Kitabı oku: «The Mysterious Mr. Miller», sayfa 14
Chapter Thirty One
The Secret of the Villa Verde
The unexpected sight that met my eyes within that narrow stone passage was truly horrifying.
An oil lamp shed a faint light at the farther end of the narrow tunnel-like place, and revealed the body of a man lying in a heap in such a position that I saw, in an instant, that some tragedy had occurred.
Creeping forward I bent beside him and touched his hand. It was still warm, yet I saw across the stones a large dark pool – a pool of blood, and at the same moment discovered that it issued from an ugly knife-wound just over the heart.
He was a respectably dressed man of forty, robust, heavily built, with dark moustache and shaven chin. As I touched his hand, which lay helpless at his side, my fingers came into contact with something hard, and I found that strapped around his waist he carried a revolver.
Quickly I took it out, for I had no weapon myself, and at a glance saw that it was the regulation pattern as supplied to the agents of police.
The man who had been stabbed to the heart so unerringly was probably a detective who had been left in charge of the villa after the police had taken possession of the place. Hearing a summons at the door he had perhaps gone to open it, when the ready knife had struck him down, and the desperate trio had passed over his body and entered the villa to prosecute their mysterious object.
I listened. There was no sound. The intruders, whatever their object, were in the main building; for it seemed that this narrow passage merely gave entrance to the servants’ quarters. The place was an enormous, rambling one, built, as I afterwards found, by Prince Torlonia in the days of the Borgia Pope, once full of splendour and magnificence, but sadly neglected and degenerated in these modern days.
Again I examined the prostrate man, placing my hand upon his heart but failing to detect any movement. He was dead without a doubt.
Noiselessly I crept forward, my ears strained to catch every sound, my hand gripping the dead man’s revolver. If I were discovered I could now, at least, make a fight for life. The fearless way in which they had struck down the detective was sufficient to show me that they would hesitate at nothing.
Those were exciting moments, for at the end of the narrow stone passage I passed through a door, and found myself in a great dark chamber which seemed to be unfurnished. The faint grey light that struggled in through the barred windows was sufficient to allow me to see that it opened into a great square hall, around which was set a number of ancient high-backed chairs of the same epoch as the house itself. The rooms were lined with ancient tapestries falling to decay, and there was everywhere a damp mouldy smell as though that wing of the place had long been closed and uninhabited.
Passing along another corridor, I opened a door at the farther end and found myself at once in the modernised portion of the place, in a corridor where, upon the thick dark red carpet, my feet fell noiselessly, and where a candle which the intruders had probably lit was set upon a table.
Again I listened. I fancied I caught the sound of voices, but was not quite certain.
For some moments I remained there, holding my breath in hesitation. To search for them in that great place was full of danger and difficulty. And yet, having gone so far, I was determined that I would ascertain their object in coming there.
At last, reassuring myself that the voices I had heard were only sounds in my imagination, I went forward again through an open door into a fine long picture-gallery, well carpeted as was the corridor. At the end showed another faint light, for the men had, I now saw, lit a child’s night-light which they had probably brought with them.
In that portion of the house there was evidence of wealth and luxury everywhere. Nardini had probably spent a good deal of the public money upon embellishing that fine old place with its wonderful sculptured fireplaces and frescoed and gilt ceilings.
Still scarcely daring to breathe lest my presence be detected, I went forward again, until of a sudden voices, plain and unmistakable, broke upon my ear, causing me to halt suddenly and stand motionless as a statue.
They were in some room in the vicinity. But where? It was quite dark where I stood, but from a door slightly open at some distance before me shone a thin streak of faint light, evidently from a candle.
Dare I approach and peep within?
At first I hesitated, for the risk was very great, but at last summoning courage I moved across the thick carpet to the open door and peered in.
It was a great salon, I found, a huge, high-roofed place with old gilt furniture upholstered in red silk brocade and some marvellous buhl cabinets full of rare china and bric-à-brac. The place was in darkness, save for the single night-light placed upon a chair – the intruders fearing, of course, to ignite the lamps as the light would shine outside and perhaps attract attention.
