The Mysterious Mr. Miller

“It was a blackguardly thing,” I declared. “And this fellow, Gordon-Wright, or whatever he calls himself, though your father’s friend, is at the same time your worst enemy?”

“That is unfortunately so, even though it may appear strange. To me he is always most charming, indeed no man could be more gallant and polite, but I know what is lurking behind all that pleasant exterior.”

“And yet you are opposed to me going to the police and exposing him?” I said in surprise.

“I am opposed to anything that must, of necessity, reflect upon both Ella and myself,” was her answer. “Remember the lieutenant knows that you and I are acquainted. I introduced him to you. If you denounced him as a thief he would at once conclude that you and I had conspired to effect his ruin and imprisonment.”

“Well – and if he did?”

“If he did, my own ruin would only be hastened,” she said. “Ah! Mr Leaf, you have no idea of the strange circumstances which conspired to place me in the critical position in which I to-day find myself. Though young in years and with an outward appearance of brightness, I have lived a veritable lifetime of woe and despair,” she went on, in a voice broken by emotion.

“In those happy days at Enghien I loved – in those sweetest days of all my life I believed that happiness was to be mine always. Alas! it was so short-lived that now, when I recall it, it only seems like some pleasant dream. My poor Manuel died and I was left alone with a heritage of woe that gradually became a greater burden as time went on, and I was drawn into the net that was so cleverly spread for me – because I was young, because I was, I suppose, good-looking, because I was inexperienced in the wickedness of the world. Ah! when I think of it all, when I think how one word from Giovanni Nardini would have liberated me and showed the world that I was what I was, an honest woman, I am seized by a frenzy of hatred against him, as against that man Gordon-Wright – the man who knows the truth and intends to profit by it, even though I sacrifice my own life rather than face their lying denunciation without power to defend myself. Ah! you cannot understand. You can never understand!” and her eyes glowed with a thirst for revenge upon the dead man who had so unscrupulously thrust her back into that peril so deadly that she was hourly prepared to take her own life without compunction and without regret.

“But all this astounds me,” I said, in deep sympathy. “I am your friend, Miss Miller,” I went on, taking her slim hand in mine and holding it as I looked her straight in the face. “This man, Gordon-Wright, is, we find, our mutual enemy. Cannot you explain to me the whole circumstances? Our interests are mutual. Let us unite against this man who holds you, as well as my loved one, in his banal power! Tell me the truth. You have been compromised. How?”

She paused, her hand trembled in mine, and great tears coursed slowly down her white cheeks. She was reflecting whether she dare reveal to me the ghastly truth.

Her thin lips trembled, but at first no word escaped them. Laughter and the sound of gaiety came up from the promenade below.

I stood there in silence in the soft fading light await her confession – confession surely of one of the strangest truths that has ever been told by the lips of any woman.

Chapter Twenty Eight

The Voice in the Street

At last she spoke.

But in those moments of reflection her determination had apparently become more fixed than ever.

Either she feared to confess lest she should imperil her father, or else she became seized with a sense of shame that would not allow her to condemn herself.

“No,” she said, in a firm voice, “I have already told you sufficient, Mr Leaf. My private affairs cannot in the least interest you.”

My heart sank within me, for I had hoped that she would reveal to me the truth. I was fighting in the dark an enemy whose true strength I could not gauge. The slightest ray of light would be of enormous advantage to me, yet she steadily withheld it, even though she lived in hourly danger, knowing not when, by force of circumstances, she might be driven to the last desperate step.

She was a woman of strong character, to say the least, although so sweet, graceful and altogether charming.

I was disappointed at her blank refusal, and she saw it.

“If it would assist you to extricate Ella, I would tell you,” she assured me quickly. “But it would not.”

“Any fact to the scoundrel’s detriment is of interest to me,” I declared.

“But you have already said that you yourself are a witness against him,” she remarked. “What more do you want? The evidence which you and your friend whom you say he robbed could give would be sufficient to send him to prison, would it not?”

“I know. But I must prove more. Remember he has entrapped my Ella. She is struggling helplessly in the web which he has woven about her.”

