"Just step in here one moment," said the man in the grey suit. "I want
to ask you a question." And he conducted me to a small office at the
farther end of the platform, the bureau of the Italian police.
"Now who are you?" he asked, fixing me with his keen dark eyes, while
the two detectives, who had evidently been expecting my arrival and
identified me from the telegraphed description, stood by watching.
"My name is Sampson--Samuel Sampson," was my prompt reply, for during
the whole of the previous day I had gradually concocted a story in
readiness for any emergency.
"Oh!" exclaimed the _delegato_ in disbelief. "And what are you?"
"Under-steward on board the _Italia_ of the Anchor Line between Naples
and New York. I landed yesterday morning at Leghorn, and am going home
on a holiday to London. Why?" I asked, with feigned surprise.
"You left Rome yesterday," he said, "and your name is Godfrey Leaf,"--he
pronounced it "Lif."
"Oh!" I laughed, "that's something new. What else? If you doubt me
here's my passport. It's an English passport with the Italian vise, and
I fancy it ought to be good enough for you."
And I handed him Sammy Sampson's passport which had been in the
writing-book in my suit-case for close upon a year--ever since he and I
had taken a short trip to San Sebastian, over the Spanish border.
The police inspector opened the document, glanced at the visa of the
Italian Consulate-General in London, and carefully spelt the name of
Sampson.
"There is no description or profession," he remarked dubiously.
"Well," I said, "I suppose that is not the first English passport you've
seen, is it? But I don't think you have ever seen one different, or
with fuller detail than that!"
"Then you are not Godfrey `Lif'?" he asked, still dubious.
"I'm what I've already told you. What do you suspect of me? I'm an
Englishman travelling home, I've committed no crime or offence against
the law, and I don't see why I should suffer this indignity! But if you
desire to be satisfied, you are perfectly at liberty to search me and my
belongings." And I handed him my bundle.
"We've already seen it when it was examined in the _dogana_," remarked
one of the detectives.
My revolver licence, card-case, cigarette-case and other articles that
might betray me I had been careful to put in my trunk which was
registered through to London. Therefore I had thoroughly assumed my
friend's identity. English passports are so vague and lax that the
greatest abuses are often committed with them.
I was quick to notice that my prompt reply to the questions rather
nonplussed my interrogator. He took the official telegram from the
table, read what it contained very carefully, and then looked long and
earnestly at me.
I remained firm and unmoved, well knowing that all my future happiness
depended upon my calm indifference. Yet indifference at such a moment
was a matter of extreme difficulty.
He began to put other questions to me, in the hope, it appeared, of
making me commit myself to a falsehood. But I was now thoroughly on the
alert, and gave quick, unhesitating replies.
Had the inspector been an Englishman he would probably have detected by
my speech that I was not an under-steward, but being Italian he was thus
handicapped. Indeed, so circumstantial an account did I give of getting
two months' leave from my ship to visit my mother in London, and in
addition presenting a passport perfectly in order, that just before the
train was leaving for France he and his companions, filled with doubt as
to whether I was actually the person wanted, allowed me to walk out
again upon the platform--a free man!
Five minutes later I had mounted into an empty third-class compartment,
but I dare not breathe before the train slowly moved away in the
"direction de Paris."
The terrible anxiety of those moments will surely live with me until my
dying day, for I had both love and life at stake; my own love, my
well-beloved's life!
After thirty hours of slow travelling and constant stoppages and
shuntings I arrived at the Gare de Lyon, and again resuming the luxury
of a collar and cravat I purchased a ready-made suit of blue serge, a
hard felt hat and a few necessaries, for no longer I needed the disguise
of a workman.
Contrary to my usual custom of going to the Grand, I put up at the
Athenee, which is greatly patronised by Americans, and where I had a New
York friend staying at that moment. Then, after dinner, I telegraphed
to Leghorn to Lucie Miller telling her that I had left Italy, and that
if she wished to communicate with me she should write or telegraph. My
idea was that if her father had been arrested, as he most probably had
been, she would certainly require the assistance of some friend, and
might probably prefer me. Of course she would not willingly admit to me
her father's disgrace, yet by her own actions I should be pretty well
able to judge what had taken place.
I was eager to be back near Ella, yet before I crossed to England I
determined to await a reply to my message to Lucie.
