The Lady in the Car

On hearing it he had returned at once to the Lily City, gone to the Marquess’s palazzo on the Lung’ Arno, and struck him in the face before his friends. This was followed by a challenge, which Jack, although he knew little of firearms, was forced to accept.

Was he not champion and defender of the helpless and lonely woman he loved – the woman upon whom the Marquess had sworn within himself to be avenged?

And so the pair, accompanied by their seconds and a doctor, now faced each other, revolvers in their hands.

The Prince stood unflinching, his dark brow slightly contracted, his teeth hard set, his handsome countenance pale and serious.

As he raised his weapon he murmured to himself some words.

“For your honour, my own Angelica – my dear lost love!”

The signal was given an instant later, and two shots sounded in rapid succession.

Next moment it was seen that the Italian was hit, for he staggered, clutched at air, and fell forward upon his face, shot through the throat.

Quickly the doctor was kneeling at his side, but though medical aid was rendered so quickly, he never spoke again, and five minutes afterwards he was dead.

Half an hour later Prince Albert was driving the hired car for all he was worth across the great plain towards the marble-built city of Pisa to catch the express to Paris. From that day Jack Cross has concealed his identity, and has never been traced by the pretty Crown-Princess.

No doubt she often wonders what was the real status of the obscure good-looking young Englishman who spoke German so perfectly, who loved her devotedly, who fought bravely in vindication of her honour, and yet who afterwards so mysteriously disappeared into space.

These lines will convey to her the truth. What will she think?

Chapter Nine

A Double Game

Lord Nassington drove his big red sixty horse-power six-cylinder “Napier” slowly up the Corso in Rome.

By his side was his smart chauffeur, Garrett, in dark-green livery with the hand holding a garland proper, the crest of the Nassingtons, upon his bright buttons.

It was four o’clock, the hour of the passeggiata, the hour when those wintering in the Eternal City go forth in carriages and cars to drive up and down the long, narrow Corso in order to see, and be seen, to exchange bows with each other, and to conclude the processional drive at slow pace owing to the crowded state of the street by a tour of the Pincian hill whence one obtains a magnificent view of Rome and the Tiber in the sunset.

Roman society is the most exclusive in the world. Your Roman princess will usually take her airing in her brougham with the windows carefully closed, even on a warm spring afternoon. She holds herself aloof from the crowd of wealthy foreigners, even though her great gaunt palazzo has been denuded of every picture and work of art years ago, and she lives with a donna di casa in four or five meagre rooms on the first floor, the remainder of the great place being unfurnished and untenanted.

There is more pitiful make-believe among the aristocracy of Rome than in any other city in the world. The old principessa, the marchesa, and the contessa keep themselves within their own little circle, and sneer at the wealthy foreigner and his blatant display of riches. One hears girls of the school-room discussing the social scale of passers-by, and disregarding them as not being “of the aristocracy” like themselves.

Truly the Eternal City is a complex one in winter, and the Corso at four o’clock, is the centre of it all. You know that slowly-passing almost funereal line of carriages, some of them very old and almost hearse-like, moving up and down, half of them emblazoned with coronets and shields – for the Italian is ever proud of his heraldry – while the other half hired conveyances, many of them ordinary cabs in which sit some of the wealthiest men and women in Europe who have come south to see the antiquities and to enjoy the sunshine.

Behind the lumbering old-fashioned brougham of a weedy marchesa, Lord Nassington drove his big powerful car at snail’s pace, and almost silently. In such traffic the flexibility of the six-cylinder is at once appreciated.

Both Garrett and his master had their eyes about them, as though in search of some one.

A dozen times pretty women in furs bowed to Lord Nassington, who raised his motor-cap in acknowledgment. The smart, good-looking young peer had spent a couple of months there during the previous winter and had become immensely popular with the cosmopolitan world who gather annually in the Italian capital. Therefore, when he had arrived at the Excelsior, a week before, word had quickly gone round the hotels, clubs, pastrycooks, and cafés that the young English motoring milord had returned.

Upon the table of his luxurious little sitting-room at the hotel were lying a dozen or so invitations to dinners, receptions, the opera, and a luncheon-party out at Tivoli, while Charles, his man, had been busy spreading some picturesque gossip concerning his master.

For the nonce his Highness Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein was incognito, and as was the case sometimes, he was passing as an English peer, about whose whereabouts, position, and estates Debrett was somewhat vague. According to that volume of volumes, Lord Nassington had let his ancestral seat in Northamptonshire, and lived in New Orleans. Therefore, his Highness had but little to fear from unwelcome inquiry. He spoke English as perfectly as he could speak German when occasion required, for to his command of languages his success had been in great measure due.

Such a fine car as his had seldom, if ever, been seen in Rome. It was part of his creed to make people gossip about him, for as soon as they talked they began to tumble over each other in their endeavour to make his acquaintance. Both Garrett and Charles always had some interesting fiction to impart to other servants, and so filter through to their masters and mistresses.

