With a single movement Regina was on her feet, for she had been taken by
surprise, and her first instinct was to be ready for some new and
unsuspected danger. In a flash it seemed to her that since Corbario was
in the house, he might very possibly enter suddenly and take Settimia's
defence. Regina was not afraid of him, but she was only a woman after
all, and Corbario was not a man to stop at trifles. He was very likely
armed, and would perhaps shoot her, in order to make good his escape
with Settimia, unless, as was quite probable, he killed his old
accomplice too, before leaving the room.
Regina stood still a moment, reflecting on the dangerous situation. It
certainly would not be safe to release Settimia yet; for if Corbario
were really in the house, the two together could easily overpower one
woman, though she was strong.
"I am sorry that I cannot untie you yet," Regina said, and with a glance
at the prostrate figure she took up her candle-stick, stuck her pin
through her hair before the mirror, and went to the door.
She took the key from the lock, put it back on the outside, and turned
it, and put it into her pocket when she had shut the door after her.
Then she slowly descended the stairs, stopping now and then to listen,
and shading her candle with her hand so that she could see over it, for
she expected to be attacked at any moment. At the slightest sound she
would have snatched her pin from her hair again, but she heard nothing,
and went cautiously down till she reached the vestibule outside the
sitting-room. She entered the latter and sat down to think.
Should she boldly search the house? Settimia could hardly have had any
object in lying. If she had meant to frighten Regina, she would have
spoken very differently. She would have made out that Corbario was
almost within hearing, waiting in a dark corner with a loaded revolver.
But her words had been the cry of truth, uttered to save her life at the
moment when death was actually upon her. She would have screamed out the
truth just as certainly if Corbario had already left Rome, or if he were
in some hotel for the night--or even if she had really known nothing. In
the last case Regina would have believed her, and would have let her go.
There is no mistaking the accent of mortal terror, whether one has ever
heard it or not.
Corbario was somewhere in the house, Marcello's enemy, and the man she
herself had long hated. A wild longing came over her to have him in her
power, bound hand and foot like Settimia, and then to torment him at her
pleasure until he died. She felt the strength of half a dozen men in
her, and the courage of an army, as she rose to her feet once more. She
had seen him. He was not a big man. If she could catch him from behind,
as she had caught the woman, she might perhaps overpower him. With the
thought of near revenge the last ray of caution disappeared, and from
being fearless Regina became suddenly reckless.
But as she rose, she heard a sound overhead, and it was the unmistakable
sound of footsteps. She started in surprise. It was simply impossible
that Settimia should have loosed the cord that bound her. Regina had
been brought up in the low hill country and in the Campagna, and she
could tie some of the knots used by Roman muleteers and carters, which
hold as well as those men learn at sea. She had tied Settimia very
firmly, and short of a miracle the woman could not have freed herself.
Yet the footsteps had been distinctly audible for a moment. Since
Settimia was not walking about, Corbario must have got into the room.
Yet Regina had locked the door, and had the key in her pocket. It was
perfectly incomprehensible. She left the sitting-room again, carrying
her candle as before; but at the door she turned back, and set the
candle-stick upon the table. She would be safer in the dark, and would
have a better chance of taking Corbario by surprise.
Poor Regina had not grown up amongst people who had a high standard of
honour, and her own ideas about right and wrong were primitive, to speak
charitably. But if she had dreamt of the deed that was being done
upstairs, her heart would have stood still, and she would have felt sick
at the mere thought of such villainy.
She had left the room and locked the door, and while her footsteps had
been audible on the stairs no other sound had broken the stillness. But
a few seconds later a whispered question came from some person out of
sight.
"Is she gone?" the whisper asked.
"Yes," answered Settimia in a very low voice, which she knew Regina
could not hear.
Corbario's pale face cautiously emerged from the closet in which he had
been hidden, and he looked round the room before he stepped out.
Settimia could not turn over to see him, but she heard him coming
towards her.
"Cut this cord," she said in an undertone. "Make haste! We can be out of
the house in less than half a minute."
Corbario knelt beside her, and took out a handsome English clasp-knife.
But he did not cut the cord. He looked down into Settimia's face, and
she understood.
"I could not help it," she answered. "She would have killed me!"
Corbario laid his left hand upon her throat.
"If you try to scream I shall strangle you," he said in a whisper. "You
have betrayed me, and I cannot afford to trust you again. Do you know
what I am going to do?"
She tried to turn her head, but his hand was heavy on her throat. She
strained frightfully to move, and her stony eyes lit up with a dying
glare of terror.
"Do it quickly!" she gasped.
