IS ASTONISHING
The countenance disclosed by the lamp in the great ill-lit station was
not that of a man in female disguise, as I had suspected, but of a
woman. Her identity it was that held me in amazement, for that instant
I recognized her as none other than the dark-haired, handsome woman
whom I had seen lying dead upon the floor of the deck-house on the
previous night.
Why were they leaving the yacht in company? What fresh conspiracy was
there in progress?
I had always believed old Benjamin Keppel to be the soul of honor, but
the revelations of the past few hours caused me utter bewilderment. I
stood there in hesitation, and glancing up at the clock saw that there
were still three minutes before the departure of the train.
Next moment I had made a resolve to follow them and ascertain the
truth. I entered the booking-office, obtained a ticket to Modane, the
French frontier beyond Mont Cenis, and a few moments later was sitting
alone in a compartment at the rear of the train. I had no luggage,
nothing whatever except the small travelling-reticule suspended from my
waist-belt, and I had set out for an unknown destination.
The train moved off, and soon we were tearing through the night across
that wide plain which was the sea-bottom in the mediæval days when the
sculptured town of Pisa was a prosperous seaport, the envy of both
Florentines and Genoese, and past the spot marked by a church where St.
Peter is said to have landed. Well I knew that wide Tuscan plain, with
its fringe of high, vine-clad mountains, for in my girlhood days I had
wandered over it hither and thither in the royal forest and through the
smiling vine-lands.
At last, after three-quarters of an hour, we ran into the busy station
of Pisa, that point so well known to every tourist who visits Italy. It
is the highway to Florence, Rome, and Naples; just as it is to Genoa,
Turin, or Milan, therefore as the traveller in Switzerland must at some
time find himself at Bâle, so does the traveller in Italy always find
himself at Pisa. Yet how few strangers who pass through, or who drive
down to look at the leaning tower and the great old cathedral, white
as a marble tomb, ever take the trouble to explore the country beyond?
They never go up to quiet, gray old Lucca, a town with walls and gates
the same to-day as when Dante wandered there, untouched by the hand
of the vandal, unspoilt by modern progress, undisturbed by tourist
invaders. Its narrow, old-world streets of decaying palaces, its leafy
piazzas, its Lily theatre, its proud, handsome people, all charming to
one who, like myself, loves her Italy and the gay-hearted, mirthful
Tuscan.
Little time was there for reflection, however, for on alighting at Pisa
I was compelled to conceal myself until the arrival of the express on
its way from Rome to Paris. While I waited the thought occurred to
me that the Vispera was still in peril, and I alone could save her
passengers and crew. Yet with the mysterious woman still alive there
could, I pondered, be no motive in blowing up the ship. Perhaps the
idea had happily been abandoned, and some color was lent to this latter
theory by the fact that Keppel had not made any excuse by which to
prevent Gerald from travelling farther in the doomed vessel. No father
could possibly allow his son to sail in a ship which he intended
should never reach port.
Nevertheless, the non-appearance of the individual whose voice I had
heard, but whom I had not seen, was disconcerting. Try how I would,
I could not get rid of the suspicion aroused by Keppel’s flight that
foul play was still intended. If it were not, why had not the old
millionaire continued his cruise? The unknown woman had been concealed
on board for weeks, therefore there was no reason why she should not
have remained there for another three days until we reached Naples. No,
that some curious mystery was connected with the whole affair I felt
confident.
I peered forth from the corner in which I was standing and saw Keppel
and his companion enter the buffet. Then, when they had disappeared,
I made a sudden resolve, and entering the telegraph office wrote the
following message:
_To Captain Davis, S. Y. ‘Vispera,’ in port, Livorno._
“Have altered arrangements. Sail at once for Genoa. Box and packages
I spoke of will join you there. Leave on receipt of this.
“KEPPEL.”
I handed it to the telegraphist, saying in Italian, “I want this
delivered on board to-night most particularly.”
He looked at it and shook his head.
“I fear, Signorina,” he answered with grave politeness, “that delivery
is quite impossible. It is after hours, and the message will remain in
the office and be delivered with letters in the morning.”
“But it must reach the Captain to-night,” I declared.
The man elevated his shoulders slightly and showed his palms, the
Tuscan gesture of regret.
“At Livorno they are not, I am sorry to say, very obliging.”
“Then you believe it to be absolutely useless to send the message,
expecting it to be delivered before morning?”
“The Signorina understands me exactly.”
“But what am I to do?” I cried in desperation. “This message must reach
the Captain before midnight.”
The man reflected for a moment. Then he answered,--
“There is but one way I can suggest.”
