There was a long and painful pause.
"Eight years ago I was living with my wife and Judith at the Villa
Carracci, in the Val d'Ema, close to Florence, and first met the
hunchback Graniani, or Fra Francesco, as he was then called, for he was
then a monk at the Certosa Monastery at Galuzzo," said Lord Glenelg in a
hard, strained voice. "He came to beg alms of me; our conversation ran
upon books and ancient manuscripts, and I found, to my surprise, that he
was very well versed in the study of palaeography. Discovering that I
was a collector, he invited me to the monastery one day, and there
exhibited the treasures of the library, including a very remarkable
manuscript of Arnoldus. Away at Sienna there lived an English friend of
this hunchback, named Selby, of whom he often spoke. One afternoon,
when visiting the Certosa, I was introduced to this man, and found him
to be a person whose past history was somewhat shady, and who was living
in Sienna in strict privacy. It struck me from the first that the
fellow, like lots of others one meets in Italy and elsewhere, had got
into some trouble in England, and lived abroad to avoid arrest. On
several occasions we met, and I could not help suspecting that there was
some extraordinary bond of friendship existing between that hunchback
monk and my dark-faced, oily-looking compatriot, who lived the life of a
hermit, sometimes in Pisa, at others in Sienna, and frequently in Rome.
"My wife frequently gave alms to Fra Francesco, hence the lay brother
was a constant caller, and was in the habit of bringing us in return
presents of grapes, figs, and salads from the monastery garden. I, too,
became interested in him, for his knowledge was several times of great
assistance to me in my palaeographical studies in the Laurenziana
Library and the archives of the Palazzo Vecchio. So, gradually, his
connection with the adventurous Englishman passed out of my mind.
"After about a year a crushing blow fell upon me. I had been into
Florence one morning making some researches in the archives, and on my
return discovered my poor wife seated in her little salon stark and
dead. She had, it seemed, received Fra Francesco in the hall, he having
called with a present of grapes, and she had given him a few lire. The
grapes had been taken to the dining-room, and she had gone straight to
her own boudoir and must have there expired without being able to call
assistance. The medical examination was a searching one; but it was
found that death was due to sudden heart failure. Fra Francesco
explained at the inquiry that my wife seemed quite in her usual health
when she had given him alms, and that she had told him to call again on
the following Monday. Selby was in Florence, and called to condole with
me on the day my poor wife was interred in the English cemetery. After
that I took Judith, and we became wanderers, travelling about hither and
thither across the Continent. People believed me eccentric because I
had closed Twycross and my town house here and preferred life in hotels
with constant change." He sighed, adding: "But they knew not that I
travelled with one fixed object; that often when my friends supposed me
to be thousands of miles away I was living here in secrecy, going forth
only at night for fear of recognition. The object of this you will see
later."
"Ah, yes!" interrupted Lady Judith, her face a trifle paler, "an object
that is now happily accomplished."
"My daughter, here, was but a girl when my poor wife died," went on his
lordship, speaking in that mechanical, reflective tone that he had used
all along, relating a painful history only from a sense of duty. "For
the first three years she was, on and off, at a convent at Angers, and
then as my constant companion lived a life of continual travel--an
existence which has happily ended this very day. Well, I need not
describe our weary wanderings, our swift movements from one city to
another, nor our constant subterfuges for disguise. It is sufficient
for me to come to these present days.
"By careful inquiries and personal observation I was aware that Fra
Francesco had, about a year after my wife's death, been forced to leave
the Order owing to irreligious conduct, and that both he and the man
Selby--who I had discovered was a chemist of considerable ability and
had been lecturer at one of the London hospitals--were in possession of
some profound secret. The pair travelled together very frequently,
staying at the best hotels, such as the Langham in London, the Chatham
in Paris, the Metropole in Vienna, Shepheard's in Cairo, the Metropole
at Monte Carlo, the Grand at Rome, the houses of the first order in
Bombay, Sydney, San Francisco, and New York. Indeed, the pair made a
world tour, and, strangely enough, in several places where they went
some person of affluence, man or woman, expired suddenly, the doctors
attributing death to the same vague cause as that of my poor wife's
disease--heart failure.
"Thus my suspicion became confirmed that this unfrocked monk and his
shady companion had actually discovered some secret poison which, like
the venom of the Borgias, while defying detection, could be used in the
same subtle way and with the same deadly effect. The suspicion had been
aroused by my discovering among my dead wife's papers a note written to
her by Fra Francesco just prior to her death, which showed that she had,
by some means, become acquainted with their secret discovery, and knew
the reason of the death of a small landed proprietor named Bardi, whose
estate joined that of the Villa Caracci. It was undoubtedly because of
this discovery of their dastardly crime and fear of denunciation that my
poor wife was secretly assassinated."
"Then you have watched these men for seven years?" I exclaimed, in
utter amazement at these revelations.
