He was answered by the familiar voice of Janson.
"Sorry to disturb you like this, Mr Franks," cried the doctor,
addressing him by his assumed name. "But I want your help. A foreign
gentleman, an Italian, arrived at Forest View this morning, and he was
taken alarmingly ill about half-an-hour ago. The poor chap's hours are
numbered. I have been trying to talk to him in his own language; he
seems to understand me all right, but I can hardly follow a sentence of
his, and there's nobody in the house who understands him either."
The incongruity of the situation forced itself upon Varney immediately.
"What in the world makes a man come to a house where he can understand
nobody, and nobody can understand him," he whispered down.
"The same thought occurred to me," came the answering whisper. "Mr
Strange explained it. He said that their parlourmaid understood Italian
perfectly, having lived in Italy for some years. She had gone up to
London early yesterday morning and would not be back till late
to-morrow."
It flashed instantly across Varney's mind that his suspicions about the
young woman were correct: that she belonged to a different class from
that which furnishes parlourmaids. She was a lady masquerading as a
servant. Strange's fiction of her having lived abroad was invented to
keep up appearances.
"He is very rambling, but I ran gather this much," went on Janson in low
tones. "He wants to leave some instructions before he dies. I thought
of you at once."
"Right; I will be with you in a couple of minutes."
By this time the landlord and his wife were awake, and he heard the
man's heavy footsteps along the passage. He opened his door, and
briefly explained the situation.
In a very short time he and the doctor were in the bedroom of the dying
man. Strange was at the bedside, looking intently at the prostrate
figure, without a trace of emotion in his sharp, inscrutable features.
He withdrew a little distance as Janson approached, and murmured
something in a low voice to the other. It was an apology for disturbing
him.
The man lay motionless for some few minutes, the pallor of death
settling deeper over the once swarthy features. Janson turned to
Varney.
"I'm afraid it is too late, Mr Franks. He is sinking rapidly. If you
could have been here when I first came."
Was it fancy, or did he see an expression of relief steal across
Strange's impenetrable mask?
If so, he was doomed to disappointment. The dying man stirred, and his
lips moved. Varney leaned over, and his quick ear caught some muttered
words, growing fainter and fainter with the waning of the flickering
strength.
The words were in the bastard tongue of Piedmont, difficult to
understand by anyone who has not lived in Northern Italy.
"_Dio_!" gasped the dying man. "Forgive me. The doctors have long ago
told me I should die suddenly, but--I--I never expected this. Oh, that
somebody here could understand me?" he whispered to himself.
"I do. Signore," said Varney, as he leaned over him.
In the dying man's eyes came a gleam of satisfaction and hope.
"Ah! Thank Heaven! Then listen," he said. "I want you to do something
for me--something--" and he halted as though in reflection. "Well," he
went on, "twenty years ago I did a great wrong in conjunction with
another man. Go to him and tell him that Giovanni Roselli, his old
comrade, implores him, from his deathbed, to make reparation. You will
find him in Manchester. He was the head of the Compagnia Corezzo, and
his name is James--"
The surname was never told. As he strove to utter it, the end came.
Giovanni Roselli had delivered his message, but he had gone into the
shadows, before he could utter the full name of the man to whom it was
conveyed. Varney translated the dying man's message to Strange, but he
made no comment.
Smeaton sat in silence for a long time when the recital was finished.
"A house of sinister inmates with sinister secrets," he said at length.
"What you have told me may have a bearing upon something that has gone
before."
Briefly he narrated to Varney the discovery of the threatening letter,
and his visit to the engraver and stationer.
Varney saw at once what had occurred to him.
"The Compagnia Corezzo gives us a clue--eh?--the initials `C.C.,' which
are the initials on the envelope. Was it an envelope from the company's
office? You say that the old engraver thought the man who ordered the
cipher came from Manchester or Liverpool. Roselli tells us we can find
his man in Manchester?" Smeaton rose. "I'm in hopes that something may
come out of it all," he said, as they shook hands. "Anyway, stay down
here, and keep a close watch on the place. An inquest will be held and
sooner or later something of importance will happen. I've kept the taxi
waiting; shall I give you a lift to Horsham? But I noticed a bike
outside the inn-door. I suppose it is yours." Varney nodded. "Yes, it
is part of my machinery. I shall go for a good long spin, and think
over all that has happened."
As Smeaton put his foot on the step of the taxi a sudden thought struck
him. He turned back, and drew the young man aside.
"Keep your eye on the parlourmaid especially," he whispered. "If we
ever get to the bottom of it, we shall find she plays an important part
in this mystery."
"I quite agree," was Varney's answer, as the two men finally parted.