a man smiling
courteously at grief.”
“He did his best,” Florence continued. “And gradually the active mania
left her. She became what we grew to regard as normal. But she was no
longer Florence Ballau. When she got over her violence she had forgotten
who she was, she’d forgotten even that she was father’s wife. All memory
of the past had been wiped out. She left the bed in the hospital one
day, quiet once more and unaware of her name, unaware even that she was
my mother.
“Father took us both away to a place in the north of England and we
lived there for some time. He did everything that could be done to
restore her. But it was futile. Apparently she had recovered from her
mania. But she was unable to return to herself. She developed during the
year in England into a docile, simple-minded woman—the woman you knew as
Jane. Father’s friends insisted that he put her into an insane asylum.
But he refused indignantly. He tried for a time to convince her she was
his wife. This fact, however, struck her as preposterous. She refused to
believe it or to have anything to do with father. And he was afraid of
talking too much to her about it, afraid of bringing on her insanity
again—I mean the active part of it. The result was that he finally hit
on the plan of convincing her that she was his housekeeper. This was
successful. She seemed willing to accept the part as his housekeeper,
and he brought us both to America, giving her another name. And our
strange life with Jane started.
“Nobody ever suspected. During the twenty years we lived in New York
father was constantly devoted to her. She was in his mind his wife, and
despite everything she remained so to the end. He never ceased to suffer
because of the position she insisted upon occupying, and he frequently
made love to her, trying to persuade her to marry him instead of her
remaining his housekeeper. But it was odd about poor mother. She would
grow puzzled when he became tender, and then her excitement would begin.
He was frightened of bringing on the violence—we called them spells—and
he would drop the subject. She would go around for several days
murmuring to herself and looking reproachfully at father, whom she had
grown to regard as a friend and protector. And if he pressed the matter
she would break out with the words: ‘I can’t marry you. Don’t you
understand?’ And she would stand and look at him with terror in her
eyes.
“As I grew up I became aware of all this and of what was going on.
Father made no secret of it. She was my mother. Somehow his quixotic
devotion inspired a similar affection in me. She was more than a
mother—an unfortunate to be protected and watched over. Through all the
years of his success and his rise to fame he remained absolutely
faithful to this self-imposed trust of his. There was never another
woman in his life than the memory of the beautiful actress that was
buried in the simple-minded housekeeper.”
She paused and looked sadly at De Medici.
“So much for the past,” she sighed. “Perhaps you can’t understand how a
man could be faithful and as kind as poor father.”
“I can,” De Medici answered. “It is sometimes easier to love a memory
than a woman ... and easier to be faithful to one.”
“Well,” Florence continued, “what I’ve told you is only part of it.
There were other things that happened. I’ll have to speak of them too
because ... well, because they form the story. I can hardly talk of them
even now. Oh, it was terrible! There were times when Floria returned,
the same Floria who had screamed for months in the London hospital. I
remember the first time I saw her. It was about twelve years ago. I came
home from school and found mother, that is Jane, dressed in a ball gown
and talking to father in a voice I had never heard before. She was
playing the part of La Tosca. When I arrived father was in tears. We
both managed somehow to quiet her and after an hour she fell asleep.
When she woke up she was Jane again. And there was no memory in her mind
of the scene she’d been through. She worked around for days, looking
dully at us and only half alive. But after this Floria returned a number
of times and each time more and more violently. We never knew when one
of the spells would come to her and we spent all our time watching her,
trying to anticipate her and soothe her. But despite all our efforts we
could do nothing. Floria would come and father would at once begin to
act. It was the only way to humor her. Several times I sat by crying my
eyes out and watching him play Baron Scarpia for her.
“We tried everything—remedies, travel, and even several specialists. But
the only thing we found able to bring her out of her spells, to end
quickly the delusion which would sweep her, was to let her have her own
way for a while. Father discovered that if he indulged her for a few
minutes and played the part of the Baron, if he let her dress herself as
Tosca, the Floria obsession would collapse of itself. And particularly
if I were present and watching. Otherwise the delusion would last for
hours—even days. And all this kept on through years. Oh, it was awful!
But he would never consider for a moment sending her away. She was his
wife to the last. I’ll tell you about the night ... about the night he
was killed,” she concluded for a space with a sigh.
De Medici sat waiting, his hand on hers and his eyes staring miserably
at her saddened face.
