"WORSE THAN DEATH."
The tall old fellow looked at me with his grey eyes and shook his head.
"Burton Blair knew rather too much," he answered evasively. "He had, it
seemed, been raised to chief mate of the _Annie Curtis_, when I left
her, and Poldo, the man who had held dukes and cardinals and other great
men to ransom, worked patiently under him. Then after a bad go of fever
Poldo died, and strangely enough gave--so Blair declared--the pack of
cards with the secret into his hands. Dicky Dawson, however, who was
also on board as bo'sun, and who had lived half his life on Italian
brigs in the Adriatic, declares that this story is untrue, and that
Blair stole the little bag containing the cards from beneath Poldo's
pillow half an hour before he died. That, however, may be the truth, or
a lie, yet the facts remain, that Poldo must have let out some portion
of his secret in the delirium of the fever and that the little cards
passed into Blair's possession. Three weeks after the Italian's death,
Blair, on landing at Liverpool, carrying with him the cards and the
snap-shot photograph, set out on that very long and fatiguing journey up
and down all the roads in England, in order to find me, and learn from
me the key to the secret of the outlaws which I held."
"And when at last he found you, what then?"
"He alleged solemnly that Bruno had given it to him as a dying gift, and
that his reason for seeking me was because the old outlaw had, before he
died, requested to see the photograph from his sea-chest, and looking
upon it for a long time, had said to himself reflectively in Italian,
`There lives in that house the only man who knows my secret.' For that
reason Blair evidently secured the picture after the Italian's death.
On arrival here he showed me the cards, and promised me a thousand
pounds if I would reveal the Italian's confidences. As the man was
dead, I saw no reason to withhold them, and in exchange for a promise to
pay the amount I told him what he wanted to know, and among other
matters explained the rearrangement of the cards, so that he could
decipher them. The key to the cipher I had learnt on that festival when
I had discovered Poldo writing upon a pack of cards a message, evidently
intended for the Cardinal himself at Rome, for I have since established
the fact that the outlaw and the ecclesiastic were in frequent but
secret communication prior to the latter's death."
"But this man Dawson must have profited enormously by the revelation
made by Blair," I remarked. "They seem to have been most intimate
friends."
"Of course he profited," Hales replied. "Blair, possessing this
remarkable secret, went in deadly fear of Dicky, the bo'sun, who might
declare, as he had already done, that he had stolen it from the dying
man. He was well aware that Dawson was an unscrupulous sailor of the
very worst type, therefore he considered it a very judicious course, I
suppose, to go into partnership with him and assist in the exploration
of the secret. But poor Blair must have been in the fellow's hands all
through although it is plain that the gains Blair made were enormous,
while those of Dicky have been equal, although it seems probable that
the latter has lived in absolute obscurity."
"Dawson feared to come to England," Reggie remarked.
"Yes," answered the old man. "There was a rather ugly incident in
Liverpool a few years ago--that's the reason."
"There is no negative evidence regarding the actual gift of the pack of
cards to Blair by this reformed outlaw, is there!" I inquired.
"None whatever. For my own part I believe that Poldo gave them to Blair
together with instruction to return ashore and find me, because he had
showed him many little kindnesses during repeated illnesses. Poldo, on
giving up his evil ways, had become religious and used to attend
sailors' Bethels and missions when ashore, while Blair was, as you know,
a very God-fearing man for a sailor. When I recollect all the
circumstances, I believe it was only natural that Poldo should give the
dead Cardinal's secret into the hands of his best friend."
"The spot indicated is near Lucca in Tuscany," I remarked. "You say
that this outlaw, Poldo Pensi, had been there and made an investigation.
What did he find?"
"He found what the Cardinal had told him he would find. But he never
explained to me its nature. All he would tell was that the secret would
render its possessor a very wealthy man--which it certainly did in
Blair's case."
