WHAT WAS IN THE STRONG ROOM
JULY 28TH
With infinite care the chief of the Secret Police of Italy kept the
actual details from the newspapers. As far as that was concerned, he
carried out the wishes of the London police.
Before the burial of Madame Kennedy-Foster’s friend, two men, understood
to be officials from Scotland Yard, arrived in haste in Florence, and
identified him as the original of a photograph which they brought with
them.
Yet to all Ansaldi’s questions they remained dumb. It was a matter,
they said, upon which the authorities were preserving the most profound
secrecy, and every inquiry failed to trace the whereabouts of my fugitive
mistress. As far as could be ascertained she had never arrived in Trieste.
In Florence it was believed that Monsieur had committed suicide to avoid
arrest, and the whole of the gossiping city was, of course, agog as to
the reason the police had desired to arrest the English signore.
In the hotels and _pensions_ the problem was eagerly discussed. Some
shadow or other lay upon him, just as there are dark shadows over so many
Englishmen who wander aimlessly up and down the Continent, and at last
settle down in some spot where they believe they have found safety. If
you are a cosmopolitan you have met many such.
The Chevalier made every effort to discover something regarding the
murdered man and his friends. He interrogated me several times, but I
really knew nothing tangible. Towards me the man now dead had always been
most courteous. A hundred or so agents of police were busy making inquiry
concerning the silent, inoffensive Englishman who, for the past six
months, had been such a well-known figure in the Winter City, and my own
curiosity having been keenly aroused, I found myself assisting. Indeed
the Chevalier seemed to welcome my aid.
That Monsieur Cornforth had been murdered there was no shadow of doubt.
Yet how did the assassin escape through that bolted steel door? Ansaldi
at first inclined to the belief that he might have been mistaken that
the door had been actually bolted when we commenced operations for its
opening. Yet the foreman of the safe-makers, later on, showed me the
mechanism, which proved beyond doubt that the huge bolts had actually
been shot from within.
It was very unusual, he told me, to make a safe-door that would fasten
on the inside, but in this case the deceased had been most particular
on that point. Therefore it seemed as though he had constructed that
strong-room in order to gain absolute silence and privacy.
As the days went past the _chef du sûreté_ grew more and more puzzled. He
had put aside all his other cases in order to solve this problem.
One afternoon he wrote inviting me to call at the Prefecture, as he had
now again turned his attention to the movements of my mistress, Madame
Kennedy-Foster.
After I had replied to all his questions, he suddenly said—
“Do you know, mam’zelle, that to-day I’ve been wondering,” he exclaimed
at last, as he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips, “whether there is not
something concealed within that strong-room!”
“But you’ve thoroughly examined it!” I exclaimed.
“Yes. But did not the Englishman build it with some distinct purpose? And
that purpose we have not yet discovered.”
“Why not make another examination?” I suggested quickly. “I’ll help you.
Let us go together.”
“Very well, mam’zelle,” he replied. “The place is still in our hands;
there are two men there.”
It was, perhaps, unusual for him to allow a woman to assist in his
investigations, yet he seemed to regard me as the link between the
disappearance of my mistress and the mysterious murder of the lean
Englishman. Yet Madame had left Florence two days before the murder.
So together we took a _fiacre_ to the dark, square house lying behind the
high brick wall—the house of mystery.
Entering the strong-room, the twisted door of which had now been forced
back flush with the wall and stood wide open, we switched on the light
and commenced an examination of the white enamelled walls, which, though
they had the appearance of wood paneling, were in reality of steel.
The books in the long book-cases, which had already been moved away from
the walls, were mostly volumes of light fiction, while the papers strewn
about the writing-table were, in great part, geometrical designs and
plans, which had no apparent meaning.
Upon the delicate grey carpet was the ugly brown stain—the stain of the
life-blood of Madame’s mysterious friend.
With methodical perseverance, the chief of police was examining the wall,
commencing from the door, and working slowly round.
Each ridge of the steel paneling, and each corner of a panel he pressed
with his fingers and closely inspected, but could discover nothing.
