“When do you go?”
“As soon as ever I can. If there is any inquiry for me after I have gone tell Newton not to admit that I have ever visited you. I am dead as far as you know—understand?”
“Quite,” replied Gordon, with failing heart. While he had this clever, unscrupulous man at his side he somehow felt protected from his enemies. But now he would be left to fight alone.
Tulloch had not sat down, for he was in a hurry. He stood near the fire, smoking the excellent cigar, his eyes fixed upon the young man before him.
Then at last he put forth his hand, saying:
“Well, my dear boy, I must wish you au revoir. When the coast is clear I shall turn up again—never fear.”
“I may be dead,” remarked Gordon in a half-whisper.
“Dead—rot!”
“I can’t endure this suspense much longer, Tulloch,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “You say Maidee suspects?”
“Pair, and go abroad for a month or so. Plead illness, and you’ll get a respite from Maidee. Act with caution, and at the same time remain bold. Don’t go about wearing that wretched, worried look. It will give you away, if you’re not careful. Chin-chin, my boy—and the best of good luck.”
Then he gripped the young man’s hand, and went forth, leaving him seated motionless in despair.
As he passed from Bruton Street into Piccadilly Don Mario Mellini joined him, and together they walked westward along by the park railings, deep in earnest conversation.
At nine o’clock Maidee, pleading a headache, had gone to her room, but instead of retiring had hastily exchanged her black dinner gown for a dark stuff dress, and was in the act of tying her veil, prior to going forth upon one of those clandestine excursions to “Uncle John,” when Rayner, her discreet maid, knocked lightly and entered with a note.
Without Rayner’s help she could never escape on these little expeditions, for the young woman, who had been four years in her service, was always loyal to her young mistress.
“This has just come by boy messenger, miss,” she said, as she handed Maidee the note. “He said there was no answer.”
The girl took it, and in an instant recognised the handwriting of the superscription.
Tearing it open with trembling fingers, she read it, and then stood aghast. Her hands fell limply by her side, and she stared straight before her.
“I hope nothing is wrong, miss,” the maid said, alarmed at the sudden change in her.
“Oh, no! Rayner,” Maidee managed to say, “nothing at all—at least really nothing,” and she tried to smile. But it was a sorry attempt. The news had utterly crushed her.
She had just been about to go to Uncle John and put to him a few pointed questions—questions arising out of certain strange things which Medland had told her that afternoon—when this note informed her that he had been suddenly called away into the country for a short time.
“I will let you know where I am as soon as I have a permanent address,” he wrote. “In the meantime be wary and watchful. Remember our compact. Acting together, we must discover the truth. Though absent, I shall have constant news of you through a third party. All good wishes, and hoping soon to see you again.—Your Uncle John.”
When the maid had gone out to attend to Lady Ravenscourt, the girl sank into a chair and sat wondering.
She had been anxious to put some curious questions to the old man. Yet at the very moment when she was about to visit him he had been called away.
He did not say where he was going. That was very unlike him, for whenever he moved his abode—which was very frequently—he always sent her, in secret, his new address. During the past few years he had lived in many parts of London, including Fulham, Battersea, Notting Hill, Hackney, Westbourne Park, Acton, Kew, Hammersmith, Camberwell and Peckham. He constantly changed his habitation, for no apparent reason other than that he was in the habit of contracting a violent dislike of his landlady.
That day had, indeed, been an eventful one for Maidee. What the detective had hinted had astounded her. Again her suspicions had been aroused, and at eight o’clock she had telephoned to Gordon to call at once as she wished to consult him. But Newton replied that his master had left for Reading, where he had to deliver a political speech that evening.
As for old John Ambrose, he returned from Bruton Street about half-past seven to his lodgings, and, having ascertained that his landlady was in the basement, he slipped in unobserved by means of his latchkey. Standing before the glass over-mantel in the shabby sitting-room, he rapidly transformed his features by removing various marks and adding others. Then he threw off his overcoat, and, ascending to his bedroom, exchanged his clothes for a suit of dark blue serge, the pea-jacket of which gave him almost a nautical appearance.
As the reader may have guessed, it was he who, decrepit and shabby, had lingered in Westminster Abbey for so many hours—he who was known to the vergers as “Old Chestnut.”
About six o’clock he had returned, and entering unobserved by the front door, as was his habit, he had exchanged his clothes, and, in a few minutes had gone forth again as Mr. Tulloch. His change of garb never troubled him much, for the majority of landladies put his various modes of dress down to his eccentricity. When they became curious he simply moved to other apartments.
In that one day he had played three rôles, and played them with such success that, as in his narrow bedroom he once again became John Ambrose, he chuckled to himself in triumph.
“It was fortunate that I went to the Abbey to-day—very fortunate. Or I might have remained here and have been faced by the girl—which would have been decidedly awkward!”
Then, with a self-satisfied grin upon his face, the crafty old fellow busied himself in gathering up his small belongings and throwing them into an old and battered travelling trunk. From his sitting-room he got an armful of books and other things, and carried them upstairs, afterwards carefully collecting his various clothes, which he placed on top, and locked the lid.
Then he wrote upon a luggage label, “John Ambrose, Totnes Station, G.W.R. To be called for,” and tied it upon the handle.
Into a small handbag he placed his false white beard, his spectacles, and a few other mysteries of his disguises, while from beneath the carpet in his bedroom, near the window, he took a flat envelope filled with English banknotes.
Then he descended to his sitting-room, called his landlady, paid her a month’s rent, which greatly pleased the good woman, and asked her to give the box over to a railway carman on the morrow.
“I’m called away on business suddenly,” he explained to her. “I only knew an hour ago. Probably I shall be back in April, and if so I shall return to you.”
“I’ll be most pleased, sir,” declared the woman, for if old Mr. Ambrose was eccentric, he was nevertheless always a good payer.
When she had gone he paced the room several times. There was nothing more to be done. He had already written to Maidee. He had only now to make good his escape.
So, shouting farewell to the woman, who had returned to the regions below, he put on a thick, dark grey ulster and left the house with his handbag, and walking to the corner of the street, he hailed a passing cab, in which he drove away rapidly.
In the cab he adjusted the white beard, and put on his glasses, by which he became absolutely transformed.
“A few hours!” he exclaimed, speaking to himself, “will carry me into safety. I’ve had a narrow squeak of it—a devilish narrow squeak. And even now it will require all my wits if I am to avoid exposure. But, for the present, I am surely quite safe.”
And he laughed again in complete satisfaction.
He, however, was in ignorance that ever since seven o’clock, in that deep doorway opposite the house wherein he lodged, the dark figure of a man had been lurking, wary and vigilant, as he had watched before, or that on his emerging the figure had stolen swiftly, with evil in his deep-set eyes, after him and entered a taxi-cab waiting round the corner.
And that taxi was now slowly following the cab in which the fugitive sat.
CHAPTER XX.
