The lieutenant looked at him closely. Two detectives followed the lieutenant into the room.
“Where is the body?” Norton asked. De Medici indicated the library. The lieutenant addressed his assistants.
“Stay here, Jim,” he said. To the other he added, “And you come with me. Wait here, Mr. De Medici—with the ladies, if you please.”
“Come, we’ll sit down,” De Medici whispered. Florence shook her head.
“I feel as if I could go mad,” she muttered.
De Medici recalled the flushed, laughing face of the girl who had ridden with him through the park. Her eyes had filled him with a sense of worship. Aloof, darkly laughing eyes. Yes, it had been an overwhelming moment when the arrogant gypsy loveliness of the young woman had yielded.
“But it was I who yielded.” He stood thinking and regarding her averted face. “A desire to prostrate myself. I remember. Curious ... curious. And now she’s stopped weeping. When the lieutenant came in she changed. She’s thinking of something. She’s taking hold of herself. The telephone call—the rush from the theater. It’ll have to be explained. Her father is dead. But there’s something else more important even than her grief. Her eyes avoid me....”
De Medici’s eyes caught a glimpse of his fingers. They were reddened. His thought continued:
“Blood on my hands. Incriminating. I reached over and touched the dagger and stained my fingers. Poor Ballau. And yet I felt no grief when I kneeled there. I felt something else—as if all this had happened once before. Yes, the body, the dagger, the crucifix seemed familiar. I was calm. I knew what to do. Ah, De Medici blood. Centuries pass and it still flows unchanged in me. Yes, why not admit it? Something exulted in me at the sight of the room, the dim lights, the murdered man. There was no fear, no nervousness. But a strange feeling of familiarity. And then a revulsion. I routed the exulting De Medici phantoms. And now what? Trouble. A telephone call. She’ll tell lies. Her face is already a lie. Stern, poised, ready to fight for something.... What a woman! Yes, I’m more in love than before. Her eyes are like a shrine for something in me. They overpower me. My mind evaporates.”
De Medici reached suddenly for her hand.