an impeccable source.'
'Even so, Monseigneur,' de Roubec submitted deferentially, 'he may have been prepared to deliver such a letter only into the hands of His Highness personally. If it was not found on him, he must have left it at his lodgings, in the care of the Senorita d'Aranda.'
'The Senorita d'Aranda!' exclaimed one of the hooded men halfway down the line on the spokesman's left. Then he asked in bad French: 'Did I hear aright? If so, how comes she into this?'
Roger felt his heart jump, and looked at de Roubec in fresh alarm, as the Chevalier replied to his new interlocutor.
'It is my belief, Signor, that Her Majesty originally handed her despatch to the Senorita d'Aranda, when that lady left the Court of France to travel to Italy. In an attempt to secure it I organized a hold-up of her coach near Nevers, but Monsieur de Breuc's inopportune arrival on the scene caused the affair to miscarry. They continued on their way south in company, and hired additional coach-guards, which would have rendered any further attempt of this kind too costly. I decided to ride on direct to Florence and enlist your help against their arrival. But as far as I know they have been together ever since. At all events, they have both been lying these last two nights at
'But what you tell me is extraordinary!' cried the hooded man who had challenged de Roubec about Isabella. 'If the Senorita d'Aranda is in Florence, why has she not sought the hospitality of her aunt, the Contessa Frescobaldi?'
Roger's hands were trembling. He now felt that at all costs he must intervene.
'Signor!' he said quickly. 'I can explain this matter. As you may know, the Senorita is proceeding to Naples in order to be married there. At Marseilles, no ship was due to sail for Naples under three weeks, but one was leaving for Leghorn almost immediately. Therefore, in order to get to Naples the quicker she decided to travel by this slightly longer route. Had she informed her aunt that she was passing through Florence, she thought that the, Contessa would have insisted on her breaking her journey here for not less than a week. She felt that she could not deny herself two days in which to visit the galleries, but was most opposed to delaying longer; so she decided to risk her aunt's later displeasure by maintaining an incognito while in your city. She is resuming her journey to Naples tomorrow.'
The original spokesman rapped the table impatiently and said something in Italian to his colleagues. Roger just caught its sense, which was:
'Gentlemen! The time of the tribunal is being wasted. The fact that some young woman elected to stay in a lodging, rather than with her aunt, is no concern of ours.' He then looked again at Roger and resumed in his careful French:
'You admit, then, that although the document we require was not originally entrusted to you, this lady with whom you travelled has it; and that you acted as her escort in order to prevent it being taken from her?'
'By no means,' Roger replied quickly. 'I am certain that she knows no more of it than myself. As I have told you, it was not her intention to pass through Florence, and she would never have come here at all had it not been that there was no ship sailing from Marseilles under three weeks by which she could travel direct to Naples.'? Then he shot out an accusing finger at de Roubec, and went on:
'But this rogue here has already confessed to you how he and his bullies attacked the Senorita's coach. We thought it was her jewels on which they wished to lay their dirty fingers. It was to assist in frustrating any further such attempts that I offered her my escort.'
De Roubec gave Roger an ugly look, and muttered: 'Put a guard upon your tongue, Chevalier, or I will make you pay dearly for such insults.'
Roger swung angrily upon him. ' 'Tis you who are due to pay by the loss of your ears for the treacherous theft you long ago committed upon me. And as a bonus, for this present business, I will slice off your nose into the bargain.'
'Silence!' cried the spokesman, again rapping the table; then he once more addressed Roger: 'I am convinced that this young woman with whom you are travelling has the Queen's letter. Either you will obtain it from her and hand it over to a representative whom I shall send back with you to your lodging for that purpose, or I shall take steps to have her lured forth and brought here. In the latter case we shall soon find means to loosen her tongue, and when she has disclosed its hiding-place I will send someone to collect it. Now; which course do you prefer that I should adopt?'
Roger stared down at the silver buckles of his shoes while swiftly considering the dilemma with which he was now faced. He still had one good card up his sleeve, but did not wish to play it if that could possibly be avoided.
Seeing his hesitation the Chief of the tribunal said: 'If you force me to it I shall not hesitate to use torture. But I would much prefer that the matter should be cleared up without harm to either the Senorita or yourself. Therefore, I will not press you for an immediate answer. In any case it would be preferable to avoid arousing comment by knocking up the people at your lodging in the middle of the night, and the tribunal has other business which will occupy it for some hours to come. You may utilize those hours to make your decision, and I will send for you to learn it a little before dawn.'
He rang his silver bell and the two men-at-arms appeared again. Between them Roger was marched away down a gloomy corridor, a door near its end was opened, and, there being no alternative, he entered a narrow cell. One of the men set down a single candle on the stone floor, then the door was slammed to and the key grated in its lock.
The cell was quite bare, and windowless, its only inlet for air being a row of round holes in the upper part of the heavy door. Apart from a wide stone bench long enough to sleep on, which protruded from one wall, it contained nothing whatever. Roger sat down on the slab and began to think matters out.
One thing was clear: de Roubec had himself confirmed that it was his machinations which had led to the present situation, and that it was for him that the Holy Office were endeavouring to get hold of the Queen's letter. It also seemed evident that Signor Zucchino must be one of the Inquisitor's spies, and had reported Roger's visit; as in what other way could they have learnt that the major-domo had made an appointment for him to wait on Monsignor Ricci that night?
Roger was much comforted by the thought that he had it in his power to prevent Isabella being drawn into the affair. All he had to do was to agree to return to his lodgings in the morning and hand over the letter. But he wondered if there was not some way in which he might secure his freedom without doing that. The Inquisitor's reluctance to arouse the inmates of Pisani's house showed that they were anxious to avoid drawing attention to their activities; so it seemed probable that they would now wait until the following evening, then send a messenger to inform Isabella that he had met with an accident, and bring her to a place where she could be overcome under cover of darkness with a minimum risk of disturbance.
If that proved to be their intention she would have the whole of the coming day in which to endeavour to find him. She must already be worried by his non-return. First thing in the morning she would go to the Pitti and insist on seeing Monsignor Ricci. The probability was that Zucchino had never made the appointment at all. In any case it would come out that his intending visitor had never arrived there. If the Minister showed indifference to the matter, however reluctant Isabella might be to let her aunt know of her presence in Florence, the odds were that her acute anxiety would drive her to do so. There would be no necessity for her to disclose the fact that he was her fiance; she could enlist her aunt's aid immediately by telling a part of the truth—that he was the bearer of a despatch from Queen Marie Antoinette to the Grand Duke, had saved her from attack upon the road, and given her his escort as far as Florence. The Contessa would at once go to the Grand Duchess, who, on account of the letter, if for no other reason, would report his disappearance without delay to the Grand Duke. Then the whole of His Highness's secret police would be put on to the job of finding him.
Whether they would succeed in doing so before nightfall remained problematical. But even then, if Isabella had secured the protection of either Monsignor Ricci or the Contessa, she would inform them of any message she received, and they would have her followed; so instead of her failing into a trap, she would lead the forces of law and order to his prison.
The more Roger thought the matter over the more inclined he became to stand firm and put his trust in Isabella's succeeding in rescuing him. But one thing remained a puzzle and defeated all his efforts to solve it. How had de Roubec managed to secure the assistance, of the Holy Office?
