CHAPTER XXVII.
FRANK AMBERLEY’S MISSION.
The next morning Mr. Amberley went to his office as usual.
As he passed the door on which appeared the name of Mr. Willis Joyner—the back room on the first floor—the dapper figure and pleasant face of that gentleman appeared on the threshold. In spite of his age and his gray whiskers, Mr. Willis Joyner was preferred by many moneyed spinsters and richly jointured widows even before the grave, handsome Mr. Amberley, who never paid any compliments, and apparently regarded business as business, and never sweetened the sourness and dryness of the law with the acceptable honey of soft words and smiling glances.
“Ah! thought ’twas you, Amberley,” said Mr. Willis. “Thought I knew your step. Want to see you when you’ve looked over your letters.”
“All right,” was Mr. Amberley’s very simple rejoinder, as he pursued his upward course.
In ten minutes or a quarter of an hour he came back.
Mr. Willis Joyner wanted to see him about “that affair of Frampton’s,” Frampton being a wealthy commoner who was going to marry a rich baron’s sister, and the “affair” being one of very complicated marriage-settlements.
Some lively talk from the said Mr. Willis Joyner of the one part, and some quiet listening from the said Mr. Frank Amberley of the other part, resulted in the agreement that the younger gentleman should repair at once to Brompton, to have an interview with somebody concerned on some knotty and disputed point.
Frank Amberley went off. About half an hour after his departure, a youth came into the office with a telegram marked “Immediate.”
“Is there any answer wanted, do you know?” inquired the melancholy clerk to whom he delivered it.
“No, I don’t. I’d better wait and see,” answered the messenger.
“Mr. Amberley ain’t in. I’ll ask Mr. Willis,” said the clerk.
Mr. Willis turned it over in his dainty white fingers, and said it must be left for Mr. Amberley, who might be away for a couple of hours. It was uncertain when he might be back.
The telegram was accordingly stuck in the rack, and the bearer went away. It was from Captain Desfrayne, informing Frank Amberley of the sudden death of Gilardoni, the valet.
Unconscious of the tragical revolution which had taken place in Paul Desfrayne’s affairs, the young lawyer pursued his way, planning to return as soon as his immediate business should have been disposed of.
It was not until he was some distance from the office, rattling westward in a hansom, that he remembered he had left no message in case Gilardoni should call early in the afternoon.
It would certainly be desirable to see Madam Guiscardini before fixing any plan with the Italian valet; but could such a thing be hoped for as obtaining an interview with this beautiful tigress, and even granting that she condescended to let herself be spoken with, it was impossible to hope that she would betray a scrap of evidence against herself.
After some trouble, Frank Amberley succeeded in concluding his business with the irascible old gentleman at Blythe Villas, Brompton, to whom he had been despatched.
Coming out from the house, he stood for several minutes on the pavement before he reentered his waiting hansom. He consulted his watch, and found it was yet early—only half-past twelve.
“I can but be refused,” he said to himself. “She must be at home at this hour, I should imagine, and, by the time I reach the place, will have about dressed, I suppose. We can do nothing until she has had the chance of speaking, and she might give me a clue as to the place where her brother may be found.”
Stepping into the hansom, he said:
“Porchester Square.”
On the way he laid out the sketch of one of those imaginary dialogues which never by any possibility take place. He started by fancying himself, after some delay, perhaps, admitted to the drawing-room of the famous prima donna. She might or might not be there. At all events, he would politely introduce himself by name; and then he went on to picture the succeeding talk, ending in two ways, one conceiving her to make fatal admissions against herself, the other supposing her to contemptuously defy him, and laugh all his crafty advances to scorn.
The driver of the hansom shot round the angle of the square. But when he was within a few doors of the house where Madam Guiscardini resided, he perceived that there was already drawn up in front of the curb facing the portico another and far more important vehicle than his own—a splendidly appointed brougham, the gray horses attached to which were handsomely caparisoned in gleaming silver harness. The graceful animals stood perfectly still, except when they half-impatiently threw up their heads, jingling their elegant appointments, or pawed the ground, as if anxious to start off.