REVEALS TREACHERY
Having crossed Westminster Bridge and traversed Victoria Street, the cab halted at the Brighton Station at Victoria, where old Ambrose alighted, his small bag in hand.
Hardly had he paid the driver when a taxi drew up a little distance away, and a thin, wiry, elderly man, with deep-set eyes and a yellow complexion, and dressed in dark clothes, got out and walked into the booking-hall, closely following John Ambrose. It was Don Mario Mellini—the friend of the dead Richard Goodrick.
Ambrose went to the booking-office and obtained a second-class ticket to Hayward’s Heath. Afterwards he made inquiry regarding the trains, and finding he had half an hour to wait, he bought an evening paper and leisurely read it.
At some distance away the man who was watching while pretending to be interested in the bookstall, kept his quarry under strict observation, having already ascertained which train he was about to take and his destination. As usual, there was much noise, bustle and confusion, for trains were arriving and departing every few minutes, and, in order to avoid the stream of people, old Ambrose moved further towards the refreshment room.
Of a sudden he apparently made up his mind to enter there and wait, so he turned and disappeared within the door.
Swift as lightning the mysterious watcher hurried across and looked into the bar. But he was not there!
The man entered and looked around, utterly confounded.
Not until a few minutes later did he realise that the cunning old gentleman had played a trick upon him. He had entered the next door, leading into the Grosvenor Hotel, passed through the hall and out into the darkness of the Grosvenor Road.
Ere the man who had been keeping such strict observation could realise the truth, the old fellow had crossed the road and was lost in the night.
Not before three minutes had elapsed did the priest enter the hotel breathlessly and make inquiry of the hall-porter.
“Yes,” replied the latter, “an old gentleman walked through a minute or two ago. He isn’t stopping at the hotel, I think.”
“Perhaps he took a cab outside,” said the yellow-faced man.
But the outside porter declared that he had not. The old fellow, carrying his bag, had simply walked out in the direction of Buckingham Palace Road.
The priest was beside himself with chagrin, for the action of Ambrose told him that he had suspected the presence of a watcher. For half an hour he continued to make inquiries, and he was present when the train left for Hayward’s Heath.
When it moved out without the old man, he cried aloud in Italian:
“Madonna mia! I ought to have known that it was only a ruse—that the old blackguard is as artful as Satan himself!”
Truth to tell, however, old Ambrose was quite unaware of being watched. He had simply adopted that course in order that, if anybody should discover him, he would be put off the scent. He was far too wary to go straight into hiding, and thus leave a trail behind.
So he had just slipped through the hotel and down the steps. Then crossing the road swiftly, he had gone up Ebury Street, and, walking until he found a taxi, had driven to Liverpool Street Station, arriving there at about a quarter to nine.
There he bought a first-class ticket to Brussels, and, entering the Continental train, got safely away down to Parkeston.
The night was dark and wet, with the wind howling dismally, when he, with a small crowd of fellow-passengers, stepped upon the quay and made off towards the Antwerp boat, lying alongside, with the Hook of Holland boat a little farther up.
One by one the passengers for the Continent went up the gangway, and Ambrose, without fear of recognition, gained the steamer’s deck, and at once sought the steward to arrange for a berth.
He was unaware that a dark-eyed man, dressed in semi-nautical uniform, standing near the gangway, was watching, as he does every night, each departing passenger as he or she came up from the quay beneath the glare of the electric lamp on deck. And he, the port-watcher of the police, suddenly became interested in the old fellow. He left his coign of vantage, and strolling across the deck, managed to get a good look at his prominent, clean-shaven features.
“Isn’t old enough,” he remarked to himself; “and yet the description tallies.”
Then he turned and made his way ashore quickly and to the telephone. Without much delay he was on to London, asking for instructions. But what he received was apparently not very definite, for presently he hung up the receiver, and on coming out of the telephone-box, walked across to his own little office, which he unlocked. Then, switching on the light, he drew out a large photograph album, in which were preserved portraits of many hundreds of persons who had absconded and were wanted by the police in various towns in England for all sorts of offences, from the non-payment of income-tax to murder.
He ran rapidly through them, but found nothing which tallied with the person he suspected.
For a few moments he stood puzzled. Outside, the mails and luggage were being carried on board, and in ten minutes the steamer would leave.
So again he returned on board and obtained another good look at the fugitive, who, however, displayed no sign of anxiety. Indeed, he was standing in the saloon taking a glass of whisky and soda and changing a five-pound note with the steward into Belgian money.
Being winter, and bad weather in the North Sea, there were few passengers.
The detective went up to the steward and ordered a drink. Then, while taking it, he remarked to Ambrose:
“Rather rough night outside, I’m afraid.”
“I believe so,” replied the old man, speaking with a very pronounced Italian accent. “But these steamers are very good sea-boats.”
The man in semi-nautical attire drained his glass, and wishing the traveller good-night, ascended to the deck again, cursing himself as a fool.
“The man wanted is an Englishman—whereas he is a foreigner,” he said aloud to himself as he walked towards the gangway. “And yet there is a likeness, I’m sure—a very striking likeness. I recollect now that I left the photograph in my other pocket at home. I was wearing my grey coat this morning when I received it from London.”
He stood on deck undecided. There was no time for him to go to his home over in Harwich. Again, the fact that the man he suspected was a foreigner was not convincing.
The siren shrieked, announcing the sailing of the ship. Porters and others going ashore were returning, and the men were ready to withdraw the gangway and cast off.
He was half inclined to remain and cross to Antwerp. But the thought that the man was undoubtedly an Italian decided him, so just as the gangway was withdrawn he slipped lightly across it and returned ashore, little dreaming that from behind one of the funnels a pair of shrewd eyes were watching him—the eyes of the wary fugitive.
Next morning John Ambrose, his old self, with patriarchal white beard, and wearing heavy-rimmed glasses and minus his bag, alighted from a cab before the Grand Hotel in Brussels, and at the bureau asked for the room reserved for Mr. Grieg, of Glasgow. He was at once shown to one on the second floor, to which, a few moments later, a well-worn leather trunk, bearing the initials “J.F.G.,” was brought in, having arrived from a luggage depository an hour before, and presently a page brought up a letter which had been awaiting his arrival several days.
Unlocking the trunk, the old fellow took out a fresh and rather smart suit, consisting of black morning coat and grey check trousers, as well as a soft grey hat, and quickly he changed his dress. Thus was his shabbiness transformed into smartness, all being completely in keeping with his gold albert and diamond ring.
Presently he descended and passed out to take a stroll along the busy boulevard as far as the Bourse, and afterwards up the Montagne de la Cour, where he idled, looking into shops and gazing through his monocle at the smart ladies out shopping.
During his absence, however, a little, undersized, ferret-eyed man of typical Belgian aspect, and somewhat seedily dressed, entered the big hotel, and, passing into the bureau, asked in French:
“Has there arrived to-day a thin-faced, clean-shaven Englishman, whose only luggage was a little brown leather bag? His name is Ambrose, and he is from London.”
