DANAË sank upon the floor by the empty cot, literally unable to stand. Wildly she sought for an explanation of Harold’s disappearance. Had Petros carried him off in revenge, believing she had deceived him, or had Harold, and not Janni, been his real object all along? But what good could the possession of Harold do him, unless he meant to take him to Therma and pass him off as Janni? Prince Romanos was not likely to jeopardise his own safety by proclaiming the substitution, even if he realised it, and to his father-in-law one child was as good as the other. That must be it. Somehow or other she had missed Petros in the darkness, and he had made his way in and seized Harold, possibly believing him to be Janni. But here was Janni, sleeping peacefully, and Harold would be carried off to Magnagrecia, where his parents would never find him. For—and Danaë saw it clearly—if she gave the alarm and accused Petros, matters could not stop there. The whole story must come out, for Petros in his anger would unmask her as he had threatened to do. And in the few moments of relief she had enjoyed after the blissful discovery that he was not waiting for her, her present home and all its ease and comfort and safety had become doubly dear. No, she could not now renounce it by her own act. She would do all she could to help in recovering Harold, short of telling what had actually happened, and if the worst came to the worst she could always confess Janni’s true parentage, and leave her employers to take what steps they thought best.
“Why, Kalliopé, whatever in the world are you doing on the floor?” demanded Linton’s hushed voice. “My lady couldn’t keep me with her to-night, because of letters just come from Therma, so I just popped down to the kitchen to see what Artemisia was going to send us up for supper, and to ask about her son that was ill. But get up, girl, do! What’s the matter?”
Danaë’s eyes met hers in the dimness like those of a hunted creature. “The Lord Harold is not here,” she murmured.
“Not here? Who’s taken him?”
“I don’t know. I—I found him gone.”
“You found him gone? Why, you bad girl, you don’t mean to say you left those blessed children alone, and me just turning my back for a minute?”
“Some one called out to me that my uncle was here and wanted to speak to me, and I ran down to see, but there was no one there. I was not gone long.”
“Not long—I know what that means! And that precious child screaming his little heart out, no doubt. Of course his papa heard him—the darling!—and came and carried him away to the drawing-room, giving him his death of cold, as likely as not. I’ll fetch him back at once; but you mark my words, Kalliopé, I don’t trust you with the nursery again in a hurry.”
In the Wylies’ drawing-room an informal council was being held over the letter Armitage had just received from the Cavaliere Pazzi. Prince and Princess Theophanis had come in, for the news it brought was startling. Armitage translated roughly as he referred to the paper in his hand.
“After all, there’s no doubt that the poor old chap acted wisely, from his own point of view, in going to Professor Panagiotis,” he said. “The Professor seems to have found out more in three days than he did by himself in a month, and things certainly look very black against Prince Romanos. According to the Cavaliere, these are his principal points:—There was no notification of the existence of an infectious disease at the villa, at a time when the Prince declares all its inmates were mortally ill with diphtheria; no doctor was summoned there until the day registered as that of the death of Donna Olimpia and two of her servants; no nurses were seen coming or going, and no medicines or disinfectants appear to have been purchased.”
“But look here,” said Wylie; “let us give the devil his due. This absence of doctors and nurses and so on doesn’t necessarily imply that there was no diphtheria, but it does account for its being so fatal. According to the story in the last letter, there must have been five people ill of it, and no one to nurse them.”
“Except Prince Romanos himself on his daily visits, when he went in and out without apparently taking any precaution against infection. That seems to be proved by the evidence of the sentries,” said Armitage. “The Professor certainly doesn’t do things by halves. Imagine his convicting the Prince out of the mouths of his own soldiers! But, Wylie, don’t you see the Cavaliere’s point? Even if the deaths were really due to diphtheria, and not to violence, the poor creatures were practically murdered by being left without care and medical attendance. They couldn’t get out to ask for help, I suppose they couldn’t even cook for themselves—why, they must have starved to death. It’s worse even than if he had had them killed. Can you conceive the callousness of a man who could see five people—his own wife and child among them—dying by inches day after day, and do nothing to help them?”
“No,” said Zoe decisively, “it is inconceivable. I have no particular kindness for Prince Romanos, but cruelty of that sort would be impossible to him. He is a poet, you must remember. If he had contemplated a crime of the kind, he would never have gone near the place, either then or afterwards.”
