"Mr Sampson is my friend; we can speak before him, Miss Miller. Were
you entirely unaware of your father's real profession?"
"I swear that I was. I had no idea of it until three days ago, when I
discovered proof positive that he was in association with certain men
who were expert thieves."
"Then your association with the fugitive Nardini was in no way connected
with your father's dishonesty?" I asked. "You have just said that
Gordon-Wright's death has set you at liberty. Will you not now tell us
the truth, so that all may be open and straightforward?"
She hesitated, and I saw that she naturally felt disinclined to condemn
the man of whom she had all her life been so fond, and in whom she had
so implicitly trusted. Many fathers act mysteriously in the eyes of
their children. Mr Miller had ever been a mystery, and yet with filial
affection she had never once suspected him of leading a double life.
"Yes," urged Ella, "tell us all. Half an hour ago you told me that you
are at last free--that the man who held me so entirely in his power also
held you in his unscrupulous hands."
Sammy said nothing. He had already condemned Lucie, and in his eyes she
was but a mere adventuress.
"If I confess, Mr Leaf, I wonder if you and Ella will forgive me?" she
exclaimed at last, in a hard, strained voice. "I assure you that I,
like yourselves, have been merely a victim of circumstances."
"Explain the truth," I said, in a voice of sympathy, for I saw by the
shame upon her countenance that she had been an innocent victim.
"Well," she said, "it happened like this. We had been living at
Enghien, outside Paris. The man I loved, Manuel Carrera, a young
Chilian, had committed suicide because thieves had stolen a large sum of
money of which he had accepted the responsibility, and I was
broken-hearted and grief-stricken. We had left Paris and were in
Brussels when the news reached me; therefore, when my father proposed
that we should go on to Salsomaggiore, I welcomed the change. I never
wished to place foot in Paris again. We had kept on the little
apartment we had in Rome, where we usually spent the winter, but before
going there we decided to take the cure. About a week after our arrival
at the hotel at Salsomaggiore there came one of Italy's best known
statesmen, the Onorevole Giovanni Nardini, Minister of Justice,
accompanied by his private secretary, a doctor named Gavazzi. My
father--whom I have since discovered had obtained private information of
Nardini's shady financial transactions--at once cultivated his
acquaintance, as well as that of Gavazzi, and while we were taking the
cure we became quite intimate friends.
"On our return to Rome His Excellency often invited us to his fine house
in the Via Vittorio Emanuele, and several times we went out to luncheon
at the Villa Verde at Tivoli. Two years went by and each winter we saw
a great deal of His Excellency. Last January a pretty fair-haired
English girl named Alice Woodforde, niece of Gavazzi--she being daughter
of Gavazzi's sister who married a civil engineer in London named
Woodforde--came out to Rome for the winter, and as Gavazzi was a
bachelor we offered her the hospitality of our house. She was a
delightful girl, about nine years older than myself, and we soon became
inseparable.
"Before very long I discovered the true situation. Nardini had met and
fallen violently in love with his secretary's niece, while Gavazzi
himself was contemplating that, by such a marriage, he himself would
reap considerable benefit. Though much older than Alice, Nardini was a
pleasant companion, and occupying as he did one of the highest positions
in the kingdom, it was but natural that she should be flattered by his
attentions. I, however, who had watched closely and heard certain facts
from my father, knew well that the pleasant exterior only concealed a
character that was cruel, dishonest, and utterly unscrupulous. The
motive of my father's friendship with Nardini was, I regret to admit it,
no doubt a dishonest one, while he, on his part, with clever cunning
intended eventually to make use of my father in certain blackmailing
operations which he contemplated. There was no limit to Nardini's
ingenuity or power. Rich and poor alike knew him to be cruel and
heartless. He somehow learnt the truth regarding my father, and desired
to get me also into his power. There was no charge he could make
against me, therefore he resorted to a fiendish conspiracy which was
characteristic of the man.
