The Stretton Street Affair

My conversation with her had been, to say the least, highly illuminating, and I had learnt several facts of which I had been in ignorance. But this fixed assertion that she knew nothing of the elusive Frenchman aroused my suspicions.

What was she hiding from me?

I felt that she was concealing some very essential point – one that might well prove the clue to the whole puzzling enigma.

And while we spoke the girl’s clear contralto rang out, while she herself played the accompaniment.

At length I saw that I could obtain no further information from the servant, therefore I begged to be introduced to her young mistress, assuring her of my keen interest in the most puzzling problem.

Apparently relieved that I pressed her no further regarding the handsome but insidious Frenchman, the woman at once ushered me into the adjoining room – a small but well-furnished one – where at the grand piano sat the girl whose eyes were fixed, though not sightless as I had believed when in Florence.

She turned them suddenly upon my companion, and stopped playing.

“Ah! dear Alford!” she exclaimed, “I wondered if you were at home.” Then she paused. She apparently had no knowledge of my presence, for she had not turned to me, though I stood straight in her line of gaze. “I thought you had gone out to see Monsieur – to tell him my message.” She again paused, and drew her breath.

I stood gazing upon her beautiful face, dark, tragic and full of mystery. She sat at the piano, her white fingers inert upon the keys.

She wore a simple navy blue frock, cut low in the neck with a touch of cream upon it, and edged with scarlet piping – a dress which at that moment was the mode.

Yet her pale, blank countenance was indeed pathetic, a face upon which tragedy was written. I stood for a moment gazing upon her, perplexed, bewildered and breathless in mystery.

I spoke. She rose from her seat, and turned to me.

Her reply, low and tense, staggered me!

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

“RED, GREEN AND GOLD!”

“I know you!” she cried, staring at me as though transformed by terror. “They told me you would come! You are my enemy – you are here to kill me!”

“To kill you, Miss Tennison!” I gasped. “No, I am certainly not your enemy. I am your friend!”

She looked very hard at me, and I noticed that her lips twitched slightly.

“You – you are Mr. Garfield – Hugh Garfield?” she asked, her hands quivering nervously.

“Yes. That is my name,” I replied. “How do you know it?”

“They – they told me. They told me in Florence. The doctor pointed you out. He told me that you were my worst enemy – that you intend to kill me!”

“Doctor Moroni told you that?” I inquired kindly.

“Yes. One day you were in the Via Tornabuoni and he made me take note of you. It was then that he told me you were a man of evil intentions, and warned me to be wary of you.”

I paused. Here was yet another sinister action on the part of Moroni! Besides, I was unaware that he had realized I had watched him!

“Ah! yes, I see,” I replied, in an attempt to humour her, for she was very sweet and full of grace and beauty. “The doctor tried to set you against me. And yet, strangely enough, I am your friend. Why should he seek to do this?”

“How can I tell?” replied the girl in a strange blank voice. “But he evidently hates you. He told me that you were also his enemy, as well as mine. He said that it was his intention to take steps to prevent you from seeking mischief against both of us.”

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.