“I regret, m’sieur,” replied the clerk politely, for he knew the inquirer, “but we have nobody of that name. We have had several English arrivals to-day, but nobody corresponding to the description.”
“No Englishman with a small brown bag—eh?” inquired the detective, adding: “The English police are very anxious that he should be detained upon a serious charge.” And then he gave a further and more detailed description, reading from the telegram of inquiry received at the Central Bureau of Police that morning from Scotland Yard.
The truth was, that the detective at Parkeston, on returning home to Harwich, had looked at the photograph, and becoming convinced that the wanted man had actually sailed, he again telephoned to London, and Scotland Yard had, in turn, lost no time in communicating with the Belgian Police.
“We have a Monsieur Grieg from Glasgow,” replied the chef de réception, “an old man with a full white beard, like King Leopold’s, and wearing a monocle. He walks with a slight limp, leaning heavily upon his stick.”
“Did he pretend to be an Italian?”
“Not in the least. He spoke in English. His luggage and letters were awaiting him.”
“Had he previously engaged a room?”
“Certainly.”
“And he has a beard, and is lame—eh?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! Then I fear it cannot be the individual for whom the London police are searching,” replied the undersized Belgian.
“Look!” whispered the clerk in French; “see over there! That is he!”
And he indicated the fugitive leaning heavily upon his stick, though well dressed and very prosperous-looking.
“No, no,” exclaimed the detective. “It can’t be the person. He is described in this despatch as clean-shaven, decrepit, rather slovenly in attire, often affects to be an Italian, is in possession of funds, and is fond of purchasing curios.”
“No,” declared the hotel clerk, looking across the vestibule at the inoffensive and highly respectable old man who, leaning upon his stick, was making his way towards the lift. “That is most certainly not the man you are seeking, mon cher ami. He has probably gone to some other hotel. He is not with us.”
“No doubt,” the detective replied. “Not a single point in the description corresponds. Height, size, face, clothes, gait, manner—everything differs. Bah! those English police are droll fellows!”
And then the detective laughed, and soon afterwards raised his hat to the clerk in the bureau and left.
Such a past-master was old John Ambrose in the art of disguise that he was passing unsuspected beneath the very eyes of the watchful police. A man of marvellous memory, of exquisite tact and of deep cunning, he was at one hour kind, sympathetic, and tender-hearted as a child—at another hard, bitter, unscrupulous—even criminal—a man of strange, complex nature, who seemed to possess the power of completely changing his facial expression at will.
That same night, just before ten o’clock, while Ambrose was secure in Brussels, Maidee Lambton was standing before the mirror in her room preparing to slip out in secret. Her suspicions being again aroused, she was nervous and anxious, and had resolved to watch Gordon’s movements after he left the House that night.
Lady Ravenscourt had already retired, and Mrs. Beresford was reading a novel in the drawing-room; therefore, with the assistance of the faithful Rayner, her absence was not very difficult to arrange.
The maid, with her dark, smooth hair and white apron, stood beside Maidee as she was in the act of pinning on her neat black hat, when suddenly, in trying to fix it firmly, one of the long pins accidentally grazed the top of her head.
It was no unusual occurrence, therefore she took no notice of it until, a few moments later, as she was pulling on her long suède gloves, she exclaimed:
“Oh, Rayner! I—I do feel so faint—so queer! I—I wonder what’s the matter with me!”
“You do look pale, miss!” cried the girl in alarm. “I’ll get the smelling-salts from the dressing-room.”
Next second, however, Rayner saw that her mistress had become short of breath. She was gasping. Her hand clutched at her breast, and she reeled sidelong against the big, handsome dressing-table, while the maid just succeeded in preventing her falling to the floor.
“I can’t make it out!” her mistress gasped, her eyes staring from her head wildly, her jaws seeming as though they had become fixed. “Why—ah!—I—I can hardly move my mouth! It was that scratch! It burns like fire!”
Rayner, too alarmed to make any comment, took up the two other silver hatpins lying upon the tray on the dressing-table, and saw, to her great surprise, that upon both there had been smeared some dark brown substance that had now dried.
“Why—what’s that?” shrieked Maidee, her quick eyes detecting it. “What’s that on my hatpins? Some stuff has been placed upon them purposely. Ah! I see it all! Heaven help me—I—I’ve been poisoned!”
Next second the poor girl, haggard and terrified, tetanic convulsions showing at her white jaws, collapsed senseless into her maid’s arms.
Thus had a secret enemy triumphed!
CHAPTER XXI.
DON MARIO AT HOME
The sunny April afternoon was warm and drowsy in the high-up, ancient rock-village of Santa Lucia which, perched upon the summit of a conical hill, commands a magnificent view of the high purple Apennines on the one hand, while on the other lies the broad Lake of Bolsena, like a mirror in the sun, and beyond the great fertile plain stretches away to the hazy horizon a white road running across it like a ribbon—the ancient Via Cassia, the road to Rome.
Long ago, when the world was young, the place was an important centre, and strongly fortified, as the grass-grown ruins of its cyclopean walls and the round massive tower of its castello still mutely show. Eretum was the name by which it was known to the Etruscans—the Romans called it Sulmo, and in the eleventh century, when the church with its high, square, inartistic tower was built, it was renamed Santa Lucia.
It is a village to which no traveller, save perhaps a stray motorist, ever comes, far removed from the railway, lying midway between the Mediterranean and the Apennines, fanned by the cool mountain winds in summer and fresh in all seasons by breezes from the sea.
Like many another dwindling and obscure village in Central Italy, it bears a bad reputation. Its people are not friendly towards the stranger. Indeed, over the surface of the steep road which comes up from the plain and over the hills to Siena the contadini have placed six inches of gravel, rendering it impassable to motor-cars, and obliging motorists to hire bulls to draw them up the steep incline. Those who refuse to submit to blackmail are stoned, and many a motorist has returned to the Eternal City with his car badly damaged and his wind-screen smashed by the hostile villagers.
Hence, nowadays, motorists, who might bring prosperity to the little inn, the Gran’ Duca, give the place a wide berth.
Viewed from the plain it is most picturesque, the high, square church-tower rising above the cluster of red roofs and white houses. But on nearer acquaintance its ill-paved streets, where fowls run at will, are very narrow and tortuous; the ancient houses, high and prison-like, are huddled together as was the custom in ancient days, for protection against the Saracens. In the little piazza the grass grows over the stones, and there is everywhere signs of poverty and decay.
Mighty in the days of the Papacy, Santa Lucia has now shrunk to a mere miserable relic of its former self, a place wherein scarce any man knows anything but of the few men and women who make their dwelling there, sons of the soil who spring from its dust and return to it.
