Punctually at three o’clock next afternoon the buxom Italian maid in dainty apron, ushered me into Mrs. Cullerton’s charming salone. From the long windows a magnificent view spread away across the green valley of the Ema to the great monastery of the Certosa, a huge mediæval pile which resembled a mediæval fortress standing boldly against the background of the rolling Apennines.
Scarcely had I stood there a moment when my blue-eyed young hostess, in a becoming black-and-cherry frock, entered, and greeting me, closed the door.
“Well, Mr. Garfield? It’s really awfully good of you to trouble to come out to see me. I’m all excitement to know what you have to tell me about Mr. De Gex. He’s gone yachting—as you perhaps know. Do sit down.”
As I did so she passed me the cigarettes, and took one herself. Then, when I had held the match for her and had lit my own, I said:
“Well, Mrs. Cullerton, I really don’t know how to commence. Somehow, I felt it my duty to come here to see you. I must admit that I have been manœuvring for several days in order to get an introduction to you, and to obtain an opportunity of seeing you alone. And yet——”
“Yes. I quite see that. I thought by your attitude in the Via Tornabuoni that you seemed very anxious to know me,” and her lips relaxed into a pretty smile.
“That is so. In order to—well, to warn you,” I said very seriously.
“Warn me!—of what, pray?”
I hesitated. To be perfectly frank with her was, I saw, quite impossible. She might hear all I said and then inform De Gex. She was his friend. Or perhaps she would dismiss me and my story as pure invention. Hence I resolved to preserve my own secret concerning the Stretton Street Affair.