She did not give him time to answer. And he looked as though he would have needed time.
"What made you torture me? Torture me, soul and body? I—oh—" She flung away, as though it were a tarantula, the hand he laid on hers. "You played me! You used me as a pawn! You thought that I might speak, might betray you, if my tongue were not tied. It nearly worked the other way. I all but went to the police instead of helping you to escape. All but!" She turned to Pointer with a gesture that would have been the pride of a film actress.
"Ask whatever you want to know. I shall tell you the truth."
"Anima mia!" In a stride the Italian had her in his arms. He might as well have held a statue.
"I had to tell you that lie," di Monti went on, "all our future hung on my not being arrested just then, as this buffoon would have done. I knew when they got hold of the pendant which I had picked up in the studio, what was coming. My faithful Arrigo saw a policeman talking to the man to whom I had flung it, flung it as I would a clot of mud. It meant no more to me. The pendant worn by that—" he used an ugly Italian term, "I never wanted to soil my fingers with again. Don't you see, darling, that all hung on my getting away? I would never have stooped to act the mourner at her funeral but for that necessity. I—and mourn—for her! I knew you would not help me as you did unless you thought my life was in danger, and I must have your help—"
"I quite see the reason," Sibella said, in a hard, dry voice.
"An arrest just then, or the talk of it, would have spelled ruin. But now," he let her go as she stood unresponsive, no whit softened, "but now I can snap my fingers at the policeman here," he turned and did so, with a crack like a whip, "the post is definitely given, passed by our Inner Council."
"But you told me that you had killed Rose," Sibella repeated in a voice colourless as her face, heavy as her weary lids, lifeless as her dull black hair. "You said that you had struck harder than you meant in your anger. And so, I thought, had I! Oh, so you let me thinks had I!"
"Well, I didn't strike her, nor kill her. The man here has just told you I didn't. He said truly enough, that the studio meetings had nothing to do with the murder. That means I didn't kill her, eh? My only reason for killing her would have been because of them. Cristo! She deserved to die, but I did not do justice on her," di Monti snarled.
"Justice! You to talk of justice, Giulio! What justice have I had from you? When you told me that you had killed Rose, you killed something in me, too. I'm not the woman to love a murderer, but at least I could dream of what might have been if I hadn't sent you there. You've taken even my dream from me now!"
Sibella finished in a sort of forlorn whisper. Di Monti made a gesture towards her, but Pointer cut in, "And why did you tell the police that Miss Charteris was afraid of some one or some thing?" Pointer's voice was very cold and official. "She was. But of you. You knew that her fears pointed to you, and you alone. Besides, it does not necessarily follow that there was no other reason for putting her out of the way than anger or jealousy." He turned to Sibella, "Would you mind," he said gently, "telling me exactly what happened that Thursday night?"
"Sibella!" the Italian began, but Pointer, who was watching him closely, stepped between him and the girl.
"Don't forget that you're in Scotland Yard. Unless you want handcuffs on, you'll stand back, Count di Monti."
The Italian looked murderous. Just for a second he hesitated. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he sat down in the chair at which the Chief Inspector was pointing, and crossing his legs, lit a cigarette.
"Rose really was in love with Mr. Bellairs," Sibella began, speaking as though she were glad to. "My father thought that he and I would have suited each other better. There had been some boy and girl affair between us, but that was all over long ago. After Count di Monti came to England, Rose hesitated between the two. Finally she decided to accept the count, but she wrote to Mr. Bellairs still. And lately they met in his studio."
"Where he was painting her portrait?" asked Pointer.
"Yes I—I thought the whole position not fair—to any of us. So I told Count di Monti on Thursday just before lunch what was going on. Then I grew wretched. I realised, when I saw his rage, what a fearful thing I had done. What an awful thing! And though I knew that neither of them loved the other, I was afraid of trouble. I knew that the count would never forgive her having played with him—he prefers to do the playing!" She shot a glance at the young man which was very reminiscent of her Italian grandmother. "I didn't go to the concert in Medchester Thursday evening. I drove on to Harry Bellairs' studio, getting there just as my cousin scrambled out of the studio window. She heard the count. At the front door. We drove home. Later, when I missed her from her room, I thought that she must have gone back for some reason. Next morning, when I heard that she was dead—oh, how could you have let me suffer what I have!" she burst out again, turning her burning eyes on di Monti.
"What time was it when you went to your cousin's room?" Pointer asked.
"When I dropped her at home it was about ten o'clock. That must have been when the maid spoke to her. I drove back to Medchester, but I didn't go to the concert till practically the end. I needed the fresh air to calm me down. When Mrs. Lane and I got back it was a little past eleven."
"And you picked up that registered letter she had left behind her—forgotten—to confront her with the proof that she had been in the studio?" Pointer asked the Italian.
Count di Monti nodded curtly. "That and the pendant, as I said in Verona." He turned to Sibella. "I would have told you the truth—-" he began, but she stopped him with a hand raised as though to ward off something distasteful, and finished his sentence in her own way.
"Had you not wanted to make use of me, of my remorse, Of my agony of mind! By a trick, you got my help, got away, and would have gone to Jubaland without a word to me—"
"Altro! Tutt'altro!" His face flamed. "Never! For a while—yes. I had to let you bear your burden, but you knew that whatever had happened to her she had richly deserved. She had played with me!" He trembled visibly with fury at the thought still. "But even if you mourned her, I would have made it all up to you. All, and much, much more! I would have taken you—away from all suffering—into a world all light, all gold, all fire."
He repeated the sentence in his own beautiful tongue, "Un mundo di luce, d'oro, e di fuoco." His voice made each word shine and glow. He knelt before her and raised the hem of her black lace frock to his lips. He kissed it passionately. She neither swayed towards him nor away from him. Her eyes rested broodingly on that proud, bent head. On her face was a gentle, and yet a very remote look. It was as though she were hearing again a strain of music which held memories of poignant joy and love in every note, but the joy was a departed one, and the love was dead.
With a sigh she seemed to return to the present, and now there was no softness about her. He rose on the instant, feeling the change, rebuffed by it before she spoke. But he was a good fighter. He did not give up.
"Do not draw away from me! Listen to your heart. Your heart that does love me, say what you will. Let it plead for me. Love can forgive everything but lack of love."
"It does not love you," Sibella said with convincing finality. "I did love you, yes, but that was not why I helped you to escape when I thought you had killed Rose. And you know that."
She took a step towards him at last, but it was as an accuser.
"You knew that the only thing that would make me help you, was the belief that it was I—I who was guilty of throwing fuel on that jealousy of yours, that mad jealousy that burned without any love back of it only pride!"
Pointer looked at his watch.
"I'm sorry," he said, and the two started as though they had been talking on the top of Mount Everest, and had no idea that another human being could be within a mile of them, "but I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Scarlett. I wanted you to know the facts of the case—well, to know them—some of them." He pressed a bell. A constable announced