Part 44

"That is my own affair!" she snapped in apparent annoyance. "If you know her, don't trust her. I warn you!" Then she added: "She is a wicked woman."

"And her husband, Jack?"

"Ah! he's an excellent fellow--far too good for her!"

"Why do you entertain such antipathy toward her?" I asked. "Do tell me, because it will make my inquiries so very much easier."

"Inquiries? What inquiries are you making?"

I was silent for a moment, then looking straight into her eyes, I replied very seriously:

"I am making inquiries, Miss Tennison, into what happened to you during those days when you disappeared. I am seeking to bring punishment upon those who are responsible for your present condition."

She shook her head mournfully, and a faint smile played about her lips. But she did not reply.

"Tell me more about Mrs. Cullerton," I went on. "She was in Florence when you were there."

"In Florence!" exclaimed the girl, as though amazed. "What could she be doing there?"

"She was living in a furnished villa with her husband. And she went on several visits to Mr. De Gex who lives up at Fiesole. Are you quite sure you do not know him?" I asked. "He lives at the Villa Clementini. Have you ever been there? Does the Villa Clementini recall anything to you?"

She was thoughtful for a few moments, and then said:

"I seem to have heard of the villa, but in what connexion I do not recollect."

"You are certain you do not know the owner of the villa?" I asked again, and described him once more very minutely.

But alas! her mind seemed a perfect blank.

For what reason had Moroni come to London and taken her with him to Florence? But for the matter of that, what could be the motive of the whole puzzling affair--and further, whose was the body that had been cremated?

The points I had established all combined to form an enigma which now seemed utterly beyond solution.

The pale tragic figure before me held me incensed against those whose victim she had been, for it seemed that for some distinct reason her mental balance had been wantonly destroyed.

Again and again, as she sat with her hands lying idly in her lap, she stared at the carpet and repeated to herself in a horrified voice those strange words: "Red, green and gold!--red, green and gold!"

"Cannot you recollect about those colours?" I asked her kindly. "Try and think about them. Where did you see them?"

She drew a long breath, and turning her tired eyes upon mine, she replied wearily:

"I--I can't remember. I really can't remember anything!"

Sometimes her eyes were fixed straight before her just as I had seen her in the Via Calzajoli in Florence--when I had believed her to be blind. At such times her gaze was vacant, and she seemed to be entirely oblivious to all about her. At others she seemed quite normal, save that she could not recall what had occurred in those days when she was lost to her friends--days when I, too, had been missing and had returned to my senses with my own memory either distorted or blotted out.

Could it be that the same drug, or other diabolical method, had been used upon us both, and that I, the stronger of the two, had recovered, while she still remained in that half demented state?

It certainly seemed so. Hence the more I reflected the more intense became my resolve to fathom the mystery and bring those responsible to justice.

Further, she had been terrified by being told that I intended to come there to kill her! Moroni had purposely told her that, evidently in anticipation that we might meet! He had pointed me out in Florence and warned her that I was her bitterest enemy. Was it therefore any wonder that she would not tell me more than absolutely obliged?

"Do you recollect ever meeting a French gentleman named Monsieur Suzor?" I asked her presently.

Instantly she exchanged glances with the woman Alford.