He stood in the centre of the room utterly confounded. One of the men in
whose charge the house was came forward, and said in Italian—
“We’ve thoroughly examined the walls, Signor Cavaliere. The people who
constructed them have told us that there is no cupboard of any sort.”
But Ansaldi seemed unconvinced, and ordered the carpet to be taken up,
when the solid steel-and-concrete floor was revealed. It was, they said,
four feet in thickness to prevent tunneling.
This was examined, but gave no result.
The two men retired, and I was again left alone with the famous police
official, who, taking one of the chairs, recommenced another careful tour
of the white walls higher up than the area already inspected. There were
several pictures suspended from the rails around the cornice, and these
he, one after another, removed, until, of a sudden, he gave vent to a
loud exclamation of surprise, which instantly took me to his side.
He was standing upon a chair, and behind one of the pictures I saw that
a small oblong panel, about eighteen inches by ten, was movable. Though
ingeniously concealed, it had evidently been constructed by Cornforth
himself. The steel had been cut through, and a deep cavity chipped in the
concrete wall, probably before it had had time to set quite solid.
The Chevalier, with a cry of triumph, plunged his hand within, and drew
out something.
“_Madonna mia!_” he cried. “What is this?”
_Mon Dieu!_ Opening his hand he displayed to my astonished gaze
a miscellaneous collection of unset gems—diamonds, rubies and
emeralds—stones of great value, all of them.
“_Ma foi!_ they’re worth thousands of pounds!” I cried. “Are there any
more?”
Handing them to me, he got a table, placed the chair upon it, and then,
his head on a level with the cavity, he drew out two or three further
handfuls of the secret hoard. _Très curieux!_
“Now, this is decidedly strange!” he declared, when he got down and
rejoined me, examining the jewels with a critical eye. “All these have
been taken from their settings. This”—and he took up a fine ruby between
his finger and thumb—“this alone must surely be worth over fifty thousand
francs! Is it possible, I wonder, that the victim was a jewel-thief? He
certainly was not an international thief, or I should have recognised
him.”
“Robbery was not the motive of the murder,” I remarked.
“Ah! we do not know, mam’zelle,” he replied. “The assassin might have
intended to possess himself of these, but, like ourselves, hunted,
and had a difficulty in finding them! If Cornforth were a thief, or a
receiver, depend upon it that one of his accomplices was his murderer.”
“The assassin who passed out in the guise of an old woman—eh?”
“Most probably,” he replied, bending and examining one by one each of
that magnificent collection of stones.
“And as regards that secret report made by the neighbouring caretaker,
do you believe, m’sieur, that this same old woman who paid him the
mysterious visits was actually the assassin?”
“No,” replied the great detective, closing his lips with a snap. “The
old woman—your mistress probably—most likely brought the spoils here.
She may have conveyed them from France or Germany, or even England. You
told me that Madame Kennedy-Foster was in the habit of travelling a great
deal. Being an ill-dressed old lady, she could travel third-class, and
thus smuggle them across the frontier. The officers of Customs would not
suspect such a person of carrying diamonds. Look at this stone!” he
exclaimed, a second later. “Why, it is fit to adorn a king’s crown!” and
he held up a magnificent diamond to the light, causing it to scintillate
and flash with a thousand fires. “Yes,” he added; “we are no doubt in
possession of William Cornforth’s secret at last. My own theory is that
he was well-known in England as either a jewel-thief or receiver, and
that the police wished to arrest him in secret in order to compel him to
disgorge certain of these jewels—gems stolen from some exalted personage,
perhaps. Then, when news of his assassination was announced, the
authorities hastened to hush up the affair, feeling that with his death
their opportunity had passed away.”
“Yes,” I said. “But the question of how the assassin escaped from this
room still remains, m’sieur.”
“Unfortunately, yes,” was the great man’s response, his keen, dark
eyes wandering around the cyclopean walls of the close, ill-ventilated
chamber. “I confess, mam’zelle, that it is the most complete mystery that
has ever been presented to me in all my long career as a police official.”
