The story told me by the bald-headed Italian hotel-keeper was that
another man had usurped my place!
He said that Mrs. Holford, accompanied by her husband, had arrived at
about seven o'clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, remained
there the day, and had left by the express for Rome at five o'clock that
same evening.
"You don't believe it, sir!" the man exclaimed with some warmth. "Well,
here is the gentleman's signature!" And he showed me upon a printed
slip, whereon hotel visitors in Italy write their names according to the
police regulations, boldly inscribed in a firm hand, "Mr. and Mrs. Henry
Holford. Profession, automobile engineer. Domicile, London. British
subject."
I stared at the words utterly confounded. Somebody had assumed my
identity! Yet how was that possible with Mabel present?
"What kind of man was madame's husband?" I inquired, while my
sister-in-law stood by astounded.
"He was slightly older than yourself, sir, with a moustache turning
grey."
Surely it could not be that arch-scoundrel Kershaw Kirk!
"Was he about fifty, and rather thin?"
"Yes," replied the _hotelier_. "He spoke Italian very well; indeed,
with scarcely any accent."
My suspicion at once fell upon Kirk. Yet how could he so impose upon
Mabel as to be allowed to pass as her husband? She had never before
spoken to the fellow, and had, I knew, held him in instinctive dislike.
"They were out all yesterday morning driving up to Fiesole," he added.
"You don't happen to know to which hotel they've gone in Rome?" I
asked.
"No. There is a telegram here for madame. It arrived half an hour
after their departure. They would leave no word with the hall-porter
regarding the forwarding of letters."
"I am her husband," I said, "and that telegram is evidently mine, which
has been delayed in transmission, as messages so often are in this
country. As her husband, I have a right to open it, I suppose."
"I regret, sir, that I cannot allow that," said the man. "You have
given me no proof that you are madame's husband."
"But I am!" I cried. "This lady here is my wife's sister, and will
tell you."
"Yes," declared the girl, "this is Harry, my brother-in-law. The other
man, whoever he may be, is an impostor."
The short, bald-headed Italian in his long frock-coat, grew puzzled. He
was faced by a problem. Therefore, after some further declarations on
my part, he handed me the message, and I found, as I had expected, it
was my own, which, unfortunately, had never reached her to reassure her.
Of course, I was not certain that Mabel's companion was actually Kirk.
Indeed, as I reflected, I grew to doubt whether she would accept any
word he told her as the truth. Yet whatever the story related about
myself to her it must be a strange and dramatic one, that it should
induce her to travel across Europe in company with a stranger.
I had never had the slightest reason to doubt Mabel's fidelity. She had
always been a good, honest and true wife to me, and our strong affection
was mutual. Indeed, few men and women led more blissful, even lives
than we had done. Thoroughly understanding each other's temperaments,
we were content in each other's affection.
No, even though this man might tell me this astounding story, I refused
to give it credence. The grey-moustached stranger, whoever he might be,
was a scoundrel bent upon entrapping my wife, and had done so by
relating some fictitious story about myself.
This theory I expounded to her young sister Gwen as we sat at our coffee
half an hour later. We had resolved to rest until eleven, when an
express left for Rome. I intended to follow her and rescue her from the
hands of those who were most certainly conspirators.
More mystified than ever, we therefore travelled south to the Eternal
City, arriving there in the early hours of the next morning, and going
to the Grand Hotel, which was full to overflowing, the Roman season
having already commenced.
To find my beloved wife was now my sole aim. I thought naught of the
startling mystery of Sussex Place, or of the strange identity of the
false Professor. I had abandoned the inquiry in order to recover from
peril the woman I loved so dearly.
The young girl, my companion, was; beside herself with fear, dreading
what had occurred; while I myself became more and more puzzled as to the
motive for inveigling Mabel abroad. She had not the slightest
connection with the secret tragedy; she was, indeed, in ignorance of it
all. For what reason, therefore, was she being misled, and why, oh,
why, did she allow this perfect stranger to pose as myself?
I hardly slept at all that night, having searched all the published
visitors' lists in vain, and as early as seven o'clock next morning I
started upon a tour of the hotels to make personal inquiry. At the
Russia, the Modern, the Continental, the Milan, and other well-known
houses of that class I conned the names of the visitors for my own, but
though I was occupied the whole day upon the task, snatching a hasty
luncheon at a little _trattoria_ I knew just behind the Ministry of
Posts and Telegraphs, all was, alas! in vain.
