It was evident that the old couple had had their instructions, for hardly a word passed between Mozara and them during the whole time. In the rest of the programme Pieto and his wife knew their parts.
When the captive was safely locked away in the room above, they set about making preparations for the meals of the day. Now and again the woman ascended the creaking stairs and listened at the door of the Duchess room. They had been given to understand that the effect of the chloroform would take some few hours to wear off, but dusk fell and still the victim gave no sign. Then night came down on the castle, and in the dining-room the candles were lit and shone on the sallow faces of the two old people who, with ears nervously strained, still waited and listened.
A night bird screamed in the forest behind them, echoing eerily around the still castle.
CHAPTER XV
EDWARD SHOOTS AN ARROW INTO THE AIR
In a state of the deepest dejection Edward Povey listened to the story. At times during its recital he would raise his head and look at Gaspar Mozara. The lieutenant, when Edward's head was bent again, eyed his hearer narrowly.
He had told his tale well—circumstantially and yet with the feeling that Anna Paluda, who, sitting rigidly in her chair, never once removed her doubting eyes from his face, did not believe a word he was saying. He found it increasingly difficult to marshal his facts under the fire of those steady watching eyes. Hitherto, this grim lady in black had held no importance for him, but now, as he looked at her and felt her presence, she took on a new individuality. To Mozara it seemed as though an unconsidered pawn belonging to an opponent had crept unobserved up the chess-board of his plans and had become suddenly a force to be reckoned with.
The lieutenant was between two stools. He had told his tale, and was now anxious to be gone, but he felt that no sooner did he leave, so surely some piece of evidence, some vital point in the scheme would occur to him as having been left unsaid.
He had made his way to the little villa as soon as the third-rate medical man, whom Dasso had pressed into the plot, had given the lieutenant permission to get up, a sorrowful figure in deep mourning. His right arm was suspended in a sling of black silk and was tightly swathed in surgical bandages. He had sunk in well-simulated exhaustion into the big chintz-covered arm-chair in the drawing-room facing the sea, and had laid an ebony crutch beside him on the carpet. One leg had been carefully stretched out stiffly before him.