Monsieur Popeau again looked round. He even came a little closer to his pretty companion.
“I took a walk up to old Monaco quite early in the morning two days ago,” he said hesitatingly. “I walked past the gardens where I once left you alone with Captain Stuart, and then, when I was at the extreme end of the rock, I looked up, and on a little piece of wall which I now know to have been the wall of the convent garden, I saw——”
He stopped, and Lily exclaimed breathlessly, “You saw Cristina peeping over?”
“No, I did not see Cristina peeping over—but I saw—Mimi!”
“Mimi! the cat?” exclaimed Lily.
“Yes, Mimi, the cat—walking along the top of the wall, already beginning to look as if he felt at home there! In fact, I will confess to you, Mademoiselle, that I tried a little experiment. I called out very quietly and tenderly, ‘Mimi, Mimi, come hither, my friend!’ and at once he jumped down, and rubbed himself, purring loudly, against me.”
“What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Lily.
“Without doubt poor Cristina caught up the cat, and fled with him. And now, as I said before, you may think of the poor woman as being happier than she has been for many, many years. She was the hapless victim of her wicked sister-in-law.”
As Lily gazed up into his face, a thousand questions trembling on her lips—questions that yet she shrank from asking—he went on, slowly:
“Bouton and I have been making certain calculations, and we are convinced that old Vissering was the Countess’s ninth victim. But, of course, till the last few weeks, when circumstances proved too much for her, she was very prudent—she allowed, that is, plenty of time to elapse between each of her crimes. Towards the last, the complete immunity she had enjoyed made her feel that she need never fear to be suspected. Hers was the master mind. We have some evidence that the Count and Cristina were unwilling accomplices. On two occasions men afterwards so foully done to death received anonymous letters which we know could only have come from La Solitude.”