THE TRAGEDY IN THE PALAZZO BARDELLO.
[The scene of this story is laid in the Rome of fifteen years ago, when the old Pontifical régime was yet in full force, and Victor Emanuel was still King of Sardinia.]
CHAPTER I.
The sun had been up for the best part of an hour; the golden haze in the East was slowly melting away; the sluggish tide of bullock trucks had fairly set in along the Via Sacra; and a faint, universal stir of awakening life was to be felt rather than heard in the pleasant morning air, when a certain Englishman, Hugh Girdlestone by name, rose from his lounging attitude against the parapet of the Tower of the Capitol, and prepared to be gone. He had been standing there in the same spot, in the same attitude, since the first grey of the dawn. He had seen the last star fade from the sky. He had seen the shadowy Sabine peaks uplift themselves one by one, and the Campagna emerge, like a troubled sea, from the mystery of the twilight.
Rome with its multitudinous domes and bell-towers, its history, its poetry, its fable, lay at his feet—yonder the Coliseum, brown, vast, indistinct against the light, with the blue day piercing its topmost arches; to the left the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars; to the right, faintly visible above the mist, the pyramid of Caius Cestius, beside which, amid a wilderness of sweet wild violets, lie the ashes of John Keats; nearer still, the sullen Tiber eddying over the fast vanishing piers of the Pons Emilius; nearest of all, the Forum, with its excavations, its columns, its triumphal arches, its scanty turf, its stunted acacias, its indescribable air of repose and desolation; and beyond and around all, the brown and broken Campagna, bounded on the one hand by long chains of snow-streaked Apennines, and on the other by a shining zone of sea. A marvellous panorama! Perhaps, taking it for all in all, the most marvellous panorama that Europe has to show. Hugh Girdlestone knew every feature of it by heart. He was familiar with every crumbling tower and modern campanile, with every space of open piazza, with every green enclosure, with the site of every famous ruin and the outline of every famous hill. It was his favourite haunt—the one pageant of which his eyes and his imagination were never weary. He had seen the sun rise and set upon that scene many and many a time, both now and in years past. He might, in all probability, stand in the same spot and witness the same gorgeous spectacle to-morrow; and yet he lingered there as fondly as if this visit were his first, and left as reluctantly as if it were destined to be his last.
Slowly and thoughtfully he went his way, out through the spacious courtyard, past the bronze horse and his imperial rider, down the great steps, and along the Via Ara Cœli. Passing the church of the Jesuits, he paused for a moment to listen to the chanting. As he did so, a Campagna drover in a rough sheepskin jacket stopped his truck to kneel for a moment on the lowest step and then trudge on again; and presently an Albano woman lifted the ponderous leather curtain and came out, bringing with her a momentary rush of rolling harmonies. The Englishman listened and lingered, made as if he would go in, and then, with something of a smile upon his lip, turned hastily away. Going straight on, with his head a little thrown forward and his hat pulled somewhat low upon his brow, he then pushed on at a swift, swinging stride, proceeding direct to the post-office, and passing the Pantheon without so much as a glance.
Manly, well-born, well-educated, gifted with a more than ordinary amount of brains, and, perhaps, with a more than ordinary share of insular stubbornness, Hugh Girdlestone was just one of those men whom it does one good to meet in the streets of a continental city. He was an Englishman through and through; and he was precisely that type of Englishman who commands the respect, though seldom the liking, of foreigners. He expressed and held to his opinions with a decision that they disliked intensely. His voice had a ring of authority that grated upon their ears. His very walk had in it something characteristic and resolute that offended their prejudices. For his appearance, it was as insular as his gait or his accent. He was tall, strongly made, somewhat gaunt and swift-looking about the limbs, with a slight stoop in the shoulders, and a trick of swinging his gloves in his right hand as he went along. In complexion and feature he was not unlike the earlier portraits of Charles II. The lines of his face were less harsh, and his skin was less swarthy; but there was the same sarcastic play of lip, and now and then a flash of the same restless fire in the eye.
Nor did the resemblance end here. It came out strongest of all in a mere passing shadow of expression—that expression of saturnine foreboding which Walpole aptly defined as the "fatality of air" common to the line of the Stuarts. The look was one which came to his face but rarely—so rarely that many of his intimate acquaintances had never seen it there; but it started to the surface sometimes, like a hidden writing, and sometimes settled like a darkness on his brow.
The main facts of his story up to the morning of this day—this 13th day of February, 1857—may be told in a few lines.
He was the son of a wealthy Derbyshire squire, had taken honours at Cambridge, and had been called to the bar some four or five years back. As yet he could scarcely be said to have entered actively upon his professional life. He had written an able treatise on the law of International Copyright, and edited an important digest of Chancery practice. He had also been for years in the habit of contributing to the best periodical literature of the day. Within the last four months, after a prolonged opposition on the part of her nearest relatives, he had happily married a young lady of ancient Roman Catholic family and moderate fortune, to whom he had been attached from boyhood. They were spending a long honeymoon in Rome, and were perfectly happy as a pair of lovers in a fairy tale. When it is added that she was just twenty-two and he thirty-four years of age, the outline of their little history is made out with sufficient clearness for all the purposes of this narrative.
Pushing on, then, at his eager pace, Hugh Girdlestone came presently to the post-office and inquired for his letters. There was but one—a square, blue-looking, ill-favoured sort of document, sealed with a big office seal and addressed in a trim business hand. He had to show his passport before the clerk would trust it beyond the bars of the little cage in which he sat, and then it was overweight, and he was called upon to pay forty-six bajocchi for extra postage. This done—and it seemed to him that the clerk was wilfully and maliciously slow about it—Hugh Girdlestone crushed the letter into an inner breast-pocket, and turned away. At the door he hesitated, looked at his watch, crossed over, withdrew into the shade of a neighbouring porte-cochère, took his letter out again, and tore it open.
It contained two enclosures; the one a note from his publishers, the other a letter of credit upon a great Roman banking-house. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction. He had been expecting this remittance for several days past, not altogether with anxiety, for he was in no immediate need of money, but with some degree of impatience; for the fate of more than one project was involved in the sum which this letter of credit might chance to represent. The extension of their tour as far as Naples, the purchase of certain bronzes and cameos, and the date of their return to England, were all dependent upon it. It was no wonder, then, that Hugh Girdlestone's brow cleared at sight of the amount for which he found himself entitled to draw upon the princely establishment in the Piazza Venezia. It exceeded his expectations by nearly one-half, and made him a rich man for the next three months.
Having read the letter and folded the enclosure carefully away in his pocket-book, he then struck off in a north-easterly direction towards some of those narrow thoroughfares that lie between the Tiber, the Corso, and the Piazza di Spagna.
