At half past eight on the following morning Temistocle found Leonora's
maid at the door of her mistress's room with an expression of blank
astonishment on her face that made him laugh. He often laughed, quietly,
without the least noise.
"You look exactly like a lay figure in a milliner's shop," he remarked.
"Except, indeed, that you look much more stupid."
The maid glared at him.
"The signora"--she began, and then trembled and looked round timidly.
"What about her?" inquired Temistocle, pricking up his ears.
The maid let her voice drop to a low whisper.
"She is not there," said she.
"Ebbene," said Temistocle with a grin, "what has happened to you? She is
probably gone out--gone to church. A good place for heretics, too."
"Macchè," whispered the woman, "she has not slept in her bed, and
everything is upside down in the room."
"May the devil carry you off!" said Temistocle, suddenly changing his
voice, and whispering hoarsely. "Let me see--let me pass." He put down
the can of hot water he was taking to his master, and pushed past the
maid, into Leonora's bedroom.
"Bada," said the woman, going after him cautiously, "take care! The
signore might come in and find you."
"What harm is there?" asked the servant. And then he made a careful
survey of the premises, locking all the doors except the one by which
they had entered.
"It is true, what you said," he remarked, pushing the maid out of the
room. "An apoplexy on these foreigners who go away without telling one.
Fuori! Go along with you, my child. Ci penso io--I will look after all
this." And he locked the door behind him, put the key in his pocket, and
took up his water-can.
"What are you doing?" asked the maid. Temistocle had seen a chance, and
took it.
"Look here," said he, rubbing the thumb and forefinger of his hand
together before the girl's eyes,--which means "money" in gesture
language--"look here. The signore accompanied the signora to the early
train from Castellamare this morning at half past four. They had a hired
carriage. She went away and forgot her jewels on the table. She is gone
to Rome on business,--they were talking about it last night. Do you
understand?"
"No," answered the woman looking puzzled, "you said she had gone out"--
"I said so to you," he answered with a sly grin, "but I will not say so
to any one else, nor you either. Remember that she went to Rome this
morning. It will be worth your while to remember that."
The woman smiled a cunning smile. She had hated her mistress, and would
have liked to make a scandal before all the other servants, but
Temistocle's advice would be more profitable. So they arranged the
matter between them and parted.
Marcantonio was seated at his writing-table when Temistocle entered. He
always got up very early, and did a great many things before he dressed.
Temistocle busied himself a moment about the room, and when he was ready
to go he came to the table and laid the key he had taken from Leonora's
door at his master's elbow.
"What is that?" asked Marcantonio, looking up.
"It is the key of the Signora Marchesa's bedroom, eccellenza," answered
Temistocle, edging away toward the door. "Her excellency must have gone
away very early, and she left her room open and all her jewelry strewed
about. So I locked the doors and brought you the key."
He was very near the door and could escape in a moment.
But Marcantonio did not move; his jaw dropped, and his colour changed to
a yellow waxen hue, which terrified the servant. But he did not move.
Temistocle continued.
"I told the servants not to be astonished, as you had accompanied the
Signora Marchesa to the early train for Rome before daybreak," he said,
putting his hand on the latch.
Marcantonio made as though he would rise. Temistocle slipped nimbly
through the door and closed it behind him, running away as though the
police were after him. But he knew that when Carantoni had recovered, he
would be amply rewarded for his wisdom. It often chances that villains
play a good and sensible part in life, which is quite as profitable as
villainy, and is always safer.
Marcantonio struggled to rise, and at last got upon his feet, staggering
like a man stunned by a physical blow. The door to Leonora's
sitting-room was open, but, beyond, the one to her bedroom was locked.
He had to go round by the passage, feeling his way as though he were
blind. At last he found the lock,--the key turned, and he entered.
It was just as she had left it. The white peignoir she had taken off
when she dressed for her flight lay in a heap upon the floor where she
had thrown it in her haste. The dismal, half-burned candles stood on the
dressing-table. The drawer from which she had taken the handkerchiefs
was half open. The windows were thrown back, and the blinds had not been
closed, so that the strong glare of the morning poured rudely in on the
confusion, and the flies buzzed about the scented soap and the bottle of
lavender and the pot of carnations in the corner.
Marcantonio dragged himself from one part of the room to another till he
stumbled against the table on which Leonora had left her scattered
jewelry,--all the things he had given her. He stood staring down at the
glittering gold and precious stones, unconsciously realising that they
were all his presents that she had left behind her. There was a strange
old Maltese cross of diamonds and sapphires among them, mounted in
silver. It had belonged to his mother, and he had given it to Leonora
with other things when he married her. His eyes fastened upon it, and
his hand crept across the table and took it.
