You were a saucy girl to chaff me like that about the Honourable Mr. Winston. It didn't matter one bit to me whether we got to know him or not. Why should it? Even when he comes into the title he'll only be a viscount, and Lord Brighthelmston may live for years. It wasn't to meet him that we joined the viscountess, though I shouldn't wonder if she had something up her sleeve when she asked us to meet her in Cannes. Anyway, she'd taken a tremendous fancy to me. We got on awfully well together at first, but she needs a lot of living up to, and if she hadn't held a sort of salon everywhere we've been, with all kinds of swells, home-made and foreign, kootooing to her, and being introduced to us, I don't know but I should have persuaded Pa to drop the whole business long ago. She's a nice old lady, but sometimes, when you let yourself go, and are having a ripping time, she freezes up and looks at you as if you were some unknown species of animal in the Zoo. That's what I mean when I say she wants a lot of living up to; and more than once in the last two months or so I'd have given my boots if Pa and I hadn't bound ourselves to travel about with her, but had gone off on our own, with a courier, like that handsome one I sent you the snapshot of with the Yankee girl at Blois. Well, anyhow, it's all come to an end now; and she's introduced us to dozens of smart people, so there's nothing to regret.
Pa and I are going back to Naples to-morrow or the day after, and so home to England. Give me London! I'm dying for a good game of ping pong. I asked them to get it at the Grand Hotel in Rome, but the silly things didn't. Addie Johnson has written and asked me to a swell dance she's giving at the Kensington Town Hall; I hope we can get back in time; and I may be able to take a charming cavalier with me. But I'll tell you about him later. We've been having scenes of great excitement for the last few days, which have helped me to get through the time in Sicily, which otherwise would have been pretty slow, as I don't care for country, abroad or at home. Besides, the oranges and lemons keep falling on your head, and at night you have to throw gravel at the nightingales to keep the noisy creatures still. I collected some on purpose.
Well, I told you how vexed Lady B. was because "Jack," as she calls him, couldn't get to Cannes. He was always writing from different places and making excuses, till Pa said in his joking way, he'd bet that "Jack was up to some game of his own," and my lady didn't like that a little bit. Finally, when Pa and I got sick of Cannes, which is too far from Monte Carlo to be lively, we all went on to Rome. That was just after my last epistle to you. It rained cats and dogs in Rome, and I never went into a single church, not even St. Peter's. We planned to wait for "Jack," but your letter came, and I was afraid there might be something in that joke of yours about his trying to keep out of my way, and I was bound he shouldn't think I was after him. There's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it for a girl who can bait her hook as I can. So when Lady B.'s neuralgia got bad, we proposed Naples, and it was very nice. But she is a fussy old thing and couldn't let well alone; she'd seen Naples and hadn't seen Sicily. Nothing would do but we should "run over." I would have put my foot down on that, but Lady B. mentioned that she had a friend at some place called Taormina, an English baronet with a lovely house, who always had a lot of nice people staying with him. And she said she'd often been invited, and would get an invitation for us all for a few days if we'd go. I thought we might meet someone it would be a good thing for us to know, so I consented; but we were to go first to Palermo and Siracusa, and work on to Taormina by the time our invitation arrived.
Palermo wasn't so bad. I never saw so many young men in my life, all very dark, with enormous eyes, and little moustaches and canes, both of which they twirled a good deal when they looked at anyone they admired. But Syracuse was awful I daresay it was nice enough when you could be a tyrant and cut off your enemies' heads, and build gold statues to yourself; but tyrants are out of their job now, and things have been allowed to go down a good deal since their day. I nearly cried when I saw what sort of hole it was, but our invitation to Sir Evelyn Haines' (which we found waiting for us) wasn't for that day, but the next. It was settled that we should go on by the first train in the morning, when a telegram arrived for Lady B. She was in a twitter, and gave it to Pa to read, and say what he thought. It was sent from Naples by a perfect stranger to her, who signed his name James Van Wyck Payne; and as nearly as I can remember, it said, "Beg that you will receive me at Syracuse. Have travelled on from Rome on purpose immediately on learning your address. Have news of vital importance to give you about your son."
Lady B. couldn't think what it all meant; but she was anxious, and we were curious. She and Pa calculated times, and discovered that if we went away by the first train we would miss the mysterious Mr. Payne, so it was decided that we must wait till the next, and a telegram was sent to an address in Naples to that effect.