The cabman drove past the vehicle a few feet, and then drew up, to wait further orders.
It instantly struck the young lawyer that this might be Madam Guiscardini’s brougham, and that probably she was going out. He had heard that she never attended the theater in the morning when she was to perform in the evening, so she might not be going to the opera-house; but, at all events, she was in all likelihood on the point of taking a drive somewhere. He determined to wait for some moments.
“Turn the other way—right round—and then stop for a while,” he said to the cabman. “If I should jump out very suddenly, and go into that house, do not take any notice, but wait quietly here until I come back.”
“All right, sir,” said cabby, obeying the first part of his instructions.
Frank thus faced the brougham, which he had seen indashing past, and could see the street-door, at present closed.
Had Lucia Guiscardini happened to be in her dining-room, drawing-room, or bedroom, all of which looked out on the square, she might possibly have descried the mysterious waiting vehicle standing opposite, or nearly opposite, to her house, and, seeing the watchful figure with the dark-bearded, thoughtful face, might by accident have taken an alarm, and so countermanding her orders for the drive, and denying herself on the score of a fit of indisposition to any stranger inquiring for her, have temporarily escaped a dangerous interview.
But, unfortunately for herself, madam was in her dressing-room, a dainty apartment behind her bedroom, and only separated from it by silken and lace curtains. She was occupied in three different ways—completing her exquisite toilet, scolding and snarling at her French maid, and cooing over a tangled skein of floss silk, from which peered forth an infinitesimal black snout and two bright, glittering brown eyes.
Dress was a reigning passion with Lucia, and this day she was doubly absorbed, in spite of the racking state of her mind consequent upon the daring criminal step she had taken the night before.
Madam was going first to the opera-house, to excuse herself to the manager, armed with a medical certificate to the effect that she was incapable of singing that evening, from a painful attack of hoarseness. This excuse was in reality not ill-founded, for she had taken a slight chill in her hurried journey the previous night.
She felt it would be utterly impossible to sing that evening. As it was, her hands were trembling from nervous excitement; the faintest sound, if unexpected, made her start with trepidation; her eyes and cheeks were aflame. Had it not been that she was remarkably abstemious, Finette would have suspected madam to be suffering from the effects of an overdose of champagne.
The second place to which she was bound was a garden-party, where she had smilingly promised her princely adorer she would show herself for at least a few minutes.
“If I go on at this rate,” the signora thought at last, “I shall be ill. Come what may, I must brace up my nerves, and try to compose myself. It would be ruin to my hopes if I fell ill just now.”
She shuddered as she fancied she might be seized with fever, and lose her wits, perhaps, and betray in her wanderings the crime of which she had been guilty within these past twenty-four hours.
At length she was arrayed, all save the right-hand glove; but she could not stay to put that on now, lest she should be too late at the opera-house to enable the manager to make other arrangements for the night. The little white hands were loaded with blazing jewels, that sparkled and flashed in the light; but she no longer wore the fatal diamond ring that had scratched Gilardoni, the valet, on the wrist.
As she swept down the richly carpeted stairs, her movements signalized by the soft frou-frou of her Parisian garments, she meditated chiefly on the impending storm between herself and the director. She floated down to the door, followed by Finette, who was carrying the tiny bundle of floss silk, the denomination of which appeared to be Bébé.
The door was held open by a lackey, in a plain but exceedingly elegant livery. Madam hated all the male servants in her own and other people’s houses, for they often reminded her of the position to which had sunk the man whose legal wife she was.
But there was nothing in the sweetly modulated accents, and in the absent, preoccupied eyes of the beautiful mistress of the house to betray any feeling either way toward the domestic as she said:
“I shall be home about six. Dinner at seven.”
The servant bowed, though a lightninglike glance at Finette behind the signora’s back indicated surprise, for if madam dined at seven, she evidently did not mean to go to the opera, at all events as a performer.
Madam put out one tiny foot to reach her brougham,but drew back with a deep breath that narrowly escaped being a cry of alarm.
Standing just within the portico was a tall, gentlemanly-looking man, a stranger to her, hat in hand, waiting to address her.