CONTAINS SOME REVELATIONS
DECEMBER 22ND
In November I went back to Italy, to enter the service of the German lady
named Staben, at Fiesole.
I saw the Chevalier, and told him of my visit to Scotland Yard, though I
said nothing of what Flugel or Mademoiselle Cornforth had told me. I had
given a pledge of secrecy, and, though much against my inclination, I
felt in honour bound to keep it.
Twice we met accidentally, and our conversation drifted to the mystery of
the Villa Borelli. He always declared it to be inscrutable.
Whenever I passed that silent, deserted villa, which was now to let, my
mind wandered back to that most inexplicable mystery. Nobody would rent
the place because of the tragedy that had occurred there, and through
the past summer the once well-kept garden had been allowed to become
overgrown by a tangle of weeds. Its grimness and neglect often caused a
shudder to run through me as I went by.
_Hélas!_ Before my eyes at such times would rise the pale, sweet
countenance of the daughter of the murdered man.
One evening in mid-December I received a note asking me whether I could
obtain leave and run round to the Prefecture of Police.
“I want to tell you something, mam’zelle,” the Chevalier said, when
I entered his bureau, “something which will interest you greatly, I
believe. What do you think? We have made an arrest in connection with the
affair of the Villa Borelli!”
“_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ An arrest!” I gasped.
“Yes; and moreover I feel sure the suspect can tell us
something—something we do not dream. I would like you to give your
opinion,” and he touched the electric button on his table.
Upon the threshold a detective appeared instantly.
“Bring in the prisoner you’ve just taken away,” commanded the official.
“I’ve forgotten a question.”
Then, when the door had closed, he leaned back lazily in his chair,
explaining that, just after five o’clock on the previous night a man
passing the deserted villa thought he saw the flicker of a light in one
of the upper windows visible from the road, and informed a policeman
on duty at the Porta Romana. Assistance was obtained, and the villa
searched, when, to the horror of the searchers, they found in the
strong-room—that fatal chamber—an elderly man lying dead—shot through the
back!
“_Dieu!_ A third victim!” I cried, taken aback.
“Yes. At first the men searching were too surprised to think of anything
else, when one of them heard a movement in the darkness, and turning on
his lantern there was revealed the presence of a second person, whom they
promptly arrested and brought here. I was out at the time, and only came
in half-an-hour ago. Then I sent word to you——”
The door reopened, and, glancing behind me, I saw two police officers in
uniform, who had between them a pale, trembling woman.
In an instant the recognition was mutual. It was Mademoiselle Cornforth!
“You!” she gasped, staring at me. “You—mademoiselle!”
And then she rushed across to greet me, crying—
“Help me! help me, mademoiselle—I beg of you! I was foolish to go
there—yet I was seized by curiosity to see the room wherein my father had
been struck down.”
“Your father!” exclaimed the Chevalier, looking at me in surprise. “What
does this mean, mam’zelle?”
I was silent. What could I say?
“I went with Mr. Flugel—at his request. We went there in secret, because
he wanted particularly to examine my father’s study—the strong-room
wherein he died,” the girl explained. “We entered the place through a
window, and Mr. Flugel, after exploring the ground-floor, found the
room. I looked around it and then ascended to the next floor, to see
what the rooms were like above. When I returned, to my horror I found my
companion lying upon the floor shot. Yet I had heard no sound, though,
being up-stairs and the swing-doors in the hall closed, perhaps I had not
noticed it.”
“But why were you there, signorina?” asked the Chevalier, looking at her
very seriously. This third mystery had, I saw, entirely upset him. There
was something weird and uncanny about the Villa Borelli which even he,
fearless as he was of assassins’ knives or bullets, held in dread.
“I must refuse to say,” was her prompt reply in English, for she only
spoke a few words of Italian.
“Then I fear I must detain you until you are in a better mood,” he said
politely. “Are you not aware that we have been advertising in various
parts of the world to find you?”
“I know it, but I had no wish to come forward.”
“Why?”
“For reasons of my own.”
The famous official was silent for a few moments, thinking deeply.
“Well, signorina,” he said at last, “perhaps you, who are in possession
of some exclusive knowledge, will give me your theory regarding this
assassination of your companion. Who was he?”
“My father’s most intimate friend.”
“And who would have an incentive to assassinate him?”
“Nobody, as far as I know. He had no enemies. But,” she added, “may I be
permitted to ask you a question in return? When my poor father was found,
did the doctor say that the bullet had penetrated him?”
“Certainly. It had gone clean through his body.”
“And the bullet was found in the room?”
“No. Curiously enough, though we plainly discerned a dark mark upon the
white enamelled steel where the projectile had evidently struck, yet the
bullet itself was not found,” was the answer of the Chief of Police.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I thought as much! The mystery was increased
because no weapon and no projectile could be discovered—eh?”
“Exactly.”
“Then Mr. Flugel must have died in the same manner as my father and the
police agent,” she said reflectively.
