Then a few moments later, having gained the top landing, I threw open
the door of the darkened chamber of death and drew aside the curtains.
She dashed to the bed and tore the sheet from the dead, white face.
Then she staggered back as though she had received a blow.
"My God!" she cried. "Too late!--_too late_!"
Dull, dazed, she stood there, with the stare of blank despair in her
eyes and pale as ashes. The dead white face seemed to wear a smile--the
smile of cheerful resignation, as though his body had parted with its
spirit in gladness and in triumph.
For a little while she stood stock-still and speechless--the living
dead! Suddenly--ah! it is nothing in the telling; one should have heard
and seen to realise--suddenly there welled up from the depths of her
heart the sigh of its aching, the sob of its breaking. Then she
shrieked with the ghastly laughter of despair. Then she lashed out to a
cursing of the dead man and all his deeds; and her execrations were the
most shocking because they proceeded from the tongue of a sweet-mouthed
woman.
Of a sudden her eyes fell upon the stranger's two portmanteaux, and
dashing across she knelt to open them.
"No," I said quietly, "I cannot permit you to touch anything there."
"You cannot permit--_you_!" she cried, facing me.
"And who, pray, are you? Have I not more right to know what he has here
than you?"
And with a sudden wrench she broke the hasp of the weak, foreign-made
lock, and next instant turned the whole of the contents, clothes and
papers, out upon the floor.
Quickly she searched among the quantity of papers, as though looking for
something. Yet she was disappointed.
I took up several of the folded documents and found that they were bonds
and other securities. It almost seemed as though the mysterious Massari
had fled at an instant's warning and taken all the valuables he had at
hand.
The second portmanteau resisted her efforts to break it open, therefore
I handed her the key. If, as she said, that man had held her future in
his hands, she certainly had a right to look through what he had left
behind.
In her eagerness she tossed the papers hither and thither, now pausing
to scan a letter and now breaking open a sealed envelope and hastily
ascertaining the contents.
"No," she cried hoarsely at last, turning fiercely to where the dead
body lay. "You have left no written record. Brute! coward! assassin!"
she hissed between her teeth, shaking her fist in the dead man's face.
"You refused to give me my freedom--to clear my honour--you laughed in
my face--you who knew the truth but refused to speak!"
The scene was terrible, the living execrating the dead. I took her by
the arm and tried to lead her away. But she shook me off, crying:--
"He has died of the terrible disease with which God had afflicted him.
He knew, too well, that after his death I should be helpless and
defenceless. He was wealthy, but what did all his wealth serve him--
compelled to fly at night and hide himself here, hoping that I should
not discover him. He little dreamed that I knew of his hiding-place."
"Then he could have cleared you of some false charge, had he been so
inclined?" I inquired, hoping that she would reveal the truth to me.
"Yes. A foul dastardly charge has been made against me--one of the
cruellest and blackest that can be laid against a woman," she answered.
"By a word he could have established my innocence. He knew I was
innocent, yet he refused--he laughed in my face, and told me that he
would not lift a little finger to help either me or my father."
"Why not?"
"Because the establishment of my innocence would have given me my
happiness."
"And he denied it to you. He had a motive, I suppose?"
"Yes--oh yes!" she said. "Even my tears did not move him. I went upon
my knees and begged him to speak, but he was obdurate. That was eight
days ago. And how soon has Fate overtaken him! Two days later he was
compelled to fly in secret in order to avoid arrest, and to-day he is
lying there dead--his lips, alas! sealed."
"Ah! unfortunately," I sighed, "he can no longer bear witness on your
behalf, miss--I have not the pleasure of your name?" I said, hesitating
purposely.
"Miller--Lucie Miller," she replied. "And yours?"
"Godfrey Leaf."
"Yes, Mr Leaf, it is unfortunate for me," she said, with a dark look of
desperation. "I am a doomed woman!"
"Oh, no, you must not speak like that," I urged. "Surely the charge
against you is not so very serious!" To me it seemed impossible that
such a sweet-faced girl should have any grave imputation against her.
"I have enemies, bitter, relentless enemies," was her brief response.
She had grown a little calmer, and I had replaced the sheet over the
cold, lifeless countenance of the man who had refused to tell the world
the truth and thus save her.
"Have you travelled from Rome alone?" I inquired.
"No. I had a companion," she answered, but did not satisfy me whether
it was a male or female.
"You live in Rome, perhaps?" I asked, for I saw that she had a
cosmopolitan air which was not that of an English-bred woman.
"No. I generally live in Leghorn."
"Ah! in Tuscany. I know Leghorn quite well--the Brighton of Italy, a
very gay place in summer. Pancaldi's at four o'clock in the season is
always bright and amusing."
"You really know Pancaldi's?" she exclaimed, brightening. "Only fancy!
We have so very few English in Leghorn. They prefer Vallombrosa or the
Bagni di Lucca. Indeed an Englishman in Leghorn, beyond the shipping
people, is quite a rarity."
"And this man Massari--it was not his real name?" I said.
"No. But I regret that I am not permitted to tell you who he really
was. He was a person very well-known in Italy--a person of whom you
read frequently in the newspapers. That is all I may tell you."
"Well, really, Miss Miller, all this is very mystifying," I said. "Why
did he come here?"
"Because he thought that he would be able to live in hiding. He feared
lest I might follow him."
"But you said that he also feared arrest."
"That is so. He was compelled to escape. His enemies laid a trap for
him, just as he did for my father and myself."
"But why did he refuse to give you back your happiness by clearing you
of the charge? To me it seems almost incredible that a man should thus
treat an innocent woman."
"Ah! Mr Leaf, you didn't know him. He was one of the most
unscrupulous and hard-hearted men in the whole of Italy. Every _soldo_
he possessed bore upon it the blood and tears of the poor. He lent
money at exorbitant interest to the _contadini_, and delighted to ruin
them from the sheer love of cruelty and oppression. Those papers
there," and she pointed to the securities she had scattered upon the
dingy carpet, "and every franc he possessed are accursed."
And he had given me the sum of two hundred pounds for accepting the
responsibility of his funeral and of the sealed packet.
"You mean that he was, by profession, a moneylender?"
"Oh, dear no. He lent money merely for the purpose of ruining people.
He was heartless and cruel by nature, and if a man committed suicide--as
many did because he had ruined them--he would laugh at the poor fellow
as a fool, and take the very bread from the mouths of the widow and
family."
"The brute! A Jew, I suppose?"
"No. The people believed him to be one, but he was not. In his methods
he was more fiendish than any Hebrew. He did not lend money for profit,
but in order to bring misery to others. The one kind, generous action
he might have performed towards me, the giving back to me my honour, he
refused. To him, it was nothing; to me, everything. It meant my life."
And I saw in her eyes a desperate look that deeply impressed me.
"I wish you would be more explicit, Miss Miller. If I can be of any
service to you or assist you in any way, I shall be delighted. Really I
don't like to hear you talk as you do. If you are in a quandary there
must be some way out of it, and two heads, you know, are always better
than one."