“Then we are thrown back on the hypothesis that he had them murdered,” said Armitage, “and what makes it look very likely is that on the very day the deaths took place a number of men in the uniform of the Prince’s guard were seen by the sentry to enter the grounds of the villa. He had been informed that an additional guard was to be placed round the house itself at night, owing to the Prince’s absence from Therma, and seeing these men enter, apparently by means of a key of their own, without knocking for admittance, he thought it was the detachment detailed for that duty. They were there some time, in fact, until after the old woman-servant—mark this; she died of diphtheria that very day, you will remember—had come in from her marketing, and then they marched out again, just before the sentry went off guard. Most unfortunately, the man who relieved him cannot be found. He took his discharge from the army shortly afterwards, and all trace of him has been lost. But it is known that the Prince visited the villa that afternoon, and sent off in hot haste for a doctor. The doctor has also disappeared. He was a foreigner, and having signed the certificate that Donna Olimpia and the two servants died of diphtheria, which was required by the municipal regulations before the bodies could be buried, he returned presumably to his own country—but no one knows.”
Maurice rose from his chair in uncontrollable emotion. “Don’t go any further, Armitage. We have no right to push this inquiry without giving Romanos a chance to defend himself. Certainly it looks like a dastardly murder, but there may possibly be some explanation. We know that the man is a brave soldier, and I can’t believe it of him.”
“Just let me finish,” pleaded Armitage. “If he is innocent, it is most unfortunate that he has made away with another witness whose evidence might have helped to clear him—or at least acquiesced in her disappearance. Don’t you remember the nurse who, according to his revised story, ran away in a fit of delirium and drowned herself in the harbour with the child in her arms? Well, in Pazzi’s last letter, which I read to you, Princess—” to Zoe—“he said that the missing nurse was a Roumi, and rather elderly than not. That description, according to the evidence of eye-witnesses, exactly fits the woman who threw herself into the water—some of them knew her. But now the Cavaliere has unearthed a letter of Donna Olimpia’s in which she speaks of the nurse as a rough handsome girl from Strio.”
The rest looked at each other, and Armitage went on hurriedly—
“Her name was Eurynomé Andropoulos, and she was the niece of the Prince’s servant Petros. Donna Olimpia wrote that she had always disliked Petros, and would not have had a relation of his in the house, but her husband had a fancy for the child to be brought up on the Striote nursery tales and songs.”
“How long ago exactly did Donna Olimpia die?” asked Maurice.
“Janni calls Kalliopé Nono,” murmured Zoe.
“She told us that Petros would say he was her uncle, but he denied it as earnestly as she did,” said Wylie.
“Then that child is a descendant of John Theophanis, after all!” said Eirene. “But his mother—his mother was a schismatic! There is no need to fear him.”
“Fear him—a baby like that!” said Maurice, with a mingling of scorn and affection in his tone. “My dear Eirene, would you propose to turn the poor little chap out in the cold, if we had reason to fear him, as you call it?”
“We ought to be thankful that we have been able to save anyone from such a wholesale murder,” said Zoe.
“Wait!” said Wylie suddenly. “Please remember, all of you, that we know nothing yet for certain. We do know enough of this girl—Kalliopé or Eurynomé or whatever else she may call herself—to be sure that if we have her in and cross-question her she will deny everything without a qualm, and probably seize the first opportunity of taking the baby and running away somewhere else. She may be in the pay of Romanos—paid to keep out of the way until the story of Donna Olimpia has died down—or she may have been merely mad with fright when she told us her rigmarole of contradictory stories at first. Or—she may even not be the girl we are thinking of at all. At any rate, we have her here safe, and the child too. I should advise very strongly that we say nothing whatever to her at present, but that we get old Pazzi up from Therma, and spring the thing upon her in his presence. I doubt if we shall get the truth from her even then, but there’s just a chance of it.”
“Then I think Romanos should be asked to come as well,” said Maurice, “and perhaps Panagiotis too. There is so much at stake that we ought——”
“Please, ma’am, may I have Master Harold?” Linton’s voice, reproving at first, became insensibly frightened as she looked round the room and failed to see her charge anywhere.
“Master Harold, Linton? Why, you told me yourself he was in bed an hour ago!” cried Zoe.
