Kitabı oku: «The Red Room», sayfa 8

Chapter Fifteen
A Man Deceives a Woman

The story told me by the bald-headed Italian hotel-keeper was that another man had usurped my place!

He said that Mrs Holford, accompanied by her husband, had arrived at about seven o’clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, remained there the day, and had left by the express for Rome at five o’clock that same evening.

“You don’t believe it, sir!” the man exclaimed with some warmth. “Well, here is the gentleman’s signature!” And he showed me upon a printed slip, whereon hotel visitors in Italy write their names according to the police regulations, boldly inscribed in a firm hand, “Mr and Mrs Henry Holford. Profession, automobile engineer. Domicile, London. British subject.”

I stared at the words utterly confounded. Somebody had assumed my identity! Yet how was that possible with Mabel present?

“What kind of man was madame’s husband?” I inquired, while my sister-in-law stood by astounded.

“He was slightly older than yourself, sir, with a moustache turning grey.”

Surely it could not be that arch-scoundrel Kershaw Kirk!

“Was he about fifty, and rather thin?”

“Yes,” replied the hôtelier. “He spoke Italian very well; indeed, with scarcely any accent.”

My suspicion at once fell upon Kirk. Yet how could he so impose upon Mabel as to be allowed to pass as her husband? She had never before spoken to the fellow, and had, I knew, held him in instinctive dislike.

“They were out all yesterday morning driving up to Fiesole,” he added.

“You don’t happen to know to which hotel they’ve gone in Rome?” I asked.

“No. There is a telegram here for madame. It arrived half an hour after their departure. They would leave no word with the hall-porter regarding the forwarding of letters.”

“I am her husband,” I said, “and that telegram is evidently mine, which has been delayed in transmission, as messages so often are in this country. As her husband, I have a right to open it, I suppose.”

“I regret, sir, that I cannot allow that,” said the man. “You have given me no proof that you are madame’s husband.”

“But I am!” I cried. “This lady here is my wife’s sister, and will tell you.”

“Yes,” declared the girl, “this is Harry, my brother-in-law. The other man, whoever he may be, is an impostor.”

The short, bald-headed Italian in his long frock-coat, grew puzzled. He was faced by a problem. Therefore, after some further declarations on my part, he handed me the message, and I found, as I had expected, it was my own, which, unfortunately, had never reached her to reassure her.

Of course, I was not certain that Mabel’s companion was actually Kirk. Indeed, as I reflected, I grew to doubt whether she would accept any word he told her as the truth. Yet whatever the story related about myself to her it must be a strange and dramatic one, that it should induce her to travel across Europe in company with a stranger.

I had never had the slightest reason to doubt Mabel’s fidelity. She had always been a good, honest and true wife to me, and our strong affection was mutual. Indeed, few men and women led more blissful, even lives than we had done. Thoroughly understanding each other’s temperaments, we were content in each other’s affection.

No, even though this man might tell me this astounding story, I refused to give it credence. The grey-moustached stranger, whoever he might be, was a scoundrel bent upon entrapping my wife, and had done so by relating some fictitious story about myself.

This theory I expounded to her young sister Gwen as we sat at our coffee half an hour later. We had resolved to rest until eleven, when an express left for Rome. I intended to follow her and rescue her from the hands of those who were most certainly conspirators.

More mystified than ever, we therefore travelled south to the Eternal City, arriving there in the early hours of the next morning, and going to the Grand Hotel, which was full to overflowing, the Roman season having already commenced.

To find my beloved wife was now my sole aim. I thought naught of the startling mystery of Sussex Place, or of the strange identity of the false Professor. I had abandoned the inquiry in order to recover from peril the woman I loved so dearly.

The young girl, my companion, was beside herself with fear, dreading what had occurred; while I myself became more and more puzzled as to the motive for inveigling Mabel abroad. She had not the slightest connection with the secret tragedy; she was, indeed, in ignorance of it all. For what reason, therefore, was she being misled, and why, oh, why, did she allow this perfect stranger to pose as myself?

