COUNT FESTINI
“Why, Miss Meagh, how perfectly delightful!”
Marjorie turned with a start. She was leaving Victoria Station and had
stopped at a bookstall to buy a few magazines.
She had been visiting Ida Mansingham, the wife of the convict, who was
in a nursing home. She had had a bad nervous breakdown, and it was due
to the generosity of Hilary George and Tillizini that she had been
placed in comfort.
A young man was standing before her, his white teeth showing in a smile
of sheer delight.
“How extraordinary! I have not seen you for two months. Where have you
been hiding?”
She offered her hand with some embarrassment. Her last parting with
Count Festini had been such that it seemed that they could never meet
again on terms of commonplace friendship. His passionate declaration
still rang in her ears. He had come to Ireland for the hunting, had
fallen--so he declared--hopelessly in love with her, and had declared
his passion.
He had stormed and raved when she had gently refused him; yes, this
well-bred and perfectly mannered young man had behaved more like a
madman than a sane product of twentieth-century civilization.
And here he was as though nothing had happened.
“I tried to find where you were,” he said.
His eyes had the tender softness of the South. His voice was without
any trace of foreign accent. He was, as usual, she observed,
faultlessly dressed, with none of the ostentation or errors in taste
which so often in the foreigner mar the good tailor’s best efforts.
“I have been away in the country,” she said, a little hurriedly.
She was expecting Frank at the station. He might come up at any moment.
She wondered what would be the effect on this volcanic young man if she
introduced the big Englishman as her fiancée.
“And I have been tied to town,” he said. “Oh, what a deplorable place
London is for those whose business keeps them there! It is delightful
to the visitor, to the dilettante, but for the unfortunate dweller by
compulsion, terrible.”
He threw out his hands in mock despair.
“London is a bad habit,” he went on, “and the ideal one, for it is a
bad habit one can get away from when one likes.”
“Few bad habits are like that,” she smiled.
He had apparently completely recovered from his infatuation and was
genial only to a point of correctness.
Some thought occurred to her, and she smiled.
“Do I amuse you?” he said, with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
“I was thinking,” she said, “how curious it is that I seem to have
met nothing but Italians--to have lived almost in an atmosphere of
Renaissance the last few days.”
His eyes steadied.
“That is very curious,” he said quietly. “I could have almost said the
same. And who are the Italians who have been favoured by association
with the most lovely lady in England?”
She raised her hand.
“Please,” she said softly, “let us forget.”
“I could never forget,” he said.
He spoke calmly enough for her ease and comfort.
“But I have agreed myself to forgo hope. After all,” his shoulders
rose imperceptibly, “one cannot have all the things one wants in this
world. I have most of them, yet one which is more than all the others
together is denied me. That is my punishment.”
He smiled again. “But you did not answer me.”
She hesitated. She had no wish to talk of Tillizini. He was one of
those mysterious individuals engaged in a business of such a character
that it seemed that any reference to him would be a betrayal. She saw
the absurdity of this view almost as quickly as she formulated the idea.
“One of them,” she said, “was Professor Tillizini.”
His cigarette was half-way to his mouth. He checked its course for the
fraction of a second.
“Signor Tillizini,” he drawled. “How very interesting! And what had the
great Antonio to tell you? Did he ask for your finger-prints, or take a
sample of your blood, or express any desire to measure your head?”
“Oh, no,” she said, with a laugh. “He didn’t do anything so dreadful.
Do you know him?”
“Slightly,” he said carelessly. “Everybody in Italy, of course,
knows Tillizini, and I should imagine almost everybody in England is
similarly informed. And where did you meet this great man?” he bantered.
“At Burboro’,” she said. “He came to visit my uncle.”
“At Burboro’?”
Again she noticed the slight emphasis to his words.
He was looking at her steadily, speculatively, she thought. He
was quick to realize that his attitude was a little more than
disinterested, for he gave a short laugh.
“You think I am inquisitive, do you not?” he said. “But don’t you know
that everything associated with you has immense interest for me? You
see,” he said apologetically, “I have never met your uncle. I didn’t
know that you had such a relative--though most people have. At any
rate, I have discovered where you are staying,” he said, with laughing
menace. “I have only to run to ground this uncle of yours, and the rest
will be easy. I shall come to Burboro’,” he threatened, with one slim
finger raised in mock earnestness, “and go round asking ‘Has anybody
seen Miss Marjorie’s uncle?’ It will create a little sensation, will it
not?”
“I will save you that trouble,” she smiled. “My uncle is Sir Ralph
Morte-Mannery.”
“Oh, indeed,” he nodded his head. “I thought it might be.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know, he is a great man; one hears of him. He is a judge;
and something of a collector too.”