Yet they have earned for themselves a reputation of being a bad people. They were feared in the days of the Papacy; they gave shelter to the brigands of the Maremma until the last of them were killed ten years ago, and even to-day the carabineers never ascend there unless called, and then they go in force. The usual patrol, consisting of a pair, refuse to enter the village. More than one has been shot from a window and the assassin remained unknown. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Italian Automobile Club issue an urgent warning to motorists to avoid the place.
To this poverty-stricken village, fifteen years before, its hook-nosed parish priest, or curato, Don Mario Mellini, had been sent from Milan as chastisement for his too sceptical and inquiring mind. By long, weary years in that solitude, and among that brutal, uncouth people he had become chastened; the fire had died out of his soul and the light out of his eyes.
The small white presbytery with the iron-barred windows stood in the deserted little piazza where the lizards darted over the moss-grown stones. Next it was the church, the stucco of which was peeling from the old red bricks, while from the open door, disclosing a dark interior with candles burning in the gloom, there issued the sweet fragrance of incense.
In a bare room with stone floor, uncomfortable old rush-bottomed chairs, a tiny shrine before which a light burned in a red glass, and a crucifix upon the whitewashed wall—a room which opened upon a small courtyard shaded by trailing vines and adorned by bits of broken statuary—sat the thin old priest in rusty black cassock and black biretta, lazily smoking his long Tuscan cigar after luncheon.
Upon the table there still stood a big rush-covered fiasca of good red Chianti and a couple of long glasses, while opposite, in a chair drawn near the open door, sat John Ambrose.
Don Mario had just blown out the candle by which he had lit his long thin cigar, as is the Italian habit, and as he did so glanced across at his visitor, who sat drowsy and dozing.
The old curato, or rather piovano was his actual title, was tall and stately, but his clean-shaven face was thin and drawn for want of good food, his eyes were dark and brilliant, impenetrable wells of thought, his finely-cut lips smiled but rarely, and had upon them always an expression of bitterness, while his complexion was yellow, like old marble.
His was a cure of souls which covered many miles, but counted few persons.
Below those great ruined walls of Santa Lucia nearly all the land lay untilled, and within them the few wretched, half-starved people, fierce in their antagonism towards the rich and against all forms of law or government, dragged out a poverty-stricken existence, forgotten by all save the tax-collector.
And for fifteen years, with many short vacations, Don Mario had lived, a cultured scholar among the barbarians. In Milan he had preached in the great Duomo and been popular. In London, in Turin and Genoa his fame was known, and the women had crowded to hear his marvellous discourses, and even in St. Peter’s itself had his clear voice sounded. He would have been a great prelate, perhaps even a Cardinal, but, being a reformer, the Vatican would have none of him; therefore, like many another brilliant cleric, he had been crushed, broken and banished to that lonely village of bad repute.
Late one night, a fortnight before, the Signor Inglese had arrived at Santa Lucia in the dusty, ramshackle old carrozzella in which Don Mario had driven twenty miles to meet him at the wayside station. He was a foreigner, and would have fared badly had he not been under the protection of the Signor Piovano. At first the low-browed, sunburnt men, some of whom were in sheepskins, scowled at him darkly as he passed, but already he had chatted with some of them, and they had therefore admitted him into their midst, even though they were not altogether satisfied because of his inordinate inquisitiveness and his constant poking about the old ruins of the castello and elsewhere.
Old Teresa, a bent, grey-haired old crone, the donna di casa, who looked after the priest’s domestic affairs, hobbled across the courtyard, arousing the Englishman from his drowsiness.
“This place, Santa Lucia, has a bad name,” the priest was remarking to his guest. “Its people have earned it; they are mostly Anarchists and law-breakers, some murderers who snap their fingers at the carabinieri! Why? Who has made them Anarchists but the adventurers who have lately been in power at Monte Citorio! They legislate for themselves, put money into their pockets, in the shape of fat commissions, and drive the contadini to Anarchism, or else compel them to emigrate. Already poor Italy has lost her backbone, her youth and her energy. The condition of Santa Lucia is the condition of all our remote villages. Ah! if the English only knew our dear unfortunate Italy as she is, and would not look out upon her through the windows of the grand hotels, I fear the charm she is supposed to possess would soon be dispelled. Surely no peasantry in all Europe is so oppressed, so hopeless, so famished, so despairing as our once light-hearted people, the honest, easygoing men and women who, for the past ten years, have been driven to desperation and to Anarchism—nay, to death—by unfair taxation, the glorification of the signore, the lack of justice in the courts, and the bribery and corruption on every hand.”
“Pray be careful, Mario,” remarked his friend, glancing at the door. “Some official may overhear you. Surely such sentiments had better remain unuttered, for it would fare ill with you if your words were reported to Rome.”
“Probably it would, my dear Ambrose,” laughed the old priest. “But I only speak what I feel. Though this place is wretched, poverty-stricken, and barbaric, yet I have the welfare of my people at heart. They are not half as black as they are painted. Here, a word is quickly followed by a knife-thrust, and jealousy is often responsible for a secret stab in the dark. Quick, hot-headed, hot-tempered, they are swift to take offence or execute vendetta, and so strange are their religious convictions that I have actually known men pray before the wayside Madonna that the theft they were about to commit might be successful, and remain undiscovered!”
Ambrose smiled.
“And you, my dear Mario, are trying to teach them different!” he said. “A hard task, I should fancy, with such a people.”
Don Mario sighed sadly, then, tapping his big horn snuff-box, he opened it and took a pinch. His white collar was soiled, his cassock was greasy, and down its many-buttoned front were the marks of many of old Teresa’s soups, her stews and her minestras. Upon his chin was a three days’ growth of beard. He was passing from neglect into oblivion, for now that the Sacred College was against him, no one at the Vatican dared to speak in his favour.
Only on the previous night, as he sat chatting with his guest beneath the oil lamp, he had declared with a bitter laugh that he was as forgotten as a folio upon a library shelf, and that nowadays his only object in life was to gabble through the ritual twice a day in the big, gloomy church, heedless whether anybody were present or not.
Once he had had pious women of rank pleading at Rome for him, and magnates soliciting his preferment. Once he was fêted in the big cities, women hung upon his words, and crowds jostled in the great cathedrals to hear his remarkable and scholarly discourses.
But that was all of the past. Instead of becoming an archbishop he was merely Don Mario Mellini, piovano, or parish priest of Santa Lucia, an obscure rock-village.
He rose, and, opening the rickety old persiennes, let light and air into the bare room. Then he took from a drawer in a side table a small roll of ancient brown parchments—musty manuscripts of the Middle Ages, closely written in Latin with many contractions, and sat down to study them with the aid of a big lens.
As with many priests in Italy, his hobby was the study of palæography. From the old Franciscan monastery of Radicofani, across the valley, he obtained many of the documents on loan, and spent hours, weeks, nay, years, in poring over them, deciphering them, and from them gaining a knowledge of local history and customs.
It was his only pleasure—the only pastime allowed him—the only pursuit which caused him to forget the brilliant past.