"The connexion of the Church between the late Cardinal Sannini and Fra
Antonio, the Monk of Lucca, is strange," I observed. "Is the monk, I
wonder, in possession of the secret? He certainly had some connexion
with the affair, as shown by his constant consultations with the man
Dawson."
"No doubt," remarked Reggie, turning over the little cards idly. "We've
now got to discover the exact position of both men, and at the same time
prevent this fellow Dawson from obtaining too firm a hold on Mabel
Blair's fortune."
"Leave that to me," I said confidently. "For the present our line of
action is quite clear. We must investigate the spot on the bank of the
Serchio and discover what is hidden there." Then turning to Hales, I
added, "In the record it is, I notice, distinctly directed `First find
the old man who lives at the house by the crossways.' What does that
mean? Why is that direction given?"
"Because I suppose that when the record was written upon these cards I
was the only other person having any knowledge of the Cardinal's
secret--the only person, too, possessing the key to the cipher."
"But you affected ignorance of all this at first," I said, still viewing
the old fellow with some suspicion.
"Because I was not certain of your _bona-fides_," he laughed quite
frankly. "You took me by surprise, and I was not inclined to show my
hand prematurely."
"Then you have really told us all you know?" Reggie said.
"Yes, I know no more," he replied. "As to what is contained at the spot
indicated in the record, I am quite ignorant. Remember that Blair has
paid me justly, even more than he stipulated, but as you are well aware
he was a most reserved man concerning his own affairs, and left me in
entire ignorance."
"You can give us no further information regarding this one-eyed man who
seems to have been Blair's partner in the extraordinary enterprise?"
"None, except that he's a very undesirable acquaintance. It was Poldo
who nicknamed him `The Ceco.'"
"And the monk who calls himself Fra Antonio?"
"I know nothing of him--never heard of any such person."
It was upon the tip of my tongue to inquire whether the old man had a
son, and if that son's name was Herbert, recollecting, as I did, that
tragic midnight scene in Mayvill Park. Yet, fortunately perhaps, I was
prompted to remain silent, preferring to conceal my knowledge and to
await developments of the extraordinary situation.
Still a fierce, mad jealousy was gnawing at my heart. Mabel, the calm,
sweet girl I loved so well, and whose future had been entrusted to me,
had, like so many other girls, committed the grievous error of falling
in love with a common man, rough, uncouth, and far beneath her station.
Love in a cottage--about which we hear so much--is all very well in
theory, just as is the empty-pocket-light-heart fallacy, but in these
modern days the woman habituated to luxury can never be happy in the
four-roomed house any more than the man who gallantly marries for love
and foregoes his inheritance.
No. Each time I recollected that young ruffian's sneers and threats,
his arrogance and his final outburst of murderous passion, which had
been so near producing a fatal termination to my well-beloved, my blood
boiled. My anger was aflame. The fellow had escaped, but within myself
I determined that he should not go scot-free.
And yet, when I recollected, it seemed as though Mabel were utterly and
irresistibly in that man's power, even though she had attempted
defiance.
We remained with Hales and his wife for another hour learning few
additional facts except from a word that the old lady let drop. I
ascertained that they actually had a son whose name was Herbert, but
whose character was none too good.
"He was in the stables at Belvoir," his mother explained when I made
inquiry of him. "But he left nearly two years ago, and we haven't seen
him since. He writes sometimes from various places and appears to be
prospering."
The fellow was, therefore, as I had surmised from his appearance, a
horsekeeper, a groom, or something of that kind.
It was already half-past seven when we arrived back at King's Cross, and
after a hasty chop at a small Italian restaurant opposite the station,
we both drove to Grosvenor Square, in order to explain to Mabel our
success in the solution of the cipher.
Carter, who admitted us, knew us so well that he conducted us straight
upstairs to the great drawing-room, so artistically lit with its shaded
electric lights placed cunningly in all sorts of out-of-the-way corners.
