Lady Larkspur Part 7

"You've seen enough of us perhaps to understand that we enjoy little adventures," said Mrs. Farnsworth. "The man pretends to be interested in Mr. Bashford's art treasures. Antoine's story about the disguise is rather against that; but we will give him the benefit of the doubt. What we are hoping is that something really amusing may come of his persistent pursuit. With you and the army of servants here we feel perfectly safe; so we're for giving him every chance to show his hand."

"He is the Count Giuseppe Montani," said my aunt, "who represents himself as a connoisseur--a lover of the beautiful."

"The mystery is solved! It is easy to understand why he has haunted the place."

"Yes; quite easy. Count Montani is very anxious to see the porcelains."

"I wasn't referring to the pottery; but I shan't press the matter."

"I advise you not to; your remark was highly improper from a nephew to an aunt! I have told you about all I know of this Italian gentleman. I am going to ask a favor. He telephoned from Stamford this afternoon to know whether we had arrived, and I bade him call to-night. I should be glad if you would remain until he leaves. I should like to know what you make of him."

"Certainly," I a.s.sented, pleased that she had taken me into her confidence and deeply curious as to the Italian connoisseur. What she had told so frankly and plausibly did not, however, touch upon the matter of the interest shown by the American State Department in my aunt's arrival at Barton, which troubled me much more than the antics of the Italian who had followed the women across the Pacific.

Count Montani arrived shortly and was received in the drawing-room. The ladies greeted him with the greatest cordiality. As he crossed the room I verified the limp and other points of Antoine's description. His bearing was that of a gentleman; and in his very correct evening dress he hardly looked like a man who would disguise himself and attempt to rob a house. He spoke English all but perfectly and proceeded at once to talk a great deal.

"I was sad when I found I had so narrowly missed you at Seattle, and again at Chicago. You travel far too rapidly for one of my age!"

His age might have been thirty. He was a suave, polished, sophisticated person. Nothing was more natural than that he should pause in his travels to call upon two agreeable women he had met on a Pacific steamer. Possibly he was in love with Alice Bashford; this was not a difficult state of heart and mind for a man to argue himself into. She was even more strikingly beautiful to-night than I had thought her before. She was again in white--it was only in daytime that she wore black--and white was exceedingly becoming to her. As we talked she plied listlessly a fan--a handsome trinket of ostrich plumes. A pretty woman and a fan are the happiest possible combination. There is no severer test of grace than a woman's manner of using a fan. A clumsy woman makes an implement of this plaything, flouris.h.i.+ng it to emphasize her talk, or, what is worse, pointing with it like an instructor before a blackboard. But in graceful hands it is un.o.btrusive, a mere bit of decoration that teases and fascinates the beholder's eye.

With all his poise and equanimity I was distinctly conscious that Montani's dark eyes were intent upon the idly swaying fan. I thought at first it was her hands that interested him as they unfailingly interested me, but when, from time to time, she put down the fan his gaze still followed it. And yet there was nothing novel in the delicate combination of ivory and feathers. I had seen many fans that to all appearances were just like it. Once, as she picked it up and lazily opened it, I saw him bend forward eagerly, then, finding that I had noted his eagerness, he rose, pretending that a bra.s.s screen before the fireplace had caught his eye and asked whether it was not a Florentine production, which shook my faith in his connoisseurs.h.i.+p, as I had bought the thing myself from a New York bra.s.sworker who had made it to my order.

Montani spoke of the porcelains. "Oh, to be sure! They don't show to best advantage in electric light, do they? But I can have a few of the prize pieces taken into the dining-room," said Alice.

Mrs. Farnsworth had excused herself to finish a letter, and from my chair I could see her head bent over the big desk in the library. Alice rang for Antoine, and I followed her into the hall to offer my aid.

"Oh, don't trouble," she said. "Antoine can do anything necessary. Yes; thanks; if you will turn on the dining-room lights."

I was gone hardly half a minute. When I reached the drawing-room door Montani had crossed the room to the table on which Alice had dropped the fan and was examining it closely. He faced the door, and the moment he detected me exclaimed carelessly: "An exquisite little bauble! I am always curious as to the source of such trifles. I was looking for the maker's imprimatur. I know a Parisian who is the leading manufacturer of the world. But it is not his, I see."

As we stood talking of other things he plied the fan carelessly as though for the pleasure of the faint scent it exhaled, and when Alice called us he put it down carefully where he had found it.

He really did seem to know something about ceramics and praised, with lively enthusiasm, the pieces that had been set out on the table. One piece, as to whose authenticity my uncle had entertained serious doubts, Montani unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced genuine and stated very plausible reasons for his opinion.

On the whole, he was an interesting fellow. When he had finished his inspections he lingered for only a few minutes and took his leave, saying that he was spending the night at an inn near Stamford.

"Well," said Alice when the whir of his machine had died away, "what do you think of him?"

"A very agreeable gentleman," I answered. "If he doesn't know porcelains, he fakes his talk admirably."

"And as to fans--" suggested Mrs. Farnsworth.

I had not intended to mention Montani's interest in Alice's fan, and the remark surprised me.

"Oh, I saw it all from the library," laughed Mrs. Farnsworth. "My back was to the door, but I was facing a mirror. The moment you and Alice went into the hall he pounced upon the fan--pounced is the only word that describes it. He concealed his interest in it very neatly when you caught him examining it."

