As we walked rapidly down Howe Street I glanced back at the building
which we had left. There, dimly outlined at the top window, I could see
the shadow of a head, a woman’s head, gazing tensely, rigidly, out into
the night, waiting with breathless suspense for the renewal of that
interrupted message. At the doorway of the Howe Street flats a man,
muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing. He
started as the hall-light fell upon our faces.
“Holmes!” he cried.
“Why, Gregson!” said my companion as he shook hands with the Scotland
Yard detective. “Journeys end with lovers’ meetings. What brings you
here?”
“The same reasons that bring you, I expect,” said Gregson. “How you got
on to it I can’t imagine.”
“Different threads, but leading up to the same tangle. I’ve been taking
the signals.”
“Signals?”
“Yes, from that window. They broke off in the middle. We came over to
see the reason. But since it is safe in your hands I see no object in
continuing this business.”
“Wait a bit!” cried Gregson eagerly. “I’ll do you this justice, Mr.
Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel stronger for
having you on my side. There’s only the one exit to these flats, so we
have him safe.”
“Who is he?”
“Well, well, we score over you for once, Mr. Holmes. You must give us
best this time.” He struck his stick sharply upon the ground, on which
a cabman, his whip in his hand, sauntered over from a four-wheeler
which stood on the far side of the street. “May I introduce you to Mr.
Sherlock Holmes?” he said to the cabman. “This is Mr. Leverton, of
Pinkerton’s American Agency.”
“The hero of the Long Island cave mystery?” said Holmes. “Sir, I am
pleased to meet you.”
The American, a quiet, businesslike young man, with a clean-shaven,
hatchet face, flushed up at the words of commendation. “I am on the
trail of my life now, Mr. Holmes,” said he. “If I can get Gorgiano—”
“What! Gorgiano of the Red Circle?”
“Oh, he has a European fame, has he? Well, we’ve learned all about him
in America. We _know_ he is at the bottom of fifty murders, and yet we
have nothing positive we can take him on. I tracked him over from New
York, and I’ve been close to him for a week in London, waiting some
excuse to get my hand on his collar. Mr. Gregson and I ran him to
ground in that big tenement house, and there’s only one door, so he
can’t slip us. There’s three folk come out since he went in, but I’ll
swear he wasn’t one of them.”
“Mr. Holmes talks of signals,” said Gregson. “I expect, as usual, he
knows a good deal that we don’t.”
In a few clear words Holmes explained the situation as it had appeared
to us. The American struck his hands together with vexation.
“He’s on to us!” he cried.
“Why do you think so?”
“Well, it figures out that way, does it not? Here he is, sending out
messages to an accomplice—there are several of his gang in London. Then
suddenly, just as by your own account he was telling them that there
was danger, he broke short off. What could it mean except that from the
window he had suddenly either caught sight of us in the street, or in
some way come to understand how close the danger was, and that he must
act right away if he was to avoid it? What do you suggest, Mr. Holmes?”
“That we go up at once and see for ourselves.”
“But we have no warrant for his arrest.”
“He is in unoccupied premises under suspicious circumstances,” said
Gregson. “That is good enough for the moment. When we have him by the
heels we can see if New York can’t help us to keep him. I’ll take the
responsibility of arresting him now.”
Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but
never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this
desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike
bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of
Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had tried to push past him, but
Gregson had firmly elbowed him back. London dangers were the privilege
of the London force.
The door of the left-hand flat upon the third landing was standing
ajar. Gregson pushed it open. Within all was absolute silence and
darkness. I struck a match and lit the detective’s lantern. As I did
so, and as the flicker steadied into a flame, we all gave a gasp of
surprise. On the deal boards of the carpetless floor there was outlined
a fresh track of blood. The red steps pointed towards us and led away
from an inner room, the door of which was closed. Gregson flung it open
and held his light full blaze in front of him, while we all peered
eagerly over his shoulders.
