"Very nervous," answered Savelli, shaking his head with the air of concern he thought it proper to affect whenever he spoke of his wife's illness. "The nerves are something which no one can understand. I can tell you a story, for instance, about something which happened the other day—to be accurate, in June, when we were at Gerano. Do you remember the oubliette between the guard-room and the tower? Yes—my wife said she showed it to you. We were all staying together—all the children, her father, and the Princess and two or three friends. One morning she said she was quite sure that if we took up that slab of stone and lowered a man into the shaft, we should find a skeleton hanging there—Heaven knows what she imagined! The Prince said he had looked into the shaft scores of times when the trap-door still existed and there was a bar across the passage to prevent any one from going near; that he himself had ordered the stone to be put where it was and knew all about the place. The only skeleton ever found in the castle had been discovered walled up in the thickness of the north tower, with a little window just opposite the face, so that the individual must have died looking at the hills. Nobody knew anything about it. But my wife insisted, and grew angry, and at last furious. It was of no use, of course. You know the old gentleman—he can be perfectly rigid. He answered that no one should touch the stone, that if she yielded to such ideas once, she would soon wish to pull Gerano to pieces to count the mice, and that if she could persuade my father to knock holes in the walls at Castel Savello, that was the affair of the Savelli, but that so long as he lived she should not make any experiments in excavation under his roof. If you will believe me, she had a fit of anger which brought on an attack of the nerves, and she never went out of her room for three days in consequence. Do you wonder that I am anxious?"
"Certainly not. It would be amazing if you were indifferent. The story gives one the idea that she is subject to delusions. I am very sorry she is no better. Pray remember me to her."
Thereupon Ghisleri passed on, inwardly wondering how long it would be before Adele became quite mad. Two days later he received a note from her. She had heard from her husband that he was in Rome, she said, and wrote to ask a great favour of him. He was doubtless aware of her father's passion for manuscripts, which was well known in Rome. It was reported that a certain dealer had bought Prince Montevarchi's library after the crash, and she very much wished to buy a very interesting manuscript of which she had often heard her father speak, and which contained an account of the famous, or infamous, Isabella Montevarchi's life, written with her own hand—a sort of confession, in fact. As she did not know the exact title of the document, if it had any, she would call it a confession, though, of course, in a strictly lay sense. Now, she inquired, would Ghisleri, for old friendship's sake, try to obtain it for her at a reasonable price? She knew, of course, that such an original would be expensive, but she was prepared to discuss the terms if not wholly beyond her means. She sent her note by the carrier, as that was generally quicker than writing by the post, she said. Would Ghisleri kindly answer by the same means? The man would call again on the next day but one. That would perhaps give time to make preliminary inquiries. With which observation, and with best thanks in anticipation of the service he was about to render, Adele called herself most sincerely his.
Ghisleri was not an extremely suspicious man, but he would have given evidence of almost infantine simplicity if he had not seen that there was something wrong about Adele's note. It was certainly very well planned, and if Laura had never shown him the letters Adele had sent her, it might very possibly have succeeded. On ascertaining the price set by the dealer on the manuscript, he would probably have written a few words, stating in a business-like way the sum for which the so-called confession could be bought. In all likelihood, too, he would have only dated his note by the day of the week, omitting altogether the month and the year. He saw at a glance how easily a communication of that kind might have taken such a shape as to be very serviceable against him, and how hard it might have been to show that he was writing about a genuine transaction concerning a manuscript actually for sale. He determined to be very careful.
His first step was to find out the name of the dealer who had bought the Montevarchi library. He next ascertained that what Adele wanted was still unsold, and that he must therefore necessarily enter into correspondence with her. After that he sought out a young lawyer whom he had employed once or twice within the last few years when he had needed legal advice in regard to some trifling point, and laid the whole matter before him. This young man, Ubaldini by name, had rapidly acquired a reputation as a criminal lawyer, and had successfully defended some remarkable cases, but, as he justly observed, acquitted prisoners of the classes in which crimes are common, pay very little, and condemned criminals pay nothing at all. He was therefore under the necessity of taking other kinds of business as a means of support. The last murderer who had escaped the law by Ubaldini's eloquence had sent him a bag of beans and a cream cheese, which was all the family could afford in the way of a fee, but upon which a barrister who had a taste for variety could not subsist any length of time.
Ghisleri explained at considerable length the whole story, as far as it has been told in these pages, and expressed the belief that Donna Adele Savelli was intent upon ruining him for what, after all, seemed very insufficient reasons.
"When a woman lives on morphia and the fear of discovery, instead of food and drink, I would not give much for the soundness of any of her reasons," said Ubaldini, with a laugh. "What shall we do with the Princess? Shall we convict her of homicide, or bring an action for defamation, which we are sure to win? I like this case. We shall amuse ourselves."
"I do not wish to bring any accusation nor any action against Donna Adele Savelli," answered Ghisleri. "All I wish to do is to protect myself. Of course I should be curious to know what became of that written confession of hers, if it ever existed. But at present I wish you to have certified copies made of all my letters to her, and to keep the originals of those she writes me. If she makes such another attack on me as the last one, I will ask you, perhaps, to take the matter up. In the mean time, I only desire to keep on the safe side."
"In a case like this," said the lawyer, "it is far safer to attack than to wait for the enemy. Be careful in what you write, at all events. It would be wiser to show me the letters before you send them. One never can tell at what point the error of omission or commission will be made, upon which everything will depend. As a bit of general advice, I should warn you always to date every sheet on which you write anything, always to mention the name of the dealer when you speak of him, and invariably to give in full the correct title by which the manuscript is known. If you do that, and take good care that the dealer knows you perfectly each time you see him, and remembers your visits, it will not be easy to manage. But Donna Adele Savelli is evidently a clever person, whether her reasons for hating you are good or bad. That little trick of sending her own letters to the other lady was masterly—absolutely diabolical. The reason she failed was that she struck too high. She over-reached herself. She accused you of too much. That shows that although her methods are clever her judgment is insufficient. The same is true of this last attempt. By the bye, have you ever mentioned me to her, so far as you can recollect?"
"No, I believe not."