"Hush!" His hand tightened on her throat. "If you were in Salta, you
should die by tenths of inches, if it took all night! That would be too
good for you."
He spat in her face as she writhed under his grasp. He looked into her
living eyes once more with all the cowardly hate that possessed him, he
struck deep and sure, he saw the light break in the pupils, and heard
the awful rattle of her last breath.
In an instant he was at the window, and had thrown it wide open. He got
out quickly, let himself down with his hands, and pushed himself away
from the wall with his feet as he jumped down backwards, well knowing
that there was grass below him, and that the earth was as soft as sponge
with the long rain. He was sure that he could not hurt himself. Yet
before his feet touched the ground he had uttered a low cry of fear.
He was on his legs now and trying to run, but it was too late. There was
the flash of a lantern in the wet garden, and between him and the light,
and just below it, he saw two points of greenish fire coming at him; for
he saw everything then; and he heard the rush of a heavy beast's feet,
tearing up the earth with iron claws, and the savage breath, and the
loud hiss of a man setting the creature on; for he heard every sound
then; and he knew that the thing of terror would leap up with resistless
strength and hurl its weight upon him, and bury its jagged fangs in his
throat and tear him, in an instant that would seem like an hour of
agony, and that the pain and the fear would be as if he were hung up by
all the nerves of his body, drawn out and twisted; for he knew
everything then; and in that immeasurable time which is nothing, and yet
is infinite, he remembered his evil life, his robberies, his murders,
and his betrayals, one by one, but he remembered with most frightful
clearness how he had tried to kill Marcello, how he had corrupted him
from his childhood, with bad counsels very cunningly, and prepared him
to go astray, how he had thrust evil in his path and laughed away the
good, and had led him on, and poisoned him, and would have brought him
to his death and damnation surely, but for one sinning devoted woman
that loved him; for he remembered everything then; and from very far
away, out of memories of his youth, there came a voice that had once
been gentle and kind, but that rang in his ears now, like the blast of
the trumpet of the last judgment.
"Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it
were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
Far better, indeed, for it all came, when the immeasurable second's
length was past, and he was thrown down against the wall, and torn, and
shaken like a rat; it all came just as he had felt that it was coming,
and it lasted long, a long, long time, while he tried to howl, and the
blood only gurgled in his throat. And then, just as many strong hands
dragged away the thing of terror, and the light of a lantern and of a
lamp flashed in his eyes, he fell asleep in the wet grass.
For they had caught him fairly and brought him, down. Kalmon had
watched him long, and had told some of his suspicions to the Chief of
Police, and the latter, unknown to Kalmon, had caused him to be watched
from time to time. But he, who had been watched before and had once
already escaped for his life, had sometimes seen faces near him that he
did not trust, and when he had turned back from the station that
afternoon he had seen one of those faces; so he had driven away quickly
in a cab, by winding ways, so as not to be followed. Yet Kalmon and
Marcello, talking as they drove, grew more and more sure that he would
wish to see Settimia before he left Rome, the more certainly if he
believed himself pursued, as seemed likely from his changing his mind at
the station. So they had stopped their cab before they had reached their
destination, and had sent Ercole back to Trastevere with the key of the
garden gate, bidding him watch, as it was most probable that Corbario
would try to get out through the garden; and before long they had come
back to the door of the house that opened upon the street, and had let
themselves in quietly, just in time to hear the noise of the struggle as
the dog threw Corbario to the ground. For the other entrance to the
little vestibule opened upon the garden within, at the very spot where
Corbario alighted when he jumped from the window.
And now they stood there in the rain round the wounded man, while
Marcello held the lantern to his face, and Regina thrust a lamp out of
the lower window which she had thrown open.
"Is he dead?" she asked, in the silence that followed when Ercole had
got control of the dog again.
At the sound of her voice Ercole started strangely and looked up to her
face that was not far above his own, and his eyes fixed themselves upon
her so intently that she looked down at him, while she still held out
her lamp. She could not remember that she had ever seen him; but he had
seen her many times since he had made his visit to the inn on the
Frascati road.
"Is he dead?" she repeated, putting the question directly to him as he
was nearest.
Still he looked at her in silence, with his deep-set, unwinking eyes.
Marcello and Kalmon were bending over Corbario, Marcello holding the
lantern, while the Professor listened for the beating of the heart and
felt the pulse. They paid no attention to Regina for the moment.
"Why don't you speak?" she asked, surprised by Ercole's silent stare.
"You don't know me," he said slowly, "but I know you."