In the middle of the floor of the empty room was huddled the figure of
an enormous man, his clean-shaven, swarthy face grotesquely horrible in
its contortion and his head encircled by a ghastly crimson halo of
blood, lying in a broad wet circle upon the white woodwork. His knees
were drawn up, his hands thrown out in agony, and from the centre of
his broad, brown, upturned throat there projected the white haft of a
knife driven blade-deep into his body. Giant as he was, the man must
have gone down like a pole-axed ox before that terrific blow. Beside
his right hand a most formidable horn-handled, two-edged dagger lay
upon the floor, and near it a black kid glove.
“By George! it’s Black Gorgiano himself!” cried the American detective.
“Someone has got ahead of us this time.”
“Here is the candle in the window, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson. “Why,
whatever are you doing?”
Holmes had stepped across, had lit the candle, and was passing it
backward and forward across the window-panes. Then he peered into the
darkness, blew the candle out, and threw it on the floor.
“I rather think that will be helpful,” said he. He came over and stood
in deep thought while the two professionals were examining the body.
“You say that three people came out from the flat while you were
waiting downstairs,” said he at last. “Did you observe them closely?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Was there a fellow about thirty, black-bearded, dark, of middle size?”
“Yes; he was the last to pass me.”
“That is your man, I fancy. I can give you his description, and we have
a very excellent outline of his footmark. That should be enough for
you.”
“Not much, Mr. Holmes, among the millions of London.”
“Perhaps not. That is why I thought it best to summon this lady to your
aid.”
We all turned round at the words. There, framed in the doorway, was a
tall and beautiful woman—the mysterious lodger of Bloomsbury. Slowly
she advanced, her face pale and drawn with a frightful apprehension,
her eyes fixed and staring, her terrified gaze riveted upon the dark
figure on the floor.
“You have killed him!” she muttered. “Oh, _Dio mio_, you have killed
him!” Then I heard a sudden sharp intake of her breath, and she sprang
into the air with a cry of joy. Round and round the room she danced,
her hands clapping, her dark eyes gleaming with delighted wonder, and a
thousand pretty Italian exclamations pouring from her lips. It was
terrible and amazing to see such a woman so convulsed with joy at such
a sight. Suddenly she stopped and gazed at us all with a questioning
stare.
“But you! You are police, are you not? You have killed Giuseppe
Gorgiano. Is it not so?”
“We are police, madam.”
She looked round into the shadows of the room.
“But where, then, is Gennaro?” she asked. “He is my husband, Gennaro
Lucca. I am Emilia Lucca, and we are both from New York. Where is
Gennaro? He called me this moment from this window, and I ran with all
my speed.”
“It was I who called,” said Holmes.
“You! How could you call?”
“Your cipher was not difficult, madam. Your presence here was
desirable. I knew that I had only to flash ‘_Vieni_’ and you would
surely come.”
The beautiful Italian looked with awe at my companion.
“I do not understand how you know these things,” she said. “Giuseppe
Gorgiano—how did he—” She paused, and then suddenly her face lit up
with pride and delight. “Now I see it! My Gennaro! My splendid,
beautiful Gennaro, who has guarded me safe from all harm, he did it,
with his own strong hand he killed the monster! Oh, Gennaro, how
wonderful you are! What woman could ever be worthy of such a man?”
“Well, Mrs. Lucca,” said the prosaic Gregson, laying his hand upon the
lady’s sleeve with as little sentiment as if she were a Notting Hill
hooligan, “I am not very clear yet who you are or what you are; but
you’ve said enough to make it very clear that we shall want you at the
Yard.”
“One moment, Gregson,” said Holmes. “I rather fancy that this lady may
be as anxious to give us information as we can be to get it. You
understand, madam, that your husband will be arrested and tried for the
death of the man who lies before us? What you say may be used in
evidence. But if you think that he has acted from motives which are not
criminal, and which he would wish to have known, then you cannot serve
him better than by telling us the whole story.”
