After the sittings had lasted for a week, Zoe came upon Armitage turning over his portfolio with a perplexed face. It was full of sketches of Danaë of all sorts and sizes—whole-length, half-length, three-quarters, full face, profile, face turned away, some worked up almost into pictures, others the merest record of a moment’s pose.
“Not satisfied yet?” she asked him, smiling.
“How can I be?” he demanded, viewing with frowning brow a pencil drawing of Danaë recounting with immense gusto the tale of a particularly black piece of treachery practised against an enemy by Prince Christodoridi’s father. “There’s no soul in anyone of them, and it seems a kind of desecration to paint that face without it.”
“How can there be?” demanded Zoe in return. “She hasn’t got one—at least, that’s what I am beginning to think.”
“She has, she has!” cried Armitage stoutly. “I have caught glimpses of it—the merest glimpses—and it was gone again.”
“They must have been the very merest glimpses, for I have been watching most eagerly, and have never seen a sign,” said Zoe. “Why, even in this—” she took up a sketch of Danaë looking down on Janni and Harold playing at her feet—“in which she looks really sweet, there is not a hint of anything more than a kind of wild affection. She would go through right and wrong without a qualm to get Janni anything he cried for.”
“Or Harold either. She has a very real liking for you and Harold both, I believe, though in your case it is mixed with a good deal of—of lack of comprehension.”
“Why don’t you say contempt at once? That is what she feels, I know perfectly well. And no doubt we are all of us miserable failures according to her savage code—and Maurice, as the best of us, the worst failure.”
“No, I am the worst failure, I think. Prince Theophanis does at any rate rule, and with a strong hand when necessary. I potter about the world in a yacht, ready enough to help my friends, but without sufficient grit to annex a principality for myself. Oh, I have seen it in her eyes, I assure you, and it sets me wondering what exactly she would expect me to do on the lines of the villainous Despots she admires so much.”
“Oh, murder us all, and Romanos too, and seize Emathia, I suppose—regardless of the effect on the Powers,” said Zoe. “And yet you still think the soul is there?”
“I tell you I have seen it. But I can’t say the look is characteristic. Still, I know exactly how it would change the whole face. I could paint it now.”
“Then do it,” said Zoe, with a sudden inspiration. “Paint two pictures of her, one as she is and one as she ought to be—as you and I would like to see her. That one I will put away, and when we are old and gray-headed we will look at it and see whether she has developed in accordance with it or not.”
“But you would not let her see it?”
“Certainly not. One doesn’t want to add hypocrisy to the poor child’s obvious faults, and that would be a kind of temptation to it. No, she knows she must not look at the picture until it is finished, and you can keep the second one out of sight. When she sees herself in all her glory, she will be quite satisfied, and in no danger of finding fault with the expression.”
Armitage took the advice thus tendered him, and to Zoe there was something very pathetic about the smaller picture which grew under his hand in the neighbourhood of the large one. The splendidly handsome face, with its firm lips and scornful eyes, seemed to look down with contempt on its neighbour, into which, Zoe thought pitifully, the artist had painted the reflection of his own kindly soul rather than that of his sitter. If Kalliopé had a soul, it seemed to be buried deep beyond all means of reaching it; there was no way of getting at the girl herself. These thoughts were in Zoe’s mind when she came to the sitting one morning, to be met on the way by Armitage, who was carrying his large picture with some difficulty owing to a letter in one hand.
“Wait one moment, Princess,” he said. “Kalliopé is not there yet, and I have just had a letter from the Cavaliere. You will like to hear what he says?”
“Oh yes!” cried Zoe. “Has he discovered anything?”
“He thinks so. He says he had little difficulty in finding the villa where his daughter used to live. The people all knew that Prince Romanos had prepared it for a lady, who lived there in great retirement, and never went out. He used to visit her frequently, but of late his visits had entirely ceased, and the old woman who once did the marketing had also disappeared suddenly. Also the sentries who used to guard the house on the outside had been removed—and all these things happened at the same time, five or six months ago. Of course it might mean merely that Donna Olimpia had gone to live somewhere else, but the Cavaliere made up his mind that she had been murdered—and really you can’t wonder, after what he told us about her letters. He managed to get into the grounds one night with the help of a rope-ladder, and explored the whole place thoroughly. The house was clean and tidy, and there were no stains of blood, which was what he had feared to find, nor was there any grave in the garden. But everything indoors looked as though the inhabitants had gone away suddenly, without having time to pack properly. The furniture was all awry, and Donna Olimpia’s gowns were hanging up in her wardrobe. In the nursery the little boy’s toys and things were all left, and as far as he could tell the servants’ clothes were all in their rooms too. What should you think it pointed to?”
“It looks as though they had been seized and carried off somewhere without being allowed to take anything with them,” said Zoe. “Can it be Strio after all? But it seems such needless cruelty on the Prince’s part not to let them take their things.”
“Well, I should almost have thought they must have been abducted by some one else who objected to the way in which the Prince spent his time; but why they should take all the servants I don’t know,” said Armitage. “It seems unnecessary trouble, for if it was merely to ensure secrecy, I don’t suppose they would have stuck at killing them. But the Cavaliere seems to have agreed with you. He was remarkably lucky, for just as he was coming out of the house, he saw some one in the garden. It was a tall man, wandering up and down on the lawn in front, throwing his arms about and groaning. He guessed immediately—which is more than I should have done—that it was Prince Romanos, tormented by remorse, and he went for him at once, and demanded what he had done with his wife and child. It really was Romanos, and he seems to have behaved rather well, all things considered. He didn’t appear to mind Pazzi’s dropping in upon him, and explained, with suitable expressions of grief, that all the inhabitants of the house, Donna Olimpia, the baby, and three servants, had been carried off by diphtheria in the space of two days. How does that strike you?”
“As remarkable, to say the least.”
“So the Cavaliere thinks. He tried to corner Romanos in every possible way—about the letters especially. But he stuck to it that the first few were really written during his wife’s illness, and contained her messages. The long one, which was supposed to have been dictated, he gave up at once, confessing that he had made it up in terror lest the Cavaliere should insist on coming to Therma, and add a public scandal to his private grief. Well, it seemed so impossible to shake his story, and he displayed such a friendly wish to keep his father-in-law in sight while he remained in the city, that the Cavaliere smothered his suspicions and accepted the story. They even visited Donna Olimpia’s grave together the next day, and Pazzi might have come away satisfied if Prince Romanos had not made a bad slip. Something he let drop suggested to the Cavaliere that there was some uncertainty about the child’s death, and he nailed him there and then. Bit by bit it came out that the little boy had not died with his mother. His nurse had snatched him up in a fit of delirium and carried him off, and was believed to have thrown herself and him into the harbour from the quay that same night. Their bodies had not been recovered, but a woman with a child in her arms was known to have drowned herself, and if those were not they, where are they?”
“You know,” said Zoe inconsequently, “that I see a likeness in little Janni to Prince Romanos. What if he and Kalliopé were the missing child and nurse?”
Armitage started. “If it could be!” he said. “But no. You remember, Princess, that you thought Kalliopé also was like the Prince. But there is nothing to account for that. And the Cavaliere says somewhere that the nurse was an elderly woman—a Roumi, by the description he has of her.”
“It is a most curious coincidence,” said Zoe.