She had seen a tall form walking toward them, and went pink again.
“I want to introduce you, Count Festini,” she said, “to my fiancé, Mr.
Frank Gallinford.”
She averted her eyes from his face, and did not see the sudden
tightening of his lips or the curious, quick droop of his eyelids.
“This is Count Festini,” she said.
The big Englishman put out his hand and grasped the other’s heartily.
He was almost head and shoulders above the dapper young man, but, to
Frank’s surprise, it was no soft, effeminate grasp which was returned.
It was a grip which reminded him of Tillizini’s vise-like grip.
Frank was a typical Englishman--tall, broad-shouldered, lean of face
and limb; gray, honest eyes shone with pleasure to meet a friend of his
beloved.
“I wish you would bring us just a handful of your beautiful Italian
sunshine, Count,” he said. “In this city of gloom, and depression, and
inquests----”
“Inquests?” interrupted Marjorie.
Frank nodded.
“Yes, on that unfortunate man who was murdered. I have got to give
evidence to-day.”
“Which man is this?” asked the count, interested.
“The man who was found in the Embankment Gardens.”
“Oh!”
It was only an ejaculation, but Frank looked at him in surprise.
“Did you know him?” he asked.
“I only know what I have read in the papers,” said the other calmly.
“May I ask, Mr. Gallinford, exactly what part you played in that
tragedy?”
“I was the man that was with him when he was kidnapped,” said he. “I
have felt awful ever since. If I could only have kept with him I might
have saved his life.”
“Or lost your own,” said the count. “These people are not particular
about a life or two. You have lived long enough in my country to
realize that we do not place the exaggerated value upon human life that
you Northerners do.”
“You cannot have an exaggerated value on human life,” said Frank
gravely. “It is the most precious thing in the world.”
The count shrugged his shoulders.
“That is a point of view,” he said. “It is not mine. For my part I
regard life as the least valuable of our possessions. It is a huge
gramophone record on which all the strident and unpleasant sounds of
life are received and held at one and the same time. And the whole
makes a tremendous discord,” he said, speaking half to himself. “The
music of life is drowned, overwhelmed, deadened by the harsher notes of
strife and ambition. For me,” he smiled, “I think that the clean record
is best.”
“What is the ‘clean record’?” asked Frank.
“Sleep,” said the other, a little bitterly, “or death. It is one and
the same.”
He offered his hand with a charming smile.
“I am keeping you both,” he said. “Where may I have the pleasure of
seeing you again, Miss Meagh?”
“I shall be staying with my uncle for another month,” she said.
He nodded pleasantly to Frank, and, turning, walked quickly away. He
stopped at a little cigarette kiosk on the station, and watching them
out of the corners of his eyes he saw that they were passing slowly
from the station. He turned, when they had disappeared through one of
the exits. His face had no longer that pleasant, soft quality which had
distinguished it a few minutes before. It was hard and set, and his
eyes glowed angrily. He stood watching the exit through which they had
disappeared; then he went to a telephone box. From this he emerged in
five minutes, collected, suave, and cheerful.
It was Thursday, the night before the attempt would be made. If the
locket was not abstracted, he thought he knew a way by which it might
be attained--and it was a pleasant way to him. The only fear he had
in his mind was whether he would resist the temptation which would
arise in the experiment. Whether his love of gain would overmaster
the growing passion which fired his breast for this cold, beautiful
Englishwoman.
He had learned enough now to know that the second locket was in
the possession of Tillizini. It was a house which, under ordinary
circumstances, might be burgled; but now it was Tillizini’s. The name
inspired awe amongst the lawless men who were working for their illicit
profits.
Before now the very sight of this professor’s thin, refined face had
stayed the assassin’s dagger, from very fright. The very mention of
Tillizini was sufficient to cause a stir of uneasiness amongst these
villains, in whom the dictates of fear and pity were dead.
But the name had no such effect upon Count Festini. He was superior to
fear of any man. He came from a line of men who, for hundreds of years,
had dominated one secret society or the other. The Festinis went back
to the bad old days of Italian history, when assassination was a quick
and easy method of ridding members of his family from embarrassment.
It was in his blood. It was part of his composition. Young as he was,
he had been the directing force of the terrorizing organization which
had worked the Eastern states of America into a ferment of terror.
Tillizini, swift and terrible in his working, wise in his judgment, had
broken that organization.
Festini was no fool. He had recognized that the game was up in
America. There was no use in running his head against a brick wall.