And the man who was ubiquitous, who was renowned in every European
country for his marvellous success in the detection of crime, and whom
the Camorra, the Mafia, and the other dangerous secret societies of
Italy had in vain endeavoured to kill, took a cigarette from his case and
lit it.
“I cannot understand the attitude of my own Government in regard to
the deceased,” he said, speaking very slowly to himself, looking at me
with his dark, piercing eyes. “Only yesterday I had a long conversation
with the Minister of Justice himself over the telephone, and, strangely
enough, His Excellency, who was in Rome, urged me to drop the whole
matter in the interests of the nation. Naturally I inquired the reason.
But, in reply, he explained that only the day before, during an audience
of his Majesty at the Quirinal, the King had expressed his desire that
the matter should be hushed up.”
“The King has actually said this!” I gasped, staring at him. “For what
reason can his Majesty possibly desire the concealment of the guilt of a
mere receiver of stolen property—as this man undoubtedly must have been?
It is inexplicable!”
“Yes, my dear mam’zelle,” declared the world-renowned detective—the man
whose power in the Italian kingdom was almost despotic. “It is just as
inexplicable as the reason of your mistress’s sudden disappearance, and
as the manner in which William Cornforth met with his death. I tell you
frankly, I believe there is far more in this strange affair than we have
ever dreamed!” Nobody came forward to claim the secret hoard of jewels.
As far as the police were aware, they were the actual property of the
dead man Cornforth.
Monsieur Walker, the British Consul, requested them to be sealed up,
and placed in the bank, pending inquiries regarding the dead man’s
heirs. When a British subject dies abroad it is the Consul’s duty to see
that his property remains untouched until his friends or executors are
communicated with. Hence Monsieur Walker was perfectly within his right
to make such application.
By no effort could the Chevalier gain any further knowledge of the
antecedents of the murdered man, save that he had lived for some time
at Brighton. He sent one of the agents of secret police in London down
to Brighton, but their inquiries proved abortive. Monsieur Cornforth
had occupied for a year a large comfortable house in Brunswick Square,
Hove, and had lived there alone, save for an old woman who acted as
housekeeper, and one maid-of-all-work. He had made no friends, and his
neighbours had consequently regarded him with considerable suspicion.
Why had Scotland Yard so suddenly been seized with a desire to arrest the
quiet, unobtrusive _Anglais_?
The blazing Tuscan summer grew hotter, the crowd of English who spend
the early months of the year in Florence, and _les touristes_ who
wander through the galleries, or idle along the Lung Arno, had long ago
disappeared; the Florentines themselves were in the mountains for fresh
air, and the busy, noisy main streets were now deserted, even at mid-day.
_Vraiment_, in August, every one who can possibly escape the sweltering
heat and mosquitoes of the Arno valley, does so.
I still remained, however, in my modest _pension_, for I had been
re-engaged for next season by a German lady who had a great villa out at
Fiesole.
One evening, an hour before dinner, as I sat idling over my three-day-old
_Matin_, which had just come in, the chief of police was suddenly ushered
into the room.
I saw by the sharpness of Monsieur’s countenance that something unusual
perturbed him. Usually his expression was sphinx-like, save when he
interrogated a prisoner, when it became full of fire and indignation, or
sympathy and sorrow.
I rose to greet him, whereupon he placed his soft, grey felt hat upon the
table and said—
“Mam’zelle Le Bas, I come to you because—well, to tell the truth, there
is yet another mystery at the Villa Borelli!”
“_Dieu!_ Another mystery!” I gasped, open-mouthed.
“Yes,” he replied. “As you know, we have taken possession of the place
and its contents until the Consul’s inquiries are completed. Two of my
men, named Merli and Bruno, have ever since the tragedy been posted
there, taking twelve-hour turns. I have wondered whether the assassin
might not return in secret one day to search for those hidden gems, and
for that reason I have had strict observation kept there. At ten o’clock
last night Merli left the house when his comrade Bruno arrived, and
returning to his home did not go back to the villa till five o’clock
to-day—it being his long spell of absence. On arrival, he could obtain
no answer to his ring at the back door, and finding the place securely
closed he therefore effected an entry through a window, and what did he
find? Why, he discovered his comrade, Carlo Bruno, one of the astutest
agents of the mobile brigade, lying shot dead in the strong-room wherein
we discovered the Englishman!”
