"There are twenty-eight thousand lire here," I remarked, "one thousand
one hundred and twenty pounds."
"What does it concern me how much there is?" he asked, smiling. "Use it
as I've directed. Indeed," he added, after a pause, "you need not tell
any one that you have it."
"I shall tell my friend Sampson, or people may think that I've stolen
it," I said.
"Yes," he remarked hoarsely, with a sigh, "people are always ready to
think ill of one, are they not?"
And then, as the bar of sunlight crept slowly across the worn-out
carpet, a deep silence again fell, broken only by the stranger's fierce,
vengeful mutterings which to me conveyed no distinct meaning.
"_Madonna mia_!" he cried aloud once, cringing in excruciating pain.
"How I suffer! I wonder how long it must be before I give out. _Dio_!
Is this the punishment of hell?"
Then he turned his eyes upon me--those wide-open, horrified eyes--in a
look the remembrance of which is even to-day still before me, the
recollection of which I shall carry with me to the grave.
There was something indescribable about that expression, uncanny,
fascinating, inhuman. They were the eyes of a man who, though still
alive, was obtaining his first glance into the awful mysteries of the
eternity.
At half-past seven Tulloch returned and brought him a soothing draught,
so that he slept, and I then left the sick-room to dress and breakfast.
With Mrs Gilbert, Sammy and I agreed that no word of the painful affair
should be told to our fellow-guests, because illness in a boarding-house
always causes the visitors to make excuses for departure. So we said
nothing.
Sampson had some urgent business with his solicitor in the City that
day, therefore I remained at home, acting as nurse to the unfortunate
man whose end was now so near.
Three times during the day Tulloch returned, but all he did proved
unavailing. The stranger could not possibly live, he said. It was a
wonder that he had had strength to withstand the journey to England. It
was the reaction that was proving fatal--internal haemorrhage.
Just before six o'clock, when I crept on tiptoe back to the mysterious
man's darkened room to see if he still slept, he called me eagerly in a
low whisper, saying that he wished to speak to me in strict confidence.
I therefore seated myself at his bedside and bent down, so that the
effort of speaking should be as little as possible.
"There is still one further favour I would beg of you, Signor Leaf. I
wonder whether--whether you would grant it?" he asked very feebly,
stretching out his thin hand until it rested upon my wrist.
"If it is within my power, I will," I assured him.
"Then you see this!" he exclaimed, drawing from beneath his pillow a
small flat packet in white paper about four inches square and secured by
three large black oval seals evidently impressed by some old monastic
seal of the middle ages.
"I want you," he said, "to accept the responsibility of this. They are
papers of considerable value to certain relatives in Italy. Will you
take charge of it, and three years after my death hand it intact to the
Italian Ambassador? I appeal to you to do so, for you are my only
friend, and I am dying," he added, in a tone of intense earnestness.
"If you wish," I said, somewhat reluctant, however, to undertake such
responsibility. And I took the packet, and, after examining the seals,
transferred it to my pocket.
The mysterious Massari firmly declined my offer to go to the Italian
Church in Hatton Garden and fetch a priest.
"I don't wish to see anybody," he snapped. "I have a reason. At least
let me die in peace."
And an hour later, just as Tulloch returned, he again fixed those bright
staring eyes upon me and silently passed away, carrying with him his
secret to the grave.
It concerned a woman. That much he had admitted. Who was the woman, I
wondered? What was her secret?
"This man had a strange history, I feel convinced," I remarked in a low
voice to Tulloch as we left the chamber of death together and quietly
closed the door.
"Yes," he said. "He seemed a queer fellow. But in my profession, old
chap, we often meet strange people, you know. Men, when they are dying,
frequently have curious fancies and extraordinary hallucinations."
And then we went down into Mrs Gilbert's sitting-room to inform her of
the unfortunate occurrence in her house.
I locked the sealed packet and the bulky wallet safely away in my
despatch-box, and when Sammy returned a little later I told him all that
had occurred.
My friend, a short, fair-haired, round-faced fellow of thirty-eight, a
splendid type of the muscular athletic Englishman, flung himself into
the big leather armchair with a cigarette and listened. Like mine, his
life had been full of adventure. Some years before he had thrown up his
commission in the Scots Greys in order to go on active service, anywhere
so long as there was fighting. He had been through three South American
revolutions; had served with the Americans in Cuba; had been mentioned
in despatches for his services before Ladysmith, and was now
contemplating volunteering for service against the Mad Mullah.
Possessed of comfortable private means he was soldier, traveller,
big-game hunter and champion tennis-player, a good all-round man
bubbling over with good-humour, and a great favourite with the ladies.
"Well, Godfrey, old chap," he remarked, stretching himself out when I
had concluded my story. "Certainly the fellow's a bit of a mystery. Do
you know, I watched him very closely at table last night, and it somehow
struck me that he feared to be recognised. Each time the door opened he
started and looked apprehensively in its direction. Besides, a man of
his stamp doesn't usually come to a boarding-house of this sort. He'd
go to the Savoy, or the Cecil. Depend upon it he had a motive in coming
here, and that motive was in order to hide himself. He may have done
something wrong in Italy and fled to London, as so many do. Who knows?"
Truth to tell, my friend's suggestion exactly coincided with my own
suspicion. Jane, the maid-of-all-work, had told me, to my surprise,
that when she had entered his room that morning during my absence he had
spoken to her in most excellent English! The fact, too, that he had
refused to see a priest seemed to point to a fear lest his hiding-place
might be discovered.
But he was dead, and I had, rather unwisely perhaps, accepted a curious
responsibility. Even the money he had placed in my charge might be the
proceeds of some theft!
That night I arranged with a neighbouring undertaker that the remains of
the stranger should be taken away on the following night when the whole
house was asleep, a service for which I received the heartfelt gratitude
of Mrs Gilbert.
About seven o'clock the next evening when I returned from the club, Miss
Gilbert met me excitedly in the hall, and asked whether I would mind
stepping into her mother's sitting-room for a moment.
Seated within, I found a tall, dark-haired, sweet-faced girl in neat
black who looked at me with shy inquiry as I entered. I saw she was
very beautiful. Her delicately moulded features were perfect, and upon
her cheeks was the fresh bloom of youth. I judged her to be about
twenty-five, with slim, narrow-waisted, graceful figure, eyes of soft
dark brown, well-defined brows and tiny shell-like ears. Her air and
manner was of the _chic_ Parisienne, rather than the Londoner. The
instant our gaze met I saw that she was a woman of exquisite sweetness--
perhaps one of the most attractive I had ever seen in all my wide
wanderings over the face of the globe.
"This lady desires to see you, Mr Leaf," explained the landlady's
daughter. "She has called with regard to our friend, Signor Massari."