A pause ensued, broken only by the slow pacing of the police sentry
outside in the dark courtyard.
“Why don’t you tell the Chevalier what you know, mademoiselle?” I urged.
“Do not remain in this position. I feel sure the Chevalier Ansaldi
will respect your confidence if there is any information you do not
wish transferred to England. The Italian police have no great love for
Scotland Yard.”
“Mademoiselle speaks the truth, signorina,” asserted the Chevalier. “Any
fact you reveal to me I shall regard in strictest confidence.”
But she again remained silent.
“Tell me,” I urged, “how did Flugel know of my knowledge of your father?”
“My father wrote and told him. He feared that Madame Kennedy-Foster had
discovered his secret, owing to some words she let drop while discussing
with him a certain scientific subject. So he wrote to Flugel for his
advice. And the latter—well, I know he urged that both Madame and
yourself should be silenced—killed,” she said.
“Killed!” I gasped. “_Bon Dieu!_ Why should I be murdered?”
“In order to protect my father’s secret.”
“_Tiens!_ What was his secret?” I demanded breathlessly, my curiosity
now aroused to breaking-point.
She hesitated. Then she said—
“If you reveal it to the London police, I shall be arrested as the only
person living besides themselves who is in possession of it. They intend
that it shall be repressed at all hazard.”
“_C’est entendu._ But what is it?” I again demanded.
“If you tell us, I promise to regard your confession as absolutely
sacred,” the Chevalier assured her, while I, on my part, repeated my
promise of strict secrecy.
“Well,” she said very reluctantly at last, after a great struggle with
herself. “Perhaps I should only be doing right if I revealed it, and
prevented any further development of the mystery. Will you take me back
to the Villa Borelli?”
“Most certainly,” cried Ansaldi eagerly, and in a few minutes his own
motor-car was outside awaiting us, while three agents of police were
ordered to follow in another car.
Through the ill-lit streets of the old-world city we tore, awakening the
echoes, until presently we drew up outside the iron gate of the House of
Death.
We all three entered, and were there met by two police officers, who had
re-taken possession of the fateful premises.
There I saw the dead body of Flugel lying in the _salle-à-manger_
covered with a table-cloth, but as we entered the strong-room a loud cry
of horror from the girl caused us to halt.
“Have a care!” she shrieked. “Do not enter there before me.” Then, going
in alone, she stood for a second against the door-way, looking around
the weird apartment. Afterwards she moved slowly to the electric-light
switches beside the door and manipulated them. The lights were switched
off one by one, and then on again.
“Now,” she said, “you can come forward in safety.”
We advanced, both much surprised at her action, when, turning suddenly,
she asked—
“Have you examined that wall yonder?” and she pointed to the left-hand
side of the room, near the writing-table.
The Chevalier replied that he had thoroughly examined it.
“Well, I would make a further examination,” she suggested. “Have some
chisels brought, and see if there is not another cavity behind that steel
paneling.”
This was eventually done. We standing by in wonder, when of a sudden, one
of the men working gave vent to an ejaculation of surprise, for behind a
piece of the steel panel that was found movable, though it fitted most
exactly, was revealed a large electric battery.
With a will the men worked when, to our amazement, we realised that
behind that wall were whole rows of electric batteries fully charged, and
all connected up, capable of developing an enormous current, in addition
to that from the electric-light installation, which could be turned on by
one of the light-switches.
“What does this mean?” Ansaldi inquired of the dead man’s daughter.
“Remain patient, and see,” was her response.
_Evidemment_ the wall was in sections, with the steel panels removable,
allowing the batteries to be charged or taken out for cleaning. Yet the
whole thing was so carefully concealed that on the previous occasion when
the walls had been examined nothing suspicious had been discovered.
One of the men, who had borrowed a pick-axe and was working with all his
might upon a panel which sounded hollow, succeeded in wrenching it open,
and as he did so his implement, twisting inward, broke up some delicate
glass, a quantity of which also fell out upon the concrete floor and
broke.
“Ah!” shrieked the girl, “Have a care! For Heaven’s sake have a care! See
what has been done!” and she bent to carefully pick up some fragments of
glass vacuum tube, while at the same moment I saw, remaining in the hole
in the wall now disclosed, part of a curious-looking apparatus, evidently
in connection with those rows upon rows of strong batteries.
“See!” cried the girl, in deepest distress. “It is broken—irretrievably
broken! The irresistible power has gone for ever, and the only man who
knew the complete secret of its construction is dead!”
“But what is it?” I asked in surprise, as I stood in wonder at her side,
gazing upon the heap of broken glass tubes.
“It is the secret which the British Government, suspecting that my father
held it, wished to secure,” she answered. “They thought, because he came
abroad, they having once refused to deal with him, that he intended to
dispose of it to a foreign Power. But they were wrong. My father came
here to live and to work in the secrecy of this strong-room, which he had
built to experiment in and further perfect his discovery. And my mother
as a widow, living under the assumed name of Mrs. Kennedy-Foster, resided
close by up at the Villa Luba.”
