“Haven’t you anything with which you can keep the door fastened
against intrusion--even for a few moments? Help me with that chest of
drawers and the bed. If we can get them up against this door we may
manage to keep them out just long enough.”
Without understanding what it was I would be at she did as I asked.
Together we rigged up a sort of barricade. As she helped she rained
questions.
“Who are you? Who is coming? Of what are you afraid? What has
happened? Tell me, I beg of you.”
She spoke quite good English, but with a strong accent of Southern
Italy. She was getting almost as excited as I was.
“They have killed Emilio.”
I spoke in her own language. She stared at me, her hands against her
breast. Her voice dropped, the pupils of her eyes expanded.
“Emilio!--I feared it!--How do you know?--Who are you?--I feared it.
Alessandro swore that he would do it. When I saw him speak to Gaspare
I feared still more.”
“What is Alessandro to you? Are you his wife?”
“He is the patron; he wants me to be his wife, but I do not want to
marry him; it is my mother who would force me. If it were not for him
she would starve. He is a rich man, Alessandro. He says to my mother:
‘If Lucrezia will marry me’--I am Lucrezia!--‘all will be well. I will
give you a regular income; you may live in comfort for the rest of
your life. If not--out into the street you go; you die in the gutter,
you starve, besides the other things you know I can do to you.’ He can
do many things, Alessandro. ‘As for the nonsense Lucrezia talks,’ he
says, ‘Young girls do not know their own mind. You bid her to marry
me, I will see that she obeys her mother.’ But I do not want to marry
him--I do not.”
“What position do you occupy in this place?”
“I am the cashier. I have been here nearly a year. I wish I had never
been here at all. Until lately Emilio was a waiter. He is from the
same village from which I come; we have known each other all our
lives. How can I help but be fond of him, since he is so kind, so
generous, so tender, and so thoughtful--and also he is so handsome.”
“Are you the only woman in the house?”
“In general there are two others. We had, all three of us, a holiday
until the morning. I was to sleep with my sister, whose husband has a
restaurant at Brixton. But when Alessandro saw me dancing with Emilio
he said that I must come home with him. I did not dare to disobey. He
threw Emilio out of the restaurant, not yet a fortnight ago, because
of something he thought he had discovered--I don’t know what. Since
then he has been scolding me all the time. Gaspare told me only the
other day that if I was not more attentive to Alessandro’s wishes,
more careful to keep him in a good temper--I know what he meant!--he
was afraid that something might happen to Emilio.”
“Who is this man Gaspare? It is he who is the actual murderer.”
“Oh yes, I know--it is always like that.”
“Always like that?--What do you mean?--Who is this man?”
The girl dropped her voice still lower; she glanced round as if
fearful that a listener might be hidden in the corner. Clearly the
girl, with her susceptible Sicilian temperament, was half out of her
mind with fear, and grief, and I don’t know what besides. I was the
match and she was tinder--my appearance had set her all aflame.
“I don’t know who you are, or why I tell you--but I feel you may be a
friend, and I am so much in need of a friend. I have not one friend in
all the world, for even my mother is against me. And now that you say
Emilio is dead--it is still worse. I will be revenged on them, I will
be revenged! You ask me who Gaspare is. I will tell you. I care not
what they do to me; since it is he who has killed Emilio I will tell
you. He is of the Mafia--Alessandro is of the Mafia--all of them are
of the Mafia. This house, this Restaurant Napolitain, this is where
they meet; I will show you the room in which they have their meetings.
Gaspare is just back from America--it is not the first time he has
been there, not the first time he has been chased by the police; I
know. They think I don’t, but I do. As for Alessandro, with him it has
come to this; he scarcely dares to show his face in the street for
fear of the police. They are after him all over Europe, and if they
once catch him--rich or poor--ah!--it is all over with him. I know,
and he knows I know. It is partly because he knows that he so wishes
to make me his wife. He thinks he shuts my mouth, but now that they
have killed Emilio I will open it to its widest. I care not what they
do to me! No, no, I care not!”
