The Closed Book had been filched from me at the very moment when I was
about to learn the secret it contained.
I put a few well-directed questions to Nello, and became confirmed in my
suspicion that the woman who had stolen it was actually the same whose
face had so attracted me that it had lived within my memory every moment
since our first meeting.
Curious how the faces of some women haunt us, even when we have no
desire for their affection! The fascination of a woman's eyes is one of
the unaccountable mysteries of life, being far beyond human ken or human
control, and yet one of the most potent factors in man's existence.
In the half-open drawer of my writing-table were certain private papers
that I had taken from my despatch-box two days before, intending to send
them to my solicitors in London, and these the unknown in black had
apparently been examining. She had called with a fixed purpose, which
she had accomplished--namely, to pry into my private affairs, and to
gain possession of my treasured Arnoldus, the Book of Secrets.
As I knew Tuscany and the Tuscans so well, this ingenious conspiracy was
scarcely surprising. The little plots, often harmless enough, that I
had detected about me during my residence by the Mediterranean had shown
me what a cleverly diplomatic race they were, and with what patient
secretiveness they work towards their own ends. It annoyed me, however,
to think that I should thus fall a victim to that handsome woman's
ingenuity. Veiled as she had been in Father Bernardo's study, I had
judged her to be much older than I found she was when I had noticed her
in the streets of Leghorn. Who could she be, and what could be her
motive in stealing my property if she were not in league with the prior
himself?
My old servant Nello, standing there beside me, knew something more than
he would tell. Of that I felt convinced. Possibly he had participated
in the plot, admitting her, well knowing her errand. He had warned me;
therefore he must know something. What was the object of it all I
utterly failed to conceive.
"That woman is a thief?" I exclaimed angrily a few moments later. "Who
is she?"
"I--I do not know her, _signor padrone_," stammered the old man.
"She gave no name?"
"None. She said that you expected her."
"But she could not have taken away a big book like that without your
noticing it?" I pointed out suspiciously.
"She had on a big black cloak, signore," was the crafty old fellow's
response.
I closed my writing-table and locked it, for in that moment I had
decided to go straight to Florence and charge Bernardo Landini with
being a party to the theft. Having sold the book to me, he wished to
repossess himself of it, and on my refusal, had, it seemed, put in
motion a kind of conspiracy against me.
The old hunchback was undoubtedly the director of it all.
I thrust a few things into a kit-bag, placed some money in my pocket,
and put on an overcoat; and telling Nello that I should not return for a
couple of days, perhaps, gave orders that no one was to be admitted to
the house except my most intimate friend, Hutchinson, the British
consul.
At the big, bare railway station, wherein the feeble gas-jet had just
been lit, I saw, lounging beside the ticket-collector, the detective
attached to that post, whose duty it was to notice all arrivals and
departures; and, knowing him, I called him aside and briefly described
the lady who had visited me.
"Yes, signore, I saw her. She left for Pisa an hour ago; she purchased
a first-class ticket for London."
"For London!" I gasped. "Had she any baggage?"
"A crocodile-leather dressing-case and a small flat box covered with
brown leather."
"By what route was she travelling?"
The detective walked to the booking-office, and in response to his
inquiries I learned that she had taken a direct ticket by way of Turin,
Modane, Paris, and Calais. The train which caught at Pisa the express
to the French frontier had left an hour ago; therefore I had no chance
of overtaking her.
Still, something prompted me to take the next train to Pisa, for Italian
railways are never punctual, and there was just a chance that she might
have missed her connection. So half an hour later I sat in the dimly
lit, rickety old compartment of that branch-line train, pondering over
the events of the past day, and determined to run down the thief at all
hazards.
At Pisa I quickly learned that the Leghorn train had arrived in time to
catch the express; therefore the woman in black was now well on her way
towards the frontier.
I purchased a railway-guide, and entering the waiting-room, sat down to
study it calmly. After half an hour I decided upon a plan. The
homeward Indian mail from Brindisi to London would pass through Turin at
9:10 on the following morning, and, if I caught it, would land me at
Calais three hours in advance of the express by which she was
travelling. But from Pisa to Turin is a far cry--half-way across Italy;
and I at once consulted the station-master as to the possibility of
arriving in time.
There was none, he declared. The express for the north, which left in
two hours' time, could not arrive in Turin before 9:20, ten minutes
after the departure of the Indian mail. Therefore it was impossible.
I paced the long, deserted platform full of chagrin and utterly
bewildered.
Of a sudden, however, a thought occurred to me. I knew the manager of
the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits at Turin station, a most
courteous and hard-working Englishman named Nicholls. I would telegraph
to him, urging him in the strongest terms to detain the Indian mail for
me ten minutes.
This I did, and just before midnight stepped into the Rome-Turin express
on the first stage of my stern-chase across Europe.
Through the hot, stifling July night I stretched myself out along the
cushions and slept but little during the slow, tedious journey through
those eighty-odd roaring tunnels that separate Pisa from Genoa, for the
line is compelled to run so close to the sea in places that the waves
lap the very ballast. I was excited, wondering whether I should succeed
in catching the mail and arresting the woman's progress.
In those past few days I had trodden a maze of mystery. My love for the
antique had brought into my life one of the strangest episodes
experienced by any man, yet in those breathless moments, as I tore
across Europe, I thought only of regaining possession of my remarkable
treasure, and of obtaining the forbidden knowledge contained therein.
