A Queen's Error Part 25

"I will grant your two favours immediately," he answered quickly as he put the casket in his breast pocket and b.u.t.toned his frock-coat over it; "see one is already done, now I will accomplish the other."

He went to the end of the apartment, and lifting a curtain hanging over the base of a bookcase, took from a shelf there a silver bowl, filled apparently with bread and milk.

With this he went out on to the terrace, through the French windows, and commenced to make a peculiar sibilant noise between his teeth, half whistle half hiss.

It had a most peculiar effect upon the boa-constrictor, who, from the first production of the silver bowl, had shown a lively interest in it by moving its great head up and down excitedly. The noise made by Don Juan, however, decided it; it began to uncoil itself from the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin and finally dropped on the floor with a "slump" and wriggled out of the window on to the terrace. As the man was released, I covered him with the revolver as I was taking no risks, but it was quite unnecessary, as he fell fainting on a couch to which he had staggered almost immediately he was free.

Don Juan returned from the terrace with a pleased smile.

"My pets are a great source of comfort to me," he remarked as he sank into a chair, after courteously making me take another. "To see that poor dumb thing take its food so healthily compensates me almost for the shock which this villainous fellow has given us."

"Snakes," he continued, "are greatly affected by sound, as no doubt you noticed just now. There is little question that the snake was attracted to Lopes by some sound."

"But still," he continued, placing his hand in his breast, "the sight of the casket which you have brought to me is a greater shock than the desperado's pistol presented at your head was to you."

He pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead as if the idea bewildered him.

"And you say you got it from the Baroness d'Altenberg?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered, "I took it from the safe at her direction."

"Whatever can it contain?" he muttered to himself; then the figure of Lopes lying on the sofa caught his eye.

"We must have this fellow removed," he said. "What shall we do with him?"

I looked at the rec.u.mbent figure for some time, and it only inspired me with pity.

"I think he ought to be sent somewhere," I proposed, "where he would be taken care of and prevented from doing further mischief. Have you a hospital in Valoro?"

The old gentleman looked at me in some surprise.

"I a.s.sure you," he answered, "that we have two, as fine as any in Europe."

"Then," I said, "if I may make the suggestion, I would have Lopes sent off to one."

Don Juan rang the bell immediately, and when a servant answered it, he indicated the man on the couch and gave some order in Spanish to him.

"They will take him away," he explained, "and send him down to the hospital in one of my carriages. There we can have him arrested later if it is worth while."

In a very short time two men appeared and carried Lopes out of the room.

Then we sat down facing one another, and Don Juan produced the casket from his pocket and stood contemplating it upon his knee.

"Whatever could have prompted the old Baroness d'Altenberg to send me this," he cogitated half to himself, "after so many years; and what can it contain?"

I made a suggestion.

"Supposing you open it," I said, "while I walk in the garden."

"My dear Mr. Anstruther," he said, quite frightened at giving me so much trouble, "that is not at all necessary. I can go into my little cabinet here."

He indicated a small room, the door of which stood partly open, and revealed a little study with a writing table and a reading lamp.

"If you will excuse me for five minutes," he added, "I will retire into that little room and open the casket!"

"But have you the keys?" I asked.

He nodded with a smile.

"Oh yes," he answered, "those three little locks and the secret of opening them are very familiar to me, but I have not seen it for a great many years."

I did not in the least understand what he was alluding to, but I, of course, urged him to retire into his little room and examine the contents of the casket in peace, while I amused myself in the study itself.

"You will find some marvellous stuffed specimens of the green lizard in those lower cases," he remarked, as he disappeared into his sanctum.

"I should advise you to study them closely."

He had no sooner disappeared into the little room, the door of which he left slightly open, when I mentally consigned the green lizards and, in fact, the whole lacertilian family to a place warmer than the plains of Aquazilia in summer even, and sat idly wondering how long it would be before I saw Dolores again.

I distinctly heard the click of a lock as the old gentleman opened the ebony casket, there was a pause and a long silence broken only by the crackling of paper. Then I heard him give a cry of astonishment, and a Spanish exclamation it was--"Madre de Dios!"

An invocation only used on occasions of great excitement.

Then I heard a low muttering as he repeated certain pa.s.sages, possibly of the letter, to himself, but it was in a foreign language, probably Spanish, and entirely unintelligible to me.

Another pause followed, then the door opened again and Don Juan re-entered the room, but his appearance had entirely changed.

His healthy sunburnt complexion had lost all its colour and was of a leaden hue, his eyes were starting from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and his right hand, as he laid it on the back of a chair, trembled like a leaf in the wind.

"Mr. Anstruther," he said with difficulty, "it will be necessary for me to leave for Europe as soon as possible, for England, for Bath!"

If he had said that he had just made up his mind to go to the moon I could not have been more astonished!

"To England!" I repeated.

"Yes, to England, and that as soon as possible."

The whole thing seemed to me extremely curious.

"Forgive my asking the question," I said, "but do you mind telling me why you want to visit Bath?"

He considered for some moments, pa.s.sing his hand across his forehead, which was clammy with perspiration.

"Before I answer that question," he said at last, "I should like to ask you another.

"I understand that you have met the lady who entrusted you with the casket which you have given me, at a certain house in a street called Monmouth Street in the town of Bath?"

"Yes, that is so," I answered.

"Are you aware that there was a safe in that house. A steel safe of peculiar workmanship?"