Through the open door came the hum of the insects and the constant crick of the cicale, that harbinger of heat which the dweller in Italy knows so well. And as he unrolled one of the half faded parchment rolls and began to pore over it with his lens and slowly transcribe it from the abbreviated Latin into modern Italian, his guest sat regarding him in silence.
A secret existed between the pair—one of the strangest and most remarkable of the many secrets in this modern world of ours—a secret of which neither ever spoke. They always kept a mutual silence upon the point.
CHAPTER XXII.
CONTAINS AN ADMISSION
Through many years John Ambrose had placed implicit faith in that solemn, pious, hook-nosed curato, the man who was such a brilliant scholar and such a wonderful orator that the Sacred College had feared his influence and therefore crushed him.
His leanings towards the Government, his support of certain decisions in the Chamber of Deputies, his friendship with Crispi and Tittoni, and his differences with the Archbishop of Siena had all been seized upon by the Cardinals, who had foreseen his national popularity. Hence he had been banished to that high-up, obscure village where the Government stipend was the princely sum of one thousand lire, or forty pounds per annum.
Remuneration mattered nothing to him. Though he never displayed the possession of private means, yet he had them—a snug account in the Banca Nazionale in Milan. It was that which enabled him from time to time to enjoy brief holidays. Sometimes he left Santa Lucia, no one knew whither. The people were quite unaware that it was his habit to join the express in far-off Siena, and two days later arrive in that wonderful city of the English, London. He always pretended to them that he went to his own birthplace, away amid the misty rice-fields of Novara.
That morning, while Don Mario had said mass in the dark, ancient, little church, Ambrose had sat and listened to his droning Latin. Not more than twenty of the villagers were present, mostly women in their peasant dresses of bright colours. The men of Santa Lucia did not go to church except on the festa. If they prayed once a week they considered it all-sufficient.
The steady flames of the long candles, the dull gilt of the altar, the time-dimmed holy pictures, the rich but faded vestments which his friend wore, the fragrance of the incense, the dark solemnity of that black, cavernous interior in contrast with the brilliant sunshine outside, all had made a great impression upon the fugitive from England.
He had sat thinking then—just as he was now thinking as he watched his friend pursuing his dry-as-dust hobby, the deciphering of ancient records—whether Don Mario was really the pious, high-minded servant of his Maker he pretended to be.
They had known each other for many years—more years than he cared to remember. Yet now that he looked back along the vista of the past, certain recollections crowded upon him—recollections of strange happenings—recollections which aroused within him the strange suspicion that the soul of Don Mario was not such as he had believed it to be—that beneath that mask of deep-eyed devotion and human charity lay a heart hard as the stone and black with evil.
He was watching that yellow, sphinx-like face over which the skin was drawn so tightly, and as he watched the thin hand slowly transcribe the crinkled parchment he became seized by certain horrible apprehensions.
Could it be true what had once been whispered?
No. He knew Don Mario too well. What his enemies had whispered concerning him was a lie—a black and wilful lie.
That night, after the old bell in the square white tower had clanged out the venti-tre unmusically, after vespers had been said in the gloomy church by the light of a few flickering candles, and the sun had disappeared in a blaze of crimson, green and gold behind the giant Apennines, half Santa Lucia assembled under the dusty plane-trees in the little piazza, gossiping, flirting, or scandalising their neighbours.
The hook-nosed priest had taken his guest for a stroll through the dark, narrow, evil-smelling streets where the swarthy, beetle-browed men and women had wished him felicissima notte, and more than once had he lifted his shabby biretta in salutation. Then, emerging from the dark, tunnel-like, old place, so narrow that two bullocks could scarcely pass abreast, they went down the hillside looking out across that world of hills which, in the failing light, seemed infinitely far away, like mountains in a dream.
Out of Maremma night was coming up. Beneath them, as Ambrose halted to look around upon the wonderful panorama, the olives stirred in the night wind from the sea.
Gradually the light faded, and, little by little, the barren world of mountains became lost in an immense and beautiful shadow as both men stood there upon the hillside, their faces turned towards the Eternal City.
Suddenly Ambrose faced his companion, and said in a low, strained voice:
“I wonder, Mario, what has happened in London?”
The old priest started slightly, then recovering himself instantly, replied with a short, harsh laugh:
“Ah! I wonder! The mystery is, no doubt, as complete as ever.”
“Of course,” said Ambrose with a grin. “And yet—well, I only wish I knew the true extent of Medland’s knowledge. Why did he take Maidee into Westminster Abbey?”
“With one motive alone—to identify your features from the statue.”
“I know,” sighed the old man. “Yet how could he have suspected me when Richard Goodrick died, and had been buried?”
“Medland evidently knows more than we think,” remarked the priest, watching the serious face of his guest, which was just discernible in the faint light.
“What care we? He will never solve the mystery,” declared Ambrose with confidence. “He may suspect various things, but happily he cannot prove anything. We have taken elaborate precautions against that.”
“The peril is increased now that he has taken Maidee into his confidence. The girl may act as your enemy—instead of your friend.”
“And if she did, Mario, what irony of fate that Maidee—little Maidee—should be the means of my exposure!”
“Yes,” the priest admitted. “But in this world of ours there is much contrariness. Not infrequently it is our dearest friends who become our enemies, and those we love best are the first to turn and rend us.”
“But she suspects, Mario. I know that she suspects!” cried the other.
“I think your attitude towards Gordon was not well advised,” said his friend. “I commented upon it at the time. The course you adopted was amazingly clever, but your shrewdness and tact might, with greater advantage, have been directed into a different channel. As far as I can see, there was no need to strike terror into the heart of the girl’s lover.”
“Ah, yes,” sighed Ambrose; “I admit that I acted injudiciously. Tulloch I knew well, and I was also aware that Tulloch had blackmailed him because of a secret he held. In confidence I learnt from him how Gordon Cunningham, soon after leaving Oxford, had married secretly a young girl named Helen Weaver, employed as typewriter in an estate office at Tunbridge Wells. The girl was eighteen. In a year he grew tired of her, and she died mysteriously. The allegation was that Gordon had got rid of the encumbrance—by poison.”
“By poison!” gasped the priest in surprise. “How? By what means?”
“Ah! That I cannot exactly tell. All I know is that, on the night the pair parted, she was found dead in a lodging somewhere in Camden Town. The medical evidence was to the effect that she had died of poison—Tulloch alleged murder—and he knew!”
“Knew!” cried Don Mario, greatly interested. “How did he know?”
“Because he alleged that Gordon had, a few days before, surreptitiously abstracted from his rooms a small quantity of a certain subtle and very remarkable poison which he had in his possession. Tulloch alone knew the tests for it, and he threatened to furnish them to the Home Office analyst if Gordon did not pay a very substantial sum. The young man, frightened, as are so many victims of blackmail, paid a thousand pounds, and having once paid, continued to remain in Tulloch’s power.”
