Max Pemberton - Murder Mysteries Boxed-Set - 40+ Books in One Edition

He replied that the Villa San Jorge lay five miles from the town, on the slope of the one inconsiderable mountain which is the pride of the island of Santa Maria. It would be necessary to ride, and the General had sent horses. He trusted that I would bring my servants, as they would be no embarrassment to his household. The cordiality of the message, indeed, betrayed an anxiety which carried its own warning. I was expected at the house and my host was in a hurry. Nothing could be more ominous.

“Does the General have many visitors from Europe?” I asked the officer.

“A great many sometimes,” was the reply; “but he is not always here, señor. There are months together when we do not see him—so much the worse for us.”

“Ah! a benefactor to the town, I see.”

“A generous, princely gentleman, Excellency—and his daughter quite a little queen amongst us.”

“Is she now at the Villa San Jorge?”

“She arrived from Europe three days ago, Excellency.”

I had nothing more to ask, and without the loss of a moment I delivered my dressing-bag to the negro servant who approached me in the General’s name, and mounted the horse which a smart French groom led up to me. Okyada, my servant, being equally well cared for, we set off presently from the town, a little company, it may be, of a dozen men, and began to ride upward toward the mountains. A less suspicious man, one less given to remark every circumstance, however trivial, would have found the scene entirely delightful. The wild, tortuous mountain path, the clear sky above, the glittering rocks becoming peaks and domes of gold in the moonbeams, the waving torches carried by negroes, Portuguese, mulattoes, men of many nationalities who sang a haunting native chant as they went—here, truly, was the mask of romance if not its true circumstance. But I had eyes rather for the men themselves, for the arms they carried, the ugly knives, the revolvers that I detected in the holsters. Against what perils of that simple island life were these weapons intended? Should I say that these men were assassins, and that I had been decoyed to the island to be the subject of a vulgar and grotesquely imprudent crime? I did not believe it. The anchor light of the White Wings, shining across the water, stood for my salvation. These men dare not murder me, I said. I could have laughed aloud at their display of impotent force.

I say that we followed a dangerous path up the hillside; but anon this opened out somewhat, and having crossed a modern bridge of iron above a considerable chasm, the forbidding walls of which the torches showed me very plainly—having passed thereby, we found ourselves upon a plateau, the third of a mile across, perhaps, and having for its background the great peak of the mountain itself. How the land went upon the seaward side I could not make out in the darkness; but no sooner had we passed the gates than I observed the lights of a house shining very pleasantly across the park; and from the cries the men raised, the hastening paces of the horses, and the ensuing hubbub, I knew that we had reached our destination, and that this was the home of General Fordibras.

Five minutes later, the barking of hounds, the sudden flash of light from an open door, and a figure in the shadows gave us welcome to the Villa San Jorge. I dismounted from my horse and found myself face to face, not with Hubert Fordibras, but with his daughter Joan.

She was prettily dressed in a young girl’s gown of white, but one that evidently had been built in Paris. I observed that she wore no jewellery, and that her manner was as natural and simple as I might have hoped it to be. A little shyly, she told me that her father had been called to the neighbouring island of St. Michaels, and might not return for three days.

“And isn’t it just awful?” she said, the American phrase coming prettily enough from her young lips. “Isn’t it awful to think that I shall have to entertain you all that long while?”

I answered her that if my visit were an embarrassment, I could return to the yacht immediately—that I had come to see her father, and that my time was my own. To all of which she replied with one of those expressive and girlish gestures which had first attracted me toward her—just an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a pretty pout of protest.

“Why, if you would like to go back, Dr. Fabos⁠——”

“Don’t say so. I am only thinking of your troubles.”

“Then, you do want to stay?”

“Frankly, I want to stay.”

“Then come right in. And pity our poor cook, who expected you an hour ago.”

“Really, you should not——”

“What! starve a man who has come all the way from Europe to see us?”

“Well, I’ll confess to a mountain appetite, then. You can tell the General how obedient you found me.”

“You shall tell him for yourself. Oh, don’t think you are going away from him in a hurry. People never do who come to the Villa San Jorge. They stop weeks and months. It’s just like heaven, you know—if you know what heaven is like. We have given you ‘Bluebeard’s room,’ because of the cupboard in it—but you may look inside if you like. Let General Washington show you the way up this minute.”

“And my servant? I hope he won’t give any trouble. He’s a Jap, and he lives on rice puddings. If he is in your way, don’t hesitate to say so.”

“How could he be in the way? Besides, my father quite expected him.”

“He said so?”

“Yes, and an Irish gentleman—what was his name? The one who made love to Miss Aston at Dieppe. She’s upstairs now, reading about the Kings of Ireland. The Irish gentleman told her of the book. Why, Dr. Fabos, as if you didn’t know! Of course, he made love to her.”

“In an Irish way, I hope. Perhaps we’ll have him ashore to-morrow—though I fear he will be a disappointment. His lovemaking consists largely of quotations from his stories in Pretty Bits. I have heard him so often. There are at least two hundred women in the world who are the only women he has ever loved. Put not your faith in Timothy—at least, beg of Miss Aston to remember that he comes of a chivalrous but susceptible race.”

“How dare I intrude upon her dream of happiness? She has already furnished the drawing-room—in imagination, you know.”

“Then let her dream that Timothy has upset the lamp, and that the house is on fire.”

We laughed together at the absurdity of it, and then I followed a huge mulatto, whom she called General Washington, upstairs to a room they had prepared for me. The house, as much as I could see of it, appeared to be a bungalow of considerable size, but a bungalow which splayed out at its rear into a more substantial building carrying an upper storey and many bedrooms there. My own room was furnished in excellent taste, but without display. The American fashion of a bathroom adjoining the bedroom had been followed, and not a bathroom alone, but a delightful little sitting-room completed a luxurious suite. Particularly did I admire the dainty painting of the walls (little paper being used at Santa Maria by reason of the damp), the old English chintz curtains, and the provision of books both in the sitting and bedroom. Very welcome also were the many portable electric lamps cunningly placed by the bedside and upon dainty Louis XV. tables; while the fire reminded me of an English country house and of the comfort looked for there.

In such a pretty bedroom I made a hasty change, and hearing musical bells below announcing that supper was ready, I returned to the hall where Joan Fordibras awaited me. The dining-room of the Villa San Jorge had the modern characteristics which distinguished the upper chambers. There were well-known pictures here, and old Sheffield plate upon the buffet. The chairs were American, and a little out of harmony with some fine Spanish mahogany and a heavy Persian carpet over the parquet. This jarring note, however, did not detract from the general air of comfort pervading the apartment, nor from its appearance of being the daily living room of a homely family. Indeed, had one chosen to name the straight-backed Miss Aston for its mistress and Joan Fordibras for the daughter of the house, then the delusion was complete and to be welcomed. None the less could I tell myself that it might harbour at that very moment some of the greatest villains that Europe had known, and that the morrow might report my own conversation to them. Never for one instant could I put this thought from me. It went with me from the hall to the table. It embarrassed me while I discussed New York and Paris and Vienna with the “learned woman” basely called the chaperone; it touched the shoulder of my mind when Joan Fordibras’s eyes—those Eastern languorous eyes—were turned upon me, and her child’s voice whispered some nonsense in my ears. A house of criminals and the greatest receiver in the story of crime for one of its masters! So I believed then. So, to-day, I know that the truth stood.