“Much as I regret all the circumstances, Mr Leaf, I can see that it is against my own interests if I say anything further,” was her calm reply. “I have already given you an outline of the strange combination of circumstances and the unscrupulousness of two villains which has resulted in my present terrible position of doubt in the present and uncertainty of the future. The story, if I related it, would sound too strange to you to be the truth. And yet it only illustrates the evil that men do, even in these prosaic modern days.”

“Then you intend to again leave me in ignorance, even though my love’s happiness is at stake?”

“My own life is also at stake.”

“And yet you refuse to allow me to assist you – you decline to tell me the truth by which I could confound this man who is your bitterest enemy!”

“Because it is all hopeless,” was her answer. “Had Nardini but spoken, I could have defied him. His refusal has sealed my doom,” she added, in a voice of blank despair.

“But your words are so mysterious I can’t understand them!” I declared, filled with chagrin at her refusal to make any statement. She was in fear of me, that was evident. Why, I could not for the life of me discern.

“I have merely told you the brief facts. The details you would find far more puzzling.”

“Then to speak frankly, although you have never openly quarrelled with the lieutenant, you fear him?”

“That is so. He can denounce me – I mean he can make a terrible charge against me which I am unable to refute,” she admitted breathlessly.

“And yet you will not allow me to help you! You disagree with my plan to denounce the scoundrel and let him take his well-deserved punishment! I must say I really can’t understand you,” I declared.

“Perhaps not to-day. But some day you will discern the reason why I decline to confess to you the whole truth,” was her firm reply.

And I looked at her slim tragic figure in silence and in wonder.

What was the end to be? Was she aware that her father was the leader of that association of well-dressed thieves, or was she in ignorance of it? That was a question I could not yet decide.

I thought of Ella – my own Ella. It was she whom I had determined to save. That was my duty; a duty to perform before all others, and in defiance of all else. She loved me. She had admitted that. Therefore I would leave no stone unturned on her behalf, no matter how it might affect the stubbornly silent girl at my side.

I saw that I could not serve them both. Ella was my chief thought. She should, in future, be my only thought.

“I much regret all this,” I said to Lucie somewhat coldly. “And pardon me for saying so, but I think that if you had spoken frankly this evening much of the trouble in the future would be saved. But as you are determined to say nothing, I am simply compelled to act as I think best in Ella’s interests.”

“Act just as you will, Mr Leaf,” was her rather defiant response. “I trust, however, you will do nothing rash nor injudicious – nothing that may injure her, instead of benefit her. As for myself, to hope to assist me is utterly out of the question. The die is cast. Nardini intended that disgrace and death should fall upon me, or he would have surely spoken,” and sighing hopelessly she added: “I have only to await the end, and pray that it will not be long in coming. This suspense I cannot bear much longer, looking as I daily do into the open grave which, on the morrow, may be mine. Heaven knows the tortures I endure, the bitter regrets, the mad hatred, the wistful longing for life and happiness, those two things that never now can be mine. Place yourself in my position, and try and imagine that whatever may be your life, there is but one sudden and shameful end – suicide.”

“You look upon things in far too morbid a light,” I declared, not, however, without some sympathy. ”There is a bright lining to every cloud’ the old adage says. Try and look forward to that.”

She shook her head despairingly.

“No,” she answered, with a short bitter laugh. “Proverbs are for the prosperous – not for the condemned.”

I remained with her for some time longer, trying in vain to induce her to reveal the truth. In her stubborn refusal I recognised her determination to conceal some fact concerning her father, yet whether she knew the real truth or not I was certainly unable to determine.

The revelation that Ella was acquainted with Gordon-Wright alias the Lieutenant held her utterly confounded. She seemed to discern in it an increased peril for herself, and yet she would tell me nothing – absolutely nothing.

The situation was tantalising – nay maddening. I intended to save my well-beloved at all costs, yet how was I to do so?

To denounce the adventurer would, she had herself declared, only bring ruin upon her. Therefore my hands were tied and the cowardly blackguard must triumph.

