This struck me as distinctly curious. Though the poor girl"s mind was unbalanced it was evident that she could recollect some things, while her memory did not serve her in others. Of course it was quite feasible that Moroni, on discovering that I was on the alert, would warn her against me.
Suddenly, hoping to further stir the chords of her memory, I asked:
"Have you seen Mr. De Gex lately?"
"Who?" she inquired blankly.
"Mr. Oswald De Gex--who lives in Stretton Street."
She shook her head blankly.
"I"m afraid I--I don"t know him," she replied. "Who is he?"
"Surely you know Stretton Street?" I asked.
"No--where is it?" she inquired in that strange inert manner which characterized her mentality.
I did not pursue the question further, for it was evident that she now had no knowledge of the man in whose house I had seen her lying--apparently dead. And if she were not dead whose body was it that had been cremated? That was one of the main points of the problem which, try how I would, I failed to grasp.
Would the enigma ever be solved?
As she stood in her mother"s cosy little drawing-room Gabrielle Tennison presented a strangely tragic figure. In the grey London light she was very beautiful it was true, but upon her pale countenance was that terribly vacant look which was the index of her overwrought brain. Her memory had been swept away by some unknown horror--so the doctors had declared. And yet she seemed to remember distinctly what Doctor Moroni had alleged against me in Florence!
Therefore I questioned her further concerning the Italian, and found that she recollected quite a lot about him.
"He has been very kind to you--has he not?" I asked.
"Yes. He is an exceedingly kind friend. He took me to see several doctors in Florence and Rome. All of them said I had lost my memory,"
and she smiled sweetly.
"And haven"t you lost your memory?"
"A little--perhaps--but not much."
Here Mrs. Alford interrupted.
"But you don"t recollect what happened to you when you were away, until you were found wandering near Petersfield. Tell us, dear."
"No--no, not exactly," the girl answered. "All I recollect is that it was all red, green and gold--oh! such bright dazzling colours--red, green and gold! At first they were glorious--until--until sight of them blinded me--they seemed to burn into my brain--eh!" And she drew back and placed her right arm across her eyes as though to shut out from her gaze something that appalled her. "There they are!" she shrieked. "I see them again--always the same, day and night--red, green and gold!--red, green and gold!"
I exchanged glances with the woman Alford. It was apparent that the shock the girl had sustained had been somehow connected with the colours red, green and gold.
I tried to obtain from her some faint idea of the nature of what she had witnessed, but she was quite unable to explain. That she had fallen victim to some deep-laid plot was evident.
She remembered much of her visit to Florence, I found, for when I recalled the great Duomo, where I had first seen her with Moroni, she became quite talkative and told me how much she admired the magnificent monuments--the Battistero, the Bigallo, Giotto"s campanile and the magnificent pictures in the Pitti and Uffizi.
Moroni had apparently also taken her to Rome, presumably to consult another Italian professor, for she spoke vaguely of the Corso and St.
Peter"s and described the Forum in such a manner that she must have visited it.
While I sat chatting with her it struck me that in the blank state of her mind certain things stood out very prominently--a mental state well known to alienists--while others were entirely blotted out.
I referred to the millionaire who lived in Stretton Street, but again she declared, and with truth, that she had no recollection of him.
"Perhaps, Miss Tennison, you knew him under some other name," I said, and then proceeded to describe minutely the handsome, rather foreign-looking man who had bribed me to give that certificate of death.
"Have you an uncle?" I asked presently, recollecting that the man at Stretton Street had declared the victim to be his niece.
"I have an uncle--my mother"s brother--he lives in Liverpool."
Again I fell to wondering whether the beautiful girl before me was actually the same person whose death I had certified to be due to heart disease, and who, according to the official records, had been cremated. She was very like--and yet? Well, the whole affair was a problem which each hour became more inscrutable.
Still the fact remained that Gabrielle Tennison had disappeared suddenly on November the seventh, the night I had met with my amazing adventure.
In reply to my further questions, as she sat staring blankly into my face with those great dark eyes of hers, I at last gathered that Doctor Moroni, hearing of her case from a specialist in Harley Street, to whom she had been taken by the police-surgeon, had called upon her mother, and had had a long interview with her. Afterwards he had called daily, and later Mrs. Tennison had allowed him to take her daughter to Florence to consult another specialist at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
"I think you know a Mrs. Cullerton," I remarked at last.
The effect of my words upon her was almost electrical.
"Dolly Cullerton!" she shrieked. "Ah! Don"t mention that woman"s name!
Please do not mention her!"
"I believed that she was a friend of yours," I said, much surprised.
"Friend? No, enemy--a bitter enemy!"
"Then you have quarrelled? She was once your friend--eh? Over what have you quarrelled?"
"That is my own affair!" she snapped in apparent annoyance. "If you know her, don"t trust her. I warn you!" Then she added: "She is a wicked woman."
"And her husband, Jack?"
"Ah! he"s an excellent fellow--far too good for her!"
"Why do you entertain such antipathy toward her?" I asked. "Do tell me, because it will make my inquiries so very much easier."
"Inquiries? What inquiries are you making?"
I was silent for a moment, then looking straight into her eyes, I replied very seriously:
"I am making inquiries, Miss Tennison, into what happened to you during those days when you disappeared. I am seeking to bring punishment upon those who are responsible for your present condition."
She shook her head mournfully, and a faint smile played about her lips. But she did not reply.
"Tell me more about Mrs. Cullerton," I went on. "She was in Florence when you were there."
"In Florence!" exclaimed the girl, as though amazed. "What could she be doing there?"