“But nothing more, I imagine. Well, do you wonder it made old Pazzi suspicious? However, he didn’t show it, but the moment he could shake off his affectionate son-in-law he went straight to Professor Panagiotis, who has promised to get at the rights of the matter by hook or by crook. So now the fat’s in the fire.”
“This may be very dreadful,” said Zoe, after a pause of dismay. “I don’t think the Cavaliere ought to have spoken to the Professor before consulting us. Maurice and Graham would have gone to Therma and helped him to bring Prince Romanos to book. He would probably tell the truth when he found they knew so much, and were only anxious to help him. But now—oh, do warn the Cavaliere to take no open steps, whatever he may discover, before letting Maurice know. One can never tell what Professor Panagiotis will do. I suppose he has an ideal in his mind, and goes straight for it, he cuts off so many corners that anyone else would have to go round. I only hope the Cavaliere’s letter has not been read on the way. We never consider the post here safe, you know.”
“Pazzi waited until your brother’s own messenger was coming out, and sent the letter by him. That accounts for our not having heard from him before, I suppose. Oh, I will warn him till all is blue, but I should doubt if Prince Romanos will come through this time.”
“Personally, one could hardly wish him to escape,” said Zoe, “for however much poor Donna Olimpia was to blame, he must have treated her shamefully. You can’t wonder at her coming to Therma, for she knew only too well that she could not trust him out of her sight. Do you remember how lovely she was when we were at Bashi Konak? That must have been when they first met, of course, but she had changed very much when she told me about her marriage. And she was really devoted to him, poor thing!”
“The man ought to be flayed alive!” muttered Armitage, in a tone so ferociously at variance with his usual sunny kindliness that Zoe was betrayed into a laugh. He looked ashamed, and took up his picture again. “Well, Princess, we have kept poor Kalliopé waiting a long time, but I thought you ought to know how matters stood.”
“Oh dear, I hope she won’t have looked at the other picture!” cried Zoe, hurrying up the steps, but she was too late. Danaë was standing beside the easel, contemplating her idealised portrait with a pleased smile.
“Am I really as beautiful as that?” she asked them as they came up, with a naïve frankness which betrayed no doubt of its answer. For the moment, in this softened mood, her expression was really not unlike that of the picture, Zoe thought. But as Armitage reached the top of the steps, she saw the second canvas in his hands.
“Ah, I thought this one was too small!” she cried. “Have you made two pictures of me, lord? But you might have let me wear the European clothes for one of them! Are they both exactly alike?”
In his perplexity, Armitage was still holding the larger picture, instead of placing it on the easel, and she came behind him and looked at it over his shoulder. Neither he nor Zoe ventured to say a word. Perhaps the girl would not notice the difference! But even as Zoe watched, a change came over the smiling face, and an angry sob broke from the beautiful lips. Danaë was at the easel again, her little dagger in her hand. Fiercely she drove it into the canvas, slitting it across and across and round the edge, then stood confronting them for a moment with stormy brow and heaving breast.
“You shall not mock me!” she gasped. More she would have said, but her fury would not let her speak. She snatched off her coin-decked cap and trampled upon it, caught up her apron and tore it into ribbons. Then the dagger which she had hurled from her caught her eye again, and Armitage sprang forward to seize it, fearing she would do herself an injury. His hand was actually on it, but she tore it away and struck at him as he tried to wrest it from her. Then, still in the same passion of silent rage, she hacked and hewed at one of her heavy plaits of hair, unheeding Zoe’s entreaties, until it was severed in her hand, and flung it at their feet. Then the tension relaxed, and she pressed her hands to her eyes and fled sobbing.
“I ought not to have done it. How could she understand unless it was explained to her? Of course she thought I was trying to make fun of her,” said Armitage, holding his wounded wrist.
“She had no business to look at the easel when she was told not,” said Zoe practically. “You must let me tell Linton to bring some hot water, and we will tie up your arm. I am afraid she must have hurt you a good deal.”
“Oh, I shall bear her mark!” he said, laughing, but Zoe thought that there was more in the words than a joke. Twisting his handkerchief round his wrist while she called to Linton, he stooped and picked up the severed plait from the floor. “What a pity!” he said.
“Yes, the naughty girl has effectually spoilt her appearance for some time,” said Zoe. Armitage was smoothing the thick blue-black strands, and she took them from him with gentle firmness. “I shall keep this to make Miss Kalliopé a wig when she needs it,” she said. “If she should take it into her head to cut off the other plait the next time she has a fit of temper, there will be nothing to fasten her cap to.”
“Yes, indeed, ma’am,” agreed Linton. “Anything more like a pig with one ear than that poor ill-tempered girl as she rushed past me just now I never did see. And to show such a wicked spirit, when his lordship was taking her picture so beautiful! I do hope, my lord, if I may make so bold, you’ll paint her with the short hair showing, as a lesson to her to keep her temper in hand for the future.”
“But that would spoil my picture,” objected Armitage, who was an old friend of Linton’s.
“And if it did, my lord, what’s that to curing a fine handsome girl like that—and good with children too, as I must confess, though I wouldn’t say as much to her—of her wicked ways?”
CHAPTER XI.
THE RETURN OF PETROS.
Whatever course Armitage might take with regard to his picture, Danaë was conscious that her outbreak of passion had set a barrier between her and the rest of the household. Even the children shrank from her in her black moods, and now Linton gathered them ostentatiously under her wing, requesting Danaë not to come near them until there was no danger of her doing them a mischief. This was the nearest approach to scolding that she received, for Zoe, without even alluding to the cause of the disfigurement, helped her to rearrange her hair in two smaller plaits so that it was as far as possible disguised. Armitage’s bandaged wrist was a perpetual reproach to her, but she met with no reproof in words, though when she plucked up courage to apply to Wylie, who had found and confiscated her dagger, for its restoration, he refused without vouchsafing a reason. But though no word was said, and no punishment inflicted, she was surprised, and even irritated, to find that she felt her guilt much more keenly than on a memorable occasion when she had pushed Angeliké, then a child of four, off the fortress wall. Angeliké happily fell into a rubbish heap, and beyond being half-choked with dust, suffered no harm; but the incident roused Princess Christodoridi from her usual placidity, and she insisted that her husband should inflict a suitable punishment on his elder daughter, towards whom she suspected him of undue partiality. Struggling and screaming, Danaë was held fast by the women-servants while her hair was cut off by her father’s dagger, and thereafter, a miserable little shorn object, she had been held up to every visitor as a model of juvenile depravity until her mother grew tired of the subject—the injured Angeliké meanwhile basking on the softest cushions, and enjoying the first taste of every dainty dish. The girl could recall even now the fierce thrill of resentment of the injustice that seized her when, just as her hair had almost grown again, her mother had rehearsed the whole story to a stray cousin from another island, though perhaps it was her father’s injudicious sympathy that brought her at last to feel as if she was the injured party and Angeliké the aggressor. But now, assure herself as she would that Zoe and Armitage had mocked her cruelly and intentionally humiliated her, she could not bring herself to believe it, and the unaccustomed sense of guilt made her increasingly miserable. To use Linton’s phrase, she “moped,” and the household seemed to have lost sensibly in light and colour while she hung about in secluded corners. It was a relief when, after three days of morose inactivity, she asked sullenly for stuff and needles and thread, though she still sat solitary, making herself a new apron in place of the one she had torn up.