The soft Italian twilight fell, and the street lamps along the broad promenade below were everywhere springing up, while to the right the high stone lighthouse, that beacon to the mariner in the Mediterranean, shot its long streams of white light far across the darkening sea.

From one of the open-air café-chantants in the vicinity came up the sound of light music and the trill of a female voice singing a French chansonette, for a rehearsal was in progress. And again a youth passing chanted gaily one of those stornelli d’amore which is heard everywhere in fair Tuscany, in the olive groves, in the vineyards, in the streets, in the barracks, that ancient half dirge, half-plaintive song, the same that has been sung for ages and ages by the youths in love: —

Mazzo di fiori!Si vede il viso, e non si vede il coreTu se’ un bel viso, ma non m’innamori.

Lucie heard the words and smiled.

The song just described my position at that moment. I saw her face but could not see her heart. She was beautiful, but not my love.

And as the voice died away we heard the words: —

Fiume di Lete!Come la calamita mi tirate,E mi fate venir dove velete.

Old Marietta, the Tuscan sewing-woman, entered and lit the gas. She looked askance at me, wondering why I remained there so long I expect.

“It is growing late,” I exclaimed in Italian; “I must go. It is your dinner-hour,” and glancing round the room, carpetless, as all Italian rooms are in summer, I saw that it was cheaply furnished with that inartistic taste which told me at once that neither she nor her father had chosen it. It struck me that they had bought the furniture just as it had stood from some Italian, perhaps the previous occupier.

Old Marietta was a pleasant, grey-faced old woman in cheap black who wore large gold rings in her ears and spoke with the pleasant accent of Siena, and who, I saw, was devoted to her young mistress.

“This is Mr Leaf,” she explained in Italian. “He is an English friend of my father’s.” Then turning to me she said, laughing, “Marietta always likes to know who’s who. All Italians are so very inquisitive about the friends of their padrone.”

The old woman smiled, showing her yellow teeth and wished me buona sera, to which I replied in her own tongue, for the position of servants in Italy is far different from their position with us. Your Tuscan house-woman is part of the family, and after a few years of faithful service is taken into the family council, consulted upon everything, controls expenditure, makes bargains, and is, to her padrone, quite indispensable. Old Marietta was a typical donna di casa, one of those faithful patient women with a sharp tongue to all the young men who so continuously ran after the young padrona, and only civil to me because I was a friend of the “signore.”

She was shrewd enough to continue to be present at our leave-taking, though it was doubtful whether she knew English sufficiently to understand what passed between us. I saw that Marietta intended I should go, therefore I wished her young padrona adieu.

She held her breath for a moment as our hands clasped, and I saw in her brown eyes a look of blank despair.

“Be courageous,” I said, in a low voice. “The future may not hold for you such terrors as you believe.”

“Future!” she echoed. “I have no future. Addio.” And I went down the wide, ill-lit stone staircase full of dismal foreboding, and out from the secret lair of the thief who was notorious, but whom the police of Europe had always failed to arrest.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Contains Another Surprise

I dined at a small table alone in the big crowded table-d’hôte room of the hotel. About me were some of the most exclusive set in Italy, well-dressed men and women, Roman princes, marquises and counts, with a fair sprinkling of the Hebrew fraternity. At the table next mine sat a young prince of great wealth together with the fair American girl to whom he was engaged to be married, and the young lady’s mother. The prince and his fiancée were speaking Italian, and the old lady from Idaho City, understanding no other language but her own, seemed to be having anything but an amusing time.

All this, however, interested me but little. I was reflecting upon the events of that afternoon, trying to devise some means by which to solve the enigma that was now driving me to desperation.

My well-beloved was in a deadly peril. How could I save her?

I saw that rapid and decided action was necessary. Should I return to England and watch the actions of the man I had known as Lieutenant Shacklock, or should I go on to Rome and try and discover something both regarding the object of Miller’s journey there and the part of the Italian who, prior to his death, had consigned to me that mysterious packet?