“On the night he was killed,” she resumed, “the same thing happened that
had happened frequently before. Floria returned. Father, worried and
frightened by the fact that my engagement party was to take place in a
few hours, telephoned me. He told me briefly over the phone that she was
in one of her spells. I understood. There was a chance, if he humored
her and if I were present, that we might rid her of the mania in a short
while. I rushed out of the theater beside myself. To have this thing
happen on this night seemed to me almost too much to bear. I was beside
myself with fear and grief. You know, when one has guarded a secret so
carefully all one’s life, one becomes almost like the secret itself. I
was not ashamed of having it known that Jane was my mother. But under
poor father’s influence, I had all my life worked with him to keep the
secret of her insanity hidden from our world. And it was as if something
beautiful would be soiled for him more than for me if it were
discovered.
“I got home in a few minutes. I had a key and let myself in. Father had
set the little scene as he frequently had done before. He had even put
on the black beard that he wore when he played Scarpia for her. He had
found that these details served to convince mother of the reality of the
scene and to shorten the awful thing. I ... I opened the door. He was
sitting in a chair with his back to me as I entered. I saw mother raise
the dagger and strike him, screaming at the same time. I stood still. I
thought for the moment it was another one of the awful make-believes I’d
witnessed so often. And I waited for father to stand up. He did. He
stood up slowly and turned and saw me and nodded with a smile. The
dagger was in his heart and he stood smiling at me. The act was over for
him, the terrible scene that he had so often played. It was over forever
this time. And as he fell he snatched at the thing on his chin and tore
it off.
“I still failed to realize what had happened. He had smiled so kindly, I
could hardly believe it was anything but a minor accident. But gradually
it came to me. I stood horrified and watched mother approach the body on
the floor and place the candle at his head and the crucifix on his body.
Then she turned and saw me. I thought of one thing only. That I must
save her. I knew he would wish it that way. I remembered how he had
looked when he stood before me with the dagger killing him.
“She walked to me and collapsed in my arms. I dragged her to the bedroom
and removed the costume. She lay in a heavy sleep for a few minutes. I
washed the rouge from my face. My mind, as you can imagine, was not
entirely clear. I didn’t know what to do with things. I was obsessed
only by the desire to protect her, to save her. And I must have thrust
the ball gown out of the window on the fire escape. But I didn’t
remember doing it when you came. She lay sleeping and I knew she would
sleep for at least ten minutes. I went into the library and then I must
have lost my head. I had an idea fixed in my mind of misleading the
police with false evidence. All I could think of was to make it look as
if a terrible fight had taken place. I pulled a lot of books down, cut a
few pictures, and turned over some chairs. I remember blowing out the
candle and seeing the beard in father’s hand. I was going to remove it
but thought it would be better to leave it there because it would
increase the mystery and baffle the police. I thought, too, that the
police would figure out he’d been attacked by a man and had torn the
false beard from his assailant’s face. I didn’t think of the gum
mucilage that might show on his own chin.
“You see now, Julien, why I couldn’t tell you anything, why I had to
keep still and lie and muddle things up. It was for his sake. I kept
feeling how he would feel if anything happened to her—if exposure
overtook her. I was desperate and the thought that it was you who seemed
intent upon unmasking the thing that we had kept so hidden for so long
drove me wild.”
“I understand,” De Medici nodded.
“After I’d fixed up the library,” Florence continued, “mother awoke. I
told her that she’d fainted and she said yes, she knew she was subject
to dizzy spells. She got dressed and went out to the kitchen to go on
with her work and I went into the library and screamed. She came running
to me and I told her father had been murdered. She remembered nothing,
of course, of what had happened. I impressed upon her that I had just
come in and found her fainting, but that she should not tell that to the
police because it would look bad for her; that she should just tell them
I had come in and screamed. You recall the first story she told. And the
time Lieutenant Norton asked her whether she had seen anybody else in
the apartment and she said yes, she had seen a man with a black beard, I
was standing just outside the door. For a moment I thought it was all
over and that the lieutenant had hypnotized poor mother or something and
was going to learn the secret from her. But she evidently recovered
herself and the Floria that almost spoke in the library that time
remained hidden.
