CONTAINS AN ADMISSION
Through many years John Ambrose had placed implicit faith in that
solemn, pious, hook-nosed _curato_, the man who was such a brilliant
scholar and such a wonderful orator that the Sacred College had feared
his influence and therefore crushed him.
His leanings towards the Government, his support of certain decisions
in the Chamber of Deputies, his friendship with Crispi and Tittoni,
and his differences with the Archbishop of Siena had all been seized
upon by the Cardinals, who had foreseen his national popularity. Hence
he had been banished to that high-up, obscure village where the
Government stipend was the princely sum of one thousand lire, or forty
pounds per annum.
Remuneration mattered nothing to him. Though he never displayed the
possession of private means, yet he had them--a snug account in the
Banca Nazionale in Milan. It was that which enabled him from time to
time to enjoy brief holidays. Sometimes he left Santa Lucia, no one
knew whither. The people were quite unaware that it was his habit to
join the express in far-off Siena, and two days later arrive in that
wonderful city of the English, London. He always pretended to them
that he went to his own birthplace, away amid the misty rice-fields of
Novara.
That morning, while Don Mario had said mass in the dark, ancient,
little church, Ambrose had sat and listened to his droning Latin. Not
more than twenty of the villagers were present, mostly women in their
peasant dresses of bright colours. The men of Santa Lucia did not go
to church except on the _festa_. If they prayed once a week they
considered it all-sufficient.
The steady flames of the long candles, the dull gilt of the altar, the
time-dimmed holy pictures, the rich but faded vestments which his
friend wore, the fragrance of the incense, the dark solemnity of that
black, cavernous interior in contrast with the brilliant sunshine
outside, all had made a great impression upon the fugitive from
England.
He had sat thinking then--just as he was now thinking as he watched
his friend pursuing his dry-as-dust hobby, the deciphering of ancient
records--whether Don Mario was really the pious, high-minded servant
of his Maker he pretended to be.
They had known each other for many years--more years than he cared to
remember. Yet now that he looked back along the vista of the past,
certain recollections crowded upon him--recollections of strange
happenings--recollections which aroused within him the strange
suspicion that the soul of Don Mario was not such as he had believed
it to be--that beneath that mask of deep-eyed devotion and human
charity lay a heart hard as the stone and black with evil.
He was watching that yellow, sphinx-like face over which the skin was
drawn so tightly, and as he watched the thin hand slowly transcribe
the crinkled parchment he became seized by certain horrible
apprehensions.
Could it be true what had once been whispered?
No. He knew Don Mario too well. What his enemies had whispered
concerning him was a lie--a black and wilful lie.
That night, after the old bell in the square white tower had clanged
out the _venti-tre_ unmusically, after vespers had been said in the
gloomy church by the light of a few flickering candles, and the sun
had disappeared in a blaze of crimson, green and gold behind the giant
Apennines, half Santa Lucia assembled under the dusty plane-trees in
the little piazza, gossiping, flirting, or scandalising their
neighbours.
The hook-nosed priest had taken his guest for a stroll through the
dark, narrow, evil-smelling streets where the swarthy, beetle-browed
men and women had wished him _felicissima notte_, and more than once
had he lifted his shabby biretta in salutation. Then, emerging from
the dark, tunnel-like, old place, so narrow that two bullocks could
scarcely pass abreast, they went down the hillside looking out across
that world of hills which, in the failing light, seemed infinitely far
away, like mountains in a dream.
Out of Maremma night was coming up. Beneath them, as Ambrose halted to
look around upon the wonderful panorama, the olives stirred in the
night wind from the sea.
Gradually the light faded, and, little by little, the barren world of
mountains became lost in an immense and beautiful shadow as both men
stood there upon the hillside, their faces turned towards the Eternal
City.
Suddenly Ambrose faced his companion, and said in a low, strained
voice:
“I wonder, Mario, what has happened in London?”
The old priest started slightly, then recovering himself instantly,
replied with a short, harsh laugh:
“Ah! I wonder! The mystery is, no doubt, as complete as ever.”