For three days I remained in suspense, idling with my American friend in
cafes and restaurants, and showing him Paris in a mild kind of way.
I had searched the French and English newspapers diligently to learn any
details of the affair at the Villa Verde, but in vain, until one evening
in the reading-room of the hotel I came across a copy of the _Corriere
della Sera_, the journal of Milan, in which was a long telegram from
Rome, headed: "The Escape of the Minister Nardini: Mysterious Tragedy at
the Villa Verde."
In breathless eagerness I read how the police, on going in the morning
to relieve the guard placed at the villa, found the unfortunate man
lying dead with a knife-wound in his heart. Thieves had evidently
entered the house by the window of the study which looked out upon the
roadway, for the iron bars had been filed through and a space made
sufficient to admit a man. Nothing, however, had been taken, as far as
could be ascertained. The study was in complete order, and the police
theory was that the man in charge, hearing the noise, had entered the
room only to be confronted by several men. He then fled across the
house intending to get out and raise the alarm, when he was overtaken in
the passage and stabbed.
The theory was, of course, quite a natural one.
The thieves had, it seemed, before their escape placed the room in
order, closed the secret cupboard, replaced the panel, and put down the
carpet as they had found it. The action of reclosing the panel had, of
course, released the bolts that held the door, but they had already, by
some means or other, cut through the bars. Probably they escaped
without knowing that the door had been automatically released.
In any case they were clear away with a sum amounting to many thousands
of pounds sterling--probably the greatest haul Miller had made in all
his career.
There was, however, a second telegram which stated that two carabineers
patrolling the road near the villa had stopped and questioned a
mysterious Englishman who was now suspected to be one of the assassins,
and after whom the police were in active search.
Miller and his companions were actually scot-free--and with their
enormous booty!
No word was published regarding the mysterious discovery previously made
in that house. The police were still hushing up the affair that was so
shrouded in mystery, yet at the same time they evidently connected the
two curious circumstances, and regarded them as a problem altogether
beyond solution. Little, however, did they dream that the missing man's
secret hoard had been carried off in its entirety!
Next morning, when the waiter brought my coffee, a telegram lay upon the
tray. It was from Lucie, despatched the previous day from the Swiss
frontier at Chiasso, announcing that she and her father were on their
way to Paris and would arrive that night at the Hotel de Grand, which
proved to be a modest little place in the Rue de la Michodiere, near the
Boulevard des Italiens.
Miller was escaping with those thick packets of thousand-franc notes
which I had seen him secure, though Lucie was, of course, in entire
ignorance of what had occurred.
Next morning I anxiously sought her. She came to me in the little salon
of the unpretending hotel, a neat figure in her blue serge
travelling-dress and smart little toque. Greeting me enthusiastically,
she exclaimed:--
"How suddenly you went from Leghorn! I sent down to the Palace Hotel,
for I wanted to see you again, but you had gone. I wanted to tell you
that I've heard from Ella. The tenant of Wichenford has been recalled
suddenly to America, and she and Mr Murray are back there for a little
while. I thought you would like to know this."
"Know it? Of course I do. I shall leave Paris to-night," I said, glad
to have news of my well-beloved.
"We also leave to-night. We are on our way back to Studland. Father
wired me to meet him in Milan, and I did so. Then he explained that we
were going home again, and that we should not return to Italy till the
spring."
He would probably never return to Italy, I thought, though I said
nothing, except to congratulate her upon the prospect of spending a few
months in Dorsetshire at the old home she loved so well.
At that moment Miller himself entered, surprised to find me there, but
shaking my hand warmly said:--"Why, my dear Leaf! who would have thought
to find you here? I believed you were in England."
"Miss Lucie sent me word that you were passing through Paris," I
explained, "so it was my duty to call and pay my compliments."
"We've just been on a flying visit to Italy," he said. "I had some
rather pressing affairs to attend to in Rome. To-night, however, we go
back to Studland."
"Mr Leaf is also crossing with us," remarked his daughter.
"Oh! excellent!" exclaimed the man whom I had last seen cramming those
ill-gotten notes into his pockets, his face flushed with the eager lust
for wealth, his voice raised loudly in angry protest against an equal
division of the booty. "We'll meet at the Gare du Nord, eh?"