The streets were now beginning to be alive with passengers. The shop-keepers were busy arranging their windows; the vetturini were ranging themselves in their accustomed ranks; the beggars were lazily setting about their professional avocations for the day; and the French regiments were turning out, as usual, for morning parade on the Pincio. Here and there a long-haired student might be seen with his colour-box under his arm, trudging away to his work of reproduction in some neighbouring gallery; or a Guarda Nobile, cigarette en bouche, riding leisurely towards the Vatican. Here and there, too, on the steps of the churches and at the corners of the streets, were gathered little knots of priests and mendicant friars, deep in pious gossip, and redolent less of sanctity than of garlic.
But to Hugh Girdlestone these sights and sounds were all too familiar to claim even passing attention. He went on his way, preoccupied and unobservant, with a face of happy thoughtfulness and a head full of joyous hopes and projects. Life had, perhaps, never seemed so bright for him as at that moment. The happy present was his own, and the future with all its possible rewards and blessings lay, as it were, unfolded before him. It was not often that he was visited by a holiday mood such as this; and, English as he was, he could scarcely forbear smiling to himself as he went along. Coming presently, however, into a long picturesque street lined with shops on both sides from end to end, he slackened his pace, shook off his reverie, and began loitering before the windows with the air of a purchaser.
Pausing now at a cameo-cutters, now at a mosaicist's, now at a jeweller's, hesitating between the bronze medals in this window and the antique gems in that, he came presently to one of those shops for the sale of devotional articles, one or more of which are to be found in almost every street of Rome. Here were exquisitely carved rosaries in cedar and coral and precious stones, votive offerings in silver and wax, consecrated palms, coloured prints of saints and martyrs in emblematic frames, missals, crosses, holy water vessels, and wreaths of immortelles. Here also, occupying the centre of the window and relieved against a stand of crimson cloth, stood an ivory crucifixion designed after the famous Vandyck at Antwerp, and measuring about ten inches in height. It was a little gem in its way—a tiny masterpiece of rare and delicate workmanship.
Hugh Girdlestone had seen and admired it many a time before, but never till now with any thought of purchase. To-day, however, the aspect of affairs was changed. His letter of credit troubled his peace of mind and oppressed him with an uneasy sense of wealth. He longed to buy something for his little bride at home, and he knew that he could find nothing in all Rome which she would prefer to this. She would appreciate it as a piece of art, and prize it as a most precious adjunct to her devotions. She would love it, too, for his dear sake, and her eyes would rest upon it when she prayed for him in her orisons. Dear, pious, tender little heart! it should be hers, cost what it might. He would take it home to her this very morning. What pleasure to see the glad wonder in her eyes! What pleasure to give her back smile for smile, and kiss for kiss, when she should fly into his arms to thank him for the gift!
So Hugh Girdlestone went in and bought it, reckless of the breach it made in his purse, and caring for nothing but the delight of gratifying what he so dearly loved.
That he, an ultra-liberal thinker in all matters religious and political, should select such a gift for his wife, was just one of those characteristic traits that essentially marked the man. Setting but slight value on all forms of creeds, and ranking that of the Romanist at a lower level than most, he could yet feel a sort of indulgent admiration for the graceful side of Roman Catholic worship. The flowers, the music, the sculpture, the paintings, the perfumes, the gorgeous costumes, gratified his sense of beauty; and, regarding these things from a purely æsthetic point of view, he was willing to admit that it was a pretty, poetical sort of religion enough—for a woman.
Carrying the ivory carving carefully packed in a little oblong box under his arm, Hugh Girdlestone then hastened homewards with his purchase. It was now ten o'clock, and all Rome was as full of stir and life as at mid-day. His way lay through the Piazza di Spagna, up the great steps, and on through the Via Sistina, to a certain by-street near the Quattro Fontane, where he and his little wife occupied an upper floor in a small palazzo situated upon one of the loftiest and healthiest points of the Quirinal Hill. As he neared the spot, a sense of pleasurable excitement came upon him. He smiled, unconsciously to himself, and, scarcely knowing that he did so, quickened his pace at every step. To the accustomed beggar at the corner he flung a double dole in the joyousness of his heart; to a lean dog prowling round the cortile, a biscuit that chanced to be in his pocket. Happiness disposes some people to benevolence, and Hugh Girdlestone was one of that number.
Up he went—up the broad stone staircase which served as a general thoroughfare to the dwellers in the Palazzo Bardello; past the first landing, with its English footman, insolently discontent, lolling against the half-opened door; past the second landing, fragrant with flowers, the temporary home of a wealthy American family; past the third, where, in an atmosphere of stormy solfeggi, lived an Italian tenor and his wife; and on, two steps at a time, to the fourth, where all that he loved best in life awaited his coming! There he paused. His own visiting card was nailed upon the door, and under his name, in a delicate female hand, was written that of his wife. Happy Hugh Girdlestone! There was not a lighter heart in Rome at that moment when, having delayed an instant to take breath before going in, he pulled out his latch-key, opened the gates of his paradise, and passed into the shady little vestibule beyond.
At the door of the salon he was met by Margherita, their Roman servant—a glorious creature who looked as if she might have been the mother of the Gracchi, but who was married, instead, to an honest water-carrier down by the Ripetta, and was thankful to go out to service for some months every year.
"Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "She sleeps still."
The breakfast lay on the table, untouched and ready; the morning sunshine flamed in at the windows; the flowers on the balcony filled the air of the room with a voluptuous perfume. It was a day of days—a day when to be still in bed seemed almost like a sacrilege—a day when, above all others, one should be up, and doing, and revelling in the spring-time of the glad new year.
Hugh Girdlestone could scarcely believe that Margherita was in earnest.
"Sleeps!" he repeated. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the Signora has not yet rung her bell."
"But is she still in bed?"
"Still in bed, Signore, and sleeping soundly. I stole in about half-an-hour ago, and she never heard me. I would not wake her. Sleep is a blessed thing—the good God sends it."
The Englishman laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"One may have too much, even of a blessing, my good Margherita," he said. "I shall wake her, at all events, and she will thank me for doing so. See—I have something here worth the opening of one's eyes to look upon!"
Margherita clasped her hands in an ecstasy of devotional admiration.
"Cielo!" she exclaimed. "How beautiful!"
He placed the carving on a stand of red cloth, and then, going over to the balcony, gathered a handful of orange blossoms and crimson azalias.
"We must decorate our altar with flowers, Margherita," he said, smiling. "Fetch me those two white vases from the chimney-piece in the anteroom."
The vases were brought, and he arranged his bouquets as tenderly and gracefully as a woman might have arranged them. This done, he stole to the bedroom door, opened it noiselessly, and peeped in.
