“Listen,” she begged, moving a little nearer towards him. “There is a tiny café in a fashionable but not too reputable corner of Rome in the arcade leading from the Plaza Vittoria. Its name is the Café of the Shining Star. You will find me there at ten o’clock. May I have my shoe so that I can make a dignified departure?”
Fawley shook his head. He pointed to an antique Italian armoire which looked as if it might be used as a boot cupboard.
“You can help yourself, Signorina. The slipper I have in my pocket I keep until I know whether Berati is alive or dead.”
“You keep it as evidence—yes? You would hand me over as the assassin? As though any one would believe your story!”
“All the same,” Fawley reminded her, “for the moment Berati is my master.”
He turned the handle of the door. She kissed the tips of her fingers to him lightly.
“I can see,” she sighed, “that you are one of those who do not change their minds. All the same, I warn you there is danger in what you are doing.”
“A slipper,” Fawley protested, “a delicate satin slipper with a slightly raised inner sole could never bring me ill luck.”
She shook her head and there was no ghost of a smile upon her lips just then.
“Medici buckles,” she confided. “They are very nearly priceless. Men and women in the old days paid with their lives for what you are doing.”
Fawley smiled.
“You shall have the buckle back,” he promised. “For the rest, I will use my penknife carefully.”
CHAPTER IV
Once more Fawley entered Berati’s palatial bureau with a certain trepidation. His heart sank still further after his first glance towards the desk. The chair behind it was occupied by Prince Patoni.
“What about the Chief?” Fawley asked eagerly. “Was he hurt?”
The young man remained silent for a moment, his jet-black eyes fixed upon his visitor’s, his fingers toying with the watch-chain which was suspended from a high button of his waistcoat. He seemed, in his ravenlike black clothes, with his hooked nose, his thin aristocratic face and bloodless lips, like some bird of prey.
“Our Chief,” he announced calmly, “is unhurt. A modern assassin seldom succeeds in checking a really great career. He has left a message for you. Will you be pleased to receive it.”
Fawley drew a sigh of relief. Life seemed suddenly to become less complicated.
“Let me hear what it is, if you please,” he begged.
“The Chief has been summoned to his wife’s, the Principessa’s, reception at the palazzo. Some royalties, I believe, have made their appearance. It is his wish that you should repair there immediately. Here,” he added, pushing a highly glazed and beautifully engraved card across the table towards him, “is your invitation, as you are probably unknown to the servants and ushers of the household.”
Fawley glanced at the card and thrust it into his pocket.
“I will go, of course,” he replied, “but please explain to me how it is that Berati’s wife is Principessa? He himself, I understood, had no other rank than his military one of General.”
“That is quite true,” Patoni admitted, “but our illustrious Chief married some time ago the Principessa de Morenato…You will leave the bureau as you entered it. When you reach the street, turn to the right twice and the entrance to the palazzo courtyard confronts you. I must beg you not to delay.”
“Tell me before I leave,” Fawley begged, “if any orders have been issued for the arrest of the person who fired that shot?”
“The matter does not come, sir, within the scope of your activities,” was the icy reply.
Fawley took his departure and made his way according to directions to where, under a scarlet awning, guests were coming and going from the great grey stone palazzo. A very courtly seneschal received his card with enthusiasm and conducted him into a magnificent room still filled with men and women, talking together in animated groups, dancing in a further apartment, or listening to soft music in a still more distant one. He led Fawley towards a slightly raised floor, and, in a tone which he contrived to make almost reverential, announced the visitor. The Principessa, a handsome woman of the best Roman type, gave him her lifted fingers and listened agreeably to his few words.
“My husband has told me of your coming,” she confided. “It will give him pleasure before you leave to have a further word with you. He is showing one of the Royal Princes who have honoured us with their presence a famous Murillo which came into our family a short time ago…Elida, do not tell me you are going to leave us so soon?”
Fawley glanced around. Some instinct had already told him whom he would find standing almost at his elbow. It seemed to him, however, that he had not realised until that moment, in the over-heated, flower-scented room, with its soft odours of femininity, its vague atmosphere of sensuous disturbance, the full subtlety of her attraction. The tension which had somewhat hardened her features a few minutes ago had gone. An air of gentle courtesy had taken its place. She smiled as though the impending introduction would be a pleasure to her.
“It is Major Martin Fawley, an American of many distinctions which for the moment I cannot call to mind,” the Princess said. “My, alas, rather distant relative, the Princess Elida di Rezco di Vasena.”
The formal introduction with its somewhat Italian vagueness gave Fawley no hint as to whether the Princess were married or not, so he contented himself with a ceremonious bow. He murmured some commonplace to which she replied in very much the same fashion. Then a newcomer presented himself to the Princess and the latter turned away to greet him. Fawley found himself involuntarily glancing at his companion’s feet. She was elegantly shod in bronze slippers but the bronze and the lemon colour were not an ideal combination.
“It is your fault,” she reminded him gently. “In a short time I hope that you will see me properly shod. Tell me your news. There seem to be no rumours about.”
Her coolness was almost repelling and Fawley felt himself relieved by the gleam of anxiety in her eyes. The reply, however, which was framing upon his lips became unnecessary. It seemed as though both became aware of a certain fact at the same moment. Within a few feet of them, but so placed that he was not directly in their line of vision, stood the man whom all Italy was beginning to fear. General Berati, very impressive in his sombre uniform, very much alive, was watching the two with steady gaze.
“Princess,” Fawley said, determined to break through the tenseness of those few seconds, “I am wondering whether I have had the happiness to meet one of your family. There was a Di Vasena riding some wonderful horses in the show at San Remo last year. I met him at a friendly game of polo afterwards.”
“My brother,” she exclaimed, with a quick smile of appreciation. “I am glad that you remembered him. He is my favourite in the family. You are like all your country-people, I suppose, and the English too—very fond of games.”
“We have less opportunity nowadays for indulging in them,” Fawley regretted.
“You would say that I speak in—what is the English word?—platitudes, if I suggested that you had been driven to the greater amusements?”
“There is truth in the idea, at any rate,” Fawley admitted.
She turned and touched the arm of a young uniformed soldier who was standing near by.
“You remember Major Fawley, Antonio?” she asked. “He met you—”
“Why, at San