The Haunted Hotel / Отель с привидениями

He did not leave an address at which his monthly salary could be paid. Amazed at this reply, the courier inquired if any person had offended Ferrari, or quarrelled with him. The lady answered,

�To my knowledge, certainly not. I am Lady Montbarry. We are as much astonished as you are at his extraordinary disappearance. If you hear of him, pray let us know.’

The courier at once entered on the necessary investigations – without the slightest result. Nobody saw him. Nobody knew anything. They said that her ladyship’s English maid had left her, before the disappearance of Ferrari, to return to her relatives.

His lordship was ill. He lived in the strictest retirement. The courier discovered a stupid old woman who did the housework at the palace. She arrived in the morning and went away at night. She had never seen the lost courier – she had never even seen Lord Montbarry, who was in his room. Her ladyship, �a most gracious and adorable mistress,’ was in constant attendance on her noble husband. There was no other servant then in the house but herself.

An Italian doctor once visited his lordship. He also had never seen Ferrari. The doctor described Lord Montbarry’s malady as bronchitis. The police were looking for the lost man – and that was the only hope, to Ferrari’s wife.

�What do you think of it, Miss?’ the poor woman asked eagerly. �What will you advise me to do?’

Agnes did not know what to say. She was not thinking of the lost Ferrari; her mind was in Venice, by the sick man’s bedside.

�I hardly know what to say,’ she answered.

�Do you think it would help you, Miss, if you read my husband’s letters to me? There are only three of them.’

Agnes compassionately read the letters. The first letter was from Paris.

�We leave Paris tomorrow. I don’t much like my lord. He is proud and cold, and, between ourselves, stingy in money matters. We were discussing some centimes in the hotel bill; and twice already. Some sharp remarks passed between the newly-married couple, her ladyship like to purchase pretty tempting things at the shops in Paris.

“I can’t afford it!” For my part, I like her. She has the nice, easy manners.’

The second letter was dated from Rome.

�My lord is incurably restless. I suspect he is uneasy in his mind. He is constantly reading old letters, when her ladyship is not present. We stopped in Genoa, but he hurried us on. The same thing in Florence.