Royal Amethyst/Chapter 14
XIV
There followed two weeks of absolute and uneventful calm. It seemed as if our enemy had decided to leave us in peace, but I knew he was perfecting his plans as he lay waiting. Although we ourselves kept to the shelter of Annalleen Castle, we had news of the prince and the count almost every day.
Apart from the fact that we were confined to the castle, the two weeks of peace passed away pleasantly enough. We had books to read and games to play, and we could talk or remain silent, exactly as we pleased.
We had two welcome breaks in the monotony of our existence in the shape of two visits from my artist friend, Paul Carburton. On certain days visitors were admitted to Annalleen Castle, but after consultation with Deasy I had decided that permission to inspect the place should be suspended for the present. On the next visitors' day the butler came to the billiard room and said that there was a person at the gateway who was very anxious to see the castle, and who persisted that if I only knew he was there he would be forthwith admitted.
“What sort of person is he, Deasy?” I inquired.
“I couldn't quite say, sir,” he replied. “His attire, sir, is remarkable.”
“Ah!” I said. “I think I know him. It must be the artist, Mr. Carburton. He is painting a picture near here.”
“Oh, let the poor man in!” exclaimed the princess.
“If you will excuse me, princess, I will go down to the gateway,” I said.
Paul Carburton was clinging to the ironwork of the massive gate, and peering through it. Before I reached him I appreciated Deasy's remark as to his attire. It was a blazing day, and Carburton wore a knickerbocker suit of white drill. His stockings were bright green; his shoes were newly pipe-clayed; his hat, with a brim as big as a small cart wheel, was of perforated linen, stiffly starched and decorated with a green ribbon. In his buttonhole he wore a scarlet tulip, and his necktie, very large and flowing, was blue. In one hand he grasped his pipe, in the other a mighty umbrella, spotlessly white as to its exterior, verdantly green as to its lining.
“I say!” he shouted, while I was still twenty yards away. “Tell that man to let me in! This is the regular visitors' day, and I've walked out from Ennis and given up an afternoon's work to see this place. What's it locked up for, anyway?”
“There are reasons,” I told him, as I reached the gate.
“Well, I want to come in,” he said discontentedly. “I shan't make any difference to whatever is going on. Nobody'll notice me.”
“I think you may admit Mr. Carburton,” I said to Deasy, who opened the gate and admitted the visitor.
Carburton did not thank either of us. Instead, he walked straight through the gateway, stopped at the entrance to the courtyard, unfurled his umbrella, settled his spectacles, and looked about him. An irresistible temptation seized upon me.
“If you will excuse me for one moment, Mr. Carburton,” I said, “I will show you around the castle myself.”
I went back to the billiard room, where Nancy had just joined the princess.
“If you care to see something uncommon and remarkable,” I said, “go up to the gallery and look out into the courtyard. I am about to conduct Mr. Paul Carburton around the castle.”
“Who is Mr. Paul Carburton?” asked Nancy.
“A landscape painter,” I replied, and ran back to the gateway.
The little artist was still staring about him. I conducted him around the courtyard, so that the princess and Nancy might inspect him. I was beginning to weary of my self-inflicted task when Deasy suddenly appeared.
“Tea is served in the garden, sir,” he said, addressing me, “and the princess begs that you will ask Mr. Carburton to have a cup.”
Carburton took off his spectacles and polished them with a meditative air.
“That's extremely thoughtful of the princess,” he said. “I don't think I ever wanted a cup of tea so badly in my life. By the way,” he went on, as Deasy retired, “who is the princess?”
“Princess Amirel of Amavia,” I replied shortly.
“Amavia? Oh, yes—one of those little played-out German states. I know it—I once traveled through it. I say, was it she that I saw you with on the boat? It was, eh? Well, she's a very handsome woman!”
I marched him out of the castle and across the courtyard. The princess and Nancy received him with cordiality, which he appeared to accept as his natural right. I never saw a man make himself at home so quickly, and with so little effort. He immediately took upon himself to assist the princess at the tea table. When he had supplied Nancy with all she wanted, he went to work at the task of making himself comfortable in a fashion which seemed to me to be absolutely impudent.
I was glad to conduct Mr. Carburton to the gateway and to bid him farewell. I returned to the garden, to find the princess and Nancy lost in admiration of him.
