“You allowed the Lord Romanos to believe that his son was dead?”
“Lady, although I am not a father, I can enter into a father’s feelings. I watched my lord carefully, and brought him the news of a wretched woman—a Roumi whose husband had taken another wife—who had drowned herself and her child in the harbour. If the Lord Romanos had accepted the tale as a convenient ending to the matter, it should have ended there, but he displayed so much grief in thus losing the child as well as the mother that I gave him a little hope. The bodies had not been found, and there was no proof that they were yours and the little lord’s. And that hope, my lady, I have cherished cunningly ever since, bringing my lord news of clue after clue, and investigating them at his command until they have turned out false. I must have sampled the mastika of every wineshop in Therma since I saw you—‘gathering information,’ the police call it.”
“And I suppose my brother is tired of false clues, or you would have visited the wineshops all over again?”
“You don’t think so poorly of me, lady, as to imagine I would let his Highness learn that he had been deceived? No, I could have gone on as long again, as you say. I had even satisfied my lord your father by sending him word that after everything had fallen out exactly according to his wishes, it had been necessary for you to take a situation in the country, to avert suspicion, and I had several new and very fine clues ready to go on with. But we were interrupted. The Lady’s father came to Therma.”
“What! had he heard what had happened?” cried Danaë.
“I know not, my lady, but I think he had made up his mind that the Lord Romanos had had her removed because her presence was become dangerous. I know only that my lord called me, and said, ‘Friend Petraki, I am ruined for ever unless we can find the little lord at once. If I have been a good master to you all these years, stand by me now.’ Could I think any longer of my own advantage then, lady? No, I did not hesitate to renounce my pleasant task of investigation, and naming only the reward I desired, I set forth to follow up the clue that led hither.”
“And what was the reward?” asked Danaë, unmoved by the devotion so pathetically displayed. Again Petros appeared a little confused.
“Why, lady, you must see that I have felt myself in considerable danger these last few months. A man can never be quite certain that he has covered all his tracks. At any moment my lord might discover that I had some connection with the Lady’s removal, and I know him well enough to be sure that, without any chance of telling tales, I should pay the forfeit, though I followed him when he left Strio twenty years ago. My price is a full pardon, therefore, and so I told my lord, confessing that I had killed an old woman in a quarrel. He swore by the All-Holy Mother that if I brought him back his son I might kill every old woman in Therma—provided I did it in decent seclusion—and I started at once.”
Danaë laughed in the darkness. “Every old woman in Therma, do you say, friend Petraki? There is pardon for that, but not for killing one Kyria Olimpia.”
“Lady, it is you who mistake.” Petros spoke slowly and meaningly. “In that deed I had no part, and can invoke without fear the most awful of all curses upon the villains who took part in it. You yourself heard the orders the Despot gave me, that the Lady who was leading his son astray was to be brought alive to Strio, there to be imprisoned where she could do no more harm. Those orders I did my best to fulfil, and I laid no hand on her. It was those with me—strangers whom I hired to help me carry out the Despot’s behest, and who I now think must have been also in the pay of some one whose interest it was to get rid of the Lady—who slew her. That I struck down old Mariora I have confessed—she had often given me the rough side of her tongue, and she was going to raise the alarm, and I was afraid she would call me by name.”