e. He thought I
was probably right about the identity; and to make sure, I went upstairs
to one of my boxes which wasn't locked yet, and rooted out the negative
of that snapshot I sent you from Blois. We looked at the film together,
each holding it with one hand to keep it from curling, and Mr. Payne
exclaimed, "That's the man! that's the scoundrel!" I had thought the
face awfully good-looking, but it didn't seem the same to me then, and I
had to admit it _might_ be that of a murderer. I proposed showing it to
Lady B., but she was frightfully upset already; and Mr. Payne said he
didn't see that it would do any good to harrow up her feelings still
more now, and perhaps if we did she wouldn't be able to undertake a
journey. If he'd known in time that we were going on to Taormina, he
wouldn't have kept us at Syracuse, but would have joined us at Taormina;
for he had news that Miss Randolph, that stuck-up American girl, and her
aunt had just arrived there the night before, with poor Mr. Winston's
stolen car, which the wicked _chauffeur_ was driving. He--Mr. Payne, I
mean--had written from Rome to the girl's father in New York, that she
was in the power of an abandoned ruffian, and the father had started off
to the rescue the very day after receiving the letter. He had cabled to
Mr. Payne in Rome, and the message had been forwarded to Naples, but in
that way they had missed each other, and Mr. Payne only knew that the
old man had been following the girl about from pillar to post; that he'd
heard in Naples that she'd gone to Palermo, and had proceeded there
himself. Probably, when he found that she had left, if the hotel people
could tell him where she was likely to be by this time, he wouldn't wait
for an ordinary train, but would take a special. Mr. Payne said he was
that kind of man; and if Lady B. would go on now by the next train to
Taormina, everybody might confront the _chauffeur_ and denounce him at
once. By everybody he meant himself, Lady B., and this Mr. Randolph, of
New York. I was very much interested, of course, and naturally wanted to
be in at the death, which Mr. Payne seemed quite pleased to have me do,
for we had by this time made up great friends; we seemed so congenial in
many ways, and he knows such quantities of swell people everywhere. The
Duke of Burford is a great chum of his, and so is that handsome Lord
Lane that you were wild to meet last year and couldn't get to know. But
perhaps you _shall_ yet, de