Calm, grey-faced, distinguished-looking and of gentlemanly bearing,
surely no one would have ever dreamed that his character was such as it
really had been proved to be. He offered me a cigarette, lit one
himself, and all three of us went out for a stroll along the Boulevard
and the Rue de la Paix. We lunched together in one of the little
restaurants in the Palais Royal, but neither by word nor deed did Miller
display any fear of recognition.
I wondered in what direction Gavazzi had fled; and would have given a
good deal to know how they had managed to get through those formidable
bars which I had believed unbreakable.
Lucie's father being with us the whole time, I had no opportunity of
speaking to her alone. At three o'clock I left them at the hotel, and
at nine that evening joined them in the night-mail for Calais and
London.
On board the steamer, Miller went below, while I got Lucie a deck-chair,
wrapped her in an oilskin borrowed from a seaman, and sat beside her.
The night was a perfect one, with a bright full moon shining over the
Channel, and as we sat we watched the flashing light of Calais slowly
disappearing at the stern.
"Your father seems to be returning quite unexpectedly to England," I
said presently, after she had been admiring the reflection of the moon
upon the glittering waters.
"Yes. I was quite surprised. He gave me no warning. Poor old dad is
always so very erratic. He told me to meet him at the Metropole in
Milan, and hardly gave me time to get there. I had to leave the house
within an hour of receiving his wire."
"Did he telegraph from Rome?"
"No. From Ancona, on the Adriatic."
So he had escaped at once to the other side of Italy without returning
to Rome.
"What has Ella told you in her letter?"
"Nothing more than what I have already explained. She makes no mention
of--of the man whom we need not name."
"I am now going home to expose him," I said determinedly. "I have fully
considered all the risks, and am prepared to run them."
"Ah!" she cried, turning to me in quick alarm, "do not do anything rash,
I beg of you, Mr Leaf! There is some mystery--a great mystery which I
am, as yet, unable to fathom--but to speak at this juncture would
assuredly only implicate her. Of that I feel sure from certain
information already in my possession."
"You've already told me that. But surely you don't think I can stand by
and see her go headlong to her ruin without stretching forth a hand to
save her. It is my duty, not only as her lover but also as a man. The
fellow is a thief and a scoundrel."
When we love much we ourselves are nothing, and what we love is all.
"I only beg of you to be patient and be silent--at least for the
present," she urged.
Was she in fear, I wondered, lest any revelation I made should implicate
her father? Was it possible that she had any suspicion that he was at
that moment seeking asylum in his comfortable English home?
All the disjointed admissions which she had made regarding her
acquaintance with the dead Minister for Justice, her appeal to him to
speak the truth and clear her of some mysterious stigma, and her mention
of the Villa Verde out at Tivoli crowded upon me. When we suffer very
much everything that smiles in the sun seems cruel.
Beneath that beautiful face, pale in the bright moonbeams shining upon
it, was mystery--a great unfathomable mystery. Was she not daughter of
one of the cleverest thieves in Europe? And, if so, could she not most
probably keep a secret if one were entrusted to her?
For some ten minutes or so I was silent. The engines throbbed, the dark
waters hissed past, and swiftly we were heading for the lights of Dover.
At any moment Miller, who had gone below to get a whisky and soda with a
friend he had met, a gentlemanly-looking Englishman, might return. I
wondered whether it were judicious to tell her one fact.
At last I spoke.
"You recollect, Miss Miller, that you once mentioned the Villa Verde, at
Tivoli, where, I think, Nardini lived the greater part of the year?"
"Yes," was her rather mechanical answer. "Why? What causes you to
recollect that?"
"Because--well, because the other day I learnt something in confidence
concerning it."
"Concerning the villa!" she gasped, starting and turning to me with a
changed expression of fear and apprehension. "What--what were you told?
Who told you?"
"Well, probably it is a fact of which you are unaware, for only the
police know it, and they have hushed it up," I said. "After the flight
of Nardini the police who went to search the villa and seize his effects
made a very startling discovery."
"Discovery! What did they find?" she inquired eagerly, her face now
blanched to the lips.
"The body of a young woman--the young Englishwoman who was your friend!"
I said, with my eyes fixed upon her.
She started forward, glaring at me open-mouthed. She tried to speak,
but no sound escaped her lips. Her gloved hands were trembling, her
dark eyes staring out of her head.
"Then the police have searched!" she gasped at last.
"They know the truth! I--I am--"
And she fell back again into the long deck-chair, rigid and insensible.