The conversation ceased suddenly, and she looked up as we entered. There was no mistaking the long, sallow face and anxious eyes. She looked at me with indifference, but at the sight of my companion she jumped up and a little cry broke from her lips. Her eyes seemed to be devouring him.
"At last!" she cried. "At last!"
CHAPTER XV
THE LIKENESS OF PHILIP MALTABAR
We stood looking at them in wonder. Her face had seemed suddenly to light up in some mysterious way, so that for the moment one quite forgot that she was plain at all.
"It is really you!" she murmured. "How wonderful!" She held out both her hands. Bruce Deville took them a little awkwardly. It was easy to see that her joy at this meeting was not altogether reciprocated. But she seemed utterly unconscious of that. There was quite a becoming pink flush on her sallow cheeks, and her dark eyes were wonderfully soft. Her lips were parted with a smile of welcome, and showed all her teeth--she had gleaming white teeth, beautifully shaped and regular.
"To think that we should meet again like this," she continued, parting with his great brown hand with some evident reluctance.
"We were bound to meet again some day," he answered, deprecatingly. "After all, there is nothing very extraordinary about it. The world is a small place."
"You never kept your promise," she reminded him, reproachfully. "You never came near our hotel. I waited for you a week."
"I could not; I was leaving Baeren that same afternoon."
She turned to us at last.
"This is the most delightful meeting in the world, so far as I am concerned," she declared, still a little breathlessly. "Mr. Deville once saved my life."
He made some sort of a protest, but she took no notice. She was determined to tell her story.
"I was traveling with a friend through the Italian lakes, and we were out for a drive near Baeren. We were coming down a terrible hill, with a precipice on one side and the sheer mountain on the other. The road was only just wide enough for our carriage, and suddenly a great bird flew out from a hole in the mountain and startled our horses. The driver must have been half asleep, and when they plunged he lost his balance and was thrown off. The horses started galloping down the hill. It was almost like the side of a house, and just in front was a sharp turn, with only a little frail palisading, and the precipice just below. We must have gone straight over. He could not possibly have turned at the pace they were going. If they had the carriage must have swung over. We were clinging to one another, and I am afraid we were dreadful cowards. It was like certain and fearful death, and just then Mr. Deville came round the corner. He seemed to see it all in a moment, and ran to meet us. Oh, it was horrible!" she cried, throwing her hands up with a little shiver. "I shall never forget it until I die. Never!"
She paused for a moment. Adelaide Fortress and I had been hanging over her every word. There was something very thrilling about the way she told her story. Mr. Deville alone seemed uninterested, and a little impatient. He was turning over the pages of a magazine, with a restless frown upon his strong, dark face.
"It seemed to me," she continued, lowering her shaking voice, "that he was down under the horses, being dragged----"
Bruce Deville closed the magazine he had been reading with a bang. He had evidently been a pa.s.sive auditor as long as he was able to endure it. "Let me finish," he said, shortly. "I am blessed with strong arms, and I stopped the horses. It was not a particularly difficult task. The ladies walked back to the hotel, and I went to look for the driver, who had broken his leg."
"And I have never seen him since!" she exclaimed, breathlessly.
"Well, I couldn"t help that," he continued. "I believe I promised to come to the hotel and call upon you, but when I thought it over it really didn"t seem worth while. I was on my way to Geneva, walking over the hills, and I was rather anxious to get there, and as I found some men to take the carriage and the driver back, I thought I might as well continue my journey. I wanted to get to Geneva for my letters."
She laughed quietly. Her eyes continually sought his, soft with admiration and pleasure.
"You are like all the men of your country, who are brave and n.o.ble," she said. "You will do a great deed, but you do not like to be thanked. Yet we waited there for days, hoping to see you. I have looked for you wherever I have been since then, and to think that now--on this very saddest journey I have ever been forced to take--that I should call here, by accident, and the door should open, and you should walk in. Ah!"
"It is quite a romance," Adelaide Fortress remarked, with a faint smile upon her lips. "How grateful you must be that you came to see me this afternoon, Bruce! By the by, do you mind ringing the bell--unless you prefer stewed tea?"
He got up and rang it with avidity.
"I am glad you recognize the fact that we have come to tea," he remarked. "Miss Ffolliot and I met at the gate. You ought to give us something specially good for venturing out on such a day."
"I will give you some Buszard"s cake," she answered, laughing; "some kind friend sent it to me this morning. Only you mustn"t eat it all up; it has to last me for a week."
"How is your father, Miss Ffolliot?" the girl asked, turning to me abruptly.
"I am sorry to say that he is very unwell," I answered, "and he is obliged to keep to his room. And I am afraid that he will not be able to leave it for several days."
She did not appear much concerned. I watched her closely, and with much relief.
"I am sorry," she remarked, politely. "However, so far as I am concerned, I suppose after all there would be very little object in my seeing him. I have been to most of the oldest residents round here, and they all seem certain that they have never heard of the name Maltabar."
I saw Bruce Deville start, and the hand which held his teacup shook. Adelaide Fortress and he exchanged swift glances. The girl, whose eyes were scarcely off him for a moment, noticed it too, although I doubt if she attached the same significance to it.
"You do not know--you have not heard recently of any one of that name?" she asked him. "Please tell me! I have a reason for being very much interested."
He shook his head.
"If I have ever heard the name at all it must have been very long ago," he said; "and certainly not in connection with this part of the world."
She sighed.
"I suppose you do not know who I am, or why I am here," she said. "My name I told you once, although I daresay you have forgotten it. It is Berdenstein. The man who was found dead, who was killed close to here, was my brother."
He murmured a few words of sympathy, but he showed no surprise. I suspected that he had known who she was and of her presence here before.
"Of course I came here directly I heard of it," she continued, ignoring us altogether, and talking only to him. "It is a terrible trouble to me, and he was the only relative I had left in the world. You cannot wonder, can you, that I want to find out all about it?"
"That is a very hard task," he said. "It is a task best left, I think, in the hands of the proper authorities."
"They do not know as much as I know," she answered. "He had an enemy."
"The man Maltabar, of whom you spoke?"
"Yes. It was for him I inquired at once. Yet I suppose I must conclude that he is not at any rate a resident around here. I thought that he might have changed his name, and I have described him to a great many people. n.o.body seems to recognize him."
"Don"t you think," Adelaide Fortress said, quietly, "that you have done all that it is possible for any one to do? The police are doing their utmost to solve the mystery of your brother"s death. If I were you I should leave it to them."
She shook her head.
"I am not satisfied to do nothing," she said. "You cannot imagine what it feels like to lose some one very dear to you in such a terrible way. I think of it sometimes until I tremble with pa.s.sion, and I think that if I could meet the man who did it face to face, I would stab him to the heart myself, with my own hands. I am weak, but I feel that I could do it. I cannot go away from here if I would. Something seems to tell me that the key to the whole mystery lies here--just at hand. No, I cannot go away. I must watch and wait. It may come to me at any moment."
No one answered her. She was conscious of a certain antagonism to her, betrayed by our lack of response to that little outburst and our averted faces. She looked from one to the other of us, and finally at Bruce Deville.
"At least, you must think that I am right," she cried, appealingly. "You are a man, and you would feel like that. I am sure of it. Isn"t it natural that I should want justice? He was all I had in the world."
"He is dead," Bruce Deville said, gently. "Nothing can bring him back to life. Besides----"
He hesitated. The girl leaned forward, listening intently.