"I have," was his hard answer. "I followed them everywhere, secretly
noting how ingeniously and unsuspectedly they dealt death and were
gradually enriching themselves without any fear of detection, for they
were clever enough never to be associated with the actual fatality.
Indeed, they could so regulate their poison, whatever it was, that death
would occur almost instantly, or, if they so desired, not for several
days, robbery, of course, being always the motive. Under a dozen
aliases they made their dastardly progress, striking death in seven
different instances within my own knowledge, without compassion or
remorse.
"Among the persons who fell their victims were the well-known
stockbroker Clement Harrison, of Wall Street, New York, whose sudden
death in Paris you will probably recollect; a woman named Blacker, maid
to the Duchess of Cornwall, from whom they stole a quantity of diamonds
which the unfortunate woman had in her keeping in the Hotel Metropole in
Vienna; a banker named Lefevre, who died suddenly in his offices in the
Boulevard Haussmann; and a Polish prince named Lebitski, who expired
mysteriously at the same hotel in which they were staying at Sydney.
"I enumerate these just to show you the progress of their atrocious
crimes. From the last-named victim they obtained at least thirty
thousand pounds in cash and securities; and yet, although I felt
absolutely certain of their guilt, I was utterly powerless to denounce
them, because never once had there been the slightest suspicion of
poisoning. Indeed, in several cases, in order to satisfy the police,
the viscera had been analysed, and all idea of venom utterly set aside."
"Then you dared not denounce them," remarked Wyman, listening as eagerly
as myself to this extraordinary story.
"True. I felt assured that I was in possession of the startling truth;
but in no case was there the slightest evidence that either of the men
had anything whatsoever to do with the victim's death.
"Two years ago, however, the pair acted in a manner which, for a long
time puzzled me. They suddenly separated while in New York, Selby
returning to Liverpool and Graniani taking a North German boat to Genoa.
They were evidently in possession of considerable funds; but both were
sufficiently clever not to show it. Indeed, neither of them had ever
betrayed signs of affluence, Graniani usually posing as a deformed man
of easy circumstances, and Selby his paid companion.
"On parting from his accomplice, Selby spent a month in London, and then
went out to India for the cold weather, staying with a military friend
in Bombay. Nothing, however, occurred, although with Judith I had
followed him. The meaning of this latest move confounded me until about
a year ago he returned to London, rented that house in Harpur Street,
and took a comfortable flat himself in Walsingham House, Piccadilly. He
engaged as his housekeeper at Harpur Street a strange-looking little old
lady named Pickard, and spent about half his time there, apparently in
strictest seclusion. With Judith's aid I watched that house carefully
and continuously," went on the grey-haired, rather sad man, "and was not
long in coming to the conclusion that a stuffed bear cub was being
placed in the window at certain times as a secret signal to some
passer-by; but although I exerted all my ingenuity, and spent days and
nights in that gloomy street, I utterly failed to discover its meaning.
At last, after all those years of watching, I resolved again to approach
this malefactor in order to entrap and unmask him. It was this sole
motive, that prompted me to take part in the conspiracy--to learn the
truth and rid society of the terrible danger. One night, therefore, I
followed him from Walsingham House to Daly's Theatre, and having seated
myself in the next stall to him, feigned to suddenly recognise him. At
first he was puzzled to recollect who I was, but quickly remembered, and
then we at once became friendly. Probably he anticipated that through
me he might obtain introductions to certain wealthy men who might become
his victims, and with that object gave me his address at Piccadilly, and
invited me to call. I went, notwithstanding the great risk I ran. For
aught I knew he might defeat me with that secret and terrible weapon
which none could withstand, and certainly he would have done so without
compunction if he had known how many years and how much time and money I
had spent in tracking him down.
"But we became on friendly terms, and you may well imagine the care I
was constantly compelled to exercise in order to conceal my knowledge of
his years of travel and his dastardly crimes. Each time we met, either
here or at his cozy flat in Piccadilly, I knew not whether he might
suspect and attempt to kill me by his secret method. In the old days in
Italy he knew of my love for codexes and manuscripts, and he also being
something of an authority, our tastes ran in similar lines. Indeed, it
was upon this study that I feigned to cement our friendship. I
entertained him once down at Twycross, showed him the whole of my
collection, and more than once went with him to Sotheby's to give him
the benefit of my knowledge regarding his purchases, for he himself was
forming a small collection. During all this time, of course, he made no
mention of the house of mystery in Harpur Street."
"Yours was certainly a dangerous position," I remarked. "He would
undoubtedly have envenomed you had he suspected."
"Most certainly. Like his unscrupulous companion Graniani, he would
stand at nothing. A dozen times he could have killed me if he had so
wished. He and his accomplice had, I feel convinced, recovered, from
some old manuscript--in the Certosa, I believe--the secret of the Borgia
cantarella. One afternoon he came to me here and told me in confidence
of a most important palaeographical discovery made by his friend, Fra
Francesco, who, he added, was no longer a monk at the Certosa, that
monastery having been dissolved by the Italian Government--which was, I
knew, the truth.