“What is that?” I cried anxiously, for I heard a train approaching,
and I knew it must be the Paris express.
“To send a special messenger to Livorno. A train starts in
half-an-hour, and the message can then be delivered by half-past
eleven.”
“Could you find me one?” I asked. “I’m willing to bear all expenses.”
“My son will go, if the Signorina so wishes,” he responded.
“Thank you so much,” I replied, a great weight lifted from my mind. “I
leave the matter entirely in your hands. If you will kindly see that
this message is delivered you will be performing not only myself but a
number of other persons a very great service.”
“The Signorina’s instruction shall be obeyed,” he answered, and having
placed some money to cover expenses upon the counter, I again thanked
him and left, feeling that, although I had been guilty of forgery, I
had, nevertheless, saved the yacht from destruction.
The train with its glaring head-lights swept into the station from its
long journey across Maremma marshes, but I saw with considerable dismay
that there was but one sleeping-car, the only through car for the
frontier. I was therefore compelled to travel in this, even at the risk
of meeting Keppel in the corridor. One cannot well travel in one of
those stuffy cars of the Compagnie International des Wagon-Lits without
being seen by all one’s fellow-travellers, and here my first difficulty
presented itself.
I watched the old gentleman and his companion enter the car, and from
the platform saw them shown their respective berths by the conductor.
Keppel was given a berth in a two-bed compartment with another man,
while the tall, dark woman was shown to one of the compartments set
aside for ladies at the other end of the car.
With satisfaction I watched the old millionaire take his companion’s
hand and wish her good-night, and then, when his door had closed, I
myself mounted into the car and demanded a place.
“The Signorina is fortunate. We have just one berth vacant,” answered
the man in Italian. “This way, please,” and taking me along the
corridor he rapped at the door of the compartment to which he had just
shown the mysterious woman.
There was the sound of quick shuffling within, the door was opened,
and I found myself face to face with her.
I left it to the conductor to explain my presence, and entering, closed
and bolted the door behind me.
“I regret that I have been compelled to disturb you, but this is the
only berth vacant,” I said in English in a tone of apology, for I
noticed that her black eyes flashed inquiringly at me, and therefore
deemed it best to be on friendly terms with her.
“Don’t mention it,” she answered quite affably. “I’m pleased that
you’re English. I feared some horrid foreign woman would be put in to
be my travelling-companion. Are you going far?”
“To the frontier,” I responded vaguely. The extent of my journey
depended upon the length of hers.
Then after a further exchange of courtesies we prepared for the night,
and entered our narrow berths, she choosing the upper one and I the
lower.
As far as I could judge she was nearly fifty, still extremely handsome,
her beauty being of the Southern type, and her black hair and coiffure,
with huge tortoise-shell comb, giving her a Spanish appearance. She
wore several beautiful rings, and I noticed that on her neck, concealed
by day by her bodice, was some tiny charm suspended by a thin golden
chain. Her voice and bearing were those of an educated woman, and she
was buxom without being beefy.
The roar of the train and the grinding of the wheels as we whirled
through those seventy-odd tunnels that separate Pisa from Genoa
rendered sleep utterly impossible, so by mutual consent we continued
our conversation.
She seemed like the “Ancient Mariner”--needing some one to whom she
could tell her story. She needed an audience who could realize the
fine points of her play. From the first she seemed bursting with items
about herself, little dreaming that I was acting as spy upon her. I
secretly congratulated myself upon my astuteness, and proceeded to draw
her out. Her slight accent puzzled me, but it was due, I discovered,
to the fact that her mother had been Portuguese. She seemed to label
everything with her own intellectual acquirements. To me, a perfect
stranger, she chatted during that night journey about her fine figure
and her power over men,--about her ambitions and her friends; but her
guardian interfered with her friends. He, her guardian, was an old man
and jealous, had her money invested in America, and would not allow
her to look at a man. If she did look at men she received no money. She
was not forty, she told me, and he, her guardian, who was also in the
train, was over seventy.
When she was not telling me the story of her loves, and her father,
mother, and step-father, she filled in the time by telling me about
some man whom she called Frank, who had a pretty-faced wife addicted to
the illicit consumption of brandy.
“Trouble?” she wandered on. “Oh, I’ve had such lots and lots of it that
I’m beginning to feel very old already. Troubles I always think are
divided into two classes--one controlled by a big-horned, cloven-hoofed
devil, and the other by the snippy little devil that flashes in and out
of our hearts. The big devil is usually placed upon us by others.”
I laughed, admitting that there was much truth in her words.
“And the other--the little imp?” I asked.