The great salon led into an inner room, and in there I saw their moving figures by the light of two candles that had been put upon the carpet. They were conversing only in low whispers and seemed to be groping about the floor in the farther corner of the room, as though in search of something.
I slipped into the big salon, and creeping from table to chair, bending double so as to be concealed the whole time, I managed to approach near the door of the inner room, and took up a position where I could both observe their movements and overhear their words.
Now that I reflect upon my actions of that night, I see how utterly reckless of life I was. A single slip, a cough, a sneeze, and I should be lost. And yet, holding my breath, I knelt behind that big gilt armchair wherein the princes of the cinquecento had once sat, and watched those men at their mysterious work.
The heavy red plush curtains had been drawn across the long windows, and I recognised that the apartment was a library or study, for there were big cases filled with old parchment-covered volumes, and set before one of the windows was a big carved writing-table. As I watched, the doctor lit the gas-lamp upon it, removing the green silk shade so as to give a better light in the room, and as he did so the young man in the grey hat, who had thrown off his coat and was on his hands and knees on the floor, suddenly picked up something which he handed to Miller, saying in Italian with a grin: – “This looks a little suspicious, does it not, signore?” Miller took the object in his hand, and started. Then I saw that it was a narrow gold bangle – a woman’s bracelet. He took it to the light, and read some words inscribed in the inside. Then he stood in silence and wonder.
“What’s the matter?” inquired Gavazzi, in broken English. “What is it?”
His friend handed it to him without a word.
But the doctor only shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and handed back the bangle.
At that moment the truth flashed across my mind – the truth unknown to those men. In that room – if that were Nardini’s study – the mysterious discovery had been made. The body of an unknown young Englishwoman had been found there.
Was that bangle her property? Miller had certainly recognised the inscription upon it, and knew its owner.
I saw that he stood there with knit brows, still glancing at the bracelet, as though mystified.
“Come,” urged Gavazzi, in the brisk businesslike way which appeared to be natural to him. “We have no time to lose if we really intend to be successful.” And he went down upon his knees in the farther corner of the room, carefully feeling the surface of the blue velvet-pile carpet with his hands.
“We’d better have it up,” he declared at last. “I feel sure it’s somewhere in this corner.”
“Then you never actually saw it?” remarked Miller, a trifle disappointed.
“No. But it isn’t likely he would ever reveal to me where he kept his most private secrets. We were friends, intimate friends, but Giovanni Nardini was not the man to reveal to even his own father what he considered was a secret. See this!” And rising he walked to the oak-panelled wainscotting, touched a spring, and there was revealed a small secret door leading down to a short flight of steps in the wall somewhere into the cellars below – a secret mode of egress.
Again he went to a book-case, part of which proved false, and there on pulling it away revealed a large iron safe let into the wall.
“You see I am aware of some of his secrets. The police think they’ve searched the place, but they’ve never discovered either of these, that’s very certain,” he laughed.
Then, with the younger man, he proceeded to tear up the carpet, showing that the floor, unlike that in most Italian houses, was boarded and not of mosaic.
All three moved the furniture and gradually rolled the carpet back until they had half-uncovered the room. It was heavy, exciting work, and the perspiration rolled from their brows in great beads.
Once the chair behind which I was concealed moved a little and the wheel squeaked.
Miller’s quick ear caught the sound.
“Hark!” he cried, starting up. “What’s that?”
“A mouse,” exclaimed the doctor, laughing. “I heard it. Don’t worry yourself, my dear James, we are safe enough now with that guard out of the way.”
By the aid of the candles they examined every floorboard, trying each to see if it were movable. But they were all fast, and gave no sign of covering any place of concealment. They seemed to be in search of some cavity where something they believed was concealed.
With their knuckles they tapped all over the floor, but the sound emitted was exactly the same everywhere.
For a full hour they searched until suddenly the doctor, who had been indefatigable, while running his hand along the floor close to the oak wainscoting quite near the writing-table, made a discovery which instantly brought his companions upon their knees at his side.
