Part 43

Would the enigma ever be solved?

As she stood in her mother's cosy little drawing-room Gabrielle Tennison presented a strangely tragic figure. In the grey London light she was very beautiful it was true, but upon her pale countenance was that terribly vacant look which was the index of her overwrought brain. Her memory had been swept away by some unknown horror--so the doctors had declared. And yet she seemed to remember distinctly what Doctor Moroni had alleged against me in Florence!

Therefore I questioned her further concerning the Italian, and found that she recollected quite a lot about him.

"He has been very kind to you--has he not?" I asked.

"Yes. He is an exceedingly kind friend. He took me to see several doctors in Florence and Rome. All of them said I had lost my memory," and she smiled sweetly.

"And haven't you lost your memory?"

"A little--perhaps--but not much."

Here Mrs. Alford interrupted.

"But you don't recollect what happened to you when you were away, until you were found wandering near Petersfield. Tell us, dear."

"No--no, not exactly," the girl answered. "All I recollect is that it was all red, green and gold--oh! such bright dazzling colours--red, green and gold! At first they were glorious--until--until sight of them blinded me--they seemed to burn into my brain--eh!" And she drew back and placed her right arm across her eyes as though to shut out from her gaze something that appalled her. "There they are!" she shrieked. "I see them again--always the same, day and night--red, green and gold!--red, green and gold!"

I exchanged glances with the woman Alford. It was apparent that the shock the girl had sustained had been somehow connected with the colours red, green and gold.

I tried to obtain from her some faint idea of the nature of what she had witnessed, but she was quite unable to explain. That she had fallen victim to some deep-laid plot was evident.

She remembered much of her visit to Florence, I found, for when I recalled the great Duomo, where I had first seen her with Moroni, she became quite talkative and told me how much she admired the magnificent monuments--the Battistero, the Bigallo, Giotto's campanile and the magnificent pictures in the Pitti and Uffizi.

Moroni had apparently also taken her to Rome, presumably to consult another Italian professor, for she spoke vaguely of the Corso and St. Peter's and described the Forum in such a manner that she must have visited it.

While I sat chatting with her it struck me that in the blank state of her mind certain things stood out very prominently--a mental state well known to alienists--while others were entirely blotted out.

I referred to the millionaire who lived in Stretton Street, but again she declared, and with truth, that she had no recollection of him.

"Perhaps, Miss Tennison, you knew him under some other name," I said, and then proceeded to describe minutely the handsome, rather foreign-looking man who had bribed me to give that certificate of death.

"Have you an uncle?" I asked presently, recollecting that the man at Stretton Street had declared the victim to be his niece.

"I have an uncle--my mother's brother--he lives in Liverpool."

Again I fell to wondering whether the beautiful girl before me was actually the same person whose death I had certified to be due to heart disease, and who, according to the official records, had been cremated. She was very like--and yet? Well, the whole affair was a problem which each hour became more inscrutable.

Still the fact remained that Gabrielle Tennison had disappeared suddenly on November the seventh, the night I had met with my amazing adventure.

In reply to my further questions, as she sat staring blankly into my face with those great dark eyes of hers, I at last gathered that Doctor Moroni, hearing of her case from a specialist in Harley Street, to whom she had been taken by the police-surgeon, had called upon her mother, and had had a long interview with her. Afterwards he had called daily, and later Mrs. Tennison had allowed him to take her daughter to Florence to consult another specialist at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.

"I think you know a Mrs. Cullerton," I remarked at last.

The effect of my words upon her was almost electrical.

"Dolly Cullerton!" she shrieked. "Ah! Don't mention that woman's name! Please do not mention her!"

"I believed that she was a friend of yours," I said, much surprised.

"Friend? No, enemy--a bitter enemy!"

"Then you have quarrelled? She was once your friend--eh? Over what have you quarrelled?"