Ulrica suggested at breakfast next morning that some of us should run up to Florence on a flying visit, it being only sixty miles distant, while somebody else urged the formation of a party to go and see the famed leaning tower at Pisa. For my part, however, I had resolved that I would go wherever my host went. Several times that morning I passed and repassed the deck-cabin, but those green silk blinds were closely drawn across the brass-bound port-holes, and the door was carefully locked.
What a terrible mystery was contained therein! If only my fellow-guests were aware that on board the vessel was the body of an unknown woman who had been foully and brutally murdered! And yet a distinct suspicion had now seized me that the Customs officers, having searched and found nothing, the body must have been secretly disposed of. Perhaps it had been weighted and sunk during the silent watches of the night.
Yet, if this had actually been done, what possible reason was there to destroy the yacht and sacrifice the lives of those on board? I had thought it all over very carefully in the privacy of my own small cabin, where the morning sunshine, dancing upon the water lying just below my port-hole, cast tremulous reflections upon the roof of the cosy little chamber. No solution of the problem, however, presented itself. I was utterly bewildered. A thousand times I was tempted to confide in Ulrica, yet on reflection I saw how giddy she was, and feared that she might blurt it out to one or other of her friends. She was sadly indiscreet where secrets were concerned.
About ten o'clock I found the old millionaire lolling back in a deck-chair, enjoying his morning cigar according to habit, and in order to watch him, I sank into another chair close to his. The Vispera was lying within the semi-circular mole; and so, while protected from the sudden gales for which that coast is so noted, there was, nevertheless, presented from her deck a magnificent panorama of the sun-blanched town and the range of dark mountains beyond.
"The young Countess Bonelli, who was at school with me, has invited us all to her villa at Ardenza," I said, as I seated myself. "You will accompany us this afternoon, won't you, Mr. Keppel?"
"Ardenza? Where's that?" he inquired.
"The white village there, along the coast," I answered, pointing it out to him. "I sent a message to the Countess last night, and half an hour ago I received a most pressing invitation for all of us to drive out to her villa to tea. You'll come? We shall accept no excuses," I added.
"Ah, Miss Rosselli," he grunted, "I'm getting old and crochety; and to tell you the plain truth, I hate tea-parties."
"But you men won't drink tea, of course," I said. "The Countess is most hospitable. She's one of the best known of the younger hostesses in Florence. You probably know the Bonelli Palace in the Via Montebello. They always spend the spring and autumn at their villa at Ardenza."
And so I pressed the old man until he could not refuse. I watched him very narrowly during our conversation, and became more than ever convinced that his increased anxiety and fidgety behaviour were due to the pricks of conscience. More than once I felt sorely tempted to speak straight out, and demand of him who and where was the woman who had been concealed in that gilded deck-house?