The end of the verandah, whither she betook herself, was quite remote from the usual living rooms, and she worked as if for a wager, undisturbed by either Zoe or Linton, who thought that a period of reflection would do her no harm. Hearing steps in the court below her, she set them down to one of the servants passing on an errand, until a low hiss and the word “Kalliopé!” reached her ears. Looking over the railing, she saw the guard Logofet, who had never forgiven her for the reprimand he had received on the occasion of their first meeting, standing below.
“Your uncle’s here, Kalliopé,” he said with a grin.
“I have no uncle,” she cried angrily.
“Oh, that’s all very fine. He told me to tell you that your uncle Petros was here, waiting to speak to you, and that it would be the worse for you if you didn’t go.”
“It’s a lie. I have nothing to do with him.”
“Oh, come now!” Logofet assumed an air of virtuous reproof. “Didn’t I hear him myself ask the Prince to find you a place, and the Prince wouldn’t have you without his leave? You take my advice, and don’t tell any more lies, which no one believes, but just go and speak to him, for he won’t go away without seeing you.”
“But how can I speak to him? They won’t let me pass through the gate at this hour.”
Logofet winked. Danaë had already suspected the source of his excessive geniality, and now she was certain of it. “They may not, my dear, but I will,” he said, “and I go on guard at the small door in a few minutes. Just cough three times when you come round the corner, and I’ll turn my back. If the Lord Glafko expects me to see in the dusk like a cat, why, he’ll be disappointed! So be a sensible girl, and do as you’re told.”
He stalked away with exaggerated steadiness, and Danaë wondered for a moment whether she durst claim the protection her employers had promised her against Petros. But after what had happened, her pride rebelled. And after all, he might only have come to assure himself that she and Janni were in safe keeping, and not to take them away. When the dusk had quite fallen, therefore, she slipped down the nearest staircase, which led into a smaller courtyard at the back of the main block, and seeing Logofet’s figure dimly as he stood on guard, gave the signal coughs. The bulky form at the gate became intensely interested in a gleam of light from an upper window, and she turned the well-oiled key and slipped out. Under the wall was waiting a man wrapped in a thick dark overcoat or kapota, and as Danaë approached him he struck a match, revealing the face which had been the terror of her dreams for months. When he saw her, he chuckled irrepressibly.
“So it’s true that you cut off half your hair!” he said. “I wondered whether I should find you tamed, my lady, with the Lady Zoe making such a pet of you, and the English lord putting you into a picture, but I see you’re the Despot’s true daughter still.”
“I suppose you have been drinking with your friend Logofet,” said Danaë icily. “Say what you have to say, and go.”
“That’s easily done, my lady. I want the little lord.”
“What do you mean to do with him?”
“To restore him to his anxious father, of course,” with a chuckle.
“I don’t believe it. You want to kill him, as you did his mother. I won’t give him up.”
“Oh yes, you will, my lady, and without making any fuss about it, because if you don’t, I shall simply go to Prince Theophanis and tell him the truth about both of you. Then the Lord Janni will go back to his father, and you to yours. Of course, if you are longing to get back to Strio, I have no objection, but it’s for you to say.”
Danaë shivered. Strio was bad enough to look forward to, but what she shrank from more was the prospect of her story becoming known. That the nature of all the lies and evasions and subterfuges she had employed should be publicly exposed, that she should stand forth as an impostor, the accomplice in a murder, the deceiver of her own brother and her kindest friends! She pressed her hands together in agony, and Petros spoke again, insinuatingly this time.
“It’s not my business, lady, I know, and the Despot would kill me if he guessed what I am saying, but there’s no need to go back to Strio if you don’t wish it. The Lady Zoe will surely find you a husband if she has taken such a fancy to you, and you won’t catch me letting out anything. I’m only asking you to do what will benefit us all. The Lord Romanos is mad to get his son back, I see my way to something handsome for myself if I take him back, and you will be able to stay on here. Isn’t that fair?”
“My brother wants Janni back?” Danaë spoke in a dazed tone. “But then how is it you have not come for him before?”
Petros laughed with some little confusion. “Must I keep you here in the cold while I explain everything, my lady? Isn’t it enough for you to know that the little lord is badly wanted, and to hand him over?”
“I will do nothing unless I know why you want him, and why you have waited so long.”
“Holy Nicholas, lady! you are your father over again. Well, then, the first thing the Lord Romanos thought of on the Lady’s death was to keep everything quite secret. If he had lost his love, he need not lose his people’s good opinion as well; you see?”
“You are insolent!” flashed out Danaë. “The Lord Romanos acts as a wise man acts.”
“Then surely, my lady, there can be no harm in his servant following in his footsteps? At any rate, that is what he has tried to do. For when the Lord Romanos remembered the little lord, and found that he had disappeared, he was torn between his paternal affection and his fear of discovery. He longed to trace his son, but he durst not bring the police into the matter, lest they should find out too much, and therefore he entrusted the matter to me. Now, lady, knowing that you and the little lord were safe where I could put my finger upon you at any moment, could I really be expected to bring the search to an end before it had begun? That is not a wise man’s way.”
“You allowed the Lord Romanos to believe that his son was dead?”
“Lady, although I am not a father, I can enter into a father’s feelings. I watched my lord carefully, and brought him the news of a wretched woman—a Roumi whose husband had taken another wife—who had drowned herself and her child in the harbour. If the Lord Romanos had accepted the tale as a convenient ending to the matter, it should have ended there, but he displayed so much grief in thus losing the child as well as the mother that I gave him a little hope. The bodies had not been found, and there was no proof that they were yours and the little lord’s. And that hope, my lady, I have cherished cunningly ever since, bringing my lord news of clue after clue, and investigating them at his command until they have turned out false. I must have sampled the mastika of every wineshop in Therma since I saw you—‘gathering information,’ the police call it.”
“And I suppose my brother is tired of false clues, or you would have visited the wineshops all over again?”
“You don’t think so poorly of me, lady, as to imagine I would let his Highness learn that he had been deceived? No, I could have gone on as long again, as you say. I had even satisfied my lord your father by sending him word that after everything had fallen out exactly according to his wishes, it had been necessary for you to take a situation in the country, to avert suspicion, and I had several new and very fine clues ready to go on with. But we were interrupted. The Lady’s father came to Therma.”
“What! had he heard what had happened?” cried Danaë.
“I know not, my lady, but I think he had made up his mind that the Lord Romanos had had her removed because her presence was become dangerous. I know only that my lord called me, and said, ‘Friend Petraki, I am ruined for ever unless we can find the little lord at once. If I have been a good master to you all these years, stand by me now.’ Could I think any longer of my own advantage then, lady? No, I did not hesitate to renounce my pleasant task of investigation, and naming only the reward I desired, I set forth to follow up the clue that led hither.”
“And what was the reward?” asked Danaë, unmoved by the devotion so pathetically displayed. Again Petros appeared a little confused.
“Why, lady, you must see that I have felt myself in considerable danger these last few months. A man can never be quite certain that he has covered all his tracks. At any moment my lord might discover that I had some connection with the Lady’s removal, and I know him well enough to be sure that, without any chance of telling tales, I should pay the forfeit, though I followed him when he left Strio twenty years ago. My price is a full pardon, therefore, and so I told my lord, confessing that I had killed an old woman in a quarrel. He swore by the All-Holy Mother that if I brought him back his son I might kill every old woman in Therma—provided I did it in decent seclusion—and I started at once.”
