The room was evidently on the first floor, for the servant led him up the magnificent oak staircase that climbed two sides of the reception hall.

But this was fated to be a day of interruptions. The barrister, when he reached the landing, was confronted by the Italian.

"A word with you, Mr. Brett," was the stiff greeting given to him.

"Certainly. But I am going to Mrs. Capella's room."

"She can wait. She does not know you are here. James, remain outside until Mr. Brett returns. Then conduct him to your mistress."

Capella's tone admitted of no argument, nor was it necessary to protest.

Brett always liked people to talk in the way they deemed best suited to their own interests. Without any expostulation, therefore, he followed his limping host into a luxuriously furnished dressing-room.

Capella closed the door, and placed himself gently on a couch.

"Does your friend fight?" he said, fixing his dark eyes, blazing with anger, intently on the other.

"That is a matter on which your opinion would probably be more valuable than mine."

"Spare me your wit. You know well what I mean. Will he meet me on the Continent and settle our quarrel like a gentleman, not like a hired bravo?"

"What quarrel?"

"Mr. Brett, you are not so stupid. David Hume, notwithstanding his past, may still be deemed a man of honour in some respects. He treated me grossly this morning. Will he fight me, or must I treat him as a cur?"

Brett, without invitation, seated himself. He produced a cigarette and lit it, adding greatly to Capella's irritation by his provoking calmness.

"Really," he said at last, "you amuse me."

"Silence!" he cried imperatively, when the Italian would have broken out into a torrent of expostulations. "Listen to me, you vain fool!"

This method of address had the rare merit of achieving its object. Capella was reduced to a condition of speechless rage.

"You consider yourself the aggrieved person, I suppose," went on the Englishman, subsiding into a state of contemptuous placidity. "You neglect your wife, make love to an honourable and pure-minded girl, stoop to the use of unworthy taunts and even criminal innuendos, lose such control of your pa.s.sion as to lay sacrilegious hands upon Helen Layton, and yet you resent the well-merited punishment administered to you by her affianced husband. Were I a surgeon, Mr. Capella, I might take an anatomical interest in your brain. As it is, I regard you as a psychological study in latter-day blackguardism. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly. You have not yet answered my question. Will Hume fight?"

"I should say that nothing would give him greater pleasure."

"Then you will arrange this matter? I can send a friend to you?"

"And if you do I will send the police to you, thus possibly antic.i.p.ating matters somewhat."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that my sole purpose in life just now is to lay hands on the man who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer. Until that end is achieved, I will take good care that your crude ideas of honour are dealt with, as they were to-day, by the toe of a boot."

Capella was certainly a singular person. He listened unmoved to Brett's threats and insults. He gave that snarling smile of his, and toyed impatiently with his moustache.

"Your object in life does not concern me. Your courts tried their best to hang the man who was responsible for his cousin's death, and failed. I take it you decline this proffered duel?"

"Yes."

"Then I will fight David Hume in my own way. You have rejected the fair alternative on his behalf. Caramba! We shall see now who wins. He will never marry Helen."

"What did you mean just now when you said that he was 'responsible for his cousin's death'? Is that an Italian way of describing a cold-blooded murder?"

Capella leaned back and snarled silently again. It was a pity he had cultivated that trick. It spoilt an otherwise cla.s.sically regular set of features.

"James!" he shouted.

The footman entered.

"Take this gentleman to your mistress. I have done with him."

"For the present, James," said Brett.

The astonished servant led him along a corridor and knocked at a door hidden by a silk curtain. Mrs. Capella rose to receive her visitor. She was very pale now, but quite calm and dignified in manner.

"Davie did not come with you?" she said when Brett was seated near to her in an alcove formed by an oriel window.

"No. He is with Miss Layton."

"Ah, I am not sorry, I prefer to talk with you alone."

"It is perhaps better. Your cousin is impulsive in some respects, though self-contained enough in others."

"It may be so. I like him, although we have not seen much of each other since we were children. I knew him this morning princ.i.p.ally on account of his likeness to Alan. But you are his friend, Mr. Brett, and I can discuss with you matters I would not care to broach with him. He is with Helen Layton now, you say?"

"Yes, and let me add an explanation. Those two young people are devoted to each other. No power on earth could separate them."

"Why do you tell me that?"

"Because I think you wished to be a.s.sured of it?"

"You are clever, Mr. Brett. If you can interpret a criminal's designs as well as you can read a woman's heart you must be a terror to evil-doers."

A slight colour came into her cheeks. The barrister leaned forward, his hands clasped and arms resting on his knees.

"I have just seen your husband," he said.

She exhibited no marked sign of emotion but he thought he detected a frightened look in her eyes.

"Again I ask," she exclaimed, "why do you tell me?"

"The reason is obvious. You ought to know all that goes on. There was a quarrel this morning between him and David Hume. Your husband wished me to arrange a duel. I promised him a visit from the police if I heard any more of such nonsense."

"A duel! More bloodshed!" she almost whispered.

"Do not have any alarm for either of them. They are quite safe. I will guarantee so much, at any rate. But your husband is a somewhat curious person. He is p.r.o.ne to strong and sudden hatreds--and attachments."