As I ate my dinner in silence I decided to first take a flying visit to Rome. I could return to England afterwards. Ella’s marriage was not for three weeks or so, therefore I might, in that time, succeed in solving the enigma as far as Miller was concerned, and by doing so obtain further information against his accomplice, Gordon-Wright.

Therefore at midnight I left Leghorn by way of Colle Salvetti, and through the night travelled across the Maremma fever-marshes, until at nine o’clock next morning the train drew into the great echoing terminus of the “Eternal City.”

I went to the Hotel Milano, where it was my habit to stay. I knew Rome well and preferred the Milano – which, as you know, is opposite the Chamber of Deputies in the Piazza Colonna – to the Grand, the Quirinale, or the new Regina. At the Milano there was an unpretentious old-world comfort appreciated too by the Italian deputies themselves, for many of them had their pied-à-terre there while attending to their parliamentary duties in the capital.

Rome lay throbbing beneath the August heat and half deserted, for every one who can get away in those breathless blazing days when the fever is prevalent does so. Numbers of the shops in the Corso and the Via Vittorio were closed, the big doors and persiennes of the palaces and embassies were shut, showing that their occupants were away at the sea, or in the mountains, in France, Switzerland or England for cool air, while the cafés were deserted, and the only foreigners in the streets a few perspiring German and American sightseers.

Unfortunately I had not inquired of Lucie her father’s address and knew nothing except that he was staying with a doctor named Gavazzi. Therefore at the hotel I obtained the directory and very soon discovered that there was a doctor named Gennaro Gavazzi living in the Via del Tritone, that long straight thoroughfare of shops that run from the Piazza S. Claudio to the Piazza Barberini.

It was about midday when I found the house indicated by the directory, a large palazzo which in Italian style was let out in flats, the ground floor being occupied by shops, while at the entrance an old white-haired hall-porter was dozing in a chair.

I awoke him and inquired in Italian if the Signore Dottore Gavazzi lived there.

“Si signore. Terzo piano,” was the old fellow’s reply, raising his forefinger to his cap.

“Thank you,” I said, slipping five francs into his ready palm. “But by the way,” I added as an afterthought, “do you know whether he has an English signore staying with him – a tall dark-haired thin man?”

“There’s a gentleman staying with the Signore Dottore, but I do not think he is an Englishman. He spoke perfect Italian to me yesterday.”

“Ah, of course, I forgot. He speaks Italian perfectly,” I said. “And this Dottore Gavazzi. How long has he lived here?”

“A little over a year. He acted as one of the private secretaries to His Excellency the Minister Nardini – he who ran away from Rome a little time ago, and hasn’t since been heard of.”

“Oh! was he,” I exclaimed at once, highly interested. “Nardini played a sharp game, didn’t he?”

“Embezzled over a million francs, they say,” remarked the porter. “But whenever he came here, and it was often, he always gave me something to get a cigar with. He was very generous with the people’s money, I will say that for him,” and the old fellow laughed. “They say there was a lady in the case, and that’s why he fled from Rome.”

“A lady! Who was she?”

“Nobody seems to know. There’s all sorts of reports about, of course. I hope the police will find him. They must arrest him some day, don’t you think so, signore?”

“Perhaps,” I said, thinking deeply. “But I’m interested to hear about the lady. What is it you’ve heard?”

“Only very little. According to the rumour, the police found at the Villa Verde, out at Tivoli, after he had gone, the dead body of a young lady locked in the study. It was at once hushed up, and not a word of it has been allowed to get into the papers. The Government gave orders to the police, I suppose, to suppress it, fearing to make the scandal graver. I heard it, however, on very good authority from my son who is in the carabinieri and stationed at Tivoli. The body, he says, was that of a well-dressed young lady about twenty-six or seven. When the carabineers went with the commissario to seal up the fugitive’s effects, they found the body lying full length on the carpet. She still had her hat on and seemed as though she had suddenly fallen dead. Another curious thing is that the doctors discovered no wound, and don’t seem to know what was the cause of her death.”

“That’s strange!” I remarked. “I suppose they photographed the body?”