“After the inquest I began to see what was worrying you, poor Julien. I
couldn’t understand at first, but from the way you spoke and acted I saw
that you didn’t believe it was I who had done it and that somehow you
accused yourself. Oh, it was terrible! I didn’t know what you might do,
and yet I figured blindly that if I kept still, your self-suspicions
would lead you off the track. Then I took mother to Rollo. We had been
there once before during a summer. There’s a sanitarium on the outskirts
of the village. They knew her there and the thing she was suffering
from. And I entrusted her to their keeping and hurried back to New York.
I remembered that during several of her seizures she had written letters
to father and signed them ‘Floria.’ They were letters threatening to
kill him and addressing him sometimes by name and sometimes as Baron
Scarpia. Some of them had the picture of a dagger underneath the name
Floria. I meant to destroy them and I recalled that it was one thing I
had forgotten to do. So I came back and they caught me.
“I had tried right along to make out I was convinced father had
committed suicide, and I was hoping the police would believe it. And
from the way they acted at the inquest I felt almost desperately certain
that they did. I knew you had learned about the telephone call, but I
was positive you would say nothing. Oh, you were so good, Julien! But
when they arrested me and began their questioning I saw that they hadn’t
been fooled. I didn’t know what course to take, so I decided to say
nothing. I didn’t care what happened to me. I think I must have gone a
little mad myself. And that night they brought you and that terrible
doctor to the station I was completely insane. Crazed ideas kept coming
into my head. I couldn’t figure out how much you knew, and when Dr.
Lytton started hypnotizing me I pretended to be in a hypnotic sleep. I
was going to confess to being a double personality. I saw at once that
was what you and he suspected. But somehow I couldn’t. I played with the
idea until I became frantic and then fainted. That wasn’t acting—the
faint,” she smiled; “that was real. But it came in handy.
“And then this awful farce started. Lieutenant Norton decided to release
me and did. And I made for the train at once. I had a feeling that
things were wrong with her. I must have taken the same train as Dr.
Lytton did. It was quite dark when I got off at Rollo and we didn’t see
each other. I made directly for the sanitarium. They admitted me and the
doctor was glad I had come. He told me that mother had left two days ago
and he didn’t know what had become of her. She had eluded the attendants
and vanished.
“I was beside myself and didn’t know what to do. It seemed that all I’d
been through was now for nothing. Poor mother was alone, crazed and
wandering. God knew where. And I started walking distractedly in the
street not knowing what to do first or where to go, when Dr. Lytton
stopped me. When I saw him I felt that it was all over, that he knew
everything. But when he began to talk to me I noticed at once it was I
he suspected. He thought I was the insane one, the double ego and all
that. And I listened to what he said. It was easy to take him in.”
Here she smiled and De Medici found it suddenly difficult to suppress a
laugh. The vision of the didactic scientist and his arbitrary
conclusions, his subsequent discomfiture and good sportsmanship in
admitting his innumerable errors, lightened the mood between them.
“That night she came here,” smiled De Medici, “and I knew, when I saw
you beside Dr. Lytton on his return from Rollo, that he’d blundered.
That is, I suspected it. There was another suspicion, but we’ll not
discuss that any more.”
“I know.” Florence looked tenderly at him. “Dr. Lytton told me. Anyway,
after he’d talked to me in the village hotel I improvised a story that
fitted in with his theories. My chief idea was to get him out of Rollo.
I was all to pieces. All I could think of was that I had to keep him
from finding out about mother at the sanitarium. And when he wanted me
to confess, I confessed. It seemed to cheer him up a great deal.”
“Yes,” said De Medici, “he’s a terrible man to argue with. But the truth
dawned on me—about her—as we were coming up here from the train. It
struck me as if it had been something I had known from the first. Merely
that there had been only one other person in your home at the time he
was killed and that this person had been Jane. And when I thought this,
it all straightened out. I knew your mother had been an actress. I knew
you were protecting your mother. And I knew she had killed poor Victor.
And knowing all this, it cleared up suddenly when I thought of Jane.
There was only one thing. The murder ritual ... out of a play. I
surmised that in the next few minutes while Dr. Lytton was holding forth
on your guilt. I couldn’t place the play until I saw her come in the
room. And then La Tosca showed itself in my head. I had read and
witnessed the thing a score of times and was familiar with most of the
scenes.”
Florence rose and moved to a window. De Medici, beside her, placed his
arm about her shoulders.
“There is only one mystery left,” he murmured.
She turned shining eyes to him.
“You,” he said, “and this thing in my heart that makes life incomplete
without you.”
[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--Conjecturally restored {within brackets} one line missing from the
printed version.