“That Mrs. Tadworth is a vapid, weak-kneed little fool,” she said,
with angry vehemence. “We ought to be at Cividale by now--and she
declared herself too ill and too fatigued to continue the journey. How
that poor Shuttleworth could be so blind as to trust her passes
belief.”
“Mary,” she added more calmly, “go down into the hall at once. Watch
that idiot of a woman for all you’re worth. She is terrified of the
Sicilians, and I firmly believe that Piatti can force her to give up
the proofs of the crime to him.”
“Where are they--the proofs, I mean?” I asked anxiously.
“Locked up in her trunk--she won’t entrust them to me. Obstinate
little fool.”
I had never seen my dear lady so angry; however, she said nothing more
then, and presently I took leave of her and worked my way back towards
the hall. One glance round the brilliantly-lighted place assured me
that neither Piatti nor Mrs. Tadworth was there. I could not tell you
what it was that suddenly filled my heart with foreboding.
I ran up to the first floor and reached room No. 118. The outer door
was open, and without a moment’s hesitation I applied my eye to the
keyhole of the inner one.
The room was brilliantly lighted from within, and exactly opposite,
but with his back to me, stood Piatti, whilst squatting on a low stool
beside him was Mrs. Tadworth.
A trunk stood open close to her hand, and she was obviously busy
turning over its contents. My very heart stood still with horror. Was
I about to witness--thus powerless to interfere--one of the most
hideous acts of cowardly treachery it was possible to conceive?
Something, however, must at that moment have attracted Piatti’s
attention, for he suddenly turned and strode towards the door.
Needless to say that I beat a hasty retreat.
My one idea was, of course, to find Lady Molly and tell her what I had
seen. Unfortunately, the Hungaria is a veritable maze of corridors,
stairs and passages, and I did not know the number of her room. At
first I did not wish to attract further attention by again asking
about “Mrs. Carey’s maid” at the office, and my stupid ignorance of
foreign languages precluded my talking to the female servants.
I had been up and down the stairs half a dozen times, tired,
miserable, and anxious, when at last, in the far distance, I espied my
dear lady’s graceful silhouette. Eagerly I ran to her, and was
promptly admonished for my careless impetuosity.
“Mrs. Tadworth is genuinely frightened,” added Lady Molly in response
to my look of painful suspense, “but so far she has been able to
hoodwink Piatti by opening _my_ trunk before him instead of hers, and
telling him that the proofs were not in her own keeping. But she is
too stupid to keep that deception up, and, of course, he won’t allow
himself to be put off a second time. We must start for Cividale as
soon as possible. Unfortunately, the earliest train is not till 9.15
to-morrow morning. The danger to that unfortunate young man over at
Palermo, brought about by this woman’s cowardly idiocy and the
father’s misguided trust, is already incalculable.”
It was, of course, useless for me to express fear now for my dear
lady’s safety. I smothered my anxiety as best I could, and, full of
deadly forebodings, I bade her anon a fond good-night.
Needless to say that I scarcely slept, and at eight o’clock the next
morning I was fully dressed and out of my room.
The first glance down the corridor on which gave No. 118 at once
confirmed my worst fears. Unusual bustle reigned there at this early
hour. Officials came and went, maids stood about gossiping, and the
next moment, to my literally agonised horror, I beheld two gendarmes,
with an officer, being escorted by the hotel manager to the rooms
occupied by Mrs. Tadworth and Lady Molly.
Oh, how I cursed then our British ignorance of foreign tongues. The
officials were too busy to bother about me, and the maids only knew
that portion of the English language which refers to baths and to hot
water. Finally, to my intense relief, I discovered a willing porter,
ready and able to give me information in my own tongue of the events
which had disturbed the serene quietude of the Hotel Hungaria.
Great heavens! Shall I ever forget what I endured when I grasped the
full meaning of what he told me with a placid smile and a shrug of the
shoulders!
“The affair is most mysterious,” he explained, “not robbery--oh, no!
no!--for it is Mrs. Carey who has gone--disappeared! And it is Mrs.
Carey’s maid who was found, stunned, gagged and unconscious, tied to
one of the bedposts in room No. 118.”