“Of course. But the portrait hasn’t been published because the police are compelled to hush up the affair.”

“Does your son know any further particulars, I wonder?”

“No more than what he’s told me. He says that quite a number of secret police agents have been over to Tivoli trying to establish the lady’s identity, and that they think they know who she was. He was here only yesterday and we were talking about it.”

“And who do they think she was?”

“Well, my son has, of course, a lot to do with the police, and a few days ago a friend of his of the squadra mobile told him that they had established the fact that the dead girl was English.”

“English! Do they know her name?”

“No, only they say that she was in Rome a great deal last winter, and was seen generally in the company of a tall, dark, English girl, her friend. Indeed, they say that both of them were seen in the Corso, accompanied by a middle-aged English gentleman, about a week before Nardini took to flight. They had apparently returned to Rome.”

“And they know none of their names?”

“They’ve found out that the English signore stayed at the Grand, they don’t know where the young ladies were living, probably at some small pension. They are now doing all they can to find out, but it is difficult, as most of the pensions are closed just now. They’ve, however, discovered the name of the dead girl’s friend – through some dressmaker, I think. It was Mille – Milla – or some name like that. The English names are always so puzzling.”

“Miller!” I gasped, staring at the old fellow, as all that Lucie had admitted to me regarding her visit to the villa at Tivoli flashed through my bewildered brain. “And she was the intimate friend of this unknown girl who has been found dead in the empty house and whose tragic end has been officially hushed up!”

Chapter Thirty

Some Discoveries in Rome

The mysterious flight of Nardini, the prominent politician and Minister for Justice, was, it seemed, still the one topic of conversation in the “Eternal City”, Only that morning I had read a paragraph in the Tribuna that the fugitive was believed to have reached Buenos Ayres. The Embassy in London had evidently kept the secret I had divulged, and even the Italian police were in ignorance that the man wanted for that gigantic embezzlement – for the sum stated to have disappeared was now known to be a very large one – was already in his grave.

The mysterious discovery at the dead man’s villa out at Tivoli, that pleasant little town with the wonderful cascade twenty miles outside Rome, greatly complicated the problem. And the girl who had been found in such strange circumstances was actually an intimate friend of Lucie Miller! The whole thing was assuming a shape entirely beyond my comprehension.

I presently thanked the old porter for his information, slipped another tip into his hand, and walked back to the Corso, hugging the shade, and reflecting deeply upon what the old fellow had told me.

Two or three facts were quite plain. The first was that Miller would most certainly not be in Rome if he had the slightest suspicion that the police were in search of Lucie. Therefore, although the doctor had acted as the fugitive’s secretary, he was in ignorance of the discovery made at the Villa Verde. Again, had not Nardini himself for some reason abstracted from the archives of the Questura the official record of Miller, his description and the suspicions against him?

Therefore I saw that the police were hampered in their inquiries, because they were without information. Again, the name of Gennaro Gavazzi, though not an uncommon one in Italy, struck me as familiar from the first moment that Lucie had uttered it in Leghorn.

Now, as I walked the streets of Rome, I remembered. It came upon me like a flash. It had been written in that confidential police record that the doctor was a Milanese, and that he was suspected of being an accomplice of the Englishman.

And yet Nardini, being aware of this, had actually appointed him one of his private secretaries!

That latter fact was one that showed either conspiracy or that Nardini, crafty and far-seeing, employed the doctor with some ulterior motive.

I was anxious to see what sort of person this Gavazzi might be.

I begrudged every moment I spent in Rome, anxious as I was to be back near my well-beloved and shield her from the blackguard who held her in his power. Yet this new development of the mystery held me anxious and eager.

Already I was in possession of greater knowledge of the affair than the police themselves; therefore I hoped that I might, by careful action and watching, learn the truth.

Somehow, by instinct it might have been, I felt that if I could but elucidate the mystery of the Villa Verde I should gain some knowledge that would release my love from her hideous bondage. I don’t know why, but it became a fixed idea with me. Therefore I resolved to remain in Rome at least a few days and carefully watch Miller and his friend.