Danaë laughed in the darkness. “Every old woman in Therma, do you say, friend Petraki? There is pardon for that, but not for killing one Kyria Olimpia.”
“Lady, it is you who mistake.” Petros spoke slowly and meaningly. “In that deed I had no part, and can invoke without fear the most awful of all curses upon the villains who took part in it. You yourself heard the orders the Despot gave me, that the Lady who was leading his son astray was to be brought alive to Strio, there to be imprisoned where she could do no more harm. Those orders I did my best to fulfil, and I laid no hand on her. It was those with me—strangers whom I hired to help me carry out the Despot’s behest, and who I now think must have been also in the pay of some one whose interest it was to get rid of the Lady—who slew her. That I struck down old Mariora I have confessed—she had often given me the rough side of her tongue, and she was going to raise the alarm, and I was afraid she would call me by name.”
“I see,” said Danaë. “Far be it from me to destroy your confidence in the Lord Romanos.”
“Lady, I am not one to tempt my lord to break his promise. When I quit this place with the little lord, you will not find me going straight to Therma. I shall leave the Lord Janni in a safe place, while I go forward and acquaint my lord of his recovery. I know a wise man—a lawyer whose father was a priest—and he has drawn me up a paper for the Lord Romanos to sign, calling down upon himself if he breaks his promise such curses as no man living would dare to face.”
Danaë’s attention had wandered. “Friend Petros” she said quickly, “how can the little lord save his father from ruin?”
“I cannot tell, my lady. It seemed to me that perhaps the old man, the Lady’s father, desired to have the child and bring him up. Then he would promise to leave my lord undisturbed, and keep the story secret, taking the Lord Janni away with him, so that it might never be known whose son he was.”
“If that is it——” she paused a moment. “You must have him, Petros, if it is to save his father, but I shall come too.”
The reply was not flattering. “Holy George! you will ruin everything, my lady. Why should you come?”
“Because I cannot stay here without him. The grandfather will only know that I am his nurse, and I shall beg him on my knees to take me with him. Then I can bring up the little lord in the right ways, as befits the son of John Theophanis. If he will not take me, perhaps I can manage to follow them somehow, and if not, I can but go back to Strio. That would be better than staying here and telling fresh lies——”
“It is for you to command, my lady, but I knew not you loved the island-life so much.”
“It is not for you to judge my doings. See, friend Petros,” desperation made her conciliatory, “you will be glad to have me to take care of the little lord on the journey and when you leave him. And I can support you, as you said, if it is necessary to swear that you had no part in the Lady’s death.”
“That’s true,” said Petros doubtfully; “but I meant to take the child under my arm and ride the first stage to-night. Now I shall have to see about another pony or a mule, and it’s too late to do anything. I shall have to waste another bottle of good raki on that beauty Logofet, too, to get him to let you pass to-morrow evening. But it’s quite likely I shall bring in the Lord Janni in better condition with you than without you, so I’ll make the arrangements, and send you word by Logofet where to meet me. But mind, my lady, no playing me false, or you will be sorry you tried it.”
“I wish you had said that in Strio!” burst from Danaë. “The Despot would have sent you to feed the fishes.”
Petros caught her wrist. “You may be as high and mighty as you please, my lady, but I warn you once more not to trifle with me. I have too much at stake, and I swear by the All-Holy Mother and all the saints——”
She tore her hand away. “You forget yourself, dog! If I choose to make use of your escort on my journey, it should not lead you to presume. I shall be ready when you send me word.”
She coughed three times outside the door, and it opened with a suddenness which suggested that Logofet must have been straining his ear at the keyhole. He tried to kiss her as she slipped in, and only his unsteady condition enabled her to escape. She hurried up the staircase quivering with rage and shame—not even able to account for the feeling which bade her choose an ignominious return to Strio rather than a fresh campaign of falsehood to enable her to remain at Klaustra. Everything was gone now, the new friends whom she had liked in her own curious way, the European culture she had been acquiring at such pains, the hope of a wider and freer life than Strio and a future Striote husband could offer, the half-acknowledged pleasure she had begun to take in Armitage’s gentle manner and frank boyish face. With a return of her old vehemence, she ran frantically along the verandah and burst into the nursery, where Linton was much embarrassed by the difficulty of giving both the children their supper at once. The spoon which was approaching Harold’s open mouth landed a dose of bread and milk on his pinafore instead, as Danaë rushed in and threw herself on the floor, burying her face in the folds of Linton’s gown.
“Oh, Sofia, I am the most wicked and miserable girl that ever lived. I am worse than a beast!”
“There, there!” said Linton with creditable sympathy, “don’t take it to heart so much as all that, Kalliopé. It’s well that you should see it for yourself, but there’s no use making a fuss about it. Show your repentance by doing, not by talking, is my motto. And you may as well help me with these precious lambs, for I can’t so much as hear myself speak with Master Johnny screeching fit to take your head off.”
Janni was loudly demanding food of Nono, and Harold was dissolved in tears over the untoward fate of Nin-nin’s last spoonful, so that the needs of the moment were pressing, and when the meal was over Danaë helped to put the children to bed as usual. She seemed to have slipped back into her ordinary place after her three days’ exile, and Linton was too much relieved by her docility to do more than lecture her in general terms as she put on her spectacles to hem the sides of the new apron. Zoe glanced at them with delight as she stole in for a look at the babies after dinner, and laid a kind hand on Danaë’s shoulder in token of renewed confidence. To her surprise, there were depths of tragedy in the eyes the girl lifted to her face. Danaë saw, not the cheerful nursery, with its red curtains and its brazier and lamp, but the chill autumn evening and rough roads for which Janni and she must to-morrow exchange all this comfort and safety. But as no words followed, Zoe interpreted the glance as one of penitence, and felt nothing but pleasure in recalling it.
The next day everything seemed to conspire to make it easy for Danaë to fulfil her compact with Petros. Linton trusted her with the children as though she had never expressed a doubt as to her treatment of them, and Harold and Janni found their dear Nono at their service for uproarious games all day long. The games kept Danaë from thinking, and they made the children tired, so that Linton swept them off to bed half an hour before the usual time. They both went to sleep “like angels,” as she observed, and then, leaving Danaë to watch over them, she hurried off to help Zoe in dressing for dinner. She never forgot that her real and original status in the household was that of ladies’-maid, but it was not often that her nursery labours allowed her to return to its duties. As soon as her mistress’s door had closed behind Linton, Danaë knew that the moment was come. She took Janni out of bed, and dressed him without his even waking, then put on her own outdoor coat, twisted a shawl round her head, and went out on the verandah. The tipsy voice of Logofet greeted her immediately.
“Kalliopé, pretty little Kalliopé, I thought you were never coming. Your dear uncle is waiting for you and your brat round the third turning on the left—no, the right—no, it was the left, I’m sure of it—opposite the small door. You won’t find me there, because I’m just going to sit down quietly and rest a bit, but you can let yourself out and in—no, you won’t want to get in again this time, ha, ha! Take care not to run across the Princess. She hasn’t come in from the hospital yet.”
