ITALY’S CLUE.
The next day found Mrs. Vale and Italy tenderly cared for at the home
of good Mrs. Mays.
Professor Doepkin had called a carriage and taken them there the night
before, commending them to the care of the good landlady and beautiful
Mrs. Severn, the sad-faced young widow.
Mrs. Vale was confined to her bed from the effects of severe nervous
shock. Italy was up and about, although very pale and grave-looking,
with the memory of last night. It seemed like a dream to her, the way
she had awakened last night in the blinding smoke and glare, with the
crackling of the flames in her ears, and the loud shouts of the excited
throng outside blending with the pandemonium of noise.
She would never forget those few moments of awful anguish when she had
realized the horror of her position, and, knowing herself caught like a
rat in a trap, felt that escape was impossible, that she must die this
awful death by fire. Then suddenly the door had been wrenched apart,
and through the stifling smoke rang a familiar voice:
“Italy! Italy! Are you here? Speak!”
With a cry of joy, she moved toward the welcome voice, and through
the awful heat and blinding smoke reached his arms that clutched her
eagerly.
“Be brave. Fear nothing, for I will save you,” he cried, as he clasped
her close, and a mighty flood of joy rolled over her even in the horror
of the position. Then a sudden terror drove the blood coldly back upon
her heart.
“Mama!” she shrieked.
“Is safe. I carried her out to the street ten minutes ago,” replied her
rescuer, as he toiled through the corridor, and, reaching the stairway,
began the descent, holding the blanket carefully over her head that
not one hair of those dark, shining tresses should be scorched by the
leaping flames that put out tongues of fire at them as they passed.
At last--after an eternity it seemed--he bore her into the street, and
the fresh, cold air blew into her face like a breath from heaven.
She was safe, and not one hair of her head was harmed--safe, and there
was her mother, too. Both owed their lives to this noble hero.
He with his face and hands almost blistered by the heat he had defied,
his fair, curly beard and hair singed by the fire, had disappeared from
sight as soon as he had put them in the care of Mrs. Mays, and the
afternoon of another day had come, still he was missing.
Italy left her mother asleep and stole down to the parlor. It was just
after luncheon.
Ralph Allen and Emmett Harlow were there reading. Mrs. Severn was
at the window with a bit of sewing--a melancholy black figure with
smileless lips and pallid cheeks, yet beautiful in a strange, haunting
fashion that had tempted the young artist to ask her to set to him as
“Niobe.”
She had refused gently but firmly, and their plan for winning her into
the outside world had failed. She never crossed the threshold of her
home. She was breaking her heart in silent grief for the dead.
“Where is Professor Doepkin? I wish to thank him for his bravery last
night,” Italy said abruptly, and Emmett answered lightly:
“Pray do not attempt anything so rash. The professor is a very modest
man--really bashful, I think--and he would be overwhelmed with
confusion if you applauded his conduct last night.”
“I think you are jesting with me,” said the girl. “It would seem most
ungrateful in me not to express my gratitude to this hero,” and her
dark eyes kindled so fervently that Emmett sighed to himself:
“I wish I stood in the hero’s shoes. But never mind, my boy, you have
done something to deserve her gratitude, after all, and some day she
will know it and appreciate it, although it can never win for you that
treasure--her love.”
“I wish very much to see him!” cried Italy almost yearningly.
“He is asleep, Italy, exhausted by his efforts last night,” said Ralph;
and Emmett chimed in:
“If you are in a hurry to thank him, you may write a little note, for,
really, I do not believe he will be willing to present himself before
you for a week or so, as his personal appearance was seriously injured
by getting his hair and whiskers singed last night. The handsome
professor is very proud of his whiskers, and very likely he will not be
visible until they grow again.”
“I fancy that he would be quite as handsome without his whiskers as
with them,” Italy replied, with so significant a tone and glance that
Emmett started, colored, and exclaimed:
“What do you mean?”
“Oh--nothing,” she answered, sitting down and taking up a newspaper;
while Mrs. Severn said to her softly:
“The professor did sustain some painful burns on his hands, and his
face is somewhat blistered, too. So he is keeping his room very quietly
to-day--I think he quite understands all your gratitude without your
expressing it.”
Italy thanked her with a smile, and just then Ralph Allen spoke:
“I am reading one of the most terrible tragedies ever printed or
enacted.”
“The world is full of tragedies,” said Emmett Harlow. “What is this
one, Ralph?”
“It is a story of love and insanity,” replied Ralph, and every one
shuddered, while Mrs. Severn cried out eagerly:
“Read it, Mr. Allen.”
“It is too long--several columns of the New York _World_--so I will
tell it to you in my own words. But it will sound very shocking to you
ladies, for it is the story of one girl who murdered another one that
she loved.”
“One that she loved--how could that be?” cried Emmett.
And Ralph answered:
“She was insane. But let me tell you the story:
“They were two beautiful young girls down South--let me see--yes,
Memphis, Tennessee--and they loved each other devotedly and with
such excess that Alice, the elder girl, declared she meant to marry
the beautiful Freda that she loved so well. They wrote each other
impassioned love-letters, and Alice was jealous of every one that
admired her schoolmate, pretty Freda. The affair went on until Freda’s
friends began to disapprove of it, and tried to break off the romantic,
girlish intimacy. They parted them, and Alice almost went mad with
despair. When she heard that Freda’s friends were going to remove her
from the city she could not bear it. One day Alice was riding out in a
buggy with Lillie, another friend of hers, and they saw Freda on the
street with her sister and some friends.
“‘Let me get out one moment. I wish to bid Freda farewell,’ said Alice
coolly.