All within was wrapt in a delicious, dreamy dusk. The jalousies were closed and the inner blinds drawn down; but one window stood a few inches open, admitting a soft breath of morning air, and now and then a faint echo from the world beyond. He advanced very cautiously. He held his breath—he stole on a step at a time—he would not have roused her for the world till all was ready. At the dressing-table he paused and looked round. He could just see the dim outline of her form in the bed. He could just see how one little hand rested on the coverlet, and how her hair lay like a lustrous cloud upon the pillow. Very carefully he then removed her dressing-case and desk from a tiny table close by, carried it to the side of the bed, and placed it where her eyes must first meet it on waking. He next crept back to the salon for the ivory carving; then for the flowers; and then arranged them on the table like the decorations of a miniature shrine.
And all this time she neither woke nor stirred.
At last, his pretty little preparations being all complete, the young husband, careful even now not to startle her too rudely, gently unclosed the jalousies, drew aside the blinds, and filled the room with sunshine.
"Ethel," he said. "Ethel, do you know how late it is?"
But Ethel still slept on.
He moved a step nearer. Her face was turned to the pillow; but he could see the rounded outline of her cheek, and it struck him that she looked strangely pale. His heart gave a great throb; his breath came short; a nameless terror—a terror of he knew not what—fell suddenly upon him.
"Ethel!" he repeated. "My darling—my darling!"
He sprang to the bedside—he hung over her—he touched her hand, her cheek, her neck—then uttered one wild, despairing cry, and staggered back against the wall.
She was dead.
Not fainting. No; not even in the first horror of that moment did he deceive himself with so vain a hope. She was dead, and he knew that she was dead. He knew it with as full and fixed a sense of conviction as if he had been prepared for it by months of anxiety. He did not ask himself why it was so. He did not ask himself by what swift and cruel disease—by what mysterious accident, this dread thing had come to pass. He only knew that she was dead; and that all the joy, the hope, the glory of life was gone from him for ever.
A long time, or what seemed like a long time, went by thus; he leaning up against the wall, voiceless, tearless, paralysed, unable to think, or move, or do anything but stare in a blank, lost way at the bed on which lay the wreck of his happiness.
By-and-by—it might have been half an hour or an hour later—he became dimly conscious of a sound of lamentation; of the presence of many persons in the room; of being led away like a child, and placed in a chair beside an open window; and of Margherita kneeling at his feet and covering his hands with tears. Then, as one who has been stunned by some murderous blow, he recovered by degrees from his stupor.
"Salimbeni," he said, hoarsely.
It was the first word he had spoken.
"We have sent for him, Signore," sobbed Margherita. "But—but—"
He lifted his hand, and turned his face aside.
"Hush!" he replied. "I know it."
Signor Salimbeni was a famous Florentine surgeon who lived close by in the Piazza Barberini, and with whom Hugh Girdlestone had been on terms of intimacy for the last four or five months. Almost as his name was being uttered, he arrived;—a tall, dark, bright-eyed man of about forty years of age, with something of a military bearing. His first step was to clear the place of intruders—of the English family from the first floor, of the Americans from the second, of the Italian tenor and his wife, and of the servants who had crowded up en masse from every part of the house. He expelled them all, civilly but firmly; locked the door behind the last; and went alone into the chamber of death. Hugh Girdlestone followed him, dull-eyed, tongue-tied, bewildered, like a man half roused from sleep.
The surgeon bent silently over the corpse; turned the poor white face to the light; held a mirror to the lips; touched the passive hand; lifted first one eyelid, then the other; and felt for the last lingering spark of vital heat on the crown of the head. Then he shook his head.
"It is quite hopeless, my friend," he said gently. "Life has been extinct for some two hours or more."
"But the cause?"
Signor Salimbeni slightly shrugged his shoulders.
"Impossible to tell," he replied, "without a proper examination."
The widower buried his face in his hands and groaned aloud.
"Whether the seat of this mischief be in the brain," continued Signor Salimbeni, "or whether, as I am more inclined to suspect, it should be sought in the heart...."
He broke off abruptly—so abruptly, and with such a change of voice, that Hugh Girdlestone was startled from his apathy. He looked up, and saw the surgeon staring down with a face of ashy horror at the corpse upon the bed.
"Dio!" he faltered. "What is this?"
He had laid back the collar of the nightdress and bared the beautiful white bosom beneath; and there, just above the region of the heart, like a mere speck upon a surface of pure marble, was visible a tiny puncture—a spot so small, so insignificant, that but for a pale violet discoloration spreading round it like a halo, it would perhaps have escaped observation altogether.
"What is this?" he repeated. "What does it mean?"
Hugh Girdlestone answered never a word, but stood in stony silence with his eyes fixed on the fatal spot. Then he stooped, looked into it more narrowly, shuddered, rose once again to his full height, and less with his breath than by the motion of his lips, shaped out the one word:—
"Murdered."
CHAPTER II.
It was the most mysterious crime that had been committed in Rome since the famous murder in the Coliseum about seven years before. The whole city rang with it. Even the wretched little local newspapers, the Giornale di Roma, the Diario Romano, and the Vero Amico del Popolo, made space, amid the more pressing claims of Church festivals, provincial miracles, and the reporting of homilies, to detail some few scanty particulars of the "tragedia deplorabile" in the Palazzo Bardello. Each, too, hinted its own solution to the enigma. The Diario inclined to the suicidal point of view; the Giornale, more politically wise than its contemporaries, pointed a significant finger towards Sardinia; the Vero Amico, under cover of a cloud of fine phrases, insinuated a suspicion of Hugh Girdlestone himself. At every table-d'hôte and every artist's club, at the public reading rooms, in the studios, in the cafés, and at every evening party throughout Rome, it was the universal topic.
In the meanwhile such feeble efforts as it is in the nature of a Pontifical Government to make were put forward for the discovery of the murderer. A post-mortem examination was appointed; official consultations were held; official depositions were drawn up; pompous gendarmes clanked perpetually up and down the staircase and courtyard of the Palazzo Bardello; and every one about the place who could possibly be supposed to have anything to say upon the subject was summoned to give evidence. But in vain. Days went by, weeks went by, and the mystery remained impenetrable as ever. Passing shadows of suspicion fell here and there—on Margherita, on a Corsican courier in the service of the American family, on Hugh Girdlestone; but they rested scarcely at all, and vanished away as a breath from a surface of polished steel.
In the meanwhile, Ethel Girdlestone was laid to rest in a quiet little Roman Catholic cemetery beyond the walls—a lonely, picturesque spot, overlooking the valley of the Tiber and the mountains about Fidenæ. A plain marble cross and a wreath of immortelles marked the place of her grave. For a week or two the freshly-turned mould looked drear and desolate under the Spring sunshine; but the grass soon sprang up again, and the wild crocuses struck root and blossomed over it; and by that time Rome had found some fresh subject for gossip, and the fate of Ethel Girdlestone was well nigh forgotten.