“Then it was of this that you, posing as Tulloch, lately threatened him?”
“I did not pose as Tulloch—I am Tulloch!” Ambrose declared in a low, hard tone.
“You!—Tulloch?” gasped Don Mario, staring at him. “Ah! I see. Then it was owing to your marvellous grasp of the political world—to your secret influence and prompting, that the young man so rapidly came to the front rank of politicians. But was there any truth in the allegation?”
Ambrose shrugged his shoulders significantly.
“And yet you allowed him to become engaged to Maidee?”
“The secret marriage and the girl’s death are, alas! true. The actual murder, however, is not exactly clear, I must admit.”
“But you say she was poisoned.”
“Little doubt of it. I contrived to apply the test myself, and proved conclusively that she died from the effects of a fatal compound.”
“What was the substance?”
“I am no toxicologist.”
“Well, my dear Ambrose,” exclaimed the hook-nosed priest after a brief pause, “I must say that I am surprised that, believing young Cunningham to have killed the girl, you should have allowed him to be engaged to Maidee, of all persons in the world.”
“It was, perhaps, a mistake, Mario—one of those fatal, foolish mistakes which all of us commit at times,” he said in a harsh, intense voice, scarce above a whisper. “Dear Maidee—dear little Maidee!” he added reflectively.
And he sighed as he turned his face to where the last faint flush showed in the sky between a break in the mountain peaks.
“You were Gordon’s evil genius,” remarked the priest quietly.
“With one hand I have pushed him forward until he is what he is now—the most talked-of and brilliant young man in London; while with the other I have blackmailed him and driven him to desperation.”
“But why?”
A silence fell between the pair.
“Was not his father my bitterest enemy?” questioned old Ambrose at last in a changed voice.
“And you intend that Gordon shall suffer—eh?” asked Don Mario, somewhat reproachfully. “Are you acting justly towards Maidee?”
“Ah! I never foresaw that she would fall in love with him. It was a staggering blow to me, I assure you.”
“But you are not antagonistic to their marriage, surely?”
“Not in the least. If Maidee really loves him, then I am ready to crush down my hatred—even to stand his friend, if necessary.”
“You have scarcely been his friend up to the present—eh?”
“Though I acted as his enemy in re-appearing as Tulloch and threatening him, yet my action was really in his interests. It caused him to put that question in the House.”
“Which very nearly resulted in his own undoing,” the priest said with a strange look.
“But which diverted suspicion from himself regarding the affair at Carlton House Terrace.”
“Ah! yes,” sighed the priest. “There were grave suspicions of the young man. Yet they were surely unfounded.”
“Of course,” said old Ambrose. “The death of Sir George and of the man Richard Goodrick are still as great mysteries as they ever were. I wonder by whose hand they really fell?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Don Mario; “I wonder! I have done all in my power to solve the mystery, but it still remains inscrutable. I can discern no motive—unless——”
“Yes, yes. I know to what you refer,” Ambrose said quickly. “But there was an absence of motive. The mystery is just as complete as on that fatal night when both men were so secretly and swiftly done to death.”
“Have you no theory—even now?” inquired his companion looking at him narrowly in the half light.
“None—none whatever,” was Ambrose’s reply. “I am thankful that poor little Maidee’s life was spared—that is all.”
“You believed her to be in peril, yet you suspect nobody?” continued the priest.
“Nobody,” declared Ambrose. “And yet,” he laughed harshly, “and yet I am a fugitive!”
Don Mario did not speak. It had now grown dark. From far away came the call of the night owl, the whistle of the night cecca through the still leaves. Somewhere beneath the olives a young rustic lover was strumming upon a mandoline, singing in the soft tongue of lazy Tuscany:
Avete gli occhi neri, e siete bella
A guisa di falcon che in alto mira;
Voi rilucete come chiara stella,
Come la calamità id ferro tira.
Al mondo non si vede la più bella:
C’e chi piange per voi e chi sospira.
C’e chi per voi sospira e piange forte,
Se non l’amate, si darà la morte!
With one accord the two men commenced the re-ascent of the hill, where, above, the lights of the mediæval village were already twinkling.
Don Mario sighed, pushed his biretta farther back upon his head, and clearing his throat, said at last:
“You say, caro mio, that young Cunningham killed the girl Weaver by poison stolen from you? Why did you have such dangerous stuff in your possession?”
Ambrose stood still, his eyes narrowing, then turning, he stared his companion full in the face, answering lamely:
“I obtained it from a friend—just a small quantity—and kept it as a curiosity.”
“Yet you knew the test to detect its presence. You applied it in secret and satisfied yourself that she had died of that poison,” remarked the priest very slowly, as, gazing into the other’s thin, drawn face, he added reflectively in a low, meaning tone: “I wonder—I wonder whether that same test, if applied in the cases of Sir George Ravenscourt and the man identified as Richard Goodrick, would have yielded similar results?”
Old Ambrose glared at the speaker for a single instant. Then he stumbled forward up the dark, stony road without uttering another word.
In the silent gloom he could not distinguish that the countenance of the hook-nosed old priest bore an evil, triumphant grin—that his expression was that of a keen, crafty man who was well aware of the ghastly and astounding truth.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LOVERS
Drawn up in a sheltered spot beyond the Wish Tower at Eastbourne was a bath-chair, and beside it sat a young man in blue serge, idly smoking a cigarette.
The invalid was Maidee, whose sweet face, lying upon the pillow, was pale and wan, and whose dark, deep-sunken eyes bore a strange, intense look as she turned them upon her lover.
Her mysterious attack on the night that Uncle John left London had very nearly proved fatal. The doctor, summoned at once by telephone, was entirely mystified by the symptoms, but suspecting poison when shown the hatpins, at once commenced to administer antidotes, telephoning for one of the best-known toxicologists, who, living close by, in Cavendish Square, came immediately to his assistance.
By their united efforts the life of the unfortunate girl had been saved, though for a week she had remained in a state of coma, hanging upon the brink of the grave. However, by dint of constant effort and careful nursing, she had now sufficiently recovered to be removed to the Grand Hotel at Eastbourne, where Lady Ravenscourt had rented a suite of pleasant rooms overlooking the sea.
Gordon was with her constantly, reading to her, walking beside her chair, or assisting her from one room to the other, for as yet she was too weak to walk without great effort.
He had paired for a month with a man who had gone to Egypt, and had come down to stay at the same hotel, so as to be near the woman he so dearly loved.
Her dangerous illness had brought them closer together. In the hours when he had sat at her bedside in Gloucester Terrace, he had held her hand and laid his very soul bare before her. She, too, knew now that he really loved her—and she was satisfied.
Yet, remembering the strange death of Sir George, she was ever anxious, ever nervous. That a dastardly attempt had also been made upon her life by the same means by which the baronet had been so foully done to death was only too apparent. Gordon knew it, but did not refer to the ghastly subject for fear of arousing terror within her, while she, on her part, kept her own counsel.