The rain was beating upon her lamp, and at that moment the shade cracked
under the cold drops and fell to pieces, and the wind instantly
extinguished the flame of the flaring wick. Regina withdrew into the
room to get another light, and Ercole stared after her into the gloom.
"He is alive," said Kalmon, looking up to see why the light had gone
out. "We must get him inside at once, or he will die here. Come,
Ercole! Make that dog lie down and keep quiet."
Between them they carried Corbario into the house. Nino watched on the
step in the rain, but when the door was shut behind him, he crawled down
to the wet grass and lapped the blood and water in the dark. They
carried Corbario upstairs to an empty room there was, and as they went
Regina tried to tell Marcello what she had done. They opened Settimia's
door, which was still locked, and they found her quite dead, and the
window was wide open; then Regina understood that Corbario had been
hidden within hearing, and had killed the woman because she had
confessed.
The men who had been sent from the central police station at Kalmon's
request arrived a few minutes later. One was at once sent for a surgeon
and for more men; the other remained. Soon the little house was full of
officials, in uniform and in plain clothes. They examined everything,
they wrote rapidly on big sheets of stamped paper; their chief took the
first deposition of Regina, and of the three men, and of the surgeon. At
dawn a man came with a rough pine coffin. Officials came and went, and
were gravely busy. One man spoke of coffee when it was day, and went and
made some in the little kitchen, for the two young women who cooked and
did the work of the house did not sleep there, and would not come till
past seven o'clock.
During the long hours, when Regina and Marcello were not wanted, they
were together in the sitting-room downstairs. Regina told Marcello in
detail everything she knew about the events of the night, and much which
she had found out earlier about Settimia but had never told him. Kalmon
came in from time to time and told them what was going on, and that
Corbario was still alive; but they saw no more of Ercole. He had made
his first deposition, to the effect that he had been set to watch the
house, that the murderer had jumped from an upper window, and that the
dog had pulled him down. The officials looked nervously at the dog,
produced by Ercole in evidence, and were glad when the beast was out of
their sight. There were dark stains about the bristles on his jaws, and
his eyes were bloodshot; but Ercole laid one hand on his uncouth head,
and he was very quiet, and did not even snarl at the policemen.
Regina and Marcello sat side by side, talking in a low voice, and
looking at each other now and then. The little house in which they had
been happy was turned to a place of death and horror, and both knew that
some change was coming to themselves.
"You cannot live here any more," Marcello said at dawn, "not even till
to-night."
"Where could I go?" Regina asked. "Why should I not stay here? Do you
think I am afraid of the dead woman?"
"No," Marcello answered, "but you cannot stay here."
He guessed what talking and gossiping there would be when the newspapers
told what had happened in the little house, how the reporters would
hang about the street for a week to come, and how fashionable people
would go out of their way to see the place where a murder had been
committed by such a well-known person as Corbario, and where he had been
taken almost in the very act, and himself nearly killed. Besides all
that, there would be the public curiosity about Regina, who had been so
intimately concerned in a part of the tragedy, and whose name was
everywhere associated with his own.
He would have taken her away from Rome at once, if he could have done
so. But he knew that they would both be called upon during the next few
days to repeat in court the evidence they had already given in their
first deposition. There was sure to be the most frightful publicity
about the whole affair, of which reports would be published not only in
Rome but throughout Italy, and all over the world. In real life the
consequences of events generally have the importance which fiction is
obliged to give the events themselves; which is the reason why the
things that happen to real people rarely come to any precise conclusion,
like those reached by a play or a novel. The "conclusion" lies in the
lives of the people, after the tragedy, or the drama, or the comedy has
violently upset their existences.
"You cannot stay here," Marcello repeated with conviction.
"You will go on living at your villa," Regina answered. "Why should I
not go on living in this house? For a few days I will not go out, that
is all. Is it the end of the world because a person has been killed who
ought to have died in the galleys? Or because the man who tried to kill
you was caught in a place that belongs to you? Tell me that."
"You cannot stay here," Marcello repeated a third time.
For a while Regina was silent. They were both very white and heavy-eyed
in the cold daylight, though they could not have slept. At last she
looked at him thoughtfully.
"If we were married, we should go on living in our own house," she said.
"Is it true, or not? It is because there will be talking that you are
ashamed to let me stay where I am, and would like to get me away. This
is the truth. I know it."
Marcello knew it too and did not answer at once, for it was not easy to
decide what he ought to do. The problem that had seemed so hard to solve
a few hours earlier was fast getting altogether beyond solution. There
was only one thing to be done in the first present difficulty; he must
take Regina to some other place at once. No doubt this was easy enough.