There was one, however, who forgot nothing—who, the first torpor of despair once past, lived only to remember and avenge. He offered an enormous reward for the apprehension of the unknown murderer. He papered Rome with placards. He gave himself up, body and brain, to the task of discovery, and felt that for this, and this only, he could continue to bear the burden of life. As the chances of success seemed to grow daily more and more uncertain, his purpose but became the more assured. He would have justice; meaning by justice, blood for blood, a life for a life. And this at all costs, at all risks, at all sacrifices. He took a solemn oath to devote, if need be, all the best years of his life, all the vigour of his mind, all the strength of his manhood, to this one desperate end. For it he was ready to endure any privation, or to incur any personal danger. For it, could his purpose have been thereby assured, he would have gladly died at any hour of the day or night. As it was, he trained himself to the work with a patience that was never wearied.
He studied to acquire the dialects, and to familiarise himself with the habits, of the lowest quarters of Rome. He frequented the small wine-shops of the Trastevere and the Rione St. Angelo. He mastered the intricacies of the Ghetto. He haunted the street fountains, the puppet-shows, and the quays of Ripa Grande. Wherever, in short, the Roman people were to be found in fra di loro, whether gossiping, gaming, quarrelling, or holiday-making, there Hugh Girdlestone made his way, mingled with them, listened, observed, and waited like a trapper for his prey. It was a task of untold peril and difficulty, made all the more perilous and difficult by the fact of his being a foreigner. Fluent Italian as he was, it was still not possible that he should perfectly master all the slang of the Rione, play at morra and zecchinetta as one to the manner born, or be at all times equal to the part which he had undertaken. He was liable at any moment to betray himself, and to be poniarded for a spy. He knew each time he ventured into certain quarters of the city that his body might be floating down towards Ostia before daybreak, or that he might quite probably disappear from that moment, and never be seen or heard of more. Yet, strong in his purpose and reckless of his life, he went, and came, and went again, penetrating into haunts where the police dared not set foot, and assuming in these excursions the dress and dialect of a Roman "rough" of the lowest order.
Thus disguised, and armed with a deadly patience that knew neither weariness nor discouragement, Hugh Girdlestone pursued his quest. How, despite every precaution, he contrived to escape detection was matter for daily wonder, even to himself. He owed his safety, however, in great measure to a sullen manner and a silent tongue—perhaps in some degree to his southern complexion; to his black beard and swarthy skin, and the lowering fire in his eyes.
Thus the Spring passed away, the Summer heats came on, and the wealthier quarters of Rome were, as usual, emptied of their inhabitants. The foreign visitors went first; then the Italian nobility; and then all those among the professional and commercial classes who could afford the healthful luxury of villeggiatura. Meanwhile, Hugh Girdlestone was the only remaining lodger in the Palazzo Bardello. Day by day he lingered on in the deserted city, wandering through the burning streets and piazzas, and down by the river-side, where the very air was heavy with malaria.
Night after night he perilled life and limb in the wine-shops of the Trastevere; and still in vain. Still the murderer remained undiscovered and the murdered unavenged; still no clue, nor vestige of a clue, turned up. The police, having grown more and more languid in the work of investigation, ceased, at last, from further efforts. The placards became defaced, or were pasted over with fresh ones. By-and-by the whole story faded from people's memories; and save by one who, sleeping or waking, knew no other thought, the famous "tragedia deplorabile" was quite forgotten.
Thus the glowing Summer and sultry Autumn dragged slowly by. The popular festivals on Monte Testaccio were celebrated and over; the harvest was gathered in; the virulence of the malaria abated; the artists flocked back to their studios, the middleclass Romans to their homes, the nobles to their palaces. Then the Pope returned from Castel Gondolfo, and the annual tide of English and American visitors set in. By the first Sunday in Advent, Rome was already tolerably well filled; and on the evening of that same Sunday an event took place which threw the whole city into confusion, and caused a clamour of dismay even louder than that which followed the murder of Ethel Girdlestone ten months before.
CHAPTER III.
A knot of loungers stood, talking eagerly, round the stove in Piale's reading-room. It was on the Monday morning following the first Sunday in Advent, and still quite early. None were reading, or attempting to read. The newspapers lay unopened on the tables. Even the last Times contained nothing so exciting as the topic then under discussion.
"It is to be hoped and expected that the Government will bestir itself in earnest this time," said a bald-headed Englishman, standing with his back to the stove.
"Hope is one thing, my dear sir, and expectation is another," replied his nearest neighbour. "When you have lived in Rome as long as myself, you will cease to expect anything but indifference from the bureaucracy of the Papal States."
"But a crime of this enormity..."
"Is more easily hushed up than investigated, especially when the sufferers are in a humble station of life, and cannot offer a large reward to the police."
"Mr. Somerville puts the question quite fairly," observed another gentleman. "There is nothing like public spirit to be found throughout the length and breadth of His Holiness's dominions."
"Nor justice either, it would seem, unless one can pay for it handsomely," added another.
"Nay, your long purse is not always your short cut to justice, even in Rome," said Mr. Somerville. "There was that case of the young bride who was murdered last Winter in the Palazzo Bardello. Her husband offered an immense reward—a thousand guineas English, I believe—and yet the mystery was never cleared up."
"Ay, that Palazzo Bardello murder was a tragic affair," said the bald-headed Englishman; "more tragic, on the whole, than ..."
A sudden change of expression swept over his face, and he broke off in the midst of his sentence.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I feel as if I were on the brink of a discovery."
"Plunge away, then, my dear fellow," laughed Somerville. "What is it?"
"Well, then—what if both these murders had been committed by the same hand?"
"Most unlikely, I should think," said one.
"Altogether improbable," added another.
"Do you opine that Othello smothered the princes in the Tower?" asked a third.
"Listen to my premises before you laugh at my conclusions," said he of the bald head, obviously nettled by the general incredulity. "Look at the details: they are almost identical. In each case the victim is stabbed to the heart; in each case the wound is almost imperceptibly small. There is no effusion of blood; no robbery is committed; and no trace of the assassin remains. I'd stake my head upon it that these are not purely accidental coincidences!"
"I beg your pardon," said a gentleman, who till now had been standing by a window at the further end of the room with his back to the speakers; "but will you have the goodness to inform me in what part of Rome this—this murder has been committed?"
"Down, I believe, in one of the narrow lanes near the theatre of Marcellus."
"And the victim is a Roman subject?"
"The child of Roman parents."
"A child!"
"A child, sir; a little fellow of only eleven years of age, and the son of a baker named Tommaseo."
The stranger took out his note-book.