“Look!” he cried. “See! There is a little piece of a different wood let in here – round like a large wooden stud! I wonder what it is?” He pressed it with his fingers, but to no avail. Therefore he took out his pocket-knife and with the end pressed down hard, throwing all his weight upon his hand. “It gives!” he cried excitedly. “There’s some spring behind it! You are stronger,” he exclaimed, turning to the younger man. “Try. Push down, so!”
Chapter Thirty Two
The Ticking of the Clock
The man with the grey hat took the pocket-knife, knelt over the spot, placed the knife in position, and pressed with all his might, when slowly a panel of the oak wainscoting about two feet square fell forward until it lay flat at right angles, disclosing a small locked door behind.
“This is it, no doubt!” cried the doctor, tugging at the door. It yielded, disclosing a secret cupboard.
A clock set upon a cabinet on the side of the room near where I was hidden was ticking. I had not noticed that sound before, and I thought it strange.
Miller held the candle while the others peered within. They all had their backs turned to me, and in my eagerness I bent forward in order to obtain a better view of what was concealed there.
“See!” cried Gavazzi. “I was not mistaken! I knew he had some secret hiding-place here. In this room he spent days, sometimes with me, but more often locked in here alone. Fortunately for us, the police know nothing of this.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Miller. “Let us see what his treasures are. I wonder what he would say if he saw us handling his secrets,” he added, with a short dry laugh. “The papers to-day say that he’s been seen in Bahia.”
Evidently Lucie had for some reason kept her knowledge of the fugitive’s death from her father.
“He was always methodical,” remarked the Italian. “And he seems to have carried out his methods here. Look at all these pigeon-holes! Made by himself, it seems, from their roughness. He dared not call in a carpenter. But he was of a very mechanical turn of mind, and probably constructed the whole thing himself.”
“It certainly would escape observation,” remarked the young man, examining the thick old panel of polished oak that had fallen back.
The doctor had drawn from one of the pigeon-holes a bundle of official-looking papers folded and secured with tape. He glanced at them with critical eye and cast them aside as being without interest. Another, and another, he drew out, but none of them attracted his attention for more than a few moments.
“They are merely secret information collected against various politicians and personages – information that he thought might one day be useful,” said Gavazzi.
“And profitable, eh?” added Miller, with a laugh.
“Quite so. We may find it equally profitable to us one day,” remarked his companion. “They will prove interesting reading when we have time to go through them.”
They were evidently in search of something else. Surely they had not deliberately sacrificed a man’s life to obtain those few dusty papers? What, I wondered, was contained in that precious packet which the owner of that villa had given me before his death?
Two large matrices of official seals Miller drew out and examined.
“Ah! yes!” exclaimed Gavazzi, “I suspected he had those. They are copies of the seal of the Ministry, and with them he fabricated quite a number of official documents. By means of those he sent an order to the convict prison at Volteria to release Rastelli, the forger, who was a friend of his. The Governor at once set him at liberty, and does not know to this day that the order was a forgery. Indeed, I believe that, for a consideration, he used to give out these orders.”
“And he made them himself!” Miller laughed. “A pretty profitable business!” And he turned over the brass seals in his hand, while the little clock ticked on.
“Of course. If he had only been satisfied and not attempted too much, he would have remained years in office without any suspicion falling upon him. I, however, knew something of what was in progress, and yet he defied me and absolutely refused to let me share. Well – you know the rest,” he laughed. “I didn’t see why he should take all the profits and I do the work.”
“But you managed to be pretty well paid,” his friend remarked.
“I merely looked after myself. Yet, if Giovanni had not been a fool and taken me into the affair when he knew that I’d discovered everything, we might have run the Ministry as a joint concern until – well, until the next Cabinet crisis or King Umberto dismissed us. It’s a pity – a thousand pities – he was such a fool. But you see he got unnerved, he was afraid of his enemies, and so he acknowledged his peculations by bolting.”
“A fatal mistake,” Miller declared. “I wonder he didn’t get across to Greece. The police couldn’t have touched him there. He knew the law of extradition quite as well as you or I. To go to South America is simply running into the arms of the police.”