4
Well, why should I bore you by recounting the agonised suspense, the
mortal anxiety, which I endured for all those subsequent weary days
which at the time seemed like so many centuries?
My own dear lady, the woman for whom I would have gone through fire
and water with a cheerful smile, had been brutally assaulted, almost
murdered, so the smiling porter assured me, and my very existence was
ignored by the stolid officials, who looked down upon me with a frown
of impassive disapproval whilst I entreated, raged and stormed
alternately, begging to be allowed to go and nurse the sick lady, who
was my own dearest friend, dearer than any child could be to its
mother.
Oh, that awful red tapeism that besets one at every turn, paralyses
and disheartens one! What I suffered I really could not describe.
But if I was not allowed to see Lady Molly, at least I was able to
wreak vengeance upon her cowardly assailants. Mrs. Tadworth, by her
disappearance, had tacitly confessed her participation in the outrage,
of that I had no doubt, but I was equally certain that she was both
too stupid and too weak to commit such a crime unaided.
Piatti was at the bottom of it all. Without a moment’s hesitation I
laid information against him through the medium of an interpreter. I
accused him boldly of being an accessory to the assault for purposes
of robbery. Unswervingly I repeated my story of how I had seen him in
close conversation the day before with Mrs. Carey, whose real name I
declared to be Mrs. Tadworth.
The chief object of the robbery I suggested to be a valuable gold
watch and chain, with initials “A. C.,” belonging to my friend, who
had travelled with Mrs. Carey to Budapest as her companion, not her
maid. This was a bold move on my part, and I felt reckless, I can tell
you. Fortunately, my story was corroborated by the fact that the floor
valet had seen Piatti hanging about the corridor outside No. 118 at an
extraordinarily early hour of the morning. My firm belief was that the
wretch had been admitted into the room by that horrid Mrs. Tadworth.
He had terrorised her, probably had threatened her life. She had then
agreed out of sheer cowardice to deliver to him the proofs of his own
guilt in the Palermo murder case, and when Lady Molly, hearing the
voices, came out of her own room, Piatti knocked her down lest she
should intervene. Mrs. Tadworth thereupon--weak and silly little
fool!--was seized with panic, and succeeded, no doubt with his help,
in leaving the hotel, and probably Budapest, before the outrage was
discovered.
Why Piatti had not done likewise, I could not conjecture. He seems to
have gone back quietly to his own room after that; and it was not till
an hour later that the chambermaid, surprised at seeing the door of
No. 118 slightly ajar, had peeped in, and there was greeted by the
awful sight of “the maid,” gagged, bound and unconscious.
Well, I gained my wish, and had the satisfaction presently of knowing
that Piatti--although, mind you, he emphatically denied my story from
beginning to end--had been placed under arrest pending further
inquiries.
The British Consul was very kind to me; though I was not allowed to
see my dear lady, who had been removed to the hospital. I heard that
the Hungarian police were moving heaven and earth to find “Mrs. Carey”
and bring her to justice.
Her disappearance told severely against her, and after three days of
such intense anxiety as I never wish to live through again, I received
a message from the Consulate informing me that “Mrs. Carey” had been
arrested at Alsórév, on the Austro-Hungarian frontier, and was even
now on her way to Budapest under escort.
You may imagine how I quivered with anxiety and with rage when, on the
morning after that welcome news, I was told that “Mrs. Carey” was
detained at the gendarmerie, and had asked to see Miss Mary Granard
from London, at present residing at the Hotel Hungaria.
The impudent wretch! Wanting to see me, indeed! Well, I, too, wanted
to see her; the woman whom I despised as a coward and a traitor; who
had betrayed the fond and foolish trust of a stricken father; who had
dashed the last hopes of an innocent man in danger of his life; and
who, finally, had been the cause of an assault that had all but
killed, perhaps, the woman I loved best in the world.
I felt like the embodiment of hate and contempt. I loathed the woman,
and I hied me in a fiacre to the gendarmerie, escorted by one of the
clerks from the Consulate, simply thirsting with the desire to tell an
ignoble female exactly what I thought of her.
I had to wait some two or three minutes in the bare, barrack-like room
of the gendarmerie; then the door opened, there was a rustle of silk,
followed by the sound of measured footsteps of soldiery, and the next
moment Lady Molly, serene and placid and, as usual, exquisitely
dressed, stood smiling before me.