"Near the theatre of Marcellus," he said, scribbling a rapid entry.
"Just so—a most shocking and mysterious affair!"
"And the name, Tommaseo. Many thanks. Good morning."
With this he lifted his hat, strode from the room, and vanished without another word.
"Humph! an abrupt sort of fellow," said the first speaker. "I wonder who he is?"
"He looks horribly ill," said another.
"I've met him before," mused Somerville. "I remember the face quite well, but the name has altogether escaped my memory. Good heavens! it is Mr. Girdlestone—the husband of that very lady who was murdered in the Palazzo Bardello!"
In the meanwhile Hugh Girdlestone was swinging along at his tremendous pace towards that quarter where the murder had been perpetrated. He found the house without difficulty, at the end of a narrow Vicolo about half-way between the Portico of Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellus. There was a crowd before the door, and a dismounted dragoon pacing up and down with his sabre under his arm. Over the shop window was suspended a board, on which were inscribed, in faded red letters, the words "ANTICO FORNO;" and at this window, where still lay unsold some three or four stale rolls of Saturday's baking, an old woman every now and then made her appearance, and addressed wild lamentations to the bystanders.
"Alas! alas!" she cried, tossing her arms aloft like a withered Cassandra. "He was the light of our eyes! He was our darling, our sunshine, our pride! He was as good as an angel. He never told a lie in his life. Everybody loved him! At this hour yesterday his laugh made music in the house, and our hearts leaped for joy to hear it. We shall never hear that voice again—never, never more, till we hear it in heaven! He is dead! He is dead, and the blessed Virgin has him in her care. But his murderer lives. Oh Dio, hear it! Hear it, O blessed mother of God! Hear it, thou blessed Saint Stefano! Overtake him with your vengeance! Let his tongue wither, and his eyes melt away in blood! Let his hands and feet rot upon his body! Let his flesh drop piece-meal from his bones! Let him die unconfessed and unabsolved, and give him over to the everlasting fire!"
"No stranger is allowed to pass, Signore," said the dragoon, interposing his person between the Englishman and the door.
But Hugh Girdlestone had only to open his pocket-book and show a certain slip of paper signed by the chief of the police. It was at magical document, and admitted him to all kinds of forbidden places.
He went in. In the outer room, or shop, he found some eight or ten persons assembled, apparently relatives and friends of the family; in a darkened room beyond, the body of a young child was laid out upon a narrow pallet strewn with immortelles and set round with lighted candles. The father, a sickly-looking man, with eyes red and swollen from weeping, was sitting upon a low stool, in a farther corner of the room, his elbows resting on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, smoking drearily. The mother lay crouched on the floor beside the bed, in a stupor of misery.
Hugh Girdlestone apologised for his intrusion with a word or two of explanation and sympathy. The woman never stirred. The man took his pipe from his mouth, rose respectfully, and replied to such questions as his visitor thought fit to put to him.
The child's name, he said, was Stefano—Stefanino, they used to call him. He was their only child, and would have been eleven years of age in the course of a few more days. He was a particularly good boy, and as clever as he was good. He was a great favourite with the Padre Lorenzo—the famous Padre Lorenzo of whom the Signore had doubtless heard. This Padre Lorenzo had taken an especial affection for the little Stefanino, and had himself prepared the boy for his first communion. And he took it only yesterday morning—took it at the church of Il Gesù, from the hands of Monsignore di Montalto. It was a long ceremony. There were six hundred children present, and their Stefanino was among the last who went up. When it was over they came home and dined, and after dinner they went for a walk on the Monte Pincio. Coming back they hired a vettura, for the child was very tired; and as soon as they reached home his mother gave him a cup of soup and a piece of bread, and put him to bed. This was about half-past six o'clock.
A little later in the evening—perhaps about a quarter past seven—he and his wife and his wife's mother went over to see a neighbour in the Via Fiumara close by. They left the child asleep. They had often left him so before, especially on Sunday evenings, and no harm had come of it. The wife of the shoemaker who occupied the first floor had promised to listen if he should wake or call for anything; and she was a good soul, and had children of her own. Ebbene, they stayed out somewhat late—later than usual, for the neighbour in the Via Fiumara had her married daughter spending the evening with her, and they stayed gossiping till past ten o'clock. Then they came home. The Shoemaker and his family were gone to bed; but the house-door was left, as usual, on the latch, and the matches and candle were in their accustomed corner in the passage. So they lit the candle, and fastened the door, and stole in very softly; for little Stefanino was a light sleeper, and apt to lie awake for hours if accidentally roused.
However, this time, although the grandmother stumbled over the scaldino on first going into the room, he never turned or stirred. He slept in a little crib beside their own bed, and after a few minutes they went to look at him. He was very pale; but then he had gone through a day of great fatigue and excitement, and was unusually tired. They never dreamed, at first sight, that all was not well with him. It was his mother who discovered it. She first saw that no breath parted his dear lips—she first touched his cheek, and found it cold!
When he reached this point in his narrative, the poor baker fairly broke down, and covered his face with his hands.
"Eccolo, Signore," he sobbed. "He was our only little one!"
"He is with God," said Hugh Girdlestone.
He could think of nothing else to say. He was not a religious man. He was, on the contrary, a worldly, a careless, perhaps even a somewhat hard man; and he had no words of ready comfort and sympathy at command. But he was moved, and his emotion showed itself in his voice.
"Alas! God did not want him so much as we wanted him," was the naïve reply.
The mother, who till now had lain huddled on the floor, apparently unconscious of all that was going forward, here suddenly lifted up her head.
"The good God and our Blessed Lady had him always," she said, hoarsely. "He was in their hands from the hour when I brought him into the world, and he is not more theirs in heaven than he was theirs on earth. But they did not call him from us. It is not God but man who has bereaved us, and left us desolate. Behold!"
And with this she rose to her feet, turned down the sheet, and uncovered the wound—just such a tiny puncture, with just such a ghastly halo spreading round it, as Hugh Girdlestone had awful cause to remember.
He could not bear to look upon it. He shuddered and turned his face aside.
"Is there—is there anyone whom you suspect?" he faltered.
"No one."
"Have you an enemy?"
The baker shook his head.
"I think not," he replied. "I am at peace with all my neighbours."
"Was no one seen to enter the house in your absence?"
"No one, Signore."
"Did the shoemaker's wife hear no sound?"
"None whatever."
"And you have been robbed of nothing?"
"Not to the value of a quattrino."
The Englishman's heart sank within him. He felt profoundly discouraged. The double mystery seemed doubly impenetrable, and his double task doubly hopeless. He turned again to the little bed, and took one long, last look at the waxen figure with its folded hands and funeral chaplets.
"What is this?" he asked, pointing to a white silk scarf fringed with gold which lay folded across the feet of the corpse.
