About a quarter of an hour elapsed, and then the door was thrown open, and Brigida herself was shown into the study. The doctor bowed, and D’Arbino placed a chair for her. She was perfectly collected, and thanked them for their politeness with her best grace.
“I believe I am addressing confidential friends of Count Fabio d’Ascoli?” Brigida began. “May I ask if you are authorized to act for the c ount, in relation to the reward which this handbill offers?”
The doctor, having examined the handbill, said that the lady was quite right, and pointed significantly to the bag of money.
“You are prepared, then,” pursued Brigida, smiling, “to give a reward of two hundred scudi to any one able to tell you who the woman is who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani’s ball, and how she contrived to personate the face and figure of the late Countess D’Ascoli?”
“Of course we are prepared,” answered D’Arbino, a little irritably. “As men of honor, we are not in the habit of promising anything that we are not perfectly willing, under proper conditions, to perform.”
“Pardon me, my dear friend,” said the doctor; “I think you speak a little too warmly to the lady. She is quite right to take every precaution. We have the two hundred scudi here, madam,” he continued, patting the money-bag; “and we are prepared to pay that sum for the information we want. But” (here the doctor suspiciously moved the bag of scudi from the table to his lap) “we must have proofs that the person claiming the reward is really entitled to it.”
Brigida’s eyes followed the money-bag greedily.
“Proofs!” she exclaimed, taking a small flat box from under her cloak, and pushing it across to the doctor. “Proofs! there you will find one proof that establishes my claim beyond the possibility of doubt.”
The doctor opened the box, and looked at the wax mask inside it; then handed it to D’Arbino, and replaced the bag of scudi on the table.
“The contents of that box seem certainly to explain a great deal,” he said, pushing the bag gently toward Brigida, but always keeping his, hand over it. “The woman who wore the yellow domino was, I presume, of the same height as the late countess?”
“Exactly,” said Brigida. “Her eyes were also of the same color as the late countess’s; she wore yellow of the same shade as the hangings in the late countess’s room, and she had on, under her yellow mask, the colorless wax model of the late countess’s face, now in your friend’s hand. So much for that part of the secret. Nothing remains now to be cleared up but the mystery of who the lady was. Have the goodness, sir, to push that bag an inch or two nearer my way, and I shall be delighted to tell you.”
“Thank you, madam,” said the doctor, with a very perceptible change in his manner. “We know who the lady was already.”
He moved the bag of scudi while he spoke back to his own side of the table. Brigida’s cheeks reddened, and she rose from her seat.
“Am I to understand, sir,” she said, haughtily, “that you take advantage of my position here, as a defenseless woman, to cheat me out of the reward?”
“By no means, madam,” rejoined the doctor. “We have covenanted to pay the reward to the person who could give us the information we required.”
“Well, sir! have I not given you part of it? And am I not prepared to give you the whole?”
“Certainly; but the misfortune is, that another person has been beforehand with you. We ascertained who the lady in the yellow domino was, and how she contrived to personate the face of the late Countess D’Ascoli, several hours ago from another informant. That person has consequently the prior claim; and, on every principle of justice, that person must also have the reward. Nanina, this bag belongs to you–come and take it.”
Nanina appeared from the window-seat. Brigida, thunderstruck, looked at her in silence for a moment; gasped out, “That girl!”–then stopped again, breathless.
“That girl was at the back of the summer-house this morning, while you and your accomplice were talking together,” said the doctor.
D’Arbino had been watching Brigida’s face intently from the moment of Nanina’s appearance, and had quietly stolen close to her side. This was a fortunate movement; for the doctor’s last words were hardly out of his mouth before Brigida seized a heavy ruler lying, with some writing materials, on the table. In another instant, if D’Arbino had not caught her arm, she would have hurled it at Nanina’s head.
“You may let go your hold, sir,” she said, dropping the ruler, and turning toward D’Arbino with a smile on her white lips and a wicked calmness in her steady eyes. “I can wait for a better opportunity.”
With those words she walked to the door; and, turning round there, regarded Nanina fixedly.
“I wish I had been a moment quicker with the ruler,” she said, and went out.
“There!” exclaimed the doctor; “I told you I knew how to deal with her as she deserved. One thing I am certainly obliged to her for–she has saved us the trouble of going to her house and forcing her to give up the mask. And now, my child,” he continued, addressing Nanina, “you can go home, and one of the men-servants shall see you safe to your own door, in case that woman should still be lurking about the palace. Stop! you are leaving the bag of scudi behind you.”
“I can’t take it, sir.”
“And why not?”
“She would have taken money!” Saying those words, Nanina reddened, and looked toward the door.
The doctor glanced approvingly at D’Arbino. “Well, well, we won’t argue about that now,” he said. “I will lock up the money with the mask for to-day. Come here to-morrow morning as usual, my dear. By that time I shall have made up my mind on the right means for breaking your discovery to Count Fabio. Only let us proceed slowly and cautiously, and I answer for success.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE next morning, among the first visitors at the Ascoli Palace was the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi. He seemed, as the servants thought, agitated, and said he was especially desirous of seeing Count Fabio. On being informed that this was impossible, he reflected a little, and then inquired if the medical attendant of the count was at the palace, and could be spoken with. Both questions were answered in the affirmative, and he was ushered into the doctor’s presence.
“I know not how to preface what I want to say,” Luca began, looking about him confusedly. “May I ask you, in the first place, if the work-girl named Nanina was here yesterday?”
“She was,” said the doctor.
“Did she speak in private with any one?”
“Yes; with me.”
“Then you know everything?”
“Absolutely everything.”
“I am glad at least to find that my object in wishing to see the count can be equally well answered by seeing you. My brother, I regret to say–” He stopped perplexedly, and drew from his pocket a roll of papers.
“You may speak of your brother in the plainest terms,” said the doctor. “I know what share he has had in promoting the infamous conspiracy of the Yellow Mask.”
“My petition to you, and through you to the count, is, that your knowledge of what my brother has done may go no further. If this scandal becomes public it will ruin me in my profession. And I make little enough by it already,” said Luca, with his old sordid smile breaking out again faintly on his face.
“Pray do you come from your brother with this petition?” inquired the doctor.
“No; I come solely on my own account. My brother seems careless what happens. He has made a full statement of his share in the matter from the first; has forwarded it to his ecclesiastical superior (who will send it to the archbishop), and is now awaiting whatever sentence they choose to pass on him. I have a copy of the document, to prove that he has at least been candid, and that he does not shrink from consequences which he might have avoided by flight. The law cannot touch him, but the Church can–and to the Church he has confessed. All I ask is, that he may be spared a public exposure. Such an exposure would do no good to the count, and it would do dreadful injury to me. Look over the papers yourself, and show them, whenever you think proper, to the master of this house. I have every confidence in his honor and kindness, and in yours.”
He laid the roll of papers open on the table, and then retired with great humility to the window. The doctor looked over them with some curiosity.
The statement or confession began by boldly avowing the writer’s conviction that part of the property which the Count Fabio d’Ascoli had inherited from his ancestors had been obtained by fraud and misrepresentatio n from the Church. The various authorities on which this assertion was based were then produced in due order; along with some curious particles of evidence culled from old manuscripts, which it must have cost much trouble to collect and decipher.