He would take an apartment for her elsewhere, as far as possible from
the scene of the tragedy, and in a few hours she could be installed
there out of the way of annoyance. He could buy a house for her if he
chose, for he was very rich. Possibly some house already belonging to
him was vacant; his lawyer would know.
But after that, what was to come? If Corbario lived, there would be a
sensational trial in which he and Regina would be witnesses together,
and Kalmon too, and very surely Aurora and her mother. For Aurora would
be called upon to tell what she knew of Marcello's movements on the
morning when he had been knocked down near the gap.
Every moment of his past life would be publicly examined, to prove
Corbario's guilt. Worse than that, there would be a long inquiry to show
that Corbario had murdered his mother. Skilled surgeons were tending the
man's wounds and reviving him by every means that science could suggest.
Kalmon said that he might live. He was being kept alive in order to be
condemned to the expiation of his crimes in penal servitude, since
Italian law could not make him pay for them with his life. The man would
be watched by day and night, lest he should try to commit suicide, for
he was to suffer, if he lived. He was to suffer horribly, without doubt,
and it was right and just that he should. But Marcello would suffer too.
That was not just. The name of his saintly mother would be in the mouths
of all kinds of witnesses, in the columns of all sorts of newspapers.
Lawyers would make speeches about her to excite the pity of the jury and
to turn the whole tide of feeling against Corbario. Marcello would
himself be held up to public commiseration, as one of Corbario's
victims. There would be allusions covert and open to Regina and to the
position in which she stood to Marcello. There would be talk about
Aurora. People would suddenly remember her mother's sad story and
gossip about her; people would certainly say that there had been talk
about marrying Aurora to Marcello, and that Regina had come between
them. Yes, there would be much talk about Aurora; that was certain.
All this was coming, and was not far off, if Corbario lived; and even if
he died there would be a vast amount said and written about all the
people concerned.
And Regina was there, beside him, telling him that if they were married
they could go on living in the little house, just as if nothing had
happened. It was not true, but he could not find heart to tell her so.
It was the first time that any suggestion of marriage had come from her,
who had always told him that marriage was impossible. If she wished it
now, could he refuse?
Suddenly he knew that he had reached one of the great cross-roads in his
life, and that fate had dragged him violently to it within the last few
hours, to make him choose his way. The full-grown character of the man
rebelled against being forced to a decision in spite of himself, but
revolted at the thought of fearing to do what was right and honourable.
He was not hesitating as he sat still in silence after Regina had
spoken. He was thinking, with the firm determination to act as soon as
he had reached a decision. When a man can do that, his weakness is past.
Regina did not interrupt the current of his thoughts, and as she watched
him she forgot all about the present; and they were just together, where
they had so often been happy, and she loved him with all her heart. That
was her strength. It had nothing to do with right or wrong, honour or
dishonour, credit or discredit, or any choice of ways. She had no
choice. She loved. It was a very simple thing.
He looked up at last. She was still wearing the loose dressing-gown she
had worn all night.
"Could you sleep now?" he asked.
"No."
"Then you must dress," he said. "While you are dressing I will walk up
to the villa and give some orders. Then I will come and get you in a
closed carriage. Put together what you may need for the day, and I will
have all your things moved before night."
"Are you really going to take me away from here?" Regina asked,
regretfully.
"Yes. I must. It will be easy to find a place that will please you
better. Will you do as I have said?"
"Why do you ask? I go."
She rose and stood beside him a moment while he sat still, and her hand
caressed his short fair hair. She bent down and kissed the close waves
of it, near his forehead.
"We have been very happy here," she said quietly.
She slipped away as he rose to his feet, with the sudden conviction that
something had happened.
"What is it?" he asked quickly, and making a step after her.
"I am going to dress," she answered.
She turned her head and smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in the
look, as if she was saying good-bye. He partly understood, and her
expression was reflected in his own face. They had been so happy in the
little house in Trastevere.
When the door had closed Marcello went to find Kalmon. He met him at the
foot of the stairs.
"The fellow is alive, and will probably recover," said the Professor, in
answer to the unasked question in Marcello's eyes.
"It would simplify matters if he died," said Marcello. "Will you walk up
to the villa with me and have coffee? We cannot get a cab at this hour
on this side of the Tiber."
"Thank you," Kalmon answered, "but I must go home. The house is in
charge of the police, and there is nothing more to be done here. They
have already taken the woman's body to San Spirito, and they will move
Corbario in a few hours. He is badly mauled, but no big arteries are
torn. I must go home and write a letter. The Contessa must not hear what
has happened through the newspapers."
"No. Certainly not. As for me, I am going to take Regina away at once. I
shall bring my own carriage down from the villa."