"Fans are harmless things," said Alice, "and if there's any story attached to this one I'm not aware of it. My father bought it in Paris about three years ago, and it has never been out of my possession except to have it repaired. There's a j.a.panese jeweller who does wonderful things in the way of repairing trinkets of every kind. I left it with him for a few days. I can't tell now which panel was broken, he did his work so deftly."

I took it from her and balanced it in my fingers. It was a beautiful piece of workmans.h.i.+p with the simplest carvings on the ivory panels.

"He couldn't have seen it anywhere before to-night," observed Alice musingly. "In fact, I hadn't used it at all for a year. It was really by mistake that my maid put it into my trunk when I went to j.a.pan. I didn't want to risk breaking it again, so I've been carrying it in a hand-bag. The last day we were in Tokyo I think I had it in our sitting-room in the hotel, to make sure it wasn't jammed into the trunk again. We had a good many callers--a number of people came in to bid us good-by, but I'm sure Count Montani was not among them, and it would have been impossible for him to see it at any other time."

"Oh, there is nothing disturbing in the count's interest in the thing,"

said Mrs. Farnsworth with an air of dismissing the matter. "If it were a Jade trinket inscribed with Chinese mysteries, you might imagine that it would be sought by some one--I have heard of such things--but Alice's fan has no such history."

"We weren't very hospitable," said Alice. "I might have asked Count Montani to dine with us to-morrow; and we might even have put him up for the night in this vast house."

"Not with Antoine on the premises!" I exclaimed. "Antoine is convinced that the man is what we call in America a crook. And Antoine takes his responsibilities very seriously."

While I was breakfasting at the garage the next morning Antoine appeared and, waiting until Flynn was out of hearing, handed me a slip of paper.

"That's a New York automobile number," he said. "It was on the tag of that machine the party came in last night. I heard him saying, sir, as how he had motored up from the Elkton Inn at Stamford. Visitors from Stamford would hardly send in to the city for a machine."

I bade him wait while I called the Elkton by telephone. No such person as Giuseppe Montani had spent the night there or had been a guest of the house within the memory of the clerk. Antoine's chest swelled at this confirmation of his suspicions.

"If the man returns, treat him as you did last night--as though he were ent.i.tled to the highest consideration."

"He won't come back--not the same way," said Antoine. "He mentioned the Elkton just to throw you off. The next you hear of him will be quite different."

"You mean he'll come as a burglar?"

"That's what's in my mind, Mr. Singleton. Everything seems very queer, sir."

"Such as what, Antoine?"

"The widow has been telegraphing and telephoning considerable, sir."

"There must be no spying upon these ladies!" I admonished severely. "All the people on the place must remember that Mrs. Bashford is mistress here, and ent.i.tled to fullest respect."

He had hardly gone before Torrence had me on the wire to hear my report and to say that Raynor had left Was.h.i.+ngton for a weekend in Virginia.

"That lets us out for a few days, but I'll have to report that Mrs.

Bashford is at Barton the moment I learn that he is back in Was.h.i.+ngton."

I a.s.sured him that nothing had occurred to encourage a suspicion that Mrs. Bashford was not all that she pretended to be. The day was marked by unusual activities on the part of the waiters and bell-hops. Instead of the company drills to which I had become accustomed they moved about in pairs along the sh.o.r.e and the lines of the fences. I learned that Antoine had ordered this, and the "troops" were obeying him with the utmost seriousness. The "service" on the estate was certainly abundant.

It was only necessary to whistle and one of the Tyringham veterans would come running.

In spite of the complete satisfaction I had expressed to Torrence as to the perfect integrity and honest intentions of the two women, the curiosity of the American State Department and the visit of Montani required elucidation beyond my powers. At dinner they were in the merriest humor. The performances of the little army throughout the day had amused them greatly.

"How delightfully feudal!" exclaimed Alice. "Really we should have a moat and drawbridge to make the thing perfect. Constance and I are the best protected women in the world!"

We extracted all the fun possible from the idea that the estate was under siege; that Alice was the chatelaine of a beleaguered castle, and that before help could reach us we were in danger of being starved out by the enemy. They called into play the poetry which had so roused Antoine's apprehensions, and their talk bristled with quotations. Alice rose after the salad and repeated at least a page of Malory, and the Knights of the Round Table having thus been introduced, Mrs. Farnsworth recited several sonorous pa.s.sages from "The Idyls of the King." They flung lines from Browning's "In a Balcony" at each other as though they were improvising. The befuddlement of Antoine and the waiter who a.s.sisted him added to the general joy. They undoubtedly thought the two women quite out of their heads, and it was plain that I suffered greatly in Antoine's estimation by my encouragement of this frivolity. Mrs.

Farnsworth walked majestically round the table and addressed to me the lines from Macbeth beginning:

"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised,"

while Antoine clung to the sideboard listening with mouth open and eyes rolling.

Later, in the living-room, Alice sang some old ballads. She was more adorable than ever at the piano. It was a happiness beyond any in my experience of women to watch her, to note the play of light upon her golden head, to yield to the spell of her voice. Ballads had never been sung before with the charm and feeling she put into them; and after ending with "Douglas, Douglas," she responded to my importunity with "Ben Bolt," and then dashed into a sparkling thing of Chopin's, played it brilliantly and rose, laughingly mocking my applause.