I hardly slept at all that night, having searched all the published visitors’ lists in vain, and as early as seven o’clock next morning I started upon a tour of the hotels to make personal inquiry. At the Russia, the Modern, the Continental, the Milan, and other well-known houses of that class I conned the names of the visitors for my own, but though I was occupied the whole day upon the task, snatching a hasty luncheon at a little trattoria I knew just behind the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, all was, alas! in vain.

Part of the time Mabel’s sister was with me, until she grew tired, and returned alone to the hotel in a cab.

Earlier in the day I had telegraphed to Pelham to inquire whether Mabel had sent me any message at home, but the reply came that neither telegram nor letter had been received.

Though there seemed no connection whatever between the tragedy in Sussex Place and my wife’s flight, yet I could not help suspecting that there was, and that my apparent abandonment was due to the subtle, satanic influence of my mysterious neighbour. I was now all the more anxious to condemn him to the police. The remains of the poor Professor had been cremated in his own furnace, and by the blackguardly hands of the assassin.

Yet, before I could raise the finger of denunciation, I had to discover the fellow’s whereabouts, and this seemed a task impossible to accomplish. I had kept my eye upon the Times daily in the course of my quick journeys during that most eventful week, but no advertisement had appeared.

Next day, and the next, I spent alternately searching the hotels and idling in the Corso, on the Pincian, among the tourists in the Forum, or in the broad Piazza Colonna, the hub of Roman life. Among the hosts of foreigners who walked and drove in the Corso at the hour of the passeggiata, my eyes, and those of my bright little companion, were ever eager to find my dear wife’s handsome face.

But we saw her not. She and the man posing as myself had entirely and completely disappeared.

I sought counsel of the Questore, or chief of police, who, on hearing that I was in search of my wife, ordered the register of foreigners in Rome to be searched. But two days later he informed me with regret that the name of Holford did not appear.

In face of that my only conclusion was that, after leaving Florence, they had suddenly changed the course of their flight.

Their flight! Why had Mabel fled from me, after speeding so swiftly to meet me? Ay, that was the crucial question.

Late one afternoon I was standing upon the Pincian, leaning upon the balustrade of that popular promenade of the Romans, and watching the crowd of winter idlers who, in carriage and afoot, were taking the fresh, bright air. I had been there every day, hoping against hope either to recognise Mabel or the man Kirk among the crowd of wealthy cosmopolitans who thronged the hillside.

Before me moved the slow procession of all sorts and conditions of carriages, from the gaudily-coloured, smart motor-car of the young Italian elegant to the funereal carozza of the seedy marchesa, or the humble vettura of the tweed-skirted “Cookite.” Behind showed the soft grey rose of the glorious afterglow with the red roofs, tall towers and domes of the Eternal City lying deep below. Against the sky stood the tall cypresses – high, gloomy, sombre – and over all spread that light film of mist that rises from old Tiber when the dusk is gathering.

The scene was, perhaps, one of the most picturesque in all Italy, even surpassing that from the Piazza Michelangelo in Firenze, but to me, hipped and bewildered as I was, the chatter in a dozen tongues about me was irritating; and I turned my back upon the crowd, leaning my elbows upon the stone parapet, and gazing over the gay, light-hearted capital whence at that moment came up the jangling of bells started by the great bell at St. Peter’s and echoing from every church tower, the solemn call to evening prayer that is, alas! ever unheeded. In modern Italy only the peasant is pious; in the alto mondo religion is unfashionable.

Perhaps you have driven in the Corso, that narrow and most disappointing of thoroughfares, gossiped in the English tea-shop at five o’clock, taken your vermouth and bitters in the Aregno, and climbed the Pincian to see the sunset. If you have, then you know that life, you recognise amid that crowd faces of both sexes that you have seen at Aix, at Vichy, at Carlsbad, at Ostend, or in the rooms at Monte Carlo, many of them vicious, sin-hardened faces, careless, indolent, blasé; few, alas! with the freshness of youth or the open look indicated by pure-mindedness.

