The pleasures of Paris continue through the day and night. London is almost a silent city at night, except for the traffic of Fleet Street, the Post Office, and the Markets. Paris is the pleasure city of the world, and it does not attract notice that people should be wandering about in the small hours of the morning. There are not many dark hours in a June night in Paris. The Avenue of the Champs Elysées is wide, and well lit. On the night of the contemplated burglary there seemed to be more than the usual number of people about, and the four persons who sauntered up and down, awaiting opportunity, were kept on the tenterhooks of expectancy rather longer than they had expected. At length there was a lull in the traffic, and Raife entered the basement and prepared a scaling ladder that was to take him to the window immediately over the great front door of the mansion. It was a corner house, and Raife’s objective point could only be reached by means of a gutter-pipe which would lead him to a second window around the corner. It was a dangerous undertaking and called for all those qualities that Doctor Malsano had flatteringly endowed Raife with. Hand over hand he crept, swaying to and fro from the insecure and creaking pipe, which threatened to give way under the weight of twelve stone of lithe and living humanity. As he progressed bit by bit, foot by foot, his mind reverted to Gilda’s dexterous descent by the silk rope from the library at Aldborough Park into the shadow of the rhododendron bushes. Beneath him were spiked railings and stone pavement. The thought of Gilda, at that moment, unsteadied his nerve, and his grip of the pipe, loosened. He glanced round, and, across the road, he descried Gilda, with hands clasped and a look of terror which was plain to him under the flickering light, in spite of the disguise she wore. Almost at his feet were Malsano and Denoir, and the expression on their upturned faces was even more manifest. It was malevolent, a cynical sneer. With a final effort Raife reached the window and lowered himself to the balcony outside. By a well considered arrangement the window yielded easily. The bolt slid aside and he entered.
This, then, was the situation. The owner of Aldborough Park and 20,000 pounds a year, had entered the mansion in the Avenue des Champs Elysées, in the dead of night as a common burglar, impelled by the fascination of a woman who exercised a mysterious: and baneful influence over his career.
Always in the background was the malevolent figure of Doctor Malsano, that evil-omened person, who thrived on villainy and lived on crime.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
The Origin of the Vendetta.
There are few institutions or customs more difficult for the Anglo-Saxon to understand than the vendetta, or blood feud. Southern blood and gipsy blood are hot, fierce, and passionate to an extent inconceivable to those of the north. The “dour” Scotchman may be vindictive, but he is not guilty of the vendetta, which pursues its revenge for an injury or insult through the generations, until one or other of the parties has completed the vengeance. The cause of the vendetta is frequently slight, and it is safe to assert that women are frequently the prime cause of the “blood feud.”
That Raife Remington should have been pursued by the malevolent Malsano on account of an indiscretion of his father in his youthful days, would seem incredible to the northerner living in these enlightened days.
By an extraordinary coincidence, the causes that led to the series of calamities that destroyed the career of the handsome and otherwise brilliant young baronet, dated from a visit paid by his father to Egypt, the land of antiquity and mystery.