He raised it to his white lips and kissed it once--twice; he would have
kissed it again, but the bow of his strength was bent too far and
snapped asunder. With a short, fierce cry he threw up his hands, and
fell prostrate on the smooth tiled floor, as a dead man might have
fallen.
He lay entirely unconscious for hours, so that when he at last came to
himself and struggled to move till he could sit up and stare about him,
the midday sun was pouring in, and the flies angrily tormented his
ghastly face, as though in derision of anything so miserable. For some
minutes he sat upon the floor, dazed and stupid with the oppression of
returning grief, as well as stunned from the physical pain resulting
from his fall. He was not hurt seriously, but he was bruised and weak.
At last he got to his feet, steadying himself by the table. He would
not see what was about him any more, for he knew it all, and the full
consciousness of his misfortune was on him. He regained his own room,
carefully locking Leonora's door behind him, and taking with him his
mother's diamond cross.
But the mere sense of grief could not long hold the mastery with a man
like Marcantonio. He had loved his wife too well not to resent the
injury and scorn, as well as weep over it. As he pondered, lying on his
bed, there arose in his breast a desperate and concentrated anger
against the man who had deprived him of what he best loved in the world,
the anger of a mind that has never reasoned much about anything, and
will carry unreason to any length when it comes. He must find his enemy;
that was the principal thought in his mind. That he would kill him when
he found him was a conclusion that seemed a matter of course.
But, in order to find him, it was necessary to move, to search, and turn
everything over. He turned on his pillow, feeling the first restless
stirrings of the demon that would by and by give him no peace by day or
night till the man was found and the blow struck. He turned over and
rang a bell by his bedside.
"Give me some coffee, and order the carriage," he said to the servant.
At the end of an hour, he found himself in the town, and inquired for
Batiscombe. It seemed as though fate favoured Carantoni at the outset,
for he found his name at once on the register of the hotel, and found
also the man who had waited on Julius. This servant had been told that a
lady had come in great haste soon after seven on the previous evening,
and had stayed more than half an hour. As soon as she was gone, Mr.
Batiscombe had sent for his bill and had ordered his boat to be ready at
eleven,--the servant had heard the order. The man guessed there was
something wrong from Marcantonio's face, but Batiscombe's sudden
departure had excited no remark. He had arrived late at night in his
boat, as many people had done, and as the moon was full it was natural
enough that he should sail away as he had come. People arrive
continually at Sorrento in yachts, and no one takes any notice of them.
His luggage? Yes, he had taken most of his things with him, except one
large box, which he had ordered to be sent to Turin. It had gone to
Castellamare at once. Mr. Batiscombe had been in the hotel before. He
was a very good signore.
At this hint Marcantonio gave the man a heavy fee. Did he happen to know
the address on the box? There was no address, except his name. The box
was to be left at Turin until called for. It was to go by fast train,
and Mr. Batiscombe had left money to pay for its carriage in advance.
Mr. Batiscombe paid his bills by cheques on a banker in Rome.
Marcantonio might have the name if he pleased. Before leaving he had
paid his bill and given a cheque for five or six hundred francs more.
The proprietor knew him very well, and was always glad to oblige him, so
he had procured a little cash. Before going he had sent for a silk
merchant--there are hundreds in Sorrento--and had bought a quantity of
things of him. He had left the hotel at eleven by the steps to the sea,
and the servant had seen him into his boat,--for which parting civility,
Batiscombe had given him ten francs. The man had watched the boat for a
few minutes. She did not make sail, but pulled away towards
Castellamare.
That was all, absolutely all, that the man could tell Marcantonio. But
it was sufficient for the present. It was clear that Julius had taken
Leonora from the landing of the villa. She must have slipped out soon
after midnight. The barking of the dogs suddenly came back to
Marcantonio's memory, and the scream of the poor cat. He sprang into his
carriage, and drove furiously homeward.
"Where are the dogs?" he asked, as soon as he alighted.
The groom did not like to answer. He thought Marcantonio would be angry
and visit their death on him. But, as his master insisted, he went away
without saying a word, and brought a large basket. In it lay the two
dead terriers and the dead kitten, all three side by side.
"The dogs killed the cat," said the man, apologetically. "There are the
marks of their teeth, eccellenza."
"But the dogs? How were they killed?" asked Marcantonio savagely.
"Eccellenza, their necks are broken. I cannot understand how it could
have been done. We found them all dead near the descent, the cat on the
path, and the dogs under the trees a few paces away."
Carantoni took up one of the terriers in his hands, and looked at it.
"So you killed my dogs, did you, you brute?" he muttered. "I will kill
you."