“The Signora Kennedy-Foster was his wife!” cried Ansaldi amazed. “What
was his discovery?”
“He had succeeded in doing what all scientists had hitherto failed to
accomplish, and what all scientists, ever since the discovery by Marconi
of wireless telegraphy, have been seeking to discover, namely, the means
by which the Hertzian rays could be concentrated and directed. My father
had discovered it, and on doing so was startled to find that an unseen
power, the irresistible potency of which was unsuspected by the world,
lay in his hands. Nothing could resist the deadly ray of electricity
emanating from this innocent-looking apparatus. Steel would melt like
water, the explosives on board the greatest battleship afloat could be
fired by simply directing the current upon it from any distance at which
the vessel could be seen. Whole armies could be wiped out in a flash by
the silent and unseen current, or the population of hostile cities swept
away like flies! Nothing could withstand it. Well, I much fear that my
father experimented with it in secret, and people lost their lives.
Several mysterious murders were committed in London and the assassin
never discovered. They were regarded as mysteries by Scotland Yard, until
a young scientist pointed out that they might have been caused by any one
who had actually discovered the mode of harnessing and directing Hertzian
rays. This aroused the suspicions of the police who, having some slight
evidence of my father’s discovery, denounced him as a most ferocious
criminal, who had sacrificed human life in the course of his experiments.
In fact, they feared him, and the Government, seized by panic, resolved,
at all hazards, to possess themselves of the terrible invention, rather
than allow it to go into the hands of any foreign Power. My father
offered it to the War Office, but having been denounced as a criminal,
the authorities refused to treat with him. Hence the later action of the
Home Secretary in demanding his arrest.”
“But why was he killed just at that time?” I asked eagerly, utterly
amazed at her revelations.
“He, unfortunately, had neglected to turn off the additional
electric-light current by this switch,” she explained. “When alone,
locked in this room experimenting, he would turn on all the current
possible, and from this delicate apparatus he had sufficient power
to annihilate an army. In the night my mother, passing as Mrs.
Kennedy-Foster, had been in the habit of visiting him disguised as an
old woman, bringing him in secret various electrical parts, which were
made for him in Milan and Paris. On the night of his death my mother had
visited him, and he had, no doubt, forgotten to turn off the switch,
therefore from the apparatus in its place of concealment there emanated
a deadly unseen ray which, as he seated himself in his writing-chair
over yonder, passed clean through him, causing a wound much resembling a
revolver-shot, and singeing his clothes. Again the same thing happened
in the case of Bruno, and again to Flugel, who was searching in order to
possess himself of the apparatus, with a sinister object. It is a great
escape for you all that neither of you has passed through the exact line
in which that fatal ray became directed, otherwise others of you would
certainly have fallen victims. See!” she added, pointing to a dark-brown
spot upon the concrete floor which the police had hitherto taken for a
bullet-mark. “This is the mark where the ray fell upon the concrete,
causing it to slowly crumble and decay. There is no danger now,” she
added, taking some of the secret apparatus from the cavity in the wall
and placing it upon the table. “The most intricate part—the part of which
I have no absolute knowledge and which was unknown to all save my dead
father—is the portion lying there broken.”
“Then the secret of this most deadly discovery is irretrievably lost—eh?”
asked the Chevalier, bending eagerly towards her.
“Yes. Happily for the world, or its possibilities in the hands of the
unscrupulous would surely have been terrible. Life or property would
never be secure,” she declared.
“And am I forbidden to divulge this to Scotland Yard?” asked the
Chevalier.
“Yes. I hold you both to your promise,” she said quickly. “The jewels you
discovered were my father’s, for he was a diamond merchant in Hatton
Garden before he took up electricity as a hobby. I shall not, however,
claim them, for I prefer that the London police should still remain in
the belief that I lost my life by drowning. It is true that I am in
possession of the greater part of my father’s secret, for, with Flugel, I
assisted him in the construction of his first satisfactory apparatus. But
I will never betray it, for in the interests of humanity I feel it is far
better that the terrible discovery of such means of destruction should be
lost to the world for ever.”
To-day, as I close this chapter of _mes souvenirs_, I have received a
letter from Mademoiselle Agnes, telling me that she has rejoined her
mother in Brussels, where they intend to live in future.
Madame is a real widow now. _Pauvre Madame!_ Recollections of her often
cross my mind. _Et Monsieur?_
Perhaps after all it is as well that the world has lost the advantage of
his terrible secret.
My life up here in beautiful Fiesole with Frau Staben is too _triste_.
I prefer more movement, and a mistress more _chic_. _Peugh!_ those
blouse-and-skirt Germans!
_Ah! oui._ I shall give notice to-day.
I am sick and tired of Firenze la Bella.