“Of course,” said Ambrose with a grin. “And yet--well, I only wish I
knew the true extent of Medland’s knowledge. Why did he take Maidee
into Westminster Abbey?”
“With one motive alone--to identify your features from the statue.”
“I know,” sighed the old man. “Yet how could he have suspected me when
Richard Goodrick died, and had been buried?”
“Medland evidently knows more than we think,” remarked the priest,
watching the serious face of his guest, which was just discernible in
the faint light.
“What care we? He will never solve the mystery,” declared Ambrose with
confidence. “He may suspect various things, but happily he cannot
prove anything. We have taken elaborate precautions against that.”
“The peril is increased now that he has taken Maidee into his
confidence. The girl may act as your enemy--instead of your friend.”
“And if she did, Mario, what irony of fate that Maidee--little
Maidee--should be the means of my exposure!”
“Yes,” the priest admitted. “But in this world of ours there is much
contrariness. Not infrequently it is our dearest friends who become
our enemies, and those we love best are the first to turn and rend
us.”
“But she suspects, Mario. I know that she suspects!” cried the other.
“I think your attitude towards Gordon was not well advised,” said his
friend. “I commented upon it at the time. The course you adopted was
amazingly clever, but your shrewdness and tact might, with greater
advantage, have been directed into a different channel. As far as I
can see, there was no need to strike terror into the heart of the
girl’s lover.”
“Ah, yes,” sighed Ambrose; “I admit that I acted injudiciously.
Tulloch I knew well, and I was also aware that Tulloch had blackmailed
him because of a secret he held. In confidence I learnt from him how
Gordon Cunningham, soon after leaving Oxford, had married secretly a
young girl named Helen Weaver, employed as typewriter in an estate
office at Tunbridge Wells. The girl was eighteen. In a year he grew
tired of her, and she died mysteriously. The allegation was that
Gordon had got rid of the encumbrance--by poison.”
“By poison!” gasped the priest in surprise. “How? By what means?”
“Ah! That I cannot exactly tell. All I know is that, on the night the
pair parted, she was found dead in a lodging somewhere in Camden Town.
The medical evidence was to the effect that she had died of
poison--Tulloch alleged murder--and he knew!”
“Knew!” cried Don Mario, greatly interested. “How did he know?”
“Because he alleged that Gordon had, a few days before,
surreptitiously abstracted from his rooms a small quantity of a
certain subtle and very remarkable poison which he had in his
possession. Tulloch alone knew the tests for it, and he threatened to
furnish them to the Home Office analyst if Gordon did not pay a very
substantial sum. The young man, frightened, as are so many victims of
blackmail, paid a thousand pounds, and having once paid, continued to
remain in Tulloch’s power.”
“Then it was of this that you, posing as Tulloch, lately threatened
him?”
“I did not pose as Tulloch--I am Tulloch!” Ambrose declared in a low,
hard tone.
“You!--Tulloch?” gasped Don Mario, staring at him. “Ah! I see. Then it
was owing to your marvellous grasp of the political world--to your
secret influence and prompting, that the young man so rapidly came to
the front rank of politicians. But was there any truth in the
allegation?”
Ambrose shrugged his shoulders significantly.
“And yet you allowed him to become engaged to Maidee?”
“The secret marriage and the girl’s death are, alas! true. The actual
murder, however, is not exactly clear, I must admit.”
“But you say she was poisoned.”
“Little doubt of it. I contrived to apply the test myself, and proved
conclusively that she died from the effects of a fatal compound.”
“What was the substance?”
“I am no toxicologist.”
“Well, my dear Ambrose,” exclaimed the hook-nosed priest after a brief
pause, “I must say that I am surprised that, believing young
Cunningham to have killed the girl, you should have allowed him to be
engaged to Maidee, of all persons in the world.”
“It was, perhaps, a mistake, Mario--one of those fatal, foolish
mistakes which all of us commit at times,” he said in a harsh, intense
voice, scarce above a whisper. “Dear Maidee--dear little Maidee!” he
added reflectively.
