Castle Craneycrow
Page 3
III. PRINCE UGO
Several days out from New York found the weather fine and LordSaxondale's party enjoying life thoroughly. Dickey and thecapricious Lady Jane were bright or squally with charminguncertainty. Lady Jane, Lord Bob's sister, certainly was not in lovewith Mr. Savage, and he was too indolent to give his side of thecase continuous thought. Dimly he realized, and once lugubriouslyadmitted, that he was not quite heartwhole, but he had not reached apositive understanding with himself.
"How do they steer the ship at night when it is so cloudy they can'tsee the north star?" she asked, as they leaned over the rail oneafternoon. Her pretty face was very serious, and there was aphilosophical pucker on her brow.
"With a rudder," he answered, laconically.
"How very odd!" she said, with a malicious gleam in her eyes. "Youare as wonderfully well-informed concerning the sea as you areon all other subjects. How good it must seem to be so awfullyintelligent."
"It isn't often that I find anyone who asks really intelligentquestions, you know, Lady Jane. Your profound quest for knowledgeforced my dormant intellect into action, and I remembered that aship invariably has a rudder or something like that."
"I see it requires the weightiest of questions to arouse yourintellect." The wind was blowing the stray hairs ruthlessly acrossher face and she looked very, very pretty.
"Intellects are so very common nowadays that 'most anything willarouse them. Quentin says his man Turk has a brain, and if Turk hasa brain I don't see how the rest of us can escape. I'd like to be aporpoise."
"What an ambition! Why not a whale or a shark?"
"If I were a shark you'd be afraid of me, and if I were a whale Icould not begin to get into your heart."
"That's the best thing you've said since you were seasick," shesaid, sweetly.
"I'm glad you didn't hear what I said when I was seasick."
"Oh! I've heard brother Bob say things," loftily.
"But nobody can say things quite so impressively as an American."
"Pooh! You boasting Americans think you can do everything betterthan others. Now you claim that you can swear better. I won't listento you," and off she went toward the companionway. Dickey lookedmildly surprised, but did not follow. Instead, he joined LadySaxondale and Quentin in a stroll.
Four days later they were comfortably established with Saxondale inLondon. That night Quentin met, for the first time, the reigningsociety sensation, Prince Ugo Ravorelli, and his countrymen, CountSallaconi and the Duke of Laselli. All London had gone mad over theprince.
There was something oddly familiar in the face and voice of theItalian. Quentin sat with him for an hour, listening with puzzledears to the conversation that went on between him and Saxondale. Onseveral occasions he detected a curious, searching look in theItalian's dark eyes, and was convinced that the prince also had theimpression that they had met before. At last Quentin, unable to curbhis curiosity, expressed his doubt. Ravorelli's gaze was penetratingas he replied, but it was perfectly frank.
"I have the feeling that your face is not strange to me, yet Icannot recall when or where I have seen you. Have you been in Parisof late?" he asked, his English almost perfect. It seemed to Quentinthat there was a look of relief in his dark eyes, and there was atrace of satisfaction in the long breath that followed the question.
"No," he replied; "I seem in some way to associate you with Braziland the South American cities. Were you ever in Rio Janeiro?"
"I have never visited either of the Americas. We are doubtlessmisled by a strange resemblance to persons we know quite well, butwho do not come to mind."
"But isn't it rather odd that we should have the same feeling? Andyou have not been in New York?" persisted Phil.
"I have not been in America at all, you must remember," replied theprince, coldly.
"I'd stake my soul on it," thought Quentin to himself, more fullyconvinced than ever. "I've seen him before and more than once, too.He remembers me, even though I can't place him. It's devilishaggravating, but his face is as familiar as if I saw him yesterday."
When they parted for the night Ravorelli's glance again impressedthe American with a certainty that he, at least, was not in doubt asto where and when they had met.
"You are trying to recall where we have seen one another," said theprince, smiling easily, his white teeth showing clearly betweensmooth lips. "My cousin visited America some years ago, and there isa strong family resemblance. Possibly you have our faces confused."
"That may be the solution," admitted Phil, but he was by no meanssatisfied by the hypothesis.
In the cab, later on, Lord Bob was startled from a bit of doze byhearing his thoughtful, abstracted companion exclaim:
"By thunder!"
"What's up? Forgot your hat, or left something at the club?" hedemanded, sleepily.
"No; I remember something, that's all. Bob, I know where I've seenthat Italian prince. He was in Rio Janeiro with a big Italian operacompany just before I left there for New York."
"What! But he said he'd never been in America," exclaimed Saxondale,wide awake.
"Well, he lied, that's all. I am positive he's the man, and the bestproof in the world is the certainty that he remembers me. Of coursehe denies it, but you know what he said when I first asked him if wehad met. He was the tenor in Pagani's opera company, and he sang inseveral of the big South American cities. They were in Rio Janeirofor weeks, and we lived in the same hotel. There's no mistake aboutit, old man. This howling swell of to-day was Pagani's tenor, and hewas a good one, too. Gad, what a Romeo he was! Imagine him in thepart, Bob. Lord, how the women raved about him!"
"I say, Phil, don't be ass enough to tell anybody else about this,even if you're cocksure he's the man. He was doubtless driven to thestage for financial reasons, you know, and it wouldn't be quiteright to bring it up now if he has a desire to suppress the truth.Since he has come into the title and estates it might be deucedawkward to have that sort of a past raked up."
"I should say it would be awkward if that part of his past wereraked up. He wasn't a Puritan, Bob."
"They are a bit scarce at best."
"He was known in those days as Giovanni Pavesi, and he wasn't insuch dire financial straits, either. It was his money that backedthe enterprise, and it was common property, undenied by him oranyone else, that the chief object in the speculation was the loveof the prima donna, Carmenita Malban. And, Bob, she was the mostbeautiful woman I ever saw. The story was that she was a countess orsomething of the sort. Poverty forced her to make use of a gloriousvoice, and the devil sent Pagani to young Pavesi, who was then astudent with some ripping big master, in the hope that he wouldinterest the young man in a scheme to tour South America. It seemsthat Signorita Malban's beauty set his heart on fire, and hepromptly produced the coin to back the enterprise, the onlycondition being that he was to sing the tenor roles. All this cameout in the trial, you know."
"The trial! What trial?"
"Giovanni's. Let me think a minute. She was killed on the 29th ofMarch, and he was not arrested until they had virtually convictedone of the chorus men of the murder. Pagani and Pavesi quarrelled,and the former openly accused his 'angel' of the crime. This led toan arrest just as the tenor was getting away on a ship bound forSpain."
"Arrested him for the murder of the woman? On my life, Quentin, youmake a serious blunder unless you can prove all this. When did itall happen?"
"Two years ago. Oh, I'm not mistaken about it; it is as clear assunlight to me now. They took him back and tried him. Members of thetroupe swore he had threatened on numerous occasions to kill her ifshe continued to repulse him. On the night of the murder--it wasafter the opera--he was heard to threaten her. She defied him, andone of the women in the company testified that he sought tointimidate Malban by placing the point of his stiletto against herwhite neck. But, in spite of all this, he was acquitted. I was inNew York when the trial ended, but I read of the verdict in thepress dispatches. Some one killed her, that is certain, and
thenasty job was done in her room at the hotel. I heard some of theevidence, and I'll say that I believed he was the guilty man, but Iconsidered him insane when he committed the crime. He loved her tothe point of madness, and she would not yield to his passion. It wasshown that she loved the chorus singer who was first charged withher murder."
"Ravorelli doesn't look like a murderer," said Lord Bob, stoutly.
"But he remembers seeing me in that courtroom, Bob."