“What a charming person!” exclaimed the princess, as I rejoined them.
“Awful bore!” I said pettishly.
“He was most interesting,” opined Nancy.
“He covered a wide range of subjects, did he not?” said the princess.
“I don't think a man ought to know so much,” I said. “Why shouldn't he confine himself to one subject? I thought his manner decidedly objectionable.”
“Oh, no, I think not!” said the princess. “I thought he was very nice. Of course, everybody expects eccentricity in the artist, or the poet, or the musician.”
“My dear princess,” I said, “consider the man's extraordinary attire! Even Deasy considered it remarkable.”
“I thought it very sensible,” she replied. “I admire Mr. Carburton for wearing such nice, cool, clean things.”
“Oh!” I said. “I'm afraid I'm not a judge.”
“I don't think you are, Mr. Hanmer,” she told me. “I wonder if we might ask Mr. Carburton to dine? I am sure Desmond would, if he were here.”
“I am quite sure he would not!” I said with great emphasis. “I may not be a capable judge in some matters, princess, but I am convinced of my absolute infallibility on that particular point!”
“Are you?” she said, regarding me with an arch assumption of innocence. “Then perhaps we might ask him to lunch?”
“I don't see why the man should be asked here at all,” I said.
The princess's fine eyebrows arched themselves. She turned the tide of conversation into another channel, and Paul Carburton was not mentioned again.
As events proved, however, it was not at all necessary to invite Mr. Carburton to visit the castle, for before another week had passed he came on his own initiative. This time, the skies being somewhat dull, he wore his velvet coat, and the only point of color about him was the brilliant scarlet of his tie. As he brought with him a small portfolio of etchings for the delectation of the ladies, I was obliged to be very polite to him. He stayed to tea once more, and again the princess and Nancy were fascinated. It was plain, indeed, that Carburton was making an impression.
“That man,” said Princess Amirel, when he had gone, “is one of the most interesting persons I have ever known. He is so childlike! His simplicity is charming.”
I went away, leaving them to praise Mr. Carburton to their hearts' content. I was sick of him. Now that he had won the women's favor, I foresaw his perpetual presence there; but before he visited the castle again events occurred which made the prospect of his doing so somewhat remote.
On the twenty-second day after our arrival at Annalleen the princess received the expected message. Sir Desmond Adare had just landed at Southampton, and would reach Ennis about three o'clock on the following afternoon.
There was great confusion in the castle that evening. The servants were running this way and that, and everybody was talking and laughing; but before the evening was over Deasy received a shock which brought him to his senses. I was smoking a cigar in the billiard room after dinner when the butler appeared with a scared look on his face.
“What is it, Deasy?” I asked.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “It's Peter. I was looking at him this afternoon, and I thought he was not well then, but he's very bad now, sir. I'm afraid it's all over with him.”
“You don't mean that he's dying, Deasy?”
“I do, sir,” he answered with a sorrowful shake of the head.
We went together to Peter's kennel. It was dusk, but one of the two or three men who were standing around held a lantern, and by its light I saw the bulldog. It was easy to see that he was dying. Presently there came a slight flicker of his eyelids, a shivering of his body, and the dog was dead.
The men standing around broke into low murmurs of grief—grief mixed with a good deal of superstitious dread.
“'Tis strange the dog should die so sudden like,” said one. “Shure he was in good health this mornin'.”
“An' the masther comin' home an' all!” said another.
I turned to the men, begging them not to talk of Peter's death, lest the princess should hear of it. When the body was carefully locked up in an outhouse, I went back to the castle with Deasy.
“That's a strange thing, Deasy,” I said. “How old was Peter?”
“A matter of ten years, sir,” replied Deasy. “Sir Desmond thought a power of the dog, he did.”
“Deasy,” I said, “pack a lot of ice about Peter's body before you go to bed to-night, and when Sir Desmond arrives to-morrow ask him to order a post-mortem examination by a veterinary surgeon.”
Deasy stared at me with eyes full of wonder.
“It seems to me,” I said, “that Peter was poisoned.”
“I wouldn't wonder, sir,” he said. “Dear, dear! 'Twill be a black day to-morrow, after all!”