“I question whether he is in America,” the doctor said, examining deliberately the contents of another of the pigeon-holes. “The report may have been circulated by the police themselves – as reports so often are – to put the fugitive off his guard. No, I should think that he is more likely in Paris, or Vienna, or Berlin. He could reach either capital by the through train from Rome. He probably put on a suit of workman’s clothes and travelled third-class with a stick and a bundle. That’s the safest way to get out of the country – don’t you think so? We’ve both done it more than once,” he laughed.
There was something distinctly humorous to me in the owner of the Manor at Studland travelling as an Italian labourer among the unwashed third-class passengers and passing the guards at the frontier with his worldly belongings tied up in a dirty handkerchief.
And yet that is a course very often adopted by the international thief as the safest way in which to pass from one country to another.
“Gran Dio!” ejaculated Gavazzi a moment later, as he held a small packet open in his hand. “Money! Look!”
Both men bent eagerly, and I saw that the doctor held in his hand a thick packet of yellow bank-notes secured by an elastic band – thousand-franc notes they were, and there could not be less than fifty of them.
“What good fortune!” cried Miller. “It was worth doing after all.”
“I told you it was. This was his secret bank. Probably there’s more inside.”
In an instant the three men tore out the contents of the pigeon-holes and scattered them upon the floor in their eagerness to secure what the dead man had hidden there.
“Here’s another lot!” exclaimed the young man, holding up a second packet, while a few minutes later Miller himself discovered two fat packets, each note for one thousand francs. A fourth packet was discovered containing English twenty-pound notes and some German paper money.
Those were exciting moments. The men scrambled and snatched the packets from each other, tearing them open in their fierce eagerness to ascertain whether they contained notes. In the eyes of all three was that terrible lust for gold that impels men to great crimes, that fierce passion that renders men unconscious of their actions.
Time after time smaller packets were discovered, which they thrust into their pockets uncounted.
There was wealth there – wealth that would place all three of them beyond the necessity of those subterfuges by which they had previously lived – an ill-gotten hoard of bank-notes which I calculated to be of the value of many thousands of English pounds sterling.
And I was witness of their unexpected good fortune, for which the poor unfortunate man in charge had been foully done to death.
Miller suddenly discovered a large packet of thousand-franc notes in the back of the cupboard and pocketed them – a packet double the size of the first – whereupon a fierce quarrel instantly ensued.
Both the doctor and the young man declared that the money should be properly divided, while Miller flatly refused.
Hot words arose – quick accusations and recriminations, the men raising their voices all unconsciously, when of a sudden something entirely unexpected occurred.
The men were silent in an instant – silent in awe.
The clock, hitherto unnoticed by them, had stopped ticking.
Chapter Thirty Three
Certain Persons are Inquisitive
The half-open door through which I had been watching the men’s mysterious movements, and the discovery of the fugitive’s hidden wealth, suddenly closed of its own accord, with the heavy clang of iron.
Besides startling me, it left me in semi-darkness in the great salon.
I heard them rush frantically towards it, trying to open it, but their efforts were unavailing. Loud imprecations escaped them, for they believed that some person had imprisoned them. If they succeeded in escaping they would certainly discover me, therefore my position was one of extreme peril.
But I recollected the strange ticking of that clock which had commenced when the secret cupboard had been opened. The ticking had now ceased, therefore the door had closed automatically upon the intruders. By some clever contrivance Nardini had connected his secret hiding-place with the door that had been strengthened and lined with steel, enamelled white to match the wood-work of the salon. By a clockwork arrangement the door would evidently close upon the inquisitive person who opened the cupboard at a certain time afterwards.
When the little clock standing upon the pearl-inlaid cabinet had suddenly broken the silence by ticking it had attracted my attention, but I quickly forgot it in watching the trio so narrowly. The study window was evidently strongly barred, as were all the windows of the ground floor of the villa, the bars being built into the wall outside the house in such a manner that they could only be filed through, an operation which would take considerable time even with proper tools.
They hammered upon the door and threw their weight upon it, but it did not budge. Evidently by the same mechanical contrivance several strong steel bolts had been shot into their sockets.
The trio at the very moment of their sudden acquisition of Nardini’s dishonestly obtained wealth had been entrapped.
“We’re discovered!” I heard Miller cry in English.
“Whoever has found us has locked us in!”