Hugging affectionately a large bottle, Logofet lurched away, and Danaë, with a sick feeling at her heart, went back into the room and fetched Janni and the bundle of clothes she had put ready. She felt as if she did not care whom she met, but she instinctively shrank into the corner of the staircase as the back-door opened and Princess Theophanis came in, attended by a servant with a lantern. Danaë could not tell whether she had been seen or not. It seemed to her for a moment that she caught the glance of cold dislike with which Princess Eirene always regarded her, but there were other things to think of.
“Where is the sentry?” asked the Princess sharply. “He must have left his post. Light me to the door, and then go and report his absence to the Lord Glafko.”
She passed in at the house-door, and Danaë seized the opportunity to slip out. Once outside, she hurried in the direction of the third turning on the left, expecting to find Petros there, fuming and swearing. But he was not there, and though she waited some time, in deadly terror of passers-by, he did not come. Then there occurred to her, with a fearful shock, Logofet’s maudlin uncertainty as to the turning, and she ran back into the main street, panting over the cruel cobbles until she had passed the Konak and reached the third turning on the right. There was no one there either. For a moment she waited, hardly able to believe in her good fortune. Petros had repented, or changed his mind, and was not waiting for her at all. Then with swift reaction came the thought that the summons might be a trick of Logofet’s to get her shut out, and she ran back to the door in fresh terror. But the handle turned easily, and she burst in, to the intense astonishment of the man now on guard, who seemed disposed to detain her for explanations. But she was the Lady Zoe’s favourite, and therefore not to be roughly handled, and muttering something about an errand, she brushed hastily past him while he was locking the door. She was almost at the end of her strength, but she staggered up the stairs with Janni and the bundle, along the verandah, and into the nursery. Could it be possible she had been gone so short a time that Linton had not yet returned from her chat with her mistress? Quickly, in the dim light of the shaded lamp, she took off Janni’s wraps and laid him in his cot, careful not to wake Harold, sleeping close by. Something strange about his crib attracted her attention as she turned from tucking Janni up, and she lifted the clothes. The bed was empty. Harold was not there.
CHAPTER XII.
MISSING.
Danaë sank upon the floor by the empty cot, literally unable to stand. Wildly she sought for an explanation of Harold’s disappearance. Had Petros carried him off in revenge, believing she had deceived him, or had Harold, and not Janni, been his real object all along? But what good could the possession of Harold do him, unless he meant to take him to Therma and pass him off as Janni? Prince Romanos was not likely to jeopardise his own safety by proclaiming the substitution, even if he realised it, and to his father-in-law one child was as good as the other. That must be it. Somehow or other she had missed Petros in the darkness, and he had made his way in and seized Harold, possibly believing him to be Janni. But here was Janni, sleeping peacefully, and Harold would be carried off to Magnagrecia, where his parents would never find him. For—and Danaë saw it clearly—if she gave the alarm and accused Petros, matters could not stop there. The whole story must come out, for Petros in his anger would unmask her as he had threatened to do. And in the few moments of relief she had enjoyed after the blissful discovery that he was not waiting for her, her present home and all its ease and comfort and safety had become doubly dear. No, she could not now renounce it by her own act. She would do all she could to help in recovering Harold, short of telling what had actually happened, and if the worst came to the worst she could always confess Janni’s true parentage, and leave her employers to take what steps they thought best.
“Why, Kalliopé, whatever in the world are you doing on the floor?” demanded Linton’s hushed voice. “My lady couldn’t keep me with her to-night, because of letters just come from Therma, so I just popped down to the kitchen to see what Artemisia was going to send us up for supper, and to ask about her son that was ill. But get up, girl, do! What’s the matter?”
Danaë’s eyes met hers in the dimness like those of a hunted creature. “The Lord Harold is not here,” she murmured.
“Not here? Who’s taken him?”
“I don’t know. I—I found him gone.”
“You found him gone? Why, you bad girl, you don’t mean to say you left those blessed children alone, and me just turning my back for a minute?”
“Some one called out to me that my uncle was here and wanted to speak to me, and I ran down to see, but there was no one there. I was not gone long.”
“Not long—I know what that means! And that precious child screaming his little heart out, no doubt. Of course his papa heard him—the darling!—and came and carried him away to the drawing-room, giving him his death of cold, as likely as not. I’ll fetch him back at once; but you mark my words, Kalliopé, I don’t trust you with the nursery again in a hurry.”
In the Wylies’ drawing-room an informal council was being held over the letter Armitage had just received from the Cavaliere Pazzi. Prince and Princess Theophanis had come in, for the news it brought was startling. Armitage translated roughly as he referred to the paper in his hand.
“After all, there’s no doubt that the poor old chap acted wisely, from his own point of view, in going to Professor Panagiotis,” he said. “The Professor seems to have found out more in three days than he did by himself in a month, and things certainly look very black against Prince Romanos. According to the Cavaliere, these are his principal points:—There was no notification of the existence of an infectious disease at the villa, at a time when the Prince declares all its inmates were mortally ill with diphtheria; no doctor was summoned there until the day registered as that of the death of Donna Olimpia and two of her servants; no nurses were seen coming or going, and no medicines or disinfectants appear to have been purchased.”
“But look here,” said Wylie; “let us give the devil his due. This absence of doctors and nurses and so on doesn’t necessarily imply that there was no diphtheria, but it does account for its being so fatal. According to the story in the last letter, there must have been five people ill of it, and no one to nurse them.”
“Except Prince Romanos himself on his daily visits, when he went in and out without apparently taking any precaution against infection. That seems to be proved by the evidence of the sentries,” said Armitage. “The Professor certainly doesn’t do things by halves. Imagine his convicting the Prince out of the mouths of his own soldiers! But, Wylie, don’t you see the Cavaliere’s point? Even if the deaths were really due to diphtheria, and not to violence, the poor creatures were practically murdered by being left without care and medical attendance. They couldn’t get out to ask for help, I suppose they couldn’t even cook for themselves—why, they must have starved to death. It’s worse even than if he had had them killed. Can you conceive the callousness of a man who could see five people—his own wife and child among them—dying by inches day after day, and do nothing to help them?”
“No,” said Zoe decisively, “it is inconceivable. I have no particular kindness for Prince Romanos, but cruelty of that sort would be impossible to him. He is a poet, you must remember. If he had contemplated a crime of the kind, he would never have gone near the place, either then or afterwards.”
“Then we are thrown back on the hypothesis that he had them murdered,” said Armitage, “and what makes it look very likely is that on the very day the deaths took place a number of men in the uniform of the Prince’s guard were seen by the sentry to enter the grounds of the villa. He had been informed that an additional guard was to be placed round the house itself at night, owing to the Prince’s absence from Therma, and seeing these men enter, apparently by means of a key of their own, without knocking for admittance, he thought it was the detachment detailed for that duty. They were there some time, in fact, until after the old woman-servant—mark this; she died of diphtheria that very day, you will remember—had come in from her marketing, and then they marched out again, just before the sentry went off guard. Most unfortunately, the man who relieved him cannot be found. He took his discharge from the army shortly afterwards, and all trace of him has been lost. But it is known that the Prince visited the villa that afternoon, and sent off in hot haste for a doctor. The doctor has also disappeared. He was a foreigner, and having signed the certificate that Donna Olimpia and the two servants died of diphtheria, which was required by the municipal regulations before the bodies could be buried, he returned presumably to his own country—but no one knows.”