I do not remember to have ever before seen anyone in such a whirlwind
of passion. At least at that moment she struck me as being more mad
than sane. None the less she had her wits about her. Suddenly, with a
gesture, she requested silence; the whisper in which she spoke was
only just audible.
“There are footsteps on the stairs--who is it? Who is coming?”
“There are two of them. Alessandro is one, I think Gaspare is the
other, but I am not sure. Whoever it is, I hit him with this poker.”
“This is good. I hope you hit him hard. I will hit him hard when I
have a chance, I promise you. I also have a knife.”
To my amazement she stooped and whipped a gleaming blade out of her
stocking. I foresaw lively times ahead. I did not wish Inspector Ellis
to come and find me engaged in a fight to death with understudies for
carving knives. I deemed it desirable to get that knife from that
fair-haired damsel.
“Do not use that; let me have it.”
“Why should I let you have it? No, no, I will keep it for myself. I
can use it better than you.” I did not doubt that for a moment. I had
no desire to emulate her in that direction. Before I could say so she
continued. “Be still! They are there, outside the door--more than
one.”
As she spoke some one without tried the handle. When it was found that
the door would not yield a soft voice demanded, in the broadest argot
of Naples.
“Lucrezia, what have you against the door? Don’t fool, open at once.”
The girl said nothing. She beckoned to the other side of the room.
“To this cupboard.” Throwing back a door which was covered with the
same paper as the wall she disclosed an aperture behind. “That is a
door at the back; it is locked. They do not think I have the key, but
I have. I am not such an idiot as they suppose.”
While she took a key from some curious hiding-place in her corsets she
burst, as it were, into a sudden flood of explanation.
“This house is old, very old, hundreds of years old. It belongs to the
Mafia, it was they who built it, it is their head-quarters in London.
Strange things have happened in London--they happen still, though the
people of London do not think it: what do they know of their own city,
the people of London? This house could tell them tales--to which they
would not listen. The police--they guess--but without proof--what can
the police do without proof in London? And they have never had any
proof at all, only what they guess.”
While words had been pouring from her at the rate of I do not know how
many a minute, she had been unlocking that door. The lock seemed to be
a trifle unmanageable. I doubt if the key she was using had been meant
for it. But at last it stood open--just as the door of her bedroom
yielded to the vigorous attack which was being made on it from
without. As I passed through the door at the back of the cupboard I
saw Alessandro rush into the bedroom, and behind him Gaspare. I
thought they would catch the girl, but she was too quick for them.
With surprising speed she had whipped the key out of the lock, she was
through the door, had shut it, and was locking it again on the other
side. The closing of the door had left us in pitch darkness--some
vigorous Sicilian adjectives were coming from the other side of it.
“Where are we?” I asked. “I can see nothing.”
“This is a recess--here is another door; it is not locked.” She opened
it, but it did not make things much clearer. “These steps lead down
into the restaurant. Be careful, they are steep--it is little more
than a ladder.”
Those steps were certainly steep. I went down backwards, as down a
ladder. In the darkness it was not easy. The girl’s voice as she
followed came from above.
“At the bottom is a door. They think it is locked, but it is not. I am
not so simple as they suppose.”
I began to be of that opinion myself. There, sure enough, was a door,
and it was not locked--it yielded to a turn of the handle. I could not
see her, but I felt her arm. Her voice seemed less confident.
“This is the restaurant; I do not know what we can do now; the door
into the street is certainly locked, and shuttered. I promise you I
will use my knife. Have you a knife? I know of a place in which there
is one--you can have that. Come.”
She began to lead me among the marble-topped tables through which I
had been so unceremoniously conducted by Signor Alessandro. Her kind
offer to furnish me with a knife did not appeal to me in the least.