Upon the table was a great old punch-bowl, full of splendid Gloire de
Dijon roses, which the head gardener sent with the fruit from the house
at Mayvill daily. Their arrangement was, I knew, by the hand of the
woman whom for years I had secretly admired and loved. Upon a side
table was a fine panel photograph of poor Burton Blair in a heavy silver
frame, and upon the corner his daughter had placed a tiny bow of crape
to honour the dead man's memory. The great house was full of those
womanly touches that betrayed the sweet sympathy of her character and
the calm tranquillity of her life.
Presently the door opened, and we both rose to our feet, but instead of
the bright, sunny-hearted girl with the musical voice and merry, open
face, there entered the middle-aged bearded man in gold-rimmed glasses,
who was once the bo'sun of the barque _Annie Curtis_ of Liverpool, and
afterwards had been the secret partner of Burton Blair.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he exclaimed, bowing with that forced veneer
of polish he sometimes assumed. "I am very pleased to welcome you here
in my late friend's house. I have, as you will perceive, taken up my
quarters here in accordance with the terms of poor Blair's will, and I
am pleased to have this opportunity of again meeting you."
The fellow's cool impudence took us both entirely aback. He seemed so
entirely confident that his position was unassailable.
"We called to see Miss Blair," I explained. "We were not aware that you
were about to take up your residence here quite so quickly."
"Oh, it is best," he assured us. "There are a great many matters in
connexion with Blair's wide interests that require immediate attention,"
and as he was speaking, the door again opened and there entered a
dark-haired woman of about twenty-six, of medium height, rather showily
dressed in a black, low-cut gown, but whose countenance was of a rather
common type, yet, nevertheless, somewhat prepossessing.
"My daughter, Dolly," explained the one-eyed man. "Allow me to
introduce you," and we both gave her rather a cold bow, for it seemed
that they had both made their abode there, and taken over the management
of the house in their own hands.
"I suppose Mrs. Percival still remains?" I inquired after a few
moments, on recovering from the shock at finding the adventurer and his
daughter were actually in possession of that splendid mansion which half
London admired and the other half envied--the place of which numerous
photographs and descriptions had appeared in the magazines and ladies'
journals.
"Yes, Mrs. Percival is still in her own sitting-room. I left her there
five minutes ago. Mabel, it seems, went out at eleven o'clock this
morning and has not returned."
"Not returned," I exclaimed in quick surprise. "Why not?"
"Mrs. Percival seems to be very upset. Fears something has happened to
her, I think."
Without another word I ran down the broad staircase with its crystal
balustrade and, tapping at the door of the room, set apart for Mrs.
Percival, and announcing my identity, was at once allowed admittance.
The instant the prim elderly widow saw me she sprang to her feet in
terrible distress, crying--
"Oh, Mr. Greenwood, Mr. Greenwood! What can we do? How can we treat
these terrible people? Poor Mabel left this morning and drove in the
brougham to Euston Station. There she gave Peters this letter,
addressed to you, and then dismissed the carriage. What can it possibly
mean?"
I took the note she handed me and tremblingly tore it open, to find a
few hurriedly scribbled lines in pencil upon a sheet of notepaper, as
follows:--
"Dear Mr. Greenwood,--You will no doubt be greatly surprised to learn
that I have left home for ever. I am well aware that you entertain for
me as high a regard and esteem as I do for you, but as my secret must
come out, I cannot remain to face you of all men. These people will
hound me to death, therefore I prefer to live in secret beyond the reach
of their taunts and their vengeance than to remain and have the finger
of scorn pointed at me. My father's secret can never become yours,
because his enemies are far too wily and ingenious. Every precaution
has been taken to secure it against all your endeavours. Therefore, as
your friend I tell you it is no use grinding the wind. All is hopeless!
Exposure means to me a fate worse than death! Believe me that only
desperation has driven me to this step because my poor father's cowardly
enemies and mine have triumphed. Yet at the same time I ask you to
forget entirely that any one ever existed of the name of the ill-fated,
unhappy and heartbroken Mabel Blair."
I stood with the open, tear-stained letter in my hand absolutely
speechless.