“Another assassination!” I cried. “_Incroyable!_”
“Yes,” said Monsieur. “Come with me, if you like, and I will show you.”
So I put on my hat and veil, and together we hastened up the hill in the
sunset to the house of silence.
_Figurez-vous_ when I crossed the threshold of the place a queer, uncanny
feeling of apprehension and dread ran through me, even though I was
accompanied by the man whose very proximity struck terror into the heart
of the boldest and most hardened Italian criminal.
The man, Merli, who admitted us, looked pale and scared, even though
he was an agent of police, while a comrade, who had been summoned
by telephone, stood by in silence, and saluted his chief officer
respectfully.
Not a word was exchanged.
I followed my conductor along the wide marble hall, and into the
strong-room where the electric light still burned. There upon the
concrete floor—the carpet having been removed—and in the same crouched
position in which he had been discovered by his comrade, lay the body of
the detective Bruno, shot through the heart. The ugly wound was revealed
in the full light, and as I bent I saw there his grey linen vest had been
singed.
“See! The shot was fired at close proximity!” declared the chief of the
detective service. “Just as it was fired when Cornforth fell.”
“_En effet_, there is no suggestion of suicide?” I asked.
“None. The murderer’s revolver is missing. See!” and he took the dead
man’s big serviceable weapon from the case suspended around his waist.
“This is still loaded in all chambers. He was attacked quite suddenly
by some one lurking here, and had no time to fire a shot. Probably the
electric light was not switched on when the shot was fired. The assassin
turned on the light afterwards.”
“And the place was all locked up securely?” I remarked in wonder.
“Yes. But the murderer could, of course, have left by the front door,
which closes with a spring latch. The crime must have been committed six
or eight hours ago—before noon.”
The same fussy little doctor, who was summoned on the discovery of the
body of the mysterious Englishman, was called, and declared, without
hesitation, that, as in the first case, the shot could not have been
self-inflicted. The bullet had, as in poor Cornforth’s case, passed clean
through the unfortunate man’s body.
_En vérité_, the problem was beyond solution.
The only theory which the chief of police could form was that the
assassin of William Cornforth had returned in secret to institute another
search for the gems, and encountering the detective Bruno, had crept up
in the darkness of the strong-room and shot him.
But how did he enter? Perhaps he was possessed of a latch-key—the
latch-key given to that queer old woman—the woman suspected to have been
my late mistress—who had been Cornforth’s midnight visitor!
We stood gazing around that dead white chamber of death in absolute
wonder and blank amazement. The double crime was beyond human credence.
Even the great Luigi Ansaldi himself declared himself entirely baffled.
“It is utterly inexplicable,” he said. “The assassin must have come here
twice with the object of committing robbery, and on each occasion he
committed murder!”
“But how did he get away on the first occasion?” I queried.
To which the great chief could only shrug his shoulders in expressive
ignorance. I think my lack of knowledge had long ago disappointed him.
Once again the whole machinery of the police of Italy was set in motion
in order to try to trace the unseen assassin. Some one was evidently
aware of the great value of the gems which Cornforth had in his
possession, and they evidently suspected them to be secreted in that
strong-room. If the Englishman had brought them to Florence he would
naturally have kept them in the strongest place in the house. Yet, why
had he built that impregnable chamber when, after all, they would have
been just as well concealed beneath one of the floor-boards, or in a
crevice in a wall? Safes and strong-rooms in private houses are an
invitation to burglars.
Several suspicious-looking persons were reported as having been seen in
the vicinity on the morning of the crime, but on investigation each clue
turned out to be a false one. The assassin of William Cornforth and Carlo
Bruno was evidently a person who knew the truth concerning the former,
and had intended to wrest from him his great wealth. The gems had been
valued by Cravanzola, the well-known jeweller in the Corso at Rome, at
fifty thousand pounds.