"By the bye," Kalmon said, "I had thought of that. The house in which I
live is divided into many small apartments. There is a very good one to
let, decently furnished. I thought of taking it myself, and I looked at
it yesterday. You might put the young lady there until you can find what
you may prefer. She can move in at once."
"Nothing could be better. If you are going home, will you say that I
take the place and will be there in an hour? No. 16, Via Sicilia, is it
not?"
"Yes. I'll see to it. Shall I take the lease in your name?"
"No. Any name will do better. The reporters would find her at once under
mine."
"I'll use my own," said the Professor. "I'll say that she is a lady who
has arrived to consult me--I daresay she will--and that I'm responsible
for her."
"Thank you," answered Marcello gratefully. "And thank you for all that
you have done to help me."
"My dear Marcello," Kalmon said, smiling cheerfully, "in the first
place, I have done nothing to help you, and secondly, through excess of
zeal, I have got you into a very unpleasant situation, by indirectly
causing a woman to be murdered in your house, and the murderer almost
mauled to death by that very singular wild beast which your man calls a
dog, and which I had often noticed in old times at the cottage. So there
is nothing at all to thank me for, though I am most heartily at your
service."
The Professor was positively in high spirits just then, and Marcello
envied him as they parted and took opposite directions.
Though the Via Sicilia was a long way from the Janiculum, Marcello had
been only too glad to accept Kalmon's suggestion at such a moment.
Regina would feel that she was protected by Marcello's friend, and
though she might rarely see him, it would be better for her than to be
lodged in a house where she knew no one. Kalmon was a bachelor and a
man of assured position, and it had cost him nothing to undertake to
give Regina his protection; but Marcello was deeply grateful. He had
already made up his mind as to what he would do next.
It had stopped raining at last, and the wind had fallen to a soft breeze
that bore the morning mist gently away towards the sea, and hardly
stirred the wet leaves that strewed the road all the way up to San
Pietro in Montorio. Marcello found the gate of the villa already open,
for it was nearly eight o'clock by the time he got there.
He summoned the servants to the library, told them briefly what had
happened, and warned them that they might be summoned as witnesses at
the coming trial, as most of them had been in his mother's service. In
the days before Corbario had lost his head, and when he had controlled
the household, it had been a part of his policy to have really
respectable servants about him, and though some of them had never quite
trusted him, they had all been devoted to the Signora and to Marcello.
They listened in respectful silence now, and waited till he was out of
the house before meeting to discuss the tragedy and to decide that
Corbario had got his deserts at last.
In a few hours Regina was installed in her new lodging with such
belongings as she needed immediately. Kalmon, having finished writing
his letter to the Contessa, left nothing undone which could contribute
to the comfort of the "lady who had arrived to consult him." He had a
respectable old woman servant, who had been with him for years, and who
came from his native town. He took her into his confidence to some
extent, and placed her in charge of Regina. As she thought that
everything he did must be right, she accepted his statement that the
young gentleman who would often come to see the young lady was deeply
interested in the latter's welfare, and that, as the poor young lady had
no relations, he, the Professor, had taken her under his protection
while she remained in Rome.
The old servant's name was Teresa, and she belonged to a certain type of
elderly old maids who take a very kindly interest in the love affairs of
the young. She smiled, shook her head in a very mild disapprobation, and
did much more than Kalmon had asked of her; for she took the very first
opportunity of informing Regina that the Professor was the greatest,
wisest, best, and kindest of mankind; and Regina recognised in her a
loyal soul, and forthwith liked her very much.
It was late in the November afternoon when Marcello ascended the stairs
and stopped before the door of the little apartment. He realised that he
had no key to it, and that he must ring the bell as if he were a mere
visitor. It was strange that such a little thing should affect him at
all, but he was conscious of a sort of chill, as he pulled the metal
handle and heard the tinkling of one of those cheap little bells that
feebly imitate their electric betters by means of a rachet and a small
weighted wheel. It was all so different from the little house in
Trastevere with its bright varnished doors, its patent locks, its smart
windows, and its lovely old garden. He wished he had not brought Regina
to Via Sicilia, though Kalmon's advice had seemed so good. To Kalmon,
who was used to no great luxury in his own life, the place doubtless
seemed very well suited for a young person like Regina, who had been
brought up a poor child in the hills. But the mere anticipation of the
dark and narrow entry, and the sordid little sitting-room beyond, awoke
in Marcello a sense of shame, whether for himself or for the woman who
loved him he hardly knew.
Old Teresa had gone out for something, and Regina opened the door
herself.