Oliveta began speaking slowly to her foster sister. "Yes, it is indeed
true. I have suspected something, but I dared not tell you all--the
things he said--all that I half learned and would not ask about. I was
afraid to know. I closed my eyes and my ears. Body of Christ! And all
the time my father's blood was on his hands!"
Vittoria appealed helplessly to Blake. "You see how it is. What is to
be done?"
But his attention was all centered upon Oliveta, whose face was
changing curiously.
"His blood!" she exclaimed. "I have loved that infamous man. His
hands--" She let her gaze fall to her own, as if they too might be
stained from contact.
"Does Maruffi know who you really are?" he asked.
Vittoria answered; "No. She would have told him soon; we were waiting
until we had run down those men. You see, it was largely through her
that I worked. Those things which I could not discover she learned
from--him. It was she who secured the names of Di Marco and Garcia and
the others."
Sudden enlightenment brought a cry from him.
"You! Then you wrote those letters! You are the 'One Who Knows'?"
Vittoria nodded; but her eyes were fixed upon the girl.
Oliveta was whispering through white lips: "It is the will of God! He
has been delivered into my hands."
"I am beginning to--"
"Wait!" Vittoria did not withdraw her anxious gaze. After an instant
she inquired, gently, "Oliveta, what shall we do?"
"There is but one thing to do."
"You mean--"
"I have been sent by God to betray him." Her face became convulsed, her
voice harsh. "I curse him, living and dead, in the name of my father,
in the name of Martel Savigno, who died by his hand. May he pray
unheard, may he burn in agony for a thousand thousand years. Take him
to the hangman, Signore. He shall die with my curse in his ears."
"I can't bring him to justice," Blake confessed. "I know him to be the
assassin, but my mere word isn't enough to convict him. I have no way
of connecting him with the murder of Chief Donnelly, and that is what
he must answer for."
Oliveta's lips writhed into a tortured smile. "Never fear, I shall
place the loop about his neck where my arms have lain. He has told me
little, for I feared to listen. But wait! Give me time."