And he sighed as he turned his face to where the last faint flush
showed in the sky between a break in the mountain peaks.
“You were Gordon’s evil genius,” remarked the priest quietly.
“With one hand I have pushed him forward until he is what he is
now--the most talked-of and brilliant young man in London; while with
the other I have blackmailed him and driven him to desperation.”
“But why?”
A silence fell between the pair.
“Was not his father my bitterest enemy?” questioned old Ambrose at
last in a changed voice.
“And you intend that Gordon shall suffer--eh?” asked Don Mario,
somewhat reproachfully. “Are you acting justly towards Maidee?”
“Ah! I never foresaw that she would fall in love with him. It was a
staggering blow to me, I assure you.”
“But you are not antagonistic to their marriage, surely?”
“Not in the least. If Maidee really loves him, then I am ready to
crush down my hatred--even to stand his friend, if necessary.”
“You have scarcely been his friend up to the present--eh?”
“Though I acted as his enemy in re-appearing as Tulloch and
threatening him, yet my action was really in his interests. It caused
him to put that question in the House.”
“Which very nearly resulted in his own undoing,” the priest said with
a strange look.
“But which diverted suspicion from himself regarding the affair at
Carlton House Terrace.”
“Ah! yes,” sighed the priest. “There were grave suspicions of the
young man. Yet they were surely unfounded.”
“Of course,” said old Ambrose. “The death of Sir George and of the man
Richard Goodrick are still as great mysteries as they ever were. I
wonder by whose hand they really fell?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Don Mario; “I wonder! I have done all in my power to
solve the mystery, but it still remains inscrutable. I can discern no
motive--unless----”
“Yes, yes. I know to what you refer,” Ambrose said quickly. “But there
was an absence of motive. The mystery is just as complete as on that
fatal night when both men were so secretly and swiftly done to death.”
“Have you no theory--even now?” inquired his companion looking at him
narrowly in the half light.
“None--none whatever,” was Ambrose’s reply. “I am thankful that poor
little Maidee’s life was spared--that is all.”
“You believed her to be in peril, yet you suspect nobody?” continued
the priest.
“Nobody,” declared Ambrose. “And yet,” he laughed harshly, “and yet I
am a fugitive!”
Don Mario did not speak. It had now grown dark. From far away came the
call of the night owl, the whistle of the night _cecca_ through the
still leaves. Somewhere beneath the olives a young rustic lover was
strumming upon a mandoline, singing in the soft tongue of lazy
Tuscany:
Avete gli occhi neri, e siete bella
A guisa di falcon che in alto mira;
Voi rilucete come chiara stella,
Come la calamità id ferro tira.
Al mondo non si vede la più bella:
C’e chi piange per voi e chi sospira.
C’e chi per voi sospira e piange forte,
Se non l’amate, si darà la morte!
With one accord the two men commenced the re-ascent of the hill,
where, above, the lights of the mediæval village were already
twinkling.
Don Mario sighed, pushed his biretta farther back upon his head, and
clearing his throat, said at last:
“You say, _caro mio_, that young Cunningham killed the girl Weaver by
poison stolen from you? Why did you have such dangerous stuff in your
possession?”
Ambrose stood still, his eyes narrowing, then turning, he stared his
companion full in the face, answering lamely:
“I obtained it from a friend--just a small quantity--and kept it as a
curiosity.”
“Yet you knew the test to detect its presence. You applied it in
secret and satisfied yourself that she had died of that poison,”
remarked the priest very slowly, as, gazing into the other’s thin,
drawn face, he added reflectively in a low, meaning tone: “I wonder--I
wonder whether that same test, if applied in the cases of Sir George
Ravenscourt and the man identified as Richard Goodrick, would have
yielded similar results?”
Old Ambrose glared at the speaker for a single instant. Then he
stumbled forward up the dark, stony road without uttering another
word.
In the silent gloom he could not distinguish that the countenance of
the hook-nosed old priest bore an evil, triumphant grin--that his
expression was that of a keen, crafty man who was well aware of the
ghastly and astounding truth.