than Berati.”
“Nevertheless,” she rejoined, “he is on the point of making a hideous blunder. If you had known as much as I do, you would have stepped back and let me kill him.”
“I am not in favour of murder as an argument,” Fawley objected.
“You think too much of human life, you Americans,” she scoffed.
“In any case, Berati has done a great deal for Italy,” he reminded her.
“There are some who think otherwise,” she answered.
She listened for another moment, then she moved to the door and turned the key. She swung around and faced Fawley. The anger had all gone. Her eyes had softened. There was a note almost of pleading in her tone.
“There shall be no more melodrama,” she promised. “I want what you picked up of mine. It is necessary that I go back to the reception of the Principessa.”
“I am not detaining you,” Fawley ventured to remind her hopefully.
“Do you suggest then,” she asked, with a faint uplifting of her delicate eyebrows, “that I make my appearance in that crowded room with but one shoe on?”
“This being apparently your bedchamber,” Fawley replied, looking around, “it occurs to me as possible that you might find another pair.”
“Nothing that would go with the peculiar shade of my frock and these stockings,” she assured him, lifting her skirt a few inches and showing him her exquisitely sheened ankles.
Fawley sighed.
“Alas,” he regretted, “an hour ago I was a free man. You could have had your slipper with pleasure. At this moment I am under a commitment to Berati. His interests and his safety—if he is still alive—must be my first consideration.”
“Do you think that after all I hit him?” she asked eagerly.
“I fear that it is quite possible. All I know is that he was seated in his chair one moment, you fired, and when I had looked around the chair was empty.”
She smiled doubtfully.
“He is very hard to kill.”
“And it appears to me that you are a very inexperienced assassin!”
“That,” she confided, “is because I never wanted to kill a man before. Please give me my slipper.”
He shook his head.
“If Berati is alive,” he warned her, “it will be my duty to hand it over to him and to describe you according to the best of my ability.”
“And if he is dead?”
“If he is dead, my contract with him is finished and I shall leave Rome within an hour. You, at any rate, would be safe.”
“How shall you describe me if you have to?” she asked, with a bewildering smile.
Insouciance was a quality which Fawley, in common with most people, always admired in criminals and beautiful women. He tried his best with a clumsier tongue to follow her lead.
“Signorina,” he said, “or Mademoiselle—heaven help me if I can make up my mind as to your nationality—I am afraid that my description would be of very little real utility because I cannot imagine myself inventing phrases to describe you adequately.”
“That is quite good,” she approved, “for a man in conference with a would-be murderess. But after all I must look like something or other.”
“I will turn myself into a police proclamation,” he announced. “You have unusual eyes which are more normal now but which a few minutes ago were shooting lightnings of hate at me. They are a very beautiful colour—a kind of hazel, I suppose. You have an Italian skin, the ivory pallor of perfect health which belongs only to your country-people. Your hair I should rather like to feel but it looks like silk and it reminds one of dull gold. You have the figure of a child but it is obvious that you have the tongue, the brain, the experience of a woman who has seen something of life…With that description published, would you dare to walk the streets of Rome to-morrow?”
“A proud woman but, alas, I fear in perfect safety,” she sighed. “Too many people have failed with Berati and you distracted my attention. I saw his still, terrible face but when I looked and hoped for that transforming cloud of horror, I saw only you. You frightened me and I fled.”
Fawley moved slightly towards the door.
“It is plainly my duty,” he said, “to find out whether Berati is alive or dead.”
“I agree with you.”
“And when I have discovered?”
“Listen,” she begged, moving a little nearer towards him. “There is a tiny café in a fashionable but not too reputable corner of Rome in the arcade leading from the Plaza Vittoria. Its name is the Café of the Shining Star. You will find me there at ten o’clock. May I have my shoe so that I can make a dignified departure?”
Fawley shook his head. He pointed to an antique Italian armoire which looked as if it might be used as a boot cupboard.
“You can help yourself, Signorina. The slipper I have in my pocket I keep until I know whether Berati is alive or dead.”
“You keep it as evidence—yes? You would hand me over as the assassin? As though any one would believe your story!”
“All the same,” Fawley reminded her, “for the moment Berati is my master.”
He turned the handle of the door. She kissed the tips of her fingers to him lightly.
“I can see,” she sighed, “that you are one of those who do not change their minds. All the same, I warn you there is danger in what you are doing.”
“A slipper,” Fawley protested, “a delicate satin slipper with a slightly raised inner sole could never bring me ill luck.”
She shook her head and there was no ghost of a smile upon her lips just then.
“Medici buckles,” she confided. “They are very nearly priceless. Men and women in the old days paid with their lives for what you are doing.”
Fawley smiled.
“You shall have the buckle back,” he promised. “For the rest, I will use my penknife carefully.”
CHAPTER IV
Once more Fawley entered Berati’s palatial bureau with a certain trepidation. His heart sank still further after his first glance towards the desk. The chair behind it was occupied by Prince Patoni.
“What about the Chief?” Fawley asked eagerly. “Was he hurt?”
The young man remained silent for a moment, his jet-black eyes fixed upon his visitor’s, his fingers toying with the watch-chain which was suspended from a high button of his waistcoat. He seemed, in his ravenlike black clothes, with his hooked nose, his thin aristocratic face and bloodless lips, like some bird of prey.
“Our Chief,” he announced calmly, “is unhurt. A modern assassin seldom succeeds in checking a really great career. He has left a message for you. Will you be pleased to receive it.”
Fawley drew a sigh of relief. Life seemed suddenly to become less complicated.
“Let me hear what it is, if you please,” he begged.
“The Chief has been summoned to his wife’s, the Principessa’s, reception at the palazzo. Some royalties, I believe, have made their appearance.