Maurice rose from his chair in uncontrollable emotion. “Don’t go any further, Armitage. We have no right to push this inquiry without giving Romanos a chance to defend himself. Certainly it looks like a dastardly murder, but there may possibly be some explanation. We know that the man is a brave soldier, and I can’t believe it of him.”
“Just let me finish,” pleaded Armitage. “If he is innocent, it is most unfortunate that he has made away with another witness whose evidence might have helped to clear him—or at least acquiesced in her disappearance. Don’t you remember the nurse who, according to his revised story, ran away in a fit of delirium and drowned herself in the harbour with the child in her arms? Well, in Pazzi’s last letter, which I read to you, Princess—” to Zoe—“he said that the missing nurse was a Roumi, and rather elderly than not. That description, according to the evidence of eye-witnesses, exactly fits the woman who threw herself into the water—some of them knew her. But now the Cavaliere has unearthed a letter of Donna Olimpia’s in which she speaks of the nurse as a rough handsome girl from Strio.”
The rest looked at each other, and Armitage went on hurriedly—
“Her name was Eurynomé Andropoulos, and she was the niece of the Prince’s servant Petros. Donna Olimpia wrote that she had always disliked Petros, and would not have had a relation of his in the house, but her husband had a fancy for the child to be brought up on the Striote nursery tales and songs.”
“How long ago exactly did Donna Olimpia die?” asked Maurice.
“Janni calls Kalliopé Nono,” murmured Zoe.
“She told us that Petros would say he was her uncle, but he denied it as earnestly as she did,” said Wylie.
“Then that child is a descendant of John Theophanis, after all!” said Eirene. “But his mother—his mother was a schismatic! There is no need to fear him.”
“Fear him—a baby like that!” said Maurice, with a mingling of scorn and affection in his tone. “My dear Eirene, would you propose to turn the poor little chap out in the cold, if we had reason to fear him, as you call it?”
“We ought to be thankful that we have been able to save anyone from such a wholesale murder,” said Zoe.
“Wait!” said Wylie suddenly. “Please remember, all of you, that we know nothing yet for certain. We do know enough of this girl—Kalliopé or Eurynomé or whatever else she may call herself—to be sure that if we have her in and cross-question her she will deny everything without a qualm, and probably seize the first opportunity of taking the baby and running away somewhere else. She may be in the pay of Romanos—paid to keep out of the way until the story of Donna Olimpia has died down—or she may have been merely mad with fright when she told us her rigmarole of contradictory stories at first. Or—she may even not be the girl we are thinking of at all. At any rate, we have her here safe, and the child too. I should advise very strongly that we say nothing whatever to her at present, but that we get old Pazzi up from Therma, and spring the thing upon her in his presence. I doubt if we shall get the truth from her even then, but there’s just a chance of it.”
“Then I think Romanos should be asked to come as well,” said Maurice, “and perhaps Panagiotis too. There is so much at stake that we ought——”
“Please, ma’am, may I have Master Harold?” Linton’s voice, reproving at first, became insensibly frightened as she looked round the room and failed to see her charge anywhere.
“Master Harold, Linton? Why, you told me yourself he was in bed an hour ago!” cried Zoe.
“And so he was, ma’am, but I made sure Master had heard him crying and brought him down here. If I’ve said so to myself once as I come down from the nursery, I’ve said it on every stair. And where is the precious lamb if he isn’t here, may I ask, ma’am?”
“Why, in bed, of course,” said Wylie, while Zoe, with a scared face, ran out of the room.
“No, sir, that he isn’t, begging your pardon, and if any of you gentlemen are playing a joke on me, I take the liberty to say it’s not what I should have expected of you. Oh, do tell me where my little lamb is, anybody that knows!”
“We don’t know, Linton, any more than you do,” said Maurice kindly, “but we will come upstairs and help you look for him. I suppose the little rascal might have crept out of bed and be hiding somewhere, or even have walked in his sleep?”
“How could he, sir, and me fastening him safe into his crib before I left him? But if you can find him I’ll take him back thankful, and no questions asked.”
It was clear that Linton still believed herself and Harold to be the victims of a practical joke, as she toiled up after the rest to the nursery, where Zoe had Danaë in a corner, and was questioning her fiercely.
“You think some one must have come up while you were away? Graham! Maurice! she says she went down into the courtyard to speak to her uncle, and when she came back Harold was gone.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Maurice.
“Excuse me one moment,” said Wylie. “Armitage, will you go to the sergeant in the gatehouse—he speaks Greek—and tell him to go the round of the Konak and see that no one, man, woman, or child, is allowed to leave? After that he is to parade his men ready for duty. Linton, go into all the rooms on this floor, and see whether the child is hidden anywhere, and call out to Parisi and Markos to do the same downstairs. Now, Kalliopé!”
“Lord, I know nothing,” moaned the girl.
“That we shall see. You were left in charge of the nursery. What made you leave it?”
“Some one called to me from the courtyard that my uncle was there, lord.”
“Who was it? Who called?”
“Lord, I cannot tell. One of the men, I think.” She durst not mention Logofet, lest he should be questioned, for he knew too much.
“Who did he say was there—your uncle Petros?”
“I—I suppose so, lord.”
“Why? Had you any reason to think he was in the neighbourhood?”
“I thought I saw him one day, lord—in the street.”
“Did you speak to him then?”
“No, lord. I was frightened.” Falsehood came as easily as ever to Danaë now that she had deliberately returned to it.
“Why were you frightened?”
“Lest he should have come to fetch us away, lord.”
“Did you think he had come to steal the Lord Harold?”
“No, lord, there was no reason why he should. That is what I cannot understand. If it had been my own little lord——”
“Then you do think Petros has taken him? Why?”
“Lord, I do not know, except that he is an evil man.”
“Well, you went down to look for your uncle. Did you find him?”
“No, lord; there was no one there.”
“Where did you look for him?”
“In the great courtyard, lord.” Princess Theophanis was looking at her, and Danaë knew at once that she had been seen as she crouched in the darkness on the stairs. She held her breath and waited for the words of denunciation, but they did not come. Wylie was speaking again.
“Did you come up again at once when you did not find him?”
“I stayed and sought him a little while, lord; then I came up. The nursery looked just as it had done when I left it, and the children seemed to be sleeping. But when I straightened the clothes, the Lord Harold was not there.”
“And did you give the alarm at once?”
“Alas, lord! I fell to the floor in my terror, and lay there.”
“That is so, sir,” put in Linton, who had returned unsuccessful from her search. “I found her laying on the ground like a dead thing, crying out that Master Harold was gone.”
“Think,” said Wylie sharply. “Can you imagine no reason why Petros should have carried off the child?”
“None, lord. Except,” as a bright idea occurred to her, “that there was a reward offered for a little boy who was lost at Therma, and he may be hoping to gain it.”
“Ah, and how did you hear that, if you have not seen him?”
Danaë realised her danger. “I—I heard it, lord,” she murmured.
“And you have no idea why he should come so far to fetch a child who had nothing to do with it?”
“None, lord.” She looked up with such evident innocence that Wylie was puzzled. Maurice’s old theory that she had come among them as a spy, with possible designs upon Harold in the interests of some unknown enemy, had naturally been revived by the event, and the girl had undoubtedly blundered badly in her last answer. But it seemed hopeless to go on cross-questioning her in the hope of eliciting further admissions which led to nothing, and it was something to have gained the suggestion that Petros was presumably on his way to Therma. No more time must be lost, and he turned quickly to his wife.