One day, when she had sufficiently recovered to receive a visitor, Inspector Medland came to her, and put some more of those strange questions regarding the mysterious Uncle John—the man whose face so closely resembled that of the statue of the dead statesman in Westminster Abbey. Medland had not been open and frank with her on that day when he had induced her to accompany him to the Abbey, and she, on her part, told him little.
She still regarded the strange old fellow whom she had called Uncle John with greatest respect and friendship. Therefore she was indignant with her questioner.
Once only had she written to the old man, addressing the letter to the poste restante at Maçon, an address he had sent her in a carefully worded telegram. She had managed to scrawl a few words telling him what had occurred, though it had been a very difficult task, for she had been so weak that she could hardly hold a pen.
He had received it, for in reply he had sent her a brief telegram of reassurance, urging her to be of good cheer. The telegram had been dispatched from the little French town of Arnay-le-Duc, which she had ascertained to be in the Midi.
The afternoon was bright and sunny, and before her, as she lay back in her chair, stretched the blue, calm expanse of sea. Few visitors were upon the promenade, for it was as yet too early in the season for the cotton-clad seaside girl and her male appendage.
On the right rose the green, breezy slopes of Beachy Head, while to the left ran the pretty promenade to the balconied Queen’s Hotel, and the long white pier.
Gordon had been reading extracts from a new book to her, an interesting account of the fall of the Sultan Abdul-Hamid, and had lain it aside, noticing that she had grown a trifle tired.
“Shall I call the man to take you back to the hotel, dearest?” he asked, bending over her tenderly, and noticing her fragile form.
“No, not yet, Gordon. It is quite warm and pleasant here. It is hardly three o’clock yet, is it?”
“Ten minutes to three,” he said, after glancing at his watch.
“How bright it is, to-day!” she remarked. “Look yonder. Is that a warship—that one far away there, with four funnels?”
“Yes, dear. That’s a first-class cruiser—one of the County class; going down to Portsmouth from Chatham, I suppose. But how do you feel now?”
The girl raised her dark eyes to her lover’s, and with a faint smile replied:
“Better, dear. I thank God I am much better—that He has spared me to you—the man I love.”
“Ah! yes,” he said, his manner changing instantly; “I, too, thank the Almighty always for His great goodness in giving you back to me. You narrowly escaped death, my darling—very narrowly.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, in a weak, faint voice, scarcely above a whisper. “It was intended, Gordon, that I should die.”
“By whom, do you suspect?”
“How can I tell?”
“My own theory, dearest, is that the unknown hand that killed Sir George and that recluse in Pimlico also made the attempt upon you.”
“But how?” she asked, stirring herself slightly. “Rayner is a most faithful maid. One cannot have any suspicion of her—or of any of Mrs. Beresford’s servants. What motive could anyone have to kill me?”
“Are you quite certain of Rayner’s loyalty?” asked the young man dubiously, as he finished his cigarette.
“Oh, Gordon! Think of the years she has been with us. If she were deceitful and flighty, or perhaps had some man at her back, as so many maids have, then it would be different. But surely Rayner is quite above suspicion?”
“Yet on the day following your mysterious attack Lady Ravenscourt told me that Rayner’s actions were very suspicious. I saw her, and I must admit that she looked haggard—full of fear—as though she were afraid of being accused.”
“Your fancy, Gordon,” replied the girl, again smiling faintly.
“But it was she who had access to the hatpins, remember. During your unconsciousness I called in Medland, and he made most exhaustive inquiries. He took possession of the pins, and it was found that all four of them had been infected with some most deadly poison. The Home Office analyst experimented with it. A touch of one of the pins upon a rabbit caused death with almost electrical rapidity, while a cat died in seventy seconds, and a sheep in one hundred and twenty seconds—two minutes.”
“Was it a known poison?” she asked with a slight shudder.
“No,” he replied. “According to the analyst’s opinion your life was saved through the pin first passing through your felt hat. By that means much of the deadly compound was removed, and the poison thus lost some part of its effect.”
“But can’t any expert in poisons recognise it?” she asked eagerly.
Her lover shook his head.
“There is one curious fact, however, which has greatly puzzled them at Scotland Yard, namely, that in several cases—eight or nine during the past few years—cases of wilful poisoning by this selfsame rapid and untraceable poison have been brought before the police, and investigated by Professor Salt.”
“So Medland has told me. He mentioned the name of one poor girl named Weaver, who lived at Camden Town, and was found dead.”
The keen, clean-shaven face of Gordon Cunningham went livid, and he drew back behind the covering of the chair so that Maidee should not discern his confusion.
“I—I believe so,” he managed to exclaim. “But, of course, I am not aware of the details.”
“Tell me, Gordon,” she said after a brief pause, broken only by the rhythmic lapping of the sunlit waves upon the yellow shingle. “I want to know your opinion. Do you believe that Sir George’s death was really due to the same poison as that placed upon my hatpins?”
Cunningham hesitated. He stirred uneasily, and then said:
“Well, I hardly know what to believe, dear. The poison administered to Sir George was very rapid in its action, as shown by the fact that he was unable to alarm the household. Besides, you will recollect you told me that there was a tiny punctured hole in the neck. A similar mark was, I hear, upon the neck of Richard Goodrick.”
“There is a great mystery connected with that poor, unfortunate man, is there not?” asked the girl, her eyes fixed upon her lover’s face.
“Only that he was a recluse, I believe. Like many another man, he hated the outside world, and devoted his life to antiquarian study.”
“Nothing more?” she asked, turning her thin, wan face to his.
“Not as far as I am aware. The police certainly failed to find any of his relations. Why?”
“Because, Gordon, I always think that there must have been some very remarkable and close connection between Sir George and that obscure old man in Pimlico,” was her reply.
“Of what nature?”
“Ah! I do not know—except that Sir George found himself in possession of some great secret of the old recluse. By that curious statement this seems conclusively proved.”
“But who killed both men by such subtle means, and with such a master hand?”
“The same person, Gordon, who endeavoured to close my lips,” was her slow, half-whispered reply.
“Who was it? Have you any suspicion?”
“None. Neither have the police. It is all a mystery still. And yet the hand which killed the girl Weaver in Camden Town is, in all probability, the hand which struck down poor Sir George—which prepared my hatpins, so that I should inflict death upon myself.”
“No! no!” cried the young man, starting to his feet, involuntarily. “No, that is not true—I——” Next instant, however, he recovered himself, adding:
“Oh, pray pardon me, Maidee; I’m sorry if I startled you. Only I—I felt that you should not make such a wide-sweeping condemnation. The death of a poor girl in Camden Town long ago can surely have no connection with the dastardly attempt upon you!”
“But the same poison was used,” she exclaimed with a look of apprehension upon her thin white face. “I have escaped on this occasion, but how can I guard against another attempt? If I am marked down as the next victim, death may lurk in anything.”