In England the Foreign Office were advertising for Monsieur Cornforth’s
friends or heirs, but nobody came forward to lay claim to any of the
property. Apparently the mysterious Englishman, who had led such a
retired life at Brighton, was a man without any relative.
In many newspapers, including the Florence daily press, the same
advertisement appeared, but no serious reply was received. The mystery
concerning the lean _Anglais_ and his past was complete.
The Chevalier left no stone unturned to effect a solution of the mystery.
He summoned his best agents from Rome and Milan, and held counsel with
them, and he himself travelled hither and thither up and down Italy
following various clues. But all to no purpose.
The Villa Borelli was strongly guarded by police, for crowds were
around it by day and night. The facts concerning Bruno’s mysterious
assassination had leaked out, and the greatest sensation was caused. All
sorts of wild theories were afloat, many of the superstitious declaring
that evil fell upon all who ventured there.
The sudden illness of my sister Jeanne, who was in the service of Madame
de Champfleur, wife of a diplomat now attached to the French Embassy in
London, took me on a flying visit to England, and Monsieur de Champfleur,
having heard of the strange story, one day took me to Scotland Yard,
where I saw Chief-Inspector Stephens. Sitting with him in his room I
referred to the mysterious case of William Cornforth, whereupon he
bent towards me with quick interest, saying: “Oh! then you knew him in
Florence—eh, miss? Well, what did you think of him?”
“Quite a nice gentleman,” I replied. “I saw him several times. It caused
a great sensation in Florence when it was known that you wanted him.”
The detective smiled mysteriously.
“Yes,” he said reflectively. “I expect it did. But, tell me, what was
your opinion of him? Did he strike you as at all an extraordinary man?”
“_Mais non!_ He loved a good joke, I think, as he did a good dinner. His
end was most tragic and extraordinary.”
“So it appeared. But was nothing stolen from that room wherein he
was found? The Italian police furnished us with all the details and
photographs, of course, and the case has puzzled us just as much as it
must have puzzled them.”
“Nothing whatever was stolen. The jewels he had concealed are in the bank
awaiting any claimants. You believe, with the Chevalier Ansaldi, that
robbery must have been the motive of the crime.” Then I asked, “For what
reason did you apply for his arrest? What was the charge against him?”
“Ah! That I’m unable to tell you, miss,” was the inspector’s instant
reply. “It was a mysterious and serious charge, without a doubt.”
“Pardon, but can’t you tell me in confidence? Poor Monsieur is dead now.
Surely there is no harm in an explanation.”
“No. The matter is a confidential one,” was his reply. “Even we here were
not told the charge. Our orders came from over the way—from the Home
Secretary himself.”
“From the Home Secretary!” I ejaculated. “Rather unusual, is it not?”
“Most unusual,” he admitted, twisting his dark moustache and looking
across the table first at me and then at Monsieur de Champfleur. “But you
must nevertheless remember that that man whom your mistress entertained
at her house, and who met with such a mysterious end, was one of the
most dangerous men who ever walked the London streets.”
“But that doesn’t explain why the Home Secretary should apply for his
arrest and extradition,” said my companion, much puzzled.
“But I think it does.”
“Why?”
“Well—because we wanted to keep him safe, under lock and key,” he replied
hesitatingly.
“I don’t quite follow Monsieur,” I remarked. “The Italian police are very
sore that your Department have not furnished them with the charges laid
against the dead man.”
“What was the good after he had died?” asked the detective.
“_Eh bien!_ It seems to me, Monsieur, that you here at Scotland Yard were
secretly glad when you heard of his tragic end.”
“I must admit that we were not sorry,” Stephens replied. “It saved a
great deal of distasteful explanation.”
“Distasteful! _Pourquoi?_”
“Because the Home Office were most anxious that the real truth should not
go forth to the public.”
“Why?”
“Well, because if what I suspect be correct, the real truth concerning
the mysterious Englishman would have created the greatest alarm. The
whole country would have been terrified at the thought of such a man
being at liberty in their midst.”