“I want no knife,” I told her, “nor must you use yours. We shall not
improve matters by making bad worse. Besides, the police are coming.”
She stopped so suddenly that she pressed me against the sharp corner
of a marble table.
“What do you mean by the police are coming? Who has told them? How do
you know?”
“I sent a message to a friend of mine at Scotland Yard--through the
telephone.”
“The telephone? Then--you have been in that room?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that room. I have been in a room, a
bedroom. Alessandro locked me in a sitting-room. I broke down the door
which divided it from the next room--which is a bedroom; and there was
the telephone.”
“There is only one apartment in the house in which there is a
telephone, and that is the one which belongs to the chief of the
Mafia. He is there sometimes for days without anyone knowing he is in
the house--or, I fancy, even in England. There has been history made
in those two rooms--I know it, although I am only a girl. Here’s the
knife of which I told you.”
She thrust something into my hand, which I refused to take.
“Thank you, I would rather do without it. Inspector Ellis promised
that the police should be here within ten minutes. The ten minutes
must have more than gone. They will be here before any harm can be
done to us.”
“You think so? We shall see. Gaspare and Alessandro move quickly--they
will hide us where the police will never find us. For my part, I have
no faith in the police, they always come a little too late--I know. I
have a knife, and I will use it. If you are wise you will take this
one and use it also.”
I still refused to fasten my fingers round the handle which she
pressed against them, though there was that both in her tone and her
words which grated on my nerves. I quite believed that Alessandro and
Gaspare did move quickly, I had seen proofs of it; nor did I relish
her allusion to a place in which they could hide us which the police
would never find; it seemed to suggest a state of preparation for all
eventualities which I did not fancy. Nor did I relish her hint that
the police might come too late. Altogether, when presently a door at
the back opened, I was more than ever disposed to wish that my
adventurous spirit had not lured me into the Restaurant Napolitain.
After all, the quarrels of the mad Sicilians were no affair of mine. I
had a strong feeling that the less I saw of the working of that
remarkable organization, the Mafia, the better it might be for my
health.
I did not need that girl to tell me what the opening of that door
portended, I knew it for myself--but she did tell me.
“You see now they come--we shall soon know which it is to be--us or
them; down behind my desk.”
We were standing behind the sort of counter which served as buffet and
_caisse_ combined. She drew me down as the door opened--but I peeped
round the corner. Alessandro came in, and behind him Gaspare; I
fancied the latter held himself as if he were in pain; that poker,
which I still retained, had not come down for nothing. Alessandro held
an electric torch above his head. It tickled me--even then!--to see
them whisper to each other, wishing to remain unheard, while all the
time the flare of that torch upon their faces told me everything they
said.
It was Gaspare who whispered first. “They are not here.” His glance
travelled over the restaurant.
Alessandro’s eyes also searched. “They must be here. If they are not
here, where are they? They could not get out of the house.”
“Have we searched it all?”
“Where have we not searched? You know the house almost as well as I
do.” There was a moment’s pause, then Signor Alessandro added, with
what I had no doubt was genuine feeling: “I will cut both their
throats when I get them.”
“Lucrezia’s?--her pretty throat?”
“From ear to ear. I will send her to Emilio. And that black-faced
devil’s spawn, only let me get her within reach of my hand.”
The last delicate allusion, I took it, was to me. Even allowing for
the poetic licence which one associates with the wild tongue of
Sicily, the prospect which these two gentlemen offered to the
imagination was not alluring; to say nothing of the fact that I was
solemnly convinced that they would do their best to be as good as
their word.
“We have to get them first,” I saw Gaspare whisper. “Before you talk
of cutting throats, let us have throats to cut.”
The girl behind me did something, tried to change her position, or to
keep under cover--anyhow she moved, and a board creaked just loudly
enough to be audible. Alessandro heard. Leaning towards Gaspare I saw
him whisper:
“They are behind the _caisse_--we have got them--quick! You go one
side and I the other.”