“No, no,” he cried, endeavouring to reassure her. “Thank God that this attempt has failed. And we will be careful that there is not another. We will act together—we will devote every day, nay, every hour of our lives, to the unmasking of the murderer!” he added, again taking her thin, trembling hand in his.
“But, Gordon, I—I feel I am in peril—in deadly peril!”
“No, darling. With me at your side you are safe, I assure you—quite safe,” he cried in a strange voice. “Rest assured. Trust in me—and no harm shall befall you.”
And she looked up into his pale, determined face and saw fervent love and passionate affection mirrored there.
Gordon Cunningham loved her, and would soon make her his wife.
Sweetly she smiled, while he, glancing round to make sure they were not observed, bent until his lips touched hers.
“My darling!” he murmured softly. “My darling, no further harm shall ever come to you. I will never rest until I know whose criminal hand it was that prepared the awful death for you—never!”
And he turned away for a moment to hide the hard, haggard look upon his countenance, for terror showed in his eyes.
Was it that before them there had arisen the pale, ghostly vision of the soft-haired little typist—the dead girl, Helen Weaver?
CHAPTER XXIV.
IN FADED INK
The month of May.
A still and brilliant night in the Umbrian hills.
The whole world of mountain and valley seemed to be lost in a soft veil of blue spangled with gold.
Far away over the jagged crests of the Apennines, like a horn of pallid gold, or a silver sickle for some precious harvest, the moon hung over the world that in her light was visible ever so faintly, as though seen through some impalpable but lovely veil.
Old Don Mario noiselessly let himself out of the battered oaken door of the presbytery. Its hinges had been well oiled long ago, for, truth to tell, he took frequent nocturnal rambles, unknown to old Teresa, to his English guest, or to the slumbering village.
As he halted for a second in the little piazza with its dark shadows beneath the planes, there was no sound except the distant wailing of a dog. Santa Lucia went to bed early, and rose with the dawn. And when it slept, no watch was kept by police.
Therefore Don Mario did not fear observation or comment.
His habit was to rise at half-past one o’clock, dress, and go forth into the night, just as he had now emerged.
As he stood by the wall of the little piazza—the short, low wall beside the church—there spread before him the whole breadth of the great valley. To the right on the hills, like the nest of an eagle, Castellazzara hung above the precipices of Monte Civitella. Dimly in the lonely obscurity of night San Casciano rose behind Celle on the sides of Monte Cetona. Somewhere, lost in the valleys, Proceno hid herself among the vines, Acquapendente behind the fantastic rocks, while far away the Lago di Bolsena shone like a jewel, Monte Limone rose like a ghost beside Monte Venere with Monte Fiascone, and beyond was the desert of the Campagna and that immortal city which it has brought forth.
Over everything lay an unbroken silence.
For fully five minutes the old curato stood gazing away into the night, then, with noiseless tread—for he always wore his felt-soled slippers on his nocturnal excursions—he turned and, descending a short narrow lane, skirted the great ruined walls of the village, and was quickly out in the open country below.
He walked briskly along a by-path through the vines until he had descended the steep hill, then, crossing the maize fields, he entered a small wood of chestnuts, following a narrow, tortuous path, which led at last to a small, half-ruined cottage, the broken windows of which had been boarded up—the house of an old contadino who had died, and whose sons had emigrated to England.
Producing an electric torch from his pocket, the old priest put a key into the latch, and next moment was within.
The lamp, which he lit quickly, revealed a weird, unusual interior; an old kitchen, at one end of which was a long brick stove with four holes for burning charcoal, at the other a table upon which were many glass vessels, a marble mortar and pestle, and some small heaps of dried herbs.
One of the fires, which had apparently been banked up many hours ago, still glowed red, and upon it was a small retort, for some distillation was in progress—some long and elaborate process.
By the light of the lamp the old priest first divested himself of his cassock, then, taking a pair of indiarubber gloves from a drawer in the table, he put them on and began to examine the retort, from which emanated a delicate perfume as pungent and subtle as some new Parisian extract.
A rough-haired terrier, tied up near the stove, whined to be released and licked his hand. He had brought it there on the previous night.
But he cuffed it back roughly, muttering some execration in Italian. A long wooden box stood close by, and the light of the lamp aroused its imprisoned inmates who showed at the bars. They were large brown rabbits.
Don Mario had rolled up his shirt-sleeves and was poking the fire, when suddenly he halted and held his breath.
He thought he detected a noise outside and listened. But at last, after prolonged and careful investigation, he satisfied himself that the wind had suddenly sprung up, and that the branch of a rose tree had struck the boards nailed before the window.
“No,” he murmured to himself in Italian, “nobody dare come here. The people are superstitious. Seven years ago when old Antonio died in this kitchen, I told them that he had been strangled by the devil, and I warned the village that anyone coming to the accursed house might share the same fate. The evil eye would be directed upon them, and ill-fortune would befall them and theirs. And”—he chuckled to himself—“and not man, woman, or child in Santa Lucia dare come near the place. It belongs to no one, and no one dare enter for fear of the devil. The superstition of the contadini is,” he laughed, “often very useful to the curato.”
Certainly he had inspired within the people of Santa Lucia a terror of that ruined cottage, now overgrown with weeds and tangled bushes. Old Antonio had been found there one night dead, with dark marks upon his throat and evident signs of strangulation; and the priest, because he desired uninterrupted possession of the house, had declared it to be the work of the Evil One himself, thus striking terror into the hearts of his ignorant and superstitious flock.
Carrying the lamp back to the table, he commenced a careful examination of the various pots and glass phials upon it. In a large glass bowl stood some dark grey liquid with a few small brown leaves floating in it—evidently some decoction in process of manufacture.
Still wearing his rubber gloves, he took a small portion of the liquid and placed it in a test tube. Then, lighting a small spirit lamp, he held it over the blue flame, every now and then carefully testing its temperature by means of a tiny thermometer.
At last, before it boiled, he added ten drops of a colourless liquid, taken from the retort on the fire, counting them as they fell, and again held it up to the lamp-light.
Its colour and character had become entirely changed. It was now perfectly clear and of a deep, bright blue.
“Benissimo!” he ejaculated in complete satisfaction. “It is the first step towards success!”
Afterwards he drew a broken, rush-seated chair towards the table, and, taking from his cassock a small roll of brown parchment, spread it out beneath the lamp-light.
It was in Latin—an ancient and much-faded parchment. He had bought it for a few soldi from an old man in Acquapendente, who had discovered it while demolishing an ancient house in the village. The man had found it preserved in a small cylinder of rusty iron and concealed in a hole in the wall.
When opened, it was about ten inches long by five wide, and covered with neat, even writing in ancient characters, much of which was so faded as to be hardly decipherable. One corner was ragged, while upon it were dark brown stains of damp, or of rust from the iron cylinder in which it had been preserved.