“Now that Gorgiano is dead we fear nothing,” said the lady. “He was a
devil and a monster, and there can be no judge in the world who would
punish my husband for having killed him.”
“In that case,” said Holmes, “my suggestion is that we lock this door,
leave things as we found them, go with this lady to her room, and form
our opinion after we have heard what it is that she has to say to us.”
Half an hour later we were seated, all four, in the small sitting-room
of Signora Lucca, listening to her remarkable narrative of those
sinister events, the ending of which we had chanced to witness. She
spoke in rapid and fluent but very unconventional English, which, for
the sake of clearness, I will make grammatical.
“I was born in Posilippo, near Naples,” said she, “and was the daughter
of Augusto Barelli, who was the chief lawyer and once the deputy of
that part. Gennaro was in my father’s employment, and I came to love
him, as any woman must. He had neither money nor position—nothing but
his beauty and strength and energy—so my father forbade the match. We
fled together, were married at Bari, and sold my jewels to gain the
money which would take us to America. This was four years ago, and we
have been in New York ever since.
“Fortune was very good to us at first. Gennaro was able to do a service
to an Italian gentleman—he saved him from some ruffians in the place
called the Bowery, and so made a powerful friend. His name was Tito
Castalotte, and he was the senior partner of the great firm of
Castalotte and Zamba, who are the chief fruit importers of New York.
Signor Zamba is an invalid, and our new friend Castalotte has all power
within the firm, which employs more than three hundred men. He took my
husband into his employment, made him head of a department, and showed
his good-will towards him in every way. Signor Castalotte was a
bachelor, and I believe that he felt as if Gennaro was his son, and
both my husband and I loved him as if he were our father. We had taken
and furnished a little house in Brooklyn, and our whole future seemed
assured when that black cloud appeared which was soon to overspread our
sky.
“One night, when Gennaro returned from his work, he brought a
fellow-countryman back with him. His name was Gorgiano, and he had come
also from Posilippo. He was a huge man, as you can testify, for you
have looked upon his corpse. Not only was his body that of a giant but
everything about him was grotesque, gigantic, and terrifying. His voice
was like thunder in our little house. There was scarce room for the
whirl of his great arms as he talked. His thoughts, his emotions, his
passions, all were exaggerated and monstrous. He talked, or rather
roared, with such energy that others could but sit and listen, cowed
with the mighty stream of words. His eyes blazed at you and held you at
his mercy. He was a terrible and wonderful man. I thank God that he is
dead!
“He came again and again. Yet I was aware that Gennaro was no more
happy than I was in his presence. My poor husband would sit pale and
listless, listening to the endless raving upon politics and upon social
questions which made up our visitor’s conversation. Gennaro said
nothing, but I, who knew him so well, could read in his face some
emotion which I had never seen there before. At first I thought that it
was dislike. And then, gradually, I understood that it was more than
dislike. It was fear—a deep, secret, shrinking fear. That night—the
night that I read his terror—I put my arms round him and I implored him
by his love for me and by all that he held dear to hold nothing from
me, and to tell me why this huge man overshadowed him so.
“He told me, and my own heart grew cold as ice as I listened. My poor
Gennaro, in his wild and fiery days, when all the world seemed against
him and his mind was driven half mad by the injustices of life, had
joined a Neapolitan society, the Red Circle, which was allied to the
old Carbonari. The oaths and secrets of this brotherhood were
frightful, but once within its rule no escape was possible. When we had
fled to America Gennaro thought that he had cast it all off forever.
What was his horror one evening to meet in the streets the very man who
had initiated him in Naples, the giant Gorgiano, a man who had earned
the name of ‘Death’ in the south of Italy, for he was red to the elbow
in murder! He had come to New York to avoid the Italian police, and he
had already planted a branch of this dreadful society in his new home.
All this Gennaro told me and showed me a summons which he had received
that very day, a Red Circle drawn upon the head of it telling him that
a lodge would be held upon a certain date, and that his presence at it
was required and ordered.
