The master criminal

The night was of velvety blackness--one of those soft, warm, dark nights of June when the southwest wind rolls a cloud-curtain over the stars, when the air is heavy with unshed rain, when lamps burn dully, and when a nameless oppression broods over the face of the land.

Seated at an open casement looking out into the London night was a woman. Her hands grasped each other over her knee with a tense grip which gave the lie to the calm of her face. Hers was a face to which in repose Rossetti would have woven an adoring sonnet, though not as to another "lazy, laughing, languid Jenny, fond of a kiss, and fond of a guinea," but a sonnet of purity and peace. Yet if the sonnet had been written, and the woman had read, the full scarlet lips which seemed to have gathered into them all the colour from her face, would have parted in scornful laughter.

Her eyes, a part of the night into which they gazed, had dull shadows beneath them, painted there by weariness, yet she still sat motionless in a strained attitude of expectation.

Her sole companion, seated a few yards away in an easy chair, looked up at her occasionally from a book which he held in his hand and smiled.

Lynton Hora, the Commandatore, as he chose to be called by the members of his household, was in quite another way an equally interesting type of humanity. He was a man of seventy inches, broad shouldered and lean flanked, with well-poised head. His hair was grey at the sides, his face was clean-shaven. Seen lounging in the easy chair, with his face in the shadow, he appeared to be a man of not more than forty--an old-young student, perhaps, for there were thought lines on his brow and his cheeks were almost as pallid as those of the woman at the window. Such an impression would, however, have been speedily put to flight, immediately he looked up. Then there could be no mistaking the man of action. The keen, hard, grey eyes, the domineering nose, the firmly cut lips, labelled him definitely--conclusively.

Presently the woman altered her position. The in-drawing of her breath, as she turned from the window, might have been a sigh. She looked around at her companion.

He seemed conscious of the movement, as, without lifting his eyes, he asked lazily: "Tired, Myra?"

She strove to reproduce the quietude of his tone as she replied: "A little. What's the time now, Commandatore?" but there was a tremor in her voice, which showed clearly that she was not so indifferent as she wished to appear.

The man tossed down his book.

"Listen," he said.

Almost as if in answer to his summons the voice of Big Ben floated softly in through the window--one--two.

"He ought to be back by now," she said, and rising, she began to rearrange the roses in a bowl on a table near.

"I don't expect Guy for another hour at least," said the man carelessly, though he watched the woman keenly as he spoke. "After that--well, if we don't see him in an hour, we shall probably not see him for five years, at least."

The woman winced as from a blow.

"Five, or seven? It won't matter much, will it?" she replied quietly. Then in a moment her self-control dropped from her. Her lethargy vanished. A light came into her eyes, her nostrils became vibrant. Without alteration of pitch her voice became passionate. "It is horrible--brutal of you--to send him on such a business. What can possess you to do such a thing--can you not spare even----"