"He"s a stranger, sir. I"ve never seen him before," the servant added.
"I wonder who he is?" asked Lola, looking over my shoulder at the card. "Father doesn"t somehow like strangers, does he?"
"No," I said. "But I"ll see him. Show him into the library."
When a few moments later I entered the room I found a tall, elegant, well-dressed Italian who, addressing me in very fair English, said:
"I understand, signore, that Mr. Rayne is not in. I have come from Italy to see him, and I bring an introduction from a mutual friend.
You are his secretary, I believe?"
I replied in the affirmative, and took the note which he handed me.
"I will give it to Mr. Rayne when he returns to-morrow," I promised him. "Where shall he write to in order to make an appointment?"
"I am at the Majestic Hotel at Harrogate," he answered. "I will await a letter--I thank you very much," and he departed.
Next afternoon when I gave Rayne the letter of introduction he became at once eager and somewhat excited.
"Ring up the Majestic," he said. "See if you can get hold of the Cavaliere, and tell him I will see him at any hour he likes to-morrow."
I could see that after reading the letter brought by the Italian, he was most eager to learn something further.
After two attempts I succeeded in speaking with the Cavaliere Graniani, and fixed an appointment for him to call on the following morning at half-past eleven.
What actually occurred during the interview I do not know.
Across the table at luncheon, Rayne suddenly asked me:
"You know Italy well--don"t you, Hargreave?"
"I lived in the Val d"Arno for several years before the war," I replied. "My people rented a villa there."
Then, turning to Lola, he asked:
"Would you like to go for a trip to Italy with Madame and Hargreave?"
"Oh! It would be delightful, dad!" she cried. "Can we go? When?"
"Quite soon," he replied. "I want Hargreave to go on a mission for me--and you can both go with him. It would be a change for you all."
"Delightful!" exclaimed the well-preserved Madame Duperre. "Won"t it be fun, Lola?"
"Ripping!" agreed the girl, turning her sparkling eyes to mine, while I myself expressed the greatest satisfaction at returning to the country I had learned to love so well.
That afternoon, as I sat with Rayne in the smoking-room, he explained to me the reason he wished me to go to Italy--to make certain secret inquiries, it seemed. But the motive he did not reveal.
At his orders I took a piece of paper upon which I made certain notes of names and places, of suspicions and facts which he wished me to ascertain and prove--curious and apparently mysterious facts.
"Lola and Madame will go with you in order to allay any suspicions,"
he added. "I place this matter entirely in your hands to act as you think fit."
A week later, with Lola and Madame, I left Charing Cross and duly arrived in the old marble-built city of Pisa, with its Leaning Tower and its magnificent cathedral, and while my companions stayed at the Hotel Victoria I went up the picturesque Valley of the Arno on the first stage of my quest.
At last, having climbed the steep hill among the olives and vines which leads from the station of Signa--that ancient little town of the long-ago Guelfs--I came to the old Convent of San Domenico, a row of big sun-blanched buildings with a church and crumbling tower set upon the conical hill which overlooked the red roofs of Florence deep below.
The ancient bell of the monastery clanged out the hour of evening prayer, as it had done for centuries, sounding loud and far through the dry, clear evening atmosphere.
Five minutes after ringing the clanging bell at the monastery door and being inspected by a brother through the small iron grill, I found myself with Fra Pacifico in his scrupulously clean narrow cell, with its truckle bed and its praying stool set before the crucifix, but on hearing hurried footsteps in the stone corridor outside I rose, and my strange friend exclaimed in Italian:
"No, Signor Hargreave! Remain seated. I am excused from attendance in the chapel. I had to meet you."
The narrow little cubicle was bare and whitewashed. Fra Pacifico, of the Capuchin Order, with his shaven head, his brown habit tied around the waist with a hempen rope, and his well-worn sandals, had long been my friend. Of his past I could never ascertain anything. He had called humbly upon my father when we first went to live at old-world Signa, years before, and he had asked his charity for the poor down in the Val d"Arno.
"You will always have beggars around you, signore," I remembered he said. "We up at the monastery keep open house for the needy--soup, bread, and other things--to all who come from eight to ten o"clock in the morning. If you grant us alms we will see that those who beg of you never go empty away. Send them to us."
My father saw instantly an easy way out of the great beggar problem, hence he promised him a fixed subscription each month, which Fra Pacifico regularly collected.
So though I had returned to live in London and afterwards played my part in the war, we had still been friends.
On my arrival at Pisa I had made an appointment to see him, and as we now sat together in his narrow cell, I questioned him whether, by mere chance, he had ever heard of a certain lady named Yolanda Romanelli.
It was quite a chance shot of mine, but I knew that he came from the same district as the lady.
He was evasive. He had heard of her, he admitted, but would go no further.
His att.i.tude concerning the lady I had mentioned filled me with curiosity.
In his coa.r.s.e brown habit and hood he had always been a mystery to me.
He was about forty-five years of age. He knew English, and spoke it as well as he did French, for, though a monk, he was a cla.s.sical scholar and a keen student of modern science.
"Now, Fra Pacifico," I said, as I reseated myself. "I know you are cognizant of something concerning this lady, Yolanda Romanelli. What is it? Tell me."
Thus pressed, he rather reluctantly told me a strange story.
"Well!" I exclaimed at last when he had finished. "It is all really incredible. Are you quite certain of it?"
"Signor Hargreave, what I have told you is what I really believe to be true. That woman is in a high position, I know. She married the Marchese, but I am convinced that she is an adventuress--and more. She is a wicked woman! G.o.d forgive me for telling you this."
"But are you quite certain?" I repeated.
"Signore, I have told you what I know," he answered gravely, tapping his great horn snuff-box and taking a pinch, tobacco being forbidden him by the rules of his Order. "I have told you what I know--and also what I suspect. You can make whatever use of the knowledge you like.
Yolanda Romanelli is a handsome woman--as you will see for yourself if you meet her," he added in a strange reflective voice.
"That means going down to Naples," I remarked.
"Yes, go there. Be watchful, and you will discover something in progress which will interest you. But be careful. As an enemy she is dangerous."
"But her husband, the Marquis? Does he know nothing?"