“Look out,” I whispered to the girl, “they know where we are. We will
give them a chase before they get us.” I stood up straight, and by way
of a little diversion I brought the poker down on the top of the
counter. “You pair of murderous villains,” I cried, “do you think you
have us at your mercy? We’ll teach you better!”
In my excitement, giving the poker a flourish, I swept half a dozen
bottles off the buffet, and they fell crashing to the floor.
“Is that your black-faced beauty?” inquired Gaspare aloud. “It looks
as if she means to ruin you--she starts to destroy your stock in
trade.”
“Do you suppose, you idiot,” retorted Alessandro, “that there is
anything in those bottles? They are dummies with which I dress the
counter.”
“Be careful how you come.” This was the girl, who was standing by me
even more excited than I was. She was flourishing a knife in either
hand. “For each of you I have a knife. I will pay you with them for
Emilio.”
Acting on Alessandro’s advice, they came at us from either side. As
Alessandro passed, leaning over the counter, I knocked the torch out
of his hand, and in the same instant, turning towards Gaspare, I
struck him with the poker a blow which was more than brother to the
first. He staggered back with curses which were deep, but not loud. I
was past him in a flash. I hesitated whether to make towards the door
which I knew led to the staircase; but he made a grab at me and almost
caught my skirt. I rushed across the restaurant among the marble
tables.
“Gaspare! Gaspare!” It was Signor Alessandro’s voice, considerably
raised. Apparently he was having a little argument with Lucrezia, of
which in the darkness he was not getting the best. There was a
crash--what had happened I did not know; it sounded as if more bottles
had fallen to the floor. Then I knew that Lucrezia, following my
example, had got past Alessandro and was seeking refuge among the
marble tables. Then there was silence--broken by Alessandro’s voice.
It sounded as if he were a little discouraged.
“Gaspare, I believe that cat has knifed me in half a dozen places; my
fingers are wet with my own blood.”
Then came Gaspare’s voice--he seemed angry. I should not like to
report his exact language; your true Sicilian can be vigorous; but in
effect he said:
“That black-faced friend of yours has struck me for a second time with
that poker. I swear to you all by the saints that she shall not strike
me again. Give us some light, we can do nothing in this darkness.
Where are your switches?”
Alessandro said something which I could not catch; but I could hear
him moving, and presently the whole place was flooded with electric
light.
“Can they see these lights outside?” asked Gaspare.
“Not a glimmer. The door and windows are so constructed that from the
street nothing can be seen.”
“Then to business!”--and Gaspare started to carry out what I presume
was his idea of business.
There ensued a scene as remarkable, I take it, as any which was ever
enacted in a London restaurant. They chased us, those two men. In the
hand of each was a knife; I dare say Gaspare’s was still stained with
Emilio’s blood. I knew quite well what would happen if he got that
knife within reach of me. I also knew that at any moment the police
might be knocking at the door. If Inspector Ellis had carried out his
undertaking literally they would have been there before; I scouted
Lucrezia’s idea that they were always too late. At any instant they
might arrive and all would be well. Still, I did hope that they would
not be very long, because---- Then Gaspare came towards me.