It never occurred to them that the cupboard and the door were connected, or that Nardini had invented such an ingenious contrivance in order to entrap any thief who might discover his secret.
“We must get out of this as quickly as possible!” Gavazzi exclaimed breathlessly. “Let’s make the division of the money afterwards.”
“The window!” suggested the younger man, but a rapid examination proved it to be too strongly barred.
I heard them within the room consulting with each other as to what could be done, and was amused at their chagrin, having discovered the dead man’s hoard only to be so unexpectedly imprisoned with the wealth upon them.
The two Italians showered fierce imprecations upon whoever had bolted them in, and vowed that the police should never take them alive. They knew, too well, the serious charge they would have to face, for they knew that the body of the detective left in charge would be discovered behind the side door.
A heavy piece of furniture was brought to play upon the study door, but the sound made as they battered with it revealed to them that they were endeavouring to break down iron.
“Hush!” cried Miller suddenly. “We mustn’t make a noise like that. There are probably contadini living in the vicinity, and it will awaken them.”
“Bah!” responded the doctor. “They’ll only believe that it’s a ghost. Here the contadini are most superstitious.”
“But the carabinieri are not,” remarked the young accomplice apprehensively. “My own idea is that we’ve been followed. I noticed a man in a dark suit looking very hard at us when we left the train.”
“What kind of man?” the doctor inquired quickly.
“Looked like an Inglese signore, rather tall, about thirty, and wore a dark suit.”
“Why in the name of Fate didn’t you mention it to us at the time?” cried Miller. “An Inglese! Who could he possibly be? Have you ever seen him before?”
“Never.”
“Then he may have followed us here and alarmed the carabinieri!” gasped the doctor. “We must escape – before they arrest us!”
I saw that the young thief had noticed me when I had followed them out into the darkness from the station at Tivoli. He would therefore recognise me if we met again.
They would, no doubt, make a desperate attempt at escape. Yet should I raise the alarm and call the police? Was it policy on my part to do so? If Lucie’s father were arrested, Lucie herself must surely be implicated, and perhaps through Gordon-Wright my own dear love might also find herself in the criminal’s dock.
The mystery had grown so complicated and so inexplicable that I feared to take any step towards the denunciation of the thieves.
My only policy was to wait and to watch.
I recollected Ella’s appeal to me to remain silent concerning the scoundrel under whose banal thrall she had so mysteriously fallen, and I feared that if I made my statement it might lead to the fellow’s arrest.
What, I wondered, was the true explication of the mystery of the unknown girl being found in that room wherein the three thieves were entrapped? Who was she? What did Lucie know concerning her?
A great fear possessed me that the police, in searching, would discover Lucie in Leghorn, though in Italy the detectives always find more difficulty in tracing foreigners than the Italians themselves. Every Italian, when he moves his habitation even from one street to the other, is compelled to give notice to the police. But not so the large foreign floating population who are for ever moving over the face of what is essentially a tourists’ country.
Another great crash upon the door awakened me to a sense of my peril, should these men succeed in escaping. With as little compunction as they had struck down the guard, they would, I knew, strike me down, and even though I had a revolver they were three to one. Besides, a pistol is no use against a knife in the hands of such an expert as the young thief in the grey hat whom they had so swiftly taken into their confidence.
With regret that they had seized that large amount in money, and yet in the hope that they might regain their liberty and remain for some time longer – at least until I had learned the truth concerning my well-beloved – I crept softly back along the great salon, feeling my way before me with my hands. So thick was the carpet that my feet fell noiselessly, and my escape was rendered all the more easy by the noise the men were making by trying to batter down the door.
Swiftly I retraced my steps along the corridors, through the picture-gallery and the older wing of the great house, until I came to the long dim stone corridor. I shuddered as I passed into it, for there lay still undiscovered, and in the same position in which the assassins had left it, the body of the unfortunate police agent who had been left in charge of the fugitive’s property which had been seized by the Government. On tiptoe I approached it, and bending, replaced the revolver.