“_Diable!_ Was he such a monster, then?”
“Monster does not adequately describe him. He was criminal by
instinct—the most formidable, terrible, and relentless of any recorded in
the annals of crime. Is it any wonder, miss, that we were not sorry at
receiving the news of his mysterious death?”
“He surely could not have gained early knowledge of the order to arrest
him?” I queried.
“He may have done. He was such a remarkable person that I could imagine
him capable of taking every precaution against surprise. Yet I confess,
the manner in which he was assassinated is, to me, a complete enigma, as
it is to the Chevalier Ansaldi. No doubt somebody knew of those jewels,
and intended to get hold of them. The same hand that shot Cornforth also
shot the policeman—I feel certain of that. To tell the truth, I’m sorry
I’m not in Florence to assist in the inquiries. It is certainly a most
interesting case.”
_Enfin_, I pressed him to tell me more about Monsieur Cornforth, but
he only repeated that he was a most remarkable man, whose death was a
distinct advantage to civilised society.
Inspector Stephens declared that nobody there at Scotland Yard knew
the exact charges against him. The order from the Home Office to the
Commissioner of Police had been brief and decisive, namely, that the
Italian authorities were to be approached with a view to Cornforth’s
immediate arrest, and that no money was to be spared in bringing him
to England at as early a date as possible. Stephens himself had been
dispatched to Florence, and had got as far as Basle when he was stopped
by telegram, the report of the “wanted” man’s death having reached London.
“I suppose, miss,” he added, “that the Chevalier Ansaldi holds some
theory of how the assassin got out of the strong-room, eh?”
“The _chef du sûreté_ has no theory,” I replied. “What explanation can
there be? I saw with my own eyes that the great steel door was bolted on
the inside. Therefore how could the assailant have escaped?”
The inspector only raised his dark eyebrows. “It is an absolute enigma,”
he admitted, “an enigma as complete as was the dead man himself.”
“You kept the whole affair very cleverly from the press,” I said.
“Certainly. We had no intention of alarming the public unduly—and I
repeat, they would have been greatly alarmed had they but the slightest
suspicion of the extraordinary truth.”
“Monsieur excites my curiosity,” I exclaimed, laughing.
“Well, I’m sorry, miss,” he replied, with a slight sigh; “sorry, too, I
can’t satisfy your curiosity. But, as you know, here we are compelled to
keep secrets strictly—more especially if the secrets come to us through
official sources.”
I mentioned the suspicion of the old lady, who visited the house
clandestinely—the woman suspected to have been my mistress, Madame
Kennedy-Foster.
His lips were pressed closely together, and for a few moments he remained
silent.
“It may be, of course,” he said, “that the woman brought him the gems in
secret, but I am inclined to believe that she was the means by which he
communicated with other persons, believing he himself was being watched.”
“Then those other persons would, in all probability, know something
concerning him?” I exclaimed quickly.
“Of course they would.”
“_Voilà!_ Cannot they be found?”
“It is for the Chevalier to find them, miss. He is astute. He will
probably do so. Yet, even then, it will be to their own interests to
remain silent.”
“The old woman was seen to pay midnight visits to the villa,” I remarked.
“She may have been my mistress.”
“Which goes to prove the soundness of my theory,” he said, looking
me straight in the face. “It is a pity we cannot find this Mrs.
Kennedy-Foster.”
“But the jewels?” I asked. “Are they the proceeds of robberies?”
“Perhaps. I can tell you that William Cornforth was no ordinary criminal.
His equal has never lived.”
“_Eh bien!_ And why would the truth concerning him be so alarming to the
public?”
“For several reasons. So remarkable a personage was he, that while he
lived society lay at his mercy. His methods were so subtle, unscrupulous
and unsuspected that the cleverest among us would find ourselves at
fault. The world has had many famous criminals, and not a few have
passed through our department here,” added the police official, “but the
man who was a menace to his fellows, and whose daring and cunning were
unequalled, was he who escaped us and went to live in Florence as William
Cornforth!”