“It all happened in a minute. Alice ran after Freda, threw her arms
around her neck, drew back the lovely head, and in an instant had cut
her friend’s throat. Freda fell dead on the pavement, and Alice flew
back to the buggy and sprang in as coolly as if nothing had happened.”
“Horrible!” shuddered Emmett.
But the girls sat still, pallid, and with dilated eyes.
“Only think of it, she murdered her dearest friend, the girl she loved
to madness!” cried Ralph. “But she was insane. At the trial she was
proved insane, and the _World_ tells here that she has been placed in
a lunatic asylum for life. But how pale you ladies look! I ought not
to have told you this awful story, especially after Italy’s shock last
night. It is too much for her nerves----Italy!”
He ran to her assistance, for her face had whitened to the hue of
death, and she was slipping inertly from her chair down to the floor.
Italy had indeed fainted, but it was not so much from the shock of
hearing of that strange tragedy as from the awful and startling
suspicion it had put into her mind.
Mrs. Severn quickly brought restoratives, and presently the young girl
sat up, looking about with dazed, wondering eyes, while Ralph murmured
contritely:
“Forgive me for telling that tragic story. I had forgotten that you
were nervous from last night.”
A light of remembrance leaped into her eyes, and she faltered:
“You were very kind--that is, it was very interesting. I should like to
read it in the papers, please.”
In some surprise, he placed it in her hand.
“I must return to mama now, I think,” she murmured, and hurried from
the room.
Mrs. Vale was still sleeping calmly and sweetly, and Italy turned from
the bed with wild excitement.
“We have all been blind--blind!” she ejaculated. “Only to think how
that man has fooled us all! What was that gleam I saw sometimes in
those strange, glittering eyes of his? It was madness, I feel sure of
it now. It is he--my father’s dearest friend, as they called him--who
murdered my father. I must send for Mr. Gardner. I must tell him all my
suspicions.”
She went out and sent the message for the lawyer, then returned to the
room and read and reread the revolting story, of that crime far away in
the sunny southland where one beautiful young girl had murdered another
one through insane love and jealousy.
“It is the clue I needed, the key to the mystery of my father’s murder,
but, oh, can I prove it? How cunningly the fiend has drawn the network
of safety around himself, while he blackened my mother’s fame and
then threw his crime on the innocent shoulders of Francis Murray. Oh,
could my father have loved this wretch? Did he ever suspect aught of
his treachery? What was written in that missing diary that my father
guarded so jealously from every eye? Where is it now? Oh, I would give
the world to know!”
Mr. Gardner’s presence was announced at that moment, and she hurried
down, to find him awaiting her in the little parlor quite alone.
“Read this. Do not ask me why, but read it,” she cried, thrusting the
_World_ into his hand.
The lawyer adjusted his glasses and read, while she paced impatiently
up and down like some beautiful caged creature.
“Well?” he asked, laying the paper down.
She paused in front of him, the incarnation of wild emotion, trembling,
her eyes glowing like stars.
“You have no clue yet?” she demanded hoarsely.
“None. I have never chanced upon a more baffling mystery.”
“You hold the key to it all in your hand,” she replied, with a gesture
toward the paper.
“Explain,” he cried eagerly.
“Look you,” she said, “that girl was murdered by her dearest
friend--mark you, her dearest friend! And my father, my poor father,
met his death in the same fashion. The murderer is Percy Seabright!”
“Impossible! He could prove an alibi. He was in New York.”
“I do not believe it. Investigation might prove the falsity of the
assertion. Let me tell you everything,” and she poured forth rapidly
the facts her mother had told her on Christmas day.
“Mrs. Vale did not tell me any of these facts,” he said, with a sudden
frown.
“She did not deem them of the least importance. It was merely by
accident that she told me,” explained Italy.
“And yet they are really of the gravest importance. You did right to
send for me. I am almost convinced that your theory is correct. I have
thought Mr. Seabright strange at times. His manners, alternating from
reckless gaiety to the deepest gloom, were not those of a well-balanced
person. And his eyes, so dark, so glittering, I have sometimes thought
there was something uncanny in them. You know he was a student of
hypnotism, and I have seen him try to influence people with a cold,
hard stare that made me nervous. Yes, now that you have thrown so much
light on my darkness, I begin to suspect him. That diary you place so
much stress on may be concealed in his country home. It will be quite
easy for me to introduce some person into the house to search for it.”
“Pray do so. I place all my hopes on the contents of that diary.”
“You are sanguine. It will never be found, I fear. But we will try to
trap our game without it. But be wary, Italy. Keep your suspicions to
yourself, lest he escape us. He must be watched every step now. Ah! I
have just thought of his marriage. You know it takes place in January,
and he sails for Europe on his bridal-tour. He will outwit us.”
There was dismay in his voice and face.
“You have a week to work in!” she exclaimed.
“Too short, my child. Ah, if only it could be postponed! Indeed, it
ought to be, for, although I don’t admire his fiancée, we ought not to
let her wed such a monster as we may prove him to be.”
“Mrs. Dunn is no saint, sir,” Italy replied, with a curling lip of
utter scorn.
She hesitated a moment, then said:
“Mr. Gardner, I believe I know a way to prevent the marriage at the
eleventh hour, and, if necessary to the success of our plans, I will
not hesitate to use my power. But I will not do so yet. If all else
fails, send me a note the last day, and I think I can prevent the
bridal-tour and keep him here.”
He looked at her a little curiously, but she shook her head, and said:
“It would not be right for me to explain, for it would involve the
betrayal of another’s secret. I wish to avoid that, if possible, and
nothing would tempt me to reveal it unless in the event of peril to
myself from keeping it!”
He left her; but one week later, on the very day of the bridal, there
came to her a little note that said simply:
“Get that marriage postponed, if you can. I have discovered too much
to permit him to escape.”