Then with a final glance at the evidence of a horrible deed – a deed committed for the lust of gold – I crept out into the early morning air which blew fresh and cool from over the mountains, causing the leaves of the vines to rustle while a loose sun-shutter creaked mournfully as it swung to and fro overhead.
Retracing my steps through the vineyard I gained the high-road, when the fancy took me to ascend to the back of the villa and listen if I could hear the imprisoned intruders.
Hardly had I reached the top of the hill when the truth was revealed to me, as I expected. Their voices could be distinctly heard, for one of those strongly barred windows that looked out upon the roadway was that of the room wherein the absconding ex-Minister had concealed the money he had filched from the public purse.
I halted in the darkness beneath the window, trying to catch the drift of the conversation, and even while I stood there one of them pulled aside the heavy curtains and allowed a stream of light to fall across the roadway. It was surely an injudicious action, yet they could not examine the bars without so doing.
Standing back in the shadow I saw them open the window and feel the strength of that thick prison-like grating, the defence in those turbulent days when the place had been a miniature fortress.
“Without a file, it’s impossible to break them,” declared Gavazzi, in a tone of deep disappointment. “But we must get out somehow. Every moment’s delay places us in graver peril. What shall we do?”
I saw that their position was utterly hopeless. They had been caught like rats in a trap. Therefore I crept along under the old stone wall of the villa and made my way down the hill in the direction of where the electric street lamps of the town of Tivoli were shining.
It was, I saw by my watch, already half-past two.
After walking near half a mile, at a bend in the road two carabineers in uniform, with their guns slung upon their shoulders, emerged suddenly upon me and called me to halt.
Imagine my confusion. I held my breath, and perhaps it was fortunate for me that the darkness hid the pallor of my face.
“Who are you?” demanded one of the rural guards in Italian, with a strong northern accent. He was Piedmontese, I think.
“I am an Englishman,” I answered, quite frankly, but making a strenuous effort to remain calm.
“So I hear by your speech,” the man replied gruffly. “And what are you doing here? The English don’t usually walk about here at this hour?”
“I’ve walked from Palestrina, and lost myself in the darkness. Is that Tivoli down yonder?”
“Yes it is. But what’s your name?” he inquired, as though my quick reply had aroused his suspicions. I regretted my words next instant. I intended to mislead the man, but he evidently did not believe me. I saw that if I was not now perfectly frank I might be arrested on suspicion and detained in the carabineer barracks until morning.
I recognised into what deadly peril my intrepidity had now led me. If they detained me the discovery of the tragedy and robbery at the Villa Verde would certainly be made, and I should find myself implicated with those three assassins. The circumstantial evidence against me would be very strong, and it might be many months before I regained my freedom. In such circumstances I should, alas! lose my Ella for ever!
“My name is Godfrey Leaf, native of London,” was my reply.
“And what brings you here? You certainly haven’t walked from Palestrina. You’d be more dusty than you are.”
“Of course he would,” remarked the man’s companion, shifting his carbine to his other shoulder. “He’s lying.”
“Well,” I said, feigning to be insulted by the fellow’s inquiries, “why should I tell you my business? It is no affair of yours, surely. Do you think I’m an assassin, or on my way to rob some contadini of his poultry?”
“We can never tell a man by his dress. Besides, how are we to know who you are – that you are really the person you say?”
I was silent. His question was an awkward one. But suddenly I recollected.
“Well, perhaps this will convince you that I’m a respectable person, eh?” And taking from my pocket-book my Italian revolver licence I handed it to him. He opened it suspiciously, then said; “Come farther down with us, to that light, and let’s have a good look at you.”
Now an Italian licence to carry a revolver is a very different document from that in England. It is issued only in very rare cases by the police themselves to responsible persons who first have to show that they are in danger of their lives from vendetta or some other cause, and that to carry a weapon is for them personal defence. Upon the licence is the minute police description of the person to whom it is issued, as well as his signature, while the document is also countersigned by the Prefect of the city whence it is issued. It is therefore the best of all identification papers.
Obeying the guards, I walked with them down to the light at the town gateway where they read the official permit, closely scrutinising me as they reached each individual description, colour of hair and eyes, shape of nose, forehead and head, and the dozen other small details, all of which they found tallied with the licence.