The mother snatched it up, and covered it with passionate kisses.
"It is the scarf he wore yesterday when he went up to take his first communion," she replied. "The Padre Lorenzo gave it to him. Alas! alas! how beautiful he looked, dressed in all his best, with new buckles in his shoes and this scarf tied over one shoulder! The little angels painted over the altar did not look more beautiful!"
"The Padre Lorenzo!" repeated Hugh Girdlestone. "He taught the child, you say, and loved him. Does he know this?"
"Yes, he knows it."
It was the man who replied. The woman had sunk down again upon the floor, and hidden her face.
"Has he been to see you since?"
"He sent a priest this morning to pray for the repose of our little one's soul."
"Humph!"
Tommaseo's quick Italian ear detected the shade of disapproval in his visitor's voice.
"The Padre Lorenzo is a saint," he said, eagerly. "All Rome flocks to hear him preach."
"Where is he to be found, amico?"
"At the convent of the Gesuiti close by."
"So!—a Jesuit?"
"A Jesuit, Signore; so eloquent, so learned, so holy, and yet so young—so young! A holier man does not live. Though his body still walks upon earth, his soul already lives in heaven."
"I should like to see him," mused the Englishman. "He might suggest something—these Jesuits are keen and far-sighted; at all events, it is worth the effort. I will go round to the Gesuiti, amico, to hear if your good padre can help us."
"Our blessed Lady and all the saints reward you, dear Signore!" exclaimed the poor father, humbly attempting to kiss the hand which Hugh Girdlestone extended to him at parting.
But the Englishman snatched it hastily away.
"Nay, nay," he said, roughly. "I have my own motive—my own wrong. No thanks—no thanks!"
And with a quick gesture, half deprecation, half farewell, he was gone.
CHAPTER IV.
Vast, sombre, dimly lighted, splendid with precious marbles and rich in famous altar-pieces, the church of Il Gesù wore that day an aspect of even gloomier grandeur than usual. Before the chapel of Saint Ignazio, a considerable crowd was assembled. All were listening devoutly. The dropping of a pin might have been heard among them. There had been no service. There was no music. No perfume of incense lingered on the air. It was simply a week-day discourse that was in process of delivery, and the preacher was Padre Lorenzo.
As Hugh Girdlestone went up the steps and lifted the heavy leathern portière, he suddenly remembered how, on that other fatal morning of the thirteenth of February last, he had paused upon those very steps, listening to the chanting and half-disposed to enter. Why had he not followed that impulse? He could not tell. Why need the coincidence startle him now? He could not tell that, either. It was but a coincidence, commonplace and natural enough—and yet it troubled him.
He went in.
The chapel was small and held but few seats, and the crowd spread far out into the body of the church, so that the new comer had to take up his position on the outskirts of the congregation. From this place he could hear, but not see the preacher. Finding it impossible, however, to work his way nearer without disturbing others, he contented himself with listening.
The voice of the preacher was low and clear, and sounded like the voice of a young man; but it rose every now and then to a higher key, and that higher key jarred somewhat harshly upon the ear. The subject of his discourse was death. He held it up to his hearers from every point of view—as a terror; as a reward; as a punishment; as a hope beside which all other hopes were but as the shadows of shadows. He compared the last moments of the just man with those of the sinner. He showed under what circumstances death was robbed of its sting and the grave of its victory. To the soldier falling on the field, to the martyr consuming at the stake, death was glory; to the sick and the heartbroken it was peace; to the philosopher, infinite knowledge; to the poor, infinite wealth; to all faithful Christians, joy everlasting. Happy, he said, were those who died young, for they had not lived to accumulate the full burden of human sin; happier still those who died penitent, since for them was reserved the special mercy of Heaven.
"But what," he said—and here his voice rose to a strange pitch of tremulous exaltation—"but what shall we say to this event which is to-day on every man's tongue? What shall we say to the death of this little child—this little child who but yesterday partook of his first communion in this very church, and whose fate is even now moving all hearts to indignation and pity? Was ever pity so mistaken? Was ever death so happily timed? In the first bloom of his innocence, in the very moment of his solemn reception into the bosom of our holy Church, sinless, consecrated, absolved, he passed, pure as an angel, into the presence of his Maker. Had he lived but one day longer, he had been less pure. Had he lived to his full term of years, who shall say with what crimes his soul might not have been blackened? He might have lived to become a heretic, an atheist, a blasphemer. He might have died with all his sins upon his head, an outcast upon earth, and an outcast from heaven! Who then shall dare to pity him? Which among us shall not envy him? Has he not gone from earth to heaven, clothed in a wedding garment, like a guest to the banquet of the saints? Has he not gone with the chaplet on his brow, the ring upon his finger, the perfume of the incense yet clinging to his hair, the wine of Christ yet fresh upon his lips? Silence, then, Oh ye of little faith! Why grieve that another voice is given to the heavenly choir? Why lament that another martyr is added to the noble army of the Lord? Let us rejoice rather than weep. Let our requiems be changed for songs of praise and thanksgiving. Shall we pity him that he is beyond the reach of sorrow? Shall we shudder at the fate that has given him to Paradise? Shall we even dare to curse the hand that sent him thither? May not that very hand have been consecrated to the task?—have been guided by the finger of God?—have been inspired by a strength ... a wisdom ... no murderer; but a priest ... a priest of the tabernacle ... it was the voice of God ... a voice from Heaven ... saying...." He faltered—became inarticulate—stopped.
A sudden confusion fell upon the congregation; a sudden murmur rose and filled the church. In an instant all were moving, speaking, gesticulating; in an instant Hugh Girdlestone was pushing his way towards the chapel.
And the preacher? Tall, slender, wild-eyed, looking utterly helpless and bewildered, he stood before his hearers, unable, as it seemed, to speak or think. He looked quite young—about twenty-eight, or it might be thirty years, of age—but worn and haggard, as one that had prayed and fasted overmuch. Seeing Hugh Girdlestone push through the crowd and stand suddenly before him, he shrank back like a hunted creature, and began trembling violently.
"At last! at last!" gasped the Englishman. "Confess it, murderer; confess it, before I strike you dead with my own hands!"
The priest put his hand to his head. His lips moved, but no utterance came.
"Do you know who I am?" continued Hugh, in a deep, hoarse voice that trembled with hatred. "Do you know who I am? I am the husband of Ethel Girdlestone—that Ethel Girdlestone who used to come to this very church to confess to you—to you, who slew her in her bed as you yesterday slew a little child that loved you. Devil! I remember you now. Why did I not suspect you sooner?"
"Hush!" said a grave voice in his ear. "Does the Signore forget in Whose house we are?"
It was another priest of the order, who had just come upon the scene.