Part of the time Mabel's sister was with me, until she grew tired, and
returned alone to the hotel in a cab.
Earlier in the day I had telegraphed to Pelham to inquire whether Mabel
had sent me any message at home, but the reply came that neither
telegram nor letter had been received.
Though there seemed no connection whatever between the tragedy in Sussex
Place and my wife's flight, yet I could not help suspecting that there
was, and that my apparent abandonment was due to the subtle, satanic
influence of my mysterious neighbour. I was now all the more anxious to
condemn him to the police. The remains of the poor Professor had been
cremated in his own furnace, and by the blackguardly hands of the
assassin.
Yet, before I could raise the finger of denunciation, I had to discover
the fellow's whereabouts, and this seemed a task impossible to
accomplish. I had kept my eye upon the _Times_ daily in the course of
my quick journeys during that most eventful week, but no advertisement
had appeared.
Next day, and the next, I spent alternately searching the hotels and
idling in the Corso, on the Pincian, among the tourists in the Forum, or
in the broad Piazza Colonna, the hub of Roman life. Among the hosts of
foreigners who walked and drove in the Corso at the hour of the
_passeggiata_, my eyes, and those of my bright little companion, were
ever eager to find my dear wife's handsome face.
But we saw her not. She and the man posing as myself had entirely and
completely disappeared.
I sought counsel of the Questore, or chief of police, who, on hearing
that I was in search of my wife, ordered the register of foreigners in
Rome to be searched. But two days later he informed me with regret that
the name of Holford did not appear.
In face of that my only conclusion was that, after leaving Florence,
they had suddenly changed the course of their flight.
Their flight! Why had Mabel fled from me, after speeding so swiftly to
meet me? Ay, that was the crucial question.
Late one afternoon I was standing upon the Pincian, leaning upon the
balustrade of that popular promenade of the Romans, and watching the
crowd of winter idlers who, in carriage and afoot, were taking the
fresh, bright air. I had been there every day, hoping against hope
either to recognise Mabel or the man Kirk among the crowd of wealthy
cosmopolitans who thronged the hillside.
Before me moved the slow procession of all sorts and conditions of
carriages, from the gaudily-coloured, smart motor-car of the young
Italian elegant to the funereal carozza of the seedy marchesa, or the
humble vettura of the tweed-skirted "Cookite." Behind showed the soft
grey rose of the glorious afterglow with the red roofs, tall towers and
domes of the Eternal City lying deep below. Against the sky stood the
tall cypresses--high, gloomy, sombre--and over all spread that light
film of mist that rises from old Tiber when the dusk is gathering.
The scene was, perhaps, one of the most picturesque in all Italy, even
surpassing that from the Piazza Michelangelo in Firenze, but to me,
hipped and bewildered as I was, the chatter in a dozen tongues about me
was irritating; and I turned my back upon the crowd, leaning my elbows
upon the stone parapet, and gazing over the gay, light-hearted capital
whence at that moment came up the jangling of bells started by the great
bell at St. Peter's and echoing from every church tower, the solemn call
to evening prayer that is, alas! ever unheeded. In modern Italy only
the peasant is pious; in the _alto mondo_ religion is unfashionable.
Perhaps you have driven in the Corso, that narrow and most disappointing
of thoroughfares, gossiped in the English tea-shop at five o'clock,
taken your vermouth and bitters in the Aregno, and climbed the Pincian
to see the sunset. If you have, then you know that life, you recognise
amid that crowd faces of both sexes that you have seen at Aix, at Vichy,
at Carlsbad, at Ostend, or in the rooms at Monte Carlo, many of them
vicious, sin-hardened faces, careless, indolent, blase; few, alas! with
the freshness of youth or the open look indicated by pure-mindedness.
On the Pincian you have the light-hearted thoughtless world which exists
only to be amused, the world which laughs at grim poverty because it
obtains its wherewithal from the labours of those poor, underpaid and
sweated millions in other countries who must work in order that these
few favoured ones may indulge in their extravagances.
Sick to death, disappointed, worn out by a continual vigilance and with
a deep anxiety gnawing ever at my heart-strings, I had turned from the
scene, and was gazing across into the rose-tinted mists, when of a
sudden I heard a voice at my elbow, exclaiming in broken English:
"Why, surely it's the Signor Holford!"
I turned quickly, and to my amazement found myself confronted by the
thin, sinister face of the dead Professor's servant, Antonio Merli.