"The manuscript was nothing less than the noted Arnoldus of the Certosa,
which had fallen into the hands of the Prior of San Sisto at Florence,
and had been purchased by an English collector--yourself. Graniani had
missed securing it, believing that it was not the treasured volume of
the monastery, but a smaller and less valuable copy that he knew had
been in the library. After it had been purchased by you, however, he
discovered, to his chagrin, that it was the great Arnoldus itself, the
book that contained some strange things in English written by an English
monk named Lovel, who had ended his days at that famous monastery. Many
strange and remarkable secrets were, he said, in that record--secrets
regarding Lucrezia Borgia, her life, and the whereabouts of her jewels,
all of which Fra Francesco had read years ago when, as a lay brother, he
had had access to the manuscript. He was now about to obtain possession
of it, and send it to England, so that the statements it contained might
be investigated and verified."
"They stole it from my house at Antignano," I said quickly. "An Italian
woman named Anita Bardi was the thief!"
"I know. Old Mrs Pickard went to Paris, met her there, and carried it
to Harpur Street. That night he examined it alone, reading through the
record; and afterwards becoming seized by extraordinary pains, he was
compelled to send for a doctor. He showed me the manuscript at
Walsingham House next day; but we examined it with gloves, for he
declared that the vellum leaves had been envenomed. Afterwards, it
mysteriously disappeared from Harpur Street."
"It passed again into my possession," I admitted, explaining how I had
invoked the aid of my police friend Noyes.
"Selby had not finished copying the whole of it, hence our
miscalculation of the spot at Threave," his lordship explained. "Of
course, when Graniani returned to London and their scheme to obtain the
treasure was placed before me, both myself and Judith announced our
readiness to assist; first, in order to obtain the secret of that
mysterious house in Bloomsbury; and, secondly, to obtain sufficient
evidence to convict the men of their dastardly crimes. As participators
in the conspiracy we were at length admitted there, and found it a
gloomy, dismal place. The sign of the bear cub still puzzled us, and
the reason of Selby's secret visits there were equally inexplicable.
Judith did all she could to unravel the mystery, acting with utter
fearlessness, although well knowing that at any time, if the faintest
suspicion were aroused, she would fall the victim of secret
assassination just as her dear mother had done."
"It was to avenge her that I have acted as I have done through it all,"
declared her ladyship. "I was determined to learn the truth about that
pair of fiends and to unravel the mystery of that house with its secret
sign. You sought of me an explanation of my conduct. Yet how could I
give it without telling you the strange, tragic, and remarkable story
which my father has just related? I promised you that you should know
some day--and you have now heard the truth."
"I understand," I replied. "But not everything."
"Ah, no! you do not know everything," she sighed, stretching forth her
hand towards me. "When you do, you cannot forgive."
"Forgive! What?" I cried. But her father hastened to calm her
emotion.
"Yes," she went on hoarsely. "You may as well know at first as at last
that I became implicated in the terrible secret of that house. At
Selby's suggestion I invited there to luncheon a friend of his, young
Leslie Hargreaves, a wealthy man who had met and, I believed, admired
me. He went to Harpur Street to meet me and have luncheon on the very
day you detected me at the window; but half an hour after his return to
his chambers in Shaftesbury Avenue his valet found him dead, and notes
to the value of nearly five hundred pounds known to have been in his
pockets were missing! I suspected the intention of those men, and yet I
actually allowed the sacrifice of his life! I shall never forgive
myself for that--never?"
"But you were in ignorance of their real intention?" I said, excusing
her. "Hargreaves was Selby's friend, you say. If so, you surely had no
idea of treachery, inasmuch as you were friendly with these men, and
they never sought to harm you."
"But I ought to have been wary," she wailed. "I ought to have saved his
life. My offence is unpardonable before God--as before man!" And she
covered her blanched face with her hand, sobbing in bitter remorse.
I bent towards her, and there, before her father and Wyman, strove to
comfort her. What passionate, consoling words I uttered I know not.
All I was conscious of was that she had at last utterly broken down.
And then, when I assured her that I forgave everything, and that in the
circumstances she was not culpable in the unfortunate death of young
Hargreaves, she raised her head, smiled at me happily through her tears
as I told her of my love, and there, before Wyman and her father,
declared that she reciprocated the passion that was consuming me.
Then I knew she was mine--my own sweet love. Her eyes had filled with
tears, and for a moment she rested her head upon my shoulder, weeping
silently. She was thinking of that long and terrible past, and of how
she and her father had at last avenged her mother's death and defeated
the villainies of that dangerous pair of assassins. I knew it well. I
held her hands in mine without uttering a word, for my heart was too
full.