“I lighted on a man who knew more about him than I had learned before,” resumed Richard Arden. “He was suspected at Berlin of having been engaged in a conspiracy to pigeon Dacre and Wilmot, who were travelling. He did not appear, but he is said to have supplied the money, and had a lion's share of the spoil. There is no good in repeating these things generally, you know, because they are so hard to prove; and a fellow like that is dangerous. They say he is very litigious.”
“Upon my word, if your information is at all to be relied on, it is plain we have made a great mistake. It is a disappointing world, but I could not have fancied him doing anything so low; and I must say for him that he was gentlemanlike and quiet, and very unlike the person he appears to be. I think I never heard of anything so outrageous! Vivian Darnley told me that he was a great duellist, and thought to be a very quarrelsome, dangerous companion abroad. But he had only heard this, and what you tell me is so much worse, so mean, so utterly intolerable!”
“Oh! There's worse than that,” said Richard, with a faint sinister smile.
“What?” said she, returning it with an almost frightened gaze.
“There was a very beautiful girl at the opera in Vienna; her name was Piccardi, a daughter of a good old Roman family. You can't imagine how admired she was! And she was thought to be on the point of marrying Count Baddenoff; Mr. Longcluse, it seems, chose to be in love with her; he was not then anything like so rich as he became afterwards—and this poor girl was killed.”
“Good heavens! Richard—what can you mean?”
“I mean that she was assassinated, and that from that day Mr. Longcluse was never received in society in Vienna, and had to leave it.”
“You ought to tell May Penrose,” said she, after a silence of dismay.
“Not for the world,” said Richard; “she talks enough for six—and where's the good? She'll only take up the cudgels for him, and we shall be in the centre of a pretty row.”
“Well, if you think it best——” she began.