“Well, Zoe, this gives us some sort of clue. Maurice and Armitage and I will search the town at once, and send parties out on all the roads. If the fellow has passed, we can catch him by the telegraph at a dozen points on the way to Therma. You and Linton had better make a thorough search of the Konak, upstairs and down. Here are the keys of all the storehouses. Perhaps the Princess will kindly let you look in all her rooms, for no one can tell where the child may have been hidden. Take Parisi and Gavril with you when you go across to the stores. And don’t be frightened. Between us we ought to be able to get the little chap back all right.”
Wylie spoke more hopefully than he felt, for the apparent purposelessness of the abduction made it difficult to deduce any conclusions from it. He had left Zoe plenty to do, and she and Eirene, tucking up their evening gowns under thick cloaks, began a systematic search of the whole rambling assemblage of buildings which constituted the Konak. Attended by the guard Gavril, armed to the teeth, and the stout Greek butler, carrying a lantern, they hunted again through all the Wylies’ rooms, then through those of the Prince’s house and the range of storehouses on the left of the courtyard, and even the barracks of the guard on either side of the gateway. The small courtyard at the back, and the garden, damp and dismal in the cold autumn night, were not forgotten, but when they came back with haggard faces, utterly exhausted, they were still unsuccessful. Most of the servants were weeping helplessly in the passages, but Linton had stirred up her friend Artemisia the cook to subdue her grief sufficiently to prepare some soup, which she coaxed her mistress to take. Zoe refused to go to bed, and Linton remained with her, leaving Danaë on guard in the nursery; and so that dreadful night passed, first one and then the other dozing off for a minute or two, then springing up in terror, and running to search in some place which might have been forgotten. It was not until morning that Wylie came stumbling uncertainly up the stairs. One glance at his worn face told his wife that his quest had been as vain as her own, but she forbore to put the fact into words.
“Dearest, you are tired out,” she said, with a tenderness that rarely found verbal expression from her lips. “Come and sit down here, and have something to eat. Linton, you kept some soup hot on the nursery stove as I told you? No, Graham, don’t talk till you have had something. You had no dinner last night, you know.” Her mouth quivered involuntarily as she remembered how Linton had broken in upon the party in the drawing-room with her terrible news. “Now here is the soup. Take it to please me.”
Utterly spent, Wylie obeyed, and not until he had finished would she let him tell his tale.
“We have sent the police through the whole town, Zoe, and searched all the inns. No one at all resembling the description of Petros has passed on any of the roads. We have telegraphed to all the places on the line, and sent out messengers where there is no wire. The people are awfully sympathetic, and they are all enlisted in the search.”
“And anyone who found him would know who he was, because of his blue eyes,” said Zoe, trying to speak cheerfully. “And no one could have the heart to hurt him, could they, Graham? when they saw his dear little face.”
“No, of course not,” said Wylie hoarsely. “Maurice and I have made plenty of enemies, no doubt, but I don’t think any of them are such curs as that.”
“Oh no, they couldn’t,” agreed Zoe. “Some one is sure to bring him back to us soon, looking so naughty and happy and smiling—Oh, Graham!” she broke down and hid her face, sobbing, on his shoulder—“Graham, if they don’t!”
“My dear, my dear!” said Wylie brokenly, and as he put his arms round her Danaë, who had been watching through the half-open door, fled away in tears. The words she could not understand, but she knew the meaning of the tones, and no amount of arguing with her conscience could assure her that she had nothing to do with the scene. She had at first entertained wild hopes that Petros might be intercepted and killed, without being able to compromise her by anything he said, but then she remembered that unless he was able to return to Therma and produce Janni, or a child representing him, her brother had declared that he would be irretrievably ruined. He must be allowed to reach the city, then, but as soon as sufficient time had elapsed for Prince Romanos to be secured from whatever danger was threatening him, Danaë would declare her charge’s true parentage to her mistress. Then everything would be set right, but in the meantime the sorrow around cut her to the heart, and she and Linton mingled their tears over Janni’s solitary breakfast and his irrepressible inquiries for “Aa-aa.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CULPRIT.
Neither his personal sorrow nor his sleepless night could be allowed to relieve Wylie from the pressure of his daily duties, and after less than an hour’s rest he was presiding at an inquiry into the conduct of one of his military police, who had quitted his post without leave on the preceding evening. This was Logofet, who had awakened from deep dreams of peace to find himself in durance, and could not imagine how he had got there. The report of the man who had escorted Princess Theophanis to the hospital made it clear that he and his mistress had entered at the small door of the Konak by merely turning the handle, and had found no one on guard within, and this rendered it probable that Logofet’s remissness had permitted the entrance of the kidnapper to whom the night’s misery was due. Nothing was said of this, however, though as many of his comrades as could find any excuse to be present crowded the room where the prisoner, alternately defiant and lachrymose, confronted his Colonel.
“Drunk, lord! I have not been drunk for ten years,” he blustered, happily unconscious that he had been found fast asleep, with the empty bottle by his side.
“The witnesses will prove that you were drunk last night. Where did you get the spirit from?”
Into Logofet’s bemuddled brain darted an idea and an impulse of revenge. Witnesses? Then the girl Kalliopé had betrayed him. Very well, then he would betray her.
“Do you really wish to know where the raki came from, lord?” he whined.
“Certainly.” Wylie expected to hear as usual the name of one of the wretched Jewish spirit-sellers, duly licensed by the Therma authorities, who were a thorn in the side of the rulers at Klaustra, and seemed to have a special predilection for corrupting the police.
“Then don’t ask me, lord; ask little Kalliopé. Ask her who gave me a bottle of raki two evenings running, so that I should turn my back while she slipped out at the little door.”
Ignorant as he was of the night’s excitement, Logofet was astonished at the sensation produced by his words. Wylie pushed his chair back abruptly, his face perfectly white, and the spectators exchanged glances and whispers and exclamations of surprise. After his first stunned silence, Wylie rose.
“I cannot inquire into this case; it must go before the Prince,” he said. He was too much shaken to give the necessary orders, but an eager messenger ran to bear the news to Maurice, and the scene of the inquiry was quickly changed to the broad verandah before the Prince’s house. Eirene sat beside her husband, with a curious watchful look on her face, and Zoe, whom they had wished not to disturb, seemed to divine in her restless sleep that there was news, and woke and came as well. With an instinctive sense of drama, messengers and servants alike had combined to prevent the news from reaching Danaë, and when she was sent for she came unsuspiciously, expecting, indeed, further cross-examination, but nothing worse. It was not the lowering countenance of Logofet that first warned her of the crisis, but the look on Armitage’s face as he leaned against the side of the doorway. One glance he gave her—a quick inquiring glance, as though to assure himself that she was unjustly accused—then he deliberately turned his eyes away.
“I have sent for you, Kalliopé, because what Logofet has to tell concerns you,” said Prince Theophanis. “Sit down beside your mistress, and when he has spoken we will see what you have to say.”