On the Pincian you have the light-hearted thoughtless world which exists only to be amused, the world which laughs at grim poverty because it obtains its wherewithal from the labours of those poor, underpaid and sweated millions in other countries who must work in order that these few favoured ones may indulge in their extravagances.

Sick to death, disappointed, worn out by a continual vigilance and with a deep anxiety gnawing ever at my heart-strings, I had turned from the scene, and was gazing across into the rose-tinted mists, when of a sudden I heard a voice at my elbow, exclaiming in broken English:

“Why, surely it’s the Signor Holford!”

I turned quickly, and to my amazement found myself confronted by the thin, sinister face of the dead Professor’s servant, Antonio Merli.

Chapter Sixteen
Antonio Speaks Plainly

“You, Antonio!” I gasped, staring at the fellow who, dressed in a dark grey suit and soft black felt hat, presented an appearance of ultra-respectability.

“Yes, signore, I am very surprised to find you here – in Rome,” he replied.

“Come,” I said abruptly, “tell me what has occurred. Why did you leave London so hurriedly?”

“I had some family affairs to attend to,” he answered. “I had to go to my home at Lucca to arrange for the future of my two nephews whose father is just dead. Pietro joined me there.”

“And you were joined also by Mr Kirk?” I said.

“Ah, no, signore!” protested the thin-faced Italian with an emphatic gesture. “I have not seen him since I left London.”

“Are you quite certain of that, Antonio?” I asked slowly, in disbelief, as I looked straight into his face.

“Quite. I know that he came abroad, but have no idea of his present whereabouts.”

“Now tell me, Antonio,” I urged, “who and what is Mr Kirk?”

The Italian shrugged his shoulders, answering:

“Ah, signore, you had better not ask. He is a mystery to me – as to you, and as he was to my poor master.”

“He killed your master – eh?” I suggested. “Now tell me the truth – once and for all.”

“I do not know,” was his quick reply, with a strange flash in his dark eyes. “If he did, then I have no knowledge of it. I slept on the top floor, and heard nothing.”

“Who was the man who went to Edinburgh on the night of the tragedy?”

“Ah! Dio mio! Do not reopen all that puzzle!” he protested. “I am just as mystified as you yourself, signore.”

I looked straight in the man’s face, wondering if he were speaking the truth. His hard, deep-lined countenance was difficult to read. The Italian is such a born diplomatist that his face seldom betrays his thoughts. He can smile upon you sweetly, even though behind his back he grips a dagger ready to strike you to the heart. And so old Antonio’s face was sphinx-like, as all his race.

“You saw Leonard Langton at Calais,” I remarked.

“He told you that!” gasped the dead man’s servant, with a start. “What did he say of me?”

“Nothing, except what was good. He told me that you were a trusted servant of the Professor.”

“Ah, my poor, dear master!” echoed the man, his face turned thoughtfully away towards the afterglow. “If I knew – ah, Madonna mia, if I only knew the truth!”

“You suspect Kirk?” I suggested. “Why not tell me more?”

“I suspect him no more than I suspect others,” was his calm reply. “Be certain, signore, that there is much more behind that terrible affair than you suspect. There was some strong motive for my poor master’s death, depend upon it! But,” he asked, “where did you meet the Signor Langton?”

Briefly I related the circumstances of Kirk’s presence in the house, his escape, and the discovery I afterwards made in the laboratory.

“You actually found the evidences of the crime had been destroyed!” cried the man. Yet my sharp vigilance detected that beneath his surprise he breathed more freely when I announced the fact that the body of the Professor was no longer existent.

“Yes,” I said, after a slight pause, during which my eyes were fixed upon his. “Destroyed – and by Kershaw Kirk, whom I found alone there, with the furnace burning.”