"I forget nothing," replied the Englishman. "Bear witness, all present, that I charge this man with murder!"
The new comer turned to the congregation.
"And bear witness, all present," he added solemnly, with uplifted hand, "that the Padre Lorenzo is responsible for neither his words nor his deeds. He is mad."
And so it was. Young, eloquent, learned, an impassioned orator, and one of the most brilliant ornaments of his order, the Padre Lorenzo had for more than two years betrayed symptoms of insanity. He had committed some few extravagancies from time to time, and had broken down once or twice in a discourse; but it had never been supposed that his eccentricity had danger in it. Of the murder of Ethel Girdlestone no one had ever for one moment dreamed that he was guilty. With the instinctive cunning of madness he had kept his first secret well. But he could not keep the second. Having ventured on the perilous subject, he betrayed himself.
From that hour he became a raving maniac, and disappeared for ever from the world. By what motive his distempered brain had been moved to the commission of these crimes, and where he had obtained the long slender dagger, scarcely thicker than a needle, with which they were perpetrated, were secrets never discovered; but it was thought by some of those who knew him best that he had slain the child to save his soul from possible sin and send him straight to Heaven. As for Ethel Girdlestone, it was probable that he had murdered her from some similar motive—most likely to preserve her against the danger of perversion by a heretic husband.
Hugh Girdlestone lives, famous and prosperous, learned in the law, and not unlikely, it is said, to attain the woolsack by-and-by. But he lives a solitary life, and the gloom that fell upon his youth overshadows all his prosperity. He will never marry again.
THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS.
CHAPTER I.
The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and ten years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early Spring; the peace of Paris had been concluded since March; our commercial relations with the Russian empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home after my first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with the prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable and thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf, Esquire, of Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. Travelling in the interests of the well-known firm in which it is my lot to be a junior partner, I had been called upon to visit not only the capitals of Russia and Poland, but had found it also necessary to pass some weeks among the trading ports of the Baltic; whence it came that the year was already far spent before I again set foot on English soil, and that instead of shooting pheasants with him, as I had hoped, in October, I came to be my friend's guest during the more genial Christmastide.
My voyage over, and a few days given up to business in Liverpool and London, I hastened down to Clayborough with all the delight of a schoolboy whose holidays are at hand. My way lay by the Great East Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to be met by one of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the remaining nine miles of country. It was a foggy afternoon, singularly warm for the fourth of December, and I had arranged to leave London by the 4.15 express. The early darkness of Winter had already closed in; the lamps were lighted in the carriages; a clinging damp dimmed the windows, adhered to the door-handles, and pervaded all the atmosphere; while the gas jets at the neighbouring bookstand diffused a luminous haze that only served to make the gloom of the terminus more visible. Having arrived some seven minutes before the starting of the train, and, by the connivance of the guard, taken sole possession of an empty compartment, I lighted my travelling lamp, made myself particularly snug, and settled down to the undisturbed enjoyment of a book and a cigar. Great, therefore, was my disappointment when, at the last moment, a gentleman came hurrying along the platform, glanced into my carriage, opened the locked door with a private key, and stepped in.
It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before—a tall, spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop in the shoulders, and scant grey hair worn somewhat long upon the collar. He carried a light water-proof coat, an umbrella, and a large brown japanned deed-box, which last he placed under the seat. This done, he felt carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make certain of the safety of his purse or pocket-book; laid his umbrella in the netting overhead; spread the water-proof across his knees; and exchanged his hat for a travelling cap of some Scotch material. By this time the train was moving out of the station, and into the faint grey of the wintry twilight beyond.
I now recognized my companion. I recognized him from the moment when he removed his hat and uncovered the lofty, furrowed and somewhat narrow brow beneath. I had met him, as I distinctly remembered, some three years before, at the very house for which, in all probability, he was now bound like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse; he was a lawyer by profession; and, if I was not greatly mistaken, was first cousin to the wife of my host. I knew also that he was a man eminently "well to do," both as regarded his professional and private means. The Jelfs entertained him with that sort of observant courtesy which falls to the lot of the rich relation; the children made much of him; and the old butler, albeit somewhat surly "to the general," treated him with deference. I thought, observing him by the vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that Mrs. Jelf's cousin looked all the worse for the three years' wear and tear which had gone over his head since our last meeting. He was very pale, and had a restless light in his eye that I did not remember to have observed before. The anxious lines, too, about his mouth were deepened, and there was a cavernous hollow look about his cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of sickness or sorrow. He had glanced at me as he came in, but without any gleam of recognition in his face. Now he glanced again, as I fancied, somewhat doubtfully. When he did so for the third or fourth time, I ventured to address him.
"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think?"
"That is my name," he replied.
"I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumbleton about three years ago."
Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed.
"I thought I knew your face," he said. "But your name, I regret to say—"
"Langford—William Langford. I have known Jonathan Jelf since we were boys together at Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend a few weeks at Dumbleton in the shooting season. I suppose we are bound for the same destination?"
"Not if you are on your way to the Manor," he replied. "I am travelling upon business—rather troublesome business, too—whilst you, doubtless, have only pleasure in view."
"Just so. I am in the habit of looking forward to this visit as to the brightest three weeks in all the year."
"It is a pleasant house," said Mr. Dwerrihouse.
"The pleasantest I know."
"And Jelf is thoroughly hospitable."
"The best and kindest fellow in the world!"
"They have invited me to spend Christmas week with them," pursued Mr. Dwerrihouse, after a moment's pause.
"And you are coming?"
"I cannot tell. It must depend on the issue of this business which I have in hand. You have heard, perhaps, that we were about to construct a branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge."
I explained that I had been for some months away from England and had therefore heard nothing of the contemplated improvement.
Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled complacently.
"It will be an improvement," he said; "a great improvement. Stockbridge is a flourishing town, and only needs a more direct railway communication with the metropolis to become an important centre of commerce. This branch was my own idea. I brought the project before the board, and have myself superintended the execution of it up to the present time."
"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"
"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, "is threefold. I am a director; I am a considerable shareholder; and, as head of the firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse, and Craik, I am the company's principal solicitor."
Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went on to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained with a multitude of local details and local grievances. The rapacity of one squire; the impracticability of another; the indignation of the rector whose glebe was threatened; the culpable indifference of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could not be brought to see that their most vital interests hinged upon a junction with the Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local newspaper; and the unheard-of difficulties attending the Common question, were each and all laid before me with a circumstantiality that possessed the deepest interest for my excellent fellow-traveller, but none whatever for myself. From these, to my despair, he went on to more intricate matters: to the approximate expenses of construction per mile; to the estimates sent in by different contractors; to the probable traffic returns of the new line: to the provisional clauses of the new Act as enumerated in Schedule D of the company's last half-yearly report; and so on, and on, and on till my head ached, and my attention flagged, and my eyes kept closing in spite of every effort that I made to keep them open. At length I was roused by these words:—
"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down."