“That was bad enough, but worse was to come. I had noticed for some
time that when Gorgiano came to us, as he constantly did, in the
evening, he spoke much to me; and even when his words were to my
husband those terrible, glaring, wild-beast eyes of his were always
turned upon me. One night his secret came out. I had awakened what he
called ‘love’ within him—the love of a brute—a savage. Gennaro had not
yet returned when he came. He pushed his way in, seized me in his
mighty arms, hugged me in his bear’s embrace, covered me with kisses,
and implored me to come away with him. I was struggling and screaming
when Gennaro entered and attacked him. He struck Gennaro senseless and
fled from the house which he was never more to enter. It was a deadly
enemy that we made that night.
“A few days later came the meeting. Gennaro returned from it with a
face which told me that something dreadful had occurred. It was worse
than we could have imagined possible. The funds of the society were
raised by blackmailing rich Italians and threatening them with violence
should they refuse the money. It seems that Castalotte, our dear friend
and benefactor, had been approached. He had refused to yield to
threats, and he had handed the notices to the police. It was resolved
now that such an example should be made of them as would prevent any
other victim from rebelling. At the meeting it was arranged that he and
his house should be blown up with dynamite. There was a drawing of lots
as to who should carry out the deed. Gennaro saw our enemy’s cruel face
smiling at him as he dipped his hand in the bag. No doubt it had been
prearranged in some fashion, for it was the fatal disc with the Red
Circle upon it, the mandate for murder, which lay upon his palm. He was
to kill his best friend, or he was to expose himself and me to the
vengeance of his comrades. It was part of their fiendish system to
punish those whom they feared or hated by injuring not only their own
persons but those whom they loved, and it was the knowledge of this
which hung as a terror over my poor Gennaro’s head and drove him nearly
crazy with apprehension.
“All that night we sat together, our arms round each other, each
strengthening each for the troubles that lay before us. The very next
evening had been fixed for the attempt. By midday my husband and I were
on our way to London, but not before he had given our benefactor full
warning of this danger, and had also left such information for the
police as would safeguard his life for the future.
“The rest, gentlemen, you know for yourselves. We were sure that our
enemies would be behind us like our own shadows. Gorgiano had his
private reasons for vengeance, but in any case we knew how ruthless,
cunning, and untiring he could be. Both Italy and America are full of
stories of his dreadful powers. If ever they were exerted it would be
now. My darling made use of the few clear days which our start had
given us in arranging for a refuge for me in such a fashion that no
possible danger could reach me. For his own part, he wished to be free
that he might communicate both with the American and with the Italian
police. I do not myself know where he lived, or how. All that I learned
was through the columns of a newspaper. But once as I looked through my
window, I saw two Italians watching the house, and I understood that in
some way Gorgiano had found our retreat. Finally Gennaro told me,
through the paper, that he would signal to me from a certain window,
but when the signals came they were nothing but warnings, which were
suddenly interrupted. It is very clear to me now that he knew Gorgiano
to be close upon him, and that, thank God! he was ready for him when he
came. And now, gentleman, I would ask you whether we have anything to
fear from the law, or whether any judge upon earth would condemn my
Gennaro for what he has done?”
“Well, Mr. Gregson,” said the American, looking across at the official,
“I don’t know what your British point of view may be, but I guess that
in New York this lady’s husband will receive a pretty general vote of
thanks.”
“She will have to come with me and see the chief,” Gregson answered.
“If what she says is corroborated, I do not think she or her husband
has much to fear. But what I can’t make head or tail of, Mr. Holmes, is
how on earth _you_ got yourself mixed up in the matter.”
“Education, Gregson, education. Still seeking knowledge at the old
university. Well, Watson, you have one more specimen of the tragic and
grotesque to add to your collection. By the way, it is not eight
o’clock, and a Wagner night at Covent Garden! If we hurry, we might be
in time for the second act.”