I suppose in that restaurant there were a dozen marble-topped
tables--oblong, round, and square. Most of the chairs had been piled
upon the tables--I was entrenched behind a row of them. When Gaspare
came towards me at one end I pushed them towards him; he swept the lot
of them upon the floor--and came round my side of the table towards
me. I retreated as he came. He followed. He was not the sort of man
who would have seemed to the casual critic as likely to be quick upon
his feet; but he was--he was quicker than any man I had ever met
before; how he did it I could not understand. I am quick--every one
has always told me so, and I know it. I never moved quicker than I did
then--but I could not get away from Gaspare. Among the tables we
twisted and twirled; sometimes I vaulted them, sometimes I ran
round--he was always just beyond reach of me, and only just. I began
to realize that I was bound to be caught. In that circumscribed space
I could not get away from him; and presently he had me, just when I
least expected it. I had pushed a chair in his way and he fell over
it, and in falling he caught me by the skirt with so sure a hold that
he all but dragged me over backwards. I reached round at him with the
poker, struggling to get free. I struck him again and again, but
though he was still in difficulties with the chair I could not make
him loose his hold. He was cursing with an intensity which was
significant. I did not give him a chance to get upon his feet--I knew
if he once did that there would be an end of me. He was still mixed up
with that chair--I dragged both him and it forward. He held me with
his left hand; suddenly I felt something prick me--I knew he had
struck me with the knife which was in his right. Frantically I whipped
round again at him with the poker. I fancied I had struck the wrist
which held the knife, but I was not sure. I leaped forward--as his
feet were still entangled in the chair it must have been all that he
could do to retain his hold. But he did. I wondered what would happen
if my skirt gave way. It was made of one of those flimsy stuffs which
one uses for a dance dress. If I relinquished my skirt, could I get
out of it, leave it, without me inside, in his hands? I tugged and
tugged; I felt the stuff tearing; I felt sure I must have hurt his
wrist or he would have been at me again with his knife. I was
straining every nerve to tear myself loose, when all at once the skirt
did give way--but not with the result I had hoped for. As it yielded,
the strain being unexpectedly relaxed, I slipped, and he, probably
without intention, gave an unlooked-for jerk. Down he went on his
face, and down I went on him--backwards. At that same moment there
came a hammering at the front door, a loud, insistent hammering--and I
knew that Inspector Ellis’s ten minutes had expired.
With the sound of the knocking there came a scream from Lucrezia,
something very like a roar from Alessandro. I was conscious that they
were striking at each other with their knives, and that each was
getting home in turn. Then I felt Gaspare’s knife in my shoulder. I
twisted myself round--I felt it again. I caught him by the wrist; he
slipped the knife from his right hand to his left--I do not know how,
but he did it. It pricked me again.
Out in the street they were breaking down the door. The force of their
blows shook the building. That door had been constructed on sound if
peculiar principles. It was not easy to break it down. In my
agony--because Gaspare’s knife hurt--I wondered how long they would
take to do it. As Lucrezia had put it--would they be too late--for
her, as well as for me? Those men were like two wild beasts--if they
could kill us first they would care nothing for what might happen to
themselves afterwards.
[Illustration: I STRUCK HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN]
Gaspare got at me with his knife again and again, but he never had a
chance to get home with a good straight blow; somehow I managed to
break the force of each one before it reached me. But he had cut me
all about the neck and shoulders. I was a reek of blood; I saw it
falling on his face and on his hands. If they did not get that door
down in a second or two it would be too late. Then I reeled, and
Gaspare got up, and I thought it was too late.
That I am still alive to tell the tale is sufficient proof that it was
not too late--I have been told by the merest fraction of a second.
Inspector Ellis informed me that when he and his men succeeded in
forcing an entrance he saw a man on his knees, with a knife held above
his head, and a woman immediately in front of him, upon the floor;
that he rushed forward and caught Gaspare’s wrist just as it was in
the act of descending. When Gaspare turned and saw him, somehow--the
Inspector assured me he did not know how it was done; but I had seen
him perform similar feats before and could understand how that
was--Gaspare slipped from his hold, stood up straight, buried the
knife in his own bosom, and fell down right across me, dead.
Lucrezia had even a worse time than I had--and I was nearly three
weeks in the ward of a hospital. They took Signor Alessandro
alive--all the world knows that he expiated his crimes upon the
gallows. There are still three marks upon my chest in front which I am
told will never pass away, so I am not likely to be without
reminders--if any were needed--of my adventure--which, when I look
back, was really as mad a one as it could have been--at the Restaurant
Napolitain.
[The End]