"When you return, watch the movements of your so-called friend Seton,
and you will perhaps meet his friend. When you do, write to me here,
and leave him to me." And he replaced the photograph in the drawer, but
as he did so my quick eye detected that within was a playing card, the
seven of clubs, with some letters written upon it very similar to those
upon the card in my pocket. I mentioned it, but he merely smiled and
quickly closed the drawer.
Yet surely the fact of the cipher being in his possession was more than
strange.
"Do you ever travel away from Lucca?" I inquired at last, recollecting
how I had met him at Blair's table in Grosvenor Square, but not at all
satisfied regarding the discovery of the inscribed card.
"Seldom--very seldom," he answered. "It is so difficult to obtain
permission, and then it is only given to visit relatives. If there is
any monastery in the vicinity of our destination we must beg our bed
there, in preference to remaining in a private house. The rules sound
irksome to you," he added with a smile. "But I assure you they do not
gall us in the least. They are beneficial to man's happiness and
comfort, all of them."
Again I turned the conversation, endeavouring to ascertain some facts
concerning the dead man's mysterious secret, which I somehow felt
convinced was known to him. But all to no avail. He would tell me
nothing.
All he explained was that the reason of the appointment in Lucca that
evening was a very strong one, and that if alive the millionaire would
undoubtedly have kept it.
"He was in the habit of meeting me at certain intervals either in the
Church of San Frediano, or at other places in Lucca, in Pescia, or
Pistoja," the monk said. "We generally varied the place of meeting from
time to time."
"And that, of course, accounts for his mysterious absences from home," I
remarked, for his movements were frequently very erratic, so that even
Mabel was unaware of his address. He was generally supposed, however,
to be in the North of England or in Scotland. No one had any idea that
he travelled so far afield as Central Italy.
The monk's statement also made it plain that Blair had some very strong
motive for keeping these frequent appointments. Fra Antonio, his secret
friend, had undoubtedly also been his most intimate and most trusted
one.
Why had he kept this strange and mysterious friendship from us all--even
from Mabel?
I gazed upon the Italian's hard, sunburnt face and tried to penetrate
the mystery written there, but in vain. No man can keep a secret like
the priest of the confessional, or the monk in his cell.
"And what is your intention, now that poor Blair is dead?" I asked at
length.
"My intention, like yours, is to discover the truth," he replied. "It
will be a difficult matter, no doubt, but I trust that we shall, in the
end, succeed, and that you will regain the lost secret."
"But may not Blair's enemies make use of it in the meantime?" I
queried.
"Ah! of course we cannot prevent that," answered Fra Antonio. "We have
to look to the future, and allow the present to take care of itself.
You, in London, will do your best to discover whether Blair has met with
foul play and at whose hands, while I, here in Italy, will try to find
out whether there was any further motive than the theft of the secret."
"But if the little chamois-bag had been stolen, would not Blair himself
have missed it?" I suggested. "He was quite conscious for several
hours before he died."
"He might have forgotten it. Men's memories often fail them completely
in the hours preceding death."
Night had fallen before the great wooden clappers, used to arouse the
monks to go to prayers at two o'clock in the morning, resounded through
the cloister as a reminder that I, a stranger, must take my departure.
Fra Antonio rose, lit a great old brass lantern, and conducted me along
those silent corridors, out across the small piazza and down the
hillside to the main road which lay straight and white in the darkness.
Then, having directed me on the road, he grasped my hand in his big
palm, rough through hard toil at his patch of garden, and said--
"Rely upon me to do my best. I knew poor Blair--yes, knew him better
than you did, Signor Greenwood. I knew, too, something of his
remarkable secret, and therefore I am aware how strange and how
mysterious are all the circumstances. I shall work on here, making
inquiries, while you return to London and pursue yours. I would,
however, make the suggestion to you that if you meet Dick Dawson strike
up a friendship with him, and with Dolly. They are a strange pair, but
friendship with them may be profitable."
"What!" I exclaimed. "Friendship with the man whom you declare was one
of Blair's bitterest enemies?"
"And why not? Is it not diplomacy to be well received in the enemy's
camp? Recollect that your own stake in this affair is the greatest of
any one's. The secret is bequeathed to you--the secret of Burton
Blair's millions!"
"And I intend to recover it," I declared firmly.
"I only hope you will, signore," he said in a voice which to me sounded
full of a double meaning. "I only hope you will."
Then wishing me "_Addio, e buona fortuna_," Fra Antonio, the Capuchin
and man of secrets, turned and left me standing in the dark highway.
Hardly had I advanced fifty yards before a short dark figure loomed out
from the shadow of some bushes, and by the voice that hailed me I knew
it to be old Babbo, whom I had believed had grown tired of awaiting me.
He had, however, evidently followed us from the church, and seeing us
enter the monastery had patiently awaited my return.
"Has the signore discovered what he wished?" inquired the old Italian,
quickly.
"Some of it, not all," was my rejoinder. "You saw that monk whom I
met?"
"Yes. Since you have been in the convent I have made some inquiries,
and find that the most popular Capuchin in the whole of Lucca is Fra
Antonio, and that his charitableness is well known. It is he who begs
from door to door through the city for contesimi and lire in order that
the poor shall have their daily soup and bread. Report accredits him
with great wealth, which on entering the Order of the Capuchins he made
over as a gift to the fraternity. He is also known to have a friend to
whom he is very much attached--an Englishman who has one eye so badly
injured that he is known by the townspeople as the Ceco."
"The Ceco!" I cried. "What have you discovered regarding him?"
"The keeper of a little cheese-shop close to the gate by which we left
the city proved very communicative. Like all her class, she seemed to
greatly admire our friend the Cappuccino. She told me of the frequent
visits of this one-eyed Englishman who had lived so long in Italy that
he was almost an Italian. The Ceco was in the habit, it seemed, of
staying at the old albergo, the _Croce di Malto_, sometimes accompanied
by a young and very pretty lady, his daughter."
"Where do they come from?"
"Oh! I've not yet been able to discover that," was Babbo's reply. "It
seems, however, that the constant visits of the Ceco to the monastery
have aroused the public interest. The people say that Fra Antonio
nowadays is not so active in his searches after money for the poor now
he is too much occupied with his English friend."
"And the girl?"
"It is evident that her beauty is remarkable, even in Lucca, this city
of pretty girls," answered the old man with a grin. "She speaks Tuscan
perfectly, and could, they say, easily pass for an Italian. Her back is
not straight like those Inglese one sees in the Via Tornabuoni--if the
signore will pardon the criticism," the old fellow added apologetically.
This proof that Dick Dawson, against whom the monk had warned Burton
Blair, was actually the friend of the Capuchin brother rendered the
situation more puzzling and more complicated. I recognised in these
frequent consultations a secret plot against my friend, a conspiracy
which had apparently been carried to a successful issue.
The girl Dolly, whoever she was, had of course never been to the
monastery, but she had evidently been in Lucca as a participator in the
plot to obtain Burton Blair's valuable secret, the secret that was now
mine by law.
We there and then resolved to make inquiries at the _Croce di Malto_,
that antique old hostelry in a narrow side street peculiarly Italian,
and which still prefers to be designated as an albergo, in preference to
the modern name of hotel.
Dick Dawson, known as the Ceco, was undoubtedly in London, but with the
connivance and aid of that crafty and ingenious man of secrets, who had
so cleverly endeavoured to establish with me a false friendship.
Was it actually this man who hid his evil deeds beneath his shabby
religious habit who was responsible for the death of poor Blair and the
mysterious disappearance of that strange little object which was his
most treasured possession. I somehow felt convinced that such was the
actual truth.