The story running round Rome, and being passed from mouth to mouth along the Corso, in Aregno’s, in the Excelsior, and up among the idlers on the Pincio, was that that reckless devil-may-care young fellow in motor-coat and cap, smoking a cigar as he drove, had only a fortnight before played with maximums at Monte Carlo, and in one day alone had won over forty thousand pounds at roulette.

The rather foppishly dressed Italians idling along the Corso – every man a born gambler – were all interested in him as he passed. He was a favourite of fortune, and they envied him his good luck. And though they wore yellow gloves and patent-leather boots they yearned for a terno on the Lotto – the aspiration of every man, be he conte or contadino.

As his lordship approached the end of the long, narrow street close to the Porta del Popolo, Garrett gave him a nudge, and glancing at an oncoming carriage he saw in it two pretty dark-haired girls. One, the better looking of the pair, was about twenty-two, and wore rich sables, with a neat toque of the same fur. The other about three years her senior, wore a black hat, a velvet coat, and a boa of white Arctic fox. Both were delicate, refined-looking girls, and evidently ladies.

Nassington raised his cap and laughed, receiving nods and merry laughs of recognition in return.

“I wonder where they’re going, Garrett?” he remarked after they had passed.

“Better follow them, hadn’t we?” remarked the man.

A moment later, however, a humble cab passed, one of those little open victorias which the visitor to Rome knows so well, and in it was seated alone a middle-aged, rather red-faced English clergyman.

His lordship and he exchanged glances, but neither recognised each other.

“Good!” whispered the man at the wheel to his servant beside him. “So the Parson’s arrived. He hasn’t been long on the way from Berlin. I suppose he’s keeping his eye upon the girls.”

“Trust him,” laughed the chauffeur. “You sent him the snap-shot, I suppose?”

“Of course. And it seems he’s lost no time. He couldn’t have arrived before five o’clock this morning.”

“When Clayton’s on a good thing he moves about as quickly as you do,” the smart young English chauffeur remarked.

“Yes,” his master admitted. “He’s the most resourceful man I’ve ever known – and I’ve known a few. We’ll take a run up the Pincio and back,” and, without changing speed, he began to ascend the winding road which leads to the top of the hill.

Up there, they found quite a crowd of people whom Nassington had known the previous season.

Rome was full of life, merriment and gaiety. Carnival had passed, and the Pasqua was fast approaching; the time when the Roman season is at its gayest and when the hotels are full. The court receptions and balls at the Quirinale had brought the Italian aristocracy from the various cities, and the ambassadors were mostly at their posts because of the weekly diplomatic receptions.

Surely it is a strange world – that vain, silly, out-dressing world of Rome, where religion is only the cant of the popular confessor and the scandal of a promenade through St. Peter’s or San Giovanni.

At the summit of the Pincio Lord Nassington pulled up the car close to the long stone balustrade, and as he did so a young Italian elegant, the Marquis Carlo di Rimini, stepped up and seizing his hand, was profuse in his welcome back to Rome.

The Englishman descended from the car, lit one of his eternal “Petroffs,” and leaned upon the balustrade to chat and learn the latest scandal. The Marquis Carlo and he were fellow members of the Circolo Unione, one of the smartest clubs in Rome, and had played bridge together through many a night.

A whisper had once gone forth that the source of the over-dressed young noble’s income was cards, but Nassington had always given him his due. He had never caught him cheating, and surely if he had cheated the Englishman would have known it.

As they stood there, gazing across the city below, the sky was aflame in all the crimson glory of the Roman sunset, and even as they spoke the Angelus had, of a sudden, clashed forth from every church tower, the bells clanging discordantly far and near.

It was the hour of the venti-tre, but in the city nobody cared. The patient toilers in the Campagna, however, the contadini in the fields and in the vineyards who had been working on the brown earth since the dawn, crossed themselves with a murmured prayer to the Madonna and prodded their ox-teams onward. In Rome itself nowadays, alas! the bells of the venti-tre of spring and winter only remind the gay, giddy cosmopolitan crowd that it is the hour for tea in the halls of the hotels, or the English tea-rooms in the Corso.

An hour later, when his lordship entered his room at the Excelsior, he found the Reverend Thomas Clayton seated in his armchair patiently smoking and awaiting him.

“By Jove! old chap. You got through quick,” cried his lordship throwing off his coat and cap. “Well?”

“It’s a soft thing – that’s my opinion, the girl Velia is devilish pretty, and the cousin isn’t half bad-looking. I haven’t been idle. Got in at six – an hour late, of course, had a bath and breakfast and out. Saw a dozen people I know before noon, lunched at that little trattoria behind the post office where so many of the Deputies go, and learnt a lot. I’m no stranger here you know – lived here a year once – did a splendid bit of business, but had to slip. That was the year before we joined our forces.”