The Italian shook his head blankly. Whether he held suspicion of Kirk or not I was unable to determine. They had been friends. That I well knew. But to me it appeared as though they had met in secret after the tragedy, and had quarrelled.

I told the man nothing of my journey to Scotland or of the puzzling discoveries I had made; but in reply to his repeated questioning as to why I was in Rome I explained that I was in search of my wife, telling him of the unaccountable manner in which she had been called away from London by means of the forged telegram.

“And you say that the signora knew nothing of the affair at Sussex Place?”

“Nothing, Antonio. It was not a matter to mention to a woman.”

“You suspect Kirk, of course, because his description is very like the man described as being with her in Florence. What motive could he have in enticing her away from you?”

“A sinister one, without a doubt,” I said.

“But, Antonio, I beg of you to tell me more concerning that man Kirk. You have known him for a long time – eh?”

“Four years, perhaps. He was a frequent visitor at the Professor’s, but young Langton hated him. I once overheard Miss Ethelwynn’s lover telling her father some extraordinary story concerning Kirk. But the Professor declined to listen; he trusted his friend implicitly.”

“And foolishly so,” I remarked.

“Very, for since that I gained knowledge that Kirk, rather than being my master’s friend, was his bitterest enemy. Miss Ethelwynn was the first to discover it. She has been devoted to her father ever since the death of the poor signora.”

“But how do you account for that remarkable occurrence behind those locked doors?” I asked, as we stood there in the corner, with the gay chatter of the society of Rome about us; an incongruous situation, surely. “What is your theory?”

“Ah, signore, I have none,” he declared emphatically. “How can I have? It is a complete mystery.”

“Yes; one equally extraordinary is the fact that Miss Ethelwynn, who was seen by us dead and cold, is yet still alive.”

“Alive!” he gasped, with a quick start which showed me that his surprise was genuine. “I – I really cannot believe you, Signor Holford! What proof have you? Why, both you and Kirk declared that she was dead!”

“The proof I have is quite conclusive. Leonard Langton spoke to her on the telephone to Broadstairs, and he is now down there with her.”

“Impossible, signore!” declared the man, shaking his head dubiously.

“When did you last see her?”

“She was lying on the couch in the dining-room, as you saw, but at Kirk’s orders she was removed from the house in a four-wheeled cab. I explained to the cabman that she was unwell, as she had unfortunately taken too much wine. Some man – a friend of Kirk’s – went with her.”

“And what was their destination?” I demanded.

“Ah, signore, I do not know.”

“Now, Antonio, please do not lie,” I said reproachfully. “You know quite well that your master’s daughter was removed to a certain house in Foley Street, Tottenham Court Road.”

“Why,” he exclaimed, turning slightly pale, and staring at me, “how did you know that?”

I laughed, refusing to satisfy his curiosity. In his excitement his accent had become more marked.

“Well,” he said at last, “what does it matter if the signorina is still alive, as you say? For my own part, I refuse to believe it until I see her in the flesh with my own eyes.”

“Well,” I remarked, “all this is beside the mark, Antonio. I have understood from everyone that you were the devoted and trusted servant of Professor Greer, therefore you surely, as a man of honour, should endeavour to assist in clearing up the mystery, and bringing the real assassin to justice.”

The man sighed, saying:

“I fear, signore, that will never be accomplished. The mystery has ramifications so wide that one cannot untangle its threads. But,” he added, after a slight pause, “would you object to telling me how you first became acquainted with Signor Kirk?”

Deeming it best to humour this man, who undoubtedly possessed certain secret knowledge, I briefly described the means by which Kirk had sought my friendship. And as I did so, I could see the slight smile at the corner of his tightened lips, a smile of satisfaction, it seemed, at the ingenious manner in which I had been misled by his friend.

“Then he brought you to Sussex Place on purpose to show you the dead body of my master?”