“You have got me into this plight, Mary,” she said, with her merry
laugh; “you’ll have to get me out of it again.”
“But--I don’t understand,” was all that I could gasp.
“It is very simple, and I’ll explain it all fully when we are on our
way home to Maida Vale,” she said. “For the moment you and Mrs.
Tadworth will have to make sundry affidavits that I did not assault my
maid nor rob her of a watch and chain. The British Consul will help
you, and it is only a question of days, and in the meanwhile I may
tell you that Budapest prison life is quite interesting, and not so
uncomfortable as one would imagine.”
Of course, the moment she spoke I got an intuition of what had really
occurred, and I can assure you that I was heartily ashamed that I
should ever have doubted Lady Molly’s cleverness in carrying through
successfully so important, so vital a business as the righting of an
innocent man.
Mrs. Tadworth was pusillanimous and stupid. At Budapest she cried a
halt, for she really felt unstrung and ill after the hurried journey,
the change of air and food, and what not. Lady Molly, however, had no
difficulty in persuading her that during the enforced stay of
twenty-four hours at the Hungaria their two _rôles_ should be
reversed. Lady Molly would be “Mrs. Carey,” coming from England,
whilst Mrs. Tadworth would be the maid.
My dear lady--not thinking at the time that my knowledge of this fact
would be of any importance to her own plans--had not mentioned it to
me during the brief interview which I had with her. Then, when Piatti
arrived upon the scene, Mrs. Tadworth got into a real panic.
Fortunately, she had the good sense, or the cowardice, then and there
to entrust the coat and watch and chain to Lady Molly, and when Piatti
followed her into her room she was able to show him that the proofs
were not then in her possession. This was the scene which I had
witnessed through the keyhole.
But, of course, the Sicilian would return to the charge, and equally,
of course, Mrs. Tadworth would sacrifice the Shuttleworths, father and
son, to save her own skin. Lady Molly knew that. She is strong, active
and determined; she had a brief hand-to-hand struggle with Mrs.
Tadworth that night, and finally succeeded in tying her, half
unconscious, to the bedpost, thus assuring herself that for at least
twenty-four hours that vapid little fool would be unable to either act
for herself or to betray my dear, intrepid lady’s plans.
When, the following morning, Piatti opened the door of No. 118, which
had purposely been left on the latch, he was greeted with the sight of
Mrs. Tadworth pinioned and half dead with fear, whilst the valuable
proofs of his own guilt and young Shuttleworth’s innocence had
completely disappeared.
For remember that Lady Molly’s face was not known to him or to his
gang, and she had caught the first train to Cividale even whilst
Piatti still believed that he held that silly Mrs. Tadworth in the
hollow of his hand. I may as well tell you here that she reached the
frontier safely, and was quite sharp enough to seek out Colonel Grassi
and, with the necessary words of explanation, to hand over to him the
proofs of young Shuttleworth’s innocence.
My action in the matter helped her. At the hotel she was supposed to
be the mistress and Mrs. Tadworth the maid, and everyone was told that
“Mrs. Carey’s maid” had been assaulted, and removed to the hospital.
But I denounced Piatti then and there, thinking he had attacked my
dear lady, and I got him put under lock and key so quickly that he had
not the time to communicate with his associates.
Thanks to Colonel Grassi’s exertions, young Shuttleworth was acquitted
of the charge of murder; but I may as well tell you here that neither
Piatti nor his son, nor any of that gang, were arrested for the crime.
The proofs of their guilt--the Irish-tweed coat and the murdered man’s
watch and chain--were most mysteriously suppressed, after young
Shuttleworth’s advocate had obtained the verdict of “not guilty” for
him.
Such is the Sicilian police. Mr. Shuttleworth, senior, evidently knew
what he was talking about.
Of course, we had no difficulty in obtaining Lady Molly’s release. The
British Consul saw to that. But in Budapest they still call the
assault on “Mrs. Carey” at the Hotel Hungaria a mystery, for she
exonerated Lady Molly fully, but she refused to accuse Piatti. She was
afraid of him, of course, and so they had to set him free.