"Seventy-live thousand pounds, cash down," I repeated, in the liveliest tone I could assume. "That is a heavy sum."
"A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, pointing significantly to his breast-pocket; "but a mere fraction of what we shall ultimately have to pay."
"You do not mean to say that you have seventy-five thousand pounds at this moment upon your person?" I exclaimed.
"My good Sir, have I not been telling you so for the last half hour?" said Mr. Dwerrihouse, testily. "That money has to be paid over at half-past eight o'clock this evening, at the office of Sir Thomas's solicitors, on completion of the deed of sale."
"But how will you get across by night from Blackwater to Stockbridge with seventy-five thousand pounds in your pocket?"
"To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I have made myself very imperfectly understood. I thought I had explained how this sum carries our new line only as far as Mallingford—this first stage, as it were, of our journey—and how our route from Blackwater to Mallingford lies entirely through Sir Thomas Liddell's property."
"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear my thoughts were wandering. So you only go as far as Mallingford to-night?"
"Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 'Blackwater Arms.' And you?"
"Oh, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clayborough. Can I be the bearer of any message from you?"
"You may say if you please, Mr. Langford, that I wished I could have been your companion all the way, and that I will come over if possible before Christmas."
"Nothing more?"
Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly.
"Well," he said, "you may tell my cousin that she need not burn the hall down in my honour this time, and that I shall be obliged if she will order the blue-room chimney to be swept before I arrive."
"That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagration on the occasion of your last visit to Dumbleton?"
"Something like it. There had been no fire lighted in my bedroom since the spring, the flue was foul, and the rooks had built in it; so when I went up to dress for dinner, I found the room full of smoke, and the chimney on fire. Are we already at Blackwater?"
The train had gradually come to a pause while Mr. Dwerrihouse was speaking, and on putting my head out of the window, I could see the station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train before us blocking the way, and the ticket-taker was making use of the delay to collect the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained our position, when the ruddy-faced official appeared at our carriage door.
"Ticket, Sir!" said he.
"I am for Clayborough," I replied, holding out the tiny pink card.
He took it; glanced at it by the light of his little lantern; gave it back; looked, as I fancied, somewhat sharply at my fellow-traveller, and disappeared.
"He did not ask for yours," I said with some surprise.
"They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse. "They all know me; and of course, I travel free."
"Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the platform beside us, as we glided into the station.
Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed box, put his travelling-cap in his pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared to be gone.
"Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good evening."
"Good evening," I replied, putting out my hand.
But he either did not see it, or did not choose to see it, and, slightly lifting his hat, stepped out upon the platform. Having done this, he moved slowly away, and mingled with the departing crowd.
Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I trod upon something which proved to be a cigar-case. It had fallen, no doubt, from the pocket of his water-proof coat, and was made of dark morocco leather, with a silver monogram upon the side. I sprang out of the carriage just as the guard came up to lock me in.
"Is there one minute to spare?" I asked eagerly. "The gentleman who travelled down with me from town has dropped his cigar-case—he is not yet out of the station!"
"Just a minute and a half, Sir," replied the guard. "You must be quick."
I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet could carry me. It was a large station, and Mr. Dwerrihouse had by this time got more than half-way to the farther end.
I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly with the stream. Then, as I drew nearer, I saw that he had met some friend—that they were talking as they walked—that they presently fell back somewhat from the crowd, and stood aside in earnest conversation, I made straight for the spot where they were waiting. There was a vivid gas-jet just above their heads, and the light fell full upon their faces. I saw both distinctly—the face of Mr. Dwerrihouse and the face of his companion. Running, breathless, eager as I was, getting in the way of porters and passengers, and fearful every instant lest I should see the train going on without me, I yet observed that the new-comer was considerably younger and shorter than the director, that he was sandy-haired, mustachioed, small-featured, and dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch tweed. I was now within a few yards of them. I ran against a stout gentleman—I was nearly knocked down by a luggage-truck—I stumbled over a carpet-bag—I gained the spot just as the driver's whistle warned me to return.
To my utter stupefaction they were no longer there. I had seen them but two seconds before—and they were gone! I stood still. I looked to right and left. I saw no sign of them in any direction. It was as if the platform had gaped and swallowed them.
"There were two gentlemen standing here a moment ago," I said to a porter at my elbow; "which way can they have gone?"
"I saw no gentlemen, Sir," replied the man.
The whistle shrilled out again. The guard, far up the platform, held up his arm, and shouted to me to "Come on!"
"If you're going on by this train, Sir," said the porter, "you must run for it."
I did run for it—just gained the carriage as the train began to move—was shoved in by the guard, and left breathless and bewildered, with Mr. Dwerrihouse's cigar-case still in my hand.
It was the strangest disappearance in the world. It was like a transformation trick in a pantomime. They were there one moment—palpably there—talking—with the gaslight full upon their faces; and the next moment they were gone. There was no door near—no window—no staircase. It was a mere slip of barren platform, tapestried with big advertisements. Could anything be more mysterious?
It was not worth thinking about; and yet, for my life, I could not help pondering upon it—pondering, wondering, conjecturing, turning it over and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a solution of the enigma. I thought of it all the way from Blackwater to Clayborough. I thought of it all the way from Clayborough to Dumbleton, as I rattled along the smooth highway in a trim dog-cart drawn by a splendid black mare, and driven by the silentest and dapperest of East Anglian grooms.
We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled up before the lodge-gates just as the church clock was striking half-past seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of the lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel; a hearty grasp was on my hand; and a clear jovial voice was bidding me "Welcome to Dumbleton."
"And now, my dear fellow," said my host, when the first greeting was over, "you have no time to spare. We dine at eight, and there are people coming to meet you; so you must just get the dressing business over as quickly as may be. By the way, you will meet some acquaintances. The Biddulphs are coming, and Prendergast (Prendergast, of the Skirmishers) is staying in the house. Adieu! Mrs. Jelf will be expecting you in the drawing-room."
I was ushered to my room—not the blue room, of which Mr. Dwerrihouse had made disagreeable experience, but a pretty little bachelor's chamber, hung with a delicate chintz, and made cheerful by a blazing fire. I unlocked my portmanteau. I tried to be expeditious; but the memory of my railway adventure haunted me. I could not get free of it. I could not shake it off. It impeded me—it worried me—it tripped me up—it caused me to mislay my studs—to mistie my cravat—to wrench the buttons off my gloves. Worst of all, it made me so late that the party had all assembled before I reached the drawing-room. I had scarcely paid my respects to Mrs. Jelf when dinner was announced, and we paired off, some eight or ten couples strong, into the dining-room.