“The other? This insane perversity of human nature gets hold of us
whether we will or not. It makes us for the time ignore all that is
best in ourselves and in others--it is part of us. Though we know
well it is all within ourselves, it will cause our tears to flow and
our sorrows to pile up. It is all a fictitious substance with possibly
a mint of happiness lying below. We are conscious of it all, but the
insanity makes us ignore it for so long that the little imp completes
its work, and the opportunity is lost. But why are we moralizing?” she
added. “Let’s try and get to sleep, shall we?”
To this I willingly acquiesced, for, truth to tell, I did not give
credence to a single word of the rather romantic story she had related
regarding herself, her friends, and her jealous guardian. I had met
women of her stamp many times before. The only way to make them feel is
to tell them the truth, devoid of all flattery.
She struck me as a woman with a past--her whole appearance was of such.
Now a woman with a checkered past and an untrammelled present is always
more or less interesting to women as well as men. She is a mystery.
The mystery is that men cannot quite believe that a smart woman with
knowledge cut loose from all fetters is proof against flattery. She
“queens” it while they study her. Interest in a woman is only one step
from love for her--a fact of which we of the fairer sex are very well
aware.
Ulrica had once expressed an opinion that pasts were not so bad if it
were not for some of the memories that cling to them, not, of course,
that the past of either of us had been anything out of the ordinary.
Memories that cling to others or the hint of a “past” certainly make
you of interest to others, especially to men, and a menace to the
imagination of other women; but the memories that hover about yourself
are sometimes like truths--brutal.
Memories! As I lay there upon my hard, narrow bed, being whirled
through those suffocating tunnels in the cliffs beside the
Mediterranean, I could not somehow get away from memory. The story this
mysterious woman had related had awakened all the sad recollections
of my own life. It seemed as though an avalanche of cruel truths
confronted my mental vision. At every instant those truths struck a
blow that left a scar deep and unsightly as any made by the knife.
There was tragedy in every one. The first that came to me was of a
day long ago. Ah me! I was young then, a child in years, a novice in
experience, on that day when I admitted to Ernest my deep and fervent
affection. How brief it all had been! I had, alas! now awakened to
the hard realities of life and to the anguish the heart is capable of
holding. The sweetest part of love, the absolute trust, had died long
ago. My heart had lost its lightness never to return, for his love for
me was dead. His fond tenderness of those by-gone days was, alas! only
a memory.
Yet he must have loved me! With me it had been the love of my
womanhood--the love that is born with youth, that overlooks, forgives,
and loves again; that gives friendship, truth, and loyalty. What, I
wondered, were his thoughts when we had encountered each other at Monte
Carlo? He showed neither interest nor regret. No, he had cast me aside,
leaving me to endure that crushing sorrow and brain-torture which had
been the cause of my long illness. He remembered nothing. To him our
love was a mere incident. Of a verity, memory is the scar of truth’s
cruel wound.
I lay there wondering to myself if ever again I should feel any
uplifting joy or any heartrending sorrow. Ah! if women could only
outgrow the child part of their natures, hearts would not bleed so
much. One of the greatest surprises in life is to discover how much
sorrow the heart can bear, how acutely it can ache, how it can be
strained to the utmost tension, crowded with agony, and yet not break.
This is moralizing and smacks of sentiment, but it is nature--after you
get acquainted with it.
The train roared on, the woman above me slept soundly, and with the
tears starting in my eyes I tried hard to burn the bridges into the
past and seek forgetfulness in sleep. The process of burning, alas!
can never be accomplished, thanks to one’s too retentive memory, but
slumber came to me at last, and I must have dozed some time, for when
I awoke we were in Genoa, and daylight was already showing through the
chinks of the crimson blinds.
But the woman who had told the curious story slept on. Probably the
concoction of so much romantic fiction had wearied her brain. The story
she had related could not, of course, be true. If she were really old
Keppel’s ward, then what motive had he in concealing her in that gilded
deck-house which was believed to be stored with curios? Who too was
that unseen man whom he had apparently taken into his confidence--the
man who had promised assistance by blowing up the yacht with all hands?
I shuddered at thought of that wicked, dastardly plot.
Yet Keppel had been declared by this unknown person to be the murderer
of the woman now lying in the berth above me. Why?
The train was at a stand-still, and I rose to peep out. As I turned
to re-enter my berth again my eyes fell upon the sleeping form of my
companion. Her face was turned towards me, and her bodice, unhooked,
disclosed a delicate white throat and neck.
I bent quickly to examine more closely what I saw there. Upon the
throat were two dark marks, one on either side,--the marks of a human
finger and a thumb,--the exact counterpart of those puzzling marks
found upon the throat of poor Reggie.