In the morning, as early as he could, he arrived. I was on the verandah of the hotel, watching, dressed in my travelling frock, so as to be ready to get off by the next train. When a stranger came running up the steps asking for Lady Brighthelmston, you can believe I kept my eyes open, though I pretended to be reading an awfully exciting book of Guy Boothby's-really great! He was young, and evidently American, but very handsome, and the best of form; blond, tall, and smooth-faced, with such a clever expression, and unfathomable eyes. He was shown in; but as Lady B.'s sitting-room had a window opening on the verandah, with the blinds only half shut, I could presently hear from where I sat a murmur of voices which I knew to be hers and his. Just as Pa had joined me, and was asking whether the gentleman had turned up yet, there came a stifled shriek from Lady B.'s room. We jumped up, rushed to the window, and met her there as she was running out to call us, crying, with Mr. Payne at her back. We went in, and she made him tell his story, which was very complicated. However, we soon understood that the Honourable Mr. Winston's chauffeur had stolen his motor-car, and his watch (which Mr. Payne had got out of pawn and shown to Lady B.) and his clothes, and probably murdered him. Lady B. hadn't had any letter for ages; she had supposed that was because she was travelling about so much lately and had missed them, but now she saw that anything might easily have happened to her son. Everything was frightfully confused and exciting, and while Pa tried to soothe Lady B., Mr. Payne and I stepped out on the verandah to talk things over quietly, as I had kept my head. He showed wonderful detective gifts, and from some details he told me about the girl and a middle-aged American lady, friends of his, whom the chauffeur had deceived, I began to think it might be the party I had seen in Blois, only with a different car; but that, as I said to Mr. Payne, must have been before any tragedy had taken place. He thought I was probably right about the identity; and to make sure, I went upstairs to one of my boxes which wasn't locked yet, and rooted out the negative of that snapshot I sent you from Blois. We looked at the film together, each holding it with one hand to keep it from curling, and Mr. Payne exclaimed, "That's the man! that's the scoundrel!" I had thought the face awfully good-looking, but it didn't seem the same to me then, and I had to admit it might be that of a murderer. I proposed showing it to Lady B., but she was frightfully upset already; and Mr. Payne said he didn't see that it would do any good to harrow up her feelings still more now, and perhaps if we did she wouldn't be able to undertake a journey. If he'd known in time that we were going on to Taormina, he wouldn't have kept us at Syracuse, but would have joined us at Taormina; for he had news that Miss Randolph, that stuck-up American girl, and her aunt had just arrived there the night before, with poor Mr. Winston's stolen car, which the wicked chauffeur was driving. He-Mr. Payne, I mean-had written from Rome to the girl's father in New York, that she was in the power of an abandoned ruffian, and the father had started off to the rescue the very day after receiving the letter. He had cabled to Mr. Payne in Rome, and the message had been forwarded to Naples, but in that way they had missed each other, and Mr. Payne only knew that the old man had been following the girl about from pillar to post; that he'd heard in Naples that she'd gone to Palermo, and had proceeded there himself. Probably, when he found that she had left, if the hotel people could tell him where she was likely to be by this time, he wouldn't wait for an ordinary train, but would take a special. Mr. Payne said he was that kind of man; and if Lady B. would go on now by the next train to Taormina, everybody might confront the chauffeur and denounce him at once. By everybody he meant himself, Lady B., and this Mr. Randolph, of New York. I was very much interested, of course, and naturally wanted to be in at the death, which Mr. Payne seemed quite pleased to have me do, for we had by this time made up great friends; we seemed so congenial in many ways, and he knows such quantities of swell people everywhere. The Duke of Burford is a great chum of his, and so is that handsome Lord Lane that you were wild to meet last year and couldn't get to know. But perhaps you shall yet, dear. Who can tell?
Poor Lady B. was as weak as a rag, but determined on revenge, and Pa kept her up on a raw egg in wine. We took the train for Taormina. It was a strange journey. We four reserved a carriage for ourselves, and Lady B. asked questions till she was too exhausted to speak. Then she sat with her eyes shut, and salts to her nose, trying to strengthen herself for what was to come, while Mr. Payne and I talked in low voices about people we knew. Sometimes I intimated I knew them, too, and others still more swell, for I didn't like to seem out of it; and luckily I'd read a great deal about them in the Society papers, so I was never at a loss.
Mr. Payne was in communication with the American girl's aunt, who was partly in his confidence; and he knew from her that they would be at the San Domenico, at Taormina. It was afternoon when we arrived, and as we didn't want to waste a moment, we drove past the very house where we were invited to stay, up to the San Domenico, where the wretched pretender was to be run to earth. It was a very long, mountainous drive, and Lady B. was trembling with excitement. She wanted to have it out of the man what he had done with her son, and, I do believe, if it had been back in old times, she would have been in a mood to put out his eyes with red-hot irons, or flay him alive to make him confess. She didn't say much, but her eyes were bright, and there was such a flush of excitement on her face that she looked quite pretty and almost young.
At last we got up to the hotel, and had to walk through two courtyards; for it used to be a monastery, and is very quaintly built. A porter walked up to see what we wanted, and Mr. Payne asked for Miss Randolph and Miss Kedison. The man said they had gone out on donkeys for an excursion up in the mountains to a place called Mola, which we could see from the hotel, overhanging a precipice. He said they hadn't been gone long, and probably wouldn't be back for at least two hours. Then Mr. Payne inquired if their chauffeur who drove their motor-car was staying at the hotel, and if he had gone with the ladies.
The porter answered that the chauffeur was at another hotel, and that he had not joined the excursion, but he had seen the ladies off with their donkeys and guide. When the man began to understand that we were all more interested in the whereabouts of the chauffeur than of the mistresses, he added that one of the servants of the hotel who had just been down to the station had mentioned meeting the chauffeur in very smart clothes (quite different from when he had been with the ladies) going down the hill towards Santa Margherita, Sir Evelyn Haines' house, where there was a big reception on.