I must pay my friend the compliment of saying that he has made good use of the data I have given him, and he has dealt as leniently as he could with my little failings.
I have spent a very pleasant two years, and I gather from Charlotte that she is as happy as I am. Perhaps, after one of our yearly dinners we will decide to take up again the life which was interrupted by the visit of Uncle Jasper. I hope not, however.
It is May now, a month which I always spend in the little cottage at Tremoor. Their Majesties the King and Queen of San Pietro, travelling as Mr. and Mrs. Baxendale, come to Cornwall also and spend a week each year. They will be here in a few days now, and with them they are bringing the Crown Prince, as sturdy a little Estrato as ever graced a cradle. I saw him last January, for I spend the winters in the delightful climate of Corbo. I do not stay at the palace, but find it more to my taste to take a suite of rooms at the Imperial, that new hotel which faces the bay near the Casino.
I rode out to Casa Luzo a few days before I last left the island, and it was with very mixed feelings that I gazed on the stucco porch and the little garden. I thought of Galva and Armand, of old Pieto and Teresa, and the ruffian who was wounded in the leg. The place has been done up, and is, I think, in the possession of a wealthy fruit merchant of Madrid.
Pieto and Teresa were well when I last saw them. They keep a small inn on the Alcador Road, and by Teresa's careful watching of the stock, the worthy pair manage to wring from the business a fair living. They receive also a yearly sum from the Royal Pensions list.
Anna Paluda resides at the palace. I often find myself wondering what business it was that really brought her to London with me. In my pocket-book is an old and much folded cutting from the Daily Mail which has put strange fancies into my head. One of these days I will show Anna the cutting and watch those great black eyes as she reads it. It is a report of an inquest and goes—
"THE DORRINGTON STREET MYSTERY
"Yesterday Mr. Paxton, the coroner of St. Pancras, held an inquest on the body of the man Gabriel who was found dead in the first-floor room of a boarding-house in Dorrington Street.
"Mrs. Brand, the landlady, giving evidence, spoke of the curious habits of the deceased. Mr. Gabriel took the room about a month ago and had lived a very retired life, going out only at night.
"The servant, Elizabeth Harker, gave corroborative evidence, and spoke of the discovery of the body. She had been called at about half-past five in the morning by a Mrs. Graham, the lodger who rented the room next to the deceased. The lady complained of a smell of gas, and, together with the witness, tried to rouse Mr. Gabriel. No answer being given to their knocking, they turned the handle, and the door, to their surprise, came open.