He unconsciously used Batiscombe's own words. His face was yellow, and
his eyes bloodshot. He dropped the dead beast into the basket.
"Bury them," he said aloud, and turned on his heel, going into the
house.
He had accomplished a great deal in a few hours. He had ascertained that
they had fled by sea; that Julius had a bank account in Rome with a
banker whose address he had got; that Julius had sent his box to Turin,
where he would most likely be ultimately heard of. More than that he
could not know for the present. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. He
could still catch the train to Rome. He could do nothing more in
Sorrento, and he could no more remain inactive for one moment than he
could give up the whole pursuit. While his things were being hastily
packed he thought of Diana. It was the first time, since the morning,
that he had realised that he was not absolutely alone in the world. He
sat down and wrote a telegram, intending to send it from the station.
It was brief and to the point.
"She has left me. Can you meet me anywhere? Answer to Rome."
There are doubtless people in the world who take a morbid and
unwholesome delight in the contemplation of sorrow. They can amuse
themselves for many hours in studying the effect of grief upon their
friends,--and they can even find a curious diversion in their own
troubles, so long as they can keep them far enough away to secure their
bodily comfort. They have neither the strength to sin, the honesty to be
good, nor the common sense to be happy. And so they feebly paddle in
their shallow puddles of woe, neither dry nor wet, and very muddy, when
they might just as well sit on the clean, hard ground and enjoy the
cleanliness and solidity of it, if they can enjoy nothing else. But they
will not. They will lie in the mud, and kick and scream and swear that
they are shipwrecked, when they are a hundred miles from the sea, and
would take to their heels on the first sight of it.
One of the favourite hobbies of these individuals is a mysterious thing
they call a "sweet sadness." Their ideas about sorrow are not even
artistic. They might at least understand that even the intensest grief,
apart from its causes, has no grandeur. The contemplation of sorrow is
not elevating unless it breeds a strong desire to alleviate it; nor is
the study of vice and crime in the least edifying unless it exhibits the
nobility and power of purity in a highly practical light. No vicious
criminal was ever reformed by realistic pictures of wickedness, any more
than he can be improved by daily association with other vicious
criminals. And a very little realism will throw a great ideal into the
shade, as far as most people are concerned.
Marcantonio may therefore be allowed to go to Rome without being watched
on the journey. His bitter suffering had settled about him and taken a
shape and a complexion of its own, thinking its own thoughts and acting
its own acts, without reference to the real Marcantonio, the easy,
cheerful, happy man of a few short weeks ago. It was no change of
character now, but rather the entire disappearance of the character
beneath the flood of strong passions that had come from without,
sweeping away the landmarks and beacons of all moral responsibility. One
idea had taken possession of him, and destroyed his consciousness of
good and evil, and his comprehension of the common things of life; his
body and intelligence had become the mere tools of this idea, and would
strain their strength to carry it out until one or the other gave way.
Man is said to be a free agent, and so long as he remembers the fact, he
is; but when he forgets it, the freedom is gone.
That morning, when the blow first struck him, he had still some vague
thought that there was a course to follow which should be right as well
as brave and honourable; it was the fast vanishing outline of his former
self, used always to the ways of honour; it was vague and uncertain, and
he had no time nor inclination to think about it, but it was present.
The day wore on, bringing a fuller realisation of his desperate case,
and the possibility of good in so much evil disappeared. When he was at
last in the express train on his way to Rome he was only conscious of
one thing--the determination to find Julius Batiscombe, and to kill him
ruthlessly, be the consequences what they might.
Rome looked much as usual when he at last came out of the great ugly
station upon the Piazza dei Termini. It was morning, and not yet eight
o'clock, but the pitiless August sun drove its fire through
everything--through flesh and bone and marrow of living things, through
the glaring stones and dusty trees, and even the great jet of water
looked like bright melting metal that would burn if it touched one.
But Marcantonio Carantoni was past feeling heat or cold or bodily hurt.
He did not even remember that he had a servant with him, and he
mechanically hailed a cab and was driven to his own house. They put a
telegram into his hand; it was from Diana, in answer to his of the day
before. It was briefer than his and breathed authority.
"Have left Pegli. Wait for me in Rome."
That was all. He read it stupidly over two or three times. He would not
have telegraphed to her if he had waited till to-day. Some instinct told
him that she would prevent and hinder his vengeance. Yesterday he wanted
help; to-day he wanted nothing but freedom from restraint and an
opportunity of meeting Julius Batiscombe. She would not aid him in that,
he was sure.
