magnetic beauty and her evident aristocracy could not help but have their effect.
I found myself admiring her immensely, in quite a new way. It had never occurred to me that she could rise to a situation with such superb aplomb.
" Won't you sit down ? " said the consul, " I'm sure you must be very tired,"
He put a chair for her, and went back to his seat on the sofa.
" It's a little awkward, you see," he went on. " I don't, as a matter of fact, believe all I read in the papers. And there are several very curious points about the situation which you don't seem to see yourself. And I don't mind admitting that your failure to see them makes a very favourable impression."
He paused and bit his lip, and pulled at his neck.
" It's very difficult," he continued at last. " The facts of the case, on the surface, are undeniably ugly. You are found in disguise in one of the worst places in Naples, and you have actually arms in your hands, which is strengst verboten, as they say in Germany. On the other hand, you give an account of yourself which makes you out to be such utter fools, if you will forgive the frankness of the expression, that it speaks volumes for your innocence, and there's no doubt about your being British-" he smiled amiably, " and I think I must do what I can for you. Excuse me while I talk to my friend here."
Lou turned on me with a triumphant smile; one of her old proud smiles, except that it was wrung, so to speak, out of the heart of unspeakable agony.
Meanwhile, the commissario was gesticulating and shouting at the consul, who replied with equal volubility but an apparently unsurmountable languor.
Then the conversation stopped suddenly short. The two men rose to their feet.
" I've arranged it with my friend here on the basis of his experience of the bold, bad, British tourist. You will come with me to the consulate under the protection of two of his men," he smiled sarcastically, " for fear you should get into any further trouble. You can have your things back except the guns, which are forbidden."
How little he knew what a surge of joy went through us at that last remark !
" I will send one of my clerks with you to Capri," he said, " and you will get your passports and money and whatever you need, and come back to me at once and put the position on a more regular footing."
We got our things from the sergeant, and made excuses for a momentary disappearance. By George, how we did want it !
Five minutes later we were almost ourselves again. We saw the whole thing as an enormous lark, and communicated our high spirits to our companion. He attributed them, no doubt, to our prospects of getting out of the scrape.
Lou rattled on all the way about life in London, and I told the story-bar the snow part-of our elopement. He thawed out completely. Our confidence had reassured him.
We shook hands amid all-round genial laughter when we left under the guidance of a very business-like Italian, who spoke English well.
We caught the boat to Capri with plenty of time to spare, and regaled the consul's clerk with all sorts of amusing anecdotes. He was very pleased to be treated on such a friendly footing.
We went up to the Piazza in the Funicular with almost the sensation of soaring. It had been a devil of a mess; but five minutes more would see it at an end. And, despite my exaltation, I registered a vow that I would never do anything so foolish again.
Of course, it was evident what had happened to Feccles. He had somehow failed to learn of our arrest, and was waiting at the hotel with impatient anxiety for our return.
At the same time, it was rather ridiculous in that costume in broad daylight to have to ask the porter for one's key.
I could not at all understand his look of genuine surprise. That wasn't simply a question of clothesI felt it in my bones. And there was the manager, bowing and scraping like a monkey. He seemed to have lost his self-possession. The torrent of his words of welcome ran over a very rough bed.
I couldn't really grasp what he was saying for a moment, brut there was no mistaking the import of his final phrase.
" I'm so delighted that you've changed your mind, Sir Peter, but I felt sure you could never bear to leave Capri so soon. Our beautiful Capri ! "
What the deuce was the fellow talking about? Change my mind ? What I wanted to do was to change my clothes !
The consul's clerk made a few rapid explanations in Italian, and it almost hit me in the eye to watch the manager's face as he lifted his eyes and saw the two obvious detectives in the doorway.
" I don't understand," he said with sudden anxiety. "I don't understand this at all," and he bustled round to his desk.
" Where's our courier ? " called out Lou. " It's for him to explain everything."
The manager became violently solemn.
" Your Ladyship is undoubtedly right," he broke out.
But the conventional words did not conceal the fact that his mental attitude was that of a man who has suddenly fallen through a trap-door into a cellar full of something spiky.
" There's some mistake here," he went on. " Let me see. "
He called to the girl at the desk in Italian. She fished about in a drawer and produced a telegram.
He handed it over to me. It was addressed to Laroche.
" Urgent bisnes oblige live for Roma night. Pay bill packup join me Museo Palace Hotel Napls in time to cach miday train. Pendragon."
The words were mostly mis-spelt; but the meaning was clear enough. Some one must be playing a practical joke. Probably that paragraph in the paper was part of the same idea. So I supposed Laroche was in the hotel in Naples wondering why we didn't turn up.
" But where's our luggage ? " cried Lou.
" Why," said the manager, " your Ladyship's courier paid the bill as usual. The servants helped him to pack your luggage, and he just managed to catch the morning boat."
" But what time was this ? " cried Lou, and scanned the telegram closely.
It must have been received within a few minutes of our leaving the hotel.
The girl handed over another telegram addressed to the manager.
" Sir Petre add Lady Pendragom espress ther regrets at having so leve so sudenl and mill always have the warmest remebrances of the hapy times they had at the Caligula and hop so riture at the earliest possibile opportunity. Courier till attend to busines details."
It suddenly dawned on my mind that there was one scrap of fact imbedded in this fantastic farrago. The courier had attended to business details with an efficiency worthy of the best traditions of the profession.
The thing seemed to sink into Lou's mind like a person seeing his way through a chess problem. Her face was absolutely white with cold and concentrated rage.
" He must have watched us in Paris," she said. If He must have known that we had spent the money we were going to put into his swindle, and made up his mind that his best course was to get the jewellery and the rest of the cash.
She sat down suddenly, collapsed; and began to cry. It developed into violent hysterics, which became so alarming that the manager sent for the nearest doctor.
A knot of servants and one or two guests had gathered in the atrium of the hotel. The outside porter had become the man of the moment.
" If Why, certainly," he announced triumphantly in broken English. If Mr. Laroche, he went off this morning on the seven o'clock boat. I tink you never catch him."
The events of the last few hours had got me down to my second wind, so to speak. I turned to the consul's clerk ; and I spoke. But my voice seemed to come not so much from me as from the animal inside me the original Pendragon, if you know