Fortune had certainly been upon my side that night, otherwise I might have acted in good faith and fallen into some cleverly-baited trap. That the doctor of the Via Cavezzo was a dangerous malefactor was proved by the airy manner in which he had brought to his rich client that little glass tube which I, of course, had not seen, but which he had no doubt put into the hands of his wealthy and unscrupulous host.
The more I reflected as I stood beneath the great oleander, the more puzzled did I become. What was it that De Gex had shown the doctor beneath the pale light of the moon? It was evidently something which greatly surprised Moroni, and yet he had made but little comment concerning it.
But the chief mystery of all was the whereabouts of that poor inert girl Gabrielle Engledue. I waited, eager for the return of the tall, well-set-up man in evening clothes, the man who so much in the public eye was engaged in such a strange career of wickedness and crime.
It seemed incredible that the immensely rich man whose name was so constantly in the papers as a generous patron of the arts, and a pious philanthropist, should be implicated in such devil’s doings as those of which I had already proved him to be the author.
The discordant clanging of that convent-bell again aroused me to a sense of my surroundings. I saw upon the terrace before me several men strolling, smoking cigarettes, and with them their fair partners wrapped in rich cloaks and furs. They had come out after supper to admire the wonderful moonlit scene, for before them rose the snow-tipped mountains in a long serrated range, the high Apennines which divide the Adriatic from the Mediterranean.
Suddenly, almost before I was aware of it, a man and a woman passed close to me. The figure revealed by the cold bright moon was that of De Gex, who had now put on a light coat, while at his side walked a slim, tall young woman wrapped warmly in a rich fur coat. The diamonds in her fair hair gleamed in the moonlight, but unfortunately she had passed into the shadow before I could gain a glimpse of her features.
So that was the intended victim—the woman to whom the dangerous contents of that tiny glass tube was one day, sooner or later, to be administered.
They went forward towards the edge of the placid lake, hence I sprang upon the grass and followed them as noiseless as a cat. Little did the owner of the great Villa Clementini dream that I was lurking in such close vicinity.
They halted beside one of the ancient statues of yellow marble, a heavy-limbed representation of Bacchus crowned with vine leaves, where they admired the fairy-like scene. It was indeed glorious. Beneath the pale moonlight lay the placid lake like a mirror, for no breath stirred from the mountains, and beyond in the mystic light rose the snow-capped peaks far away beyond the chestnut forests of Vallombrosa.
There is a charm in all seasons and at all hours about those ancient villas of Tuscany; those country mansions of the nobles which have seen the tramp of men in armour and in plush, and bear upon them the crumbling escutcheons of races which have been rulers for five centuries, and whose present descendants are perhaps waiters in Paris, London, or New York.