Hour after hour dragged slowly by. At Genoa, long after the sun had
risen, I got out for a cup of coffee in that ugly and rather dirty
buffet which travellers in Italy know so well. Then re-entering, we
started off up the deep valleys and across the broad wine-lands of Asti
towards Turin.
As we approached the capital of Piedmont my anxiety increased. To delay
the Indian mail for ten minutes was surely a sufficient courtesy, and I
knew that after that lapse of time my friend Nicholls dared not assume
further responsibility. The overland mail once a week between Brindisi
and Charing Cross is ever on time; a contract that must be kept whatever
the cost; hence, as I frequently glanced at my watch, I grew anxious as
to my success in catching it.
If I did I should arrive at Calais harbour in advance of the mysterious
woman, and could on board the steamer single her out and demand the
restoration of my property.
We halted at Novi, and the time lost in taking water seemed an eternity.
At Alexandria we were ten minutes late--ten minutes! Think what that
meant to me.
At Asti there was some difficulty about an old _contadina's_ box; and
when the train started at last for Turin we were nearly fourteen minutes
behind time. I threw myself back with a sigh, feeling that all hope had
vanished. We could never make up time on that short run; and the
English mail, after waiting for me, would leave ten minutes or so before
my arrival. Could any situation be more tantalising?
At last, however, we ran slowly into the great arched terminus of Turin;
and as we did so I hung half my body from the carriage window, and was
delighted to see the train of long, brown sleeping-cars still standing
in the station.
My heart gave a bound. On the platform my friend Nicholls was awaiting
me, and assisted me hurriedly to descend.
"Just in time, Mr Kennedy," he said. "Another minute and I should have
been compelled to let her go. Anything serious in London?"
"Yes," I answered. "Very serious. I'll write to you all about it. But
I don't know how to thank you sufficiently."
"Oh, never mind about that," he laughed. "I've got your berth for you.
Come along;" and, hurrying me over to the next platform, he put me into
one of the cars, wishing me _bon voyage_, waved his hand, and we moved
out towards Calais--the fastest express across Europe.
Upon the result of that hard race my whole future and happiness
depended. I was not, of course, aware of it at the time. I was merely
consumed by curiosity regarding the strange vellum record, and was eager
to obtain the knowledge that its writer had so successfully concealed--
barring it with certain death to those who sought the truth.
Could I but have looked into the future, could I have realised what it
all meant to me, I should never have dared to embark upon that chase;
but rather should I have been pleased that this unknown woman of the
sable habiliments had taken into her hands that which must sooner or
later encompass her death.
But we are creatures of impulse, all of us. I found the circumstances
full of romance and interest; and, beyond, I saw the woman herself as
great a mystery as that written upon those envenomed pages.
My keen anxiety through those long hours while we sped through the Alps
and by way of Aix, Macon, and Dijon to Paris need not be told. The
train by which the woman I was following had travelled was before us all
the way; but her delay would, I discovered, be in Paris; for while she
was compelled to cross the city by cab, and wait at the Gare du Nord
five hours, we travelled around the Ceinture railway, and left for
Calais with only twenty minutes' wait at the French capital.
Most of my fellow-travellers were Anglo-Indians, officers and their
wives home on leave, together with a few homeward-bound travellers from
the Far East, everyone eager to get aboard the Dover boat and to sight
the white cliffs of Old England once again after perhaps many years of
exile. If you have travelled by the overland mail, you know well the
excitement that commences as one nears Calais; for once beneath the
British flag of the Channel steamer, one is home again. Ah! that word
home--how much it conveyed to me!--how much to you, if you have
travelled in far-off lands!
We swung through Boulogne around that terrible curve that generally
throws over the plates and dishes of the _wagon restaurant_, and at last
slackened down through Calais-Ville, and slowly proceeded to the harbour
where the special boat awaited us, the train having done the long run
from Brindisi four minutes under the scheduled time even though Nicholls
had kept it behind for nearly a quarter of an hour.
It was now eleven o'clock in the morning, and until four o'clock in the
afternoon I remained in that most dismal of all hotels, the "Terminus,"
at Calais, awaiting the arrival of the ordinary express from Paris. It
came at last, crowded with summer tourists from Switzerland and
elsewhere, business men, and that quaint, mixed set of travellers that
continually pass to and fro across the Channel.
In order to discover the woman, however, I took up a position near the
gangway that gave access to the steamer, and scrutinised each passenger
with all the eagerness of a born detective. One after the other they
passed in array, each carrying the hand-luggage, while the big, rattling
cranes were at work faking aboard baggage and mails.
The stream grew thinner, until the last passenger had passed on board,
and yet she did not come. My haste had been in vain. She had probably
broken her journey in Paris. And yet somehow I felt that she had some
motive in carrying The Closed Book to London without delay.
French porters with their arm-badges and peaked caps rushed to and fro.
There was shouting in two languages, not counting the third--or bad
language. They were preparing to cast off, and I was undecided whether
to remain in Calais until two o'clock next morning for the arrival of
the night train or to go aboard and make further search.
But just as the gangway was about to be withdrawn I distinguished among
the bustling groups of passengers a face that was familiar to me, and my
decision was made immediately. I rushed headlong on board, and my hopes
revived as I made my way quickly across the deck.