Danaë sat down on the doorstep, conscious as she did so that Zoe, as if mechanically, moved her chair a little farther away, and Maurice signed to Logofet to speak. The prisoner had managed to learn the state of affairs by this time from the conversation going on around him, and was correspondingly elated. He spoke with a certain soldierly bluffness, which left entirely out of sight the fact that he himself was anything more than a witness.
“I am a plain man, lord, and cannot tell a long story. Two days ago I met Kalliopé’s uncle in the town——”
“Wait; how did you know he was her uncle?” asked Maurice.
“Why, lord, he said so; besides, I saw him outside Therma the day that this ill-omened girl first thrust herself into your house. He said he wanted to speak to his niece, and asked me to let her pass out and come in again. He had some good raki with him, and I consented. That evening she went in and out quite properly, though rather in a hurry, so I thought little of it when he asked me to do the same for him again the next night. She was an obstinate piece of goods, he said, and wouldn’t do what she was told, but I was to tell her to bring the brat this time, or it would be the worse for her——”
“You said ‘your brat.’ You know you did!” burst from Danaë.
“To bring the brat, or it would be the worse for her,” corrected Logofet, with the air of an honest man unjustly aspersed; “and thinking that she was about to relieve you, lord, and the gracious lady your sister, from the maintenance of herself and that foundling she brought with her, I thought it an excellent deed. So he gave me another glass of spirits—which I swear to you, lord, must have been drugged, for after giving the message to the girl I fell down insensible, and knew no more.”
“Now, Kalliopé, what have you to say?” asked Maurice. “You told the Lord Glafko last night that you had not seen your uncle at all, except at a distance, that the message you received merely told you he was here, and that you went down into the great courtyard to look for him, but could not find him.”
“And it is all true, lord,” cried Danaë desperately. “This man is lying, having hated me since the day your kindness brought me to this house. I have spoken no word to the man Petros, who calls himself my uncle, and I went nowhere last night to look for him, save into the great courtyard.”
“Lord,” said a voice from among the police on the steps, “I admitted this girl Kalliopé by the small door last evening from the street.” Maurice looked at Danaë.
“Lord, he also is lying,” she cried. “These Slavs of yours all hate me, who am a Greek.”
Princess Theophanis leaned forward in her chair, and spoke slowly and distinctly. “I saw Kalliopé hiding on the stairs near the small door when I came in from the hospital,” she said. “She had a great bundle in her arms, which might have been a child. I remember thinking at the time that it looked like one.”
“Oh, Eirene, why didn’t you say this before?” cried Zoe, in agony. Her brother raised his hand for silence.
“Kalliopé, you will do better to tell the truth. Two witnesses have proved your story to be false. You were in the back courtyard, you went out and in at the small door, you took out with you a bundle resembling a child. Had she the bundle in her arms when she returned?” he asked suddenly of the guard who had spoken.
“I could not see, lord; there was no light. She was very much wrapped up, and she may have been carrying something.”
Before anything more could be said, Zoe tore her hand from her husband’s, and flung herself on her knees before Danaë.
“Oh, Kalliopé,” she sobbed, “give him back to me! He was so sweet, and he never did you any harm. I have tried to be kind to you—if I was ever unkind, I ask you now for forgiveness. Only tell us what you have done with him. You shall not be punished in any way—you shall have anything you can ask, if you will only give him back.”
“Lady mine, I have done nothing with him,” sobbed the girl. “I call the All-Holy Mother of God to witness that I had no hand in stealing the Lord Harold. If I could tell you where he is at this moment, I would do it gladly.”
Wylie raised his wife gently. “My dear Zoe, the girl is hardened. It is no use appealing to her. Wouldn’t it be as well to continue this inquiry in private?” he asked of Maurice, who replied by remanding Logofet to the cells, and dismissing the police spectators. The hunted look was in Danaë’s eyes again as she faced her judges, but Maurice spoke with studious gentleness.
“Kalliopé, you have been in this house for some months. Don’t you understand yet that your mistress has always meant kindly towards you, and done everything in her power for your good? She can’t believe, and I can’t believe, that you could repay her kindness in such a way. Tell us the truth now, and I will pledge myself that as soon as the child is recovered you shall be sent safely back to your own home, and no punishment inflicted on you.”
“You will not believe me, lord, if I do tell you the exact truth,” cried Danaë defiantly.
“If it is indeed the truth, we will,” he replied.
“Then hear the truth, lord. I did go out and speak to the man Petros two nights ago, and I did pass through the back courtyard to speak to him again last night, carrying a child in my arms. But he was not at the place he had appointed, and the child was my own little lord, and not the Lord Harold. When I did not find Petros, I carried my little lord back into the house. I knew you would not believe me!” she cried angrily, looking round at the faces of the rest.
“How can we believe you, Kalliopé?” asked Maurice. “You would have us believe that you took little Janni out and brought him back again, and that this had nothing to do with the Lord Harold’s disappearance. Now, be honest. Did you hand over the Lord Harold to Petros by mistake for Janni?”
He realised the futility of the question even before the dark cloud gathered on Danaë’s brow. “I mistake another for my little lord!” she cried, in supreme disdain.
“Then did you try to deceive Petros by giving him the wrong child, hoping to keep Janni here?”
“No. I was going with him myself. But of course you will not believe me. Do you believe me, lady?” she demanded suddenly of Zoe. For the moment the impulse to tell the truth from the very beginning was upon her.
“Oh, Kalliopé, how can I? You have told us so many falsehoods!” moaned Zoe. Danaë cast upon the rest a look of mingled scorn and reproach, and turned to go in at the door. But as she did so, Armitage stepped forward and took her hand.
“Lady Kalliopé, I believe what you have told us to be true. Now be brave, and you shall prove your truth to all. The Lady Zoe will joyfully acknowledge that she was wrong when she receives her child back. There must be more that you can tell us which would throw light upon his loss and help us to find him. Don’t let your pride make our grief deeper.”
Again Danaë wavered, with confession on her tongue, but a scandalised whisper from Eirene, “Lady Kalliopé, indeed!” turned aside her intention. She drew her hand away from Armitage. “I have told the truth, lord, and it is not believed. Now therefore I will take my little lord and depart from this place.”
“You will do nothing of the kind,” said Wylie sharply. “You have shown pretty plainly that you are not fit to have the charge of a child, and Janni will remain in your mistress’s care. Remember that you are under the very gravest suspicion. Go back to the nursery and try to redeem your character.”
Danaë shot a furious glance at him, and swung through the doorway with a swagger that would not have disgraced her father. This unfortunate experiment in telling at any rate part of the truth had left her absolutely convinced that she was an injured victim, and her employers cruel oppressors, but she was not going to allow them to see that their injustice could make her unhappy. When she was gone Wylie turned to his brother-in-law.
“I am sorry to have taken the words out of your mouth,” he said, “but that girl’s effrontery simply sickens me. You don’t think I was too severe?”
“Not if she was really telling lies,” said Maurice, “and if she wasn’t, she has only herself to thank for our not believing her. And most certainly she must not be allowed to take the other child away. In fact, I don’t know that it wouldn’t be wise to restrict her movements a little—forbid her to leave the upper floor of your house, for instance.”
“No, that wouldn’t do. Don’t you see, if there was any truth in the story that Petros really wanted Janni, he will come back and try to get him? He can’t very well do it without communicating with her, and if she is regularly watched while she imagines herself to be going about freely, we shall catch them both. Zoe, you had better come back and lie down.”