"Late one afternoon last April I was crossing the Piazza di Spagna in
Rome when I was stopped by two police agents who asked me to accompany
them to the Questura, where, to my speechless amazement, a cruel and
wicked charge was made against me. I was accused of robbing a
commercial traveller of Milan of a portfolio containing eighteen
thousand francs! At first I laughed in the Commissary's face, but when,
an hour later, the Italian, a man whom I had never before seen in my
life, was brought and identified me, I was stupefied. The charge was
infamous. It was against my honour! The man, a loudly dressed person
of Hebrew type, stated that on the previous evening he was in the Cafe
Colonna and spoke to me. He afterwards invited me to dinner at
Bordoni's, in the Via Nazionale, and after we parted he found that his
portfolio had been stolen. A waiter at Bordoni's also identified me,
and an agent of police also declared that I was known to them. The
whole charge was false, and I stood speechless when I heard their
disgraceful accusations. I had never been in either the Colonna or in
Bordoni's in all my life. Yet there was still something more
extraordinary to follow. The detectives went to our apartments, and,
having searched, found the empty portfolio concealed at the bottom of a
drawer in my room. I saw at once that it was the work of some secret
enemy. Yet who had done it was, to me, a complete enigma.
"I at once wrote a line of appeal to His Excellency explaining that the
police had made a terrible mistake. At first he regretted that he could
not assist me, but after a second appeal he sent a line to the Questore,
or chief of police, giving me my liberty until my trial, which is to
take place at the assizes next November. I at once went to Nardini and
asked him to speak the truth--namely, that on the evening in question I
was at the Villa Verde at Tivoli, where I had gone on a message to him
from my father and had found him there alone. But he refused to make
this statement, ostensibly because he did not wish the fact known that
he had received a lady visitor alone, but in reality because he himself
had trumped up the whole of the infamous charge against me.
"To my chagrin, also, I found that Lieutenant Shacklock--as
Gordon-Wright was known in Rome--knew of the charge. He was an intimate
friend of my father's, but a man utterly without principle. I had to
beg him not to tell my father. For Nardini, who had so many creatures
in his pay, such an allegation was so very easy. As I afterwards
established, the portfolio was placed in my drawer by a man who entered
on pretence of examining the electric light. Nardini's object was to
hold me in his power, to compel me to do his bidding, and assist in
certain schemes he was contemplating before his fall. Surely it was the
gravest charge that could have been made against a woman. It touched my
honour, and that is the reason why when he fled I followed post-haste
here to beg of him to say the word which must put an end to the
proceedings pending against me. But, although I was successful in
tracing him here, alas! I was too late. He died without clearing my
honour, and on the third of November the charge against me will be heard
by the Tribunal. How, now, can I hope to escape an unjust
condemnation?"
"Why didn't you make this explanation before?" I asked. "I might have
assisted you to clear yourself."
"How could I while Gordon-Wright lived? He was present in our apartment
when the police found the portfolio, and even though Nardini might have
caused the accusation to have been withdrawn he would have still been a
witness against me."
"But you knew who and what he was?"
"Not at that time. I only knew that he was a great friend of my
father's and lived at the Grand Hotel. But in looking through my
father's private letters I have learned the ghastly truth--that he and
Himes who were such constant visitors to our flat, both in Rome,
Leghorn, or in fact anywhere where we took up our abode, were expert
thieves working under my father's directions. True, I held both of them
in dislike, but I never dreamed that living apart, Shacklock at the
Grand and Himes at the Quirinale, they were in such active accord."
"Then this charge against you will be made in Rome in November?" Sammy
said, addressing her for the first time.
"Yes," she sighed despairingly. "I shall be condemned in my absence,
for how can I now hope to prove that I am innocent--that I was not even
in Rome on that evening?"
"Nardini was a blackguard!" Sammy cried. "If I had known that I'd have
rung the truth out of him before he died--by Jove, I would! A man who
plots against a woman's honour like that is the worst cad conceivable."
"Ah, yes!" cried the unhappy girl. "It is that--it is my honour that is
at stake. The man alleges that he found me alone in a common cafe--
and--and--"
She burst into tears.