He had foreseen the possibility of transplanting the strength of his
government to England. They were a soft people, used to crime of a
certain type, crime which was generally without violence. It was the
last stand of the Red Hand. Its members had been driven from every
country in Europe. It was only a matter of time when lethargic England
would drive and stamp the organization out of existence.
But, in that short space of time, Festini was preparing his coup--the
greatest and most terrible of his wicked plans. He would strike, not
individuals, for that was too dangerous--he would blackmail the nation,
but first he must obtain possession of those lockets.
He sprang into a cab outside the station and drove to a little street
in Soho. It was a tiny restaurant where he knew he would find Il Bue.
There was no time to be lost.
The man he sought had not arrived, and the count sat down and waited,
ordering a plate of soup from the obsequious head waiter.
The big man came in shortly afterward.
“Talk in English as much as you can,” said Festini.
“The man is a brother,” replied the other.
“That does not matter,” said the count. “Talk in English, if you
please. You have sent your men to Burboro’?”
The other nodded.
“You have followed my instructions?”
“Yes, _padrone_. The men I have sent looked like Englishmen. They are
the best we can get.”
“Trustworthy?”
The other nodded, and smiled crookedly.
“As trustworthy as men could be who are up to their eyes----” He gave a
significant little gesture, and Festini smiled a little.
“I don’t think we shall have any difficulty,” he said. “When you get
the locket, bring it straight to me. You will be at the station to
receive them. Take it from their hands; do not leave the station until
you have it in your hand. I shall be waiting for you at Deptford. Now,
what of Tillizini?”
A look of fear came into the big man’s eyes.
“Tillizini?” he said uneasily.
“Yes,” said the other, impatiently. “What do you fear? He is only a
man, my Ox. One of the lockets is in his possession. It is in that big
room of his that overlooks the Thames Embankment. Now, can that be
secured?”
The big Italian shook his head vigorously.
“Signor,” he said earnestly, “it cannot be done. There is not one of
our men who would dare to. You know he is no man--this Tillizini--he is
a devil. Remember Beppo Ferosti! Only the other night, killed on the
stairs, by a man who heard all we said. And we none the wiser! It is
not possible, signor, to trap this man. We have tried.
“Did we not try in New York?” he went on vehemently. “We bribed the
waiter of his hotel, we drugged him, we went to his room at night
and dragged him out of bed, wrapped him in a sheet and threw him
down the elevator shaft. Signor, he dropped eight stories,” he said
impressively, “and when we went later to see him at the bottom, it was
not him at all. It was poor Antonio Barricci--the man who had been in
charge of all the arrangements--who had planned his death. We had not
seen his face in the dark, because we dared not carry lights. We simply
took the drugged form from the bed and carried it to the elevator shaft.
“Do you remember how we sent the man from Florence to kill him? We
never saw that man again.” The big man’s voice shook a little, for
the man from Florence had been his brother. “Tillizini sent me his
hand--that is all--by parcel post! Just the hand of the man from Rome,
with the rings of the brotherhood still upon his finger. No name to
identify the sender, and the post-mark ‘Paris.’
“It cannot be done, I tell you,” he said, “the man is not human.”
Festini was listening with an amused smile.
“He is sufficiently human, my friend,” he said softly, “only he is more
clever than the men who have been pitted against him. Now I propose,
myself, to arrange matters with Signor Tillizini. I have tried every
one of our agents, and they have all failed. I must take up my share of
the work. Here is a dangerous enemy who may spoil our plans. To-night,
whilst our friends are reconnoitring the ground at Burboro’, I myself
will work independently.”
“Shall I come with you?” asked the other eagerly. “Signor, I would give
my life for you.”
He spoke with sincerity. There was no questioning the honesty of the
doglike faithfulness of this big man.
Again Festini smiled.
“I will work alone, my good friend,” he said, and tapped the other on
the shoulder with his white hand approvingly. “These things must be
done with subtlety if they are to succeed.”
He rested his head upon his hands for a few minutes, deep in thought.
The other waited patiently, his deep-set eyes filled with love and
admiration for the master whose house he had served all his life.
“There is a man,” said Festini suddenly, “who is a sort of agent of
this Tillizini. Now, you shall go to him and kill him.”
He spoke as though it were a very ordinary transaction which he had
asked the other to undertake.
Il Bue nodded. “It will be simple,” he said. “I can do it to-night.”
Festini was still thinking.
“No,” he said, after awhile, “do not kill him. Take him away to the
house by the river. You know where I mean?”
The other nodded.
“When you have got him safe, send a letter to Tillizini saying that you
have him, and demanding a ransom--say of £500--and leave the rest to
me.”
The big man rose.
“I will see about this at once, signor,” he said. “God prosper you.”
With which commendation he left the restaurant.