But she could not arrive to-day,--it was a long journey from Pegli to
Rome; he did not know exactly how long it took,--his memory would not
serve him with any details. He should have time in Rome to do the things
he meant to do, and he would go to Turin that very night and watch that
box of Batiscombe's. He would send for it, of course, wherever he was,
and the box would betray him at last, if all other means failed. But
meanwhile there were the police--there were detectives to be had, and
plenty of them; money could do much, and his high position could do
more. He would set a whole pack of sharp-scented human hounds at
Batiscombe's heels--they should find him, and bring word, never fear. He
laughed at the idea of employing the law to hunt his prey, in order that
he might bid the law defiance and destroy his man alone.
He threw down the telegram and went to his room, followed closely by his
servant, who had arrived in mad haste in a second cab, believing that
his master was going to be insane, unless he had a stroke of apoplexy,
which seemed not unlikely. The man was a skilled valet, and Marcantonio
suffered himself to be dressed and combed and smoothed, in perfect
silence; and when it was over he ate something that they brought him,
without the slightest idea of what he was doing. He knew it was yet
early, and that his business could not be done until the officials he
needed were in their offices.
No sooner had the clock struck ten, however, than he took his hat and
left the house. He found a cab, and had himself driven from one office
to another all through the heat of the day, seeing confidential
detectives and stating his business with a strange lucidity, never
telling any single agent that he was employing another, but giving to
each one a sum of money to begin his search and to each the same precise
statement of all that he knew. The consequence was that before the sun
was low he had dispatched half a dozen of the best men that could be
found, and had got rid of about fifty thousand francs. Each one
separately might have to go to the end of the world--to America perhaps,
but most probably to England--before he could give the required
information. It was necessary that his men should be perfectly free to
move in any direction. He himself would go to Turin, and there receive
their telegrams, himself watching that box of Batiscombe's, which he was
sure must some day be claimed by its owner.
He was perfectly calm and self-possessed throughout all these
arrangements. Only the strange ghastly colour that had overspread his
face seemed to settle and become permanent, and his eyes were bloodshot
and yellow, while his hand trembled violently when he held a pen or lit
a match for his cigarette. But he felt no bodily ill, nor any capacity
for fatigue. He had not closed his eyes for thirty-six hours, and had
eaten little enough, but there was not an ache nor a sensation of pain
in him, and he dreaded to pause or sit down, hating the idea of rest.
When he had done all that he could think of as being at all useful in
his plan, he went home and told his servant to prepare for the journey
to Turin that night. The train left at half past ten--there were some
hours yet to wait. He moved restlessly about the house, and ordered all
the windows to be opened.
The great rooms were in their summer dress. The furniture, the huge pier
glasses and the chandeliers were all clothed in brown linen. The carpets
had all been taken up, and the floors--some of marble, some of red
brick, and some of tiles--were bare and smooth. There was the coolness
and absence of all colour that seems to belong to great palaces when the
owners are out of town, and the cold monotony of everything soothed him
a little. After wandering aimlessly for half an hour, he settled into a
regular walk, up and down the great ball-room, with its clere-story
windows and vaulted ceiling. Up and down, up and down, with an even,
untiring tread he paced, his eyes bent always on the floor and his hands
behind him. His walk was like clockwork, absolutely even and unchanging,
with its rhythmic echo and unvarying accuracy.
The broad daylight softened into shadow, and the shadow deepened into
gloom, but still he kept on his beat as though counting his steps and
measuring the time. There was a certain relief in it, though not from
his mastering thought, which held him in a vise and never relaxed for a
second, but from his terrible restlessness. It was an outlet to his
overwrought activity, and he did it monotonously, without any
consideration, because there was nothing else to do, and it would have
driven him mad to sit still for five minutes.
As the night came on, strange faces seemed to look upon him from the
gathering darkness. The thick, warm air took shape and substance, and he
could distinguish forms moving quickly before him that he could not
overtake. But there was no sensation of horror or fear with the
sight--he gazed curiously at the fleeting shadows and looked into their
faces as they came close to him and retreated, but he could not
recognise them, and did not ask himself whence they came nor whither
they were going, nor why he saw them. It seemed very natural somehow.
But at last, as he turned, there was one coming toward him that had more
substance than the rest, so that they all vanished but that one. It was
a woman, and she seemed moving towards him; but it was almost quite
dark. He came nearer; his waking senses caught the sound of her
footstep; she was no shadow--it was his wife coming back to him--it had
all been a fearful dream, and she was there again. He sprang forward
with a quick cry.
"Leonora! Oh, thank God!" and he fell forward into her arms.
"No, dearest brother--it is not Leonora--would God it were!"
Diana had come already--he could not tell how--and they stood together
in the dark, empty ball-room, clasped in each other's arms.