“And so he was, ma’am, but I made sure Master had heard him crying and brought him down here. If I’ve said so to myself once as I come down from the nursery, I’ve said it on every stair. And where is the precious lamb if he isn’t here, may I ask, ma’am?”
“Why, in bed, of course,” said Wylie, while Zoe, with a scared face, ran out of the room.
“No, sir, that he isn’t, begging your pardon, and if any of you gentlemen are playing a joke on me, I take the liberty to say it’s not what I should have expected of you. Oh, do tell me where my little lamb is, anybody that knows!”
“We don’t know, Linton, any more than you do,” said Maurice kindly, “but we will come upstairs and help you look for him. I suppose the little rascal might have crept out of bed and be hiding somewhere, or even have walked in his sleep?”
“How could he, sir, and me fastening him safe into his crib before I left him? But if you can find him I’ll take him back thankful, and no questions asked.”
It was clear that Linton still believed herself and Harold to be the victims of a practical joke, as she toiled up after the rest to the nursery, where Zoe had Danaë in a corner, and was questioning her fiercely.
“You think some one must have come up while you were away? Graham! Maurice! she says she went down into the courtyard to speak to her uncle, and when she came back Harold was gone.”
“How long ago was this?” asked Maurice.
“Excuse me one moment,” said Wylie. “Armitage, will you go to the sergeant in the gatehouse—he speaks Greek—and tell him to go the round of the Konak and see that no one, man, woman, or child, is allowed to leave? After that he is to parade his men ready for duty. Linton, go into all the rooms on this floor, and see whether the child is hidden anywhere, and call out to Parisi and Markos to do the same downstairs. Now, Kalliopé!”
“Lord, I know nothing,” moaned the girl.
“That we shall see. You were left in charge of the nursery. What made you leave it?”
“Some one called to me from the courtyard that my uncle was there, lord.”
“Who was it? Who called?”
“Lord, I cannot tell. One of the men, I think.” She durst not mention Logofet, lest he should be questioned, for he knew too much.
“Who did he say was there—your uncle Petros?”
“I—I suppose so, lord.”
“Why? Had you any reason to think he was in the neighbourhood?”
“I thought I saw him one day, lord—in the street.”
“Did you speak to him then?”
“No, lord. I was frightened.” Falsehood came as easily as ever to Danaë now that she had deliberately returned to it.
“Why were you frightened?”
“Lest he should have come to fetch us away, lord.”
“Did you think he had come to steal the Lord Harold?”
“No, lord, there was no reason why he should. That is what I cannot understand. If it had been my own little lord——”
“Then you do think Petros has taken him? Why?”
“Lord, I do not know, except that he is an evil man.”
“Well, you went down to look for your uncle. Did you find him?”
“No, lord; there was no one there.”
“Where did you look for him?”
“In the great courtyard, lord.” Princess Theophanis was looking at her, and Danaë knew at once that she had been seen as she crouched in the darkness on the stairs. She held her breath and waited for the words of denunciation, but they did not come. Wylie was speaking again.
“Did you come up again at once when you did not find him?”
“I stayed and sought him a little while, lord; then I came up. The nursery looked just as it had done when I left it, and the children seemed to be sleeping. But when I straightened the clothes, the Lord Harold was not there.”
“And did you give the alarm at once?”
“Alas, lord! I fell to the floor in my terror, and lay there.”
“That is so, sir,” put in Linton, who had returned unsuccessful from her search. “I found her laying on the ground like a dead thing, crying out that Master Harold was gone.”
“Think,” said Wylie sharply. “Can you imagine no reason why Petros should have carried off the child?”
“None, lord. Except,” as a bright idea occurred to her, “that there was a reward offered for a little boy who was lost at Therma, and he may be hoping to gain it.”
“Ah, and how did you hear that, if you have not seen him?”
Danaë realised her danger. “I—I heard it, lord,” she murmured.
“And you have no idea why he should come so far to fetch a child who had nothing to do with it?”
“None, lord.” She looked up with such evident innocence that Wylie was puzzled. Maurice’s old theory that she had come among them as a spy, with possible designs upon Harold in the interests of some unknown enemy, had naturally been revived by the event, and the girl had undoubtedly blundered badly in her last answer. But it seemed hopeless to go on cross-questioning her in the hope of eliciting further admissions which led to nothing, and it was something to have gained the suggestion that Petros was presumably on his way to Therma. No more time must be lost, and he turned quickly to his wife.