“He did. I had no desire to be mixed up in any such affair, only he begged me to stand his friend, at the same time protesting his innocence.”

“His innocence!” exclaimed the Italian fiercely between his clenched teeth.

“You believe him guilty, then?” I cried, quick to notice his lapse of attitude.

“Ah, no, signore,” he responded, recovering himself the next second, a bland smile overspreading his dark, complex countenance. “You misunderstand me; I suspect nobody.”

“But you had a more intimate knowledge of the household, and of the Professor’s friends, than anyone else. Therefore you, surely, have your own suspicions?”

“No; until one point of the mystery, which has apparently never occurred to you, has been cleared up, both you and I can only remain in ignorance, as we are at present.”

“Why not be quite frank with me, Antonio?” I urged. “I do not believe you are your master’s assassin; I will never believe that! But you are not open with me. Put yourself in my place. I have been entrapped by Kirk into a network of mystery and tragedy, and have lost my wife, who, I fear, is in the hands of conspirators. I have not been to the police, because Kirk urged me not to seek their aid. So – ”

“No, signore,” he interrupted quickly, “do not tell the police anything. It would be injudicious – fatal!”

“Ah!” I cried, “then you are acting in conjunction with Kirk? You, too, are trying to mislead me!”

“I am not, signore,” he protested. “On the tomb of my mother,” he declared, making use of the common Italian oath, “I am only acting in your interests. The disappearance of your signora adds mystery to the affair.”

“What do you suggest as my next move? If I find Mabel, I care nothing. The tragic affair may remain a mystery for ever. I leave it to others to discover who killed Professor Greer.”

“You actually mean that, signore?” he cried. “You would really refrain from seeking further, providing you rediscover your wife?”

I was silent a few seconds. His eagerness was sufficient admission of a guilty conscience.

“Yes,” I said. “What matter the affairs of others, so long as the wife I love is innocent and at my side? She is the victim of a plot from which I must rescue her.”

The Italian gazed again away across the roofs of the Eternal City, now growing more indistinct in the gathering mists.

“I fear, Signor Holford,” he at last exclaimed with a sigh, “that you have a very difficult task before you. You are evidently in ignorance of certain curious facts.”

“Concerning what?”

“Concerning your wife.”

“You would cast a slur upon her good name?” I cried excitedly, my anger rising.

“Not at all,” was his calm, polite response, his lips parted in a pleasant smile. “You asked me to assist you, and I was about to give you advice – that is, provided that you have told me the truth.”

“About what?”

“About Miss Ethelwynn – that she still lives.”

“Of that there is no doubt,” I said.

“And if you found your signora alive and well, you would undertake to make no further inquiry?” he repeated, with undue eagerness.

“Ah! You wish to tie me down to that?” I cried. “You do so because you and your friends are in fear. You realise your own peril – eh?”

“No,” declared the man at my side; “you still entirely misunderstand me. You are an Englishman, and you mistrust me merely because I am a foreigner. It is a prejudice all you English have, more or less.”

“I entertain no prejudice,” I declared hotly. “But to tell you the truth, Antonio, I am tired of all this mystery, and now that Kirk and his friends have alienated me from my wife, I intend to take action.”

“In what manner?” he asked calmly.

“I shall go to the Questore here, in Rome, and tell the truth. I happen to know him personally.”

“And you will mention my name!” he gasped, well knowing probably the drastic measures adopted by the police of his own country.

“I shall not be able to avoid mentioning it,” I responded, with a smile.

“Bene!” he answered, in a hard, hoarse voice. “And if you did – well, signore, I can promise that you would never again see your signora alive. Go to the Questore now! Tell him all you know! Apply for my arrest! And then wait the disaster that must fall upon you, and upon your missing wife. An unseen hand struck Professor Greer – an unseen hand will most assuredly strike you, as swiftly, as unerringly.” And then facing me defiantly, a grin upon his sinister face, the fellow added: “Silence, signore, is your only guarantee of safety – I assure you!”