She would tell her husband what she was going to do. No—he was still asleep. Yet it might be better to wake him—it was so late. Probably he would insist on fetching Leone himself, but she would go with him; perhaps he would be angry if she went alone. The first thing was to telephone.
The instrument was in the broad passage upon which the doors of Montalto’s bedroom and dressing-room opened. They were double doors, practically soundproof, and it was not likely that her voice at the telephone should wake him. She rang, and asked for the Istituto Massimo, and after waiting some time she was in communication with the porter of the school. He told her that it was closed, owing to the disturbances.
Her heart stopped, and then beat quickly. With difficulty she asked if Leone and his tutor had been seen. Yes, they had come at the usual time, like many other boys whose parents had not seen the notice in the papers. The notice had been inserted in all the principal evening ones yesterday. The ‘little Count,’ as the porter called the boy, had gone away again with the tutor. That was at half-past eight. There had been very little disturbance in that quarter of the city as yet. The porter could tell her nothing more.
Half-past eight, and it was now nearly eleven! Maria felt dizzy, and held her hand upon the telephone after she had rung off the communication. Her husband’s bedroom door was just opposite her, and she knew that she must call him now. He would not forgive her if she did not, and he would be right.
She tapped upon the panel rather sharply. No answer. She knocked much louder, but no sound came, though she felt a little pain in her knuckles. The double door was well made. Rather timidly she tried it, and found it locked. She had never entered Montalto’s room since he had come back, and she wondered whether there were any means of waking him, but his valet must know this, and there was no time to be lost. The man always waited in a little room further down the passage, where he cleaned his master’s things, and where the bedroom bell rang. It was there that the maid always found him when Maria wished her husband to receive any message from her immediately on waking. She went forward a few steps, not remembering which was the door, and she called the servant. He came out directly, in evident surprise.
‘We must wake my husband,’ she said. ‘I must speak to him at once; but I have knocked and tried the door, and he does not answer. Is there any way of reaching him?’
The servant produced a key from his pocket.
‘His Excellency fastens the bedroom door inside, and I lock the dressing-room. The door between the rooms is never locked.’