“Not long—I know what that means! And that precious child screaming his little heart out, no doubt. Of course his papa heard him—the darling!—and came and carried him away to the drawing-room, giving him his death of cold, as likely as not. I’ll fetch him back at once; but you mark my words, Kalliopé, I don’t trust you with the nursery again in a hurry.”
In the Wylies’ drawing-room an informal council was being held over the letter Armitage had just received from the Cavaliere Pazzi. Prince and Princess Theophanis had come in, for the news it brought was startling. Armitage translated roughly as he referred to the paper in his hand.
“After all, there’s no doubt that the poor old chap acted wisely, from his own point of view, in going to Professor Panagiotis,” he said. “The Professor seems to have found out more in three days than he did by himself in a month, and things certainly look very black against Prince Romanos. According to the Cavaliere, these are his principal points:—There was no notification of the existence of an infectious disease at the villa, at a time when the Prince declares all its inmates were mortally ill with diphtheria; no doctor was summoned there until the day registered as that of the death of Donna Olimpia and two of her servants; no nurses were seen coming or going, and no medicines or disinfectants appear to have been purchased.”
“But look here,” said Wylie; “let us give the devil his due. This absence of doctors and nurses and so on doesn’t necessarily imply that there was no diphtheria, but it does account for its being so fatal. According to the story in the last letter, there must have been five people ill of it, and no one to nurse them.”
“Except Prince Romanos himself on his daily visits, when he went in and out without apparently taking any precaution against infection. That seems to be proved by the evidence of the sentries,” said Armitage. “The Professor certainly doesn’t do things by halves. Imagine his convicting the Prince out of the mouths of his own soldiers! But, Wylie, don’t you see the Cavaliere’s point? Even if the deaths were really due to diphtheria, and not to violence, the poor creatures were practically murdered by being left without care and medical attendance. They couldn’t get out to ask for help, I suppose they couldn’t even cook for themselves—why, they must have starved to death. It’s worse even than if he had had them killed. Can you conceive the callousness of a man who could see five people—his own wife and child among them—dying by inches day after day, and do nothing to help them?”
“No,” said Zoe decisively, “it is inconceivable. I have no particular kindness for Prince Romanos, but cruelty of that sort would be impossible to him. He is a poet, you must remember. If he had contemplated a crime of the kind, he would never have gone near the place, either then or afterwards.”
“Then we are thrown back on the hypothesis that he had them murdered,” said Armitage, “and what makes it look very likely is that on the very day the deaths took place a number of men in the uniform of the Prince’s guard were seen by the sentry to enter the grounds of the villa. He had been informed that an additional guard was to be placed round the house itself at night, owing to the Prince’s absence from Therma, and seeing these men enter, apparently by means of a key of their own, without knocking for admittance, he thought it was the detachment detailed for that duty. They were there some time, in fact, until after the old woman-servant—mark this; she died of diphtheria that very day, you will remember—had come in from her marketing, and then they marched out again, just before the sentry went off guard. Most unfortunately, the man who relieved him cannot be found. He took his discharge from the army shortly afterwards, and all trace of him has been lost. But it is known that the Prince visited the villa that afternoon, and sent off in hot haste for a doctor. The doctor has also disappeared. He was a foreigner, and having signed the certificate that Donna Olimpia and the two servants died of diphtheria, which was required by the municipal regulations before the bodies could be buried, he returned presumably to his own country—but no one knows.”
Maurice rose from his chair in uncontrollable emotion. “Don’t go any further, Armitage. We have no right to push this inquiry without giving Romanos a chance to defend himself. Certainly it looks like a dastardly murder, but there may possibly be some explanation. We know that the man is a brave soldier, and I can’t believe it of him.”
“Just let me finish,” pleaded Armitage. “If he is innocent, it is most unfortunate that he has made away with another witness whose evidence might have helped to clear him—or at least acquiesced in her disappearance. Don’t you remember the nurse who, according to his revised story, ran away in a fit of delirium and drowned herself in the harbour with the child in her arms? Well, in Pazzi’s last letter, which I read to you, Princess—” to Zoe—“he said that the missing nurse was a Roumi, and rather elderly than not. That description, according to the evidence of eye-witnesses, exactly fits the woman who threw herself into the water—some of them knew her. But now the Cavaliere has unearthed a letter of Donna Olimpia’s in which she speaks of the nurse as a rough handsome girl from Strio.”
The rest looked at each other, and Armitage went on hurriedly—