“Well, Zoe, this gives us some sort of clue. Maurice and Armitage and I will search the town at once, and send parties out on all the roads. If the fellow has passed, we can catch him by the telegraph at a dozen points on the way to Therma. You and Linton had better make a thorough search of the Konak, upstairs and down. Here are the keys of all the storehouses. Perhaps the Princess will kindly let you look in all her rooms, for no one can tell where the child may have been hidden. Take Parisi and Gavril with you when you go across to the stores. And don’t be frightened. Between us we ought to be able to get the little chap back all right.”
Wylie spoke more hopefully than he felt, for the apparent purposelessness of the abduction made it difficult to deduce any conclusions from it. He had left Zoe plenty to do, and she and Eirene, tucking up their evening gowns under thick cloaks, began a systematic search of the whole rambling assemblage of buildings which constituted the Konak. Attended by the guard Gavril, armed to the teeth, and the stout Greek butler, carrying a lantern, they hunted again through all the Wylies’ rooms, then through those of the Prince’s house and the range of storehouses on the left of the courtyard, and even the barracks of the guard on either side of the gateway. The small courtyard at the back, and the garden, damp and dismal in the cold autumn night, were not forgotten, but when they came back with haggard faces, utterly exhausted, they were still unsuccessful. Most of the servants were weeping helplessly in the passages, but Linton had stirred up her friend Artemisia the cook to subdue her grief sufficiently to prepare some soup, which she coaxed her mistress to take. Zoe refused to go to bed, and Linton remained with her, leaving Danaë on guard in the nursery; and so that dreadful night passed, first one and then the other dozing off for a minute or two, then springing up in terror, and running to search in some place which might have been forgotten. It was not until morning that Wylie came stumbling uncertainly up the stairs. One glance at his worn face told his wife that his quest had been as vain as her own, but she forbore to put the fact into words.
“Dearest, you are tired out,” she said, with a tenderness that rarely found verbal expression from her lips. “Come and sit down here, and have something to eat. Linton, you kept some soup hot on the nursery stove as I told you? No, Graham, don’t talk till you have had something. You had no dinner last night, you know.” Her mouth quivered involuntarily as she remembered how Linton had broken in upon the party in the drawing-room with her terrible news. “Now here is the soup. Take it to please me.”
Utterly spent, Wylie obeyed, and not until he had finished would she let him tell his tale.
“We have sent the police through the whole town, Zoe, and searched all the inns. No one at all resembling the description of Petros has passed on any of the roads. We have telegraphed to all the places on the line, and sent out messengers where there is no wire. The people are awfully sympathetic, and they are all enlisted in the search.”
“And anyone who found him would know who he was, because of his blue eyes,” said Zoe, trying to speak cheerfully. “And no one could have the heart to hurt him, could they, Graham? when they saw his dear little face.”
“No, of course not,” said Wylie hoarsely. “Maurice and I have made plenty of enemies, no doubt, but I don’t think any of them are such curs as that.”
“Oh no, they couldn’t,” agreed Zoe. “Some one is sure to bring him back to us soon, looking so naughty and happy and smiling—Oh, Graham!” she broke down and hid her face, sobbing, on his shoulder—“Graham, if they don’t!”
“My dear, my dear!” said Wylie brokenly, and as he put his arms round her Danaë, who had been watching through the half-open door, fled away in tears. The words she could not understand, but she knew the meaning of the tones, and no amount of arguing with her conscience could assure her that she had nothing to do with the scene. She had at first entertained wild hopes that Petros might be intercepted and killed, without being able to compromise her by anything he said, but then she remembered that unless he was able to return to Therma and produce Janni, or a child representing him, her brother had declared that he would be irretrievably ruined. He must be allowed to reach the city, then, but as soon as sufficient time had elapsed for Prince Romanos to be secured from whatever danger was threatening him, Danaë would declare her charge’s true parentage to her mistress. Then everything would be set right, but in the meantime the sorrow around cut her to the heart, and she and Linton mingled their tears over Janni’s solitary breakfast and his irrepressible inquiries for “Aa-aa.”